Considering the required investment of time and money – and the amount of competition in the marketplace – does it really make sense for an entrepreneur or corporate brand to start a podcast in 2021?
My guest this week, multiple-podcast producer James Hamilton Healy says, “Absolutely – if your objective is to nurture a long-term relationship with your clients and prospects, and position yourself as the one to turn to with questions and problems related to your line of business.”
In this conversation I ask James to share specifics of the benefits of podcast production – including some incredible success stories – and what it really takes to start and consistently produce a professional podcast.
James is a true subject matter expert on this topic so, if you’ve ever dreamed of having a podcast of your own, you don’t want to miss our conversation.
Learn more about James Hamilton Healy and his Podcast Launch Party here: Podcast Launch Party
What follows is a computer-generated transcription of our entire conversation. Please excuse any typos!
My guest today is James Hamilton Healy. James is a publishing consultant and a Podcast Producer in Bozeman, Montana. James, welcome to the program.
James Hamilton Healy
Thanks, Frank, good to be here.
Frank Felker
Very glad to have you, we’re going to talk about a lot of stuff that has to do with why and how to start a podcast. And we’ll get to how, because that’s a little more blocking and tackling and a little more tedious. But let’s start with why. I know you work with a lot of individuals, business owners, coaches and consultants to create a podcast from scratch, takes a lot of time for somebody to do that there’s some money investment, not really that much considering the reach you can get from it.
Why should a business owner or professional, consider investing the time and money into starting their own podcast?
But let’s talk about why. Why should a business owner or professional, consider investing the time and money into starting their own podcast?
James Hamilton Healy
That’s a great question. And there are a lot of reasons why someone might want to start a podcast. Primarily, I work with business owners and professionals who are looking to increase their credibility and their perception of expertise and get their message out there in the in the world, to their ideal audience. And this is kind of the next level beyond and maybe in conjunction with becoming a an author, which has been a long standing way for people to boost their expertise and get their message out there. And now podcasting is the next way to do it. If you were ever introduced as a speaker, a lot of times people will introduce you as the author of such and such book. And now they’re introducing you as the host of such and such podcast. Like he might have been the host of a radio show, back in the day. But now you don’t have to drive over to the radio station and get in the studio, you can do it right from your own home or your office and put together your own on demand radio program, so to speak.
Frank Felker
Well, that that really gave us a great picture, sort of in broad strokes of how it can improve your authority positioning and that type of thing. But I know that you because you’ve worked with so many different businesses and different types of businesses, that you have a number of success stories that you can point to, is there anything you can share with us that without divulging something confidential about a person who came to you You helped them start a podcast. And it turned into you know, a significant revenue increase?
James Hamilton Healy
Sure, sure. Yeah. So the perception of podcasting in the past, of course, was to have a really far reach a big audience, a lot of downloads, a lot of listeners, a, you know, several years ago, that was possible, it’s getting harder and harder. There are over a million podcasts now. And so it’s just harder to generate a big audience right out of the gate, it’s more of a long play. However, if you do focus down and become less of kind of what we would call audience facing, right, where we’re trying to get a big audience, and we’re facing more towards our ideal clients, as our guests and and introducing them to the world as part of our messaging and how we work with people. It can be kind of a brand and business building experience, so that you’re creating relationships with your ideal customers, by having him on your podcast and having these conversations.
Recently, I helped someone launch a podcast and he’s in the marketing space. He has a marketing agency and he focuses on on public safety professionals who have maybe training or products for police officers, FBI agents, that sort of thing. And he helps them market their products. Well, he has a podcast introduces these innovators to his audience, which are people in this space. And within his first three episodes. He had several clients and his clients were his guests who needed help. Right, they’re very well versed in the public safety industry and what those folks need to further their training, or some new innovative product or technique is going to help them do their job better. But they don’t know how to market around. Adam was able to help them by putting together marketing packages after interviewing them on his show. So it’s just creating those relationships. And then now his listeners are also wondering how they can start their own businesses. So it’s kind of a spin off from what he’s done. But
Frank Felker
could you speak to that specific story that you told me about? I don’t remember is yesterday, a couple of days before about the incredible product that a former police officer had invented, who then was interviewed on your clients show, and what happened from there?
James Hamilton Healy
Yes, he had recently I helped him kind of produce his show. So it’s interesting for me to learn about these products to this guy has invented a product called the Grappler, which is basically on the front of a police car, or cruiser or a truck. It can be installed on this bumper, and the Grappler comes down into V and it has like a webbing net on there. And you can pull up behind a fleeing vehicle and shoot this wrap this onto the rear tire. And it wraps around the tire in the axle and it stops the vehicle. And the the person fleeing often doesn’t know what happened. They’re looking at their steering wheel officer walks up, like how did Why did my car stop. It’s proven to be a very effective way to stop a flying car. And it’s very safe. It’s much safer than putting down spike strips. It’s safer for pedestrians, people who might be hurt. And you know, this was just an invention this guy came up with he’s a actually a roofer from Arizona, and he just he used to watch these cop shows on TV and had this idea. And it took them years to put the idea together. And no one would touch it or market it because of liability issues well, own company and Adams helping him market it and he is now providing it to federal agencies, Border Patrol, military and everything else. And basically, they’re saying it’s going to be like the next taser like one of these. So your
Frank Felker
Your client’s revenue model or business model is as a marketing agency. And he specializes in the niche of companies that provide products and services to the public safety, law enforcement industry vertical. And he interviewed this guy who had this incredible Grappler product. And as a result of that going out to his target art, the grapplers target market, the guy received orders, and then the guy is hiring Adam to be his marketing guy. And so everybody benefits, including the audience members who get this great product.
James Hamilton Healy
Yeah, they’re introduced to it. And they’re the ideal customers for the gentleman who has the Grappler product. Yeah, so it’s a win-win. You don’t really need a big audience in that case, right? You just need the ideal audience, as the thing with podcasting is it’s not broadcasting it’s narrow casting. So you can create a message that’s going really directly to your ideal listener and your ideal audience. And that’s usually where we start, when we start putting together a podcast, we start to think about who is our ideal listener? And what how do we want to help them? How do we want to serve them with this podcast?
Another Podcast Success Story
Frank Felker
So let’s, let’s see if you could either reach out to another case study that you have, or here’s what I’m driving at. I’m putting myself in the seat of someone watching or listening right now. And they’re like, well, that story with the Grappler. Sounds great, but I don’t see how that can apply to my company. Can you give us an example of a totally different industry? Who the target audience would be and who the target guests would be? I guess they’re the same thing. But if you could just share, you know, give us a couple more examples so we can sort of triangulate on it?
James Hamilton Healy
Sure, sure. Oh, well, I can give you my own personal example, how I got into the podcasting space perfect. years ago is a kind of by accident, because I was looking for ways to help people in the addiction recovery area, find new ways to deal with their addictions. At that time, and even to this day, still, a lot of folks focus on traditional rehab facilities, or 12 step programs, but that often doesn’t resonate with a lot of people, they’re looking for alternative ways. Maybe they’re more focused on nutrition, or exercise or meditation and yoga. And there are a lot of different ways to help kind of shift your mindset around addiction and move past that. And there’s different ways to help this.
So I was interviewing folks in this field that had alternative methods and ideas, very innovative approaches to dealing with addiction. And so we were serving not just he addiction, the folks who had an addiction, right, finding new ways for them to put something in their toolbox to help them. But we are introducing some of these methods to other professionals in that space is kind of a double edged sword, so to speak. And then through that process, I was able to actually grow my marketing agency, and help some of these, again, these professionals who needed help with their marketing and to this day, I’m still helping one of my first interviewees, you know, like, six years later, and I’ve, you know, I’ve probably, I’ve helped her published two books, she launched her own podcast, she has a, an addiction Academy where she teaches others how to be addiction recovery coaches, and so she reaches a lot of people and helps a lot of people, you know, live longer, so feels good to know, that
Frank Felker
I really like about that story is as the feel good part about it. You help her she helps people out in her audience, and she’s helping you as your client. You know, it’s a win win win. And that’s, that’s really great. I want to tie something in here, which is the fact that you’re a certified story brand consultant. Do I have that right?
James Hamilton Healy
That’s it certified guide,
Frank Felker
They call them guide? Okay. Yeah, that’s right. Just as the story brand has, right, you’re a guide. Yeah, that’s perfect or not? Exactly. Anyway, not everybody’s familiar with the story brand. If you could, if you could just give us a quick synopsis of that. And then also, let’s talk about how the story brand fits in with podcasting.
James Hamilton Healy
Sure, sure. Now, a story brand. Marketing framework was kind of put together by a don Miller. And it’s based on the centuries old story framework that’s often used in writing novels, or movie scripts and that sort of thing. It just really engages a person’s mind in the story, to follow the hero on their journey is a hero’s journey. Well, the marketing framework, it’s usually a lot of businesses might position themselves as the hero they think they’re there to save the day for their customers. Well, the customers are actually the heroes. And the businesses need to position themselves as the guide. thinking, you know, I grew up with Star Wars. The classic example, Luke Skywalker is the hero in the story. And Obi Wan or Yoda is the guide to help Luke who’s got these problems. You know, every story has different problems, to solve his problem to figure out the forest and defeat the bad guy and that sort of thing, you know, Darth Vader, so it’s that story brand in a nutshell is basically helping businesses create the messaging. At that they are the guide in several ways to help the customer be the hero in their own story. Because we’re all living our own story. Every day, when we wake up in the morning, we want to be a hero to our kids to be the best parent, we want to be a hero at work. We need help. Yeah.
Frank Felker
I want to give a quick example. I know you remember this, I had just launched a new version of my website at Digital Media positioning.com. And I mean, it was only up three weeks. And then you introduced me to the story brand idea. And I looked at my website and no question. I positioned myself as the hero on the website. Look at me, here’s what I do. Here’s where I go. And instead, I completely revamped it. And now when you go to the website, what you’ll see is my clients, and how the success is they’re enjoying and the happy times they’re having and everything like that and it’s so much more effective and it’s so much more engaging and enjoyable to do. So I appreciate you bringing that to my attention. Yeah. But with that in mind, how can we stick that? How do we connect that with podcasting?
James Hamilton Healy
Well, we can use that framework, the same story brand framework within our podcast format and structure and how we are presenting our content. Like this is all about content creation, we’re consistently creating content with a podcast, it’s a great way to create content that can be repurposed and used in a lot of different ways, blog posts, social media posts, chapters for books, right, all kinds of different things. But through the story brand framework, we continually day in and day out with those podcast episodes position ourselves as the guy to help the hero solve the problem, and the hero is the listener. Right? So we’re continually doing that in different ways and listening to them asking for their feedback asking for what they need help with, and then how can we either present the material or find someone to interview that can kind of, you know, be a hero, we can kind of ride on, on their expertise and their coattails, too, we, it’s a way to kind of boost your expertise and your credibility by, you know, latching on to someone else’s expertise and credibility by having them in your sphere. So
Frank Felker
yeah, and it’s an interesting thing, because when that guest comes on, they are sort of the hero, who’s now helping the next hero. So they, they’re sort of step a little bit into the role of the guide as well as they share their story. And anyway, it’s a fascinating thing, this story brand created by Donald Miller, and I can’t thank you enough for bringing that to my attention. And I’m sure you and I would both recommend to anybody listening or watching to read the book story brand and then marketing Made Simple the following marketing
James Hamilton Healy
book coming out in January, a business Made Simple. So yeah, business owner, you’ve highly recommended. So
Frank Felker
I like the I just think the titles. Stretch business made simple, but because I like his material so much, I’m definitely going to buy it I.
James Hamilton Healy
Well known he’s the model he used to with the podcast, like they ran and had their podcast going, Donald and his partner there. JJ Peterson, Dr. JJ Peterson. Were running and producing their podcast for a long time before they wrote that book. And so they use the podcast to kind of vet out these ideas. And then the young JJ was actually able to take that framework and get a doctorate out of it, you know, he proved that it works, a framework works so well, you can get a doctorate.
Writing a Book from Podcast Content
Frank Felker
Now, that kind of ties in, I did want to circle back to something you just touched on briefly earlier, which was taking the content from your podcasts and repurposing it in a variety of ways. We can transcribe it into text, you can, etc. There’s so many things, but one of those ways that you mentioned, was using the content from your podcast and doing what they did, which is creating a book, How can somebody do that seems like a real stretch?
James Hamilton Healy
Well, you can each podcast episode can be, you know, like you say it can be transcribed and edited into chapters or micro chapters of a book. Or you can use the ideas that you gain from those podcast episodes, from the feedback you get from your listeners to really hone those ideas into something that can be valuable, and put into a book.
Frank Felker
So you would take like, maybe even like each interview had a certain topic, like my podcast today, the topic is, why and how to create your own podcast to start your own podcast, right? That could be a chapter and then what have you, obviously, you want to have some sort of sequence of ideas that hang together as a thread throughout the story.
James Hamilton Healy
But we show in the catch up, but we’re producing a show and we’re thinking about a season almost, where you can break down the entire year into different themes, right? So you can take each month if you have a podcast episode every week, and you can just it’s a quick way to create your content. Think about this, okay, if we want on this month, we want to talk about email marketing strategies, and we break that strategy into four different topics to talk about. And then each of those topics, maybe we find an expert in that area, someone who’s really good at writing headlines and subject lines, then we have someone who’s really good at call to action, and we interview them, and tie that all in. And then pretty soon, you have a lot of content that you can, like you say, repurpose in different ways. Well, I
Frank Felker
can see what my January is going to look like James. That was a great idea. it very well put Thank you. Now, you know, a lot of people, you know, like, they used to tell me when I was on the radio, they would say, well, it’s a good thing, because you got a face for radio. A lot of people don’t feel comfortable with the way they sound or the way they look. In fact, it’s been my experience, I’ve never met a single person who said, I love the way my voice sounds when it’s recorded. Never, I’ve never heard that. And, you know, and the reason why TV anchors and other people wear so much makeup is to appear natural. Because with the lights and everything else that’s going on, it’s almost impossible to just look the way you do in normal life. What I’m driving at is this, when you’re talking to business owners who were thinking about taking your workshop, the podcast Launch Party, which I definitely want to get to later on, what do you say to them, they’re like, I hate the sound of my voice, or I hate the look of my face, or I need to lose weight or whatever it is, how can you help them get over that?
James Hamilton Healy
Right? You know, that’s funny, the sound of your voice always sounds strange. You hearing it back recorded, but it’s just something you get used to over time. And I think with podcasting, people really enjoy what they’re talking about and who they’re talking to. It’s more like you’re having a conversation at the barbecue, you know that just talking about something that you’d like to share and with someone else who likes to share what they’re talking about, and it just comes naturally. And the thing with audio is that you can hear feelings and sense emotion in audio and audio alone, you don’t need video all the time. You can we can hear people’s feelings, and we can hear when they’re authentic and being true. And if you can do that on a podcast, then you can connect to some listeners, and to some ideal customers and, and others who are going to resonate with you, and then they’re going to trust you. Yeah, that’s a big trust builder.
Frank Felker
That’s certainly something I found is that, because I’m always interviewing somebody about something they’re passionate about. And it’s also something that they are interested in. And it’s also something that they know a lot about. And so they have a lot to say about it, they may start out a little uptight, but once they warm up, it just comes out of them. And so that would be my recommendation is just do it. You know, yeah, it’s just going to have to get over it. And eventually, you will, I just the reason why I brought it up is some for some people, it’s like, this note, no passing go on that. I can’t stand the sound of my voice. I’m not going to do it. And like you, I would encourage them to get over it.
James Hamilton Healy
Yeah, it’s funny. You know, some people often do say, like, I’ve run out of things to say, like, No, you won’t, and you don’t, because if you, if you enjoy what you’re talking about, you can talk about it for hours. Actually, one of the things that’s coming around now is called it’s called podcast storming. Or it’s more of these short form podcasts episodes, because when we know too much about something, we can talk too long about it. And a lot of people aren’t going to listen to a 45 minute episode or, or longer unless it’s really something you you’d love in there are podcasts out there that are hours long stories and that sort of thing. But podcast storming is more of a short form, eight 910 12 minutes, very focused, where someone can really you know, get the message and listen to it quickly and maybe take some action on it and learn something. Just kind of how our, our world is these days, we like things quite short. And we want quick so
Frank Felker
and, you know, as you know, I’m repurposing my full length interviews into something I call the Radio Free Enterprise minute. And those are a lot shorter. The only call to action generally is what I try to do is include one really pithy idea like wow, I hadn’t thought of that. That comes from the guest. And then the only call to action is if you’d like to hear more about her from this guest go to Radio Free Enterprise calm, but I can see that short, you know, what is it like 10 minutes or less?
James Hamilton Healy
Yeah, yeah. Eight, 9, 10 minutes, and it’s perfect. Yeah,
Frank Felker
I don’t have enough time left in my day to come up with a third podcast, but Come up
James Hamilton Healy
idea to from I do a lot of Toastmasters, I’m president of my local club, right, and a lot of those are five to seven minutes or six to eight, we aim for that length. And they have a tend to have a kind of format and a flow. That makes sense. And you open a story loop and then you present and then you close the story loop at the end or something. And you can do that in a quick podcast. And people can listen to it while they’re driving to the grocery store on their way there. They can just quickly catch it. Yeah, that’s great.
Frank Felker
Now, let’s say okay, James, you talked me into it, I’m going to start my own podcast. I’m a local lawyer or chiropractor. I don’t know what. And but now I got to figure out how I’m going to get people to appear on the show with me. How do I persuade people to be my guest?
James Hamilton Healy
You know that getting guests is not too hard, actually. It’s pretty easy when you invite someone onto a podcast or a radio show to get them to say yes, if they’re not too afraid of speaking. If you’re looking to enhance their business, get their message out there, they’ll gladly hop on your show. A lot of times for some local podcast, we don’t do, you don’t even have to do interviews all the time. Again, those short form, podcasts might be a better fit. And you can sit down, we help some people sit down for two hours, you’ll map out like I was saying earlier, map out the content, give them some bullet points, and let them rip for eight or nine minutes. And then go to the next episode in two hours, you can have three months worth of podcast and Wow, it varies. You don’t always have to do interviews and and find people and set up the interviews and do all of that that’s definitely takes a little more time, a little more planning. But we do have processes for batching. So you could set up one day a month where you do your interviews, or two days a month, and get them all done for quite a ways in advance. I have one client she’s months ahead of me with all her podcast interviews, because she’s so good at batching.
Is There Any Downside to Podcasting?
Frank Felker
What about this? We’re just about to wrap up the why you should do a podcast? Is there any real downside to starting a podcast or anything like somebody watching or listening? May, you know have something in the back of their mind like man? I don’t know because of this. I mean, you know, occasionally podcasts will not occasionally, every podcast will cease publication at some point and they call it pod fading. But is there really any downside to that or any downside to starting a podcast?
James Hamilton Healy
No, I haven’t found any yet other than the biggest challenge people find is maintaining that consistency, like you say they might end up with what we call pod fade where after a while, it just becomes less of a priority. It’s harder to keep the consistency and keep it rolling over time. And maybe it shifts and that’s fine. Like you can just start a new podcast or take a break. Or some people will do seasons, or they do you know, several months in a row and then they take a few months off. Mm hmm. So there’s a lot of podcasts that that will do that, too. So there are ways to do that. But the contents there, it’s evergreen, it’s not going away. It’s available for people to find and discover and share much easier and more readily available than books or any other form of media.
Frank Felker
Yeah, I like that. And, you know, I enjoy starting my repurposing journey with video. But it’s it’s not as accessible as audio. He can’t watch the video while you’re driving. You can’t watch it while you’re mowing the yard or, you know, maybe you could while you’re exercising, but audio is so much more accessible. And it’s so more so much more intimate. You know, I’m right inside your head. And as you said, also, we can we sort of paint the picture in our mind of the pictures, if all we have is audio and and we also can tell the sincerity and the passion just by listening. So it is an incredible level of power that you can get with you know, almost no equipment required. And so let’s use that to segue into how to publish a podcast. Well, obviously we’ve got to you know, we got to have a microphone or something. What do I need James? what’s the baseline? least you know, viable equipment we need?
James Hamilton Healy
Yeah, the least viable path. They’re getting your podcast launch on the first Part like I said earlier would be to, to do some planning around it, and figure out really what your theme is, who your ideal audience is, and what you’re going to talk about and make sure it’s something you want to talk about. Because that will help prevent the pod fade right? Like topic and who you’re talking to, you’ll keep going with it, then you know, you’re going to need kind of set up a format for the show your little introduction and outro. And pick maybe picking some music, and that’s, we help people through that kind of, I guess, launch party or talking about because it’s like, so it’s like planning a party, really, when you’re launching your show, you know, in the right music and the venue and your guests. put that all together,
Frank Felker
I get the connection. Yeah, that’s fine.
James Hamilton Healy
And then at a minimum, you’re just going to need a decent microphone at runs probably around $100. Nowadays for a decent USB microphone that you can plug right into your computer. And there are plenty of free software options out there for recording,
Frank Felker
could you just throw out a couple of names.
James Hamilton Healy
If you have a Mac, you got GarageBand people would be able to use and anyone else can get audacity, which is free as a software to add in record. I use Adobe Audition, which is $20 a month 21 or something now. But so if people have that Adobe Creative Suite, subscription, they might have access to that. But there’s a lot of different ways to also record interviews and a lot of those are for Let’s speak to that. That was my next question.
Frank Felker
How do I connect with somebody else? Let’s say I want to, you know, even just audio?
James Hamilton Healy
Sure, yeah, a lot of people are using zoom these days. It’s not the highest quality audio, but it does work. You can tweak the settings and adjustments, record two tracks and this sort of thing to get a little better recording. And they’re getting better with their quality. But there’s some other options. Zen caster is one clean feed is another one. And both of those have free plans that will allow you to record an interview someone else’s audio. Those work good
Frank Felker
night will Skype work for you.
James Hamilton Healy
paperwork. Yeah, you Skype. haven’t used it for several years. But okay,
Frank Felker
so now we record our interview or record our whatever it is like you talked about that pod storming, I like that. And then now, then we have to edit it. And that’s where we use Audacity or audition or the other programs you were talking about. Now, let’s say we have it a nice little bundle. And it’s in this happy little mp3 file. How do we how do we get it out to the world? what’s the next step?
James Hamilton Healy
Yeah, then we’re going to load it up, we’re going to have a podcast, an audio host. So it’s a like a website host, but it’s for your audio files. Your website isn’t going to work. There’s doesn’t the streaming and the bandwidth doesn’t work the same as an audio host. Lipson is popular one, blueberry Buzzsprout. There are many options out there. But it’s a hosting platform. I think Spreaker has a free option that you could get started with us we can we can we can start for free with the audio host. And then you’re going to upload that and it’s you’re going to attach maybe notes and then image and everything. And that creates the ID three tagging on that file. Mm hmm. Right. So when I pull it up on my phone, or my podcast player app, or whatever I’m missing, it’s showing me the artist in the title and the information all that’s attached to the file is a high tech, but then that’s sent out through an RSS feed, really simple syndication to Apple podcasts, to Google podcasts, Stitcher, to Spotify to Amazon. Now everyone, audible podcasts are, are available in a lot of different places. And they’re all just fed through that little RSS feed.
Frank Felker
So just I want to kind of synopsize as we go along. So we recorded we edited the audio, we bundled it up in a nice little mp3. We also attach the images and the text that goes along with it in a information about what season and what episode. There’s other stuff. And clearly, we’re not getting down into the weeds of exactly how you do all of that. But we’re just kind of looking at it from a high level. Then we send the file to our podcast host I really liked the analogy you made that it’s just like a website host except for podcast files and that’s great. That’s exactly correct. And then though in order for it to end up in somebody’s pocket, they have to subscribe. They have to ask to receive that podcast or that mp3 file.
How Can I Promote My Podcast?
Frank Felker
Can you give us some quick thoughts on how to get the message out? And I know we’re not talking about the worldwide audience, but even on a local basis, what’s a good way or to to promote my podcast?
James Hamilton Healy
Sure, definitely. Wherever you are sending out a message in your email signature, on your website, on your social media, just make it known that you have a podcast for people to listen to and put a link to it. Maybe put the different links, you know, the big three or four that people access podcasts, Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, probably the biggest ones that are happening right now make those available, because that might be where someone like you say, they can listen to it without subscribing. They can find it point, right. So they can still listen to it. But if they want to be alerted to when you have a new episodes come out, then they can hit the little subscribe button and they’ll get a little notification or some sort of alert, right, like, you have a new episode out.
Frank Felker
I remember when I first got into podcasting A long time ago, I got pushback from people, when I asked them to subscribe. They said well, how much is a subscription? Great. Yeah, it’s just like, yeah, right? Because they get magazines, you know, back then or what? Right? And anyway, so but most people now understand what that means. Yeah, well, we’ve really gone across a lot of territory. And we’re running short on time. But I want to give you an opportunity, not just you an opportunity, but our audience an opportunity to learn about how you can help. Tell me about your podcast, podcast launch party, and what what it is and how somebody could get involved?
James Hamilton Healy
Sure, yeah, like I mentioned, it’s just a way to help someone launch their podcast, put all the pieces and parts together, the podcast launch party is a group coaching experience, to small group, eight people, at the most we go through a month, five weeks of calls and lessons and homework. And by having a small group like that, basically, I give feedback, you send in audio samples, I listen to them, I can hear a lot of what’s going on with your home studio and that sort of thing. help you pick out, help each other pick out music and create the artwork for the show, and that sort of thing. And it just helps guide people through that process. And then you know, if they get the show launched, and they need help, with further editing and production, we help them find that too. But it’s a way to set up the processes. I think like you mentioned earlier how you know, it’s a big undertaking to put together a podcast and then to keep it going. But if you have systems and processes in place that simplify it, and you don’t overburden yourself with this overwhelming production, then it’s easier to keep it going and keep the pod fade from stopping it, so to speak.
Frank Felker
And so I imagine if they just go to podcast, launch party Calm down, they can just take it from there, they can get more information they can contact you or what have you.
James Hamilton Healy
Yeah, there’ll be some information there on when the next cohort is will be in January. We’re just finished up one last week. So I
Frank Felker
like that approach very much of a small group that cycles over and over again. And I imagine you tell me that people even within the group, maybe help each other and support each other and give each other a little accountability.
James Hamilton Healy
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And we have people attend to all different you know, businesses or industries or focuses, like I said, Adam was one of the students who was in the public safety space. And I had someone recently it was a children’s book author, right. So they their children’s stories to the the children around the world who listened to podcasts, which there are a lot. I never
Frank Felker
thought about that. Kids. Yeah, it’s perfect for kids to listen, because it just takes them away to the storyland. Yeah,
James Hamilton Healy
yeah, they love it. They kids love stories, podcasts. So that’s awesome. It’s a great show. We
Frank Felker
go all the way from the Grappler to Mogilla Gorilla. podcast covers every base. James, you’ve been so generous to share all this information. Really appreciate it. And but is there anything I haven’t asked you or something that’s come to mind that you wanted to share before we go.
James Hamilton Healy
You know, I think the one thing is that everyone has something to share. And that a podcast is a great way to share, whether it’s children’s stories or techniques on how to, you know, approach yoga for addiction, right? There’s just so many different things that so many people know and a podcast is a great way to get that out there. Remember that you don’t need a huge audience. If think about hosting a workshop at your local library in the conference room, and you want to get 20 people in that room. That’s what this is like. But you could do it every week, you could get 20 202,000 people in that room every single week and have a conversation with them in their ears. Like you said, it’s very highly empathetic experience to listen to someone speak to you. And if you go to the podcast, launch party, I’ll have a worksheet on there that we use for planning and kind of brainstorming out your podcast, you can get that and you can just think about it. You know, and start your planning process. And remember, it’s not expensive to start because you can just get a decent microphone and away you go.
Frank Felker
James Hamilton Healy, thank you so much for being with me today.
James Hamilton Healy
Yeah, you bet. Frank. It’s been great chatting with you about podcasting.
Frank Felker
Thanks again to James, and thank you for joining us. Until next time, I’m Frank Felker sand, I’ll see you on the radio.
