Nicole Smith
Welcome to Take Control with Nicole. As business owners, we experienced firsthand the fine line between our personal and business lives. During our conversations, we will look at simple hints and tips to create time, reduce overwhelm, and help you to navigate through your journey to where you want to be. If you’re looking for smarter ways to work, and create space and time freedom in your day, then you’re in the right place. All right, let’s go.

Nicole Smith
Hello, hello, and welcome back to Take Control with Nicole. Today is a special episode because I have the fabulous Cass Ponton here with me and we are going to be looking at perfecting your podcasting workflows. Pretty exciting topic. Yay! First of all, let’s introduce the fabulous Cass. So as you may know, already Cass is a Podcast Producer, a lover of the beach, vegan doughnuts and self development books. Cass helps ambitious women in business build community and gain new aligned clients by launching and managing their podcast. And she is my fabulous Podcast Producer. So hello Cass thanks so much for coming and having this conversation with me here today.

Cass Ponton
Thanks so much for having me. Sitting here sweating it’s funny being on the other side of this.

Nicole Smith
It’s funny, isn’t it when you’re so used to yeah, hearing the episodes and working your magic and getting it all out there into the world. And all of a sudden, now you’re on the other end of the mic.

Cass Ponton
I know, I’ve been telling you for weeks that I’m crapping my pants, but it’s all good.

Nicole Smith
It’s going to be fabulous, you know, all the fabulous things. So, podcasting has kind of taken off in the last few years of COVID world because everyone’s purchased a mic and tried their hand, at the old podcasting. How do we know like when you are looking to build or create a podcast? How do we know what themes are really good to pop out there into the world and in particul aligning them with, like you say, with your ideal clients?

Cass Ponton
So yeah, as you said, a lot of the people that I do work with is women in business. And they’re using a podcast as an arm of their marketing. So having a theme that supports those conversations that can lead back to the way they do business is really where we go with that. So like yours, for example. You do systems and processes and help people get their S H I T in order in their business. So you talking about the holistic approach to business supports that. So that’s how I look at that.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, it’s fabulous. And I think we’re really lucky, really there’s anything that you’re looking to learn connect with, somebody is out there talking about it. And finding as well, the right I guess, way listening style, and everyone loves different voices as well. Yeah, so like, podcasting. I know, when I started mine, I kind of just didn’t, I had a plan. But it didn’t have a plan, if that makes sense. Like I knew that I wanted to share information and create a space for people to come and connect. And all areas, as you said of business and life, because as humans and as business owners, there is lots of different elements that we look at need to, you know, keep are sustained and all of that sort of thing. How do we like find the right spot, that sweet spot that we enjoy as podcast hosts to create, but also the listeners can sort of tune in?

Cass Ponton
Yeah, I think first and foremost, you have to really believe in what you’re saying. I think some times people look at podcasting and they go, oh, you know, I’m not getting listens or something like that or you know, I’m not getting the downloads that I’m wanting to. And it might be a case of you don’t believe what you’re saying, or you’re not talking to the people that you want to talk to. And I think first and foremost, you need to do it for something that you want to as you want to learn because even just as editing your podcasts that I have, I learn something new every time I listened to it. So it’s yeah, having that sweet spot of learning something new, or being open to having the conversations with people and listening from different perspectives and different ways of doing things really helps push you into a better position in your business but it also helps the people around you and I think the people that will listen, are going to be the right people for you. So building community around that. And then when you do have those people, then you can, you are building a community so you can reach out to them and ask what they want to hear, or they want to want you to contribute to their listening.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, it all takes time, doesn’t it? Like anything it’s you know, finding that right fit for you, the format that, is it is just you talking each every week? Do you have a schedule or not? And are we finding specific, get a specific? Yep, that’s the right word. Specific, Specific, whatever we’re talking about calling before oceans or. Finding those guests that are going to have a fabulous conversation as well, like, you know, obviously, and our listeners here. Hi, everyone. It’s quite conversational. Our episodes here, like I’ve heard some that are very, okay, question answer, question, asnwer, question. I know that’s not the style that I like listening to, but other people probably do. They may love just that dot point, I’m going to get exactly what I want out of the episode. Is there like, from your experience and from your working with your clients and listening to podcasts, is there a magic formula? That is really, we should all be aspiring, like, number of episodes per week, per month, particular formats? Or is it all very much dependent on the individual and our audiences?

Cass Ponton
Yeah, it’s definitely dependent on the individual. I think, in terms of the numbers, it’s whatever you can produce comfortably that doesn’t make you hate recording or feel pressured to do it. Because as you know, it’s already hard enough trying to, you know, produce one every week. I think people look at that. And they think, you know, sounds great to do that. And then when they start doing it, they’re like, holy smokes, it’s hard work. And if you don’t have someone to help you out, like you are very smart lady and getting someone to help you out like myself, and your fabulous VA Brooke, but if you don’t have those systems set up to support that, then it does make it very hard. So I think there’s not enough, there’s not a perfect number. I think as long as you’re telling your audience how often they will hear you and stay in communication with them somehow, whether that’s through, you know, EDMS, or through social media updates or stuff like that’s fine. And then in terms of the actual format of or the structure of the podcast is really up to you. I personally don’t love listening to dot points of people talking and straight up answering. And I like conversational because a lot of the conversations, the good stuff comes out of the things that are unprepared and the tangents that we go on and how many times you have a conversation with someone. Were you thinking about one thing, and it turns into something totally different. And you’re like why didn’t we record this, this is awesome. So yeah, I think it just depends.

Nicole Smith
I love the tangents.

Cass Ponton
I love it. Yeah.

Nicole Smith
They’re the best part!

Cass Ponton
Yeah, I’m listinig to, like I’ll be listening to your podcast while I’m editing it, and then it’ll be like, what was the question again? I don’t remember it doesn’t matter though. But we’ve landed here and this sounds good.

Nicole Smith
Yeah. I think any conversation you know, wherever it starts and ends is the exact journey that it was supposed to go on because that’s what the mind is like right you know, we were just talking about the fabulous Kathy Rast who is coming up on an episode soon we’re actually going to flip it, it’s really, Kathy actually suggested this to me. She’s going to come on and take over control with Nicole.

Cass Ponton
I love that. That is a really good time. Yeah. Taking over control.

Nicole Smith
Yeah. So and s2he’s going to become the host for the day and talk, I’m going to be the guest so which will be really exciting. But yeah, Kathy is a fabulous conversationalist and I love my conversations with her as as we were just talking about before you do as well. But it’s about I don’t know for me I find when I’m listening to a podcast if I’m not engaged in it and I easily like skip through, find a new one,

Cass Ponton
You want to feel like you’re in a conversation with that person. Yeah, that I think that’s that’s the hot ticket like you don’t want to be it that’s why it makes it hard when people are talking about things that are too specific sometimes and you know, you’re not giving context around what that means. Say if you started just talking about clickup and going into the all the terms in clickup that, you know, someone might not understand. I can’t think of them clearly on the spot. But like you said, yes. Yeah, those kind of things people like, what my project management tool doesn’t do is I don’t know what you’re talking about. People aren’t going to be interested. So you got to have the balance of informing people watch. Yeah, helping people out in that thing, but also making it yeah, easy and the conversation just sound like a normal conversation that you would have with a friend or client or whatever else without its, you know, too much too much jargon in there to make it complicated.

Nicole Smith
It’s that fine line, isn’t it between providing enough information for people to become curious, but not to over saturate the conversation because otherwise, it’s just like, too much. Too heavy holding it too tightly. Yeah. Now, I think back to when I was first starting, and I think it was last, that start of last year. Yep. 2021. And I was beautifully delaying starting this podcast, it was magnificent. Because I had this idea, this concept, way back when, like, 2020, is when I imagined this.

Cass Ponton
Wow, yep.

Nicole Smith
I made all the excuses under the sun, it obviously wasn’t the right time. That’s what I’m putting it down to but like, I don’t have a microphone and headphones. I don’t know what recording thing to use, like dah dah dah. And it was actually me being involved in musical Bhagwat, which was the online theatre that I was involved in 2020, that I finally went out and purchased the kit. You know, I’ve got a road NT USB mic and my rosegold headphones here. Primarily, I did buy it for singing. But I also knew that I wanted to do this podcast. It wasn’t intended initially. It wasn’t the mic I wanted. I wanted the other road one, the podcast or I think, yeah. So why I’m talking about this is tech. And the beautiful reason or excuse not to create a podcast because you don’t have the tech. I don’t think that’s the thing is we don’t need all the whiz bang fancy dancy stuff do we can press record?

Cass Ponton
I know that a lot of people that is a big topic for a lot of people. I can remember asking, actually put it onto my personal Instagram story. And I said, if you wanted to start a podcast, what is that’s stopping you because I thought, different audience, people, they can be a bit more honest and say, I don’t know what the heck I’m doing that’s why I don’t want to do it. Or, you know, no one will listen or whatever else but a big one that came up was I don’t want to break the bank with buying all this equipment, and then it doesn’t work out and you know, all of these things. And it’s just yeah, it doesn’t have to be the case. As you said you’ve got your your microphone headphones. You don’t even have to do that, to be honest. Like that’s, that’s amazing. And if you can do that, that is awesome. A USB microphone, and some headphones that plug into your computer. But the main things is yeah, having having good sound you can literally use I’m on air pods right now, as long as you’ve got your hair back and no dangly earrings in front or you know, not too many things that will disturb your audio then you’re good. A lot of people will just use the old Apple headphones, you know, the ones that the cord and the thing so they’ve got the microphone there, they’ve got the headphones in. And then the other things that are really important are yes, something to record it on. So whether that be zoom like we’re doing right now, or if you’re doing it by yourself, you can do it straight into Audacity or GarageBand depending on what kind of computer you have. And then of course, our one of our favourite things, a project management tool, I would say to keep everything organised. But you can literally use the free versions of clickup or Asana or whatever you need to use. Yeah, it’s a lot of stuff being resourceful of things you already have and make it easy for yourself and you don’t need to have a whole set up for it or you don’t need to go in and pay hundreds of dollars to go and record in a studio and yeah, it’ll sound just fine.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, I remember again during mugones. I borrowed words words words words words. I borrowed a microphone for the first episode I did because I was, I was actually a little bit nervous I hadn’t performed for a long long time so I wanted to give myself the best you know thing. And then the next episode I absolutely did had the wide head headset on. And yeah, the same tips with the dangly earrings. None of that generally stuff and sound quality was great. Like this was a live zoom broadcast onto Facebook with music like beating zoom, all the tech zoom stuff we like it. So the tech stuff I think, you know, it can be can appear to be a bit overwhelming but as you said, we’re using Zoom. One of the tips that I don’t know if you shared it with me or somebody else but we’re actually one of the settings is to record the guest and the hosts audio as two separate files. So if you do come to work with someone like you you’ve got some, a little bit more clear audio.

Cass Ponton
Yeah, it does help with the with the separate audio tracks is so much better. Because say if I, if you were talking to me or right now, if I was talking and you coughed, you’re going to be coughing over me talking. There’s no changing that if it’s on the single audio track. But if you’ve got the separate we can you know, cut that out and, and you would never know. Because I’m trying to make everything sound as natural as possible. I want it to sound like a conversation. I want it to seem natural. I don’t like to cut out too much bits. But if you’ve got anything there that’s yeah, as you said coughing or something, sneezing, whatever, little kids running, you know, whatever’s going on

Nicole Smith
Me playing with my hand and banging on the desk. Cass messaged me like, what is that? I’m like, Ah, I was I was animated and playing with the blank look, I’m here to write like, I just can’t help with a pen hand, hand thing. I don’t know.

Cass Ponton
I’ve got a really squeaky chair. So I’ve gone with one of my kitchen bench stools right now because literally if I move a centimetre my chair goes, eek so let’s yeah, just trying to, I think the sound quality. All the tips for that is like if you can hear sound, change it, just figure it out. We’ll do a practice run in GarageBand or in Audacity by yourself, record it on Zoom whatever you need to do if you prefer if you’re doing it with someone els or if you’re doing an interview or whatever you’re doing, just record it, listen to it. If you can hear any bits that don’t sound that great figure out what they are and get rid of them. And the thing is it doesn’t have to be perfect nothing has to be perfect. It’s a conversation so yeah, have it as easy as possible.

Nicole Smith
That funny the squeaky chair or you know, my chair was also squeaky for a long time and I might have swapped chairs with Simon he still wasn’t asked for it. That was months ago. I’ve still got it, so exciting.

Cass Ponton
Shout out

Nicole Smith
Yeah.

Cass Ponton
Hopefully doesn’t listen to this episode and then he won’t be reminded

Nicole Smith
Oh he knows, he walks past sometimes and goes oh nice chair. I’m like yeah, this seat is comfy, doesn’t squeak it’s perfect. Thanks. Yeah, exactly. Oh, bless him. Okay, so um, just another thing on the tech like, that’s from I guess a host point of view but from a guest if you’re coming on because that’s obviously part of part of a guest podcast, you’ve got people on the both sides. What is sort of like best practice that we should be encouraging our guests to set up in their space?

Cass Ponton
Yeah, so I definitely think first and foremost getting them to wear headphones. And if they’ve got a microphone, if they don’t, that’s cool headphones with the microphone inbuilt like the Apple headphones. Having your surround yeah, anything that’s gonna make the dingle dangles I am not wearing earrings as your guest, I’ve got my hair back. I’ve got you know, all the things ready I’ve gotten rid of my squeaky chair. I think it’s just yeah, getting, if they’re not people that are often on podcast and just giving them a couple of tips on how they can make the sound better. I’ve got a, I’m in a big room at the moment so it probably isn’t the best audio but you know, do the best you can with you know putting the curtains down and things like that so that it’s not just listening to straight audio hitting the window and hitting back. But yeah, just do as much as you can but just giving them something that they can do easily and as I said, being resourceful as having what they’ve already got at home with headphones and stuff like that. And then yeah, even if they want to try their audio out before as well to make sure that things like drink bottles and stuff like that. Always weird when hearing someone like stuck in on the straw or something like that and you’re like, What are you doing? Maybe just getting glass of water so just yeah trying to

Nicole Smith
I’ve never thought of that. I’m not really a drink bottle person. When I drink my water, I’ve got you know, a glass there which I need to fill up in a minute after we’re done. Yeah, I hadn’t even thought about that. But yeah, that would

Cass Ponton
I am yeah, I am and I was like thinking about it before and I was like this is not a sound that I want to have to edit out or do so I was like, got my, got my glass of water next to me and you can subtly drink that as you’re chatting, so it’s good. But yeah, just giving them a heads up of like, what makes it sound better for you. Also, the the whole thing of preparing them is something that’s really important as well to make it sound good. Ums are bound to happen, that’s fine, but big breaks, make it tough for it to sound natural. So preparing them by giving them as you know, giving them the questions beforehand so that they can come with some answers ready to go. And they don’t have to be like, oh, I have to think about this and, and put them on the spot. And then afterwards, they’re like God dammit, I could have had such a better answer. And so that does help the audio as well because it you can get to the point quicker. And even though I’m not getting to the point very quick. But it is. I can edit it out

Cass Ponton
That leads in beautifully to what I wanted to talk about next and what I know. Cass and I geek out on the process side and the organisation side when we’re orgnised, and we’ve got podcasts scheduled like I was just sharing before I was on today’s been a real podcast I did a, this is my second guest podcast recording. I’ve done two solo episodes and Cass was like woo woo, YAY!

Cass Ponton
Music to my ears.

Nicole Smith
It’s planned all the way until mid May at the moment and our other guests getting invited as well. And it makes me so happy when I know that it’s all happening and doing and working. And you as well, because last minute stuff is a little bit like aaarrhh

Cass Ponton
Yeah again, it’s stressful. But it’s so nice, like what we got to in December and January and stuff like that. And we, we were like, oh, wait until the end of January before Christmas came around. We’re like, sweet let’s take some time off. And you know, and now that you’ve got those momentum, I mean, four episodes in a day is amazing. Bu batching those episodes is also amazing. So thank you. But having having that already. Now, you’ve got the momentum. And you can just you can just do one at a time what you know, one per week or whatever now, and we’ll be so ahead. Awesome.

Nicole Smith
I know it’ll be fabulous.

Cass Ponton
Yeah, wonderful. This is where we geek out about it because we’re like this is goood!

Nicole Smith
Ah, let’s talk about process now like we can’t not. It’s what we love talking about. Where do we start? What are the things? What do we, yeah, let’s talk about it. Share what you do with your clients.

Cass Ponton
Yeah, so. So I wrote a little a little list down. And then I was like, it sounds like a lot. But it’s one of those things where it’s, when you have your process down, it’s not a lot because you know exactly what you’re doing. And you know, when things are supposed to be done, and it all flows into each other. So anyone listening, if this sounds like a lot, I promise you it’s not. It’s just what we do and it gets done and it’s wonderful. In terms of if you’re going to have a guest on, you’ve gotta do all the guest management things. So getting the guests booked in, making sure you have all of their links to anything that they want to talk about, or their social links, their bio, their headshots, and any information on what they want to promote or having questions that they think would be a good topic for you to ask them. So you know, reviewing those kinds of things. And then when it comes to planning the podcast, so creating those episode questions and sending it to the guests to make sure they have it in advance, putting in the live dates. And the live dates is something that we’ve talked about before in structuring those episodes around exciting things that are happening in your business. So like when you were launching the members lounge, and we were making sure that we were doing things around that that reflected what you were going to be doing in the members lounge and having those episodes ready to go so that they’re scheduled in they’re already done for that. So that’s a good one.

Nicole Smith
And I guess that comes back to your overall marketing plan. Really like if you know you’re doing opening doors or you know, going to share a certain thing and you’re aware of that you can then look at your content, socials and obviously podcasts and yeah really design it around that which is a game because sometimes finding content, what am I going to talk about can be a little bit like pulling it out of air, whereas I know for me, I just think about what is happening right now in my space. Yeah, that’s the solo episode. I’m gonna record.

Nicole Smith
Yeah. And inspiration comes out of random places as well. Like we’ll be talking about something and I’m like oh that sounds like a good idea for podcast episode or like, you know, I’ll be talking to you about something of whatever and you’re like, that’s a really good idea for you to write or whatever. So we’re always like teasing each other almost like you should do that, you should do, you should do this one. Doesn’t that sound like a good episode?

Nicole Smith
Oh I know, that’s it. I think, you know, it is all about conversations with people. And the ideas do come out of the most random tangents that we have.

Cass Ponton
Yeah, it’s perfect.

Nicole Smith
I’d love to share, just coming back on the client management side, the invitation bits. What we do here, because I know I’ve had positive feedback from our guests on how we manage it. And we actually, surprise, surprise, no surprises, we use the clickup forms to collect all our client, our guests, sorry, information, and it has all of those questions that you mentioned. So you know, names, social links, websites, any offers that they particularly want to share, any links, so most of our guests, including someone that I’m talking to right now, will have something to share with you as our fabulous listeners. So you can go and connect. And, you know, because ultimately having a guest on it’s not about me, just because it’s my name on the podcast, my face, it’s actually all about you as the guest. And I want to promote you and share all your wonderfulness. So collecting all that information, and our booking links. So we have one landing page on my website, special secret link. And it’s all there. I call it the podcast guest hub.

Cass Ponton
Yeah, it’s perfect.

Nicole Smith
A virtual location.

Cass Ponton
And it’s integrated into your calendar as well, which is, which makes it so easy. So you’re always going to have those times available. And if people don’t have those integrated systems set up, especially when I start working with them, I go over their workflow and have a look. And yeah, make sure that all of those things are set up in the just most efficient way. It’s like, you don’t have to have anything that’s fancy. As I said, like, it sounds like a lot of things. But if you have it all set up as you yeah, getting their headshots links, bio, all of those things that’s just in one form. So another resource or like tool that they could use is like a Calendly link where you can have that linked to your calendar, and you have all the questions onto there, and makes it super easy. So there’s a few different ways you can do it. But yeah, it makes it so easy when it’s all integrated. And it just is, makes it simple. You don’t want to have to, I think that’s what most people think is a lot of work is yes, setting it up might be like might take you a few hours to set up those systems. But once they’re set up, they’re set up and you don’t have to do anything with them really all of yours send directly to clickup, we go into clickup, they’re already there, cool. Who’s on next week? Or like who’s on in? Who’s this episode? And what’s this? What’s this person about? And you know, we can frame all of those things from that. So it makes it so easy when you’ve got those systems set up.

Nicole Smith
And it’s fabulous as a fabulous, fabulous as a host as well, because sometimes I don’t know the guests, I was going to say intimately, but that may not be the right word. So I actually have the opportunity to go

Cass Ponton
Personally!

Nicole Smith
Personally is the right word, there we go. I can go and you know, follow them on socials and watch their videos and you know, see how they speak, you know, learn their communication styles, so that when you come into the Zoom Room, this is a space to feel comfortable and supported to be your most amazing self. So if you’re one way of communicating, then I’m gonna evolve and accommodate that so you can feel comfortable. And you know, and enjoy the experience. As I said, it’s all about the guests when you’ve got guests on. Awesome, so, cloud management, collecting the info, booking the things in? Where did we get to, what was the next bit?

Cass Ponton
Actually doing the planning for the podcast. So we did the questions going out to them, to the guests. Otherwise, if it’s a solo episode, just creating the plan, or a plan of attack of how you want to run the episode. I actually had a conversation the other day, I have like a launch strategy call little check my little link in the bottom. But for anyone who wants to pick my brain on on how to get started, I’ve got that set up. And I had two fabulous gals in there talking to me about that. And they asked if they need a script. And I said, I don’t think you need a script. I’m actually writing a blog about this as well, but I don’t think you need a script. I think you need a plan. And even just having questions written down for your guests, that’s a plan, having, you know, this is what I’m going to say we’re going to have like how yours is set out, you’ve got your intro, then you’ve got the introduction to the guest, then you’ve got the topics that you want to talk about or the questions. And then you’ve got three questions that you always ask your guests. And then you’ve got your saying goodbye, and then your outro. So and then an ad in the middle as well. So having a plan is, I think better than a script, you don’t want to sound scripted, you don’t want to sound like you’re reading off something. But yeah, having those dot points of what you’re going to talk about will help you go into those tangents as well. But from there, rough plan, have those ready to go. And then when it comes to the day that you’re recording, record that episode. In your case, let me know when it’s in the share drive alot of people use Google Drive, I use Google Drive for a lot of clients, but whatever works.

Nicole Smith
And hopefully everything is working. We’ve had a few syncing issues recently, but it’s fine,

Cass Ponton
It’s fine, it’s fine. And then, once I’ve got it is where I’ll edit, create the show notes. Pick the quotes for the audiogram confirm the title with you to make sure it’s exactly what we want to talk about. And a lot of the time that confirming that was like brainstorming what sounds the best and what means. Yeah, cuz you want it to sound with a hook. But you don’t want it to sound like come and listen to this to learn, like, you know, don’t want to sound weird. Then yeah, creating social posts and audiogram, schedule on the hosting platform, update the website with the podcast info, and then schedule it for the release date. So it does sound like a lot. It is but it’s not because you you know, it’s having that good workflow of when everything’s due and making it all happen. And I usually do it all in one sitting as well for each episode, because then I know where I’m at with the episode, if I ever have to edit and then walk away and then go, okay, I need to do an audiogram. Now, I’m like, what did that sound like again? What, did that sound really good, because I always write down the numbers for the timestamps. But if it doesn’t, if it sounds good in the moment, let’s just use it in the moment. So we can actually just get it done. And then depending on the client, it might be transcription. I know you like to have transcriptions on yours. I’ve started working with a lovely client, Mia, who did her first guest episode the other day, and we created a blooper reel. And that was really fun. So that’s funny, I’ll have to send that to you to listen to, but it’s hilarious. And then yeah, people are add it to their newsletter, and then sending the information to your guests before it goes live. So yeah, that sounds like a lot of stuff. But it,

Nicole Smith
It does but as you said, it’s, you know, we think about the chunker up, right, so we have three definite stages, pre production, post production – edit, post production – admin, right. So if you think about it in three stages, and there’s sub steps to that. Some of them take a little bit more time, like editing and recording the podcast. But the other elements once you’ve got the transcriptions, once you’ve got the image created, it’s just about reformatting. And, you know, we’re going to have a chat about repurposing content in a minute. But, you know, understanding what are those elements and creating templates. So something as well, that we have as part of our process here and clickup is we have email templates already created. So at each of those stages, so the communication stage of inviting the guests, there’s a template with already the link to the guest hub that’s already there. You know, at the stage of sharing the questions, we’ve got a template, which we just update with the link and off it pops. And then at this stage is sharing the episode with a guest with all of the, you know, the attached associated imagery and marketing collateral, that’s also a template. If we need to customise it, we do that. But a lot of those communications are actually managed by Brooke, my VA. And so she can go and send those out and easily do that, because we know that the message is the same. It’s all really nice and clear. And also because it’s sent from clickup via the email function there. I know if I ever want to see where we’re at and what’s happening. It’s really easy to see what stage all of the things are, all the statuses and all the things.

Cass Ponton
And the checklists as well in, the checklists that it’s something that I use a lot for my clients because there’s different things in different days and like we use WordPress for your website. So that’s awesome because you can schedule that ahead of time but some people’s websites they don’t have the function or where they where they post it is not a section where you can add a new landing page. So it’s adding it to the website. So sometimes I’m like, alright, cool, I’m done with that episode. But I’m not, I’m done for that episode for now. And then I make sure I have the date on it. And and I put a little reminder in my calendar as well, to put it on their website so that it’s that day or the night before, something like that, so that it’s ready to go when it goes live. And they can direct all the webs, all the traffic back to the website, because that’s what it’s all about is trying to get more people onto the website, I always recommend people putting their podcast onto the website and directing all the traffic to the website. Because then people are on your website, and they can have a look around. And they can have a look at your freebies or they can have a look at oh, maybe I want to book in a call with Nicole. Maybe I’ll do that. So yeah, those the checklists are really helpful. I use clickup with you, I use clickup with my other client, Mia, who I was just mentioning, and both are all over, clickup. I used clickup for my own personal stuff. But for client work, I usually use Asana just because I mean it’s honestly it’s very, very similar in terms of the basic functions of those things. So like when it, when asana, I just find when I need it for those basic functions of just, this is the episode. Inside here are the checklists of what needs to happen. If that’s all that needs to be doing. We don’t need to integrate too many things, then I think it’s perfect. But yeah, yours has got everything in it. And I love it because I’m like, Oh, what are what? Are we up with this one? Don’t worry. It’s all in there.

Nicole Smith
I can see at a glance wherever and look at our full planning calendar and see when the recording dates are happening. And using tags and all the fun stuff. We could go when I clickup tangent, we won’t.

Cass Ponton
I know.

Cass Ponton
Want to see inside, the clickup podcast thingy. Maybe? Maybe tag us in a story? Is that a thing? I should say? Maybe let’s do Yeah. And then we could I might might even share a little video of what goes on in the podcast planning from my team. So yeah. Yeah. I was gonna ask you, or say and now I have completely forgotten. It’ll come back. Oh, no, I remember now. The content, right. So we obviously share on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, all the places right and I’ve just moved to doing a reel in Instagram each week with the audiograms a different sort of format. Repurposing content. How is that, like I’ve heard people start with a podcast and then they pull parts apart. And I know you’ve spoken to me about this. But can you elaborate on how and what’s the best?

Nicole Smith
Hello, there. I’m just interrupting this episode, as I would love to invite you to come on in and join us inside the members lounge, my community have shared with me that they joined initially, because they really wanted to discover the power of clickup, they wanted to be able to design, build, and connect their clickups within their own individual businesses. However, once they were inside, they really discovered how the power of looking at the foundations of your operational areas of your business and designing those really to set you up for success is such a powerful element. And guess what else we have a fabulous community inside so once you’re in you’re never gonna want to leave. So come on over have a look. Go to my website, theartisans.com.au and pop up to the members lounge button at the top and we look forward to supporting you as you discover how fabulous it is when you’re confidently striding down the street. See you inside the lounge

Cass Ponton
So actually, I actually do have a blog post about this I can put that link in there as well. But there’s so many ways I remember telling you one time that I heard something that said you can use or I think they said you should but I don’t know about shoulds in business so you can you repurpose your podcast 10 times every time you do an episode and that is crazy. I’m sure you can I’m sure it’s not hard to figure out those 10 things but it’s, 10 is a lot. If you Gary V maybe 10 sounds great. But just you know just everyone else I think find the place that your audience likes to hang out. I know for you Nicole it is we like to hang out in Instagram, like to hang out on Facebook in your groups and stuff like that. And so using the things that we can do around Instagram and Facebook is ideal for you. So as you said like you would do a story you do a story post, like I saw last night, you put a story preset for coming today for the episode that’s going live today, you’ve got that you’ve got, you can do a reel, you can go live on your story if you really want to, oh sorry, on your Instagram, if you want to, to talk about it, there’s so many things you can do. There’s literally like, and then there’s all the different formats as well. So if you don’t, if you want to use your website to do a blog, you could write a blog post about it. So you obviously use your transcription. Some people take that transcription and write a blog post that’s smaller kind of thing for that if they don’t want to go through the whole transcription process. So you could do a blog post, you can put it on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, like, it’s just, there’s so many things that you can repurpose. But I would say just choose maybe three things that you can do for every episode. audiogram definitely. I love audiograms. I think they if I, I will listen to the audiogram. And I’ll say if I want that episode or not. That’s me personally.

Nicole Smith
Can you just like we obviously know what that is. But can you share with people? What is an audiogram because I had no idea when I started.

Cass Ponton
Yeah, it’s a strange name as well. So it makes it sound real fancy. It’s not, it’s those little videos on Instagram, or Facebook or wherever you see it. But usually it’s on Instagram, where it is the title, or the cover image of the podcast, and then it’s got audio attachment on it. So it’ll have a little waveform on there to show what’s playing. So it just gives you like a 60 second or, you know, between 30 and 60 seconds kind of thing. clip of what the episode is about. And it’s usually, if it’s a guest episode, I like to do guest quotes. So something really interesting, they said or because I liked listening to it. And I really do like understanding what we’re talking about and things like that. Taking those every time I hear a quote that I’m like, oh, this sounds really good, I’m like writing it down, like so sometimes I’ll get to the end of your episodes, and I’ll have like, four quotes that I have to choose from and I’m like, alright, which one is gonna make it, like, it sounds good in the episode, but if it what is it gonna make that sounds good if you don’t know what the episode is about at all. So you can as you said, you put yours on a reel now, we used to put it on the feed, you can put it in your stories. It’s just yeah, it’s just the image with some audio on it to make it makes it look fancy.

Nicole Smith
So with mine I, as you said I do the night, the day before I do a coming tomorrow and a little, which you designed I think, a little envelope with the quote in the middle. And then on the morning of I do an image on my stories with you the new Instagram it’s not really new now, but the Instagram link to my thing is the best. So amazing. So so good. I love it. Next thing I want to do, I did design some stickers with transparent background so it could go over the link. But um, I don’t know when it’s saved on my phone. I don’t know, see tangent. Hello. Put the background back in when I save it in my phone.

Cass Ponton
Well, yeah, sometimes Instagram like glitches I know. Sometimes that’s happened to me when you know when you put a question box on Instagram. And it’s got like your little display photo. Yeah, there’s a circle over the top. When sometimes I’ve tried to like cover that, like put it in the background and like it has on top of it. And then I’ll put it live and then pop to the front and like and then I’m like delete, not cute anymore. I was thinking it was gonna be cute or just been a little box. But no. So yeah, I don’t know, just sometimes has a little has a little meltdown that’s like, No, I like it here. I like the link to be showing at the front. Thank you. Yeah,

Nicole Smith
This is my design. I want it to be the way I want it. So yeah, I do the story in the morning with the link to the website. And then in the evening based on you know, my best posting times. So people told me, I do the reel and then share the reel with the audiogram onto the stories as well. And obviously during the day. So that’s my Instagram post because it also goes on my feed, if that’s what it’s called Grid, whatever, whatever the terminology is, but they also do to well another post. same content over on LinkedIn and Facebook because it’s a slightly different audience. So I sort of changed the tone of what I’m talking about in relation to the episode. So that’s pretty much what I do. Then the other thing that I have been doing I’ve just starting to do in relation to this repurposing content because I’m discovered how fabulously easy it is when you have content that, you know, Brooke puts in the plan that we design at the start of the month. And it just goes out. It’s just joy

Cass Ponton
Yeah, it makes it so easy. And you can have bite sized content to say, you’re doing this obviously you do it every week. So say with this week, we’re talking about podcasting or workflows in podcasting. Alright, cool. So you can do if you’re going to post five times a week, you can post three of those posts, be, you know, sections of the podcast that you’re repurposing so you don’t have to use you know, a whole thing. But I’ve done it plenty times with repurposing, you know, blog posts or podcast episodes, where you listen through find something really good that they’re talking about, you know, that one topic, because how many sentences are women have we been saying? You know, how many things are we were talking about? That are all you know, a lot of them are things that we want to share, which clearly that’s why we’re talking about it. But if I never listened to that episode, I would never know all of those, say if there was five things that you were sharing in that episode. I wouldn’t know those five things. But if you do it in bite sized pieces that will either entice them to listen to the episode or be like, that’s a really good hint. Or like, that’s really good. It’s really good piece of information. I’m gonna look into that more. So everyone’s different as well. So some people don’t even like listening to podcasts. But they like listening to the audiogram because they’re like, oh, what kind of, you know, what bit of knowledge am I going to grab from that today? Yeah, so repurposing it for different different audiences is, is great.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, because we all have different learning styles, absorbing information in different ways. And yes, the other thing with the transcription, so we use otter, yeah, to do the transcription. So now that’s popped into our document in clickup. We use a document view for client questions ah, guest questions, and also the show notes. So that transcriptions now being popped in there each week. And one of my new roles is to go through and read and highlight anything that I feel is going to be really good for repurposing. And then we can pull that across. So and that won’t take because I’ve obviously had the conversation. So one, I’m skim reading it. I’m going to know. Yeah, that was a really good part of the episode. The other thing is someone asked me the other day, do I listen to my podcasts, I think I shared this with you. Do I listen to them before they go live? Nope, because I trust that the conversation we’ve had, obviously, this one’s fabulous, but all of them. Yeah, you know, I don’t need to I don’t need to listen to them. So that’s my thing on a Wednesday morning is normally when I’m getting ready, I pop this week’s episode on my podcast app it I have a listen. That’s the first time I’ve heard it.

Cass Ponton
Yeah, love that. Yeah, it’s good, I guess. You know, as well as having all your stuff set up. You have people around you that you trust. And that’s what a you know, I’m not trying to highlight myself here. But you know, with Brooke taking care of

Nicole Smith
Oh we should do, yes we are highlightin Cass right now. Yes, because you’re amazing.

Cass Ponton
But, you know, I know what you need out of that. And I know what you expect. And you know, we’ve gone through all of those things. And we’ve got it down that. So easy now, because we’re like, oh, yeah, cool. All right. Let’s just change that up if we need to. But it’s not. Yeah, it just makes it easy. And makes me really happy that you don’t have to listen to it before it goes out. Because I’m like, oh, that’s nice. She says she’s knows it’s going to be good and it’s going to be great. But it’s going to be good anyway, because you as you said, you’re having conversations, you know what the conversation is. There’s anything in it that’s ever like, oh, I don’t know, I think I you know, blabbered on a little bit here or whatever. Most of the time. I tend to leave those things in because they as we said before, like tangents are the way that we get really good content. And sometimes they’re the better. They’re the golden pieces out of that.

Nicole Smith
Yeah, absolutely. You do a fabulous job each and every week with all the podcasts. I listened back I’m like, Yeah, hello, sounds pretty good. It is fabulous though, like, you know, you just have this way of just creating it so beautifully and easily. For me anyway, maybe it’s just because my voice and maybe I like hearing my voice, I don’t know. I have also been told there’s people downloading it. People are tuning in, not that I know who you are. So I would love to know who you are. And that’s the thing about the podcast that I get a little bit sad about because I can see you downloading and listening each week,

Cass Ponton
Message me.

Nicole Smith
You don’t have to tag mein your stories just DM me and go, hey, I’m a longtime listener first DMing you, let’s do it.

Cass Ponton
Oh, that’s so nice. Yeah, I think also, like, it’s awesome when you’re able to see on the analytics, where people are listening and like, you know, in different countries, like, I didn’t know someone’s listening to U.S or, you know, I didn’t know that there was 40% men and 60% women listening or, you know, whatever it is. And so it’s interesting looking at that, and I love looking at those analytics and like, oh, this is fascinating. And you don’t have to change your, you know, anything to fit those analytics, but it’s like, Oh, okay. Well, they clearly like it. So, yeah, mould it from there. But I think what’s something that’s really important, and for the people that do listen to your episodes, is to tell you that they listen and say, hey, I listened to this and I loved it, because I always do it. And I always do it because I’m like, this is you know, you’ve taken that time out of your day you have to organise to do this. You have to, you are currently paying someone to help you produce these podcasts and stuff like that. So it’s not like it’s something that you just whacked on your headphones and you’re like let’s just have a convo as much as it gets to that point where because we’ve got it down, pat. But it’s nice that if they message you and say, hey, I really appreciate this episode, I learned this. So I love doing that to other people. Because I think I know not that it’s I know from my personal experience, but I know how hard you work and other people that I manage their podcast, I know how hard they work, to make it the way it all sounds. So anyone listening that needs to message, Nicole, do that now and say, Hey, this is awesome. Thanks for putting these up every week.

Nicole Smith
I love that. And it’s even it’s so funny. The other week, I hadn’t really been, I listened on Apple every week. That’s my podcast, choice tool of choice, listening of choice. And I scroll down and I’m like, I have a review, someone’s reviewed like actually written a review. Yeah. And it was amazing. Like, you can all go and have a look if you’d like to. But it was just, it was a fabulous, you know, feedback that okay, what we’re doing here is what people are looking for, you know that the content we’re creating. It’s not just for my benefit, as much as I love doing this. It’s really, it’s all about our audience. And obviously, the guests when they come on to give them an opportunity to share out with the world. But you know, it’s lovely, you’re so right. And that’s not just for my podcast, either. That’s for other people as well, if you like something, giving feedback or saying, hey, that was awesome. Or have you thought continuing the conversation as well?

Cass Ponton
Yeah, definitely. I think also, like, feedback doesn’t have to be always positive, it can be constructive, like not, not that it’s, you know, I don’t want you to reach out to anyone say, this is trash don’t ever podcast again. But having having a conversation of hey, I you know, if I ever noticed anything, that’s sounds, off in something, I’ll go, Hey, I loved the episode, the content was awesome, or, you know, I loved the point about X, Y, Z, or, you know, whatever. There was a bit in it, that I heard that I was like, oh, I don’t think it was meant to be that or, you know, this could have, you know, the sound didn’t sound right, or something like that just want you to let to let you know, that’s awesome. Because sometimes when you’re doing it, you go you’re going on autopilot, if you especially if you don’t have someone helping you or if you’ve got, like, as you say, you’ve got multiple people helping you. So the coordination between myself and with Brooke, your VA, you know, we need to have those things down pat, and if sometimes things happen, and then they’re not like that, help someone out, you know, you’re just helping them out by saying, either, you know, this is what I heard, and I think this could be better or you know, in, give your suggestion or whatever, but also saying, you know, I really appreciate that you’re doing this or I would love to hear about this topic, or have you ever thought about you know, does this topic interests you, I would love? You know, I think that would feel right. So I think yeah, giving feedback. And joining in on the conversation is something that’s really, really helpful for someone that’s doing the podcasting.

Nicole Smith
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I think we’ve been chatting for a bit, I can’t remember. Sorry. But I could continue talking. I think we’ve covered all the main bits and I know that you have something that we’re going to have in the shownotes that you’re going to share that people can access. If they’re looking to investigate.

Cass Ponton
Yeah. So I have a free ebook that is coming out with just five little sections in there to help get your podcast started. If that’s something that you’re wanting to do, a lot of people reach out, and they feel very lost. So I’m going off things that people have asked me in the past and putting it together in a download, and I will put that in there. But it’ll cover the ideas and theme and how to narrow that down. I had to do your frequency, the equipment, pretty much everything we spoken about. But thing, you know, important things like scheduling and getting on Spotify and Apple and those kinds of things, because people have no idea. And it makes it seem super hard. And before I knew I would have, I would have felt the exact same way. So totally okay, that you don’t know that. And then also the repurposing of the podcast. So I will put that in the show notes, because that’s what I do.

Nicole Smith
Absolutely, go and grab that. Because I know when I started, Google was my friend. But I, there were things that I missed. Yes, Google doesn’t tell you everything. That’s why having someone like you, at the start, you know, to access their ebook or have a strategy session with you, if you’re planning to manage it yourself. Is such a great way. I think that’s the best way because you’re on the right foot from the get go. Everything’s set up and ready to rock and roll, so yeah. Well, I tricked you there, because I, we were wrapping up, but I wasn’t wrapping up because we’ve got our three questions.

Cass Ponton
Yeah, we are!

Nicole Smith
We do. You could probably ask yourself, because you listen to them every time. But I’m goign to ask you, what is your go to app that creates ease in your day?

Cass Ponton
Okay. I’ve been thinking about this since you asked me to come on the podcast. And every time I listen to an episode I’m like oh that’s a good one. Ah, no, I do use this as well. Okay, what do I what do I use every day? I’ve written down a few just to just to let you know, big one is the Google Suite. And GCal being the big one, the Google Calendar. Yeah, we we call it g Cal to make it sound cute. It’s just a calendar. I love my notes in my phone. So I love also because I use Mac laptop, and I’ve got an Apple phone. And when I write a note in there for like, I remembered something that I need to buy at the grocery store. I’ll put it in on my computer, it goes to my phone, and I love it. And then I would say Canva that is, I use Canva every day, for myself and my clients use it every day.

Nicole Smith
It is such a good tool, isn’t it, Canva. I did say that I can’t remember where I saw this somebody posted about if and this may be a tip for people. But if you’ve designed your logo in Canva just be aware that you may not own the full design rights to it. Yeah, I don’t know all the ins and outs but Canva as a tool of day to day for marketing and things like that is Yeah, obsessed. I even used it to a combination of Canva and clickup to put together Simon’s 40th birthday weekend plan. Like there’s a whole, no surprises here. Right? All the information because we’ve got about 15 people coming. Yeah, all the information about the accommodation all the things but I’ve the yeah, the email share that with you later. It’s quite pretty

Cass Ponton
Yeah, I love it. There’s just so many things that you can make in Canva that just and make everything beautiful, like I just did. I’m doing my dad 60th at the moment, I’m like, alright, but then I’m also in like Google, I was thinking about putting it into because I clickup for my personal for my business in my personal stuff. I don’t use it for clients, because as I said, like I don’t need all of the integrations and stuff like that. Unless they want to use it and then I’m happy to jump in. Because I know what I’m doing now. Thanks to you. And the members lounge so bloody helpful. But the yeah, putting things into Google Sheets and like even on Google Sheets now that they have also Google doc sorry, sheet is the Excel version of that but Google Doc and they have like the checklist now and so you can put your checklist into that and then tick them off on there. So I’m like, Oh, well this this makes it handy as well. Which leads into our next question where you’re going to ask me,

Nicole Smith
Are you an online or pay for to do list. Go, over to you.

Cass Ponton
I am combination.

Nicole Smith
YAY! A hybrid approach. Love it.

Cass Ponton
Yeah hybrid, definitely. I love, I think for everyday things, or everyday tasks like my weekly tasks, I like to have it or client for tasks kind of thing. I like to have it on a piece of paper because I love to cross things off. And I’m like, I am so successful this week and crossing things off and feeling good about that. And it’s also I don’t have to go anywhere. It’s right next to me, I can just see, okay, you know, I’ve got to edit this episode, by this date, whatever. I think for my own things like writing blog posts, and all of my social media stuff, and EDM and things that I’m planning and ebooks and things like that. I’d have it all in my clickup Because then it is the central location for my own things. So yeah, definitely a hybrid.

Nicole Smith
Beautiful, love it. Perfect answer. Now, creating more space in your world, what would you do if you had more space?

Cass Ponton
We talked about these kinds of things all the time anyway, in our WhatsApp all the time. Oh, WhatsApp is a good one. We use every day, daily on the daily, always the voice notes. Hi, I’m making coffee. The coffee machine is loading

Nicole Smith
Do you remember when we, I first got the like, Oh, my God, this coffee machines amazing. She’s like, yes, it is. Hello,

Cass Ponton
For everyone listening, we have the same coffee machine. So we’ve totally geek out about that as well, where like the coffee machine is loaded, getting a coffee ready. The space? I would say, I would definitely there’s two things within my business, I think I would make more resources, I’m trying to do that, at the moment, make more resources to really help people make podcasting easy, especially for people in business, I think it does seem overwhelming. And just give them those resources to say it’s not as overwhelming as it seems. I was thinking about this morning, I would love to do like a short course for people to be able to do it. Because I know people also in business are time poor. So doing a long course and you know, signing up for a 12 week course is not, may not be the best option. So you know, something that takes a couple of hours where you’re like, okay, cool, I’m done. I’m ready to post this podcast will be awesome. So I’m gonna, mark my words, I will create that. And travel more is another thing, before we started recording we were talking about my plans to head over to Bali, in June. So I’m excited about that. And I was like we could have everything organised because I want to take couple of weeks off and just travel around and Eat Pray Love, and then I’ll keep our keep get better at podcasting. From the pool. You know,

Nicole Smith
I love that, you know, when we’re designing our businesses the fabulous person I’m speaking to earlier in the day recording the other episode, she’s built that business and that life, that exact life that we’re talking about here, being able to design our businesses so that we can be transient, and work from anywhere we want to. And you know, just pick the laptop up, jump on a plane, off you go to Bali, and you sipping cocktails by the pool, like, you know, it’s amazing that we can do that and have everything sort of humming in the background and doing the things that you want to be doing.

Cass Ponton
Yeah, definitely. I think when I when I started this business, it was out of a little bit of necessity, but it was also something where I was like, no, I want to do this for my freedom. And I spoke to so many times last year about struggling with that, because I couldn’t find that balance of freedom, or you know, and we talked about all the time of permission and not have giving myself permission to say, you know what I’m done for today. Or I’m going to go take those two weeks off and go, you know, learn to surf in Bali or what you know, whatever. I didn’t have that. And now that’s a real focus on me this year is to make sure that I’m building that the way the way I want to and, and having all the things set up to support me to be able to do that. So yeah

Nicole Smith
Amazing, go you. I’ll be sitting in my office like I look at that cocktail, look at that Bali beach, oohh beautiful. And you’ll see me I’m my plan, as I said, it’s south of France. I’ve mentioned this a few times. Should porbably stick it on the wall somewhere. Yeah. You know, on a vineyard somewhere like drinking a Rose because that’s amazing over there. And it’s beautiful weather. That’s the plan. So put that on.

Cass Ponton
Do it. Yeah, I know I need to redo my, I’ve got sticky notes all over my wall. But on one of my two do’s is re, in Canva I’ve made it in Canva a little vision board type thing. inspo board more would look at it as to replace these sticky notes because how often do you look at the sticky notes that are there? You don’t because you stick in there you’re like awesome I’m gonna look at these every day then you forget to so make it pretty and and yeah, push it towards

Nicole Smith
Especially if you’re a visual person, you know, if you enjoy visual colours bright, all those fabulous things. That’s what you need to have in your face. So yeah, amazing. Well, thank you so much like I love talking to you everyday, byt the way. This is fabulous. I think this has been a really useful episode for people that are either podcasting already and feeling a little bit frictiony or that are about to start on that journey themselves and know that there’s people like you out there that they can come and contact and how do we do that?

Cass Ponton
I always hang out on Instagram. That is my favourite place to hang out. So DM’s are always open @ecoassistant. But then there’s my website, you can jump on to which I’ll leave the link to below. And yeah, I’ve got some blogs and stuff on there that are really helpful. I’m trying to make as many kind of helpful things for people to make it easy. I just want to make things easy for people because I feel as I said, I’ve said many times in this conversation, I just feel like people think it’s so hard, and then I’m here to show you that it’s not so Instagram. That’s probably my main hangout and on the website, and all my contact details are on the website.

Nicole Smith
Fabulous. Yes. For all those things, all the links, Cass will put them in the show notes because that’s what she does beautifully for us.

Cass Ponton
I can’t wait to listen to my voice.

Nicole Smith
Oh you’re fabulous. Amazing.

Cass Ponton
You know how you always hate you. I always hate hearing your voice back. I’m like, Oh God, I’m gonna have to listen to this.

Nicole Smith
You sound fabulous. It’s amazing. Well, thank you so much for joining me, we’ll wrap it up and enjoy the rest of your day. Whatever you’re doing. For everybody else who’s listening. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and enjoy creating space and time freedom by now.

Nicole Smith
Well, there we go. Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s been such a pleasure having you on board. Have we connected on social shares yet? If not, please come on over. Say hi, I’m on all the platforms @theartisansolutions. So I’d really look forward to seeing you over there. And if you enjoy today’s episode, don’t forget to tag me and I’d love it if you could leave a review. And of course share this with others so others can come and join us next time. All right, then everyone have a fabulous rest of the week and until next time, see you then.