From Swear Words to Show Growth: What Podcasters Can Learn the Hard Way

Dave Jackson: 00:00
Ask the podcast coach for October 4th, 2025. Let's get ready to podcast. 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 theschofodcasting.com. And joining me right over there, he's back, the one and only Jim Cullison from theAveregeguy.tv. Jim, how's it going, buddy?

Jim Collison: 00:29
Greetings, Dave. Happy Saturday morning to you. Sorry to leave you in the lurch a couple weeks ago. I literally gave you an hour of notice and said, Yeah, I can't be there. And uh I'm still struggling. I got a little neck issue, still struggling. So I'm in the uh what'd you call that? The detroit lean.

Dave Jackson: 00:46
You're doing the Detroit lean, man, where you're just sitting back, hand on the coat. Yeah, that's it, man.

Jim Collison: 00:52
Uh well, I know this is the best position for me. Otherwise, uh it gets I get fatigued pretty quick. So I'm here.

Dave Jackson: 00:59
I know you've you've done the show with a fever. Uh you've done the show after like running 40 stairs. The I think the day be like, so I'm like, if Jim's tapping out, something's going on over there.

Jim Collison: 01:11
So it was cry it wasn't it was crying worthy pain. Like I have been I haven't been in this much pain in a long time. And uh of course, seeing the doctor and all those other things, right? We're we're we're getting taken care of, but it just gets when you get older, it just goes slower, you know? Yeah. I've been frustrated with my physical therapist who's been helping me, and I'm like, I want this over now. And she's like, dude, yeah, relax. It's just gonna take some time. Anyway, so we'll be in a relaxed position today. Appreciate you giving me the uh the the week off.

Dave Jackson: 01:42
So and I would I would normally say, you know what will fix that pain is a oh okay. I'm gonna say I didn't see the coffee pot.

Jim Collison: 01:49
Oh no, we got coffee, but for sure. We listen, I could, I could be, I could lose an arm. We still have coffee. All right.

Dave Jackson: 01:58
Well, that awesome coffee pour is brought to you by our good friend Mark over at podcastbranding.co. There we go. Because, you know, they're gonna see you before they hear you and or or see you if you're doing the video thing. And Mark makes really pretty stuff. And uh, in fact, I've hired Mark to do another thing that I'll be talking about in the future. So I'm uh not just a fan of his stuff, I'm a customer, I'm a returning customer. That's the key, is I'm a returning customer because Mark has been, you know, a graphic designer for over 30 years. He's also a podcaster. Uh, he's done over 300 different pieces of artwork, and it's not just artwork. If you need a full website, he can do that as well. And uh he's gonna sit down with you one-on-one, find out what you need, and let him be the marketing guy. You're the podcaster person, you focus on the content, he'll make you look great. It's all there. Go to the website podcastbranding.co, tell him Dave and Jim sent you.

unknown: 03:10
Jimmy Home.

Jim Collison: 03:14
And of course, a big thanks to our good friend Dan Lefebvre over there, based on a true story, based on true storypodcast.com. This week, we missed a couple weeks, but this week, Donald Runsfeld in the movies with William Cooper. If you're if you like that that time in uh in history, that period, of course, he was very influential in all things going on here in the US government. You can check it out today. Uh check it out. Based on a true story, based on a true story podcast.com. And as always, Dan, thanks for your sponsorship.

Dave Jackson: 03:47
There you go. And here's a here's a let's start off with a fun tangent. Why not? It's Dave Jackson. You've heard me comp you've heard me complain about how bad going to the movies is and how podcasters can learn from this. Yeah, I I went to my movie app, which I've now finally unsubscribed, and here's why my local theater has gone out of business.

Jim Collison: 04:10
Yeah, I think we're gonna see a lot of that in the next couple years. So we're gonna see a lot of that, a lot of that. Yeah. Hey, welcome back, by the way. How was uh tell where were you again? Tell me.

Dave Jackson: 04:21
I was at the Empowered Podcasting Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. That's a thing that Mark Ronick, I always want to call him Ronic, and it's nope, it's Ryan Ronic, uh as in Ironic.

Jim Collison: 04:33
Uptown funk guy? Mark Ronick? Isn't that Uptown?

Dave Jackson: 04:36
No, that's isn't that Bruno Mars? No, I mean that's the singer, but it was written, I think, by Mark Ronick. Oh, there you go. Maybe he's got a you know gig on the side. But it was an it was a great facility. Like with like as in that, it was kind of like fancy, but not to not like Gaylord fancy. Like we don't need that. And the location was amazing. We myself and Ralph is here. He got to meet Dave in in person. Yeah, I got to hang out with Ralph and Craig Van Slyck and Mark from Practical Prepping, Mark Lawley, and his wife Krista. And so we all went to dinner and Ralph picked up the check. Very nice guy for that. But we got some really good spaghetti and just this Italian. I guess it's a chain. Starts with an M. There you go, ends with a vowel, shocking Italian restaurant ends in a vowel.

Jim Collison: 05:29
Macadoodles, macadons.

Dave Jackson: 05:31
Something Marianos, yeah, okay. Mark Ronson is the guy that writes the songs for the whole world sings, although that's also Barry Manilo, who shockingly, I think it's true, didn't write that song that he writes the songs. That he writes the songs. He didn't write the song that he wrote the song about. Yeah, so there we go. Magianos was that and so everything was in walking distance, so that was cool. And got to meet some really cool people, and you know, all and all over it was a it was an intimate gathering, so there's probably sixty to seventy-five people there, you know. And it was their it was their second event, so you're gonna have, you know, you're look, there's gonna be wrinkles at Podfest, and they've done that for however many gazillion years. So there's always that thing that, you know, A, there's a lot of technology involved, but they're they're and the tech was easy. It was basically they started off with three remote three wireless microphones, and the batteries were almost dead in all three of them that you're like going, oops, somebody forgot to change. Because usually with those things, it starts to get distorted. And what was funny is they like it would go bad and they would hand him another one and it'd be great, and then it'd go distorted, and then so it's like, well, that's what happens on day one.

unknown: 06:49
Yeah.

Jim Collison: 06:50
Gotta check the batteries. Got the true batteries. That's why I don't that's why I I tried to do as little with batteries in the studio here as possible. Right? It's just because you they're they're always gonna go out that moment. The most important moment of your life, they're gonna go out on you, and you're gonna, you know, so it it is uh for those so would you say like did you get a feel? Do you think the podcast uh conference space is still viable?

Dave Jackson: 07:18
Like I know we're trying, but it's tough because here's the thing when you're when you're getting a discount at a hotel, you're on the hook for that. Whether anybody shows up or not, you're paying for those rooms. And so Mark talked about this. He was uh on the first day, and it was kind of funny because he just kind of jokingly said, he said, What the hell is wrong with you people? You all waited to like the last two weeks to you know, like Memorial Day. He said, Really kicked it off. He goes, but there he goes, we were this close to canceling this because they had sold a handful. He says, but it was like the last two weeks, and everybody jumped in. So yeah, SP, hey SP says, I think podcast seminars would be more viable than conferences right now. Uh see it here's the thing though. The thing I would remember seminars?

Jim Collison: 08:10
Live seminars or virtual?

Dave Jackson: 08:13
Yeah, I think what do you think he mean by that? I'm thinking he's thinking, you know, Zoom stuff. Because for for me, the part I took away was not not that the sessions were bad, but it was hanging out with Ralph and and Mark and Craig and Krista. It always the last night they rented a floor, a whole floor of this building. So we just kind of all hung out together. Again, really nice kind of location. And it was me and Tracy DeForge and and Jen from the Podcasters, Professional Podcasters Association, and all of a sudden Tracy said exactly what I was thinking, which was man, it's weird to be at a podcast conference and there's no Todd Cochrane. And then we we we all just traded Todd stories for about you know 20 minutes, and that was cool. Ralph says it was my first conference, and to be honest, I did not have many great takeaways, but maybe I'm not their target market, perhaps. And why does everyone need to use profanity? That is something that that's kind of weird. Look, I'm not a prude, but like every talk, like I'm gonna keep this clean, but they you know, they were talking about stuff a lot. Everybody had stuff, and I was like, is there, you know, okay, because to me, if I'm on stage, I want to be professional.

Jim Collison: 09:28
And not that saying stuff is unprofessional, it was just kind of like, hmm, you know, Jeff C's is out outside of ask the podcast coach, I swear like a sailor, but I try to you you you know, when you're doing these kinds of things, you can go 90 minutes and not say those words. It is reasonable. Yeah, I mean you can't you can do those for me on a podcast.

Dave Jackson: 09:49
If I don't swear, I can appeal to everyone. If I do, there's a lot of moms in the car driving kids to work that are like, ooh, we got to turn this off. So yeah, Jeff says, I think smaller conferences are where things are headed, much more intimate and better networking. Jeff, how was well, I know the answer to this question, but how is Ecamm? I I'm I didn't go to creator camp this year, but that was a very fun event, very unique. You basically take over this little itty bitty city in uh somewhere on the outside of Boston, and you go pet alpacas, and it that was a really cool, intimate thing. Randy says, I was gonna go uh in the last few weeks, things leading up. Yeah, you lost his co-host. I need to be there. Yeah, absolutely. That's one where family comes first. Sorry, Randy. Yeah. So yeah, that's it. I'm sending kids to work. Yeah, that's it. So it was it was a good time, but it it's not always the uh I'm trying to think if it's ever the the sessions. And it's funny because you know, the speakers put in a lot of time into their session, but usually the takeaway for me is almost always something I learned in the hallway. Like in this case, Megan, I forget Megan's last name, did a great presentation on Facebook ads. And I'm like, you know what? I need to go back and look at that. You know. Ralph says, swearing is great when you have a point to make, but otherwise it seems to be a bit of a crutch for those who lack the ability to effectively express themselves. Howard Stern, when he came to Sirius, like everybody's like, hey, we can say the F-bomb, and he's like, No, no, no, no. He's like that half his fun was how can I not cross the line but come as close as I can to it? That was kind of and he said, No, we're not really into that. So yeah, Stephanie says uh Sinbad, the comedian, was so funny and never said anything vulgar or curse words, you know. So yeah. Bill Cosby done. Yeah, Bill Cosby, the comedian, not the person, the comedian was very entertaining without, you know, in fact, he would go around and please everybody, you know, you shouldn't be using the S word on everybody. Give me some pudding. So, you know, well, that's awesome.

Jim Collison: 12:02
The well, but the the thing is, you know, you and I have been doing this for 10 years, and we have an audience that that joins for they like it, and you and I don't curse on this podcast. We just don't. And so we never talked about it, we never decided, we never wrote any rules, we just kind of said, we just kind of both you and I are like, Yeah, we don't do that when we podcast, right? That's our choice. That's what we decided to do. It would be really weird, even you know, to Ralph's point, if every once in a while I dropped a swear word or you dropped a swear word for emphasis, we get some we get some interesting feedback on that. There would be some folks who are like, hey, listen, what are you doing? Yeah, I've been listening to you because you don't, right? And so listen, you've got to do whatever you if you want to swear on your podcast, you know, go for it. Go, but don't be surprised when if you didn't before, and then you start, don't be surprised if you get you know messages from people who are like, hey, I I listened to you because you didn't do that. So again, you can do whatever you want in this space, just know your audience from that perspective. I don't want I don't do it because I do this professionally, and I wouldn't I wouldn't ever do it on the Gallup side of things. So, you know, it's like, well, then there's gonna be some crossover, and so I just decided a long time ago for the most part. Doesn't mean I never have. I've probably slipped once or twice, but or maybe three times. But but I decide that's the decision I made just to do that. If you want to do that, listen, you're welcome to. You can do it as much as you want on your podcast, right? We just choose not to. We just choose not to.

Dave Jackson: 13:40
Stephanie says YouTube is loose in their policy. If you haven't seen it, on the channel for YouTube creators, there's a guy from Google, and he's like, so there are there are some curse words like shh and and this, and he's like, and then there are other ones, and it's so funny just watching him in a very nonchalant way, non-emotionally charged way, just drop F bombs and things like that. It's so funny. It's like, now if you say, and it's like, okay, so it was that was pretty funny. Chris from if I can get my mouse to work says, even though I try to avoid saying bad words, that's how some people in the real world talk. And that's usually the thing. They're like, I'm just keeping it real. And I'm like, I get that. People can choose with their wallets and their clicks. Yeah. I mean, just a second ago, I now I was quoting Mark. I could have said, and Mark said, What the heck are you guys, what the heck is wrong with you guys? I said H E double hockey stick. So, you know, that's but I was quoting somebody. So and I also I also agree there are curse words, and then there are, you know, look, if you get a little bit of dog poop on your shoe, it might be feces. And then if you get more, it's a little poop, and then if you get a little more on your shoe, it's crap, you know, and then eventually you're like, oh man, I stepped in a ton of dog sh you know. It's like, okay. So it's it kind of different levels, different words. For sure. My favorite line from George Carlin, he said the F-word is the one you save for the end of the argument. It's like that's kind of true.

Jim Collison: 15:08
Um the good day, sir.

Dave Jackson: 15:10
Good day, sir. Yes. Chris says Gary V exclude ex excludes many people because he bobs and scats with F bombs. But Ben Yeah, he's that's his thing.

Jim Collison: 15:23
People don't know what's going on. That's your shit with Gary V. You know what you're getting with him, right? You you you're he's weeded out the people who don't like that. They are not gonna go back to it.

Dave Jackson: 15:32
Yeah, yeah. I don't have to prepare anything, and I can swear like a sailor. Yay, that's my brand. Okay. And also keep in mind, Gary V just just purchased apparently part of the stand store. It's this kind of what if Link Tree had a baby with uh I don't know, kind not even WordPress, but it's it's with the circle, maybe. Like you can do courses and stuff with it. And if that's not enough, but wait, there's more. Steven, what's his name from Diary of a CEO also bought a chunk of the stand store thing. So just brace yourself because we're gonna hear a lot about how the stand store is the next big thing. And you need to forget, I I remember I saw Pat Flynn, and I love Pat Flynn. Said, oh, you don't need a website anymore, you just need stand. And I was like, let me see. Oh, and Pat is an advisor to the company. And I was like, because he actually also we have a uh testimonial from Pat Flynn saying how great Podpage is. And I was like, hmm, that's interesting. And so just keep in mind that all of a sudden I I predict in the the next month or so we're gonna hear how, oh what, you don't have a stand store? And I was like, Oh, here we go. So it's always interesting how these guys love these products once they own a piece of it.

Jim Collison: 16:53
So that's uh that's the business of it, right?

Dave Jackson: 16:56
Yeah, and they could also say that, you know, they bought a piece of it because they believe in the product. I mean, so I I get that too. So here we go. Stephanie says a boy in my church got in trouble for saying son of a biscuit. And his father told him, I never want to hear you say that. I remember growing up, you weren't allowed to say sucks.

Jim Collison: 17:17
Yeah, I got in trouble. I got in trouble for in college for saying that from the platform. Yeah. He said, Sometimes this world really sucks. And then my the dean, he would later become the dean of the school, but he comes up to me and he goes, You you need to you need to go to apologize for what you said. I said, and I thought he meant the message of what I was saying, not the word. And he go, and I said, Well, I I wouldn't I wouldn't regret anything that I said. I I believed it from my heart, you know, whatever. And he was like, No, the S word. And I was like, Did I say, did I say, you know, you you start going through the speech again, and you're like, I didn't say I didn't say the S word. Oh, and then I he he mouthed it. He couldn't even say it. He goes, It sucks. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, I said that. I'm sure I said that. I said, All right, you're fine. I said, it's you're right. I'm a California kid. I grew up saying that everywhere. My parents didn't care if I said it or not. I didn't, I don't see that as a curse word, but some people do, right? So so I went up on the platform and apologized and to the to the audience. And after the session was over, I had a dozen people come up to me and say, because I didn't say what I said. I just said if I offended you, I'm sorry. What did you say? What did you say? More people started listening to me after that. He's edgy. Like, oh my gosh, he says things. I mean, maybe that's a tactic. Just go up and apologize at some point for something you don't say what it is, and then maybe people will listen more in the future because they'll be like, Is he saying things I should be listening to? So it might be a good option there.

Dave Jackson: 18:53
I had fun just this is this is kind of a Howard Stern moment where, like, oh, I can say this and it's not wrong. I I forget the name of the character, but there's a story in the Bible about some guy that picked up the jawbone of a donkey and then beat people with it. And I explained how this guy went around and killed all these people. And of course, another name for donkey is that one. Yeah, and I said, So he he beat people with a with a piece of ass. And I was like, I just want to say that because I can say it in a church and it's accurate.

Jim Collison: 19:26
That is good.

Dave Jackson: 19:28
And everybody was like, ah, that's not dirty. And I'm like, nope, I know you want to get offended because I said that word. Yeah. Jeff says, I said screwed up in church and a church message and got in trouble. Yeah, these are all these are because that was sexual. Ooh, it's sexual.

Jim Collison: 19:43
Yeah. So I say holy buckets a lot. I'll be like, holy buckets.

Dave Jackson: 19:48
That sounds like Robin. I don't know why I just started saying that. Too much early Batman. Yeah. Because Robin would be like, holy, you know, Audio Technica 2100, Batman. Yeah. John Jamango says, I got in trouble one time editing a podcast because I left Damn in Hell because it was a clean show. Yeah, that's yeah, that's there. You go. There goes our clean rating. Uh see, I just said those words. Doggone. See those as cursed words. That's it.

Jim Collison: 20:16
Well, that's the one. Like, you know, there's so many more worse ones than that. But but why are they worse? Like, I mean, think about this, think of the anatomy of a swear word, right? I mean, that why? Because we've collectively said they are. Like, and I know they're meanings. That's really it. I know they have they had meanings in the in the but it yeah. Isn't that funny? That we that word, you think about the F word, right? And that is such a dividing line. I think you you you have to have an opinion on that word. And most people would say the F word is out of bounds, right? For the most part. But why? Like it's just a word.

Dave Jackson: 20:60
My favorite is was watching The Longest Yard with Burt Reynolds, the original one, which is just wow on TV where they clean it up and it would be like, son of a buck, you know, you you you son of a biscuit eater, you know, mother lover, like wait, what? So it's just weird. And you're like, I don't think that's what they were saying.

Jim Collison: 21:26
Yeah.

Dave Jackson: 21:26
Dan Lefebb says, uh, swearing is a social thing. Fifty years ago, the swear words were different. Some people are just too sensitive, in his honest opinion. Yes. Holy grail. Yeah. Uh there's, you know, yeah, uh Daniel G. Lewis says, my favorite non-curse phrase is what the Huey doing, Louie? Yeah.

Jim Collison: 21:48
Hey, it's uh is fart a curse word? Is is that let's let's weigh in on this.

Dave Jackson: 21:52
See, when we can you say that when we get to when we get to bodily functions, yeah, people get a little weird because you know, we all fart, but yet if you say fart, you know, I think I I'm smelling uh ah, there you go. So you didn't even think about that. It's like I'm smelling uh an episode title for this. But uh, where's my rim shots?

Jim Collison: 22:11
Anatomy of a curse word?

Dave Jackson: 22:13
Yeah, yeah. There are there's a there was a thing on Netflix that went through like why is the F-word, where did it come from? What was this? How did we get this word? Yeah, Chris Stone from Castahead.net. When I worked for Sony, one of my accounts wanted a clean version of a two short album. I sent him an instrumental version. Well, that's it. I mean, some of the these kids of the day, you know, I see them on the TV, on the MTV music awards, and every other word is bleeped out. I'm like, well, okay. I still remember, let's see. Elton John, someone saved my life tonight. He says it's four o'clock in the morning, darn it, but he doesn't say darn it, you know. So, and I was just like, he just said darn it on the radio. I was like, holy cow! And then Axel Rose, uh Guns N' Roses, or Ted Nugent on Double Ive Gonzo is that's one of those where you're like, you know, I'd like to dedicate this to all the Nashville good-looking women body parts. Yeah, so it's yeah. And then Chris says, another Chris, we have buy one Chris get a second one free today. I guess it depends on where you live and where you grow up. Swear words and normal conversation. I I know for there is a community aspect to it where we're all good people, but when we get around our boys, now we can talk freely, and it's it's kind of a sign of camaraderie, like, hey, I trust you enough, because you know, if you say a swear word, I might go tell your mom, you know, that kind of thing. I've seen I've I've read about that. I've I actually studied a little bit, like, why are curse words curse words? And you know, here we go. Who else remembers Battlestar Galactica's frack? Yeah, I've fracking, yeah, that's true.

Jim Collison: 24:02
There's all sorts of that was that is just blatant, you know. That's just a blatant replacement type deal, but it's okay. I mean, yeah, they got away with it. Yeah.

Dave Jackson: 24:13
There we go. W John Jamingo says, I was impressed with a story from Daniel J. Lewis. He smashed his thumbnail moving a desk and didn't swear. I yeah, I don't know that that would be possible. Although stubbing your toe, usually the swear when you're hurt.

Jim Collison: 24:31
Why do you why do you go to those words in those moments?

Dave Jackson: 24:35
I mean, that's a really good question.

Jim Collison: 24:37
Stress, pain, let's put let's put those together. Why do we do that? Like, what is the you know to show that it really hurts?

Dave Jackson: 24:45
That there's this like this isn't just a owl and ouch, same way, like we went from feces to to poop to to crap to you know, and now like when you when you accidentally, you know, you move the footstool and you hit it with your toe, after you get done going, right? That's the natural thing, and then it's like mother. Like, yeah.

Jim Collison: 25:08
So that's and I think that's it. Yeah, when you that's like that's that's a 12.

Dave Jackson: 25:18
Uh bob.

Jim Collison: 25:22
When you drop that bob, all that's it. Everybody stay away. It's gonna take just go, yeah, yeah.

Dave Jackson: 25:29
Yeah, it's uh it's what Chris says. It's the emotional outcry to the world. Yeah. They're talking about editing Eddie Murphy's Raw album. Oh, yeah. Chris says that album would be silence, followed by a crowd laughing their guts off.

Jim Collison: 25:43
Well, didn't George Carlin do one too that was that didn't he do the seven seven words you can't say? Wasn't that George Carlin? Yeah. Who did that? And yeah, I mean, you you you you know I loved Craig Ferguson used to bleep because he just swore on the show. Right. But he would bleep it with funny, he had funny phrases, yeah, you know, I'll watch a coming agoin' or something like that. You know, he had all these phrases and he'd bleep them out with that kind of stuff. What am I that's creative way of doing it?

Dave Jackson: 26:12
Well, my favorite is Jen Briney, Congressionaldish.com, a website, by the way, designed by Mark at podcastbranding.co. And uh Jen starts off very it's a news show, and she's reading her news and she's very proper, and then she starts reading about the crazy things that Congress is doing. And when she says the F word, Daryl Darnell is her editor from uh Pro Podcast Solutions, he substitutes a golf swing, which is perfect because it's like, and these shrieking guys and this guy's and I, you know, I'm thinking, what the sweak? And it's like, oh, that that fits perfectly.

Jim Collison: 26:51
So it's a good way to do it. It's a good way to do it. Replace it with something fun. Don't do the or the boop or the beeps or the like do the duck quack something, yeah.

Dave Jackson: 27:02
Well, as SP says, going into another language to swear is one of the most respectful ways to express profanity in a monolingual crowd, except the Spanish crowd is gonna be like, why is he?

Jim Collison: 27:15
So Why are you offending me in my language?

Dave Jackson: 27:17
Uh in my own language. They're like now now all the Spanish people are gonna be like, well, we gotta turn this off. I don't know. So you know, words, you know, it's it's uh we're yeah. And that's that's I think to me why I think they're fun, because in the end they are just kind of words, but you know, somehow we we will, you know.

Jim Collison: 27:40
Well, but people have a real opinion. Like some people see cursing as as a lower version of language. In other words, they'll say, You curse because you're you don't have enough langu control of your own language to use more creative words, or you you know, or you know, the profanity is some kind of it a degradation to the culture kind of thing. So there's some folks who have a real strong opinion about what that cursing means, right? To the to them. And it gets kind of it gets kind of personal sometimes, you know, with that. There's others who are like, yeah, it's fine. I mean, I'm I hear it all the time. I don't see it as any being any different than any other word in that sense. So definitely that culture of how people see those things, and you definitely, I mean, there are definitely groups of folks who gather who then impose those things on each other in some of those kinds of ways. So it's certainly it's certainly a challenge from a podcasting standpoint. It it all goes back, Dave, is know your audience, right? Who are you speaking to with these kinds of things? And back to my example, I shouldn't have said sucks from the platform at a Bible college. Right. That's right. I you know, I shouldn't have said that. I should have known better. It was handled, by the way, perfectly. Like the, you know, the the university president who pulled me aside. You know, you you admonish, right? You admonish in public, you correct in private, right? That's that's usually that's a good leadership skill to have. He pulled me aside. He didn't get up on the platform and make fun of me or call me out from the platform, right? He pulled me aside and said, Hey, I I need you, let's correct this kind of thing, right? And that was his opinion. I didn't think it was that bad. But but okay. I think there's some good lessons in that from podcasters. I think there's some good lessons in that we can learn from each other, is that you know, oftentimes, listen, we control the microphone, we control the chat room from that standpoint. And and and I really do believe as much as we can, those corrections need to be done privately. And then, you know, but but celebrate each other publicly as much as we can. That's a great way to do it as well. So I think there's some good lessons in that.

Dave Jackson: 29:55
Yeah, I'm trying to find my list. I used to have a list of countries. That I got from Daniel J. Lewis. And they're all like something stands, blah, blah, blah. You know, Rich Graham has everybody's favorite curse word, which is pound sign, percent sign, pound, and percent. That's hilarious. Yeah, I can't find it. But it they're all in the Middle East. I remember that. It's all gigstackey stan and gigaby. I cannot find it. Because I'm sitting here typing in hashtag cuss, hashtag swear. I cannot find it anywhere. So, Daniel, I don't know if you have that uh list somewhere, because that's where I got it from him. But there are a bunch, most of them are in the Middle East. But it it's like seven or eight countries. And it's if if you and I'm not sure exactly what the process is. Like if you swear, especially now with transcripts, maybe Apple could, in theory, if they see one of those words, automatically flag your episode as explicit, not saying they do this. I'm just saying that's possible now. And if you mark one episode explicit, these other countries just like you are out of the Apple store. So yeah. So that's well, here this is what I'm worried about. Craig says in Spain, people swear so much the words have lost their effect. And that's why when I say you shouldn't swear, it's not that I'm offended. It's like, no, no, no. I want to preserve the power of the F word. I'm like, don't just use it like it's, you know. And that's that's because otherwise, how what are you gonna say for the end of the argument if the F-word has lost its power?

Jim Collison: 31:42
You say good day, sir. Good day. That's it. That's what you say. That's what you say. That's how you end an argument.

Dave Jackson: 31:48
You just say good day. Well, let's see if this works. This is my list, but I think a few of these have been removed, so I don't know. I have three dots. Maybe you can't make that long of a comment.

Jim Collison: 31:59
But or maybe those words aren't aren't allowed to be. Anyway. I love John Jamingo's quote. Throw that up there, Dave, really quick. It says I tell those people who say cursing is for low intelligence to go themselves. That's it. Oh, very good, John. Very good.

Dave Jackson: 32:17
All right. Well, we have a fun, it's a long one, but I I was like, hey, look, it's it's something that's not what's the best microphone under 200 bucks. I saw this out at Reddit. I don't know that I'll read this whole thing, but he says, this is not easy to write. Apologies. I'll split it into two or three. Feel free to ignore the second part, et cetera, et cetera. Where do should I be sending press kits to my guest? I host a comedy interview podcast called Tyrant in Training. So to me, Tyrant in Training, I don't I I would think that's a business show for CEOs, maybe, or something. I don't know. And I I definitely wouldn't guess that as a comedy show, but that's just me. That's a survey of one. And I usually have guests on that have plenty of online followers. They're right there to me is a bit of a red flag. For context, I I have a podcast doing 30 downloads each episode, but guests have hundreds of thousands of followers and are comedians themselves. I tag them in posts, but they only sometimes share. So should I send out press kits to them? And so that's where, for me at least, you're you're missing the boat. I first of all, especially on social media, unless it's naked people with swear words, you're probably not going to get people to stop. I mean, when I I started look at yourself when you're on social media and you're going through the Twitters and the threads and then like, I literally am scrolling, looking for anything, and whatever you say has to stop the scroll first. So let's say you were lucky enough to get them to stop the scroll. Then whatever you said, you have, I would say, a very small chance of getting someone to actually click and leave their doom scrolling to go watch your show or listen to it. I I don't know. That's he he goes on. He says, I feel, let's see, I'm in this terrible state of spiraling into despair and continuing this podcast. I do enjoy it. Now that's weird, because you know, I I love my bike riding, but I'm not gonna do it anymore because, you know, I like if you enjoy it. So, but man, over a hundred episodes and still 30 downloads each episode, it's depressing. Over and over again. I've got good guests on, like with plenty of followers, but none of it matters. So for me, let's let's look at that a second. You've done this multiple times and you've got 30 downloads. I think it's time to say that strategy is not working. Doesn't mean it's, you know, your show's bad. Uh it's always the same download numbers. Here's what's really bugging me, though. I ask people if they like to guest, and I get really enthusiastic feedback saying the premise sounds great and they'd love to do it. They record an episode, seems great after that. Some share when uh when they're tagged, but any follow-up email I sent, even just yanking them, I think it means thanking them, is most times no response or just okay or a short reply back. It's like, hey, they go from excited to not wanting to deal with me, and it feels like they loved the premise, but then recorded it and realized it's crap. Well, that that could be. That's an option. So I'm left with the common denominator in every episode is me. That's kind of dangerous, but okay. I'm the reason it ever gets 30 downloads. I'm annoying, off-putting something which really messes with my mind because then I go, email a guest, they are enthusiastic about it, they record with me and are laughing and saying it's fun, and I act like I'm fully believing them, but internally I'm telling myself, nope, they regret this. I'm ruining it. It's hard to enjoy doing an improv. Oh, there's a there's a word right there that makes me very worried. Improv comedy podcast when looking for a guest and thinking they hate me, they wish some else doing this right now. So now we're into a, we're we're piling on imposter syndrome to or we're adding, you know, fire to the imposter syndrome here. Doing 12-hour work days, and then finding time to put out a podcast every week is time consuming and draining. I love doing the podcast, but do you? It doesn't sound like it, but it's disheartening to see this proof that I'm bad at it. This is where he needs to go to buzzsprout.com/slash stats. I think the average is like 37 downloads an episode. Other people can do podcasts, and after 10 episodes in a crowded niche, they can sail past 30 downloads. I believe I've a good premise. So number two, he's staring at his competition. I believe good premise, and I think the quality is good. I'm just the issue. I'm a bad host, a bad person to attract any listeners. Common advice is to market by asking guests to share the episodes, guests on other podcasts, but it's like I rarely get guests sharing episodes, and I can never find any podcasts for me to be a guest on. That's not true. And there are shows that will take anybody. Again, I love doing the podcast. To me, it's starting to sound like he's convincing himself here. And I try to focus, try not to focus on download numbers at all. Enjoy the process, you know. I think the fact gets guests seem to ignore me once I record with them triggers, rejection issues. So that's not good. Honestly, I need to get this out so I can. I think that's what he's doing. I think he's just doing therapy on Reddit. Side note, I'm already in a mix of shame for posting this for anyone to see, and shaky conviction that it's good to let it out. I could boss, I could probably shy away from any comments about this whiny part. I don't know. What do you think, Jim, when you hear all this stuff?

Jim Collison: 38:17
I mean, it's all true, right? I mean, we we all go through these moments of self-doubt and of of questioning are we do we you know, does this make any sense? Whether we have 30 or 300 or 30,000 downloads. You know, a lot of folks wish for more downloads. That comes with its own uh pressure and stress. Right. You know, you get you you start getting, you know, anything over 10,000 and you start getting some really, I think you start getting some really interesting feedback from people. And then now you're listening to your most engaged listeners who sometimes are worse than when you had nobody, you know, or when you had a small, when you had a small audience. They they take things personally or they you know, they give you advice that you're yeah, I'm you're not gonna follow. I mean, I I had one this week, somebody in my podcast saying, I really wish you'd do this. And I'm like, well, I appreciate that. I appreciate the feedback. I'm not gonna do it.

unknown: 39:12
Right.

Jim Collison: 39:13
And if you you know, if you if you need to go, because you know, there's always it it's in some of the feedback, there's always veiled threats of leaving. I'm gonna stop listening. And you're like, okay. I mean, stop listening because you're not you I we've overshot the target for you, apparently, at this point, right? Right. And and so, you know, of course, as you pick up more listeners, then you get more of those kinds of things. I think that's and people struggle with that just as much. I mean, I've I've watched a dozen, that's probably too many, six YouTubers come and go because of their their audience. I mean, they flat out said, I'm not doing this anymore because you guys are terrible. You're terrible people, you write terrible things. I don't need this, I don't need the stress, you know. I've also watched YouTubers come on and then try to please or talk to their audience through their, you know, through their their their their video and say, oh, we got this comment or I got that comment, you know, some of these kinds of things. So be careful what you wish for from that standpoint. But 30's 30's not bad. If you love it, keep doing it. If you don't like it, stop. I mean, it's it's a fairly easy, you know, there's nothing validating about having a podcast. There's nothing that makes you better or worse than anybody if you have one or you don't have one. If it's not working for you, just stop. Give it, take a break. Do something different, you know. Get it get away from it for a while. Uh, you don't have to have one. You know, if you like doing it though, I I always said when I first started blogging, my very first blog was like, look, I'm gonna write this, and if nobody reads it, it's okay. Because I write it for me. This is for this is for me. This is to help me do some things. I still in the podcasting world, these still are about I I do this because I like doing it, you know. We don't, you know, we don't ask the podcast coach, it doesn't have giant numbers, but it has enough. It's got 40 people in the chat room. It's I get to hang out with you. That's enough for me, right? So, anyways, everybody comes at this from a different motivation, and I think you just gotta check your motivation and be like, why am I doing this? Is it fulfilling it? Do we need to stop it? I mean, home gadget geeks will come up on 15 years this December. 15 years, Dave. Wow, sometimes I'm like, do is this should I stop? I mean, I asked this question about what's a quarter, to be honest. Like, have I said enough? Like, do I really want to, you know? In the last couple weeks, as I've really struggled with this neck injury, I've had a hard time with energy, right? Okay, because you you start doing things and then it starts hurting. And you're like, ah that would have been a good time to swear, by the way, right there where I was going, I could have dropped the F word. But you know, it it and maybe that's the emphasis people are talking about. But it is, you know, I I think it's it's a a good opportunity. Listen, if you're not questioning it, I don't even want to say it that way. I think it's okay. Live in the struggle. It's not bad to be it's not bad to be in the struggle.

Dave Jackson: 42:22
All this time I didn't realize I I could have been going. That guy is driving me crazy. Hey Jim, Mark. Oh, wait, that's the wrong button. Wait, stop. No, we don't need so yeah, this is uh Jeff C says podcasting can be a lonely business. That's why I do a live show first. Having an audience that shows up each week is what keeps me going. Absolutely. Maria says if you are frustrated, then your listeners were gonna hear it in your voice, take a break. Yep. It's if if it's not for you, you know, if it's not fun for you, it's not gonna be fun for them. I always say, like, what's your why? Because if you don't get your why, and also 30 people is a really full classroom that could be, you know, watching Netflix or whatever, you know, and they're listening to now. I realize, I forget how many years he said he'd been doing it, but uh to me, he's doing the same thing and expecting different results. And I'm like, yeah, that's I I I don't, you know, I I in the Reddit I comment, I'm like, look, if you did the same interview that that person has had over and over again, I go, they're not gonna share it because their audience has heard what was podcasting like in 2005? I've answered that question many, many times. And my audience doesn't need to hear that answer anymore, so I'm not gonna probably share that. So it doesn't mean it's a bad question, just means I'm not gonna share it. And instead look at interviews as a way to grow your audience, or not your audience, grow your network. You know, this is this is something that got your foot in the door to uh, you know, meet this person. So Ralph says, where did we come up with the 10,000? Why is that the magic number? Mainly because it used to be back in the day, that was the number that advertisers, some advertisers wanted per episode, by the way, not per month, per episode to uh you know consider you for sponsorship. Stephanie says he needs therapy and a coach. Yeah. The other thing he said is everybody. A hug, really, yeah.

Jim Collison: 44:27
A hug would be good too, yeah.

Dave Jackson: 44:28
Yeah. So, you know, and get some feedback from people that will say, and also improv, I I get it that I it's a skill I think that podcasters need because sometimes technology doesn't work or whatever. You need to be able to kind of go off the top of your head for stuff. But every time I see improv, I'm gonna say maybe 10%. It actually makes me laugh. And and the other times when people laugh, it's because it's weird and awkward. And you it's kind of not a pity laugh, but you're just like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. This is dumb. You know, so I mean, I went to Second City in Chicago. That's where like in the early days, half of Saturday Night Live would come from Second City in Chicago, and I was like, oh, this is gonna be amazing. And again, maybe 20%. I just remember it was like, oh, that that was a look. Because they'd be like, okay, give us some stuff. They'd be like, banana, cape, air conditioner, Volvo. And then they would somehow come up with a skit that used all those words, and you're like, yep, that that uh that used all the words, but it you know, that's that's eight minutes of my life. I can't get back, you know. So yeah, I I get improv, but I I've yet to I rarely see it, you know, unless you got somebody like Jim Carrey. That usually doesn't, you know, work. Steph says I hate Steph says I hate when people get mad at guests for not sharing. It's not their job. It's nice when they do, but the whole expectation I don't like. I'm with you on that. I've never expect my guests to share it. In fact, I when I interviewed Justin Moore about his book Sponsor Magnet, I said, dude, I hate to do this to you, but I'm gonna walk you through your greatest hits because my audience hasn't heard your greatest hits. I said, So I'm not really gonna this is gonna be one of those interviews where it's you know the same old, you know, how do I get well how how many downloads do I have to have to get a sponsor and that kind of stuff? So you were gonna say something, Mr. Coach.

Jim Collison: 46:39
Well, Dan Daniel said it in chat. Uh whose line is it anyway? Is it was a good show of of improv that was funny most of the time. They did a nice job. The the key to that show is the live audience, right? You there's a reason comedians have a warm-up comedian who come on to well, one, to make the show a little bit longer to so people feel like they got their value out of a very expensive ticket, but but two, you know, getting the crowd kind of juiced so that they're responding to stuff that on the surface, to be honest, is not is not really, I mean, it is funny, but when you get in a funny environment that one thing leads to another, unless you destroy the the atmosphere in the middle of it, is a tactic to get people to laugh, like get crowds laughing, they'll continue to laugh, right? And so it's it's you know, the the the the key to that kind of improv is the crowd. I doing improv without a crowd, ooh, that's a special skill. Yeah, because you don't know if it's working. Yeah, you and I have maybe one funny moment a month in doing this show, right? Every once in a while, even a blind squirrel finds a nut, and we find a funny improv moment in what we're doing here, but that's not what we're shooting for, right? If I I would that would be, man, I doing an improv in a podcast with no audience. So you can't gauge how funny you are. That's the that's the whole point of improv in a lot of ways, is gauging the funniness, and you can the the crowd, the energy of the crowd can often lead to even more funny moments, right? I just don't know how you do, I don't know how you do improv without a crowd. I'm I'm sure there's some people very skilled and able. That's not me for sure.

Dave Jackson: 48:29
When I spoke, and I'm speaking next year at the National Religious Broadcasters, and a lot of great people there, I made some great friends there. But when I'm on stage, they're not looking for the funny. They I I could tell like about six slides in, I'm like, here's something, and I just threw something out. I'm like, this should make them smile. And it was just like these like just the facts, please. And I was like, okay. And I just, you know, but if you don't have a live crowd, how do you know if it's working or not? And that may be something that's going on there.

unknown: 49:01
Yeah.

Dave Jackson: 49:01
We were talking earlier when we were talking about swearing the words. Oh, like I'm gonna pronounce these. Bahrain, Belarus, Brunei, Dara Salam. See, I this is a fun thing. Burkina, Faso, Chad, Egypt, India, Jordan, Lebanon, Nepal, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan. That was the one. That almost sounds like a swear word. Ah, Uzbekistan and Yemen. And he said, that's from my text expander list. Uh and I think at least one of those might have changed their content. So thank you, Daniel, for that. I know so again, if you if you're really trying to build up your Middle East audience, maybe now is not the time, you know, to uh make explicit content. Or just just know ahead of time. Yeah, that's it. Maria says, Are they laughing with you or at you? Yeah, and it's hard to tell if it's not love.

Jim Collison: 49:59
In some cases, it's okay if it's either, right? You know, in in a lot of times, self-deprecating humor, you want them to laugh at you, right? I mean, that's that's that's kind of the point that that of that uh of that style of hu of uh of uh comedy. So yeah, for sure.

Dave Jackson: 50:17
Yeah. Always fun. We did have another question. Did you see John Jamingo's question earlier?

Jim Collison: 50:24
Yeah, there we go.

Dave Jackson: 50:24
How should someone handle a co-host who low talks under the other host? It sounds like an episode of Seinfeld. I don't know whether that's a problem. I don't know what you're saying. Even after it has been brought up to that attention. This is one of the things why I used to hate I I I definitely want to be a worker be. I don't want to be a manager, is when you tell someone, yeah, see this thing. Here's how you do it, this is why you're not supposed to do it this way, and then they do it again. And you go, Yeah, I don't know if you noticed, but remember that thing and I showed you how to do it, you you you did it again, because like they're not gonna change. There's two things. Either A, they don't see themselves doing it, or B, they don't care. And the second one, especially, if they just don't care, now you're now you have a whole other problem of like, do we keep this person? Because they're not on the team. But I mean, there's just gotta if you could make a clip, I would make a clip and just, you know, go to the person and go, hey, I know we mentioned this to you, and this may be something that you just don't realize you're doing. So here's a quick clip. See how you're talking under the the host here, and it just it makes an editing nightmare because I have to edit you out, and then I can't because blah, blah, blah. So you just you just unfortunately gotta hold up a mirror and go, here's what we were talking about. I don't know, Jim. You have any thoughts of it.

Jim Collison: 51:50
Yeah, I agree with you. You just gotta you gotta come out and just say, hey, this isn't working. You know, especially if you've talked about it. Uh, this is in most cases of conflict like this, it doesn't get talked about. And it just gets to a point, it gets more and more frustrating and more, and then there's a blow-up. That's usually because conflict, I mean, conflict's hard. It's hard to do. And most people don't really like to confront it. I mean, it's kind of what separates good managers from bad managers, right? Is good managers are able to confront it in a way that can not always, but can promote growth or see opportunities in it and say, yeah, this isn't really working. I've worked for some really good managers who said things to me like, yeah, don't do that again. You know, did you do that? And I'm like, Yeah, I did it. And they're like, Yeah, don't do that again. That yeah, this is not what we're looking for, right? And oh, okay. I I get it, I hear you, right? You gotta kind of come out. But, you know, also people don't respond to criticism very well sometimes. And then they start getting defensive and it turns into a shouting match or whatever. So it's a hard thing to do. I I think if it's a disruption, if it's been addressed, you gotta let them go. You just gotta say, you know what, we're moving in a different direction. We're kind of done here. I've I've had to do that. And you know, then I get the but I don't want to move on. And I'm like, yeah, but I'm that's I'm asking you to. And so you need, and that's not always clean, right? That that part of moving someone on is not always clean. It's listen, it's great if you can get them to see that and they move on themselves. That's always a nice, that's always kind of a nice way to get some things like that, hey, this isn't really working out, like uh this is not matching what we're trying to do here. And if they can say, yeah, it's not, I understand. I'm gonna, I'll go do something different, that's the perfect kind of scenario. Doesn't happen very often because oftentimes people have their ego in it, and so they're like, How dare you fire me, you know, kind of thing. Yeah. But the easiest, the the in the long run, the easiest thing to do is say, let's do something different. Like, this isn't gonna work for me. I'm gonna we're gonna go a different direction. The other thing is don't don't try to don't don't try to soften the blow too much where you're you're you're not exactly clear. This is the end. Like be really, I mean, just be truthful and honest and clear. Like, we're having a conversation, and this is the last time you're gonna be on the show. I just want to be really clear about that because leaving that like sometimes we're like, oh well, maybe in the future this'll things will magically change that haven't changed in the last six months we've been doing this, and you know, that because it because it makes you feel better about you know, bringing the bad news to it, just be super clear. It's easier just to cut and be like, Yeah, we're done. We're done doing this. Don't be mean about it, of course, but just be really clear. Like, yeah, we're not going that direction anymore. It they're not how they respond to it, most of the time it's gonna be bad. And you're just gonna that's part of leading people. It's part of leading people, friends. That's not everybody's designed to be a leader.

Dave Jackson: 55:03
No, and it's I I just had to do this at my church. I'm kind of on the the leadership team, and we have, and she's the sweetest, dearest older woman who occasionally after the pastor gets done doing the sermon, will stand up and chime in on it. And we're like, and it's literally five minutes from the end of the service. We're gonna sing a song and get out of here. Like, and we we kind of politely said, you know, you it's you know, if you had just waited five minutes, you could have told the pastor that after the song, and it kind of interrupts the flow, and you know, please don't do that. And then they talk to her again and said, Hey, you know, you did that again. And that's not really the time for so they're finally like, hey, can you like maybe she'll listen because you're a dude. Maybe, you know. So I just went to her, I said, Hey, that thing you just did. I said, I, you know, that's an interesting point. I go, but it's it's bad timing. And I go, you you're you're pulling the trigger about five minutes too soon. I said, you could have told the pastor that after that. And I said, I just want to make this as clear as possible. I go, don't ever do that again. And she's like, Oh, I'm sorry. And I'm like, okay, I just I just want to make sure you're aware. Don't ever do that again. And she's like, okay. And later she's like, well, because my church is the only place where people call me Davy because no, that's not gonna fly. And she's like, well, Davy yelled at me. I go, no, Davy, Davy. And what I did, I found a really because I didn't want to pull her into a room alone, because you never want to be in a room with a female alone, because now it's her word against mine. So I did it to where people couldn't hear me, but people could see me. And I was like, don't do that again. And it was awkward. It was somewhat awkward seeing her the next week, and I just pretended like it never happened, you know. But we'll see what happens. SP has a great idea, and I'm sure maybe John's doing this. Have it multi-tracked so you can just mute that person, you know, fix it with technology. That's the problem. And if it's not, then you're like stuck. And speaking of improv, Rich says Improv for Humans with Matt Besser is still going after hundreds of episodes, it's hard to listen to. So, you know, it's uh it's got an audience there somewhere, who knows?

Jim Collison: 57:18
But maybe not, or maybe not, you know. Maybe the person just really likes creating, you know, that's that's their creation, and maybe it's not designed for everybody, you know. So there's that there's a lot to self-fulfillment in the in this space that I think sometimes we're looking for something, you know, we're looking for something that's not possible out of this, and this is why they the two never line up, because what you're looking for, it's not possible in what you're doing. And so you have to kind of I have to have this realistic, this is a you know, we we talked about you know conflict with within a team, but with yourself, I think you have to have that kind of conversation that says, Hey, is what I'm doing ever have the possibility of what I'm looking for? And I think for some people the answer is no in that. And you then you have to say, I should probably stop doing this. If that's if that's what if that's what you gotta let that go. Just be like, yeah, this is never gonna happen this way. Or the odds are so small, I'm gonna go invest my time in something else that it does have the possibility or gives me greater fulfillment, or you know, whatever whatever you're looking for in that. So I think in some cases, you know, podcasting is is interesting because it has the potential for a lot of public validation of who you are, but not everybody's gonna get it that way. You just you know, and if 50's not enough, a hundred may not be enough, and maybe a thousand's not enough. And then, like, so you have to at some point you have to have this realistic conversation with yourself. It's what am I looking for in this thing?

Dave Jackson: 58:57
See, and I I think that's why so many people are like, I need to get a sponsor. Not because they need the money, but that might be the badge of officialness, like, oh, I've got a sponsor, I'm now official podcast. I wonder sometimes because like, no, that that you're you're legit the minute you hit publish. Yeah, yeah. You know, you're you are officially podcasting now. Like, so I don't know. SB says I just hired two employees in both cases. The question about how they handled conflict literally decided the competition of who to hire. You need to address the conflict head on. So he totally agrees with you, Jim. Yeah, it's one of those things.

Jim Collison: 59:34
The sooner the better, by the way. The sooner the better on some of these things. Do not if you if you're like questioning it, it's too late. You kind of need to handle this thing early and button this thing up and set the expectations. By the way, from a co host standpoint, the best time to set the expectations is before you start recording. Like Dave and I didn't do this, we just we we listen. We didn't start thinking this would be a podcast. We just kind of thought we'll just get together and hang out. Like it was fun, right? We just loved hanging out together. So it was one of those situations where we kind of fell into it. If we, if the chemistry hadn't been there, if we didn't like each other, if I wasn't what you were looking for, within three or four weeks, you would have just stopped inviting me. Like, you know, you'd be like, hey, you want to come in? Or you would have shown up at a different time, or you would have done things differently, right?

Dave Jackson: 01:00:25
But then it's now Tuesdays at six. What? Oh, I forgot to tell you. So sorry.

Jim Collison: 01:00:30
Yeah, for me, it'll be Thursdays at eight when I'm recording home gadget. So sorry. Yeah. Sorry. That's the way to get about it. But it's the only time it'll work for me. Yeah. With new co-hosts, the the key to it is to set the expectations as early as you can and almost overset them in some ways. Just be almost be too clear. You can always back away. It's always like teachers, you know, that that the first month of school, they need to be absolute crazy authoritarians. Yeah. Because if they're not, the class gets away from them, right? Oh I think sometimes in these relationships, we need to have that same like we're being really, really clear. I know we want to be buddies, but let's be really, really clear here how this is going to work so that we don't step on each other's toes or we don't have misunderstandings. It will then ease into something that's good once the expectations are clear.

unknown: 01:01:23
Yeah.

Dave Jackson: 01:01:24
And John says, Oh man, this is a bummer. You can't mute them when you're live streaming. No, no, you can't. Although you may want to. As we know. Yes. That's tricky. Yeah, it's I'm with you. You just got, I mean, back when I was teaching, and there was a whole like, here's what we're going to cover today, and here's how we're going to cover breaks. And I would tell people, and before I went on break, I would put this big timer that said 15 and then would count down to zero. I go, when that gets to zero, we're starting back up. If you're not in here, we're not waiting for you. And no, I will not go back and get you caught up. I will get you in on the next lesson. Please be back. It's 15 minutes. That's plenty of time to go to the bathroom and make a quick phone call. And I would come back and somebody would be late, and they would come in and say, Is there any chance? And I'm like, nope, I'll get you in on the next lesson. In the meantime, just watch. And nobody was ever late the second time. They it's like, hey, this I told you this is what I'm going to do, and I'm going to do what I said I was going to do. And so, you know, that's always and and you know, they just people I think like to push people sometimes. They're like, oh, it's no big deal. So yeah. Well, it's tricky.

Jim Collison: 01:02:32
Sometimes we think we're for everybody, and we're just not. You know, you just gotta know this is the know your audience. Like, hey, know who you are for, know where the sweet spot is in your personality and what you do. And and you know, I've as a community manager, I have to make some really hard and difficult decisions on how people interact with a very large community. I mean, we have we have some big communities, so I have to and those decisions are sometimes hard because people want to come in and they'll post something that and I'm gonna say that's inappropriate, and that doesn't mean it's bad. It's just not the right topic, or it's not the right conversation to be had, or it's not, and I have to deny it. You know, like, no, we're not gonna have this conversation in there. And I've I mean, I've talked about losing friends. I've lost some friends over uh at some point saying, yeah, no, that's not good for the many. Might be good for the one. It's not good for the many in this case. There's an old Star Trek reference for you. And so, you know, you you you have to I've and there's people who are like, I don't I'm never gonna talk to you again. I'm like, I'm sorry, I'm doing my job. That's the hard that's the hard part of this, is you can't, you know, you can't please. This goes back to the bigger your audiences, the harder that gets because your audience starts, you start attracting the fringe, right? The the the folks way out on the edge, and those are the hardest ones to please. You know, they're just like, oh, why can't you do why can't you be like Joe Rogan? Because I'm not Joe Rogan. Well, if you just did it like Howard Stern, I'm not Howard Stern. Yeah, you know, that's not that's not me. If if you if you like them, go listen to them. There's another idea. They are them, by the way.

Dave Jackson: 01:04:13
They are them. Jeff C says for me, having multiple co-hosts I can call on uh has been the best. Plus, it keeps things interesting for the audience. Jeff is an amazing moderator. He's good. That's the style there is, you know, he brings up a topic, then he'll throw it to somebody else, they'll do their little thing, and if he wants it to throw somebody else, he can't, or he just brings up a new topic, but it's and it's not even done in a choppy way, like Jeff will talk, then you know, Jim will talk, and then it's it's just it flows super nice. And it's it's one of those things you can kind of just say before you hit record, hey, I'll you know, if when I want you to talk, it sounds like your parents do not spoke until being spoken to, but it's kind of that thing, or it just he just sets a nice pace, it's just it's it's awesome.

Jim Collison: 01:05:04
So he's a nice dude, like he's a super nice dude. That's it comes off. I was on a show, I don't know, last year, and just from the beginning to end, it's just super pro. He's a super nice guy, very, very, very well spoken. And to to your point, sets a good expectation for hey, here's what we're doing here. You know, this is kind of and it wasn't long and lengthy and filled with rules, but I remember talking to him and and he was like, Yeah, this is this is kind of what we're trying to do here. And that's setting the expectations for you know, setting the expectations for it. He it he does give, I mean, that would be a good example to follow on someone because he does get a lot of different guests in of Jeff's got a good setup to make sure he gets the best out of the guest. And I'm sure not all guests have been great, but maybe including me, but it he he does a nice job of setting it up.

Dave Jackson: 01:05:60
Well, the the other thing, of course, you know, it it's so obvious that we never say it, and of course, that is the best beard in podcasting. I mean, Jeff C. For sure. Nobody even comes close. It's outstanding. You know, it's in fact, we might even say his beard is awesome. And speaking of awesome, we should say hello to our awesome supporters. You can be one of these people. You simply go to Asthepodcastcoach.com slash awesome, and you can join for as little as five bucks and be like these awesome people that for my awesome listeners, uh, we have domains on the screen like Flame Alive Pod and Horseradio Network.com and indie dropin.com and spy brie and all the fun stuff. Johnmoons.com, I think I'm pronouncing that right, but you can be an awesome supporter. And if you want to, if you're like Dave, I don't even have a podcast, well then come over and see me at the School of Podcasting where you get courses, coaching, and a community. And but wait, there's more. You can use the coupon code COACH and save a little when you sign up on a uh monthly, quarterly, or yearly subscription. And don't forget that comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. And if you need some honest feedback, the guy earlier, you know, hey, why isn't my show growing? Well, if you need honest feedback, podcasthotseat.com is the place to go. I will look at an episode, I will look at your website, and you get a free month at the School of Podcasting. Check it out, podcasthotseat.com. I got somebody in line that showed up Friday, so I'm looking forward to that. And if you go to Asthepodcastcoach.com, you're looking at Podpage. And if you want to check out Podpage, you can try it at tripodpage.com. If you want to learn podpage, go to learnpodpage.com. I love them so much. I work there and I have a t-shirt on today. So there you go. And if you need more Jim Cullison and hey, who doesn't? Then go over to theaveregeguy.tv and check out home gadget geeks. And it's time for wheel o names. So let me click on that link. And who will it be? Will it be Jody? By the way, happy belated birthday to Jody Krangel from Audio Branding. Will it be Shane from SpyBary or the ladies over at Flame a LifeBod? Well, we're gonna click the wheel and see. And the winter, the winter, yes, the winner is the one and only Shane from SpyBrer, if you are a person that, you know, likes not we're knocking like real spies. Like sure, James Bond is cool and all that, but he's into actual like real spies. So check him out over at spybrary.com. Shane, thanks for being an awesome supporter. And if you are sitting there right now listening, watching the show, whatever you're doing to it, and thinking, hmm, does this show save you time? Does it save you money? Does it save you a headache or two? Or do we keep you educated or maybe even entertained? Then you can go over to Asthepodcastcoach.com/slash awesome and give some of that uh value that we give you back. So thanks to all of our awesome supporters who are doing that. And I think I have oh wait, I saw a question come in as we were doing that. Let me scroll back. I thought I saw somebody had something about an app or something. Here we go. Anyone know any good apps to create short audio clips of my audio file? Boy, that's a fun one. Because I know I at first I thought he was gonna say video clips of my audio file. I know descript can. Because they do the clippy thing.

Jim Collison: 01:09:40
Isn't YouTube doing clips now too? Like you could you could use I I know that's video, but I think they're doing some automated clips too. I would think boy, uh just about any of the services that you know you're using for hosting would have the ability to go in and pull some of those clips out. I get I get uh do you get these emails every week from people who find your YouTube video and they're like, you're not monetizing these kids. Yeah, oh man. You know, multiple. I would think yeah, I would think a headliner, yeah. Yeah, headliner would be a good one. Headliner would be a good one to try. This is one of those areas they all have kind of free services. See how that goes from uh uh from that standpoint. I most of the AI services are doing these now, so it's a good it's a good I'm not a big I don't uh I should do it more. I just don't I don't like I don't like my show shortened clips. So I just don't do it.

Dave Jackson: 01:10:40
Well there's there's two things for that. One is does it work? And yeah, it I think it keeps your brand in front of people.

Jim Collison: 01:10:51
Yeah, for sure.

Dave Jackson: 01:10:52
You know, it's it's I mean, if we look at Taylor Swift, she did that as a preview to her album, which is estimated that she's gonna earn another 40 million last night from she had some sort of release party or something that was in theaters. I'm like, it must be nice to on one hand, you go, it must be nice to be that famous, but on the other hand, uh she spends a lot on security and making sure people her life is not her own, right?

Jim Collison: 01:11:17
Yeah, you know, it is not her own. Um she seems to be handling it pretty well. So hopefully in the future here. I mean, this didn't end well for many celebrities like a Michael Jackson or you know, you know, like Paul McCartney's handling it. I mean, here here talk about a guy that was been giantly popular and who's handled it all the way into old age. Paul McCartney's doing a nice job of that. Yeah. Somebody check those out. I don't I don't know if I have one. There's some stuff in the chat room about services to do. Check with your host provider, that would be another one to look at. I'd run them through, I'd do a good test. The AI has gotten better on a lot of these things, and and so now maybe a good time to test out a few to see how they generate those for you. My Dave, my experiences with those were always because I do, you know, spontaneous content, it was hard for it to grab the clips that were good. You know, you listen to them and you'd be like, oh, okay, you know, that's kinda okay. The you you if you're creating audio and you have a transcript, you can always feed that transcript into ChatGPT or you know, Copilot or whatever, Grok and say, uh pull out for me the the you know the the five best quotes and with the timestamps. And that's an easy way to turn then you go back to the audio and cut it yourself. That'd be a way to do it as well. This isn't one I I think these clips, uh yeah, the automation helps, but uh I would definitely do them make sure you're listening to that section before it cuts it out to make sure it gets a full it gets a full thing.

Dave Jackson: 01:13:03
Yeah. Create art podcasts said uh what's the mascot for the school of podcasting, a flaming blue yeti. No, that's the mascot for podcast hot seat. That is the mascot done by the one and only Mark from Podcastbranding.co, because I said, hey, I want a I want a school crest and then, you know, kind of a thing. And so that's you can see there's a little plug, and then you got a microphone and headphones and some sort of mixer, and then the plan, launch, and grow. And so that is another example of that. And then I think I have I don't know if I have it in this folder, but I have one that's square as well. So that's that. And I'm actually pondering rebranding podcast hot seats again, which was a rebrand of the podcast rodeo show. I think hot seat might seem a little I don't know. Uh we're I'm I'm I'm pondering some things, so we shall see. But I'm also coming to the conclusion that maybe people just don't want feedback. They'd rather just, you know.

Jim Collison: 01:14:03
It's hard. I wouldn't let you do that to home gadget geeks. You you'd think I would be the like, oh yeah, Dave, do this. No, I duh. You know, I don't I don't know if I want my show compared that way to industry standards or what your feelings are. It may break us up. Well, you could break up the I mean I could break up the band. F you. Yes. Take off that Van Halen t-shirt before it breaks up the band. So you definitely don't, you know, I'm scared of it for sure.

Dave Jackson: 01:14:33
Randy says, I miss the podcast rodeo show. Well, it's there for you to listen, but there aren't any new episodes. But and that one is still there. It's just, I'm like, I'm not doing that for free anymore. And it's only five bucks. That's all there's things. That one is five bucks. I'm like, come on. But that's one where probably the price is so low people go, well, this can't be any good. Otherwise, you'd be charging more than five bucks. So I'm like, okay, here it is. It's, you know, and I'll I'll do your website and this and I'll listen to the whole thing. Yeah. So speaking of the clips, Dan Lefebvre says that's what I do now. The services ended up being more work to fix their clips. So I just have a template and I have AI recommend time codes. Yeah, I I here's the thing. I there's an episode coming out of your podcast consultant, which is Dave playing with short podcasts, because I wanted to see if maybe making a short show would make it popular. And the answer is no, it does not. Nobody cares what the length is, they care about the value. But I'm talking about I I used an AI tool to write show notes, and there were seven words. Some of them, not only would I never say, I didn't know what they meant. And I know people are gonna go, oh, it's it's the prompt. And that's kind of true. But this this had blog posts of mine that it used to kind of, you know, it wasn't a horrible prompt. And I was just like, you know, I I don't think I'm gonna have AI do my show notes for for some of my shows because I can think and I can type. So it's not really solving a huge problem for me and the time I'm taking to fix the show notes that come out. I could have just written the whole thing myself and then it it would sound like me because it was me. Now, if I need images, oh, I I can do like I make very meh stuff in Canva. And I've seen some amazing artwork from Canvas. So for me, I think we should be using AI to do the things that we're not good at. But this is one I was just like, you know, I've noticed I'm always coming in here and they love to go spoiler alert. That's another one. That's like it just seems like every AI thing has spoiler alert. It does, you know, and then I'm just by the time I tweak it, I'm like, I could have just written this myself. Because most of my show notes aren't that long. I'll I'll write something a longer blog post, but that was one that I just like. I I think I'm done with AI show notes. I I love the fact that like with Captivate, it finds any links that we mentioned, especially on a show like this. But, you know, and Buzzprout does a pretty good job. Daniel's new tool, by the way, podchapters.com, is the only thing I've seen come remotely close to like on this show, Ask the Podcast Coach will break any AI tool because it just can't figure out what the heck we're talking about because we change the subject every 15 minutes. So it's just like, what? And so, but Daniel's AI tool does a really good job of coming up with the chapters. So if you're a person on Libson or Red Circle, because I know Blueberry and Captivate and Buzz Sprout have chapters. I don't play with Podbean anymore, and I'm not sure what transistor does.

Jim Collison: 01:17:58
Transistor is usually pretty so Auphonic does a pretty good job on chapters, doesn't it? That's I use it, I use it for that. And it to be honest, I haven't audited the chapters to know, but I think Aphonic does some chaptering as well by timestamp. That's how that's how the chapters are being done, right? By timestamp? Well, they're breaking them down by time.

Dave Jackson: 01:18:23
I think it's yeah, and I it somehow knows when you change the subject.

Jim Collison: 01:18:27
Yeah.

Dave Jackson: 01:18:28
And then it'll put a you know, it'll figure out where that is, and then look.

Jim Collison: 01:18:32
I'll have to look more carefully. I it you know, I I have it do it. YouTube picks those up automatically if you put them in the description. And so I've been Authonic pushes those over there. I grab a version of them and put them in my show notes. I've been for my show notes, I don't what I've been doing is having it transcribed by Auphonic and then taking that transcription over to Chat GPT and say, read this transcription, and then I'll grab the notes from Otter and I'll grab the notes. There's some a long and short description and Auphonic. I'll bring those over and put them in. I'll dialogue then a little bit with with ChatGPT on the show and get some ideas for it and do some things, see what it's thinking about the show, and then I'll have it produce some show notes for me on on areas. Like I'm not, I won't just copy and paste everything. I'll be like, give me some feedback on this area or what what what AI really likes now, AI search likes now are FAQs. So I'll have I'll say, hey, create an create an FAQ about this episode for me that I can put in the show notes. So it's it does a pretty nice job of putting together question and answer for for that kind of setting. So it's a little bit more I'm not it I'm not just letting it create the show notes for me. I'm dialoguing with it and creating a unique set of show notes, but it's definitely augmenting and doing things for me, like you mentioned, Dave. It does things for me that I would not I'd have to spend half an hour, 45 minutes creating my own FAQ. You know, well, I it I don't need to do that. It's good at that, you know? Like create an FAQ that you would like to see so that you'll use it again. And it does a pretty nice job of that. So there's you know, there's a lot of the services that are doing just you know, carte blanc show notes for you. That's not bad. I would interact with them a little bit and and you know, make sure it's set up in a way that you like it. I'm pretty proud of my show notes now. I those are one of those things I look at, I'm like, these are pretty actually these are kind of helpful. They used to just be crap, and now they're kind of helpful. So I'm I'm pretty proud of my show notes.

Dave Jackson: 01:20:42
There you go. And Randy says, if you if I include chapters in my MP3 file, Pod Home will import those and create podcasting 2.0 chapters. And Daniel says, Yep, several others do that. I know Captivate does, but Daniel points out they import only the titles and not the images or the links, which is a bummer. Because I know BuzzSprout does when you upload if you make your own chapters and like in Hindenburg is what I do, then I can just upload it and they take everything I've put in there and put it into BuzzSprout, which is cool. Yeah. Libson still doesn't get the uh whole avoidance of so much of the podcasting namespace. Libson's having a bad week. There, it's not the end of the world, but your feed only shows the last hundred episodes. And there are a lot of people on Libson that have been there from the early days, and I don't know what's going on over there. I do know uh I was really surprised to hear the a guy I considered Mr. Libsen when I was there. Greg was the lead developer, and he is no longer with the company, and I was like, that's not good. So I don't know what's going on. I love the people over there. I just I don't know what's going on because that's I mean, the good news is I'll be interested to hear, because like this show, I don't know what we're on, five something, whatever. So if all of a sudden, you know, we know that the back catalog doesn't download a ton. It's you know, there's that you get the big spike the first week and then it slowly trails off, and then it's only the the people that have followed the show and that you know they go back and cherry pick in their app because that's the only way really you can see them. And so now those aren't going to be there. I was like, hmm, because that I would be interested to see what percentage of your downloads are not there because people can't see your stuff. So yeah, so I'm not sure what's going up. Yeah, Daniel says the last 100 episode thing is going to really hurt when they fix it because dropping the feed limit and then raising again could cause a lot of readowns loads of old episodes, but not an Apple now. So yeah, it'll be interesting. And you know, again, I love the people at Libs and I'm just not sure what's happening over there. But when I heard that, I was like, ooh, you're like you're a media host, and what makes a podcast is your feed. And to have a problem with the feed, I was like, come on, guys, you're killing me over here. I still got a show. Building a better Dave is still on Libsyn. Everything else is on either Captivate or Buzzsprout. So and I have a couple on Red Circle just for giggles. But at any rate, Jim, my guess is you're taking a week off from uh home gadget gates.

Jim Collison: 01:23:22
I took last week off. Well, we weren't here two weeks ago, so I did a podcast like this, slouched. But thanks for letting me slouch the whole podcast. It felt a lot better. But um Christian Johnson, uh, he was uh early podcaster with me, is back. Also, he's our Maple Grove Partners guy. Yeah. Um, and does in those hosting. He joined me. He's coming, he's his opinion of crypto has changed. He was uh anti, not I want to say anti-crypto, but not definitely uh asked a lot of questions around it, which has been good, but he's coming around a little bit. So we cat we catch up with Christian. If you've been a home gadget geeks guy, you'll you'll enjoy the episode. It's been out for a week. Check it out right now, homegadgetge.com.

Dave Jackson: 01:24:05
There you go. Yeah, Christian is a great guy. I had him do some stuff. I have, in fact, I might have him do, I think I'm gonna start, it didn't show it today. I think I'm gonna start pointing people because I have a pod page for the school of podcasting, and I might change my episode link. Right now, I have the episodes on the school of podcasting, but they just look so much better on pod page. And I went over to WordPress and typed in Ozzy and hit search, and it showed me on WordPress an episode about Joe Rogan. And I'm like, that's funny because the word Ozzy is in the title of the episode I was looking for. I went to Podpage, typed in Aussie, and it was like, here you go. And I was like, hmm, I might, it looks better. So I might in the future, when you click on episodes, you might notice that you're going to a pod page. That's one of those when I get free time, I'm going to update that. But on the school of podcasting, we are talking about podcast best practices because we kind of got some people at that conference that are like, ah, best practices, smash dresses, like nah, old curmudgeons. And I'm like, uh, there's a reason they're called best practices. So that's what's coming up. Uh, we will see you next week with another episode of Ask the Podcast Coach.