TPU EP02: Launching a Podcast – 3 Important questions to answer Before You do it

3 QUESTIONS BEFORE LAUNCHING A PODCAST

So, you are ready to launch your podcast. Right?

Hold on He-Man. We have a few more things to do before you get onto the Podcasting bandwagon, which is what we will be discussing today.

Before we set out to launch the podcast, there are a few key questions that you need to answer. And answering these questions are important in marketing your podcast.

“Marketing” – I am not good at marketing, you would say..

That reminds me of this one story.. There was this one guy who was mentoring with me and in one of the sessions, i told him that he will have to sell products.

And he immediately said, “Sales. Dilip, I cannot sell. I am not a salesman. I am extremely bad at selling and I know I will never be able to succeed at selling”.

So, I asked him to explain to me why he wouldn’t be able to sell. And he went onto tell me about what all are the problems in selling, why his skills doesn’t match that of a sales man etc.

I was staring at him all the time. After a few seconds, he asked me, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

I responded, “I am amazed at your selling skills”. Shocked, he asked “Selling?”

And I said, “Yes, buddy. You just sold me your idea of not being able to sell. You were extremely convincing in your pitch”.

He sat there silent for a few minutes. And then asked, “Ok. What should I sell?”

So, back to our discussion on marketing your podcast.

You don’t need to go door-to-door to market your podcast. Instead, you need to take your podcast to people who might be interested in what you want to say. That is the marketing you will have to do.

And most of it happens on social media and through some of the distribution channels. We will be discussing more about distribution channels a little while later.

And we will also be talking more about how to market your podcast.

But for now.

3 Questions Before Launching a Podcast

Let us look at those key questions that you need to answer before your start your podcast? We are going to look at 3 basic questions, that will be the foundation in launching your podcast.

The first question is about the reason for launching a podcast.

Why do you want to launch a podcast?

In order to answer this we will broadly categorize podcasts into 2 categories, based on their purpose. They are –

1. Podcasting as part of a business project – to grow an existing one or, launch a new one. This could be an extension of an already existing business of yours. You might just be looking for an alternative channel to expose your business or, services.
2. Podcasting as a hobby – I have come across quite a few podcasters who are doing it as a hobby/side-hustle. Now the point to keep in mind here is that this could be just a hobby with no intention of earning out of it or, you could even look at it as an earning opportunity in the future.

Most of the story telling podcasts, shero-shayari podcasts etc. fall into this second category, where most business podcasts like Smart Passive Income Podcast by Pat Flynn and even my own Podcast, “The DKSpeaks Podcast“, falls into the first category.

Time Commitment for Your Podcast

The second question is – How much time can you set aside every week to create and manage your podcasts?

There is some amount of work involved in creating a podcast like putting together the concept, recording, editing, publishing and promoting etc. And this will need some time.

How much of time you have on hand will determine the frequency of your shows, the length, the format etc.

This in turn will also depend upon your objective of getting into the entire podcasting thingy.

For example, if you are doing it as part of your business project, then you will surely be able to squeeze out some time every week.

But if you are doing it as a hobby, then it is not an income generation method for you. So finding time for your podcasts can mean realigning your daily activities, prioritizing your day and then finding some time to do all of the podcasting related activities.

When you are planning to run the show as a hobby, there is a tendency of procrastinating and skipping the show because that comes the lowest on your priorities.

While this is ok once in a while when it is unavoidable, frequently doing it can be a disaster for the show.

Hence committing yourself to the show is important and for that to happen, you need to plan in advance on how much time you are willing to dedicate to the show.

What Your Budget for the Podcast?

The third question is – What is your budget?

Now, that’s probably one of the most complicated questions to ask and also to answer.

I know that about 90% of you would have started to think – “Oh! so this involves money”.

I also know that this is the exit point for a lot of people.

Let me just mention 2 things here –

First, you necessarily need not have a budget to start a podcast. These days you get almost all the services and tools required for recording and launching your podcast almost free of cost.

Hubhopper has quite a few tools that is all FREE of cost right now, we will be discussing about this in a later episode.

In fact if you have a laptop, 75% of the logistics is taken care off.

Secondly, you need to understand that even if you are planning to launch your podcast as a hobby, there is some amount of monetary commitment required for a hobby too.

Can you think of one hobby where you don’t need some money to pursue it?

Painting, Philately, Music etc. everything needs money – money to buy the tools and in fact even to pursue the hobby.

So, some money to invest would be good.

But if you don’t have any right now and need time to decide if you want to, then no worries. We can still start. But whatever it is, that question needs to be answered.

Setting Some Basic Expectations

Now that we have these foundational questions answered, let us set some basic expectations.

Long back when I was starting my first stint as a manager, my mentor told me something about managing people, which I remember even to this day.

He said,

Children crave for attention and adults crave for appreciation

This is so true.

We adults are so much craving for appreciation which is why we do a lot of things the way we do it and in fact which is why we do a lot of things.

Now, imagine if you are starting a podcast, let me say a hobby podcast of your poems and no one listens to it or, appreciates it.

How long will you feel like continuing?

Not for long, right?

Exactly.

That is because when you started your podcast, your objective was to get appreciated..

Imagine a motivational speaker who has no listeners and who never saw anybody coming to him and thanking him for his talks, unless he is doing it only for money.

So, appreciation is quite critical to staying motivated to produce your podcasts.

And I have a nice way of ensuring that it keeps coming, which is something we will discuss a little while later.

But for now, something that you need to keep in mind is that any hobby can stay a hobby for only a little while, if it doesn’t make you money.

This is the same with podcasts as well.

At some point, you will start craving for a different kind of appreciation – monetary appreciation.

I remember one of this person who had joined my blogging course and had booked a 1×1 session with me.

He had started a blog and published about 3 basic posts. He gets on the call and the first question that he asks me is, “Dilip, I have published 3 posts. Now how do I monetize it? How do I make money with the blog now?”

Because we think making money on the internet is like posting a selfie on Facebook or, Instagram. You post it and you get 10 people clicking on the like button and before we know we have about 250 likes on the photograph.

But that isn’t true!

While we know that conventionally making money is not easy, we think the internet is like a click and earn system.

But it isn’t like that. Just like everything else, making money isn’t that easy. It needs a lot of careful planning and execution.

So, if you are in it with the expectation that you are going to make money by the 2nd week of launching your podcast, then this is not for you.

And if you think that you will launch a hobby podcast and 6 months down the line, expect money to be coming into your bank accounts, that too wouldn’t happen.

Because like what I said, for that to happen you need very careful planning.

Hence, it is important that you be very clear with your objective.

And keep one thing in mind, that everything makes money. We will talk more about it in the next post along with some more basics in podcasting.

Now, if I have scared you a lot, then please don’t be. My goal is not to scare you but to set realistic expectation so that you start on the right foot.

Before I go, 3 things that you can do as an assignment for this episode, if you are thinking of starting a podcast.

• Answer each of the above questions and write them down on a sticky note.
• Then set a goal for your podcast. What do you want to achieve in 3 months, 6 months and 12 months.
• Stick it in front of you at your workstation, so that you can see that everyday.

We will talk more about the basics and some nice little tips in the next post.

Do comment below and tell me your thoughts about this week’s episode. Also do subscribe to the show on Hubhopper to stay updated with the latest episodes.