Audio is on the rise as a digital media with Amazon getting involved in streaming podcasts last year and the audio-only app Clubhouse’s popularity.
It took me a while to fall in love with podcasting and understand the value it could bring to my business and my clients’ businesses. But now I am completely hooked! So it seemed only right that for my first interview ‘deep dive’ episode, I wanted to share insights on podcasting and how it can help you grow your business, grow your reach, and grow your brand awareness.
So, I’m super excited this week to have Lynsay Gould on my show. Lynsay is a podcast and business coach and the founder of the Podcasting for Business Show. Lynsay runs a podcast production company called The Podcast Boutique and is the Podcasting for Business Awards founder. Lynsay helped me start my podcast and start the right podcast. And she’s helped hundreds of men and women start theirs too.
Here’s a special link if you want to be part of Lynsay’s challenge ‘start your podcast now!’
And get some freebies
(link here too: https://info7c7a0d.clickfunnels.com/optineu586zby?fp_ref=emma65)
So today you will learn;
- When is it a good time to start your podcast, and the right podcast?
- What are the biggest barriers?
- How you can use podcasts in your business as part of your communication strategy
- Personal learnings on how we have used a podcast in our businesses with success
- The wider and growing opportunities with audio including the Clubhouse app (sorry Andriod users you have to wait a bit for this is one!)
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You can also;
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Full Transcription
Emma Drake:
Hello, and welcome to this episode of Communication Strategy That Works with me Emma Drake. Hey everybody. How are we all doing? I wanted to do some episodes this year that were more a deep dive into particular topics. And I wanted to have some guests on the show that could help you understand that topic in more detail, and that could help you grow your business.
In addition to the weekly tips and advice I’ve been giving you over the last few weeks, as you know I’m a PR advisor and a communications expert, and it took me a while to fall in love with podcasting and understand the value it could bring to my business. But now I am completely hooked. And this for me was about the format being more accessible to me. So it seemed really fitting that for my first interview, I wanted to do something on podcasting and how it can help you grow your business and grow your reach, grow your brand awareness and help you reach a new audience.
Emma Drake:
So I’m delighted this week to have Lynsay Gould on my show, Lynsay Gould is a podcast and business coach and the founder of the Podcasting for Business Show. Lynsay runs a podcast production company called The Podcast Boutique and is the founder of the Podcasting for Business Awards. Lynsay helped me start my podcast and start the right podcasts. And she’s helped hundreds of men and women start theirs too.
Personally for me, I have used my podcast to share my knowledge and experiences because I found that writing about my business, even though I write for other people all day long, I found that focusing down and writing about my own business, for example, for blogs, et cetera, was actually really difficult. But speaking into a microphone came very naturally and it was a way of being able to download what was in my head, all this experience and all this advice and put it into a format that people could access.
Emma Drake:
The other thing is I would always advise having a number of ways people can engage with your brand product or service. And as I said, I use it as a tool to draw out the expertise in my head and transform it onto paper and digital so that I can also repurpose it and use it elsewhere, which as a solopreneur helped save me a lot of time and money. And if you’re going to start the podcast, you want to get this right. Because we’re all time poor right now and you might listen to this episode and think, “Hey, that’s not for me right now.”
But you might be really keen and really want to get it right from the start. So today Lynsay is going to lift the lid on some of those questions and opportunities, you may be wondering if you’re thinking of starting a podcast of your own, or using it as part of your communication strategy for your business. And she also has some tips and advice on getting started. Thanks for coming on to my podcast, Lynsay and welcome.
Lynsay Gould:
You’re very welcome Emma. I’m really glad to be here. And I’m excited that this is your first interview, so I feel like I’ve got an honour so thank you.
Emma Drake:
Yeah, so thanks for being my first interview as well. Don’t usually have people on the show because it’s a short episode usually. But I wanted to do a few deep dives with people and the timing worked really well for this one to look at how podcasting can really help as a communication tool in your business and help grow business. So why don’t we start with you telling us a bit about how you got into podcasting and how you ended up being host of a top-ranking show, and coach to hundreds of men and women who want to start their own podcasts.
Lynsay Gould:
So the reason I got into podcasting in the first place was that I was falling out of love with my job. I was in HR and training and although I loved the work that I was doing, I’d fallen out of love with the career path that I was on. I was looking above the job that I was in and thinking, “I don’t want that next job. I don’t know what that next step is on the rung.” Because I got into HR to help people. I loved seeing them develop and progress, but what I found was the more senior I got in my job was… it just became that I was more helping save the business rather than help people in their jobs. So I just gradually fell out of love with it. And I was on the road all the time. I was constantly travelling all over the world at some point.
Lynsay Gould:
So between 2013 and 2015, I did nothing but listen to podcasts whilst I was traveling. And one of the first podcasts that I listened to was one by Amy Porterfield. Well, it was actually the first and she has a show All About Online Marketing. And I remember listening to it and thinking, “Yeah, this is the sort of thing I want.” And I didn’t know anybody in my own life, my own real life who had a business like I wanted to grow. So over those two years, when I was slowly falling out of love with my career I decided, “When I do start my own job, I’m going to start a podcast.” Because I could see how important it had been for me making the decision to quit as well. So when I did quit in 2015, I promised myself in the September that by the end of that year I would have quit and started working for myself.
Lynsay Gould:
So I did that. So I started my first podcast pretty quickly. And I was inundated to be honest with questions about, “How do you do this? What microphone do you need? How did you make money from it? How do you get guests to come on your show?” All that stuff. And I just thought, “You know what? There’s something here.” Because I really naturally fell into this and I love it.
And I love what I’m doing. Don’t get me wrong it was I just didn’t know what I didn’t know when I was getting started with it and it was crazy. But when I got into it more and more people were contacting me about that than the business coaching business that I was in. So I ended up doing about 50/50. I was doing 50% business coaching and 50% podcast work and doing workshops and things on the side. And then over the past couple of years that has increased and increased. And then about two years ago now I went full on, all in on podcast support.
Lynsay Gould:
So now I help people to start and grow podcasts to help them grow a business. But I also know run a podcast production company as well called The Podcast Boutique. So I never would have thought all those years ago, travelling around the M25 that this would be the business that I have now but here we are and I’m loving it.
Emma Drake:
Well, thanks for sharing that story. It’s a great story, actually, Lynsay and I think it’s a really inspirational story to people that are thinking about changing what they’re doing. And in my line of work as well in communications and PR and marketing I think there are lots of aspiring podcasters, and this might spur them also to start their own podcast which would be fantastic.
Lynsay Gould:
Yeah. 100%.
Emma Drake:
Amy’s was one of the first ones I listened to actually. Love Amy’s podcast, still listen to Amy’s podcasts so get a lot from it.
Lynsay Gould:
It’s a great show.
Emma Drake:
It’s a great show. So how big is podcasting Lynsay? I talk to people a lot about this and I still come across people that listen, people that don’t. But actually is a medium, I know that you talk about this, but how big is it compared to other forms of media and how much is out there? What are the different types of podcasts?
Lynsay Gould:
Yeah, sure. So how big is podcasting is a great question because I often get people saying to me, “Oh, everyone’s got a podcast.” But do you know what, they really haven’t? And it’s often because either you’re in that industry where you’re seeing a lot of people starting podcasts, or you listen to them yourself frequently. There are actually less than 2 million podcasts. And when you compare that to something like YouTube, there are over 32 and a half million YouTube channels.
Emma Drake:
Wow.
Lynsay Gould:
So there’s still a massive, massive amount of lung to grab in the podcasting space. There’s still a lot of room at the top for new podcasts and interesting shows and different shows as well. You asked what are the different types you can get a podcast on. My goodness, any topic you can think about to be honest. If you’ve got a hobby, there’ll be a podcast about it. And the more niche, the better, to be honest. If you’ve got something where you think, “Well, nobody else is going to be interested in that.” You’d be so surprised at the following that you can get with a podcast. So you’ve got podcasts on all sorts of things comedy, business leadership, comms all sorts of things.
Emma Drake:
That’s really interesting. And I think sometimes we have our own opinion about what a podcast is, don’t we? It’s really interesting to understand the breadth out there. And obviously, it stands for play on demand. So anything that is effectively played on-demand, whether that’s video or audio is a podcast.
Lynsay Gould:
100%. Yeah, definitely.
Emma Drake:
What would you say are the three biggest barriers you come across to people starting a podcast in business and in particular, what do you think the opportunities are as well for businesses that want to grow and want to grow and use it as part of their communication strategy?
Lynsay Gould:
Great question Emma, you’re just dropping them left right and centre today. You’re great at this. So the three barriers that I get time and time again are time, content and I would say tech, is fear of tech. So the time thing, people think that it takes a lot longer than it does eventually. I always say to people when you do start a podcast point at the center of everything so that it helps you to create content everywhere else in your business. If you’re creating a podcast repurpose that content, transcribe it and use it in lots of different ways. But there are lots of ways to make creating a podcast a lot quicker, including batching your episodes and so on. In terms of content people worry about, “Who’s going to listen to me.”
Lynsay Gould:
It overlaps with mindset. People think, “Well, who’s going to listen to me? Who’s going to listen to this topic? Who am I to do this? I’ve not got any good content. How am I going to call together all of this content?” And people worry about being consistent with that content as well. They’re all just stories that we tell ourselves. And I work with clients and students all the time on helping them get through this and showing them that they do have a really unique story.
They’ve got a unique message and it’s important to get it out there. And when you flip in your head into being more about the audience than about you, then that anxiety around it tends to ease. If you start thinking, “Well, actually this isn’t about me, it’s not about what my voice sounds like, it’s not about how I sound, it’s more about what the audience are getting out of this.”
Lynsay Gould:
And then the final thing is tech. So people worry about the tech all the time. It’s perfectly natural to feel a bit of anxiety about something that you’ve not done before, but think about things that you’ve done in your lives that you never thought you’d be able to do and now you can do them with your eyes closed. It’s the same with podcasting. It’s the same with anything. It takes a bit of practice to get started, but once you do and you in your flow it’s going to become so, so much easier for you. The tech doesn’t have to be that complicated either. You need a few pieces of equipment that don’t have to be expensive and it’s fairly simple to learn how to create the podcast, how to edit, record it, get it approved by Apple and so on.
Lynsay Gould:
But it’s just about practice and having a bit of patience and having somebody help you do it, who knows what they’re doing. I didn’t do that when I very first started. I mentioned before it drove me crazy when I first started because I didn’t know what I didn’t know. So it’s just having somebody support you with it as well.
Emma Drake:
I think that’s a really… I can personally relate to that actually. And I think we often put barriers in front of what we’re doing because we have to make it perfect. But actually quite often saying, “Oh, I need that microphone, or I haven’t got the right tech, or I haven’t got the time.” It’s a classic one of mine, “I haven’t got the time,” or there’s always something. And I think I know personally for me I think one of the things was starting this podcast is that it took me a little bit longer.
It got to the point where I actually thought, “I’m going to do this and I’m going to launch it because I am actually now putting back more barriers in front of it.” And I was ready, I was totally ready. And that was me saying, “Oh, well, this bit isn’t perfect or my launch plan isn’t perfect.” But actually it was great and it was fine. And like you say we learn to do things all the time and we don’t realize that we’re learning all the time.
Emma Drake:
And the first time you do it it’s awful and cringy and you feel like you’ve really put yourself out there. And then it becomes very normal and now I say to people actually the recording and the editing for me is the easiest bit, it’s the turning that round and getting it done. Mine are very short episodes to be fair, and I know lots of people do put more time into their longer episodes, I appreciate that. But for me I think you’re absolutely right, we can put lots of barriers in front of ourselves to do it. And I think being in communications as well, for me I felt like there was this pressure to get it perfect.
Lynsay Gould:
Yeah, I can imagine that definitely. You mentioned as well about communications didn’t you and about how people use podcasts in comms. And it’s a great point to raise actually because I’ve been talking with a lot of organizations recently about setting up podcasts for their own employees, as well as for their own organizations to grow brand recognition and all that stuff but using it for your employees as well, particularly at this time.
We’re still at the time of recording in the middle of a lockdown here in the UK and lots of countries around the world are still in the same situation with the pandemic. And being able to find ways to engage with your employees, being able to find ways to reach out to them in a really honest and realistic and empathic way in some cases is really important and podcasting is a great way to do that.
Lynsay Gould:
And so I’ve seen organizations get really creative with this in terms of getting their employees to host and take on parts of the podcast production, and switch it up each week and maybe interview some of the really senior people in the business on a more intimate level, and get to see the real side of them, them sharing their real concerns about what’s going on in the world and so on.
And that’s really helped in terms of employee engagement, it’s helped in terms of employee wellbeing. So people in comms, marketing that side of things if you’re looking at getting a podcast started for your organization, I say, “Go ahead. It’s a fantastic way to really reach out to people.” But you can also start a podcast that’s an external podcast as well, which is for potential new clients and to grow as I say brand recognition, awareness, increased sales and so on.
Lynsay Gould:
So it’s a great way to use whether it’s externally or internally, but I understand that feeling of being in comms and thinking this has to be perfect. In HR, I worked very, very closely with comms a lot of the time over the years. And I understand that mindset, worked with some really very passionate people about what they do and very talented people but perfection doesn’t really exist.
It doesn’t exist. And it’s just in my view might be speaking out of turn, but procrastination tends to be a fear of doing something and a fear of maybe the thing that you’re trying to do you’re not aligned with properly. So just look at why you’re doing what you’re doing and the way you’re doing it. And I’m sure there’s a different way you could do it, so that you can feel more in flow with what you’re doing and get started.
Emma Drake:
I think that’s a really interesting point. I would certainly subscribe to that as I said it’s… There’s a phrase that I tend to use now, which I probably wouldn’t have used previously and prior to this pandemic but it says done is better than perfect. And actually I think it’s quite a good… It’s a good way of keeping me moving forward.
Lynsay Gould:
Yeah. 100%.
Emma Drake:
In terms of timing, leases nicely onto when’s the best time to start a podcast in your business, but to make sure you also start the right podcast.
Lynsay Gould:
Yeah. Good question again, in terms of the best time to start it. Realistically in the grand scheme of things, yesterday was the best time to start it. But the best time is now, it’s always the best time. If you want to do something get it started. But before you make that decision, I would say ask yourself a couple of questions. I would think to yourself, “Okay, why am I doing this? Why is it important for me to start a podcast? What is the purpose of me doing this?
What am I hoping to achieve with this podcast? Or am I just starting it because it’s a vanity thing, am I doing it because I think I should.” Those things, aren’t really a reason to start a podcast. If you’re doing it because you want to grow your audience, increase your own credibility. Perhaps you’re a speaker and you haven’t got many stages to speak on right now and you want to continue with that.
Lynsay Gould:
Perhaps you’ve got a book coming out soon and you want to grow an audience for the book, or similar if you have an online program or a course that you’re wanting to get out there as well. If you are an organization who is looking to connect with your employees or your customers and clients for that matter, they’re all great reasons to start.
If you’re looking to grow an audience, get trust, get credibility and start to get more what I would say more qualified leads coming into your business. That’s definitely what’s happened with me and my clients, that when you start your podcast people listen to your show, they feel like they’ve gotten to know you and then by the time they reach out because they want to work with you, the leads that you’re getting through are much higher quality because they’re almost ready to say yes before they’ve even had that conversation with you.
Lynsay Gould:
So in terms of the best time, it’s now so long as you can answer those questions I’ve just mentioned in a positive way, that you’re not just doing this because you think you should. If you’re doing this for a purpose, you’ve got a strategy behind it, why you’re doing it, who it’s for, what it’s going to be about then go ahead and get it done. Because honestly 2021 is the year of audio, I think we’ve all seen that. The rise of Clubhouse and other similar audio apps, audio is massively on the rise and the podcast advertising industry has just hit a billion dollars as well it’s insane. There are so many companies out there that are diverting a lot, a big proportion of their marketing spend into podcasts because they work, they work, advertising on podcast works. So start as soon as you can, as soon as you ready.
Emma Drake:
I’m glad you said that actually because people that listen to my show will know that I’m always talking about having a purpose and having a goal before you set out. But with any communication activity in your business it’s such an important place to start. And that’s no different with podcasts.
Lynsay Gould:
Yeah. Exactly.
Emma Drake:
So Lynsay, you talked a little bit… I want to come back to Clubhouse actually. We talked a bit about Clubhouse. Everyone is talking about Clubhouse and… Well, if you don’t know what Clubhouse is, where have you been?
Lynsay Gould:
I know. Yeah.
Emma Drake:
Listening to this podcast you’re obviously interested, in your day you must know what the Clubhouse is. But Lynsay, why don’t you just… Because I know you’re really involved with it. You’ve got totally-
Lynsay Gould:
I love it.
Emma Drake:
… immersed in it. You’re addicted. I’ve been on Clubhouse for probably only about I’m trying to think now, four weeks maybe. And I’ve been into a couple of rooms and I’ve engaged with it but you know a lot more about it. So why don’t you just explain to people because I think a lot of people know about the app, but don’t quite know how to quite engage with it at the moment. So do you want to just give us your view on that?
Lynsay Gould:
Yeah. I love Clubhouse. I do think 2021 is the year of audio, and the fact that Clubhouse has got so popular is testament to that. And the fact as well that Amazon got behind podcasting and created their own podcasting platform late last year as well. Again, testament to the rise of audio. So Clubhouse is the best way to describe it is it’s almost like if you think of going to a conference at that huge exhibition center, all along the corridors there are little rooms and outside of those rooms there’s a little plaque on the wall and it tells you what they’re talking about inside that room.
Lynsay Gould:
And you can choose to go in those rooms or not. So you go inside and there are people upon stage talking about a particular topic. And then there are people in the audience, those people in the audience might put the hand up and ask a question or offer an opinion or give some advice. And then you might come out of that room and go into another one, that is Clubhouse but without physically being there. So it’s the very first and the biggest so far audio only social media application.
So I honestly think that if you aren’t on Clubhouse yet you need to be. It’s like being at the very start of a huge social media platform. It’s like being at the start of Facebook if I’m really honest, I think it’s got the capacity to be massive. It already is. It’s still invite only.
Lynsay Gould:
You can still only use it if you have an iPhone or an iPad for that matter, but it is coming to Android. They keep saying it’s coming to Android soon, but we don’t know how soon, soon is. I think realistically what they’re going to do is do the full rollout and then go to Android. So the UK got to get into Clubhouse from about December… November, December time. And it started in the US last year, and I think it was April may time last year. And it was a very select few of Silicon Valley people who were allowed on it at the start, and then it eventually rolled out. So Australia’s on there now, the Middle East have started to come on there but the UK it’s getting huge. So it is a global platform and it’s going to be even bigger. At the moment there are lots of people in there who are using the app in a great way and there are some… Don’t get me wrong. There are some rooms in there that you can join where you think, “What is this?”
Lynsay Gould:
People talking about eight, nine, and 10 figure businesses and, “Come and follow me and you can do the same overnight.” There’s all that like there is on any social media platform. But what I love about it is there are some smaller rooms, medium-sized rooms where you can have a really fantastic conversation with people. So what you do is you create a room yourself or you join a room, you give it a title like you would with a Facebook Live, for example. You go in and then people get to join it and they come and have a conversation with you.
And they could be total strangers, or there could be people who are already following you. So you go in and you have a conversation, there are people upon stage who are called the speakers. And there are moderators they’re the people who can say who comes upon the stage and who doesn’t. My suggestion for anybody getting started with Clubhouse is just to join it and go into some rooms and start to just listen, start to engage, start to figure out the types of rooms you enjoy being in.
Lynsay Gould:
There are some massive ones. Elon Musk was in there the other day. Oprah’s got rooms in there. You’ve got Amy Porterfield in there. You’ve got all the big names are in there. You’ve got TV personalities. All sorts of things going on. So get in there, find somebody who has an invite, get in there and just have a bit fun. Just enjoy getting to know the platform.
I think that’s what I’d like to say about it. The other thing I’d say from a podcasting perspective is podcast is a loving Clubhouse right now. It’s an amazing way to find guests. It’s an amazing way to connect with your listeners. You can produce an episode on a Monday and say at the end of it, “I’m going to be on Clubhouse tomorrow at five o’clock come and join me. We can talk all about this episode and you can ask me questions.”
Lynsay Gould:
So it’s a great way to reach your audience. It’s a great way to grow it, to build even more connection with people. So I’m personally loving it, obviously. And I highly recommend if you aren’t on it already, anybody listening to try and get on it as soon as you can.
Emma Drake:
You get invites, don’t you? So I’ve got a few invites and I think the more people you invite the more invites you get, I’m noticing as well. I don’t know if you’ve noticed that Lynsay.
Lynsay Gould:
I think it’s the more time you spend using the app, it’s the more time you are either hosting a room, speaking in a room, moderating a room. So the more you engage with the app, the more invites you get.
Emma Drake:
I took your advice. And the first thing I did was drop into a room. I think you were in actually, I think you were talking but that was complete coincidence. You can join groups, can’t you?
Lynsay Gould:
Yeah.
Emma Drake:
And they let you know when the events are coming up with the talks. And so I dropped in and I just put my hand up and I ended up on stage. I ended up asking a question, talking about my experiences with using some of the tech and that would just never have happened on any other… I can’t imagine any other situation where that would have happened, and I would have met these other people and talked to on stage. And the other thing I did is I dropped into the first ever room I think I just dropped into to listen, oh, my word, the conversation in there.
Bearing in mind my podcast is aimed at startups and growing businesses because they’re the sorts of businesses I love to work with. There were these amazing entrepreneurs in that talking about how they started their businesses, some of the challenges they’re having, where would I ever have got in front of those people?
Lynsay Gould:
Yeah. It’s incredible. It’s sort of a big leveler really because everyone who’s anyone is on there and you can speak to them, it’s as simple as that you can chat to them. And because it’s so new they’re out there giving away advice all the time and speaking to everybody, so it’s great for that and the opportunities it can open up. Because you can link your profile up to both Twitter and Instagram, so what happens is because you can’t message inside the app, can you, Emma?
Emma Drake:
No. No.
Lynsay Gould:
You can’t do that yet. But what you can do is link it up to your Instagram and when somebody wants to connect to you, they just click on your profile and they can connect with you on Instagram and message you there. So that’s the way that people are using it to connect after the event as well.
Emma Drake:
Yeah. I’ve done that. I’ve got my Twitter account on there, it’s the one I use mostly but it’s really interesting. And I tend to drop in the evenings because that tends to be when I’ve got some time, and you just drop into these just fantastic conversations. Like you say it’s a bit like… I’m just looking at the rooms, I’ve got my phone open. So we’ve got the Tech After Party, Women Supporting Women Who Cheat. Interesting. Moderating Skills to Master on Clubhouse, there’s Communications and PR in the Arab Emirates, they’re so diverse. It’s like the biggest world conference like you say.
Lynsay Gould:
It’s huge.
Emma Drake:
Well, Lynsay, thank you. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you today. It’s been an honor for me obviously to have you on my show, and I hope you’ve enjoyed being on the show.
Lynsay Gould:
I’ve loved it and I’m honored to be the first guest on the show, so thank you so much for having me.
Emma Drake:
So if you haven’t already make sure you check the link in the my show notes, and that will tell you everything you need to know about Lynsay’s challenge that’s coming up.
Lynsay Gould:
Yeah. If you go to lynsayanne.com/challenge that’s where you can find it and you can sign up using Emma’s particular link. If you join up as Emma’s guest, you’ll get lots of extra goodies. So when you join through her link, you’ll get a workbook for the challenge and all sorts of other things on email as well. So go through Emma’s link in the show notes and I can’t wait to see you in there. It’s going to be amazing.
Emma Drake:
Fantastic. Thanks Lynsay.
Lynsay Gould:
You’re very welcome. Have a good day.
Emma Drake:
So finally, thank you for listening to this episode of Communication Strategy That Works. Don’t forget to check my show notes for those links that I mentioned, and I’d really love it if you would subscribe to my podcast and leave me a review. And also if you think there’s someone that could benefit from listening to this podcast, please share this within your networks. So I’ll just say bye for now and see you next time.