In the Copy Chief forum over the weekend a guys asked what were some of the big lessons and pitfalls to avoid when jumping into podcasting.
If you don't know, Copy Chief is a members only community that costs $97 bucks per month to join. They are currently closed to new members.
Since it's only paying members in there I felt safe sharing 5 of my top podcasting lessons with them.
These five lessons come from eight years in the trenches trying to figure out this podcast thang. I've had many failures, a few successes and I am always learning.
After writing the post I thought this stuff was too good to keep hidden inside Copy Chief, so I'm hooking you up for being a loyal reader of my daily rants.
You're Welcome.
And even thought this is some good "starter" stuff – I go way more in depth on these (including solutions and work arounds) inside my Podcast Recipes book you get when you join the Podcast Mogul Newsletter http://PodcastMogul.com
Lesson #1: I didn't know anything about podcasting so I signed up for this "internet radio" service that also published me into iTunes. The sound quality was terrible, but that wasn't the worst part. Even though I paid for a subscription they were still running their ads on my feed and I had no control of it. That's when I realized I needed to control my feed.
Lesson #2: On my second attempt I decided I wanted higher audio quality along with control of my feed. Thats when I tried to do everything myself, which resulted in a 1/2 hour show taking 4 hours to produce. It sucked all the fun out of podcasting not to mention that's time I will never get back.
Lesson #3: Then I got smart and hired an audio engineer to get better sound and free up more of my time. SUCCESS, podcasting was fun again because all I had to do was record and drop the mic. But I opened up a new can of worms.
Lesson #4: Hiring an audio engineer was a smart move to free up my time, the only thing I hadn't thought about was the expense. See, I had no clue how I was going to get my money back so this was not an investment – it was an expense that kept piling up which eventually made me quit the show. Money out + no money in = dead podcast.
Lesson #5: Have a plan for how your podcast will enrich you before you go in. It might be sales, it might be leads, it might be networking, it might be inflating your ego. Whatever it is, plan it before you launch so you can measure it after you're going.
This is in no way an exhaustive list, I'll be sharing more of these in future notes to you.
Producer Jonathan
