Useful Tips to Boost Your Podcast’s Downloads

Unedited Transcript of the Episode:

Andi: Hi, I’m Andy smiley, your friendly podcast guide. I help you increase your downloads without letting your podcast take over your life. Today. I’m sharing a conversation I had with Rachel. One of the creators of don’t drink the milk. A history podcast that follows things and ideas through history.

It’s a fascinating show that is so well done. And I can’t wait for you to hear all of the nuggets of wisdom. Rachel has for us that are sprinkled throughout our conversation. And a quick reminder that I’ll be recapping my main takeaways from our conversation at the end of the episode. So you don’t have to take notes unless you want to.

Andi: Rachel, thank you so much for being on the friendly podcast guide today. Before we dive into talking about your show, don’t drink the milk first. I want to get to know you a little bit, a little bit better and help my listeners get to know you a little bit better.

So what is the last podcast that you listened to for you?

Rachel: Um, I actually this week went back to The Dream, which is pretty old now. I mean, I think it was season three of The Dream, which I think is a couple of years old at least. I remember listening to the first season, which was all about like MLMs, multi level marketing. It was super good. Um, but I listened to it on holiday years ago.

And I only just realized that they actually had more seasons. So I’ve gone back to season three now, which is about life coaches, which is the kind of stuff I just love to delve into the, the murky side of those kinds of wellbeing topics.

Andi: Totally. Oh yeah. Okay. I’ve heard of that one, but I haven’t, I haven’t listened to it yet. I really need to, it’s on my list. It just needs to get moved up to the top. Cause you’re like the third person that’s told me about it in the past. Like. Month. So yeah, it just needs to move to the top, but I have a lot of podcasts that I love.

And so it’s hard to listen to. It’s hard to even add new ones in sometimes, you know, like you’re like, but I have all of my favorites already. So

Rachel: But then I think that means that you just have to be a little bit strict. And if you’re not enjoying a podcast, spin it straight away. Cause there’s just not enough

Andi: It’s like the, is it DNF? Do not finish with a book, like

just DNF a podcast. It’s

Rachel: you’ve got to be brutal.

Andi: Yeah, it’s true. There are so many good ones out there that you, that we just, if it, if it’s not a good fit for you, just, just let it go, just release it.

Rachel: Don’t waste your time.

Andi: Exactly. Oh, I love that.

Sometimes I need that reminder. Thank you.

Rachel: But don’t do that with my podcast.

Andi: Yeah, exactly. Nope. Don’t drink the milk is good till the very end. So don’t stop, but okay. Um, and then the last question is, what is a simple life hack that’s making your life better right now?

Rachel: I struggle to think of anything apart from things I’ve learned on TikTok for life hacks,

Andi: I mean, TikTok is good for life hacks for the most, for the most part. Some of them

are not good. but

Rachel: sometimes you try them out and they don’t work so There was one that I found really good, was if you want a squeeze of lemon in your drink, but just a little squeeze, then instead of cutting it up and making a wedge and squeezing it and it goes everywhere in your eye and everything, um, you just poke a hole in the end of the lemon with like a skewer and then it just comes out the hole and then you can put it back in the fridge.

It’s a bit like having one of those plastic things of lemon juice in your fridge but it’s a real lemon.

Andi: Fascinating.

Rachel: Exactly, there’s all these kind of ones, or there’s one I haven’t tried yet where If anyone, anyone who has cats knows it’s really hard to cut their nails. And there’s this one going around on TikTok at the moment that if you put some masking tape or sellotape over a cat’s eyes, they get distracted and then they let you cut their nails.

Andi: Well, there you go.

Okay. If, if slash, when you try that, let us know if it works.

Rachel: okay. I’ll give you an update.

Andi: Okay. Thank you. I, cause that’s interesting. I can see it working like, Hmm.

Yeah. I’m

Rachel: confusing to them that they’re maybe mildly

Andi: Yeah, I guess. Or like, it’s just so close to their face. They can’t focus on anything else.

Rachel: Yeah.

Andi: I mean, I can understand that I can get behind

that

Rachel: you could try it with your kids.

Andi: I maybe, so my oldest is seven, I don’t think he’d go for it, but I do have a two year old, maybe she’d go for it

Rachel: Okay.

Andi: now to try it, I’ll try it. I’ll try it and let you know, you try it and let me know.

Rachel: Very good.

Andi: Okay. Now that we know you a little bit better, let’s dive into learning more about don’t drink the milk. So. I got to listen to your fabulous and adorable episode about how you came up with the name, don’t drink the milk, but I am assuming most of my listeners haven’t heard it yet.

So how did you come up with this unique name? Don’t drink the milk for your podcast.

Rachel: Yeah, we went a bit wild and decided to I’m going to go with a really random name that nobody quite can guess the meaning behind. Um, it all started off because the idea of the podcast is that we follow the story of something. So it’s usually an object, but it could be a word or a movement or something.

It starts off somewhere, but it travels through time and around the world and kind of changes along the way. So we were thinking, oh, it’s a bit like, um, that game you played as a kid when you would sit in a circle and you’d whisper a message around. And by the time it gets to the end of the chain, it’s, it’s usually like complete nonsense.

Andi: Yeah,

Rachel: So the message has changed. So that was the idea we started with. And then we realized, cause we were talking within the team, uh, we’re quite an international team and we realized that everyone had a completely different name for this childhood game. So I’m from the UK and we called it Chinese whispers.

Um, and our producer, Sam, she’s from the U S and she said it was usually called telephone. Uh, we discovered it had all these different names around the world. And while we were looking into the history of this, we found, I think it was in some sort of internet forum or something, we found this reference to the game being called Don’t Drink the Milk.

And then we looked into that and realised it actually went all the way back to this black and white movie from the 1930s in the US. Um, and there’s this one scene in it where the kids sit around the table and they whisper to each other as a kind of warning, don’t drink the milk because the milk has gone off.

So it kind of ties in all these things of a message that gets passed on. Uh, but changing along the way, it’s also got a slight warning element to it because the topics that we cover have usually got a little bit of controversy as well. So yeah, it packs a lot into a slightly odd name.

Andi: honestly. Well, and truly. Oh, I have. So Sam, I met Sam at a podcast conference and that’s how we got connected. And I love the business card that she has. Like your podcast art is so fun. It’s like, it a milk bottle on top and a fish on the bottom?

And I loved it. I was so intrigued. So like the name plus the podcast art, it’s just such a fun and unique. And it’s like, okay, I’ve got to listen to this podcast to figure out what this is all about. It’s so fun to have a unique name. And I feel like you didn’t just like pull it out of thin air.

Like you did research that led you to this name. So I think it’s so fun.

Rachel: Yeah, we just kind of, we didn’t want to just be like, oh, this is a history podcast or any kind of typical play on the word history, just because there’s so many out there like that. And it’s not really a typical history podcast. We still would put ourselves in that category because that’s where the beginning of every story is.

It’s always historical and we always find out a lot about the past, but it’s very tied to the present. As I said, it’s usually a little bit controversial and it’s not just, you know, two people in a studio chatting about historical facts and dates. It’s, it’s really an experience. So we kind of wanted to reflect that in the name.

Andi: Definitely. And I think you did a fabulous job. I want to know a little bit of like the behind the scenes of why you decided to create don’t drink the milk. You and your team, obviously, what made it all come together to make this cool podcast?

Rachel: I guess there were a lot of different elements. Um, one was a little bit like what I just mentioned about wanting to cover historical topics in a different way. Um, we also wanted to have a really strong cultural angle. So we were kind of trying to tie those things together as this thing moves around the world, it goes through different cultures and countries.

So that’s a really, um, interesting point where you can just consider why, like, why, why does this country adopt it in a different way? And why does it end up changing again when it moves on elsewhere? Um, we also really wanted to take people with us somewhere. So we have this strong travel element where we really go somewhere.

And we really experience something together usually, so there’s usually two of us at least who will travel. We’ll have real conversations about stuff and we’ll really, um, see and hear and learn things along the way. Um, so we kind of want it to be a real discovery that you hear inside each episode rather than just us reporting back on something we’ve already learned.

Andi: Yeah, and that is one thing I really like about your show is that, you take, you take the listener on a journey, right there, they’re with you in the street as you’re talking to different people it doesn’t feel like sterile, I guess. It feels like you are immersed in whatever topic you’re talking about.

And it’s so cool. I really. I think there’s a time and place for all types of podcasts, but this type of podcast is really fun and unique in that sense that you’re not just like listening to people talk about it. You’re experiencing it with the people that are talking about it.

Rachel: Yeah, I mean, it’s not the easiest format of podcast to make by any means, right? Because it involves a lot of production and planning and you have to go places. Um, yeah, which perhaps we didn’t quite realize at the beginning when we were in the planning stage, how big it was going to be, but yeah, it just kind of, it explores what is possible with audio, right?

And it’s great. I also love to listen to lots of chatty podcasts where people are just chatting with each other in a studio. And like you said, there’s a time and a place for that, but audio can offer so much more and it gives you so much capacity to take people with you and really experience stuff.

Cause it’s relatively easy to just have a small microphone and be recording what you’re up to. So yeah, why not?

Andi: Definitely. So that actually leads really well into my next question. So I love that you have so many different voices. It’s not just you and other members of your team. You interview a lot of different people, experts, but also like man on the street. How do you decide who to interview for each episode?

Mm.

Rachel: takes a long time, there’s a lot of whittling down. Um, usually when we start planning a story, we’re not quite sure all of the different chapters, if you like, that are going to end up coming up. Um, so we’ll start off, we’ll, we’ll be sure that there’s at least enough of a story there. Um, and I guess just start finding maybe one or two main interview partners who can really give us, um, something a bit more meaty.

And then when we go somewhere, that’s when we really want to get the, like you said, the on the street perspectives, uh, to really kind of bring it to life. Also to, to show the cultural aspect. Um, that’s most easily done when we really do talk to real people and find out what their personal reflection is on the topic.

Andi: Yeah. And kind of like they’re off the cuff, like ideas, right? , they weren’t expecting to be interviewed that day. So it’s fun to hear people’s first reaction almost to your questions and your, like what you’re talking about. Yeah. I

Rachel: Yeah. And it’s hard sometimes to have this balance between, I mean it’s a, it’s essentially, it’s a journalistic product, right? So we work for a media company, um, and we have certain standards we have to uphold, etc. But you don’t want to just be putting experts and academics at the forefront all the time.

You definitely need that weight and often we’re looking into really interesting research and we need someone who understands it to explain it to us, but we also want to be showing how that relates to research. It’s to us, you know, normal people and everyone who’s listening to the podcast, uh, who maybe isn’t a professor of whatever studies,

Andi: Totally. Yeah.

Rachel: want to show them that it’s, it’s actually part of our everyday lives.

Andi: I love that. And it definitely comes through and finding that balance is probably difficult, but I, but necessary, and I feel like it really adds another, like it makes it more of like a, like a 40 experience. It’s not just, it’s not just you talking to someone else in a booth.

It’s you talking to experts, but it’s also you talking to normal people. I feel like it’s very well rounded.

Rachel: Yeah, and often talking to each other, right? Because as we’re going along and learning things, we come up with all these questions because we’re not experts in the topic either. So when we begin, So it’s quite natural for us to then have conversations in between where we’re like, What was that? Like, what did that actually mean?

How did that relate to what we learned yesterday? Um, hopefully that kind of follows on with what the listener is thinking as they hear the same things as us.

Andi: Yeah. And hear the conversations that you’re having about it as you’re learning, which, like you said, the listener probably can be like, Oh, that’s interesting. I didn’t think about that. Or yes, that’s exactly the question that I was thinking about. So that’s, yeah, that’s fun to kind of have that. Um, and it makes you, it makes you as well as like the show as a whole, feel more approachable almost to be like, look, I didn’t know we were talking about and trying to figure it out while we went to like, so I like, I like that aspect as well.

Rachel: That’s also something I love about the podcast medium, right? Because if you were writing an article about these things, you probably wouldn’t have that kind of approach. It would be a little bit more, I guess, top down in a way, because you’ve gone and you’ve done the research, you’ve decided what it means and you put it into an article.

Whereas this allows you to kind of explore a topic and bring up questions along the way and, and live it. And then at the end, you might come up with a conclusion or you might just say, wow, that was a heck of a journey.

Andi: We learned a lot, but we don’t have all the answers

yet. Yeah, definitely. I love that you aren’t like forcing answers. You’re not like, Oh, we have to have an answer to this because that’s what you do at the end of a podcast. Cause sometimes life is messy and there isn’t an answer. So

Rachel: exactly. And this is a historical podcast, but the stories haven’t finished yet. So it’s okay if it’s not all neatly tied up.

Andi: yes, totally. Not, not perfect. Cause we don’t live in a perfect world. So we’ve talked about a lot of the different aspects and parts of your show. What is your favorite part of creating don’t drink the milk?

Rachel: Um, it’s definitely when we traveled places because that is the moment where all this research that we’ve done. leaves the office and we get to actually go somewhere and follow some kind of a thread of the story. Sometimes it’s just a sort of side story to the main chunk. Sometimes we really are investigating a big part of the story while we’re there.

Um, it’s just so exciting. It’s just so great to be out and about on the ground. And like I said, experiencing something more or less live, um, just gives you a completely different feel at the end of the day.

Andi: So if someone else was going to make a podcast like this what’s like your piece of advice that you would give them now that you’ve done a whole season

Rachel: If you’re starting out, I would say don’t be afraid to press record. I think at the beginning you’re a little bit sort of nervous and you’re like, Oh, should I record this? I’m not even sure if I’ll need it in the end. Um, or you might just feel a bit self conscious about recording something.

But especially these days, you know, with these little, little microphones that you can have that you might have attached to your iPhone or something. Mm hmm. Um, you’re not, it’s not like you’re running around with a massive recorder or a massive camera, you know? Um, so it’s usually better, if in doubt, record and you can always decide afterwards whether you use it or, you know, if, if it turns out that it wasn’t what you were expecting then you can just ditch it.

But you can’t get it back if something great happens and you didn’t have the recording on.

Andi: Okay. I absolutely love that. I feel like sometimes I feel that way, even in these conversations or like, in a different way, like just ask the question, right. Just being willing to do the uncomfortable thing helps you get usually the best stuff. And even if it’s like uncomfortable at the time, I

love that. That’s such a good piece of advice.

Rachel: It’s basically like current you, just make current you uncomfortable in order to make future you have actually an easier job when you’re editing it and feel better about it.

Andi: Yeah. And create a fun, a funner, a more fun, cool product, right? , having more audio is rarely, I don’t think it’s ever a bad thing. I think it’s always good to have more options. So

Rachel: Definitely.

And if you then add the advice on top of that to go through your material relatively quickly after the event, then you’ll know, oh that was, that was rubbish. I’ll just get rid of that recording. I’ll move on to the next one. Yeah, it’s, it’s not that hard to skip through stuff and find, find the highlights.

Andi: That’s a really good piece of advice too, because I feel like sometimes, sometimes I don’t do that and I’ll have a really great interview and then I’ll be like, I don’t even remember what we talked about because I did this last month and now I’m getting back to it and yeah, at least go through it.

Like just do a, like an overview. Be like, Oh, okay. I know I didn’t like this part. I don’t need this part. And you can come back for like the nitty gritty at it later.

Rachel: Yeah,

Andi: Okay. I really love that.

Rachel: if I’m recording on my iPhone with these little, little, um, usually the Rode mics we use, um, I quite often just have the Notes app open as well. And if we’re doing, like, quite often, for example, we’ll go on a city tour with a tour guide because there are more fun, relatable.

historian if you like sometimes. Um, but these can go on for hours. We had one in one episode where we were there for three or no, I think it was four in the end, nearly four hours. Um, and that’s a lot of material, but as I was going, I had my notes up open and I could just put a little, I just put the time of day that it was and then I could say, oh, he made a great quote there and it made it a little bit easier.

Andi: Yeah. Oh, I love that. I feel like for me, that’s like writing down like, Oh, at 22 minutes, she said this really awesome pull quote that I want for social media or whatever. You should have a starting point, right? It’s, oh, it’s always better. And it feels better to not have a blank sheet, like blank page when you’re starting.

Rachel: Totally. Yeah, I

Andi: yeah. What has been the most surprising thing that’s happened or like what’s been the most surprising thing about starting Don’t Drink the Milk and just creating it?

Rachel: I think in general, I was positively surprised. I mean, if this didn’t happen, then it would have been a bit disappointing, but and pleased to find that there really is so much behind all these things that seem kind of banal, right? Just stuff that we see all the time around us, and we just never stop to think, Oh, where did it come from?

I never really realised that often these things have a whole life before they get to you. It’s a bit like with people, you know, sometimes you know someone in a certain context, maybe a work colleague, and you think that’s them, but actually, elsewhere, or when they were younger, they had a completely different wild lifestyle, and I think it’s quite similar with objects sometimes.

Um, like we did one episode on IPA beer, for example, and for me, that was just like a tasty, trendy beer, I thought it was pretty modern, Um, and I didn’t know anything about the history, even though if I’d stopped to actually question the words, maybe I would have, um, got the clue there. Indian pale ale. Um, yeah, and then we like started to probe that and found out all this super interesting history.

Essentially colonial history, colonial history from my country, which I should have known more about, you know, the connection between these two things. So, yeah, I think it’s great to know that there’s so much behind it. Sometimes it gets. bigger and bigger and bigger and sometimes it can make you a bit pessimistic and skeptical about, oh everything’s got a dark side to it, but I don’t know, I think it makes, makes things a bit more juicy and interesting.

Andi: Definitely. I was thinking about your episode about bagels.

I feel like bagels can be a little bit boring, but like your episode was fascinating. Like I was like, this is so fun. I’m learning so many random things about bagels, but also I live in Utah and I feel like. Anyone from like New York will be like, bagels are not boring.

Like, what are you even talking about, Andy? But in where I live, bagels are a little bit boring. So it was really fun to like dive into the history of bagels and follow you around as you were learning more about bagels. I think that’s the thing that I keep learning is that nothing is really boring if you. Look into it, you know, like there’s always something fascinating or interesting about people or things. You just have to actually like be curious and look into it. And I love that about your show.

Rachel: Perfect, that’s exactly what we want right, we want people to be able to go to a dinner party or the pub or whatever after listening to an episode of ours and just have a couple of these little gems in their mind of like, oh, that was kind of a fun fact that maybe people here wouldn’t know, but everyone can relate to it because it’s normal stuff.

It’s things that we all know.

Andi: Yeah,

Rachel: It’s kind of the fun side of history. Oh,

Andi: One of the fun parts about listening to your show for me, or like interesting side effects has been. Just being more curious about what’s around me. Right. And just being like, huh, and then maybe I should just send them to you so that you can just research the things that I’m like, huh, I wonder what happens with.

I don’t like now I can’t think but it was like something mundane that I was like, huh. I wonder how that even like came to be. And it was because I had just listened to your,

bagels or passports? One of those two. And I was like, hmm. Now, now I’m curious. Now I want to follow it, but I don’t really have time. So I’ll just send it to you when I think of it and you can do the research and then I can, and then I can just listen to the episode.

Rachel: And we’ll credit you at the end, don’t worry.

Andi: Thank you. I don’t know if I need credit for being curious, but I’ll take it.

Rachel: Yeah, definitely, you deserve that.

Andi: Oh, man. Okay. So one thing that I feel quite uncomfortable talking about is money, but I’m forcing myself to talk about it in these episodes so that it’s just less taboo, less of a weird thing to talk about. So, um, do you make money from, don’t, don’t, I almost said don’t make the milk. Don’t drink the milk right now.

Rachel: Well, this is a complicated question because as I said, I work for a media company, right? So I work for Deutsche Welle, which is Germany’s international broadcaster. Um, and we’re not a commercial institution. We are publicly funded. So we have in many ways this luxury and we have a mandate essentially to create good journalism and it doesn’t need to make money.

Um, that doesn’t mean that we can’t. So we are exploring options for monetization. Uh, we’re not doing it at the moment, but it’s certainly something that we would consider.

Andi: Okay. So you are like an employee of the media company.

Rachel: Mm hmm.

Andi: So you’re literally a journalist that gets to make a cool podcast.

Rachel: Yes.

Andi: That’s delightful.

Rachel: It’s a good job.

Yeah. I mean, it’s a good, it’s a good place to be because as I said, it gives you this luxury to be able to make the content and you’re not worried about it immediately having to make money. Um, I also think that that’s. This is the kind of product that publicly funded media organizations should be doing because everyone else who’s podcasting, not as part of a media company, they don’t usually have the resources, the time, the energy levels,

like they can’t necessarily be creating this kind of content because it’s extremely time intensive and it is more expensive. Um, so I feel like Yeah, it’s a great product for our company because it’s high quality, it’s really heavily researched, um, we have a global audience so it’s also trying to bring in different cultural perspectives and and tell the story not necessarily from like a national perspective but international.

yeah, so I think that this is what we should be making and I’m very glad that they are currently funding it.

Andi: Yeah, me too. I’m really grateful.

Rachel: I’ll let them know.

Andi: So while we were chatting, trying to find a time to have this conversation.

Um, you told me that one of your favorite episodes is the one about passports. It’s called passports freedom for sale. And it was really. It was an interesting episode. I really, really liked it. What made you and your team decide to look into the history

Rachel: um, well it was the idea of one of our producers, Charlie. And, like I said, we don’t always have the whole story when we come up with the idea in the first place, right? So, she just was interested in looking into where it actually came from. I think we’d been discussing various topics about travel, etc.

near the beginning, and it just organically came up that, um, we would consider the passport. And as she started to research, she found the history part of it really interesting. How it was, um, you know, basically a, essentially a necessary by product of the First World War, that countries started to need this official documentation.

But also, interestingly, that they wanted to scrap it afterwards, because they were like, this document sucks, it invades our privacy, and it’s really annoying, and I wish we could just go back to the way it was before. Um, but there was this really nice quote that somebody said, that it’s easier to, you know, It’s easier to put up walls than it is to take them down.

And it’s the same with, with this kind of bureaucracy. Once it’s there, it’s pretty hard to dismantle that kind of thing. So that was just the historical nugget that kind of kicked it all off. But then we just found all these other strands. And when we were on the trip, where we went to North Macedonia, we found this new strand, which was the most sort of controversial modern part, which was to do with selling citizenship, essentially.

Uh, citizenship by investment. And yeah, that’s where things got a bit more controversial.

Andi: Yeah, that was fascinating. I had no idea about any of that. So it was really, I was like, I am learning. This is an episode where I’m learning a lot. This isn’t just like, this isn’t just like interesting facts. This is like, huh, this is happening in my world. And I had no idea. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I think. And I think that’s what’s fun also about being curious is sometimes it’s just interesting facts for when you go out with your friends and sometimes it’s like, oh, this is something I need to know as an international citizen of this world.

Rachel: That’s very true. Yeah, it can make you really reconsider a few things, or just like you said, be a little bit more aware.

Andi: Yeah. So one of my favorite parts of that episode, was, um, your wheel of fortune passport edition. I want to hear like the behind the scenes of how you came up with it and like made it all happen.

Rachel: I guess it’s uh, like a glorified quiz. Um, Charlie just wanted to, uh, have a little bit of fun, because it’s obviously quite a serious topic. Some elements of what we talk about can get quite serious. And this one element we were talking about at this point was essentially that not everybody’s passport is the same, or it’s not worth the same, or it’s not as valuable to them.

Because for some people, passports mean freedom and travel and the ability to go and work and have a holiday somewhere. And for other people, their own passport is essentially something that restricts them. , and so Charlie was just basically quizzing me and making me guess the, the rankings of certain countries. And as far as I can remember, I think I was quite bad at it.

Andi: I know you’ve got at least one, right. And I was

like, yes, good. job.

My favorite part was that, like you said, you kind of took something that was a little bit more serious and a little bit, maybe harder to talk about, but still something that was interesting and should be in the story should be in the episode and you made it fun and

you still got the information out there, but you did it in a way that was. Not, not so much a downer, maybe, maybe that’s a good way to say it.

Rachel: because why should we talk about stuff like that all the time? And that’s why people end up getting like news fatigue or, you know, they’d rather watch something that’s going to be pure entertainment than something that’s going to teach them something or tell them something, keep them up to date. It so often feels like a downer, but when we’re talking with our friends about these kind of topics, we would talk about it in a very different way.

So why not bring a little bit of that, a touch of humor, just a little touch of lightness sometimes that actually might mean that the topic will stick more in our brains anyway. We might actually absorb it better. Um, and at the end of the day, at the end of the episode, we won’t be severely depressed hopefully.

So

Andi: Yeah, we’ll know something, but we won’t leave feeling heavier, I’m I feel like now I’m just fangirling over podcasts in your show in general. So

Rachel: Carry on, carry on.

Andi: Oh my goodness, yes, I love it

as we’re wrapping up, do you have, I feel like you’ve already given quite a bit of advice, which I love, but do you have one like overall piece of advice that you would give to either a podcaster that’s just starting out or just someone that’s in the podcasting world that’s doing a podcast?

Rachel: I think, um, probably the most important thing at the beginning is to find a niche. And I think it’s something that we hear a lot, and we probably all think that we know it, but actually it’s really easy to get away from that niche quite quickly because you’re trying to appeal to as many people as possible and you think, oh, I could just sort of do this catch all thing.

Um, and maybe you start working on an episode or a topic or something, and it goes off on a tangent and you just follow it. But if you stay true to your niche, then first of it will just help you so much to know who you are as a podcaster podcast is meant to do. You’ll know who your audience is much more automatically.

they’ll find you so much easier and it will just make the whole thing feel rounder. So choose a niche and stick to it. Mm

Andi: And like you said, that’s much easier said than done sometimes, but I think once you have your niche, it’s just easier in general to make episodes because you know your person, so you know how to help them and you know what they, what questions they’re going to ask and like what aspects that they are going to want to know the most about.

So yes, I absolutely love that. And it is a good reminder. For podcasters that have been doing it for a while, go back and be like, okay, who’s my person? Who am I trying to reach? Who am I trying to talk to? Cause sometimes, like you said, it can get away from you. And not like you’re trying to, but you just kind of get in, put your head down and you forget

who the person you’re trying to help.

Rachel: Because you could go in so many different directions, and there are so many people you could talk to, but if you that approach, then you’re less likely to help anybody.

Andi: Yeah. Isn’t that so interesting? I, and it’s sometimes I feel like it’s hard for my brain to wrap around, but yeah, like if you’re trying to help everyone, no, one’s going to find you. So you’re not going to help anyone, but if

you dive right into your person that you are trying to help, you’re going to find lots of those people that are in need of your help.

Rachel: Yep, and when they leave you a review saying how amazing your podcast is and why it’s exactly right for them, then you’ll know you did the right thing.

Andi: Exactly. And it’s just the

best feeling when you get a review like that. You’re like,

Oh yes, thank you. I’m so glad I got to help you. And also thanks for telling me because I feel kind of lonely sometimes podcasting. So,

Rachel: I bet some people think, oh, they never even look at them anyway, but no, all podcasters are just so delighted when they get that kind of feedback because it’s, it’s so different to, for example, social media where you get this immediate feedback. And that’s something I’m quite used to because I used to work in YouTube.

And now on podcasting, it can feel a little bit like, Oh, where is everybody? I’m so glad that there are some more options being added. For example, Spotify, adding the commenting function.

Andi: I know I’m so happy for that and I feel like it’s been a long time coming. I’m really

glad that it’s here now.

Rachel: Yeah. Because we want to hear from people, you know, it should, it’s kind of supposed to be a conversation. You don’t want to just put your podcast out and it drops into the void you, you want to know, you want to get some echo.

Andi: Yeah. And I think what I have learned. front, being in this podcasting world is. Most people that are creating a podcast want to be a part of a community, right? We don’t want it to be a one way thing. we

want, we want to talk at you and then you talk back at us. We want it to be more of a conversation.

Rachel: absolutely. Like if somebody else would suggest topics for us, for example, that we could then go and research, it just feels like it’s all coming full circle and like you said, it’s a community.

Andi: Before I let you go, where can people find you?

Rachel: People can find me personally on Instagram usually, so rachelstuart0404, and you can find Don’t Drink the Milk, as usual, wherever you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify, all podcast catchers, and even on YouTube! We do do a little bit of extra video content, so if you want to see a bit of behind the scenes and get some extra snippets, then just type Don’t Drink the Milk into YouTube and you should find us, because of our weird name.

Andi: Oh my goodness. I love that.

Well, you’re delightful. This has been such a good conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time to hang out with me, give some fabulous advice and talk about the behind the scenes of don’t drink the milk, because it’s a lovely podcast and I’m just grateful you’re creating it.

Rachel: Oh, thank you so much. It’s been, yeah, really fun. The time’s flown by.

Andi: I know that’s kind of my favorite part is I’ll look up and be like, Oh my goodness, okay, we need to wrap up, but I just get lost in the conversation and it’s the best.

Rachel: I think we covered a lot of ground, so it’s good. Yes, for sure.

I told you about all of the nuggets of wisdom. Didn’t I. There are so many things that I wrote down that I’m planning on implementing into my own show from this conversation. Here are the top five takeaways I had from my chat with Rachel. Number one, have a plan for your episode, but be flexible. Which I know is so hard to do sometimes, for Rachel, that was having an outline, having the main ideas and then going to the place and seeing where that led, not all of us have that kind of podcast for me.

What I’ve started to do is I have my questions that I’m planning on asking during an interview or my bullet points that I’m planning on talking about during a solo episode. But if a tangent strikes my fancy, then I take it in the solo episode. Or if my guest says something super interesting, I’ll follow that train of thought, even if it’s not on my list of questions. Because most of the time I’ve noticed that those tangents end up being some of the most interesting content. In that episode.

The second thing I learned from Rachel is to do the uncomfortable thing now for greater results later. This one again, can be super simple.

This can be just making sure that you ask your guests to wear headphones so that your audio quality is the best it can be which I know sounds so silly, but it can be really uncomfortable in the moment.

And there have been times when I felt too uncomfortable and didn’t ask my guests to put on headphones and the audio quality was just not nearly as good as it could have been. So. Do your future self a favor and just do the uncomfortable thing, whatever that is.

The third thing that I learned is to add variety to your show. Rachel did this with her team when she did the wheel of fortune passports edition. She didn’t have to do that. It could have just been like a, Hey, Rachel.

What passport do you think is the best and which one is the worst, but instead they decided to make it a whole mini game show within the episode.

And it was so much more interesting that way. And it definitely held my attention. But I know that you don’t have all day to spend on your podcast and adding variety might sound a little bit time-consuming but it doesn’t have to, your variety could just be asking a new question that you haven’t ever asked a guest before, or it could be adding some fun new music for. Your transition between your intro and your interview.

Adding variety. It doesn’t mean it has to take loads and loads of extra time. It just means changing things up a little bit to make sure that you are having fun with your podcast and your listeners are having fun too. The fourth thing I learned is to be curious. And I think that this comes in many different ways. When you are curious with your guests. I can almost guarantee that the interview that you do is going to be so much better. When you’re curious, you’re more engaged, you’re more excited about whatever they’re talking about. You’re interested.

And when you give off that energy, then your listeners can pick up on that so easily. But you can also be curious with a solo episode you obviously aren’t asking anyone else any questions, but you can talk about something that you work here yes. About, and you did a bunch of research and now you have more information to share with your listeners who are probably curious to, when we stay curious about our podcast and the content within our podcast, it just makes everything a little bit more fun

and at least for me, it helps me too. Avoid being bored of my own show. And the last thing for this list that I learned from Rachel is to stay true to your niche.

I know that we hear this all the time or at least I do.

I hear. Staying true to your niche or niching down more or any combination of those words. A lot from the people that I follow on Instagram, the podcasts that I listened to, all of those things, and I know logically that it’s true but sometimes I forget to check back in and make sure that I am still serving my niche the way that I want to. Um, and I’m not like sliding into a broader niche. I want to make sure that I am serving you my people to the best of my ability and the best way to do that is to first of all, find your niche. That feels obvious, but here we are stating the obvious and then second. Check in with it. I’m going to try and check in. At least once a month to say, okay, is the content that I’m creating still serving my podcasters, who are also moms with littles that are still at home. If it’s not, if I’ve, if I’ve slid into a broader niche, then that gives me the opportunity to come back to my niche and. Serve you the best that I can.

Maybe you can do something similar and just check in, make sure that your content is speaking to your niche, speak to your people so that you can serve them well, and I promise that they are going to tell their friends and you will grow. When you serve them genuinely and thoroughly. Will you share this episode with your podcasting friend? Who’s been in kind of like a podcasting slump. Rachel will help her remember to add some curiosity and variety to her show to reinvigorate it. Next week’s episode is a special episode where I talk about my experience with putting my video episodes on YouTube.

I’m sharing the good, the bad. And the ugly. Thanks for being here and I’ll see you next week.