October 13, 2025 • 43 mins
Welcome back! In this episode, I tackle this month’s big question: "How long did it take you to bring your podcast from an idea in your head to execution—and how long to find your audience?"
I share stories from guest contributors and reflect on my own process after launching nearly 40 different shows over the years. Todd the Gator kicks things off describing how his gaming show “Guardian Downcast” was born, with community members pulling him into hosting after another podcast called it quits. He recalls the whirlwind of learning what a podcast actually is, how to publish it, and how long it took their show to fully find its identity—hint: half their existence!
Steve Stewart joins in, sharing that his first podcast took a full year to go from idea to launch. Facing the usual fears and uncertainty, Steve found accountability and guidance with a coach, which made all the difference. He also talks about the slow climb to finding an audience and how connecting with similar podcasts really helped boost those early numbers.
Chris shares a personal journey that traces 20 years of tinkering before launching his current show “Cool Cars with Chris.” After plenty of experimenting and previous podcasts, he finally returned to his passion for cars and found a format that felt true to himself.
I reflect on my own timelines, explaining that those first launches tend to take much longer thanks to the steep learning curve. Once I got the hang of things, I could launch new shows in a day or even a weekend. That said, good planning is key. I break down a suggested six-week timeline for new podcasters—everything from concept and audience research to equipment, recording, editing, feedback, and hosting. Trust me, the more time you spend planning in the beginning, the less time you’ll be spending fixing things later.
We also dig into the importance of feedback. Whether you’re getting listeners’ reactions or setting up listening parties to watch how your core audience responds, feedback is what helps you refine and grow your show.
I wrap up with tips for making your podcast stand out, advice for building a website and collecting email addresses, and a reminder that your launch strategy matters as much as your content. Plus, a quick book recommendation for anyone working on their visuals—and a little movie review, just for fun!
As Always - It Depends
If your podcast is "just for fun" then maybe you don't need to spend so much time thinking about how your show will be different. You do need to check and make sure someone else is not using your name.
Check out the Podcast Launch Checklist
When It Comes to Podcast Marketing
At it's basic form, podcast marketing strategies start with knowing who your audience is (specifically) and going to where they are. Then make friends with them, and finally tell them about your show.
Thanks To The Contributors!
Steve Stewart - Podcast Editors Academy
Chris Smith - Cool Cars With Chris
Todd the Gator - Guardian Downcast / Fifty Years Experience Required
Links referenced in this episode:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
So it's question of the monthtime. My buddy Todd the Gator sent
this one in.
How long did it take you tocreate your podcast from just an
idea in your head to actuallytaking action and executing your
podcast plan?
And so we've got a few repliesand I'm going to share my thoughts
on some things you shouldcheck off before launching your podcast.
(00:25):
Hit it ladies.
The School of Podcasting withDave Jackson.
Podcasting since 2005, I amyour award winning hall of fame podcast
coach, Dave Jackson. Thankingyou so very, very much for tuning
in. My website is school ofpodcasting.com use the coupon code
(00:48):
listener when you sign up foreither a monthly, quarterly or yearly
subscription. And so yeah, Ialways, it's always weird when I
send out the question of themonth and just like, let's pull that
curtain back. I'm alwaysconvinced nobody's gonna answer.
And so we got a few replies,but not a lot. And before we get
(01:09):
to those, well, let's justhear the question from the one and
only Todd the Gator. And ofcourse we'll have links to everyone's
show in the show notes.
Hey Dave, it's Todd the Gatorwith Guardian Down Castle. We're
a weekly gaming podcast withthe emphasis on Bungie games, especially
the Destiny 2 franchise. Wehave a guest and roundtable episode
every month as well as ournormal co hosted episodes in between.
(01:32):
Our podcast tagline is yourstories, your community and your
destiny. We just celebratedour 300th episode and are one month
away from our six year showanniversary. But what's exasperating
is that it took half of thattime to fully understand what the
show actually was. Weexperienced lots of trial and error
(01:55):
and gathered feedback from ourcommunity, which we communicated
through our Discord server,which is what composes our community
today. And that's Discord. GGGuardianDowncast. My suggestion for
Question of the Month is this.How long did it take you to create
your podcast from just an ideain your head to actually taking action
(02:17):
and executing your podcastplan? Guardian Downcast was a knee
jerk reaction to an existinggaming community that I was a part
of. But they were calling itquits. Members turned to me and another
member to start up a newpodcast to fill the void. I'll be
honest, it was all a blur. Ihad to first immediately learn what
the hell a podcast was andsecond, how to create one and then
(02:40):
publish it. And I thank youDave, all those years ago and that
you helped me step by stepalong the way to what is now A thriving
community. So that is myquestion and maybe to alter the question
a bit, maybe add, how long didit take your podcast to find its
audience or community?Speaking of which, I am launching
(03:01):
a brand new podcast on June10th and.
Yes, I've been sitting on thisfor a while.
Sorry, Todd called 50 yearsexperience required. And this podcast
is a tectonic change from mygaming podcast. This show started
as an idea in my head abouttwo years ago where I rediscovered
a passion of mine which iscreative storytelling. I loved creative
(03:22):
writing in high school and Ijust forgot about it all those years,
you know, I was starting abusiness and raising a family. So
I started a blog on Mediumlast year, you know, to kind of test
the waters and began to writeabout my past stories as a 50 something
year old man and found that Ihave at least 40 episode ideas of
my past life experiences whereI learned a vital lesson from the
(03:44):
frustrations and breakthroughsof living a life. The mission of
the show is sharing thesestories from observations, life lessons
and challenges that make up my50 plus years of trial and error.
I didn't go into this newpodcast with aspirations of money
or popularity. I mean, who arewe kidding here? It'd be nice to
have those things in anypodcast we do, but mainly to cement
(04:07):
these stories from my life asa permanent record that I can pass
down to my kids and my grandchildren.
Todd, I have a very similarshow called Building a Better Dave.
It's just me thinking out loudand it's kind of an audio diary because
there are times when I'veforgotten about stuff and I'm like,
oh man, I totally forgot about that.
Thanks Dave for all you do andhave done in the past. Your example
and teaching has inspired meto go further than I ever thought
(04:29):
I would and I really hope thisquestion will bring out some great
origin stories that can, youknow, inspire new and upcoming podcasters
out there. My two podcasts canbe discovered by going to guardiandowncast.com
and 50 years experiencerequired dot com.
Thank you Todd. We got tworesponses and anytime we get a low
(04:50):
number of responses I go, Imust have done something wrong. Maybe
I put it too far. Towards theend of the show for the call to action
or whatever, you can always goto schoolofpodcasting.com? but it's
not about the quantity, it'sabout the quality. And when you want
to talk quality, one namecomes to mind. And of course, that
is the one, the only Steve Stewart.
(05:13):
Hey SOP family, it's SteveStewart from stevestewart Me where
I edit podcasts for personalfinance creators. I also teach people
how to edit podcasts@thepodcasteditoracademy.com oh, I'm
going to jump in here, Steve.
That is closing now. It'llopen back again, but they're closing
it in November. I believe it'sNovember 1st or October 3rd. It's
(05:33):
really right around thecorner. So if you've been thinking,
hey, next year I want to starta podcast editing business, this
is the place to go. ThePodcast Editors Academy. I'll have
a link in the show notes oryou can go to schoolofpodcasting.com
pea Back to Steve.
Let me answer the first partof the two part question that Todd
(05:54):
Begator asked. How long did ittake me to create the show from idea
to executing it? It was abouta year. I was thinking about it.
I had all the gear. I had anidea of how to record and stuff like
that. I had no idea how tolaunch. And it scared me, scared
me to launch. So I sat on itfor about a year with the idea in
my head. But then I hired acoach. Actually, I hired Cliff Ravenscraft
(06:15):
to help me launch my show backin 2010. He says that I may have
been one of his last one onone clients. So I don't know if I
ruined them for the industryor what. But we set a date and since
I had a date in my head, Iactually sat down and recorded the
introductory episode, whichwas 10 minutes long, which is about
eight minutes too long for anintroductory episode. I just need
a trailer. But we're talkingabout 2010. But I launched the show
(06:37):
and this is part two of Todd'squestion. How long did it take to
find the audience? I was aconsumer of personal finance podcasts
and I was a fan of aparticular one, which was a married
couple talking about theirfinances. It was really, to me, it
was interesting. It was, youknow, that voyeurism look. It was
that look inside of somebody'slife to see what they're doing. And
I kept in touch with them. Iwas telling them I was a fan. They
asked me questions because Iwas a financial coach at the time.
(06:59):
So when I actually did launchthe show, which was November 23rd
of 2010, I let them know Ilaunched a show and they talked about
it on their show, which I hadnot asked for. It was just a wonderful
thing that they did. Andbecause their audience was very much
in line with the type ofaudience that would listen to my
show, I started off with about100 listeners it was pretty amazing.
I had no expectations for that100 is a lot for first time episode.
(07:23):
And this is 2010. I had astruggle getting guests on my show
because they didn't understandwhat the podcast was. I mean, it
was a true struggle trying toexplain to people what we were doing,
trying to get an interview orget them on the show with me. But
it did grow steadily. I didthe show until 2015, so it was a
five year run, 200 episodes,and towards the end 2015, I was steadily
(07:44):
getting about 1500 downloadsto 1800 downloads an episode in the
first seven days, which isgreat. However, this is before IAB
standards. This is beforeApple podcasts integrated their analytics
into the platform that I couldsee. So I had no idea if people are
actually listening. All I knewis there were downloads happening
and I just assumed that thataudience was there. So I don't want
to get anybody's hopes up,say, hey, you know, five years I
got 1800 downloads. That'd begreat. Maybe that's true. And now
(08:07):
there's more people listeningto podcasts, so maybe you would have
more than 1800 downloads after5 years per episode in the first
7 days. I loved doing thatshow. I kind of wish I was still
doing that show. I still lovethe Money Plan SOS brand and the
idea behind it. And you mightbe thinking, why, Steve? Why did
you quit the show? Well, Iretired it in September of 2015 with
(08:28):
the thought that I wouldlaunch a new show which would release
myself from restrictions thatI put on that show. I had rules of
my own. I wasn't going tobreak them. But I figured, okay,
I could retire the show, do arebrand, maybe make a bigger impact.
But not too long after Iretired that show, all of a sudden
I started editing for peoplein my space. And it took over my
(08:48):
life. I had to give up thefinancial coaching idea, had to give
up doing my own podcast. I wasjust too busy. So that's why the
Money Plan SOS podcast doesn'tdo any more episodes. Although I
do miss it. But life is great.No regrets. It was a great experience.
Obviously, it seededeverything that I do today. And I'm
really curious to hear whatother people's answers are going
(09:10):
to be here. So thanks for thequestion, Todd, the Gatorade. And
thanks for letting me share onyour show, Dave.
Thank you, Steve. Always greatto hear from you. And next up, we've
got Chris. Chris has done manyshows in the past, and he's got a
new one.
Hey, what's up Dave andeverybody at the old school of podcasting
over there. How are you guysdoing today, podcasting peeps? I
(09:31):
am Chris and I had a podcastcalled Podtastic Audio. You maybe
you've heard of it, maybe youdidn't. And before that I had a podcast
with Christine, my now exwife, called the Chris and Christine
Show. And years before that, Idabbled a little bit with YouTube.
I dabbled a little bit withcar stuff and car content and car
(09:53):
related stuff. In fact, myactual like regular paying job, my
day job, is that I've been aprofessional driver for the last
Gosh, like 20 years now. SoI've always been around cars. Cars
have really interested mesince like forever. So when these
other shows ended, it kind ofmade sense for me to get back to
(10:15):
my roots. And so Cool Carswith Chris just launched maybe like
a month ago. You can findit@coolcarswithchris.com and this
show, going back to yourquestion, how long did it take me
to make this podcast? We'retalking like 20 years in the making
to make Cool Cars with Chris.Like I said, you can find it@coolcarswithchris.com
(10:37):
it is a live in person videoshoot. I shoot the whole thing in
4K is an interview style show,live in front of their car, with
their car. I get to experiencetheir car, go for a ride in their
car. And the audio podcastversion is that full conversation
we had. The YouTube version ofcourse is diced up and sliced up
(10:59):
for YouTube and the audioversion is set up for audio. So you
can find it all@coolcars withchris.com and you have a great rest
of your week.
(14:27):
Thank you, Chris. And linkswill be in the show notes. And that
was it. We got two replies,but I went and looked at, because
I've done, according to myspreadsheet, 39 different shows.
And so here's the problem. Thefirst one takes a ton of time because
(14:48):
you're going through thelearning curve. Now once you've done
it once, the next one, I thinkI did a show with my ex wife called
the Dates from Hell show. Ithink that went up over a weekend.
The podcast rodeo show I thinkwas a day like I was like, I should
(15:10):
do this podcast. I went toCanva, made some artwork, grabbed
a podcast, put it out, andwe're off. Because that show was
not supposed to be a realshow. It was simply back in the day
there was only like four mediahosts and a new one came on the scene
and I was like, well, I needto add A show to this so I can play
with it. I can't do thatanymore. They're like 47 million
(15:32):
podcast hosts now. And so. Butthat's all the podcast rodeo show
was supposed to be. And a lotof these, I failed quickly podcasting
for free. I had that showstill on that domain, I believe.
And it dawned on me thatpeople that want to learn how to
podcast for free do not wantto buy anything. And so that was
(15:56):
the end of that show. QuietStudy Area was an interesting show.
Shop World, it turned out, wasbasically a Ponzi scam that I didn't
know I was getting hookedinto. And so I. I looked at this
show and I had to do somedigging. I'm kind of bummed. I don't
have all of my episodesanymore for some of my shows. But
(16:19):
I. To the best of my records,I started the Musician Cyber Cooler
back in April of 2005. And so,let's see, May, June, July, August,
September. Five months later,I started the school of podcasting.
And so it took me five months.And that was because, again, once
(16:45):
you figure out how to getsomething into Apple and you've already
figured out how to plug themicrophone in, you kind of know who
your audience is, et cetera,et cetera. We're going to talk about
that in a second. The wholelaunching a podcast you can launch,
like, in an hour, it's reallynot that hard. We all kind of freak
(17:06):
out about it. Like, Steve,right? Steve was a little nervous.
I'm a little nervous everytime I do the question of the month.
That's kind of normal, and youjust learn to push through. But the
bad news is, because you'vegone through the learning curve and
because you're probablyoperating on your passion, you start
(17:32):
a second show. And if youlisten to episode 1000, I said, my
one only regret is that I haveso many shows, mainly because I'm
testing media hosts. But Isaid, if I were to do it again, I
would do one show and I wouldmake it the show about that topic.
Like, hands down, don't eventhink about it. That's the show you
(17:54):
want to listen to. Hey, thisis Future Dave interrupting him himself
here. I realize I neveranswered part two of Chris's question,
and then we're going to hearme talk about how long it can take
to make a podcast. And soit's. The answer is, of course, it
depends. The school ofpodcasting took a little while because
(18:15):
nobody knew what a podcast wasin 2005, but yet I had a decent audience
because I was one of the firstprobably 50 podcasters, if not 25.
So early mover, the podcastrodeo show, that test show, when
I went to cancel that, theaudience came out of the word work
and said, no, you're sayingeverything that we all think, but
(18:38):
we don't say it because I wasbeing very honest about some of these
shows. And I have people thathave said, man, the early days of
the podcast rodeo show werethe best. The bad news was it didn't
really align with my brandbecause who wants to hire this guy?
He's kind of a jerk. And sothat. That had a big. I should say
a quick audience. It wasn't. Igot to 300 downloads pretty quick
(19:00):
now. I also was promoting iton my other podcasts, so that's something
else to think about. That thefuture of podcasting right now I
do with Daniel Day Lewis hasan audience. It's above average,
but it's three figures, youknow, so it's not this huge audience.
(19:21):
And that's a very, very nicheshow. So I'm pretty happy with that.
So how long it takes. And thisis where I again, if you've done
the job of getting feedbackfrom your show on paper, you're going
to get about 3 to 5% of youraudience. If you urgently and seriously
(19:44):
ask them to share it with afriend, say, hey, today we're talking
about starting a podcast. Doyou know somebody else who's thinking
about starting a podcast?Could you do me a favor and just
go to your phone, maybe sendthem a text with a link to this episode,
whatever it takes. Or justtell them to go to schoolofpodcasting.com
sharing it. That is somethingthat can grow the audiences. None
(20:06):
of it is a 10,000 downloadswitch, but that's a good place to
start. I thought about it andI just did. If you're a member of
my newsletter, I just did anew promotion. I brought it back.
I haven't done it in aboutprobably 10 years. It was called
podcasting in six weeks. Andthat's kind of a pretty decent time
(20:34):
to. How long should it takeyou to launch a podcast? Now, should
is the really the word yougotta, like, think about. Because
a lot of this depends on howmuch time you have available to do
the research. It depends onwhere you're starting from, all sorts
of stuff. So let me dig intothis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when
(20:58):
I talk about this, I'massuming you have a day job and I'm
assuming you're single,because I am. And so I at night,
typically 7 to 12, if nothingelse is going on. I am working on
podcasting stuff. My day jobis I'm the head of podcasting and
(21:20):
podpage, and then I work onthe school of podcasting at night.
So week one should be yourconcept and your planning. So this
is where you're trying todefine your unique angle. How can
I make my show different thanothers? And that, my friend, is hard.
And then who is my targetaudience specifically? And not just
(21:44):
it's, you know, women 25 to35. It's no. What do they think about?
What are their, you know, notjust their demographics, but their
psychographics? And what dothey worry about, like, really getting
a crystal clear picture of whothey are. And then you can maybe
choose your format. You decideyour episode structure, you create
(22:05):
a content calendar, maybe, orat least write down the first 10
episodes. And you work on yourname and your description, because
how do you test the name? Yousay, hey, I'm starting a podcast
called Blah, blah, blah. Whatdo you think it's about when your
audience goes, I don't know,yada, yada, yada, and you go, yeah,
(22:26):
that's exactly it. That's agood name. And then you check to
make sure the domain'savailable. You make sure that the
domain doesn't spell naughtywords, all that kind of stuff. So
week one, you're justplanning. Week two, now, you figured
out your format, so you cannow order your equipment. And there
(22:47):
are all sorts of equipment fordifferent kinds of budget, but you
set up your recording space,you optimize it so it's less noisy.
You know, you figure out yoursoftware, whether that's Audacity
or Hindenburg or Riverside orwhatever you're using. Week two,
equipment setup again, fourhours a night, Monday through Friday,
(23:13):
because it's going to takesome time to get comfortable here.
Week three, okay, now I gotthis stuff and I got the software.
How do I plug all this stuffin? So this is where you basically
work on your recording. Youget used to seeing the lights blink
and you don't freak out whenthe red light comes on. And you start
(23:36):
working on things likeinterview skills and guest management.
And if you're going to dothat, and if it's solo, you get used
to talking to yourself. Rightnow I'm looking at my Amazon show
on my desk, and I see apicture of me and my brother. So
in a way, I'm talking to mybrother right now, but you're overcoming
(23:57):
your mike fright. How did youovercome anything you ever did the
first time I was driving todayin a parking lot that wasn't really
designed very well to wherewhen you backed up, you had to really
pay attention to you didn'taccidentally back into somebody in
the row across from you. Andit made me flashback. I remember
(24:20):
when I first started driving,I swear it felt like I was driving
a tank. Like the car was. Ofcourse, back then the cars were huge,
but it was just, I was like,wow, I haven't felt this nervous
since I was, you know, 16,driving a Dodge Polaris. And so this
is where you're getting,you're practicing, you're getting
(24:41):
the reps in week four. This isediting and post production. Okay,
you got the recording thingdone. Now you've got to figure out
how do I make this sound evenbetter than what I recorded. Now
remember, you'll notice therewas planning there. More planning
equals less editing. But thisis where you can save time by making
(25:04):
an intro. Like that thing youhear at the beginning with the school
of. Yeah, that's all done withthe music. I just bring it in and
fade it out. The music at theend is here. So you've done all the
pieces part. So when you'reready to go, you've kind of got a
quality control checklist. Sothis is what I'm going to do when
I do an episode. And now thatyou've actually recorded an episode,
(25:27):
it's time to get some feedbackfrom people who will tell you the
truth. Because it's a roughdraft, it's a pregame season. If
you're an athlete, it's adress rehearsal. You need some feedback
because there's no sense atall trying to grow something that's
not going to resonate. Knowingthat eventually when you do episode
(25:52):
10, episode one is going tokind of make you cringe. But we want
to go for the low hangingfruit. And being that this is the
first thing you've recorded,yeah, there's gonna be some low hanging
fruit. So then you figure outyour hosting. I will put a link in
the show notes to an episodebecause people go, what's the best
(26:13):
hosting? And the answer isanything but Spotify in my book.
Do not like that company. Ifyou need free red circle. But even
that, it's not based on thecompany, it's what are you doing?
Because if I am somebody wholoves WordPress, well then maybe
(26:33):
Blueberry. If I am anentrepreneur trying to promote my
own stuff, well then maybe,well, no, maybe it's captivate. If
I'm really looking for an easyto use interface. Buzzsprout, which
is also really good if you'rean entrepreneur, you know, or transistor
if you're doing more than oneshow. Again, see my point? Before
(26:56):
transistor or Captivate. Ilike Captivate. Most of my shows
are on Captivate. ButBuzzsprout is great if you're just
doing a show every other weekand you don't need anything fancy.
No dynamics, no, none of this,you know, just basic hosting. And
I want decent support. Libsyn.Okay. And Libsyn can get you some
(27:19):
advertising. I think I made 13cents last month with my Building
a Better Dave show. Uh, thatis programmatic ads and those don't
pay much. But week five isyour hosting and then week six or
week five, part two, take yourpick, is your website because Everybody
(27:42):
goes, oh, YouTube's the numberone, number two search engine. Yeah,
number one is Google. What isit? Looking for a website. You need
a website. Yes, I'm going tosay bud page, but if you don't want
podpage, you still need awebsite. It's just the easiest and
quickest way to make a greatlooking website without learning
how to code. And so once youhave that, because on that website
(28:05):
you can collect emailaddresses. Because when it comes
time to launch, you can telleveryone on your email list and everybody,
every contact on your phone.And by everyone, I mean everyone.
And you say, hey, do you knowanybody that's into whatever the
topic is of your show? I justlaunched a podcast. Could you tell
(28:27):
them to go to my website andfollow the show that's part of the
launch? You've alreadysubmitted to Apple and Google and
Spotify. Did I say Google?Ugh. Whoa. Old habits die hard. Apple,
Spotify, Pocket, Cast,Overcast, that whole nine yards.
And you basically telleveryone you know to sign up. Not
(28:48):
whenever you get around to iton this date, whatever date that
is. Not the 17th, not the19th, I need you to do it on the
18th. So that's your launchand then from there we get into marketing,
which is cross promotion,doing interviews on shows, buying
ads, all that fun stuff.That's six weeks and that's doing
(29:11):
it five hours a night, four tofive hours a night. And some of you,
you like, you might, you know,choosing a media host might take
two hours. Okay, what are yougoing to do the other four days of
that week? Well, that's whereyou work on your website. So for
me, around a month now, if wego back to that first step of planning,
(29:34):
if I'm going to spend moreTime on one step. It's going to be
planning it's. And I have abumper sticker about this. Spend
100 hours getting to know youraudience at $100 on a microphone.
And you're like, what do youmean by a hundred hours? I mean 100
hours. Go out and hang out onReddit, on Facebook. If you can get
(29:57):
in a physical location withyour audience, the more you know
about them. I talked aboutthis in episode 1000 about best practices.
And by the way, somebodyasked, yes, if you go to schoolofpodcasting.com
1000. I do have a handout nowthat goes over the best practices
I mentioned in that episode.And a couple bonus ones. That's right,
(30:20):
Bonus content. If you join myemail list. And so those are some
things to think about. Thething. I don't think that makes sense.
Even podcasting in six weeks,you have to really be doing that,
you know, four hours a nightif you want to do it right. Right.
When I hear people go, youknow, like I said, I made a podcast
(30:42):
in a weekend. Well, a. Thatwas after I'd been podcasting about
five years. I went to Canva,made some artwork, and also, by the
way, that Dates From Hell showcrashed and burned like nobody's
business. Why? Because Ididn't think about my audience. I
was like, oh, yeah, I wantperfect strangers to share their
(31:02):
horrible stories about howtheir dating life went down the tubes.
And what's the number one fearof people? Oh, that's right. Speaking
in public. And what do I wantthem to do? Speak in public. And
how am I going to promotethis? Oh, I'm going to set up fake
dating sites, dating profileson, you know, Yahoo and eharmony
(31:23):
and all these other thingsthat are probably out of business
now. And we'll promote it thatway, and we'll get people. Oh, by
the way, I didn't check intothat. That's illegal. You can't do
that. Right. There wasn't alot of planning. So when you skip
the planning, you end up doinga show that crashes and burns in
about seven episodes. And theother thing was that that show relied
(31:47):
on the audience sending intheir content, and we didn't have
an audience. Yeah, let's getout the strike button for that. Yeah,
that's. That was another thingwe didn't think through. So when
you see people go, I can getyou up and running in 24 hours. Well,
you can, but in the same way,just because you can paint with peanut
(32:08):
butter doesn't mean youshould. So as Always with podcasting,
it depends the more experienceyou have, maybe you don't need that
much time. Maybe you only needa weekend. If you've been trying
for a while, go toschoolofpodcasting.com checklist.
I've got a checklist that'llwalk you through this whole process,
(32:30):
and that's free. Just got togive me your email address again.
Schoolofpodcasting.comchecklist. But it does require some
planning and thinking. I thinkthere is something to say for, like,
hey, we're just going to turnon the mic and wing it. And that's
fine. That's a strategyfiguring out along the way. The problem
(32:50):
is when you go, hey, we'rewinging it and our audience isn't
growing, well, you didn'tfigure out who you're talking to.
And again, if you go back toschoolofpodcasting.com 1000, we talk
about best practices and whythose work. And again, you can always
paint outside the lines asmuch as you want. But I think the
(33:12):
things that never change isyou need to know why you're doing
your podcast, because if youdon't get it, you'll quit. And then
who is your audience? Becauseif you don't educate or entertain
them, give them some sort ofvalue, your audience isn't gonna
grow. So I realize every timewe talk about podcasting, it's a
little different for everyone,but for me, you know, a month would
(33:36):
be a good idea if you reallywant to take this seriously. And
again, if you start to planand you. You come up with, hey, I
really think. I know becauseI've been in my industry for, you
know, years. I don't need awhole month to figure out who my
audience is. Great. Well,let's speed that up then. Then let's
just go to the next thing. Butthere are a lot of things. I think
(33:56):
the biggest thing that mostpeople hate, and you hear me say
this all the time, is peopledon't get feedback on their shows.
That's actually something. Wekind of revamped our feedback at
the school of podcasting now.Now we set up listening parties.
So if you want some feedbackon your show, you can basically schedule
that. And I will announce itthat, hey, if you're a target audience
(34:16):
for this show, come and listento it. Because if you think about
it, if you can watch someonelisten to your show, a, you've got
to be pretty confident. Andyou might as well be, because if
you're going to send it out tothe world, you might as well, be
confident in your content andthe fact that you know when we're
supposed to laugh and whenwe're supposed to cry. So when you
can see lets you know, is thisworking or not? And speaking of feedback,
(34:43):
I am going to put this inhere. October 16th, that is this
week, if you go toschoolofpodcasting.com kitchen, this
is where I'm pulling you intothe kitchen. And look, I'm the chef
and I'm making a meal for you,and I want you to help me make the
best meal for you. Meaninggive me some feedback on this show.
(35:04):
What's working, what's notworking. And I always mention this
and I'm like, well, I'm goingto drink my own Kool Aid, which is
actually really a weird phrasewhen you think about it, because
it goes back to the wholeJonestown thing, which is really
depressing. But I want to showyou that I'm not afraid to get feedback.
I got raked over the coalsthis week on Reddit. Just people
(35:26):
that are like. And to theircredit, the one guy I realized I
went back and here's somethingto think about. Can we take a tangent
for a second toe, for cryingout loud. Here comes another 10 second
tangent.
10 seconds indeed.
Such absolute rubbish. I loveto help people. And when I read a
question I found in this case,this guy said, I'm trying to do A.
(35:50):
And I saw him and I was like,hey, just for the record, you don't
have to do A. You can actuallydo a lot with B if you can't do A.
Well, his question was, how doI do A? So my answer of, hey, you
should try B really wasn'tthat helpful. And he let me know
that in a rather snarky waythat attacked kind of both me and
(36:11):
my character, which thentriggered me. And next thing you
know, I talked about it acouple weeks ago, don't feed the
trolls. And so I actually wentback days later and I saw where I
really wasn't answering hisquestion as a coach, because I know
a lot of coaches listen tothis. Always listen to the question.
(36:32):
And then the problem withanswering questions on, you know,
Facebook groups and Quora andReddit is you have no idea the background
of the people you're talkingto. So if you get someone who's been
doing something for, let'ssay, five years and you answer it
in a very basic way, they feellike you're talking down to them.
(36:54):
And I'm like, no, I'm. I'mexplaining this in the easiest way.
To understand it. I'm not. Andit just, it's, you know, so I'm,
I, I think in the future, andthis is my main point, maybe you
just don't have to comment oneverything. I know right now. There's,
you know, it's kind of fun inAmerica. It's like almost a thing
(37:14):
where you wake up Monday, youturn on the news, and here's the
new topic for recreationaloutrage. And the new recreational
outrage right now is BadBunny. And I'm like, you know what?
There are people dying andstarving in this world. We've got
other things to argue aboutbesides who plays the Super Bowl.
And, and besides, there's thisthing called the channel changer
on your remote control. If youdon't like it, you can change it.
(37:36):
Not funny.
Maybe you don't have tocomment on everything. That's my
lesson that I learned.
Ugh.
Finally, back to the show. Andback to the show it is. I wanted
to share one last thing here,and that is what I'm reading. And
the reason I want to share itis because it's a good book. It's
(37:56):
called the Visual Marketer.The Marketer's Crash Course for Creating
Memorable and Effectivevisuals. I'm about six or seven chapters
in. The author is Jim McLeod,and he was just on a monthly meetup
for PodPage. We do a communitymeetup next month. We're going to
have an SEO guy on. And I justwanted to pass this along. If you're
(38:18):
a person that's using Canvaand you're, you know, you're like
me, a one person army andyou're making your own stuff, this
is really good because it'salmost like two books in one. There
are so many things in herethat overlap podcasting. Like when
you go to make your visuals,you have to know who your audience
(38:39):
is and you need to getfeedback and you need all this stuff.
And it talks a lot aboutcolors. And, you know, for me it's
always interesting, even if wego back to things like MySpace, how
people were given a tool andthen they made websites that burned
your corneas. And so for me,it's just basic 101. And we even
(39:04):
talked about, like, there's, Ithink it's color adobe.com. there
are tools in Canva, which is areally popular. There's a free version
and a paid version, but it's agraphic tool that you can go in and
make a color palette thatactually goes together because, you
know, dark brown text on adark blue background doesn't really
work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.All right, one more. One more thing.
(39:28):
And that is I went and saw themovie the Roofman. And again, normally
I don't talk about movies onthis show, but it's always interesting
because here's something Ihaven't said in a very long time.
Hey, that was a good flick.And it was good because a. It got
right to the point. The storyis this guy gets home from being
(39:49):
in the military, he makes.
He.
He robs like 45 McDonald's andthen breaks out of jail. And hijinks
ensues, and he ends up livingin the ceiling of a Toys R Us. And
they got right to that part,like, super quick. There wasn't a
whole lot to it. They show himbreaking out, and then it's off to
Toys R Us. And then you kindof. This is like the Titanic. You
(40:12):
know how the story ends.Because if he doesn't get caught,
how are you going to tell themovie? But there's a lot of kind
of sentimental tear jerking,you know, heartstrings, pulling items
in it that really have. Yougo. And then this. And then, oh,
it's up and then it's down andthen it's up. And then. So you have
this like, I wonder what'sgoing to happen? And then towards
(40:35):
the end, there's like a big,like, oh, I wonder what's going to
happen? Like, how is this guygoing to get caught kind of thing.
And in the end, it's a goodflick. And what's really cool about
it is at the end. Stay for thecredits. I'll just say it that way.
Stay for the credits. Becausethere's some things that everybody
laughed at. And they had clipsof people that were actually in the
(41:00):
movie, like the real peoplethat were portrayed by actors. So
here again, it got to thecontent quickly. It kind of had a
I wonder what's going tohappen next to it, which I call entertaining.
It made you laugh, it pulledon your heartstrings. It made you
cry. It made you kind ofhappy, made you smile. And then it
kept you guessing, like, oh, Iwonder how this is going to end.
(41:23):
That's great entertainment.You know, we always said if you can
make people laugh, cry, thinkgrown, educate, or entertain, that's.
You want to do at least two ofthose, hopefully three. And I thought
this movie did that. So withthat, we will say thank you so much
for tuning in. I really, Imean, I really do appreciate the
fact that you took 32 minutesout of your day here to spend them
(41:46):
with me. My website again,schoolofpodcasting.com use the coupon
code listnr when you sign upfor either a monthly or quarterly
or yearly subscription. Now,if you're like, I don't need that.
I've been going a while. I dohave another service called Podcast
Hot seat dot com. It'sbasically a podcast audit. You give
(42:07):
me an episode, I check it out.I also check out your website and
we're looking for low hangingfruit. So it goes through all these
different kind of processesthat I check into. And I just want
to let you know I added aprivate version because some people
are like, well, I would dothat, but I don't want to, like,
you know, because it used tobe you would come on the show and
(42:27):
I would tell you, here's allthe things you did that I really
like. This was great. Oh, andhere are a couple of things maybe
you didn't know. And I waslistening to some people talk about
it and they said, yeah, I'mnot doing that in public. So if you
want to do it in private, thatis now an option. And but wait, there's
more. It comes with a freemonth at the School of Podcasting.
(42:48):
So if you ever thought aboutthat podcast hotseat.com and of course,
if you're a member of theSchool of Podcasting, this is already
built in. This is part of yourservice there. So thanks so much
for listening. I'm DaveJackson. I help podcasters. It's
what I do and I've been doingit for over 20 years. And I can't
wait to see what we're goingto do together. Until next week.
(43:08):
Take care. God bless. Class is dismissed.
So it's question of the monthtime. My buddy Todd the Gator sent
this one in.
How long did it take you tocreate your podcast from just an
idea in your head to actuallytaking action and executing your
podcast plan?
And so we've got a few repliesand I'm going to share my thoughts
on some things you shouldcheck off before launching your podcast.
(00:25):
Hit it ladies.
The School of Podcasting withDave Jackson.
Podcasting since 2005, I amyour award winning hall of fame podcast
coach, Dave Jackson. Thankingyou so very, very much for tuning
in. My website is school ofpodcasting.com use the coupon code
(00:48):
listener when you sign up foreither a monthly, quarterly or yearly
subscription. And so yeah, Ialways, it's always weird when I
send out the question of themonth and just like, let's pull that
curtain back. I'm alwaysconvinced nobody's gonna answer.
And so we got a few replies,but not a lot. And before we get
(01:09):
to those, well, let's justhear the question from the one and
only Todd the Gator. And ofcourse we'll have links to everyone's
show in the show notes.
Hey Dave, it's Todd the Gatorwith Guardian Down Castle. We're
a weekly gaming podcast withthe emphasis on Bungie games, especially
the Destiny 2 franchise. Wehave a guest and roundtable episode
every month as well as ournormal co hosted episodes in between.
(01:32):
Our podcast tagline is yourstories, your community and your
destiny. We just celebratedour 300th episode and are one month
away from our six year showanniversary. But what's exasperating
is that it took half of thattime to fully understand what the
show actually was. Weexperienced lots of trial and error
(01:55):
and gathered feedback from ourcommunity, which we communicated
through our Discord server,which is what composes our community
today. And that's Discord. GGGuardianDowncast. My suggestion for
Question of the Month is this.How long did it take you to create
your podcast from just an ideain your head to actually taking action
(02:17):
and executing your podcastplan? Guardian Downcast was a knee
jerk reaction to an existinggaming community that I was a part
of. But they were calling itquits. Members turned to me and another
member to start up a newpodcast to fill the void. I'll be
honest, it was all a blur. Ihad to first immediately learn what
the hell a podcast was andsecond, how to create one and then
(02:40):
publish it. And I thank youDave, all those years ago and that
you helped me step by stepalong the way to what is now A thriving
community. So that is myquestion and maybe to alter the question
a bit, maybe add, how long didit take your podcast to find its
audience or community?Speaking of which, I am launching
(03:01):
a brand new podcast on June10th and.
Yes, I've been sitting on thisfor a while.
Sorry, Todd called 50 yearsexperience required. And this podcast
is a tectonic change from mygaming podcast. This show started
as an idea in my head abouttwo years ago where I rediscovered
a passion of mine which iscreative storytelling. I loved creative
(03:22):
writing in high school and Ijust forgot about it all those years,
you know, I was starting abusiness and raising a family. So
I started a blog on Mediumlast year, you know, to kind of test
the waters and began to writeabout my past stories as a 50 something
year old man and found that Ihave at least 40 episode ideas of
my past life experiences whereI learned a vital lesson from the
(03:44):
frustrations and breakthroughsof living a life. The mission of
the show is sharing thesestories from observations, life lessons
and challenges that make up my50 plus years of trial and error.
I didn't go into this newpodcast with aspirations of money
or popularity. I mean, who arewe kidding here? It'd be nice to
have those things in anypodcast we do, but mainly to cement
(04:07):
these stories from my life asa permanent record that I can pass
down to my kids and my grandchildren.
Todd, I have a very similarshow called Building a Better Dave.
It's just me thinking out loudand it's kind of an audio diary because
there are times when I'veforgotten about stuff and I'm like,
oh man, I totally forgot about that.
Thanks Dave for all you do andhave done in the past. Your example
and teaching has inspired meto go further than I ever thought
(04:29):
I would and I really hope thisquestion will bring out some great
origin stories that can, youknow, inspire new and upcoming podcasters
out there. My two podcasts canbe discovered by going to guardiandowncast.com
and 50 years experiencerequired dot com.
Thank you Todd. We got tworesponses and anytime we get a low
(04:50):
number of responses I go, Imust have done something wrong. Maybe
I put it too far. Towards theend of the show for the call to action
or whatever, you can always goto schoolofpodcasting.com? but it's
not about the quantity, it'sabout the quality. And when you want
to talk quality, one namecomes to mind. And of course, that
is the one, the only Steve Stewart.
(05:13):
Hey SOP family, it's SteveStewart from stevestewart Me where
I edit podcasts for personalfinance creators. I also teach people
how to edit podcasts@thepodcasteditoracademy.com oh, I'm
going to jump in here, Steve.
That is closing now. It'llopen back again, but they're closing
it in November. I believe it'sNovember 1st or October 3rd. It's
(05:33):
really right around thecorner. So if you've been thinking,
hey, next year I want to starta podcast editing business, this
is the place to go. ThePodcast Editors Academy. I'll have
a link in the show notes oryou can go to schoolofpodcasting.com
pea Back to Steve.
Let me answer the first partof the two part question that Todd
(05:54):
Begator asked. How long did ittake me to create the show from idea
to executing it? It was abouta year. I was thinking about it.
I had all the gear. I had anidea of how to record and stuff like
that. I had no idea how tolaunch. And it scared me, scared
me to launch. So I sat on itfor about a year with the idea in
my head. But then I hired acoach. Actually, I hired Cliff Ravenscraft
(06:15):
to help me launch my show backin 2010. He says that I may have
been one of his last one onone clients. So I don't know if I
ruined them for the industryor what. But we set a date and since
I had a date in my head, Iactually sat down and recorded the
introductory episode, whichwas 10 minutes long, which is about
eight minutes too long for anintroductory episode. I just need
a trailer. But we're talkingabout 2010. But I launched the show
(06:37):
and this is part two of Todd'squestion. How long did it take to
find the audience? I was aconsumer of personal finance podcasts
and I was a fan of aparticular one, which was a married
couple talking about theirfinances. It was really, to me, it
was interesting. It was, youknow, that voyeurism look. It was
that look inside of somebody'slife to see what they're doing. And
I kept in touch with them. Iwas telling them I was a fan. They
asked me questions because Iwas a financial coach at the time.
(06:59):
So when I actually did launchthe show, which was November 23rd
of 2010, I let them know Ilaunched a show and they talked about
it on their show, which I hadnot asked for. It was just a wonderful
thing that they did. Andbecause their audience was very much
in line with the type ofaudience that would listen to my
show, I started off with about100 listeners it was pretty amazing.
I had no expectations for that100 is a lot for first time episode.
(07:23):
And this is 2010. I had astruggle getting guests on my show
because they didn't understandwhat the podcast was. I mean, it
was a true struggle trying toexplain to people what we were doing,
trying to get an interview orget them on the show with me. But
it did grow steadily. I didthe show until 2015, so it was a
five year run, 200 episodes,and towards the end 2015, I was steadily
(07:44):
getting about 1500 downloadsto 1800 downloads an episode in the
first seven days, which isgreat. However, this is before IAB
standards. This is beforeApple podcasts integrated their analytics
into the platform that I couldsee. So I had no idea if people are
actually listening. All I knewis there were downloads happening
and I just assumed that thataudience was there. So I don't want
to get anybody's hopes up,say, hey, you know, five years I
got 1800 downloads. That'd begreat. Maybe that's true. And now
(08:07):
there's more people listeningto podcasts, so maybe you would have
more than 1800 downloads after5 years per episode in the first
7 days. I loved doing thatshow. I kind of wish I was still
doing that show. I still lovethe Money Plan SOS brand and the
idea behind it. And you mightbe thinking, why, Steve? Why did
you quit the show? Well, Iretired it in September of 2015 with
(08:28):
the thought that I wouldlaunch a new show which would release
myself from restrictions thatI put on that show. I had rules of
my own. I wasn't going tobreak them. But I figured, okay,
I could retire the show, do arebrand, maybe make a bigger impact.
But not too long after Iretired that show, all of a sudden
I started editing for peoplein my space. And it took over my
(08:48):
life. I had to give up thefinancial coaching idea, had to give
up doing my own podcast. I wasjust too busy. So that's why the
Money Plan SOS podcast doesn'tdo any more episodes. Although I
do miss it. But life is great.No regrets. It was a great experience.
Obviously, it seededeverything that I do today. And I'm
really curious to hear whatother people's answers are going
(09:10):
to be here. So thanks for thequestion, Todd, the Gatorade. And
thanks for letting me share onyour show, Dave.
Thank you, Steve. Always greatto hear from you. And next up, we've
got Chris. Chris has done manyshows in the past, and he's got a
new one.
Hey, what's up Dave andeverybody at the old school of podcasting
over there. How are you guysdoing today, podcasting peeps? I
(09:31):
am Chris and I had a podcastcalled Podtastic Audio. You maybe
you've heard of it, maybe youdidn't. And before that I had a podcast
with Christine, my now exwife, called the Chris and Christine
Show. And years before that, Idabbled a little bit with YouTube.
I dabbled a little bit withcar stuff and car content and car
(09:53):
related stuff. In fact, myactual like regular paying job, my
day job, is that I've been aprofessional driver for the last
Gosh, like 20 years now. SoI've always been around cars. Cars
have really interested mesince like forever. So when these
other shows ended, it kind ofmade sense for me to get back to
(10:15):
my roots. And so Cool Carswith Chris just launched maybe like
a month ago. You can findit@coolcarswithchris.com and this
show, going back to yourquestion, how long did it take me
to make this podcast? We'retalking like 20 years in the making
to make Cool Cars with Chris.Like I said, you can find it@coolcarswithchris.com
(10:37):
it is a live in person videoshoot. I shoot the whole thing in
4K is an interview style show,live in front of their car, with
their car. I get to experiencetheir car, go for a ride in their
car. And the audio podcastversion is that full conversation
we had. The YouTube version ofcourse is diced up and sliced up
(10:59):
for YouTube and the audioversion is set up for audio. So you
can find it all@coolcars withchris.com and you have a great rest
of your week.
(14:27):
Thank you, Chris. And linkswill be in the show notes. And that
was it. We got two replies,but I went and looked at, because
I've done, according to myspreadsheet, 39 different shows.
And so here's the problem. Thefirst one takes a ton of time because
(14:48):
you're going through thelearning curve. Now once you've done
it once, the next one, I thinkI did a show with my ex wife called
the Dates from Hell show. Ithink that went up over a weekend.
The podcast rodeo show I thinkwas a day like I was like, I should
(15:10):
do this podcast. I went toCanva, made some artwork, grabbed
a podcast, put it out, andwe're off. Because that show was
not supposed to be a realshow. It was simply back in the day
there was only like four mediahosts and a new one came on the scene
and I was like, well, I needto add A show to this so I can play
with it. I can't do thatanymore. They're like 47 million
(15:32):
podcast hosts now. And so. Butthat's all the podcast rodeo show
was supposed to be. And a lotof these, I failed quickly podcasting
for free. I had that showstill on that domain, I believe.
And it dawned on me thatpeople that want to learn how to
podcast for free do not wantto buy anything. And so that was
(15:56):
the end of that show. QuietStudy Area was an interesting show.
Shop World, it turned out, wasbasically a Ponzi scam that I didn't
know I was getting hookedinto. And so I. I looked at this
show and I had to do somedigging. I'm kind of bummed. I don't
have all of my episodesanymore for some of my shows. But
(16:19):
I. To the best of my records,I started the Musician Cyber Cooler
back in April of 2005. And so,let's see, May, June, July, August,
September. Five months later,I started the school of podcasting.
And so it took me five months.And that was because, again, once
(16:45):
you figure out how to getsomething into Apple and you've already
figured out how to plug themicrophone in, you kind of know who
your audience is, et cetera,et cetera. We're going to talk about
that in a second. The wholelaunching a podcast you can launch,
like, in an hour, it's reallynot that hard. We all kind of freak
(17:06):
out about it. Like, Steve,right? Steve was a little nervous.
I'm a little nervous everytime I do the question of the month.
That's kind of normal, and youjust learn to push through. But the
bad news is, because you'vegone through the learning curve and
because you're probablyoperating on your passion, you start
(17:32):
a second show. And if youlisten to episode 1000, I said, my
one only regret is that I haveso many shows, mainly because I'm
testing media hosts. But Isaid, if I were to do it again, I
would do one show and I wouldmake it the show about that topic.
Like, hands down, don't eventhink about it. That's the show you
(17:54):
want to listen to. Hey, thisis Future Dave interrupting him himself
here. I realize I neveranswered part two of Chris's question,
and then we're going to hearme talk about how long it can take
to make a podcast. And soit's. The answer is, of course, it
depends. The school ofpodcasting took a little while because
(18:15):
nobody knew what a podcast wasin 2005, but yet I had a decent audience
because I was one of the firstprobably 50 podcasters, if not 25.
So early mover, the podcastrodeo show, that test show, when
I went to cancel that, theaudience came out of the word work
and said, no, you're sayingeverything that we all think, but
(18:38):
we don't say it because I wasbeing very honest about some of these
shows. And I have people thathave said, man, the early days of
the podcast rodeo show werethe best. The bad news was it didn't
really align with my brandbecause who wants to hire this guy?
He's kind of a jerk. And sothat. That had a big. I should say
a quick audience. It wasn't. Igot to 300 downloads pretty quick
(19:00):
now. I also was promoting iton my other podcasts, so that's something
else to think about. That thefuture of podcasting right now I
do with Daniel Day Lewis hasan audience. It's above average,
but it's three figures, youknow, so it's not this huge audience.
(19:21):
And that's a very, very nicheshow. So I'm pretty happy with that.
So how long it takes. And thisis where I again, if you've done
the job of getting feedbackfrom your show on paper, you're going
to get about 3 to 5% of youraudience. If you urgently and seriously
(19:44):
ask them to share it with afriend, say, hey, today we're talking
about starting a podcast. Doyou know somebody else who's thinking
about starting a podcast?Could you do me a favor and just
go to your phone, maybe sendthem a text with a link to this episode,
whatever it takes. Or justtell them to go to schoolofpodcasting.com
sharing it. That is somethingthat can grow the audiences. None
(20:06):
of it is a 10,000 downloadswitch, but that's a good place to
start. I thought about it andI just did. If you're a member of
my newsletter, I just did anew promotion. I brought it back.
I haven't done it in aboutprobably 10 years. It was called
podcasting in six weeks. Andthat's kind of a pretty decent time
(20:34):
to. How long should it takeyou to launch a podcast? Now, should
is the really the word yougotta, like, think about. Because
a lot of this depends on howmuch time you have available to do
the research. It depends onwhere you're starting from, all sorts
of stuff. So let me dig intothis. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when
(20:58):
I talk about this, I'massuming you have a day job and I'm
assuming you're single,because I am. And so I at night,
typically 7 to 12, if nothingelse is going on. I am working on
podcasting stuff. My day jobis I'm the head of podcasting and
(21:20):
podpage, and then I work onthe school of podcasting at night.
So week one should be yourconcept and your planning. So this
is where you're trying todefine your unique angle. How can
I make my show different thanothers? And that, my friend, is hard.
And then who is my targetaudience specifically? And not just
(21:44):
it's, you know, women 25 to35. It's no. What do they think about?
What are their, you know, notjust their demographics, but their
psychographics? And what dothey worry about, like, really getting
a crystal clear picture of whothey are. And then you can maybe
choose your format. You decideyour episode structure, you create
(22:05):
a content calendar, maybe, orat least write down the first 10
episodes. And you work on yourname and your description, because
how do you test the name? Yousay, hey, I'm starting a podcast
called Blah, blah, blah. Whatdo you think it's about when your
audience goes, I don't know,yada, yada, yada, and you go, yeah,
(22:26):
that's exactly it. That's agood name. And then you check to
make sure the domain'savailable. You make sure that the
domain doesn't spell naughtywords, all that kind of stuff. So
week one, you're justplanning. Week two, now, you figured
out your format, so you cannow order your equipment. And there
(22:47):
are all sorts of equipment fordifferent kinds of budget, but you
set up your recording space,you optimize it so it's less noisy.
You know, you figure out yoursoftware, whether that's Audacity
or Hindenburg or Riverside orwhatever you're using. Week two,
equipment setup again, fourhours a night, Monday through Friday,
(23:13):
because it's going to takesome time to get comfortable here.
Week three, okay, now I gotthis stuff and I got the software.
How do I plug all this stuffin? So this is where you basically
work on your recording. Youget used to seeing the lights blink
and you don't freak out whenthe red light comes on. And you start
(23:36):
working on things likeinterview skills and guest management.
And if you're going to dothat, and if it's solo, you get used
to talking to yourself. Rightnow I'm looking at my Amazon show
on my desk, and I see apicture of me and my brother. So
in a way, I'm talking to mybrother right now, but you're overcoming
(23:57):
your mike fright. How did youovercome anything you ever did the
first time I was driving todayin a parking lot that wasn't really
designed very well to wherewhen you backed up, you had to really
pay attention to you didn'taccidentally back into somebody in
the row across from you. Andit made me flashback. I remember
(24:20):
when I first started driving,I swear it felt like I was driving
a tank. Like the car was. Ofcourse, back then the cars were huge,
but it was just, I was like,wow, I haven't felt this nervous
since I was, you know, 16,driving a Dodge Polaris. And so this
is where you're getting,you're practicing, you're getting
(24:41):
the reps in week four. This isediting and post production. Okay,
you got the recording thingdone. Now you've got to figure out
how do I make this sound evenbetter than what I recorded. Now
remember, you'll notice therewas planning there. More planning
equals less editing. But thisis where you can save time by making
(25:04):
an intro. Like that thing youhear at the beginning with the school
of. Yeah, that's all done withthe music. I just bring it in and
fade it out. The music at theend is here. So you've done all the
pieces part. So when you'reready to go, you've kind of got a
quality control checklist. Sothis is what I'm going to do when
I do an episode. And now thatyou've actually recorded an episode,
(25:27):
it's time to get some feedbackfrom people who will tell you the
truth. Because it's a roughdraft, it's a pregame season. If
you're an athlete, it's adress rehearsal. You need some feedback
because there's no sense atall trying to grow something that's
not going to resonate. Knowingthat eventually when you do episode
(25:52):
10, episode one is going tokind of make you cringe. But we want
to go for the low hangingfruit. And being that this is the
first thing you've recorded,yeah, there's gonna be some low hanging
fruit. So then you figure outyour hosting. I will put a link in
the show notes to an episodebecause people go, what's the best
(26:13):
hosting? And the answer isanything but Spotify in my book.
Do not like that company. Ifyou need free red circle. But even
that, it's not based on thecompany, it's what are you doing?
Because if I am somebody wholoves WordPress, well then maybe
(26:33):
Blueberry. If I am anentrepreneur trying to promote my
own stuff, well then maybe,well, no, maybe it's captivate. If
I'm really looking for an easyto use interface. Buzzsprout, which
is also really good if you'rean entrepreneur, you know, or transistor
if you're doing more than oneshow. Again, see my point? Before
(26:56):
transistor or Captivate. Ilike Captivate. Most of my shows
are on Captivate. ButBuzzsprout is great if you're just
doing a show every other weekand you don't need anything fancy.
No dynamics, no, none of this,you know, just basic hosting. And
I want decent support. Libsyn.Okay. And Libsyn can get you some
(27:19):
advertising. I think I made 13cents last month with my Building
a Better Dave show. Uh, thatis programmatic ads and those don't
pay much. But week five isyour hosting and then week six or
week five, part two, take yourpick, is your website because Everybody
(27:42):
goes, oh, YouTube's the numberone, number two search engine. Yeah,
number one is Google. What isit? Looking for a website. You need
a website. Yes, I'm going tosay bud page, but if you don't want
podpage, you still need awebsite. It's just the easiest and
quickest way to make a greatlooking website without learning
how to code. And so once youhave that, because on that website
(28:05):
you can collect emailaddresses. Because when it comes
time to launch, you can telleveryone on your email list and everybody,
every contact on your phone.And by everyone, I mean everyone.
And you say, hey, do you knowanybody that's into whatever the
topic is of your show? I justlaunched a podcast. Could you tell
(28:27):
them to go to my website andfollow the show that's part of the
launch? You've alreadysubmitted to Apple and Google and
Spotify. Did I say Google?Ugh. Whoa. Old habits die hard. Apple,
Spotify, Pocket, Cast,Overcast, that whole nine yards.
And you basically telleveryone you know to sign up. Not
(28:48):
whenever you get around to iton this date, whatever date that
is. Not the 17th, not the19th, I need you to do it on the
18th. So that's your launchand then from there we get into marketing,
which is cross promotion,doing interviews on shows, buying
ads, all that fun stuff.That's six weeks and that's doing
(29:11):
it five hours a night, four tofive hours a night. And some of you,
you like, you might, you know,choosing a media host might take
two hours. Okay, what are yougoing to do the other four days of
that week? Well, that's whereyou work on your website. So for
me, around a month now, if wego back to that first step of planning,
(29:34):
if I'm going to spend moreTime on one step. It's going to be
planning it's. And I have abumper sticker about this. Spend
100 hours getting to know youraudience at $100 on a microphone.
And you're like, what do youmean by a hundred hours? I mean 100
hours. Go out and hang out onReddit, on Facebook. If you can get
(29:57):
in a physical location withyour audience, the more you know
about them. I talked aboutthis in episode 1000 about best practices.
And by the way, somebodyasked, yes, if you go to schoolofpodcasting.com
1000. I do have a handout nowthat goes over the best practices
I mentioned in that episode.And a couple bonus ones. That's right,
(30:20):
Bonus content. If you join myemail list. And so those are some
things to think about. Thething. I don't think that makes sense.
Even podcasting in six weeks,you have to really be doing that,
you know, four hours a nightif you want to do it right. Right.
When I hear people go, youknow, like I said, I made a podcast
(30:42):
in a weekend. Well, a. Thatwas after I'd been podcasting about
five years. I went to Canva,made some artwork, and also, by the
way, that Dates From Hell showcrashed and burned like nobody's
business. Why? Because Ididn't think about my audience. I
was like, oh, yeah, I wantperfect strangers to share their
(31:02):
horrible stories about howtheir dating life went down the tubes.
And what's the number one fearof people? Oh, that's right. Speaking
in public. And what do I wantthem to do? Speak in public. And
how am I going to promotethis? Oh, I'm going to set up fake
dating sites, dating profileson, you know, Yahoo and eharmony
(31:23):
and all these other thingsthat are probably out of business
now. And we'll promote it thatway, and we'll get people. Oh, by
the way, I didn't check intothat. That's illegal. You can't do
that. Right. There wasn't alot of planning. So when you skip
the planning, you end up doinga show that crashes and burns in
about seven episodes. And theother thing was that that show relied
(31:47):
on the audience sending intheir content, and we didn't have
an audience. Yeah, let's getout the strike button for that. Yeah,
that's. That was another thingwe didn't think through. So when
you see people go, I can getyou up and running in 24 hours. Well,
you can, but in the same way,just because you can paint with peanut
(32:08):
butter doesn't mean youshould. So as Always with podcasting,
it depends the more experienceyou have, maybe you don't need that
much time. Maybe you only needa weekend. If you've been trying
for a while, go toschoolofpodcasting.com checklist.
I've got a checklist that'llwalk you through this whole process,
(32:30):
and that's free. Just got togive me your email address again.
Schoolofpodcasting.comchecklist. But it does require some
planning and thinking. I thinkthere is something to say for, like,
hey, we're just going to turnon the mic and wing it. And that's
fine. That's a strategyfiguring out along the way. The problem
(32:50):
is when you go, hey, we'rewinging it and our audience isn't
growing, well, you didn'tfigure out who you're talking to.
And again, if you go back toschoolofpodcasting.com 1000, we talk
about best practices and whythose work. And again, you can always
paint outside the lines asmuch as you want. But I think the
(33:12):
things that never change isyou need to know why you're doing
your podcast, because if youdon't get it, you'll quit. And then
who is your audience? Becauseif you don't educate or entertain
them, give them some sort ofvalue, your audience isn't gonna
grow. So I realize every timewe talk about podcasting, it's a
little different for everyone,but for me, you know, a month would
(33:36):
be a good idea if you reallywant to take this seriously. And
again, if you start to planand you. You come up with, hey, I
really think. I know becauseI've been in my industry for, you
know, years. I don't need awhole month to figure out who my
audience is. Great. Well,let's speed that up then. Then let's
just go to the next thing. Butthere are a lot of things. I think
(33:56):
the biggest thing that mostpeople hate, and you hear me say
this all the time, is peopledon't get feedback on their shows.
That's actually something. Wekind of revamped our feedback at
the school of podcasting now.Now we set up listening parties.
So if you want some feedbackon your show, you can basically schedule
that. And I will announce itthat, hey, if you're a target audience
(34:16):
for this show, come and listento it. Because if you think about
it, if you can watch someonelisten to your show, a, you've got
to be pretty confident. Andyou might as well be, because if
you're going to send it out tothe world, you might as well, be
confident in your content andthe fact that you know when we're
supposed to laugh and whenwe're supposed to cry. So when you
can see lets you know, is thisworking or not? And speaking of feedback,
(34:43):
I am going to put this inhere. October 16th, that is this
week, if you go toschoolofpodcasting.com kitchen, this
is where I'm pulling you intothe kitchen. And look, I'm the chef
and I'm making a meal for you,and I want you to help me make the
best meal for you. Meaninggive me some feedback on this show.
(35:04):
What's working, what's notworking. And I always mention this
and I'm like, well, I'm goingto drink my own Kool Aid, which is
actually really a weird phrasewhen you think about it, because
it goes back to the wholeJonestown thing, which is really
depressing. But I want to showyou that I'm not afraid to get feedback.
I got raked over the coalsthis week on Reddit. Just people
(35:26):
that are like. And to theircredit, the one guy I realized I
went back and here's somethingto think about. Can we take a tangent
for a second toe, for cryingout loud. Here comes another 10 second
tangent.
10 seconds indeed.
Such absolute rubbish. I loveto help people. And when I read a
question I found in this case,this guy said, I'm trying to do A.
(35:50):
And I saw him and I was like,hey, just for the record, you don't
have to do A. You can actuallydo a lot with B if you can't do A.
Well, his question was, how doI do A? So my answer of, hey, you
should try B really wasn'tthat helpful. And he let me know
that in a rather snarky waythat attacked kind of both me and
(36:11):
my character, which thentriggered me. And next thing you
know, I talked about it acouple weeks ago, don't feed the
trolls. And so I actually wentback days later and I saw where I
really wasn't answering hisquestion as a coach, because I know
a lot of coaches listen tothis. Always listen to the question.
(36:32):
And then the problem withanswering questions on, you know,
Facebook groups and Quora andReddit is you have no idea the background
of the people you're talkingto. So if you get someone who's been
doing something for, let'ssay, five years and you answer it
in a very basic way, they feellike you're talking down to them.
(36:54):
And I'm like, no, I'm. I'mexplaining this in the easiest way.
To understand it. I'm not. Andit just, it's, you know, so I'm,
I, I think in the future, andthis is my main point, maybe you
just don't have to comment oneverything. I know right now. There's,
you know, it's kind of fun inAmerica. It's like almost a thing
(37:14):
where you wake up Monday, youturn on the news, and here's the
new topic for recreationaloutrage. And the new recreational
outrage right now is BadBunny. And I'm like, you know what?
There are people dying andstarving in this world. We've got
other things to argue aboutbesides who plays the Super Bowl.
And, and besides, there's thisthing called the channel changer
on your remote control. If youdon't like it, you can change it.
(37:36):
Not funny.
Maybe you don't have tocomment on everything. That's my
lesson that I learned.
Ugh.
Finally, back to the show. Andback to the show it is. I wanted
to share one last thing here,and that is what I'm reading. And
the reason I want to share itis because it's a good book. It's
(37:56):
called the Visual Marketer.The Marketer's Crash Course for Creating
Memorable and Effectivevisuals. I'm about six or seven chapters
in. The author is Jim McLeod,and he was just on a monthly meetup
for PodPage. We do a communitymeetup next month. We're going to
have an SEO guy on. And I justwanted to pass this along. If you're
(38:18):
a person that's using Canvaand you're, you know, you're like
me, a one person army andyou're making your own stuff, this
is really good because it'salmost like two books in one. There
are so many things in herethat overlap podcasting. Like when
you go to make your visuals,you have to know who your audience
(38:39):
is and you need to getfeedback and you need all this stuff.
And it talks a lot aboutcolors. And, you know, for me it's
always interesting, even if wego back to things like MySpace, how
people were given a tool andthen they made websites that burned
your corneas. And so for me,it's just basic 101. And we even
(39:04):
talked about, like, there's, Ithink it's color adobe.com. there
are tools in Canva, which is areally popular. There's a free version
and a paid version, but it's agraphic tool that you can go in and
make a color palette thatactually goes together because, you
know, dark brown text on adark blue background doesn't really
work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.All right, one more. One more thing.
(39:28):
And that is I went and saw themovie the Roofman. And again, normally
I don't talk about movies onthis show, but it's always interesting
because here's something Ihaven't said in a very long time.
Hey, that was a good flick.And it was good because a. It got
right to the point. The storyis this guy gets home from being
(39:49):
in the military, he makes.
He.
He robs like 45 McDonald's andthen breaks out of jail. And hijinks
ensues, and he ends up livingin the ceiling of a Toys R Us. And
they got right to that part,like, super quick. There wasn't a
whole lot to it. They show himbreaking out, and then it's off to
Toys R Us. And then you kindof. This is like the Titanic. You
(40:12):
know how the story ends.Because if he doesn't get caught,
how are you going to tell themovie? But there's a lot of kind
of sentimental tear jerking,you know, heartstrings, pulling items
in it that really have. Yougo. And then this. And then, oh,
it's up and then it's down andthen it's up. And then. So you have
this like, I wonder what'sgoing to happen? And then towards
(40:35):
the end, there's like a big,like, oh, I wonder what's going to
happen? Like, how is this guygoing to get caught kind of thing.
And in the end, it's a goodflick. And what's really cool about
it is at the end. Stay for thecredits. I'll just say it that way.
Stay for the credits. Becausethere's some things that everybody
laughed at. And they had clipsof people that were actually in the
(41:00):
movie, like the real peoplethat were portrayed by actors. So
here again, it got to thecontent quickly. It kind of had a
I wonder what's going tohappen next to it, which I call entertaining.
It made you laugh, it pulledon your heartstrings. It made you
cry. It made you kind ofhappy, made you smile. And then it
kept you guessing, like, oh, Iwonder how this is going to end.
(41:23):
That's great entertainment.You know, we always said if you can
make people laugh, cry, thinkgrown, educate, or entertain, that's.
You want to do at least two ofthose, hopefully three. And I thought
this movie did that. So withthat, we will say thank you so much
for tuning in. I really, Imean, I really do appreciate the
fact that you took 32 minutesout of your day here to spend them
(41:46):
with me. My website again,schoolofpodcasting.com use the coupon
code listnr when you sign upfor either a monthly or quarterly
or yearly subscription. Now,if you're like, I don't need that.
I've been going a while. I dohave another service called Podcast
Hot seat dot com. It'sbasically a podcast audit. You give
(42:07):
me an episode, I check it out.I also check out your website and
we're looking for low hangingfruit. So it goes through all these
different kind of processesthat I check into. And I just want
to let you know I added aprivate version because some people
are like, well, I would dothat, but I don't want to, like,
you know, because it used tobe you would come on the show and
(42:27):
I would tell you, here's allthe things you did that I really
like. This was great. Oh, andhere are a couple of things maybe
you didn't know. And I waslistening to some people talk about
it and they said, yeah, I'mnot doing that in public. So if you
want to do it in private, thatis now an option. And but wait, there's
more. It comes with a freemonth at the School of Podcasting.
(42:48):
So if you ever thought aboutthat podcast hotseat.com and of course,
if you're a member of theSchool of Podcasting, this is already
built in. This is part of yourservice there. So thanks so much
for listening. I'm DaveJackson. I help podcasters. It's
what I do and I've been doingit for over 20 years. And I can't
wait to see what we're goingto do together. Until next week.
(43:08):
Take care. God bless. Class is dismissed.
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