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My name is Ed Ryan, content editor for the podcast Business Journal.

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We're a publication about podcasting, so it really would make a lot of sense

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if we didn't also have our own podcast.

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Our goal with the podcast Business Journal report

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is to interview successful podcasters.

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How did they launch? Why did they launch?

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How did they avoid pod feeding?

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How did they grow their audience and how are they making money?

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In the PBJ spotlight today is Steve Stewart.

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Steve has been podcasting since 2010.

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He's a podcast producer and the director of the FinCon Podcast Network.

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In our interview with Steve, he tells us how he got his start in podcasting

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and how he turned what he calls his side hustle of podcast editing

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into what is now making him a very nice living.

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Here is our interview with Steve Stewart.

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All right, Steve. So the first question is, how did you get into podcasting and why?

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Oh, boy. How far back do you want to go?

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To the beginning.

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All right. I'll keep the very beginning very short.

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Wife and I met. We lived out of state, moved together into St.

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Louis, got a new job that required me to travel quite a bit on the road.

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Started listening to the radio a lot, because that's what you did back in early

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2000s, but then I bumped into a show by Dave Ramsey.

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Started listening to him.

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Then he came out with his show as a podcast.

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I was like, what's a podcast?

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Then found out Leela Port was also doing podcasts. What's a podcast?

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Started consuming podcasts like crazy while I was driving.

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Then I started a financial coaching business

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because I sold out on what the Dave Ramsey plan was.

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I was like, I could do I could teach people how to do the same thing.

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So I started a blog in 2007

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for financial wellness, financial budgeting, saving, investing, stuff like that.

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I always knew that I needed to do something more than just blogging.

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So I started a podcast in 2010.

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Loved the medium, loved that you could compete with the big boys

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on the same playing field. You know what I mean?

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Podcasts is that that way that we all get to play together,

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whether you're big or small. Everybody has a voice.

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And so I always love that part of the medium.

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Right after I launched the podcast, a guy named Philip Taylor,

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he goes by the name P.T. Money, started a conference called FinCon.

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Actually, it was a financial blogger conference.

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It's now become known as FinCon, which is the FinCon Expo

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for people in money and media.

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So it's not just bloggers, it's podcasters and YouTubers

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and anybody who's in the in the money space

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that does blogging, video, stuff like that, started going to the conferences,

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got ingrained in that community, became known in that community

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as the blogger with the podcast.

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And in 2015, I heard that a couple of well-known bloggers

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were thinking about starting their own podcast.

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I'm like, well, I know how to do this. I know how to help people

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launch their podcasts.

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I've always been encouraging people to launch podcasts in the FinCon community.

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And so I reached out to one of them and they did contact me later that year.

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They said, look, Steve, we just want to hit record. Will you do the rest?

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So I'm like, sure.

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This day job, by the way, I left that same year in 2015.

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So I was focused fully on the financial coaching business,

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but it wasn't really going anywhere.

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For some reason, it just it just stayed stagnant.

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So I had the extra time.

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I had the knowledge, had the ability to edit podcasts and produce shows.

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So when they asked me, I'm like, well, yeah, I could I could absolutely help them.

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But I got to charge you.

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And they're like, absolutely, Steve, we'll pay you.

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We know you. We like you. We trust you.

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It's that no like trust factor.

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Once that show came out, they had a huge email list.

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So they sent out their email list and it just exploded.

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And within this FinCon community, everybody knew what was going on.

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It was this huge thing that these two well-known bloggers came out with the show.

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It got huge ratings. Everybody liked it.

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And other people in the community are like, hey, wait, you can hire outsource this editing stuff.

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I hate editing.

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And that's how I came into editing for others, which has now become my full time career.

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And I absolutely love it.

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So back to the beginning when you were podcasting, tell us about how those first few podcasts that you did went.

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You know, you have some knowledge, but you're still is still your first one.

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Things always go wrong, it seems, for people that I talked to about those first few.

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Talk about those so that new podcasters can say, OK, I'm not the only one this is happening to.

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Or maybe it didn't happen to you. Maybe it came out perfectly.

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No, it didn't come out perfectly.

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I will say that my introduction episode, I did episode one was the introduction is about 10 minutes long.

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And I'm proud of it. It turned out to be what I wanted it to be.

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I also had been involved in a couple of online communities and people who may have mentioned it or shared it.

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So I think my first episode in the first week got 100 downloads and I was this nobody nowhere, you know, start out.

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So I take that as a win.

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However, I had this idea and this is 2010, mind you.

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It's been almost a year, actually just over eight years now at the time of this recording is when I launched that thing.

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Holy moly.

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Holy moly. I launched the thing with the idea that it wouldn't just be me, it would also be other financial coaches.

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And what I would do is take a existing client or somebody that may be in the future that would want to get some free financial coaching,

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take their scenario, pose it to another financial coach and we would have that discussion, record that discussion and share that discussion on my podcast.

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And I said I was going to do that every third episode.

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Well, again, it was 2010. A lot of people didn't even know what a podcast was.

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It was super hard getting any other financial coaches to want to do this with me.

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They didn't get it. They didn't understand.

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So it was something it was an idea that I wanted to really champion and really go with every third episode would be one of these what I called real life case studies on financial coaching.

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But it didn't take off because I couldn't get anybody to commit.

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So it slowed me down.

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I had late releases right off the start.

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People didn't know what the heck they were doing.

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It was just nowadays if I did it, it would I think it would totally work.

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But it didn't back then.

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So I just I feel like that was a big failure at the beginning of it was called the Money Plan SOS podcast.

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So what happened after that?

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Did you continue to do it?

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Did you stop it?

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Did you that's when the editing situation came aboard or take us through how it continued, how you didn't throw in the towel and say I'm going up to McDonald's because I need to make some kind of living.

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Well, at that time, 2010 through 2015, I was still working the day job.

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So I still had that a lot of the recordings, incidentally, that I was doing was in my hotel room because I was traveling a lot.

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I was on the road.

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So I would record the show.

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And really it was at this time.

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Remember, I had started this financial coaching business and I wanted the podcast to become like an outreach program part of my marketing.

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And so that's what kept me going through the hard times is I knew that it took time for people to get to know, like and trust you.

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I wanted to have that that thing on my website, kind of like an author says, hey, I wrote this book that gives you credibility.

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I could also say I've got this this podcast.

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So anybody who's maybe interested in learning some more, it was a very low barrier to entry on them getting to know who I was and maybe calling me up for financial coaching.

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So I always had that in the back of my mind that the reason for the podcast was to promote my financial wellness coaching services.

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And that's just where it that's where it always was.

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Got it.

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So you mentioned the low barrier to entry.

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It's so true about podcasting.

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So how do you recommend to people that they find their niche?

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Because you know, you can you know, you can be successful at podcasting and you don't have to buy a big radio tower.

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Oh, gosh, it's so easy to get 100 bucks.

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You can get a microphone, a boom arm and some hosting.

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And you're pretty much I mean, you got to have a computer, of course.

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But I think everybody's pretty much got that.

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You don't even have to have a website for crying out loud to do a podcast.

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So, yeah, the barrier to entry is really low.

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So, yeah, I think what you said there was, you know, niching down is really important these days, especially these days, because when I started in 2010, I don't know how many podcasts there were.

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But in the financial space, there weren't that many.

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There was a handful.

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You know, like when I went to my first FinCon in 2012, I maybe met five or six podcasters out of 500 people.

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It was a really, really small amount.

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And that's saying that everybody who has a podcast in the financial space showed up at FinCon.

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But it just seemed like there should have been more.

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It has grown quite a bit since then.

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And now everybody and their mother's doing a podcast.

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So it is really important to either, A, have talent or personality, because that's going to make you stand out just because you have this ingrained, you know, people are attracted to you for whatever it is that you do, the way you talk, something like that, some kind of personality.

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Or you've got to have the content.

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You've got to have the material, the information that people are wanting to go to.

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I think interview podcasts, it's really hard to do that because everybody else is that expert and you're kind of, you know, taking bits and pieces from other people.

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But it does work because you're also accumulating all this knowledge into your show.

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So there's a there's a give and take when it comes to being an interview podcast.

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But finding that that specialty, that niche, that thing that you're uniquely qualified to be an expert on, and you could build that over time.

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You may not even know what that is at the beginning.

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That's that's a big deal.

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So you can kind of start broad because you don't know exactly where you're going to go.

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But as soon as something latches on something that you're interested in and you think you can run with it, go for it because the riches are in the niches.

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And it's not about downloads, it's about listeners.

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And if you don't identify yourself as being uniquely different from all the rest, you're just going to fall to the wayside because there's just way too much competition out there now.

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How do you advise people not to get discouraged?

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Because we hear the numbers that after seven, most people quit and there are 500,000 podcasts out there.

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But we don't really know how many are actually still active and doing them weekly and all that.

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So how do you really keep people from being discouraged and saying, oh, this isn't going to work?

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I don't. I tell them they're going to get discouraged.

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There's just no way about it. It's going to be, you know, hard times.

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There's going to be disappointments. It's going to happen.

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And I think knowing that kind of like the worst case scenario, you know, if you play that out in your mind on anything, if you think what's the worst case scenario that can happen?

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Well, I could die. OK, well, that's probably not going to happen.

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So what's the second worst case scenario?

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And just keep going from there. And by the time you get to your real problem, you're like, this is a piece of cake.

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I can make it through this. So I think that's really a big key is knowing that it's going to be frustrating.

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You know, this ahead of time, you're going to get through it.

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And that the goal isn't going to be next week's episode.

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The goal is going to be next year's episode.

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You know, what is going to look like a year down the road?

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And if you're looking at it with that long term mindset, you're going to make it through any kind of discouragement that you might have today.

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In your opinion, Steve, how important is it to be there at a consistent time if it's weekly and you say you're going to do a weekly, you should have it posted the same day, the same time?

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Is that important? It sounds like it is.

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I think it is. Yeah, I totally. I have people who disagree with me and I think there's scenarios where it doesn't matter.

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There's certain shows where it doesn't matter. If you think about, you know, like TV fan show podcasts, especially ones that are off season.

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You know, it's really important to get it out right away.

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But if you're a day or two late and you've got this community that likes you, they're going to come back.

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And since the you know, since podcasts listening is time shifted anyway, it's not as important.

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But to be consistent is because and I'm preaching about being consistent yet with my podcast with Money Plan SOS, I wasn't.

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It was too hard to try and stay on a to every Tuesday or every Wednesday schedule.

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I changed it, too, because I was trying to find the right date for me to be able to get episodes out on a consistent basis.

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But then something would happen and I just it would come, you know, be Thursday or Friday.

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And all of a sudden, it's Sunday and I'm like, forget it.

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I'll just put it out when I can get it done.

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So it's important to be consistent, I think, because people expect your show to be there.

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If you've done it at a certain time every week, if you if you build that consistency, it kind of falls into people's routines.

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You know, the way that the smartphone is right there with us at all times now, you know, once that episode released, it's on my phone.

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If it's something that I really want to listen to, I'll move it up in my queue.

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Whereas if it's like, oh, this cool, there's another one.

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But I want to listen to this other show that was out earlier first, then I'll just let it play in its regular succession.

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But being consistent also, I think, builds on that trust factor with your listeners, because then they rely on you to be there when they expect you to be there.

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Just like my wife has three sisters, two of them are prompt, they're reliable.

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One of them, you can count on them to be two to three hours late every single time.

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And that just breaks the trust that we have with that one sister.

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And it's really sad because, you know, she's a great person, but you can't rely on her.

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So same with the podcast, I think.

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So it's not as important as that relationship with her sister.

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But I think it's really important just to be consistent as much as you possibly can.

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If you know you're going to be late, you're going to be taking a break for holidays and stuff like that.

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Tell your audience, let them know.

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I think it's just important to be that communicative with your listener.

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You led me right into another question that I heard.

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I think it was Rob and Todd talking about the holidays.

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Should you take off for the holidays or should you work through the holidays and make sure your podcast is there?

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Because that's when other people, your listeners, have more time.

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Well, one of the three rules of podcasting is it depends.

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Everything, the answer to everything is it depends.

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Should you take a break? It's up to you.

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It's up to your listeners. It's up to your format. It's up to your niche.

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There's all kinds of reasons why you could take a break and it wouldn't ruin that consistency that we were just talking about.

213
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So it really just depends on a case-by-case basis.

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And you could be in the same niche as somebody else and taking a break for you might not work where taking a break for them might.

215
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So it really depends.

216
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So one of the things that frustrates me is when I'm getting ready to listen to a podcast and there's a pre-roll commercial, it's the first thing you hear.

217
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One of the reasons I go to the podcast is because I get irritated with radio or TV.

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They play so many commercials.

219
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What is your thought on getting into your content right as soon as you flip that microphone on and make sure people are ready to take in the content,

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not a commercial or not you babbling on about something that has nothing to do with the show?

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I think everybody can identify with a TV show where they come out and they have that little teaser at the beginning.

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Then they go into the show's introduction with the music and the Big Bang Theory and the introduction that they've got.

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And then it goes to commercial break. Well, now you're like, oh, now I've got to wait for this.

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You didn't show up to watch commercials. You showed up for the content. You showed up for the show.

225
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You didn't come to hear about Tide Detergent.

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And with podcasting, you didn't certainly show up to listen to Stamps.com or Casper Mattresses.

227
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And what really irks me is when you have a sponsor that doesn't even match the niche of the audience.

228
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It just doesn't make sense. It kills me that people look that way towards monetizing their shows.

229
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I think it's really important to get in the content right away.

230
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So if you're going to do sponsors, you know, pre-roll is good.

231
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I want to point to a really good example of somebody who's doing sponsorships right now.

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It's really hard to replicate what they're doing because it works for their show.

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But it's Stacking Benjamins and they're out three days a week.

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This guy, his job, this is different than most people. This podcaster, it is actually his job.

235
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His job is Stacking Benjamins, the podcast and the other insular things that they do.

236
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But it's based on the sponsorship model, CPM and stuff like that.

237
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And what they do is they'll do a pre-roll for up to two sponsors right at the beginning.

238
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So they'll have the introduction to the show and everything.

239
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But then they get into these, you know, two 15 second ish pre-rolls mentioning, you know, thanking the sponsors of the show.

240
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And then they get into the content.

241
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So within three minutes, maybe four, if they're going long, you're into the content.

242
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And now that includes a minute and a half of the introduction to the show, which is actually entertainment in itself.

243
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If you listen to Stacking Benjamins show, you'll know what I'm talking about.

244
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But then you've got at the middle of the show, you've got the full mid-roll sponsor ads.

245
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Now, the way that Joe does the sponsor ads usually has got a little bit of humor in it.

246
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Now, this isn't like a Pod Save America humor.

247
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It's not that humorous, but there is an element of humor in it.

248
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And it's not by degrading the sponsor in any way.

249
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So he does it right that way.

250
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But I got another show that I produced that has two sponsors, actually four sponsors per episode.

251
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It's crazy.

252
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And there's two sponsor breaks and they are disruptive.

253
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And it would never work to have that early on into the show.

254
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It has to be towards the middle and within the first two thirds of the hour to hour and a half long show.

255
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Otherwise, it just, you know, we trained ourselves to be able to hit that skip button with the DVRs, with our phones.

256
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So if you want sponsors, you want your sponsorship ads to be effective.

257
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Otherwise, your sponsors are going to go away.

258
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So if you're going to throw them right at the beginning every single time, make it so that it's interesting, that it's short.

259
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You don't make people skip.

260
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Otherwise, you know, try to find a way to make it a mid-roll or some other place within the episode.

261
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So you it sounds like if you weren't doing a podcast, you wouldn't have created the business that you're in now.

262
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but you took what you started to do with the podcast and you created something big out of it.

263
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Explain how if it wasn't for the podcast, you wouldn't be a podcast editor, I'm thinking.

264
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So it's worth it to do what Dave Jackson says and that's just launch.

265
00:18:00,720 --> 00:18:08,720
Yeah, yeah. Well, I will say I had a little bit of experience using audacity because I mean, you get to see my records that people are listening don't.

266
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But I've got this wall of vinyl records behind me.

267
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I used to do I used to be a DJ, still have the turntables here.

268
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So I've always been into, you know, records and vinyl.

269
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But then when you were able to start burning your own CDs, which made the load to go do a wedding or a gig a lot lighter by having, you know, you could have 100 songs on a disk.

270
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This is before iPods.

271
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I would want to convert vinyl onto CD.

272
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Well, you had to have a computer to do that.

273
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So I knew how to use audacity because it would be able to capture the audio and then I would use that to burn onto a disk.

274
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I always had the basic audio then skills there.

275
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And that's why when I started my podcast, I was just able to start, you know, creating it with audacity.

276
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It was just that easy.

277
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It's a little archaic compared to other DAWs, but it's still solid.

278
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With that knowledge, then I was able to be able to do a little bit different things and create my own introduction music.

279
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And from my 100th episode, I took a bunch of different people saying my tagline and spliced it all together and made it this really cool thing.

280
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It took a lot of work.

281
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It took about an hour and a half to put this this, you know, 60 second to 90 second bit together.

282
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But it was worth it, I think.

283
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So growing those skills and just having that experience then placed me into this spot where it wasn't just, you know, putting the tails on an interview, you know, the introduction at the beginning, the outro at the end, or maybe inserting a mid roll in the middle.

284
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Now I was doing things like cutting out the ums and ahs.

285
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And then, you know, now there's EQ and compression and all this other fun stuff that we get to talk about as editors.

286
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Having that knowledge and that ability to do it is one thing.

287
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Having the time to do it is another.

288
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So this business would not have existed if the timing wasn't right.

289
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As I was telling my story earlier, I had a day job up until 2015.

290
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I had my podcast from 2010 until incidentally 2015.

291
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There's more of a story there.

292
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We don't need to go into it.

293
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I didn't quit that job for the editing, by the way.

294
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This position, this, I call it position, this new career of podcast editing didn't start until December 2015.

295
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And it was just for this one show, completely undercharging them because I didn't know what I was doing.

296
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But, you know, as soon as I saw that I had the extra time in my day because I had left the day job, the financial coaching thing wasn't going as far as I wanted to.

297
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So I wasn't spending as much time working as I could have been.

298
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I was able to do this little side hustle and then as the side hustle grew, that's where I was able to say all the stuff I've spent a decade on building this Money Plan SOS financial coaching.

299
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It's got to go away because I've got all these other people who want help editing their shows.

300
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And so I was able to walk away from one passion career that was building the financial coaching business to now this other passion career, which is financial editing or financial editing for podcast editing.

301
00:21:03,720 --> 00:21:06,720
So, Steve, tell us how you do it.

302
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You said Audacity and I think most of us that are beginners use Audacity because it's free.

303
00:21:11,720 --> 00:21:27,720
It seems like it's easy to use, but once you talk to podcasters that have been around longer, they seem to step up to other products that maybe aren't free that offer more things that you can use to make it sound smoother.

304
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I'm even talking out of school here. I don't even know what I'm saying. All I know is Audacity, really.

305
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So how do you do it?

306
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Well, there's a lot of great features in Audacity and then you can get plugins for Audacity.

307
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A lot of them are free, but then if you want to get some really good ones, there's some awesome premium plugins, some that do work with Audacity.

308
00:21:44,720 --> 00:21:48,720
So you're in Audacity and you can pull it up and it's just it's there for you.

309
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But a lot of them that don't either.

310
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There are better DAWs.

311
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You know, DAWs are what they call it.

312
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It's an acronym. Excuse me.

313
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It's an acronym for Digital Audio Workstation.

314
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I learned it from the Podcast Editor's Club.

315
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They started a couple of years ago.

316
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I was like, what's a DAW?

317
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There's other DAWs that are better than Audacity.

318
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I will admit that.

319
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But it's my main workhorse program because I know it so well.

320
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I'm efficient with it.

321
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That's the key is that you got to be efficient if you're going to make a career out of podcast editing, because if you're going to spend four hours editing a one hour interview, you're not going to make it in this world.

322
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Not as a career unless you're charging an unseen, you know, just an insane amount of money for per episode.

323
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And that's going to take a very high profile client, I guess you'd say, for that.

324
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But I knew Audacity, so I was able to take the program that I already knew, tweak it the way I wanted to, you know, change the keyboard shortcuts the way I wanted to, make it efficient so that I could become, you know, could make more money by editing these shows faster and get deep into it.

325
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I've lost your question.

326
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:57,720
I can't remember where I was going with this story.

327
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No problem at all.

328
00:22:58,720 --> 00:22:59,720
You answered it with Audacity.

329
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:06,720
So how many clients are you able to really fit into your day?

330
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Well, I will say I can get at least three episodes done in a day.

331
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:10,720
OK.

332
00:23:10,720 --> 00:23:14,720
Now that doesn't translate to clients because about 50 percent of my clients are once a week.

333
00:23:14,720 --> 00:23:20,720
But then I've got about a fourth of them are more than once a week, like Stacking Benjamins and Financial Growing Up.

334
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They're both three days a week.

335
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Then there's some shows are every other week.

336
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But you could look at my roster.

337
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I could say I've got 25 shows.

338
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That's not all me, though.

339
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I've been able to train some people to edit the way I do and outsource some work to them, which is really cool because now I'm helping them to create a side hustle, make some money, editing podcasts, which is something that they're really interested into.

340
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I love it.

341
00:23:42,720 --> 00:23:46,720
So the the way it works is do they basically send you their entire show?

342
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They don't want anything to do with it.

343
00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:55,720
Once they turn the microphone off, do they do it via transfer big files or that you guys have a drop box and then you pull it down and then you do.

344
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Do you then after you're editing, take us through the process?

345
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Do you load the whole thing up to their to their site, whether they're using Blueberry or Spreak or whoever they're using?

346
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How is it from from A to Z?

347
00:24:06,720 --> 00:24:11,720
Yeah, well, I'm going to talk in generalizations like it's what everybody does.

348
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:14,720
But everybody's got, of course, you know, the answer is it depends.

349
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Everybody does this differently.

350
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:24,720
But in general, most clients, not just for me, but the other podcast producers that I know, they're going to share a drop box folder, Google Drive or something like that.

351
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The majority of my clients are Dropbox or Google Drive.

352
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And I actually have it synced to my computer.

353
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I've got enough hardware storage here where I'll have it just sync automatically.

354
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I don't have to go to Dropbox dot com and download stuff.

355
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:40,720
It's just going to be there because I do this so much I need it to be there when I want it there.

356
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:45,720
So they will share their files inside of a shared folder.

357
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Inside that folder is going to be an episode folder.

358
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So it's got whatever materials are required to produce that episode.

359
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So it'll be the interview, maybe they do an intro and an outro.

360
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Maybe it's a new sponsor ad read.

361
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Maybe it's a show artwork or episode artwork, I should say.

362
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:04,720
Maybe it's the show notes that they want used for the title and description.

363
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:06,720
All that stuff's in that folder.

364
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:07,720
I've already communicated with them.

365
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:08,720
I already know what they need.

366
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:10,720
I already know what the show is going to sound like when it's done.

367
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:19,720
So I just then go and clean everything up, you know, do some EQing, clean the noise removal, edit out the ums and ahs, make the conversations flow well,

368
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put the whole show together with the music and the bumpers and the transitions and the ads and all that, whatever it is that they do.

369
00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:28,720
Then I'll convert it down to MP3.

370
00:25:28,720 --> 00:25:32,720
And from that point, it can be different per client.

371
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:38,720
Most of my clients, they actually share their login credentials to their Libsyn account with me.

372
00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:40,720
They'll do it through LastPass, something like that.

373
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:48,720
So I'll be a log in to their Libsyn account, upload schedule and either send them the information they need to be able to put a media player on their website.

374
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:55,720
Or if they've given me the credentials to the website as an author or an admin, I'll actually go in there and add it for them.

375
00:25:55,720 --> 00:26:01,720
So that way it's really they do just hit record, upload to Dropbox, Google Drive, whatever.

376
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:04,720
Maybe send me a note saying, hey, all those files are there.

377
00:26:04,720 --> 00:26:07,720
And if they're not all there, they'll say, oh, I owe you an intro outro.

378
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:08,720
I'll get that to you tomorrow, whatever.

379
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:12,720
And that way I can get started on the project, have it done for them by their scheduled date.

380
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:13,720
Wow.

381
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:20,720
So obviously you don't have to answer this, but I'm way curious to know how much it costs to to get a show produced.

382
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:29,720
Ah, well, it's a good question because I actually did a survey in the Podcast Editors Club on Facebook a little while ago because I want to know not just for myself,

383
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:31,720
but there was other people too are asking the same question.

384
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:34,720
What does it cost to get a podcast episode produced?

385
00:26:34,720 --> 00:26:36,720
So I just put it out there.

386
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,720
Basic editing for 60 minutes.

387
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:42,720
Now, I say basic editing, it is taking out a manas and stuff like that.

388
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:48,720
So you got the basic editing, noise removal for 60 minutes converting 10p3.

389
00:26:48,720 --> 00:26:50,720
What would that cost you?

390
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:53,720
I got about 33 respondents from there.

391
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:58,720
The average was about a hundred dollars per episode.

392
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,720
So you can say about 60 dollars was a hundred dollars.

393
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:05,720
60 minutes was about a hundred dollars to produce an episode.

394
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:09,720
There were two people who said that they were charging under 50.

395
00:27:09,720 --> 00:27:12,720
There were two people who said they were charging over 150.

396
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:13,720
So you've got that.

397
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:20,720
It seems to be that I don't want to say the industry standard is a hundred bucks because my prices are much more than that because this isn't part time.

398
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:21,720
This is a full career.

399
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:25,720
I'm a team member for a lot of my clients so I can charge more.

400
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:29,720
But that seems to be what the typical I'll say the average.

401
00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:33,720
And that's just this impromptu survey inside of a Facebook group.

402
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:36,720
So you can't take that and run with it, but it's a good indicator.

403
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:37,720
I got it.

404
00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:38,720
Got it.

405
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:45,720
So Steve, what is the moral of your story?

406
00:27:45,720 --> 00:27:46,720
Stick with podcasting.

407
00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:50,720
You never know what you never know where it's going to take you.

408
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:53,720
That can be in a nutshell, right?

409
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:55,720
It's up to you, man, if you think that's what it is.

410
00:27:55,720 --> 00:28:06,720
I mean, it sounds like it certainly turned into something that you love to do and something that is working out well for you.

411
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:09,720
Yeah, I guess we could say that's the case, but it could be the case for anything.

412
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:11,720
You never know what where life is going to take you.

413
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:13,720
So be open to those opportunities.

414
00:28:13,720 --> 00:28:18,720
Be willing to make some, you know, take some chances and do something weird and odd.

415
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:23,720
And, you know, hey, if you're going to totally undercharge yourself and get started on something, who knows if it's going to take you somewhere?

416
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:24,720
It did for me.

417
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:36,720
But the benefit without going too long into the story, my wife and I, we were getting our financial act together.

418
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:38,720
You know, then 15 years ago, we started.

419
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:43,720
We paid off the house December 2015, which incidentally was when this whole thing started.

420
00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:48,720
I don't know if that's coincidence or not, but we are completely debt free.

421
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:57,720
I had a coaching business that I had worked on for 10 years, wasn't going anywhere, but we were OK financially, which gave me the ability to do this pivot in my career.

422
00:28:57,720 --> 00:28:58,720
Take a chance on something.

423
00:28:58,720 --> 00:29:09,720
So I guess if there was a lesson, it would be get your financial act together, get rid of your debt, start saving some money for emergencies, get yourself some margin in your life so that you can start taking chances with your career.

424
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:16,720
And if you want to start doing something like this for podcasting or there's a lot of other ways to make money in podcasting, it's not the actual podcast itself.

425
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:22,720
It's serving people who are, you know, want to become successful with their show for whatever reason.

426
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:35,720
You know, get get your financial act together, get that margin in your life so that you can then take a pivot and maybe become an editor or some kind of virtual assistant or help with websites or marketing their show or whatever.

427
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:38,720
Well, it certainly is a great podcasting success story, Steve.

428
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,720
And we appreciate you coming on with us and telling us a story.

429
00:29:41,720 --> 00:29:49,720
How can people find you, contact you, maybe book an interview with you about editing their show?

430
00:29:49,720 --> 00:29:50,720
I know you have the Facebook page also.

431
00:29:50,720 --> 00:29:52,720
So lay it all out there.

432
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:55,720
Yeah, my home base is Steve Stewart dot M.E.

433
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:58,720
That's where you'll find me is it Steve Stewart dot me.

434
00:29:58,720 --> 00:30:01,720
And that's Stewart, S.T.E.W. A.R.T.

435
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:05,720
From there, after the front page, you'll be able to schedule a call with me if you're looking for help.

436
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:08,720
I do have this Facebook group, the Podcast Editors Club.

437
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:10,720
There's over 3,200 members there.

438
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:13,720
I like to specifically work with people in the FinCon community.

439
00:30:13,720 --> 00:30:29,720
So if I'm not a good fit for you, if you're looking to launch or get somebody to edit your show, I will post your job for you in the Facebook group so that you can then filter through the submissions and we'll be able to find you an editor if I'm not the right person for you.

440
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:30,720
If you're not good for fit for me.

441
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:32,720
So go to Steve Stewart dot M.E.

442
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:35,720
And I'll be able to help you either find an editor or maybe become your editor.

443
00:30:35,720 --> 00:30:37,720
Steve, thanks so much for joining us.

444
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:38,720
Thanks, Ed.

445
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:41,720
Our thanks again to Steve Stewart for coming on the show today.

446
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:48,720
Remember to check out our website at Podcast Business Journal dot com and subscribe to our free daily headlines.

447
00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:52,720
And we'd love to have you follow us on social media or on both Facebook and Twitter.

448
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:55,720
Your feedback about any of our content is always welcome.

449
00:30:55,720 --> 00:31:09,720
Send along an email to Ed Ryan, the editor at Gmail dot com.