The Ultimate Way To Write The Perfect Podcast Show Description And Record Your Intro Episode Too

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Hey, everyone. Welcome to Brancaster's first, I'm going to call it Q and A session, strategy session. So we had a little bit of glitch, so we're starting about 15 minutes late, but that's because we weren't prepared to go live on Facebook like I thought we were. So anyway, just wanted to set you guys up that we're going to be doing this regularly. If you haven't gotten the notice, you will. It's probably in your email somewhere. But we are going live every week. We're going to be doing that right here in the Brancasters Facebook group and we are going to be sharing with you a little bit of a topic. Maybe sometimes today I'm going to do that because I don't expect as many people to be commenting and joining in. You could also join on Zoom if you prefer that.

We'Ll be sharing out the Zoom room today. I don't have that for you because that's not how we're going live today. So we are really trying to run a more complete and push people through the setup process. So you guys who are just getting started, you have lots of questions and we get that and we want to get you moving and we want to get you pushed through that setup process in as fast a time as possible because faster you get the recording, the more business you're going to get from that. So we want to help you do that. So we're going to structure some different topics to make sure that we're touching on them. We're adding them to our feed you'd brand library. And then we also want to make sure that we're here to answer questions. So every week one of us will be available. This is my week. I'm usually going to handle the first Thursday of every month at 4pm Pacific Time. Tom will handle the second week. I think it's on Wednesdays. I will have to check the calendar. I will do that right now. So, yep, it's on Wednesdays at 12 noon, so that will be next Wednesday. So typically it'll be the second Wednesday of the month. Mine will be the first Thursday of the month. But because May has five weeks, we shifted it all a week to start a week later. So typically the first Thursday will be strategy and it'll usually be me. The second Wednesday of the month will be 12 noon with Tom, and that'll be tech. It's a chance for you to plug in your recording equipment, work with him, make sure your recordings are up to date. Then on Tuesdays the next week. So the third Tuesday of the month. We really are. It's about client support. So wanting to make sure you guys have your calendars up to date, you understand what you need to support your podcast. So this is a great time. If you have virtual assistants or you have podcast managers that you're working with, it's a great time for them to be able to come and ask questions. Sometimes it's going to be Tom, sometimes it's going to be Alexandra, and sometimes it'll be me. So it just depends on what's going on. So that one will be 5pm on the third Tuesday of the month and then we will still have on the last Friday of the month or the fourth Friday of the month. In this particular case, It'll be the 1pm Typical client call. We always have a topic and we always answer questions. This is for more of our advanced users, definitely. We try to keep it focused on advanced topics so that will still be occurring on a regular basis. So nothing's going to change there for those of you who are used to tuning in on that day. So anyway, I want to share with you a topic that's near and dear to my heart because I probably have explained it, I don't know, 20 times in the last two weeks alone. So I thought I'm gonna do an episode on this. And I thought while I'm doing the episode, it would be really great if you all got to see how I structure and start up an episode when I'm doing it in this live stream format, which is different because I don't always do that. Right. So I mean, some of you know, it's just Tom and I recording and so you have a whole different way in which it's done. But sometimes I like to do a training style podcast episode, something that is very specific and topic based for those of you who see me do it. Sometimes I use slideshares and sometimes I don't. I did one on the interview. Best interview questions to ask. I've done one on social media planning and how we do that each year. I did my content planning series for the new year. I did that at the end of last year. So I've got those things that I do typically. But sometimes I just want to do a quick little short, get this going. It's maybe a 15 minute and I'd love to do it live stream because it makes sense. It helps more people get a chance to see this. It helps more people get a chance to have exposure to it because they're going to be on Facebook as well. So I like to do those things whenever I can. And so this is a particular one in which I am going to share that. So. So I'm going to. What I would do is, if I'm doing it in a training situation, just like we're doing right now, I want to make sure that I give my audio editors a cue. So I'm going to give them a cue and then I'm going to say, cut all that before this. Right? And I'm going to also tell them, and I'm out. Then pause, and then I'm going to start my new content so that it's complete for a podcast and it doesn't all run together, and your podcast doesn't sound like it just was run on Facebook. So you can do that if you're using our done for you production services. If you're not, and you have to do it yourself, you have to take it into GarageBand and you have to, like, edit it up or whatever. You know, you might be using Audacity or anything like that. So. But in this particular case, I just want to demo how we do it and how I record it so that you guys can use some of these best practices for recording as well. So audio editors, please cut everything out before. Now I'm going to pause and start again.

So. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the feed you'd brand podcast. I'm Tracy Hazzard and I have a really interesting episode today that I have probably repeated myself so many times in the last week that I thought, I have to bring this to you as an episode. So what are we gonna cover today? We are gonna cover how to record the most amazing introduction episode ever.

Recording a podcast introduction episode is really daunting for a lot of people. It's what hangs them up. They get really worried about that first episode. So we have a couple of techniques we use here, and I want to share them with you today because it might just get you moving. But not just that. I'm going to have a part two to the series next time. And in part two, I'm going to talk about how to take that introduction episode and turn it into a 4000 character amazing description. So you're going to want to stay tuned for that as well. So here's how I do it. First things first, if someone is nervous and worried about this introduction episode, then what I do is I make sure that they don't start with their introduction episode. I want you to start with an interview because most people are very comfortable in Zoom, especially you coaches out there, you consulting clients, you have all those kinds of people that you are, you are connecting with on Zoom all the time. So you're used to that interaction back and forth. You're used to that interplay that happens and the dynamic that happens. Plus you have the energy of having to be on with someone and having that interplay and interaction. So it makes you much more calm and much more relaxed and it makes it much easier to start your very first episode with a guest episode. So that's where I like to get everybody to start. So my first episode that I recommend is go find a guest that isn't going to be all upset if you're not perfect, if the recording goes all wrong. If something happens, you just want to make sure that your very first guest is someone that you know is a little bit understanding. Pick your best friend, but pick somebody relevant, of course, to your audience. But go ahead and just get somebody who, you know, if you need to record it again, they're totally going to be understanding and they're going to be really happy and fine to help you because. Because they just want you to succeed. So make that happen. So that's where we like to get people to start. Then we move into the number one topic, the thing you could talk for endless hours on, the thing you get the question again and again and again. The thing that really is the core basis to your business, to your show, to the things that you want to have to the things that you want to talk about that you want your show to be based on. That's your main topic. We want to go for a good 20 minutes on that easily. Okay, you don't want to do less than that because this is a basis, this is a strong basis. And the reality is this is probably going to be your second or third episode in your, you know, when you're launching anyway. And so you really want to make sure that it's the best that it can be. So I always look at that as, you know, for me, it might be the core of like, why would you want to start a podcast? Or it might be, you know, in my product business, it is why we have a seven step process, why we have the 7P process, why that is so critically important to success. So tie it to a critical factor, something that they, a reason they're failing or a reason they might succeed if they change their mindset, if they do something different. Right. So those are the episodes. So we're essentially almost working backwards. So I usually like to have my guest episode as the third episode, the topic episode. And then I work back into the introduction episode. So that's what we're here to talk. How do we approach and record the best introduction episode we can? And that is a really a technique I refined over time, and we didn't always do it. So if you are an existing podcaster who's listening, who already has a show, and you're thinking, yeah, I really. I'm so embarrassed. I can't stand my introduction episode. And I can tell you right now, like, I never want to hear my WTFF interview introduction episode ever, because I know it was bad. It was like, you know, I was nervous. It wasn't good. We didn't have the best recording equipment. I'm sure there was no energy in it, right? So I never want to listen to it again. And so we don't go back to them. But in this case, you may want to rerecord. And it's perfectly okay if you do that, because remember, we take care of your statistics. We take care of all of that. If you replace out the episode, we're going to make sure that it's okay for you. So it's okay. Replacement. Place it out if you're really embarrassed by it and you want to change that out and follow this new technique. So I've given you something. I'm going to be giving you something new here that you can do something with. So what makes the best structure to an introduction episode? First things first. You turn on the microphone, you just start recording. You don't worry about how it sounds, because the first time you do it, you're probably going to delete it. I don't want you to delete it. I want you to save it for a totally different reason. But we'll talk about that in a minute. But it's a rehearsal, so do not worry if you just don't get it. Don't worry about writing everything down. The first time you do it, I want you to just make a quick little outline for yourself, a few bullet points or a few little questions, whatever is going to prompt you to get through these three sections that I'm going to talk about in a minute and help you flow through that. But I don't want you to script it all out. Not this first time. This first time is just a rehearsal. So let yourself off the hook for that, right? But record this rehearsal because it's really important, because you want to hear your sound back. You want to test out a bunch of things. You want to hear how it sounds and decide what else was missing. So this is one that you definitely want to listen to, right? Don't go on how it felt. Listen to this one back, because this is an important part of the very first impression of you and your show. So what are the core components? What are the three core components? So the first component is, remember that this is your show, but it's not about you. Because if you've got no listeners, then you're not creating an attractive enough environment to do what you want to do. You're not getting your message across. You're not conducting business. You're not building a tribe. You're not doing the things that are necessary to grow a show if it's all about you from the get go. So the very first thing that I want you to do is put yourselves in the model and the mindset of the listener. If they're coming across and they're searching in itunes and they're finding something in your category, whether it's health and wellness or how to start a podcast, right, they're searching on itunes and they're coming to a bunch of options and they might click it. It's like a trailer, right? This is a little bit longer than a trailer. It's not like 30 seconds or a minute. It's longer than that. But they are going to look at that and they're going to use this as a judgment as to whether or not they want to continue and whether or not you have what they're looking for. So if your goal is coaching and consulting and training and those kinds of things, then it definitely needs to be more in the pain. What are they searching for? What are they struggling with? Why are they looking for education to get themselves out of? What are they aspiring to be? Where are they aspiring to be on the continuum of education? What are they trying to do, and how are they going to go about doing that and what are they looking for? So where is their pain and where is their pleasure? That's where you're going to really be starting, and you're going to be moving through that in maybe five minutes or so. Go ahead and be longer here if you've got some stories to tell. Remember, it's not all about you, but you can do a little bit of contextual stories in here and tell little bits and pieces of things. You're not really introducing yourselves, although you should have at least at the very beginning said, hi, I'm Tracy Hazzard, and welcome to Feed, you'd brand or welcome to my show. Right so you definitely want to have a little that in, but you're not going into yourself yet. Not until you finish getting them excited about that. You get them that. You get where they are and get where they want to go. Now we move on to section two, and section two is you. Why are you uniquely suited to deliver this to them? Why are you uniquely suited to bring them from that pain into the aspirational pleasure? Why can you do that? What in your background, what in your story, what in your history, what in your resume, what gives you the perspective and the unique ability to be able to deliver this for them? That's what you are telling here. You're. You're not going to recite off. I went to Rhode Island School of Design, and, you know, in 2002, I did this, and, you know, you don't want that whole history. They can read your bio for that. So you want only the things that are relevant to delivering on the promise of this education, aspiration or inspiration or whatever your podcast is about, like why you can deliver that and why you are the best one to be hosting the show. So that's your second piece. Now you can go as long as you want in there, especially if your story is uniquely intertwined with that. So I wouldn't, though, go longer than you did on the first one. So if you did 10 minutes the first time, do 10 minutes again here, do five minutes. It just try not to go longer than you did about them, about you. Because otherwise, again, it sounds like this whole introduction episode is all about you. And while it is an introduction to you, you want to drip out all your amazing stories and you want to save them for everything that's coming up. So you just want to get them excited and interested and oriented enough with you to want a next date, right? They want to go past this blind date that they've checked into or this speed date. And so now we move on to the third section. And this is the section in which you're going to talk about the exciting things that are coming. And that's another reason why I wanted you to do an interview episode and a topic episode, because it's gotten you thinking about the other episodes you're going to create for them, right? All the other ideas you have. You probably have a list at this point. You probably have all of that going on. And so you want to be able to just now give them a model of, here's how my podcast is going to look every week. You're going to get this every episode. I might have different Structures, I might have different pieces. I'm going to give you a tip of the day. If I'm doing a five day, whatever your model is, you want to really make sure that you're giving that to them then so that they know what to look for. Forward to. And then if you've got some really great guests coming up that you already know that they're scheduled, they're recorded, they're as we say in the can, then we want to make sure that you have been able to.

Preview that, kind of tease them as to what some of these early episodes are going to be as. We refer to that as open looping. Right. So and you can listen to the feed you'd brand episode on open looping if you haven't already listened to it. See what I did there? I open looped you to something else you'd want to go to. Right. I'm tracking back, I'm giving you something that's coming up. And so normally on an episode I might go forward and backwards. I might refer to things that already happened and I might refer to things that are coming up. And I did both that for you today. Right. I left open the idea that I'm going to give you how to turn this into a description. Right. But I'm not going to give that to you today. I'm going to give that to you in part two, so you'll tune in and come back for more. So we're giving you something to look forward to and we're also giving you more that you can consume. So now we're getting you into a binge listenable mode where you're going to go to the next episode automatically. So we want you to be able to do those things and start to tease them and get comfortable with that in this introduction episode as well. So now that you've done these three parts and we're going to review real quick, the first is all about your audience, all about their pain, their pleasure, their aspirations, where they want to go. The second part is all about about why you're uniquely suited to deliver that. What in your background, what in your story gives you the right perspective to be able to deliver on this education or inspiration. And the third part is the model of your show. So what it's going to look like and what they have to look forward to if they go past this introduction episode. So you're getting them excited for that. So now that you've done that, you download that recording and you save it. If you're our client, you send it to us and we write a description from there. If not, my number one recommendation is to take that and go have it transcribed for you. And that way you have something all written out. And then in the next episode, I'll talk to you about how we're going to turn that into a description, or how you can turn it into a description, how we do it within our organization for you. So you've got all the grid pieces now listen to it. Don't forget I told you to download it. I want you to listen to it. You're going to listen to it. You're going to hear how it was. Did I have enough energy? Did I look like I was reading from my sheet of paper about what was next? Did I have a lot of ums and ahs? And did I do things that I wasn't really happy with? Well, that's okay, because remember, you're going to redo it. Now is a good time to make a few more bullet points and say, I touched on these things. They were really good. I don't want to forget them next time. You know what I do? I want to add in this story right here, and I want to move in and maybe restructure how I said, the order of which I did something. So now you've made a better outline, and now you're going to sit down and you're going to record it again. But please do not read your script. Do not go through and take that transcription that you had and read it the next time. It's only going to get worse. It's not going to get better. It's only going to turn into something that then is so static. The energy of your opening episode is so critically important. It's more important than perfection. And so if you can stay in that energy of excitement, then they're going to be excited enough to give you a shot. So that is way more important than having it be perfect and not having missed a word, having stumbled your own language. Go for it and use that powerful energy. Now some of you are going to have hit it right off the bat, and it's going to be perfect. Because the energy of doing it the first time you had your beginner's luck, whatever it might be, but it was just perfect because the energy was right. And then after that it goes downhill. That's kind of my style. That's why I like to just go for recording. But not everyone's going to be that way. So I'm giving you the options here. But I really want to make sure that you are at least considering the idea that you could air what you've already just recorded. So think about that some more. So I hope this has really helped you guys dive in. If this has been what's holding you back, what's keeping you from getting your podcast finally launched, then let's remove that introduction episode as a barrier. Let's move on and make it something that is just really valuable for you, really gets the energy moving, gets you moving, gets your audience moving to listen to more, and gets this podcast started. So thanks everyone for listening to the feed you'd brand podcast. I'm Tracy Hazard and remember, I'm going to be back here with the second part of this episode on how to build a description from your introduction episode. Thanks so much for listening. This has been Tracey Hazard.

So everyone, editors, you can cut it at that previous stop point. Everyone, you can hear that I just did that stopping section and I moved on. So I'm going to cut right at that point. That's going to be my episode. And now I'm doing the Q and A session or I'm doing what's happening afterwards. So if you're going to do a live stream situation, that's my, my second lesson for you guys today is that if you're going to do this in a live stream situation and you still want to make sure you're preserving the audio piece so that it sounds better as a podcast and doesn't sound like a live stream situation, then. And of course then dogs, dogs make noise in the background here too. So luckily that didn't happen. Although some of you may heard the squeaking. But you know, you want to make sure that you, you don't treat it like they're listening to a Facebook Live, right? And that happens a lot from people. So I saw Scott Carson pop in, I saw somebody else pop in and I. Oh, Tom Hazard popped in. So I saw some people pop in, but I don't, I didn't shout out to them because if I shouted out to them, then I would have been messing with the audio track. And so I'm really careful not to do that. So if you've got eyes on it, if you've got all of those things, really hold back on your interaction and save it for the end. And so that's why you don't want to, when you do these live streams, this in group situation where you're going to take questions or you're going to invite engagement, you want to wait until you're done with the episode portion and then Invite it in. So, anyone have any questions, like, now is the time. Join in. Ask me questions. Give me some feedback on what you'd like to hear next. And again, we're going to post the schedule right here in this group, so we'll make sure that you guys all have the schedule. We'll have the Zoom link in case you want to join on Zoom. You can ask questions in both places. It's a little more complex when I'm running it myself, so you guys have to be patient with going back and forth between Facebook and Zoom, because Facebook has a slight delay in when questions post compared to the Zoom channel when I'm watching it there. So just keep that in mind that if you're posting, you have a better shot at getting your questions answered faster in Zoom. So, anyway, I hope this helps today. I am looking forward to running these every single month. I look forward to answering your strategy questions. And, you know, thinking about these things, it's like, if your show's not working for you, if it's not delivering on your goals, if it's not moving you forward in your business, if it's not making those things happen for you, and you already have been podcasting for a while, this is a time to tune in and ask me some questions, you know, and not have to make a private appointment. But you can just tune into any one of these calls and ask us questions. That's what we're here for. So we want to really make sure this is open office hours. And so even if it's not about strategy, but you want to say, hey, I got my new mic. How does it sound? Then tune in on Zoom, because I can't do that from Facebook. But, you know, join in on Zoom and let me check it out for you. I'm happy to do that. We're all happy to do that. We want a weekly touch point with you for an hour or so. Depends on how many people join in and how long they stick around. You might get a private session. Of course, it is recorded, though, so keep that in mind. But anyway, let us know if you guys have anything specific you'd like us to cover. I'm so sorry about the dog barking. It's like the end of the day and she's getting anxious that, why are you not taking me out yet? And so anyway, but if you guys have any of these questions, anything that you want covered that's really specific to strategy, to tech, to customer service, to how we manage our show, to how you should manage your show, how you should Build your calendar. These are the times to ask them, because that's when we're going to be able to go over them in greater detail with you and help other people at the same time. So I'm going to tune out because I'm not seeing any questions posting live. And that's okay. That happens to everyone, by the way. Oh, she wants to pop in and say hello. Hello. Say hi, Lucy. And so anyway, that is a great way, you know, if you don't have questions, don't worry about it. Do what I did and prep a topic. Because when you start something up, it takes a little while to get people knowing it's there. Getting engaged. Maybe they missed the email the first time. They didn't realize what it was really going to be about. They see the recording later and they wish they were there. And they'll join next time. So be prepared for having nobody. Come on, don't just tune out. Do something like I just did. Give a session. Give a training. Build some more of your content. Make it useful for you. So thanks, everyone. We'll be back again next week. Remember, next time it's Wednesday at noon Pacific time and it'll be Tom and it'll be all about the tech. So thanks again, everyone. Take care.