
If you’re anything like me, you love hitting play on your favorite podcasts each week—free learning, storytelling, insights, and laughter all in one! But maybe you’ve caught yourself wondering, “Could I start my own podcast?”
Good news: You totally can! It’s easier than you think, and you’re more qualified than you know. My own show started in my car (for extra sound dampening!). You don’t need a fancy studio or a big audience—just a simple plan.
Let’s dive into 5 quick steps (and yes, they all start with P!) to get you from curious to recording your first episode!
And if you’re ready to dive in even deeper, don’t miss signing up for my FREE class, Podcasting 101: How to Start, Record, and Profit from Your Show, where I’ll teach you how to launch your show in three easy steps!
Plan Your Podcast
There can’t be a podcast worth creating until you know what your show is all about! Start with a brainstorm of your best ideas, pull your favorite, and go for it. Does this sound radically simple? Yes, but keep in mind that you can shift as you go (or perhaps even have multiple shows down the line). This is a creative endeavor. It’s impactful and fun. Let it be!
Determine how you want to format your show. Do you want an interview-style podcast? Do you want something more out of the box? Or is it just you and a microphone, sharing your stories? This can help you decide what category your podcast falls into, be it business, marketing, comedy, or a combination of any of your interests.
Map out a handful of your first few episodes and see if you feel those creative juices flowing. Does it feel like something you’d want to do for 100 episodes? What about 1000? Your podcast will inevitably go through transformations and iterations over time, but at this stage, it’s important that your show has your buy-in, and your confidence, and it’s something you’re excited to produce! Because that’s your next step.
Produce Your Podcast
I remember telling my friends and family that I could truly never see myself having a podcast. To challenge me, my brother bought me my first microphone, and at his encouragement (and semi-dare!) I decided to go for it. I look back on those moments and laugh so hard, especially since hosting the Goal Digger Podcast is one of my favorite creative pathways and branches of my business. As I’m writing this, I’m over 800+ episodes deep into a chart-topping, record-breaking marketing podcast that has 110+ million downloads. And I do it from my home office, right at my desk, with my house slippers on.
So, find a simple tech set-up and begin putting in those reps. Becoming familiar with how you record and edit a podcast gets a lot easier through experience. You don’t have to overcomplicate this process; some podcasters don’t even edit their episodes much or at all! It depends on how you want your episodes to flow. Know that your listeners will likely not expect your first few episodes to be perfect, especially since most podcast listeners know that you’re producing it yourself! You’re a beginner producer, and you’re allowed to create like one.
In fact, I’ve got an amazing, FREE downloadable guide, The Ultimate Podcast Equipment Guide: From Novice to Pro! (taking ALL the guesswork out of what you need to know about your recording set-up!) that I will send to you when you show up for my free podcasting masterclass, Podcasting 101: How to Start, Record, and Profit from Your Show. There are a few time slots available for my free class, so grab a spot and learn the podcasting ropes in just an hour!
Publish Your Podcast
Don’t break out in a sweat, I won’t force you to walk through a long explanation of the technical side of publishing your podcast. I wasn’t tech-savvy when I first started producing my podcast, and frankly, I’m still not a tech pro! I just learned some super easy ways to get my podcast episodes from living on my computer desktop to distributed and out in the world!
The best news here is that most of your tech stuff only needs to be done one time. Setting up your RSS feed, for instance, needs your attention once and you can ‘set it and forget it’ from there! But the main goal here is to make sure your show is popping up on all the best podcast listening platforms, like Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Related: 5 Must-Have Podcast Tools I Can’t Live Without
Promote Your Podcast
One of the most common hesitations I’ve heard over the years from podcast-curious people is that they’re not sure why anyone would listen if they don’t already have an audience. However, most people are often overlooking an audience they don’t know they have. You can start small with wherever you have a presence.
Head to your social media pages, the Facebook groups you’re a part of (or join a few), LinkedIn, email addresses you already have, or even personalized text messages to friends you know would be interested in your show. Getting the people who already know you to tune into your show, especially in its early stages, can be a valuable help to you. Ask them to write reviews and rate your show so that when people who don’t know you land on your podcast feed, they see a well-rated show (even if it’s new!)
You can pull quotes from real listeners from these early reviews and use them on your social media posts, website, and even ads. Leveraging reviews in your content makes it a lot easier on you to confidently share your podcast online when you feel like you’re not the only one hyping up your content!
Profit from Your Podcast
Learning how to turn your show from a fun creative project into something that also provides a stream of income for you can feel like switching from the right side of your brain to the left. But some of the best parts about podcasting is how creative you really can be with how you choose to monetize it.
If you’ve ever tuned into a podcast episode, you’ve likely heard ads, either via the podcast host themself (i.e. “this episode is sponsored by ____ and they’re great!”) or from a partnership-recorded ad (i.e. “And now, a word from our sponsors!”) More often than not, a podcast will successfully drive a profit utilizing sponsor partnerships. When you’re just starting out, you’ll want to take a proactive approach and pitch your show to potential partners.
This could look like reaching out to your favorite online brands and businesses to ask if they would like to become a recurring partner with your show or a sponsor of a single episode that aligns with their brand.
Get bold with it. You never know what kind of partnerships you could land simply by asking!
Related: How to ACTUALLY Make Money as a Podcaster
Drive Your Podcast to Success with a Proven Plan
A Proven Plan — see, I kept that alliteration train going! What I’m talking about here is moving past the ‘imagining it’ stage and taking real action on creating your podcast. If you’re thinking, “I don’t need any more guidance than this article,” then good on you. You’re a goal crusher and I fully appreciate that. But if you’re more like me and need someone to get hyper-clear on the nitty gritty and give me a full, hand-holding plan through getting a clear vision on how podcasting works (and why it’s so powerful), then I’ve got an incredible, FREE resource for you.
Grab a seat in my free podcasting masterclass, Podcasting 101: How to Start, Record, and Profit from Your Show, and I’ll help you learn how to turn a podcast into a side business or your full-time gig! I’ll show you exactly how I turned my self-started show and turned it into a top-ten marketing podcast with over 110+ million downloads. I’ve got a keep-it-simple approach so you can walk away from the 1-hour class with a clear plan for how to take your show from idea to earbuds.
My podcasting masterclasses are happening soon, so sign up for a time slot and I can help you get this podcast off the ground and on the air. I can’t wait to be your first listener!
Start Before You Feel Ready
The best part about podcasting is that you don’t have to wait until you’re ‘qualified’ to start. This is one of those incredible (yet challenging) opportunities to start and learn as you go because that’s how all the best podcasters do it. In fact, anyone who launches their first episode thinking they’re an expert is wrong! We’re all transforming as we go because podcasting is an art form and it changes because we do, too.
So, I challenge you to step out and start before you feel ready (because that feeling may never come!) And I don’t want your would-be eager listeners to miss out on your stories, your insight, your conversations, and the impact that you could be delivering to their earbuds by this time next year.
Save your seat for my FREE Podcasting Masterclass
Podcasting 101: How to Start, Record, and Profit from Your Show!