If you've ever wanted to start a podcast, this is for you. But not only podcasts, we're talking about going where your audience is, the process of creating content, and how to get your message out to the world.
About
Alana is a podcast coach, editor, and podcast producer who is on a mission to take the overwhelm, frustration, & stress out of podcasting, and put the fun back in! Alana is the host of The Podcasting Party Podcast, where she shares simplified step-by-step instructions, and easy-to-implement strategies for podcasters of all stages & phases. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alanapdawson/
Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/podcastingparty/
Website: https://alanadawson.com
If you struggle to tell stories, you’ll struggle to raise funds.
In the Mission Writers course:
Details at MissionWriters.org
Support the show
Mission Writers is an online course and group coaching experience where you’ll develop and practice essential storytelling skills to help increase funding for your mission. Get started now, for a year of coaching at over 60% off the regular price.
If you've ever wanted to start a podcast, this is for you. But not only podcasts, we're talking about going where your audience is, the process of creating content, and how to get your message out to the world.
About
Alana is a podcast coach, editor, and podcast producer who is on a mission to take the overwhelm, frustration, & stress out of podcasting, and put the fun back in! Alana is the host of The Podcasting Party Podcast, where she shares simplified step-by-step instructions, and easy-to-implement strategies for podcasters of all stages & phases. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alanapdawson/
Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/podcastingparty/
Website: https://alanadawson.com
If you struggle to tell stories, you’ll struggle to raise funds.
In the Mission Writers course:
Details at MissionWriters.org
Support the show
Mission Writers is an online course and group coaching experience where you’ll develop and practice essential storytelling skills to help increase funding for your mission. Get started now, for a year of coaching at over 60% off the regular price.
Alana Dawson
Kay: [00:00:00] Welcome to episode 57 of the life and mission podcast. I'm Kay helm. And today my guest is Alana Dawson. Alana is a podcasting coach. Now. Stay with me, even if you don't think you ever want to be on a podcast or do a podcast. Because we're going to talk about content creation in general, blogging and how to get your message out there. Now podcasting can be a very important part of your content creation routine. We'll tell you how to do that, and more, coming right up.
Oh Alana, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. I just have to say that Alana is my podcast coach, and anything that I'm doing wrong is not her fault. She's teaching me to do better.
Alana: [00:00:56] Okay. I thought you were going to say so anything I'm doing wrong that you hear it's her fault.
That was, that just gave me the that's like the best thing that's anybody said to me in several weeks. So it, whether you're doing it right or wrong, I'll take the credit a hundred percent. So I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.
Kay: [00:01:14] I have wanted to interview you for a while. You've been such a lifeline.
I know for many of us, you run a great community, the PodcastHER community, and great bunch of women there. And was that the first group when you first started? It? Was I in the first.
Alana: [00:01:32] You're a founding member. Kay. Yeah, you are. And I love it too. It is such a fabulous. I say it's the best place on the internet, which maybe I'm partial, but a community.
Yeah. For female podcasters to come into, you know, grow, learn that the tools and strategies and things to grow their shirt. But more than that, I think it's a community of women where , You know, we have unique circumstances. Many of, most of you are, have full-time jobs and , you know, in addition to your podcast.
And so , we have kind of a unique lens. We see the world through as podcasters. And so I love it too. I'm so glad you're in that group.
Yeah. It's like great bunch of ladies and I'll, I'll probably have a few more from the group on, on here as we go through the year 2021. Finally.
I only,
Kay: [00:02:26] you know, we it's been such a, it's such a crazy ride, but I know and just in talking to you and getting to know you ha I want to roll things back. We are going to talk about podcasting. We're going to talk about some of the things podcasting does, what it is, was it isn't and, and some. Things for podcast creators or for people that want to create podcasts.
But I want to start with you. You did not start as a podcaster. You were a blogger.
Alana: [00:02:56] Yeah. Yes. My story is about a little bit different of how I've come to not only be a podcast, host myself, but then also help other podcasters to grow and monetize their shows. So I started out as a podcaster for military spouses just kind of rolled into I've always written.
That's always been part of my story. My degree is in English lit and business writing, but, 2012, 2013, my husband was getting ready to deploy and we had little kids at home. He's military guy. And , I just kept having people tell me, like, you know, cram, cram those six to eight months full of as much stuff as you can to pass by the time.
And I got really frustrated with that advice and thought, okay, I don't want to just like survive this deployment. Like I want to. Right. Both me and my girls and my husband in spite of this deployment. And so it fired me up and I Googled one night, how do you start a blog? And I can't even remember where I was reading, but I got this advice started , kind of threw up a blog in about two weeks start.
I had all these posts , launched it and it did really well. It was a very successful blog. I wrote there for several years. And then had some life circumstances, some things happened and I, I , kind of changed my messaging. I went from talking directly to military spouses to direct, to speaking more to women in general, about stepping into their dreams and gifts and callings, and my readership fell off and I couldn't figure out was it, it was, it was several months after the pivot, but I thought, is it the new message?
Is it. Did they don't want to hear, you know, what I'm talking about? What is it? And so I did something really smart, Kay that I always say, I didn't know that I did at the time, but I asked him, I just said like, Hey, I sent an email. That's the other thing I was doing that I didn't know. That was a good thing to do is I started an email list and I said, Hey, if you've been, or, you know, if you've been around here a while, like what, why aren't, you know, what's going on?
And the, the answer I got really shocked me. It was. And we're talking, this is 2016. So the answer I got was they were listening to podcasts and I thought. I listen to podcasts. I love podcasts. And I thought, yeah, that makes sense. We're moms, we're busy. We don't all, everybody was moms, but a good portion of my listenership or my readership at that time.
And so. I started this journey and launched a podcast. So that's kind of several iterations of how I've gotten to where I am today and not even with the same podcast back then. So that podcast was called the Mom Wants More podcasts. And , now I don't, I no longer have that podcast and I have The Podcasting Party, which is all about podcasting.
Kay: [00:06:00] Yeah. Okay. So you had, the Mom Wants More, so you had the, the blog was for military wives and then you expanded it to just women who want it, want to get some things done , business wise and okay. And then you pivoted into the podcast world with Mom Wants More. Which, and that was the same message then that you were, had been doing on the blog, in the latter part of the blog.
Alana: [00:06:24] Yep. Same, same message. So I went from anchored, which was the blog , for military spouses to just my name. It was just a Alana Dawson. I talked similar messaging at. Two military spouses. And then that blog just became a podcast and mom wants more. Exactly. And then Mom Wants More. I ran Mom Wants More and the Podcasting Party at the same time, there was some overlap there for about eight months.
I managed two podcasts. I wouldn't recommend
Kay: [00:06:53] it. I'm getting ready to start.
Alana: [00:06:58] Well, yeah. Okay. But I will say with, if you have some help, it wasn't as hard, which I know you're going to eat. You won't have a ton of help. Kay. But I know that you will have a cohost. Oh. So on your second one. So
Kay: [00:07:10] yeah, so that's good.
Okay. Yeah, that's just a little clue y'all. Find out more about that. I already had my crossover episode to introduce you the new one. Ready, so good to go very soon. Okay. So that's your journey now to be in the leader now of the Podcasting Party? That's the, the podcasts that you've got now, and yes, I will have links to all of these in the show notes as usual.
And then the PodcastHER community. So we're going to talk about the podcast, our community in a minute, but just going back to the whole blog and podcast transition, what's the difference between the two from kind of a content marketing type of position. And then as a creator,
Alana: [00:08:01] Okay. That's such a great question. Because there is quite a bit of overlap, you know, I think most people would think that podcasting being in audio medium, you wouldn't have, you wouldn't have to do a ton of writing or, you know, a ton of, but the content creation process, at least for me, and maybe it's different, I'm sure it's different for each and every person, but for the most part.
It's very similar. So for blogging, you start with obviously a topic and an idea that covers maybe it's overarching, or maybe it's really specific depending on your niche, but you take that idea and then you're going to flesh out those. Subtopics and your going to create blog posts. That's what a blog would do.
Create blog posts surrounding those subtopics or for a podcast you're going to create episodes. So that's kind of the way I see the similarities laid out. However, obviously the main difference is a blog is all written content where a podcast is all audio content. The way that I made the transition at first was I, I, like I said, I developed kind of my content ideas all the same.
I do a big brain dump. I keep a running list in my phone, on my computer, in my purse, by my bed night stand probably similar to a lot of content creators. Is I just, if I got an idea, I get it out. Cause otherwise. If I don't, it's gone. Right. And then once, usually once a quarter, I compile all those ideas. I put them all in one place.
I go through and I kind of pick out similar themes and topics.
And then I really take some time to think about. My listener for a blog, it would be your reader. And , ask the question, like what would serve them really well , right now in this time. And then the blog obviously is the written content. And then the podcast is really , when I sit down and I record that written content.
And so. Like I said, for me, that process looks similar. And when I was on my way, transitioning from a blog to a podcast, I still published the blog and I would just read it. And that's how I started creating my podcast. However, I have found out that for me personally, I do not do really well reading the script.
I, you can tell, I sound very robotic. And so I had found over kind of, as I've gotten more familiar with this, it, the process and helping other people is that I do something called a hybrid script. Some people bullet out all their points and they just can run off of that. Sometimes I can go a little squirrel ish and I will just, if I don't have.
More guidelines for myself. And so I kind of do a combination thereof. I pull it out what I want to say. And then if there's something that I know I need to touch on, I'll write it out in script format. So I make sure that I'm hitting those points. But those are, that's really kind of the similarities and the differences podcasting takes it a step further, whereas a blog you would edit and have to do some revisions on your written work.
You have to edit. Your audio work as well. And that okay. As you know, so well can be very time-consuming and very involved. It does take a little ha there's a technical component there. I don't want to scare anybody away. Who's maybe thinking about starting a podcast. Like you can do this. Kay. And I will assure you, I think we're going to talk a little bit more about that later, but.
You can do it. It does take a level of know how , and that's where an editor comes in. You can hire somebody and have them do the work, or you can learn yourself. So that's really kind of the main differences between blogging podcasting. And then of course, the way it is. Published on a blog, you publish on a website, you also need a website for your podcast, or I recommend that.
And you do need a hosting company where you submit, take an RSS feed that they create for you and submit that to directories directories or things like the places you listen, the platform, Spotify, Stitcher , Google, Apple. Amazon now all the places everywhere, all the
Kay: [00:12:24] places. Exactly. There's so many of them.
I think when I joined , when I got on Buzzsprout is that's where my. It shows her hosted. I think there were like five or six directories that they submitted the feed to. And now I think it's like a dozen or something. It just keeps growing. So this podcasting world is getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
Seth Godin famously said, probably it was either late 2019 or early 2020. He said that podcasting was the new blog.
Alana: [00:12:57] Yeah. Yeah. And I see it. There are so many bloggers that are now have pivoted or changed or incorporated a podcast into what they've done.
We're also seeing it with ad dollars. Whereas blogging used to be a huge revenue generator for bloggers, as well as a place that , advertisers and sponsors wanted to spend their money. Now we're seeing that really transitioned to podcasting.
Kay: [00:13:30] And it's also a place where , people want to go as a guest.
Yes. So we used to hear about, if you wanted to find an audience, the advice was to go write a guest post on somebody's blog, and now it's be a guest on somebody's podcast.
Alana: [00:13:47] right. Because you want to go where the people are. Right. Right. And you want to get yourself in order to grow your platform and to grow your audience.
And let's say if you're marketing a book, for instance, you've got a book out, well, you want to go get people to buy your book and to listen to your message. And so where all the people will right now, we're seeing the majority of people are listening to podcasts, which this is a fun fact. It used to be the, just under 50% of Americans.
Listened. I believe the statistic was 47% of Americans listen to podcasts as 2018. We're still seeing the trend, even though it's going upward. It's only 58% now. So more than half of Americans listen to podcasts, but that's not, we still have tons of growth. There's still many, many people out there. And I'm sure you can think of them.
And I can think of them in our listeners can think of them, of people who would say what's a
Kay: [00:14:46] podcast. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. How would you describe a podcast? What's what's the line we should be using when people ask
Alana: [00:14:55] that. So what's so funny is I might, I love my dad, dad, if you're listening, he's not listening because he doesn't know what podcasts are.
This is on my whole point, but that if you're listening, you know, I love you. I always tell him when he says, I don't even know what you do, what is a podcast? And I always explain it. And I say, it's basically like on demand radio.
Kay: [00:15:17] Yeah, exactly. So you don't have to wait. Well, yeah, we don't have to explain it to you guys, but yeah.
Alana: [00:15:21] Yeah. Right. Cause they're
Kay: [00:15:23] listening, but yes. Now you can tell people it's podcast it's on demand radio. So you need to listen to the Podcasting Party and Life and Mission start there. Yes. Right. And that's intro to podcasting when I want exactly. Well, who is creating podcasts these days. If we've got 58% of all Americans listening to podcasts, who's creating the podcast.
Alana: [00:15:47] Yeah. So my answer, I want to say, which is tongue in cheek is everyone isn't who isn't creating podcasts, but what we're really seeing is a trend in. So I will say , We're kind of seeing two trends, obviously bigger businesses are seeing the value in podcasts and they're seeing, you know, like, okay, well we have this large listener base.
We, why not start a podcast right. Where we can market our products, where we can talk directly to our , listener or to our ideal client avatar. But we're also seeing a lot of small businesses or seen entrepreneurs. We're seeing creatives that are creating podcasts, especially with COVID in 2020, where people were kind of locked down and we couldn't.
We just didn't have our normal networks and circles to pour into. And so we saw a lot of people in my business as a direct result. The growth of it is a direct result of this is people wanting to connect with either their people or with a larger audience. And podcasting is one Avenue to do that. And it does it really, really well.
So that's mainly small businesses, larger businesses entrepreneurs. And creatives that's who we're seeing starting podcasts, but really it's everybody in anybody.
Kay: [00:17:14] Yeah. It's, it's so funny. I was going to say, you have this statistic of, you know, 50, what is it? 58% of Americans listen to podcasts and what 75% of them are making podcasts.
Alana: [00:17:26] Right. So this is kind of, this is kind of, what's funny. So again, according to that study back in , 2018 , when they put out this survey, there were 175,000 podcasts on Apple, which you go, Whoa, that's a lot, there are over a million podcasts on Apple today, just wow. You know, two years later or two and a half years later now, because that was in June of 2018.
So serious growth. Yeah. It, when people, I always say, you know, everybody and their dog has a podcast, and that is for real, because there was a guy in a, his dog who have a podcast. I don't, he doesn't do much. He just refers to him kind of like I do with Kyle, the dog here in my studio. But he, but it is true that people, it seems like.
everybody started a podcast, but that's still not true that the market is oversaturated. There is still a place for you. There's still a place for us. There is still a place for anybody who wants to start a podcast. I think we'll start seeing the playing field level out, but we're not going to see advertising level out.
So people are, that is one of the trends that we're seeing is businesses big and small alike are wanting to, they're seeing the return on their ad dollars in podcasts. And so they're wanting to invest in more and more, which is great for even small podcasts because small businesses can't afford to advertise on big shows.
And so guess where they're going to put their ad dollars on smaller shows. So that's great news for smaller shows as
Kay: [00:19:03] well. And if you're reaching the audience that they want to reach, yeah. Okay. There are some stats in there and some numbers, some numbers that you need, but, but the main thing is are you reaching their people?
If you're reaching their people, you know, you can come up with some kind of deal.
Alana: [00:19:20] Absolutely. Absolutely. I love to tell a story of a client who is a rancher here in Idaho. And helped him create a podcast. And he was able to sign a sponsor without even having any, he hadn't even started his podcast yet, but he was, his audience was so aligned with a company that, you know, markets directly to his ideal listeners.
And he was able to sign a very nice sponsorship package with them right off the bat. So it can be done. And I have seen it, you know, be done multiple
Kay: [00:19:58] times. Nice. Yeah. Well that was, that took my next question. Right on the way I was going to ask you if people could make money podcasting, but I know. Yes.
Alana: [00:20:08] You know? Kay. That fires me up. I get, you knew what question to ask me because I started getting fired up.
Kay: [00:20:14] I just like jumping up and down in her seat right now
Alana: [00:20:18] because it's, I'm scared, so excited about it. I truly believe that anybody who. Wants to can, who wants to have a podcast and wants to make money from a podcast, because there are many out there that don't want to make money from it.
And that's totally fine. But if you should at least be covering your costs and you can. And there are a lot of different ways to do it. You don't have to do it through ads and sponsorships. In fact, I sometimes argue that that's a lot more work for you as a podcaster than some of the other avenues of making money.
So yes, there is money to be had in podcasting. There is good money to be had in podcasting. And if that's something you want to do, then head over to Kay's show notes and you'll see a link and I'll help you out.
Kay: [00:21:05] There you go. Yeah. And you have a course on that. I do. Yes. Yes. And I would highly recommend it.
I mean, I just did the mini version of it, you know? And it's it's yeah. Alana is, she's the one she's guys, the goods, she will teach you how to do that. I want to talk though, as, as we're talking about podcasts and people are going, Oh, you mean I can actually do this and not go in the hole doing it. I could actually maybe make some income doing this, that maybe this is, it really is the thing that I want to do.
We'll take it maybe from the back burner to the front burner. Now we're seriously thinking about it. So as a podcast coach, you're walking through the process with a lot of people. And you've got that big picture view, but what are some of the misconceptions that people come into podcasting with?
Alana: [00:21:55] Yeah, this is such a great question.
And I'm so glad you're asking it because anybody out there who is thinking about starting a podcast , This is really going to help you set your expectations up to not only be realistic, but also to be hopefully encouraging. And so one of the main , misconceptions, I would break it down, I would say there's two.
The first one is that , It's not, it doesn't take that much time and I don't want to discourage you by saying it takes so much time. There are ways that you can really hone in and make the process a lot simpler. You don't have to produce every week. You can produce every other week or monthly. We're seeing it used to be.
You had to produce weekly. If you wanted to create a, you know, build a platform, create a following. But that's just not the case anymore. We're seeing that because there are so many podcasts and so many people are, don't have the time that they once had. They're busy. They'll listen to a lot of shows, but they'll listen in, you know, here they'll listen there.
It's not like they're listening right. When they're released, some people do that gets into a whole nother thing of downloads and subscribers. And we're not going to get into that. Cause that's not your question, but time. It takes, especially the editing process. As I mentioned, I'd say to create, you know, come up with your content ideas to develop those ideas, to record or coordinate guests , and then to edit and put all that up on your hosting account, publish it to a website or a blog.
If you're going to do that. I would, I always say. It's going to take you two to three times the amount to edit and that's when you get to a good place. I don't know if you'd agree with me on that. Okay.
Kay: [00:23:40] Yeah, that sounds
Alana: [00:23:41] about right. And then it's going to probably take you five to 10 hours a week when you first start to go ahead and produce a podcast.
Now, again, it's not always going to take you that long. Kay. And I are both to the point where we do a little bit more of batching and so you can batch and create content ahead of time. That's number one misconception is that it doesn't take too much time or they can squeeze it into their already busy schedule.
The first question, when I meet with somebody who's talking about starting a, a potential podcast, I always say, and what are you giving up in order to start your podcast? What are you giving up? And a lot of time, I'd get this blank stare like. What do you mean? What am I giving up? Like w where are you going to fit it in your life?
And that's a mistake I made. I'll be the first one. I was like, no, you can't be that much longer than blogging. I've got it. I had a part-time job, two kids, a husband who traveled all the time with his military service. So I was like, we can't be that much more. And here I am like, You know, I did all the wrong things, all the wrong things.
Do what I say, not what I did because you don't want to go there.
Kay: [00:24:47] Yeah. Yeah. I've had, how many times have I stayed up all night to finish something? To get it out? Yeah,
Alana: [00:24:53] I hear you. Yes. You're like 5:52 AM. And you're like, and published for 6:00 AM.
Kay: [00:25:00] Been there, racing to get to bed before the sun comes up.
Alana: [00:25:06] And then I think misconception number two is that you have to be totally techie that you cannot podcast. If you feel like I always say a non-techie, I consider myself a non-techie and this is my job. People pay me to do it. And so if I can do it. Trust me, you can do it. You don't have to be a techie to figure it out.
There are really simple tools. There are so many amazing new tools out there. We were just talking about a couple before we went on air K and I , that will make your life. So much easier back in the day, like we had Skype, zoom didn't even exist. It was like, you could do Skype for interviews. You had to have garage band Udacity or Adobe edition.
And your editing capabilities were real. There were like two. So nowadays. You can do it, you know, with a couple of different tools, free tools too, which are great. So number one, make sure that you've got the time. And then number two, you don't have to be a techie. You can hire an editor, you can learn how to do it yourself.
It's not too hard.
Kay: [00:26:15] There you go. That's good. And there are so many awesome tools. I mean, I, I just , in fact I was thinking, okay, let me commit to this. Now I'm going to, in the first quarter of this year, put together some short tutorials and some courses on some specific things. So that , one of my things, I just, I love to help people get their message out.
So these little things that are stumbling blocks, but some of it is just. There are some really, really great tools. I talked to somebody who called me this morning and said, I need to know how to do such and such. And I already had a little video I had made, you know, just, just for myself, just here's how you do this.
And I just sent them the link, you know, so smart. Yeah. They're they make life so much easier. We won't get into the details on that. Oh, that's a whole nother week. We could both go off on that. I know I'm
Alana: [00:27:11] telling you YouTube. It could be like your best friend. There's so much out there. I remember the first time I was trying to figure out how to export my garage band file to an MP3 and whatever tutorial I was watching at the time or.
You know, I didn't have it, they missed that step. And I remember being like, but how do I make an MP3? I was so mad and so frustrated. And so now I'm sure you could just Google that one phrase and it would pop up.
Kay: [00:27:38] You'd get 50 then. And then the question is which of these 50 million tutorials,
Alana: [00:27:42] right? I always say you don't have to Google and guess your way through, just go learn from an expert, whether it's me, whether it's Kay, whether it's somebody else, just go find yourself an expert and stick with them.
Do not Google and
Kay: [00:27:53] guess. Yeah. And that's probably one of the best pieces of advice for anybody. That's trying to create content, find that person that you can learn from, find the person you learn from so that you don't waste all your time on Google looking for things.
Alana: [00:28:07] Yeah. That's a great piece of advice.
Kay: [00:28:09] One more question, and then we're going to wrap it up, but I want to know the three most important. Now we dealt with the misconceptions, but what are the three most important things that someone who's thinking about starting a podcast needs to keep in mind.
Alana: [00:28:23] Ooh. Okay. Three most important things.
You're hosting. Your hosting account, like who you choose for your, to host your podcasts, you can always change it, but it's a really big decision. And there are so many options. As we talked about earlier out there that it can be really confusing. And sometimes you just want to go with like the cheaper one or the one-year friend recommended really do your due diligence to do some research and put the time into it to see what's going to be a best fit for you.
The three that I recommend Libsyn. Buzzsprout, which I know you use. And then actually Anchor, I just recommend you don't use their app on your, on the phone. You use a desktop or, you know, version on your laptop or desktop. So those three are great ones, but again, there's a lot of, kind of no-name ones are new on the scene.
And the, the two questions I would say to go along with that, that you want to ask is number one. Who owns your content. So there are some hosting platforms out there that are real sketchy and we'll, you know, you sign up with them and they own your content and you don't have control over that. Number two, do you have control of your RSS feed?
Those are the two big things you want with a host account. Number two thing you need to know about podcasting. It's not about you. It's about your listener. You can create the very best sounding audio out there, and you can have the very most gorgeous marketing, you know, graphics and a huge social media presence.
But the bottom line, if you're not serving the listener and you don't know who they are. No, I'm just going to come back and listen. It's true. And then I would say the third thing you need to know is that you can always make good. And this is something that I tell clients when they signed me as an editor, you can make good audio better, but you can't make bad audio any good.
So I would say if you find a great host and account, you really serve and create content for your listener. And you set out from the beginning to make good audio, those three things. You're going to be golden. You'll have a great successful podcast.
Kay: [00:30:47] That's awesome. Yeah. And if you're thinking about starting a podcast, here you go, Alana is the go, go to Alana.
There you go. Get me in that podcastHER group.
Alana: [00:31:02] Yeah. And
Kay: [00:31:04] that community. I want to say it's so, so great. I don't know what the men were. The men need to go for their podcasting, but for the
Alana: [00:31:12] women, I can't help you there guys. I mean, you can come join the podcast or community. That's if you think that'd be a great but, that's fine.
Kay: [00:31:19] Yeah, ladies, we got you covered. So, yeah. But it is, you can get your questions answered. Alana's got this. Tipsy Tuesday that she does and all kinds of training and the community, all kinds of encouragement. And , you're not alone during this. You don't, that's the thing you don't have to podcast alone.
Alana: [00:31:39] No, you don't. And I think that's so important because it is lonely lonely work. We sit in front of a screen, as we talked about the editing time, you're alone on your computer. Even this, we, we have a great time getting to talk to each other, but we're not sitting next to each other. You know, we're across the United States from each other, which is so awesome.
And also I wish we were in person.
Kay: [00:32:02] It's, it's fun. And I , I really, you know, when we talk about the blog blogging and the podcasting and things, that's how I started my podcast, I kept saying, I'm going to start a blog.
I'm going to start a blog. And my pastor said, okay, you're never going to get the blog done because you're going to try and make the writing. Perfect. Yeah, you've got a broadcast background. It will be easier for you to start a podcast. And this was in what, 2000 early, 2017. And by October of 2017, I had the podcast up and going and it was, it was for me, much easier.
To create that content on audio, set up the mic, start talking, get interviews. I didn't have to, it didn't have to all come from my head. I get to borrow other people's brains by interviewing them. And that's what, yeah, that's what we're doing. Right. We're sharing more sharing knowledge back and forth.
We're sharing community. We're connecting all of those things, which are so hard to do just with one person. And one person writing. And so that's one of the things that I really enjoy about it. Like I said, it was easy for me to do because I do have the technical background and the hardest thing for me has been the coordinating schedules and that part of it.
But yeah, he dared me to, he said, no, just, just start the podcast. And the thing that you can do with that is you can go backwards. So like Alana was just saying, you know, that you. Wrote the blog post recorded it as pod and then release it as a podcast. You can also do it the other way. You can record the podcast, transcribe that and create all kinds of content from that.
So you think about all the different channels. And so we'll, we'll do some more things later on content re-purposing, but I'm just excited because for me the audio and , I'm not quite sure. Gone into the video. Yeah. But audio and video, if you start with those two, you can create so much more from those pieces.
Alana: [00:34:12] Yeah. And if I always say work smarter, not harder. Right. So right. The video, if you're thinking about starting, I would just say, put a little bug in your ear to, to record your video and save it because then you have video. You have audio, as Kay said, you download the transcription and you create a blog post, or even put the transcription up on your, clean it up, put it up on your blog or website from that you create your social media posts.
I mean, there's, it's a whole snowball of, and all you gotta do. Well, I say it like that, right. We know. All you gotta do is sit down in front of your microphone, in your computer and hit record.
Kay: [00:34:52] That's right. That's right. So if you've got something to say, come on.
Alana: [00:34:58] That's right. We want to hear it.
Kay: [00:35:01] There you go.
Hey Alana. Thank you for being with us today.
Alana: [00:35:06] Thank you so much for having me. It was my pleasure.
Kay: [00:35:09] Well there, you have it. That's my interview with Alana Dawson. She is my podcast coach. She can be your podcast coach. And, you know, this is just part of the theme that we've been exploring. I talked about it last week with Brandy Wallner. Of needing a guide, needing good information and needing community. And so this is, this is what we're doing. I'm going to continue along that theme for the next probably at least a month through February.
And we're going to talk more about a guide in the next show. And we also have an interview with Misty Phillips of the spark podcast community coming up in a couple of weeks.
One of the really great things you can do if you enjoy this podcast is to leave a review on Apple podcasts. This one is from mom with lots of laundry. So Hey mom, with lots of laundry. I'm thanking you for this. Here's what she said. She said, Casey, great interviewer with engaging and inspiring guests.
You'll for sure. Be encouraged listening to this podcast and you know, that's exactly what I'm aiming for. I want you to be encouraged. I want you to be equipped. And I want you to be confident in going forward with this message that you have to share with the world. I'm This has been the life and mission podcast. Find your voice. Tell your story, change the world.