There are plenty of reasons why should consider starting a podcast. But, as freelancers, one of the greatest challenges we face is having to spin so many plates.
We all know that we should be making marketing our businesses and services a priority – but this could easily turn into a full-time job in itself.
Here at Freelance Success, we’re all about finding easier, quicker and more efficient ways to do things. So today, I want to share with you my secret weapon for starting a podcast that you can actually fit into your schedule.
And because it’s easier, you’re much more likely to actually do it, and to be able to stick with it for the long-term, so you can enjoy the many benefits of running a successful podcast!
Table of contents:
- Make sure your podcast is appealing to your dream audience
- Look out for time savers and use automation and systems
- The benefits of starting a podcast
- Related articles
Make sure your podcast is appealing to your dream audience
Firstly, though, if you want to use your podcast to win more work, it’s essential to make sure that your podcast is aimed at the people who might actually want to work with you.
We talk a lot in our course Freelance Bootcamp about the need to identify your freelance audience, so you can speak their language when you’re marketing your services and creating content.
Knowing your audience, and actively defining them, will help you to build trust and curiosity in the minds of the right people. The people who can actually benefit from what you have to offer.
So it’s no good talking to other freelancers, or unrelated topics to your services. Think about your target audience, and make sure your podcast is likely to attract them.
Starting a podcast can be a great way to reach more of the people you should be reaching, and impress them with your knowledge and expertise.
Look out for time savers and use automation and systems
There’s no escaping it, running a consistent freelance podcast can be a lot of work.
So the key to success lies in making sure you’ve optimised the process as much as you can, early on.
This way, even when you’re swamped with client work, or when you really don’t feel like hitting the record button, you’ll be able to turn up and keep your podcast on the road.
Here are three of my favourite ways to do this:
1. Use Descript – a magic time-saving tool for recording and editing podcast episodes
Now it’s time to tell you about the secret weapon that really is a game-changer if you’re:
- New to podcasting
- Nervous when speaking
- Scared of the editing process
- Not sure how to edit and produce audio
- Short on time
Descript is a simply amazing tool that you can use to cut the time it takes to make a podcast to an absolute minimum.
The idea is simple but genius.
The software takes your audio recordings and transcribes them into text. You’re then able to edit the transcription of your audio like a normal Word document. So you can delete words that shouldn’t be there, edit mistakes and even move sentences around.
But here’s the key – this also edits the audio! So you can edit an entire podcast much more quickly and naturally.
Not only does this save you a huge amount of time over the traditional way of editing audio, but it’s also extremely intuitive. You don’t need any technical knowledge or specialist audio editing software.
→ Get a free Descript trial and test it out
Even better, Descript has plenty of automation tools to help even more. My favourite is the ability to train the software with your voice.
This is incredible if you make a mistake, or mispronounce a word (and you will as a newbie to podcasting!) you can simply type in what you meant to say and Descript will correct your mistake using a realistic recreation of your actual voice!
Nine times out of ten it’s impossible to tell the difference between the generated voice and a real voice.
This is a complete game-changer – and it actually gives you more confidence when recording, because you know that even slip-ups can be corrected.
Besides this, you can also use Descript to automatically remove or shorten gaps, and to remove filler words such as ‘ums’ and ‘errs’.
We love it, and we don’t know of anything else that comes close to a solution like this. It genuinely cuts the time it takes to record and edit a podcast at least in half. You can also use Descript to edit video, but to be honest I don’t think this works anywhere near as well – simply because the file sizes involved in video editing are much heavier.
→ You can try it out for yourself using a free trial.
2. Leave your gear set up
This is another must-do tip that will really help you in your quest to be consistent with recording your podcast.
As someone who plays the guitar, I’m well aware that the easier you make a task, the more likely you are to do it.
So I make a point to leave my guitar out so it’s easy to pick up and practice.
If I put it away neatly in its case, that adds a little bit more friction which makes it much less likely that I’ll pick it up next time.
This same principle really applies to podcasting.
If you feel it is an effort to set up your equipment each time, you’re much less likely to do it.
So ideally try and leave it set up so there is no friction between you deciding to record a podcast and actually hitting the record button.
If you can’t leave the equipment out, at least try to keep the microphones connected. These little choices can have a really big impact on how likely it is that you will stay consistent.
3. Talk about your interests
Again, we’re busy people so we want to try and keep things as simple and doable as we possibly can.
That’s why it helps to make your podcast focus on something that you’re genuinely interested in or know a lot about.
This way, you’ll find topics come to mind easily and you have to do a lot less preparation in advance of the record.
You’ll also be able to talk genuinely, and with real passion about the topics you choose.
The benefits of starting a podcast
So we’ve talked about a few ways to make starting a podcast easier, but it’s also worth understanding how much value having a freelance podcast can actually bring to your business.
In Freelance Bootcamp, we talk a lot about the need to create content that will generate traffic – planting seeds that will potentially grow into new clients in the future.
Podcasting is just a great way to get your name out there, impress the right people, and start to grow an audience for your email marketing efforts.
Become an expert
Even better, starting your podcast will push you into the role of an expert in your field.
It will train you to talk with authority and confidence about your skills or niche, and it will get you comfortable translating your thoughts into words.
It’s a great opportunity to be creative and to start to reach out to people who you respect or are interested in. For example, you can invite them onto your show for an interview.
Transcribe and repurpose
Another great benefit to focussing on a podcast is that it can generate a lot of content for any other social media and marketing channels you may have.
For example, you can take the audio of your podcast and transcribe it directly to auto-generate nice blog posts. Again, Descript is amazing for this.
Or you can at least use the theme and research of an episode as inspiration for a purpose-written blog post.
And you can also take chunks of audio to post to social media or add your podcast directly to YouTube if you record the video too.
Attract more relevant traffic to your freelance website
The best freelance websites attract your ideal audience to them. There’s no greater feeling than having a freelance website that is working for you in the background, generating enquiries and interest.
To get your website to this point, however, it really helps to have visitors coming to it and to have other high-quality websites linking to your website.
Starting a podcast is a great way to do this because you can invite relevant guests to your show.
Chances are they will then link to your show, or share it with their audience, helping you to grow as well.
As you can see, we’re big fans of podcasts – even if you already feel like you have very little time to spare.
As with anything like this – just get started. Don’t spend too long planning it, worrying about it or buying expensive equipment.
Your podcast can evolve and pivot over time and you’ll get more comfortable putting it out there.
There will probably be times when you will want to give up – don’t! Commit to publishing at least 100 episodes before you give up, and largely ignore the listener stats until you’ve reached this milestone.
Good luck and let us know how you do!
Until next time,
Maja
Related articles:
15 effective and free ways to market your freelance business
Reach Out Strategies for Freelancers
5 Steps to Stand out as a Freelancer
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