Let’s face it. You’re not always up to the task of recording and editing a full episode. You might have to book a guest, do research, have a long conversation, combine audio, and more. And while that works for most of your episodes, sometimes it’s good to have a few you can produce quickly in your back pocket. Here are 5 that you should be able to record and publish with little effort.
5 Ideas You Can Record Fast
Tell a Story. Something you know well, that you can give off the cuff. This cuts down on research and scripting!
Favorite Apps / Services. People love lists and have shiny object syndrome. Again, this is something where you can jot down a few ideas and just riff about what you like!
Your Take on a Twitter Thread. The only thing people love more than opinions is opinions on opinions! Take a popular Twitter thread and put your own spin on it.
Repurpose your own Twitter Thread. Ever send off a few tweets you had some thoughts on? Take those initial thoughts and build on them.
Behind the Scenes Content. People love this. They love seeing how the sausage gets made, and it’s something you’ll know really well, cutting down on prep time.
Low Effort and High Interest
The goal behind each of these is low effort in putting together a 15-20 minute episode, that your audience will be really interested it. Plus, if you can make it timeline, you can pre-record and batch a few for weeks where you have nothing!
Podcast Booster Blueprint
Use my 10-year podcasting journey to put your podcast on the right track.
Get my free Podcast Booster Blueprint now. In this email course, I’ll walk you through 5 changes you can make in minutes to:
Attract and keep your ideal listeners
Skyrocket your downloads
Start making money (now)
No hacks. Only Real actionable tips I test for you.
If you’re in the northeast United States, you know you need to mow pretty much every week in the summer. Well recently due to rain, lack of child care, and travel, i didn’t get mow my lawn for nearly 3.
So one day, I set out to mow the very long, still kind of wet lawn. On top of that, I had to weed wack1, and take a hedge trimmer to some overgrown bushes. It was shaping up to be a big job. Something that normally takes an hour took basically all afternoon.
And because I was choosing yard work over billable work for my business, that afternoon cost me about $750.
Opportunity Cost
It was a big job. One my lawn mower couldn’t handle. Grass kept getting stuck in it. I kept having to stop and start. Weed wacking took forever. And I’ve never trimmed hedges before.
I could have paid someone far less to do faster. This is known in economics as opportunity cost. What was the cost of me choosing something I didn’t personally need to do vs. doing work that actually makes me money?
Most People Don’t See The Hidden Costs
If I hired someone to mow my lawn, they would have had better equipment to mow, weed wack, and hedge trim. They would have had more experience and therefore more skill to do the work quickly and efficiently. And they would not have charged more per hour than I charge, nor would it taken them as long.
But most people don’t see it that way. They strictly look at money in and money out. The lawn costs them nothing because no money came out of their bank account.
The people who do see this, and realize where they spend their time is directly relate to how their business grows, start to earn more.
Podcast Booster Blueprint
Use my 10-year podcasting journey to put your podcast on the right track.
Get my free Podcast Booster Blueprint now. In this email course, I’ll walk you through 5 changes you can make in minutes to:
Attract and keep your ideal listeners
Skyrocket your downloads
Start making money (now)
No hacks. Only Real actionable tips I test for you.
You Don’t Need to do Everything for Your Podcast
I know what your thinking: what does this have to do with podcasting?
Tell me if this sounds familiar: you have a great interview with a guest. Now it’s time to edit. You’re using software you’re still kind of learning. And this interview has a slightly different issue you haven’t seen before, so you’re watching YouTube videos on how to remove AC hum from your guest’s audio. You feel like you said “um” too much2 so you’re trying to remove some, but not all of them. You don’t want to sound unnatural.
Even though the interview was only 30 minutes, the edit takes 2 hours. That’s at least 3 other interviews you could have done.
Instead, you can hire an editor who, for less than $50, can do the full edit and send you back a file that sounds better than anything you’ve done.
And you need to ask yourself: Is your time worth $25/hr?
Free Up Your Time so You can Grow Your Podcast
The saying, “you gotta spend money to make money,” exists for a reason. In spending that $50, you’ve freed up your time to do more interviews. Now you have a month’s worth of content ready to go.
Instead of rushing each week to get an episode out the door, you can spend that time growing your audience by participating in Facebook groups answering relevant questions, and courting sponsors.
You can promote your show on social media.
You can turn your podcast from a money pit to a money maker.
Your Challenge
Hopefully at this point you’re thinking about opportunity cost. I want you to come up with 3 things you do for your podcast that you can hire out. THEN think about what you can do with the time you’ve freed up.
When I became a parent, there was no shortage of advice from anyone who had a kid at any point in their lives. From the most common, “sleep when the baby sleeps,” to the less common (but way more useful), “take the baby with you the first 2 months of their lives because all they do is sleep,” I was bombarded with a seemingly endless list of all the things I should and should not be doing as a freshly minted dad.
And while podcasting isn’t the same thing as being a parent, there is that same firehose of advice from everyone from people who started a podcast this week to people who’ve been doing it for 10+ years. This advice comes from a good place, but it’s easy to get overwhelmed.
When I started podcasting, I documented my journey. I wrote down the questions I had, and the answers I got. I made note of the hard parts, and the advice I didn’t get that I should have.
As a podcast coach, I check in with my students and clients. I ask them what they are struggling with. And I ask them what their revelations are, as they happen.
This list is the culmination of all of that — my 10+ years experience, and the new problems facing podcasters in 2023.
Podcasting Can Be Hard
As you start your podcast, you’ll be faced with tons of decisions to make, like format, if you should have video, what kind of gear to buy, and more. These lists should make it easier, without overwhelming.
Here are some dos and don’ts to help make your journey a little smoother.
Grow with Podcast Swaps (FREE Template)
Using Podcast Swaps, I more than doubled my monthly downloads for my already popular podcast, How I Built It, from 34,000 downloads per month to 71,000 downloads per month.
This Podcast Swap Outreach Database was integral to the process, and you can have it completely for free, in Airtable or Google Sheets:
Recently I got a question regarding creating an “episode 0” (or podcast trailer) for your podcast – namely, “do I need an episode 0, and when should I do it?” The short answer is, you should do it as soon as you know you want to have a podcast. But let’s take a deeper look at your trailer and launching your podcast.
What is a Podcast Trailer?
Basically, it’s the very first episode in your podcast feed. Most people treat it as “Episode 0” because it’s not part of the show, but it’s crucial for submitting your podcast to directories.
They usually cover the following talking points:
Name of the show
The host
What listeners can expect from the show
A very general time frame for launch
A call to subscribe (don’t miss the first episode!)
Hook the Listener
You want a structured narrative that starts with a good hook. Give potential fans a reason to keep listening.
Much like a good talk, you should start with a story to hook the listener. It can be personal, or something from pop culture.
Once you hook them, tell them how it relates and the problem you’re trying to solve with the show. Then tell them who you are, and what they can expect.
Finally, tell them to subscribe wherever they listen to podcasts.
Grow with Podcast Swaps (FREE Template)
Using Podcast Swaps, I more than doubled my monthly downloads for my already popular podcast, How I Built It, from 34,000 downloads per month to 71,000 downloads per month.
This Podcast Swap Outreach Database was integral to the process, and you can have it completely for free, in Airtable or Google Sheets:
But WHY do You Need a Podcast Trailer?
The main reason you should put out a podcast trailer is because you need at least one published episode for podcast directories, like Apple Podcasts and Spotify, to accept your feed.
And while most directories approve within a couple of days, you don’t want to have to delay your launch because your show isn’t approved yet.
But it will also introduce your show to people in a preview/low commitment way to get them interested.
When Should You Publish Your Podcast Trailer?
I recommend you do things in this order, but it’s totally up to you:
Record a couple of episodes to see if you like podcasting
Write a script for the trailer that touches on everything I listed above
Record it and publish it as soon as it’s edited
You’ll want to make sure you actually like podcasting before you officially announce your show. You don’t want to announce and never launch, so you want to make sure you’re ready with a couple of episodes.
That said, you don’t want to announce too late and delay launch.
The real take away is this: think about your show, what you want to say in the trailer to hook people and get them to subscribe, and record it.
What do you think?
Are you working on your own podcast? Have questions about recording a podcast trailer? Let me know!
