How to start your own podcast show (starting at 17:00) with entrepreneur and podcaster Mark Hayward. We briefly explore Mark’s entrepreneurial journey and what led him to launch his own podcast show, and then share tips and advice on how to start a podcast.

On this episode of The How of Business podcast, Mark Hayward and Henry Lopez share their tips and experiences to help you start your own podcast. If you have been thinking about starting your own show, or perhaps you have already decided to do so but just don’t know all the steps to get started, then this episode is for you.

Mark Hayward is an entrepreneur, start-up and business coach, a podcaster, and property investor.

He is an ex-Big 4 consultant in tax technology specializing in global mobility. Mark is an active real estate investor and has a portfolio of properties in London and he also sources deals for other property investors.

He is the creator and host of the business podcast Absolute Business Mindset. On the Absolute Business Mindset podcast Mark interviews entrepreneurs, business owners, authors, and industry leaders who share their stories of success. He also helps others start their own podcast, and to get booked as a guest on podcasts. And he owns a podcast agency that enables entrepreneurs, authors, and industry leaders to be guests on podcasts.

Mark lives in London, England.

Topics and questions covered in this episode about how to start a podcast include: 

Episode Host: Henry Lopez is a serial entrepreneur, small business coach, and the host of this episode of The How of Business podcast show – dedicated to helping you start, run and grow your small business.

Resources:

How to Start a Podcast

Other Podcast Episodes:

Episode 187: Rob Greenlee – Podcasting

Episode 159: Nick Palkowski – Podcasting to Grow Your Business

You can find other episodes of The How of Business podcast, the best small business podcast, on our Archives page.

Episode Transcript:

The following is a full un-edited transcript of this episode. This transcript was produced by an automated system and may contain some typos. The times stamps are relative to starting at 17 minutes into this episode.

0:00:00.0 HENRY LOPEZ: Firing, I appreciate you sharing that I do. Why did you start the absolute business mindset podcast?

0:00:07.3 MARK HAYWARD: So it was December 2017, I started… And I started it as a hobby, I want to… I really enjoyed podcast, really enjoyed audio books, and I did all of the mistakes that… That most people make. But I read a lot about it, I listen to YouTube, listen to podcasts, listen to YouTube. Try to build up my knowledge and I just really wanted to do something outside of work that I could talk, and I just start to get the microphone and the laptop, and I just talked into the microphone, and I did probably about 60 or 70, so low podcast just talking about business, talking about experience, he’s talking about ambitions, talking about a lot of self-development early on there was a lot of things of how to get the right mindset, and then I actually joined a networking group of podcast networking group in London, and a guy said to me, No, why don’t you… Why don’t you interview me? And we got to know each other. It’s a great guy. I said, Yeah, why not, let’s try it. Did it the first time. Loved it. And to be honest, I am blessed to have met some great people interviewing in my podcast, great knowledge, great experience, great people genuinely great people.

0:01:30.2 MARK HAYWARD: I’ve started businesses with some of my guests, I’ve struck long-term relationships, friendships with people that I know and I can reach out to and have a chat and sort of brainstorm with them. So it started to snowball with the interviews and I really got to that point where I was able to release at least one a week I was of these interviews, and it’s just really developed from there, and I genuinely love speaking to really great people, and I learn something, every single interview, there’s something that I take away from it that changes me, to be honest, that’s been an amazing experience.

0:02:14.4 HENRY LOPEZ: Yeah, I think that an alone is probably one of the… If you talk to most podcasters, be included as one of the reasons that we do it is we’re Genoa value out of it every time we talk to something. Alright, but so let’s go down that to then topic first is the question I want to discuss for us is who should consider a podcast… Somebody’s listening to this episode so far, it’s because they might be interested in starting their own podcast, and so you can see all types of people, there are millions, in fact, the staff right now is two million podcasts that are available now, and that grows every week. I’ve heard as much as 3000 new shows a week, so I think it’s a fit for all kinds of different backgrounds and people, but what are your thoughts? Stereo should consider a podcast.

0:03:03.3 MARK HAYWARD: Literally anyone… I genuinely believe that someone… Everyone has a story they can tell, and whether that is doing something so low, I’ve taught people who have been in healthcare, I’ve told people who are in finance, I’ve taught people that are in sales in corporate, I helped one of the corporates develop an idea of a podcast, there was so much scope for everyone to be able to have a podcast, but it’s got to be something you enjoy talking about… Yeah, whether it’s an interview or so low stuff, you’ve got to enjoy it because you’ll know him, me, it gets tough at times, you haven’t got content and you’re like, Oh jeez, I’ve got to get something out or I don’t know what the process that I need to do and you get that. You get that sort of brain freeze and

0:03:57.2 HENRY LOPEZ: It’s a job, there’s no…

0:03:59.2 MARK HAYWARD: Does, absolutely. And if you love talking about something, whatever it is, and this is the beauty of podcast in the more niche you are, so why I train people in that, you really need to niche, first of all, and it’s really important that you have a subject that you enjoy talking to people about, if you’re doing interviews, and so whether it’s fly fish and whether it’s fishing, I’ve seen, I’ve seen fishing podcast, whether it’s a sport, whether it’s a business, whether it’s a type of business, whether it’s healthcare, whether it’s nutrition, fitness… There is so many different avenues and there are available listeners on any of those niches, so

0:04:46.8 HENRY LOPEZ: I think that that’s what a pinpoint… Let’s interrupt you because I think that the… One of the thoughts I get is, I just mentioned the stats over two million shows and it grows by thousands every week, so the question, I guess sometimes is that by too late to this party, or is there still an audience left… You think that there is an idea as well, right?

0:05:05.2 MARK HAYWARD: Yeah, well, I equally think they’re… Of those… Well, you say 2 million, you say podcasters. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s 500000 of them that have stopped.

0:05:15.9 HENRY LOPEZ: They’ve done 10 episodes, at least. At least.

0:05:19.0 MARK HAYWARD: Yeah. So I still think there is scope for… And one of the things I train people and teach people on my courses really, that you have to be consistent, you have to be realistic on your release day, if you’re going to do something like Johnny Damien ripened on fire on a day… Well, that’s fair enough. That’s pretty ambitious. That’s going to be a real struggle to do that. But if it’s one a week, I think one week is absolutely fine. Equally, I do think one a month is not enough, so I think you need to be consistent, and you need to be realistic on what you can release, but yeah, I think there’s plenty of scope for people still to start a podcast, and you don’t… The beauty of it is a devolved medium in the microphone, a camera, a laptop, and pretty much you’re ready to go, you near investment, it’s not…

0:06:15.5 HENRY LOPEZ: And you don’t need a studio and all this stuff that some people insist on, but to be honest, you don’t need that, I think people have hide behind that as an excuse, and we’ll talk about here and briefly what we were coming from an equipment perspective and a lot of high level, and then the course that I mentioned that Mark offers gives you the complete details, but yeah, I think you can hide behind that, and then one last point, and we’ll move on to a different topic, is there an audience is… I think everybody has a unique voice in a point of view, and what you’re trying to do is not to appeal to everyone in the world, you’re just trying to find your tribe, you’re a group of people that have similar interests and that connect with you, and that’s what you’re trying to do, I think, with the podcast…

0:07:01.0 MARK HAYWARD: Absolutely, absolutely. And someone very early on showed me a picture of 100 people and 200 people and 500 people in a 1000 people, and it’s actually quite staggering how many people… Like 500 or 100 people actually is. And if you’ve got a thousand listeners and I listen to you every week and they are looking forward to your podcast, looking forward to interacting with you on social media or whatever medium that’s impactful, you can have an impact on people’s lives in their ears while they’re driving while they’re in the gym, while they’re walking the dog, while they cook in, whatever it is, and you can have… You can have a massive impact on people, and there is still space, as I said, because people are quitting quite early on, and so I just think it’s still a great opportunity to be able to build a tribe and eventually monetize it, maybe one to what my artist on later, but there are many ways of being able to skin monetization, not necessarily just on a pure downloads per episode. So there are definitely ways to be able to build businesses and mantises outside of what most people consider the only way of being able to monetize it per download…

0:08:26.9 HENRY LOPEZ: Agreed, agreed to spend my experience as well, right before I move off the topic of who should consider a podcast, we’ve touched on it, but a couple other notes I had here is, certainly, I look at it as like a book can create a level of authority for you on a topic, a podcast can be used very similarly that way, so it’s an opportunity to have a platform where if you deliver value to that audience, you can establish yourself in an authority on that topic, or one of the authorities are certainly a thought leader on this topic or area, and that can possibly because for a lot of us, certainly for you and I, in part, or at least for me, I should say, the podcast is about offering people other services that I offered, my business coaching, my courses. Your course that we’re going to talk about, so it’s a platform for that as well, and then we’ve touched on it again, that’s how we met, the whole networking and the people that I have met, and you have method… Podcasting has been invaluable. I mean, for me, certainly being the type of business owner where most of my businesses are remote to me, and I am home office and isolated, this has been an incredible way for me to connect with other like-minded people, and that alone has been incredibly valuable for me.

0:09:43.8 MARK HAYWARD: It’s a great networking tool. It is, and it really is. I was talking to someone who was a business owner and they were talking about, Well, I’d really like to do a podcast, but I don’t know who to interview who… I said, Well, what I need into view your clients. And they were, Oh, why would I do that? I’m like, well, to be honest, more than anything, ignore the exposure to new audience and be able to reach new people that you wouldn’t normally reach, which is true, you’re flattering someone to say, Come on my podcast, we’ll talk about your business to get your opportunities, and therefore it’s a new way of being able to network people, network with people, and build strong relationships with people, so I don’t think people should underestimate the value of network in a way. I spent time working with other property guys and the business people, and you get them on your podiatry, feel great, they feel fantastic that you’ve invited them on their podcast, so there were so many different ways that you can build your network, build you… You as a really important said that, Hey, as a thought leader, and that’s my release interviews and so low stuff or Lolo stuff on Thursdays as well as my interview Monday because I still want to be for as a thought leader in the business space.

0:11:09.7 MARK HAYWARD: So for me, it makes more sense to be able to do both of these things, and then that gives me authority and gives me ability to be able to refer people to podcast, or in your mind when you’re talking to someone, you can reference something that someone said to you about sales or marketing or finance, or personal finance, whatever it is, and because you built up that knowledge experience understanding, you can then add a huge value to clients, to customers, to friends, family, whoever they are, because you’ve built up this knowledge, understand an experience of speaking to great guests.

0:11:50.1 HENRY LOPEZ: Agreed, agreed. And spend my experience as well. Alright, so we’ve touched on some of this, but I want to touch on quickly, I’m going to summarize my thoughts. And then ask you a question specifically. And how do I determine if I’m ready to start my own show? Because you have to have some of the time, you have to have the time, you have to have some realistic expectations about the show and what it’s going to do for you, especially as you touched already on monetization in my experience, if you think you’re going to monetize it from day one, that may not be realistic, so you have to be honest about that, that it takes some time to build some semblance of an audience, even if it’s a small audience that is going to lead to any kind of monetization. You have to be realistic about that. So there’s the investment of time, a little bit of money, but it’s mostly the time and then you touched on it, you have to enjoy doing this, or you’re going to do a lot of not maybe the highest percentage of those to start or show is… You’ll fade out after about 10 or 20 shows, but let me ask you about the time…

0:12:48.8 HENRY LOPEZ: I know for me, I’ve calculated it, it takes me about a total of five hours to produce and release one episode, my episodes are usually around 45 minutes to an hour, now I don’t deliver all of those five hours, have an assistant that helps me with the production, but that’s about the time commitment, about five hours for one episode… What is it for you? More or less.

0:13:14.1 MARK HAYWARD: It’s a similar time, so I spend an hour with my guest, I used to do longer, but I do to time commitments, I’m now sort of pinching it about an hour conversation. I do maybe an hour, hour and a half research on the individual on their journey, so it might be looking on LinkedIn, looking on websites, looking on a one-page bio, which people who want to be guessed should probably have… I would say it’s a good idea to have something than other podcasts that they’ve been on, and just listening to their voice and trying to build a rapport, so that was that she two and a half hours. Post-production editing, probably half an hour, I try to keep mine quite rare, I like the natural style of podcast of the ohms and yes, I think it… When I’ve tried to edit them out, it sometimes could be quite shifted and it feels a little bit unnatural, but then releasing release and I’ve got that pretty much nailed… Can do that pretty quickly. So you’re probably talking about three to four hours worth of for a podcast interview, and then they’re so low staff, I do some research on a subject…

0:14:32.5 MARK HAYWARD: I just did a series on DD Mindset Monday for a little while, and then I did small business Thursday for a little while. And then I would be researching on topics on small businesses, so funding starting a business, what you need. And I did something that was, what post-pandemic, what businesses can you do, or what businesses can you do at home? So that probably takes me 30 minutes to 45 minutes worth of prep, and then I’ll talk for maybe 15 minutes or so on that subject, so again, we’re probably talking about five or six hours a week for the episodes, and yeah, it does take them… I’m actually just trying to find someone to help me with a little bit of the admin and if they’ve got the experience maybe with the entity, the post-production and stuff at the moment, I’m looking to get a support on that because I wanted to do it initially because I wanted to develop the skills and the understanding. But equally, it’s… When I’m now interviewing people, I know how long it takes to do things. So I won’t get isolated with people, I said I was going to take me 10 hours, he wouldn’t take you to…

0:15:51.4 MARK HAYWARD: Now, it will take you for… Do you know what I mean? It just means that you’re able to be talk with a little bit more authority on that, so… Yeah.

0:15:57.8 HENRY LOPEZ: Probably five or six hours a week, I’d probably take me to do two episodes. So that’s my experience as well. So the point is that there is a time commitment here, and I think people go into it unrealistic about that expectation, but the other thing is, I’ll mention that while I agree with you on one of the keys to building a successful… However you measure it, successful podcast is that consistency. And I also release a weekly episode, I do believe though, that what might be more realistic for you listening is to do seasons or topics and package them that way, and that might make best sense, or you might decide to do a season of episodes or a series of episodes, and that’s all you want to create for now because you’re going to leverage that content in different ways in your marketing or to help educate your audience or your clients, so there’s all kinds of different ways that you can tackle this… Right, I would suggest to people that your primary objective should not necessarily be, I want to get to a million downloads a month, first of all, that might not be realistic, I hope you get there, but there’s a lot more than you can do with podcasting than having that be as your goal.

0:17:14.1 HENRY LOPEZ: But let’s talk about this summarize of Mark about monetizing is… That’s such a big topic, and I think where a lot of the misunderstandings and misconceptions are or come from, I think people might be sometimes delusional in thinking, I’m going to start making money on the podcast from day one… That hasn’t been my experience. I don’t think it’s yours, but let me just summarize what I have found to be the potential opportunities for monetizing a show, what’s most traditional is sponsors, and I’ve done that, and so that’s an opportunity to have another company that ideally… For me, I like it to be someone who sells something or offer a service that’s relative and relevant to my audience, but that’s not always the case, it could be anything, so they’re paying you typically, they want to know what number of downloads that you have, but don’t let that talk you out of pursuing sponsors. I’ll give you an example, one of the sister podcast that we had was called The How of Carwashing, because I was into car washing business for a period of time with my partner, David begin, and we had a show there, it had a fraction of the downloads that my podcast is podcast to how her business has, but we were still able to land sponsors very early because we were so niche and we were the only, literally the only podcast serving that industry at the time, so we had a very active and engaged audience even though it was small, it was where in that space wanted to be, so don’t discount that and don’t think that it’s always about your download numbers, then there’s affiliate relationships, which is really what I’ve been exploring.

0:18:56.2 HENRY LOPEZ: More like the relationship that you and I have when we have a marketing relationship for this course that you offer to help people start their show, and that’s another way that you could have revenue generated through the podcast, and then I think the most realistic and the most effective Mark is use it to either support or promote or create opportunities for your own offerings for your own products or services.

0:19:23.5 MARK HAYWARD: Any additional thoughts there you have on monetizing that I didn’t cover? So I agree with you 100% on what you’ve said, but there are the things that you can do to monetize coaching and courses, so if you are an expert in an area, you can coach people or you can do webinars, we all… A little bit webinar out, but that’s still an option for people to be able to do courses, there’s patron, which is sort of a way of creators getting paid by supporters, and there’s a Patreon website which you can then generate interest that way, you can do merchandising if you start building a brand and that you could then do that, also something that we’ve not discussed is the potential of YouTube and the availability of being able to get downloads and likes and subscribers on YouTube, which generates income as well, you could be a professional speaker, you’re pitching yourself as an expert, as someone knowledgeable in business, fishing, whatever, crypto, whatever it is, you can then get professional speaking gigs from being that authority in that area. So I agree with you, those three that you mentioned are the primary ones, but there’s lots of ways you can be able to produce a revenue stream, and I would say initially what you should be aiming for is a revenue stream to cover your costs, if you’re literally doing it, and it’s costing you no money for hosting platforms for advertising for your equipment, whatever it is, if you can cover that with a sponsor or speaking gigs or YouTube…

0:21:12.2 MARK HAYWARD: I think it’s a really good way, it’s a really good starting point for to have as her ambition, to be able to pay their salary, that is totally an ambition is totally ambitious and probably wouldn’t be achieved in the first year, but there’s lots of ways of being able to monetize it.

0:21:28.9 HENRY LOPEZ: Agreed, agreed. Yeah, those are great additional points, thanks for sharing those and yeah, at least in my experience, the first two years, it really was until probably year two that I started being able to land sponsors to cover my cost, so… Yeah, it takes time, and that’s the point about making sure you’re in this for the long term, otherwise you’re going to be disappointed if you think you’re going to be able to monetize this from day one, now they rear exceptions if you were a celebrity or you already have already made audience and they’re immediately going to follow you then sir, that’s different, but for the rest of us… That’s typically not the case. Alright, you spoke about courses, I want to dive into that, tell me about… And we have a special offer, and then we’ll come back to some more topics about podcasting, but the podcast course that you offer, I believe is called the ABM, the absolute business mindset podcast course. It’s… For all of the people that we’ve ever just talked about is a broad range of people and backgrounds and reasons that come and join you for this course, but give me a high level of the content, first of all, it’s a live course, right? And they do that in a one live session, it’s pretty intensive, it’s a three-hour focus session, but it’s live with a limited number of students, so that there’s a lot of interactivity.

0:22:42.8 HENRY LOPEZ: Correct.

0:22:43.6 MARK HAYWARD: Exactly. So what I taught in is when I’m talking to people about this, because everyone just wants to know about equipment and motor, they’re just like, they come and just tell me that I’m like, now is so much more… So what I try and do with people is take them on that end-to-end process of the podcast, so we talk about their idea, what they want their idea to be about, is it… We’ve talked about lots of different tables, you can do it on anything. You really need to think about the demographics. Who is your ideal client? Then think about the style of the podcast, as I said, big having guests, so low stuff, having co-host, maybe just telling a story, and so I took them through the different styles that you can do, and then we talk about the regularity of it, how regularly you should be doing it, and then really going into depth about the strategies that you can use to be able to market it through social media, word of mouth and Google, which are the three main things at the moment where most people are generating most interest in their marketing is through those things, I repeat that.

0:23:52.2 MARK HAYWARD: Social media, word of mouth, and the Google effect is massive. So we talk you through that, then we’ll talk about pre-podcast decisions that you need to think about, and then we then talk about launching… There’s a whole process about how you launch a podcast, and then we go deep dive into the equipment, and then we talk about the launch, and then we go into monetization at the end, so it’s a real end-to-end course. The feedback that I’ve been given from people is that they thought it was going to be a very… Almost transactional, you need to do A, B, and C, but with my background, my understanding how I have structured and built my podcast, there’s so much more that you need to think about before you start going and those sorts of things about thinking about how you’re going to launch thinking about marketing strategies, thinking about key areas where you’re going to record, what’s the idea, how is it going to evolve, are you going to do guests, are you going to do… So low stuff. So for me, it’s an intense three-hour session, there is a lot of interaction that I get with my…

0:25:03.8 MARK HAYWARD: The people who attend to my course, and so hopefully you won’t feel that you’re not getting your money’s worth because you’re really getting me… They are present with you answering those questions or everything from the idea to monetization a liquid then…

0:25:21.4 HENRY LOPEZ: Yes, it’s a great course. Obviously, you become a student of podcasting as I have you, you’re bringing a bare your experiences, what you’ve learned by helping others launch their own podcasts, you get ideas from others, and so it’s really infused with all of this knowledge to get you launched. I think the thing that happens for us, just like with any other business situation, we think about it, we think about it, and then we hide behind, oh, I need this equipment, I need that. And the truth is it, yes, you need to get some help. This course is a perfect opportunity for that, you need to do some preparation and some thinking, which is what Mark will help you walk through and think through in this course, and then you just need to launch because there’s no such thing as being perfect. Which is what I have a tendency to do. Before we launch, you do want to get the basics, avoid some of the common mistakes that we have already learned, but then you do need to launch, so let’s talk about money, so that this course that he offers on a regular basis, on a scheduled basis.

0:26:21.2 HENRY LOPEZ: And so I want you to go to the business dot com to get the dates for the next enrollment, I usually offer this course for 599, but for The How of Business podcast listeners will be a special link on the page, it’s 499, so that’s an incredible opportunity to take advantage of this course that Marcus has been tested and it’s got a lot of effort into, and it’ll get you to that point where you can get lunch. The other thing that I want to mention is after, for those who go through the course, there’s going to be an opportunity to join a podcasters Mastermind, which is really valuable even beyond the initial course, that’s what as I mentioned, how Mark and I meant we belong to a mastermind and that’s a further opportunity to develop your skills as a podcast or so that’s the ABM or absolute business mindset podcast course and Mark offers, go to the holiness dot com for the next day and the link to role to get the special price on this course. If this conversation we’ve had here has helped you get to the point where you’re ready to move forward, this is where I recommend you go next to get the information, the knowledge, the skills that you need to get launched.

0:27:36.4 HENRY LOPEZ: Alright, let me touch on a couple of things that we haven’t covered yet, and then we’ll summarize and close the episode, mark. I want to go back to what makes for a good show, you and I have this discussion often we talk about it on this podcast mastermind that I keep referring to. That we both belong to. I’m going to rattle off on things and then I want you to tell me if there’s anything you think I’m missing or just your thoughts on that. And these are no particular order, but effective storytelling, so I think that when a show is engaging and entertaining, you’re telling good stories, at least at some point throughout the conversation, it needs to be entertaining and engaging, so think about that. Most people are consuming podcasts while they’re doing something else, working out, walking, driving, whatever it might be, and I know as a listener, podcast, my mind wanders, so keep that in mind that you have this audience out there that’s doing other things at the same time, and we need to be entertaining, I believe good audio quality of base… Good audio quality, it doesn’t have to be professional level, but it needs to be good enough, I think that’s important, and the stats and then the information I’ve read from other experts would agree with that, you have to have as you point it out.

0:28:54.2 HENRY LOPEZ: And part of what you have them in the course is identifying who your audience is going to be and the importance of niche down, so that audience, keeping that audience in mind is critical. And then you talk about it as well, Mark, the consistency. So while I do believe that you can leverage podcasting to do a series of episodes or a season, if that’s what makes better sense for you, there’s no doubt for me that one of the keys to my success would… My show has been that I consistently show up every week, with just the exception of week of Thanksgiving in the week of Christmas, every Monday, there’s a new episode for me. What else would you add to that list of what makes for a good show?

0:29:35.8 MARK HAYWARD: I just want to recap on a couple of those points, which I think is so critical and everyone, so everyone should be listening to consistency. Absolutely, we’ve talked about that a couple of times, but… Storytelling, entertaining and educating, I think are super important. You’ve got to be entertaining. It has to be of interest to people, and not every podcast has to be education, but I do think that there is a lot of scope for people to be able to learn things from podcast, and that’s one of the main ways that people consume podcast is either they want to be entertained or they want to be educated. But that whole point of story-telling, you’re a mistake in… You really are. You go, Great it questions, you do great summaries. And it’s been great listening to your technique and your style, because I think everyone that wants to start a podcast, you have to develop your own style that works for you and works for your audience as well, so I think they are super important that people need to think about and having that voice, working out what your voice is, what your style is you… Are you more research-based, are you…

0:30:51.0 MARK HAYWARD: Are you someone that just because I was listening, I think it was Larry King. I think I heard recently, he never used to prepare anything for his interview, he just knew the guest, who they were and what they were, what they’re interested or what their expertise was, that he wanted to be amazed, just like the audience were on that podcast, that interview that he was doing… So there are lots of ways of being able to do it, it can be conversational, it can be more focused on the guest, whatever it is, style that you want to produce, but it does need to include storytelling, and it needs to either be entertaining or educational or

0:31:31.6 HENRY LOPEZ: Both great points. And thank you for that, I appreciate that. And the point about the voice is so important, I think that I hear a lot of times people wanting to be like someone else, to imitate someone else, and while we certainly… That’s one of the ways that we learn. We have to find our own voice, and we have to trust that there will be enough people out there that will connect with us because we’re being authentic or as authentic as possible, so that is critical. If I bring to my show my sensibilities, you bring to yours, and that’s why we can each be successful even though we’re doing very similar episodes and shows focused on business, but there’s room for individual voices and points of views, and then you eat talked about Larry King, who has passed, but I think Larry King, as much as he got a little off track as in his older years, I think he was a brilliant asker of questions, a brilliant interviewer, and he is one guy that I study on learning how to ask good questions which is another key thing that you’ll need to get better and better at, and you will…

0:32:43.1 HENRY LOPEZ: As you progress in doing podcasting… Let me tell you this, if I go back and listen to my first 50 episodes, I cringe, right? I don’t use that as an excuse. That’s in summary here. For me, it’s about, get the education that you need, you’re listening to this episode this far, because this is of interest to you, take advantage of this course that we have the opportunity to partner with Mark on and get a special price on and make that investment. We didn’t get into the details on equipment, but I’m going to have on the show notes page, I’ll list out my equipment that I use currently, but I can tell you that right now, I have a fancy microphone because it looks good, it’s called… I call it a vanity microphone, but I started with a microphone that was well, now sells for about 100 bucks. I have good internet connection, but that’s basically… Hopefully, you already have that at home. I use Zoom for my interviews. I have a boom that holds the microphone in place that was under 100 as well, so for a couple of 100, and then there were some hosting fees and we’ll get into the details of that and of course.

0:33:49.6 HENRY LOPEZ: But I’ll list out on the show notes page with this episode at the holiness dot com, the equipment that I use, that’s not what should keep you from getting launched, it’s all of the other things that we’ve talked about, and it’s about getting all of the other information that you can get from this course to avoid some of those mistakes to get you there faster and more so…

0:34:10.7 MARK HAYWARD: Do you know what, there are two things that I think are the biggest barriers for starting a podcast, first one is procrastination, I might do analysis paralysis, you might overthink it, you might practice for three years or whatever it is, so I think procrastination is a massive factor on people not doing a podcast, and the other common mistake is doing 10 episodes and they never doing any more. And so those two for me, on my experience of working with people and do my own podcast, they are the two big lockers for people, they might be really enthusiastic and we call it six episodes, which is why I suggest for the podcast launch, but then they’ll only release 10 and then lose interest or whatever, so these are the two killers that are stopping people from either starting or continuing and having a successful podcast.

0:35:03.9 HENRY LOPEZ: Yeah, I agree, I see the same thing. The only thing I would add in addition is people being afraid of their own voice, and I mean that in various ways, meaning literally the sound of my voice. And by the way, no one likes the sound of their voice as it takes time to get used to hearing your own voice, so everybody has that challenge, but also meaning it from the point of view of who cares about what I have to say? So that impostor syndrome that can come in, so just keep in mind that if you’re authentic and you’re talking about a subject that you’re passionate about, of course it helps if you’ve got some knowledge or if you go get some knowledge or you bring on people who have that knowledge, that’s the other reason we bring on guests and you’re authentic to your voice and your point of view, then that’s what people will connect with, not everybody, where not everybody is going to like us or just looking for our tribe, a type are… Alright, where can people go to find out more about you? I want them to go to the TheHowOfBusiness.com to find about the special, but if they want to learn more about your podcast, where should they go?

0:36:08.6 MARK HAYWARD: So you can go to… I’m active on LinkedIn, so you can find me on LinkedIn and connect for me on there. I also have a website, absolute business mindset dot com, which talks about my podcast, it talks about my podcast guest business if we haven’t covered, but there’s a business that is born out of podcast in with that and equally my course as well, that I do for helping people start so, absolute business mindset dot com or reach out to me on LinkedIn.

0:36:39.1 HENRY LOPEZ: Thank you, Mark, and thanks for sharing your insights and your knowledge and this special offer on the course and for being with me today on this episode of The How of Business, my guest today, again, was Mark Hayward. We release new episodes every Monday morning, and you can find us anywhere you listen to podcasts, including Apple Podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, or at our website, TheHowOfBusiness.com. Thanks for listening.