How to Start a Podcast

Hey there, and welcome back. I'm Dr. Vince Leone, executive producer and co-host of the Practice Builders Podcast. With my partner in crime, Dr. Kyle Pankinen, we deliver proven strategies to help you grow fast, specialize with confidence, and build profitable staff-run practices. Let's go ahead and dive into today's episode now. Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Practice Builders Podcast. My name is Dr. Vince Leone.

And I am Dr. Kyle Pankinen. This will be an interesting episode for you today. A lot of doctors out there are looking for ways to expand their marketing presence or just their awareness in their community, maybe to reach a broader audience. And so we have an idea that I think will resonate with you. So Dr. Vince will introduce our topic for today.

Yeah, so this is how to start a podcast for chiropractors. And now, full disclosure, like, we are not We're not experts on podcasting. We don't have a million downloads or anything like that. All we're saying is that this has been helpful for us and that we think it could probably be helpful for you too. So we just want to walk through a high-level overview of what it takes to start a podcast, what you can expect from it, and some of the benefits that we've experienced. And so that's what I kind of want to go over first is, you know, Dr. Kyle has his own podcast called Treat the Cause on Spotify. And he has, I think, like over 100 episodes. Isn't that right, Kyle?

I just counted them before we got on here. I'm just about right at 100. I'm like 92. I'll be— so another— I record an episode every week, so I'll be to 100 here before the year is out. And, uh, they're fun. I enjoy doing them. And, uh, they are treat— you gotta— we'll get into more content here in a little bit, but the bottom line is yes, I have a podcast. Dr. Vince and I have a podcast together, this one here, and there is a growing audience out there for podcasting. I have people tell me quite frequently that they listen to podcasts when they're driving down the road or when they're in the shower or what, getting ready for the day and standing in front of the mirror, they're listening to podcasts. And so There is a growing market and a way you can reach more people if you have your own podcast, that's bottom line. So Dr. Vince will kind of go into some of the nuts and bolts of a few things you may want to consider as you look to potentially start your own podcast.

Yeah, and what I would say to start is a couple kind of, Housekeeping items is one, don't expect a million downloads, right? I mean, like, we literally get 30 to 50 downloads per episode. And by the way, this is our 32nd episode. So, you know, if you look at some of the biggest podcasters, I mean, they're in the hundreds and hundreds of podcasts, right? So they, they've built an audience, but also we're super niche, right? Like, not only are we, you know, we're chiropractors, but like, we're aimed at chiropractors. Our niche is chiropractors that are interested in in high-value cash services, right? Spinal decompression, peripheral neuropathy, chronic knee pain. You know, we're not trying— and there's only 60,000 chiropractors in the US, maybe another 10,000 in Canada. So there's not like a ton. It's not a huge market, right? What's called a TAM, total addressable market. Whereas if you're Joe Rogan, well, you're pretty much all males, right? Or if you're a cooking show, like everyone interested in cooking, that's a massive total addressable market. So you would, you know, then be, Then thinking, well, shoot, I should have, you know, many more downloads and listeners. So if you're trying to start your own podcast, just be, you know, realistic in terms of what looks like success to you. If you have 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 downloads, instead of saying, oh, well, that is minuscule compared to these other people that have like millions, don't think of it like that. Think of it like, hey, If I walked into, um, you know, a, uh, my office and there was 30 people sitting there like, like eagerly listening to my message, would that be worth it? Yeah, yeah, 100% would. And I know that, you know, Dr. Kyle has had patients that have listened to like a ton, if not all of his episodes. They come in, they come in really pre-educated, um, and he probably doesn't have a million downloads either. So we— and we at Specialized Practice, we get doctors who come in and they've listened to some or all. I know, shout out to Dr. Lee, he's listened to every episode, so that's pretty cool. But he, you know, he's like, Dr. Vince, I think I could do your intro and outro because I've listened to it so many times. So you'll get people that are kind of what I call super consumers, um, and, you know, maybe they do business with you, maybe they don't, but they certainly get value out of your message. And that's part of it. It's not always about You know, growing your business. I think it's also about sharing your knowledge to help other people. That doesn't always have to be a one-to-one, like, hey, I do this, so I get that. I think if you're going to do a podcast in particular, it should be first and foremost because you want to share your information, share your knowledge, share what you have learned in your journey, because, you know, you're going to help people, right? There's a— there's, there's benefit in doing that alone.

Yeah, I think a big thing that you're alluding to there is, is keeping it education-based in focus. I mean, Dr. Leone really is a master of marketing, but his marketing generally for us as chiropractors— well, he does my marketing for me— is it's education-based marketing. A podcast is just another vehicle to educate the public on what you have to offer, or specific conditions, or things that You want to focus on is maybe your particular niches in the practice, and it's another way to establish your reputation and credibility with those people that will be in the audience of listeners. And a lot of it's going to just grow organically by word of mouth. I have some people that yeah, they've literally listened to all my episodes, but then oh yeah, I told my friend about your podcast, or I got my mom listening in some other state about your podcast. Are you getting your podcast? And it just— the audience will just grow from a few, and it just— it will gradually build, especially if you're delivering good content. I think that's one of the biggest keys is you got to have— you got to have good content, usable information that people can apply that motivates them a little bit to action, and speaking about conditions that affect a lot of people. You don't want to be Talking about some obscure, you know, rare condition. You want, you know, as chiropractors, you know, if you say you're a decompression niche, well, you want to talk about discs and spinal stenosis and facet arthrosis and sciatica and all these different things that can go wrong with the spine, because a lot of people have those, and it's a good way to set yourself apart as a You know, a spine care expert and promoting the niches that you have. So those are just some examples. Yeah, I'd— so I do on my own podcast, I do about half of the year I spend on chronic pain. So I'll talk about headaches and back and chronic knee and peripheral neuropathy. And then the other half of the year, because I'm board certified also in foot functional medicine, and I'll talk about functional medicine-related topics— digestive health, hormone problems, skin conditions, things of that nature. So I'm trying to appeal to— I either want to get the chronic pain patient, or I want to get the person who has a chronic health challenge that I can address with functional medicine. So you gotta pick. kind of the audience that you're looking for?

Well, that's a great point and leads right into our kind of nuts and bolts overview, because that's where you start. You start with your audience, right? Who is your niche? So for us, our niche is chiropractors. And then within chiropractors, it's those chiropractors looking to grow their practice with high-value cash services. Um, you know, why do we choose that? Well, that's what we do at Specialized Practice. I also think that's like That is the key to success moving forward in the chiropractic industry, right? Insurance is going to continue to trend down. They're going to pay you peanuts. They're dictating your value, worth, and care and price point. Well, I don't like that. That's not the game I want to play. I want to do high-value cash services. I want to elevate my clinical skill sets so that I can treat and fix a tough condition and get paid accordingly. That is our whole ethos at Specialized Practice. So what is your ethos? What is your principles? What is your mission? At your practice? Who are you trying to help? So if it's chronic back pain patients, that's a great niche, right? There's 100 million people that suffer from back pain in the US every single year. About 10% of those are chronic in nature. So you still have a large market even if you're going after disc patients, 10 million people a year. So who is your niche? That's who you want to think about first. Who am I going to make this for? Who am I going to be speaking to? And kind of— And by the way, It doesn't need to be a 44-year-old housewife with 2 kids. Like, no, don't get that specific. It's like, hey, 45 to 65-year-old individuals, okay, who are suffering from chronic neck or back pain. That would be a great niche because they, they have the problem. They typically have the disposable income. They ideally work, right? So they're commuting, listening to podcasts, or exercising. So they're health conscious. That would be a great niche, right? So you don't, don't get hyper, you know, focused and niched down to where you're excluding 98% of a potential audience. Like, you know, make it wide enough so that enough people will— like Dr. Kyle does, you know, he can address quite a few people. So, um, the basics. Now, what are you going to name it, right? Try to get a, you know, ideally— like, I really like Dr. Kyle's Treat the Cause. Great name. But you're gonna need a name that is obviously tied to what you're gonna talk about. And then you're gonna need some gear, right? Very simple gear. I like this Shure microphone that I got. I think it's a couple hundred bucks. It really works well. You get a little stand for it, but you need good audio quality 'cause that's where people, by and large, people are listening from an audio format, right? Whether it's Spotify or Apple. But if you listen to— and there's— you'll hear podcasts with bad audio, man, that's an immediate fail. So don't go cheap on your microphone. Get a good microphone. Again, I like this. It's Shure, S-H-U-R-E. Get it on Amazon. It's like $230, something like that. And then for recording, I would just use Zoom, which is exactly what Dr. Kyle and I do. We just use Zoom. And, um, it's just really easy that way. Are there other, you know, kind of platforms you could use? Yeah, there's tons, and I'm not going to list them because you have the internet as well. But the point being is Zoom is really easy to use, it's super cheap, and then you just download it. Um, and, uh, you know, we'll talk about how to get it edited and all that stuff in just a second. So any thoughts on any of that, Dr. Kyle?

Well, the big thing is it doesn't take a lot of money to start a podcast. It's not like you're investing thousands and thousands of dollars to start up. A good quality mic is a couple hundred bucks. You hook it up to your computer and you got Zoom, or I use— sometimes I use Audacity is one I use.

Nice.

And, you know, it's not a big investment really. It's just an investment of a little bit of your time.

Mm-hmm.

So that's— and you gotta make sure that you have— you gotta put together some good content and deliver it in a meaningful way so that it's engaging to the audience. And if you have a good topic and a topic that will resonate with a broad scope of people, hey, you're in business and you're off to the races. And, uh, I actually enjoy recording podcasts, you know, even if I only have 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 people end up listening to an episode. But, you know, you're speaking directly to that person. I mean, when else do you get a chance to do that? You don't— certainly don't any other place with a newspaper ad or anything like that. So it's, it's direct to that person. And, uh, You can really impact people with your message.

Hey there, it's Dr. Vince, and if you're getting value from this episode, please make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you know another doc who's ready to grow their practice, share this with them. It might be exactly what they need right now. Thank you in advance, and now back to the show. Uh, 100%, and I think it's a tremendous opportunity. Now, That being said, if you're not, if you haven't optimized Facebook and Google, you're trying to grow your practice and you haven't optimized those 2 online platforms yet, dude, then you're putting the cart before the horse. You should go back and, you know, figure those platforms out first because you're gonna get way more traction faster. And are you gonna pay for it? Yeah, you're gonna 100% pay for it. But the point being is, if you're trying to grow your practice, Um, this is a nice channel, but it is a— it's a slow channel, right? This is the— this is the tugboat. If you want the speedboat, that's Facebook and Google, right? That's where you're going to put $1 in and get $5 out if you know what you're doing. Um, but the— you know, so you need to figure out where does this come— like, there's sequencing, right, in terms of growing a practice. What makes the most sense sequencing to grow the practice? Well, Dr. Kyle, for example, He does Facebook. Do you do Google? I can't remember. Do we do a little bit of Google? A little bit. So, uh, he does, uh, radio, he does newspaper, and, you know, and, and now he does a podcast. So, uh, we kind of built it up, we sequenced him up in terms of, uh, when he actually added in the podcast. So if you're not doing all those other stuff, then I would recommend doing those first, figuring those out first, getting those profitable first. And then you go to the podcast. Because if you think you're gonna record a few podcasts and get a bunch of patients, it just doesn't work that way. It doesn't. And now, long-term, like, I look at it like it's an investment. You know, it's going to pay dividends over time, but it's not gonna pay dividends right now. So, just keep that in mind. Now, we talk about banking episodes. So, when Dr. Kyle and I started, Uh, we— did we record 5, Dr. Kyle, or, uh, something like that?

I thought it was a little closer. It was between 5 and 10. Yeah, episodes that we recorded.

Yep, exactly. So point being is we record several, right? 5 to 10. So we had a bank, right? We did a batch, uh, recording. So we had several in the books as we kind of figured things out. Um, and so we always try to record on Fridays. That's always Fridays at 12 Pacific, and we release them on a weekly basis. So for you, it's like, hey, start with getting 3 to 5 in the books if you just want to start there so that you can, when you launch, you can keep the cadence consistent. Because essentially, if you launch and then you miss a week and then another week and another week, well, then people tune out, right? They're expecting— it's like It's like watching Matlock on TV. Well, it's Tuesdays at 7 or whatever the heck the time is. If they're going to listen to you and they really enjoy you, then they want to come back and continue to listen to you. So you got to be consistent and don't talk forever. Chiropractors, I've noticed this, Dr. Kyle, we tend to talk a lot. Have you noticed?

We do like to talk. We must think we have so much to share that You know, they'll never get tired of hearing us. And no, I know, I usually— no, no, not at all. I usually try to keep mine to no more than 25 minutes for my own Treat the Cause. I, I actually keep everyone basically exactly the same, 20, right at 25-minute mark. And that's most people, if they got a window of time, they usually can spare You know, half hour or a little bit less.

Yeah.

And the other thing with banking the episodes is, is if they— if you only have one episode in there, they listen to that, well, they're done. If they like that episode, they want— they want to sometimes listen to more right away, because a lot of people will listen to these podcasts when they're driving down the road. They got, oh, I got 3 hours in the vehicle coming up, what am I gonna listen to? And if you got a half a dozen or 10 or 20 or whatever episodes that are in there. You know, I had one patient, he said, I listened to you for 3 straight hours. It's like, boy, you really were— I don't know about that, but, but anyway.

Hilarious.

But at either rate, you know, he just started listening and he liked that and he just kept going. And, uh, so you're gonna get some of that. So that's why you want to have several episodes. bank for that person. Like, they just want to keep listening to you for a while. Yeah.

And I would say you want to try to, um, I like that, you know, around 20 to 30 minutes. If you think about most people's commute, it's 20 to 30 minutes, right? So, that's kind of, you know, and people's attention spans around 18 to 20 minutes anyway. So, that's, I think, a good one unless you're Joe Rogan, which you're not, and neither am I. Um, and, you know, he goes for 2 hours. Well, that, you know, he has the, the you know, biggest people on the planet on his podcast. So people wanna listen to them. People don't wanna listen to us for hours. So 20 to 30 minutes, I think is perfect. You know, you always start with your hook, right? Hey, today we're gonna talk about blank, just like Dr. Kyle did at the beginning of this. And then kind of, then you, you know, give your, uh, the whole podcast, try to have a structure to it and always have, you know, some key takeaways. Like we're going through these, you know, kind of key takeaways, how to set up your podcast. Um, I like to— so we have prerecorded intros and outros. We actually have an interlude as well in the middle, in the middle. But for you, I would just say, hey, just have an intro and an outro. You can go on Fiverr, fiverr.com, and have a professional voiceover artist do it. Or you can do it yourself, whatever you, you know, whatever you feel comfortable with. But it's, it's, that creates a professionalism to it. Um, so I would lean towards the voiceover artist if you, if you're not like super comfortable doing that type of stuff. Um, and it doesn't have to be complicated. Again, ChatGPT is your friend here, folks. Like, go to ChatGPT, say, I'm starting a podcast, give me a high-level overview of how to do this. Um, what's a good intro? What's a good outro? Give me the actual script. And then you just hand that off, right? So use the re— the resources that are available to you that are cheap and easy. Um, uh, any thoughts on that, Dr. Kyle?

Yeah, I mean, I just literally had one of my staff members who's pretty good at marketing and stuff. She just developed my intro and outro, and, uh, it's, it's not fancy. It doesn't have to be fancy, but it needs to be just mildly catchy and, uh, get the basics of that information that you want. Basically, I mean, you, you kind of want to show that in your intro that you're some type of an expert and that people—

Exactly.

People are gonna wanna listen to you because of your expertise and knowledge and that you're just not some, you know, Joe Blow off of the street. So, you know, in my intro, we just promote my training in orthopedics and functional medicine and years of experience and things of that nature.

Perfect, perfect. And then ideally you have someone else edit it for you. And now it's very easy to edit it. You know, I have our— my VA edit this particular podcast. She does it through Veed.io, V-E-E-D.io. All these tools, by the way, guys, are like $20 a month. So they're not expensive and very easy to do. But, you know, ideally you are outsourcing this. You could outsource this to someone on Fiverr as well. There's a lot of these gig sites, but Fiverr I've always used, you know, for whatever reason. I just kind of have always used that platform, so it always works out. But if you went in there and just said, typed in search for podcast editor, you will find about 10,000 that are willing to do it for like $20. So again, you're just, you're trying to outsource as much of this as possible and you kind of create a system, right? So for us, Dr. Kyle and I record on Fridays, and then I dump that into a Google Drive folder. I notify my VA. And it's done, right? So she edits it, posts it. So we use— excuse me— rss.com. And then RSS, once you upload it to RSS, it then pushes it out to Spotify, Apple, YouTube. So that's the, you know— but anyways, so all we do is record. We get on, we record, and then it goes to the VA. She's going to edit, put in the intros, the interlude, the outro. Then she uploads it to RSS, then that pushes it out to the different distribution channels. Then she emails our email list and say, hey, new podcast is up. So that's what you kind of want to get to the point of where you are just recording and you have a system set up in place to where you're just then handing it off and they will do the minutia. Remember, always try to focus on your highest value activities. And leave the low, lower-paid activities to someone else. Thoughts on that, Dr. Kyle?

Yes, you're not the one— the only thing I think I would say is just you don't want to do every detail yourself. That's the bottom line. That's what we're trying to get across.

Exactly.

You, you develop good content, you get it recorded, and then you hand off the rest, docs. And, uh, Otherwise, you're just getting your hands involved in too many things that you shouldn't be doing as the doctor.

Yeah. And, you know, the one thing that's nice about the podcast is, so then my VA drops it in Opus, O-P-U-S. So if you just Google Opus Clips, so you drop it in there and then Opus, like the AI cuts it up into 30 to 90-second little clips and puts in the subtitles. And so if you follow me on social media, Facebook, Instagram, whatever, @DrVinceLeone, you will see we publish these like twice a day. So she drops it in, she takes the top 10 clips from Opus, and then she publishes twice a day these clips. And it's a great way to create content without having to always be creating content. So we record once a week and I have a whole week's worth of content after that. You know, I think some people may say, well, you should vary your content and, and, you know, blah blah blah. It's like, well, okay, but I only have so much time in the day. I don't really want to be a content creator personally, but I do like doing the podcast. So if you want to— so anyways, point being is you can repurpose your podcast. Um, and then I, I also post then to YouTube. So now we have it on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. We have the clips in YouTube Shorts. We have the long-form podcast in, uh, YouTube playlist. So again, you, you kind of want to— you want to get it everywhere. So you kind of want to start becoming a promoter of your podcast once you have created it.

Yep. The more, the more touches, the more people you get it out to, the more platforms, The better. And it's just like marketing with anything. You know, you get a few people from this basket and a few people from this basket and a few from another. And over a course of a month, it starts to snowball and add up. And this is no different than that. And like we said, you're not gonna get boatloads of new patients from podcasting, but if you have a good Facebook campaign and—

Yeah.

A newspaper campaign and you're on the radio and now you got a podcast and each of those buckets you're drawing in 2 or 3 or 4 people every month along with referrals and word of mouth, that adds up.

Yeah, I mean, that's a great point because that's what I covered at the summit, the Decompression Summit Certification, that if you weren't there, man, boy, you missed out because it was amazing. And we are set for September 27th, The weekend of September 26th, 2026. Already got the contract at the Omni Hotel. But this is what I covered in the 7 Pillars to Preeminence, right? So how do we create preeminence? How do we create or dominate a market? Well, this is one of the 7 pillars, is utilizing all these different avenues. But the point being with Dr. Kyle saying is we just don't want one channel in terms of marketing to be the hero, because what if that hero gets shot? That's, you know what I'm saying? So, one is the worst number in business because if it goes away, then you have zero, and zero sucks. So, you want to have multiple channels of marketing so that if one doesn't perform one week or one month, no big deal. You got 4, 5, 6 others. And again, so this is just one channel. And again, it's a slow build. And so the key is consistency. And so, and that's another thing, Dr. Kyle, I would say, hey, think about how often you can realistically record. If it's not once a week, that's okay. You know, you could do biweekly, you could do monthly, but, but whatever you, whatever it is, pick it and stick with it because the consistency is the key.

Yep. There, if you have, if you're developing audience and they're You get some followers that are listening to your content, they're going to expect that new episode. If you're doing it every week, they're going to start expecting it every week. And so you got to be— consistency is the key word there. A couple other things I would mention is that you can just promote that you're doing a new podcast to your existing patient base. So in our office, every month we send out 2 emails to our patient base. It's called Did you know series? And but I many times in those I'll just pull a little snippet in the end of the email that hey, you can we have a podcast and you can listen to our our podcast. And then of course your own clinic Facebook page. Well, some people follow that. Well, you can put your podcast recordings on there as well and or at least announce. That you have a podcast. And then we have— Dr. Vince is doing some marketing for me with ours where we have a little Facebook campaign that just is promoting our podcast, just driving traffic to it. And so those are just some simple strategies that you can use once you got some episodes banked and, okay, now we're going to launch the podcast. How are we gonna let people know about it? Those are some simple strategies.

And that was perfect. I think, you know, you covered that great. It's like you don't need to, you know, take out TV advertisements that you're launching your podcast, but just internally to your patient base, email, signage. You know, I feel like doctors kind of miss some of these simple things. You have— I mean, you have between— for most of you doctors, you have between 150 to 300 people going through your office every single week. Why would you not have signage? Why would you not have emails? Why would you not have flyers promoting stuff like this, or workshops, or whatever? We can go into all that, but, but that would be a very easy way to promote internally with signage, emails, um, and just word of mouth. And then yes, if you want to put a little bit of money behind it, I think we're only doing a couple hundred bucks a month or something like that to promote Dr. Kyle's podcast, but it gets traffic to it, you know. So, and it's obviously working because he's getting patients from it. Um, so I think, you know, I feel pretty good that we covered it, um, kind of soup to nuts. Again, to dive into this more and get the actual— all the, you know, individual, like, resources and what you need to do, um, uh, I think ChatGPT is, uh, is your friend in that regard. It will give you, um, but those Those are the tools we use. So we talked about the Shure mic for good audio. We talked about Zoom to record. We talked about RSS to publish. And then we talked about having a VA to edit and distribute the content. So not super complicated, maybe a little overwhelming in the beginning, you know, Dr. Kyle, but once you kind of dig into it and get your hands a little dirty in the beginning, so you kind of figure out how to do it all. After that, it's just easy, and you again systemize it and then delegate, and then it's all you're doing is delivering the knowledge. Um, and I think, you know, doctors that have been in practice for 30 years and they specialize in a particular condition, they have knowledge to share, and I think people want to hear it. So, um, any last, uh, words of wisdom there, Dr. Kyle?

Just have fun with these docs and, and And, you know, if you develop these, have fun with them, if you get across to your audience that you're actually having fun, you have some passion behind it, you enjoy doing it, and you're— that goes right through the microphone, right to the listener's ears. And you need to have a little heart and passion and soul behind it. That's the final piece of advice I would give. And like Dr. Vince says, the rest you can— most of the rest of this you can delegate out once— and takes a little bit of legwork to get it going. And you'll be surprised, I think, docs, how many people will start listening over a period of time, and you'll become a little local celebrity.

Wise words from the man himself. I love it. And I don't think there's any substitute for passion. If, if you're kind of going through the motions, it's not going to work. You know, you got to, you got to have some passion for what you do, and, and that's what draws people to you. It's energy, right? And so, with that, let's go ahead and wrap it up. And we hope that this has provided you guys value, you guys and gals out there. And think about this, you know, maybe you put this on your quarter one. to-do list or your rocks, right? But again, it's all about sequencing, sequencing. Make sure you have the other things set up properly first. And, and then this kind of goes towards the tail end of your kind of marketing arsenal or what we call our 7 Pillars of Preeminence. So again, for Dr. Vince and Dr. Kyle Pinkerton, we hope that this has been valuable for you and we'll see you all on the next episode Hey, it's Dr. Vince again, and hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you're ready to grow your practice fast with high-value decompression patients, then the Decompression Accelerator could be a phenomenal option for you. This is our 90-day sprint to help you scale with proven systems, staff-driven protocols, and full marketing support, and it's all guaranteed. Spots are limited. Head to www.decompressionaccelerator.com to learn more. Thanks, Dr. Leone.