#41 - Podcasting 101: Leveraging your Expertise to Build your Practice, With Marissa McCool, Part 1

FAKTR, spelled F-A-K-T-R, stands for Functional and Kinetic Treatment with Rehabilitation. Over the past decade, this unique approach to treating pain and dysfunction has been utilized by healthcare providers on 6 continents. Serving as a framework that guides clinical decision-making in patient visits around the globe on a daily basis. With this podcast, our goal is simple: to bring the best and brightest in clinical education to the forefront and empower practitioners with cutting-edge, evidence-based content that improves patient outcomes and inspires healthcare providers to continually evolve their approach to treatment. In each episode, we will feature a training or interview with some of the top minds in healthcare in a short format that is easy to consume. to digest with actionable information that you can implement into practice right away. Let's get started. Hi guys, welcome to a new episode of The Factor Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Riddle. If this is your first time tuning in, welcome and thanks for listening. Today I'm actually broadcasting live from the Florida Chiropractic Association's Southwest Regional Conference. So our audio may sound a little different in the intro today, but I'm very excited to be bringing this exciting new training to you. Today we kick off a new training titled Podcasting 101: How to Leverage Your Expertise to Build Your Practice. Everyone's got a podcast nowadays, right? Well, everyone that is but you. You have an expertise your local community needs to know about and a business you could promote easier by making it more accessible to the public. But maybe you just can't wrap your head around how to get it started. In this 2-part training, we break down the process of getting a podcast launched and walk you through how to develop your ideas, where to go, what to buy, and what to do before you even think about posting your first episode. And who better to step in front of the mic and teach on this topic than our fabulous and incredibly talented producer and editor of The Factor podcast, Marissa McCool. Marissa McCool is a podcast host, editor, and producer, as well as an author, semi-pro women's football player, photographer, and performer. She's a graduate of both the University of Pennsylvania and Augsburg University. She's been hosting podcasts since 2016 and has posted over 550 episodes of content, including 2 shows that have gone well over 200 episodes each. She started being a producer and editor in 2017 after getting so many inquiries from friends and colleagues about how to start a podcast and decided this was a great way to help people get their ideas off of the ground and streamline the process by acting as a true editor and producer, as well as obviously hosting some of those as well. She's hosted podcasts on everything from current events to audio feature-length plays, And has interviewed guests such as Noam Chomsky, Chris Cluey, Kathy DeMarco Van Cleave, Metta Majaz, Dr. Melissa McDonald, and many other recognizable names in their respective fields. So if you've been looking for a highly effective way to establish your expertise in your local community and are considering launching a podcast, you've come to the right place. Let's turn up the volume, cue the intro music, and dive right in. On this interesting topic today, I am super excited about this as a new podcast host myself. It's been a really fun journey. And of course I have Marissa to thank because she is also our podcast producer and editor for The Factor Podcast. So if you guys are listeners of our podcasts, if you're familiar with these webinars here, then you've heard a lot of the content that we produce. Through those channels, Marissa has been instrumental in getting that up and running and has really made the process very smooth and seamless for us. Again, this is one that I'm very excited about today. Every now and then we feature a topic that is not clinical, and today is one of those that really is an important component of building a successful practice. We're talking a little bit about how you can leverage a podcast to grow your audience and your exposure in your local market, but then also establish your expertise in your local area as well. And then of course, with podcasts, you really have an opportunity to reach people all around the globe. So very excited about this topic. With that being said, I would love to introduce Marissa. And when I tell you that there was no one better to teach this webinar today, I guarantee you guys are going to walk away with a ton of great information and feel ready to start and launch hopefully your own podcast. So if it's something you've been thinking about, something you've kind of been kicking the tires on but didn't quite know where to start, or maybe even became a little overwhelmed with the process or the equipment involved, we're going to talk through all of that today. So that being said, Marissa, I will give you the floor.

Hello. Thank you so much for having me. As Jessica said, I am the editor and producer of The Factor podcast. And just a quick note, I will not have any visual material today because I'm a podcaster and that is not typically the medium that I work in. I'm used to the sound of my voice or whoever's voice I'm working with being the primary source of attention. So thinking about showing things, not exactly my forte. And most of you seem to know what a podcast is. For those of you who don't, the best way I can put it is it's almost just internet radio, but it's usually user-created. And the whole point of it, it can be entertainment, it can be informational, it can be advertising, it can be marketing, it can be pretty much anything that you want it to. It can be an art, a business, or both. So just a little bit about me. I've been podcasting For over 6 years. I have over 550 created episodes of my own content. I've been podcasting since 2016, like I said, and I've done at least one weekly podcast every week since then. I've been an editor and producer for almost as long, doing the audio editing and also the producing, which my focus has been Getting new shows started and getting other shows that maybe are floundering or they're overwhelmed. The people who are doing them are a little bit overwhelmed by all that has to go into this. And what I like to do is sort of help people just focus on their content and take away a lot of the extemporaneous things that I can streamline for you because I've been doing it for so long. The first thing that a lot of people ask is, how many things do I have to do? How much money do I have to spend? What should I do first? And I like to take a lot of that off the table because when I started, there weren't people doing that. There weren't people answering those kind of questions. And I learned through trial and error, which had its moments. So I like to try to help people just— they have an idea. I want to help you develop it. I want to help them focus on what it is they want to do, what it is they want to say, accomplish their goals. And I can be the one sitting there with the audio and help make it sound better and help you distribute it. Especially because people who work in the medical field are busy, and I am the one sitting there going over the episode for the 3rd time trying to figure out if there was background noise that I didn't catch, and that is tedious and it takes a long time. So editing is where I spend by far the most amount of time. As I said, podcasting can be an art or a business. And I got this advice when I was at the University of Pennsylvania. I graduated from there in 2017, and I was taking a class on the art and business of cinema with Kathy and Emery Van Cleve. And the first thing they tell you in the class about film is it can be an art or a business, and you can be in it for passion, love, Or you can be in it to make money. Either are fine, but know what it is. And the same goes for podcasting. You can be into podcasting because you want to, or because you're very interested in a topic or really passionate about educating people, or it can be an extension of your business and a marketing tool. Either is fine, but it's important to know what you're in it for and be okay with that. And Generally, people are in it for one or the other. Sometimes people who are in it for the love make money out of it. Sometimes they don't. And people who want to make money out of it, sometimes they don't. It's not something that is quite predictable, I would say would be the best way to put it. But it's good to know what you're doing it for, because if you're doing it for the wrong reasons or reasons you're not interested in, you're not going to last. And most podcasts don't. So it's good to go in. Knowing what you want, having those goals, and trying to work through them and work toward them as opposed to doing what you think you're supposed to be doing. Podcasting is a saturated market. I probably don't have to tell any of you that everybody has a podcast anymore, and that, that was not the case when I got started. But that is part of why I've taken the time to help people get started with their podcasts, because there are so many out there. There are so many different questions that people have. There's so many different content creators. There are celebrities, there are scientists, there are pretty much anything you could name. And then there's people like me who just thought, I could do that. I'll just do whatever and say stuff into a microphone and maybe people will listen. And fortunately for me, they have. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't be here right now. Your idea does not have to be 100% original. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. You don't have to think of something that nobody has ever thought of before. In fact, you probably shouldn't, because then people don't have anything to compare it to, or someone's already come up with that idea. The important thing is to make it personal for you. What unique voice are you bringing to the conversation? Whatever topic you're doing, whatever your focus is, what are you adding that you're not hearing? It's important to not expect miracles. Most people don't go viral. Most people are not making $80,000 a month on this stuff. A few are, but most are not. But I wouldn't change any of it. In over 6 years, in addition to getting to have my voice out there and have people know who I am and getting to work with some amazing people that I wouldn't have otherwise, I've gotten to meet some amazing people and work with them. And I've gotten to work with podcasters who make way more money than I do. And I've gained a lot of knowledge from them and have made friends with a lot of them too. And I've also spoken at events like this in person and digital. And just all of the things that I've gotten to do because of podcasting has coordinated with the fact that I'm an author and an athlete. So I combine marketing in a lot of different ways with my content. I use the podcast to promote books. And I use the books to promote podcasts and pretty much everything else. Growth can be slow. Getting a podcast started— once again, saturated market. So getting the word out there sometimes takes a while. It's important to not expect it to go viral overnight or maybe at all, but steady growth is good for anything and anyone, and especially those of you who have clinics and those of you Who have your own businesses, if 10 people are listening, that's 10 people that maybe didn't know about your business before. If they're not local, that's someone outside of your general target area who may travel to see you or who may call you to come speak at an event like this that they wouldn't have heard of you otherwise. And I would say those have been the most valuable experiences that I've had where someone hears me rambling on about a thing into this microphone and They ask me to come speak at the University of Wisconsin, or my alma mater, University of Pennsylvania, or— I've spoken in, I think, 17 different states since I started doing this. So I've gotten to travel, and sometimes I've gotten paid to travel, and I'm sure that's nothing new for a lot of you. For a recently graduated grad student, that is a lot, and I think it's pretty neat. So— I am generally not the type of person, and not the kind of presenter that is presenting on a lot of these webinars. I know because I've edited all of them, and that's okay. I would rather not know what you're talking about when I'm your editor, because then I can focus on what you're saying and what needs to be fixed rather than listening, because I like to listen to podcasts. That's why I got started.

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So I'll get into a little bit more of that later. The first steps. Generally, podcasts start with an idea, and the best piece of advice I've ever gotten in that capacity is to think of whatever Podcasts you aren't hearing that you wish you were. Go make that. Start with, I want to listen to a podcast about the Philadelphia Eagles in the 1980s. Okay. Is anyone else doing that? Maybe. No. Okay. Make that one. And even if someone has, they don't have the experiences you do. Maybe you grew up in Philadelphia in the 1980s and have some personal flavor to add to that. That's the place to start is finding what you're interested in, finding what you want to hear so you know what to talk about. And it's not about copying anybody. It's not about taking ideas from somebody, but it's about starting with some kind of context. It's about finding something that you have the interest and passion about. And especially most of you are doctors and clinicians. It's going to be your business or your particular focus or area of study. And That's a leg up on what most people who get started in this have, is a particular area of focus and something you want to talk about. These Factor Seminars, they were an already existing entity. And when I started editing them and helping Jessica put together this podcast, it was something that didn't exist in the audio medium for wide distribution. And now it does. So it doesn't take away anything from the original webinars and the people who can see it can still see it. But now maybe people who didn't know about them can see it and hear it and listen to it. And once again, if one person who didn't know about Factor or didn't know about these webinars and now does because of the podcast, that's a net gain. And it's really good to have that as a tool that for not a lot of money that you can send to somebody or direct people toward or have in your business that say, oh, we also have a podcast. There it is. And most people anymore at least know what podcasts are. If they don't, they have a favorite app and they have people that they listen to on there. And it is exceptionally easy to add another to the list. Maybe not exceptionally easy to always remember to listen to all of them. And over 6 years, I've gained a few that I've listened to, and I do not always have time to get to all of them, especially because I spend 6 to 8 hours a day editing them.

So.

Sometimes I'm tired of just listening to voices and I have to go outside or something. So it's important to make what you want. It's important to make something you're interested in. It's important to want to do it because you will burn out quickly if you don't. And when you have your idea, I mentioned one that was pretty obscure, or if not obscure, then specifically focused. The more vague the idea it is, the easier it is to appeal to other people and to more people. So it's important for it to be not so vague that it's not about anything. But the more niche you get, the more specific the idea, the more focused it is, the less people you have to draw from. So finding that happy medium is important, finding the place where You have enough of a pool of people to draw from that would be interested in this topic, but maybe it's not so specific that there aren't enough people who would be out there to listen to that. So instead of the Eagles in the 1980s, maybe history of football in the '80s or the history of the Eagles, something like that. I'm not even an Eagles fan, but I went to school in Philadelphia. So that's always the topic that would get thrown at me as a suggestion. And unfortunately, even 5 years later, it has taken over my brain and I can't get rid of it. So the next thing you have to think about is equipment. And it is important. It is so important. Don't go out and buy a mic like this before you even start, because I know I'm a broke grad student, but this was a gift to myself after 2 years of podcasting. This was an expensive microphone, and that was after I'd been doing it for a while. Starting with an inexpensive mic, especially one that's just a USB that can hook directly into your computer, is a good place to start. And the Yeti brand, Yeti Blue and Yeti Snowball, are 2 of the suggestions I always give to first-timers. Like I said, you don't want to invest a lot into something that you don't know if you're going to stick with. Because that idea sometimes can fizzle out in a few weeks, and then you have this microphone sitting around. So having a microphone is useful, especially in this day and age in the last couple years when we've all been on Zoom and we've all been on our computers a lot more than we were. So even just having that microphone, even if you don't end up using it for podcasting, that's a good thing. But a giant rig like this, probably not for starters. I would suggest Starting easy and then maybe working your way up as you get more used to this and decide it's something you're going to stick with. Recording software, something to record into. There is free software for both doing it on your own or doing it in-house. And there's also software for connecting with guests and connecting with people who might want to come on your podcast if you're doing an interview podcast or if you have people who are lending their expertise. And the easiest— I won't say easiest, it takes a little getting used to, but the most easy to access the software is called Audacity. And that is a free software that you can download where once you figure out a little bit of how it works, you can just turn it on and hit the record button. As long as everything's hooked up correctly, it'll record your voice. And the software that I recommend that is also free, although there is paid upgrades that you can use, is called Zencastr. Z-E-N-C-A-S-T-R. And that is for multiple people, whether you have a co-host, whether you have a guest, somebody who wants to come in. I recommend that because especially if you have an editor like me who is very specific and likes to go over everything with a fine-tooth comb, they record on multiple tracks. So unlike say a Zoom recording where everything is just one track and everybody was on it, If I have 4 people to edit and somebody's dog starts barking, as long as they're not the one talking, I can edit that out. If it's only one track, it would have to be when nobody's talking. So for an editor like me, and even for someone who is just starting out editing and wants to get rid of that, it's much easier to do so if everybody has their own audio track. And it's easier to balance things like different levels of sound. And if someone starts coughing or someone's child comes in the room and you need to stop, the easier you can make it either on yourself or your editor when it comes to having enough material and having good sound, the better. And like I said, USB mics are great. Once you get into more advanced mics, there are soundboards that you can buy, and that's what a lot of people think You have to have to podcast. So this is mine. If you can see that, a lot of different wires, a lot of different knobs. I'm not going to tell you I know what all of them mean because I don't, but it has multiple mic inputs. And when my partner and I are doing a podcast together, that way we can record us both without both crowding around this microphone. Audio levels and everything like that. It creates better sound. It's easier to Modify it as opposed to a USB mic, which may only have a volume button or something like that. But it's more complicated and more high-tech, and these things cost at least $100. And to go back to what I said earlier, don't invest in something like that if you don't know if you're going to stick with it yet, or if you don't know how to use it, and if you don't need it. So that is up to you. And I would just recommend starting basic and working your way up. Pop filters. Probably seen them before. Some of them look like this. They just cover the microphone. Others have kind of a foam, a circle material. They come over the mic and they go in front of your face. And that just helps with especially the P sound. When you pronounce anything that starts with a P, sometimes the mic will pop. If you've ever heard bad audio or hastily recorded audio where you hear this popping sound every time someone says something that starts with a P, that's why. The pop filter is designed to filter that specific sound out. And of course, the more complicated you get with the audio, the more cables you may need. You might want a mic arm. Most people do. A lot of the USB ones come with their own little holder, but having a mic arm can help you bring it closer to your face like this. One of the biggest things I can tell you is swallow the mic. Speak very close to the mic. You can always move away if it's too much, but a lot of people Even ones who don't even start with a mic, start way too far away. And the quieter your voice comes in on the recording, the harder it is not only to hear, but to edit. So if someone comes in and they're barely moving the needle on the audio sound, if I try to bring up the volume editing it too much, there will be so much audio hiss that it's equally unlistenable. And a lot of these things you can figure out through trial and error, but That's one of the most common things that I've dealt with in my few years as an editor and producer is the feed's too quiet. And there's only so much you can do, especially if you have guests on who have never been on a podcast and don't have a microphone, but you can at least make sure that you're getting good quality audio on your end. Make sure you're very close to the microphone, you're speaking into it and staying a consistent distance from it. Because if you're here at one part and here on another, that same problem can happen and it can be more difficult to balance and the audio hiss will be inconsistent, which is very distracting. Much like these webinars, you want to have headphones, especially if you have more than one person, and that is because echoing is very hard to edit out. So if you're hearing the sound while you're recording and you're hearing someone else's voice on your computer, Your mic is also picking that up and it's all coming in on the same feed. Therefore, it's very difficult to edit. So headphones are important both for you not hearing something twice and for your listeners not hearing a lot of reverb. Now, once you have the material, once you have an idea, it's good to practice. And a lot of people just jump right into episode 1. I never recommend doing that. And I recommend, if you're by yourself, just trying it out without publishing it a couple times. Get used to this setup. Get used to this idea. Get used to what you want to do. Maybe it will change. My first podcast changed a lot between episode 1 and episode 236 or so, when I finally stopped doing that. And that's okay. It may be different than what you think it is. It may be different than what you originally thought you want. So it's good to get on there and actually start putting it into practice, as opposed to just sitting around thinking about what it may be. So if you have co-hosts, it's also important to develop chemistry and see how you talk together. If everybody's trying to talk over each other all at once, doesn't work. And it's not a pleasant listening experience. Anyone who has ever listened to a podcast where nobody can shut up, it's not great. And it also is harder to edit. And it's good to practice interviewing people if you're going to be interviewing others. I've interviewed more people than I can count, but if I had never had practice at that, it would be very difficult. And one thing, if you are going to interview people, it's good to listen to other interviews with them so that you're not asking them the exact same questions. Stemming back from the idea that we were talking about originality, if you hear somebody on one show talking about a thing and you want to ask them about that thing, it's fine, but don't ask them the exact same question. Because if the people who say, look up your podcast because they heard your particular guest, if they've already heard that, they don't need to hear you asking them that question and then that guest saying the exact same thing that they said on another show because they already heard it. So finding unique ways to ask questions and follow-ups and finding different areas to focus on, that's key when you're interviewing people as well. And it's also good to listen to yourself. And that's really hard for some people to listen to their own voice. But when you listen to yourself, it's kind of like reading your own work out loud when you write. You notice things that you wouldn't have noticed before, and in everyday conversation you don't notice because Everybody has verbal habits. Everybody has speech tics. Everybody uses filler words of some kind, even with a lot of practice. So if you know what they are, you can work on not using them or on editing them out. So I can say I have edited out some episodes of this show of people umming probably 300 to 400 times in an hour. And that's not to say anything bad about them as speakers or presenters. It's simply to say most people do it a lot more than they think they do. And when you can edit those things out, when you can make yourself sound clearer, when you're not taking up time with saying something 200 to 300 times, that can be distracting for some people. It sounds cleaner and it's shorter and it's easier to listen to. So I mentioned before editing, learning to edit. It's not that difficult, but it's tedious. It takes a lot of time. That is by far the most amount of time I spend proportionately when it comes to podcasting. So a typical episode of recording a podcast can take 45 minutes to an hour or however long you want to spend doing it. And the rest doesn't take that long. Editing— I edit 5 to 7 podcasts a week, and that can take one a day. It can take 6 to 8 hours to do an hour of content. And that's just if you're doing it thoroughly. Not everybody does. Not everybody edits out everything, but you should at least be editing out interruptions, background noise, pet noises, things like that. If it would be distracting to listen to, if you heard it, you should edit it out because it will be distracting for other people. Or hire someone like me because that's what I do is sit there and go over every single sound Every single word and make it sound better. And if I don't know what you're talking about, it's so much easier to do. And most of the episodes of The Factor podcast, I have no idea what they're talking about, and I'm okay with that.

That's it for today's episode. Be sure to tune in for episode 42, where we wrap up the second part of this training discussing how to take your idea for a podcast and turn it into something that can be published. We'll also chat about the terminology and specificities of recording a podcast, distribution pointers, and the dos and don'ts of this process. You won't want to miss it. Episode 42 drops in 2 weeks. You can subscribe to The Factor Podcast on Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, or the podcast app that works best for you. Give us a 5-star rating to help us grow the show. Every little bit helps. And last but certainly not least, please be sure to visit the show notes for a link to sign up for our Black Friday Cyber Monday deals. We're offering some unprecedented savings on in-person and online course offerings, but only for those that take the time to click the link and get on the list to receive the promo codes. Don't wait, guys. Visit the show notes now, click the link, and get on the list. We promise you'll be glad you did. We'll see you next time. Hey guys, if you like what you heard today, I encourage you to visit our website at factor-store.com. That's spelled F-A-K-T-R-store.com to find out more information about all that we have to offer. We have a variety of online offerings as well as our hands-on FACTOR Rehab System course scheduled in cities around the globe. Be sure to also check out our event calendar and bookmark any of these upcoming live webinar dates coming up in the near future so you can join us live. And of course, the biggest compliment we can receive is for you to help us spread the word to your friends, colleagues, and classmates. You'll find all the important links as well as info about our sponsors in the show notes, so be sure to check those out.