Do I need a MISSION STATEMENT?

Eric Beels 0:01
What's a super important component to your podcast to keep at the forefront of your mind when recording your episodes? Your mission statement? Let's get into it. You're listening to practical podcast Tips. My name is Eric Beels. And today, I'm going to cover tip number 10. Do I need a mission statement? A lot of you probably know what a mission statement is. Some of you may not. But either way, do you really need one? Let's talk about that. For those who don't know, a mission statement is essentially your goal for your podcast. It's kind of like your why like, what is your purpose for starting your podcast, it can be applied in other things as well, like businesses and charities, it's very common to have a mission statement, and they all really should have one because it really, it really helps keep you on track on the purpose behind the business that the charity or in this case, your podcast. So many people, I think overlook this, I know I did for a longest time because in my head, I think, Oh, well, I could just have one, you know, I just have it in my head right or something. But it's really good to actually have it written down because it is something that you can forget over time. And if you have it written down, keep it in front of you at all times, it goes a long ways towards keeping on track for the purpose behind your podcasts at all. With having one you know, it doesn't need to be very long or complicated. Some can be long, it could be a paragraph long. But it can also just be a few sentences long if you don't necessarily even know maybe you don't fully know the direction. But you kind of know why you're starting your podcasts. Because it really does just create purpose behind your podcast, not just I want to start a podcast for the sake of it. Why are you starting one, it creates that purpose. For example, I'm going to read ours for our show for this show you listening to right now I have it written right in front of me right here, it states to teach people helpful, practical and simple tips on podcasting so that they can communicate with the world more effectively. So in my case, I just wrote a simple one sentence on the overall goal of what this podcast is to do. And one thing you'll notice, too, it doesn't say anything tech related in it. And the reason for that is because I don't really want this to be a tech show, I don't want it to really be labeled as a tech show. It's gonna be tech to some extent, because it is a podcast about podcasts that naturally comes with tech in it. But my primary focus for this podcast is to help people out in small, somewhat seemingly insignificant ways. And to give bite size information. That's kind of the basis for it. And in all of my show notes, when I type everything up beforehand, just so I have a general direction of what I'm going to going to talk about, I always have that mission statement right at the top. So I duplicate my Google Doc and just replace a lot of the text. And I always have that mission statement there. So I can always keep it at the forefront and top of mine on all of my episodes before I even record it because it'll influence what I say in each episode. One thing to keep in mind with your statement is it generally shouldn't really talk so much about the how it really needs to include the why and the result. How is your audience going to feel or act differently from using your services or listening to your show? In my case, I want people to be able to communicate with the world more effectively. That result there doesn't even talk about through podcasting, because podcasting is simply a medium that I really love. And I hope you do as well listening to this, but that's not really the result that I want. I want people to be able to communicate their truth in their knowledge to the world, right. And one thing too is, you know, this can even change over time as well. You know, as things come to mind as things shift, you can add things to your mission statement that you may not have thought of before. Although one thing to keep in mind too is you know, don't sit over it for you know, hours on end, you know, just kind of sit for a little bit and think about why am I starting my podcast what's what's my mission for this? Why do people listen to the podcast, you can always make improvements, I know we will will continuously adjust our mission statement to maybe be more accurate, but it is an important thing to have at the forefront. So build your mission statement and make sure you write it down and keep it at the forefront of your podcast.

Eric Beels 4:47
Write it on the very top of your documents. If you have a studio you're in maybe register on the wall, get it printed out something in something nice and get it laminated if you need to because it will really help influence you. keep you on track. If you have guests on your show, it might help get the right guests for your show. You don't want to have somebody on your show that's against your your mission statement. My mission statement is not very controversial, but some of you may have a more controversial mission statement potentially, especially if it's like a political show or something like that, right. So build your mission statements and make sure you write it down. That's it for this episode. I'll see you in the next one. Hey, thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, feel free to leave us a review. I'd love to hear how it helped. Also, if you know somebody else that could benefit from it. Go ahead and share it with them. Thanks again and see you in the next episode.