Becoming a “Bush Podpreneur” - How Six Rural Podcasters Built Their Audio Empires
Show Notes
This Episode is Sponsored by: Creative Little Soul
Yes, we invented the term “Bush Podpreneur.” But that’s because there’s a phenomenon that’s been happening in rural Australia that we need to recognise. “Bush Podpreneur” captures the way rural women are producing podcasts in entrepreneurial ways to build community, social connections and even businesses and income.
In this special episode, Kirsten Diprose is joined by guest co-host Dr Maria Rae, Senior Lecturer in politics and political communication to unpack why and how rural women are starting their own podcasts and what it means for them.
You’ll hear from six rural women podcasters:
Skye Manson, founder of Manson Podcasting Network, Gunning, NSW
Kimberely Furness, founder of Oak Magazine, Bendigo VIC
Katrina Myers, This Rural Life, Barham NSW
Stephanie Coombes, Central Station Podcast, Katherine, NT
Stephanie Tretheway, Motherland, TAS
Samantha Meurant, Rural Compass, Cunnamulla, QLD
We discuss the realities of creating a podcast (including time and money), the opportunities podcasting can bring you and how to manage the duty of care you have to your guests, especially when they’ve emotionally opened up to you.
The podcast market is becoming increasingly saturated, but the listenership continues to grow in Australia. The latest figures (2023) show 43% of Australians regularly listen to podcasts. And that's up quite significantly from four years ago when it was about 25%.
Read the academic paper written by Dr Maria Rae and Kirsten Diprose: Bush Podpreneurs: How Rural Women Podcast Producers Are Building Digital and Social Connectivity
EPISODE SPONSORSHIP: Thank you to Chrissy Symeonakis, founder of Creative Little Soul for sponsoring this episode. If you’d like to sponsor an episode (or a series!) of Ducks on the Pond, get in touch: kirsten@ruralpodcastingco.com
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Kimberley Furness: 0:05
I can still remember doing some of the interviews in the car just parked down at the school oval car park just to have some quiet time away from the family where I could record these.
Stephanie Tretheway: 0:16
I had no intention of growing Motherland into anything other than a little tiny side project to help keep me sane on the farm. I truly had no idea where it was going to go.
Katrina Myers: 0:27
I wanted to connect with other rural women and I really wanted to share other women's voices and amplify women's voices.
Kirsten Diprose: 0:35
I bet you recognise some of those voices. Hello, Kirsten Diprose, here with Ducks on the Pond, brought to you by the Rural Podcasting Co. And this is quite a special episode because you will hear from six amazing rural women in one episode. But first let me thank our episode sponsor, Creative Little Soul, a digital agency which does branding, marketing, social media and so much more for innovators across the country, and many of her clients are rural. So perfect for this episode, really. We will hear from the founder, Chrissy Symeonakis, at the end of this episode. Joining me today as co-host is Dr Maria Ray, who is a lecturer in politics and policy at Deakin University. Welcome to Ducks in the Pond, Maria.
Dr Maria Rae: 1:22
Thank you, it's great to be here.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:24
Welcome to Ducks in the Pond, maria. Thank you. It's great to be here. Now, I'm doing a PhD in podcasting and rural and regional news essentially, but we met at a Deakin get-together about a year ago and actually bonded over our love of podcasting.
Dr Maria Rae: 1:37
Yes, well, my research looks at the role of podcasts in political communication and especially boosting voices that aren't often heard. So I was really excited to meet someone who produced their own podcast and to learn that so many rural women were doing the same.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:53
And I was excited to see that it was actually an academic thing. I mean, this was before I could even have dreamt that I could do a PhD in podcasting. So, like academics, care about podcasts.
Dr Maria Rae: 2:05
Yeah, and we can get paid to listen to them.
Kirsten Diprose: 2:09
Other people want to do it too. So you came up with the term Bush Podpreneurs, which I absolutely love, and I think I need to put it on a business card. Tell me what it means and the reason behind the name.
Dr Maria Rae: 2:22
Well, the term captures the ways in which rural women who live in the bush are producing podcasts in entrepreneurial ways to build digital and social connectivity. They do this through developing communities, telling stories, promoting businesses, creating professional networks, sharing technical information and also making an income. So that's where the name came up from.
Kirsten Diprose: 2:44
Is there any research on and I reckon I know the answer because I've been looking, but maybe you know is there any research on, kind of how many people who live in rural and regional Australia listen to podcasts?
Dr Maria Rae: 2:58
It's still mostly urban or city people that listen to podcasts, but they are growing in popularity. So people in rural and regional areas still rely on radio and television first for their news, but it is gradually increasing the amount of people in the bush who listen to podcasts.
Kirsten Diprose: 3:17
So I'm going to push back on that. This is not as an academic, but just as someone who podcasts, and when I look at the analytics behind the scenes, a lot of the location automatically gets flung to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane. It doesn't show up in the rural and regional areas, but I know that's where my listeners are. So I wonder about the accuracy, like how well can some of these, like your Buzzsprouts and Podbeans that are the hosting platforms how well can these analytics actually pinpoint locations? Because I don't think that we're getting good results.
Dr Maria Rae: 3:53
And that's been a real problem for academics who study podcasts. It's really difficult to get accurate information about how many downloads how many subscribers. To get accurate information about how many downloads how?
Kirsten Diprose: 4:07
many subscribers where the locations are. Yeah, exactly. But what we do know from 2023 figures is that 43% of Australians regularly listen to podcasts, and that's up quite significantly from four years ago, when it was about 25%, so it's growing.
Dr Maria Rae: 4:23
Yeah, in terms of per capita, we're leading the world in terms of listening to podcasts. More of our population than the UK or the US are tuning into this digital audio Pretty cool.
Kirsten Diprose: 4:34
I love it. We are leading the way in podcasts and I reckon, like again totally anecdotally, but I do think a lot of rural people listen to podcasts because of what you said, just our long drives, tractors, all of that sort of stuff, and I would love a way to find out. But it's like another area where we kind of get left behind and it's partially because of the digital divide and partially because sometimes we don't get thought about unless we stand up and say hey, we're here.
Dr Maria Rae: 5:03
Well, that's why it was so important for us to do our research, because we could talk to podcast producers about their experience of making a podcast, but also their connection to their audiences, because they know a lot about their audience that these surveys don't capture.
Kirsten Diprose: 5:19
Now this episode actually might convince you to start a podcast and if you can keen, then let me know I can help. It's what the Rural Podcasting Co does. It's just my quick little plug there. But you know, in this episode there are so many other lessons about harnessing the power of connection, community and I'm going to say, courage in rural Australia to pursue that big idea or dream, because there's a lot of reasons why people start podcasts, as you'll hear, and how it's helped, perhaps in a business or an organization or just in feeling close to other people to help with that isolation. So you're going to get some really behind the scenes insights into some of your favorite rural women podcasters. So that's also a really fun thing because you'll know a lot of the voices here. Let's start with one of the most lovely voices in podcasting and that's Skye Manson, host of Company, and she started podcasting by plucking up the courage to ask someone she admired if she could work with her.
Skye Manson: 6:23
My first foray into podcasting was actually with a lady who I think most people, most of the listeners, will know, by the name of Sophie Hansen, who she started out having a blog called Local is Lovely, and when I approached her, she was a finalist for the it was called Ruric back then, but the AgriFutures Rural Woman of the Year. I was living in Orange at the same time, which is where she lives, and I really wanted to work with her. I was also on maternity leave. Anyway, I just plucked up the courage and I said oh hi, sophie, I know that you've got a busy year. I work for the ABC and if you've got anything I'd love to work with you. And straight off the bat she said oh my God, I'm doing a podcast. This is perfect, we'll do it together. And so that was that. And we started my Open Kitchen, which was all Sophie's idea. I cannot take any credit for it, apart from I was just the other person on the end of the microphone and it was the best. Yeah, it just opened up my eyes to so many more rural women and for me, having worked for the ABC as a broadcast journalist for at that time I think a decade I it was just the perfect use of my skills, so I didn't actually set out to start podcasting. It landed in my lap and then from that point on, it became obvious to me Sophie would say you should do more podcast. You should do, this should be your thing.
Skye Manson: 7:51
As you dovetail out of I was hoping to move to a farm, my husband and I were hoping to buy our own farm and move away from the regional centre of Orange, which would mean no more ABC work. Remote work was not a thing in those days. Yeah, so I started scheming and dreaming and I suppose the rest is history.
Kirsten Diprose: 8:12
You've got quite a career background at the ABC and in media in general. How has podcasting been able to open new doors for you, particularly now because you are based on the farm, aren't you?
Skye Manson: 8:25
Yep. So now I live near Gunning in Southern New South Wales, on the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales. It's an hour and a half from Canberra. We live on a fine wool farm with my husband and three children and I, yeah, podcasting has in terms of opening up opportunities for me. It's like I just alluded to before. It's enabled me to keep my skills that I had from being a presenter on the radio and also being a producer.
Skye Manson: 9:00
But also, quite early on in the piece I was working with another lady by the name of Fleur Anderson who is based up in Queensland and she had a business called the Rural Business Collective at the time. It doesn't exist, I don't think anymore. But yeah, I often got approached by people saying I'm thinking about doing a podcast, could you help, would you like to present it? And Fleur's jam was that she was producing lots of podcasts for other businesses and basically she could get the business and I could be sitting in the office producing and storyboarding and editing and asking questions if need be. And yeah, it's just been. It has given me so many opportunities and then, through the COVID years, podcasting completely exploded, had so many requests and I could not keep up with them.
Kirsten Diprose: 9:57
Have you been able to make money? If you feel comfortable answering this, because from other women we've spoken to, in my own experience I know that it can be difficult. For the amount of time that you put into a podcast you may not get that back in terms of money.
Skye Manson: 10:12
Yeah, I'm so happy to share a story on this and be completely transparent because it's been so difficult, and if you've got any tips, I'm all ears, or if you're listening and you want to sponsor the podcast, then I'm happy to receive your call. It has not been impossible. Now, at this point in time, I have five podcasts under my network, which is the Manson Podcasting Network. They're all in hiatus at the moment and I have just got to a point at the end of last year where I said I'm not going to produce any more podcasts for free and I will not start producing them again until I have financial backing in advance. You know I cannot tell you the amount of time, amount of requests I get from people to pull together a podcast and then I will put together a quote for them for how much it costs, and it just does not go anywhere.
Kirsten Diprose: 11:06
Now I have to interrupt Maria with an update from Skye, because since I recorded that interview with her, Skye recently has been sponsored by Rabobank, which is excellent news, so her podcast is back.
Dr Maria Rae: 11:20
Yeah, that's great news, Kirsten. Our research found this was a key challenge for rural women producers. Outsourcing the editing can be expensive, it can be hard to attract sponsors and subscribers, the podcast market is getting saturated and it can take time and effort to make podcasts. But we also found that making money isn't the only motivation for these producers. They also wanted to connect with their community, elevate the voices of rural women and tell stories about life in the bush, so the benefits can end up outweighing the costs and challenges.
Kirsten Diprose: 11:51
Yeah, I think for Skye. She is really in that point where she knows that she's a professional and wants to do it well, and so that was the motivation around. You know what? I am a professional and I do need to be remunerated for this.
Skye Manson: 12:06
I do have a lot of experience in the broadcast journalism sector and so, coming on 20 years, I've been working in that sector now and I feel like I'm really proud of the fact that I can sustain an interview and entertain people through the way of presenting that I have and also perhaps ask questions and get answers and beautiful stories out of people that other people wouldn't be able to do.
Skye Manson: 12:39
Anybody can ask questions, but it's really the curiosity and the ability to listen closely and the little niche nuances of knowing when to allow an interview to breathe and when to step in and what kind of where to ask someone to clarify things or go deeper. When you hear podcasts of people who have a profile on influencers basically, and they're all interesting things, but the art of podcasting and the skills behind it are dumbed down and watered down and doing a disservice to people like you and I, perhaps because we see them all around and they're very easy to produce. But I'm all about the art of podcasting producing something beautiful using soundscapes within it that I record here on my home, on the farm and around where I live, and they bring beauty to a podcast and make the listening experience just so much deeper and, in turn, the connection that you have with your audience is so much deeper and the loyalty that you can build and the community that you can create around that is just so much more tactile and engaged.
Kirsten Diprose: 13:58
It's really important to have those boundaries around what you're willing to do, around pay and what you're worth, because otherwise you never get it. And particularly in an industry like media, it doesn't have to be podcasting. Specifically, again, coming from someone who's worked in the media and then gone privately, people don't understand what the skill is, because anyone can write an article, anyone can do an interview, anyone can do these things. But I always say why do you hire a photographer? Anyone can take a photo, right, but if you want it done well, you hire the person with the skill. It's the same with someone who's writing blogs, someone doing a podcast. Yes, anyone can do it, but can they do it well?
Skye Manson: 14:41
And the other thing also that's difficult for us is that podcasting is free to consume and now we're at a divergence in the podcast industry where some are paid for and some are subscriber based and the some are membership based. And it's an interesting time, there's no doubt about it. But people are so used to receiving their content for free, and when you approach a potential sponsor or somebody for partnerships, they don't understand that either. They say but it's for free, there's nothing cost in producing it. But that's not quite true.
Kirsten Diprose: 15:16
Yes, and the time that it takes to create something sometimes hard to explain, I think, because people might think oh, you just do an interview, the interview takes you half an hour and then you just upload it, right, yeah.
Skye Manson: 15:27
I'm happy to share. One of the most successful podcasts that I've been involved with has been Graziher' s Life on the Land, and it was just such a delight to put together because they Claire Dunn, who is the founder of Graziher, she's the publisher, she's just such a wonderful woman and she was prepared to do it well, and so it's the only podcast interview that I've been involved in that somebody has been prepared to pay for pre-interviewing, and so that's for people that don't know what that is. That's like sitting down with the person before you interview them, whether it's a week before or a month before, and just going through their life basically, and silly questions and getting a feel for that person and the proof's in the pudding, the product that, like Life on the Land, has such powerful, strong, beautiful interviews, and that's because there's been lots of work that's gone into it behind the scenes. So that's just an example of how much time it takes. It takes an hour to interview, usually more, and then it takes two or three hours editing. It also takes probably two or three hours' worth of research, and then you have a pre-interview and then you have to write your questions and then you have to write your introduction and then you have to upload the audio.
Skye Manson: 16:48
It's just the the small, tiny little things that are involved in each and every job, but it's just giving a profile and a leg up to people in rural Australia, and so I love doing that and I love interviewing people. I've always said that it's such a privilege because we get an hour or whatever worth of time with the person that we're interviewing uninterrupted. Usually you don't know them. You're asking them some of the deepest, darkest questions that they've probably never received before in their life and they answer them beautifully. It's just such a gift and you would know this too, kirsten that you you never meet these people, but then when you do, you know them and it's this wonderful thing. You're like oh, we've never met before, but I actually know you inside out or not inside out, but quite intimately. So I would like to keep doing that.
Dr Maria Rae: 17:39
Isn't it great that we have Skye back podcasting.
Kirsten Diprose: 17:42
It is. I love her relaxed, calm style. Another professional media person we interviewed for our research is Kimberley Furness, who is based in Bendigo.
Dr Maria Rae: 17:52
Yeah, Kimberley is interesting because podcasting was more of an add-on for her in her media business. She actually started out by producing a magazine and, I have to say, as an academic researcher, we've been writing about the death of print for the past 10 years.
Kirsten Diprose: 18:05
I know right, and that didn't stop Kim. She founded Oak Magazine, which is a really beautiful publication. But you need to hear the story, because every overnight success it's 10 years in the making.
Kimberley Furness: 18:18
I think life changed for me in year nine when I had a school teacher come up to me and just ask what I was doing for work experience the next year and I said, look, I've got no idea. I really had planned on taking that week off. And yeah, she just said, you can write. And there's lots of things that I'd done previously that had got me in trouble with writing, to be honest, love letters and all of that sort of stuff. And yeah, it really hadn't flagged to me that I might be good at that or that a career in journalism was even a possibility.
Kimberley Furness: 18:48
I did work experience at something called the Nhill Free Press and that is just what opened up my whole world. It was that time when I could finally say what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I think that's such an important question that you're asked all the time, and not necessarily needing to know the answer, but to finally have an answer was just so relieving and I absolutely loved it. I did work experience then for every school holidays, finally got my foot in the door at a local newspaper and I've just had this love of print magazines from as far back as I can remember, and I was just so lucky to finally get my foot in the door at Cosmo just for a week and intern so at the start of the year they'll release X number of spots to do work experience and I missed out year after year. I'm like man, like I need to be there, and instead of doing the same thing a hundred times and expecting a different result whatever that quote is I mixed it up and I completely changed my resume, like I made it like a magazine and obviously submitted it and got invited outside of that period which was really, really cool actually and so went to Cosmo, loved it. Loved it so much that I came home and quit my job at the Bendigo Addy and decided that I was going to be a beauty therapist so that I could one day be like a beauty editor. I was going to be a beauty therapist so that I could one day be like a beauty editor, again not having anyone tell me that I didn't need to do, that Most beauty editors aren't beauty therapists. That would have been great to get the heads up somewhere along the line.
Kimberley Furness: 20:16
Because, yeah, I probably took a bit of a detour and finally got back into comms marketing and I suppose here I am with Oak and the way that Oak started was I had my own business, I just fell into that and that was doing social media management website, builds all of that sort of thing, and was invited to speak at an event which was really cool, in front of, I think, 200 women at Echuca Moama, and they're like, hey, you can put something in the gift bag? And I'm like, oh God, I don't want to put a flyer. And just this whole little, this burning idea of wanting to do a magazine, was sitting there and I thought why don't I do it like a mini mag? And so that's how Oak started, like a little 24 page magazine on really glossy, cheap paper, saddle stitch. So that's the staples in the middle and it really is a case of from little things, big things grow. And look, it was to tick a box.
Kimberley Furness: 21:08
At that stage, I think I, back in my mind, I was hoping that it would be more, but I was okay with the fact that I'd get just that one out uh, yeah, when magazines were dead, like as in oh, just so dead they were dead.
Kirsten Diprose: 21:20
How did it work like? How did you become successful when you were facing an uphill battle?
Kimberley Furness: 21:26
I mean just even from the start, when I'd asked a couple of friends. So I had six weeks to get this done, from that idea of, yes, I'm going to do one, to actually having to present those to the event. It was six weeks and I quickly asked a group of friends and business friends so a bit of a mix mix and should I go digital or print? Is this an okay idea? And literally 99% said go digital, don't do print, print's dead. And I'm like no, but I really love magazines. Yeah, I suppose I just backed myself and was just hoping that surely there's some other people out there like me. I can't be the only one. So yeah, it's so funny. I had just had a couple left over and thought, oh, I've got to get rid of these, I'll quickly build a website. So build a website, pop them up.
Kimberley Furness: 22:09
And stupidly didn't put how many to sell, like the quantity. I didn't adjust that and sold out my whole pre-order. So I think at that stage I thought, okay, this might be a thing. And then handed them out at the event and had people say where can I subscribe? And I'm like subscribe? Oh my God, like I'm going to have to do another one. And so that's how it's rolled you go to one step and then someone's encouraged you to say where's the next one coming out? And I suppose it's just that demand. And I've found this community out there that love print, and I still think Oak's pretty unknown. There's probably a lot that I need to do in terms of media, in terms of marketing, I should say, to get it out there even more. So I think, yeah, mags are having a bit of a resurgence too, so maybe I launched at the right time.
Kirsten Diprose: 22:53
And podcasting, though you've started that and it's certainly on its way. It's a kind of rising new industry, absolutely.
Kimberley Furness: 23:01
I love podcasting. I had a friend, a girlfriend. She was just on me all the time. You need to start a podcast. You need to start one like I don't know, maybe and I wasn't really listening to her much at that stage, to be honest. Anyway, it was look around.
Kimberley Furness: 23:15
Issue four I want to say we had a photographer who had helped us with a story and I just happened to be talking to her and she lived in a rural town and she just explained that she spent a lot of time outdoors helping her husband maintain the family farm and it was really isolating, and a podcast for her would just help her feel connected to other women, to hear their voices as she was working. That would provide some emotional support through what really was going to be a mentally and financially challenging time for their farming community. I think we're on the tail end of the drought at that stage as well. So that really sat with me for a bit and I suppose it just grew like that idea of producing one. And then, I don't know by luck, covid happened. Then, I don't know by luck, covid happened. So I launched the podcast in April 2020 and the mag went on hold during COVID as well. I've got four kids. Yeah, the good old homeschooling just drowned me, to be honest, and I needed something that was creative. I needed to feel like I was still producing content, that I was still being part of the community or, as we all say, making change. I wanted to feel valued and the podcast really helped with that. I can still remember doing some of the interviews in the car, just parked down at the school oval car park just to have some quiet time away from the family where I could record these. And yeah, the podcast has been so amazing. It means that we can share more stories, because obviously we're limited to about 15 stories in the magazine, whereas now we can add a lot more.
Kimberley Furness: 24:53
And in terms of the type of journalism I would have to say audio is one of my favorite. There's definitely been some learning curves. It hasn't been a smooth run for me. If you go back and listen to those first few episodes, just audio problems, editing problems. I was interviewing our guests like a print story when you jump around and you can go back and go. So we'll just go back to this point Now explain a bit more about this. You can't really do that with audio unless you're going to just spend your life editing it. So yeah, just learning that you have a starting point, a middle and an end where you can round it off. And just more recently, especially with I've got a podcast van and maybe more on that later just more recently in the podcast van, some of our guests have revealed some really big things about themselves and they'll finish the episode and go oh gosh, I don't know where that came from. Like I haven't talked about that in so long, or I just felt really comfortable to share that. That's not too much is it?
Kirsten Diprose: 25:54
I definitely want to ask about the podcast van, because this podcast is all about podcasting. I'm in heaven here, and I hope everyone else is too, as I'm talking about this, but that's a really interesting way of doing things. Makes a lot of sense because you're interviewing rural and regional people. But yeah, how'd you come up with the idea and how is it working for you logistically and financially really?
Kimberley Furness: 26:21
Yeah, just the human voice, I think, is just such a powerful and emotive instrument. Like we see that way back through history of anything that we do, you know, I'd started to see the power and the positive impact of audio storytelling as well. There were two issues, there were two little stories that had come out of it. So there was a woman who was inspired by one of our episodes to open a creative space in rural New South Wales to support local artists and track visitors off the highway and into their tiny town. And then there was this other woman who said, oh my gosh, a friend of mine just broadened my horizons and nudged me to finally make the move from city to rural Queensland. She now lives and works in Roma. So to hear those stories and hear that positive impact that Oak was having in terms of our podcast, I was like, wow, this is incredible and I love it.
Kimberley Furness: 27:10
There was a time there where I was hoping to get to be at an event and do a podcast and it just became too hard. There was always no, we're going to have too many people, it'll be too loud. I'm like I'll go and sit outside. No, it's going to be winter, it's going to be winter, it's going to be cold. I really don't like the word no and normally I would shut down. If I heard someone say no, I'm like, oh well, you're dead to me, all that's done. I can't really progress any further.
Kimberley Furness: 27:33
But I was just like, no, this is a really good opportunity and I want to pursue it even more. So, chance had it, my husband needed another car, so we went car shopping and there was this van and it had the door open and I'm like, oh, look, how cool, you can walk in and stand up. And I've even got the photo. I got my husband to take a photo of me and my daughter in there standing up and I'm just like, imagine if I could have a van where I could do podcasts. And that is how the idea came. And literally that night I'm Googling like how to find a van and how to convert vans and getting lost down Pinterest. And yeah, I just decided to back myself.
Kirsten Diprose: 28:15
Do you have Oak and the podcast name on the side, or is it just a white van?
Kimberley Furness: 28:20
No, it was a white van when I bought it, but no, it's got all the stickers on it and yeah, we've done the floors inside and soundproofing on the sides. It's got a couch, a rug, it's all very cozy. It's just missing coffee and wine maybe, but it is such a cozy little van. And, yeah, I'd already won the AgriFutures Vic Award and so I just had this burst of confidence in myself and what I could do, and I suppose, yeah, I went out and thought I'm going to buy a van. I researched it. Yeah, I was. I was really proud of myself.
Kimberley Furness: 28:53
I don't know if anyone feels that way when they do something that is typically a male job, where the husband finds the car or something like that, and then you're just or buying the house and it's just your job to decorate it.
Kimberley Furness: 29:04
My husband didn't even come with me. I went to the dealership and talked about it and took it for a test drive and organized it all. I was so proud. So, yeah, I have this van that is fully decked out and have put it through its paces a couple of times now at some field days, which has been really good. But yeah, just that idea now that I can hit the road and go to these events or visit a little tiny town or set up in the corner of a public venue and interview people right then and there. I just love that idea and I think the fact that you can get people to come into the van A it's a novelty. But once you shut the doors it feels like it's just you two, just the two of you having this really intimate conversation, and I suppose that's where the gold comes from, when you feel really comfortable with someone to share your story with them.
Dr Maria Rae: 29:53
I love Kim's tricked up van. It's very cool, but it's not just the van that's so important in the content creation. It's the way Kim makes sure she emotionally supports an interviewee afterwards.
Kirsten Diprose: 30:03
Yeah, you and I are both former journos and we know how easy it is to get caught up in the deadline and not to really think how big this actually is for someone to share a really personal story, absolutely.
Dr Maria Rae: 30:16
But also having that professional background means we are aware of that there are a lot of first-time podcasters who really haven't stopped to think about the duty of care you might have to give someone who has really opened up to you.
Kirsten Diprose: 30:27
Yeah, or how you might even protect your own emotional state.
Kimberley Furness: 30:31
It's something that I'm very passionate about talking about. So I think what we're seeing is a lot of content creators, and we probably need to have that conversation about how they're supporting themselves and, more importantly, their guests when sharing stories, because some of those stories are dealing with really heavy topics, and it is wonderful, so so good, that anyone could be a podcast host. Anyone can use Instagram and create IG content, whether it's a reel or a video or a YouTube. It is so easy to get into it. Now, as journalists, it's part of your training. You're taught how to deal with stories, and it's interesting when I look back to when I started my career.
Kimberley Furness: 31:15
I interviewed some people in some really tricky situations for them. Some had lost a family member in a car accident or they'd lost their home in a fire. These are things that you're dealing with all the time. There's support there, obviously through the newspaper, but there's also this buffer that you put in and you don't get too attached. Now I'm not sure what's happened. I don't know if it's because I'm older or what has happened but those stories are starting to affect me. I'm just getting too involved, emotionally involved.
Kimberley Furness: 31:51
So what I've found is that there is this mental, emotional fallout of sharing your story, and that is certainly because we're not prepared for it. We don't prepare ourselves. We share everything, thinking that's what we need to do, when really we've got to sit back and go okay, what's personal and what's private? What do people really need to know? Can they just get that top line, couple of lines, those few top lines, and then the really nitty gritty detail? Do they need to know that? Now, as the content creator, you're probably like give it all to me, because this is going to be such great clickbait stuff and this is going to be so good people are going to listen to it. But really you've got this person that you have to. I suppose you have to protect and support, because once that story goes out there, they're going to feel really vulnerable. They've shared something that's quite sensitive to them. They're going to share it on their socials. Their family are probably going to listen to it and especially when we're dealing with women in regional and rural communities, we know each other. It's such a small two degrees of separation between everyone. From that can come a lot of anxiety. So I just don't think there's duty of care or the fact that we're following up and providing some offline support.
Kimberley Furness: 33:07
So for me now it's being really conscious of what story we're sharing, making sure I send the interview questions to someone beforehand and someone's oh, but I don't want it scripted. It's not to have it scripted, it's for you to prepare yourself and go and get those files out that you know we're going to talk about. And then it's, once we finish that interview, hey, are you okay with all that? You're okay with that part? Yep, yep, great. Have you set aside some time during the day now just to decompress yourself? Don't go back into another big meeting and even once it goes out, it's checking back in with them. Are you okay with all this?
Kimberley Furness: 33:42
And I suppose even writing the headline. Do you really need to pick out that? I suppose that moment in the podcast and you know what that moment is. Do you need to pick that out, make that an audio file and do what you need to do? Probably not, and if you listen to a couple of our episodes, you'll realize that for us as well, there are people talking about the loss of a sister or something that's happened in their life, and they're not the things that we're pulling out to put in our show notes and to say, hey, listen to this, because this is what we're going to talk about. You want to know this story. It's that trauma porn or that grief porn?
Kirsten Diprose: 34:17
Absolutely. It's interesting. You know, I worked in the media for years, and broadcast media, and there's always been a duty of care. But the extent that you're going to is much further, I think, even for someone who is not perhaps talking about this terrible experience in their life, but just because they're probably someone who's just never been on a podcast and to help them through that, whereas I know in broadcast media it can be pretty sort of rough and ready. We sort of assume that people know and it's great, we'll call you up at 1030 and we'll put you on air and you'll speak for about 10 minutes and then that's it. You might get a text message, thanks, and that's it.
Kimberley Furness: 34:51
Yeah, I spoke with a friend who is a seasoned journalist, both TV. She's in radio at the moment and just had brought this up with her and mentioned like this is how I'm feeling Like, even from myself. So I've been on both sides of the mic in the last 18 months having to share my story and I'm just an emotional. I'm only just putting myself back together and she's oh, you're just thinking too much about it, stop getting involved. Who cares? That's their story, do it and off you go. And it's so interesting that I don't know when it's happened or why it's happened that I am more conscious of who we're interviewing. I don't know if it's because it is my, I suppose, media company as such, and I'm yeah, I'm really worried about those people and I want to ensure that they're okay after it.
Dr Maria Rae: 35:36
Another podcaster, Stephanie Coombes, is also, as she describes, really protective of the guests. She likes to go and meet them and spend time with them before pulling the mic out.
Kirsten Diprose: 35:45
And Stephanie is based in the Northern Territory and produces the Central Station podcast.
Dr Maria Rae: 35:50
So that's some serious trouble she's doing.
Kirsten Diprose: 35:53
I reckon it's probably due to internet reliability as well. Steph messaged me a couple of years ago asking me once how do I get the audio to be so good with the way the internet is in the country? And I told her I just cut out all the bad bits, and then she sent me a photo back of herself recording a voiceover in between two big mattresses in a shed.
Dr Maria Rae: 36:17
See, that's entrepreneurial. Yeah, the digital divide is real. Accessibility to high-speed internet and new smart technologies is much lower for rural residents and that can make them feel more socially and economically isolated, and our research found this was also the case for our bush pod printers, who had to invest in upgrading their own infrastructure to get reliable digital connectivity. One of our interviewees, jane Cudahy, used to live in Kenya and she got better mobile coverage there in the desert than she does in outback Queensland now.
Kirsten Diprose: 36:47
Wow, that's saying a lot, isn't it? And when I listened back to the interview with Steph over Zoom, there were these incredibly long gaps between when we speak, which, of course, you know I've edited out so you can't hear that but that's also what happens. And then you have this weird lag and then you start speaking over each other and you just have to work with it, work around it. Most of us try and hide that by the way that we edit our podcasts. Let's hear from Stephanie Coombes herself.
Stephanie Coombes: 37:17
I currently live in Katherine in the Northern Territory, but I'm originally from Perth and I started working on cattle stations when I was 18 at uni and I've been up north ever since and all around the place.
Kirsten Diprose: 37:30
And so how did you end up in Katherine?
Stephanie Coombes: 37:33
I met a boy. I'd been coming back and forth for about 12 years now. I went to college here, I stopped university for a while and I went to the rural college here before I went back to finish uni and lived and worked here on and off over the last 12 years. But yeah, my partner's family lives around here. Yeah, boys.
Kirsten Diprose: 37:51
And do you like living in Katherine? Like it's a bit different from the city, I would imagine.
Stephanie Coombes: 37:56
I do do. Yeah, I haven't really lived in Perth since I was about 20, since I finished uni. Catherine's one of those places that always draws you back. So I've been coming and going for 12 years and I'll go away. I've even lived overseas, gone elsewhere, and then I always just seem to end up back in Katherine. It's one of those special places.
Kirsten Diprose: 38:14
Yeah, tell me about your podcast and why you started to create it.
Stephanie Coombes: 38:19
So the podcast is called Central Station True Stories from Outback Australia, and it was a natural progression from a website that we launched in 2013, which was initially a blog, which was about promoting the pastoral industry and connecting with urban Australia, which it was born out of the live export ban, but now we've morphed into something a little bit more generic, in a way, like it's not just about the cattle industry, it's about sharing and promoting stories from anything to do with the outback Tell me about that time, that live export time.
Kirsten Diprose: 38:51
Where did the idea to come out? Why did you take that direction? To create a website and to start sharing your stories? Why did you take that direction?
Stephanie Coombes: 38:58
to create a website and to start sharing your stories. So I was very new to the industry at that time and it actually wasn't my idea. It was the idea of Jane Sale, who owns the platform. She's a pastoralist in the Kimberley. They currently run about 13 properties over there.
Stephanie Coombes: 39:15
At the time they had just been up there for a few years, bought their first property, and the live export ban hit them very hard, as it did everyone else, and I think one of the things that hit people the hardest was the community backlash and the vitriol I guess that came from the general Australian public towards pastoralists, and it really highlighted the need for people within industry to communicate what we do, why we do, and keep a connection with people outside of the industry so that there was less chance of misinformation skewing their views or at least they had something to kind of balance it out and come to their own decisions. So Jane went to a workshop in 2012 that I also attended in Broome, and it was all about how to engage with the community and everyone was supposed to come up with a project, and Central Station ended up being Jane's project.
Kirsten Diprose: 40:00
And was it successful? Did it help the community? Do you think?
Stephanie Coombes: 40:04
I think so. I think the bulk of our audience is rural and somewhat tied to industry, but it's been incredible sometimes when you find out who is reading it like people not connected to industry at all. So I think there are actually a lot of people outside of the industry who have been following along since this is our 10th year. So the first seven or eight years we were just publishing blogs or blog articles and then we've moved into podcasts and, yeah, there are a lot of people not connected to industry at all that follow along and read the content and listen. Now.
Kirsten Diprose: 40:37
So, now that you're more of a podcast than more than anything, why have you decided to take that direction? Why has the podcast kind of worked? Do?
Stephanie Coombes: 40:46
you think I think it was just a natural progression, like podcasts have been around for I think some of them have been around for close to 20 years now. Like it's, I only started listening to them in 2016. That's when I discovered them to 20 years now. I only started listening to them in 2016. That's when I discovered them and with the way our website worked, it relied on other people to submit stories. It was a really collaborative effort and then as time went on, it got harder and harder to get the content in, and then also podcasts were kind of the new thing and it provided another way to get stories across and just on a whole different level, because when you read a story, you have to sit down and read it.
Stephanie Coombes: 41:21
Podcasts you can be doing things driving, doing the dishes, mowing the lawn, working out at the gym and you also hear that person's voice. And it's also not, as I find, as polished In an article. Somebody's written it. They might have read over it a bit. They've tidied it up, made it all nice, but in a podcast you get a lot of raw emotions and moments in time. So I just think it offers something really different to people.
Kirsten Diprose: 41:46
Yeah, Tell me about your podcast process, the time that you spend with the guests and how you do the interviews, because I think it's really quite unique in today's podcasts may not be polished all the times, but it's a business sometimes and you've just time, is money bang. You're producing this thing.
Stephanie Coombes: 42:01
What's it like for you? Yeah, so I'm very protective of the guests on my podcast, because they're often people that haven't done any media before and aren't necessarily interested in doing media and with our podcast. While I do like to have an episode out every week, it's not breaking news. There's no reason that I need to record something and have it out the next day or the next week. So my process is, especially when I don't know the person, to go and meet them and spend some time with them and try and learn what the story is.
Stephanie Coombes: 42:31
I don't want to go for the low-hanging fruit and so say they've had an illness or a major life event. I don't want to go okay, cool, and so say they've had an illness or a major life event. I don't want to go, okay, cool, that's a story, that's what we're going to talk about. I don't want to just pick that low hanging fruit. So I like to get to know them and craft the story and then also let them set boundaries and figure out what they're comfortable with.
Stephanie Coombes: 42:49
And after we do record, which is usually after a couple of meetings or if I've been out I've been out traveling the last few years so often I just go and stay with people After I record. I let them sit with the audio for as long as they like, so they are comfortable with it. Because often people come out of a recording and they just go oh, I don't even remember what I said, and that can cause a lot of anxiety, thinking like, have I said something that I'm going to sound silly and then it's going to be published to the whole wide world. So I let them sit with it and if there's little bits that have taken out, I'll do that for them. Then they can listen to it again, and only then when they're a hundred percent happy with it.
Kirsten Diprose: 43:27
Is it released? I think it's really important. Yeah, what about your own life? What's the impact on your own life and time giving so much time to this podcast when I imagine you have other things that you need to do in life?
Stephanie Coombes: 43:39
So the last two years I've been traveling around Australia working for myself and so it was quite fine to be doing the podcast. When we first started the podcast, it was fortnightly or a bit sporadically, and then at the start of last year start of 2021, I made a commitment to have one episode every week and we didn't even stop over Christmas and New Year's last year. I just kept them coming out. But recently I've gone back to full-time work for someone else and it's been a real struggle, especially because I do all my recordings in person. So trying to find the time to go out and visit people, build those connections yeah, I'm in a bit of a transition phase at the moment, trying to figure out how to find a balance going forward.
Stephanie Coombes: 44:23
And what do you do for work? So I work for NT Farmers, which is the peak industry body for the plant-based industries of the Northern Territory. So I do extension and work with growers in horticulture and broadacre cropping, and I also am a photographer as well. And then the podcast. So really I have three jobs. Are you a mum? No, a dog mum, which, yeah, and then the podcast.
Kirsten Diprose: 44:37
So really I have three jobs. Are you a mum?
Stephanie Coombes: 44:39
No, a dog mum, which, yeah. And then I bought a house when I, at the same time as I, got the new job and I got a brand new puppy all at once. So it's been a very busy few months.
Kirsten Diprose: 44:50
Very busy.
Dr Maria Rae: 44:52
What's with you podcast producers? You're always the busiest people I know.
Kirsten Diprose: 44:56
It's true but we're driven by passion, and our next guest is no different. Although I follow Katrina Myers on Instagram for her honesty about it all like she talks about how she looks after her mental health and you can actually hear her in season one of Ducks on the Pond it's about how to juggle the mental load. She has four kids right yes, four kids and an avocado farm at Barham in New South Wales and her own online business.
Dr Maria Rae: 45:25
And a podcast. Let's meet Katrina.
Katrina Myers: 45:28
So there was a few reasons. I started the podcast because I wanted to connect with other rural women and I really wanted to share other women's voices and amplify women's voices, and I wanted a way to share more skills, tools, tips for how to thrive as women in rural areas and how to lead, and the podcast is such a great way to do that. And I also know that building know, like and trust when you have an online business is a really important part of it, and a podcast is such a fabulous way to build that know, like and trust with your customers and your community.
Kirsten Diprose: 46:00
Yeah, that's a really good piece of advice. So know, like and trust. Where does that concept come from?
Katrina Myers: 46:05
That's known in the entrepreneur world. I think I first heard it from like a James Wedmore or someone, but often that's what's talked about when you're trying to develop and sell online courses and products and share your work. There's so much noise in the online space now that people only buy from people that they know and trust and takes a bit of time to build that up. You're not just going to go on, especially if it's anything of higher value. So it does take that time and the podcast is such a really great way because it just builds that connection and that intimacy with people on much more quickly and it's just a great way to do it because you're in their earbuds and you're sharing and it's just a really wonderful way to build that.
Kirsten Diprose: 46:43
What are some of the challenges of producing a podcast?
Katrina Myers: 46:47
So I would say the first thing is just having the confidence to actually do it and trusting yourself and knowing that there's quite a format around when you go to produce a podcast like they're mostly weekly, so there's a bit of pressure around thinking I've got to do this weekly I know I certainly found that hard and trusting myself to think, geez, I've got to show up and do this every week.
Katrina Myers: 47:06
It's quite a lot of work. It's also quite costly if you don't know how to do the editing and everything yourself and you've got to outsource that. So it's quite expensive to get it edited and then also to do show notes, share it in that sort of way. So that's definitely some of the biggest challenges is really just, yeah, the cost. And then also I would also say to that connectivity like sometimes it's quite challenging if you've got to do the interviews. Most of the interviews we do now are online and you can lose internet service and that sort of thing, especially when you're in those rural areas. But I mean that's getting better, but I think that a lot of rural people will say that connectivity is still unfortunately a little bit inhibiting for a lot of things in our business and podcasting is one of them.
Kirsten Diprose: 47:47
What do you think podcasts can do for rural women in general? There's quite a few of them around now. What are the benefits from a kind of broader perspective?
Katrina Myers: 47:55
Yeah, yeah, I guess it's just a way of really hearing from people in rural areas and it gives people the opportunity, without having to be on a news platform or a radio platform, we can just we can hear from more people and you can share your voice and your story and your point of view and amplify others voices in rural areas as well, and share that and it's accessible by anyone you know and I think also so. As opposed, say, a YouTube channel or doing video, people feel more comfortable in that audio environment rather than having to show up and speak and be seen. So I think speaking and just audio is a less confrontational and more available platform and then it gives us that more far-reaching. I think the more we hear from rural people and the more those voices are amplified, the better and it gives us better connection with people in urban areas.
Kirsten Diprose: 48:46
Do you think many urban people are listening to rural women podcasts?
Katrina Myers: 48:52
Yeah, that's a good question. Actually, I'm not sure I wonder what the stats are. You probably have to have looked at these stats. I'd be really interested to know that. I know that probably most of my audience is definitely in rural areas for sure, and I was actually really interested to learn that I think it's 8 million people live in rural and regional Australia. It's actually a massive percentage. I think if you just go just rural, it's not many, it's like 10%. But rural and regional is quite a big space. But yeah, I don't know. I'd love to know that from you. Actually, kirsten, have you researched that?
Kirsten Diprose: 49:20
No, but one of the difficulties is when you look at your podcast stats. Sometimes it will deflect to the nearest city when that person's not actually in that city.
Katrina Myers: 49:29
Yeah, I'd have to go and look at my stats. But yeah, as you say, it's probably not that helpful because it doesn't tell you much anyway.
Kirsten Diprose: 49:33
Do you feel part of a network of rural women, so women that could be all over the country or indeed the world not near you at all, but do you feel part of that?
Katrina Myers: 49:43
I think I definitely do. Yes, I think there is there's a lot more in that space now. I love the work, of course, that Jackie and yourself do as well with building the Rural Women's Day. I think just seeing the passion behind all of that. But so often, I must say, there's so many events that I'd love to get to that do feel that community, but it's just so hard to get to the events when you've got young kids and we live in remote areas. But I definitely think that there is a lovely community and I feel connected to that.
Katrina Myers: 50:11
And people, the feedback that you get that's one of the lovely parts of doing a podcast is the feedback from people and that they say that they love it and they listen to it and they share it. And it's amazing who you don't know, that people are listening and then they'll say, oh yeah, I listen to your podcast and that's just really lovely. Actually, I would just say that if it's in you, if there's an inkling that you'd like to do one, get it out there and do it, and just do it messy, show up messy, don't feel like it has to be perfect. I think that's one of the things that we think oh, up and chat and talk, and don't let the idea of having to be perfect put you off.
Kirsten Diprose: 50:42
Just get out there and get it done, just get it started and see what happens, and it's the more people that do it the better yeah, I edit my own podcast and you can hear my journey of learning how to make sound better from the first one to the last one, and I'd still say I'm on that journey. But the first episode the levels go up and down so you can hear, it goes loud and then it goes soft again and oh, anyway, I learned how to compress a file and I didn't learn that till maybe episode four or five, but anyway, Aha, okay, but you know what, like you can hear all that stuff, but the listeners can't so much.
Katrina Myers: 51:17
Often we put so much pressure on ourselves to get it perfect, but you just got to get it done. The listeners can't so much. Often we put so much pressure on ourselves to get it perfect, but we've just got to get it done.
Kirsten Diprose: 51:22
Yes, Maria, perfection is the enemy of progress. That's one of my all-time favourite quotes.
Dr Maria Rae: 51:28
What about this quote from Brene Brown? Connection is why we're here. We are hardwired to connect with others. It's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.
Kirsten Diprose: 51:38
Oh yeah, I like it, I see what you're doing. Oh yeah, I like it, I see what you're doing. A lot of our Bush podpreneurs started podcasts for connection.
Dr Maria Rae: 51:46
Yes, here's Sam Meurant from Newtown in rural Queensland. Host of the Rural Compass podcast.
Samantha Meurant: 51:51
So I started it in 2019 and I was sitting in a car traveling back from a art workshop that I'd been running and I'd been really struggling with connecting with other rural women who were also running businesses from remote locations. I'm about nine hours from my closest capital city. I was listening to all these amazing podcasts about entrepreneurial women, but they're all from metro areas, so I had this little brain spark that I thought you know what I can do this, as we all do, I think, and that's how it all starts.
Kirsten Diprose: 52:28
And how did the practicalities go of starting a podcast? Did you in any way underestimate how much work goes into a podcast?
Samantha Meurant: 52:37
Oh, 100%. It was very much thinking that I it would just be you, press record, record the whole thing, post it up. It's done, that sort of thing. The editing process that went into that and then also the marketing and even just finding guests, like it was, it got to the point where I didn't have to go and find guests. People were asking me to be on the podcast, which was amazing. But that initial reaching out to people because it was this newer platform that people hadn't really explored too much yet and people might have listened to podcasts but gone oh my gosh, no, I can't be on that so it was convincing people as well. It was quite an interesting process but, yes, it definitely took a lot more time and energy than I had expected for my little passion project, your little passion project has done very well, though.
Kirsten Diprose: 53:27
It's opened a lot of doors and you've won some awards, even.
Samantha Meurant: 53:31
Yeah. So it was amazing. It led me down these really cool paths and in 2019, I said that I'm not going to say no to anything. I said yes to everything. So you know, I got a call from ABC asking me if they could nominate me for an ABC Haywire Trailblazer for their program. That they ran with that, which allowed me to speak at the Great Hall at Parliament House, and then I also had dinner with Ida Buttrose and got to speak on Triple J and all these sorts of really cool things, spoke at the National Museum in Canberra. So that was really amazing and I would have never got that experience, I don't think, if it wasn't for the podcast and its success. And I also was a in 2020, I was the Queensland finalist for the AgriFutures Rural Women's Awards as well, which was really amazing. Unfortunately, I didn't get to go to any of the events because COVID hit. It was still a great little accolade on my sheet there.
Kirsten Diprose: 54:30
How do you measure success with a podcast? Is it the number of downloads? Is it whether you make decent money from it? Is it the sorts of guests you get on? Is it the awards you might get for it? How do you measure success?
Samantha Meurant: 54:45
I think, for myself. I think success for me was being able to achieve what I had set out to achieve. So I think everyone's point of success is different, and that was mine. I set out this goal to be able to speak to other women and connect them. I didn't realize until I'd gone to the Trailblazers week in Canberra. So they have the week that you go down and you get to do all these workshops and all this sort of thing, and I didn't really realize until I got down there. I was talking to someone else who had a podcast and I was like oh, you know, I had like, in the first 10 episodes I had 30,000 downloads or whatever it was. I can't actually remember exactly. But and they're like what? And they're like that's actually really amazing, considering you 'd never had anything to do with podcasting, you'd never tried it before. That's a really great number. And I thought, oh, that's cool to know.
Samantha Meurant: 55:32
But it wasn't. That wasn't the way I measured that success and I think for me to like being able to get out there on platforms like ABC and also even AgriFutures and that sort of thing and share the podcast in it, to be able to then reflect back to those rural women, was really a success point for me.
Kirsten Diprose: 55:51
Yeah, wow, that's really nicely put With your own business and your studio. Do you find that having the podcast has led people to your business at all?
Samantha Meurant: 56:03
having the podcast has led people to your business at all. Yeah, absolutely, and I think that's a really great way to be able to monetize a podcast is if you're aligning it with your business and being able to reflect back to that. I definitely have had people who say I'm standing at a market stall, which I don't really do too many of with my studio. But if I was standing at a market stall and someone would be like, oh, aren't you, samantha Meurant? You have the Rural Compass podcast and so just those sorts of things, and they might buy something, because they're like, oh, that's really cool and you get that conversation going, and just the connections that I've made with a lot of women as well, that I've been able to discuss with them ways to improve my business and I think that's probably been one of the biggest benefits is being able to grow my business through hearing the stories of the rural women. So, yeah, that's probably how it's best benefited me.
Kirsten Diprose: 56:52
And last but certainly not least, maria is Stephanie Trethui.
Dr Maria Rae: 56:57
And hasn't she taken the Motherland podcast places?
Kirsten Diprose: 57:00
Yeah, she's turned her podcast into a charity and a movement to connect rural mums. Now she's got online mums groups and events. She won the AgriFutures National Rural Women's Award a couple of years ago and this year she was named Tasmanian Australian of the Year.
Dr Maria Rae: 57:18
And it all began with a podcast from her kitchen table in rural Tassie. Here's Steph.
Stephanie Tretheway: 57:24
Motherland, came at a time when I felt really lonely in my life, probably the loneliest I've ever felt. I spent seven years working in TV journalism across the country as a reporter and, long story short, fell in love with a farmer and found myself with a six-month-old baby living on a farm in rural Tasmania and had no village. I felt incredibly isolated from people and services and comforts that I'd grown to know and love in the city and, yeah, I guess I had a moment of frustration when I just I knew that I had to pull myself out of a mental slump and it all just clicked that starting a podcast for rural mums, which didn't exist, would be an amazing way for journalism Steph to connect for rural mums, which didn't exist, would be an amazing way for journalism Steph to connect with rural mums Steph, to have something for me to help me feel less alone in my own journey and then hopefully help other rural mums as well, which is what it's gone on to do, which is awesome.
Kirsten Diprose: 58:14
Yeah, Motherland's really grown to be this amazingly successful podcast and now this charity. Did you start the podcast knowing that this would be the end point? Where were you thinking when you started?
Stephanie Tretheway: 58:25
It is just absolutely nuts. I can't even believe I'm talking to you about this. It still feels incredibly surreal. I had no intention of growing Motherland into anything other than a little tiny side project to help keep me sane on the farm. I truly I had no idea where it was going to go, but you know, I'm a big believer in adversity fuels innovation. So it is because I struggled that I started the podcast and then I had my second baby, evie, so I had two under two and that presented a whole new set of challenges. And that's when the penny dropped regarding the lack of support for rural mums, in terms of having a mother's group surveying rural mums from around the country, finding 50% at least 50% don't have access to one. I didn't have access to one, and that's where Motherland Village is born. So, yeah, I had absolutely no idea where this was heading and I still have no idea what the end game is. I don't know if there ever will be an end game. Oh, it's a great place to be really?
Kirsten Diprose: 59:18
Why do you think women start sort of podcasts or other businesses or something when, if you're on a farm and you've got young kids, you're busy enough, why do they?
Stephanie Tretheway: 59:28
do it? It's an interesting question. I can only speak for myself and also the many rural mums that I've spoken to. Everyone is so different, but there is definitely a lot of us who are so consumed by farm life and motherhood, and for me, I felt like everything was about the farm. You live it, you breathe it and I love it. However, I was drowning in the farm and I was drowning in motherhood. I felt like there was nothing for me, and again, I don't live in the city, like in Melbourne, where I can go and see friends and go to the movies and do bits and pieces here and there, and so for me, it was really about having something that was mine, no matter how small or big it's not about size and something that was meaningful.
Stephanie Tretheway: 1:00:09
And a lot of bush businesses driven by women are means-driven businesses. They're not money-driven businesses and so I think that it's exciting. It's nice to see all these incredible women put their skills to good use, but also just to find passion in all these incredible projects. There's also a lot of women who don't, and that's everyone is very different. It's a very personal, I guess, a very personal matter. Yeah.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:00:33
Yeah, there's something about having a purpose beyond. Being a mum is a huge purpose and but it's often quite mundane as well. A lot of it.
Stephanie Tretheway: 1:00:43
Yeah, and I think we also need to be really careful how we phrase these conversations, because there's heaps of mums, wherever you live, city or country, who their purpose and their job, their full-time job, is motherhood and that is what they feel like they were born to do, that is what they want to do and they have no aspirations beyond that.
Stephanie Tretheway: 1:01:04
And I mean that in a respectful way, and I think we need to acknowledge those women and the job they do, because that's incredible, and so I actually have often felt that I wished, when we moved here, that for me it was enough, but it wasn't. And I think that also is a lot of my conditioning in my background and my career is I've always linked a lot of my self-worth to my career, and that's also a very dangerous place to be. I don't think that's healthy, and so for me, it's been finding a balance between having something that's for me but also recognizing that being a mum is enough. It is always enough, and that's something that I'm working on as well is finding a bit more balance and realizing that I just I need to focus on valuing that role as well.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:01:43
Yeah, beautifully said. How do you source your podcast guests and your journalism backgrounds probably helped with this and kind of go through the process of making someone feel comfortable when you speak to them.
Stephanie Tretheway: 1:01:57
It's really community driven. So I think about 80 to 90 percent of the podcast guests every week have been nominated by another rural mum through our website and the emails that come through every week. And then there's, yeah, probably 10 to 20 percent of women that I I know or I've heard of or I've always wanted to get on and I'll personally approach. So, yeah, and as for making them feel comfortable, I I don't know what the secret sauce is, but I've worked around the country. You can put me in a room with literally anyone from any background.
Stephanie Tretheway: 1:02:28
And also I would like to say that I'm pretty down to earth person. I'm a rural mum and I interview rural mums and I get it and I struggle and I run around like a headless chook and it's not perfect and I record the podcast from the kitchen table, and so I think it's just an element of being relatable. And I would say, given my background in journalism and the newsrooms I've worked for around the country in Melbourne, brisbane, sydney, channel 9, channel 7 is unfortunately, I don't believe a lot of journalists are that relatable. They like to think they are, but I think there's been an element of grassroots humbleness that has come from living in the country and living on the land, and that's what I love to bring.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:03:06
Oh, that's a really interesting point. Yeah, newsrooms are funny places, particularly TV, where you'd have to show up every day hair fully done and makeup and all well put together, which is not what it is now. You look fantastic right now, but you're in like a kind of work shirt. Do I, do I?
Stephanie Tretheway: 1:03:24
really Feel free to take a screenshot. I don't look fabulous. I don't really care. To be honest, I'm here to talk and tell stories, not to look pretty on camera anymore. So I love it. I can just interview women in my pajamas. I've got my hair in a messy bun now and a footie jersey on. Yeah, I think it's. Yeah, it's awesome, I can't complain. Beats the hell out of commuting to work, having to have your makeup and hair perfect every day and sometimes being in an environment that is very superficial. So I don't miss that.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:03:55
And that's it for another episode of Ducks on the Pond. Thank you to all of our guests Steph Trefouille, samantha Murant, katrina Myers, stephanie Coombs, kimberly Finesse and Skye Manson, and thank you, dr Maria Ray, for co-hosting with me.
Dr Maria Rae: 1:04:11
Thanks so much, Kirsten. Being a podcast host, it's been a great new experience for me.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:04:16
And what an episode a role of influential podcasting women. So episode a role of influential podcasting women. So a big thank you to you for listening. You can follow us on socials and you can check out our research paper too. Maria, where can people actually find it?
Dr Maria Rae: 1:04:29
It's called Bush Podpreneurs how Rural Women Podcasters Are Building Digital and Social Connectivity, and it's in the Journal of Radio and Audio Media. You can access it for free on the journal's website. Thank you so much, Maria, for putting us in the Journal of Radio and Audio Media. You can access it for free on the journal's website.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:04:42
Thank you so much, maria, for putting us in the kind of academic realm which I think is super important. It's where policymakers go, isn't it?
Dr Maria Rae: 1:04:51
Yeah, it would be great if we could have an impact on supporting rural women podcasters, and we'll just keep making podcasts Great.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:05:00
Thank you so much. Thanks again, Dr Maria Rae. This is a Rural Podcasting co-production and if, after listening to this episode in particular, you'd like to create your own podcast, then book a call with me. I'd love to help you bring that idea to life. And now let's hear from our episode sponsor, Chrissy Symeonakis. Thank you so much for sponsoring Ducks on the Pond. This is the second time you've sponsored us, so thank you.
Chrissy Symeonakis: 1:05:27
I am loving what you guys have to say and I really enjoy the conversation. So, yes, I'm honored to be able to sponsor you guys, thank you.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:05:35
So first tell us about your business. Creative Little Soul.
Chrissy Symeonakis: 1:05:39
Yeah, so I own a full services marketing agency. I'm a creative agency, so that means everything from business strategy, structure, logos, graphic design, copy and content and print as well.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:05:51
I love getting some business advice from people like you, because you've really expanded over time, so you employ people and grown something from that freelancing space to an actual business. What's a big piece of advice you would give someone.
Chrissy Symeonakis: 1:06:10
Yeah, so when I started it was initially me. 10 years ago I was doing all the things or was trying to do them. Some of them were terrible, like my early graphic design is junk. So what I did was I identified in order for me to scale using freelancers or contractors, I would trade with people. I do a bit of a contra, so don't be dissuade from doing a deal with people. And the other piece of advice I was given, which I think is really important, is look at all of the jobs that you can do in a day and then look at what things you could outsource or delegate to somebody else. It's hard when you're wearing all of those hats to try and want to let go of those things, but I purely look at it as a monetary thing. Now, a staff member's time is probably less than what my hourly billing is, so I can utilise that employee or that staff member to do those smaller tasks and then I can really worry about those big ticket items or those higher priced clients.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:07:05
It's hard to make sure you've got the right people, though I think that's. The fear is like, oh, I don't want to employ someone and then I have to fix everything that they do and it ends up costing me time and money.
Chrissy Symeonakis: 1:07:15
It's a risk. In business there are always those risks. I think I utilise interns quite a bit. I do. I have a relationship with a couple of colleges, a couple of unis, where I lecture as well. Often they'll need to do maybe like 100 hours of work in a business. Maybe it's one or two days a week. Have a look at utilising those types of employees so you can teach them, but then they can also give back to your business. They might have some really good ideas as well, as they're currently studying, and then I eventually end up taking them on as paid employees because I've already got a hundred hours that they know my business about now. They're a great opportunity to ease people into your business and often when they're doing this study it's free. So there's a hundred hours of free labor you're going to get.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:07:59
That's a great idea. I'd never thought about that. Where do you find these people? Where do you find these magic student interns?
Chrissy Symeonakis: 1:08:05
Yeah, so often. Uni TAFE colleges, if you call and speak to the lecturers generally, they'll know which students will be looking to be doing a placement of sorts. They can then actually match you. A friend of mine's a lecturer in the creative space, so she actually matches the candidates to my personality quite well, so she's already knows which ones are going to vibe for us.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:08:27
Oh, that's awesome. So you have a business that really can be helpful for people wanting to outsource some of those tasks. So where can you help other businesses with what you offer?
Chrissy Symeonakis: 1:08:39
Yeah. So email marketing is a huge one. So quite often a lot of people have customer data that they might just be sitting on from an online purchase or a sign up for a newsletter. I look at that data and look at how we can put into place automation, so whether that's a welcome email, a birthday campaign, a win back, surveying so that customer data belongs to you. We're not bidding with social media platforms to get in front of people. So, yeah, generally email marketing and then that strategy behind actually putting the marketing and communication out.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:09:11
so we have a 360 plan for our communication fantastic, and you also do other kind of media or creative, I suppose, services yeah.
Chrissy Symeonakis: 1:09:20
So if you've got a wind in your business, so you're looking for a bit of PR. We work with a lot of media organisations all over Australia, even the world. We work with even your local area media. It's a little bit nicer for a press release to come from somebody else. It can be weird talking about yourself as well, particularly if you're a one man band band or one-woman band, so we can send a pitch out on your behalf and generally they tend to get picked up more as well.
Kirsten Diprose: 1:09:47
Yeah, chrissy, thank you so much. Where can people find you if they want to reach out? Yeah, sure.
Chrissy Symeonakis: 1:09:53
So our handles are creativelittlesoul. c om. au and then our socials are creativelitsoul, Thanks for having us, Thank you.
