Are You Building A Podcast Or Just Adding Work

Welcome And Sponsor Shoutouts

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Ask the Podcast Coach for April 18th, 2026.

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Let's get ready to podcast.

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There it is. It's that music that means it is Saturday morning. It is 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, there it is. Uh the one and only Jim Cullison. Jim, how's it going, buddy?

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You know what? I think we're the happiest starting podcast on the internet. I think we could claim we have the happiest intro of any podcast out there. Don't you think so?

PodcastBranding.co

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Me and well, it is. It's hard to Yeah. So and it's Saturday morning. We're going to talk podcasting to a bunch of people. How fun is that?

SPEAKER_02 1:07

It is great, yeah, for sure.

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Is there anything we could do to make it better?

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Drink coffee. We could drink coffee, yes. Coffee. Lots of coffee.

Based on A True Story Podcast

SPEAKER_01 1:14

There we go. And that coffee pour is brought to you by, and we'll be talking about Mark here in a second, the one and only Mark from Podcastbranding.co. Uh I'm sitting here going, come on, button. Uh when I say, hey, I am a returning customer, let's just say that. I'm a returning customer of podcastbranding.co. We'll be looking at some images that uh Mark sent over. And he doesn't do just artwork. I mean, he's really, really, really good at that, but he's also really, really, really good at websites and PDFs and business cards and anything that you need to look good. You just go over to Mark and go, look, here's my show. It's about this. I got this kind of vibe thing going on. And he takes his 30 years of design uh experience and his years of as a podcaster. That is so huge that he's a podcaster and comes up with some great stuff. And in true Mark fashion, we'll see here in a second, where I go, I saw the first one, I was like, ooh, I like that. And then I saw the second one, I was like, oh, I kind of like oh, and so he makes it kind of hard to decide. But when you're ready to look good, go over to podcastbranding.co and tell him Dave and Jim sent you.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

And big thanks to our good friend Dan Lefebvre over there, based on a true story, based on a true storypodcast.com. I talked about this last week. Then I went and watched some clips of it uh uh once upon a time in Hollywood. Oh man. Quentin Taratino. If you have not seen that yet, like that may be one of Brad Pitt's best weird performances. Now he's he's done some weird things, right? You know, for sure. But it that's maybe one of his best weird performances. Uh Leonardo DiCrappio De DiCaprio DiCaprio, sorry, sneaks his way in there as well. So check it out today, based on a true story, based on a true storypodcast.com, once upon a time in Hollywood. And with that, uh Dan, thanks for your sponsorship.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Yeah, I've seen a lot of clips. There's the one where people come in to kill him and he's just standing there. Throws a can.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Yeah. Throws a can at him.

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Has his dog.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So crazy movie. Just crazy. It's a good one to watch. And then watch it. I don't know. Would you watch it first and then listen to the podcast? Or would you listen to the podcast then knowing what you know, go back and watch the movie?

SPEAKER_01 3:38

I think I'd watch the movie first.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Okay.

Building A Show About Bad Pitches

SPEAKER_01 3:41

So that you're in the movie. So that way you're not going, oh, that's not true. That's not true. It's it's gonna take it, might take you out of the movie. I don't know. But if you watch it later and I think you're right. Yeah, I think.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Or maybe maybe a sandwich, right? A movie sandwich. So watch the movie, listen to Dan's podcast, watch the movie.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

And then watch it again.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Excellent. Well, I mentioned that I'm getting ready to launch how to pitch a podcast, and I've that's actually all right.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

I have an idea. I have an idea how to pitch a podcast. Send emails to everybody that just spam them with generic wording in the email. And it might say, Dear home gadget geeks video large. I get those all the time. Dear home gadget geeks video large. We've been listening to your podcast and we love them. You're so relevant in today's culture. How would you like to partner? Right. I mean, like and you just how fast do you do you delete those, Dave?

Picking Cover Art That Works

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Well, now I go into my Gmail and I put a label on it that says bad pitch, and I'm like, and I then go over and read it and and make that is what I'm looking for for the show. And then you would explain why that's a bad pitch. Like, hey, like I had one yesterday that I forget it was some sort of business coach. And I'm like, well, you sound like you know what you're doing, but it doesn't really apply to my audience. And then I always tell people who would be your perfect guest? Like, what are you actually looking for? Because you never know, they might be listening. And you can you can if you want to participate, it's pitchapodcast.com slash story, and I realize as we're sitting here playing that I don't have I I went to find the what do you call that thing? The good old chat, you know, the uh and for whatever reason when I started eCamm this morning, because I had to upgrade it, of course, which is not a complaint, but I'm like, where is because when I go to interview chat, that's the chat for me and Jim. Well, the great show prep, Dave. So chat room, if you're like, why isn't Dave putting my stuff in and thing? I will do that while we I'll I'll have to throw Jim a softball so he can talk and I will figure it out. Well, actually, I need this for this next thing. I was gonna tell well here, I'll let you guys look at this while I'm doing this. So these are some of the the artwork. And so as you're sitting here thinking about it, and I'm literally going down interview chat, main window, overlays, preference. It's it's weird. It's like it just my chat, my chat window is gone. And I'm like, well, is it in eCam?

SPEAKER_02 6:21

It's weird. Oh, click on uh all the way to the right on the browser window. There's a little chat thing. Maybe you just minimized it.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

So it's Ah, it's back here. There it is. There's the chat room. There you go. There we go. So in the upper left-hand corner, we have a confused woman looking kind of a uh WTF look on her face. Don't like it.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

Don't like it.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Don't like it. Okay. Number two, now we've got a cartoon with uh again a female podcaster with all these arms with emails coming out of the screen. And she's a little bit better.

SPEAKER_02 6:51

A little bit better. Maybe if you we're we're going on kids. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

And then number three, we've got a number another female podcaster. And the reason for that is the the original one that I made had a female podcaster on it. I was like, okay, and she's got question marks flowing out of her head, and then how pitch podcasts are in giant letters, and then two and a are smaller, and then option number four, you've got all these emails flying in the background and a big giant uh uh uh mouse arrow clicking on an email with the letters how to pitch a podcast, and it's kind of a aqua in orange themed looking thing. So Randy says option four. If you if you are watching this, throw it in chat.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Throw it in chat. What what what would you like? Or or throw it in the comments there in YouTube. I think I'm my my opinion, you didn't ask, but I'm gonna give it to you. My opinion is three and four. You did ask, but three and three or four, and then it kind of like four is more, you know, the the AI art stuff, this AI art movement, everybody's moving that way, including me. Like I'm I've I've done some of that stuff, is more like four, right? That kind of fits today, I think that kind of fits today's art motif or what people are expecting. So I'm a big option for fan, I think, at this point.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

That's the one I I liked one first, because I I went from okay, can I read the title? And of course, Mark has these titles in gigantic letters, so that's that. And then I was like, which one depicts what the show is about? And I was like, mm, they all kind of do that. Let me scroll down here now that I got Ralph's question. I heard let's see, my issue is one and two and three is that you is that you've had text in the bottom, 20% of the image that goes against Apple's guidelines. I get that. That's a point, but I don't know. There's a part of me that goes, um is it pretty? You know, and there are other apps besides Apple, but I get your point. That's a good one. Keep the fonts consistence, not sure why two and A are different in number oh, and actually all of them, and all except for the the top one. I think he's trying to make the word how pitch podcast bigger.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

Yeah, on two. Yeah, the the the uh fonts, I'm not a fan of the font on three. I'd almost take the font from one and move it to three, move it to the bottom of three, and use that font instead. It just these are all personal preferences, right? I mean, at the end of the day, if I was going with one, I might take four and change the colors a little bit. Like sometimes how to pitch is a little hard to read. That was me.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

I was like, make it black, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

Yeah, I'm sure Mark could clean those up, right? These are his, right? This is these are his first shot.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Yeah, these are the things that he sent me. So this is great. Um so Chris says, All I see is how pitch podcast, which which I did. He he made those smaller so he could make those bigger, I'm assuming. Uh John says, I like option four. So there you go. And so that's with thank you for your feedback.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

And what's your choice? What's your thinking? This is your podcast. So you have to be okay with it. What's your thinking on that one?

SPEAKER_01 10:08

It is a case where I kind of like I like four. I thought two with the cartoon really hit what the show, like how the podcaster feels, like every just all these arms coming out of a screen. I was like, that really defines how podcasters that that gets that. And I liked one, I think, because that was the first one I saw. It sounds weird, but I was like, ooh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

This is the first round from Mark, right? Yeah. This is the first round. So you would you would take these, have this conversation with him, right? You'd be like, hey, I like this element, I like that element, I like this. He'd go back and give you a couple more, wouldn't he?

SPEAKER_01 10:45

This is the first Yeah, he could say, Well, which one are you looking at? I'm like, well, because I remember on how to fix my podcast, which is another one that's being rebranded, uh, I remember taking the font from like number four and putting it on number one or something like that. And he kind he kind of Frankenstein's one together.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

Listen, there's a lot of comments in chat about you putting your face on this. And I want to, I want Dave, I want to ask you, do you think like I know the current, you know, all the current gurus are like your face on everything or human faces or whatever. Do you think on a podcast like this, putting a single face on it then automatically limits your audience? Like hey, look at me. Because listen, we we tr we we tend to attract people that are like us. I'm not saying some of our podcasts aren't diverse. I'm just saying we we tend to attract those people who are like us, they think like us, they believe like us, they feel like us, a lot of those things, right? They want to they want to continue to hear those or have us confirm their their biases, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Well, that's that's kind of why I like number four. There's no face on it because you know, if I'm I don't know, 21 and I see some old guy with gray hair on the cover, I might be like, oh, I don't want to I don't want to listen to a boomer, even though I'm not a boomer. But I'm like, you know what I mean? It's like I could see that I could see other people going, oh, I, you know, older people might go, oh, he's he's like me. I get a lot of spam, you know. So that's kind of why I'm leaning towards four. Like there, you know, and I'm I know, I mean, I there's a book, a great book that I can't find about visual marketing. And he talks about how having your face on the cover, if you're trying to build your brand, especially, comes in handy because he brought up the point of babies, babies like faces. Like that's that's something that's just from day one.

Faces, Branding, And First Impressions

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Well, I think of the old Norton. Remember the old Norton Antivirus software from like the 90s or 2000s, and it had the it had it had that dude. And he was right on the front. I don't know if he was smiling or not, but and he was on the cover of all those. That's back. Remember when we used to go into stores and they had a whole whole section of software. So I don't know. I it it's gotta be a preference, right? This face thing. I'm not a big fan of faces.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Nah, me, me neither. I mean, I've had people say, Oh, you should be, you know, I think one there are two of my shows, building a better Dave, hence Dave, and then the other one is your podcast consultant, has me on the cover. Ralph says I should have a foreign guy on the cover throwing a bag of poop at the screen. I'm not quite sure whatever.

SPEAKER_03 13:31

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Wow, because half the time. Yeah, and that's okay. Yeah, there you go. Dave's face has value, a bit like Brad Pitt. Except look like Brad Pitt.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Yeah. Well, that's this is the question I have, and I don't know if I have an answer. I mean, it's probably more of a marketing question of this this does that image and and Ken Blanchard says, you know, please don't fear being you. And and I agree with you, Ken, on that. I'm not, it's not I'm not necessarily thinking from a fear standpoint, but I am like thinking about this image is the very first interaction they have with you, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:07

And so if you're building in things that are gonna automatically, whatever that is, if that's gonna automatically turn people away or they can't associate with, right? Then I think, you know, I think that's a problem. And if you so do we lean more towards the first look, your your album art or or your this this kind of branding is the first look. I think you lean a little bit more towards an inclusive type image. Not saying our faces are exclusive, but they they do there's a little bit of exclusivity exclusivity in seeing a person, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Well, and if if you don't if you don't appreciate a seasoned opinion, then F you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Um If you don't believe me, just ask me. I'll tell you.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Yeah, uh Ken says our eyes go there naturally. People don't buy into the culture that that has a certain pipe that hates a certain type. That's true. Yeah, if you if yeah, because the minute they well, I don't know. If they don't know who I am and they don't know my they're like, oh, it's a it's a guy and he has a voice, you know, they don't it I don't know. That's a word.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Yeah, listen, I'm not saying it is or it isn't. I just don't know. I'm it's it's an interesting question of of again, there was in the marketing circles over the last decade, it's all been about get faces, get real faces on there. And in you know, and I understand why. I get that. Like we see you talked about babies, you know, seeing faces and they immediately brighten up, right? And I think there's there's an element of bringing people in so we see ourselves in that context, right? Oh yeah, I see myself in these images, therefore I'm gonna associate with it. But when I see a picture of you, Dave, do I immediately associate myself with you? I don't know. I don't I don't know the answer to that question.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Daniel says four. So Daniel used to do artwork with more kerning, which is space between the letters, and without the red behind it, so the letter spaces are clearer. See, that's that's a Daniel J. Lewis answer right there. Nice, nice work.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

Specific, detailed.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Like it. Yeah. Ralph is like, yeah, you you use your face, use your brand. Chris says use nano banana to make an image of Dave Jackson in a baseball catcher's uniform. Get it? How to pitch it, get it? Yeah. Let's see.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Yeah. Since Dave was short on that.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Yeah, Ralph is saying, all I'm saying is SOP is now a pod page, so build your own brand. That is true, and it's also not true. Because I smile when I heard Sounds Profitable go Dave Jackson School of Podcasting. And I was like, Yeah, I I think that's kind of even though it's technically not my brand anymore, it's uh yeah. So we shall see.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

But Ralph's it's a good way to say it though, right? It's a good because there's it's a sub-brand now. Yeah, right. It's a sub-brand of Podpage. And you'd want to be able to associate with both brands, right? You uh in uh you know, Brennan would want to that Dave Jackson name to be used because in the podcasting space it means something. Like people know that. And so that's an area, you know, in in if you weren't affiliated with Pod Page, that's an area that could cause brand confusion, right? Where all of a sudden, hey, wait a minute, is is Dave Jackson associated with Pod Page? If he's not, and they're confused about that, that's brand confusion. This happens in the market all the time when people try to slipstream behind somebody else's brand, or they put a brand, a brand image of of someone else's brand with their stuff, however that is, and it create it can create this idea of brand confusion. And so, you know, it I think it's smart to say Dave Jackson School Podcasting for a while. Maybe it doesn't last forever, but it's you're on it.

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Well, the you know, the singing ladies, you know, the the school of podcasting.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

Right on. Right on. The blend the brands are blending, right? At at this point, it probably will not always be that way. And there may be a day where you don't want to do the school of podcasting anymore, and you hand that they want to keep the brand, so they hand it over to somebody. Yeah. All of a sudden Rob Greenley shows up on there.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Well, that's a cute view. That's my screen view. This is a black bear eating licorice in a mudstorm. That's that's cute. Black weird. It let me use Yeah, it's completely black. I don't know what's going on. We'll try this again. There we go. We are bringing experts into the school of podcasting. So on May 26th, uh at 2 p.m., Rocks Codes. Now, can we just say that is one of the coolest names ever? Like ROX Codes. He's the co-founder of Flightcast. Jim, do you have you heard of Flightcast?

SPEAKER_02 19:03

I have not, not yet. No.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Well, that's why, but here's the thing. I heard him on another podcast, and the guy's like, got insane insights. Have you heard of Diary of a CEO? No. Really?

SPEAKER_02 19:16

No.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

I've shocking. Diary of a CEO is have you heard of Steven Bartlett? I have not, no. Sorry. You got to check out Dr. Fucking I'm over three. No, that's all right. Well, this is the thing where I've heard people say, Well, Dave, everybody knows you. And I'm like, I'm here to tell you that is not true.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

They don't. I mean, I appreciate you too, Dave, but not everybody knows you. I'm like, no. I say this all the time. I do this podcast on Saturday mornings with Hall of Famer Dave Jackson, Podcast Hall of Famer Dave Jackson. And they nine out of ten times people are like, okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

You know, so people in in podcasting go, well, everybody knows you. And I'm like, I'm here to tell you. I appreciate the sentiment, but no. Uh yeah. John says you will be the Dave Jackson. In fact, it was John. John the one day looked at me and goes, you know what's kind of I forget exactly how he phrased it. He goes, You don't know your Dave Jackson. And I go, I I don't know what that means.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Listen, you're Dave in the circles that we're in, you're the Dave Jackson, right? So that's it's a super important, right? That's just super important to know. And I like the I, you know, I do like your humbleness associated with it that you're not like don't argue with me.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah. Jennifer Longworth, hey Jen. Bourbon Barrel Podcasting. None of my clients know who Dave Jackson is. She says, sorry. No, no, again, no apologies needed.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

Also, Jim Collison either, be honest.

Clubhouse For Live Audience Questions

SPEAKER_01 20:41

This is clear. So is is the show for podcasters or pitchers? That's a great question. It is primarily, it serves two purposes. It's for the pitchers to go, hey, I don't know. Do your job. And then the other thing is it's for podcasters to go, oh, I'm I'm not alone drowning in spam. So that's that's the key. And hopefully we're gonna have some fun poking fun at just how bad these are. My favorite ever was a guy wanted on my show, and his reason why he should be on my show was he was a captain of a submarine. And I'm like, if only my show was about how to drive a submarine, that would be great. So we do have a a question from Ralph. He is wanting to know why don't more people use Clubhouse for their live events since it seems very easy to get others to participate. What am I missing? When you say I want to add something, what you're also saying is I want to add time. It doesn't matter if it's the best thing since sliced bread. If I'm adding something to my workflow, I'm adding time. Because some people are gonna sound great, and then other people are gonna say, and now you got to try to make that listenable. So there's that. If it was when did Clubhouse come out? It's been this is one of those where it seems like two years and it's like five years.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

I think it's was pre pandemic, seven or eight, right? I think going into the pandemic, didn't we have it?

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Thing because it was like Clubhouse is going to kill podcasts. And I was like, easy. I like Clubhouse the first time it was around in the 50s, call dumb radio, because that's what it is. One person talking to a bunch of people. And it's an easy way to get people to call in. The thing because I thought about it this morning. Every Saturday, I'm like, I should probably, because right now I've got the roadcaster tied in to call me. So if somebody wants to call in, they can go to, as it says above me, ask the podcastcoach.com/slash question. And one of the options is using the call me feature, which would sound a whole lot better than a phone. And I was like, I should tie Clubhouse into it. And we've had some really good people come into Clubhouse, and then we've had other people that were like, ugh. And it just adds more time. I think the other thing is right now, I let me go look at the chat. I'm gonna guess a lot of people are asking, is that still around?

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Yeah, April 2020 was the date, by the way. Yeah, so it's uh it's it's a so valued at four billion dollars. That is that can't be right. That cannot be right. That's crazy. I I would on the on the on this clubhouse, you know, oh man, they they if you ever want to talk about how to do a launch, they launched one of the best, like it was it was it was textbook launch, right? It was exclusive. They they they seeded the right influencers to get the because you had to get a pass, right? You had to get a pass from somebody else to get in, right? Remember, you got a clubhouse, you got a clubhouse invite? Everybody, you got a club. I need to get in clubhouse, right? You got a clubhouse invite, right? We're missing out, yeah. They see they so they seeded the influencers just right, they got the ball rolling, and then it it it took off like gangbusters, right? I mean, it was just rolling, we were all on it. I did some things early on it on Clubhouse, and then what what was his name? I can't the the the guy who bought the cancer medication and then spiked the price on it, and he was oh they'll throw it in chat here. Yeah, it just got super spammy, like it was tough to do things out there because of the openness of it. We did a season of Theme Thursday, the podcast that I do on Oh for Gallup. This was second season, and at the end of the program, we opened it up to folks to come in that way, and it had marginal results. I mean, it was okay, but it was just a way to do it. But then Martin, Martin Scuzzarelli, I don't can't remember his last name. Sounds good to me. Anyways, he got on there, and I that was almost the beginning of the end for Clubhouse in a lot of ways. It really started to decline and just kind of fall out of favor with a lot of with a lot of folks. Big Bang kind of fell out of favor. Still there. I'm sure there's great things going on there. I think if you asked most people, it's kind of gone the way of threads, right? Remember threads? Yeah. Remember when threads came out? Everybody's like, oh, threads, I gotta have a thread. I think it's just kind of fallen into the backwaters. Does it still work? Sure, can you use it? Yeah. Is it do people know what it is anymore? I I don't, I'm not sure they do.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Yeah, Ralph says we use it daily on the podcasting morning show, and we have some great interactions. Yeah, we also do a live stream now, but it does promote interaction. I'm going to do a show there as well. Yep. Jeff C says I was able to talk with Jane Goodall. How cool is that? On Clubhouse, which is awesome. I my my very first Clubhouse, when it first came out, I went into a room and it was Pat Flynn, it was Rob Greenley, it was me, it was my buddy whose name is escaping me from Australia. I can see his face, but there were and it was like the hallway at podcast movement, and we're like, So what's up with the kids? And blah, blah. It was amazing. And within two weeks, I remember I was in one room, and it's some woman who's just pitching her stuff, and she's like, Look, I make a billion dollars in 30 seconds, and she goes, and yet I'm here on Clubhouse for seven hours a day. And I was like, How are you making any money if you're in Clubhouse for seven hours a day? And it was not entertaining, it was not educational, it was just her going, Look at me, I've got, you know, 47 people in my room. So it like any, and I thought about this the other day. I just put out a newsletter that really painted podcasting in a pretty dark light. And I was like, maybe we should take that as a compliment because when something grabs the attention of people, other people will come along and try to ruin it. And that's kind of what happened at Clubhouse. I'll tell you, next week we'll we'll throw in Clubhouse. My problem is right now I'm looking at the chat, I'm looking at Jim, and I'm talking all at the same time. And for me, and I'm also occasionally glancing at the roadcaster to see if anybody did a call me, because I've had people do the call me thing, and I totally missed it because I forget to look at my roadcaster because I'm too busy looking at the chat. I'm already ADHD and I'm like, do I really want another thing to look at? And then it's pretty easy to connect my phone to the roadcaster. It's Bluetooth, so that's easy, but it's also Bluetooth. I really wish they hadn't taken away to connect. I think in theory, I could take a USB-C cable and plug it into the Rodecaster in their that other USB, which used to be tied into my computer. I could do it that way, so it would be cable to cable. I need to play with that. You know, so I I think a lot of people are under the thing that oh, Clubhouse, that was the thing in 2020. And at the time, everything was getting bought. You know, uh Gimlet bought got purchased by Spotify, everything was getting bought, and we're like, oh, who's gonna buy Clubhouse? And then nobody did. And so it's it's always interesting. Uh you could always use Club Deck. What is Club Deck? He says, I'm gonna use it for my question in the inter show about helping people with their personal finance because I think it'll be easier for people to ask more questions. You think, except they have to download the app. And this is where I had an 18-channel board in the early days of Ask the Podcast coach, and I used Call in Studio, which was a thing that gave me a cue. I could see that if I had the staff, I could have people pick up the phone and go, what do you want to talk to Dave and Jim about? And I could have a call screen here. It was really cool. And I had this huge board because I had to, oh, this is some nerdy talk here. I had to basically send a mix to the caller of me and Jim, but not the caller. I had to send a mix to Jim that was me and the caller, but not Jim. So I had all these mixes going on, and I spent a lot of money on this board. I spent like 20 bucks a month on the call in studio, and you know what people did? They put their question in the chat. I mean, I've got this right above me. Ask the podcastcoach.com slash question. How many people do you think use that? Maybe one a quarter?

SPEAKER_03 29:31

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Yeah, it's you know, so Club Deck is an app you use for the Mac. All right, I might have to try that then. John says, I can't produce the show and host and interact with the chat. Yeah, it's hard. It's I I'm much better at the beginning of the of Ask the Podcast coach, I was worse than I am now, where I would be in the middle of a sentence and hey, George says, you know, we're in the middle of a discussion. It was so now I'm I talk to Jim, we say something, and then a lot of times I'll go scroll back and see what did I miss while Jim is answering something, which is always fun because then I can't react to what Jim said because in some cases, if I'm really looking at the chat room, I'm not paying to what paying attention to what he's doing. And I'm like, wait, did you just say what? You know, so well, okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

If I was better, uh and and I sometimes I do this better and sometimes I don't, but as I'm talking and saying things, I'm watching you. So like right now you're reading, right? And so I should keep going and do some things. And then right before, as you're done reading and you kind of come up to the screen, then I should give you a little more information and then ask the question, right? Because I know you're not listening. Because I know I'm not listening sometimes. I mean, I've been caught by you on this show. Oh, yeah. Like Jim, what do you think about that? Yeah, what was the question? Not a clue. Well, because you're reading the chat room. For sure. No, for sure. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Uh Chris says Club Deck is a web app that integrates Clubhouse without the phone. I used it last year on Jody Krangel's Clubhouse, but if it's on my Mac, I don't think I can use it then. It would be harder then to get into the Rodcaster because that that could be a bit of a where it would be easier if it's on the phone. But I get it. How do you so I think if that sounds right, I could hear Clubhouse on the computer. I need Clubhouse to not just go I'll have to play with it. Because I'm like, that that that sounds like a feedback loop. I think the issue with asking people to to go to the link is friction, at least with Clubhouse, when they're there, they just have to push a button. Yeah, when they're there, after they've downloaded the app. Yeah, that's the thing. And also the link for us means you're going to be on video, even though we always say you can turn off your camera, but that's another thing. So yeah, it's Randy says they have to download an app. And that could be, although one of the things when I worked at Libson, we had people that would that if you had an audience that was seasoned, I have a seasoned audience, and they may not know how to you know get into Apple Podcasts, but they knew how to download an app. And so when you had your own app, you're like, just look for the School of Podcasting app and download it, and they could click it, and there's your stuff. So there are times when apps are actually easier, even though it's a download. Jeff says, I have specific sections of my show where I go and pull up comments and interact with the chat room. Yes, Jeff has a very good show.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

It's a great way you if you can do that, if you can manage the flow of it, if you can manage the customer interaction or the you know the folks coming in, that's great. It does take a little bit of skill. Like I don't, this is one of those things you don't come to it right away. And I've noticed as I've been doing, I've been podcasting less at work. It's a skill that I get out of practice on. So as I come back to it, sometimes I'm like, oh, I am my brain is not as quick doing these things. I have not been practicing this concept of listening to the chat room and or watching the chat room and speaking at the same time and not make it sound like I'm doing that. So because that's the other thing. You kind of sometimes if you're the folks know when you're distracted, you know, and they're like, oh, that's they're definitely not, they are definitely not all here when we're thinking about when when they're thinking about that question. So it's I I think it takes a little practice, takes a little skill. Some of us are better at it than others. And I think this is where you got to weigh what what kind of interaction are you looking for? What's the right kind of for the show that I'm doing? That kind of interaction can be jarring. We I I think on Saturday mornings, we're a jarring podcast, right? We're all over the place. It's a jarring, but people like it. I mean, they like it because we get the same, we get the same people back every Saturday morning, plus all the listeners on the you know to the podcast. You guys like the jarring aspect of it, but there's not there's some folks who are like, no, no, no, no, give me a topic. Like, get this is why I think these kinds of podcasts don't do well on YouTube. Because I think YouTube is looking for very quick, short, to the point, I need answers right now type deal. Not not in all cases, not in every place. There's still plenty of these, there's still plenty of these, but I I don't know if this kind of content does as well on YouTube than it than it does in podcast form.

Affiliate Income And Simple Bookkeeping

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Now the other thing I do is I'm using eCamm, and Ecamm allows me to star things. So a lot of times instead of plus if you have a really active chat room, you go back and the thing you're gonna click on is now 15 messages above. So this puts it over in a favorites tab. So like Ralph says, I I use basically that uh whatever it was, collab club chat, whatever the software was, with this roadcaster all the time. And then of course Randy clicks in. You can use your virtual devices on your roadcaster to route the audio wherever you want it. If you ever want to really get into the nitty, gritty, super nerdy part of your roadcaster, Randy Black is your dude, man. But I was like, that's right, there's virtual devices, totally forgot about that. So yeah, oh, here's a fun question. It's not for me, but Stephanie Graham says to Ralph, like she was gonna email him, do you have an affiliate link for Quicken? I'm thinking about getting it. So if they have an affiliate program, because Ralph definitely knows he was doing some things for Quicken for a while, I did an episode last week on the School of Podcasting about affiliate stuff and how it can be a source of income. And what's interesting is I always thought the Akron podcast would be a cool place where I could go and get local businesses to sponsor. Well, step one, get an audience. And I'm still in that. And so what I did was I have two money products that I use. One is Acorns, which is this cool thing where it helps you save money, and the other one is Monarch Money, which is a cool thing where I tie in all it's super secure and double opt-in and hokey pokey, turn yourself around security. And they that one has a referral program where they give you$30, a$30 gift card. And to make a long story short, after and I'm here to tell you the Akron Podcast maybe has 30 people listening to that show. It's hyper niche. And I did one monarch commercial and I got one monarch referral. So Chipotle was on the Akron podcast this week.

SPEAKER_02 36:36

So Chipotle.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Wow. Because they were like, hey, you you have$30, here's a lift of gift cards you could get. And I was like, oh, and I saw Chipotle, and I'm like, I eat a Chipotle. There's one, unfortunately, less than a mile from my house. So when I'm not in the mood to cook, it's Chipotle. And so and what was cool was they sent it to you. I then you want to do this on your phone. I clicked a link in the email to which it then said, Do you want to add this gift card to your wallet on your phone? And I was like, sure. So I just go into Chipotle and I scan this little thing and it's like it was 30 bucks. So that's pretty much 2.5 nights at Chipotle. So that's kind of cool. Stephanie says, Do y'all keep boxes to your equipment in the spring cleaning mode? I do have a lot of boxes in my basement. And then eventually I will throw them away. How about you, Jim?

SPEAKER_02 37:31

No boxes. They get they get they get broken down and and moved out pretty fast. I said, cardboard boxes. I that's crazy how many we have now. Like at any week, any given, because everything's coming in via shift. Any week, man. I'm filling up a whole you know, we have a big green recycling bin that that takes all that stuff. And there's some weeks that's full. Like, man, where's all cardboard came from? So it's I'm you know, it used to seem like, you know, hey, you got any boxes? You know, man, I haven't had a box in a while. Now just wait a week. I'll give you a whole garbage can full of boxes, so no, but we don't I try not to keep around. I do find them handy though for podcasting gear that, you know, in in drawers and stuff, because you know, the Amazon boxes are just about the right size for that. And so fold those flaps in on the inside, put it in a drawer, and all of a sudden your drawer gets a little more handy with boxes inside of it. Listen, you could go to Walmart or whatever and buy the plastic dividers and those kinds of things. I just find cardboard boxes a little more handy when they get kind of grungy, you just throw them out and get a new one. So there's, you know, they make great dividers, or you know, I've got a whole shelving, you know, down here I've got a whole shelving unit with a bunch of gear on it. And a bunch of boxes from Amazon have been super useful. Just like, and then if you get one that's not the right size, just use it for a while. And when a box comes in, like, oh, is this the is this size? Amazon uses fairly similar sizes all the time. So if you want them to look just right, that's not a bad way to do it. And then the other thing I found, man, these food services like Factor or HelloFresh, they send great storage boxes. If you ever, if you ever use those services. Now they get a little beat up in transit, but they're they are sturdy because they have to be, right? They're shipping food. They're sturdy. Sometimes they're insulated, which is super cool. So good way, good way if you're gonna, if you're gonna store, manage equipment, even podcasting equipment, and those, like those HelloFresh boxes that are insulated, great for sending podcast gear places or transporting podcast gear. Because they've got some they've got some insulation already built into them. So if it's gonna sit in a hot car or if it's really, really cold outside, you can throw the gear in there and either, you know, you could put it'll be protective for a little bit longer from either the heat or the cold.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

The let's see if we have the black screen again here. If we do, because she was talking about we do have the black screen, what's up? That's really weird. If we she was talking about quicken and using that as an accounting thing, if all you're doing is tracking income and expenses, I want to try this again. Come on. There we go. This is Wave, waveapps.com. It's free unless you're doing extra fancy stuff. But you can see here there's my Uber suggest, a GoDaddy domain, my tax, Think Media, SendFox, Fathom for my stats. Those are my expenses, and the income I haven't put in. So I when I first logged in, I almost showed everybody how much I got paid for the school of podcasting. I'm like, that's none of your business. Yeah. So, but that's a free one. If you're just looking to track income and expenses, and what's cool about it, that one needed a little work because I didn't do this last night, every night before I go to bed, because if you wait till the end of the month, it's kind of a pain in the butt. But I go every night I go in and like, oh, look, send Fox. Okay, and I will classify that as either advertising or software, depending on what mood I'm in, or okay, this was this or that was that, and I categorize all those so that I can at the end of the month go, oh, look, you know, X amount of money was affiliate stuff, X amount of money was membership stuff, X amount was editing, blah, blah, blah. So if you're looking for a free way to do that, that's something I like. Going back to Clubhouse, John Germango says, I give Clubhouse one thing, it has great audio. Riverside, not so much. With Rouse Morning Show, the YouTube audio is at times almost unlistenable, but the Clubhouse audio is good. Well, that's here's the thing. It's a novel idea. I know, again, I'm not anti-video, but uh Clubhouse doesn't have video. And video streaming is harder. Are you sure? Unless something is it's only audio.

SPEAKER_02 41:51

I thought we had little tiny little boxes for Clubhouse.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

No, you have little you have little icons of view, and then you raise your hand and stuff. But that's why I liked it. I was on the show once, I was in the airport, and I'm catching an early flight. I'm like, hey, it's 7 o'clock, because I don't know why. I get up at like 7:30, but getting up at 7 or 6.30 so I could shower and then listen to the show and listen to it live, I just that's it's just that's that 30 minutes, man. I need the last 30 minutes. But I was in an airport and I was like, yeah, I can listen to Mark. So I I tuned into the show and I'm walking around, and and I could also participate because there's definitely a mute button, and you can mute your audience for those lovely people that forget. So yeah, that's why I said I liked it the first time when it was called radio.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

What's the what's the service? Okay, so oh, I'm thinking of Blab. Sorry, friends. I was associating Clubhouse and Blab together. I did you remember Blab? I think is it is that right? Do I have the name right? Is it yeah? Is it called Blab? And that's the that's the video one, right? Where you could get to you could pull people together and have your video. Okay. And everybody did. My apologies. I was mistaking Blab and Clubhouse. Sorry, friends.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

Well, here's a fun one. Let's see if our screen will work here again. No, it's not. All right. Clubhouse was reported to have about 10 million weekly active users at its peak, with that figure cited in February 2021. They couldn't verify, according to our good friends at Perplexity, packed about 10 million weekly active users. I would say it's not really giving me the answer I want.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

Well, they they they also say that the web platform is built with well built on web RTC standards, which commonly leverages OPIS audio codec. So it's optimized. The audio is optimized there on Clubhouse. Right, tool for the job. Yeah, they really focused on audio. It kind of makes sense, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:56

Yeah. I'll have to Stephanie. Did you start your new show yet, or did you submit Pitches Wanted to tell the feminist podcast collection of No, it's it's coming. One of the things I'm waiting on, and we just saw where where I am at this, was I'm waiting for the artwork from Mark, which he got me this, and now I'll go back to Mark and go, hey, can we can Can we tweak that one and this one and that one? In which case I'll probably flip a coin and go, all right, heads put my face on it, tails I'm not. Yeah, the audio's great. Do I use the secondary feed on the roadcaster? I use the secondary channel for the Discord audio. I used to have when I had my PC here, my PC was plugged into it, which I loved because I could play music on my PC and then easily mute that channel without muting the audio from my other computer. I mean, it was great for playing clips and things like that. Now I have to do that on my phone. So I need to plug, I have a USB-C to USB-C cable sitting here. I need to plug that in and see if I can just assign that. That's where I kind of there's a part of me that wants to go back to using the Rodcaster Pro because I've got two channels for microphones. So right now I'm in channel one, Jim's in channel two, call me's on channel three, and the sound effects and stuff are on channel four. So if I wanted to add a phone for Clubhouse, I would need another channel, which means I would lose about six inches of my desk. That thing's a bit bigger, and that's why I got the duo. So I'm not sure. We'll have to see here, but that's how I currently have it set up. Let's see. Stephanie says, Jim, I was telling my dad about your monitors last night. I gave him one of mine, and now he has three monitors. You have eleven?

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Eleven.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Eleven. It goes to eleven.

SPEAKER_02 45:46

Something like that. Yeah, it's a sickness. They're not, by the way, they're not all on at the same time. And since I've gone through my solar, you know, my solar power planning, I'm gonna call it a revolution because it's changed everything for me. Now I'm worried about having all no all of them on at the same time. So I turn them off when I'm not using them. I used to when I was down here all the time. They'd all be on all at the same time. I liked being the flight controller on that. So by the way, the the the our friends over at Blab, this I think this is I was just checking to see when this died. And Blab died August of tw of 2016. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but 2016, 10 years ago. Why? Why did it die? They had uh of the 3.9 million total users, only 10%, less than or around 400,000, came back on a regular basis. Why? Okay, this is the important comment. Because most live streams aren't interested, aren't interesting enough to justify stopping what you're doing and watching the broadcast, right? I mean, it's it's tough. And listen, we have we do this show live and it's live streamed, and it's planned in some regards, but we have a topic and we're going down a path, and we've we've you know, we guarantee you some kind of regularity because you keep coming back. But a lot of those blab live streams were literally just what do you want to talk about? And they were they they weren't consistent, they weren't on topic, they weren't, you know, and it listen, you talking about something is interesting to you. It might be interesting to somebody else if you've planned it. It's probably not if it's just off the cuff. Like anybody could go to any place and just have listen to anybody talk about anything, right?

SPEAKER_01 47:33

So this is where it was a little too easy because it was. You'd oh, go over, you click on a button, you start it, and you were live, and it was super easy to join. And everybody was just hanging out with their buddies, and a lot of times I remember you'd go to a blab and somebody just left it open, and there was no like, if there's no inactivity for 15 minutes, like shut this thing down. And you'd be there, and there's you're watching somebody sleep, and you're like, wait, what?

SPEAKER_02 47:58

Martin dude was the dude who would sleep, he would leave his camera on. Yeah, and people it was like the oh, what was the Jim Carrey oh the Truman show? The Truman Show. Like the Truman Show, right? In some regards, that people would come in and just leave their cameras on. And there's always, listen, there's always a certain element of interest in those kinds of things by the general population. Will they last forever? Probably not. Are they that interesting? Maybe, you know, but is that really good content? Probably not, right? Yeah. Because if people would be like, but there's 10,000 people watching him sleep. I'm like, today. Yeah, today they might be like, let's come back in a month and see if that continues, right? So not so much a com not so much commentary on blab, right? But commentary on the interest of your podcast, right? And I think sometimes we think, hey, if we just got together, I mean, this this yeah, if we just got together, our our conversations are funny. And it's like, no, no, they're funny to you because you know all the inside jokes. They're funny to you because you know all the humor in it, in the relationship. Most of the time, not necessarily funny to everybody. Sorry to burst your bubble, but not necessarily funny to everybody else. That's it. I've got a buddy like this, and he's like, Man, we should podcast. I'm like, listen, we're only funny to ourselves. Be really clear. Hilarious to ourselves. Nobody else finds us funny. Let's just be clear about that, right? So check it. I mean, check yourself. Listen, I don't want to burst your bubble, but I just did.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

You know, and and so, you know. Not every conversation needs to be a podcast. For sure. Bandcamp says the crazy thing about clubhouse audio is everyone sounds different, different mics, different recording, location, different everything. And that's what I'm like, because look, I love DR, and I understand why she doesn't sound great, is because she's using her, I believe her wireless earbuds, because she's making her husband's breakfast. So, okay, I get it, but uh, there are times when I'm like, I mmm, when when I have to strain to understand what's going on, because again, all of a sudden it's just kind of this weird thing going on, and you're like, hmm. So, but I get it, and it's kind of cute that she's because you'll hear when she's done with his eggs, like she's she finds a better spot, she's not moving around, and she sounds, you know, much more listenable. So Jeff C says live shows are hard, but if you stick with it, it is so rewarding to have that connection with your audience. Absolutely. This is why I still do this show. It's instant feedback. Oh man, we're going back. Jennifer says, I loved Periscope. I I was live nearly daily over there. I was one time my now ex-wife couldn't make it, but I had gone over to Purdue to watch the band, and I was able to live stream her son in the Purdue band so she could watch it at home. So yeah, that was kind of cool. Right now, right now we're on a big screen TV in John's living room, someplace. Yeah. So it is kind of weird. I will go on occasion, I will see where I'll log into YouTube and I'll see, like, oh, you know, because I have a I've subscribed to my own channel, be like, oh, there's a new Ask the Podcast coach. I'm like, yeah, I was there.

SPEAKER_02 51:14

Dave Garofalo at one point was live streaming Ask the Podcast Coach into the onto the TV inside of of uh of of um two guys two guys cigars. And so it was funny when I went there to see us on the screen, you know. That's not typical. Oh, John, thanks for streaming us on your TV. That's not typical. It's a it it is a way to do it, and it's great that you do. Thank you for doing that. Yeah, um, it not I don't think most people are.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

Well, and Dan super Dan makes a good point. Dan Lefebvre from Based on a True Story Podcast. Watching in giant quotation marks is a strong word. I guess most people fall asleep to content like that, like the sleep with me podcasts. Yeah, right on. That is something I've just I've heard enough reports where people say, you know, especially the young kids, like to like hit play on something and put the phone back in their pocket and just listen to it. Daniel said, wasn't it Corey who came into podcasting-related blab streams to tell us how big he was on blab? Yes, yeah. Stephanie says, I remember when you did podcast radio show, you got on some guys about that. They were making bathroom jokes and that only they were laughing at. Yeah. It's you know, I I love, I really do. I love Ray Edwards, I love his books, I've taken his courses, but the one thing that ruined Ray's show, in my opinion, so it's a survey of one, so but he brought his son on, and I get it, because Ray has some I think he has Parkinson's and a couple other things, and so I I get why they might have brought on somebody else, but these two have so many inside jokes that and they used to they used to binge their or batch record. So on show number one, they'd be like, Coke, buy me a drink, jinx, or whatever it was. And then on show three, they'd say a word, so you know, and that's why I got the folder, and he'd go, folder, ha, owe me 20 bucks. And you're like, What? Why does it owe you 20 bucks for a folder? Well, if you go back now four weeks ago, you know, that joke, and I'm just like, so that's that's a case where inside jokes, you know. Well, there is the one and only Mark Roddick. By the way, the Empowered Podcasting Conference is they have extended the speaker deadline submission. So if you want to speak at an empowered podcasting conference, go over to empoweredpodcasting.com. Do I have that right? I should know that address. EPC, baby. Empowered podcasting, yes. I'm like, I don't think they tacked on the word conference. That'd be a mouthful. Empoweredpodcasting.com, and you'll see a link there for speakers. But he says the issue they're experiencing, again, they do the the podcasting morning chat on YouTube was an isolated incident. Yeah, I'm sure you checked us out normally in the mornings and notice we haven't had that issue. So there you go. And Craig from AI goes to college. Yes, people falling asleep, just like my 8M class 8 am classes. Yeah, always fun. So but yeah, so I'll have to whatever that I'll have to go back and look in the chat. Whatever the name of the chat hub, chat software, chat room, whatever the thing was for the Mac, I'll have to play with that. And then I'll have to play with Club Hold on, I have got it right here.

SPEAKER_02 54:34

Club deck. Club deck.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

I'll have to do that, and then I'll I'll have to do my homework of virtual routing or whatever. So or I'll just plug it into my phone and we'll turn off the we chat or we we call whatever it is thingy from road. Because again, nobody's going to AskThePodcastcoach.com slash question.

Supporters Segment And Prize Wheel

SPEAKER_03 54:53

But nonetheless, it's okay. Yeah, it's okay.

Podcast Hot Seat

Try Podpage for Your Podcast Website

Home gadget Geeks

Featured Supporter: Indie Drop-in

Podcast Advertising Costs And Landing Pages

SPEAKER_01 54:55

Yeah, the people that are you know engaging with the show are these lovely people, better known as our awesome supporters, and you can be an awesome supporter by going to Asthepodcastcoach.com slash awesome. And when you say like really, and I'm like, yeah, we have all sorts of people. Why does my mouse always disappear in this segment? There we go. Like these people. So speaking of Craig, AI goes to college.com based on a true story podcast, the flame live pod, we've got the content creators accountants, spy brary, good old Shane, Matt Talk Online, our good buddy Jason over there. You can be one of these awesome supporters, and your name could be on this slide. But if you are looking to plan, launch, grow your podcast, maybe even monetize, check out the School of Podcasting. Use the coupon code COOCH when you sign up and realize that comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. And if you need some feedback on your show, because I think that's one of the things that I saw somebody today. They're like, I'm gonna start promoting my show, Mike. Get some feedback first, because there's no sense trying to promote a show that doesn't connect with the audience. Check out podcasthotseat.com. And we mentioned Podpage earlier. If you want to check out Podpage, we make pretty websites for people that don't want to learn how to code. Go over to trypodpage.com. And if you need more Jim Collison and hey, who doesn't? Just go over to theavageguy.tv and check out his show, Home Gadget Geeks. And we're gonna try this. We're gonna go over and I'm gonna go to my screen, which is now white, and on the screen it's black. All right. So you'll have to pretend there's a spinning wheel here. That's really weird. If you go away from it and come back, does it? I'm gonna go away. We're gonna go back to here, and then we're gonna go back. And survey says, hey, who knows what's going on with that? So we have all these awesome people who are supporting us. Thank you so much. People like Ralph over at the Financially Confident Christian, Greg at AI Goes to College, Greg at Indie drop in Glenn at the Horse Radio Network, Jody at Audio Branding, the ladies over at Keep the Flame Alive, Chris over at Castahead.net, and Ralph coming in twice, the content creators accountant. Let's spin this wheel. He said, clicking it. Let's spin this wheel. And it is going to be Greg. Greg, is it Greg? It is Greg over at IndieDropIn. So if you go to indie dropin.com, it is comedy shows, it's true crime shows. He's already got an audience for those types of shows. And if you have that show, go talk to Greg and say, hey, I heard about you on Ask the Podcast Coach. And he can help you find more of an audience. And if you're sitting here and you're thinking, you know, those guys, they saved me time, they saved me money. Maybe they even made you laugh. We saved you a headache. We kept you educated. You can be an awesome supporter by going to Asthepodcastcoach.com slash awesome. So we do have I had some questions from the good old friends at Reddit. And well, actually, just tying in to what we just talked about, this was the question I and this again is going to require the screen, survey says. So we'll just have to go back and forth to this 400 times now. One more time. Yeah, here we go. So they're like, where's the best place to advertise? On Reddit, on Overcast, etc., etc. Our podcast released in February and averages 100 listeners per episode, but under a thousand, yeah, usually that's the way it works, because a hundred is smaller than a thousand. I'm aware that advertising is probably not the best way to grow a podcast, but I'm looking at this just as one tool on our Swiss Army knife. Our cost per subscriber on overcast was sixteen dollars and eighty cents. Nike's holy cow. Originally it was twelve dollars, but I went back and rechecked, which seems high. Yeah, you're looking more for like two to three dollars per subscriber. I spent four hundred and twenty dollars and got twenty-five subscribers. In fairness, to them, I had much better results other times and I'm trying again. So the thing I would have to ask here is does your podcast generate income? Because otherwise you might be just lighting your money on fire because if you're let's say he said I spent sixteen dollars on a subscriber and you sell an ebook for ten, if everybody who came over, you're still losing seven bucks. So that's the thing for me, uh unless you've just got, you know, on one hand, you you probably need to pay to promote your show. I mean, that's what the movie industry does. That's what, you know, so I get that part. But when you're first starting out, this is one where I'm like, go like let's say we use Buzz Sprout ads. Buzz Sprout ads, there are different pieces of that. Number one, there's your ad. Does your ad make people go, wait, what was that? Oh, I want more information. Then you send them to a page. And if it was me, I would send them to a page that says, hey, thanks for checking out my show, Buzz Sprout listeners. This is Dave Jackson. I do a show about such and such, and you can follow the show and then have the buttons there for Apple, Spotify, maybe Pocket Cast, Overcast, so that you have to know what do you want people to do, or sign up for my newsletter. That actually would be the best thing because now I've got a way to nudge you. So you if you want more information, sign up for the newsletter and I'll send you the link. You have to have a way to do that, but that means there's three pieces there. A, well, first of all, are you advertising on a show that has your audience? Because if I'm advertising on a show about, I don't know, the real housewives, maybe my audience is over there, maybe not. And then does your ad make people want to click? Where do they land at? And then am I describing that in a way to get people to do whatever it is I want. And so that's where you know, if you have the right audience and you have the right thing, you're still gonna have like three percent of people. So advertising is expensive. I I don't think there's any way around it. But and that's where a cheap way to do this might be find other shows in your genre and go, hey, you want to trade 30 second promos, or maybe I'll just give you a shout-out, you give me a shout-out. That's free. And if people have the right mindset and not, oh, you're my competition, I must squash you. And they actually, you know, they realize that they can listen to you on Monday and the other people on Tuesday and Wednesday, then just work with them, make your network bigger. So I I don't know that that would be my first thing would be to go spending money, and especially if you're that early into it. I don't know. Thoughts, Mr. Collison? We can't hear you. Okay, he's holding up his finger.

Local Radio Ads As Promotion

SPEAKER_02 1:02:07

It's definitely me. There was some noise going on down here, so I was I was muting myself. Do you think for your Akron podcast you would get local radio? Have you looked into local radio ads to see how much it would be?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:20

I should, because they're yeah, that'd seem that seemed like it'd be a perfect. Because it would be interesting to see if they would let me, because there is a talk radio channel that for decades has been the talk of Akron. And that would be the place, you know, except like, hey, you know, maybe it and it's weird because they used to have someone who leaned really left in the morning and really right in the afternoon, and then in the evening they had Art Bell and his, you know, aliens and stuff. Now it's all every all conservative all the time. And I was like, that was kind of a bummer. Because it was nice to hear one opinion in the morning and then hear the other guy go, ah, he's full of crap.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:04

And then it's you know, so there is some radio stations that's looking for content. You'll pay to get on there, right? I mean, that's they're not gonna give it to you. They're not looking for free content. Oh, you're talking about doing things.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:17

Yeah, doing things on the radio, you mean? Or for an advertisement.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:21

Having an ad, like reaching out to your local radio stations and saying, hey, how much is a 30-second ad spot? It, you know, whatever, whatever, locally. And then two, saying, What would it take to buy a half an hour of space on your, you know, is a community? Because sometimes they're looking for community content. You might maybe AM, but maybe that's your audience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:46

You never know, right? It's like anywhere from three to five hundred bucks. And then the reason they do that, they go, and then you can sell your own sponsors. So you can say, hey, I'm doing a show.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:55

Well, they gotta charge for it. Could you imagine if it was free, how much how many wackadoodles would would want to put their stuff on there? So Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:03

So that's where if I'm trying to let's say I'm I'm a construction guy and I do home repair, I might spend 300 bucks to do a show about, you know, Dave the Handyman, you know, blah, blah, blah. So and then I go out to a tool company and go, hey, I'm I'm talking about home repair, you know, people use that and blah, blah, blah, but you're also promoting your services. But I know I've known a couple of people that have done that, and then they eventually quit because they're like, oh, wait, this podcasting thing goes everywhere. And like people locally can get it. But I I have one guy who's like, nope, I want to do it because he was doing a local show, and he goes, and that's actually like a the fact that I can say I'm on WBHC or whatever, he's like, everybody knows that channel, and it's a stamp of uh authority in that city. And he goes, I realize that nobody's listening. It's an AM station, he goes, but when I say, Oh, I'm I'm as a podcast, but I'm also, you know, Thursdays at you know 9 30 on this AM station, he goes, people go, Oh, really? On WHBC? Wow, that's ooh, you know, so they go that route.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:09

We used to give a file to I forget you even forget the call letters, but it was Grafton, West Virginia. And just Mike Wieger, my co-host, did this relationship with this radio station. They were low hyperlocal, you know, one of those like low power radio stations in Crafton. But we used to do shout-outs, and then for a while I'd be like, hey, you know, if you're in Grafton, we'd love to hear from you do this. We never heard from anybody on those. But you know, you never listen, you never know. You never know what kind of thing. If you get an opportunity, do you seek it out? I don't know, maybe. If but if someone comes to you and is like, hey, we've got this space, we'd be willing to put you on, it doesn't hurt. You never know who you're gonna come across.

StreamYard, Streamlabs, OBS Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_01 1:05:50

Well, the thing that was funny with the Akron podcast is I had a restaurant give me two gift cards to give away. And I'm like, hey, if anybody wants, it's it's the new Jamaican restaurant down by Main Street and blah blah blah blah. And like just I I finally used them myself. I was like, okay, literally for like three months. I'm like, if you want a free dinner, and if you've Ever tried Jamaican food? It's great, blah, blah, blah. And I I could not give now again, I was getting like 15 to 20 downloads an episode. I'm like, any anybody? Is this just bots? So Yeah. Yeah. You choose podcasts. Has anyone used Streamlabs stock talk studio? How does it compare to StreamYard? Well, A, StreamYard's going to be more expensive, and I don't know what Stream Labs is, but I know StreamYard's the here's the thing. Stream Yeah, StreamYard is, in my book, the most reliable streaming service of any of them. We used it for years for this show until they tripled their price. And so that's the good news. If you want less headaches, StreamYard. I've never heard of Stream Labs Talk Studio. I know that they all except for StreamYard, Stream Labs Talk Studio. Stream and record from your browser. Yeah, Streamlabs.com and their pricing. Oh, that's weird. When I go over there, it looks like a what would you call it? Like a what's that weird Linktree website? That was not a good first impression. This one's an advertisement. Here we'll go. We'll see if we get a lovely Yep. You'll have a dark screen of whatever. Come on, be my friend. There we go. Go live or record in minutes. What's their pricing? Their plans? Because here's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:53

It's like 200 a year. It's like 200 a year. So that's not horrible. At least. Yeah. They only have two plans. They do have a free plan if you want to check them out. Yeah. Um, at least they have a starter plan that's free. That's free and always free. Wait a minute. Are you at Streamlabs? Are you in the right place?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:09

I'm at Streamlabs.com.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:12

Yeah, I don't see the oh, the Talk Studio Plus. I didn't see that one. Okay, keep going.

Fixing Chopped Audio With Testing

SPEAKER_01 1:08:18

But no, I've never heard of them. And which kind of goes to this other question I have, which is this one. This guy says, I I'm not going to read this whole thing, but basically says the last words of a sentence are being chopped off. I mean, he goes, I think I'm fairly sure it's my compressor causing the phenomenon because the first words of the sentences are dramatically reduced in volume. I could be wrong. Maybe it's the noise gate, yada yada yada. And when I read this, I just thought, okay, if you think it's the compressor, turn it off. And if the problem goes away, it's the compressor. If you turn it off and the problem doesn't go away, it's not the compressor. I mean, it's really that simple. You have to isolate when you're troubleshooting. And then to me, I would think noise gate over compressor. And so go turn off the noise gate and then practice, try it, record it, see if it fixes it. If it does, then we know it's the noise gate. If it doesn't, then turn the noise gate back on and try something else. But I I run into this at Podpage on occasion where people are like, well, I'm thinking of doing this, or I'm I I I don't know. I I might do this with my whatever. And I'm like, well, try it and go look at your website. If you don't like it, then put it back the way it was. Like, you know, play, practice, whatever it is. That's it's really not going to, you know, I said, worst case scenario, you've got two people on your website, and all of a sudden they click on a button and everything went from blue to orange, and then, you know, 30 seconds later it goes back to blue. I go, okay, so two people were slightly confused for five seconds. I don't think that's the end of the world, but sometimes, you know, like anything, you got to practice, you got to play, and see, like this thing with if I'm gonna throw in Clubhouse next week, not on Saturday, like sometime this week, I'm going to have to download that software. I'm gonna have to go into the the audio routing stuff, and I'm gonna play with it because I don't want to do it. Same thing with interviews. I've never used Zoom for an interview before. What should I do? Find a friend and interview them right now on Zoom. Like, you don't want to do things for the first time when it counts. I'm like, that's that's no good. So keep that in mind. Here we go. Going back to radio, band camped, I love that. A lot of time, a lot of the time, the only airtime blocks you can buy on local radio stations end up being something like listen to listen to me explain how to buy cheap real estate every Sunday morning at 4 a.m. Yes. It's the Dr. Bob show with Dr. Bob, where he talks about, you know, chiropractic.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:10

Maybe your commercial is sick of real estate. Come listen to my podcast. Yeah. You know? Kind of although that's why people are there if they're listening to it. Yeah. But you just have to it's it doesn't work in every market. Well, the uh but you it's it's worth looking into.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:26

On the ride home, if I happen to check, the talk of Akron is on Sundays. It's always some chiropractic guy. And I think there was a history show or something, but it wasn't your typical host. They were they were outsourcing it because who wants to work on Sunday or Saturday? So John says when it comes to StreamYard, before I resigned for a year of StreamYard, I went and tried every live streaming website I could find, and I keep going back to StreamYard. Yeah. The thing that's weird is with their planning, if you're using it for you, like I don't know, as fun, whatever, it's not as like it's the same kind of pricing as you know, all the other the eCams and the uh you know, all the different ones that are out there. It's when you say, yeah, here's StreamYard pricing. So there's a free version. Their core, of course, if you buy it for a year, is 35 bucks. If you buy it by the month, it's 45. That's a little more than Ecamm. It's a little more than some other ones, but it's for individuals only, it says. And so it says the plan is for individuals only if you're using the service on behalf of a business or an organization. And that's where I'm like, is a podcast an organization? Is it a business? I don't know. Please choose a business plan instead. And then you go, oh great, how much is a business plan? And you click on it and it says it's 300 bucks a month. And I'm like, I'm not a I'm not a business then, you know. So that's the the tricky part. Uncle Marv says there are two Streamlab folks, Streamlabs Talk Studio, which is web-based, and Streamlabs Desktop by Logic Tech, which is$27 a month or$189 a year. There are so many of these, and yet none of them work consistently, except for StreamYard. So I don't know. I remember I used at the beginning of all phonic, I used their individual one, and then I I just couldn't sleep at night because I kept using it for my editing when I edit people, and I was like, all right, I'm using this for my business. And it wasn't that much more, and so I just paid the the price. So but that's where, you know, I know I forget the one that Danny from Captivate likes, and it's it's I can never remember the name of it, but he loves it. I've never heard of it. So just because we haven't heard of it doesn't mean it's awful. You know, keep that in mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:01

I've I've been I switched from StreamYard to Restream, and it's been okay. They've you know, they've I've had a few weird issues the last, you know, a couple months ago, or yeah, a couple months ago, where I was disappearing, and that seemed to stop. We use StreamYard at work, and I think honestly, uh two changes I'll be making when this subscription is up is going full HD. Yeah, I'm still 720. Just because I don't, you know, my podcast it doesn't get that many downloads, and you're like, it doesn't do that well on YouTube. So you're like, it's not gonna make that much of a difference. It's not like, oh, when I'm you're doing 1080p, all of a sudden that you know the thundering hordes are gonna be coming to my podcast. So, but it's time to go 1080. Like, I just at this point, it's like, okay, I could do a little bit better. So I'll probably make the switch to back to StreamYard here in the fall when my subscription on Restream is up. Unless Restream, if you're listening and you want to throw me. No, yeah, unless you want to sponsor the show. If you want to sponsor the show, yeah, you're definitely be on there. I'll probably go back to StreamYard. I listen, I underestimated what the power of bending spoons. I thought this was over, right? We they because they took over Evernote, right? And that didn't go very well for a lot of people. And I kind of thought, I have to backtrack on some things I said during those days because they have actually done a really nice job, I think, my opinion, of being a good guardian of that system. And they've added stuff to it, and they're the the modals when they update stuff, they're modals to help you, like to know what's new and what's not, and some of those kinds of things. Super helpful. So it work, we use it a lot, and it's just been this is how I know it's still good is that I turned most of it over to people who aren't necessarily techies, right? They're not, they don't care, they're just trying to get things done, and they're not coming back to me for support, right? They're not, I never get a stream yard doesn't isn't working this, you know, this week. And we do for one of our podcasts, man, they do a whole bunch of different kinds of remote podcasting. Yeah, they they do it out of the studio, but they're not using the studio for the video, they're using it for the audio. And I just don't get any complaints from them. And so I was like, this is really, really, really working well. And then I logged in the other day to see some of the updates they'd made on, you know, different scenes and what you can do in there and some updates to the to the branding stuff that you can do. And I was like, okay, bending spoons. Sorry, sorry. I I was wrong. I I thought you were gonna drive this thing into the ground and break it up, and you've done anything but that.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:50

So well, and the fun thing is, according to Chris, George and Dan, and I'm a if I remember right, that's the gauge. Yeah, gauge, yeah. Gauge are close to launching a new service. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:01

So good. StreamArt's done okay. I hopefully they will. Like this kind of competition's always great. Like and and gage and Dan were great. I just underestimated bending spoons. I thought they were gonna just beat that, break it up, sell it, and and and actually I don't think they have. Listen, your opinion, a lot of people are bitter about that, so whatever. But I I I have to I have to say, yeah, I was probably wrong on that.

WordPress Plugin Backdoor Warning

Apple Podcasts Video Pricing Realities

SPEAKER_01 1:17:28

There you go. One thing I wanted to mention, and we can talk about Ralph just brought up a topic. We can kind of hit this as we start to head towards the door. If you are using WordPress, there was a thing that came out this week that in theory, of course not, basically there are about 30 different WordPress plugins have been basically secretly backdoored. In other words, they hide malicious code that basically give attackers across two thousands of websites. And Brendan wrote a blog post about this on Podpage, if you go to podpage.com slash blog, but he basically talks about how you can go in and check to see if you've been compromised. And of course, at the bottom he probably mentions if he'd I'd be very surprised if he doesn't say, Oh, by the way, you can migrate to Podpage from WordPress now. But that is something that if you're listening and you're using WordPress, you definitely don't want, you know, you don't want people hacking your site. Because I've I've woken up to the white screen of death. It's no fun. So I thought they do the same, Jim, because of Evernote. Yeah, I'm with you. When I heard, I thought, well, that's the end of StreamYard. I'm like, that's they're just gonna ruin it. Yeah, Evernote Meetup was another one they didn't really, and now they bought the ticketing place event bright, they bought, and I'm like, ooh, that could be bad. Well, here we go. Coach Ed has a question. My he says, I'm on Restream, but I'm also using OBS for solo content. Is there a reason not to use OBS? I'm not streaming the solo content, I'm recording. See if Restream can record without streaming. If so, then you don't need OBS. And OBS is I used it years ago, and it's like everything else that's free. You're gonna pay in time or money, and in with me, luckily I found some decent videos on OBS on YouTube, which really cut the learning curve because there were a lot of weird things in that software, and that's when I finally moved to eCam. I'm like, oh, it's like it's like OBS, except it's not quite as confusing. It's a little confusing, but a lot. So the thing Ralph was asking about I'm gonna talk a lot about on the school of podcasting, uh, and that is Captivate was the first person. Well, I shouldn't say first, because Sam Sethy has a he has true fans, and he has hosting for video, and you pay for what you use. And Captivate came out, it's 12 bucks per month per show. So if you've got four shows on Captivate and you want them all to go to Apple Video, and that's what we're talking about, Apple. It's yes, it's HLS, but it's really adding video to Apple, even though it's not new. And so it's 12 bucks a month per show per 1,000 views on Apple, which when you think about it, is probab because a lot of times we look at stats in Apple, and you got to remember that's only people on Apple, not the whole audience. And so it's 12 bucks. The thing that, and it just sounds like you can't get around it because that's the way they're doing it, is so I upload my video to Captivate. That goes to Apple, and when somebody, because you know, everybody's dying to switch, which I'm still not sold on, from video to audio, they're going to get the audio of the video. And from what I I've watched that thing twice now, there's no way around that. You can upload a second audio that's been edited. Like I was surprised last week I used Buzz Sprouts, which is just Dauphonic behind the scenes, to remove filler words. And it cut out like for a 90-minute show, it cut out about two minutes because I am an um machine. And so with this thing, if I upload the video and then I upload it and edited audio in Apple, there's no way to get them the edited audio unless I don't upload the video. So now when I upload, so I upload the video, the video goes to Apple, and if they want audio of that, they're gonna get the audio from the video. If I upload a second audio, that audio goes to everyone Overcast, Pocket Cast, Spotify, whoever, except Apple. And I was like, okay, so either A video first people are gonna tighten up their stuff and get to the point and not make mistakes so that you don't have to edit your show. Or B, you'll do what we've always done, which is go, hey, here's the video version of the show. So like on Spotify, I have Asthepodcast Coach dot or Ask the Podcast Coach parentheses video version, because and I've got a video version and an audio version. Why? Because if you want to watch it, click on the video version. If you want to listen to it, click on the audio version. It's like, you know, but apparently there's this huge demand for people that I just can't decide. Give me a button so I can switch back and forth. So to me, I still am I I need to, I'm gonna talk to Justin Jackson from Transistor. He's very excited about this, and I am not against it. I just don't get it. I go, all right, and I get it. Like we just had Coachella this weekend, and it's like being on another stage, which is more people. So you could grow your audience. It just sounds like okay, yeah, I get that. You could, or we might have built something that nobody wants. So I'm dying to wait and see, because I remember when you know Steve Jobs pulled his iPhone out of his pocket or his iPod, and you know, it's a thousand songs in your pocket. That's the thing where I kind of at the time didn't quite get it. Because, you know, I had my Walkman. What do I need this for? And then you're like, this is amazing. So I am keeping my brain open for hey, this could be some I didn't get it. When they explained it, they didn't explain the true benefits of it. I'd I couldn't live without having the ability to switch between audio and video. So I'm trying not to be quite the old curmudgeon. Randy says, True fans says they're syncing the audio and the video together to switch between them. Not sure how they're doing that with Apple's ingestion system, but it's a it's a claim on their site. Yeah, Randy says somebody wants this. Yeah, it's called advertisers. Yeah, that's the only people I've heard that and I get that. It's another stage to sell stuff on. But there's another thing that I I'm really gonna be interested to see how this works. Have you ever heard of this thing called porn gym?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:17

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:19

A few times, yes.

Home Gadget Geeks Plug And Wrap

SPEAKER_01 1:24:20

Yeah. So now on the other hand, I don't run into porn on YouTube. I'm not looking for porn on YouTube, but and I'm sure I could probably find some if I was looking for it, but that might be something that we'll see how it is. I know there are there's right now the uh the podcasting 2.0 team has started to flag these spam shows that are just AI slop from in sloption point, you know, whatever the inception point AI. So I like to call them. Sloption point. Yeah. Like it. And it's just like so. Rich says, Isn't Apple just doing video to keep up with Spotify? I don't know why they're doing it. Uh I know people were like, we've got to have an alternative to YouTube. And I was like, okay. And then when I look at this, I go, This is not an alternative to YouTube. And we still don't know. I heard somebody say a dollar per 1,000 CPM, but I think he let that slip. And I don't think we're supposed to talk about how much Apple is going to charge you. So I don't know if that's an official number, but and that's if you're putting in dynamic ads, there's a lot that we don't know. So this isn't really rolling out, at least for captivate, till May. I know BuzzSprout has beta testers. So probably by June, July, we'll have a better idea of what's going on. But, you know, we had said on this show, hey, it's going to cost you more money because video is not cheap. And I saw somebody that captivate when they were doing it live. Somebody said, Dave Jackson said your price was going to go up and it is. And I'm like, that's thank you for listening. But on the other hand, that's not really, you know, I that's not genius material there. It's like video's really expensive. So yeah, I'll, you know, and look, if I go over, we'll do one more screenshot here before I run out the door. Where did my note joy go? It ran away. I have a screenshot of my my stats in Spotify, and there there's nothing there. It's I I literally get almost no plays on to the point where I quit uploading video. But I've got like two months worth of stuff, and I don't know where it went, but at any rate, we'll see. It's there's a lot of wait and see in this. So, Mr. Jim, what is going on with the lovely show known as Home Gadget Geeks?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:50

Yeah, we had uh Dwayne Robinson on the show. He's a Microsoft employee, one of their AI experts, and works on the co-pilot team and had a lot of interesting discussions around AI. We've been spending a lot of time on Home Gadget Geeks talking about that. But I think it's good because I mean it's a hot topic right now. So, you know, why not do it? Dwayne's been a friend for a long time, uh, been on the show a bunch, and so we have him back in talking a little bit about agents. So this is a kind of a kind of the hot topic of of Claude Code and OpenClaw and some of those kind of things. Available right now, homegadgetge.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:28

There you go. I will, here we go. If we share my screen, we'll see if we've got another lovely black screen of death, and we do. It's great.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:36

Um, it'll be fine.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:38

Here we go. Here's my analytics. You can see this is for all time. Um, this is about a month ago when I took this. 15 total plays, two followers, one of which is me. So, and you can just see where it's 0011. You know, if we zoom in on this, like a lot of these have no plays at all. And I did that because Spotify was like, Man, everybody's watching video on Spotify. And I'm like, Well, not about podcasting, apparently. So, and and some of those were like really clickbaity titles, and we still got a whole lot of nothing. So that's why I kind of go, uh this, you know, we'll see what happens. So on the School of Podcasting, I'm going to talk. About what we just talked about, the HLS thing and Captivate, and the fact there's the thing I'm worried about is again, people are gonna think they have to do this, and I'm going to be the one that goes, uh no, you don't. And here's some other reasons why maybe you you shouldn't, but it's up to you, as always. And then I'll be uh doing a shootout of I think I have five different lavalier mics now that I didn't realize. I could just keep buying them and forget that I have them. So that's coming up, and of course, we'll see you next week with another episode of Ask the Podcast Coach.