#24 Five Surprises From Becoming A Podcasting Badass

In today’s episode, Steve shares the unexpected ways podcasting can transform you into a total badass. He dives into the personal and professional growth he experienced through his podcasting journey, from speaking confidently to becoming a marketing wizard. Whether you’re an experienced podcaster or someone just considering starting, Steve's insights show how podcasting can help you improve in five key areas.

Key Takeaways:

• Speaking Confidently: Steve talks about going from hating the sound of his own voice to becoming a more confident speaker and interviewer. Learn how reducing filler words and improving storytelling makes you a better podcaster and communicator in everyday life.
• Graphic Design & Branding: Podcasting forced Steve to become skilled at creating graphics and branding content. He shares how he went from someone who thought he wasn’t creative to designing quick and effective graphics on the fly, all while learning to confidently promote his work.
• Sales & Marketing: With a decade of sales experience, Steve explains how podcasting took his skills to the next level. He offers tips on how to effectively grow your show through sales and marketing, and why this skill set is critical to podcasting success.
• Social Media Content: Podcasting solves the eternal "What do I post?" question for social media content creators. Steve shares strategies for repurposing podcast episodes into engaging social media content using tools like Opus Clip to easily create reels and graphics.
• Life Satisfaction: Beyond business, Steve reflects on how podcasting has improved his overall happiness. He shares how it has changed his confidence, mindset, and personal branding, and how his Wheel of Life scores have skyrocketed since podcasting full-time.

What's Next?

Visit www.sobersteve.com for more information on Steve’s Podcast Launch Program and his Branding and Business Bootcamp for Badasses suffering from PodPhobia.

I mentioned turning episodes into reels using Opus Clip, so here's a special link to get you started with free premium features!

Transcript

Steve: 0:01

Hey there. Podcasting bad-ass is it's your host sober Steve, the podcast guy. And today we are going to be talking about how podcasting can turn you into a bad-ass in more ways than you would ever have imagined when you start this podcasting journey. That was definitely my experience. And even my clients who I tell before I start working with them, you'll be surprised and amazed by the trickle of what podcasting can do for you and your life and your business. And they're still always surprised. So I figured well dedicate full episode to just five of the main areas of my life. In ways that things have improved since adding podcasting to a part of my routine and a part of my life and a part of my story of who I am as a person being a podcaster. My inspiration for this has been, I had been helping coach people for almost a year now on how to launch and grow and build successful and monetize podcasts. But I do a lot of in-person networking as well as virtual networking, where I run into people who aren't interested in podcasting, whether they are shy, they're worried about fears of perception, whether they're just not interested in, it's not for them, whatever reason, not everyone is meant to be a podcast or not. Everyone should. Be a podcaster. And so this is probably for the best in the long run, but it has always been hard for me as someone who loves helping people to not be able to help these business owners and entrepreneurs who are coming to me saying. Hey, I love your podcast and I love the way that you brand yourself and the social media content you post in the graphics you can create. Like how can you help me? And I haven't really had an option for them if they weren't making a podcast. And so I now am doing my business and branding bootcamp to be able to help people applying all the tips and tricks and tools that I learned over the years of being a podcaster, as well as a successful sales and marketer. Before I was able to just transition to doing this full time into a two month program to help you double your results, whether that is doubling your results for podcasting or for sales and marketing or for business development, whatever your goals are. I can help you with this bootcamp. And so these are kind of ways that you can expect to grow. Not only through starting a podcasting journey, but by going through a bootcamp with me like this. The first is my ability to speak confidently. Even now I'll have my flubs and issues when I record where I'll have to edit out in the turn of phrase that wasn't in the right spot. But for the most part from the first time that I would have recorded an episode and it would take me hours to edited afterwards because of the number of. Ums and UHS and butts, I would say, or the word stumbles I would have or full conversations that weren't able to be edited in a way that made sense, because it was just me giving word vomit because I was nervous about what I would say. All those things are natural and happen at first and they get better over time. And that's why it helps having someone like a coach or a mentor or peers, even that are. Also going through what you're going through, that you can talk through and work through it because that was mostly an internal thing. But it's also something that I know that everyone deals with. I am not unique in my experience that I used to hate my voice. I talk with people every day about podcasting and that's. One of the big reasons they don't want to podcast is they're like, I hate my voice. I couldn't listen to my voice. I talked to even podcasters who say they don't listen to their show. Because they hate their voice and they never had to really listen to their voice because they hired an editor to edit their show. And so they record, but they don't listen to their show. I always recommend any podcast or listen to their show so that you can evaluate how you did and how it turned out and how you can grow. But for people who don't like hearing their voice, that's a very common experience for a lot of people in and out of podcasting. But the beauty of being a podcasting bad-ass and doing this for a hundreds of episodes and listening to my content. I've not only been more confident in the way that I speak, but I've also been able to feel really confident and comfortable. With interviewing people asking questions when I'm in conversations with people on an everyday basis. When I do get into storyteller mode and I'm telling a story it's more thorough and engaging, and I can tell it with a beginning, middle and an end, rather than like amaze of thoughts that you can hopefully jumble all together. It's helped my confidence. As well as how I speak the actual, how I've become a better public speaker. And a better listener and a better person to. Talk to in general, thanks to podcasting. And so a lot of that has come with just the confidence and clarity of my message. Which is something that I always really work on with my clients, because if you're able to really know who it is that you're specifically talking to, rather than everybody, but like to know who your ideal listeners are, your ideal clients, your ideal target audiences, knowing who you're talking to, what they need to know, how they want that information delivered, all that type of information that I go over and learn and review with my clients helps them so that they know very confidently when they were behind the microphone or up on. Onstage or at that networking meeting, when they're talking about their business or their brand, they're able to do it with that level of confidence. And so that is. Huge and a gift of podcasting that I can now help pay forward to other people. And it's beautiful. Speaking of beautiful. I've also become pretty dang good at making graphics. I am by no means a graphic artists where I would put that on my resume as one of my main core skills, but I can whip out a flyer or a graphic quick enough that people think that I am a wizard or a witch because I'm very quick on Canva. And that happens after you're making one or two graphics for whether it's podcast cover art or social media content. Or fliers or, all the different projects that I've had reasons to create rather than going out and outsourcing every single graphic that I make. I learned how to do a good enough job good enough job. Day after day, year after year got better. And as I've gotten better at it, also, the programs have gotten better with what they can offer. And it's created this great ability now where. I am in B to B plus graphic artists. Which for someone who was colorblind and considered not artistic as a child, because I wasn't great at like traditional arts and crafts at the time. It's wild now to consider myself a creative person who can think of something and create it visually using programs. But it's a gift of podcasting that I never would have pushed myself for force myself to learn otherwise. And it's something that my clients always love when they're able to realize that it's not that scary after all. You just need to know a couple of tips and tricks and have someone walk you. Through the process, a few times of creating your own logos and your own branding, and you're on social media content and you realize it's not that scary and you could do it yourself because you're a bad-ass. It's great. And similarly as I'm building these. Posts and content. And as I'm getting familiar with. Graphic design. I also get really comfortable with what my branding is. Not only professionally. Learning how to talk about my work and what I do to who I'm talking to. But also personally, my branding I've learned. How to talk about who I am and what I do outside of work as well in a way that I can adjust who I'm talking to when I need to. But I know that if I'm talking to. A specific target audience, like my gay, a sober podcast listeners. I'm going to be sharing different parts of myself and my life and my insights and my expertise than I would talking to you all about podcasting and business and networking and growing and branding. It is two different target audiences, both of which are my people. I love both great, but because I know of my branding personally and how it works with the two different parts of myself, or there's multiple different parts of myself, but being able to know who I am and where I am and who I'm talking to is really helped me be able to work on. Being able to help other people with their branding as well, because when you know it all, it makes you feel more confident. It leaves you feeling more comfortable in your everyday life and it's beautiful and it's from the power of podcasting. Also sales and marketing is a huge benefit when you start podcasting, because if you're not comfortable with sales and marketing, when you start, you have to learn real quickly. If you're going to be able to grow, because whether you call it something else at the end of the day, if you are posting regular content on social media and going to events and hitting up contacts in your phone and on your social media platforms, telling people to check out your podcast. And sharing your show and posting about it and local groups, whatever you're doing to talk about your show. Cause hopefully you're not just recording an episode, heading, published and hoping the world finds it magically because that would be ridiculous. You're going out there and you're trying to get people to listen to your show and then that's sales and marketing. That's what it is your show is your product and you are marketing it, whether you believe that or not. And sometimes that belief causes paralysis and people who aren't comfortable with selling people have all these rules about I can't sell this or my product doesn't have this value. Whether that value is monetary. When you're talking about the business or the product you're offering, or even sometimes the value of the time, I've had people saying, that person's too busy to listen. To my show, but that's why I work with my clients. I'm making sure that when you're talking about your show and who it's for, you also know when you meet these people out there that are your perfect podcasting people or your perfect business, people that you're able to know what it is that you want to say to them and what they need to hear and make sure that all jives and matches up that sales and marketing 1 0 1. And I feel like that's a huge part of why people fail so quickly when they don't see the results. They want is because they don't have the sales and marketing background. And that's something that I've been able to help mitigate with my clients is if they don't have the training, give them the training. And if they do work on the mindset, then to prepare them for how podcasting is different than regular business in branding. But either way, the longer that you are podcasting, you become a sales and marketing bad-ass and just as much as you become a podcasting bad-ass I can promise you that. In addition to that, you can not forget one of the huge draws for a lot of people about the power of podcasting is that when you do podcasting you are also taking care of your social media content pretty much forever. Sure you can post other stuff if you want to. But when you are having your content release cycle of knowing that when your episodes come out, timing your content on social media, permanent the episode, whether it's over. 72 hours or whether it's over a week or seven days, or however you break up your marketing cycle of posting social media content. Your podcast can be turned into reels directly. There are amazing programs like Opus clip. That I will post an affiliate link for if you can get to check it out, but they will turn your podcasting videos and your video interviews and anything like that into these amazing reels that you can auto schedule and post online. And it is. Beautiful. And in addition to that, you can whip up a couple of static images to announce the episode release. You throw together a couple of carousels about takeaways or lessons learned. There's a whole method to madness that you're going to find and make your own because you are your own social media bad-ass, but in terms of what do I post, how do I create it? All of those answers are answered for you, baby. This moment you decide to become a podcasting bad-ass you just have to know. And make what that plan is and do it week after week and grow week after week. It's awesome. And it's the power of podcasting that your social media content then takes care of itself. And I can not after stressing for so much of this episode, how much it can help your business in your brand grow. The Le I want to wrap up by saying that my overall life satisfaction, since podcasting has been the biggest benefit and turned me into the biggest bad-ass. In a way that I never thought that I would be able to before. I was one of those kids that, you know, and ADHD and I was talkative and gregarious and like a little feminine. So I was always talking when I stood in and always told to be quiet, but I was, when I heard people tell me to be quiet or as I was becoming more feminine and people were telling me my parents like tone it down in public. I would hear these words like quiet down. Don't be so loud. Don't talk. And I internalized it to really believe into my mid thirties that my voice. And my message and my thoughts and my opinions and my beliefs. Didn't have value out in the world. That people wouldn't care what I had to say, because there are other people who have more important things to say that can say it better and they're going to do it better. So like, why would I even, because I didn't believe. In myself in that kind of way. And even when I started the podcast journey, like I had a little spark of faith or inspiration or bad-ass newness that said, I'm going to do this and hit record and publish it. But I certainly didn't even have it from the get-go. My first handful of episodes for most of my shows was me figuring out like who I am and what that means on the show and who it is that I'm talking to. It was a journey to get there. But I've gotten there and it's been awesome and it's changed not only the way that I am able to engage with my listeners and this amazing, beautiful community. I built around my shows when you make a show or when you're a businessing and branding to a specific audience that knows that you were for them, they will fall in love with you. And not only will they. Engage with you and your business and your product, but they will talk about it like to you directly to their friends, to their family, having that direct connection, because you were talking directly to what they need to hear and who they are. It creates this like amazing, beautiful community around you. That is fabulous. And then you end up having this confidence that you never knew you had with the way that you talk and not having to constantly be stressing out your social media and what I'm going to post next. And not like having all these lessons that I've learned about mindset and how I can show up in these conversations to people has been life-changing and in life coaching, we do the wheel of life, which is. Basically like a rating or judgment of on a scale of eight different areas, how great your life is. And after starting podcasting, all of my spokes on my wheel began slowly going up. And I love my life right now. They shot up like rockets when I was able to go from podcasting part-time to podcasting full-time now it's like tens across the board. I am living my best life because of podcasting. And it's because it's given me the power to know that my voice matters that your voice matters that all over voices matter. That there's no such thing as too many podcasts the same way. There's never going to be so much to them. The thing is there's been too many TV shows. We should just stop making new TV shows because there's been enough and we don't need more movies. They've had thousands, millions of movies who knows how many movies exist, period. But I know it's a fuck ton. And so you gotta make sure it's not, like we're saying let's stop making movies and stop making TV shows. So why would you be telling yourself because you have insecurities about your voice, your message, your brand, your business, your life, like, why would you be telling yourself that you can't do it when all these other people can, you have the power you are a bad-ass at is inside of you. And that's why I love being able to help pay a forward and help unlock that bad-ass newness with people every day. So if after listening to this episode, whether you are interested and ready to. Start or grow your show as a podcaster, or if you're interested in my business and branding bootcamp, make sure you head on over to sober steve.com. Or email me at Steve. At sober, steve.com for some more information. And we can talk about how I can help you. In the meantime, if you're not quite ready for one-on-one working with me yet. Also check out the website so that you can sign up for free brainstorming or tune-up sessions. So if you have a business or a brand that you're interested in turning into a podcast, you can come onto my show and talk about your business or brand to all of my listeners. And we can brainstorm how it could possibly turn into a podcast. If it does, I can help you along the way. If you'd like, if not, you've been able to introduce yourself to many listeners while also brainstorming what your future show could look like. It's a win-win situation for us both. And because it gives me amazing content that shows my listeners. What it is like working with me. So if that's something that you're interested in, whether it's brainstorming, how to start a podcast or grow your business, or whether it is a tune-up about how to fix a podcast that you've been doing for a while, but you're not seeing the results you want. You can sign up for both of those@sobersteve.com. They're absolutely free. And they're a great way to dip that toe in if your pod curious, but you're not quite sure whether you're a podcasting bad-ass we can figure that out together. And until then keep on podcasting or marketing or growing your