Binge Factor Media

Are you waiting for the right time to start your podcast, or are you limiting your potential podcast power? In today’s episode, Tracy Hazzard is joined by Diann Wingert, a mindset and productivity coach for female entrepreneurs and the host of The Driven Woman Podcast. Diann shares how she stopped limiting herself and pursued what is now a successful podcast and coaching business. She talks about her fair share of self-inflicted bumps on the road and enlightens with helpful tips on how to overcome them. Diann also offers more tips on how to find the right guests and engage with your listeners. Tune in for another insightful episode!

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Stop Limiting Your Potential Podcast Power And Actually Take The Plunge Like Diann Wingert, Host Of The Driven Woman Podcast

In this episode, I am bringing you a totally driven podcaster, Diann Wingert. She is The Driven Woman of The Driven Woman Podcast. She has got a show that she has committed to. She should be celebrating all of the commitments she’s made and living up to the delivery of those episodes week after week. It was a long haul for her. I can’t wait for her to tell you the story of how hard it was for her to get her podcast started because it might resonate with many of you out there.

Diann Wingert is a mindset and productivity coach for female entrepreneurs. During her career as a licensed psychotherapist, she works with hundreds of ambitious women who struggle with habits and mindsets that held them back. After realizing that psychotherapy was not the answer, Diann trained and certified as a coach to shift the conversation from problems to possibilities. Her jam is helping the driven but distracted woman eliminate procrastination, perfectionism and people-pleasing so she can level up her business and her life.

She is an expert in ADHD in adult women and the mental health challenges of entrepreneurship. I want to clap when I hear someone say, “Mental health challenges from entrepreneurship.” It is not for the faint of heart. It is not for those without the right mindset. It is not as easy as you think to be an entrepreneur. It is not as easy as you think to be a podcaster, which is why I’m glad that we’re having this conversation with Diann. The Driven Woman podcast, let’s learn about it from Diann Wingert.

About The Driven Woman Podcast Host Diann Wingert

Diann Wingert is a mindset and productivity coach for female entrepreneurs. During her 20-year career as a licensed psychotherapist, she worked with hundreds of ambitious women who struggled with habits and mindsets that held them back. After realizing that psychotherapy was not the answer, Diann trained and certified as a coach in order to shift the conversation from problems to possibilities.

Her jam is helping the driven but distracted woman eliminate procrastination, perfectionism, and people-pleasing, so she can level up her business and life. She is an expert in ADHD in adult women and the mental health challenges of entrepreneurship.

 

Follow Diann Wingert on Social:

Social:  Instagram  | Youtube  | LinkedIn

Diann, thank you so much for joining me. I love the model of your show. I’m excited for us to dive into how it works and how you developed it. Listening to your Podversary episode, I got to hear how much training and podcasting you took before you got your show started. Because of who you are, would you reassure the readers out there that it’s okay because a lot of them are in that same place? Also, tell them some of the training you took and what finally got you to start it.

This is an interesting story. It’s not what I’m necessarily proud of. In fact, it has some real cringe-worthy moments but the more podcasters I come in contact with, the more I realize this is not at all unusual. My husband and I were going to move out of the country. We were going to move to the Middle East for three years. All of the things that I had been thinking about doing and not quite getting around to doing like writing a book, launching a podcast, launching a course, and so forth, I decided, “I need to get all those trainings done while I’m here in the US and I have exposure to all the best people. I’ll then go to Abu Dhabi and I’ll crank.”

I took Pat Flynn’s Power-Up Podcasting course and I decided to do the fast track where it’s a high-level, VIP experience. You go to San Diego for a weekend, you’re in a hotel and he gives you all the equipment. It’s two full days with this team and they produce your show-art. It’s a nice experience. I didn’t launch after that. We did not go to the Middle East but that was part of it. Months went by, I was still here in the US, I still hadn’t launched. I took another podcast preparation course from a friend of mine, Jackie MacDougall, called Find Your Voice. This is a different kind of course but I already had the equipment, the show-art, had the name and everything. I went through that.

It was extremely helpful to all the other people taking that course because I was half a pro by that time. I knew more than the others, let’s put it that way. Here I was being helpful, giving other people feedback, but taking action of my own, not so much. Here I was a couple of years after. In the meantime, Tracy, we’re talking to courses now and probably no less than ten books on Kindle about podcasting, interviewing, media, and so on. Let’s say I had thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours, not to mention listening to countless podcasts and taking notes on what I liked and what I didn’t like. In terms of my preparation for launching, you would have to give me an A++.

I do. We have many people who wing it and you are the opposite of that.

The thing is that my last name is Wingert and I have been known for winging almost everything all of my life. When it came to launching my podcast, it was uncharacteristic for me to be bunched up, overthinking and over-preparing. I can’t honestly say fully all the reasons why other than I was scared to put myself out there. I don’t know if I was more afraid of failure, success, criticism or nothing. I didn’t even know. I don’t even think I got that far in my mind. I was getting ready. What I can tell you now, anyone reading who’s in this place or going through this place and thinking that there will be a magic point where you will feel prepared enough, ready enough, learned enough, and then you’ll pull the trigger, it’s simply not true. You could start tomorrow and your show wouldn’t be any worse than mine was when I first started.

Yours was pretty good. Let’s give yourself a lot of credit. That prep is evident. I say this because I listened to thousands of podcasts over time. Your prep has evidence. It’s very good. You didn’t have a reason to be holding yourself back there. I’m glad you got over that. What did you do that broke through for yourself? What was that thing that helped you do that?

I got sick of myself. You could say it was my ego, being completely honest. I was watching all these other people launch. In the meantime, I’m listening to their shows and thinking, “That’s okay. It’s good. It’ll get better.” There isn’t anything that anybody else had, in my opinion, that made them any more qualified or deserving of having a podcast than me. I realized I was full of poop, full of excuses, and I got sick of myself. I decided, “This is nonsense. You are making up excuses and believing them. At some point, you’re going to talk yourself out of it all together because you’re going to think, ‘Now I’ve waited too long.’”

That was the moment when I thought, “I need to name it and claim it. I need to set a date on it, tell somebody, and do it.” It was nothing more than that. I’ve gone through different periods in my life where I said I was going to do something and I didn’t do it. You then realize you’re like the boy that cried wolf and people don’t take you seriously. I have big dreams, big goals, and big plans. If I can’t take myself seriously, that’s a problem. I said, “I’m doing this. There’s no turning back and no looking back. It doesn’t even have to be good. It has to be now.”

How long have you been doing this?

We published episode 61.

You’ve made it. This is the thing, you celebrate your podversary episode and you share about the podcast story, which I love that you did that for your audience because people are curious about that. There are lots of people that think in the back of their mind, “I could be a podcaster.” They don’t take action because they don’t have any behind-the-scenes reveal, which you do. I love that about what you’re doing. You also took a moment to celebrate. This is something that I feel that we don’t do enough. As humans, as women and as podcasters, we don’t do it enough.

For the first time, I’m working on my 100th episode. Your episode is going to come right before that. I’m trying to work on a big celebration of not just me but all the people who’ve participated who are still podcasting because some of them are not. I want to have a big shout-out and celebration about that because as you point out in your podversary episode, there’s a lot of podfading going on in there. There’s a lot of people who quit and you didn’t quit. You showed up week after week and you should be so proud of that. You should get to celebrate that. Kudos to you.

What I realized is there must be a critical mass when you’ve gone past that point that you’re no longer at risk or podfading. At almost 25,000 episodes, I am past the point where they think I need those little pats on the head. My team gives them to me and my listeners give them to me but I need to give them to me because it is no small thing to be consistent at anything, even something you love, and to keep on going. I don’t want it to get to the point, Tracy, where I’m thinking, “You have a podcast. It’s one of the things you do.” I’m like, “No. You’re going to celebrate that 25,000. You’re going to celebrate that 50,000. You’re going to make a big deal.” I’m learning how to play a musical instrument, which is tooting my own horn because that was always considered unprofessional before. Now I’m like, “You celebrate.”

It seems effortless on the other side and your show does have an effortless feel to it, which I’m sure is something you’ve learned from all the research you did but that it’s not true. You have to think these things through. You have to come up with great topics. You have to find the right guests that are going to be good and add new value to your listener base. These are not easy things to do and yet you do that and you show up and you’re not being paid to do that. You’re paying to do that.

That’s the part that my husband still doesn’t quite understand. He’s like, “You’re paying people to produce your podcasts? How many clients did you get from this?” I’m like, “It’s a little more complicated than that.” My first career choice, I wanted to be in broadcasting and journalism. I have a communications degree from UCLA. I got some bad advice from my guidance counselor that talked me out of it. I like to think that my podcast is finding my way back to what I wanted to do many years ago and didn’t and I’m doing it now. It’s work but it’s also satisfying.

What made you decide though, in the process? You did some podcasts. You were guest hosting. You were showing up as a regular on more of a radio-style show but still a podcast at the end of the day. You have done that for a little while. What made you say, “I would like my own show,” besides the idea that you were going to go overseas and had some time? Was there something about being in control of that show that interests you?

Yes. It was several things, Tracy. I was a regular guest expert on a radio-style show. I did 10 or 12 episodes with them. I’ve also been a guest on about a dozen other podcasts over a couple of years period. What I realized is that I never thought of myself as creative but I am very creative. I’m creative with words and ideas. I always had a limited idea of creativity being art. There are lots of ways to make art now more than ever.

If you are a wordsmith, you like people and you like storytelling, you are as much creative as anybody. I didn’t feel like I would have the same opportunity to express myself creatively as a guest because it’s the other person’s show. It has to fit their needs, business plan, priorities, and so forth. I don’t think I have fully explored all the ways that I can bring my creativity and my personality into The Driven Woman but that is what drives me most of all because there are no rules in podcasting. You can have a three-minute podcast or a three-hour podcast.

You don’t have a radio station and advertisers to be beholden to. There is a benefit to paying. That’s what you’re going to tell your husband. It’s creative control.

Potential Podcast Power: If you think there will be a magic point where you will feel prepared enough, ready enough, learned enough, and then you will pull the trigger, it’s not true.

I’m paying for my freedom.

We’ll use whatever excuse we have to get that through. There has to have been some authority that has come out of it, some benefit to you getting clients or getting speaking engagements or other things. What authority has podcasting brought you in your business?

It has brought me all the things that I expected it to and more. I’ll explain it specifically. I wanted to have an opportunity for creative self-expression. I chose to have an explicit rating because I was a psychotherapist for 25 years. In my private life, I like to drop a lot of F-bombs and a few other colorful words but in my professional life, that was not something possible. Among other things, I saw the podcast as an opportunity for me to be who I am, which is fully professional. I also swear like a sailor sometimes, not all the time.

It’s been allowing me to bring together different attributes. It has allowed me to not only get new leads and new clients. One hundred percent of the new clients I have worked with have come from hearing me on a podcast, mine or someone else’s. If you want to call it a funnel, Tracy, the way it usually works is they will hear me on another show and they will say, “She has her show.” They hop on over, binge through some of my shows, get on my calendar for a free consult and become a client. It has worked consistently as a coach and consultant that I consider podcasting to be my primary marketing vehicle.

You then have to tell your husband 100% of your client base.

It’s true. Also, I love other podcasters. I love connecting particularly with other female podcasters because we are in the minority in the industry. It feels like it accelerates the know, like and trust factor. I meet people on social media, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and so far, I meet people in different groups I’m a part of. I’m a member of several online membership communities. I meet people in all those places. When you have spent an hour with someone like we’re doing right now, it accelerates the relationship in a beautiful way. It has led to several collaborations writing, podcasting and content collaboration. Me coming in and giving a masterclass to people’s communities. I love that and I don’t even have to leave the house. Even if it wasn’t for COVID, this is great.

You mentioned binge listening to your show. You were a listener before you tried taking the classes. What I want to say to most people out there, the listeners are a rarity. There are a lot of podcasters, more than the majority, who do not listen to podcasts. There’s an exception where there might be one who listens to all crime serials or something like that. They do that but they aren’t what I call a research style listener, one who’s out there checking out other shows, modeling them, and doing that. You’ve done that. Do you think that it has made you a better podcaster?

Yes, and I’ll tell you why. About 1/3 of my shows are guest interviews. We’ll get into the different types of episodes that I do. What I noticed is because I work with female entrepreneurs, there are a lot of podcasts by and for female entrepreneurs. This is a fast-growing industry if you will, coaching and consulting. A lot of female entrepreneurs have podcasts to promote their business. A lot of them are interview style. I have noticed there are particular things that almost all of them say in the intro and particulars styles of interviewing.

Because I’m a trained therapist, I know how to get people to talk, even people that don’t want to talk about things they don’t want to talk about. I’m a nosy, curious person who loves people and loves helping people. I brought a lot of skill to it but I didn’t know the media aspect. Having someone in a therapy room or even in a coaching call is different than an interview where you’re hoping to not only bring out the best in your guests so that you make them look good but you’re also demonstrating your skill and expertise and relationship skills.

The people that are listening might want to collaborate with you, might want to have you on their show or might want to be a client. It started with what I noticed I didn’t like and maybe it’s the process of elimination, like, “I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to do that.” I don’t think I’ve modeled myself after anyone but I know right away what I like and what I don’t like and I’ve instinctively moved away from that. I love doing the client success story episodes and they have turned out to be among my most popular.

I don’t think I thought it through strategically, like, “This gives people the opportunity to hear what it would be like to be one of my clients and to see what results I help my clients get.” I first started doing it because I wanted to reconnect with some of my favorite people after they stopped working with me. I’m like, “You got to come back and we need to have a chat.” I then realized, “This is skillful and strategic and people love them.” Oftentimes, those clients come back and work with me again or refer people to me. There’s nothing I don’t like about it.

You’re a therapist. I’m going to do my little bit of psycho-analysis on your show. Right, there is the tipping point to what is great about your show. You’re great at asking questions and having curiosity. I can tell that you’re curious deep about a topic. When you do a topic episode, you’ve got stories and you’ve got books that you mentioned. You’ve got a lot of details and information that is built into what you’re going to talk about and how you’re going to talk about it. Your grasp of a concept, grasp of the person that you’re going to interview, it’s all there. Often, that’s a media type model of where you’re doing great interviews, you’ve got great prep and you’ve got the research.

What you’ve done well is you’ve blended a model of podcasting where you’ve taken the best of the business ideas, the digital marketing ideas, the things that perhaps Pat Flynn taught you. Some of those wonderful digital marketing ideas of how to grow your business, how to use your podcast as a funnel. You’ve taken the things that you liked about it that felt authentic to you and blended them with some wonderful media and attention to what the listener experience is. You put them together into a show that is truly creatively and uniquely you. That’s where your binge factor lies. You’ve modeled it that way instead of following a formula in one or the other place.

That’s such fantastic feedback. It makes me happy to hear it because one of the reasons why I can be difficult to coach is that I’m not very good at following formulas. The idea that I need to conform to the norm and be squished into any box however delightful and successful the box is and however many people may be avid fans, I don’t do that personally well. There’s always some part of me that sticking out of the box. I made the show that would hit all the things that I needed as an extrovert who is accustomed to working with people face to face. I’ve made the decision to go online but I need it to be satisfying. I love getting to know people. I love going deep. I love storytelling and anecdotes and all that. I tried to craft a show that would be satisfying for me and would grow my business.

It’s working.

It sounds like it was so much more strategic than it was. You’re helping me understand something. All of that agonizing two years, I was piddling around and going in circles and doing nothing. I was working hard processing what I need to do to make this work for me because I knew I wanted a podcast. I don’t think I answered you directly. Why did I decide to have a podcast? Why didn’t I keep being a guest? I’m an extrovert, Tracy and I now work from home online. Even if it wasn’t for COVID, the number of people I interact with face to face compared to my former life is not even 2%. It needed to be satisfying enough to meet my needs as a people person. You’re the same kind of person so you know what I’m talking about.

I completely am. People are like, “Wasn’t the whole last year difficult for you?” I’d be like, “No. It was great.” I got all the great benefits of connecting with people, doing the things that I love and getting curious and learning new things. I got all of that without getting on an airplane and having the agonizing travel part that I don’t love. I got everything I wanted because I already had that system built-in and I could amp it up. I’m like you but I am eager to see people in person. I am eager to shake hands, hug again and do all those things.

You mentioned this briefly and I want to tap into it before we hit our five things. You have different types of shows. This is something that I’ve talked about again and again. There’s another coach who does this. Kim Seltzer does the Charisma Quotient. She has three different types of shows that she does. I use them as examples for models. I’ve discovered that your case study show is one of my favorite new examples that I know I will be telling people about again and again. Tell us about the three types of shows you have and how you decide which one that’s going to be each week and how you’re going to rotate that.

I’d love to. It’s been an organic process that I have figured out. One more thing I wanted to say is that I know that COVID has been disastrous for millions of people over the world. For me, an ADHD-fueled entrepreneur who has lots of ideas and lots of plans and tends to be running in ten different directions at the same time, I don’t know that The Driven Woman podcast would have gotten launched if it hadn’t been for COVID. What COVID did for me, at least in the beginning, was to create a distraction-free environment where I could focus, make choices and get moving. Now I’ve learned how I don’t need to be in a cave and get things done because now I have a process.

You got it all under your belt there.

Potential Podcast Power: If you are a wordsmith and you like people and you like storytelling, you are just as much a creative as anybody.

It’s all working. I developed the three different shows over time. You’ll notice that the first 25 podcast episodes are short. Many of them are around ten minutes, all solo shows. I wrote and wrote. I lived in LA all my life. We moved years ago, not to Abu Dhabi but to Portland, Oregon. We moved and I don’t know a single person and thanks to COVID, I still don’t. The first year we were here, I did a ton of writing. I probably wrote 100 blog posts. Many of them turned into my first 25 episodes because I already had the content. I knew I liked podcasting and I decided I’m going to launch this all on the show.

I decided not to interview guests at first for two reasons. One, I wasn’t happy with a lot of the interview show formats that I was hearing. They all sounded the same. I noticed that in many of the interview-style podcasts, people don’t feel that confident interviewing. They’ll ask a question and then they’ll go right on to the next question. I’m that person who wants to go to the next level down. Forget the whole rest of the questions I have on the paper, I’m going to follow my curiosity and my interest to bring out a story from this person that maybe they haven’t even shared on another podcast. That’s what drives me. I didn’t want to start doing interviews until I was certain that I liked being a podcast host.

I didn’t know if I could create the systems, the consistency or if I like talking to myself enough to not be a guest. I thought, “25 episodes are ought to do it.” By then, I had the systems and I was starting to get a little bored talking to myself in the closet. I started doing the guest interviews. I’m trying to remember exactly when I did the first client success story. I didn’t even plan that. By that time, I thought, “I’m going to alternate, solo, guest.” That’s a nice cadence that works for me. I’m not always talking to myself and I don’t have to do quite as much outreach to lineup guests and all that.

I ended up having such a fantastic relationship with one of my clients. I wanted to tell the whole world about the results that we created together. I said, “What if you come on my podcast and we talk about what we did? It’ll give your business a boost. It’s an interesting story.” People loved it. In a way, it was an experiment or even an impulse. Maybe it could have been a one-time thing but I thought, “I like this.” As a result of podcasting and being a guest on other shows, I started attracting more ideal clients. Naturally, that led to more client success stories. Now, I have a whole bunch of them lined up to record because I love doing them. People love to be able to say, “This is where I was and here’s where I am now thanks to you.” They want to do it.

You’re allowing them that little bit of celebration that they maybe didn’t get in their regular life and what’s going on in the business because it may have happened slower there. Here, you get to talk about it and it’s the sped-up model of, “Look where I was and where I am now.” That’s also important in your process.

I agree with you completely that women, in particular, don’t stop and celebrate. All the women I know art ability, high achieving, very driven, type A, success-minded and we take all of our accomplishments for granted. It’s like, “Yeah. I got an A. I’m an A student.” It’s like, “No, one day you will burn out. I promise you so let’s celebrate even if you don’t think you need it. Even if you don’t think it’s a big deal, it’s a big deal. Just do it anyway.”

I had a coach who once said to me, “Tracy, when have you celebrated a birthday? When have you done any of those things?” I was like, “I don’t know.” A celebration usually means like, “I did it. Now, where’s the next goalpost?” That’s not a celebration. The ironic part is that I never had a lot of birthdays and I’m not blaming my parents or anything. I love my parents. They always made me feel special. My birthday is right before Christmas. My sister’s birthday is five days apart from mine. It’s the worst time of year to have a party. We never had a lot of parties. In one of my businesses that I had quite a while ago, I threw birthday parties for twin girls. I used to throw nine birthday parties a week in the store that I had. My husband goes, “Haven’t you celebrated enough?” I’m like, “Yes but I celebrate it with everybody else.” It’s still not me at the end of the day. This is one of the things that I’m focusing on and working on personally.

You like extremes. We could be very good friends.

Let’s talk a little bit about the five things because I want to make sure that we touch on them. You’re doing some things that are interesting in the way that you’ve structured your business. Let’s talk about your structure of the business of podcasting. Have you put a specific effort into finding the right type of guests that are not your case studies because you know who those people are but getting other types of guests? What do you do to get ones that you think are going to be valuable to your audience?

This is where I am now to go to the next level with my podcast. I’ve already identified one of the things I need to do. When you have an interview-style show and you are listed on any of the directories like Audry.com, MatchMaker.fm, Podchaser, and so forth, you will start getting pitched a lot. Some of them are real randos. I’m like, “Did you read the description of my show before you sent me this email?” Some of them are like, “No.” You have to be careful and strategic because at first, it may seem flattering, “Do you want to come on my show?” You might be inclined to say yes to a bunch of the wrong people. I do a good job of screening the pitches with my team of who is a good fit. I’ve gotten good at saying no without feeling guilty or being overly apologetic.

I’m getting better at the outrage and identifying but it’s a different skillset to go searching than it is to sift through those that come to your doorstep. In my experience and I’m sure you have a lot to say about this, those that pitch me are usually not as desirable as the ones that I will pitch. It’s getting out there. My first career was in medical sales. I know how to market and sell. I need a good strategy for doing that so that I’m not wasting time and so I can increase my close rate. I’ve been doing this long enough now and skillfully enough that I’m ready to learn the skill of being more strategic about finding those right guests. That’s a need I’ve identified.

I’m going to talk a little bit about that in a separate episode because you could benefit from that and so can some others. I’m going to talk about how I do it for this show. I’ll share that with you, Diann. Now that I’m hearing that, that’s a specific niche within it that is special. How do you go about to up that level for yourself? That’s a great find though for yourself after doing some guesting and having guests. You’ve got it from both sides and you’ve realized, “This is the next step of how I want to next level my podcast and show.” Increasing listeners, have you thought about your listener base? How do you go and outreach them? What do you do to promote and get more listeners?

That’s another area that I can be more skillful at. From what I understand compared to the statistics, it’s having a decent amount of growth but to say, “I want to have more listeners in Canada,” for example. “I want to reach out more to the UK. I can get a lot more listeners in Australia.” I’m talking about all the English-speaking countries. I don’t have a strategy for that. I wouldn’t know the first thing about that. You can correct me if I’m wrong on this but what I’ve been thinking about is I understand that podcasting, even though it’s been around for over twenty years, it’s still young enough that most people hear about a podcast from word of mouth. It would be terrific to have a campaign. This is on our marketing list to make some incentive or campaign for listeners to make it super easy and rewarded to share this podcast with one woman. You know the one. I don’t know exactly what the details will be but that would be a not too difficult and not too expensive strategy. Each listener tells one person, “Now I’m at 50,000.” That’s all I’ve come up with so far.

I like that because your audience is comprised of women who are great sharers. It’s inherent in who we are that we’re out there. We have a great product, we found a great podcast, we like to share it. Now you’re reminding them that’s the best thing they can do to reward you for bringing them a great show. That’s an easy ask.

You’ve heard the podcast, so you know that in every episode, I share a review. If the woman isn’t a business owner, I will tag her and shout out her and her business in the show notes on the episode, on social media, and so forth. At this point, I know that reviews don’t do anything for your ratings or how many people you get seen by. If each listener shares it with one person, that’s probably a much better call to action than, “Don’t forget to send me your review.”

I don’t know necessarily that reading a review is going to get you more reviews because reviewing is an extremely difficult thing in the podcasting ecosystem in general. It’s only an Apple thing. You can do liking and following on Spotify. There are some apps like Goodpods where you can do star reviews and things like that. It’s not simple. What it does do is someone took the time to reach out to you, Diann, and tell you what a great show you are. That helps other people. It has that social proof reinforcement to them. First off, they’re in the right place and they’re listening to a good show. Secondly, they can reach out to and you’re going to personally respond to that. It’s a good thing that you do and I do like that feature of your show.

I can then incorporate and alternate.

Don’t just do it like a review on your podcast. Maybe it’s somebody who left you a message on Instagram. You can be a little broader in your response to it. It’s more of feedback people have left me instead of straight reviews. That way, you can broaden it up for yourself.

This is great. I will do that. I created a feature on Instagram called Driven Women of Instagram because it’s The Driven Woman podcast. When I meet a like-minded woman on Instagram, I grab a photo of her, I make a post, I tag her, I talk about her business, and so forth. I can incorporate the podcast reviews in that as well. I also have SpeakPipe on my website. Only a couple of people have used it.

That’s a Pat Flynn thing. I recognize that. I learned from the great, too. We incorporated it in our first podcast. One person left us a message before and we eventually said, “This isn’t the way. It’s not simple enough.” People would rather send you a DM, a text message, an email, whatever their preferred modality of communication is. I don’t want to mess with that. We make it easy for everyone.

Potential Podcast Power: In order to grow and reach and help more people and have more impact in the world, you need to be shareable, and you need to be something that people don’t feel reluctant to talk about.

At this point, DM me on Instagram.

Producing like a pro, you have a production team and other things. What do you do specifically to prepare for your show?

I am the one who selects the guests. I am the one who chooses the topics. I have started working on themes where I’m doing this theme for this month. I’m trying to line up guests that speak on that theme. I do the strategic planning around it. I record. I do not do my own editing. I do not create my graphics or any of that. I approve of everything that the team does. I’ll record a podcast video and audio. We run it through transcribing software. It gets made into blog posts, it gets made into social media posts. I create the graphics for my team and also to share with the guest. I send it out by email.

The piece is that I am exclusively responsible. I do choose my own guests. I wouldn’t mind handing that over. I feel like I don’t like to hand anything off that I don’t understand yet. I don’t want to be that hands-off. Once I understand it and I can give the proper level of oversight, then I’m more than happy to let someone take it away. I’ve been in a situation in the past where someone in my team knew more about something than I did by a longshot and then they left. I felt like I was up the creek without a paddle. I don’t want to be in that situation again. Setting the strategy and recording are my pieces.

I’ve done thousands of interviews with people. I have never had someone choose my guests for me, although I have been testing out and you came through the process. I’m proud that this part is working. I do get so many requests and people who nominate others and other things like that. I have had a team do a quick screen through it and will say, “I don’t think this person’s right because of that.” My assistant, Marian, she’s been doing this fabulous job where she mentioned something she loves about your show and she’ll say that like, “This would make a good guest. I liked this about her show. It was your reviews that you do at the beginning. That feature that she mentioned was unique.”

She helps me process all of the post-production sides of everything. She’s making sure it flows for me. She knows what I like to highlight. She learned me well enough to highlight something that would attract my attention. I check out all the other information and say, “Diann is perfect for my show.” You made it to the top of the list faster because she happened to highlight something that was a great feature. If you can have someone reliable to do that early screening for you, then at least you’ve got to filter if you have too much volume coming through.

I would appropriate that. If it’s too time-consuming, it doesn’t make sense for me to send someone a thanks-but-no-thanks email. Even if it’s a copy and paste, that’s not the best use of my time.

That’s what they do for me, they’ll screen out that. If they don’t even have close to 50 episodes, they’re probably not right for my show yet. It helps me not even have to waste my time reviewing that. You’ll never know there’s a gem in there where someone had only twenty episodes but it’s their third show. They’ll find that for me where if we had made it a hard-and-fast rule, then they wouldn’t qualify. That’s where the team does help a little bit. This goes back to that creative control. What you’re doing well is you’re keeping that creative curation and control. You’re saying, “That is core to what’s great about my show. I don’t want to lose that in this process. I built the specific things that I do need to be responsible for.” You’re taking control of that. That’s what makes the show a high-level production.

Thank you for that. Tracy, what you said a moment ago about having someone well trained to know what you’re looking for, they need to work with you for a little while and know how you think and be motivated to please you. It’s like, “Look what I found.” I don’t like shopping. I never liked shopping. If I had someone who knew me, my body, my style, my taste, my preferences as well as I did and loves to go out in the wild, find something, bring it back, and go, “Look.” They’re super excited, I’ll be like, “You are going to be with me forever.” If you find that person for the podcast, it’s like, “You go find me those perfect guests. We’ll lure them in here and then I’ll chat them up and we’ll love each other forever.”

Encouraging engagement, you’ve been working on your Instagram and other things. How are you encouraging conversation with your audience and with your guests as well because some of them are former and current clients? You want to encourage engagement with them because then they come back and they do some more work with you or they refer someone.

You’re hitting all the areas where I need help to be quite honest. The only thing I don’t like about podcasting and you’re going to know exactly where I’m headed is it’s a one-way conversation unless you know the right answers to these five questions. I thought, “Once I stop the solo shows where I’m talking to myself in the closet and I start having interviews, I will be completely satisfied.” No. I’m coming back to the point that I’m a curious human. I love that the numbers keep going up. I love that I keep getting these terrific reviews but there are hundreds of people out there who are regularly listening and I don’t have any idea why or who they are.

That drives me a little crazy because I want to call every one of them up and go, “What do you like? What don’t you like? What can I improve?” I ask for that feedback but it’s too cumbersome and probably scary. For the ones who would like to do that, I want to create avenues that are exciting, fun, and where they feel appreciated. I had one listener who heard me on another show where I mentioned that I’m obsessed with Ren & Stimpy. If you don’t know what Ren & Stimpy are, you might be like, “I wouldn’t have guessed that.” I even sang The Log Song with the host of the other show because I know it by words. This is during the years that I was raising my kids and we watched it faithfully.

I wear Ren & Stimpy t-shirts out in Portland and people shout me out with them all the time. I was talking about Ren & Stimpy and this woman heard me on the podcast. She then started listening to my podcast and then started following me on Instagram and started DM-ing me. One day, she said, “Would you mind giving me your mailing address? I made something for you.” She made a travel bag for my podcast. That’s what I’m using it for. She didn’t tell me what to use it for. I use it as a travel bag for my mic, my headphones, and all that when I need to take them somewhere else. Also, a little warmer for my coffee mug and a sticker. She’s a super creative person. She keeps making tons of stuff. She loves my show. She made several personalized items for me. I’m super satisfied. I’m not trolling for people to send me gifts but if we could have more of a back and forth conversation, I would love to have listeners come on the show. I’ve been thinking about whether that will be my 100th episode. I don’t know. You can tell me. Most people take you up on that.

It’s hard. Especially in certain areas, your particular topic area might be more difficult than others. If I am a woman with ADHD or if I’m a driven woman, do I want other people to know, do I want to voice that out? Is this a hidden gem of help that I’m hiding? We all have those Kindle books that we don’t want anyone to know that we’re reading. We all have the podcasts that we don’t put in our playlist but we’ve subscribed. Those are the things that are personal to us. Some of our shows are like that. That doesn’t bode well for engagement but it does bode well for someone reaching out when they’re ready for help. It does lead to clients and we have to remember that.

However, you are speaking to my pain point not only for my podcast but for my business. I am that best-kept secret. To grow and reach and help more people and have more impact in the world, you need to be shareable. You need to be something that people don’t feel reluctant to talk about and to say, “Yes, I listen to this.” I had a gentleman send me a review and he DM’d me and said, “Is it okay that I’m one of your regular listeners? I love your podcast but I have to confess I’m a man.” I laughed so hard. I must have peed my pants. I’m like, “Of course, you are.” Some of my favorite clients are men. They’ve always been men. I have two sons. I have a husband. I have a male dog. I market to women because I find the things that I talk about tend to cause more pain for women. I don’t exclude men. I don’t shout them out. I thought that was funny, too. I would love to have more back and forth. I’d love to have more engagement. SpeakPipe is not the way to go.

It’s still them leaving a message. It’s still one way. We need that dialogue going. There are some new things. Why I asked this question is because some people are onto something that’s working and some people aren’t. What are some ways that these things can start working for us? There are group ideas. Some people are using Clubhouse. Facebook is starting its version of it. Twitter has theirs. LinkedIn is coming with one that I hear could be great. That might be ideal for the type of woman you’re inviting in but then again, it might not because what if it exposes to her LinkedIn audience that she’s participating in this? Maybe she doesn’t want that.

This is where we don’t know until we research test them and see who’s doing something well there. That’s part of why I keep asking this question because maybe we’ll hit on something that is like, “That one would work for me even though it didn’t work for you.” The last five questions I usually ask are about monetizing your show. You’ve already said that money is going out and not necessarily coming in, although clients are. Have you thought about that? Is it even important to you to monetize your show in any way?

That’s the M-word that, at some point, everybody talks about. I think of monetizing my show as it’s my lead marketing platform. I attract content collaboration partners and speaking opportunities. I was interviewed as a guest expert for a book as a result of my podcast. I see myself monetizing my show. I was pitched by my first potential sponsor. I’m needing to make a decision about that philosophically. Do I want to have any advertising? Do I want to have any sponsors? I’ve been thinking up until now, no, because I do like control.

When I think about monetizing, I understand there’s now the paid subscription podcast and that is something I’m interested in because not everyone who would benefit from learning from me is going to become a coaching client. Might they purchase a subscription to a special RSS feed, a special podcast that does a deeper dive and I don’t inform you about something but I give you action steps and some accountability, I’m open to that. I love being relatively new in the development of this new media because of all the places it might go. I have to slow my roll and not try to jump on every bus that’s coming through town and say, “Which ones are the right fit for where I want to go?”

I love when people are taking a pace, taking the time to decide whether monetization is right for them. You can take in a sponsor and then realize that you exchanged hundreds of dollars for pennies at the end of the day because it turned out to be a detriment to your show. You don’t know if that’s going to be the case or not. There are other sponsors where it’s extremely valuable to you and your show. You create a great joint venture partnership and other things.

Potential Podcast Power: Give yourself a deadline for how long you’re going to think and then decide. Put in your calendar and make yourself accountable to someone else.

We had Crystal O’Keefe, who has a great partnership with Peloton for her show, The Clip Out. It makes complete sense that she’s doing that. The show is all about them. They don’t compromise her ability to criticize them and talk about what they’re not doing right. It doesn’t compromise that at all. It’s encouraging more conversation in the community and they’re good with that. She also set up the structure of the monetization right for her as well.

There’s always a way to get around that. Take it slow, especially if the show is doing so much great lead generation for you. It can be difficult to start inserting monetization and have it derail all of that. Months and months go by and you realize, “I didn’t get as many speaking engagements. I didn’t get as many clients. How did this happen?” It’s not always going to direct the path back to that monetization choice you made.

I’ve also thought of another thing I’d like to get your feedback on this, Tracy. Podcast collectives are a thing. I’ve looked at them with a little bit of a side-eye because I’m not sure about the benefits. I like having creative control and freedom. As a sole operator, you’re a little bit lonely and not as well connected. Where I see monetization being most beneficial to my personality, stage of life, and show in business is more collaborating with other content creators who are serving adjacent audiences where we create things together that have been a benefit to both of us.

I’m a fan of a collective. Sometimes we call them pods. If you’re in Instagram, there might be an Instagram pod or a LinkedIn pod when there’s a lot of similarities and audience. When you have too much diversity there, we tend to have it not work out for us.

It gets watered down.

Being in a women’s collective could be detrimental to you but being in a women’s CEO collective could be extremely beneficial to you. I’m a fan of going in and participating and finding out how it feels before you dive all the way in. Any of that can allow you to test it out is always a good plan for me. I’ve been testing out a few LinkedIn collectives and some of them are not working out.

It’s like all entrepreneurship, Tracy, being willing to try something and know that you can always say, “It wasn’t for me.”

It was an experiment. We learn a lot from our research and experimentation. I am a fan of always being curious, trying something, and experimenting. Also, being able to say, “That didn’t meet the expectations I had.” I always go in with the screener. I’m not going to try anything and everything. I need it to be an audience match. If there’s no clarity of that, then I’m going to say, “Let’s wait a little bit longer so you can answer some more of my questions about this.” Maybe then it would be the right time for me. Diann, you’re a former therapist here but you can’t leave that behind. There’s got to be some things that you’ve noticed from some people that are podcasting or thinking about podcasting that’s been hanging them up. What advice do you have for our audience who might be on those lists, on the cusp, “Am I going to keep my show? Do I keep going? Do I even start my show?”

The question that a person who’s thinking about podcasting is a little bit different than the person who’s thinking about, “Should I continue?” The person who’s thinking, “Should I do it?” They’re dealing with fears about visibility. They’re dealing with fears about, “Who am I? What do I have to say?” Imposter issues, “Who am I? Do I know enough? Can I do this? Will they like it? Will anyone care?” Those are anticipatory questions that hold us back from all kinds of things like having kids, changing careers, getting married, moving and all of those things. Give yourself a deadline for how long you are going to think about it and then decide.

I like the notion of putting it in your calendar and make yourself accountable to someone else. Tell them not to let you wiggle out of it. It’s like, “I’m going to make a decision and I’m going to decide by this day. Whatever the decision is, I’m going to live with that decision for three months. I can reconsider after three months.” Sometimes we will put off making a decision and then when we are told, “Since I can’t commit to it right now, it’s a no.” We then find ourselves wanting to do it twice as much and then you’re ready. It’s a little bit of a trick. It can work for people who have difficulty pulling the trigger.

For the person who’s already podcasting and is maybe, let’s say, ten episodes in, they’re not in that trying to figure out what goes where and what’s an RSS feed. They’re past that point but they’re realizing the novelty has worn off. The shiny object syndrome has worn off and they’re realizing, “This is a practice. It’s a commitment. It’s a routine. It needs to be a part of my life that has dedicated focus, effort and consistency.”

It’s important to ask yourself what your why is at that point, “Why am I doing this? Am I doing this because I’m a solopreneur? Everyone else in my online community said, ‘I’m starting a podcast.’ I hopped on the bandwagon but I don’t know what I’m doing here.” That might be a good opportunity to pause and reconsider. Fundamentally, being able to stick with something once the novelty wears off, especially as a person with ADHD, you have to give yourself a chance to say, “It was an impulse. I followed it. I jumped on the bus. I didn’t even ask where the destination was and I don’t want to go there anymore.” It’s okay.

Give yourself permission.

Do you know how many things I’ve walked away from in my life? The only change I would make is I would probably walk away from as many things but I would let go of the guilt and shame I felt for doing so. If you are taking chances, they’re not all going to work out. If this is one of the chances you took and it’s not working out, be honest with yourself and let it go. If you’re realizing, “This is work. I’m not feeling the passion that I was when I first started when it was new and shiny.” Of course, you’re not. You’re not getting the same dopamine. You have to connect with something bigger, big enough to keep you going and you probably need to be part of a support network.

I’m glad you said that because that’s key.

Anything hard done over time, you’re going to wane in your motivation and your desire. That’s life. If you are part of a supportive community of people that have all declared, “We’re doing this,” they will keep you in the game. I belong to one for Peloton. It doesn’t matter how motivated you are at the beginning. What will make it worth your while is sticking with it over time because results do accumulate. Podcasting is a long game. If anybody told you, there’s going to be an overnight success, don’t listen to that person anymore. It’s sticking with it and trying new things and getting whatever level of support and camaraderie you need to stay with it. That’s what makes all the difference, at least for me.

Diann, you’re truly a driven woman yourself. I see that. I appreciate that you’re bringing The Driven Woman Podcast into the world and that you have committed to it. You’re keeping going and keeping the excitement going and making tweaks and adjustments and rowing along the way. You deserve so much credit for all that you’ve accomplished and for keeping going on and that in and of itself is an accomplishment.

Thank you. Like you, I’m not one who necessarily stops for the accolades. I received that from you. You’ve given me so many great ideas for all the things that I can follow up on and will do. I appreciate it.

You’re welcome. Diann Wingert, The Driven Woman, you’re going to want to check out her podcast.

—

I love how Diann is honest about where she is at our show and that this is a work in progress and it is a combination of working the business aspects of it and working the personal aspects of it. This is great. I love the honesty and authenticity in having this conversation. Often, we get some people in here and they posture about how great their show is and how successful they are. When we can have that conversation about, “I’m doing some things right but there are other things that I’m looking for what that next thing is.” We then can start to have a collaborative conversation around how to move podcasting to deliver those things.

Potential Podcast Power: It doesn’t matter how motivated you are at the beginning. What will make it worth your while is sticking with it over time because results do accumulate.

You’re not alone. Diann’s not alone in the same issues that she’s having with trying to increase her listeners and trying to get engagement. Diann was there for you when you were trying to figure out how to get your voice and message out to the world. You’re sitting there maybe with some of those things that are holding you back. Following someone like Diann be able to tell you what it took for her to make that decision, what it took for her to bring that accountability to herself to be able to bring her show out. Now, how rewarding that show is for her and her business. That’s going to help you move forward as well. These are the conversations I was hoping that The Binge Factor would be bringing out in all of us and bringing out for you.

As Diann mentioned, this is a one-way conversation. Diann and I were having a nice two-way collaborative conversation. I don’t get to hear from you enough. I don’t get to have that conversation with you. I have to go off of what I hear from my clients day in and day out, what I hear from Diann and the other great guests that I bring on this show. When I hear from them again and again, I have to interpret that and say, “If they’re having these problems and they’re successful, then someone who’s getting started or who maybe doesn’t have the support system, the bandwidth, or the team that someone like Diann Wingert has, then they might need answers to these questions. They might need some of these tips, tactics, and ideas to help them move forward as well.” That’s where you all fall out there.

As with Diann, you can reach out to us. You can reach out to Diann at The Driven Woman. You could check out her show. She said to DM her on Instagram. She gave you direct access to that. There’s Goodpods. Goodpods is one of these great new apps that are out there. I say it’s not new because it’s been out for a while but it’s got some new features on it that are going to serve you well if you’re an indie podcaster. You’re going to want to check that out. You’re going to want to see what Diann is doing with it and how she’s getting highlighted. Because I took the time to listen to her show on Goodpods, I got her a listener right then in there while I was doing my research. I was able to highlight her and get her seen as what I was listening to so it made other people want to listen to her. Isn’t that a cool environment?

We’re going to do some more with Goodpods. I’m going to get JJ Ramberg on because she’s one of the cofounders of it. I’m going to get her on the show and we’re going to talk some more about how we can start this more collaborative conversation with our listeners, our audience. Also, how can we maybe push them into some apps that are serving them better than the general podcast apps that are out there? While they’re great and getting us listeners but maybe they’re not serving that conversational mode, that engagement mode that we’re all seeking. Maybe there are some other tools out there. We’re going to start looking for them and we’re going to start talking about them. Be looking for that. Go check out Diann Wingert’s show, The Driven Woman.

There are a couple of things I want to point out to you that you should take a look at. Take a listen to how she reads the review. We talked about that. It’s an excellent way. She could expand that. Talk about how somebody mentioned her on Instagram, talk about somebody who might have DM’d so she can broaden it not just rating and reviews. We’re covering a broader audience but you’re giving that social proof right at the beginning of your show and you’re giving a shout out. You’re moving that engagement up. That’s going to be good.

Read the different types of episodes she has. Read those solo episodes. Read how she does the case studies, I especially want you to read those because the case studies don’t sound like this glorified testimonial for her. They’re a story-based conversation, a deep dive into where that client of hers was at the beginning, where they’re moving to, where they achieved some level of success, where they’re moving to next. It gives Diann the opportunity to create a further conversation with someone. She can nurture her clients into being returning clients or getting the next step clients. She can also remind them that she was a part of that success with them and gain a referral from that.

You don’t need someone to rave about you on the air as much as you need to have to be in that conversation with them. She does it beautifully in those episodes. Take a look at the case study episodes, those are some great ones as well. These are some things I wanted to mention. The one thing I loved her advice for and I want you to take home is don’t wait too long to get this started. Name it, claim it, and do it like she’s urging you to. Be driven women and men out there to start a podcast. Diann Wingert, thank you for inspiring us with The Driven Woman Podcast. We’ll be back with another podcaster to give you some new tips, tactics, strategies and ideas on how to make your show successful too.

Important Links: 

• The Driven Woman
• The Driven Woman Podcast
• 1 Year Podversary: Reflections on Finding My Voice – Previous episode on The Driven Woman Podcast
• Power-Up Podcasting
• Find Your Voice
• Episode 61 – Dealing with Expectations
• Charisma Quotient
• Audry.com
• MatchMaker.fm
• Podchaser
• Goodpods
• Instagram – Diann Wingert Coaching
• Crystal O’Keefe – Previous episode
• The Clip Out

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