Starting a Podcast With $500 What Would You Buy?

Transcript

[00:00:00]

[00:00:00] Dave Jackson: Ask the podcast Coach for October 8th, 2022. Let's get ready to podcast. There it is. It's that music that means, Hey, it's Saturday morning. It's time for Ask the Podcast Coach, where you get your podcast questions answered live. I'm Dave Jackson from the school of podcasting.com and joining me right over there, Jim Collison from the average guy.tv.

Jim, how's it going buddy?

[00:00:29] Jim Collison: Dave, happy Saturday morning to you and happy, great balls of Fire day today in 1957. Jerry Lee Lewis records Great Balls of Fire. I, how can we, how can we not

[00:00:40] Dave Jackson: start? Goodness gracious. You know, how can we not exactly. That's, uh, and that is he still, there's a fun question is Jerry LeeLu is still alive.

[00:00:52] Jim Collison: You could probably ask.

[00:00:54] Dave Jackson: Yeah, don't do. Yeah,

[00:00:57] Jim Collison: that would be pushing

[00:00:57] Dave Jackson: it. I think he still is. I think [00:01:00] he's, uh, you know,

[00:01:01] Jim Collison: if, if great balls are fire doesn't make me thirsty, then I don't know what

Sponsor: podcastbranding.co
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[00:01:04] Jim Collison: That's

[00:01:04] Dave Jackson: right, exactly. Pour up some coffee and, uh, yes. If you want people to say, goodness gracious, when they see your artwork, well there's only one place to go and that of course is podcastbranding.co.

Go over and see our buddy Mark. He is a very talented graphic artist as well as a podcaster. And unlike people on Fiverr, he's gonna sit down with you one on one and really look at your podcast, look at your website, and make sure everything branding wise is lined up to really have the maximum impact on your audience.

And, uh, I know I've used him for this show, for the School of Podcasting for the Podcast Rodeo Show, so, Uh, I can definitely pledge that Mark does great work. And what I loved about it is when I did it, he gave me a couple different options. So instead of having to do one and then do revisions and stuff, I [00:02:00] was like, This one, this one or that one.

And I was like, Actually, I really like that one. And then there really weren't that many revisions. And so again, he does this by really understanding what your target is. So the better target you give him, the quicker you're gonna get a great piece of artwork. Go over to podcast branding.co.

[00:02:23] Jim Collison: I just spilled coffee all over myself.

[00:02:26] Dave Jackson: Hey, that's the wrong. That's the right big thing. Just,

[00:02:29] Jim Collison: I was thinking of something else and it just, I just spilled copy all over myself. ,

Mugshot: basedonatruestorypodcast.com
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[00:02:34] Jim Collison: big thanks to our, our friend Dan La Feb over there based on a true story podcast.com. And if you're an XFiles person, if you got into that years ago, he's got a new episode out on the X Files with, uh, Rob Christofferson.

So if you want to check that out basedonatruestorypodcast.com, and try not to spill coffee on yourself during the middle of the podcast. ,

[00:02:55] Dave Jackson: is that what we've done? Do we have a McDonald's situation going on now? It's d it just

[00:02:59] Jim Collison: dribbled like I, [00:03:00] I lost my lower lip or something. I just dribbled right down my chin.

Fresh outta the Witness Protection Program, he now, we can

[00:03:07] Dave Jackson: now see him.

And, , so he went to ask the podcast coach.com/join. , you can do that. If you're listing on Wisdom, you can click the little plus sign under my name and we will, uh, we'll get a little cue going here. But, , Fred, thanks for joining us, buddy.

[00:03:22] Fred Castenada: Hey, I'm out of the Witness Protection Program

[00:03:24] Jim Collison: finally. Yes, I like it.

I like it. Looking good. Looking good. This morning.

Repuposed Episodes and Content
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[00:03:28] Fred Castenada: I, I had just a, uh, basically just a, a couple of comments and maybe your feel on this repurposed episodes from other podcasts, as well as your main or your, or your key podcast. That is your flagship podcast. I've been doing that for a while. I just repurposed one right now, which was, believe it or not, it's evergreen content from a 2007.

Article that I wrote for Podcast User Magazine. I don't know if you remember that one, Dave?

[00:03:52] Dave Jackson: Vaguely. It was called. Yeah.

[00:03:54] Jim Collison: Yeah. It was

[00:03:55] Fred Castenada: called Our, On Our Podcasters, The Next Set of, uh, Struggling Entrepreneurs.

[00:03:59] Jim Collison: [00:04:00] Do you remember that one? Maybe

[00:04:04] Fred Castenada: after all. It's only been 15 years. Yeah. But I did write it and I submitted it and I've been getting feedback saying, Hey, this is pretty good.

Where's that art? Uh, where can I get a copy of that magazine? I go, Well, 10 years ago

[00:04:16] Dave Jackson: exist. Oh, yeah.

[00:04:17] Fred Castenada: So it's not there. But, uh, in the show notes, I actually put the, the image of the article, uh, so they can see the big number, the magazine, they can see the front page article on. And I did the, uh, basically just the audio narration of it.

And I think that that's, uh, a good way to repurpose, uh, your, your episodes, especially if they come from another podcast show that you've got, so that people can get more exposure to the, the one you're currently on. And I did it on podcast reporter.

[00:04:45] Dave Jackson: Yeah. I've heard. , sounds profitable.

They have blog posts and they will say, uh, today on the show, we're going to go over the article. So they're, they're right up front saying, Hey, if this sounds like I'm reading, it's because I'm reading. And [00:05:00] at the end they're like, All right, you just listened to a blog post from our website.

, they're not really worried about, This is gonna sound like I'm reading, cuz they're letting people know, Oh, I'm reading this, this is from our blog post. Come and get it. So, absolutely, I, I approach a lot of authors and blog and people and I would say, Look, you're, you have great content.

I can't read it in the car, but I could listen to it if it was a podcast. So yeah, I always say that. I've never understood unless you there was something new like Mark Maron will repurpose, uh, interviews if somebody dies. , but the whole like, Hey, I'm gonna pull an episode from, you know, a year and a half ago and just put it out again.

I'm like, I'm, I'm not quite sure why, Cuz if you subscribe to the show, you could get that episode,

[00:05:47] Jim Collison: but, Yeah. I mean, lots of people listen in order. Yeah. And they're not gonna go back, say you published something two years ago, they're not gonna go back and find it. Like, I, I don't, Radiolab does this all the time where they'll [00:06:00] bring something, they'll put in, uh, something on the beginning to say, Hey, we released this previously four years ago.

We just repurposed two pieces of content from 2020 at Gallup that, um, that we're just really, really good. I stripped the intro and the exit off cuz those were no longer appropriate. We put new ones on it and, and threw it out there. It's. Certain Fred, if it's good content and it's evergreen. Yep. Well, why not?

Yeah, it

[00:06:24] Fred Castenada: is. And also you, you can also give it a different name and a different number. Yeah. And tell the people in the very first, uh, very first sentence of both your show notes and your audio, that this is a repurposed episode, which is evergreen content.

[00:06:38] Dave Jackson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

[00:06:41] Jim Collison: Well, thanks for your service, Dar Fred. Appreciate it. Right. Thanks for yours. And

[00:06:45] Fred Castenada: we'll say Airborne

[00:06:46] Jim Collison: all the way. There you go. Rock of the Mar to you.

That's my, When I was in Germany, I was in the third id and we would say when we'd salute, we'd say Rock of the Mar. Rock of the mar. Rock of the Mar. And that was

[00:06:59] Dave Jackson: World War I [00:07:00] reference. Well, the other thing

Congrats to Glenn on Selling His Network.
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[00:07:01] Dave Jackson: I, we should probably bring up, because he is such an awesome supporter, is congratulations to Glen Hebert.

Uh, Glen Glen sold the horse radio network. He's still part of it. Uh, sounds like he's gonna be doing horses in the morning for at least three years. But I, I've been kind of chatting with him on Facebook and we all kind of say, Man, wouldn't the dream job be just to like, show up talking to the microphone and like, that's it.

And that's pretty much what he's got. He's he, cuz he said, Man, I had the best time today. He's like, What? I had a meeting with the sales team and these are the people that are gonna be doing this now. And I had a, a meeting with the website people and he is like, he's just gonna walk in and do the podcast.

And I was like, Yeah, that's pretty cool. So yeah.

[00:07:48] Jim Collison: Congratulations to that. Yeah, it's a big deal.

[00:07:50] Dave Jackson: Yeah. Jim, would you ever sell, uh, Home Gadget Geeks, ,

[00:07:55] Jim Collison: if it was worth something and someone wanted to buy it, you know? Absolutely. You know. [00:08:00] Well, and, and you know, you say the dream job and I have a little bit of that now myself, where, you know, I've got folks that help me do what I do and it's super awesome.

We do some great stuff. But, um, I would think the bigger question is what if somebody came along and, uh, wanted to buy, asked the podcast coach, you know, you know, uh, Todd Cochran is always saying, you know, they came for the million dollars. I, you know, you cashed the check. Yeah. Would you sell it?

[00:08:27] Dave Jackson: I would so ask the podcast Coach, you've, you would have to bust, but it would have to be, No, seriously, it would have to be like a lot of money.

Um, which is interesting because if you think about it, I mean, if you go to ask the podcast coach.com/ask, you can get a discount on the School of podcasting, and yet I don't get a ton of that from the show. So, uh, now I get our awesome supporters. Yeah. But if you look at what we're making on Patreon right now, um, Hint intent, anyone listing that's not on Patreon, [00:09:00] um, you know, it's, uh, I'm not retiring on this, this income anytime soon.

Yeah. Well, it's, it's not

[00:09:06] Jim Collison: supposed to be, but, yeah. Well, I mean, listen, a lot of. I mean, Glen did a lot of work, a lot on that. Yeah. A lot of work on that network. And so he, he deserves every single scent on that in.

Promoting Patreon at the Front of Your Show for Long Periods of Time
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[00:09:21] Dave Jackson: Absolutely. And, uh, the other thing, speaking of Patreon, we had, uh, you know, the School of Podcasting has our own little Facebook and community, things like that.

And I, we've unearthed a new pet peeve, uh, and that is people that start their show with, Hey, welcome to the show. And then they say, they spend like, literally like two to three minutes talking about Patreon. And they're like, It's, you know, it's one thing to have a 15 second pre-roll or a Geico ad or something.

They're like, But they say it's not so much that it's Patreon, it's the fact that it's Patreon before you've even introduced what's on the [00:10:00] episode. It's almost a pre-roll. It's like, Hey, welcome to ask the podcast coach. Join our Patreon. We need more money, blah, blah, blah. Like, geez Louise. So. If you have a Patreon, you might wanna deliver just a hint of value first.

Just a thought. Yeah. It's probably better

[00:10:15] Jim Collison: at the, I know people say, Well, they, they don't make it to the end, then I'm like, Your content's not very good. That's it. Right? I mean, the, I I think those things are all, are all better at the end. And your most engaged listeners are there anyways. You could do a quick reminder.

I do. I thank our Patreon subscribers on home Gadget geeks at the very beginning. Hey, just thanks for being a part of the team that makes things work. You can join to the, you know, what do I say, the average guy TV slash Patreon. So, um, but we make it quick, I think. Yeah. If you get too long up front, you know, I, you, you might drive some folks away.

[00:10:50] Dave Jackson: Yeah. And I, I guess the other thing that somebody mentioned was like, there's no, there's nothing there that gives you a hint [00:11:00] that this is going to be over soon. Like, it just sounds like they're just rambling. And you know, it's like with us we have a little theme music, it's a jingle. We get in, we get out.

And so that was uh, that was the discussion this week at the School of Podcasting was like, Ugh, what is it with these patriot people? And while we're kind of doing these, let me do something else, if I can find it, cuz it's been a while since we've done one of these

Powe Rant: Endless Usells
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[00:11:22] Dave Jackson: and now it's time for a power ran. I am so tired of buying things that seem like such a good deal.

Like whole, I bought this thing last night, $37 for this one time thing. It's gonna teach me how to grow my TikTok and it's all about creating great hooks and just all the stuff that I'm looking for only $37. And there's a part of me that goes, Okay, there's a catch here. There's gotta be a. So I sign up, download, my video, which by the way, I'm at least 40% through and all he is done is name drop, name drop, [00:12:00] and, and talk about the stuff that he's gonna talk about that drives me nuts.

, it's literally a two hour video. I'm about 50 minutes in and he's done nothing but give me a really long table of contents. So I'm, I'm close to like going, I want like 37 bucks isn't gonna kill me, but I'm so ready to like, gimme that back cuz this is no value at this point, but this is the thing that drives me nuts.

You sign up and they're like, Hey, thanks so much for joining and getting that thing for this one time only fee. You can get the bonus content and it's only 99 bucks. And you're like, eh. So there was one that it was like, again, it wasn't a whole lot of money, so I bought the second product thinking, Okay, now gimme my stuff.

Nope. Third upsell. Lifetime thing normally. And it's always, I always love the fact that they go, Okay, we're gonna throw in a McDonald's straw valued at 5 million. And you're like, Wait, what? That's valued at $5 million plus an old [00:13:00] handkerchief valued at 10,000 along with, you know, and it's just, everything is thousand thousand, thousand thousand.

And then you get to the bottom like, and we're gonna give it to you for whatever, three easy payments. So I'm tired of upsells. That's gonna be one of the things that I, is now a selling point for the school of podcasting. And no upsells. You want everything easy one price. You get me, you get everything.

I mean, , they obviously must work because A, you've got your credit card in your hand, I understand that. I know this is not really podcasting related, but

[00:13:30] Jim Collison: I'm not asking in some ways as we're talking about the way you provide. You know, the value, value back, right? Or, or, or for folks to contribute value to what you're doing.

It's, it's one of those things, you know, I hear podcasters complain about this stuff all the time and, and then I say, Well then why are you engaging in it? Like if you don't right like it Dave, don't stop doing it. Now part it sounds like a little bit, you start getting in, like you get in, you're like, well I've already invested this much, I probably upgrade to get this and [00:14:00] upgrade.

That's just deceptive, right? That if that's the kind of advertising that's going on, that's just deceptive and Yeah. You know, and it, it's, it's hard to get money back on some of those kinds

[00:14:09] Dave Jackson: of things. You know? There was, cuz I ended up buying two and that's the other thing you have to be careful of. So the first one I bought and it was this whole thing about, you know, marketing and blah blah blah.

And, , I bought it off of Facebook. And that was like throwing chum in the water for, for sharks because every ad ever since then is like, You need to buy this thing, this thing. And I was like, Holy cow.

[00:14:34] Jim Collison: Yeah. Click on anything on Facebook and you're done. Yeah.

[00:14:36] Dave Jackson: But both of those had a lot of upsells and I was like, This is really annoying.

I thought I was buying one product. And, and then the emails, Here's the thing, if you, in fact this kind of, here's how I'm gonna bring this back to podcasting.

Podcasters Kit
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[00:14:51] Dave Jackson: , somebody asked me, Hey Dave, are you gonna participate in the Podcaster's kit? And this is nothing against, uh, [00:15:00] Dan, and I forget the other person that runs this, but I participated in the Podcaster's Kit.

Now the Podcaster's Kit is something where 35 different industry professionals, , get together. Like I put in like a free course on Audacity, and then what happens is you go over. And you, you buy the podcaster's kit and it's like, okay, here's the, here's the 35 people. And you go, Oh, I'll, I'll take Jim's course on, on, uh, you know, automated lawnmowers.

I'll take, uh, this court, I'll take my podcast reviews light from Danielle. I'll take this. And, and what you don't realize is you've now signed up for everybody's email list and you just get bombarded with email. And so I had, and how this works then is everybody who's part of it promotes it and it is one of those like, Holy cow, look at all this stuff.

$47, look at, and, and then, , and then you end up getting bombarded. And I had somebody that bought the thing based on [00:16:00] my affiliate link that said, Hey Dave, for the record, I thought you were better than this. And I was like, Joe. Cuz it was just, and it's, here's the thing, you, you are attaching your brand.

To others, people's brands who then just bombard people with their email lists. And so I, I've been asked every year, Do you wanna be part of it? And I'm like, No, not, Yeah. And it's, it's nothing against the people that are running it, you know, the, there are people that market soft and there are some people that market hard and there are a lot of people that see that as like, Holy cow, I can, I can grow my email list and just hammer people.

. And that's, Dr has it, she goes, That's why I always create a new email address every year.

[00:16:39] Jim Collison: Oh, and, , and also says, you can unsubscribe. Yeah. You know, as well, it, this is the problem with the distribute economy, right? , when you have a distributed economy like this and it doesn't roll up, you have everybody fighting for every dollar.

I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm just saying it's, it's the problem with it, it's one of the problems with it. And so you end up [00:17:00] having, you know, 50 newsletters and you end up having. Because you don't wanna miss something and you want to be a part of a lot of things as those things consolidate and the podcasting space is consolidating.

But as things consolidate, of course, then there's less options. And so less of those things to happen. That also puts pressure on price, right? So in a distributed economy, price is generally lower cuz competition is higher. And then as things consolidate, right, the competition, uh, gets less and the price goes up.

And we, we, we don't like, to be honest, we complain about either way, you know, people are like, I don't like it when it's, I want, you know, there's too many options. And then you consolidate down. And of course in consolidation, prices almost always go up at some point. Um, then they complain about that. So it's a, it's a give and take on both sides, you know, with it.

And we, we, we gotta figure out, the good news is, at least in our economy, there's tension between both of those. And you get, innovation as the markets consolidate, As the industry consolidate, you get innovation behind it to disrupt it. So [00:18:00] that works pretty well, but it's a little messy

[00:18:02] Dave Jackson: in the process.

Yeah. Dr. Says there are some really great products in that kit this year. I'll have to, maybe I'll go look at it. It is just a matter of, I'll make a Dan a Dave spam email gmail.com or something, cuz seriously though, what does

[00:18:16] Jim Collison: take to hit the delete button one time? Like, Well,

[00:18:19] Dave Jackson: there are, there's um, there's a, uh, one called the events calendar.

It's a WordPress plugin, and I have unsubscribed from their email, no less than five times. Yeah. And then the last time I put it is spam and I still get their emails. Yeah. And it's like, I'm really almost not using WordPress at this point. And I'm, I, I think of it comes through and I get it. I could press delete.

It's just like, No, I know. You know, I know, I understand.

[00:18:46] Jim Collison: It's all the political emails you get. It's un it's impossible to unsubscribe. Like, I, there's supposed to be some rules around that. Everybody's afraid of gdpr. Gdpr, yeah. GDPR in Europe. Uh, we need [00:19:00] something, you know, there's no teeth to unsubscribe here in the United States.

And so I think, I think people just ignore it for the most part. You know, and they're not supposed to, There's supposed to be some fines and stuff associated with spam email, but it sure. Like, it sure doesn't seem like it's stopping anybody from that. So you can do, listen, you can depend on your email service provider.

You can do some things to start blocking that at the source and such. And so if it's really bothering you, dig in. I know it's a pain, but dig in a little bit.

[00:19:27] Dave Jackson: Yeah. And there's, there's some I want to, It's not Boomerang. There's some service. You can sign up and connect it to your Gmail. And it will help you clean up your inbox because I, My problem is, yeah, I, I made the mistake of, uh, doing some stuff for my Akron, Ohio podcast and I used my School of podcasting thing, and to their credit, at least, it's, at least, it's, it's almost related, but I, I'm getting a lot of press releases from companies about Akron, Ohio that I really don't fit my show, but I, [00:20:00] I, when I open up in the morning, I'm like, Holy cow, look at all the email in my inbox.

And it's just, it's just crazy sometimes, for sure.

Unproduced Entertaining Show?
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[00:20:07] Dave Jackson: I'm working right now on an episode about creativity and podcasting, partly inspired by, by David Bowie. I saw a really bad movie about David Bowie called, uh, Moon. Something, something. It's a, it's a David Bowie, uh, song. But anyway, um, I got this one from a me, another member of the School of Podcasting, BJ Lee.

He says, This is what I'm looking for, ideally, and I couldn't think of one, um, two hosts, at least one that's good at storytelling, but it's not primarily an interview podcast. Uh, not crazy high end productions like this American Life. And it's not The Moth because the live audience performance is not repeatable.

, stories are personal experiences or tried, , the personal experiences of the host. , after the podcast, you find yourself retelling the story to someone, , really [00:21:00] retelling the story, not just retelling some insights or, or learned information. Do you know of any podcasts like this? And I was like, Hmm.

Cause usually if it's a really good story, , oh, I forget that there was a guy back in the early, like 2007. , and he looked like Santa Claus and he did. It was nothing but, , just him telling stories because he was an, he was an ex-cop and he had all these great stories and he'd be like, one time it was kind of like the wonder years almost.

Like, I remember my dad back in 1957 and he had a car and the whole nine judge, but that, but he had music and stuff, so that would kind of, you know, maybe chuck it into that this American life produced thing. And I was like, So really he's just looking for somebody who's entertaining, Right? Is that kinda what you get out of this?

And I was like, I think so. Yeah. And I was like, Hmm. So I, I couldn't think of any, the, the closest I came to was, what was that like? But that's an interview show. That's Scott Johnson where he, like, he just interviewed somebody who was on the prices right. [00:22:00] And won the showcase and which was, Here's a cool thing.

Speak this, this ties in nicely with this cuz you have your format. And then sometimes you change it up and Scott listened to his audience because a lot of times it's like, what was it like to find your husband hanging in the garage? What was it like to lose your foot in a, you know, wood chipper? What was it like to, you know, it's all these horrible things cuz you know the answer's.

Like, what was it like? Well it sucked, you know? So a lot of times his show, it kind of takes a lot outta you cuz you're like, oh man, that's, you know, it's great that this person survived whatever they went through, but holy cow. And so Scott started doing episodes like this one where it's like, hey, what was it like to win the showcase on the prices?

Right? Cuz he knew his audience kind of needs like a breather from like all the doom and destruction and things like that. So I, that was the closest one I could think of.

Changing an Episode Format
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[00:22:53] Dave Jackson: but the other thing, speaking of changing your format, did, I don't know if, are you a Shark Tank watch? Jim, I [00:23:00] love, No, but I'm, I'm aware of it.

Yeah. It's a great show for podcasters cuz it shows how to do a, a pitch and to know your, you know, all, know who your audience is, know what you're trying to do. And they brought it back, it's like, it's whatever, 400 million up season and they decided to do it in front of a live audience. And it was interesting to see a, how they changed it because all of a sudden the sharks like these billionaires that are, you know, doing that started kind of performing to the, for the crowd.

Yeah. And the other thing that was really bad is they set it up to where you could do a pole. Like, and so all of a sudden you're just having this normal conversation and you go, Yeah. And Jim, that is right. How many people would be interested? In baby formula, in the shape of let us know. So all of a sudden you had this weird, like, we need to jam this into the conversation kind of thing.

So I, I say that to say you might want to tweak your format just to see what [00:24:00] happens. But the good thing was I was really glad that they didn't keep it. It was one thing to bring the show back like this, Hey, we're back and we're live. And I was like, Oh, that was awful. I didn't like it at all. And then the rest of the season is back to normal in that whole nine yard.

[00:24:17] Jim Collison: So getting back to the regular format, I wonder if they were in the, uh, who wants to be a Millionaire Studios? Right? Didn't they have, didn't they, Couldn't you dial in? Yeah. Uh, everybody in the audience had a, had a, had a survey tool. Well, and the whole

[00:24:30] Dave Jackson: thing in the beginning is like, this was recorded earlier.

Do not text in your answer that whole

[00:24:35] Jim Collison: nine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's a good, I mean, they tried, I mean, that's. One of those things that they probably, you know, to bring it back, they would probably, and this kind of relate to your own podcast, don't commit to a format change until you've tried it at least once.

At least once. Yeah. Like get out there, try it in a special episode. , see what kind of feedback you get. See if you like it. You know, so many people, they're like, I'm [00:25:00] gonna change my format and it's gonna be this way and my next I'm gonna do it this way forever. And then they get into it and they hate it and they, you know, they then you're kind of committed to it at that point.

So I, I love this special episode idea where you tried, I mean, when you did, uh, when you did 400 and you, you brought Binky and, um, the w bringing the W on that kind of was a ch like all of a sudden everybody's like, Who are these guys and where can I get more of them? Right. Everybody loves Binky and The Wiz and, um, so I think, I think that's a good.

I think that's a good format. Try it once and see how it goes. See what happens. Yeah. Feedback.

[00:25:38] Dave Jackson: Obviously you didn't like it. Well, and I, well, I don't, It's just a lot of work. , but I did the thing, I did the experiment three weeks ago where I jammed seven really short ads into one episode just to see, and I, I knew it wasn't gonna work.

I just wanted to see what would happen. And I had two people say, Don't do that again, please. That was, [00:26:00] Yeah. And the thing I thought about that was just not so much that it was yet another commercial, but just at any momentum you had going in the conversation comes to a grinding halt. You're just like, All right, and we're, we're jamming and we're talking about this and that, and all of a sudden, Oh, we'll be right back.

And it was like,

Live Podcasts Take Practice
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[00:26:21] Jim Collison: Well, that's the, with a live show, you know, uh, Gator's talking about that there out in the chat room. You've gotta really, work hard and prepare not to get distracted by the live audience. And all I've ever done is live. And so I, I think I've, I've figured a few things out, but what I've noticed, and I, this is why I encourage a new guest not to watch the chat room, is they'll be in the middle of a sentence and then they'll just stop and go to the chat.

Like, you know, And, and I always tell 'em like, don't get distracted by the chat. , Dave's pointing to himself at that point. I think you did some of that early on. Yeah. And you've got, you've got, you've gotten a lot better at it. But [00:27:00] listen, the conversation's gonna be there. Let it sit in the chat for a while and then if you can bring it in, awesome.

If you can't, you know, if you watch any Twitch stream, they are, it's all chat. That's all they do, are pandering to the chat room cuz it's important on Twitch. Right. For me, it's terrible content. I just am not interested in, in that constant communication with the chat room.

I think there's a balance in there somewhere. And I also think you can't, it's not your responsibility necessarily to cover every single bit of chat that comes in. There's some of it that just needs to stay in the chat room. Yeah. Like, it just needs to stay there. So, again, those are all choices. I'm not saying it has to be that way.

You can do it however you want, but, but I, I kind of prefer to pick and choose those things that are, that are, that add value and then, and then, you know, bring those in, in the moment. Sometimes somebody will say something and you know, the conversation moves away and it's like, Sorry, we could have brought you in, but we didn't.

We're just gonna move on. Yeah. [00:28:00]

[00:28:00] Dave Jackson: I, I have occasionally I'll see a, something in our chat and I'll, I'll read like the first line. Click it, put it on the screen, start to talk about it, and halfway through I'm like, Oh, you're like, oops. Should have read this first, You know?

[00:28:18] Jim Collison: Yeah. Yeah. You gotta get through. I think you gotta get through the whole

[00:28:21] Dave Jackson: thing.

Patreon Updates
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[00:28:22] Dave Jackson: We mentioned Patreon earlier about how people kind of go on and on about it. , Jim, I think you had mentioned that, uh, they've made some, they have made some changes. They're, they're, Yeah. The interface on the, for the podcaster. You know, for the content creator has changed a lot.

[00:28:39] Jim Collison: Um, yeah, if you, if you haven't been into your Patreon account in a while, maybe now is a good time to go back and check it cuz that user interface for the podcaster, for the Patreon, Patriot, Patriot, I don't know, is, um, is uh, is completely changed.

And they've tried to make, they've really tried to make it so you work smarter. That's kind of the [00:29:00] idea behind this, is that things you would normally use together are closer together on the interface. Now, anytime you're used to something and you get a new interface, at first it's gonna be a little jarring.

So, you know, set a timer for 20 minutes, force yourself to figure where everything's at for 20 minutes. I guarantee you, you feel a little better about yourself at the end of 20. The first five may be a little painful if you're one of those kinds of people that knows where things are. I think the, the most significant update though, is a new billing.

A new way to bill, um, patrons. And so in the old days, you would, they would sign up and then they, they wouldn't get billed till the end of the month. And then there was a, you know, now you have an option to cut over your account that when the day they sign up, that is their new billing day for the rest of their life.

So if they sign up on the 27th, they're gonna get billed on the 27th details out on the Patriot on site. Um, it's on how all of that works, but you have to cut your account over to that. [00:30:00] So if you choose it, you're like, Oh yeah, yeah, I wanna take this new, this new subscription option where people get billed on the day.

They sign up, you change your account over to it, everything cuts over to that new way and there's no way to go back. So just be very cautious if you want to go that route, you get one shot at it today. Now I think they'll make a way to go back here in the future, but you can't go back.

[00:30:22] Dave Jackson: Well, and do they still then only pay you once a month?

[00:30:26] Jim Collison: Yeah, they still only pay you once a month. So I sign up for the school podcast on Patreon. I do it today is the eighth. This is gonna be my billing date. Then for the next month and the month after that, they're gonna bill me on the eighth. It had always been in batched process at the, Yeah. You know, like third or fourth day of the month type deal.

And, and, um, so it was a little for some, they wanted to get paid throughout the, they wanted that to process throughout the month. I think the hangup on that, and this is a little too nitty gritty for maybe this podcast, but I, I have a [00:31:00] question. You know, when, whenever they transfer money to your bank account, they charge you for that.

And so if you have getting small amounts through the month and they're automatically moving that to your bank account, you might be paying a little bit more in fees, which maybe was an incentive for doing something like this. I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying be, make sure I say all this to say.

Before you do anything on Patreon, make sure you go in and read those terms and services to understand exactly what's happening with this. Patreon has been in hot water before with these kinds of things and especially with fees. So, you know, uh, uh, buyer beware on this one, but make sure you understand what you're getting into.

I clicked too fast. I was like, Oh, that sounds like a great idea. And then I went back and read the terms. I was like, Oh, I probably should have just left it the way it was, but

First Mover Advantage
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[00:31:47] Dave Jackson: I'm there today. They are a great example of first, is it first mover? Cuz it's weird now that when something like super cast comes up, people are like, Oh, it's a, [00:32:00] like, there are times when I've explained, I'm explaining Glow fm, which is a Lipsen product.

I'm like, yeah, it's an alternative to Patreon. Like they are now used as like this is the thing. And then everybody's like, Well, how's this different than Patreon? And many times it's like, well, we're cheaper, or we're, you know, the super cast has some really cool features. Um, glows features is just easier.

, but it doesn't do as much. So it's always kind of interesting. They, they're now kind of making some changes. I know we reported on how they let their whole security team go. That was a little different. , you know, we know if we're, they're farming that out or, or what, but, uh, it'll be interesting to, uh, to see how they change

[00:32:39] Jim Collison: a point to make.

One last point to make on that your current Patreon subscribers, if you change to this new model, they'll continue to get billed at the end of the month, or the beginning of the month is, is is more accurate. Yeah. Um, so that'll stay. It's just everybody who signs up now going forward. So again, get in there, get familiar with it.

I'm not a big fan of just [00:33:00] saying, Oh yeah, you should do this. Get it signed up today. You should actually get out there, um, and read about it. Make sure you're comfortable with it. I think they also added a new player, so they have an updated player on the site and they also added, um, uh, this idea of focusing on tiers.

So you can have a page where one tier is kind of popped out, if that's what you want. Oh, nice. If that's what you wanna do. So yeah, it's new features that what they really need's coming that's

[00:33:24] Dave Jackson: coming where other companies are eating their lunch is, and I haven't done this in a long time, is if you want people to listen to your show, cuz they actually give you an RSS feed for each person.

But it used to be you'd have to go like, Oh, go into your account, click on that, and then scroll over to that. And over on the right hand side there's this link. You need to copy that and paste it into Apple or whatever you're listening to. And it wasn't that hard. But if you're dealing with somebody who's never like they're new to podcast.

You're, you're talking nonsense. And so that's where things like super [00:34:00] cast and glow. And there's another one, I can't think of that all, like basically send you an email, you click a link and it looks at your phone and goes, Oh, you're on an Android phone here, subscribing Google Podcast or Spotify or whatever.

And that's where Patreon is kind of, that's what they need to add to kind of meet their competition at least. Um, I know Super Cast gives you download numbers and I don't think Patreon does. You can upload, you know, I upload the audio to Patreon, so they are hosting. My file for my patrons, but I have no idea how many people listen.

So they need to, to add that as, as well in my book. Um, but, um, and then Chris is asking a question here. Who shares the show on social media while watching it? He's asking, he's talking about us. So while we're watching this live, um, yeah, I usually put up, I didn't put up the banner. Usually I, I put out a thing at the very beginning of the show that says, Tweet out that we are live.

[00:35:00] Yeah.

[00:35:00] Jim Collison: And he did. And if you do, I'll uh, like it and reshare it. I mean, I'll retweet it as well. So if you wanna let folks know we're live, make a comment, whatever. It's always, That's always fun. It's fun to do. Appreciate you guys doing that. And I'll watch Twitter. Chris, thanks for, uh, jumping out there. Get that done.

You know, it doesn't cost you anything, uh, a like, you know, right down there. Yeah. We don't say this too often. Just click that and it's, it's just good for the algorithm. So, and, and it makes us feel good about ourselves. I mean, most of the time after the show, I cry for about a half an hour . So it just, just being, just being transparent with you guys, just being honest.

But appreciate all those lights.

$500 to Start a Podcast
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[00:35:36] Dave Jackson: Here is a fun question that, um, I saw on Facebook. And so Jim, you have $500 Oh, to start a podcast. Okay. How do you spend it?

[00:35:51] Jim Collison: Oh, that's a good, that is a super good question. , on the fly. I think art super important what you're doing. I think I would probably pay somebody to make sure I [00:36:00] get good podcast art, cuz I think that's the last thing people think about.

They go down the road of, and, and, and maybe it's not the very first thing you do, but I'm gonna wanna save some money for some podcast art. And I might want to think about, um, paying for some for if I don't have good equipment, like $500 will get you set up with a pretty good, pretty clear, pretty good sound.

Cause if you start with terrible sound. So those are a couple things. I think maybe art and sound might be something I would, uh, I would focus on. What do you think? I,

[00:36:31] Dave Jackson: I was podtrak P four. There's 200 bucks. Yeah. Sampson Q2 use, So now we're at about 300, , Hindenburg Light, there's $12 or 99 if you buy it.

So that, if I did that, that's 400 and it leaves me a hundred bucks to get artwork and maybe, or 80 bucks to get artwork and 20 bucks to host my show with Lipson when it's done and that. But that's just ,

[00:36:54] Jim Collison: the hosting is just one

[00:36:55] Dave Jackson: month. That's just one month. But the question I saw was [00:37:00] to start and I was like, well, to start, Yeah.

Yeah. You gotta have hosting. But, uh, yeah. Dan says, uh, $500 split between a. Interface, Branding, hosting, and a website. Oh, see, I didn't even think about the website. Website, Yeah.

[00:37:15] Jim Collison: Gotta see that. Okay. But see, that goes into another category. See, I think hosting and website hosting, Yeah. Those are monthly reoccurring costs.

Yeah. That you, you're gonna, that's a different than a one time capital expenditure. There you

[00:37:27] Dave Jackson: go. I like Craig's answer. He says, You just register for a year at the School of Podcasting. I like that. Uh, Chris is saying q2 U pod page and Lipson. Yeah. If you think about it, if you have the Sampson, Q2 U and you're doing a solo show, then you don't need the pod track.

See, that's, that frees up 200 bucks. There's all sorts of ways to do that. So, but I just, it was just one of those, I was like, Hmm, that's interesting thought. Yeah.

[00:37:54] Jim Collison: 2, 2 50, 2 50 to 300 will get you in a pretty good [00:38:00] microphone and interface setup. I definitely don't recommend just like this microphone, the ATR 2100.

Or, uh, what's the other one? ATT Q2 five

[00:38:10] Dave Jackson: two. There's a 2000. Yeah. The ATR 2100 X and the AT 2005 is the black

[00:38:16] Jim Collison: one. I definitely recommend getting those in an interface with some kind of headphone amplifier back to you. I just, nothing's more maddening than the muffled USB sound that comes back from those things.

They're just terrible. So that, I do recommend you get some kinda interface, although I've got one of the cheap baringer or audio, I forget the name of it. Audio. Oh, I got it. Go headphone a. M audio. Yeah, it's this one sitting right here. You can't see it. It's the one I've been using for work. It's actually terrible.

It's like a, it's $35 and it works, right? But I gotta crank that. I mean, it's, it's at 11 to, to get, to get the, to power anything. And

[00:38:56] Dave Jackson: Ooh, I mean, it kind works, but

[00:38:59] Jim Collison: I did. [00:39:00]

[00:39:00] Dave Jackson: That's spent a hundred bucks. . Chris has flipped this on its head. Chris is now saying what would be the worst or wrong answers only version of this question.

All right, well, I'm gonna start off with a, uh, a Blue Yeti. Ah, uh, and I'm gonna host it on Anchor. Ah, uh, and then I'm going to, He knows your button, He knows your, Then I'm gonna go to Fiber and have somebody produce an intro that'll probably have Cool in, in the gang, in the background. Ah. Um, let's see, what else could I do that, that's a real story.

By the way. The guys, the guy's promo reel. Had had him doing voiceover Cool. In the gang. And I was like, Celebrate. Was it to celebrate?

[00:39:39] Jim Collison: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, .

[00:39:40] Dave Jackson: And I was like, Yeah, that's illegal. Um, yeah. Uh, and then I'd hire someone to promote my show on, uh, Apple. I'd get, I'd hire one of those promoters from LinkedIn.

Um, let's see, what else? And it would be, um, [00:40:00] I, I think I'd wanna do a true crime show, uh, cuz there aren't many of those.

Don't Get Scared By The Number of Podcasts
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[00:40:05] Dave Jackson: Um, and then, oh, now wait

minute.

[00:40:07] Jim Collison: Hold on. Wait. Just because there's a lot of shows, right? That's true. Doesn't mean you should, cuz you could be, I mean, you. You could be, I mean, think of who, who was out First Idol or The Voice, Which one of those came out first?

Yeah. Idle was first,

[00:40:24] Dave Jackson: right? Yeah. And actually Star Search, if we go behind, you know? Yeah, yeah. But okay. On Star search. Nevermind. Sorry.

[00:40:31] Jim Collison: No. First time it was good. It was kinda like the gong show of, of God that is, if you go back, you want to talk about something that hasn't aged well go back to the Gong Show.

[00:40:41] Dave Jackson: Wow. I can imagine it's probably pretty politically incorrect.

[00:40:45] Jim Collison: It really bad. Anyway. Anyway, so, um, just because it's the space is so, so, um, you know, if, if, if we just all quit with Idol, the voice would've never come along. Right. So you could be the next voice. Who knew Adam Levine [00:41:00] and, and, uh,

[00:41:01] Dave Jackson: Adam Levine.

Maybe not a good example right now. , it's like saying, Well, yeah. And Cosby and, you know, and, uh, Louis c k. All these guys are great. Yeah. Okay. Oh, Daniel says, or Blake Shelton. Blake Shelton's doing. Yeah. Or we could review movies or something.

[00:41:20] Jim Collison: Again, you might like, I want to be, This is a dangerous spot. It is.

You might have a whole new format that nobody's doing that that may rock the world. So just because a lot of people are doing it doesn't mean you shouldn't. And listen, podcasters stop drilling on people for doing that. This is their passion. I mean, listen, when a couple years ago, when everybody was coming out with podcasts about podcasting, that didn't stop us.

Right. We kept, we kept doing it. You could say the same thing about us. So be careful in that space. I mean, I, I, That's one

[00:41:51] Dave Jackson: area I want us to be careful. Here's the thing about this that is true is I help somebody this week at Libsyn and she has been doing an [00:42:00] interview show for a while, and it was pretty broad and it got okay numbers, but you know, she's not.

You know, she's not a household name by any means. And she was like, I want to rebrand my show. I'm like, Oh, it's super simple. You just change the artwork, change the description, couple of this, this, that, blah, blah, blah. Be sure to let your audience know. And she explained what her second show was gonna be, and it was super focused.

Exactly. Knew who she was talking to, knew why she was doing it. So as much as we kind of joke about, you know, a lot of the, the shows that are, you know, uh, apparent and easy to, to, well, I shouldn't say easy, but there, there are a lot of those, A lot of times it's that show that is the one that gets your to in water.

And then about, you know, Two months in, you go, Oh, you know what, I'd rather do a podcast about blank. But it was that one that you did the, the true crime, the inspirational story to motivate and inspire the Entrepreneur show Larry talked about that. Um, you know, these are all [00:43:00] things you do because that's maybe what you do for a living or whatever, and you go, Yeah, just because I do this for 11 doesn't mean I wanna talk about customer service on a podcast.

So, um, a lot of times those are the ones that you, I mean, Minan Fogarty, who's she? She's in the Hall of Fame, right? I think so, Yeah. Grammar Girl has to be in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, you would think so. Yeah. Um, but her first show was super labor intensive, white paper kind of stuff, and she's, she started, it was like, Ugh, this is horrendous.

And then she's like, Well, what else do I like? Well, I like grammar. So she made these shoot quick little, you know, she said by no one ever. Yeah, yeah. Well, exactly.

[00:43:39] Jim Collison: Well, you know, it's a niche. Yeah. Cause no one ever says, Oh yeah, I really like grammar .

Game Show Triva
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[00:43:44] Dave Jackson: It's a niche. It's great. Yeah. Um, so there you go. Well, here's something you don't know.

Uh, Dr. Says her father was on the Gong Show and he played the Oscar Meyer whistle really well, and lost to a little person dancing the Charleston. So, hey, [00:44:00] speaking of, uh, of people on game shows, do you know, uh, I'll give you a hint. Okay. He's known by three initials. Okay. But he appeared on the prices, right?

Oh, he was stoked to be there.

[00:44:16] Jim Collison: Oh, I feel like I should know. I, I feel like I should know this price is right. He

[00:44:21] Dave Jackson: was stoked.

[00:44:23] Jim Collison: Well, what's not Daniel, right? Daniel? It's not Daniel, starts with a j uh, uh, uh, John Lee Dumas. John

[00:44:30] Dave Jackson: Dumas was on the prices right.

[00:44:32] Jim Collison: Back in the day. Still was the key.

Right? You were trying to get me fire there. Thank you. Yeah, I was gonna say it was really hot. Yeah, I, I wanted to say, but I couldn't remember his name.

Hard to Predict What Will Be a Hit
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[00:44:41] Dave Jackson: , Stephan says, uh, nobody thought there were three guys talking about anime from Japan can get millions of views on YouTube. Yeah. And, and kind of going back to Jim staying, you know, well first of all, we should say, if you go to podcast index.org or.com, I [00:45:00] forget which one it is, it'll show you where there's like 4 million podcasts.

But then go down and look at how many are active, which means they've put out an episode in the last 90 days. And that's, uh, that's the listen, you know, And even that is, is suspect. So who, who

[00:45:16] Jim Collison: would've thought d and d would've come back and made? I mean, those guys have made millions on critical role and they're doing a great job and they're doing a totally different format.

I mean, who would've thought putting the DM in the corner and, and having two tables. They have, I mean that's just, that's just raw talent. And they were all voice actors before and such, so they had a following. Some of 'em had a little bit of following before. So don't let anybody poo poo on your, on your podcast idea and say you can't do it.

We listen, We're hypocrites and podcasting all the time. We say, Oh, you can do anything you want unless until you do it this way, you know, you shouldn't do it. That

[00:45:56] Dave Jackson: you shouldn't

[00:45:56] Jim Collison: do this and you shouldn't do. That's, that's a hypocrite [00:46:00] right there. Like, that's, that's it. We gotta stop. Either we have to say, you gotta do it this way, or we stop saying you can do it way you want.

Thanks To Our Awesome Supporters
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[00:46:06] Dave Jackson: Yeah. When we we're gonna take a a a, we're gonna, we're gonna pay some people or whatever, we're gonna do some coffee. There you go. I'm dying. And, uh, we're also, where is the thing? Here we go. Um, cuz I want to thank. Here it is, our awesome supporters. If you go to ask the podcast coach.com/awesome/well that works too.

Or slash support. If you go to slash support, you can be an awesome supporter, but you can also donate via PayPal. You can buy my book, all sorts of other fun things that ask the podcast coach.com/support. Um, we're gonna try this. Um, uh, let me mute me really quick, Open, awesome supporters from ask the podcast coach.com/support.

It's joshua@podcastingexperiments.com. [00:47:00] See Alexis drinking coffee too, and apparently she's listening to Jimmy Hendrix, which is cool. So Josh, thanks so much for being an awesome supporter, . She does not stop when I ask her to stop. It's um, you know, it's like, well, there's a joke there. Oh, we could, Yeah, but we're not, Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Uh, ask the podcast Coach runs on pod page. If you'd like to try pod page, go over to tripod page.com. That's my affiliate link. And if you can't get enough, Jim Cullison, go over to Home Gadget Geeks, or go over to home and listen to Home Gadget geeks@theaverageguy.tv. Uh, if you'd like to start a podcast and that's right now with no upselling, go to school of podcasting.com.

In fact, if you go to school of podcasting.com/ask, uh, that'll take you right there with the coupon. That is school of podcasting.com/ask. And of course, if you'd like to be an awesome supporter, go over to ask the podcast coach.com/support. And we're gonna go [00:48:00] back to, uh,

Craig's Bleeping Microphone
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[00:48:01] Dave Jackson: Craig had a question. Uh, it's a serious question, so no joking around on this, Jim, um, a friend of mine has a thousand dollars super sensitive directional mic for capturing bird song.

Um, he puts it into a zoom H five via three and a half, uh, millimeter jack, and he is getting regular bleeps in the recording. Hmm. That's a, that's a good question. Um, I don't, so I think somebody asked him, uh, the mic doesn't have an xlr, that's why he is doing the three. Hmm. I would, Hmm,

[00:48:46] Jim Collison: I I I'm interested in like, is it kind of thing Yeah.

Is it, that, is, is that the kind of beep we're talking about? It's, it's weird cuz that sounds kind of mechanical. Like something, if it's on a regular basis and it's in a high pitched [00:49:00] beep, it would almost be like it. Coming from the microphone, which would mean it would need kind of some set set up. Is it going through an interface at all or any of those?

That's all. That's very odd.

[00:49:12] Dave Jackson: , he's, uh, he's happy with the recording. You . No, it's okay. , it's a reoccurring

[00:49:17] Jim Collison: mechanical beep, bleeping sound.

Hmm, huh. No, that's, I wonder something has to be,

[00:49:28] Dave Jackson: Huh? Never, never heard of that. Never. So I would be, cuz anytime you troubleshoot, you have to break things down. So if you can, if there's a different cable you can use, try that. If you can't, then try plugging it into a different recorder of some sort. With a three and a half millimeter, you should be able to plug that into a.

I would think and somehow maybe with a, an adapter and hit record on like voice memo. , that would take out the recorder. And then [00:50:00] if, if you did that with your phone and you can't plug out Yeah, there you go. , the old, uh, yeah, the old

[00:50:05] Jim Collison: lightning to lightning adapter that you get that, that should work.

Maybe if you're on your iPhone. Yeah.

[00:50:12] Dave Jackson: Cause if you're getting the blip into the phone after you've had it in some other recorder and you can't swap out the cable, then you can't tell is this the cable or the mic, but,

[00:50:23] Jim Collison: or another mic on that Zoom H four to see. Maybe

[00:50:25] Dave Jackson: that's the problem. Yeah. That would be the other thing too.

Plug another mic. I

[00:50:28] Jim Collison: think, I think the, the H four has the highest propensity to be the problem on that. That's where it sounds like it's, it might be coming from, I mean, a mic doesn't generally have enough stuff in it to create a reoccurring beep. Yeah. Right. And your cables usually give you static or.

Some of those kinds of things. I, I, man, I checked the H four that, that'd be my, that'd be my first go around pluck some other things into it just to see,

[00:50:52] Dave Jackson: And Daniel's saying that adapter won't work because that only works for T Rs, not a Ts or [00:51:00] TRS Mike. So depending on the scenario. Yep, yep,

[00:51:03] Jim Collison: yep. , I don't know what the, what the output.

[00:51:05] Dave Jackson: So that's a, that's a fun one. But that's, anytime you troubleshoot, it's always, you know, try to break it down into pieces, parts and,

[00:51:14] Jim Collison: and try. Yeah. Yeah. I love your thought on that of like, okay, let's, let's pull everything apart and then test every single individual component to make sure it's wrong. I can't tell you how many times I've been troubleshooting only to realize it was a $7 cable.

That was the problem. Right. You know, you're testing all this equipment, doing all these gyrations and it's a $7 cable.

[00:51:35] Dave Jackson: Yeah. . Well this morning I was laughing cuz I was troubleshooting the woman in the tube. And I was like, This isn't working and it's not connecting. And all of a sudden I looked up and I was like, Oh, I have a mute button on.

So sometimes it's you dig too deep and you're like, Oh, wait a minute, it's this thing right here.

Podcast Generator?
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[00:51:52] Dave Jackson: , St. Clinton says, Any thoughts about program podcast generator? Thinking about using it over the other [00:52:00] podcast hosting? , well, here's my criteria. A, does it Give me a 3 0 1 redirect? Somebody moved to Kajabi yesterday that contacted me and I was like, No. And they're like, Ah, everything's in Kajabi. I'm like, Hope you love Kajabi, cuz you can't.

So do they gimme a 3 0 1 redirect? I I would prefer they not change my file. So if I upload a 1 28 stereo file, I would like a 1 28 stereo file to download some, , sites like Buzz Sprout will change that. , then do they offer support? Cuz you know, if you talk to anybody about anchor support, they're gonna tell you, Wait, what's that?

And like Exactly. . I prefer you not change my file name, but that one's now with an asterisks because so many companies now are doing dynamic stuff. You, you can't keep the file name. At least I haven't seen anybody do it yet. Uh, where you, if you're adding different things in that, , are they IAB compliant?

That will be important if you are, uh, [00:53:00] have ideas of having an advertiser. , My whole thing is, and people say, Oh, it's cuz you work for Libsyn. And I'm like, you know, your your podcast media host is, you know, that's a big part of your show. That's, that's the, the basement of, of your house that you're, you're building on.

And for me, you know, I'm gonna go with a, a Lipson blueberry Buzz Sprout captivate. Those are my like four. And everybody else is like, well there are other ones too. There's Casto. It's been around a while, but there was one and it was something, something Debase or something, but it was supposed to be all about, and they did dynamic insertion.

It was on App Sumo and they gave people a bunch of lifetime deals and then they basically renegged, they're like, Hey, remember how you're supposed to never pay for this again? Sorry. Oops. I used to test a lot of media hosts, you know, back in the day. I can't keep up with them now. , what's the, is it just podcast generator.com?[00:54:00]

[00:54:00] Jim Collison: It's podcast generator.net.net. See podcast generator.net.

[00:54:05] Dave Jackson: Now here's my question, Jim, . If you see a company that has a.net, is there a part of you that dies a little?

[00:54:12] Jim Collison: It's sad, but I mean, listen, there's only

[00:54:15] Dave Jackson: one.com right? So it's an open source. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. See here, here's the thing.

I would, if it was me. They, they do charge,

[00:54:26] Jim Collison: so they do. Okay. That's good. Well, hold on, let me make sure, let me make sure that I, I may be wrong

[00:54:31] Dave Jackson: on that. Click and go. Apple friendly now. Come on. Kids. Like, really every podcast host is Apple friendly. Any RSS feed for me? See that right there Makes me go, Hm.

They're trying to play prey on the uninformed new be proof technology. I like that. , here's my thing. When I go to demo, is there gonna be a video of this thing anywhere? Yeah, they have a live demo. That's good. Cause And is there any pricing or is it free? Here we go. Let's go to [00:55:00] the about page.

[00:55:00] Jim Collison: So they're hosting is done@rss.com.

That's what they, they use rss.com as their,

[00:55:07] Dave Jackson: They're hosting. Well, here's my thing. I mean, I, I met Ben and the guys@rss.com. They're, they're good guys. They're really involved in podcasting 2.0. If I was to try a new web host it, it'd be rss.com transistor and Casto would be the, the three that I've never played with that have somewhat of a name.

So I've, this is the first time I've heard of them. Doesn't mean they're bad. I would go in here to support, which I'm doing live. Okay. So access to documentation. Ask for free support. So there's no nothing I can search for here. Documentation. Let's try that. They're,

[00:55:45] Jim Collison: their support is on GI Git, GitHub.

Okay. Um, and so their, you know, they're using that as the back. I mean, it's , it's interesting. Like the most, most open source projects are not easy. , they're right. They're not easy to [00:56:00] find answers to. They're not easy. and they're, they're very geared towards the very technical person and they're, they're kind of billing this as like, Hey, this is easy in self service.

And I think sometimes we, you know, we highly technical people will be like, Well, it's easy, easy for me. Yeah. But you, you throw that in front of somebody else saying, How, how do I do this? Like, you know, there's a download associated with this. Well, I mean, okay. In a world where we're really moving to a hundred percent web services for everything, it, you're really gonna ask me to install something on.

So anyways, I, I don't know. I'm not trying to poopoo it. They just, folks asked about it and Yeah, it, it looks fairly complex. I mean, it looks, I, if you, if you're a technical person, you might really like this as a solution, Right. Cause you, you can drive everything. Yeah.

The Skills Used With a Media Host
---

[00:56:50] Dave Jackson: And if they're using rss.com as their back end, I'm like, why wouldn't you just cuz really the actual creation of [00:57:00] podcast episodes.

And setting up the actual part that you do, like, I don't care if it's captivate, buzz sprout, lipson, blueberry, setting up the show. You, you upload artwork, you type in your description, you pick a couple categories and you're done. And then when it comes to making an episode, you upload a file, which is the exact same thing as uploading a, uh, a photo to an email.

, you click navigate to the file and upload it. You type in a subject and a description that's the same as typing email, like the actual podcast media host part is usually pretty easy. So,

[00:57:37] Jim Collison: yeah. On, on their main page. Yeah. So it's the, like the, the explaining this, you know, the like power and simplicity and newbie proof technology, but the under click and go it says this, I.

Just hang with me for a second. Okay. It says, PG has very little server requirements. As a matter of fact, it works in any web host with PHP support. Most newbies are like php. What is that? [00:58:00] The user data is stored in an XML format, hence, no, I db is required. PG can be installed in less than a minute through a three step, um, setup wizard.

In most cases, a manual installation is not even necessary as PG is offered as a pre-installed package by some of the biggest hosting and NA service providers worldwide. Like, there's a lot of things in there that most people have no idea. Like, they're like, What? Wait, what? Hey, wait a minute. Who? Yeah.

You

[00:58:28] Dave Jackson: know, Stefan is saying he thinks it's just a con, it's a CMS for self hosting and I'm, I'm not a fan of self hosting.

[00:58:38] Jim Collison: Yeah. Well, it's okay. , they're pitching this as being easy and. I'm not sure. And it, and again, for highly technical people and, and for someone who may understand this, I mean, most people don't know what PHP is, so they'd be like, Oh, oh, okay, what do I do? How do I do this? And yeah, and I'm, listen, I'm sure they've tried hard, but, um, [00:59:00] it's an open source project, so you're gonna, it's gonna have some complexity.

What's

[00:59:03] Dave Jackson: interesting about this is they have a demo and , you know, we're gonna do two in one episode

[00:59:07] Jim Collison: and now it's time for a Power Ran.

[00:59:12] Dave Jackson: If you , if you are a podcast or any kind of software company, when I go to your website, I want a video showing me what it does. As well as like, there's one on music.

It was some sort of program that lets you made your own royalty free music, and yet I couldn't hear the music they were creating. So make a live demo of your, of your software so I can see it, which will help me know what it does. Do it in Loom if you want to, and at the end you can put a call to action.

I'm, that drives me nuts when I go to software and I, I'm reading about it and is like, we're a new easy way to do insert jargon, jargon, jargon. And you're like, And six easy steps of jargon. Jargon. [01:00:00] I'm like, what is this again? Like, just let me click here and show what it does. And most of the time, the reason you don't get those is because English is not their first language, which I totally understand, but go to Fiverr and have somebody read it, make a video.

I'm, uh, it drives me nuts. So, let me share my screen and we'll, we'll see exactly what Dave is talking about, how this doesn't work. And I realize this is an audio show. You know what, that's as far as I'm gonna get. I open up the paid, I, I, I looked at this.

I'm supposed to be entering a login name and password, but that right there is like, so what I'm looking at is just random episodes. This is my Cool. Podcast. , this is a demo version. Yeah, no, sorry, just for me, my first re Jim, your reaction to that. Yeah. It's, it's a little overwhelming.

Yeah. Yeah. So, so thanks, but.

[01:00:58] Jim Collison: It's, maybe somebody can give it a try [01:01:00] for us and maybe we can get a newbie to give it a try for us and see how podcast generators, See how I, I hate to do that cuz we didn't, This is a terrible review cuz we just, we just saw this for the very first time today. So these are all initial impressions.

It could be fantastic.

[01:01:16] Dave Jackson: Well, here's, I have one in here. , I don't know what we're looking at here. So this is like the podcast rodeo show for SAS this week. I'll share my screen. It's called Pod Reacher B2B Content Transformation Specialist.

What is Podreacher?
---

[01:01:31] Dave Jackson: What does that mean exactly?

[01:01:34] Jim Collison: , you have to have a server to set up a, , podcast generator.

[01:01:37] Dave Jackson: Yeah. . Oh, well, at least they finally added this. There's a, I, when I originally put this in my thing, I had. Pod reacher, no pricing, which drives me nuts.

I don't wanna have to call or email for a price, but here it says, Oh no, this is why I have this here. I have to contact them for a price. And to me, that's when I'm like, Yeah, no, that's a deal breaker for [01:02:00] me. And this is kind of an example@podreacher.com, you know, used by Fresh Books and squad cast. Now squad cast for me, I'm like, okay, but three x the value of each recording.

Storybrand Book Example
---

[01:02:12] Dave Jackson: But I I, do you understand what it does? No, no. That builds an episode page repurposing, you know, but it's, it's a B2B content transformation specialist. I was like, Okay, see examples. So we click on that and it takes me to a, a word doc. Yeah, it just what they need. Have you ever read the book? It's by, I, I wanna say Dan or Don Miller, um, called Story Brand.

and he talks about how, and this, this, you know, to bring it back to podcasting, it, he says, You should be able to go to somebody's website and go to it for like five to 10 seconds. Like, time yourself and then tell people what the website's about. Yeah. It should be that easy. And, uh, I don't know that that website [01:03:00]

[01:03:00] Jim Collison: does.

It's, it's hard to do. It is. It's hard to do. Cause a lot of people want to jam a lot of stuff into that little space, and you're like, Yeah, you have, you probably have too many things that you're trying to do there, you know?

[01:03:13] Dave Jackson: Dan says, uh, Don Miller Story Brand is a great book. It is a great book.

Actually, here's an example of, it started off, I think with a YouTube video. I saw, and he's part of that whole I affection, and I say this with affection and and respect, he's part of like the, the Nashville Mafia, like it's him, Dave Ramsey, Michael Hyatt, Ray Edwards, all those guys are down there. And, uh, I saw his YouTube video made a lot of sense.

Um, signed up for his newsletter, and I think the newsletter got me to buy the book. And I read the book, and the book got me. I wanted to do a deeper dive. And he has a course on that. And it's, it's a really good, really good stuff if you're new to branding and things like that.

Spotify in the News
---

[01:03:57] Dave Jackson: , we haven't talked about Spotify yet today.

[01:04:00] Spotify's been doing some fun stuff. , they, took somebody's show and I don't know if they fired the host. , it was launched in 2020. The show was called Sex Lies and DM Slides, and apparently it's relaunched with new hosts.

Hmm. So, , without the knowledge of the podcasters who say they created the show, Oh, which is Gizzy. Ikin has posted on Instagram. That's show made by Spotify UK is being made again without us, is Spotify is, this is their quote. If Spotify don't want to make it with us, then that's fine, but do not steal our format and name.

We created it, the format and the name in my kitchen over a series of months. See this again is where if you're joining a network, not to just, I don't wanna bash Spotify, but any network here who owns the show, when you sign on the.online, and this sure makes it [01:05:00] sound like when they bought the show, they own it.

, and you became the. Talent, uh, Spotify just paid for it to be made. I'm absolutely up to my eyeballs at being exploited by big corporations and money people. We are so angry, upset, she continues in the post. So meanwhile over at Spotify, they're also canceling 11 original shows, says to the Hollywood Reporter, those canceled represent less than 2% of Spotify's more than 500 original podcasts.

So this is one of those things that I kind of jumped on cuz first I'm like, Oh, Spotify's canceling shows. And I was like, I wanna put your eggs in the Spotify basket. Look, you thought you were home free. And, but Glen made a point, he's like, Look, any show that doesn't perform on the horse radio network, you're gone.

Like, that's, you know, , so , that makes sense. Uh, Spotify staff on the original podcast, uh, less than 5% of Spotify staff on the original podcast being laid off.[01:06:00] , If you're hiring, Connor Sampson has volunteered to connect you. Spotify didn't respond to any invitation or comments, so they're, they're, they're making changes over there, which when I kind of stepped back and, and thought about it, it was like, okay, so they're downsizing shows that don't perform.

They have already kind of scaled back on some of their podcasting staff. Why? Cuz they have less shows now that makes sense. You know this thing with the, the name thing? I was like, well, they, they probably bought the show and you didn't have anybody read it cuz you know you didn't and now you wish you had so, I know.

[01:06:40] Jim Collison: Well, Spotify's moving fast and taking chances. Yeah. Right? I mean, this is what you do. And, listen, if we think they're gonna buy 500 shows and all 500 are gonna be successful and they're gonna keep all 500 forever, check in with the rest of us, in reality, like it, it's, that's not, that's not ever gonna happen.

In fact, it'll [01:07:00] probably get more severe. It, uh, the cuts will probably get more severe, , rather than less over time. Uh, it's, they, they kind of figure out what this model is. They're the kind of the first ones to really do something like this. They're kind of flying a little blind on it, and they're probably learning and the process.

You're gonna see a lot of staff changes as , people kind of come, both, both people leaving and people being let go based on performance. How are things going? They don't, they didn't know what this would do. They just knew they wanted to get in the business. I mean, good on them. For spending the money.

I think we try to knock Spotify down a little too often on this. Good on them for spending a whole bunch of money at trying to make it work. And I think they will get it right. They will try. Listen, iHeartRadio is in the same business. They are trying to figure out how to make

[01:07:43] Dave Jackson: this thing work and not always in the most ethical way.

Well,

[01:07:47] Jim Collison: yeah, No, right on. Right on. But they are spending a bunch of money on it, right? Look, we're, we talk to podcasters who won't spend $8 on hosting and they're spending, you know, 8 million on advertising. So, [01:08:00] you know, they, they know how to make things work. It's a little bit of a struggle in the process to get there, and we're gonna see more of this before we see some success.

But I think some giant successes are gonna come out of , that Spotify group eventually. And, and they'll be glad they, they did it. It'll eventually, it, it should pay off for 'em.

Brand Safe is Coming Closer
---

[01:08:16] Dave Jackson: Well, they just bought a company called Kinson. K I N Z E N. The technology the Kinson team brings to Spotify combines machine learning and human expertise backed by analysis from leading local app academics and journalists to analyze potential harmful content and hate speech in multiple languages and countries.

It's based outta Dublin, Ireland, and no terms were given. So here again, you're gonna hear a, a lot of this coming down the pike because advertisers thanks to maybe iHeart, are a little more leery about advertising on shows. But B, the whole thing of like, wait, you're show for sneakers is on a, you know, some Nazi show.

Cuz [01:09:00] every time we talk about anything remotely sensitive, we have to say the word Nazi. And it is, uh, boy, we got 10 minutes. I haven't said James Cridlin yet. So this is, uh, from an. From, from James Cridlin. But you're gonna see more and more things about things doing transcriptions. We know Apple transcribes your show.

Google transcribes your show. Everybody's doing that cuz they're trying to figure out what you're talking about. And they wanna know that without having to listen to your show so that they can say this is a brand safe. And uh, brand safety is the reason Adam Curry left his own company. He was like, I don't wanna make "meh" content.

Right? Because that's what you end up with when everything is brand safe. So I was like,

[01:09:43] Jim Collison: well, we're gonna go through a lot of turmoil and changes in, you know, Spotify is gonna be the Amazon and the podcasting space, right? I mean, they're gonna do some, We're already seeing this in the news. Just go out and re read it for yourself.

As far as the way podcasters are [01:10:00] being treated and the way talent is being treated, I think there's gonna be some shakeout in this space and the way that works with them and the way it works with the other. Again, this go back to the beginning of the show as as industries consolidate, these are some of the growing pains that we go through to make this work.

And, , we'll have to see how it all pans. Listen, . When Amazon first started selling books in that space, nobody had any idea how big they were gonna be and there was no guarantees. Listen, Toys R Us had to shot this. Yeah. Like they were in early and they could have been Toys R Us could have been what Amazon is today.

They're not for a few, for a few reasons they are coming

[01:10:36] Dave Jackson: back. Did you know that? No. They're gonna be, , I want to, It's not Higbee's cuz Hibs isn't around, but there's some other store that is going to have an official toys or US section. Yeah. Yeah. Now

[01:10:48] Jim Collison: in their brand is strong. Yeah. The brand is still,

[01:10:50] Dave Jackson: is still pretty strong.

Document from Gimlet Union
---

[01:10:51] Dave Jackson: , Sp brought this. , so I'm gonna read this. This was from, uh, Gimlet's Union and, um, statement from Gimlet Union and [01:11:00] Parcast Union. By the

[01:11:01] Jim Collison: way, we're not lawyers and we don't even play them on tv. Yeah. So go ahead.

[01:11:04] Dave Jackson: So Spotify blindsided both Gimlet Union and Union with at least 38 layoffs across their studios.

Spotify has said in the press that these layoffs constitute less than 5% of people working on original podcast. That number is misleading. Uh, the reality is that each bargaining unit organized with the Writer's Guild of America East, had lost about 30% of its members. Um, these aren't small cuts. They are massive restructuring.

Each shop has lost seasons, producers, writers, and editors. Many of those laid off were longtime employees. People who had helped build our studios from the ground up and who saw them. Through a global pandemic. Some were on parental leave, others were in the middle of relocating. These employees left other jobs, other cities, other countries to work at a company that told them repeatedly that their jobs would be secure.

Most, uh, [01:12:00] ous of their big words here while they're writers is that in the podcast case, these layoffs directly impacted the majority of members in the union's diversity, uh, equity, inclusion and accessibility committee, as well as the main majority of the former organizing and bargaining committees. But basically, I mean, I'm, you're not gonna read this whole thing, but I'll put a link to this in the, the show notes.

But, you know, maybe the press release. Isn't entirely accurate. And maybe , , this is written from an employee, sometimes the employees don't have the big picture. So, but, you know, and, and my guess is that's probably one of the persons that was let go and maybe venting a bit.

Who Are These People?
---

[01:12:39] Dave Jackson: So , here's my thing. I I, I might make this an episode. I would like to find, you know, for lack of a better phrase, a, a well produced show because I was listening to, uh, Shamelessly acquisition podcast. It's , this podcast person who's really good, she's worked for different companies and she's doing a very transparent show.

Like right now [01:13:00] she's like minus $22,000 cuz she's been keeping track of what it's cost to do this show. But at the end, she thinks, 12 people. I want thank my editor, I want thank my music editor. I want to thank my, you know, , head of content smelling. I'm like, Wait, what? You know, it's like, it just sounds like there's a lot of people there and I'm like, I want somebody to explain to me what the storyboard duster is, or, you know, it's, it's always these weird titles that I'm like, editor of Thoughts and feelings.

Why do you need one of those? Like, so I would love to know what they do, cuz I'm, I'm not saying that you don't need them. I'm saying I don't understand why you need them. So there's.

[01:13:44] Jim Collison: But there's, there's a juxtaposition though, between the Indie podcast who started as a solo entrepreneur in doing everything right.

And the, and NPR is the easiest one to pick on, but , there's a few others that are, you know, gimlin in that space where they [01:14:00] treated this like an industry and they had, they had positions of people who did things, who got credit for the stuff that they did. They worked hard at fact checking and making sure those things were taken care of.

They had sound designers and producers. They made sure musicians, if they used music on the podcast, they made sure they got credit for that. They ran, they treated it like, like a real industry. Right? And those two are very opposing ways at getting at this. And I hear sometimes the indie podcaster, who's the solo entrepreneur saying, Why, Like, you're just saying, Dave, why do we need all these people?

Well, in, in that space, the right thing to do is to give attribution to anyone who does stuff. I mean, You know, think of all the Napster stuff with music and everybody just ripping off music and that kind of stuff. Right. So, um, I, I think sometimes it's just a frame of mind of like thinking about, they just wanna make sure everybody's getting proper credit on that.

Likewise, Spotify, in this particular case, Spotify is trying to [01:15:00] just make money. Yeah. Like, as efficiently as possible. And oftentimes making money is expensive and, and companies that started as, as solo or entrepreneurial right. Cut costs to the bottom line. And when you take a, when you take a methodology of making sure everybody gets recognized and everybody gets paid for who they are and the talent they bring, those two sides don't always see it the same way.

Right? They do not see it the same way. And we've seen this play out at Amazon with the way they've been treating their staff. I'm just gonna leave it there cuz it's way more complicated than that. Yeah. But. You know, it, it gets, those things get worked out in courts. Right. That's the, that's where this stuff kind of goes.

[01:15:43] Dave Jackson: Yeah. I just, you know, I totally agree that anybody that works on a show should get some attribution. Uh, Or paid. And paid. Yeah. And paid. And so I just, I've just never understood. I remember once I counted, there were 18 people and I was like, I again, obviously they're doing [01:16:00] something. Yeah. But I just don't know, you know, And when I went, if you produce, if you

[01:16:03] Jim Collison: produce 24 shows a year Yeah.

And you have a staff that big, I mean, some of these, like, they're well done because they do a lot of research. Some solo podcasters don't do so much research.

The Days of Mammoth Podcast Purchases are Over?
---

[01:16:15] Jim Collison: Oh. Just

[01:16:15] Dave Jackson: saying. Yeah. Absolutely. So, but yeah, it'll be fun to watch to see what happens. And, and you're right. I, I think, uh, I've heard a couple different shows say that , the days of just.

Like Spotify's, you know, had a bazillions of dollars, you know, out and maybe their board of directors and stockholders are kind of going, What's Thea on? This is the dryer here.

[01:16:44] Jim Collison: No, no. I'm just, I'm wholeheartedly agree with you. That's what absolutely happens in a public company.

[01:16:49] Dave Jackson: Yeah. So they're gonna, they're gonna have to start making money, which means there might be some layoffs.

So that's, uh,

[01:16:56] Jim Collison: and it's gonna be brutal. Yeah. Like that kind of, tho those kinds of things [01:17:00] happen in that, in that kind of setting. It's gonna be brutal. Won't be soft .

Coming in the Future
---

[01:17:03] Jim Collison: Yeah. So,

[01:17:04] Dave Jackson: you know. Yeah. But, , Jim, what is coming up on, uh, Home Gadget Geeks? Dave,

[01:17:08] Jim Collison: I'm so glad you asked. We spent, I got a new TV this week.

Let me see if I can just, I'm gonna show it on screen for you cuz it's kind of cool. It's sitting out on the deck. Oh, that's, now that's, that's living there. My friend. Pretty, pretty excited about this. And uh, so we spent a bunch of time on what we did and why, and some of those kinds of things. It's up front on the show.

I've already produced it. It's out at. Home gad geeks.com.

[01:17:30] Dave Jackson: Now what happens if it rains?

[01:17:33] Jim Collison: So this is the best thing about that. That's all completely portable. So it comes apart in just about about 10 seconds. I can bring it in the house so it, uh, stays dry. That's

[01:17:41] Dave Jackson: pretty cool. Yeah. On the School of Podcasting, as I mentioned, I'm, I'm kind of looking into different formats, uh, for your show, the pros and cons and things of that.

I kind of looked, I haven't talked about this in a long time, and, and somebody asked me about it and I was like, Hey, you know what, that might be an episode. Uh, probably gonna sneak in [01:18:00] Mark's conversation from, uh, a couple weeks ago about, uh, asking for value to give it back instead of donations. I, I think I'm gonna sneak that into the School of podcasting as well.

So, one of things, thanks to um, the chat room. Thanks to everyone on who's been listing on wisdom. And, uh, thanks to Mark over podcast branding.co. And Dan over at, based on a true story podcast.com. And apparently, Jim, your house has now been nominated for the barbecue. Oh

[01:18:27] Jim Collison: yeah, that the annual, uh, ask the podcast speech.com Barbecue, my place.

[01:18:33] Dave Jackson: That'd be too fun. So, uh, but, uh, thanks for tuning in and we will see you next week. As we do every week. Ask the podcast coach.com/live. And if you'd like to be an awesome supporter, please go to ask the podcast coach.com/support. So we will see you next week, and, uh, now there's gonna be cigars, barbecue, and cigars.

We'll see you next week. Take care. [01:19:00] This music is going on forever.

Okay. Good. Work.