3 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Starting A Podcast

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welcome to She's crafted a thriving I'm your host, Nikita Williams. And this show is for all the ladies who are making creating things. You will hear conversations about the real everyday struggles of juggling life. And this is what we're trying to meet in passion and harmony. As women, we have the skill of getting things done. But sometimes we get in our own way. It's here. Well, you'll see that you're now alone. You'll discover that success does not mean perfection. Fear and negative thoughts and challenges are all a part of the journey on this podcast. So find the inspiration told you need to have a life and business thrives. Hey, guys, Welcome to she's crafted to thrive. Um, this is another solo cast, but I will be doing for you guys today. Um, I was cool. Weird. Starting off load is so low caste. Like my introductions if you guys can't tell their awkward and weird for me. So anyway, um, this episode is going to be about three questions you should be asking yourself should you decide to start a podcast before I get into that topic? I just wanted to share a little bit about my week. Um, I was in the hospital a couple days ago because I, um, had some kind of virus, but it through, like all my chronic illness stuff into, like, crisis moment. I feel like everything is usually at a four or six for me, pretty much I feel like every day. But, um, this past weekend, I was, like, over the scale, like there's no measure for it. And I had a future which is completely out of the ordinary for me. So, um, I've been, you know, just trying to recruit and rest and do what I can and rest. I mean, that's the best thing. The mess, best medicine you can do, Uh, mark in half on top of some of my hefty defeat. Essential oils that are amazing. But I'm really It's just a matter of time. And so I'm sorry this episode is probably coming to you lay on Friday afternoon because I recorded it friday morning. Um, I haven't gotten to the point of batch I'm recording yet, so I know that it's something I'm working on. So bear with me. But I don't want to disappoint and not show up on Fridays, like I promised that I would. So here I am. So I did a live about this topic. Not really like specifically these three things, but I just I was thinking about my journey with this podcast. I cannot believe it's been, you know, almost a year since I started the podcast and in the last six months, really, have I really just duck in and started reaching out to amazing gas? I have so many amazing guests coming up, you guys, I'm super excited for you guys in to hear them. So I wanted to share a little bit of the things that I've learned along the way. And I figure a lot of people are thinking about podcast. They have become even more popular then. I'm blogging, I think, to an extent blogging will always, I believe, have a place online. But if you're creative business and especially if you are a spoon e, which, by the way, that is a new term for me. Um, it was a new term that was I discovered while doing some hash tag research for my business. And if you're like what is a spoon? Me, you definitely check out Mrs Christine. Mister Iran. Ms. Miss Ron. Dino. I'm sure I'm seeing her last name wrong. She is a blogger, and she talks about her Lupus journey and things like that. And she coin this This this this name for women who deal with chronic illness. Just trying to figure out, um, how we have to manage our energy and what that means and what that looks like by using spoons. So you definitely check out the bog on post on this out, put it in the show. Notes to you guys could take a look, but yeah, so as a spoon, me or a chronic Indo warrior, I have found podcasting to be a really great way for me to create content and, um, to be consistent. And so I only talk about three questions before I get into that kind of cover some of this stuff that I'm I'm starting to talk about right now. So here we go. The first thing is you need to decide whether or not your audience is on podcasts. And I know that sounds weird. Kind of like social media. You need to decide where your people are, And the question is are your people on pockets? Are they listening to pockets? Are they on Spotify? Are they on I two searching for their next you know, Listen, that they can listen to while they're multitasking working, working out, going, dropping the kids off at school, etcetera, etcetera. Um, that's one thing I have to decide for me. Was were creative women online. Now, to be honest, podcasts were not really a thing for me like I was. I didn't know really much about it. My husband is the one who encouraged me to kind of take a look at it after I had explained to him like, I do not want a block because I'm not a writer, and he said that I should definitely check it out. So, um, and then another client of mine, not even the clients just, like, really just a great cheerleader. She was telling me that. Yeah, You definitely need to get in podcast. And the more woman I started talking to my business, what I was doing, like all the hands on digital marketing pieces were Tell me. Yeah, I listen to podcasts, all the type. And I was like, Really? I thought that was like a dude speaking. I did not know that that was a woman's thing, But of course, that was my mistake. It is a huge industry, and there are lots of people listening to podcasts. And if you go to medium or if you go to bus row or, um, any pod podcast things, if you just google this information, you'll see that it's one of the top trending ways people are engaging with their audiences through podcasting. So definitely check out to see whether or not your people that you serve and that you want to connect with are actually listening to podcasts. Now, before I go into Step Number two, you know something else might be in your mind. Just just have to deal with, you know, kind of sort of like for me. When I first started the journey of the podcast, I was thinking, Should I be doing this like, can I? You know, What am I doing? Like I don't know anything about podcasts, and it can be really scary, but you really can do it. It's something that it's actually one of the best decisions I've made. It's really helped me and my business to clarify who and what I want to talk about, who I would have served. Which leads me to number two. Do you want to do it like that's the question you need to ask yourself, Do you want to do a podcast? It's kind of like the reason why I had to ask my question. I ask myself the question whether or not I wanted to start a block. I started a block, mostly because I needed to create content. And it's true. I still think blocks are useful, especially for S C o purposes, but I'm learning more and more about that. But I'm just not a boggy person. And, um, I don't like to write. I like Thio read I Love I used to love to write. You know what's so funny? As a kid, I used to love to write, to write poems, and I write in my journal, Do Love writing in my journal. I love writing to do list, but I don't necessarily like to write, um, about like marketing. I feel like there are tons of marketing blog's. There's tons of how to do this and have to do that things I just felt like I didn't have any things, Mork Special to say because I don't like to write like that. Um, so, first of all, you need to decide is this something you want to do? For me? Podcast was a great way, that one. I could serve my audience with information and pieces of me even when I'm interviewing people. And then if I wanted to, I could repurpose that content and create a blogger post about it or use that in my show notes. So there were still many different, um, reasons that I thought Paul Cassie could work. Plus, I could connect with women, and I was super excited about that. There was no, um, strings attached. It was multifaceted and the fact that it would serve both both my audience and the other person's audience because we're creating creating value for for everyone that would listen. So that was one of the things I had to decide. Do I want to do this now? Believe it or not, there's some other things you need to consider. This is a very time consuming thing. Like it's not an easy, um, thing to Dio. To be honest, you do its work, and it doesn't have to be as much as work as I make it, because I do all of my production stuff myself. I record I edit. I create my song clips, I create my graphics. I do. The show notes. I do everything, really, And for me, it was more of a cost effective way for me to do. And also I really like to know what goes behind something. So with the day that I decided to off, load this to someone, I know what I'm looking for. I know what to expect. And I kind of have an idea. You know, I don't like giving things to people to do and not have a clue what's happening. So for me, that was something to consider. It's very time consuming. But for me and my home, you know, I'm at home. I'm usually in my little corner of my room, and I'm doing this work where I'm in bed with my heating pad. You guys know I love my heating pad, so, um, there's always there's a lot of things to do, but if you want to offshore this to someone, you definitely can, um offshore, not after out resource is to someone else. You definitely can because, um, there's lots of people there out to do it with bearing budgets. You can have some people do your editing, or you can have some people do your show notes or everything. You know, it's a whole production type of line of things to do. And if you want more details on that, let me know you guys because I can definitely do more podcasts about, you know, starting a podcast. Would I do to get my guests? Um, what I do for my editing, what kind of tools I use, Or maybe I'll just do like a free guide or something for you guys one day. But I'd like to hear what you guys think. If you want to hear more about this subject of podcasting, so that's something to consider. And also, if you're like, I just don't really know if I want to do, it's kind of seems interesting kind of scene school. I think you should try it. Um, just try it a couple times and see if you like, you know the results of it. Do you like the you know, recording and talking with someone and like having someone edited for you. Or if you're gonna edit it yourself, go ahead and try it and see, That's kind of something you want to do. And the reason why I'm saying why you should decide if this is what you want to do. Consistency is the biggest thing. And podcasting, Um, it's been said that most podcast start and in at the 10th episode, 75% of them don't go beyond 10 episodes. And I think it's because one they realized how much work it is and they feel like Old Man. I didn't get, like thousands of followers like we're wanting to have or so many listeners. This is a slow burn. You guys, um, this is like a very much go slow to go fast in the sense that it takes time to build an audience. What's beautiful, though, about building the audience is that over time they become more loyal and they start to share and reach out to you. You know that they're listening based on the feedback you get. Um, it's a beautiful thing. I I've only been doing this for almost a year and honestly, in the last six months, I've been the most consistent because I I am launching something are dropping an episode every Friday, and I've gotten e mails. I've gotten instagram messages. It's so cool to have people reach out to me and they're not like I don't know whether, you know, ask them How did you find me? Oh, I was looking on a podcast or somebody shared something with me and I looked you up, and it's just super cool that way. But it didn't happen after, like, five episodes. And thank goodness, because my 1st 5 episodes, they were amazing content and amazing value. But I edited them and, um, yeah, I probably should have used professional, so but I'm still learning. I do not know everything. Um, there is to know about podcasting, but I'm definitely definitely learning over time, so I just wanna, you know, try it out. Ask yourself. Do you want to do this? Think about the reasons you know, for me, I'm a very list person. So go ahead and write out of less of pros and cons. I'm on whether or not you really want to do this. And lastly, is number three. And I think this is huge because, um, I've listened to a few podcasts, and in the beginning, I didn't I didn't listen to really much of any because I didn't want to copy anyone else. I wanted to be me. I wanted to be authentically me. I didn't want to be skewed by anyone else's approach to podcasting, especially because I had no idea what I was doing. So I didn't want to kind of start being like other people and start questions and all that kind of stuff. And now I listen to podcasts occasionally because I feel like I keep learning more and more things about myself when I do podcast in general. So I feel like I know who I am when I'm on here in general, just howto, you know, share my story and everything like that. But I didn't want in the beginning to kind of lose that before I even began. So I definitely think that number three is very important. Number three is to be ready to be able to be open mic evening toe. Ask yourself. Am I ready to be honest and share? You know, a little bit more about what I'm going through. Like seriously, Am I really ready to share my authentic self? Like, are you ready to do that? Because I have listened to a few podcasts where I feel like I feel like they're not really telling all the facts. You know, saying like they're really not, Um, I feel like sometimes is a little bit of fluff it the little bit of, um, I don't know, it's not everything, but it's like a kind of feel stage, um, scripted. You know, some people do a lot of scripted podcasts. I don't know how they do that. To me, that seems like way more time work that there needs to be, um, especially for business stuff. Um, I get it for, like, shows that are doing like there's, like, crime ones in, like, story ones and all that other stuff. But when it comes to business in life and coaching, I find that, um, just really sharing it raw really connects the best to your audience. So anyway, question is, are you ready to be able to share? Are you ready to share? You know, parts of your journey, parts of your story and guys. I'm not saying sure everything, um, share what you're comfortable with and make sure it's really, you know, make sure it's actually are part of who you are. And when you're getting ready to share something, ask yourself in my okay with this being out on air and my okay with other people listening to this because, honestly, people are gonna judge you whether you do it or not. Um, whether you say what you're gonna say, it's pretty much like anything you put out there, especially if you have a block. Or if you do social media, you have to be willing to be riel. And because nobody wants fluff anymore. You know what I'm saying? Like you have to be real when it comes to sharing your story, especially on I'm a podcast and sorry about my voice. You guys, I don't understand what's going on with it today, so it sounds a little husky. Um, anyway, so that's the three question. So, um, let me go back to what they are. The first question is, is your audience on podcasting, right? Like, are they listening to podcasts? Is your audience listening to caucus? The second question is. Do you want to do this? Like really? And then the third question is, Are you willing to share and be open on? And your guests, by the way, needs to be the same way. You need to ask them that question before they even get on there. I know, I asked. I asked my my guests that question. You know, is there anything that I shouldn't ask you? And that's fine. Like, I don't have any problems with that. There's some things I'm not gonna tell you guys. To be honest, I'm just being real. But a lot of things. I sure a lot, especially when it comes to my Endo journey and my window story. Um, it's just therapeutic for me, and I feel like it could be therapeutic for other people. And I have actually seen that where I've had women reach out to me to say that thank you for sharing that part of your journey in your story because I thought I was alone or I thought that this was just me. I didn't know anybody had felt that way. We were saying those words to themselves and you said it out loud on air and, you know, really touched me. So, you know, you have to be ready to share whatever it is that you're willing to share, but to be honest about doing it. So, um, tell me, you guys, you know, if you want to hear more about this subject about podcasting, like I said earlier, do you want to know? You know what tools I use? Do you want to know? How do I find my guests? What kind of questions do I ask them? What kind of things do I do to get started? Um, I set up all that jazz. You know, Let me know if you guys want to hear more about that. Thank you for tuning in. As always, you guys are amazing as my she has crafted a thrive tribe. If you have enjoying the email list, you should. You definitely should join the email list. So go on over to she's crafted dot com and join. That email is so that you guys know when the next episode is coming up been, who's the next guest going to be and all that jazz and I'm also working on some freebies in Resource Is and deals for you guys. So you definitely want to join that list Because they'll only be brought out to you guys that way, if you're on my email us so thank you so much for listening. And yes, you are crafted to thrive.