Latest / Your Mic / Speke Podcasting turns two

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Speke Podcasting turns two · Your Mic

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  This episode of your mic with me, Freddy Cruz, founder of Speak Podcasting is the second
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  anniversary edition.
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  Obviously, your mic was launched late last year, but this is the second anniversary of
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  the company that you know is Speak Podcasting, but it wasn't always Speak Podcasting, and
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  this was not something that I had ever really envisioned having.
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  If you were to ask me two and a half years ago, I'd have laughed you out of the room because
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  I thought for sure I was going to go from working on the radio to being some kind of other
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  W2 employee.
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  I had tried, and if you're not familiar with the story, I had tried more than 400 times
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  to get some kind of job doing something similar to what I was doing before when I was on
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  the radio.
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  That would have been like podcast production, that would have been podcast hosting, that
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  would have been PR, that would have been marketing, that would have been branding, that would
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  have been copywriting, that would have been social media content creation and management,
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  and I had even tried for a few jobs within the local media and nothing panned out, and so
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  I'm telling you this because if you are in corporate America, whether or not, like whether
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  or not you're in the media, that's beside the point.
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  If you are in corporate America and you have known nothing but that, I would say enough
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  time for you to get out while you can to plan your exit and start your own thing.
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  I hope that you started with more of a launch pad than I did and did not have to start it
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  because it was like, well what else am I going to do?
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  We're obviously more intelligent than I am, but I've made it to two years and I first
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  and foremost want to thank my wife, speak podcasting, would literally not exist if it were
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  not for her support and her not making me do something like real estate because that was
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  a very real option that I had considered and then I decided, no, so here I am with a podcast
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  production company and I will tell you that as a business owner, it is, I'll reiterate
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  what I did last, what I said last year and what I probably said many times in public
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  and in private is that having a business is harder than you think, it takes longer than
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  you think to achieve whatever your metric for success is and it will cost way more money
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  than you can ever imagine.
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  I'll tell you that getting to the second year of speak podcasting has not only tested
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  my will and fortitude but I can proudly say that because of the support of my wife and
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  because of the generous support of our clients and our business partners that believe in the
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  product, that believe in the mission of speak podcasting and in podcasting as a form of
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  communication overall that we're operating with no loans, no lines of credit and strictly
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  on my capital and this is a self-made company and we are servicing 13 clients right now.
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  13.
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  Again harder, more timely and more expensive than I could have ever imagined but I'm
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  still standing and we're still fighting and at the end of the day this, this, all of
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  this it's, anybody can do this but not everybody tries and so I'm just going to make the assumption
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  that you are far more intelligent than I am and I will say that if you plan your exit, you're
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  in a job at 9 to 5 and you are just disenfranchised and you plan meticulously maybe it starts with
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  the side hustle and you want to go to the end of the year and you start saving and stacking
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  your chips and stacking your dollars and stacking your whatever, you exit, you got enough of
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  a cushion and you can absolutely do it if you have a plan, you can absolutely do it. Look at
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  me, I'm just a guy, forget what I used to do back in the old world, I wouldn't be here if it was
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  not for the old world but this is way more different and way more rewarding and it's not a knock on
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  anybody, I'm not coming after anybody, I don't see anybody from the old world as a rival, never
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  have, never will, no matter how much corporate America broke me as an individual, I wish them well,
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  they're not a competition, they're their own competition, it's like I am my own competition,
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  if there's anything that I learned in business is that your greatest rival will be the reflection in
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  the mirror and being your own boss comes with challenges, it comes with setbacks, it comes with
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  mornings that you just don't know if you can go on, it comes with, well if you've never owned a
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  business like me, it comes with mismanaging capital and expensive mistakes, it comes with some
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  sleepless nights, restless nights, staying up till midnight, waking up at six to try and make sure that
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  all the other chores are done, but then when you have the wins, they're really sweet and then on the
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  same day that you have a win, that maybe you close a deal, that something went right, an hour later I
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  could almost guarantee you something will happen, that'll make you self-doubt anything that you've
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  ever done, it'll make you just absolutely, just for lack of a better term, batshit crazy, oh my God,
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  what was I doing? Why did I do that? Why did I not send that email? You will ride the entire
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  roller coaster of emotions over the span of two hours and if you don't believe me, ask somebody in
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  your life that owns a business, this is not for the faint of heart, anybody can have one just like
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  at Speak Podcasting, we believe that if you have a plan and you are willing to stick with it for
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  more than a year, anybody can have a podcast and be successful at it, it's like I think anybody can
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  have a business and be successful at it, not everybody can because not everybody goes in with a
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  plan and so it's miraculous that here we are and here I am as the founder of Speak Podcasting and
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  and we're still here two years later because sometimes it just feels like I have no idea what I am doing
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  but maybe that's the jig, maybe that's what this is all about,
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  I was talking with a friend a business associate of mine and he said you're not supposed to know
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  how the book ends, we're talking about life and we're not, this is not my story to write,
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  I mean sure I got the pen, the business but the joy is in the mystery of whether or not all the
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  trying is going to lead to something, the joy is in the mystery, it's having the idea
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  trying to execute to the best of your ability, trying to formulate a team, trying to get people
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  to rally around what it is you believe in and then you get the buy-in, then you close the deal,
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  then you score the trade partnership, then you get some way that might be interested in sponsoring
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  an event that you're throwing, then they send a referral your way and that referral happens to
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  be somebody that you've never met in your entire life and so then maybe just maybe you realize
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  wow maybe I do know what I'm doing after all and then comes the reality check,
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  something got messed up, something didn't get done and I didn't get dotted, a T didn't get crossed
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  proverbially speaking, so on the second anniversary of speak podcasting we're still here,
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  we're still providing the service and it's all thanks to again my wife, my family,
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  our colleagues, our clients, we love our clients so much and I'll tell you I was speaking with
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  another one and she said your clients end up being friends and I believe that a thousand percent
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  there is not one person who I work with that I get you know that my company gets a paycheck from
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  or a payment from there's not one person that we work with that we don't consider a friend,
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  all friends and it's got me thinking maybe that's what conscious capitalism is all about
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  when you have a business with a purpose not for the sake of making money obviously money is
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  very important and I like it I love it but what good is it if there's not a purpose behind it and
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  having people rally around the purpose behind what you're doing a purpose driven business
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  and having a roster of people who in their own respective industries believe so much
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  in what they're doing the way I believe and what my company is doing and we're all working together
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  to own our own little slice our own little piece of the pie our own empire how big our
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  empires get it's not up for us to decide we can try and try as hard as we want
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  so I'll leave you with this I'll leave you with this
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  July 1st 2025 second anniversary I mentioned twice today right that it takes it takes longer
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  it is more expensive and it is harder than you think one of the goals that I had set out for
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  speak podcasting in year two okay during year two so this past year one of the things that I
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  wanted to do was have an event I wanted a live event so bad well we didn't get the live event before
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  July 1st 2025 however we did launch we did launch an event that will happen on October 10th and
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  11th 2025 it's the event that I could not imagine having I could not imagine not having
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  like this is what we are meant to do it is speak fest 2025 night of the living pod it is
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  Halloween themed it's presented by our clients the national museum of funeral history you can
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  subscribe to their show the final curtain never closes wherever you get your favorite podcasts
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  preferably preferably good pods we like them a lot they don't pay for this
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  we are going to have so much fun on those two days we have got keynotes Genevieve
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  Keny Vazquez who's the CEO of the museum she's going to give a keynote my friend Rania Mancarius
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  who is the CEO of Crime Stoppers and the host of the balance voice podcast will also be delivering
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  a keynote I got a very close friend of mine Brittany Croson who's the founder of fun love media
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  she's going to give a keynote one of one of my personal OG supporters and a dear friend of mine
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  Laura Penino founder of Penino and Partners going to give a keynote we have two more openings
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  these are sponsor keynotes we're going to have workshops I've got a friend one of my best podcast
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  pals Rina Freeman Watt host of Better Call Daddy an incredible story behind her she used to produce
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  for the Jerry Springer show she's going to host a workshop on how to nail your podcast interviews
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  I've got another one based on building a binge worthy show and this is Bruce Chamoff founder of
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  the world podcast network one of the original ones and he's got over 1200 shows on his network
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  that he helps to promote and monetize we're going to have panels we've got a personal branding
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  panel we got a medical panel for some of our medical clients and others as well we've got GA
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  tickets admission okay and then we've got VIP admission which is going to get you access to the
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  keynotes and the panels and a swag bag so the VIP tickets you get the extra perks the GA you get
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  to experience the museum itself well VIPs get to experience the museum itself everybody gets the
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  museum okay but general admission you get to enjoy the museum and then you get the workshops
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  we're going to have so much fun and we're going to cap off night number two with an epic after
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  party my friend from the old world DJ Tony styles he's going to be spinning and it's all set against
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  the backdrop of the national museum of funeral history hands down one of the coolest places you'll
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  ever go to when you are in the city of Houston and we are going to have so much fun we are going to
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  help aspiring new and existing podcast podcasts hosts we are going to have two days of of networking
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  business personal development and so much more and I cannot wait to see you there I have never been
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  more confident in something I have never planned in my entire life because some of the people that
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  I'm talking to about this are our early believers in what we're doing and so the energy is is
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  really really picking up and I cannot wait and so if you are somebody who's got a podcast who wants
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  to launch a podcast or maybe you don't want to have a show but you want to you want to maybe
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  advertise on a podcast or meet hosts and and maybe see how you can team up with them and collaborate
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  with them this is your conference to go to this is the one it's two days it's the first of what I
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  anticipate what I anticipate to be many speak fest and I would have no other way night of the
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  living pod it is zombie themed because a zombie podcast is one that is neither alive nor truly dead
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  it just ended for whatever reason because the host gave up no clear plan of action for quitting
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  they just quit maybe it was because they got overwhelmed maybe it was because they had no
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  listeners maybe it was because they had no strategic plan or all of the above we want to resurrect
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  podcasts and we want to keep podcast hosts from becoming zombie podcasts so there you have it
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  speak fest 2025 night of the living pod talking about it on the second anniversary of speak
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  podcasting and thank you for watching thank you for your support and here's to year number three
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  and possibly 33 and beyond