SOCIALLY SPEAKING
THE PODCAST

0:00:00
Hey, welcome back to Strategically Speaking. I'm your host, Steph Paradiso, and I'm so happy you're here. It's 2024. And today's episode, we're going to dive in all into why I did not launch this podcast for real for real in 2023, which was my goal. And hopefully it just kind of inspires you to number one, realize that we have to develop plans and systems in our businesses, otherwise things are not going to get done. 
But maybe also you had something that you wanted to accomplish, do see through in 2023, and it just didn't happen. Now is the time if you want to pick it back up, you can totally do it. And so I'll share a little bit of insight into just the development of my podcast, kind of the idea of me wanting to start it, and then why it sort of happened and then didn't last year and what I'm gonna actually do this year to just stay consistent make sure that Things get done. 
So let's get into it. 
In July of 2023 I had started all of the groundwork for this podcast. I Got an account on Apple Podcasts.

0:01:14
I recorded a trailer, a first episode, and just to give you context, I recorded that first episode, which I just left on here. You could go listen to it if you wanted to. We'll call it season one. But I recorded that when Reels came out. And so that's what that episode is about, kind of what Reels can teach us as business owners. 
But I never did anything past that. And so let me give you kind of like a glimpse, pull the curtain back on what was going on in my life in July. So I was pretty much back to work now, like full time after what I want to call my fake quasi maternity leave and moving to Florida. I was like back to work full time, maybe three or four months at that point. And I still had Ace at home with me, so my youngest.

0:02:05
My middle daughter started daycare March of that year, and it allowed me to kind of get back into a little bit of a groove. So I would really say March of 2023 is when I was like fully back and immersed in my business after taking like an insane break, let's say, or just a pullback. I don't want to say a break, because I always had one hand in, but I pulled back significantly.

0:02:29
In July, I'm trying to figure out kind of like this new balance. We got a new sitter, and that afforded me an opportunity to do a lot of things, a lot of projects, just a lot of client work also, and personal internal stuff for Inspired Social that was on my desk for a while. And one of the projects that I really wanted to tackle last year was developing a podcast.

0:02:53
And that sort of stemmed also from the fact that I was now sending out issues of the Social Scoop. So by the way, if you don't get the Social Scoop every single week, definitely go to the link in my bio on Instagram and sign up. The Social Scoop is a weekly newsletter where I send you marketing ideas, tips, analysis, and just like some general inspiration. I think every small business owner would want to get their eyes on and sink their teeth into. But I started the Social Scoop and as I was writing them every week, I kept saying like, I wish I had a place where I can just share more, like elaborate more on all of these topics. And a podcast to me seemed like the most natural progression, like that next step of the scoop.

0:03:44
And that's where this idea kind of started from. Now I did do some artwork. I did get us on Apple Podcasts. Other things that I wanted to do were create show notes on my website and have a separate podcast page for that. But I kind of came to the realization and the decision that I'm never going to be able to do all these things at once. And so let's just launch it and do it messy and kind of like figure out as I go. Because I had no idea what I was doing. Like podcasting totally new to me.

0:04:15
I didn't and I still don't have any super professional equipment. We record the episodes with my phone. I'm the one that edits them. Although, I love podcasts that are just off the cuff and not edited. My favorite podcast to listen to is Allie Reeves, All In With Allie. And what's cool about her podcast is that it's just her talking, and it feels like a really intimate conversation. And that's what I want for my podcast. I want it to be unscripted. I want to come with you, come to you, and just it feel like we're having a coffee together.

0:04:52
Although right now to paint the picture, I am drinking better greens. I saw these on TikTok for so long. And then when they had a Black Friday sale, I decided to to order them. I still think they taste like greens. I don't know. The flavor is raspberry limeade. They're just OK. But anyway, we are having greens together or coffee or iced tea or whatever your drink of choice is and that's what I wanted my podcast to feel like. 
I start to put all the pieces in place, I record the trailer, I record the first episode, I get the first episode and the trailer up and then I just kind of like drop the ball. I don't have a system in place. I say I'm going to launch a podcast, I do the initial work for it and pretty organized up until then, but I don't have a recording schedule.

0:05:39
I don't have like a system in place as to how often I'm going to release episodes. I don't have a place just, you know, for the interim to sort of host our show notes and transcripts. And so I think the biggest reason why I could not execute this in 2023 is that I just didn't have a plan. 
Probably the biggest drawback, the biggest issue for me was not scheduling in time to record. And so July, August, September, or actually really just July and August, my son is still home. He's only napping like one to two hours a day, and I don't really have a lot of quiet time where I can record, and that obviously is problematic. I could do it at night, but I'm tired.

0:06:26
I don't look as fresh, and I just feel like I am not my best after I've gone through a whole day with my kids, and maybe they're in bed, but I'm just not at my best. And I wanna show up and give my best when I'm creating this podcast, when I'm talking to you guys. So that all falls to the wayside. Then in September, my son goes to daycare. So now I have two of my kids in daycare and then one in school, full-time. She's in first grade.

0:06:56
And it's very foreign to me. Like I've never not had any children home, like all, you know, just no one home during the day. And I'm restructuring, I'm trying to figure out schedules, but also what's happening in September, even though now I have the structure with my childcare all set up, we are entering holiday.  
This is an insanely busy time, not just for me, like within Inspired Social and the offers that I'm launching in September, like Black Friday support, my own Black Friday offers, but also for my Done For You clients, we have a ton of stuff like on the agency side that it needs to get done by way of deliverables and also coaching.

0:07:38
And so that essentially took the front row seat to absolutely everything from September through the end of the year. It is the absolute busiest time for me as a marketer and I needed to be there to support my clients. And there were so many times during the holiday season when I was like, oh my gosh, this is such a good podcast topic. I would love to riff on this. I'd love to share tips.

0:08:00
I'd love to just like get in the weeds and share that strategy portion of it. But of course, no planning, no system in place. And what's really interesting is that I'm all about systems. Like I talk so much about systems with my clients. 
We focus on developing systems for content creation, systems for editing, and I utilize systems in my business day in and day out. But I think because it was just not the right time for me, I could not develop the internal systems and figure out the support I needed to get the project going.

0:08:33
Now, fast forward, we are in January 2024. What's really cool about last year is that I did a lot of experimentation in my business. I did a lot of figuring out what worked, what didn't. We launched lots of new offers, one-to-one, one-to-many, done-for-you offers. And now I have a really clear picture as to what I wanna create and what I wanna do this year in my business. And that feels really, really good.

0:08:58
And so I took the first week off of the year and I mapped out all of the programs, the offers, the marketing, all of the live events, all of the conversion events, like everything that we're gonna be doing within Inspired Social for 2024. And one of the big main three goals, and this is how I teach my clients to develop their goals for the year as well. One of the big three for me is this podcast.

0:09:21
So not only am I developing a system, but something else has to go hand in hand, and that is prioritizing. And this, I think, sometimes we just fall short of our goals or we don't complete a project. And sometimes we're like, oh, I don't have the tech or I don't have the skills or I don't have the time. But in reality, we can make all of those things happen. We're just not prioritizing it. And sometimes that's a matter of like biting off more than you can chew, right? I had a lot of things going on at the tail end of last year. I had a lot of projects. I had my hands just in a bunch of different areas. And so the podcast couldn't come to the forefront.

0:09:56
And it's not necessarily like a failure on my part, but more so I wasn't looking at the overall bird's eye picture. So the reason why I'm sharing all this with you is, A, I want you to know that if there is a project that you just couldn't complete or you couldn't figure out how to do it last year, I want you to know it's not too late. 
Bring it into the forefront, prioritize it, make it one of your big three goals for 2024. And that means we're doing smaller action items on a very regular basis, whether it's daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, to get closer to that overall goal. And you know the other thing here too is sort of analyzing why something didn't happen or why something perhaps didn't go the way you wanted it to, and then trying to figure out what you can do in order to mitigate those issues moving forward and plan for them. 
I know setting aside a weekly appointment in my calendar right now to record or batch work podcasts is going to be the key to consistency and keeping myself, putting my money where my mouth is, like saying, I wanna do this, we're going to do it, here's the plan to execute it.

0:11:04
Not only having the idea, having the goal and setting the goal, putting it out there in the universe, but also really focusing on the tactical action steps that you're going to take in order to make that goal happen. So that's why I'm sharing this with you. And then I also want to share sort of like what the game plan looks like for me to develop this podcast and kind of just stay consistent. So right now I would love to do a weekly episode. What that's gonna need to look like for me though, most likely is batch working two at a time.

0:11:38
So two episodes, and for me, I don't mind a longer podcast. Like if I have time and I'm sitting in the car and I'm gonna do a longer podcast, that is doable, right? Like some of my favorite podcasts are 45 minutes to an hour, but other times I just need something really quick that I can listen to, like when I'm in the line at pickup for my kids. And so my goal right now is shorter podcasts, maybe 15 to 20 minutes, and I'll batch work those. So I'm spending about 30 to 45 minutes of recording time. 
And then from there, I'm able to have two pieces of content that I can release, you know, two weeks in a row, and then I'll do that, repeat that same process. So that way I have another two weeks of content and another two weeks of podcasts. And so right now, to me, that feels like a really good cadence, a really good system. I would love to have guests on, I would love to get into a podcast studio so we can also record video with that, put that on YouTube, and kind of have like this multi-pronged approach.

0:12:34
However, right now, I know that I wanna start simple so that I can build the habit of consistency. And we're not gonna try to do all the things at once. I'm gonna be really great, really proficient, really consistent at the shorter 15 to 20 minute weekly episodes, and then from there, I'm gonna build upon that. So what does that look like in the future? Definitely a video component. I love the idea of video partnered with a podcast because it just gives me more opportunity to content market. I can utilize that video on Instagram stories. I can use that video when I'm you know on YouTube. I can create blog posts with that. So that's going to be really helpful. So that's going to be part one and then the second part of that is creating comprehensive show notes and putting those on a specific web page on my website.

0:13:17
We're making beginning of the year tweaks. So throughout quarter one, my website will have a refresh. My website will have new features on it and just things that I think will help my audience a little bit better, whether it's access to tools and resources that I think will be helpful in their business, access to information, education by way of my blog, but then also just being able to navigate it a little bit better, visit things like my resource shop or even join the membership. That is part of it as well down the road. I'm going to put these things in when I think we can move to converting some video content within this process, and then also updating that website. I'm going to put dates on my overall calendar, my annual plan.

0:14:00
That way I can hold myself to it, but I also sort of have like this deadline where I want to be ready by that certain point in order to go ahead and move forward with the next phase of this project. The last thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to really focus on creating a marketing campaign with my platforms and my like social media, email, and really focus on promoting the podcast and getting it out there. 
And within that, I also want to be a guest speaker on other people's platforms so I can promote my podcast the way that I promoted The Social Scoop, which is my newsletter last year. And I continue to do that as well. But I want to bring the promotion of the podcast into the forefront. So that's what the game plan looks like. That is what my overall goal is for this year. That's what I'm trying to accomplish as one of my big three. I would love to know what your big three are for 2024. And so you can go ahead and send me a message on Instagram, I'm at inspiredsocialco. Or you can send me an email, steph.inspiredsocial.co.com.

0:15:04
And just share with me your 2024 goals. This will also help me develop more content for the podcast, dig into more topics that you wanna know about and help me serve you better knowing where you're trying to go in 2024 with your business. Thanks so much for listening. I will see you back here next week for another episode.