Tis I, Lord Podcast. Are you yearning to equip yourself with the confidence to record?
Elijah, the skilled podcast professional, is preparing himself for a tale of tools and skill that only a mighty podcaster may employ in one's podcast journey.
Elijah, I do believe that we shall teach our weary wanderer the confidence that they strive to achieve. Shall we start a podcast?
We shall. It's settled. Let's start a podcast.
Let's start a podcast, shall we? Enjoy the nighttime atmosphere. I'm your host Elijah. What's going on? What's happening? What's going down? Let's start a podcast. It's happening.
Four episodes already down. Coraline was talking about launch strategy. The rolling out the red carpet-isms for podcasting is important, not because you want to be like T-Swift or like Michael Scott or like Jim Carrey or people you've heard of, I hope.
I might be old and talk about people that are old. That's okay.
Michael, the Hobbit, Pickett. He's really cool because he's a customer manager at RSS.com, but he also does Geeksound of the Influence, the coolest geekery network out there.
His mentor, he's been in the game for years and years and down in Richmond, Virginia, he has an awesome mentoring crew, 200 people strong, and he does nerding out with beers and beards.
And that's a great time podcasting, teaching others how to get into the game and just doing his thing.
Marcia does her thing 600 episodes deep, the grind. So what we talk about 200 episodes is cool. She does three a week, five years later, three, she started counting.
That's where she gets the 200,000. She talks about getting 10, then 20, then 50 as years go on. And now she has a couple books.
She has exciting things happening, publishing company, community, talking about trauma, living in her car, recording on Facebook when it was polished in 2017, in the darkness.
She just had her origin story come out, and I thought it was really cool. Own Your Choices, Own Your Life podcast. Really awesome to listen to.
Then we have copyright protection, the coolest IP lawyer, intellectual property. She's Vicky, talks about copyright and the gossip.
And when podcasters forget to Google their name and then get in the hot water, the CIS and the CIS lawyers come at you.
They're like, hello, I know you're famous. You know the armchair expert. Stop it. Learn how to Google.
That changed their name. Apple, talking about how they over-IPify everything. You have an apple, you have a fruit, you have an E in your name.
How far can it go? That was a fun gossipy sort of thing. Vicky really helped take all the boring legal mumbo jumbo and make it sense for people like me who aren't that intelligent.
It's nice. First four are done, but here am I telling you it's cool. I want to do podcasting because it's fun, but 20 years in the game.
Went to school for radio in 2003, did the DJ thing, did the podcast producing thing, did an indie radio station in 2003 before any of the stuff, point-click stuff was happening.
Had to have your own computer server. Had to have our own radio broadcasting automation server set up, system, software. That's the word I'm looking for.
I had a guy in the business, had a friend that did coding and I was the voice. We call it Duke Radio. My mom still has the newspaper clipping.
I'm so excited, can't talk. Can't believe she hoards that stuff. Do your parents hoard that sort of stuff? Sesame Street Cars, My Buddy Dolls, Broken Lawnmowers that bubble and pop. Is that a thing?
Why do people hoard things they do? I love to hoard podcasts. Does that count?
Gimlet Media is one of my favorite producing companies because they're down to earth. They're Aussie folks that seem to have a zest of life no matter what they do and just kind of entertain themselves like holly, jolly, holy, whatever. They're fun.
Gimlet is owned by Spotify. You may or may not love that concept, but they do K63 as a radio drama, kind of like the old school, like George Orwell stuff where he fooled everybody thinking aliens are coming to earth. It's kind of modernized, if you will.
And then of course Science Versus, top science podcast, sponsored by Spotify. They did it just for them. Kind of like Netflix now, Spotify is. Binging. The audio-ness, the goodness.
Check them out, Science Versus. You'll understand why they're top science podcast. They're fun. They're light. They're well produced. They're energetic. They're, well, plants. And they enjoy what they do.
That's the magic. If you have a mission to tell a story, if you have a problem to solve, if you have an engaging way about you, a communication style that isn't a snorefest, start a podcast.
That's all there is to it. And we'll talk about the equipment eventually. A friend of mine is a music lover. He loves all the equipment, wants to talk shop. We'll do that.
What is an SM58? What's a Shure AKG? What are these? Why are they so huge? AKGs, Audio-Technica, all the big brands, Chinese knockoffs.
Unfortunately, some people in this world like to take all big brands and cheapify it. Is it worth getting a used microphone? Are they worth anything? And did you know that everything costs double in Mexico? A friend of mine told me that.
It's hard to get a hold of equipment to start a podcast. Everybody wants to do it, but they don't know why they should. It's a big trend. It's kind of like YouTube in the 2000s. It was a big deal. And now look at it.
There's people make tens of millions. Will you? I don't know. Armchair experts or Joe Rogan or crime junkies, they're all making a bazillion dollars.
But they did it for a while. They have a big team behind them and a lot of money to burn on advertising and marketing. And also Joe Rogan, he talks about nothing. Just small talk. It's interesting.
But he had a community from the MMA scene and they brought that into podcasting. Poof. He has an audience. He's wild and wonderful and all over the place. But at the same time, he's focused on his niche. It works for him.
There's a whole bunch of podcasts, weird and wonderful, but only about a couple hundred thousand actually make it past that six-month mark.
So you have millions of podcasts that start up, a 200,000 stay, because they don't know what it takes. And hopefully this podcast will help you get there, give you the knowledge, help you press record, give you the tools you need, and then help you succeed.
Deal? A bunch of people talking about podcasting later will get there, talk about their journey, their story, their oopses, their what-ifs, their how do you do this? That'd be cool to talk about, right?
But for now, I want to talk about more things like how-tos, social media. What is Facebook and Twitter and what are the personas? Why do I need TikTok? Do I? Do I care? YouTubes. They're fun.
What's this thing I'm talking into? What is an XLR? What's a USB? Who cares? Do I need all that? Can I just talk into my phone all distorted-like and sound like I have a mustard in my face and just bluh-bluh-bluh all day? I don't know.
Works for some people. Howard Stern just got people to sit on speakers with a lot of bass on, but that was a different audience, if I may say so.
I like to have more of an intellectual state. Not super brainy, but I want substance to my podcast. I want to teach somebody something, and that works for me.
Some people just want to entertain and get away with whatever. Shock jock, as Howard Stern may say. Get you by the gonads and captivate you. I like to captivate you from your mind. Get the theater of the mind action.
I like to do the creative podcast stuff like you heard in the trailer for Let's Start a Podcast. Voice actor, Lord podcast, adventure, the Dungeon Dragons adventuring role-playing kind of theme.
And that's fun with it, because podcasting to me is an adventure. That's what I want to get out of this. It's not a straightforward path. You're not going to be famous tomorrow.
People aren't going to just show up at your doorstep because you put out podcasts. You're competing with hundreds of thousands. How are you the loudest? How can you be most interesting?
Even for me, starting out 50 listeners per episode, that's what I'm getting because I have to build. I have a small community I started. A couple thousand on LinkedIn, a couple hundred on Instagram. That's peanuts, but you got to build it.
They say that podcast episode is about half the effort as the social media marketing that you're doing. So you expect to double your efforts in social media. If you're doing a solo episode, podcast without any help, you can take that 10 to 12 hours and make it 24 a week.
This is your life. It's a hell of a hobby. For some people, it works. And for some people, just to want to tell a good story, they're shooting the shit anyway. Why not start one? Just help yourself to some expertise.
There's tons of communities out there. Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Mastermind Places, YouTube, self-proclaimed know-it-alls. That's where YouTube is great. You can learn how to edit in Audacity. It's a free program auditioned by Adobe with the Creative Suite.
Or maybe you want Reaper, which is a Linux or all three. Linux, Mac, Windows sort of system. It's a bit more technical, a bit more involved, but it's just a one fee, 60 bucks and you're done. What are your options? Do you want to go with Pro Tools that is like a commercial radio standard?
Do you want to go with GarageBand? Is it SOC for podcasts or do you just want to hit the script? Because it'll do a lot of the work for you. You get your transcript. Now you're just editing a Word document and off you go. Talk about that later too.
So much to cover in a podcast. You have no idea where to start. You Google, say, Hey Google, thanks for the bazillion hits of how to start a podcast. Now what? I'm lost. I'm just going to go back to bed, have a slice of pizza.
That's all I need. Maybe some anchovies because I'm feeling feisty, but just going to nap. It's too much. It's overwhelming. Can't do it. This is what I'm hoping to get out of Let's Start a Podcast.
I want to tell you that I'm a podcast producer, podcast mentor, editor kind of guy. Help you out if you need it. I'll charge you a fair price.
If you just need somebody to listen, talk at you, give you some communities, hang out, and get some free advice. And always, I'm happy to chat. Just because you email me or follow me on the Gram or Facebook or LinkedIn doesn't mean I'm going to charge you.
I'm always happy to help people. But if you want a one-on-one support, doing your thing, a lot of strategy. Get through once done. Maybe you want to just have somebody take care of most of everything.
I'll take care of 80%. You take care of 20. Kind of manage the whole process. Help you get guests and inspiration for social media and help you descriptions. Write them.
Help you figure out what you should be doing in your podcast. Maybe become a better communicator. All that stuff is included in the description. Okay. Hang out. Check it out.
I want to start some live sessions on Facebook and LinkedIn and maybe the Gram, maybe YouTube. I like to do some workshops. How to edit, how to launch, the basics of podcasting, all that stuff too.
So follow me on the socials and get some of that action. Maybe I'll write a book next year with a workbook. I like the idea of green lights. Matthew McConaughey wrote this book.
Kind of like a memoir biography about his life. What he did, what he learned and how he got through those green lights, the pass through when he had some hardships. He figured it out and moved on.
He also has a workbook. I think that's a really cool idea. You can dive in to the different phases of podcasting and then have a workbook to complete. Accompany? Accomplish? Do it all. It's okay.
Sidekick. Have a book. I know in a sidekick book. And then you can kind of read along. Have a good time. Maybe I do an audio book. I can talk at you for a while. You can write things down and feel empowered.
And then you start a podcast. And then figure out some Amazon lists so you can just click and go. What do I get? What do I need? What do I do about the train in the background? Well, nothing. But if you incorporate it into your podcast, it'd be kind of fun.
And then the red light district, we have another. And another. And the clickety clack. Maybe it's part of your intro. Whatever. Maybe somebody's neighbor has a dog and they bark constantly.
And maybe you just have to give in to the whole world. Dog. You have a cat, but they don't need to know that. Just talk about dogs. Or just like, yep, exactly. And then just give them a fake name, like they're chiming in. That works. You don't always have to be perfect and polished. It's how you entertain somebody and how you get that message across. It really matters. And you work up to the quality and the skills.
Start from day one. You want to just learn and go. And you're kind of a hands-on kind of learner. You're a visual learner. You just need to know and understand how things work and how things tick. Maybe you grew up and your parents enjoyed seeing you learn the hard way.
Maybe that's for podcasting. Maybe you need somebody like me to get you started. Ramp up your skills. And then off you go. Choice is yours. My choice for podcasting seemed to start about eight or nine years old.
I was in my room, as I often was, as an only child. I liked tech. My friends at school in the neighborhood liked sports. I was clumsy AF. I was tall, like 6'5", 196 centimeters. I played basketball. But then my neighbor always yelled at me because my basketball bounced off the net and hit her flowers.
My dad started screaming at her. I liked that. I got the popcorn, but then I got doo-doo later. I turned off. So I just kind of did my own thing and started talking at the window. Did the weather reports. Did a little radio scripty script.
Did the microphone that tuned into an FM station. Because if you're old, you would understand that. And then you had a tape deck. You had to press the pause button because otherwise there'd be clicky-click between different episodes or different phases in the show.
That didn't work. The pause button was the magic savior. I did that for a while. I played with tech figure and I had to put computers together. That was my thing. So between tech and understanding what tech does, at least on a level for most people to understand.
The audio engineers are way above me, but we're talking about podcasters getting started. We'll do just fine. All of it. Need to know. But I don't have all the answers, but I have most of them to get you going, give you the knowledge, and then we'll talk with other people to help us get there.
Not to perfect, but close enough. So at least you're ready to go and you're confident to do it. Me talking at you all the time and just stroking things off on the pen like Jon Stewart does. Screw it!
What's your style?
I went to school for radio in 2003. Been doing this for 20 years, man. Holy moly, I'm old. But I've learned a few things and I've overcome a few things. So chances are all my scrubs will teach you something. Hey, what are you going to do?
Keeps coming back to me, the podcast thing, the creative stuff. Yeah, I don't mind being a communicator. Learned that in the corporate game. I don't want to polish the public speaking stuff, but that's the magic, the sound, the theater of the mind that gets me going.
Let's start a podcast trailer, for example. You have Lord Podcast, voice actor. He did awesome. Thanks, Chris Tester. You're amazing. British accent helps, clearly, but I was able to give an adventure theme because I think adventuring is part of podcasting.
It's not something that you can just go on and they intertwine. It's an adventure that you go on. It's this thing, a path. Maybe you fight off a monster. Maybe you get lost in the woods. Maybe you stub your toe. Adventure. It's a lot of fun.
The only thing you get across is don't be perfect. Whether you learn from being hands on or you need some help, let me know. Maybe you don't have the patience to learn the hard way like your parents enjoyed pointing and laughing at you. Dear, dear kid, thank you for learning the hard way to make our life complete and entertaining.
So many things to learn and don't always think about monetizing first, please, for love of God. Don't think about monetizing first. We love it. There's always money to be made in business and podcasting is no exception.
But if you don't love it, you're going to burn out and expect to go past 21 episodes. That's like the seven year itch in togetherness and relationships. 21 episodes is probably statistically where you're going to burn out or not.
Develop a community. Get a small following. Not just your friends and family because they probably don't give a rat's ass about podcasting. I'm sorry. They usually don't.
Get friends and people and random strangers to give you the honest truth because they have no love and appreciation for you. They just want something good because they're selfish. That's the people you want.
That's the people you need to give you the honest, hard truth. Do you suck at podcasting? How can you get better?
And then from there, you can learn the skills you need to learn to get going. Probably the first episode is going to suck. The first 10 are going to be utter trash. Whatever.
If you hate it that much, just scrap it and start a new one because that you'll just be a statistic like the rest of them. Nobody will know. Nobody will know.
It's not so bad.
Hopefully we can work together to learn things and you can learn how to podcast for 10 or 15 episodes roughly is what I'm aiming for to give you the confidence to press record. Beyond that, it's just skill building.
Follow me on socials, please. Then you can hear when I'm going to do the workshops, recording, the Descript, the Launch Strategy, the basics of podcasting.
In the description. Again, if you're on the Spotify, leave a voice message or send me a link to your voice message in the googly drives, whatever it is.
Maybe in the Apple cloud you recorded something. Send me a link on the email. I'll play it in a future episode. I'll sweat.
What do you want to know? What do you need to learn? And what mystifies you about podcasting? Do you want to start, but you have no idea? Do you have no budget? Do you have
a sense of direction, but you're lost in time?
I don't even know what that means.
But if you do, then start a podcast.
I think I babbled enough for episode five, but you get the idea. Some cool stuff happened. Some cool stuff is going to happen. And I'm here with you as your podcast sidekick, Elijah, every step of the way. And remember, if you need a mentor, you need somebody to make you sound so sweet and you have a few bucks to spare.
Hit me up. Be happy to help. Cool. Let's start a podcast, shall we? See you soon.
Let's start a podcast.