The climber & nutritionist who makes The TrainingBeta Podcast, a rock climbing podcast

My name is Neely Quinn and my podcast is called The TrainingBeta Podcast. I’m a nutritionist and a climber, and I built and run trainingbeta.com as a hub for training information for climbers - to help them get stronger. The podcast is about training for rock climbing. I interview climbers, climbing trainers, physical therapists, and other practitioners to get info on how we can train efficiently and effectively to get better at climbing. My listeners are rock climbers of all types (sport climbers, boulderers, mountaineers, alpinists, etc) of all ages. 

I started this podcast in 2014 as a vehicle for information specifically about training for climbing, since there wasn’t a podcast like it. It was also meant to be a way for me to promote my climbing training products that we sell on the website, as well as a revenue source with advertising spots. I don’t listen to a lot of podcasts myself, no, but I know a lot of people do so I figured it’d be a good addition to the podcasts out there.

It took me about a year to release my first podcast - ha! I had all these video interviews with these pro climbers that I thought I was going to publish as videos, which seemed daunting. So I decided to scrap that idea and use the audio instead, and that’s when the podcast was really born. It took me about 4 days to get it up and running and publish the first episode. 

My business funds me doing the podcast - it’s a side avenue of trainingbeta.com. It’s my full-time (part-time) job. I release episodes on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on how busy I am with other stuff. For a time, I was publishing 2 per week and that was exhausting.

I spend $15/mo on podcast hosting (libsyn.com), and that’s about it. I edit myself. It takes me about 4 hours per episode total with interviewing, editing, writing the post up, and promoting it on social media. Oh, and I hire a transcriptionist to write out the episodes as well. 

I gain a lot of knowledge from talking to all these people on my podcast! It’s super interesting most of the time, and I feel like I’m more equipped to train myself and help others with their training questions. I also gain a lot of exposure for my website, a lot of new friends at climbing areas who recognize my voice, and a sense of purpose for helping a lot of people get stronger.

I don’t do sponsorships anymore, as I found it to be more lucrative to just advertise my own stuff on the episodes. When I was taking advertisers I started asking for sponsorships at around 5000 downloads per episode (over at least 6 weeks). I charged $25/1,000 downloads for a 1 minute slot at $15/1,000 downloads for a 30sec slot. Now I’m at around 22k downloads per episode. 

I use libsyn to host my podcasts, and they automatically send it to iTunes. I use a Blue Yeti microphone, a MacBook Pro, Skype and Call Recorder for Skype (an app) to record my interviews with people all over the world. I use GarageBand for editing and that’s it.

I find guests to interview by either knowing the person and requesting an interview, hearing about someone from a listener or friend or online, or sometimes people will approach me to be interviewed. I use email, Facebook, and Instagram to contact people.

I prepare each episode by researching the person, reading things they’ve written when applicable, and sometimes writing out a few questions I want to make sure I ask them. Otherwise I don’t really prepare anything - I just have a conversation with them. I almost always interview my guests via Skype, since they’re all over the world. 

I market my show by having it on as many podcast-finding websites as possible, including Libsyn, Podbay, stitcher, podtail, podbean, google play, and others. It’s grown mostly by word of mouth, but I think having the episodes transcribed and published on my site has really helped with SEO so people can find interviews with people they’re interested in. I also put each episode up on social media (facebook, instagram, twitter) and boost the posts. I also send out an email to our list (around 16,000 people) whenever I publish a new episode. I find my email list and Facebook to be most useful, as well as iTunes since people subscribe to the podcast there.

Things I’ve learned on my podcasting journey that weren’t obvious beforehand are that people connect with me and my podcast more when I don’t script things. I used to script my intro and outro and now I just speak from the heart and stay casual, as if I were talking to a friend. It’s helped me be less stressed, and I think it helps people get to know me and trust me a little more.

Also, it’s been surprising who has agreed to be on the show. I’ve sent emails out to super famous climbers that I didn’t know, expecting them to just ignore me, but instead I actually got interviews with some of them. So don’t be shy - just tell them who you are, what you want, that your listeners would be psyched to hear from them, and about how many people will be listening.

Helpful podcasting resources are definitely The Smart Passive Income Blog and Entrepreneurs on Fire with John Lee Dumas.

You can find out more about me and my podcast and business at:

• www.trainingbeta.com 
• www.trainingbeta.com/trainingbeta-podcast
• www.facebook.com/trainingbeta
• www.instagram.com/trainingbeta