43: The Mistakes I Still Make After Nearly 300 Podcast Episodes
I released my first podcast episode in January 2016. Three years, three separate podcasts, and nearly 300 episodes later ... I still make mistakes. All the time, in fact.
Take a listen to this week's episode to find out what those mistakes are and find comfort in the fact that, while you're going to make mistakes with your own podcast, you're not alone. Even us pro's do it from time to time.
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Transcript
Welcome to podcasting for coaches. I'm Britany Felix and I'm a podcast launch consultant who specializes in helping coaches and consultants utilize the power of podcasting as a way to build brand awareness and generate new leads for their business. I realize not every new coach or consultant can afford to hire someone to help launch their show. So I created this podcast as a way to guide you through the process of launching and utilizing your very own podcast to help you grow your business and reach a new audience of adoring followers and potential clients. If you're ready to get your voice and podcast out into the world, head over to podcasting for coaches.com to learn more. Welcome to Episode 43 of podcasting for coaches. I released my first podcast episode in January of 2016. Three years, three separate podcast, and nearly 300 episodes later, I still make mistakes all the time. Actually, I know that starting a podcast can be incredibly intimidating for so many people. And a lot of coaches and consultants especially have the tendency to want everything to be perfect. They want their audio to be perfect their content to be perfect their images to be perfect. Everything has to be exactly right. Before they put something out into the world. When we're podcasting, especially for our business, we feel that this needs to be the case because the podcast is maybe a lead generator or a way to establish expertise or network with other people in your space, who you really want to respect you. The problem with that is no one is perfect. No podcast is ever going to be perfect. If you take a listen to Joe Rogan's podcast experience, or whatever the heck The show is called, I've actually listened to it a few times. I sometimes like it depending on who the guest is. But it is constantly one of the top rated podcast one of the most popular podcasts period. And if you actually listen to that the audio quality is awful. There's constantly noises in the background, people shuffling around people moving away from the mic to where you completely can't hear what they're saying anymore. They take breaks to look stuff up online to there's like dead air there. plosives are oh my gosh, so bad. And this is Joe Rogan, he can afford to have a professional studio actually, I think that he does even. And he can afford to have the best podcast editor that there is and the best consultant that there is. But he doesn't, because he's Joe Rogan, he doesn't need to. And he realizes that not everyone is perfect. And people are still going to really enjoy and value what he's saying. And guess what people will still enjoy and value what you're saying, No, you may not be Joe Rogan huge at this point, maybe you will be one day. And if that's the case, reach out, I definitely wanna connect with you. But you also don't need to have NPR quality sound. And you don't need to have every single little piece of copy and every single image be exactly right. So to help prove this point, I am a professional podcast consultant. If you've listened to more than one episode of the show, you probably know that by now. But again, three years and nearly 300 episodes later, I still make mistakes. So let's run through some of those mistakes really quickly. I still say verbal crutch words and filler phrases, meaning those as those arms, I added that out in this podcast, because I don't think that you need to hear that it's not really worth your time doesn't provide any value to you. But when I'm a guest on other shows, you're going to hear those things because not everyone edits those out the way that I do. But I still say those things, I'm still constantly working to not say those things after three years of listening to my own voice and editing it. So if you start off saying, or I'm a lot, or if you say like constantly, which is a huge problem for most people. That's okay. It's okay that you say those things in the beginning, yes, you might have a listener to he gets super annoyed by it, because they're just, frankly, a pain in the butt. But everyone is human, and everyone uses those words in real life. Now, I don't think they should necessarily be left in a podcast episode, at least not all of them. But it's okay if you say them in the beginning. And especially if you recognize that and accept that and realize that that's something you can improve. If you pay attention to that on ongoing basis, then you'll be able to limit the amount as you say those, it will improve over time. In fact, I almost dreaded telling you guys this because you're probably going to hear it constantly. Now that I say this. But my biggest problem I think when I speak on these podcast episodes is that I want to start every sentence with the word. So I feel like I say so about 100 times and every podcast episode that I record. It's something that I'm working on and it's something that I try not to beat myself up over too much. And I hope you will do the same. Now that I have pointed it out to you and you'll notice just how much I really say that word. along the lines of this point right here is it sometimes I ramble a little bit and I repeat myself a lot I don't really like to script things out for the show. Sometimes I do a bulleted list I am for this one. Sometimes I don't sometimes I just riff because this is what he talked about every single day with my clients with other people in the podcast space. So I don't really take the time to write out a full script. And that means that sometimes I carry on with a certain point a little longer than I need to. I have gotten great feedback from the show via reviews on iTunes, slash Apple podcasts, and comments on social media posts. They like that the show is concise and direct and to the point. So I think I beat myself up on this maybe a little bit more than you listeners do. But it is something that I'm working on improving. Now, because I don't script out what I'm going to say. And I don't always even write a bulleted list. Sometimes I leave out an entire point that I actually meant to say, in one particular episode, somewhere in the very beginning, don't remember which one it is. I think I was talking about the tools that you need for a podcast or something along those lines. And I left out talking about audacity completely, which is an extremely important part of the process, if you do solo recordings, because that's how you record that audio. And I completely missed it totally. And I think I even did have a bulleted list on that one. So I had to make a little special note in the show notes for the episode. Hey, by the way, I forgot to mention this, here's the link to it. Here's what it does. And again, I could have beat myself up about it, I could have freaked out when I edited that and rearranged my schedule and re recorded the entire episode. So I could have made sure that that one point was in there. Or I could have just given myself some slack and added it to the show notes and made mention of it in the next episode, which is what I did. Another thing that I still do, after three freaking years, a lot of that time I have spent doing podcast interviews, and I tell all of my clients this double check your settings before every single podcast interview, things change, programs do an update, and you don't realize it, it causes a conflict with other things. It's technology, something's going to go wrong at some point. And my very first interview for this podcast was Sophia Parra, we actually recorded both of her appearances. So episodes 32 and 35. In the same call, it had been about a year or year and a half since I personally had conducted a podcast interview as a host. And I did not take my own advice, I did not double check the settings before we recorded this call. And both of our audio levels were way too loud, like way too loud to the point where my audio was so bad, it actually was not usable. So my audio for those episodes was actually recorded later. So it's not the audio that I used in the call, I had to go back and replay my audio and re record every single thing that I said for what ended up being an hour long phone call split between two interviews, because I was stupid and didn't check my levels before we actually started recording. So please, no, it does not matter how long you do this, sometimes you can just have a brain fart, you can have an off day, and you can royally screw up. But usually there is a solution to that. I could not ask Sofia to re record because one of my other problems is that I'm a huge procrastinator. So we didn't have a lot of time left, I think there was less than a week from the time we recorded this until I had to have the first episode out. So there wasn't time for us to re record I just had to make do it the way that it was. And luckily, my audio was way worse than her so I could fix that. And you just have to make do and make the best of the situation. And I think that I did, I haven't had a single person approached me or comment to me and say, Hey, this episode sounded really weird what was happening there, I don't think anyone else was the wiser, and it was some great content, and we really flowed, so I did not want to screw that up in any way, or scrapped the interview completely. And along the lines of being a procrastinator. One of my other things is that I do my episodes at the last minute. Typically, I am recording my podcast episodes the Wednesday before they get released for the solo episodes. This is how I have been my entire life. Ever since I was a child, people have always said I'm going to be late to my own funeral. And I truly believe it. And I'm not gonna lie, there is a vindictive little part of me that purposely wants to put this in my will that only certain people will know to start my funeral late, just because it's what everyone always says is going to happen. And I probably shouldn't want to prove them right. But I do so bad. This translates into not really having time to re record things if I do really screwed something up, or just really causing a lot of stress for myself, and not necessarily putting as much thought into the promotional strategy of the episodes or the promo materials and things like that. This is something I am working on. I'm actually recording this episode on Tuesday this week instead of Wednesday. So slight improvement. But again, I just have to fit this into my schedule wherever I can. I have all these great grand dreams of batch recording things and sometimes I do that I will be honest. Every now and then I can Find the time to block out one morning and knock out an entire month's worth of podcast episodes at one time, which is fantastic when I do that, and it's such a huge relief. But that's not really my style, I always tend to work at the last minute. So that's generally how things work out. As a result of that procrastination and poor planning. I sometimes occasionally miss an episode, I'm sure that you've heard me talk on this podcast so many times about how important being consistent is. However, if you don't properly plan ahead, and you do things at the last minute, like I do, sometimes you haven't recorded a podcast episode. And guess what, now you're sick. Or Guess what, now there's a family emergency. So sometimes that translates into needing to skip a week and put out a notice, hey, I didn't get a chance to record this episode, I'm super sick, I'm gonna have to miss this one, you know, I'll have a new one for you next week. That's not exactly great. It's not terrible, it's not the end of the world, I'm probably not going to lose a ton of listeners, if I do that once or twice a year, maybe even a little more. But for the most part, I really need to follow my own advice and be as consistent as possible. So the last thing that I want to mention as a major, not necessarily a mistake, but a flaw, or a I don't really follow my own advice, kind of a thing is that I don't have the best recording space. You probably heard me talk on here for a few months now about how we recently refinished our office. And now we have a bunch of bare walls. Well, I have been super crazy with my business, it's growing, which is fantastic. I have a ton of clients Yay. Awesome. That means I don't really have time to paint the artwork that I wanted to put on the wall, or to get the decorations already have hung up. So I tell everyone else, make sure you cover all your bare surfaces really get the most optimal recording space that you can you want to have the best quality from the start. And then I actually have a slight echo to my audio, because I have bare walls in my room and the sound is bouncing off of them. So please, please, please cut yourself some slack. I have gotten nothing but amazing, fantastic positive feedback on the show and how it's really helping people with their podcasts. And they really enjoy it. So clearly, I'm not screwing this up too bad. And you won't either, I promise. So whether you're just starting out or you've been at this for a year or two, and you still feel like an imposter, please stop, please give yourself slack. Please know you are enough, what you're doing is enough. And your podcast will be enough. Before I wrap things up, I want to do a little mini celebration with you my very first online course that I have been thinking about for literally two years, finally launched this week, it launched on Monday, it is incredible to me that this has even happened. Again, I'm a procrastinator, hence the two year delay on this. But it is something that I am so incredibly proud of. It's not perfect. It's a work in progress. But I know that it's going to help so many people who can't afford to work with me one on one still have some additional support. So there are several models in there that walk you through the entire process from start to finish, including a bonus module for things that are relevant after you launch your podcast. And there's also an exclusive private Facebook community only for course participants where they have access to me and can ask me questions and get feedback. So if you're interested in learning more about that course, you can go to podcasting for coaches calm and just click the course tab in the main menu. Or of course, you can go to the show notes for this episode, which you can access by going to the podcast tab in the main menu, clicking on episode number 43 and finding the link there. I also just recently in January started offering a brand new service. So I love launch consulting. And it's a huge chunk of what I'm gearing my business towards these days, I don't really take on too many ongoing editing clients. However, I realized after being approached by somebody who wanted help with this, that I am neglecting a large chunk of my audience, and those are coaches and consultants who maybe had to DIY their podcast in the first place. Maybe they just had to, in the words of one of my most recent clients launch ugly, just to get it out there. And now they're wondering how they can improve things. What maybe they didn't set up properly, what can be tweaked how the show can be improved? Did they set everything right up with their RSS feed or their platforms that they're not on that they should be? All of those types of questions. So I have now started offering a podcast auditing service. So if you already have a podcast if you're already out there and launched, but you're not quite sure if you did it the right way or the best way maybe I should say, and then I can help you by taking a look at the back end of your RSS feed your hosting service, how the episodes get published, the platforms you're on, even your website and how that's configured for the podcast. And of course take a listen to the podcast itself and let you know what can be improved there. So if you're interested in learning more about those services, you can reach out to me directly Britany at podcasting for coaches.com or you can submit a contact form through my website there is a tab that just says contact or you can click on On the tab that says work with me in the main menu, and it has my auditing services listed there. Thank you so much for taking a listen to this podcast episode. I am super excited to bring you an episode next week with someone who is utilizing a format for their podcasts that I have talked about before. That I think is an amazing format and that is absolutely underutilized. Thanks again have a fantastic week. And that wraps up another episode of podcasting for coaches. If you'd like to connect with me further, get additional free resources, receive updates on this podcast and connect with other coaches and consultants who are using a podcast for their business. I'd like to invite you to join the podcasting for coaches community on Facebook. You can either search for podcasting for coach's community on Facebook to find it, or you can use the link that's in the show notes for every single episode of this podcast on my website podcasting for coaches.com