Ep 48. Thoughts from a year of podcasting as an introvert

A year ago, I nearly talked myself out of doing this even before I’d started. So if you’ve got something that you keep putting off, this episode’s for you.

If you’re new here, hello and welcome to Quiet Confidence. This is the podcast for introverts who want to market their thing without changing who they are.

Today’s episode is a bit different because Quiet Confidence is one. Woo-hoo 🎉

I thought I’d share my journey from starting to where I am now, and there’ll be some takeaways whether you do podcasting or not that should help you in your business too.

Believe it or not, start a podcast wasn’t even in my head when I entered a content workshop one random November.

The workshop was split into different content formats – one of those was podcasting, and one of the exercises was to map out our theoretical podcast to get us thinking about content themes.

At that time I was doing a lot of guest podcasting, but as the host was going around, he was like, “Oh, you’ve got a podcast, haven’t you?” I was like, “Uh, no.” And then he said, “I think you should have one.”

Thanks for that, Paul. You’ll see there’s a running theme here with workshop hosts and the little seeds that they plant, because my business literally started like that too! It started from a throwaway comment from a workshop I was in, so apparently I need to keep attending workshops.

Anyway, that obviously planted a seed, and then I started telling clients and people I was networking with that I was thinking about doing one, just to see what they thought. But I think the real action happened when I went to a planning session, and I said out loud that I was gonna do it by a specific date.

There’s something about saying it in a room full of people that made it feel really real, because now I’d told them, so I had to do it, I’m not someone who likes to go back on their word.

So I knew I couldn’t back out because they were expecting it. If you’re someone who needs that external accountability, try it.

Tell someone you’re gonna do it like just say it out loud with a date attached it doesn’t have to be a room full of people like I had it could just be one person, but saying it out loud makes it harder to talk yourself out of it.

Then I obviously didn’t do anything with it for months… no that’s a lie I did!

I sat in “research” mode for ages – so I was looking at all the tech like what mic do I get? what program do I use to record it? how the hell do I even upload it as a podcast so people can listen to it? and then the name – is this the right name? should I call it something else? I had a photo shoot (it was -2 degrees when we did that the first week in January but that was really fun) and then figuring out the content – how long should the episodes be? is this too short? should I make it longer? if I make it longer it’s going to be boring all that jazz and the music,  Oh my god it took ages to choose that little piece but I think it’s all worth it because I really feel like this sounds like me.

I probably spent too long in that mode. I was saying I was researching but I was probably procrastinating because you know the only way to figure out how it was actually going to work was to start.

With the content and the episode length and things like that I’ve just been talking into the mic and there’s been a natural length that lends itself to the episode so that’s what I’ve been rolling with.

[00:02:45] I think we put too much pressure on ourselves for everything to be perfect from the get-go. I mean, I know I do. But I think the biggest shift for me was giving myself permission to be a beginner, because I’d never done podcasting before, so why was I expecting myself to have everything “perfect” from the get-go?

And obviously perfection is subjective, so what’s imperfect to me might be perfectly fine to other people.

So I really just rolled with, right, let’s get this thing started. Done really is better than perfect, and then we can change it as we go on.

If there’s something you’ve been sitting on, the one that you keep researching and thinking about and telling people you’re gonna do, just start.

It might not work out like you want it to, and that’s OK, but it might uncover something even better, but you’re not gonna know that unless you start.

I wanted to keep this super simple so I would carry on and it didn’t feel like a massive tech nightmare.

I knew I didn’t want like one of those big jingly type intros. I just wanted a bit of chilled music and to feel like we’re having a conversation, like I’m talking with you, not at you. And I hope you get that from this.

[00:03:41] Once I started taking action and recorded and posted, my main goal for this year was just to stay consistent with showing up with valuable content every week, and to test it as another marketing channel.

I wanted to see if it was something I actually enjoyed doing and now it’s to grow listeners and get clients from it obviously, which has already happened, which is great.

The thing about podcasts is that they’re not discoverable unless you’re in the app, so you have to bring people to them. I’ve gotten into a little rhythm now of publishing and then uploading the transcript to my website, which also ticks the SEO box. Then I’ve got long-form content as a podcast which you can listen to, but also the transcript on my website if people wanna read, and I will eventually turn some of them into blogs as well, and I’ve got all of this long-form content I can turn into little bits for socials too.

This has really helped me streamline my content workflow and get a lot more from one piece of content that I’m recording anyway.

So if you don’t have anywhere at the moment where you can go into more depth with your work, I would really recommend doing that. Then you can cut that up in loads of different ways.

It’s funny because at the start I’d cringe when people would tell me that they’re listening.

I don’t know why because that’s the whole point, right? I used to be like, “Oh my God, you’re listening. Please don’t listen.”

Especially the people who have been mentors and stuff. Obviously, I want them to listen, but it also feels cringe. I don’t know why it did, but I’ve got over it now. I’ve got used to my voice and all of this takes time, right? Action and repetition make things feel a bit more comfier as you go on.

Even though I’ve been in business seven years now, this was still a new thing. So I did get that, “Oh, I want people to see me, but I don’t want them to see me feeling.” And you have to work past that because the whole point of marketing is to be visible, right? The podcast helps me do that in a way that feels really comfy for me.

[00:05:14] That’s why I think podcast really works for introverts specifically, because there’s no camera, there’s no performing. We’re not trying to look a certain way. It’s just your voice and your thoughts at your own pace. It plays to everything we’re naturally good at.

You can get through that depth, your thoughtfulness, and because people are usually listening on their own, while they’re in the car or walking the dog or making a cup of tea, it really feels like a one-to-one conversation, which is exactly where introverts thrive.

I love that I can have a loose script and share my thoughts in my comfies, and I genuinely appreciate you listening to me over thousands of other episodes out there, so thank you.

I think for me as an introvert, before I started my own business, I was so used to hiding in the background. I was a one-woman marketing show, and I used to work behind the sales team, so I used to let them take credit for the work I was part of. That was the case for most of my working life, and it might have been for you too, and you might have been happy with that.

But when you are the business, it can feel a bit cringe to take the praise when it’s something new that you’re not used to, but I think you get better at that with time. So if you’re thinking about doing a podcast and you’re an introvert, I would definitely recommend it.

[00:06:15] That brings me nicely onto what the podcast has actually given me this year.

I think the main thing is the depth and the fact that unless you’re a client, you didn’t really get to have a “conversation” with me.

You wouldn’t have really got a sense of my personality or how I talk or what I might be like to work with, so I feel like the podcast really gives you a sense of who I am as a person. Basically what you hear on here is what you get if I’m talking to you in real life. There’s only so much of that you can get across from a post that you’ve written on social media.

So long form content, whether that’s a podcast, a blog, or a YouTube channel, it really gives people somewhere to binge. Somewhere they can get a real sense of you, your point of view, your personality, which will help them decide quickly if they like you and want to work with you.

I think it builds trust in a way that a quick social media post just can’t, and I often get, “Oh, I feel like I already know you,” when I meet people who’ve been listening, and I love that.

If you haven’t got somewhere like that yet, I would really encourage you to think about it.

[00:07:08] Also, my listening numbers aren’t in the thousands yet, and I’m okay with that because that was never the goal for year one.

My main aim was just to see if I liked podcasting as a marketing channel and if I could stay consistent with it, and I have for a whole year. And I’m also old school enough to know that every episode is compounding.

I heard a really good quote this morning that said, “If the lift is out of order, the stairs always work,”

So every piece of content or touch point you have is each step of those stairs. And you might have seen that hockey stick diagram where it’s a straight line for ages and then suddenly things go up dramatically. I also keep that in my head because we can forget that some things literally just need a bit of time and consistency. I know that sounds boring, but it’s the truth.

I think because everything is so instant nowadays, we’ve become really impatient with time, you’ve gotta give things time to work and be okay with that.

My goal with the podcast was to start, stay consistent, and then find out if I actually like doing it. All of them are ticked. It’s safe to say that I do like it over here.

So now my focus is gonna be on sharing it more and growing the audience. For some people it might be the other way around, like growth first and then consistency. But I’ve always been the tortoise, slow and steady wins the race and all that.

I guess what I’m trying to say is whatever your goal is, make sure it’s yours, not someone else’s. So then you’ll know whether you’ve been successful in your goal or not.

Right then I said I wanted to grow the podcast – if you rate, review, or share this episode with your audience and DM me a screenshot on Instagram, I’ll pop your name on a list for a chance to win a power hour with me. I’ll be picking a name next Tuesday, so you’ve got a week to do that if you’re listening in real time.

If you’re coming into this later, you can get my Own Your Voice journal.

It’s free, and if you feel like your voice has got diluted by all of the “I should be doing this”s in your marketing, and you really wanna come back to your voice so that your marketing sounds like you, that’s where you can start.

Thank you so so much for listening, and some of you who have become clients as well as a result of listening to this podcast. I genuinely appreciate you tuning in. Let’s see what year two will bring. Speak soon.