Guest Blog: What I’ve Learnt From Starting A Podcast - Part 1

When Brok first asked me to write about what I’ve learnt through starting “A Beer With” I thought “sure, I can write a few paragraphs.”  Little did I know truly how much I had learnt.  

So instead of one book length blog article we decided it best that I write regularly for Together Agency blog.  

From me you can expect short pieces of advice along with real life examples of how this effected my journey.  If you want me to write more specifically on a topic please reach out by contacting me through any of the A Beer With Social Platforms.

When I started my podcast I was worried.  Worried what people would think, if I was good enough, if people would think I’m a dick & ultimately worried it would be a flop.  

I still have these thoughts to this day. But now I’ve learnt to ignore them and I’ve learnt a lot from starting A Beer With...

Here’s what I’ve learnt so far & believe applies to almost all creative ideas:

PUT IN THE WORK BEFORE YOU START

Before starting ”A beer with” I had never interviewed anyone. I had never been on camera and didn’t know anything about starting a podcast. I basically knew nothing & this made starting a podcast seem daunting.  

I decided if I wanted to have a podcast where I speak to people, then learning more about having good conversational skills was a good place to start.  So I spent time researching about how to have good conversations and how to improve my communication techniques when talking to people.  

This is important in any endeavour. 

It’s perfectly fine not to know how to do whatever you’re trying to achieve.  

Hell we all start there at some point.  But it is important not to blindly start something with zero knowledge.  The key is to identify what the most important things are to learn and start there.  

You can pick up other things along the way (and believe me you will) but figure out what the most important things are and study them relentlessly.  

There is no perfect amount of knowledge you need before starting and thats the hardest thing to figure out because there is definitely a benefit to throwing yourself in the deep end too.  It’s a fine line and no one can really tell you the answer here. 

You’ll have to figure that one out by yourself.

The best part is that you don’t actually need anything to do this.  You don’t have to have any equipment, exposure or opportunities which means anyone can do this.  Then when you are ready to start you will also have some confidence as you’ve done your research. Which will give you some level of knowledge compared to any beginner.  

So before you say I don’t know how to or I can’t, maybe try a quick google search.  

PLAYS OR LISTENS DON’T MATTER, BUT CONSISTENCY AND CONTENT DOES

As the old saying goes build it and they will come.  This is also true for creative ventures.

Whether it’s your music, DJing or any other creative idea the most important thing is to be consistent and build a library of content. After all quality is subjective, but quantity is black and white.

How many times have you heard someone say (including big artists) I love finding music or things people don’t know about yet or an artist that doesn’t have many plays.  People want to feel like they are in the know or have found something special and unique that others haven’t found yet.

Sometimes having low numbers is actually a good thing cause it can make you seem undiscovered or underground.  So don’t let the numbers bring you down, it may end up being the thing that helps you succeed. 

The first episode of my podcast was with my cousins husband and we really didn’t know what we were doing when we recorded it.  We mainly wanted to test out our equipment but I enjoyed our chat and decided to release it and see what happened. 

Initially, it hardly got any plays.  A few friends I showed it to maybe.  Even my family didn’t listen. At the time I was a bit bummed out about that, but now it’s amassed hundreds of plays and it’s still one of my favourite episodes to date.  

What I realised is that sometimes things don’t have to be successful straight away.  Sometimes it just takes a while for people to find you and what you’re doing.  

Now thanks to the power of the internet it will always be available for new people to find you and whatever it is you do. 

Recently I just passed 50 episodes and even though many of my episodes didn’t get many plays to begin with my audience and following has grown a lot.  Now old episodes get plays regularly as people who are new to the podcast go back and listen to past episodes.  

I often get messages from people who have just found the podcast and tell me about how they love that they can go back and there are so many episodes with different guests they can listen to.  

So when you’re first starting out don’t worry or stress about the numbers.  I know we all want everything straight away, but most things don’t work that way.

Thankyou so much to everyone that has read this far and I look forward to sharing more over the coming weeks.

JAI KING KOI - BOI KING KOI - A BEER WITH