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Episode 487: All About Podcasting With Joe Casabona



Show Summary

Rob Cairns has a great conversation with Joe Casabona about podcasting.

Show Highlights:

1. Tips to help make your podcast better.

2. Streamlining your production process.

3. Do you do video?

Show Notes

Hey everybody, Rob here and today my good friend Mr. Joe Casabona, we’re going to talk the world of podcasting. How are you Joe?

I’m doing. Thanks for having me. Are you?

Nah, I’m doing. It’s such a pleasure. I was saying to you on X when we booked this. You and I haven’t talked in a long time. Sure. Were talking about baseball and fighting on X or some social media platform ’cause. That’s what we do. Not. We’re both passionate about sports. You know. You know that, yes. Been busy.

Yes.

And there’s lots going on. One of the questions I never asked you and I think we’ll start to show up with asking is you’re originally in the WordPress space and I don’t want to get into all the drama that’s going on. It’s just not worth it. And you transitioned into the pot testing space. How did that happen and how did you love a podcasting start?

Yeah, well, you know, I’ve I’ve always been a bit of an entertainer. I used to a a story I recently shared in in a speech I gave to the school to my kids school ’cause. I’m President of the home and School Association, was that I used to put my school sweater over my head. And make people call me sister Josephine. When I was in second grade, I went to a Catholic school. And I shared that story because my second grade teacher noticed. That I I liked attention. I enjoyed entertaining and she encouraged me to join drama club and so. One of the reasons I love podcasting is because it gives me this opportunity. Now that I’m no longer in school. To provide some sort of entertainment and have these conversations with people I wouldn’t normally have conversations with and create engaging content. And aside from that, you know, being a solopreneur who works from home can be a pretty lonely existence. And. Podcasting was a way for me to connect with people when I didn’t have the water cooler to speak to people around.

When when I say the best part about the podcasting journey is the people you meet, like I get to hang out with people like you. That’s like, you know, I look at the people I’ve had on my show and the people you’ve had on your shows over the years. And it’s those people that kind of make the space, wouldn’t you say?

Yeah. I mean, I’ve grown my. You know I you mentioned that you’re approaching 500. Am also. But you know, I’ve. I’ve got to speak to hundreds of people about. Just business and how they live their lives and it’s. It’s really fun and engaging, and it’s a really as as an extrovert. I I love it.

Yeah, I I’m like. I’m an extrovert on a scale, one to 10 on 100. You know what, I. Off the scale, so there, there you go.

Yeah.

I think that’s.

Why they get along so well? Actually, in between the squabbling, of course, yes.

Yeah.

Well, that’s, you know, I don’t there there are there. It seems like there’s not a lot of sports people in the tech space for some reason. And so it’s it’s nice to come across. You know people who are as into baseball as I am.

Yeah.

I one of the things you and I were talking about before we went to record and it’s and it’s worth mentioning and I always say this to clients I said this to friends. I’m gonna start a podcast and I said OK, are you prepared to invest the time? Because you and I both know. Having both done this a long time, you longer than me, it’s a big time. The podcast and everything from editing to prepping to doing a pre record call. If you don’t know the guest well and so on, what would you say? Your average time, and I know you do editing more and you have a bit of a team is to put together a podcast right now, Joe.

Yeah, this is a great question because. You know, before I put my systems in place, I was probably spending. Four or five to one ratio on time I put into the podcast versus length of the episode, which means if the episode’s an hour, I was probably putting in five, maybe six hours per episode.

Yep.

And that doesn’t include. Editing was one of the first things I hired out. Because I hated it. So if you’re also editing right, maybe you’re looking at a full work day per episode, right? You’re right, especially if you’re doing interviews you gotta vet. You gotta schedule. You gotta come up with good questions. You, you. You know I’ve, I’ve had guests. Go on 12 minute tangents.

Where?

I’m like, all right, well, we gotta stop this. We gotta edit this out. Today I probably spend. About 15 to 20 minutes in guest prep because I do have a VA who does the initial research and I’m on a platform called Pod Match which does a better job of pairing me with potential guests. But I’m also doing fewer interviews, and I’m doing more solo episodes. So it’s probably about 1520 minutes, I’ll say per week. Guest prep like guest research. And then planning the episode I probably spend about 1/2 hour to 40 minutes planning each episode, doing the three act story coming up with good questions. If it’s a solo episode, writing out, you know, I do like, what’s the big problem? The small fix and what’s the feedback? And then recording again for. It’s probably I carve out 90 minutes. It isn’t usually 90 minutes. But I do carve out 90 minutes for. It’s probably an hour, and for solo episodes I try to keep those less than 20 minutes. Solo episodes because I do so much planning on the front end, I don’t really need to edit those. And then. With. Interviews I record the intro that probably takes about another half hour. So I’ll do the summary I have been using AI to help me with that. But I’ll do the. I’ll record the intro and I’ll send that off to my editor and then from there I don’t see it anymore. For an interview, it’s. Maybe two hours. Per episode inclusive of recording, I would say. And yeah, it’s it’s been a game changer. Like I my process has saved me about 12 hours. Week because I don’t have to do all the other stuff.

I would agree.

And even if you do, all the other stuff, having a process down, it’s gonna save you time. Like I know when I started, I used to sit here every episode. Had a checklist and I just take off the boxes now. I don’t even bother. I look at it occasionally.

For you.

But I, but I mean when you get into like 400 odd episodes and you know this, it becomes a routine and you just do it so that. In your journey, have you had episodes where you’ve actually recorded and then said, geez, I’m not going to air this because you didn’t like what was said? Didn’t like how it was said you didn’t like. Where it? Have you actually done that, Joe?

I should have, but I don’t think I’ve ever done. There have been a couple of times where I’ve cancelled the recording on short notice because. You know, here’s the most recent example. Is someone pitched me about. How solopreneurs can build trust? And I thought this is a really good topic.

OK.

This is hard and we used to rely on social media and I don’t think we can anymore.

Yeah.

And so I invited this person on to the show. And then. Immediately after they booked, I got an e-mail from their welcome sequence.

Oh no.

Which means that they took my e-mail address and subscribed me to their mailing list and I thought. The number one way to not build. So I immediately reached out to them and I said, you know what? We’re going to cancel this. Is not a good fit. And so there was that. I got on a call with one guy and he was sitting in his living room like with like, an under just an undershirt on. He said he didn’t have headphones, which is crazy because. Everyone has headphones. And I just said, look, you agreed to like use a good microphone being a good recording spot and have headphones when you filled out my form and you didn’t do any of this. We’re not going to record. And he was like, he was flabbergasted.

Yeah.

He’s like nobody else says it’s an issue and I said. Those people were too nice. It’s an issue. And so you know, so I’ve done.

No.

But there are probably a couple of interviews I could have. Not released. And I would, I would. Yeah.

And we’re all flexible to a point. I mean, as I said to you today, I’m not in my usual recording spot, ’cause. Have a house full. And which means that I don’t.

Yeah.

My normal. I don’t have my normal lighting, but I value you and your time so much. I just. I do have a headset and it’s not optimal, but it sounds fine. Point is, make yourself. Look. And hear professional. And that’s the key as far as I’m concerned.

Yeah. You know, I’ve. I’ve done. I’ve done remote recordings where I’m either at my parents house or you know, I booked Marie Poulin. And I was really excited to have her on the. She was a pretty big name and I was just getting into notion. She doesn’t runs notion mastery for those who don’t know. And I know that she didn’t accept a lot of interviews and so was like, it was really great that she accepted my show. I forgot to block the week that she booked off because we were on vacation.

Oh no.

And so I thought, you know, we go to the beach and I have.

Right back.

Very low tolerance for spending a lot of time on the beach and so I thought, you know what? This is fine. She booked in the afternoon. The kids will be napping. Aaron and her parents will be down on the beach. And so I just, I brought my recordings. Stuff and I set up shop there, you know, and this is before I was doing video, so I just really need to make sure I sounded good, but. Yeah, I was. I was flexible in that instance because. Murray took time out of her schedule. To reschedule, I might not get the interview and I have the, you know, I had the portable recording set up, so I was. Happy to do that.

That.

We all I’ve done recordings on client trips out of a Chicago hotel room. Done them everywhere, I’m sure. You may and you just gave me my next Segway and you beat me to the punch before you did video. And I want to go there because as far as I’m concerned, you have to do video, even if it’s two people talking. Your philosophy on video now.

Yeah, I you know, I made a post about. I’m probably gonna write an article for podcast Advent about it. But I think that video is crucial now. You know Edison research. Which you know, some of their, you know, with any statistics you can question the methodology, but. They found that a large portion of adults listen to, I will say, listen to or discover all soften their statement a little bit. ‘Cause, they say, just like the majority of of American adults. Listen to podcasts on Spotify. Or I’m sorry on YouTube. I’m gonna soften it a little bit and say like people, a large portion of people discover or listen to podcasts on YouTube. If you dive deeper and look at Gen. Z. Almost half of them feel they have a stronger connection with the host. If they have YouTube, if they have, if they have. And so I no longer think that video is optional. I know that we’re all worried about YouTube being a closed ecosystem and eating podcast lunch and taking it over, but. You are. You know I love. I love the open format. I’m an evangelist for rss.com. But there’s no discovery engine with open RSS. There is with YouTube. And so I think that don’t just put your podcast on YouTube, make sure it’s everywhere, but video is crucial now because.

Yeah.

YouTube has decided they want to be in podcasting, and so I think it’s important for podcasters to be on YouTube.

No, I agree.

With you, I YouTube made that decision almost a year ago, and if you watch what’s happening, we don’t have the Google Podcast player. An Android guy? You’re. You’re an apple guy, if I recall. Still. And I’m not. I’m not picking. I don’t like Mac versus PC fights. Never have. Because I started on an apple, by the way, years ago, I’m I’m dating myself. I have an apple two in the storage so, but the point I’m making the point I’m making. Is. YouTube’s been headed there for a long time and. I think video, the other thing I like doing video is you and I are talking and I can see your reactions to questions and answers even from a host perspective. I think it’s really important like you and I can gauge how we’re feeling and the feelings really come. In video and I think that’s really important.

Yeah. You know there, there are podcasts I like in respect to are ardently against seeing the person they’re talking to.

So of course.

Yep, because they feel that if you make a visual joke, it takes away from the audio. I think. I think video is so important because we are having a conversation and we should be able to feed off of each other and as long as we’re not like as long as I don’t reference something on your screen, that’s impossible to explain to the listener, I don’t think. Degrades. The experience, and so you know, yeah.

Yeah, I I would. I would agree with you having a conversation. There’s another tech pivot, and you and I are doing great, so not. Have you ever had guests come to you and say I want to take questions or 15 questions ahead of time? ‘Cause I know when they do that to me, I say you’re not the guest for me. Give them usually the lead. I’ll often ask and say is there something you’re working on that you really wanna get out? I don’t have a problem doing that, but I’m not gonna give them the questions ’cause I like a conversation. How do you? Feel about that, yeah.

Oh, so I’ll give the diplomatic answer here. Why? I do think that sending the questions ahead of time is it depends on.

OK.

My show I wanted to be. I want there to be a be clear takeaways. I think that fewer and fewer people listen just for casual conversations. And so. I I’m not opposed to sending the questions ahead of time. I do make it clear that I’m not just going to read the questions in order like we are going to have a conversation. But I think that. If the guest wants to be as prepared as possible. You know, that’s something that I’m I’m happy to accommodate for them.

OK, I can see that. Your card has. What hardware and software are you using these days? Does it? Yeah, and I. I know from falling young ads your office changes all the time too. ’cause, I do follow those pictures.

I yes, my office changes frequently. Always optimizing. However, my recording stack, you know the the Shur SM7B. This is probably 5 years old at this point. Maybe 6? And I cannot imagine a situation where I would change this, it’s. It’s the best microphone for me, certainly.

I guess.

And there’s no reason you know if someone gifts me, a telephone can microphone, which is a $1500 microphone. I’d happily use it, but I won’t be buying myself a new microphone. The the arm that this is on, I finally changed that. I used to have the rode PS1 and I got the Elgato wave arm because it’s more flexible. And it’s it’s out of the way and it doesn’t creak as much. And then I’m using the road Caster Pro to which. I like because I like to try a bunch of different microphones and things like that. Probably. For what most people need? Video setup has not changed since February 2020, except for I have the Elgato prompter now, so I move the. Recording software I use on to that and I can make eye contact with my guest, which makes. Better, better. Video, but I’m still using the A 6400 by Sony and the Sigma F16 fixed lens which has appreciated in value. Is wild.

Yeah, it has. Crazy. And and what I would say to you is I’ve used to sure, Mike, that’s what I usually record with. I’m in my normal spot and I got one because of you. Like a number of years ago. And I would say that is still the best value for the. Out there every day, all day.

Yeah. And you know, like as we record this, but often throughout the year, they’ll run $100 off sale. So you get the share SM7B for $350.00 us. Whereas like the you know, the one I’ll usually recommend to people who are just starting is the share MV7 if they’re willing to spend more than 100 bucks.

Is this?

And I did a video comparing the two. But if you’re willing to spend a little extra, the sheer SM7 bi think can’t be beat.

Editing and you’re not a. What software did you use for editing?

Yeah, this is a great. I didn’t really touch on any of the software, right? I answered the hardware question. So. When I was doing editing, I was I was using. Audacity and then GarageBand. Today when I do, I will do light editing. Know usually like light touch editing. I’m using logic Pro and I have these plugins by Isotope RX.

OK.

For mouth, de clicking and breath control. And this is not to say that I try to edit out every breath. But like big breaths in between, you know the distracting breaths and the same thing with mouth clicking, right? Don’t know what did it like lip smacking really bothers me. A guy on talking giants who just like. Lip. And they don’t edit that, and it grates on me. And so I. I can remove that with the with the Press of a button in Logic Pro. And then as far as you know, I’ll. I’ll still do my own video editing ’cause. It’s mostly controlled by Ecamm live, but I’ll move that into screen flow. I’m just really comfortable there and it’s really easy for me to with my stream deck kind of churn through the edits really quick.

OK.

What I would say to people is, and you know this is get comfortable with your tools. What you’re going to use and don’t play the shiny tool syndrome. I need to change. Tomorrow or the next day, it’s just not worth. That get your processes down. Work hard on streamlining your processes and if you can automate any of it, which you are an expert in automated and do it now. Because if you have to do 3 casts of one. Day I I mean the number of podcasters that still manually book their guests. I just cringe at give them a link. Let them. Book it yourself. Find something. Make your life easier, right?

Yeah. I mean, as far as tools like, yeah, I I shared a story last year about how I was trying to use D script for video editing. Because you know it’s it’s very appealing to highlight text and then edit video and.

Remember.

There was something that I had to do for rss.com for our end of the year video. And the fact that I decided for that one, for whatever reason, to record and edit in screen flow. Like meant that I didn’t have to reshoot the entire 20 minute video. And it’s just like it’s probably I’m more comfortable with screen flow, but screenplay something I’ve used for a long time. So yeah, don’t switch from tool to tool. Because it. Looks interesting or it’s the golden ticket to saving you a bunch of time. Consider the time. It’s the opportunity cost or the learning curve, right? When you switch, if you’re comfortable with your tools, use those tools, right? And yeah, as far as automating goes, if there’s something I have a framework for this that if we have time we can get into. But if there’s something that.

Sing me a.

Is in a a task that you need to. Repeat that has the. You know, it’s always gonna have the same inputs. It’s always gonna have the same. I would strongly recommend looking into automating that because it’s one less thing that you need to remember to do.

And that searches for. That’s with all aspects of your business and I would say fine if you got to touch something a couple of times in a day, just find a way to automate it ’cause you’ll save time and. So let’s jump into the industry a little bit. Podcast industry has changed. Independent podcasts seem to be having a harder time these days with the independent production house. I think of places like. Twitter T vs been whining for the last year about how revenue is down. Leo ports. They expanded greatly and they’ve cut back and then you got the massive podcast. Houses like Wonderly and wonderfully. Is just growing by the day, which is owned by Amazon. What do you think of what’s going on in the industry?

Yeah. You know, I think. It’s tough because when you get into these big companies that are putting a ton of money into podcasting, wondering Spotify, Amazon. New York Times. Like they have a ton of podcasts.

BBC.

Yeah. It is. In general, good for the industry because. People are like companies are seeing. It’s worth the investment. It’s worth creating the content. And so like there you could take a rising tide lifts all ships. Approach. But when you when you look at independent podcasters, right, and they see well, you know, I don’t have Joe Rogan money. And so I’m not going to be able to have the same reach. I think. That mindset needs to change. I think that if you look at. Your podcast as ATV show. Yeah, you’re you’re gonna need to get on a network and get in front of a bunch of people. But if you look at it as putting out genuinely helpful content and as a way to connect with a niche audience. A target audience, there’s. I don’t think there’s anything better, right? No one says there’s too many books. No one says there’s too many blogs. No one says there’s too many songs or too many movies. I think that it’s the same for podcasts. There are books for different. There are podcasts for different people, and so if you can figure out how to get in front of the people you’re trying to talk to. I think that your podcast will have a bright future. Even if you’re not getting, you know Joe Rogan or call her daddy or the daily numbers.

Yeah. And you and I are both in the podcasting space, kind of in the techie space you tend to podcast about podcasting. Tend to do interviews like this or talk about the tech space or productivity space. Just for. What do you listen to when you’re not podcasting? If you do?

So is. What podcasts do I listen to, or what do I listen to in general?

Yeah.

Both.

All right, so I love music. So if I’m not listening to you, or if I’m not listening to podcast or podcasting, I have music on it’s I’ve. I’ve started listening to Christmas music early, so I’m sorry.

Yeah, I saw, yeah.

But I I I love music and so I. I will often be listening to that when I am listening to podcast. I like I do like techie podcasts. So I listen to upgrade, which isn’t a techie podcast connected, which is a techie podcast, but I also listen to the boys at John Boy Media, right? Yankee centric and baseball centric podcasts.

Yep.

Cortex is probably my favorite podcast, which is about just kind of productivity and workflows in general. And I am. Know. I just realized this. Umm. The app I use overcast recently rolled out a stats feature OI can tell you my top ten podcasts. Let’s.

That’s cool.

They are so by listening. Time is what this is. Talking Yanks so John Boy Media podcast. Upgrade advisory opinions, which is a basically a legal podcast about the Supreme Court and federal court cases. Oh God the. Yeah, I I’m like, I wish I was a lawyer sometimes. The Bullwork podcast, which is a kind of. They can’t even be called right of center anymore, but they started off as a right of center, kind of anti a particular political person outfit. I’ve stopped listening to them post election. Talk in baseball. Serious trouble, which is another legal podcast. The Dispatch podcast and Cortex, and the only reason that cortex is so low on that list is because they publish monthly and the other podcast. Just mentioned, published at least once a week, sometimes twice a week. That’s interesting.

‘Cause I kind of look at what I listen to and then my number one podcast is a sports podcast called The Bob McAllen Show. He’s. A sportscaster and candidates well known. And then after that it’s a couple business shows and the mental health. So it’s interesting your genre and my genre kind of a little different, but that’s not surprising.

Yeah.

I about two years ago I decided that I was gonna stop reading business books and listening to business podcasts because it was, it felt like wasted time for me. The advice wasn’t the advice was either like wrote or. Advice that everybody gives or it’s just advice for that’s not for someone at my station in life right now. And so I I decided to swap that out for. More entertaining. Lots of lots of sports podcasts this year. Don’t know what happened there. Was like. Yeah. So I thought I probably want some silver void.

I’m sure. The only thing I’ve missed? The only thing you’re missing is the Taylor Swift podcast, and that would combine the music and the sports, and you’d be there, right?

I know.

You know, you’d think that I’d listen to like song Exploder or something. I did listen to. Was a limited run. It was called McCartney. A life in lyrics.

Who?

And it was incredible. I learned a ton from that show about. But Paul McCartney’s approach, because it was a guy who wrote a book about Paul McCartney. And so he basically took his interview tapes and turned it into a podcast. They dove deep on some song he wrote. Know I learned that. His song Picasso’s last words. He. Because Dustin Hoffman said. I heard you could write a song about anything, and he held up a newspaper that was talking about put how? Umm. Picasso died the night before and he just wrote a song on the spot about it.

It’s.

Absolutely, absolute madness. Paul McCartney is something else, but.

But he, he, he. He is just an incredible human being and to be doing what he’s doing at his age, I spent concert years ago. Here in in Toronto, when Roger Centre was called. So that’s how far away and his wife and his wife Linda was still.

Yes, OK.

It’s late life, Linda, who played with them. So that tells you how long I think I saw them in, like 8990 somewhere around there.

OK.

So yeah. My my. Regret is never seen The Beatles as a group in concert. I’ve seen pretty well the who’s who of everything since the 70s, but they’re kind of the void that’s missing out of my concert repertoire. There you go.

Nice.

As we kind of wrap up. Do you have like 5 or 6 really good tips for somebody running a podcast that they can do right off the top and make their life easy?

Yeah, I would say eliminate anything you don’t personally need to do, right. This is. And I say. Start with one or two things right ’cause I. Sounds overwhelming, but. Editing. Publishing your podcast. You know, my VA publishes my podcast and I have a pretty complicated publishing process. So. You know, as long as you give the step by steps. Another person will be able to handle. I would say moving into to I didn’t ask when this episode is coming out, but I assume it’s going to be. Right before or right after the new Year. So.

Or 4th.

But you’re right.

OK, great. Great, great. So as you go into the new year, I won’t say the exact year just in case someone listens to it a year from now, consider doing more solo episodes. I think that.

A.

Lot of people listen to learn something and you you’re establishing yourself as an authority and solo episodes keep the spotlight on you. They’re a lot easier to produce. If you’re thinking about adding video, remember that in most cases lighting is more important than the the most expensive camera. Get a good light and it will do wonders. And then. Let’s. That was 3, so I’ll do one more. I would say. Do everything you can to get feedback from your listeners. This is hard, but it’s another reason to be on YouTube. Because engagement is rewarded there and there are built in comments and likes and. So, you know, have a call to action saying. What did you think? What questions do you have? Try to encourage your listeners to engage, because that’s going to. Give you an idea of what content is the most popular. Oh, you know what? #5 bonus. Look at your analytics on Spotify and Apple. You’re hosting analytics are great, but they can’t tell you completion rates. Spotify and Apple Podcast can tell you completion rates, and that’s also going to give you some clues as to what your audience is most interested in.

And the other thing I would say around analytics is when you first start, don’t get hung up on the analytics.

You know I.

I didn’t start looking at analytics. That was like 15 episodes in because we all know your first two or three or 4 episodes are really get going episodes and they I don’t think it’s worth looking at them, but that’s my opinion.

Yeah. No, I. Don’t live in die by your downloads, right? Are one thing, engagement is. And so prioritize getting people on your mailing list or getting people to write in to you. Such a better signal of the health of your show, right? Yes. It’s like if you are. You know, let’s say you’re playing an instrument on a street corner and you have a tip bucket out, right? You could say, Oh yeah, I did it like, right off of Times Square and probably 5000 people walked by me that day.

Right.

And I I would say, how much money did you make? And if it’s $0.00, it doesn’t matter how many people walked by you, right? Yep, no, I I.

If somebody wants to find out about your podcast, which I would tell them, go subscribe to now because we’ve talked about that. You know how I feel. The work you do the automation side, your coaching, where’s the best place to go, Joe?

Yeah, casablanca.org. You’re gonna find links to my podcast. The streamline solopreneur. And then you’ll also be able to go on my mailing list and get my automations database. If you’re wondering, hey, what can I automate? How can I improve my processes? I’ve got 40 ideas for. Waiting when you fill out the form on that page.

And you have a new private podcast as well, a kind of a notes, one that you’ve been playing around with, right?

Yeah, Joe’s audio notes, which is over at casapono.org/notes. Yeah, it’s a free private podcast. And it’s it’s I’m toying around with that as a way to build. List and it was slow going in the beginning, but now it’s really starting to pick up. I think in part because now I’m on a social network that doesn’t punish you for posting links. But yeah, yes.

It was fun, yeah.

But I also did release like a preview episode on Streamline Solopreneur for. So yeah, that’s been really fun. And I think that I’m gonna continue doing that in 2025. Just a way for me to. You know, I have like a little portable microphone. That I that it’s turned on. That I plug into my phone and I. I try to do 7 minutes or less and it’s been a lot of fun. Been pretty well received as well.

Yeah. Well, you putting that out made me. Of other. So there you go, you test. That to. So I appreciate that. As always, we got to do this again soon. Thanks for your. Much appreciated and I hope you have a wonderful day and take care of you and your family.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

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