Now for this special 200th episode, I’ve got a juicy episode for you today.
I’m going to be giving you my 10 biggest lessons from having a podcast that is now 200 episodes strong. So let’s jump on in – I’ve got a lot of stuff to share with you today.
For those of you who don’t know, the Heart-Centred Business podcast actually started as a podcast called #ladyposse on the 7th of May 2016.
So the podcast bit has been running for almost four years now and was started whilst I was actually living in Bali. I started the Heart-Centred Business podcast because I really loved listening to podcasts myself. And I really felt like it was a beautiful, intimate way to connect with my audience as well as provide great business advice.
We use the podcasts not only for solo shows, but also to do interviews called “Spotlight Series” interviews. And you will be pleased to know we’ve got lots of extra juicy Spotlight Series interviews coming back onto the podcast in the coming months as well.
The Heart-Centred Business podcast has been around for almost four years now. And over that time, I’ve learned some really big lessons about podcasting, content creation and even business growth as it relates to my podcast as well.
So I’ve compiled my 10 biggest lessons for you and I want to share them with you today. So let’s get started, shall we?
1. Consistency.
Consistency will beat “flash and crash” strategies so many times. I cannot stress enough that consistency is a critical thing when it comes to creating a podcast.
I know for myself, there have been times where I have taken a break from podcasting altogether – there have been times where we’ve had five or six episodes all come out at once and then nothing for a few months.
And they have been times when the podcast is coming out every single week, without fail, on time. And those times have probably been less often than the inconsistent times.
But I know that when it comes out every week and I am consistent with it, that is when the podcast does best. Now, there are a number of different reasons for this, but the biggest reason is that if people are subscribing to this podcast, and they don’t get a fresh podcast in their feed over the course of 30 days, then that podcast actually sinks down on their list, and when a new podcast episode comes out, a lot of people may have unsubscribed.
I saw this in my most recent period away from podcasting, when we were overhauling everything behind the scenes in my business in May 2019. I made a conscious decision to not release any podcast episodes until we’d gotten the entire system working, my new website was up, and we knew that the podcast episodes I created would actually get released.
So I ended up taking about six to seven months off from podcasting. And I think we actually ended up with nine months of no podcast episodes released, and when we came back, whereas we would normally have over 300 instant downloads of every podcast episode because of the subscribers, that dropped down to about 150.
Because of this, over the last few months, I’ve needed to really rebuild the podcast listener audience and the subscribers. Being consistent is of course going to be a priority moving forward.
Now the great news is that for you as a listener, you will be able to predictably know that on every Monday you will receive a new episode of the Heart-Centred Business podcast in your feed. And if we need to release more than one episode a week, we will do that. But the Monday one stands.
The consistency part of creating and releasing podcasts has been really critical for the growth of this podcast.
And I have no hesitation in saying that if those 200 episodes had actually come out on the same day, every week, over the last 200 weeks, I would have way more followers and subscribers to this podcast, I would have way more reviews on this podcast and I would have way more business coming from this podcast as well.
So hand on heart, I know that I have not nailed the consistency part of this podcast. For the short periods that I have, I’ve definitely seen that it’s had a bigger impact on my business and in particular, the growth of my mailing list in my business as well.
All of that being said, I would love if you have a moment to jump on over into the iTunes podcast app, and give this podcast a review. I haven’t had a review on the podcast, I think for over 18 months now. So if you do listen to the Heart-Centred Business podcast if you love it, and even if you don’t, I would love to get your review.
It’s always great to get real, meaningful feedback from people. And I do go and read those reviews. So please make sure that you go and review it if you haven’t done so yet.
And if you haven’t subscribed, make sure you subscribe, because now you can know and trust that you’re going to get a new podcast episode into your feed every Monday.
2. Practice, not Perfect.
I really do think I completely embrace this. When I first started releasing this podcast, and even to this day, it’s still practice. It’s not perfect.
I knew that there were certain standards of quality of podcasts that you would want to be aiming for, certain standards of equipment that everyone else was using, and I felt a lot of worry – What if my sound quality isn’t good enough? What if my podcast quality isn’t good enough? What if my editing isn’t good enough?
When I first started this podcast back in 2016, it was actually standard practice that you would take out all of the “ums” and “uhs,” and all of the “whitespace” in the podcast. You would cut it so that it was a completely clean, uninterrupted conversation, and it was completely and perfectly polished.
You would have the perfect sound, and you would tweak the sound and make sure every single background noise was reduced, and you would have the highest quality of microphones, and you’d have the highest quality of everything, and you would use a third party person to do all the editing.
And I made the decision to go ahead with the podcast without all of that stuff.
I just decided I wanted to get started. And when I first started recording my podcast, I recorded it using my apple headphones that I got for free with my iPhone. And I was using the voice memos app on my iPhone and just recording it as audio files.
That’s how #ladyposse started as a podcast. Over the years, I have made some changes – Now we have the video version of the podcast, and then it gets turned into an audio version, and it also now gets transcribed so people can read the podcast.
But honestly, if I hadn’t started back when I started, then my commitment to consistency that I now have wouldn’t be as strong, and I would have waited and waited and waited. It’s about “practice not perfect.”
To this day I still don’t edit my podcast episodes for anything around sound quality or background noise or any of those sorts of things. I literally just do it as a one take using the photo booth on my computer.
And I only just got that if you’re watching on video, you will see me pointing to it, if you’re listening on the audio, I’m pointing to a new microphone.
I only just got this microphone – and this is the first podcast episode in which I’m using this microphone. It’s not even that fancy of a microphone, it cost me under $200. And I actually bought it because I wanted the pop filter in the foamy thing more than I wanted anything else, to ensure that the sound quality of the podcast was getting better as we went along.
So don’t worry about getting it perfect. Just treat this as an opportunity to practice. Treat this as an opportunity to show up and share with your audience. And I wouldn’t be worrying about any of the editing or anything like that.
One of the things that people say about why they love this podcast so much is that they hear me taking a breath and there are pauses in it. And it feels like we’re actually having a conversation, not listening to a robot reading a perfectly manicured script.
I don’t use a script for my podcast, I talk from the heart, from my brain – I just talk naturally. And I think people really appreciate that.
Most people who subscribe definitely appreciate that. And the people who would prefer that more scripted and structured, no “ums” and “uhs” and all those things, they listen to other podcasts and that is totally okay. I’m not for everyone. And I totally understand that.
3. Finding my voice.
This has been a huge lesson for me from this podcast. Over the years, I have felt more and more comfortable talking about the way I do business, talking about my beliefs about online business, teaching my tools, my strategies, and coming up with my own models and ways of explaining things.
It has been such an amazing practice and it has been such an amazing opportunity for me to clarify my thoughts. I am an extrovert. So I think with my mouth, not with my brain, and this podcast has allowed me to think with an audience and create things in a way that other people can understand it.
And it’s through the podcast episodes that I have refined and created some of my greatest models and practices that I teach, both here and also for my clients.
In putting together a podcast episode, I need to think, “okay, if I was going to teach someone who isn’t working with me VIP, logically how to do this, what would be the steps?” I have to map it out, do my research, and get really clear on the way that I’m going to be sharing it. And then I record the podcast episode.
For me, this has actually been an amazing opportunity to find my voice, to get really clear on what I do stand for and what I’m not going to stand for. And I’ve absolutely loved and adored it.
It’s been really interesting to me, because the more I create great podcast content, the more feedback and engagement I get from you, the listeners. And that has been an amazing opportunity for me to refine what I’m talking about.
People ask questions or they ask me to clarify something, or they come into the Heart-Centred Soul Driven Entrepreneurs group and share their “hashtag podcast Aha.” And sometimes that podcast “aha” is really surprising for me because it wasn’t exactly what I was saying, but I totally see where they got it from, and it’s amazing, and I totally agree with them.
So it’s been a really amazing time for me to find my voice. I would encourage you if you are listening along, if you are not in the habit of creating consistent content, even if you’re not an extrovert like me, creating some form of consistent content really does help you to find your voice and find where you stand on the matter.
For a lot of people, their biggest resistance is “I don’t know what to say.” The best way to work out what to say is to start putting something out there, and practice just speaking to your audience.
Speak for your audience, teach people something that you would teach them in a one to one conversation, and you will be surprised at how quickly you can find your voice and the thing that you want to speak up for in your niche as well.
4. Numbers do not lie.
If you are creating consistent content, make sure you are consistently reviewing what numbers you are getting on each of your episodes. So whether you’re doing things on YouTube or you share a Facebook Live once a week, and that is your meaty piece of content for each week, go back and look at what gets the most reach.
Keep track of those numbers. Because of all podcast episodes of mine, podcast episode number 147 on how to increase your prices has been consistently viewed and is still getting the most clicks on my website of anything else.
It is so interesting to see which things get the most clicks and the most interest from my followers, and even the most interest from non-followers i.e. cold traffic. It has been absolutely fascinating to see.
Over the last few months we’ve been reviewing this in depth, and the two biggest things that people want from me are sales (sales advice, sales structure, sales conversations – anything with the word sales in it), and things that are “How To’s,” like how to increase your prices, how to conduct a sales conversation (that was a really big one), how to start a podcast, how to grow your reach, and how to build an audience.
I am going to be very clear in the future to ensure that I’m talking about those things more consistently on this podcast, because the numbers are telling me that’s what my listeners are looking for.
So numbers don’t lie. Make sure that you are keeping track of those things and reviewing them consistently. Because your audience will tell you what they want from you.
5. Start with what you have.
This hearkens back to the equipment thing – just use the equipment that you have to get started.
Don’t go out and buy eleventy billion things. You can get started with your headphones with a microphone in them. I always say there are millions of dollars of research that goes into those Apple headphones. The microphone has really good background noise reduction, it has really good pop filtering. You just want to keep it a little bit away from your face so that you’re not like this close and speaking really closely. But it is a really good quality microphone.
Just start with that – start with the voice memos app on your phone. If that’s all you have, just start with it.
You’re better off to get started now with what you have, and keep building and being consistent, rather than waiting to be able to afford all of the crazy amazing setups that you see that other people might have.
You don’t need to have all of that in order to get started.
6. Simplify the content.
This lesson came in a big way for me in 2017. After the Heart-Centred Business Conference in September 2017 I was doing a review of my business and I decided to merge my blog with my podcast.
Up until then, I actually released a video blog AND a podcast episode every week, but I did them separately. The podcast was audio only, and it was one topic. And then the video blog, which was on YouTube and my website, was a different topic – every single week.
I had two tabs on my website – one was blog and one was podcast. And I was completely inconsistent with it because it was really hard to keep up creating two really big, long-form pieces of content every week.
Also, I felt like it was really confusing that in order for people to get all of the things I was sharing each week, they needed to watch a video blog, listen to a podcast episode, and watch the five or six live videos I was doing every single week.
Back then, I was doing periscope videos, as well as Facebook Lives. I was also doing some video content that was on YouTube, but it wasn’t a blog because it wasn’t as long. There were “quick tips with Tash” and all sorts of things.
There was just so much content going out everywhere.
The biggest shift I made that was so powerful for me was to simplify down to ONE thing a week, and that was my podcast episode. I record it as a video, and the audio goes onto iTunes, the video goes on to YouTube, and then everything goes on to my website with a transcript so that people can read it if they want.
So there’s one piece of content each week, but that one piece of content is really juicy. It’s well produced. It’s well thought out. It’s in response to what people are looking for from me, and I do a much better job of it.
The biggest surprise for me when I when I did that was the feedback that I got from my audience. It was “oh my goodness, thank goodness you’re doing this.”
I didn’t realize my audience was finding it overwhelming to chase me around the internet to get access to all of the different things that I was speaking about.
Actually, for a lot of people, it was the reason that they hadn’t signed up to do the TakeOff program, or signed up to work with me – because they still had a backlog of hundreds of pieces of content they had been studiously saving to go back and watch later.
So it was such a smart decision for my business, and for my energy, but it was also really well received by my audience.
Having a podcast is a great way to just focus on one thing – one piece of juicy content that you’re releasing every single week.
7. Distribution.
This is probably the one where I feel most like I’ve robbed myself of growth in my business, of really building my audience, and also really growing what I’m doing here.
For a lot of my podcast episodes, they were never ever shared publicly. They were put onto iTunes, they were put up as podcast episodes, but they were never distributed. So for those people who subscribed to the podcast, they got it. But if people weren’t subscribed, they never knew that podcast episode ever existed.
Out of the 200 episodes of this podcast, at least 50 of them have never been shared with my mailing list. At least 50 of them have never been shared on Facebook. And I really feel like I let my podcast down by not having that all taken care of.
It’s a big lesson for me moving forward in making sure that all pieces of that process are working really effectively.
If you do follow me on Facebook or in the Heart-Centred Soul Driven Entrepreneurs group, you will see that more and more I’ll be sharing podcast episodes from earlier in my podcast journey, because I really feel like I’ve robbed my audience of seeing those episodes and knowing that they existed.
From here, the distribution of my podcast will be something that I’m paying very close attention to.
To be honest with you, sometimes the distribution didn’t happen because I thought I had outsourced it and it just wasn’t being done.
Sometimes the distribution of my podcast didn’t happen because the communication links with my team were down, and I wasn’t actually proactively letting them know – “This podcast episode is ready to be shared. Please make sure it gets scheduled up.”
There were lots of different broken cogs in the wheel of things that were not working in the process and they have been fixed. We’re working on it even more consistently now. And we will be sharing some of the backlog of those podcast episodes with my audience.
But as a minimum, every podcast episode will be shared with the people who are subscribed to my mailing list, and every podcast episode will make it to Facebook as well. Even just getting those tiny pieces working is a really critical part of the podcast process.
So if you’re going to go to the effort of creating a podcast and creating consistent content, please, please make sure that you also then close the loop on that and consistently distribute it to your audience, whether that be sending it out to your mailing list, or posting on Facebook, or scheduling it out to be re-shared on Facebook, or best case scenario, all three of those things.
Please do make sure that you take care of the distribution of your content, not just the creation.
8. Freebie mania.
This lesson came from me seeing other podcasters create a new content upgrade for every single podcast episode and feeling like I needed to do the same.
I think this really first started with the thriving of Amy Porterfield’s. podcast. I think she still to this day has a new freebie for every single podcast episode.
However, she has a huge team. She doesn’t create the freebies herself. And she doesn’t do any of the other parts of her podcast process. All she does is record the podcast episodes. And most of the time, what podcast episode she creates is dictated by her marketing team.
This was a big lesson for me. I thought that I needed to follow that model. I had seen a lot of different podcasters – not just Amy – do this and have lots and lots of different freebies. A freebie for every single podcast episode.
But to be honest with you, that’s why a lot of the time my podcast episodes were so slow to come out, because creating a podcast episode wasn’t as simple as sitting down and recording the podcast (which is my zone of genius and the thing that I’m really good at), but then I also needed to create a freebie to go with it, and then it needed to have an opt-in form, and an email sequence.
It needed to have all of these other pieces of the puzzle to go together. And it was all the other pieces of the puzzle that was slowing down the process.
So in May 2019, when I completely wiped my website and started again from scratch, I wiped all of the freebies away as well.
On all podcast episodes, you’ll see a note that says the freebies or resources mentioned in this podcast may no longer be available. But that was a decision that I needed to make in order to just give myself some breathing space, and free myself from this rod for my own back that I had created of this expectation that every podcast episode would have a freebie with it.
And again, lots of people actually said to me that the reason why they didn’t buy anything from me was they had this bank of freebies that they’d saved up and downloaded and they still hadn’t done those. So why would they join my program if they still hadn’t used the free resources that I had made available.
These days my freebie repertoire is much, much smaller. There is no freebie attached to this particular podcast episode, although I do have a super juicy little challenge that I’m going to set for you, and you can win yourself a prize – super fun.
But I have taken the pressure off myself to create a whole new freebie for every single episode. And in fact, I have been able to whittle it down to the freebies that are the most valuable for my audience, as well as most likely for my audience to move to the point where they are ready, willing and able to invest in joining one of my programs or working with me.
That is the job of the freebies, after all. Freebies are actually better for my audience and better for my business now that I’ve focused down on just a select handful.
So if you feel like in order to create a podcast, you need to have eleventy billion freebies that go with every single thing, just chill out, relax. You definitely don’t need to do that. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t.
9. Asking for the sale.
I cannot believe that I’m still learning this lesson, even though it’s something that I teach other people over and over again. (#coachesneedcoaches).
Whilst I am quite consistent in talking about my specific freebies that I have on the podcast, I don’t often talk about my programs and courses.
I don’t often talk about how people can pay to work with me – it’s very rare that I will promote the TakeOff program on my podcast, for example. It’s very rare that I’ll go into the details of outcomes that people have achieved in the programs or those deliverables that people are able to access by joining my programs.
I don’t often talk about the benefits of the TakeOff program consistently on the podcast. Now that has it’s benefits, but it also does have its downsides.
Over the last few months and coming into the future, I will talk a little bit more about what my programs involve and what they include and who they are for. It won’t necessarily be doing the hardcore pitching on the podcast because I think the value of the podcast is the free resources and information that I share, but for some people, they are curious about how they can keep working with me.
So you’ll hear a little bit more about the TakeOff program, you’ll hear a little bit more about the Academy, and you’ll definitely be hearing more about the Heart-Centred Business Conference as we go forward with this podcast as well.
Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale on your own podcast.
And please don’t use me as your role model of how often to talk about your paid products and services. Because I think that I err on the side of too little and I’m going to be talking about it a bit more moving forward.
10. Get specific.
This is a big one for me, and it actually is something that has happened as a result of creating the podcast and being more consistent with it.
Whenever you go to create a new piece of content – whether that’s your first ever webinar, or your first ever podcast episode, or your first ever video blog, or your first ever Facebook Live – there is so much pressure on that first episode to really hit the mark on all of the things that you need to say with the world.
But honestly, I don’t think anyone is equipped to hear all that I have to say, all at once. I don’t think it’s in anyone’s best interest for me to try and jam everything that I believe and every piece of advice that I have and every single thought that I have about online marketing into one thing.
By being consistent with my podcast, it allows me to get down into the detail and get hyper specific about certain things that I want to teach or I want to say on this podcast.
It’s a really great way for me to niche more effectively, be of more service, get really practical, and get specific about the things that I think people can be doing more effectively in their business to get more money, to get more clients, to make more sales.
If you have been holding back in your content because you believe if you talk about A but don’t talk about B, C, D and E that you’re not really serving your audience fully because you’re only sharing part of the story, I want this to be a permission slip for you.
Just because in some podcast episodes, I don’t talk about feminine business, or feminist business, or stepping away from fear-based marketing, or pain-point marketing, or those sorts of things, that doesn’t mean I’m not being of service in all of my podcast episodes.
In my “How to raise your prices” podcast episode number 147, I am talking about very practical, specific tangible steps that you can take to raise your prices in your business, when to do it, and how to make it a win-win for your audience.
And I don’t get ranty about feminist business in that, but because I’m talking about how to raise your prices, people are more likely to be raising their prices and doing it in a way that grows their business.
It is actually a brilliant opportunity for me to be of service. And so what happens is that the collective of all of these podcast episodes is actually a perfect expression of the Tash Corbin business model of heart-centred, soul-driven business – of what the ladyposse is all about.
It’s the combination of all of these things that creates that overarching message. So don’t be afraid if you are putting out content, if you’re thinking of putting a podcast together, don’t be afraid to just tell little parts of the story, piece by piece, by being really practical, specific and tangible. Again, you’re probably going to be of more service to your audience if you do it that way. How cool is that?
So don’t feel this pressure to say all the things every single time – sometimes you can just solve one really minor, really practical challenge that someone has for today. That is totally cool.
And in fact, they’ll love you for it, because if they are experiencing that problem, you’ve just solved it. And we didn’t have to get a lecture from you on all the eleventy billion other things that you’ve been meaning to say.
Those are my 10 best lessons from 200 episodes of the Heart-Centred Business podcast /#ladyposse when it first started, and I’m going to recap those 10 for you again. I’ll also have them in the show notes of this episode, which you can find at tashcorbin.com/200.
But before I do a little recap, I also want to invite you to come into the Heart-Centred Soul Driven Entrepreneurs group, using the #200pods.
I would love to hear from you: What’s the number one thing that you’ve learned from these podcasts?
I’m going to be going and reviewing and listening and reading all of your reviews and all of the things that you’ve learned from the podcast.
And I am going to pick one of you to win a free VIP intensive with me as my thank you!
So all you need to do is go into the Heart-Centred Soul Driven Entrepreneurs group, use #200pods and share with me what has been your number one lesson that you’ve learned from listening to the Heart-Centred Business podcast.
Now if you can refer to the podcast episode number when you do – extra bonus points to you.
And you can of course then give everyone the link to that podcast episode by using tashcorbin.com/podcast number because that’s always going to be the podcast episode number. So do if you can share the link to that podcast episode (youdon’t have to in order to be in the running).
I’m going to read through all of your lessons. If I see any patterns, I will make sure that I do future podcast episodes to continue the conversation on that topic as well.
In order to be in the running, you just need to share your #200pods biggest lesson before the 15th of May 2020. So if you’re listening along to this after the 15th of May, it’s closed, but you can still come and let me know what your #200pods biggest lesson has been.
If you do share before the 15th of May, you will be in the running to win a VIP intensive with me. And I will be doing a Facebook Live and announcing the winner on my Facebook page after the 15th of May.
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Heart-Centred Business podcast. In review, here are the 10 biggest lessons from 200 podcast episodes:
- Consistency.
- Practice not perfect.
- Finding my voice.
- The numbers don’t lie.
- Start with what you have.
- Simplify, especially when it comes to content.
- Distribute.
- Freebie mania. Let’s not go there.
- Ask for the sale
- Get specific.
If you have any other insights and “aha’s” from this episode, make sure that you use #podcastaha, when talking about it in the Heart-Centred Soul Driven Entrepreneurs group, and I always love seeing any questions or aha that come up from each episode.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
