Three years ago, a marketing director—let’s call him Dave—called me in a panic.
He had spent six months and nearly $12,000 building a “state-of-the-art” podcast studio in his firm’s headquarters. Acoustic foam panels. Neumann microphones. A mixing board that looked like the cockpit of a 747. It was impressive.
He had recorded exactly zero episodes.
Why? Because he was terrified. He was paralyzed by the idea that he didn’t know the “rules” of broadcasting.
Here’s the thing: figuring out how to start a podcast for a business with no experience isn’t a technical challenge. It’s a psychological one. You don’t need Dave’s budget. You don’t need an audio engineering degree. Honestly, you barely even need a computer.
If you can leave a voicemail, you can podcast.
I’m going to walk you through the exact process I’ve used to launch shows for tech startups, local bakeries, and consulting firms. No jargon. No fluff. Just the raw truth about what works right now.
The “Amateur” Advantage (Why You Should Ignore the Pros)
Most corporate podcasts are boring. Painfully boring.
They sound like scripted press releases read by robots. That’s your opportunity. Listeners today crave authenticity over polish. They don’t want a BBC broadcast; they want to feel like they’re eavesdropping on a smart conversation between two experts.
I’ll admit it—I used to obsess over bit rates and compression thresholds. Total waste of time.
People will forgive bad audio. They will never forgive boring content.
When you have no experience, you haven’t learned the bad habits of traditional broadcasting. You talk like a human. That’s your superpower. Lean into it.
The $100 Setup That Beats a $5,000 Studio
Let’s talk gear. This is where 90% of people get stuck, and it’s ridiculous.
You do not need a mixer. You don’t need a separate audio interface. And please, for the love of all that is holy, do not use your laptop’s built-in microphone. That’s the only sin I won’t forgive.
Here is the entire shopping list for a professional-sounding show. I’ve tested 47 different microphones over the last decade, and this combination wins every time for beginners:
- The Mic: Samson Q2U or Audio-Technica ATR2100x (approx. $70). It plugs directly into your computer via USB. It sounds warm, rich, and ignores background noise.
- The Headphones: Whatever you already own. Even the wired earbuds that came with your old iPhone are fine. You just need to prevent the mic from picking up the sound coming out of your speakers.
- The Software: Riverside.fm or SquadCast for recording. Zoom compresses audio too much—it makes you sound like a robot underwater.
That’s it. Total cost? Under $100.
Content Strategy: Stop Doing “Coffee Chats”
If I see one more business podcast titled “The [Company Name] Journey,” I might scream.
Nobody cares about your company. Not yet. They care about their own problems. If you want to rank—and if you want this project to actually drive revenue—you need to flip the script.
Instead of “Interviewing our CEO about excellence,” try specific, problem-solving angles.
Quick story: I worked with a plumbing supply company last year. Boring industry, right? They wanted to interview other plumbing supply CEOs. I told them absolutely not.
Instead, we launched a show called “The Leak.” Every episode answered one specific, nightmare question their customers asked. Episode 1: “Why do tankless heaters fail after 3 years?”
The result? They didn’t get a million downloads. They got 400. But those 400 listeners were contractors who spent $50,000 a month on supplies. The podcast generated $2.4 million in new contracts in six months.
💡 Pro Tip: Look at the emails your sales team sent last week. The questions they answered? Those are your episode titles.
The “No-Edit” Workflow
Editing is where podcasts go to die. It’s tedious, technical, and drains your soul.
If you have no experience, do not try to learn Adobe Audition. It’s like trying to fly a spaceship to go to the grocery store. You have two better options:
Option A: The AI Assistant
Use a tool called Descript. It transcribes your audio into text. If you want to delete a sentence, you just highlight the text and hit backspace. It cuts the audio for you. It even removes “umms” and “ahhs” automatically.
It feels like magic. It turned my three-hour editing nightmare into a 20-minute task.
Option B: The Raw Approach
Don’t edit. Seriously.
Record an intro (“Welcome to the show, today we’re talking about…”). Record the conversation. Record an outro. Upload the file.
Remember what I said about authenticity? Hearing a host clear their throat or laugh at a mistake makes you relatable. It proves you aren’t AI. In a world flooded with ChatGPT content, being human is a premium asset.
Hosting and Distribution (The Easy Part)
People think getting on Apple Podcasts and Spotify is a complex approval process. It’s not. It’s basically a form submission.
You need a media host. This is the place where your audio files live. Think of it like YouTube, but for audio. Don’t host files on your own website—it will crash your server the moment you get popular.
I recommend Buzzsprout or Captivate. Here is the process:
- Upload your MP3.
- Add a title and description.
- Click “Submit to Directories.”
That’s it. The host pushes your show to Apple, Spotify, Google, and Amazon automatically. You do it once, and you’re done.
How to Launch When Nobody Knows Who You Are
You’ve recorded. You’re live. Now, how do you get listeners?
Most advice says “post on social media.” That’s garbage advice. Organic social reach is dead unless you’re a celebrity. If you post “New episode live!” on LinkedIn, three people will see it. Two of them will be your coworkers.
Try the “Guest Trojan Horse” strategy instead.
Invite potential clients or industry micro-influencers to be guests on your show. Don’t pitch them your services. Just ask to hear their story.
When the episode goes live, sends them a “Media Kit”—an email with pre-written tweets, LinkedIn posts, and a vertical video clip of them sounding smart.
They will share it. Why? Because it strokes their ego. It makes them look like a thought leader. They share the episode with their audience to validate their own authority, and in the process, they introduce their followers to your business.
I did this for a financial advisor recently. He interviewed 10 local business owners. He had zero audience. But those 10 guests had a combined following of 50,000 people. By episode 10, he had 2,000 regular listeners and a full client roster.
The “Consistency” Trap
You’ll hear gurus say you must publish every week at 6:00 AM on Tuesday or the algorithm will punish you.
Ignore them.
You are running a business, not a media empire. If you can only manage one episode a month, do one episode a month. But make it the best, most useful 30 minutes your customer listens to that month.
Quality beats frequency. Always.
A library of 10 incredible, timeless episodes that solve real problems is an asset that works for you forever. A feed of 50 mediocre weekly updates is just digital noise.
The Real Challenge
Starting a podcast with no experience feels like standing on the edge of a high dive. You’re worried about the splash.
But look, your first episode will be your worst one. That’s a guarantee. My first episode sounded like I was recording inside a tin can during a hurricane. I still keep it online to keep me humble.
So here’s my challenge to you: Don’t buy a microphone today. Don’t look for cover art designers.
Take out your phone. Open the voice memo app. Record three minutes answering the #1 question your customers ask you.
Listen to it. Realize you didn’t die. Realize you sound like an expert.
Then, and only then, go buy that $70 microphone.
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