How To Share Your Podcasting Brilliance & Not Be A Jerk About It

Podcasting is a wash with helpful guides and trainers, but there are also plenty of hucksters and shysters out there just trying to make a quick buck. How do you stay on the right side when you have knowledge to share?
‍

Hello and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
‍

At some point podcaster, you're going to decide, you might decide you have knowledge that you wish to share with other less experienced podcasters. And I am all for that. Heck, I've done that. And I guess, arguably I do that. But in doing so how do you make sure that when you're doing that, that you bill yourself as someone that is experienced and can do this the right way?
‍

There are lots of ways. And how you present yourself and bill yourself, I think  are key. And that's what I want to talk about with you today.
‍

Some people, like me , might decide to write a book. Yeah. I wrote a book about podcasting many moons ago.  And like podcasting, I will tell you this, like podcasting, writing a book is easy. Now, you're probably wondering what did you just say? Well, let me finish. But also like good podcasting, writing a good book - very hard to do.
‍

I mean, the mechanics of doing the work isn't all that complicated - talking into a microphone, typing and keyboards and mechanics are pretty straightforward. Yeah. But it's all those other things that really get in the way. So it's hard to write a book. You know that, so you know that it's hard to make a good quality podcast.
‍

See, when I wrote Podcasting for Dummies way back in 2005, I only had a year of podcasting experience. Why did I write a book with a year of experience under my belt? Because there was no more experience to be had than that. And the same thing for Todd Cochran, from Blubrry, for the book he wrote, and the same one for Rob Walsh, the one he co-wrote - from Libsyn.
‍

So yeah, we were doing this very early because there weren't another option. Very short time. You know, we were like the early cartographers I guess, exploring the new world, drawing these quasi correct maps that would kind of get you there. But there were a lot of things we didn't know.
‍

Well, today there's roughly two decades of experience. Two decades of experience. So nobody wants a hastily drawn map anymore. So that means if you're going to do something, remember you're entering into a field that is two decades old. Make sure you're prepared to write a book that handles the fact that you're in something that is two decades old.
‍

Another option people say, well, writing a book is hard, so maybe I'll just do - I'll make a course. I'll sell an online course. Because there are new platforms cropping up all the time that are begging you and also helping you, begging you and helping you to distill your knowledge down to a salable six-part series course thing that you can sell.
‍

Great. Those are - they exist. But again, do you really have the experience to do that? How is that course you're about to make, you're thinking of making, going to stack up against every other course that is out there? Do you really have something unique to say? If you do, make it. If you really have something unique to say, then yes, absolutely, you should make that course.
‍

But have you checked, have you examined all of the other myriad courses that are out there to make sure that what you're putting into the world is actually something of value, that's helpful? Check and make sure that the lure of making money, which is the whole reason people make courses, make sure that, that lure of making money, and I am okay with you making money, but make sure that lure of making money does not force you to put out an inferior product because your reputation matters in this space.
‍

And if you're just trying to make a quick buck, well, you're not listening to my show anyhow. You're into this. You're here. Make sure that course you put out is not going to somehow taint what people might think of you.
‍

Coaching another common way people with knowledge to share, like you've done this for awhile, want to get into the game of things? When you think about coaching, I'm a big fan of people becoming coaches. I want you to think about coaching more as a swimming coach or a vocal coach, or even a hitting coach for baseball and yeah, I guess you could -
‍

I think the way to think about it this way for coaching is those people are all teaching specialties, right? So try not to, when you consider yourself as a coach, maybe not bill yourself as a coach for all things podcasting, unless of course you are very good and very experienced at all things podcasting, then you can do that. But if not, well just coach someone at a niche level.
‍

Like what is the thing you do really well? Maybe you can help people, coach them through getting the most out of an audio plugin, if you're really good about the engineering space. Or maybe you can coach people on script-writing and help transform words they put on texts that were originally written to be read, now they can be considered an audio form . Or again, a vocal coach. I have just engaged with a vocal coach to help me.
‍

So I think there's plenty of room for that. If you've got some specialized expertise, go down the coaching route. But probably my most favorite would be mentorship. I think if you're listening to this show and you've been podcasting for a while, you probably could qualify as becoming a mentor for someone.
‍

There are lots of ways you can do a mentorship program. I prefer a very unstructured program between the mentor and the mentee, where both of us are learning from each other. Hi, Steph! That's really important, I think, is that I, the mentor, should get as much as the mentee gets out of this. It's not a guru talking down from on high.
I like mentorships that are free. Because it helps you avoid the temptation of trying to pack a bunch of things that you think might be valuable that really aren't valuable and you let the mentee kind of pull out what they need.
‍

When you are becoming a mentor, if you do decide to go down the mentor route, make sure that you're not sliding into the other roles that I mentioned. There's a difference between having a mentor and a coach. They're two very different things. There's certainly a difference between a mentor and someone who is teaching. Cause that's different. There are similarities, but there are differences between the two and you want to make sure that relationship stays that way.
‍

I think mentorship can be much more generalist where again, coaching and teaching tends to be much more specialized for at least for most people. But a mentorship is much broader than that. There's lots of things you're trying to share with people. And the other thing about being a mentor is prepare yourself to say, "I don't know," quite a lot.
‍

I mean, technically teachers should do that, too, and so should coaches, but then they go find the answers and bring them back to the students or the other way around. But for the mentorship I'm oftentimes saying I don't know. Just because I've done this for a while it doesn't mean I know everything. So again, just prepare to know that.
I want you to look back at your experience and your practical knowledge. What have you done in this podcasting space? And then go back to that list I just gave you of those roles and figuring out which one do you think is going to be best for you. You got the itch to share your knowledge. How are you going to do it?
‍

Honestly, that's going to be really hard for you to judge for yourself. Take it from me. It's hard to know which one is your best way to do that. So best thing for you to do is send the link to this article, to friends and maybe family that you trust. There's an episode link in the episode details. Send that to them along with a note, asking their feedback on where they think you might be best suited and then go, you know, give it a shot. See if you can find someone  to listen to what you have to say, to read what you have to say.
‍

Or just join up for that mentorship program is really my favorite way for you to do that. And if during all of this, a moment of brilliance struck you, you knew exactly what you're ready to do. Great. Do you want to show me some love for that? By all means go to buymeacoffee.com/evoterra and well, you know, buy me a coffee.
‍

All right, that's it. I don't do shows on Friday. I do a live Clubhouse on Friday. If you want to join, there will be information in the episode notes about that. But if not, no worries.
‍

I shall be back on Monday with yet another - oh, actually I won't be back on Monday. Monday's a holiday. I'll be back on Tuesday after President's Day for another Podcast Pontifications.
‍

Cheers!