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149. Sound Bite: Why Podcasting is the Ultimate Business Hack for Solopreneurs · The Life-First Solopreneur

• 0:00
  Carly Ries: What if you had a simple authentic way to connect with your audience, showcase your expertise, and grow your business all without breaking the bank on ads or complex strategies? Sounds pretty ideal. Right? Well, podcasting can do that for you. In this short episode, we explain the benefits, how to overcome perceived barriers, and so much more, so be sure to tune in.
• 0:22
  You're listening to The Aspiring Solopreneur, the podcast for those just taking the bold step or even just thinking about taking that step into the world of solo entrepreneurship. My name is Carly Ries, and my co host Joe Rando and I are your guides to navigating this crazy, but awesome journey as a company of 1. We take pride in being part of Lifestar, a digital hub dedicated to all aspects of solopreneurship that has empowered and educated countless solopreneurs looking to build a business that resonates with their life's ambitions. We help people work to live, not live to work. And if you're looking for a get rich quick scheme, this is not the show for you.
• 1:01
  So if you're eager to gain valuable insights from industry experts on running a business the right way the first time around or want to learn from the missteps of solopreneurs who've paved the way before you, then stick around. We've got your back because flying solo in business doesn't mean you're alone. So, Joe, we've been doing this podcast for a few years now, and I actually recently had a solopreneur approach me and was like, gosh, I would love to do that, but that seems so intimidating. It seems like the the tech side is really overwhelming, yada yada yada. And I think what people don't realize is how simple it can actually be to throw up a podcast and get it out there. if it's something that people are interested in doing, and we'll get to the benefits in a second, I don't want technology to be the thing that they get hung up on. So I'm just gonna say that not as difficult as it seems. You could do a quick Google search, quick chat GPT search. You'll figure it out, because we are such big fans of podcasting for your business. So, Joe, do you wanna kinda dive into the benefits, not only that we've seen, but just in general, podcasting for solopreneurs?
• 2:10
  Joe Rando: Sure. And just before we dig into the benefits, one of the biggest things to keep in mind is, you know, I was at Inbound, which is HubSpot's conference. It's a big marketing conference, and there was, a good deal of talk about about podcasting. And it is believed now to be a very effective way to do your marketing, that there's still even though there's, 4,000,000 podcasts or something out there, most of them aren't really active. There's not a lot going on.
• 2:37
  Some of them are very consistent. But if you go in and do it right, you can really make some traction in terms of growing your brand, growing your audience and, you know, people that are interested in your business. So just keep that in mind as we go through this. But, from my perspective, kind of the benefits of starting a podcast, it's building authority. Right?
• 2:57
  If you're out doing a podcast and talking about things that you've researched, and are carefully presenting to your audience in a way that that is helpful to them, your authority is gonna go up. Right? And that's one of the most important things you can do in terms of building credibility and and and trust. I mean, authority can lead to trust because if people say this person's giving me good info, well, they're gonna trust you more. It lets you connect with your audience, right, so you're talking to them and engaging them.
• 3:29
  You might reach people you wouldn't reach another way, you know, if you're just posting a blog post waiting for people to Google search it. With a podcast, there are people that really, really love podcasts, and, if they find you or you lead them to your podcast, they'll dig in, and you'll get a lot more attention, a lot more, you know, there's a term for, like, brain time or something or attention. basically, you're gonna get more of their attention than you would just putting out blogs or social posts.
• 4:02
  Carly Ries: To piggyback off that, while I do dishes at night, I listen to a podcast. I can't read a blog post while I do dishes, but I can listen
• 4:10
  Joe Rando: You could, but you break some dishes.
• 4:12
  Carly Ries: Exactly. Exactly. Been there, done that. But, anyway, I didn't mean to cut you off.
• 4:18
  Joe Rando: Thank you. I'm just babbling here because I really believe in this. You know, you can do some good networking by doing a podcast, though, I'll talk more about this, but guest based podcasts are more challenging right now than more like just kind of discussion, you know, discussing a topic yourself. If you do have a guest based podcast, you can do some really cool networking that way. You can meet some people that are maybe higher up, you know, you punch above your way a little bit, get some people on.
• 4:48
  I know we've done that with a few of our guests, especially recently. And, as you pointed out, it's not hard to get started. Right? And those podcasts can be a podcast, but they can also be turned into little video clips or audio clips for social, and so there's a lot of ways to use that stuff. And I just think it's a really great way for you to expand your reach of your business and expand your credibility, the trust that the community has in you, and to grow your business.
• 5:21
  Carly Ries: Yeah. And I'm glad you pointed out the repurposing of content with podcast because it can be such a time saver. And who are we kidding? Also, preorders need more time, which, so that's a huge benefit. The other thing I wanna say is I know I talked about technology being a barrier for some people.
• 5:38
  I've also heard people say, I won't be very good at it. I'll be really awkward. That's true. Nobody's good at podcasting at the beginning.
• 5:47
  Nobody on their first take isn't like, oh, I'm gonna get a 1000000 downloads. It's all a learning process, but you won't know that until you actually start doing it. Joe, I actually haven't listened to our first episode in a really long time.
• 6:00
  Joe Rando: We should do that.
• 6:00
  Carly Ries: Just to remember how 4 weeks come. Like, even the biggest podcasters out there, John Lee Dumas, has said, I can't listen to my first episode. It's everybody's in the same boat. It's like with video. Everybody has to start somewhere.
• 6:14
  So if you don't think you'll be good at it, odds are you won't be, but that doesn't mean you won't become good at it.
• 6:19
  Joe Rando: Some people aren't very good at it, but they provide good content. I'll give some examples. One of the ones that I used to I don't listen to as much anymore, but Lex Fridman. The guy doesn't have a great speaking voice. He's a little monotone. actually used to use him to fall asleep sometimes because, he doesn't have this, amazing presentation. He doesn't have a radio voice at all. You know? But his podcast is huge, and really he just asks good questions,
• 6:55
  and discusses interesting topics. So you don't even have to get really I hope you don't, because I'm doing this, and that was never made for the radio or TV or anything else.
• 7:06
  But it's really if you can get to the point of providing good information, good insights, you don't necessarily have to be a great personality presenter to have a successful podcast.
• 7:19
  Carly Ries: Yeah. Well, so let's flip the script. I do wanna talk quickly about podcast guesting. So it's one to host your own podcast, but it's another thing to be a guest on podcast, which requires so little prep time because what you're being interviewed on, you should be the expert on anyway. It's it's really a matter of coordination and then showing up for your interview and then sharing the interview, and it can really be a a great win to expand into new audiences, again, to create your own content that doesn't take a lot of time.
• 7:50
  If you're not podcast guesting in your niche right now, you need to be doing that.
• 7:54
  Joe Rando: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's a great thing to do. I did want to share something I heard. I think it was John Lee Dumas that said it.
• 8:03
  I'm not sure, and I can't find it on Google, but podcast listeners listen to podcasts, which sounds like the dumbest statement ever, but the point is if you have a podcast, and you then go then you go on other people's podcasts as a guest, then you are reaching people that may listen to your podcast. So if you do have a podcast, podcast guesting is a very good idea to grow your listener base.
• 8:33
  Carly Ries: Yep. Listener base, again, networking, like you said earlier, those partnerships and collaborations can come out of it. All in all, consider podcasting for your solopreneur business. No business is too small to do this, and I'm excited. I hope some of you do it, and I hope you reach out to us and let you know and let us know if you started doing it, Yeah.
• 8:53
  Because I just think it could be a really cool way to reach new people. But, Joe, that's all I had for today. Do you have anything else you wanna add?
• 8:59
  Joe Rando: Yeah. Just in terms of podcast guesting, I think there's a few things to keep in mind. The one thing I'll just I'll keep it short here, but one thing really important, When you're doing your own podcast, you develop a style and an approach, and and you should do that. You shouldn't just wing it. You Carly, you've done a great job of building a kind of a loose structure around how we do our interview podcasts.
• 9:18
  And as I said, interview podcasts are tougher these days, so think carefully of whether you wanna do that or not. But when you go on someone else's podcast, you can't just bring your thing to it. You have to bring your insight and knowledge, but understand what they're doing and how they're doing it so that you kinda fit into their their framework. It's really important and and, you know, sometimes people are great at communicating those things. Sometimes you just gotta go and listen to their podcast and figure out how you should approach it.
• 9:44
  But that little level of research can really be helpful in terms of having a more successful podcast guesting experience.
• 9:52
  Carly Ries: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, folks, we hope this was inspirational today. If you've been on the fence about starting 1, this is your sign to go do it. If you haven't considered it, consider adding it to your 2025 plans.
• 10:05
  And, otherwise, we just so appreciate you tuning in. Be sure to subscribe on any of the platforms. Give us a 5 star review, a comment. We so so appreciate it, and we will see you next week on The Aspiring Solopreneur. You may be going solo in business, but that doesn't mean you're alone.
• 10:23
  In fact, millions of people are in your shoes, running a one person business and figuring it out as they go. So why not connect with them and learn from each other's successes and failures? At LifeStarr, we're creating a one person business community where you can go to meet and get advice from other solopreneurs. Be sure to join in on the conversations at community.lifestarr.com.