Morgan Franklin: You know, something I think about all the
time is that we don't know what we don't know. And I know that
sounds kinda goofy, right, but I try to remind myself this every
single day, and it's not to reward ignorance, but it's to
give some grace to myself and the people that are around me,
because sometimes we just simply don't know what we don't know,
and that's why learning and curiosity and working towards
that best version of ourselves is so important. This episode is
gonna be a little bit different, and I'm gonna talk to you about
what I wish I had known when I started podcasting back in 2021
and launching my first show, but also what I wish that I had
known two years later, launching my fifth original show, and what
it was like for me, after four years of producing other
people's podcasts, to finally start my own show. And of
course, what I wish I had known, hello and welcome to podcast for
profit. My name is Morgan Franklin. I'm a Podcast
Producer, strategist and educator. This podcast will help
you create and grow a podcast that cuts through the noise of
social media and speaks directly to your target audience. If
you're ready to create a podcast that will align you with the
experts in your industry, position yourself as a trusted
leader and create another source of revenue for your business.
You're in the right place. Like so many people in 2020, my life
turned completely upside down. I've never talked about this on
the podcast before, because it's very personal to me, but I
basically started over my entire life. Five years ago, I was a
wedding photographer, and it was my passion. It was my life. I
have been creating content and taking pictures since I was 13
years old. I later went on to work in digital marketing and
photography full time in 2016 by 2020 I was doing mostly luxury
weddings in Nashville and across the southeast. And, you know, I
really felt like everything was falling into place. You know
what I'm saying? Like I looked around and I thought, this is
exactly where I'm supposed to be. I was getting published in
magazines and websites and getting brand partnerships, and
genuinely, I could not imagine myself anywhere else. You know,
it's funny how you remember very specific things, but I think
about this brand trip that I took in February of 2020. I was
going to take photos of a wedding workshop, and I took a
trip to New York City, and I just I knew something wasn't
right, something in my life was really off, and I couldn't
really put my finger on what it was. I remember the last morning
of my trip, I woke up and I found out that my hometown had
experienced an f4 tornado that just tore through our city. It
impacted hundreds of people, and by the time that I made it home
and turned around, we were in a full lockdown for covid. At the
time, I was living with a roommate that was an essential
worker. And if anybody else was living with an essential worker
at this time, you know that it was critical to not be exposed
to anybody else, to not have anybody coming around. And of
course, no one was getting married. I mean, I wasn't
working, I wasn't going anywhere, and also my first long
term relationship was falling apart. I'd been dating someone
for about three years, but as I was kind of scrambling to put
all the pieces of my life back together that I could that was
also falling apart. I felt like I had nothing, like things had
changed so quickly, I didn't know when I was going to be able
to work again. I had lost the longest romantic relationship of
my life, and I genuinely felt very overwhelmed, and, you know,
at a lot of times hopeless. Turns out, being newly single
and careerless in a global pandemic is kind of a lot to
handle. It was New Year's of 2021, and my dad was calling me
from a party to tell me Happy New Years. And it's so funny
because I remember that I was talking to him next to a trash
can. And I don't know why that memory still sticks with me, but
it does. He told me one of his friends wanted to run for office
and needed someone to help with campaigning and social media,
and asked if he could give him my number. All I can remember is
like I said, Yes, but I didn't really mean it. You know what I
mean? Like, I was not ready to move on from weddings, I was not
ready to do something else. But also, deep down, I think that I
knew and I accepted that the wedding industry was never going
to be the same. And when I dug a little bit deeper, I also
realized Neither was I. I was not the same person that had
gone into this almost a year ago. And here's the thing about
the wedding industry. And I think something that a lot of
people, even today do not want to come to terms with. You only
have so many weekends in the year. And you know, there's only
four weekends in October. While I had successfully created a six
figure business in weddings, there really wasn't anywhere
else for me to go where I was. I couldn't be any more booked than
I already was without sacrificing the quality or going
into like ultra luxury weddings. And at the time, I was not
prepared for either. I just I wasn't ready. I had scaled this
fast, and I had worked so hard, but when I really thought about
it, I just, I did not think that is the thing that I wanted to
do. So I remember my dad's friend calls, and he schedules a
lunch meeting, and then he immediately gets covid and
cancels. And that's probably the most like 2021, story that I
could ever tell. He texts me and he says that he's gonna set up a
time, and I forget to text him back. And here's here's just
something about me. I'm not gonna text you back. I'm so
sorry. It's not personal. I just forget and then it never
happens. So a few weeks later, he texts me again. We finally
meet up, and you know, I'm still not 100% sold on working with
this guy. It's so funny looking back on this now, because I
could have very easily passed up on the opportunity that would
literally change my life forever. But I think that that
should be a reminder to us. It should be a reminder to you what
is meant for you. Will never pass you by. You cannot mess up
an opportunity that is meant for you, even if the meeting gets
canceled and you forget to text back and all these other things
happen. I truly believe, and I hope that you do too. If
something is meant for you, it is going to happen. You are not
going to mess it up. If I remember correctly, it was
probably the third meeting, and I did agree to work on his
campaign, and I was really excited. I of course, had no
idea what I was doing. I'd worked in digital marketing and
content creation and photography up until this point, but I was
determined to figure it out. We had so many ideas and did so
much brainstorming about what we wanted this campaign and brand
to look like, and I won't bore you with all that, because by
this point you're probably wondering and listening to this
and thinking, what does this have to do with podcasting, and
what you've learned about podcasting, and here's the
truth, if I've learned anything about podcasting, it's that
being able to tell a story and knowing yourself are two of the
most important qualities that any podcaster can have the
podcast that I created for that campaign. My first podcast is
still going today, and is one of the greatest accomplishments
that I have had thus far in my career. But just to clarify, it
was not all sunshines and rainbows to get there, and there
are several more particular things that I wish I'd known,
and I'm gonna share them with you now. The first one is, know
what success looks like before you start. Starting a podcast is
hard, keeping it going is even harder. And when you're thinking
about your podcast and what you want to accomplish and what you
want this to be, what does success look like? How can you
measure that success? And when you're feeling overwhelmed and
tired and like you want to quit, because you will, what's going
to keep you going towards that goal, you have to know what you
want to get out of this. And it can be anything. Maybe it's
money, maybe it's exposure to a certain community. Maybe it's
growing a follower base, whatever it is, spend time to
figure out what you want to accomplish and be as specific as
possible, always. The second thing is, who is actually,
literally every week, going to be listening to the show? And
I'm not gonna lie to you guys, I did not answer this question
when I started my first podcast, and that is so embarrassing. I
know I had a loose idea I remember of who I wanted to
listen, but I felt way too much pressure to make it for
everyone. I thought the more things that I could throw in
here, the more people would want to listen. But it's just not
true. If no one can identify and see themselves in your podcast
or what you're talking about on your podcast, they're not going
to listen. So in my opinion, the more specific and the more you
can just drill down into the exact person you want to listen
to this podcast, the better. Stop worrying about people not
being interested. That's a good thing. Stop trying to make it
for everyone. Nothing is for everyone. And if you can't talk
to one specific person with your podcast, you are not talking to
anyone. If you get anything out of this episode, please let it
be. That if you are not talking to one person with your podcast,
you are not talking to anyone. Another thing that I wish I'd
known when I started podcasting was how much time that it
actually takes. And I know so many people are listening to
this right now. They're like, yes, yes, if you're listening to
this episode, I know you know podcasting is time consuming,
and the more that you try to improve it, and the more layers
that you add on, the harder and more time consuming it gets. It
takes me probably roughly 10 to 20 hours per episode per podcast
every week. This is a time consuming media. If I could go
back and tell myself anything, it would be to create systems to
try to batch writing and recording and editing and post
production, to streamline whatever I could with repeatable
systems. Because not only do you need those repeatable systems
for yourself, for the recording, for the creating of this
podcast, you need it to be able to repeat the same kind of
content for your listener every time your listener needs to know
what to expect, and the more streamlined you can make those
episodes, the better experience you can bring to your listeners.
All right, so let's fast forward a little bit to fall of 2023.
I'm launching my fifth podcast, and you know, I think I know
what I'm doing right, right? I've been around the block a few
times. I know what I'm doing. And you might not have multiple
podcasts, or you might not have multiple podcasts yet, but I'm
sure you have a lot of other things going on. And I think
about two years into podcasting full time is when I really
started to get burnt out. Video podcasts were coming up
everywhere, and they were getting more and more exposure,
and I finally agreed to make a video podcast. This is the
advice that I give every podcaster, and honestly, it's
because I wish that someone had given it to me. It is okay to go
one step at a time, and that's all you can do. That's all you
can do anyway. So stop pressuring yourself into
figuring out every single little thing today, if you still
haven't mastered your podcast audio, don't add a video
component before you figured out the audio. Not only is this a
huge learning curve for every part of podcasting and the
equipment that you need, and how to set it up and how to actually
use it. It is very expensive, so again, take it one step at a
time. This is one of the most asked questions that I see on
forums. And you know, when I'm trying to reply to different
questions that people have on Facebook groups, when should I
have video? When should I start video? Let me just say video
almost stressed me out to the point where I was like, I don't
know if I can do this anymore. Take it one step at a time,
master your craft and then continue on. Start with audio.
If you do not know audio and video, start with audio, learn
audio, Master Audio. Then go to video. But going back to my
first round of suggestions, knowing your goals and knowing
how to measure the success of this podcast, you have to hold
yourself accountable to the growth of this podcast and
actually take the time every month to sit down and say, Okay,
did we do better this month than we did last month? If not, why?
If not, what can we do this month to do better than we did
last month? Because nobody is going to be checking on these
numbers for you. I'm not going to be sending you a message
saying, Hey, did you get more downloads or something you did
last month? You are the one that has to look at this. No one is
going to be saying, Okay, we need to make sure that we have a
10% growth this month, because we didn't last month. And what
do we need to do? You have to be that person for yourself every
month. And you need to be this is so important if you do not
have your eye on how are we growing? How are we improving
this podcast? There is really no reason to be creating it at all.
And the last thing that I wish that I had known in this part of
my podcasting journey was just how to let go. You know, that's
always something that I've kind of struggled with, but letting
go, letting this podcast become what it's going to be. And I
know that sounds really contrary to everything else that I said
in this episode, but it's something that we all have to
know and that we have to truly understand. People will tell us
the kind of content and episodes that they want to see from us,
and we have to use our strategy as a roadmap while they drive
the car, because we didn't make this podcast for us to listen to
for ourselves. We made it for them. But without a doubt, the
biggest lessons that I've learned in podcasting, most
recently have been over the past six months of having my own solo
show, this podcast, podcast for profit, and like I said, I was
producing. A podcast for four years before I had my own
podcast. And that's kind of strange in the podcasting world,
usually someone starts a podcast or is working for an established
podcast, and they're learning, and then they become a producer.
So let me just say it was a major wake up call the first
time I had to go behind this microphone. So let's just start
there, recording my first episode, and what I wish that I
had known before getting behind the mic for the first time,
talking on a solo podcast is hard. It's especially hard if
you actually want to be good, and I'll go down 400 rabbit
holes and successfully teach or entertain or generally give your
audience something of value, which I think most of us do, and
I was so sure of myself too, which is so embarrassing. I sat
down with a very thrown together outline of maybe four different
points and the topic of the episode, and I hit record. And
it was not fun. It was not good, and it was not fun. I didn't
know what to say. I was tripping all over myself. I didn't like
it. I was thinking maybe that this had all been a big mistake.
Solo podcasting is difficult, because when you think about
what this skill looks like in the real world, when was the
last time that you just did a monolog style talk to yourself
for like, an hour straight? Exactly, that's a skill in
itself, and I think practicing improvisation or even how to
talk about stuff on the fly is just very, very important for
podcasters, especially solo podcasters, an exercise that I
like to do with chat GPT. It's so easy. I'll just ask chat GPT
to give me 10 random subjects, and I'll record myself talking
about those random subjects for five minutes each. And another
level of this could be that you ask chatgpt for the 10 topics,
and then you record yourself into chatgpt, that's a new
function that you can use with your phone, and I think on
computers as well, you talking about it, and then ask it to
rate you on those topics and how good of a job that you did
talking about it and see what it says, because I'm sure it will
have feedback for you, and I think that that could just be
another level of practicing talking about something in a
solo dialog. Another thing is talk to people. Take the
opportunity to strike up a conversation with someone when
they say, Hey, how are you? Don't just say Good. Say, oh my
gosh, isn't this crazy weather we're having? Wow. I can't
believe we're doing this thing. I don't know what situation
you're in, but don't just say Good. Don't just give people one
word answers. Take that opportunity to speak with
another human being. This is going to help your
conversational skills, and also, you're probably gonna make a new
friend along the way. Loose connections will change your
life, and that is how it happens. The second big lesson
that I've learned while doing this podcast, and that I'm still
trying to manage, is procrastination and saying, Oh,
I'll do that later, or I'll record that tomorrow. This will
kill your motivation, and ultimately, your podcast
planning, intentionality, being clear with yourself over and
over and over on what you're doing and what you want to
accomplish is everything. So try to create a schedule, a schedule
that you can live by and say, Okay, I'm going to have my
script or outline written by this day, I'll have my
recordings done by this day, I'll have my editing done by
this day, I'll have everything ready to schedule and post so
that I can start working on my promotion on this day. And this
is going to help you stay organized and, more importantly,
stay accountable to yourself and not be constantly stressing that
you have a podcast episode that you need to record. The last
thing that I wish that I had known before I started
podcasting, and specifically before I started this podcast
that you're listening to right now, is that you're going to get
this feeling when you actually do the thing that you set out to
do. And yes, podcasting is hard and it's time consuming, and
it's 100 other things, but when someone says, Hey, I loved this
episode, or this helped me, or I love listening to your podcast,
and you can feel the pride and recognition and satisfaction of
creating something that someone else thought was worth
consuming, that is going to make everything worth it. And you
know, it might take some time, it really might, and it's okay,
if it does, it might be a year before someone organically is
talking to you and just says, Hey, I love your podcast, and
that's okay. You have to build the listeners. You have to get
good enough that people will actually listen and find value
in it. Nothing happens overnight, but if you keep
going, I promise it will be worth it. I know that we've.
Covered so much in this episode, and maybe you're thinking, wow,
I really need to work on these, or I'm still working on these,
or I haven't even got to this part, and that is totally okay.
I just want to let you know I am also working on all these things
like you never just have it all figured out. That is not the way
podcasting works. It is an ever evolving quest to make an
amazing podcast. So I want to comfort you in knowing that we
are all just working on this, and that is why, when I was
trying to think about what could really help you after you've
listened to this episode, I went through and I looked at all of
my resources that I have, and what I'm going to link in the
episode description and in my show notes is my podcast Audit
Checklist. It also has a video accompanying it where I go
through every single question. I kind of talk to you about what
it means, what it means for your podcast. And I think that this
is a really helpful tool, just because this is kind of what I
use to gage where each one of my paid clients are at. So if you
were to book an hour with me, or book a year of coaching calls
with me. These are some of the questions that I would send you
to see where you're at. And I think that more than anything,
most of the time, we just need to see, okay, this is where
we're at, and this is what we need to work on. So that's why I
thought that this would be really helpful. If you've
listened to this and you're thinking, Okay, what do I do
now? This is an amazing download for you, like I said, it will be
in the episode description. It is what I send to try to kind of
gage where a podcaster is at. I actually just did this audit for
two of the podcasts that I produce, and I just went through
and I answered all the questions, and it was so helpful
to me. So I hope that it's helpful to you, and as always, I
can't wait to listen to your podcast. Hey, thank you so much
for joining me on this episode. If you enjoyed the podcast and
you'd like to hear more episodes like this one, go ahead and
subscribe to the show. New episodes air every Monday
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