► Tell us about you and your podcast
Amy Stone is the host of The Art of Imperfect Adulting. This is her third podcast.
The Art of Imperfect Adulting is personal stories of choices and change. Change is a very broad topic. It’s both age group and industry agnostic. Instead of focusing on the result of an action I like to drill down and explore with my guests what were the decisions and choices that shaped the path of their life. Sometimes these are intentional decisions like retiring after a long career. Other times they are choices made in response to an unexpected life event.
Listeners are adults, predominantly women who are busy living their lives and feeling the pressure of adulthood and the weight of trying to make the correct decisions in order to achieve the winning score in life. They listen to the podcast for inspiration and motivation in the form of actual life experiences from other real people.
► Why & how did you start this podcast?
I’m a fan of podcasting. I personally listen to a variety of podcasts during my workouts, in the car when I’m driving or traveling.
The Art of Imperfect Adulting Podcast launched January 2025. The concept for the show bounced around in my head like a defiant ping pong ball for about a year earlier. I knew that there were a lot of very specific podcasts for any variety of situations but I thought there might be a place for a wide variety of stories all pulled together with the idea of choices and changes.
The initial goals when starting The Art of Imperfect Adulting were to validate the idea. Are there people who want to share their stories…and are there people who want to listen?
Before I recorded the first episode I had 100 conversations with people I knew about the idea. That took some time. Once I decided to dive in and create the show it was a quick turnaround to create the first episodes.
► How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?
The podcast currently releases 4 episodes a week. Which is admittedly a fairly random release schedule. I think it should be either 5 or 7 episodes a week. I’m honestly still working out whether that’s feasible for me to create and if there would be sufficient audience interest.I will need some support staff to maintain that schedule.
This is a part of my business so it’s a full-time job. In 2024, perhaps like some other online entrepreneurs I experienced a shift in my business which meant that I had more available time and I’ve poured that time into creating this new concept.
There is a financial investment in podcasting. Compared to many other businesses it’s not huge but it can add up. I pay for hosting, appointment scheduling software, microphones and lighting and a gaggle of ai tools that help me streamline my processes.
► What do you gain from podcasting?
At this point I have not taken sponsorship but I hope to in the future.
I am loving creating this show. Meeting the people who come on the show as guests. Helping them to share the stories from their life and also getting feedback from the audience that they enjoy hearing these stories.
► How does your podcasting process look like?
It’s interesting because how I make the show was one of the first questions I got when I launched this new show. Since this is my third show I think that I have a very efficient process and each episode from start to finish takes about 5 hours to prepare, create, edit and promote.
I find guests by posting in networking groups that I am a member of, posting in Find A Guest groups on social media, the PodcastGuests Newsletter, and PodMatch.
I set appointments with Acuity. I record remotely via Zoom. I know that sometimes people give Zoom a hard time for quality but I think it works really well. Recently somebody I know was interviewed by NPR and I decided to be nosey and ask how that interview was recorded. Spoiler alert: they also conducted the interview over zoom. If it’s good enough for NPR … it’s good enough for me. I use Audacity to edit the audio and iMovie. Davinci Resolve and InShot to edit video. I use an ai tool called Castmagic for transcription and helping me to repurpose parts of each show in different formats.
► How do you market your show?
Listeners find the show by being invited to listen to the show either by a guest, a fellow listener, a recommendation from a podcast directory or player or through my outreach. I approach each interview episode as a collaborative joint venture with the guest and do my very best to make it beneficial to them to share the episode and also super easy for them to do that.
50% listen via Apple Podcasts.
I promote each episode on a wide range of social media channels and the most effective for me at the moment looks like it’s YouTube … but like the weather, give it a minute and that’s likely to change.
I also guest on other people’s podcasts. I look for opportunities for PR - media coverage for the show and I have what I think is a robust SEO strategy.
And still at the end of the day I think that the way that most people find the show is that they hear about it from a friend.
► What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?
The best advice I can offer is that the only way to know if you’ve got a good idea is to make it and put it out in the world and see what happens.
I learned how to make my first podcast in 2016 from a free email course by Pat Flynn. I also joined a community by John Lee Dumas. I’m not an expert but I wasn’t afraid to jump in and do it.
The next best advice that I can give is to be gentle with who you compare yourself to in the creative space. Some people do this as a hobby and they enjoy building amazing home studios just for fun. Other people have a dream of building this into a business or a part of a business. Some people are able to immediately produce professional level content right out of the gate. Whatever your dream is…own it and try not to let somebody else’s ideas or vision cast a shadow over what you want to build.