In this episode, we’re going to talk about the four big, common problems that stops a lot of podcasters from starting a podcast and how you can overcome them. Everyone launching a podcast faces these obstacles, and it’s easy to get round them - you just need to know how.

Maybe you’ll recognise some of these challenges yourself and by sharing them today, we’ll help you to finally overcome them and get your podcast started. I’ll be joined by my special guest, CEO & co-founder of Rebel Base Media, and owner of podcast hosting platform Captivate.fm, Poductivity, Podcast Websites and of course, Podcast Success Academy!

This episode's milestone:

Now we’ve got to our milestone for this episode which is to pick a launch date. Why are we doing this first? What you need is accountability - we need a date to focus on that we can work towards and aim for. So, head to page 3 of your Podcast Accelerator crib sheet, grab a Sharpie and write a date down!

What can you expect from this podcast?

I’m your host, Rachel, Content Executive at Captivate. It’s my job to help podcasters like you start, launch and grow your podcasts using free education and resources.

Over the course of this series, I’ll be joined from time to time by special guest Mark Asquith, CEO and co-creator of Captivate, who'll lend his expertise and advice. Over the next 8 episodes, we’ll be sharing the strategies, mindsets and steps to help you design, build, produce and run a successful, sustainable podcast with zero jargon or guesswork.

Find out just how easy it is to start your own podcast and follow along with us to set up a growth-ready show using the steps we’ll take together. Every episode will feature a podcast launch milestone to work towards so you can build your podcast with us at a pace that suits you.

Listen in and let’s launch a podcast!

How can you get the most out of this podcast? There’s a few ways.

1. Make sure you’ve downloaded your free podcast launch crib sheet. All of the episodes in this podcast mirror the checklist so you can follow along and apply your own ideas as we go. By the end, you’ll have a full, detailed podcast planned out, recorded and ready for launch.
2. Get involved in the Facebook community for live office hours every week. Remember, you're never alone in this process! Join the Podcast Launch Accelerator course to unlock access to our international community of beginner and pro podcasters, as well as live weekly office hours with the Captivate team. Get answers to your questions instantly, as well as vital peer support, feedback and advice from real podcasters like you.

Hello and welcome to how to Start a Podcast, A practical crash course to designing, building and launching your very first podcast from the Captivate team.

I'm your host, Rachel.

I'm content executive at Captivate, and it's my job to help podcasters like you start, launch, grow and market your podcast with free education and resources like this very show.

This is episode one of eight.

What stops you starting your podcast?

In this episode, we're going to talk about the four big common problems that stop a lot of podcasters from starting a podcast and how you can overcome them.

Everyone launching a podcast faces these obstacles and it's easy to get around them.

You just need to know how.

Maybe you'll recognize some of these challenges yourself and by sharing them today, we'll help you finally overcome them and get your podcast started.

Who's we though?

Today I'll be joined by my special guest, Mark Asquith, CEO and co founder of Rebel Based Media and owner of podcast hosting platform Captivate FM Podcast Websites and of course, Podcast Success Academy.

And before we get started in this episode, remember that you can get so much more out of this podcast by joining the Podcast Launch Accelerator course, available now for free@podcastsuccessacademy.com there's over 5 hours of video tutorials that follow the exact same steps as this podcast, so if you ever need more detail or information on a certain topic, you're guaranteed to find it there.

You'll also get instant access to our Crib Sheet, which gives you checklists, prompts, and exercises to help you design your very first podcast confidently.

We'll be referencing the Crib sheet throughout this podcast.

It's totally free and it always will be, so check it out@podcastsuccessacademy.com so Mark, what stops a lot of people from ever starting their podcast?

There are actually four mindset problems that we see a lot, and I know that you work a heck of a lot on the Captivate blog and creating some amazing content to help podcasters once they've got started.

But the issue is that a lot of people simply don't get started because they get sabotaged by their own mindset.

They get sabotaged by what they believe will happen or what they believe they can achieve.

So the four things that stop people from creating their podcasts are the fear of failure, content confusion, tech turmoil, and the overwhelming time trap.

So I know you've done a lot of work on defining what these actual obstacles are, so let's tell the new podcaster what they are and then we'll figure out actually what mindset shifts we need to undertake just to overcome them.

So what, what's the fear of failure focus?

Tell me a little bit about that, because I think I might have struggled with this back in the day, you.

Know, so the fear of failure is kind of focusing so much on failing that you just never start at all.

And it's kind of like an imposter syndrome thing.

So you feel like you're not qualified to talk about what you're talking about.

You feel like no one's going to want to listen to your ideas.

You feel like no one's going to be interested anyway.

And actually, that's not the truth.

And especially in podcasting, where, uh, there are so many different topics, so many different niches that you can focus on, there is going to be someone that wants to listen to your idea, isn't that right?

Well, that's the interesting thing about this fear of failure focus.

And I would suggest that the way to overcome this, and you'll find this as a podcaster when you begin podcasting, that many of these issues are really just about changing how you think about things.

And the fear of failure focus is very easily overcome by simply understanding that you've gotten to the point already where you're willing to put yourself at risk of exposure.

So what I mean by that is that you've already started researching podcasting.

Heck, you're here listening to this podcast about how to start a podcast.

So by virtue of doing that, you already know enough about the thing that you want to talk about, whether it's a hobby, whether it's something professional, you are confident enough to have started researching how to podcast in this specific field.

So really, you already know about that.

You know, there is no reason to feel like you're an imposter or that anyone wants to see you fail because the community, number one, is very, very supportive.

And number two, because you already have gotten to the point of researching, you can be comfortable that you've got enough knowledge in whatever you want to talk about to turn on a microphone and talk about it.

Think about it as just being at an event or a water cooler.

If someone came up to you and said, hey, tell me about what you do, you would be able to reel it off without any problem whatsoever.

So you already have the knowledge.

And I think that's the main mindset shift that you need to understand when it comes to overcoming this fear of failure.

But that then kind of leads into the next issue, I think, which is the content confusion, because it's all right having the confidence to shift your mindset and overcome that imposter syndrome, but what do you talk about?

And I feel like that is the crux of the matter with this content confusion.

So how have we defined that?

Item number two in the blockers list.

Yeah, so what, what should you talk about?

Once you've chosen a topic, what do you talk about?

It's really important to have structure to your podcast episodes, but it's also, it's quite difficult to constantly think of new ideas.

And does it need to be super complex?

Does it need to be super simple?

You can start asking yourselves all questions, but at the end of the day, it's simple really.

As long as you're passionate about the topic that you're going to talk about, it shouldn't really matter, should it?

Well, the content confusion curse is a real, real easy one to overcomplicate because if you, if you focus too much on, like you said, the complexity, what you tend to find is that you end up not doing anything.

Simplicity is always the hardest thing to achieve, but the easiest way to get to an outcome.

Very often people see this word podcast, and you know, you might be sat there listening now, thinking, well, I want to start a podcast and it's got to be world class and it's got to sound professional and it's got to compete with these 500 other podcasts in the space.

Well, the only thing that you need to do to compete with them is to talk passionately about the thing that you love, because there's nothing, there's nothing harder to maintain than faking excitement or authenticity or passion.

So the easiest thing to talk about is always the thing that you're passionate about, because you will be able to continue talking about it, you will want to stay up to date with it, you will want to continually upgrade your knowledge on it, and thus you will just get better and better and better at communicating what it is.

Whereas if you try and overcomplicate it, and even if you get too specific on your niche and you start to get really cute with things just because you want to carve out this extra specific type of content, you won't really find an audience because the big issue will be that you'll have to educate them on what you do.

And I know that the show that we're going to design and build is during this session and during this series is something that we're working on internally.

And I have to keep that simple when we're creating it, because otherwise how can our marketing Possibly convince someone to listen if we can't explain it simply enough.

So that's the key thing to overcome with the content confusion angle is it's a mindset around simplicity.

Talk about the thing that you know and do it in the simplest terms possible.

And you.

You can't go wrong with that one.

And the only other level of complexity then really comes from the technology.

So we.

We called the next one, I think we'd called the Tech Turmoil.

I don't.

We would tell us what's that?

What is that all about?

It sounds cool.

It's got this fancy alliteration, but what the heck is it?

Yeah, Technology Turmoil, that's something that I definitely suffer with myself.

It's all about what kind of microphone you need to use, what kind of recording equipment you need to use, whether to edit.

Do you need to distribute your podcast?

Of course you do.

So it's all about how you get it from your hosting software to Apple to Spotify to Google, how you get it from A to B.

So it can be super complex.

People like to think that it's super complex, but actually it's really, really simple.

It's all about choosing your own recipe.

I always like to say podcast technology is a bit like a Christmas dinner.

You know, everyone's got their own recipe and everyone's is the best and they want you to know about it.

But this technology turmoil is all about choosing the right equipment for you, choosing your microphone, and choosing your basic recipe that you are confident in.

And that's what we're going to be helping you to decide later on in this series.

That's tough because there's so much to do.

And this is the possibly the biggest of the four big blockers when it comes to starting a podcast.

We call this the overwhelming Time trap.

We used to call it just the time trap, but overwhelming seemed more appropriate because it's really interesting to start something fresh.

It's really interesting to start something where you look over the fence.

Maybe you've been inspired by another podcaster or someone has told you that you'd be great at podcasting or that you should be podcasting for your business or for your project, and you think this is fantastic, but you don't really have the time because you can only really do so much.

Just like any hobby, you can only invest one hour a week, two hours a week, five hours per week.

And you get inspired by the people that do this every day.

You get inspired by the people that have teams to help them to podcast.

And suddenly this overwhelm sits upon you and this time trap becomes a very real thing.

You know you want to achieve something, but actually it becomes very difficult to achieve the level that you expect in the two hours per week that you can dedicate to this brand new podcasting thing that you're undertaking.

So the overwhelming time trap is the last of the four big stoppers and my mindset shift recommendation for this.

Just like Rachel mentioned around the technology turmoil, which is just make your decision.

It's the same mindset shift for the overwhelming time trap, which is make your decision on how much time you can spend on this thing per week and don't feel bad about it because it's all about then how you use that time.

We'll help you through that during this course.

And of course using the crib sheet@podcastsuccessacademy.com what we need to be focused on is I have X amount of time per week that I can dedicate to my podcast.

How can I make the best possible version of that podcast for me in that time?

It's not about feeling bad and even not launching because, well, how can I possibly launch something with only two or three hours per week spare?

You can.

You can create really good content and you can grow your podcast.

So we'll show you how to do that later.

But don't let any of those four issues stop you from launching your podcast because we know that we can get you through to that launch.

So Rachel, let's quickly just recap the those then.

So we've got the fear of failure, we've got the content confusion curse, we've got the tech turmoil and the overwhelming time trap.

We cover those in the crib sheet and we cover them over at the course@podcast successacademy.com very quickly.

What, what can we expect from that crib sheet when it comes to helping us through launching our podcast?

What is in that crib sheet just as a reminder for the new podcaster?

So in that crib sheet you're going to find checklists, personal recommendations of equipment and software that you're going to need to use.

You're going to find prompts and outlines to make everything super simple.

You can write it down.

And by the end of the crib sheet, you'll have an oven ready podcast written down.

Concrete.

It's there, it's ready to use.

All you need to do is just pick up the microphone and start recording it.

We've covered the four main podcasting challenges which affect every single podcaster and now we've got to our milestone for this episode, which is to pick a launch date.

And why are we doing this first?

And we do this first because you need accountability.

You need a day that you're comfortable with that is realistic for you to achieve to launch your podcast.

So we need something that we can work towards.

It's all about being concrete and having realistic deadlines.

So our tips for picking a launch date, you shouldn't make the time scale too long and don't make it unattainable for your lifestyle or your schedule.

So, Mark, our launch date is in a few weeks time on April 6th.

And why, why have we chosen that timescale?

It's the start of a new year for many people and certainly here in the UK and in the US when we work with many businesses and many entrepreneurs and many creators, they wrap up their year end on April 5, which is a very weird milestone because it feels like it should be the first of January to do that.

So we chose that day where people can say, look, here's a fresh creator year.

Here's a fresh year for my business, for my project, for even silly things like my taxes, Here's a clean cut.

And we're going to start with this project on April 6th and we're going to get into what this project is.

But rest assured that we are going through this process just like you, you.

So we've set ourselves some accountability, we set ourselves that deadline and on April 6, we will launch a brand new podcast.

Hold on to your chairs, everyone.

So, yeah, April 6th, our podcast is launching.

When is your podcast launching?

It's time to set your launch date.

Remember, it needs to be achievable, realistic, and don't be too hard on yourself.

Okay, so we're armed with our launch date.

We're going to head into the next phase of starting our podcast, which is choosing name, idea and identifying our target listener as well as our podcast notables, the things like cover art, release schedule, things like that.

On the next episode, I'm going to be joined again by Mark, who's going to tell us about his new podcast in and around podcasting.

And if you want more detail or information on any of the podcast launch steps in this podcast, don't forget you can get over five hours of video tutorials, free resources, weekly live coaching, checklists, recommendations, the lot for free@podcastsuccessacademy.com I'll see you in the next episode.