Launching a Podcast as an Introvert with Emily Milling

Our guest today is Emily Milling, founder of The Ultimate Creative, a podcast production company based in Toronto. She helps entrepreneurs confidently share their voices through podcasting, one on one monthly production, monthly masterclasses, and her course Podcast Rocket. Passionate about all things audio, Emily is also a musician, composer, and one-fifth of the comedy troupe Big Chick Energy Sketch.

In this episode, Emily and I are talking about what got her started with podcasting, how to find the courage to start your own podcast, your comfort level with podcasting, the benefits of launching your own podcast, and much more.

The Natural Evolution From Performance to Podcasting

Emily’s background is in music performance and in high school she did musicals. This was how she got started in the arts. After university and a period Emily called the “dark ages”, she met her partner, a filmmaker, who was really into podcasting and the arts. He asked her to write some of the music for his indie films, and from there it spiraled into several things. 

Emily started several podcasts, a live radio play, business podcasts, and professionally editing podcasts. Eventually, this landed her to start her own podcast production company, The Ultimate Creative.

Being Stuck In Your Head to Finding Courage to Put Yourself Out There

We all tend to have that inner dialogue where fear shows up and all kinds of negative self-talk begins. You become stuck in your head going back and forth with an idea, so a great thing you can do is just start where you’re at and continue to get better as you go like the quote, “done is better than perfect.” It takes courage to put yourself out there into the podcasting world, and I will tell you that it is very rewarding!

Emily mentions how – even though she is quite comfortable with performing and getting on stage – it was one of the scariest things she has done to launch her business podcast. It took a lot of courage for her to even sit down to start the recording process. Emily even re-recorded the first few episodes of her podcast 4 times. Even the students in her course, Podcast Rocket had thoughts full of doubt when starting their podcasting journeys. She said, “it’s something we all face – introvert or not – when putting yourself out there”.

A great tip Emily shared is before you start a podcast yourself, record yourself talking on your phone. This helps you get comfortable listening to yourself talk, asking yourself questions that you might ask guests, and speaking for long periods of time into a microphone.

Your Comfort Level When Starting Your Own Podcast

Being a huge introvert and working with others who are huge introverts, comfort level is a major factor when it comes to starting a podcast. Emily’s advice for introverts starting out is to be a guest on other podcasts. Make sure to have a script of your story and how you got started in your business that you can tell over and over. This allows you to have a standard answer to share either with others on their podcasts or on your own podcast. 

Practicing this in the mirror a few times can give you some confidence, and it’s something you can always fall back on to share how your expertise came about. Imposter syndrome can make you feel like you aren’t capable of starting a podcast or sharing your expertise in any area as a guest on someone else’s podcast, so what matters is that you find a way to get over this mindset block and practice can give you the confidence to shine. 

What Are the Benefits of Entrepreneurs Launching a Podcast

There are great reasons to start a podcast for your business and it’s a great way to market your business. The benefits Emily describes include:

• It helps get your name out there on a platform that is rapidly growing.
• It gives you a chance to connect with your potential clients and gives them a chance to know you better.
• It’s a confidence booster and allows you to grow your public speaking muscle.
• It makes it easier to want to buy from you because of the like-know-trust factor.

The benefit for me is being able to repurpose content from the podcast recording to create emails, social media posts and stories, and Pinterest pins. It saves me so much time with having all of these reusable content pieces.

Batching Your Podcast Episodes

When you spend time each week recording and then do the accompanying post-production pieces, you can burn yourself out because you are constantly trying to gather ideas and putting the pieces together. So when you batch record and produce your episodes, it saves you so much time and you can be much more strategic with it. 

The best advice Emily gives is to have them recorded and ready to go a month in advance, but the topics and/or ideas and plans she recommends at least 3 months in advance. If you are launching a course or have something your business is getting ready to release, then it’s great to have podcast content related to that. This allows your podcast to do its job and bring the right people to you!

Another benefit to this is that is when you have to skip a guest or something doesn’t work properly, you can use something else that you have batched out in its place. This keeps you from the possibility of missing a week’s episode. Also having a content calendar for this purpose helps so much.

What Having a Weekly Podcast Can Do for You

Having a consistent, weekly podcast increases your know-like-trust factor which allows your audience to get to know you on a deeper level. They are seeing it pop up weekly on their social media feeds, and can listen to it on the go, and every week you are delivering on what you promised – a weekly podcast episode.

The default Emily always recommends is having a weekly podcast because it allows you to stand out from the crowd. If a weekly podcast isn’t an option for you right away, then the key is being consistent with your podcast schedule. Batching your recordings really comes in handy here, so if you choose to do a weekly podcast you can save time and not be in constant podcast recording, editing, or content creation mode for it every time you turn around.

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode with Emily as she provided so many valuable tips on launching your very own podcast. If you now have the itch to start your own podcast, then Emily’s Podcast Rocket course, where you launch your own podcast in just 5 weeks from idea to LIVE is just what you need. A special discount just for you as a listener today is with the code INTROVERT10 at checkout!

If you’re planning to start your own podcast as an introvert, which of Emily’s podcasting tips did you find most helpful?