Hey, Digital Podcaster fam. So this is part one of three of a continuing theme I'm going with called profitable podcasting foundations. And this is taken from a talk that I did with a private group that asked me to come and speak. And they are business owners. Some of them already have existing podcasts, some of them are high level marketers that have been doing this for a while. And it is a fire hose of information. Essentially, what I did during this talk is just distill down over the past 10 plus years, what I'm seeing what's working with some best practices across the board. And I wanted to split this up, because there is so much in this talk that I felt like if I just lumped it in one thing, it would kind of get lost. So I'm splitting it up into three. This is part one of three, I hope you enjoy. Stay tuned for the future episodes coming out. Let's dive in. This is the show for creative entrepreneurs who have a message to share and want to live a life of freedom. Learn how to grow your network, and net worth, hear from exciting guests, and more. My name is Dylan Schmidt, and welcome to Digital Podcaster. So profitable podcasting, if you're not sold on the idea of podcasts, hopefully they're Scelzi. So they are an intimate experience for both the host and the listener, something you don't get anywhere else. We live in a short form video world where everything is seven to 15 seconds is like what we're seeing perform best for videos on social media, that doesn't give you a lot of time to build a real connection. If you're a heavy social media user, like most of us are, you get notifications all the time you get, there's so much interruption happening. So podcasts give you more time for sharing an idea, like a big idea that you have. And of course adding more value and having a conversation. Most people don't see podcasts as a two way street. But it really is it's you speaking to your listener or you speaking with the guest and your listener. And taking into consideration the listener is there and aware is huge, because they feel like they're part of the conversation and when you include them in that it goes a long ways. And it's great for expanding your network by featuring other guests and experts. So personally, I'm I'm pretty introverted. I don't even really like go to the grocery store. I'll be honest, too, too bright, too much going on? Sales. I don't know. I just like just not a fan of the grocery store networking events. If someone's like holding my hand, I don't know. I don't know, not my thing. But I have found podcasts have been the ultimate networking hack. Because there's a common thread instead of being like, hey, Heather, we should connect over a coffee sometime. If nowadays, I can easily see Oh, Heather does this, oh, I can make a quick pitch to have Heather on my podcast. And we can have a conversation. Not only are we connecting, but I'm adding value to Heather by pulling out her expertise. And she's creating content effortlessly while on my podcast that she can then use. I'm adding value for my own content creation and my own podcast, and the listener is getting value listening in. So there's three points of value being added amongst amongst the people involved in a podcast interview. What's an I'm going to talk more about that on some of the benefits for your guests, and how to do that we're going to cover a lot but yeah, it's just been an absolute dream for networking. I reach out and I booked guests easily. And I have different processes are not different. I have the same process across the board, but I'll reach out to them on different networks. And my success rate is really high with securing guests, even if they've even if they have no idea who I am. It's not like they come across my page. And they're like, Oh, you had so and so on, I guess I'll come on No, like they don't even have to look at my page, because the success rate of my pitch is so high. And I come across pitches all the time from other podcasters. And like, I instantly archive them, I instantly delete them. And it's this was before I was even started Digital Podcaster and was teaching people about podcasts. I've been pitched so many times I was able to create an effortless pitch that doesn't feel like pitching. I just I didn't even like calling it a pitch until like about a week ago. I just like calling an invitation pitch seems like I'm it's just like I'm extending the invitation and podcasts are super versatile. So you don't even have to record a podcast. You could just repurpose content. Like I could repurpose this talk say like all things considered, you have permission from where you're recording it. But say is your own workshop or your own Instagram, live your own Facebook Live, whatever it is, you can easily repurpose that content for a podcast. So it doesn't need to be only recorded for the podcast, which I absolutely love. Some of the most valuable podcasts I feel like I listened to aren't recorded for a podcast. They're just a workshop or some other conversation taking place and then upload it as a podcast. And I don't feel like oh, that doesn't count. No, it counts as a part. It's a podcast for example, if probably familiar with, and he's a polarizing individual, I get it, but Gary Vaynerchuk, popular marketer, Digital Marketer, he does these things called Four DS, I forget what the D stands for. But he it's been a couple of years since I know the exact cost up to date things. But at least a couple of years ago, it was like $10,000. And you get a couple different things with him. And you can fly to New York and get an hour with Gary in a group coaching session. And so these people pay $10,000 to do this. He's recording it as well, answering these questions. Everyone gets five minutes or less question with Gary. And he uploads that as a podcast and a YouTube video. And he's repurposing this content everywhere. And he'll do little clips of that and upload it as a podcast. And I find those really valuable. And you're like, Hmm, this is something people pay$10,000 for. And here I'm listening to it for free. And you could charge for podcasts as well, too. But majority of the time theme is free is just a little bit easier, especially in the context of the discussion. Moving forward during this time, most of the time, you're gonna be thinking podcasts is free. They lead to other things that could be paid and how are podcast different than Instagram, Tik Tok Instagram again, wow, Instagram got on there twice Twitter. I had YouTube on there. But then I was like, oh, take that off. So Instagram got twice Instagram squared. So the podcast or social media, there's not a comment section under podcast. Yes, if you had your podcast on your website, there could be a comment section. But it's not really a social hangout. It is more of a, like I said, an intimate experience between you and the listener. And how I like to look at this is social media is like interruption marketing, no one goes on to you can try. But no one goes on Instagram and is like, I'm gonna pull away this specific piece of information to go about my day. I don't know, personally, if I go on Instagram, trying to get one piece of information. I start scrolling. I start like going down rabbit holes. And then I close the app and I go, Oh, my gosh, I was I went on there to do this one thing. And now I'm like, where did I end up? It's because it is interrupting the patterns that you went there for like it's all about, look at this, look at that list. Look at this. And that is way different than podcasts. Podcasts aren't about interrupting your daily pattern, podcast, listeners fit your podcast into their daily pattern. So how I like to I'll use myself as an example. If I go to the gym, some days, I might listen to music. Some days, I'm going to listen to a podcast, if it's a really deep philosophical thing that I need to give more attention to, I'm probably not going to listen to that, while I am lifting heavy weights. And could I need to be really present for it. So I don't hurt myself. But I might listen to a comedy podcast or something where I could not have to hear everything that said, and I'm not gonna feel like I'm missing out on the conversation. And same goes for driving like people have their driving podcasts, their commute podcast, their cleaning podcasts, like different things at different parts of their day that they rely on that. The good news about podcast listeners is that they are great at finishing stuff. Most podcast listeners, and I guess I'm a minimalist here, I should have a slide for that. But there is there's a high number I forget what the exact percentage is. It's somewhere between 60 and 80% of podcast listeners finish the podcast episodes they start. So rarely do someone start something and then not finish it, which is so different than social media, how many times it's get to the point, if we're talking about Instagram, you can even tick tock to you can't even scroll through like reels in certain videos you have. It's either like you get the point and you scroll, or you just don't get the point at all and you keep scrolling PodcastPro seems way different. And that doesn't necessarily mean it's a length thing. That doesn't mean that podcast episodes need to be long or short. We're going to talk all about that. But there are that. Yeah, that's the main differences between podcasts and social media. So something around podcast I want to talk about is time, expectations, and energy. So starting with time and expectations. And this kind of goes into what best practices across the board I see with podcasts. And I know this might feel like it's going a little fast. But again, we're going to cover everything. So anything that is missed, I promise you will cover it. So best practices across the board. And I don't watch Netflix, I don't watch hardly anything. All I do I just eat sleep podcasts. And across the board. This is what I see best practices. So ideal average solo podcast length, one person talking. And this is just this isn't repurposed content. This is just one person talking average solo, a good solo podcasts length is around 20 minutes. You go longer than that. And there's probably too much rambling or too much time to curve back around or trying to cram too many ideas into one solo episode. And this gives enough time to really hash out something that means that doesn't mean it can't go longer, or it can be shorter. It can be an ideal episode length, I would say for solo podcasts around 20 minutes. Sometimes if it's too short, I would say five minutes or less. You're going to find people having a hard time fitting it in into their pattern because it's so fast. And you can if you set up that expectation, Ryan Holliday of the daily stoic has a super short podcast, that he releases frequently. So it can be done. But a lot of people just really crave a deeper dive into that if you're doing an interview style podcast, typically around 45 minutes not to say it can't go for three hours, totally could not to say couldn't be 20 minutes totally could as well. But I like around 45 minutes is good. And again, because and this goes back to excuse me, what you set expectations up from the very beginning. If someone if you are always doing five minute podcasts, and then you just released like a three hour podcast, people aren't going to be as warmed up to that idea as if you are if you keep it around something like expectations. And it's not just setting expectations at the beginning of an episode, saying hey, today's a three hour episode. That's not really people become habitual with their podcast input. So sticking to regular type of patterns in your podcast are really helpful as a listener, knowing what to expect, because it's easier to you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time but I say ideal interview style podcast length is around 45 minutes because also that's another thing too is just being mindful of the listener a lot of times podcasters people are doing the content will it gets a little self indulgent. Okay, we get like we get this person is so amazing. And it's now let's go to this stuff. That's really good and helpful stuff. I don't need a 15 minute intro on Heather. I'll no i don't i just want to hear Heather at this point. You know, like I don't want to, I don't need you don't have to sell me on Heather. I'm sold by the episode title, which is what we'll talk about. And it listeners expect to deep dive into a subject and that looks like is 20 minutes is a deep dive. 45 minutes is also a deep dive because what it all comes back to the listener and what they expect, but also what they're getting from the podcast. And oftentimes, it looks different for each listener, some listeners will just like the banter that come to your podcast for the small talk, some podcast podcast listeners will come for specific things like education. So across the board, most of the time listeners expect to be educated and entertained. The entertainment part I found trips people up a lot because they think that looks like having like flashy little segments or they need to reinvent the wheel entertain, from what I see or hear is entertainment really comes down to just being applicable and interesting by your audience. And you do that by understanding your audience well, and understanding what they enjoy listening to. It's not necessarily having some type of game show involved in it or having to build yourself up to be this person. Some of the best podcasts. I've listened to have a monotone voice and he sounds like he's, you could just about fall asleep. People like myself would see that as entertaining. All you really need to record a great podcast is a big idea and a microphone. That's something I love about podcasts, Russell Brunson of Clickfunnels I find him to be a very interesting case study of podcasts because he has been podcasting for years. He credits it as one of his biggest channels for marketing and gathering new clients, millions of dollars in sales. I listen to the podcast occasionally. And one of the things I heard him say like podcasting has been the biggest contributor to his marketing success. And I thought that was interesting because he's eats, sleeps and breathes marketing. But what I find fascinating about him and I like studying him because he started a podcast, just driving to work in his car. With no special equipment. He is I forget what the podcast was called. But it was podcasts in a car marketing something in a car. And even still today, he records a podcast on the go, I don't know the exact way he uses, I'm pretty sure he just uses like a very simple setup, maybe just his voice memos on his phone. But listening to his podcast Hill record while he's driving and he'll even say UPS is safe. Everybody is safe, probably has an autopilot Tesla or something. And he you'll hear the turn signals you'll hear like stuff happening in the background. So it's really easy to get caught up in the I need the perfect microphone. I needed this. I needed that. And even for myself, like I went to school for audio engineering, and I'm fully aware of the gear and the toys and stuff like I get that. But at the end of the day, all you really need is a big idea to share with your audience. Nobody knows, like I know as good as anyone, like should be able to tell what kind of microphone he's using. And I can't totally tell if it's just his iPhone voice memos. Or if it's like a$300 microphone he has on a camera or something. Or if it's just the air air pods that or air pods that came with the phone that wired one so all that to say the gear doesn't really matter the message matters the most. And when making content for your podcast, your energy goes much further than any type of content creation. So what I love about this is personally, my spirit animals a sloth. And I love, like, I'm super productive and all that stuff. But I feel like I do that because I want to make it as easy as possible on myself to not work harder. And some people that looks like working a lot. But really, I get a lot done by doing by working smarter, not harder. And podcasts are the ultimate way of working smarter, not harder. And I'll break that down. So like a one hour podcast, what you could produce, then I would say this is what you could expect to produce not like, these results are not typical or anything like that, like these results should be typical. Unless you have 59 minutes of just dead air. Nothing's being said. If you have an hour of audio recorded, even if it's repurposed content from somewhere, this is what you should expect to get. Obviously, you should at least get one podcast if it's a one hour podcast, but you should also be able to get four to seven, at least four to seven video clips that you can use for social media. That's like Instagram, Tik Tok. Anywhere that you can upload video, YouTube shorts is great. You can also make YouTube clips from this as well. And I know oftentimes people will ask do I need a separate YouTube channel, if you are wondering that we could talk about that later, too. But you should be able to get at least four to seven. And I put four to seven, it's really seven plus is video clips for social media, you should also then be able to get four to seven plus images and tweets that you can use like quote cards and different things like that. And then one to two newsletters, typically, you'll find that you could do one newsletter just around the episode, and then another newsletter around just using the content, again, like that it should be a plus next to the two because you could really do a blog or a newsletter from a video clip and an image. So you want to make it too confusing or too overwhelming at the same time too. Because that is one of the things that podcasters run into is you almost get an overwhelming number of content. And then you're like, I'm not utilizing all of the content I should be. And that's a common thing. But at least you have the content. And that doesn't really go out of style. Unless it is based around like a news event happening that day, then yeah, obviously you can't repurpose it. But most of the time, this is content that can be repurposed. It doesn't necessarily need to be done on that day or week. Like you could leave out certain things as you repurpose a content into a newsletter, for example, or social media videos. So what do you need to podcast I know I said, You really just need a microphone and a great idea. But there is some additional gear that you do really need is a microphone, a camera, which is optional, but since when we talked about how you would repurpose the content, it just makes life easier when you have a camera. The good thing about cameras for podcasts is and just in these days, in general, people are really forgiving of camera quality, Zoom quality, we're used to that people, like I'm guilty of exploring all of the different apps and things like that. But at the end of the day for my own podcast, I just use Zoom, because it works all the time. There's certain there's companies out there that market gear and apps and things like that to podcasters. But they don't have billions of dollars in their business like zoom does. And I've had trouble with them. I've had clients that have trouble with them. So I just at the end of the day, I just trust what works. And that's always been zoom, I've never had an issue with Zoom. And if it's good enough for Tony Robbins, it's good enough for me. And then you need an editor and not necessarily like an editor you outsource like an actual person, although it could be but a simply a way to edit the audio. There's a lot of apps and cool things out there. The main one that I love the editing service itself. Like there's no secret. This is something that I guess I wish someone had told me very early on way before podcasts. Like when I was learning, audio engineering and all that stuff. There's no like button that makes a podcast one popular or to sound professional and all that there's no secret like way to editing a podcast that then somehow converts to more listeners know, it's all about the idea at the end of the day. And that's like Russell Brunson, for example. It's not like he has an editor go back through his thing and edit out certain words that then make it perform better. No, it's just the authenticity that showed through the message. Although you do need you don't want to have a gap of audio in the beginning where it's like, hey, this took two minutes to start. So that's why I say an editor of could be GarageBand that comes for free on every Apple computer, or audacity that's a free editor for Windows and Mac, something super simple is all you need and then a hosting service. So how a podcast goes from like this. If we were starting from scratch, and we were all on this call starting our own podcast together, I would take the recording, edit it and then upload it to a hosting service. My favorite one that I use and recommend is called Buzzsprout. But they all do the same thing. They all do the same thing. So Buzzsprout is what I use and recommend. And what that does is is at its simplest version, you upload the audio to your hosting service like Buzzsprout. And then Buzzsprout publishes that to Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, I Heart Radio, all the different ways that someone listens to a podcast. Buzzsprout does that automatically. And there are really low cost these days, which is awesome, used to be expensive. These days, it's maybe 18 bucks for a couple hours of audio a month. And there are free options out there like anchor, which is a Spotify, a part of Spotify, but it I just, I recommend Buzzsprout for a couple extra features. And especially if it's something if we're talking profitable podcasting, I always feel like trying to only use free services, you know, using the right free service using GarageBand is a free service is great. It's just editing the audio, but Buzzsprout I like the functionality. And if there's any issues, they've always been great. And that's it. That's all like a hosting service. Once you set that up the first time, and it walks you through very user friendly. Once you set it up the first time. Anytime you want to upload audio, it will automatically you just drag and drop it almost like you're putting a file on Google Drive. And we'll put it on Apple, podcasts, Spotify, all that stuff. And it just walks you through title, the episode summary, that type of thing, which is really cool. I hope you enjoy part one of this three part series. In the next episode, we're going to go even deeper on this. So thank you so much for listening. If there's any part of the episode that stood out to you, I would love if you could send me a message on which part that was. If you had a groundbreaking aha moment would be super curious to know. So please share that with me. Other than that, I'll see you in the next episode for part two