How I Started Podcasting

An Email and Not Asking Permission = Podcasts

How Julie started podcasting is a funny story, but the lessons she learned in that process are deeply valuable to all parts of her business. 

Over the past few years, Julie has been asked more than once, how she began her podcasting journey. Well, it’s a two-part story that teaches us three lessons:

1. Be open to ideas and support from others
2. Let your experts be experts
3. Trust your gut

Now that we’ve shared with you the three lessons, take a listen to this week’s episode to hear the fun story that led Julie down her award-winning podcast journey.

Hey there, this is Julie Bee, and you’re listening to They Don’t Teach THIS in Business School. I’ve been asked several times this year how I started podcasting, and that is what this episode is about. I’ll share the story in a minute, but I want to highlight the important lessons I’ve learned from this story before I actually tell it.  

The first lesson is to be open to ideas and support from others. 

Second – let your experts be experts. 

Third – Trust your gut. 

Alright, so now that you know the lessons I’ve learned up front on this podcasting journey, let me tell you how it started. Back in March of 2020, Covid was ramping up and everything else was shutting down. One of my clients sent an email to me that basically said, “Now is your time, Julie. Now is the time for you talk about how you run a virtual office, and lead a virtual team.” At the time, I was working only in my marketing agency, but I had been thinking about my next step, my next business, for quite some time. 

That email was that client was a tipping point for me. Because I was open to that idea and that support, I jumped on it. I had been making videos for a while for my marketing agency, so that day I made three videos, geared towards small business owners, about managing and leading a remote team. I had done that since 2004, after all – I had 16 years of experience at that time. I was qualified to help. 

So I made the videos, posted them on Youtube, shared them, and I received great feedback. It was nice to feel like I had helped some people. I didn’t know the support that would quickly follow. 

I think the next day, or maybe two days after I had posted those videos, I got a call from my friend Chris. Chris has spent decades in radio, and had been trying to talk me into starting a podcast for several months prior to this. He called me and started the conversation with, “Now, don’t get mad, and I’ll take it down if you want me to, but…” Well, I knew what was coming next had to be good, so I listened. 

Chris basically lifted the audio from those three videos I had made, and turned them each into a podcast episode. He started a podcast for me, without asking first. I look back now, and I laugh about this moment. Chris had literally done the thing I had been telling him for months I didn’t want to do. I wasn’t mad – I was surprised. But I listened to what produced, and it sounded amazing. I was excited. It was also a lot easier than producing videos, so bam. I had a podcast. 

That’s lesson number one and two together. One, be open to ideas and support from others. Two, trust your experts. 

So fast forward a year, and that podcast Chris started became the Lead from Anywhere podcast. It was a weekly podcast of me talking about leading, from anywhere. It turned into so much more than a podcast about leading a remote workforce. But I started to get that spidey-sense that it wasn’t enough. That there was a bigger opportunity. 

At the end of 2021, I recorded the last episode of the Lead from Anywhere podcast because I was starting this podcast – They  Don’t Teach This in Business School. Turns out, there was a bigger opportunity. I wanted to do a podcast where I could interview guests AND have solo episodes, but I also wanted to talk about business ownership. Specifically, the things you only learn through experience. I didn’t want to start a “how to do marketing” podcast, or a “how to fill in the blank” podcast. I wanted to share experiences from the business ownership journey – and that’s exactly what this podcast is.

So there is lesson three – I trusted my gut. I knew there was something bigger; I knew I had to step away from my first podcast to pursue that opportunity, and I did. 

Starting this podcast eventually led to writing a book, which has led to a book contract, which will lead to so many more opportunities. That all started with first, that email from my client back in March of 2020, and secondly, Chris starting a podcast for me, without asking first. 

And that is the story of how I started podcasting. Like I said early on, this is a story about three lessons I’ve learned through the process. 

One – be open to ideas and support from others. 

Two – let your experts be experts. 

Three – Trust your gut. 

I’m Julie Bee, and They Don’t Teach THIS in Business School.