Code 006 – How to Launch a Podcast with Dave Jackson
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How to Launch a Podcast
Dave Jackson shares his best tips to help you launch and grow your podcast including some tips on when and where to post your first episode. We talk about how to get your first sponsor for your show and how to get into monetization.
Show Notes with Dave Jackson
05:25 – I noted Pat Flynn who started the Smart Passive Income podcast back in 2008 and was a big mentor for me in 2014.
10:10 – Profit From Your Podcast is Dave’s new book that should be out soon.
12:10 – We talk about Fish Nerds Podcast and Clay Groves podcast on fishing.
13:50 – The best microphone for under $100 is the Samson Q2U.
16:00 – The School of Podcasting walks you through the steps to launching a new podcast.
18:15 – Podcastbranding.co or Canva can help you get your podcast artwork ready to roll.
24:40 – We talk about Captivate and Buzzsprout and the differences between some of the podcast hosts.
27:00 – The Mark Maron episode with President Obama
30:25 – Dave’s video on Anchor and the best podcast hosts out there.
40:20 – The Stacking Benjamins Podcast and what hearing no should mean to you.
49:10 – We talked about FreeUp.net and my Sam Kabart from the Clone Yourself Podcast who shares the steps to getting started with a VA.
53:10 – The Yoast SEO Plugin is a must have on your website.
57:50 – Dave is sponsored by Focus Right.
58:40 – I note the Joe Rogan podcast and the sponsorship model.
1:02:00 – Hinenburg is a software that is made for journalist and is what I now use for my editing. Audacity is one of the most common free editing software.
1:04:05 – Descript is a new software that transcribes your audio file and deletes the ums if needed.
1:08:00 – Super Fans by Pat Flynn is a great book and resource about growing your influence.
1:10:20 – Podcast Fest and Podcast Movement are the biggest events and a couple that I’ll be attending soon.
1:11:17 – Van Halen with David Lee Roth is Dave’s goto band in this show.
You can find Dave Jackson at The School of Podcasting.
Resources Noted in the Show
Profit From Your Podcast by Dave Jackson
The Samson Q2U is the best microphone for under $100
Videos Noted in the Show
Van Halen’s Jump with David Lee Roth
What you need to launch your podcast
- Know who are you talking to
- Know Why you are doing the podcast
- Know what format you want to use
- Setup the tech you need
- Setup your website
- Get your media hosting setup (I use Libsyn)
- Get your artwork created
- Submit your show 30 days prior to your launch date
Read the Full Transcript with Dave Jackson:
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Dave J 0:00
When I was growing up, I mean that I used to quote that guy like scripture.
you’d listen to his interviews and you’d be you’d hear the ice cubes in his you know his drink in the background and be like, Hey, man, what’s going on? You know, don’t let it get to your head man, cuz life’s a bitch. Anyway.
Dave S 0:20
That was Dave Jackson doing his best David Lee Roth impersonation. Welcome to today’s session of the marketing podcast.
Unknown Speaker 0:29
This is outdoors online.co, the marketing podcast that helps you elevate your business through online marketing master sessions. Join Dave each week as he helps you grow your online influence via interviews with leading entrepreneurs from around the world.
Dave S 0:46
There you go. Dave Jackson from the School of podcasting is on to shed some more light on podcasting and help you launch your next thing. Dave gives us some tips on getting to know your audience how to SEO, your blog post and the best podcast event to attend this Time to level up the learning curve folks turn up the earbuds and enjoy today’s episode with Dave Jackson from the School of podcasting.com.
Dave J 1:12
Dave I’m doing great.
Unknown Speaker 1:13
Awesome here.
Dave S 1:14
Yeah, this is this is this is gonna be fun. We’ve been I’ve been following your stuff for quite some time and you’ve got a ton of content out there and you you are actually a Hall of Fame. podcasters Is that correct?
Dave J 1:24
That is correct. I most people don’t know there is a Hall of Fame. It kind of took a hiatus because we ran out of sponsorship to hold the whole big you know, number one the the actual trophy, it’s a trophy, but it’s also a weapon. fairly expensive. And just it’s it’s a big hoopla when those things go on. So when you, you know, bring in a production crew and the lights and sound and you know, you got to rent a room and a hotel and all that other stuff. So we lost our sponsor last year. So there wasn’t a class of 2019 No, but podcast movement has said no, they’re bringing it back. So
Dave S 1:59
how Cool, cool, good. We’re gonna maybe jump into some of that if we have time at the end. talk a lot more about that. But I want to dig in. I guess one thing I want to touch on for sure is, you know, starting and launching a podcast that’s a big I’ve got people I was just talking to somebody yesterday doing kind of a coaching call. And, you know, he was kind of new to it. And he was like, well, I maybe want to get into video I may want to get in, he didn’t quite know. And podcasting wasn’t even really on his radar. But but for somebody that’s new to it, you know, I want to dig into that. But before we get there, just start us off, talk about online marketing, how you got into this whole thing and how you came to where you are doing what you do.
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Dave J 2:33
Yeah, I my backgrounds in teaching. So I started off actually teaching people office equipment, how to run their copier machines and things like that. And then one day, my boss said, Do you know anything about computers? And I’m like, Well, I used one in college. And so that led to me teaching, basically Microsoft Office and QuickBooks and customer service and things like that for about 20 years. And so, in the process of that now realize I was actually teaching people like how to send email because nobody knew what it was and how to surf the internet. So it’s it was a while ago, but in the process, I learned things like Microsoft front page, which just makes me sound ancient when I say this, but so I was making websites, you know, way, way back in the day. So in the process of doing that, I just started getting into marketing and had some cool friends. And one of my backgrounds is, I’m a musician. So I would make a website for my band and then go to whatever bar we’re playing and saying, Hey, can you have a website yet? They’re like, what’s a website? Because again, it was, and so I was making websites for all sorts of different companies and things like that. And that just led me into, like the marketing arm of, of the internet. And so how I got into podcasting is I had a friend of mine that had gone to an event and said, Hey, you know how you missed the MySpace boat? And I’m like, Yeah, yeah, don’t rub it in. And He’s, uh, he’s like, Man, I’ve seen that. The next thing that’s comimg, it’s podcasting. And I’m like, What A podcasting. And I remember I googled it. And there was one and a half pages. And I was like, Well, I think we broke the internet. I’m like, because there’s there’s nothing on this. And so when I finally pieces parted one together, I just, I just went home, okay. And then I, I turned that podcast, which was just a blog for musicians, it was called the musicians cooler. And so once I turn that blog into a podcast, and I got my first piece of voicemail from a guy in Nuremberg, Germany, and I went, wait a minute, there’s a guy on the other side of the planet, cuz I’m in nowhere, Ohio, and there’s a guy on the other side of the planet, and not only did he find my show, but he likes it and I just I grabbed my, my flag with both hands and just, you know, slammed it into the mountain. So I hereby declare podcasting where I’m gonna pitch my tent and been here ever since it was 15 years ago.
Dave S 4:52
That’s amazing. So you started so that brings it back to about oh five when you started your first podcast.
Dave J 5:00
started the podcast for musicians and then started to slowly have people say, well, like how did you how did you do that? And I was like, oh, supply and demand. Let’s start the School of podcasting. So that’s how that came about. That’s cool.
Dave S 5:11
Yeah, it’s interesting because I, I started my online marketing, you know, kind of journey back in 2014. I remember when I started I didn’t get into podcasting until I think 2017 but but I was listening to podcasts back then. And Pat Flynn was one of the guys I was listening to first and I think he started in Oh, eight, somewhere in there. Maybe Maybe it was 10. But obviously, all these people now have these multi, you know, kind of million whatever, right? making all this money online. It’s kind of in this crazy world now. Have you seen since you started till now, what’s that been like, from your perspective?
Dave J 5:43
Well, I mean, from when I started, it was the first like, five years were painful because you’d like do you want to start a podcast and somebody would say, Do I need an iPod for that? So it was just painful. But, you know, in in the early days, I remember myself and a friend of mine, Paul collagen. into probably the second year, it was like a podcast event in Ontario, California. And we said, Hey, you know what, we think we can actually make money with this. And people looked at us like we were the devil. It’s like, No, man, it’s, it’s my art man. I can’t charge for my art. Jeez, Louise. So it was rough the first couple years, but then, you know, you’ve seen things kind of kick up and you’ve seen people. And the other thing that’s beautiful about this is it’s not having a gazillion listeners. It’s about having a very rapid group of small people. Like there’s a guy that does a podcast on chameleon breeding, right. And I had I had him on my show, and he said, Yeah, he goes my manufacturer because he makes cages and then he talks about chameleons and his manufacturers said hey, like we’re running out of cages Can you like not talk about you know, the cages on the show anymore? And he was actually going to do that. I’m like, No, no, you double down you get a new manufacturer. I go this is working. So So it’s things like that Darren Dake was a member of the School of podcasting, and he just wanted to talk to other coroners. He’s a corner, he’s actually does, you know, Crime Scene Investigation kind of stuff. And those guys don’t get to talk and hang out as much. There’s there’s no kind of bar that all the corners went to. And, you know, that led to him being asked to speak at different events, which led to him being named to the like head trainer in Missouri. And fast forward. I think it’s about three years now. He actually has his own school where he certifies coroners, and is making really nice paycheck. So it’s one of those things that what I hate to see is when somebody and this people think I make this up, people contact me every January and say, I want to start a podcast and I want to quit my job in six weeks or I’m just like, you know, I wish I could wave my magic wand. It just doesn’t work that way. You know, six months, you might start making some money. If you’re really really really good. I said, What six weeks is not gonna happen out
Dave S 7:59
I think you got a I don’t know. I don’t know if you have to love it but I always feel like when I started it I remember right away the first episode I did. I just was like, This is my thing. I’m not I’m not great at blogging. I just loved it. So I think I don’t know. Do you think that do you feel most of the people you work with just they have that they have it for podcasting? They just love it.
Dave J 8:18
Yeah, it’s one of those things where it’s occasionally I will get a writer who just says, huh, I would just rather write I’m like I said, but how do you do? A dramatic pause, right? How do you do that? And when you’re writing and how can you be sarcastic and tone of voice and I and they usually, the one that gets them is I’ll say, look, you know, I read your blog. It’s great. And I would love to read your blog in the car, but I can’t because I’m driving, but I could listen to it if it was a podcast and they go, Oh, that’s true. And I’m like, okay, so you get that but yeah, it’s it’s usually the people that love their topics so much that they they would talk about it for free for a rather long time. And I’m like, good because when you first start out, you’re gonna be talking about it for free. And it just one of those things that usually most podcasters that that really hang in there. Their goal is to serve their audience. It’s not so much what can I get from the audience is what can I give to the audience? And so that goes back to just the you know, the Gary Vee, Jab, Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, you got a job first. And that’s usually what happens. It’s the people that get in, and they go, when somebody asked me, what’s the best topic to pick, that will make money the quickest. I’m like, Don’t even start now. Just Just
Dave S 9:30
know. You’re just wrong. Yeah, at the start. Oh, no, I love that. I love that you say that? Because that’s a perfect segue into, you know, like I said, the person at the start, who maybe wants to get into podcasting, and I want to talk about, you know, maybe that person that he’s kind of thinking about launching this thing in the next 30 days or 60 days or whatever, and I wanted to break down the steps. So I want to serve this up for him. Can we get into that where we just talked about, you know, just basic steps to from point, you know, from A to Z or whatever and getting this going?
Dave J 9:58
Yeah, the first thing is we I talk to people, I have a book, in theory coming out this year, I’m not sure what’s going on with my publisher now with this pandemic, but it’s supposed to come out in July. And when I interviewed these people for the books called profit from your podcast, and the people that were really successful, really knew who they were talking to, that was really the bottom line, they knew exactly who they’re talking to. And I always use the analogy of stew, you know, if you made a stew like my mom used to make this kick butt beef stew with veggies and stuff, and if I serve that to my friends, and all of a sudden somebody walks in goes, Oh, um, is that gluten free? And then another person goes, is that beef in that because I’m a vegan, you know, you got to know who your audience is, otherwise, you’re going to be serving things they don’t want. So that’s really the first the first question I was asked is who you’re talking to, and then why, why are you doing a podcast? And if the answer is, I don’t know, it’d be cool. No, that’s not a good enough reason. It’s, it’s usually, you know, I want if it’s a speaker, I want more speaking gigs or an author who wants to sell more books or maybe it’s just somebody who has a cause And nobody knows this, I need to get people involved in this, whatever it is, you got to know why because otherwise, you don’t know how to shape your kind of
Dave S 11:09
let’s, let’s take this for an example. Let’s say the, you know, the person, the audience has kind of the outdoor space or businesses out there that are trying to they’re struggling to get online, and he wants to basically teach these people how to build their online presence. And because he thinks that having more people in the outdoor space is going to create a, you know, a better world more conservation minded people. If that was where we started, what would be the next next step?
Dave J 11:36
So that’s it. So okay, why are you doing this? You want to get people out in the outdoors? Maybe that’s
Dave S 11:41
it? Well, and that could be say, that’s part of it. And part of it would be potentially to, you know, ultimately longer term, get some leads potentially for a product that they’re going to be making maybe some sort of a maybe a coaching thing or an online service or something like that.
Dave J 11:54
Yeah. So that’s where you can talk about either what’s going on if there’s any kind of news About the outdoors maybe there’s a you know, National Park that’s under siege or whatever or maybe it’s how to you know, here’s some tips when camping in Yosemite because you know if you’ve ever attacked by a bear or just any kind of tips when you’re out in the there’s a friend of mine, Clay groves does a show called fish nerds. Oh, yeah, it’s, it’s everything about fishing. And he uses it. He doesn’t it’s not a giant commercial for clay. But if you’re in Maine, you can get clay to do a really nice boat tour and he’ll take you to the best places to fish in Maine and he’s just a guy that knows everything there is about fishing, but when he does get people to go on a tour, he records it because half the best fishing stories and entertaining, entertaining kind of things of tips and things like that are on the boat. So you sound like you’re right there with clay as you are doing this and this guy’s like, Well, yeah, this one time I was fishing on this lake that we use this bait in this kind of thing. And you’re like, I’ll have to try that the next time. There, but it also makes it sound like wow, fishing with clays got to be just a blast, I want to be on that boat with clay. So if you’re doing something with outdoors, it might be, hey, you know, if you need a tour of, you know, maybe you live in Utah, and you’re going to give people a tour of all the different national parks out there, you could give tips on how to survive, how to not get burnt to a crisp way. Whatever, wherever you’re at things like that. You know, but it really boils down to like you said, if it’s, you know, maybe you’re selling a book, maybe you’re being a consultant, whatever it is, if it’s a consultant, and you want to position yourself as a an expert. Yeah, one of the things I always tell people is take those questions, that in some cases, you’re like, oh, man, if I have to answer that, again, like for me, and I don’t mind answering this question, because I get it literally five times a day, which is what’s the best microphone for say under 100 bucks, right. Okay, that’s your first episode. That first question is that’s your first episode. And that way when somebody emails you and they Say, Hey, I’m thinking of starting a podcast. What’s the best microphone under 100 bucks by the way? It’s the Samsung cue to you. Yeah. And I can say, Oh, actually, it’s the Samsung cue to you. I talked about it, and you can hear it in this episode. So they go over to your podcast and they listen to it. They’re like, Oh, wait, there’s another episode here, and another episode here. And so what you end up with is end up with a customer now who’s better? They all that little kind of one on one stuff that takes up a lot of your time. It’s not taking up your time anymore, because they’re getting those questions answered. So now, when your your lead comes back, you have a much warmer lead because they know like and trust you because hey, you put this thing out every Wednesday and there’s always really good stuff in it. And now they’re coming back with like a more advanced kind of question. And you’re it’s a better use of your time. And now you have somebody who really is ready to act, hey, I’m going to do this. Now. I want to hire you as my consultant or, hey, I need to buy your product. I understand now. Which one I To get so you end up with a much better educated lead. And meanwhile, you’re educating your potential clients 24 seven a day without doing anything. It’s all online. It’s awesome.
Dave S 15:11
Yeah, that’s a great, great way to put it. And I think what does is it cut the they’ll quote, come for the topic, stay for the voice or the person or whatever that’s, you know, sort of thing where they come they come in to learn about that, and then stay for you. Right?
Dave J 15:23
Well, it’s funny because I would when I first started, I had my podcast for musicians, and then I started the School of podcasting. And I would have people on the School of podcasting, email me and they’re like, oh, blah, blah, blah, and I listened. I heard you say this on the musician’s cooler and I’m like, oh, wow, I didn’t know you played What are you playing? Like, oh, I’m not even a musician. I just think honey. Sounds like a lot. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, they they come for the topic, but they stick around for you
Dave S 15:49
for you. So okay, so if we take that back again, so somebody they can know their audience and I know there’s a ton of steps and I know you have at the School of podcasting. I mean, you walk people through the whole so if they want to get the from A to Z, they can kind of check out your stuff. But is there a quick little way to summarize what somebody if they’re brand new to it what they need to do to launch a podcast?
Dave J 16:09
Yeah, well, first you need to know what format you’re going to use and how you’re going to create the content. So if it’s just you talking into a microphone, oh, that’s easy. Samson, q2, you done, you’re ready to move on. So you need some equipment to record. If it’s if you’re going to be doing interviews, you either need Skype or squad cast or whatever. And it can get tricky because a lot of times you run into the problem where your guest has no equipment, and now it’s the whole dance of Hey, guess what? You can’t come on my show. No. Why? Because you sound like you’re in a tunnel. And I have standards for my podcasts. And some people don’t do that. They’ll just let anybody on and I’m like, Hmm, I don’t know. That’s, that’s still a reflection on your brand. But then you need that then you need a you need a website, which most people have, but if not there, they’re not hard to make. If you use Microsoft Word you can you already have have kind of the skills to make a website. And then you need a media host. And that is where some people think, Oh, well, you know, I’m used whatever Hostgator or Bluehost. And it says unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage. And that doesn’t work. And the reason for that it’s not the bandwidth, it’s not the storage. It’s that websites are small. They’re, let’s say, 50 kilobytes, right? Because it’s text and it’s images. But now you’ve got a 50 megabyte mp3 file. So now you, you put this up on a web host, you get a couple hundred people trying to pull that thing down at the same time because you just released it. And that little web host is just going, Okay, it can’t keep up. So you need a media host. I work for libsyn. But and everybody goes Oh, will you say Lipson is the best because you work there? And I’m like, No, I say that the best because I was a customer for 10 years. And when I got out of teaching, I said, Where can I work that I’m going to be able to sleep at night but there’s there are others out there but you need a web host and they’re going to do They, they have the tools to then syndicate your show throughout the world and that’s really, you also need a piece of artwork. And that’s where you can you know, if you have some skills you can use Canva. But there’s podcast branding CO is a really good guy that makes artwork and all sorts of stuff. There are all sorts of services and things like that.
Dave S 18:16
Nice. Nice Yeah. And I had that same I think that’s when I started with lips and i was i self hosting or whatever. When I first started out in Mike site, everything crashed and I was like, Oh my god, I call I think I talked to rob and he and he hooked me up and was like, Here you go, this is what you need. And ever since then, you know, it’s it’s pretty, Rob’s pretty awesome. But I remember when I first listened to him, he can’t he came off as kind of a little rough around the edges like Well, I don’t know if I like this guy. But after I listened to him for the same thing right after I got to know him from the podcast as I Oh, Rob’s awesome. This is cool deal.
Dave J 18:47
Yeah, he can be a little snarky at times. He’s not he’s not afraid to share his opinion. And sometimes it puts people off but it’s the same thing once you get to know him. You’re like, you know what he’s really got your your best interests at heart. So he’s a good guy. Exactly.
Dave S 19:00
Got a few few other questions here. I wanted to, you know, on the launch, and maybe we’ll as we go and talk about it, because one of the things is, you know, you get it going, you get it up, and then how do you really get it going? Right? I mean, and we can dig into that. But one thing I had a question about was so on a trailer, right? Do you need to do a trailer or some sort of an intro episode? What do you need there?
Dave J 19:20
You don’t need a trailer. In fact, you can’t submit your show to Apple with just a trailer. I just discovered that about three months ago, because I tried to do that. And they’re like, there’s no episodes in your feed. And I’m like, Yes, there is. And as soon as I switched my trailer to, to tell it that, hey, this is an episode it was fine. So you don’t need one. The thing I hate to hear is the most boring part of a book is the table of contents. I hate the beginning of a book where Chapter One is, and we’re going to talk about this and we’re going to talk about this and then later in chapter five. We’re going to talk about this. I’m like, Look, I bought the book. Let’s just get to the stuff. And so when I hear an episode one that say hey, I want to You to get to know me well, and this is harsh. Your audience doesn’t care about you yet until you give them a reason to care. So when you do an episode about my story that does nothing for me, zero, so I usually don’t make that my episode zero. And I always tell people come out with that first episode. If it’s going to be a trailer, give them some sort of stat. Did you know that? You know 700,000 podcasts and Apple podcasts are not active. They’re just trash laying around doing nothing. I’m going to show you how to create an active podcast in this podcast. Okay, now there’s a stat that be like, wait, what, huh? All you have to do is go to my website and subscribe, and you’ll get the episode The minute it’s available. That would be something that’s going to come out as opposed to Hey, do you know I’ve been podcasting since you know, 2005? Nobody cares, right? So you got to do something like that. The one thing that I see people do a lot that’s a mistake, because they don’t know the process is there like I’m going to launch on, you know, April 15 tax. Okay, great. And they start working on it on April 7. All right. You want to submit your show to Apple a month before your actual launch day. And the reason for that is you’ll probably get listed, let’s say I it’s April 4. So let’s say a launch that day, I might be in Apple by April 11, maybe even earlier than that. And some people like, Well, yeah, but if I’m not launching till the 15th, or whatever, or let’s say I’m going to launch on May 4, I put it in an April 4, I’m getting lost here, but April 4, that means we’re going to launch on May 4. Okay, so it’s in Apple on April 11. And be like, well, I’m wasting 19 days, that I’m in Apple and my guess what, are you in the phonebook? Yeah, you’re in the phonebook. Great. Are you famous because you’re in the phonebook? No being in Apple podcast is not going to bring a huge amount of traffic to you. What does is when you start telling your your fans and your future fans in your contacts in your you know, your mom, your dad, your cousins, everybody. And the other reason why you want that in there is Google podcasts as Google just came out on the iPhone last week. And it was weird, because all these announcements came out this at Google podcast is now on Apple podcasts. And it wasn’t weird. So I went to the I went to the app, and I typed in Google podcasts, which is the name of the app. And it didn’t come up. Why? Because it hadn’t been in there long enough to somehow do the magic Mojo. So even though I’m in Apple podcasts on the 11th, I may not show up till weeks later. Now I can send people to that link, because Apple will say, hey, you’re in the store. Here’s your link. And you definitely want to put that on your on your website. But I always go back again, I’m a musician and I kind of date myself. But back in the day, musicians used to have these things called CD release parties. And the one thing you never did was pick your CD release date until you have the CD in your hand because there’s so many things that could go wrong. So I always say, Wait till you’re in Apple and Google, at least apple and Spotify. Google is its own little beast, but you know, get in all these different directories, as many as you can and usually takes about a week to get in there. Then once you’re in all the places you want, then pick your day. Because otherwise there’s, there’s a chance that you’re going to go, Hey, I want to be an apple. It’s three days from now, I’m gonna launch in four days, and you’re like, Nope, that’s not gonna work. Gotcha.
Dave S 23:26
No, that’s a great, that’s a great tip for sure. So let’s take that again. So say you are launching early May and right now it is early April. So you want to go right now to whoever your host is and say even though you don’t have any episodes recorded, you got a you got your art and everything else you need. You can still submit that you get this thing going right now.
Dave J 23:45
Well, you need an episode to submit.
Dave S 23:47
Oh, you need it you so you could do a solo, you could just do a five minute solo episode.
Dave J 23:51
And this is where some people will do what I call an episode zero, and they’re just like, hey, it’s Dave Jackson, blah, blah, blah, in here’s what we’re going to talk about and then you submit that to Apple. And so now you’re in there. Great. So what you could do now is now you can actually put up your very first, you know, I’ve got the technology working. And now my Okay, I’m gonna put up my first real episode, and I’ll pull down that rabbit hole that was there to be a placeholder because that’s not going to get people excited. You know if that first episode is just something there too, like, I need something up just so Apple will. Yeah, we’ll count me in. So you can swap those out. That’s cool. And you call it an
Dave S 24:25
episode when they asked you for the episode number. You can just call it one or or you can actually zero.
Dave J 24:31
You could if it’s just a fake one, just a fake one. I gotcha.
Dave S 24:34
Okay, that’s cool. And then I want to get hit on this a little bit because I know there’s, you know, I had Daniel J. Lewis, he was on and we were talking about he mentioned captivate which I hadn’t even heard of another a host. I think they might be a UK based company. Hmm. I’ve heard a lot about buzzsprout. There’s a ton of buzzsprout stuff on there for like how to start a podcast and some good info there. I’m just curious. I know you obviously work for Lipson but the difference between Lipson is the biggest thing They’ve been around that, you know, I use them, they’re great. But do you know i? What would you say if somebody asked you like I’m thinking about buzzsprout? You know, they seem like they’re pretty cool. Is it that big of a deal? What what’s your take on that?
Dave J 25:10
Um, buzzsprout, I have criteria for my, my different media hosts. And that is, number one, it can’t be free. Why? Because there’s one right now called booshka. It just came out at the beginning of the month and said, hey, guess what, we’re gonna, they used to give you 10,000 downloads for free. Now, they’re going to give you 1000 downloads a month. Free is not a good business model. It’s just not I know, seven different companies that have tried to do free hosting. And unless you got Spotify behind you, you know, you lose money. It’s just you know, it’s not a good business model. I want to have support. I want to have IAB certified stats, that is a certification for the industry. So if you’re going to do any kind of sponsors, there’s a really good chance that they’re going to want IB certification. I don’t want you to change my file name. This is a weird one. But if you ever switched Media hosts, it’s so much easier if your file name on this platform is the same platform over here. Because then you can go to your website and say, Hey, anywhere where it says, you know, buzzsprout.com slash my file name, change to whatever new host slash, and it will just instantly update your website, because your file name doesn’t change. So I don’t want you to change my file name. And I also don’t want you to change the file format. So if I upload something in, you know, stereo, at a fairly high output, I don’t want you changing it to a low output because it’s easier to stream if I want to make a mistake, let me make a mistake because some people do music shows and they wanted their, their show a little more higher quality. Yes, it’s a slower download, but you know, that’s the way you want it. So don’t change the file that I do that and then give me some support and some, you know, that’s if I need help. And so then the other thing I want is unlimited downloads. I want unlimited storage and unlimited downloads, which means I can upload X amount a month. Then I can download as many as I want. So, like when Mark Marin had the President on his show, if there was a limit to his downloads he would have been in a problem and buzzsprout now granted Look, I’m really they have a really big limit. It’s really doubtful you’re going to hit that limit but there’s a limit. So for me I’m like, Huh, I really don’t want to have a limit on my my downloads so that’s that’s one and I know that guys I know the guys everywhere I know the guy you know it captivate and buzzsprout you know, but for me, I’m like, that’s kind of a deal breaker. Yeah, but their interface is really clean and really easy. And you know, they’re nice guys. But that’s one you know, SoundCloud is another one that they haven’t updated. There are codes that came out in 2017 that haven’t been implemented on Soundcloud Now granted, there’s cheap is all get out but they’re really a music service. Same thing. Squarespace is a great website tool. really horrible podcasting platforms. Oh, you know podcasting know that. And what’s the other one the anchor Is the other one that is kind of not Yeah, the thing that drives me with anchor, because, look, you know, they made it easy, and it’s free. That’s hard to compete with. But what people don’t, they don’t tell you. And this is the part that drives me nuts. There are these big giant buttons that say, Hey, would you like us to syndicate your show? To all these places like Apple and Google and Spotify and Stitcher? Just click this one button and we’ll send them everywhere. Well to the educated podcast person that just getting in. That’s like the best thing ever. So they click that button. They’re like, wow, that was so easy. And I I even asked Apple I go, why are you letting him do this? Because what happens is your show is then under anchors, Apple ID. And you’re like, well, what’s the big deal with that Dave? If you if it’s under your Apple ID, you can actually log into this back end of apple and get additional stats. I can see how many people are subscribed, I can see how far they listen to you. They trail off. And those are really cool stats and there’s nowhere an anchor does it say, oh, by the way, you’re giving us kind of control of your show. Same thing at Stitcher. So most people don’t know that there are other things that just kind of drive me there free. And that’s another one where I go, and people go, Yeah, but they’re owned by Spotify and Spotify as big, big, big pockets. And I’m like, you know, what wish they told me when I asked them years ago, I’m like, what’s the business plan? Because free media hosting, they’re like, No, no, we’ve got this other big giant company, it’s will be free forever. Until this month, so yeah, so I just I picture someday down the road. Spotify is gonna go, you know, because some people love anchor because they go well, you can get a sponsor over there. And and in theory, that business model is that anchor will make money on the sponsor as well. So you know, you get a sponsor and, you know, whatever anchor charges them $30 per thousand downloads and they take 10 and give you 20 maybe, well, the problem is and I have had many different test shows on anchor, the only sponsor that I’ve ever had and I’ve talked to other people that are on anchor is anchor. It’s a sponsor for anchor. So the one thing that’s supposed to be making them money is actually costing them more money. So that’s just one I kind of go. I’m not really sure. And of course the The bad news is every goes oh, well you say that because you work for Lipson. So I actually made a YouTube video that I’m like, Look, none of this is my opinion. This is fact no Look at this. Look at this. Look at this and people still go you just say that because you work for literally like so.
Dave S 30:31
Do you see a lot of you’re out there. You get a lot of here in the middle of it all. Do you see a lot of the like the YouTube troll the trolls and the trolling stuff out there in the podcasting space?
Dave J 30:41
not near as much YouTube I have a YouTube channel and I made the video on anchor. Oh, yeah, people were just like, You’re an idiot. Your lips. No course you said that. And I’m like, Did you not watch the video? You know? We’re in podcasting. If people don’t listen, if people don’t like you, they just don’t listen. Yep, you know, I had one troll for a while that and he wasn’t even commenting on my content. He would just go like he would lose his mind if I had a typo in my show no. Right. And he was like, how can you charge what you charge for consulting? And you don’t even know how to spell such and such. And I was like, because they’re not. I’m not charging people on grammar lessons. Okay, easy. They’re big boys. So,
Dave S 31:23
oh, god, oh, it’s a guy. There’s a you know, I was kind of thinking again, you know, let’s take it back to a person other person in the city. outdoorsy, I was just talking to somebody yesterday and they were basically brand he’s kind of new to it. He’s a guide. he’s a he’s actually a fly fishing guide, and he wants to start a shop but and he’s kind of thinking about the podcasting. What would you tell him? You know, how could a podcast get them leads? Or do you have any tips to help him maybe talk about how a fly fishing my you know how a podcast might help that business?
Dave J 31:51
I can give you an example a real life example. Gary Leland does a podcast about women’s fastpitch softball, so We’re talking again, Nish, Gary owns a sporting goods store. And he is his own sponsor. So Gary will interview people that like wait women’s want fastpitch softball Yep. So we’re going to interview the coach of the you know
I want to say Hall of Fame but that’s not what he called him. What’s the bowling
Dave S 32:19
ball? Well, a baseball fan but
Dave J 32:22
it was not the hope but it’s the World Series Oh, Soccer World last year, blah, blah, blah and talk to those people or coaches or, you know, x players that have you know, all those people that normally get zero like zero. I don’t care. It’s not ESPN five. These people are not getting any kind of media coverage, no, and all sudden they are. And oh, by the way, bats are on sale this week. Just use the coupon code, blah, blah, blah. And he said Gary used to spend over $100,000 a year in Google ads to promote his his because it’s an actual brick and mortar store, but he’s got an online component as well. He goes, I don’t do that because that money goes right in my pocket. He goes, because I’m my own sponsor. And he, he’s an amazing guy. He’s like Mr. Women’s fastpitch. softball. He goes, Yeah, he goes, I have the entire Olympic team on my phone, because I can call any of those people anytime, because nobody else is giving them any, you know, media coverage. So you got to go to the Olympics one year and cover it that way with a media pass. You know, so I’m not sure how that would tie into, like fly fishing besides just a you know, going to, I’m sure there’s some sort of fly fishing event. Oh, tons tons. Yeah, there’s got to be some sort of, you know, the king of fly fishing. Because here’s the thing, those people love to talk about their sport. They love to talk about the game and how they learned and who they learn from and things like that. So you could do that. And when that guy says, Oh, well, I use the, you know, the super wedge 9000 lower. You know, then you go Oh, by the way, those are on sale this month. Just use the coupon code podcast and get 10% off. Exactly go. And that’s the thing. That’s really cool about podcasting nine times out of 10. The thing that I always hear is, you know, what’s the cool thing about podcasting? And I’m like, what, like, I get to talk to people I have no business talking to. Yeah. So I have a couple people that do the podcast. And their biggest thing is they it’s to build relationships. Because if I went to whoever and said, Hey, can I just pick your ear for like, 20 minutes? They’d be like, get out of here, kid, you bother me, you know. But if I say, Would you like to come on my podcast and talk about x, y, and z? They’re like, Oh, I’d love to this is great. Thank you so much, because they feel honored in it. You’re kind of stroking their ego a little bit. And again, most people that got there kind of want to give back. Yeah. So that’s a great way of doing Yeah, by doing that, by doing interviews, you grow your network. If you do a solo show you boost your influence. So I always tell people, it doesn’t have to be either or you can kind of do both. Yeah,
Dave S 34:58
you can kind of do both. So would it be cool to do Uh, say you did do some interviews maybe once. You know first week you do interview next week you do a little soul show about, you know, and you’re kind of promoted. Is that cool to do to keep a mix up pretty good like that?
Dave J 35:10
Yeah, absolutely. I kind of do that all the time. I recently I’ve been doing a lot of interviews. And even if you do interviews, there’s a thing I call the Jerry Springer for those of you that don’t remember Jerry Springer, he was this weird host the 90s. But at the end, he’d have this really just bizarre, you know, topic of whatever, but at the end, he kind of go, what did we learn today. And so if you just got done doing this interview, they kind of got to know your guests, but they didn’t really get to know you. But when you say, you know, what I really liked is when they said this, and then you share a little bit about yourself. I remember once I was working with a client and blah, blah, blah, blah. And and the other thing they said was this that’s so important because such and such now you can inject you’re part of it, and you’re still kind of you’re not going against the guest you’re kind of amplifying what they said but putting your spin on it. So that people again, realize that You’re the expert. It’s your show. And while the guest is still great, they kind of get to know your side of the story too.
Dave S 36:06
Yeah. Do you believe that? I think another quote out there, it’s like you just have to know 10% more than your your listeners to be a teacher to sell something. Is there a truth to that?
Dave J 36:17
Alex? Look, I got 20 years in teaching. I remember once I was freaking out because I had to teach a Microsoft Access is a database program. It is beyond dry. It’s like just, it’s the worst program ever. And I had to teach this in Microsoft Access. It was not something I used every day. I used you know, Excel, PowerPoint word. I could teach my my butt off, but it’s access. I was like, Huh, and I was kind of freaking out. And my boss came in and said, Look, you just need to know more than your students. And he goes and these people are coming in don’t know anything. And he goes, you can you know, and I was like, Alright, but yeah, that’s true. You don’t have to know. You don’t have to be an expert, but you just have to know more than your students like, that does work.
Dave S 36:54
Yeah, that’s kind of that imposter syndrome because I think a lot of people myself included you. You sit there You know, there’s tons of people out there that are below you. But it’s still kind of hard sometimes to come out on a pie cast and be like, Alright, I’m just going to talk for an hour about this subject I know about, you know, knowing that there’s probably a lot of people that know more than you. So it is tough. Any tips on getting past that imposter syndrome?
Dave J 37:15
Yeah, the number one realize everybody has it. I mean, everybody, Dennis Miller was on Saturday Night Live in his own show on HBO. He’s won six Emmys. And when he goes to a party and talks to other celebrities, and they go, Oh, here’s my card, like, we should connect some time and go to dinner. He said, I’ll go home and put that card in. Like, I’m not calling that guy. There’s no way they would ever want to go to dinner with me. And the other thing is, a lot of times you don’t know what you know. So like for me, if I’m hanging around with a bunch of the podcasters we’re talking about microphones and media hosts and bandwidth and you know, all this other stuff. to us. That’s like everybody knows that stuff. But now if you put me in front of somebody who’s never heard about podcasting, like what you guys are talking a completely different language. I went to I I got to speak at a military conference once. And they were all like, Oh, yeah, just do the do the red night team to the D 37. And then the button, I’m like, No idea. You know, I spoke at a financial conference and the one guy walked up because I just run a Monte Carlo simulation. And I’m thinking, I have no idea what he just said. So there are a lot of times that the jargon that, you know, doesn’t seem like it’s any big deal. But it’s because everybody around you knows that as well. And so when you get in front of a new person, they’re going to be like, wow, you know, so much. I think my favorite story is, being a musician. I grew up where you would read all the liner notes when you’re listening to new music, and I was talking, I was on a date, and I said something about Pete best. And my date said, Who’s Pete best and I go, seriously, you don’t know who Pete best is and she’s like, I never heard that name. I go, it’s the original drummer of The Beatles. Oh, she goes where do you know this stuff and go How do you not know this stuff? And that to me was like, that’s just a great example of Yeah. No, you think everybody knows this? Now, not everybody has a killer.
Dave S 39:03
That’s a killer. Fun fact, I love the Beatles that I don’t think I ever do that. That’s pretty awesome. Yeah. Pete best was the drummer before. Ringo. Wow, that’s pretty basic. So, okay, so what do you so let’s say code, let’s take it to coaching say you are going to do some coaching some online coaching some something in that space? How would you determine, you know, what to charge is kind of a big subject to but what to charge?
Dave J 39:25
It’s, it’s, you’re going to under charge, I can tell you that right up front. Because when I started off the School of podcasting, of course, you think, if I could just get 50% of my people to do this, you know, and they all paid five bucks. You know, that would be Wow. So I started off the School of podcasting with five bucks. And finally, this is why you got to find people that will tell you the truth. Because all your all your friends are like, Oh, yeah, that sounds great, dude, awesome. We’re behind you, we support you. And finally one friend that said, Hey, can I tell you can I ask you a question? I go, what He goes, What can you buy on the internet for five bucks? Yeah. And I go, uh, he goes, Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. He goes, the problem is when people see that, they’re gonna go, oh, that can’t be any good. Because if it was any good, he’d be charging more than five bucks. So, my, in when I was interviewing these people for this book, Joe saucy high does a podcast called stacking Benjamins super successful. And he said, he likes to charge he goes he I’d like to hear the word no, at least once. He goes, because you want to hear No, I know. Oh, okay, that might be a little too. too high. And it goes, but if I go down a little bit, I know the next time I hear a Yes, I’m not leaving money on the table. And so I over the years have raised my price. And I found out that like, even at 20 bucks a month for a membership site, I would have people join but they wouldn’t do anything. Yeah, like it was just and so when I finally right now it’s 49 a month. And that’s for me. Number one, I get people who actually are interested in starting a podcast. They take action and they’re ready to go. And as a teacher, that’s what you want. You want a willing student that’s like, no Teach me I need to learn this. I need I’m ready to go. And so just and also, if this is something you really want to do for a living Google the phrase like, you know, take home pay or something like that, because you got to realize 30 percents going Uncle Sam. Yeah. And then you’re like, Okay, I want to work. I want to make 60,000 a year, let’s say just start with that. Okay, that means I’ve got to make X amount of more, because 30% of that’s going to Uncle Sam. Oh, but I’m gonna work 40 hours a week. Well, there’s only one problem. You’re starting out. And you’re doing consulting. Are you doing consulting for eight hours a day? No, you’re doing consulting about every other other day for a couple hours? Well, okay, well, then you’re going to have to charge more than what you thought. So that’s one of those things that I think a lot of people don’t factor in and then even last night is this is the beginning of the month. I spent last night wrapping up March so I’m figuring out you know, how much I made and what was the profit? And how much do I need to send Uncle Sam and all this other stuff, and I’m paying affiliates and just wrapping up all the expenses and income. And I that’s this, you know, that’s work, you need to get paid for that. And so I think that’s something I think a lot of people forget. And the thing I don’t do the other thing that a podcast does that because I don’t do this anymore, I think I’ve done for them. And they, none of them panned out, was somebody would say, Hey, can I get on a quick like 15 minute phone call with you to see if we’re a good fit? Hmm. And I just said, Look, I got 700 episodes, feel free to listen to any of those. If you don’t like me, you’re gonna figure it out from the episode, because I would do a 15 minute phone call, they would come on, they would ask me three questions, I would answer them and they’re like, great. I’m like, so you want to you know, keep working. They’re like, Well, I’m not really sure I’m gonna do the podcast at this point or whatever. And then I’d find out later that Oh, they were really happy to do the podcast. They just they got their question answered. So That’s something I don’t do anymore. I just kind of go go listen to the podcast if you’d like me, I’m right here. You know that whole nine yards, but that’s cool.
Dave S 43:08
That’s some good insight for sure. Right. Yeah. You know, another question I was, you know, I think for newbies getting going talking about timing of the podcasts, it should you, you know, it seems like everybody a lot of people do the weekly podcast and that makes sense. If you do it every you know, skip a week, do it two times a month. I mean, are you losing quite a bit if you’re not doing that?
Dave J 43:25
I think the key is I always say record a couple episodes. First of all, the first couple episodes you’re probably going to delete. If I go back again to my music background, you know, I will get a band together and the first couple times we do a song we’re like, Well, okay, let’s Great. Let’s go do that on the stage. Now you got to kind of get your get a little momentum going get a little confidence behind the microphone, and probably the first couple things you record a pretty awful in the same way that the first time you shoot a basketball, it’s not very good. So you do not have to release everything you record. In fact, you probably shouldn’t. But you should record a couple episodes so that you can see that wow. That 15 minute podcast just took me an hour. And that’s legit. I usually tell people it’s at least at least four to one. Mm hmm. And so, do that, and then figure out what your schedule is. So if you’re going to go every other week, that’s cool. Just make it every other week. Because then what happens is when you’re there on the first and the 15th, every month there is the first and the 15th people start to count on you. And they become part of you become part of their routine. And just by doing that, you are now deemed reliable. Yeah. Why? Because you’re there every first and 15th and what’s great about it is if you you know life happens and things like that. You just say Hey, guys, just so you know, I had this big project come up, I had this big opportunity. And I’m going to take it and I’m going to give you the behind the scenes of it when I come back, but I gotta let you know I’m not gonna be back in till this date. Not a problem. Just when whatever date that was come back, and I think the best example of that, the guy from Dirty Jobs on TV, Mike Row does a show called, that’s how I heard it. And he said, Hey, I got a book deal. You know, that’s how I heard it is now going to be a book. He goes, and I can’t do the book and the podcast and keep my sanity. So I’m gonna go write the book, I’m going to be back in a couple months on this date. And I will see you then until then feel free to listen to my back catalogue. They’re all there, and they’re available for you. So, to the day, he said he was going to be back, he came back on Hey, guys, I’m back with a new episode of that song. I heard it and got news for you. That’s how I heard is that gonna be a TV show? So he goes, but that’s not going to be for a while and I’ve got a couple episodes for you. But it was really, really cool. And so if you do need to take a break, it’s not a big deal. Just let your audience know. Because when you just disappear the yeah the it’s like when you take your car in and they go Yeah, we’ll give you a call by two o’clock and you’re like great all sudden, it’s three o’clock and there’s no call. Four o’clock. There’s no calling I called me and they had replaced the whole engine or whatever. Your mind starts going and all sorts of negative ways. So when your audience’s thinking, I wonder what happened to Dave? Yeah, that’s not a good thing. And even if you just come on to say, Hey, you know, I thought it was gonna be back on the fifth. I know, today’s the fifth, I’m going to another two weeks. Hope you’re enjoying this. I miss you guys, I’ll see you back in a bit. And then you you know, I’ll be back on, you know, the 30th
Dave S 46:16
or whatever it is. So let them know. And yeah, I don’t know, it’s good. I actually I knew early on, I was going to try to be consistent. I haven’t missed an episode a week, you know, and since 2017. And, you know, there’s been times I’ve been trying to schedule way out in advance and that helps. Yeah, but yeah, it’s a good point that if you do have to miss it’s not the end of the world. It’s not like people are gonna kick you out. They’ll still they’ll still be there for when you when you come back two years, like you said, Every, you know, two weeks, two times a month, two episodes a month is not you can still make a business success. successful business maybe sponsors off of that as well.
Dave J 46:51
Well, yeah, and it’s always gonna be a matter of how many choose your audience because if you have a show for colon cancer Answer, and somebody makes a product for colon cancer. They’re like, Hey, you have our target audience or if you did a show for triathletes, you know a product for triathletes they could advertise in Shape magazine and fitness and men’s health and women’s health but or and they’re going to get maybe 10% of that audience is going to be the right people. But if you say no I have triathletes are like oh, wow, that’s exactly who I’m trying to reach. They’re going to definitely be interested in getting to your audience. So it’s, it’s one of those where the more Nishat is, sometimes that’s the better
Dave S 47:32
that’s the better. What’s the you know, and as far as I mean, this kind of goes on to say maybe a little more advanced, but outsourcing Do you find a lot of people are outsourcing some parts of the podcasting process as far as editing other other things?
Dave J 47:46
Yeah, if it’s a business especially and they’ve got a budget, and they’re ready to jump in, and they’re like, Okay, great, because you can get a weekly show, probably around 500 bucks for that in depending on what you’re already spending on marketing. If you’re doing online ads and things like that, you can pull those down and say, Look, I’m going to be doing my own online ad. It’s my podcast. And you just give that to an editor. And then depending on, you know who it is and what they’re doing, because some people will be 500 bucks, they’ll, they’ll level it out, they’ll get rid of the arms and your nose and things like that. And they’ll do show notes. Some people, it’s like, nope, we just do the audio. It depends on who it is and where they live, because people overseas are gonna charge less. But now you’re dealing with a time difference, and in some cases, a language barrier. So depending on you know, what you’re looking for, and things like that. It gets a little tricky, but yeah, it’s a it’s one of the things I always tell people, you should try to edit your podcast at least once. Yeah, just just so you can kind of speak the language to your editor.
Dave S 48:44
Yep. Yep. I agree. I I’m just in the process of trying to hand off some of that and yeah, it’s been a struggle because I know that it’s not gonna be quite, you know, exactly like how I want it, but I’m doing it because I know that it’s going to free up some stuff to make things to do. do a better job longer term so I’m going for it right now. Yeah and and yeah night free up. I had a podcast episode with a guest that talked about free up who has their a good, kind of like you’re saying some of the well they I guess they do both they have a good overseas, some good people there. Another question and this may be isn’t directly related to podcasting. But, you know, SEO is another question I get quite a bit you know, kind of just a website’s Do you have any recommendations? I know on your website, you do a pretty extensive job at, you know, putting your stuff on there. Do you have to do what’s theirs doing doing just a show notes, you know, bulleted show notes really basic versus really optimizing a website. What would you tell somebody if they want to kind of improve their SEO or where would you direct them?
Dave J 49:43
Yeah, if I could go back in time, my show has multiple segments. So I’ll have a segment called because of my podcast where one of my listeners will call in they’ll say, hey, because my podcast, I got to hang out with Alice Cooper last week. You know, I’m like, Oh, that’s cool. And the reason I do that is that’s just another way Saying, See, this is why you should have a podcast without me being a salesman, just like here’s the benefit of a podcast. That person gets exposure. And then I usually have kind of my meat and potatoes, which is me talking about whatever it is about podcasting. And then I might have a couple other segments that makes your your show notes in your description. Somewhat. Number one, what is now the title of the episode? Is it I got to hang out with Alice Cooper is it you know why every podcaster should edit or whatever. So I if I could go back in time, I would do one topic per episode, and then just SEO the bejesus out of that page to go to town. But I know depending on what you read, I think the Yoast SEO plugin says you need at least 300 words, every other people I know Michael Hyatt, I think is saying somewhere over 700 you know, cuz Google at this point is not indexing audio. Get there. I’m sure that’s somewhere in the future. So you have to have something there for Google to find on and what’s great about this is when you have the player there on your site, people can come up, they know you got the title. They click Listen, and now they’re listening to your podcast. And they might sit there for a while. So Google sees that as Wow, somebody went to this website and stayed there for 14 minutes. That must be really good stuff. So you can actually boost your ranking that way. I go a little crazy with my descriptions, because what I do is I write a blog post first. And then I take my blog post in kind of boil it down to a few bullet points. Because I don’t want to read to my audience, that would be boring, right? And I just take my bullet points, and I talked to one person, I do not say things like, Hey, guys, Hey, everybody. It’s like, thank you so much for coming on. I’m so glad you’re here and taking time with me today. And then when I go to events, people go it always sounds like you’re talking to me, and I’ll make it because I am. But because what I used to do was the opposite. I would write out four bullet points. I would talk about them and then after I edited it, I would then expand that into a blog post in evitable II, I would always come up with was something that I was like, Oh, I should have said that in the recording. So I just swept I flipped my, my workflow I now write the blog, flush out all the ideas and then boil that down to a couple bullet points that I can kind of riff on
Dave S 52:13
Yep, that’s great and and do you do all your due? I mean you write you do all your your blogging and all that stuff. Yeah,
Dave J 52:19
I people go Wait, what? Why are you doing? I’m an army of one. I do all my it’s because I probably I’m like you I should probably give up the editing. I just for me, that’s fun. Yeah, as I’m mixing and I’m mixing in music and sound effects and all sorts of other fun stuff. And for me, it’s the creative side that I actually enjoy. But I realized that other people could probably do that and are freed me up to do more important things. Cool.
Dave S 52:42
Well, Dave, we’ve, you know, we’re approaching Howard, I haven’t really scratched off video of the questions I was going to ask you. I want to get you out of here pretty quick. But do you think you can do kind of a little rapid fire around to take us out of here?
Dave J 52:55
Oh, yeah, I’ll try rapid fire is not my strong suit, but I will try Well,
Dave S 52:58
yeah, I always joke. I call it The rapid fire subtypes that people kind of say it wasn’t really that rapid but I it just gives me a kind of a little cue to be kind of start to wrap it up. But you know, a couple things. I guess I’ll just hit on a couple things. I really wanted to touch base and we’ve hit on some, I mean, definitely just the Yoast SEO plugin, right for somebody who’s new, you know, just that is a great plugin to start with SEO. But what about, you know, I guess getting back to that launch? Again, you made a that was a really good topic. They’re talking about 30 days out what is a launch? If you’re, if you’re setting this thing, say you’ve got six months to get this out? Is there a certain time where you should start building an email list getting in? I mean, you know, the thing to think about when you’re launching a new show?
Dave J 53:38
Yeah, get your audience involved immediately. So put up just a bare bones website coming soon. And then this is something else, whatever the name of your show is, is that what people are going to be searching for? I had one friend I’m gonna try to do this in rapid fire. He named his show full time which apparently means something in the ham radio. World okay from the problem was nobody was searching for full time they were searching for ham radio so he changed the name to ham radio 360 and his numbers down triple Hmm. So whatever the name of your show don’t get cute with it just make it if I do the logical weight loss show Yeah, School of podcasting weekly web tools you kind of know what those shows are about. So, but you want to get your audience involved in like, hey, my artwork, here it is. Which one? Do you like a or b? You can start doing that stuff and getting them involved. Hey, here’s my, here’s my first five episode titles. Which ones do you think you’d be interested in and just start, you know, getting an email list. And even if it’s only whatever, 15 people start getting them involved, because that’s going to be your sales staff when you launch this.
Dave S 54:44
That’s going to be the people that they’re going to share it and get the word so when you launch it when you get that first, you know, say your launches in May 1 or may 4 and it’s coming out with the real episode you’re gonna launch, you know, say and what do you recommend launching a few episodes the first week or something like that to get things going.
Dave J 55:00
Yeah, you need again, you need one. And what I don’t I hear some people like, Oh, you should launch with 20. And I’m like, but what if you had like the lightning round or you did the one segment that was you know, the the coffee clutch or the the coffee corner where I talk about whatever and people like, you know, Dave, I really like your show but man, that coffee corner thing is boring the bejesus out of me like, man, I got 17 more episodes with the coffee corner. So that’s where you need a group of people that you believe are going to be your target audience to listen to it and go, can you guys please talk about this? Like, I’m not in the room? Yeah, and one of those people cannot be named mom, because my mom’s gonna love it. So you need at least one I know a lot of people launch with three. But a lot of that is geared towards I want to get into Apple’s new and noteworthy. And I’m just here to tell you new and noteworthy. Like 14 years ago was a big deal. It’s Yeah, it just doesn’t do squat for you. I mean, libsyn had a show called things podcasting. They launched it around things. Given it was on the front page of Apple, not a new note really like you opened up Apple iTunes, boom, there it was. And, you know, hundreds of downloads, not thousands. Now granted, I’ll take hundreds of downloads. Yeah, but people think it’s like, if I can just get a new new and noteworthy I can quit my day job and I’m like now one person I know that did it got a whopping 32 downloads?
Dave S 56:21
No kidding it it’s it’s a it’s a slow growth thing, right. I mean, I know I look at my podcasts and you know, I guess if it turned around was going downhill for a long time I’d start to get concerned but it’s just kind of slowly been going up and down. And if you look at the long term trends as I started, it’s just been slowly grown. Is that pretty typical? Do you see ever see the hockey stick sort of thing?
Dave J 56:40
The hockey stick was back in 2005 2006 ish and that’s when Apple put podcasting into iTunes. No, and since then, I haven’t really it’s been just it’s been like a three 4% growth every year.
Dave S 56:53
Okay, three fourths. And what?
Dave J 56:55
Yeah, well, people always say like, how did you grow your audience like it’s really easy. I didn’t quit. Yep. I mean, I, I have a website, podcast about podcasting, calm, I believe is the domain. And you can see where there’s like, here’s the current 12 that we’re talking about podcasting. Here’s the 30 at the bottom that started in quit. Yep. Because people start, they get about eight episodes and they go, man, this is harder than I thought and then they quit.
Dave S 57:20
It is it’s the consistency. What is a good? You know, obviously their niches are all different in levels, but you know, they talk about 5000 for advertising, but I mean, is that, is there a number out there anybody should be thinking about?
Dave J 57:34
Again, goes back to your niche. I mean, I’m nowhere near 5000 they get a couple thousand maybe between two and 3000 an episode which is great. I’ll take that. It’s podcasting. And that’s enough to get me a sponsorship with focus, right? But I’m nowhere near the 5000 to get a Casper mattress but focus right said wait a minute, Dave’s got a bunch of potential podcasters that’s the people we’re trying to reach. So again, the more niche you are, the better the chance you’re going to get a sponsor but if I’m doing a show that That’s about inspirational stories. There’s, there’s like, there’s no shoe that goes with that. You know what I mean? It’s like, it’s a running show, okay, we can pimp shoes. inspiration. It’s like, Huh, unless you’re a life coach that’s maybe trying to help people through and the inspirational stories are to help you out of the doldrums. You know, maybe I can coach you through your old rooms kind of thing, but a lot of the stuff, I’m like, hmm, you know, that’s if the goal is sponsorship, less than 10% of podcasters make enough downloads to get the stamps.com mass, you know, all the big names
Dave S 58:33
and you wouldn’t want those. It seems like you wouldn’t want those anyways be Well, I mean, maybe what if you’ve got a bazillion listeners, but it’s kind of boring. You hear the same podcast sponsor on all these podcasts. You know what I mean? It’s like Joe Rogan. I listen to Joe Rogan occasionally. And I just fast forward through sponsors now because I kind of I know what they are. I’ve heard them before. Yeah, I think of my sponsors. I kind of mix up I have different sponsors on and I think, you know, it’s fine when you get people call you up or send you an email and they say, Hey, I just purchased this product that because of your sponsor thing, you know, I mean, so that’s, that’s kind of cool and again it right like you said you can be super niche and maybe that’s even better.
Dave J 59:09
Well, I used to listen to a podcast called webmaster.fm. And I didn’t really like the show, but their sponsors were awesome. I was always learning about new tools and two tricks that I was like I listened for the sponsors because I was like, I’ve never heard of that tool for designing a website. So if you’ve done your your job, right, your sponsor should be you know, I don’t just let anybody sponsored the School of podcasting. It’s got to fit if it’s not a heck yeah, I’m you’re not getting on the show. I’ve had people at one person wants that wanted, it was a tool that alerted you if your website went down. And I said, um, I appreciate the offer, but no things he’s like, why not? I said, because I’ve never had anybody in my audience go. Do you know of a tool that would alert me when my website and like I said, Now if they had I’d be like, Oh, this is a perfect fit, but it wasn’t so he didn’t come on. And
Dave S 59:59
that’s it. Yeah, whatever that where that tool is now so so this is my I call this my Triple Threat I kind of like to throw back some of my but I was a big basketball, I love basketball. And so this is this is the top two this is your the triple t your your top tip top tool top task for somebody who’s kind of again talking about launching a podcast. So, you know, again, we talked about a guide in fly fishing, but let’s say it was somebody trying to create a leads for, you know, getting coaching, say for example, any anything come to my interview pretty much said most of your stuff,
Dave J 1:00:30
most of the top tip is
think about the one person who needs to hear your message. I see that I see that stops so many people because they think about the audience. And I’m like, guess what, when you first start, the audience doesn’t exist yet. No, I said so think about that one person who needs to needs to hear your message. I had a client of mine. He does a show called served. It’s SRV D. It’s all about it’s for military people. And while it’s not all about PTSD, That’s definitely part of it, because it’s all about migrating from service back to being a civilian. And I couldn’t get this guy to jump in the pool. And he had such a great story. And such great cause. And he had the whole thing is like, served. It’s about serving your audience. And I went to Facebook and just typed in PTSD. And there was unfortunate an English veteran, and she had been triggered by something and she’s just in her car, and just venting. I’m so tired of like, all it was who is watching TV, and now I don’t know what I’m doing and this and that, and I just, I sent that video to him. I said, this is the person that needs to hear your show. Yep. And he started the next day. He’s like, Alright, let’s go. Oh, wow. So think about that one person who needs to hear your message. That’s great. That’s great. And what
Dave S 1:01:43
about a top tool? Anything we’ve talked about a few but you know, I don’t know what the top I was kind of thinking about editing a while back but I guess maybe let’s take it to that. What What is the How does somebody get started with with editing? What What is the tool?
Dave J 1:01:56
Well, a lot of people use Audacity because it’s free. It works. On a Mac works on a PC my tool I love Hindenburg. It’s a weird name for software. I asked them once ago, why did you name your company after an exploding blend? Right? And I guess that guy that the whole, you know, oh, the humanity Oh, that guy that was like one of the first mobile recordings of a live event ever apparently. And so their whole software is made for journalists that are out and about and doing recording remotely. And it’s just it’s so simple and easy and it makes you sound great. And the thing I love about it is if you click on the effects menu in Audacity, it goes and goes and goes and you know, here’s a list of 30 effects of what you’ll use to when you click on equalizer in Hindenburg. It gives you a bass, middle and treble and I went ha, my audience can handle that. So super simple. So it’s my favorite tool that are that are Evernote. Evernote is I love Evernote boy
Dave S 1:02:54
like me, and so on that Hindenburg so how would that compare to say somebody with a Mac? I don’t know. I don’t think You’re a math guy, but you know the GarageBand? I mean, how does it compare to GarageBand?
Dave J 1:03:04
The thing I hate about GarageBand. And I need to double check, because I haven’t played with GarageBand. And about a year and a half is in even on audacity in almost every program. It’s a little bit like Microsoft Word when you want to get rid of a sentence in Microsoft Word. you highlight it and you press Delete. Yeah, in GarageBand, you have to kind of go after, let’s say, I said, um, well, I’d have to go after the song was over and split it. Go before the end, split it. So now I’ve got and then click on that and delete it when I’ve got a hole between you know, I don’t know if there’s a Ripple Delete there or not, but it just seems like it’s not hard. It just seems like there’s an extra two or three clicks and like, when you’ve got, you know, 50 items in an episode, you’re like, Ah, you know, and so for me, it’s very pretty, and it’s got a lot of power. And I always tell if somebody comes to me and I say, Well, what do you plan on editing and they go GarageBand they go, do you already know? And they go, yes, I’m like, great, then stick with it. But if you’re just learning something and you don’t have a budget, you know, check out audacity if you got a little bit of a budget check on Hindenburg, if you want to play with tons of tools and you know, just go knee deep in audio, then go to Adobe Audition. Yeah, audition?
Dave S 1:04:12
And do you recommend for somebody you know, in that stage, getting Gordon, anybody who I guess, you know, removing all those items, and all those little things, the filler stuff?
Dave J 1:04:21
It depends on how many there are, I used to work with a woman and she was a great teacher. But her thing was, and I’ll do it here every time she stopped. Um, her next word would be kind of like something. And so I remember and it’s one of the things that once you notice it, you cannot notice it. So that’s where I start to pull them out. And for me, I usually pull them out just because, again, my show I’m trying to paint myself as the expert. So if I just go Yeah, that’s a good question. That’s so easy to pull out. But if I say something like, uh, I think that’s the way it was, I’m gonna leave that one in there because now I’ve got to pull out a scalpel to pull that out because I ran my arm into a word, but if it’s just an arm, to me, I call that low hanging fruit. And there’s even software now called descript. It’s d s, CRI PT works on the Mac or the PC. And it actually you throw your audio file in, it transcribes it, you go into the transcript, and you can see the um, you right click on it, say this is a filler word, and it’ll say, Do you want me to delete all the items in this thing? And he go, yep. And I really thought, well, that’s there’s no way that’s gonna work. And works pretty good. I was like, that’s pretty amazing. I just started, just started working with that. And I’m going to listen to it anyway. Because I always listen to anything before it goes out to my my audience just to hear if the robot kind of botched one up and usually there’s one that got a little aggressive, and I’ll fix that one. But it’s still cut about 20 minutes out of my editing.
Dave S 1:05:58
Yeah, that’s a good that’s a good A tool for sure. What about what about a, you know, a task here somebody getting going say they’re just getting ready to launch this thing any other like, here’s the next thing they need to do. What would you tell them? I mean, there’s a bunch of things we talked about here, but any steps that people miss along the way?
Dave J 1:06:15
Yeah, it’s the one I talked about. They don’t get any feedback. Yeah, they, you know, this is where it’s so easy to do. You can go into any Facebook group, you can go to a meetup, you can go to, you know, Reddit, things like that, and you can see what people are talking about. And then just throw up a thing Hey, I’m thinking of starting a podcast about such and such. I don’t want to plug it here. But if you’re interested in helping me shape this, please DM me and it’s kind of interesting because they’re strangers they don’t really know you and just say here’s what I’m doing. You know, I’m gonna Would you mind listening to this episode and just giving me feedback and please know, the the more brutal, the better. I’m fine with this. I’m just trying to make the best podcast for you and so on. I don’t think most people do that. I’m a big fan. There’s a show on msnbc called the Prophet. And one of the things that guy does, he helps it’s this bazillionaire that goes around and help small business. And the first thing he does is he takes their products and does some sort of focus group. And nine times out of 10. I remember once it was a, some sort of clothing line, and they just released their their, like fall lineup or something like that he brought a bunch of people in that would be typically the people that would buy this stuff. And they’re all like, yeah, never gonna wear that. No. And he’s like, Well, I think we know why sales are down. There you go. So if you can get a focus group, that’s that’s a good place to start. And I don’t think most people do
Dave S 1:07:36
so. So if you had an email, let’s say you’re brand new, you’re just starting out, and you build an email list to say 100 or 200 people and you’re talking to them every week and letting them know and when it launches, it goes out and then you reach back and say, Hey, you know, what do you what do you think reply back and let me know is that is that a good start?
Dave J 1:07:53
Yeah, or if you’re using any kind of, you know, zoom or whatever. Hey, let’s get online. you’d mentioned Pat Flynn earlier who’s a friend of mine super great guy in in, in his book super fans, and I’ve seen him do this, he will reach out to 10 people on his email list and just say, Hey, can we like get on the phone for a second? And he just because again, I think every successful podcaster where it starts with is knowing who your audience is. Because otherwise you’re giving the wrong content to the wrong people. That’s right.
Dave S 1:08:25
That’s right. And well, Dave, I’m gonna get we’re, we’re gonna have to hold all these other things off for Maybe another time. But before I let you get out here in the next, you know, three months or so anything new coming for you, we can expect with the school podcasting or anything else you got going.
Dave J 1:08:39
Not just I continue to shape that and a lot of things that are going on right now. I just launched an affiliate program for the school of podcasting because I have some people are like, hey, like I have people asking me how to start a podcast and I want to refer you do you have an affiliate program. So that’s again, you’ll hear this a lot. When you jump into your niche, you’ll find out what they want. Sometimes, you know, you kind of walk in and look like, Hey, here’s dish a, and they go, Oh, dish a is cool. But do you know anybody that does dish B, and you go, Oh, I can do that. So a lot of times, it’s just kind of go in and you find out Oh, this is what they want. So I just launched an affiliate program that’s coming up. The other thing that’s different as normally, you know, I’m speaking everywhere. So I’m going to be speaking at some online events. That’s kind of different, right? Yeah. But other than then my book was supposed to come out in July. So yeah, I just got an email today. I haven’t read it yet from my publisher that was kind of like Hey, everybody, you know, cuz they might, I don’t know if it’s gonna say we laid off half our staff I know. But that’s, uh, so that’ll be new. I have a book called more podcast money. This was supposed to be like the new version of that. And in the process, we changed the name to profit from your podcast, so I’ll be rebranding that. But other than that, that’s just the same old same old and you know, watching the space and finding out what people need and giving it to them
Dave S 1:10:01
nice. Is their event, a podcast? I know you’ve been to a ton of the events if I was going to choose or somebody out there choose one podcasting event to go to which one would you tell him?
Dave J 1:10:11
Here again, the answer is always it depends if you’re if you want to connect with other independent podcasters hands down pod Fest in Orlando that just happened literally right before this whole virus stuff went out. And then the other one is, I want to say in August, and that is a podcast movement. That’s a little more industry focused, but there’s some, you know, I’ve met some really cool radio people there. Fred Jacobs from Jacobs media is a really good guy. So you can get some really cool connections there as well. In fact, that’s where I got the sponsorship for focus, right. I walked in, and, and Dan from focus, right. So he said, Wait, cuz somebody said, I’ll see you later, Dave. And he goes, Wait, are you Dave Jackson? I go, yeah, goes from the School of podcasting. I’m like, yeah, and he goes, we need to talk. I want to sponsor your show. And I was like, Well, that was easy. So there you go. So yeah, so it’s kind of nice, being in the right place at the right time. And I just both those places you make great connections. Gotcha. And and before I let
Dave S 1:11:03
you get out here, I gotta ask you other music Ed, what what’s your, what’s your go to if you had to pick one band or somebody from you know, anybody out there who would you who would you choose? Oh,
Dave J 1:11:14
Van Halen David Lee Roth era. Yeah, yeah, I mean the first two Van Halen albums are hard to. In fact, Van Halen is so good that Van Halen one. I do not listen to it. If I’m listening to Van Halen one, it’s because I’m having a really bad day. Because it will it will pick me up. No kidding. Yeah. I love
Dave S 1:11:31
that David Lee Roth. He was the Yeah, he was the personality, right. I mean, it’s amazing.
Dave J 1:11:37
When I was growing up, I mean, that I used to quote that guy like scripture. Yeah. you’d listen to his interviews and you’d be you’d hear the ice cubes and his you know, his drink in the background and be like, Hey, man, let’s go and you know, don’t let it get to your head, man. Cuz life’s a bitch. Anyways. That’s it.
Dave S 1:11:56
Yeah. Nice. All right, Dave. I’ll let you get out here. I Appreciate you coming on here the school possible podcasting comm if they want to find you and yeah, man, we’ll be keeping up. I’ve been following you for quite a while. So I’ll be sharing and maybe we could talk down the line about this affiliate stuff if that works out too. I definitely want to direct people to good good people to learn to pick this up. So yeah, thanks again.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:17
Oh, thanks, man. Anytime.
Dave S 1:12:20
That was a fun conversation. What do you think? I’d like to get your feedback on the show. If you have time, you can send me an email directly to outdoors online [email protected]. That’s outdoors with an S. You can also go to outdoors online.co slash review and check out the process of leaving a quick review on iTunes. We also have a Facebook group outdoors online.co slash Facebook where you can get some answers to your biggest questions you have or just connect with the community. There’s lots of lots of ways to connect. Obviously, I’d like to hear from you if you can, the feedback from you is going to make this show better. So Please send me an email even if you got a just a couple of seconds here and I want to see you know, if you have an idea for a topic, maybe a guest anything you got going, I’d love to hear about it.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:10
Thanks for joining us today and for your support of the marketing podcast. If you found this podcast helpful, please share it with one other person and leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to the show.
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Conclusion with Dave Jackson
The Podcast Hall of Famer, Dave Jackson, gives us some insight on launching and growing a podcast. Dave also works for Libsyn and has tons of great content online and on the podcast.
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