This post stems from one of my clients who asked this question: I’m not feeling confident when starting my podcast, how can I get more confident in what I’m doing? How did you do it?
I started in radio broadcasting, originally hospital radio, college radio, short-term stations and then professional broadcasting. I’ve been broadcasting for some time, however – I am always trying to add to my skills and learn.
What if though you are just starting out and would like some guidance in how to build confidence as a presenter of your own podcast? Here are five top tips on how to develop the confidence to start a podcast.
- Get it done: Doing it helps to improve what you do. Procrastination is formed by the worry of can I do this? The longer you think about it, the harder it is to do. Get on and thrash out your ideas. Get doing what you’re talking about.
- Monitor Progress: Listen to your content and understand what you’d like to improve and change it up bit by bit. Break it down into smaller goals for your presentation techniques. And tick them off as you go along. You can also get expert help in improving what you do. You can contact me for example for one to one coaching. You can also listen to other podcasts, broadcasters and programmes to hear some of what they are doing. When you do, pick them apart to understand how they work and apply some of it to what you do.
- Exercise: Yep. It helps with concentration, memory retention and focus – and it will help to relieve the stress you may be feeling when approaching the task in mind. I could add in eating well too, but keeping fit is a really important part of this journey.
- Be Fearless: Failing to achieve how you want to sound, or not liking the sound of your voice is all part of the start of your journey. No one gets it right first time. So you put the practice in. But most importantly is not to worry about what people think about you when you first start. As with everything it gets better every time you do it, especially if you follow steps 1 and 2 in the process.
- Think Long Term and invest: You’re at the start of a wonderful journey. Big goals require big sacrifices… so set-aside time to practice, set aside time to learn, read about presentation techniques and podcasting, listen to podcasts about podcasting (like Radio Skills for Podcasters series). Invest in a course or search out a good podcast coach.
I do hope that the 5 top tips for how to develop the confidence to start a podcast help you to build to be the podcaster you want to be. And if you’d like some further advice or coaching do feel free to get in touch.
Kevin
@mrkevinfield
kevin@podskills.com
