How I Landed My First Podcast Sponsor (And What Comes Next)

I've landed my first podcast sponsorship with the Michigan Renaissance Festival and will be recording commercials for them through September. This milestone comes while I'm still recording from my car and figuring out audio settings.

• Received VIP/media passes for August 13th networking event before the festival opens
• Might conduct my first podcast interviews with Renaissance Festival performers
• Planning to give away festival tickets to followers and listeners 
• Shared story of attending the festival dressed as Jack Sparrow during post-COVID crowds
• Found myself entertaining people stuck in traffic, which was more fun than the festival itself
• Recently helped two people set up their own podcasts on different topics
• Emphasized that starting a podcast requires time, commitment and just hitting record

Be good or be good at it.

“Whistles In The West” was written, recorded, and produced by Durracell, exclusively for use with Trader Stu’s platform, always rocking the cowboy hat. The track is protected under U.S. Copyright rights to use have been granted specifically to Trader Stu for content and promotional use related to his brand and media presence.

contact:
 📧 durracellmusic@gmail.com
🌐 www.durracell.com

The thoughts and views expressed in this podcast are solely those of the host and do not reflect the official policy or position of Metro Trading Association. Although the host is an employee of Metro Trading, this podcast is intended to educate entrepreneurs on the benefits of professional trading, regardless of their location. Additionally, the host reviews various pieces of camping gear due to the association of trade, barter, and prepping.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Trading Post Season Three
• 1:57 Exciting Renaissance Festival Sponsorship News
• 4:51 Renaissance Festival Adventures & Memories
• 7:14 Helping Others Launch Their Podcasts
• 10:34 Episode Closing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Trading Post. I am your host, trader, stu. A couple of updates here. I feel like I had to do a season three type episode, which is the experience of using a podcast to market your business, and that is what I do for season threes. Like I said, I use them as categories, not for seasons. We'll see how it works. Heck, I don't know. It seems to be working because it keeps me organized and I think that hopefully it will keep everything else organized too in the future.

Speaker 1: 0:55

So here we go, first and foremost, with me recording in the car. I have enough fight the air conditioning sound, so I like to pull into parks, like I said, and record. We'll see how it goes. So far it sounds good on my headset. I had to change the receiver and transmitter gain, and if you don't know how to do that, I would just go ahead and look that up on perplexity, because that's what I had to do and, uh, just to see what the best is, take a shortcut without having to fool around too much of the settings, because I used to have this set up for my podcast studio. So, that being said, let's get started.

Speaker 1: 1:33

I mentioned last week that I got not monetized but sponsored, and now I can finally say what it is. I signed all the paperwork and I'm really excited to say that I have been sponsored by the Michigan Renaissance Festival. How cool is that. So I'll be recording a mid-roll for those guys. I'll be hearing my commercials for them all the way through September and each week, updating with the new theme weekends and what the theme weekend is. I've been invited to the beard contest by I think they said it was the Viking group, so I know there was one of a beard contest in Ovi. I should have gone, so might be going to that. I also got a VIP slash media passes for August 13th, which is before they open, and I get to network and meet with everybody else in the media and, uh, maybe you get to interview, might hear some interviews by, uh, some of the performers, which is really cool too. I haven't done an interview yet. That maybe, maybe my first one. I don't see why not. I'll try it out. Heck, if it works, that's awesome. If not, well, hey, at least I tried it right. But I've been to the rena a few times. It's there in Holly and it's always a good time, even with the lines. I say the lines because the last time I was there I think it was the last time I was there was post-COVID and it was everyone had the rain checks you know from. Of course, you couldn't. Everything was shut down in 2020 and 21 or whatever. So I think it was. They finally got to reopen on 22 or 2023. One of the two, I think it was, had them in 22 at any rate.

Speaker 1: 3:18

It was a madhouse and that year we I never dressed up before. I was like we're gonna dress up, let's dress up. So it was, uh, jack Sparrow, captain Jack Sparrow, and we I was in traffic for two hours, two and a half hours, on Dixie Highway, trying to get into the festival and get parking. So finally we just started parking along the side roads and the dirt roads, illegally, I think it was, but it was like a mile or two walk and to get in. But I tell you what it was worth it and the reason why I had the most fun messing with the cars on the way in. So people were walking faster than the cars, of course, right, so my family and friends, whatever, got out and started walking to go. You know, let's say so. We went to the bathroom, whatever out in the woods, and then we had a kid with us, of course my stepson, and he was Darth Vader and oh man. So as I was walking along these carts, I had this like bottle flask thing of water that looked like rum. I dyed it to look like rum and I'm walking along like Jack Sparrow and just having a ball. Dude, I had more fun walking in the mile walk or whatever it was to go to the festival than I did at the festival itself because it was, oh my god, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 4:47

It was kind of like I was like an entertainer, I was an unpaid for entertainer to like get the crowd riled up. You know, like they do at spook houses, when there's a queue and there's a long line and they have the ghouls or whatever you know go around and mess with you as you're waiting in line to help pass the time. I felt like I was doing a service and helping pass the time to all the other poor schmucks that was in traffic waiting to get into this parking lot. So, at any rate, if you haven't been, you've got to go, and of course you're not going unless you go into those turkey legs. They're awesome and I found a recipe for I think they're called Disney disney world turkey legs. You know copycat recipes. I haven't done it yet. It's kind of a lot of work actually and uh, but they have the same flair.

Speaker 1: 5:41

You know, at the renaissance festival, killers to get the beer cold pickle, and uh, I don't know, it's like you get the same performers there that have been there doing the same thing for years and it's almost like I don't say it's like seeing old friends that don't know them or whatever, but it's old familiarity. I don't know, it's just fun. You can get locked up in jail and pay to get them out. The kids always have fun anyways. That's enough of that. I'm just really excited.

Speaker 1: 6:07

I got sponsored by the Renaissance Festival. I don't know if I can give away tickets. They're going to give me tickets to give away. I've got to figure out how to give away these tickets to. You know, I don't know what listeners, followers, are going to contest or heck. I'll just walk around and say follow my show and I'll give you a Renaissance Festival ticket or two. You know what I mean. So anyway, it's exciting. I can't wait. So I'll be recording that, the shoutout or the commercial for them here soon. And then I wanted to get this one rolling right away, because it's Tuesday morning, trader Tuesday or Trade Tuesday, and I had to give them a shout-out. So for sure, All right On the next business.

Speaker 1: 6:49

I also wanted to mention the fact that I happen to find myself in territory to help people set up their podcasts. Now, this has already happened to me twice and something that I, you know, I've been charged for. I'm not a pro by any means, heck, I'm still figuring out sound settings and maybe that's just something that you figure out constantly as you go along and no one ever talks about it, because everyone thinks they're professional right away and they don't want to, like, reveal their secrets or whatever, or I don't know, I don't really care. So I I'm going to talk about it. So, anyway, this guy I posted on the next door app if you don't know what that is, it's like a facebook, but you know, local community only, sort of it's, I don't know. I think there's me and like 52 neighborhoods that are, you know, and my surrounding neighborhoods that are that I've listened to or can talk to or get post updates for not just everybody on Facebook anyway.

Speaker 1: 7:46

So, uh, this guy uh, happens to be a Haney man uh contacted me and said hey man, uh, I want to buy you some lunch because I want to start a podcast as well and I don't know anybody who does it except for you, and you live in the same city as I do, so I'm buying you lunch and I want to sit down and, uh, you know, help me figure this out right I'm like it's cool, dude, you don't got to buy me lunch, whatever, because it was just, you know, aligning schedules and stuff like that. But it ended up being an awesome meetup, like it was like this guy's got some stories he's going to do a podcast about and I hope he launches it. I hope I didn't overwhelm him. Brandon, if you're talking, if you can hear me, so do it. Just hit record and upload it right. So it's going to be about getting falsely accused by the judicial system Very interesting, kind of like a true crime, almost, maybe Experiences of people he's going to have some interviews. He's going to have interviews right with all these guys that have been in faults to the accused, spent time behind bars and shouldn't have, and things like that. So it'll be a really interesting podcast because he's going to have all these cool interviews on.

Speaker 1: 9:03

And then I also helped another guy which was a couple months ago, I guess it was now, which was a couple months ago, I guess it was now and it's the. He does virus cleanouts on, you know, computers, upgrades, softwares cleanout and whatever. So I don't know what his podcast is going to be about. I never launched but you know, nonetheless, I helped him get set up with the Buzzsprout and how to record it and gave him a demo and got him an account and, you know, did all that stuff and um, but you know, honestly, it's, it's a tough, it's a tough gig.

Speaker 1: 9:38

You got to have time and commitment and you know you got to have you know bottom, you know bottom, uh, we're barely there equipment. I guess you want to say, uh, just to get started and uh. But you know the big thing is push record and just get your voice out there, which can be rather intimidating for most people, but definitely easier than YouTube, because I tried YouTube and there's a whole other dynamic when you introduce video into the series, right. So, and that's it for this one. Like I always say, be good or be good at it.