You've probably heard a hundred times that everyone's attention span is shrinking, and if you believe it, you're about to make a decision about your podcast that I think is completely the wrong one.

This is episode 30 of Getting Heard, and it's me making the case that attention was never really the problem. Something else has changed, and once you see it you stop panicking about how long your episodes should be and start thinking about the thing that actually matters.

I also share the length of the best-performing reels on Instagram right now, which genuinely made me stop, and the one thing I want you to hold onto every single time you sit down to record.

It's five minutes, and it'll change how you look at every piece of content you make.

New Pod Shot every weekday. Come and find me on Instagram and TikTok: @lynsaymakeswaves

Make sure you're on the waitlist for my new Start Your Pod Shot Challenge HERE

How much content could you actually get out of one five-minute podcast episode? Have a guess before you press play, because I reckon you'll be miles off.

I know you keep telling yourself you haven't got time to make all the content you feel like you should be making for every platform. After ten years running a podcast agency and more than 1,000 shows launched, the bit that still gets me is how little has to go in for so much to come out, so in this Pod Shot I do the maths with you, and I make the laziest possible case for starting (and I mean lazy as a compliment).

I share exactly how many pieces of content I've made since starting this experiment from zero, what's already come back into the business from it at barely a quarter of the way through, and one small thing you can do today with a post you've already made, so you can see how this works before you've recorded a single word.

It's five minutes, and it might just change how you think about your week.

Join the waitlist for the Pod Shots Challenge before it closes on 20 September: [waitlist link]

New Pod Shot every weekday, and you can find me on Instagram and TikTok: @lynsaymakeswaves

Joint the Pod Shot Challenge Waitlist HERE

You think your podcast isn't good enough. Or you think it won't be, which is probably why you still haven't started it.

Can I let you off the hook a bit? You're holding up your first few episodes against somebody else's best work, years in, and that was never a fair fight. When you play your show back straight after some big polished one, you're putting your episode 3 next to their episode 300. I've launched upwards of a thousand podcasts, and I watch this stop capable women before they've even recorded a word.

In this episode I tell you where that gap between your show and theirs actually comes from (it's simpler, and more freeing, than you think), why the woman you're making your podcast for isn't comparing you to anyone at all, and the one practical thing I want you to go and do today. It takes less than a minute and it changes how the whole comparison feels.

It's a short one, like always. Press play and let yourself off the hook.

New Pod Shot every weekday. Come and find me on Instagram and TikTok: @lynsaymakeswaves

There's a bit of your podcast that loads of people skip, and I really don't want you doing it when you start yours. It's the part at the end where you tell your listeners what you actually sell, and what you'd like them to do once the episode's finished.

Most people go a bit shy about it. They give away all their best stuff for free, then get icky about the part that pays the bills and mumble it at the end, if they mention it at all. I understand why. But after ten years of this and more than a thousand shows launched, I can tell you it's costing them, and it's almost always women doing it.

In this episode I get into why staying quiet about your offer and your prices isn't classy, it's just making life hard for the people who genuinely want to work with you. I also give you the simple way to ask without feeling that ick, and one thing I want you to write down today and stick somewhere you can't ignore it.

It's five minutes, and it might be the thing that finally gets your podcast earning its keep. Have a listen.

New Pod Shot every weekday. Come and find me on Instagram and TikTok: @lynsaymakeswaves

Join the Pod Shot Challenge waitlist for free HERE

You keep telling yourself you'll start your podcast once you've got a bigger audience. I want to take that apart today, because you've got it the wrong way round, and it's the thing keeping you stuck.

I started both my new accounts from absolute zero, no followers, on purpose, so I could show you from the inside what actually happens when you build a show from nothing. Ten years doing this for other people, and this time I'm doing it in public, warts and all.

In this episode I get into why the podcast is what builds your audience rather than a prize for already having one, why a tiny audience who really listen leaves a big passive one for dust, and the honest truth about chasing download numbers that I want you to make peace with before you record another episode. I also tell you where to see how the first quarter of the whole experiment has actually gone.

Have a listen, it's shorter than the time you'd spend fretting over your follower count.

New Pod Shot every weekday. Come and find me on Instagram and TikTok: @lynsaymakeswaves

Are you waiting to feel ready before you start your podcast? Because if you are, I think you've got the whole thing the wrong way round.

I've spent this week on Getting Heard talking about why you've been staying quiet, and this episode asks the one question that's left: what is it you're actually waiting for, and is it ever coming? I've launched more than 1,000 podcasts over ten years, and I'll be honest, I didn't feel ready for my very first one either.

I share one of the first questions I ask every client in our strategy sessions, and what the women who actually launch do differently (they aren't braver than you, before you ask).

There's a small job for you at the end, and you can have it done before the weekend's out. If you'd like a hand with the rest, the waitlist for my Pod Shots Challenge is open now: [waitlist link]

New Pod Shot every weekday. Come and say hello on Instagram and TikTok: @lynsaymakeswaves

When you press play on your own recording, do you cringe? Not a little wince, a proper full-body cringe at the sound of your own voice?

If you do, you're in very good company, and it might be the real reason you still haven't started the podcast you keep meaning to start. In over ten years of recording women, I've heard "I hate the sound of my voice" more than almost anything else, and it's hardly ever actually about how you sound.

In this episode I get into why your own voice sounds so wrong to you, where that cringe really comes from (it goes back a lot further than you'd think, and it's got very little to do with how you actually sound), and the one thing your listener is hearing instead, that you'd never guess. There's also a one-minute job to do today that'll prove the whole thing to you.

Give it a listen, it's shorter than the voice note you're too scared to send.

New Pod Shot every weekday. Come and find me on Instagram and TikTok: @lynsaymakeswaves

Have you decided there's no room for your podcast because everyone is already talking about your thing? That there are enough podcasts about your topic already and you'd only be adding to the noise?

I'm going to take that excuse off you. I've launched over 1,000 podcasts in the last ten years and I have never once seen somebody win because they said a thing nobody had ever said before. That is not how any of it works, and it's not what your ideal listener is deciding on either.

In this episode I go through why nobody is buying from you for your original thought, what she's actually building with you every time she hears your voice, and the number of touch points it now takes before somebody trusts you enough to spend money with you. That number surprises most people, and it completely changes what your job is. I also give you a 60 second thing to do today with nothing but your phone.

Five minutes, and you'll stop calling it saturated.

New Pod Shot every weekday. Come and find me on Instagram and TikTok: @lynsaymakeswaves

Next time you put a podcast on, have a proper look at who the guests are. Once you start counting, you can't stop, and it tells you something a bit uncomfortable about whose turn it actually is to talk.

This one's me working out loud on something I've been saying for years without fully understanding it myself. Ten years running a podcast agency, and it took me until this week to properly clock the pattern that was hiding in plain sight. Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it.

I share the number I worked out that genuinely stopped me in my tracks, why starting your own podcast was never only about your voice, and the one small thing I want you to do today before you talk yourself out of it again.

It'll take you less time than the scroll you were about to do instead. Go on, press play.

New Pod Shot every weekday. Come and find me over on Instagram and TikTok: @lynsaymakeswaves

I put a post out this weekend, just me saying if I wanted to silence a whole generation of women, this is how I'd do it, and it went off. More messages and shares than anything I've ever posted. So I turned it into today's episode.

Because this is what I actually think. You keep telling yourself you haven't started your podcast because you're too busy, and I don't buy it. I think you were trained your whole life to be seen and not heard, and I think it's the real reason you keep not pressing record.

In this one I walk through where that training comes from and how it followed you from the classroom into the boardroom, the way you still make yourself smaller in the tiniest things without noticing, and the one number about who hosts the biggest podcasts that genuinely winds me up. And then why you starting isn't self-indulgent at all, it's the whole point.

Have a listen, and do the little thing I set you at the end, it's uncomfortable in a good way. New Pod Shot every weekday. Come and find me on Instagram and TikTok: @lynsaymakeswaves

Get on the waitlist for my ‘Start Your Pod Shot Challenge’ here

https://site.wavemakersaudio.com/pod-shot-challenge-waitlist