Anyone can podcast. Hear me out.
Last week, I talked to Zachary Babcock, from Underdog Empowerment. This guy has done a lot to build his own brand and his own business and to help underdog entrepreneurs launch, grow and monetize their businesses and their personal brands.
Zach is an authentic, genuine guy whose personal story really stood out and resonated. He turned his life around after spending five years in prison and came out of that with a new drive, a new passion to really do something different.
After building his brand, he’s now rubbing elbows with multimillionaires and building an amazing coaching program.
That really got me thinking, and it especially aligned with what I’m trying to do with this podcasting program. And something that came up while we were talking was this idea that anyone can podcast. I’m not special. Follow this train of thought with me. I think:
- Podcasting is the kind of thing every single person could benefit from and get value from in terms of personal branding.
- Personal branding is the No. 1 thing you can do or your career for your life, for your business.
- The best way to build a personal brand start is by building a podcast.
Why podcasting?
I know a lot of people might disagree with that and say, “Wait, what about Instagram?” Or Facebook or YouTube or whatever it is.
For me, podcasting is the lowest barrier to entry. It takes the least amount of work. You don’t need to have camera skills or have great lighting and worry about video editing. Podcasters don’t have to know how to write a blog. You just have to talk. You have to be able to have conversations.
These are the kinds of things we’ve been doing our entire lives. Generation after generation, stories and communication have been the foundation of our existence.
To me, this is the easiest and fastest way to build your brand.
So. Anyone can podcast. What that means to me is not just that everyone can podcast — it’s that a podcaster can be anyone. It’s like the movie “Ratatouille,” where they say everyone can cook, but really it’s that a cook can be everyone.
I like that idea. It’s sweet, and there’s something inspiring about it. I think everyone should be out there figuring out how to find their voice, and podcasting is a great way to do that.
Zach’s take
So, I asked Zach if anyone can podcast, and the answer I got surprised me. And I liked that — I like getting different perspectives and getting to hear other people’s opinions on these types of questions.
Here’s what he said:
“Most of the fake entrepreneurs would answer that question like, “Yeah, man. Anybody could do a podcast,’ because they want you to go get a podcast, obviously.
“Here’s the deal.
“If you don’t want it bad enough, if you’re afraid of sucking it first, then podcasting is not for you. Because more than likely, you’re going to suck at first, when you first start podcasting.
“Just think about, about it, man. This goes for anything in life. This is how human beings work. When you come out of the womb, you can’t walk right away. You just can’t. You’re trying to figure it out. But you don’t give up right away. You’re like, ‘Oh, I can’t walk. I fell down twice,’ you know? ‘I’m not going to do this anymore.’
“You just keep falling over and over and over again. And eventually you just practice a skill so much to where you can start walking. You might look a little bit like Bambi the deer or whatnot, but eventually you keep walking and you get really good at it to where you could start walking and chewing bubblegum at the same time, without even thinking about it.
“It’s the same thing with podcasts. And it’s the same thing with reading a book, learning to read. It’s the same thing with getting on stage and speaking: You’re going to suck at first, but if you want it bad enough and you’re not afraid to suck, then yeah. It’s for you.”
Not anyone can podcast?
As you could probably see, this is not the answer I was expecting, and that’s a good thing for me. I like hearing those different perspectives, and I liked that he elaborated and gave the reason why he doesn’t think anyone can be a podcaster.
He also started with something that was jarring to me, which was that fake entrepreneurs will tell you that yeah, everyone can podcast. I think that came from this idea that a lot of people are trying to sell you something.
It made me think, do I truly believe that anyone can podcast? Or is that just me making up a story because I’m trying to sell podcast coaching?
But I truly do believe anyone can be a podcaster. I’ve benefited so much from it that I want other people to see it as an avenue for them. Podcasting is for anyone out there who’s figuring out how to grow their perspective, become relevant or build their reputation.
When I actually dug into what Zach was really saying, he prefaced it not by saying anyone couldn’t be a podcaster, but that you have to have a certain mindset and a certain mentality.
I liked that. He says you have to want it bad enough, because it’s going to be hard. Because you do suck at first. And if you don’t want to actually go through the hard times, then it’s not something you’re going to stick with because it’s not easy. And I agree with that.
Embrace the podcast challenge
What I don’t exactly agree with is that if you don’t want it, you shouldn’t do it. For me, if something is actually challenging me and I want the benefit of that thing, then I need to face those challenges head on.
You’ll never grow if you don’t face those challenges. Maybe if you’re not the kind of person who wants to face those challenges, this isn’t for you, but I’d also disagree with that. I think that as a mentor, as someone who’s coaching, I need to find a way to make this as easy to access as possible for you so that you remove your excuses and get started.
Because once you get started and take those first steps, it actually becomes easier.
Action brings familiarity
I came across a funny analogy about going to the gym. No one likes to go to the gym at first. And there are people who say, you know, “I’m not a gym type of person.”
The funny thing is, if you just start going to the gym on Monday, then maybe next week you go on Monday and Wednesday, and you go a couple of days a week consistently. Now that you are actually taking the action of going to the gym, you start to become a gym person because that’s actually what you are doing.
It’s in the action taking that we actually define what kind of people we are. It’s not the definitions that define us but the actual action. So for me, if I can get you to start podcasting — even to do one recording of yourself that you don’t publish — that’s one step toward figuring out what you like to talk about. Then you record one week, and then another, and then another, and you start to get used to this idea of podcasting.
Eventually, I think anyone can be a podcaster, and I can remove some of that fear and anxiety. I can’t remove everything that’s going to be hard about this, but I can get you started so that you can see the benefit of podcasting and realize it’s something that can help you grow.
Building your community
The next thing Zach and I talked about that I want to share with you guys is the question of how to build community around your personal brand.
For me, the reason I’m out there giving perspective is because I want to build a reputation, and that reputation then contributes to growing a community of people. Generating that network and those relationships with new people helps grow a brand because it’s not just you in a room by yourself. You want to have people around you who help you, and you help them.
So I asked Zach for his input. Here’s what he said:
“You can’t just create any customer avatar and be the ideal for that customer avatar, because it could be something that doesn’t align with who you really are.
“And then if you’re trying to be that ideal customer avatar, it’s going to get exposed. People are going to see right through it. So if you’re being a personal brand, you have to be speaking to who you were yesterday and who you can help out and who’s going through the same journey as you, and who thinks like you and has the same problems that you had.
“That’s really all I do. When I started doing that, this was a game-changer because after you get clear on who it is that you serve, then the offers become easy because you know what they want and you know how to talk to them.
“And all the content becomes easy because you know what kind of content they’re interested in and that would help them. So just really getting clear on that will go a long way.”
Who is your customer?
So listening to that, how do you even know who your people are or who your avatar is? And “avatar” is just a fancy word for who your customer is and the details and characteristics about them.
Zach says you can’t pick something that doesn’t align with who you are because people will see right through it, and that makes me think back to my struggles starting a business.
When I first ventured out into working for myself and leaving the corporate life, I did have trouble figuring out what I was going to do. I started to try something, and then I realized I didn’t like doing it, and I tried something else, and I didn’t like doing that.
The struggle was, I felt like, “I have this expertise. I have this skill that I’ve learned in marketing. I want to share that with other people. How do I do that?”
But, the people I was deciding to work with were not the people for me. They were not necessarily people who were struggling with the same things I was struggling with.
I wasn’t an entrepreneur. So if I want to help other entrepreneurs, there’s value I can add, but I can’t do it from the perspective of being an entrepreneur.
It was tough to figure out: “If I’m not going to find a way to connect what I’ve been learning and what I’ve learned in advertising with the people that I’m trying to serve, what do I do to build this business? If those aren’t the right people for me and they see it and I see it, then what, what do I do next?”
Who were you yesterday?
Zach mentioned that you need to be speaking to who you were yesterday, who you can help. Now that’s something that really works for me.
I used to be in corporate, so I tried to figure out, am I speaking to the people in corporate and saying, “Here’s how you do a good job in corporate?” No, because I’m not in that space anymore.
However, as someone who was trying to leave corporate and become an entrepreneur, I actually found something that I was passionate about in that shift, in that change from corporate to entrepreneur. That was really important to me in terms of finding my perspective, finding relevance and building reputation outside of a resume.
That was super important for me, and I know it’s important for other people.
I’ve had this consistent theme around how to find your voice, and now that I look at it from this perspective, it starts to become clearer who I can help and where I should be spending my time.
Zach concluded with that statement that when you know who you serve, the offers and content get easy. I’ll tell you, at the beginning, the hardest thing I had trouble with was the offers, figuring out what to help people with.
Build around the right customer
I’d have accountability meetings with different group members in this mastermind group I was in. We’d share our business problems together, and I don’t know how many weeks in a row I would say, “I’m having trouble figuring out what my product is, what it is that I want to tell people. How do I want to serve them? I know what I’m good at, but I’m having trouble actually crafting a product.”
When I look back on this from that perspective of “When you know who you serve, the offers come easy,” it starts to enlighten what I was going through. I didn’t know who was the right person for me to serve, so the products I was coming up with were for the wrong people and did not fit what I was trying to accomplish.
In trying to find products that I could actually stand behind and be confident in, I really had to understand who I was serving better. By looking at that person who was me a year ago, I really started to see that clarity and get excited about this idea of building personal brands, helping people build podcasts and using that marketing knowledge to invest in people finding their perspective and building their reputation.
Anyone can podcast. Will you?
Those quotes from Zach really stood out to me and spoke to exactly what I’ve been going through and what a journey I’ve been on. I hope some of you are on that same journey and are ready to take that step to find your perspective and build your brand.
I do believe anyone can podcast. And it’s up to us as leaders to remove those barriers for you to have the confidence to take that step.
I also believe we should do things that are hard to grow and challenge ourselves. Otherwise, we’re going to feel like we’re in that rut, and we’re going to get bored and feel like we’re not experiencing growth in our life.
So do the things that are hard, think about who you were yesterday and know who you serve.
Those things coming into alignment have really helped me find some clarity.
TAKE THE PODLIFE CHALLENGE
Anyone can podcast, and the Podlife Challenge can help get you there. This 30-day DIY podcasting challenge will help you get started with ease. You’ll get all my tips and tricks and the support of my community backing you up. By the end of the 30 days, you feel confident enough to do this and really build something for your brand.