Caroline Szellemes McCullough

Author, Innovator, Creator

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We Are Podcast Summit: The recap on Australia’s first podcasting summit

wearepodcast fun Day 1

Over the weekend, November 7 to 8, I attended the first ever podcasting summit in Australia. We Are Podcast was the brainchild of Podcaster and Chef Ronsley Vaz. Ronsley’s podcast, Bond Appetit is one of the most popular food podcasts in Australia and he now also has the podcast, Podcast Revolution and a membership community for people who want to learn how to podcast.

The event was excellent and content rich, so I thought I’d take a few minutes to share what I learned over the weekend.

Ronsley Vaz

ronsley vaz

The first speaker was Ronsley himself. Ronsley talked about the importance of knowing your “Why” and defining your purpose. Ronsley shared a process for defining your highest values and kicking off your personal launch sequence.

Andrew Griffiths

Next up was Andrew Griffiths who had the audience furiously scribbling throughout his session on storytelling. Andrew is a rockstar speaker and he encouraged us not to be afraid to share our opinions. The one big takeaway for me from Andrew’s talk was to treat the show as if it isn’t my show but the audience’s. When you think of your show as theirs and not yours, it changes your entire perspective and you feel a sense of responsibility to give the audience what they want and need, including their stories.

Robert Gerrish

The third speaker was Robert Gerrish from Flying Solo. It was my first time meeting Robert and it was awesome to hear the Flying Solo story.

A great quote that he shared was this one from Seth Godin… “Most people, most of the time are saying virtually nothing…. they’re speaking not speaking up.”

Petra Jones

Next up was a Case Study by Petra Jones. Petra is brand new to podcasting. She shared her journey thus far and the opportunities that have come her way as a result of starting her podcast. The biggest takeaway for me from Petra’s talk was that you can submit your feed to more than one category in iTunes. I later found out that Soundcloud doesn’t enable you to do that, but found a workaround using Feedburner. Thanks Petra!

Tim Reid

timbo reid

Tim Reid is an Aussie podcasting icon and he rocked it at We Are Podcast. I love attending a conference where the speakers have a no BS style. That’s the beauty of a purely Aussie incarnation in my opinion. From Ronsley’s football jersey to Tim Reid’s F-bombs, it was the perfect way to celebrate podcasting in Australia. F-bombs asides, Timbo did drop some other nuggets. Tim talked about different podcasting formats and how to be exceptional as a podcaster. For me the standout was the question: Do you want to have an opinion or be a journalist, which married really well with what Robert Gerrish had to say.


Valerie Khoo

I always enjoy listening to Valerie. She’s such an amazing person but it was really great to hear about some of her podcasting experiments that didn’t pan out so well. It made me feel better about my own experiments. Valerie encouraged attendees to think beyond the numbers and that was a consistent theme throughout the event. [tweetherder]It’s not about how many downloads you get. [/tweetherder] If you get heaps of downloads but you don’t have strong audience engagement, there’s not a lot of point to that. Valerie encouraged us to define our goals. She also encouraged us to give some love back to people we’ve had on our shows. She talked about how she managed to get Seth Godin to say yes to being on the cover of her book Power Stories and how important it is to consider what is going to make them say “yes”.

Drew Kruck

The next case study was Drew Kruck. This guy is a fireball. His podcast concept is to interview local Gold Coasters about their unique stories and it has just gone off! In his first 100 episodes, Drew become a local celebrity and attracted a sponsor. I couldn’t believe this was Drew’s first ever presentation. He is a natural performer and I’m sure will be speaking at many events in the future.


Adam Houlahan

adam houlahan

Adam is a dynamo at LinkedIn marketing and in this presentation he talked about how to leverage your podcast through LinkedIn. The biggest tip that I took away from Adam’s presentation was that you can and should have multiple summaries that you change up depending on what you are promoting. Awesome tip dude! I had never thought of doing that before.

Trevor Young

Trevor is one of my favourite Aussie Content Marketing peers and he brought home the importance of news-jacking and hooking in to your influencers. What he calls hybrid media I call mediators but it was really interesting to see his take on what I teach every day–Like minds and all that. The biggest takeaway from Trevor’s talk was how to be omnipresent and how utilising all your paid and unpaid media is essential to being seen, heard and noticed.


James Tuckerman

james tuckerman

One of the highlights for me was getting to know James a bit better. He’s a fun, generous guy who has so much information packed in that brain of his that he can’t help but share it. James’s presentation was so fast and furious, I will definitely be going back to the recording. He talked about how to multiply your content into at least 20 pieces from every podcast so you can monetize your content and create more value out of it. This was repurposing strategy on steroids! A small but very useful tip that James shared was to click your fingers three times where you want your editor to edit something. A genius tip to save time on production.

Adam Franklin

adam franklin

Up next was the gorgeous Adam Franklin. Adam is honestly one of the most generous, kind people I know. He’s one of my favourite people and I’m lucky to call him a good mate. Funnily, it was my first time seeing him speak and I was blown away. A different style to the Timbo Reids and James Tuckermans but his practical email marketing and influencer outreach tips packed a punch.

Mel Telicican

The third Case Study for the day was Mel Telicican from the Customer Centric Coach podcast. Mel outlined her success strategy and how she leveraged New and Noteworthy to achieve 10,000 downloads in her first three months of podcasting.

Nathan Chan

nathan chan

OMG. this guy is an absolute goldmine of information. Nathan Chan has built one of the most successful media enterprises in the world, Foundr Magazine, through sheer gumption and tenacity. He has more than 100K subscribers on his mailing list for Foundr Magazine and he has interviewed the biggest names in the world including Richard Branson and Seth Godin. Nathan shared so many practical tips on how to invite influencers onto your show and how to leverage Instagram that I had about 5 pages of notes just from his presentation. His talk was definitely the highlight of the entire event for me and the best part is that I get to hear him again in Cebu next March because he’s also speaking at Tropical Think Tank 2016.

Day 2

On Day 2 I was lucky to attend the Mastermind sessions with speakers in the morning. It was a terrific session and I came away with a bit more of a plan for my podcasts. I currently have two but one is struggling a bit. Huge thanks to Trevor Young who suggested I do a half day of episodes for that podcast to get it moving again and also for the suggestion of taking content straight out of my book. That was a massive face palm moment to be honest.

Also thanks to Robert Gerrish, Adam Houlahan, Drew Kruck, Nathan Chan and James Tuckerman who gave me their two cents worth on my newest project and how I can transition into it from what I’m doing now (more on that coming soon).

 

Phil McGregor

phil mcgregor

Back in the main room after the Mastermind session, we heard from Phil McGregor. Phil is one of my closest friends and colleagues, and I am so happy for what he’s achieved in the past 18 months in the world of Facebook Ads. In his talk, Phil laid out how to leverage Facebook Ads. The biggest takeaway was to ensure you have your Website Pixel planted on your website because you can’t go backwards in time. A website pixel is a little piece of code that Facebook gives you to place within your website header. I recently wrote a detailed article about this on the Australian Businesswomen’s Network blog. You can read that here. On WordPress it’s really easy to do that through a plugin Phil’s team has developed. Phil also cautioned that the time is now to do Facebook Ads, before everyone is doing them and they get too expensive. On a side note, using Facebook Ads to promote my podcast was one of my key strategies when I launched. As a result my podcast, Your Brilliant Un-Career, was in the top 5 to 10 of New and Notable in Marketing and Management (Australia) for the whole three months. The show now ranks in the top 100 of Marketing and Management in Australia most weeks.

Warwick Bidwell

warwick bidwell

Last up was Warwick Bidwell, from the Tradies Business Show and Throw Buddha on the Barbie. Warwick talked about the importance of outsourcing. My biggest takeaway from Warwick’s talk was when he started talking about human saboteurs. I think my go to saboteur is the “I know” but Phil, who was sitting next to me, disagreed. He thought I was a “prostitute.” hmmmm. Just because you’re a prostitute Phil, doesn’t mean I am one. LOL!

Another highlight of the event for me was catching up with some awesome friends and clients. I am so overjoyed that some of my clients have embraced the idea of podcasting! It’s such a valuable medium and one that can add so much value to relationships and your business.

The We Are Podcast event was a mammoth success and Ronsley, Michaela and team should be so so proud. I can’t wait for next year!

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