Stories of what happens after your world has been flipped upside down.
"Don't let the things you don't know stop you from doing it."
Today Jen & Tesha, the creators of The Now What Pod share their story of making the relationships podcast.
► Tell us about you and your podcast
We met as new moms in 2013 and became fast friends. About a year apart in 2018 and 2019, we each went through traumatic, life changing experiences. Tesha with a cancer diagnosis and Jen with the sudden death of her husband. Through those traumas, we became much closer and realized just how much we were able to rely on each other as people who were living with and growing through trauma. Then when we decided to start the show, at our weekly breakfasts over coffee. It wasn't until the fall of 2020 that we decided to go for it and put out a show where people like us, people who had been through fire and managed to keep going, could find a safe space to share their story. Our listeners are mostly women, who are looking to find connection and commonality in the stories we share.
► Why & how did you start this podcast?
We initially talked about a blog and then realized we both listened to podcasts and as a format, suits busy women like us. Something you can listen to while doing other things. Along with wanting the show to serve the people sharing we also wanted it to educate our listeners on how to be better support people, since we both came across our fair share of people who got it horrible wrong in our traumas. With an overall goal of creating community and a more empathetic and trauma-informed world. We began production in January 2021, recorded our first episode at the end of February 2021, with our first episode launching in April 2021.
► How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?
When we are in season we release an episode every week. In our first year we aired for 35 weeks straight, but in year 2 we tend to average about a 10 week season with breaks built in in between each ten week run, including taking the summer off. We will have completed 3 seasons in 2022 and a total of 4 season overall.
We make the time, we reserve one night a week to record and rarely deviate from that, the boundaries on our time are important for being consistent with the show while also not burning out.
The podcast is self funded and costs approximately $450 annually in hosting and software.
► What do you gain from podcasting?
We are currently not sponsored but have created our own podcasting network, called Women in Progress Media which we plan to use as a means of attracting sponsors and explore more funding opportunities.
We are slowly growing a following on Patreon as well but not enough to offset the cost of the show yet.
Podcasting has benefitted us in giving us the opportunity the have real and raw conversations, especially in the isolation of the early pandemic. It has allowed us to meet people and create community all over the world and allowed us to make meaning through our own traumas.
► How does your podcasting process look like?
We use Zoom to record, with condenser mics and standard apple earbuds.
Jen does all of the editing using a combination of Descript and GarageBand.
Tesha is in charge of most of our guest reach out and communication. We decide what kinds of topics we want to cover and then she combs social media for people who are talking about those things or we ask some we might know to share their story as well. We also take requests for folks to be on the show.
After Jen edits an episode she passes it on to Tesha who listens for quality and to generate the show notes. She then does all the promo on Instagram, while Jen takes care of TikTok and we both create the different art and graphics shared to promote the show.
► How do you market your show?
Our show is on all listening platforms we have been able to put it on through our platform, Podbean, including You Tube. Approx 60% of our listeners come from Apple Podcasts.
We find Instagram to be the most useful in promotion, but we push Instagram posts to Facebook and Twitter. And are working to grow on TikTok, but have a tough time finding the time for it.
► What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?
Just start recording. Don't let the things you don't know stop you from doing it. If you can, do it with a parter who you are comfortable with and who you can speak frankly and honestly with about the division of labour for the show. You know more than you think and it's all stuff you can learn
Don't be afraid to make big asks, the asks you don't think you'll get a response from. We have gotten so many yeses from guests we expected to say no or not hear back from.
Most of our resources are other podcasters that we have met on our journey. Connect with fellow creators as soon as you can, it's how we discovered Descript and Podbean.
► Where can we learn more about you & your podcasts?
Here's our list of links
nowwhatpod.com
instagram.com/thenowwhatpod
facebook.com/thenowwhatpod
tiktok.com/@thenowwhatpod
patreon.com/nowwhatpod
buymeacoffee.com/nowwhatpod
For more on Jen instagram.com/jen_hoffmeister_
For more on Tesha instagram.com/simplyovercome