083: What It Means to Be Wildly Authentic in Your Podcast
There’s a false perception that a podcast has to be corporate and perfectly polished, with radio voices and professional announcements. It can feel intimidating for someone wanting to start a podcast for their business. Thankfully, this perception is changing. You don’t need fancy voice overs or ads or any of that—you just need to show up exactly as you are.
In today’s episode, I’m talking about what it means to be wildly authentic and how it helps you build your business and connect with your audience. You don’t have to pretend to be someone else to get listeners. That only leads to burn out while you try to keep up with the image you’ve created.
Your listeners want to hear what you have to say. They want to get to know you. You’ll feel better about your messaging and the clients you attract if you just be yourself. It may sound easier said than done, but that’s why the team at Wild Home Podcasting is here to help you create a podcast you can be proud of—in all its wildly authentic glory.
What’s in this episode:
How podcasting is changing for the better
Why it’s important to be authentic as a podcaster promoting your business
Connecting with your listeners by being yourself
How we encourage authenticity with our clients
How a podcast can help you clarify your business messaging
The burnout that comes with trying to be someone you’re not
Links:
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The Transcript:
083: What It Means to Be Wildly Authentic in Your Podcast
We don't want to bring that energy into podcasting. We want to be confident that we can sit down and be who we are and share what we want to share and not worry about what the big podcasts are doing and not worry about how we sound because we need to sound like ourselves. So that way when people hear us, they connect with us as we are. And then when we show up to a discovery call, they're not confused because we sound so different on our podcast. Or we said this on our podcast, but now we're saying this in the discovery call. That doesn't make sense, right?
Ready to start a podcast for your business and share your message in a way that feels wildly authentic? Welcome to Podcast Your Business, where each week we share how to start a podcast and make sure it's working for you and your business. I'm Caroline Hull, podcast manager and consultant and I've seen the power a podcast can have. Ready to share your voice? Let's get started.
When we did the rebrand of the podcast, there were a lot of names that we were considering, and one of the phrases that kept coming back up was wildly authentic. And this has been something that we've been talking a lot about as women in the podcasting industry, as podcasters who have podcasts to support our businesses. Like, what does it mean to be wildly authentic? And since we added this to our tagline, I thought it would be a really great moment to stop and explain to you why this is so important to us and what we think being wildly authentic means as a podcaster.
So yeah, we totally added this as a tagline. I originally wasn't going to have a tagline because I didn't, you know, I didn't know if it was necessary to have a tagline, basically. And when we were coming up with a name for the podcast, it just seemed like everybody wanted to include this term wildly authentic. I mean, I did, too. I think I had it like in a few, a few different versions. And so we added it because it's really important to us and it's something that we wanted others to know was really important as well. But I think it's really important to kind of break it down and talk about why this is important as podcasters, but especially as as women in podcasting.
So I think this perception is changing. But when I talk with potential podcasters a lot, they feel that they have to change to be successful as podcasters, they either have to change their voices or almost become influencers in a way. And I think this comes from like that older masculine version of podcasting. And I'm not saying older as in person being older, I'm saying like, you know, when podcasting was newer years ago. Podcasting in my perception. And again, these are my opinions, but I do know a lot of people that share them. It started out as a very masculine and kind of corporate thing. It's very like radio in some ways. And I think because of that, a lot of like our perception of podcasting is exactly that. Somebody sitting down with this very radio voice making announcements, having lots of noise and corporate music.
And because of that, a lot of podcasters who come into it from a different angle, like having a business, wanting to have a podcast for your business. They feel like that they have to perform and be like this performative figure as opposed to just sitting down and recording. And like I said, I do think this perception is slowly starting to change. But I still see this a lot with clients who start working with us. They feel that in order to have a successful podcast, it needs to sound this way. Or as a woman, their voice is too it's too high pitched and I need vocal coaching. I cannot tell you how many times I hear this. It’s not true. Let me just, like, say that right away. For business owners especially, like being authentic is only going to help you attract the right people. Now, notice I didn't say all people but the right people, and that's why you have a podcast for your business. But if you come into it with this perception of, I have to be someone else, you're not going to attract the right people for your business. And this is where that concept of being wildly authentic comes from.
Because we want our podcasters to 100% feel like they can be themselves. They don't have to be anybody else. They don't have to be this character. They don't have to be a voice that, you know, that they've heard. They don't have to have an intro or ads that sound a certain way. It's not about that. That is not the thing that is going to make you successful as a podcaster. What's going to make you successful is your content and reaching your listeners and being in community with your listeners and growing your podcast that way. I also think like there's also this idea that the episodes have to be sensational for people to listen. And that's also not true. Your episodes have to be true. They have to be real. They have to be something that people can connect with and listen. Like I've said this a million times, but podcasting is a long game. You know, changing yourself for a podcast is not going to make you an overnight success. But being yourself, being authentic, coming to the microphone as nobody but you and sharing what you truly believe is going to attract your people. And it may not happen tomorrow, but it can definitely happen in a year, in a couple of years. Being authentic means sharing what's true to you and not being afraid to be yourself and not pretending like you have to be someone else to get listens and to get clients.
And I just I really wanted to, like, talk about this on the podcast because it keeps coming up. We keep meeting people who feel like they need to change or their interaction in the podcast industry has been negative because they want to do things a certain way and they feel like a lot of podcasters are coming at it from this very, like I said, corporate kind of experience. And I think that's so neat about what we do at Wild Home Podcast being like, you know, my branding is pink and orange and green and we're all women on my team and we like to bring that energy to podcasting. We are accepting and inclusive and we want to bring that to podcasting. We want to influence podcasting in that way and make people feel comfortable when they come to work with us and not feel like, again, they have to change or be somebody else.
You know, couple of things that we don't do, like we don't use voice overs in our intros or encourage voice lessons for our clients because we want them to shine as they are. And sure, you may be unsteady in the beginning, but that gets better with time. And as you gain confidence, you'll be more able to share what's important to you and to speak your truth on your podcast. Right?
Are you wondering if a podcast is right for you? Podcasting can be a great way to connect with your ideal client and share your authority, but it requires time and consistency. To find out if you're a great fit for podcasting, I have a free quiz. It's easy and quick and gives you a few things to think about before you start your podcast journey. Head to www.wildhomepodcasting.com/ready to take your quiz today and be sure to tag me on Instagram @wildhomepodcasting and let me know your results.
I think that's one of the amazing things about podcasting is it really helps you clarify your message. I've talked about this on a couple episodes and then we even chatted about it for a hot minute in last week's episode with Dr. Alyssa Adams. But the more you share and sit down and talk through things, the clearer they become. And I think as a business owner, we're constantly working on our messaging, making sure we're, you know, saying the not the right things, but the things that are right for us. And in order to reach the people that we want to reach. Right. And I remember when I first started podcasting, I remember it felt awkward. You know, I would sit down to the microphone and I would feel weird and I would feel like I would say the wrong things or I would laugh at the wrong times or say, you know, 50 times. It took time to get comfortable in front of the microphone.
But as I've done it more and more and more and more, I've become so much more confident in sharing and knowing how I'm going to explain something. And it's just really helped clarify my messaging. And not being afraid to sit down and talk to you about things like this and the fact that we are trying to do something different here at Wild Home Podcasting than some other things that we see going on in the podcast industry. I truly believe that if you aren't going to be wildly authentic, you will burn out. Trying to be someone else, try to sound like someone else, trying to explain things as someone else would. That's only going to make you tired. It's really hard to be something that you're not and to not be yourself. And as someone who has struggled with accepting herself as she is my whole life, I can definitely tell you that a lot of the times when I've had burn out, it's because I've expected something else of myself. I've been frustrated by something with myself. Right.
And we don't want to bring that energy into podcasting. We want to be confident that we can sit down and be who we are and share what we want to share and not worry about what the big podcasts are doing and not worry about how we sound because we need to sound like ourselves. So that way when people hear us, they connect with us as we are. And then when we show up to a discovery call, they're not confused because we sound so different on our podcast. Or we said this on our podcast, but now we're saying this in the discovery call. That doesn't make sense, right? I find that. It's so much easier to be myself when I have to show up so much doing Instagram, podcasting, emailing, calls, all these things where I have to show up. And I think I've shared this before in the podcast, but I am an NFJ. I am a number four on the Enneagram. I get really tired when I have to talk and interact and be an extrovert. It's not my thing. I like to sit at home on the couch and be quiet.
But one thing I have discovered and learned as I have become more visible and have chosen to show up more, is that, you know, if I just come as I am and I am myself, I don't burn out as fast. I don't get as tired as fast. It's that moment where you're I don't know if you guys remember high school. High school was no good for me. Again, INFJ, and I remember I was constantly trying to be this like cool girl, right? This, this cool girl that people liked because I was very much aware of how awkward and frizzy haired I was. Nothing against frizzy hair. I've had frizzy hair my whole life. It's no big deal. I just didn't know it was curly at the time and I was trying to flat iron it and blow dry it straight. So it was just like a big poof fall. And I remember in high school how exhausted I was emotionally, physically, you know, I was tired all the time.
And I think it was because I spent my whole day trying to be someone I wasn't. Because I didn't have the confidence to be who I was, you know, or to like who I was, for that matter. And so my encouragement to you is to really, like, think about how are you approaching podcasting? Are you approaching it as this like performative? I have to be this podcast influencer type person. Or are you approaching it as I'm going to sit down and share my voice who I am, as I am today and connect with people in this authentic way. Because this is what's going to make the difference between having 10,000 listeners per episode who are listening to me because I'm performing or having a few hundred listeners who are here because they really believe in what I say. Because I really believe in what I say.
So when we talk about being wildly authentic at Wild Home Podcasting, this is what we mean. And this is how we approach podcasting. This is how we encourage our clients to podcast, because I don't think we're going to see change in the industry if we keep trying to do the masculine corporate things that have been done in the past in podcasting. And again, like nothing wrong with the masculine corporate approach. But I think what I'm trying to say is that that does not necessarily work for podcasters who have a business and want to use the podcast to grow their business. Because people want to work with people who are real. They want to know that when they sign that contract, the person they're working with is going to be behind them 110% and is going to support them making decisions to be themselves in their businesses. So yeah, that's what it means to be wildly authentic in podcasting to us.
And I'd love to know your thoughts on this. I know that this episode may come off a little controversial, but I think as we start to see growth and change in the podcast industry, how we approach women in the podcast industry is changing. But every once in a while, you know, we still kind of hit up against some of this and. I hit up against some of it this last week before I recorded this episode, and I think I had two or three people mention similar things to me before this episode and so I just felt like it was really important to say like, Oh. Being wildly authentic is so important in so many ways, in so many areas of our lives, and not just podcasting.
And so anyways, I hope this episode resonated with you. Thank you so much for listening and be sure to check out the past few episodes. I've been talking a lot about what it means to have a strategically aligned podcast, and this all ties into being authentic as well. It's all part of this big picture that we're trying to create in making sure that your podcast is working for your business because it won't work if it's not authentic and it's not strategically aligned. So once again, if you have any questions or comments, I would love for you to hit me up on Instagram @wildhomepodcasting and I hope you have a wonderful day.
Thank you for listening to Podcast Your Business. For more podcasting tips, follow us on Instagram @wildhomepodcasting. If you are ready to launch, uplevel, or grow your podcast, head to wildhomepodcasting.com to get started today.
