419. Avoid These 5 Common Mistakes New Podcasters Make

Especially if you're looking to start your first podcast, start it outright and avoid these mistakes before you start. Here we go. Number 1, striving for perfect.

This plays out in a few ways. First, we often think about perfection and the curse of perfection. We try to have the perfect sounding audio, the perfect podcast, the perfect presentation. We try to edit ourselves to absolute perfection, editing out any kind of or or a pause that's even a microsecond too long. And sometimes we strive so hard for perfection that it ends up sounding artificial because it is. You might not actually sound that way when you're speaking.

I'm not saying leave in every single mistake because that's the authentic you as some people might put it. Still try to edit out the mistakes, try to present something that sounds great, but it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect. We also strive for perfect in some of the options that we're considering for things.

The perfect microphone, the perfect camera, the perfect lighting, the perfect backdrop, the perfect website theme, the perfect podcast hosting provider, the perfect this or that podcasting tool. I fell into this even just recently as I finally, after nearly 15 years, upgraded the camera that I've been using for recording my podcast, which I'm still not doing anything with the videos that I've been recording lately, but I will someday soon.

Thanks to this new camera that I feel a lot more confident with this new camera and some of the things that can do for me better than the old camera could. I've been using a Canon T4i digital SLR camera for 15 years. And that works great for recording videos and for taking pictures. It doesn't work great for streaming video or connecting that video in any way to my computer. Believe me, I have tried everything.

I even installed Magic Lantern and got just the perfect version to be able to do a clean HDMI out and got an HDMI capture device for my computer and tried to connect these things together. And it looked pretty good, but still had some major problems to it. And I realized I need to upgrade. And 1 of the cameras that I've been looking at, the Sony ZV E10 Mark 2 went on sale. And it was a 1 day sale, and it hasn't been that sale price in more than a year. And it's the best price it's ever been.

It's never been lower than this price. And it was this price only 1 other time that I could see in its entire history of being released. So I knew this was a good price. I needed to snag that deal. And I did. But even with the camera literally in my hand, I was still second guessing my choice because I was thinking, is this really the perfect camera?

Now I know I can't afford the best camera out there that's multiple thousands of dollars, but there was another camera that is really good, especially for its price. The Sony a 6,700 does a lot more than my ZV E10 Mark II can do, and it does certain things better. And it has things like in body image stabilization. Oh. And it has other things to it that are also nicer than the camera that I ended up getting. And that to me was a different level of perfect.

And even though I'd already purchased the camera and already got a good deal, I was still thinking and even still watching videos comparing the camera I got with the other camera I wanted. And here's what it came down to for me. And you can try and apply similar thinking if you're facing a similar situation where you're torn between trying to get something that's quote perfect, unquote. I looked at the ZV E10 Mark II and what I paid for it.

And I looked at the a 6,700 and what it's currently selling for. It would cost 60% more to get the 6,700. Would I get 60% more benefit from it? No. In fact, some of the features that it has that the camera I got don't have like the in body image stabilization, I might not never actually need. Because in the years that I've had my DSLR, it's been very rare that I've taken it off the tripod.

Even when I've taken it to conventions like CES, NAB Show, Podcast Movement, such, and recorded on-site video interviews there, even then, the camera was on a tripod, so it didn't need image stabilization of any sort. So the camera that I got doesn't have any kind of in body image stabilization, but it does take very good videos, especially beautiful videos with a lens that I happen to get for a great deal on a beautiful lens.

I thought there was something wrong with the lens based on how low of a price they were asking for, but I got a fantastic deal on it. I thoroughly checked it out, and it's it's great. It's beautiful. At some point, follow me over on YouTube, the audacity to podcast.com/youtube, as I will at some point get back to making some videos here and there.

And this camera was 1 of those things that I needed to help me with that because there's a very simple thing that the camera can do that I really wanted to be able to do some videos again. Cause I didn't want to have a separate video studio like I've had in the past. I just want to have my 1 place where I sit down and record audio and video, have a great camera for that and be able to show products very easily by just holding up a product to the camera

and having autofocus really well. This camera does that. This camera also does 4 k and some of the really nice stuff too. It's a great camera. It's not perfect, but it is very good. And I can't afford the 1 I really, really wanted. And I was very tempted to think, well, as long as I'm spending this much, maybe I should just go ahead and spend 60% more and get this other camera. But I had to remind myself, I actually didn't plan to spend money at all on a camera yet. But I saw this great deal.

I knew that if it went on sale, I wanted to get it. I knew it was a good sale. So I took action. You might feel this way about your microphone. I saw this in a podcasting subreddit group where someone was asking, should I get the Samsung q 2 u for $70 or should I get I think they were saying the Shure MV 7 or maybe the MV 7 x for more than twice the price. And you have to first think how much money you even have to spend. If you only have $70, well, that should make the decision very

easy. Get what you can get for $70. It doesn't have to be perfect. It doesn't have to be a 300 or 400 or $500 microphone. Your audience might not even know the difference, especially if they never hear you use both microphones in the same episode. Even if you switch microphones between episodes, they might not even notice the difference.

Now if you're going from super cheap microphone to something better like a q 2 u or an ATR 2,100 x USB, if you can even get 1 of those since they've been ironically and and really weirdly discontinued as great as of a microphone that is, but your audience might not know the difference. We could strive for perfect in the perfect podcast hosting provider, the perfect website theme, the perfect this or that podcasting tool. It doesn't have to be perfect.

Even if you have the perfect tools, if that was even possible, that doesn't mean your podcast episodes are going to be perfect because you are not perfect. You never will be perfect. Strive for excellence. Don't strive for perfection because we'll never reach perfection in this life. And even when it comes to certain tools, there is not a perfect tool. And I know we can be so tempted by trying to find the perfect tool. That can come into play with AI tools, like which model is the

best? Is it Opus? Is it Sona? Is it GPT? Is it Gemini? That stuff is going to go back and forth for years to come. And it's about what works best for your needs. And when I see people ask, what's the best podcast hosting provider? I try to find out what are their actual needs. And there are a few I recommend. There is not 1 single podcast hosting provider I recommend to everyone because I recognize that people's needs are different. So if you need this, then this provider is best.

If you need that, then that provider is best. But maybe you don't need those certain features. So don't strive for the perfect choice, the perfect podcasting tool, or even perfection in what you're doing to try to edit it to absolute perfection because that might not even sound good if you manage to try and get it there. Even stuff like noise removal.

I remember many years ago, I think my first time at CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, something was messed up about the way that the camera or the microphone were working with each other, and the audio was recorded with a lot of noise in it. I could run that audio through noise processing tools that were available back then. This was 10 years ago, more than 10 years ago. So the tools weren't as good back then, but they were still pretty good.

I could run it through those tools and completely eliminate the background noise. Perfect. Right? Wrong. It eliminated so much noise that it even affected how well you could hear the speaking. The part that was most important for people to hear removing the noise completely and dare I say perfectly then messed up other aspects of it. So don't strive for perfect.

I spent the most time on this point because I think this is the thing that can affect all of us the most is that at any point, just like I was facing this with a camera, and I've been podcasting for almost 20 years, and I was still falling into a trap of trying to strive for the perfect camera, even the perfect camera that I can afford or the perfect lens I can afford. Don't strive for perfect. Strive for excellence, not perfection.

Number 2 mistake that new podcasters make or podcasters might make this at any point in their podcasting journey, doing too much. When I started my TV show fan podcast about the TV show Once Upon a Time, I started trying to do too much. I had these big grandiose plans. I want to interview every cast member of the show. I want us to be podcasting every week even during the hiatus. I want to do this and that and do live video and do all of these things. And you might think that too.

And right now, there is this obsession with video where everyone is saying, oh, video podcasting is making a huge comeback. The definition of that aside, there is all of this pressure, and maybe you even feel it yourself to video, video, video, video, video, video, video. You have to be doing video. You have to be on YouTube. You have to be doing all of this video with this high production value, multiple cameras, and this perfect looking set and all of

this stuff. No. You don't have to do all of that. You don't have to do everything people say they think you should do. Don't try to do too much. Even if simply live streaming is too much for you, don't try and do it. At some point, yes, you can add that and learn how to do that and mix that in with what you're already doing as you grow. But don't try to do too much when you're starting out.

Or maybe you're feeling overwhelmed already with how long you've been podcasting and all of the new things that everyone is saying, you need to be doing this. And you might feel like, that's just too much for me to do. Then don't do it. I give you permission to not do that thing that is too much for you to do.

Right now for me, yes, even though I've got a brand new camera that looks great, and I recommend that you follow me over on YouTube for when I do publish some videos over there, the audacity to podcast.com/youtube.

Right now, even though I am recording and I have been for the last few months recording videos of each of these audio episodes, and I'm looking into a camera when I record the videos and I have my notes in front of me, even though I've been doing that and my lights are on and everything, the videos look great. I've not done anything with those videos yet. I did some little experimenting last year, but haven't really done much with the video since then.

Because to me, right now, it just feels like too much. While I'm a full time dad, single, homeschooling my son, and running a business, then trying to edit video on top of that, I can't afford to pay someone else to edit the video for me, and I really can't afford the time and energy to edit the videos myself. So I've just been recording the videos and not doing anything with them yet because it would just be too much for me at this point.

Now with a brand new camera and what this new camera will enable me to do, maybe that will allow me to do some more video stuff separate from the audio podcast in the future. But please don't fall into this trap of trying to do too much with your podcast. Simplify things. Maybe even for your individual episodes, you might be trying to squeeze too much into that episode. For this episode, I want to have an interview. I want to have a monologue. I want to have a dialogue with my audience.

I want to answer q and a. I want to do this and that and this and that and that and this and all of this stuff that you're loading into your episode, and it could be just way too much. Split that stuff out if you want to. Maybe you do a monologue in a separate episode. Even though it's the same subject as your interview was about, maybe you separate those 2 things, and that can have its own strengths to it.

Don't try to do too much with your podcast, whether you're starting out and trying to plan what you do or you're planning your next episode for a podcast you've been doing for years. Don't try to do too much. Number 3, starting without a plan.

Whether you're starting your first podcast or even your next episode, have a plan of some sort. Unless you are extremely experienced in the art of communication and public speaking and presenting an idea and teaching, don't just sit down to the microphone and try to wing it. The best content will always have a plan behind it in some sort. Many people have quoted this and I don't know where it originally came from, but failing to plan is planning to fail. That really does apply.

Now that doesn't mean that if you don't have a plan, your podcast is going to be an utter failure, but I don't think it's going to be as successful as it could be without a plan. What does that plan look like? Well, it depends on what the context is for your plan.

I do recommend that you have a general idea of where you want to go both for your podcast as a whole, like whom you want to serve, what kind of content you want to put out there, what you want to be known for, but also for your individual episodes. What is the takeaway that you want your audience to get from this? Even if your podcast is focused on entertaining your audience, well, that's part of your plan. How are you going to go about entertaining them? How are you going to get them to laugh?

What stories are you going to share or jokes are you going to tell or interesting things are you going to pull out to entertain your audience? Have a plan. Even if you don't completely follow that plan or you ad lib along the way, that's fine to do, but start with a plan. I've changed something about how I do episodes of The Audacity to Podcast for the last 6 or 7 episodes or so. And a couple of people have picked up on something I've changed, and they are correct in their suspicions.

And I'm curious if you've picked it up too. Reach out to me, any of my channels on x or anywhere I am as the Daniel J. Lewis, or even just email feedback at The Audacity to Podcast dot com. Let me know if you can tell what I've been doing differently. But every episode I've done for years always has some level of a plan. Even though I know I could, at this point, I feel very comfortable just sitting down and talking about any aspect of podcasting, and I can do that for hours.

And I have done that for hours, but it's always been with a plan. And even if I want to record an episode and I have only a few minutes, I'll spend those few minutes to make a good plan for what I want the episode to cover. Even a a simple basic outline, that could be your plan.

Number 4, obsessing over the quote launch unquote. This is the other side of the plan where you might go too far and you're starting to think, oh, I want launch day to be this. I have to have this many episodes, and they have to have this specific thing. I need to make this really big splash when I launch my podcast. It is fun to have a big launch, to have that whole thing to say, we're now available.

Everyone go listen today because today is the day you can listen to it or build up that hype, that momentum, put out that trailer, that teaser, whatever it is. Build up the engagement ahead of time, the anticipation for your episode. That is fantastic to do. Don't obsess over that, but also realize that the size and impact of your launch doesn't actually have a direct correlation with your long term success. Here's a very good metaphor for this. A wedding.

The size and fanciness of the wedding is in no way guaranteeing the success of the marriage. This is pure conjecture on my part. I even sometimes wonder if the bigger and more grandiose the wedding, the more problems they have later on in the marriage. Not because of the size of the wedding, but because of maybe it's reflecting something about their personalities or their priorities and such that they're more interested in the big show than actually making the relationship work.

That little tidbit and conjecture aside, and I have no scientific backing to that. That's hypothesis at this point. But with your podcast, I have seen this happen too many times for me to count, where someone has made a big deal about their launch. And where are they today? They're not podcasting anymore. They fizzled out. And it's not because of their size of their launch that they fizzled out, but certainly how much effort they put into their launch didn't keep them going years later.

So don't obsess over the launch. Yes. It's fun to make a big splash and to get all of that energy and momentum from day 1 and have people anticipating your episode, but don't obsess over it. I don't see this so much now as I used to. But in the past, there was certainly the obsession over trying to get into, back then called iTunes, new and noteworthy. Dave Jackson just threw up a little bit in his mouth when I said that.

People don't obsess over that so much anymore because I think the truth of new and noteworthy and how that works has spread more and also people realize that new and noteworthy isn't in as many places as it used to be anymore. It is still cool to get in there, but it's not something you can follow a strategy to get in there other than try and make an amazing podcast with great marketing behind it. And some of us can't afford that. That's fine.

But the size of your launch isn't going to affect the success of your podcast. So don't obsess over the launch.

And number 5, not launching at all. Or we could even say fizzling out after you've launched. It is a statistic at this point. You can go over to podcastindustryinsights.com and look at the statistics, especially from Apple, of how many podcasts have launched with 1 episode and have done nothing since then. It is staggering. Most of them came from Anchor or now called Spotify for creators.

I think there is a certain demographic that that attracts that it's a lot of people just testing, just playing with things and not really intending to have launched a podcast into all of the podcast apps and directories out there. But still, I really do think that the biggest hurdle for podcasters to face is episode 1, both getting there and also getting past episode 1. And you can see it in the data that so many podcasters struggle to get past that first episode.

They might obsess over the launch and either they never launch or they launch and do nothing after that. So don't make this mistake. Don't leave your message only in your mind and never getting it out there. Get your message out there. Make the impact that you want to make for good. Don't obsess over trying to make a perfect launch, but also don't obsess over a perfect launch, but also don't forget to actually launch. Put it out there. Get the message out. You can improve things as you go.

Even if you want to just start on a free podcast hosting provider, like Buzzsprout has a pretty good free plan with them. The audacitytopodcast.com/buzzsprout is my affiliate program. I only recommend things I truly believe in. But you can sign up for a free hosting plan over there and launch with a couple of episodes, play with things just to see. And episodes over there will expire over time, and you can only have so many episodes on the free plan.

But that can give you a chance to just experiment. See if you can survive past episode 1, and you can improve as you go. Or you could even decide that was a good practice. I'm gonna scrap it all, start over much better, and then keep going from there. Yeah. You can do that too. It's not like you're married to your podcast. So don't make these 5 mistakes that I see new podcasters make all the time. Number 1, striving for perfect. Number 2, doing too much. Number 3, starting without a plan.

Number 4, obsessing over the launch. And number 5, not launching at all.

I would love to help you build a deeper relationship with your audience because I think for many of us podcasters, it's not really the size of our audience that matters the most to it. It is the change we're making and the connections we're making with the audience.

And that's why I made Podgagement over at podgagement.com to help you deepen the relationship with your audience, to engage with your audience through ratings and reviews, through feedback, through voice mails from your audience, to engage more with other podcasters in your space, like through the networking feature, to track how you're doing in the charts, tracking your podcast across nearly 34,000 charts, to engage with great images that you

can share on social networks and share the feedback that you receive with the rest of your audience outside of the podcast and share the reviews that you're receiving, showing off the change that your podcast is making in people's lives. And so much more that you can do with Podgagement to supercharge the engagement you have with your audience. Go to podgagement.com to sign up for a free trial to help you deepen that relationship with your audience so that you can grow

your podcast. That's at podgagement.com. And now that I've given you some of the guts and taught you some of the tools, it's time for you to go start and grow your own podcast for passion and profit. I'm Daniel J. Lewis from theaudacitytopodcast.com. Reach out to me on x at the Daniel J. Lewis and pretty much everywhere else too as the Daniel J. Lewis, and thanks for listening.