New York Plans?

Jordan

I saw that Arielle Nissenblatt is doing a podcast tour of New York. Like she's like guiding a tour. And I'm so mad because it's gonna be on Wednesday. And I think we're flying in on Wednesday. And so I think I'm gonna miss it.

Alban

You're gonna miss the podcast tour. I'm gonna miss the podcast tour. You could still go see like the Statue of Liberty, and you could go down and see, you know, the big New York sites, the Brooklyn Bridge.

Jordan

I went to New York when I was like in high school. It was like for an art thing. And like, so I saw Statue of Liberty, you know, it's okay. But we are actually really close to Times Square. And I saw that Podcast Movement is actually putting like the people, the attendees and stuff up on a billboard on Times Square. Like they rented a Times Square billboard.

Alban

That's funny. So we'll have to go down and get some selfies with it.

Theme Music

Here we go.

Using AI to Develop a Conference Pitch

Jordan

Welcome back to Buzzcast, the podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. So next week, Alban, you and I are going to be in New York City for Podcast Movement 2026.

Alban

Yeah, we have been going for, I don't know, 12, 13 years. Every year that Podcast Movement has been doing Podcast Movement, we've gone. And now they've merged with Sounds Profitable. And so they're gonna have them in New York. It sounds like it might be in New York full-time going forward. So direct flight for us, or at least for me, I'll fly up there, spend a couple days, uh, hopefully meet a ton of creators, make some friends in the industry. And yeah, it'll be it'll be good to see, you know, how we you know shift things and how things change with Podcast Movement.

Jordan

I love podcast conferences. This is my jam. And so I was really pumped to be able to go to the Podcast Movement in New York because I've all the ones I've gone to, it's always like Dallas, Nashville, like it's it's all in the south. And so I'm excited to be in the northeast. Like I think it's still gonna be really hot, but you know, whatever.

Alban

One of my highlights is going to be that you are speaking, and I don't know if yet I should tell what you're talking about because of what I want to do with this episode. Uh you now have pitched I think like three or four talks in a row that have all been accepted for different podcasting conferences. So this feels to me like a hidden area of expertise that you've developed. And off air, I'm asking you about it because I submitted a talk, mine wasn't accepted, and then yours was. And I was like, Oh, what did you put in there? Uh, what were the ideas? What are the takeaways? And you're like, oh, I did that in like 15 minutes with Chat GPT. Let me go through it. I go, hold on, let's do this on a podcast.

Jordan

So it sounds bad when you say it like that.

Alban

No, it sounds good because it means that something you did is resonating, and I would like to figure it out. And so in this episode, what I'd like to do is kind of walk through what did this process looked like as it's not like the talk 100% came out of 15 minutes of work. It's that you did, you know, years and years of podcasting, and then in 15 minutes pulled a few threads together to make a talk. But I'd like to hear, you know, in your own words, what it took to put this talk together.

Finding Your Strongest Ideas in Your Transcripts

Jordan

So what happened was Podcast Movement, because it was done a little bit differently this year, I wasn't sure when they were going to open up speaker applications. And then they opened it up, and then the deadline was like super quick. And I was in just a time in my life where I had no extra time. Like I did not have the bandwidth to like just really think and ruminate on what should my talk be? What's what's my next great idea? Right. I I didn't have the space for that. And so it was one of those things where like the deadline snuck up on me. And I actually like just was inspired by some of the episodes that we've done. You know, the one where Kevin talked about how to export your transcripts and kind of pull information from Chat GPT about you as a person, about you as a podcaster, you know, like what kind of things you can work on. And then um, also we did that great episode about content repurposing that goes beyond just like, you know, books or whatever. And so what I did was I exported all of our Buzzcast transcripts and I put them into Chat GPT. And I actually was able to develop like a session pitch that I really liked based on one of the episodes that I really enjoyed doing in like 10 minutes, which I desperately needed for this season. So the fact that it was accepted just made me feel like, oh, thank goodness that worked.

Alban

Did you did you write this pitch?

Jordan

I did, I did write the pitch, but it was like, it was one of those things where I had Chat GPT, and I'll kind of go through it this episode, like what steps I took in order to do this. But um, yeah, I had just ChatGPT like pulled together and it created like a bunch of different options. And I was like, yeah, that was the episode that I really liked. That would be an awesome session. And then just kind of like worked out like what takeaways would be and stuff like that. And to make it even more fun, I actually did this same treatment on uh some of our listeners' podcasts. Like so the people who are writing in all the time, like you're probably gonna hear your name come up because I exported all your transcripts and just ran everything.

Alban

Wait, did they know that you did this?

Jordan

No, they don't know. So surprise.

Alban

I had no knowledge of this. So if anybody doesn't like it, uh, send a fan mail into Jordan only.

Jordan

Yes, and hate mail.

Alban

All right. So you you grabbed all your transcripts, uh, you threw them into Chat GPT. What did you ask it when you start developing this talk?

Jordan

So when I threw it into Chat GPT, I didn't want it to think that your ideas or Kevin's ideas were my ideas, if that makes sense. So I had to say, like, only focus on like the points that you know Jordan brings up or whatever. And um, I also had it kind of find like the strongest angles that I have because I don't know if you feel this way, Alban. A lot of times when I go into these sessions or when I'm like developing a session, I a lot of times feel like I'm not saying anything that hasn't been heard before, or I'm just kind of like beating the same drum that everyone else is beating, or I've seen this talk before. But like the thing is, is like you have your own unique experiences and you have your own unique perspectives. And a lot of times there are people that will approach the exact same topic or the exact same problem from a different angle. Right. And maybe your angle is gonna be the one that like reaches people.

Alban

Uh, years ago, one of the very best talks I ever went to uh was at a marketing conference, and I think it was like the head of marketing for Asana, the project management software. And all he did was like 10 lessons of growing to a hundred million annual recurring revenue. Something, you know, there were 10 lessons. And he's just going through these lessons, none of them stood out as like, wow, this is like a life hack that you could instantly apply to your business. But one of them was I at that time was getting all these requests for custom contracts. And with my background as an attorney, it was like we could make custom contracts. Oh, you know, we'll do an amendment for you and we could work them out. Everybody would request them and we'd often politely decline, even though we would get a lot of pushback. And then I went into this talk, and one of them was the only way we were able to scale is because we just said no custom terms. Like if there was anything that was really important, we would write it into the contract for everybody, into the terms of service. If there was something we thought we were doing that we shouldn't be doing, and we'd make that change for everybody, but we weren't going to maintain all these separate, you know, agreements. And I was like, oh, I just got permission from somebody at a much bigger company. We can just say no. And it was like totally free. And there are all these little lessons in this little talk. And again, like all of them are things I could have looked up online. I could have just typed into Google and said, hey, do other people do custom contracts? And said, Yeah, a lot of SaaS products don't. But there's something about being there and seeing a person, and they're a few steps ahead of you, and then they can just tell you what you're doing right now, this stuff makes sense, this stuff could be improved. Here's a suggestion. And I find that to be like the most valuable way to learn in person, hearing from someone who's a little bit beyond a peer, and they're just giving you maybe it could even be advice you've already heard. But when you get it in that context, I think it's very freeing so that you can go, okay, I'm gonna just take this advice and go do the thing I thought was so good.

Jordan

That's exactly what I was thinking too, because there's so many times that you just hear like the same advice over and over again. But every now and then you get someone who goes up there and they have like an anecdote that really drives it in and it reminds you of like the importance of whatever that tip or that strategy is. And so it is important to hear different perspectives. So what I do is I pulled in all of the transcripts from Buzzcast, said, Hey, like ignore Alban and Kevin, just focus on me. Standard, naturally. And I ask it, what topics do I seem knowledgeable and passionate about? Because if you know something really well and you have a passion for it, it's so much easier to write a talk about it. Another thing that I ask is where do I offer a distinct perspective? And this is for the reason that we just talked about. And what stories or examples could I build a session around? And this is a question I really like because sometimes when we are just sort of like brain dumping on a podcast because we're in conversation, we're in the flow of things, we can forget that we use like a really good example or we had a really great anecdote, or you know, we had researched something two years ago that I had forgotten about now. But I'm like, oh, that was actually a really great story. And I can use that in my talk. And it's a lot easier if it actually like quotes the transcript. And then I can go to that episode because I'll I'll ask it too like what episode was this from? And I can go to the episode and command F and like search for whatever the statement was and double check that it was me that said it.

Alban

Yeah, I like uh getting the links back to the transcript so that you can make sure this is really something I've said. This is a real anecdote that I have. It is powerful. You've been talking about podcasting for years. So there's just lots of stories, there's lots of thoughts, there's lots of things you've thought through and worked on. And just to have something pull it all back and say, hey, here seem to be three or four pretty strong angles that you've had throughout. I know there's tons of like poor takes and there's lots of things that just didn't land right. And like I'm sure there's times you can hear me fumbling around trying to make a point that doesn't really work. But then you're just not trying, you're not trying to get everything perfect. You're now just going back and finding like, okay, out of three years, gotten three good points in there.

Jordan

Yeah.

Alban

And there probably is a lot of good stuff.

Jordan

And what's so cool is that you can actually pull from like different episodes. So, you know, the thing is, is we're we're just we're we're talking about all this stuff. And like you said, it's it's just a lot of information coming out. And what we want to do for these sessions or these public speaking engagements is to distill that information down into like a more concise manner. And so it's really cool to be able to pull from different episodes that you've done and say, like, you know, I actually made a really good point here, and I actually made a really good point here. And oh, you know, I had talked about call to actions back when we did an episode about monetization or back when we did an episode about dynamic content. Like there's there's all these different things I can pull from to put together a really solid talk. And so if it's pulling in, like, well, it seems like you talk about call to actions a lot, or it seems like you talk about uh sponsorships a lot, or it just seems like you talk about how to create podcast artwork or, you know, like sound design or something like that. And so from that, I can go, you know what? Actually, I had a conversation with a few people at the last podcast conference that I went to, where they were talking about having struggles with getting listeners to like do what they were asking, like saying, like, you know, I turn on fan mail, how do I get them to uh actually write in? Or I have these uh affiliate links. How do I get them to actually use the affiliate links? Because, you know, I know they're buying the stuff, they're clicking through. Like, how do I get them to do this? And so I thought to myself, like, okay, well, we did a great episode on how to get listeners to actually do what you ask, which sounds like kind of a cool session topic too. Yeah. And so from that, I was able to like pull that in, decide.

Alban

Cool. Okay. I like how you found this. I didn't know where the how do you get your listeners to do what you want them to do topic. But that makes sense now what I'm hearing three or four different places that you've talked about this in different contexts. So you're gonna have a few different stories.

Defining Who Your Talk Is For

Alban

How much work are you doing around defining the audience? Are you doing that just on your own since the audience for Buzzcast and the audience for the conference are similar?

Jordan

Yeah.

Alban

I mean, they're pretty identical, honestly. But did you put any of that in there?

Jordan

Yeah, that's the nice thing about like having these like really niche conferences that you want to speak at, is it's probably going to align pretty well with who your audience is. I know that at Podcast Movement, there are a lot of like industry professionals and stuff like that. And so I think it would be really easy for Chat GPT to be like, oh, this is for Podcast Movement. And then they put together some sort of session that would be more industry forward. But the thing is, is Buzzcast is not really industry forward. We are really looking at the indie creators, the people who are just honing their craft or getting started or just trying to like level up. And so I just told it, okay, so now I have the talk about uh call to actions and things like that. And so, like, you know, here's here's what I want to do. I need to submit a session to Podcast Movement. And I am doing this specifically for the creators. I want this to reach the people that have already started a podcast and are struggling to get listeners to do what they want. You know, they they might have too many call to actions in their episodes or they don't know where to put a call to action or how to word it. And then it's cool because when they have call for uh speakers at these conferences, it's always like an online form. And they will have listed specifically what they want you to do for the session. And so you define, you know, what the what track it would be in. You they say, you know, is this going to be a solo talk or a panel or a workshop or, you know, some sort of group thing, or is it gonna be multiple speakers? And so you can tell Chat GPT, you know, I'm gonna do a solo talk. It's 20 minutes long, and I need to figure out what is like feasible for me to do within this 20 minutes, and we'll kind of work through it.

Alban

Jordan, I like that you avoided the panel. The last few conferences I've been to, not just podcast conferences, all types of conferences. I think we need to have like a ban on panels. It really is. I don't know what it is. Like it seems like a good idea. It's like, wow, if we could have we have one expert and like she's top of her field. We got another expert. Let's get them both on there. Oh, we actually have four. Well, now we could actually get somebody who's a little bit more junior and we could get them in there. So now there's five experts up there. That's gonna be at least five times better than one person giving a talk. And my take is a panel is kind of like the group project of like speaking gigs.

Jordan

Yes.

Alban

And it's like nobody can prepare for this very well. You're gonna get the person who writes the questions, and then they'll tell people, hey, I'm gonna give you this question. And all you end up with is like somebody says something, kind of a basic answer, and then the other experts are kind of like, Well, I kind of need to also agree with that just to show that I also know this. I don't know. They go off the rails so fast.

Jordan

It feels like a pageant. Yes.

Alban

And it's not that they're not good speakers, it's that the format just does not lend itself to like learning a lot quickly. I really I also am not a fan of the fireside chat. I think that only exists so that if you have somebody who's really famous come and speak, they don't have to prepare anything. You know, there've been tons of really big podcasters who've come to Podcast Movement and spoken, and they've actually done talks. Those are awesome. Every once in a while you'll go to a conference and it'll be like, oh, Mark Cuban showed up. And like they just kind of sit up there and someone chats with them about whatever they're up to in the podcasting world. Like they didn't prepare anything. So it's just kind of like off the cuff, they came up with some answers, but not a thing they are really gonna say is as interesting as a talk that was prepared and thought through. All that to say, I'm with you. Thank you for not doing another panel. I'm uh an anti-panel.

Jordan

I know. Well, we did a panel a few years ago. It was in Dallas, and I prepared for it. And I remember thinking, this is hard to prepare for because if there is like three or four of us, and then we have a moderator that is asking the questions. I know that if we only have like 15, 20 minutes for this panel, that means for all these questions, I have like 30 seconds to 60 seconds to answer it. And it's so hard to actually go deep into, you know, giving uh texture and like nuance to a story to give it depth, to have it land better with the audience. Like it's just it's so hard. So I agree with you. Like it's it's difficult.

Alban

And there's lots of handoffs, and then you're worrying, did I speak too much or do I seem kind of dumb because I didn't answer?

Jordan

Yeah.

Alban

So you've got 20 minutes for this talk.

Jordan

Yeah, got 20 minutes all to myself.

Alban

That feels good. A lot of times I think people bite off a little bit too much uh for the talk. So they'll say, like, how to take your podcast from zero listeners to full monetization and they've got like 25 minutes. Like I don't think no matter who you were and what experiences you had, your ability to take people through that much of a journey in 25 minutes is going to be difficult. But if you're saying 20 minutes, I'm going to walk you through multiple areas where we're trying to get people to take action while they're listening to a podcast. Let's talk about the problems, let's talk about the solutions, what are the best practices, what are some good stories? Like I'm confident that's a promise that at the end of the talk you would be able to deliver. There's some promises that when they they stand out to me as like the promise is way too big. And now I don't believe that this talk is gonna have much that can really it can deliver on.

Jordan

Well, so I actually learned this lesson from last year. Maybe no, it was still this year. Oh my gosh, this year's gone so fast. There was a talk I did earlier this year, I think, and it was about how to monetize your podcast regardless of how many downloads you get, right? And I had gotten an email that my talk would be um 35 minutes or something like that. It was like 35 or 40 minutes. And I was like, wow, that's big. And so I was covering sponsorships, I was covering affiliate marketing, I was covering support, I was covering subscriptions, and I had the whole gamut. I'm gonna talk through how to pitch your podcast as sponsors and then like how do you get paid by them? I was going through everything. And then I get to the conference and I hear that, oh no, it's actually 25 minutes or something like that. And I was sitting at our booth cutting like cards of my slideshow. And it went so fast, and I felt like I was just making the audience drink from a fire hose the whole time. Cause I'm like, I'm gonna tell you everything there is to know about this. And it was just like so much information. I was like, you better take a picture of the slide. Like, we're going. And that's great. I mean, the thing is, is like I learned from that and I thought, okay, I know that I have 20 minutes. Like, we're going to niche down. We're going to have one really solid takeaway. And that's what we're going to stick to. And that's going to be my promise. And I swear they're going to walk away with just like this one thing being a little bit better.

Choosing a Topic You’re Excited to Teach

Theme Music

All right.

Alban

So once you've got a few ideas, how did you pick the one that you picked?

Jordan

Okay. So yeah, once it um generates a bunch of like session ideas for you, you can just look through it. It'll have like title, it'll have the summary, it'll have the quick takeaways that the audience will walk away with from that talk. And it's easy to kind of like just browse through them and see if any of them excite you or see if you have firsthand experience that you feel really confident in talking about. That, you know, like, do I have enough anecdotes and stories to back up these kind of claims or these kind of ideas? And you also want to look at them. And, you know, like I mentioned earlier, uh, you want to make sure that it's niche down enough that you can actually give that talk in the amount of time. So it's kind of scary to do sessions that are a little bit more like complex. You kind of want to stick to something that's a little bit more simple or something that is just based on um like one idea or one story that you can kind of elaborate on and spend some time with.

Alban

Yeah. It's better to have one idea you can fully flesh out and attack from different angles rather than trying to overdo it and try to gram too much into a single session. So, what did you pick? What hit you out of these? You know, you've got all these ideas from Chat GPT. How did you know when you had the right one?

Jordan

Basically, what happened was I was looking through the session ideas and stuff, and I saw the one about how to get listeners to actually do what you ask, which was identical to the Buzzcast episode that we did. That was the title of it. And I was like, oh, I loved that episode. And it was cool because then it pulled in some other things that where I had talked about like getting listeners to do what you ask through call to actions and things like that. And I saw that and it just it got me excited. I think that's really what you need to lean into is in your gut, if you go, ooh, I love this idea. I'm excited to talk about this. I can see the slideshow in my brain. I can think of all the talks I can do. Oh, there's this one really cool quote. And I know the story that I can pull in if I need to. And I feel like when you see those and you go, oh, that's right, that would be a good session. That's kind of like a good sign, right? Yeah. Like if you're excited to talk about it.

Alban

I think that so much of this, I really hope people don't hear it and take away, oh, you can use ChatGP to write a session pitch for you. Because that really isn't gonna work. What does work is if you've taken the time and put out hundreds of episodes with all sorts of, you know, stories and experiences around these one area, it might pull out, hey, here's a few themes. And still, even when it pulls out all those themes, a bunch of them just don't land for you. And one of them does have the emotional resonance that needs to have. You go, oh, I did do a talk on that. I did like that episode. There's three or four different pieces. I'm starting to see how the strings could all come together. I'm seeing the slides in my mind, and now it's time to make the talk,

Writing A Session Pitch

Alban

right? So now you kind of are pulled it together. What do you do to put this talk together?

Jordan

It was really quick. So, one of the things that I had ChatGBT do, I said, you know what? I actually love this session idea. This really excites me. And so I asked for like a fuller draft. I wanted to flesh out a bit more of like what that talk would look like. I thought about, you know, what kind of things we could touch on. And so I would like type that in. I would give like ideas for like quotes, or if I knew like historical stories that I wanted to pull into it, or, you know, maybe instead of focusing on this angle of it, actually let's just drill down into this aspect, you know, and so you can kind of like fine-tune it and say, hey, I really like this session idea, but let's flush it out a bit more and let's actually make this into what would be a good pitch for this and making sure that I'm hitting all the notes and all the bases that I need to for people to look at that and say, yeah, that's that sounds awesome. Like make it not boring, please.

Alban

Well, it sounds like it worked because you submitted the not boring talk and a bunch of people went and voted for it and it got picked. And so if people want to listen to this talk, the best way to do that is to come over to Podcast Movement. Um,

Finding Talk Ideas in Our Listeners’ Podcasts

Alban

you went through and you listened to some of our listeners' podcasts and you went through this process. So I'm kind of interested, what did you come up with here?

Jordan

Yeah, so this was actually really fun. I did this like at night, actually. I was just, I was having so much fun with it. I was like sitting on my couch in my pajamas and just like cranking out these like transcripts and like did this whole treatment. So the first one that I have is Sara from Wish I Known Then. Sara's show is for like indie writers. And so I thought that this would be like a really good jumping off point because there's tons of conferences for writers, right? But it was cool because she has a co-host on her podcast. And so I was able to clarify like only pull from Sara's uh stories or from her knowledge. And it said, um, so what does she know well? She knows designing and sustaining fiction series, character arcs, reader expectations, spin-offs, and endings. What seems to motivate her the most? Maintaining creative independence and enjoyment while connecting with readers. And where does she offer a distinct perspective? Connecting story craft to the experience of buying and receiving a book. And what could she teach beyond familiar marketing advice? How to evaluate opportunities by workload, creative satisfaction, and reader value, not just sales. So we're already off to a good start here. And actually, uh, I threw the pitch that I developed with Chat GPT into our outline. If you want to read that.

Alban

All right. So this is the launch that earned less and gave me time to write. And the idea is what happens when the launch that brings in less money is the one that you'd rather repeat.

Jordan

It sounds fun.

Alban

I think about this a lot with creative endeavors that at some point you do something that's just a hobby and it gets to a place where you might actually make some money. And you can go one of two ways. You can go and stay on the I'm doing my hobby, and now my hobby makes money path. And even if it's making, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars, you're still on the this is the thing I love to do path.

Jordan

Yeah.

Alban

There also is another path, which is the how do I optimize so much that I've kind of optimized my own joy out of it. And I feel like I've heard this story from YouTubers so many times. They're like, I basically figured out what the algorithm wanted, and I just kept doing that and doing that. And then three years later, I realized I hadn't done a video I enjoyed in years. So I'd imagine a lot of people who are writing books might be in a similar spot. And so this idea of what happens when the launch is the one that that brings in less money is the one I'd rather repeat. That hooks me for sure.

Jordan

Yeah.

Alban

And so the idea would be she's talking about the lessons from running her own Kickstarter campaigns, launching special editions, doing fulfillment, uh, working with indie creators, all that being pulled together into this talk.

Jordan

Yeah. Which is just from her episode, from her podcast. Like this is just her podcast. And I think it's a great session idea.

Alban

What we need is for anyone that we give, we read off your name, you've got to write in. And one, tell us, are you okay that Jordan took your your transcripts and made you some talks? But two, what does this talk land with you? Yeah. Does it is it something that you could see yourself giving?

Jordan

Uh the next one that I have here, I love and I want this to happen so badly.

Theme Music

Okay.

Jordan

Okay. Who is it? So this is uh for Matt from Girl Dad Nation. What does he know well? Everyday connection with young daughters, routines, encouragement, shared activities, and expressing affection. What seems to motivate him the most? Helping his daughters feel loved and helping other dads enjoy participating in their children's lives. Where does he offer a distinct perspective? Fatherhood for the eyes of a filmmaker, deliberately capturing what you want your children to know. And what could he teach beyond generic parenting advice? How to make affection visible, build manageable family rituals, and learn alongside other dads. So I think this might be my favorite one, and maybe it's because I'm a girl mom. I don't know. But do you want to read the pitch for Matt's talk?

Alban

Sure. So the pitch here is two stickers in a lunchbox, small acts that build connection. 15-minute talk about what are the um small moments that offer a starting point for practical conversations about expressing love with everyday routines. And attendees are going to leave with three actions, choose one existing routine where they can give a child intentional attention, add a simple expression of affection or encouragement, and invite a child to extend that kindness to someone else. So is the idea of the two stickers that one is for your child and one is for them to pass on to another kid.

Jordan

This talk actually draws from an episode in which he talked about how he put two stickers into his daughter's lunchbox and she gave it to a friend that day. She gave her extra sticker to someone and that person became her friend. Or as someone who is like a parenting coach or counselor. And you go to that, and it's just a reminder that these little things can have like a trickle-down effect. So yeah, I just I love this one so much. Okay, so the last one I have is for the Link Bloomer actor. So this is David John Clark, who writes in all the time. And he has a podcast about like getting into acting later in life. Um, so what does he know well? The practical organization behind an acting career, materials, training, tracking auditions, and communicating professionally. What seems to motivate him the most is helping people begin or keep going when they think they've missed their opportunity. Where does he offer a distinctive perspective? Uh, being an experienced adult while becoming a beginner in a new profession. And what unexpected material could become a talk. He has lessons from bodybuilding, his response to discouraging audition feedback, and creating films with his son, which is really fun. I actually, there was a talk that I thought about doing, and it was about like what creating a film with his son taught him about acting. And it would have all these like takeaways. And I was like, oh, I really like that one, but I actually like really like this one too. So um, David, if you want to reach out to me, I've got some ideas for you. Um but yeah, Alban, do you want to read the pitch that uh I did work on?

Alban

Yeah, I like this idea. Between bookings, how to see progress when you're not getting cast. Um, when bookings are scarce, how do you tell whether your acting career is moving forward or whether or not it's stalled? And he explores how recognizing work can disappear from view and success is only measured by getting the role. I mean, yeah, this sounds very familiar to stuff we talk about on this show or that I just didn't experience in my professional life. It's very easy to get over focused on outcomes. If you're only focused on outcomes, you're not going to do the work that you need to do to actually get those outcomes. Um so this talk participants will sketch their own simple career tracker and practice reviewing it to identify a useful next step. Attendees will be able to record auditions, training, outreach, completed work in one place, review progress beyond bookings without treating busyness as success. Oh, that's good. And choose one practical priority for the next month. You know, this is pretty much what uh this is the talk I think a lot of people need when they're looking for a job. It's like so like all you want is the outcome. I just need a job. And like there's hundreds and hundreds of like uh finding jobs that would be a good fit, submitting applications, going through, you know, doing some interviews, following up on the interviews, all this stuff. And it's pretty much like, did you get it or not? And so you can't really tell, am I making progress towards this goal or am I like still stuck at like step number one? So uh this is great. I love this.

Jordan

Yeah. And what was really cool was I was able to specify, like, hey, when we're looking for conferences, let's look at them in Australia. And so this is specifically for the AACTA Festival 2027. And they actually have sessions where you can actually do work, like is it very interactive. And so it was it was really fun to do this. Like, I want him to do this so bad.

Alban

Jordan, this is awesome. I think that it's easy to lose sight that probably a lot of our audience would be great speakers for conferences. You have an area of expertise, you've really developed your speaking voice, not just, you know, like your physical projection, speaking voice, but your own style, your own thoughts. And it's probably really the last piece in this step is kind of going through those transcripts, pulling out a few topic ideas, and then finding a conference, which those pieces, it sounds like you were able to get with these prompts some pretty good results out of AI. So I would love it if more of our audience were giving talks. I'm sure most of you would do a fantastic job.

Jordan

Yes.

Alban

If they have uh some ideas and they want to run them by you, are you open to getting some requests here?

Jordan

Absolutely. Yeah. If if they want to like hit me up for this, I'm I'm all for it.

Alban

Okay. Well, these don't have to be live. If you don't want it to be on the next episode of Buzzcast, uh, you can tell her. But hit the fan mail button, write in, tell her about your podcast, send her a link, and Jordan will help you come up with some ideas. I would love to find out in a year or two that this episode kind of spurred a few people to go and give a talk about their podcast.

Fan Mail And Directory Submission Wins

Jordan

Let's get into some fan mail. So, first up, we have a message from Susie from Wander World School. And this is about our keeping podcasts weird episode, which we've had a lot of people write in about it. I'm really excited about that. She said, I love podcasts that do their own thing. My weird thing is my fun lightning round questions at the end of the episode. I know others do it, but I love this part of my recordings.

Alban

I like that too, Susie, because there's a lot of podcasts, like you kind of get into a flow and you then you kind of know, oh, uh, Tim Ferris is gonna ask for three book recommendations. And then at the end of the episode, you're like, yeah, I kind of am looking forward now through this whole episode to hearing the three book recommendations or whatever comes up in those lightning rounds. So I like, I like keeping that. That's a good idea.

Jordan

Yeah, this actually reminds me a little bit of remember when we did the uh repurposing episode, I talked about how Diary of CEO had conversation cards that were based on how at the end of every episode he asked these people to write a question for the next guest. And so this kind of it feels like it's in the same vein, like just a fun thing that is sort of like a ritual for your podcast. So I like that.

Alban

All right, and then we got another fan mail from Andrew.

Andrew

Hello, folks, it's Andrew Martin here from the Family Histories podcast. Thank you so much for making changes to your directory listing page, because for years I've wanted to be listed on iHeartRadio, but I've not been able to because I'm sat here in the UK and the iHeartRadio website blocks me from accessing it. And that's whether I would click through from your old page design, you would have to go to their website and it would block you. But now with your page redesign, I've pressed the button and apparently I'm listed. Unfortunately, I can't check that I'm listed because I still can't access the iHeartRadio website because I'm sad in the UK. But I trust you. Thank you for making it better.

Jordan

You know what? I actually went and checked, and you are in fact listed in iHeartRadio. So congratulations, Andrew.

Alban

Is there a legal reason why iHeart isn't uh available in the UK?

Jordan

No idea.

Alban

Maybe there's something about like radio stations being rebroadcast or what it might be. But Andrew, you're listed and you're getting even more listeners across uh the pond over here in the United States. So we're glad to help your podcast get out to the world.

Jordan

You know, it's funny because this one-click submission thing, I that it didn't occur to me that that would actually resolve a lot of issues of people having to go to like out of Buzzsprout to websites. Like I was thinking about it from a um convenience perspective. Yeah. I wasn't actually thinking about like how it adds more ability to lists. So that's cool.

Alban

I mean, for us, the big difference is people were not doing it. We could go look at the data. People were like, uh, there's like two extra steps. I've never heard of this app. I'm good. And yet we would look at it and go, that's actually a pretty decent sized app. You may not be aware of it, and you know, and you might hear the big name of some big company that has a podcast and go, Oh, I've got to get in there, when they may not have been as important in the podcasting space. So it's just a great way for us to get people everywhere and take care of that entire load of problems.

Jordan

Absolutely.

Alban

All right, we got another listener. Uh, Magnus sent us fan mail as well.

Magnus

Hello, I just love this podcast, and I'm myself a best brow user for my Mandolin Secrets podcast. And uh, I just want to say thanks for a great show, and I'm getting a lot of inspiration and value out of this. So thank you guys. By the way, my name is Magnus Sedlund. I live in Sweden.

Jordan

Our listeners have the best accents. What is that?

Alban

You know, I've been spending too much time with Tom. That as soon as he said Mandolin, I was hearing Mandalorian, like the Star Wars characters. Mandolin, the instrument, which makes much more sense.

Jordan

I saw a video and it was him playing like mandolin jazz with this guy, and it was like, it was so cool. It's awesome. So, but thank you, Magnus.

Alban

It will never get like less surprising that a show that we started, you know, years ago and never has had a bigger audience. I mean, the biggest episodes ever were like three to five thousand plays. I don't think of it being as a worldwide show, and yet we're getting fan mail from the US and from the UK and from Sweden and from Australia. And it's awesome just to hear your voices and all these people who are real people who are listening to this show. Um it's a huge encouragement to us. It's probably why of everything we've ever built, fan mail is one of my favorite features because it is a kind of a gift to ourselves that we get to feel like, oh, these aren't just numbers, and whether they're up or down a little bit isn't what really matters. Really, what matters is people like Magnus and Andrew and Susie and a bunch of other people are all writing in and telling us about what's going on in their lives and that they like the podcast.

Jordan

All right. Well, thank you everyone for listening. And until next time, keep podcasting.

Post Show: Very Late Pickups

Alban

So, Jordan, like two weeks ago, your daughter got lost on the school bus. She was on the school bus, but they put her on the wrong school bus or something, right?

Jordan

Yeah, they they they just left our school. She was lost.

Alban

And we're we're talking, we talk about it, and we came up with the idea that Amazon should be now doing school buses. And this uh more than any other post show got a bunch of feedback. So I wanted to read some of it to you.

Jordan

Sounds great.

Alban

Uh, first at Anchorage, Alaska. Albin, your faith in Amazon's ability to deliver packages is highly overrated. I say this as somebody who's had multiple packages lost by Amazon. These aren't necessarily packaged, they're shipped with third-party carriers, but shipped on their own aircraft. And then just an in-depth uh review of what happened with a laser printer and then with a laser printer printer tray, which I assume is for the same printer, uh, both being shipped, not shipped, being something's wrong, it's stuck at a warehouse, and then maybe or maybe does not show up.

Jordan

Well, okay, so this Anchorage Alaska thing, I feel like that's probably just an Alaska thing. Like, I don't want to diminish their problems, but I feel like this is an Alaska thing. You're you're out there, man.

Alban

Yeah, that this is why it's good for us to have your area code and where we figure out where it's from because we went on a cruise in Alaska, like, I don't know, 10 years ago. And everybody was talking about how expensive it was to buy like anything large, like tires. And they're like, oh, to get it shipped here, it's so expensive. But you know what we all do? We all just go and we buy it on Amazon because Amazon, when you have Prime, will just include it, and they're the ones paying the like $200 a tire for shipping. And so that's always been in my brain is like, I don't know if Anchorage is has these problems, or if this was like the smaller town we were in. But as soon as I saw Anchorage, I was like, you're you are out there. We're out in the we're in the continental United States, we're in like the middle, we're like 20 minutes away from an Amazon warehouse. We might have a different experience.

Jordan

Yeah, yeah. I'm I'm in ground zero for Amazon warehouses here, so it's no problemo. I haven't lost a package in years.

Alban

And we're not looking to ship any kids like cross country with Amazon, we're looking for like 14 minute drive. Around the corner, which is kind of like the Amazon bread and butter.

Jordan

It's true.

Alban

But if that didn't work, we had somebody from Mississippi who said the entire tracking conversation about your kids getting lost on the bus. I just say buy some air tags and throw them in their backpack or put them on their in their shoes. Batteries last about a year.

Jordan

Okay, this is actually a really great idea. However, I looked into air tags because I also had this thought of like, well, I'll just sew an air tag into her backpack. And the problem is, is air tags don't have their own GPS thing. They actually have to ping off of something every 15 minutes. And so if it's every 15 minutes, it's not real time. Like I have no idea. She's just gonna be showing like she's at the school for like 30 minutes, and I'm gonna have no idea if she's actually on the bus or not.

Alban

So but it would be positive if she's like an hour late. You'd be like, oh, where is she? Oh, looks like she's on the road. That's probably a bus. 15 minutes later, you see a different spot. Like you'd have some, you'd have a little bit of an update.

Jordan

It's true. But the problem is, is like her school is a seven-minute drive from our house. So it's under the 15 minutes. And yeah, we actually last week the bus just like didn't show up. And like it was an hour before we got her again. I was just like, wow.

Alban

There's so bad. There also was uh one point I bought some air tags and I did not want to be like replacing these batteries constantly, and it just seemed kind of wasteful. But also, like I just want to throw it in my backpack and never think about it again. And I wanted one in the bag that I use when I travel, never think about it again. And so I found online there's a company that has like, I think they call it like the 10-year air tag. And basically it's you take the air tag piece, and then they just have like double-A batteries in there that it like connects to the air tag piece, and then it's just kind of powers this air tag for a really long time. I bought them a few years ago, it sat in my bag, and now when you know the bag hasn't shown up from you know the flight, then I go look and I'm like, oh, it's back there. It's it'll be up here in a minute. And so you've got tracking all the time.

Jordan

See, that's nice. Yeah, it's just I think if I want like the real-time tracking, which is what I do want, is the actual real-time tracking, I will have to buy her a phone, which I don't really want to give my nine-year-old a phone. Don't do it. So I'm not doing it. So she's just we're just gonna like fingers crossed that she makes it off the bus.

Alban

Though, all right, so this is crazy. If you did need a phone, I've got one for you because this is over two years ago. My friend who's down a few hours from me is like on Facebook Marketplace and buy wants to buy a chair and it like fits their house, whatever. And it's this West Elm chair, and they're like, and it's kind of near you. I'm like, okay, I'll go check it out for you. I go over there, I look, and I'm like, looks standard. FaceTime M, they want it, they get a price, whatever. I throw it in the truck. And as I've like gotten home, um, there's something bouncing around in the bed of the truck, and a phone had fallen out of the chair. So it's like a lazy boy chair or something.

Jordan

Oh, so it wasn't yours.

Alban

No, it's it's their phone. So like I'm not sure for sure if it's my phone or their phone, but it's in the bed of my truck. Yeah. And now I'm a couple hours away. So I charge it up. I take a photo and I text it to the person. I was like, hey, is this your phone? She goes, Yeah, we lost that two years ago and have been looking for it. Okay, great. Come get it anytime. Wait, wait, this has already been had been lost for two years.

Jordan

Oh my gosh.

Alban

Lost in 2022.

Jordan

And they were just like, Well, great, I'll come get it.

Alban

And I'm like, Great, just text me when you're on your way. She's like, I will text you next when next time I'm near your house. Today, I got a text that said, Hey, no, it's been a couple of years, still got that phone. What? So she's on her way, and once we get off of Buzzcast, I'm gonna deliver this phone back that you've been holding on to for two years. And they don't have the chair anymore. The chair has been like sold and resold already, but I've now been doing phone storage. You know, I'm storing this somebody's old cracked iPhone 7 in my office. So that's wild you kept it.

Jordan

I don't know if I would have done it.

Alban

I don't even know if I really knew what the phone was. Because I've got old, you know, you've got old iPads and stuff, and I just have like a a little bucket with all these old electronics. Yeah. In case you're like, oh, do we have any of those old photos or something? So but I plugged it in and it booted up. It's I I can't, I can't get into it, but um, hopefully they can. So yeah, I now returning this phone four years later. Hopefully, there's something good on there.

Jordan

I mean, they probably saw that the new iPhone's coming out and they're like, we gotta upgrade. I hope he's still out of that old phone. We can trade it in.

Alban

It's a little trade in.

Theme Music

Yeah.