Essential Strategies for Launching Your Own Podcast w/Darren Saul

Darren Saul shares his journey from using podcasting as a marketing tool to becoming a multi-show host and coach. He emphasizes the power of podcasting for brand growth, content creation, and niche targeting, encouraging aspiring podcasters to start simple and prioritize consistency over perfection.

Key Takeaways

Podcasting success lies in finding and serving your specific niche (03:25 )

The power of podcasting isn’t just in listeners—it’s in the content you can repurpose across various platforms, increasing visibility and engagement.  (06:24 )

You don't need expensive tools or software ( 07:27)

Focus on progress over perfection: start where you are (9:12)

Connect with Darren: Website | LinkedIn 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Podcasting and Its Importance
• 4:14 The Power of Podcasting for Branding and Content Creation
• 7:37 Essential Tech and Tools for Aspiring Podcasters
• 13:47 Tips for Efficient Podcast Production

Transcript

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:00)
You want to start a podcast, but there's so much noise out there that you're having difficulty figuring out something that's very simple to get your message out. In today's episode, Darren Saul, host of Suspended Animation Podcast, breaks down in its simplest form what podcasting is, how to start one, and how to really get your show.

If you find the contents of Tools of the Podcast trade useful, please subscribe, follow, and leave us 5-star review. I appreciate you. Thank you.

Darren Saul is a serial podcaster, strategist, trainer, coach, keynote speaker, and student of human attention. Welcome Darren. Welcome. Thank you very much for having me. It's a to be on your show. Yes, a pleasure to have you. So thank you for coming and speaking to us on Tools of the Podcast trade. As you know, we target aspiring podcasts and I think you're the perfect guest to have one today.

Thank you very much. Much appreciated. I do love my podcasting. I can tell. But before we get into the fun stuff, could you tell us, not that you're not fun, who Darren Saul is? I like that. Yeah, so I do a number of different things. I'm a recruiter, an IT recruiter. I'm a photographer, so I do lots of photography work part-time as well. And probably about

Seven, eight years ago, six, seven years ago, I thought to myself, I've got to find a new way to start marketing my businesses. And I fell into digital, I fell into social media and I fell into podcasting. And I thought being the impulsive person that I am, I thought, you know what, I'm just going to start two podcasts straight away, one for each business and see what happens. And I just fell in love with podcasting. I started doing lots of different shows, learning from lots of people.

practicing and it became such a passion for me that I've now started doing a lot of work teaching and coaching and training people on how to use podcasts to achieve results. Yeah. Awesome. Do you find that you, you had this one purpose, so you were trying to market your business and now you found a new lover, so to speak. Do you find that you're struggling to.

to be, to stay true to your original goal because you are so in love with podcasting. Yeah, it is tricky. I definitely agree. And, I'm the type of person that likes to do lots of things because that's what actually gives me energy and inspiration and creativity that I can use in other areas. I do have to be careful because I can end up playing around all day with my podcast funnels and my web pages and my.

processing and then I'm doing everything else I do. So I have to be really strict and say, Darren, one day I'm going to give you, but tomorrow you're doing some other stuff. I'm not going to let you waste the whole week. You sound so much like me. Cause you can get lost in that wind tunnel, can't you? You do. And also because of the tech, know, like everything is an exploration. soon as you start with one piece of tech or one webpage, then you realize, I can put a testimonial here and I can change the logo.

change the color and I can link another page to this. And before you know it, it just goes on and on. Is it enough already? I've got to get to work. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. So you, you told us the reason you started podcasting, but why should anyone start a podcast now? Isn't it too late? I mean, isn't the market too crowded? Yeah, that's a really good, really good point. I like to think of podcasting as an incredible tool for two reasons. And this will answer your question. So the first one.

is it's an incredible way to build your brand, to build brand awareness, to build trust and credibility, and just to get known. It's not about who you know, it's about who knows you. Podcasts are great for that, but 100%, they are getting more more saturated. There's so many podcasts starting up every day. But then again, you don't have to be known to the world. You just have to be known to your particular niche or your particular target audience.

And if you do a really good job and really put your heart and soul into it and have been be patient and be committed and try and do better every time you do it, you will start to crack into that niche and you will start to build your brand. but even if you don't really crack into that particular podcast audience from a pure podcasting point of view or a show point of view, what I love about podcasting is that it gives you

an incredible source of content. And that is what the real power of podcasting is. So it's not even about how many people view you or how many people see you on your podcast app or on YouTube, which is all great. And you keep growing as you continue, but it's about how much content can you extract from the video and audio recordings to then use in your marketing strategy, i.e. your

Newsletters, your website, your email signature, your social media channels, whatever marketing channels you have. That's where all the power of this content, because you're building this strategy. You've got all these big long form pieces of content in all these different forms, and then you can use them for the next two to three months. So that's the real power of podcasting. And I must say that it's also the power of podcasting for guests.

And a lot of guests don't think about that either. Yeah. your own show. But if you do that as a guest, you're already doing incredibly. That's a good point. That's a good point. Cause a lot of people, including myself, pushed a message, you know, and storytelling of podcasting, but I've never really looked at it that way. More content, targeted content, right? That's the real game now. There's so much attention on social media and on all these different channels.

And we have to be seen and we have to stand out and we have to bring variety and we have to be interesting guests. And that's where the power of podcasting really is. It's not even about if it's 10 or 20 or a hundred people that listen to your show. That's fantastic. Of course, you're going to get some awareness and trust out of that, but you've got to get many more people seeing it from your social media content. My social media content does better than on my podcast content on my social media.

does better than all my other social media content. That's true. Yeah, that is true. I noticed that too. Hundreds of likes on that. Yeah. On your first episode that you launched, you might get 10 or 20 in the first couple of days. So yeah, look at the difference. 10 times the amount of people. Yeah. Yeah, that is true. I never thought about that, but that is so true. Yeah. All right. Okay. So you mentioned tech.

And you know, this whole thing about podcasting is very technically tech oriented. And as we get into AI, it's getting more so. What are the best and easiest tools and tech that we need in podcasting, at least to make podcasting enjoyable? Yeah. good one. Perfect. I mean, I'll break it down really easy. You don't have to go crazy. It's all about how much.

you want to spend and if you want to go high tech you can but if you don't want to you don't have to. All you need really, the three main ingredients from a recording point of view are some kind of webcam and most laptops have a webcam built in but if you get a little external webcam that sits on top of your computer that's great like a great Logitech. The new one is a Logitech Brio that's a nice one.

But there's lots of great webcams. a microphone point of view, a microphone like this is what we call a dynamic mic. And these, you can buy these for a couple hundred bucks. And you can buy kits now, including boom arms and earphones and all the gear all in one with a little console to play around with your sound and all that kind of stuff. Or you can just use your AirPods or you can just use a simple mic. Earphones like what you're using.

So there's lots of different options and you don't have to spend money. And then you need lights. You need just some kind of lighting to light you up from the front. Otherwise, if there's a bit of contrast lighting, it could be a bit dark compared to the background. So from a tech point of view, recording point of view, that's all you need. And you can set yourself up anywhere between 300 and $2,000, depending on how much you want to spend. Then from an app point of view or a

site point of view, you need a place to host your audio version and you need a place to host your video version. For the video YouTube it is, it's a no brainer. It's got to be YouTube because YouTube is so powerful and it's the second biggest search engine. And then from an audio point of view, there are two apps that I love. One is called Spotify for podcasters. That's a really cool one. And the other one is called Podbean.

But I would even go to Spotify for podcasters first because it has lots of great tools within it. And it's done a great deal with Riverside, which is what we're using right now. So that's a good run. I've got two podcasts, I've got one on each. But in terms of editing, you know, if you, if you use a Mac, iMovie is your best friend. Throw your stuff into iMovie. You can easily edit your audio and your video files really quickly. If you're on a Windows machine, you can find similar products.

Or you can outsource it, send it anywhere to a podcast editor for pretty low cost and get it all done up for you. And then not to mention, finally, all the great AI tools that are out there now. So there's all these new AI tools that help you in your podcast workflow. And a lot of the platforms like Riverside and whatnot are already building them in. And you can get things like Descript, Decipher. There's hundreds of them.

Another great product to look at is Opus Pro. O-P-U-S Pro, which allows you to throw your videos in and it will automatically cut up 15 to 25 snippet trailer videos for you with captions and a few emojis. And that's saving you a hell of a lot of time and you can use that straight away in your marketing. So there's a little breakdown into the tech. I hope that kind of gives people what they need.

All right. Thank you. And I know it's, it's kind of basic, but seeing as we're talking to aspiring pod podcasters, it's really helpful. So thank you for doing that. Yeah. All right. So having gone into all those details, can you tell us what you do for your clients and how we can get in touch with you? Yeah, you bet. So I work on both sides of the podcast spectrum. So if people are looking to set up podcasts.

or you really start getting serious about using podcasting for marketing and content. I help people in a number of different ways. I do one-on-one courses. do workshops. do keynotes. have recorded courses that people can just buy for very low cost. I've got lots of free resources, which I'll give you a link for, to all that kind of stuff. But then I also want to cater to the people that just want to be podcast guests.

And I worked with them again with loads of courses and webinars and coaching sessions to get them podcast ready. So they're ready to get on there and know what they're going to do, know how to articulate their story. They've practiced, they've prepared, and they've got their wording right. They've got their messaging right. They know who their audience is. And then I teach them how to actually use the content and what to do with it. So I kind of tackle it from that side as well. So anybody that's looking to.

Do more podcasting either as a guest or as a host. you know, can work with you to get you to where you want to go. Okay. Awesome. Thank you. And we'll put those links in the show notes and your freebie as well. So thank you. Yeah. Just to answer your question. If anybody wants to find me, just jump on my site. It's suspended animation.com.au. Okay. those details.

And suspended animation is also the name of one of your podcasts, right? Correct. So one of my podcasts is called Playing with Perspective by Suspended Animation. Okay. All right. Awesome. We'll put those links for people to grab them when they're listening to the episode. So thank you, Darren. Yeah. So, can you give an aspiring podcaster a couple of tips?

And one of them being a quick way to produce episodes. So we don't get overwhelmed because we do, don't we? Yeah, that's a really good one. Yeah. In terms of production at the beginning, just keep it simple. Don't go too far down the rabbit hole of editing and all that kind of stuff. Like when I started, I just recorded stuff on zoom. didn't even start off with, you know, all the bells and whistles. I recorded on zoom.

If you record on zoom, you get an audio file and you get a video file. can dump the audio file straight into your Spotify for podcasters or pod bean app. There you go. You're up and running. You can take the video file, dump it into YouTube. Done. But if you want to start getting a little bit more sophisticated, you can throw it into a iMovie or similar product. So just do real basic editing. Just chop out bits and pieces that you didn't like.

Change the volume. Just keep it really put an intro and an outro on top of it. you want, keep it real simple, export it and you're done. And then if you want to get more sophisticated, you can throw it through Canva template and that can make it even nicer. So you can play around with graphics and you know, it could keep going building and building and building. But when you start, just keep it real simple. Don't spend hours and hours. And if you've got resources, if you've got money, a little bit of money to spend, you can

get someone overseas, you know, great VAs, podcast editors that I use, for example, to help you do all that. And they do it really well and saves the time and energy from you as well. Yeah, for sure. Awesome. So tell me, what is Darren grateful for today? So what am I grateful for? Well, I'm grateful for the fact that I'm on this show and I can share my message with the world. I'm grateful that I'm just doing what I love and yeah, just grateful learning.

Being able to learn every day and who knows where tomorrow will take me. Yeah. All right. Thank you. All right. So, I'm going to continue on this end. I'm not letting you go yet. you, you've, you enjoy podcasting. You started it to market your, your business and now you have to tell me what has been your biggest challenge and.

How, what steps did you take to overcome those challenges? that challenged? Good question. I think the biggest challenge is just trying to be more sophisticated and trying to stand out more as a podcaster, because as you said, it's, it is a big market. So I try to always think of how I can tweak my approach, tweak my shows, tweak the way that I.

promote everything, produce everything, get more people listening, get more people viewing. And that's really the challenge is just keep on growing because there are a lot of podcasters, a lot of podcast apps, there are a lot of podcast platforms. Or for example, a big shout out to the one that we're using right now. So we connected with Podmatch. It's a great, great platform that the guys have built to podcasters and podcastees find each other.

using a bit of AI, very relatively low cost. And it's a great place. So I've booked myself on lots of podcasts to help me grow as well. So that's a great platform to use, PodMatch. But it's really just about being patient, being consistent and knowing that it's a long game. It's not going to be, you're not going to change the world in one month. You've got to just do your time, get better every day, learn and enjoy the journey.

So it's really just about growing, getting better, trying to stand out and to just hack away one by one and learn from as many people as you can. Right. Yeah. Makes sense. Good advice. Thank you very much. And I must push this point off, you know, because we listen to a lot of experts in this field and every day there's a new expert telling you what to do and how to do it. And it can be confusing and it can

pull us away from our original intent with podcasting. Cause again, we get down this rabbit hole struggling and then we give up because we can't fulfill all those expectations, right? Briefly, just hit on that. We need to just stay focused on what our goals and our dreams are concerning podcasting, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you don't want to get to the point where you're...

spending your whole week producing podcasts and preparing podcasts and doing all this stuff where you really want it to just do a little bit here and there and have a bit of fun and create a bit of content and spend the rest of the time with your family or your friends or do other stuff. Cause it can be a drug and it can be all consuming. And once you start getting into the tech, it can be a bit of a rabbit hole. So you've got to be really vigilant and just to say, all right, I'm going to spend so much time or I'm going to spend.

a day or two and that's it. That's good enough for now. Get it out there and we'll worry about, we'll do it even better the next one. And that kind of brings me to a good point is a lot of people, they get so overwhelmed by the thought of all these kinds of stuff that they never do anything. They get paralyzed by the thought of, my God, this sounds like a lot of work. So my advice would be just start wherever you are, put out content where if it's 50%, 60%.

what you thought it was going to be. And every time you put it out, you'll get a little bit better and you'll get a bit faster. Find some workflows and efficiencies around it. But if you wait for to be perfect, it'll never be perfect and you'll never do anything. If I go back to my first episode compared to now, my God, I'll cringe. But that's just the fun, know, and that's kind of the journey. It's nice to look back and say, wow, look how far I've come. Don't get caught up in the perfection of it.

don't get, don't let it take you too much of in a rabbit hole because it can just try and be as strong as you can and keep your goal top of mind so you don't get too off track. Yes. Awesome. Thank you, Darren Saul for coming and speaking to us on Tools of the Podcast Trade. I really appreciate you. Thank you, Eugene. I really appreciate that. That's fantastic. Any parting shots? I would just say if you're on the fence,

Dip your toe in, have some fun. You never know where it's gonna lead. If you don't like it, you could just delete it. Don't worry about it. No big deal. It's not gonna make any difference, but have some fun. You never know and be patient. It's not gonna be a long, not gonna be a short game. It's gonna be a long game. And just be patient. Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate you. Pleasure. Thanks. Thanks everybody.