Why Start a Podcast? Exploring Purpose and Persistence

0:00 Ask the podcast coach for June 8, 2024. Let's get ready to podcast. There it is. It's that music that means 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 is the one and only Jim Collison from the average guy dot tv. Jim, how's it going, buddy? Greetings, Dave. Happy Saturday morning to you, and happy sorta Saturday morning to all the folks that have to make their way or migrate their way over to a new YouTube instance. But I have a little of the very white voice going this morning, conference week for me. I must have said you know how people count their, steps? I count my words each day, and I was definitely doing 10,000 or more words every single day. It's great to be back. Yeah. We you were you had your big Gallup event. I know the one time you shared a picture, like, you were on a round stage just surrounded by, like, thousands of people? Or A 1,000 probably in those days. This year, we did a virtual experience stage. So we had a pretty good sized stage, roundtable on top. I interviewed guests. Our job was to entertain the virtual, because we do a both physical and virtual conference together. The best way we figured out to do that is to keep the virtual folks occupied. You know, in a physical conference, you got to move people from the keynote to the breakouts. And that takes 15 or 20 minutes to get everybody situated. But what do the

1:30 virtual folks do when that's happening? No, no, no, no. You send them commercials? No. Do you play music? No. We would do conversations and interviews with them. And so I must have done, I don't know, 8 or 10 of those with interviews. And we had the headsets. And next year, we're gonna build the ESPN Sports Center kind of thing. It was super cool. It went really well. And and so I appreciate it. But I did do a lot of talking. So my voice seems a little weird. Sorry. How long was the line to meet Jim Collison? Because, like, you are a star, man. Like, that's your, you know In that environment. Yeah. In that environment, it's a I get to shake a lot of hands. I must have taken a couple 100 selfies. I'm showing up all over LinkedIn. If you look at the hashtag Gallup atWork, that's our conference hashtag. It's just all these selfies. It's not all of that, but I took a lot of selfies. It's kind of fun. I say a local celebrity for a week, and then it's time to go back to work. Like there's podcasts to be made. There's work to be done. There's complaints to handle.

2:32 You know, can you re being the mayor of CliftonStrengths, can you repave the roads? You know, got a deal. Right? Well, the fun thing is then you go home and you're like your your head's the size of, you know, a giant balloon and, you know, you walk in. You're like, hey, can you take the trash out? It's really getting stinky. And you're like, but I'm the mayor. Dishes are piling dishes are piling up and pick up the dog poop in the backyard. So, yes, all those things. Well, you know, what'll keep you going if you're getting kind of tired is yeah. That's right. And go with coffee. Changes. No. There we go. And, of course, that coffee pour is brought to you by our good friend, Mark, over at podcastbranding.co.

3:13 Let's remember this. They see you before they hear you. And the beautiful thing about Mark is the fact that he is a podcaster. He's been podcasting for probably close to a decade, and he's not one of those guys that you gotta explain what's going on. He's done almost all of my logos at this point. Every other show that he didn't do, I don't do anymore. But Ask the Podcast Coach, Podcast Radio Show, Podcast Hot Seat, your podcast website, Those are all done by Mark and he's really gonna sit down with you 1 on 1 and kinda ask you what your show's about, And then it's his marketing mind that's gonna kick into gear and really give you something that matches your brand. And you're just not gonna get that on Fiverr. It's amazing, and he does if you need a whole website, if you need a PDF, if you need artwork, if you need a logo, anything that you need to make it look good, there's only one place to go, and that is podcastbranding.co. And be sure to tell him that Dave and Jim sent you.

4:16 I'm right on Mark's head. I need to update this screen. A slight of over summer. That's it. Big thanks to our good friend, Dan Lafebvre, over there based on a true story, based on a true story podcast.com. This week, he looked at The Longest Day two instances of that and then Saving Private Ryan. Of course, this was the anniversary of D Day this week. And so, and so there's a lot of those movies not a lot of them they all happened during that time. Dan, Dan, of course, covers those. Check it out today based on a true story podcast.com. Dan, thanks for your sponsorship. Yeah, it was, I saw a couple of pictures of dudes that were like there. And they're like 101 and you're like, dang. So Yeah. We're getting crazy. A couple years ago, right, there's a big movement.

5:01 A lot of our World War 2 veterans were passing. We were losing them. I think Saving Private Ryan brought that out, right? Tom Hanks talked a lot about that. We are definitely on the edge now, because they are, even the youngest ones, I think, are 100 plus. So an important time, I know, for those, for all veterans, you know, as we think about that important time. So I appreciate Dan bringing that stuff to light. Hey. And I wanna bring up, I shared it to our patrons. But if you haven't checked out Jim on the big podcast show over there with David Hooper, who's often fills in when Jim is not around. And it's a great behind the scenes of what happens with the there's a lot of stuff that Jim and I do that we kind of just do because we figured out that works and you know, like right now I see where Jim is definitely looking at something on his screen. So I'm going to keep talking And then there are times when I'm, especially me. I like right now. I'm looking at the chat room and there are times when Jim will keep talking. I remember one time I just I think I texted you or whatever. I can't need to leave or whatever. Something was happening and I need to and I was like, okay, show yours, Jim, for 2 minutes. So that's the fun of being live. But I thought it was a good interview. How did I, how did I do with, I mean, okay, from, or, listen, we're friends, obviously. And, but you get, you separate us, and, you know, then we're not with each other.

6:25 And I really wanted to use that as an opportunity to celebrate the friendship that we have and the partnership that we have and just how cool it is to come I mean, this is kind of a highlight of my week every week is to sit down with you or just have a good time. We little. What's your, how would you, as you think about you, how, you know, you listened to it. You tweeted it out. I still need to do that. But any feedback on that as you think about being the being interviewed? Would you give me any advice on that? That's a great question. No. I thought it was good. The I find out we were friends. I was like, oh, wow. Jim actually really likes me.

7:05 No. I was like, girl, this time I thought he was just putting up with me. No. The one thing in because you didn't ask about it, but I thought we you were going to go there. I was like, oh, okay. There are times when our pre show is, Jim, do you have anything? No, not really. Dude, I got nothing. It's I went out there. It's the same five questions. I can't find anything that's remotely different. And Jim will go like, that's alright. The chat room will come through. You watch the chat room will come through. And there are many times when every time really when the chat room comes through. So I always appreciate the the the 3rd, you know, host of the show is the chat room. In American football, we call that the 12th man. Right? There's a lot of, and so I like the idea of the 3rd, you know, the 3rd host of the show is our, our audience. But, and well, good. I'm glad. I, you know, I like, I wanted to use that as an opportunity to celebrate the partnership we've had. We've been doing this a long time together. And you're right, every week, you know, the chat room provides some, but we also have enough between us. There's a lot of things happening. It's kind of weird how the topics land. You get, we get done with one of these, and there's always, not always, but mostly like a single thread that goes through all of those things where you could kind of tie the show together. I noticed you don't have any problem getting the show notes out and getting a title for it. You do it every week, and we get it figured out. So anyways, I appreciate your partnership, Dave. And it's always great to be able to celebrate that and say it publicly. You just never know how

8:36 anybody else is gonna take it. So I was just hoping, I was hoping you did a good job. And it landed with you as like, Yes, we are friends. We have a good time. But I, and I think I talked to you out on the show, we don't always agree. It's not a pretty fast. You know, we oftentimes will say, You know what, I disagree. I like it when I say something, and I see your face change. And you're like, I would disagree with that. I would disagree with that. Yeah. The, yeah, I thought it was good. And, you know, just the fact that people can have a difference of opinion. I think it'd be really boring if we were exactly the same. I mean, that's the thing I love about it. We both have our own common podcasting knowledge, but, you know, you do podcasting for work. You work with coaches. You know, you have this old you've got your gadgety geeky thing going on And, you know, so Jim can get his nerd on. And then, you know, I've got my power rants and I got my side of working with podcaster. In fact, we're gonna jump to 1 in a minute. I know Ralph has given us a question where to jump on and Randy Brock gave us one. But I saw this in Reddit this morning and I was like, oh, this is I actually left this guy a really long reply. And so it's from woke bloke 42069. Oh, wait a minute. Doctor. Just gave me a question. So this is the fun part of being Dave. I'm reading while the chat rooms going crazy. So I will come back to it. Just mark it. Yeah, I did. And so buying equipment also, what's the point of podcasting? It's a long one here. So get comfy. I've tried making 3 to 4 different podcasts since 2019. My most recent attempt involved, I

10:10 thought, interviewing people and I only got to one episode then in went into a bit of a career crisis spiral after graduating university. Not a single attempt over the years got past 10 episodes. So right there, life happens. That's normal. Like sometimes, you know, it just does getting over 10 episodes. I did a really I did an on purpose bad podcast and I got more than 10 episodes. So I would want to go back and think about that. So that's my thing. Like, if you can't get more than 10 downloads, there's something really wrong. After reading a business book recently, I realized it would absolutely, I think, love to find interesting inventors and business people to interview. However, after Dunning doing all those somewhat half hearted attempts, key ingredient there notice that underline that half hearted attempts. I really want out my game, get some good recording equipment, buy a second camera and go into the world and film podcast wherever my guests happen to be. I wanted to connect in person, not just do them on Zoom calls. Also, partially, I never want to Zoom call a stranger again for the rest of my life. So the thing that I'm worried there, he thinks the solution is equipment and I don't think it is. How do you tell yourself to do the thing when it's so blatantly obvious that the odds are against you? A k a you have to be like top 1% to make money. Also, it seems like Everly at least popular business podcast out there

11:40 is basically just the result of someone with a popular book starting a podcast. I really disagree on that too. There are a lot of celebrities that have started podcast that were absolute crap and they're no longer with us. But the whole thing about the point 1% making money, the really good ones do and it's not via ads, by the way. Maybe I shouldn't waste my time interviewing people. Yeah, that's a good underline that one and start writing self help books until one of them hits. There's something to go. I always love people that want to make themselves an expert. You know, I want to position myself as an authority. Oh, great. What's your podcast? Why interview other people? And I'm like, what? That seems kind of counterintuitive. Meanwhile, I'm hesitant to spend money on something when there's a very small chance of being even remotely successful with it. Also, what makes this time different? So again, you have to define what is success. If success is I want to grow my network and you start interviewing people, congratulations, you haven't made a dime, but your podcast is very successful. So continue on. So should I go out there and try to compete with the big dogs and blow $10,000 on top of the line equipment? I'm gonna stop right there. No. Do not spend $1,000 on equipment. Should I hire a roadie to come with me to the shoots and building out a set for more local podcasts? Or should I just give it another try and see how it goes? I'm sick of seeing how it goes. I wanna make something actually good. I'm sick of being mediocre. Maybe I'm just delusional. Well, I will say there are

13:13 people that have delusions of grandeur. I did that. I started a podcast about customer service and thought I was going to be like the king of customer service because I've won awards at customer service and this is going to be the best podcast. Here comes Dave Jackson, customer service expert. And, you know, I got 7 downloads and that was about it for me for all that. Plus, it was my job. My job is not my passion. Continuing on, I have a YouTube channel with 25,000 subscribers. I've sort of let the channel drift for the past 2 to 3 years. Well, I can tell you something about that. Those 25,000 are not, you know, have fun getting those back. But in the grand scheme of the Internet, I'm still nobody. Should I just do the podcast with the gear I got just for fun?

13:58 Ding ding ding. Possibly the right answer. Or should I spend a bunch of bunch of money in hopes that my podcast will be a home run? Also, why on earth do some people do this podcast thing? There's so much bloody competition and against people with teams of tens of producers and writers and just crazy stuff. We basically come full circle to traditional media levels of competition and budget. So why does anyone bother? I know I sound cynical as hell, but I'm genuinely curious if people know they if people know they have no shot and therefore I just accept my fate or fight against it with money and energy and efforts. Do not fight against it with gear is not the thing. But here's my question.

14:39 Here's a here's a great point. I got married a second time knowing that the success rate was 30%. Why did I do that? Because I love this woman and I believed in it and I wanted to do it. And so I did it. Jim, how many kids do you have? 17? Easy now. That's just fine. 5. But I mean, those things are expensive. Right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. They stay expensive. Yeah. And they stay expensive. So why does anybody have kids? Plus, you know, you're gonna screw them up and you know they're going to eventually they're going to disappoint you at least once. So why would you have a kid? Because you want to and you have this. I just want to have I want to spread my seed and have my name live on long after me. We do all sorts of stuff that the odds are stacked against us. And I was like, but my thing was I I didn't hear it here. But when I hear the what's the topic I can do that will require the least amount of effort and make the most amount of money. I'm like, don't start a podcast. You're not up like and even his inventor thing. Let's okay. So you're gonna do a show where you're gonna interview inventors. Okay. So that the listener can what? Like, what's in it for the listener? Oh, so that I can learn how to be an inventor. Maybe you're like Shark Tank, kind of. Right? Okay. So you want obviously you want to monetize. So how are you going to monetize this? Are you

16:10 going to sell a course on how to be an inventor? Are you going to find a sponsor? But think about it. This is a pretty niche audience. Not everybody's want to invent something. But on the other hand, if it starts to take off, that's a pretty tight niche. So you should be able to charge more for ads. I mean, it's just what's in it for you and what's in it for the audience? But you're wringing your hands, Jim. So what No, I'm sorry. I'm just cracking my knuckles and stuff. The the just thinking, there's so much in, in that. Like, there's a few things in there. I think one of the things that I want to fight against a little bit is this idea that, Oh, there's already big podcasts I can never break in. No matter what I do, it's not gonna matter. Do, you know, and here in Omaha, we have a coffee company called Scooter's.

16:54 And they're local to Omaha. They started here actually, the very first one is just up the road from me here in Bellevue. And they could have, I mean, this, they started Scooter's at the height of the Starbucks' first expansion Starbucks went through several expansions where they moved out and then they kept pulled back, and then they expanded again, and then they pulled back some again, and they expanded for a third time. And they opened during that very first expansion. And coffee houses were everywhere. Like, because on that first, the first expansion that Starbucks did, there were all these independent coffee had gotten hot, right, gotten really popular. There's all these local coffee houses that you had. And then you had Starbucks, which just and I don't know what it is about that, but it, just the name attracts people.

17:38 People just wanted to have that cup. Well, hold on. Like, I got one right here. Right? They just wanted to have that cup in their hand, and they wanted to walk into they wanted to walk into church or work or whatever, be carrying a cup of Starbucks. It was a little bit of, a little bit of, you know, whatever was going on. I don't wanna judge it. Although I already did. I just have to play the sound effect. I just did with what I said. But anyways, Scooter's could have said, There's too many coffee houses. Like I don't, you know, it's, the competition, it's already been done. It's too big. It's what, and they came in with their own local flair. You know, they came in and started with 1 and then did 2 and expanded to 5 and then came up with a franchise model and began to move around the country. And they're being very successful. Now in Sarasota, Florida, is there a Scooter's? No. Is there a Starbucks?

18:30 Probably. Right? But Scooter's has found its niche. It has found the peep it's found its people. And you will find people here in Omaha who, when I was going to Starbucks I hardly go anymore just because I brew my own but I would say something about Starbucks, and they'd go, Yuck! That's like burnt coffee. That's the worst stuff. My wife doesn't like Starbucks coffee. She's like, It's terrible. It's the worst stuff in the world. Well, there's people who just swear by it, right? So it, if they would have said, if and listen, the world is cluttered with these kinds of businesses that even though the market was saturated, started. At the same time, there was a company here in Omaha called 13th Street Coffee that wanted to try and do something like that. And they made a run at it, and they didn't, and they weren't successful. Like, so you would say, Dave, like, if you only have the Scooter story, you go, Oh, you should always start in the midst of market, you know, market saturation, and we well, no. And then, but if you only looked at the 13th Street Coffee example, you'd be like, You should never start anything, right? I think sometimes we try to boil these things down to, It's always this, or It's all you know why?

19:44 Because it's simple. It's simple. We want simple solutions. We want to be told, Yes, I should do it, or No, I shouldn't, when in reality, it's infinitely complicated, and we won't know till we try. And so I think in this case no, he's tried a couple times, and it's failed. Well, Okay. I mean, at some point, look, if you're not, if you're trying this, and it's not working, and you're not enjoying it, get out. Like stop. But if you're trying it, and you're enjoying it, but you just haven't hit the, you know, you haven't hit your measurement. Dave, if our measurement was 100,000 downloads, we should quit. Right? We've never come close to getting a single show to have 100,000 downloads. That's not our purpose. We're here, 1, because we love hanging out with each other. 2, we love hanging out with the audience on a live basis. And then whatever the number of downloads that it benefits, and it's good for the school podcasting.

20:36 That's kind of why we do this, right? We know that going in. So I guess I want to say, just don't resist the urge to always try to boil things down to it's a this or that. It's, you know, we do it some politics. Stop! Think about some things and figure out what, what works for you and your Why, even though I'm not a big Simon Sinek fan. Think about your Why of and then move forward or don't. But it's all about you in that. I don't know. Respond to that, Dave. What do you you No. You you hit the nail on the head. So let's say you come up with an idea for a show. I'm gonna do this show for these kind of people so I can help them blank. Okay, great. I don't know. Do you think that's a good idea? Well, it sounds like you know who your audience is. Why are you doing this? I just want to put it out there because I've been that guy and I want to give him encouragement and she needs some help and I'm like, okay, great. Well, do it then. And they're like, but do you think I should do it? And I'm like, there's only one way to find out. You know, I can say I've got peanut butter. I've got butter and bread. I've never had just a peanut butter sandwich. Do you think that would be good? I don't know. Let's put some butter and peanut butter on some bread, knead it and see if it's it doesn't stick to your mouth too much. No, the butter helps with that. Do it. And I mean, I said, you know, there's only one way to find out and we're all like this guy is like, I'm just gonna fail again or you maybe you won't. You know, if you With that attitude, you will. Yeah. Exactly.

22:05 Yeah. And the other thing, I'm gonna play just a few seconds of this because it's really long because I've heard people say this over and over, and I hope it's gonna work. My PC has been a little freaky lately. So when we started our podcast 3 years ago, we already had quite a bit of connections. You become a 6 figure blogger and, you know, is it really possible to do it in a year or less? So I wouldn't say, like, it is a typical route. I would say that, like, probably people are talking about it. The more typical is, like, you need, like, 3 years. Okay. That's enough of that. But, I mean, I have another 3 minutes of people going. It took about 3 years, and that's 3 years of not stopping. So that's where in most cases, I mean, obviously, again, if you're mentally having issues and your health is failing for, you know, take a break. But I just it I see people and I think they want it to be like almost like paint by numbers. And I I want that with storytelling. I'm like, let me if I just add stakes and I start closest to where the action is and I may do this and check this and that it'll be a great story. And it's like, not always.

23:17 And it's like, well, okay. I'm consistent. I've got good artwork. I've got a good microphone. I've got this. And I'm like, well, okay. That but that doesn't there is no I still I'm starting to this is weeping into my head, and I wanna keep it out. I think there's some of it that's timing and luck. You know what I mean? But if you think about some kid there's somewhere right now in America, there's a 14 year old kid that loves playing football. Right? He wants to be the next Tom Brady. And the chances of him being the next Tom Brady are really slim because he's got a he's got a play through pee wee and high school and junior league and whatever. And then he might get into college.

23:58 And that whole time we're hoping he doesn't get his brains bashed in and then he might get drafted, but then he has to make the practice squad and then he might make it, you know, I mean, but yet that kid loves playing football and that's why he's doing it. So why do we do things when it might not work? Because we like doing it. Yeah. Well, and we do know if he doesn't do it, I can guarantee he won't be, and I'd say Patrick Mahomes because I'm I can't see him. And I don't like the New England Patriots. Sorry, Ed Sullivan. But if he doesn't try, it's definitely not gonna happen 100% of the time. That I don't have many guarantees in life. But I do guarantee you, if you don't go for it, you won't get there, right? So you gotta try. However, I think you gotta have, you know, going for one goal.

24:46 And then if that goal doesn't happen and sitting back and, well, that's it my life's over. You got to have some other things going on, you know, with you. You've got to have some, you got to be open. And, you know, and I hate to add the complexity to it in this way, but how many stories do we know of companies that just were on the brink of quitting or failure, And they just waited one more day. And then boom, right? Now it's a little, that's a little dramatic, but you get it, right? Sometimes we're just, we're that close, and if we quit too early, it goes. Or the businesses with individuals who put too much into it and waited too long on a failure. I mean, we have, in the business world today, we have books that come from both sides. You know, some that say, Take a risk and spend everything and really go for it and never quit. And some that say, You know what, on your first fail, quit and pivot. Right? We say, we have these, there's the, the gurus, the business gurus say, Quit and pivot just as much as they say never quit.

25:45 What, so what do I do? Well, okay, this is where you, this is where you take stock, and you engage the noodle. And you say, Hey, what's best for me? Like this is why I hate this guru mentality with books and podcasts, even though I kind of do one, about, you know, you're like, Guys, quit listening to the gurus and thinking just one of them has the key to success. Certainly, take what they say. Take what works for you. Move forward with it. But this is your journey, not theirs. You take this and say, What works best for me? And then, How do I, how am I the most happy in this? Right? How am I the most happy in this journey? It's stressful. There's times you worry.

26:27 Those things are gonna happen. I can't be happy all the time. Wouldn't that be awesome? No. Then we'd have the matrix. So you, you got to, you know, take the advice, but you create your own journey. Yeah. The, the chat room's saying, give it a 1000 days. We don't need no stinking permission from the Sex Pistols. Jeff C. Says, I don't know many business or people who put all their eggs in the podcasting basket right at the beginning. Yeah, it's it really let's see here. There's a lot of things. It's and Randy got a good Granny's got a good comment, right? He says, This is why there's no formula. And there are formulas, there are pieces of formulas to put together. But it's a complex formula, right? No formula is secret. We each have to figure it out. And I can't agree more with Randy. I mean, I really like what Randy does. Can't agree more with it. It you've got it. And listen, I'm not saying you're not. I know many of you listening to this are struggling with it, and you just want the struggle is good. Like embrace the struggle on this, because the struggle is good. All right. So here's my other question, Jim. So let's say you're doing pretty good and you get 2,000 downloads of your show, but you really want 5,000. Okay. Alakazam, you have 5,000 downloads. Now what?

27:46 Exact exactly. Like what? What? Okay. If I because I Now it's 10,000. Because I say this because I went through this. At one point, the school of podcasting was occasionally getting 3,000 downloads an episode. Okay? And I was like, okay. This is there was something in my brain that was like, I want 3,000 downloads. I don't know why, but I wanted 3,000 downloads. And then the IAB came along, little haircut. And then Apple came along, bigger haircut. And I'm not getting anywhere near 3,000 downloads anymore. And it's one of those like, okay, but, like, why was that the number? Because I don't judge my success on downloads. I judge my success on how many people are signing up at the School of Podcasting.

28:26 And this was a good week at the School of Podcasting. And so there is that thing where it's like, no, I want more people. I want I'm like, okay, why? To prove that you your stuff is valid? Like, well, you should know what's valid based on the research you did to do the episode unless the episode was just AskChatGPT. And I'm really starting to sound anti chatgpt and I don't want to because it does some really cool stuff. I'm just not I'm not sold on AskChatGPT. Use it for your content. That's the part I'm like, if we have time, I might show you something I'm playing with right now, and it gave me 44 sources. It was an AI tool, and it gave me the 44 sources that it gave. But in the end, the content was, you know, hey, how do I lose weight, eat less and exercise more. And I was like, and here's your 44 sources that told you that.

29:18 And I was not not quite sure. Yeah. You know, you might have a podcast that is just meant to encourage people. And is it gonna be a message that's gonna resonate with tens of 1,000? Maybe not. If it doesn't, and you encourage 1 person, Hey, you've done your job. However, that being said, you might go at a podcast whose goal is to move a product, right, or to move a something, move something, influence something, change things. Numbers are important. Like in that case, just, I'm in, this is at work. We watch our numbers. Now we don't obsess over them, and it's just one component of it, right? Certainly, we monitor the channel and monetization of it, some of those kinds of things. But you begin to, if it and it's Okay to make a podcast to make money. That's, I think sometimes we poohed out a little too much. You, it's absolutely great. Just realize that's what you're in for. Then numbers do matter. Then engagement or, you know, we know registration to our newsletter is super important. So we talk about that, encourage people to do that and to get that done. So just know the, just know what you're trying to get at, and then remove those barriers as you start looking at it. It's like, Hey, if it is to get downloads, Okay, how do I restructure things? You know, and I'll be honest, Dave, I don't know very many businesses that I mean, this story happens over and over again. But I don't know many companies that were started, and this, the founder says, Yeah, I didn't spend any money on

30:48 it. Said by no founder ever. They usually say, I'm, I spent every dime I had, and I went up to the, you know, I borrowed up to here, and it was a super giant risk, and it paid off. And sometimes I wonder I'm not saying it is, but I sometimes I wonder if the it's one of the keys, one of the things to success is taking a giant risk, you know, because you're so much more engaged when you're all the way in, You know? He did say you're all the way in. Yeah. He did say he kinda half hearted the previous ones. And I'm like, well, you know, I mean, one of the things that I am a walking contradiction of is I tell people you should do one really good podcast. And then I start another one, you know, so it's like, you know, but, yeah, Randy says, why do you want 5,000 downloads? Right. And then, Jive says, it blows my mind when I hear about new podcasters trying to automate their process.

31:48 It's like having somebody else do your hobby for you. That's an interesting take. And then I love Danny Brown from Captivate. I'll take a 100 engaged listener, and fans and supporters as opposed to a 1,000 generic downloads every day. Yeah. And then part of it is just I enjoy it. Gary says, because I feel like I learn something new each time I interview someone. I just listened to the book from Serge Tonkiak something like the lead singer of system of a down. Oh, I thought you talked about the guy in Beverly Hills Cop. No. But I I wanna be very American and call him surge and it's surge. It's the guy from System of a Down, that guy, curly hair. And he's kind of at times woo. And but he says, really, the art isn't in the finished product. It's the art is you going through the process of making that. And I was like, I think he's got a point there. And here's the interesting thing about that is he cannot sleep on a bus. He just can't. And he's like, so consequently, as you might imagine, I hate touring. He goes, because by the end of the tour, I'm a zombie. And he said, so after they they put out 2 albums in 1 year. And I mean, they're they literally the number one, they're as big as they can get. And he said, guys, I don't want to tour anymore. He goes, I want to keep doing this and that. And so they were he's like, if and at one point, he said, you guys should find a new singer because I'm kind of holding you back. And he's like, I love you guys. You're my brothers, but I

33:18 don't wanna do that. And then he was key. A typical band thing where you have something that works. You got 4 people and they all didn't say it stay exactly the same. And so he's like, I want to put some of this music in. And the guitar player is like, no, I I write the music. You write the lyrics. And he's like, well, you can write some lyrics. You started to write more lyrics. I'll write more music. And it just that's why they don't put out new music anymore. They can't agree on who's doing what. But here's the thing. He just said, yeah, we're not I'm not doing that anymore. And what's interesting is they went years years without touring. And then they said, hey, why don't we just do a couple shows? I can do a couple shows because he had back surgery and he had all sorts of like physically. He's has our time with He goes, but let's do a few shows here and there.

34:02 Like, in 2023, they had one show. And he said, the interesting thing is we make more money doing less work because, hey, if you're gonna go see System, you've got to get you got to go to San Francisco this year. That's the only place they're playing. And he goes, we actually make even more money than we did for the year than if we had like when they were gone for like 5 years. He goes, we made more money with less shows and got paid more than we did when we did a ton of shows because it's the old supply and demand thing. So sure, though, when I heard that I was maybe that I have to be everywhere thing, at least in music, I realize we're talking podcasting, but I was like, Yeah. I think it's, I think it's similar. You know, I think it's similar. And yet there are times being everywhere is, it works for you. I mean, I think about Phil Collins and his career with Genesis, starting as the drummer. Listen, you kind of wonder what Peter Gabriel thinks. He left Genesis right before they got Now it's pop popular. They'd wanted to be a progressive band. Peter leaves he goes do his own things and was successful in his own ways, had a following in his own ways, but certainly not the rocket success that Phil Collins had. Now Phil took the approach in the '80s '90s to be everywhere. He was literally everywhere. If you remember Live Aid or one of those, he did the concert in England, and then took the Concord to do the one in America. His, that was

35:33 his philosophy. That's what he was happy with. Phil was the most happy person when he was on stage, and he would say his worst moments was when he wasn't. Like he, his life was a mess. A lot of his songs, like Taylor Swift, a lot of his songs are breakup songs. I don't know why she gets all the credit for it. A lot of Phil Collins' songs that he wrote, all breakup songs. He had a couple marriages too. He had some really bad experiences, right? So it's not just Taylor Swift, friends. Phil Collins was doing this long before Taylor was. But he was happiest when he was in front of people performing. And he did it until he's literally crippled now, right? I mean, he played and drummed and performed, fell off the stage in 2008, I think, or 2007 hurt his back at a Genesis concert and never been the same since.

36:25 And I saw him in 2018 at the I'm Not Dead Yet tour. He, they bring him out, put him in a chair, and he holds the microphone and doesn't do a thing. Now his band is awesome, right? Even in a crippled state, Phil would rather be on the stage. So if you're, if you want to be on the stage in front of a microphone all the time doing these things, you do that. Don't let anybody tell you can't. You can be everywhere. And being everywhere is not bad. But Dave, to your point, if that, if you need balance, if you got a family, if you're whatever that is, whatever those pieces are, and you need to bring it back, That may be equally successful as being everywhere. Right? You decide on that. That's the, that should be the title of the show.

37:09 You decide on this. Well, and Dan makes a great point. He said, but system of a down had to do a ton of shows to hit that level. That's true. That's a good point. They did. No. You're right. They had to have something. You didn't all of a sudden just say, well, I'm a band. We're gonna play once a year. It's gonna be popular. You're like, yeah. Nobody knows who you are. You are. Yeah. That status. And they played everywhere. And the other thing was, there's a band that nobody sounds like People go, well, they're kind of like Rage Against the Machine. I'm like, no, you're not listening because System of a Down has something that most bands don't, and that is they like to surprise you. They'll be going along and you just be this.

37:54 It's weird, and it's like so they're weird and they're silly. They have a song. It's all about advertising, and it's wanna buy the pie, beat the pie, every minute, every second, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. Wanna buy the pie, beat the pie, every minute, every second, buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. And then the chorus is pepperoni and green peppers, mushrooms, olives, chives, pepperoni and green peppers, mushrooms, olives, chives. And they're saying this incredibly fast. And you hear it and you laugh because you're like, did that guy just say pepperoni and green peppers, mushrooms, olive chives? Pepperoni and green peppers, mushrooms, olive chives? And that's meat therapy. It's just the weirdest, silliest stuff you've ever heard of. And I was like, I remember the first time I got these CDs, I'm driving to Pennsylvania. I'm working, for a company was supposed to be to teach people how to set up to use their phones. That's how long ago this was. But it's me and my boss. And I got these CDs from the library and we just sat there and howled. We're like, what are we listening to? Like, what is this? And I think Sting, there's an interview with Sting, and he said when he listens to music, if somebody hasn't thrown in some sort of ever so slightly curveball to surprise him, he's bored.

39:05 And so may I'm working this week's episode of The School of Podcasting is about, okay, what does make great content? And the answer is, it's hard and it's also like golf. Just like Randy said, there's no formula. It's this. Sometimes it has this. Sometimes it has that. So it's kind of tricky. But we do have a question from Ralph. Got a couple. Yeah. We got a couple in here. Yeah. If you're willing to discuss some audio things always, I'm switching mics for my show and it has presets for noise gain condensing, and I'm lost as to what to select to make the best sound. Here's how you do this. You go, oh, here, let's just play with this. So if I go, alright. This is I'd go, this is me with processing on, and this is me with processing off. This is me with processing back on. Record what you're doing as you're doing it. And then so you'll have one with, like, okay, here's one with noise on. Here's one with noise off. And then just vote with your ears and realize just because you have them doesn't mean you have to use them. I remember when I first got a DBX.

40:10 It was this noise gate compressor, big bottom, and I just turned all the knobs and put out an episode and immediately got feedback. They're like, I don't know what you're doing with your sound, but you're rattling the tonsils out of my teeth. So be careful with that. Record it too and then play it back in with a different set of headphones so that you can kind of get a feel for record it, take it into the car and play it so you hear what you sound like inside a car or whatever. The, I think the important part on that, Dave, is we can once we set the levels and we leave them there, we kind of get used to them. And you stop hearing things that you used to hear. I've this has been my struggle with lighting too, as I've been working on my lighting here, is you kind of get, after a while, you're like, Okay, I'm not gonna look at it anymore. And so listen to the feedback that you get. You know, like in your case, you know, Hey, you might Okay, be Okay with teeth rattling, whatever. But when your audience says, Hey, you know, like, I got some feedback one time. I was playing the opening music on Home Gadget Geeks too loud. And one of my listeners said, I actually have no idea what you say because the music's so loud. It's, it's overriding what you're supposed to be saying. And I say the same thing: News, reviews, product updates and conversation all for the average tech guy. That's kind of our tagline, right?

41:30 And he's like, I have no idea what you're saying. I never knew it was that. It's like the cappuccino hold the foam on the, in the beginning of this show, you know, when you're playing the music for Mark. So also make sure you're listening to your audience. So mess around with it a lot. Try a lot of different things. Get it a lot first, get it to your ears, the way you have to hear yourself. So get it to the way you like it. Record a bunch of it, play it in a bunch of different environments, get a bunch of feedback on it. And then once you dial it in, I say don't change it until you get feedback that tells you otherwise. Cause your audience is gonna want your audio on School of Podcasting is different than your audio here. I think you do some different processing, or I hear it differently, because I could be doing it live with you. Right? But you sound a little, your sounds a little bit different on the school podcasting than it is live here on Ask, in my ears, my opinion. Right? Oh, live. Definitely. Yeah. Because I take what we're doing live, and we are missing the oh, it's it's a plug in. I put on everything I do when I so this there is some post processing that goes through this. Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah. And does anybody has it have you ever gotten that feedback? Has anybody but me ever said they noticed the difference between the 2? And No. It's well, that's the thing. We can spend hours tweaking our audio and, you know, I am not the audio engineer that's like, oh, you need to boost that, 17 ks and take out about 82. Right.

42:58 You know, about a half a decimal. You know, if you could sniff the 300 dB range and, you know, it's like, no. I'm like, I listen to my audio from 1 old, new, whatever, and I'm like, oh, that sounds different. And I'm like, yeah, but it's listenable. Like, as long as it's not Yeah. Harsh and ripping off my head. No. I I think your school of podcast audio is a little flatter. It's easier for me to listen to in the car. Where here, you have more depth. This is my perception, by the way. This could be totally opposite of what you're trying to do. But here, there's more depth in your voice. It's a little more, it's a little richer and a little more complex than what I hear on Ask the or what I on school podcasting, when I go over there and listen to that show. Good or bad? Well, I listen to you here live. I like the richness of it live. When I listened to school podcasting in the car, and I appreciate it a little flatter. So for me, it worked. And if you wanna have fun, do the question of the month where everybody sends you Oh, yeah. Really wide ranges of audio that I'm like, yee. So I just put those all through through Auphonic. Yeah. Oh, thank you. I wanted to say Audacity. I wanted to say Addition.

44:11 It's that's usually what I do. Just at least get Gary said, Curtis Judd. If you aren't watching Curtis Judd's YouTube channel, excellent video tutorials about audio processing. Did one recently for the DBX 286, which is the thing I was talking about and also did the RODECaster Pro 2. So yeah, that's Curtis does really in-depth stuff. So that's it. I'm dying to hear there's actually next week Sounds Profitable is doing a thing. It's a report called ad nauseam. And this is interesting. This is where it comes down to trust. And so they're doing so think about this. A company that works in the advertising realm of podcasting is doing a report on, are there too many ads in podcast? And my cynical mind popped in and like, let me guess what the advertise people say. Oh, we need more ads. People love them. And I'm like, yeah, but it's Tom Webster. And I trust Tom Webster because he's been doing surveys forever.

45:12 And on the other hand, if they say, oh, everybody pile in more ads and then they don't work, well, then his customers, the advertising people are gonna go this advertising, this podcasting thing's a piece of crap. We're out. So I was like, no, I can see he's going to, you know, not that Tom would ever lie, but I'm always like, wait a minute. Anytime a report comes out, the first thing I do is like, who made the report? I go, let's consider the source because sometimes, you know, you know, so but that is coming out next week. So in fact, if anything sounds profitable, they have somewhere I need to go find it. They made a report for like little podcasters like me and you that are trying to get advertisers. And I need to go over and find that report because I was like, oh, I need to find that and show that to the people at the school of podcasting. And before I could say, you know, supercadifragilistixxpialadocious, there was another report out and then another they do a lot of reporting over there. So I need to go dig that out. But speaking of that, Jay Can I have one more thing before? Are you gonna move on and stop it? No. We're staying in the advertising space. We go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. If you want. Jay says, I've started using dynamic content to promote my guests toward dates. I'm that's by the way, that's really nice of you to do. I'm running it post roll knowing it won't get as much listeners as pre roll. Do you think running it pre roll is frustrating?

46:34 My one word answer to that would be yes. I for me. I don't think so. See my pre roll. This is what I want to hear. Ask the Podcast Coach is brought to you by The School of Podcasting. Find it at schoolofpodcasting.com intro music. Like, I'll accept like a 5 to 10 second intro. But when it's like, you know, do you swallow saliva in small amounts over long periods of time? Ask your doctor if, you know, blah blah blah is right for you. In fact, I really so anyway, so pre I'm not a big fan of pre roll. The first thing I wanna hear I saw the title and I like, oh, I want to know a bar about that. And it's like, and I know Joe Rogan. Okay. You're not Joe Rogan, you know? So I'm not a big pre roll. And if it is, it's a quick one. And it's like, you know, today's show is brought to you by podcasthotsie.com. I'll tell you more about it later. Check it out. Podcasthotsie.com. Bam intro music, you know, whatever it is. So I'm a big fan of short intros. Jim, apparently, you are not. You are not. I disagree with you, Dave. This is it. This is our last podcast together.

47:41 Okay, next topic. No. Exactly. In this case, in this case with Jay, I think it done strategically put because it's promoting the guests' tour dates. And oftentimes, the listeners of his show are coming because the guest name that's in the title. And so it's not, you know, it's not a Pepto Bismol ad for, you know, that's just showing up out of nowhere. It's just, it's not a, it's not just a random inserted ad. It's Jay using the pre roll to promote the tour dates. Right? I think if I understand that, Jay, you can chime in. And if it's not, you should do that. But it's appropriate. So the pre roll or the, yeah, the pre roll is appropriate to the content that's in there. Now, listen, Rogan can do this and get away with it, because he's Joe Rogan. And you'd be like, Well, why can't I? Because you're not Joe Rogan. Your listeners may want something they may not care, to be honest with you. I run a pre roll on Shout Engine.

48:37 I'm like, oh, maybe that's not the right one. I forget the name of it. And that thing gets, you know, I don't know, it's 20, 30, 40 listens an episode. It's I don't promote it, but it does get it. And no one's ever given me any feedback through that. Like stop the pre roll, for God's sakes. Right? So will it work? So Jay says, I'm correct. Thanks, Jay. That's good. That's good to know that I read that correctly. Again, think about it for your audience. And so I do think and I'm agreeing and disagreeing with you, Dave, from that standpoint. But I think in that case, it's a perfect use of the pre roll where the context is appropriate to the content. Yeah, that's it. And then Danny says That's a quote. That's a short right there. I've listened to the start of an episode that had 3 pre rolls, and then I got 6 minutes of the episode before I got the first two mid roll, and I was out of there. Yeah. That they're they're see, that's my thing. When I hear pre roll, I'm like, this person isn't about serving the audience. That's just me. But I'm like, this person is all about I gotta make, you know, now on the other hand, I'm like, wow, apparently this podcaster needs to eat. And so I get that. But I mean, like like, I I wish Cast O Matic is the app I use because it's podcasting 2.0 enabled. But it only lets you start up to 5 minutes. So when I listen to Conan O'Brien, the only far I can have it automatically start is at the 5 minute mark, which is a bummer because he interviewed Ron Howard, and the interview started at 13 minutes. And then the thing that got me, this is the one talking about ads, is I am

50:09 I Big Pharma drives me nuts. I think one thing that's wrong with America without getting well, I was gonna say without getting political, but that's too late for that. But the US and New Zealand are the only two countries that allow drugs to be advertised on TV. And I would like to see my senator take that off the air. But I'm listening to Conan O'Brien, and I joked when that first when that show first came out, I'm like, he he should rename it. Conan O'Brien needs some cash because there's a ton of ads in his stuff. And I'm in the shower and Conan ads are Conan. At least he tries to make them funny and unique. And they're usually a lot of inside jokes with his assistant that I don't get. And I'm just like, and if I'm somewhere, if that phones in my hand, I'm hitting skip. But a big pharma ad came in and it really I was like, you know, I will sit through horrible Conan ads where he makes fun of his assistant. But when you when I when the end of the interview says, ask your doctor if Gaba Baba is right for you, I'm like, screw you, Conan. Like, don't make me listen to those kind of ads. I was like, ugh. So I'm really looking forward to this report coming out from myself. Folks vote with their ears. They vote with their downloads. And if you get feedback, if you start, Jay, if you, as you're doing this, if you get feedback that it's not, you know, I'd put a comment and said, you know, I think Jive had said, you know, it doesn't like get to the content.

51:30 What if the ad is the content? If Jay interviewed Taylor Swift we'll bring Taylor back in. If he interviewed Taylor, and the first 15 seconds or 30 seconds were like, Hey, here's a real relevant thing you should know. If you're a Taylor Swift fan, which is why you're probably here, you could go see her there. Right? Boom. You're into the show. Actually, that's super helpful. Right? Yeah. Dan says pre rolls are great for timing announcements. Like I I made one on the podcast radio show saying, hey, I'm going to rebrand this thing. So if you wanted it to $5 you know, thing, go sign up now. So that's Yeah. I guess the point you made if it's relevant. But when I, you know, I hit play and I hear no Ozempic ad, I'm like, Really? You know, I'm so happy I have diabetes. If you can do that, do it.

52:21 Like if you're in the space where you can run 3 pre rolls and make a crap ton of money doing it, do it. You just have to earn that. You have to earn that right to do those kinds of things. You have to earn listen, Dave Grofelow at Scar Authority and good friend, he, he runs 7 ads every 30 minutes on the show, and everyone would say, That's a disaster. Those ads sometimes get more, more talked about than the show. Right? And they've made fun, they've made funny songs and done funny ads. And sometimes, listen, some of those ads people remember because they're funny. And he's had his advertisers pull a few of those like, Yeah, this is not gonna work. I'm not gonna do this. And some of them love it, and some don't even know they're advertising on the show. So it's one of those things, like, he does it because he can. He also set the podcast up with the expectation that there was going to be ads. Why he's a business guy. Why would I do a podcast and not make money off the thing? Now, he sells a very targeted product.

53:28 And so, you know, there, there's some, I, I kind of have to envy his approach, because he started sometimes I think we undershoot our own ability, like, Oh, I'm so scared I'm not gonna get any listeners. I'm not gonna put anything in there that will make anybody walk away, and I'm not gonna do any ads. Well, when you do, if you do want to go do ads after you get popular, it's a lot harder to add them later than it is earlier. So have a little confidence too in yourself. Be like, No, I'm gonna do this. We're gonna have some spots for, to, if that's what you're gonna do, we're gonna products for ads or sponsors or affiliates. Build those things in and have the expectation that's gonna get done. He, listen, he breaks all the rules. Dave does, Dave Grofelow. He breaks all the rules. I've been on the show a couple times he breaks all the rules, Gets away with it because his stuff is good and his audience loves it. And there's no place, if you're advertising cigars, I don't think you can advertise those in magazines. Like it's Not anymore. Not Maybe not even in podcasts. We've called them candles at times on my own show so I don't get knocked off YouTube, you know, when we're burning candles as well.

54:38 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Danny has a suggestion. He says you could do some a b testing and x amount of episodes with pre rolls with dates as an example, and then some episodes advising at the beginning dates at the end. So which is what Jive had suggested. He said also get this is Jive says also get good at reading ads. I listen to a Maren or Haberman read their ads because they're good at reading them. Yeah. Mark Maren is great because he'll just be talking and then all of a sudden he'll be like, and that's when I went over and the cat was puking all over the rug. 15% of you know that they're like, what? And then also and by the time you realize he's reading an ad, you're like, oh, it's too late to fast forward now. He's almost done. So but speaking of ads and pimping things, we should take time to thank our awesome supporters. Yeah. And awesome people. And we also want to thank, you know, this thing called the School of Podcasting for this is what the show is about. This is where I'm from. You get our step by step courses. You get unlimited coaching, which is still as much as I thought that was gonna be a fun kind of feature.

55:44 I spend more time explaining it. Because people go, what do you mean by like unlimited? If you want to hire me on Monday and there's a slot available, you can do that and they're like, okay, but what if I wanted to do Monday Wednesday go if it's available? Yes. And then I really awesome community. We have all sorts of people from retired pastors to accountants to university professors to comedy writers. It's a great bunch. Go over to a school of podcasting.com. Use the coupon code coach. We are running on PodPage. If you wanna check out PodPage, well, then just go over to try podpage.com. Some exciting things coming to PodPage, by the way, that you'll see coming up. And right now we're using Ecamm. And as long as you don't hit the wrong button when you go to a segment, it's awesome, which is what I just did. But But if you wanna check it out, ask the podcast coach.com/ecamm.

56:30 And if you want more Jim Collison and, you know, who doesn't want more Jim Collison, then just go over to either the average guy dot tv or home gadget geeks dot com. They'll get you more Jim and it's time for our fun filled wheel o names. And so who will it be? Will it be Ralph from Ask Ralph podcast? Will it be Shane from Radio GDR or Felix from the Latin Podcast Awards? Well, we're gonna spin it and find out. And it's going to land on oh, it's Kim and the ladies over at keep the flame alive pod dotcom, especially now with the France Olympics coming up, they're gonna be getting a ton more downloads.

57:14 So if you want to keep up on the Olympics, check out Keep the Flame Alive and thanks for being an awesome supporter. We deeply appreciate that. And if this show has saved you some time, maybe saved you some money or a headache, kept you educated, or if we just had fun entertaining you, well, then you can go over to ask the podcast coach.com/awesome and become an awesome supporter. We deeply appreciate that because, you know, I need to eat occasionally. It's just nice. It's validation that they people appreciate your work. I mean, that's in that case, you're bringing value to them. They're giving it back to you. So we appreciate that. And I I really do appreciate them. I that the 100% of that goes to Dave. So I, but I appreciate you guys supporting us in that way. Yeah. And this next question came from Randy Black. Do I call him I've always called him Randall Black. Does that I think he goes by Randy in the chat. So either one r black will just Yeah. R black. And that's it. Wica, this was from a Facebook group called Christian Podcasters. And the guy's name was Jodas Justin. Wow, I cannot read today. Justin Adi Brown. He said, I heard on a and he said, I guess, he he meant a podcast about podcasting. And the one he's talking about here is, I believe, Grow the Show with Kevin Schmidlin because it's just fun to say Schmidlin. I heard on your on a podcast podcast that your analytics on your RSS feed are not accurate. You get lots of listeners that will binge your content sporadically. And when I think about my podcast

58:47 habits, this is true for me. Not listen in a few weeks and then come back. The RSS number you get are the ones that tune in every week. So if you have 400 subscribers, you need to multiply that by 10 to 12%. That should make you feel a whole lot better. I believe this to be accurate. If you have an RSS feed and a YouTube channel, for those that do, I guarantee you have more subs on YouTube than on your RSS. That's because YouTube counts the people that hit the subscribe button, not the ones who tune in each week. Your reach is much larger than you think. Keep going head high. So there is something I want to point out here. Number 1, your RSS feed is absolutely accurate.

59:33 What it is there are because if he made it sound like if somebody listened on a website, it doesn't count. And I'm like, no, absolutely, it does. A lot of people call these streams or listens and they go, well, it only counts downloads. It doesn't count streams. And the whole thing is there are no streams in podcasting. Now, super nerdy people go, well, did it didn't like no. It's a progressive download. And that means if somebody hits play on a website on a player, it will start to download it in chunks. And as it does and if you listen to a minute of that, it will be counted as a download, and it will show that your user agent was Chrome or Firefox or Safari.

1:00:18 So that's absolutely true. And so I as I read this now, I'm getting a different vibe than I did when I replied. I thought he was saying YouTube was better. And I'm like, well, here's the thing for me. I had asked the podcast coach, right? If I look at the audio stats, because you can go in and see how many people are following you on Apple. You can see how many people are following you on Spotify because they own that content. But I can see that we keep about 80% of the people, like people listen to about 80% of our show. On YouTube, it's embarrassingly short. Now the live people stay. But I've taken if I take the school of podcasting, that would be better because this one's live. We're gonna have better stats cause we have, you know, whatever 40 people here. But if I take that same static image video of the school of podcasting, where I'll get between 80 90% retention on Apple, I'll get maybe 1% on YouTube. So I'm always like, yeah, you might have more subscribers on YouTube. But for me, I'm more about my number one stat is retention rate. How far are they listening? How far am I keeping them? You know, their attention and things like that. So that was just one, you know, the other one is, and this is what Kevin was saying to kind of paraphrase this thing. And this is where sometimes we plateau on a podcast. Right?

1:01:44 So we get up to whatever number it is, and we're like, man, this thing just isn't growing. Meanwhile, our newsletter is going up. Our Instagram is going up. Our Twitter is going up. Our threads is going up. Our rumble is going up and our YouTube is going up and we're like, I can't get this thing to grow. And so Kevin's point was don't just look at downloads. There's a whole part. There are all sorts of different ways you are connecting with your audience. And he said he made a spreadsheet where people can go in and say, okay, on this date, I had x amount of downloads. I had x amount of followers. I had x amount of newsletter subscription. And all of a sudden, with that bigger picture, they were successful. More successful than they thought because they were only looking at one aspect. So that's was the point of that particular thing. But, you know, we can you can on one hand, I love the fact that YouTube gives us an insane. The stats over there on on YouTube are are just crazy. And they can tell you how many people are subscribed, where they came from and how they found your show. I would love to know how people found my show. But Well, they control the platform, right? That's the key. They control the platform. To get those numbers, you have to get everybody in the same place. That's the problem with RSS. It's also the benefit of RSS. It's not all on the same platform. So, you know, YouTube works because they control everything. YouTube is difficult because they control everything. So Yeah, Danny says, I always look at

1:03:16 my YouTube RSS integration version of my show as an and set it and forget it. Yep. I rare I can't remember last time I looked at Ask the podcast coach stats. Why would you the infrequent proper videos, I do get a lot more views and retention. Yeah. And then Randy says I love Kevin Schmidlin, but I think this guy was confused. Yeah. And that's kind of why I jumped in there. And I have to go look at my response because my response was like, no, YouTube is not more popular than podcasting in most cases, depending on what you're sending to. Now if you're doing actual videos on YouTube, that's a whole different thing. But, yeah, Jive says sounds like he was using dubious information to make someone feel better about numbers. My latest speaking of YouTube, my my latest YouTube, I finally jumped back and started putting some actual content on YouTube. And I saw somebody I always say, if you have a question about Captivate, about Podbean, Buzzsprout, Blueberry, Lipson, whoever, Go to your media host because somebody said, hey, I'm on Lipson. I have 165 episodes and it's only showing a 100 of them. And so some guy in Facebook said, Yeah, Apple only shows a 100 episodes. Well, I'm sorry, kids, but that's absolutely not even close to being right. And I went in and politely and lovingly said, yeah, that's not accurate. Go into to Lipson and set your number of feeds because for whatever reason our default is 100 and I wish it wasn't, but you can set that to show them all. So if you have, you know, whatever, 400 episodes, it'll show them

1:04:47 all. And, yeah, so just quit asking Facebook for tech support because you will get people in there that will answer and it's not correct. And then you go in and you know, his answer was go talk to Apple and I'm like, no, Apple's busy enough. They don't need you asking questions. Always start with support at whatever you're using for your media host, and some are better than others. And, you know yeah. Yes. Danny says, yeah. I recall that answer. Yeah. I was just like, yeah. That's not right. So keep that in mind. The there was something else I was gonna bring up today. Oh, I can't find oh, format. I see this one a lot about people asking about, hey, the I put my show notes into again, whatever media host you have. Doctor's question from over there. Oh, yeah. Is that what's her what you hold on? Oh, I think it was Doctor's question about show notes. Yes. Very beginning of the show. Yeah. This is actually a different question, but I like this one.

1:05:46 Is there a but it ties in because we're kind of talking YouTube. Is there a difference for show notes for audio versus show notes on YouTube? What say you, Jim Collison? Do you have any ideas on this one? I think it can be. YouTube, the YouTube description and titling have all its own, you know, infrastructure that's not the right word the way they're, the way YouTube uses them, and they're changing them all the time. I couldn't even tell you today. I, you know, What's the right thing to look for? I mean, tags were important for a while. Would you do them differently? This is maybe one of those areas all the current YouTube gurus are saying different things. Right? Who do you listen to on that one? But yeah, they might be, you might structure your YouTube don't think because I create this kind of podcast like you and I do on YouTube, it I get abysmal numbers for them. Just abysmal. Now, I don't do all the right things for YouTube. I don't, I don't care. Like I literally don't care. It's just a service for people. Some like to, some people like to consume it that way. I don't have the time or the patience to do, to optimize it, so I don't. But yeah, it could. You could go a different route for YouTube than I'm not a YouTube expert on that. I think this is one of those areas where and YouTube's constantly changing things to break the, you know, break the backs of the cheaters, so to speak, or whatever they're trying to listen, they're trying to optimize their platform, not for

1:07:18 you, for sales. They want to deliver ads. So if you have any, if you think YouTube is, is it all for you, they are not. They are for them and their purposes and their ads. So everybody's trying to figure out how do we, how do we take advantage of that slip stream to make sure we're within the rules or in the guidelines or whatever. They're constantly changing things to make that work. But yeah, I would say in some cases, if you have the time to figure it out, do. I just don't want to like, I hate that art. I hate YouTube art. I hate it. Hate it. But right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You got to make a funny face or I see all these, I watch all these DIYers. And for, for a while, the yoga pants were the trend. You know, you're building a house or cutting wood, and you're wearing yoga pants. You bring your wife in, and she's wearing yoga pants. I was like, Guys, stop it. That's do you realize what you're doing?

1:08:13 Stop it. Stop using sex to sell things on YouTube. Right? But you can't. That's, it does. It works for whatever reason. It drives me crazy. But and people choose, listen, that's, you can do it if you want to. You can do it that way. But if you want to figure out, you know, how to trick it may be worth engaging or watching some videos to engage an expert on that. I don't care about YouTube. Incredible platform. We get some great use out of it. I just, I have turned off monetization off, even though they still can monetize it. And at work, we don't fight that. I'm, it's, the stuff I do is never I shouldn't say that. Because if I say it yeah, not with that attitude, Jim. I always say I'm never gonna be popular on YouTube. I'm okay with that. It's not the, it's not the platform I want to be popular on. So I don't know, Dave. What say you? I'm trying to well, Danny has a great point. He says, I I feel YouTube titles need to be more hyperbolic, compared to audio versions and titles for apps. I know when I can remember, it sounds weird because, again, I'm kind of asking for the sale before they've even gotten anything. I now put the link to the website at the top because they are gonna see that because they always have that little cut off part at the top. And then I usually I don't spend like for me, YouTube, people are looking for the links. Whatever we talked about are the links, and then I do chapters. So I have the timestamps, but I'm not writing a blog post as my episode notes on YouTube. Yeah. Nor should you? Yeah. So a lot of times I will

1:09:47 take I'll take the same notes I had for the apps, which is basically a little paragraph about what it is. And then here are the links. I'll take that, throw it into YouTube, and then I'll put whatever my link to the actual website is at the very top. And then on that, my stuff on my website, well, that's a whole blog post with the player on it. So let's see what else we got here. Well, we started talking about yoga pants, and 1, SP is gonna wear his running tights for the next podcast. So there you go. You're welcome, SP, for that. And then our numbers shot up. We're at like 46. I just mentioned the word, and it went to 56. So you're like, I don't know, Dave. See, you know, yoga paying itself. That's it. I'm gonna have to to go back and look. Ralph's asking a question. Does anyone use an app or service to post Shorts to all of their platforms? And I went over. I interviewed Katie Brinkley from Rocky Mountain Marketing on the School of Podcasting.

1:10:42 And shame on me because I always say people are looking for the links. And she mentioned 1 and I cannot remember the name of it. I have it in other notes, but she and I don't know that it automatically posted. I know buffer, but I don't know if buffer will send to because some of these things like Instagram for the longest time wouldn't let you automatically post. They wanted you to go to the website to post because when you're there, you're gonna look at stuff. And so I don't know any off the top of my head. But I used to use buffer back in the day. And then the other thing like Twitter or x or whatever we're calling it. Again, some of these apps have made it kinda hard to automatically post.

1:11:22 And so that's the that's the tricky part about that. There you go. And Brad over at cancerandcomedy.com, he's at a podcast meetup in Indy today. And so we're going worldwide Hello, Indy. And Indy. So that's good. So I like it. Awesome. Good to be there. Excellent. But let me go back to my note, Joy. This is where While you're doing that, Dave, let me just say, I don't think, Jeff, you're gonna disagree with me on this one. I don't think, Jesse, I don't think just and I know he's not doing this, by the way, but I don't think just letting AI create Shorts for you and you blasting those all over social is necessarily going to be the biggest engaging thing in the world.

1:12:08 I think you need to be, with these shorts, be very judicious with them. Right? Be very pull please pull the really good ones. Like, you know, however you're gonna do that with Reels or Instagram shorts or some of those kinds of things, please be judicious. Please think about it. Please don't let your AI engines just think they just grab stuff. Now, listen, I know many of you are gonna go in the chat room. That's what I do, Jim. That's what great. Awesome. I know if you feel like you're doing the right thing, do that. I think sometimes, in the pressure to just do Shorts, folks have let the AI stuff do it for them or what, or they're just grabbing something. And they're like, Okay, I just need 30 seconds. We'll get that stuff out there. And I watch these, and I'm like, There's 30 seconds I'm never gonna get back.

1:12:57 Like, Or what does that mean about anything? You know, type deal. So please, just, for me, think of none of them. Just please be judicious about that. To me, Shorts right now, and look, it's a branding play. You're keeping your brand in front of people. I get that. But for me, they literally are all almost the same. Like, it's just and I it's like and sometimes it's like it's almost like the quote of the day. You know, where it's like, spend $100 on a microphone. Spend a 100 hours getting to know your audience. Yeah. Good. All right. So that's where that's to me. It's like, oh, that's that guy's. Now, am I running over to subscribe to that show because you saw Dave Jackson say that in a short? No, but you should.

1:13:47 But no, but that's not the I mean, I know one person. I have one guy that I subscribe to his channel because I saw enough of his shorts that I was like, who is this guy? And it's here's the thing that's interesting about this versus a podcast. Like I I know Danny and Mark on that show. I know Scott Johnson on what was that like. I can name the hosts on most of the podcasts that I listen to, right? We talked about Kevin Schmidlin. I know this guy is the guy with a coffee mug. I don't have that same connection. Now that's just that that's a survey of 1, Right? But I know it's the guy with the coffee mug, and I think he's involved in Virginia politics, like he's a local councilman or whatever. But he says all these great things and his his like thing is at the end, he will I have to empty out all my pens. At the end, he'll grab his mug and go and that's what she said.

1:14:40 So so I know him as the guy with the coffee mug. Yeah. But thing. And that's his thing. And they're hilarious. And he's kind of without being mean, he's not the most woke tolerant person I've ever heard of, But he's he was a Green Beret, you know, big army guy. And he explained in this one why he quit after 11 years. And he's like, because the army doesn't fix things. It's politics and blah blah blah. And again, it was like, that's a good point. So, yeah, Chris is saying, you know, too much mediocrity in shorts. Yeah. Well, and Jeff comes back and says his clips are put out on social or are mostly for his guests. Right? They help me get more guests. I love that. And, though, and I don't, I mean, my experience with Jeff posted a short I was on a show, and he took some of what I said and then gave it a good title, made it concise. Jeff, I would even have been Okay with a little edit. It was a little long, which is fine with me.

1:15:35 But, you know, it would have been Okay if you would have edited it if I would have seen a little and maybe you did, I don't know. Maybe it was even longer than it was. And it was very appropriate. It was titled. It was about something. I was saying something. It was good. And so, and again, Jeff, I was picking on you a little bit, and I appreciate you letting me, letting me do that. He also said he doesn't use AI just to do anything automatically. So Jeff, I, listen, I appreciate you letting me pick it. I always have to have an example of some kind and being on a show was great. But I love his purpose on that. He's like, Hey, I'm trying to use these shorts to share them so that others, so I can get more guests. And that's great. It's a great methodology and a great way to think about he's got a purpose behind those Shorts. I think sometimes I see some folks just crank them out. And then you're like, What was that for? Why did I just burn 30 seconds of my life on that thing? So Jeff, and Jeff, thanks for being on the show, or for being on my show and for letting me on your show as well.

1:16:30 Yeah. And if you follow me on Instagram, you'll see my latest one was a short that I was on Ralph show at askralphpodcast.com. And then the other shorts that you're seeing there are from the one and only he's in the chat room. You know him. You love him. Chris Stone from castahead.net has been making those for me. So good stuff. So that's, and it's It's a little frightening when I see myself on your shorts. It's a little frightening. I'm like, oh, God. I hope I didn't say anything. Yeah. That that thing where I said, guess what the the microphone is, then explain how bad the audio was. And you're like Blue Yeti for the win. It's like Chris is like that. That is a short. So I know what that was. Yeah. Shorts are here's the thing. It's to me it is. It's a branding thing. It keeps look, if you do a weekly show, shorts keep your brand in the minds of your listener. One of the things that in the book Platform by Michael Hyatt, if you haven't read that, I'm gonna talk a lot about that on Monday. And one of the things that makes great content is anticipation. And I was like, I thought about that. And he's talked about how the experience sometimes can be enhanced because of anticipation. And I thought about that. And I was like, well, there are times when Christmas Eve is just as exciting as Christmas day because you're like, oh, my gosh, Santa's coming over here, Santa, you know? And so I was like, that's a good point. And so when you use these shorts to remind people that, hey, this is coming or this is what you missed. One of the things

1:18:00 I am awful at and I need to start doing this. It's what I call the Harry Duran, the my buddy over at podcastjunkies.com. Harry starts off. Welcome to the show. In our last episode, we talked with so and so about such and such. You can check that out. Podcastjunkies.com. Today, we're talking with Jim Collison about robotic lawn mowers, yada, yada, yada. And then here's why Jim is cool. He talks to Jim and at the end, he's like, that was a fascinating. He does the Jerry Springer, which is at the end. If you're doing interviews, do the Jerry Springer. We're at the end of the interview. Man, that was a great conversation with Jim. You know, the one thing that really stepped out to me was when he said this, and then you tell your little personal story, which is a lovely passive aggressive way of letting your audience know it's still my show. And then Harry will go, next week, I'm talking with Jeff Zee. He's great. He's awesome. And blah blah, you know. So within that one episode, you heard what you missed. You got some great value, and then you heard what's coming up. And I was like, I need to steal that idea. It's such a good one of promotion because at the end, if you ask people to follow, which is kind of when you should ask them, they've heard what they they've heard 3 ideas for episodes. And at that point, they go, you know what? This sounds like I would like all these episodes, and they might actually be moved to subscribe a little more. And every time it's so easy. What's it's easy if you know what your next episode is, which in my case, I don't almost always. I'm like I'm working on, you know, I've been promoting the one that's coming up Monday for

1:19:32 a while. I'm like, what is good content and what makes it good and that whole 9 yards. And, man, I as much as I said again, sometimes I come across as anti AI had I had all this content. And I was really stressing out last night because I was trying to figure out, okay, I got this. Now, how am I going to assemble this so that it flows? And I went to I had a I'd made my own reasons of why. What stops us from making good content? And I asked that same question to chat gpt, and it gave me like 3 things. And I was like, oh, that is right. Oh, that's okay. Yep. I'm adding these to it. So now I'm not going to take what Chat GPT said and just copy and read it because people don't have they're not very creative anymore. No, I'm not gonna do that. But I was like, oh, that's a good point. People aren't as creative. They're just trying to do what other people are doing. So that's coming up on Monday. Speaking of what's coming up, that's I've worked hard. It's weird because I've worked for about a month on this, and I'm stressed out because I know it could be really good. And I'm just worried that I'm somehow gonna just put it together in a way that doesn't like, I want the puzzles to fit in nicely and just have it flow. And so that's what I'm, working on right now. Jim, what's coming up on Home Gadget Geeks? Well, I took the week off because of this conference Oh, yeah, right. Which is really good. This is always good. But the last episode was a great one. Rich Hae joins me.

1:20:57 We talked a little bit about, like, smart telescopes and some of those kinds of things. And so it's available right now. If you need something to listen to, home gadgetgeeks.com. Nice. Yeah. And if you go to home gadgetgeeks.com/follow, you can follow with the show and go over and check out old episodes and things like that. Did you know that's there, by the way? I did not. Is that a new That's an automatic PodPage thing, because you use pod page for HomeGadget Geeks. Right? I do use pod page for whatever. Any, like, you know, Apple, Spotify, except whoever you've set up will be on homegadgetgeeks.com/follow. In the same way that you can go to ask the podcast coach.com/follow, schoolofpodcasting.com/follow even though that site's not using PodPage. It's a good thing to have because then it's easy to remember and you're reinforcing your brand since I got about 10 seconds. If you haven't, I'm helping podcasters make better podcasts over at podcasthotsseat.com.

1:21:55 Not only do you have me listen to an episode, the whole thing, and look at your website, you get a free month at The School of Podcasting. You can check that out at podcast hot seat dot com. Thanks to Dan from based on a true story podcast dot com, and Mark over at podcastbranding.co. If you wanna look good, there's only one place to go, and that is podcastbranding.co. We'll see you next week with a surprise co host. Oh, there you go. Jim's out on assignment, but we'll see you next week with another episode of Ask the Podcast Coach.