Welcome to Podcast Suck, a podcast about starting a podcast, where we dive headfirst into the wild, wacky, and sometimes frustrating world of podcasting. If you've ever sat down with a microphone, hit record, and thought, what on earth am I doing? Or if you're just curious about the magic behind your favorite shows, then you're in the right place. Get ready for laughs, insights, and a whole lot of what not to do advice as we embark on this podcasting journey together. Let's dive in. Welcome back to another episode of Podcast Suck. If you don't have one, maybe it's your first time tuning in. What's up to everybody that may be tuning in to the live recording of this? We record over on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. So what's happening if you're tuning in here? Today, I want to talk to you about why starting a podcast on your own is a terrible idea. Listen, I don't care how much of a do-it-yourselfer that you think you may be. There are a lot of steps, a lot of steps. I've identified 14, actually, in the podcast launch process. Number one, there's a lot of steps involved. Number two, if you don't know what you're doing, chances are, yes, can you figure it out? Absolutely. But if you're not a graphic designer, you're probably not going to be able to put together any type of decent branding for the show. If you aren't an audio editor, you're probably not going to be able to easily edit your podcast episode. So I've heard countless stories and Scooby-Doo endings. Remember Scooby-Doo of why someone should, in fact, launch their own podcast. And I always come back to the same scenario. I'm trying to get the glare off my, uh, off my, off my readers here, come back to the same situation, which is, you know, I can go to Jiffy Lube and spend 50 bucks and change my oil, or I could do it on my own, you know, get oil all over the place. And I'm sure I could figure it out. I could watch a YouTube video, but I could also, get it done faster, get it done right, get it done correctly and just pay to get it done. Now this isn't a blatant pitch to say, Hey, listen, don't start a podcast on your own, hire a professional, but this is a blatant pitch to you. I don't care who you use or who you work with. Maybe you read my book, go to my YouTube channel. I don't know. You'll have somebody on your team that can help you out with it. I've seen some do it yourselfers make it happen, but most of those individuals that have started a podcast on their own, are people that have a team that are already helping out with branding, with social media, with content, with marketing, etc. So if you think, hey, I'm just going to figure this out over a weekend. And let me back up, too, because a lot of you don't thoroughly understand what a podcast is, okay? A podcast is not just some piece of content that you're putting on the internet. A podcast is not just going live on Instagram or on Facebook or on wherever you go live on. A podcast is not just you picking up your phone and recording something on zoom and taking that raw crappy file from zoom and just uploading it to the internet. That is not a podcast. A podcast is an audio file by definition, an audio file that's uploaded to the internet to be consumed auditorily. Don't get me started about the whole video podcast thing too, because look at, listen, you got to pick one. Okay. Video or podcast. Well, I like to watch podcasts while you're watching a video of a recording of a podcast, a podcast is listened to auditorily. That means you listen to it. You press play, you put your headphones on and you go about your day and you continue to listen to it. So think radio versus TV. If you're like, well, I enjoy watching my favorite radio show. Probably not. You enjoy listening to your favorite radio show. This isn't an episode about why video podcasts are just a big crock. We'll get into that in future episodes. This episode is why starting a podcast on your own is a terrible idea. So I just wanted to define really quick what a podcast is, because most people really don't understand. I had somebody hit me up last week and say, well, I'm just going to go live once a day for five or 10 minutes on Instagram, and that'll lower the amount of editing that I'll have to do on the podcast. Not really, because each podcast needs an intro and an outro. Most podcast episodes, all podcast episodes should be edited so that the sound is up to par. It's not too loud. It's not too low. Any background music can be a background noise rather can be removed from the file. There's several things that go into the editing process to not be avoided. But when you think about going about this yourself, okay, so let's just walk through it real quick. I want to start a podcast. Great. Why are you starting a podcast? Okay, cool. You figured out why you're starting a podcast. What are you going to call the podcast? So I'm going to call it this podcast. Okay, great. You figured out a name and you figured out why you're doing it. Now what you've got to create an intro and an outro. So that requires writing the script. You're not, If you're not versed in script writing, that could be a little bit of a learning curve. Yes, you could go to chat GPT and have the robots help you out. Of course. but you still have to actually do it. You have to go write the script. You got to go record the script. You got to get it edited. You got to put background music. And by the way, you can't just put your favorite Beatles song on your intro and outro. There's this little thing called copyright. So you need to make sure that you actually own the song. So you go buy a song for 20 bucks. You figure out editing, you figure out, you know, whatever the case may be with, uh, being able to, edit your intro and your outro. OK, now you're two or three hours into writing a script, recording it, finding background music, editing it all together. OK, now it's time to do the outro. Same process. Now you got to plan out your podcast episode. record the episode and then tie the intro and the outro on that. This isn't impossible stuff to do. This is time consuming things to do. Okay. So time consuming things to do as far as recording your episode is the hurdle here is the challenge here of, of being able to figure out how to do this thing on your own. It's an absolute time suck. There's a lot of things we can figure out on our own, but there's also a lot of things that we can get off our plate and make just that much easier. So number one reason you don't want to start a podcast on your own, it's a complete time suck. Why? There were 14 steps in the podcast launch process, and I guarantee you, I guarantee you, because I've been doing this for over a decade now, I've seen every single scenario possible. Maybe there's some more available, but just about every from terrible cover art to no intros and outros to just taking your audio with terrible editing, no intro, no outro, bad sound, and just uploading it to the internet and go, well, at least it's something. No, it's not. It's garbage. You're uploading garbage to the internet and expecting people to listen to it and go, you know what? I want to listen to that show. I want to listen to one where I really can't hear it or the audio or the dog was barking in the back. There was no intro. My favorite is just let's do an intro on each episode. Every time we record a new episode, let me just give you an entire dissertation of the entire show and give you a full blown background and bio of my guest when all the listener wants is one thing. And that's for you to get the episode started and give them exactly what they press play for in the first place. That's the value that you're providing from the episode. What are you bringing to your audience? What are you bringing to the world through that podcast episode? That's all that they really care about, but they're also silently judging you. There's no introduction here or this guy just won't shut up in the beginning. He just keeps talking and talking and talking and talking and talking. Will he ever get into the episode? Also, another thing with an intro and an outro, it'll add some sort of divider as far as. when the episode begins and when it ends. So an intro plays music, gets people educated, motivated, differentiates you, get them, it gets them excited. Should be about 20 to 25 seconds. The music fades. It intro, the intro should introduce the host. And then the episode begins. It lets the listener know that if they're a returning listener, maybe they don't want to listen to the intro again. Now, if you want to introduce your guest on each episode, that's cool, but keep it short and sweet. There's a thing called show notes. That's the description of the podcast episode. You don't need to bore people with the details of your guests. Number one, number two, they don't care. People just don't care. They want to hear what they clicked on the episode and press play for. whatever the title of the episode is, whatever information you're giving. So reason number one, time suck. You don't want to start a podcast on your own. Number two, you probably don't know what you're doing. Yes, you can figure it out. Maybe. But then do you really know what you're doing? If I decide to change the oil in my car, am I getting the right oil? I get in the right filter. Do I have all the right tools to make that happen? What do I do with the oil when I'm done? Where does that go? Can I figure these things out? Probably, but I could also drive around the corner and pay Jiffy bug 50 or 75 bucks, get it done in 10 minutes or less and be move on with my day. So the first reason is number one, a time suck for doing your podcast for launch, trying to attempting to launch a podcast on your number two. You don't know what you're doing. If you're not a graphic designer, you're going to mangle the graphics. You wouldn't believe some of the cover art that I've seen come across my plate. It is just absolutely 100% deplorable. And the scariest part, the most terrifying part is, is some people will say, you know what, that looks good. And no one is there to actually tell them the truth. Listen, when you pull up a podcast and the cover art looks good, you're like, this is appealing. You press play on a podcast. The intro is professionally done. You're like, I'm glad I pressed play. You get into the episode. The host is good. The content is good. The guest is good. There's an outro that gives a call to action that may tell you something that you may or may not be interested in. You know when you're tuning into something good and quality. That's reason two, you don't want to start a podcast on your own. You're probably not going to be able to create a quality product. Third, did I mention there's 14 steps in the podcast launch process? And don't try to dumb it down. That means you're skipping steps on here. But coming up with why you're starting a podcast, coming up with a name, an intro, an outro, a promotional trailer, planning out your episodes, putting together a recording schedule, making sure you have an automated system to be able to book guests with using a calendar system like GoHighLevel or Calendly or something like that. There is enough work in and of itself just to be a podcast host, record new episodes, find new guests, and post micro-content. That is a full-time podcaster job in and of itself. That's after the show was launched. When we start, when we think about launching a podcast, cool, I'm launching a podcast. I shoulda, coulda, woulda. I had somebody comment on a post yesterday. They said they have like 15 episodes recorded, still have not launched the show. These two individuals have been talking about launching a show for two years, maybe three, maybe even four, maybe five, if I'm not exaggerating, talking about it. So what are you talking about? that you have not actually gone and done? What have you started and then stopped? Probably a podcast for the initial process of a podcast, most likely. Why? Because you got in there and realized how much work is involved. And when it's not fun anymore and it feels like work, we quit. That's just human nature. That's how we operate. Okay? So if you've been thinking about starting a podcast, you're like, I'm just going to read Sebastian's book and go do it on my own. Can you do that? Yes, you can. That's why I wrote the book. If you do exactly what I tell you to do, and use the resources in the book like I tell you to do, because you can read the book and you're doing it on your own. But I also give you tips, tricks, and tools on how to outsource a majority of the heavy lifting. Your only job as a podcaster is to record new podcast episodes. That's it. Find new guests, post micro content from each episode, and rinse and repeat that process. It is the ultimate networking tool for you. But if you've never done it before, I do not suggest starting. There are better options out there. Maybe you want to have a conversation with us and figure out if you're a fit for our podcast launch lab program, where we get you launched in 90 days or less. Maybe you have somebody on your team that's pretty technically inclined and already doing your video content, and you've already got content going out as it is. And this individual can be dedicated to better understanding the podcast launch process and get it done for you. Maybe you've got a graphic designer on the team that can help with all your branding. Maybe you've got a social media content manager that can help out with micro content from your podcast. Then if that's the case, go take the ball and run with it. But if you're a solopreneur entrepreneur doing it as a part-time thing, a side gig, and just figuring it out on your own, you're probably not going to put together something that is of quality. And that's the problem. If you're not putting something that's of quality out to the world, why even do it in the first place? So, This episode's a bit of a rant, if you will, but I rant for good reason because I constantly see people just doing it wrong, just wrong when it comes to launching a podcast. And when you do it right, you're able to really reap the benefits of doing it right. People see, people know a good, clean, attractable brand. People understand good quality, crispy sounding audio. See my camera? High definition. You hear my audio, high quality microphone, and yes, will I produce this video? No, it goes live on YouTube, and that's the goal of it, kind of the rough cut of me recording it. But this audio of this episode will go directly to my team who'll produce it as a podcast episode. We'll take this video that you're watching, and we'll chop it up into micro content, and we'll post those clips on social media to help promote the show as well. So I hope you're getting at least one or two things that you did not know about starting a podcast on your own before you hit play on this episode or maybe you're watching the live over on LinkedIn or YouTube or Facebook. Thanks so much for tuning in. Questions, thoughts, ideas, concerns, uh, questions about the world of podcasting, anything that we may have already covered on the show or anything pertaining to podcasting. Hit me up, follow me over on Instagram at podcast suck. That's podcasts, plural suck. on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, shoot me a DM. Tell me you listened to the show. You watched one of the lives. You have a question about podcasting. I am in fact here to help, but for the love of all things podcasting, do not under any circumstances, try to start a podcast on your own. There is a better way. Questions hit me up. I'd be more than happy to have a conversation with you. Make it a great day. Headed to St. Louis. Those of you that grab tickets for Builders of Authority Live, I'm hosting with my good friend Adam McChesney in St. Louis tomorrow. It's not too late. You want to grab tickets? I'll drop a link in the comments over here on Facebook. Not too late. Meet me in St. Louis. Maybe you're in the area. We're going to be jamming all day. Tomorrow for our live event then we're going to the st. Louis Blues game with our VIPs. We got a suite We got food. We got drinks got the whole night and then the next day we're coming back for our VIP Attendees to do an roundtable mastermind on Thursday morning. So jam-packed week in st. Louis. Hope to see you there if not We'll see you next time Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. That's the way we get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and share the show with someone you know should start a podcast or may already have one. And remember, podcasts suck if you don't have one. Until next time, friends.