Review: Grind to Greatness

Identified hosts?
Yes. Mary Hodges and Ashley Kane by way of a voice-over guy.

Explained what the show is about?
Yep. They said personal success, finances, health and overall fulfillment and happiness.

A little background:
Both Mary and Ashley gave us some background information on who they are and why they’re doing this podcast. I think this is VERY helpful when creating your first episode. It makes getting to the topic take a little longer, but it’s absolutely worth it. It sets the stage for who we’re going to be listening to over the next half hour or so.

Time to topic:
Over 6 minutes. I would typically say as a brand new podcaster, you need to get to your topic in under 2 mins (1 minute is even better), but I think taking this long is completely OK when the hosts have used the time to give a good history about who they are rather than just rambling. In other words, the 6 mins flew by because I was very focused on their individual back stories.

Good chemistry with host(s)?
Yeah. They were able to host without “bumping” into each other. I’m impressed because if I’m not mistaken, they weren’t even in the same room with each other.

Topic(s) discussed:
Mary’s background | the law of attraction | why she’s doing the podcast | Ashley’s background | the movie The secret | why being average sucks | some depressing life stats (these were some REALLY interesting stats. couldn’t believe what I was hearing) | Ashley’s thoughts on why people are average | talking about the “script” and how it came about (this was also REALLY interesting to hear) | how we’re trained to fit into a mold | changing your mindset | being “woke” | Les brown and changing yourself to change the world | decision based action vs emotion based action (great breakdown about this) | a book called the 5 second rule | Tony Robbins’ 10 years vs 1 theory (also REALLY interesting) | gratitude | a toolkit they created that will help with self reflection, goals, taking action | steps to move forward

Audio quality:
What’s most important when it comes to quality is whether or not I, as a listener, can clearly hear the hosts without having to adjust my volume (except maybe in the beginning of the broadcast). They were spot on with their audio. They did have the “sitting in an empty room” sound (aka reverb), but it’s not a big deal here by ANY stretch of the imagination. For a first episode, the audio was great.

Passion/personality:
It’s evident that both Mary and Ashley are passionate about their material.

Gave out socials/site(s)?
Yes. they mentioned the site and mentioned Instagram

Gave out schedule?
No

Gave out hashtag?
Yes. They encouraged the user to use #grindToGreatness

Asked something of the audience/call-to-action(CTA)?
Yes. A few things actually. The asked that we take a look at the toolkit they created on their site. Asked us to email them, follow them on IG, use the hashtag and check out the show notes.

Summary:
I REALLY enjoyed this episode. From top to bottom. These ladies seemed like they did their homework and came fully prepared. But not only were they prepared, they executed well. I loved that they put together a download that the user could take away after listening to the content (a technique Amy Porterfield likes to employ). I also loved the different parts of the episode that made me go “hmmm….interesting” or “wow…something to think about”. I especially enjoyed the “script” exercise (about the 10:30 min mark). Mary read off a bunch of sentences that are part of something called “the script”. She encouraged us to listen and finish the last word in the sentence with her as she recited it. Personally, it made me stop and reflect.

I found their back stories interesting, I could sense their determination and I got the vibe that they’re really doing this because they truly want to help folks.

They’re show notes are perfect as well (see link below).

Good deal.

Recommendation:
I think this episode was damn near flawless so I don’t want to make my recommendation feel like I’m picking. Hopefully it’s just looked at as leveling up.

So first off, if they wanted to improve audio, they could get a mixer. A mixer would allow them to get as much of the reverb out of the recording as possible without having a soundproof room available. However, at this stage, it’s not REALLY necessary. As I said, I think “good audio” constitutes allowing the listener to hear you clearly without having to adjust levels. I think NPR is the gold standard of audio podcasting, but one show I love to reference that hasn’t had “great audio” for years, but seems to be successful is Manager Tools.

Other than that, this podcast is ready to take off. I think with the right marketing, they’ll be on their way.

Link to episode:
Being Average Sucks ( Take a look to see how great of a job they did on the show notes)

Link to socials:
Mary on Instagram
Ashley on Instagram
The Grind to Greatness on Facebook, Twitter and IG

Other links:
Get to know more about Mary and Ashley
Get your first episode reviewed