Overcoming Podcasting Paralysis: Tips and Tricks – PCI 419

Welcome to this episode of Podcast Insider. I'm Mike Dell, the VP of customer relations here at Blueberry Podcasting. And I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing specialist at Blueberry. Today, we're gonna be talking about what exactly it is that stops people from starting their own podcast. And if you've ever thought about starting a podcast but felt overwhelmed,

this episode may help you. You're listening to Podcast Insider, a weekly podcast bringing insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow, and thrive through podcasting with the support of your team here at Woodbury Podcasting. Welcome. Let's dive in. So we wanted to talk about the barriers that people have, but more importantly, how to overcome that as well. Because we're For sure. We're not here to just be some Debbie Downers on podcasting.

Yeah. No. It's podcasting can be hard work, and you wanna address these concern. You learn some stuff, some education, some planning, embracing the imperfections. Don't don't what do they call it? Paralysis by analysis.

It doesn't have to be perfect to start with. They always say your first episode's gonna suck, and the rest of them are gonna get better as you go. That really is the first one that we wanna talk about here, the fear of failure or rejection. That self doubt you have, the fear of any negative feedback that you're really just trying to avoid. It's worth it to overcome that and just do it anyway.

Oh, yeah. For sure. My first episode, I wish I could find it because it's gone, but I used the little stick microphone on my laptop sitting on my front porch in the woods. And I know that sounded like crap, and I wasn't that good at stringing a whole bunch of words together. Still not, but better. That's good. No. But it that's exactly what it is. You need to embrace imperfection because it's never going to be a 110%

perfect. And one of the good things is that a lot of the time, most people end up having a small audience at first. So view that as a growth opportunity. Grow your audience from start small and humble growth. Yeah. And, again, as Mackenzie said, you're not gonna have a ton of audience right right away unless you're famous for something else or really good at marketing. But, don't sweat the small stuff, I guess,

would be the takeaway for that one. And and technical, podcasting is a lot easier now than it was 20 years ago when it first started, but there's still some technical things you gotta deal with, and don't fear it. There's a lot of help out there. Of course, with us at Blueberry, it'll definitely help you get started.

You don't need a whole bunch of equipment. Refer to the last episode that we did. Todd and I talked about equipment, but you can start as as easy as just a USB microphone and record with whatever software you have that'll record audio, and it doesn't have to be perfect. There's lots of online tutorials. Some of it's bad. See our episode about bad advice, but there's a lot of good advice out there. There there is this is the benefit of the Internet, people. There is unlimited free resources.

There's tutorials, online communities, companies like us, where we are happy to discuss any part of our services, any type of technical challenges you may come across. And there's different levels of that. You can go online. You can reach out to your friends and family. Like, I'm on a completely different level of technical understanding than you are, but for a lot of my friends and family, I am the go to person for those

technical challenges. Technical stuff is it can be a challenge, but, you know, I've taken somebody that comes to us not even knowing how to cut and paste. And I've got them on podcasting, and they're doing fine. So Yeah. Wherever you're at, technical

wise, we can make it work. I mean, I when I first started podcasting back with the with Blueberry in 2015, I felt nervous in that I I was kinda doing it on my own, but the technical, I was like, well, I worked in a radio station for 4 years before this and had no idea how to do any of that when I first started. And then by the end, I was training who would take over my position. So you're you'll feel comfortable with it eventually. Oh, yeah. For sure.

So the next one that we're gonna talk about is time commitment. There is a podcast is a time commitment. I will definitely say that. But there is probably sometimes a more perceived time burden than there actually needs to be. I think sometimes the nerves and the antsiness that you feel takes up more time than actually just, like, doing the task that you have. Recording. Yeah. The actual recording and editing and stuff shouldn't take you that long. Depends on how much you

edit. But Right. Right. So and then balancing the other responsibilities in your life and or with the show. So I think to overcome this, just set a manageable schedule and not a manageable schedule for someone else, but for you specifically. I think don't overdo what you can. So batch episodes, outsource the task to friends and family, anyone on your team who might be able to do it instead, whatever it takes. Yeah. And try not to record when helicopters are flying over.

I don't know if that's, one that you can always avoid. I don't know if you guys heard that. Kate might edit that out. But, anyway, yeah, just lots of ways you can do this, batch some episodes. So if you have a Saturday afternoon handy and you're a solo podcaster or your cohosts or whatever are available, do 2 or 3. Get ahead of it a little bit. I mean, that's what we're doing right now. We're recording the end of September, and this will go out at the end of October. Right. So we

batch usually a month ahead of time. We try to. Some of it's more topical. We got one coming on Halloween that you'll really like that we're gonna record near Halloween.

But, anyway, another thing is financial concerns, the equipment costs, the ongoing subscriptions for hosting, and whatever other services you use. If you buy Adobe software, you get a monthly there. There's a lot of little costs that can add up, but things can also be can be cheaper than that too. There's a lot of free software out there for editing and recording and all that. So you can make it as cheap or as expensive as you want.

But, you know, if podcasting is your hobby, you know, you're gonna spend a little money on your hobby. That's what I always tell people. You can you can spend as much as you want on this. And at the end of the day, it is a lot of people's hobby. And I spend copious amounts of money on my hobby, which is going to concerts. So that compared to podcasting, I should really do be do yeah. I should really be doing a podcast. And you, with your airplane flying, you should really be doing

more podcasts. A podcast if I add money to it. Right. But, yeah, that's a that that is a concern for some people. And you can get with Blueberry and get the basic account for $12 a month and use use a lot of free resources. The equipment can under a $100, you can get decent equipment, and you're off to the races. Yeah. Especially with Blueberry, I think you might be podcasters might be a little surprised with how much it is that is included with just our hosting plans. So

definitely take a look at that. Yeah. The next thing that we wanna talk about though is content uncertainty, which is not knowing what to talk about or the lack of your audience, like, lack of fully understanding who your audience should be or who you want them to be. Right. And it's more about what you who you want them to be because the the problem is that you sometimes we'll get podcast set. I want a podcast, and I ask them what their podcast is about. Well, what's popular?

Right. They just wanna do it. They just wanna do it and not necessarily something wrong with that. But, again, if you're interested in the subject matter or you're an expert in the subject matter or you wanna become an expert in the subject matter, that's the best way to pick your topic. A lot of times, you hear people, I want a podcast that appeals to everybody. No. That's impossible. Nobody

accidentally listens to a podcast. And if it's something that wide ranging without some sort of niche, it's gonna be really hard to market that. And you're not gonna want to. No. And you don't care about that. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. But the way to overcome that is just plan your topics ahead, focus on subject that you like. I'm not a fan of the word passionate, but that does apply sometimes. Make sure that you're doing engaging content that

is worth it to somebody. You wanna make them question things, or you want the you wanna tick them off, or you wanna educate them or whatever. And but you wanna keep it in a particular niche, not not so tight, but don't I my my show, my personal show is really about nothing. So I don't get a huge audience, but I enjoy doing it. Yes. But, exactly. You know what you're talking about. So

Yeah. And then one of the things that we touched on it before, but perfectionism, striving for the perfect setup and overplanning everything, that can really bug you down. I'll get a I'll get a phone call at tech support, and, my artwork, looks a little fuzzy on this particular app or some of these little itty bitty things that are just not that important. Again, don't worry about editing out all the ohms and the breaths and stuff. You you sound inhuman if you don't have any breaths.

There's just a whole lot of this stuff that you can get bogged down with, and as long as your content's decent, your audio's decent, you know, that's good enough, and you can always tweak as you go. The perfection is also up to you. You're Oh, sure. You have no rules. You're trying to fulfill this idea that other people might have about your show or that you have set for yourself, and I think it just holds people back. I I kind of hate it.

Yeah. And, you know, and and like I said, it's paralysis by analysis that you don't get anything done because you're worried about this one little thing that nobody's even gonna notice Yeah. Except you. And I I get it. There's people out there that really want it to be absolutely perfect. And I like nothing wrong with that. But People talk about overplanning, but I like to go about it with, like, go with a plan, but just be open to changing it.

Yeah. We write up these show notes ahead of time, not just kind of a guideline. We don't have a script or anything. Yeah. And we deviate from the script all the time, and that's fine. That's we just let it go where it goes. Yeah. So We don't have to worry about it that much. No. And this next one, it'll kinda goes along with that. Yeah. Definitely. So just impostor syndrome in general. That's gonna happen with whatever hobby that you're doing possibly, starting

a new job. Maybe you're even doing a podcast for your new job. But that that feeling of thinking that you're unqualified or you're just comparing yourself to other shows or other hosts or something like that, it really can put a damper on things to say the least. So

so we want you to focus on your own unique perspective to overcome this and just really come to that understanding that everyone's expertise grows with actual experience. You're you can only get better at this. You're not gonna get worse at it. Yeah. And and we've said this before, but most people that listen to podcast because of the host. Right. You are unique. You have your own take on things, and people either love it or hate it, but

they'll they'll come back because it's you. They're not coming back because you're perfect. Right. Your show is most likely gonna have another show with the same type of content, but they're gonna listen to the one where they like the host. Yeah. And podcast like every news channel. Yeah. And podcasts are not like a cable channel. 9 o'clock on Saturday, you're not competing against

20 other podcasts. You're you're maybe like, if I'm interested in underwater basket weaving and there's 12 podcasts out there, I might listen to 6 of them. It's not like you're competing for time. Your people do build the build you into their schedule, and there's only so many hours in a day that people can listen to podcasts, but they're not gonna drop your show just because there's one that's slightly better on the same topic. They probably listen to both.

Right. I was just talking to my sister today about this one podcast that I listen to regularly about music, but I listen to, like, 2 others about music too. Yeah. And it's because I like the host. Yep. And I actually listen to a pod I said this before, but I listen to a podcast about a subject that I don't really don't care about, but I like to host. Yeah. So that's just kinda weird. And then I do learn stuff, obviously. So and another one is fear of being

on the microphone. I get this sometimes when I interview people that will be talking along, blah blah blah. Okay. I'm gonna hit record, and then they just clam up. Like, yeah, it happens. It for sure happens. I know some people just start recording and then gently tell them, like, hey. We've already been recording. So Yeah. Blah blah blah blah. But, you know, get used to your own voice. If you're set up right, you wanna be listening to yourself as you're talking in the headphones.

That helps you stay on mic and all this other stuff. But on top of that, it gets you used to the fact that you are broadcasting or podcasting in this case, but, you know, it and it gets better with time. Again, the more you do it, do some test recording so no pressure. That's one of the ways to overcome us. Just record an episode, listen to it a few times, decide you don't like it, throw it away, record another one. Do that 2, 3 times sometime if you're having this problem.

And, eventually, you'll get to the you'll get to the point where it just doesn't bother you anymore. Yeah. You just won't care about it eventually. I promise. That voice insecurity where everyone is now recorded, and they're like, oh my god. That's what I sound like. No one cares. Every single person ever has listened to themself after recording and been like, wow. That sounds very different than in my head. It's the same boat. No one cares. Yep. And and

you sound like you sound. You just don't know it because you're hearing your you're hearing yourself in your head, and you sound different. Yeah. It's this is exposure therapy for sure. Alongside that, one thing that people try to,

like, not focus on, but they definitely have a problem with is the lack of immediate results. We live in a immediate satisfaction world that has really just kind of gone insane when you think about it of how quickly we expect things to happen nowadays. But growing your podcast is definitely not one of those things. The expecting is an instant success and how easy it is to grow an audience, that is a real a real surprise sometimes for people. And I want people to be

prepared to know that it is difficult. Pod podcasts grow slowly. Yeah. It's just the nature of the beast. It takes a while for you to filter in all the search engines and the apps and all this stuff where people can discover you. And it's just not going to happen instantly. Nothing in podcasting is instant, but, you know, your mileage may vary. You may get mentioned real quick in something or another, and that goes into this next thing, uncertainty about promotion.

You do have to market your show in some way, shape, or form. And don't don't go spend $1,000 a week on Facebook ads or something like that, but you do have to get out there and let it know let it be known that you have a podcast now, and it's about whatever it's about. Just and that helps with some of the other things, the voice hesitancy and and the perfectionism side. You're not gonna get a huge audience

all at once. But think I don't think people really realize if they did get that immediate audience, like, how uncomfortable and how stressful that is. Yeah. That's a lot to deal with. I tell a lot of our customers, you'll start a podcast. So I've been doing this for 8 episodes, and I'm only getting a 100 downloads an episode or whatever it is. Amazing, actually. Yeah. It's very amazing. And I tell them, well, just imagine you're in a room, and you gotta entertain these people for an hour.

Yeah. It's true. And does that sound like a small number anymore? No. That one holds true forever. Yeah. So I know we're repeating ourselves some, but it's one of the foundations of this medium is you have to keep it in perspective. So, you yeah. If you are uncomfortable with any type of marketing and promotion, find a friend or family member that is more comfortable with it. They will be happy

to help you, I'm sure. Yep. Yeah. And there's a lot of places to market now with all the social media and all that. And don't always go out there and be blatant about it. We've said this before too. But, you know, subtly mention on social media, hey. I got a podcast episode about whatever the subject is and take it from there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're making good content, and at the end of the day, social media is just more content. So you're probably gonna be better at it than

you think. Yep. For sure. Something that people are definitely afraid of is consistency. The commitment anxiety, burnout concerns, just thinking, how much time do I really have at the end of the day to do this? Do it as often as you want. Just You don't absolutely have to do a show on a schedule. Now it makes it easier for it to grow if you're consistent. But just starting out, put on an episode when you feel like it. I've done that

for nearly 20 years on my show. I put on an episode when it strikes me. But, again, mine I'm not trying to grow my show. I just do it because I enjoy it. So it's more of a hobby of mine. This one's pretty darn consistent. Every once in a while, we're a day or 2 off or we take a week off, but pretty rare. Yeah. Just keep it consistent the same way that you do, like, with other hobbies. You're gonna go play basketball maybe once a week, not 4 times a week. You're not

gonna do it every other day. You're gonna be like, okay. Great. I go play basketball on Saturdays with my friends at the park. That's do this the same way. Say, okay. Cool. I'm gonna record a 20 minute episode on Tuesdays. I'm gonna aim to get it out neck by Thursday, by Friday, by Saturday, whatever day it is, whatever you wanna do. It's easier to keep consistent when you are doing less. Yep.

And here's one that I like. Misconceptions about the podcasting space. Thinking that the market's saturated, yeah, there's 4,000,000 podcasts out there, but if you narrow that down, there's probably 200,000 active ones, and there's none of them that have your voice on it. Celebrities don't always succeed. A lot of people say, well, the market's saturated, and only the celebrities succeed. Well, not always. I remember a pretty famous example at what's his name from Pawn Stars, Rick. He started

a podcast on podcast 1. They have a whole bunch of celebrity podcasters there, and you would think that one would take off. He did, like, 4 episodes, and it didn't take off, so he bailed. So it doesn't always work for celebrities. And then you look at somebody like Joe Rogan. A lot of people know that Joe Rogan is an actor and a comedian and all that, but his he was not big when he first started. And now I think, arguably, he's one of the bigger podcasters out there.

But, you know, but that's not because he was a celebrity as much as it was he was consistent, and he talks about all kinds of stuff. And whether you like him or don't like him, he he is pretty successful. I mean, I will counter that with I think the reason people listened in the first place was because he was a celebrity, but that is not the case anymore. The content. Yeah. His content is completely separate from his

celebrity ness. Right. His content nowadays has that's that has grown the audience, the content and his personality. But I think the fact that he was got him there, partially. But it's I like to compare it to books. They're like, how many authors are there? How many books are there out in the world? And they're not necessarily calling that oversaturated. No. And then podcasting is not. This is the best time to start a podcast even though there's 4,000,000 of them out there.

Yeah. Really. So and a lack of support, that that's one that can be a problem. This, actually, I feel like over the years, I was just thinking about it today. Just working in podcasting, like, all of my friends and family know that. They don't really understand what I do, but they know that I work for a podcast company. So anytime they have ever had a friend or colleague, whatever, say, like, oh, so and so is gonna start a podcast. You should go talk to

her over there. Like, I will talk to you about it. Because they feel like they they don't have that support from anyone else who's ever done a podcast. It's not it's very common, actually, for people who wanna start a podcast to know no one that does one. And I think that that kinda freaks people out. Yeah. And it's not hard to engage with other podcasts. So if you're you wanna start a podcast and you listen to some podcasts, a lot of podcast hosts would love the feedback, and we like to talk.

So hopefully That's the thing. Podcasters are talkers. Right. And so befriend some of the podcast hosts you listen to. You'd be surprised. A lot of the, I should say, mid tier. Now, you know, the celebrity ones, you may not hear back from them, but the mid tier podcasters or whatever that you listen to, chances are they're like, oh, wow. I got an email. Holy crap. And you have a dialogue with them. How did you start? What are you doing

for hosting? What are you doing? That kind of stuff, and you'll definitely have some support out there. Podcast Communities on Facebook and other places is a pretty good place as well, although some of the some of the advice you get there might be motivated by something other than helping you. But that's just my humble opinion. That's for you to suss out. Yes. You figure that out. Speaking of figuring things out, legal concerns. Oh, yes. Definitely.

Copyright can be a big deal. Yeah. You can't just it'll play ACDC on your podcast. That just doesn't work. But I want to. Yeah. A lot of people do. And even some of the lesser known music, there's bots out there that will find it and then wanna charge you a bunch of money or sue you or and that's just for music. There's other things that you can get in trouble with legally. So just be be careful about it. Don't don't you know,

how do I put this? If you have a strong opinion about some person, don't say they are whatever you think they are. Say something like my opinion is just be careful with that kind of stuff. I don't think there's a huge concern for that type of stuff, honestly, but the one thing I will tell people is, don't get yourself involved with music labels. That is not a fight you wanna get involved in as well as if you are a cohost, the most basic upon basic contracts or something like that. It Yeah. Sure.

While it feels uncomfortable, might actually save a friendship or a relationship. Yeah. Like, you start a podcast with one of your buddies and whatever, and one of you wanna leave leaves the show. It happens. And if you don't have something written down on how this is who owns what and how things are gonna get split up, if you're taking ads, you know, who gets the money, how much, and all that stuff should be worked out ahead of time.

Yeah. I have worked in 2 different law offices in my life and always say if I ever get married, I am getting a prenup. I don't care if I don't have anything to share that people might might agree on. I that is what I will do, And I think this is probably a good way to think about it too for your podcast. Consult a lawyer if you're worried about something like that. Gordon Firemark's a good one. He's a podcast lawyer that he specializes in. He's an entertainment lawyer out in LA. Yep. Definitely.

Friend of the show. I think he's been on the show, hasn't he? Maybe. I don't know, but he's lovely. He should be. If he's not Yeah. To go check him out. I think it's podcast lawyer dotcom. I don't remember what he anyway, look up Gordon Firemark. You'll find him, but he's a good resource for that kind of stuff and and other legal strategies for podcasting. But for the most part, if you're just doing your own thing and not playing a lot of music, you're probably fine.

So but you definitely wanna address a lot of these concerns if that's what's stopping you from podcasting. It's there's things that you don't need to worry about. There's things you do need to worry about. Make sure you get a little, guidance in what's important, what's not. I think the, the way to go about it is inform yourself ahead of time so that you don't have to worry about all these things later. Yeah. For sure. For sure. So if you're way

to go. And if you're already a podcaster, throw a link to the show out there to people that you know that wanna start one. Yeah. We'll we'll educate you. Yeah. And we we are more than happy to specifically, you, Mike, leading the support team that we have at Blueberry. That is one of the things that we are very serious about is helping people start their podcast. So whatever humps you have from this list or that even weren't on this list,

we are happy to help with. Yep. The more podcasters, the merrier. Yep. That's what we say. Alright. Well, catch you next week for another episode of Podcast Insider. I think you'll like this next one. Thanks for joining us. Come back next week. And in the meantime, head to podcast insider.com for more information, to subscribe, share, and read our show notes. To check out the latest suite of services and learn how Blueberry can help you leverage your podcast, visit blueberry.com.

That's blueberry without the e's because we can't afford them.