The Jen Lister Podcast

Reflections on My Podcast Journey: Essential Tips, Naming Struggles, & the Importance of Organisation and Creativity

• Jennie Lister • Season 1 • Episode 26

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Strap in and prepare for a trip down memory lane as I walk you through my exciting podcast journey and bestow upon you tips drawn straight from my experience. Is there a better way to learn than from someone else's trials? I bet there isn't! Join me as I recount the highs of interviewing fascinating guests and the lows of a recent recording disaster, all while sharing my love for podcasting and how it's shaped my business and credibility.

Did you ever wonder what's in a name? Contemplating a podcast name sure made me! Couple that with the struggle to maintain consistency and commit to solo episodes, and you have a roller-coaster ride that's as thrilling as it is enlightening. But don't be disheartened, for every struggle came a lesson learned. From this episode, you'll walk away with five concrete takeaways that will empower you as you embark on your podcast journey.

As I wrap up this enlightening and heartfelt reflection, let's explore the importance of organisation and creativity in the podcast world. Ever wondered what style is best for your podcast or how to select guests? We'll delve into that, giving you a taste of the art of mastering your message and connecting with your audience effectively.

Before we part ways for now, let's take a moment to celebrate the fantastic journey this podcast has been, and the profound impact it's had on me and my cherished listeners. Stay tuned, and remember, this is not a goodbye, just a brief interlude.

Follow me on social media, it's @jenlistercoaching on Instagram and LinkedIn.

My website is Jenlister.com

Click here to get my 7 mindset steps to starting or scaling your business

Music and production by the amazing Strike Productions

Podcast management by Dean Bardrick

Jen Lister:

Hello and welcome to The Jen Lister Podcast. Here I will be chatting about life, business, growth strategies and sharing my personal journeys. Along the way, I will also be interviewing some incredible guests who are experts in their field. See it as my little black book of business. Hello and welcome back to the Jen Lister podcast. Thank you so much for listening to what has been a long time coming episode. It's a really important and special episode for me because announcement this is going to be my last episode for a little while, for various reasons that some of you may or may not know, but I just wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who has listened and supports me on my Instagram. Jen lister Coaching and has just been part of this amazing journey, which will absolutely be continuing in the future.

Jen Lister:

So I am sitting here with a nice cup of hot chocolate, which is my absolute favourite. I am going to be talking to you today on two things. It's all about the podcast. Basically, I wanted to do an episode where I could reflect on the podcast, on the year that I have been doing it for a bit more than a year actually. I started in May 2022 and it's now August that I'm recording this, 2023. However, I just feel like there's a massive opportunity to kind of reflect on what I've loved and what has been tough, but also share with you my top tips if you're thinking of starting a podcast, because that is what would have been so helpful for me before I started this podcast. So I hope this is something that you find useful and, yeah, I'm excited to get going.

Jen Lister:

Okay, so what I wanted to do was a bit of reflection. To start with, I'm going to be sharing with you what I've absolutely loved about my podcast, but then also I'm going to be really honest and be sharing with you some of the challenges that I've found and what has actually been really tough. And the reason I think this is important is I spent a good two years thinking about launching a podcast, and I work with clients that have got businesses with various ideas. Sometimes they want to start a YouTube channel, sometimes they want to start a podcast. Obviously, there's lots of other things we cover around business and strategy, but in terms of kind of getting yourself out there on like a marketing platform, sometimes people want to just develop their social media presence in some way, but I spent a lot of time thinking about starting a podcast and stopping myself getting in my own way, which is a phrase I'm sure you've heard before, and I think it's important to remember that.

Jen Lister:

Sometimes these things have got a bit of shiny object syndrome, so you kind of think about something for ages and then you finally get around to doing it and then when you actually do it, you're like, oh, I've done the thing now and I want to go on to something else, something new, something different. So I think it's really important that you take the time to think about what you actually want out of a podcast. If you're thinking of starting one, think about why you want to do it, because I don't want you to lose if you were to do it. I don't want you to lose the love for it and kind of lose that momentum for it. It's an amazing, amazing platform. And the other thing I should say which will probably encourage you to potentially start a podcast is I have definitely found that it has given me growth in my client base. I find that it's really added to credibility, and what I've found is potential clients can listen to my podcast episodes and get to know me a little bit better before they approach me about potentially working together and developing their strategy in their business. It's that no-liking trust factor, isn't it? At the end of the day, there's lots of barriers to working with someone and to taking that leap, but actually by people being able to consume free content, hearing my voice, they'll just get to know me a little bit better and feel a little bit more comfortable with making that initial introduction. So I'm going to start with what I love. Bear with me, because I'm drinking my hot chocolate at the same time. It's a very cold summer's day here in England today and we've had a very strange summer, the summer of 2023. So the first thing I love like this is literally I wrote my notes for this just before I started recording, and so I really feel revved up for this and this was the first thing that came into my head.

Jen Lister:

So my thing that I love most is my guest interviews. So what I tend to do is I do Fault Nightly episodes, and I do one is a guest interview, and the other Fault Night is my solo episodes where I kind of talk on a particular subject, which is what one of these episodes is that I'm doing at the moment. But I particularly love my guest interviews, and the reason for that is kind of obvious. As you can probably tell, I love to talk, I love connecting with people, I love learning new things and in my guest interviews, the conversations that I get to have, the topics that we get to cover, the things that I learn is just incredible and I really really enjoy them. I love laughing as well, and I tend to have quite a laugh and fun when I'm recording my episodes. So I really hope you'll take the time to kind of listen back to some of my previous guest episodes and get the vibes that you can tell how much I absolutely love, love, love recording them. So, yeah, that's probably like the best thing about my podcast and the fact that I get to choose who my guests are to a big extent. So that's really nice. If there's a topic that really interests me or an area that I want to explore in more detail or a specialism that I feel like I could really benefit from learning about, I get to choose a great guest and not only share it with you guys but obviously take the learnings on myself.

Jen Lister:

Now, the other thing I love is going to sound a little bit ego-centric, but I genuinely just love having a podcast. Like I said before, it's something I'd mulled over for a couple of years. I spent a lot of time talking to people that had got podcasts. I toyed between YouTube and podcasting and all different ideas on what to do to kind of develop my presence in the kind of online business space, and I settled on the podcast because I love speaking, I love chatting. I just could spend hours and hours on the phone to friends. But yeah, this is like an ego thing. I just love the fact that I get to say I have a podcast, it's something that I can use in my marketing with my business, it's something that I can put on my website and it's just a really fun thing to do. And when you start doing podcasting, you kind of realise there is this community of people that podcast and you get to connect with other podcasters and, yeah, it's really cool, okay.

Jen Lister:

So the next thing I love which probably won't be a surprise to many of you, because I do talk about this a fair bit is the fact that I get to work with an amazing team doing my podcast. When you are an entrepreneur, a business owner, whatever you identify, as often it can feel quite lonely. I work on my own in my business predominantly, but when it comes to my podcast, I get to work with an amazing team. So I have got my amazing podcast producer, tom Strike, who will be listening to this over and over again and editing it perfectly for me, and I have my amazing brother, dean Bardrick, who is my virtual assistant, and he does all of the kind of uploading, getting it live, doing the show notes, all of the kind of tricky bits that take the time. So all I have to do is show up and record, which sometimes I'm not so good at, which I will come on to in a minute.

Jen Lister:

So, yeah, the last thing I want to cover about what I absolutely love is the fact I get to work with people that I really, really enjoy working alongside. They keep me motivated, they make me better. Honestly, I get messages and emails and ideas from both Dean and Tom about how to make the podcast better and different articles sent over to me and just having that camaraderie and that team vibe. It is game-changing and when people are all working towards the same aim and supporting you, it does feel really lovely. It doesn't feel lonely, it feels like something that is fun and I get to kind of be a bit more accountable as well, because sometimes, when you run your own business, you can kind of just get a bit lost and do whatever you fancy for that day and procrastinate, but when it comes to having a team to kind of get back to and live up to, it's really, really handy. Okay, so now I'm going to come on to what is tough about having a podcast and how I would reflect on the last year plus and what I found challenging.

Jen Lister:

So the first thing is committing to my solo episodes, which, like I said earlier, this is one of my solo episodes where I come on, I record all by myself on a topic that I feel is relevant for you, or I just have got like this inclination I need to record this episode, and that's literally what happened to me today. I was like I really want to do this episode, I need to nail it. I have been procrastinating about recording this for probably the last three weeks. You can ask Dean and Tom I should be in big trouble. But this morning I was like you know what, I'm going to start journaling about this and, instead of doing what I was originally going to record, I actually decided the best thing I could do was a reflection on the podcast, but also tips for people that would have been like me back a couple of years ago thinking about doing it but not quite sure where to start. So I will come on to my five tips in the second half of this episode.

Jen Lister:

So the reason I found it harder to commit to these solo episodes is because I've kind of got to do it off my own back when it comes to my guest episodes. They are booked in the diary. I send out notes in advance, I send out a survey in advance, like it's absolutely happening at this date, at this time and it's got to happen. It's all set up. The thing is in the diary. Despite putting invites in my diary for my solo episodes, it still doesn't really happen on the date and time that I kind of specify because it's open time, I have time blocked it, but if something else comes up with a client or I don't know, I get invited to something. I'm like, yeah, I'll just procrastinate and not do the podcast and I'll do the other thing that's come up. So I think I have struggled to keep the rhythm with my solo episodes and I have nothing more to say about that. It is what it is Okay.

Jen Lister:

So the second thing that I found tough when it comes to my podcast is naming my podcast. So I have talked about this before, but you know it's called the GenList to Podcast. I mean, it's called the GenList to Podcast for a reason, and the reason is that I couldn't think of any other, better name and I mulled over the fact that I couldn't find a name for it for ages and that stopped me moving forward with it, which is why I came up with something very, very simple. So one of my clients actually he's just launching his podcast at the moment have to check it out. It's called Jobs Worth and the name of his podcast is just amazing. You have to check it out. Listen to the teaser, because it is actually incredible. He is so unique and it just absolutely suits everything that he is representing and we I'm not taking the credit for the name as such, but we did brainstorm names together. I know he got some like brainstorms from his family as well, and coming up with that name was just so rewarding.

Jen Lister:

So the name of your podcast is really important, but what I would say is just don't get too bogged down with naming it. I found that really tough. I really, really did find that tough and I was like, oh, is it not too boring to call it the GenList to Podcast? But if it is, nobody cares that much. If people want to listen to me speak, they can find me is pretty straightforward, okay. So the next thing that I've found tough is keeping to my schedule. This is kind of linked to committing to the solo episodes, but slightly different in that my schedule is to release my episodes fortnightly. If you are an absolutely 100% committed listener and you listen and you wait for my episode to come out every fortnight which I really hope you are you will notice that sometimes I forget, sometimes I am late. I am definitely not perfect by any means, and this just makes me pretty human. I guess what I'm trying to say here is I have found it hard with life happening, priorities coming up. This episode was meant to be out end of July, ready for like a summer holiday break. However, the summer holidays came around so quickly and, yeah, I haven't got around to recording it till the end of August and it'll probably be out early September or maybe even mid September, who knows? Hello. And finally I am here recording the second part of this very special final podcast that I'm doing for now.

Jen Lister:

I've had a little bit of a disaster. I've just talked about it on my social media. I was recording this episode yesterday, which I have a hundred percent procrastinated over, and all of a sudden my computer stopped recording and I got a notification saying that my laptop was full, there was no storage left and it was no longer going to record. And not only that, I couldn't even download it because there was no storage. And then I couldn't even open programs to delete and make room for storage because I had no storage. So that was fun. If anyone else has the same issue as me, which is they've just got way too much stuff on their computer and really sorted it out, then I'm sure you will understand.

Jen Lister:

So what I've been fortunate enough to do is somehow save the first part of the podcast, and this is me recording the second part for you. So the first part was all about my reflections on my podcast, the journalist podcast, what I love about it and what has been tough in the last one year plus of having my own podcast. Now I want to get into the juicy five top tips for you if you're thinking of starting a podcast. So I really hope that this episode is going to inspire you but also give you some practical tips, because I am all about practical actions and when it comes to moving forward, getting it out of your own way and starting a podcast, if that's something you want to do and to some extent, some of these are relevant for other things if you wanted to start a YouTube channel, or if you're just looking to start something in terms of your marketing, and just some things to think about. So my first point is figuring out what your message is and who your audience are.

Jen Lister:

There's no point in just diving into recording an episode of a podcast without actually having any time to think about what you want to be representing. So, to do this, grab a pen and paper, get a journal ready and just write. Write what comes up for you, write what you want to be representing, what things are important to you in your life. You could make a podcast about any subject. It could be a personal thing, it could be a business thing, it could be something really niche that you're just super interested in. But think about what you're passionate about, what you could talk for a long, long time about, because obviously you need to be creating the content? What interests you? Is it sort of interviewing people and, if so, is there a particular topic or is it you speaking on your own to get your message out there? And what is that message?

Jen Lister:

So the best thing you can do is try and be as creative as possible here, which involves getting yourself out of your normal environment, going somewhere, creative with a blank piece of paper and a pen, giving yourself the time and this doesn't just happen in one moment. You need to do this regularly, I would say for a good few weeks or even months, in the lead-up to creating a podcast, so that you're really really clear and just keep coming back to it. Spend lots of time kind of reflecting on it. And, equally, who your audience is important as well, because when you're recording a podcast, you kind of wanna be talking to one person, which is your absolute ideal audience. Yes, there's gonna be more than one person listening let's hope but if you've got a really clear view on what's the demographic, who is that person that you're really trying to target and trying to talk to when it comes to your podcast, then that is gonna really help you when you're creating new episodes and new content and just marketing your podcast as well. So that's my first point figure out your message and your audience.

Jen Lister:

My second point is something I am very, very passionate about, which is organization, quite simply organization. So how can you be organized with a podcast? And, like I said in the first part of this episode, something that I have struggled with at times is keeping to my schedule and therefore, the more organized you can be, the better when it comes to these things. So I've got a spreadsheet that I use, which I use as my podcast planner. It has got mapped out if it's been recorded or not, any notes that I need to make sure I include or links that I need to make sure I include in the show notes.

Jen Lister:

Having a spreadsheet or some sort of podcast planner and planning out at least the next kind of five or six episodes that you're planning on doing is really, really handy and you can just keep yourself one step ahead. And, let's be honest, time flies so quickly and these dates come around. I'm not even joking. I release my fortnightly. A lot of people do weekly. I don't know how people keep up with a weekly schedule, the amount of effort, time and energy that's involved in the fortnightly schedule for me. I just think, hats off to all those people that do weekly releases, because there's a lot that needs to be done. There's a lot of marketing, there's a lot of preparation in the background, a lot of technology needed to be used. So if you can get yourself organized, that is very powerful.

Jen Lister:

And you've got to think about what works best for you. Is it a weekly podcast? Is it a fortnightly? Is it just doing it monthly? Because starting one is better than not starting one if it's a goal that you've had for a while and you're passionate about it. And what I would also say, when you're doing this planning and organization with your podcast, is think about what other podcasts or other content inspires you to do your research. Don't get paralyzed by other people doing similar things to your concept, but listen to other podcasts, get some insights, get some inspiration, take some notes, do your research and consider taking little bits of inspiration from other ones that you find fantastic and building it into your ideas for your podcast.

Jen Lister:

Okay, so my third point is an interesting one. So it's about figuring out what you're gonna do when it comes to either having guests or having your own podcast where it's just you talking on a topic. So there's lots of different styles. You can do it. You can have a more highly produced podcast if you want. There's lots of different ideas out there and this is where you do need to continue your research and listen to other podcasts and see what style you like. I decided to do every other episode, one being a guest speaker and one being me like. This episode is talking about a particular topic that resonates with me or I feel is just the right thing to be releasing at that moment in time. So think about what is the right thing for you and what you wanna be representing. Now there's pros and cons to both.

Jen Lister:

I personally find, like I've said earlier, that committing to my solo episodes is harder because my guests are very much booked in my diary, very much committed to. I know that they're relying on me, they're excited about it. I've got to prepare for it as well, so I always send out notes. So if you're gonna have guests come on, I think that's a great thing, but also know that you might need to do some preparation for it. It's not literally just your guest rocks up. I mean it could be, but there's a need for you to do some research into your guests understand more about them, develop a great introduction for them and there's some workarounds for this and things that can help you, but just consider everything that that will entail.

Jen Lister:

And when it comes to your guests, what I would like to also say to you is please be picky. Something that I have learned, definitely in the last like 14 months or so, is actually I get to choose my guests. I get to choose who I want to speak to, what topics I want to cover, and although business is so important to me and my podcast is predominantly business you'll notice that I do bring in other topics that I'm passionate about, like parenting and fashion and your personal brand and things like that. So don't be afraid to represent what you want to represent. Don't be afraid to kind of try and seek out the guests that you want on there and say no to people if they approach you and they want to be a guest, for example, but it doesn't feel right for you. You've got to make sure it feels right because, trust me, it will come across when you do your recordings. People will vibe differently with it and they'll get the vibe if it's not kind of feeling right. So, yeah, please be picky when it comes to guests. Okay, so that's my third top tip around, thinking about whether you do guests or solo episodes in your podcast.

Jen Lister:

Tip number four is technology. When it comes to launching a podcast, technology is amazing. However, you've got to remember that this is also an investment. So when you start a podcast, you have to invest some time, some energy, some finances in order to get it started up. So I use Buzzsprout. So I'm going to tell you some of the technology that I use. I use Buzzsprout to host my podcast and I pay a monthly subscription to that. I also use various. I've tried various recording platforms. At the moment, I'm using Audacity for this episode. I tend to use Zencast stuff for my guest episodes. I know Riverside is also a good platform to use. One of my clients uses that, so just kind of play around with it.

Jen Lister:

There's plenty of different platforms you can use, but there is the recording side where you need a platform. Especially if you've got a guest. You've got to have a recording platform where you and your guest can talk. Some of them let you see the video at the same time, but don't record the video, and some of them literally just have the recording of the audio and no video, which I always find is a little bit strange, only because I'm used to doing lots of zoom calls, but I do think there's something nice in seeing each other and having the body language. I will also say that I've done some podcast recordings in person and they are just amazing. It's hard to do because obviously you might want a guest speaker on who lives the other side of the country and it's just not practical, but it's worth thinking about.

Jen Lister:

What technology do you need for your recording, and not only your software, but what hardware do you need to invest in? I'm going to come on to that a bit more in a minute. So, yeah, you need the software for recording it, but also the technology in order to host it, so that it goes on all the podcast platforms, and just making sure that you check it, you test it that it has gone live on all the platforms successfully. You just need to make sure that you're on it when it comes to technology if you're launching a podcast. Okay, so my final top tip, top tip number five is production, and what I mean by this is what does your finished podcast sound like? What is the production value? How is it edited? All that kind of stuff.

Jen Lister:

So I believe this is really really important for a number of reasons. So for me, for example, I didn't really feel like I had the time, the energy or the skill set to sit and successfully edit my podcast in a way that would do it justice. So I, very early on, decided to invest in a producer which is Tom Strike at Strike Productions. He is amazing. He's also my cousin so I am biased, but he's an amazing music producer and also podcast producer. He just I have no idea the technical side of it, but he does so much stuff to make this sound so much better than it does when I'm actually recording Sound smooth, sound nice when you're playing it in your car, for example, and there's background noises cutting out all of the urs and ums and pauses that I invariably have to do throughout the podcast.

Jen Lister:

But not only that. I know how amazing he is at the whole setup thing, so helping me with the right setup, and I know that he works with one of my clients and he has helped him set up like the most amazing podcast, like hardware setup. So he's got the amazing microphones, guest microphones, all of this stuff and actually helped him set that up, which is just incredible. So what Tom also does for me is he's got an amazing document which I can share with my guests, because if you're doing a lot of guest episodes, you need to think about your guests set up. You can't just assume that they're going to rock up and their audio is going to be great.

Jen Lister:

I know a few people that do podcasts and when their guests come on and they've got AirPods on, for example, nothing against AirPods, but they can be a bit of a nightmare because they drop in and out, because they're using the Bluetooth and obviously you're trying to record over the internet as well. It's actually better to have a plug-in headphones or plug-in microphone. So all of these little things that I get from the support of having a producer on the podcast, and not only that, I work with Tom and, like I've said earlier, I also work with Dean, who's my virtual assistant, dean Bardrick and also my brother, and between them, the fact that they support me with my podcast is just game-changing, because, one, I feel like part of the team and, two, I get that feedback. So they'll listen to my episodes and sort of say, oh, this didn't sound great, or the audio wasn't great at this point, or you know, this episode's done really well. I wonder why that is like what can we do? Let's market this, let's do this and do that. So they're passionate about it, they're learning and developing and growing as people supporting me, and that's just been a really rewarding part of it, where we can all share best practice and just keep elevating, basically. So that's my fifth top tip production. So let me go through those again for you.

Jen Lister:

My five top tips when it comes to launching a podcast. Number one was figuring out your message and your audience. Number two, being organized. Number three was figure out whether you are guests or doing it solo. Number four was technology and number five was production. So there you have it. I hope you've enjoyed listening to what has been a really passionate topic for me, because I know it took me a good few years to consider, think about the podcast and finally launch it, and now I've done it. It's a very strange feeling.

Jen Lister:

Like I said at the very start, I am so grateful for every single person who has listened to not only this episode but other episodes, and I would urge you to go back through the back catalog and have a listen to some of my guests and my solo episodes, because they're all very business, specific and there might be something in there that inspires you.

Jen Lister:

I'm all about practical top tips. This is going to be my final episode. For the moment, I'm having a bit of a break, so if you want to keep following me, obviously you can on social media LinkedIn and Instagram I'm at GenList to coaching. I'd love to hear your feedback. Honestly, I have had some beautiful messages from my listeners and it just makes me realize that if I'm just helping one person with this episode, it is just definitely doing what I wanted it to do. So I'm really grateful for everyone's support and I will see you all soon. Thanks, guys, bye. Thank you so much for listening to The Jen Lister Podcast. I truly appreciate every single one of you. If you'd like to leave me a review on your podcast app, I would love that, and if you'd like to follow me on social media, it's @JenListerCoaching on Instagram and LinkedIn.