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Hello, my name is Janice, and I am the CEO of Introvert Media Lab, helping introverts build their brand and get hired.
So today I'm going to talk about podcasting. I built my podcast in seven days. I was never setting out to have a podcast, I never set out to build a podcasting empire, I never set out for it to bring me clients.
The story behind my podcast, The Travelling Introvert, tales about me travelling and running a business while also happening to be an introvert. When I started, I wasn't looking to solve a problem, I wasn't looking to build my business, I wasn't looking to build my brand. What had happened was that I had been working for a long time for a client, and I'd just let them go, and hadn't really had time to myself to do anything creative. I was travelling a lot and my friends wanted to keep up with the work I was doing but I wasn't around often enough for them to know about it.
I didn't really know about podcasting, I'd never listened to a podcast but I just wanted a way to tell stories – it was kind of like a diary or a journal for my friends to hear stories about what I was doing, or the kind of predicaments that I was getting myself into, or things that I'd heard from clients, or sort of stories through the grapevine of HR, because I don't know anyone who works in HR that doesn't have a good story.
I didn't tell anybody, I just did it. I'm kind of one of those people that I have an idea and I'll deep dive headfirst into it. Not always the best idea but I had the idea, I knew who it was for, I Googled podcasting host and picked the first one off the list, I didn't do any research, I didn’t really know what I needed, or what I didn't need. I did know that it wasn't going to an interview style podcast, I didn't want anyone else to be involved. And I knew that I wanted it to take as little time as possible and to not really interfere with my everyday life. Also, I had to take into consideration that I travel a lot and I didn't want to have a lot of gear or stuff that I had to travel with me.
For me, it came really easily to just do a five minute rant into the void about whatever was going on that week. And it started off just with stories and then other things happened. I got an email from someone who'd listened to the podcast, and asked questions. And so one of my episodes is me answering those questions.
And for the longest while I didn't tell anyone about the podcast. For me, it was almost therapeutic to rant into the void and my friends could listen and hear my voice, even though I wasn't around so much. So I hadn't really told anyone, my friends knew about it and that was fine. I'd kind of drop it into conversations when I was talking to people at events or conferences. Most of the time people get confused, because the title of my podcast is the Travelling Introvert and most people think that introverts don’t travel – that leads the conversation about what does an introvert mean to you? And people will give a variety of answers and that gives me a chance to talk about it some more, educate them some more and we continue talking about the do's and don'ts and the yeses and noes about what introversion is and what introverts can do and can't do etc. So it ended up being a really interesting way to lead people down the garden path about their preconceptions and their notions on introversion. Led a lot of people to be like, about a thing.
Then I happened to go to a podcasting convention where I was talking about introversion and how to start a podcast. And then I had to tell people because I was at convention about podcasting and people were interested, shockingly, someone was at that event, who knew me through my podcast.
So it made me think, oh! People are listening, people are emailing me, people are recognising me on the street and I'm actually making a difference. And that was not what I set out to do. I was just like, telling some stories, blowing off some steam and to be honest, it was kind of therapeutic for me to just vent into avoid.
Anytime I might think about not doing it, or I don't have a topic for this week something always spurs me on or someone always emails me or I'm having a conversation with somebody and then I'll go ahead and do an episode on that.
What was great about the way that my podcast came about is there was no pressure about it needing to generate money or work in any particular way. Yes, it does generate money, funnily enough, due to the ways that you can have affiliate marketing on there, or advertising on there, or just people come and use my services because they've heard the podcast or heard of me or heard of like the brand and so it's really, really interesting how it's ended up working for me.
But even still, I don't really put in a huge amount of work into – I don't feel the pressure to do that. And I don't want to give myself the pressure to do that because I don't know if it'd be fun anymore. I've been doing it three or four years now and I've had an amazing response, and had the opportunity to do wonderful things because of it. I ended up doing a speaking engagement on podcasting and HR where I talked about how recruiting could use podcasting as a recruiting tool so that was really fun.
So many people go into podcasting and think it has been interview podcast like Josh Rogan and that you have to be a big name, and then you need to be taken up by a network and that's the only way you can make money. Not all podcasts have to be interview podcasts. All you need to think about is the fact that you need some kind of audio that someone is going to listen to. It could be a meditation, it could be your newsletter, it could be you repurposing content – there's so many different ways to play with podcasting and that's kind of what I've done.
I've ended up trying different things and different versions of things like a newsletter – my newsletter currently has an audio version that I’m testing out to see how it goes. I could do an audio version of my courses and see how that goes.
I've seen some amazing things done with podcasting. Someone's used it on their website, as far as “here's an introduction to me and here's like three parts of a course if you want the rest of the course, then you know sign up.” I don't consider myself to be creative and yet, lots of people consider me to be creative because of the podcast.
I didn't want to interview people, because it takes a lot of back and forth and organising etc. But what I did do one year as part of podcasting was, I interviewed a lot of people on International Women's Day, a lot of introverts and they told their stories about how they celebrated in their country of origin, how they're celebrating it now and what they do and what introversion means to them, and how they blend it into the life, etc. And from that, I created a book called Introvert Insights.
So, from this podcast that I did randomly to talk to friends, I ended up thinking of different ways to use the content. So yes, I had, like the audio, which was streamed and people had access to and I had the video that people had access to, but then I repurposed it into a book.
What I will say is, just thinking about things a little differently, and not worrying what other people are doing can be really helpful
There’s so many things you could do with a podcast, I could go ahead and do a couple of episodes that aren't solo. Or I could do a mixture, I could use it as a speaker reel. There's just so many different ways that audio lends itself to different things, I could read a couple of the books that I've written.
Now when I started to implement this, and talk to people, I actually got to speak to a lot of producers that work in very big companies. And everyone would say to me, Oh, yes, the podcast is nice but it isn't fully in line with your brand, it isn't fully bringing in people into your funnel, you need to make it more specific, you need to make it more career orientated, and you need to do this, that and the other. And they are experts in their field. And therefore, you know, I probably should take their advice. However, I didn't want to change the format of my podcast, because making it more specific and more career driven, or making sure I had a script would stop the flow and the feel of what I have with my podcast. And not only that, but it would stop me doing it probably, if I felt that undue pressure of having to do it a certain way.
Learning all of these things about podcasting and what works and what doesn't, helped me sort of build workshops on how to build your podcast in seven days, but also what works and what doesn't cuz I work with so many different people who say, oh my goal for my podcast is to X, Y and Z. It's like, well, podcasting doesn't quite work like that, but you don't know that until you get a little deeper.
But also, the great thing about podcasting is you learn along the way. You can have all the greatest tech in the world, but stuff changes, things happen. So I love helping people get along that way and making it work for their business because now my podcast does work for my business. So I shared my personal experiences, and people wanted to know more, and I did workshops and I currently do half day intensives and there's a couple books, PDFs and resources out there. I started doing it in Facebook groups and, people loved it. And, for me, it was just sharing, “hey, you don't have to make it hard. You don't have to have all the tech, you don't have to overthink it, you can do this and then grow from there.”
There are so many things you can do with a podcast and so many things that can happen as a result. Never underestimate that small idea that can blossom into something wonderful, as long as it doesn't take up too much of your time. And to be honest, my podcast maybe takes up five hours a month. And, that would be pushing it to be quite honest with you.
So part of what my freebie here is an action plan of how to start your podcast in seven days. It has lists of all the things to do on day one all the way through to seven, along with some extra resources in a 35-page document with a lot of information in there that will help you get started. And one thing I've learned is systems – systems make the difference and having one central place for all of your information. You'll get some of that as part of that package.
Access your free Launch Your Podcast in 7 Days Guide here.
Janice Chaka, CEO of Introvert Media Lab
Janice is the founder of Introvert Media Lab, where she helps introverts grow their brand and get hired. She runs amazing content creation days to help introverted women to excel in their career and business. She hosts the podcast The Traveling Introvert where she talks about running businesses, traveling (less so now) and being an introvert. Website | Instagram