Podcasting for Psychologists and Therapists: Why we should podcast and how to get started with Charlotte Foster

In this episode, I talk to Charlotte Foster, voice of the Turn Up the Volume on Your Voice podcast, journalist, and expert at getting podcasts published and into the earbuds of the people who need them. Charlotte is also a Do More Than Therapy expert speaker who's delivering our July podcasting masterclass. We're going to talk about why psychologists and therapists should be podcasting, and troubleshoot some of the common issues that come up for people when they venture into the world of podcasting.

The highlights

• I welcome you to the podcast 00:06
• Charlotte tells us how she got into podcasting, after her career in radio journalism 02:09
• We discuss how podcasts are about conversations and community 10:48
• We talk about how podcasts are a great platform for psychologists and therapists, and how they are like one-to-one conversations 12:55
• Charlotte talks about how easy it is to get started with podcasting, and what holds people back 20:14
• Charlotte talks about podcast length and series 30:21
• Charlotte tells us what kit she recommends, and how to make the most of your microphone 39:29
• We discuss how much editing we need to do for our podcasts 46:31
• We talk about not using scripts 53:17
• Charlotte talks about what we can do to make sure people listen to our podcasts, and why transcripts are useful 56:31
• Charlotte tells us where we can find her and connect with her 1:03:19
• I remind you about the Do More Than Therapy membership 1:05:01

Charlotte's Links:

Podcast: Turn Up The Volume on Your Voice 

Website: https://www.charlotte-foster.co.uk

Instagram: CharlotteFosterPodcasts

Facebook: CharlotteFosterPodcasts

LinkedIn: Charlotte Foster Podcast Queen

Twitter: @CFPodcasts

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If this episode has stoked your enthusiasm for "doing more than therapy" then come over to https://psychologybusinessschool.com/the-do-more-than-therapy-membership/ and check out the do more than therapy membership. This is our monthly membership that helps you to confidently step out of the therapy room and help more people in creative ways. We have masterclasses with experts to help you get that book written, to launch that online course, podcast or community project. On top of that we also have a supportive community with weekly coaching calls, monthly peer supervision and a thriving Facebook group. Come join us at: https://psychologybusinessschool.com/the-do-more-than-therapy-membership/

TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKERS

Rosie Gilderthorp, Charlotte Foster

Welcome to the Business of Psychology podcast, the show that helps you to reach more people, help more people and build the life you want to live by doing more than therapy.

This episode is all about doing more than therapy, it’s about stepping outside of the therapy room and doing something creative that reaches more people. So if this is something that you’re looking to add into your practice and you like what you hear then do come on over to www.psychologybusinessschool.com and check out the Do More Than Therapy membership. This is our monthly membership that helps you confidently step outside the therapy room and help more people in creative ways we’ve got masterclasses with experts that will help you to get that book written to launch that online course, podcast or community project. On top of that we've also got a supportive community with weekly coaching calls, monthly peer supervision and a thriving members-only Facebook group. So if you like what you hear today please do come on over to www.psychologybusinessschool.com and check out the Do More Than Therapy membership.

Today I'm with Charlotte Foster, voice of Turn Up the Volume on Your Voice podcast, journalist and expert getting podcasts published and into the earbuds of the people who need them. Charlotte is also a Do More Than Therapy expert speaker who's delivering our July podcasting masterclass. So I'm extra excited to welcome her here. Welcome to the podcast, Charlotte.

Ah thank you.

So today we're gonna talk a bit about why psychologists and therapists should be podcasting. And we're going to troubleshoot some of the common issues that come up for people when they venture into the world of podcasting. But before we get started on that, I'd really like to hear a bit more about your journey. Why podcasting for you?

I fell into podcasting accidentally, really, it was never meant to be my thing. I always always always wanted to be a journalist. In fact, aged nine, I told my mum, it was a Tuesday night because I was on my swimming lessons. And I was reading Fast Forward magazine, children of the 80s will know what I mean when I say Fast Forward magazine, and it had an article or an interview with Jason Donovan in at the time. And I was in love with Jason Donovan at the time. And I decided at this point, the most obvious way that I was going to get to meet Jason Donovan and therefore marry him, because that was the natural thing that would happen when we met we would get married, was to become a journalist so I'd go and do an interview with him. And that's how it started, followed by a lot of watching Newsround. And then when the Gulf War happened in the early 90s Kate Adie was in Iraq and Kuwait and to see a woman on the telly in a war zone, that was it, that was what I was going to do. So it went from Jason Donovan to a war zone, but that was it that was all I wanted to do. And I ended up accidentally doing work experience at a community cable TV station in Reading. Think Wayne's World but without the budget essentially. And they had a radio station, it was like the broom cupboard. So when they didn't have programming on they just used to play out music and every now and again somewhat when they could get somebody in, they would just do like a radio show. In I went age 17, have a great time and then it was, that was it nothing but radio was going to be for me. And that's what I eventually did. I worked at pretty much every kind of level of radio going, so from a two person news team at a radio station in Scarborough, the independent radio station there the commercial radio station, bigger news teams again in commercial, but also I've worked at LBC, I work in fact, I was on shift the night Michael Jackson died.

No way.

Yeah, it's one of those ones that I will never forget cuz I did that terrible thing of going... so I walked in at half past nine for the night shift, said goodbye to the person who was finishing their shift, I could do with a quiet night, I've moved house and not had my nap. By five to 10 that quiet night was not happening in any way shape or form. Really it was one of those ones that sort of stands, stands out in my mind of the big stories that I've covered. And I've worked at 5 Live, I've done every g, every gig going from making the cups of tea, answering the phones, to reading the news for people and also presenting as well, as well as the behind the scenes stuff. So the the producing, the telling the person who's talking to be quiet now you've gone on for too long, and all the research and everything like that. And I loved it, up until it stopped being fun. I think you get to a point where you're not necessarily in the right place for the right with the right team or the right manager. And I just so I left a dream job because it wasn't making me happy. And I went freelance, and I felt really lost if I'm being honest because I was going from station to station, not where I was living. So I kind of lost my my sense of community so I'd be going off so I was at this point in time I was living in Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, but I was working in Derbyshire, I was working in Liverpool, I was working in Manchester, I was working everywhere apart from where I was listening, living. And at the time Stoke-on-Trent was going for the City of Culture bid for 2021. Coventry's got it at the moment, they won, they won the bid overall. But I thought, I know I can do to make myself feel part of this conversation because it's a conversation I've been part of previously at the station I was working at, I'll do a podcast about Stoke-on-Trent. Why not? Pretending it's about culture, but it wasn't it was about telling people's stories with the whole culture thing cuz you can't have a culture without community was my my thing. And it was trying to speak to people that don't normally get on the radio. So it wasn't the people that would normally have the big organisations, the theatres, I didn't want to talk to them. I wanted to talk to the people who ran the knitting the knit and natter knitting, because there's so many stories that go on there. The people that run the community allotments, that kind of thing, the thing that is normal and everyday. So that's what I did, and had a great time doing it. And now, it was also partly to get back on the radio as well and do more presenting really, in all honesty, there was a little bit of oh this is a good demo for me. That soon went away because I just loved talking to people. And then very quickly, I started getting invitations to things to sort of cultural events and being part of the city council's cultural forum. Could I help them do this? And I was more known for that podcast than I ever was for being the Breakfast Show presenter at the local BBC station. More people know me...

Now that's interesting because I think one thing that has really changed over the last two or three years, I would say some number of people listening to podcasts. Because I was an early adopter. I've enjoyed podcasts from really early on, because I'm just one of those people that needs to do all my learning on the go. And they served me extremely well for that. But actually, I remember five years ago, no one else was listening to podcasts.

I was still telling people what a podcast was.

Yeah, yeah. So when did that start to change?

I would say, so I officially started my podcast business at the back end of 2017, beginning of 2018. That's when I went because people just started asking me about podcasting because they knew that that's what I did. And I went oh, hang on a minute. I'm gonna stop giving this away for free, I'm gonna start charging people for this and start working with people because I can see the benefits because I've seen what's happened to me that I've become known for this thing. And then, so to start with, I'll be going to like business networking meetings, we all know what they're like. I turn up and go, Hi, I'm Charlotte. I do podcasts, and I just get this look of blank faces in front of me. And this is what a podcast is, it's a bit like radio, but you listen to it on your phone, and it's on demand. And that's how I do it. And I would say that kept on going through to the end of 2018, and at the beginning of 2019 it was the subject that the question that I most broken record question got changed from what is a podcast Charlotte to okay, I'm interested. How long should my podcast be? What do I need to do to make a podcast? Tell me more about podcasting? It definitely, that first year was all telling people what podcasts were, 2019 onwards it very much changed to the awareness. And I think that's down to BBC sounds coming along and really pushing out what they do for the BBC podcasts that they have. The BBC have had podcasts for years and years and years. But they noticed a shift and Spotify have really been pushing podcasts as well. And every celebrity has a podcast now as well. So I think that's how, people are just talking about them as well. So, but yeah, like you I was a bit of an early adopter, and it was my dad, believe it or not, who introduced me to podcasts.

Oh, wow.

My dad's in his 70s now and he'd go and he'd be like 2006, 2007 on an mp3 player when we have set mp3 players that weren't just on our phones. He would plug his mp3 player into his computer, download, this is what you had to do in the old days, download it from iTunes onto your mp3 player, then he'd go off to the allotment, stand in, sit in the allotment do all his work all day listening to different podcasts, and then he would tell me which ones were his favourite, so I'd go and listen to them as a bit of a daddy daughter moment.

Oh, wow. Now that's impressive.

Yeah.

So that means then when you got known for doing this local podcast, they weren't really that popular. So how did you get people listening to you?

I talked about it non stop. I mean, it's not a surprise to know that I quite enjoy talking. But I jumped on Twitter hashtags. So every Wednesday was Staffordshire hour between eight and nine. So I made sure my podcast came out on a Wednesday. Made sense. And then I jumped on from eight and nine, hashtag Staffordshire hour. This is my podcast, this is what we're doing. I followed because it was so targeted and so niche, it was clearly people in, interested in and talking about Stoke-on-Trent. And there were a lot of conversations about Stoke-on-Trent at the time because they were bidding for the City of Culture status. So lots, there was a dedicated Twitter state Twitter hashtag for that as well. So again, I would just go in and I would start conversations with the, on my Twitter, my dedicated podcast Twitter page as well. So I know, and followed all the right people, and just talked about what I was talking about on the podcast as well as joining conversations as well. It wasn't, listen to my podcasts, I talk about this. It was, say someone was talking about the potteries in Stoke-on-Trent, for example. I would join in and go oh, yeah, this is really good, or that's this is what I think. And it was just generating that awareness. So it was nonstop talking, funnily enough. And that's really important.

And I think when, when it comes to creating a podcast as well, when you're in those conversations with people, that's when you get your content ideas. And that's when I get excited to create something. So I tend to be chatting to people in psychologists communities, and think, Oh, this is a really interesting conversation, I'll record a podcast that adds to it. So it's got loads of benefits actually talking to people.

Yeah. So podcasts to me are about communities and joy and helping people be part of the community. You're in helping people understand your community and just building a community and building a relationship. So if you can go into the communities that you want to be part of with your podcast, that's how you build up that relationship and that's how you do it. And one point I think I had, I had listeners on this, this podcast about Stoke-on-Trent had listeners in Australia, Japan, random places in America, all over and in someplace in the Middle East as well. Now, I'm not sure how many of those were expats wanted to find out, but I did also get people going, I've moved away from Stoke, and I love hearing people talking about my city. So it wasn't just people, I was only having this, like, I didn't have a geographical border necessarily. Lots of people were listening from across the world, and that's quite exciting as well.

Wow. Yeah, podcasts have got so much potential to reach people that otherwise they're just not likely to come across you. And I can definitely imagine, you know, if you're typing into Apple Stoke-on-Trent, there's probably not that many that are going to come up.

No. And funnily enough, you talk about typing into Google I, I was doing thing the other day I was looking I do I have a podcast planning toolkit. And I was looking for it on my computer, but typed it into Google by mistake, because I was looking for it in my drive, but just typed into Google. And because I've talked about it on an episode of my podcast, it came up as a search result. My podcast came up as a search result, because I typed in podcast planning toolkits, and I was just like, there we go, that's quite exciting. So I did a screenshot and I kept it.

Well I think that leads us into my next question, actually, which is going to be why would a podcast be a good thing for a psychologist or a therapist who's looking to grow their practice and maybe start working in more creative ways, writing books, building a bit of an online audience, why is podcasting a good platform for that?

I think it's such a great platform, because it's all about your voice. And there's nothing more intimate than the sound of someone's voice. You don't need to see someone's face to understand necessarily everything that's going on when it comes to a voice. I just think storytelling and any kind of talking is just done so beautifully. And what I love most about podcasts is nine times out of ten, there are people listen to their podcasts on their own. So you're having a conversation, a one to one conversation with somebody. Obviously, lots of people are listening, but they're listening on their own so it feels like a one to one conversation. And that's so important when you're trying to build a relationship with the community and build up that authority even, is it feels like that you are talking to just that person who is listening. So you'll hear on lots of podcasts they'll start off going Hello Everybody, and I cringe, cringe inside because I, in fact I do this terrible thing, if I turn my head to each side and go, who else is here? Nobody else is here, it's just me you're talking to. But that's because I'm a terrible person for doing it. But it's that one to one conversation that you're having, and how many chances do you have to have a one to one conversation with somebody, but actually have that conversation with lots of people in that one to one way and I think that's what's important, it's the intimacy that you get to create, and you get to build up. And there's so, voice is so powerful, you can, like I say, you can tell what people are thinking or say what they're feeling through their voice. And you can do so much with your voice because a louder voice then you can get all excited are all there, and then you come in close to your microphone and you have that little I'm telling you a secret moment as well. And it just, you've got all of that dynamics and it just, it just excites me. You can see my face. I'm just really like a cheshire cat here.

Very Excited and really passionate about it. But I think you know, I completely agree with you. When I think about the podcasts I listen to, I am so connected to the people that host them, or I feel that I am. You know I always talk about my, my favourite podcast is a Chris and Rosie Ramsey, absolutely obsessed with Shagged, Married, Annoyed. We can say it on this podcast because this is an adult's podcast, could not love them more. And it's made me incredibly loyal to them. If somebody is, you know, slagging them off, or didn't like Chris Ramsey's latest stand up or whatever, I get very annoyed, because I feel like they're in my house every Friday telling me hilarious stories.

Doesn't it feel like you're around their place with a glass of wine with them? And going, Oh, my goodness, yes, I agree. You're, and they make you part of the conversation. That's really clever. They make you part of the conversation without excluding anybody else.

Absolutely

You are part of their gang, you are part of their club, you're on their team. And that is so vital.

And I'm hoping that for some of the people listening to this right now, there might be some light bulbs going off there. Because one thing that we're really passionate about as mental health professionals, is joining people where they're at. And rather than broadcasting these messages, of you've got a disease, and this is what you must do, the people that listen to this podcast, and and certainly the way that I view it, it's very much like we want to walk alongside you. And yes, we've got some stuff which might help you but it's very collaborative. And, you know, it's about kind of finding a way for us to help you on your journey, rather than us telling you where you should be going. And I really believe, and I'm not quite sure why I don't know if there's a scientific explanation, but I think podcasting lends itself much better to that kind of joining with somebody feeling than a video does. Videos tend to be more like tutorials.

I think it's because it's a conversation, again I keep talking about conversation. And I think it is because it's a conversation. And you can do something else while you're listening to a podcast. So for me last summer, summer of 2020, when it was still so much uncertainty going on. I mean, I know there's a lot of uncertainty still, but it feels a little more certain than it was last summer, certainly, I was going out for lots of walks. And I would just if I was feeling a little shaky about leaving the house, not quite being ready to see people, I'd pop my headphones on and I'd listen to podcasts. And they were with me every step of the way. It was it was like having a friend with me. And it was like having a safe friend with me that, cuz I knew that if I had my headphones on, that's kind of like a barrier against the world for one, so no one was going to come and approach me. And also, though in my in my ears directly in my ears, I could block out the rest of the world, and I could just focus on that voice, and that voice was going to keep me going. Now they might have been talking about all kinds of things. It might have been a pod... I listened to podcasts about podcasts. It, there's some quite geeky level stuff going on like podcast editing and all that sort of stuff. But equally I do also listen to more fun podcasts as well. So both of those were keeping me company and it was weird, I think I saw an article in The Guardian recently about how podcast hosts have become almost like friends to people and it was the same in radio, you get that a lot that people, you're not just giving people information about what you do. I tell people loads of stuff about me in my podcasts. So recently I've moved house, and the whole moving house shenanigans, because moving house is nothing short of shenanigans, I just I gave people updates in the podcast because it gave a bit of me as a human being not just Charlotte's giving you information and telling you. Everyone knows about my cat Buddy, executive producer Buddy, he can't, he sometimes he joins in the podcast if he jumps up and hasn't, you know, I don't get edited him out of it sometimes. So it's things like that. Another of mine, rescue dog from Cyprus. And Hugo was in the podcast all the time squeaking his little toys in the background because she just left him there. But because he'd been part of the story, she told the story of rescuing him from Cyprus, he was one of the characters in it. And I don't think you get that in video quite so much. In video, or look at YouTube, everything has to be swish, swoosh, swoosh, like, animation here, whoosh here and there. And I think what podcasts, podcasts are allowed to be a little bit more conversational, a little bit less formal, more of a conv... more of that earwigging in, over, in a coffee shop at the next table. That's how I would say, that's the to me is the ideal, I'm earwigging someone else's conversation and I'm like leaning further and further towards them. And I think because it's that less formal, formal way of talking to people, educating people or telling people things, that actually you do get that feeling a lot more of, I'm with you know that that's there. It's not it's not teaching, it's not preaching. It's talking. And I say it again, conversation.

Yeah, I think if there's one take home from this, it will be that, that it is about conversation, you don't have to have a perfect broadcast message. Yeah, I really like that point. I really like that. So how easy do you find it to get started? I'm guessing fairly easy given your background?

Yes. And no. My background was actually a massive holdup for me. Because it took me three months from my idea of doing it to actually doing it because what I started out by doing was getting ready a what could have been an award winning Radio 4 documentary was what I was going to be ended up doing. And then I realised I was never going to be able to do that without funding because you know, award winning Radio 4 documentaries don't come for free. And I was spent three months, just honestly the plans were beautiful and gorgeous, and they were going to be amazing. And then I got news that the city had been shortlisted for the City of Culture. So it was in the final five. And I'd seen that as as a because I'm still working as a journalist, so I got the press release, the embar, and it was embargoed, so I knew I had two days to get this out. So I picked up my mobile phone. That's all I used to record the first episode was a mobile phone, and there was a little festival going on. Stoke festival or Festival Stoke, sorry. Community little festival, and I walked down there, introduced myself to the people running it and said, I'd like to do a podcast episode about this. And that's what I did. I chucked away all the plans I'd done for the last three months, beautiful, intricate, y'know everything was gorgeous, I picked up my phone and recorded it. And then I used some free editing software to edit it and put it out. That was it.

That's how quick it can happen.

That's how quick it can happen. If you just go yeah, planning plan, obviously, planning is good. But over planning is the worst thing you can do. And I think my radio background really made me go too much planning, too much planning, too much planning, or wasn't too much planning, it was the wrong type of, it was the wrong type of planning. And I was planning it to be radio, rather than podcast. And I'd lost the whole conversation side of things or I hadn't picked that quite up. And I wanted it to just be this perfect, brilliant thing. And d'you know what, it was perfect and brilliant as a podcast. And that's what's important.

Okay, so I know that now you help a lot of other people who are on those starting blocks and you know, teetering on the edge and trying to push themselves over. So did they struggle with the similar roadblocks? Or is there different things now holding people back?

I think a lot of people are worried about it having to be perfect. And I totally understand that because I used to have you know, my concern was it's a phone microphone, how that's not it needs to be studio, it doesn't need to be studio quality. Actually I think that I locked down on the pandemic, if any, if it can take any silver linings from it means that we're actually all a lot more used to things being not quite perfect, as good as they can be, actually. We're not, no one's expecting anyone to go and hire a radio studio to record the podcast now. People are doing recording on zoom like we are, though there are some people who get a bit snobby about this and to which I say go away. That's me being polite. Because you know what, as long as your podcast is clear and understandable, it doesn't matter if the bitrate isn't quite the perfect bitrate it should be or whatever that it just, can I hear it and when I'm driving in the car, yes I can, good enough for me. Is the content good? Good enough for me. Content over the quality of the sound as long as people can hear it and understand it is what I always say. So a lot of people do worry about it being perfect. Another big thing. And I hate to say it, but it's mainly women who say this, I can't stand my own voice. And it breaks my heart when people say that, but same time, I understand. I've had 20 years of people listening to, of having to listen to my own voice, and then have someone else tell me what was good and bad about that. A listen back is never, was never really fun. But I'm now really used to it. To get used to it, you kind of just have to, I hate to say suck it up, but you do, you just have to go, that's my voice. But the real problem is, is down because of science, the way that sound waves work, we hear our voices differently to how other people hear our voices. So I'll do a really basic science bit here. Because the way we talk, we hear our voices through bone conduction and the sound waves coming through the air. Anybody else hearing it hears it just hear the sound waves through the air. So the bone conduction makes your voice sound all deep and sexy and gorgeous. So when you hear yourself recorded, you're only hearing it through sound waves coming through the air. So it sounds a little bit higher than you're expecting it to. Where's that bone conduction, gone? So that's why it can be a real jolt. And everybody, and I mean, everybody goes, that's what I sound like?! And because you've had that shock, you can then just go I don't like it. That's your natural response. I don't like it. I'm not listening to that ever again. But there are ways that you can boost that really, really easily really quickly. A, record yourself all the time, you've got a voice memo app on your phone, don't ever write a to do list again, don't ever do any, just record, do voice messages instead of sending a text message to someone and listen to them back. So you get used to hearing your voice. Two, take a deep breath before you start. So nice, deep breaths, five deep breaths is ideal, calms you down. It slows you down. And naturally when you're calmer and slower, you're not in panic mode, your voice, you're not going to tight in your throat, and your voice sounds a little bit lower anyway. You're not doing oh my goodness, I'm so scared, because we all go high pitch when we're scared or excited. It's just natural. It's what we do. And knowing what you're going to say, and having confidence in what you're going to say they'll equally help you bring your voice to where you feel it should be. I think is a better way of doing it. But just know that when you first hear your voice back, it's like seeing photos, you just go errr. But I promise you, your voice is gorgeous. Everyone's, everyone's voice is gorgeous, it's your unique thing about you, no one else sounds like you, unless they're very good at impressions. But it's you, and that it makes you you, you should embrace it.

Yeah, I completely agree. And I think it's really interesting what you said about basically having to expose yourself to your own voice. Because I did a job in the prison service where there were cameras in the corner of the room. And they would be recording and taping absolutely everything that we did. And every week I was made to watch myself back. Yeah, sometimes for a full hour while somebody picked apart, or you could have been more Socratic with that question. Oh, that was a bit of a leading question, don't you think? Oh my word it was painful. And I remember for about the first year, just spending the whole time cringing, like literally imploding in on myself every time. And then just suddenly, I was like, yes, that is what it is. I don't look great from that angle. And I don't always like how I sound. But I really did get used to it, and I think that's helped me loads now I do stuff on social media and the podcast. So I really would recommend that. I think those are great tips. I especially like stuff like recording your shopping list.

Yeah, I did it. Honestly, when I was studying to be, so I did a broadcast journalism master's degree, which makes me sound all posh and clever. It was the easiest year of my life, not gonna lie, which makes you think this is the way this is what it should have been, you know, this was my calling. But we were told we just had to record everything we, so I'd read books out loud and record them just every single thing. Because the more you do something, the more confident you are in doing it. The more you do something, the less new it feels and the more normal it feels, and the more normal it feels the more relaxed you are, the more relaxed you are, the more you're going to enjoy it, the more you enjoy it, your voice just naturally comes out in a less squeaky way.

Yeah, and I think you're right, a lot of women are worried about being squeaky.

Or we're told all the time aren't we. I mean, when I worked in radio, you would nev... it was people would say well, you can't have a woman on the on the radio on their own because they just saw about little girls, little girls. That was it.

Oh, and that's not that long ago.

No, and you would have you can't have two women doing a show together because how will you tell anyone apart? Utter nonsense, utter nonsense. But that was the way it was. It was always men are authority because they have a deep booming voice. And women would be the oh I'm just gonna love your jokes in the background hahaha.

Oh, no.

Nonsense. But it's only just changed. But you know I listen to podcasts there's one there's a couple out there that are just two, three women. And d'you know what? I can tell the difference in all the voices I know who's talking.

Yeah, we manage it somehow.

Somehow. I don't know how people are gonna tell us apart.

I don't know, we're so similar.

A real struggle. Yeah, real struggle out there.

Oh, that's interesting, but it has made me think actually, that that stereotype, that kind of patriarchal men have the authority and the gravitas. What must that be like, for a man who doesn't naturally have a boomer, you know, you know, he's got more of a soft or potentially maybe a squeaker voice, that must be really inhibiting.

Must be really hard. Yeah.

Must be really, so it works for no one, as with all aspects of patriarchy, works for no one.

Absolutely.

In the bin. So are there any other pitfalls that people tend to fall into when they set out to create a podcast that we haven't mentioned?

So the other thing people tend to do is they think it has to be a certain length, it has to be X amount of minutes long. And that's it. And I always say, there's no such thing as a podcast that's too long, there's no such thing as a podcast that's too short. The only thing there is, is as a podcast, it's too boring. And that's it. So don't get hung up on a podcast having to be a certain amount of time. If you've got five minutes of brilliant stuff to say, but that's all you've got time, that's all you've got, put out five minutes of brilliant stuff. Don't pad it out to 15 minutes, because you think a podcast needs to be at least 15 minutes. Why would you do that? Just give it, give it what it's worth is a phrase I used to use all the time in radio, when people say, oh, Charlotte, how long do you want this segment to be? Give it what it's worth. You tell me how long you think it needs. If you think it needs three minutes, give me three if it's four, give me four. Same with podcasting, if you've got a great guest, if you've got a great topic, and it's all killer, no filler, all of that, give it to me, tell me what it is. And just don't get hung up on it has to be a certain amount of time. I think we're conditioned, again, TV shows 28 minutes long. And we're so we're conditioned to that hour, half an hour or an hour. And you know, we set our alarms don't we for on the hour or five, you know, we don't, but don't worry about that. Don't worry about that. Just give me a good quality podcast. And don't worry about it being too long, worry about it being too boring, because people go oh but if it's an hour, no one's gonna pick it up, no one's gonna listen to it are they? And I go? Well, actually, they will, because you don't pick up a book, a novel and go, oh I'm not going to read this in one night, I'm not going to start it, you pick it up and you put it down, you pick it up and you put it down. And it's the same with podcasts. Lots of people listen to podcasts on their commute. So that's where the biggest listenerships are. And so they'll listen to a bit on the way, maybe a bit on the way back. And that's it done. Or if you're like me, I have short podcasts I listen to during the week, and then I save my long podcast up for the weekend when I know I'm going to do a 90 minute run. And I'm like brilliant, that's going to keep me company. And it's keeping me company, that's the interesting bit as I said, I always say, I'm going to have that podcast, you're going to be with me when I do my 90 minute run, and I'm gonna have a great, I have a great run because I know I've got this podcast with me. So people need different length podcasts at different times. So your podcast will soon be part of someone's routine. The other thing I say to people is they go right, I want to start a podcast, I'm going to do it every week for the rest of time. And I always, I always go, yeah, that's the mistake I made, hold up. If you can, block it into series, or seasons, if you want to call them seasons. And that gives you a get out clause. And I love a get out clause. So just plan, do 10 episodes with a sort of a theme, overarching theme for those 10, that's series one, give yourself a break series two. The joy podcasts is they're out there all the time, no one's going to get rid of them. You can keep referring back to them. I refer back to podcasts I did last August, and we're in June July now sort of thing. So, they they're relevant and they're useful to have, they're there. And you can say, you know, so for me, I do themes like you know, the first part of the year we're starting a podcast because January everyone's starting a podcast. I'm gonna be planning podcasts from September onwards because people are going to plan 2022s podcasts. So I don't know. I don't have a series, but I have a theme throughout my my year and I really wish I had a series. I regret it so much, so so much. Because some days I just want a break.

I know and I think I take breaks in this podcast so people probably have noticed, although maybe not. I think the world doesn't implode when you take a break, which is something I really convinced myself of. So I take breaks in line with school holidays normally, so I wouldn't take the whole summer off because I'd miss it too much. But I'll probably take a couple of weeks in the summer, usually a couple at Christmas, couple at Easter. And I set out to do series for exactly the reason that you've just shared because I was a bit intimidated by the idea of saying, I'll do it forever. And I thought I'll just I'll just say I'm gonna do 10, do that and take a break. But then I get too enthusiastic, there's a guest that I really want to interview, and then I interview them and they're amazing. And I just can't hang on to it for a moment longer and I have to put it out there. So people might have noticed that my series two, three and four have all run into each other. We're now like in the 60s on the episodes, and yeah, I think it's only officially ever had two series. Yeah. So you can always go back on your, on your promise to do series that it's harder to do it the other way, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. And as long as you tell people who are listening, what's going on, most people are like, yeah, it's fine. Just keep people informed. And the other thing I'd say is if you're, if you need a break over summer, over Christmas, over Easter, I bet the people listening to you also need a break over summer over Christmas. In fact, every year over Christmas listenership goes down, it goes right down, because routines are out the window, we're off seeing friends and family, we're eat and drink and be merry, you haven't got the normal times that you would listen to the podcast. So having a break is actually a really good idea because it gives people a chance to catch up with episodes they've missed, if they have. Also it gives them permission to have a bit of time off as well, because and they're not they haven't got the FOMO, sometimes you don't want people to have FOMO do you. You want people to just go, Oh, it's okay, I can have a holiday, I can have a break. I can just get on with having fun with my family, whichever holiday it is. So having a break, actually is really good for you and your audience.

Absolutely, absolutely. And I think sometimes allowing yourself that creative space. Like I'll often during my break batch a load of podcasts, because when I've had a week off, that's when I'll get loads of ideas for the solo shows that I do. And I'll be like right, I can get you 10 of these done. And then I'm not always on this hamster wheel of trying to create every single week. I mean, you don't have to do it like that.

No, no, when it's just yeah, I just recently, because obviously summer holidays approaching, so I did an episode on my podcast about summer problems. I've got a little theme going over the next few weeks of sum... problems that we deal with in summer as podcasts. And one was holidays. Because the other issue you've got is when people, you want holiday because you need a break. Your audience wants a holiday so then potentially not listening to your podcast the same way. But what about guests as well. Guests need to go off and have holidays, so trying to find the guests come on your podcast can also be a real trick, tricky business during the summer. August was always silly season for for journalists and for newspapers and for radio because all the big stories go go away because Parliament's in recess, big businesses, they're all on holiday as well. So you don't get any of the normal news that you'd normally get. So that's when you get the dog surfing on a beach in Cornwall or whatever going, you know, they start making an appearance, it's all those sorts of things. And d'you know what, that that's the reasons because everyone's off on holiday. So give yourself, make make your life easy. I'm all about making life easy when it comes to podcasting. So.

You can hear it, if somebody's creating a podcast and they'd rather not be there, and it's just I've got to do this then it's not very good to listen to usually, so there really is no point.

Yeah. Don't dial it in, don't dial it in. And because if you do that a few times, or you or you miss without telling someone you just start not being consistent with what you're doing. So you're just chuck, you know, one in here, one there, one, you know, just all over the place, because you haven't got the space, the mental space, the physical space to be doing it, then actually, that's a surefire way to lose your audience, because you're not showing up when you say you're showing up, you're breaking a promise. And it's it might be an implicit promise, but you're breaking that promise. And they'll find something else to replace you. If you tell people what you're doing, they understand that this is a break, this is end of the series, but you start building up y'know ready for the next week. So you do a little mini launch each time, which is great fun. Then actually they're with you all the way, I promise you, but because you haven't broken a promise.

Yeah, I completely agree. I think that's a really good way of thinking about it. You're making a promise to people that you're going to show up and be in their lives at every point this week, apart from when I'm on holiday, which is reasonable and that's what we do as therapists. We have that kind of contract with our clients. So why not?

Yeah. It's a bit like, you know, the flaky friend that always lets you down for coffee at last minute, it's the same with the podcast because you are someone's friend remember? Can we go back to that conversation, where you're being friend in the ear.

Mmm yeah, okay, that makes really good sense. So we talked a little bit about the fact that people often think they need more kit than they do to get started. What kit would you say is worth having before you record your first episode?

So I recorded my first episode, as I mentioned, on my mobile phone, and honestly, you can record on your mobile phone, little trip, little tip is, you know, when you watch the apprentice, and they're all in the car with their phones, and they're talking speakerphone into the bottom of it, they've got on loud phone and they talk into the bottom of it, they don't put that up to their ear talking like a normal phone. They're all talking into it showing off. Don't record like that. What you should do is you find your voice memo app on your phone, press record, lift your phone up to your ear as though you were talking into it, and record your podcast that way. This only works if it's a podcast with just you on your own as a solo one. But what that does is your phone microphone's designed to work best when held up to your ear, it has a special background noise kick out, like get rid of gets rid of background noise, it's that's how it's designed best to work. So actually, you get some really good quality recordings that way. Now, obviously, I went to do interviews when I did my phone, my first podcast. So again, what I did was I had a foam mic cover on the bottom of the phone where the microphone goes, you can use a sock and I have used socks in the past when I've been utterly caught in the middle of nowhere, needed to do an interview, make sure it's a clean sock. But just it just stops some of the, if there's wind about or anything like that, just sort of catches some of that. And you can use it as a as a as a microphone by just pointing it in front. Don't put it in the middle of the desk and hope it's going to pick up everything, it won't, you need to point it directly at someone's mouth. Apart from that, if you are recording on a computer, let's say like a zoom call, I would always always always say get a microphone. Now before you all start panicking that that's hundreds and hundreds of pounds, you can get a lapel mic from Amazon for probably about a tenner, I think they are tops that that will be a million times better than your microphone that's in your computer or your laptop, a million times better. In fact, if you're tight like I am, when I can be very tight, the, the old headphone jacks that used to be on your your phone headphones, and it's ones that are wired, always go for wired, because there's sometimes a lag when it's on when it's wireless. But if you've got the wired old phone headphones, plug that into your computer, and that will pick up as a as a microphone, as it used to be microphone again another phone microphone. So what I always say if you've, if you're if you've got long hair, tie it up, because if you hair rubs against it, it's a horrible noise, hideous noise, and hold it up a little bit so that whilst it's not right in front of your mouth, you want it to be closer to your mouth so that it's picking up the sound of your voice directly. And again, I've just been doing some podcasts for a client, the NHS, so you know not a terri... not not not a cheap clients for want of a better word. And we've been doing some of the recordings and they've had that's how we've been recording some of the the conversations on a on a telephone headphones microphone. So you can use that if you want to. Otherwise get a lapel microphone. There are some really good brand microphones that I always, my all my microphones are by Rode, that's who I live and breathe by R O D E is how you spell that. And value for money wise, I don't think there's anything better out there for bang for your buck. And you can get the little USB ones that plugs straight into your computer, no tech setup needed. It as literally put it in your computer. You get the little mini ones, I think they're about 80-90 quid if you wanted to have a bit of a bigger investment, and that's all you needed to buy. Again, during lockdown when everyone was doing zoom calls and all of this, and like the big TV interviews were on zoom, I was having a look around to see what people were using on their phones, and when radio people were taking photos of their home studio like BBC Radio 2 presenters, Radio 4 journalists, and all of that. I wasn't looking at anything that, I was looking at the microphones people using, and 9 times out of 10 it was the Rode microphones and those Rode mini microphones. So the way I see it, good enough for the BBC at 80-90 quid, it's good enough for us, isn't it? So microphone is the first and foremost the thing that I would put my money into before anything else. There's editing software that you can get for free. It's called Audacity. It's there. It's free. There's no catches. At one point the website did look like it was going to be downloading viruses onto your computer. They've updated it, so it doesn't look quite so ropey, but it's free, and it's brilliant. And you can use zoom to do interviews with, there's nothing wrong with using zoom to do an interview with. And I'm guessing most people have zoom now. And even that, zoom is pretty free on most levels, isn't it? You can do an interview for free.

Yeah, so so long as it's under 40 minutes, you can do it for free. But it's not very expensive if you want to go up to a pro account, so you don't have that stress, most of most of us have it anyway, because we're using it for online therapy, but even if you weren't, then I think I pay something like 12 pounds a month. And then I never have that worry, which is well worth it to me.

Yeah, same again. So you can do it really cheaply. And then once you've got into it and you decide you love podcasting, then you can look at doing the next levels up, the next levels up. But no one starts with, well, very few people start with a fully kitted out studio, a fully kitted out everything, shining everything. I started with a mobile phone and nothing else. Now, you know, me I now might have nine microphones all to myself, but you know, we won't talk about that.

You are a professional podcaster.

I am. That's what I tell my husband every time he goes, Oh, is this another microphone?

Yeah, whereas I'm still using I got a 40 pound microphone. It's not particularly good one. It's the Blue Snowball. I know they're not brilliant, but it works for me. And I've got a little shield that goes around it that stops you hearing when one of my children cries. But that's all I've ever had. And I'm sure it's not a perfect sound quality. Well I know it's not a perfect sound quality. But it seems to be good enough that people can hear it.

I can hear you loud and clear. It's I wouldn't, I wouldn't go not listening to this anymore because I can't understand a word she's saying. It's not no, it's absolutely fine for what we're doing. Sound quality, the only thing that matters is people can hear, you are clear, and I always say a car test. Because when you're in a car, and you're listening on to a podcast, you still have cross Bluetooth from your phone onto the car stereo. You haven't just got the noise that's going on in the car. You've got the outside road noise. And when I was driving down the M5 this weekend just gone. Oh my goodness, the motorway is terrible. So all you could hear, it was lots of lots of noise. But every podcast I listened to, I could hear above the road noise, the road rumble and the other traffic. And that's what's important. I wasn't distracted at any point.

Hmm, that's really important. That's a really good tip. So we touched a little bit there on editing. And I wanted to ask you kind of how much editing do we need to do for our podcast?

You can do as little or as much as you want. So I know plenty of podcasters who will just do an interview and go yeah, that was good. Put it straight out there. They might put an intro on at the beginning. So they might do a little bit, today I'm talking to so-and-so and this is what we talk about, blah, blah, blah, here's the interview. And then I'll finish it and then I might do a couple of reflections afterit; I learned this, what did you learn? Or they might just do the interview, and just put it out as one bit. There are others who will take out ers an ums and maybe make it a little bit more choppy. So there's some people that will put do like little sections and go, at this point I was talking about this, and what I should have said was this, so almost like mini reflections if they're doing an interview, or I found this point that she made really interesting, I wish I'd asked her this question next.

I love that in Janet Murray's Courageous Content podcast. If anyone's not listened to that, that's a really nice example of where that works really well.

Yeah. So it's kind of just sort of taking yourself out and putting yourself back in again, it's a really good, it's a really good technique. There's other ones that will do proper sections. So you've got a beginning where you have your intro, then you'll have Part One might be a chat about what's going on in the world. Part Two might be a quick fire round of questions, longer interview, texts received, messages received, questions received, answer and answer session, and then and X. So it can be anything from all the production in the world, to just putting it out there. Now when it comes to me, I think in particular for what I do, my podcast is out there to build up my little community and get me clients at the end of the day. And I make no secret of that I say on my podcast, the reason I have this podcast is so you know who I am, you can decide if you want to work with me, and if you get some tips along the way, brilliant, but ultimately, it is part of my sales funnel. And I'm utterly honest about that, because I think you have to be, but I have to be utterly, utterly me on that podcast. So yes, I do say ers an ums, so I'm going to keep them in. Because when someone then rings me up for a consultation, and I do ers and ums, make a silly joke about something or something or whatever. And they're like, Oh, hang on a minute, that's not the Charlotte I listened to. That's not the Charlotte I've thought I was getting. And ultimately they're going to go away, they're not going to, or they're less likely to buy into what I'm then saying, because they've built up a relationship with someone else. They haven't built up a relationship with the actual me. If I make a mistake, then yes, I will edit that out. So if I've said something that's factually inaccurate, I sneeze sometimes, or I just go off and lose all train of thoughts, then yes, of course, I will edit that. But ers and ums are part of our natural way of talking, they are who, part again, it's part of our voice and who we are. And 9 times out of 10, they sound unnatural to take them out. And I have a game, because I don't get out much clearly, when I'm listening to podcasts, I play spot the edit, and I listen to it, and sometimes I'll hear a sentence and they go, that sentence doesn't feel like it's flowing properly. And I'll go I bet they've edited out and er or an um, because it will, it sounds almost like it jumps. It's not an edit, jump. But it's a jump in the flow of the of the of the sentence. And it just doesn't feel natural. And it's the same, there's a real stylized way in, particularly American podcasts, and I think this comes from like the American like news channels where everything's like woosh, woosh, woosh, jump cut, jump cut, jump cut. And they'll take out breaths even. And I'm, I'm left there going what? So I just missed everything because it's just so quick, it's gone so so fast. And it feels like a robot is talking and you don't get that personality. So you don't need to edit a single thing, there is no law that says you need to do any editing whatsoever. And if you're going to not put a podcast out, because you're worried about the editing, don't edit it, just put it out. If you do it, you know, it's not doing a Facebook Live, it's like doing any kind of live video just put it out there, you can't edit a live, so don't worry about your podcast, just call it a live podcast, that's your get out clause, say it's a live, you know, live, do that. Because if that's what's holding you back from doing your podcast, don't worry about it, just chuck it out the window. And then once your confidence gets there, you realise the time you've got, then start getting rid of the edits, or send it to somebody to edit, right, there's another option for you. And that way, you don't have to listen to your voice back quite so much either. Because I know that's another thing that holds people back from editing because I don't have to listen to myself over and over and over again. And I can't be dealing with that. So there's options out there for people that do editing at different, you know, there's people that will edit, you know, getting on Upwork, and Fiverr different different editors out there. So that's another way of getting over your editing fears as such. But actually, if you don't want to edit, don't edit, just call it, treat it like a live live podcast.

Well, I always think that, you know, when we're talking about marketing, the one piece of advice I always try and give people is stop thinking about you and put yourself in the position of the person you're trying to help. Because ultimately, you know, when we're marketing to people it's because we've got something that we think will help them. So we're always trying to be helpful in our marketing. And is it more helpful to that person to hear a robot delivering a script? Or is it more helpful for them to connect with a human being? And I think there's so much stigma around seeking support for mental health, that one of my favourite things about the things that I see psychologists and our community doing when they're getting out and being more visible, is showing that human side, it's showing that if you do need help, and you go to your GP, you might end up seeing an actual human being who will listen to you and be kind of kind and personable. And if you're taking out your breaths, you're really not communicating that to people.

And you know what, you've got better things to do with your time than editing out breaths from every single episode. And I think it's about being normal. I hate the word normal, but it's about being, if you want to connect with someone, like you said, sound like them, be like them, and understand them. Everybody breathes, everybody says ers and ums, be part, own it be part of it.

Yeah. And so frequently on this podcast, I use analogies that don't quite work. Or, you know, you double back on yourself in spoken language in a way that you don't if you'd written a script, then you would never say the same thing twice. And you would never kind of be like, I didn't say that properly. Or go back and say it again. You wouldn't have kind of every couple of minutes. There's loads of things that if I scripted it would technically be better about the podcast, but I think it's harder to listen to.

And do you script every conversation, do you script everything you say? You don't do you. Nobody does. Unless we're all in EastEnders. Sorry, that's not real.

And actually, many of us will be able to relate that to our experiences of training as a therapist, because when when you're very new, and you're very frightened about sitting in that room with somebody and holding their distress for the first time ever, then you do try and script it. And how quickly do you chuck that script out of the window? Before the end of the first session, you've gone, well, that was useless to me. It's exactly the same, I think with podcasting, like you want to have a clear set of, I always a clear set of bullet points or questions that I want to get through, but I never try and script what I'm going to say.

I've just worked with someone this morning, in fact, just before coming on this with you, and she had a script and by the end of it, we ripped up that script, and we've gone to bullet points. And funnily enough, one of the one of her bits, one of the bits in the script was about how she should change I can't to I'm learning. And after it she was oh, I can't not use it, I can't do bullet points. I said, sorry, what was that bit in your, in your in your, in your script that you had? I am learning. So we are learning to use bullet points. And she was like oh I can't now can I?

But again, it's that it might sound worse to you. Because I hate it every time I hear myself saying kind of, or erm, I hate it, it like makes my skin crawl. But I know that's probably not true for the listeners. And the feedback I've had is that it's easier to listen to me when I'm not scripted. So that's what I'm going to go with because it's about them. It's not about my preferences.

And I bet you haven't had anyone email you or get in touch with and say you said kind of 45 times in this episode. I'm never listening again.

Nope. Funnily enough, I've not received that feedback yet. It may be coming at the end of this episode.

My filler words are Awesome, So right, and Okay, then.

I can, I have a really weird one, which I almost don't want to highlight people in case I've done it too often, and people will now notice it. But I'll say yes, but no, but. What? Why? That's the worst. But you'd never noticed it in conversation, and actually, because I'm really aware of needing I notice lots of people do it. But again, you notice these things because you might have your podcast transcribed, which I do for accessibility purposes. But actually, that's the question that I was gonna ask you about. How do you make sure that people actually listen to your podcasts? And what can you do to help push it out to more people?

So transcription is a great thing to do. Because why wouldn't you make it accessible for everybody? That is, you know, there's a whole audience out there who wants to know, your, y'know gain your knowledge, go for it, put the transcription out there. Transcription not only helps people who are have hearing disabilities, but it also helps people who have got English as a second language, follow it along as well. So actually do do transcription as much as you can. And again, there are free options for transcription. And I've spoken to a couple of my friends who have hearing difficulties. And I've said, if I put the free ones out, and I don't necessarily always get time to change them, she said, no, put it there, it's a start, it's better than nothing, actually. So do it. Don't ever worry about that. Then the transcription is also really useful to get little quotes from, which you can then share on social media. So everyone loves an Instagram little quote card, don't they? Your transcription has it there for you, don't have to type it up again, it is there for you. I use my transcriptions to get blogs written from as well. And quite often the... just the transcription very neatly tidied up, because I get most of my podcasts are just me on my own. So I just take out a lot of the bits where I'm going so in last week's episode, I'll say last time or last week, or in this blog I spoke to, so it's just tweaking it, and it mainly is in the voice that I use on the podcast. And also, I also use little audio grammes, the audio grammes are, again a bit of art, usually the cover artwork, or if you've got a guest, you might put their face on the picture and your face on the picture. A little soundbite between 15-45 minute 45 minute, 15 to 45 seconds long, so you can share it everywhere. And what that is, little soundbite and it's captioned, and you usually get a little sound wave going along the bottom, a caption so something that really usefully to be, you know, a nice little soundbite. They're really nice for sharing, they've got some really good shareability. But also, normally there's enough in my episodes that I can get four or five social media posts from them. So the transcription is just, or the podcast and the transcription is the basis for loads of my content, because I'm trying to solve a problem in each episode. So actually I'm there and putting it out on my social media and then you have the silly ones like you know, what's your favourite ice cream when it's hot. 99 or not. But it's just a really good way of getting your social media content, your marketing out there and I have you have to keep talking about your podcasts. You can't just put it out there and think, oh, everyone's just gonna find it by by accident. It's not, that nothing works like that. So I joke, you know, the jokes are the you know, how do you know someone's training for a marathon? Don't worry, they'll tell you. Or how do you know someone does CrossFit? Don't worry, they will tell you. This is both my life again, just know, I've trained for a marathon, and I do CrossFit. So I think I've told you, I also add, how'd you know, someone's got a podcast, don't worry, they'll tell you. That's the attitude you need to have. I have a T shirt that says asked me about my podcast. That's how brazen I am. Put it in your email signature, listen to my podcast here. There's a website that you can sign up to, it's called podfollow.com. And it gives you a universal link to your podcast. So one that takes people to, if they're on an Apple device, it will take them to Apple podcasts. If they're on an Android device, you can decide if you want them to go to Spotify, or if you want them to go to Google or wherever. I mean on the Apple device, you can send them to Spotify as well. You decide where you want them to go. And if they're on desktop, it'll send them to potentially your website. So have that link at the bottom in your email signature. Listen to my episode, listen to my podcast here. And it'll go where they are. You don't have to put like different links down. So make life easy for them. When you're talking about your podcast on social media, use a link like that and make, no one's gonna go, Oh, I'm going to search that pod..., we're all lazy, aren't we? So if you're talking about your podcast, get a link to it as well. So that's what I always say, just talk about it incessantly. Tell people where it is, and talk about it a little bit more again.

That's amazing advice. And I think if you're in those conversations with the right people, the people who need your podcast, you're in the groups already where they're at chatting with them about their problems, then it becomes really natural. I virtually never set out with the idea that I'm going to promote my podcast. But I mean, I know I should. I know I should. I'm saying that with my head in my hand. I know I should be doing that. But I very rarely do. But almost every day, I'm in a Facebook group for psychologists or therapists where somebody will ask something which I've recorded an episode on. And then it just feels really natural to say I've got an episode on this, it might help you. And you just, you're just trying to help those people. And it gets your podcast seen by more people. It's a brilliant byproduct.

And what's brilliant as well as when you get people asking you, y'know those broken record questions. And you know that you're gonna just say, Okay, here's, I've done an episode about this, listen to this. It's just there. And so when you get people like client, potential clients inquiring, it's great, because and then they get to hear your voice. And they'll, and I know we make lots of judgments on voice and appearance, but actually, they're gonna make that judgement anyway. So if they can make that judgement, not on your time, better.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's so much about, you know, when somebody wants to work with a psychologist or a therapist, whether that's one on one, or whether it's, you know, via an online course, even, there has to be a goodness of fit between you and the client. Because there are many, many different ways of doing psychology in therapy with very diverse from each other. The person who would work best with me, wouldn't work particularly well with my friend down the road, who's also amazing, we're both incredible, but for different people. And creating any kind of content, I call it Cornerstone content, that anything like a podcast, or a blog, or a YouTube channel, allows people to see and make an informed choice before they pay you anything about whether you are going to be a good fit for them. And personally, I think a podcast does that the best. But there are you know, any content you create will do that to an extent.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I know there's one way that people can work with you. And because Charlotte is coming into the Do More Than Therapy membership to do a in depth masterclass with us about how to get your podcast up and running and out in the world. So I'm really excited about that. That's coming up in July. But where else can people find you and connect with you?

So obviously, I've got my podcast, Turn Up the Volume on Your Voice, which is out every Friday, you can find that on all the usual platforms. I think that's the way that everyone says. I'm on, I'm most ac... haven't been, I've just moved house, so I'm getting back into actually being active on social media again. So I'm on, I am @CharlotteFosterPodcasts on Instagram, that's where I'm most active on the sort of socials, and LinkedIn as well, where I have you know, quite humbly called myself a Charlotte Foster Podcast Queen. Was born in Royal Berkshire, that's all I'm saying. I was born down a very long road away from Windsor Castle and up another long road away from Catherine, you know, so let's be honest, I'm practically royal. Yeah. So that's the sort of the main sort of socials I'm at. My website is quite easy charlotte-foster.co.uk. And I put the blog and the podcast up there as well. But I love connecting with people and just having just I'd love just hearing about people's podcasts and talking podcasts with people. And I've said do all sorts of things like my podcast planning is my thing. If I can get you from, the masterclass is called from Brainwave to Soundwave. That is just a, because I know there's so many obstacles to start with, because I faced them as well. So it's not, it's just getting you over those. Once you're away, you're away, you can, you know, I know you can all do it, it's just getting you that first sort of hurdle jumped.

Absolutely. Well I'm going to link up to all of that in the show notes so that people can find you nice and easily. Thank you so much for sharing so much value today, I think there's going to be lots of people inspired to go get their phones and socks out. Start recording those first episodes. Thank you, Charlotte.

Thank you.

If this episode has stoked your enthusiasm for doing more than therapy then come over to www.psychologybusinessschool.com and check out the Do More Than Therapy membership. This is our monthly membership that helps you to confidently step out of the therapy room and help more people in creative ways. We've got masterclasses with experts to help you get that book written, to launch that online course, podcast or community project. On top of that we also have a supportive community with weekly coaching calls, monthly peer supervision and a thriving Facebook group. So come over to www.psychologybusinessschool.com and check out the Do More Than Therapy membership.