The First Step(s) of Every New Podcast.

… is to Come Up With a Plan.

Your podcast will fail if you approach it with the mindset of “I need to get started as soon as possible, and then figure out the details along the way.”

I’ve heard the stories about Richard Branson doing that with Virgin Airlines, and other entrepreneurs doing similar things. The reality is that that is not how it works. Especially when you are creating content.

The purpose of a podcast should always be to help the listener. Whether that’s brightening their day through quality entertainment, or enlightening them with knowledge that has practical value to them.

Here are the steps to coming up with a solid foundation for your podcast.

1.) Nail Down Your Target Audience.

This is marketing advice that I have been glazing over in books, articles, and shows for years. You need to understand who your content is for.

Stop telling yourself (and others) that “your show is for everyone” and/or that you are “willing to talk about anything.”

Think about what it is that you truly know, or who it is that you can truly help.

Think about the experiences that you have in life that other people might be going through right now and that you could help them pull through.

That could be something like teenage pregnancy, or that could be something like getting through college while you are working two jobs to pay for it.

Nail down your target listener(s) before moving onto the next step.

2.) Create (and Communicate) the Mission.

Mission statements are really not just a bunch of hoo-ra that you learn about in slide presentations in college.

Having a mission is going to be what you need in order to stay on track, and to make sure that you are serving the target listener that you came up with.

On top of that, make sure that you communicate the mission with your listeners. People will get behind a good mission, but if they do not know what your mission is, how are they going to help support it?

I couldn’t tell you how many times my first show pivoted from being a show on entrepreneurship, to being a show on “fun facts”, to being a show on college advice.

It’s no wonder I had zero listener retention, and zero word of mouth advertising.

Take some time to determine what your mission is, and check yourself with it before every show. If the content you are about to cover does not fit the mission, do not press record.

3.) Build Your Content Canon, and Stay Focused on That.

This is crucial.

Once you start a podcast, you are going to get sucked into a world telling you to get on Twitter, get on LinkedIn, build an email list, start making videos, and the list just never stops.

To be successful, you need to put on the blinders and focus on what you’ve got.

I do recommend building an email list. If you can come up with a strategy to build an email list, podcast, and perhaps one social media platform at a time, then go right for it.

The trap that you need to avoid is scrambling to grow each of those individual assets with new assets.

For example, trying to use an email list to grow your podcast, and then a blog to grow your email list, and then Instagram to grow your blog, and then Twitter to grow your Instagram….

You end up in a never ending cycle of looking for people to join this thing that isn’t worth joining, because you are too focused on getting them there.

Just focus on creating good content that all works together in synergy. Then the people will come.

That Should Get You Started.

I am on a mission to help podcast hosts and podcast producers alike create better podcasts at zero cost to them. This is just a part of that.

It is highly encouraged that if you are going to start creating content, you should come up with a plan and then execute on that plan.

Make the list, call the list.

Take that from someone who took the “Start now and figure it out later” approach.

It wasn’t all bad, and I have zero regrets about doing it. That approach leads to a whole world of learning, failing, and getting up and starting all over again now.

However if I could go back and change anything, I would focus less on pumping out content, and more on actually helping someone.

If you are not in a position where you have the skills or knowledge to help a specific individual… start by acquiring those skills.

And shamelessly, if you want more with this came from… I’ll be starting to put it into a newsletter very shortly.

Don’t wait up.