Speaker 1: 0:01

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Speaker 2: 4:27

I'm great, crystal, thanks for having me. I'm stoked to be here to talk podcasting, automation, all that fun stuff, all the things that light me up.

Speaker 1: 4:36

Yes, yes. So Joe and I met. You know I gave like a brief introduction in the intro about Joe and I meeting at Craft Commerce earlier this summer and it was so fun. I was trying to remember all of the things that we talked about. It was like a happy hour and we were, like you know, chit-chatting about all the things. But I realized very quickly that Joe and I should be trivia night partners because the pop culture like we would crush it, absolutely crush it. What role in shows we were talking about, I don't even remember now.

Speaker 2: 5:08

There was. I mean, like I can go through, it was such a whirlwind. First of all, this will always be like a weird claim to fame for me because Amy Porterfield introduced us, which is just really weird to say yes, Because that was the first time I had ever met her, in real life too, so, like, so it's just like a wild evening. I think we caught each other walking somewhere else at another time, but like Scrubs, and how I met your mother and friends are always like the ones I'm talking about. Yes, and you know it's funny. As we record this, someone else that I hung out with a lot at Craft Commerce tweeted like okay, thanks for all the great connections I made at Craft Commerce. Shout out to. And then, like he tagged me and said for his like seemingly infinite movie and lyric knowledge. I'm like yes, this is.

Speaker 1: 6:00

I've made the right impact, like it was the right thing. It's always nice to get recognized for these things. I think it was. We went into like a full blown debate and I don't even know how we got there Like it was just like, hey, how's it going? I'm Crystal, I'm Joe, and then all of a sudden we were in this heated debate over Game of Thrones versus House of the Dragon and I mean it was just like immediately talking about all things and it was so much fun. So that's how it will always be solidified in my brain that we just need to be trivia night buddies, because we could, we would rule, we would absolutely rule the whole thing.

Speaker 2: 6:33

Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly and I'm totally down for that.

Speaker 1: 6:37

We'll have to make it happen.

Speaker 2: 6:38

Yes, but we'll organize another one at Craft Commerce next time.

Speaker 1: 6:43

Yes, that would be so fun. Okay, we're gonna like hang on, let's bookmark that. We're gonna like send a message to them later and be like this is a request.

Speaker 2: 6:50

This needs to happen. Yes, let's do a trivia night.

Speaker 1: 6:53

Yes, but I have you on the show today to talk about podcasting and automation and I was telling you before we started recording that I know that this audience has been hearing about AI and chat, gpt and all the things and they really love the idea of having AI and having automations and just thinking about processes and then, poof, they're done, they happen for you. But the idea of setting everything up feels so overwhelming. So I was just curious if you could just kind of walk us through how you got into automations in the first place. Like, do you have a story? Like, was there this, like one day where you're like I'm going to throw my whole computer against the wall because of this one thing? That's been. But like, do you have any stories like this?

Speaker 2: 7:47

Yeah. So I was running a webinar a while ago at this point and someone asked I mentioned that I have three podcasts and that I also have three children. And they were like, how can you possibly run three podcasts with three children? And it's because of my automations. So my daughter was born in 2017, in March of 2017. I quit my full-time job in June of 2017. So my wife was just hitting the maternity leave where, like, you don't get paid, and I was quitting my full-time job and we had a baby at home and I was trying to kind of do it all like kids don't change things that much, right? And when my wife went back to work, we hired a babysitter. So things were going pretty well until my babysitter had to leave for the summer. She would go away to a different state and do like a summer long camp counselor thing. And that's when the wheels started to fall off the bus a little bit, because my wife was working three 12-hour shifts at the hospital a week and we didn't really have consistent childcare and we went through a bunch of different babysitters and I was like if I'm gonna properly run my business, something's gotta change. So my friend challenged me to take things off of my plate, and what he meant and what I heard were two different things. Right, what he meant was do fewer things, and what I heard was make robots do some of those things. Right, and so I started to automate a little bit. I started automating simple things right, booking guests, for example. I should also mention at this point my podcast was a pretty appreciable part of my income it was probably like 30% of my income at the time and so I definitely didn't want that to fall by the wayside, and so I was like you know what, I'm gonna start automating a few things. I'm gonna outsource a couple of things like editing and getting the show published and little things here and there. Right, so I moved everything into Airtable, started automating that more. Then I was like pretty happy for a while, right, cause then, like, my daughter was going to daycare and we had no more children for a little while, and then a funny thing happened in March 2020. My wife was pregnant with our second and, since she is a nurse, she wasn't one of the people who got to just stay home and the daycare closed, and so I went from working full time at home to working two or three days a week, and that was really the solidifying point for me, right, there was one point where I was just like so overwhelmed with the work that wasn't getting done and we still needed my income and my wife wasn't home and I had a little bit of a panic attack. And I remember this because my three year old came over to me with a bottle of water and a towel and was like it's okay, daddy, and I'm like my three year old should not be doing this. And that's when I was like you know what? I'm hiring a VA, I'm automating as much as possible. So I'm here to tell you don't get to that point. You don't have to get to that point. But we welcomed our third in December 2021. And I was able to take a month off and everything ran smoothly because I had things already recorded and during that point like March, april, may, 2020, I got my podcast process to a system where, once I was done recording, I was done, done, done. So you know, it was like nothing changed after my third came and after my first came and after my second came, there was a lot of things I had to move around.

Speaker 1: 13:58

I mean for you to say that all you do now today is record and then you're done. I feel like somebody is listening right now and their jaw just hit the floor Like wait, what? Because so many of my listeners are just getting started and maybe they're in the first six to 12 months of their show and they're like they're doing all the things right now, joe. They're like, okay, I have to plan it, I have to edit it, I have to record it, I have to upload it to Buzzsprout, then I have to market it and do the camo graphics, then I have to book the guests and do all the things. To hear that I hope that whoever's listening and had that jaw dropping moment that you know, first of all, this is possible, but also that you can let go of some of these things that you're hanging on to so tightly. I'm curious for you what's the very last thing that you outsource? Not the first, but the very last thing that you're like I'm going to hang on to this. I don't trust a VA or a bot just yet. I'm going to hang on to this. What was that for you?

Speaker 2: 15:03

Publishing my podcast. I was like it's a WordPress site. It's not the easiest. There's a couple of steps. Only I can do that Guess what. As long as you record the process for somebody and write down the steps, anybody who knows how to use a mouse and a keyboard can do that.

Speaker 1: 15:24

Oh my gosh, this is so good. Somebody needed to hear that. I think it's one of those that's like it's so true. Why do we do this? Why do we do this to ourselves? Once we figure out a process and it's something that we learned from somebody else in the first place whether it was you paid somebody to figure out how to do it, or you watched a YouTube video, somebody else taught you to do the thing. Yet when it's our show, all of a sudden we have this ownership of, but nobody could do it just like I do it. Therefore, I don't trust anybody. How long do you typically see like when someone comes to you and says Joe, I want you to help me? Are you typically helping brand new podcasters or people that already kind of have systems in place and they just need your help to guide things along? What does that typically look like for you?

Speaker 2: 16:11

Yeah, I usually get people post launch. They've been doing it for a little while, maybe six months, maybe a year. They're getting to a point where they're either going to stop being consistent or they're going to burn out. And they come to me and they're like you have three kids and run three podcasts and presumably do other things. How do you do it Right? And some people it's helped me with my process. For some people it's helped me make money so that I can actually hire an editor and get to a point where I can start outsourcing. And then for some people it's like you're playing nine dimensional chess. Just do it for me and then I don't have to think about it after I record.

Speaker 1: 16:56

Yeah, that's really good. Well, I'm curious what are some of the monetization strategies that you love for podcasters?

Speaker 2: 17:05

So I mean, everybody thinks I have a framework. I can run through this really quick. It's called the Smash Framework and I want to give a shout out to Justin Moore, who uses acronyms for everything. I was like I guess I should have an acronym. So the first S is sponsorship. That's the most obvious one to think. To a lot of people, a brand pays you to talk about them on your show. I like this for most people If you're willing to put in the time and do the outreach and you know, get told no a lot. But for some people there's like this mental hurdle that I don't have enough downloads so I can't have enough sponsors. I'll just, we'll take this and put a pin in it. But I have again all three of my podcasts were sponsored with zero downloads, like I had sponsors before the show launched. So I think alignment is more important there. But that's the S. M is membership. So people pay you some nominal fee, monthly or annually to get access to more content or ad free content, exclusive content or access. So I have a membership that is ad free, extended episodes of my podcast where usually the last 10 minutes, for members only are the the juiciest, you know, of the interview and the free stuff is still really, really valuable and my listeners get actionable advice. But we go a little deeper, right? I just interviewed an Emmy award winning producer and we talked about storytelling in the main show and then I was like, all right for the members, tell me what it's like winning an Emmy. I will never get to ask anybody else this question.

Speaker 1: 18:44

Yes.

Speaker 2: 18:45

So I like that. You do need. You don't need a big audience, but you definitely need an enthusiastic and engaged audience for that. So that's M A is affiliate links Easiest to get into, maybe the hardest to make real money from the strategy. For that, I recommend you pick two or three products and really promote them. Make it clear that you're using an affiliate link but talk about them on your show. Have an easy to remember link but them in the show notes. Mentioned them as much as you can and make them good. Like Amazon, affiliates ain't going to cut it right 30% on clicks, but like 30% recurring for two years, like convert kit has or whoever, that's going to be a good affiliate program. So that was SMA. The second S is help, I'm sorry. The second S is sell and the last and the H is help. This is where I like to help people the most, because these are solopreneurs, small business owners. They are selling a product or they're selling a help which is coaching, consulting courses, and they need to establish their authority. Because I think a podcast is the best way to do that, the best way to develop, to get people to know, like and trust you, and so if you use your podcast as a lead generator that builds your mailing list, that gets people to trust you. You can make money by getting clients who are also your listeners, and I think that's a really great way to do it. For a lot of people it's a long game, but I mean, making any real money in business is a long game, right, yeah?

Speaker 1: 20:20

100%, 100%, and I have to say that was smashing.

Speaker 2: 20:25

Oh, why? Oh, very good.

Speaker 1: 20:27

As soon as she said smash, I was like I got to sit on this now, Shut up, Don't say anything. That was smashing. That was perfect. I love a good acronym and I think that we are totally aligned on everything you just said about monetization, because I believe that so many people see these huge shows and they are just I mean, seemingly we don't know the behind the scenes, but it looks like, hey, they're just getting handed millions of dollars just for existing and for putting this thing out there, and so it's really hard for any podcasters or people that are just getting started to understand the mechanics behind it. Especially if you don't come from a business background, it's even harder. I have people in my audience that have podcast about their doulas and midwives and people that do caregiving, coaching and people that are trying to help real estate agents, and so they don't have this mechanics of sponsorships and working with you know ad revenue. They're just like it's intimidating because they don't understand it. So I love that you just broke it down so simply and you made it attainable, because that is I'm so glad to hear that it's not just me that sees that that we see this across the entire podcast industry that so many people are like I only get so many downloads, so you had zero downloads before you started getting sponsors. That's incredible. That is so fantastic.

Speaker 2: 21:58

Yeah, it was pretty wild. I mean, I've been freelancing since I was 14, right. So this is like it's like 23 years now, right, Almost 24. And I learned at some point that, like people aren't just going to come up and hand you a bag of money, you got to ask for it and so when I was launching how I Built it I knew my audience was WordPress developers originally. Now it's so I've like pivoted. It was like a long, kind of like glacial move over a bunch of years, but I've pivoted and I have a really clear different audience now and even more downloads, which I mean download is not the metric, but you know, kind of watching the trend to see how I'm tracking with my current listenership is that's the only way I could do it right now.

Speaker 1: 22:48

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:49

Anyway, I had a really clear audience and so someone reached out. They wanted to like do a backlink thing. And I'm like, oh, I don't do that, but like, if you want to sponsor the first episode of my podcast for 99 bucks, you can. And he was like, yeah, sure. And I was like, oh, who else would say yes to this? So I just reached out to a bunch of people and I was like, hey, I'm launching a podcast in the WordPress space and people are like, yeah, I know you Like you. Your work is really good. I'm happy to like duke you a couple hundred bucks to support this project and get it off the ground.

Speaker 1: 23:18

Yeah, and this is this is so interesting because I haven't recently been talking a lot or I guess I have more recently started talking about sponsorships previously, so much of my content and you know, teaching to my audience has been about affiliates for bigger programs, so not those Amazon ones, like you know, like like the bigger programs, like the higher ticket or higher level coaching packages where you can get started, because so many people in this audience have spent a lot of like, they've spent thousands of dollars on large coaching packages, so why don't we turn around and sell some of those? Sell your own products, your own services. But sponsorships is one of those areas where it's been a little fuzzy for me. And now you already brought up Justin I'm going to bring. I have taken his program and started learning from him and Joe. That's actually where we reconnected. That's right.

Speaker 2: 24:10

Yeah. We're like hey wait, hey God, we need a minute. You have the podcast.

Speaker 1: 24:15

We need to catch up. But in learning about that, like it's just really a mindset shift because, like you said in the beginning, talking about sponsorships, you're like you got to be able to take those nose and just keep getting, like keep going until you start getting those yeses. So I hope that that was a gift to other people that are listening, because I think that that's so fascinating. And I want to switch gears for a second about you know, from sponsorships to more of the automation side, because I know so you mentioned air table. Are there other tools that you're like I swear by these tools. These are like the lifeblood of my business. Like what are those for you?

Speaker 2: 24:57

Yeah, makecom, formerly Integromat this is a competitor to Zapier. Ok, and I like it. You know, I'm not one of these people who's like I go for the cheapest tool, I go for the best tool. Yeah, and make is almost 100 percent kind of what Zapier is. There's a couple of missing things, but it's also like 90 percent cheaper, right, ok, so like I was having this conversation with somebody who's like I'm not switching, like I pay for software, and I was like, yes, but the really wealthy don't get wealthy by wasting money, right. Like knowing that makecom does everything Zapier does for me at 90 percent of the price, like I can't, as a good business, as a prudential business owner, right, I can't ignore that. And so I love make. I think it's a little bit more visual than Zapier. I do think Zapier is a little bit easier, though, and you get five automations for free. So you know, maybe try Zapier first, because the I think the reason it's more expensive is because the integrations are a little bit tighter Right Now. For those who don't know I am, I have a background in software engineering, so I kind of think this way, and so make is really easy, really easy. It was really easy for me to get started. That said, so make, air table are really the two big ones as far as automations go. I also have like a bunch of Mac specific stuff. Hazel is an app that does like file management. So, for example, one thing is when I download the files from Riverside, so I use Riverside to record, and when I download the files, I have a Hazel automation that looks for files downloaded from Riverside and then puts those files into a folder with the episode number and the guest name, and so it kind of automatically organizes. And then when I add the instructions, it automatically moves it into Dropbox and emails my editor. So again, like I said, when I'm done recording, I'm really, really done Like I make a few edit notes and then I never see the episode again until it shows up in my podcast app. So but, but make is is really the linchpin of a lot of that stuff and I'm happy to walk through kind of how automation works, because some of the things I'm describing sounds complicated. I have been doing this for a long time. My first automation was not this complicated.

Speaker 1: 27:43

Yeah, yeah, walk us through while I give us all the details, like I'm salivating over here. I'm like tell us all the things, all the things, because just hearing you say again you record and then it's, it's go, it goes into, it, vanishes into thin air and then it appears in your podcast app. We have to know how you're doing this.

Speaker 2: 28:03

Yes, okay, so I will start you with what I think every podcaster who books guests needs to use, and that's Calendly, calendly, savvy, cal, one of those right, an automatic scheduler. And it's because you do the time zone dance, right, I'm in Eastern daylight time. Right, eastern time, crystal, I think you're in central. Yeah, yeah, okay, you know and I think I know where you are. But like I talked to people in Arizona and like sometimes they're in Pacific and sometimes they're in mountain, yes, you, know, sometimes they're just like their own time or whatever.

Speaker 1: 28:39

Yes, they're standing still in time. Yeah, exactly Like the. The best thing I've ever done is I've been in the.

Speaker 2: 28:46

The best thing about Arizona is that most of the state moves time zones instead of clocks, except for, like this one tiny town or like county inside Arizona which changes the clocks. So, like if you live there, you're on like Arizona time zone. Wow, lockers, anyway, don't ever deal with that, right, that's one thing that you can easily take off your plate. But the second step is, I think, an often overlooked one, because when someone fills out my Calendly link, it automatically creates an entry in air table. An air table is where my podcast planner lives. I have a can band board view, so, like you can connect it to Trello if you don't want to use air table or click up or maybe Notion. I chose air table over Notion and continue to, because Notions automations are. They leave me wanting, but I think you can get information from Calendly to Notion. So wherever you plan your podcast also, you're planning your podcast right. Like you have a planner that keeps track of the episodes. This is another thing that saves you a lot of time, yeah, but once it's there, I kind of check my schedule daily to make sure I am at least four to six episodes ahead of schedule. I know where I got to fill in solo episodes and things like that. And Calendly also handles all of the reminder emails right. So it's like hey, tomorrow, one hour from now, I also have a send a follow up email. This is why I picked Calendly over Savvy Cal. They do the follow up email, or they did when I evaluated it, and it says hey, thanks so much for coming out on the show. If you are willing, send me your address. I'd love to send you like a thank you note. And also, can you upload your head shot to this drop box, right? Because like collecting the head shot is, you know, probably half of the people don't do it right. So but like saying, just like, click this link and upload it here, that has. That has gotten things a lot better for me. So that process there's a lot of steps In one connection, calendly to whatever your planner is Trello, Airtable Notion, whatever so make that and you're probably saving yourself a couple of hours a week at least, right. And then there's a lot of stuff that happens on the back end after we record. So again, I record in Riverside. This is this might change, this will almost definitely change because Descript or Descript I learned it's Descript but Squadcast, which is a Descript or which is a Riverside competitor. So it just doesn't make sense for me to pay for both. But either way, I record the episode and then I download both sides of my audio, my audio, the guest's audio. Hazel automatically puts them in a folder in Dropbox called pre-production. Then I go and I so during the interview I'm taking notes, edit notes and things like that, so I don't have to go back and listen. I'll say like, oh, there was a curse word here. We try not to curse on the show. I like that clean rating and I listen to podcasts with my kids. I assume a lot of people who listen to my show, listen to podcasts with my kids, and I curse enough. They don't hear and they don't need to hear other people curse, so I will create a text file. What this is. This is kind of a silly thing. Once Hazel detects there are four files in the episodes pre-production folder, that's going to be my audio, the guest's audio, the cold open Right, which is like me doing the recap that I record after the interview, and the instructions file, it automatically moves it into the needs editing folder in Dropbox. Okay, this is. I'm really going to get into the weeds here and I want you, dear listener, to know that this is going to sound really complicated, but it's just a couple of connections that make a lot. It's like a ripple effect. I'm throwing one rock into the pond and a bunch of things are happening. So just think this is one rock being thrown in the pond. When that folder gets moved into the needs editing folder, make is watching that folder and I make sure that every folder has the episode number in it. This is important because make grabs that folder and it's going to be a lot easier to edit. This is important because make grabs that episode number, looks it up an air table and updates the status to out for edit. When that happens, my editor gets an email hey, joel, there's a new episode in Dropbox and then a link to the folder. Then Joel knows to upload two versions of that and adds version and an adds free version. So to the production folder and again, make is watching the production folder. He knows to include the episode number and when a new episode hits the production folder, make updates air table and says ready for publish is the status. And then two emails go out, one to my VA saying hey, a new episode is ready for publish. There's the show notes document which is automatically generated from the Calendly link in the beginning. And another email goes out to my transcriptionist and says, hey, a new episode is ready to be transcribed. And by the time my VA publishes we have the transcription and she uploads everything to transistor and then uploads and then updates the WordPress site. So All of that happens because I did some pre-work During the interview. I'm taking a lot of notes. I'm marking links I want to include in the show notes so my VA knows to find them. I'm time-stamping things like the ads break, because my ads are dynamically inserted now. I'm time-stamping things like edits. Then, once the episode is recorded, I write down the instructions. I send them off to Joel, my editor. After that, again, I don't see it until it's magic. Yeah, this is the beauty of it, because for a while I was checking, I was listening to the whole episode. There were a couple of times where I accidentally hot-miked myself. I said some things that I would stand by but I don't want to put out. It's like people aren't listening to me for that sort of view.

Speaker 1: 35:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:53

My editor forgot to cut that out. But a couple of bumps along the way. Things are super smooth sailing. I don't even check their work anymore. Yeah, it really is a super hands-off process for me. It's been working for me for years. I keep my VA's in the Philippines and I keep increasing her pay because I pay her well, above what people in her skill set and location get, because if she left me I would be lost. Yeah, oh, no, I'm going to do now.

Speaker 1: 36:31

Well, I think it's so interesting. First of all, thank you for walking us through that Because I know, like you said, people care automation and they're immediately like I don't know how to do that or that sounds so complicated. And even you, throwing in that, you do have a background in developing, so you have a higher level education or experience and skill set than most people listening to this episode today. But also everything that you just said I understood, and I don't have a skill set in automation or developing or these fancy things. But I have listened to enough shows and I've had enough headaches myself in booking guests and I'm so glad that you started with the Calendly, because that was the very first thing I ever automated. I was overbooking myself. I was like I will never forget. There was one day where I really wasn't feeling great and I had four interviews back to back, four hour long interviews, and they were all funky and I didn't. There was not like this, I'll Calendly. I'll give you a buffer time, like you absolutely need to use this, whether it's five minutes or 20 minutes or like whatever it is, and a maximum number of bookings per day. Yes, yes, I totally screwed up. What are you talking about, joe? I didn't know like I was just like sure, wednesday, this time, yeah, sure. Put it on Google Calendar, yeah, this time, sure. And then all of a sudden that day came and I was like I really don't feel that great, but it's OK, I only have one interview. And then I looked and I was like, oh my gosh, what did I just? I did this to myself. There was no one to blame but myself. So I got so frustrated. So that is absolutely step number one. Start with Calendly. If you are scheduling your own guest, outsource that immediately. Calendly is affordable, you can absolutely afford it and it is something. Is there still a free version of Calendly? I feel like I've been paying for it for years.

Speaker 2: 38:27

I know I paid for like the max as soon as I could, because you can also like, do like paid bookings right, like on the. So I think there is a free. I'm pretty sure there's still a free tier though. Yeah, that gives you always free. Yeah, connect one calendar. Create an act is create one event type Right, so perfect, dip your toes in the water, right, you have a calendar Right. The reason I had to upgrade was because I also want to include like my wife's work schedule and like school schedule Right, because that was the other thing that was happening. It was like it was only seeing my appointments and then I was like, oh, but I got to go pick Teresa up from school, right?

Speaker 1: 39:07

Yes.

Speaker 2: 39:08

So now there's and I'll tell you right. So I tried automating this. And then I was like this doesn't make any like. My toxic trait is I try to automate things that don't need to be automated. And so I had an automation that was like looking at my wife's work schedule and then doing the math to figure out like, oh well, if, if she's at work and there's school, then I just automatically block off like two, 30 to seven, 30 pm. And I was like this is dumb. I just I know that I'll just block certain days off on my calendar to to record and I, that's what I know and can control. So but yeah, I think a lot of people hear automation and they get nervous. Yeah, but I'll tell you this Are you, do you write a check for every bill that you pay, or does your mortgage or rent automatically come out of your account? Does your electric bill automatically come out of your account? If you said yes to any of those, then you are already automating.

Speaker 1: 40:12

Yes, oh my drop. Yeah Well, even Netflix and all of your subscriptions, like exactly everything. Like everything you probably don't even have cash in your house at this point Like it's all digital, it's all automated. And you know, we're kind of living. We're living in this world where, probably 10 years ago, automation was super scary, even though there were tools out there to use it, but they've been so fine tuned and refined and they're used by super large organizations. I think that 2020, like you know and everything of you know people working hybrid, working at home, like it kind of sped us up digitally by a few years, because all of these tools somehow got better in a lot of ways, and I think that that is one of the great things that's kind of stuck around is the improved ability to have more automations or have just APIs and integrations in places where it wasn't readily available. And so I would love for you to talk about is there any part of your processes that use AI where it's hands off completely, like and I don't mean, like you know, we have Zapier and make and all those but any like other parts of your process, like maybe in the planning stage or something like, because people have just been asking me so much about AI, so I'd love to get everybody's take on how they're using that in their production process.

Speaker 2: 41:40

Yeah, this is a great question and very well timed, because I just finished recording a course for LinkedIn Learning called Generative AI for Podcasters Awesome. The main place that I use AI is in two ways. One is transcription automatic transcription so I have one before my transcriptionist actually creates like a proper, no errors, proper links and things like that version, because I do like to search for that, especially if I'm like oh, I think we talked about this at this point, or like I really want to use that quote for the cold open, like what time stamp was that after, after edit, right, and so I really use it for that. And then there are a couple of tools I've been experimenting with that I use that. I'm probably going to settle on one very soon and they are a Cap show, cast Magic and Swell AI, and they all kind of do the same thing they transcribe your episode, they summarize it and then they create shareable assets for you. And I have been told I'm a very good writer, so I write a lot and I write pretty well, so I end up rewriting a lot of the stuff that it produces. But the there's a quote at this time that we think is good, or here's the. Here's the basis for a Twitter thread. That's the stuff I love, because I don't really think about that stuff, right.

Speaker 1: 43:14

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:15

There's the stuff I remember to write down in the notes. But if I'm really into the conversation right, and I'm like, yeah, totally, I'm probably not, I want to be engaged, right, there's the balance between being engaged and writing down the important stuff for later, and tools like cast magic and swell and cap show Make it so that you can remain engaged and still get some reminders of what you actually talked about in the episode, right? I found that, like, cap show probably does the best job of figuring out what the episode's about, but deriving assets from those is a little bit confusing. I think that cast magic and swell AI do a better job of making it really like here is a Twitter thread, take this, copy and paste it into typefully or whatever, or hype, yeah. So I've been messing around with a few of those. I got the lifetime deal from AppSumo for cast magic, and I'm always suspect of lifetime deals, I know.

Speaker 1: 44:17

But they've been improving at a pretty rapid clip.

Speaker 2: 44:19

So it sounds like they've taken that cash infusion they got from the AppSumo sale and have been investing it into engineering, which has been really cool. So that's that's mostly where I use it. But let me tell you the thing that I've really loved about it lately I've been using chat GPT, for which, who knows, this episode could come out tomorrow and it could be a good one which, who knows, this episode could come out tomorrow and it could be outdated already.

Speaker 1: 44:46

Right so quickly.

Speaker 2: 44:49

So I've been using chat, gpt and I've been writing prompts like this I have a podcast that targets busy, busy, solo prenuer and creator parents who want to save time in their business by doing less of the process stuff. Can you give me two listener avatars for this podcast, one for each male and one female? The results I got from that were astounding. Like these people were clear as day. David's a 35 year old stay at home dad who has two kids, 10 and seven. He works on his podcast in the evenings after his wife comes home from work and the kids are in bed. Jenny is a single mom with a seven year old. She has a full time job but she does her podcast on the side as a way to make extra money. And I'm just like I can see these. I can see David, I can see Jenny and then I ask follow up questions. What kind of questions would David have for me if he listened to my podcast? What are the problems that keep Jenny up at night? And the answers I get are incredible and I'm not going to say it's better than actual listener research, but if you don't have a way to get your listeners or you want to test the waters first, like if you're starting from zero or near zero. It's an incredible tool that helps you really niche down your podcast and figure out who you're talking to, and that's really what helps your show grow Right? Not everybody is Joe Rogan. Only Joe Rogan is Joe Rogan, right? And I'm just going to say that you can't just talk to everybody. You need to have a mission statement in mind who do you help and how do you help them? And if you don't know that or you don't know where to start, chat, ept and other AI tools can be really, really helpful for that.

Speaker 1: 46:48

Yeah, I think that that is like such a such a gift and like a beautiful way that you explain that, because we've talked about AI and I've talked about the processes and the production part, but I love that you talked about it's like the mindset, the marketing, the market research of using it to take your podcast from something super generic, possibly if you're speaking to a generic audience, and making it a lot more succinct, a lot more specific, because that is something that this audience struggles with, because they're like but you're supposed to talk to everybody. I don't want to niche down, and I think a lot of people have that in the very beginning of their journeys anyway, but it is something that can be so powerful and I love it when people share their prompts because I'm like, ooh, that's a good idea. I'm going to try that next time. So so I.

Speaker 2: 47:40

I have a blog post on this. I'll share it. I've created a landing page for your listeners over at podcast liftoffcom slash profit, the way that you spell profit in the show. I'll probably make it redirect both ways, but, yeah, it'll have my automation, some automation templates, and it'll have a link to this blog post as well, cause I think that that's just so powerful and I get it. I totally get it. Like niching down is scary, right, because you're like I'm excluding people. I'm trying to make money, though, or I'm trying to get as many listeners as possible, but let me tell you the I mentioned like the journey of my downloads before my podcast was very, very popular very quickly like 100,000 downloads in less than nine months for a guy who had no idea what he was doing in 2016. My first podcast launched in 2012 and it was really bad. So it was like we had five hosts and four downloads, so someone wasn't listening. But this one, because I had such a specific audience WordPress developers who want to launch a business but don't know how, who are hearing the successes and failures of established WordPress developer business owners, got me sponsors, got me a bunch of downloads. Then I thought, well, I want to try to appeal to more people. So I was like let's just go WordPress businesses instead of developers, let's just go general businesses Like YOLO. Right, yolo was popular back then.

Speaker 1: 49:17

I can't pull that off and guess what?

Speaker 2: 49:21

My downloads dipped. I went from being number 23 in Apple Podcasts technology charts to 2000 because I moved from niche and topic. So then I was like I got to get back. And so then I decided, instead of general business, I'm going to talk to creators Actually, I'm going to talk to solopreneurs Actually I'm going to talk to busy solopreneurs and the parents thing is unspoken, but it comes up so much that I just can't help but make it a part of my identity and part of the fabric of the show. And now I'm going to like 70,000 downloads a month again. Right, like I've. It went from lots of downloads dipped and then back up again. So niching will always help you because it gives you that engaged audience that your message resonates with.

Speaker 1: 50:18

Yeah, that's fantastic. Oh my gosh, I feel like there's so many mic drop moments in this episode today and so many things like. We're going to have to have you back on the show, joe, because this was fantastic. It was fantastic. So I have a few rapid fire questions that I want to wrap up with. So don't be nervous, I promise they're not scary, they're not. They're not trivia night heart Okay. We're not going to get there yet, okay, no-transcript.

Speaker 2: 50:51

To find your mission statement first. I said this earlier, but answer these three questions who do I help? How do I help them? How does each episode further that mission? How does each episode drive home the fact that I'm helping them solve this specific problem?

Speaker 1: 51:11

That's awesome. That's really good. The next one is a two-part question.

Speaker 2: 51:15

All right.

Speaker 1: 51:16

Who is your dream podcast you would love to be on and who is the dream podcast guest you would love to interview?

Speaker 2: 51:27

Oh man, this feels trivia night hard. So who's podcast would I love to be on? I know they don't have guests so this is like kind of a cop out I think, but stuff, you should know they were just like my first love. I love that podcast. I think those guys are so funny and I don't know what I would talk about with them, but it would just be a blast Like I'd learn from like some OG podcasters.

Speaker 1: 51:54

Yes.

Speaker 2: 51:56

And who is my dream guest? This? The chains move on this a lot, but I would love to talk to Andrew Warner. He, his book Stop Asking Questions really helped me level up my podcast and the kind of research I did for guest interviews and it really helped me build a better story around the interviews instead of just saying like, so who are you? Tell us who you are and what you do, right? So I think it's him. Him or Lindsey Graham, not the senator, the guy who hosts like History Daily and a bunch of other history podcasts for Wondery. His voice is just fantastic. So I mean, I've talked to him about storytelling in a nonfiction setting and then he could just talk because his voice is fantastic.

Speaker 1: 52:47

Oh, I was going to say I heard him speak. I think he was at Podcast Movement Evolutions in Vegas earlier this year and I heard him and I was like this is delightful. Yeah, this is delightful.

Speaker 2: 52:59

Yeah, he's great His I can't recommend his. Like if you want to know how to weave a good story into like seemingly mundane things like I don't know the founding of Netflix, like it's a cool story but, like man, the picture that he paints is incredible. So if you want like a masterclass in storytelling, listen to that show.

Speaker 1: 53:18

That's awesome. We're going to link to those in the show notes. So it was great. So my last question is do you consider yourself a perfectionist?

Speaker 2: 53:26

No, I don't, I used to. But Kids change everything and because, you know, when I was single and had all the time in the world I could, I could stay up late until two or three in the morning Getting that CSS just right or editing out all these little imperfections, and then, like kids happened and I was like man, if I want to do anything, 80 percent for most things is good, is good enough, right, and I'm not saying half. I don't have fast things, but I understand that done is better than perfect and when something needs to be perfect then I can invest my time in that because I'm not spending all of my time on minutia. That doesn't have to be. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 54:12

Oh, this is so awesome. Like I said, so many mic drop moments, and I think that you gave so many listeners lots to think about when it comes to their automations and their processes, and I know that this is something that you do, like you help podcasters with this. So can you tell us a little bit about what it would look like to you know, contact you or what the next step is If there's somebody that's listening and they're like OK, like Joe, please help me. I want to record and just wake up on the day that my episode airs and it is right there. It's ready to go, yeah.

Speaker 2: 54:46

So I'll say this right at the top If you want to join my mailing list that's the best way to kind of learn my best tips Everything you need will be over at podcastliftoffcom slash profit. But if you want to do this yourself, here's what you do Make a list of everything you do for every episode, leave nothing out. Oh well, I record with this and then I edit with this. No, no, no, no, no, no. How do you find guests? How do you book guests? What do you do between the time you book the guest and the time you get on the recording with the guest? What do you do before you start recording? What do you do after you start recording? Literally everything, from whatever right from coming up with episode ideas to promoting them on social media. Then I want you to Marie Kondo style circle only the things that bring you joy, only the things that you need and want to do. I'm going to give you a harsh truth. All you need to do is talk. If you want to book the, I booked the guests, still right, because I want to make sure I'm booking guests that that fall in line with my values. So that's if you want to find and book guests. But even then you can like make a list of names and then have a VA, like do some research on on them, right, and then have them book in Calangly, so Circle the things that bring you joy. Everything else a robot can do or another human being can do. So that's what I recommend. In fact, you know what the form that you'll fill out will give you two free things It'll give you a list to my like podcast audit framework thing so you can do this by yourself, and it'll give you a list to my some automation templates I've created, so you're not starting from scratch.

Speaker 1: 56:40

Oh, look at you, just give it. This had everything, so it had Game of Thrones. We talked about smashing things. We talked about I mean we worked in so many awesome like we're ready for Trivia night and I think the audience is ready for some automations, because they're like OK, I'm going to run to go grab this, so give us that link one more time, joe.

Speaker 2: 57:01

Podcast lift off dot com, slash profit. Profit will be spelled your way, but also my way or the highway. Now I have the Limp Bizkit song suck in my head.

Speaker 1: 57:15

We don't need to bring Fred Durst into this.

Speaker 2: 57:18

OK, we don't need to. My my, my hat is forwards and I'm too old to wear it backwards now, oh my.

Speaker 1: 57:25

God, now I'm like going through the roll adex of Limp Bizkit songs and I blame you Like this is totally my apologies. Oh my God, this was fantastic, joe, and I'm going to have a link to everything in the show notes that we talked about today, but I so appreciate you sharing your knowledge, your wisdom, your time with us today. This was fantastic, so thank you so much for being on the show.

Speaker 2: 57:49

My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. I had an absolute blast.

Speaker 1: 57:54

OK, I just have one question to ask Are you motivated to figure out how to make this system work? I know me too. It was actually this conversation with Joe that inspired me, because I've been looking at you know I need to hire a VA, I want someone to help me do some of the back end processes of my podcast in my business, and this was the conversation that really pushed me over the edge, because I've been kind of, you know, wavering and taking my time and dragging my feet to make it happen. And this was the conversation that I was like you know what? I'm just going to do it. I'm going to do it and I have since hired someone that is helping me short term and, you know, working a few hours here and there in my business every single week, and it's made all the difference and I've already said OK, we're increasing your hours, because this is incredible to hand things off of my plate. I have already been able to make more money and dedicate my time to more revenue generating and lead generating strategies in my business, because I have the brain power and the capacity now to do these strategic things that I didn't have time to do before. So please go follow Joe. Like, go listen to all the things. Like I love that he is an expert in Zapier Zapier this is like one of those words I never know how to say it, but it is such an underestimated tool on the incredible things that it can do. I am planning on spending some time in 2024 to figure out, like, how can I make this work to my benefit? How can I make it to the dreamy things that Joe talked about? I mean, think about it. Think about this for a second. What if you could just record your show and then it's published, like then someone else like you hand it off to someone else and they take over the whole thing and you have a published piece of content and you can work on those bigger pieces of, maybe guesting on more podcasts to grow your audience or working on, you know, that brand new lead magnet or that course or that membership or whatever else you're trying to do in your business. So I want you to go check out Joe, follow him on Instagram, go look at all the cool things that he's doing, because he is someone that is going to change this industry and I think that he is doing absolutely incredible things. And, like I said, joe, if you're listening trivia night. We got to make it happen because I think we would have so much fun, but that's all I have for you today. So if you're brand new around here, make sure you hit that subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening and, as always, remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.