009: The Unexpected Power of Podcasting with Jill Noble
Taking Back Joy Podcast • Episode #009:
The Unexpected Power of Podcasting with Jill Noble
Here on taking back joy, my mission is to share with you all the possible ways you can market your small business that are efficient, that are effective and that actually bring back joy rather than feeling like a chore. And that's why I'm so excited to share this episode's guest with you, one of my clients and very good business buddies, Jill Noble.
Jill's one of your typical small business owners that's probably wearing more hats than she would like to somedays. However, she's brilliant at all of them and today we're going to talk about the unexpected benefits that podcasting brought to her farming business. Jill runs a fabulous podcast called, 'The Sheep Show' and also runs a beautiful farm in Victoria in the Hallston Valley. She's going to share with us today how she got involved with podcasting, how easy it is to get started and keep going if you've got everything lined up and you've made yourself an efficient system, and the unexpected benefits that have come out of it. I really can't wait to share this one with you guys because Jill is a fantastic person and she's very, very great to learn off.
So without further ado, let's jump in
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Show Notes: Links & resources mentioned in this episode
Podcast tech mentioned during the podcast - Buzzsprout, Anchor & Audacity
Podcast coaches mentioned - Brett Jarmon & Jenna Kutcher’s ‘The Podcast Lab’
Episode Transcript
Download: Episode Synopsis (PDF) | Episode Content (PDF)
Synopsis
Meredith Paige 00:00
Here on taking back joy, my mission is to share with you all the possible ways you can market your small business that are efficient, that are effective and that actually bring back joy rather than feeling like a chore. And that's why I'm so excited to share this episode's guest with you, one of my clients and very good business buddies, Jill Noble.
Meredith Paige 00:19
Jill's one of your typical small business owners that's probably wearing more hats than she would like to somedays. However, she's brilliant at all of them and today we're going to talk about the unexpected benefits that podcasting brought to her farming business. Jill runs a fabulous podcast called, 'The Sheep Show' and also runs a beautiful farm in Victoria in the Hallston Valley. She's going to share with us today how she got involved with podcasting, how easy it is to get started and keep going if you've got everything lined up and you've made yourself an efficient system, and the unexpected benefits that have come out of it. I really can't wait to share this one with you guys because Jill is a fantastic person and she's very, very great to learn off. So without further ado, let's jump in
Episode Content
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Meredith Paige 00:00
Thank you so much for joining me, Jill. First of all, could you please introduce yourself and tell me about the businesses, because being one of the typical small business people, there's always more than one. Tell me about the businesses you're involved in.
Jill Noble 00:13
Thanks very well. So we run a sheep farm and a regenerative farm and Gippsland called Holston Valley Farm. And I'm also involved in a sheep association for Wiltshire Horned sheep. I also have a HR consulting business as well. And as part of farm I guess I published a sheep magazine and also have a sheep podcast. Yes, on few the go!
Meredith Paige 00:44
Just a few you know, just to keep you out of trouble. Pretty typical. In this episode, like we're sort of saying before we started recording, I really want to introduce my audience and my small business people to as many different kinds of ways of marketing and business as possible just so we're not so reliant on like Facebook alone, because a lot of eggs are stuck in one basket. That's probably not the best basket for beam. So in this episode, like your your podcast has gone absolutely gangbusters for you. I wanted to talk about the that whole process that decision making process and where it's got you to now, first of all, were you an avid podcast consumer before you started, decided to start your own.
Jill Noble 01:24
I had been searching for a sheep podcast and couldn't find one. I had been listening to podcasts on the women's health and well being because I drove my car quite a lot of pre COVID and loved the concept of podcasts, but couldn't find a sheep one. There are actually probably five sheep podcasts now.
Meredith Paige 02:02
I feel like put like listening to podcast is really kind of healthy habit as well. I know, for me, especially with young kids, I hate sitting there and scrolling mindlessly through my phones, I'm always looking for ways to have me time it doesn't involve that. And I love taking the dog for a walk and listening to a podcast too. So it's, it's something I quite happily do for the rest of my life. Because you're moving or you you sort of chewing up a drive, you're learning something. So what was it the fact that you saw a gap in the market for your own needs? Is that what the site is? Was it like a? Was it like a meeting a need decision? Or is it a marketing motivated decision to grow your business? Or was it a both?
Jill Noble 02:38
It was really weird. In my other businesses that I mentioned, I've written a couple of books. So I had thought to myself, there's a gap in the market for books, certain books on sheep that I wanted to read, if that makes sense, that sort of things that I thought was going to wouldn't be useful for me, as a new-ish sheep breeder, I grew up, you know, in a rural background in Ireland, with sheep, but actually having your own sheep, enterprise is a little bit different. And of course, being in Australia, and we're sheep stud. So there's all these other things that no one ever tells you, if you don't grow up with it. No one tells you all these little secrets. So I had sketched out a book to write for to, to, I suppose to help people new to sheep, know some of the basics, but also to get them to think about sheep as a genuine not just, you know, not just the fact that you could have like a couple of backyard sheep. Or then the other option is then you just have like 1000s of sheep.
Meredith Paige 03:48
There's got to be a gap there between like whole being commercial.
Jill Noble 03:52
Yeah. Or, like serious, sort of, like, you've got it, you've literally got 1000s of sheep, I was really wanting to sort of write a book for that market. And that segment, because I knew how hard it was from my point of view. And, as I said, I've written books before, and I know how one how much effort it takes, and then also how hard it is to market the book, if that makes sense and get the news out there. So, um, I was ironically looking through social media one day, and I just saw this this guy, he lives in Byron Bay, actually. And he was a podcast coach, and I thought, Oh, that's it. Let's eat
Meredith Paige 04:33
Some Facebook ads are working well!
Jill Noble 04:36
Exactly. And I I just contacted him straight away. He was very responsive, gave me gave me a call. We had a chat. He he sort of said, 'You're like my perfect student' sort of thing. And we had a coaching session and then he had online course and I did the online course I smashed the online course in like a week.
Meredith Paige 05:04
I'm not a little bit surprised that I know you do, I'm not surprised you smashed out in a week.
Jill Noble 05:10
This was all just around the time of COVID. So I sort of had a few cancellations in my other business, I had a little bit of time that I could sort of invest in that. And of course, stuff like that, you can listen to it, as well, as you know, watch it and did this podcast course. And the beautiful thing about his relationship was then he, he would, you know, he'd follow up with you. So it was an ongoing thing. So he basically held me by the hand when I started my podcast. And, you know, he really helped me sort of have a bit of a plan for for six months and all that because there's all this, you know, pod, pod fatigue, you know, you you look at it online, you know, what, you'll see someone who's have they've, they've launched two or three episodes of podcast, and then nothing, or maybe you know, they've launched six or seven episodes, and then nothing,
Meredith Paige 06:06
there's nothing worse, especially when you get hooked on a really good one. And then you're so used to having it come up in your feed every week that it's like, where did they go? They were great.
Jill Noble 06:13
I know. And that's kind of what keeps me going. Now, I do a podcast episode every week and I've been doing that for the last year and a half. And it's like that it's when people contact you schedule, 'I didn't get your podcast this week.' And I was hoping you wouldn't notice. So I kind of have this sort of cult following now where, you know, if you don't, if I don't get a podcast out on a Monday, there's a you know, the wolves are out the door sort of thing. It's like, whoa, shoot, people are serious.
Meredith Paige 06:42
If you've done too good a job and now the people demand answers!
Jill Noble 06:46
But what I have no idea really that what I was creating was a marketing tool. I really didn't realise that. I just thought I was producing this content to just bridge that gap help others but I didn't realise that would be a suppose a commercial game. For me if that made sense.
Meredith Paige 07:10
Do you feel like that's an important component of your success? Because we would again, this is something we're speaking about before you record it. And the fact that like, for me, I feel like this podcast I'm doing now this is like my third crack at it. But I feel like I have something important to share. Now, it's not about attracting listeners and click through to the website. It's like, no, no, I want more people to hear about this. And to know about this, do you feel like having this underlying purpose bigger than your business is worksheets made it so successful?
Jill Noble 07:35
Big time, and you know what I think, working in my HR business, working with other businesses, when they when I do their mission and vision and stuff like that, you know, a lot of them say to me, 'Well, we're just here to make money'. It's not good enough. It's not a good enough reason.
Meredith Paige 07:50
Well, people want to know, like, and trust you off the back of that and you like we know that's like marketing and connections one on one, there's got to be the know, like and trust factor otherwise, people aren't people won't engage in just a purely financial transaction. I want more than that. Exactly.
Jill Noble 08:03
Was that podcast three or podcast four? To have that? I remember that. I remember listening to that. And that's exactly it. So I think, you know, it was it was very much by default, but having that higher purpose to why you're doing it makes it more genuine, more authentic. And I find that much more motivating than I'm doing this to try and, you know, sell something.
Meredith Paige 08:34
I think that's it and look, if you've got that higher purpose for it's like, no, no, people need to know this. You're constantly pursuing other people like I pursued you for this podcast, because it's like, no, no, I want people to know this. Because the people that I serve, this is important to them. And it's kind of like that whole karma kind of concept. You put it out to the universe, and then it will come back to you. But you kind of can't do that, with the sole intention of waiting for that return serve. It kinda has to be Yeah, a bit more sort of higher order than that. So how do you how did you find the tech side of things when it came to podcasting, because I feel like sometimes people get, I think they put themselves in this technophobe basket where it's like, I'm not good at Tech. And I think they then just write themselves off for all these opportunities that they could be experiencing. Because the tech from from what I've experienced, the tech is really user friendly.
Jill Noble 09:19
I think the thing that I found with the tech first of all, the coach helped me to sort of overcome that barrier, because it is a psychological and real barrier. But also, I think the thing I've noticed is that the people who develop technology for podcasts, aren't IT people.
Meredith Paige 09:36
Hmm, they will lead the charge. They're not just the developers, but a bit of better understanding of the end user.
Jill Noble 09:43
Correct. Absolutely. They're either you know, graphic designer or marketing people or, or people who've, you know, you use podcasts for their business and now are sort of podcast podcasters, if that makes sense. So I use sprout. Which is is for I've rounded it looks. It's okay, I went with the cheap version initially, you know, the free version initially. But then, like most free versions, you quickly grow out of that. But it was a great way of testing the water. So there is a fee for it. But I haven't been that sort of category, whatever category. I mean, now, I haven't maxed it out. So it's quite, quite useful, quite good for what I do. But the the other. The other benefit I've found with this particular tech is that it sends a when you're setting it up, because one of the biggest challenges is, will we want to get your podcast on these podcast apps. That's what people find you. Like 50% of my listeners are in the US, but they don't follow me on Facebook. Yeah, they don't follow me on Facebook. They don't see me on Instagram. I've never even heard of Gippsland you know, so they found me by searching on a podcast app. Now with with Buzzsprout. It automatically connects my podcast, you just hit buttons, and it sends it off to all podcasts.
Meredith Paige 11:15
I think that's I think that's a really interesting point to make. Because one does the same thing. I think that's what they refer to was syndication. I don't know. I feel like that term means more than I do. But anyway.
Jill Noble 11:25
That sounds like that sounds like it's right. Since smart enough to roll with it. Yeah. But yeah, like you only owe the old days when we have RSS feeds.
Meredith Paige 11:33
Yeah, I started this don't really understand what that is.
Jill Noble 11:38
But like real, real, something syndication, I think
Meredith Paige 11:47
I feel like we're on the right track there. I feel like we can back ourselves there. But yeah, so I think a lot of people, I think that's one of the biggest roadblocks they hit is they then go off. And then I've got to figure out how to get on Apple podcasts and Spotify and Google. And my one does the exact same thing. I use anchor, which is different to yours. But it's the same thing. It's like that steps taken care of, you know, I did have to do a bit of tweaking with the Google one. But again, their support team was fantastic. I just emailed them and said, Look, I'm having trouble. Can you give me a hint, and within 24 hours, it was resolved, and it was fine.
Jill Noble 12:16
That's again, I think the same of what we were talking about regarding the fact that the people who develop these things are thinking about maybe this stuff, the whole concept of user centred design, whatever it might be. That's that we're feeling that now. It's much easier for us as laypeople to sort of produce a podcast and a show, basically, that's what we're doing. We are producing a show, just like a TV show. And we can do it without actually been able to do all the the sort of behind the scenes. mess and craziness that that exists.
Meredith Paige 12:55
Yeah, it's a it's a pleasant surprise how simple the process is, in terms of editing your audio. I know use a separate programme for that. Want to tell me a little bit about that one for anyone?
Jill Noble 13:06
Yeah, I use Audacity.
Meredith Paige 13:10
And that's free, isn't it?
Jill Noble 13:12
It's free. Yeah, it's free. Listen, it's, it's, you know, it's not the best, but it works for me. And I haven't ventured to look at an alternative. I find it really good because you can drag and drop things in there. So you so I'm doing now I don't I used to use Fiverr to help with editing like like a free VA like a virtual assistant, edit, edit my podcast and do the intros and the outros. And if I ever need a new intro, or outro or music mixed, I will still use Fiverr for that. But audacity I can now import the intro and I have a selection of outros that I use, like I've got eight different ones that I use. Yep. And I can pull that in myself. So I actually do all of that myself. Now the whole the whole thing, no one else touches my podcast.
Meredith Paige 14:10
That's fantastic. And again, but the fact the fact that the process isn't so laborious that you felt the need to get someone to bring bring someone in on it. It says a lot to like the fact that you're, you know, involved in what to what to one organisation and two businesses at a minimum. And there's podcasting purposes is not so in like fiddly that you've gone on. This is just too much work for me. So I think that's what's something else that people need to know is that with everything Jill's got on her plate, she's still quite happy to edit and publish her own podcast that says something for the process
Jill Noble 14:39
in 40 minutes a week if I'm recording that podcast, you know, you know at the last minute, I can have it done and dusted. Live in 40 minutes.
Meredith Paige 14:52
That's fantastic. So again, the time should not be a constraint either. So what have you found to be both like I suppose the short him in the long term benefits of a podcast beyond sharing this content that you felt was a gap in the market for?
Jill Noble 15:06
Oh, it's been quite phenomenal. Actually, everything from we've had a team of volunteers from podcast listeners who came and helped us on the farm at some of the crucial sort of peak work here,
Meredith Paige 15:23
That probably just cost you a roast dinner. And that's about it?
Jill Noble 15:26
That's exactly it. So people rock up, which is one of our focuses on the farm, it's very much about community. And it's a very open farm. And it's not one of these farms that you have to have special permission to come to, you can just literally rock up. You know. So, in this case, they contacted me, but they they came. So that's been amazing. So free labour. I mean, hello!
Meredith Paige 15:51
To connect with these people like so they're not because sometimes I think when your podcast so you can kind of feel like just talking into your mic. And going, Oh, I hope someone's out there is listening. But if someone can come back and go, I love this episode. And this one was really helpful like to actually talk to the people having an impact on is huge.
Jill Noble 16:07
Yeah, it is huge. We were lucky enough this year to get to expos to sheep or farm expos. And in both situations, in both situations, I had people come up and say, Oh, I love your podcast. And so I'm like, I'm so embarrassed. I get so embarrassed, but it's kind of really cute.
Meredith Paige 16:26
Yeah, it's like, I didn't do this to be famous. This is weird.
Jill Noble 16:31
These weird, it is weird. Um, so that's been one of the sort of the benefits. And the other benefit, I suppose is for me to excuse to show up, you know, under percent it's, yeah, so it's a, it's an opportunity. Like with Buzzsprout. Again, they, they can create a little sound bite. Personally, they make it Yeah. And they make it perfectly suitable for social media, one for Instagram ones for Facebook. So I can go in and I can choose like a 32nd bite, and hit a button. And that just comes to me on my email, and I can use that. So it's a great opportunity. Effectively, it is marketing content, pre prepared, if you like.
Meredith Paige 17:15
That's a fantastic feature. I'd love to have a look at that. Because yeah, that's the other thing too. It's like, okay, now, you know, now I've got to the effort of it's published, it's out there. Now I need to let people know it exists, you know, that it's alive and breathing. So to know that that was automatically generated ready to go. That's huge as well. Correct?
Jill Noble 17:30
Yeah, absolutely. And also, it's given me an excuse to talk to weird and wonderful people that I wanted to talk to, you know, like, last week, I did a podcast at two o'clock in the morning with a guy in Norway.
Meredith Paige 17:43
Wow, that's that's so cool. So cool. What did you guys talk about what aspect of the farming did you guys talk about?
Jill Noble 17:51
Yeah, he actually has created a concept called mob breeding, which is a very sort of Darwinistic sort of farming theory where you you basically and it's particularly about breeding you don't intervene at all you just sort of let nature take its course you know, survival of the fittest, it's really out there as a as a star but what it what it does is I'm sure a lot of people aren't pretty interested in this but anyway!
Meredith Paige 18:21
but you never know. There may be another maybe farmers clients listening to me on my podcast you never know.
Jill Noble 18:27
You never know. Ah, you never know I hear there are there are actually I hear there are
Meredith Paige 18:33
well I picked up a client from your podcast so!
Jill Noble 18:35
yeah, there you go. There you go. How cool is that that's another benefit isn't it actually cross pollinate clients and things like that!
Meredith Paige 18:44
That's it, you wouldn't think about it as an opportunity to connect because it's meant to be feel like it is one way medium, but it is it's a really good. And like it's really nice excuse like he said, knock on people's doors and go have a podcast, I'd love to pick your brain but it's a nice way to put the opportunity to them when they can also get a benefit from the interactions not just you taking up 20 minutes of their time and they get nothing out of it. They've just given away information for free like, there's no doubt they will get something out of it. Like the exposure for them is really good. It's substantiates their expertise for anyone looking for someone like them. But yeah, you get this great sort of slab of content that you couldn't have otherwise pulled into your into your world and given to your people so better but not what a benefits are so vague in terms of sharing information like that.
Jill Noble 19:28
Big time last year. A guy contacted me he had this his device for that you use to numb testicles when you castrate the lambs.
Meredith Paige 19:42
So now people are gonna start listening my podcast more if I use this as my soundbite Oh, watch my watch my listeners go through the roof. Keep going. This is going to be great.
Jill Noble 19:52
He, you know, he spent 15 years of his life developing this amazing device and he's got all these shows lined up 2020 and 2021 COVID hits but he's got nothing. So he's beside himself. You know, it's literally his whole life's work. He's got a young family. And so I was reading an article from a sheet magazine and I, and he said to me, what am I going to do? I mean, I mean, terrible situation. And I said, Okay, let's, let's do this, I run some Facebook Lives, let's do a Facebook Live, let's do a podcast, you know, let's see what else we can do to help. And, and, you know, he could then use it in his marketing, but then he sent me and these devices are like, $400. So he sent me a free device, just to say thank you.
Meredith Paige 20:37
Oh, but that's amazing. That's really, really cool.
Jill Noble 20:40
Yeah, someone just recently contacted me about another agricultural product. And once we once us to be involved in a trial to trial a particular mineral with our lamb. So I'm like, sure free product, and, you know, again, opportunities to learn stuff and see what works without taking the financial risk. Right,
Meredith Paige 21:01
knowing that you've got a really good platform to talk about it. If you are successful again, it's win win.
Jill Noble 21:07
It is win win.
Meredith Paige 21:08
Do you um, do you have like a set mix of like, we're like your ratio, for example of like things where it's just you talking about your expertise versus interviews? Do you have one that you prefer over the other?
Jill Noble 21:18
For me, it's, it's a little bit about time, you know, if I'm short on time, I'll just do one with me, or there may be a particular topic that I do on my own, but I like I like my, one of my sort of personal values is variety that is so crucial to my well being, I suppose, have I got funny enough, have I got enough variety in my life, that I that's reflected in the podcast, so I like a lot of variety. I like I've done some on the road, podcasts, you know, where, you know, it's just, you know, voxpop sort of stuff. You know, stuff like that.
Meredith Paige 21:59
Which, I think it's also shows that you are passionate about the topic and isn't just about getting eyeballs on your stuff and foot like digital foot traffic. Because if it's Springboarding off of passion and something you're interested in, it's very unlikely that you will run out of things to say, I mean, I suppose the added advantage of doing about farming is there's so much stuff that would happen seasonally, I guess that it's like, ah, like lambing like you know, it's like, oh, it's landings on right now. Well, this came up let's talk about this. Because if I'm going through it, someone else is going through it right now. Yes.
Jill Noble 22:27
Correct. And that that's one thing I have done. I didn't quite know how to do the podcasts on lambing. So I created this concept called the lambing diaries.
Meredith Paige 22:36
Yeah, I love seeing that. I followed you on Instagram. And the videos were just so cute.
Jill Noble 22:41
Yeah. And a lot of them a lot of people really like them, because they're very role very authentic, very real. Like I'm often talking about, like, I had to do a C section on a you.
Meredith Paige 22:51
You did a C Section?! WOW!
Jill Noble 22:53
I did a C Section. I know, you know, so and how, of course, didn't she had to be euthanized. You know, but how emotional that was for me, you know, and how you've got a, I just had to act first and think later, otherwise, I would have been a mess. I couldn't have done it.
Meredith Paige 23:14
Well, I think that's so important. sharing that because you mentioned how many people who are in that situation thinking oh, I'm being such a blubbering mess. I should really pull myself together. It's like, no, no, like, that's a high stress, high emotion situation. That's yeah, that is normal. I think I may have traumatised my son though, because I think one of your videos showed actually a lamb being born. And I'm like, my six year old over and like, oh, this will be cool. This appeal. This is like the time I took him to see the Lion King and I forgot about the move faster death scene. And I was like, Oh, I forgot about this bit. So um, I showed him the video of the lamb actually coming out. And I'm like, See, isn't that cool? And he was just this weird shade of like white and green. And he was like, Ah, I don't want to watch this anymore. And I'm like, you much. Okay, probably too much. You probably bit young for that. I thought it was cool. I think I've just turned him off farming for life.
Meredith Paige 24:03
So we do a podcast now in terms of the nuts and bolts marketing side of things. Where are you now in terms of like, listeners, downloads and things like that? But I guess more importantly, do you even worry about those metrics? Or do you just have fun with it and let that stuff take care of itself?
Jill Noble 24:17
Yeah, yeah, I used to be pretty obsessed about it. Because Buzzsprout sort of rewards you for certain milestones. Yeah. And now I've reached the pinnacle milestone. I can't you know, they don't I don't get any more little certificates or whatever. But I am some of my podcasts. The one thing I do really like to look at is how do what's my measure of success, I suppose. And apart from like, just the other day I got an email from someone in Wales you know, just these beautiful emails from random people. You know, or someone just said, you know, I listened to all the sheep podcast your but your delivery is the best. She sounds so nice. cuz it's mine, it's a little bit different. It's, you know, a lot of the other sheet podcasts are very, I find them very scripted. And of course, there's a lot of potential liability when you're..
Meredith Paige 25:15
...communicating information like that. Yeah, you've got to make sure you're dotting your I's and crossing it crossing the t's. But I find too, I know, I can tell when someone is reading their notes versus speaking from like, their inherent experience, and it does get a little bit boring. It gets a bit boring if they're just reading to you. It's like a one on one audiobook. I'm not on this platform for an audio book.
Jill Noble 25:34
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I do know that if your episode has got over 500 downloads, it's like in the top 30% of episodes, oh, you know, yeah. So there's little things like that, that, that I like to see, I can see I can track. But again, bra spread, you can track everything you track down to the sort of almost suburb of where the listener is, and it shows you all this data. Amazing, amazing. And you can go down to each episode, you know, if I did, like I did an episode of my brother in Ireland, so I can see are their local people in our hometown and listening to that episode, you know, little cute things like that.
Meredith Paige 26:20
But like they can't, but like if you really wanted to sort of, if you're the sort of mindset where it's like, okay, if I'm going to do this, I really want to make sure I'm not getting bang for my buck. But I want to make sure I can do this properly. And I'm not just speaking into the void, that I'm actually going to kind of see what episodes work, which ones work better than others, and then sort of go back and go, Okay, what did I do on that episode that I can maybe focus more on down the track? Like, it could be a case of your interview episodes do better than you want, like in your sort of solo shows? Or it could be to do with length? Like it could be like, well, the ones that seem to be doing well seem to go between 20 and 30 minutes or the longer term, the longer form ones might so and those things can -
Jill Noble 26:56
The title, I think makes a huge difference as well. Huge difference.
Meredith Paige 27:00
Well, I would link into like the whole search results mentality, wouldn't it? How clickable is the title of your podcast? Is it enticing enough? And yeah, having access to the information would be really good, because it's why you can you know, rinse, repeat and refine, just to get more success out of it. But it's fantastic that that tools got all that information available to in a way that collects you can appreciate not just obscure graphs and numbers.
Meredith Paige 27:24
So if someone wanted to get started on their own podcast, where would you? Would you recommend? Where would you recommend they start? Should they have a look at the text first? Or should they really just hone in on subject matter and trust that they will figure the tech out?
Jill Noble 27:36
And I would be looking at a similar to the question you asked at the beginning, Meredith, which is why? You know what is going to get you like, I remember, during a blackout, we had a very long blackout here in summer, and I needed to produce a podcast and I had, like, I didn't have a generator. So I think I'm going to use the last little ounce of battery I've got on my podcast, and get it out. You know, I mean, that's, you know, as opposed to cooking dinner or whatever.
Meredith Paige 28:08
That's it. You've got meat, the frosting in freezers, you've got stuff going off and you're sitting there going -
Jill Noble 28:14
I've got to do a podcast! Yeah, and I remember we've got some two wood stoves in the house and I wanted to cook. So I put two wood stoves on, which means our house is so hot. So I'm sitting in my bra recording a podcast with the last 30% of my battery. So I suppose the why, why are you doing it? What is going to see you through because there are seriously going to be times when you're and I think you get the imposter syndrome to sometimes like I still get that I think far out. I don't really I don't really feel like I've got much to say or you know, I've had a really bad week bad shepherding week and I've made some mistakes, you know, who's gonna listen to me now? You know, kind of thing gonna have those times and what what is going to be the thing that keeps you going and keeps showing up.
Meredith Paige 29:10
But you got to want it badly enough. And it's like, if you're passionate enough about what you're what you're sharing, you're passionate about who you're sharing it with a new passionate about why you're sharing it.
Jill Noble 29:19
For me, that's the first thing to sort of get get right and, and be really comfortable with that reason. And, and then I think, you know, and I've helped a few people, there's a another actually, that guy that guy I mentioned that guy's in Brisbane, his his wife is a child psychologist and she set up a podcast but she had a chat with me. Oh really in a podcast. Yeah. You know, so I think find someone that you know who's doing it and and, and talk to them. I guess now that you've actually we've got a podcast on you know
Meredith Paige 29:57
Podcasting on podcasting!
Jill Noble 29:59
Yeah, Yeah, but this is not about sort of nuts and bolts. This is more yeah more about the I suppose the warts and all kind of thing about about podcasting. So I think that's quite helpful.
Meredith Paige 30:11
Would you recommend people go seek out a coach like do you did you feel like if you hadn't gotten a coach or someone to hold you, not just accountable through the process and ensure you finished it, but to help you along the way? Do you think you would have actually done it if you'd done it flying solo?
Jill Noble 30:27
I think I would have done it maybe but been a bit more frustrated. Yeah, like I I just literally took every every morsel of advice that the guy if anyone wants to know his name is Brett Jarman.
Meredith Paige 30:41
I'll link to that in the show notes.
Jill Noble 30:45
You know, I just literally took every morsel of advice that he had, and just followed it to a tee, you know, and it just worked. And then if I had problems, I would get in touch with him. So I think a bit depends on the type of person that you are. I mean, that cost me money, you know, so I invested money in that. But it definitely was a huge shortcut, and a shortcut emotionally as much as time.
Meredith Paige 31:07
Yeah, because I think, I think because once you once you set up, then it's like, okay, well, now everything's set up. Now, you've actually got to record the thing. And you've got to keep showing up and recording the thing. So the last thing you want to do is expend all your emotional and physical energy in just the setup. And so by the time you get into setup, you're so exhausted, you don't actually record anything, because you're just so traumatised by the setup period. Not that I want to scare anyone off that, but I think it's worth doing a bit of research and finding like you said, coaches, I did an online course with a marketer I follow called Jenna Kutcher. She had the pod podcast lab, I found that pretty affordable, there wasn't a lot of from what I remember, there wasn't a lot of tech support in it. But it was a lot of like, planning, and it's like, Okay, we're gonna just put one foot in front of the other, and we're going to plan okay, what's the title? What's the purpose? These are all the platforms, you need to think about. Here's how to plan an episode, like he said, to think about the title, what you're going to cover, how to structure your episode, in terms of like, introduction and conclusion, thinking about shownotes. So hers was really good in terms of like, because I would, if it was me, I would sit there and think about all the things and then I would get incredibly overwhelmed. And I probably would have done it so similar to you. It's like, I'm just gonna follow someone who's gone before me. And they're gonna invest in the invest in their experience, rather than trying to get mine from scratch. And I'm just gonna go through the paces and trust the process.
Jill Noble 32:25
I think that's good advice. Again, I think different people will have different appetites. But it definitely helped me and again, it it made, made the time shorter the time to actually produce much shorter initially. And Emotionally, it was much it was it was definitely a smoother ride for me.
Meredith Paige 32:46
Yeah, I think you've really got to look after that kind of getting down and frustrated. And this isn't working headspace because when you're running your own show to it, there's no one standing behind it and those supervisor going Nanana. So this is true, you can do it, I believe in you. It's, it's just you. So you've got to make sure you can stay self motivated through the process that aren't the same as you I think, I feel like I've got I've got this idea that like everything's a hassle until it becomes a habit. And if you can break through that hassle threshold to then establish that habit on the same as you now are there. I'll drive around with my kids in the car, wait till he's fallen asleep and then do the podcast or it'll be a case of our everyone's asleep in the house. It's not a pocket night, on the go sit in the car in my driveway like a creeper. Because it's my little sound sandbox. And I'll record there because I haven't done one. And it's Friday night, my VA is hounding me. So yeah, I think if you can get yourself through the setup as smoothly as possible, and then establish that habit as soon as possible. And then it'll just become part of your daily routine, and you'll make time for it.
Jill Noble 33:43
Everything I did was and I know some podcasters do this and some don't, is I have seasons. And at the end of the season, I give myself a little break. That's very funny. Yeah, maybe it's only six weeks or something. But it also allows me to do some very formal things like thank my listeners for this season. And, you know, a break. Yeah. And it also means that, you know, that I feel anyway, that perhaps they don't take me for granted.
Meredith Paige 34:16
Well, it's better managing expectations when it comes to like providing a service, isn't it so that they don't come knocking your door down when you're awake loading your podcast. And I think that's smart too, because I think we can sometimes commit ourselves to something that's not ultimately sustainable. So it's about making it as sustainable as possible. I think seasons is a really smart idea. So and it also means I think you'll almost you're probably more likely to get started if you go well. You know, I'll just do season one. I'll make season 110 episodes and then I'll give myself a two week break at the end of it. We're all check mine out analytics and everything and then I'll decide whether I go into season two. So if you're hesitating about doing it, I think that's a really good mindset to take toward as well because not only that, I feel like social media has trained us to market if you're looking at from purely marketing perspective and not a sharing of the information perspective, I think social media has taught us to live very short term in our marketing cycles. Like we'll post something once. And if it doesn't get more than five likes, we think it's going to live and die by that by that post.
Meredith Paige 35:12
But if we go into these things, thinking about it as a 10 week commitment, where it's like, I'm going to commit to it for 10 weeks, I'm going to put my best foot forward plan 10 weeks, and at the end of that I will then analyse and decide whether I want to move forward rather than doing one or two episodes and going, Oh, no one's listening. I'm just going to stop.
Meredith Paige 35:29
Thank you so much for sharing all that, Jill. I feel like there's going to be a big explosion of podcasts of the back of that now, because I feel like talking about how, like the barriers of entry are really, really quite low in terms of tech and expense. So any real thing that should be stopping you is having a clear sense of purpose for it. But for anyone who is listening, who would love to share your knowledge about the minute details of sheep breeding, what is your podcast called? And where can they find you and look at they can actually find more about Holston Valley Farm.
Jill Noble 35:59
Thank you, Meredith. Well, I've got an amazing website. It's called hallstonvalleyfarm.com. And you will find the sheep Show podcast on the website, which was an amazing tip that Meredith gave me because I was going to initially set up a whole new website for the sheep Show podcast I'm so glad I didn't which was an amazing tip that you provided way back when. And there's you can also find the sheep Show podcast on your favourite podcast app.
Meredith Paige 36:45
Thank you so much for sharing all your insights, Jill, I really do appreciate it because I feel like it's such such a nice way to serve people potential customers or not. That's a really good excuse for the gass-bag with some cool people too, right?
Jill Noble 37:01
Love the gas-bagging, Meredith! I love it.
