300. BTS of That Voice Podcast

Seven years and 300 episodes later, we're celebrating this huge milestone by taking you behind the scenes of That Voice Podcast. I share how the show has evolved, what keeps me consistent, how I choose guests, the realities of editing and production, and what's next for the podcast.

If you've been listening since the early days - or this is your very first episode - thank you for being part of the journey. If you enjoy the podcast, I'd love to hear from you. Send me a DM and let me know what topics you'd love to hear next!

Transcript

Yay!! Welcome to a huge episode of That Voice Podcast – episode 300!

The first episode of this podcast was published 7 years ago, and if you have been with me since those early days please DM me I want to personally thank you for supporting the podcast.

To celebrate 300 episodes I thought I’d take you Behind The Scenes of the podcast, do a bit of a look back,  what’s changed, what hasn’t changed, I’m answering some frequently asked questions like how do I stay consistent, how do I choose guests, who helps me and I’ll share some exciting plans for the future of That Voice Podcast.

Before we get into it there are two things you need to be aware of as a listener of That Voice Podcast.

If you’ve been thinking about joining Soul Speakers, this is my group program where you learn how to become a confident speaker, a great communicator… if you join before August 25th 2026, it includes a free 60 minute 1;1 valued at more than the entire cost of the program. So get on it.

If you are at the stage where you are also teaching others how to become a confident speaker, you might be a coach, a faciliator, any sort of leader, then join The Certified Voiceprint Leader program. It’s 8 weeks, we start in October and it’s number limited.

All those links are in the show notes.

And as a podcast BTS, I realise that if you are listening to this episode into the future these mentions might be really out of date. And it was something I considered when creating this podcast, how do I make it evergreen. But I decided you know. It’s a moment in time, and I did have one person reach out and ask about joining Members Only, which was the membership program I had before Soul Speakers and I just explained it had been retired and this was the new offering. I thought it was better to be current and changing than timeless and evergreen – and that was a production choice with the podcast.

Just like I’ve decided to make it audio only. I do record on zoom. So we have the video, but when it comes to editing etc audio is easier and for my solo eps I can do them late at night in the dark in my pj’s and that decision has been one of the main reaons I’ve been able to remain consistent with it.

Everyone makes their own choices about podcasting, in my experience people who have paid for a studio, or needed it to be properly filmed, and they’re not a large scale production… it doesn’t last for the long term. The more barriers you put in the way of podcasting, the lower chance you’ll keep it for the long run. And podcasting isn’t for everyone. If you only want the results and you don’t enjoy the process of creating a podcast I wouldn’t do it.

I’m an auditory person, who’s pretty nifty on the editing software, I used to be a TV journo we had to do a basic edit of our stories and in radio I was constantly clipping things up.

 Now in saying that, I’m going to be honest. HOW long does it take me to edit an episode. Now solo episodes are  a lot faster. For two reasons, they’re usually shorter and I write a rough script, which means I can be a one take wonder, which is an easy edit – and it’s up.

With a guest, depending on how much they um, ah, repeat themselves, how long we caht for, it can take up to 4 hours to get a guest ep in the bag. I like to go through and relisten to all of it. And that’s my choice. I was on Candice Haervey’s podcast  few weeks ago. She is amazing follow her and she said, I do the into we chat, it gets cut at the atart and the end and up it goes, as is.

A lot of podcasts start each episode with a little teaser from the guest. I love that, but it added to the work flow, so I keep the intro, outro and music the same I just record the intro after our chat and put a little SWOOOSH in between by intro and our recording conversation. The intro and outro have changed a few times, the artwork has changed a few times, the music is the same since episode one

Now if you’re a podcaster or thiking about it and want to ask any technical questions, voice note me on socials I’m more than happy to help. No gatekeeping. I do do an awdul lot on my own, I have a wonerful VA who helps with the transcript, I had the beautiful Mariah MacInnes who helped with the podcast Instagram we started. I’ve since taken that back over.

You know I started off hosting my podcast on Whooska, but then that closed down so I moved to Kajabi because I have my courses and emails there,  I also recorded on Squadcast but that’s been absorbed into Descript and I don’t love descript so I’ve been recording on Zoom, bu I have noticed the audio quality isn’t as good. So even 300 episodes in I’m still working things out.

A lot of things have changed over the time.

For a lot of the early episodes I always asked could you do your job if you lost your voice and I featured people from different professions about what their voice meant to them.

It evolved more into a helpful resource for tips on how to use your voice.

One of the best things about having a podcast is you have a reason to reach out to people you want to connect with and meet. Hello, I’d love to havr you on my podcast, is a much nicer invitation than hey can we meet for a virtual coffee, I love what you do. And the guests I’ve met have been AMAZING.

I want to shout out of couple of That Voice Podcast alumni who are particularly killing it.

First of all Shade Zahrai from episode 44: The five inner critics .. who is now Dr Shade Zahrai, a global bestselling author who had been on the Mel Robbins podcast, so absolute superstar.

We had Piper Phillips in episode 187 – How to be a People-Person and network like a pro and Piper is an amazing musician who has released music on Spotify, she’s amazing.

Annelise McCarthy of course who ran Australia’s first female led communication national tour.

Astrid Jorgensen – ep 148 The healing power of pub choir..

And my first ever guest Kendall Gilding episode 2 – Take it from a newsreader your voice matters. And Kendall is now running her own successful business Mcing, hosting, running a communication course too.

I’m so grateful for all the guests I’ve had on That Voice Podcast and if you’re thinking of pitching to be on the podcast here’s what to know…

The first thing is the vast majority of people I seek out and ask.

If you send a pitch personally from you – personally to me I promise I’ll take a look.

Anyone who has someone pitching on their behalf, PR or VA or anything like that is an automatic no from me.

Now what’s the future of That Voice Podcast, well in a few weeks I’ll be taking an extended break. I’ve taken consistent four week breaks from episodes, but this is longer as I am off to walk the Camino de Santiago in Spain, before I go I’ll do an episode more detailed about the walk.  I considered getting episodes in the bag to play while I’m away, but it’s not going to happen and you can keep up with my current adventures on Instagram and tiktoik mainly.

But that’s in a few weeks, there’s a few more episodes before I go. And then when I come back my plan for the podcast is do more solo eps than guests as they are faster for me, but I’ll be working on getting some more feedback on what you want to hear about. I haven’t had a apple review on the podcast for over 2 years, no one really comments on the social media posts, I’m not really getting many messages about the podcast. I can see from the stats people are listening, so if you have enjoyed this podcast, please send me a message, so I can provide the kind of content you’re after.

People often DM me about my book Voiceprint which is nice, but the podcast not so much.

In saying that, no plans to close it down. Can’t promise another 300 episodes, but you never know.