As we dig into May I want to talk about podcasting. I am looking ahead to a big milestone this year. We’re going to hit 500 episodes this year. We rebranded the show. If you haven’t seen the branding yet, be sure to check it out over at the website, uncommonlymore.com. Or you should see it in your podcast player of choice as well. And I’m really excited about all these things, but it really got me thinking about some of the kind of BS marketing stuff we see from people who teach podcasting and some of the crazy stories we tell ourselves before we get started with podcasting. And so I thought we’d have a little fun with that, and we’d go two truths and a lie style through podcasting.
And I want to talk first about two truths. And I intentionally want to start with the truth because I feel like the lie is going to make me randy, and so we’re going to start with the truth. I want to also let you know that we are opening up a brand new challenge. It’s going to be a five day training. It’s not really a challenge, it’s more like a training. We’re going to be doing a five day training. I’m going to run it live, which I have not run a live multi day training in a long time, so this is going to be a lot of fun. We’re going to run this training live. It’s going to be happening on May 18th will be day one. So what you’re going to want to do right now is you’re going to want to go over to uncommonlymore.com/launchyourpodcast.
This is a really, really, really good way for you to get started figuring out podcasting because we’re going to take you through all the steps you need from idea to launch. So we’re going to talk about tech. We’re going to talk about content strategy. We’re going to talk about launch strategy. And there is an audio and a workbook for each day. So over the course of the week, you will be putting together, documenting your launch plan and your content plan, and putting together any tech or support that you need to get your show off the ground. So if launching a podcast is something that has been on your radar for a while, I want you to jump in on this right now.
As a bonus, I’m going to be doing some live videos throughout the week over on Instagram, so check it out and let me know that you’re going to be joining us. Get signed up. Uncommonlymore.com/launchyourpodcast.
Truth number one about podcasting.
And this is the one that I think is so overlooked. And it gives us a lot of grace. There’s actually a real gift of space in realizing this truth, and that’s that a podcast is going to grow with you. And I wanted to talk about this because, I mean, we’re debuting brand new branding for a podcast that’s six years old this week. And that was a huge decision. That was something that took, I mean, if you ask the ladies that are in my mastermind with me, took several hot seat calls for me to actually take action on because it was … I had a weird attachment to the name and the look and the feel that we had.
And here’s the deal, the show itself isn’t changing that much. I mean, you heard a new intro. You’ll hear a new outro at the tail end of the show. There’s a new cover art. There’s some new social media graphics promoting the show, but that’s it. The show, the content, the core, me showing up here and talking to you is precisely the same. But we had to evolve the look because the show has evolved because I have evolved, and my business has grown and changed and shifted a ton. If we flash back to six years ago, and it’ll actually be seven years this November, so if we flash back to November of 2013, I was two years into my business, and really, I was only about a year and a half into my business. And I had no idea what I was doing. We had just launched and opened the doors to what was then called Hit the Mic Marketing, and then evolved to The Stacey Harris, and is now kind of Uncommonly More-ish.
I had just closed my VA business. I had wanted a podcast for ever, ever. I mean, I went to school to be an audio engineer. I loved podcasts. And I was like, “I don’t know what I would talk about.” I was forcing myself twice a month to write these horrendous blog posts. It took so much time and so much energy. And I had no clue what I was doing. The show went live twice a week. We had one guest, one me. I was putting out two hours of content a week. It was bananas crazy. And the reality is this show is completely different now. A, I talk about what I talk about much differently than I did then. We talk about things besides social media.
At the time I was launching Hit the Mic Marketing, which was social media focused management business, not strategy. It was so different. And if you listen to those first episodes, which oh dear God, please don’t, and then you fast forward a few years and you listen to the 100s, or the 200s, or the 300s, or even if you go back to the early 400 episodes, this is 478. I mean, if you go back to some of those episodes, there’s a real clear evolution in how I’m showing up and what I’m talking about and the perspectives I have. I mean, I’m sure if you went with a fine toothed comb and listened to everything I said in those first 100 episodes, there are things I would disagree with now.
I mean, there’s flat out social media networks that don’t exist anymore that I talked about in those early days. But these things change and evolve, and the cool thing is your content gets to with you, even if it’s a podcast, even if it’s videos, even if it’s blogs, even if it’s your social content, it gets to evolve with you. And so let it, let it evolve. The only way to do that though was to start. And so the first truth is really all about the fact that this will grow, it will change, it will evolve. It just will. There is no way to launch a show perfectly that will see no shifts and no changes ever because things happen. Things change. We as content creators and as thought leaders and as entrepreneurs and as experts, are doing one fundamental thing. We are always growing. And that comes because, quite frankly, I think we’re always learning. We’re always trying. And so allow that to happen with this. Okay? It will grow with you.
The second truth I want to talk about is connection.
There is a bond that I have with you because you give me this time. I’m literally in your ears. I’m in your brain. For some of you, literally, literally … For some of the people listening to the show, you’re listening with headphones. I’m in the car with you. I’m on dog walks. I’m in the gym. I’m on runs. I’m sitting in your office with you. I’m sitting in a coffee shop with you. I’m with you. And the connection that can come from that is incredible. And I was sending an email to my list not too, too long ago. And I got an email response. I got an email reply, which I love, I love, love, love. So if you’re on the list, which by the way, if you’re not on the list, you totally should get on the list. But if you are, and you get my emails, hit reply once in a while and let me know when things especially hit you, or just say hi. I like that too.
But this person emailed me and they said, “I have loved this show for so long. Thank you for sharing this.” And I can’t even remember what I was sharing now, but I so remember that email because this person has been on my list since the show launched in 2013, since this show started. This person has been right alongside for the entire for years that Hit the Mic Backstage existed, they were a member of Hit the Mic Backstage and attended calls and emailed questions and hung out with me. It’s so cool. But that connection came because I was in their ears, because I was here week after week, episode after episode, hanging out with you, hopefully being a little funny, hopefully providing a lot of value. And that really comes less from listening and more from implementing, I’ll be honest.
And this person is really good at that, but it’s always really cool to see that, to get those emails, to get those Instagram DMs, to get those Facebook messages. I love being able to sit with you and talk to you and connect with you. And that is possible in this medium in a way that’s really unique because I can be in a lot of weird places with you. I’ll be honest, some of my favorite podcasters are regularly in the shower with me, which any of them who would listen to that statement would blush, I’m sure. Regularly in the shower with me because it tends to be where I listen to podcasts, or on walks with me, or in the car with me. And that’s a unique connection that you can’t do with video, you can’t do with a blog post. And it’s really, it’s cool. And so that’s the other truth, is don’t underestimate that connection, that bond that happens in the medium because we are really, really close in this way. All right?
Now let’s talk about lies.
I want to hop in here and I want to talk about a lie that I think is, quite frankly, detrimental to podcasters, and it’s something that we see largely coming from people who are trying to sell you a program that teaches you how to podcast. Podcasting actually isn’t for everyone. And here’s the lie, the lie is that podcasting is for everyone, and it’s not because not every audience wants to listen. It’s a small part of the reason why there’s transcripts for this show on the website, because some people want to read it. I don’t know why. I can’t imagine that it’s interesting. But it’s why it exists that way. Some people are not at their best with retaining information when it’s in this format. They need to read it. They need to watch it. They need to do it. There’s a lot of different ways to learn.
And so if your audience is filled with video viewers, or with readers, and none of them are listening to podcasts, then this might not be the fit for you. We have absolutely had success working with clients who don’t do podcasts. This is not the one thing to rule them all. Not everybody has to have a podcast. And here’s the real underlying piece of nonsense here, the real actual lie behind it works for everybody. It is not a magic ticket to success. The reason the first truth about it evolving with you is so important is because that evolution is the magic. I refuse, refuse to launch a podcast for a client who’s not committed to podcasting for at least 100 episodes because you will learn a ton about yourself in that first 100 episodes.
Now if you want to say, “I want to put together a small podcast series,” maybe it’s 12 or 24 episodes, and it’s going to be a start and a finish, cool. That’s a great way to experiment with podcasting. But if you tell me that I just want to try a weekly show for a little while, this quarter, let’s launch a podcast and see how it goes, but I want to go weekly, no. 12 episodes is not enough to know if this works for you. 12 episodes is not even enough to learn how to do it. It takes time. And the gift of that is that it will evolve with you. Don’t overthink the beginning of it. Don’t worry too much about crafting the perfect format for the show because here’s the deal, your show will change. Your show will evolve because you as a host and as a content creator, you will grow. You will evolve. You will find what works. You will find what doesn’t work.
We have several podcasts that we produce and edit and manage in our agency. And guess what, guys, almost every single one of them, their recording and production process from the client, not on our side, the editing and all of that is about the same. We’ve got a system for it. But the actual getting it recorded is different. Some people use scripts. Some people use bullet points. Some do it when we get a time. Some of the batch massive amounts of episodes once a month or once a quarter. Everybody’s different. And it will take you more than 12 episodes to find the system that works for you. And so it is not a magic pill. It is not a one size fits all solution for blowing up your business. It is a tool that you can use and that can work incredibly well if given the time, the space, and the care to perform.
And a lot of that care comes in the way of actually marketing the show, but that’s another episode altogether, which we’ll talk about later this month. For now though, if I’ve convinced you this is a great idea, and maybe I’ve convinced you that this isn’t, that’s cool too, as long as you’ve decided one way or another. Right? I want you to come over to uncommonlymore.com/launchyourpodcast, and I want you to sign up. And if you’re listening to that and you’re saying, “See, see. But I already have a podcast,” stay tuned because in the next couple of weeks, we’ll be rolling out a second version of this called Up Level Your Podcast, which will speak specifically to the nuances of up leveling an existing show, evolving an existing show.
And quite frankly, get in on Launch Your Podcast because the content is good no matter where you’re at because here’s the main mindset, and we talk about this a lot in the training, you have to do it over and over again. You have to let it evolve. You have to let it grow. You have to keep revisiting and reevaluating. All right? So uncommonlymore.com/launchyourpodcast. And by the by, I do still have some of those podcast strategy sessions available for me, so head over to the website and there is a link to book those as well. We’ve got a couple for May available, just one hour, single sessions, one on one, looking at your launch plan, looking at your upcoming content plan, looking at ways that you want to specifically up level shows. You can audit your show. We can audit your stats, talk about what they mean, anything you’d like specific to podcasting. All right?
With that, thank you for listening. And I will see you next week.