Hey! I’m Candace, your Podcast Guesting Strategist and producer, here to help entrepreneurs like you leverage podcast guesting and strategic podcasting to grow your visibility, expand your audience, and build your business with ease.
As a long-time podcaster and entrepreneur, I’ve been in the trenches—and I know what it takes to launch, grow, and sustain a podcast that makes an impact.
If you’re dreaming of starting a podcast, ready to step up your guesting game, or want strategies to grow your brand through podcast visibility, this is your space. I’ll share expert guesting strategies, production tips, and behind-the-scenes insights—all with no fluff or gatekeeping.
In solo episodes, I’ll guide you through guesting tips, podcast growth, and how to build a sustainable podcasting strategy. I also bring in guest experts to share valuable advice on growing a thriving business.
If you're ready to amplify your voice and leverage podcast guesting to grow your business without the hustle, hit play. Let’s make it happen!
All right, all right, all right, let's talk common podcasting mistakes and how you can avoid them. Some of these I know about because I did them in the beginning two, three years ago. So let me speed up your progress by sharing the top five mistakes that I have done or seen and how you can avoid them. So mistake number one, thinking or wanting your podcast to be for everyone. This is really common. You want to just reach everyone, help everyone. And it's scary to think about talking to a smaller group of people, but they always say, all the marketing people say, if you're talking to everyone, you're talking to no one. That same thing goes for podcasting. So getting really clear on your audience, who are you serving? Think about your dream client. Who is that person? Think about offers that either you have or that you eventually want to have and sell and promote, what kind of person is going to be buying those? You can also take this into consideration when naming your podcasts and also giving your episodes titles because these are ways that people can search for your topic. So if you can incorporate some of those words that someone would search for, then that's gonna go a long way as well. So get specific, get clear. It doesn't mean if you name your podcast something really, really specific that then your episodes can't veer off from that or expand from that a little bit more. You totally can do that. It's just having that specific in the beginning, and especially with the main name of your podcast, it's gonna really help you out. Mistake number two, overcomplicating the tech setup and really overcomplicating anything, but let's talk about the tech setup because how can you avoid this? Well, first of all, the tech options for podcasting are literally endless. You could spend all of your days searching for hosting platforms, recording platforms, editing programs, all of these things. It's endless. You can look for mics, you could have a studio, you could not have a suit. I mean, it's literally endless, but plain and simple, you don't actually need all of that, especially in the beginning. You don't need to just learn one more thing before you start, you know, that kind of thing. Just start. Really, all you need to start is get a mic. Literally, any will do. Pick a platform that you're gonna record on. I'm recording right now on Audacity, it's free. I've also used Zoom and Riverside. I will say Riverside does have a bit of a leg, it really sucks a lot of Wi-Fi, but it's a good one if you're trying to do a video and audio podcast, and you want to be able to edit video right there. And then pick a hosting platform. And I've used Buzz Sprout for all of my three and a half, almost four years now, and I've been very happy with that. But that's a quick Google search for hosting platforms. Pick one, get started, and go from there. With any project or goal, you can always overcomplicate things. You can overcomplicate anything you want. So don't use this as an excuse why you can't do it or why you can't succeed. Just don't overcomplicate any part of podcasting. Start simple and add as you feel comfortable and as you have the space to do so. Mistake three, and this is definitely one that I have fallen into, is having too many guest episodes. Now, if your show specifically is about having guests and you're only having guests, that's different. Most of us have a podcast, obviously, to serve and give value, but also to promote ourselves, to share about our knowledge, expertise, and then our offers, right? Ultimately, at the end, you're looking to promote something, you're running a business, right? So having too many guests on and not having enough solo episodes can have people thinking of you as they're really good at interviewing people and not having them think of you when they have a question about the topic that you coach on or things like that. So for me, I want people to think of me when they have any question to do with podcasting. I want them to think of Candace. So a good rule of thumb is to have at least more than half of your episodes be solo, and even two-thirds solo episodes is best to shoot for. One part that goes with this that sometimes feels hard is that there's just a common fear or doubt that hosts have that they might run out of solo episode topics and run out of things to say. And so it's just easier to have a guest done. Now, I'll tell you, it takes me half the time, probably even less than that, to record and edit and get a solo episode published than it does to do guesting episodes. There's a lot that goes into guesting. You have to contact the person ahead of time. You need to get information looked up about them, plan some questions, then you spend the time to meet them on the Zoom or whatever you meet them on, and you record, and then you gotta edit. Those episodes tend to be a little bit longer than ones that you riff off by yourself. And then it's the communicating with them when it launches so that they can share. There's just so many more steps. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. There's a lot of great things about having guests on, but making sure that you have more solo episodes and aim for that two-thirds mark of having solo episodes over guests. But ways to combat the fear of running out of things to say, one thing that I do is always, always work on your mindset. If that mindset tanks, your little mean girl, mean guy in your head is gonna come up and it's gonna say, Who are you to be talking about? That it's gonna have all those things, right? Where you discredit yourself and you say other people know more than me. Yeah, of course. Someone always knows more than the next person. There are people out there that know more than you, and there's people out there that know less than you. Those are the ones you're helping. It doesn't matter who knows more than you or what, but gotta work on that mindset. I also like to batch record solo episodes so when I get inspired or have like this fiery high vibe energy. I love to hop on and record a bunch of episodes. I've been recording probably three or four just in the last day, and then scheduling those for future to be released at certain times. You can also re-record similar topics that you have maybe a new spin on or a new perspective on. Let's say you had an episode a year ago, you can re-record about that with new things and expand on it and say it in a new way. That's totally okay. One tool that I found helpful is also utilizing Chat GPT. I'm not saying have chat GPT, write out your content. I think you lose your voice and just your own personality and take on it, and that's why people are listening to you. But it is a helpful tool if you are kind of like, I don't know what to talk about. I like to ask it to come up with lists of topics, and that way I can just kind of scan like titles and thoughts, and it gets my brain going. So you can utilize it that way to help you think of just different brainstorming things and get your mind going. But yeah, again, I would just avoid using it to write out everything you're gonna say. I think the magic is in each one of us and what we each bring to the table and the perspective and things, and I don't want you to lose that. Mistake four, I'm gonna call this one publishing and ghosting. You cannot just hit publish on an episode, not tell anyone and expect listeners to come. That really isn't how it works. This is not, you know, the movie filled of dreams. If you build it, they will come. That is not the case. You have to do the back-end work of sharing the episode on social media platforms. Email it out to your email list. Those are your people, they're your super fans, if you will, that have signed up and chosen to be on your email list. They want to know when those episodes are coming out. You can also guest on other shows that can increase your reach and visibility. Another thing that works well for me is when you're on social media. Right now I'm on threads a lot and there's lots of conversations and questions being asked and things going on. When you have a show already that covers a topic, maybe that someone's asking a question about, you can say, Hey, I have an episode about that. Do you want me to send you that link? And you can share that. And let's back up about that email list. Do not let not having an email list or even social media platforms deter you from starting your podcast in the beginning. This can be one of those things that gets added on as you go. And it's actually not that hard to set up an email list. So if you need help with that or those systems, you can let me know I can help you, I can point you in the right direction. But don't let that be your hang up, like, oh no, I don't have an email list, so now I can't start my podcast. I didn't have one either when I started. Don't let that be, you know, an excuse to deter you. Mistake five, missing out on engagement or calls to action. Let me explain that. So whether you're familiar with calls to action or not, this is just giving your listeners directions for what to do either while they're listening to the show or to do after the show. One mistake some people make or I've seen happen is that you have this great episode, but then you just stop. You don't tell the listeners to do anything after. And it's not like they're going to do it every time, but it's much, much less likely that they're gonna do anything if you say nothing. So ideas for this could be to tell them to go subscribe to the show, to leave a review, join my mailing list. Those are really simple things to start with. If you just need to practice getting in that habit of saying, Hey, if you love this episode, go share it on your stories on Instagram and tag me. One simple thing for them to do that also is going to help grow your podcast and help support you. Other ideas as you grow and get more things in place is to say, hey, grab my free resource about such and such. It's in the show notes. Or book a call with me to discuss blank. Head to the show notes. You can link those things in your show notes, or apply to be in my membership with the link in the show notes. Stuff like that are examples of ways to lead people to the next thing. It's really endless what you can do. I will give you an example right now. I'll add a quick call to action of mine right now. I love this part of the game. These are the systems and the setup where we can make this flow and really work for you behind the scenes. So if you want to chat this through, help make a plan for you of how you could have links in your show notes and what they would lead your clients or potential clients to. And you want to pick my brain, have me help you with that, then head to the show notes and you can book a one-on-one call with me right there. All right, bonus mistake number six recording episode topics just because you think you should. I'm kind of using like air quotes, you can't see me, but this is going to lead you most likely to quitting, burning out, and just not enjoying what you're doing. And that goes for more than just podcasting. When you do things and take action because you think you should be doing this, you feel like you need to or you're supposed to, it just usually doesn't pan out into being you working in alignment. Your listeners are following you because of you and your ideas, your passions and knowledge. So give that to them. Lean into those times that you're inspired and topics that you're passionate about. Be choosy about the guests you allow on your show. You are the host. This is your show, and you get the final say. And then finally, just take advice like mine, like this episode, and pick out what speaks to you and just leave the rest. Not every person is gonna have all of the things they say align with you, nor should it. You get to take what feels right, take the advice you like that works for you, and pick that out, let the rest go. Okay, I hope that gets you off to a good start. Or if you're in the midst of your podcast journey, you can pivot where you need to to grow even more. Head to the show notes to book that call with me. Talk soon.
