And joining us now in the PBJ Spotlight, Jill Jaris and Alison Brown, the hosts of Olympic
Fever. And ladies, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Oh, thank you for having us.
Thank you.
Now, the first question is, how do you two know each other?
I know we worked together a long time ago in the library of a consulting firm.
And what is the obsession with the Olympics?
I don't know if I'd call it an obsession.
It's just a lifestyle, right?
I don't know. There's something about the Olympics that captures me.
And it's that spirit of bringing everyone together and trying to be the best you can be.
And you see athletes push themselves to be faster, higher, stronger.
And you think it inspires you to be a better person in whatever aspect you can be.
That's what I think of when I think of the Olympics.
And it's just it captivates me to see sports I don't get access to and people living out their passion.
Yeah, I would agree.
And I would say that that passion is what always captured my imagination, that you can put
everything you are and your entire rest of your life is on hold to achieve a goal is so single
minded and so incredible to me that I find that wonderful.
And I just like watching sports.
Cool.
And seeing people really do a good job at it.
So having a passion for the Olympics or love for the Olympics is one thing,
but then you two decide you're going to get together to do a podcast about the Olympics.
So talk about how that whole thing came about.
Right. So I in 2016, I started tried to do a blog for the Rio Olympics.
And I'm a freelance writer by day.
I don't have a ton of people to talk with, like you have a water cooler or like Alison was right
behind me at work.
So we just turn around and talk about the Olympics whenever they were on.
And so I thought, oh, a blog might be nice to do.
And putting that together was a lot of work and way more time intensive than I could do by myself
and do it the way I wanted to do.
And then so that didn't really work so well.
And I've loved podcasts for years and I love the medium.
I love that intimate connection you have with the show hosts, with the other fans of the show.
And I just thought, well, maybe a podcast would be a good way to fulfill what I want to talk about
when I talk about the Olympics.
So Alison was coming in through town one day and I just looked at her and said, oh, hey,
do you want to do a podcast about the Olympics?
And she's like, yeah.
I didn't know what I was saying.
I really didn't.
It was just, you know, Jill and I always worked very well together when we were working together
and we had a lot of fun.
So I was like, oh, I listen to podcasts.
How hard could it be?
Yeah.
Right.
And yeah, the time intensive aspect of it hasn't gone away.
But I think there's something more magical in creating that community of people who you
interact with regularly and talk actually talking with athletes and organizers and people
who have background roles in the games and listening to that is just, it's really special.
So tell us how you did get it started.
What was the first thing that you did?
Did you get a hosting company?
Did you go out and buy microphones?
Take us through those first steps so that anyone that's listening that is thinking about
launching a podcast kind of gets an idea how you did it.
So I am a member of Media Bistro and they had a course with Maurice Cherry, which was
like a six week thing with how to start a podcast.
And Media Bistro's courses used to be like you took one, they'd show it live and it would
take a full six weeks.
And then afterwards they would repackage it as a self-study course.
So I was on the self-study program and Maurice did a great job in breaking everything down,
all the things you needed to do and the order you needed to do them in.
And here's a cheap version of getting it done.
Here's a more expensive way to get it done.
And he just was really good about, hey, get into this, see what you need and just take
it as it comes.
So that's how I did it.
And in terms of planning out, Jill really handles all the technical things.
And when we were planning, I just started thinking of what do I like to listen to?
What attracts me to a show?
What's missing in Olympic coverage?
And so I was, she's working out all these technical things and I would just send her
these emails like, well, what if we did this and what if we did this and what?
So we just started thinking of what do we like to listen to?
And what do we wish existed?
And let's make that the format.
Exactly.
Go ahead, Jill.
I didn't mean to interrupt.
Oh, no, that's OK.
And I was going to say, like, the other thing that frustrated me was I like to talk and
listen to things about the Olympics.
And at the time, there was nothing regular in the podcast field.
So there would be podcasts that would pop up for like the two or three weeks around
the games and then they'd go away.
So in London, the BBC did a great podcast and then it went away.
And then NBC usually puts up a podcast right around the Olympics and it goes away.
And same with there's a couple of other that come and go.
And so we wanted to be a place that says, hey, the Olympics go on every day for these
people.
So we should have a podcast that does that.
Now, back to the kind of like the beginning, did after you talked to Maurice and you kind
of got an idea from him, what hosting company did you go with and talk about the equipment
aspect of it?
I can see you have an ATR 2100 right in front of you.
I do.
Is that right?
That's a gift from Alison.
That was her Christmas present last year.
Nice, nice.
So I went with Libsyn for hosting because that seemed reasonably priced and the service
was good.
And Libsyn service has been really good with me.
I'm not, you know, I handle the technical aspects, but I'm not a super technical person.
So there's a lot of times where I need to push back and go, hey, can you explain this
in English?
Because I don't understand what you're saying.
But they've been really great.
And then I use Audacity for editing.
When we do our show, we do end up doing a lot of piecemeal stuff.
So Alison and I get together over Skype and we record that.
And then I throw in the interviews that we do because they're all separate and recorded
separately.
And throw on the music at the beginning and the end.
And so there's a lot of editing that goes into it.
I don't have a mixer yet, but that's on my list.
It was more like, let me get a feel for what's going on and what I need and build over time.
So we definitely jumped in without really knowing, which I think was good in a way because
we did a lot of learning on the job.
Which helped both content development and I think on the technical side as well.
Now Jill, do you remember or Alison, do you remember how much money you guys had to invest
at the beginning?
Not a lot.
Sure.
No, not much.
We spent money on music and we spent money on a logo.
I think we spent like $100, $125 on a logo.
And we love our logo so much.
That was money well spent.
Equipment wise, I had originally started with a headset microphone that was really cheap.
And then now I've got the ATR that Alison kindly gifted me.
I still have a cheap headset that I'm using.
So I think I'm going to buy myself the better microphone this Christmas.
And beyond that, it's been like we spent money on the music and the music.
We spent money on hosting and website.
This past fall we just purchased a WordPress site.
So we spent a year doing Libsyn's basic site and just making sure we focused on the quality
of the content.
And then once we were very comfortable with, okay, this is how we do our thing, then it
was time to, okay, add more features.
And add a better website and think about where else to invest.
I know we spent money on travel.
So we traveled to Lake Placid to cover a pin collectors convention.
And we ended up talking with some Bob's letters while we were there.
And I had to go to Montreal for something else.
So I had a few days and did some interviews up there and also went out to Long Beach,
California for another collectors convention and talked with some people out there as
well.
So travel has been a little bit of an expense, but we try to do everything we can remotely.
Well, it sounds like you did it perfectly at the beginning there, like a lot of podcasters
do to keep the expenses down.
Now, how are you getting the word out about the show?
How do you market it?
Well, we have all our social media.
It's all Olimfever.
So we're on Twitter, we're on Facebook and Instagram.
That's been our biggest source.
We went to podcast movement.
So that was a great way to connect with a lot of people who actually spread the word
for us, which has been very helpful.
And even our guests have been very helpful in attracting their fans to listen to that
particular episode.
And then they tend to sometimes stick around.
Oh, I didn't know this even existed.
So the guests have been a big boon in that aspect.
Right.
And we've done a little bit of Facebook advertising, but not a ton.
Now, and every week I'll post the show on different Reddit threads and different Facebook
groups.
Sometimes when we're busy with our day jobs, the marketing aspect of it takes a little
bit of a slide.
And we just have to accept that.
So we're trying to get the word out.
Now we're heading into when we, of course, we had a huge spike in listenership from Pyeong
Chang, and that of course dissipated, but not, we ended up getting some more regular
listeners from the Olympics themselves.
And we just know that our podcast is cyclical and we're going to get a big boost in 2020
when Tokyo happens.
And then, you know, listenership will go down again, but it's finding those people who
want to hear these stories.
And sometimes they only want to hear one or two sports or one or two people.
But, you know, that's that's the nature of the beast.
So we have the show.
So who's listening and how many, you know, how many listeners are you getting per episode?
We get, I would say, upwards within a month or so, we get two to two fifty in depth.
Two fifty in downloads, two hundred to two hundred fifty different episodes do much better.
We've had Jason Bryant, who is a wrestling podcaster and announcer.
He's been on a couple of times.
And then when he helps us market, we get a ton of his listeners because they want to
hear him for good reason.
So it spikes depending on who's on the show, how much they help us market
and how much marketing time we're doing ourselves.
Now, exactly tell us tell us what the show is about.
What are you trying to you're trying to incorporate certain segments or interviews into each
show and make sure that you have some time to talk to each other about a specific sport
or kind of give us a rundown of how you put in the pieces together?
Well, we it really depends on what we're covering.
We've evolved to have an interview pretty much every show.
And then we always do an update on what's happening for Tokyo 2020 and also an update
on what we call Team Olympic Fever.
These are past guests and where they've been competing.
We always talk to each other.
That's kind of the most fun that we have.
Whether that's the most fun for the listeners is another question.
But, you know, that's in our personalities really are a central element to the show.
And to how we put together the show.
So how much the interview versus, you know, what we call chit chat will depend on the
subject matter.
You know, some interviews are 40 minutes long, some interviews are 15.
So it will depend how much.
But those are always the main pieces.
And then if there's a big piece of news, you know, a particular when they're choosing a
city or there's a big report that comes out, we will cover that as well.
And is it a one hour show and is it weekly or time varies?
It is a weekly show.
So we come out on Thursdays ish.
Sometimes the episode sometimes it's in the wee hours of Friday morning depending on my
schedule and how much editing I do.
And we at the beginning when we were working on the format said it's going to be a nice
type 30 because I do listen to some podcasts that go on and on extensively.
And I've had to stop listening to some because I just don't have two hours every day to devote
to one person.
You know, I'd rather be able to spread my time around to a lot of different shows.
So we thought it's going to be a nice type 30.
And we've never really been a nice type 30 for a normal episode.
You know, during during Pyeongchang, we were much better about that because we did a daily
wrap up show of what we watched.
And those were a lot shorter.
But ours are usually I would say 40 to 45 minutes, 40 to 50 minutes.
Rarely do we go over an hour.
I'm pretty adamant about not getting over an hour.
I think we only have one or two that are actually over an hour.
Right.
And it's just over an hour.
You know, one oh five, one oh three, things like that.
So are you making money?
Not yet.
Working on it.
What's your what kind of plan do you have to try and incorporate some revenue?
So the usual merch patrons, we've had a donation campaign during the Olympics.
We had a donation campaign that was really successful in that it covered our hosting
and our email addresses and some other basic expense for the entire year.
So that was really good and helpful.
We've been approached by sponsors and we're trying to make something work in that.
And I think coming going forward in 2019, we want to build a sponsorship package and
explore other ways where we can monetize our content in different venues that we hadn't
thought of, like not just put the podcast out on our website or on a podcast platform,
but try to think of other places where podcasts might be heard and see if we can license our
content that way.
What are your biggest challenges?
Time.
Yes.
Time.
Just we both have day jobs.
We both have families matching up our schedules can be tricky sometimes.
And then matching our schedules with our guests can also be a little complicated.
Right.
So time is definitely an enemy at times.
Right.
And also, like, we can get information overload pretty quickly.
And it can be overwhelming when you think about the Olympics.
It's enormous.
And we know that there are some great people out there doing figure skating analysis or
gymnastics analysis.
And they do such a good job.
And you think, oh, why can't we do that?
And then you remember, oh, well, we have like 20 times the sports that you do.
So it's building up our base knowledge.
And we just keep in mind that every little bit of research we do or everything we read
helps us be better subject experts.
Now on the subject of interviews, how are you doing them so you have good quality sound?
Because that's a big deal when listeners are tuned into a podcast.
We've had a couple that have been.
I see shaking your head.
What happened?
Yeah, we've had a couple where we weren't even sure we were going to use them because
the sound was so poor.
Generally, we've done them over Skype, which has worked very well.
At a few events, we've done them in person.
So that tape tends to be obviously better.
The ones from New York, because we were outdoors at this huge media event, but those were very
short, so that worked out well because we had pieces.
So yeah, definitely sound quality for interviews can be a challenge.
Yeah, so let me tell you some stories.
OK.
If this inspires anybody to just get out there and do it.
We started, we both had little handheld, very cheap tape recorders, pocket ones like mine
is a USB Sony thing.
And then as we got money and our Olympics donation campaign actually paid for this, I
got in a Zoom H4N Pro.
So that was helpful.
We get better sound quality in in person.
Interviews, which has been very helpful.
So here's the thing.
So not everybody has not all of our guests have Skype or want to use Skype.
So getting that Zoom attached to my MacBook Pro has been a real challenge for me.
And I was watching some YouTube videos and I found one that was that made sense to my
non-technical brain.
And I said, I just have to get this cable.
So order the cable from Amazon.
It disappears off my front porch.
Then it takes me a little time.
Yeah, yeah, that was really bad.
Then I had to find another vendor and thank goodness for podcast movement, because that
showed me to a good vendor for audio equipment.
Got the cord and it doesn't work with my Zoom H4N.
So and before that, what we were doing, if people couldn't get to it, we would have
to get to it.
So we had to get to it.
And then people couldn't get to us over Skype.
Literally, it was I set up a speakerphone, tiled everyone in and had like two recorders
going on around me and hoped for the best.
And we really hit a wall with one interview that was on a really bad cell phone connection.
Fantastic, but I was cringing with the sound quality and not sure how to get it better.
And then I got this cable and it doesn't work and I don't know what to do.
And then I realized, well, you know, I could just spend a little money and get Skype credit
and Allison and I can Skype.
We can Skype together and we can look at each other, which we really prefer that because
it that helps us.
And then we just dial them up.
And yeah, it costs a little bit of money, but oh my gosh, the sound quality is so much
better.
Yeah, I have to tell you, I will not do interviews on a cell phone anymore.
It's just that and it makes it so much harder because so many people are getting rid of
their landlines.
And if you're not a podcaster, the chances of you using Skype are probably 50-50.
So it's you got to have the good quality.
So whatever it takes, it sounds like you're trying to get it done that way.
Right.
I was going to say we've done various interviews in various places.
You know, we joke about Jill putting a blanket over her head to block out the room sound.
I've been, you know, in my bathroom, you know, kind of padded around, doors closed.
I mean, we've done some strange setups.
Right.
Yeah, we both lived in construction zones this past year.
So we've had to deal with how do we get around that?
And yeah, it's been a challenge, but I think we're making those baby steps to getting
better.
And it'll, you know, over time, we're going to get better equipment and that's just going
to evolve.
And, you know, we'll cringe when we listen to the old episodes, but, you know, for a
lot of reasons, you know, how many episodes, how many episodes are you up to now and how
much time are you putting into editing each episode?
We are up to episode 63 or 64 with and that's regular episodes.
So we have a bonus episode that's out there because we had a really good interview and
we just wanted to put the whole thing out and that was over an hour.
And then the dailies from Pyeongchang are different.
So the thing that I was thinking about yesterday was I'm so proud of us for getting an episode
out every week.
Yes.
Despite all the chaos that has gone on, we got an episode out.
Even if some of them will make us cringe later.
And I think that's super important when you're starting.
You made the commitment, you get it out there and you just keep that going for yourself.
You just keep going and you keep working and that helps you feel better about what you're
doing.
Right.
And we've had episodes where we're like, I don't know what we're doing this week.
And one was magical in that Alison said, well, you know, it's the Athens 1896, the very
first modern Olympic Games, the anniversary.
Why don't we watch this old mini series?
And I had never heard of it.
So we watched that and I started looking at the guy who won the first Olympic medal in
modern history and discovered that that medal is in a college that's maybe a three hour
drive from me.
So I called the college and the special collections librarian was like, yeah, I'll take you
through all that stuff.
And I hopped in the car and went up and got to hold the first Olympic medal.
Very nice.
Yeah, things just, there's been a lot of times where things have just somehow fallen
into place and we both look at each other and say, I have no idea how we just put that
episode together, but okay, let's go.
So and now that we've got a groove, we're really working on building a new Olympic
medal, we're really working on building up a stable of interviews, I guess you can say
like trying to work ahead as much as we can so that when we have the weeks where we're
really tight on time, we have something to fall back on.
So how much time are you putting into editing like a lot of time?
Yes, I put in a lot of time because there is a lot of piecing things together, but I
also edit our interviews.
I would say a little significantly and so that I do cut down spaces that are long, long
pauses.
I take out some ums that are very isolated and a lot of that is to cut down on time.
And Alison and I, we have a problem shutting up.
So there's a lot of stuff that we have to take out of our conversations as well, just
like, okay, that didn't work or I messed up an intro or something like that.
So I take that out.
I would say that it might take me a good five or six hours to put an episode together.
Wow, that's a lot of time.
It is a lot of time, but I think for me, that's worth it.
And I think that the quality of the product that we put out, even if the sound quality
isn't there, the content and the way we edit it down works.
And it's always, and I do as much editing as I do because I'm just so conscious of our
listener's time and what they can afford to spend with us.
I want them to spend as much time as possible with us and not turn us off and say, I'm done,
I can't listen to you guys for that long.
So why do you two love to do this?
I like hanging out with Alison.
I was just about to say the same thing.
I think, you know, we worked together for a couple years and then I moved to another
state and then, so we never, ever since we weren't working together, we really didn't
get to hang out.
And so now we get to see each other every week and that's, oh, I'm recording today.
So that's kind of something that I look forward to, just spending time with Jill and spending
time with the guests.
We have met so many fantastic people and had so many experiences that I would never have
anticipated.
And when our listeners communicate with us, I'm just, I want to have them all over for
dinner.
I just, you know, I love hanging out with the people that are in our community, that
are as a whole, they're just fun people.
Well, last question, as we're running out of time already, what advice do you have for
other podcasters?
Just jump in.
Yeah, get it done.
Don't, I mean, you can talk yourself out of doing anything, but just doing it, know
that you're going to be bad in the beginning, but it's going to get better.
You'll get smarter.
You'll become more polished.
Nobody starts off as an expert.
And I think we learn this every week when we talk to an athlete where we hear the highs
and the lows and how they get through all that.
Gosh.
Yeah, it's just, you will convince yourself you can't do it.
And I'm, you know, the first one who can think of every reason not to.
So I think what was good is, and this I would say is if you can work with someone who will
just get you to do it, that's a huge help.
That is an enormous help.
We keep each other honest.
We do.
And I think it's much easier to do this show with a partner and you have that extra person
to bounce stuff off of.
And I don't know.
We just, when we think about the past year and three months or so, I can't imagine not
doing the podcast now.
We've had so many incredible experiences and talked with so many people.
I mean, we went rowing with an Olympic gold medalist and that was, you know, who gets
to do that on a daily basis.
Very cool.
So thank you, first of all, thank you both for coming on and Jill, where can people find
you, reach out to you, follow you, give us all the rundown so everybody that's listening
can listen to your show or follow you on social media?
Oh, we are at olimfever.com.
So it's O-L-Y-M fever.com.
And we're Olimfever on every social media.
So we're on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook.
We have a Facebook group that's Olympic Fever Podcast and that's where we have a lot of
fun on a daily basis.