64. Mastering the Narrative Podcast Style with Dave Jackson

00:00:00 I wanted to start this particular episode by shouting out everyone who's been so generous in leaving me a review on Apple podcasts, like Gloria Rand, Katie Brinkley, James Laws, Elaine Starling, Angie Griffith, JRMScooter, Alejandra and Terri Zelasko. Thank you so much for your generosity with your amazing reviews. Literally, they mean the world to me. And the reason why I wanted to shout some of you out is because when I spoke to you to ask you what you particularly liked about this podcast, the style or format came up time and time again, specifically the narrative style format that I do.

00:00:36 And it was actually Una Doyle who asked me to do an episode on this very topic. She's a capshovian in our collective. She wanted me to talk about how it is that I do a narrative style podcast. Because if you've been trying to think of a way to connect directly with your audience without taking away from the amazing advice, insights, stories, and learnings from your guest, this style of episode is, hands down, the best way to do it. So let me take you through how I do it, and not only how I do it, but I have a treat for you, because I actually am going to have one of the greats of podcasting talk to you about how he does it, too.

00:01:15 So I have invited one of my good friends, Dave Jackson, the host and founder of the School of Podcasting, onto this podcast to go into exactly how he does his narrative style episodes, too. Now, ironically, this episode will not be in that style. No. You are going to get the raw and real conversation between Dave and I as we get into the nitty gritty of creating a narrative style episode for your podcast. My name is Deirdre Tshien, CEO and co founder of Capsho, the fast way to market and grow your podcast.

00:01:46 And this is the Grow my podcast show. Yay.

00:02:00 Dave. How you doing? I am ready to talk narrative style podcasting. I wish you would have said something a little bit more interesting than that, but that is what we're here to do. Here's a fun one.

00:02:10 I am not unwell. You have to think about it, because it's a double negative. Yeah. Great. Okay, that was really random.

00:02:17 All right, so moving us on the King of Random. So I wanted to get you onto my podcast to talk about this for a couple of reasons. So from my perspective, one, I was speaking to a capshovian about something that she would find useful to learn more about, and she mentioned because she loves the fact that on The Gray, my podcast show, I do a very narrative style podcast. So she was like, I would love to know how you go about doing that. And I was like, okay, that's a cool idea.

00:02:43 And funnily enough, in that same week, I turned on your podcast, and you just did an episode on formats, which I'm just going to say Dave was inspired by our interview. By the interview. It was okay. Absolutely. I was just going to take credit for it without actually being true.

00:03:02 But that's great. Well, no, I had a friend in from out of town, and for some reason I thought rather than doing the whole editing thing like I normally do, I will just because I had two tracks. One was me and one was you. And I just listened to your track. And I was like, I think it'll be easier if I just cut me out of the interview.

00:03:20 Because a lot of times when I do an interview like we're having now, I'm having a conversation. And so what I end up cutting out is me agreeing with whatever you just said. Whatever you said wasn't that hard to understand me going, oh, man, I had a story about this time and the guy we don't need to hear that. So I thought, okay, that'll cut out some time. And I'll just listen to your answers.

00:03:41 And then I use Hindenburg, which is just phenomenal for this type of podcast. And I would cut them into little pieces and then I would rename them. And then it was just a matter of like, okay, here are my ingredients. How am I going to put these back into an order? And that's where my favorite book on this?

00:03:58 Because narrative is really telling a story. And there is a book called Story worthy by Matthew Dix. And I have read no less than ten books on storytelling. And this is by far the best because most of them say things like, stories are good. You should use stories.

00:04:13 You can use stories in business. Stories are great. This book actually tells you how to tell a story. And so yeah, so you were the clay that I molded into a story. Okay, I don't know.

00:04:25 Take that particular analogy. All right, moving on. Again, you do have a tendency to do this, Dave, just like, yeah, how do we get out of the maybe inappropriate and get right back on track? Okay. No, but I did want to.

00:04:39 So there was those two reasons, and it just felt like call it fate, whatever. And I reached out to you as a good friend, and I was like, hey, you know what? Let's do this episode together. And ironically enough, I'm not going to make this episode narrative style because it's two good friends catching up about something super interesting, like how to create a narrative podcast. Absolutely.

00:05:00 And here's another weird random Dave analogy to me. I don't know about you, but when I get on a treadmill, there is a voice in my head that's like, do I really want to get on a treadmill? But you never feel bad getting off the treadmill? Yes. Because you're like, oh, I'm so glad I did that.

00:05:16 That was so good. For me. And so there are times when I've like narrative, because narrative is it takes a little more time, a little more planning. You're like, okay, what's the big picture? But every time I get done with a narrative style podcast, I go, oh, that was that's cool.

00:05:29 Yeah. And I also I get noticeably more feedback from my audience that will say, man, that was good. And it's not that my other stuff is bad. It's just this was better. This is sprinkles on top of the sundae.

00:05:43 Yeah, but also because you had a phenomenal guest. That was it. Well, no, seriously, that is true. If you've got a great story and great content, it's the content that makes it otherwise. What's the old joke about you can't put a bow on a pig, right?

00:06:00 Yeah. Lipstick. Yes. Or lipstick and a bow if you want to match, if you want to go with accessories. So if you have bad content, you go, oh, I can fix this with narrative style, maybe.

00:06:13 No, I've done things where I had an interview where, in a nutshell, I had to cut out about half of it because the person just went on a tangent. And so I ended up with this little baby interview. So what I did was I asked some other people the same questions that I had asked the first person, and then I stuck them all together. And that was a case where I was like, oh, this is going to be a narrative style, and it'd be great and awesome. And again, it took a little more work, but in the end, it was pretty cool.

00:06:39 Yeah. Awesome. So we're starting to get into some of the benefits of having a narrative style podcast or episode. Because, by the way, obviously people are listening to Grow, my podcast show now, but they may have noticed that I alternate. I have either a solo episode or then I do one with narrative style.

00:06:56 So my whole podcast is not narrative style. Yours is not all narrative style. So really, people can choose whether to just have an episode here and there. That's narrative style. But let's talk about the benefits.

00:07:07 Why don't you start off with some of the benefits that you've seen with doing narrative style episodes? Well, the biggest one is my audience seems to it impacts the audience more. I get more feedback. And I think the other thing that narrative does is it creates a flow. I don't know that there's a lot of fluff if you're doing it right, there's not a lot of fluff in narrative.

00:07:29 I was listening to an interview earlier today, and the person had given just a mountain of backstory. And the whole time I'm like, can we get to the so if you're doing it right, you've really just taken the really good parts and you're just sticking them together. And for me, I have taken somebody's story, and the only time I narrate is I'm bridging from one point to another. Like here's, maybe their origin story was a little bit and then how do I jump from their origin story to where they were up against this big hurdle and they weren't sure if they were going to make it or not. Okay, that's where the narrative style comes in.

00:08:07 So I'm just filling in the holes that might be missing from the person's story. So the benefit is no fluff, I think, if you're doing it right. Huge one. Yeah. And better engagement.

00:08:18 What do you think are some of the benefits? Yeah, I actually have additional benefits that I found. So one is that we talk a lot recently and I think this came about because JLD spoke about this at last year's podcast movement. So a couple of people that I've spoken to or interviewed have mentioned this particular story, kevin Schmidtler being one, because he asked the question to JLD to be like, hey, if you were to start a podcast all over again today, what would you do differently? And JLD said he would not have done an interview podcast.

00:08:49 And I think a big reason for that is because A is quite done right? There's a lot of those. But also, I think a lot of times people tune into a particular podcast because they want to hear from that particular host. Dave, people love listening to school podcasting because it's you. And I found that the narrative style podcast or episodes actually have the best of bring the best of both worlds together.

00:09:13 So one, you get to actually tap into someone else's expertise, but two, by having the narrative style, you can actually bring your own stories and insights and opinions sort of to your point bridging to help bridge that gap. And so people are not only connecting with your guests, but they're also connecting really well with you as well. Absolutely. I know there are times if I will let's say it's just your typical interview. And there are times when someone will say something and I will kind of play some sort of like needle scratch, sound effect or whatever.

00:09:44 But I will bust in and I will say, hey, in case you missed that, so and so just said that, and that's not going to happen. Blah, blah, blah. Isn't that amazing? Let's go back to the conversation. And you're kind of doing this now.

00:09:57 You get to do that without making it sound so hokey, right? Dave Jackson is breaking into his own interview, so you get to make those points. And I think that's, again, another way of just enhancing the content. Yeah, for sure. Now I have another benefit that is little known and here's a hot tip for you as well, Dave.

00:10:17 So you're welcome in advance. But when I edit, you know how you mentioned no fluff, so a lot of times if it's a particularly longish interview or there was quite a lot of backstory, I will cut that out and I'll bridge it myself. But I will actually say in my narration, I'll be like, hey, this particular guest went even deeper into this point, answering this particular question or solving this particular problem. If you want to listen to that, go get that free bonus clip. Get access to that.

00:10:45 So actually use it as a lead magnet as well. And it works. I forget who you were interviewing, but there was one that I was like, oh, that's really what I would like to know. Not that the rest of the interview was not fluff, but I was like, oh, that's another good question. And so, yeah, you've received my email address multiple times.

00:11:04 That's another thing you can do with narrative is sometimes you will get somebody's backstory and they just give you too much and you don't want to be rude and go, all right, hold on, let's speed it up here. So what you can do is cut that out and then just summarize their backstory to the part that your audience needs to know. Because sometimes you're like, so how did you know you want to get into podcasting? Well, I was born and you're like, okay, hold on. I don't need all that info.

00:11:30 So you can still give the backstory, but only focus on the part that your audience need. Yes, okay, I want to now talk about so that those are some of the benefits of having an audio style podcast. But I think with the benefits comes non benefits of how long it takes. For example, I'd like to know your own experiences with I think you mentioned the analogy of getting on the treadmill. And it is one of those things where it's like, oh, it feels like such an effort to get going and get started.

00:11:59 So what else have you found apart from maybe the time that it takes and maybe even tell us on average, how long would it take for you to do an audio style podcast versus not definitely. Let's take it this way. If I take an interview and as I'm listening, I'm editing it along. When I'm done, it's done. The edit is there and I can take it and export it as a wave, et cetera, et cetera, with a narrative style.

00:12:23 I have to listen to it once, and I will be cutting it into pieces, but I still have to go. Okay, so what do I have here now? And you kind of have to figure out it's like cutting a jigsaw puzzle. You've cut all these pieces apart and you've thrown them on the floor and you're like, okay, I know all these pieces work and they're great, but how am I going to put them back together? And that's the part that I have done this a couple of times where I'll be putting it back together and then all of a sudden I'll play a clip and I'll go, oh, that's really cool, but it doesn't make sense here.

00:12:55 So then it's a matter of like, wait, does this go before or after? So there's a little bit of shuffle board going on as you're like, wait, I think this would work here. And so I think I did that with yours because somewhere in there I was like, wait, we need to get to her story. And the fact that this was that. And then all of a sudden, when you finally it's like a jigsaw puzzle.

00:13:14 When you finally get that last piece and you put it in, you're like, ah, there it is. Now I see it, and I'm going to stick with the jigsaw analogy. Same thing when you get a corner going and all of a sudden the pieces start falling together. So it's that first kind of shot at it when you're like, okay, so where am I going to start with this? And you'll kind of part putting things together, and that's where hindenburg really comes in handy.

00:13:36 You could, if you wanted to write it down on paper first or something like that. But it's one of those things that, at least for me, I don't always get it right the first time. I think I do, and then as I start to put it together and all of a sudden I look over, I'm like, wait, it's like when you put some furniture together from Ikea and you go, wait a minute, we have two extra screws left. Where do these go? And so you look up and you're.

00:13:58 Like, hey, think I'm done. Why do we have two extra clips? And in some cases, you have to ask yourself, look, I know those are good clips, but can we live without them? Do I really need them, or do I need to shoehorn these in here someplace? So I think that's probably why it takes longer is because there's a little more thought into it.

00:14:19 100%. I find that I'm so used to it now, but for me, it takes, like a good couple of hours to actually go through it and write even my parts of it, of the narrative. And I do want to get into so I don't want to I do want to get into the process, into your process and my process and see how yes. Well, I have a question for you, because you've done this more than I have. I've done it a few times, but you've done it on a frequent basis.

00:14:46 Does it get faster? Is it like a skill? You okay, that's gone this day does. Yeah, it does get faster, and I have some tips. Well, at least how I do it that I found has made it a little bit faster.

00:14:58 But I think for me, the main corner that I have to sort of the bend that I have to go around to get to see the finish line in sight is actually the start. It's actually setting up the episode? Because I think, to your point, it's like, how do you zoom out and figure out what the big picture is? And that for me, is actually my intro, is that big picture. Because once I get into the meat of it, it actually falls into place pretty quickly for me.

00:15:25 So, yeah, it's interesting. Anyway, we'll go through how we approach it differently because this is super interesting because I do want to now go into who this is for, who we think this is for this particular style, because it's not for everyone. And I think a big factor is going to be the time part of it. Yeah, that's definitely it. And that's why I was like, does it get better as you do this?

00:15:47 More? So, yeah, if you're a solo person. And again, one way to speed things up is to make the initial interview shorter. There's less they all don't need to be an hour long. Keep that in mind.

00:16:02 So, yeah, that would be something that I guess would speed it up. I always say. And I realize that I don't know that people, if I say, seesaw to you, do you understand what that is? I do. Okay, good.

00:16:14 Because I think they're illegal now because they're too dangerous. But I always say the more planning you do, the less editing you have to do. Yes, because you've asked the right questions and you've got the right everybody has their microphones and blah, blah, blah. So you have to do less editing. But it is those times when I'll hear a podcaster and you can tell they're looking for the good stuff, for lack of a better phrase.

00:16:38 So they'll start off, Tell us a little bit about yourself. And I'm like, Wait, don't you know who you're interviewing? Shouldn't you know that one? But when they give you this big long, they read their LinkedIn bio or whatever. So I think that's part of it is asking better questions will speed things up.

00:16:53 Thoughts? Yeah, for sure. I 100% and everyone I was actually speaking to another caption over, and I was, like, trying to get feedback on my podcast. And he was like, you may want to change it up a little bit. Sometimes you may want to because I have a formula, as you can tell.

00:17:09 I tell my story or my particular scenario example of when I came across the problem that we're going to be talking about. And then I kind of go into a little bit of the guest backstory, and then I go into the three steps. That's always my thing. And he was like, I know that's your formula. And so because of that formula, I have quite a structure in terms of when I do interview.

00:17:32 And the great thing with again, with narrative, I actually did one with Daniel J. Lewis, actually, very recently. And I was like, I preface it by going, this is going to be edited. I am probably going to ask my questions in a really not ideal way, where I'm constantly like, what was I trying to say? How do I ask this question?

00:17:51 I always like that. But the great thing is that I can because I can fumble around a little bit because I know that I'm just going to edit myself out of all of that like I'm doing now. See how I'm just rambling? You ask me a question? Well, no, I do the same thing.

00:18:05 I open my mouth before my brain has a question. And so I'll be like, So what you're saying is, well, maybe I'm like, oh, geez. So that gets edited out. Always fun. So I think this is great because we're already nailing who it is this is for.

00:18:20 So if you are anything like us in these scenarios where you have a guest on your interviewing and maybe you fumble over your questions a little bit, maybe you are not quite sure which way, which angle you want to take it. That's fine. That's perfect for a narrative style podcast because you can actually then take the best bits out of what they've answered and just create your own story, your own journey. Well, and you brought up how the hardest part is where to start. And going back to that book story worthy, he says, look for where the transformation takes place and then figure out how much backstory do we need to understand?

00:18:54 Because so many times people go so far back. And he brings up the analogy of Saving Private Ryan, the movie, which is about World War II and D Day. And he's like, it's not like Tom Hanks comes out at the beginning of the movie and says, hey, before we start, let's talk about what's going on in France and Germany. And the whole backstory, it's like, no, it comes in, it grabs you by the throat, and here you go for the ride. So when you can kind of get people, well, number one, if there are stakes, where are the stakes?

00:19:21 I always use the analogy of if I said I put a picture of my grandmother in my suitcase and I went to wherever, and I got to the other location and lo and behold, the picture was gone out of my suitcase. So you're kind of, all right, whatever. But if I say that's the only picture I have of my grandmother, the stakes have gone up. And now you're like, oh, well, what happened? Did you get it back?

00:19:44 And when you can get your audience thinking, I wonder what happens next, that's really the core of a really good story. If you watch any kind of Netflix at the end, if you're binging a series at the end, there's always some sort of cliffhanger like, wait, what? Yeah. Oh, my gosh, yes. I'm in the middle of watching Ted Lasso, and every time it ends, I'm.

00:20:02 Like, no, give me more next Wednesday. Yeah, exactly. Okay. All right. So I think what we're going to is narrative podcast is for you.

00:20:11 If you have a little bit of time that you can spend, especially as you're starting, it will get easier, but definitely when you're starting, there's a little bit of time and investment. And the other thing, I would think it's the person who loves to edit. Yes. Like, for me, I love the creative process as I'm putting it together, that all of a sudden you'll do, OOH, that works really good for me. If you hate editing well, no, this may not be for you.

00:20:35 Yeah, I actually have a different take because I actually don't do my own editing by way of the technical. I think of it as I'm producing, so I'm putting the pieces together and I'll talk about how I do that and as well as writing my parts of it, essentially my script, and that's all I do. And then I hand it off to my team, who then actually does the piecing together and the audio editing and things like that. Yeah, but it's the same concept, right? You still need to like that production part of putting it all together and thinking about things potentially a little bit different.

00:21:08 And so do you then say on this file, from six minutes and 13 seconds to seven minutes and 2 seconds, cut that out. Okay, let's get into the how, shall we? Because that's the thing I've never thought of. If I have a team, how do I tell a team what clips to pull and use and stuff? Okay, so I'll go through my process, or do you want to start do you want to go through your process first?

00:21:30 I like editing, so I am an army of one. And so I will take the interview. We're going to assume it sounds phenomenal already. We don't have to deal with that. And I just put it into hindenburg, and I listen to it.

00:21:46 Actually, I'll listen to it. Usually what I do is I will listen to the topic, whatever it was. So I love the fact that a second ago you said, so what we're saying this is for? And I was like, oh, yeah, that was the question. But I will listen to the question, and then I will listen to did the person answer the question?

00:22:02 Because sometimes they will answer the question. Let me rephrase that. Sometimes they will give you an answer, but they won't answer the question. So when you say, what's your favorite type of pizza? And they go root beer.

00:22:12 You go root beer. Wait, there's no root beer pizza or what time is it? And they go purple. Okay, I answered your question, but I didn't answer your question. So I listen to that.

00:22:22 And then if they did answer the question, does that answer bring value to my audience? And if so, I rename it and I put it in the pile and go, okay, somewhere that's going to make it into the show. And so I just listen to the whole thing the whole time. Is this valuable? Yes, it stays.

00:22:39 If not, and then once it's done, it's weird because it looks like some bizarre little mouse has come and eaten half up. Because I used to have this big, long file, and now it's just pieces, parts that aren't going to make it. And I will highlight that whole thing and delete it. So now I've got a clean slate with a bunch of files on the right hand side of my screen. And then it's like you said, okay, where do we start?

00:23:00 And for me, I'm weird, and I should do what you do, which is write out a script. I usually just wing it. I'm like, okay, what do we need to say here? We do the thing. And I hit record, and I'm like, and then we did this and drag the file over.

00:23:16 And then later, she wasn't sure if that was going to work, and then I drag another file over. So I kind of make mine up on the spot. But in theory, again, more planning, less editing. If I had written it out, I could probably see the whole picture first as opposed to kind of pulling things around. So what's your process?

00:23:33 Okay. All right, let's get to my process. And this has been made easier by the so I used to interview on Zoom before I saw the light, and now I'm on Squadcast. And the great thing about Squadcast is that you get the two tracks. You get the host and the guest track, which has made life so much easier because Zoom is obviously just the whole one file.

00:23:52 And so my editor will actually transcribe my guests, just my guests audio track. And I'll actually go through, and I'll highlight in different colors, all of the parts. So because, again, it's very structured, I'll be like, okay, this part I know is a story. So that's highlighted yellow, for example. And then this is step one, that's highlighted green.

00:24:12 And step two is highlight different color. And along the way, I'll also comment. So it's usually in a Google Doc, I'll comment step one, step two. Or this bit could be the bonus clip, et cetera. And then I'll be like, if there's another part, I might be like, okay, attached to step one.

00:24:26 That was down the bottom. So that gives me a bit of the structure. And then I'll go ahead, I'll open up another Google Doc, and I'll start to write out my script. So I'll be like, okay, I know what the topic is about. Zoom out.

00:24:38 What was my experience? What's my story about it? How do I lead it into the guest and then into their story? And I will in that Google Doc actually say insert yellow, and I'll highlight that yellow. So that my.

00:24:51 Editor will know, okay, that's when she has to insert the yellow part that I've highlighted in the transcript. And so I'll go through, I'll basically write out my script. I'll have the insert colors throughout and then basically I record my bit just in one file. So I hand over to my editor a color coded transcript, file my script with where to insert the colors and my narrations, and she'll do the rest of chopping and putting together. And that's a great point.

00:25:22 Transcripts, obviously, are great for those who are site impaired, but as an editing tool, I use transcriptions probably more as an editing tool than the act for thought of. Oh, yeah, I need to put this out there as well, because there's been many a time where especially if I'm pulling a clip from something I did from six months ago, or whatever it was, and somebody said this, and I'm like, I know they said this phrase 43. I remember the number 43 is in here somewhere. So you transcribe it and then you do a search for 43 and you're like, oh, there it is at the 38 minutes mark. You just saved yourself 38 minutes of listening to a show going, no, that's not it.

00:25:56 Fast forward. That's it. So I love using transcripts for editing. That's a big time saver. It is massive.

00:26:02 And now hindenburg. So we use hindenburg as well to do our edits. And they've now got that you can edit by transcript. So it's really easy actually, because where she'll just pick up where in my script I said this part to this part. She'll then find it in my guesting yellow from these words to this word and she'll just cut it, drop it.

00:26:22 Like editing tools now, like hindenburg have made doing these so much easier. Yeah, when I discovered hindenburg, I was like, wait, what? And then especially the little clipboard is what they call it on the right hand side. I was like, oh, that's the best ever. And you can have files like my intro and outro music and anything that I use on a regular basis.

00:26:44 When I open up hindenburg, they're right there. I forget the name of it's not a clipboard, but it's like a permanent clipboard that's always there. So that just makes life a whole lot easier. Yeah, awesome. Okay, so anything that else that you wanted to add around your process of actually creating that narrative episode?

00:27:03 Well, I have a question for you. Knowing that let's say you're going to do an interview and you know ahead of time, I'm going to do narrative style for that, does that affect the questions you ask or how you ask them? You know what? Not like it does, but what I've actually also started doing. So apart from actually just like an interview, straight interview, I actually repurpose my mastermind calls.

00:27:24 So in my community, I get experts in different areas and the mastermind calls can be quite organic, as you can imagine, because there's people in my community that's asking questions, which I find amazing great, because they get to go deeper and they have different perspectives than maybe I would in terms of asking question. And that gets very complicated very quickly around because that doesn't follow a structure. But the great thing, I've kind of again, because I've just done this a lot more, I've gone really good at picking out okay, this is a really meaty bit, like a really great answer to something to a question. And I'll actually did this with I had a few couple of guests. Like, I had Alexey from Voxlies on the Mastermind.

00:28:08 I had Chris Williams, who talks about Masterminds, which was a really organic conversation. And I basically pieced together. So that one I had to spend a little bit more time on because I had to piece together these different almost I called them sound bites for Want a better Word and actually then connect them in a way that makes sense. And I actually did connect it, some of them, by saying a capshovian. Dave asks this question about this particular thing, and this is what Chris had to say about it.

00:28:35 Because that's a great thing about Masterminds, right? That all the questions that get asked. Someone else is 100% wanting to ask that question as well. And that's the power, I think, of being able to create a podcast episode out of those. Yeah, I guess the last thing I would say is, number one, when you go to do this, if this is the first time you're doing it, you're not going to like the way it feels because you're out of your comfort zone.

00:28:58 There's this whole, like, I don't know what I'm doing. So embrace that because that means you're growing. And just realize that you kind of have to know the beginning, middle, and end. Like, you have to know it at one time. The first time I did narrative style, I was doing a podcast about a movie called The Messengers, and it wasn't done yet.

00:29:17 So it was the weirdest thing because I had to make Cliffhangers when I didn't like, the story wasn't over yet. It was the weirdest thing. So that was a great lesson of how not to do narrative style. I mean, I was able to do it together, but I now see like, wow, you really need to know your story arc, and if you want it to be good and just realize that the first time you do this, you're like, wait, and you're going to want to just run back to whatever you normally do. And you can do that.

00:29:44 You don't have to do narrative style, but just embrace the fact that, like, oh, I'm doing something new and I don't know what I'm doing, and it's fine. Yeah, being totally imperfect. That's the way I operate all the time, so imperfect. Anyway. Okay, this is cool.

00:29:57 This is amazing because it's like two people who have done narrative, I guess. Dave, you haven't done it as much. I'm doing it more, actually, the more I do it. Well, again, when you get your audience going, wow, that was really good. I'm just now going to start doing interviews, thinking, okay, let's line up the questions that might make it easier to edit in the future.

00:30:19 But on the other hand, this is just a conversation. Sometimes those are the best, but I'm definitely going to experiment with this more because in the end, for me, at least, it was a little longer. But it wasn't a lot longer because I edit my own stuff anyway. It was just a matter of like, okay. And like I said, usually I'm cutting me out of it anyway.

00:30:41 So I just started off with, all right, Dave has gone 100%. Now, how much of Dave are we going to insert? And I loved your point, the fact that by inserting yourself throughout the episode, because I always say, if you do a straight interview at the end, always be sure and do some sort of summary to kind of politely kind of go, yeah, just in case you forgot, it's my show, and here's my thoughts, and here's why. I just know I made that person look phenomenal for 20 minutes. Amazing.

00:31:11 Yeah. But let's remind you that I'm still available for hire or whatever it is you're trying to do at the end. So you should do some sort of summary for that. And by doing a narrative style, you're there with them telling them the story. Yes, for sure.

00:31:24 Okay. So if anyone wants to hear Dave's amazing narrative style episode, go listen to how to deal with a crowded podcast genre full of competition. So that is do you know what number episode that was? This might be edit point number one. I do.

00:31:40 I just don't know it off the top of my head. It is it's a number. It starts with four or no, it starts with eight. I was about to say it's a very recent episode. It is.

00:31:50 Here it is. Schoolofpodcasting.com eight, seven, three will get you there. Eight seven three. Okay, so go and listen to that. I mean, it has an amazing guest on it.

00:31:59 Oh, absolutely. The best. The best, yeah. Which is why Dave felt compelled to edit that's it. The best guest needs the best format.

00:32:08 I feel like I was just really rarely on it. It's like, okay, we got to edit all of that stuff out. It's fine. I get it. It's cool.

00:32:16 But definitely go listen to that episode because that's a great example of a narrative style episode. It was fun and it was great. Again, I had a lot of people that said, wow, that was really good. And again, you were the chocolate sundae. That was already good narrative.

00:32:31 Just put a little sprinkles on it. I'm not fishing for more compliments, but keep them coming as well. Feel free to keep them coming. All right, so if you have any questions about how to get started on narrative podcast, what tools to use. I mean, I think we've already rattled off a couple, so squadcast and Hindenburg for me, Dave for you.

00:32:50 Hindenburg. Hindenburg. And of course, if you want something translated not translated, transcribed, there's this thing cap something Capsho I think might be able to help you with that. Yes, for sure. So, yeah, give it a go and tell us if you do give Narrative style podcasts a go.

00:33:11 Can you go to my podcast website content? So if you go to the description for this episode, I have a link. Click on that link, it'll land you on the Growmypodcast Show.com. And there's a leave us a message. Leave me a message.

00:33:23 Think leave me a message and tell me what episode you actually created. That was narrative style, Dave, and I would love to hear it. And maybe we can even come back and do a breakdown. I don't know. Maybe we can do something fun.

00:33:36 We can figure out something fun, Dave. It would be fun. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me, Dave.

00:33:41 This was such a fun chat, as always, and for thank you for joining us and listening in on us. And as always, stay awesome.

00:00:00 I wanted to start this particular episode by shouting out everyone who's been so generous in leaving me a review on Apple podcasts, like Gloria Rand, Katie Brinkley, James Laws, Elaine Starling, andrew Griffith Jr. M scooter Alejandra and Terry Zelasko. Thank you so much for your generosity with your amazing reviews. Literally, they mean the world to me. And the reason why I wanted to shout some of you out is because when I spoke to you to ask you what you particularly liked about this podcast, the style or format came up time and time again, specifically the narrative style format that I do.

00:00:36 And it was actually Una Doyle who asked me to do an episode on this very topic. She's a captchovian in our collective. She wanted me to talk about how it is that I do a narrative style podcast. Because if you've been trying to think of a way to connect directly with your audience without taking away from the amazing advice, insights, stories, and learnings from your guest, this style of episode is, hands down, the best way to do it. So let me take you through how I do it, and not only how I do it, but I have a treat for you, because I actually am going to have one of the greats of podcasting talk to you about how he does it, too.

00:01:15 So I have invited one of my good friends, Dave Jackson, the host and founder of the School of Podcasting, onto this podcast to go into exactly how he does his narrative style episodes, too. Now, ironically, this episode will not be in that style. No. You are going to get the raw and real conversation between Dave and I as we get into the nitty gritty of creating a narrative style episode for your podcast. My name is Deirdre Tshien, CEO and co founder of Capsho, the fast way to market and grow your podcast.

00:01:46 And this is the Grow my podcast show. Yay.

00:02:00 Dave. How you doing? I am ready to talk narrative style podcasting. I wish you would have said something a little bit more interesting than that, but that is what we're here to do. Here's a fun one.

00:02:10 I am not unwell. You have to think about it, because it's a double negative. Yeah. Great. Okay, that was really random.

00:02:17 All right, so moving us on the King of Random. So I wanted to get you onto my podcast to talk about this for a couple of reasons. So from my perspective, one, I was speaking to a captchovian about something that she would find useful to learn more about, and she mentioned because she loves the fact that on The Gray, my podcast show, I do a very narrative style podcast. So she was like, I would love to know how you go about doing that. And I was like, okay, that's a cool idea.

00:02:43 And funnily enough, in that same week, I turned on your podcast, and you just did an episode on formats, which I'm just going to say Dave was inspired by our interview. By the interview. It was okay. Absolutely. I was just going to take credit for it without actually being true.

00:03:02 But that's great. Well, no, I had a friend in from out of town, and for some reason I thought rather than doing the whole editing thing like I normally do, I will just because I had two tracks. One was me and one was you. And I just listened to your track. And I was like, I think it'll be easier if I just cut me out of the interview.

00:03:20 Because a lot of times when I do an interview like we're having now, I'm having a conversation. And so what I end up cutting out is me agreeing with whatever you just said. Whatever you said wasn't that hard to understand me going, oh, man, I had a story about this time and the guy we don't need to hear that. So I thought, okay, that'll cut out some time. And I'll just listen to your answers.

00:03:41 And then I use Hindenburg, which is just phenomenal for this type of podcast. And I would cut them into little pieces and then I would rename them. And then it was just a matter of like, okay, here are my ingredients. How am I going to put these back into an order? And that's where my favorite book on this?

00:03:58 Because narrative is really telling a story. And there is a book called Story worthy by Matthew Dix. And I have read no less than ten books on storytelling. And this is by far the best because most of them say things like, stories are good. You should use stories.

00:04:13 You can use stories in business. Stories are great. This book actually tells you how to tell a story. And so yeah, so you were the clay that I molded into a story. Okay, I don't know.

00:04:25 Take that particular analogy. All right, moving on. Again, you do have a tendency to do this, Dave, just like, yeah, how do we get out of the maybe inappropriate and get right back on track? Okay. No, but I did want to.

00:04:39 So there was those two reasons, and it just felt like call it fate, whatever. And I reached out to you as a good friend, and I was like, hey, you know what? Let's do this episode together. And ironically enough, I'm not going to make this episode narrative style because it's two good friends catching up about something super interesting, like how to create a narrative podcast. Absolutely.

00:05:00 And here's another weird random Dave analogy to me. I don't know about you, but when I get on a treadmill, there is a voice in my head that's like, do I really want to get on a treadmill? But you never feel bad getting off the treadmill? Yes. Because you're like, oh, I'm so glad I did that.

00:05:16 That was so good. For me. And so there are times when I've like narrative, because narrative is it takes a little more time, a little more planning. You're like, okay, what's the big picture? But every time I get done with a narrative style podcast, I go, oh, that was that's cool.

00:05:29 Yeah. And I also I get noticeably more feedback from my audience that will say, man, that was good. And it's not that my other stuff is bad. It's just this was better. This is sprinkles on top of the sundae.

00:05:43 Yeah, but also because you had a phenomenal guest. That was it. Well, no, seriously, that is true. If you've got a great story and great content, it's the content that makes it otherwise. What's the old joke about you can't put a bow on a pig, right?

00:06:00 Yeah. Lipstick. Yes. Or lipstick and a bow if you want to match, if you want to go with accessories. So if you have bad content, you go, oh, I can fix this with narrative style, maybe.

00:06:13 No, I've done things where I had an interview where, in a nutshell, I had to cut out about half of it because the person just went on a tangent. And so I ended up with this little baby interview. So what I did was I asked some other people the same questions that I had asked the first person, and then I stuck them all together. And that was a case where I was like, oh, this is going to be a narrative style, and it'd be great and awesome. And again, it took a little more work, but in the end, it was pretty cool.

00:06:39 Yeah. Awesome. So we're starting to get into some of the benefits of having a narrative style podcast or episode. Because, by the way, obviously people are listening to Grow, my podcast show now, but they may have noticed that I alternate. I have either a solo episode or then I do one with narrative style.

00:06:56 So my whole podcast is not narrative style. Yours is not all narrative style. So really, people can choose whether to just have an episode here and there. That's narrative style. But let's talk about the benefits.

00:07:07 Why don't you start off with some of the benefits that you've seen with doing narrative style episodes? Well, the biggest one is my audience seems to it impacts the audience more. I get more feedback. And I think the other thing that narrative does is it creates a flow. I don't know that there's a lot of fluff if you're doing it right, there's not a lot of fluff in narrative.

00:07:29 I was listening to an interview earlier today, and the person had given just a mountain of backstory. And the whole time I'm like, can we get to the so if you're doing it right, you've really just taken the really good parts and you're just sticking them together. And for me, I have taken somebody's story, and the only time I narrate is I'm bridging from one point to another. Like here's, maybe their origin story was a little bit and then how do I jump from their origin story to where they were up against this big hurdle and they weren't sure if they were going to make it or not. Okay, that's where the narrative style comes in.

00:08:07 So I'm just filling in the holes that might be missing from the person's story. So the benefit is no fluff, I think, if you're doing it right. Huge one. Yeah. And better engagement.

00:08:18 What do you think are some of the benefits? Yeah, I actually have additional benefits that I found. So one is that we talk a lot recently and I think this came about because JLD spoke about this at last year's podcast movement. So a couple of people that I've spoken to or interviewed have mentioned this particular story, kevin Schmidtler being one, because he asked the question to JLD to be like, hey, if you were to start a podcast all over again today, what would you do differently? And JLD said he would not have done an interview podcast.

00:08:49 And I think a big reason for that is because A is quite done right? There's a lot of those. But also, I think a lot of times people tune into a particular podcast because they want to hear from that particular host. Dave, people love listening to school podcasting because it's you. And I found that the narrative style podcast or episodes actually have the best of bring the best of both worlds together.

00:09:13 So one, you get to actually tap into someone else's expertise, but two, by having the narrative style, you can actually bring your own stories and insights and opinions sort of to your point bridging to help bridge that gap. And so people are not only connecting with your guests, but they're also connecting really well with you as well. Absolutely. I know there are times if I will let's say it's just your typical interview. And there are times when someone will say something and I will kind of play some sort of like needle scratch, sound effect or whatever.

00:09:44 But I will bust in and I will say, hey, in case you missed that, so and so just said that, and that's not going to happen. Blah, blah, blah. Isn't that amazing? Let's go back to the conversation. And you're kind of doing this now.

00:09:57 You get to do that without making it sound so hokey, right? Dave Jackson is breaking into his own interview, so you get to make those points. And I think that's, again, another way of just enhancing the content. Yeah, for sure. Now I have another benefit that is little known and here's a hot tip for you as well, Dave.

00:10:17 So you're welcome in advance. But when I edit, you know how you mentioned no fluff, so a lot of times if it's a particularly longish interview or there was quite a lot of backstory, I will cut that out and I'll bridge it myself. But I will actually say in my narration, I'll be like, hey, this particular guest went even deeper into this point, answering this particular question or solving this particular problem. If you want to listen to that, go get that free bonus clip. Get access to that.

00:10:45 So actually use it as a lead magnet as well. And it works. I forget who you were interviewing, but there was one that I was like, oh, that's really what I would like to know. Not that the rest of the interview was not fluff, but I was like, oh, that's another good question. And so, yeah, you've received my email address multiple times.

00:11:04 That's another thing you can do with narrative is sometimes you will get somebody's backstory and they just give you too much and you don't want to be rude and go, all right, hold on, let's speed it up here. So what you can do is cut that out and then just summarize their backstory to the part that your audience needs to know. Because sometimes you're like, so how did you know you want to get into podcasting? Well, I was born and you're like, okay, hold on. I don't need all that info.

00:11:30 So you can still give the backstory, but only focus on the part that your audience need. Yes, okay, I want to now talk about so that those are some of the benefits of having an audio style podcast. But I think with the benefits comes non benefits of how long it takes. For example, I'd like to know your own experiences with I think you mentioned the analogy of getting on the treadmill. And it is one of those things where it's like, oh, it feels like such an effort to get going and get started.

00:11:59 So what else have you found apart from maybe the time that it takes and maybe even tell us on average, how long would it take for you to do an audio style podcast versus not definitely. Let's take it this way. If I take an interview and as I'm listening, I'm editing it along. When I'm done, it's done. The edit is there and I can take it and export it as a wave, et cetera, et cetera, with a narrative style.

00:12:23 I have to listen to it once, and I will be cutting it into pieces, but I still have to go. Okay, so what do I have here now? And you kind of have to figure out it's like cutting a jigsaw puzzle. You've cut all these pieces apart and you've thrown them on the floor and you're like, okay, I know all these pieces work and they're great, but how am I going to put them back together? And that's the part that I have done this a couple of times where I'll be putting it back together and then all of a sudden I'll play a clip and I'll go, oh, that's really cool, but it doesn't make sense here.

00:12:55 So then it's a matter of like, wait, does this go before or after? So there's a little bit of shuffle board going on as you're like, wait, I think this would work here. And so I think I did that with yours because somewhere in there I was like, wait, we need to get to her story. And the fact that this was that. And then all of a sudden, when you finally it's like a jigsaw puzzle.

00:13:14 When you finally get that last piece and you put it in, you're like, ah, there it is. Now I see it, and I'm going to stick with the jigsaw analogy. Same thing when you get a corner going and all of a sudden the pieces start falling together. So it's that first kind of shot at it when you're like, okay, so where am I going to start with this? And you'll kind of part putting things together, and that's where hindenburg really comes in handy.

00:13:36 You could, if you wanted to write it down on paper first or something like that. But it's one of those things that, at least for me, I don't always get it right the first time. I think I do, and then as I start to put it together and all of a sudden I look over, I'm like, wait, it's like when you put some furniture together from Ikea and you go, wait a minute, we have two extra screws left. Where do these go? And so you look up and you're.

00:13:58 Like, hey, think I'm done. Why do we have two extra clips? And in some cases, you have to ask yourself, look, I know those are good clips, but can we live without them? Do I really need them, or do I need to shoehorn these in here someplace? So I think that's probably why it takes longer is because there's a little more thought into it.

00:14:19 100%. I find that I'm so used to it now, but for me, it takes, like a good couple of hours to actually go through it and write even my parts of it, of the narrative. And I do want to get into so I don't want to I do want to get into the process, into your process and my process and see how yes. Well, I have a question for you, because you've done this more than I have. I've done it a few times, but you've done it on a frequent basis.

00:14:46 Does it get faster? Is it like a skill? You okay, that's gone this day does. Yeah, it does get faster, and I have some tips. Well, at least how I do it that I found has made it a little bit faster.

00:14:58 But I think for me, the main corner that I have to sort of the bend that I have to go around to get to see the finish line in sight is actually the start. It's actually setting up the episode? Because I think, to your point, it's like, how do you zoom out and figure out what the big picture is? And that for me, is actually my intro, is that big picture. Because once I get into the meat of it, it actually falls into place pretty quickly for me.

00:15:25 So, yeah, it's interesting. Anyway, we'll go through how we approach it differently because this is super interesting because I do want to now go into who this is for, who we think this is for this particular style, because it's not for everyone. And I think a big factor is going to be the time part of it. Yeah, that's definitely it. And that's why I was like, does it get better as you do this?

00:15:47 More? So, yeah, if you're a solo person. And again, one way to speed things up is to make the initial interview shorter. There's less they all don't need to be an hour long. Keep that in mind.

00:16:02 So, yeah, that would be something that I guess would speed it up. I always say. And I realize that I don't know that people, if I say, seesaw to you, do you understand what that is? I do. Okay, good.

00:16:14 Because I think they're illegal now because they're too dangerous. But I always say the more planning you do, the less editing you have to do. Yes, because you've asked the right questions and you've got the right everybody has their microphones and blah, blah, blah. So you have to do less editing. But it is those times when I'll hear a podcaster and you can tell they're looking for the good stuff, for lack of a better phrase.

00:16:38 So they'll start off, Tell us a little bit about yourself. And I'm like, Wait, don't you know who you're interviewing? Shouldn't you know that one? But when they give you this big long, they read their LinkedIn bio or whatever. So I think that's part of it is asking better questions will speed things up.

00:16:53 Thoughts? Yeah, for sure. I 100% and everyone I was actually speaking to another caption over, and I was, like, trying to get feedback on my podcast. And he was like, you may want to change it up a little bit. Sometimes you may want to because I have a formula, as you can tell.

00:17:09 I tell my story or my particular scenario example of when I came across the problem that we're going to be talking about. And then I kind of go into a little bit of the guest backstory, and then I go into the three steps. That's always my thing. And he was like, I know that's your formula. And so because of that formula, I have quite a structure in terms of when I do interview.

00:17:32 And the great thing with again, with narrative, I actually did one with Daniel J. Lewis, actually, very recently. And I was like, I preface it by going, this is going to be edited. I am probably going to ask my questions in a really not ideal way, where I'm constantly like, what was I trying to say? How do I ask this question?

00:17:51 I always like that. But the great thing is that I can because I can fumble around a little bit because I know that I'm just going to edit myself out of all of that like I'm doing now. See how I'm just rambling? You ask me a question? Well, no, I do the same thing.

00:18:05 I open my mouth before my brain has a question. And so I'll be like, So what you're saying is, well, maybe I'm like, oh, geez. So that gets edited out. Always fun. So I think this is great because we're already nailing who it is this is for.

00:18:20 So if you are anything like us in these scenarios where you have a guest on your interviewing and maybe you fumble over your questions a little bit, maybe you are not quite sure which way, which angle you want to take it. That's fine. That's perfect for a narrative style podcast because you can actually then take the best bits out of what they've answered and just create your own story, your own journey. Well, and you brought up how the hardest part is where to start. And going back to that book story worthy, he says, look for where the transformation takes place and then figure out how much backstory do we need to understand?

00:18:54 Because so many times people go so far back. And he brings up the analogy of Saving Private Ryan, the movie, which is about World War II and D Day. And he's like, it's not like Tom Hanks comes out at the beginning of the movie and says, hey, before we start, let's talk about what's going on in France and Germany. And the whole backstory, it's like, no, it comes in, it grabs you by the throat, and here you go for the ride. So when you can kind of get people, well, number one, if there are stakes, where are the stakes?

00:19:21 I always use the analogy of if I said I put a picture of my grandmother in my suitcase and I went to wherever, and I got to the other location and lo and behold, the picture was gone out of my suitcase. So you're kind of, all right, whatever. But if I say that's the only picture I have of my grandmother, the stakes have gone up. And now you're like, oh, well, what happened? Did you get it back?

00:19:44 And when you can get your audience thinking, I wonder what happens next, that's really the core of a really good story. If you watch any kind of Netflix at the end, if you're binging a series at the end, there's always some sort of cliffhanger like, wait, what? Yeah. Oh, my gosh, yes. I'm in the middle of watching Ted Lasso, and every time it ends, I'm.

00:20:02 Like, no, give me more next Wednesday. Yeah, exactly. Okay. All right. So I think what we're going to is narrative podcast is for you.

00:20:11 If you have a little bit of time that you can spend, especially as you're starting, it will get easier, but definitely when you're starting, there's a little bit of time and investment. And the other thing, I would think it's the person who loves to edit. Yes. Like, for me, I love the creative process as I'm putting it together, that all of a sudden you'll do, OOH, that works really good for me. If you hate editing well, no, this may not be for you.

00:20:35 Yeah, I actually have a different take because I actually don't do my own editing by way of the technical. I think of it as I'm producing, so I'm putting the pieces together and I'll talk about how I do that and as well as writing my parts of it, essentially my script, and that's all I do. And then I hand it off to my team, who then actually does the piecing together and the audio editing and things like that. Yeah, but it's the same concept, right? You still need to like that production part of putting it all together and thinking about things potentially a little bit different.

00:21:08 And so do you then say on this file, from six minutes and 13 seconds to seven minutes and 2 seconds, cut that out. Okay, let's get into the how, shall we? Because that's the thing I've never thought of. If I have a team, how do I tell a team what clips to pull and use and stuff? Okay, so I'll go through my process, or do you want to start do you want to go through your process first?

00:21:30 I like editing, so I am an army of one. And so I will take the interview. We're going to assume it sounds phenomenal already. We don't have to deal with that. And I just put it into hindenburg, and I listen to it.

00:21:46 Actually, I'll listen to it. Usually what I do is I will listen to the topic, whatever it was. So I love the fact that a second ago you said, so what we're saying this is for? And I was like, oh, yeah, that was the question. But I will listen to the question, and then I will listen to did the person answer the question?

00:22:02 Because sometimes they will answer the question. Let me rephrase that. Sometimes they will give you an answer, but they won't answer the question. So when you say, what's your favorite type of pizza? And they go root beer.

00:22:12 You go root beer. Wait, there's no root beer pizza or what time is it? And they go purple. Okay, I answered your question, but I didn't answer your question. So I listen to that.

00:22:22 And then if they did answer the question, does that answer bring value to my audience? And if so, I rename it and I put it in the pile and go, okay, somewhere that's going to make it into the show. And so I just listen to the whole thing the whole time. Is this valuable? Yes, it stays.

00:22:39 If not, and then once it's done, it's weird because it looks like some bizarre little mouse has come and eaten half up. Because I used to have this big, long file, and now it's just pieces, parts that aren't going to make it. And I will highlight that whole thing and delete it. So now I've got a clean slate with a bunch of files on the right hand side of my screen. And then it's like you said, okay, where do we start?

00:23:00 And for me, I'm weird, and I should do what you do, which is write out a script. I usually just wing it. I'm like, okay, what do we need to say here? We do the thing. And I hit record, and I'm like, and then we did this and drag the file over.

00:23:16 And then later, she wasn't sure if that was going to work, and then I drag another file over. So I kind of make mine up on the spot. But in theory, again, more planning, less editing. If I had written it out, I could probably see the whole picture first as opposed to kind of pulling things around. So what's your process?

00:23:33 Okay. All right, let's get to my process. And this has been made easier by the so I used to interview on Zoom before I saw the light, and now I'm on Squadcast. And the great thing about Squadcast is that you get the two tracks. You get the host and the guest track, which has made life so much easier because Zoom is obviously just the whole one file.

00:23:52 And so my editor will actually transcribe my guests, just my guests audio track. And I'll actually go through, and I'll highlight in different colors, all of the parts. So because, again, it's very structured, I'll be like, okay, this part I know is a story. So that's highlighted yellow, for example. And then this is step one, that's highlighted green.

00:24:12 And step two is highlight different color. And along the way, I'll also comment. So it's usually in a Google Doc, I'll comment step one, step two. Or this bit could be the bonus clip, et cetera. And then I'll be like, if there's another part, I might be like, okay, attached to step one.

00:24:26 That was down the bottom. So that gives me a bit of the structure. And then I'll go ahead, I'll open up another Google Doc, and I'll start to write out my script. So I'll be like, okay, I know what the topic is about. Zoom out.

00:24:38 What was my experience? What's my story about it? How do I lead it into the guest and then into their story? And I will in that Google Doc actually say insert yellow, and I'll highlight that yellow. So that my.

00:24:51 Editor will know, okay, that's when she has to insert the yellow part that I've highlighted in the transcript. And so I'll go through, I'll basically write out my script. I'll have the insert colors throughout and then basically I record my bit just in one file. So I hand over to my editor a color coded transcript, file my script with where to insert the colors and my narrations, and she'll do the rest of chopping and putting together. And that's a great point.

00:25:22 Transcripts, obviously, are great for those who are site impaired, but as an editing tool, I use transcriptions probably more as an editing tool than the act for thought of. Oh, yeah, I need to put this out there as well, because there's been many a time where especially if I'm pulling a clip from something I did from six months ago, or whatever it was, and somebody said this, and I'm like, I know they said this phrase 43. I remember the number 43 is in here somewhere. So you transcribe it and then you do a search for 43 and you're like, oh, there it is at the 38 minutes mark. You just saved yourself 38 minutes of listening to a show going, no, that's not it.

00:25:56 Fast forward. That's it. So I love using transcripts for editing. That's a big time saver. It is massive.

00:26:02 And now hindenburg. So we use hindenburg as well to do our edits. And they've now got that you can edit by transcript. So it's really easy actually, because where she'll just pick up where in my script I said this part to this part. She'll then find it in my guesting yellow from these words to this word and she'll just cut it, drop it.

00:26:22 Like editing tools now, like hindenburg have made doing these so much easier. Yeah, when I discovered hindenburg, I was like, wait, what? And then especially the little clipboard is what they call it on the right hand side. I was like, oh, that's the best ever. And you can have files like my intro and outro music and anything that I use on a regular basis.

00:26:44 When I open up hindenburg, they're right there. I forget the name of it's not a clipboard, but it's like a permanent clipboard that's always there. So that just makes life a whole lot easier. Yeah, awesome. Okay, so anything that else that you wanted to add around your process of actually creating that narrative episode?

00:27:03 Well, I have a question for you. Knowing that let's say you're going to do an interview and you know ahead of time, I'm going to do narrative style for that, does that affect the questions you ask or how you ask them? You know what? Not like it does, but what I've actually also started doing. So apart from actually just like an interview, straight interview, I actually repurpose my mastermind calls.

00:27:24 So in my community, I get experts in different areas and the mastermind calls can be quite organic, as you can imagine, because there's people in my community that's asking questions, which I find amazing great, because they get to go deeper and they have different perspectives than maybe I would in terms of asking question. And that gets very complicated very quickly around because that doesn't follow a structure. But the great thing, I've kind of again, because I've just done this a lot more, I've gone really good at picking out okay, this is a really meaty bit, like a really great answer to something to a question. And I'll actually did this with I had a few couple of guests. Like, I had Alexey from Voxlies on the Mastermind.

00:28:08 I had Chris Williams, who talks about Masterminds, which was a really organic conversation. And I basically pieced together. So that one I had to spend a little bit more time on because I had to piece together these different almost I called them sound bites for Want a better Word and actually then connect them in a way that makes sense. And I actually did connect it, some of them, by saying a capshovian. Dave asks this question about this particular thing, and this is what Chris had to say about it.

00:28:35 Because that's a great thing about Masterminds, right? That all the questions that get asked. Someone else is 100% wanting to ask that question as well. And that's the power, I think, of being able to create a podcast episode out of those. Yeah, I guess the last thing I would say is, number one, when you go to do this, if this is the first time you're doing it, you're not going to like the way it feels because you're out of your comfort zone.

00:28:58 There's this whole, like, I don't know what I'm doing. So embrace that because that means you're growing. And just realize that you kind of have to know the beginning, middle, and end. Like, you have to know it at one time. The first time I did narrative style, I was doing a podcast about a movie called The Messengers, and it wasn't done yet.

00:29:17 So it was the weirdest thing because I had to make Cliffhangers when I didn't like, the story wasn't over yet. It was the weirdest thing. So that was a great lesson of how not to do narrative style. I mean, I was able to do it together, but I now see like, wow, you really need to know your story arc, and if you want it to be good and just realize that the first time you do this, you're like, wait, and you're going to want to just run back to whatever you normally do. And you can do that.

00:29:44 You don't have to do narrative style, but just embrace the fact that, like, oh, I'm doing something new and I don't know what I'm doing, and it's fine. Yeah, being totally imperfect. That's the way I operate all the time, so imperfect. Anyway. Okay, this is cool.

00:29:57 This is amazing because it's like two people who have done narrative, I guess. Dave, you haven't done it as much. I'm doing it more, actually, the more I do it. Well, again, when you get your audience going, wow, that was really good. I'm just now going to start doing interviews, thinking, okay, let's line up the questions that might make it easier to edit in the future.

00:30:19 But on the other hand, this is just a conversation. Sometimes those are the best, but I'm definitely going to experiment with this more because in the end, for me, at least, it was a little longer. But it wasn't a lot longer because I edit my own stuff anyway. It was just a matter of like, okay. And like I said, usually I'm cutting me out of it anyway.

00:30:41 So I just started off with, all right, Dave has gone 100%. Now, how much of Dave are we going to insert? And I loved your point, the fact that by inserting yourself throughout the episode, because I always say, if you do a straight interview at the end, always be sure and do some sort of summary to kind of politely kind of go, yeah, just in case you forgot, it's my show, and here's my thoughts, and here's why. I just know I made that person look phenomenal for 20 minutes. Amazing.

00:31:11 Yeah. But let's remind you that I'm still available for hire or whatever it is you're trying to do at the end. So you should do some sort of summary for that. And by doing a narrative style, you're there with them telling them the story. Yes, for sure.

00:31:24 Okay. So if anyone wants to hear Dave's amazing narrative style episode, go listen to how to deal with a crowded podcast genre full of competition. So that is do you know what number episode that was? This might be edit point number one. I do.

00:31:40 I just don't know it off the top of my head. It is it's a number. It starts with four or no, it starts with eight. I was about to say it's a very recent episode. It is.

00:31:50 Here it is. Schoolofpodcasting.com eight, seven, three will get you there. Eight seven three. Okay, so go and listen to that. I mean, it has an amazing guest on it.

00:31:59 Oh, absolutely. The best. The best, yeah. Which is why Dave felt compelled to edit that's it. The best guest needs the best format.

00:32:08 I feel like I was just really rarely on it. It's like, okay, we got to edit all of that stuff out. It's fine. I get it. It's cool.

00:32:16 But definitely go listen to that episode because that's a great example of a narrative style episode. It was fun and it was great. Again, I had a lot of people that said, wow, that was really good. And again, you were the chocolate sundae. That was already good narrative.

00:32:31 Just put a little sprinkles on it. I'm not fishing for more compliments, but keep them coming as well. Feel free to keep them coming. All right, so if you have any questions about how to get started on narrative podcast, what tools to use. I mean, I think we've already rattled off a couple, so squadcast and Hindenburg for me, Dave for you.

00:32:50 Hindenburg. Hindenburg. And of course, if you want something translated not translated, transcribed, there's this thing something Capsho I think might be able to help you with that. Yes, for sure. So, yeah, give it a go and tell us if you do give Narrative style podcasts a go.

00:33:11 Can you go to my podcast website content? So if you go to the description for this episode, I have a link. Click on that link, it'll land you on the Growmypodcast Show.com. And there's a leave us a message. Leave me a message.

00:33:23 Think leave me a message and tell me what episode you actually created. That was narrative style, Dave, and I would love to hear it. And maybe we can even come back and do a breakdown. I don't know. Maybe we can do something fun.

00:33:36 We can figure out something fun, Dave. It would be fun. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me, Dave.

00:33:41 This was such a fun chat, as always, and for thank you for joining us and listening in on us. And as always, stay awesome.