Trench Leadership: A Podcast From the Front

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► Tell us about you and your podcast

I host a leadership podcast called Trench Leadership: A Podcast From the Front. The show is designed to help new and emerging leaders from all professions be the very best they want to be.
I try to give the listeners tools to help them succeed by having guests and solo sessions that offer practical and realistic advice, backed by real-world examples and hard data.
I saw your offer to be a podcast guest and I am intrigued with your topic of people taking you seriously. This feels like a theme that emerging leaders would experience, especially if they are more junior to their counterparts and subordinates/direct reports.
For the podcast, I haven’t launched my show yet; however, I am shooting for a mid-July release. I have the majority of my Season One episodes (16 in total) recorded and rough edited. My producer just moved into his dream home so I am waiting for him to get settled in and add the finishing touches.
I live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and I recently retired from the Royal Canadian Air Force after 26 years of service. I am now working as an administrator to pay the bills and help pay for my 19-year-old daughter’s university education. This job is a means to allow me to follow various passions that would otherwise have been a ‘someday’ instead of ‘now’.
I have completed a Master of Arts in Leadership from Royal Roads University, a transformational two-year journey (but that’s a story for another time).

► Why & how did you start this podcast? 

Q: Why podcast?
A: I started listening to leadership podcasts to help me try and better understand leadership from many different perspectives.
Q: What were your initial goals & motivations of doing a podcast?
A: As I listened to more and more leadership podcasts, I started to realize that emerging leaders, the largest group of 'true' leaders, the ones who are in the trenches, getting dirty, making choices, enacting decisions from above, were not being represented. I saw and heard very little practical advice to help emerging leaders as they navigated along their leadership journey. In short, my motivation is to help emerging leaders.
Q: When did you start your podcast?
A: I really started the podcast production in January 2020, but the official launch wasn't until 12 July.
Q: How long did it take you to release your very first episode?
A: It took me seven months to release my first 'real' episode. The reason for this was because my show is in a seasonal format and I have been working to get Season One completed before I launched, and I almost made it, just two more shows to edit, :)

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

Q: How frequent do you release an episode?
A: My show is a weekly format, with the episodes being released on Monday mornings at 1230 AM.
Q: How long does it take for you to produce an episode?
A: All told, I estimate that a 45 minute episode takes 3-4 hours to produce the final content.
Q: How'd you find time to do a podcast if you have a day job?
A: It was hard at first, but as I've gained experience with editing and recording, I'm finding that I have enough time to create the content and maintain a full-time job.
Q: How much do you spend for podcasting? I spend approximately $500 a year in subscription fees to things like Zoom Pro, the RSS feed company, a web-site, etc. I have incurred about $500 for one-time fees for items like a good (great) microphone, some cables, etc.
Q: Do you fund this yourself?
A: Yes. I don't have any plans to look for sponsorship. If the content is strong, sponsors will want me and approach me to help represent their brand.

► What do you gain from podcasting?        

Q: What do you gain from podcasting?
A: I gain the knowledge that I am helping people, that I'm making a difference right now.
Q: Do you take sponsorship?
A: I would take a sponsor, but I'll be selective. The sponsor has to represent what I want the show to be.

► How does your podcasting process look like? 

Q: What does your podcasting process look like?
A: For me, I let episode topics come to me. I like to 'chew' on an idea and let it sit in the back of my mind. Quite often, my ideas will come to me when I'm not thinking about the show.
Q: What tools/services do you use?
A: I use Zoom Pro for my remote interviews and I find the platform to be quite reliable. For my RSS feed, I use Buzzsprout and I have to say that I find them to be very easy to use, reliable, and intuitive.
Q: How do you find guests for episodes?
A: Finding guests is easy. Finding guests that will bring strong content and inspire the listeners is more difficult.
My process involves putting out a general request on some Facebook sites as well as considering my friends and professional colleagues.
Once someone has requested to be a guest, I ALWAYS do a pre-chat with the person, especially if I've never met them before, to make sure that we are on the same page, and that they are interested in the topic, not only promoting themselves.

► How do you market your show?

Q: How do you market your show?
A: For me, I blast the social media networks and I shamelessly ask friends and guests to share the show on their social media outlets. I don't know if this plan works because the show has just launched.
Q: Listener acquistino sources:
A: For my show, the majority of listeners come from Apple podcasts, followed by Spotify, then Listen Notes. I suspect this is the case because when I share links to the show, this is also the order that I add the links.

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

Don't try to force your vision. If you see it, keep crafting your show until it's what you want it to be. If you can't see it yet, that's ok, keep massaging your vision, because it's there, with you.
The motto of my show is, "Leadership without passion limits the depth of our vision", and for your show, it's your passion that will give you vision to see what you are trying to accomplish.

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

My web-site is www.trenchleadership.ca
At this site, you will learn more about me, the show, my passion to help everyone have access to clean drinking water, and helpful links to leadership information.
You can find Trench Leadership: A Podcast From the Front, on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
The show is new, so the content in the social media outlets is building, but as the show grows, so will the content.
Lastly, I have an account with "Buy Me a Coffee". 50% of every donation will go directly to a fund that I'm building to bring clean drinking water to everyone. The other 50% will go directly to offsetting the annual costs to run the show. If and when I get sponsors, the Buy Me a Coffee fund will be 100% for my clean drinking water initiative.