3 Things You Must Know When Choosing Your Podcast Topic

Welcome to episode 317 of Hit The Mic with The Stacey Harris. Let's talk podcasting. I get a lot of questions about podcasting, especially now that we're 300, now 317 episodes into the show which apparently means I know stuff. One of the most common hurdles for podcasters, or wannabe podcasters rather, is what to talk about. That's what we're going to cover today. We're going to talk about the 3 things you must know about choosing a podcast topic because A, it is not as difficult as you think it is and B, I want you to stop using this as an excuse to no hit record on a podcast because that's what some of you guys are doing. I know things. Let's talk about choosing a podcast topic and let's jump right in. I want to keep this episode pretty brief because I want you guys to be taking action on it, so we're going to jump right in today. Number 1, what problem do you want to solve for your audience? What problem do they have that they are looking to you for? That could be inspiration, that could be understanding, that could be education, that could be training, that could be permission to take things less seriously. It could be a lot of things and I'm talking in sort of a grand scale. In the abstract at a really, really bird's eye level, what problem are you trying to solve? This might be the problem your trying to solve in your business in a lot of other ways, but now this podcast is how you manifest. For example, I have a podcast because a problem I want to solve is I want you guys to stop telling me you're dumb. I get a lot of I'm dumb when it comes to Twitter. I don't know anything about podcasting. I'm dumb when it comes to technology. I'm dumb when it comes to Facebook, and I hate it. Honestly. It drives me crazy because you're not dumb just because you don't know something. It just means you haven't learned it yet, and some stuff you don't have to know. That doesn't make you dumb, it just makes you focused, okay? That's the sort of grandiose problem I want to solve with this show. That leads to me doing 2 episodes a week answering questions in a way that's very driven by making you not feel dumb. Making you understand that you can figure this stuff out, that you don't have to know everything, and that it's okay to just learn it as you go or say forget it, I don't need to know it, because that's cool too. There are things in this world I have learned I do not need to know. I do not need to know a lot of things. I can't think of anything right now off the top of my head that isn't insane, but I don't need to know a lot of things. I don't need to know how my car works. I don't. I just want it to work. It's the joy of marrying a mechanic, I guess, because he can deal with those kind of things but I genuinely don't have any interest in knowing it, I don't have any need to know it, okay? There are things in my business I don't need to know. I don't need to know how the SEO on my site works. I know some, but I don't need to know it all. I A, have a plugin that gets me a lot of the way there, that helps with my limited knowledge. If I really, really want to amp up the SEO, I will hire someone who does know, because it's just not something I need to know. I do not need to know how to custom code my website because A, I have WordPress and B, I have developers. They know that stuff, okay? Social media, podcasting, that may be stuff you don't need to know a whole lot about, but that's the point of me doing this show is so that you don't feel dumb. You can get the minimum viable knowledge that you need, you can dive deeper if you want more than that minimum viable knowledge, or you can say, you know what? I can hire Stacey. I can hire somebodSend Stacey a TextSupport the show