Why All In One Podcast Platforms Usually Disappoint

Introduction

SPEAKER_03 0:17

Uh, before we start the show, hit it. That's right, kids. We have a new patron, the one the only, uh, bourbonbarrel podcasting.com. If you don't know Jen, you should. Jen is amazing. Uh, she's been podcasting forever and editing, and uh the the thing I love about Jen is Jen will tell you straight up, like, here's what you need to do with your podcast, and uh she's been doing it forever, uh, since 2015, and she's got all sorts of great services over there. She's not just an editor, uh, she can really help you in pretty much any way you want. She offers podcast consulting, audio and video podcast editing, workshops, and meetups. It's all there. You just want to go over to bourbon barrel podcasting.com. And uh, Jen, thanks for uh being an awesome supporter. Your name is on the wheel of name, so we'll be seeing that a little later. And of course, we'll give her a shout out again just because we always say when you start, you know, that first time when you become an awesome supporter, well, hey, we're gonna give you a big shout out. So, Jen over again at Bourbon Barrel Podcasting, thank you so much. And I just realized, Jim, I've got to hit stop on this one before I can go to the next one. So, with that, uh, I'm gonna hit stop, we're gonna hit four, go forwards and say, Ask the podcast coach for Saturday, May 2nd, 2026.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Let's get ready to podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:51

There it is, it's that music. That means it is Saturday morning. It's time for Ask the Podcast Coach, where you get your podcast questions answered live. I'm Dave Jackson from the school of podcasting.com, and joining me right over there is the one and only Jim Cullison from theaveregeguy.tv. Jim, how's it going, buddy?

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Greetings, Dave. Happy Saturday morning to you. Happy May Day, and I'm feeling maybe like a bourbon is in order now at this time. Is it too early? That's it.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

Probably, probably too early. For the record, lest anyone think Jen is a giant alcoholic. She lives in Kentucky. That's the bourbon part of bourbon barrel plot.

Sponsor: Podcast Branding.co

SPEAKER_01 2:30

There you go. So uh now I'm craving a little bourbon. Well, have to hold off for the next eight or nine hours. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

I have a busy day, busy day of podcasting, too.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Do you have anything else that you could drink? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

What we could do instead.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

A little bit of coffee.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

How about that?

Sponsor: Based on a True Story Podcast

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Yeah. I was gonna say that's uh that's a pretty easy transition right there. And that transition is brought to you by our good friend Mark over at podcastbranding.co. Uh I I I've said this before, I'm a repeat customer. I will show you what we ended up with uh for the pitch a podcast uh show here in a second. But and Mark does a whole lot more than just artwork, although he does it so well. If you need a whole website, yep, he's got it. If you need business cards, sure. You need a PDF or a PowerPoint, anything that you want to look good in front of your audience, because you know they see you before they hear you. Uh, Mark is the guy you want to go talk to. He's been podcasting since 2013, so that whole thing you have to do where you have to explain to the graphic person what a podcast is, yeah, you don't have to do that. And uh he's won awards for his graphics design. He's really that good. And uh I always joke that he's Canadian and he's polite, but uh, and that's true, but he's just really good. So there's only one place to go. That is podcastbranding.co. And uh tell him Dave and Jim send you.

Consistency vs. Quality in Podcasting

SPEAKER_01 4:03

And of course, big thanks to our good friend Dan Lefebvre, based on a true story at based on a true storypodcast.com. It's been out there a while. Once upon a time in Hollywood, crazy movie. You should watch the movie first, then go listen to podcast, and then go back and watch the movie again. Uh great opportunity to do that. You know, Dave, it's a great example. Dan has told us personally in the chat room that, you know, no podcast is released before it's time. That's right. And so he's been he's been I'll say a little slower on the draw as of late. And you know why? Because he can't. Right? You know, he he does them when he wants to. That's kind of the the the way the media goes. So, Dan, I appreciate your sponsorship out here. But check it out today based on a true story based on a true storypodcast.com. And as always, Dan, thanks for your sponsorship.

All-in-One Podcast Solutions

SPEAKER_03 4:50

Yeah, it's I always tell people I would rather have a really good show, let's say every other week, than a meh kind of show, you know, weekly. It's I I I wrote last night I I have a newsletter and I was kind of saying, I just hear this advice that's like kind of right, but not really. Like, be consistent. And I'm like, well, I go, if you you you've probably seen the movie Dumb and Dumber. And he has that one scene, he's like, you know what the most annoying sound is ever? And he's like, ah, and I'm like, okay, what if you got that every week? All right, here it is, it's Tuesday again. Ah, okay, and it's another two ah, like, okay, he's being consistent, but it's not really something you want. And so that was that's one I see. And you know, just keep going. That's another one that drives me nuts. Just keep going. Well, that's great, unless you're going in the wrong direction. So, but and speaking of maybe the wrong direction, Jim, what are your thoughts on because WordPress.com or is it.org. It might be no.org is the free one.com. Right. WordPress.org followed the the what everybody else is doing. It it's almost like if you go down to Jim's house of cars, you know, Jim's like, hey, I got an old caddy here. What do I got to do to get you into this podcast host? Christopher Stone said that yesterday. I was laughing. Because that's kind of what it is. We're just like, look, right now you can buy this back scratcher, order now, and we'll throw in a year of podcast hosting. It's like, okay, and it just seems like there are a lot of these all-in-one things. When you see those, what do you think?

Market Consolidation and AI Trends

Critiques of All-in-One Platforms

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Well, it's the the the market lends itself or leads itself to this direction all the time. Like we we if you if you look at market trends over the last 50 years, and it goes back even farther than that, there's always this, there's always this trend of new innovation, lots of different people in the space. They begin to get popular and consolidate, and they consolidate down, they all start buying each other, right? Right to get to get market share. And then there's always one leader, and there's always two and maybe three who are in the process of of competing. The third one is always just hanging on by a thread, right? We saw this with browsers, browsers. We're gonna see this in AI. This is coming up. We saw this in the PC market, right? We you see long before that. This is this is the trend, this is the way things go. So I think we're gonna, I mean, I think I know we're gonna see this in the podcasting space, right? Everybody's this there'll be a consolidation phase. What surprised me about podcasting is how long it's taken. I thought this was gonna be, I made this prediction on Ross's show like four years ago. Like, yeah, we would move into we move into a consolidated space. It's taken a lot longer to actually happen than than I than I anticipated, and maybe than happens in the market, but there will be a consolidation phase. There's everybody you can't you gotta get economies, right? You gotta get economies of scale in this to make this work. You gotta kind of own and control most of the market to be able to do it. And then you drive costs out and raise prices because you are the dominant leader, right? This is like Apple did this, they they've been masters at doing this, right? This is what they did with the iPhone, right? So I'm anticipating in the in the podcast space, we're gonna continue to see these consolidations and these all-in-ones. By the way, this doesn't always this is not always good for the consumer. Like this is generally right, then then consumers are like, and friends, in the AI space, take advantage of all the free AI you can get right now, because these are the golden days of AI. It's soon, it will be more, it will cost more, you know, with with all the things that are happening globally, right? We're gonna see this. So if you think it's expensive now, just wait to it coming up. So, Dave, that's my uh when I think of where we're at, we're just in a really slow consolidation phase. As WordPress is doing this against, they're feeling the pressure, right? And and these companies need to continue to find ways to generate revenue. They're not not for profits, they're for-profit companies, right? They gotta do this. In some cases, they have shareholders. I mean, this is kind of the this was the battle, still is the battle at Lipson, right? As they're a they're a for-profit public company, and they're being their shareholders drive them not for the best service, not for the most affordable plans, not like revenue. That's what they drive them to, right? Every quarter. Gotta show revenue, right? You gotta show some changes, right? So, you know, these these we're gonna again, we're gonna see this in these AI companies that have all started with with private equity and with private money. Eventually, and we're seeing this now, eventually they'll need public money to make this work. They'll go public. We're gonna see a ton of IPOs this year, potentially. It's what's on the schedule. And then they will all they will all be driven to profit and revenue. So, friends, like I'm saying, take advantage of all the free AI you can or whatever, low-cost AI. It's all subsidized, right?

SPEAKER_03 10:16

So uh the Z-Man says, All in one, good at none. And I'm like, that's kind of my thought. Um can be Chris from castahead.net. I just heard the script and WordPress have now added a rotisserie oven. Just set it and forget it.

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(Cont.) Critiques of All-in-One Platforms

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Ron Co. Love a good Ronco.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

Uncle Marv says we see it in the airlines, like Spirit and yeah, and then Chris.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

They should be let go, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

They should have been let go. Like nobody I yes, they were cheap, right? But nobody ever had anything good to say about spirit. We should have let them go.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

The other thing about spirit is it looked cheap, and unless you wanted to breathe, and that was another, you know, 10 bucks. And if you wanted to, you know, it was just everything talk about Nickel and Diamondya. Chris says maybe Spirit Halloween can take over Kajabi and become a podcast host. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

That's a good that's a good one. Chris Goodwood.

Kajabi and Riverside Issues

You Get What You Pay For

Email Marketing and Welcome Sequences

Cliff Ravenscraft and Kajabi

Audience Hostage and AI Pricing

Captivate and Buzzsprout Video Plans

Programmatic Ads and Revenue

Making Money in Podcasting

SPEAKER_03 11:40

But that's that's me. I was using back then it was Convert Kit, now it's kit, and I found this thing called System, except they added an extra E. And it did email, it did your website, it did contact management, it did it slices, it dices, it even Julien's. And I went ahead and bought it, used it for a couple weeks. I was like, oh, this looks pretty cool, and then upped my subscription to a year. And what got me was yeah, it didn't do all the stuff that that kit did, and and it wasn't quite as cool as some of the other tools. And what was interesting is it was just this little friction on everything I did. It just, oh, I have to do this now, and oh, it doesn't do this, and but I okay, I can hack it. Everything was like, oh, I just got to go one little, and by the end, I was like, you know what? I'm going back to Kit. I'm like, this is driving me crazy. And it was an all-in-one. It was like, and none of them were horrible, but none of them were amazing. And I was like, yeah, because you're like, oh, by the time you pay for kit, then you pay for WordPress, and then you pay for this, and then you're just like, look at all the money I'm saving. And I'm like, yeah, and look at all the sanity that's going out the window. Yeah, so let's see. Randy says, Do they still offer a 301? No, they when Kajabi first came out, I was still working at Libson and I went over and asked them, like, do you guys do a 301 redirect? And I'm not making this up. The person that replied was kind of like, What? And I to this day, I was like, Well, you're still a web hosting company. You should know what a 301 redirect is, which is basically a change of address on the internet. And I would say, I don't know, a month after I kind of because I put there's a thing on my YouTube channel where I'm like, don't use Kajabi. They were one of the first that was like, hey, this podcasting hangs hot. Look, you can promote your course with our thing. And it was like, and Riverside, when I went over, there's a I just did a video on Riverside and I was testing it, and they failed miserably on the first one. And I went, yeah, not ready for prime time. And that is somebody told me you can't put episode numbers in Riverside's media hosting. And I was like, that would be ridiculous. So I went over, started using it, said, give me an episode, and yes, you could put in an episode number, so that's good. And I'm like, and where do I put in the link to my you know, pod page or something? And it was like, Yeah, we don't do that. And I was like, Yeah, that's that's enough. That's all I need to see. If you don't have that, I don't even care what your stats are. But yeah, WordPress is that. And it's for me, I'm just like, I I don't know. It it's you know, because uh number one, most media hosts are less than twenty bucks a month. So you're looking at five bucks a week. And I'm like, are you gonna tell me in seven days you can't find a way to slash you know, that's not even a dollar a day. That now I sound like Sally Fields back in the days on those those commercials. For sixty-five cents a day, you can feed a podcaster. You know, it's like and I'm just I so I I I the chat rooms I think is kind of uh do do you guys have an all-in-one that you're really happy with? Because I know Riverside, right? I know there are some people that love the fact that it's an editor, it's a short maker, it's a remote recorder. I mean, it does a lot of stuff, but are you using all of the tools on that Swiss Army knife? Because a lot of like the hosting is so bare bones minimum. Yeah, Ralph says one of the problems I see is people want to pay nothing for something and expect it to work great, and you do get what you paid for, yeah. Um Danny Brown from Captivate, I do like the kit newsletter platform and it's solid for creators. I do, yeah. It's I kind of put mine on pause and was just using Substack, but I I I'm kind of missing the kit thing. And also with any kind of email program, and and Substack, yes, it sends email, but it's not real email marketing. You can set up you you've you'll hear people talk about welcome sequences where when they sign up about every two days they get a thing about you, and then you finally pitch them on whatever you're trying to sell. So yeah, yeah, Cliff Ravenscraft's hosts over there, so I was curious. Yeah, I talked uh with Cliff when he's now using Podpage, and he explained that he is grandfather, he's never gonna leave Kajabi because he was one of the first people to sign up when they signed up, and he's got a sweet deal on Kajabi, so I don't expect him to leave anytime soon. Yeah, Uncle Marv says we want to spend zero and make a million. The Danny says there's an AI-powered platform that doesn't offer 301 redirects unless you pay premium. Well, that's not very nice. That's called Holding Your Audience Hostage. And the one and only Jennifer from Bourbon Barrel Podcasting, again, find her at Bourbon Barrel Podcasting.com, says, Hey, I use Riverside for recording, but that's it. Yeah, that's kind of what I used it for. We're gonna switch from Riverside to Restream for Pod Page because we do more live stuff than that. Does Captivate still have plans to launch their Captivate studio product this year? Yes, as far as I know. Definitely this year, because it's only May. I know I think it's next week or the week after they're gonna be rolling out their video stuff. Buzz Sprout just rolled out their video stuff, so that's you know, everybody's getting all giddy about that. I host there now and I'm curious on what the plans are for. Well, my guess is because they're owned by Global, and Global owns, if I remember right, it's Dax, which is this huge. I mean, when I was in London, like every billboard had like some sort of promotion for some media thing, whether it's a movie or whatever, and they were all owned by, you know, eventually all roads led back to global. So the fact that they're owned by global is is a good thing, and it's great, and they can so I expect when they roll out the you know, advertising if you want that kind of stuff, I'm sure it'll be a great integration, and I'm sure it will again be programmatic ads that pay, you know, meh. You know, but yeah, there are some there are I made 53 cents last month on building a better day at Libson. Now that show gets you spend that all in one place? I I bought I went into the local 7-Eleven and just emptied out three-fourths of a Mountain Dew and said, I'm gonna pay for this much. Yeah, so that's the old you know,$5 CPM. But that show gets like maybe 80 downloads an episode, and I never publish. I I finally put out one an episode for like the first time in like two months. So that would help. If I actually published episodes, I might actually make more. John says Riverside is fantastic at everything, recording good audio reliably, reliably, which is the most important aspect. Yeah, it's the thing I I asked the guys over at Riverside, and they said one of the things that happens is because they're recording locally is people and they're recording video locally, and that takes up some hard drive space. So you've got to make sure there's enough space on your hard drive, which I about two weeks ago I looked at mine and all these old Zoom calls that are on my hard drive. I was like, oh, that's why I'm almost out of space, because again, video takes up a lot of space. Yeah. Ralph says, guess what? You're not gonna make a million. Someone needs to say it. It drives me crazy how many hustlers are out there saying it constantly. That was my my newsletter last night over at podcastingobservations.com. I was like, I'm kind of tired of hearing just, you know. Yeah, but if you if you don't try, you definitely won't.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Right. I think it I listen, I think I don't think it's a bad I think sometimes we we demonize this making money thing. I I get I get Ralph's point about these, you know, hey, you can make a million bucks, whatever. You can have some goals to shoot for. I mean, I think you gotta be reasonable, but I don't I don't think it's bad to have some high goals. I mean, hey, I wish home gadget geeks would do a million. It doesn't. Yeah, right? I don't work it that way. That's not the intent of that podcast. But you know, it is. I I I don't think it's a bad I don't think it's bad to have some goals to to to move in that direction if that's what you want to do. You need to expect. I mean, Ralph, you've done this yourself with your rebrandings and your the work that you've done with your podcast and your drive to pick up more listeners, and you've changed things around to try to do that. So, you know, your expectations are are to grow, right? And so you know, the slimy and and uh, you know, the snake oil sales people who are like, oh, you know, dude, if you pay me, I'll grow you. Well, you gotta be careful, right? You gotta get you gotta be careful in that space. But I don't think it's a bad thing to want your podcast to make money, not grow, but make money. I don't think it's a bad thing.

Podcast Growth and Listener Feedback

Processor Requirements for Recording

SPEAKER_03 20:47

No, I don't either. It's just when I go to people, well, how are you gonna make money? I'm like, Are you do you have a product to sell? And they go, no. And I'm like, great. Do you have an email list? No. Okay, do you have uh how how many people are listening right now? And they're like, Well, I get about you know, 18 downloads an episode. I'm like, okay, well, it's nice to wanna that that's my always biggest worries, because hey, guess what? You're not getting many downloads and you're not making any money. It can be kind of a one-two punch. But like I always use the analogy there of like, it's like standing on the scale every day. Your body's gonna fluctuate no matter what you do. It's gonna go up a little, it's gonna go down a little. So don't jump out the window when you see it go up. That's just your body being normal. So I'm always like, look, if you want to start day one trying to make money, that's fine, but just realize is probably not gonna happen for a little bit. Danny from Captivate says, hey, and when it comes to Captive, Studio was pushed back a little as we focused on other big releases like that whole Apple HLS thingy. But Des will be working on it again very soon. Apple Video launches next week. There we go. And then ads and campaign management. Campaign management, I'm looking forward to that one. Assuming that's going to be where I can put in a dynamic piece of content and say, run this until this date, and then put in this little gizmo. That I'm assuming that's what that is. I could be wrong. Yeah, I would with my 53 cents. I went to Dollar Rama and bought half a candy. Yes, you guys are funny. Riverside added a ridiculous minimum CPU and processor requirement that caused issues. Yeah, that is something I always hate to see when they're like, you'll see software and it's like, well, the minimum you need, you know, eight megs of RAM. And you're like, no, it will run on eight megs of RAM, but go get a cup of coffee when you click on file open. That drives me crazy. Like, let's be realistic. Don't lower your standards so anybody will do that.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

So And they meant to say gigs for for my tech. Friends. He meant to say eight gigaram, not mega.

SPEAKER_03 22:49

Yeah, what did I say? Yeah, Meg's would be a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

That'd be 1995. Just because I knew there's some people yelling at you uh behind the scenes. Like, no, it's not Meg's.

SPEAKER_03 22:59

Yeah. Yeah. Ralph says, keep buying those lottery tickets. Uh when I worked at a grocery store, and most of the time I was bagging the groceries, but as time went on, I ended up working in the office. But when I was there for the first couple of years, there was a woman that was a jeweler. We were in kind of a little outdoor mall kind of thing. And she'd walk by and like, I won, you know,$150 today. Like, man, you're so lucky. And then she'd come in a couple days later, oh$80. I'm like, man, she is so lucky. And then when I worked in the office, I saw where she was spending like$300 every time she played the lottery. And I'm like, so when she's like, I won$80 today, it's like, no, I lost$220, is really what happened there.

Gold Rush Analogy for Podcasting

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Yeah. Well, but you won't win the lottery unless you play either. That's right. If you don't win, you don't play. You know, you gotta you gotta kind of think through that. I listen, any anytime the in the podcasting space, it's kind of interesting. Anytime there is a need for that, there's always a group of people who come behind to sell the the wares, the tools, the, you know, during the gold rush, during the California gold rush in the in the 50s, in the 1850s, you know, Levi Strauss came and came along and started making jeans, right? As part of the that was a that came out of that era, right? Uh shovels and all the tools that were needed. Eventually there were more people selling gear to the gold miners than there were gold miners doing the doing the actual work. Did not take long for the hills to run out of gold or for the lottery to, you know, the the the lottery concept of you know, we could we can sell tools to everybody to kind of play out, right? And I think in podcasting, we're gonna see the same thing, right? Eventually this is gonna play out. It'll play out differently, but I I think you know, we're already seeing some declines in the just the sheer number that are coming to it. Now, podcasting is easy to get into, and so a lot of folks who miss the first wave or second wave or whatever wave you want to call us in are coming around to try, you know. Oh, I gotta try a podcast. I gotta try it. So we're always gonna have some of that. But for the coaches, you know, and Dave, we're in that space. You know, we're not we're not selling snake oil. I hope. I hope we're not. But you know, that that mark too, that market too will kind of drain itself, right? It'll just be like, well, okay, all the suckers are all gone. The folks that were had high hopes and dreams are out. And and so I that too will play, I think will play this, will play itself out.

Buzzsprout and Libsyn Video Pricing

YouTube vs. Apple Podcasts for Video

YouTube Live Captions and Dubbing

SPEAKER_03 25:32

Yeah, as we look at the video stuff, I went over to Buzz Sprout. So they they've got their video stuff, they rolled it out this week. And again, it's much like the same plan Captivate was saying is 12 bucks per show per month. And I can see if you're just doing audio, it's 18. If you're doing audio and video, add 12 bucks to that, then you got 30 bucks a month. And then multi-purpose, I'm not quite sure, it's 36 bucks. So for six dollars more, you get audio. This is audio and video, but over here it says audio and audio and oh, I see. Multipurpose. Oh, that's more, that's 15 hours. So you're looking at if you go crazy, right? 100 bucks a month. I said video's not gonna be cheap. So, but the here's the thing that I I was talking, it'll probably come out in a couple weeks. I was talking with uh Justin Jackson from Transistor. And one big difference, if you think about it, when you go, I I don't know about you, when I go to YouTube right now, it's it's like about a level seven of frustration of would you please show me something that I have subscribed to? It's always this new stuff and then a bazillion shorts. I'm like, no, I'm looking for the long form version of Rick Beato. Like, where and then I gotta go to blah, blah, blah, and subscriptions. If Apple does this right, because right now when you go to Apple Podcasts, you can go in and look at the shows that you've subscribed to. So if Apple's not trying to help you find other things to watch, it might be a better experience. And I was like, okay, that, hmm, okay. So that that was one I was like, because I was kind of like, I don't I don't get it, but that would be something to see. So yeah, Uncle Marv says, Meg's, yeah, it was gigs for that. But I did hear, so I went over to Libson's site. Am I still no over at Yeah, so this was Buzz Sprout. They have their their pricing now and they have the monthly and the annual thing. So again, if you're just doing audio, it's eighteen bucks a month for six hours. So that's plenty of time. Libson, they don't have it on their site. I was listening to James Cridlin, and they sent out an email. You'll see here, okay, twenty-five bucks a month, video uploads included, and I think he said yeah, down here, all plans include video uploads up to a hundred gigabytes a month. And I was like, a hundred gigs, I'd have to go and look and see. This is a 90-minute video show, so that's a big file. But like a hundred gigs probably isn't that much if you're doing 1080, isn't it like five megs a minute or something like that? Which would be 300. I don't know. I'll have to to look. But it just it's weird that it's 25 bucks for all it was 12 bucks for audio, and then 25, so again, another 12 bucks. But you also triple the time. Their pricing's really weird, which just looks like they're they're kind of trying to be the podbean. Remember when Podbean still has a plan?$29 a month for unlimited video. And I was always like, wait, what? And then I found out, oh, by the way, we're gonna stamp Podbean at the bottom of your video. And I was like, oh, that's why it's$29 a month. So that'll be interesting. I'm just waiting to see if anybody's gonna actually look at videos on Apple. You know, we'll see, I guess. I I didn't I have not done this. Have you played with live captions on YouTube, Jim?

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Oh, yeah, yeah. We've been doing a lot of work on the you know, YouTube changed uh if you if you haven't been in YouTube in a while, the caption area changed to what they call languages now. And so when you go into that area, they're now dubbing, they're live dubbing, not live dubbing, sorry. That's this is on the recorded side. That they're dubbing that, and then of course they're doing some captioning for all the other languages, so they support all that. I have not done the live stuff, but I I can only imagine we've been doing a lot with that, with those kinds of services with Gallup just from an accessibility standpoint, and they all are working. We don't get anybody complaining about them anymore for the most part, you know. There are some languages that are hard. You know, English to Japanese is hard. Yeah, that's a hard one to do. And so, you know, we get some we get we sometimes, but yeah, there's some really good. I think, I think in the next five years, the whole language thing is gonna be pretty much solved. Like in your translations, video translations live, translating any videos you make, dubbing, voice dubbing, and dub dub over stuff automatically. I think from five years from now we'll be like, yeah, it just does it. You know, just be a part of it.

AI Tools and Their Limitations

Apple Video and RSS

Audience Surveys: Don't Fear the Answers

SPEAKER_03 30:32

Bummer. I was trying, oh, I have to log in. I used a new AI tool last night, and it was cool and it was cheap. They had a lifetime deal, and I bought it, and then it was it wasn't bad, but there wasn't any control. They made it sound like, you know, again, it slices, it dices, it even does, you know, Julienne's, and I was just like, mmm. And it was pausing. I meant to throw that on the roadcaster and I didn't, but it was like, welcome to Ask the Podcast coach with Dave Jackson, Jim Collison in the world's greatest chat room. And I was like, well, can we get a and uh so I'm putting up multiple commas and stuff, and I'll be interested because they said if you're not happy and you've you and you've rendered less than 10 minutes of audio, we'll give you your money back. So I I made them a video, but I'm trying to find the name of it. Don't you hate it when you have that thing that you never have to log into because somehow it just remembers that you've logged in. Well, mine is switchy, and I went to get my little link, and it was it was something like talk. I I guess I could go into my history. But anyway, be be careful of AI tools because they're not all they're all cracked up to be. Another quick update here about the Apple thing. Danny says Apple still follows your subscription preferences, which is great. I've been updating older episodes of the one-minute podcast tips with some video versions, and the podcast remains visible in the library. It just has video. So that's cool. And I was I always go over to Reddit. I went into Facebook today as well, but I saw this one question and I was like, oh, we're we're gonna talk about this because it drives me nuts talking about different things that people don't do. So this person says, look, I'm stuck at 800 downloads an episode. What really moves the needle? He said, I tried the usual stuff, better titles, better thumbnails, because that's something I've seen a few people saying they've gone back and done, and it can help. None of it has moved the number. It maybe goes up to 900, but then it goes down to 700. So he's asking, and I said, Well, the one thing that never goes out of style is an audience survey. Find out what they think about the current content and find out what they want, and then give it to them. Once you give it to them, ask them to share the show in a slow, specific voice. Also check your percentage completion stats, make sure it's easy to follow the show on your site and avoid saying, find me wherever you find your yeah, that drives me nuts. Don't send your audience on a chase, make it easy to follow the show. You also mentioned thumbnails, are you a podcaster or a YouTuber? And the person came back, appreciate the detail breakdown. Honestly, the audience survey is something I've avoided because I was scared of the answers. Come on, kids, you can't be afraid of the answers. Don't fear the answers. But you're probably right that the point of doing it, the percentage completion stat is a fair call out, too. No, it's logical. Like, is your show any good? I haven't looked at those closely in months. Well, there you go. There you go. On the thumbnail question fair, I'm a podcaster, but I do post the episodes to YouTube as video. So thumbnails are part of that distribution. Yeah, sure. Great. Quick follow-up. If you got when you say survey, do you mean a formal thing with a tool or just asking the show itself? I mean I just realized I didn't answer his question because I told him I said, look, Disney lost sixteen million dollars because they kept spending money to promote the Lone Ranger. I need to can I edit this thing?

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Yes. Careful, Dave. You're editing.

Full Disclosure in Advice

SPEAKER_03 34:06

Yeah. Yeah. For the survey, you can use Google Forms or the built-in form in Podpage. Because I'm not promoting, but that's just the truth. See the book The Audience is listening by Tom Webster on how to create a survey. And then I gotta because I'm on Reddit, I didn't do it before, I've got to say I'm the mediator required full disclosure. I'm the head of podcasting at Podpage and the founder of the School of Podcasting. So I just the thing that blew me away was the fact that he was afraid of the answers. You can't be afraid, look, nobody likes bad news, but if somebody, if I made, I don't know, some bread and somebody said there's no salt in this, and maybe like, oh, well, that's ooh, that's nobody's gonna want to eat that. Yeah. So I don't know. Just don't be afraid of the answers because otherwise you're just trying to get something to grow that may not be resonating. I don't know. And Jim, you're a survey guy.

Using AI for Audience Surveys

Testing Survey Questions

SPEAKER_01 35:15

You know, surveys are good. They are, they are. They're it's key that you think about them a little bit though. Like I would say, and this is an area actually AI could really help you out. If you are going to do an audience survey of your own, run that thing through whatever AI you use a couple times. Like, because we all think we're asking great questions. Uh, you're not, generally. It's you know, a lot of people are like, oh no, this is what I want to know. And you're like, well, that's not how the question's being read by most people, right? And then you can ask them, you know, you can lead the witness, so to speak, with your questions. You can write questions that are biased towards what you want to hear. And that's okay. I mean, if you just want confirmation, that's fine. But if you're really looking to get something out of them, part of my, you know, I don't write questions, you know, my my my job at Gallup is not the survey side of things. But I've hanging around these survey research folks, the way they ask the questions, the way they test the questions over time, the way they work with the questions. I was like, oh, wow, this is a lot harder than I thought it was writing questions. So, you know, with AI, this should be a good one of starting your prompt with what are you trying to achieve, right? What are you trying to do? You might even give it some sample questions of some things that you've thought of. Then role play those questions through your audience. Give the AI who your audience demographics are. If you don't know that, and it's okay. I mean, you should know, but if you don't know that, try to get try to figure it out in some way, right? What are my audience demographics? Who's listening to this? Then work through those questions, role play those questions through with AI. Don't take the first, definitely don't take the first run of this, Dave. If there's one thing AI and lately has been doing more and more of, is it's I feel like it's sandbagging a little bit the first, like, here's 25% of the answer. And then you're like, could it be better? Oh, of course it could be better. And it gives you like 50%, right? And so, you know, my my conspiracy theory is it's doing that on purpose to get you to continue to interact with it, to use your tokens, some of those kinds of things. But that aside, make sure you're you're you know, you're going through those questions pretty pretty in-depth. Test them out a little bit and then use them. You know, then then use them. That's a good if you want to trend them, don't change them. That's the other thing, you know. You this is why it's important to really get good questions the first time, because six months from now, if you want to ask them again and you want to trend those, super important. You ask the same questions, right? Just to see where your audience has moved. So don't don't write down three questions in five minutes and then send them. Make sure you're getting some feedback on those questions for sure.

Podcast Audits and Listener Parties

SPEAKER_03 38:08

Yeah. Let's see here. Yeah, Danny says the user would benefit from a podcast audit. Not enough podcasters do that for various reasons. We do a thing called a listener party at the School of Podcasting, and we've just really started doing those, and everyone has been amazing. Like Dave Cohen is a guy that does a show about the Shakespeare mindset. And what he learned was, because Dave's very much a theater guy, loves Shakespeare, and he said it's not it's not really so much for Shakespeare people, but this is one of those where kind of his inside jokes you would get if you were a theater nerd, which I was not. And I was like, I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying I may not be your target audience. There were a couple other people listening, and that's where you just gotta figure out, you know, Chris says nobody likes to hear feedback unless it's all positive. That's really what a survey is. Would you please agree with everything I've ever done and tell me how great of you are?

The Nature of Feedback

SPEAKER_01 39:06

Sometimes, yeah, I mean, sometimes for sure, but you you can, I mean, yeah, you gotta be willing to. I mean, we've talked about this uh in the past. You gotta be willing. There's times you get feedback and it's wrong. Right too. Right. Yeah, we've gotten wrong feedback. Yeah, and you're just like, oh, okay, no, I appreciate that feedback, but I'm not changing. I'm not changing that. That's a core component of what we do. This is the hard part about feedback. Is it's not all good, it's not all bad. You've got to do some things to be like, do do we do I want to change this? Is this a core part of who I am and what I do? Is this if I change this for one person, would I drive away 10? Right. And so it's it's you you gotta you gotta kind of work through the feedback of, you know, I I I get that all the time. I got some feedback early on when I first started podcasting about the way I look at the camera. And I don't. And I I my eyes are all over the place. And I I was like, could I spend a whole bunch of time figuring that out? Should I?

unknown 40:11

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Do people not listen to me because of that? Well, 90% of everything that I make is listened to on audio, right? You know, that 10% that's video, does that really matter? I decided I'll I'll work on it, but I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna hyperfixate on it. Do everything I can to make that work, but that's just not it's just not an area I'm gonna spend my time developing. I'd rather develop the content. I'd rather develop spending time with the audience. I'd rather do more engagement type things than whether I stare into the camera, which I'm doing right now, stare into the camera or not, right? So that's that that's the kind of feedback that's hard, right? You know, that it's and it's hard. Listen, it is hard to take people's feedback. It just is. But you still got to take it. Yeah.

Deciding What Feedback to Act On

SPEAKER_03 41:01

Well, and I mean sometimes you gotta say no, I'm not gonna change too. Because we had that one guy that wanted us to do like interviews, and we're like, hey, thanks for the feedback, but that's not what this show is. Yeah. Ralph says, uh, you have to start with the truth and clarity. We have to sometimes realize that what we're trying to do is not working and either change it or stop doing it. Tough love is honesty. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

No, I listen, listen, I I thought, like, as we think about feedback, I thought, Ralph, you moving away from your Ask Ralph brand, giant mistake. Like, gigantic mistake. You had spent a lot of time and effort. I thought it was, I thought personally, I thought it was a good brand. I thought you should have doubled down on that. You didn't. That's okay. That I I gave you that, you know, that was feedback I gave you at one point in time where we were doing this. You chose, you chose to go the other direction. That's that's the essence of feedback, right? And so it's all okay. But you know, we we the the I think the problem gets when we start fighting about it, or we start getting angry about it, or we start getting like, you know, defensive about it. And I think you just gotta kind of see like, well, no, that's the they're the choices that I made. You know, that's that's what that's what I'm doing. So it's hard. It's it's yeah, this feedback thing is difficult.

Kenny Rogers Podcast Idea

Ralph's Rebranding Success

SPEAKER_03 42:17

It is. Danny is singing in the chat room. You gotta know when to listen, know when to act on, know when to walk away, know where to run. Yeah, R.I.P. Kenny Rogers. I was almost I was trying to talk Kenny Rogers into doing a podcast. I met his assistant in Nashville, and I didn't realize the real the real Kenny Rogers? The real Kenny Rogers. Yeah, this is uh what happened was I helped a woman who's a private investigator. She's been on like 2020, she's been on TV, and she actually got more reliable leads towards it was a true crime thing, and she's a private investigator. And she said, Hey, I'm I'm launching the show. I'm gonna be in a room with other private investigators. Do you want to come down to my launch party? So I drove down to Tennessee to go to her launch potty, and I'm sitting next, and this lovely woman sits down and she's like, and I'm like, Well, what do you do? She's like, Oh, I'm an assistant for Kenny Rogers. And I'm like, no, kidding. And she's like, nope. I go, Kenny should have a potty. She's like, Oh, she goes, Man, he has stories. And I was like, Well, let's put a microphone in front of Kenny, let's go, you know. And I didn't realize at the time he was really already pretty sick, and so it never happened. But she did nine months later. So this is one of those things where you don't know when you're planting seeds, but I met her, she was great, we had a good time. And uh nine months later, she's like, You probably don't remember me, but I'm Kenny Rogers' assistant. I'm like, Yeah, I do remember you. And she was starting another podcast, and she was, oh, I I met that podcast guy at uh the party. So yeah, so what else is going on here? Oh, they're making more verses. Chris Ness Chris from Castahead.net. Yes, Kenny Rogers, yeah. Going back to you mentioned how Ralph had changed his brand. I made the change, and just two days ago the show hit number five in Christian Finance Podcast. Nice. Just after Dave Ramsey, who is the major player in the market. Is that on listen notes, though? That's my question. Be very careful. Every time I see, oh, I'm a top 3% podcast, I'm like, please quit using um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

But the thing about feedback, right? Yeah. Maybe we can maybe we can wrap it up with this.

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Yeah.

The Value of Listener Notes

The Linear Nature of Feedback

SPEAKER_01 44:29

The thing about feedback is you'll never know what's happened, what's what would have happened if you hadn't if you hadn't gone that direction. You get one, you know, you get you get to go one direction and one direction only when you're changing things to make feedback, and you can never go back. You could always you can kind of speculate, be like, well, if I hadn't done that or if I had done that or I wish I had done that, you never know, right? It's uh life's very linear from that standpoint. And so you know it that's the maddening thing about feedback from time. You never know if what if you hadn't done that? Or what if what if you did and you what if you did follow someone's advice and what would have happened if you didn't? You never know. It could have been worse or better. You just don't know. I think the key is continue, you know, in this is to to do it the way you want to do it. Right. You follow your take the take people's advice. You follow your path you do you think you do what makes you sleep at night. This was some advice that a financial guy gave me a long time ago. He's like do what helps you sleep at night because you can't if you're if you're if you're miserable, if you're struggling, if it's causing bad health, you know, you you gotta justify if it's worth it to you to do those kinds of things. So at the end of the day, you be you.

Apple Video and APIs vs. RSS

SPEAKER_03 45:43

That's it. And sometimes you get good feedback. Randy's like hey did you get my follow-up on because I thought I understood how this whole video HLS thing worked and I was talking with Justin and I need to go back and see how he said it but he made it sound like HLS video is in tandem with RSS and you need an RSS fee to do this whole Apple thing. And on and Randy sent me this thing that James Gridlin had put out and it says Apple how it technically works Apple Podcast is not doing video via RSS. Well there you go that's pretty you still need an RSS fee to publish a show that's where the your episode titles and description but once you've published the audio your podcast hosting provider needs to separately send Apple Podcast URL to an HLS multivariant playlist which is apparently where they're getting the but isn't that well this is the whole thing. Send Apple Podcasts a URL I thought that was done via an RSS for for the episode to Apple Podcast. This is sent to Apple using not RSS but an API which means I'm I'm I kind of get it but it just sounds a heck of a lot more complicated than RSS and I I get it.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

But I I had accidentally API gives them more control.

SPEAKER_03 47:08

Yeah and I accidentally I accidentally said that uh this was all delivered via RSS and Randy's like no it's not and I was like oopsie so I'll be repeating that on the school of podcasting because that was one where I was wrong. And the part of that was I got most of my information about HLS from James and some other shows that they were talking about it but listening and reading are different and apparently I just kind of skimmed this article when it first came out. So yeah and then and Randy says yeah that's why they have to go to a to Apple to get an API key to add to their podcast settings with their media host yada yada yada my worry about that is because I already know like Libson you can publish to Spotify via API or whatever they're doing over there and I'm like the further and further we get away from RSS it's all fun and games until it gets kicked off APIs are closed ecosystems friends they that's the the the people who own the API keys are the the providers right and if they decide to shut off your key for whatever reason it doesn't work anymore.

APIs and Closed Ecosystems

SPEAKER_01 48:17

You know and and RSS you control that that's your open that it's not a it's not an API technically right but that's your open API key for other people to gain access to your podcast so for sure it makes total sense that Apple would control this right yeah if we if we look at them and expect them to do anything different like that's mate what's the definition of insanity right I mean it's just not that's not gonna happen. They're gonna control this and there's reasons they should so you know agree with them or not that's that's up to you right but the there's reasons they they do it they they listen the the reason we struggled so early with stats in podcasting is RSS it's a problem. Yeah it was because there's no consolid it there's no consolidated or there's no control over that in a in a way that that makes sense. What makes it good also makes it bad for those kinds of things you know and so they're gonna they're they're gonna control this thing for sure.

SPEAKER_03 49:26

That's like Spotify did right so well and here's the thing Randy says the hope was that Apple would support the alternate enclosure but that doesn't look likely now that they have launched this API.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

Well this is that is a good hope Randy that's a good hope by the way but it's it's disappointing that it doesn't.

Bots and Bandwidth Costs

Podcast Scams and Remote Takeovers

SPEAKER_03 49:42

Well the thing that we're gonna run into with you know limits on these videos like oh you get X amount of storage but you get X amount of bandwidth and after this you have to pay more for the bandwidth is James mentioned in the latest episode of Pod News Week a review that I think it was 30% of because he's he's tracking who's coming to his site and 30% of it was bots. And so like I think it was no it was Buzz Sprout. Somebody asked them are you going to be putting these videos on the Buzz Sprout website because you can you get you know all hosts give you kind of a basic web host or you know web page and they're like are you going to put the video on the webpage and they're like no not currently why because 30% of that traffic is bots and if the bots are coming around and clicking on video your band and it's just one of those things like be careful what you ask for because now you got a bunch of bots clicking your video and your bandwidth is going to go up so your bill's going to go up. So that's going to be interesting. So yeah Randy says they did add transcripts and chapters via the RSS tag. So Apple is listening. If you I I kept pointing out on social and in my newsletter to James just did a report card that he'll be reporting on in London at the pod show which I'm not going to unfortunately because you know basement issues. But yeah so that's the 30% bot thing was like that's I knew it was a lot so we shall see here's a fun PSA from Emma Korsch. She says hey scammers are now using inviting people on podcasts as their way to trick people into remote takeover scams the ones where they get you into stall software under the guise of tech support I don't even know what to recommend here because they're using all the right names and context they're just asking you know if you just install this use your own email and Facebook details to log in. They like if they ask you for that get out of the Zoom call immediately a podcast I produce is knee deep in people contacting us saying they've been approached and even got as far as having the zoom call and only getting out when the scammers tried to gain remote access. So yeah you don't need to install software to do an interview.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

So and if you if they ask you to log in with Facebook just run, do not walk that it's you know I would be such a bad criminal I didn't even think of that like you could send a link to someone that's just injected with all kinds of bad stuff. Like hey join us here right and it could look like a zoom link or you know you could use it could say zoom.com something something but it goes to something else right and when you open that it's like hey do you agree like when we go to you know when we go to StreamYard or we go over it wants to take control of your microphone and camera right do you agree do you all that to allow right you could inject it with that to when that happens it also agrees to do other things and then it's maliciously gotten control of your computer I'm I'm a bad criminal I never would have thought to inject that in a in a podcast link. Yeah be careful friends no know who you're connecting to right that that's the thing right you're a new podcaster and you're thinking like oh people want to invite me to to be on the show and we always say right go like how do you get known be on other people's shows right so they contact you through this there there's yeah I never thought of that.

SPEAKER_03 53:14

But when they're on Zoom that's where the interview takes place when they're like no no we're gonna log into this other thing and I need your Facebook no no no that's that's bad.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

So no I think even worse they it gives them they're behind the scenes stealing your data yeah right while you're on the podcast that's brilliant that's terrible that's terribly brilliant it's terrible yeah all right well it's it's time for one of these speaking of not important this this one drove me nuts.

The Guest Posting Pet Peeve

SPEAKER_03 53:47

This was in the Christian podcaster's Facebook group I won't say the person's name but he said looking for new guests for the month of May and the reason this is a power rant it would have been really helpful if he said what his podcast was about or maybe what his perfect guest would be like or what I was just like that's it I'm looking for guests does anyone have a pulse I will tell I was like what because I get it that you're looking but and on one hand he didn't promote his show but he could have said hey I do a podcast about blank I'm looking for guests who can talk about blank if you're you know is there anyone here and and plus also there are a lot of Facebook groups that are geared just for you know there's pod match there's all sorts of different places you can go and I was just like oh you you gotta be kidding me Jim when you work with coaches do they come because this was another question I see a lot which is how much do I charge to record an interview between hosts and a guest? So this was kind of a you know some sort of producer or something like that. And not so much that specific question but just if somebody came up to you and said hey Jim I've I've I've done the coaching thing I've I've read the book I'm certified blah blah blah how much should I charge for this? What are things people need to think about? Yeah I mean it's always oh go ahead keep going well for me I always think whatever you're thinking of remember 30% of that is going to go to Uncle Sam if you're in the U.S. Oh sure so but what else do they have to think about?

Pricing Coaching Services

SPEAKER_01 55:26

Yeah I mean it's a standard it's a question we get all the time like how much do you charge for coaching? And it's like well how much are people willing to pay you to do this right this is what's really really important is not how much do other people charge. The question is how much will they pay you to do this? Right? And so you got to do some market now a market analysis, market testing. You got to see what are other people charging in that space. What will it take for someone to believe that you can do the job and then separate them the their money and give it to you right in that and so it kind of depends on how good you are what your marketing looks like what your background is do other people trust you in that and so it's a very it's a varied form of it right this isn't a market there's a where there's necessarily a lot of established pricing in there. There's some and so you got to do some market research like what are other people charging what's the what what's it based on on region and need what does your customer look like certainly the more affluent your customer is the more like the less things they want to do themselves so they're gonna pay you right if you're going into a value market and those people are not used to paying anybody for anything well you offering your services whatever those happen to be going to fall a little bit on deaf ears right because you're going into a value market. If you're going into an affluent market like if you're if you're working with people who are very successful and very busy and you can create value for them that's worth more than what they're paying you like that's what those people understand. Like oh I pay you a hundred I get a thousand back okay I'll do that all day long right then your odds are better right of winning that customer so to speak. Same thing if you're thinking about are my customers retail retail's tough market right when you're going after individuals and you're trying to separate individuals from their money to pay you to do these things that's much more that's much tougher of a proposition than are am I am I going to a business where I have I'm working with someone there who it's not really their money. You know it's not they're they're pulling it from their expense account and they're not feeling the the fee right so the the the question of right what's the right thing to do what what how much should I charge it's way more complicated than most people think. And it takes a little bit of work to get to that that dollar amount when you take all and there's a few more things that you know you guys are probably already asleep with me talking about this but it's just it's a difficult question, right?

SPEAKER_03 58:09

Well I I thought I would ask I thought we'd go over and test our good friends in artificial intelligence. Yeah so I've got a question here I said I'm a podcast coach I sell coaching by the hour I want to make eighty thousand dollars a year why because I know 20% of that or 30% of that is going to Uncle Sam. Uh I will also take two weeks off a year. That's another thing you got to keep in mind. I expect my calendar to be 70% full what should my hourly rate be and we'll see what our what our good friends at Perplexity have to say. It's thinking it's researching your hourly rate should be about eighty two dollars and eighty cents an hour to net$80,000 in build coaching revenue with two weeks off in a calendar that's 70% full works per week is now 50 total hours in a year is 50 weeks times 40 hours is 2,000 hours. Bill hours at 70% is 2,000 times 0.7 means 1400 hours the hourly rate needed to get 8000 you divide that by the 1400 hours is$5714 per hour if you only care about the gross annual revenue. So it goes through the whole thing here.

AI Calculates Hourly Rate

Market Analysis for Pricing

SPEAKER_01 59:13

But that's the thing you have to keep in mind that you're gonna take and also 70% full that's pretty full and you've got to read this is how this is helpful right this gives you a really good calculation of like okay to get to that revenue goal this is what I'm gonna need to do. And I would round it up to a hundred bucks like 100 bucks an hour to do that. Then I would do some use having that figure I would go to the market and say can what the services I'm providing can it bear a hundred dollars an hour right are there other people doing this for more or less right in in that space and then begin to think what will the market bear and are customers paying for this and is it an oversaturated market or is it underserved? Right? If it's underserved you got a real opportunity then the the other question I have to ask is do I know enough people to be able to get this into the market and start gaining do doing customer acquisition right? How am I going to acquire these customers who are willing to pay this hundred dollars then once you start if you got all those things satisfied right if you can figure all of that out when you start getting business if you don't have enough you got to come off that hundred dollars. So you start discounting yeah you start pulling that thing down oh yeah 10% off if you take it today I'll do 25% off we'll do 75 right if you get too busy you raise your prices right that's it's that at that point it's pulling levers right you're just being like hey if I'm too busy my I'm too cheap. If I'm not busy enough I'm too expensive or I don't I'm not doing enough marketing right in that in that case right when you when you when you're thinking about I don't I don't have enough business you have to ask yourself the question of both price and availability of those people to do people know about me? Do they have the opportunity to make that decision? When you're too when you're when you're too busy I'm not gonna say marketing doesn't matter because it still does right you still you still need right you still need to do marketing. It's an easier lever to pull just rage prices for your next next set of customers rage prices.

AI and Expertise

AI for Episode Titles and Categories

Podcast Editors Academy and Pricing

SPEAKER_03 1:01:19

Yeah right Ralph makes a point your AI query fails to take into consideration someone's expertise and value you're just that is true. And also you know there's a difference between podcast coaching and I don't know brain surgeon you know what I mean the the the problem you are solving has a lot to do with that. Well reputation has something to do with it right if you've got good name recognition in the space that's different than if nobody knows who you are that the that prompt could could just grow exponentially as you're thinking about all those kind of all like ChetGPT or or uh uh Claude or Perplexity they'd be good at market analysis like it'd be good to go in and say hey what are people charging in this space for these kinds of skills doing these kinds of things I've got this experience add that in as well right yeah I did a thing where I downloaded my episode titles and my totals from captivate and then threw that into I think I used ChatGPT and said hey these are my episode titles and my numbers based on this you know what what kind of episodes are working can you come up with categories it and it just I mean I sat there for probably a half hour which is a long time and in the end I was like well what let's look at the episode titles and it would it gave me some really interesting stuff because again it's artificial intelligence but it was enough there I was like it and even said here are some things to think this is going to be an episode of the the School of Podcasting of the future what I need to go now is go now that I've got an idea I want to go do the research and get some real life examples to point out. But I've seen a number of people in different Facebook groups say they went in and they redid their episode titles and they got more clicks and I'm like well yeah duh you know it's it's nobody's gonna click on you know episode 16 Dave Jackson like you know you've got to have something there. Yeah yeah Tim is talking about air which he gave me what that stands for the Association of Independent Radio. I know Steve Stewart Steve Stewart over at the Podcast Editors Academy is charging I think the average is like a hundred bucks an episode. Like that's the that's if depending again on if it's audio or video, I mean I should probably say hey if you're really looking for an editor, I I you should go over and check out Jen over at Bourbonbarrel podcasting.com I was looking for she doesn't have her fees on her website because which is probably a good thing I anytime I ever take on an editing client I'm like you got to send me what you're gonna send me because I can't you know I I've had people do the old bait and switch. They'll do one in their office. I had somebody uh this this week that I swear they put their phone on a table and two people are sitting around a table and I was like that is not what you know I and I that's why I bill my clients by the hour. You give me crap and it takes me longer your bill goes up that's it's easy. Yeah. And then Ralph says I can get paid more because I'm the Dave Jackson. I don't know about that but we'll see.

Editing Clients and Crap Audio

Leveraging Reputation

SPEAKER_01 1:04:35

No you could you could I mean that reputation is an important part in that in that value proposition right the question is where does that reputation land on that customer? Like yes to everybody listening here you are the Dave Jackson but for folks I mean not everybody knows what that means in the podcasting space. To brand new podcasters that doesn't mean anything to them I get at at Gallup you know I get like a lot of folks in the Gallup ecosystem know me right just because of the work that I do. But people are like you're famous I'm like no no no I'm Gallup famous like let's be really really clear here folks outside of Gallup nobody cares who I am that's not a thing not known outside of that so knowing the genre knowing your reach of that of that brand right Dave Jackson is your brand Dave Jack Hall of Famer Dave Jackson that's your brand knowing that reach is super important as well for brand new podcasters Dave you probably need to do some training and education to let them know how important you are right you're gonna you need a hype video so before they start engaging in your services they're like oh you know oh that guy is important I'm like do you know how important I am in podcast let me tell you how great I am sit down showing exactly nobody nobody cares about who I am outside of the Gallup circle and I'm okay with that right knowing that it is nice right but when also knowing that when I'm in those circles is super important as well right to to know like okay I've got to be careful about how I present myself and what I do and I the things I say in those circles super important that I understand that.

AI vs. Human Consultants

SPEAKER_03 1:06:24

Well you choose podcasts as also what do you offer as a consultant that free AI prompting doesn't that's the thing got to realize like I just went there and typed in a question into perplexity got an okay answer that took all of I don't know two minutes if that you know so if I do a podcast about how to choose the right price for your services that's I don't know twelve minutes long. It better have something more than what Perplexity just did because that took two minutes and you're asking for twelve. That's the part where I think we're as podcasters, we're all going to have to kind of up our game a bit. The other thing is Nah, I I I mean it gave its source. So I I don't think that was a hallucin hallucination. Todd says it can also create a picture of profit uh profitability and whether the person wants to devote that kind of time to get into that reality. Because that's the thing is getting that 70% of your calendar filled means you got to do some marketing somewhere. It's not just a case where I can throw open a shingle and go, look, a podcast editor, look, I'm a life coach. Look, I'm you know whatever it is.

AI and Podcast Game

SPEAKER_01 1:07:34

Yeah your lights are flickering today. I saw what's I know I know it's weird. I I don't I I've got one light that's being a little weird on me. It's and I don't have any control over it from like all my other lights I can control from the desk here through home automation stuff. That that set of lights is kind of controlless. So it's like oh boy I can't turn I have to get up if I'm going to turn that thing off I got to get up. It's battery it's got a battery backup and it must have must have run out or something. But one of those things, you know, it it's never flickered before but now I'm thinking like well it's probably time to replace those replace those lights. They're a couple years old.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:12

Could be I I know of the you know the air thing that we were talking about. Danny says TK Dutz is co-president of the board at Air. She's awesome and and air does really good stuff for indie creators so I need to go over and and sniff that again because you know and then yeah Ralph says this is why you hire publicists to promote your brand yeah they got to get the information out there.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:37

Well more so to be a brand coach I think in some ways because we get locked into our own you know our the our own image of ourself and not all publicists you know maybe certainly shouldn't listen to everything they say. But you're kind of hiring a brand coach right to be like hey you might want to think about these things see beyond what you can see you know some of those kinds of things are it's you're just a it's just a brand coach right is what a publicist does.

Promoting Your Brand

SPEAKER_03 1:09:05

Yeah John Dramango says I'm the best kept secret in podcasting. If you know you know it's because he's the if you ever listen to Elsie and Rob, you're listening to John Dremango. John I was thinking because I don't know that John has a website anymore. He did for a while and then he kind of retired and then you know and then they pulled me back in you know to quote uh whatever that is the the Godfather or Scarface or something like that. If you wanted just a basic one page website I have yet to really play with it. I'm looking into this for my sister-in-law but there's Google sites can make a single one page website if you just need something to you know say I'm here here's where you can hire me to give me money it's something to look into let's yeah oh I love this your rebellious intuition says AI will start with that's a great idea even if it's not that is true.

Google Sites for Basic Websites

AI and Its Engagement Tactics

AI Making Us Smarter

SPEAKER_01 1:09:57

Well it wants to engage you it wants to engage you like how listen how often do human podcasters say that's a great question when it really isn't right you know we we're interviewing somebody or they're we're taking it's QA and listen we've all done this Dave Jackson I know you've done this I've done it too you're taking you've just got done speaking you're taking some QA time and somebody says hey what's two plus two and you go you know that's a great question right because we all taught to use that phrase right to get a few extra seconds to think you know that's a really great and it's really not this is not an AI thing. Humans do this too we are notorious for stalling or pumping somebody up right we're just trying to it's it's what it's trying to do is create some engagement with you right it's trying to say okay yeah that is okay yeah that's kind of interesting that you're thinking along these lines I think in the last six weeks I've been doing a lot of AI I think it's made me smarter like certainly I'm doing more thinking now than I did before I was getting bored with tech. Yeah it's like I'm just gonna watch YouTube videos all day. This stuff is boring. And over the last six weeks diving in with open claw and doing some other things around the AIs getting them to talk to each other has actually I think has actually engaged my brain more. I mean I'm this last night I just had to stop working I was like okay I can't I can't think about this AI stuff anymore. It's just like I I need a I need a a brain break. So I I think personally for me it's made me smarter it's it's given me it's doing some things for me that I don't really need to be doing or I'm not good at that but it's caused me to think in different ways that I'm like oh you know what if I did it this way I could actually get better results. So contrary for me I I think it's making me smarter. Certainly that's like saying spellcheck made me dumber no spell tech just protected me from being an idiot right for that for for the for people knowing how bad I am at spelling right yeah so I I don't yeah Ralph was worried it was making us dumber and lazier and then Craig from AI Goes to College says fewer people know how to use AI well for complex questions and problems. That's no it's just a tool friends it's just a tool like that's not and not the tool in the bad kind of way but the tool in a good kind of way right it's like you know it's like saying like you know a manual screwdriver boy I tell you what these these electric drills now these these electric they they make us weaker and you're like no no no they do the job faster so we can do more yeah like this is the thing we have to understand like let it free up some of these things not so I mean so you can do more or you can do what you want.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:44

I want AI to grocery shop put the groceries away wash the dishes and do the laundry that's really what I want AI to do because those are the things that I hate.

AI for Tedious Tasks

SPEAKER_01 1:12:54

It's coming there will be a day there will be trust me there there will be a day you know AI goes to college says Jim do you you feel the same way about the emergence of the web and the internet listen I'm I I've I have been a full embracer of all these things. I kind of you know uh I kind of wish I was younger because this is cool like there's some amazing things coming with all this stuff and yeah it's wrought with questions and you know remember when the when the internet came out and they were still producing like internet yellow pages like physical books you could go to right we don't we see they that's dumb now right the internet put a lot of things out of business right but it created a lot of new things too and so I I think there's some exciting some excit excitement in this allows us to do things differently than we did before. Call that what you want right but it's it's it allows us we make individual choices and allows us to either do some cool things or maybe not do cool things with it.

The Evolution of Technology

Thanks to Our Awesome Supporters

School of Podcasting and Listener Parties

SPEAKER_03 1:13:54

There you go. Well do you know who's not dumb that would be our awesome supporters and of course we want to say thanks to Jen over at Bourbonbarrel podcasting.com she's not dumb either. In fact she's really smart she's a speaker she's a coach she's an editor and an expert and Jen thanks again for your awesome support over at bourbonbarrel podcasting.com there'll be a link in the show notes to that but uh not just Jen we have other people who are really really awesome and we're talking about people like well hey since he's in the chat room AI goes to college if you want to get a nice podcast about AI and in this case kind of in an education space we've got whoa since he's in the chat room castahead.net that's Chris the content creatorsaccountant com and spyberry good old Shane we've got indie drop in I am Salt Lake all these people are awesome supporters and we really appreciate that and the show is brought to you by the schoolofpodcasting dot com where you get courses you get coaching and an amazing community and as I mentioned we added this new thing called listener parties where you get to watch people listen to your show because you know when they're supposed to laugh and when they're supposed to cry and I got that idea from Ron Howard and it seems to be working for him because he has like 80 million Emmys and a couple Oscars and all that fun stuff. If you need some honest feedback we're talking about that earlier today check out podcasthotseat.com it is not as painful as it sounds I am that's another one that's like eventually when I get some of this basement stuff behind me I will go back and actually finish my rebrand to uh fix my podcast. Podpage keeps rolling out new features if you haven't tried it yet go to trypodpage.com we let's see what did we roll out automated if you're let's say you're on Libson and Libson doesn't do transcripts well guess what Podpage has got you covered when we import your stuff and we see you don't have a transcript we will make one for you if you're on our elite plan. So we're always adding new stuff and we've got a town call coming up this week so if you're on our newsletter you will hear about that. And if you need more Jim Cullison and look who doesn't just go over to theaverage guy.tv there's tons of Jim there.

Podcast Hotseat for Feedback

SPEAKER_01 1:16:07

Follow the show and go back through his whole back catalog and you can what would be like an out of date thing that you might have done like because you did it like eight years ago is there anything you're like ooh we have a thing here about you know yeah well I mean we have old technology like Windows seven we spent a lot of time talking about Windows and Skype.

Podpage Features and Transcripts

Home Gadget Geeks

Featured Supporter: Aviation News Talk

Radio Ads on Podcasts

Hate Bad Ads, Not Ads

SPEAKER_03 1:16:29

Skype is another nice so go over and check out the Skype episode on the average guy TV we did we did we do these things called uh lunch with Dave every Friday we spent like four minutes talking about when cell phones were the size of your head and you know they were a thousand dollars and you know free free calls on nights and weekends we went down memory lane it's kind of fun when you remember all the stuff that we used to go through but it's time to pick our featured supporter and to do that we go to the wheel of name so who will it be will it be Ralph over at financially confident Christian is it Craig from AI Goes to College Glenn at Horse Radio Network or Jody over at audio branding that we got a bunch of people on here we're gonna spin the wheel round and round it goes and the winner is oh is it no seriously almost it was going to be Jen but it's Max over at fixed fix yeah it's a fix man but it's Max over at Aviation News Talk if you are a pilot or are just into aviation that's a really cool show aviationnews talk.com is where you can find them and Max thanks so much for being an awesome supporter and if you're sitting there listening and you go man they keep talking about that that Jen girl from Bourbonboro podcasting dot com well yeah when you sign up to be an awesome supporter because I don't know maybe we saved you some time or we saved you some money or we saved you some headaches maybe we kept you educated maybe it's time for you to go over to ask the podcastcoach.com slash awesome and there are yearly plans available we should mention that as well but thanks to everyone for being an awesome supporter so with that done let me head back over to Reddit and see or my notejoy in this case here's something I thought was interesting and I it's it's not really even a question but it's just true. This guy says for all the talk about how podcasters are unique, it's an intimate listening experience we've inevitably ended up with radio ads on podcasts. I remember Midrol, Gimlet and others 7 a.m in Australia making ads that appreciated the medium and the listening experience then thanks to a lack of enthusiasm and financial incentive and do I dare say creativity, I'll throw in in there many podcasts were handed radio ads and listeners are worse off for it. If you work in the industry or get a day in what if you get or get a day in what ads run on your podcast, please try and deliver ads that appreciate the listener. They'll probably appreciate and remember the ads and the product more too mid-roll in the late 2010s would come out with great studies on this. Yeah Edison Research does it's not that people hate ads they hate bad ads and as they and other podcast first companies were consolidated we lost the opportunity for premium revenue amounts and premium ads for the audience please note this cannot be true for the whole industry there are people making great podcast ads too thankfully there's a great amount of diversity still in the medium Bill Burr the comedian is known for his in some cases almost rude ads where he's just like who we I guess there was one for Sherry Berry's where he's like what is Sherry's like what is this like I don't even understand he kind of made fun of the product and people love that. And so for me I like one of the things I have on my list today is to make some more ads for the school of podcasting because the thing that drives me nuts uh it's convenient but I listen to a show where their last like their ending is the same ending. So as soon as I hear and number one you notice that they're talking and then all of a sudden ever so slightly the audio is just a little different because they've switched to the ending and they're like and you know and thanks so much for listening. Hey if you enjoyed today's show blah blah blah and it's the same so the good news is if you look at your app and you go oh that's at the minute 48 minute second mark in many apps like I use Pocketcast I can say skip the last minute 48 seconds so I never hear that same ending again. But I I know one of the things that drives people nuts like I think I have right now one ad for Podpage and I'm like yep need to come up with about three more just to rotate through those so it's not the same thing over and over and over again. So keep that in mind.

Skipping Podcast Endings

SPEAKER_01 1:21:09

I used to I used to end a show one of our shows at Gallup actually all the shows I'd say with that one we want to remind everyone to take full advantage of all the resources we have available in Gallup access and then I would have this thing that I would say right but to make it not the same I would throw like Easter eggs in there each time. So you know it'd be like oh okay he's at the end but I'm gonna listen because there might be something I haven't heard in there yet right so it's the same I want to get the same I want to get the same information to them like do this do that here's a CTH I want to drill this into you which I think is important. Like there are some things I want them to hear from me every single time but introducing new content to that scripted language gets them thinking like okay I still need to listen to it because I might hear an Easter egg in there. So just kind of think about you know as you're if you're gonna do that in your shows I don't think it's bad. I don't think repetition is bad. I think it's actually good in some of the stuff that we do right it reinforces the brand from that perspective. But you can mix it up a little bit so folks know like oh I should probably listen to this because there might be something different because the last time I did it I got something new out of the out of the deal so it's a good it's a good way to kind of shake it up.

Easter Eggs in Podcast Endings

SPEAKER_03 1:22:29

I don't do them on purpose I wish I that that would be more fun but I I well I just did one. When my mouth doesn't work if it's really something that I'm like I just made up a word what what is hydrocona s you know and be like alright and I'm like that's a blooper. And I started putting them at the end of my show and I still have people like I thought you were perfect and I'm like oh so far from it but they'll now listen because they'll like a lot of times I'll be like I'll get mad at myself and you hear me you know like just get mad. I I could guess that's entertaining. In talking about AI Ralph says I was confront concerned it's making people weaker and then Craig says supposedly Plato had the same concern about written text because you need to keep it all up in your noggin.

Blooper Reels

SPEAKER_01 1:23:14

Yeah we're not remembering as much as we used to listen any any technology can be used for good and for evil and for bad oh right we've had this we've had this discussion over in throughout history you know all the old timers are like that new fangled internet or those that TV or that radio right you know we were always always worried and concerned about these you know new technologies that were coming on oh this is not the way it used to be it all comes down to how to use it right and so it's not the technology that's the problem it's the way people use it. And some people use it awesomely and others don't and you know what it's not the technology it's the people it always has been always we're trying to get to to cut down a bit on some of the spam and that's just one of those where it's like yeah that requires people to maybe you know care.

Plato's Concern About Written Text

Technology and Human Behavior

SPEAKER_03 1:24:12

And the people that are spamming us don't care already. And so it's just one of those where I was looking for yeah here's something that was interesting. We were talking about this here let me just put this on the screen. If you ever wonder what the school of podcasting looks like that's it. And so here on an event replay Buck said on po from pod news as of writing there were 2,159 new shows not new episodes new shows published yesterday so this would have been Thursday only 60% were real podcasts with 25% being reported as entirely AI generated and 269 shows were from Insloption point oh I'm sorry Inception Point AI there are now six hundred and forty three separate shows as part of the Inception Point AI's I'm not even gonna try this Portuguese biografia la Mapago series. Yeah so they're doing a bunch of things in Portuguese that are AI which again maybe nobody in Portugal wants to do a podcast so they're doing an AI but I'm not gonna be the I don't want to be the person standing up for Inslaption point but it's when when to me that's the thing again what what was it 2159 new shows that's cray cray like so and then the one had a disclaimer that the person you're about to hear is AI the disclaimer was in English the podcast was in Spanish.

AI Generated Shows

Digital Doubles and AI Assistants

SPEAKER_01 1:25:44

That's when you're like oh oopsie so I watched this guy on YouTube that he he in on his YouTube channel he does two versions. He does a live version with himself right he's him speaking it's kind of breaking new stuff and then he creates another video that's his digital double right it's him but it's AI him and he says he he discloses that I'm the digital representation of says his name but I'm here because his name is actually busy helping customers and so I'm gonna he's turned me on to to relay this information to you. It's not what he says but that's the intent of it. And I I I kind of at first I was thinking like oh that's kind of weird that's rude like I want to see Charlie we'll call him Charlie I want to see Charlie but Charlie's busy like he's having a busy time and I'd rather get the information from his digital assistant that's okay too I know it I know who it is and I kind of think oh that's that's an interesting way of thinking about this right some people are freaked out by it others are perfectly fine right that's the the way people respond to these technologies but I kind of thought that's that's kind of a cool you know I maybe I'll look into doing one podcast a month that is me solo but it's AI me doing it because it frees me up. Does it really free me up?

AI for Summaries and Voice Generation

SPEAKER_03 1:27:09

I don't know at first it'll take more time you write the screw well here's the thing I just did this I've been playing with my Akron podcast and I basically take the story from the local newspaper put it into AI and go summarize this grab the summary put it into 11 labs and say read this and I was like wait a minute let's start a stopwatch so I was like all right copy paste got the summary now how long does it take to copy and paste that into 11 labs and then get it to say right because it's not Cuyahaga river it's Cuyahoga and so that took a couple tries and I had to go and phonetically spell the river and if I just read it it was almost it was a little quicker. Not a lot but it was a little quicker if I just read it myself and it was things like that street names you know when you mispronounce the mayor's name that's not good you know things like that and I was like so it it and the voices are definitely the one I thought was interesting because in Akron somebody gets shot every week it's just our hobby and I put it in in this this normally kind of bubbly younger female kind of voice and she was like a 14 year old two short two 14 year old boys were shot on their front porch and she she kind of like mellowed out a bit and I was like does sh does it know that she's talking about people getting shot? Like does she understand the actual content so a little more somber than a little more professional than yeah so but I I was kind of like oh this is so much easier and it's so quick and I was like well wait a minute let's put a stopwatch on this and in the end me actually reading it was Quicker than going through and waiting for it. Then I had to w to download it, then I had to, you know, download it to the thing, and I was like, you know, I if I just hit record and read that, it's it's really not that long, and it's really not that hard unless it's a name that I don't know how to pronounce. And then I'm the guy that looks silly. So I don't know. It's it'll be fun to watch as it unrolls. But Jim, as we wrap up here, what's coming up on um home gadget geeks?

SPEAKER_01 1:29:13

Yeah, work super busy over the next couple weeks. You know what I do when that happens? I take some time off. I can't. I can. So nothing new that's out there. But some really great um uh the show notes over the last oh, I don't know, 12 or 14 weeks. I've really been working on AI optimization of them to just make them better. Of course, I review them, but the AI, this is an area where I don't have a lot of interest in doing it, but watching the AI do it has been kind of interesting. So I don't know, check out the show notes. Don't go listen to the show. I mean, you can if you want to, but it'd be interesting your feedback on the show notes, uh, just because you've been working on them so hard. Check it out now today, uh theaverage guy.tv.

Home Gadget Geeks and AI Optimization

SPEAKER_03 1:29:53

Or if you go to home gadgetge.com slash follow, you can follow the show and dig through the back catalog because that's a pod page feature. That's a pod page. There you go. On the school of podcasting, kind of a little bit of what we're talking about today is hey, if your show isn't growing, maybe it's time to try something new. And the fact that uh we're gonna talk about experimenting. Uh the School of Podcasting is experimenting with something that's gonna be it sounds crazy, like Crazy Dave's podcast or but we're gonna try it because we've tried this other thing that it kind of worked. Let's try this and see if it works. And every time you try something that doesn't work, you learn something from that, and then you can go, okay. And sometimes it's timing, I get it. Sometimes something you tried may work three years from now because we're different. But uh, you know, don't be afraid to uh your I always say your show is a recipe, not a statue. So thanks to um everyone over at podcastbranding.co. Thanks, Mark, thanks, Dan, at uh based on the true story podcast, and thanks to Jen at Bourbon Barrel Podcasting.com. Uh like, subscribe, and ring the bell if you're watching this on YouTube. And if you're listening, thanks so much, and uh, we'll see you next week. Take care.