Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 Starting a podcast has a low barrier to entry. Let's take a look at some of the costs here at Castillo's to host your podcast. It's $19 a month or $190 a year. One of the best microphones you can get for the money is an ATR 2100 for $99. It's a very simple USB microphone plugs right into your laptop or computer, very easy. So for a few hundred dollars, you've equipped yourself with the ability to broadcast your content message for art to the world. You're revolutionizing radio. It's the hidden cost that might challenge you like marketing the show, editing the show and committing the time to see the whole thing through. So yes, anyone can start a podcast, but not everyone can make it successful. Today's guest podcast, producers Stewart, barefoot of small league stu.com guides us as to what we can do to improve our shows in a sea of over 2 million podcasts. So, yeah, while it's great that nearly anyone can start a podcast. Well, anyone can start a podcast. Let's get better at it. Shall we? You're listening to the audience podcast, your home to stories and lessons for podcasters, looking to take their show to the next level for people just getting started with podcasting to brands and celebrities monetizing their audio experience, the audience podcast has it all, never miss another show by subscribing at <inaudible> dot com slash subscribe that's cast dose.com/subscribe. Okay, let's jump into our conversation
Speaker 0 00:01:26 With Stewart.
Speaker 2 00:01:30 As you said, I'm an independent podcast producer. So I work with a wide array of different creators to help them basically create and distribute their podcast that takes various forms depending on the podcaster and where they're at with their podcasts and, and what they want to do. So that can be real bread. Uh, you know, like meat and potato type stuff, just editing their, their audio, making it sound a little bit better. Uh, sometimes it's more creative consultations. It's talking about what the creative vision for their podcast is and brainstorming ideas. Sometimes it's more stuff around the periphery, just kind of helping them distribute their podcasts, writing some copy for some of their ads and creating trailers. So it's, it's really kind of at the right now, kind of like running the gamut right now, a little bit, a little bit of everything. And I try to meet people on their level, which as an independent podcast or as an individual I can really afford to do that. I can, I can say, listen, you know, I'm involved with your podcast as much, or as little as, as you want me to be. And we'll kind of just work together. So in a lot of ways, I'm just kind of a creative partner.
Speaker 1 00:02:29 It's sort of like podcasting is something of like 20 years ago when everyone was wanting a website, right. Then people wanted a website, they wanted a blog. It seems like nowadays. And I can tell you, cause we have the data here at Casos. Everyone wants a podcast. Are you seeing that too? I mean, obviously this is your business. So you're the leads that you're seeing, but have you seen this dramatic uptick since, you know, unfortunately COVID hit us last year and sort of feel like everyone's rushing to this medium now.
Speaker 2 00:02:55 Yeah. I've definitely seen that. And I think to your point COVID was definitely, I think kind of the impetus for a lot of new ideas, maybe not even new ideas, it was more kind of like they'd had this idea. It was something they'd want it to do for a while. And COVID kind of gave them the time to do that. You know, you're not going into the office every day. And in some cases it was companies kind of, they wanted to have a podcast and because they couldn't really work on the scale, they once were able to before COVID they were like, well, we need to do something. We can't just drop off the face of the map here, so to speak. So COVID kind of in a way presented an opportunity there, but yeah, you're right. Lots of people want to do to do a podcast. Now
Speaker 1 00:03:35 When somebody comes to you and they say, yeah, like I don't have any experience in this podcasting thing. Um, they've never talked into a microphone before. All they have is the Apple earbuds, is, is there a place or a method you use to introduce them and maybe even pump the brakes a bit? Cause I I've seen some people say, I'm going to get into this. I'm going to spend whatever it takes. Thousands of dollars on hardware and equipment. Like, do you have something that just works the mindset like, okay, you don't need to spend a lot of money at the beginning. You need, you do need to spend some few hundred bucks maybe to have something decent, but is there a mindset that you, you can put them into this new person coming to you?
Speaker 2 00:04:16 Yeah, absolutely. So pumping the brakes is a good way is a good place to start because sometimes especially if they don't have the experience and they have this kind of big ambitious idea, I really do try to almost talk them off the ledge, so to speak they'll they'll come to me and say, Hey, I want to do, I want to do an episode every week. And then two Fridays a month, I want to do a special episode and they don't really have any content ready to go. So I, I really, I really try to, again, kind of pump the brakes a little bit, sort of go over with them, you know, what, what, what that would until the time commitment. And then the other thing, like you said about, about a mindset, if they're not really comfortable talking into a microphone, if they don't even know the equipment.
Speaker 2 00:04:54 So there's, there's obviously the one-on-one level stuff. Like, all right, like, you know, let's start with just your basic USB microphone. Let's get you some acoustic tiling, maybe a decent pair of headphones. Let's not spend $10,000 turn into your office and do a home studio. If you don't know that you're going to be doing this in a year. The second thing I like to do actually is we do what I call a screen test before, before they ever publish an episode. So we work out a format. So a lot of times I get to know them a little bit. You know, if they listen to other podcasts, I take a chance to listen to those podcasts. Uh, I send them podcasts similar to what, where I think they're at creatively. I ask them to listen to that. So I get them kind of comfortable with the formatting of a podcast.
Speaker 2 00:05:38 I try to instill in them that there's more than one way to approach making a podcast. And then what I do is once we've kind of settled on a format, we actually do. Okay. I said that screen tests where I actually act as a dummy guest for them, we connect on a platform. We don't even discuss that. It's a fake quote, unquote fake podcast. We just, we do it front to end. They interview me as a guest. If, if you know, if their format is Q and a, I edit the podcast, I show them, listen, this is kind of how we should format it. So before they ever interview that first guest, before they've ever published an episode, they feel a hundred percent confident or if not a hundred percent, maybe 85 or 90% confident that they've got a good format. And then, you know, the, the last thing I'll say about that is I, I really try to hammer home that this can be an iterative process that, you know, just because you know, you, you do something now doesn't mean that, you know, a year from now, you can't tweak that you can't change it.
Speaker 2 00:06:35 You can't refocus the podcast on, on something else. So I really try to get them comfortable with the idea, like, you know, it's like everything else, there's some trial and error involved in and you shouldn't be scared of that.
Speaker 1 00:06:46 And actually it's like, it's great advice too, because I've been podcasting now maybe eight or nine years, I forget how long it is now, 58 years in COVID years. But you know, at one point early on, it was that excitement that we all go through in the beginning. Whereas, I mean, I just love this. This is exciting. I'm meeting people, you know, I largely do interview shows and it was just fun. And then eventually like two, three years into it, you're like, Oh man, I'm talking about the same stuff over and over again. And I remember just switching and burning out a little bit and just it hitting that off switch and being like, you know what, I'm going to take a break when I'm not going to podcast for like a month. And I think I do it. I did it around the summertime, which has now been a thing for me.
Speaker 1 00:07:25 It's sort of like, I'm gonna take the summer off and introduce that seasonality to shows and just saying like, Hey, when I come back this season, we're going to talk about, you know, X, Y, Z. And this is, this is the story arc. And for anyone listening, like I think that is a, a great place. And, and I'm actually interested to hear what you think Stuart is like, if you're just getting started in this, give yourself whatever 12 episodes and say, this is what I'm going to talk about for 12 episodes. That way you have this cutoff point where if you don't like this rhythm, this cadence that you're in or the topic anymore, you get a chance to kind of pull the parachute, right. And switch to something else if you want. I mean, is that a fair statement? Is that something you've seen in, in your endeavors is 12, 14 episodes and somebody takes a break and moves on to something else?
Speaker 2 00:08:11 I think that's basically the perfect approach. I think what you talked about burnout is a very real thing and that's exactly it that that sort of trajectory you just described, I think, is very common when it's new and it's exciting. You're, you're amped up, you have a lot of content and they ended, like you said, you get, you get into it. Whether it's two years, sometimes it's, it's less for people. Couple of things happens. You know, like I said, they get burnt out. They start running out of ideas and they, they get kind of locked in this mindset of, Oh man, I've got to put something out every Wednesday. It's Tuesday afternoon. I don't have anything. And then they make a really bad podcast episode. And it's, it's that it's you got to respect people's boundaries and you don't, you don't want to be certainly mean to anybody or disparaging or, or a gatekeeper.
Speaker 2 00:08:53 But sometimes you got to ask a person, you know, is, is that really, you know, something that a year from now, you would want to have out there for anyone to listen to any time. So I, I like what you said, I like that, you know, the idea of like 10 to 12 episodes, it can be really focused and then you take a break and then like you said, you can take that time, that, that summer break to listen to some of your content to decide, all right, let's, let's change gears here a little bit. And it can, it can be done in almost like a, I want to say like secretive way, but you don't even have to be like real on the nose about it. You can just kind of be like, well, that was season one. And we focused on that for season two.
Speaker 2 00:09:30 We're gonna, we're gonna focus on, you know, X, Y, and Z versus a, B and C. So I like that. And the other side of that, one other thing I'll say about that is when you're making a lot of content, you know, I think, again, this idea that you have to put out something every single week consistently, some people can do that. And some people have the resources and the support staff to do that. But the other side of that, when you're making a lot of content and you have a decent backlog, you gotta, you gotta consider, you know, no one's going to just sit there and listen to 20 episodes in a row. And if they really like it, they're gonna, they're going to keep coming back to it. So once you get that decent backlog of 10 to 12 episodes, you've given yourself some breathing room and we can kind of assume that, you know, if you're making content, you know, the term evergreen content stuff, that's, you know, relevant for, for awhile, if not forever, you know, in that case, you know, they might find your podcast a year or two in, and it's going to take them a while to catch up.
Speaker 2 00:10:25 So I think people put a lot of pressure on themselves. They give themselves some what I think are pretty arbitrary deadlines. So I love what you just said. I love that approach. I've seen the people I've worked with, who take that approach, I think do a little bit better. I think they, they, they put out content that's, I'd say a little bit higher and in quality because they're not, it's not a race against the clock. So yeah, I think, I think what you said is, is very fair.
Speaker 1 00:10:51 I think as humans, you know, especially when we get excited about this, this a new medium, right. And I'd say that maybe a lot of people that I talk to, they're looking at podcasting as an opportunity for something it's either to grow their brand, get awareness around a cause like a nonprofit, some kind of organization, something like that. Or they're trying to generate revenue. They look at, you know, I don't know, they look at big name podcasters and like, how can I make money being a podcaster? Like, I feel like I'm fun. I'm funny. I've got great content. How do I sell ads on this? And then they just look at their favorite podcaster and say, I'm just going to do the same thing. I'm going to buy the same equipment. I'm going to produce, you know, whatever four episodes a week. And I'm just going to go at it often when I talk to people here at Casos, I'll ask them like, how many podcasts do you think you could get out every single month?
Speaker 1 00:11:39 And largely a lot of people just say, well, I think I can do one a week. And I go, okay, well, the next thing is, how well, and how much effort can you put behind promoting your show, getting the word out there, not just making the audio and uploading it to cast those, but how much resources do you have to promote this and get it out and market it and reach out to other people. And that's when it's like, well, if I do four episodes, I've got nothing left in the tank. So then I say, well, maybe, maybe you should just do two a month or even one of month. And just spend all that extra effort, really getting it out there, like really wrapping some good marketing around it. You know, audio grams, blog posts being on social media, being a guest, uh, being a guest host on another podcast or something like that really spend that time amplifying the message. Is that something that you've seen with getting the word out there? Is there one or two things, maybe one thing that you've seen that really helps get a show found and subscribed to, because that's a huge question that comes through the, through the life of gastros. So
Speaker 2 00:12:45 I've seen, I've seen a couple of different approaches. I mean, you, you know now, I mean it's standard. Anytime you listen to a podcast, there's always the part where he, and they ask for the written review, you know, wherever you listen to podcasts and, and kind of pushing the Apple podcast, I'll tell you one method. I saw that I didn't particularly care for. I saw a podcast or I w I won't say who it is obviously, but you know, this person kind of figured out the formula. They figured out that if they get a lot of rate and reviews on, on Apple podcasts, that their show will get a lot of listens to. So what they started doing on their own, their podcasts, they started making this promotion. They were like, if you rate and review us and you take a screenshot of it and you send it to us, you get a 20 minute consultation for free.
Speaker 2 00:13:26 It was kind of taking like, Ooh, maybe it was, it was clever. And it worked, it worked, uh, personally, I thought I was like, you know, that's a little to me, it came across as a little bit disingenuous because they said, you know, it has to be a five-star review and you have to write, you know, certain. And I was like, eh, you know, it was smart. It was clever. And it worked, my personal tastes were like, eh, you know, another thing that works is kind of somewhat grassroots marketing, you know, connecting with other podcasters, being like, Hey, listen, let's, let's do some little cross promotional type stuff. Maybe I can come on your show. Maybe you can do a spot for me. I'll do a spot for you. That works pretty well. You know, leveraging the, the audience of your guests is a pretty common method that works pretty well.
Speaker 2 00:14:07 You know, you know, nabbing a relative really well-known or maybe a really well known if you're, if you're so lucky and then asking them, you know, to send out maybe like a tweet or something, or posted on their Facebook page, those kinds of things work pretty well. But the other thing is time. It just takes time. You know, you're, you're not gonna, again, unless you're already a relatively well-known person or you have the support of a big organization behind you. You know, those first few episodes is going to be, it's going to be your, your partner, your spouse, your friends, your mom and dad that are, that are the ones clicking on it. And like I said, I, I would, I would put in that front end effort to make sure that, you know, you've got a good backlog of material that way, when it does start to grow, you know, your, your first two episodes aren't don't necessarily sound like it was a lot of trial and error, even though it might've been
Speaker 1 00:14:54 One of the things that is actually just dawned on me the other day. And I don't know why it dawned on me the other day, but it did. So eight years into this, I wasn't able, I didn't have an episode recorded for a podcast that I do. I try to get them out on Sundays. If my, I have three young boys, if they're going crazy, then maybe it goes out on Monday. Um, but I didn't have an episode recorded. And I was like, I've been doing this for eight years. I have 500 something episodes that I can just go back into and pull like the best of, out of these episodes. And I was just like, why haven't I done this sooner? Because I could have saved so much time instead of cramming the guests in there, like, like I've been known to do. And when you build this backlog of content, it's not just done and over with.
Speaker 1 00:15:37 It's why I love podcasting so much versus a grill. Craig and I have talked about this before on this podcast, like social audio, Twitter spaces, clubhouse. I feel like they are good, like promotional tools and engagement tools, but there's something about content that disappears goes away. There's no archive of it. There's no searchability of it that I'm not a fan of. Like, I'm not a fan of Instagram stories. Like I don't want to put effort into creating a piece of content that just disappears after 24 hours, I could just be old school. Like I just, like, I want to save my content. I want to have a body of work that I can search through archive and repurpose for like a best of episode. What are your thoughts on, on that?
Speaker 2 00:16:21 I like a lot of what you're saying, um, to kind of build off of that too. You said old school, I've always thought of podcasting in a way as radio re-imagined. I mean, a lot of the stuff I'm doing with, with clients and a lot of really good podcasts, I'm seeing out there in many ways, we're not recreating the wheel here. We're taking good ideas that have existed for at this point, almost a century. And, and we're in, we're tweaking things and we're changing up the methodology a little bit to meet current demands and to work with our current technology. And to your point, as far as there being like an archive, like, I think that's great, uh, because you can repurpose material that's existed for a long time to kind of meet the podcasting needs of today. Uh, I've worked with, I'm working with a client now, actually they're they're on Casto.
Speaker 2 00:17:06 So I'll, I'll, I'll say what it is. It's Epic experience. Epic experience is a great non-profit that provides like a summer camp experience for people who have cancer. And they also provide a lot of different, you know, like resources and emotional support for, for their family and everything. It's just a tremendous organization. The people who participate in these summer camp programs, they talk about how it's changed their lives. It's it's phenomenal, obviously they've, they've kind of had to pump the brakes a little bit on meeting in person with, with COVID being, being what it is. So again, that's a good example of, of a, of an organization that took, you know, the downtime they got with COVID and pivoted to podcasting to promote their costs. And they had a, they had a YouTube series for a while and it was called beyond cancer. Uh, we call the campfires of hope.
Speaker 2 00:17:50 So what we've done is they had this huge backlog of, you know, at least 20 or 30 YouTube videos that we were able to repurpose for a podcast. And we obviously, obviously there were some things in there, like branding things we had to, you know, take out some, some mint, any mention of know, like watching on the stream or, or anything like that. But there was all this material that existed and my thought was, well, let's repurpose it. You know, let's take the audio. Let's, let's do some specific branding for your podcast and it's, it's worked pretty well. So I think to your point is content can't exist forever. And it's just a matter of, you know, how you frame it and present it to people. So that's, what's so exciting about, about podcasting is there's a lot of different ways to build an episode. And when you, when you have a backlog of material, it can really be beneficial to you and it can really help, uh, kind of, you know, grow your, your brand and your podcasts.
Speaker 1 00:18:43 Yeah. I mean, w when clubhouse first was making the big splash, does clubhouse still exist? I don't know. And I'm just, just throwing shots at clubhouse. When it first came out, you know, it was sort of like, it made me think of what it must have been. Like, I don't have my history book in front of me, but whenever they ham radio and like, there was a movement for amateur radio hosts, air quotes, which was probably what fifties, forties, fifties, I don't know when they came out, but I can imagine that moment in time where people were like, Oh, we don't need a big radio, broad, I mean, number one, we, we don't, we, we can't walk into a radio and broadcast our message, you know, back then. And if you could, uh, you know, you had to have some inside pull or whatever, but from like a T from like hardware, a technical feat, like, Oh, I don't need this massive radio tower in order to communicate with all these other people.
Speaker 1 00:19:36 And it's just interesting to see how audio has evolved over time for humans. Right? And they, you then, however many radio stations were a hundred years ago versus now. And then, you know, of course with the decentralization through podcasting, it's like, wow, this is powerful. People can come together and broadcast audio. I can be my own radio. It's like you said, I can be my own radio station to a degree it's radio evolves. And then when a clubhouse hit, people are like, yeah, I'm like, where there's even less tools needed. Now. Now I just pick up my phone and I talk into my phone. I don't even need a microphone. I don't need a web host, but the drawback is it's just live. And it just sort of goes into the ether once it's done. No real question here. Just kind of interesting to see how we all rally around audio in an age where a lot of people are like videos, social media, but audio is still so darn powerful to make those connections with people. Yeah. A couple of
Speaker 2 00:20:31 Thoughts about that, you know, one is, I've always been amazed at how radio and I'm going to include podcasting in that, because it's just an iteration of, of radio, how that medium, how that form of entertainment and communication, how it's transcended all this different technology. I mean, I think, you know, I I've taken, you know, in college I studied communications and media history and journalism and all that. So, I mean, I know for a fact that radio executives and people like that, and the 1920s were really sweating, you know, moving pictures and all that. And then all of these, and of course, you know, then television and then, you know, streaming, it's transcended all of that. And it's just, it's adopted just modern technology to, to continue the medium. That is amazing to me. And I think it would be a lot of fun to go back, you know, to 1955 and ham radio, when people knew how to kind of, in some ways, almost hijack radio signals to kind of create their own, their own amateur radio.
Speaker 2 00:21:31 If more people could have done it, you would have probably seen an explosion kind of like you did with like you get, like you have with podcasting. The second thought I have about that, kind of like you mentioned about, about clubhouse and, and some of these other mediums, I think I've heard it said before. The best thing about podcasting is that anyone can create a podcast. The worst thing about podcasts is that anyone can create a podcast and I've always kind of found that I have such mixed emotions about it. You know, one of the things I really dislike about podcasting is that it's so, almost so easy that a lot of times people don't always respect the craft a whole lot, and they just kind of make this content that isn't, isn't very thoughtful or, or very good. And the only thing I dislike more than that is the gatekeeping and the people who be like, Oh, there's too many podcasts.
Speaker 2 00:22:14 There's a podcast about everything. And my thought is, well, you know what? I've read books on very specific subjects. There's a lot of movies. There's a lot, there's a lot of photographers. Are we, are we saying people shouldn't be creating content? I, I don't, I, I don't really buy that argument either. So I think it's just a matter of, you know, how you present that information and how you, how you, how you craft your podcast, that that really matters. And, you know, like I said, just, just making self that that can exist for, for a long time, not just kind of disappear into the, whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1 00:22:46 The internet radio airwaves. Is that a thing? Yeah. So a lot of people listening to this are there, they're thinking about, okay, how do I make my show just a little bit better? Maybe I've been doing it for a year. Maybe I'm going to do it for two years. You know, you're talking about how people would just want to spin up a podcast and don't care about the, uh, about the craft. I talked to a lot of people who are like, yeah, you know, that podcast serial. I just want something like that. Like they, you know, just give that to me. Like, it's a slide that across the table, like, it's just there. I know, you know, you probably hear that too is they're sort of, you know, looking at these multi-million dollar productions and years worth of time, research, writing, editing all of this stuff. And they think that, Oh, I can just get that in a weekend. Is there something that at least you can encourage people to think about? I know a lot of people like to think about how to make their show sound better. Do you have a certain process or just mindset? You try to get people into with making their show sound better, better, whether that's just better audio quality, their recordings, or introducing something like sound, design, music effects, things like that.
Speaker 2 00:23:51 Yeah. All the above. You mentioned cereal. The reference point I get a lot is people who like guy Roz and guy Roz is phenomenal. I think, I think in some ways he's the gold standard. And they're like, well, I just want to make something kind of like how I built this. And again, it's, it's where he pumped the brakes and it's like, listen, like, I'm glad you brought up guy Roz. He's been doing this 30 years, you know? And he's got a, he's got the support staff of people at NPR behind them. It's good to be ambitious. I'm glad. I'm glad people think like that. I'm glad people want to make something that sounds really good. So a lot of it is, you know, I tell people like, listen, like you're going to have to work at it. Like you're, it's, it's going to take work on your end.
Speaker 2 00:24:27 I can't do that for you. I can't, I can't do the research for you. I can't, those are things I can't do for you. You're going to have to put in that effort yourself, if you, if you want to approach that level, uh, the second thing you talk about, you know, making your, your podcast sound a little bit better, I'm going to start with something really abstract, and then I'm going to get to something very tangible if that's okay. So the first time I met you, I've talked about what my creative process is like. And I, and I think of content creation like this, I'm going to get some bow and arrows. I'm going to go find like a big barn wall or something like that. And I'm going to shoot a bunch of bow and arrows, and then I'm going to go, and I'm going to paint a bullseye around each of those arrows.
Speaker 2 00:25:06 And then I'm going to show everybody, look at what I did. And I say that to kind of illustrate how I think people can enhance their show a little bit, the average new podcast, or we'll probably do something kind of like this. They're going to interview somebody that they know or someone from their industry. They're going to throw kind of a pre-made intro at the beginning and the algebra at the beginning, they might hire an editor to kind of clean up the middle a little bit, but that's it. And within that basic framework, there's probably some really good content that person that they interviewed probably has some very valuable insight. There were probably some really good questions asked, but it's an hour and 15 minute long conversation. And within that hour and 15 minutes, there's a lot of content maybe that isn't needed. So what I talk about with people is adding structure to the podcast, breaking that hour and 15 minutes up.
Speaker 2 00:25:54 If you want to use all of it and into different segments, I have people create like a little customized intro for every episode, if, if they're inclined to do so, where they basically afterwards, after the interview, they go back and they listen to it and then they can tell the audience, Hey, listen, this is what you can expect for this episode. I talked with, I talked with, with Sarah and Sarah talked about, you know, how her craft brewery has been so successful because she did a, B and C it's. If you know, if you're, if you ever took a journalism class, they tell you not to bury the lead, tell people what they're going to read about before they read about it, and then let them read about it. That gives your podcast some context versus this long five minute. Oh, Hey, how's it going?
Speaker 2 00:26:37 You know? And then they share some kind of inside joke. And I'm sorry, if you hear my dog, he's probably barking at the mailman. But, um, so that's, that's the one thing I talk about. That's, that's adding structure to your podcast and that's something when people tune in to each episode, they can expect that they can expect maybe, and again, a little over prerecorded well-produced intro where you introduce the show and then, you know, the host comes on and says, you know, we're going to talk about X, Y, and Z, and then you get into it. And then you can find little ways to kind of cut into the episode, starting at something kind of interesting. Sarah doesn't need to introduce herself. You've already done that for, you know, she doesn't have to give this kind of abstract introduction about who she is about what her business is.
Speaker 2 00:27:20 You've done that as the host already, and you've done it in a concise way. That's efficient. It doesn't take up a lot of the listeners time. And then by the time you cut into the episode, you're already at a pretty meaty part. Music beds are, are, are a great way. It's a cue to the listener that something important is about to happen. You know, Sarah's going to talk about the time that, you know, she quit her job as a bartender because she'd had it with the creepy customers and the, and the long shifts. And she decided for herself, there was this aha moment emphasize that, do something that's going to accentuate that don't, you know, don't let that just get lost in the episode, put a music bed behind it. That's something that I think it's, it's hard to describe exactly how to do it other than the say, when you hear it, you know it right.
Speaker 2 00:28:04 When you hear it, you know, it I'm working with, with, uh, on a project right now. I can't really say what we're doing yet, cause we haven't released it, but we break every episode up into, you know, quote unquote three acts. So each episode is about an hour long and it's comprised of three, roughly 20 minute different acts, usually, uh, some banter between the two hosts, an interview with an industry expert and then a third segment where they kind of close up shop. They talk about all right, what, what did we learn throughout this conversation today? So things that give your podcast structure is going to help the listener kind of navigate that. It's, it's kind of like imagine your favorite book that you've ever read. And now imagine if there weren't chapters or paragraph breaks or page numbers or, or a forward or a description on the back, the content would, would ultimately be, if you can get past all that, there'd be some really good content, but you'd as, as a reader would have a hard time organizing that in your mind, all do is the same way, you know, do things that are going to help the listener, organize the information you're presenting to them in their mind.
Speaker 2 00:29:11 And there's gosh, we could probably talk about 20 different ways to do that, but it's, it gets to a point where it's, it's, it's a little bit subjective and, and each podcast is a little bit different. So I won't get real specific other than to say little things like that, little tweaks like that make a big difference.
Speaker 1 00:29:28 The other thing is too, like you said before, like one of the great things about this industry is that any, that virtually anyone can start a podcast, but that the problem is, is anyone can start a podcast. I, you know, there, there are no rules. So when I talk to people and I might, they might ask about like, okay, so when do I introduce this? You know, this soundtrack, how do I edit up this or cut into this show? There's no rules, it's creativity, right? There's, it's what you think it is. And if you're somebody listening to this and you, and you're saying, wow, I only have 12 episodes out. Okay. So Stewart's telling me I should put some music in and I should cut into my podcast and, you know, find these meaty moments. Well, yes, but that doesn't mean you have to necessarily do it right now or do all of that all at once.
Speaker 1 00:30:10 I mean, as long as you're trying to get better for at every episode, that's all we ask. Right. You know, you don't have to do it for every episode and it takes time and maybe 12 episodes, you're still learning. You're still learning the, the, the process of, of interview style and connecting with people and finding your story arc and your premise, you know, and then in two months time, okay, you start introducing these, these edits and these cuts where you're starting to slice and dice things up, though. I will tell you that. I think largely everyone's starting to catch onto this, that when you do an interview show that the introduction of the guest, isn't like 25 minutes long and it's just like, Oh, we can't, we finally found out what Stuart does it now we're moving on, uh, you know, into the show. And then by the way, we're wrapping up in 10 minutes, I was just like, yes, let's, let's cut that, that lengthy intro out of most of these interviews shows. Cause we can just look up who they are.
Speaker 2 00:31:01 Absolutely. Yeah. And that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a good way of looking at it. And uh, one comment I want to make about having that, that old material that you see where you don't do those things it's yeah. It's, it's by no means, is that a hard and fast rule in some ways it's, it's almost kind of cool to where you have some of that older material that maybe isn't quite as fine tuned. And the new, the new material is, you know, one way of looking at that is you can just like, look, this shows growth, this shows kind of how we've evolved. Not, not, everyone's going to buy that. Some people are gonna be like, no, I want to go back and fine tune that other stuff. And, and that's fine too. That's very subjective. Um, but to your point, yeah. It's not like you have to go out and do it all tomorrow. It's an iterative process and it's mourning process. I mean, I've been involved in, in media and various and production for 12 years, 12, 13 years now. And I learn something new every day. If I, if I really challenged myself to, uh, if not every day, certainly every week. So there's, there's nothing wrong with not knowing everything. No one does. And you'll, you'll learn things as you go
Speaker 1 00:32:00 Last podcast producer that I interviewed Eric Johnson, he said that I asked him, I said, you know, w what type of show, what genre you sick of, right in this crazy 2 million plus podcast directory of iTunes and Spotify, his vote went to true crime. He's like, man, I could do with less true crime shows. What about you? Is there a certain genre? You're just like, Oh, not another one
Speaker 2 00:32:24 True crime. I'll say is the biggest, it's the biggest pendulum swing and talent. I think when true crime has done really well, it's one of the best Shondras when it's not done really well. It's probably one of the worse I produced a true series and I worked with an investigative journalist who had been working on a case for, gosh, I bet he'd been working on it for almost a decade. And he did a great job with that podcast. Now, two amateurs who don't have any background in crime or in journalism, probably those were what we could do less of. I don't know if there's a type of genre necessarily that I'm sick of. What I always say is the type of podcaster that I think we need less of is the person who puts themselves a hundred percent at the center of the narrative and also says, look, this is my idea.
Speaker 2 00:33:14 It doesn't need any fine tuning. I just want people to do this for me. That's the type of podcast I think that we need less of, because I think it's just kind of, there's probably not any new genres at this point. I mean, I heard, I heard, um, Ron Howard, you know, the famous director, he says there's only seven people say there's only seven stories. I think there's only one. I, you know, that, that maybe that's a little bit abstract, but I think any genre can be a good podcast. Just, just do it well, which maybe isn't the most, maybe isn't the most Sage advice, but I think any, any genres worth exploring, just, just do it well. And I don't think that there's anything wrong with there being a lot of, one type of podcasts. I would say in some ways that's almost good because you know, there's an audience for it.
Speaker 2 00:33:59 It's just find your own foothold within that genre. Don't try to make a carbon copy of a podcast you heard. And you like, because you're not really providing anything new or anything of value. So find, find the genre that you really like, you know, something, you know, a lot about and then, and then put your own flavor into it. But, um, yeah, true, true crime would be, if I, if, if, if I had to answer, I would say true crime, self-help people and business coaches. There's a lot of that. And again, not to the spirits people, but I think a lot of times people just want to do carbon copies of podcasts that they like. And like, why that's the, what I saw I always ask is why, why, why would you, why would you not want to do something more specific to your own personality,
Speaker 1 00:34:44 A hundred percent, they take some of your advice that you mentioned before, uh, sort of think about the show slightly different punch into those more meaty moments. There are no rules, which are great. As long as you're working to improve it. Stuart barefoot, small league stu.com. Thanks for joining the show today, where else can folks find you to say, thanks,
Speaker 2 00:35:02 I'm on Twitter at, at small leaks, do they can check out my own podcast, obscure ball, just type it in wherever you get your podcasts. And you'll hear just kind of what I do is just kind of a passion project. It explores a kind of strange and unique characters in episodes in sports. History episodes are released. Occasionally I break, I break a lot of conventional rules. I just put out episodes sometimes once a month, sometimes once every two. But, uh, yeah, if you, if you, if you're just kind of curious and hearing some, some cool sports history, you can find me there. And if you go to my website, like I said, small X do.com. You can contact there if you want like a consultation or just to talk
Speaker 1 00:35:39 Sometime if I say go red Sox, what's your first reaction. Oh, they're cool.
Speaker 2 00:35:43 I'm a Bruce fan. I'm in the national league. I have no, I have no dog in that fight. I want, I want to go to Fenway. It's on the bucket list. I want to go to Fenway.
Speaker 1 00:35:51 There you go. Everybody else is the audience podcast. casos.com/audience to get all those great audience episodes. Don't forget to register for our free Academy academy.casos.com that's academy.castles.com. Check out our YouTube channel as well. youtube.com/casos. Okay. We'll see you in the next episode.
