Episode 300: 10 Lessons From 300 Episodes
You cannot underestimate your own knowledge and the importance of sharing that. In today’s 300th episode, Fiona shares 10 lessons she learned. She also emphasizes the importance of balancing business-related content with personal reflection and connection to keep listeners engaged. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Batching as a key factor in content creation
Everyone has a story
Benefits of networking and building relationships
Sharing knowledge and learning from mistakes
The importance of staying human and remembering the real audience.
Creating content that goes beyond just the product or service.
The need for a strong process for scalability and sustainability of the podcast.
The role of editing in the podcast process.
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
You will get this DM saying, “I had no idea about this. You have changed my life. You have changed the game.” It's wonderful to hear that. But it also goes to the point that what we take as common knowledge, or what we think is something that most people know isn't always the case. You cannot underestimate your own knowledge and the ability and importance of sharing that.
Welcome to episode 300 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. It is our 300th episode. I cannot believe that we are there. Today it is a coaching episode. It just so happened that a coaching episode falls on episode 300. Today, I'm going to be walking you through 10 lessons that I have learned from creating 300 podcast episodes. I think these are lessons that are applicable, to whatever type of marketing that you're doing, and also just your growth as a small business owner, just your own personal growth. Stick around for that. Before we get stuck into that, of course, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of this beautiful land on which I record this podcast, and that is the Wurrung and Wurrundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
I also wanted to say that this will be the final episode of the My Daily Business Coach podcast as the My Daily Business Coach podcast. It will come back next Tuesday, with all the same great content, just under a very slightly different name. If you see something slightly different, you see different artwork, a slightly different name. Just know it's exact same podcast. Let's get into today's 300th episode.
As I mentioned, it is our 300th episode, and I was originally going to do an episode today talking about the rebrand and 300 episodes, but tech issues stopped us from doing that. That will come next Thursday. But today I'm going to talk about 10 key lessons that I've learned from creating 300 podcast episodes, it's massive. It is absolutely massive. Shout out to Yricka and to Scott, who do a huge amount of bulk of the work behind the scenes for this podcast. I'm also going to shout out myself. I'm going to do a Snoop Dogg and be like, I'm also going to thank me for consistently showing up for doing this podcast. I thought when I started that I may end up doing 10 episodes, call it a season, and just never come back for season two.
But I have so enjoyed doing this. I just love the feedback that we get. I love connecting with different small business owners around the world. There are people all over the world listening to this podcast, which just blows my mind. I'm going to say thank you, Fiona, too, for consistently showing up to this, planning it, and creating a process that works for us. The process is something that I'm going to talk about today as one of the 10 things. These are in no particular order, but they're 10 lessons that I think have enabled this podcast, to do as well as it does in terms of downloads and ranking. I have to say that is all, without spending a single dollar on ads, we have spent zero cash besides producing the podcast. We don't spend anything to get listeners or to get people to see this podcast. A huge amount of that comes from you.
The other person I have to thank is you, the listener who is listening to this. We have so many people listen and share these episodes, tag us on social media, send us messages, and tell us that they've told their network of business friends about it. And we just are so appreciative. Thank you. As I said, it is 10 lessons that I've learned from creating 300 episodes in no particular order. Number one, this is important, and I think if you are somebody who creates content, no matter what the platform is, and it's consistent and frequent, this is going to be one for you as well. It is that batching is key. Batching is batch creating content is creating a lot of content in one go.
I batch-create podcast episodes as often as I can. In terms of what that looks like, we interview people on this podcast that is every second Thursday, it's an interview episode the other Thursdays, like today, it is a coaching episode, and then we have the quick tip episodes every single Tuesday. The interview episodes are only ever done on a Monday. We record the interviews with people on a Monday, and sometimes I might record up to three is the max interviews back to back on a Monday. That means that we then have enough interview episodes for the next six weeks because they are every second week. And it's three being done on a Monday. Not every single Monday I'm interviewing people, but I will batch interview people. And then on another Monday, unless I have a huge amount of energy and feel like doing it on the same day that I've done those three interviews, but on another Monday, I will then batch all of the intros and all of the outros as they're recorded separately to the interview episodes.
I might do two Mondays in a row of interviews. That gives me six interview episodes. And I'll spend the next Monday doing six intros and six outros because you need to do the intro and outro per interview. That is important because if I was just doing these ad hoc interviews, I just don't think we would be able to keep going without it impacting a lot of my time during the week. The other thing that I'll do is quick tip episodes. Whenever I think of a quick tip, I will write it down. I've got a notes app and I'll put it in there and I will then go to that and just try and record up to five or six in one day. Not always. Sometimes I'll be running late. Scott, who's my editor, who's editing this right now, maybe like, “That doesn't always seem to happen, Fiona.”
But when I can, that will happen. Other times I may come up with an idea and think, you know what, I've got half an hour right now, let's just get it, smash it out. But batch-creating content has been hugely important for this podcast. It's also been important for other things that I do, such as the Sunday email that we send out every single week that's been going on for six years. Sometimes people have said to me over the years, how are you so consistent? I find it difficult to be consistent, to have the time, and I'm like because I batch create. That is a hugely powerful part of creating consistent content. Batching is absolutely key. The other thing with batching is that it forces me if I'm going to batch to look forward and be like, “Okay, what are the upcoming episodes?”
When can I put those things together where the, it's the intro outro, or it's tip episodes, and then I put that into my diary, into my calendar so that I have it in a process where it's as simple and as streamlined as possible in order to be able to batch. Batch-creating content is absolutely key. Number two, this is a good one. Everyone has a story. This is a huge lesson that I feel like I've learned my whole life, and I just continue to learn it. Sometimes I will have people on the podcast that I think I know their story maybe I've worked with them or I'm working with them, or they've come to a workshop before, or maybe I know them in some professional environment way. Or we are acquaintances on Instagram or whatever it is.
They'll come and we'll do this chat and I will find out things that I had no idea about and that makes so much sense in terms of who they are and the type of business that they run. I just sometimes wish that I could have every single person that I meet in business on this podcast because there is an opportunity to sit down and ask about them. Sometimes it could be a question about their upbringing that comes out of the left field, like in their answer, or it might be something about their career history. And I'm like, “What? I had no idea about that.” And I just think that it goes to show again and again, and as I said, I feel like I've learned this my whole life, that every single person has a story.
But also if you're reading this and you are somebody who thinks, I'm not very good at marketing, I'm not very good at putting my story out, or I'm so boring, why would anyone want to hear about my career history? It's boring. People want to hear, let this be your sign. People want to hear, people want to know your story. People want to have a human connection with you. One of the easiest ways to separate yourself from your competitors is to share your story because your story is going to be your story. It's not going to be exactly the same as the person down the street who runs a similar business to you. It can be such a huge differentiator if you are willing to share it. Also, I guess to that point, you, if you listen to podcasts a lot and if you listen to this podcast a lot, thank you very much, feel free to pitch yourself, to be on the podcast, to share your story.
Quite often when somebody is interviewing you, that is an easier way for you to share your story. And you can utilize the promotion of that podcast to share your story on all your platforms as well. And the more you do it, the more comfortable you get with it. That's number two. Everyone has a story. Number three is to not underestimate your own knowledge. I know this could be a difficult one to get your head around, especially if you are like me and you're Australian, and we are raised to not big up ourselves to not think that we are good at what we do. And to not ever say that publicly, of course. I mean, it's such a part of the Australian culture to put yourself down, to be self-deprecating. I think in line with that, we can often think that the knowledge that we're going to share it's very common.
Doesn't everybody know that? Everyone knows that. I'm sure this is going to be old news to people, and I am not immune to that, those feelings either. And there are plenty of times when I have recorded a podcast and thought, I hope somebody learned something from that. Maybe I'm saying stuff that has been said a thousand times. And you do go through that doubt. And then what happens so many times, particularly in those few instances where I will put something out and question myself, not that I'm not saying for you because like, it never happens, but I've learned over the years to get over myself and to be like, “Yes, this will actually help somebody.” But I'll put something out and I'll think, that's interesting or clever or but maybe most people don't.
Maybe I'm behind the boat or whatever. I'll get these incredibly beautiful DMS or emails from people and they're like, “Oh my God, I just listened to this.” And it might be months later, it might be six months later. Because what's great about podcasting, is that it's not always chronological in terms of the way that people listen to it. And you'll get this DM saying, “I had no idea about this. You have changed my life. You have changed the game.” It's so wonderful to hear that. But it also goes to the point that what we take as common knowledge or what we think is something that most people know isn't always the case. You cannot underestimate your own knowledge and the ability and importance of sharing that. I hear about it all the time from people that are working in different industries.
I don't tend to coach many coaches. I coach a lot of people in different industries. I will hear them say, but at least for example, “I couldn't charge for that because doesn't everybody know that stuff?” And they're like, “No, they don't.” And you are thinking that everybody does because you are in that industry and you're surrounded by other people that maybe have that same level of education as you, or same awareness of a particular thing as you, but the person that you're talking to doesn't have that. Yes, they're happy to pay for it, or yes, they're going to sign up for your newsletter to hear more about it, or yes, they're going to subscribe to an online course or come to your event or whatever it is. We can be very quick to underestimate our knowledge and underestimate the power of sharing that knowledge.
That is another massive one for me, which is number three. don't underestimate what I have this great Anthony Burrell print poster in our living room, and it says you know more than you think you do. And I remember when I first saw that in London, I've always loved his work. And when I saw it, I was just like, I feel like I need a reminder of that chat. I feel like most people on the planet need a reminder that you do have the answers, you do know this stuff, and get out there and talk about it and have that confidence in yourself. That's number three. Don't underestimate your knowledge. Number four, this is important. I feel like I bash this home all the time, but it is so important, which is to stay human, stay human.
I know that sounds like such a ridiculous thing. I mean, what else are we, we're not robots, but so often in marketing, in content, whether it's videos, reels, TikTok, podcasts newsletters, whatever it is, substack or medium blogs, we forget about staying human or we get so worried about things having to be perfect, that we don't appear human and relatable and approachable to other people, which is disadvantaging people. It's disallowing them to create a connection with you, that human connection. In terms of this podcast, I feel like I write a lot less. I mean, I write nothing when I'm doing these podcasts. I just riff. I have in front of me a whiteboard with 10 points on it, which is what I've just written quickly before I started recording this, when I started this podcast, I would write word for word everything that I was going to say.
That came from a friend of mine at the time who was like, “You have to script it.” And I took out advice on board because I trusted her and she was great at what she did, but it wasn't for me. I didn't feel comfortable reading something out. I just felt like, I'm just going to talk. And hopefully, it makes sense to people. And as the years have gone on, I have just gotten more and more comfortable with just being human. And if I make a mistake, it's okay. And if I laugh, it's okay. Or if there are birds outside or whatever, it's life. It is real.
I hope that that comes through in this podcast. I do feel like part of the appeal of this podcast is that it is very human. It's very real. I feel like I'm not trying to use a whole bunch of jargon to make myself sound smarter or I don't know what, sometimes you listen to podcasts and you think, just talk in normal language, please, that everyone can understand. That ability to stay human, I think has only done, but I feel like that has empowered this podcast to do as well as it has in terms of growth of downloads, and growth of global listenership. Whereas I think maybe if I had stuck to being rigid and being like, everything has to be written out beforehand. I have to do days and days of research on people that I'm interviewing.
If I had done that, firstly, I wouldn't have had the time. I just wouldn't have the time to consistently show up for this. But also, I don't think that I would have a strong human connection with a lot of listeners as I do. Number four is to stay human. Number five, and this again goes to that, just remember that there are real people in the audience. Again, this can be something when I talk to people about content pillars or themes or how they can start creating consistent content, no matter what the platform is. We will talk about what you want to be known for. What are you the go-to brand for? Sometimes people can be so consumed with what their business actually sells, the offers, and the products that they can't think of other things to talk about except for that product.
It's like if I talked about in every single episode of this business coaching and just how business coaching works, why you should get a business coach, why it's so important to have a business coach, how much a business coach should cost, what are the return on investment on business coaching? Like if I just spent the whole podcast just talking about the thing that I sell or my online courses or whatever it is, it would get boring after a while. It would get boring because the people in the audience have real lives. They're not just going to think about your product or your service 24/7. They also want to think about, where did you recently travel to? Or what are you eating? Or what are you reading? Or what's inspired you right now? And what Netflix show are you watching?
They want to know that. And sometimes we forget that there are actual human beings out there that are reading your content, that is going to be inspired by it, going to maybe make changes in their life because of it. It's so important to like number four, stay human. But number five, which is what I'm saying, is to remember that there are real people in the audience. When you're thinking about your content, yes, a large part of it is going to be related to whatever your business or brand offers. Your services and products and all of that. But part of it also needs to be just a reflection on what else is going on around the business, or where is the business situated. And maybe there are some cool other businesses around there that you can shout out.
Maybe you are going through certain stuff in your personal life that is impacting your business. And you're going to talk about that to a point that you are comfortable with. I'm not saying you have to share every single thing that's going on in your life, but just to create that connection point with that real audience and to remember that there are real people out there listening to this, rather than just seeing numbers as just data alone without thinking that each of those numbers, each of those downloads represents an actual person who is trying to learn, who is trying to get some value from whatever it is that you're putting out. Number six, this is a huge one. I'm smiling because this is so big.
I honestly live by these processes will make or break a podcast. I know there will be people out there that maybe run their own podcast and think, I don't have a really strong process. I'm just like a fly-by-the-state-of-my-pants person. And that is fine to a point. That is fine if you want to have stress and overwhelm, and that is fine if maybe you're not trying to hit certain numbers or objectives with whatever it is that you're putting out in this case podcast. But I would say from lots of people that I've worked with that have podcasts, lots of my own observations of other people in the industry that have podcasts and my own podcast, and not just the podcast, the Sunday email, like so many other things that we do in this business, you have to have some process for it to be scalable, for it to not be stressful, it to be sustainable, and many other things. Successful if we're going to pick another S word.
The process for this podcast, and is something that I worked heavily on from the minute I started this podcast. I knew that there had to be a strong process for it to continue every single week, twice a week, every week without being super stressful, without me going into burnout or anything else. Because this podcast is it's a part of my business, but it is not my courses, it's not my business coaching, it's not my group coaching. It is an addition to the business. It is a marketing vehicle largely for this business. I knew that we had to create a process that allowed me to record the podcast, and get it edited. I chose Scott Stronach, who is a great editor, and from day one he has been my editor.
I have had a professional editor, which has been huge for me. But also because I was like, I don't want to learn how to become a podcast editor. It's not something that I'm going to ever offer as a business service. And I'm going to give it to somebody who is an expert in that field to do it. They'll do it a much quicker and a much better quality way than I can do it. But it was also not just about the editing, but like the whole process for templating, graphics, templating emails that were going to send out to guests, templating whatever we could. And then creating process documentation for all of that stuff. Likewise, we have a podcast tracker. These are all things also, by the way, that if you want to start a podcast, we have a course called How to Start a Podcast that goes into all of this.
Because I had looked at other courses, I'd actually enrolled in one course in 2016. I have to say I didn't finish that course, but there wasn't much about processes in a lot of the stuff that I saw. It was a lot about which equipment to buy, and how to soundproof your room. And I can tell you that I record this in a room with glass and concrete floors. There isn't soundproofing in that. That was something that held me back from starting. If you're reading and thinking, “I need to soundproof my room.” No, you don't. But there wasn't much in terms of processes being how to actually not just launch a podcast, but keep it going. That's what we teach in the How to Start a Podcast course. But back to this point processes can make or break.
I have found so many times that when an issue has come up with this podcast, out of the 300 episodes, a handful haven't been published on time or haven't they've had incorrect things happen, it's because we haven't been sticking to the process. The process is there. It is the backbone of how this podcast gets out twice a week, every single week. Processes are so important. Again, we do have a course, enough, trying to spook all the courses, but we have a course called 7 Steps to Set Up Your Systems & Processes. You can find all of this at mydailybusinesscoach.com/shop, because I just think it is so important to have a process if you are going to be putting out content regularly, no matter what the platform is that you can tweak, I mean, the process isn't set in concrete.
You can put it up and then tweak it and test it and improve it as you go. And that's exactly what we've done. The podcast process has been so important for the success of this podcast and just getting it out every single week without it feeling overwhelming or stressed. That's number six, processes, make or break your podcast. Number seven. A big one as well. Don't get complacent. Don't get complacent. That is so important. Now, at the start of this, I was telling you how I batch create on Mondays sometimes, particularly if I'm thinking, we're far enough along with the podcast tracker. We are like a good month or two out, I'm fine, I don't need to record podcasts, I will not record podcasts. And what will happen is that I am then the one holding everyone up because I got a bit complacent and I didn't stick to the calendar, I didn't stick to what I was going to do.
If I have done that, what has happened, I then get a cold, or I get some throat infection, which means I can't record a podcast. I'm not only behind, but I am also then unable to batch-create. If I just kept going with the system, with the process, I wouldn't be in that situation. That's not to say that yes, of course, life sometimes turns up, and I'm not somebody who's so rigid with my calendar that I can't move anything. But I know that just because we're ahead doesn't mean we're ahead for long. This podcast comes out twice a week. Even if I think, we've got eight episodes in the bag, that's only a month and a month can go very quickly.
If you've only got three or four Mondays in that month and you don't use two of them, suddenly I'm like, when am I going to record these podcasts? As I said, that doesn't happen that often, but when I've gotten complacent about the system, and the process, things can easily come unravelled. The other thing with not getting complacent is to, I want to continually be curious about what is going to add value to people who are listening to this. To think about what are the things they're grappling with at the moment. What are the things happening in society, in the economy that will make whatever podcast episode we're putting out feel like it's somebody helping them rather than someone just hyping them their own brand or somebody hindering their education and their access to all things marketing or brand or systems of content.
They're not getting complacent to remind me that I have the incredible privilege of talking to people all over the world through this medium of podcasts. And that is such a beautiful position to be in, and I shouldn't get complacent with the content that I'm putting out. That is number seven. Don't get complacent. Number eight, another massive one. I mean, all of these, that's why they're here. These a big lessons that I'm continually learning through this podcast and definitely through 300 episodes of this podcast. And that is number eight, which is the power of podcasts. I can tell you that nothing else has come close in terms of return on investment for our business in terms of marketing, and nothing has come close in terms of connecting with small business owners across the world.
We have people everywhere listening to this podcast. I use Simple Cast for hosting this podcast. And in the analytics, there is a like world map and you can see it's like a heat map of where people are listening. And when I started, it was very much the east coast of Australia and a little bit of New Zealand. Thank you New Zealand. You have always been a supporter of this show. And now it is everywhere. It is parts of China, Japan, Singapore, the Middle East, Europe, and all over America. In America, when we started getting American listens and a lot more downloads, we were getting a lot in New York to start with than we were just getting the East Coast and the West Coast very much on the outer LA, New York, I would imagine. And then now we are getting so many more listens in the middle part of America, even South America, which is huge.
It's just all over Canada. We have people in Alaska. I've heard people message me from Tuscany like it is just out of this world, the power of this podcast, and just in podcasting in general, I mean, as well, and for such an accessible, easy medium. When you think about the mediums and the, the content that you're putting out or the ad spend that you're doing, I can tell you that this podcast, outside of the cost of staff, this podcast hosting platform's about 20 bucks a month. I mean, unless you're going into some expensive one. But the hosting platform's pretty cheap. You can get a very cheap microphone and you know everything that you need. I use Garageband for recording a lot of this, which is a free tool on Mac. We also use Zoom to record things.
I mean, it is not an expensive medium in relation to other things that you could be doing to market your business. And yet it is such a massive, wide reach and it's just such an incredible platform. I know I mentioned it before, but if you are keen, we do have an online course called How to Start a Podcast. And number nine, your objectives can change. I think this is such an important thing to remember, no matter what marketing you are doing, you can sometimes, and I guess it goes to 0.7 about don't get complacent. You can sometimes continue with something and continue measuring it against certain metrics because that's what you did at the start, and you just keep going and can't be bothered to think about it, are my objectives the same? When I started this podcast, I'm quite open about saying this, when I started this podcast, I was hoping to get 150 downloads per episode, and maybe it was per week, I can't remember what I was hoping for, but it was about that.
I was calculating how many of those might turn into email subscribers. I was hoping for people to listen to this, go to the show notes, and sign up for the email, that was the objective to get more people on the email list because then we could nurture them into connections or courses or whatever we wanted coaching. I didn't realize that the objectives would change. The objective for this podcast, originally was not sales, it was getting people onto an email list, which there, from the email list, I could nurture into sales, but I had other objectives as well as obviously to teach people and to connect with people and to get out there authority build all of them. But the sales objective wasn't huge for this podcast. And yet I can say that a huge amount of our sales come from people who've listened to this podcast, and who have qualified me as a potential coach for themselves.
Many of them don't even follow us on social media, aren't on a Sunday email, and they'll listen to this for a certain amount of weeks and then they'll just straight buy six months of business coaching. The objective has definitely changed. We can see sales if our downloads of this podcast go down sales go down, it can be on a parallel track. Don't be afraid to change up your objectives when you start doing something. Like my Sunday email, we have been doing that for six years every single Sunday, for more than six years. That objective has changed as well from when I first started it to what it is today. Don't be afraid to change your objectives, to change the metrics, and don't just stay stagnant or complacent because it feels like, it works well enough thing.
That's number nine. And number 10, to push it home. This is another massive one no matter what you're doing in small business but stay in your lane. Stay in your lane. When I started this podcast, there were other people in a similar industry in a similar location, and I would worry about where I was ranking in comparison to them. And then after a while, after probably four months, a friend of mine who was not a podcaster, who doesn't listen to podcasts, said, “Just do you, you've done you and it's worked so well in other parts of your business, just do you just forget about it and do you,” and I was like, “You know what? That's what I'm going to do.” I'm going to again, look at my metrics. I looked at how many people were contacting us, and how many people telling us that this podcast was helping them versus where I was ranking in comparison to other people.
And weirdly, I started ranking higher when I stopped looking at where I was ranking. And we have very much enjoyed a high ranking. Quite often we are the only Australian podcast in the top five, and the business and marketing, and usually it's all Americans besides our podcast. I mean, sometimes it'll change up and that's not, again, even saying that, and particularly as an Australian, I feel very much like, here I am boasting. But it's just said that I stayed in my lane, I didn't look at what other people were doing. I didn't look at know, they've probably got more listens or they've got bigger people on their podcast, or whatever. I definitely did that at the start for sure. And it didn't add anything, it didn't make me feel better about myself. In fact, it made me feel worse. And it took me away from like, what am I trying to build here?
Because I started looking at what other people were doing and I haven't. And I have to say that ever since we have just done and who knows, maybe we'll go right down in the ranking, who knows? But I will still use the metric of how many people enjoy this podcast and how many people tell us that they have changed something in their business or changed something in their life because of this podcast, which was the actual reason for starting it. Those are the 10 key lessons. There are so many more from 300 episodes. Again, I'll just go through them. Number one, batching is key. Number two, everyone has a story. Number three, do not underestimate your own knowledge. Number four, stay human. Number five, remember there are real people in the audience. Number six, processes will make or break you. Number seven, don't get complacent. Number eight is the power of podcasting. Number nine, objectives can change and that's okay. And number 10, stay in your lane.
I hope that you have enjoyed this episode. I hope that no matter what you are working on in your business, whether it's a podcast, whether it's a vlog, whether it is an email sequence, whatever it is, these things will help you because ultimately that is the whole reason that I started this podcast when I did 300 episodes ago. If you would like to read any of this in text format or you would like to see any of the links, you can do that over at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/300.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to this podcast, and for sharing this podcast. It just means the absolute world. And like I said, I'm always blown away by hearing from different people in different parts of the world, very different types of businesses, and yet this is helping them. As I also said, we are slightly changing the name. You may not even notice it, but if you do, just remember it's the same great content. And if you enjoyed this or if you enjoyed any of the 300 episodes prior, please could you leave a review. It just helps us get found by other small business owners. Thank you so much for reading.
