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. All right, in this episode today, we're going to be talking about money, money, and podcasting, cue the Pink Floyd song, money, money. Podcasting can be expensive. If you let it, it could actually be like, Absolutely not expensive whatsoever. If you just use some free stuff like Apple headphones or used anchor, like a free podcast hosting service, and you just upload it like that. So there's like two sides of things, right? I meet people that go all in and they spend a bunch of money and I meet people that, you know, spin nothing. Typically people that I see that's been nothing. You know, I'm kind of generalizing here, but I don't recall any of the people that have spent nothing actually grow a big audience, right? Because if they're not investing in their gear, they're probably investing a lot of time somewhere else, right? So money. What you have to take into consideration when you are setting up your podcast, or even have it going, let's look at the pre published like pre launch of your podcast, some things that you have to take into consideration, right. And we're going to talk about like spending money because this would be boring if I just talked about how no one's spent any money. That would be a very short episode. But this won't be long either. So you need a microphone, you need a microphone stand, you need a way you possibly need to plug your microphone into a computer, or some type of recording device. And I like to suggest that you should have a camera, you might need lights as well. You might need a computer you need headphones. Let's break all this down. So and if you want like a more way more detailed walkthrough breakthrough of this and you're like kind of lost in this stuff. Podcasting Academy is the place to go podcasting academy.com So, microphone, the number one microphone I recommend for podcasters. To keep things easy is the Shure envy seven. As of right now that is around I think 249 on Amazon and all of the retailers, you can catch it on sale. Sometimes. When the holiday season's around, of course, there's probably more, you know, opportunities for that. Use microphones hard to say. But you need a microphone. Sure. MV seven is great because there are two types of connections. For microphones. There's an XLR, which is the opposite of is not USB. and then USB is the other USB I'm sure you're familiar with is what you plug into your computer XLR doesn't plug in your computer. So you would need some type of middle piece right an audio interface it'd be called in between your XLR microphone and your computer. If you get the Shure MB seven, you don't need to have an audio interface. You don't need anything extra, you can plug the MV seven straight into your computer, Windows or Mac doesn't matter. And you could record this on your computer. If you do have an XLR and you want to plug it into your computer, you would need that audio interface. There's this focus right is the company and Scarlett is the device there. They make a couple of ones. Um, that's a good option. There's also the VO caster one or the bow caster two depending on how many microphone inputs you need. That's a great option. And then there's like the most popular which I hear people ask me a lot about is the road caster. Most of the time the road caster is overkill. It's way more than you possibly need for for most situations. But people see it they like it. It looks cool I'm looking at right now looks awesome. But it's just overkill. Like you don't if you just you solo podcasts or you're doing interviews online, you don't really need a road caster for all of these little things. So yeah, so that's kind of a breakdown of microphones. And then the sort of the shirt MD seven is good. If that one's out of your budget, the Samsung cue to you is also a great microphone. It's better than the Blue Yeti. If you have the Blue Yeti. I'm sorry to break it to you. But this microphone that's cheaper than the Blue Yeti is better sounding than the Blue Yeti. The Blue Yeti the best part I like about that microphone. And if you look it up if you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, just Google Blue Yeti and you're like Oh yeah, that one. The best part of the Blue Yeti is the looks it's got such a great look. But I'm telling you it does not have a great sound. The Samsung cue to you is like a It's funny because when I recommend the Samsung cue to you to two people, they are like, really what's you recommending? needed something Oh, did you want like a cooler looking one, so it looks are a part of it. The Sherm V seven has the Lux game, I believe. So yeah, the q2 is great. Headphones. When it comes to headphones, it really is personal preference. Some people like over the ear, I'm not going to make any recommendations on brands for that one during this episode. But I like these ones I'm using, I believe they are sure, in ear monitors. I just like him because they're low profile doesn't look like I'm wearing headphones. I don't really like him blocky over my ears. So headphones are nice, because also, when you're doing interviews, you don't have any feedback. There's no bleed of noise. Like I can hear myself talk right now, that helps me focus for one, it also helps me know that my levels are good. So I hear similar to what you're hearing. And that's helpful for me as I'm recording. Also, then when we go to computer, you don't need a fancy computer to record, just a laptop is fine. You could even use an iPad or something like that. Just make sure that you have the proper connections. And I'm not going to go over all the connections in this. But just make sure you can plug that in. And when we talk about recording like software, the free options would be that you wouldn't need to spend a bunch of money on is like GarageBand on Mac is perfectly fine. Or if you're using something like zoom, or if you're using something like Riverside, which is a great if you're doing virtual interviews. It doesn't matter if you're on Windows or Mac. Riverside is a great, great, great, great solution for that because it records in high quality. If you have an issue with Riverside, which I have had issues with Riverside, I would highly recommend reaching out to the customer support team because they are very responsive, and they will help you worked through it. And any issues you have most of the time. All the issues I've heard about have always been able to be resolved, even after recording. So it's not like something happens and you're like but I lost all this stuff. From what I've seen, it's all been worked out double. And Riverside I forget how much the cost is. I could look at it right here though. Let's see Riverside. Pricing, the pricing is around 19 bucks a month, plans start at 19 bucks a month. And what I'm going to do actually, during this episode as well is just kind of keep track. If so if you got everything I was saying right beside the microphone. Let's say headphones, let's just say you spent $49 on headphones. I'm going to add this up at the end. And GarageBand is free for Mac. If you're on Windows and you wanted to use something like Audacity that's as well as free. They don't have GarageBand for Windows. So that wouldn't be an option. And yeah, and that is pretty much it. If you wanted a camera, that's where things get, you know, expensive. Because cameras are expensive. You could use your phone, which had that in case it'd be $0. If you use like the camera I'm using right now is the Sony ZV one. That is I believe it's around seven, I'm gonna give you the most accurate pricing right now. I believe this one is around 700 You don't need is 748 I you know, this is a nicer camera. I just use it for this. Like I don't take pictures around the way with it. But it's a great camera. You could just use your like, one camera is better than nothing. Your cell phone camera is great. Your webcam is better than no camera, right? So I'm not going to include the webcam in it in our overall price here. But it's something to be mindful of, you know, you could spend literally no money on and just use your phone or you could spend $800 There's a big, quite a big gap there. And then I also recommend podcasters who do interviews, use Calendly Calendly is an appointment Booker, right. And it makes your life easier to find a time that works for you to interview people. So how Calendly works is you send them a link, they choose a time from your schedule, and then you have control over those availability. There's no more back and forth you know, none of that stuff that's just doesn't look professional. It's not efficient, it's more time and energy for you. Let's see you Calendly pricing is so to eight bucks a month there's free but I'm just going to say the $8 one, one without going too much into here. Let's just say it was eight bucks a month. And then you would need hosting right? So let's look at Buzzsprout is one of the popular ones I recommend that starts at free but again, I'm not trying to give you the free versions of everything here because there's limitations on all these. They do. You know limits you only get two hours each month no overages. It's the app So are hosted for like 90 days, like that's just a trial. Basically it says free, but it's a trial. So the basically the standard plan that the basic plan still is $12 a month. And some of these are monthly costs, right. And some of these are one time costs. And I will factor that into the overall thing as well here. And so let's see. Yeah, so we got Buzzsprout, we got Riverside, we have got Calendly, for booking these things. And then we have got headphones, microphone, let's just say we're going to use our web camera or phone to record the video. And that is like, at the bare minimum, what we would need. And let me just look up where we're at right now as far as pricing. So the microphone and headphones are going to set us at 298. And the monthly reoccurring costs. For again, Riverside, Calendly, and Buzzsprout are going to be team plus eight plus 12 is going to be 39 a month. And let's just see, and then some bonuses. Right. So I guess right away, we're at 337, like invested, but it's $39 a month for high quality content creation. That's pretty dang good. I would say, especially when content can lead to monetization opportunities. And you could earn a heck load of a lot more than $39 a month. As someone who makes a living off content creation, I am confident in telling you that. Also it feels a little weird sometimes because I teach these things. And people are like, Well, I have to teach it to me. No, you don't have to do it. Like the way I'm doing it. This is the way I'm doing. It's not the only way, right. So you could talk about history, you don't have to like educate people, you could interview people, you don't have to be an expert or anything like that, which I'll save for a future episode. So we're not a lot invested, there's like a couple other things that I would probably recommend. Let's just say Canva pricing. Canva is a great tool to use for like graphic design, things like that, it's free to get started. You don't really need the Pro, most likely but let's just go pro while we're here, that's 1299 a month. And you get access to a lot. Canva is one of those things that when you create templates of stuff or episode, your show art, it will save like 1299 a month is nothing compared to what you would pay a graphic designer to do these tasks that you could just hop in and do really quick and make it exactly like how you want it. So Canva would be great for that. You could use you know a phonic if you wanted to use that. But that's like free for the basic. And a phonic, which is a phonic.com is basically polishes your audio. So it sounds great before it goes out to the world. But that's free in that kind of pay as you go. So you know, you get $9 or nine hours a month for 1011 bucks a month. I'm not gonna include that one. And it doesn't feel right. But that's kind of it. Like if you wanted to create little clips of your podcast, there's one I forgot there is one I forgot. Sorry. Two more actually. So descript is another one that's super useful. You could record your podcast in the script, or you could just use it for editing. But you can also make social media content for all that stuff. And we'll go off the monthly, you get 10 hours for 15 bucks a month, I highly recommend a script. If you follow me on social media, you know, I recommend it like feels like once a week, but for sure once a month. The script is amazing changes the game of of editing. So the script is awesome. If you didn't use the script, I would recommend something like otter.ai, which is a transcription tool that makes transcription of your audio then you can easily use that for boosting your SEO when you upload to Buzzsprout. But you don't need otter if you've got descript because odd descript makes Trent excuse me, descriptive makes a transcript of your episode as well. So that would be like two tools serving the same purpose. So you only really need to script for that. One of the it's not one or the other. They don't do the same thing with the script. It creates a transcript but you edit it using text based. It's kind of hard to describe. But check out the script if you're interested in that. And then otter it just makes a transcript If you don't edit your podcast using otter, and that is it. So those extras, if you factor those in, you'd be looking at. I feel like a car salesman right now. You'd basically be looking at 67 bucks a month if you got added in Canva, and descript. But all of these things do so much more than just podcasting. Right? We're talking Yeah, Buzzsprout is, yeah, simply just podcast hosting service. But Canva, like you're making things that could go up for social media, you're creating content, you can use like these tools across the board, like Canva and descript. Right, you can make little clips for social media using descript. Or, you know, Riverside, it's like, think about the impressions you're making, when you ask a guest to come on. And they just effortlessly book through your county link. And then you talk to them on Riverside, and everything's like yours, you uploaded your logo that you made in Canva, to your Riverside thing. And when they come in, they see your logo, they're like, Wow, you've really doing this, like professional, all of those things make a difference. And I know that you care about like, you know, appearances on some level, if your house or your office, I look at the stuff like a virtual office, right, or a virtual studio. That's what Riverside is, for example, like a virtual recording studio. All of these things support that. And it helps you get your message out there. It helps set you up for monetization opportunities. And all of that for you know, $3 for the gear, plus the cost of like, whatever your laptop was, or iPad, that varies, of course, so much. And then $39 a month for like just the bare bones or 67 a month for your absolute like this. You've got like pro stuff that I use and recommend. So I hope this helps break down what kind of like budget would look like around podcasting. if I missed anything, please let me know. If there is any more questions you have, please let me know. And if you want like a more like click this link, step by step guide, check out Podcasting Academy where I go deeper into this stuff. Alright, I will see you in the next episode, where we're going to talk about scheduling. And how do you schedule efficiently? How do you coordinate all the schedules? Right? Scheduling is a huge time suck. In podcasting. I get it. It sucks. I hate scheduling. And we talked about Calendly and here but that's not the only solution. And that's not I didn't explain enough about how to utilize it in a way that makes no sense. So I want you to become a scheduling Pro and we will cover what you need to know in the next episode. All about that. All right. Hope you're doing great. I will talk to you soon.