- Have you been dreaming of starting a podcast, but you're not sure where to begin? Or maybe you're ready to take your voice and your brand to the next level. If that's you, I've gotten just what you need. Join me for my free live masterclass podcasting 101, how to start, record, and profit from your show at freepodcastclass.com. Now in this live masterclass, I'm gonna cover how podcasting can connect you with the mentors you admire, the tech setup that you need to start confidently, even if you're a total beginner, and the powerful ways your podcast can grow your business and boost your bottom line. Plus just for showing up live, you'll get a free equipment checklist to make starting your podcast that much easier. I am handing over exactly what gear I use for this show and the different levels of investment protect that makes you sound like a pro. This isn't just another webinar, it is a step-by-step roadmap to kickstart your podcast and turn your passion into profit. So don't wait, sign up now, and let's get that mic turned on in your message heard. Head to freepodcastclass.com to save your seat today. That's freepodcastclass.com, I'll see you there. If you're a creative soul looking for a way to take your photography or event business to the next level without adding more hours to your schedule, you're gonna love this inspiring story. Catalina was a wedding photographer working her tail off to make $1,000 for weeks of work, but when she added a photo booth to her business, everything changed. She started charging the same amount for just three hours of work. Since then, she scaled her business to seven figures. Now, if you're thinking, that sounds like the dream, you need to check out this free masterclass from Photo Booth Supply Co. It's called Capture Success, how to turn your creative passion into a six-figure photo booth business. Catalina's gonna show you how you can take what you're already passionate about and turn it into a massive profit. You'll learn how you can earn $1,000 or more per event with a photo booth rental business. If you're someone who loves creating memories or maybe you've been looking for a fun side hustle, you've gotta check this out. Head to photo booth supplyco.com/goldicker to get your free access and my special promo code. This is your chance to work smarter, create more freedom and build something truly amazing. That's photo booth supplyco.com/goldicker. A lot of people don't think about how many assets are needed when it comes to a podcast. They're just thinking about sitting down and recording, but there is a lot of copy involved and a lot of assets involved. And so if you take the time to create an outline and you do it intentionally, that outline can then serve as the foundation for many other pieces of the puzzle. I'm Jenna Kutcher, your host of the Gold Digger Podcast. I escaped the corporate world at the age of 23 with nothing more than a $300 camera from Craigslist and a dream. Now I'm running a seven figure online business that feels even better than it looks all from my house in small town, Minnesota, with my family. Here we value time as our currency. We mix the woo and the work, and we are in the pursuit of building businesses that give us the freedom to live lives that we love. I've always loved turning big goals into reality, and I'm here to help you do the same. This isn't just a peek behind the curtain. Come along with me and my guests as we tear the whole curtain down. Every week we tackle practical, no-fluff marketing strategies and host honest discussions on what works and what doesn't. Join me and my expert guests for actionable insights to help you grow your dream business with confidence. Pull up a seat and get ready to be challenged, inspired, and empowered. This is the Gold Digger Podcast. Curious about what goes into an episode of this show? Today's episode is all about unlocking the secrets behind creating a standout episode. We're diving into the step-by-step process of crafting an episode that not only shares information, but also keeps your audience hooked from start to finish. I'm breaking down everything from setting clear goals to the nitty gritty of recording, editing, and promoting. And here's a real kicker. I'm also gonna cover three common mistakes that new podcasters often make. Mistakes that can trip you up and make the process feel overwhelming. Don't worry, I'm here to guide you through how to avoid these pitfalls and streamline the system so that you can focus on creating amazing content and growing your own show. Now, real quick before we dive in, if you want to launch your own podcast, grab a seat to my free training on podcasting101, how to start record and profit from your show. You can save your seat right now at freepodcastclass.com. In my masterclass, I'm gonna share the behind-the-scenes of how to actually get started, mistakes to avoid, and what I wish I would have done when it came to monetizing from day one. Again, that's freepodcastclass.com, hit pause right now, go save your seat for the free training, and then come on back to this episode. Now, are you ready to turn your podcasting dreams into reality? Let's dive on in. With smaller budgets, shorter timelines, and sky-high expectations, growth is feeling really painful right now, but HubSpot is here to help. They just announce more than 150 major product updates that'll make impossible business growth feel impossibly easy. Like Breeze, HubSpot's suite of new AI tools that'll help you say goodbye to busy work and hello to better work. There's Breeze Co-pilot, a sidekick to assist with all your tasks and boost productivity. Breeze agents to automate manual time-consuming work and ad expertise, and Breeze Intelligence to give you the richest, most comprehensive picture of your prospects, so you know which are most likely to become loyal customers. They've also reimagined their marketing and content hubs with new ways to create breakthrough content, updated features to generate better leads, and lots more to up-level your marketing and your revenue forecast. Get ready for growth without the growing pains. Visit hubspot.com/spotlight to see them all and demo for yourself. That's hubspot.com/spotlight. Most of you know the origin story of this podcast, but it's kind of wild for me to acknowledge that I have been recording this podcast for years and years and years. And boy, where we are today is very different than where we started. My show started in my parked car, in my cold garage in Wisconsin with nothing more than iPhone headphones and this idea. And my podcast was born out of curiosity because honestly, I was feeling really lonely in entrepreneurship and I wanted an excuse to connect with other creatives in the off-season. And boy, it has evolved so much and so has my process. So I thought it'd be fun to just take you behind the scenes of what goes into an episode of the podcast, even if you'd have zero desire to start your own show. Maybe you're curious about like, well, how do these episodes come out and how has Jenna not run out of things to say? And what is the process behind the scenes of getting one of these episodes to error for where you are today so that you can be listening to it? So at the very beginning, we always start with idea generation. We always want to come to the table with different ideas. And one of the biggest things that we wanna think about is relevant topics that our audience is aligned with, that they want to consume. And one of the common mistakes that we often see podcasters make is not matching topics to audience needs. So talking about things that are irrelevant to your audience or that your audience isn't even remotely curious about. When you think about a podcast episode, you want it to educate, you want it to entertain, you want it to connect, you want to be a part of somebody's life. And in order to do that, you have to be talking about something that people want to listen to. And so we always start with idea generation. And one thing that really helps us not run out of ideas is this idea of having brand pillars. And I talk about brand pillars a ton, whether it's Instagram or email marketing or blogging. It's this idea of the JK5, which is having five different brand pillars that allow people to connect with even just an aspect of you if they don't connect with everything you're talking about. So it gives people a reason to tune in to some of the episodes, even if they're not interested in all of them. And so having different categories that your podcast covers or that are podcast covers gives us this opportunity to have more of a multifaceted approach. It also allows me to not talk about the same thing week after week after week, but it allows us to reach different segments of our audience based on what their interests or their needs are. And so we always want to start with the idea and we actually keep an idea board. And when I say we, I have one person on my team that helps me with this monstrous show. So we don't have a huge team surrounding the Gold Digger podcast. We have one person who we've outsourced our editing to since episode number one. And I have a producer, Christy. And that is it. That is like behind this show, this massive show. There's just the two of us in the Slack channel. And so every single month we sit down and we go through ideas and we have this idea board where we keep track of past ideas that we haven't done yet or new ideas that we're seeing. And whenever I see something that catches my eye, I will always screenshot it or add it to our idea board. So every month we like to look at, okay, what are the main ideas? What are some of the brand pillars? And for example, this month we were exploring different ideas and two of them were almost too similar. And I was like, let's save this one for later. We've already got one in this pillar. Let's figure out a different one. We need a different one. So kind of an overview, but some of the pillars that we have include marketing strategies, lifestyle. We talk about finance. We talk about productivity. So you can kind of see how when we're planning out a month of content, we're able to look at those different pillars and make sure that we have something on each topic. And again, this allows me to not talk about the same things over and over again, but it allows me to move through different areas of my life, my business and my passions while delivering content that you are excited about, that you actually need and you wanna tune into. One thing that I think is really interesting is each month we pay attention to the metrics to see which shows are getting the most reach interaction. But we also are paying attention simultaneously to trending topics to commonly ask questions and things that we hear our community talking about. If you are not a part of it, we have our Goldiger podcast insider's Facebook group. It's an amazing community. There are tens of thousands of you in it. And so this is a really great place where we kind of do pulse checks to see if there are any topics that we haven't covered lately or that we've never covered. That would be really great content for the show. So after we come up with the ideas, typically we do one month at a time, then we set the goal for the episode. And this is something that's really important to me because I wanna make sure that the content is shaped, that it is focused and that we deliver real value. Now in the past, some people have criticized me saying that I use my notes too much or that it sounds like I'm reading from a script. I'm not. I actually just do a very thorough outline. And the reason why this is so important to me as a host is that one, I have ADHD and I have mom brain. And I wanna make sure that I am staying on task, that I am not wasting a single minute of your time. I wanna keep it focused and tight for you so that I am delivering the value in the shortest amount of time possible, right? I don't wanna just talk and talk and talk. I wanna deliver the value so that you can finish that episode and say, oh, this was worth my time. And so for me, having a goal set and being able to outline surrounding that goal is so powerful and I'll talk about outlining in just a second. But for me, when I have a goal, which makes sense, goal digger podcast, right, it makes it way easier to craft a compelling episode that resonates with my audience and that allows me to deliver on the promise that I'm giving you. And so I love thinking about this part of the planning process through smart goals. And smart is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. And what I want to ask myself is, did I deliver on that? By the end of the show, did I deliver on what I promised? And after that, I often think of what is the next logical step that someone would take after they tune into this episode? Now, a common mistake that we see a lot of podcasters make is a lack of clear objectives. Many new podcasters, they dive into recording and they don't have a clear goal. This leads to unfocused and less impactful episodes. How many of you have tuned into an episode and you're like, I have no idea where this is going. I didn't learn anything. I don't know why I'm listening to this still and you shut it off. I just did this the other day. I was listening to an episode. And I was like, this is going nowhere. They're so off topic. Like, I just want to hear about this one thing. And so setting a clear goal for each episode allows you to stay on track, to deliver the value and to make the content more engaging and relevant. So here's what you want to ask. What is the end result a listener can expect or what is the next step you want them to take after tuning into that episode? And getting clear on what would make this episode a win. This is a really great place to start once you have the idea. So again, we start with the idea and then we set the goal for the episode. And this is like how we literally organize the thought process of planning each episode is the idea and then the goal. 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Make B2B marketing everything it can be and get a $100 credit on your next campaign. Go to linkedin.com/goal to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/g-o-a-l, terms and conditions apply. If you're a creative soul looking for a way to take your photography or event business to the next level without adding more hours to your schedule, you're gonna love this inspiring story. Catalina was a wedding photographer working her tail off to make $1,000 for weeks of work. But when she added a photo booth to her business, everything changed. She started charging the same amount for just three hours of work. Since then, she scaled her business to seven figures. Now, if you're thinking, that sounds like the dream, you need to check out this free masterclass from Photo Booth Supply Co. It's called Capture Success, how to turn your creative passion into a six figure photo booth business. Catalina's gonna show you how you can take what you're already passionate about and turn it into a massive profit. You'll learn how you can earn $1,000 or more per event with a photo booth rental business. If you're someone who loves creating memories or maybe you've been looking for a fun side hustle, you've gotta check this out. Head to photoboothsupplyco.com/goal-digger to get your free access and my special promo code. This is your chance to work smarter, create more freedom and build something truly amazing. That's photoboothsupplyco.com/goal-digger. The next thing that we do is outline and prep the episode. So again, when you have a clear goal, creating a focus outline is so much easier. It ensures that you cover the key points and that you stay organized in your delivery. And a lot of times, podcasters, they'll have an idea and they just wanna riff. And honestly, I welcome that. I get like bow down to people who can just have a general idea and sit down and deliver amazing value. I am not one of those people. I know that about myself. And so I need to outline and prep. Now, a lot of new podcasters will skip outlining and oftentimes this can lead to those off-topic tangents and some shows are built to be that way. Like you are literally just listening to a stream of consciousness and sometimes it's fun and funny and relaxing. But for a show like mine where I want to deliver value, I want each episode to feel like a masterclass, that requires outlining and preparation. And so I have done various methods of this throughout my years of podcasting. There were years where I would literally have five bullet points and I would just riff off of them. There were years where I would have very complete like almost chunks of scripts that I didn't mess up on delivering on the value. There are so many different ways. And nowadays I do something kind of in between. So even the outline for this specific episode, it comes with main headlines and then a few bullet points that I want to make sure I cover. And that allows me to, again, deliver this content and not go too off tangent, but have opportunities for me to just speak straight from the heart. So again, find a format that works best for you and you know your brain. And you'll also learn as you start to deliver what method works best for you and understand to you that that process can change. My outline and why I actually love outlining is that my outlines double as the prep for our show notes that we host on our blog and they provide content and context for other assets we need. So I actually write my outlines in a super specific way so that the content in the outline can be used for things like my show notes, the show description, social media content, email content. And I do this so that I can work smarter and not harder. So this is a method that I've developed along the way so that my outlines and when I'm working on them, I know, okay, these are also gonna be useful in other places so that I'm not doing double work all the time because a lot of people don't think about how many assets are needed when it comes to a podcast. They're just thinking about sitting down a recording, but there is a lot of copy involved and a lot of assets involved. And so if you take the time to create an outline and you do it intentionally, that outline can then serve as the foundation for many other pieces of the puzzle. So once you've got your outline done, a lot of times I'll write my outlines in a batch so I'll know the upcoming shows that I have coming up, I'll sit down and I'll outline a bunch of them at once and then I review them the day before so that I feel super fresh on the content. I make sure that if we have any research or anything involved in that episode, that we have cited it, that it is accurate and I just kind of get more familiar with that content that I may be outlined a week or even two weeks ago. Then it comes down to hitting record and recording it. So again, when you know the goal and you have an outline, you are ready to hit record. And so something that is so important to me is choosing a time of day when your energy is best and when you have a quiet space. And I kind of laugh at the quiet space thing because for years and years and years, basically up until last year, I did not have a confirmed quiet space to record in. I had two rescue dogs that loved to bark at anything. I had two young children. So recording in a quiet space was ideal, but not necessarily required. And most of my show was either recorded in a parked car, recorded in our spare closet or recorded in any other place that I could find that was quiet. And so it doesn't have to be ideal conditions to get a great show. Now I am very fortunate when we built our house, I built an office. And so I always have a space that is set up and ready to go, which means I'm not constantly unplugging and plugging things in and messing with settings and having to rework all of the tech stuff that I absolutely hate. But the recording place is where a lot of people tend to overthink it. They're like, what do I need? How do I hit record? Where do I record? What happens to the audio? I actually cover three different microphone recommendations and how to record your podcast easily in the free training that I'm hosting at freepodcastclass.com. So if tech is something that intimidates you or you just wanna understand the setup a little bit better, save your seat for that free masterclass. It's super awesome. And it kind of breaks things down and shows you how it's easier than you might be thinking. So again, that's freepodcastclass.com. So I have literally recorded my podcast in so many interesting places. There was even a time where I would go to my cousin's quiet apartment just to have a space to record 'cause I would sit down and batch record. And one of the things that I like to do is once I'm all set up, I like to record more than one thing at a time. So today I'm recording three maybe four solo shows in one day and I know my energy's ready. I know my outlines are ready. I can sit down and crank it out. And then that takes care of the content for an entire month. And so when you start to kind of find a rhythm and a flow, you can actually see how sitting down and having just a full day of recording is awesome because you're ready to go and you can knock it out. One thing that is super helpful is I do this thing called Mies and Plas the night before. Now Mies and Plas is this idea that a lot of chefs use. And so it's before they begin cooking a dish, they get out everything they need and have it all lined up and organized. So this is utensils, ingredients, pots, pans, they have everything ready. And so I take this idea of Mies and Plas and use it for my podcast. So the night before I make sure my office is set up, I have everything the way it needs to be. My tech is all ready. I literally just have to open up my laptop and hit record. This is awesome because again, if tech can intimidate you or if it can steal a lot of time from you, having it prepped and ready allows you to just sit down and hit record. So that's the recording piece of the puzzle. Now, after we record it, we spend a lot of time and this is kind of interesting, finalizing the name and the title of our show. So we actually do all of the titles of our shows in a batch once a month. So we look at our upcoming month and all of the episodes we have coming out and we name them all at one time. Now the importance here is that you want to make sure that you choose a compelling episode name that reflects your episode's goal. Now get this stat, 80% of people will read your title, but only 20% will click through. A compelling title is the difference between someone scrolling past or tuning in. It is their first impression and it'll make them choose, do I want to give my time to this? Is this worth it or not? And so you want to spend time on this piece because no matter how good your content is, no one's actually gonna consume it. If you don't make the title compelling enough that they actually hit play. So here are some examples. The most powerful pivot you can make right now, this title is specific, it's actionable, it creates curiosity, making listeners want to learn what is the pivot that Jen is talking about. Or exposing all the reasons why you haven't created a digital course yet. This one is very clear. It speaks directly to the listener and addresses a common pain point. So we sit down, Christy and I, and we will literally go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, it's really fun. It feels like a sparring match when we're coming up with episode titles. But we want to make sure that it explains what the promise is, it hits on a specific pain point and that we for sure deliver on that promise in the content itself. You also want to understand that the podcast platforms almost act like a search engine. And so you want to leverage the power of searchability. According to Buzzsprout podcast titles that include searchable keywords can improve discoverability by up to 50% leading to higher listener counts over time. So naming your show is a big deal. And I often argue that you should spend just as much time on the title of your show as you do the show itself. Because again, if people don't actually click on the title then they're not going to dive into the show and enjoy what you spent so much time on. And one mistake that we see a lot of people make is they don't necessarily think about searchability or keywords or compelling titles. They just kind of phone in the title part. And I really would argue that that is taking away from your listeners actually tuning in and experiencing what's inside in that episode. After we have titled the show then comes the editing, creating graphics, getting the sound bites for social media. So since day one of my podcasts I've had the same editing team. When I started my podcast I knew I didn't want to be the person that edited it. Mostly because I didn't want to have to listen back to myself and my voice. And so I have outsourced my editing from day one. Although editing isn't as hard as you think it might be and there are some really easy tricks to make editing easier. But when we edit the episode a lot of times when it comes to solo shows it's mostly just cleaning up mistakes or areas that I mess up on. When it comes to the interviews sometimes we edit to keep it on track to get back to the point to keep it more concise. And we also are always looking at highlighting the key points of the episode. So really keeping that episode focused again so that we can deliver. So sometimes it's editing for content. A lot of times it's just editing out the mistakes and the things that make listening not as fun. We also like to create sound bites for social media. So you'll notice that we use these different sound waves where you can hear a little bit of the episode in the carousel when we go to announce the episode. And we also use reels of video content from the episode itself to help us share about the episode. And this is also a great way to get our guests to share about the episode because we're essentially taking the content from the recording and giving that content for them to share. And then we also create graphics using templates in Canva. So we have basically created this system around our entire show so that everything is systemized. It has a template. It is easy to rinse and repeat week after week after week. And we like to do kind of a monthly recap or audit of like how is everything working? Do we need to tweak anything? Which posts are performing well? Which ones do we maybe need to revisit? And we're constantly kind of working through that. And so after recording, after titling, then comes the editing, creating graphics, getting sound bites for social and just thinking through all of these different things. I actually have an awesome blog post of the five must have podcasting tools. I can't live without. We're gonna link this in the show notes for you. So if you wanna see some of the tools that we use in the podcast, you can do that. We'll also cover a lot of those tools in the free podcast training at freepodcastclass.com as well. Okay, let's be real. Why are we still overpaying for wireless? 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New customers on first three month plan only, speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan, additional taxes, fees and restrictions. After that piece of the process, then we go on to our show notes and our content planning. So we always want to focus on our show notes being this place where we enhance the value and provide additional resources for listeners. A lot of new podcasters, you do not need to have comprehensive full blown show notes. We have always leveraged because I have been a blogger for over a decade and so leveraging my blog to support the podcast makes total sense. And so the show notes are this awesome accompaniment to the podcast episode. We link the podcast player, we link the different platforms, and then we link different resources. And if you ever go read the show notes, it reads as a blog post. So we kind of write it in the format that is super specific to us in how I do my outlining so that it translates on over to the blog itself so that if somebody doesn't listen to the entire episode, they can still get the main points, get the meat of the episode and the additional resources we may have mentioned. And so this is a part of the process where it kind of helps us keep all of our shows organized. It gives people a landing place outside of the podcast platform to land and it also connects them with additional resources that we might mention in the show itself. And then the last piece of the puzzle is publishing the episode. So publishing is a tiny piece of the puzzle, but it is a very exciting one. So again, we get to promote the podcast and this is where a lot of people are so caught up in the creation that they forget about the promotion. And a lot of times I feel like entrepreneurs are creating for 90% of the time and then promoting just 10%. But if we could flip that on its head and be creating 10% of the time and promoting 90% of the time, I think that we would see a greater return on our time when it comes to creating something like podcast episodes, but I also think that more people would consume the content that we are working so hard on. And so publishing the episode is the fun part. So this is where we do a lot of social media stuff. So we have a carousel post, the day it launches Instagram stories. We have a YouTube video, we have an Instagram reel, like we are getting it out onto all the platforms. We do a LinkedIn stream of it. Like there's just a lot of moving parts happening within our ecosystem that we've built, but publishing the episode is exciting. And for people that are subscribed to the podcast, which by the way, if you're not subscribed to the Gold Digger podcast, what are you doing? Click the subscribe button now. Then the new episodes automatically pop up into the platform that they listen on so that they never miss a show. And so that's a huge thing, because if you're someone who might miss the Instagram posts or you're not a part of the Facebook community or you're not on the email list, you might be missing content that can meet you exactly where you're at and help you get to the next place you wanna go. And so you wanna make sure that you're subscribed, but if you are subscribed to the show, once it's published, it'll automatically pop up in your player. And so that's a very exciting time. So there you have it. That is what goes into an episode of the podcast. Whether you're just curious about what goes into the creation behind the scenes of this, or you are someone looking to create your own show, or you wanna take your own podcast to the next level, I hope today's episode gave you some insight behind the scenes, the tools and the confidence to create something really impactful. Take it from me, podcasting does not have to be complicated. You just have to start with a very clear goal, have a little bit of intentional prep and the right mindset and tools to keep going. Now, if you're ready to stop dreaming about your own podcast and start making it a reality, do not forget to grab a free spot in my training. Podcasting 101, how to start, record, and profit from your show. You can save your seat right now at freepodcastclass.com. I'm gonna show you how podcasting is way easier than you might think and walk you through my system to do the things that we talked about in today's episode and so much more. Again, had to freepodcastclass.com to save your seat. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the podcast, I can't wait to hear what you create and of course, until next time, Gold Diggers, keep on digging your biggest goals. Thanks for pulling up a seat for another episode of the Gold Digger podcast. I hope today's episode fueled you with inspiration, gave you information that you can turn into action, and realigned you with your true north in life and business. If you've enjoyed today's episode, head on over to golddiggerpodcast.com for today's show notes, discount codes for our sponsors, freebies to fuel your results and so much more. And if you haven't yet, make sure you're subscribed so that you never miss a future show. We'll see you next time, Gold Diggers. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
