S5E16 - Start A Podcast
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Shawn Buttner: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome to the Meaningful Revolution podcast. I am your host and certified high performance coach, Shawn Buttner, and this podcast is all about designing and creating and implementing a fulfilling and meaningful life that's worth living. That's what this podcast is about. That's what the coaching's about.
It's what I'm about. And so I'm really excited to have you here again today. If you're coming back or if you're new. So today's episode is a little bit different because part of my journey of, creating that life that is fulfilling and meaningful, it's been figuring out how to run my business in a podcast happened to be part of that journey.
And I've been getting a lot of questions lately on how is it like running a podcast? What's the time, effort, and money and resources that go into it each. How do you feel about it? And all these [00:01:00] types of, how did you do it? All those types of things. So today I have those, some of those questions written down.
I have a couple of things that I think about when I think of podcasting and some resources for y'all to to consider as you start your podcasting journey or if you're looking to figure out what somebody else is doing and, borrow their good ideas. So hopefully I have a few of those for you.
It is an evolving process. I'm still learning a whole bunch. But that's part of the fun, isn't it? So another way to, to listen to this podcast is if you're like, Hey, I'm not in the podcasting space. Why do I care about this? And what I'd say to that is, this is also a conversation of starting something new.
Something where you're, maybe you're not the strongest in, or quite frankly yes, suck at. And figuring your way through mum, bumbling your way through and finding your footing, right? Because that's how I feel about the state of the podcast [00:02:00] right now. And there's been mistakes, haven't made.
There've been no regrets. It's been a very, fun endeavor and I'm really excited to be sharing that with you today. And then just heads up, logistics-wise for this podcast, we will be going back to interviews. I. Yeah, had a bunch of family stuff that I had to take care of that kept me from my normal schedule of everything.
But we're back. We're getting back into it. So here we go. Yeah. So there's a bunch of different questions that I have about podcasting. What I'll start with is my, Theory on, why I decided to go into this medium. And part of it is I've been a coach since 2014, 2015. I had been doing weekly videos on YouTube and not getting a lot of traction.
I had done the [00:03:00] whole social media thing on Facebook and Instagram. It wasn't really catching, and it was wearing on my soul. It wa it I asked someone. A bit more introverted, which means just means that I get my energy from reading books and playing music and journaling and, those types of quieter activities, versus talking to a microphone, talking to a camera, getting up in front of large groups of people and interacting that the, public speaking aspect of being on camera.
For the first three to four years, it was just me getting comfortable talking and getting comfortable looking goofy on camera and all the insecurities and, working through that. So work through that. That puts us at about like 2018, still doing the weekly thing. Still wondering why I'm not getting any attention on YouTube or Instagram or Facebook, [00:04:00] and there's a lot of different ways we could talk about it.
Part of that learning journey, right? Sometimes you know you, take things real quick and sometimes it takes you quite a bit of time to, to figure it out. So I was frustrated thinking about what am I gonna do in 2019? I leave my tech job, it's really cushy and was paying the bills to go into coaching full-time, cuz I absolutely loved that and was getting some word of mouth clients and that was awesome.
Social media presence still wasn't working. I just couldn't make it work. So frustration's building up and then covid hits and then that whole thing threw everything a wrench in everything in my plan for my business. And so it was part of this marketing mastermind group. And.
I remember meeting all these amazing people that I wanted to work with, and if I don't have a [00:05:00] project to bring them in on and to interact with them, be like, Hey, we should do something together. And then nothing would really happen. And so I was thinking like I'm a coach and a podcast is.
Very similar to a high performance coaching call, except instead of trying to help people find their performance edge, help them talk through relationship stuff and help them advance and level up in their life. A podcast is really just that same type of conversation at trying to illuminate a topic or trying to get a little bit of insight and learn about somebody, and I'm like, oh, if I just shift the focus a little bit, I.
My coaching skills and I absolutely love the one-on-one coaching. That's my sweet spot as, an introvert like, that fires me up. What if I could do that as an interview show? And so that was the question I had in [00:06:00] 2021. And I was thinking about it took me about a year to think about it, research it.
And then in 2022 in August, I believe I have to, I should have written that down before. But last year I decided to pull a trigger and that was a little bit of mentorship from some, of the, people I was following. It was from some of the input I had from that marketing mastermind. And then it just seemed fun, right?
I thought the, this talking to a camera by myself, what I'm doing right now for this podcast episode. Is really weird. I ha always felt weird about it, but if I had a show or I'm talking about something in particular and I'm talking with people that might go better. So that was how I got into podcasting From there then all the, research on how do you start a podcast I started with 10 episodes on launch day [00:07:00] and then had another week of episodes to launch after.
So basically like the fir I call it the first two seasons of the Meaningful Revolution podcast, which you could still listen and, see how terrible those are. Right now. Great for someone that didn't know what they were doing looking back you could always see all the little mistakes and all the things you could do, Barry, but that's how I launched it and it's been an amazing experience.
I've been able to, been very fortunate to talk with a lot of my friends or a lot of people that I've met along the. And just get to know them in a but way that's a little bit better in a way that elevates them. And part of the thinking of the podcast, of this podcast in particular was I wanted to highlight people and I wanted to highlight what made them great.
I wanted to highlight what lighted them up. I wanted to highlight what they nerded out about. Have that energy help inspire others [00:08:00] to follow to, take suit and figure out what their thing is, what they nerd out about, and go after it. And, that's where the meaningful revolution comes from. It's finding those meaningful things, getting after it and making it happen so that you live a better life.
And so that was the, initial idea of it. And then, Really like from there it was just being tenacious in the rhythm. All that stuff that I did on social media and YouTube I was consistent and I was consistently not getting results there. But I'd show up every week and feel bad about not getting any listens or views.
And so I just applied that after the initial launch of the podcast. Things have been going pretty great. Like we've hit over a thousand downloads. It's, the podcast is growing consistently. If, even though if it's just a little bit by little bit each month and I'm very proud of the work. I'm very proud [00:09:00] of the network and, the people that have been on to help.
And then to be able to do these solo shows and feel a little bit less weird about it being just me talking to a camera, translating in that into an audio. Yeah, things have been really cool in that respect and I've been able to like talk longer and stuff, but that's a whole other conversation on why that's important.
But that's important to me just to be able to, do this and to do this. And a higher quality and higher quantity also if you're, count minutes. So that's, a little bit of the pretext here. So all that said, would I start a podcast again at this point in my life? Absolutely. If there is one huge regret in what's happened so far is that I didn't start a podcast sooner to, figure it out.[00:10:00]
You don't know what you don't know, and sometimes you just gotta dive in and get dirty and, figure it out. I think that's really served me here. Also, there've been some really awesome resources within the last year that have come out. So there, there's this show from. There's a software called E Cam Live, which is what I'm using to record this episode right now.
And it helps facilitate the interviews that I do. And you can switch to do like cool different dual camera stuff. And it's kinda like a production software, I guess like TV production software. But there's a group there that started a podcast called The Flow, which talks about doing a video podcast.
And posting it on YouTube and then pulling the audio for your, podcasting apps and all that stuff. And they've been really helpful in just giving ideas that's how I initially learned about Descript. And then in that marketing mastermind, someone's like the script's awesome. I, love this and we'll talk [00:11:00] about technology here in a bit, but, It's the, flow with Doc and Katie is, amazing.
Definitely check it out. If you're thinking about starting a podcast they, have a lot of episodes and they talk about all things video, podcasting and shout out to, again, Katie and Doc, you guys rock and that whole, community, it's been very supportive and very informative. So just wanna put some love on them.
And I'll have that in the show notes. Do anything I talk about today, I'll have in the show notes. So yeah, there's that. All right. So yeah, check out the flow. Again, hosted, I think by E Cam Live, but. People affiliated with them that they rock. Okay. So we'll go into some questions here. Other than that as a resource.
Let me backtrack. Other than the [00:12:00] flow as a resource Brendan Rashard has a couple of thoughts on podcasting. So I, took what he did. I took a look at some of my favorite podcasts. Like I really. Listening to the Tim Ferris podcast, I really love listening to Kara Swisher's various podcasts.
So Pivot. It's on sway when that was a, thing before that, that went the way the Dodo. And so it's some type of like journalistic type shows which don't necessarily fit this style. People that I enjoyed, and it was cool to, to see how they structure things and, helped inform like, oh, like I have to have a show intro and maybe that's just for the Audi audio side and not the YouTube side and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah. So yeah, checking out the podcasts that I loved [00:13:00] doing some of the research got me here. First question is what is your workflow for podcasting? So ideally initially it was just book a guest, schedule the interview, have the interview, do some video editing, create some short clips for, and create all the social media from the clips and for the show.
Schedule the law and you're good. That's like my high level workflow for podcasting. I have done some tweaks for now if it's a solo episode, there's a little bit more research and note gathering before, like you can't see right now. But I have a whole like page of notes to help me remember things so that I don't stumble on my words while we're doing this.
Basic presentation stuff, basic show stuff. [00:14:00] Helpful and it's also, yeah, like I said, so there it's different for when I have an interview, which is just outlined versus the solo stuff. Like I actually have a template I've created where I have questions that I'll ask guests all the time.
There's questions that I try to think through each time I do a podcast episode just for a little bit of consist. And if I ever felt lost, I have a roadmap of oh yeah, I can always ask this question, or I need to hit this point before I hit off on the camera. And I found that to be really helpful in, my experience.
So that's a little bit of my workflow. Hopefully that answers that. Also on top of that, I like to think of it. This will also tie into the next question, which is how much time does it take to podcast? If you break your [00:15:00] show or your potential show into three different parts, there's before the show.
Now there's also during the show and then post after the show, right? So before you do the show, you're finding guests and you're sending out those. If, you're, this is your, like first ever podcast, you're setting up your initial structure, I recommend having some type of outline that you follow again, so you know where you are so you don't get lost stammering out in the woods.
If you have a feedback process you update your processes based on your last bit of feedback, and we'll talk about that here in a. And for an episode like this, you do some brainstorming, you do some, researching, and that depends really on you and how quick you work. For me, it'll take a couple hours give or take.
If it's just me and it, tend to be quicker and it's a [00:16:00] guess because it's more of a discovery and more of a highlighting of their story. So I have for, guests, I have a little survey that they fill. So I get a little bit of information what they wanna talk about, and I can start doing research on them, on what are thing questions to ask, what are their messages, what are their themes?
What are the, phrases that they'd like to say to try to sparkle that, or sparkle that, sprinkle that into the podcast. Make sense? Cool. So during the podcast, so during the event, it's usually about 90 minutes for the guest. I like to. Have a half hour for a little bit of chit chat, mostly to do a tech check, make sure everything sounds good, everything looks good.
And to, just help them feel at ease before going in. And I learned this from Tim Ferris and I, know he talked about it on his podcast, but I think it's also in his like, tool of Titans book. I need [00:17:00] to double check that. But yeah, he, Some advice or he had talked with guests about his process, about podcasting and that was something that really stuck with me of, it's really great to have that point of connection before you get talking and helping make sure that people.
Feel comfortable and safe talking. And that's something that, that's really important to me. So when people come out as guests, I'll usually say that since we're not recording it live, that if there's anything that they want to say or omit or try again essentially, or the lawnmower goes off. That all they can do is let me know and we can edit it out.
We can stop, we can do whatever we need to do. So it's supposed to be a fun, casual conversation. That's my goal. That's what I'm aiming for. And so I hope that puts people at ease. It seems to work. I, think people feel pretty comfortable when I talk with them. I don't, [00:18:00] I very rarely get people that seem super nervous.
And that's always something I'm keyed into as a coach, so I think that works. So stuff like that. But so that's the day of, right? So you do the little chit chat, you do the little, helping them fill at ease and setting the rules for the, show. You do the show, there's usually a couple minutes of like, how did I do?
Was I a good guest? And Everyone that's been on so far, if you're listening, shout out to you all because you've been amazing. That's pretty good. I'm not sure if that's everyone's experience, but I've done 45 episodes, probably about 30 of those ish, our interviews, 30 people. Super awesome.
Not bad at all. Yeah, so that, that's the day of the show. Some things you might need to do when you're getting started out is if you're using [00:19:00] like an e cam, if you're watching this on the YouTube, on my YouTube channel, which I'll, post below in the show notes. I have a little meaningful revolution, like graphic and my name and, stuff like that.
So you have some initial art you might need to do, but I didn't, when I started it was just me without anything. You can get as fancy or as generic as you want I think if you have that compelling conversation, if you're adding value and, you're doing something that you're passionate about, that, that will translate into the bones of the podcast and people will respond to that.
And so far, so good. And you're here listening to it, so it must at least have worked on. I'm, teasing, of course, but it's also probably true, right? Oh, okay. I'm cracking myself up here. Okay. After, so post events, I spend about an hour to three hours on [00:20:00] editing, and I'm getting that cut down. I do like transcripts and all, the type of copy that goes out to the show description, YouTube description.
All of that stuff. It'll probably take me up to an hour for scheduling, depending on how painful Facebook's being or how painful it is to get things uploaded and all that stuff. But it I, hours probably pretty conservative. I could probably do that in 30 minutes if everything goes right, but scheduled about an hour.
So that's how I think through each show and how much time it takes. So it's probably like I have done shows now that I've gotten more comfortable with it, where I can do it in half a day, right? So if I have a one o'clock call, one to two, we're doing the interview and then 2 33 o'clock to six o'clock, everything's ready.
[00:21:00] Everything's scheduled. Everything's good for that episode. There's that. So that's how I would think through each podcast episode and about how much time it takes. How much does it cost for you to run your podcast? So this is a tricky question. Hey, it's not super tricky, but it's an interesting question because again, like for a lot of the.
Time requirements, right? It could just be you or it could just be you and a friend. You don't really need a super crazy setup initially. You can always upgrade as you go. For me, like I have a Yeti microphone that I've had for quite a while. And I had some lights that I had from when I was doing like YouTube content.
Yeah, that's like sort of screen flow lights. [00:22:00] And I don't think that company exists anymore, but so yeah, it's just a microphone. Some lighting. If you're doing video, if you're doing an audio podcast, you don't even have to worry about like any of the, video software. And then so yeah, for production I do that.
I use E Cam Live again to record, because you could do some fun. Production type things like titles and stuff, which is a little bit more important with guests at this point where I'm at right now, but it's also kinda fun. And then, okay, so there's a, huge list of software you don't have to use.
Hardly anything, like basic setup would be microphone, computer, something to re program to record your podcast. And something to edit it. And if you have a Mac, you could do GarageBand. If you have a pc, there's a software like Audacity that's free that you can use to edit things and [00:23:00] off you go, right?
You also do, so the first bit of, software you might need would be something to host your, episode and bend it to all the different platforms. So I'm a Kajabi user. I absolutely love Kajabi. I use it in my coaching business. I use it for my website. I use it for all my marketing, funnels and forms and all that kind of stuff.
It's, as a software engineer, I really love it because it, it consolidates everything so you don't have 50 different systems. And they're always adding stuff on. So if you're interested in a, free trial of Cajabi, Or I think they have a new promotion for their AI creator studio. I'll have that in the show notes.
I, I'm an affiliate, so I will say that. So if you click that link and you end up buying it, it helps me. You could always just go to the Kajabi website and be [00:24:00] like, I don't like Sean. I'll just do it my own. And doesn't help me out. You're a jerk if you do that. But I can I love Kajabi, however, you gotta do it.
You gotta do it. But yeah, use the link that I provide again, if you sign up, it helps me out. Yeah, so Kajabi's really good with podcasts cause I upload it to the podcast. Product that I have and it'll then it to Apple Podcasts, the Google Play Store and Spotify. And and it's super easy. So I have one place where I upload the episode, upload the show notes, I upload the marketing assets or the thumbnail for the podcast, and I can schedule it and then it's seamless, it all goes out.
So I like hijabi. You could also use something like, There's a whole bunch of different ones. There's, what is it called? [00:25:00] It's like
podcast FM or something. I'll need to double check that. It a lot of people. Five years ago, we're using something called Libson, which again, you would upload it to that site and it would shoot it out everywhere. Kajabi has it all with all the other amazing features it has. Again, I'll encourage you to, check that out.
But you could use like a libson. I, yeah, there's, if you looked up like podcasting, like platform uploader software. It would come up, you could Google it. It's super easy. And so I, that could cost you a couple hundred bucks a month. Although I do think there are some free options out there, so do your Google, search, you'll probably get all the cool ones that are way better than what any of the ones I just said.
But that is something that is helpful. [00:26:00] It'll help you manage all the weird things that like can be really tough to format in a way that Apple will take it and then do the same for the Google Play Store and Spotify.
So outside of editing, outside of having software to post all the different platforms. I also use Canva to do all the thumbnails cuz it's super easy. Super for my level, you could hire a graphic design person. There is a free version of Canva, so I, you could just use that or you could get a couple of extra features.
For, I think it's 120 bucks a year for their pro plan. And. I, you really can't tell. There's not a huge difference between the free version and the pro version in my experience, [00:27:00] other than you get a couple of different things you can download for free versus having to pay like a buck every time.
Canva is really good for any type of graphic design stuff, especially if you're doing it yourself. So that's worth checking it out. But you could also do Adobe illustrator, although those those types of programs. There's a, again, a bajillion of 'em, but I use Canva. It's pretty good.
I also have a link down below. Check it out. Let's see, what else is important. Oh, one of the cooler bits of. Software that you can get is descript. No. Descript is really cool cuz you could take an audio or video file and you upload it and within three minutes it'll give you a transcription of what you said, which is super helpful for either adding that to the [00:28:00] show notes as little extra for your podcast.
It'll also do things like get rid of all your filler words. So if you are constantly going if you've heard this podcast and it sounds a little jumpy, it's just descript went through and got rid of me going in the software and hopefully you heard me go. Cuz that was intentional.
If it's choppy, it's cutting out the filler. Because it's getting flagged. But that's super, super helpful. And they could also do that, cool thing where as they're talking, it has the captions below the video if, you're gonna post video to social or do waveforms, like there's so many cool things that Descript does.
They could also edit your videos. So if you're like, if I don't. Know what to do to edit my videos and I don't wanna pay for a final cut. And I don't know if there's like a video or [00:29:00] audio software that's really good. The script is really great for podcasts. I have another affiliate link below here that you can go and check it out and I, I'll get a little bit of a percentage if you sign up for a subscription, but, Again, use descript.
It's amazing whether you use that link or you think about it later I don't care. It's it's so good. It's so helpful. You'll thank me if you do any type of videos or podcasting or audio stuff. It's amazing. So, far other than the platform to push to all, the different podcast platform, Everything else is free.
Pretty much. There's a free option for script and you get more transcription hours if you, and a couple extra features if you pay for a plan. And I'm paying I think five, 600 bucks a year [00:30:00] to do some. Have a, team member actually go through and, create it. I think that's the most of it. I think it's cheaper if you don't do that.
But regardless other bits of software you might need. I use Dropbox to post my episodes so I have it all in a spot. And when I interview people, I also will send them a folder with the marketing assets this transcript. The episode, all the clips that I've created for them to use, and I give them instructions on Hey, if you wanna help this grow post list to your social and all that stuff.
And that's been really successful in just making it easy for guests to let everyone that they know that they've been on a cool podcast. So I highly suggest using that strategy if that's something that you're with. What other. I do post these to YouTube. Again, I'll have a link below here if you're [00:31:00] interested in, seeing the show and seeing what I look like if you're just a normal listener YouTube's free.
A cool thing about doing a transcription, you can also do something now with everyone's talking about ai. You can use chat G P t. Give it parts of your transcription and tell it to summarize it and really create descriptions or summaries or social media posts pretty quick from your words. So it'll sound more like you if you are feeding AI something versus Hey, write me an article about how to start a podcast, right?
It's gonna be very g generic. And. Probably not like you sound or how you write. So that's super helpful to have some stuff to feed AI to then bring it back in your voice. So that's it with technology. So really it's, there's production technology, there's like [00:32:00] the platform getting it out there, technology, there's editing and some, and you can consider.
Assets and pictures as part of that. So that's like the breakdown for cost. Like I said, you could probably. It's not all that much if you're going super free on all those different options. But we'll leave it at that. Okay. How much energy does it take to do a podcast? As a cart holding introvert and someone that would again, rather do quiet activities to get energy, I have found.
Interacting with people that are passionate, especially for this particular podcast, fires me up to go do the work and to continue, right? So I love coaching for this, reason where you, go deep on [00:33:00] something, on somebody's life. In that particular case, help them find some. Help them reach that next level.
That's really exhilarating. I live for those types of calls. Second to that is podcasting. When I'm with someone, we're talking, we're exploring a topic, getting to know them a little bit more like that. Feels really awesome to me and so I get energized by it. And that's not gonna be everyone let's be honest.
There are gonna be some people that will hate podcasting as a medium would rather do talks or would rather not do any of it. Maybe they're an email marketer or there's so many different ways to communicate. You just gotta find the one that sits with you. And so my suggestion would be if you're like, I don't know about podcasting, but I wanna try it out.
I would say make it a goal to do six to 10 episodes and give it a whirl. Just, say, okay, if I can get through [00:34:00] six episodes, then I'll evaluate. Do I like it? Do I not like it? What would I change about it? A lot of times it's making adjustments to. What you're doing that'll make it more enjoyable.
So here's that,
and because I get that energy burst from podcasting, it makes some of the more mundane things like scheduling or like doing some of the copier, the things that I don't enjoy about the process, like talking to a camera by myself, a little bit more enjoyable. Or a little bit more manageable is probably more accurate where I don't mind doing it because I love this show.
I love what we're doing together. I love this community. I love being able to share ideas that help you live a more fulfilling and meaningful life that's worth living. So [00:35:00] with all that in aligned, like it's all good. That's my 2 cents on that. See, what other questions do we have? What's the process for podcasting?
I think that's it for the questions. Like we already covered the, process. I'm trying to think right now outside of the notes if there's anything I didn't talk about. Really like big lessons from this are. Sometimes trying something new is hard and we should always expect trying new things to be hard, but it doesn't need to be overwhelming and you gotta find what makes it fun for you.
You gotta really lean into what attracted you to it in the first place, and to continue to do it and show up. I think consistency has really helped the podcast grow. It's really helped me grow as a podcast. [00:36:00] It's helped me figure out how to say things a little bit clearer, and it's something I'm always working on, but ultimately at the end of the day that it's provided a vehicle to, work with people that I wouldn't normally get to work with and.
Really highlight some amazing folks and, help people along the way. That's the whole idea behind this. And when we hear your reviews, when you guys write reviews for us or send us notes, it's really touching and it, I've lived for those. So if you haven't leave a comment on Apple Podcasts, that's that really helps the podcast out.
You guys are great. I hope this was helpful for you. Again, if you're thinking about starting a podcast, give it a whirl. Give it six episodes and see what's what. You can do it on the cheap. It doesn't really take a lot of time. And you'll get [00:37:00] better at it. It'll take more time when you start out, but it'll, you'll dial it in.
I really believe. If there's any other questions that you have for me about podcast, Please feel free to go to the YouTube channel and leave a comment there and I will answer them. I'd love to hear your questions. And then next week on the meaningful revolution, I'll have one of my really good friends growing up.
We're gonna talk about health. I know you guys will really love it. So stay tuned for that. If you're looking. How to improve your nutrition or workouts and stuff, that, that's what we should be talking about. No guarantees on that, but that's what we're talking about. We've been in discussion about for that episode.
With that guys, go out there live with more joy, more personal growth, more impact in your communities. This is Shawn Buttner signing off. We'll see you guys next week on the Meaningful Revolution podcast.
