Episode 108: Talking Podcasting With Todd Miller

Show Notes

Episode 108 Talking Podcasting With Todd Miller

00:00

Everybody, I’m Rob Cairns. I’m the co founder and chief creator of mazing ideas of stunning digital marketing. hope everybody’s doing well today. In today’s podcast, we sit down with a podcast expert, Mr. Todd Miller, good friend of mine, and Todd and I have this amazing conversation about podcasting. So please grab your favorite drink, sit back, relax, and enjoy this podcast.

00:36

Today, turns here, I’m here with my friend, Todd Miller. And Todd is a podcast expert. And I thought we talked a little bit about his passion today. How are you today,

00:46

Todd? Doing great. Thank you for the invitation to chat.

00:49

Oh, my pleasure. We’ve known each other a little while and we haven’t chatted in a long time. So I thought it was overdue. So give me some of your background. How did you get into podcasting? What did you do before and talk a little bit about that?

01:04

I think my passion for microphones started when I was about eight. I had a little wireless microphone that ran on, I believe it was FM. And I would play 45 Records and put the microphone down. And when they finished, I would announce them and my friend would be downstairs or out in the backyard listening on a little radio was fun. Little that I know that that would turn into my passion so many years later. From that I actually decided to get some formal education. So I went into audio engineering and spent many long nights in recording studios not getting enough sleep, but having the time of my life.

01:46

That’s really cool, actually. Yeah, it

01:48

was it gave me a good solid foundation in building quality audio. And that’s one of the things I found over the years is that it really influences how long someone will listen to your podcast by the sound of it, the quality of it, you know whether you’ve been vested in good equipment and learn how to use it properly. So once I got the formal education, I moved into, you know, recording and music. And then around 2004, I started my own internet radio station. And we were doing what was then known as on demand audio. The term podcasts really didn’t enter the lexicon until about 2007 and 2008. That’s when people started referring to them as podcasts. And so we were doing on demand audio in 2004. It just stuck.

02:38

That’s really cool. And there’s not I know there’s some big players in the in the business now like the guys like the Wonder Lee’s a guy like Leo Laporte and us. Sure quite I’m sure you’re quite familiar with him and his podcast network. And there’s some big players, like National Broadcasting has gone into it and stuff like that. And then you’re you’re in that mix. What’s your typical clientele for podcasting? Is it small business, large business bitcoins? What is it business?

03:13

I think it’s a mix. I think, by and large. Most of my clients are on the smaller side. So they’re entrepreneurs, or worse, smaller, more in this business. It’s been coined. So they’re smaller businesses that are really looking at equaling the playing field with the big, you know, multinationals that have endless, you know, marketing budgets. And that’s really something that levels the playing field is that, you know, anyone can start up a podcast and attract a following. You know, he generally, most small businesses have a following whether it’s a client base or or rabid fans for their work. And this is just another way of, of sharing and connecting with your fan base authentically in your own voice. And I think that’s really the the attractive part about it is they are hearing somebody from the company or from the business, in their own voice talking about issues that matter to them.

04:15

Yeah, it’s funny when I when I started podcasting, I started a year and a half ago. And I started said, do I want to do this? I’ll do one, I’ll do two, I might get to 20. And I don’t know if you noticed recently, I surpassed the 100 mark. And I said, and I’ve been doing this for a year and a half. And it got to the point where I was actually fed up with blogging. I’ve written probably 3000 blog posts in 10 years of being in business for myself, and I said, I don’t like this anymore. And I said, I’m an avid podcast listener. So my wife sir just said that to start a COVID. What’s Rob going to do with no sports is going to listen to podcasts. There’s truth to that and you I like the medium so much. He just started doing it. And you know, I think that’s the key for somebody new is just to start, right.

05:08

I think you just start, I think you need a roadmap to figure out where you want to go with it. And I always counsel my clients to consider this a long term marketing strategy. I’ve had some people approached me that say, Well, I want to do one podcast or two podcasts, and I’ve done and while those can be exciting, informative, engaging pieces of content, to me, they invite further listens, because you’re exciting people, you’re getting them hooked. And then you disappear. So you know, there’s I mean, people like Joe Rogan, he’s been doing his for years, Tim Ferriss. Now, there have been people that are long term podcasters that don’t view it as marketing so much as they view it as education or a way to interact with their fans. And, you know, so you get to hear the voice of the person, unlike like a blog now that is written in your voice. I agree. And it is somewhat personal. When they hear Rob, on the podcast, they know, it’s Rob, and they hear Rob and they hear your passion. They hear your smile, they hear your disappointment, or your frustration or your anger about a certain topic. And I think really what crosses that threshold is it becomes an intimate vehicle to share points of view with with others.

06:31

It’s so true. I mean, one of the avid podcasts, you mentioned, Joe Rogan. And you mentioned Tim Ferriss, both on my podcast list, by the way, is Gary Vee. And we all know Gary Vaynerchuk, the wine guy. And Gary’s excitable And believe me, you can hear the passion in Gary when he when he does a podcast and talk and it’s, it’s really interesting to listen to say the least.

06:56

He is. He’s an interesting guy, too, because he he started doing a podcast many years ago, and then he got away from it. Yeah. And I think it’s only within the last year or so he’s gotten back into it. And he’s reignited that passion. He’s really found that he missed it. And it’s a great way of sharing.

07:12

Yeah, I should I should tell you while we’re talking my favorite all time podcasts right now was won by a company called wonder Lee, who I’m sure you’re aware of called business wars. I don’t know if you’ve heard that one. But they talk about their pet two companies against each other. And they’ll talk like in six or seven episodes, the battle between the companies and I just find that so interesting. And it’s not really in the marketing space, per se. It’s more an all around business. But that’s kind of like my favorite right now. You have a favorite, but

07:47

it’s not yours. Um, I actually don’t listen to a lot of mine. And that’s funny because I don’t personally have a podcast right now. I’m so busy producing for others. And that’s that’s a that’s a mistake. I need to rectify as well.

08:02

Shoe maker not fixing his own shoes problem again, right?

08:06

Seeing with holes in the shoes of do I really want to take my shoes to this guy. But I’m just, there’s so many things I want to talk about. And there’s So time is so precious. So as an aside, I’m going to get back to my favorite would probably be I like Joe Rogan’s, although it can get a little it can stray a bit. One of the things that I find personally frustrating as a Podcast Producer is a host that doesn’t have a clear concept of time. Now Joe Rogan doesn’t need a clock, because it’s Joe Rogan talking with, you know, Elon Musk, or Bill Clinton or whoever. And, you know, if you really like what he does you listen for the two and a half hours of the three hours, hour and a half that he talks.

08:54

Yeah. Well, if

08:55

you’re an unknown entity, I prefer to keep it to a short, concise podcast until you build a following and then you go, you know what, we’ve been talking for the last year for 15 minutes or 30 minutes. And I heard that you want more. You want longer conversations, you want more information, we’re gonna go to an hour. So while I really enjoy what Joe does, and it’s a wonderful podcast, again, it’s just that the time commitment for me is difficult to follow regularly.

09:25

Yeah. Yeah, I have that one of the one of my favorite podcasts is we all report national radio show called the tech guy I listened to religiously, but the problem is, it’s basically a rebroadcast of its national radio show, which is three hours on Saturdays and Sundays. And then he gives you all the bad chatter that’s going on, not on the radio. So the podcast typically runs out two hours and 15 minutes, two hours and a half. And it’s like, where do you find time? Listen to two and a half hour podcast. Yeah, sometimes, you know, it’s, it’s pushing it, if you know what I mean,

10:04

you know, unless you know the wonderful thing about podcasts, it’s it’s really one of the only things you can only types of media you can consume while doing something else. I mean, yeah, washing dishes driving on the subway. That is the brilliant part of it, you download it, if you subscribe, and you get that RSS notification, it shows up on your phone and your device. And then you can chip away at it all week as you’re driving. So maybe your commutes a half an hour a day, into the week you’ve consumed the podcast, you know, just in the car, or on the subway, because you don’t need Wi Fi. It’s on your phone. And it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing. But yeah, it is a big time commitment, commitment for some podcasts that are being produced.

10:45

What is your favorite podcast? catcher of choice? Do you have one?

10:52

Well, I’m I’m pregnant, primarily an apple guy. So I just use Apple podcasts. However, you know, a lot of my clients are, you know, Samsung people are in the Google world. So they’re using Google Play, or they’re using other apps to catch all their podcasts. But I just use the native Apple podcast app. And that seems to work for me.

11:16

There was a really interesting study that came out recently that a read in iTunes podcasts are like the number one consumed. And partially because in the Android world, everything is split over multiple apps and multiple. And I actually Spotify was number two. And I know for myself, I’m generally a pocket cast guy I have been for a long time. One of the things I like with pocket casts is it actually will let you if you pay for it. sync with your PC. So when I’m at home, I don’t listen off my phone. I listen right off my laptop. And that makes life easy.

11:54

Oh, I can imagine. Yeah, I routinely check stats of podcasts I produce. The number one metric is Apple podcasts. And then you’re right, Spotify is usually number two. And then we get into Google Play or spreaker Stitcher, you know, you get into those. I wouldn’t call them v level, but I would call them alternative podcast catchers. And surprisingly, iTunes has been showing up as its own entity. So there’s still a good base of iTunes listeners that listen on their PC or their Mac, and they’re using iTunes to subscribe. And now Apple has killed iTunes. I don’t know exactly when it died. But so you got diehards, like me that are still searching and bookmarking and subscribing to podcasts via the iTunes software.

12:41

The only podcast I’m actually listening to on Spotify, because Spotify exclusive is Michelle Obama’s new podcast, she signed an exclusive deal with Spotify. So that one I, I just pick up on Spotify.

12:57

They kind of surprise me when they moved to podcasts. But it was a natural, it was a natural pickup for them, you know, serving multiple audiences, and they make it so ridiculously easy to get your podcasts listed, that it’s just I tell people, why not? You know,

13:12

during COVID-19, you’ve had to pivot a little bit yet a studio in the West and you have a studio downtown, you do some work from home? How did you pivot your business and how to handle that.

13:25

Um, you know, as everyone else, you know, mid March, we started hearing things, and I was told the kids weren’t going back to school. So immediately, I thought, Okay, well, I’m going to have to figure out a studio situation at home, we’re gonna have a bit of privacy, which, which I’ve done. But most of the in person jobs that I had lined up, either put a hold on things, because at the beginning, again, we were told, oh, well, we’re going to shut down for two weeks, and you know, maybe four weeks, and then we’ll be back to normal. So everybody just sort of took a pause. And, you know, we can wait a month, wait a month or two weeks and see what happens. Others kept going, and we just switched the virtual. And I got a surprising boost, or a surprising bump from new customers that said, You know what, this is a great time for me to start doing the podcast. You know, I don’t have work to go to, or I’m switching all of my clients to virtual so I’m home and I have some extra time now. So why don’t we do that podcast we’ve been talking about. So generally, like everybody else, we switched to zoom or, you know, an online recording app, to to work. And initially, as you’ve no doubt are aware, you know, there was this huge migration to zoom and then you know, everything started crapping out and you know, Phil’s frozen again and fill your that frustration of trying to get everybody who was non technical to be somewhere Technical because I couldn’t. One of the things I do is when I’m setting someone up and they’re going to do a remote podcast, I generally visit their home studio and and demonstrate how to use zoom. And here’s the mute button. And here’s how your audio preferences and blah, blah, blah. I couldn’t do that. So we were doing a screen share saying, okay, you see that button? No, no, not that one. The other one, yeah, three buttons over, click that one. And then you’re going to choose this option, and you had to kind of walk everybody through. So it was a somewhat challenging time to get everyone up to speed on on technical aspects of doing a podcast remotely.

15:35

So true. I mean, I’ve done zoom calls where they’ve run grade, and they’ve killed out. And I and I get that challenge. Aside from podcasting, one of the things I’m involved in right now, is helping the peel school board with remote learning side of things. And it’s the same issue. It’s like, you jump on a call, you kind of show some buttons. And then you say try it. And you know, it’s not as easy as doing it in person. Just no question.

16:06

No, and, and, you know, challenges like people not having the wrong the right headset or microphone, or, you know, they thought they were using their their USB mic, but it was, in fact, their built in laptop, mic and cats, dogs barking and meowing in the background. It was just, and I just got to the point where it’s like, you know, everyone knows we’re home. We’re not in a multimillion dollar recording studios. So we just have to expect that they’re going to be babies crying, and cats meowing and dogs barking at the postman. And you know, I think we just got to the point where it was real, it really crossed the threshold into this is where we are. And I happen to be doing a podcast from home. I mean, I, I do a TV show, as well. And we’re taping from home right now. And I’m watching my screen and I can see my son coming into the screen. And he was coming up behind me he wanted to ask me a question about something and it was just real life. That’s just where we are right now.

17:07

So true. I’ve got I don’t know if you know, I’ve got three dogs, one of them is sleeping behind me right now. And he’s really quiet. And I did a recording a couple weeks ago with a couple friends of mine. And between us we had seven dogs. And somehow we got to a 45 minute podcasts without a dog beep. And then there’s other times, and I actually don’t edit the dogs out. I just leave them there because people like realism to a point.

17:34

I yeah, I’m mixed. I mean, I’ll let the host ultimately decide what they want left in you know, if I find it, from a technical standpoint, too distracting, I’ll try and remove it. But if it’s if it becomes part of the conversation, and we’ve had podcasts where dogs have, you know, done all sorts of stuff, and they laugh about it, and then where were we Okay, let’s continue and it becomes part of the charm of the show, I guess.

17:56

Yeah, let’s talk equipment. Because to do a podcast, you got to have a few basics. For a beginner, where do you suggest they start? And what should they get right off the top?

18:10

So first of all, I guess it comes down to budget. You know, I find that people have some money or they have no money and they’re they want to start so if you have no money, I say Well, everyone basically has a podcast studio in their pocket, which is a phone and it can start with something like a little an iRig Mic that plugs into any smartphone and will up your quality rather than talking right into the phone, it just has a more warm focus sound then speaking into your to your phone, if you can’t even do that, again, just use your phone monitor via headphones. And you know, that’s that’s the way to start. And as you said earlier, just start getting get something happening and then develop your wish list. Where do you want to be in in three months or six months and then start planning gear. If you have some money, you know a couple of $100 I recommend a good USB microphones something like a Blue Yeti. I mean that seems to be the go to standard now for everyone. You’re seeing them pop up on screens everywhere everyone’s using knows there are other options as well. Some more expensive, some less expensive. Um, that is fine. If you’re just doing a one on one zoom call if you’re getting to the point where you’re wanting to get people in on phones or you have multiple guests that are live in your studio, then you’re looking at something like a mixer, where you’re looking at getting a USB mixer where you can plug all your microphones and your computer into and then everything gets recorded either in the mixer if it has a recording function or you’re looking at something like you know, a recording program like Cubase or Pro Tools or something like that where you can record everything and edit it later.

19:56

What do you what’s a typical mix of workdays. And Java recommendation on one for somebody who wants one.

20:04

I find personally from from personal experience, I started with beringer products. Good price point. So you can start with like a four channels, you can plug four microphones in, and then you’ve got line channels. So you can set up a mix minus or you can get a Skype call in there. And, you know, set headphone feeds for everybody, which is kind of nice. My personal Swiss Army Knife right now is the zoom l 12. It’s got eight mic ins. And it has a bunch of line ends. So you can have up to eight microphones and still plug in, you know your computers and things. It can serve as an interface. So you can plug it in and let your computer handle the recording or use it for zoom. It can also record so you can take it out on location and record everything, wherever you are. And it’s just a wonderful, wonderful tool.

21:00

Besides hardware, there’s always the editing that has to be done. Do you have any recommendation on some editing tools for podcasts?

21:10

I think one of the best editing tools the tree is Audacity. I mean anyone it’s for Mac and PC. It’s a wonderful tool to get started on editing. We Mac users have a wonderful tool built in called GarageBand. And I mean I started using GarageBand in 2003 or 2002 recording music and it became my go to podcasting app to start with. It’s free works well easy to edit comes out sounding great. I’d ask these big brother would be Adobe Audition. And that’s that’s the one where I flex my muscles. It’s it’s a very powerful, great sounding editing app that does a lot of very cool things. One, you know being noise reduction, you’ve got some background noise or a fan or right now one of my neighbors happens to be cutting his grass challenge in the editing phase to make it sound as pristine as possible. You don’t want it sounding anesthetic, you don’t want it sounding clinical, but you do want it sounding clear. So there’s very few distractions. You know, dogs barking when people want example. Yeah,

22:26

yeah, the distractions. We don’t need an audition. It’s been around for a long time. I mean, I think I think Adobe gets a bad rap in the business sometimes because their products are expensive, but to really Pro Tools. So I mean, that’s, that’s kind of the key is the addition part of the Creative Cloud suite. I cannot remember.

22:49

Yeah, there’s so many things in there that I personally use the encoding engine, the premiere pro announce I’m doing a lot more video work was using iMovie to start with and I think iMovie is a wonderful way to start for people but then you start wanting more professional transitions or fades or, you know, you want to use some other tools, then you’re going to migrate to you know, a premiere pro or you know, something like that. Or what’s the other one? DaVinci

23:21

Resolve?

23:23

No, use that one.

23:26

Final Cut Pro is the final which is the Mac Coleman product. Yep. I believe it is yeah, I i’ve latched on to I started using for video DaVinci Resolve, which is by Blackmagic. And they’re really smart. What they do is they give away the basic version, which does like net 70%. And then they charge like the pro version is 299 us or something like that. And I I find for doing fades and stuff I just Da Vinci is kind of become my go to product for a long time. So partially because a video caster up at Sportsnet recommended it in a talk I saw a year and a half ago and I was looking at switching products and I just kind of falling off with it.

24:13

It’s always nice when you get somebody that’s been using it that just raves about it. Because for a long time, and I don’t know if you’re the same I get comfortable in my methods and my process. Oh yeah. I know when I’m doing an audio podcast, I’m going to edit in Adobe Audition, and do video I’m going to be in Premiere Pro. But I didn’t always start there. Everything was in GarageBand or was in iMovie. And then I thought okay, you know what, this is great. And it really makes it easy for me, but ultimately does it serve the client? You know, so if I’m putting a lower third in there title doesn’t look as professional as what I’m seeing other people produce No. Okay, so we’re gonna put our learning hat on and we need to go and stretch and use our neural plasticity to go and learn a new product. Yes. But, you know, you can do things the same way and it makes it easier for you. But again, you know, you have to serve your client and think, is it in their best interest in it? Does it deliver the quality, on par with what everyone else is doing? And if not, you know, my personal philosophy is I need to stretch and learn and be uncomfortable for a period of time, but learn a new skill.

25:24

Yeah, I would agree with you the biggest thing about doing any production, any marketing, any of this stuff we do is that learning curve, and I think it’s one reason why I like the business so much is, you know, I’m always learning and I get bored, Todd very easily, like I’m, I’m so ADHD, it’s not funny. And when I get bored, it’s ridiculous. So I’ll just go learn something.

25:48

Well, that’s going to serve you in the long run a, because you’re going to have a lot more skills that you can call upon and be because your brain is constantly stretching and learning and growing. So you know, it’s going to serve you much later down the down the pike when you’re, you know, again, your your brain is just much more pliable and ready to receive information.

26:08

It’s so true. So we’ve talked about that. Now, when you’re podcasting, do you have any tips? For people getting guests on their podcast? You have any good tips on that one?

26:20

Um, for me, it always starts with planning out a series of topics or themes. So I always counsel my my clients to brainstorm as many like whiteboard is many topics in advance that they’d like to talk about. And then it’s a question of, okay, is this something I’m going to talk about myself? Or would I like to bounce this off a guest? If so, do I have anyone in my network that can speak to it? If not, you know, so we’re going to talk about mindset. You know, who do I want? Well, you know, do we talking, maybe a Guy Kawasaki, or are we talking? You know, Chicken Soup for the Soul guy. It really allows you to think about who you want. And I’m finding generally, that the big fish I mean, the Guy Kawasaki is the, you know, Joe Rogan’s. And you know, people like that are actually guesting on other podcasts because they realize it still serves them in the long run. Yeah, you know, I’ve interviewed jack Canfield, a few years ago. And I really thought there would be a no, and we asked him and he said, Fine, great. Let’s do it. And I was like, Wow, that’s cool. Looking, and

27:38

it is sometimes it’s the ask and your network. I mean, I wanted to do as of the airing of this, the one that will come out right before this on live streaming. So when to do a live streaming and a podcasting one back to back. And I reached out to you and said, I know you’re an expert. I know you’re in my network. I know you’re a friend. Can we have a chat? And use glad graciously said yes. I mean, sometimes it’s just the ask.

28:04

It really is. And, you know, I realized that I am here to provide a service to people, but I’m also here to provide education to others and and help other people get started down this path to podcasting. I love to meet with people, and whether they choose to use me or they want to go and do it on their own great, you know, but I don’t mind making that short investment to help them decide whether it’s something they want to do. And you know, whether they want to move forward on their own or with me, and then we start talking about some of the mechanics and podcasts and one of them is guests, you know, and fine tuning that ask, because they won’t do it all the time. But they will if it intrigues them and speaks to their passions and their interests.

28:57

And yeah, and the other big thing with podcasting, and I tell anybody out there who starting a podcast is consistency, right? It really matters. That if you choose to put your podcast out on a Wednesday, every week, that you need to put that podcast out Wednesday of every week, because that builds listeners, and that’s really key.

29:17

And you don’t want it to become a chore. You don’t want it to get to the point where it’s like, oh, it’s Tuesday, I want to do a podcast for tomorrow. So I always tell people, you know, what’s, what’s the minimum length of time or the maximum length of time in between episodes that you would feel comfortable with? So, you know, can you do one every two weeks or every month? Not not great for engagement like a monthly podcast unless it’s like a mega super podcast where it’s like, here’s what happened during the month in real estate or in you know, whatever the topic might be, then it’s it’s relatable and make sense. But, you know, you don’t really want to commit to a weekly one if you can’t do it because then you start with three or four episodes and Life intervenes or you get bored and then you disappear. And then next month you do an episode you notice your listeners are down because you kind of disappear off people’s radar.

30:10

Yeah, I think the key is to is to do things like, recorded ahead of time to for me, what works really well is batch editing. So when I added one, edit two or three in the same day and be ahead of myself, I think that for me is the biggest thing.

30:26

batch editing and batch recording, I like to ask people are the topics going to be evergreen? Where you’re talking about mindset, or you’re talking about investment investing? You know, I used to do a real estate real estate show where we were talking about weekly rates, and we were talking about real estate in the news that week. So it had to be a weekly podcast, so we couldn’t necessarily batch record. But I said can we do some that are evergreen? Let’s talk to a stager let’s talk to a home renovator. Let’s talk to a handy person and record those so that if there’s a week where you’re really busy, or you just don’t feel like doing it, we’ve got episodes in the can we drop them in so that your consistency is still there?

31:11

Yeah, and people life gets in the way people have business emergencies have vacations, they have family, they have COVID problems in this thing. I hate to laugh, but you know, it’s hard. And you just got to, you just got to plan it out. Any other last tips for anybody who wants to do a podcast? Like if you had four or five real good tips to have them?

31:34

Um, I guess the first would be really be crystal clear on why you’re doing the podcast? Is it for marketing purposes? Is it for education? Is it for entertainment? Why are you doing and who’s it for? If you don’t have those two things crystal clear. In your mind, I find that the podcasts just become kind of aimless, you’re doing them, but you’re not sure who they’re for, or why you’re even doing them. And there’s nothing wrong with doing a strictly marketing podcast, you know, you’re doing this to increase the viability and visibility of your business. Cool. Awesome. But just be clear with that. If it’s educational, make sure it’s coming from an educational standpoint, so that you’re not confusing people, by dropping in marketing messages every two minutes since like, Wait a second, I was learning I wanted to learn how to cook. And now the person telling me I need to work with them to learn how to cook. That’s kind of

32:31

Yeah, I would agree. I, I think, you know, as a marketer, I think the best podcasts are to give the information because we all know information is free, you can jump on this magical psycho Google, right and find anything you want. And, you know, from a marketing perspective, people like to choose who they work with, and what the solutions are. So I think in a podcast, you’re 10 times better off giving out the information and just helping people I really do. For me, that works the best Actually,

33:03

I like Gary’s book, you know, Jab, Jab, hook, or whatever it was called her, right? It was it was really about, you know, give a ton of information away before you ask for something in return. It’s okay to ask for something but don’t ask all the time, or ask as the first thing is set up that relationship where they can trust you. They know you’re a trusted resource, you’re delivering great content. And then by the way, when Gary says, hey, I’ve got a new book, would you mind buying it? You’re more likely to do that than if Gary opened the podcast got a new book this week, you know, would you buy it? You know, it’s it’s the cart before the horse, you really you haven’t established that relationship where you’re providing that wonderful information every week, free of charge,

33:47

and build that relationship. Because, honestly, building relationships is 10 times better than dealing with somebody who doesn’t know you or has no clue what you do or is not sure. And

33:59

you’re likely to get more authentic reviews and authentic shares where somebody says, You’ve got to hear this podcast, this guy is so great that the tips that he or she delivers every week, just blow my mind. And they’re so useful. I can apply them every week. And they tend to refer that to a friend. You got to listen to this in the same way we do with what’s on Netflix this week.

34:24

or watching the news this week or what’s on Facebook or not right

34:29

would be going back to consistency. I have a problem. And I’ll be honest with people that podcast but then disappear during summer or during the Christmas break. Again, that’s why I preach those, those batch recordings so where you can record some episodes that aren’t specific to a calendar event or time of year, but still provide new fresh content every For your listeners, because, yeah, they’re on vacation as well during the summer, but they’re going to listen to you at the cottage or on the trip up to the cottage or whatever. And if you just disappear as your marketer, you’ll know, it’s, it’s almost like, you’re back to square one.

35:17

So true. I was away two weeks ago, up in the middle of nowhere, and I had two podcasts drop on their usual days. And I had even email marketing go out. And somebody said, somebody emailed me who knows why and said, aren’t you Why? I said, Yeah. Haven’t you heard of the tool called scheduling ahead of time? You know.

35:38

So I think consistency is, is key. One of the other tips I like to provide to people is, figure out what your, the mechanics of your show are? How long? How often, okay, so great. We’re going to do a 15 minute podcast every week, how was that 15 minutes structured? I want to see them have a template. So we’ve got a 32nd open, or we introduce our guests, we’ve got our theme music or whatever, bang, we’re into the content, how long is the content? Is it the full, we’re doing 15 minutes, we got to do one minute close. So we’re down to like 13, because at 13 going to be one segment is going to be too number of guests, you know, structure that so that it becomes repeatable. And it really allows you to take some of the technical aspects and put those into auto drive, you know, you’ve got autopilot. And you’re just you’re making maintaining eye contact with the guest. Or you’re on zoom, and you’re fully engaged. The only thing you need to worry about is the time so you’ve got a little timer set up, and you know that you’re golden.

36:43

So true. Thanks for your time today. God really appreciate it. If somebody wants to get a hold of you talk about podcasts, services, and all of that, what’s the best

36:53

way? best way is just to check out our site podcast experts.ca, and things that will help them produce a better podcast free of charge. And then you’ll be on our mailing list when we drop, you know, announcements about new episodes or interesting things. One of the things we’re going to be doing in the future is doing probably some in person or remote. We’ll see how things go with with the pandemic, but do some learning events coming up in the future to help people get started.

37:21

Can you repeat that? One more time, please?

37:24

It is podcast experts.ca.

37:27

Thank you very much, Todd, and you have an awesome day.

37:29

You too, Robert. Appreciate it.

37:31

Thank you. A very special thank you to Todd Miller for joining me on this week’s podcast. As always, if you need more information about us or digital marketing help, please go on over to our website at stunning digital marketing comm if you need to email me, I can be reached at VIP at stunning digital marketing.com on the phone for 166247647. Or you can also tweet at me at Rob Cairns. I am on all other social media platforms going over to our website, scroll down the bottom and you’ll find links to all those locations. And while you’re doing that down towards the bottom sign up for a free digital marketing newsletter. I promise you I will send you marketing tips and tricks, very few sales emails sometimes there’s a couple and I just want to help your marketing efforts succeed. So check that out. As always, this podcast dedicated my late father Bruce Cairns. Dad, I miss you very much. Keep your feet on the ground. Keep reaching for the stars and make your business succeed.

38:38

Bye, everyone.