Resiliency Ninja with Allison Graham

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►Tell us about you and your podcast

Hi. I'm Allison Graham and my podcast is called Resiliency Ninja with Allison Graham!

Everyday you and I face stress, obstacles and adversity to varying degrees, and sometimes it can feel like we're the only one going through challenges. The goal of my podcast is two fold - to uncover the stories behind the success story to make you feel less alone in tough time AND to give you insights and tools to grow your business and your everyday resilience. Also, we'll have a few laughs along the way!

You may be wondering, how did I become the original Resiliency Ninja and why am I so passionate about helping you become more resilient. Well, I built my business teaching people how to network and develop business and the whole time, while I was working with mulitnational companies and looking like everything was rocking in the public eye, I was going through a decade of hell personally. I had a surgery that got botched, several surgeries to try to fix the first, hundreds of doctors appointments, 8 major injuries and a series of people who died very suddenly. The whole time I had to keep a smile on my face and serve my clients as if nothing was wrong. They didn't care that I had chronic nerve pain. They just wanted me to do what they hired me to do. Eventually I decided to come out with my story of resilience in my latest book: Married My Mom, Birthed a Dog: How to Be Resilient When Life Sucks! and shine the light on the fact that we ALL are going through hell at some point - that's life! If you have a story, then this podcast and book are for you because you'll relate. The point of being a Resiliency Ninja is to not let the challenges you face define your outcome. You can still have joy and ultimate success no matter what blows at you!!

►Why & how did you start this podcast? 

I've been a guest on so many podcasts and have the privilege of speaking to audiences about business development and resilience. Eventually, I started longing to hear other people's stories, instead of just sharing mine! When I speak, one of the greatest compliments I get is "that I spoke to their heart" - if I can achieve that with this podcast, then it's worth it.

From decision to launch was less than 6 weeks. We launched with 4 episodes and will launch 2 per week. 1 interview + 1 insights episode.

►How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?

Funding is through my own company - Resiliency Ninja. In terms of the interviews - I just make it work. I don't believe in being "busy", so I just put it in my calendar and it works! It's also a good idea to do a few interviews in advance so you're not scrambling to produce. I've outsourced the editing, adding the intro/extro and first draft of the show notes for the interviews. I do the editing and show notes for my FU-CHAAA Friday insights episodes because they are shorter and I know what I said so it makes it really easy. I also have a social media team that takes care of activation.

►What do you gain from podcasting?        

My #1 goal of podcasting is to raise profile and open doors. I've already met some incredible people thanks to the opportunity to interview others. Long term, I have a lot of clients who may be interested in sponsoring me, but I want to balance that with having the freedom to swear if I choose to. I started two weeks ago and am just at 300 episodes! My goal is to add 3 zeros to that in the next six months. :)

►How does your podcasting process look like? 

We record via Zoom.us. Camtasia to edit the video for FU-CHAAA Fridays (which has both audio and video) and Libsyn to manage distribution. Sound quality I realized was the absolutely most important element of a podcast. Seriously, I turn podcasts off if the sound quality sucks. I use the YETI mic and a Logitech HD camera.

►How do you market your show?

Social media is the main avenue for promotion. I also do a radio show segment each week on traditional radio - so that's a nice plug right out of the gate.

I tried some paid ads to get it rolling, but truthfully, it was a waste of money from what I can tell so far. I'm continually asking friends to participate, but most are not listening to podcasts regularly, so they haven't been a lot of help. What I love the most is when strangers comment / review and send a message saying they love it. My hope is people will share, subscribe and review - and so I ask at the beginning and end of every podcast - and sometimes in the middle too!!

• R-ninja.com/podcast
• http://bit.ly/RN-itunes
• http://bit.ly/RN-Stitcher
• http://bit.ly/RN-google-play

►What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?

If you're in, you're IN. Commit. Consistency is important.

Make sure you are doing it in a way that you LOVE. For example, I had the advice to just do interviews and from someone else to just do solo monologues - and I chose to do both - because I love both.

We also go with "live" for 99% of the shows. We've had a couple small edits - like someone started playing tag outside my office window and caused a lot of noise, so I edited that out. The small hiccups though - the blunders, the odd ah, that's natural. It's not about perfection - perfection is never possible, especially week-after-week.

Also, if you're thinking about it - find someone to outsource the pieces you don't like to! Even if it means you need to trade services if you don't have the money...it's worth it.

The people who helped me launch are the folks at Turnkey Podcasts. Strick, Doug and Danielle - they rock! They know what they're doing and I'm able to use their experience to skip a lot of the learning curve. We met when I was a guest on their podcast: The Nice Guys on Business.

►Where can we learn more about you & your podcasts?

• Website: R-Ninja.com
• Twitter: twitter.com/allisondgraham
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/allisongraham
• Instagram: instagram.com/allisondgraham
• YouTube: youtube.com/user/AllisonDGraham
• Amazon Book (MMM): amzn.to/2kx6dC6 
• Amazon Book (Biz): amzn.to/2ga5w1Z
• Podcasts: R-ninja.com/podcast
• iTune: bit.ly/RN-itunes
• Stitcher: bit.ly/RN-Stitcher
• Google Play: bit.ly/RN-google-play