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How to Build and Grow a Thriving Podcast Community · Your Mic

0:00
Welcome back to your mic.
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My name is Freddy Cruz, founder of Speak Podcasting,
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and today I'm joined in studio by my friend Ozil DeBastos.
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What you got to know about Ozil is that
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he is an OG podcaster, all right?
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He's been at it since 2012, and what he has done is he has
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transformed his grassroots hustle as a musician back in the day into a thriving podcast community
0:23
of over 4,500.
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During this episode, you're going to learn how offline and online strategies
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ignite real engagement.
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You'll discover why showing up consistently builds trust and momentum,
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and you're going to master the BAM method, brand, audience, and monetization.
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Ozeal is going to be one of four workshop hosts at SpeakFest 2025.
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His workshop is called Build
0:47
Your Podcast Community.
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And you can grab your tickets for SpeakFest at speakpodcasting.com
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slash speakfest2025.
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My man Ozeal, you've got a podcast community of more than 4,500 podcasters.
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What is the most common question you get that you wish they would just get, understand, after you answer it the first time?
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Is, you know, how do you grow a community like that?
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How can you engage a community?
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A lot of podcasters, one of the things that they don't think about is when they launch the podcast,
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where are all the downloads and it starts with really understanding your community where your
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audience is at and it's not just a i'm going to launch my show and people are going to listen
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and i'm going to post an audiogram on instagram with the waveforms like that's the first part
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right the first part is actually launching the podcast kind of like the nike slogan just do it
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but I love the idea of now,
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you know,
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we're in 2025 of really taking the audience first approach,
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a really understanding before I launched this,
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is there an audience that would be attractive to what I'm trying to provide?
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What transformation are you trying to provide?
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And then starting there and knowing where they're at.
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So you can engage them even before you launched a podcast.
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Transformation,
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pain points,
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all that stuff,
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man.
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All matters.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
2:24
How quickly did you get to 4,500?
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Because that is impressive.
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You know, Freddie, it was through in-person events.
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So back in the day, I was a musician,
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and I learned how to organize a lot of local events.
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And even during that time, we had a very,
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we had the alternative hip hop funk band, and we were like a live instrumental band.
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At the time,
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we didn't have a lot of bands that were doing that.
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So where I'm going with this is that I
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had to create a community early on for people that really appreciated that type of music.
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so I started hosting my own events
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and from there I started hosting events
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for different niches and different business
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industries and entrepreneurship
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so when I started PodHouston
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it was a meetup, it was actually a workshop
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and from the workshop
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people were like well when's the next thing
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and then from there it just
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started evolving and evolving from there
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and growing.
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You had a
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product market fit
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people asking when the next one is
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that is crazy
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Okay, so I want to go back to your days of organizing communities and building these events before social media, maybe?
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Or did you already have that?
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Was MySpace around?
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Or were you doing this by making calls?
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Yeah, yeah.
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No, it was actually MySpace post.
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Well, even in MySpace, I was even organizing local events through just connecting with people.
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So, yeah.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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And then it just got into it.
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And I think to me, and I feel like even now, Freddie, we're getting in this space where I'm always even encouraging content creators of any kind to not only think about the online strategy, the social strategy, but really thinking about the offline strategy.
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What can we do to create that in real life, in person, of an experience?
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And now we're seeing podcasters take their shows on the road, which is exciting for me because I'm like, I used to do that as a musician.
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But we're seeing now a craving for real human connection, especially in the era of AI.
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I think it's going to be important for podcasters to start thinking about audience outside of just the microphone.
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You know, one of my favorite writers, Jack Carr, who also has a podcast, has said something regarding AI that has always stuck with me and that AI doesn't have a soul.
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And so that goes back to the human connection because, you know, we do.
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Well, 99% of us do have a soul, right?
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And it's all about building the relationship, nurturing it, fostering it, getting people who want to go to the next thing.
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So what are your thoughts on online versus offline?
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Like, is there is there the what's the magic potion, like the magic equation?
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Is it 50 50 50 like promoting promoting a Facebook group?
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Well, I thought Facebook groups were over as the Instagram channels.
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Is it you know, how many times do you post to that?
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How many live events do we do?
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Like, what are you finding in your area, in your zone of influence?
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What are you finding to be the secret sauce?
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Or if we're just engaging with your community.
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Or just building one.
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Building one, yeah.
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So I used to do monthly meetups.
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And that was a lot.
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That's how we met.
5:29
Yeah, that's right.
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That's right.
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We met a couple years ago.
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At a meetup, yeah, yeah.
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So, again, a testament to the power of in-person events, of meeting, especially your local community.
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if anybody's watching or listening to this not only i mean don't sleep on local but as far as
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answer your question as far as cadence i mean whatever feels right is practical to you i think
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there's people a lot of live events meetups could be a lot of work could be daunting yes you know
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you know that right people are gonna show up i mean i'm telling you i always have like this anxiety
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attack like leading up to the event because you're like are people gonna show up how many bullets
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of sweat are you sweating it's real man it's real it's real but it's also one of those things where
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I tried not to think about it.
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I'm like, you know what?
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I did the thing.
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People are going to show up.
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At least your friends and family will be there to support you.
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And then everything else is kind of like a topping on the cake.
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But I think it's important.
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And not only that, Freddie, one of the things that I think gets overlooked when it comes to just hosting events,
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whether it's through a live streaming or having a Discord or Facebook community,
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is that as you show up, your people will show up for you.
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And eventually it's kind of training, kind of like when you publish a podcast on a weekly, you know, as coaches we talk about, make sure you train your listener.
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And you do that by showing up on a consistent schedule, much like TV shows, your favorite TV show.
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So you got to make sure you show up.
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And then eventually what I've noticed is there's a snowball effect of just being a top of mind.
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People eventually say, you know what, let me go to the event.
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Let me go check out that live stream.
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And then your community starts kind of picking up from there.
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That's what I've noticed.
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Show up for them.
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That's it.
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And they'll show up for you.
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and it might not be everybody all at once.
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That's it?
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Yeah.
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That's it?
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Yeah.
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You work in radio.
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You got radio experience.
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I wouldn't say radio.
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I mean, just because I have the voice, Freddie.
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Thank you.
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It means a lot.
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But I'd like to know how you're tying in that experience
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and that involvement with legacy media with what you do.
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Yeah.
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So just to be clear, I've never worked in radio.
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you work for a radio group so i worked for a media group gotcha right which had a radio division
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gotcha i'm on the podcasting side ah okay yes yes i've always been yeah well thank you very much
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yeah thank you but you know it's it's really interesting i'll share this story
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with podcasting ready is that i i remember when i was growing up you know we used to love mtv was
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was a tv to watch i mean right i used to love watching your mtv raps and all the tell me i'm
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without telling me I'm old.
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We're kind of aging ourselves.
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But MTV was a beautiful thing.
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And I remember always thinking to myself,
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I was like, I would love to be a VJ one day.
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I would love to interview, even though it's in and out.
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But I was like, the idea of interviewing celebrities,
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asking them what inspired them.
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Carson Daly had the best job ever.
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1000%.
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He traveled, he got to do all the parties.
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I'm like, man, I want to be that guy.
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And I was like, one day,
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I would love to be behind the mic and interview people who will inspire me, who I look up to.
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And I was like, when I got introduced to podcasting, this was like in 2010.
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I'm like, this is my opportunity.
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This is my opportunity to host my own thing and get to reach out and interview people who I want and build a community.
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So really podcasting really kind of saved and really fulfilled my radio VJ or MTV VJ days of dreams because it gave me permission to start my own show.
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And that's what happened.
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And that's the beauty of the podcast industry, especially in 2025.
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And I think we can also, for better or worse, credit the year 2020 with the rise of the indie because, you know, nobody had anything to do.
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And so people were starting podcasts and ordering mics off of Amazon and starting their show in their closet or in their living room.
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And now we've got not just true crime, but we've got indie hosts that, you know, they're parents of children with certain conditions.
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They're college kids that are navigating through veterinary school.
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They're, you know, elderly people.
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They're people from all walks of life.
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And you and I have a mutual friend, Victoria, who's got The Chemical Show, which is about the trillion dollar oil and gas business.
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You know?
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Every niche.
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And I challenge anybody who's watching or listening in that.
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If you have an interest in whatever it is, it could be the craziest thing.
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Go on Apple and do a search.
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And I bet you anything there's somebody who's producing podcast content that's centered around the topic that you're interested in.
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And that's what I love about this.
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I want to see if there's a podcast about the Smurfs in wrestling right now.
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Let's go.
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I'm sure there is.
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I would not be surprised.
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And that's a beautiful thing.
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Right.
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It's very topic based.
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And now you're seeing more niches are emerging in the podcasting space.
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And I love it.
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Oh, absolutely.
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Because it's not just it's not enough to have to be a parent of a college age kid.
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how about being a parent of a college-age kid in Texas or being the parent of a college-age kid
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in the city of Houston right right yeah take it from the state to local to really ultra-nicious
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and that's what you're seeing yeah it's it's pretty cool man yeah what is um what has been
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your favorite thing about your podcast journey like ever wowzer my favorite thing you know what
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And the conversations, Freddie, like I really, really genuinely enjoy having conversations.
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I think the best podcasters are the ones that go into it with just a great sense of curiosity and just really just want to sit down and have a conversation.
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Like this is a conversation I feel like even if we're not having the microphone or the camera, I feel like you and I can kind of chop it up and just talk.
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And I love that.
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I love that.
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podcasting gives you the opportunity.
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It has given me the opportunity
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to also overcome the fear of public speaking,
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to become a better communicator,
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to be able to express some of the things
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that I normally don't share.
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And I think that's been a great gift
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that a lot of people overlook.
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I have a hard time believing
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you have a fear of public speaking.
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I believe it or not.
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That's, yeah, there you go.
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And it's interesting that you say that
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because people say,
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hey, you seem like this really confident guy
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and you break dance and you've been on stage
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and you perform in front of a lot of people.
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And still to this day, I still get nervous when it comes to public speaking or doing any workshops or doing anything like that.
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I still get nervous.
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So small crowds, big crowds, or just any crowd?
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Both.
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Friendly.
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I wouldn't say not friendly, but friendly or stranger crowds, like people who you don't know.
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It just transcends.
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So it could literally be me, Rina, and every podcast host that you know.
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It could be like 75 of us.
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you have a personal relationship with all of us
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and you would still be a little
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shaky in the knees
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beforehand
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this is what gives me, this is my stage of confidence
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this one on one
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having conversation, I think that's the reason where
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somebody asked me, they said Ozeal
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what's home for you
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and I'm like actually just being behind a podcast mic
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and having a conversation with a friend
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or even a stranger
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there's something about it that just
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puts me in a zone where I'm like let's just talk
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Yeah.
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And let's just record this and share it out.
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You've been podcasting since 2012.
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I have.
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And to say there are a lot of changes since then would be an understatement.
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So let's do a two-parter.
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What's been your favorite change?
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One.
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Two.
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What are you least excited about?
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Two great questions.
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What's my favorite thing?
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you know as an indie podcaster it's been amazing to see it evolve and be embraced by uh people who
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didn't embrace it in the beginning i love seeing it evolve some people have some thoughts of like
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oh there's the you know the nprs and the main traditional media legacy media coming into the
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space i think it's a great thing honestly i don't i don't think i think it's more people there's
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more attention to podcasting and i love that it's being embraced as like a real media yeah um and i
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like that we're influencing elections dude i mean come on i mean what it was like last year was like
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the year of podcast elections that's what they coined it so uh and now even we saw recently with
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you know the whole taylor swift and the whole marriage thing and i was like you know but it's
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interesting but it's all attention to podcasting and uh i love that podcasters are getting their
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respect yeah on all levels oh absolutely even the indie creators um and then as far as the
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was it the least yeah what are you least excited about oh man what am i you know i am
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let's see i you know i think when it comes i'm not there's nothing that's really
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uh grinding my gears when it comes to podcasting um i think there's still room to grow
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Um, I, from an audio RSS OG starting, you know, with just a mix minus.
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Before you kids came in with your Sony's and these video cameras in YouTube.
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You know, people ask me, you know, all the time.
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It's like, you know, how do you feel about that?
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Because it seems like audio is being shifted and moved to the side, to the passenger side.
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And now it's a video.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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You know, I would like to challenge a lot of the audio OG heads and the RSS heads to say, hey, listen, it's okay to embrace video.
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As a matter of fact, when I first got introduced to podcasting, it was actually video podcast.
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What was the podcast?
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It was called Mixergy and the Rise to the Top.
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Okay.
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And they were both entrepreneurial podcasts for startups.
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And one was for like solopreneurs.
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And there were video shows.
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There were video shows.
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So video has not, this is not a new thing.
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Right.
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Video podcast is still a thing, but now it's reemerged, obviously, because YouTube is now playing in the sandbox.
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So I think it's a great thing.
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I just, I don't like the idea of people saying, well, we got to protect the RSS.
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And yes, as an indie artist, I agree.
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I get it.
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I think there's always going to be, that's going to be what podcasting and Discord is going to be.
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But I think I would love to kind of change the idea of podcasting and know that it's evolving and it's changing.
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And we just got to go with it.
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I don't get caught up in the whole industry talk.
16:00
Yeah, and building on that, there's an article that recently came out by Sounds Profitable, and I forget the guy who wrote it.
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I'll look it up, put his name in the show notes and link to the article.
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But he talked about how just under half of podcast consumers on YouTube are actually listening to podcasts instead of watching.
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Wow.
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Conversely, 30% of Spotify podcast consumers are watching.
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So my takeaway, and I'd love to get your thoughts, my takeaway is audio is still king, one, and video will never not be important if you can do it, if you've got the budget and the bandwidth to at least go all in and try and get it at least 75% right and then course correct as you go.
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And I'd like to know what you think.
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here's my thoughts when it comes to audio and video.
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I always say it's not audio versus video,
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and I think that people try to make it that way.
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It's audio and video.
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Yeah.
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As you pointed out in that data,
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it's like people are even consuming audio content,
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even on YouTube.
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YouTube is just a distribution platform.
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It's a very big distribution channel.
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But I don't fight.
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Wherever the listener is at,
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you meet them where they're at.
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And that was a common theme
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that was shared in a podcast movement last year.
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and they talked about it this year is that it doesn't matter about what we think the market
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speaks right so if they're there find a way to get your content to them and i don't like this
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whole idea of like we got we gotta choose like it's us as i know at the end of the day it's our
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listeners our community yeah that matters more than anything else right so um i don't know if
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that answers your question but yeah i think it's audio and video yeah um and again i think i think
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it's important to be able to give choice, right?
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Choice matters.
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Well, and so like the example, the example that I think of, and I've given this in my newsletter
17:55
is that before any, before we were having any of these discussions about audio versus video,
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and do I put my podcast on the YouTube podcast app and, you know, copy paste my RSS feed,
18:06
I was listening to audio books on YouTube where the quote unquote video was just the cover.
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Just a static image.
18:15
It's just static image of the book cover.
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And those quote unquote views were in the hundreds of thousands.
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So if there is ever a time, you know, if you ever needed an example of someone who's had success, you know, on YouTube and not needing a whole video production, it's like, look up your favorite audio book.
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And the quote-unquote video was posted before we were ever having these arguments or debates about podcasting.
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Just go and see the proof.
18:52
I've noticed even my behavior now has changed.
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So I still have.
18:58
I was listening when I first started listening to podcasts.
19:00
It was Apple Podcasts.
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And I still listen to Apple Podcasts when I'm listening to audio.
19:04
But I've noticed when I'm at home, Freddie, I'm not actually with my headphones with my app.
19:09
I'm actually have you it's weird I have it's I'm actually watching YouTube like I look at it while
19:14
I'm washing my dishes yeah on you too huh and I'm streaming it yeah and it's still audio I still put
19:20
my headphones on and occasionally I will look but I'm still listening so again it's audio and video
19:27
and it's weird because I would never thought that I my behavior personally would change
19:31
yeah but it has changed right and I don't I don't gripe about it yeah it's it's I have to go for a
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walked in, I'll plug it on an Apple.
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I have choices.
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And it's interesting to
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see how on the back end
19:42
and the analytics and then you can read the
19:44
studies that you see that there is
19:46
X percentage of people watching it on TV
19:48
just like you, washing dishes and
19:50
me when I'm washing dishes.
19:53
On the TV.
19:53
Smart TV.
19:54
That's real.
19:55
You are literally a TV
19:56
star.
19:57
Yeah.
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That's it.
19:59
Here's another interesting thing about audio.
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This
20:02
was talked about at Podcast
20:04
Movement recently, which is a big podcast conference for those who don't know, that
20:09
if you look at the back end consumption rate, the retention rate when it comes to audio,
20:15
it's still 15 to one audio over video.
20:18
Oh, yeah.
20:19
So you will look at the audio analytics because we have to look at that as well.
20:23
So we like to point out, yes, podcasters should get on video for branding, for brand awareness,
20:29
for visibility, for obviously the YouTube discoverability for sure.
20:32
however it's interesting to point out that the insight the data shows that the audio retention
20:41
rate if it's 60 70 if you look at the video aka watch time hours which is equivalent on youtube
20:51
maybe two to three minutes yeah so i want to point that out and i think that's a really profound
20:56
insight because when people think audio is dead i'm like no attention is still in retention in
21:02
audio audio is still king oh yeah video is still kind of a brand play and visual but people don't
21:10
stick around as much right on video versus audio and i think it's important to distinguish that
21:14
oh absolutely and i think that's even more important when you're talking about a niche
21:19
podcast that you know if we're talking about 90s wrestling and the smurfs earlier right
21:26
So we're talking about two very niche things.
21:30
Is it going to get 10 million subscribers?
21:32
No.
21:33
Is it going to have a small community?
21:34
Well, it's going to be presumably a lot easier to build retention with something like that as opposed to.
21:43
Not only that, but I think the smaller niches, one of the things that's been really attractive is that advertisers really love maybe shows that are maybe not big in download numbers.
21:55
But imagine if you are looking to advertise your event or your product or service and you see a podcast in a very ultra niche that's aligned with your audience and they get a good solid, let's say, 1,000 to 2,000 downloads a month or whatever, maybe per episode.
22:12
That's attractive.
22:13
That's a targeted audience that will listen to your ad every single week.
22:20
That's attractive to an advertiser.
22:22
So again, lifetime value.
22:23
There you go.
22:24
It doesn't go away.
22:25
It doesn't go away, man.
22:26
It doesn't go away.
22:27
So that's something that's really attractive that you don't need all the massive download numbers.
22:31
If you have something targeted that's consistent as an advertiser and if somebody wants to monetize, there's value in that.
22:39
What are your thoughts on downloads?
22:42
We obviously know that retention is going to be king, right?
22:46
Because you can have 1,000 people go into Macy's on Labor Day weekend.
22:49
And if a thousand people go into Mesa's on Labor Day weekend and don't buy jack crap, it doesn't even matter.
22:55
So if you think in terms of downloads versus retention, people are downloading it, but they're not listening all the way through.
23:01
So what do you tell people as a coach about downloads versus retention?
23:06
Like, what are your key milestones?
23:09
All that sort of a thing.
23:09
I think there's some education to be involved here with really, especially with my coaching clients.
23:15
of download numbers will always be the standard metric for podcasting but now what we're seeing
23:21
is retention is is is king right now yeah um so if you have a a retention that people are sticking
23:29
around to listen to your podcast if it's over a hundred percent that means people are coming back
23:34
and listening to it right so you want to get it 70 or higher and those these are stuff that you
23:38
You can look at Podcast Connect or on Spotify.
23:42
But even now, what's even more important is not only attention to retention, but also really understanding the engagement.
23:51
So if you go to your social media channel, let's say if you have a show and you have a nice following on Instagram and let's say LinkedIn, are people engaging with you?
24:01
That's a very important metric for you to measure.
24:05
So I think it's important to measure.
24:08
I think those two metrics are important for podcasters to measure is, again, retention, your retention rate, and engagement over downloads all day.
24:16
And I think that's where we're seeing our trend going.
24:19
What are your thoughts on that?
24:22
i like the idea of promoting a podcast episode on social media because i think that free advertising
24:28
is uh great if you can execute a social media strategy halfway decent right uh not a fan of
24:38
audiograms i think that was probably just a thing back in the day about 2019 yeah 2019 you know
24:44
before I, when I was still in radio.
24:47
But, you know, with the advent of tools like Opus,
24:50
and we were talking before we started recording,
24:51
there are tools like Opus and Munch,
24:53
Riverside.fm is what we use for virtual interviews and such.
25:00
If you tweak them, you do the text layovers
25:02
and relevant B-roll, and that's some crap that,
25:05
you know, you have to tweak it.
25:06
You have to massage the tools
25:08
and then post the short form video.
25:10
And only if there's something relevant
25:13
to your social media audience?
25:14
Does it really make sense?
25:16
Because at the end of the day,
25:19
if Ozeal and Freddie are scrolling on Instagram
25:21
on a Friday afternoon, it's four o'clock
25:23
and we're ready to wind down,
25:24
we wanna watch dog videos
25:26
or something about entrepreneurship,
25:28
are we really gonna see,
25:29
are we really going to make the extra effort
25:31
for John Doe who has his podcast clip?
25:34
Like, oh, well, I was scrolling for dog videos
25:36
and entrepreneurship, but hmm, let me see.
25:39
I'm just gonna go ahead and click on John Doe's
25:41
link in profile, link in bio, and then open up the app and go and put my earbuds in and
25:47
listen to the episode.
25:48
That's a lot of extra steps.
25:50
So you don't think social media really has much of a punch when it comes to marketing
25:55
your show?
25:56
I think it's just branding and awareness.
25:59
And it's there.
25:59
You know, like, I'd hate to make the comparison, but it's like commercials, you know?
26:06
That's a fun commercial.
26:07
you know phantom makes nice fun bubbly catchy commercials yeah chevy does too i don't remember
26:16
the last time i bought a chevy that's a good point that's good yeah great analogy amazing
26:20
commercials but speaking of analogies and i would love to i would love to pick oh because i knew
26:26
when we were going to get you in here that i wanted to talk about this we were a podcast
26:30
movement in Dallas and you had this banger, banger branding analogy.
26:37
Oh, I know you know what I'm
26:38
talking about, brother.
26:39
You remembered, man.
26:39
You remembered.
26:40
How could I forget?
26:41
Wow.
26:41
So please
26:42
take it away.
26:42
Out of all the things we talked about, that stuck out?
26:45
I must be doing something
26:45
right with that.
26:46
You're a genius, baby.
26:47
Come on, man.
26:47
That's cool, man.
26:48
I appreciate it, man.
26:49
Yeah,
26:49
let's talk about that.
26:50
So I shared with you at Podcast Movement that one of the, a method that I,
26:57
when I coach clients or I teach workshops is the BAM method, which is a B-A-M. And it stands for
27:04
brand, audience, monetize.
27:08
So I always teach new podcasters.
27:10
And I think this is a really good
27:11
exercise for even podcasters that have been established of really kind of doing an audit
27:17
and really understanding, do you have this in these steps?
27:21
So first you build a brand.
27:24
and in brevity what I mean by that is that you if you really dial in your your vision your mission
27:30
who you are and who are you going to serve right what transformation are you going to give to the
27:35
second step which is your audience and then you attract your audience through a solid dialed in
27:41
clear brand messaging you will attract your community your audience and that's how you
27:46
attract a community whether and you build it up through newsletters through social
27:53
live streaming different elements that will bring in-person events right there's different ways where
27:58
you can build a community and then the third thing is you monetize and i think what i've had a lot of
28:06
back and forth with a lot of experts and gurus about this because i always say freddie people
28:11
try to get into podcasting because they want to make a buck you know they want to make money and
28:14
i say choose a choose a different hobby because this this is going to be a different and if you
28:19
do it's a marathon exactly exactly well you know that right yeah so you build a brand you attract
28:26
an audience and when you have a community and audience then you can monetize and you monetize
28:31
it through providing services or products or digital products masterminds memberships i mean
28:37
really exciting as a solo creator that there's a lot of opportunities for us to monetize via a
28:42
podcast right newsletter all of that so it's really exciting for the for the indie creator right now
28:47
but you do it in that order and i feel like if you miss a step uh and you don't do it in that order
28:52
uh i feel like you you find yourself kind of in this kind of hamster wheel this losing game
28:58
uh whether if you think about the money but you don't have a brand audience you're not going to
29:02
make anything about it right if you attract an audience um great but they don't know what you're
29:08
about they don't know what your brand is about so you can it's kind of influencer right you can
29:12
create you know you can you can be that cutesy person or or do you know show your abs or whatnot
29:18
you can attract the audience but you'll see that there's a set that a lot of influencers
29:22
don't make a lot of money and the reason why is that they're really good at grabbing attention
29:27
attracting the audience but they don't got a brand that represents anything so again the
29:32
bam method build the brand attract the audience and then you monetize your message if you do that
29:37
in that order, you will have a remarkable podcast.
29:40
Guaranteed.
29:41
Might not be overnight.
29:42
No.
29:43
Might not be overnight.
29:44
It's a marathon, baby.
29:44
It's a marathon.
29:45
It's a marathon.
29:46
And no, it's not a marathon length sprint.
29:49
That's right.
29:50
That's right.
29:51
That's another banger quote from
29:53
Jack Carr.
29:53
That's good.
29:54
Because we talked about writing a book.
29:56
He talks about
29:57
it being a marathon length sprint.
30:00
But this is not that.
30:02
No, it's not.
30:04
It takes dozens of years.
30:06
I mean, there's a whole Chris Williamson from the, from modern wisdom.
30:11
Yeah.
30:11
Yeah.
30:11
And he was putting out videos and, you know, he would talk about how some weeks he would
30:16
have two views and boy, did that resonate still resonates with me, you know?
30:21
Yeah.
30:22
Still resonates.
30:23
And, and a lot of people will see, oh, well it's modern wisdom and it's, he's, you know,
30:29
at the top of the chart.
30:29
So he's doing this and interviewing people like, you know, whoever.
30:33
Right.
30:33
And yeah, that took years to get.
30:36
Yeah.
30:37
And I think, you know, going back to that question, that great question you asked me earlier, you know, I think that you just pointed me in that direction about the least thing that I don't like about podcasting is I don't like it when people get into this space and think that it happens overnight.
30:52
I don't like it where they get into the space and feel like they can get this short SM7B and a roadcaster and feel like they're going to make millions of dollars, the Joe Rogan money, you know, in six months.
31:05
This is a very, it's a game of patience.
31:08
It's a game of being a passion, being persistent, of really understanding that it's really not about you.
31:17
when's it happening is that you could do this for,
31:19
because you're passionate about the topic.
31:20
But when's it happening is that you'll burn out.
31:22
But if you really want to build a brand and community and potentially
31:25
monetize,
31:26
you got to make sure audience first.
31:28
And I think a lot of podcasters think creative.
31:31
And as a creator,
31:31
as a creative,
31:32
I get it.
31:33
Like I have this great idea and I'm going to just get on the mic and talk
31:35
about it.
31:35
I'm like,
31:36
yeah,
31:36
but what is the brand beyond the mic?
31:39
Like once we get you out of this and you have your 10,
31:41
12 episodes,
31:43
what else are you going to dig into?
31:44
Yeah.
31:44
And if you haven't built in that brand that will attract the audience, then I find podcasters will fizzle out pretty quickly.
31:52
So, again, for podcasters who are looking to do this overnight and make money, that's probably the thing that at least, yeah, pisses me off a little bit.
32:00
It really chops his heart.
32:02
There you go.
32:03
There you go.
32:03
Riffles the feathers.
32:04
There you go.
32:05
Keep going.
32:05
What other words are we going to say?
32:07
Grinds my gears.
32:09
Oh, man.
32:10
Well, this has been incredible.
32:12
It's always fun chopping it up with you, dude.
32:14
Yeah, man.
32:15
Likewise.
32:16
Yeah.
32:16
I just want to say, you know, one of the things that I really admire about you, Freddie, is that, you know, really took a leap of faith, you know, everything that you've done to, you know, transition from radio into this podcasting space and, you know, to get involved in the community and seeing your support at Pod Houston and, you know, reaching out to a lot of people here who I admire, who are friends of ours.
32:38
Right.
32:38
We have a really close circle here in Houston reaching out to us and asking for us to support you on this amazing event that you have coming up, SpeakFest.
32:50
And it's a testament of you supporting indie podcasters, people in your space.
32:55
And I just really appreciate and respect people who have genuine heart for the medium, who really appreciate it, who understand that they want to use this medium to support others.
33:07
and just, man, I'm just so proud of you
33:09
for just, again, doing the damn thing, man.
33:12
You know, you're like the representative
33:14
just doing it and it's not hard.
33:17
It's not, well, it's not easy.
33:19
It's really hard to do this
33:21
and you made the jump and you're making it happen.
33:23
So much, much love and respect, man.
33:25
Well, much love and respect back to you.
33:26
Nothing but love.
33:27
You're an OG, man.
33:28
You were doing, you were building this empire,
33:31
your empire before I ever knew
33:34
that I was going to need a podcast
33:35
or need to grow a podcast company,
33:39
you were in the trenches already doing the work
33:41
and laying the foundation for numbskulls like me
33:44
to come around and do it
33:45
because we needed to pay the bills.
33:49
And you're right, this isn't easy.
33:51
It takes a lot more time.
33:53
Now we're getting into kind of the entrepreneurial mindset.
33:55
It's not easy.
33:57
It takes way more time
33:58
and it's way more expensive than you could ever imagine.
34:01
And you're going to spend a lot of time
34:02
by yourself in your feelings.
34:04
You're going to feel like the best boss in the whole wide world on one morning.
34:09
And that same day, feel like the worst boss ever.
34:13
You wish you can fire yourself.
34:16
And it's just that roller coaster of emotions.
34:19
But I'd have it no other way.
34:22
I'd have it no other way because I got my tribe.
34:26
There you go.
34:26
I got my tribe.
34:28
You and I had a very, very pivotal discussion at Podcast Movement.
34:32
and I am so happy and I'm so proud to know you and to call you a friend.
34:36
You know, we've had a couple of really good talks.
34:38
And so the feeling is mutual, brother.
34:40
Feeling is very mutual.
34:42
Love you, man.
34:43
Yeah, love you, man.
34:43
Respect.
34:44
Yeah, yeah.
34:45
So October 10th and 11th, you're going to see Ozeal at Speakfest 2025.
34:50
He's going to be teaching a workshop called Building Your Podcast Community.
34:54
And you definitely want to come and check him out.
34:55
And you want to check out all of our workshop hosts.
34:57
He says we got mutual friends.
34:59
reno friedman watts one of them uh we've got a whole host of people we're bringing in
35:05
ozeal a podcast hall of famer wow rob greenlee from the podcast he's the chair of the board of
35:12
the podcast hall of fame that was awesome yeah rob is really awesome and so he's going to be
35:17
leading a panel uh we're going to be screening a documentary age of audio directed by sean michael
35:22
cologne who we met at podcast movement so it's this is just the tip of the iceberg and it's the
35:28
first of many uh speak fest events and it's a it's a freaking honor to have you be a part of
35:35
the first one and um yeah y'all get your tickets to speak podcasting.com speak fest 2025 bro thanks
35:44
again yeah man i'm excited yeah this is fun and i'll see everybody at speak fest 2025