Podcasting for Latina CEOs with Podcast Coach Heidy De La Cruz

Simple Solo Podcast Workflow: Stop Winging Your Podcast Episodes - Ep. 29

• Heidy De La Cruz • Episode 29

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 12:32

Send us Fan Mail

The only way you’ll be able to podcast consistently for the long haul is by creating a workflow to organize and plan your podcast episodes. You cannot “just wing it” when it comes to podcasting because you’ll burn out and quit before you see any real results. 

Today, I am sharing the workflow that I use to plan my solo episodes for this podcast. It’s what works for me, my schedule, and my brain. 


💬 In This Episode, You'll Learn:

  • You need to create a system that works for you. 
  • The system I use for both blogging and podcast episodes. 
  • Why content organization is crucial for podcasting success.  


🔥 Key Takeaways:

  • Create a workflow that makes sense for your brain. Don’t force it. 
  • Get podcast topic ideas from everyday experiences, client wins, or social media discussions. 
  • You can use project management apps like Trello, Asana, or Click-Up to stay organized.  

📌 Resources Mentioned:

✨ Connect with Heidy:

P.S. Do you know what is actually holding you back from starting your podcast? Take the quiz and find out! 

🎧 If this episode inspired you, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow Latina ready to start her own podcast.


SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Podcasting for Latina CEOs, the go-to podcast for passionpreneurs Latinas ready to launch and grow their online businesses and own their voice with podcasting. I'm Heidi de la Cruz, writer, two-time award-winning podcaster, and podcast launch coach on a mission to help you build a life of freedom, wealth, and impact by turning your ideas into income. If you're a Latina ready to break generational cycles and create your own table, this show is for you. Let's build our dreams on this. And today I want to share with you my process for planning solo podcast episodes. So for planning episodes for this podcast. Now, if you're new here, this is actually my second podcast where I share all my podcasting tips on how to start, how to grow, how to set up systems, how to monetize, all the things. And I actually have another podcast called The American Dream in the Eyes of Immigrants, where I do interviews. So I am going to share with you my process and how I plan solo episodes for this podcast. Um, so to give you an idea of what it takes to plan it, outline it, record it, publish it, all the things, right? But before I get into my process, I do want to share with you that I am hosting a live webinar on how to start a podcast on June 30th, 7 p.m. via Zoom. And I am going to include the link to register in the show notes. And I am going to teach you live how to start a podcast. I'm going to talk about all the things that it takes to start a podcast. I'm going to talk about equipment, gonna talk about podcast SEO, gonna talk about hosting sites, going to talk about how to market your podcast, going to talk about audio podcast versus video podcasts, and there's gonna be time for Q ⁇ A so you have the chance to ask me questions live at the webinar. Again, Tuesday, June 30th at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. The link to register is in the show notes and in the show description. All right, and let's get into my process for planning solo podcast episodes. Now, it's funny because I am part of the Latinas in podcasting group or community, and the host was actually asking us like, what is our process or how do we organize our episodes? How do we plan it? And to me, my process is super simple, but apparently my process is not super simple because other people were saying like that they only use one app or one tool or whatever to like organize or whatever, and come to find out that I use a couple. So again, I'm gonna get into it, but just a disclaimer that again, this is the process that works for me. You have to be able to find a process that works for you. So if you do want to use just one app where you organize everything, like ClickUp or Notions or Trello or Asana, Basecamp, anything like that. If there's anything like that that you want to use that is going to help you just stay organized, then use that. You just have to find a flow that works for you. And this is a process that works for me. I've seen a lot of talk online about all these different apps, these organization apps, these project management apps, and how some people have mentioned that they are not able to use some of them. So, like some people are not able to use Notions, some people are not able to use ClickUp because of how their brain processes information. So, this is something very important that you may need to try different apps and see which one works for you. So, I'm just gonna share my process because this is what works for me. And having an organization process is what's going to help you stay consistent with podcasting. Okay. So, first things first, I have been blogging about podcasting for over three years now. So I have archives of blog posts that I've actually have been using as my outline to share these podcast episodes with you. So, pretty much the same process that I use to organize my blog post is the same process that I use to organize my solo podcast episodes. So, a lot of times I will be on threads or I will be listening to a podcast, or I'll have an experience, something happened with a client, anything like that will spark up a topic of discussion for podcasting. And I will put it in my notes app. So I have a folder in my notes app in my phone that has all my podcasting topic ideas and like things that I can dig deeper into. And then, and yeah. So once a month, I will go into my Trello board. So I do use Trello to keep my content organized, and then I have different boards for I have one for blog posts, I have one for podcast episodes, for both podcasts, then I have one for my Substack, I have one for Medium because I write on there as well. And then I have one for my newsletter that I sent out every Wednesday. And then I have one, like I said, for both for both podcasts, and then I have one for blog posts, right? So once a month, I sit down, usually towards the end of the month, I sit down and plan content for the following month. So content for both of my podcasts, for in my blog posts, and my newsletters. And so I will go into my notes app on my phone and see what ideas I have written down that have come to me randomly, and then see which ones I want to dig deeper into in those months, in the following month, right? So once I remove that idea from my phone, I will put it on Trello. And then again, I'll remove it from my phone so I don't have duplicate topics or anything like that. Put it on Trello, and then within the Trello board, each card actually has a checklist to keep me on track of like, you know, the the pretty much the podcasting cycle, which is another episode. So it's like, you know, the topic idea, research or outline the episode, and then you record it, then you edit it, then you publish it, write the blog posts, and things like that. So I have a checklist of everything that I need to do to make sure that I stay on track with my podcast episode. So once that's on Trello and it comes time to create the content or to record the episode, I will either, if I have a blog post already written for it, I will use the blog post as an outline. Or if I haven't written a blog post for it and it's, you know, an idea or topic that again I haven't blogged about, I will actually use Chat GPT to help me outline the episode. So what I do is I'll go to ChatGPT and tell her, like, hey, this is the podcast topic that I want to talk about. This is a scenario, this is my experience, help me outline the episode. And so it'll give me, it'll outline it, it'll give me like, you know, the main points in the beginning, the points I want to get to, sharing my experience, client to someone, whatever, and then I'll go from there. Once I have the podcast outlined, I make sure that I have a strong call to action at the end of each episode. So if you've been here for a while, then you notice that I end each episode with a call to action, whether it is to look at the resources for starting a podcast, whether it is to sign up for my email list so you can get more podcasting tips every Wednesday, or like for today, sign up for the webinar to learn how to start your podcast. So making sure that you have a strong call to action at the end of each episode is super, super important. And then once I have the episode outlined, then I record. I have been recording on Riverside, and so when I have my what I like about Riverside is that I can have my notes or my blog open while I record. So I'll stay on task because one of the worst things that I've seen people complain about when they're listening to the podcast episode is that the podcast goes, goes on a tangent or a rant that has nothing to do with the topic at hand. So we definitely want to make sure that we are outlining, going by our outline to stay on track, right? Next is recording, right? Like I said, record on solo on Riverside, and then after that, I edit the episode, and then I will use Whisper Transcribe to get the transcription. It helps me summarize um the episode for the show notes. So I make sure I get that written, and then next thing you know, it's just scheduling and uploading to the hosting site, which I use Buzzsprout, and then that's it. And then the episode is published, and then the process starts all over again. So again, I get many, there's different areas where I get inspiration to share these podcast episodes, but this is my process that I use to plan my solo podcast episodes um because it's completely different than when you're doing an interview and you're prepping for an interview. Hmm, I could probably do an episode for that as well. Because I do both. I do the solo and I do the the interview ones. So see, now I just got an idea for another podcast episode. So I'm gonna write this down on my phone note, the notes in my phone, and I will probably do an episode on how I prep for interviews, and I don't think I've written a blog post on that either. So there you go. Okay, so that is my system. I use my phone to capture ideas, I use Trello to organize and plan content a month in advance. Then I go ahead, if I don't have a blog post for it, then I go ahead and use Chat GBT to help me outline, stay on track, then I record it, then I edit, do all the things, publish it, and then remove it from Trello and remove from my notes app so I don't duplicate content. And that is my workflow. Again, that is something that you can use if you are if that helps you stay organized or just find a system that works for you, for your brain, and and one that you know that you will be able to sustain. Um, again, some people use clickup, some people use Trello, like I do, some people use um Notions and they and they just have their whole podcast process in there. So you can just use one app. Um, I do like to use Google, like I've I mentioned in the episode about systems. I use Google a lot. So, like for the forms and for Google Docs to for to write the show notes and the outlines and things like that. And then I also use Google um Sheets to organize to like keep my episodes in order of like what I'm gonna talk about, um, in addition to Trello. So again, I I know I use various different apps, it's a system that works for me. So, really what I want to emphasize is find a workflow that works for you, and that will help you stay consistent, that will help you be like podcast for long term, right? Because that's that's the main goal is for you to podcast long term. Okay, I am done. All right, so thank you once again for tuning in to another episode of Podcasting for Latina CEOs. Again, I am your host and your coach, Heidi de la Cruz. And sign up for the webinar again. That is June 30th at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. I'm gonna be talking about all things podcasting, gonna answer your questions live. And the link to register for the webinar is in the show notes. And again, always remember that you can utilize the text option to send me any questions that you may have. And yeah, that's it. Thank you so much for being here. Con mucho amor, Coach Heidi. Thank you for listening to Mami Bacas.