482. Stop Overcomplicating Your Podcast

0:05 Good morning Podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Thursday, March 26th, 2020 Sixth. And today we're looking at what it takes to keep podcasting wherever you are, mentally and physically, from building a simple travel setup on the road to rethinking what it really means to compete in podcasting. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're catching us via podcast, YouTube, LinkedIn, please share this with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here. The Podcasting Morning Chat is powered by Ironic Media, helping podcasters launch, Polish and grow great shows, and by Content Creators Accountant, helping creators build real business behind their content.

1:21 Good morning again podcasting morning chat. Thank you so much for being here. I am your host Mark Ronik and currently on stage with me. My Co hosts we have Ralphie Step, Jonathan Howard, Dr. Fey, BC Babbles, Sid Meadows, Alex Baelish, Nick Nalback and Tide AKA Nicky is on stage from the audience as well and looking forward to seeing Tide in person. Tide am I going to see you in person tonight? Oh Tide trying to get to the. Yeah, trying to get to the back. I was like my phone was on lock screen. Can you send me the? Address of the place, because yes, I do plan to be there. Awesome. Yes, I can absolutely send it to you and you can Google it as well. And I'm actually saying this to the rest of the audience. You can Google it as well.

2:08 You can join us there tonight. I'm hosting A podcaster meet up, happy hour, whatever you'd like to call it at Pinstripes. 5:30 PM is when we will kick things off and then we'll you know, we'll go till as long as it goes. But I think the technical closing time is 8:30. But like I said, if everyone's having a great time, we will stick around even longer. So come join us there again Pinstripes, it's a podcaster happy hour. It's Co hosted by me and also my friend Christina Vitovich of Women, Women Getting Visible. So come check us out tonight.

2:51 Also, a couple other quick things before we dive into today's show. Ralph, you want a tease for tomorrow? Absolutely. Tomorrow I want to talk about, we're going to talk about 5 words to define your podcast. So when you're sharing your podcast, I want to work with everybody to help us find 5 words so that you have the go to thing to say when somebody asks you what's your podcast about? South? Prepare for that. We'll do a little workshop tomorrow and we'll all work together to come up with five words for each of our podcast. Going to be a great show. Tomorrow, looking forward to that yeah and I think really. Listen if you're wondering scratching your head saying why would we do that because I think that there is a problem for podcasters in general. I'm generally speaking here, but so many that I come across have a really hard time explaining what their show is or they're just quite frankly, what I see a lot of it is, is that they're just bashful.

3:42 They're they don't feel confident sharing what their show is when somebody asks O the idea of this exercise really is when we're talking about doing it in five words. It's really the idea is to help you wrap your brain around how you would explain it in a small talk conversation. So I am definitely looking forward to that. And of course, we will wrap up tomorrow's show sharing our wins from the week. So here you go, Dr. here is your 24 hour notice. I want to make sure you're ready for your wins tomorrow. Thank you so much. I'm I'm brainstorming right now. Good, good. Yes and if you don't listen to the Friday today show or you're new here, that's a little jab at Dr. because she always seems to be a little flustered on Wednesday when it comes and not Wednesday, Wednesday when it comes time for Dr. to share.

4:35 So I'm giving her that heads up now. Thank you Ralph. Looking forward to tomorrow and before we go further, I want to also go to Jonathan and ask him to tease Monday's show. Monday Obsession Worthy podcasts are back. Podcasting morning chat.com/OWP. But Jonathan, tell us what we're digging into tomorrow. I'm sorry, Monday, because quite frankly, this will be new for the rest of the team as well. Go for it. Yes. So Monday we are going to be digging into 20,000 Hertz, the Hamilton episode, The Sound of Hamilton. So that is the 20,000 Hertz is the podcast and the sound of Hamilton. So you've all heard Hamilton, you just haven't heard Hamilton quite like this podcast kind of plays it out.

5:19 So it's going to be an interesting 1. Going to have fun with breaking this one down. Yeah, Jonathan, and I don't mean to put you on the spot, and it's OK if you don't have an answer to this yet. What about this episode are we going to look forward to? Specifically? How are we going to break this down in the sense of, you know, like last time when we talked about a show, we talked about how the host really made you feel something in that intro, and we really got into that idea for our own podcast. So is there something we can look forward to as far as this Hamilton episode? So we're going to really look into what sound does for a podcast and how you can use different sounds and connect that with your storytelling. So how storytelling works with your podcast with sound works with storytelling in your podcast. Awesome.

6:06 Maybe I'll try to get Dominic Lawson to come join us as well because he knows a thing or two about how to incorporate sound into podcasts like Black as America, for example. So yeah, I'll see if he can come join us as well. But looking forward to this. Jonathan, thank you. We will put a link in the show notes. But again, you can go right now to podcastingmorningchat.com/OWP and you can dive right into that episode coming up on Monday. And then you can also dive in to past episodes. We've already broken down of a lot of different obsession worthy podcast. Thank you, Jonathan, looking forward to that. OK, let's dive in.

6:47 And if you listened to the intro this morning, we've definitely have two very different conversations today, but both are really relevant to working podcasters. First, since I'm on the road this week visiting my parents and family in Maryland, we're going to break down the temporary setup that I built here in their guest room. If you're watching us on camera right now, you can see the guest room behind me. But then later, I want to get into a bigger picture conversation about competition in podcasting and whether we're thinking about it all wrong, right? So we'll see how much time we have to navigate both conversations.

7:28 And I get it. Let me just say this is a do as I say or do as I say, not as I do moment because I get it that I'm mixing 2 very different topics here, right? And I am planning, this is me planning ahead, me planning accordingly. Because my thought is, yeah, maybe we could, if we really wanted to, we could make the whole travel podcast, set up a whole hour long conversation. But I also don't know that necessarily needs to be. And we like to deliver around 60 minutes of content for you each day. So that's why I teased yesterday this idea of podcasting competition. And I want to hold true to that. I want to hold to my commitment.

8:11 So I I feel like I can leave enough time for us to do that. So, yeah, I know we often preach to you, try to talk about just one thing on each episode, and I'm breaking that rule. So shame on me. I'm slapping my wrist right now. OK, so. Hey, Mark. Yes, Sir. Last time I checked it's your show, right? That is true. That is very true. And that goes. For the amp. Don't beat yourself up, Don't qualify. Just do it. Agreed. It drives me nuts. Agreed. And I'm getting mad because you're breaking your other rule. Just do what you're supposed to do and go forward because the listeners are going to listen and if they don't then they're going to find something else.

8:54 But you already have an audience. So let's do it. There you go. Thank you, Alex. Yeah. And, you know, look, this is a teaching podcast about podcasting. So sometimes I like to call those things out because otherwise if I don't, it may sound a little contradictory to some people or a little confusing to other people. So that's why I sometimes I like to call out the things that I'm doing and the other oh, did you want to say something else? Yeah, I know, but we still have to give you a little crap. I'm here. Little laugh track for you. Yeah. So let's just dig in to this. And thank you, Alex. I appreciate what? You're saying, Mark, before we get too deep, yes, Sir. I've got something special for everybody today. So Mark and I've been talking about this, but I've decided I have this road caster duo and I've decided it's time to upgrade a little bit.

9:43 So I went with the Pro 2 and what I'm going to do is I'm going to offer the road caster duo to somebody through the morning show. So we're going to come up with a way to make that available to somebody. I want to give back to the community some so got this new one sitting here next to me. I'm just so eager to set it up. But that leads us to a question today, Mark. So when you were. Playing I have to stop you, I have to stop you because that's a big drop right there. So I just want to pause there for a second. And also, if you are a long time podcasting morning chat listener, you may remember in the very early days, it might have been like my first year before we even took this as a podcast and we were only live streaming.

10:25 I gave away my Rd. Caster Pro 1 when I got when the 2 came out, I ordered the two and instead of selling it, I decided, you know what, let me give this away to the community. And over the weekend, Ralph was telling me he was getting that itch to upgrade, especially now that he's a bigger part of the morning show here. And I said to him, well, what are you doing with that duo? And he said I don't know, I'm probably going to sell it. And then I told him that I gave it away when I got my new one, and it really was a great community builder for the show. So, Ralph, I appreciate your generosity and being gracious enough to keep the tradition going and giving somebody in our audience something really cool, really special to upgrade their podcasting setup.

11:12 Yeah. The best thing about it is look at the size of this. The duo is about, I don't know, maybe 10 inches by 10 inches. So if you're going to do any traveling, it's actually probably something you can throw in your bag and take on the road with you. So hey, this is going to be a great opportunity for somebody and I really appreciate the community. So it's just the way I can give back a little bit. I love that. Thank you. Ralph BC did you have a question? Yeah, real quick for clarifying for anyone who's listening, I've used Rd. casters but I've never set them up. So to clarify, Rd. casters don't need anything extra like phantom power, anything additional to make sure they work properly. If they're just find a place with them, set them down, plug them up, you're good to go. More or less, yes, you could. They are definitely set up to be plug and play.

11:55 But what I find is there, you want to tweak settings here and there and set it up to you and your voice. But if you are somebody who isn't very tech savvy or has no familiarity with the product itself, yes, you could get away with a plug and play pretty easily. Yeah. Yep. Cool. Good question though. Thank you and more to come on that. OK, So Ralph, I cut you off and you wanted to. That's what I was going to say, is you've been planning this trip and you knew you still wanted to be able to do the show. So what were the things that went through your mind of things I absolutely have to take with me because I think a lot of podcasters find themselves in the same position. Yeah, I work with content creators who want to go travel and do other things. Maybe they want to go on remote sessions and do that sort of thing. So Mark, what were the essentials that you wanted to have in your travel bag to get ready to go forward? Well, you know, for me, I would say the most essential besides my computer, right, because that I definitely will need for any mobile setup.

12:52 But aside from that, I think it it is a mixer like the road caster duo and Rd. caster pro etcetera. But for me that I don't own a duo and I feel like the duo, even though it is compact, it's a little too big for my taste. I'm not saying it's not a good travel one if you have the room to travel with it, but like I want something really compact. And for through the duration of the podcasting morning chat, I've done some traveling. I come visit my folks here in this very space often. And for the longest time I was using the original Zoom Pod Track P4, not to be confused with Zoom that we all know and love that we use for communication. It's a different company and it's called the Zoom Pod track P4 next.

13:44 So it's the newest one. It's been a while since they've come out with a new edition from of the P4. It's lighter weight in my opinion, and it's really compact. I mean, I mean this we're talking probably I should have looked this up, but we're probably looking at around 4x4, 5 by 5, something like that, maybe maybe even a little smaller. So it's really compact. If you're looking at me on video, I'm holding up my hands. I mean, I'm talking like this wide, this tall. It's really almost, almost could fit in your pocket, but not quite. It's wider than a mobile phone, but I got the upgrade. Well, for one, because it's an upgrade and I feel like as somebody who consults podcasters and hosts the show about podcasting, it's good for me when I can to test different equipment. This.

14:33 I'm very happy with it over all. The only thing I'm not happy about with it is I can't easily control the volume or AKA gain on the different features that are built into it. For example, the sound pads, right? I'm playing the laugh track right now and it's really kind of soft for my taste and I can't easily just turn a knob the way I can turn up the gain on my microphone. Turn up the gain other areas. So I have to go into a menu, I have to scroll and find the sound pad and then turn up the volume, et cetera. So it's a, that's a little annoying to me, but that could be something that if you're not somebody who does live podcasting like I do, you could add in your sounds in post production and control that volume however you'd like, right?

15:25 So that would be my biggest gripe about it. What I love about it is the AI noise reduction feature it has built into it. I don't have a lot of, I don't know of a lot of hardware currently that has a feature like that and it's great. It takes seconds to do. You literally just press this button and talk for a few seconds and it is scanning you and your environment and adjusting and drowning out the background noise. So when I hit it, I notice that room tone, if you will. I notice there I can almost hear a little bit of like a hiss in the background. And then when I press the button and it does its thing that that little slight hiss goes away.

16:08 So I really like that. But I think the most important thing, whether you're using AP4 and I'm curious if anyone else uses anything different. But I, I think the reason, the most important reason for it is that it allows me to marry all these different pieces that I have of this puzzle to make the podcasting morning chat happen. So what does that mean? Yesterday we had some trouble with it because I hadn't tested it enough. But that means, for example, I have Clubhouse, which is where the majority of our team and our audience communicates. We use Clubhouse as that communication vehicle. So I need that to be able to be captured and heard. I also need the Riverside component here with me, Ralph and BC sitting on camera, I need that component to be heard. And anything else coming from my computer, same thing. And theoretically I can have my phone plugged into it as well. So if I wanted to play stuff through my phone, I could do that as well.

17:09 Take real phone calls for example, or play other sounds through my phones, maybe a YouTube video or what have you. So it is the IT is essential for me to have to marry all of the different pieces of equipment together. And Mark, Nikki, just put something in the chat. I want to address it as the money guy on the show. Tax deductible. Yes, equipment that's used for your production may very well be tax deductible. So I'll let you continue, Mark, but I just want to bring that to everybody's attention. Yeah, thank you, Ralph. And I see here what a coincidence that Cliff Ravenscraft is in the audience right now.

17:50 And I say that because I know at least initially, I haven't talked to Cliff in a minute, but I know initially the Zoom P4 Next was a big thing for him. He was really singing its praises early on. And I think actually that's how he relaunched his podcast as well, talking about the P4 Next. And Cliff, I don't know if you heard me say, the one gripe I have with it is it's not easy to adjust the volume on the sound pads. You can, but it's not as easy as adjusting the gain on your microphone, for example. Hey, Mark. Yeah, I'm sitting here doing the dishes after breakfast this morning. Good morning. Good morning. Let's see here. Yes, I did hear all of that and you're right, it is not. There are no gain control knobs for the sound pads themselves. However, if you're using those sound pads in the same environment, such as you mean you're doing this show every day, five days a week, it may behoove you to sign in and have a private room and dial in.

18:54 What are the volume levels that this needs to be and go into the settings and you can, as you said, increase those and then that is set. It will remember that as long as you turn it off and it saves your settings to the SD card. Once you have that, it's set it and forget it and then it's there. The only thing is if you're in a different environment and you want different levels for those sound pads, that might be a little bit of an issue. One of the things that I did, one of the frustrations I had with the sound pads is not the ability to just the levels up and down overall. It's just that I used to have bumpers for my shows that stayed the same at the end when it trans trails off. And I would use a physical fader button to bring the level down to talk over it and slowly mute it myself manually. And of course, that's not possible at all on the P4 Next. So what I did in that case is I just brought my bumper files into Adobe Audition and it took me about 3 or 4 different tries to get my fade, my fade down just enough. And so when I got the fade exactly the right level, I, I basically uploaded new faded versions of the ends of my bumpers and I've been using those and I, I can tell you right now, nobody knows the difference as far as I'm concerned if I have not turned on my Rd. Caster Pro 2.

20:17 Since I got my first pod track P4 next, and I say first because I bought 2. Originally I bought one for portability but then I decided no, this is going to replace my Rd. Caster Pro 2 and I bought a second one to throw in my backpack. OK, nice. Yeah. And see, there you go. It really is so compact that you can just throw something like this in your backpack. And I have a little case for it, Yeah. I have a question for Cliff. Go for it. I use the P4 as well and maybe I'm having a problem with the multi track on it in the sense of if I'm recording and you have and you press the ABCD whatever it is for the extra sounds.

20:59 Everything is its own track and you have to download everything. There is no way to like if you put your bumper in to put it in to the track and, and it just seems like it turns out that it's just as much work. Is there a way to combat that or am I just being a little baby about it? Because, you know, I thought when I was going to get the extra sounds, I could put that into the main track and I would, it would be one last step I'd have to do. Does that make sense? Well, when you record in multitrack on the pod track P4 Next, it records both the stereo mix, which has the soundtrack, the sound pads mixed into the single stereo track, but it also has an independent track for every channel and the sound pads are their own channel.

21:51 So you should have a single track with just that sound pad. And if you were to transfer the multi track folder over to your software, I don't know what software you're using, but I can actually take that folder and just drag that right into Adobe Audition and it opens all of those individual tracks. And then I can highlight them all, hit right click and hit insert into multi track mode and it puts everything in order exactly. Like it's supposed to think. I think the problem is, and it might be a me problem, is when I download all the tracks, they're not labeled that well and I have to understand the way it comes out because it is a it's just challenging. It's not like it's the end of the world. It's just I guess I have to figure out which one is that multi track folder because I guess I keep clicking on the wrong folders or something.

22:48 So Alex, are you seeing the and then we should move on because I think we're going to get 2 in the weeds. But are you seeing the separate multi tracks or are you saying you're not even finding the all the different multi tracks from a? Recorder. I'm finding each individual track. I'm not finding the one that has everything in it. That's the problem. But we can, we could talk offline about it, but. Yeah, let's do that. I love the portability of it. I do some remote stuff as well and I had to get it because I with my daughter but it's one of the best. I love it. Cool. Thank you, Alex, and thank you to Cliff the podcast Answer Man. By the way, Cliff, what is what's the latest episode of Podcast Answer Man that we could look forward to? Let's see, the latest episode of Podcast Answer Man comes out tomorrow, Friday.

23:35 I don't know what the episode number is off the top of my head, but the episode is going to be why most podcasters never make any money with their podcast. And it's specifically for the type of audience that I most attract, which is those who are on the entrepreneurial path. People who are not necessarily looking to monetize their podcast through advertisements or, or anything like that or sponsors or things like that. But instead, people who are like me who have a business that they're looking to promote with their podcast and they're having trouble converting listeners into buyers. And so that this podcast episode explains why that happens and how to solve for it. You are making our friend Ralph very happy.

24:16 He's sitting here smiling ear to ear on the Riverside. Go ahead, Ralph. I love it, Cliff. That is where we need to go, my friend. I can't wait to hear that one. So fantastic. But yeah, that's what we definitely need to help people. Do absolutely 12 O 1:00 AM Friday morning so this just in a couple hours from now. Awesome. And thank you for being here. Cliff, I was just thinking about you the other day that I hadn't seen you in a minute, so I'm glad you are back. Thank you for being here and feel free to chime in at any point in this conversation. Currently we are discussing the mobile setup, which again, I know you know a lot about. I know you do a lot of recording from your car. It's your choice to that's your recording studio so that you need that kind of equipment.

24:57 And yeah, Ralph, you asked me what's probably one of the most important pieces and I said the Zoom pod track P4 next. And of course, a microphone would be really helpful. Helpful. And again, that's another reason to have a device like the P4 next, because it's another device I can plug in, marry everything together. And the mic I use for traveling is the Samsung Q2U. It's the one I talk about all the time to people who are looking for a decent quality microphone that doesn't break the bank and this one is under $100. It sounds great. It works both XLR, which that's how I plug into my P4 next or you can plug in via USB as well.

25:41 So it's a versatile microphone that sounds good. The one thing I would recommend is that you make sure to get a foam cover for it to help with your plosives and help with background noise, et cetera. So, yeah, because it doesn't usually come with it unless you buy it in some sort of kit. So just wanted to give you that little note there. Yes, Ralph. I wanted to ask a question right here, Mark, if I'm new to podcasting, I might be feeling a little overwhelmed right now. You've talked about the pod track P4 next. You've talked about the this mic and the that set up and Alex went down. And so do you offer a service to help people get started with this? Mark?

26:22 Is this something that as a consultant through Ironic media.com that you could use to sort of help people to do this? Because seriously, I remember myself back when I first got started and I had no clue I was good at buying gear. Like that was the easy part. I could buy the gear, set it on the desk. And I'm looking at this thing going, what do I do now? But I feel like, you know, we can overwhelm people, Mark, is that something that you help people set up, maybe not even on the road, but just set up to be in their recording studio or the because we need to talk about that too. I'm looking at your your parents house. And it's not just the gear. You've also got to think about the room. So I just want to throw that out there, Mark. Yes, I do, and I see a couple of people are grinning as well here. Yes, shameless plug, right?

27:07 Let's just call it what it is and it wasn't really planned that way, but thank you, Ralph for that. If I had some baseball music, you know, the typical background organ music, I'd be playing that right now 'cause that was a nice softball. Thank you for tossing that one over. And yes, I do consult people all the time on equipment and their setup, etcetera. I don't, I don't call my self the, you know, the Janaid, for example. You know Janaid, that's his specialty. And I do this all the time, especially with the podcasters that hire me to help them launch their podcast. They're usually starting from scratch. So I'm helping them with equipment. And to your point, I'm helping them find the proper space to record in.

27:50 I like this space in here. It's not ideal for sound, but it is decent for sound in the sense that it's all carpeted. There's lots of furniture in here. There's things up on the wall to help absorb the echoes this that absorb some of that sound that naturally happens in a in an empty room. So the more it's filled up and like I said, carpeting and things on the wall, etcetera, the better quality you're gonna get. So that was definitely one reason why I chose this, yes. Mark, did they have to take down the Farrah Fawcett posters and all the Star Wars posters and everything? Are you in your room that you grew up in?

28:32 That's a funny question, and no, this is not my childhood home. So my parents have downsized since I left many years ago. And yeah, so this is not my actual room, but I guess at one point they had to take all those down because they moved. But yeah, no, this is not my old childhood bedroom. Yeah. So I think choosing And look, sometimes you can't. You have no choice when you're on the go. You got to work with the sound environment that you're in, right? Like, for example, sometimes some podcasters will podcasts from a convention and you're going to have a lot of noise in the background. And sometimes that's part of the charm of the recording. Your audience knows you're on the go and they know, you know, if you're at, say an event and you're recording at the event, you're telling them most likely that you're there, right? So they're a little going to be, in my opinion, a little more tolerant.

29:28 And again, like I called out earlier with the P4, it's not going to be perfect, but it is going to help by using that AI noise reduction feature. So there's definitely things to consider in that regard. But yes, if you can control it, finding an environment that's appropriate will go a long way for you. Mark, I just wanted to mention joining us online today. I want to mention two people that have joined us online and that's Adam Tech Tools and he says I love my P4 and is a separate knob to control the volume of the soundboard, very convenient. And Peter John Studio Live Today said, howdy folks, hope everyone is well. I just wanted to throw this out there because we're really encouraging people to come and see us. You can see me in my big old cowboy hat today. But if you join us online, it's podcasting Morning chat.com/join us.

30:15 But I just want to shout out to those two folks who have joined us today. Yeah, and I know, I'm sorry, I didn't see who said it in the chat, but as far as the person who likes their P4, who was The Who said that? Yeah, that was Adam Tech Tools. OK, so yes, Adam, that is the difference between the original P4 and the P4. Next, I can't control easily with. I don't have a knob for the sound pad, so it's one big fault about it right now. Hey Matt, did you just do a video on the P4? Cuz I think I found it on YouTube which is really kind of neat. Matt Yeah. Matt Bliss. I don't have one, but I've been present for discussions about them. I do.

30:56 I've done regular live streams with. Yeah, because no, I I was just doing this and I came up, I'll put it, I'll put it in the chat, but I all of a sudden I see Matt Bliss on YouTube. I'm like, Oh my God, that's him. And then I'm looking right here. No, it looked like it was a good conversation. Can't wait to watch it The. Algorithm's working. That's right. That's right. And Matt said something really important in the chat too that we might want to talk about. OK. And that is the Room Boy and then some post production? The what was the first one? Matt mentioned in the chat room control balance and then recording tech versus post production. I think maybe we want to talk a little bit about that, Mark, because you mentioned with the pod track P4 next, you actually are using some AI tools to help balance. That yeah, I am. And I mean, with post production, I'm going to probably most cases I'm going to run, especially when I'm on the go, I'm going to run this audio through Offonic because it will do a nice job of polishing it off for me. I know a lot of editors have a lot of other tools that they might be using besides something like Offonic. DRI.

31:56 See you nodding emphatically on screen here. Did you want to share some some tips on that? Well, when I first get RAW, you know, a RAW file, the first thing I do is I run it through Adobe and I think it's called Adobe Enhance or Adobe Voice Enhance or something like that. Adobe Podcast, they do have a free version, but there is a huge difference between the free version and the paid version. I think the free version is always at 100% and that is not ideal. You know, if you pay for a full year for the paid version, it comes out to be a little over $8 a month and it is so worth it. They've just done an update and they give you the, I don't know what you call it, levers, gauges, the slide, the slide gauge as to how much percentage you want to, you know, do for the voice, for the music and for the background now. So three different gauges that they give you and it works out really well.

32:59 Then I edit, cut, do what I need to do to it and then after that I put the content through a phonic. Perfect. There you go. So oh, wow. So you're using Adobe Podcasts on the front end, which is very similar as far as what it does to a phonic, and then you're using a phonic at the other end of your production process. Interesting. OK, cool. Cool. Thank you, Dr. Appreciate that. And just so by the way, if you're listening on Clubhouse, if you're on stage and you're flashing your emojis to get my attention to speak, it doesn't look like I'm seeing those here on Club Deck, which I'm using to as the third party app to communicate with you guys today on Clubhouse. So you may want to put like a one in the chat if you have anything you want to add today.

33:48 All right, So any other questions, you know, by the way you might be asking or thinking about headphones, I would say yes, especially if you're on the go, especially if you're in louder environments. Headphones, I would say are super important. I continue just to use my my original Apple earbuds wired. I am thinking about changing and upgrading at some point, but right now these work fine for me. I'm used to working with them used to having them. I think that you're more appropriately you may want to use more over the ear headphones, the ones that really cover your ears to prevent noise bleeding. In other words, when your headphones are a little too close to your microphone if they are not over the ear. A lot of times like these, some of the audio coming through my earbuds will get picked up by the microphone and that'll cause some feedback etcetera.

34:43 So you may want to avoid that it I seem to be able to handle that. OK. But yeah, you made the over the ear ones are probably the best. And there's Ralph demonstrating his over the year headphones as well. I like to tease that we are on camera in case you want to come see us over there. And I try my best to make sure to make this listenable for the listening audience and watchable for the viewing audience. Because I do believe that you can do both and that you don't have to create 2 separate pieces of content, One for the audio, one for the video. Radio people have been doing this for a long time, ever since a lot of radio shows start appearing on TV. Now they know how to paint a picture while also showing the picture to their audience.

35:33 So I, that's just me. I know that there are some people out there that feel like you have to do it that way. I just don't believe that. I've been doing this for 20 years and theater of the mind has been something that I've been very proud of that I think that I've been able to do pretty well. And I think if you can do that well, you don't need to spend time on two different edits. Yes, Dr., go ahead. I just wanted to acknowledge that Jinnaid is up on stage, our gear man. So I just wanted to acknowledge that he was here. Cool. Thank you and welcome to Jinnaid. I I actually funny enough, I want to move switch gears here. And this is where if I had my whoosh sound effect whoosh, I would have played it right there. Maybe we'll edit that in.

36:24 But yeah, I want to switch gears. I think unless anyone has any other pressing questions about my setup is I just want to give you that moment to ask. Is it working? That's the only question we ever have. Yes, it is working. It is. That's all. That's all we care about. It seems like we don't. Care about how the sausage is made at this. Point yes thank you Alex and all right Ralph you want to hit that again there it was the the infamous whoosh and Matt in the chat says well I love sausage talk yes I mean that's part of the appeal of this show it's made for podcasters and I think a lot of podcasters are here because they want to hear how the sausage is made but I think for the most part we've handled it the one thing I didn't share is that my video is coming through my iPhone 17 pro Max camera that is and and honestly it's I think my cameras the video is looking better than it does when I'm at my home studio it's making me rethink what I'm using at home right now which is the Elgato facecam pro.

37:28 I agree, Mark. It's much clearer. It's much easier to see. It's like very good dude. Very. Good. Yeah, Yep. So there you go. You know, if people, if you think, oh I have to go get that thousand dollar $3000 camera, yeah, those are really nice and you can do a lot with them. But if you've got a good mobile phone with a good camera, that might be all you need. It's all I need for this. OK, so you're going to hit that, Ralph. Yeah, I thought so. OK, thank you, Ralph. So the other area I want to go in is I, you know, basically I saw this from Pod News. OK, let me pull this up for you. Give me one moment, please. OK, so Pod News posted something about competition, and they saw this because Tom Webster from. Sounds Profitable shared a really interesting thought on LinkedIn recently.

38:20 He basically said that if podcasters are worried that there are too many podcasts to compete with, Tom Webster says, go look at books. He says in 2025, more than 4 million ISBN carrying books were published in the United States alone, and more than three and a half million of those were self published. Meanwhile, according to Listen Notes, there were 207,907 new podcasts that launched in 2025. There's a big difference there when we're talking about book launches versus podcast launches. But this is what I wanted to talk a little bit about and then expand on that when I mentioned it yesterday.

39:01 I'm not fully convinced that books and podcasts are a clean apples to apples comparison because a book is often a one time commitment. You can buy it, you can read it and you can move on. A podcast usually asks for something different. It wants that repeated attention, the repeated trust, a place that somebody can go to. It's you're creating a routine, or at least you're asking somebody to create a routine. So while I do think Tom's point is a smart gut check, I think, yeah, at least for the people who think that it's a crowded market here in the world of podcasting. I also think it raises a more interesting question if that comparison does hold at all. Maybe it's actually it's strengthening the case for a limited run or seasonal podcast where the commitment feels maybe a little more clear, the entry point might feel easier and people know exactly what they're signing up for.

39:55 So my first question for you this morning is what do you think podcasters really mean when they say podcasting is too crowded? And if you want to respond to my thoughts on the apples to apples comparison, you're more than welcome to do that as well. Let's go to BC. We haven't talked a lot yet to BC today. Go for it BC. Yeah. And personally, this comes from kind of a viewpoint where I realized over time about myself is that I tend to realize passions that I have long after I feel like I should have. So I think part of what people mean by that when podcasting is too saturated or too busy is that they they feel like they have a good idea, but it might align too well with what they believe is already maybe an over saturated niche within podcasting. So the question becomes, how do I cut through the noise? Is is my whole aim to cut through the noise? Am I trying to build a business?

40:49 Am I trying to, you know, really stand out here? How do I do that? There are so many people already in this particular genre of this platform that it seems almost like I'll get lost in this cacophony of everything already out there. So that's that's my initial take for that question. OK, yeah, that I I hear that and I see a lot of other people want to chime in as well. So for the sake of time, let me keep it moving. Matt, let's go to you and then we're going to check in with Jonathan. Go ahead, Matt. I whenever the competition thing comes up, I've slowly refined what I internally respond to it with. Generally not outwardly because people don't like usually hear me complain about stuff, but my, I like to think about it from a behavioral perspective. I think humans, patent seekers and their optimizers. And often the conceit of competition when discussed in podcasting is that people see too many of the thing they're trying to make and then feel like they're competing for a limited resource in order to make their splash. I guess for every single person I know, Ralph, I'm a complaint. I'll try to keep this short, Ralph, stop distracting me. The point that we always make about competition when it comes up, the line that comes up is it's not competition, it's collaboration.

42:05 It really is. And perhaps this is a good segue to talk about the book stuff. I described it yesterday on the show, I think as podcasters imagining their listeners looking at a whole shelf of every single kind of podcast that exists and they just select 1 based on whatever decision they want to make, and they never pick another one off the shelf. But it is absolutely not that simple. And it's more collaborative in the sense that don't even know what the analogy would be. You guys love creating, going to the juice dispensers and getting like a little bit of Fanta and a little bit of Coke and a bit of Pepsi and a bit of Doctor Pepper and creating your own drink, right? I think that's more what podcasting is for it. But we as people, we we have a propensity to be our own worst enemies when it comes to thinking of it. Competition means there's a winner. And if we're not winning, then it feels like a problem. But I think it's, it's a behavioral pattern. It's a mistaken one.

43:02 It, it makes us misinterpret what the whole competition thing is. Yeah, a good point, Matt and I, I think there are probably a lot of musicians that would be able to relate to this, right? And it, and it's funny to me though, because you don't see people, well, I'm sure you see plenty of people giving up because they feel like there are too many people that are playing the same kind of music. And maybe they feel like, oh, I can't get nearly as popular as this band or that artist. But you know, you do still see way more people learning how to play an instrument, right? So they're not that discouraged that they're like, oh, forget it. I'm not going to learn how to play this instrument, right. I I just, there are some comparisons to musicians, I think.

43:49 And yeah, I think that when we do see, I think you're right, Matt, as podcasters, when we do see all of these other podcasts or, you know, a lot of times when I'm working with a new podcaster, they're hesitant to start because they say, yeah, you know, like here's an example. I want to start a podcast on caregiving and helping your elderly parents in their later years of life. But I see so many podcasts out there on that already. I don't know if I should do it. I don't know if mines going to be different enough etcetera, etcetera. And of course my answer always is it's different because it's coming from you and it's your experiences and it's your interviews. If it's an interview podcast, it's your questions that you're asking these different guests.

44:32 It it, it's instantly unique because it's you. OK, I want to go to Jonathan and then I'll keep it going. I see several other people want to chime in as well. Go ahead, Jonathan. You stole my Thunder, Mark. Oh my bad. So yeah, it's you there. I hate this over saturation question because it's not over saturated. You're the only person that's doing your podcast. So get out there and do your podcast. There's so many podcasts that are out there. Even when we look at the Obsession Worthy podcast, there's so many podcasts out there that are kind of the same, but because they have a unique spin, because it's a different person hosting, it's different. So just do your own podcast. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you there. OK, Matt, go ahead.

45:13 You wanna follow up to Jonathan? Yeah, just very quickly that to, again, like Ralph was doing before talking to the people who are listening to this and going, well, that makes sense, but how do I get there? I think there's a common problem in podcasting where people default, they regress to the mean because of the common advice. And something I like to call podcaster divergent happens the more podcasting you do where you get eventually to the stage. Jonathan's talking about where it's your voice, your perspective, it's unique, there's no other like it, and so you have space there. But when we begin in podcasting, we get told to get these microphones, talk about these things, hook people this way, and you have to go through that common mean of activity in order to find where your uniqueness is. That takes time.

46:01 That takes doing. Like Mark said, ruminating on it and deciding whether you have space before you even begin. You can't get started on that journey yet. So the podcaster dive off Jonathan disagrees. Weigh in. And it's just because. Everybody already has their own unique voice. They already have a way of showing up. They can do a podcast that's unique from the beginning. I'm sorry, I kind of, I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying, but I I think really, yes, they're going to need to find their own permanent voice, but when they start, they're gonna have their own unique. Voice. Yeah, everybody. I don't dismiss that at all. Everybody starts with a unique voice. But what we have to realize about the nature of podcasting today isn't that people go, I'd like to start a podcast now. I'm gonna walk around with my phone and record on voice notes for a bit and then release it and see what happens. What they do is they go to Reddit and they go to Facebook and they go, I'd like to start a podcast. What gear do I need and what's the best way to structure my episodes Like again, the human is their own worst enemy here, their optimizers, their pattern matches. And we're also in an environment where enough people have done it that the common advice becomes common wisdom, even if it's not wise.

47:15 But Matt, what you're failing to realize is all that information is just the baseline. It's what you put into it. And I'm in an industry where we're doing an interview where 20 to 50 other people are doing the same interview, OK, same interview with the same actor. What makes us different? It's the questions. It's our personality. And the bottom line is people have to get over the fact that they're listening to you because they want to listen to your perspective. When we do reviews, there's 5 to 1000 different people reviewing, but they're coming to your podcast because they want to hear your view.

47:56 Because you've built that up. And if you haven't built it up, you're building it up. So, yeah. But that's the reason why that's why it's so unique, is because it's you. And people have to understand that. And it's hard to understand. I'm not saying it's not because everybody wants to be famous and everybody wants to do this. It's your perspective. I think, I think you're all agreeing with me, but only I might understand it, if only because I've explained it poorly. But what you're all saying is contributes to the case I tried to make there that you can't, You can't. I don't think there's some podcasters are lucky. They begin with their unique take and that's the thing that they do going forward. I think you'll find that if you poll the majority of population of podcasters that begin, they begin in the less unique case and it just becomes, I'm not going to over explain it or hog the mic. I'm just going to say I think what you guys are talking about is something that comes with time that at the beginning you have your unique voice.

48:53 Everything is intrinsically possessed from the very beginning, but making that outward representation of that, it's not about doing the podcast to discover what your personal perspective is. That may come about as a result if you're a particular type of person. But the podcast creation stuff is a journey. And at the beginning, you're not going to have the same kind of podcast as you do at the end. I think that's the only point I wanted to make. OK, thank you, Matt, appreciate that. And I know a lot of people wanted to chime in here. Bear with me, gang. I'm going to go to Sid and then I'm going to go to Janae. Go ahead, Sid. Good morning. Hey, good morning everybody. So my thoughts about competition really I think you are your only competition. Who you were yesterday is your competition, The show you put out last week is your competition.

49:37 How can you improve it? How can you get better? What can you do differently to grow the reach of your show? So at the end of the day, I think you are really your own competition and trying to work every day to improve. But saying that, when there are multiple shows in your niche, I love embracing them and I think you should embrace them. I call it coopetition, where hey, if there's multiple people talking about office furniture, that's great because that's expanding my opportunity to be discovered. That is giving me more platforms where I can actually go be a guest on. It's giving my industry more visibility. It's giving my topic more visibility and I go listen to those shows. I have those shows that I feel are closest to mine on my weekly playlist because I want to hear what they're talking about because I get ideas from them about what could I talk about or what guest could I interview. And I'm also building relationships with the ones that I don't know.

50:30 I met a lady recently, she connected with me on LinkedIn. I realized she had a show. I actually listened to her give a talk. We started chatting by LinkedIn. I went and listened to her show and I thought, oh wow, she's doing something really similar to me. It's a OK to be friends with your competitors because you can work together, you can do things together, you can speak together. Maybe you could Co host a show together. I think there's so much opportunity here to uplift an industry or uplift A niche that you should embrace those people that are doing something similar. To thank you, Sid. Yes, I'm with you there. And I think the biggest point, that's at least the one that's sticking with me the most, is that we are our own competition. That's a lesson that I continue to teach myself here and there. Sometimes I get a little too caught up in what the others are doing and I look at myself and say, why aren't I doing that? And sometimes that's healthy, right? Because like you said, Sid, you can look at that as an idea and say, oh, they're doing that.

51:30 That means that's something I could be doing or I could do something similar. But you know, I admit I'm human and there are times that I see somebody doing something and I get down on myself that I'm not doing that right. But I think, I think if it's just a perspective thing and I think if we can start looking at, well, here's this idea that this person's doing, I'm attracted to this idea, what can I do similar to that or how can I make that mine or how can I make that better? I think that really creates a big shift for me. All right, I want to go to Janae. Go ahead, Janae. Good morning. Good morning. I love this conversation. It's very, very important, especially for people trying to start with the podcasting and saying, hey, there's so many podcasts out there.

52:12 Then the one, the number one, the number one thing that we need to look at is how many people are actually creating podcasts in your space versus not like there's going to be always more consumers than there are creators. And that's a fact, right? 11,000 books published every single day, right? So think about that number. Do you know how many YouTube channels there are in the world? The entire world? About 250 million compared to the 8 billion population that we have. So yes, you can be yourself, but to be yourself you've got to really put in the time. And I think that's what Matthew was saying, you've got to put in the time.

52:52 We learn about Hussein Bolt when he hit the world record, he'd been working at it for 20 plus years, right? We don't get to this expertise without the work. So that's what I understand. And yes, you got to really get out there and continue to get better in your craft. Look at yesterday's stuff. Look at the video you created. Because that's how athletes, that's how Olympians, they stand up because they're competing against themselves. Thank you. Hey, Mark, yes, I think one last thing you have to realize is because podcasts aren't that long, and I know there are long podcasts, but even an hour isn't that long when you're driving, when you're doing whatever you're doing. It's a lot easier to listen to multiple podcasts on the same topic.

53:43 And I know I do that. And I think it's a little bit different than a book in that sense because like you said, it's more of an investment versus versus listening to a review and you like to hear other versions of the same topic. So I think that's why the space might seem like it's crowded, but it's really not, I don't think. Yeah, Thank you, Alex. And listen, I know that the debate is still going on here in the chat. You know, as far as what Matt is saying, which I, I look, I think that actually Matt and Jonathan see more eye to eye on this than we realize here because I think where Jonathan really is going. And Jonathan, you can jump in if, if I'm wrong, but I think where Jonathan's going here is that it's more about when you're starting a podcast.

54:38 A lot of people won't do it because they are comparing themselves to the more seasoned podcasters out there. But the the reality is, is they can be like Jonathan is saying, unique. They can be different right out of the gate. I think what Matt's trying to say is, is yes, that is the starting point. I think he agrees with that. And I think what we're getting at is some of the things like, Ralph, you were just saying in the chat here that the for one there, the issue is, is that most people will follow what other others are hearing and seeing and not think about how they're different, right? That's one thing. And then there was another thing that you said, Ralph, and I can't find it right now.

55:22 I don't know if you can chime in. I said to be yourself, you've got to know yourself, and I think that's the journey of discovery we all have to go through when we're doing any kind of content creation. As you like, Like Janae said, you got to put in the reps, you got to understand who you are and then work towards explaining that to your audience. Yeah, I think that's it. And so it's yes, once you start the podcast, start as you do your best and embrace that it's you. But then, yeah, you got to understand you're gonna you want to put in the reps because that's how you're going to improve upon you, right. And I think that's the big difference. Yes, Dr., go ahead.

56:07 Well, you know, in the olden days of television, and I think I can speak with some authority here, there was usually just one television in the household and the hours that, you know, are you going to watch Carol Burnett at 10:00 or you going to watch something else? So it was very the competition was high, but now you have stuff that's on call, you can pull it up at any time 24/7. So the whole competition thing, I don't even think it exists in in podcasting as much because of the on call thing, on demand thing.

56:49 Also, this is the exact reason why everyone should niche down. You know, how how crowded is the office furniture space? You know, that's the space that sit is in. How crowded is that space? You know, so this is like the perfect reason to really niche down, niche down, niche down. Thank you Dr. OK, let me see here. I think this is probably going to be a good place to so I'm sorry to stop or else we're going another hour here. We are back tomorrow at 7:00 AM Eastern. I just want to say that I appreciate this conversation gang, and I appreciate the differences of opinions as well.

57:34 And I appreciate the fact that we can have those differences of opinions and still put on a show that's got value and is quality. So yes, today we talked about two very different sides of podcasting. 1 was practical, right, how to keep creating when your setup isn't necessarily perfect or it's not a perfect scenario. And the other is strategic about how to think about competition, commitment, and really what gives your show a true shot, which I think we all agree on. It's embracing your uniqueness. So thanks for being a part of this conversation today. Again, we are back tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern. We're going to we're going to fine tune our podcast descriptions when we're having those conversations with people for the first time and they say, what's your podcast about? Can you do it in five words?

58:22 And we're going to try that tomorrow at 7:00 AM Eastern. So join us then podcasting morning chat.com. And until then, make it a great day, everybody.