Episode 412: The Legends of WordPress Podcasting: Lessons Learned Podcasting

Hey everybody, Rob Karens here and in today’s podcast, I thought we do. Learned from podcasting and I thought the best way to do it was to bring on to my good friends. Hey, Bob Dunn, how are you today, my friend?

Well, I’m doing good. I I didn’t know Nathan was going to be here. But you know, I’m. I’m cool. With that, yeah.

And Nathan Wrigley, How are you doing today my friend?

Leaving is how I’m doing going. I’m leaving the show after that. After that insult, I’m following. I’m very good. Thank you for having me on. And my words bubbly. That’s fine. I can sort this out.

I was like. All, all always a pleasure that both you. You know, I figured we’d share some lessons and have some laughs and you know better state of anything as a. Posted in the tweet give 3 podcasters the mic Home One podcast. I don’t know if that’s a good idea or a bad idea. I haven’t. Figured that one out yet. You know, let’s start with Nathan because, you know, we’ll go there. You’ve been podcasting a long time. What’s the biggest thing you’ve run into that you’ve learned to do with your body? Yes, Nathan.

Well, I ran into the mic one time that was quite painful, but on a serious note, uh, I don’t know. I think I think for me the the thing which has proven to be most useful is getting a booking. I used to do all of the interviews and do this like e-mail tennis backwards and forwards, and then I discovered that you could, you know, WordPress plugins and SAS apps where you could organize that and people could instead of you having to go and find them, they could kind of find you and find that you had a booking system that could book on to your. Podcast am I allowed too? Can I say something else as well?

Of course, you’re allowed whatever you want, my friend.

Right. Well, you might as well take a seat. The pair of you. I’m off the. The other thing is an app called Descript, which is not to everybody’s taste. I think Bob’s tried it and it it. It maybe wasn’t the kind of thing that he wanted to use, but it’s a it’s a Mac and windows. App and it enables you to edit things like this video and podcast episodes, and it’s the most rapid. Lee, what’s the word? You know, they update it basically, like once or twice a week. And if you get into the rhythm of using it, then it’s just an absolute time saver. It’s really, really good. I won’t bore you with the feature set, but it’s called descript DESCRIPT and it’s been a revolution. Saving me loads of time because one of the boring things about making a podcast is the editing bit, or at least I think that it’s. That boring and it enables me to do the editing bit much, much more quickly.

Yeah, I I would agree with you. The editing bit is a bit of a time suck and at times and it takes forever to do so. Anything to make that easier and correct me if I’m wrong, Nathan doesn’t descript have AI features built into it to make it a little.

No. So they kept. They steered away from the AI features for the longest time, in fact. Well, they had one AI feature, which was a transcription. So let’s imagine a scenario where we’ve got this episode and there’s your audio, rob. And there’s bobbs audio. And there’s my audio. So that’s three. Files you go into the Finder or Windows Explorer and you drag those three files onto the description EVAS and then it immediately says OK, name the people. So you give them names. Bob, Nathan and Rob. And then honestly, for, like, an hour’s audio, you wait about a minute, maybe less and it will transcribe it. And it will bind bobs words under his you know his name and mine under mine and so on and so forth. And it does that. But they stayed. That was the only AI feature they had for a while because they just wanted to see how all of that bedded down. But now they’re they’re bringing them in. So for example. Well, you can. You can tell it things like find me the most 3 interesting bits of this podcast, and it it’s remarkably good. And then it’ll find 3 sections and then it will say to you things like, OK, do you want to turn that into another little mini podcast? And if you do, you just click a button and it will make 3 little snippets and it will make audio. You know, like little descriptions or YouTube shots and things like that. So yeah, there’s loads and loads of AI coming into it now, mostly around kind of find surfacing the good content, the good bits. So for example, if I drew this episode in, it would absolutely not suggest the last three minutes of me talking.

And and Bob, what? What have you learned from all this resource and podcasting you’ve done?

Yeah, man. Well, I was going to talk about the script and booking too, but now I have to think of something else. So actually it it it as weird as it sounds. I mean, all the technical stuff, everything. So many things I can’t even you know. I I think what I’ve learned is. And I have a heck of a. Lot of patience to be in. This business if you’re. Going to do this full time. And you know, expect the unexpected and don’t sweat the small stuff or it’ll drive you nuts. And that’s a very generalized statement, which could mean a lot of things to a lot of different stuff. But it’s I. I’ve learned that, I guess what I’ve learned mostly is. Where my sweet spot is with podcasting. You know, trying enough different podcast. And finding the one that finally hits home for me and works for me. So I think, yeah, it’s it’s, you know, there’s there’s a ton of things. I I I share it all phonic with you at one point for leveling which is really you know I I use that religiously so.

Yep.

It’s a it’s a. You’re in the sidebarphonic.com and basically you can drop in a audio and level it out. You don’t have to try to do it or mess with it. I mean, I know there’s stuff you can do in the script and there’s other things and you know various other stuff, but it’s it’s much more automatic and it really does. Great job, but yeah, there’s just man. There’s just I I can’t put one thing on. Really. What? You know, like the the biggest take away?

Can I ask you a question about that, Bob and what you drop a file in where the audio is not like a perfect match in terms of? Loudness or what? Have you? Ohh, that’s neat and it just levels it all so it’s.

Mm-hmm.

All of us, yeah.

Automate. It, automates it and you know, shoots it out as MP3 and it. Yeah, it. And it’ll show you the before and after, and you can always see because. Sometimes you spend so much time trying to, you know, turn yours up. Yours is too loud. This is a point where I just say, hey, you know, as long as everybody can hear each other and you’re not blowing out somebody. ‘S. Ears, you know, don’t worry about it cause I can do that at the end. And yeah, you just upload the. Now make sure it’s kind of a very basic setting. They have a whole bunch of settings on it that you can really screw up things, but they have a. Leveling thing that works really, really well.

And if you want to try it out, Nathan, they actually give you 2 hours for free a month as a free account. So that’s probably enough to be able to take. Yeah. Yeah. One podcast and put it in there.

I I will look at that. Slightly different handles. That is it. It levels it. When you’ve finished so you hear it all as kind of louder and quieter, but then we click publish button it, it does that. But but you don’t get to hear it in the in the recording as you’re.

Yeah, yeah. Editing it. No, it’s it’s like it’s my final step. I’ve done everything else and then no matter how much the levels, if they’re extreme. Are not too extreme. I still run it through there just because it compresses it and it lets you put the artwork on it and stuff. So it’s a. It’s a nice little app or it it’s a website.

Thank you.

I would say, you know, it’s funny, listening to both you, Bob and Nathan, it’s funny. The the thing I’ve learned the most is if you do a recording with a guest and it doesn’t really sound good or it doesn’t come out, you don’t have to publish that recording. I think, you know, I was thinking back the other day in 400 episodes. Think I’ve only come across that twice or three times, but I’ve actually done a recording and then looked at it after listened to it after and said geez. My audience won’t like this. My audience won’t like to take my audience won’t like the language, and I’ve actually gone down that road and just said I can’t publish this. And you know, that’s your decision to make. If it doesn’t resonate with what your audience is going to be, I don’t think that’s a good idea either. You have any take on that? Have you gone through that where you haven’t published an episode? Ohh.

You know, I don’t think I have. I think there’s been, there’s been some pretty rough ones and I sent it to, you know, depending especially what I’m doing now. And a lot of people have been, hey, I’m good to go with it. And you know, it’s my. My expectations aren’t quite as high as some.

Yeah.

Podcasters, because of the the guests I bring in and the variety and where they are geographically and you know there’s a lot of issues with. You can’t expect them to have always a mic or you can’t expect them to have the best bandwidth, and you know there’s a lot of things that I excuse and I deal with and you know the script I use, the studio sound quite a bit and you know, sometimes it really brutalizes it. But other times it. It takes out some of the background. And you can use that and a lot of times it’s really it comes out good. I I’ve used that quite a bit, but I I’ve I’ve edited stuff out, big chunks of stuff. If somebody just goes off on a tangent that I don’t think needs to be shared, it’s not necessarily that it’s boring. Content. But maybe if they mentioned a particular product and demonize it. By its name, you know, I I’ll just tell them afterwards. I’m cutting that out because that’s on my podcast. So it’s. Yeah, there’s there’s been a few that’s been questionable, had some very stressed people on there almost reading their answers. And I felt very bad for their, you know, it’s like you shouldn’t have even attempted this. I don’t think I’ve ever. You know, I I’ve done do overs, you know. Yeah, there’s the time. That’s my fault, too. You know, I’m like, oh, I didn’t push a record button halfway through. Ohh.

Yeah.

Ohh.

Yeah, we’ve all. We’ve all the net or had the magical power failure in the middle of the podcast. I’ve had that happen to actually I think I was on Nathan Show one day when my power decided to click out for like 2 minutes like about a year ago and I had to come back. Nathan, have you ever had to? Not record something. I know you did your own podcast with WP builds you do this week in WordPress, which is live, and then you do some stuff for the Tavern. Have you ever had the?

Yeah.

Yeah, I’m not doing that.

Have fun. I’ve I think I think one time I made a decision not to put a podcast out because of the the content. I I didn’t think it fitted quite so much and on a couple of occasions I’ve gone back to people because the audio something went wrong. You know the technology failed or that suddenly there was a gap in the middle or the.

Yeah.

Quality just drop. And it is a bit of a. It’s a bit of a bugbear. You know we we’ve got these wonderful solutions, but none of them are perfect and they rely on a consistent Internet. So I I’ve had to do that a couple of times. Curiously, today a couple of those things happened. I redid a podcast episode with somebody because. I recorded them on Wednesday, so today’s Friday I recorded them on Wednesday and they wrote me an e-mail and said I didn’t think I did a good job there. And I said OK, I mean, I didn’t get that intuition. But if you want to have another pass at it, we’ll do that. So we did it again today. And it was actually much better. So I’m glad that they.

Good.

Said. But also today I was did another one about an hour ago and they. Had a power cut. So we had to wait for their power to get restored and I’ve now got the job of I’ve got, like, lots and lots of bits of audio because I think it. Ended up with three. Failures. So I’ve got to now produce Excel puzzle together on the other side, but because of the one time when I thought that the content wasn’t really.

Yeah.

And aligned with what I was trying to do, I actually added a little check box to my booking form which basically says something along the lines of you know, I’m happy to come on. I’m happy for you to use my podcast, but I also understand that just because I record it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be used because I I thought it might be a good idea to. To cover my back just in case something went up there, I think it’s only happened once, but power cuts and drop it drop outs because of the Internet. That’s fairly common, like Bob says, depending on where you are in the world it’s it’s what it is and.

Yeah.

It’s. Yeah. And you do you do a live show this week and word press which we. Yeah. All adore I’ve been on that show multiple times. I it’s kind of the way I like to start my Mondays listening to that. Show cause it’s.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a few. Have you ever had to have you ever had to drop a guest off that show because of content? I don’t think so. 9:00 AM eastern.

No, no, no. That that I feel really quite. I’m gonna find some wood and quickly touch it because. Ohh no. Obviously I I feel privileged. I don’t know, maybe it’s the community we’re in. We’re obviously all into WordPress and that’s the that’s the people who we are surrounding ourselves by now. I’ve had nobody come on and say anything. Really odd or or controversial or defamatory or or anything and and I don’t quite know why that is. But I’ve I’ve no I’ve never had to boot anybody out. I mean, Paul Lacy. He was a he was a stalwart on and then he traitorously decided that he was going to to leave though. So he kind of he kind of opted himself out. And he he’ll never be forgetting he.

Yeah. Did.

It will be.

Well, well, did you did you, by the way, did you see? I dragged him out of retirement for one. Show.

Ohh good for you. Yeah. Ohh great. Yeah.

Right, Mr. Lacey. For for my for my 400 episode. And then he disappeared again into nowhere.

Oh. No, and in all seriousness, we’re very good friends, though, and no, I’ve never had to sort of ban anybody. But you do run the risk, I suppose, and I actually don’t know what the, what the fallout of that would be in terms I I have. No. No clue about the the law surrounding defamation, you know, would I be held responsible if somebody came on? My podcast and live said something you know truly horrific. I’ve I’ve no idea where the responsibilities would lie, but they haven’t so far. OK, good. Yeah. Next time you’re on. Yeah.

I’m making a note of this. Yeah. What happened?

Oh, I I see traffic coming. Up here.

But I think it is a testament to the people that we’re surrounded by.

Let’s check.

Yeah, yeah, you’ve had really amazing guests and and you know, and I think we can all attest to the beauty of doing all this podcasting, what we’ve all learned over the years is the people we’ve met. The journey is pretty incredible, right, Bob? Like the people you meet during the podcasts and doing and some have become like. Really good friends, YouTube point and check like. You know I’m blessed. And I was saying to somebody the other day the best thing about podcasting is building all these amazing relationships, right, Bob?

Yeah, it’s it’s interesting. Because where I’m at now, but there’s many hosts as I have. How many of them have also built relationships with people or they made a connection and a lot of times I mean more times than not probably the host doesn’t know the person coming on and they start connecting. Next thing you know it they’re kind of at the end.

Yes.

Saying, hey, you know I’ll send or I’m going to connect with you on LinkedIn, we got to talk more about this or something. So it is and for me it’s yeah, it’s been amazing. The people I’ve connected with them. You know, before do the woo I had the WP Commerce show and I. That was a little. And that was the one that I actually screwed up. And the push record. But I was talking to store owners in South America and Africa. And this one guy sold. And may choose or something on the streets and actually use WooCommerce. So they you know, there’s just I look back and there’s sometimes I’ll run into somebody or I’ll hear some brand and I’ll think, wow, you know, I remember must have been like back in like 2016 or something. And they were on the podcast. And so it’s it’s it’s something else. And you know, it’s it’s a global thing. You just never know who you’re going to talk to and what you’re going to learn.

Yeah, Nathan, we when you agree that relationships are like out of this world.

Yeah, it’s kind of interesting because I’m. Not all that. I’m not all that sociable. I don’t. I don’t mean that, you know, in a sort of self deprecating way. I’m not. I’m not all that sociable, but the but on the the mic thing, just being on a zoom call or something equivalent, you know, recording the audio, I find that whole really straightforward and easy to do. I couldn’t stand up at a word camp and talk. I genuinely couldn’t do it. It would be terrify me. I would shake and shiver and be a an absolute mess. But yes, the meeting the meeting people has. I probably should have said that instead of Descript and the other things at the top, that probably is actually now that I think about it. Maybe that. Is. The best bit because I do an interview show. So it’s me chatting to one other person and so I don’t know hundreds of episodes in. Yeah, I’ve met hundreds of. People, the the the thing which is new for me is that until really recently I was using software which didn’t have a camera. It was just doing the the the audio. So I didn’t actually get to see the people, whereas now I’ve switched over and it’s called squad cast. The one I use. And and it it has a camera by default the cameras are all switched on and that’s been really really nice because I get to actually see the people. And so when I go to an event like a word camp or something, I can actually recognise. Whereas previously I knew their voice, but I didn’t know what they. Looked. Like, but yeah, amazing. And the the panel show that we do on Monday, that’s Nice because it’s more than me and one other person. There’s typically three other people, and I get a a little bit of feedback now and then saying that people who’ve been on that show have somehow.

Yeah.

You know, connected and met up in the real world or, you know, just forged a business relationship or something like that. So that’s quite nice.

Yeah. Do you publish? I can’t remember. Do you publish the video from your interview show, Nathan, or just the audio at this?

Point no. So the the way that the the squad cast app is set up prior to the call, you have to make a decision. Do you want to record the video and the audio or just the audio? And I I always just want the audio because I. I know that that’s what I’m going to put out so I could record the video, but it would just end up in the in the trash. So I just record. And yeah, the audio and and the video is just it’s. It’s just there so that we can see one another, but it never gets captured so.

And and what’s really nice about that is it’s not putting extra bandwidth. You can still use that, but it does take more to actually record the video obviously. But to have it not recording the video, it kind of, you know, keeps it a little bit saner as far as.

Yeah it does.

Fish people that might be struggling with their network or something.

Yeah, yeah, we’re so spoilt for tools now. But when I began my podcast, I did everything as a Skype call. I don’t. If you remember Skype that. Was. Yeah, yeah. And there was a piece of soft.

I did a Skype call with you, yeah.

What was that? What was that piece of software?

Ecam. He can. He can live or he can Skype or something like that. And yeah, and it was a little bolt on to Skype and it would basically capture the audio. It wouldn’t cap. Well, maybe it would capture the video. But anyway, I never did that. It was always just an.

You can life.

Yeah, cool. And then you could, you know, you’d have to download that and put it through some sort of software nowadays you’re kind of spoilt for choice for a fairly modest investment each month. Something like you’re using now Rob’s stream yard, it’s got video, it’s got audio. You could you could you could put like a little bump in at the beginning with your. Promo material. You could put something in at the end and it it just all captures everything and and you know, assuming that the internet’s working on everybody’s end. Just does a whole lot. It’s great.

Yeah. The one thing I like about string yard Nathan is it now records locally. So you know, I I I occasionally have this lousy Internet connection that just hates me at times and and because it records locally, it merges it all back together and that.

Yeah. See that? Yeah.

Problem disappears and it’s just like and I’m sure other platforms do that as well, but for me that’s like invaluable to be honest with you, you’re using what to record again, Bob, I forget off top my head.

Yes.

Now what’s not? I’m sorry.

What are you using to record these days? You’re.

Squad cast. Yeah. Using. Yeah, I I used it and then I moved over to. Riverside for a while and then squad cast got better and then squad cast. Joined the script so you could have the two together and yeah, it’s it’s, yeah, it’s it’s really good. It’s. The other day I somebody could not get their mic working for the life of them, so we ended up jumping on zoom and doing it, doing it on there. And you know, it’s just a point where we thought we’re not gonna waste any more time. You know, I’ll deal with it on zoom and and that’s kind of you know, that’s that’s one of the things is.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

You just got to be flexible and not. Not worry about the stuff, just make it work and make it happen and you know and and it still turned out fine. You know, the audio wasn’t bad and.

Yeah. Podcast podcast hosting. I know you’re using cast host Bob you have for a long time. Nathan, are you and kastos as well? I can’t remember.

Yeah, I I am on custos, although I’m I’ve explored all sorts of different options recently because I don’t know if. You’ve noticed this. There’s been a real change in the the landscape of hosting just data.

Yes.

So when I began my podcast journey, the podcast companies, the hosting companies would always have like a limitation on the amount of downloads. So you would upload your file and then on this package you’d get, you know, 10,000 downloads on this package 20,000. You know, you’d pay more.

Yeah.

But more recently, in the last year or so, companies like Cloudflare have got these packages that you can you basically you only pay to put the data on it. And you can get an infinite amount of downloads for no cost and so a lot of the the the companies, the newer podcast hosting companies aren’t talking about the number of downloads. They’re talking about the number of episodes because that’s the only cost that.

Yes.

They have to bear. So if you upload 30 episodes. Month it’ll cost you this if it’s ten episodes a month, it will cost. This because they know that there’s no pricing that they have to worry about to get the podcast from the CDN or Cloudflare or whatever it may be. And so I think that whole landscape is going to get disrupted a little bit in terms of pricing and companies that are going for.

No.

The. The model of the download limitations, I think they’re really going to struggle. And a bit of a pricing war with some of these new. More competitive companies out there be interesting to see.

How that goes? Yeah. And then you throw in somebody like Spotify into this mess. Who? Spotify bought anchor about a year and a half. Ago. And they when they bought anchor, they actually turned around and said OK. And now, now Spotify is in the process of of rolling anchor right into the main platform. So they’ve actually turned to everybody who’s got an anchor account and said, by the way, you have till I think May 15th. To date, to move your your anchor podcast to your spot to a Spotify account, away from an anchor account, and anchor for podcasters. Believe it or not, it’s still free for 90% of the basics, so there’s still that option of out there for people who don’t want to spend money either. I I know some people don’t like it. But it’s like using YouTube almost like. Do you want all that bandwidth and not want to pay for it? Or do you know what? OK.

Yeah, I don’t like it. The reason I don’t like because podcasts is like it’s an RSS feed. It grew up as a an RSS feed. So you you put the your episode somewhere and anybody for free can consume any of your content, whereas it feels like the play from Spotify.

I need.

There’s more. Let’s wall. Let’s get a big wall around that garden and we’ll we’ll have the podcasters on the inside creating the podcast, and then we’ll only distribute it inside of our Spotify walled garden, which is obviously, you know, the fee bound to that. And and I think they failed at that. I think they took on some big players like Joe Rogan, but I don’t think that they got the, the the sort of traction and you’ll notice that more recently they’ve kind of seemed to have dropped pushing podcasting because there was really no way of monetizing it cause it’s free and it’s an RSS feed and they’re now moving into audiobooks and trying to. Dominate that market as well. We’ll see how that goes.

Yeah. And by the way for Interstate with Joe Rogan, what’s gone on is he he actually gets more views on YouTube now that he’s not Spotify exclusive than he does on Spotify. Interestingly enough, that’s the way this. Metrics on the.

I was come back as he no longer with. Oh.

No, he’s still with Spotify, but not exclusive. So he’s. Yeah. He’s getting more views on the YouTube page. Interesting. Bob, if you had to do one thing over again when you did podcasting, what would you do?

1. Yeah.

God, what would I do?

And two on the spot. Start a cap podcast. I don’t know.

You know I don’t. Honestly, it’s it’s one of those lame answers that. I don’t know if I would have done anything differently because I, you know, it’s such a thing you gotta dive into. And. And my first, you know, you could say I wish I would have maybe started with a better podcast. In the beginning, the very first one. My, my first podcast was kind of very lame. But of course that’s. How you do it, you get the experience, you find out what you need to do. You take breaks, step away from it and get back into it. Yeah. I don’t think there would been. Anything different? I mean it’s I I kind of wish I what I’m doing now compared to what I did. Before like. 2-3 years ago I maybe wish I had done that sooner. Build kind of the channel that. Building. Yeah, you know, I I really like this, but again, it might not have been the time to do it. It may not have been. And. Yeah, you know how things just happen because it happened. So it’s as much as I’d like to say. Yeah, three or four years ago, it had been cool to have this going. But you know. Maybe there’s there’s a reason for it too, you know? And and and finding that because it it was something that I didn’t really, you know that. That I’ve worked on and had in my head for, you know, probably eight or nine months before I really started moving on it and and now it’s like, yeah, this is I think I’ve kind of hit the epitome of the level of podcasting I want to do, which is good because, you know, it’s. Not like a. Another 50 years to be doing this or something so.

Yes, I got that, Nathan, what would you do?

Different.

Yeah, I think a similar answer really in that I I I don’t really have any any notion or intuition as to what I would have done differently. One of the things that I’ve often thought but never done anything about is my podcast is called WP build. Nice little plug there by the way. But it’s got a WP at the beginning and that therefore means that I I feel that I’ve got to only talk about. WordPress, which is fine because I actually really like talking about WordPress, but there is some part of me that thinks well, if I’d just called it, I don’t know web builds or something like that. Would that have allowed me to to go off in a in a bunch of different directions? So I don’t really have any regret about that because I’m very happy with how it goes. But there is just some intuition. If I’d have perhaps called it something different, maybe I would have had more scope to to have different guests on or something like that, so that’s all I’ve got.

Yeah.

But.

You know that.

Yeah, I would, I would.

Sounds interesting. I’m I was just going to say real quick where I’m because when I started mine, of course I got from the outside people saying are you insane naming it that you know, it’s like you’re really tying yourself in. Well, there’s there’s ways to do that and still expand out.

Sure, go ahead.

I mean, I’m doing it with some of the shows I’m doing right now and you just gotta find the right way to do it and the right reason you’re doing it and stuff. But it’s, yeah, it’s, you know. It is what it is.

Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. And some people lean into their personal thing more, don’t they? So they might have a podcast, which is more to do with perhaps their name or something or just some sort of generic phrase. And. And I I yeah, there’s maybe something around that. The the idea that you could go off in different directions. As it like, I said, as it turns out, there’s no regrets. But but that if you were starting a podcast, I’d definitely go for a broader name rather than a. A tighter name maybe.

Yeah. Well, when I I did them. So when I started doing the rules in 2016 and shortly after that I made the decision to call the WP e-commerce show because I wanted to expand out more into more e-commerce in WordPress. And I did that for like 300 episodes or so. And then I then I, I I started going back to do the woo and I thought OK, so I was actually running both of them. I restarted that and running both of them for about a month or two and I decided to close up shop shop on the WP commerce and just focus back on that cause just felt like it was the time to do it.

Yeah, I’m just trying to think of ****** and two that are not in the WordPress space and they’ve got sort of really generic names, you know, they’re just it’s just a little phrase or a sentence. And then sometimes it’s the phrase or the sentence with the presenters name attached to it, you know, with touching such a person. Hmm. OK, I’ll have to.

I was.

You think, I think.

Bob show you know and then.

Yeah, I will tell you. Yeah. I would say. The reason I named mine the STM show is frankly is I’m not pigeonholed to the WordPress space, so I’ve had like e-mail marketers on I’ve had. I’ve had people talking about journaling on, and I’ve had all kinds of stuff that’s just not WordPress cause I I made that decision. I didn’t want to be pigeon to that space early on, and so I wanted to be able to be a. Little flexible it. Was just the call I made and I can understand why or why not like but Bob. You’ve even though yours is called, do the woo. You’ve covered stuff that’s not WordPress. You have an open source show now. I mean, that’s, you know, like, so it hasn’t really helped.

Yeah, yeah. And that’s the thing. I I when I started doing dude it was like, you know, sure we had the focus on other things in WordPress because I mean everything plays together and then when I broke it out into shows, I started thinking, you know, I’ve got the audience of WordPress people, but they don’t always need to hear about. Do the woo you know move Commerce WordPress so the open source was I get these ideas. There’s a lot of talk people are saying, you know, it’s really important if you’re in WordPress to step out of the bubble, look at other open source projects. There’s so many cool things going on and some of them interplay with WordPress in ways you don’t even know. And that got me thinking. Well, you know, I can start something on open source, be talking about open source. Projects that are not WordPress strictly for the reason of. Introducing word pressers to it, saying, hey, there’s more than you know, kind of, you know, break that little bubble, stick your head out and then I’m doing the same thing in May. I’m going to be starting a show on enterprise. And that’s going to be partly focused on Wu and WordPress, but then there’s going to be some more generalized enterprise.

Yes.

Stuff. And that’s the last one. I swear I’m going. To start for a while.

As you say, it’s a tidal wave of shows. What the heck? You know, it’s not the last show. Don’t. Don’t be silly. I’ve started more by the end of this year. We all know it.

I don’t believe him.

We all do. We all do.

Though is I can pigeonhole any show I do now in one of my my shows I you know have on board so it’s like. I’ve got them all pretty much covered, so if I talk about any topic that has some tinge of WordPress or WooCommerce or whatever, I have a slot to slip it in. So that makes it nice.

Yeah, it’s brilliant. I I love what you’ve done. I mean, I’m highly jealous. Fabulous. The idea of having all these different, disparate shows, we can just slot all the content I I guess maybe with that though comes a burden of managing it all. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Having cause. I mean, for me, I have to put one guest in every couple of weeks or every week or so. Something like that. And that that’s you know.

Oh, it’s insane.

There’s there’s. That’s sometimes. I get right to the wire and I haven’t got anybody and you know, but having in your case 18. And hundred different podcasts going on at the same time. You’ve gotta fill all of those. But do you? Do you wanna like it? It’s gotta go out on a Thursday at this time. Or is it just whenever the next ones done will put it out?

It’s I I I give myself A7 day turn around so it’s like I always if I produce something I’m going to have it out by that next. You know I do it if I record on Thursday I’m going to have a out by then next Thursday. Sometimes they do run a little bit. You know life gets in the way or something or or maybe I need to push it out. A little bit more, but yeah, I I I pretty much want to flip them around fairly quick. So I. That’s how I schedule them with that thought that I’m gonna produce it next week and stuff, but it is very yeah, it is juggling and you’ve got, you know, I’ve been lucky. I have. I don’t know how many hosts now, you know, over 20 hosts that come on regularly and they’re all. I mean, talk about meeting people. And the the one interesting story is one of the shows is called All Things WordPress Commerce and I had and and Monika Owlett. She was going to do one on accessibility once a month while her first guest. They were talking before they got even recording and they were getting along. I I knew him and they were. He’s really into accessibility and before we went live I told him I asked him, I said, you know. And he had talked to me before about maybe podcasting. I said would you like to?

Did.

You co-host with them. He’s like, seriously. And so before we started, he ended up agreeing to it, and now he’s going to co-host with her every month. But I mean, that’s the thing with these different hosts I have. It’s it’s I, I I I feel like I’m a good read on people. But I’ve been very lucky because they just they take it and run with it, you know? And they they love having. Their shows. That’s so great.

Yeah.

And that that.

It is, it’s.

Speaks of the community again, what you were.

Yeah, yeah.

Talking. About with relationships and stuff there you know they they. Yeah, they just get connected on the roll and they’re they’re off.

Yeah.

So let’s jump into one last thing to kind of wrap up this. Whole discussion, Nathan. What if somebody was starting a podcast? What would be the three things you would tell them to to kind of start the podcast? What advice would you give them?

Don’t spend a lot of money on equipment would be #1 you don’t need. Yeah. You. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, here we are. We’re all of us have probably got some fairly nice equipment, but you you don’t need it. Like the quality of the audio is paramount, but even cheap equipment these days will produce fairly.

Ding, Ding.

Good audio. So I mean I I don’t actually know the names of mics, but I know that you can get. Something for like $30 which will do a reasonable job. You can obviously spend much, much, much much more and get a really nice mic and you’ll sound just like, you know, like some God from ancient Greece or something. But you don’t need that. But you do need to invest a little bit. So maybe $30 or something and then you can record straight to your. Computer, so that would be my first bit of advice. Be consistent would be my second one. In my case I committed. I don’t know why I committed to it, but it just like a weekly thing at an exact moment in time, every week on a Thursday. So in my case it’s 1:00 PM My podcast comes out on a Thursday, so I. Have stopped. That a couple of times and well, a few times when I’ve been on well or Christmas, those kind of things, you know, family holidays, I haven’t managed that, but that’s OK. But I’ve been consistent. I I don’t know if there’s any benefit to that, but it it kind of helped because the content just keeps rolling and.

Yep.

And a third thing, there is no third thing. Those two are what I’ve got. I don’t have 1/3. Thing I’m afraid.

Bob, do you have? Sir.

I I don’t have three. Well, took two of mine so I can do one that that works. No, the the spending on the equipment you know it’s. It’s kind of just do it type of thing too, you know I advise is, you know if this is what you want to do, I have this analogy that I always tell and probably people have heard this have heard me talk about it before. But one thing is is you got to enjoy it to some extent. And my my thing is and I used to always do this in my podcasting. Class I would tell people if somebody came up to me and said I’m starting a podcast. The first thing I’d ask them is why are you doing it? You got. To have a reason you’re doing this. And if the person said, because I like my own voice. And I like to listen to it. But that was a reason why they’re starting it. I’m not going to question it. I’m just going to say, OK, cool, go for your podcast and I see them three months later, I’m going to ask them, do you still, you know, really think it’s great listening to your own voice? And if they go? Yeah.

Then.

I love it. Then I say, OK, yeah, keep going for it. But if he comes back and says, Ohh God, that was really stupid, you know? Then maybe it’s time to rethink it. So it’s it’s just, you know, you gotta have something that keeps you going every week or every month or whatever your schedule is. Like Nathan said, that consistency and that consistency. Can’t be. Ohh God, I gotta do another podcast or why did I ever do this type of thing? So you you you want to have that? Billy drive.

I agree. One of the things that I do and I would say to somebody new starting out is maybe don’t put yourself in the time crunch till you get in the flow. So what I like to do is I record usually a couple weeks out, Bob, Year, seven days. I’m probably closer to 14. And I did that on purpose because then. Life gets in the way. Medical stuff gets in the way of, you know, and then you’re not cutting that. Lunch. The other thing I would say is I agree like audios everything, even if you’re gonna do video podcasts, make sure your audio was good, because if your audio’s not good, people aren’t gonna listen to you and that’s just the reality of it. So that’s kind of my two really big takeaways and have fun. Like, if you don’t have fun doing it it this becomes an. Awful chore, right? Guys? Like, you know, we all have fun doing it. Yeah. And and if you want to have more fun, you’re in the WordPress space. Call Nathan and Jump on WP builds on Monday. There’s a plug too, you know.

I have a third thing I just thought the third.

Sure.

1. One of my things right at the top was get a booking system and that’s great. Yeah. Get a booking system, but limit the amount of limit, the amount of availability you have. If it turns out that your booking system is getting hammered a little while ago.

This is.

Couple of years ago I had nine months of podcasts recorded in advance and and it. Yeah, I know and quite a few of those podcasts, it was discussions about a product, right?

Ohh wow.

And if it was a like a more a community topic where the agenda probably wouldn’t have changed very much, that’s fine. But if somebody’s coming on and they’re talking about their product nine months out, the stuff that they’ve talked about, it’s probably really out of date. So there’s there’s another thing make if you’re going to do 4 episodes a week, maybe have.

Yep.

Two weeks lead time or something like that. You know, whatever’s comfortable for you, but don’t allow it to get to 9. Because that’s stupid, and that’s what I did.

Yeah, it’s a pain management thing where you were saying, you know, it’s kind of the same thing. It’s, you know, it’s like you and I, this is what we do. I mean, for me, you know?

No.

This is everything I do. I don’t have another business to run. I don’t have, you know, other things to do and a lot of people are starting podcast to either supplement something or just to build their brand and you got to really. Yeah, you got to give yourself some space and say, you know, I’m not going to just ram this stuff out and. You know, take your time and you know, find your own so-called groove and what works for you.

No, so true. Couldn’t be any better, said Bob Bob. If somebody wants to catch a podcast, what’s the best way to catch the 18,000 podcasts you do?

Yeah. Well, starting with #1, just just go to do the woo dot IO and you can find them all there. You can find them all on the other platforms. Each show has its own feed, so if there’s a particular show of the 12 or 13 shows I have. That you prefer or two of them. You don’t have to have the fire hose of every show you can actually subscribe to specific shows that I have under it.

Thanks, Bob. And Nathan, if somebody wants to catch any of the podcasts you’re doing, where’s the best way? And? The live show please.

Yeah. So do the woo dot IO is the best. To follow.

I’ll pass it on to.

That’ll be the 19th. Wpbuilds.com is the is the show that we do. You can subscribe over there and if you fancy joining in on a live show, it’s such like from my perspective, it’s actually quite a lot. Of fun we. Have quite a few people popping in habitually and leaving comments, and it’s really it’s really nice. And that happens a URL where all of our live things go on. It’s WP builds.com/live and that’s 2:00 PM UK time more or less every Monday. So that’s the other place. To go.

Yeah. Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Nathan for this. Appreciate you too very much. And Next Bob’s podcast Catch at Nathan’s podcast. They’re they’re both in my podcast player. So Adam, cheers. Have a great day. Bye for now.

Thanks rob.