Should You Start a Podcast? (Steps to Get Started and What I Wish I Knew Sooner!)

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0:38Welcome back to the Jasmine Starr Show, a place where we talk about business. And today we are going to answer a question I've gotten often since I have started this podcast, which is, is starting a podcast the best move for my business? Okay. I should probably back up a little bit and explain why I started my podcast. And the easiest answer here is just that I realized I was consuming more podcast than I was any other type of content. Now, if we go back to 2019, I still, you know, I'm a consumer of social media. I'm a consumer of media. But what I started realizing was I preferred long form content via audio because it allowed me to consume while doing other things like making dinner, doing my makeup, driving in the car.

1:27And I started realizing that if that was how I was consuming content, other people might want to consume it the same way. That was like the deep thinking and how I started my podcast. But looking back at it, I wish I could have been a lot more strategic. And that's what I want to share with you today. So before we even move forward, I want you to just to straight out tell you, believe it or not, the answer of whether or not you should start a podcast, it might not be right now. Is that surprising? I mean, so how do you know when it's the time to start a podcast? I'm going to fill you in on the questions and the framework that go into directly into deciding if making a podcast makes sense for your business.

2:03But back in 2019, when I go back to this, I was really intimidated with the idea of starting a podcast because I literally knew nothing. But we have the Internet. And I just started dabbling. I started researching. I started looking at what I might need and how I might be able to do it. And so myself and another team member, I said, I have this idea for a passion project. And I call it a passion project because in addition to creating all different types of media, I wanted to make sure that this podcast felt like a creative space for me. What I didn't realize had been happening and still happens to this day is that when we create videos, it's very strategic.

2:43Like there's a lot of time and effort that go into it. And what I wanted for this podcast to be audio and just feel like me, that it didn't have to be like a strategic thing, which is why still to this day, at the time of this recording, we're not running ads. I want the space and the time and the bandwidth to say, I want to use this as a way to connect with people. I don't need it to be a money generator. At least I don't need it yet. At some point in the future, that might change. But for now, what I want to do is a space to create and connect deeply with other people. And I love the fact that recording this podcast right now, it's just audio.

3:21I have a feeling it's going to change in the future because what I've noticed in the last, you know, three, four years of creating a podcast is that it's really difficult for a podcast to pick up traction. It is one of the slowest moving marketing mechanisms of all time. Like even if you were to go to Stitcher or iTunes or Spotify and you're looking for something in particular, it's not like you could have a hashtag to search for. Even their search mechanisms on these platforms, they're not even all that great when it comes to particular topics. So I started realizing that a really powerful way for me to get the podcast to be noticed and expand would be to do it via video because YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world.

4:05People are going to YouTube and they're searching for a variety of things and YouTube allows podcasts to get discovered in ways that podcast alone can do it. So you're going to see a big shift in how we're creating the podcast. I will be for all intentionality doing the vast majority of my podcast on audio and video. But for now, since I am making a podcast about podcasting, I wanted to do it without video. I wanted to go back to my very roots and say, for years, I did it just me and a microphone. For me, in the beginning, created a podcast with a project that started with less than$700. I didn't know what I was doing and then decided to launch it.

4:48And with this idea of launching, I said, I really want people to be a part of this process. So back at the end of 2019, it was just the start. It was just the start of 2020. This was just literally a couple months before I became a mom. I take on this project. You know how life, like you're like, oh, I'm busy. I should take on a project. Right? And then you're like, I'm busy. I should take on a new project and have a kid. All these things, y 'all, like, look it, looking back at this, It was this exciting, crazy new time. It allowed me to step in and do something new. I had no idea the impact that this podcast would have on my business, but way more on my life.

5:30I am able to connect with you right now and I'm having a conversation as if we're sitting across from each other having lunch. That's amazing. That is such a gift that you and I are having this moment. That, my friends, is total power. You're choosing to spend time with me. And I could not be more thankful for that. When we launched, there was a couple things we wanted to get in order. I didn't want it to feel like it was a chore. I didn't want to feel like I was beholden. So we just thought, what is the scrappiest way to get this thing live? I had recorded, I believe, six episodes, six, seven episodes before we launched the podcast.

6:11but we debuted the podcast with four episodes. So we already had a couple saved up just in case I needed time and bandwidth to record on the in-between. I was recording a lot of these as just like a state of my thought, my unions. I started inviting a lot of my friends to have these conversations. And lo and behold, in less than five months, we crossed our first million downloads to the podcast. And that was the most surprising thing to me ever. Now, I want to end the story there. I want to be like, wow, like, look at this project and this is what it's been amazing and it's just continued to grow from there.

6:50And actually, I'm going to be very real and tell you it's been the opposite. It has been such a slugfest to grow the podcast. And yes, we could tell, oh, millions and millions of downloads, but there have been peaks and valleys of this podcast. and a lot of times I'm just gonna start off, I actually, my goal and vision is to share the ugly parts of starting a podcast. I want to share the ugly so that you know what you're getting into when it comes to creating for your business. I will, if given the opportunity, I would go back and create this podcast 100 % of the time. However, just because I would recreate the podcast, I want to make sure that I'm also talking about the difficulties of the podcast.

7:36There are some weeks that creating this podcast, it takes us hours. Just recently, the team and I worked on a podcast. And this is a really bad example, but the total of us creating one podcast ended up being 11 hours. That's crazy. 11 hours for 43 minutes of content. No, that's crazy. We have since really changed the way that we're approaching it. But that's just the truth of it. Do I think that that's the norm? Absolutely not. But there are times where you want to try new things and expand in new ways. and there's ways that you have to readjust what you're doing as you strategize in this business.

8:10I will also say that when we started off this podcast, it was a very strong bent on social media marketing. And social media marketing has a really wide appeal to a lot of people. So we were seeing our download numbers just soar. People were sharing them a lot more. And since then, I love social media marketing, but I realized that's not the only thing I want to talk about. I want to talk about building a business. I want to talk about being not just an entrepreneur. I want to share the journey of being a CEO. I want to talk about the mindset and the decisions that I'm making to really expand this business in new ways.

8:46Now, in the process of doing that, a lot of a listening audience is kind of like, hey, I came for the social media party and now you're serving up mindset and strategy. Is this where I want to be? And I get it. This podcast will not be for a lot of people. And I have made the decision starting at the top of 2023 that I want to create a podcast for me. This is my creative outlet. And I don't want to be popular. I don't even want attention as much as I want a brand extension. I don't need to be all things to everybody. I need to be someone. Actually, let me frame it this way. I want to be something to someone.

9:30If you are that someone listening right now, thank you. It's you and me and like a small rowdy group of people who are out here trying to find ways to expand in massive ways. So now that you know the good, the bad, and the fugly part of this podcast, and you're still here, okay, I want to share with you the most simple steps to getting started. And I want to give you a secret. You don't have to be tech savvy and you don't have to spend a lot of money. Now, before we dive into each step, I want to go over them. First is to identify your business goals. The second step is to understand your target audience.

10:09The third step is to assess your time and resources. And the fourth and final step is to make a decision. Now I'm breaking this down as simple as possible, but you really do see things in different ways as a result. So let's start with step number one, identifying your business goals. I want you to visit your goals for the next three months and ask yourself if podcasting can help you achieve at least two of them. Now, the reason I'm going through this framework is like, I'm literally created this framework for the Jasmine of late 2019, right? Like this is everything I wish somebody would have told me before I started the podcast.

10:44It's like, Hey, what are your goals for the next three months? Can a podcast help you achieve at least two of them. If not, probably this is not the right thing to prioritize at the moment. So let's break this down with an example. Let's say a wedding photographer's three main business goals this quarter. Number one, get galleries to clients within a two-week time frame. Number two, network with local wedding planners and vendors for potential collaborations and partnerships. And three, increase brand visibility on social media. Now, if those are her top three priorities for the next three months, I would say that this isn't the time to start a podcast.

11:22Why? Well, podcasting is not going to help her get her galleries to her clients faster. Like, let's be real. It might actually take time away from that process. Podcasting probably won't help her build relationships with local wedding planners and vendors in her area. Like, yeah, it might help expand her networks outside of her area because podcasts don't have borders. but if her goal is local connections, engaging with them on social media and going to in-person events, that would work much more effectively and quicker. And podcasting, maybe it could have a small impact on increasing her brand awareness on social media, but not nearly as much as showing her face or behind the scenes of her shoots or engaging on those platforms.

12:04Now, on the flip side, let's do another example. Let's say a yoga teacher's three main business goals this quarter are to diversify his income streams by hosting retreats and creating an online course, or maybe he has a membership. His second goal this quarter is to build his reputation as a yoga expert and grow his audience. And three, have a resource to send to his students when they ask him questions outside of class time. Okay, now if those are his three priorities for the next three months, podcasting would be a really great use of his time. Why? Podcasting could definitely open doors to new income streams by expanding his audience beyond his hometown with people who are potentially interested in things that aren't related to his hometown, retreats, courses, memberships, and this helps him reach his goal of diversifying his income.

12:52Now, hosting a podcast can help him demonstrate his teaching style and knowledge, which will help him reach his goal of building his reputation as a yoga expert and growing his audience. And perhaps he could interview other people in the yoga field to position himself as an authority or as an appear of other people in that industry. Now, his podcast would also help him reach his third goal of creating a resource that answers his students' questions, which saves him time and ensures consistent information. Okay, so you can probably guess that unlike the photographer, podcasting would definitely be a good use of time for this yoga instructor because it helps him reach all three of his current business goals.

13:33Cool, now I wanna pause here and I wanna ask you, according to your goals. Would a podcast help you reach them? Yes or no? Now let's get to the second step and that's to understand your target audience. Now I know if you've been listening to this podcast, you get so sick and dang tired of hearing me talk about your ideal client. On the inside of Social Curator, we really drill down on an ideal client profile. Friends, I have to tell you, I will live and die with this belief. If we don't know who we're targeting, we will never attract them. And I understand we want to build the biggest business in the shortest amount of time.

14:11We want to have the highest revenue in the shortest amount of time with the least amount of friction. And we have to think opposite of what we've been trained to. The more specific our offer becomes, the more in tune it will be with a person who is willing to buy in that moment. Okay, before you start a podcast, you should evaluate if it makes sense for your audience. Here's a couple things that you can ask yourself to see, hey, am I ready for this? Is my audience ready for this? Question number one, is my audience currently listening to podcasts? If so, which podcast are they listening to? You know, how often are they listening to them?

14:51What makes that podcast interesting to them? Really put yourself in their shoes to understand their passion or non-passion for podcasting. The second question you can ask yourself, what are their interests or what are they struggling with? And can that be answered with an audio-only platform? Maybe Q &A is really great for me to extend my business here. Now, the third question is, how can podcasting help you connect and serve your audience better? Like, I want you to take at least five minutes, answer those questions. It will help make it so much more clear if you should be starting a podcast at this time.

15:25Now, let's go back to our wedding photographer and see, hey, how can she answer these questions? Now, the reason why the team and I have been putting examples in here is because I've been getting DMs and sometimes on our customer success team, people will ask follow-up questions to the podcast. And even though I can't create examples for every industry, for every business owner, what I want to do is I want to use an example and then I want you to find yourself within the example? What are the similarities? What are the differences? The goal in this podcast has always been, let's get to action.

15:56Can you start synthesizing yourself in my story or in the examples that we're using to say, oh, okay, I get it. Now I'm going to sharpen my learning curve. Okay. So if we go back to this wedding photographer, and we're also going to do the example of the yoga teacher, right? We're saying positive, affirmative, where are you on the spectrum? So the wedding photographer would answer the first question, is my ideal audience currently listening to podcasts? If so, which ones and how often? Now her target audience is brides within a 40 mile radius. If they're listening to podcasts, it's probably not about wedding photography.

16:30Now, if she decided to become an educator in the wedding photography space, that would be another story. Hey, does that sound familiar? You know, it's like I was a wedding photographer and I started teaching other wedding photographers. In that regard, I think a podcast would have been great. A podcast teaching other wedding photographers would be much more in alignment than saying a bride listening to a podcast around wedding photography. But right now, local brides, they wouldn't find this wedding photographer by her podcasting, or at least not many of them. Now, the second question, what are their interests?

17:05Like the brides, like what are their interests and pain points that can be answered with an audio only platform like podcasting? Well, her ideal client's pain points is that that bride wants like the details of her wedding day to be captured and wants a stress-free experience. These needs and desires, I don't know if they're gonna be really solved by explaining that all in a podcast. It'd be much easier in an email, in a PDF, on a social media post. Now, the third question this wedding photographer asks herself is how can podcasting help you connect and serve with this audience better? At this time, podcast probably wouldn't be serving her target audience at all.

17:38but maybe she could reevaluate this in the future as her business evolves. Now we're gonna do the same thing with the yoga teacher to see how he would answer these questions. So he asked himself, is my ideal client currently listening to podcasts? Yes, his ideal client, which consists of people interested in learning more about yoga, listening to podcasts about mindfulness and meditation and practicing. Now they're listening to the yoga podcast and mindful moments probably on a weekly basis. This is a good sign for him. Question two, what are their interest and pain points that can be answered with my podcast?

18:13Well, their pain points are related to stress, lack of work-life balance, and this is amazing. You can absolutely be effective through audio only with discussions and guided sessions. Now, the last question, how can podcasting help me connect and serve this audience better? Okay, I think at this point, you're probably sold. You know, the yoga teacher, he needs a podcast. But anyway, he could serve and connect with his audience by building community and providing them with consistent episodes that feel like reliable resources. So the first step of this framework is to identify your business goals.

18:47The second is to consider your target audience. And the third is to assess your time and resources. And this is where I need to get very honest with you. And then you need to get honest with yourself and ask how much time you're willing to commit to creating the podcast. Now, again, the top two things you are sick of me hearing say is you must find an ideal client or customer. And number two, consistency. Friends, everything you want is on the other side of consistency. If you want to run a marathon, being consistent, running a little bit every day is going to get you there. If you would like to learn how to bake the perfect souffle, practicing with consistency is going to help you not have it fall when the time really matters.

19:37If you want to lose weight, consistently meal planning, upping your protein and working out is going to get you there. Just like these things in life, consistency when it comes to podcasting is really important because this is where it really matters. And I want to be very clear. Podcasting is the long game, period. period. Like there's no hacks for it. Like the results for podcasting aren't immediate. And that's why we're spending time deciding if this is the right decision for you and your business. But for me, this show has been incredibly rewarding. I have deep connections with people I only know online.

20:25People who are sending me direct messages on Instagram and giving feedback on the show about things they really like or things that they didn't find that pertinent in their business, I trust them now to speak into the show. I feel like this has become a creative expression. And now I feel like I have a totally different community. Like I understand that by making decisions to create different types of content on this show, I am pushing some people away. But when I am pushing some people away talking about mindset and strategy and high level business things, it also means that I am drawing others closer.

21:02I'm doing one of two things with this podcast. I am either attracting you closer in my orbit or I'm repelling you. I only want to attract or repel. And this podcast has given me the framework to do that. Also, I'm going to say it again. Of all the projects that I have worked on for my personal brand, this podcast is called the Jasmine Starr Show. It is an extension of my personal brand. Of all the things that I've ever done for my personal brand, the podcast has been the hardest and the slowest thing to grow. Now, I know that there are strategies that I can deploy, and I do believe I want to start leveraging this in 2024.

21:42I'm not going to talk about what the strategies are because I haven't done them. I will give you a high level view of what you could do to expedite your growth on a podcast is you can start running ads to your most popular podcast episodes on social media to see people who will click through. You can also have a way and a strategy to be a featured guest on other podcasts so people become very aware of what your podcast is. You can also send emails to your audience around what that podcast is and be dropping. And so all of these are going to be opportunities. I just haven't had enough time and bandwidth, nor do I have the team size.

22:24I absolutely know that if we were to monetize the podcast, if we were to run ads, that that money would empower me to hire somebody on the team that would help us lift the load for the podcast. I do think that, you know, going into year five, you know, we're not quite there yet, but I think that that's going to be a really great time to reevaluate how much time, money, and energy we've poured into the podcast and then asking ourselves, can we hire to get us where we want to go? And if we hire, where are we getting that money from? Right. And so all of that's coming. I want to be transparent with that.

22:56We have no plans of monetizing now, but it doesn't mean that it's not going to be in the future. However, if it does happen, it's because we want to expand in very different ways. We want to serve more people in better ways and also find a way that it still remains a creative place of joy. Okay. Going back, let's get back on track. I would plan, go into creating a schedule and planning. Okay, so I would plan for podcasting on a weekly basis. I really genuinely think that's where you're going to see a big difference. Your audience wants a level of consistency. And so if you are planning on podcasting on a weekly basis, I would probably plan two to three hours if you keep your podcast simple.

23:36Now, there are some people who can go off the top of their head, podcast for like 30 minutes, and then write show notes and upload it, and they can get it done in an hour, hour and a half. I'm not one of those people. I need a little bit more structure. So it's going to take me about two or three weeks. And that's keeping it super simple. Number two, the second thing I want you to remember is I would schedule each episode to be aired around the same day of the week. Like, you know, like shout out to your favorite TV show in the 90s. Do you guys remember TGIF? Like Urkel, Full House? Like they appeared every Friday without fail.

24:12And like, I was excited knowing when my favorite show was going to come on. Why? It was consistent. I want your show to be consistent. I want you to be the future Urkel. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I want you to be Uncle Jesse. Have mercy. Okay, y 'all, Do you guys get that reference? Come on, Uncle Jesse, who does not love John Stamos? I'm sorry. I know he's doing Greek yogurt commercials. I will forgive him because it's Uncle Jesse, y 'all. Okay. Anyway, getting back on track. Another thing to remember is that you don't need, I don't care what anybody says, you don't need anything but your smartphone to start your podcast.

24:52Now, of course you can get fancy. You can totally do it. Please, please. But you can also do it on your smartphone. You can always plug your headphones in and record a podcast episode, period, the end. And I also want you to remember that podcasting is a very popular space, especially now. But I also want to remind people that less than 10%, less than 10 % of all podcasts on Apple have made it past episode 10. Okay. There are tens of thousands of podcasts. Less than 10 % of all podcasts have made it past episode 10. And here's another stat of that 10 % that makes it past 10 episodes. Only 10 % of that 10 % makes it past a hundred episodes.

25:49Friends, podcasting is for the consistent. You have the opportunity for the lion's share if you simply decide not to be part of the 10 % and then decide again not to be part of the second 10%. So here are two questions I would consider about your time and your resources. Number one, is this something I'm willing to commit to for at least a year? Question number two, do I have two to three hours a week to commit to production? These questions right here, simplest way to help you figure out if this is what you're ready to do. The fourth and final step to deciding if creating a podcast is right for your business is to make the decision.