5 Lessons From 2 Years of Podcasting

by | Feb 4, 2022 | Podcasts

TAGS:Diversity | Equity | Hosting | leadership | Podcasting | Presentation

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With the year drawing to a close, we take a look back at what has come before. Podcasting is no easy feat, and it is a fertile ground for learning many important lessons. In this episode, Elizabeth Bachman looks back at five lessons she learned from 2 years as a podcast host. From lessons in change to leadership, Elizabeth digs deep and examines the important lessons. Tune in and learn more as Elizabeth looks back at two years of her show.

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5 Lessons From 2 Years of Podcasting

This is the show where we interview experts from around the world on subjects such as leadership, visibility, presentation skills and communication challenges. Before we begin, I’d like to invite you to check out how your presentation skills are going by taking our free four-minute assessment. You could go to www.SpeakForResultsQuiz.com and that’s where you can see where your presentation skills are strong. Perhaps a little support could get you the results you need and the recognition you deserve.

I’m thinking about the things I’ve learned from a few years of podcasting and how much I have learned. There are five main lessons that I’ve come up with of the many things that I’ve learned in this show. First of all, it says mostly musings and ideas of mine. When I was looking at guests I wanted to feature or things I wanted to talk about, I think they were all interesting. I hope you can go back and look at some of them.

Lesson One: Things Evolve

One thing I’ve learned, the first lesson is that things evolve and change. We’ve all seen the world change and evolve a lot in the last few years. I had no idea a few years from now that we would go into a worldwide epidemic and a lockdown. That’s so many things would change in business and my business. I would have an opportunity to learn so much from the wonderful guests that I’ve had.

One of the cool things about being a show host is that you get to ask questions of smart people and then learn from them. That has definitely been one of my strategies. The first lesson I must say is my marketing coach, Juliet Dillon Clark, told me that I had to do this. I was resisting getting on video. She said, “You’ve got to do this and do a live broadcast every week. You have to do a Facebook episode at least three times a month.”

One of the cool things about being a podcast host is that you get to ask really smart people questions and then learn from them. Click To Tweet

Indeed, it has gotten much easier. It’s like the first time you go out and you do a speech in public. The first couple of ones are scary and then you get used to it. That was something I was teaching but not learning. I’ve learned that now. I want to thank Juliet Clark for that. I also want to thank Tracy Hazzard and Tom Hazzard of Podetize because one of the best decisions I made at the beginning was to hire Podetize to produce this show.

Lesson Two: Presentation Skills Matter

I was thinking, “There are things I could do. I could do some of this myself.” When I thought about the time it would take for me to do all the back-of-the-house work and for my team to do all the work, it’s so much easier to have Podetize and their team to have them do it all for me. All I need to do is find interesting people and then talk. The main themes that I found are presentation skills and how to use this to show your leadership and to get visibility.

In some ways, I think of myself as an executive coach who works through the lens of presentation skills. This all fits under the umbrella category of communication. How do we talk to each other? How do we listen or not listen? What do we do if we aren’t being heard? The first theme I found is presentation skills. Fundamentally, what I do as a coach is to show people how to present themselves within their organization so that they get heard and how to use presentation skills to do speeches outside your organization, within your industry, to raise your visibility.

If you are within your company or organization, people take you for granted if they see you every day. When you do a speech outside your organization, that gets new attention from the people within your organization who are likely to say, “I didn’t realize she knew that.” Speaking outside your organization is very important. Learning how to speak so that you’re heard inside your organization is usually where we start. It’s a two-track thing.

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Podcasting: How do we talk to each other? How do we listen or not listen? And what do we do if we aren’t being heard?

 

Many of the episodes in this show have been about presentation skills especially with me. One of my favorites is Do You Feel Invisible? Presentation Skills to Help Women be HEARD, which is one of my most requested workshops. That’s an episode you can find. You should also look for episodes on using your voice with Cindy Ashton and Elissa Weinzimmer. How you can up-level your screen presence with Shelley Golden. Now that we’re all on this box, how do you look great? How can you create better slides for your PowerPoint presentations to create raving fans with Brigette Callahan?

The best speech in the world does you no good unless you have a place to give it. Check out how busy executives get booked with Whitney McDuff. The reason this matters is if you don’t speak up and make yourself heard, no one’s going to notice you and somebody else who is speaking up and being noticed is going to get the attention and possibly the promotion, recognition and raise, all of that.

I know it matters when I get emails such as from Caroline in South Africa, who wrote to me on LinkedIn. She said, “Dear Ms. Bachman, I discovered your show about six months ago. I liked the idea that I can get results by speaking. I went back to the beginning and saved the episodes that are about being a better speaker and now I listen to them when I exercise. It took me a while to get up the courage but I’ve now spoken in public three times and I know I’m going to do more. Please keep going. I never thought I’d have the nerves to do this. You’ve helped me so much.” Thank you, Caroline. I know you’re a subscriber. I want you to know how it mattered to me to hear from you that this has helped you and made a difference.

Lesson Three: Diversity Is Important

The second big thing that I’ve focused on and we’ll be focusing on more is the importance of diversity, equity and parity. My specialty is gender parity. Helping women be heard and in the business get the positions of power that allow them to be good leaders and make an impact. Once you get to a position of power even if it’s managing a team for the first time, be sure to reach out and help someone else. Women very often do that. We’re trained to share and to help. It’s something that is important to do.

Being a thought leader means that your ideas live beyond you. Click To Tweet

Because my specialty is gender parity, I’ve mostly been focusing on helping women get equal voices in the business world. I know that I can talk about gay and lesbian issues because I’m married to a woman. I am part of that community. I recognize that the diversity box that I can check is invisible. I’m a White woman. You wouldn’t know unless looking at me that I understand what it’s like to be in a minority. Thus, I want to say that I am committing myself more and more for the 2022 season or third year of Speakers Who Get Results, getting more speakers of color and with diverse attitudes.

This is something that I’ve been doing for the past years focusing on gay and lesbian, bi and trans speakers in the month of June, that’s Pride Month and something that I have been celebrating for many years. I have brought some wonderful people. I particularly recommend reading episodes with Cindy Solomon. She was a great leadership speaker in anyway. Lance Dorsey is talking about how to be intentional with your diversity and Gina Grahame teaches at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford about executive presence.

Lesson Four: Leadership

It all comes back to leadership. That, I think is the third theme, the fourth lesson. How can you be a better leader? How can you be a better communicator? Much of what we talk about is how do you manage people? How do you be a better leader in your team? How could you deal with leaders who are maybe not as functional as you are or better negotiators? It was hard for me to choose anyone to feature but the other thing I would point out is to be sure to check out the interviews about thought leadership. Being a leader is very important. Being a thought leader means that your ideas live beyond you and that is an inspiration to create those ideas. To talk about what you do is going to make the world a better place.

I have two specific episodes about thought leadership with Bill Sherman and Denise Brosseau. One story that I particularly love about how all these leadership strategies work is the story of my client, Elena. Elena is the regional manager for an international company. She’s responsible for a huge territory, basically the West Coast of the United States. That’s a big territory. She generates a lot of business but it’s an old company. All the other regional managers are male and she wasn’t being listened to. She’s a Latina. She’s very friendly soft-spoken and didn’t want to be pushy and bossy.

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Podcasting: The best speech in the world does you no good unless you have a place to give it.

 

The reason why she called me and hired me is that on the international conference calls, she was not being listened to. Either the men would talk over her or if she would suggest an idea, five minutes later somebody else would suggest it as their idea and they would get the credits. This is such an old pattern. Here we are in the 21st Century and it’s still happening. There are strategies you can use. There are things that you can do to counter that so that you get the recognition that you deserve.

The first strategy we used was recruiting allies. We analyzed who the true decision-makers were and who was it? How did they need to hear what she had to say? Another part that we were talking about is how do you get men to listen to women? She had to analyze who were the people who cared and mattered. What did they respond to? How could she speak to the issues that mattered to them? She also recruited allies so that when she made a suggestion, every time she spoke up, one of her allies would say, “Thank you, Elena. Great idea. We love what you had to say.”

That echoing someone’s voice can make a huge difference in how you are perceived. Of course, she was an ally back to them. If someone would suggest her idea as their own, her allies were primed to listen for that. They would say, “Thank you for echoing what Elena said. Elena, can you elaborate on this?” It made a huge difference. They do now listen to her. She’s organized on the nominating committee so she’s getting more women into the company and promoting lobbying to get more women promoted as regional managers.

We’ve been working on this. She is 1 of 10 women globally who are running regions. She’s not the only one but it continues. She turns around and recruits other women. It is a strategy that works. The fifth lesson is to speak up and raise your voice. It’s all about leadership. To review what I said, the first lesson was things evolve and change, get help. I’m so glad I hired Podetize to do this for me.

The second lesson is to speak up and use presentation skills because speaking is still one of the best ways to make your name known and to position yourself as the person you want to be perceived, the strategic thinker that you are. The third lesson is diversity and how important it is to have diverse voices, ideas and opinions in an organization. The more that you can speak up and bring diverse voices in, the better it will be for everybody.

Lesson Five: Let Your Voice Be Heard

The fourth lesson is leadership and there are so many details. It’s all about leadership. The fifth one is to raise your voice or hand. If you have something to say, say it. The more you speak up and are heard, the more it is easier for everybody, the better it is for your whole organization, the world and the young ones who aren’t sure if they should be speaking up. As Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “Fight for the things you care about but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” I’m so happy you’re with me. I’ll see you in 2022.

 

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