The Power of Podcasting for Coaches with Rob Lawrence

Hey, folks, and welcome back to another episode of the Creator Toolbox, the podcast that's all about the nuts and bolts behind your creator business. I stumbled there because Colin is on holiday and he normally does the intro. But I'm really, really honored today with a special guest, Rob Lawrence. Rob Lawrence. He straddles two worlds. He's a master audio producer and a podcaster, as well as

a certified coach. He's forged a career that combines these two realms, specializing in helping coaches and business leaders harness the power of podcasting and broadcast messages that are worth listening to. Welcome. We're all really, really good to have you, Jacob. Lovely to be here. Thanks so much for the invitation. Really good to have you. Really good to have you. So I mean, this is the first time for you on the show, might not be the last.

But yeah, tell me a little bit about how you got started on this journey. Gosh, there's a long convoluted story behind that one, Jacob. It's non linear, I can tell you that much. But in summary, after a corporate career, I dived into the world of audio. Lifelong passion of mine, I've always been around audio music. My earliest recollections involved wearing my dad's headphones and thumbing my way through his record collection. And always been fascinated, I think, by technology as well as people.

Looking back and about 20 years ago, almost 17 to be exact, I qualified as a coach because I just wanted to sort of explore new areas of life. And also it was the element of my corporate career as a manager that I really enjoyed, which was helping people achieve their aspirations essentially in, in a corporate world. But I thought, actually I want to do more of this on a grander scale. And that's when I found coaching. And to me it was quite new at the time. And anyway, I qualified

as a coach, as you mentioned in the intro. And then on the journey of helping other people achieve their own dreams, I paused many a times to think about my own and what I wanted to do. And I realized that some of the happiest times in my life were when I would was doing something audio or sound or music related and wasn't doing that professionally, had no aims at that time to do anything professionally in that world. So anyway, just for fun, I had the opportunity to do a degree in audio

audio production. And I was doing that more as sort of just a thing I always wanted to do because when I left school there wasn't such a degree. And you could go and do like an electronics degree or you could go and Maybe if you were lucky, get an apprenticeship with the BBC to learn something broadcast related. But none of those things quite cook, cook the biscuit for me. So yeah, the long story short is I did a condensed degree, I got a scholarship and

a first class honors, which I'm proud to say. But the most exciting thing was I learned so much in that time and I met some amazing people and in that time people were reaching out to me ex business contacts, they were saying, robert, here in audio now. And I was saying, well, not quite, I'm kind of just dabbling really and just having some fun. But they were keen for me to support them in editing some of their audio that they were doing either for their small or large business.

And that gave me a taste of this world, the podcasting world. And I was still coaching and somebody suggested to me, they said, Rob, you're a coach, you know, you get to speak to these world class experts every day, but you don't always remember the gold that they shared with you. And you're an audio producer, so why don't you record those conversations that you have and

share them with the world. And it. I've got to be fair, Jacob, it took me a little while to kind of wrap my head around the idea of me being a host of my own podcast because I saw my role as helping others not really being the sort of center of the show. But I'll tell you what helped me get past that obstacle pretty quickly is I thought this isn't about me, this is actually these conversations. If they're out

there in the world, they're going to benefit so many people. And I reached out to a few people I had a high degree of respect for, still have. And I thought if any of them answer, I'll do this podcast. And they all answered. So I was like, I'm in now I've got to do this. And I launched it. And yeah, 300 episodes later, that's inspirational Creatives, which you can still access. It's 10 year anniversary is in November, so I'm planning on doing a

few more bits and pieces around that. It's taken a bit of a hiatus status since I'm now helping so many other people create their own podcasts and I'm really passionate about what they do. So yeah, in hopefully a snapshot type way, that's kind of my background and how I got into this world. Wow. Okay. A lot in there. Just think about a journey. So let me see if I've got this right. So you started off, do you start off in business first and then get into audio professionally.

Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the business thing was actually I worked in it, in IT services, and the one thing I loved doing in that world, relating it to the world that I now live in, is that I used to help people turn their ideas into a technical reality. That's how I saw it. Or I was helping them fix a problem and it was a technical problem. And I wouldn't say I'm the world's best tech expert, but I know enough about tech to help somebody who has no clue about tech

to get the result that they're looking for. And really I'm doing that day in, day out with the work that I do today. Because as most of us in podcasting in some shape or form, and most people, I would say, in business today are dealing with tech. And a lot of the time he's trying to solve a problem. And I think some of the best career advice I was ever given was by my dad who said, get paid for solving problems that you enjoy solving.

You know, So I think that's a. Is it, you know, it's a good way to. Yeah, to make money, solve problems, but find the problems you enjoy solving and then that way you can create a living doing what you love. That's an amazing rule to live by for all sorts of different careers, particularly, you know, finding that thing. Like, we were actually just talking about this on the last episode, which isn't released yet, so you wouldn't have heard it, but we

were. Colin and I were talking about the sort of day in the life type content that people have and how some people have this urge to, to become creators, to make content, to build a business around that, but they just don't know what to make content about. They don't know what to focus on. Yeah. So, yeah, that's really, that's really, really interesting. And I love, I love how I'm big fan of squiggly career paths. I think there's a lot of richness to be had from that.

I've not had a super long career yet, but it has been fairly squiggly. And I do feel that that's. I don't know, there's something like you, you will feel this yourself and we'll get into this in the episode. But having that one foot in coaching in business and that sort of world and one foot in audio and content creation, like the, the sum of the two is different to, you know, to the two individuals, to the two individual parts. So yeah,

that's really, really cool. That's fascinating reflection there, Jacob. Actually, I, I agree with you. I think in my world these two things fit together really well. And they, and they do now in the world. But 10 years ago it was a very different world. I had a real job explaining to people what I did. And, and also I felt like I was living in two completely separate worlds. But I think these days

for many people, their worlds are converging. But what I love about what you've just offered there, Jacob, is this idea that actually it is bigger than the sum of their it's parts. When you combine these seemingly two unrelated worlds and you put them together, actually there's some real magic in there and, and some great opportunities too. So. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's. I think everyone has that. It doesn't need to be two

different career paths. It's. And it goes back to this, this question of like, what do you make content about? You look, you look on YouTube, you look in podcasts, and a lot of the most popular content today is day to day activities for people. And it might just be in their personal life, it might be oftentimes in their professional life. Like there's all sorts of channels.

We were looking at one which was a guy that run, I think he must run an aquarium kind of store or something like that in a local area. But he has this massive international audience just because he makes this for him, what is just doldrum day after day kind of activities that he does to run this business or pursue this hobby or whatever it is. But to other people, that can be really, really, really interesting. Really cool. Yeah,

yeah, yeah, that's cool. Cool. So this is the tool about, sorry, the podcast about the tools that go into running creator businesses. And I do want to get into some tools, but before we get into tools, I'm actually, I'm really fascinated by the, by podcasting in the coaching world and what that means for coaches and what it can mean for coaches and like where, like what is the state of affairs in the moment in, in, in, in the coaching world, with content

creation, with podcasting and. Yeah. Why would you recommend podcasting to a coach? Well, that's a great question. I think it's a niche within a niche, that's for sure. But obviously I've managed to make a living doing it and I think that says something about the market. Well, the two markets, both the podcasting market and the world of coaching as well. I'm heavily biased here because I had some success with my Coaching business

by having a podcast. And I would say that a podcast is a very powerful marketing channel. But the great thing about a podcast is it's an option for people. In terms of coming back to what we were saying earlier about, you know, choosing the problems you enjoy solving, one of the things that you have to do as a coach, as an independent coach, is market your business. And a lot of coaches find marketing very hard for one reason or another.

And a way through that world is to choose a format or a medium, if you like, that you enjoy in terms of expressing yourself. So for me, perhaps no surprise, I enjoy talking. And in fact, I have to, I find I have. I'm one of those people that has to talk about an idea in order to process it, I feel. So sometimes there's a bit of a feedback loop where it has to come out my mouth

and go in my ears to access a different point of my brain. So actually, so I can work through something or work out an idea or a solution. And for many people I know, and again, my perspective is going to be somewhat biased, but for many that I work with and I know conversation is their preferred method of interaction. And again, when we're talking about marketing, we're really talking about communication and interaction.

For others, it might be writing. Now actually, I think actually the, the real truth is that we actually would be well to do all of these things, you know, writing, talking and the visual stuff, which we'd call video. But we often have a primary preference, I would say. So I love writing, but I have to take a lot more time to write something than I do to say, record a podcast like I am with you today.

And video is another aspect. And I know there's a lot of people out there that struggle with video and they might be self conscious or they might struggle with the tech side of things. And as a result of that, they, they don't lean towards video, if that makes sense. So the next best thing is audio often. And, and for many of those that I work with, they find that being able to express themselves through the voice, they're less self

conscious, they can get their ideas out. And actually it's the, you know, there's, there's sorts of things in, in hearing somebody's voice, like the emotion, the sense of intimacy, the, the way things are expressed, the way stories are told. That seems to work really well for many coaches that I know. That's really interesting. Yeah, there's some, I mean, yeah, we grew up from, from the, being able to toddle the first the next, the next big

goal is being able to express yourself verbally. Right. So it's something that we've all, we've all practiced since being very, very small. And yeah, it does. I often think that the best podcasts are the ones that do just feel like a kind of fly on the wall conversation. There's something really kind of real and intimate, as you say about that, and I think that's actually, it's a fantastic way to market yourself as well. People are often, especially with video.

And I mean, like, I'm kind of doing it here. I've got the YouTube RGB light behind me in the video. But like with audio, there's no frills. It's just about the words. It's just about having a conversation and ideally one or both of the people or if it's solo podcast, you talking directly to the audience. But there's, there's some knowledge being imparted there, you know, in some way, and it's just about being able to pluck that out of a

conversation. Yeah, it's a really natural way, I think, for, for people to get started in market. And I really. Yeah, your, your point. On video, it can be really intimidating. It's also, I think there's a really interesting space where you can combine them all in a way because as just now we're recording this in video, but this will also go out on a plain RSS feed, normal classic podcast that will also go on YouTube.

So that's, you know, already two pieces of content that are coming out from that. But actually from this conversation, we'll probably find that there's at least two or three really good topics in here that can be pretty easily expanded into standalone articles or social posts or anything else, you know, so. But in the same goes for podcasting as well. You know, you can start with a podcast with an audio podcast, and that can translate into many other assets that you

need. So, yeah, it's really versatile that way. Cool. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. What are the. Do you think that's the main thing that kind of holds. Well, what is the main thing that holds people back? So I was going to say is the main people that the main thing that holds people back, the video aspect, that they maybe feel that they need to do the video or what is it that kind of holds a lot of people back in the coaching world from podcasting?

Yeah, I think I touched upon one of them with my own story because I recognize that in others now, having had it experienced that firsthand Myself, this aspect of actually seeing myself as a host of my own show. And like I say, I think the moment you, you change your thinking and think, well, this isn't about you, this is about somebody else, then actually I think that can sometimes unblock things for people because again, it's a self conscious, it's an

identity thing, you know. You know, do I identify myself as a podcast or somebody who's in this world of social media and all the rest of it? So I think confidence is a big one actually, Jacob. Just having the confidence to put something together. Sometimes some people get stuck with this sort of aesthetics. You know, what do I call my podcast? What? You know, I don't know what sort of artwork I'd want. I don't know who my audience might be. I think the more clarity you've got on who

you're trying to reach is really, really useful. So we were talking about niches earlier. I think that getting clear on your ideal customer or your ideal listener is a very useful thing to try and do because I think the more you speak to that person, curiously, the more people you attract. It's a bit of a weird sort of kind of counterintuitive thing, but, but it seems to go like that. And I've got some theories as to why that is, but that's, that's more on the confidence side.

And I think just knowing what you're aiming for and being clear about what you want is the first step. But I think where the other obstacles that folks come up against, sometimes it's the tech, sometimes it's the knowledge. And I know you've got a lovely knowledge base, a wealth of content there, which I'm often sharing articles from with people to, you know, on specific issues that they're trying to solve. And so yeah, the tech can be a bit daunting for some people and

some. Or they've got the tech, but they just don't know how to get the tech to get the result that they're looking for. So that's another big block, I would say. And probably the final one, I would say is time. You know, that would, that would be the other one. So, for example, Jacob, the sort of people that would hire me are people that are what I would say they've got a lot of

velocity, you know, they're moving quite forward. They're already, they've already got a business which is well established, whether that's an individual coaching practice or a team of 25 people in an organization that in some shape or form is Relating to the world of like business growth or personal professional growth.

And yeah, they've probably got a marketing team already or a marketing person, but that they basically want to show up just like you and I are today, have a conversation with someone and then in a few weeks time that's going to appear on Apple and Spotify. And I basically do anything that's required behind the scenes to make sure that all happens. So mostly on the tech side. So I, I do help people with their content strategy, but I don't necessarily manage

guests. They've probably got somebody to do that or they manage the guests themselves. But then I might show up on the recording platform with them, make sure everything records properly and then I'll see through the editing and production process all the way through to publication. So that will, you know, that costs money, but that saves people a lot of time. They don't

have the time, knowledge or expertise to do that. And it wouldn't be a wise move for them to learn all of that, to do it because they are playing to their strengths being, you know, a leader out there in the world. Absolutely. So for others, every, every hour that they might spend is. It has a, it has a big price tag and it's probably a lot smaller than, than what you can offer to, or what you would charge or someone like you would charge to take that off, off their hands. I'd really like to.

Can we walk it back a minute? So what. The first, one of the first things that you said was about the confidence and the confidence around getting started and maybe not feeling like, you know, whatever, whatever it is of all sorts of different things that it could be that might be holding them back. What would you say? Let's say I was a coach, maybe quite, quite green. You know, I've got a corporate job, I'm six months in, I've got a couple of clients. But I really want to grow the practice.

I'd love to maybe take on someone to help me at some point. What would you, what would you say, what would you actually say to someone? To a coach or to anyone? To any kind of person that's, that's on that journey to become a creator. How would you, how would you get over that? And what are some of the most common kind of confidence crises that folks that you speak to might face? Yeah, yeah. So a number of things, but I'll give some simple tips that I think are really powerful.

The first one is to think big. And I think if you're a coach, the good news is that you're probably comfortable with being stretched or being challenged in that sense. So I would say, you know, think big. Really push yourself in terms of your own vision and what you could achieve and what this could be. So I think having a why is a really useful step. So why have a podcast? You know, why do you choose to coach? And there's probably a lot of overlap between those two answers.

And I think getting in touch with your why is useful for your motivation. And whilst it you might be struggling with your confidence or, you know, you might find you're procrastinating or getting stuck, if you can generate a powerful enough reason to still feel those challenges, whatever that might be coming up for you and, and still take action, then I think that's a really noble, commendable thing to be able to do. And for most of us, any form of

any, Any growth journey involves that. And a podcast is no different. So whenever, you know, say we're going to do a keynote speech, which we might be invited to do as a coach in a, you know, as an expert on a particular subject, like, I don't know, trauma or business leadership, we'll probably have to do something like that in order to grow our business or to network or to become seen anyway. And a podcast is a very similar thing. So think big.

That's the first tip. Try and create a really nice, big, scary vision of what if you created a podcast as a coach, what you could achieve. What's the change in the world that you could see through your expertise? You've got a unique perspective, you've probably got a unique story and some amazing ideas that nobody else has. They deserve to be out there in the world. And it's almost you're being a bit unfair if you're keeping them to

yourself. You could be out there, you know, even if you're changing the world by 1% or 5%, just getting your big idea out into the world is you deserve that. And we don't shortchange us. We all deserve to know what you've got to offer, too. So think big. The second thing I would say, coming back to those things that are prickly and they're in our way, the obstacles, the things that feel really uncomfortable there. Jacob, get help. People really

love to help. That's what I find. And I think that in any area of our life where we might be struggling or feeling ourselves tested or challenged, as coaches, we know the reason people reach out to us is because they want help. They want support with whatever it is they're working on. So I think we've almost got to walk the talk as coaches here. If people are reaching out to us to get support,

we need to be looking out for people. We need to build a bench, a team of people that have got great experience and specialist skills in helping people get unstuck with whatever it is that we're up against and what we're facing. That's really, really, really good advice, particularly thinking big. And I often think that when something feels scary, that is the time to have the scariest goal, the scariest ambition. The. More. I don't know, there's something exhilarating about it as well.

You know. You know, you're scared to do this thing, but you have a huge goal and you might know deep down you're not going to get 100% of that goal. But if you get 60%, 70%, 80%, if you just shoot for that general direction,

yeah, it goes a long, long way. And the, The, I guess the, the fear of doing it and then doing it anyway, you'll probably find that a lot of whatever it was that was holding you back, whether it's valid concerns or irrational insecurities, they just kind of fade into the background and then become a lot less important than the big, hairy, audacious goal, as they say. Yeah, cool. That's some really good advice. Thank you very much. Cool. I would like to get into some specific examples,

if you're cool with that. Of course, you've worked with that have started from nothing. No. Podcast that maybe started from quite early in their journey, let's say, and that they've actually really effectively been able to use podcasts as a way for them to express themselves and to help others, but crucially as well, to grow the business, to grow the practice around that content. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, there's. There's a number of examples, and these aren't necessarily people I work with,

so they're not. They might not be paying clients, but they are people that I think are doing a brilliant job. So there's a few, actually, I've. I've got a whole long list, Jacob. So maybe that's a compilation for another day of coaches that are doing really well, I believe, with. Yes, with their, with their coaching and also with. With their podcast as well, in terms of how their podcast, I suppose, weaves into their life and business in the way that I've been

describing earlier. So there's a couple that immediately spring to mind. There's a chat, a coach, great executive coach, called George Warren, and he's got a series called the Edge of Coaching and just brilliant coaching chats about coaching. So if you're a coach listening to this, there's a, there's a coach chatting about coaching on a podcast and George is doing it in a really interesting and

fun way. And one of the things I love about George is I'm sure he won't mind me saying this because we're good friends. I love the way that he started his podcast in quite a scrappy way. He just got stuck in and did it and he goes pretty light on the editing. He literally puts the conversations out there more or less as they are and I think that actually creates quite an endearing quality to it. When I listen back to them, I feel like I'm really with him and his guests there. He has

some fabulous guests as well. It's almost a, I don't know if it's quite a who's who in coaching, but he's got some really great interesting guests in there. Some of them definitely deserve to be in the who's who of coaching

for sure. So I think if you're a coach and you're interested in somebody who's doing a really interesting podcast about coaching and you're in, you're looking for some inspiration as to how you can do it in a, in a way that is integrated into your coaching practice, then George Warren and the Edge of Coaching is one, one good example. Another example would be

Kate Brassington. I, she, she is a very well qualified coach, specializes in dealing with trauma and leadership and again, amazing set of guests in a similar way to George just got stuck in and did it and just started recording conversations and just started putting them out there. Both George and Kate, you know, they've come to me for support at various stages of their journey but neither of them are getting too

overly precious or overly perfectionist. And I think this is really important and why I'm offering them as examples in terms of their output. They, they, they create content for the sake of creating content, but in a way that is, is sharing their journey on an ongoing basis and some really, really fabulous, interesting conversations with some amazing guests.

So yeah, there's probably two examples of, I think if you look, look up both their podcasts, that's the Edge of Coaching, George Warren and then Kate Brassington's podcast as well, which is all about trauma informed coaching. I would, it's called Refreshing Leadership by the way. I'd highly recommend those two as sort of examples to go and look for if you're getting started as A coach thinking of exploring the podcasting space. Yeah, I'll put, put links to that in the, in the show notes.

Cool. And can you, can you speak at all to the. It's okay if you can't. This is obviously not your podcast or your businesses, but can, can you speak at all to the, to the effect that starting the podcast actually hats to. To their business, to their personal brands? Yeah. Well, I've seen this, I've seen this effect from the sidelines with both Kate and George, but I've had this. I mean, I'm here today chatting to you, Jacob, making a

living doing this because of the podcast. That's quite simple in my mind. But that's not that it's been an easier. Sorry. It's not that it's been an easy, linear journey to get here. I mean, it's been long and convoluting and it's taken a lot of time. And I think this is the reality of the podcast, which I appreciate there's some perhaps unethical marketing out there that might promise otherwise, but the reality is podcasts are about the long game.

And I've got here and I see people like George and Kate succeeding because they're in it for the long game. You know, they're not going to suddenly change what they care about overnight. And they, I believe they made the smart choice of starting early. And this is. I. I think one of the things I sometimes hear from

people is I wish I had started sooner. So I've had conversations with people, Jaco, three, five years ago, with people who have thought about starting a podcast, and even today they haven't yet started a podcast. Imagine if they had started that podcast five years ago and even published one episode a month. Even if that was a short, 15, 20 minute episode, they'd have 60 in the back pocket now. So I think you can't start soon enough.

But don't worry about being perfect out of the gate. Just be scrappy, get something out there, get something going, even take the attitude or the perspective that this is just a beta thing and I'm just having some fun. I'm just exploring the podcasting space as a hobby, not looking for it to be a powerful marketing channel for my business yet. But I just want to understand and just get the feel for it and get to grips with

it. So I think that with all of that in mind, I think that type of approach has paid off for many that I've worked with and for myself included. And the real result, Jacob, isn't so much the download numbers. Podcasts do convert very well to sales compared to other marketing channels, that's for sure. We see those numbers every day. But what I would say is that the real secret sauce behind a podcast

is the connections you make, the people you meet. And there's this phrase I once heard in sort of business circles, your net worth is your network or your network is your net worth. And I think that's absolutely true. It's about who you know. I mean, we've met through podcasting. I met Colin through podcasting. I've just met so many amazing people through podcasting. I sometimes feel like recording the audio is almost an excuse just to meet people and bring

new relationships and people into your life. And I mentioned, you know, earlier, getting help, and that's. They're the people I reach out to. They're the people I meet through podcasting. And I can even sometimes listen to a podcast and get the answer I want without having to even reach out to that person. Because their podcast, a bit like Kate and George, their. Their podcasts are designed to answer a specific question. Yeah, okay. Yeah, brilliant. Ah,

yeah. The long game is very, very important. And we found that as well. We actually ran a survey via the podcast host last year. Was it last year? I think it was last year. And it was to about. It was over a thousand people, thousand active podcasters that responded. And one of the questions was, what is the most significant factor in your success of your podcast? And we split that up

by different groups. People who had been podcasting for a long time, people who'd made it into, like, their primary source of income. And number one, across the board, in every and every group past a certain kind of amount of time, podcasting. First answer by like a country mile. Play the long game every single time. And it totally is that. And the networking, the networking part of it isn't. Isn't to be

dismissed whatsoever. And I think it's. Especially when you're in an industry like coaching, where it's a lot of individual relationships, it's a lot of referrals, it's a lot of trusts. I think that's really, really important. Yeah, that's interesting. Okay, before we move on, I was wondering, are there any.

There's been a bit of a trend over the past few years of private podcasting, and one of the things that I have been playing around with as an idea, but haven't really pulled the trigger on is how do we. How could we potentially make private feeds for creator Toolbox? Colin? I talked a little, little Bit about it in. In the last episode. I haven't actually talked to him about this idea yet, so you're the first to know. But I wondered

about recording the. Some of the strategy meetings that Colin and I have, talking about our content, talking about our business and actually making that a private feed, a paid feed. Is there anything like that in the coach? Is there any examples of coaches using actual, like paid sessions with people with their consent, of course, as content itself? That'd be. That'd be quite interesting content. Yeah, it could be. So there are.

Yeah. I mean, there's obviously a lot of ethics and, yeah, policies and standards around coaching that need to be adhered to. And of course, client confidentiality is at the utmost, sort of at the forefront in terms of. I think most coaches minds, but there are definitely opportunities to do that. So I think it's chap called Yannick Jacob. He has done a. He does essentially coaching demos with a real client and their consent. And he's actually the association for Coaching,

whose podcast I work on. He's done live demos through their webinar series as part of their digital learning platform. So the podcast kind of leans towards that and the podcast is part of their digital learning hub, essentially. And in that hub are other learning resources and opportunities, including webinars. So the demos have been done there, they could be turned into a podcast and

we've done some experimentation with this. So the same series, the association for Coaching, which is called the AC Podcast, which you can find, we've done a series on coaching tools in the past and we did actually have some demos in those episodes. They're sort of 15 minute demos to sort of demonstrate how a coaching tool might work, for example. Right. So those live demos, you know, again, real clients in a real scenario being recorded. But there's definitely

a lot of scope to do a lot more of that. But I say, I think there is a sensitivity around client confidentiality, so you'd need the client's consent and being open to doing that. But I have to say that the live demo stuff, I don't know how well it works on podcasts. I don't think we've really got enough, how can I put it, Feedback from the audience to gain whether

it really works over audio. It certainly works well with video because you sort of see some of the body language and I think when you've got the long pauses, you're still engaged because of the visual element to that. So I think as a sort of a vodcast, if you like, it could work really well, how well it works just over audio, I'm not so sure yet. It's too early to say, but there's definitely opportunities

to do that. And curiously, like yourselves, Jacob with Colin, an Australian counterpart of mine, a fabulous guy, coach marketeer called Steve Polfriman based down there. He and I have been collaborating and working together for over 10 years and we have a, a mastermind call every week for an hour to work on each other's businesses. It's a true mastermind in that sense and curiously, I think we've recorded almost all of those calls. So we've got like a 10 year back catalog that

we haven't shared with anybody there. And yeah, on many occasions, yeah, he and I have said actually we think

there's some gold in here. So we might actually look at doing a similar thing with you in terms of like actually sharing private, essentially private conversations that have been recorded for our own benefit, but sharing those now with, with other people because I think there's a lot in there that could be interesting and I haven't had much experience listening to other people's conversations like that. But what I do know is that listeners love the fly on the wall

stuff. I mean they, they find the podcast format intimate anyway, but I think also just to feel like you're listening into somebody else's conversation about their business and the process that they're going through, I think for a lot of people either way to it. But B, they'll be able to learn a lot from listening to other people talking about similar challenges to the ones that they may be facing themselves. 100%. Yeah. Some interesting ideas in there. Yeah, absolutely.

On the confidentiality stuff, obviously you have to, lots of permission

and red tape around it for very good reasons. But yeah, there's, I'm just, I'm always very fascinated by that type of content that they're really, really real life content and yeah, just, just, it just was something that's in coaching, it feels like it's, it's so down to the individual in the way that they might be able to deliver it that it feels like it would be such an effective way to, to, to showcase their ability to, to coach, to solve problems and what an experience might,

might feel like if you did, you know, sign up with them as a, as a client. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, not just a, it's a random idea. Cool. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right, so let's, let's, let's get a little bit practical. Obviously we're focusing a lot on, on coaches and podcasting here. And maybe some of the ways that, some of the, some of the blockers. But let's say I, I'm a coach. I am ready to start. I'm over it. I've got a big plan. I've got, I've got a big picture plan. What are some, what are some

practical tools that I can use? What do I need, what do I actually need and what do I need to do to get started? Sorry, Jacob, I lost you at the end there. Could, could you just repeat that question? Thanks. Yeah. So if I were, if I were a coach that's ready to start podcast, I've got my big picture plan and now I'm just, I'm just looking for a place to start. What are the tools? What the, what are the processes? Like, what do I actually need? I love the idea of just starting scrappy and

getting to it. So maybe, maybe let's frame it in that way. What are the essentials of starting recording, getting something out there and starting to get those first listeners? Yeah, Yeah. I think the, my big, big tip here, Jacob, is don't overthink it again. Coming back to those podcast people or those people that are thinking about starting a podcast that are still talking about it five years later and haven't actually done it, I think there's a massive dose of overthinking going

on there. Where, really, I mean, these days, knowing what I know now, and it's easy to say this, but knowing what I know now, I could have started a lot scrappier. I overthought it in the early days too. And actually you could just, with a simple smartphone these days, hit the voice recorder, get something down and post it that could be up online by this evening.

And it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be nicely edited, it doesn't have to be polished, it doesn't even have to have particularly fancy artwork. You could, you, you can, you. The, the bar can

be really quite low. And I don't think that whilst I'm a big, big advocate of how you do anything is how you do everything, I think that there's a way of framing something like that, particularly if you frame it as a beta test or as a bit of research and development or you can have a really nicely polished coaching practice. But you, you don't necessarily need. I, My thinking has

changed on this. I. Back in the day I would have said, yeah, you need a really top class podcast to reflect your top class coaching practice. But these days I would go so far as to Say if you've got a top class coaching practice, and let's hope you have, you don't need a top class podcast. Actually, your podcast can be rough and ready. You can let your listeners know and your audience know. This is an experiment. I'm just having some fun with this.

I'm exploring the podcasting space. I've got a coaching practice and this is what I do. And I'm using this as an opportunity to share some conversations that I'm having. So I suppose from that point of view of not overthinking it, the tech's actually really quite easy. You can start with a voice recorder. I've picked up these wonderful little rode wireless pro go pro type microphones. I think you get the wireless go and then there's the wireless pro, but they're

literally clip on mics, they'll plug into your iPhone. You don't even need your iPhone or your smartphone for them to plug into. And they will record. But the quality is actually really quite good. And I think even with like the latest sort of notebooks and MacBooks, the microphone quality, again, something I would have said a few years ago is don't use your inbuilt microphone. You know, make sure you plug at least any, any kind of external microphone

is going to sound better than your inbuilt microphone. I'd even argue against that these days because some of the microphone technology and quality built into laptops these days is incredible and you can actually get a really half decent result out of them. Depends on the situation of course, and depends on, you know, everybody's unique circumstances, tech and otherwise. But ye, but you can start there. And I think that's the point, Jacob, you don't need to make the mistake.

And this is the one big mistake to avoid is going out there and spending lots of money on gear. Because again, I think as a way of trying to overcome the procrastination of just recording something, what people might go and do is spend several hundred pounds,

if not thousands of pounds on microphone gear. And I've had the really heart wrenching situation where I've had people come to me and say, right, Rob, I watched a few YouTube videos and I've bought all of this kit, which I've, you know, I believe is the best kit you can get for podcasting. And I'm like, well, what's your podcast going to be about? And they're like, well, I'm not sure yet. And I'm like, well, where are you going to record it? Well, I haven't decided

on that yet either. And I'm like, well, how did you know what gear to buy? You know, so it's like you've spent all of that money, which you could have perhaps spent on marketing or getting artwork or the website done where you didn't really need all that gear. But it was one of these things. You thought it was a good idea. A pair of headphones is always good. And as you and I have discussed, Jacob, you know, I think wired headphones still trump wireless at the moment.

Seem to have more problems with wireless these days. I still think there's a bit of a challenge between the technology and the platforms on that side of things. So I think a good old fashioned pair of wired headphones, if you can find the right adapters and plugs to plug these things into, is a good start. But yeah, like I say, don't overthink it. Just get started. I think that the courageous step is to record something. I mean, you don't even have

to publish it, but just record something and take, take that. If you can take the next courageous step, which is just to listen back to it, maybe critique it, see what you'd like to change. But rarely in podcasting do we go back and correct stuff. We just keep moving forward and we learn from what we've done and we iterate and just improve as we go. 100%. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. I mean, it's just, just start. I mean, you could, you could actually start and

you could publish and just not tell anyone about it. No one's going to find that RSS feed really, unless you tell them about it. Maybe you, the other person might find that through keywords, but he's a different name. I mean. Yeah, exactly. Like there's just, there's a lot of power in press and publish as well. So. Yeah, I totally advocate for that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And on the, on the adapter front, so I had this issue. I have a pair of wired headphones which I'm

not using at the moment. I should be, but I managed to get this just tiny little dongle adapter thing. It's got a 3 and a half mil input and it's got a USB C on the other side. I can plug that into my laptop, I can plug it into my phone. It was about two or three dollars off Alie Express. You know, it took two weeks to get here. But I mean, you can get them almost anywhere. You'll get one on Amazon, that kind of thing. So, yeah, it's really. It's really, really easy to get.

Yeah. Cool. I'm really interested in those road microphones. I really want to have a shot. I actually, I was offered a shot of someone's when I was at the podcast show last year and I never did. I should have, but. Yeah, that's really cool. I didn't realize that they have a recorder built into them. I've just had to switch to my webcam mike. Yeah, that's really, really cool. So that's. That's a really good. I think that's some. Some good tips to get started for.

For people who are just starting out or maybe early days in coaching don't really have or shouldn't spend a lot of their budget on it. But what would you say to someone that is. That is further along? I think we did touch on this a little bit earlier on, like basically the kind of person that you would work with that they've already got an established practice, they've got. They've got budget to put into this. And actually

the kind of just needed work from day one. They maybe don't have that luxury of just playing about with it. If they're going to do it, they need to commit to it. They probably want to work with a professional. How would you go about finding a good producer? What does a producer actually do? And yeah, if you could touch on that. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's an interesting question, Jacob, because I think a lot of people perhaps haven't got the vision ready in terms of what

they want to do and what they're trying to achieve. And I think that's super important before you go and look for a producer, because the first thing I ask, whenever anyone arrives at my doorstep or they phone me up, the first question I ask them is, why do you want to start a podcast? You know, what's the why? It comes back to that. And if they want to make a lot of money very quickly, chances are podcast isn't for them. That's the wrong reason. And also,

they won't be credible with podcast listeners. I totally trust listeners. Podcast listeners are a really savvy bun. And actually, I think this is an important point we haven't touched upon, is that the podcast audiences out there are really. It's real gold for some people, I mean, particularly coaches. And I think this is why it's a great opportunity for coaches, is because the types of people that choose to listen to podcasts, and that's a really important point there,

choose. The reason they choose to listen to podcasts so these are people that are often on the go. They're doing something, they're cycling, walking, gardening, cooking, whatever they're doing, driving. And they want to entertain and educate themselves whilst they're doing something. So they're already quite active people in life, or they're certainly curious people in life. But they're often. If you look at a lot of the podcasts out there, they're often very sort

of deep conversations about specific subjects. And that's why the listeners, podcast listeners, gravitate towards podcasts, is because actually that's the level that they think at. So there's a chance that you will find the kind of people you're looking for in a podcast audience. These aren't people that are sitting there necessarily looking at lots of YouTube shorts or Instagram reels. I mean, they might. They may do as a small part of their day, but they're not there all day doing that.

And they're not always people that are sat there reading blogs all day either. So these are people that tend to be on the go. And I think this is a really important distinction because I think it really. It reveals to us that there are different people, there are different audiences through the different mediums, and it's the same with video as well. And if. If there's a compelling enough reason to connect with that particular audience, then going ahead

with the podcast is a good idea. So I always ask that question, why do you want to start a podcast? And if the, if. If the reason is something along the lines of I want to share my expertise or I want to share, share, you know, I've got some great connections, or I know I've got some wonderful people around me, and I want to share their stories, their strategies, their ideas. And I want

to develop my community, I want to develop my audience. I want to really rally people who think and breathe like we do together, then I think there's a good reason there to start a podcast. So this is about the long game, as I mentioned earlier, and it's about developing deep trust and credibility with an audience, with a community around a specific problem or subject. I think. I think you're muted. Sorry, Jacob, I can't hear you

at the moment. This has been the most troubled episode ever. I'm not even going to edit this, but this part, I want everyone to know that's listening. This has been the most troubled episode ever. What I asked when I was muted was what? How do you know you're ready to work with the producer?

How do you know you're ready to move on from that. If you have started and you've started scrappy and you want to, I don't know, I, if I, if I am asking because I know myself, I would get to episode 10 and be like, right, I've done it now I want to work with the pro. Is there a point where you're not ready?

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I think so. I think that these days, the technology, particularly products like Elite 2 that can support you as you're starting out, I think it's good to sort of know what goes on and what goes on behind the scenes and what you want. I think, you know, having a little bit of experience with the editing and production is really good. It's certainly a good step in terms of trying to help other people understand your idea. So sometimes the best way to do it is

sort of kind of make a mock up of your own. And those first 10 episodes could be a bit of a mock up of what you're aiming for. But then you might reach a ceiling or you might reach a point where you're like, I can't, I haven't got enough time to do this. And B, I can't get the results that I'm looking for. And I want to take this up to another level. And that's where a producer or somebody you know with more expertise would come in. There might be other reasons

too. I think that once you've done something and you've figured it out, then actually it might not be the best use of your time. So, you know, I'm making this up now, but if you're a coach that could be earning 100 pounds an hour, being an expert, being a coach, and that's the thing you should be spending your time on, it kind of makes sense to pay an audio editor 25 or 50 pounds an hour to do their that editing while you're out there coaching.

I think basically focus on your strengths. That is the best advice I could give there. And then when you're, when your podcast is no longer a strength or your ability to deliver, the podcast that you're trying to publish out there into the world is no longer a something that you are doing to the level that you want to be doing it, then it's time to bring in expertise

like you would in any other area of your business. So you might, you know, at some point in your business journey, you might choose to hire an accountant. That's to the point where you, you realize that the tax stuff is just too complicated and there are things that an accountant understands that are beyond you and you might not be interested in learning or doing. And that's where a professional producer can come in. One final point on that as well. I think this is, this is a.

This isn't talked about enough. I have the great privilege of working on quite a number of projects, all of which are in the personal and professional development space. And I feel unique advantage that I have working with the clients that I do is that I get to see what works and doesn't work across multiple podcasts. And that's really useful. Coming back to what we were saying earlier about making an unwise investment. You could spend a lot of money and a lot of time doing something

that's just a total waste of time. And then when you're working with a producer, they can give you an honest, critical ear, not just for your content, but also for your strategy as well. They might really help you to invest your time and money in a way that gets really great results and ignore the rest, essentially. So I think there is a lot of added value to hiring professionals because of their perspective and as well as their expertise and experience. Jacob, that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, brilliant. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I think, I think that's. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think that we've covered a good, a good starting point as well for people who want to get started and just to plug out a little bit here. If you are a coach and you want to get started with podcasting and you want that scrappy for a start, you're not ready for that professional help yet. But you do want to get something out the door and you do

want to sound good. Then you should check out Alitu. That's a L I T u dot com. It will do your recording, it will do your editing, it'll do your publishing and it will just make you sound good automatically. Now, it won't replace someone like Rob. You're not going to get that sort of service, you're not going to get that sort of quality, but it will get you more than you need to get started and potentially forever. But it's, it's a great place, it's a great way to get started.

And I'll pop a link to that in the show notes. I just had to get that plug in there. It was perfect time. Okay, and this is. We should probably start wrap wrapping up soon, but I wanted to ask you a question about video and we have kind of touched on this. Like how, how important do you think this can be a simple answer, or how important do you think having video is versus audio? Or like, there's so many different takes on this, but I'm really,

really keen on yours because of the two worlds. I'll be surprised. Yeah, I'll be surprised if my take is any different to the sort of more common takes that there are around this out there. The first thing I would say is that video and podcast, as I just mentioned, are different audiences. You'll reach a different bunch of people generally,

I would say. But there's always a place for video. And as we mentioned perhaps at the beginning of our conversation, Jacob, that I think that you'll probably choose one medium as your preference. That might be writing, that might be talking, that might be visual, and that will be your primary, but that doesn't mean you don't do the other things. So I think for many of the people I work with,

and it's changing and it's ever changing. I mean, for example, these days we are still recording a podcast, but really we're filming it as well. Well, and, and I think there's a clear distinction there. So I, you know, I have people who will phone me up and, you know, tap my brains and we'll, we'll talk about a strategy for them in terms of their marketing outreach strategy. But actually what they're really talking about, I'm.

They're actually talking about video here, they're talking about film here. And I'm like, that's a different. That's a different set of kit, That's a different strategy, that's a different approach. So let's talk about video and film and I'll put you in touch with some experts there, there. Whereas others might be actually talking about what you and I know as a podcast. But all they're really looking for is having a camera stuck up at the side as well, just to film the actual recording of it,

if you like. Or it might be like, you know, using a litu like this to record a conversation with video online remotely. And we might share this on the YouTube channel as well. But we've got headphones, we've got microphones, the primary output is going to be audio, but we've got a video that happens to be on

the YouTube channel as well. And I think the benefit of that is really to raise awareness because they're going to be a subset of people out there who happen to catch it on video whilst they're looking at something else. And this might be of interest to them. Let's hope they'll come and find the audio proper and then they'll get stuck into the content there. I think also with Instagram reels and with YouTube shorts, brilliant opportunities to promote your podcast to

quick, quick, fast way. I think Lo Fi actually does work quite well there, so you don't have to worry too much about getting really high video and you know, top quality film content. I think Lo Fi tends to be more credible with people, stuff that they've recorded on their phones to promote themselves. But I think ultimately you have to ask the question, who am I trying to reach and why? And are they already there? If they're already listening to

podcasts, you know, you need to focus on the audio. If they're all. If most of your audience is spending most of their time on YouTube, you know, you need to be there there. That's, that's the bottom line for me. Yeah, yeah, totally makes sense. And it's a good point in shorts as well. Something that we haven't done enough of actually with the creator toolbox is repurposed it into shorter

video. We've done long form video. But actually that distinction that you made of the three kind of different things, the audio, the audio with camera and then the video is really important because often it's. And I think, I think this is what you're saying, people kind of muddle up the two, you know, or they think that one thing has to be the other. Like a podcast does not have to be video. Podcast is audio, is the AUD audio feed. I'm not so

militant on that. There's a lot of people who are really militant on that. But I mean the benefit of a podcast is mostly in the audio, I would say, especially in this way that we're recording it now where it's just, I mean it's essentially just a webcam, isn't it? And it's so that you can see our faces as we're talking. It does, I think it does enrich the experience and it makes it easy to put it onto these platforms to

do that promotion like you're saying. But the, yeah, the distinction is really, really important because one of the things that we find a lot at the podcast host and Alitu as well is that video holding back. A lot of people, they have this non truth in their head that in order to start a podcast it has to be

video. And it's usually because certainly nowadays a lot of the ways that people are discovering podcasts for the first time, or maybe the first only podcast that anyone, that a person's ever listened to has video, but it's not. It doesn't have to be video. And, and there's like you say, there's all sorts of equipment that goes along it. But then what we talked about right at the start of this episode, we're talking about maybe feeling kind of being held back by internal things

in their head. They maybe don't think that they're. They don't know, they're not interested enough, they're not good enough. All those kind of things. That all just gets amplified with the video and that makes it even more difficult to start putting all the kit and all the budget aside. Yeah. So I'm. Yeah, not. Not the same answer that everyone gives because I think those, those three different things are important to differentiate. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much.

Right, well. Well, I think, I think, I think we're there. I think we're there. If someone has listened to this who is a coach or any other type of content creator, I think, I think you've done a really good job at giving them a good launching off point, a good place to start, a lot of things to think about. And. Yeah, no, this has been good. Is there anything else that you would add to this conversation

before we wrap up? To someone that is looking to start a podcast, that coach, content creator of any type, any, any, any final tips or anything you want to. You want to just run? Yeah. Well, thanks for the invitation. It's been great to chew this over with you today, actually, Jacob, because I'm reminded, thanks to your thoughtful questions, I'm reminded of the value of doing this and why we do this. And I think fundamentally, it's a lot of fun, quite frankly. I mean, it's been a life

enriching experience for me. You know, meeting you, meeting everybody that I do through podcasting and through coaching and, and I. Obviously I've got a heavily biased life experience here with these two worlds, but it's been tremendous fun. It's been an amazing growth journey. It's not been easy at

times, but. And I think that the sort of thing I will add to all of, just to sort of tie a bow on, everything that we've talked about today is despite all of the challenges and obstacles that might are perceived, and that's really important that you perceive her in your way. Most of the time. They're actually pretty easy to overcome, particularly if you've got the right support around you and the payoffs, tremendous.

So if you can get to that next level, if you can push through whatever roadblock or obstacle you feel is in your way from that next step to get your podcast out there into the world, I think you're going to be really delighted, pleased and surprised at the results that you get, particularly over time. They compound and, and I think it's just such a fun experience and a great legacy to leave as well because that's the exciting thing about

all of this. We get to record it, we get to put it out there in the world, but you kind of live on. And so, you know, it's as I mentioned, I think keeping those conversations, keeping that expertise that you might have in your head to yourself, you know, it'd be a shame for it to go with you. So I think there's something to be said about leaving a really meaningful legacy there and have a lot of fun in the meantime. Time. Absolutely truer

words have never been said. Thank you very much. All right, thanks everyone for listening, for watching, and we'll see you next time. Thank you.