What you're gonna do, brother, when Jeff Townsend Media runs wild on you. Have you been searching for a podcast? Do you want to learn from some great content creators? Well you've come to the right place Indy Podcaster with your host Jeff Townsend, the Indie podcast Father. All right, all right, all right, this is Jeff Townsend. Thank you for checking out another episode of Indie Podcaster. This podcast is made for podcasters and other content creators. Certainly don't consider myself a guru, or either do any of my friends that will be featured in these episodes. But what we do like to do is talk content creation, pick each other's brains, and have a good time. I'm proud to mention that this podcast is sponsored by Indie drop In. Now, let me tell you something about Indie Dropping. This is an awesome network that my friend Greg has created. What he does is drop episodes from independent content creator into his established podcast audience on his feed, and he shares your episodes to an audience that already exists. Yes, it's like free advertisement promotion for your podcast. He spent a lot of time, money, and effort building it, and he already has an audience interested in the content, and he can certainly help you by sharing your content is great promotion. Go to indie drop in dot com slash creators and check it out. If you're a comedy, true crime, paranormal, for various other different kinds of podcasts, you can benefit from this. So I really encourage you once again go to indie drop in dot com slash creators and see if you can get your stuff featured on indie drop in. We'll go back to the podcast here Indie Podcasters. So what we've currently been doing is sharing content from three different projects that I'm involved in. The first is Good Morning Podcasters with my good friend Fuzz Martin. We also do some content on podcasting Sucks, and then in these episodes you will also hear some content from podcasting Power Hour. Podcasting Power Hour is a live thing we do on Twitter spaces. We get a whole bunch of great podcast minds together we talk podcasting. So if you're a content creator a podcaster, I think you'll take something away from every episode of the content I'm going to share with you. With that being said, make sure you check out Eddie drop in and make sure you enjoy this episode. I think it's important that we all continue to learn and grow every day, and that will help us become even better content creators. That's certainly what I try to do, learn something new every day. I'm excited to share this content with you. I think it'll be a learning experience for you. Let's get to this episode, and I hope you have a great time listening to it. Welcome to Podcasting Power Hour with your host Jeff Townsend aka the Indie podcast Father. I'm your co host, Greg from Indie drop In Network. Podcasting Power Hour is recorded live every Monday at nine pm Eastern Time on Twitter Spaces. Every week, an experienced panel of podcasters and other experts will tackle your podcasting questions. Special guests on the panel today Aeriel Nissenblatt, founder of Earbuds podcast collective and community manager at Squadcast FM. Jim Mallard, host of The Mallard Report, Tanner Campbell, host of Good Morning Podcasters, Dave Jackson, host of School of Podcasting and Ask the Podcast Coach, Pixie, host of Project Podcasts with Pixie and Next on stage one. We will of course put links to all of our guests and any irrelevant information in this show. Notes all right, let's get this already started. We'll get it going. This is Podcasting Power Hour Here Monday, June twentieth. It's twenty twenty two, Greg. In case you forgot the year that we're currently in, I am Jeff Townsend, the host of this lovely weekly space we've been doing. And Greg, I'm gonna let you introduce yourself. I will say, though he's fallen and he can't get up. His social Security number is one. It's Greg for Indy Dropping. You pick up from there, buddy? How can I even follow this? Like? I mean, you got most of that correct, except for all of it other than the Indie dropping part. Hello, everybody, Greg here from Indie Dropping. I'm sure I'll talk more about Indie Drop in later, but I'm happy that you are all here. Next is Jim Mallard. He is the closest thing to the John mccainn of podcasting, except for Tanner Campbell. Of course, it's the maverick Jim Mallard. He's been podcasting forever. It's going on, Jim, I'm out a lot. Yeah, two thousand elevens when I started the Malory Report and talk a little bit about everything paranormal New age, religion, politics, money, you know, all those things that mom tell mom and dad tell you not to talk about. Yeah, I try to talk about them all. So yeah, there's that in the Nutshell and All on one podcast, which is kind of freaking crazy, to be honest, but nevertheless, Tanner Campbell's going on. Man, you used to be the podcasting sucks Now guy. Now and you kind of like did a good We're in America ripoff and it's good morning podcasters Now. It's how you're doing Tanner. I thought it was more of a good Morning Vietnam ripoff, but I can go with gm A. Sure, I'm doing great. Greg. You know, one of these times we should switch it up and let us introduce you and be like, his name's Jeff. He works in a bottle top factory. He has to clean poop up sometimes. Jeff Townsend. Yep, I am the go to for all in my new career path that I've been forced upon me. Okay, next though, let's get past Tanner. There the Hall of Famer Podcasting Hall of Famer. It's been podcasting since two thousand and five. Tanner wasn't even weaned yet. Then it's Dave Jackson. Thanks, for joining us, Dave, I know buzz Jill well, and you just got back a hold of me. So Dave must not check his Twitter dms very often. I do not. I suck at Twitter. I'm getting better, But yeah, Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting, happy to be here. There should be fun. It should be and we'll let people start requesting now if they have any questions or something they want to talk about. In the meantime, Greg, I'm gonna let you kick it off with some podcasting thoughts you've had this week. Well, I mean, I think I struggled with the age old question of what to do on vacation. I don't know if if anybody thinks of that, but you know, I know a lot of people just kind of tell the audience, hey, I'm I'm taking off. But of course I had to record additional episodes and get ahead. So that's not a recommendation, by the way, that's just what I did. So that's pretty much consumed my week, you know, basically doing multiple weeks worth of work in a single week, because you know, I can never get ahead and have episodes in the can, like like every good podcast coach would tell you to do. I've never been ahead novel once. It sounds nice to the Jim, what do you do ahead of vacations? I'm curious. This is a good topic because I think we all we all struggle with this. I was gonna say, well, I'm a little different, so I used to do it. I'm used to doing a live show. So if I'm taking the week off, I just take the wake off because the record ahead of time kind of lose that live dynamic that I've built into my show. So it sucks. But there are times. I will admit there are times that I record a guest because of time zone differences, but I still don't think those shows are just as good either. So hey, Jim, you know you know that people listen to your podcast like after you record it. Yeah, but OK, talking for me, it's just how I It's just how I prefer to do it because I get that live dynamic for my listeners. So it's that friction that I like. So got it, got it, He's got it. I trust me. I know people listen to the podcast because that's how ninety seven percent of people listen. But I'm just messing with you. I'm trying. I'm trying to shift the momentum to you instead of me. Don't worry, it'll come to me. Sure, It'll just give me a few more weeks. It'll be all on me. Yeah. And if you have any questions or you something you want to talk about, requests to speak Dave, what do you do for vacations. I'm curious, man, Well, here's my thought. I go on vacation. It's not my like my listeners like, well, I guess I'm not listening to podcasts this week because Dave's gone. No, they're going to go find something else to listen to. So I'm giving my audience time to go find something else to listen to. And in the event that show is better than mine, they might not be coming back. Maybe somehow somebody else's his niche down and it really really fits what they're talking about, And maybe I'm just not quite as good a fit as I thought I was, So I always record. When I went to Podfast, I recorded two episodes, one to go out my normal Monday, but while I was flying home. My episode came back out while I was flying home. So that's that's my just weird insecurity, worrying that I'm going to lose my audience if I miss one week, which I realize when you say it out loud is kind of like, well, then your show wasn't that good. But that's that's my thought on that. You articulated my struggle perfectly, Dave, because you know, you know Mark Asquith, he disappears for you know, two months and comes back and says, my downloads are better, you know, and I just don't think I could wrap my head around it. Yeah. I think part of it is because I realized there are times like you need to take a break, like you're you're mentally losing it, and you know your kids need braces and Grandma's in the hospital, and you know, life is happening. And that's where I think. Mike Rowe, the guy that from Dirty Jobs and all that, he has a show called That's the way I heard it, and he said, Hey, the good news is I got a book deal. He goes, the bad news is I can't do a podcast and write a book. And so he said, so you know, this will be next week is my last episode, and I will be back on this date. And then when he came back on whatever that date was, he's like, hey, I got more good news. I got a TV show, and he said, so the show. You know, so as long as you let people know if you have to leave, and again that's not my first choice, but sometimes, you know, you just got to then just let them know when you're coming back. That way, you don't lose your integrity. Man, I don't do any of that. I guess it depends on the show. So for for my daily I'm fortunate, you know, my podcast for podcasters, So I feel like you're just like, hey, guys, I'm gonna take a week off bye, and they're going to be just fine with that because they're podcasters and they all probably wish they could do the same thing, but they don't podcast for podcasters, so they can't. But with my other podcast, Practical Stoicism, I just took a month off to finish the book that I was writing for it, which I finished, and I just told him, I said, hey, this is you know, I picked a logical place to stop in the text and I said, hey, by the way, this is going to be the last episode. I'm gonna take a month off. I'm going to do these things while I'm gone, and when I come back, everybody who's a subscriber will get a copy of this book in PDF form for free, and if you'd like to buy it, that'd be really nice of you. And then I've got this other podcast. It's not mine, but it's what I listened to every day, and I thought that this gentleman did something pretty cool. His name's Alex Lieberman. He hosts a podcast called Founder's Journal, which is from the guys who do the Morning Brew newsletter, which everyone here should subscribe to because it's a great newsletter. Has nothing to do with podcasting, but it's great business and entrepreneurship newsletter. And he recently took lot. He's taking about two months off, and what he decided to do is he went back into the catalog and found the best episodes and just recycling them as classics. He just puts them parenthetically classic episodes. He's been running. He does like three episodes a week. He's been running classic episodes of the most popular episodes. Well, he's gone working on this other project, which I thought was a great way to do it. If I didn't keep deleting my episodes, I could probably do something like that. It would make more sense in your case because that's the one that we scratches my head when somebody takes an episode that's in their feed and then they re release it. I go, you know, if they had actually followed the show, they could have listened to it anyway. So Tanner, in your case where they can't get it from your feet, I think that makes more sense to do it in that route. And I guess the bottom line is as long as you communicate with your audience, because what happens. I think, again, all this crap is just my opinion, But have you ever gone to like, you know, you take your car in to get I don't know, tires, and you think it's going to take fifteen to twenty minutes whatever, and now it's forty five minutes to an hour and you start the minute you don't know what's going on. Your your mind goes negative. And I think that's the case where if you don't say anything and all of a sudden you're like, well, that's weird. There's no episode this week from there's no episode to day from Tanner and what happened? And you do that daily show, so by day two you're like, well that's weird. Two days in a row, no tan third day, you're like, God, I hope you didn't die from COVID. So I think when you communicate with your audience that, hey, I'm taking a break, I think that's really the key, just so they know you didn't get hit by a bus. I'm convinced that fifty percent of my audience is kind of hoping I got hit by a bus. That might be the case, and the other fifty percent knows you. So if you didn't show up for a week, we would figure you were just doing something else and would eventually make your way back. Right, Oh, he's starting a nonprofit this week. There, or we'd hit you with a bus. No, if anybody has any we have some show people a day. It's a lot of the same people. But if you have anything you want to talk about or ask, feel free. In the meantime, I do want to say, do you do you think podcasting is like the listeners and consumers of it are more understanding of this vacation thing that we're talking about in comparison to radio, I mean, any other industry. Really, what do you guys think? I mean, yeah, they're not paying for anything, of course they want Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. My boss is less understanding when I had a boss, I guess, But yeah, podcast listeners are. That's another reason that I don't. I mean again, I'm podcasting for podcasters, so I feel like Dave and I have this benefit where they get it. They're not gonna give us a fucking hard time. They're not paying for anything. They're podcasters themselves, they know how it is. But even with my other podcasts, I mean, if I want to take a fucking week off, I don't even know that I need to tell you, like fucking if you're gonna leave me because I took a week off, you know, go fuck yourself. As you're not You're a little too You're expecting too much for paying absolutely nothing. You're not doing. Pod Casting sucks anymore, Tanna, it's good morning podcasters. So it's the softer side, yes, right, this is the softer side of Tanner. Oh oh well, Pigsy, you jumped up here to speak. What do you get going on? Hy Jeff, I guys, I am currently on podcast break vacation. Sure, we'll call it that. And we did end the season three on a high note, and we said that we'd come back, so we are going to do a season four, but we have we haven't got there yet, right, so we haven't. I think when you come back from a break, you have to do a couple of things. You gotta do a new commercial, you gotta probably do some new press, you gotta market the show, get people like sualivating waiting for those things. I don't know if I would necessarily do like a whole re release of an episode. Maybe if I cleaned it up, but I'm definitely in the in the you know, I got to come back, I got to hit it. But I also got a new job, so I'm kind of I'm teetering between paying bills and being a podcaster. So that's where I'm at, a Pixie, same career, a different place, or a whole different career. Whole new career is something that I haven't done yet. But oh cool, Yeah, gratulations cots. Well, when you need money and you go back to your old job and it's just not what you want to do, you kind of have to figure things out. So that's where I'm at. I'm like, do I show up for podcasters, which I'm still doing my Wednesday show, but I'm not doing my main show, so I don't know, there's a lot of things to think about when you leave podcasting, or Pixy is going to send me on a tirade be like, how come Pixie couldn't come to our audience and make a living? How come you can take money? Guys? Because I'm terrible at business. If I I'm just terrible a bit my business, other people's business, I'm fantastic at what I thought this was the get rich scheme? Like, what what are we all doing here? This is the Tanner Campbell Show, How to Get Rich? No the picks. So how's uh, how's the co host handling your decision to do this? Is? Uh? How? I mean, how's that going? Well? I think he's moving forward with his podcast that we started in the beginning and kind of refiguring out those He's he's on his own now, so he has to like truck out there into wilderness and kind of figure it out for himself. Because we haven't talked in like two weeks. It's crazy. So let me ask you this because I know you and him, and I think we all have struggled with this when we've had a co host. So you guys have different philosophies and views on I guess the podcast. So walk us through that a little bit, because I think we've all had that. I mean, I've had a podcast with Tanner. It was very choking. Gosh, I'm sorry for you. Uh So, two months ago, for those of you that don't know, I came to the position where I was like, Okay, we got all of the bugs out of the show. We sound good, we look good, we communicate really well together. I was like, this is the opportunity. We need to go out and find sponsors. We need to go out and do all of this for the podcast. I was like, hey, mister Jay, what do you think about that? And he goes Pixie, the podcast is just a hobby. Yes, he wants to make money, but he wants people just to hand it to him. And I said, that's not really how it works. We gotta go out there and we gotta find people. We gotta we gotta schmooze people if you will, get them involved in what we're creating. And he's all like, no, no, I don't want to do that. So it's as soon as you did that, it crushed me. Because I'm a pusher. Everybody knows I'm a pusher, and so Uh, so I kind of I scaled back. I scaled back in my marketing, I scaled back in finding new friends. I scaled back in like everything. I basically gave up on the podcast in a way that I was just like, you know, I'm done, and so I so We're gonna do another season, guys, because I I can't give up on just that season three. Hmmm. That's that's a hard call. That's that's when you're in marriage counseling and you're like, well, I want kids and the other person goes no. You're like, m okay, either I'm gonna change my mind somewhere down the road, like somewhere down the road, I'm not gonna want money, And that could be. That's I always talk about. I always talk about the awkward conversation that every you know, any team that's doing a podcast, you gotta have that awkward conversation to set expectations. Who's doing what, If we make money, who does it go to? And then once you get over that awkward conversation, then you can go back to having the fun. But otherwise you end up. I mean, I work for a media host and there are times when Ernie and Bert are really pissed at each other and it gets ugly and people are deleting files and changing passwords, and so you got to have now that you know, agreeing on expectations isn't gonna like make everything rosy because people are still going to get mad at each other. But at least you have, you know, maybe some expectations going in on who's doing what, and it's just ugly when it doesn't match up. Yeah, I think a lot of that worked before is real important. But then again, as time goes by, things change. What about you, Jim Mallard, You ever done a podcast with anybody else? I actually have. That's where the Mallard report came from. Because it went so ugly, it turned sideways, and after about eight weeks of that, we decided, well, I decided we're putting that on the shelf when I started my own show. So I totally understand the Dave Jackson's point about marriage counsel because it just well and then it ended in divorce, and sadly, I think that's how most shows of co hosts do. I'm not saying all of them do, but I think that you know that it's just like marriage. It's a lot of work, and boy, it's just a lot of work. Well, and the other thing too is sometimes it's not an argument. It's like, hey, uh, you know, my spouse is pregnant and my life is going to change drastically. You know, that's nothing kind of you know, you're not antagonizing somebody like, look, I have a life change and I can't do this anymore. And that's where you just kind of got to go, Okay, Well, I'm glad we sat down and had that conversation, because right down here it says what happens if somebody can't do the show, Oh, we decided that we'll reach out to the audience or whatever you're going to do to get a replacement. So I don't I don't know, Dave. I think shit, My Partners having a Baby is a great name for a podcast, breaking into reality shows and with audio. That's the thing that's happening podcasting and pregnant. I like it. That's a live stream. I will not be attending off the rails. You were requested to speak, What do you got going on? Thanks for joining us. I'm sorry, I uh sorry, just turned my speaker on. I was listening to Pixie speak and I actually had a question for her about her partner that she's going through right now, and I was wondering if you think there's any sort of jealousy because Pixie is an adult film performer. Do you think that, you know, like I obviously couldn't just post pictures and get fifty thousand followers real quick? Do you think there's some sort of jealousy going on, that you have an advantage over him and that maybe making him salty? Wait? Wait, wait, hold on, pit Pixie, did you jump from stage to screen? Yeah? No, no, so my co host. He's a retired male entertainer, so he he has done screen work. There's no jealousy between the two of us. It's just that we were on different paths. If I could get him to see this is how far we've come and this is where we could go, yes it would work. But he he, like I said, all he wanted to do was have the money come to him, and it just doesn't work that way. The money just doesn't fall in your lap. I will say that. Pigsy also, it's just beyond posting pictures. She puts in the time here on Twitter to meet all these different people, so there's you do spend a lot time doing. I was him saying that. I was just saying, like, do you think there could be a jealousy because she has an advantage? You know, No, he's a dinosaur and he hates social media, so he could care less about how many followers I have. Well, then that's his own fault, you know, fair enough, you have anything else off the rails before we go to Perry, Go ahead, go to Parry. Let's go to Perry. Hey. So I may be taking us backwards because I was going to talk about during the off times, but I can also address some of the co host stuff. So for me in the off weeks or months, because I'm actually between seasons right now, I queue up either interviews that I haven't aired the full interview for because I usually take snippets of interviews and bring those into my main show. So I'll get an edit of those and I'll do a quick I'll spend maybe ten to fifteen minutes recording a quick intro to that I don't do all the sound design that I do in a normal show, and then I release that kind of on my normal schedule, so the RSS feed stays alive. Then I also do a couple every now and then. If I don't want to go through the pain of editing a full interview, because I still don't let those be overly sloppy, I'll just put out something on that time schedule that's five or ten minutes that just gives updates and says, hey, here's what's going on with me right now. We're in the process of getting ready for season three. We've got this X, Y and Z going, and we really appreciate all your support and understanding while we're taking this time. And then encourage people to get in touch with me if they have any questions or want to connect in any other way. So I just do that. It keeps the RSS feed alive. The other thing that I do is there is there are two shows right now that I have in development where I am going to have a co host, but there's definitely a power dynamic so that I can set the proper expectations and that the co host that I have is actually an employee of mine with the podcast company that I just started. So as far as setting expectations around who gets the final call and all of that, that's pretty well established. Though we do work very well together and are very comfortable throwing ideas and kind of wrestling through those things. But if there's a final vote that needs to be cast, it's really clear that it's mine. Well, don't overwork in Perry, because he's my employee too. I intend to work the heck out of that guy, Perry. I didn't want to thank you for buying Tanner like a hundred coffees. That was really nice of you. I don't know if he's ever thinking you, of course I have thank No, that's a great point that you bring up there. Perry really is ashers. You are next Perry. You can stick around, man, if you have anything else to talk about, will sure? Okay, I'll go ahead and go. You know, I just tonight, it's Monday, it's my episode weekly episode recording night, and to be quite honest with you, and I'm just double checking. I know this is pre recorded, but yes, okay, So what do you do when you don't record a great episode? I mean, I guess the simple answer is to just, you know, do a new one. But when you're co hosting a show with somebody else and they happen to think that the episode's great, and you know, it's not you know that it's not targeted towards your typical audience and that it's gonna bomb. I mean, it's kind of Grin and Barrett and wait until next week. I have a lot of guilt over it. I feel bad. So we've had some episodes and I'm like, Eh, it could have been better, but like, this is terrible, So what do you guys do with that? Well, I've had shows that I thought were going to be Crickets and people will say that was the best show ever. And I've had other shows that I'd worked on for weeks and I'm like, man, I can't wait to hear the feedback, and it's just Crickets. So I guess, what's your planning process? Like, because I'm thinking, did you know going into it that this isn't really on target? Not really, the topic itself was pretty on target for the show. It was just that we ended up having a guest, and this particular guest has a really large social media following, but they're really good friends with my co hosts, So instead of it being like, hey, guys, let's stay on topic, it just was not at all. It's really all over the place. They just kept sharing stories of things that they did together, and it just was like two dudes having a conversation, which I guess I understand podcasts sometimes are like that, right, But it was just very different from the normal show and it just doesn't feel like it belongs at all. And the kind of mindset I've gone into every episode that we've created is that this could be somebody's first time listening to the show, and if they listen to this, they're never coming back. Yeah. Yeah, but I think that that's probably mitigatable. Is that a word mitigatable? Able to be mitigated with just a little pre roll intro, like, Hey, this is your first time to the show, welcome, Just to let you know everybody this one. This one's a little weird and go the direction our shows usually go. So if this is your first time listening, maybe start somewhere else. And if this is your tenth time listening, you know, just just be prepared. This one's a little weird, but you know it's the way it came out, and hope you enjoyed it all the same. And if you don't, don't kill me. I've never done that. I've always worried that if I brought it to attention. It would they would make it worse. Jim had his hand up and pix he did. Then we'll go to Perry. Yeah, I was gonna say, it's always awkward. That's why I try to avoid interviewing my friends, just because you get a little too comfortable in the subject matter. But ten Or does have a good point. You can just if you're honest and put it up front. I think it'll it'll turn out okay. And as I always say, I'm back next week. So what do you do Jim? Hell, you're doing it live. Yeah, well that's what I'm saying. That's why I just come up front and say, hey, I'm interviewing somebody I know fairly well. So some of you might be a little bit behind and not understand where we are because we've talked before. I'm daving. I'm daving, diving a little bit deeper than I normally would with a guest right off the top, just based off my relationship with them. You ever had one though, that was just like going terrible, Like how do you go about that? Live? Like? Not just like like they would my friends, So that the good news I've only ever bailed on two guests live, and then I just started the old monologue, potentially flipp it the live calls, but yeah, it does happen, and that's where that live feedback comes from too. You can kind of tell what your listeners are thinking in real time, good, bad, and indifferent. So I'm gonna say this sounds like bonus content that you could put behind a paywall. If it's more in depth with your co host and you can and you can basically dissect it, you could give that extra bonus stuff to people who want to support your podcast. And actually I'd considered that because we just launched a Patreon. Well I just launched one about probably about two months ago, and it's going fairly well, and they seem to really like the off kilter, off topic stuff. How do I approach that then with my co host and just be like, hey, that episode was terrible. I mean, obviously, hold on a minute. If you thought the episode was terrible and it wasn't going to resonate with your audience, why the hell would you release it as a as a paywalld item. Don't do that. Here's something that really sucks. Enjoy subscribing. We do other stuff too, Like he like we'll do like these little slice of life kind of episodes that again we have a panel the podcast. But like he like, he did an episode for the Patreon where he talked about the one time he filmed gay porn, you know, and people like it. So hold on, back up, filmed or participated in? He filmed, he filmed it? He did not. I don't. I don't think he's participated in yet. Maybe he has. He should tell that story of the Patreon next, but you know, no, people like that because we'll kind of mention that stuff on the show itself, right, and then it's like, well, hey, if you want to hear Pato talk about that time you filmed gay porn, go subscribe to Patreon listen to it, and people will, you know. So I don't know. It's something that I'm kind of dealing with. But the show comes out on Wednesday, so I think I better make a plan. I've done the Tanner thing because because my co host about once a year goes to Boston to hang out at this cigar shop, which are good and I know those guys too, and the first couple of times it was great because this guy is like a total independent business and he's he's really taken kind of this indie attitude of growing his business now to growing his podcast. So he has all these stories. But there are times when and I kind of subtly on stream, Yard will take me off the screen and enlarge their screen because I'm like, I'm not in the show anymore. Guys get the hint here like throw me a bone. But on the other hand, if they're having a good conversation, it's fine. But I've done what Tanner does, like, hey, today's a little different Gym's in Boston with the cigar guys, and it's just enough to let people know I don't know that I would say today is a little weird, or today isn't going to be as good, or because that is kind of a thing where you're like, I don't know, it might be good. People are gonna listen for the weird stuff. But I've done that thing where it's like, hey, today's a little different, just to throw it to you know, like you said, for that new person. Hey, one thing that I've done that you know, on the surface seems a little bit weird, but it really helped the show is I will aggressively edit and then I'll add my own commentary to what they're talking about, just to bring the show in line. It might not be what really happened, but it's a performance for the audience. That's the way I think about it. That was the other thing. You can edit out the all the bro talk, edit it out and just keep the good stuff. Yeah, if they didn't give you a chance to talk, you have your chance and edit. This is where Michael acted like a total bro. We're gonna skip over that. I actually do all of that. So if something isn't hitting right, then I will be all change the question that somebody asked. I'll or put an interstitial in there with voiceover to bridge some things. But also, if an episode is different than any other episode, right up front, I'll just give the heads up and I'll talk about why it's different or what makes it special in some way. So I've had a few very experimental episodes, and I always prefix those with some little thing that says, hey, here's what I'm trying this episode. If you don't like it or you want to try something else, feel free to go to another one. And then the other thing that I would really take on board is that Pixie's suggestion of just saying this is bonus, whether you put it behind a paywall or not, just labeling it as a bonus episode will make people think about it differently. I think those are all really fantastic ideas. I think it's the first time, which I guess is a good thing in two years of running this podcast, as the first episode that I felt badly about putting up as the episode which you know, there's a win in a way, but yeah, gosh, they talked about music for like forty five minutes straight, and I just that's not what people come to this show to listen to. So I think I might try to cut it up and see what happens. But I just feel terrible. I feel like I didn't have a win this week, and I don't like that. Well, not that I'm advocating putting out not so great content, but I've read I think we've all probably read books where, you know whatever, there's eight chapters and chapter like six was like, eh, all right, that's ten minutes I can't get back. So I say that to say that they all can't be aces, you know, not that we want to get in the habit of like, ah, good enough, but don't beat yourself up too much. Hi, gotcha, I appreciate it. That was a great question, though, because I think we all have experiences where we're like, Eh, well this doesn't seem like the best thing I've ever put out, you know, what should I do? Like I once had a podcast episode with Tanner. He dropped about seventeen F bombs and then halfway Theory said, am I allowed to cuss on this podcast? Well? I mean you knew it going into it, Man, that's your fault. The thing I do because we all run into this thing. It's a situation we've all been in where somebody requests to be on the show. You kind of check them out, it seems like it's a good fit. They come on and it's either a they have just not listenable audio or they're just you know, it's just not a good fit, and we're back to Pixie situation where you're like, eh, do I release this? So if I'm interviewing somebody I've never met and I didn't ask you to come on the show, I always send back and like, hey, if you're cool with the fact that, since I don't know you, I reserved the right to not publish our episode. In the event I don't feel you've delivered value to my audience, then here's the scheduling link. And I've only had one person, so like, what do you mean, dude? And I was like, hey, if you don't think you can deliver value, then don't sign up, you know, and it kind of separates, for lack of a better phrase, this is not gender friendly, but the men from the Boys, right, It's like, if you haven't figured out who my audience is and you know you can deliver value, well, then don't come on my show. But it's a it's a cool safety net, is it kind of iant here to maybe also point out that we're acting like we're all pretty important, like these podcasts are. I mean, come on, we're not running multi billion dollar companies and people aren't going to lose their job. And I think it's important also sometimes to just remember to not take ourselves too seriously. I mean, ultimately, ninety percent of the time, you want to show up and you want to do great, but you know, if you've got to phone it in every now and then you shouldn't be thinking, you know, oh no, Jim's gym and accounting is certainly going to lose the job over this. Yeah, that's a great point. There are times when we have to go yeah, it's a podcast, the poor accountants, it's always them. In marketing, podcasting, Power Hour is part of indie drop in network. If you are a podcaster looking to grow your listeners, check out indie drop in dot com. Indie drop in is always free and we have opportunities right now for comedy, true crime, scary and paranormal podcasts. Just go to indie DroPIN dot com to learn more. If anybody else has anything they want to ask or does Guss, go ahead and feel free to speak. Oh, can I ask one? Absolutely? Danse do it? Jeff, you have a Patreon account with a one dollar option, and I just want everybody because here here's my opinion, not that what you're doing is wrong, It's just my just a thought. I feel that anybody that would give you one dollar would give you five and you're gonna lose most of that dollar to processing fees you have. Nobody will even give him a dog. He's priced it at what it's worth. Okay, No, I mean I will say my feeling on Patreon and you have a valid point. Is I'm always skeptical of just like creating a bunch of extra content. To me, it's really about support for the creator. So I mean, it's already hard enough to make a damn pod. You know, doing extra stuff seems about impossible for me right now. I don't know. I don't know that you need to do a lot of extra stuff for Patreon. I'm saying that thinking about creating one right now. So listen to my ignorance. But I support a bunch of folks on Patreon. Like you said, I gave tann Or a whole bunch of coffees just because I want to support the person. And so if somebody has multiple tiers, they've got a five dollars tier and a twenty dollars tier, I'll give them the twenty dollars and I'll never listen to anything or go to the Patreon page ever. Again. Yeah, I had a weird situation with my Patreon where Mike and again, if we could do air quotes here my competition. You know, people that are basically doing the exact same thing I'm doing, were giving me twenty bucks to promote them to my audience on a show where I was trying to get clients, and I was like, you know what, I'm going to get a lot more than twenty bucks if I get a client out of this. And so I first put a I reserve the right to not accept your patronage, and that just seemed weird, and so I just went to my patrons and said, here's the deal. I'm turning it off except for like, there are two people that we treat a sponsors. And I said, the way this was kind of set up, you know, the whole patronage is supposed to be I'm giving you money so you can do your art. And I lost one person. But it was just a case where that's something you want to think about if you're setting up a Patreon that like, you might want to put a line in there again that says I reserve the right to not accept your patronage in the event people are trying to basically get in front of your audience. It's like a really cheap advertisement. It's a good idea to have. I considered that. The other thing I've heard from other folks so I've talked to who have Patreon is that every now and then they'll put out a piece of content and what they see is that people start to unsubscribe. So sometimes if you just have a Patreon that floats and charges people five dollars a month and you never do anything with it, they'll just let you charge that indefinitely. But as soon as you put out a piece of content and it emails everybody, they go, oh, there's that guy. I forgot about him, and then they unsubscribe. I think it's I remember reading the statistics on the such a little amount of extra content actually gets consumed that's produced and released on their arie. I'll go ahead, you have your hand up. Yeah, I just made a post about Patreon today because I've had a Patreon for my newsletter for about four years and I've never pushed it ever. I've maybe I've put a few like quote unquote ads in my newsletter are on social media, but I've never once been like, Okay, this is going to be a stream of my income or even a supplemental I've just been like, Okay, if people want to support me, this is a way that they can support me. And I decided, And so the tears are two dollars, five dollars, and twenty dollars. And I've had some people who have been supporting at ten dollars for four years, which adds up. But you know, most people will come in and out do two dollars for a few months, five dollars for a few months, things like that. But what I did start doing yesterday in my newsletter was I'm going to try for a month to just be very transparent about how many patrons I have, how much they're paying me, not individually. I don't want to give away personal you know, they're this person's contributing two dollars, but I am going to say week by week how much I'm making, just to see if maybe the transparency is something that people are interested in from a podcast creator's perspective. Never tried that before, as anybody else tried that. I'm curious how that I'll get. Actually, Ariel, would you be interested in doing a side by side with you and your Patreon and me and my substack? Is that a competition, because no, I'm scared about the competition. No, no, no, no, not a competition, but like maybe to see I don't know, Yeah, I'm down. Competition of platforms, not competition of us. Yeah, I'm down. Let's let's talk about it. That'd be cool. I have two shows I listen to. One is No Agenda and the other one is Podcasting two point zero, and both have no agenda, has a huge audience, and they have a thing where if you donate two hundred and fifty dollars or more, they will kind of give you a shout out at the beginning of the show as an associate producer. And then they have a thing towards the end where anybody above fifty bucks and it's a huge show. And if you end up donating, they have a whole thing where they track how much you've given them, and if you've given them over one thousand dollars, they knight you as a knight of the No Agenda Roundtable. Which is all great that the whole like strategy is called value for value, But the problem is the more popular you are and the more successful you are, is people going wow, I can't get this information anyplace else. You end up with this giant chunk of your show that's just you going. Jim and Poughkeepsie, thanks so much for the fifty bucks, and you know, Natalie and New Zealand, thanks so much for the you know, seventy five fifty six. I don't know what that stands for, but it's fun. So yeah, two to add that one of the things that I do do you know, I don't. I don't give them nothing in return for becoming a patron. I think at the I need to reassess my tiers. And I actually at Podcast Movement in twenty eighteen, they had somebody from Patreon. They had a whole room from Patreon who did like an audit of your Patreon, which was really cool. So there are some people who can be like, Okay, it's kind of like a pricing model. So what are people going to be attracted to? Why does this two dollars tier with these three bullet points make more sense than this five dollar tier with these six bullet points for your needs? You know, for that's if you're really looking to get something out of your patronage of this person. But what I am doing is I have a section on my website that sort of looks like James Kridlin's bottom of his newsletter, where it's the logo soup of all the people who contribute to to pod News. But I have that on my website at earbuds, dot audio Slash, Patreon, so that I can point to that and be like, look at all my supporters, yay, But mostly you know, so that they get a backlink and that's powerful. Off the rails go ahead and you've got to hand it for a minute. Oh, I was just wondering about Patreon and I'm a Wisconsin podcast and we'll I mean, we've won Best Wisconsin Comedy Podcasts three years in a row. But it kind of seems like the only people that get Patreon subscribers are states that touch an ocean. Does anybody else find that they'll fly over states just don't get Patreon. I would kill to see that data. If that's true. That has the Internet made it there? That's the question. Hey, I have, but I have three dollars from three people from Patreon in five years. Everybody talks about Patreon and one of my mentors is from Washington, DC. She's like, Yeah, that's the way to go Patreon, and it's like, it never got to hear that that's how you support our So I'm just like, do you guys really even know that it doesn't get to the middle of the country. This is kind of like a weird thing on the oceans. Anybody who ever said yeah, Patreon's the way to go as their primary advice probably shouldn't be here. I was thinking that same thing. I'm so glad that you said it, because I was scared I had it wrong because I don't have a lawyer writing exactly what I'm saying. Sorry, I meant. Patreon does not help us. It does not help people. And you what do you want Patreon to help you with? Are you trying to I don't know. I just know that I've been doing a podcast for five years and I heard Patreon helps and helps that. Yeah, exactly shows I don't even know. Okay, I just want to say before you really start, before you ask these questions, I want to say that if I did a circle and just made a wider circle, I would have to get to like eight million people before one person heard of Patreon. How do we get We're in Wisconsin. Are you're based southeastern just north of Milwaukee? Okay, there's definitely people near Milwaukee that have heard of Patreon. What's your show about comedy? Okay? How many downloads do you get per episode? If you don't feel like sharing, you can DM me and I will happily give you some more advice. Off the off the live session. But my thought here is two k okay, perhaps wait, yeah, I love I love when this happens. This is my favorite ship. Two hundred thousand downloads per episode and almost zero are converting to patrons. Yeah I doubt that. Yeah, Okay, here's yeah. I'm gonna say not two thousand month, because hold on, I'm two hundred thousand and five years. That's what I'm looking at. Now, look, go to your who's your media host? God damn it, you're making me get my shick. I have to go up. Doesn't get my woman. Well, here's the thing that nobody talks about is when I did a bunch of research on this, the average percentage of people that sign up is around three percent. When I talk to the people at Teachable, they said two percent. And I remember once I was listening to Radio Lab and Radio Lab is one of those shows that when you say Radio Lab, if you're in f radio Rab is my mentor Autumn Fisher from Radio Labyrinth is my mentor see exactly, That's what I said. When you say Radio Lab in front of somebody, if they're a fan, they have to say, oh my god, Radio Lab, Radio Lab. One time I was listening, was doing a thing kind of like PBS. They're like, hey, if you enjoy the show, we're trying to get up to one percent, and so for whatever they were using. But crowdfunding is it's a cool thing when you're doing the empowering show where you talk to entrepreneurs so they can empower other entrepreneurs and blah blah blah. And it sounds like every other podcast out there, not that those are bad, but it's not content that you can't get anyplace else. And that's where you go. Well, since you're not a running show where you can maybe get a shoe sponsor, you know, it's it's hard to kind of package motivation in a bottle and go here, buy one, get one free. It's a bottom of motivation. So that's where Patreon comes in, or where sponsored by a cold Well banker. Well, yeah, well there you go. So then my question becomes, why do you want to do Patreon? Because if you have money coming in and you don't necessarily it might even be bothering the people who are listening to come in. Sorry, I said, who doesn't want more money? You always think Morede offs. There are some trade offs here like, if you're making money, and you know, yes, of course it's great to make money. It's great to make more money. But if you're people with a thirty second pre role or a mid roll or a post role, whatever it is, telling them about Patreon and nobody's converting, I would either drop that for a little bit and try again in a few months with different messaging, or them with different messaging right now and with different perks. Okay, yeah, because she's got the point. If nobody knows what Patreon is, it's because you're not telling them. You really have to treat it like a sponsorship and you have to explain how they're gonna benefit. Hey, if you like this show but you hate the ads, and you have to be careful about that because you don't want to demonize your sponsors because they don't really like that a whole lot. If you want us to get rid of these really crappy ads, hey, thanks guys. Uh, and then you you have to treat it like a sponsorship and explain how they're going to be. You know, if you want an ad free, it's bonus content. We do a monthly roundtable at whatever it is you know, Or if you just want to, you know, help me support my art, but you have to mention it to them because yeah, if you know, there are a lot of people that know what Patreon is, but there are a lot of people are like patra what you know? So you got to it felt like at the we were doing a lot of stuff for Patreon, and then at the end of the month it'd be like congratulation, here's your two dollars. You did ninety five hours of work, and we're like, what that was dumb? Let's not ever do that again. Don't do it. Don't do it unless you've got patrons. Okay, I do want to go to Wait, you say it depends how you pitch it too. Is that you said, Parry? Yeah, I was just gonna say it could be. Hey, you know what, you know, we get we get sponsorship from Caldwell Banker that does a lot to help us, but it doesn't cover all the bills. If you really like this content and you want to support us, you can go to our website slash Support and we'll hit you up with a Patreon or glow dot fm or however you want to do that and then get them in that way. Don't say glow dot fm. Just because Dave's here, We're well, there's less of a barrier to entry with something like that than there is Patreon. You don't have to create another account, so it depends on friction as well. But there's also supercast, which doesn't mean you need an extra host right here. There are there other options out there. There's also like memberfull dot com. You could have people just be members. There's tons and tons of ways for people to pay you a little bit extra to support you. All right, I'll try this again. No, that's all great information, And I know you've been waiting patiently. You got to walk the dogs, so we'll let you go ahead and go in. Oh actually I already came back home from walking the dogs. That's how I lost your connection the first time, because I had a dead spot during the walk. But my question to off the rails would be when you did have the Patreon the first time, how did you sell it on your show? When we had the Patreon the first time, we used to do a movie review show called Movies with Mark with No No, no, no no, I'm asking, I'm asking, how did you pitch it to your audience on the show? Oh, I said this is secret. If you guys want it, you can only have it on Patreon. Okay, yeah, see it wasn't It wasn't that they didn't hear Patreon. You didn't explain to them what Patreon does. What I would suggest is find five or six shows that do Patreon and listen to how they pitch it. One of the shows I'm going to suggest you right now is a show called You Must Remember This. It's a great movie history show hosted by Kreena Longworth, who's a very respected critic. She's actually married to Ryan Johnson, who did Knives Out in the Last Jedi. She doesn't need the money per se, but she does a Patreon because she wants to properly support the staff that works with her on the show. So just go listen to any episode of You Must Remember This. Listen to the last five minutes, and listen to the way that she pitches It doesn't matter if you're going to go with Patreon or membership or buy me a coffee or whatever. Listen to how other people who are success sucessful with Patreon are pitching Patreon to their potent, their listeners and potential subscribers. And then figure out how you can do something like that, because if you just say, hey, there's the secret thing that if you join Patreon you can do, that doesn't entice people. You need to make it so fricking awesome. That's giving you guys five dollars a month for some bonus content and extra views or whatever it is that you're going to give them for five bucks or ten bucks or twenty bucks a month. You need to sell it, and you need to make sure that you sell it so beautifully that they can't help but join, because if you just say, oh, it's a secret thing, come join it, that's that would never entice me. But I'm a Patreon of You must remember this because the way that she sells it, the way that she says, this is how awesome this thing is. If you do it, I would also say that thank you. I've had a lot of luck with And Perry can talk to this, because Perry's in my discord. Any about you a thousand coffees? Any boy, a thousand coffees? Well that was in Perry. Remind me, I'm pretty sure that was in trade for a console, not necessarily a console. I think you answered one of my questions on the show, and I was just like, ah, all right, I thought we talked about the booth or something, did we maybe maybe? So I know I've done, Yeah, I've done buying me a coffee for you a couple of times. So I'll lose track. Perry is the nicest guy in this room, but so so with a Discord, which I think probably everybody here knows is like an alternative to slack. I just uh, what is it called? Stripe has recently out brought out something called payment links. Stripe used to kind of be a pain in the ass to take payments. You have to issue an invoice and it's it's kind of like a mature solution for selling things online and it usually works in the back end, where you have something like Shopify handling the front end. But a few months ago, maybe longer than that, rolled out payment links, kind of like what the PayPal used to have. So what I do now is I have a link in the description of every episode that I'll say, like, join the discord, and that takes them to a payment page where they just enter in their payment details. It's recurring for three dollars a month, and as soon as they submit the payment they get, they get a like a receiver of response is hey, thanks, your payment went through. Click this link and you'll be automatically added to the Discord. And that's been pretty helpful for me. I mean, it's been a good way to grow my Discord and it's not a lot of effort. I mean, Perry will tell you everybody in that group, I check in probably once a day, twice a day, maybe less frequently than that. And a lot of the value in that group comes from like, for example, Perry, he talked about that podcasting company he just started. It was born from a relationship between him and the person you hire that started in that Discord server. So a lot of the times the value can be just in connecting your community with itself and you don't have to necessarily be doing a whole bunch of extra work, which I hate. I'd swear they're paying you there at discord. My god, I don't even know it makes money. Can I ask Nanna a quick question here? Yeah? For that, do they need to enter in a new payment or is it connected to PayPal as well, because a lot of people can just click yeah, enter my payment PayPal or do they have to enter a whole new credit card and stuff. Stripe doesn't take. It doesn't take PayPal, so they would be greeted with essentially a very simple screen that says name, credit card number, submit payment, and it's really that simple. But they can't pay with PayPal. They have to pay the credit card. Yeah, Stripe's PayPal competitor. And we were talking about people that are successful with Patreon. If you want to become completely suicidal, check out the website graph so g r a p h dot com. And if you go to an advanced filters you can say, just show me podcasts. And right now, the one that's showing it the number one, the Tim Dillon Show. Never heard of it. Uh, forty five thousand, five hundred and twenty seven patrons getting two hundred and twenty one, four hundred and forty five dollars a month. Yeah, I actually shared a post from him today. I didn't realize he was a well known person. But that's that's a place where I'll go to say, like, Okay, what are these guys doing that they're getting I know el Choppo House, somebody told me they do like a PBS thing where they just do an episode that's like we're not coming back until we get X amount of patrons. And I was like, well that's a little different. If anybody else has anything they want to ask, go ahead and request to speak. But we're are going to go to the greatest song ever sung. Greatest song, you know what I mean, the greatest song ever sung poorly. Sorry even waiting patiently. I appreciate it. Thanks, Thanks Jef. Just going back to the whole Patreon thing that you guys were talking about and setting your prices too small, that's the thing that it's not just a podcasting thing. It's the thing where people are not used to sales type of thing. So I was at a concert this weekend, not related to the podcast at all, and there was a charity table there and great charity and the artist was supporting it and it was wonderful and they weren't making any money. So my obnoxious ass, as Tanner will tell you, I'm very obnoxious in large groups. I just started carnival barkering for them and calling people over and I'm like, yeah, and you can take all of the swag back with you for fifty dollars, And the person running the table is like, but it's only forty dollars. I'm like, it's not forty anymore. It's fifty now. And we ended up raising I don't know, like four hundred bucks in the time that I sat there for this queer charity in Maryland. It's just if you ask with enough energy and confidence, people will just pay it. That's the secret. That's it. It's that simple. Well, I think it's that if you I don't know if it's that if you say, with enough energy, people will pay it. I just think it's no matter what the price is, somebody's willing to pay it, and you got to let them know about it. Absolutely. I think go ahead, d go ahead. A just was going to say, I think with everything in podcasting, probably with everything in life. I'm still young. I don't know. It's all about experimenting and trying something for three months, seeing if that works. And that is as large as having a Patreon at all, and as small as your actual words in your call to action for your Patreon. Try something, see if it works, Try it at the beginning of the show, tried at the end of the show, tried at the middle of the show. Lots of different things that you can do to potentially persuade some people, and then once you get those people, you've got to do account management. So a lot to go into it, and it might be worth it to spend your time looking for ads rather than looking for patrons. But of course that's another thing to consider. So also I'll add on to that, and then I swear, Jeff, I'll shut up and let you do whatever you're going to do. Next, you could offer this is something that I do through my podcast. It's the only thing I ever sell to podcasters. And when you hear the price, you probably think it's ridiculous. But you could do the same thing. You know a lot about comedy. Maybe there's a potential for you to teach a comedy class or something. But I teach a class on audio engineering, and I charge what will now be thirteen forty for it. And that thirteen forty includes RX nine standard, So that's like a four hundred dollars piece of software, a one year licensed to persona studio one. It includes all these extras to make it worth that much. And kind of going into what the greatest song ever sung? Poorly say, I wanted to say it right said, it's if you ask There are people who will say yes, because you've got to ask, and you've got to have it structured such that it's easy for them to enroll in whatever it is that you're selling or participate. And I mean with anything, it does have to provide a value. So like, just this secret content is probably if that's how it's being sold, that's probably not enough. I don't want secret content. I want to know what that content is. I want to know why that appeals to me. I want to know how that, how that speaks to what I will spend money on. And you have to do that, you know. Going back to sales, I hear people, and the problem is the minute we start promoting ourselves, we feel salesy. And I'll hear people because I'll be like, hey, don't forget to remind your fans to your listeners to share it with somebody, and their pitch will be like, hey, like, if you you know, maybe kind of want to, like you don't have to, but like you know, if you want to, like you know, so somebody like, and then they'll see our website is dot com and I'm like, wait, what but if you said, hey, if you like the show today, you know we're at eighteen minutes. If you know somebody else that would like this, could you go to your app and just hit the share button. It would mean the world to me. And so I think that's a big part of it too. I think anytime anybody tries to promote themselves that the pitch is just like cringe worthy. I had a thread going on Twitter for a while that I would comment on every time a call to action in a podcast made me stop and actually do that call to action. So think about that as you're listening to podcasts over the next few days. I think that's something to keep in mind, is why would you stop doing what you're doing, which is listening to a show. Maybe you're washing the dishes, maybe you're out on a walk doing whatever. Why would you stop doing what you're doing? Pause the podcast, navigate over to the website that they told you to go to. What was it about that that made you want to do that? I'll just tell you one that stuck out to me. It was a Patreon call. It was PRXIT Radio Topia's big fundraiser that they do every year, and I was listening to the podcast This Day in Esoteric Political History, and they said that if you give at two dollars a month to Radio Topia. You get to see this day in esoteric political histories map of their upcome episodes and you can contribute to that map. And I was like, that is cool. I want to have, you know, a part in the show that I love. So that was something that was interesting to me. That's something that made me pay money right then and there. So just over the next few days think about that and tweet me. I would love to know what makes you want to do something. All right, we've got time for one more the Blue Collar Enlightenment Show. Please tell me it's not something about Patreon or we've got to patreon Power Hour. No, Sarah, I'm not going to do that to you. I'm gonna try to revert back to the sponsorship thing. And my question is, once you find your potential sponsors, how do you even go about contacting them and selling your podcast to try to make that money? And you know, how much do you take and how much do you give? Oh boy, does this mean Jeff you can start it out. We got to get Jim mellardin here at some point. He's just sitting there. I don't know what he's doing. Guy, So I was just taking that part of the conversation. And so you want to know about the sponsorship, fag, This is my two cents on that, and I'll let somebody else so he's probably smarter talk about this. But I never I never used to word sponsorship when I'm pitching somebody. It's always a partnership because they can do Obviously they're doing the money for me, but I'm gonna do something for them and whatever. I mean, it depends on it depends on the deal, depends on your show. There's no I mean, I know there's CPMs out there for podcasters, but sometimes you know the person's running a small business or an offer and just trying to get going and you want to help them, so you get a little low. And sometimes you know they've got more money than brains and you want to go a little high. So yeah, it's all, it's all. And maybe I'm looking at that totally backwards, but that's just how I run. Are you Are you a first time Are you a first time podcast? With how many how far along in the podcasting process are you going to these sponsors? I'm going on four months, But this is kind of a long term goal for me. So I want to be able to have that knowledge when I get to that step. What's the tell me what the show is about, and tell me who the who the target sponsor is my show is It's kind of in the title, I'm a blue collar guy and I'm searching for answers in the world and enlightening myself on how people go about their entrepreneurship. Every story is different and you always learn something new. So that's what my show is about. And who is the You don't think give the name of the company necessarily, but how does the sponsor that you're thinking about approaching align with that mission? Well? Mine would be for the blue collar workers, like the blue collar way, like Carhart at would you know those type of changes who I kind of like that. So I almost think that your show title doesn't do enough to explain that this isn't necessarily a philosophy show. It's a show about learning how to be an entrepreneur, like but being a blue starting out as a blue collar maybe labor worker, and becoming an entrepreneur making your own life. Am I right about that? You are exactly right? Yeah, I don't know. I think when I read your title, I thought oh, this is a blue collar guy having philosophical discussions about philosophy, not necessarily about entrepreneurship. So there might be a potential opportunity to improve the name of the show, especially since you're only four four months in. But I think that you could approach so long as you can make it clear what the match was. You could approach somebody like Carhart or you know whoever. I like to tell people who are going for the first sponsorship to go for about ten thousand for the year and to not focus on the number of downloads that they have because they're new, and of course they can't do that. There's no value. But it's all about It's all about the fit betwe I mean your content, the potential of what you'll do in your first year, and the value of the sponsorship to Carhart. I guess in this In this example, usually usually the sponsor needs to have a more expensive product than what Carhart's average product costs probably is. John Deere might be a good fit for that too, but I think Carhart's more like blue collar John Deere probably doesn't really get into sponsoring podcasts too much. I'd say go for ten thousand. I could probably walk you through a more detailed process. If you wanted to reach out to me, I won't charge anything. I'll just talk to you. But I've helped people do this in the past. He won't charge you anything, but he would love it if you bought him about one hundred coffees. Great. Do you know I don't even use by me a coffee anymore? Right? Oh, come on, if you've got four bucks, you can you can chat with him on discord. Yeah, exactly dollars. Hey, he already said it was free. Yeah, yeah, it's free, man. So that run with give anything to throw in here. I mean, I have lots of comments about this. I mean, you know, Indie drop In was booked up on sponsorships for I don't know, maybe nine months. It's a little bit light right now. But you know, one one thing I think is good is that you have to figure out what value your listeners. Like. You have to have the value for your listeners but also for the brand. Right, so if it's if it's car Heart, I think that, you know, you would have to really be able to sell them on what the vision is. Like, why would a blue collar worker who wants to move into entrepreneurship. Why would they pick Carhart. Are they still you know, working in the foundry like or or are they starting up there whatever tool and die business or whatever it is they're doing. Yeah, it does. Does. Are you going to the point where are you thinking like, does Cardhard have emerging entrepreneur program or are you trying to think of something like that? Yeah? Yeah, I'm trying to think of because you're brand new, and I think it's a mission that some of these folks might want to gamble on while you're still building your show. But you have to get the niche and this is you know, Tanner was spot on with this. I'm just gonna make sure it's as clear as it can be. Your niche has to be razor sharp to get to get solid sponsors, right, you have to be talking about the blue collar angle for lifting yourself out of the whatever labor world you're in and building a business like it. Every single show has to have that theme. And then once you have that, then you can go you can go pitch that vision to sponsors and you could ask for something like ten thousand dollars or even more because they might believe in that mission. But that has to be right, like you have to really figure out what the value is for both people, like will your people buy it? And one trick I use that I can't get Tanner to acknowledge his genius is I test it with affiliate marketing, right, So I'll go find something that resonates, and my true crime show is a good thing. I found a good a good test. I went and just signed up for Amazon affiliates and I pitched a book on true crime to see what my conversion ratio would be if I pitched it exactly like a sponsor. So I could go to my go to a sponsor and say I have a three point five percent conversion rate, which is two percent more than the average, and I can ask for fifty bucks per thousand downloads as an example. And that's a real life example. So there's millions of things you can do. But I'll go to Ariel since she has her hand up. Just wanted to add that I think one of the mistakes that podcasters make is thinking that monetizing means you've made it, you know, or getting a sponsor means you've made it. Whatever made it means to you and somebody who's getting at this before but I think what's really important to consider is will your audience convert. Yes, brand awareness is something that some brands want to go after, but when you're in talks with potential sponsors for your show, you should talk about, you know, who is your audience. Are they likely to convert? And I would definitely test that out with affiliate links or you know, asking them to do something that maybe doesn't have a monetary value, like I don't know, a free tier coming to your website and taking a survey, something that you're asking them to do something maybe in exchange for the chance to win in one hundred dollars Amazon gift card, something like that that brings them somewhere so that you know that they're engaged, because you do not want to enter into a partnership with a brand and not have that have your ads convert for that brand, because then you're gonna you know, you're gonna charge them ten thousand dollars for a season and it brings them nothing. You definitely don't want that, So I think before anything, definitely do some big testing. And you did not say that you were, you know, looking to do this right away and you're looking to get all the information that you can, and I think that's great, but I would take all of this into account, and especially just the don't don't do it too early, because you want to be hearing from your listeners so much so that you know that when you tell them to go buy something, a good percentage of those people will go buy something and then they're going to tell you about it, and then they're going to tell other people about it. And not all that is trackable, but it's still something that comes from you, and you can do do that affiliate marketing, by the way, right now, like it's never too early to start testing that stuff in my opinion, and this isn't exactly right, but maybe from blue collar to boardroom like something more like that, for Oh, I love that that is that is a vast improvement. It can't be boardroom though, because he's an entrepreneur and nobody wants to get in the boardroom right, terrible places. But something like that from boardroom to boss, period collar to beat No, no, well that sounds like a retirement show. But from blue collar to boss that does sound good. That's pretty good, Greg, Yeah, right, so yeah, So on the monetization piece, I'd just say that There's a couple other points to think about. One is, if you're going to people, you can always pitch exclusive sponsor versus diversity of sponsors. So you can say, hey, here's what it. I can sell this season to you exclusively for X amount whatever that is. Or you can be one of a series of sponsors and I'll offer five sponsor spots. But if they're wanting real clear brand alignment with that, then they will pay a certain rate to be able to lock you in so that some of their competitors can't have their voices heard. The other thing you definitely should do if you especially if you get an exclusive sponsor, is let them know that part of the success of your show, even though you're pitching them, part of your show's success depends on them. So if they're sending out a newsletters, they're taken out of their prospects, and I think that that's creates a little bit of a virtuous cycle and also shows your value and keeps them engaged over time as well. Uncle Dave, what do you think? And be sure to test the product first. When I was talking with people like Glenn the Geek and other people that had sponsors, because the problem is if you promote a product and you're like, this is the best thing since slice bread, and then your audience buys it and they go, wow, this is absolute crap. And then you come up, hey, we got a new sponsor. This thing is awesome, and they got yeah, I'm not buying that. Like, you lose your integrity. So don't get blinded by the dollar signs to promote something that you wouldn't you know, give to your mom. Wouldn't getting these bigger sponsors kind of help with your numbers as well? Because of that, well they were at all. If anything, they'll go down now again going back to what Ariel said, sponsorship does not equal success. Grow at having an engaged audience who will listen to what you say, buy what you say to buy that success. And it really comes down to your why. I mean, I was I don't normally look at my numbers, and I was looking at my numbers today. In some places they went down. But I don't do the show for advertising. I'm advertising my own stuff and my membership numbers went up, and I'm like, so I'm happy as a clam because I'm doing it to increase my membership site. If I was doing it for ads and focusing on download numbers, i'd be you know, oh my god, i'd you went down two percent. I think these are all valid points, and this has been an awesome hour. Little too much Patreon for my liking, but nevertheless, we will get past that. I'm gonna no, go ahead, Dave. I have one quick question. I hear Ariel everywhere I go, and I'm dying to know if I've ever met you in person, because if so, I can't remember it. Oh, definitely okay, because I'm like, and it's like I see all the time, and I'm like, have I like it sounds familiar? I need to go find your picture. Yeah, I work first podcast. I'm sure we've been at events together. I knew that. Yeah so, and I know you do the whole sounds profitable thing. I was like, man, she's everywhere I've probably met this person. So all right, that's all I had. Jeff, Thanks, Dave. Did that confirmation? Do anything like? That's my worst nightmare. When I go have I met you? They go yeah, I go, oh, I'm terrible. This. My problem is that I remember faces, extred names extremely well, so it's off and creepy. I'll go up to people and be like, we met at this place and doing that, we talked about this, and they'll be like what, and I'm like, I just ignore me demoralizing. For me, I am the opposite. I won't remember your name or face, but the minute you show me your artwork for your podcast, I'm like, oh you're that okay, Yeah, so that's You're like, oh we have met before? I got it? Yeah, yeah, thanks. Jeff losing your mind? Dave? How can you? How can you remember her? Mark Binder? Why are you jumping up here? What do you get through in Well? I heard Ariel works for a squadcast and me a bit of a selfish question here with me running uh in building pat tricks, I've been thinking about building an integration with squadcasts as far as getting you know, the recordings directly into the system. I was curious as to who I need to talk to to, you know, get that process started. Yeah, I got you. We have a public I'm going to say the wrong acronyms, either SDK or API. I'm not really sure, but I know that you can integrate. I'm on the people side of things, so excuse me for not knowing if you email Rockwell at squadcast dot fm. He will tell you everything you need to know and feel free to DM me for that awesome Thank you so much. So before we go, does anyone else want to come up and buy or sell something to anyone on the stage? You know, just a last last call, last call? Don't give Tanner the opportunity here? Can? I try to get people to check out uncut FM to like just see it, which is a terrible name and everybody's probably giggling, but that is I'm experimenting with it and I'm having some amount of luck and it's pretty cool. So if you're into like signing, it's a platform that allows you to create an NFT membership card and then somebody can just use a regular debit card to purchase an NFT with crypto, but they never realize they're doing it, so the really low tech person who doesn't understand the space can still participate. It's kind of it's basically Patreon, but the key is an NFT instead of you know, like a dollar bill. It's kind of interesting. Don't I don't. I don't for them, that's what we need. I don't. I don't consult for them. I don't work for them. Is the benefit for me? If you go check it out. I just think it's cool. Would and I'm having some luck with it, so look into it if you like. Would you have for dinner? What did I have for dinner? I had? Uh? What I have? I had zoodles? I had zoodles for dinner. You had something vegan? I'm sure what's zules? Are zucchini noodles? Okay? They were all right? Okay, I respect it. You know, I went to an Ethiopian restaurant. I had some vegan stuff. It wasn't that bad. We've got a great Ethiopian place right around the corner. I keep meaning to go, but I seem to never get there when they're open. They keep odd hours, but it always smells by Oh my god. You know the place that we got it was hilarious. So we're like midstroke, COVID whatever, but we happen to be able to get into this place. Whatever. The dude's showing us how to eat the food sticking. It was crazy. It was crazy. I was thinking the whole time, I'm going to die, but it was worth it, so what you know, you know, I just feel like ashers right now I totally get her question, you know, going off track. No one remembers ashers first question. No, no, no, no, I got you, I got you. I got you. I'm nodding my head, just being polite. Well, do you have anything else? Did you have a question or anything? Or do you just want to know what Tanner and his well, his dog steals all his food, what they ate for dinner? I mean, is there anything you guys want to talk about? I'm all yours. Well, we're about to put a ribbon on this bad boy. We've been at it for going on an hour and a half now, so I mean I had to come back next Monday. Keep you waiting up join the Patreon for the extended Power two hours exactly On that note here, I will go ahead and give my closing thoughts on this evening. I think that I learned that this podcasting Power Hour sponsored by Patreon, Discord, and squad Cast. It seems like unofficially, but no, seriously, I think important thing to remember is that there's a lot of great people up here, but not everything works for everybody that's being said, and everybody kind of has their own path. But you really got to be willing to continue to learn and try things to grow. So it may not work out for you exactly, but consider everything and just don't be afraid to keep learning every day. I think that's that's absolutely critical. Burial missile. Oh boy, what we got now? What we got now, be theodle, be the sooodle you wish to see in the world. That's my That's how I'm closing it out. That's all you got, That's where we gotta leave it. Those are just it's SuperFect. Well guy gave everybody else a chance. Greg. I'm gonna I think you should plug Indie drop in real quick because you really do provide a great service for podcasters, and I think you should. You should plug yourself. You deserve it. You do good. Thanks so much, Greg, Greg, plug yourself, Thank you, Thank you. I don't use uncut FM to plug myself in case anyone was curious, but uh, if anybody wants to check out indie drop in, it's indie drop in dot com. Essentially, what I do is, if you have a scary, paranormal, true crime or comedy podcast, I run a feed drop network. So essentially I play your show to my audience to help find you some listeners. It's really that simple, and uh it's We're over two and a half years old now and it's going strong. So new shows coming soon. Thank you, Greg, and thank you for paying helping pay my student life and appreciate it. No problem me and and our sponsors. Have you covered. Love it. Jim Mallard, You've been a quiet one, but you always have some boords for the wisdom to close things out. What do you got. I'm gonna jump, I'm gonna be on the shelf the selfish promotion train tonight. Unfortunately or fortunately for you, tomorrow night, I have my wife on my show, So we're gonna peel back to Curtin and you're gonna learn a lot about me and my family and something we haven't really talked about on my show in the last eleven years. So people have been kind of chirping and wondering. So we're gonna put it out there and let people hear what goes on behind the scenes here in the households So good, bad, room different. We're gonna do it so true, Maverick, sounds like a good time. What do you think, Greg, You're gonna be there? Yeah, I mean generally, I prefer curtains to be closed. But I mean, I guess it'll be interesting. Tanner. You've got ten seconds sell us what you can sell anything. I so yeah, you keep telling me that no, I don't have anything to sell. I will need everyone's support in the coming weeks, as I have just recently ordered a hydro rowing machine and I'm getting I finally lost enough weight where I can actually start doing some some heavy exercise, so I'm gonna start cranking these man boobies down. That's what I'm working on. That's what my week is all about. The way sweaty AirPods pop out of your ears is going to make you furious, just preparre It's basically like the peloton of rowing machines. That's pretty cool. Hopefully I didn't spend three thousand dollars on it for no fucking reason, and it just sits there and collects dust and clothing. So it's ninety six easy payments of six dollars. Well, Tanner, I don't I don't, Dave. I don't know if you can top this for your closing thoughts to Seev, but I appreciate you taking the time to jump on here. It's nice to finally talk to you in person instead of just talking you during your podcast coach on YouTube. So thank you, Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah, first of all, tan rowing sucks. I have one gathering dust in my basement. It's not fun. But you know, yeah, I'm sorry, but you know, just keep thinking about I actually cleaned mine off today. I was like, I'm with you, I Mike, I gotta work on the man boobs. But to go back to what Ariel said earlier, she said, look, try this, try that, try this and that, and it's one of those things that I was thinking about today that I'm like, I think I teach too much cookie cutter podcasting, podcasting by numbers kind of thing. I was like, I think we need a little more creativity in the podcasting space. And you want to co host with me there, do not do it. Do not do it. So that's all I have. But thanks for having me. This is this has been fun. Dave does have a podcast school of Podcasts and you should check out. He provides great information for podcasters. Well, I think we're gonna put Greg, what do you get? What you got? I was gonna say, I'm a proud patron of asked the podcast coach, so you know, must have got me on that CTA. That's it. I appreciate it so much. Love in this community, don't we all love it? Speaking of love, I love all of you for joining us, and I hope you continue to do so. Next Monday we'll be back at it again at nine pm Eastern. Until then, thanks for attending Podcasting Power Hour. Keep being you, keep being great in Screw Patreon. We're never gonna get that sponsor. Jeff, I don't know what are you doing, man, gosh man who? Thank you for listening to the Podcasting Power Hour. Everyone is free to participate on Twitter spaces every Monday at nine pm Eastern time. To join, just follow Jeff at podcast underscore Father or Greg at Indie Droppin'. If you found this podcast helpful, go into your podcast app and write a quick review. Other podcasters will see it and know this show is worth listening to. Also, I'll put a few links in the show notes for ways you can support the show. I think by now you know we love our coffee. Have a great week. Now, I'll hang out for a few more minutes. If people want to chat, then I go get off there. Well maybe all I will pick us up. I mean that's Audible drop that they used to send out like millions and millions of dollars in podcast sponsorships, but I don't know if they do that anymore. They have an affiliate program on I think it's Impact dot Com. Would you say Audible? Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Audible sponsored some of my shows maybe like six months ago, but not since then. Probably didn't get the conversion they wanted. I think that's their goal to sponsor every podcast ever. Good for them, though, Yeah, I want to sell mattresses like that's when you know you've made it. Oh god, I hate the mattress commercials. I hate all commercials. That's like you, for example, Pixie, of what you don't want to do, you'll use the mattress example. Always, always, And because it kind of seems skeazy for a stripper podcast to uh sell mattresses, So I just I just don't even want to go there. Well, I heard Todd Cochran on The New Media Show explain how they send him a Casper mattress and he goes, that's why they're not a sponsor. He goes, the mattress sucked. He's like, I'm not pimping that to my audience. So can you imagine? No, I'd sell a mattress. I don't care. Casper bring it on. He's in it for the money. He's all about that money. Baby, I'll be I'll be like you might not Mike call to action, be amazing, Like you might not know this right now, but I'm laying down, laying down speaking in your ear holes. Oh well, I've got the worst spotsor pitch for you that I've got my inbox. Maybe should maybe should save this for next week. We can talk about these I got a diet pill. They wanted me, they wanted this watch my show for a month and pay me ninety five dollars, which was actually less than the pills they were trying to sell for a month. Wow, the whole bottle for a month was one hundred and seventy five dollars. They want to pay me ninety five dollars for the month. I'll tell you, what do you guys do with your swag? For all of you that get sponsors, Like, what do you do with your stuff? Like I got blenders, I got pots and pack and stuff stack don't you start? Why don't you do like a whole giveaway to your listeners because they're supposed to buy it. Oh, he doesn't do anything for free, hesus? Yeah, this is free. What are you talking about? Everything I do is for free. Autograph it and then sell it to your listeners. Oh yeah, they don't want that. They'll charge me for that. They don't one of one. Yeah, it's one of one because no one wanted it. There's an DT too. The picture with me and the actual Oh god, just gets worse, like you think, Oh, that's a dumb idea, But no, there's more. Hey, that's why I'm here, right, So with the with the mattress, there's a guy on TikTok who basically went viral because he was letting and he just he did like I think it was twenty four hours. Every time you donated to him, something weird happened and he couldn't get sleep through the twenty four hours. That would be a great one for the mattress. I haven't left in three weeks. Three weeks? Are you a lot better? You better hang up? Yeah, you better go to bed now on that list my show for a few hours. It'll take care of that. Only the next one. The life and death of Jim Ballard. Jim's like niche. Now I'm going to have my wife on ye ask here's this ship. I gotta get off here. I will talk to you all next week in some of you. In the meantime, Greg the thank you for that. I'll take that exit. Yes, I'm exiting now, all right by Thank you for checking out this episode of Anti Podcaster. I really do appreciate it. If you're interested in learning more about this podcast, you can go to podcastfather dot com. If you're interested in all the different kind of work that I'm doing, you can go to Jeff Townsend dot Media contact form on there various other different podcasts and projects that I'm evolved in that I think you will enjoy. But again, thank you for supporting me, and make sure you support Anie Dropping Network like we cover to the beginning, get your podcast featured on there. Until I see you next time, take care of yourself and keep being you and keep being great. Jeff Townsend Media sees you. Good night. And the question is do I stay here? Will you be back? Are you gonna come back? Will you be back? Are you coming back
