Finding Your Fire & Planning Your Podcast Launch with Rob Greenlee, VP of Content & partnerships at Libsyn - Episode 75
If you are podcast-curious or have a message on your heart and podcasting is COMPLETELY calling your name then this one’s for you. Our guest, the VP of Content & Partnerships at the popular podcast hosting platform Libsyn, and Podcast Hall of Famer, Rob Greenlee shares the importance of creating from a place of FIRE while also designing a plan that will allow you to keep going and avoid the dreaded “podfade”. Here are few highlights of what you need to know BEFORE you begin your podcast:
Connect to your WHY
Make sure you LOVE your topic (so others can love it too)
Create SEO keywords to mirror what your ideal listener would search for
Get a microphone, editing software & choose your hosting platform (like Libsyn)
Organize & plan your content + artwork
Create a trailer first & plan your launch
More From Rob Greenlee:
Visit: http://www.robgreenlee.com
Barsi [00:00:00]:
We talk about self care on this show a lot. And one of the ways I'm able to better take care of myself is by finding ways to create more time. And I do that by knowing when to delegate. My assistant churned manager, Brandy, who has her own episode, by the way, it's number 53, knows all about that. The number one rule to delegating is knowing what absolutely needs to be created by you and then knowing which things someone else might be better at or which things someone else can do easily. And when I need something done outside of my Ann Brandi's scope, I use Fiverr. Fiverr.com is a super cool professional marketplace where you can find contractors all over the world to help you do the little things that you need help with or that require a special skill set like creating podcast cover art. I use Fiverr for that all the time and I've always been happy with the work.
Barsi [00:01:00]:
And each virtual professional on Fiverr also has comments and rankings so you can see who is consistently providing great work. It's a really wonderful solution to buy back some of my time and get the stuff done that I need to move forward on a project. If you're needing some more time in your schedule, I highly recommend finding ways to delegate and maybe finding your own virtual assistant like mine was, Brandy, who's now a manager or copywriting or maybe podcast cover art or anything else that you might need that you should be delegating. I have my very own Fiverr link in the show notes that will take you right to it. So take a breath, click the link in the show notes and spend that extra time for yourself.
Rob Greenlee [00:01:49]:
Focus on what you're creating, how you're creating it, how is it compelling. And Barsi, I think you're a great example that you really focus on quality production. You really focus on what the content is. And I think you're a good example of, of what needs to be done out there with podcasting. A lot of shows start, they produce a couple of episodes just like you said, pod fade, because they didn't really have a plan, didn't really have an idea of what they were going to do. They maybe ran out of things to talk about because they, they weren't doing something that was really part of their core of who they are and what their career is, what their goal is, what their brand is, what the company is that they're trying to do it for. It just wasn't aligned to keep it something that was worth doing. I think that's the number one thing it all begins by understanding the mind.
Rob Greenlee [00:02:42]:
SHOW INTRO [00:02:42]:
I want to be happy now. I don't care about the future. I want to be happy right now.
SHOW INTRO [00:02:48]:
You are not alone. You are never, ever, ever alone in my voice. Grow and given me freedom to be creative on my own. I'm Christina Barci. Welcome to Be Bold Begin, a podcast dedicated to you, the creative, the healer, and the innovator. The topics and conversations we have here are designed to help you discover what might be getting in your way and offer you tools, techniques, and guidance to move through them.
SHOW INTRO [00:03:15]:
I live in the impostor's body more than I live in my own body.
SHOW INTRO [00:03:19]:
I don't have to feel like I don't deserve this. This is where creativity and healing intersect. If you decide to be bold and begin, you have the opportunity to feel humbled and empowered. I totally believe that. I'm a certified Kaizen Muse creativity coach, a certified Reiki energy healer, and an entrepreneur, artist and presenter. I will share with you my experiences, my proven tools and techniques that helped me and my clients and loved ones shift and expand in the areas they most desired. This is a gentle and open space where you will hear how others are being bold. To encourage you to begin your own journey or expand the one you're on. This is Be Bold Begin.
Barsi [00:04:00]:
Hey there. This is Barsi, the host of Be Bold Begin. We have our guest, Rob Greenlee, the VP of content and partnerships at Libsyn, a podcast hosting platform. In fact, the hosting platform I use to host and distribute this show and a handful of my clients. And in today's episode, we are focusing on what you need to know before you begin your podcast with a few bonus drops of knowledge from Rob. Enjoy. So there's a lot of talk about how difficult it is to stand out as a podcaster these days.
Barsi [00:04:38]:
Not like when you were starting and there was just 12 of you, but. And there's a lot of talk about pod fading, which for those of you who don't know, that basically means you're losing steam and you want to quit your show if you have a show. So can you just share with us why someone should podcast and how it can be an asset to themselves and others?
Rob Greenlee [00:05:02]:
I think the first thing you have to think about is why you're podcasting and why. What your. What your goals might be with. With doing so. And I, I think focusing on, especially at the beginning, focusing on what you want to do and what your topic area that actually inspires you and keeps you motivated, gets you excited, I, I think is something to seriously consider. I know many new podcasters are trying to create the, you know, like the, the next serial or something like that, or the next podcast that's going to be the breakout hit, that's gonna, you know, earn them a million dollars or something like that. That can also be accomplished. That takes a lot of planning and goal setting as well, and trying to get an understanding of who your audience is, how you produce the content.
Rob Greenlee [00:05:49]:
Those are, those are two very important, you know, steps in the process. But if you're just an indie producer that wants to produce a show, very simply, I would just really focus on what you love to talk about, what is your expertise, what do you get up in the morning and the first thing you pull up on your iPhone or your Android device to read about, what is that thing that sets you on fire? And the reason I say that is more about creating regular content, because if you're a podcaster, what you need to do is create content on a regular basis. Generally just focus on what you're creating, how you're creating it, how is it compelling. And I think more and more audio quality is important. And Barsi, I think you're a great example as you really focus on quality production, you really focus on what the content is. And I think you're a good example of, of what needs to be done out there with podcasting. And I think you will also probably admit that it's not easy to create a show that people want to listen to. And, and that's, that's where the rubber hits the road on this.
Rob Greenlee [00:06:59]:
A lot of shows start, they produce a couple of episodes just like you said, pod fade, because they didn't really have a plan, didn't really have an idea of what they were going to do. They maybe ran out of things to talk about because they weren't doing something that was really part of their core of who they are and what their career is, what their goal is, what their brand is, what the company is that they're trying to do it for, or what the consulting services that they're trying to offer. It just wasn't aligned to keep it something that was worth doing. So I think that's the number one thing. And then take that, whatever that is, and create a creative, a kind of like a keyword strategy behind it too. What are the keywords that will drive attention to whatever that topic is, and then that's what you build your marketing around, whether it be search engines, whether it be your metadata, whether it be your show titles, whether it be your artwork, all these things. Are important for audiences to discover your content and have it be something that they see and they connect with right away.
Barsi [00:08:02]:
It is complicated, but what I'm hearing is know what you're talking about, be passionate about it, make sure it's something that you are in love with so that other people know how to fall in love with it and have a plan.
Rob Greenlee [00:08:14]:
Right.
Barsi [00:08:15]:
It's knowing. Knowing enough about what you want to say and why. The why I think is really important. I talk about that in almost every time I present. I bake it in because it starts there. And if you forget because it might change as you grow, then it's time to look at it again and go, well, why am I. Why am I getting up to do this now? Maybe it's changed and is there still value to give? Or do I need to stop and start the next why? And that's okay too. It's totally fine to end a show and start another one.
Rob Greenlee [00:08:50]:
I would say that that's going to be your experience, what you start with, whatever your idea is. I'm not saying that you have to write up this extensive business plan for your podcast. What I'm saying is just get a concept together that has some cohesion to it, that makes sense to you and makes sense to someone else and then start building on that. Start building on based on that concept. And what you'll find is that you will get more input on that as you build it out and as you launch shows, you will learn from what you see in the market, what you see with your audience reaction to the content. And you evolve the show, you evolve the marketing message, to be more precise to who you're trying to reach.
Barsi [00:09:32]:
Yes. Leave room to grow from that starting point too, because it's. It can be so overwhelming to start a new thing. But some planning. I wish I did more planning at the beginning of a lot of things I'd started in the past. So I, I do really emphasize like just a little bit of planning. Like plan your first 10 episodes.
Rob Greenlee [00:09:53]:
I mean, it can be just something that you write on a napkin for sure. To be this big thing.
Barsi [00:09:58]:
Yeah, exactly.
Rob Greenlee [00:09:58]:
But also keep. Keep in mind what you have to invest and don't over invest. I, I think you can, you can start podcasting for, you know, pretty low amount of money these days. Yes, probably. I think there is some investment that you need to make in to the. The infrastructure of doing.
Barsi [00:10:16]:
Agreed. Definitely know what your budget is. Even if it's $10 a week, if that's your budget, then know that that's your budget. And, and then ask yourself, what can I do for $10 a week? And do I just start by buying a microphone? And then that, that's my one investment this month. And then I'll just do some more planning until my next $40 comes around. Like, just know what it is to help you understand what steps you can take. And then that being said, on the creative side, if you're like, okay, I have no money, which has been my case many times with projects I wanted, wanted to start, but the idea I felt was still there, the next question is how can I adjust the content to fit the box, the parameters, the barriers. And if it means you start on an app where you're talking on your really expensive cell phone that has good audio, you know, and those are your first 10 episodes, you can do that and then upgrade later.
Barsi [00:11:18]:
Just make sure that you're infrastructure is good. Like you own your RSS feed. Own your RSS feed. That's the one thing I'll say to things like that. There's a lot of tools out there now to be aware of. But that's something I want to point.
Rob Greenlee [00:11:31]:
Out too, and also kind of take a little bit of a contrary perspective on this to some degree. If you look at the podcasting medium today, there's only about 600,000 shows that are active out of 3.8 million. So don't feel like if you start something and it just doesn't align with what you're wanting to do, it's okay to shut it down. Yeah, don't, don't, don't be caught up in, you know, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it for the next two years and it's going to work no matter what I do. Just be conscious of the fact that maybe some idea that you had just doesn't work and doesn't align with who you are and what you want to do with your goals. And it's okay to adjust and start something new if you need to, and the whole pod fading thing kind of gets a bad rap. But in some ways, even getting started with something like that, you're gonna learn a lot. Right.
Rob Greenlee [00:12:25]:
So even producing three or four episodes that don't go anywhere, that don't get anybody listening to, don't get discouraged from that. Learn from it.
Barsi [00:12:32]:
Yes.
Rob Greenlee [00:12:32]:
And then adjust your sales and do something new.
Barsi [00:12:36]:
I completely agree. Have a little bit of a plan, which includes the budget and knowing a few things, and know your why and Know that why has to be connected to your joy. Don't do it painfully the whole way. You know, there's no need to do that. You just don't do that. If you hate it, don't do it. Then stop, pause, figure out what's wrong.
Rob Greenlee [00:12:57]:
Because it's not going to sound very good if you hate doing what you're doing. Your audience is going to pick that up. They're going to say, we're going to hear it. This person isn't really into this.
Barsi [00:13:07]:
So the last thing I'll ask you is, I feel like we kind of went through a checklist already, but do you have something very basic? Like what. What do you think are the first, like, five things someone needs to do?
Rob Greenlee [00:13:19]:
Well, I would say that the, the first one is what we just talked about. I would say the. The getting of a microphone is probably a little bit further down the list. I would get other stuff together of what you need. The, the branding of the show, the artwork, all this kind of stuff. The microphone part of it is like nuts and bolts, right? I mean, it's. It's, you know, you can get, you know, an ATR2100X, or you can get a Samsung Q2U for less than 100 bucks and plug it into your. Your laptop or your computer or your Mac or whatever, and you're basically good to go.
Rob Greenlee [00:13:56]:
Then it's just a matter of getting. Getting some recording software that you need. And you can use Audacity, which is free, or there's a variety of other software applications out there. I use a software platform that's pretty inexpensive called soundforge. It's made by Sony. And then I also use a leveling software called levelator, that's free. So you basically record your podcast. Maybe you do some editing, maybe you do some cutting and pasting of segments into it, and then you run it through.
Rob Greenlee [00:14:25]:
You run the wav through the Levelator software that's. That's free. And it basically levels all the, all of the segments of your show into one audio. And it raises the volume to a point where it can be heard on a bus, train, any kind of listening environment. Because that's the other thing you have to think about too, is that people listen to podcasts in very noisy environments. So your audio needs to be at a volume that doesn't require them to max their iPhone, volume setting or to have. The other worst thing happen is that your volume is all over the place and they're having to ride the volume up and down on their iPhone. Because it's, it's blowing your ears out or they can't hear it.
Rob Greenlee [00:15:04]:
So that's a very important kind of tactical thing. I don't know that a lot of podcasters think about that, but it's an important factor that has been important in my, my experience and I try and always drive that message.
Barsi [00:15:18]:
Sound quality. Yeah, for sure. So the checklist would be what we just said, understanding what you're going to talk about, knowing the why, and understanding some organization. So let's say that's the second. What's the third most important thing for you?
Rob Greenlee [00:15:32]:
I would say the actual laying out the episode that you have and then also planning what the content is more precisely creating an outline, getting in your thoughts, what your keywords that you're going to focus on with whatever content that you're producing. Those are all kind of like building blocks for what comes later, which is the actual publishing of the episode. So, you know, as you come up with your content that you're producing, keep in mind what audiences are maybe looking for, what keywords are they looking to search for in Google? You also need to create artwork for your podcast too. It's square artwork, 3000 by 3000 pixels is the preferred size for Apple. Then get a podcast hosting platform like Libsyn. Well, like Libsyn, there's a bunch of them out there that you can pick from. Go through as many of them as you want to look at, look at their features, look at their pricing, look at their packages that they have to offer, and pick one that best fits with what you like and what you prefer.
Barsi [00:16:38]:
I actually have clickable links in the podcast resource guide that I created a couple of months ago that you can actually click on all of these platforms, hosting platforms, you can browse them and see what you like there. And same thing with the artwork parameters, those are listed there as well, so you don't have to go searching for them.
Rob Greenlee [00:16:57]:
Also, submitting to listening platforms is the other thing. So once you've published an episode, actually what you should do is launch a trailer episode first before you publish a first full episode, which needs to be at least one minute long. And the reason for the minimum of one minute long is that the IAB certification specifications for counting a download, it has to deliver at least one minute of audio before it's even counted. So if it's shorter than a minute, if it's shorter than a minute, it won't even count in many of the hosting platforms.
Barsi [00:17:30]:
That's really good to know that I did not know. Well, thanks again, Rob. Thanks for doing this for our podcast Curious Community.
Rob Greenlee [00:17:38]:
Yeah, well, thanks for having me on.
Barsi [00:17:40]:
Absolutely. Thank you for listening to people begin. We hope that these episodes are helpful, helping inspire and empower you to take your next steps towards whatever you're thinking of creating. And if starting a podcast is what you're thinking of creating, then I would love to have you in my brand new private Facebook group, Unleash youh Podcast Niche, a podcast learning community for the aspiring podcaster who cares about creating an authentic message and making an impact with podcasting. Join us for live opportunities with me and meet other creatives like you who are at the same stage. There's a link in the show notes to join us. Happy creating.
