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Podcasting Coach Eric Nevins on Why You Should Start a Podcast · The Daily Writer

0:06
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: It may sound overly dramatic, but podcasting has changed my life.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Over the years, I've interviewed hundreds of people and benefited from the amazing connections and opportunities you get when you host your own podcast.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: That's why I'm thrilled to share this conversation with my friend Eric Nevins.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Eric is the founder of the Christian Podcasters Association and hosts of two podcasts, Halfway There and The Christian Podcaster.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: He also leads the Fantastic Free Facebook group for the Christian Podcasters Association.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: Eric is a bona fide podcasting expert who has not only been doing it successfully for a long time, he also spends much of his time serving others who want to start or grow their own shows.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: So as you listen into this conversation today, you'll learn about the benefits of having a podcast, how to choose the right format for your show, what equipment to use to get started, and how to conduct a great interview.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: Eric also gives suggestions for being a great podcast guest.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: If you're a person of faith and you'd like to learn more about podcasting, you can find Eric at Christian Podcasters Association and Ericnevins.com.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: All right.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: Without further ado, here's my conversation with the amazing Eric Nevins.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: Eric, my friend, it is great to have you here on the Daily Rider Podcast after being on two of your shows.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:41
SPEAKER_00: I feel like we need to do a whole series to kind of balance that out.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: But uh welcome.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: So glad to have you here.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm glad to be here.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me, Kent.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: So I'm glad we've connected for a whole variety of reasons.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: But as I mentioned before I hit record on this conversation in particular, I haven't had a guest, to my recollection, in a while here on the show who's really been a podcasting expert and authority.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: And I believe so strongly in the power of podcasting.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: I love podcasting, it's changed my life.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: So I'm really glad that you're here here today to help us walk through some of these questions that I have, kind of on behalf of our guest about podcasting.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: So I guess where I would start out is uh give us some of your backstory as a podcaster.
2:23
SPEAKER_00: How did you get into it and how has it impacted your life and your business?
2:27
SPEAKER_00: Um that's really kind of a big question, I guess, but there anyway.
2:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, it goes back a long way, but I'll give you the short version and you can ask for more details if there's something that you want to know more about.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: That sounds good.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: I got into podcasting.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: I was working at a bank, which I sometimes affectionately call bank jail because I would go to work, sit in a cube, six by six cell, you know, uh, and only come out when somebody uh told me I was allowed to.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: And I switched jobs from a job where I was in a call center taking calls, uh, which I did for like 10 years, and I still think about how crazy that is.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: That's a long time to do that in different roles, but uh I switched from that to a job where I actually had to work for a living, and so I had to uh you know do things.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: I was a bouncer, I was a check bouncer.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: So if your check didn't have enough money in your account at this bank, I would bounce your check.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: So my job was to ruin people's day for a living.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Not like a bouncer bouncer, like a check bouncer, like a check bouncer, yes, yeah.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: So while I was doing that, I got really, you know, it's not particularly entertaining.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: So uh I started I turned to audio to entertain myself.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: So I would put my headphones in and I would listen to podcasts.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: And at the time, so this is like 2012, 2013, 2014, in there, and I'm listening to some of the luminaries in our field.
3:37
SPEAKER_01: I think you know, like Amy Porterfield and Michael Hyatt and Cliff Ravenscraft and Pat Flynn and all these guys.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: And uh, I just started to have this question like, I think maybe I should do this.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: I would like to, I would like to do a podcast.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: I think it would be fun.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, so then I started asking myself the question, what would I do a show about?
3:57
SPEAKER_01: Now, my background is in a spiritual formation, Christian formation.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: I have a master of divinity from Denver Seminary with an emphasis in Christian formation.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: And so I just wanted to have a show.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: I started my show halfway there about the Christian spiritual journey.
4:11
SPEAKER_01: Instead of doing it as like, here's what it looks like, or here's what you should do.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: I'm not very good at telling people what to do.
4:17
SPEAKER_01: So I started, I did it as an interview show where people would tell me their story, and I would go um, you know, I go kind of through the whole journey as much as I can uh with them telling me their stories, and we illustrate it.
4:31
SPEAKER_01: So that was kind of how I how I started, but it was really just this burning desire that I had to contribute to that spiritual formation conversation while I'm working at a bank, which is not where I intended to work.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: Nobody goes to seminary saying, I'm gonna work at a bank, right?
4:45
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't really get you much advancement at the bank.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: Um but uh it was kind of through a through a set of circumstances, that's where I ended up, and that was fine.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: And uh, but I love I was so glad I decided to start podcasting because it really did.
5:01
SPEAKER_01: I agree with you, it changed my life.
5:03
SPEAKER_01: I've been reflecting on that a lot lately because I'm coming up on the seven-year anniversary of halfway there.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh wow, congrats! Blows me away, uh, but I'm I'm pretty excited about it.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: Wow, I had no idea you'd been doing podcasting that long.
5:20
SPEAKER_01: I haven't it took me two years to start.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: So I've been thinking about podcasting for nine years, which there are people who have done it longer and who have been uh you know listening and thinking and and producing longer, but yeah, it's it's been a while.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, congrats for sticking with it for that long.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: And I of course, you you and I both know a lot of people who have started podcasting, they've quit.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: I've done that a few times myself, to be honest with you.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: And it's so easy just to get into it and you get discouraged.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're not seeing the results that you feel like you should be seeing and you just quit, which is a shame because if you stick with it over the long haul, a lot of really, really cool things could happen.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you know, in business, we have to worry about the return on your investment, right?
6:03
SPEAKER_01: And I think that matters, but I with podcasting, at least in my experience, the return comes a lot longer, and so that's why it weeds out people, you know.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: So for me, there was an inflection point about at a hundred episodes where so that's two years of podcasting.
6:20
SPEAKER_01: I did I do my show every week.
6:23
SPEAKER_01: Some somewhere after that, that is when it started to feel like oh people are starting to take me a little more seriously.
6:30
SPEAKER_01: I could get better guesss, I felt more confident in asking for better guests, uh, and started to have much better conversations.
6:37
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know why that is, it just takes a little while, but then even now, you know, in my in my it's only now that my business really is starting to to grow a lot more.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: So it just takes time to kind of develop, and that's part of the perseverance, you know.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: I love that biz stone quote.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: He says, timing, uh, perseverance and 10 years of trying will make you an overnight success.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: Man, that's that is so true.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: That's so true.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: As I think back on my journey with with writing and ghostwriting stuff, I think a lot of people in my world were a little surprised when I quit teaching college to do this because it seemed like it came out of Left Field, but it really wasn't.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: It was like many, many years in process.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, could have been reduced to a few years if I hadn't screwed up so many times.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: But but that's part of the journey, right?
7:27
SPEAKER_01: That's part of the journey, you know.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: Learning it, I totally feel the same way.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: I've been thinking a lot about my business lately because I'm about coming up on three years later this summer.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: I it's in 2019.
7:38
SPEAKER_01: A guy told me, uh, who's a seasoned entrepreneur, he goes, Look, your first two years, you have no idea what you're doing.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: Because the third and fourth year, that's when you hone it in.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: The fifth, sixth, and seventh years is when you really dial it in so that you can golf on Friday.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: Or I'm in Colorado, so I'll go fly fishing on Friday whenever that whenever that gets really good advice comes.
7:55
SPEAKER_01: But I was that so yeah, I think that's kind of how it goes, but you got to stick with it.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people don't have that tenacity.
8:02
SPEAKER_01: So my encouragement would be show up, make sure you're showing up for yourself.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: You got to find that in yourself, uh, in order to make it to where you want to be.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: And I think one of the difficult things about this, also, and and I promise we'll get back to the podcasting theme in just a second, but it is hard when you're doing this entrepreneur slash online business, slash podcast, slash content development thing, because everybody's doing something a little bit different.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: And you see one guy over here who's doing having great success with a podcast, and another guy who's got great success with books or with coaching or with masterminds or workshops or whatever the heck it might be.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you can be successful with a lot of different things, and it does take you a long time to kind of figure out what aligns with what you want to do and what you're good at and and all that.
8:51
SPEAKER_00: It's not like it's not like saying, Hey, I want to be an electrician, you know, uh a kind of field where there's a pretty clearly prescribed path for you to go do that, or I want to be an attorney or something like that.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, the online business thing is very you can go a million directions with it, and there's not always anybody there to give you the right answer.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like so many, it's well, exactly.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: It's like so many things in life where um you you have to be aware of yourself, you have to know yourself, you have to know the other person, your so your audience, right?
9:23
SPEAKER_01: And then you just have to be tenacious with it until you can kind of figure that, figure those parts out.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: But it kind of goes both ways.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: The the greatest strength of online business is that you can do it your way, but that's also its weakness because you got to find your way, right?
9:39
SPEAKER_01: So that's that's kind of how it works, and that's I think that's true in a lot of creative fields, especially.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, that is so true.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, let me die, let me dial back in here to podcasting because I guess it's what we're here to talk about.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: Um, but you're one of those people, Eric, that I can just kind of talk to all day about whatever, you know.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: So it so that's uh that's really fun for me.
10:02
SPEAKER_00: I love having guests here.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: Sounds nice.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: I could just have conversations for hours about stuff.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: And I guess at this point we have because this is the third conversation we've had.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, so let's talk about podcasting in particular.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: Why are you so passionate about podcasting as as a form of communication and something you can do in your business, as opposed to let's say something like books or blogging or speaking or whatever it is?
10:28
SPEAKER_00: What is it uniquely about podcasting that you feel like people cannot accomplish through other means?
10:34
SPEAKER_00: Like, what is it that makes podcasting such such a great thing to do?
10:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, podcasting is beautiful for a number of reasons.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: Um, for me, I just found I realized after I started podcasting that I don't know what I think until I've said it out loud.
10:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm a verbal processor, and so uh I've tried writing, I tried um preaching, sort of, and I always found those experiences really uh speaking in the form of preaching, I found those really um uncomfortable, and they just they took me so long to figure out, and then I never quite executed them as well as I wanted to, so it just didn't fit now.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you know, we stick with it.
11:11
SPEAKER_01: You you develop anything, right?
11:13
SPEAKER_01: But that wasn't just didn't feel comfortable.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: But podcasting just did for me.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: I think it's beautiful because uh one of the things people don't I don't I don't think take advantage of enough is similar to a blog, um once you create your episodes, they become uh and you put them out, you publish them, they last forever, right?
11:36
SPEAKER_01: So, like people will go and they maybe they find my show because somebody told them about it, but then they go back and they listen.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: I've had people say to me, I've listened to every single episode.
11:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, first of all, isn't that crazy?
11:48
SPEAKER_01: What are you nuts?
11:49
SPEAKER_01: Like, right?
11:50
SPEAKER_01: But I love that.
11:51
SPEAKER_01: So uh people go back and they listen to all these episodes and they listen to the stories over and over and over again, and it lives forever as long as you're paying the bill, right?
12:01
SPEAKER_01: It just is out there for people.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's really good.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: The other thing that I think is kind of underestimated, especially right now with all of the video that's coming out, you know, it's kind of the big deal.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: Yep, is the number of podcasts that are out there.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: So look at YouTube, it's like 20 million channels or something.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: And last number I heard was 20 million blogs.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure it's even more than that now.
12:24
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but that but accord comparatively for podcasts, there's about four million podcasts, right?
12:30
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: Not that many, it's not that many.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: So, and then you break it down so between a bunch of different categories.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: And the the last number I saw it's been a little bit, but let's say it was six to seven hundred thousand shows that only have one episode.
12:45
SPEAKER_01: I know they they got onto anchor in the middle of a pandemic, like I'm gonna start a podcast, and they just started talking to their phone without really knowing where they were going, and that's fine.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: Like, if you have that initiative, good for you, but you probably learned that you need some other things, and I've got kind of a framework for how to figure those things out.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: But that um, but so then so take all those off, you know.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: Let's say you end up with whatever 350 or 3.5 million or so.
13:11
SPEAKER_01: I shouldn't do math live like this, that's not a good idea, but anyway, you get the idea, like you're that's not as many as you think, and they're divided into 19 categories, and there's subcategories, and so your competition actually isn't as much as as you think.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: So, for business, especially for some of your other things that uh people are doing, I think there is uh a lot of opportunity still in podcasting.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, yeah, it's it's incredible.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are a lot of good writing podcasts out there, but there's there's not that many like really good solid writing podcasts, right?
13:45
SPEAKER_00: And if you hunt it down even further, like with my show, I think I know of one or two other podcasts that focus on writing habits or the concept of daily writing or something even in that realm.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, like like and it's the same thing for you too.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how many shows do you feel like you are directly competing with?
14:02
SPEAKER_00: It's probably not that many, I assume.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: No, and honestly, I never even think about it because I don't think about it as a competition.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not really it's it's not like other kinds of things where you feel like okay, if people have this, if they consume this one thing, they're not going to consume this other thing.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: The thing with podcasts is people listen to a lot of them.
14:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: There's data on this.
14:25
SPEAKER_01: Most people the average podcast listener listens to seven shows a week.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: So it's not like if I get you as my audience member, we're not I'm not sharing you, like your mind's ever.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: It's you're listening, yeah, you're listening to a lot of shows.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: So they might listen to your show and they might listen to my show, and that's just kind of how it works.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: And the cool thing is, I don't know how you have I don't know what your experience has been, but I assume it's been the same as mine.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: Whereas in the podcasting space, there's a lot of generosity, there's a lot of sharing and networking, being guests on other people's shows.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: There's just a really cool vibe as a whole in the podcasting world.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: That's not the case always in other kinds of venues.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of times, writers, and I obviously I love authors and writers, but a lot of some writers get very weird about that.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, the people get very kind of uh territorial about their thing, and yeah, it's I don't know, podcasters just seem like on the whole a very chill and generous group, which I love.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: Uh absolutely every podcast conference I've been to has been like that, where the people are um not necessarily self-serving, they're they're happy to tell you about their show, but they also want to help, and so that is a real feature of podcasting.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: It's one reason I started uh my Facebook group, Christian Podcasters Association, because I wanted to capture that for the Christian audience.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, I think I think that is one of the hallmarks.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: It's starting, we're just not that competitive, I don't think, because we don't have to be.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: Um, it is changing a little bit, and we've had some things recently where there's been some politics creeping in, I think, a little bit into the industry.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: That's uh that's you know, I mean, given our where we are in a as a culture, that's not entirely unheard of, but that's uh but my hope is that that doesn't change.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: I certainly don't intend to be part of that changing.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: I want to support the whole industry because we all rise or fall together.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: Couldn't agree more.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: Can we can we brainstorm for a few minutes on some different ways that writers can use podcasting as a way to develop their listener base or bring guests on their show or talk about things that are important to them?
16:43
SPEAKER_00: In your experience, what what are some of the best ways that that people can use a podcast to connect with people to talk about um to share their content?
16:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I guess specifically with writers, is there anything that comes to mind as far as how writers could specifically use podcasts to do those things?
17:02
SPEAKER_01: Well, I've seen lots of things.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I I will point out two.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: Number one, you can always create an audio version of your content.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: So if you're a blogger because you'd love to write, create audio versions of that and put it out as a podcast.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: You're using the same content already, especially if you've been doing it for a while.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: Man, I mean you can go back a long way, super easy.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: Just get a few pieces of equipment and you're good to go.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's one way.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: The other way that I think is maybe a little bit underrated uh for people is, and you kind of alluded to this earlier, uh, is the people that you get to meet.
17:35
SPEAKER_01: So I would highly I've I've been currently my daughter's a writer, she wants to write.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: She's she just spent 10 days in Spain, and uh she was like thinking about all the people, all the writers who have spent time in Spain, like Hemingway and some of the other guys, you know, the all these expats.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh she was and she was just over over the moon about it.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: Well, what I told her was look, you can uh you can absolutely build your build your audience, but uh and with your own writing, but also she you should start a podcast because uh she's just starting out.
18:11
SPEAKER_01: There's no better networking tool than a podcast, right?
18:14
SPEAKER_01: So imagine, I mean, she's say she's 20, 21 now, and she could start a show and start inviting authors like yourself or authors, you know, and start building that network within publishing.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: Start inviting people who work at publishers, start inviting agents, start inviting, you know, all these different people uh that work in the field.
18:34
SPEAKER_01: But one thing you're gonna you're gonna do is develop not only your content but your relationships and your business.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: And so um, I told I tell my daughter, like, hey, you've got to learn the craft, but also learn the business.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: It is a business people make money in it every day.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: You just have to learn how to do that.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: And once you do, then you're good.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: Like that really is kind of the beautiful the beautiful thing, you know.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: And the thing about it is a lot of people don't start podcasts because they think it's too hard or it's too much work or it's too technical or something.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: But the people who do, and if you're intentional about the networking side of it, that immediately sets you apart as a leader in your industry, like hands down.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: Even if your show isn't even that good, you know, and and who really defines what good is anyway?
19:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I guess that's sort of an arbitrary thing, but even if you don't have necessarily like the world's greatest audio production or the fanciest microphone or the coolest podcast artwork or whatever, just the fact that you have a show and if it's if it's good and if it's decent and if you're trying, like that in itself is worth so much as far as just being able to connect with people and invite people into your virtual living room and have a conversation, that can make a huge difference.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: It's amazing when I tell people that I have a podcast, the reaction that people say, right?
19:59
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, really?
20:00
SPEAKER_01: Wow, tell me about that.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, every single time.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: And so even just by starting the show and producing the show, you gain some credibility just automatically, right?
20:10
SPEAKER_01: Automatically.
20:11
SPEAKER_01: So that can help you as well in your in your writing career.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: What are some ways that you would recommend?
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, for those who who want to do a podcast and they want to do interviews, are there some tips that you would share with people for conducting a great interview?
20:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, like how do you prepare for an interview?
20:31
SPEAKER_00: And and are there any mistakes that people have made as an interviewer that you would say we should try to avoid?
20:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so this is a matter of style, right?
20:44
SPEAKER_01: So of uh how you want to approach that.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: So I have done a variety of things, and I'll give you kind of two ideas, and then we can uh dissect those or maybe add to them.
20:54
SPEAKER_01: One I would not recommend is to show up just without knowing anything, right?
20:58
SPEAKER_01: Like you should probably know who your guest is and what they're what they're known for.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: However, the way I do my show halfway there, I know what kind of stories I want to hear.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: So there's a certain path to the spiritual journey that uh follows some pretty defined patterns.
21:19
SPEAKER_01: It's not always linear, but they they go in certain certain ways, and so I that's what I'm looking for.
21:25
SPEAKER_01: So I have a structure to the show that I'm gonna lead my guest down.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: I don't necessarily need to have read their book in order in order to do that.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: So the number of books I get, I couldn't read them all anyway.
21:37
SPEAKER_01: Right.
21:38
SPEAKER_01: Not that I not that I don't appreciate them, but I can't, I just can't.
21:41
SPEAKER_01: So uh I may peruse them, I may look through, particularly if it's a subject that I'm really interested in.
21:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, you can, you know, I'll look through and and I'll try to I learned this in college.
21:52
SPEAKER_01: Uh read the introduction, read the conclusion, read the first and last paragraph of each chapter, right?
21:58
SPEAKER_01: Like that'll give you.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: Really good idea of what the book gets you pretty much most of the way there.
22:02
SPEAKER_01: Gives you a good idea what the book is about, and then I have some questions.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: Um, but most for the most part, on that show, I'm not gonna do a lot of preparation on my other show, The Christian Podcaster.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to do something different there, and so I'm trying to let's say we interviewed you.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: I had a series of questions that I wanted podcasters to understand about um how writing could be added or how they could take their their audio and turn it into a book.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: We talked about that.
22:28
SPEAKER_01: So uh I prepared a series of questions.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: I had a goal for the for the episode that let's make sure this is what we cover, and then I sent that to you in advance so that you could see it and know have an idea of what we're gonna cover and have be thinking about stories and uh tips and things that would go with that.
22:45
SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of that's one way to do it.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so there's two different ways, I guess, to do it depending on what you're trying to do with your show.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: And uh and there's lots of other ways.
22:53
SPEAKER_01: Some people I know um do a lot with having very, very specific questions, or there's other shows like John Lee Doumas for a long time, had the same seven questions they would ask everybody, right?
23:05
SPEAKER_01: That's another way to do it.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: So you can get creative with it, it just depends on what you're trying to accomplish with the show.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that's a really, really good point.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of different ways to do it, and I guess ultimately you have to do what's interesting to you in the way that you like to have conversations.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: Some people are very structured, some people are are more loose, or if you have two different shows, like you do, Eric, then you approach each one differently depending on what you're trying to accomplish.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: Right.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think it all matters what your audience wants and what you're what you're wanting to do with that.
23:40
SPEAKER_01: So, um, you know, like with the Christian podcaster, I'm really trying to get people to think about their show in a different way, right?
23:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to challenge that.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: So that takes a little bit more intention.
23:52
SPEAKER_01: Um halfway there, there's just a there's a story that I'm trying to get people to share.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: And I've done enough of those now.
23:58
SPEAKER_01: I know how to do that pretty, pretty, pretty easily, pretty quickly.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: What do you do as an interviewer or as a podcast host whenever an interview is really going badly?
24:08
SPEAKER_00: Either the guest is really, really dry and dull, or the answers are just really like perfunctory, they're really short, or it's just going off the rails in some way.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, what do you what do you do both in the moment and then what do you do with that interview?
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Are there some that you just don't use, even though you've recorded them?
24:26
SPEAKER_01: Very few have I ever done that.
24:28
SPEAKER_01: There's been a couple uh where I've done that, but uh for the most part, I don't.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: Um, I always so there's a couple of tricks that you can do.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: You can um you can start start talking.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: So that's one thing that I'll do is if they're if I'm not liking their answers, I will start to add some context or add some add some things.
24:48
SPEAKER_01: And so it's always it's easy to go, hey, look, I hear what you're saying about that.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: What about this idea?
24:53
SPEAKER_01: So this is something else that I that I want to add to it.
24:57
SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
24:57
SPEAKER_01: And relate those two together for me, right?
24:59
SPEAKER_01: So then your guest has to kind of wrestle with what what you're doing.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, I I very seldom challenge somebody directly, but I might say, Yeah, but this also there's this thing going on.
25:09
SPEAKER_01: What do you what do you think about that?
25:10
SPEAKER_01: And so then they get a chance to kind of address it.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, one trick I learned, this is probably better for when people like aren't opening up, which can also be badly go uh in interview going badly, uh, is to say something wrong.
25:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh not like bad, but like incorrect.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: So if somebody is uh you know, you're talking to them and you're trying to get them going, you're like, hey, so you're from you're from New Jersey, right?
25:37
SPEAKER_01: Like for and Kent would go, no, I'm from Illinois, but you know, what or whatever you like that.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: Uh and they would start start giving you the details, uh, because people feel obligated to correct the record if you say something that's wrong, and they'll start they'll start digging uh in uh to that.
25:55
SPEAKER_01: So that's another thing that you can do if if you're having trouble getting somebody talking, getting them to go the direction that you want them to go.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: You can start to say, you know, hey, so your book is about this subject.
26:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've had people do that where they're like, actually, no, it's kind of more on this vein.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, okay, good, and then let's go talk about that.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you know, so you just gotta be flexible too.
26:18
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26:28
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26:56
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27:07
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever think in terms of matching the energy of a guest?
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Like sometimes you have a guest who is like is is more on the low energy side, maybe they talk slower or they're more meditative or reflective.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Are the guests or more hyper, they talk fast.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: So as a host, how do you think about that?
27:24
SPEAKER_00: Do you try to kind of gauge where their energy is and then sort of match that?
27:28
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I ever do that on purpose.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: I think I just do it.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it just happens.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, I try to start my interview as pretty high energy, or at least was that so I sound like I'm I'm high energy.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you experienced this when we did our halfway there interview, but uh I'll be talking to you and we'll be chatting, and then uh I hit record and you know I kind of go, Hey friends, welcome back to Halfway.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: You know, and I kind of do my thing and I try to up that energy just a little bit, uh at the at least at the very beginning, because there's I know that at the end or after editing, there'll be some music underneath that, and it needs to sound like, hey, this is the this is the start.
28:04
SPEAKER_01: But um, I don't I don't really worry about energy too much unless it seems to be lacking, and then I try to uh get excited about something to kind of draw that out of them, or I try I keep poking around until I find something that they're excited about, right?
28:21
SPEAKER_01: That's what you're going for.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: You want you want their to find their passion, and uh which is interesting, man.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes in my field, it can be not as easy to come by as you would think, you know.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: And people express passion in different ways, I guess.
28:38
SPEAKER_02: They do.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: It's not always in fast talking or showing up as this, you know, really extroverted type of a person.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, I don't know.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: I I I feel like this is an element of my podcast hosting that I have never felt like I did that good of a job on, is really trying to hone in on somebody's energy and everything.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's because as a as a host, you're you're thinking about, okay, here's you're listening to what the guest is saying.
29:07
SPEAKER_00: You're also thinking about, okay, here's the other questions I want to ask.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Totally.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: And then at some point during the interview, you're kind of thinking about, okay, I need to kind of wrap this up in a way that feels organic, but that also signals to the guest that okay, we're coming to the end of the interview, but you don't want to be blatant about it because that feels weird.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: And there's like, I don't, I don't know.
29:25
SPEAKER_00: Do you do you maybe struggle is the right word?
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Do you have that experience as a host when you kind of have these three or four different tracks in your mind that are going simultaneously?
29:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, so one thing I tell guests before I get on to my show is that I spent 10 years in a call center, which I mentioned earlier.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: And I like to do that because I tend to be very busy.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: I think I might be a little ADHD undiagnosed, so that's who knows.
29:50
SPEAKER_01: But um, I have to be doing several things at once, and so that those streams are always kind of going in my head.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm usually doing the show notes while I'm talking, and and I'm usually I have some fidgese here that I play with, so that's why I'm so I can just kind of focus.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: Well, I've got a couple here.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: This is the store's hammer.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
30:10
SPEAKER_01: I've got a hacky sack and I've got some squeeze balls, things that are silent, right?
30:15
SPEAKER_01: So I'm doing that.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: And meanwhile, I'm thinking about where do I want to go.
30:20
SPEAKER_01: I try to have it depends on the guest.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: If I don't know them at all, I kind of know the kind of questions I'm gonna ask.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes if it's uh you know, a more famous author, I will have uh some questions that I want to ask, you know, that are kind of down the line.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: The last thing I want to have is at the end when I'm editing it to go, man, I wish I would have asked that.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: My favorite thing is when I'm editing and I go and I'm there, I'm listening to their answer, and I think, boy, I hope I asked this question, and then I do, right?
30:51
SPEAKER_01: That's that's great because that means I'm leading the question that the questions that the audience is asking themselves, yes, uh, are I'm getting to, and I'm gonna ask it as well because that's really what I want.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: I want my audience to go, but what about this?
31:07
SPEAKER_01: And then I ask that question, and then it's like I'm in their head.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: So, and and Eric, that's a really good point.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: So, I'm gonna do that right now.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna put myself in the seat of the audience.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: So I know there's some people who are listening right now who are thinking, I would love to start a podcast.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: It's it's something I've thought about for a long time, but I'm intimidated by the technical elements of it.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where to get started, I don't know how to title it.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about the uploading and how it gets on people's phones and all this kind of stuff.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: What do you typically tell people when they they have the impulse to start a podcast?
31:40
SPEAKER_00: They want to, but they just don't know what the next steps might be.
31:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: So I think the this is what I call the mechanics of podcasting, right?
31:48
SPEAKER_01: So I have kind of this five-step process, but funny enough, mechan the mechanics of it, this place everybody wants to start, is actually the um third step.
32:00
SPEAKER_01: So it's not the place, the place to start.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: So uh let me just go.
32:04
SPEAKER_01: So I've started likening this to a house, right?
32:07
SPEAKER_01: So if you build a house, you're gonna go out and build a house, you would follow certain steps.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: And the first step you would do is you would put in a foundation, and I call that mindset.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: So I sometimes say I went to seminary, I'm contractually obligated to alliterate these.
32:20
SPEAKER_01: So these are gonna be all yeah, in and they're all gonna be affiliated with that.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: You understand, you're you're a church guy.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: So uh start we start with mindset, and that's your foundation, and that's a number of things uh that could be part of it, depending on you know what you're you what where you are.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: For me, the biggest mindset shift I had to make when I started my show was committing is showing up every Monday, regardless of what happened.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: So I had to show up and on Monday, on Sunday night, a lot of Sunday nights after watching Sunday night football, because I like to do that.
32:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I would go and put together my episode for the week.
32:56
SPEAKER_01: And I was sometimes up late and I had to be at work at six in the morning on Monday, but I was still gonna make sure that happened no matter what.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: So that's a mindset example.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: The second one is your message, and so I liken your message to the frame, the framing of your house, because everything else hangs on that, right?
33:12
SPEAKER_01: That's what holds up everything else.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: So this is the core transformation that you're offering your audience.
33:17
SPEAKER_01: It's um all and all the ways that you offer that transformation.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: So on my show, I offer uh the hope that your spiritual journey, uh, even if it's a dark season, uh a dark night of the soul, that there's hope on the other side of that because you're gonna hear a story of somebody who's been through something and how God met them in the middle of that.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then the podcast is the way that I that I do that.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: Um, so it might be it's gonna be different for everybody, but you're gonna offer a core transformation and then multiple ways for to acquire that transformation, maybe steps, right?
33:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so then then we get to mechanics.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: So I I recommend nailing those two things committing to your show and nailing your message right away.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: Like as long as you have that, what that will do for you is it will help you get through some of the harder parts later on in podcasting.
34:10
SPEAKER_01: Like podcasting takes a little while to sometimes gain traction, like we talked about, right?
34:14
SPEAKER_01: You could you can go, I can't tell you how long this is 2016, so it's different today.
34:19
SPEAKER_01: But uh, when there were far less podcasts, it took me uh three or four months to hit a thousand downloads, right?
34:25
SPEAKER_01: 10 episodes, and I'm like, for cran a lot, I ought to be able to hit a thousand downloads sooner.
34:30
SPEAKER_01: Uh eventually that you know wasn't a problem, but it took a while to get that traction going, and that can be hard because you wonder if people are listening or not.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: If you have a message that you're passionate about, you know you want to share it, and you've committed to doing it, that will keep you going through those things.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so mechanics.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh, then that's when you need to get a microphone.
34:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh, there's some external recorders, but really, you just need four things.
34:53
SPEAKER_01: You need uh a way to get your voice into your computer.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: So that's a mic.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: There's options that right now I saw one, it was$59.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: It's usually$79.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: It's a the Audio Technica HR 2100, right?
35:04
SPEAKER_01: You that's right now beautiful mic.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: It's a mic you can grow with USB or regular XLR.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: Perfect.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: Get that and connect it to your computer.
35:15
SPEAKER_01: You need some way to record it.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: So you can use Zoom, you can use Zencaster, it's free.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: Um you need a way to edit it, and so uh also great news is there's free software that you can get.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: You have a Mac, uh Garage Band comes with every Mac, it's free, or you can get Audacity for PC if you're a PC person.
35:36
SPEAKER_01: Um, and that's totally totally free.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: And then the last place is you need a place for it to live, right?
35:42
SPEAKER_01: So um wherever that's going to be, I recommend paying for hosting.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: Captivate is a host that I really like.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh,$17 a month, that's not that big a deal.
35:53
SPEAKER_01: There's others that are free.
35:54
SPEAKER_01: Anchor is free, and now Spotify are for podcasters.
35:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, that's fine, that works, but I recommend paying for hosting if you can, because that's gonna be your your platform.
36:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, let me run through these last two real quick, and then and then I'll I'll uh let you ask me another question.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: So the the last two parts of the framework are marketing.
36:15
SPEAKER_01: So, and I think of marketing because you have to tell people, nobody knows you have a show until you tell them, right?
36:19
SPEAKER_01: So you gotta let them know.
36:21
SPEAKER_01: In our house example, oh, I didn't say what mechanics was.
36:24
SPEAKER_01: Mechanics is all the stuff in your house that you don't um ever think about, right?
36:28
SPEAKER_01: Like your electrical and your plumbing and your HVAC.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: Like hopefully you set those up one time and never think about it.
36:35
SPEAKER_01: If you have to think about your plumbing, there's a problem, right?
36:37
SPEAKER_01: That's a bad that's bad news.
36:39
SPEAKER_01: So hopefully you set up once.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: All right, so then marketing, I think, is your curb appeal in this house analogy.
36:44
SPEAKER_01: It's it's the thing that makes it look pretty, that makes it look inviting, that makes people want to go.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I would like to go sit on the porch and hang out with Kent and talk about this subject, right?
36:53
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and then uh lastly is monetization, and that's what just makes this online house that you've built productive.
37:01
SPEAKER_01: You can think of it as a rain barrel or a garden or whatever, but that's where you you build up to that.
37:07
SPEAKER_01: But it's notice the last step.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people want that to be the first step.
37:10
SPEAKER_01: It's not, you got to go through all those others uh it before you can get to the monetization, I think.
37:17
SPEAKER_00: Wow, this is really good stuff.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: I hope everybody listening just took some really amazing notes because like you just laid out basically a whole course.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's course there, which is fantastic.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm working on that course.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: Awesome, and the book, hopefully, and the book.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna yes.
37:33
SPEAKER_01: So through our conversations, I think I explained this to you one time, and uh you were like, that's a book, you should write a book.
37:40
SPEAKER_01: So, because of that, I am my second quarter of 2023.
37:45
SPEAKER_01: My goal is to I'm gonna make that writing time every day, and I'm gonna write this as a book and uh awesome get it out there because I think it it does make sense of what is happening in the online world.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: I think a lot there's a lot of problems people run into.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: Like, I'll just give you an example.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: One of the things that makes me crazy is people who start a podcast and then you see them they share like their Buzz Sprout link at their host, right?
38:08
SPEAKER_01: Which is fine.
38:09
SPEAKER_01: I understand why you might do that.
38:10
SPEAKER_01: But Buzz Sprout doesn't need help getting traffic.
38:13
SPEAKER_01: You know who needs help getting traffic?
38:14
SPEAKER_01: You need help getting exactly so that people understand what you do and what you offer and what you're bringing to the table.
38:21
SPEAKER_01: I you know the ads they're gonna get on Buzz Sprout are gonna be for hosting, which benefits Buzz Sprout.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: Put put them into your ecosystem if you want to do it.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: I understand why people do it, but I think if you're gonna go to all the effort, go ahead and make the investment in the website.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: And there's easy ways to do it.
38:39
SPEAKER_00: Totally.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, totally.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't agree more.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's flip the tables a little bit.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: And can we talk about being a podcast guest and some ways that people can can utilize podcast guesting, or in other words, taking advantage of other people's shows and kind of hopping on what they're doing without having to create your own show?
39:00
SPEAKER_00: How can you use podcast guesting to grow your platform as an author?
39:04
SPEAKER_00: And and how can you do that effectively?
39:05
SPEAKER_00: Are there some do's, some don'ts to being a good podcast guest?
39:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: So uh podcast guesting, I think, is one of the most underrated uh marketing tools out there.
39:19
SPEAKER_01: It's all it's in my marketing kind of uh framework.
39:22
SPEAKER_01: So there's like five different things that I recommend that people do.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: Being a guest is one of those because um it's just podcast listeners listen to podcasts, right?
39:33
SPEAKER_01: So and they listen to a lot of podcasts.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to get a message out, um get on shows for that have audiences similar to yours.
39:42
SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of ways to go to to do this.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: Identifying shows can be a little bit difficult sometimes.
39:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, but so you can Google it, you can go to some of the search engines, you can go to someplace like Pod Chaser, find a show.
39:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a couple things that I would say yes, for like do's and don'ts.
39:58
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so one thing I would say if you're gonna be a guest, you two things you should do.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: Number one, get yourself a decent microphone.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: So that Audio Technica ATR 2100 we talked about, less than$100, and just make that investment for yourself and for your audience for the audience that are gonna hear.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: If you sound good, uh or just reasonably good, like it doesn't have to be awesome, right?
40:20
SPEAKER_01: You just have to sound reasonably good, then you will um then you'll be able you'll have that credibility.
40:27
SPEAKER_01: So you need to get a good mic, and then the other thing uh is embrace the podcaster's process.
40:33
SPEAKER_01: So that's one thing that I see sometimes.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: People, if I try not to ask too many questions in my intake form with that where I ask, but I but I do ask a few, like your where do you hang out on on social media?
40:44
SPEAKER_01: Because that's where I want to make sure I post.
40:46
SPEAKER_01: Where do you um you know, give me a bio?
40:48
SPEAKER_01: How do you want me to introduce you?
40:49
SPEAKER_01: Like, there's just some basic things, so you need to have that.
40:52
SPEAKER_01: Have a headshot, hopefully.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, there's a few other things that I ask because I want to know, but um embrace that.
41:00
SPEAKER_01: So nothing's worse than somebody who's like filling out the form and they're like, NA, like NA, come on, man, like help me out because I want to bio, you know.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: Like, I need I need something.
41:11
SPEAKER_01: Give me something.
41:12
SPEAKER_01: So embrace that process.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: Um, don't ever try to record in a coffee shop.
41:17
SPEAKER_01: I've had people do that before where they it's like one, you got bad Wi-Fi, right?
41:22
SPEAKER_01: Or Wi-Fi everybody's using, and then two, it's just gonna be noisy, and that's not gonna help.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: So be mindful of your circumstances and where you are, so that uh you can get good audio and show up well.
41:34
SPEAKER_01: So there's a few things that I would recommend.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: Those are fantastic, those are really fantastic.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm curious if you have seen this, Eric, and this this is kind of tangentially related to this, but something that I have seen, we're talking about intake forms, just made me think of this.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Something I have seen a lot.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, not a lot, I've seen it a few a handful of times over the past couple years, is when you're a podcast guest and you're filling out the intake form.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: Once in a while, the podcast host will have this thing that you have to check.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: Typically, this is like a calendarly kind of a thing, and then it books the interview.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: They'll have a thing that says, you know, by checking this box, you agree to be subscribed to our email or our newsletter.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: And they won't let you be a podcast guest unless you either if you agree, like you have to agree to leave a review of their show, or you have to agree to be on their email list.
42:28
SPEAKER_00: I did see somebody recently, this has been just a couple weeks ago, where you could not even book a call with somebody on their calendarly link without them forcing you to subscribe to their their newsletter.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, holy cow, is this what the world has come to?
42:42
SPEAKER_00: It's insane.
42:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't know what that's about.
42:46
SPEAKER_01: That that really is just kind of trying to force the issue.
42:48
SPEAKER_01: I don't want anybody on my email list if they don't want to be there, right?
42:52
SPEAKER_01: Right, like right, so I I don't get that.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I I've never required that.
42:58
SPEAKER_01: I you could probably if somebody's giving you their email, you could add them to your list because I think that's implied permission, but I don't know if I would do that.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: Um I and I'm not a big fan either of either ask demanding a review of your I've seen that numerous times.
43:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've seen that, and I've also seen somebody who uh really strongly recommended that you give to his Patreon for a while.
43:24
SPEAKER_01: Oh gosh, and I did that's like even worse.
43:27
SPEAKER_01: I did for like 10 bucks for like three months, and I was like, I don't why am I doing this?
43:30
SPEAKER_01: And then I stopped.
43:31
SPEAKER_01: And it just well, yeah, it wasn't I just didn't feel good about it, right?
43:36
SPEAKER_01: It didn't feel like a good, a good connection.
43:39
SPEAKER_01: Because here's the thing what you really want is you want to build a relationship with that podcast host for a couple of reasons, right?
43:46
SPEAKER_01: If you're an author, you're probably gonna write another book, right?
43:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you might want to come back and share.
43:52
SPEAKER_01: The other thing is, and this is kind of gold.
43:54
SPEAKER_01: I think after the interview, it uh if you show up, I would I Would ask a couple of questions when you're done.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: So, one question I would ask is Hey, who else um do you think would be good for me to be on?
44:10
SPEAKER_01: Like, do you know any other podcasters that you could make an introduction to right?
44:14
SPEAKER_01: And that's the way you're gonna keep uh keep that ball rolling.
44:18
SPEAKER_01: The second one is what can I do to help you?
44:21
SPEAKER_01: I went to a conference um at it, it was the free of the dream conference with Cliff Ravenscraft.
44:26
SPEAKER_01: This is 2018, I think.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: And I was all the speakers, I don't know if Cliff coached them on this or asked them to do this, but every single speaker that I talked to would ask me this question what can I do for you?
44:39
SPEAKER_01: And it was beautiful, it was like it just changed my whole mindset.
44:43
SPEAKER_01: Make a practice of asking that question, particularly after an interview.
44:47
SPEAKER_01: I I try to do this on my interviews, um, even like with halfway there.
44:51
SPEAKER_01: What else can I do for you?
44:52
SPEAKER_01: Because I want to serve somebody, I want to serve my guests well, and I want them to feel to leave, feeling uh like I've done everything I can to help promote them and their brand and further their goals because that's how this works, right?
45:10
SPEAKER_01: It because then my hope is, you know, like you said, hey, why don't you come on my show?
45:14
SPEAKER_01: Perfect, that'd be great.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: Like I'm happy to do that.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: We scratch each other's backs.
45:18
SPEAKER_01: So I learn to do those kind of things, they're just little networking tools.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: But man, as you as you develop them, it can be really, really valuable.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, this is really, really good stuff because it's not just about the technical stuff or the marketing or branding or the content, and all those things are important, but it's about how do you show up as a podcaster and what posture do you take toward the world and toward your guests.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: I always assume that all of my guests are doing me a favor by coming on my show, right?
45:49
SPEAKER_00: Some podcasters look at it the other way where they're like, Well, you should be considered so lucky to be a guest on my important show.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: Right.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think it's both and and that's that's of course it is, but so I because I see a lot of podcasters who aren't willing to ask for that big guest, right?
46:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think uh you need to remember that you when you start a podcast, you become media, and so yeah, honestly, right now, podcasting is the major uh marketing strategy for many publishers, right?
46:22
SPEAKER_01: This is the thing they're doing, so uh take advantage of that.
46:25
SPEAKER_01: Never book any.
46:27
SPEAKER_01: I I don't book anybody who has a book and buy their book.
46:30
SPEAKER_01: Very few.
46:31
SPEAKER_01: There have been a couple where I've where I have done that because I wasn't able to get it from the publisher for some reason, but mostly I ask for the book from the publisher.
46:39
SPEAKER_01: Let's say they're even if it's a hardcover book, they're spending like five dollars right on the book plus shipping, which is they're gonna send it to me media mail, so it's gonna be you know be like two or three bucks.
46:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not that big a deal, and it's the it's a form of compensation, even if it's not the ultimate way that you like to get paid, right?
46:57
SPEAKER_01: It's something cool.
46:58
SPEAKER_01: I got a whole shelf.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: All these are books that people have sent me over the over the years, right?
47:02
SPEAKER_01: So uh take advantage of that as well, which you know, it's just part of the part of the industry.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, literally before we did this call, a half hour literally before we started this interview, I got off a podcast interview for somebody who's on my show, and I connected with them personally, but their the publicist from their publisher sent me a copy of their book, you know, the advanced reader copy, and it was exactly what you're talking about.
47:31
SPEAKER_00: They really want to target podcasts.
47:33
SPEAKER_00: And I had a a friend of mine um who went through a major publisher for a book of his.
47:38
SPEAKER_00: This has been a uh quite a while back, and you know, the publisher paid for all this PR and media stuff on TV and other places, and I think they were kind of disappointed at the results of that.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: Because when when you're on like, even though it seems like a big deal to be on, like, you know, it's the big Chicago radio station or it's the big TV show in Nashville or whatever it is, that seems like a big deal, but those audiences are so spread out, you know, like like the they cover so many topics on those talk shows, whereas a podcast is such a highly targeted thing, it might be a smaller listener base, right?
48:17
SPEAKER_00: But it's so highly targeted that I I just feel like they're so much more effective than just kind of casting your net so wide over just all the traditional media.
48:25
SPEAKER_00: And if you can do both, that's great.
48:27
SPEAKER_00: But boy, podcasts are so effective.
48:30
SPEAKER_01: They are.
48:30
SPEAKER_01: I've had authors tell me that before, where they can go on like terrestrial radio and maybe the show has a reach of 400,000 people, potentially, right?
48:40
SPEAKER_01: At any time, you don't really know.
48:43
SPEAKER_01: Uh, whereas on a pod they can go and they can see no bump in their sales.
48:47
SPEAKER_01: Whereas if they go to uh a number of smaller targeted podcasts of people who they know are really fascinated by the topic that they're talking about, they can actually see their sales go up because they made that hour-long investment.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: And so that it's the opportunity to get in front of the exact audience that you're targeting that is a brilliant thing about podcasting.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've it has never occurred to me that there is a huge advantage that podcasts have over radio.
49:17
SPEAKER_00: One of the many advantages, which is with radio, there's no show notes at all.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: With podcasts, there's almost always show notes and links and stuff.
49:25
SPEAKER_00: You go right into your podcast app, boom, you got the links right there.
49:28
SPEAKER_00: If you have a guest on a radio show that says, Okay, go to my website or go to Amazon or whatever, there's the only way you're gonna take action on that is if you physically remember it and you go do it.
49:40
SPEAKER_01: Right.
49:41
SPEAKER_00: And how often are people actually in a doing something?
49:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh how often are they actually in a space where they can stop what they're doing and write something down when they're listening to the radio?
49:50
SPEAKER_00: They're almost always driving or doing the dishes or doing yard work or whatever.
49:54
SPEAKER_01: So that's exactly right.
49:56
SPEAKER_01: So the show notes uh, you know, on an episode absolutely help.
50:00
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of advantages.
50:03
SPEAKER_01: It's also the on-demand factor really helps a lot.
50:07
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, yeah.
50:07
SPEAKER_00: That's really cool too.
50:09
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
50:10
SPEAKER_00: It sound kind of sounds like we're trashing on radio, which I guess we are a little bit.
50:13
SPEAKER_01: Um I'm not really, I mean, it's it's fine, and I think there's still there's but it's just the reality of what it is.
50:18
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
50:18
SPEAKER_01: There's still a sense for many podcasters where they go, like radio feels like the big time for an audio producer, right?
50:24
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
50:25
SPEAKER_01: I think that maybe is true.
50:27
SPEAKER_01: I guess you've you might have a bigger audience, but I still think I'd rather have my podcast and be able to create it the way I want um without some of the time restrictions and yeah, things like that.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, before we wrap up here, um, I guess Eric, that's my signal to the guest that message received that's my that's that's my signal of hey, I want to respect your time.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't expect you to hang around on my show all day.
50:56
SPEAKER_00: You've got other things to do, but we're gonna start to wind this down.
50:59
SPEAKER_00: So, how is that for being a super obvious transition?
51:02
SPEAKER_01: Well done.
51:03
SPEAKER_00: Well done.
51:04
SPEAKER_00: Well, poor poorly done, can't you get a C minus for the day for your transitions?
51:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, I do want to ask about your membership group and your Facebook group because these are a core part of Eric, what you do, and they're really, really cool.
51:14
SPEAKER_00: So take a moment to tell us about these and how these can benefit podcasters.
51:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks for asking.
51:20
SPEAKER_01: So uh in 2017, I started a Facebook group specifically for Christian podcasters.
51:25
SPEAKER_01: That is a requirement to be in the group, but um, I can I also do coaching.
51:30
SPEAKER_01: Uh so if that's not you, then that's okay.
51:32
SPEAKER_01: We could talk about that if you want.
51:33
SPEAKER_01: But uh the Facebook group is uh really just a place to bring Christian podcasters together.
51:39
SPEAKER_01: We have space where you can share your show.
51:42
SPEAKER_01: We can talk about guests and do exchanges and things like that.
51:45
SPEAKER_01: All that happens there.
51:46
SPEAKER_01: It's just Christian Podcasters Association.com.
51:48
SPEAKER_01: Uh or that's that's a website.
51:50
SPEAKER_01: But if you go to uh Facebook and search Christian Podcasters Association, you'll find it.
51:55
SPEAKER_01: Um, that really my only goal there is just to facilitate those connections because I think that's a powerful part of podcasting.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, and beyond that, then in 2020, you know, nothing going on, just a little pandemic.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: I thought, well, let's start a business little thing.
52:11
SPEAKER_01: Uh so I started a membership for Christian Podcasters, and in that, it's not unlike yours.
52:18
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we brand speakers and we have uh so every other week we have somebody come in.
52:23
SPEAKER_01: Last couple weeks has been about video.
52:25
SPEAKER_01: We had uh Chris Stone come recently and he talked about Amazon live streaming on Amazon.
52:30
SPEAKER_01: Did you know you could even do that?
52:31
SPEAKER_01: What I didn't know that was possible.
52:33
SPEAKER_01: It's a thing, like they've got a whole thing to go.
52:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so uh some people treat that like uh like a kind of their own personal QVC, which is interesting.
52:43
SPEAKER_01: Other people are doing different things.
52:45
SPEAKER_01: Chris is one of the ones doing something different with it, which it's pretty interesting, anyway.
52:49
SPEAKER_01: That's the kind of stuff that I try to stay up on and give my podcasters exposure to so that they know what's going on, not only in the industry, but what options are available to them.
52:58
SPEAKER_01: And uh then we also do group coaching every other week.
53:01
SPEAKER_01: So uh we have the chance uh to help each other out where I'm not I don't have to be the smartest person in the room.
53:08
SPEAKER_01: I know a lot, but I don't know everything, I can't see everything.
53:10
SPEAKER_01: So uh other people in the group have ideas and questions and challenges for each other.
53:16
SPEAKER_01: We support each other in that way.
53:18
SPEAKER_01: I keep track, there's like a whole library of all the videos we've done.
53:21
SPEAKER_01: There's uh every tool that I ever make.
53:23
SPEAKER_01: Um, I give to my gold members because I want them to uh they're they're my core, they're my support, and so I I uh give them everything that I do.
53:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, so anyway, that's uh that's available at Christian Podcaster Association.com as well.
53:38
SPEAKER_00: What are your gold members?
53:40
SPEAKER_00: Can you expand on that a little bit?
53:41
SPEAKER_00: What that is?
53:42
SPEAKER_01: That's my membership.
53:43
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's uh it's uh$49 a month, and uh that's where we do these you know these uh sessions together.
53:51
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, okay, okay.
53:52
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was maybe another level within the group or something.
53:54
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that's that's that's just the paid membership.
53:57
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's the paid level, yeah.
53:59
SPEAKER_01: So that's Facebook is free, and I'm happy to you know to help and facilitate connections, but then I I really love investing in people.
54:07
SPEAKER_01: So I love helping.
54:08
SPEAKER_01: I actually consider this a it's a personal growth issue.
54:11
SPEAKER_01: If you want to be spiritual about it, it's a sanctification issue, I think.
54:14
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh method where we're help we're helping each other uh grow and become more of the person that we're made to be.
54:22
SPEAKER_00: So wow, I love that.
54:24
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
54:25
SPEAKER_00: And podcasting can help us with all those things, it can help us in our spiritual life and our networking and our business and finances and so many cool things.
54:33
SPEAKER_00: This is you know why we love podcasting, I guess.
54:36
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
54:37
SPEAKER_01: Podcasting is as much about personal growth as it is about audience growth.
54:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I totally agree.
54:42
SPEAKER_00: Wow, and I remember back in those days, as you probably do, where back before the iPhone days, where I don't know what made me think about this, you know, walking around with like an uh one of those huge early iPods, you know, plugging it into your computer and downloading podcasts from iTunes.
55:01
SPEAKER_00: It was also exciting back then.
55:03
SPEAKER_01: It was amazing, and it was it was really transformative.
55:07
SPEAKER_01: I don't think we think about how unique it is that you can get content in the palm of your hand.
55:13
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you carry around in your pocket every day more technology than it took to send people to the moon.
55:20
SPEAKER_01: That is unbelievable.
55:22
SPEAKER_01: So scary.
55:23
SPEAKER_01: It's yeah, it is, and it's just gonna keep keep going.
55:26
SPEAKER_01: So I I figured why not leverage that?
55:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I just need a a little piece to to create something that I think will help a lot of people.
55:35
SPEAKER_00: So Eric, this has been a blast.
55:37
SPEAKER_00: As always, I appreciate your expertise, your leadership in the podcasting space, and of course your friendship.
55:43
SPEAKER_00: And so glad that we connected a few months ago and I'm looking forward to our next conversation, whenever that might that may be and whatever topic that might be on.
55:51
SPEAKER_00: But um, until then, thank you again.
55:53
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate your time.
55:54
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, brother.
55:55
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
55:57
SPEAKER_00: Wasn't that a fun conversation with Eric?
55:59
SPEAKER_00: I really, really learned a lot from him.
56:00
SPEAKER_00: He's also just a great guy, as you can tell, loves to serve people, is just one of those people that you could literally talk to for hours.
56:08
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think at this point we have talked for hours because uh I was on both of his podcasts.
56:13
SPEAKER_00: Now he's been on mine, and we had we've had at least one or two conversations kind of in the last uh three or four months since we got to know each other.
56:19
SPEAKER_00: So Eric is just a really, really wonderful guy.
56:22
SPEAKER_00: So I again encourage you to check out his websites, which is Christian Podcasters Association, and go to his personal website, Ericnevans.com.
56:31
SPEAKER_00: And if you're a person of faith and you're a podcaster or you want to be, you've absolutely got to check out his fantastic free Facebook group for the Christian Podcasters Association.
56:40
SPEAKER_00: And of course, there's a link to all those items in the show notes.
56:44
SPEAKER_00: As always, my friend, thank you so much for listening.
56:47
SPEAKER_00: I never take your attention or your time for granted.
56:49
SPEAKER_00: It truly means the world to me that you've listened today to this episode.
56:53
SPEAKER_00: So thank you, and I'll see you next time.