2024 has been an absolutely mental year for my podcasts and we’ve had over 300k+ streams on Spotify alone!

So, if you didn’t realise – I have two podcasts. This podcast is audio only and is very much a self-development kinda podcast, where I explore topics which have got some huge myths around it… or bullsh*t! I then do a lot of research into these topics and let you guys know what’s real and what’s not.

The idea is to help entrepreneurs be guided onto the right path, as it’s utterly confusing out there with all the misinformation flying around.

But my other podcast is called No Bullsh*t Talks. If you’re not aware of it, please do go check it out. On that one, I have a different guest each week. They’re always entrepreneurs who are happy to share their experience of what life is really like running a business. We explore the topics that are super important, but ones where people usually aren’t happy to answer honestly.

That one is a video podcast and so has been a very different experience to this one.

I’ve really invested a lot in podcasting this year, and I’ve learned so much as a result.

But I think podcasting is still something people aren’t sure about. There’s a lot of mixed advice out there and people underestimate how much hard work goes into podcasting.

So, since I’m finally seeing a bit of success with the podcasts, I decided to do an episode explaining what I’ve learned and give some advice to those who are looking to do their own podcast.

I thought I’d actually start by sharing some of the stats that I’ve been looking at, as I’ve been quite surprised at how much podcasting has picked up in popularity.

According to the Podcast Index and Spotify, 546.7 million people are listening to podcasts all over the world. And they’re tuning in for an average of 7 hours per week!! That’s a LOT of podcasting time.

When I think about it, it makes total sense, because I’m often listening to a podcast when I’m out walking the dog, on public transport etc., and that’s a lot more than 7 hours per week.

So, podcasts are definitely an ideal way to get connected with your audience in the form of long-form content.

And many people obviously agree with this as there are now 4.36 million podcasts globally! There were 4.18 million just 6 months ago and so this number is steadily climbing.

The industry is growing and growing too! It’s pointing towards immense growth in 2025. According to market figures, the worldwide podcasting market will be worth $38.36 billion in 2025.

So, if you want a piece of that action, you need to get in there and start creating a podcast!

The thing is, the most-listened to category of podcasts is comedy, so people are still listening for entertainment.

In fact, in the UK, business is not even in the top 10 categories of podcasts listened to, which is interesting considering DOAC is the biggest podcast in the UK. I guess he’s the one of the only big business podcasts over here and the other categories are still dominating.

But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t start a podcast if you’re not funny. After all, most people aren’t funny! It just means that you have a smaller pool of an audience. But with over 500 million people listening to podcasts, I think you’ll find a good number of people who want to listen to you!

If you do want to get started, then the question is – should you do a video podcast (which is now known as a vodcast, of course!) or a regular podcast.

I have one of each and so I think I’m best placed to answer this question.

Now, I’d say that the video podcast is of course going to be easier to promote, as you naturally have visual that you can share. But OMG is it soooo much more work!!

Now let’s ignore the fact that with a video podcast, you’re probably going to want to have a guest on each week because talking to yourself into the camera feels a bit weird and you need to have a big personality to carry that video alone.

I know there are some people who do it, and they do it well, but there’s also a reason why most vodcasts are more than one person.

A video podcast though, requires a lot more thought, planning and editing. Even if you’re just using remote video recording software such as Riverside, or even Zoom, you still need to make sure you look good!

Whereas, with audio podcast, you can just record in your jammies if you like! Hair a mess, no make up on and just chilling with your microphone. I’ve totally just described myself right now and you have nooooooo idea!

Sorry, don’t want to ruin the illusion – I’m totally in a gorgeous pantsuit in a fancy office and looking hella glam. Who am I kidding? I’m in sweats at home and loving it.

And that’s the beauty of an audio-only podcast.

Then, there’s scripting. Now, you can probably tell that my podcasts are pretty “on-the-fly”, but I do prepare for these podcasts and I make notes. For example, those stats I mentioned earlier – I wrote those down and read them out to you!

There I go again ruining the illusion that I just memorise all that!

Ha.

So you can do this too with video, but it means there’s a lot more editing. You’d rather just record into the camera and not have to keep chopping up different takes. So, reading off notes isn’t that easy.

I know some people recommend teleprompters, but IMO they look really bad. Unless you get your set up perfectly and you get reallllllllly good at reading off them, it’s going to be really bait and you end up sounding like a robot.

So I’ve only told you the negatives – that it’s way more work. THe question is – is that extra work worth it?

Well, that depends on what you’re looking for!

There’s a reason why this podcast is still just audio only… although, as I close out this season, I MAY change that in the new year.

Here’s my thinking:
I love making this podcast because I find it “easier”. I don’t have to faff with any equipment and I just sit down with my microphone and chat about a different topic each week that I’ve researched.
It’s really relaxed and I don’t spend much time editing it as I do it all in one take and then just publish it without a review.
However, the audio only files are super difficult to market. I have found that I’ve had to create independent videos to share on social media in order to get the reach that I want. So I end up creating video content anyway.
The question is – is it easier and better to create separate quick snippets that can be done in a much more snappy way for social media? Or is it just better to stick a camera on me the whole time while recording and just share those clips?
But isn’t that just super boring to watch? I dunno… I guess I will have to ask you guys!

So that’s the question when it comes to video vs audio – is the extra effort worth it for you?

I guess it also depends on the type of video.

Let me explain a little bit about each of my setups so you can compare. As I mentioned, my audio one is super easy – I have a decent microphone and I simply record an audio file with it and my editing time is minimal.

I have my audio intro and music ready in Adobe Audition; I clean up the audio a tad and I pop the intro and outro in and that’s it. Takes minutes.

The video is a whole different story.

So, I’m on season 2 of No Bullsh*t Talks now. I recorded the first season on Zoom and the second season in person with all the gear. So I can definitely explain the difference.

Zoom interviews were an amazing way to get started with podcasting. I could cast my net all over the world. And when I started it back in 2022, not as many people in the UK understood the benefits of podcasting, so I ended up interviewing a lot of American guests.

It was a great start, as the conversation was still good, but I just felt that the visuals were a bit boring. It felt like listening in to a Zoom call… cos i guess that’s literally what you are doing. But we associate Zoom calls with something quite boring and perfunctory.

The editing time was minimal though – just cutting out only bits the guests didn’t want and then adding subtitles, graphics and intro/outro again.

However, I really wanted to invest in doing it properly, which is when I invested in buying proper equipment and recording the episodes in person. I just thought it would be much more engaging this way.
The problem is, I freaked out a bit. I didn’t know anything about video and I had all this gear and no idea! I just kept on putting the podcast off. So much so, I didn’t post anything for 2 years!

After a fairly successful year with over 40k downloads, I just didn’t bother doing anything else, as I had a fear of failure.

Just for context, I spent about £6k on podcasting equipment and set up a whole office space as a studio.

But I STILL didn’t like the setup.

Finally, earlier this year, in March 2024, I told myself that done was better than perfect and I decided to just start recording and publishing new episodes.

I am planning on doing a full video on the equipment on my new YouTube channel, which I’ve also put off for several months, but I will tell you that I have a three camera setup for this podcast.

They’re all in 4K and I have one wide view and one each on the speakers. I thought this was important so that you could keep switching views and keeping the viewers engaged.

I also have individual microphones for each of the speakers, and two sets of lighting for the room. There’s a lot of stuff going on!

This setup makes the editing process a lot more complicated. As we have to colour grade the video, sync the audio, and chop all the scenes up and put them together so it flows nicely.

However, the videos look fantastic (in my opinion, anyway) and the clips that I can share on social media are great assets for the guests, who also love them. This means the guests are much happier and more willing to come on the show and then the podcast gets a better reach because guests are sharing assets to their social profiles too.

It’s how No Bullsh*t Talks has grown this year.

But for context of how long each podcast takes to edit in total. Well, this podcast takes about 2-3 hours of research and preparation time per episode and then another hour writing some notes and structuring the episode format. But then it only takes about 10 minutes to fully edit it! So in total, about 4 hours per week.

Meanwhile, each No Bullsh*t Talks episode takes a huge amount of time. First of all, finding guests takes several hours of time to research, outreach, connect and organise. So, let’s ignore that if you’re planning on doing a solo video podcast.

I have to prepare the equipment for each episode – i.e. wipe memory cards, charge batteries, wipe microphone files etc. Then, travelling to the studio, setting up at the studio and packing away at the studio takes time.

I prepare for each episode by researching my guests, reading through their content, watching their videos, understanding who they are etc.

Then, I have to upload the footage when I get back, which is around 100GB in size. When editing, I have to select good clips for the trailer and for social media promotion too.

You add upload time to YouTube, and Spotify, creating show notes, bios for speakers, social media clips etc., it all adds up.

So, if you calculate the whole process, it takes around 20-25 hours each week.

And if you think about it – that’s kinda nuts. Considering that’s more than half your working week. This is why many people have their podcast as the only thing they do! It’s time-consuming.

So why am I saying it’s worth it? Well, the connections you make with the guests you have on the show are invaluable, and they can lead to all sorts of opportunities. The solo ones allow you to learn a lot. I see it as 4 hours a week dedicated to self-development.

I can then turn these episodes into more bits of content for my social channels. Really, from these two podcasts, I have enough content to last me for life if I just wanted to repurpose everything.

There are so many gems throughout the episodes!!

And that’s actually a major factor of podcasting – how you can market your podcast. Because you can create the best podcast in the world, but if no one’s gonna watch or listen to it, then what does it matter?

The problem is, podcasting platforms don’t have “algorithms” like social media channels in that it pushes out certain content to those it might think will benefit from it. It just hosts your podcast and it’s up to you to be able to promote it.

So, you absolutely do need a marketing strategy with your podcast.

What I learned this year is that I definitely needed my personal brand to be able to help my podcast grow. I created a TikTok account solely for my podcast and posted multiple videos a day to it. Each video got a decent amount of views and likes etc., but we’re still only at 65 followers!

It’s a strange old platform. So, that didn’t actually do very well for the growth at all.

It all came from pushing it to my own personal social media channels.

The most effective strategy so far has been to share reels to Instagram and then the widescreen format to LinkedIn, although with their new video tab, I’m experimenting with the 9:16 format there too!

By doing this, my videos have had 8 figures of impressions, which is bonkers.

We’ve not put any money behind the marketing at all and it’s all been organic growth. Because podcasting is already expensive, and without a ROI, then it’s difficult to justify marketing spend.

So I want to talk about that for a bit – the money side of things. Because at the end of the day, people want more money. You need some kind of positive ROI to keep doing this. I’ve already talked about the ROI in the form of connections, opportunities and learning.

But what about the damn money??

So, I’ve already said that it takes about 25-30 hours of my time each week to record, edit and promote my podcast. That’s a lot of potential revenue.

Let’s say your hourly rate as an entrepreneur is a £100 an hour. Then, that’s £2500-£3000 per episode I’m “spending” on my podcast.

Of course, you can actually outsource a lot of the editing parts, cutting your time down a lot. However, since a lot of the stuff that takes up my time is the research and ensuring it’s a good quality episode, I wouldn’t even save myself that much time.

Plus, you need to find a good editor who doesn’t actually waste MORE time!

But let’s take 10 hours off. So, it’s £1500-£2000 per episode. How do you get an ROI on this? Well, obviously if each episode brings in this much money in business, then you’re doing alright. But you just don’t know.

Let’s say that after 10 episodes, you win a £20k client… unless they specifically tell you – how do you know it’s because of your podcast? This is why all this stuff is not clear.

But it is good practice to ask each client how they found you. Plus, I often get messages on LinkedIn or Instagram saying that they’ve seen a podcast episode and they want to have a chat.

So this is often a good sign.

But this is the long-term strategy – it’s what you want in the end, but not many people get there. People want instant results. They don’t have £20k to invest in a podcast, or at least that much in opportunity costs, so they want to monetise their podcast immediately.

But this is super tricky.

We’ve only now started looking for sponsors, because we’re getting 300k streams on Spotify and millions of reach on social media. Before that, we couldn’t speak to brands about sponsorship – why would they pay us to promote their stuff if we were hardly reaching anyone?

So it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation – you need to show that you have a loyal following and you can reach people before people will start giving you money.

However, something I wish I realised sooner – I could have negotiated sponsorship deals thanks to my personal brand. I thought it was allll about the podcast, but it’s not.

My own personal brand can get a lot of traction, so there’s no reason why people wouldn’t pay to have their brand on the podcast.

You will see this in S2 of this podcast, which I am releasing in a couple of weeks. I have decided to make this the last episode of season 1, as this will be the last of its kind in this format.

Instead, I will come back for season 2, with sponsors, and each episode will be a little bit more of a deep dive on a particular topic.

And who knows… maybe I will have video too!

But yeah, podcasting has been very interesting this year and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who has been thinking about it.

I think it teaches you a lot of skills, such as discipline and time management, as there’s a lot of work involved. You need to keep going with something that doesn’t yield instant results but you KNOW will pay off in the long-run.

You need to really believe in yourself to invest in something like that!

So if you want to start a podcast in 2025, I’d recommend that you think really hard about what you want to achieve with it. If you’re looking to become the next Steven Bartlett and monetise super quickly, then it’s not for you.

According to research, it takes an average of 3 years to monetise a podcast. So it’s definitely not a quick hack or cheat code as the kids are calling it these days.

Commit to planning, recording and editing 30 episodes. If you can find a good editor, then most definitely outsource this bit.

Try audio first as it’s less of a commitment and then turn your audio clips into video with B roll or waveforms to trick the social media algorithms into thinking it’s video. This way, you can make the most of video channels while not committing to the time and effort it takes.

Otherwise, there are plenty of alternatives to podcasting. Starting a YouTube channel is a great shout because video is super powerful at the moment. This way, if you’re investing in video, you’re getting the maximum benefits from it.

And if neither of these are your cup of tea, then don’t do it. Try your hand at blogging instead! If you’re consistent enough with that, you can build up a super profitable newsletter. So many creators have done this in the past and are still doing it.

Email marketing is still one of the most effective forms of marketing and it’s totally underestimated.

You don’t HAVE to do a podcast just because they’re really popular now.

But if you do, I really hope this episode has helped you. And if it has, please share it with someone else you think it will help. Or please do leave a review on the podcast too, as that really helps it. I should definitely cover more about all these things that help the podcast grow in another episode sometime.

But I think this has been my longest episode this season and that’s why I thought I’d end the season with this.

I’ve learned so much this year from podcasting and I know 2025 is going to just get bigger.

For those who want to join me on a podcast journey, I cannot wait to hear more about what you have planned.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

But until then, I just want to thank you so much for your support this season and tuning in each week to hear my ramblings. It means so much to me.

I’m not going to wait too long for the next season – just a couple of weeks to plan out the new format. So, I will see you very shortly!!

And until then… you know what to do… keep sniffing out the bullsh*t!