Business Words Of The Week

In each Own It!! podcast, Nicola and Judith discuss their chosen Business Word Of The Week for that particular week.

Here are their words for Episode 004 of the Own It!! podcast:

Nicola:

So Judith, word of the week this week is podcast, how you decided you wanted to do more podcasting, and then we’ll go from there.

Judith: 

I like audio. I’ve listened to some of our earlier episodes a couple of times. I’ve listened to myself talking to Marc Mawhinny of Natural Born Coaches a couple of times, and I’ve listened to some of my Small Business Big Magic calls this week as well because the clients were saying they’re good. Because I spend my time talking to clients and listening to clients unrecorded, I don’t really know what happens in those conversations. To go back and listen to the audios, you and I have said this before, I listen, I think, “God, who is that woman?” Then I realise it’s me. I find that’s very reinforcing because we’re all not sure of who we are, what impact we make in the world. I forget what I know until a client asks me, but also I just love audio Nicola. I don’t listen to many podcasts as it happens, but I, you know, if you gave me a choice I’d prefer to read – number one; I’d prefer to listen – number two; and if you show me a video, I’m not going to play.

Nicola:  

Yeah, it’s interesting because I’m a very visual person, but I am massively, massively into podcasts now because they don’t have adverts obviously, but because Sarah’s in New Zealand and there’s nobody else here most of the time, I’ve started listening to podcasts as almost like a radio – as you would a radio – and I’m thoroughly enjoying that. Obviously I have my other podcast, which is where I interview successful entrepreneurs and a right range of them I get too, which is marvellous.

Judith: 

I tell you what you have made me realise actually is when I was listening to ours, and there’s one other I subscribe to as well, what I realised was exactly what you said, which is the more we get into delivering podcasts, the more likely I am to subscribe to some and listen to more.

Nicola: 

Yeah, absolutely. When you said that you wanted to do more podcasting and I had been thinking about looking for someone to do a podcast because I realise that all the podcasts I like to listen to are people having a conversation, two people having a conversation. Then obviously you were the obvious choice because we’ve always enjoyed gassing haven’t we.

Judith: 

Yes, exactly.

Nicola:   

Decided what we wanted to cover and it came together very quickly, didn’t it?

Judith: 

It did. All the best ideas do, don’t they?

Nicola:  

Yeah, and I was thinking that when I was editing it. This is really in my flow, this is. The recording of it, the editing of it, it’s all really in my flow; I love it.

Judith: 

I’m so pleased to hear that because you are carrying the bulk of that, obviously.

Nicola: 

It’s just so enjoyable and it’s something I feel like I could do until I drop.

Judith: 

Oh, that’s great to hear. I know you’ll change your mind in later life, but for now, that’s fabulous.

Nicola:  

Well, let’s just run through it for everyone else. The reason I got really turned on to them initially was when I listened John Lee Dumas’, and I went to entrepreneurial cloud and I saw what kind of income he was making from his sponsorship in the broadcast. He does a daily podcast, so obviously the traditional podcast model is all based upon the thousands of downloads per episode. When you’re doing a weekly, sorry, daily show, you’ve obviously got seven times what someone who’s doing a weekly show would have as a download, so your sponsor is getting seven times the exposure.

The pricing model is changing on the sponsorship – it’s getting more to the point of what the sponsor thinks it’s worth paying to get in front of your audience. You might have a smaller audience – for example last week we were going to start with a, hopefully we’ll hit “new and noteworthy” and get lots of subscribers there. But you know we’re going to a tightly togged bunch of subscribers, which are going to be largely women working from home in the creative digital and sort of admin/ finance industries I suppose. Yeah, that was sort of something, a lot of your clients are creative, aren’t they?

Judith: 

Yes, they are.

Nicola: 

Lot’s of mine are digital.

Judith: 

You know what you just said, don’t you?

Nicola:  

What?

Judith: 

You said the podcasting model is moving toward pay what you want, i.e., what the sponsor considers our audience is worth to him.

Nicola:

Yes, or what we consider our audience is worth to us.

Judith: 

Yeah.

Nicola:  

Then I started listening to podcasts, so I don’t know how. I think I, yeah, I just decided I thought it would be a good idea to start listening to some positive stuff before I went to sleep. I’m completely hooked on them, to the point where I think there’s not enough hours in every day because there’s a podcast I want to listen to. It makes you want to get in the car to start driving about so I can actually listen to them.

Judith: 

Actually, that’s my problem, I don’t need anything when I’m driving.

Nicola: 

Funny enough, that’s how I used to keep up with pop music. Bringing the whole thing in a rather neat circle there. Except we’ve still got our who or what’s impressed this week section.

Judith: 

Well, you haven’t asked me about my word of the week, am I not allowed a word of the week?

Nicola: 

Yes you do. You get a word, of course you do.

Judith: 

Okay, my word of the week is accountability. I’ll keep it short Nicola. Why do we need accountability? Why isn’t our own word enough for us? By which I mean, why won’t I go to the gym by myself, but I will if I’ve got a buddy or a personal trainer?

Nicola:  

That’s very interesting, isn’t it? I’m not someone who needs accountability because I write my plan and I generally largely stick to it.

Judith: 

Yeah, me too.

Nicola:  

Yes, but a lot of clients want accountability and the thing I’ve discovered – the other thing is – if you set up a meeting to do something, it’s much more likely to happen, isn’t it. There’s the thing about…

Judith: 

Like our meetings for our own podcast. We know we’ve got to prepare for them and we’re on the dot, and we’re ready.

Nicola:

Yes, I think if it were left to me, and my other podcaster, Sarah, organises all the interviews for me, and if it were left to me to organise it, it simply wouldn’t happen.

Judith: 

Well that’s because that sort of admin puts you off, and you know that about yourself, which is why you’ve involved Sarah, but Marion has got an expression. She always denies it, which probably means she borrowed it from somebody else, but she says, and this is a good time of year to be thinking about things like this because we’re thinking about January and New Year’s resolutions and plans for 2016. Marion’s expression is an unbreakable promise to yourself.

Nicola:  

That’s a really nice one, isn’t it?

Judith: 

Don’t pay lip service to something you’re not prepared to make an unbreakable promise to yourself about. Don’t say I’m going to lose weight, or I’m going to go to the gym, or I’m going to double my turn over, if you’re not fully committed. If you’re fully committed, you don’t really need accountability. I mean, with some of my clients, I know they need it and they say that they want it, but I’m slightly confused by this because does that mean that they’re running businesses that they’re not particularly interested in? And that’s why I beat them with a stick – they’re not going to do it.

Or is it that they need some help through the difficult stuff, or is it that they haven’t really chosen, you know, the way you just described podcasting is in your flow. Is it that they haven’t chosen something that they love so much that they don’t need accountability. I don’t want to talk myself out of business, but I don’t really understand this need. I suppose it’s because I’m on fire.

Nicola:   

Yeah, you’re an entrepreneur on fire, as John Lee Dumas would say. The other thing is about motivation and inspiration… I was motivated to get a podcast going again when I saw John Lee Dumas’ sponsorship figures, but that’s not what’s kept me going. What’s kept me going is the fact that I’m motivated to carry on doing podcasts, and in fact starting a new one with you, because I feel inspired by the medium, by the creativity of editing, by the fact that you can get on iTunes and go out to millions of people – in 89 countries my other podcast is going to now… So, I think it has to start with inspiration, which then provides motivation, and then it’s just a question of putting some sort of system or structure in place to provide the accountability.

Judith: 

I think you’re half right, I think – from my perspective. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I think, for instance, I will never be motivated or make an unbreakable promise to myself to go to the gym. When I had a personal trainer for 18 months, I went. There, motivation, I need motivation around something I don’t want to do. If it’s something I want to do, I don’t need any motivation or any accountability, because I’m inspired.

Nicola:

Yes, and you just get on and do it.

Judith: 

Yeah, I love it, can’t stop it, can’t keep me away from it.

Nicola: 

When you think about some of the clients that say they want accountability then, do you think it’s just that they’re not organised enough to put a structure in place that gives them accountability to themselves, and that’s what they’re looking externally for accountability, because it provides some sort of structure?

Judith: 

I don’t know Nicola. Is there a way in which our listeners can let us know?

Nicola:  

Yes, there is. If they go to ownitthepodcast.com and click the pink bar on the right hand side with where it says, “ask your burning question”, you can, instead of asking a burning question, you could tell us your feelings about accountability, motivation, and inspiration. We’d love hear.

Judith: 

Isn’t there a comment facility under each podcast as well?

Nicola: 

Yes, there is, yes. This will be 004 of ownitthepodcast.com, look for episode OI, which is Own It, 004, and comment on the episode, that’d be really cool. We’d love to hear.

Judith: 

We want to know why you need accountability.

Nicola: 

Or even indeed your thoughts about pricing, which is what else we’ve been talking about.

Judith: 

Yes, absolutely.

Nicola:  

Brilliant.