Better Business for Small Business Leaders

Podcasting Success with Josh Troche

• Chrissy Myers • Season 1 • Episode 12

Share episode

Send us a text

Discover how embracing imperfection can lead to podcasting success with Josh Troche, a master of multimedia storytelling who turned an unexpected favor for a political figure into a thriving career. 

Josh shares his insights into the world of podcasting for small business owners, offering strategies to help you sidestep common pitfalls and focus on adding value to your audience. Learn how to build a podcast from the ground up while understanding that early episodes might only reach a handful of supportive listeners, encouraging you to prioritize connection over perfection.

Our conversation underscores the importance of listening and being intentional in podcasting. Drawing parallels between the adventures of motorcycle journeys and the podcasting process, Josh speaks to the power of exploration and discovery. 

Josh encourages taking small, consistent steps toward improvement, embodying the philosophy of moving just 1% forward each day. As we conclude, we celebrate Josh's role as a trusted guide for small business leaders and his contributions to the Better Business for Small Business Leaders podcast, leaving listeners inspired to embark on their own podcasting adventures.

Connect with Josh:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jtroche/
Website: https://www.pedalstomperproductions.com/

🎙️ Connect with Chrissy Myers and discover how resilience, expertise, and community can transform your world:

🔗 Follow Chrissy on LinkedIn for behind-the-scenes insights, leadership tips, and updates on her journey as the CEO of two thriving businesses.

📘 Grab your copy of 'Reluctantly Resilient' to learn how Chrissy turned challenges into opportunities and how you can do the same in your life and business.

🤝 Explore Clarity HR and discover how Chrissy’s team simplifies HR for small businesses, giving you peace of mind to focus on what matters most.

💼 Visit AUI to see how Chrissy's employee benefits expertise can help you build a healthier, happier workforce.

Speaker 1:

Meet Josh Trogey, a master of multimedia who's taking storytelling to new heights, Literally, from podcasting to professional video production. Josh knows how to connect people through the power of relationships and creativity. Josh, thanks for coming on the show.

Speaker 2:

Josh, I am so excited that you did your own intro. What better way to get started than to have you do your own intro? So thank you.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no problem, happy to help out.

Speaker 2:

All right, so I know you started podcasting as a favor for someone but, you seem to be pretty fantastic at it. At least that's my opinion. Others may disagree, but I think you're great. So when did you discover that this was something you should really be doing and the potential of this medium? What sparked your passion for it?

Speaker 1:

It's kind of twofold. So for me, when I got a call to say, hey look, can you help out doing this? For someone that had actually held like run for state office, had run to become mayor of Cincinnati, so a well-placed individual. He was doing this for the content creation. He was doing it to create the connections and from the photo and video side of the business, I saw that there's a lot of business owners that just can't fork out 10 to 15 grand for a video but they still need the content. What a great way to do this. And then, as I started to do it, I started to talk with people. I started to see the connections that happen. I started to see the just the great information that comes out of them and I'm like this, this is my thing, story's my thing, and what a great way to get people's stories.

Speaker 2:

So first I need to say thank you. Thank you for saving all of us business owners from the awkward angles of our iPhones and trying to film ourselves and trying to do all the things and the editing and the long pauses and the so's. Thank you for realizing your gift and also saving us all a lot of money and seeing how to be more efficient and effective.

Speaker 1:

It's funny To me, it's that mutually beneficial thing. You come in here, the lighting's good, yeah, the microphone's good. The phone's not going to be at a weird angle where people are like, did they not have their V8 today? You don't need to worry about it, and it is. It's that price point that makes it like giving you it's worth it for you to get your time back.

Speaker 2:

One thing you told me when we started venturing down the podcast venue. After I did, I did an audio book with you. It was not terrible. I did not die, thank you. I didn't have to edit it, so that's probably why I did not die. I appreciate that you managed muscle through it. But one thing you told me when we started venturing down the podcast route was be willing to be terrible, and as a recovering perfectionist, that really hurt my heart. I know what to do. You're going to be awful at this, chrissy, but it's going to be great, but you're going to be awful, but it's really powerful advice. So what are some specific ways that small business owners can embrace that mindset and overcome their fear when starting to think about doing a podcast? How do you get people to get over the being awful part when starting?

Speaker 1:

to think about doing a podcast. How do you get people to get over the being awful part? It's interesting. There's two schools of thought on it and you took what I like to call the better road of school of thought on it. Oh really, yeah, okay, you asked the questions up front.

Speaker 1:

I always like to say a smart person learns from the mistakes. A wise person learns from the mistakes of others. You sought out like, okay, what are the? What are the things that I'm really going to make? The mistakes at first off here, and we talked about those and went through those and said don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, and then approach it this way and you're like, oh yeah, so your first episodes didn't come out as this giant pile of gobbledygook, like, hey, I'm going to make awkward conversation about nothing and we're going to record it and then I'm going to put it out on the internet for everyone to see forever. So it's that piece of it. The other thing with it is people just have to realize that when you post that content, both people are going to see it. One of those people is probably going to be your mother, who's still going to just love you.

Speaker 2:

No, matter what.

Speaker 1:

Right, she's going to love you no matter what. So those first ones where you're terrible, you realize that not many people are going to see it, except you're going to be critical of it. Sure, you're going to be 20 times more critical of it than anyone else. Is so really the advice? If you're just going to start, get over yourself? Realize that both people are going to see it, and one of those, I mean, it's going to be your mom, maybe your spouse, maybe not your spouse.

Speaker 2:

No, no, he's not. He's like I don't have time for your podcast, Right, and it's like I don't have time for your podcast, right?

Speaker 1:

So not many people are going to see it, so be aware of that. And most of the people aren't there to look at you. They're here to pick up advice. So as long as you're trying to add value, you're golden.

Speaker 2:

Nice. Well, in small business, we often need trusted guides, coaches, advisors to help us along. I consider you to be one of those. You can pick whether you want to be a guide, a coach or an advisor. I mean, it's up to you which title you want supreme ruler of the podcast studio, whatever you pick, but you share with business leaders the importance of building a solid foundation for a podcast. So question can you throw the listeners a little sage wisdom here, as a coach, an advisor or a guide? What are some of the most common pitfalls that small business owners need to avoid in the early stages of their podcasting journey? Besides embracing the fact that you're going to be awful and also realizing that for the first few months, no one's going to care about your podcast?

Speaker 1:

The biggest mistake is people want to talk to everyone. Oh, tell me more, pick a person that you want to talk to. Oh, tell me more, pick a person that you want to talk to. You have to pick your avatar, pick that one person that you're going to talk to. And the example that I always like to give if you and I are talking at a dinner party or at a networking event, if we're having an interesting conversation, I'm going to say I mean, you're the intended audience, but other people are going to come listen in.

Speaker 2:

That's a good point.

Speaker 1:

If our conversation is terrible, no one's going to listen. So if you have a good conversation with one person, other people will listen in. If you go to that same networking event and you stand in the corner and yammer on thinking that you're talking to everyone, people are just going to look at you like you're nuts. You might be Fair. So pick a person to talk to. Pick that one specific person that you want to reach, and you will reach them.

Speaker 2:

I love that. So oftentimes, when we're thinking about you know, having a podcast, we think about having to be this persona in small business. The small business leaders were thinking, okay, who do I need to be to be a podcast person? I have this idea of what.

Speaker 2:

I need to be. It's the right balance between being yourself, having the right content, being authentic, being well-structured. I know you talk a lot about authenticity and use that word a lot as part of preparation. Can you offer some advice for those people who are thinking about venturing into the small business podcasting space for their business?

Speaker 1:

There are 8 billion people on the planet. There's an audience for you you, not for the persona you think you're gonna be. I mean, my voice changes a little when I get on the microphone, but I'm pretty much me, you're very much you. We're going to appeal to a certain audience. I am okay if I don't appeal to certain people because they're probably not going to want to work with me anyways. So let's appeal to the people that I am going to genuinely appeal to, because if you show up, inauthentic people see right through it and are like nope, I want nothing to do with this person. This is a snake oil salesman.

Speaker 2:

I like that. I do not want your one-star review. If you do not want to listen to my podcast, though, I'm just saying If you don't want to listen, just switch.

Speaker 1:

You know what. The one-star review still isn't bad want to listen?

Speaker 2:

just switch. You know what? The one-star review still isn't bad. Really, Tell me more, because, as a perfectionist, I'm dying if I get one.

Speaker 1:

So it's still a review. It is engagement.

Speaker 1:

Oh it is engagement with your podcast. Now, if you get 50 one-star reviews, maybe it's time to consider a career change, but especially if it's if you have 51 reviews and 50 of them are one star, maybe it's time for change. But really it's engagement. So people are so afraid of, like, a one or two star review. Take that. The other thing is with it is realize when someone gives you that one star review, they're giving you feedback. That's true. If it's not feedback that aligns with where you're headed, then okay, great. I mean you do the same thing that aligns with where you're headed. Then okay, great. I mean you do the same thing that you did with feedback you get from your parents. Your mom's still going to tell you you're great.

Speaker 2:

That's a good point. Okay, I don't know, not always. She may tell me it was awful.

Speaker 1:

That is true. You read my book, she will tell me Right, she'll give me good feedback.

Speaker 2:

So let's go from talking about perception reviews from people and let's talk about the robots. Let's talk about AI.

Speaker 1:

All right.

Speaker 2:

So, with AI on the rise, you see human connection as a key differentiator in podcasting. While there are some AIs that can create a podcast for you, you still see a lot of value. I see a ton of value in bringing your own human, authentic self to the podcast booth. So, without deferring completely to the robots, how can small business owners leverage the elements of AI to help build stronger relationships with their audience?

Speaker 1:

There are so many different ways with this. When you take the conversations that you're having with your audience, um, or with your, be it your customers, clients, whoever it could be internal Um, take those conversations and dump that into a GPT of some sort Um figure out what your next topic is. If that's what's important to people right now, well then, great, go ahead and talk about that. Um use. I mean, we work together to help you come up with the questions through AI we do. You dump in information about the person, you dump in some personal information about the person and you say, hey, what should I be asking them?

Speaker 1:

It's a little more complex than that, but really it helps us ask those better questions. There are so many AI tools that we are using in our business to help with cutting up clips, to help with figuring out what the right thing to say is, to help with, I mean, finding the right guests. Even Does this person align with my views or are they just off far enough to make it an interesting podcast? It's all those types of tools that AI is helping with and it's raising the level of what we do.

Speaker 2:

Nice. So I've heard you talk about a strategy called borrow someone else's audience. I think, when we first started talking about podcasting, you said you can borrow someone else's audience and I'm like what does that mean? So can you talk about that? Give some practical tips in what that? First of all, what that means and then how impactful it can be to a small business owner.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the saying that I have is is the easiest way to grow your social audience is to borrow someone else's and if, like you, have someone as a guest on your podcast.

Speaker 2:

Not steal, just borrow right, Correct.

Speaker 1:

Correct, Correct. You're not going to beat them up, leave them in a back alley and say, ha ha, I've got your social media audience. But what happens is is you're helping me generate content too, as well as yourself. So now I've got a motive to share this out. Well, guess what? You're going to be on there. So now you're in front of my audience, I'm in front of your audience. We're going to have some overlap there. Obviously, if we did competing things, if I did HR, it's a good thing. I don't If I. I know we could have some good conversations, Josh, but because there's some competing nature there, that I mean we may not want to share that audience, but as small business owners, we have a lot in common there and we can share those audiences. We can help each other grow that way by the tagging each other on social media. By sharing those, I mean sharing that cross platform. Heck, I mean you're going to end up in my email newsletter, All these things.

Speaker 2:

Let's talk about listening, how listening is essential for podcast improvement. I know that for the individual that is doing the podcast, it's important to listen to see how you sound, how you're asking questions, how you can get better. That sometimes can be effective torture. So thanks for that word of advice. But I want to talk more about of business owners that are starting to think about wanting to be in a podcast or wanting to kind of look at different genres. So one thing that you told me when I was starting to go through this journey was to listen and see what's in other podcasts, listen for other podcasts, and so I'd like you to kind of tell the audience the same thing that you told me about, like how owners should be listening. When analyzing, how can we apply those insights as we're thinking about moving into different podcasts ourselves?

Speaker 1:

It's interesting. Everyone's got a couple of favorite podcasts that they listen to. I would hope, if they say, hey, I want to do a podcast, I would hope they've listened to one or two. You don't necessarily want to take the form of what someone has, but listen to it from a production side and take bits and pieces, whether it be the introduction, whether it be how they move from segment to segment. Maybe they've got a segment that you love. The way I finish podcasts is something that someone else said that I'm like boy I'm. I really love that. It's a great way to finish. It's a nice positive message. That's I'm a nice positive message. I'm going to apply that to mine. So it's literally. It's usually. I don't want to say there's no original art, there's no original music, but we learn music by listening to other music. We learn how to create artwork by seeing what other artists have done. A podcast is going to be the same way.

Speaker 2:

Nice. Can we move to personal?

Speaker 1:

Sure.

Speaker 2:

All right. So I know that you love motorcycles, so, and your love for motorcycle adventure speaks to your spirit, how does that sense of exploration and discovery translate into your work with small business leaders? How do you take something you're passionate about that wouldn't necessarily relate? How do you take something you're passionate about that?

Speaker 1:

wouldn't necessarily relate. How do you pull it together? It's funny because for me it's about that exploration and getting out there and finding new things, learning new things, something I just experienced this the other day there was a podcast host that had an expert on and spent the entire time talking over the expert had an expert on and spent the entire time talking over the expert.

Speaker 1:

Right, correct, 100%. It was one of those things where I was like, when I heard it, I'm like why did you, why did you bother having the expert on To me? I love sitting across the table from people and hearing what they say and I realized that I'm educating my audience, so I'm adding value to their day. If you aren't adding value to someone's day, they ain't going to listen to you. So they're adding something to my audience's day because when I'm sitting across the table, they're adding something to my day too.

Speaker 1:

The other thing that I have to say that I've found really interesting with it is many of my podcast guests that have come on. These are so many of them are people that I've known for a long time. Come on, these are so many of them are people that I've known for a long time and I walk out of the studio A knowing something new about them and, b feeling much closer to them. The same thing happens for me on the motorcycle. I can be on the same road all the time and I go around a corner and there's a new mailbox there's. I learn something every single time that I'm out there. Wow, are you ready for the 1% question? I am I something every single time that I'm out there, wow.

Speaker 2:

Are you ready for the 1% question? I am.

Speaker 1:

Because I've heard this one, I know. Go ahead and say it Are you ready? Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So, from your expertise and all the things that you've done in business and all the things that you do now in podcasting, what's the one thing that you believe small business owners can do to get 1% better in their business today?

Speaker 1:

It's interesting and you've asked this of enough people and I've sat right over there, oops, as I hit the desk hearing it so many times that I've really put a lot of thought into this and it kind of hit me the other day is I lift weights and I'm very intentional, I'm not just swinging weight around in the gym. I mean, I realized that 1%. Just you have to be intentional about something every day. It's moving just 1% every day on one little tiny thing. If you do that intentionally every day, at the end of the year you're going to look back at the beginning of the year and you're going to look back at the beginning of the year and you're going to be like, wow, look at how far I've come. But so many people think about it and they just don't put it into action. And that's the biggest piece.

Speaker 2:

Well, thank you, Josh, for your time today. You want to do the outro too.

Speaker 1:

No, I'll let you do that.

Speaker 2:

Okay, well, I appreciate you being on the show, and now everyone knows the producer behind the Better Business for Small Business Leaders podcast, so thank you for your time today.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for having me on.