Unlock Your Genius Zone

10 Lessons in 10 Minutes: What I Wish I Knew Before Starting My Podcast | Ep. 46

• Ine-Wilme Coetzee • Episode 46

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💡 Thinking about starting a podcast? Watch this first!

After one full year of podcasting, I’ve learned 10 game-changing lessons that will save you time, stress, and money. 90% of podcasts never make it past 20 episodes—these insights will help you stay consistent, grow your audience, and actually enjoy the process.

Inside this episode, I’ll cover:

✅ Why batching content is your best friend

✅ The secret to repurposing your podcast for social media

✅ How to take action before you feel ready

✅ The one strategy that helped me close high-ticket sales FAST

✅ And so much more!

📩 FREE Million Dollar Idea Workshop: If you’re ready to turn your idea for a podcast (or ANY big idea) into a profitable, purpose-driven project directly aligned to your million dollar goal, sign up here: https://www.innervoiceinstituteofmusic.com/fymdi-workshop

Podcast intro music: J.S. Bach Cello Suites, Suite No. 3 in C major, Prelude 
Musician: Mari Coetzee 

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You can connect with me over on Instagram at @ine.wilme

Speaker 1:

90% of podcasts never make it past episode number 20. And after a full year of podcasting, I have learned quite a few hard-earned lessons of what it actually takes to stay in the game, to grow your audience and, most importantly, not burn out in the process. Now these are the 10 lessons, in just 10 minutes, that I wish someone had told me before I started my podcast. They are hard-earned and possibly lessons that'll save you years of struggle. So let's dive in. The first one is a juicy one. Okay, so lesson number one batching is the only way to stay sane. Truly, it really is. If you are recording, editing and filming every single week, repeating the process, if you are recording, editing and filming every single week, repeating the process, you are not using your time to your greatest advantage. When you're in writing mode, stay there, write two, three, even four episodes and then, when you're in filming mode, you're already set up. All you have to do is change your outfit and you are good to go. So batch your content. I missed too many weeks when I didn't batch my content, and I know that this was the saver when I moved, when I wanted to take time off for Christmas, but the months that I did not batch. I missed episodes. That is my number one lesson. Okay, number two is set a standard for your consistency and keep it. My standard was one per week. The best promise you can ever make is the one you make to yourself, and I broke this promise to myself multiple times in the last year, and if I had known the lessons that I now know, I would have kept that standard. Because here's the thing the more consistent you are, the more trust you build in yourself, and your audience can then trust you, and that is key for them wanting to buy from you. Later on, actually, in lesson number seven, I'm going to tell you the story of how the last seven months of consistent posting actually led to one of the fastest sales I've ever made. Lesson number three repurpose your long form content to save you 10x amounts of time. So a single episode is a goldmine. It can be repurposed into blog posts, newsletter, linkedin carousels, youtube shorts, all the things. So my number one tip actually for this and I can't believe I'm telling you this is input your transcript into ChatGPT and ask it to then create content for you after it's recorded, of course. So I do that often and it saves so much time. Chatgpt is phenomenal for coming up with new content ideas. Okay, lesson number four, and you can actually apply this to every single part of your business Start before you're ready.

Speaker 1:

Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, said if you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you didn't launch fast enough. And I want you to be embarrassed by the first five to 10 videos you post. They are not gonna be your best work, and that is okay, because the good news is is no one's listening to you anyways, in those first five to 10 videos. Recently, I came across a video by Mr Beast. He was saying post 100 videos and do only one thing. Improve one thing for every video you post and you will see success in your channel.

Speaker 1:

Lesson number five the name of your podcast matters both more and less than you think it does. So, since not very many people are watching your show to start off with anyways, choose a name that resonates best in the moment. So the original name of this show was the Cello Brain Channel and as I'm recording this, I am reiterating that name. It's going to be rebranded very soon, so stay tuned and make sure you hit that follow button so you can see what the new name is, but with the name Cello Brain, it was a great name for the first year. It brought people to me who wanted to learn the cello, people who wanted to develop their brains, and then a handful of business owners who wanted to learn creativity skills through the cello. Now, since I recently went through a pivot in my business, focusing more on business coaching and entrepreneurs, I knew that the podcast name needed to change, but it served me well for the first year. So think about what your ideal client would be typing in, choose that, and you're good to go.

Speaker 1:

Give yourself a deadline, though, too, because this process can drag out way too long if you let it. Okay, lesson number six tasks expand to the time. You give them Parkinson's law, and you know how. If you're packing for a trip and you give yourself two weeks, it takes two weeks, but if you have to leave in two hours, it takes you two hours. It's the same thing with content. Give yourself a time limit of how much time you're going to be spending on writing it, recording it, editing it, and you're going to get faster. You know my first couple episodes it took me four weeks to put one together, and now it takes me about four hours so I can write the script in the morning takes me about maybe an hour. Maybe an hour to film, another hour to edit, another hour to distribute. Very rough numbers depends on the episode, but tasks expand to the time you give it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, number seven here's the juicy one. Know the purpose of your podcast. Why are you even starting so? When I first started my show I knew and I'd heard the statistic a couple of years before it takes about seven hours of listening to you for someone to trust you enough to buy, and this can go from very low ticket offers to very high ticket offers. It takes about seven hours. Now, recently I was on a sales call with a woman who had only been in my ecosystem, like on my email list, for six days. The very next day she bought my program. It was one of my higher touch programs too, and what this meant is she had been through that seven hour process and I was gathering some evidence, just like asking her questions after the fact. And she said I've been listening to your podcast, so it really does matter your consistency. This was one of the reasons I started my podcast is I knew I wanted my beliefs out there and recording them and posting them was the way to do it. Okay, number eight Promotion is just as important as production.

Speaker 1:

A lot of podcasters they start and they think if I just hit publish on my show, people will find me right Wrong the distribution of the episode really does matter. There was an episode I interviewed my friend, sarah Godfrey. It was all about body language and I remember we put out the link on Instagram every single day that week that I went live both of us and by doing that I was able to provide value to my network, have her be shown to my network, and that to date is the highest performing episode on the podcast. So the consistent promotion I did that day was the reason why it went so high, along with the fantastic message that my friend provided she's phenomenal. Go listen to that episode, it's really good. Okay, are you ready?

Speaker 1:

Number nine be ready for unexpected wins and pivots. Always be ready. That means ready emotionally ready, physically ready, spiritually ready, mentally. Be ready, because there were weeks that I actually deleted the episode that I had spent hours and hours creating, refilmed it and posted that one instead because of the strategic moves like that gut feeling. This is not what my people need to hear. I focused on the people and they directed the content. So be ready for these unexpected pivots, unexpected wins. There was this woman from New Zealand who found the podcast. She listened to every single one and it was the most incredible connection that we made. Okay, ready, number 10.

Speaker 1:

The first year is just the beginning. 90% of podcasts don't make it past 20. Just the beginning. 90% of podcasts don't make it past 20. 20 episodes Are you going to get into the 10%? So if you can sustain your show for one year, I can guarantee you will probably be past the 20 episode mark, because if you think about it let's say you post every other week you will have posted 26 episodes, therefore putting you in the top 10% of all podcasters. And it's the ones who play the long game that win. So when I first started this show, I knew I was in it for the long game. I still am.

Speaker 1:

And what I want to remind you, if you are struggling with just feeling like it's taking too long, I should see results by now. Know that the process is the point. That is what really matters at the end of the day. Let's say, you have a goal for a million dollar business. Who you become on that journey is far more impactful and important than the actual result itself. So come with me along this process as I build my own million dollar business and learn the lessons that I learned along the way. So you don't have to. So hit that follow button, hit the subscribe button and make sure to put on notifications for whenever an episode is published, so you don't miss a thing. Those are my. Those are my top 10 lessons from my first year of podcasting.

Speaker 1:

I want to know what is the one that resonated to you the most. Put that in the comments. If you're watching on YouTube, send me a DM on Instagram. If you're watching on the podcast, the link is in the description box. But my real question to you is what is your big idea? Is it a podcast? Is it a coaching program? Is it to solve world hunger? What is your big idea? Let me know what that is and go join the next find your million dollar idea workshop. I am hosting that beginning of March. It's completely free and, most importantly, you will find not only your idea but your exact next action, and that is where the magic happens. So go and take action. I'll see you in the workshop.