How to Start a Podcast: The Complete Guide

Hey Friend!

Today, I have got a complete guide for you of the 11 steps to starting a podcast from start to finish. This post is a deep dive into the tactical side of podcasting. I hope that if podcasting has been on your heart, this makes it much more of a reality for you.

Testimonial – What Happened When She Started Her Podcast?

Hi, this is Courtney Kountz. And my podcast is Confused to College Ready. It looks at unlocking the secrets during a person’s college search, working with families and students. My big win was absolutely amazing. I started my podcast in November. After finding Stef, I ranked for the first time in the top 230 for my category and received my first 11 ratings. I have had consistency with social media and with Pinterest. I was able to be a guest on a podcast. And all of this is because of what I learned in Stef’s course. It has truly been amazing.

That’s so great, Courtney. I am so excited for you. Just getting started is sometimes the hardest thing to do. You are trying to figure out what your podcast will be called and who will listen. How do you set up all these little components of the show? How much time it is really going to take? You wonder if it is going to be difficult or if you are going to stumble on your words. Yep, you sure are! There are going to be pieces along the way that you’ve never done before. But you don’t have to fumble your way forward on your own.

How to Start a Podcast – Walk in Someone Else’s Footsteps

One of the number one mistakes that I made when I first started out in entrepreneurship 13 years ago was that I wanted to figure out a way to do everything on my own. I tried to ask people. I threw spaghetti at the wall and went to YouTube University to try to figure things out. The result was that it took over a decade to actually have my breakthrough. And I really believe that if I had just invested in someone who could show me the way and I could have walked in their footsteps and followed along, it would have been so much easier for me. Me trying to ‘save money’ actually ended up costing me so much more money over 10 years of trying to do it all myself.

So, if you want to start off your podcast like Courtney did, check out my Clarify Your Calling course. In this course, you learn all about what you will call your podcast and who it will be for. You might already know what you want your podcast to be about and who it is for. If this is you, go to Podcast Pro University. This course will teach you all those components of putting your show together. It will teach you how to launch it into the world so that you can make an impact and make an income from it.

In the meantime, here is today’s guide. It gives you an overview of the process Courtney used to get to where she is. You can use this guide so that you can get started before you dig deep into the courses.

Step Number 1: Plan Your Podcast

At the very beginning, you have to plan your podcast. The main steps of planning your podcast are:

• Understanding what equipment and software you need
• Defining the name and the tagline of your podcast. We call this the TSO: the tactical, specific outcome statement
• Getting really amazing podcast cover art

Step Number 2: Set Up Your Podcast on Your Podcast Hosts

This step is basically like getting your house ready to go for when you have episodes recorded that you are ready to upload. I teach you how to do this step by step in the tech tutorial of Podcast Pro University but the basic parts of step two are:

• set up your own podcast media host. If you ever want to grab the software and see a list of all the resources that I am personally using in my business, go to stefaniegass.com/resources. Anything that I can sign up to get you guys a discount or get you a savings code is listed on that page
• Understand the RSS feed and where to publish your show. Understanding how to use the RSS feed allows you to automatically share your podcast to all the different places it can show up
• Link your podcast to iTunes and Apple Podcasts

Step Number 3: Define Your Episode and Content Niche

What are you going to podcast about? What is your content plan going to look like? You are going to need to map this out and step three allows you to do that.

I have my students come up with three content pillars that align with their TSO, the tactical, specific outcome. That way, everything is really clean. It is really niched and nobody is confused. When you land on one of my student’s podcasts, you pretty quickly know that it is a Stef Gass student. It is well put together. All the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed. It has another level of professionalism.

A really important part of that professionalism is content mapping so that your episodes all make perfect sense with what you are trying to bring to the world. Your objective for the show needs to come across in every single episode, in the titling, in the way that you portray yourself, in the way that you speak.

In step three, we cover all of this. We define the episode content and niche as well as episode length and frequency. You decide how often you are going to podcast and how long your podcast will be.

Then you need to create a podcast catalog. You can have a look at my catalog at stefgasscommunity.com. You will find it in the guides and you can just go onto this catalogue and search for any topic that you know that I have podcasted on before to find the episode you are after. My students get a template for this catalog and get to just plug and play so that they can create their own catalog.

Step Number 4: Plan Your Episode Layout

In this step, you actually go through and figure out all the different pieces of the podcast episode. You have the introduction, the review or testimony that you might feature on the show, and then the actual episode content. What are you going to talk about? What are the actual tactical tips you are going to bring? In my course, we do a deep dive into this and I give you templates for all of these things so that you know exactly what you are supposed to say. You can have a plug-and-play script for so much of it and take the confusion and the frustration out of it.

Then you need to decide if you are going to do solo shows or guest interviews or a combination of both. You need to decide if you are going to have sponsorships, affiliates or a CTA (call to action) to your own offer. Then you can add in the background music and create the podcast trailer.

Once you get all of this done, then it feels like it is really happening!

Step Number 5: Record Your Episodes

Step five starts with setup, storage, and organization. You do not want to have a podcast five years later without having a really clean operational system to organize and manage all of your podcast episodes and your recordings and your notes. So you need to set up your organization before you have episodes that need to be stored. In my course, we set that all up together.

Once we have all the operations set up, we can learn how to record your episodes. This step looks at how you actually record the episode as well as how the equipment plugs in and what software you use to record. You need to learn how to edit your episode using the software too. In my course, I have got two different software options that I teach you to use so you can choose the one that you like best. 

I also teach you all the little things inside the recording that help you to export an episode with SEO and metadata so that your podcast can be found and can bring people in and can create an audience for the show.

Step Number 6: Guests and Interviews

If you are going to have guests on your show, this step helps you figure out how to find the right guests. I teach you in my course how to schedule your guests in using Calendly and how we set up an intake form for them. We look at the legalities of having a guest on your show.

Once you have got your guests scheduled, you learn how to record an episode with a guest because this is a different process to recording a solo show. We use a different software for this. We look at the interview and the follow up and finally the promotion of an episode where you feature a guest. It is very simple but it does include some different steps that you have to go through.

Step Number 7: Editing Your Episodes

This step is included in my course but if you are not going to take the course, you need to learn how to edit or you have to pay to outsource to get your editing done. Or you can decide to have an unedited show which is also an option. Once you have edited your episode, you need to learn how to upload your episode to your host. All of this is covered in step seven.

Step Number 8: Writing Show Notes

When you create an episode, you have something called show notes. These notes are simply a small, simple description of what a particular episode encompasses. We have a few relevant links in these notes that are mentioned in the episode. This step is pretty straightforward!

Step Number 9: Launch Your Show

At this point, you have your podcast planned, you are all set up on your host, your art is done and up to standard. You know how to edit. You’ve recorded your trailer and your first three episodes. You know that your episodes are going to land well for your listener because you have been strategic in how to title them and what the content should look like. You’ve confidently sat behind the mic and recorded. You have confidently edited out anything that didn’t align for you. And you are now ready to actually launch your podcast out into the world.

This is where you need a really incredible launch plan. Inside my course, I have that really incredible launch plan and it is ridiculously simple! This plan has got people ranked. I have even had students hit New and Notable using this plan. Students have hit the top 100 in their category. I have had a couple who have hit top 10. The plan has got people 10, 50, and sometimes even 100 new reviews on their show.

If you are not going to take my course and follow this simple launch plan, you need to have a launch plan of your own. You do not want your podcast to come out into the world without a big bang and without some incredible energy behind it to boost the algorithm of your show.

The launch of your podcast is one of the most critical times in your podcasting journey. It is when you get the most notoriety and can be featured in the highest rankings because there is so much activity happening on your show at once. The launch plan I offer shows you exactly how to capitalize on that launch.

Step Number 10: Promote Your Show and Episodes

After you are done with your launch and you have new episodes coming out consistently every single week, you need to promote your show and these episodes. This includes setting up a content calendar, having an episode weekly promotion plan, and then, if you want to, creating audio clips or marketing for either social media or for Pinterest, and creating an email blast for your episode. All of these are different fun ways that you can market your podcast and they are all included in my course.

Step Number 11: Evaluate and Adjust

Podcasting is a long game. If you are willing to withstand the test of time, you will grow and you will be successful because 90% of podcasters quit in the first six months. Why? Because it is not a vanity metric. It doesn’t feel good all the time for you to sit there and drill in and do the work and show up and ‘I will until…’ But it is always worth it when you truly commit to something over the long run.

And so in step 11, you look at your podcast statistics and review your analytics. You dig into some additional market research, combing through to see what is really working for your show. Maybe you do some small tweaks over the first six or 12 months to really get your podcast to the level that you know it can be.

This step 11 is in my course too and if you are not doing the course, again, this is something you are going to have to figure out. How do you evaluate and adjust your podcast so that it can continue to grow? You are going to learn. And grow. You are going to get better and better and further along and you don’t want your podcast to stay stagnant. You want to move with what the audience wants and to flow with what the analytics are showing you and proving to be true. And that is simply what we do in step 11.

Let Me Be Your Guide in Starting Your Podcast and Making an Impact

When you join us on these courses, you not only get support in implementing these steps but you also get to join my student community. In this community, you have people who will help you and you have other like-minded, faith driven entrepreneurs to run this race with.

Let’s start that podcast so that you can start showing up in the world in a more seamless way that is going to actually be sustainable for you in the long run.

I pray this blesses you!

Xo,

Stef

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Before you go, be sure to watch the free workshop!

This free workshop is for you if you want to grow an online business in less time.

It will teach you how to explode your audience without the social media hustle, make consistent sales using a podcast, and plan, record, and launch a podcast with ease!

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Struggling to Start Your Podcast? 5 Steps to Get Unstuck NOW

The 6 Things You Need to Start a Podcast

10 Tips to Start a Podcast. Plan, Execute, and Launch a Podcast

Worried No One Will Listen if You Start a Podcast? 3 Ways to Make Sure Your Show Will Be Successful

5 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a Podcast

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