How to Start a Podcast (for Small Business Owners): Tech, Hosting, Editing & Monetising Tips

Small Business Owener thinking about starting a podcast but not sure where to begin?

In this solo episode of Small Business Growth Addicts I (Amanda Hughes) walk you through exactly how to launch a podcast from scratch using the same simple, affordable setup that helped me build an Apple Top 30 Entrepreneurship podcast.

I’ll share the tools, tech, workflow, and mindset that took me from “no idea where to start” to running a successful weekly show that brings in clients, sponsors, and brand awareness for my business.

You’ll learn:

• How to choose a clear, searchable podcast name your ideal listener will actually find
• The minimum tech you need (and what to skip!)
• My full recording setup and why good audio matters most
• How to host and distribute your show across Apple, Spotify, and everywhere else
• Editing options — DIY vs outsourcing — and what I use personally
• A realistic look at how long each episode really takes
• How to promote episodes on social media so they get heard
• The easiest ways to monetise from day one through sponsorships, affiliates, and your own offers
• My honest reflections on what I’d do differently if I were starting again today

If podcasting has been on your to-do list, this episode will give you the clarity, confidence, and practical know-how to finally hit record.

Thanks to our Growth Addicts Sponsor:
Meet Heyday – the audience-first marketing agency helping SMEs, creatives, and fierce forces show up, stand out, and shine online.

From strategy and content to copy that actually connects, Heyday tailor digital marketing support to your brand’s unique goals. Whether you’re just starting out or scaling, they’ll help you connect with your audience, grow with confidence, and step into your Heyday era.

👉 Visit www.heydaydigitalagency.co.uk

Affiliates mentioned in this episode:
Buzzsprout – my recommended podcast hosting platform (get a $20 credit from Buzzsprout via this link)

Riverside – record and edit pro-quality audio & video (15% off Riverside using this link)

• Connect with Amanda on Instagram: @amandahughes.uk
• Growth Addicts Show Notes: Read the blog + grab freebies + guest links
• Be Mentored by Amanda: Join Get Seen Get Sales and get the support, strategies & accountability you need to grow your business on social media with confidence. Learn more
• Free Small Business Downloads: Access all of Amanda’s freebies in one place → Get them here
• Exclusive Discounts: Exclusive discounts on Amanda’s favourite small business tools & services → See discounts

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hi, hello, welcome. I'm Amanda Hughes, your host of Small Business Growth Addicts. I escaped the corporate world after 12 months of a side hustle which turned into my full-time income. Fast forward 10 years and I'm running not my first but my second small business, and this time around it's with a passion to share all that I know, all that I've learned and all that I'm still learning with fellow small business owners. As the title of the show suggests, I am addicted to growing my business and I know you are too. Growth means different things to different people though, and that's why we talk about a whole host of subjects in growth addicts. Whether that's in a solo episode, just me, or with one of my many awesome guests. Between us we share advice, tips and real-life entrepreneurial experience. So grab a pen, a cupper, and a biscuit, obviously, and get ready to grow that small business of yours. This is Small Business Growth Addicts. Hi and welcome to another episode of Growth Addicts. Just me today. Really buzzing to get into this conversation because it's one that's been asked for so much recently, and honestly one that I didn't even think about doing until it came up in conversation with a few fellow business owners. The topic is about how to start a podcast. That is the topic for today's podcast episodes, how to start a podcast. Like I say, it hadn't even crossed my mind, and this is something for you to take on board as a business owner as well. You will have information within you that is just part of your day-to-day knowledge, part of your day-to-day job, day-to-day routine, whatever it might seem mundane to you, but someone out there wants to know. So if you are interested in a teaching element of your business, whether it's like this via a podcast or a blog or some digital downloads or some speaking events, trust me, you will have something within your knowledge that someone else out there wants to know. So, yes, so today we're talking about setting up a podcast. I'm going to talk you through my own experience of it because at the end of the day, that's all we've got, isn't it? I will tell you how the podcast started, where it is now, and all the bits in between. So strap in, we have got a lot to cover. Let's pause there for a second to hear a word from our sponsor.

SPEAKER_00: 2:15

Heyday means living in the period of your greatest success, and who says that can't be right now? We're Heyday, the audience first marketing agency helping businesses like yours show up, stand out, and shine online. You've built something amazing. Now let's make sure the world sees it. Step into your Heyday era at heydaydigitalagency.co.uk.

SPEAKER_01: 2:36

Okay, so why did I set Growth Addicts up in the first place? I set it up back in February 2024, as I record this, it's October 2025. So, yeah, about a year and a half. The first episode actually went live on my 40th birthday, so that was pretty cool. And another point there as well that it's never too late, you're never too old. Do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it. So, yeah, I set that up because my business was very much at a turning point then. Queen of the pivot here. So, if you know my whole backstory, you know my very first business was as wedding and event floristry. That sort of then grew into brand photography, which seems very different, but photography was always a hobby for me. Life changed a lot, photography was really something I really enjoyed more and more and more as the years went on. I also enjoyed working with small businesses, and so naturally that sort of came together. But then as brand photography evolved, so did all the questions I was getting from small business owners. It started as sort of how to use their images from brand photography, how to use social media and whatnot. And I felt like sorry, it did. It became that on shoots on brand photography shoots with small business owners, the conversation was more about how to market themselves on social media and on their websites and you know, types of contents that do types of things that like attract new followers and type of content that sells than it was about photography. And again, I was really enjoying it, really enjoying these conversations. And so this is how the idea of the podcast came about because I was more and more starting to answer the questions I was getting from other business owners about how to use social media to grow your business. I was trying to answer these questions via social media posts, captions, whatnot, via a weekly blog, weekly emails, that kind of thing. But I felt like there was only so much that you can say in these things. I needed to speak exactly like this episode today is a perfect example. When people are asking me how to set up a podcast, now a few of my community members, I run a social media mentorship community, which is awesome, it's full of just the best people. Two or three members have asked me recently, well, the last six months or so, they've been thinking about setting up a podcast. Could I send them a bit of a sort of startup checklist? Which I did. And even doing that, it didn't cross my mind to do an episode about it anyway. Here we are. But the thing is, I know other people have got those questions and I want to get the answers out en masse. And so a podcast felt like such a natural step. It was not on my bingo card for business at all. But then again, over the years, lots of things haven't been and they've turned into the best thing ever. So that doesn't faze me at all. At the time, I was just thinking there's so many questions out there that I want to answer. People need the answers to. This is not enough. I can't say what I need to say in, you know, even blogs, being at that point that the longest form content I would have had at that point. I can't go live all the time. I can't set up one-to-ones. I've got young twins. Life is just not accommodating for that sort of offering at the minute. However, I could sit for an hour a week and record an episode and get it out to just as many people who need to hear it as possible. And so that's what I did. So that was the real reason behind setting growth addicts up. The goal really wasn't much more than that at all at the time. There wasn't much past that. And it's also a reason why I did and still actually do the podcast in seasons. We do six monthly seasons, but the very first reason for doing that was I'll give it six months. And now a year and a half later, I don't envisage the podcast going anywhere. I'll get into the reasons of that now coming up in this episode. But it's something I enjoy. It's been great for my business. So I don't envisage it going anywhere. So I don't know, maybe I need to drop the six monthly seasons and get rid of that sort of mind block of, you know, we'll see how the next six months goes. Because a year and a half in it's been going really well, and it's going from strength to strength. So yeah, give it six months to see how it went, and it went. The podcast has gone from when it was just launched, maybe like a hundred episodes perhaps in the first month or so, to now we get around about four or five times that downloads a month. Certainly, we're almost at like 5,000 downloads overall, you know, of all time since we started a year and a half ago, which is huge for a small fish like me. Bearing in mind there are billions of podcasts out there. We've also hit some really awesome milestones. Milestones, is that the right word? I'm not sure, but the podcast is an Apple Top 30 podcast, which is huge. I don't exaggerate when I say there are billions of podcasts out there and plenty, plenty of good ones. But to be ranked in the top 30 of Apple podcasts, which I think is probably the biggest platform in the world, don't quote me on that. I'll find out the real answer to that and put it in the show notes. Spotify would probably give it a run for its money, I would imagine. But it's certainly up there anyway. So to be ranked in the top 30, now I'm talking like Stephen Bartlett is in this ranking. Jenna Kutcher is in this chart as well, who I'm massively respect and admire. Amy Porterfield, you name it, this was the entrepreneurship Apple Podcast charts, I should note. There are some amazing business names in there, and to be up there in the top 30 was an incredible, incredible moment. We've also had some incredible guests join in as well, like Maxine Laceby and Ben Coomer, and a ton of small business guests who are just incredible to chat to. My last episode with Rachel Mess, all about accessible web design. You know, we are talking about important subjects here that small business owners need to know. The feedback I get from the podcast, there's not a week goes by where a DM doesn't drop in on Instagram to say, you know, I've just found this podcast and you at the time when I just needed it. Another recent episode I did just myself was all about my, you know, really honest, nitty-gritty journey about going from employment to self-employment, included all my figures and planning in there as well. And the amount of messages I got about that, like this saying this has given me so much encouragement and inspiration and made me feel like this is actually possible. Like that, there you go. That's exactly what this was for. If you know me by now, you'll know that I love social media. It's how I've grown my businesses, and now I want to help you do the same. That's why I created Get Seen Get Sales, my mentor group for small business owners who want to get seen online and actually attract followers that convert to customers. Inside you'll get weekly content prompts, live workshops, and support on everything you need to grow confidently on social media. If you're feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or just ready to do things differently, I've got you. Head to smallbusinessgrowthaddicts.com to join us. Okay, so if you are listening, I'm going to presume that a podcast is on the cards for you. It's either something you're thinking about or it's something you're ready to do, or maybe you're in the thick of it already. Maybe you are up or running, but there are a few things you'd like to change, or whatever stage of podcasting you're at, I'm hoping to answer a lot of your questions today or give you some reassurance today, some tips, some advice, some things I would have done differently. And if there is anything I don't cover today, please come and find me on Instagram, amandahughes.uk, love a DM. I will reply. I will reply. So if there's anything we've not covered today, a burning question, please let me know because it's highly likely if you have that question, someone else will have it too. So if that's the case, I will share the question and the answer. And if I don't know the answer, I will endeavour to find it out. Okay, so there's lots to think about. If you're at the very start of your podcasting journey, there's lots to think about. The name of the podcast, what it's going to be about, who's the ideal client for it? Where are you going to host this? You'll need a platform to host your podcast on in order to get it distributed out there to the likes of Apple and Spotify and whatnot. Are you looking to monetize it to make a profit from it? Do you want to do audio only? Are you going to add in video? Again, what platforms are going to be involved in that? What tech do you need for all of the above? Are you going to do it solo? Are you going to have guests? Where are you going to record it? There will be so much going through your mind, I can imagine. So I'm going to start at the top, which for me, if you know me, is always going to be ideal client. So if you're doing a podcast, you have to be super focused and super clear on who it's for. Because without that, like most things we do in business, you're going to be wasting your time. So before you do anything, get clear on what your podcast is about and who it's for. Who is most likely to listen to it? That's your ideal client right there. And what's in it for them? And also from a business perspective, what's in it for you? Like I said, do you want to monetize it? Is this just purely to have your business on another platform? If you're not monetizing it, then you know we'll talk about time later on in a bit more detail. How will you be compensated for this time? So, yeah, so lots to think about. But first off, get super clear on your ideal client. What's in it for them? What's in it for you? What's the podcast about? What's the goal of it? Get really laser focused on that. Now you're going to want to give your podcast a name, a bit like when we set up our businesses, it's such a big factor. It really is. The name has got to be ideal client focused. It's got to be good for SEO. It's got to be clear. It's got to be memorable. The best advice I can give you here is similar to what I'm sure you did for your business name, have some fun with it, do some research, see what's out there already. Can you tie it in with your business name already? Might it just be your name, the Joe Blog Show? Lots of podcasters do that. Mines is the Growth Addicts Podcast. For season four, I have added in small business to it just purely to test that out for SEO purposes. So I will reassess that at the end of season four in February. But really, it's known as the Growth Addicts Podcast. And that's really because so many business owners I speak to, and myself included, we are just addicted to growing our small business. It's just on our minds all the time. Like, where's this the next growth coming from? How can I continue to grow this and maintain that? But you know, with maintenance comes an element of growth, really. So yeah, that's what I found that most small business owners I know or speak to are addicted to growing their small business. And so hence the Growth Addicts podcast was born. But yes, take all of that into account when you're you're looking at your name. SEO, in particular, you know, you want it to be searchable, you want it to be found really easily by your ideal client at your target audience. So bear that in mind. But have some fun with it. Have some fun with it. Now I mentioned tech there as well. Where to start with tech? Now I mentioned Jenna Kucha, who's a podcaster who I massively admire, and I've listened to her podcast, Gold Digger, for a long, long time. When it started, which was probably about 10 years ago, which probably coincided with me starting out in business. So huge fan of Jenna. And I know that Jenna's shared with us that her first podcast episode was recorded in her car on her phone with just Apple earbuds, just wired earbuds, it would have been at that time, and pillows from her bed all around her car to sort of cushion the noise. Jenna's now a multimillionaire business owner and gold digger is a fantastic, phenomenal podcast. So if that can start there in a parked car in the driveway with pillows for noise reduction, then trust me, you can start your podcast too with limited tech. I started with headphones and mic just purely because I did a bit of research. I listened to some podcasts like this about setting up a podcast. And lots of people who like Jenna who shared that story said, you know, it was rough, but it got everything out there. However, if they could go back, they would have got noise-reducing headphones, a nice quiet area to record, and a decent mic. So I was lucky enough to learn that from people who have gone before me, which is exactly what I'm hoping that you get from this today. And I just popped to my local curries. So shout out for curries. I explained to one of the sales assistants there what I was doing, and he set me up with a microphone which was on sale and a set of noise-reducing headphones, which I am still wearing today. And a year and a half later, I have never had touch wood. Any hassle from any of them. They do the job, they connect to my PC. Now, at the very start, first few seasons, I recorded the podcast from a corner of my dining room with all the doors closed, quiet house most of the time. Sometimes the kids and husband, I was like, could you please go upstairs just for an hour to do this? Yeah, but that really was the setup. It was a corner of my dining room on a desk with a microphone and headphones. And at that time, I was not recording video, it was audio only. And I was doing it via, I think I did a few via Zoom. If I had a guest via Zoom, I did solo episodes via an app called Audacity. It was very basic, it was simple as that. So for my very first episodes, which were solo, I had mic, headphones plugged into my PC, corner of the dining room, and an app on my desktop called Audacity. I've never recorded anything for the podcast on my phone, so I can't recommend anything like that. However, lots of podcasters who I've listened to who did do on their phone have always said if they could go back, they would change that because audio is super important. You know yourself when you're listening to a podcast. If the audio is poor, you can't tune in properly, it really wastes the listener experience, and you're actually highly unlikely to complete listening to the show. So audio is super important. So that would be my advice. At least get some noise-cancelling headphones and a decent mic. But I think all in for mic and headphones, I was like£30 that day. The microphone I do remember being like on a half-price sale, but it wasn't much at all. And I left Curry's that day with what I needed to get started. Okay, so something else you're going to have to think about is how regular you want to do your shows. Now, this comes down to time, I guess. My episodes are roughly an hour long max. Guest episodes tend to be an hour. Solo episodes can be anything from like half hour to 40 minutes. But even though my episodes are only that length, a full episode still takes out about two hours of my week. So my episodes are weekly now. I started off monthly, then went twice monthly, and then went weekly as of August 2025. A one-hour episode or any episode really takes about two hours of my week. So that's taken into account the actual recording of the episode, you know, the setup beforehand, then downloading afterwards. Now I don't even edit my episodes, which is something else I'll come on to whether you want to or you know can, if you have the ability to or you have the time to learn to edit your episodes yourself. Again, whether that's audio or video, it was something that I didn't have the time to learn. And so therefore I've outsourced that from the start, and now it just works for me. Big shout out to Abby, who is our podcast editor. Without Abby, I'd read to think what this would sound like. So thank you, Abby, for all your hard work on Growth Addicts. It does not go unnoticed. And that's something you might not even realize when you listen to Growth Addicts that Growth Addicts is a whole team. So there's me doing the recording, solo episodes, or interviewing guests. There is, of course, our lovely guests as well. There's Abby who then edits all the audio, adds in the music and ads and whatnot. And then I have Amber, who's my virtual assistant, who handles a lot of guest communication as well, which is again has only been a recent hire at the start. That was me too. But what I'm saying takes me two hours is just the basics of this. And I'm not editing and not doing all the guest communication either. Although guest communication has got a lot slicker as we've gone on, so I'll cover that as well. So do bear in mind how often you want to do shows, but also the time that it takes to do it. So yeah, that two hours is really me doing the episode itself, but also then I have to come up with the title and description, has to be nice and SEO rich. I do a blog style show notes as well, it lives on my website, and that has to be SEO rich as well, you know, all ideal client keywords, key phrases and whatnot in there, or else what's the point if it can't be found? I also need to add in links there if I've had a guest or links to anything I've mentioned in the episode that I said I would link to, but I have sponsors as well. I'm going to cover that in a separate episode, but I also need to make sure that they're there and I need to get content to promote it on socials as well. So I have to get into the video element and download clips for wheels, steal images from it, you name it. So yeah, it takes time, takes time. So just bear that in mind when you're thinking about the regularity of your episodes. Let's pause to hear from our sponsors today. Not only are our sponsors, awesome businesses themselves, they also enable me to keep providing the podcast with all the incredible information that it comes with for free for all of you.

SPEAKER_00: 19:56

Imagine a world where you actually know your audience, like really know them, their go-to coffee order and their favorite guilty pleasures. Imagine a world where social media doesn't make you question your life choices, where you post because you want to, not because your phone guilt tripped you. And imagine a world where your captions don't take six straps, or, you know, an emotional breakdown or two. Where your coffee just works because it finally sounds like you. That world is not a fantasy, it's your heyday era in action. Where marketing feels easy, strategy makes sense, and your brand actually has a personality. Yours. So are you ready to step in? Visit heydaydigitalagency.co.uk.

SPEAKER_01: 20:37

Now your host platform, maybe you've not even thought about this. I'm not sure if I really knew about that before I knew about it either, but you will need a platform to host your podcast on. And when you do that, then that host then distributes your platform to all the sort of major podcast channels like Apple and Spotify, Amazon, et cetera, et cetera. So I choose to host mine on BuzzSprout. It was recommended to me at the time, and I went with that recommendation and I've never looked back. I'm a kind of if it's not broke, don't fix it. Like if something's not giving me any hassle, especially when it comes to tech, I know there's probably other things out there that are better, but for me, I'm sort of better. The devil, you know. If it's not broke, don't fix it. I will continue to use it. And BuzzSprout has never given me any hassle, Touchwood, as always. And so I continue to use it now a year and a half later. So huge shout out to Buzz Sprout. They are my hosting platform. Now I do pay for this, but it's like nine,£10 a month, something like that. Not overly expensive at all. So I'll record the episode either solo or with a guest, send that audio to Abby, who edits it and makes it sound awesome, adds in music, etc. And then Abby will then upload that to BuzzSprout. Now BuzzSprout is then where we put in the SEO title and description and whatnot that I spoke about and any links, and then we publish it to go live a certain time on Buzz Sprout. And when that goes live, BuzzSprout then does its magic behind the scenes and sends that episode out to where it needs to go to all the major platforms so that it can be heard worldwide. So that's what BuzzSprout does, and I pay, as I say, about nine or ten pounds per month for that. So that's not an awful lot. And bear in mind I do have an offer for Buzz Sprout. So if you sign up for Buzz Sprout using my link, which I'll pop in the show notes, you get a$20 credit. It is dollars. So that would be just less than£20, I would imagine, based on the exchange rate. But it's something to help get you started. That's like almost the equivalent of two months paid, doesn't it? If it's nine or£10 a month. So I'll pop the link to that in the show notes. Yeah, and get yourself a little discount if you plan on using Buzz Sprout as a host. Now I spoke there a bit about editing as well. That is something you really need to consider. Are you going to do it? Do you have the skills to do it? Audio or video or both? If you do, fantastic. What time is that going to take you to do that? On top of just the basic time of recording the podcast and everything I mentioned there about SEO stuff to go with the podcast as well. Bear all of that in mind. If you are going to outsource, who are you going to outsource to? What's your budget for that? And if you're paying for that, then is that going to be out of your pocket? Is it going to be out of other business profits? Or does that mean that you have to monetize the podcast? Do consider your editing and your abilities and your time and willingness to learn that. And then, of course, cost of outsourcing, you have to weigh all of that up, take all of that into consideration. Because I would say, like I did mention before, your audio quality is very important. You could not really get off the ground at all if your audio is poor from the start. Do bear that in mind and have a good think about how it's going to be edited. Maybe you're just going to do really short episodes that don't need much editing. You know, there's podcasts out there that are just like 10-15-minute episodes with an intro and an outro, no ads or anything. If that's what you're doing, then maybe you can do that yourself. But yeah, just take that all into account. The time, the cost, the skills. Now also you have to think about whether you're doing your podcasts in person or online. I've always done mine online because I record from home. Like I say, I've got young kids, I've got lots of places to be lots of the time, and face-to-face stuff just doesn't really fit into my life just now. So I'm always online. Whether it's solo or guests, I just do them from home. But yeah, if you're going to do it from home, have you got an environment that you can do that? Like I say, I started in the corner of my dining room with the doors closed, and now I'm in what is now a sort of spare bedroom office space. It's a small to medium sized room with the doors closed, and the sound quality always seems to be fine. I think a lot of that is to do with Abbey, making it sound awesome. But yeah, we've never had any problems with that. So I think as long as you've just got a room that you can close off in a quiet, you know, building, presuming if it's from home, you know, there's not kids knocking on the door and whatnot, your space does have to be relatively quiet. And then whether you're doing it online or face to face, you need to have a recording platform. So I use Riverside for this. I have used Zoom in the past, and I've used Audacity. So Zoom, I believe you can get it free for up to like 40 minutes. But if you want to record more than 40 minutes, it's something like£150 a year. So I'd have done a few in Zoom, but just didn't like the lack of being able to go in and get clips and whatnot. Now that was a while ago when I used Zoom, it has perhaps changed, but I moved to Riverside because Riverside's got a whole editing platform within it where if I want to go in and pull clips for reels, etc., it's very easy to do. Or if I did want to use a full video to put on YouTube, as I've done for a few episodes, I can do that as well. And the video editing within it's really easy to use. I do also have a discount code for Riverside. Now I think Riverside is around£100 a year. I'm sure that it's there or thereabouts. It's not much more or much less than that, but I do have a discount as if for 15% off with Riverside. So I'll link that in the show notes as well. So if you're looking for an audio video platform to record on, I can highly recommend Riverside. I've used it now for quite a while and plan to use it going forward. And just bear in mind as well, if you're you need a decent internet connection to do these things as well, and so does your guests. Now, social media is something else you need to consider. Are you just going to promote the show on your existing socials for your business, or do you need a separate social media for it? Will you have any sort of private group that's linked to your podcast? You might want to run that on Facebook, for example. And how are you going to promote it on socials? Are you going to get video clips or is it just going to be snapshots? You can get that from Riverside. You can get just snapshots that you can use as images. With socials as well, think about your guests. How will they promote the episode? Will you have an agreement that they have to promote it? Again, you have to think business, what's in it for you? Are you going to get exposure to their audience? Will they agree to doing a collaborative post? Something I will say is I have trialed for season four to have a sort of bigger name guest each season so that my audience of small business owners can really learn from someone who's quite far ahead, if you like, in terms of financial gain and business size and whatnot, because there's there's things to be learned there for sure. But what I will say, no offense to my big name guests if you're listening, but they're not the best at sharing on socials. Now it's often not them that does socials, they often have someone who manages that for them. But I find it doesn't filter through the same. When I do have a guest that's a small business owner attend a loads of smaller audience, it does get shared and used more. And I will send clips and images for them to use as well to encourage that. But on the subject of guests, if you're going to go and have guests on your episode, just make sure their values are aligned with yours, their audience is aligned with yours. Say, take into account will they promote this episode efficiently. And also what will your guest user experience be? So at the start, I did a lot of back and forth emails. There was no calendar link or anything, and it was so time consuming, you can imagine. So once I got it, was part of actually hiring a virtual assistant. Hi, Amber. Part of hiring a virtual assistant was to help me with that podcast guest experience because it was getting out of hand. It was taking up so much time to go back and forth, and I just hadn't a clue how to make that better. So Amber set up just a simple Google form for me, which is now our inquiry form. So any booking has to go through the inquiry form. They tell us about their business and what sort of things they'd like to talk about and how that ties into my audience of small business owners. That then comes back to me. I'm told that someone's completed that. I can have a quick glance. And if I want to book them in, I just simply send them a calendar link, or Amber can do that, send them a calendar link for them to book. And I only have set days where I record, so it's really easy to do that. Just sit over the set days and set times. They then put in when they book, and then I know, depending on when we're recording that episode, when I can put it live and I can slot that into the podcast episode scheduler. Quick pause from our conversation because I'm wondering how you'd feel if I told you I could give you a free£50 today. Yep, if you've been thinking about moving your business bank account, or perhaps you don't have a business bank account yet, I can highly recommend Monzo. And if you open an account with them via the link in today's show notes, you get a free£50. Monzo are free to bank with.com for the link and enjoy. Now let's think about monetising. I've mentioned that a few times, and I know that will definitely be on your mind because you know at the end of the day, you don't want to work for free. I wouldn't encourage anybody to work for free, and this podcast will be another arm of your business. Now, my podcast has Had a sponsor since the very first episode. It's been monetized since the very first episode. I simply did not overthink it, did not overcomplicate it. I just reached out to a few businesses, two businesses who I thought would be a great fit for my audience. And in order to ask them if they wanted to promote their business to my audience for a set fee each month that would pretty much cover my running costs at the start. Like I said at the start, it was a sort of six months and see how it goes. And I thought, well, at least if the costs are covered, I won't make anything, but it won't cost me anything either. And then I would just review it after that. And I was so lucky both of those businesses said yes. Now there was no sponsor pack, it was brand new. They basically said yes based on me, what they knew about me from social media and speaking to me, and they just took an absolute chance on me. And I'm forever grateful to this day that they did. So yeah, those were both my sponsors for six months. Then one of them stayed on for a while longer. The one who didn't was just because the direction of her business changed, and her ideal client really wasn't so much small business owners anymore. So it wasn't totally aligned with her. Absolutely fine. But no, my very first sponsor stayed on for quite a few seasons. Again, she got busy and just felt she wasn't really committing to it properly and then dropped off after that. And since then I've completely restructured the sponsorship. It costs more now, it costs more now to be a sponsor. And because we do weekly episodes, so there's more, there's more advertising for the businesses involved. This is another arm of my business as well. So I do need to be paid for my time in putting these episodes together. And I would highly encourage you to do the same. And why not do it from the start? I said this in my episode about how I went from employed to self-employed. Like, don't undercut yourself because your self-doubt says you're not good enough. You are good enough, and you deserve to be compensated financially for the work that you're doing. So, what I would think about there is if you're thinking about sponsorship is a business, a bit like your guest, finding other businesses that are aligned with your audience, aligned with your ideal client. If it's the very beginning, you might you won't have a sponsor pack with, you know, download numbers, etc., in it, but you can put a little information guide together about what the proposition is, what you plan to do, who the ideal client is, what's in it for them. We'll make it attractive to the sponsor. In terms of pricing it, you want to make sure your costs are covered if you decided to use an editor, for example, or you need a VA to help you manage any part of it. And for your own time as well, you know, think about that time that we spoke about. Is it two hours? Is it four hours per week? How long is it going to take you? And how much do you want to be compensated for that? Take all of that into account. Do you want to make a profit from it? Take all of this into account, and then it might be that you can approach one sponsor, maybe you need two, maybe you need three. That's the process I would go through in thinking about having a sponsor. Now there's other ways to monetize as well. You can also use ads. Now, I should say as well, it's not monetizing, but you can also use ads on your podcast to promote your own products and services, which I do. You'll hear throughout this episode my mentorship community is mentioned, get seen, get sales, and also my social media planners mentioned. Like it's a great platform. People are listening because they want to hear what you've got to say. And if people are following along on social media or listening to your podcast, they want to know more about you, and that includes what you offer. So don't ever feel that you can't do that. You can't use your podcast space as a place to talk about your own offering as well. You absolutely can, and people do want to know and hear what you've got on offer. And I do get members joining my community who have heard me from the podcast. So thank you. Little side note there, you can actually use AdSpace on your podcast for your own offerings, but you can also use them for other sort of products, services from external businesses, one-offs, and affiliate links are a really good way to do this. So if you can get an affiliate link with a product that you think would be of interest to your ideal client, then by all means approach the company and ask them. Companies are loving affiliate links just now. Affiliate links generally work where perhaps you've bought a product recently, really loved it, think your ideal client would love it as well. A bit like my Buzz Sprite in Riverside, they're affiliate links. So if you use them, you get$20 off, and I get$20 off. So there's something in it for everyone, including the company. So if you can go to them and say, you know, I actually use your product, I would love to talk more about it, I would love to be an affiliate for you, they will like the jump at the chance. They've nothing to lose. They give you a small percentage, the new client gets a small discount, they gain a new customer. Even if it's not a product or service that you have already, you can still contact them and say that you think it would be really good for your clients, for your listeners, would they be interested in offering an affiliate link? I've had a sponsor from the very start and it was just simply from asking. Nothing fancier than that. It was from sending an email. So don't be scared to ask. Ask the question. What's the worst they can say? They say no, ask someone else. They're loss if they say no. Now I feel like that's the main things. Like that's quite a lot there. I feel like that is all the main things you'll need to take into account to actually get your podcast off the ground. The other sort of things is of course your launch plan. Like anything you want to launch, you know, where you're launching it. Is it on social media? Is it via email marketing? How are you launching it? In person, at events, whatever you're doing, like anything you'd be launching, you want to build up a bit of buzz before it, a bit of hype, let people know what you're doing, put polls out, ask them what they'd like to hear about in your podcast, you know, build up some excitement, maybe gather some leads of people who are like, I will definitely listen to that, get an email address for them and make sure they get the first episode, sort of VIP style. Another tip as well, something I didn't do, but I would do if I was starting out again, is to have a few episodes at launch. In fact, I did a trailer, I'll tell you about that in a second. But when it came to episodes launching, I just did one at a time. And it was monthly at that point. So I launched the first one, everyone really enjoyed it, and then we're really waiting for the next one. And in this world we live in where we binge things, hello Netflix, people like to have a few to listen to at the same time. So if I was starting from scratch again, I think I would have at least two or three episodes lined up for people to binge to really get a good flavour and to really have them like hanging on for the next episode. Something else I mentioned there is that I did a trailer. A trailer is an excellent part of your launch plan. I would definitely do that again and definitely recommend that you do it. It's just a very short episode introducing me, the podcast, what it's going to be about, who it's for, when it was launching, and how regular the episodes will be. It's as short as that. Um and it actually still gets downloaded quite regularly. So it's still out there working hard for me. But yeah, I use the trailer a lot in my marketing on social media and whatnot to really build the buzz for it. And yeah, we had an excellent launch when we first went live. So highly recommend doing that. And of course, if you need any help with your social media marketing, that is what I do. I've mentioned before I have my amazing community of small business owners. It's called Get Seen Get Sales. It's a social media mentorship community. We just all come together there to learn what's working, what's not working on social media, and I share everything I know and everything I'm still learning about social media in there, as well as this incredible content pack I put in every week that's got like hooks for content to attract and nurture and convert. We talk about being in launch mode as well, which is slightly different from your just regular daily content. The link is always in the show notes for gets and get sales anyway. But if you're looking for any help with social media marketing to get your podcast off the ground, please come and join us because we would be so happy to help you. And I'm always looking for more podcasts to listen to. So if you're listening to this and planning and starting your own show, please do get in touch with me via Instagram or email, whatever it might be, and let me know about your show because I would love to listen and share it as well. Okay, guys, I think I have bombarded you with enough information there. I hope you've got your notepad there today. If not, you're gonna have to listen again and take notes from this. But I hope that's been helpful. Good luck. Enjoy the process, let me know how it goes. I will speak to you next time. Take care. Thank you so much for joining us today for another episode of Small Business Growth Addicts. I hope today's episode has given you inspiration and tangible tips that you can use to grow your small business in a way that feels right for you. If you love today's episode, please head over to smallbusinessgrowthadicts.com and check out today's show notes where you can find details of our wonderful guests, sponsors, discounts, freebies, and so much more. Please also don't forget to leave a review today. Reviews are invaluable to us to help us get the show out there. Every single one is read and very much appreciated. Until next time.