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We also delve into the complexities of podcasting burnout and how to rediscover the joy in creating. We discuss the pressures of competition in the podcasting realm and explore strategies to maintain passion and enthusiasm in your work while celebrating personal milestones rather than focusing solely on statistics.

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Episode Transcript

Alban (00:00):
I want a 240 volt put into our garage and I don't want
to do that myself.

Kevin (00:04):
Oh, I'll come do that for you.

Alban (00:05):
Let's do it together.
That one's just outside of whatI want to do.

Jordan (00:09):
Like electrical work.

Kevin (00:10):
It's not hard at all, it's super easy Really.
Now the challenge and I thinkwe should take on the challenge
is to do it without cutting thepower to the main breaker.

Jordan (00:21):
It's going to be like a game of operation.
Yeah.

Kevin (00:25):
I just did that.
I was at my mother-in-law'shouse in North Carolina this
weekend and she had a coupleceiling fans that she needed to
get installed, and I challengedmyself to install the ceiling
fans without cutting the breaker.

Jordan (00:34):
You did not.

Kevin (00:35):
Yeah, I did.
Why not?
It's so much cooler Like I'vehung dozens of ceiling fans, I
don't need another one on mylist.
I need to do one withoutcutting the power.

Alban (00:44):
We had a friend of a friend die when I was a kid
doing his own electrical work.

Kevin (00:48):
Oh, thanks for bringing it down, man.

Jordan (00:57):
Welcome back to Buzzcast , a podcast about all things
podcasting from the people atBuzzsprout.
So I'm back.

Kevin (01:03):
I think you guys did a great episode.
Thank you to Tom, if you'relistening for stepping in.
I was really sad to miss LikeI'm always sad to miss whatever
you guys are talking about, butBacktracks in particular is a
really fun thing to talk about.
I know and you guys did a greatjob.
I'll tell you my favorite partof the episode.
It's always fun to like be outthat you're a part of usually
and then listen to it and findyour favorite parts.
My favorite part was somethingthat I hadn't heard before, but

(01:25):
when you came in as editor,jordan, with your little side
note yes, and then step back out.
I really liked that.

Jordan (01:31):
That was one of the things I was like he's either
going to love this or absolutelyhate it and be like don't do
that again.

Kevin (01:36):
I really liked it.
I was curious, like how manytakes did you do to do that?
Was that a one take deal?

Jordan (01:41):
I actually did too, and the only reason I did too was
because my daughter was home atthe time and she started singing
and I had to tell her to bequiet, right.

Kevin (01:50):
Yeah, it sounded.
It was great.
I loved how that came in and itwas a fun surprise when I was
listening to the episode.
Cool, so I was thinking whileI'm listening to this episode
and I'm listening to y'all talkvery eloquently about backtracks
and our thoughts behind it andhow fun it is to celebrate
accomplishments as a podcasterat certain milestones and the
end of the year and a new yearbeginning being a milestone that

(02:11):
we can rally around, I wasstarting to think about other
hobbies in my life.
So I know that we are in thepodcast profession.
We work a lot in podcasting.
That's how we make our living,but, like this show, it feels
like a fun break from thatbecause we also enjoy podcasting
.
So it kind of feels like atleast part of my job overlaps
with something that I might doeven if I didn't work in this

(02:33):
profession.
Yeah, podcasting is fun, right,yeah.
And I found myself in this placewhere I think that I got the
backtracks.
I thought it was cool.
I saw some stuff in there thatI didn't really know about our
podcast and some of it was likeoh, that's pretty interesting
and other was.
But I felt like I had thisreally healthy sort of distance

(02:53):
from that, needing to affirm thefact that I just like
podcasting, and I just I don'talways feel like podcasting.
Every time we have one of theseschedules, I don't always come
in saying like I can't wait todo this, but once we get into it
, once I see you guys and oncewe start laughing and sharing
and talking about these topics,I always end up at the end of it
being like that was enjoyable.
That's why I like podcasting.

(03:13):
This is fun and I wouldprobably try to find a way to do
this even if we didn't work atBuzzsprout Recently.
So this is a long, complicatedstory, but I started thinking
about other hobbies in my lifeand like, why do I enjoy them?
And I was thinking about thatbecause there's one hobby that
I'm starting to come back to now, after taking a very, very long
break, and that's golf.
So I was a high school golferand I was pretty serious about

(03:37):
it.
I was decent, like I was nevergreat, but I was decent and I
worked on my game and I tried toget get good.
And I played on the high schoolgolf team and I wanted to, you
know, get do good enough everyweek to make the team that play
it against other schools and allthis kind of stuff.
And then it got to the pointwhere it's one of the areas in
my life where you ask yourselfdo you have you ever experienced
burnout in something like I can?

(03:58):
I would definitively come backto that's like my burnout moment
burnout moment.
So there's jobs that I feltburnt out on and like school.
You know there are certainpoints in school where I felt
burnt out.
But if somebody asked me, haveyou ever felt burnt out Like I
would say oh yes, and I wouldtell the golf story.
I got burnt out on golf and itwas all because there was.
You know, it starts assomething that you love and
something that you're justpassionate about and you just

(04:18):
play for fun.
It's this hobby.
And then you start getting goodenough where it starts becoming
competitive and it's all aboutthe numbers and the score and
the rank and the something thatwas fun.
It got to the point where moretimes than not, it was not fun,
because more times than not youplay not up to your expectations
than playing up to yourexpectations.

(04:38):
So for every 10 rounds you'dhave one that kind of met or
exceeded your expectations, butthere was nine where it was
below and, like that, just wenton for too long, to the point
where I lost any desire to playthis game.

Jordan (04:50):
So what made you go back to it?

Kevin (04:52):
What brought me back is that I now have a 14 year old
and his friends are starting toplay golf and so he starts, you
know, swinging their clubs andhitting some balls and going to
the driving range with them, andsome of them live on a golf
course, so he's like when hegoes over their house they'll
just go hit around on holes, andhe's like I want to learn how
to play golf better and I'm likethat's something I know
something about, but I also kindof hate it right now in my life
.
And so I was like forget myhate for golf.

(05:15):
Why don't you embrace thespending time with your child
and go see what it's?
And all that competitive stuffwas gone.
So, anyway, I'm coming back tothat.
But it got me thinking aboutpodcasting and we've talked
about this before.
But I guess I was justwondering what can we do to
protect ourselves from gettingtoo competitive to get burnt out

(05:35):
in podcasting?
It happens all the time andit's so unfortunate Not just
from like I don't know, likefrom a selfish business
perspective is like we want toprevent podcasters from burning
out because we don't want tolose customers, but there's a
much sadder story when somebodygoes from being able to engage
in something they love and givesthem life and they just like
doing to feeling like I can't dothat anymore because it doesn't

(05:57):
give me any joy.

Jordan (05:58):
Yeah, it's one of those things where they say, if you
really love something, like,don't make it your job.
And I did that and it's beenokay so far.
You know, I'm like I don't knowhow many years in five years in
podcasting and it's goingpretty good.
But I do think that there is apoint where, once you start
putting that amount of weight onit, where it becomes like
everything and you rely on it topay bills or you know something

(06:22):
like that it stops being fun,especially, you know, as the
market of the industry like ebbsand flows and it's really easy
to get discouraged, you know, ifyou're not making as many
sponsorship deals as you used tobe and stuff like that.

Alban (06:33):
So yeah, there can be something corrosive about stats.
Yeah, because stats are often ameasure of your impact in just
a numbers game.
And I think when you see it,you go okay, so eight is better
than seven, 20 is better thaneight.
And you just go up and you'relike more numbers is better.
So every time you reach a newheight as far as listener

(06:55):
numbers, you go.
It needs to be better than thatgoing forward.
Or if you shoot a really goodround of golf, you go well, now
that is the bar of excellence.
It needs to be better than that.
Where the goal in the beginningwas, you know, hitting a few
good shots and having a goodtime with friends, that's the
win.
You're outside in nature,that's a win.
Recording with your friends ona podcast, that's fun, that's a

(07:17):
win.
And I think of so many thingswhere it's like, as soon as
something that comes in isreally quantifiable and you say
you see it enough, it's verytempting to make that the only
measure of success.
It's good to see, oh, we didsomething and we got twice as
many views, or we got.
You know, I dropped my golfround a couple strokes, like

(07:37):
it's good to notice which thingsare helping, which things are
hurting, but I think it's reallyimportant to keep this like is
this good?
Do I enjoy what I'm doing?
Do I think we had a goodepisode Our episode two weeks
ago?
I listened and went this isreally good.
That was one of my favoriteepisodes that we'd ever done and
I haven't gone and looked atthe numbers for it.

(07:58):
I just feel that it's good.
But if I went and looked, it'sobviously not going to be as big
as some of our old episodes.
And if we ended up going downthis path of just trying to
one-up the numbers from yearsago, then we would end up with a
pretty boring show, or at leasta show that I probably wouldn't
be loving doing each week in,week out.

Jordan (08:18):
Well, it'd be stressful.
You actually make a really goodpoint there.
If you're constantly trying tomake it competitive, you're
constantly trying to one up it,it becomes more work than it's
worth.
And I think that there issomething to be said about.
If you do have a podcast thatyou know maybe is your primary
source of income, if you'relucky enough to have that, then
maybe you also have one thatyou're a little bit more

(08:38):
precious with as a hobby and youdon't push it into that realm
of advertising and stuff likethat.
Like you don't rely on that.
That is only your source ofexpression and creativity, and I
think that that would actuallyhelp a lot with preventing
burnout.

Kevin (08:52):
So you guys are circling around this train of thought
that I had.
It sounds similar like you'rehoning in in the same direction
of kind of where I landed when Iwas thinking about this and
that is something that wouldqualify as a hobby for me, that
I get joy out of where it shiftsfrom being joyful to being like
pressure-y, and then I feellike if I well, if I do good,

(09:13):
it's great, but if I don't andmost times I'm going to get it's
going to be a don't then I feelawful.
And that is the differencebetween like practice mode and
being able to just enjoywhatever it is you're doing, and
for me in my life, that couldbe exercising, it could be
playing pickleball, it could beplaying golf, it could be
podcasting, it could be any ofthose things.
Those are all hobbies that Ienjoy.
I enjoy the practice part ofthat, but oftentimes every time

(09:37):
you do it becomes the tournament, and so this is this is very
real.
In my experience in golf andthis is kind of what helped me
get here to this place is that Ifound after I got out of like
high school golf where we hadthis was clearly a practice
session and this is clearly atournament.
Now it's like I only play golflike every two or three weeks.
It's very expensive and I'mplaying with three other guys
who also spend a lot of money.

(09:57):
Everyone wants to play.
Good, it's tournament day.
They want to bet on the games,they want to bet on the hole,
they want.
So anytime I played was highpressure and it wasn't practice,
it wasn't fun, it wasn't.
Oh, I hit a bad shot, I'll justhit another one.
It was always tournament dayevery time I played and I
quickly like I don't want toanytime I play, have it be
tournament day.
That stinks, that's terrible.

(10:18):
I need some practice days whereI can just enjoy it.
And so, like I thought aboutwell, how does that translate to
like pickleball?
Well, pickleball, it's like.
I rarely ever play tournaments.
I'm mostly just out withfriends and we're just having
fun and it's light and if I winI win, if I lose I lose, but
it's fun.
Either way, Once in a while Ido go play a tournament.
Usually at the end of thosetournaments I'm thinking well
with podcasting, how do we helppeople get to the place where

(10:39):
every show you do, every episode, is not tournament day.
Every episode you do can bepractice day can be practice day
can be practice day Once in awhile.
You might want to do a specialevent.
You might want to try to do alive event.
You might want to go onsomebody else's podcast.
So I'm guesting and I reallywant to give my best performance

(11:01):
.
So I really want to do a bunchof research.
I really want to listen to backepisodes.
I really want to make thispoint or this point.
Those are tournament days, butevery episode you do for your
podcast can't be tournament day,or I think you're going to set
yourself up for burnout.
What do you guys think?
That's where I landed.

Alban (11:15):
I'm still trying to think of what that looks like, but
I'm reminded of something thattalked about before, kevin, that
we will try new things, and oneof the ways to make any
experiment fail is to be likewell, how do we make this happen
all the time?
If it works out, what's thelong-term plan here?
I don't know if this is toomuch of a spoiler, but you sent
me this laser engraving thingyesterday and we're like what if

(11:38):
we laser engraved some leathertags?
And my brain initially goes towell, how do we do this at scale
?
Who do we decide to do it for?
How much is it going to cost?
What's the quality?
And then I went yeah, yeah,those are all other problems to
solve, but would it be fun tojust get a laser engraver and
play with it and try to makesome cool podcasting stuff?

(11:59):
Yes, that would be fun.
And then I went that's thewhole solution here.
That's all I need to know.
This would be cool, right,nothing else needs to come into
this.
Yet If it works and we makesomething fun and exciting, then
we can solve this new problemof how do we replicate this.
So it feels a little bit likekind of practice day, tournament

(12:20):
day, it's just practice day inthe beginning.
If it becomes something thatwe're good at, we can see a way
for it to scale.
Well, then we can try to go anddo tournament day, where we're
really focusing and we'resqueezing all of the
efficiencies out of it and we'retrying to ramp it up.
Yeah, but we're not there yet.
In the beginning you're reallyjust practicing and hopefully

(12:40):
having fun.
Yeah.

Kevin (12:41):
And this always feels like whenever the three of us
get together and do the show.
To me it feels like practiceday.
I don't feel a ton of pressure.
I don't feel like I have toperform.
I want to, but if I do, greatand if I don't, don't Like we
don't have to always.
Every show doesn't have to bebetter than the last.
Of course that is part of thegoal, but sometimes we will and
we won't and I don't get myvalue out of if we accomplish

(13:03):
that or not.
But I was reminded when I wastrying to think how does this
analogy apply specifically topodcasting?
I was reminded like three, fourmonths ago we went on Alex
Sanfilippo's show.
He did a podcasting event andhe had us on as a group to
represent Buzzcast, and that Imean more so than we do for this
show.
We said like, well, how do wewant to present ourselves, how
do we want to answer questions?
And we landed on some goodthings, like we want for anybody

(13:24):
who listens to this, this isnew exposure of new audience
people to us.
We want them to get a sense anda flavor of how we interact on
our normal show and that's notgoing to jive exactly well with
how Alex runs his show stuff,because it's a little bit more
professional, it's a little bitmore like teaching from the
front type of style, and we werelike how can we kind of meet in
the middle on that?
And so we brainstormed it.
We went back and forth withAlex a little bit, but that was

(13:45):
a tournament day right, like wewanted to show up, we wanted to
perform, we wanted to give ourbest representation of what it's
going to be like.
If you see us here in thisdifferent environment and then
convince you to come and be alistener on our show once in a
while, I think you should pickout milestones and say, oh, I
actually want to now go try toperform, I want to compete now.
But if you compete every timeyou sit down to record, I think

(14:06):
you're setting yourself up forburnout.

Jordan (14:08):
Yeah, and it doesn't really foster a whole lot of
growth either.
You know, like Alban was saying, you know, instead of being
like okay, how can I move thisinto like a mass market kind of
thing, instead of just sayingokay, wouldn't it be cool if and
we kind of did that with thatepisode that we did two weeks
ago Wouldn't it be cool if wejust did an entire episode

(14:31):
giving people marketing ideas?
Was it a risk?
Yeah, that could have fallenpretty roughly, like they could
have been like these areterrible, this episode sucks.
We kind of took that risk and Ithink that it helped with us
being like hey, you know wedidn't say they're good ideas
are unique, but we hedged it alittle bit.
Yeah, but it's one of thosethings like if we didn't risk
that, we wouldn't have had whatwe personally feel was our best
work of the year.
So it's one of those things.

(14:52):
You have to kind of be okaywith experimenting.
You have to really go with yourgut when you're like wouldn't
it be cool, wouldn't it be fun,if we did this Right?
And I think that kind of helpsabate, like the burnout.

Alban (15:03):
Yeah, Tournament day is always very risk adverse, at
least in the beginning.
Yeah, I know this from golf.
Like one time I was like I wantto play well and I can't hit a
driver at all right now but, I,can hit my irons pretty long.
So I went I'm not going to hitdriver all day, right, and I
played one of my best roundsbecause just being very
conservative the whole time butit's not the most fun.

(15:25):
Most fun is like, oh, I'm goingto see it hard as I can hit
this driver and like half thetime was that a smart decision.
The other half it wasdefinitely wrong.
But you hit a really good driveand then you have a great hole.
You're like, oh man, I'm agenius.
This is so much fun.
It's the best way to play.

Jordan (15:40):
You know, it would be really great if there was like a
way for us to do some sort oflike achievements.
You know what you're talkingabout.
It reminds me so much of it's.
It's some it's always somethingstupid or farm like 50 pumpkins
.
You're going to figure out howto farm pumpkins by the end of

(16:10):
it.
You know what I mean, dependingon what game you play.
I play a lot of different oneshere, but what I'm saying is
pumpkin farmer.
Yeah, it's this fun thing whereyou get this achievement, so you
have that like yeah a badge of.

Kevin (16:29):
I did that, but it also makes you better at the game,
and so I wish that there waslike some way to do this with
like podcasting.
I don't know, there are somethings, I don't know, that
they're like SEO towardspodcasting, but if you search
for things around like how toimprove your public speaking,
there's lots of really good fungames, like even online things
like where they give you,they'll throw like prompts up on
the screen and you have to talkabout them for 90 seconds or 60
seconds.
I recently just listened to apodcast where somebody their
full-time job is taking CEOs andmaking them better public

(16:52):
speakers and he has all thesegames that he plays with the
people who are trying to becomebetter public speakers, and a
lot of that stuff was like, tellme you know five things that
you know a lot about, and thenhe prompts them based on things
they know a lot about and hejust gets them to talk about
them.
And anyway, and I rememberlistening to that episode and I
was like, oh, this isn't justabout to be a better public

(17:12):
speaker, like this is reallyapplicable to be a better
podcaster.
And then he throws some curveballs in there and like tries to
help them get better andteaches them stalling techniques
.
So this is all.
Also media training would beanother keyword that you might
want to search around to becomea better podcaster.
But, yeah, fun ways to improveyour craft, not always doing it
like.
Back to the golf analogy again,and I'm probably overusing it

(17:34):
at this point, but it's like thelast thing you would ever do is
try to improve your swing inthe middle of a tournament, like
you're not going to make aswing adjustment in the middle
of a tournament.
And so if you show up everyweek to record your podcast and
that's every time it'stournament day, then there's no
time to experiment.
Like Alban said, like you gotto play it safe, you got to hit

(17:54):
the irons from the tee andthat's just not a lot of fun.
Yeah, you might be doing okay,well, the numbers are growing,
but it's not fun anymore.
And so then you, you, you landin this place where you're
actually a really good podcaster, but you hate it and you're
burned out, anyway.
So, to bring this ball back tobacktracks, I was kind of like
golly, like we've done a lot andI like that about backtracks.
Is it kind of captured that ina snapshot?
I was like we've reached allthese countries and we did this

(18:14):
many minutes and it was fun allalong the way it was.
I just felt like we were justpracticing and having fun and
talking about things that wewant to talk about with people
who I like, and in that weaccomplished all this and I love
that about the Backtracksepisode.
So I wasn't here.
I wanted to say that and I knowthat I used up a lot more time
just to say that simple thingthan I probably should have, but
anyway, great job to all of youguys.

(18:35):
Great job, tom.
It was a fun episode.

Jordan (18:37):
Kevin, that's actually a really good segue, because in
the last episode, during oursound off segment, we asked
people to like listen to anolder episode of their podcast
and tell us one thing thatthey'd like to improve, and so
it ties in a little bit with,like, the practice portion of
that discussion.

Alban (18:55):
Alban, do you want to read the first response that we
got for that?
Sure, sander, who has theFreemasons podcast, wrote in my
old episodes weren't mixed andmastered, so when I listened to
my older episodes, the audioquality was good because I
recorded in a studio, but itcould use improvement so I
decided to mix and master themall.
It's a lot of work, but they dosound better now.
Yeah, I'm a little bit partialto holding on to a few bad old

(19:17):
episodes, only because it's sovaluable for people who are just
starting out to be able to golisten to their favorite
creators and hear things thataren't great.
I think Pat Flynn used to have atalk where he would play his
first podcast episode from like2008.
And it hurts to listen to andI'm not even the one who did it

(19:39):
and he'd play it from the frontstage and he's like all right,
that was my first episode andnow you're all here to listen to
me talk.
You can have the same level ofgrowth.
You're probably going to bebetter than that 2008 episode
and it's really affirming forpeople.
It's really inspiring becausethey go oh wow, there's a lot of
opportunity to grow.
So at least hold on to thoseold episodes, maybe in their

(20:03):
original form.

Kevin (20:04):
And, to be fair, pat Flynn is a podcast coach, so
he's looking for that.
He's seeing, oh, there's abyproduct of me starting bad and
getting better.
That's true, and the byproductis that it's encouraging to
people who I'm also trying tohelp get okay with starting bad
and getting better, and so noteverybody's in that same camp
and there might not be that samebenefit for you.
So, going back and remasteringyour episodes, like you said, a

(20:29):
lot of work, but you're moreproud of it now.
That's fantastic and I alsothink you should do like what
Alban said is like, but alsolike hold on to the old,
unmastered janky things, causeyou might want to bring them out
Like at some point.

Alban (20:36):
Somebody in your life might say I want to start a
podcast, but made for ourYouTube channel and it was just
like a screencast where I filmedmyself, and I have no idea how
I got this video, but the videoof myself is way too zoomed in,

(20:57):
like the top of my head is cutoff and it's way overexposed,
and I'm looking at it going.
How did I edit this and notnotice how bad it was?
How did I publish this and howdid this get past?
I mean, probably, Kevin, you'dseen that I'd worked on it for a
few days and you're just like Ican't bring up another thing,

(21:18):
but it was all these things thatI didn't even have the
expertise to notice.
It was bad yet.

Kevin (21:24):
Yeah, mm.
Hmm, cheyenne Wyoming wrote inand said I have an interview
style podcast.
I'm trying to do less ramblingand ask more concise and
thoughtful questions.
Ask better questions, getbetter answers.
I can't argue with thatstatement.
I can add to it, though.
I can also say you can also aska lot of questions and then, in
the lot of questions that youask, there's going to be some

(21:44):
gold there, and then you canedit.

Jordan (21:46):
Yeah.

Kevin (21:46):
And so that is.
The secret to any valuablecontent that comes out of this
podcast is that we've we talkfor three hours, we rambled on a
whole bunch of stuff, and thenJordan does the heavy lifting of
finding the gold and cutting itdown to roughly an hour.

Jordan (22:00):
Yeah, which we only have about 67% gold, as it turns out
.
So you know what I actually umencountered the same thing and I
bought a book called Talk to Mehow to Ask Better Questions,
get Better Answers and InterviewAnyone Like a Pro, and this is
by Dean Nelson.
It is the best book aboutinterviewing with a purpose,

(22:22):
like having intentionality inyour conversations, and I can
say that it completely changedmy view as, like a podcaster,
and it helps me so much withlike helping you know my
co-hosts when they're trying tofigure out like interview
questions when they have guestson and stuff like that.
I'm able to look at it throughthat lens of you know, maybe
like a reporter, how a reporterwould do it, or just really

(22:44):
getting the really goodinformation and making sure that
the questions you know mightnot be like redundant or they
are actually interesting or theyadd to the story that you're
trying to tell for yourlisteners.
And this book was so easy toread.
I read it on a flight and it isdog ear to death and there's
post-it notes sticking out of it.
It is just a gold mine.
So I highly recommend that book.

Alban (23:05):
What was the name of it?

Jordan (23:06):
again, talk to me by talk to me by Dean Nelson.
Dean Nelson All right.

Alban (23:12):
We also had a message from D sparkling life coach.
Definitely my audio needsimprovement.
I've tried both the dynamic andcondenser mic.
I've also tried adjusting allthe levels, but still, since I
really don't know what I'm doing, it hasn't improved.
It's so bad.
Even magic mastering doesn'teven help, and I live and record
in a mobile home near anairport.

(23:33):
So there's that.

Jordan (23:35):
Yeah.

Alban (23:35):
Hiring an editor.
I would love to know where Ican go to learn more about how
to correct my audio or whatequipment I'm missing.
That might help with this.

Jordan (23:43):
You know, I went back and I listened to these episodes
and I think that she has a caseof being too hard on herself,
because I listened to it and Iwas like her audio is amazing.
What is she talking about?
So that's just me, but I mean,I really didn't listen to it and
I was like this soundsfantastic.
So I'm not sure what she'spicking up on that makes her

(24:05):
think that her audio is terrible, but I thought it was fantastic
.

Alban (24:08):
My experience, jordan, you're always the hardest on
audio of the three of us, so ifyou think, it's good, I think
that is gets my endorsement aswell.

Kevin (24:15):
I agree with you, jordan.
I went and listened to one ofher episodes and I did not think
it was bad at all.
Now I didn't know if you weregoing to give it your Jordan,
you know quality seal ofapproval.
I do think there is some areaof improvement.
But there's a clear line for mebetween like, yeah, the audio
is good enough that I have noproblems with it.
And then every once in a while Istumble upon a podcast and I'm

(24:37):
just like, oh my gosh, theysound ridiculous.
Like, how are they getting thatlevel of audio?
That's super rare that I comeacross a podcast and I never
subscribed to a podcast becauseof that.
I'm just kind of impressed byit, being somebody who podcasts
as well.
And so I think, as long asyou're like above the bar of and
I know where Jordan's bar isbecause I tried to record from

(24:58):
my car and I didn't pass her bar, so it's pretty high and I had,
you know, I didn't think Isounded terrible in that car,
but she did, and so I would sayD you're above the bar of
acceptable quality, I don'tthink anybody's going to not
listen to you, at least fromwhat I heard.
Now, maybe some of your olderepisodes are different, but you
can be tough on yourselfsometimes.
Well, I should say, you knowpeople can be hard on ourselves

(25:18):
sometimes, not necessarily you.
And so, yeah, have a little bitof confidence.
I think it sounds good.

Jordan (25:23):
And in addition to that, you know you're talking about
how you're trying both dynamicand condenser mic.
I will say if you are near anairport, I am as well.
Stick to dynamic.
Condenser mic will pick up allthe ambient noise and so make
sure that you're only using thatdynamic microphone.
That will be a huge stepforward in making sure that your
audio quality is good.

Alban (25:43):
So did either of you do this as well?
I went back and listened to aBuzzcast episode.
I listened to the one we didwith all the marketing tips, and
I came away with a pretty clearanswer of something for me to
work on.
When I go into Alban on apodcast recording mode, I think
I talk way more nasally than Ido normally, or maybe it's just

(26:06):
the fact that I'm listening tomyself and so I'm trying
intentionally to talk a littlebit more like diaphragmatic
breathing a little bit lower inmy chest and not as much talking
on my nose, so that was thesound I was getting and I didn't
love it.

Jordan (26:23):
Interesting.

Kevin (26:24):
Well, you don't have a breathe right strip on you
should be.

Alban (26:28):
You think that's probably the big thing is put a big
breathe right.
Have you seen?

Kevin (26:31):
the new magnetic ones that, like magnets, go inside
your nostrils and then they, oh,they look weird that looks like
something that would not be agreat idea.

Alban (26:40):
Like one of those goes up your nostrils and never come
back out.

Kevin (26:42):
Yeah, I don't know how that works exactly, but I expect
to see you wearing one nextweek.

Jordan (26:46):
Yeah, speaking from your diaphragm I mean coming from
like a theater background I knowthat you don't run out of air
as quickly.
So sometimes when people arespeaking from their nose or from
like the top of their head,basically they're pushing the
air up and they're takingshallow breaths and then they're
sometimes running out of airlike mid word or mid sentence,
and that happens a lot withpeople.

(27:07):
But if you, if you speak fromyour belly button, then you will
not run out of air so much andthe vocals sound a lot more
clear and pretty.

Alban (27:15):
Talk from your belly button.

Jordan (27:17):
There you go, talk from your belly button.

Alban (27:19):
Kevin, I know yours is, I think I do.

Kevin (27:21):
I was using the one that I talked about a couple episodes
ago, where I every time youguys finish saying something and
I want to add to it, I say yeah, and then I say it.
It's now gotten to the pointwhere I first heard it by
listening back to one of theepisodes and it was annoying me
as a listener.
Now I've identified it and it'sfront of mind.
So now it's annoying me everytime I do it in real time, and

(27:41):
it's probably annoying Jordan,because now every time I do it I
say dang it, I did it.
Sorry, Jordan, cut that out.
And then I start again.

Jordan (27:51):
Okay, did it?
Sorry, jordan, cut that out.
Cut that, and then I startagain.
Okay, now that you both haveshared something to work on, I
mean I can tell you, withoutlistening, something that I have
caught while recording, happyto help with Priscilla.
What I have noticed issometimes I just want to be a
part of the conversation so muchthat I will piggyback on a
thought or idea withoutcontributing to the actual point
of the conversation.
So they'll say something andI'll have like a fun little

(28:11):
anecdote, and does it actuallyfurther the conversation?
Probably not, and I wind upcutting it.
So that is mine.

Alban (28:18):
I did this more when I was doing Buzzsprout
conversations.
As soon as I heard the personin Wyoming say ask better
questions, get better answersOne of the things I don't know
where this came from Such a badhabit.
I'd ask a question, they wouldanswer, and then I would answer
the question too.
I was like that's such a badconversationalist.

Kevin (28:41):
So they're thinking either I gave the wrong answer
or not a good enough answer, orsomething.

Alban (28:47):
I think it was kind of what Jordan said.
I just wanted to be a part ofthe conversation.

Kevin (28:51):
Yeah, but how do they interpret that?

Alban (28:53):
Oh, I'm sure they got it as like yeah, I just said that.
Or oh so you think I said itwrong, right?

Jordan (29:03):
We have a new addition to the Buzzsprout mobile app
home screen widgets.
So first we brought the app,then we had our lock screen
widgets and now we havesomething a little new for our
mobile users.

Kevin (29:17):
I think that the way to set this up and I know we're
doing this real time- but Ithink the way to set this up is
it's the holiday season and wehave a new gift.
Oh, that's so much better Doyou like that?
Yeah, it's so good.

Jordan (29:28):
Yeah, it's so good.

Kevin (29:29):
Yeah, so if your apps are set to auto update, you might
have a gift that you don't evenknow you have yet.

Jordan (29:35):
Yeah.

Kevin (29:36):
And if your apps haven't set to auto update, go grab the
latest update of the Buzzsproutapp, because there's a little
gift in there.
And if you don't have theBuzzsprout native apps yet, what
are you doing?

Jordan (29:46):
I know.

Kevin (29:52):
Go to the app store on iOS or the Google Play Store on
Android and grab that app,because now we've had lock
screen widgets for a littlewhile and now we have home
screen widgets.
And so for those not in mobiledevelopment to understand the
difference, if your phone islocked and off like in your
pocket or something, and youtake it out, you can put some
widgets right on the lock screen.
Those are lock screen widgets.
We've had those for a couplemonths.
We wanted to take that samegoodness because we know not
everybody loves lock screen.
Those are lock screen widgets.
We've had those for a couplemonths.
We want to take that samegoodness because we know not
everybody loves lock screenwidgets.
They'd rather have them ontheir home screen, on a specific

(30:14):
page or around icons that theyuse.
And you also can do more funthings with them, like you can.
First of all, they're availableon Android, which lock screen
widgets are not, and second ofall, you them Like.
You can make them colors andyou can have background images
and you can show off podcastartwork, and so those are all
ideas that we pressed into whenwe were creating these lock
screen widgets.

Jordan (30:34):
And I think that a lot of people agree that the best
Christmas gifts are the onesthat you can customize to fit
you Right.

Kevin (30:43):
Yeah, like who wants to open up the pair of skinny jeans
that, like you're just dreading?
I know that's not going to fitme, and how do we work this out?
Yeah, so these are, like Idon't know, elastic waisted
pants.

Jordan (30:56):
Yeah, you can make them.

Kevin (30:57):
They'll fit anybody.

Alban (30:58):
You guys are not selling it.

Jordan (30:59):
But with the zippers around the knee that you can
undo and make them shorts if youwant.

Alban (31:03):
Right, oh my gosh.
Okay, they're the elastic zipoff.
Pants.
How, oh?
Okay, they're the elastic zipoff pants.

Jordan (31:09):
How's our messaging album?
Is it on brand?

Alban (31:15):
This is on brand.
Let me describe these foranybody who's trying to imagine
it.
So, on the page where you wouldhave your apps, you can have
these much larger widgets andthey say keep podcasting.
And they have your stats fortoday, the stats for the week,
but they also have a picture ofa podcast microphone and these
are really, really pretty lineart drawings of the most popular
microphones.

(31:36):
Kevin, you drew all these right.

Kevin (31:38):
I did.
Yeah, I drew every single oneof them.
These look so good.

Alban (31:42):
So, I was playing with it and all three of the
microphones I've used over theyears consistently were in there
the Samsung Q2U, the SM7B andnow the Earthworks Ethos.
That I have made the cut.

Kevin (31:57):
Well that was a hat tip, Alban, specifically mostly for
you and me, because I don't knowhow popular of a podcasting
microphone this is, but you andI use it and it's becoming more
popular and I feel like whenpeople step up from those
entry-level mics, which aregreat but around the $100 price
point, to something in the $300or $400 range, I think it's just

(32:19):
a great contender.
It used to just be everyone gowith the SM7B if you want to
spend $400.
And now I think the Ethosshould be in the conversation
for most people, even thoughit's a condenser.

Alban (32:30):
I took a screenshot of it today and I sent it to Steven
Robles, who's the one who got meon this microphone back in the
day, and I was like, oh, do yourecognize these?
Of course I recognize them, butthey're really good because
they can go light mode, so it'slike white with a gray
microphone, like very subtle.

(32:50):
Then you could go dark mode,which is like a dark, maybe like
charcoal, with black drawingmicrophone, and then you can do
the tinted and with the tintingyou can get all sorts of
different colors and these lookreally, really good.

Jordan (33:05):
It looks cool.
I gotta say like the tintinglooks way better than I thought.
I actually don't like a lot ofwidgets with the tinting on, but
the buzzsprout ones are chef'skiss.
They're so good.

Alban (33:16):
Yeah, I agree.
Kevin, you nailed these out ofthe park and Dylan, fantastic
work on getting all these towork on both iOS and Android.
I know.
Yeah.

Kevin (33:26):
And Cameron helped a lot too in bringing a lot of polish
to the table and so we decided,oh, a little less than halfway
through the project, like whatis going to be the focus here?
We could have gone in a bunchof different directions, right?
We could have gone like superstats heavy with graphs and
charts and progress bars andcircle graphs and donut graphs

(33:46):
and everything, and we exploreda bunch of those ideas, but none
of them felt right.
Like you know, we talk aboutall the time Stats are important
and it's fun to keep track ofthem, but it's not all about
stats.
There's some motivational stuff, there's some beauty.
You're doing something that's ina hobby and it's a bit of an
art form and everyone is uniqueand everyone is different.
Everybody's podcast isdifferent, everybody uses

(34:12):
different podcast mics andeveryone has different podcast
artwork, and some people runtheir phone in light mode and
some people run their phone indark mode, and some people tint
their screens and some peopledon't.
And it's like how can we, howcan we bring all of that beauty
and customizability anduniqueness into what we're doing
?

Jordan (34:22):
Yeah, it's a tall order.

Kevin (34:24):
It's a tall order, but that's the direction that we all
started getting really excitedabout.
It's not about just showingmore numbers, not just about
graphing numbers or whatever.
It's about, like can we givethis to our customers in a way
that they can make it uniquelytheirs?
And so, like, I want to go to apodcast conference and I want
to see widgets on people'sphones and I want to see how
they set it up.
Are they showing their podcastartwork?
Are they highlighting theirmicrophone?

(34:45):
Are they running it in lightmode?
Are they running it in darkmode?
Are they running the largeversion of the widget?
Are they running the smallversion of the widget?
Are they running it on the lockscreen?
Are they putting icons aroundit?
Are they putting it on theirown dedicated page?
There's so many like who knows?
I haven't done the math tofigure out how many variations
you can actually create of these, but I feel confident in saying
that you can set this up in away that's going to match your
personality.

(35:05):
It's going to match yourpodcast and yours is not going
to look like anybody else's, andI think that's really fun.
Like, how often do we get to dothat as people who make tools
for podcasters?

Alban (35:13):
Not very often the thing I love about the microphones is
like it's a microphone, it's themessage keep podcasting, and
you have the stats there.
But it's for me it's just areminder of the podcast that
we're doing.
And even between recordingswhere I'm not really thinking
about the podcast, I still see,like today, 24 downloads.
I'm like, oh, we didn't justput out an episode, 24 people

(35:42):
still downloaded it today andit's a little encouragement each
day that something is happeningwith the podcast and hopefully
that will encourage people tojump back in, record another
episode, be excited aboutplanning the next one, calling a
guest and scheduling aninterview, whatever the next
step may be.
This can be like that constantlittle daily reminder hey,
you're doing this podcast andyou're doing a great job, Keep
it up, Get that microphone backout and let's record some more.

Jordan (36:05):
And if you're vain like me, you can have the large
widget with your podcast coverart on it, because I love
looking at it every day.
And what I love about itactually is that the download
numbers are smaller than thecover art.
So it's not the main thing.
The main thing is like, hey,look at this awesome podcast you
created and then in big boldletters it says keep podcasting.

(36:26):
And then there's like a littlebit of stats, but I always find
myself like kind of glossingover the stats numbers.
I really do.
I'm just like, yeah, I lovethis.
It looks so good on my homescreen, it just makes me so
proud.

Kevin (36:37):
That's great.
We weren't trying to hide thenumbers, but we were saying
that's not going to be the mainfocus here.
The main focus here is going tobe, like motivation reminding
people that they're a podcasterEvery time they look at their
phone, give them somethingbeautiful that they can make
uniquely theirs.
And here's a little thing thatI don't know, that a lot of
people do.
I did not do this for thelongest time because I didn't
use a lot of home screen widgets, but as I've had my phone

(36:58):
longer and longer, I'm findingthat there's actually some
really useful widgets.
So what I would always do isI'd still have the app icon and
then I would also have the homescreen widget and then, like, as
I'm becoming a more advancedphone user, I'm realizing like
once you install the widget,that is the shortcut to the app.
Yeah, and so, like you can cleanup your screens a little bit on
your phones, just drop, likethat Buzzsprout home screen

(37:20):
widget on there.
You can take the small one, youcan take the large one,
whichever one you like,customize it, you make it your
own and then you can hide theBuzzsprout app icon.
It's still available, like whenyou search or if you scroll
like all the way to the right tolike where all your apps are.
It's still over there, but it'sit's like not taking up space
anymore because you've replacedit with something that still
lets you have that samefunctionality.
Anyway, little tip of the dayfor anybody who didn't think

(37:40):
about widgets in that way yeah,I've gotten to where I don't
have any app icons except at thevery bottom.

Alban (37:46):
So the you know texting and I have a few others on there
, but besides I just everythingelse.
I search or I have a widget forit and it's kind of a you know
for my favorite apps, like I usethe widget that they have so I
jump in or get stats or whateverit may be.
But besides that I've kind ofstarted nuking all of the app
icons.

Kevin (38:05):
This also brings me back to.
We didn't give away all of ourthoughts when we launched the
native apps earlier in the year,but you remember we had a
discussion about like why didn'twe go with the technical term
for it is like a PWA, which isbasically like a web app that
you can install on your screen.
A lot of other podcast hostingsolutions have gone in that
direction, or they just offerlike a mobile, responsive view

(38:26):
so you can open up a web browserand still kind of use their
functionality.
Why did we decide to invest andgo all in on native apps?
And this is another one ofthose promises that we made at
the time Like there's thingsthat native apps can do that
these other technologies can'ttake advantage of, and so,
slowly but surely throughout theyear, we've been chipping away
at that stuff, and so lockscreen widgets are an example.
These new home screen widgetsare an example, and I can't give

(38:49):
it away.
But we have another featurethat's about to launch in the
native apps that you can only dothrough native apps, and I'm
very excited about this, and sowe'll be talking about that, if
not in the next episode, the oneshortly after.

Alban (39:00):
So if you want to add a home screen widget, you just
hold down on all those app iconsso they start to like jiggle
and then you can say that youwant to edit and then you can
click add widget.
Scroll down to the Buzzsproutapp and then you'll have all the
options for these widgets andthen when you have like a widget
on there, you can thencustomize that one more.

(39:22):
So I think you hold down on thewidget itself and then you get
to pick what images are on thereand you've got clean.
You can have the SM7B, you canhave a Blue Yeti pod mics, q2u,
sm58, mv7, re20, pr40, rodeProcaster.

Kevin (39:42):
Yeah, and the Earthworks Ethos, I don't know.
There's 10 total.

Jordan (39:45):
That's 10 microphone designs.
Right, 10 microphone designs?

Kevin (39:47):
You don't have to choose a microphone design.
You can also just use yourpodcast artwork, or you can
choose clean, which means justlike to put nothing on there.
Yeah, let me tell you one otherthing.
I don't know how many peopleare going to use this, but I'm
using it, so I'll talk about it.
You can also install these homescreen widgets.
If you use a Mac, you caninstall them on your desktop
computer.
Yes, I didn't know this.
I have it running up in the topright corner of my Mac computer

(40:10):
desktop right now.

Jordan (40:11):
I'm so angry with myself right now that I didn't know
this.

Kevin (40:14):
Yeah.

Jordan (40:14):
I got to do it right now .
It's very cool.

Kevin (40:16):
And all the same customization options exist on
the Mac as they do on the iPhone.
I'm not sure if Android has asimilar thing.
If you happen to run like aChromebook, I think maybe if you
run a Chromebook there's achance.
I doubt, I highly doubt, itwould work on a Windows computer
, but I think if you run aChromebook definitely if you run

(40:37):
a Mac you can put these widgetson your desktop.
That's awesome, yeah, so this isall the fun stuff that, like,
you get all these amazing, coolthings that you can do when you
have native apps and we arehaving a grand time.

Jordan (40:48):
Yeah, too much fun, too much fun.

Kevin (40:51):
So happy holidays to everyone.
We hope you enjoy this gift.
We hope it makes your I don'tknow podcasting more enjoyable
and that you keep podcasting.

Jordan (41:03):
Okay, so Apple Podcasts has announced some updates with
the iOS 18.2.
So the first thing is that theyhave introduced favorite
categories and so when new usersopen the app, they can pick
their favorite categories onhome to quickly influence
recommendations.
So the algorithm will be alittle bit more tailored to the
things that they're interestedin, and listeners can now find

(41:25):
categories in the library withfavorited categories at the top,
and this is kind of fun.
The search now also showcasesmore categories and
subcategories which arepersonalized to each listener.
That's pretty cool.

Alban (41:39):
Yeah, all these seem focused on helping people find
more shows that they may enjoy.

Jordan (41:44):
Yes.

Alban (41:45):
Everyone says this is a pain point.
It is a pain point and Apple'strying to make it a little bit
better.
Another thing in this vein wasthis new top series chart that
they're doing, which are to be agreat way, especially for
people who are like they kind ofgo through series at a time

(42:12):
rather than find ongoing showsthat put out hundreds of
episodes.
So that's a new chart to checkout.

Jordan (42:17):
So another thing that I saw that was kind of cool is
chapters.
Listeners can scrub the playprogress bar to easily navigate
to another chapter.
So I imagine it's one of thosethings where you like press and
hold down on the progress barand maybe it like uh, what's the
word?
Like magnetizes or like autoclicks too?

Kevin (42:35):
It is a heptic.

Jordan (42:36):
Feedback is the word you're looking for Okay, I'm not
going to remember that.

Kevin (42:40):
You're going to get a little.
You're going to get a littleheptic bump when you hit a
chapter, probably yeah.

Alban (42:44):
And something else spotted in this latest Apple
podcast update from StevenRobles, friend of the show, is
the Apple podcast no longer cutsoff long show notes.
So it used to be.
There's a bit of a strange waythat Apple handled this.
For podcasts that you subscribeto through Apple podcasts, they
would cut off the show notes atlike 4,000 characters, but if

(43:07):
you subscribe directly to theRSS feed, it looked like that
limit wasn't there, and so we'dsee this every once in a while
in support, where people wouldput in a ton of content into
their show notes and it wouldget cut off.
We'd try to work with them tofigure it out, but now it looks
like everybody is the benefactorof at least the limit if there
is one is much longer.

Kevin (43:28):
This sounds exciting.
If true, I'm just taking it alittle bit like I would like to
trust but verify yeah, and soI'm putting it in that category.
I don't know that we shouldreport it as definitive yet.
We should just say a reporterin the field has said this.
We will look into it and followup.

Jordan (43:45):
What would you say to a listener that goes ooh fantastic
, I can finally have 6,000characters in my show notes on
Buzzsprout.

Alban (43:56):
I would say the same thing I'm saying to everyone who
tries to put 4,000 in now.
No one's reading the 4,000anyway.

Jordan (44:01):
Yeah, and Apple doesn't search the episode description,
so there's no point in wordstuffing.

Kevin (44:06):
When they're trying to.
You know, oh, I have a scriptedpodcast, I'll just take my
whole script and dump it inthere.
Well, that's not what it's for.
It's supposed to be like asummarized, concise version of
what this episode is about, andunless you're podcasting for you
know 12 hours like it's ahardcore history podcast episode
or something that's super long,then 4,000 characters should be
more than enough for almosteverybody, unless you're trying

(44:28):
to do something that youshouldn't be doing.
So I do like that.
Maybe they've expanded it.
Maybe it's not 4,000 anymore,it's 5,000 or 6,000.
I don't think it should beunlimited, because that is going
to lead to some people doingsome things that they just out
of probably making a mistakemore than anything else.
So I didn't realize there's aseparate place to put my
transcript, Something for us tolook into and follow up on.
But it is exciting.

(44:49):
There's not a good scenario inwhich somebody has just written
a lot of actually really helpfulshow notes and they're
truncated Every once in a while.
You'd see that and that waskind of lame.

Alban (44:57):
Yeah, I just think there's so few reasons to go
even up into the thousands.
Really, give us a shortdescription.
Tell us the main things youcovered.
Give us some calls to action,links to people's socials or
whatever, and that's it.
Rarely have I ever looked atpodcast show notes, and when I
look at them I'm mostly lookingfor a link that they discuss and

(45:19):
they say this will be in theshow notes.
Besides that, I don't need tosee a long written out
description about what youtalked about for an hour.
I just listened to it.

Kevin (45:29):
Right, there's been a lot of hacking around the episode
description field in recentyears.
People are putting a lot ofstuff in there that it wasn't
intentionally designed for.
So I could see an argument forgoing a little bit beyond 4,000,
because there are episodes like, if let's just say we're not
doing this this year, but whatif we did?
What if we said, oh Well, thatcould get close to 4,000,

(45:56):
because a link isn't just the 25characters of the name, it's
actually all the characters thatyou use to make up the link.
Also, that also counts againstyou.
Yeah, and so a lot of links, alot of people.
It became trendy for a littlewhile when people started
putting their podcasts onYouTube and before we had full
support for chapters and Spotify, they would go ahead and list
all their chapters in theirepisode description and they

(46:18):
would link ahead and list alltheir chapters in their episode
description and they would, youknow, link those timestamps to
jump around the episode.
So there's a lot of stuff goingin show notes that really
shouldn't be in show notes, andso I'm wondering if Apple's just
kind of like ah, too manypeople's show notes are getting
truncated instead of trying toeducate the world on how to
properly use show notes.
We're just going to let it go alittle bit longer.
I can see that That'd be good,but it still doesn't mean in
most cases.

(46:39):
Most of the time, for mostpeople, 4,000 should be enough.

Jordan (46:45):
So let's get into sound off.
We have some fan mail messages.
First is from Houston, TexasTeam Buzz.
Love the marketing episode.
You really got my wheelsspinning.
Well done, Thanks, Houston.

Kevin (46:58):
Chris from Podtastic Audio wrote in.
While I don't host PodtasticAudio on Buzzsprout, I do record
and produce a client showcalled Ace Relocation Nation
hosted on your platform.
I just wanted to say how much Ilove Buzzsprout.
Your hosting platform isincredibly easy to use, to
navigate, and the featuresyou've designed for indie
podcasters are outstanding.
Keep up the great work.
Well, that's very kind of youto say.

(47:18):
Thank you, chris.

Alban (47:26):
And we are glad you host something with us.
Jared from hey Chaplain, thepolice wellness podcast, reached
out.
Can the episode pacing chartinclude more than four episodes?
I see the current and the threeprevious episodes, but I
publish weekly so the oldestepisodes never quite makes it to
the 30 day mark.
Right now the pacing chart isjust the four episodes, so
you'll only see those and thereal goal is for the first few
days.
You kind of see, is it keepingup with the trend line that you

(47:49):
had for the previous ones?
But good feature request and wecan always pass those on.

Jordan (47:54):
D sparkling life coach.
Such great podcast marketingideas and many of them can be
used interchangeably Habitformation cards, google Drive
with checklists etc.
And I absolutely love thelavender seed packet idea.
Great job, Alban.
I'm actually scheduled to worka farmer's market this spring
and this is the ideal giveawayto promote my podcast PS.
So sorry, kevin, I can't helpyou with planting instructions.

(48:16):
I have a brown thumb too,literally and figuratively.

Kevin (48:23):
Clever girl David from no Stroke Podcast wrote in and
said this episode was excellent.
Guys and gal, Having a thirdparty look in on your podcast
and offer new marketing angleswas terrific.
I know it was a lot of work,but I hope you do it again, as
I'd love to put your marketingmicroscope over our podcast.

Jordan (48:42):
Yeah, and we actually had a lot more submissions for
the marketing ideas after werecord the episode and we're
holding onto those.
Maybe we'll do it in the future.
But if you did submit yourpodcast and we didn't do a
marketing idea, that is why itwas a lot of work.
But maybe in the future we'llbe able to do it again, because
it was a lot of fun.

Alban (49:00):
Ken from Discount Storytime reached out.
Thanks so much for your advicefor Discount Storytime.
I'm way too introverted forpop-up or open mic, but you
sparked some great ideas.
I'm going to record videoreadings of each story at,
hopefully, local bookstores andcoffee shops.
A few others.
At the end, the store owners cangive a plug for their business.
This is a way that localbusinesses can get free

(49:26):
advertising and hopefully spreadthe word.
Plus, I'll give out somecoasters bookmarks to them, as
seen on the Discount Storytimepodcast, with a QR code sticker
linked to their episode.
Thanks again for the advice.
I absolutely loved the episode.

Jordan (49:36):
Awesome, claire from Creativity Found Great
suggestion.
Thank you, Alban.
I already have people in theCreativity Found membership who
sell already crafty kits andhave been guests on my podcast,
so I just need to make the cardsfor them to send out.
Wow, she already did that, justmissing the last step there.
That's really cool.

Alban (49:56):
I actually went and bought a few of these kind of
craft kits because I was hadthem on the brain, I guess, and
so I bought them as Christmasgifts.
And as I'm buying them, I waslike, oh, you know, what I
really love is a podcast episodeabout the people who made these
kits.

Jordan (50:12):
All right, so what should our sound off be for our
next episode?

Kevin (50:17):
Okay, you're going to think this is a cop out, but
this is definitely a cop out.
I think it would be fun to justlet people enjoy their holidays
.
No sound off homework for thisepisode Boo, so you don't like
it.

Jordan (50:32):
I'm just kidding.

Kevin (50:32):
I'm just kidding, go on no-transcript and so if you
haven't yet filled out thatsurvey, we'll link it at the
bottom of our show notes forthis episode, and we'd really
encourage you to do that.
But besides that, I think,sound off question.

(50:53):
We can take a break just forthis one episode and we'll bring
it back for the next one.
But just enjoy your holidaysand keep podcasting.

Jordan (51:05):
Okay, so our dishwasher has been lightly broken for
about seven years now, and justin the past month it has started
.

Kevin (51:13):
Seven years.

Jordan (51:14):
Yeah, seven years, but it was working.
You know what I mean.
Like you have to put it on likea certain cycle, but it would
run.
It cleans the dishes, it's fine, and just in, like the last
month, it has started likescreaming high pitched at the
top of its lungs for like 15minutes whenever we run a cycle
and we can't get a stop.

Kevin (51:31):
At the beginning, middle or end of the cycle.

Jordan (51:32):
The beginning.
So we think it's something witha pump obviously.

Alban (51:35):
How long Jordan Like two minutes the pump, obviously.

Jordan (51:40):
How long?
Jordan?
Like two minutes, like 15minutes, and the kids hate it,
the cats hate it.
It's a nightmare, um, but wejust recently started looking at
new dishwashers because it'slike okay, if it's like begging
for mercy at this point, wegotta get a new one.
And so I looked online and youknow what's crazy is with these
appliances like a dishwasherthat's like 250 is rated like
3.7 stars, and then the theother ones are, you know, $1,300

(52:02):
, are also rated 3.7 stars.
Like what's the point ingetting a more expensive model?

Kevin (52:06):
This is out of five stars , right.

Jordan (52:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alban (52:10):
I understand the scale.
Jordan.
This is going to be amazing ifthis ends up being it, but I
feel like this is a solvableissue and I just started looking
around online.
Loud screeching during thefirst few minutes of a
dishwasher cycle is most likelycaused by defective water inlet
valve.
Valve controls water flow intothe dishwasher and the diaphragm
deteriorates over time.

(52:30):
Like you might just have toreplace that and you're done.

Jordan (52:33):
Yeah, but what about the other broken parts?
I told you it was slightlybroken to begin with.

Alban (52:37):
Oh, there's additional broken pieces.

Kevin (52:39):
This is additional broken pieces.
Yeah, I think if yourdishwasher is like over five
years old then it's probably notworth the trouble, unless you,
unless you or your husband likedto tinker, you know, and like
oh, I'll take Saturday afternoon, I'll just carve out four hours
and I'll just take apart thedishwasher and see what happens.
If you like that, knockyourself out.
If you don't, and it's overfive years old, you're right,

(53:00):
probably just replace thedishwasher.

Jordan (53:02):
I don't know how old this thing is.

Alban (53:03):
It's been broken for seven years, Kevin.

Jordan (53:11):
Yeah, we've been married for 10 years and we bought it
used and I'm pretty sure it wasnot anywhere near new when we
got it, so I think this guymight be 15 years old now.

Kevin (53:18):
Oh, yeah, I say get a new one.
So I think this guy, like,might be 15 years old now.
Oh yeah, I say get a new one,yeah, so so I have opinions on
dishwashers.
You want to?

Jordan (53:22):
hear them.
I love your opinions, Kevin.

Kevin (53:25):
Well, you haven't bought anything yet, right?

Jordan (53:26):
No, I have not.

Kevin (53:27):
Okay, so I wouldn't give you my opinions if you've
already made a decision, becausethen you definitely regret your
decision.

Jordan (53:32):
Yeah, there's too many decisions to make, so I actually
appreciate this All right.

Kevin (53:35):
Here's my opinion on generally this kind of applies
to like all household appliancesin general that they've been
coming out with over the past 10years.
Okay, but for dishwashersspecifically, I think it is
worth paying for noise abatement.
As you move up to the higherlevel dishwashers, they're going
to get quieter and quieter.
Oh, and usually what you'repaying for is better insulation

(53:59):
and quieter motors.
Okay, but you can.
You can spend so much moneythat you can't even tell if this
thing is on or not.
Yeah, it's that quiet.
You'd be standing right next toit and you can't even hear it.

Jordan (54:09):
With a bunch of ADHD people in my household.
I don't know if that's the bestidea.

Alban (54:13):
Like I can't, tell this is actually an issue at our
house we have.

Kevin (54:17):
Well, they put lights on them now.
So now they shine like littlelights on the floor, Like mine
shines a little blue light whenit's running and it's a little
green light when it's done.

Jordan (54:26):
On the floor?

Kevin (54:26):
Yeah, and you have to look at the floor to figure out
if it's on or not.

Jordan (54:29):
Your truck does that too .

Kevin (54:31):
My truck does that too, yeah, but I hate noise, and so,
for me, spending money to getthe quietest one possible was a
good spend.
Now you have to be careful,though, because if you get too
high end, then they start comingwith like Wi-Fi connectivity
and it's giving you all thestats Like.
I honestly think this is athing that they make some

(54:51):
dishwashers with like camerasinside of them so you can see
your dish, you can live streamyour dishes.

Alban (54:55):
You get your like, your Bosch, wrapped for the year.

Kevin (54:59):
It's like you watch 7,000 how many food particulates we
removed.
Yeah, and and you don't wantthat because that stuff breaks
all the time and it's superexpensive.
It's like, oh, my dishwasher isnot working anymore.
And they're like, oh, you needa new logic board and that's
$3,700.
You don't want that, so don'tgo too high end.

(55:19):
But my opinion would be get thequietest dishwasher you can
that doesn't have Wi-Ficonnectivity.
That is not a smart dishwasher,a dumb, quiet dishwasher.

Jordan (55:29):
A dumb, quiet dishwasher .

Alban (55:31):
I'm with you on most of that, kevin, but I'm red green
colorblind and ours is extremelyquiet and it does a red green
light on the ground.
Oh no, and I regularly walk up,don't like see the light as
being on, don't know it's on,open it mid-cycle and you can't
just close it and restart.
You have to then like reset itto restart and like every time

(55:55):
my wife somehow can hear it andshe well, she mostly is the one
who started it.
When this has happened, so I'llwalk over, open it she goes why
do you open that?
I don't know, I can't see.
I was trying to be helpful.

Kevin (56:08):
Yeah, I hadn't thought of that issue.
Golly, they should choosebetter colors.
So many people are red, green,colorblind.

Alban (56:13):
Or if it was just brighter.

Jordan (56:15):
Yeah.

Alban (56:15):
I mean, it is so quiet.
That is nice and it does agreat job cleaning, but the
lights need to be a little bitmore obvious.

Jordan (56:23):
Yeah, I think at this point like the bar has been set
so low on what qualifies as aquiet dishwasher, so I think
anything's going to be quieterhere.

Kevin (56:33):
Yeah, jordan will be able to use her podcast editing
expertise here because, like allthe loudness, it's all measured
in decibels, it's all like dBs.
So you're going to look like apro when you go in there and
they're all talking like this is40 dBs, this is 52 dBs, and
you're gonna be like, yeah, Iknow exactly what that is.
I know the difference Exactly.
I can hum to you Like I'mI'veBS.

Alban (56:55):
You want to hear?

Kevin (56:55):
36 DBS.

Alban (56:58):
That's 36.
Jordan, there's a video I'vegot to send you.
There's an hour long version ofit, but there's also a 20
minute version where a guy liketalks about the science of
dishwashers and how to get thebest performance out of any
dishwasher.
It goes into so much detail butit is like I watched it I was
like this is awesome.
And then I got Marie and mydaughter together and I was like

(57:19):
let's watch this video to getabout how dishwashers work.
There needs to be some soap inthere in the beginning for the
pre-wash.
It's all about the pre-wash Ifyou can get hot water in there
for the pre-wash, which the U?
S the way we do it.
Marie's like.

Jordan (57:39):
I don't care about this, and I'm like we can get so much
better dishwashing out of thesame dishwasher.
Do you pre-wash your dishes,Jordan?
Do you rinse them Well in thesink, but our pre-wash like
function has been broken and so,if you like, leave it on.
Pre-wash it actually like foamsout and onto the floor, and so
we've just been like putting atowel under it under it just in
case, Like I'm telling you, thissucker is broken.

Kevin (57:57):
This is another option that you're going to have to
think through before you godishwasher shopping is do you
want to rinse the plates offbefore you put them in?
Because some of them now willcome with like a macerating pump
, and so you can have hugechunks of food on your plate.
Put them in there.
That food is going to getwashed down, but it can't go
straight down the drain withoutgetting browned up, and so you
have to get up one with amacerating pump, kind of like a

(58:17):
garbage disposal in yourdishwasher.
Yeah, no, yeah, and I thinkthat's worth getting, but again,
it makes it more noisy.
So now I got to buy the higherend one with the macerating pump
.

Jordan (58:27):
Yeah, so yeah, I don't know if that's worth it.

Kevin (58:30):
Or you just rinse it before you put it in.

Jordan (58:31):
Yeah, I just.
I don't know Rinsing things isso easy.

Kevin (58:34):
You know, the more we talk about this, the more I kind
of want to live stream how mydishwasher works.
Now I'm just thinking thatwould actually be pretty cool.

Jordan (58:43):
You want to see the food get masqueraded?

Kevin (58:45):
Well, you know how addictive those tasty videos are
, Like when you're oh yeah.

Jordan (58:48):
Oh yeah.

Kevin (58:50):
I think that you would just have one going in your
house all the time.
You'd have like I've gotnothing to do.
What should I do?
Should I like go scroll doom,scroll, tiktok, or I can just
wash my dishes, I can just likewatch them getting clean.

Jordan (59:01):
I think that this is a fantastic idea.
I will just buy the one thathas a live stream and then I'll
live stream it to the internet,monetize it and pay for my
dishwasher.

Kevin (59:11):
Yeah, charge people.

Jordan (59:12):
Yeah.

Kevin (59:12):
Let them stream sats to you to watch your dish, To watch
my dishes get washed.
You could set it up too.
You can be like.
I'm not rinsing this plate atall.
It's going in huge meatloafslice right, it's stuck to the
side.

Jordan (59:26):
Yeah, like.

Kevin (59:28):
Willis and Massery rotisserie chicken.
Some of the most addictivevideos that I get stuck on
sometimes are like marble racesor when people put all different
types of things on a treadmill,like a soda can and a golf ball
and a roll of duct tape, andthey're like seeing which one
stays there longest.
Yeah, like I want to see alllike Jordan's different meals,
like which one hangs onto theplate the longest.

Alban (59:47):
Like an entire cake in the dishwasher.

Jordan (59:51):
Like does it wash?