What Happens When Spotify Deletes Everything?

Dave Jackson: 0:22

Ask the Podcast Coach for September 20th 2025. Let's get ready to podcast. There it is. It's that music. That means it is Saturday morning. It's time for Ask the Podcast Coach, where you get your podcast questions answered live. According to the thing at the bottom of the screen, I'm Dave Jackson from theschoolofpodcastingcom, and joining me right over there is absolutely nobody, because Jim has whacked his back, and so welcome to Dave's Hell. There's nothing Dave loves more than doing this show solo. It's always a bit of a train wreck.

Dave Jackson: 1:00

Glad you're here, but if you want more, jim Collison, of course go over to HomeGadgetGeekscom, and so I will be pointing out a lot today that if you go to AskThePodcastCoachcom slash question, you could be right there. You could be Jim Cullison today. So I will be taking your questions. I also, I am prepared. I went and found lots and lots of questions. I also, I am prepared. I went and found lots and lots of questions, but there's nothing more fun than trying to read the chat as you're talking and trying to figure out what is going on with that. Well, I want to give a special shout out to Randy Black on the passing of his co-host. I don't know about you guys, but I am about done with death, a little too much this week, and just nastiness and things like that. And you know, what makes that stuff almost tolerable but not quite is a good coffee pour, which I don't have any coffee. I have my handy dandy. Wow, how do you pronounce that? Oh Walla? Oh Walla Sounds like some sort of I don't know the Indians called this oh Walla, which is, you know, cherokee for water. So cheers to everyone as we pretend to pour some coffee here. And that oh Walla pour is brought to you by my good friend, mark. He said clicking the button there we go From our podcastbrandingco.

Dave Jackson: 2:36

I have used Mark multiple times to do my artwork. Might have a new one coming, but that's a secret, we can't tell anybody yet. And the beautiful thing about Mark is number one he's a secret, we can't tell anybody yet. And the beautiful thing about Mark is number one he's a podcaster. So that whole like oh, it's like a radio show, but it's not kind of thing. And, randy, I see you, buddy, and there we go, I will let him in backstage and if you want to look good, because you know they're going to see you before they hear you, that is something that Mark can do. He can make you look beauteous and beautiful and professional and all that kind of first impression kind of stuff. And the beauty of it is, again, besides being a podcaster, he's been a graphic artist for over 30 years yeah, 30. That's 3-0. And he's going to give you that one-on-one kind of service that nobody on fiverr, nobody else, is going to give you.

Dave Jackson: 3:32

So, uh, go check out podcastbrandingco. That's podcast brandingco. One more time podcastbrandingco. Tell him dave and jim sent you and uh, if jim was here he'd be holding up his coffee cup and would have that logo that says based on a true story. Look, if you want. You know you're sitting in the theater, the lights go down, a black screen appears and it says based on a true story. And you always wonder I wonder how much of this like when they say based, like, are we talking 10%? Are we talking 90%? Well, there's one place to find out and that's based on a true story podcast. Our buddy, dan, over there, brings on somebody who knows the actual subject and then they go over the movie and you find out how much of that was based on a true story. So, dan, thank you for your sponsorship. We deeply appreciate it.

Dave Jackson: 4:24

And now we get to see if Dave can figure out how to add Randy to. Let's see, I see him on Zoom Now. See, I should have practiced this before we went. Can I drag and drop you from Zoom into? Nope, I can't drag and drop you. Oh, here we go, wrong button. I click on add because I want to add. Yes, I want to add. Now I see Randy in this and now assigned to placeholder guest one. There he is the one, and only I know it says Jim Collison, but Randy my my, as the old saying goes, and I do. I know I'm being snarky here, but I'm not. Thoughts and prayers, buddy.

Randy Black: 5:01

That was. That's. That's part of why I popped on. I wanted to to thank you and thank other people in the community who, throughout the last week, have reached out, have offered exactly that. Jim was just a month short of his 70th birthday and had a we talked before he was in stage four colon cancer and this was not the cancer that got that. That took jim from us. It was actually a gallbladder, oh man, and an infection then got out of the gallbladder into his system and they removed. They removed it, but he, he never woke up and it was a week of heartache.

Randy Black: 5:51

You know, I've been friends with his daughter for a while because I've been working with him on the show but had never met her in person and met her for the first time yesterday, helping her to try to find things at his business where we recorded and stuff. And I just want to say thank you to everybody. He was a powerful force in what he did, well known in the coach, in the basketball coaching world, yeah, but that was not what he wanted to be remembered for. He wanted to be remembered as someone who helped anyone and everyone. Yeah, and that's why that's why we were doing the show. I spent.

Dave Jackson: 6:25

Didn't you kind of know that, going in when you started?

Randy Black: 6:28

Yeah, yeah, I've. You know, I've known him for 30 years, met him when I was a teenager the first time and it was it was my pleasure to be able to try to help him. We spent hours sitting in a in a hot room upstairs at his business that we had just sound treated. We had just gotten drop backdrop stands and moving blankets to shut up, to kind of close us in, to help sound treat it. And that was the last thing. That was the last episode we recorded. We finished that night. We had already had things planned for the next episode ready to go. As we're leaving every time, because he and I had gotten very close, I tell him I love you, brother, and do you know, fist bump or handshake or that classic you know real fast, man hug. But this time was different and I don't know. I don't know what was different other than like, what was different with Jim, other than he grabbed me and he embraced me when he told me he loved me.

Randy Black: 7:28

That's the last time I talked to him.

Dave Jackson: 7:30

Yeah, and I'm happy that that's the last time I talked to him well, you know, I'm just glad you guys were able to record what you could you know. Yeah, because now, and that's- it is talking.

Randy Black: 7:39

When I was when I was there with his daughter and her boyfriend you're saying talking to them his wife called and I've gotten to know his wife very well over the six months we started this project and she asked me to go through and pull things out from the recordings things that he said, some of his little stuff he said or thoughts he had about stuff. They're working on getting pictures and things together. So we're gonna put together a video of pictures of Jim and his family and things he did over time and pull some music and stuff in and then insert those clips of Jim saying these things. But you know I will say that probably for the rest of my life the text tone on my phone will be this Bam son.

Randy Black: 8:26

I will never let go of that recording. He became one of my closest friends in this time that we've been together, and the memories I have from this short amount of time are never, ever going to go away.

Dave Jackson: 8:40

Yeah.

Randy Black: 8:41

But again, thank you to everyone who reached out, who said thanks, who said thank you, kind words of we're praying for you, we're praying for Jim At this point. It's a matter of supporting his family as much as possible. I'll be okay, I'll be fine. You know I'm going to miss him, but I miss because this is the most fun I've had in the decade I've been in this space, was working with Jim, and you know we made it 11 episodes, so we got past that magic seven that everybody's always talking about.

Randy Black: 9:14

But we've and I don't know if we're going to continue with that show. I'm waiting on things I'm going to. We've got a request out for anybody who knew him. I've got a Google voice number To call the number. Just tell a Jim Clayton story and we're going to put that all together for the family.

Randy Black: 9:32

We're going to put it out as an episode on the feed, but I'm looking to also, you know, maybe sit down and I mentioned it to his daughter Sit down with his daughter and his son and his wife and just talk about Jim. I've even got a recording of his two adorable little granddaughters saying bam, son, that we can use and do stuff with. So you know. Again, thank you to everybody. It's so appreciated the support that was out there. You know, and I knew there were certain people that if I reached out like you, daniel J Lewis, ralph Ralph is amazing, even reaching out to some people may know him Jimmy Pruitt, pastor of Rich Church down in Fredericksburg, texas, where the Podfather goes to church, and even the Podfather reaching out to Adam. The prayers and things that were coming from the community were tremendous and I'm thankful for that.

Dave Jackson: 10:26

Yeah, absolutely All right, my friend. Well, I appreciate it. And you know, yeah, races, that's an amazing gift you can give to the family. Yeah, it's, I have. I don't know where it is. That's the part that bothers me. But I don't remember what my mom sounded like and she's somewhere we have on a VHS tape and she wasn't even on camera. She, she didn't. She forgot that cameras record audio as well. But you know the fact that you, you know we have, you know hours and hours of Todd Cochran and we've got, you know Jim now on tape and that's, you know that's, that's precious material there.

Randy Black: 11:02

Yeah, and that was, and that was part of what I mean. His daughter was pushing him. You have to do this. We need people to have this recordings of you, we need people to know that. And he's got tons of stuff himself, you know. He posted four, five, six video, little video clips, every single day. And suddenly on Wednesday two weeks ago, that stopped. Yeah, and I was like, hey, maybe he's not feeling good today. And like every Wednesday he would send me his notes off of notes I put together and say, hey, here's this if you want to look over it, so we're ready for tomorrow. And he didn't do that. I was like, well, maybe he just doesn't feel good, he'll do it in the morning. And then, while I was at work on that Thursday morning, his daughter sent me the message and it was, it was, it was a week, just over a week, and we lost him.

Dave Jackson: 11:49

Yeah, oh man. Well, hang in there, my friend.

Randy Black: 11:53

Appreciate it, dave. Yeah, again, thanks to everybody. Love the community, you know we're. We're at a point in our country and in our world where we have a lot of headbanging and disagreements and strife and yeah, just, it ain't worth it. Yeah, in the end it's not worth it anymore. I just don't, I don't, it's not worth it.

Dave Jackson: 12:17

That's me. I woke up this morning and people are still going on about Jimmy Kimmel and I was just like you know, can we just, can't we all just get along? You know it's crazy, but all right. And I was just like you know, can we just, can't we all just get along? You know it's crazy, but yeah, all right, my friend, we'll hang in there. Okay, thanks, dave. Yep, we'll see you. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, brad brings up a question here. Should and that's how it works, by the way. Oh, good, you know, you just go to askthepodcastcoachcom and I will bring you in.

Dave Jackson: 12:44

Should you make clips of the funny or special comments made during every show? You do so? You can make an annual one. That is the way to do it, because what happens is it's December and you're like, oh, I'd like to take a week off for, you know, christmas or whatever, and then you go to do it. Well, when you go to do a year's worth of clips, you're like, plus, you don't remember what you did two weeks ago, let alone what you did in January. And so, yeah, if you're going to do anything like that, you want to do it in. You know, it's like when I had a cat. I hated cleaning the litter box, but if I did it every day just a little here and a little there, not a big deal, but if I let it go a couple of days, then it was a job and so if that's something you're going to do, definitely do it in spurts.

Dave Jackson: 13:34

Justin has a question from Twitter. Thank you, justin. Not sure if you got my last message, but how do podcasters know in the early stages whether slow growth is because of needing more time and consistency to get better traction or whether it's because the show needs tweaking? How do you know? You ask your audience. There's only one way to find out, right, because you're like, if we look at that, you know, is it greater traction because the show needs tweaking? How do you know if the show needs tweaking?

Dave Jackson: 14:04

So I always like to take things about podcasting and move it out of podcasting. So if I was a baker and I said, here, eat my cupcake, and somebody ate it, and they said you know, this would be a lot better if it had icing on it, and you're like, oh yeah, because it's just a cake right now. So you put some icing on it and they're like, oh ooh, that icing's a little, that's a little too sweet. And then you go here try this icing and they go, ooh, that's perfect. That's how you know. So, if you, I always go back to Jack from the Darknet Diaries, jack before keyword, before he launched, he took people and said listen to this episode.

Dave Jackson: 14:46

And then he launched, he took people and said listen to this episode. And then he said did you make it all the way through? And if not, why did you stop? Because maybe you stopped not because it was bad, but because, hey, I'm at the dentist, you know that type of thing. And then he asked them on a scale from one to 10, how likely are you to share this with a friend? And if he got a seven or less, he kind of went back to the drawing board and so he figured out okay, this is now resonating with my audience. And once he got that, then at somewhere in his show he would slowly and specifically and confidently ask them to share the show. Now, that's not a 10,000 download switch, but he knew they should want to share the show because he knew it was good.

Dave Jackson: 15:29

Now, in my travels including, you know, some of my shows I'm not sure we want to hear feedback. You know, like I just started off the show with a couple minutes of advertising. If I was coaching myself, I'd be like that's not a great way to start the show, but I do that because I'm only going to do a half hour to 40 minutes without any commercials. So if you look at the percentage of content to ads on this show, it's very small. But the fact that I do them at the very first two minutes is not great placement, and so I realized that not every podcaster is open to feedback or they just go. Yeah, this is the way we do it and I'm like okay, you know so, but that's it.

Dave Jackson: 16:09

Ask your audience the key. If you haven't read it yet. Where is the book? Oh, my goodness, I know it's right in front of me somewhere, but the book by Tom Webster the audience is listening is a must read it's. And by that it's, and by that I mean don't like you should read it, but it's here it is. I knew I had it. The Audience is Listening by Tom Webster Great, great book. I still think he should have called it your Baby is Ugly, because there are, you know, a lot of people.

Dave Jackson: 16:38

The title of the show or the title of the episode is how to Make a Million Dollars Turning Dog Poop into Gold. Thank you, steve Martin. And you know you start off talking about whatever and you're like no, no, get, get to the topic it says. It says right above this, this is the thing. And you know you're talking about your cat and the fact that you had to get a new carburetor for your car or whatever. You know so. And Dan says the key word there is audience and not making change. Oh boy, I salute you, dan. In fact, I will put your logo on the screen one more time just for that. Yeah, he says you know it's not a single person. We've talked about this story on this show.

Dave Jackson: 17:17

We had a guy give us like two and a half pages of notes and they were great notes. And I mean he was like hey, on you know episode, you know, and they were great notes. And I mean he, he was like hey, on you know episode, you know, one 37 from February 26th, at the 37 minute mark. You guys did this Like he really went back and listened. But there was only one problem. It's called ask the podcast coach. It's a. It's a way for me to do free podcast consulting. It's a way for me to connect live with my audience. And he wanted me to do interviews and like, doing interviews is tough enough, I don't want to do it live. And then just, he basically wanted a completely different show than this one. So I appreciated his feedback. It was like this is great feedback, except this is not my show, you know. So, again, if it's in, if it's something I can do and something that more than one person wants absolutely, and then you get into weird situations where, speaking of cats and litter boxes, when I had one, 50% of my audience loved when my cat would interrupt my show and 50% absolutely hated the fact that my cat would interrupt my show. And so you know, chris from Podtastic Audio and his new car show type in the name of your show, Chris, I'll throw that in here.

Dave Jackson: 18:32

I heard on Buzzsprout that they were saying that SEO isn't worth as much as a lot of podcast gurus preach. I'm not buying that yet because we don't know what AI is doing to get their answers and my guess is they're using search, and search is based on what? Oh yeah, that's right SEO. So I'm not buying that yet it may. In fact, I am right now kind of doubling down on SEO a little more than I used to. So that's right. He says Bernie the cat should be in the Hall of Fame, yeah, so yeah, we'll see, I guess. But anything I can do to boost SEO, why not? If I can add some alt text to my images, why not If I can, you know, find some keywords that in theory I mean the whole. I know mom said don't go play in traffic, and that was good when you're, you know, eight years old.

Dave Jackson: 19:29

But if I can't, why did I do an episode about Ozzy Osbourne? Well, number one I wanted to talk about Ozzy Osbourne and part of him dying was blowing up my childhood and I didn't feel like talking about podcasting. So I talked about Ozzy Osbourne, but I would be lying if I said I didn't do that. Partially because I knew people were talking about Ozzy you know, give people what they want and so he was popular at the moment and I was like, well, that's kind of a win-win. I'm not really in the mood to talk podcasting and this will maybe get me some better SEO. We'll see. And I've had people say that was a really cool episode because it wasn't your typical way of talking about podcasting. So yeah, because it wasn't your typical way of talking about podcasting. So, yeah, tim says Dave once called my baby ugly and I'm grateful because my friends wouldn't.

Dave Jackson: 20:12

I have had many a people that I have said, and it's not that I rip people to shreds, I'm just like, hey, this is confusing. This is what I'm thinking, I'm thinking out loud and you know, and then in the end they go well, my friend said it was great and I'm like, well, okay, you know again, not everything. Sometimes I'm not your target audience. I always tell people that you know, so keep that in mind. There are times when Ray is here from around the layoutcom model train show. Well, when Ray gets into talking about you know, companies and brands and different types of traffic, I have no idea what he's talking about. And I kind of look at that and go, that's good, because in one hand, yes, that's jargon. But when you're in that bubble, that's not jargon. So that's kind of when I go, oh, you're talking in a way that only people that really love this stuff are going to get it.

Dave Jackson: 21:05

Ralph has a question here. Ask your audience. But what if they don't even respond to the survey? Well, that's going to happen from time to time. Do we assume that if the downloads aren't growing, it's working? Wait, if we let me reread that, do we assume that if the downloads are growing, it's working In theory? Right, if I'm dumping water into a bucket and I can see it going up the bucket and the bucket is getting fuller, I'm assuming the bucket's working. But if I'm dumping water into a bucket and I see a bunch of water coming out the back of it and the water is not rising, then there's something wrong with the bucket.

Dave Jackson: 21:41

So, yeah, if they don't respond, then what you want to do and it's not always gifts and things like that, but you want to you want to put who doesn't want to benefit? I would love to benefit. What's the benefit? I don't know, but if you tell me I'm going to benefit, I'm up for it. And so if you can explain to them that, hey, I'm doing this for you, you, mr or Mrs List, I'm doing this for you and I want to make the best podcast for you, and I can only do that, there's only one way to do that and that is I need your feedback. And I realize that you're thinking oh well, I'll do that later and somebody else will send him some feedback.

Dave Jackson: 22:23

No, no, I need your feedback because I'm doing this show for you and if you get nothing there, then you're just like well, okay, then you, you can't. You don't want to scold them, but you can say well, I asked for feedback and I didn't get any. So today I'm going to do this based on my feedback. Now, if you don't like this show or if you didn't like this topic, hey, let me know and I will do less or more of this. But because I've had audiences that just the only time I got feedback is when I threatened to quit and I just said, hey, I think I'm done with this show. It was called Weekly Web Tools and the only time I ever got in, they came out of the woodwork no, don't quit the show. So yeah, ralph says I set up a short link to buy a coffee. I use short links and see that people are visiting the link, but in six months, zero people have given Try Patreon.

Dave Jackson: 23:13

Nope, it's not the thing. It's not so the idea that people do this with media hosts too. They're like hey, I'm on Podbean and my audience isn't growing, so I'm going to switch to Buzzsprout and that's isn't growing. So I'm going to switch to Buzzsprout, and that's not the problem, it's not the media host that grows the audience. And I always use the analogy if I take a little red Corvette because, baby, you're much too fast and you ride that on a flat runway in Texas, that thing is going to go about 225 miles an hour. Now you take that same little red Corvette and you put it on a flat runway in Maine, that thing's going to go about 225 miles an hour. Why? Because it's not the runway, it's the car.

Dave Jackson: 23:57

So here should I take my content and try to promote it with buy me a coffee, I'm going to get X amount of money. Or should I take my content and put it on Patreon? It's not the platform, it's the content. And so because in both cases, like buy me a coffee, you know you can pick how many coffees you want. Now if a coffee costs you a hundred bucks, they may not donut and I'm not. I know you're not doing that, but there's that, but it's. It's kind of disheartening because that means somebody thought about it. And either A, because with Patreon I mean really what's the difference? Like coffee could be $5 and then you can buy me one, two or three or whatever when, with Patreon, like mine is five, 10 and 20. And like, well, what if somebody wants to give me three? Well, they can't, you know, but I don't think it's the platform there it's gotta be.

Dave Jackson: 24:53

And this is where the you've heard the whole teacher thing, right, where tell them what you're gonna tell them. Tell them and then tell them what you told them. Well, that third step. That's why we say do the Jerry Springer at the end of an interview. Right? I just got done interviewing Ralph from you know, ask Ralphcom, and it was great. Ralph reminded us that you know we need to run our podcast like a business and you know you can write off some of those expenses and blah, blah. So I'm, I'm. I don't want to redo the show because he just heard Ralph say that too, but anytime, for me, what I call the Jerry Springer is where you get to talk, because if you do an interview, you're getting out of the way of the guests so they can just, you know, spread all their chocolatey goodness all over your show and then at the end you can.

Dave Jackson: 25:39

You know, ralph brought up that point about how we should monitor our expenses and I happen to look the other day. I use Monarch money for my budgeting and I'm spending close to $60 a month on McDonald's and I had no idea. So Ralph has a great point when he says you should be tracking every expense. Okay, so I just shared a little story about me, how I used it and how Ralph just delivered value. Because sometimes you have to go hey, that thing you just got I don't know if you know this or not, but that's valuable. And so sometimes if somebody goes to, we just haven't quite convinced them that what they got was valuable in theory. And I'm going by the value for value thing here, cause in theory, if I gave them value and I asked, that's the other thing. If I just put a buy me a coffee button there, not everybody's going to go oh look, it's a yellow coffee cup. They don't know what that is. You have to tell them and ask them hey, if you find value in this, you know, give me some of that value back, kind of things. It's tough. And again, remember that only about 3% of your audience, if you're amazing, is going to actually, you know, go on that. Now there are absolutely exceptions to that rule. If we go back to Ray, from Around the Layout there's a guy that lives in his community gets information that you can't get anyplace else. So sorry, chatgpt, you're not giving me information that you can't get anyplace else and you know he's got that community, and you know, raised way, way, way over 3% when it comes to engagement. Yeah, and I'm trying to find Chris's name. Yes, the new show Cool Cars with Chris is Chris from Podtastic Oda, so it's a matter of when. You know. So, randy, you know obviously he's going to go through a period of of helping the family and all that, but trust me, randy's got other podcasts in him. He's going to come back. I think he already has like three or four.

Dave Jackson: 27:32

Randy asked do you think a TV show kind of an Anthony Bourdain format, with a Bill Burr as a host would be a success? Visit the studio, go out to eat, discuss the show and other topics. That works with Bill Barr. I'm combining people's names Bill Maher and not even Bill Maher. How about Bill Burr? There we go. Third time's the charm. Yeah, chris, nessie, in case you're wondering, jim hurt his back so we're gymless today.

Dave Jackson: 27:59

But here's the thing I you know I can look at this and go a TV show kind of a Anthony Bourdain format where we go out and, you know, go out to eat and discuss others and Bill Burr. The question is, is that a good format? It is a format, but there's a lot of things that work there, If you only have like. Right now we've got a single host. I don't know, I can't see. I don't know how many people are watching right now, but I'll wait a minute.

Dave Jackson: 28:30

If I look at my thingamabob, 30 people according to my stream deck. So right now I am holding 30 people's attention. That's the thing. Can I hold your attention? And that's hard to do. You know, later I'll be singing and dancing and you know I'll do my Britney Spears routine, all those fun things that we do.

Dave Jackson: 28:51

So the only I mean I've never tried like I've got some beef sticks. That's like my new thing, like beef sticks as a snack versus like potato chips or something like that, because I'm just going for the protein and I've never put tartar sauce on a beef stick. Only one way to find out if it's good and that's to do it. You know. So there is, there is no rule when it comes to hey, I've got an idea for a podcast, you think this will go viral? I have no cause. There are things that go viral that I go wait what? And then I have other things that I'm like this should be amazing, everyone's going to love that, and it's just you know, it just doesn't work. So the only one way to find out and the key to that, randy, is do you love that topic?

Dave Jackson: 29:40

Whatever you're talking about, wherever you're going to go eat, you know comedians in cars getting coffee with Jerry Seinfeld work, because he was talking to Eddie, eddie Money, eddie Money, yeah, eddie Murphy, and he was talking to Kramer and he was talking to, you know, comedians in cars and in general they were being funny. Most of the comedian shows the Mark Maron's I need to listen to Bill Burr because I know a lot of people love that. So, yeah, that's always. You know those get views and actually it doesn't make them good. It gives me. I clicked once on that because, oh, wow, jerry Seinfeld's talking to Eddie Murphy. Click, great, now was it good? Okay, it was pretty funny because it's Eddie Murphy saying he might come back to comedy, which, for the record, he never did, but I wish he would and so.

Dave Jackson: 30:35

But I've listened to other celebrity shows, like Larry King had a show where he just argued with his wife and I'm like, yeah, if I wanted that I would have stayed married. It was just one of those things that like, yeah, okay, I wanted that I would have stayed married. It was just one of those things like, yeah, okay, you're a celebrity. But besides Larry going, all right, poughkeepsie, you're on with you. Know, randy Statlin from the Statlin brothers, you know how long can you hold my attention? How long should my show be? How long can you hold my attention? That's really it in a nutshell. How long can you hold my attention? That's really it in a nutshell.

Dave Jackson: 31:13

So, yeah, we're talking LLC, sole proprietorship, which is the best for the podcast. Now, what Ralph told me because he says it depends to discuss this more yeah, go to askralphcom, he'll be happy to do that. Llc is not and Ralph correct me if I'm wrong it's not as ironclad. It doesn't mean there's a gaping hole. It's not as ironclad as a sole, as a yeah, the sole proprietorship when it comes to getting sued. But Dan has a great point. He says again, anything can be popular with enough money, marketing behind it, yeah, but if it's not good you know good content people watch once and be done. You know that's key. It depends on how you define that success.

Dave Jackson: 31:53

Yeah, I mean, I remember Amy Schumer and I like Amy Schumer. She's pretty funny, but unfortunately she was nine months pregnant or eight months pregnant when she did her show. She did it in a glass patio which was horrendous for the audio and sounded like she did zero prep. Well, it turns out she did zero prep. Why? Because she was eight months pregnant and that show was horrendous in my book because it was like Amy and Friends or something like that. So I've heard Kathy Lee Gifford was another one. That's like I'm Kathy Lee Gifford, that. So I've heard Kathy Lee Gifford was another one. That's like I'm Kathy Lee Gifford. You will like my show because I'm, you know, mayim Bleylik on. She's Amy on the Big Bang Theory and she was Blossom.

Dave Jackson: 32:34

For those of you that remember, I can't listen to her show because every time you get something good, it's like and I found the best recipe for apple pie, it's, it's great, here it is. Wait, there's a commercial, and then it's like what? And then anytime I see somebody bring in their old co-hosts, I'm like oh, ratings must not be that good. Yeah, so Daniel says it's not as ironclad as a corporate regarding getting sued. Yeah, thank you. You said sole proprietor. Thank you, daniel, for giving me straight there. Yeah, and then Ralph says LLC is better than sole proprietorship, depends on the plans for taxes. Yeah, well, you know, askthepodcastcoachcom slash question, we'll get you into the show. It's a lot of fun and I did find out that whichever one I went with is more paperwork than an LLC. And if I had to do it again, because you know who doesn't love paperwork, but it is what it is.

Dave Jackson: 33:32

So while we're playing around here, I did want to talk about a thing that came up on Reddit, and this is really not new. This guy says hello everyone, and I wanted to share my experience to help others avoid what happened to me. I like this guy because he took responsibility for his actions. He says I ran my podcast for over six years with 168 episodes. In one episode I played a few music tracks I had created using Sonos, so not illegal or copyrighted content. He says that was against Spotify's terms of service. My mistake, I should have checked more clearly. So, yeah, it's not just illegal music, it's any music. They don't want any music on your podcast in Spotify. He said the fun thing was, instead of just removing that episode, they deleted my entire podcast. Yeah, 168 episodes. See you bye.

Dave Jackson: 34:32

No warning, no strike, no way to recover the feed. Support is almost non-existent. My last email was completely ignored. So what he took away from this? Big platforms can remove your content without warning. Yep, you give them almost full usage rights. When you upload, they can remove it, change it or ignore you completely. And again, with Spotify, well, you could not not pay them anymore. Support is minimal. Yep, you get what you pay for, mostly automated replies, no real conversation. Always back up your episodes, including show notes, and be ready to move if needed. Yep, I have mine's in Backblaze. I have all my old episodes in Backblaze because it's dirt cheap.

Dave Jackson: 35:13

After a takedown, you can't access your podcast at all anymore, even though you're the one who created it. Yeah, you don't own it because you paid nothing for it. You get nothing. Good day, sir. I haven't given up. I'm now self-hosted. Oh, that's a bad idea. My podcast with a new feed. Why is why? He said there we go. Why is it a bad idea to self-host? Because and I know you can go but I'm on HostGator.

Dave Jackson: 35:43

Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, and that sounds great. It's not the bandwidth, it's not the storage, it's the that thing, resources I'll use I don't know if that's the right word but basically a website is made up of text and images, so we're talking kilobytes of information. A podcast is made up of, you know, mp, mp3 files, which are megabytes, and so there's a big difference between serving a website page, that's I don't know 13 kilobytes, versus a single MP3 file that's 50 megabytes. And now 300 people try to grab that MP3 file at the same time and the poor little web host is going and it can't keep up and so they go. Hey, you're kind of like killing our servers over here. You either need to move or get yourself a real media host. So when he says, I moved to self-hosting, that's not a good idea.

Dave Jackson: 36:40

See Buzzsprout, see Captivate, see Transistor, see Blueberry, see anybody but Spotify If you need free Red Circle. But come on, now hobbies cost money. So, yeah, it's always. Yeah, no music at all. That, yeah, rich says it is pretty stupid, but you know it's, it's, oh, it's what you call it. It's, it's Spotify. They're not known for being smart unless it's you know how to. You know scam musicians out of money and all that fun stuff. So, coming in to help us understand all this stuff about LLCs and that whole nine yards, the one and only Ralph Estep Jr, even though it says Jim Cullison. Welcome to being Jim Cullison, Ralph from.

Ralph Estep Jr.: 37:24

AskRalphcom. All good, my friend, I don't mind it at all.

Dave Jackson: 37:28

Yeah, so tell us LLC SoulCorp all that you know. We're in your wheelhouse, my friend of accounting, so fire away.

Ralph Estep Jr.: 37:37

I'll back up a step first. So let's start here. So if your concern is protecting personal liability, then you definitely want to be in something besides a sole proprietorship. Because if you're in a sole proprietorship, there is no separation between you and the business. So if someone was to sue you, you're going to get sued personally. So that's first step. So most people are going to say, yes, it's good to be in something.

Ralph Estep Jr.: 38:02

Now, daniel J Lewis mentioned something about you have to have at least $120,000 in revenue before a corporation makes sense. I'm going to disagree with that. Here's the deal If you are a sole proprietor, then all of your income, that's and I'm talking about net income minus your expenses. So you've made this much on Patreon, you made this much on buy me a coffee, whatever those things are you made a certain amount of money. Well, if you're a sole proprietor, you're going to pay not only federal and state tax, but you're going to pay something called self-employment tax. That's an extra 15.2%. That's a big number. So one of the benefits to go into a corporation or an LLC is to try to mitigate some of that self-employment tax. Well, so that's why I said it depends. So if you are in a position. Let's say you're married, husband and wife. One of the things we could do is we could create a two-member LLC, and not to get everybody lost in the weeds, but by creating a two-member LLC, and not to get everybody lost in the weeds, but by creating a two-member LLC, the game we're trying to play and it's totally legal, totally appropriate is to divide the income into two pieces and basically so let's just say you're married, dave. I know you're not, but let's just say you were. So you're married, husband and wife. You assign each of you 50% ownership in the business. Well, dave is the only one that actually does stuff in the podcast. So we make Dave the active owner. Well, on Dave's income the self-employment tax happens, can't get around that, but on Dave's wife's it doesn't. So I just sheltered half of that income from self-employment tax. Now Daniel J said okay, but how much money do you have to make the break even for this? This to break even cost-wise is about $8,000 a year in net income.

Ralph Estep Jr.: 39:36

Now, if you're not married, then we go in to talk about corporations and specifically what I put people in is what's called a subchapter S corporation, and what I do there is if you're not married, you don't have that other person you can bring into the mix, then I put you in a subchapter S corporation and I pay you a salary from that. Why do I pay a salary? Because on that salary you're going to pay social security and Medicare tax. But here's the beauty of it On the income that's not from salary, no social security, medicare tax. So let me use a simple example. Let's say that your content is making you a net profit of $100,000 a year Big number. But let's just say it's doing that. Okay, if we do nothing you're going to it's going to cost you an extra $16,000 a year in tax. That's that 15.8%. I'm rounding up, but seek a math on on the on the audio rounding up. But if we do that as corporation, we pay you, let's say, a half of that as a salary. I just saved you $8,000. So not only have I saved you money, I've also given you that liability shield.

Ralph Estep Jr.: 40:37

Now, I'm not an attorney, so I'm not going to give you legal advice, but any other thing.

Ralph Estep Jr.: 40:41

I think it brings to the table and, dave, you and I've had this very conversation it brings to that more stability. It's a corporation, it's an LLC. I just think it brings you a sort of street cred is probably the best word to use. I just think it brings you like sort of street cred is probably the best word to use, but it also, honestly, I think it also insulates you from IRS audits a little bit. Because if you're doing it as a sole proprietorship, there's very little difference between you and the business. So these expenses like you go to the grocery store well, I had to buy stuff for the podcast, or I went to Staples or I went on Amazon If you have a separate business account, you're doing everything separate. I love that in an audit I deal with audits all the time I can say to the IRS no, no, no, dave Jackson has a business account and Dave Jackson has a personal account, and never the twain shall meet. And the auditor goes oh, you got me there.

Dave Jackson: 41:27

That's it. There you go, excellent, and where can people find more fun-filled advice from you, mr Ralph?

Ralph Estep Jr.: 41:35

So you can get advice from me at AskRalphcom. But if I can plug this real quick, starting October 7th I'm going to be doing a live show. It's going to be Grit and Growth Business Live and you can get to it by going to gritandgrowthbusinesscom slash live. It's going to be at 8 pm on Tuesday nights, Eastern time. You can come there, ask questions, just like this. I'm going to be out there. If you want to do some business talking business coaching, I'm going to put myself out there absolutely free. Be happy to talk to anybody, Sort of just like ask the podcast coach.

Dave Jackson: 42:03

Only better. There you go.

Ralph Estep Jr.: 42:05

Oh no, it's not going to be better, my friend. I don't have the street. This from 30 years. It's funny. I was doing an interview on a. I did a comedy show. Dave knows this. I did a comedy show the other day. Talk about stepping outside of your, your element, right. So I did this comedy show and the guy's like, well, you're a pretty boring guy If you're an accountant. I said, dude, I've been doing this since I was eight years old, up in it.

Dave Jackson: 42:35

So if anybody hasn't seen something, I've seen it because I've been doing it for such a long time. Wow, excellent, all right, askralphcom. And when you said October, what?

Ralph Estep Jr.: 42:40

date is it October 7th, first Tuesday in October. It'll be at 8 pm Eastern time. Again, that's gritandgrowthofbusinesscom slash live. I'll be using Ecamm just like you're using Dave, but you can come on, you can do live just like we're doing here. You can put questions in the chat. Be happy to answer any of those business questions, because a lot of people don't even know what questions to ask. And that's the problem. Sometimes we just don't know what to ask.

Dave Jackson: 43:03

Yeah, we don't know what we don't know.

Ralph Estep Jr.: 43:05

I'm here to help because I want to see people be successful. That's my passion.

Dave Jackson: 43:08

There you go. Excellent, all right, my friend. Well, thank you so much for jumping in.

Ralph Estep Jr.: 43:13

You're welcome, David. You're doing a great job, by the way.

Dave Jackson: 43:15

I am doing better at this than I. Well, I also knew I had like an hour and 15 minutes. He texted me. He's like dude, I really shouldn't be moving. And I'm like all right, I'll figure it out.

Ralph Estep Jr.: 43:38

And that's what I was like. All right, I've noticed, yeah, probably, yeah, yeah, it's that. Deep breath, dave. We all love you man. We love you Dave, it's all good, we love you. Dave, you're the man. It's all good, I appreciate that man.

Dave Jackson: 43:46

All right, take care, yep, take care buddy.

Dave Jackson: 43:51

There you go. The one and only Ralph, amazing guy. Let's do this just because it's a good, fun spot to do this. Let's talk about my awesome supporters. I do appreciate every single one of you because we've got a few people. We did lose a few people, but you know that happens. And so thanks to everyone. That is, you know, liondencom, homegadgetgeekscom. Well, that's that. Jim Coulson guy.

Dave Jackson: 44:15

I Am Salt Lake Indie, drop-ins, spiberary, all those Yep podcast. Thank you so much. And this show is brought to you by should I put on crappy radio voice? This show is brought to you by theschoolofpodcastingcom, where you get courses, coaching and community. I use the coupon code coach and that comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. And if you're like I don't need to start a podcast, I've already got one. Well, we talked about it today.

Dave Jackson: 44:40

How do I know if my show is resonating? Well, you might try sitting in the podcast hot seat for the record. It's really not that hot, but I go over an episode that you pick and then I go over your website, make sure you're not missing any of those low-hanging fruit and check it out at podcasthotseatcom. And if you're at askthepodcastcoachcom or askralphcom, well, that's PodPage and you can try PodPage by going to trypodpagecom. If you want to learn PodPage, well then check out learnpodpagecom. And if you're like, oh no, jim Cullison today, well, you can get as much Jim Cullison as you want by going over to theaverageguytv and check out his show Home Gadget Geeks. And Jim, our thoughts are with you today, because I know I just hate sleeping wrong and you wake up and you can't move Like I can't look left for the next two days.

Dave Jackson: 45:33

That's always fun and it's time for the wheel of names, which, as much prep as I did this morning, I did not get ready for the wheel of names. Here we go and let's share our screen. And there it is. So who will it be? Will it be Greg over to Indie Drop-In, or Craig at AI Goes to College, or Glenn or Jody? Well, we're going to spin it and see what happens.

Dave Jackson: 45:59

And the survey says it's going to be my buddy, shane from Spybrarycom. If you like James Bond, okay, that's cool, but we're talking like real spies doing real spy stuff. He's even been on I forget, I want to say BBC one or two. He's been on like a big shot, smarty pants news channel because they were talking about spies and they're like well, we need a spy expert and, lo and behold, shane Whaley came up when they searched for that. So, congrats on that.

Dave Jackson: 46:33

And that's not the right button, but this is the one we want to go to and as always, you know, if you found this show, maybe that we saved you some time or saved you some money, maybe we saved you a headache, Maybe we kept you educated, maybe we even entertained you and made you smile. Well, you can be an awesome supporter. Don't have to spend the $20 to get on the wheel of names. If you want to go, five or $10, 10 will get you on the website askthepodcastcoachcom. Slash awesome. And thanks again to all of the awesome supporters. I do deeply appreciate that, as does my. You know, car payment and things of that nature that always come in handy.

Dave Jackson: 47:13

Let's take. You know we talked about Spotify and how they kick that port. Well, they just deleted a show. Let's go. I'll take Spotify for 200,.

Dave Jackson: 47:21

Alex and this one came up and it said I had a podcast and we're so close to hitting all the criteria to join the Spotify partner program, which is particularly difficult. What? 9,500 consumption hours or over 30 days, which means you got to have a pretty popular channel. Then my country got removed, yeah, from the eligible countries. The fact that I divide my time between two countries doesn't help, but still, we worked so hard on uploading material interviews way more frequently than usual to hit the target. And then nada, spotify partner program removed from our monetization options. Simple as that. So bloody frustrating, starting to wonder if Spotify is the right platform. It's not. Yeah for a podcast, if you want to be seen. There's a thing called YouTube that you might want to look into. Now realize you're not going to make heaps of cash on YouTube. I think I, now that I'm not having birthdays and things like that, I think I'm back to making like $5 per 1000 downloads, something like that, and so, yeah, so just you know I, yeah, yeah. Somebody asked what platform I am I using. Chris Nessie is chiming in. I'm using Ecamm.

Dave Jackson: 48:42

I did use Riverside for a presentation. I did on for PodPage and it worked. The fun part was the chat. My chat was completely empty and, as you know, when you do a live show that you it's live, and so I'm trying to talk into the camera and do this while over on this computer I'm like where's where's the? Where's the chat room? And so I went over to the pod page, youtube channel channel, and I saw that I was live and I'm like, okay, it's live, it's streaming, and I had a chat room on YouTube. But I and I'm going to blame that on Operator Air that somehow the comments were not coming back into Riverside. But other than that I've had I'm batting 25% with Riverside.

Dave Jackson: 49:33

I've had my very first time I used it. It kicked out my guest about the minute and a half mark. The second time I used it I had a horrendous echo and then I had the webinar and that went fine. So I'm batting 30% then. So, and just realize, whoever you use, I don't the only time I have problems with Ecamm. It's not usually Ecamm, it's the Ecamm talking to the stream deck thing. That makes things kind of icky. So just a reminder if you have a question, you can go over to askthepodcastcoachcom slash question, and if you don't want to come on screen, there's a way you can join via audio as well.

Dave Jackson: 50:15

So I realized, like David, saturday I even had a. You know, I barely had my coffee. I haven't had a shower yet. I do not want to be on camera. Well then, don't just do the audio thing.

Dave Jackson: 50:22

Here's another fun one that I just titled. Yeah, no, and that is starting my first episode of a podcast tomorrow. Tomorrow, me and my co-host will be starting our first podcast episode, looking for some good stories to talk about on our podcast. I think I did this one before. Now that I read that If you're running out of ideas and you haven't launched yet, no, that's you know A. I always love people that think the day we record is the day I'm going to be an Apple, and that's not correct either. It takes a while to, you know, get it Well, first of all, the first thing you record I typically call a rough draft, you know, and then do it a second time, maybe, maybe a third, get some feedback on it and then launch.

Dave Jackson: 51:06

And so, yeah, ralph wants to know why are you not using the Ecamm interview platform instead of Zoom? Is it the delay? I'm going to be having a sidekick for my show and we did see a bit of delay. I didn't see any delay with Zoom, the thing I'm doing that, for we had a couple people when I was using the interview link and one of them was Randy, and we know Randy knows his stuff and Randy had somehow and this might be a Dave issue, but I remember I like right now, right now I don't have the interview up, I have the zoom window, but I was always kind of had you know, out of the corner of my eye I was watching the interview box but Randy had said he connected and it was waiting for me to let him in and I got nothing. And then I had other people that would join and their microphone like it wouldn't use, like they again I'm talking to podcasters so they had the stuff set right.

Dave Jackson: 52:00

So we just hit a few hurdles using the Ecamm thing and everybody and their brother knows Zoom. So I just was like when they said they have the, the Zoom integration, and I have found out that if the, the Zoom integration, and I have found out that if, if people join the Zoom I found out last week and I haven't I've just noticed that I start the Zoom call at the beginning of this, then we go 90 minutes and I'm not sure when, but I've just noticed over the last couple episodes I will go over and look at the Zoom window and it's gone and I'm like is this a case where if nobody's in the Zoom meeting it just kind of closes itself down? I'm not really sure. So that's why I'm using Zoom, just because everybody and their brother, I mean.

Dave Jackson: 52:40

I used to use Google Meet for PodPage, pretty similar products, you know and I'd be like, okay, now share your screen and I'll show you. And getting people to share the screen on Google Play or Google Play Google Meet, was at times like pulling teeth and I'm like, hey, can we just splurge the 15 bucks for Zoom, because everybody knows Zoom and so that's why we're using Zoom. Yeah, rich says the Zoom is super easy. Yep, everyone knows how to use it. The interview mode looks blurry to the user and will throw off a gas Plus. It gets cumbersome for them. Yeah, it's. I don't quite get it because there are times when I'd be like click the share button at the bottom and or I would say, on a Google meet I forget what the icon was and it'd be like, and there are times it just some people are new.

Dave Jackson: 53:41

You know, anytime you do anything for the first time, it's typically not smooth and I just said, can we please spend the $15 on Zoom? So, yeah. And then Chris says practice makes perfect and then practice some more. Yeah, so I last night I always go in and make sure I try to that Ecamm and everything is going to play nice together. I usually reboot my computer before I start and then pray that nothing changed. There's nothing more fun than you know when you everything's working great and then you reboot and you break everything.

Dave Jackson: 54:06

You're like oh great, probably shouldn't have rebooted, but then there are other times that if I don't reboot, you know nothing works. So if you are running out of time for your podcast, I saw this in Reddit. It says one of my biggest pain points with podcasting was recording an episode every week. It sounds like a lot, but I want to spend less days per month recording due to my full schedule. One of the best decisions I made was recording two episodes at a time. Instead of recording one episode each week, I have recorded two episodes at once every other week and then schedule them to release in advance. I'm doing that this weekend. I will be at the Empowered Podcasting Conference next weekend, so I'm recording this week's episode and I'm recording next week's episode because I'm not going to be here or I get back late Sunday night and don't feel like staying up till four in the morning to record Monday show. He says is this some huge genius secret of a strategy? Not really, Absolutely not, but it was a small change that allowed me to continue podcasting and stay motivated.

Dave Jackson: 55:08

Sometimes a small change can make a huge difference and it keeps you on the right track. This may not work for your show if it's an in-person or an interview type of podcast. But if it's something that you know might work for your show, I 100% recommend it. This can also be used to double the amount of episodes you release each month without changing the amount of days you record. Yeah, Jody, does this a lot. Jody Kringle from the Audio Branding Podcast does this a lot. Jody Kringle from the Audio Branding Podcast.

Dave Jackson: 55:37

And I know Courtney Elmer does this for her show, where you'll get on with her or to do an interview, and then she will. She does this in advance and about halfway through the interview, when you've talked about, you know, topic A, and she'll go all right, thanks, Dave, for coming on the show. And you're like, thanks for having me, this is great. And then she will say I mean, it's the same recording. She'll be like hey, Dave, thanks so much for coming back. And you'd be like thanks for having me. And then you go into topic two. It's the same interview, but she plans to split it into two. So you did one interview and you get two episodes out of it. So it just takes a little planning ahead of time. So, yeah, and then Chris Nessie says yep, in the end, do what works for you.

Dave Jackson: 56:19

Yeah, I always say look at your, you know record, you know, track your time, whether it's while you're doing research, while you're actually recording it, while you're doing the editing, while you're doing the post-production, while you're doing the show notes, all that stuff. Record it, your time. And then look at how much time did it take you and ask you hey, you know, that took me, you know, 12 hours to do a 45-minute podcast. Do I have 12 hours a week to do a podcast? And you go no. Well, again, then guess what, You're not doing a weekly show, or you need to do a shorter show or something like that. So keep that in mind. It's always fun when you, you know, when you, especially when you first do it, it's always going to take longer. So, but there are all sorts of things you can do to.

Dave Jackson: 57:03

I always say, for those of us that remember seesaws which is sad that there's a large chunk of the population what is a seesaw? But it was this little board and you would sit on it and when one end went down, the other one went up. And I always say podcasting is a little bit like a seesaw, because the more planning you do, the less editing you do. The less planning you do, the more editing you end up doing. So that's always fun too. That's why I've never been a fan of winging it.

Dave Jackson: 57:33

I have an interview now in the can that we had scheduled so far in advance that when it came time to do the interview, I forgot who was interviewing who. I had not done my prep. So we did a quick kind of pre-interview call on the interview and then I'm like, okay, let's start this. And just because I kind of didn't know where I was going that's a lot of times when you hear the person's like, tell us a little bit about yourself what they're really saying is I didn't do any homework and I need to know where I'm going, and so there was a bit of that. Now, the fun part is then right, no less planning, more editing. So that's one of those things that it was an interesting exercise and what I ended up with was not what I thought I was going to get. But it was one of those where I'm like, yeah, this is where planning comes in a lot. So here's another fun one.

Dave Jackson: 58:29

So I've been working on a new podcast and I was working on drawing some branding assets for said podcast when OPE my nearly I don't know what OPE sounds. Ope, yeah, you know me. I don't know what that is, Other people's ears I don't know. But my nearly 10-year-old iPad bit the dust Like straight up, decided life was no longer worth living. It had seen too much of my abuse and sent itself into oblivion, and along with it went my new logo. Youtube channel banner talk sprites for the video version of the podcast Makes sense, since I'll be talking about a lot of art topics and about 10 years worth of artwork. Because I'm an idiot and I only backed up some specific pieces because I didn't realize that auto backup for the specific software I was using was a premium feature. The cost of repair for my old iPad was more than buying a refurbed, newer model, but I was really happy with the way things were looking and I was so excited to share my new podcast with my teeny, tiny but full of incredible people audience.

Dave Jackson: 59:35

Yeah, I cannot stress enough Back up, back up, back up, and so I use Backblaze for that, and it backs up my entire hard drive. It backs up an entire two terabyte external hard drive and so if things go kablooey then you know you're not so messed up of going. Oh wait, my logo. Yeah, that's a bad thing. Let me, I think I can do this. I don't want to do that. I have a fun tool that I can share my phone with. Yeah, I know my phone with. Yeah, I know Chris says so many nerdy topics this morning and there's no gym, so keep that in mind. And, Randy, are you coming back or are you just still there? We'll, we'll find out here in a second, but let me, and we will put him here. That makes sense because Randy's a big IT nerd as well. So, here, hold on, We'll even give you the fun field even though he's not here.

Randy Black: 1:00:42

Wait, what? What I was?

Dave Jackson: 1:00:44

going to share a tip with you. Oh, I discovered. Oh, okay, well, hold on, I was going to do, I'll rant.

Randy Black: 1:00:49

Tell me what to rant on and I will rant. No.

Dave Jackson: 1:00:51

I don rant. Tell me what to rant on and I will rant. No, I don't, I will go for it. I'm looking for this, even though you're not. Jim, and now Randy's been waiting for this. It's time for Jim to get his nerd on. Yes, yeah.

Randy Black: 1:01:06

Okay, my preferred term is geek. Geek, that's right, I'm sorry.

Randy Black: 1:01:11

So I discovered that ChatGPT has this really great ability to take an unprocessed piece of audio and if you tell it what microphone you're using and what device you're recording to, for instance, Rodecaster Pro 2, Rodecaster Duo, Rode PodMic it will analyze the audio and will then give you settings appropriate for your voice, for your purpose. Interesting, so like and I've done this like recently and hadn't thought about it, and as I'm working here listening to the show, watching the show and everything, I came across my printout of the microphone settings for myself and Jim, and it reminded me, oh, I should share this. So it will break it down for you for the high-pass filter settings, the de-esser settings, every single component in there, the noise gate settings, the compressor, the EQ. It will, even after you set everything, you can do another recording. It will, even after you set everything, you can do another recording. Stick it back in, have it, analyze it.

Randy Black: 1:02:17

And the RODECaster devices are notoriously low in volume. Yeah, In LUFS they're notoriously low. Like, my master compiler is set as high as possible and the highest LUF level I can get is negative 22. Yeah, and negative 19 is what you should be at for mono, negative 16 for stereo. And it will even tell you that, oh, you're low and you go higher. No, well, you need to use another tool and then it'll recommend another tool. So it recommends use. Auphonic is the big one and I love Auphonic. Yeah, so just something. If anybody's using a Rodecaster device, you can even do it like if you're using just the Rode PodMic USB, the settings that are available in road central for that. It's the same, it's almost the same settings, and it will walk you through that process and give them to you. It is amazing. I simply took a. I turned all the processing off, recorded my voice, just natural. I added that file to my prompt. And let me pull my prompt up and I'll tell you exactly how I prompted it.

Dave Jackson: 1:03:15

Yeah, I was going to say what is the prompt, because that's what somebody Chris wanted to know.

Randy Black: 1:03:18

The prompt I used was and this is when I did the two voices, because I had two separate recordings was I think I got it. I think I got it. I think I got it. Let's go all the way to the top, to my original prompt, because this is a combined prompt here.

Randy Black: 1:03:41

I have a Rode PodMic USB this is what I did it with for just the PodMic USB, and I want to tweak the settings to make my voice sound as good as possible. I have a sample recording with no processing turned on. Can you use that to make some recommendations for processing settings for me? And then it lays out there. You know, when you send me the file and this is what it says it will do Check the raw tone of your voice so it's looking at low tone, low range, low balance, mid highs, everything with that. Look at the noise levels and the room sound. That's nice. Recommend EQ bands so where to cut, where to boost. Suggest compression ratios, ratios, thresholds, attack and release to fit with your voice delivery. Provide guidance on limiting and overall loudness and, if needed, give you tips for mic technique and room treatment that was a nice one here at the end.

Randy Black: 1:04:30

That's interesting so and it even gave me out the waveform and the frequency spectrum, showed me those forms so that I could see where my voice was naturally, and then gave started giving me the details on how to adjust the settings to get my voice sounding as good as it could and I think my voice sounds pretty good, yeah, well, and, like I said, I just told it what microphone, what device I'm or interface I'm using and it walked right through the process and there's a, there's a couple little things like it. It gave me something. I think it was the the on like on the noise gate with the roadcaster. You have a setting for hysterious still not really sure what that is sounds like a great.

Dave Jackson: 1:05:14

it sounds like a song or an album by, or even an awesome band name. Yeah, exactly.

Randy Black: 1:05:18

But it gave me like a number for that and I said, well, it's expressed as percentage on the settings and it went, oh easy to adjust, and adjusted it to the percentage. Oh, Just a tip for anybody out there who wants to try to get the best they can out of whatever they're using to record. I'm sure that if there's processing settings similar on and I haven't used the Zoom products for the PodTracks, I haven't used the Tascam, whatever Tascams is called I'm sure there's similar stuff and it may even be something you can use to tweak your settings for EQ and different stuff in Audacity and all the other ones.

Dave Jackson: 1:05:55

That's what Chris says, yeah.

Randy Black: 1:05:57

It's pretty cool. It worked really well. Somebody else had suggested it in a Facebook group. I was like I don't know about this, so I jumped on it one day and I am extremely happy. Like I'm in a room with multiple monitors in front of me, so sound is bouncing back at me, it's bouncing off the wall behind me. There's a little fan setting next to me that now nobody hears.

Dave Jackson: 1:06:20

Yeah, so you're saying you actually took the settings and put it in and it worked?

Randy Black: 1:06:25

I put it all in on my Rodecaster and the last thing I have to do like my voice sounds good, everything comes in pretty crisp and clear. The last thing I do is I send it to Auphonic and process and it gets my level up and if there is any noise in the background it gets rid of pretty much all of it.

Ralph Estep Jr.: 1:06:40

Yeah.

Randy Black: 1:06:41

So I've, I've, I've got a sweet setup. But chat GPT is what helped me get to that point. Just just a tip for anybody yeah.

Dave Jackson: 1:06:49

Something to try, right. Sometimes you're not sure where to start and you're like all right, well, let's go with this, yeah, cause we have some, some skeptics. Daniel's like I'm not really sure you know of its capability to analyze audio, but you know, give it a shot. And it's like everything else I know. When I do demos of pod page, I'm like there comes a part where you go better, this way, better, that way, better, this way like, and pick one. It's, it's up to you.

Randy Black: 1:07:14

So if you, oh, it's and the the settings I had gone through and worked on and tried to get dialed in on my own. This is so much better yeah, it sounds so much better than it did and I didn't think it sounded bad, but this has cleaned it up a lot and made it more fit with where I want my voice to be and my sound to be. Very cool, excellent. All right, man. Well, thanks for the tip. I appreciate it. Awesome, very cool.

Dave Jackson: 1:07:34

Excellent, all right, man. Well, thanks for the tip. I appreciate it. Awesome. Have a good day, man. Yeah, we'll see you. Yeah, the the thing I want to share here, and I think this will work if I do this. Yes, you guys can see, it is a tool. So I'm talking about this thing. It is I was hoping about. Well, here, let's go to the support page. That will help me figure out.

Dave Jackson: 1:08:08

Edit point is the name of the software, and now I got to go find it again. But if you're a person that does since we're talking about feedback, it's kind of wonky. But basically, if you're using Apple's cloud-based iCloud, right, you upload a file in iCloud and then you can go in and say, hey, give me a show from such and such and get the file that way. That's the only thing I was like, ah, that's kind of clunky. And then you listen to it and you can basically say, hey, I want to enter a note at this point. And then, when you're done, you can basically say, hey, I want to export these markers and then I set as text and then basically, I said copy it and then I threw it into a note. And so if you're a person who is giving feedback on stuff. This is a handy. It's like $15 a year, I think it wasn't, you know, expensive in my opinion, if it's going to save you time, the only thing I thought was wonky and I kind of wondered, being an iOS I don't know if it's on Android or not but for giving feedback and a way to listen. I like Pocket Cast because I can mark bookmarks, but in terms of actually writing a note, which I guess I could, I could have a really long name for a bookmark, but that's a handy little tool that I just found out about.

Dave Jackson: 1:09:32

From it's the show, from what do you call it? With Colin Gray and Matthew? I know it's the podcast. From what do you call it with Colin Gray and Matthew? I know it's the podcast host. Is their website and they talked about it on one of their shows. Yeah.

Dave Jackson: 1:09:47

And then Chris Nessie brings up hey, since we did kind of mention, if you're talking about AI and audio stuff, mike Russell has an amazing channel where every day he's like I did this and I typed in these three prompts and look, it built me a house. It's amazing. And then he says also, if you're doing legal stuff, check out Gordon Firemark. He's a good guy, as always. And then Harlow wants to know do we have any input on who is actually listening to AI-generated podcasts? Anyone meet a person that has recommended oh, there's the key, that's recommended one.

Dave Jackson: 1:10:24

And in my travels, no, because my two episodes ago, if you go to schoolofpodcastingcom, slash 1000, we talked about what is remarkable content and in my opinion, ai content is not remarkable. It's not bad sometimes, but it's nothing that I'm like oh man, I can't wait to tell Daniel about this. He's going to lose his mind. I've never heard lose your mind kind of content come out of AI, unless it's wrong. Like my favorite was the.

Dave Jackson: 1:11:03

There's a blog post on Castos' website that says podcasting has had a discoverability problem since the nineties. And I'm like, yeah, I'm pretty sure they did have a discoverability problem in the nineties because it didn't exist yet. I'm like, yeah, I'm pretty sure they did have a discoverability problem in the 90s because it didn't exist yet. And that's kind of when I went OK, I'm not going to really trust the. You know the things on that blog anymore. Your integrity goes right out the window when you do that.

Dave Jackson: 1:11:32

I talked about this earlier, but just to repeat it, what's the best way to move from one host to the other. Just to repeat it, what's the best way to move from one host to the other? A, what is your current host or not doing that you want the new host to do? Because I know a lot of people think that like, oh, if I move from you know Buzzsprout to Captivate that I'm now going to get the names and email addresses of my audience. And that would be a no, nobody does that. There's a little thing called GDPR from our good friends in Europe, and the only way you can get even gender information is from Spotify. So that's where you want to do your own audience survey to get that kind of stuff. And it's again, it's not the media host that's going to make your show grow, it's your content. So yeah, so keep that in mind.

Dave Jackson: 1:12:25

Chris says I sampled the Notebook LM audio and video tool to go over my latest YouTube video. It was okay but not fun. I have tried that where I will take the transcript from a show, throw it into chat TPT and say this is a podcast for, in my case, podcasters who are trying to do blank yada, yada, yada. Here's the transcript. And so you paste that whole thing in and then you go either. What's missing? How could I have made this better? And I get the artificial part. I'm not sold on the intelligence part, but it did. Do I remember?

Dave Jackson: 1:13:03

I did this once with the future of podcasting, which is a show I do with Daniel J Lewis, and it said you guys use too much jargon. And so I looked at it, because anytime somebody gives you feedback, the first thing you want to do is go do they have a legitimate point? And I looked at it and I was like, yeah, we do, but for our target audience. That's not jargon, that's just the way we talk. So if I had been using words that people, like most podcasters, don't know or maybe we're more advanced podcasting and the beginner podcast wouldn't know. But that was one note that I was like huh, and I was like, well, I get their point. But in the end I was like, ok, I get why it said it. And I think it said that we took tangents and I'm like, hey, dave Jackson's one of the co-hosts, you're taking tangents. So that was another thing. So it's something you might try, you know, because the thing that ChatGP doesn't have. I'll give you a prime example If you go to YouTube and type in redneck Star Trek.

Dave Jackson: 1:14:08

There is a video and it's AI obviously like. It has Spock sitting on a porch with some sweet tea and he's got tattoos all over him and you know, and Captain Kirk has a giant mullet. It's pretty funny, and so anytime somebody shares something with me, I go why did they share that? So, number one, it's pretty funny, it's something you can't see anyplace else because Leonard Nimoy is dead. So you know, we can't have him dress up like a redneck on a front porch anymore.

Dave Jackson: 1:14:42

The song wasn't bad, it was country. So you know, take it for what it is Three chords and the truth, you know. And then if it was nostalgic. So there were a couple things that I was like okay, why are people sharing this? So nostalgia was one. You can't get it anyplace else.

Dave Jackson: 1:15:01

The song wasn't bad and it made you laugh. So I was like okay, cause anytime somebody shares something with me or I share something with someone else, I'm always like okay, why? And for me nostalgia was a lot of that one. That was a lot of like, oh wow, look, that really does look like Kirk and Sulu, and, you know, scotty and the whole, the whole crew. And so I don't think Chatship. Et gets nostalgia because it's that's an emotion and it doesn't have that. So I think that's where, again, anytime, you can lean into stories. Yeah, there you go. Ralph says be careful, there it's more than three chords, I think it's four. Yes, on the bridge they throw in the. You know they might even throw in a seventh chord. Now I played in a country band. There's some really good pickers in country, so keep that in mind. Arliss says thanks, dave and Dan, for the input.

Dave Jackson: 1:15:58

I wanted to get a community gut check on that versus a company's press release. Oh yeah, that's here's the thing. Here's what I like about it. There's that one company that's making 3000 episodes a week. It's going to be absolute slop. And then she called us what is it? Luddites, the CEO, people that think all AI is AI slop. And I'm like, well, ai, that's like. I don't mind AI on images.

Dave Jackson: 1:16:22

You know I use it occasionally for pod page on our blog. I'll write a blog and I'm like hey, can you make this better without losing my voice? And you know I like it as a touch up tool. I'm not a. I don't think I trust it as a. Hey, write this. And I'm just going to copy and paste it. You always want a human in there to again make sure it's not saying things like podcasting's had a discoverability problem since the 90s, because you'll lose your credibility. And I also think again, if we look at what makes remarkable content.

Dave Jackson: 1:16:53

I've never seen anything come out of ChatGBT that I was like wait hold on. Oh my gosh, did you, did you see this? Oh my, I got to go tell everyone. You must read. I've never done that. When I've gotten something out of chat GPT, I'm like, oh, that's, that saved me some time and now I'm going to make it better. I always tweak that.

Dave Jackson: 1:17:10

So, and the one I heard was on knitting. And so Google has the E-E-A-T, which is experience. So when you like, I remember the one time my grandma taught me how to knit and blah, blah, blah, and I forget what the other E is, authoritativeness, e-e-a-t, and I forget what the T is Just makes me hungry every time I talk about it. But there's none of that in, you know, unless they start making. I did do something where I had I call it Kyle and Sheila the Google LM, cause you know they're going to do a deep dive and it was some transcript and I talked about how I'd lost my wallet and somebody actually returned it to me and Sheila said oh, I remember the one time I lost my wallet. And I'm like, liar, liar, Sheila, you lie, you never had a wallet, you're not a person. So eventually I think they're going to have AI start making. I remember that one time we went to the amusement park and the you know I'm like no, that never happened.

Dave Jackson: 1:18:09

You know, dan says AI is a tool. It needs humans to use, use it properly, yep, amen, brother. And, just as importantly, to keep other humans to use it improperly. Yeah, so when I hear 3,000 episodes that are horrible, I'm like, on one hand, I hate the fact.

Dave Jackson: 1:18:25

Now for the new podcast, the person's like I've never listened to a podcast. And then they go to Apple Podcasts and they find the show and, by the way, the one I went to listen to started off with, I think, a minute and a half of ads that were not targeted at all. They weren't about knitting, because the show was about knitting. And then you know it was Jamie Lee, you know Capricorn or whatever her name was, and she's all friendly and bubbly and you know. So she had the presentation and she was all happy and fun and so glad you're here, and I was like, yeah, but, and there's no disclosure that she was AI, which I believe you're supposed to do. I know, at least on YouTube you have to disclose when you have somehow made your voice sound funny, or let's see, though there's reverb. So I need to do that. But there is this one. Yeah, all right, baby, let's OK, there's, that's a little weird. And then this other one's not quite as low. So this is when you're doing the whatever. Welcome to. Yeah, here's a fun one. Oh, wait, a minute, let's do, let's turn that off while we're at it.

Dave Jackson: 1:19:37

If anybody here is a kit power user, I would love to know, because I'm trying to talk myself out of doing something stupid. And so pricing for right now I'm like closing in on 2000. So when I look at this for kit let me share my screen because I'm on kit kit is going up by a hundred dollars a year. So if I go to kit creator pro right now I'm on people it's 470. So I'm like wait, I could get 7,000 more subscribers. And this is where you start getting bright, shiny in. You know like, ooh, this one does this.

Dave Jackson: 1:20:34

So I looked, I'm like what's the? And I spent a lot of time because it's free. They have a free tier. That's actually pretty powerful. And so I looked at this and they have smart recommendations and I wish I cannot find it yet. I wish there was a way to identify how many people from on my list came from this recommendation.

Dave Jackson: 1:20:55

Engine that they have in kit, cause I do get people that join. I get that more on sub stack as well. Engine that they have in Kit, because I do get people that join. I get that more on Substack as well. And then they have Facebook custom audiences and you're like, oh, look at that.

Dave Jackson: 1:21:06

And then it dawned on me I'm not running Facebook ads and I just looked at this and was like, well, I'm thinking of upgrading to this one because it had an insights dashboard and some other things that again, at least here they're letting you know what they are, get actionable insights about your marketing and sales performance to drive more revenue. And I'm like, okay, well, that's $900 a year and I'm like versus 470. So if anybody knows how to like, because I the other thing is that I was like wait, dave, don't, don't get lost in the bright, shiny new tool. And then I saw that if you buy a yearly subscription of any version, they'll move your email list for you and recreate all your automations. Cause that was the big negative. I'm like, oh, I don't want to create my welcome sequence, I don't want to do all my lead magnets again. And they're like, oh, we'll do that for you. And I was like, hmm, interesting. So if you're a kit user and a power user, I'd love to know how much, because they're getting into things like an e-commerce platform and I'm like I don't really need that. And if you're going to be an all-in-one thing kit, well then I'll just use this other all-in-one thing and have it. You know, basically save myself 500 bucks a year.

Dave Jackson: 1:22:26

So Steven is asking about Randy's little trick there. Did you use a WAV file or an MP3 when you prompted chat? I would use a WAV file if it was me. I'm not sure what Randy used, but yeah. So if anybody has, if you're a power user of Kit, let me know. Or if you're listening to this later, there's a link at the top of the show notes that lets you send me a text message if you want to answer it that way. And of course, you can always go to askthepodcastcoachcom, slash voicemail and leave a message that way.

Dave Jackson: 1:23:00

Going back to the AI slop it is slop today, but it'll get better. I think we need those disclosures. Yeah, that's what they. I mean, it didn't sound bad, you know, it wasn't. If you think back to the early AI voices, they've come a long way. Even what's her name in the box from Amazon now is much more friendly and bubbly because they, they use that. Now she's, you know, they're using AI and she's much more.

Dave Jackson: 1:23:23

Last night I asked her what the temperature was outside and it was like, you know, a quarter to one in the morning. And she's like well, it's 64 degrees outside, blah, blah, blah. And then she's like but you know, she, she made a remark like, kind of like, why are you asking what's the temperature outside at a quarter to one in the morning? And I'm like well, I just need to know. If I, you know, is it warm outside, I'll turn on a fan. If not, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, jeff is a kit guy. I might ask Jeff, I thought about that and so, with that, I think, as I look at the clock, we're going to call it a day.

Dave Jackson: 1:23:56

Thanks to everyone for chiming in and jumping in. I really appreciate that. Oh, no show next week. I will be in Charlotte, north Carolina, hanging out with Ralph from askralphcom, craig from AIgoestocollegecom and Mark from practicalpreppinginfo all members of the School of Podcasting. I'm looking forward to that, and anybody else that's there. You can find it at empoweredpodcastingcom. I hope that's the right address, I believe so, if not just Google Empowered Podcasting Conference.

Dave Jackson: 1:24:27

Mark Roenick is running that thing and it looks to be a good event. Now, I've never been there. So if it's not, it's, you know their marketing did a great job. But so if it's not, it's, you know their marketing did a great job. But I kind of know Mark a little bit. I think he's going to put on a good I. I listened to his show that he does daily on clubhouse and he seems like a good guy. So his brand is strong with that. Dan says great job on the solo show.

Dave Jackson: 1:24:50

Yeah, I hung in there. It wasn't quite as, as Ralph said, I might've been going at a little quicker pace. But I, I might have been going at a little quicker pace, but I think I didn't go squirrel, you know, four million times like I normally do. So I appreciate that. So, yeah, no show next week. We will be back whatever two weeks from today is, which is, if I pull up a calendar, would be October 4th. So we will kick into October with a new episode of Ask the Podcast Coach.

Dave Jackson: 1:25:17

I'll be telling you about my time at the Empowered Podcasting Conference on the School of Podcasting, and we'll probably talk about Randy Black a little bit. We're going to talk about what happens to your podcast if you die, and it's something I believe I talked about years ago. But I got to go to Todd Cochran's funeral this week and that was and it was open casket and it's one of those like oh, are we still doing those? So that kind of caught me off guard. But we'll talk about that and some other things that are going on in the podcasting space. But I know myself I am 60.

Dave Jackson: 1:26:00

I don't plan on dying anytime soon, but heaven forbid. I don't want to put this, I don't want to manifest this, but if I, you know, tripped over a shoe and hit my head on a coffee table on the way to do lunch today and I died, I got no passwords anywhere. Like my family is in bad shape, if I were to kick the bucket, and so I with Todd, and then if we go back to Neil. Every time a friend of mine dies. I go, yeah, I probably should do that.

Dave Jackson: 1:26:28

And I reached out to Gordon. Gordon is the guy. If you want entertainment law kind of stuff and you know if you need an LLC, if you need a contract, read over, he's the entertainment lawyer, not the will lawyer. That's not his thing. And plus he gave me great advice and said, oh, and it's also really dependent on the state, so don't die out of state because that messes everything up too. So thank you, gordon for that. Find him at Firemarkcom and we will see you in two weeks with another episode of Ask the Podcast Coach. Take care, everybody, stay safe.