As the host of The Real Bottom Line podcast, I recently celebrated reaching the milestone of 100 episodes. I am still in awe of the fact that I am at this level – and that got me thinking… What were the factors that kept me going the past 2 years?  I didn’t start out visualizing that I would get to this point.  Now, it is just part of my work stream – to find fascinating Entrepreneurs who will let me tell their story.

Here are the 5 success factors that I believe have fueled and guided me on this road to 100 episodes.

Curiosity: 

From the beginning, I was genuinely interested in exploring the various topics related to my niche. I wanted to pull the stories out of my guests, and ask questions that sparked and helped me create content that was engaging, relevant, and informative for my listeners.

Flexibility: 

I quickly realized flexibility with recording was key to keeping my podcast sustainable. This showed up in a couple of ways – the most significant being the way in which I conducted guest interviews.  To keep things from sounding too stuffy, I ditched the scripts and went with the flow.  I wanted the freedom to explore and go deeper on some of the things my guests brought up, which might have been missed if I was focused on following a pre-determined script.  When I first started, we were recording on Zoom in front of a live audience, which meant we had to stick to strict interview times. As fun as that was, after 40 episodes we moved on from the live audience structure and started inviting guests to schedule an interview time that worked for them. This allowed us to offer a larger selection of interview dates and times, which in turn widened our potential guest pool.

Team: 

Right from the beginning, I knew that I would not be able to take care of all the background details myself, so I enlisted the help of a producer and editor to take some of the workload off my shoulders. This allowed me to focus on creating high-quality content while ensuring that the production process ran smoothly. The team also works hard at keeping me on track for the tasks that I’m responsible for, so they play a big part in keeping things moving along! 

Experimentation: 

Trying new things was a key factor in keeping my podcast fresh and exciting. I experimented with different formats, guests, and topics to keep my listeners engaged. Aside from the live audience format that we started with, we also experimented with a few roundtables with multiple guests, started the Financial Besties series, and recorded some solo episodes (an area for me to improve!) The 100th episode was the first one we did with my co-host and I in the same room.  This experimentation also helped me learn what worked and what didn't, allowing me to adjust and improve along the way.

Automation: 

Finally, I learned that automation was a great way to save time and streamline my workflow. My team automated scheduling guest interviews, gathering required information for the interview, and sending out the info for promoting the finished episode.  By automating the predictable parts of the process, I could turn my focus elsewhere as I knew that the necessary tasks were being completed. 

So, here’s to the next 100 episodes!  And to the new lessons I will learn from my guests, the ideas I will be able to try, and the stories I will get to share.