Anyone with a microphone and a computer can start a podcast. No kidding. You will never believe how common it is for some of the top podcasters to start on a shoestring budget and yet rock their niche enough to get them to the top. The Essential Oil Revolution is a perfect example of such a show. From humble beginnings, Samantha Lee Wright grew the show into the number one podcast in its category in just a few weeks. Joining Krissy Chin for a chat, Samantha gets you up to speed on the most fundamental things about podcasting. From deciding on a niche and getting found by your audience to creating efficient processes that save time and energy, Samantha covers all the basics to help you start with ease. If you have a podcast or are thinking of starting one, this episode is for YOU!

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Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here: 

How To Start A Podcast On A Shoestring Budget With Samantha Lee Wright

How To Start A Successful Podcast On A Shoestring Budget

It's time to talk about all things podcasting, from how to get started and found by others to having a super-efficient process that eliminates all the time-consuming tasks. If you have a podcast or are thinking of starting one, this episode is for you.

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I have an exciting new guest here. Starting from zero, Samantha Lee Wright analyzed, strategized, and bootstrapped her way into the podcasting frame. With no connections and a shoestring budget, her own podcast The Essential Oil Revolution skyrocketed to success becoming the world's top podcast in its category in a matter of weeks after launching. Samantha Lee Wright is not only the master of her platform but a passionate teacher of the podcasting medium leading the next generation of podcasters into the future with clarity and confidence with her new book, Pineapple Podcasting. Samantha, I'm excited that you're here. Can I call you Sam?

That’s totally fine.

I'm excited that you're here. I'm excited about the topic that we're going to talk about, which is podcasting. We'll dive right in. Share with us a little bit of how you got started in podcasting and why you got started in podcasting?

Thanks for having me here. I'm super excited. You and I could both talk about podcasting all day because it's one of my favorite platforms to share any information with people in the world. As entrepreneurs, we have many options as far as how we can get our voice out there. We've got all the social media platforms, you can make a YouTube channel, or be a blogger. There were many choices. When I was starting my business, I was thinking to myself, “I have so much I want to share with people. How can I do that? What's the best way for me to do that?” I was like, “I don't like being on video. I don't like writing. I love podcasts. I love listening to audio. I love learning through listening.”

That was a natural choice for me and it started from this realization that I couldn't be in more than one place at one time. At that point, I was doing my essential oil business old-school. It’s person-to-person, teaching in a home class here and there, and there were only so many classes or people I could talk to in a day. Podcasting was my way to magnify my message and say, “I want to reach more people with this thing that I'm passionate about.” The Essential Oil Revolution podcast was born and it took off and it's been a blast ever since. We've been running for a few years now.

 Time is flying because it doesn't feel like years. I was there and around. We've known each other for a long time longer than that, but it doesn't seem like it's been years since I heard about you starting the podcast and that whole journey. Time is going by. I love that you’re looking at the things going, “This is what I like. This is what I don't like. I don't like being on video.” Here I am forcing Sam to be on video. She texted me and she was like, “Are we on video or audio?” I was like, “We're on video.” She's like, “Okay,” and now I find out she hates video.

I have to take a shower and put a bra on. This is why I like podcasting with no video.

It's amazing. I've done a podcast episode without a bra. I'm wearing a baggy sweatshirt. No one knows the difference.

It's like, “No one knows if I got PJ's or work pants on right now.”

You pulled in the things that you do like and don't like. You want to reach more people at one time and maximize your efforts. Podcasting seemed to be the right fit. It fits you well and you do interviews on your podcast.

That's another one of my strengths. When you are first getting started as an entrepreneur, you want to play to your strengths. You want to see where do I excel at and where do I not so much excel at? I love asking questions. Me being on this side of the interview is not so much my favorite. I love being on your side where I get to pick someone's brain and draw out those stories and those interesting things that only that person knows. I love it, if you get me a little tipsy at a party and make the mistake of sitting down next to me. I'll be like, “Where are you from? Who was your first love? What was your first job? Tell me about that. Where do you like to vacation?” I love asking questions and that's what I get to do all day on the podcast.

The best strategy to being successful in business is to ask a lot of questions to get a lot of information because then you get to know your audience and what they want. Whether it's in an interview or your nature is to ask questions. I'm sure you learn quickly what your people want to hear and learn about. You set up the interviews and you’re giving them what they want, and more people are excited to listen to what you're talking about. Getting started, did you get a bunch of fancy equipment to get started? Was it a phone and headphones? Tell me about that process of getting started because I know a lot of people and I, for one, dragged my feet on this idea of starting a podcast. I was like, “I'm going to start one.” I kept asking people that I knew that had podcasts, “What microphone are you using?” They're telling me all this fancy equipment for sound and equalizers. I'm overwhelmed and now I'm making excuses on why I can't start because I need all this fancy stuff. How did you start?

I like to keep things simple. In my book, where I'm teaching people how to get started, I specifically wrote it for people who were on a shoestring budget because that's where I was when I first started. We had no extra funds. You know my story. When I first started my business, we’re a family of four. We were on food stamps and government assistance. I had no extra money to be like, “I'll spend $200 on a microphone because I want to start this podcast.” Every dollar counted.

You only need a microphone and a computer to start a podcast. You can figure out the rest along the way.

I bought the ATR 2100, which at the time was a $40 microphone. It was a USB microphone. It was a USB mic plugs directly into your laptop. I was fortunate enough to own a laptop already, so I didn't have to buy that. I bought the $40 microphone and now that podcasting has gotten more popular, that microphone is now $80. I've done a lot of research and there are still some decent $30 and $40 USB mics out there that the sound quality is going to be a little bit less than something like what I have now, which is the HyperX. It's a $160 microphone. It's a little bit better. Honestly, the sound quality difference is not that big.

If you're first getting started, you can see what works for you and you can get a decent mic for about $40. All you need from there is a laptop or a computer. If you have a Mac, then you've already got GarageBand, which is a free audio software that you can edit on. After that, you need a hosting platform, which we were talking about with Krissy and all the options that are out there. There are a lot of options to get started with hosting for free or $5 a month or maybe $15 a month depending on your size. It's sounding complicated now, but it's simple. You only need essentially a microphone, a computer and the rest are figureoutable from there.

With podcasting, I do video because I like to repurpose for YouTube, but you don't have to. You don't have to shower and get all pretty for podcasting, which is sometimes the draw for people. Who should podcast is someone who likes talking. If you don't like talking either by monologue style by yourself teaching through voice, or you don't like interviewing people and talking then podcasting might not be for you. Maybe you should stick to blogging. If you don't mind talking and you have a message to share, and you want to get it out there, podcasting is great.

Every business has a message to share. Even if businesses may focus more on a product or a service, there are ways to turn that core value of what you offer into something that's teachable or entertaining. Not all podcasts have to be strictly educational. They can be entertaining, humorous, or fiction. I love fiction podcasts too and that's one thing I love talking about in my book and in the course, I'm making as we talk a lot about podcasts for entrepreneurs and business owners. If you take a step back and you look at the medium as a whole, it is an extremely creative medium. There are many different types of podcasts out there. You can get weird with it which I like. I encourage people to get a little bit weird with their podcasts. That was one of the biggest pieces of advice that I got when I was first getting started and trying to decide, “I want to start a podcast, what exactly is it going to be about?” I got the advice to niche down and niche down again and again until it hurts. I thought that was interesting advice but in the end, it worked for me.

I forced myself to niche down until it hurt. I not only started a health and wellness podcast, but I also started a health and wellness podcast, solely focused on essential oils. Not only that but focusing mostly on Young Living Essential Oils, which is one brand of essential oil. Making that choice to niche down that far, it hurts. There’s this limiting feeling but as soon as you peel back and realize, “No, this isn't limiting, this is specific. I'm getting specific about who my podcast is for.” Once you do that, you start to learn why people are listening, and it makes every decision that you have to make from that point forward so much easier because you already know who's listening, why they're listening, and what they want from you. For podcasters who are starting out and making their shows a little vaguer, it can be a little harder to make those decisions.

It’s niching down. It was like, “Niche down again, niche down again, niche down again until it hurts.” That's almost true for business and I talked about this in my Build a Blissful Business course. It’s niching down and niching down almost so far that you're talking to one person. Maybe you decide whether or not you need to back it up a little bit. It's so true that whether it's with your brand and your business or your podcast, it provides so much clarity to know exactly who you're talking to. You know your audience and what they want to hear about. It makes it clear on what your episodes are going to be about. Whether it's you by yourself or interviewing someone else and draws in more people. That's probably why your podcast grew so fast and quickly. I don't know how much competition you had, how many other podcasts out there that were in your niche. Do you know when you started?

I could count them on both hands. There weren't a ton of essential oil podcasts out there. Although there's a ton of health and wellness podcasts out there that definitely have the occasional essential oil episode. As far as strictly essential oil podcasts, even to this day, there are maybe a few dozen, but not a ton of competition.

Mine is like podcast for coaches, creatives, and network marketers. I’m amongst a lot of people out there. I certainly found my tribe of people that love coming and listening to these episodes, and are sending their friends but I haven't grown nearly as big as Samantha’s because you've got this niche so that is super helpful. I love that you've given this permission to be weird as you want with your podcast.

Sometimes when people at dinner parties are like, “What do you do?” I'm like, “I have an essential oil podcast.” They give me this look of, “That's cool but that's weird.” I have this feeling when I talk to strangers that's like, “I'm okay if you don't listen to my podcast. It's not for everyone.” I feel super comfortable saying that it's not for everyone. It's for essential oil addicts. That's a small category of people on this planet but it's a big enough category for me to make a huge difference. It's okay to start small. It's so much easier to grow from small to big versus big to small, in my opinion.

For anyone reading this has enough of a message because you are running a business to have a podcast. If you like talking, you can consider podcasting. We know that you only need a microphone because it's audio. We don't care what the image looks like but they have to be able to hear you and hear you clearly. No one wants to listen to an episode where it's crinkly, high volume, low volume. That is the most important but Samantha's already told you that there are affordable microphones out there to get started with your podcast and something to record on. You mentioned a laptop or computer. I do know people that have started a podcast from their phones. You can do it if you're just doing audio. You can even do video on there, but phones these days are good with a pair of headphones. My motto is, “Done is better than perfect.” If all you have is your cell phone and headphones to start your podcast, don't make any other excuses, start with it. They can get better every episode.

It's important because you talk a little bit about starting a podcast from scratch versus you already have a business or a brand and your podcast is meant to be an extension of your brand. That's a little bit different. That's a different approach. If you already have a brand, you already have a following, and people coming to you for advice or for a product or service, then a podcast could be an extension of that. It’s a different way for your people to connect with you. When you're doing it that way, I feel like you have a little bit more license to pick up your phone, plug in your earbuds, and record a video that you would have recorded anyway, maybe for your YouTube channel. You can extract the audio, turn it into a podcast, and tell people, “If you prefer listening, go listen to the podcast.”

That’s one approach that is totally legit and you don't have to do it perfectly. It's just that people are already paying attention. If you're trying to start a podcast that's a new idea, you're trying to build a different kind of following there, then I highly recommend that you prioritize that good sound quality. Two quick pieces of advice I can give for you that I had to learn the hard way starting out was every USB microphone that you're going to plug into your laptop, you're going to be able to change the input setting for that microphone. I didn't know this when I first started. I just plugged it in and hit record. When I started sending it out for editing, I worked with a podcast editor and he was like, “Your input volume is way too high. You're blowing out the microphone.” It was way too loud, so all it took was a click of a button for me to lower that input volume and it sounded so much better.

The other piece of advice is if you are recording interviews with someone, nowadays people record via Zoom, Skype, or somehow online, there's a setting that you can select in your system preferences to record on two different tracks. Your voice is going to be recorded on track one, your guest voice will be recorded on track two so there are these two different audio tracks that you can edit separately and it makes editing so much easier. It makes the whole process so much easier. Let's say I'm talking here and I'm giving brilliant advice. You start having a sneeze attack or something, you can cut out the sneezing part and no one would be the wiser because my voice is being picked up on a separate audio track than yours.

You are the one that introduced me to that and it blew my mind. We were recording something else and something happened. It was my kids but I don't remember. I was like, “I don't want to redo that. That was amazing but my kids are screaming in the background.” You're like, “Are you recording us on two tracks?” I was like, “What is that? Tell me.” You’re like, “It’s a feature on your Zoom.” It’s mind-blown amazing. We got another funny thing that I recorded probably 5 or 6 of my first episodes. I did get a fancy mic that was around $100 to start my podcast. I'm recording my episode and I’m like, “I’ve got a podcast.” I’m feeling super excited recording my either solo or interview episodes. I have this guy on who is amazing. He's a video-audio guy and we get on. He goes, “It doesn't sound like your mic is connected.” I'm like, “Let's troubleshoot this.” It's plugged in but I hadn't gone and selected under the microphone. You can go to select and it says built-in microphone. It was pulling my voice into the computer microphone and I have this fancier microphone setup. That’s another facepalm.

I feel for you. I had a facepalm moment on my show. I've been doing this for a few years and it took me about 1.5 months to figure out. I recorded at least 5 or 6 interviews for my show where my microphone for some reason MacBook did some update where they no longer let you select your input volume. It will automatically adjust your input volume. I'd be talking and all of a sudden, my input volume on my mic would be going up and down and up and down. I didn't realize it for a whole 1.5 months. My assistant who soundchecks the episodes for me is like, “Sam, your voice keeps going loud and low. It’s up and down and up and down.” I was like, “That's weird. I don't know why.” It took me forever to figure it out.

What was the fix?

I had to re-update and restart my computer, and it just fix it. It's the little things. I'm going to guess you didn't go back and re-record those five episodes because done is better than not done.

I was being interviewed and he asked me, “If people want to get started listening to Badass is the New Black podcast, what's your favorite episode? Where should they start?” I was like, “I hate that I'm going to say this but you guys should start at the beginning,” even though those are my worst episodes.

I had to go back through all of my 260 something episodes. I did a project where we had talked about switching over to dynamic advertising, which I don't know if we want to get into that and if that would be helpful for your people. Because of this project, I had to go back and re-listen and re-edit through all of my beginning episodes. It was torture. I was like, “This is your personal hell here when you have to listen to your own voice this many times and listen to yourself years ago when you were such a newbie. You were terrible at interviewing and all these things.”

It was torture, but it was also eye-opening to go like, “It's so true. Don't wait until you're perfect. Do it scared.” It's better to get it done and get started. There's no way you're going to learn this until you do it. Go learn those little things along the way about how to set up that two track recording and how to change your input volume. It's little stuff, and you'll learn along the way but every day that you don't start is a day that you're missing out potentially reaching out to the people that want to hear from you so badly.

Sam and I can both attest to the fact that it's going to suck a little bit when you get started. We will still listen to you if you send it over our way and you will get better. I've gotten better. Sam has gotten better so you will get better. You have to start. What are your thoughts and recommendations? I had one of my students that was like, “We started the podcast.” You are the inspiration from your podcast in starting. They read your book, Pineapple Podcasting. They were seeing visuals. They were like, “I use Samantha's book to get started. We recorded our trailer.” I was like, “A trailer? That sounds fancy.” I don't have a trailer. Do you have a trailer for yours?

I don't have a trailer for mine now. If I had known what I know now, I definitely would have created a trailer in the beginning. I’ll tell you what trailers are amazing for. For those who don't know, trailers are essentially like a movie trailer that you would make but for your podcast. They've replaced what used to be known as episode zero. Episode zero was a thing a few years ago when podcasting was becoming a big thing where the hosts would do episode zero, which would be like, “My name is Sam, and I'm about to start this podcast. Here's a little bit about me and here's what you can expect when you tune in.”

I feel that's a little outdated now. I'm under the impression now that people want to get to the content. They want you to give it to them. Start out with the action. Start out with the best guests and great content. People don't care about who you are yet. You’ve got to earn their trust a little bit, give them some good, valuable content, then you can divulge a little bit more about yourself and why you started the podcasts and all that. What trailers do is essentially make an action trailer for your podcast giving people a little bit of a teaser of what they can expect.

What's great about a trailer is that you can go ahead and set up your podcasts on the technical side. You can go ahead and submit it to iTunes, which takes a couple of weeks sometimes to get approved. You can get everything set up in the background if you've got that trailer up, locked, and loaded. It allows people to go ahead and subscribe to your podcast before you even have an episode. That is the true gold mine in a good trailer. Not only are you piquing people's interest and creating something shareable, but you're creating something that people can go ahead and subscribe to, so when your first episodes become ready to listen to, you've already got a list of people subscribed for when that episode is released. I love trailers and I wish I could go back and make one. I could still make one for my podcast.

I was going to ask, “Should you go back and make trailers for your podcast?”

Maybe I should. That would be fun.

Niche down again and again until it hurts.

It would be fun to create something like a little short snippet. I can say, "Start with the trailer and skip episode one,” which apparently I was supposed to have as episode zero where it’s what is this podcast all about and who am I.

Did I just call you out for and said that it was a bad idea? I'm sorry.

No offense taken. You know me, and if this is your first time reading, you'll get to know me but I'm a “done is better than perfect” girl. I will take action and I'm not afraid to suck and be bad because that's how you get better. No regrets.

That's how we got to where we are. We weren't afraid to suck.

If you're getting started, we already have established that the first one is going to suck but you can create a trailer, which is the cool thing to do now for your podcast. It makes you look and feel more official. What about an intro and an outro? I've changed mine multiple times. Give us your insights since you're the guru here on podcasting intros and outros. Should we have them, shouldn't we have them, should you record your own, should you have someone else introduce you, should you have music or not?

It's hard to answer that question because truly nothing in podcasting is a one size fits all thing. It's going to depend on what show you're going for. For me personally, I love a good intro jingle if it's done well, if it's clever and if it's short, go for it. When I was working with someone and doing some coaching for someone starting a podcast, and their intro was 90 seconds long of just music. I was like, “No one's going to listen to you. They're not going to get past the music to get to the content.” Keep it short. Twenty seconds is a good average to shoot for if you are going to do an intro jingle type of thing. Make it fun, but also make it clear who this podcast is for and get people a little excited about it.

You don't have to have a jingle. If you want to get to the content, that's totally fine as well. I love having a production layout of my show. It makes it fun for me and makes it predictable for myself and my audience. I always start my show out with a quote. I am a quote geek. I love quotes. Any quote, I'll start out with that and then I go into my intro music. I go into a little short and sweet what this podcast is going to be about then I share my favorite essential oil for the week. We pull a recipe out of our DIY dugout, which is recipes that have been submitted all from listeners. It's fun to share that and get some of that listener involvement to my show. We then go into the interview.

Starting out my show, it's usually 3 to 4 minutes long before you get to the interview. For some people, that's too long. I know a lot of my biggest fans are like, “Sam, I skip through to the interview.” That's fine and other people are like, “I love the recipes every week. I love hearing your favorite oil the week.” There's something for everyone. At the end of the day, it depends on the show you're going for. If you're ever asking yourself that question of, “Should I do a jingle? If so, what should it sound like?” Ask yourself. What would my avatar want? Your avatar is who is that ideal listener who's tuning into your show? Who are you trying to reach? What do they want? Those questions aren't always the easiest to answer, but I would encourage you to be creative with it. Listen to what else is possible. Listen to other podcasts and see what you like. I was listening to a show and she shared her favorite bottle of wine from that week at the beginning of the episode like almost every week. I was like, “That's an interesting and clever idea.”

Some podcasts will take a sound bite from that show and that's what they start their episode out with which is fun. It's a little time intensive but it's fun because it a hook that gets people being, “I'm going to learn something amazing in this episode.” You've got a podcast jingle to start you out and you're off and running. Jingles are fun to make and with all the stock audio stuff out there, you're going to have a lot of fun finding a jingle that works for your brand. Make sure that you buy royalty free or you pay for the rights to use that song. Never use a song that you don't own the rights to that's a big no-no.

Besides AudioJungle, are there any others that pop into your head in terms of finding that music?

I use AudioJungle. That's the one that I know the best. I can't think of any other ones off the top of my head.

My intro has changed multiple times and I definitely listened to others. I love that recommendation. Go listen to other podcasts that are maybe similar or that are not, not to necessarily copy them per se, but to see what you like. Do you like that longer intro? What will your avatar like? I've switched up. I had an intro that told what it was about. I listened to Amy Porterfield and I was like, “Hers is definitely in-depth. It tells you exactly who her audience that should be listening.” I modified mine to be like that and send it to my sister. She was like, “It's way too long.” It's 90 seconds and I wanted to skip through the whole thing. I was like, “Thanks for the feedback, Claire.” It was that for a hot second. I've done seasons. Around season three, it’s a new and shorter version of not even going into who. It’s like, “I hope you're here with an open mind. Let's get to learning things by jumping in.” I do have music with it. Maybe one day I'll have someone introduce me but it's me for now. It's easy.

If you want, I have a voiceover guy for mine and I found him on Fiverr so I spent $5 to have someone read my script for my intro and I love it. It's this dude and he sounds professional. I remember when my friends started listening to my show. She was like, “Sam, I didn't know you were getting a professional podcast going. I heard that guy's voice and I was like, ‘Sam's throwing down.’”

Don't wait until you're perfect. Do it scared.

I did mention in my first episode, “One day, I'll probably have some Australian man introduce me to the audience.” I love it. Before, it used to be music, intro, and jump right in. It was a mixture of doing my own episodes and interviews. Season three is all interviews. It’s what you guys are reading now. After Sam and I finished recording, I'm going to take about five minutes, and type up a few sentences of some exciting highlights from this episode. I'll record a little voice clip, not even 30 seconds long, that will then get put at the beginning. It’s enticing.

You mentioned some people will grab an audio clip and put it at the beginning. I'll do a little recap and pull out some exciting things. That goes before my intro now, then it's the intro and we dive in. Also reading reviews from your podcast. Some people do that. They'll start it off by pulling a review, which is a great thing to do. People love getting their names shouted out on podcasts. Letting your audience hear what other people are saying is fun. That is always an option, whether you do it at the beginning, at the end, or whatever. Do you ever do that with yours?

I do it usually at the end if I do it at all. I wish that Apple Podcasts doesn’t let people put their actual names. It's always a username, so I always find myself being, “Whoever Starshine006 is, thanks for this awesome review.” I do that on occasion and it's always a great way to get more reviews. That's the name of the game when it comes to podcasting. If you're trying to get your podcast up higher in the charts and in search results and whatnot. Pretty much the heaviest weighted thing in the algorithm is going to be your ratings and reviews. In getting those reviews you need to ask your listeners to leave those reviews. What I even did when I first launched my podcast is, I incentivize that. I was like, “Leave us a rating and review and you get entered to win.” I forget what I gave away in the beginning but it was lots of fun. It was oily swag prizes and stuff. That helped me get bumped to the top of that search engine for sure.

I'm inviting you guys to all go leave a review on my podcast when you're done.

Click that feedback button. Apple Podcast is always moving things around but it's in there somewhere. It’s not hard to find.

Maybe I'll give you a shout-out on the podcast. The giveaways are a fun idea. How did you contact people? If they can't submit a name, then they get it if they listen and get the shout out like, “I’m Starshine006.”

I did an honor system. What I did was I set up a landing page for the giveaway. It's been so long. I don't remember exactly but it was probably like, “Go to RevolutionOilsPodcast.com/giveaway and you'll find all the instructions there.” The instruction is clearly said, “Go leave a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts and enter your name into this Google form,” or something so I can collect people’s names. It was a little bit of an honor system because I couldn't necessarily check it. I thought, “Maybe I should ask people to screenshot their reviews and upload them to their giveaway.” At the end of the day, the easier you can make things for your listeners, the better off you'll be. I didn't want to make it too complicated so I tried to consolidate it down that way.

That's perfect. These are all such great tips for people that are getting started or if you're like me and you've been at it for three seasons, and you're like, “I need to make some adjustments. I need to make some changes,” it's okay. It's never too late to learn something new, and apply it to what you're doing. There is one topic I want to talk about and that is managing a podcast. This is something I'm excited to talk about because for my first year of the podcast it was a struggle to manage it. I didn't realize how much work podcasting would be on my own doing it. I did get some help with some basic edits from the get-go. The first few episodes I did I was like, “This is taking way too long so I had someone help me a little bit with that.” How do you navigate through managing your podcast?

Especially if you have an interview based podcast that is a separate job in itself, it’s always been on top of setting up those interviews. It's a lot of work too, especially if you do like I do. I have a weekly podcast, so I need a new face. I need someone new to interview every week. That can be a bit of a time burden. In the beginning, when I was first starting out, I was on a shoestring budget and I had no extra cash. The only thing I decided from the beginning I was going to outsource was the sound editing. I knew I did not want to be spending hours and hours on GarageBand.

GarageBand is a basic audio editing software. You can't even do fancy things that I know my editor does with sound volumes, buffering and I don't even know what all the terms are because I never learned it. I decided I was going to outsource it from the beginning. I found someone on Upwork who charged about $30 an episode to edit my show, which was a reasonable rate. Everything else I did myself. I probably worked about 20 to 25 hours a week in the beginning, because I was all so new and I didn't know how to manage and have systems in place.

Once my podcast grew and was profitable, which took about 6 to 8 months before it was paying for itself and some, then I was able to outsource and hire an assistant to take over lining up interviews and things like that. Krissy, I know that you're like the Systems Queen. You have so many strengths. Systems are not so much my strength. I'm a good manager though so once I've outsourced I've been able to manage my people to be like, “Here's what you need to do every time we have an interview.” I know you are the Systems Queen, so I'd rather have you answer this question and tell us your system for podcasting.

Sometimes I create good systems when things break and that's what happened. You said, “I spent 20 to 25 hours on your podcast.” I'm like, “That's the entire time that I have available to work at all on two businesses.”

For the record, I only do about not even five hours a week now.

I do four hours a month to release four episodes that are about 40 minutes.

That's impressive.

That was not me in the beginning. The system broke so my listeners that have been listening for a while know that there was a period of time where I had to stop recording. I do find that a lot of people will start a podcast and it’s like, “I'm going to put out weekly episodes.” All of a sudden, there's not an episode that week, or a month goes by. It’s because it is a lot more work if you're doing everything by yourself. I was never ahead in my podcast. They were releasing on Fridays originally so it would be Tuesday or Wednesday and I didn't have my episode done. I had someone editing and they're like, “I need the episode.” I would record an interview that Monday, and I was supposed to go out that Friday. They would cancel and I was too embarrassed to tell them, “This was my episode this week and now I'm screwed.” I would have to record on my own.

You don’t want to sound desperate and be like, “Are you sure you can't do it tonight?”

It’s okay. “You're not that sick. You'll be fine.” When my dad passed away suddenly, I had to take a step back from some things in my business. You had mentioned before, for some of us, our podcast is an extension of our business. It’s another way for us to connect with people. A lot of people who are reading this out there, that's probably where they're at because they want to do that extension of their business. You have a lot of other things going on. Your podcast can't take up twenty hours a week.

I had to take a break from my podcast, and it was exactly a year into my podcast and I was like, “This is a lot more stressful.” It wasn't as fun as I wanted it to be because I was always racing against the clock. I do like the recording aspect of it but everything else surrounding it was too much. I was like, “The only way I'm going to be able to bring this podcast back is if I create a bulletproof system that removes me from as much as I possibly can, and eliminates me from all of the things that I don't like to do.” That's always my recommendation.

You guys have heard me say it time and time again. The best way to enjoy your work for eternity is to get rid of the things you don't like doing and focus on your zone of genius, the part that you enjoy like sitting here chatting with Sam. I get such an energy rush from it. It excites me. I'm going to be on a high for the rest of the day. That’s all I want to do. I took the time that I had off to set up a system to figure out how I can take these things that happened in the beginning. With interviews, there's a lot that goes into play. Collecting all of the information from the person you're going to interview so you have everything for the show notes and you have the bio for introduction, setting up the time to record. I used to be like, “Let me look at my calendar,” and go back and forth trying to figure out a time that works. That can all be eliminated with automation through having a few things set in place, a form to collect information that automatically sends them to the calendar where they can book with you.

Setting those things up and being able to pull up my notes. My VA has all the training, and it's not that much training, to pull the information from that questionnaire, put it into my notes so I can pull it up five minutes before the episode to review. “This is what we're talking about. Here's the bio, perfect. Let me read through it once. Don't mess it up. Here's the freebie.” We connect about that. Sam and I even did that. It’s like, “Is this the freebie that you still want to offer at the end?” “Yes, check," and we're going to go. As soon as I'm done recording, I'll record that little intro clip that I did before.

I'll put those files in a folder, send a note to my VA, and she can take it from there to put it into the platform that we use. They take care of everything, the editing, the graphics for promotion, marketing stuff, the graphic they'll make for Sam to promote as well to her audience, the audiogram, they'll create the blog post and the show notes and they'll upload it. Everything is done. I'm not joking that I literally show up, record, create a few things within fifteen minutes, and I'm done. That's the only way that this is able to continue to go on.

Nothing in podcasting is a one-size-fits-all thing.

I'll share one difference in my system that some people might appreciate knowing some behind-the-scenes stuff is I always print out my prep sheet. That's what I call it. The sheet that you're probably looking at on your computer that your VA put together that has all my bio and what we're going to talk about, I have her make that into a Word document meant for me. I printed out old school and I've got it sitting on my desk when I’m recording. That way I can make quick time notes. If I feel the interview starts to drag, or more often than not, it's more like I laughed dumb there or my response to their answer was stupid.

I'll jot the timestamp down. It'll say, twelve minutes or whatever. After I'm done recording, in post-production, I can go back. I don't have to listen to the whole episode to be like, “What did I want to fix about this episode?” I wrote it down as we were recording, and it makes the post-production so much easier. That's if you're anal like me. I like to cut out as much fluff as I can. I like to go back and make myself sound smarter than I am sometimes. I'll re-record certain sections and it makes it so much easier to do that. I've done that since the beginning, I could not live without my printed-out prep sheet and pen.

Timestamping, I used to do this. I did not set a timer. I have done this before but I tend to forget. For that time stamping purpose, if there's something that you want to note for the editor, you want to know where. What are you using to keep track to know that timestamp? Are you using your phone with a timer, a stopwatch timer on it, and you hit start when your video starts? What are you doing?

What I do is I record all of my interviews on Skype. I'm a little bit anal about my sound quality. I find that the sound quality recording on Skype is a little bit higher quality than on Zoom. I've got my recorder app that was $60 or $50 one-time purchase to buy this recorder app that lives within Skype. I hit the record button on there and it has a timer built in so I do that. Also, what I've been doing is I record that, but then I also record my own track and voice in GarageBand as I go. That's got a time clock at the top as well. The reason I do that is I get a little bit better sound quality if I record directly into GarageBand. For the Skype part, I take the guests that I'm speaking to. I take their audio and I throw it into GarageBand when I'm done and line up those audio tracks later. I've got two-time clocks going but I tried to hit record on both spots at the same time as best I can, so they're pretty close together.

That's a great tip. That's an awesome tip. I also like to have a pen and paper down on my desk. If the person I'm interviewing is saying something and something pops into my head and I still want to stay focused and listening but I want to circle back to. I'll forget if I don't write it down, so I have to write down two words and try to do it like we do video. I'm looking down. You might see me looking down if you're watching on YouTube. I'm making that little note and then come back. I do think that's a great tip, especially when you're getting started out and getting into the groove of things.

It's never too early to get a good system in place. If I had started with a system, it would have saved me a lot of headaches on that. It's something that I have found to be such a struggle with so many podcasters that I was like, “I have to make my system available.” By the time this airs, I'm super excited that my Scalable Podcast System is available for people to get their hands on. It gives you all the tools and training that you need to set up a flawless system so you can show up, record, and be done. I don't want you doing twenty hours a week on your podcast. Is there any other advice that you want to give for someone who's starting out or someone who's like, “I need some help with my podcast. It is not going as I wanted?”

My piece of advice that I give to all beginners is to prioritize that SEO that Search Engine Optimization over coolness when it comes to what you name your podcast, and your podcast episodes. When you're first starting out, think about who are you trying to reach, what terms and keywords are they going to be searching within their podcast app. As hard as it is to get to the top of the search engines in places like Google, Bing, or those big search engines, it's not that impossible to get to the top of search results within podcast apps.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to reach people who might go on to a podcast app and search the term essential oils. What did I name my podcast? The Essential Oil Revolution. I didn't name it Unicorn Tears, Bottles of Potion Magic, or Sam Loves Oils. I named it the Essential Oil Revolution and that has done more for my success than any other thing. Another example is in my book I talk about my fake student who wants to start a podcast about Scrabble because they love Scrabble, and they're the best at it and they're going to teach everyone how to beat everyone else at Scrabble in a podcast.

I was like, “There are many clever things you can name your podcast. You can name it Title Talk or one of those weird XO words that are in Scrabble. If I were you and I was starting from zero, I would name it The Scrabble Talk podcast or something because you want to have those keywords in your title.” Also, keep that in mind for your first couple of episodes especially. Don't make them clever-sounding. Take advantage of the keywords that you're using to make yourself findable. Once you're more finable, you can get a little more creative and clever with your titles. You can even change your name later if you want to, although I wouldn't recommend it.

That’s something I've talked with someone about, “Should I change my name to this podcast?” It's interesting because many people, when they hear the name Badass is the New Black, they're like, “That sounds so cool. I love that name.” I'm like, “It doesn't describe anything of what we talk about and teach about here.”

It's not doing much for your SEO, but your show is more of an extension of your existing brand. You're driving your own traffic to your show, which is different than someone like me who is so niched and so targeted. I needed people from anywhere in the world to be able to find me. One trick that you might want to think about doing is you've got the name of your show, Badass is the New Black, you can put a little bracket after that, and try to stuff a couple of keywords at the end like network marketing or business strategies with Krissy Chin. You can tack that on to the end of your title in the official Apple Podcasts title section and that could help you a lot.

They used to be able to do a lot of keyword stuffing in Apple Podcasts but they've gotten a little stricter about that. If you submit your name to Apple Podcast and you're doing a ton of keyword stuffing, they might reject you but it's not a big deal. You can just resubmit with a different name. It's not like you're banned from Apple Podcasts forever from keyword stuffing. I always recommend stuffing them in if you can because it could help you. Have your cool name first put a little bracket or a little dash and put your keywords at the end.

It's not a hashtag where you can be like #BadAssIsThNewBlack #Coaching #Marketing #OnlineBusiness #Entrepreneur #EntrepreneurLife and all these 30 things with Krissy Chin. I like that because I wouldn't have to change the logo or anything on that. It's Bad Ass is the New Black but for searchability, that's a great tip and trick to be able to do on the platform, add something like for course creators, membership, entrepreneurs, or whatever, to make it a little bit more specific.

That's why you need to buy this book. It’s got all these easy tips in it.

Is it on audio yet? I have the book. I should have had it in front of me, but I'm an audio girl so I need it on audio.

I'm an audio girl too. This book also has a checklist in it. It's got an action step checklist, places for you to take notes, and links to tutorial videos. I take you behind the scenes of my podcasts through the links. There's even what you call those QR codes for people to be able to scan. I've thought about turning it into an audiobook but there would be a lot of, “For this part of the book, go to this website address to find YouTube video for this.” I'm not sure how that would translate.

It’s fine. I'm going to put in my vote for an audiobook and tell people to buy the book in audio, so you have these things. If they buy the book could they get something automatically where it gives them a list of the websites or something like having the resource page.

It's all figureoutable, but it seems a lot of work. I haven't done it yet.

You're an author, so that’s amazing. You got a book out. I'm not even there yet but working on it, so kudos to you. If and when the audio comes out, you can let me know and I'll be the first to download it.

My identical twin sister is a professional actress, so I've always joked that if we do the audiobook, she'll probably be the one that reads it because it'll sound like me but it'll be way better.

That's amazing. Not everyone has that luxury. I love that you're going to use what you’ve got.

When you have an identical professional actress twin, use it.

This has been enlightening. I've learned so much. I want people to continue to learn from you. You do have a freebie for them. It's How to Pitch Book and Crush Podcast Interviews so that you can share your gifts and connect with your people. You were telling me before we started that even if you don't have a podcast and aren't doing interviews that this is going to be helpful because it will allow you to get on other people's podcasts or teach you how to do that.

You don't have to have your own podcast in order to go on as a guest to someone else's podcast. Being a guest on someone's podcast is one of the best ways to reach new customers because it's a long-form type of medium. If people are tuning into a show, they already know, like and trust that host. The host bringing you onto their platform is essentially transferring that trust automatically onto you. You also get this opportunity to tell your story and share your knowledge and value with those types of people. I have a one hour training and it's completely free. It teaches you how to research the type of podcasts that would be a good fit for you to go on to.

We get clever with these different ways for you to think about how you can package your skillset or your story and pitch it. We teach you how to pitch it to podcasts that are out there. We give an email template for that, a follow-up guide, and then we also give some tips on how to crush that interview. There are definitely things that you do want to do and don't want to do when you go onto someone else's podcast. For example, you always want to end with a freebie so you can allow that relationship to continue with the people that you've shared with. For example, I hope I can continue my relationship with all of you, if you download my freebie that's going to allow me to continue to get to know you and you get to know me. That's how you can take the most advantage of that opportunity of being a guest on someone else's show.

I love that and I'm going to probably have my assistant also do this because I would love her to go pitch me more on other people's podcasts. That's a great way to get more exposure for your podcast if you start one. It's also a perk like you can be on my podcast. I'll be on your podcast. If you don't have one, getting more exposure is essential for your business. I love podcasting. I love the fact that we didn't talk about this but when you create podcasts, people listen to old episodes. We mentioned it, but it's the effort that you put in and people listen and re-listen to things you put out years ago, which is so valuable. We talked about maximizing your efforts. Go download Samantha's freebie. I know she's working on some cool things like the Pineapple Podcast Academy, which is going to launch in 2021. You're definitely going to want to be on her list so you can be in the know with all of the things with that and all of that coming.

The best way to find that freebie is through my Instagram. I've got a Linktree set up for my bio and there's that resource right there. It's called How to Pitch Book and Crush in a Podcast Interview. My Instagram is @SamLeeWright. It'll be there. Also, my website SamanthaLeeWright.com has a resource tab somewhere. I'm sure that you can find it there somewhere as well.

Sam, it's been amazing to have you here. I've been enlightened. I know everyone has gotten some great advice to getting started or revamping their podcast. Thank you so much for spending the time to be with us.

Thank you so much, Krissy. It's been a blast. It's always good to see you and thanks for letting me share.

We'll see everyone later. Bye.

Important Links:

• The Essential Oil Revolution
• Pineapple Podcasting Book
• Free Podcast Workshop - Want to start a Podcast but have no idea where to start? this workshop is for you! 
• Pineapple Podcasting Academy
• The Scalable Podcast System
• YouTube - Badass is the New Black Podcast
• Young Living Essential Oils
• Build a Blissful Business
• Apple Podcasts - The Essential Oil Revolution Podcast
• How to Pitch, Book, and Crush Podcast Interviews
• SamanthaLeeWright.com
• Samantha Lee Wright - Linktree
• Samantha Lee Wright - Facebook
• @SamLeeWright - Instagram

About Samantha Lee Wright

Starting from zero, Samantha Lee Wright analyzed, strategized, and bootstrapped her way into podcasting fame. With no connections and a shoestring budget, her own podcast, The Essential Oil Revolution, skyrocketed to success –– becoming the world’s top podcast in its category in a matter of weeks after launching.

Samantha Lee Wright is not only a master of her platform but a passionate teacher of the podcasting medium; leading the next generation of podcasters into the future with clarity and confidence with her new book Pineapple Podcasting.