Enthusiastically Self-Employed: business tips, marketing tips, and LinkedIn tips for coaches, consultants, speakers, authors & solopreneurs
Starting a Podcast to Build Your Solopreneur Brand with Kendra Corman Ep 102
Jun 12, 2024Season 1Episode 102
Brenda Meller
Embark on a brand-building journey with the unparalleled expertise of Kendra Corman, the mastermind behind the Imperfect Marketing Podcast. As she graces our show with her tactical acumen, solopreneurs everywhere will discover the magnetic pull of podcasting and learn how it can vault them into thought leadership and audience expansion. Kendra's strategies offer a roadmap for personal brand elevation that dovetails perfectly with the demands of solo entrepreneurship.
She illustrates how a well-crafted podcast can outshine the slog of social media growth, offering a beacon of efficient marketing for those charting new waters in self-employment or scaling their solo endeavors.
************************************** My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.
Embark on a brand-building journey with the unparalleled expertise of Kendra Corman, the mastermind behind the Imperfect Marketing Podcast. As she graces our show with her tactical acumen, solopreneurs everywhere will discover the magnetic pull of podcasting and learn how it can vault them into thought leadership and audience expansion. Kendra's strategies offer a roadmap for personal brand elevation that dovetails perfectly with the demands of solo entrepreneurship.
She illustrates how a well-crafted podcast can outshine the slog of social media growth, offering a beacon of efficient marketing for those charting new waters in self-employment or scaling their solo endeavors.
************************************** My name is Brenda Meller. I'm a LinkedIn coach, consultant, speaker, and author. My company is Meller Marketing and I help business professionals get a bigger slice of the LinkedIn pie.
Let's connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/brendameller (click MORE to invite me to connect and mention you listened to my podcast)
Speaker 1:
Today's podcast episode is another feature from my recent Shift Live-a-thon event, and the episode features Kendra Corman.
Speaker 1:
Now, I have to admit I'm a huge fangirl of Kendra Corman.
Speaker 1:
She and I are frequently referring business to each other and reaching out to each other to ask questions and offer advice, and she was one of the first people I thought of adding to my Shift Live-a-thon lineup, which, if you're listening to this podcast on a regular basis, you'll know it's for individuals who are thinking about making the shift from being an employee at a company into being self-employed, or for those who have already made the shift.
Speaker 1:
Now this episode, kendra's going to give you some tips on starting a podcast to build your solopreneur brand, and she's got one of my favorite podcasts to listen to, which is called Imperfect Marketing. Highly recommend giving it a listen, but she's going to give you some advice and perspective to think about if you've been considering starting a podcast, and it really does provide you a way of extending your brand, reaching into new audiences, just demonstrating thought leadership, and so many more benefits. So I do hope that you enjoy the episode and, again, if you'd like to get the video playback, as well as the resources that Kendra mentions, you can go to my website, go to mellormarketingcom. Slash, shift and away we go. I'm podcast episode is another feature from my recent Shift Live-a-thon event.
Speaker 1:
And the episode features.
Speaker 2:
Kendra Corman. Now, I have to admit I'm a huge fan girl of Kendra Corman.
Speaker 1:
She and I are frequently referring business to each other and reaching out to each other to ask questions and offer advice, and she was one of the first people I thought of adding to my shift live again lineup which, if you're, listening to this podcast on a regular basis, you'll know it's for individuals who are thinking about making this shift from being an employee at a company into being self-employed, or for those who have already made the shift.
Speaker 2:
Now this episode.
Speaker 1:
Kendra's going to give you some tips on starting a podcast to build your solopreneur brand, and she's got one of my favorite podcasts to listen to, which is called Imperfect Marketing. Highly recommend giving it a listen, but she's going to give you some advice and perspective to think about if you've been considering starting a podcast. And it really does provide you a way of extending your brand reaching into new audiences demonstrating thought leadership and so many more benefits.
Speaker 1:
So I do hope that you enjoy the episode. And again, if you'd like to get the video playback as well as the resources that Kendra mentions, you can go to my website, go to Mellormarketingcom slash, shift and away we go.
Speaker 2:
Thought leadership and podcasting. I'll tell you right now podcasting is easier than you think and it is something that you can start even before you make the shift. Or if you're like me and you're growing your solopreneur brand and you're working a hundred percent off of referrals, like I was, you can still be building a brand leveraging podcasting, and it is a lot easier than you think. So just a little bit more about me. I am a marketing strategist. I am the host of the Imperfect Marketing Podcast, which can be found anywhere you listen to podcasts and on YouTube. So we've got that. I'm also an author the author of a book called Mastering AI and Communications. There will be a link available for you guys later on for that too, because I am an AI enthusiast and AI makes the whole podcasting process a ton easier and a lot less scary. And, like I said, I've been doing this for more than 10 years, so I have messed up a million and a half times and hopefully I can help people learn things Now. If there's something to do in marketing and advertising, I've probably done it. I've probably done it wrong. I've probably told somebody how to do it right and then not followed my own direction. I get it.
Speaker 2:
Imperfect Marketing is actually my second podcast. My first one was a total failure. I think I released a total of seven episodes. I hated it. I didn't have a plan. I was scared of the tech. I didn't really want to do it. I'm a strong writer, I love writing, which is why I love AI because I can leverage my strong writing and communication skills for it, because I can leverage my strong writing and communication skills for it, but I just didn't have the time to do it. I was too busy working on my business or in my business to be working on my business, and the number one problem I find for solopreneurs is not having enough time to consistently market themselves. I know that I fail this. I fail at this repeatedly, all of the time, regularly, but since I've started Imperfect Marketing, I fail at it a lot less often because it's so much easier to do it. So I want to give you a couple scary notes For company Neil Patel, who's a guy that I follow in the world of SEO and social media.
Speaker 2:
He does a lot of research and he did some research on how brands are growing on social media and how often they have to post Three plus times a day on X If you want to grow on Instagram, you're looking at one to two reels per day. Two to four stories per day. Live once a week no more than one post a day. Linkedin at least one time a day. Or what should say, one time a day If you have to post twice, seven hours of space in between? Tiktok one to two times a day, no less than every other day. Youtube one short per day and one long per day, with five hours in between. That's insane. There's only so many hours in a day, right, and that's where podcasting really comes into play, and so you want an audience, really, no matter what, right, whether you have time to spend on Instagram or not, and even when you quit your job, you can be golden because you can have a fan base that loves you, and podcasts can create that for you.
Speaker 2:
In early 2023, 42% of Americans aged 12 and older listened to a podcast in the last month, 31% in the last week. Podcasting is not oversaturated and it is a great place to build your brand, work out the kinks of what you have to talk about and to share, and it's an amazing tool. Okay, so a lot of people think podcasting requires expensive equipment, technical skills and a radio-perfect voice. No, isn't everything. I know that. But my podcast is the number one source of revenue in my KendraCormancom business Not my full service business, but my digital marketing business. It is the number one source of revenue there. So I think that's important, right. So let's get specific on how podcasting grows your audience before we get into the logistics of how to do it.
Speaker 2:
So Bobby Umar talked about thought leadership. I recommend a podcast, maybe a book if you've got time. My Mastering AI and Communications is what's called a short book. There is a gentleman that specializes in that. If you want his information, I can give it to you. But Brenda has Social Media Pie. Again, this really elevates you as an expert, gives you a lot of credibility. Oh, there's the book. Yeah, where's Social Media Pie, brenda? But what you want to know is it gives you an edge. People feel like they know you when they listen to you, or people are going to know and trust you.
Speaker 2:
Now, consistency is not weekly. Consistency is whatever you define. So for a podcast, you could actually release once every other week, especially if you're starting this on the side. You're going to share your thoughts and, like today, there isn't enough time to cover everything for any of our speakers, right? So you're going to have people sign up for a freebie or additional information that adds value and allows you to communicate with them more.
Speaker 2:
On a side note, I do feel like I give good email, so if you want, you're definitely going to want those, so be sure to get that with some of the stuff that I'm going to direct you to. But you can nurture that relationship then through email, but it still has to be consistent. Consistency is key, and a podcast can really force that consistency and have you showing up, even sometimes when you don't feel like it. Now, for service-based businesses, I recommend weekly emails, bi-monthly at a minimum. But you're sharing value and you're staying top of mind. Now, finally, you can sell to them. So even if you don't have something to sell immediately, that's okay. You can add to it later. Okay, sales is a four-letter word to a lot of people. I get it 100%, but you've been giving them value and then they want to do more with you. Now, if you sign up for my freebie, I do have a low-cost offer I'll share with you. That's my podcast bootcamp.
Speaker 2:
It just started on Thursday. For those of you who are watching the replay. Sorry if it's too late for you, but you'll have plenty of time to catch up and I cover a lot more details. But let's go ahead and get started and talk about what to do next. So everybody's been talking about it.
Speaker 2:
Define your audience, like Laura mentioned, bobby mentioned and everybody else. This is key. So many of us learned this the hard way that we're not available to everyone. That is is definitely important. Decide if you're doing interview episodes, solo shows, a panel show, whatever kind of structure you want. If you're starting out and trying to grow an audience, I recommend interview episodes because your guests will share their interviews on their social media and your exposure will grow. Then you just have to create your name and branding AI is a great tool to help with that and then select recording and publishing tools. That's it. It's not that hard. You just get recording. You don't have to go out and set up a studio. You don't have to rent a studio any of that information. If you're looking for more, I do have a podcast launch checklist for you at KendraCormancom slash shift. If you're looking for resources, again I'm happy to answer those and help out with any of those in any way that I can, just let me know.
Speaker 1:
All right, great, I think we're going to keep this up on screen as we move into audience Q&A. We've got a few minutes on there so you can go to KendraCormancom slash shift and that's where we can get the resources. Is that right, Kendra?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, you can get a whole podcast launch checklist. That'll give you a bunch of information. I have a couple of other links that'll be available to you in the recap that Brenda sends out with my AI book if you're interested in a free electronic copy of it, and so that should hopefully help you get going.
Speaker 1:
All right, great, and I see a comment coming in. I'm gonna bring it up on screen from Laura. Thanks so much for joining us, laura. I don't need a studio to record a podcast, and I asked you this question recently. We were talking. I said you must be like a podcast studio because your podcasts are such high quality, but you're not in a studio. You're using your office right, with just a really good microphone. Is that right?
Speaker 2:
It's not. It's a $49 microphone off of Amazon. It's not that expensive. You want to be in some place that has carpet, so bathroom probably the worst place you can record a podcast in. I have really just the podcast and then built-in AI tools that help balance the audio, which is really helpful. So the smaller the room the better. I know people that record in closets in their car. They use the headphones and microphone that comes with their iPhone. Like it's not that complicated. So Eduardo is asking what recording tools do you recommend? Youtube and Spotify, so I recommend recording.
Speaker 2:
I record in riversidefm. I love it, love it, love it. However, you can record in StreamYard, which is what we're using today. You can record in Zoom, the only thing that I recommend, depending on what you're using, because I'm a big fan of on a budget. So record, use what you have and when you're using what you have, just set them up so that they're recording on separate audio tracks. That way if your phone rings you can take it out of the audio and keep up your quality. But outside of that, I love Riversidefm because it does record video and audio. It's got backups, it records high quality on people's computer and then syncs it to the cloud so I get high definition video and audio recordings and then I recommend using and posting it everywhere. So, yes, youtube, because YouTube just replaced Google Podcasts. You want to be on iTunes, spotify, iheartradio all of them anywhere people could potentially listen and it doesn't take any more work to do that.
Speaker 1:
I love it and I want to hold this up in larger view so you can all see this Time-saving strategies for mastering AI and communications. I read this in two nights. I couldn't read it in one night because it's a fairly thin book. It's a shook. It's a short book and I highly recommend following up with Kendra if you're interested in learning more about AI and how to use it effectively for communications. Kendra, this has been such a great conversation and I want to thank you so much for joining and I'll move you back to the audience if that's okay, and that way, you can see if there's any questions we didn't get to.
