067: Ditch Inconsistency for Good: Key Tips for Consistent Podcasting
Is consistency one of your biggest hurdles as a podcaster? If so, you’re not alone. This is a challenge that many people face when it comes to their podcast. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be as hard as you think. In fact, there are a few simple techniques that could make your podcasting life a whole lot easier.
In this episode, I am uncovering a few of the objections people face as they work on becoming consistent with their podcast. I share a few of the strategies that I’ve implemented with my own podcast as well as what I’ve seen work with my clients who have gotten their consistency down to a science. If you’re ready to become consistent with your podcast, this is the episode for you.
What’s in this episode:
Why consistency is important for podcasters
How to take the stress out of podcasting to get rid of excuses
Tips for having consistency with your podcast
Links:
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The Transcript:
067: Ditch Inconsistency for Good: Key Tips for Consistent Podcasting
And so this is getting rid of the excuses, right, we want to get rid of the excuses, we want to get rid of the hurdles and the blocks that are keeping us from sharing our amazing content with our listeners because there are people out there who want to hear you. They want to hear you. They want to hear what you have to say. They are excited for your episodes and we want to make sure that we are being consistent for them.
Welcome to the Wild Home Podcast, where we talk about podcasting, life and all the wild in between. Join me, Caroline, every week as I share a peek into the world of podcasting and my wildlife as well. Ready. Let's get into it.
Hello, and welcome back to the Wild Home Podcast. I wanted to dove a little bit deeper today into a topic that we touched on during the last couple of episodes that I did with my team members. And that is all about consistency. And specifically today, I wanted to tackle this from the perspective of you're having trouble being a consistent podcaster, and here are some tips to help.
So I want to start out by explaining why consistency is important. We talk about it a lot. We talk about it with our clients. I've talked about it on the podcast many times. But why is consistency so important? And the easiest thing for me to say is that inconsistent episodes and releasing creates inconsistent listeners if they expect an episode every week and all of a sudden, there's no episodes where you say there's going to be an episode and there's not an episode people are going to start to expect for there not to be episodes. And so they won't keep coming back, right?
The other thing, too, that we have to remember about podcasting is that it is definitely a long game. In a way, you're building relationships in community with your podcast episodes, and if you're doing that inconsistently, it's going to take longer for it to gain traction, right? So we want to make sure that we're being consistent. But here's the thing if having a podcast is stressful for you, then you're not going to get it done as soon as your podcast becomes hard. You're not going to get it done. You're not going to be pulling the pieces together. You're going to say, Oh, it's no big deal. Let's get this week. It's no big deal to skip that. Next week I'm going to take a break. And then before you know it, you're not even podcasting anymore.
And we've seen this happen time and time again because it is a difficult thing, right? You're not seeing immediate results, usually because again, it's a long game and it takes a lot of time and energy to produce a podcast. And so we want to talk about ways that we are going to take the stress out of podcasting and specifically in areas that are going to allow for us to be consistent.
And so this is getting rid of the excuses, right? We want to get rid of the excuses. We want to get rid of the hurdles and the blocks that are keeping us from sharing our amazing content with our listeners because there are people out there who want to hear you, they want to hear you, they want to hear what you have to say. They are excited for your episodes and we want to make sure that we are being consistent for them. So let's dove into a few tips for making sure that you're able to stay consistent. My first one that I'm going to say, it seems really simple, and you may be thinking, I don't know that that's going to make that much of a difference, but sometimes it really does. Let's say that you have episodes coming out on Tuesdays, and you're having a really hard time getting everything done on Tuesdays because you usually don't even start to think about your podcast until the Wednesday or Thursday before maybe you take Fridays off and you don't work on the weekends. And so Monday you come in and you think I'm going to do all these podcast tasks, I'm going to get it done. But as most of us know, Mondays are usually kind of crazy. And so you end up not doing your podcast.
So I want you to pick a new day move from Tuesday to Thursday, and it's amazing what that move can do for you. I used to release episodes on Tuesdays, but I found that it was really difficult for me to get everything I needed done by Tuesday. It just didn't work with the flow of my week and how I work, and if I did it on Thursday, then it seemed to work out better and almost felt like I was giving myself more time to get my podcast done. Even though it may not necessarily be more time, there's some kind of mind game there where it felt like it was more time for sure. And so just simply moving to a new day or finding a new weekly schedule that works for you is going to be huge.
The other thing too, is if you are doing weekly episodes and it's just pulling teeth to make it happen. Try going to every other week or even releasing an episode once a month. Now I am more of a fan of doing every other week than just doing once a month, because I think that people want to hear from you more often. But if that's all that you're capable of, then that's totally fine. So picking a new day, setting a new schedule, making sure that your schedule flows with the rest of your life, right?
So I also want you to make sure that you are doing episodes that you have time for. So what am I saying here? A really good example is over an hour long interviews. If you do not have time for those, if those episodes are harder for you to schedule and fit in and do all the things you need to do, then incorporate some solo episodes into your schedule or maybe some shorter versions, maybe you can split up your interviews so you're doing less, but still releasing more. Think about what you have time for, what you have time to actually record, what you have time to produce and then only do those episodes there.
There really is no rule about what type of episodes you need to do. You need to do episodes that are ideal for your listeners, your audience and for you, right? And so if that means that right now, to stay consistent, doing 15 minute solo episodes that are really jam packed with information and action steps is what you have time for thing. Great. Let's do that. If you have time, maybe you only have time every other week and you do want to incorporate some interviews. So do one or two interviews each month and then alternate them with other types of episodes. There's a lot of room here to be creative and come up with some new ways of doing episodes and some new structures and things like that. And so make sure that you are playing around with that and finding what works best for you and your time. Because if it takes too much time, you're less likely to do that. Correct? And so we want to make sure that we're not setting ourselves up for failure on the get go with a schedule that is going to be unattainable for us to keep, right.
So for me, doing the solo episodes has been a huge part of what allows me to be able to keep the podcast going because I am super busy. My time is really short and precious, and I also cannot guarantee quiet in my house that this at this moment in time. And so not doing interviews was something that I didn't necessarily want to do, but I knew that I needed to do it so that way I could stay consistent. And it's forced me to become more creative with my solo episodes and the topics that I talk about. But I love that, and it's actually worked out really well because I'm able to sit down and record it when I have time like I'm doing right now. So again, making sure that you're doing episodes that you have time for, the next thing I want to talk about is having a system. So one of the first things that we usually see when there's a breakdown and consistency is that there is not a really good system set up.
So I'm absolutely talking about like a spreadsheet or Asana. Some way you're tracking your episodes. But when I say system, I also mean, like what happens after you record an episode so you sit down and record, what's the next step? What's the next step? What's the next step, et cetera, making sure you know the system and how things are going to happen and what your tasks are and what other people's tasks may be if you have help is really, really important and key and setting due dates for all of those things. Understanding that if you have an episode going live on Thursday, it needs to be scheduled and your newsletter written and everything by Tuesday, right? That way, you have goals and times and things that you can track and keep up with, and that's going to help with consistency as well.
I see a lot of solopreneurs who are doing their podcasts on their own lose track of their system. They think I'll just do it when I have time. And then next thing they know, it's the day that the episode is supposed to go live. This was definitely one of the key things for me that like one of the catalysts that led me to completely offboarding my podcasts and having other people do it because I was doing it all myself and I have a lot of other things going on. I'm usually working in the evenings and I kept thinking to myself, Oh, I'll do all my podcasts tests in the evening, and then I would sit down for my evening work and have way more to do than I anticipated. Or it would take longer than I thought, and my podcast was always the last thing that I was getting to. So inevitably, I wasn't getting to it at all, or it was getting to it. And so I knew that we had to create a better system because I was just doing it on the fly right and not really knowing when each step needed to occur. And so just kind of mapping out your workflow and your system, as tedious as it sounds, can be really, really key in keeping you on track. And that way to if you do have a week that's super busy, you can look at your schedule, look at your task and say, What can I move? What do I need to ask for help on what parts of this do I need to alter just a little bit to make sure that I'm staying consistent?
And then this last tip is kind of an over arching moment for you. I want you to really identify what part of podcasting is making you inconsistent. Which part of it is the hard part? And what other parts of it are hard? A lot of times people will say recording is difficult, scheduling that, finding quiet time. Another thing they may say is the editing is difficult or it could be writing that the shownotes episode description and scheduling it on your website.
What is the thing that is holding you back from getting it out each week and really analyze that and say, What can I do to make this better? And if it's something that you feel like, I don't know how to make this better. For example, if it's the editing and you're just thinking to yourself, like, I could just publish this unedited, but I don't really want to do that, then my next piece of advice for you is to ask for help find somebody to help you with various tasks in your podcast. I do have an episode on what you can outsource in your podcast, which will link in the show notes. Go back and listen to that. That'll give you some ideas. A lot of times if there's one piece that's really hard, but like, you have to do it, such as recording the podcast episode, if you can take some of the other pieces and have somebody help you with them, it makes the whole process seem easier. And so think about what that might be. And if you are really committed to your podcasts and you really want to be consistent, but you just don't have time. It may be time to ask for help and to outsource some task and don't be afraid to outsource just a few things at the start and see how it goes. And then maybe one day you can outsource the whole thing and you're just recording and handing it off, right?
And there's no rule that you can't do it, you know, certain pieces of it and outsource other pieces of it if there's parts that you really, really love. The point is is we want to create more time because we want you to not feel pressured and stressed from lack of time to the point that you're not being able to get your episodes out.
And that really is the key to this whole episode, right? We want to take the stress out of it. We want to create more space and time. So that way, you can focus on doing what is important with your podcast, which is creating amazing content that's going to build your authority and draw leads to your business. And again, podcasting is a long game, and so we cannot expect to inconsistently post episodes and have something consistently amazing come our way, right?
So my encouragement to you is to listen to this episode if you're struggling with being consistent. Think about the things that are causing you to be inconsistent. Think about what you can maybe do to make it better and try just one of these little changes, even if it's just moving to a different day and letting your audience know, Hey, we're going to be releasing on a different day. It can make such a huge change in just the feel and the flow of your podcast and getting it out every week.
I hope this episode helped, and I really encourage you to go back and listen to the episodes I did with my team, and we had a little conversation about consistency during Part two, I believe, but part one's really great too, so we're going to link those in the show notes as well. And again, if you have a question that you want the Wild Home Podcasting team to tackle, we would love to answer that for you. And you can head to WildHomePodcasting.com/askWHP and leave your question there, and we'd love to do more of those episodes. I had so much fun. And then again, if you are struggling with consistency and you've gone through this episode and you say, you know what? It's time to ask for help. We have openings right now at Wild Home Podcasting for monthly podcast management, and we would love to help you out. You can head to WildHomePodcasting.com/services for more information. And if you just click the Learn More button next to podcast management, you will see all of the information there about what we do and how we do it and how it can help you. Be sure to connect with me on Instagram at @WildHomePodcasting and I will see you or be in your ears next week for a new episode.
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. To stay in the know, head to WildHomePodcasting.com and be sure to connect with me on Instagram @WildHomePodcasting. See you next week!
