0:00

Hey, Travis Albritain here. Uh, so

0:02

I hope the, these episodes have been super helpful

0:04

for you getting your show off the ground and

0:06

having the confidence that you need to really

0:09

launch a podcast, which is such an incredible thing.

0:11

Now, I recently had the opportunity

0:14

to sit down for a conversation with

0:16

Eric Nuzum, who is been an executive

0:18

producer on some of the biggest podcasts in

0:21

the world, many of NPRs podcast,

0:23

Ted's podcasts , um, and

0:25

just brings a lot of insight and

0:28

depth of wisdom to podcasting.

0:30

And so I wanted to share this with you as kind of

0:32

like a podcasting 201.

0:35

This interview is what to do

0:37

once you have your show going and you really

0:39

want to see what's the next step. What's the next level

0:42

that I can get to with my

0:45

podcast. Uh , he just wrote a

0:47

brand new book on podcasting called Make

0:49

Noise. I will leave a link to the book

0:51

in the episode description. It's a fantastic

0:53

book. So I hope that this conversation

0:55

is helpful for you and that you get a lot out

0:57

of it. And without further ado, here's my

0:59

conversation with Eric Nuzum.

1:05

So my name is Eric Nuzum and

1:07

, uh, I , um, spent

1:10

most of the early part of my career in broadcast

1:12

and eventually worked my way up to working at NPR.

1:15

And I started there in 2004

1:17

and listening less than a year later,

1:20

I was in the , um, the

1:22

cafeteria line at NPR and the guy who was

1:24

our COO at the time was behind

1:26

me trying to make some kind of awkward chit-chat

1:28

. He says, well, what's interesting that you've seen

1:30

lately. And I said, well, there's this podcasting

1:33

thing. And I started explaining to him in the lunch

1:35

line, just gotta make conversation. He's

1:37

like, Oh, come by and give

1:39

me a little spiel on it. And so I came,

1:42

I made an appointment, went and gave a spiel a

1:45

couple of weeks later, he shows back up at my door

1:47

and says, you have a team of eight and

1:50

you have 12 weeks. And at the end of that

1:52

12 weeks, we want there to be NPR podcasts.

1:55

I'm like, okay. And we actually delivered it a

1:57

month . We got an extra month. Uh , we delivered

1:59

it. It was 32 podcasts. And then

2:01

for the following decade, I kind of remained kind

2:03

of the editorial lead on NPR podcasts,

2:06

both figuring out how to take in pair

2:08

programming and have it thrive in the podcast world,

2:10

sound authentic there and

2:12

also making new things that were intended

2:15

originally to be in that space and

2:17

did that for a decade. And then a

2:20

couple of years ago, probably four and a half years or so

2:22

ago, I left NPR and went to Ottawa,

2:24

which is part of the Amazon. Uh, you,

2:26

you extended universe and

2:28

, um, uh, created original

2:30

the original content team there. Uh,

2:32

and then about a year

2:35

or so ago , uh, one of my friends and I

2:37

left and started magnificent

2:39

noise, which is a , uh , um,

2:41

which is a podcast production and consultation

2:44

company , uh , based in New York. And

2:46

,

2:46

And so now you have , uh , your first

2:48

podcast related book , um

2:50

, make noise. Yeah . And I love as

2:52

I was going through and reading it. And

2:55

, and specifically one of the things that you

2:57

harp on , uh, which we'll dive into about

2:59

the 10 word description, I was like, let

3:01

me go back to the front cover and see if he

3:04

followed his own rules. He did even

3:06

got an extra word, despair, a creative guide

3:08

to podcasting and great audio storytelling. Um,

3:11

so why did you feel like now

3:14

was the time to publish this

3:16

book that you've been in podcasting

3:18

basically since the beginning

3:20

longer than just about anyone listening to this episode?

3:23

Uh , so why did you feel like now is a really good time

3:26

to, to bring this book out into

3:28

the world and step into , uh , promote it?

3:30

That's a really good question because I

3:32

think there's two factors. One, I think we are now

3:34

at the point where there's such a groundswell

3:37

of interest in podcasting that, that

3:39

having a book about podcast

3:41

creation, that isn't like tips

3:43

for equipment to buy or how to make money

3:45

at it, but it's really focused on how to do something.

3:48

Well, that's a commercially

3:50

viable product now. And I don't think

3:52

even a couple of years ago, it was when I

3:54

had been approached a couple of times about doing this over the

3:56

years. And I'm like, I just don't think it's , I think

3:58

it's a niche product. I don't think it's going to be

4:00

worth my time to spend time writing that book. And

4:03

, um, the last time

4:05

I was asked about it, I said, yes, and

4:07

was kind of shocked at the reaction. And

4:10

you know , one of the great things about seeing podcasting

4:12

evolve is watching at

4:14

points like this , um,

4:17

that this is, you know

4:19

, a profession and a vocation

4:21

and a hobby, and there are tools

4:24

for it with a book or microphones

4:26

or recording units or things that were

4:29

literally unimaginable four

4:31

or five years ago. Now I'm a, I'm

4:33

a big fan of the Roadcaster pro, which

4:35

is a little desktop unit though . I advocate a lot

4:37

of podcasters buy because it's $600

4:40

containing technology that will cost you 10,

4:42

$15,000 to duplicate four

4:45

or five years ago. I mean, that to me is exciting

4:47

and amazing. So first I think we've kind

4:49

of matured into being an industry now

4:52

that can support that kind of thinking

4:55

and a product like, like a book.

4:57

And the second reason is

4:59

, um, there's so

5:02

many new podcasts and, and the

5:04

thing that surprises me is someone who

5:07

is a consultant for a lot of people,

5:10

individuals and I , I work with people who are

5:12

sitting around their kitchen table, trying to figure things out

5:15

up to some of the largest media companies in the world

5:17

and the conversations they have

5:19

are almost identical, even though you

5:21

have many more dollars, much

5:24

bigger names and , um,

5:27

uh, you know , uh , resources and

5:29

crazy resources compared to people who are trying to

5:31

figure out how to do this with their friend, their

5:33

obstacles are often the same they're kind

5:35

of concerns or , or, or, or

5:37

fears of how to get into this. And

5:39

they get stuck on the same things too. And

5:42

so when I started to realize how universal

5:45

a lot of the problems are that prevent

5:47

people from being able to achieve what they want to do.

5:50

Um, I like there's, there's solutions to that.

5:53

I've struggled through this a lot myself. So

5:55

I just, and I was also worried

5:57

when, when I was first asked about this book that

5:59

I could write about a chapter and about that would be

6:02

about it. And so

6:04

I had a couple of days off, for some reason, I

6:06

sat down and said, okay, I'm just going to try. I

6:08

didn't even say yes to write in the book. I'm just going to try to write

6:10

a chapter. And I sat down on a thought

6:12

about what frustrates people and I just

6:14

started. And it became very

6:16

clear to me that there was something to be said

6:19

to an increasingly growing community

6:21

of people.

6:22

Well, and what I appreciate about the

6:24

angle that you took with the book is that

6:27

it's not, it isn't,

6:29

it, isn't a book for beginner podcasters

6:32

in the sense that if you're just getting started, it's a very

6:34

valuable resource to help you avoid some of those

6:36

early mistakes, classic

6:38

mistakes, rookie mistakes that you see, but

6:41

it's also extremely challenging. Even

6:43

for someone like myself, that's been in podcasting for

6:45

years to like you start

6:47

reading through this. And you're like, I don't do

6:49

half the stuff that I even intellectually

6:52

know I should be doing. Um , and

6:54

one, one that I , I want to really

6:57

spend some time with, cause I feel like it would be the most valuable

6:59

for people listening is the 10 word

7:01

description, because

7:03

one of my constant

7:05

wrestling matches is that I,

7:07

as a, as a creative outlet,

7:10

want my podcast to be self-serving in certain

7:12

ways, right? Like I want to wake up excited about

7:14

making new episodes. I want to , I want to expand

7:16

my creativity. I want to try new things, experiment with new

7:18

things. Um, but you do

7:20

a really good job of kind of helping push

7:23

against that and in a really good way, and

7:26

the importance of staying focused and,

7:29

and really being laser focused on

7:31

why does your podcast exist for the expectations

7:34

of your listeners , um, and making

7:36

sure you over deliver on that. So I'd love to just,

7:38

maybe even if you want to just share the anecdote that you had

7:40

about your yoga teacher and kind of going

7:42

through that exercise. So I thought that was a good story.

7:45

And I think we'll flesh out the importance of having

7:48

a really clear idea of what your podcast

7:50

is about.

7:51

Yeah. I think a lot of my work is

7:53

just in general, a lot of my work, including this book

7:56

is simply taking people's heads and

7:58

pointing them in a slightly different direction. Uh

8:00

, they're worried about what they're going to do whenever

8:03

someone says they want to do a podcast. And I say, what

8:05

is it? They often describe it from very

8:07

features based perspective. Oh , I'm going to , I'm

8:09

going to have conversations with women filmmakers

8:12

about women in film, right

8:14

? That's a feature, that's not a benefit. Right.

8:17

And I always try to get

8:19

people in that perspective shift is, and this

8:21

is where my history is . A broadcaster comes in and

8:24

let's think about the audience for that. Okay.

8:26

Let's not think about what you are right

8:29

at this moment. Let's think let's start with

8:31

the listener. And so, you know, I, I

8:33

, um, you know, everyone, it used to

8:35

be part of my kind of standard stump speech. I would say,

8:38

even the yoga instructor down the street has

8:41

a podcast. And one day I was in

8:43

yoga class and my yoga instructor came up

8:45

to me say , can I talk to you after class?

8:48

My first thought was like, Oh, what did

8:50

I do that required a

8:52

talking to after class? I'm like, Oh, I

8:54

didn't want to think about this. And I kind of forgot about

8:56

it. And then he kind of came , he came up to me like either

8:58

that day or a day later, a next

9:00

class and said, Hey, you know, I I've

9:02

, everybody tells me I should have a podcast.

9:05

And I'm like, Oh, now even my

9:07

yoga instructor is, has a vodcast

9:09

or wants to have a podcast. And so

9:11

I sat down with him and I started talking

9:14

about some of the concepts that I use with broadcasters

9:16

or media people and realized they were far

9:19

too advanced for where he was at. He just had

9:21

this passion to talk to people

9:24

and he had something to say, but he had no idea

9:26

of how to think about it. And so I

9:28

ended up drawing on a piece of

9:30

paper, a circle, or what became a circle

9:33

with a couple of points on it. And it kind of

9:35

developed an exercise that I still use

9:38

with people all the time, whether I'm doing

9:40

it in a bar napkin or on a dry erase board in a

9:42

conference room where we talk about

9:44

who is the audience for this, get incredibly

9:47

specific about who they are and

9:49

what journey are you putting them on? You

9:51

know? Uh , and that's why it becomes a circle because

9:53

all these things filled into a

9:55

kind of flow into each other of asking

9:57

yourself, what do you have to say to that person?

10:00

Once you define them and you get very specific,

10:02

I make people look up pictures and print them

10:04

out. We put them up on the wall, we give them names

10:06

and fake bios. And then we

10:08

consolidate them all into like what we think the

10:11

person is. And we know , what

10:13

do you have to say to them? Who are you, what version

10:15

of yourself, or what is your voice in this? What

10:17

is your perspective, your personality, and

10:20

then what is the outcome, the desired outcome. and

10:23

then we get into this Exercise that I kind of force

10:25

people into. And the way I usually

10:27

do it now, since I , I always evolving

10:30

this exercise is I make people write it.

10:32

And then they, then they kind of hide it from everyone.

10:34

And during the rest of the workshop, they can edit

10:36

it. And at the end of the workshop, everyone reads their

10:39

versions of these 10 word descriptions

10:41

that describe your project and

10:43

nothing else in the world, no

10:45

one in the room should be able to say, yeah, there's also another

10:48

, uh , podcast, a

10:50

women talking to women filmmakers

10:52

about women's film. You know, there's, there are others. So

10:55

what makes yours distinct? Are you

10:57

focusing on , uh , filmmakers

11:00

in the Minneapolis

11:02

st . Paul area? Are you talking about a specific

11:05

age or a specific genre

11:07

film, or a specific time period in

11:09

which films were made , um, that

11:11

include that in your description? So you're literally

11:14

describing one podcast in a world of almost

11:16

a million others, right. And

11:18

that provides you with an editorial

11:20

lens that you can then use

11:22

to make all kinds of decisions about

11:24

what's right for your podcast, from its

11:27

title, how it describes itself, its artwork,

11:29

the type of guests, you have, the kind of conversations

11:31

you have the answer to those five questions,

11:34

the basic things that go around the circle and the 10 word

11:37

as you have that you have a huge amount

11:39

of clarity that you never would've

11:41

had before, or spent years kind

11:44

of figuring out one episode at a time. And

11:47

many people don't have years to figure it out.

11:49

Sure. Yeah. Most people starting podcasts,

11:52

aren't funded, it's all,

11:55

you know , headroom and yeah

11:57

. And a microphone and maybe this will work

11:59

and maybe it won't. Um, and

12:01

so, and I think something that you, if

12:04

I had to kind of create a second subtitle

12:07

for your book, it would be , uh, saving

12:09

the world from mediocre podcasts.

12:11

Yeah . Trying to,

12:14

And , and not to say that anyone can't

12:17

just buy a microphone and start a podcast with their friends.

12:19

I think that's the beauty of podcasting. Um,

12:21

but really appropriately matching

12:23

the expectations that if you dream

12:26

of creating a podcast that has a

12:28

worldwide impact and is getting tens and

12:30

thousands of downloads every single episode, then

12:33

there's a certain threshold that you need to reach

12:35

in the quality of your content and in

12:37

the way that you stay focused on your

12:39

lane and what makes you unique to

12:41

set yourself up for that kind of success?

12:44

Um, would you say that , that, that, that is

12:46

true? Or am I totally misjudging?

12:48

No, it's, it's, it's

12:50

actually quite deliberate. Um, I

12:53

spent a lot of my professional time kind

12:56

of looking at things that , uh , work

12:58

that other people do and that I do too , but obviously

13:00

I do so many things in the rest

13:02

of the world does a lot of other things. So I spend a lot

13:04

of time looking at things, trying to kind of

13:06

deconstruct why things don't

13:08

work , um , and why they

13:10

do work and then trying to figure out, okay, what's

13:13

my spin on that thing that

13:15

when I, you know, from starting my company to

13:18

the work we did at audible to lots of things

13:20

at NPR, w was the inspiration

13:22

for a bright idea, was actually watching other people

13:24

struggle with the same problem. And

13:28

I can't help it apply that to many aspects of my

13:30

life. And when I

13:32

, um, when I give talks, one of the things

13:34

that surprises people , um,

13:37

pleasantly that they recognize this because I do it very

13:39

deliberately is a lot of times when you

13:41

see a podcast or someone with some modicum of success,

13:44

get up on stage, it's basically

13:46

show and tell and brag about how great

13:48

I am and the work I've done. And shouldn't you

13:50

be grateful to be in the same room

13:52

with me. And when I,

13:55

the book has this vibe too, and I definitely

13:57

do it when I do the book tour things

13:59

and when to do interviews or talk with people, one-on-one

14:01

, um, I celebrate success

14:04

as an elastic , uh, understanding

14:06

of what success can be. And if you

14:08

are doing a podcast

14:10

with two of your friends around the table, and it's intended

14:13

for 30 other people, and

14:15

you are passionate about doing it, they love

14:17

it. That to me is just

14:19

as successful as S town

14:22

or Ted radio hour or the Joe Rogan experience

14:24

with millions of downloads. And

14:27

you can equally have things that are at that

14:29

level that ended up failing, because

14:31

even though they're being downloaded millions of times, they've

14:33

kind of lost their spark. They're not really kind of innovating

14:36

anymore, so and so forth. So

14:38

I think that success is really one

14:40

of the benefits of defining your audience and understanding

14:43

who you're speaking to is

14:45

it gives you a real clear set of expectations

14:47

around what success means. And

14:50

you can have all passion in the world

14:52

towards doing a podcast. And

14:55

if you are out, your , your

14:57

expectations are off about what you should be

14:59

hearing back. What you should be seeing is downloads

15:01

what you consider to be worth your

15:03

time. It can deflate that

15:06

passion. And I think that's, that's a crime.

15:09

You know, passion is the one thing you can

15:11

passion and curiosity are the two things in podcasting

15:14

that you can't fake. You can kind of get

15:16

up in the morning and say, okay, I'm going to be passionate and curious,

15:18

curious today, I'm going to force my way through it. You

15:20

can't fake it till you make it. You have to have

15:22

it. And there are people who throw

15:25

tons of money at podcasting and

15:27

tons of time at podcasting, tons of resources.

15:29

And they don't have those two things and

15:32

they just, it ends up kind

15:34

of flopping. And then they're curious as to why.

15:37

So when I hear someone stand

15:39

up in a Q and a session at

15:41

a talk or whatever, and they tell me

15:43

about their podcast they're making, and you can kind of

15:45

tell them their voice that they're expecting

15:48

me to be dismissive of them. I'm

15:50

actually, I'm giving them my best thinking

15:52

of like, okay, you want to make a podcast

15:54

for people who knit at here's, here's

15:56

three things you should think about. And this is how you could

15:59

be the voice of a group of people

16:01

who care about this the way you do, you

16:04

know, and I think that's really important, important thing.

16:06

And, and know , if you walk

16:08

into podcasting thinking, you're gonna make a million dollars

16:10

or every episode needs to have a million downloads. I

16:12

can tell you now there's no mystery that you're probably

16:15

going to fail. But if you set your expectations,

16:17

according to like, I have things to say that

16:20

I won't be able to sleep at night, unless I'm able

16:22

to say them, or I

16:24

care about something so much that I want

16:26

to be part of the conversation around that thing.

16:29

That's passion driving it. And all

16:31

the other markers of success originate

16:33

from that passion, Joe Rogan

16:35

didn't get into podcasting for

16:37

any other reason, other than it was fun. He

16:40

had something to say, and it was basically,

16:42

it was fun. Mark, Marin fun,

16:45

you know , uh , Roman

16:47

Mars, fun. I were glass fun,

16:50

you know, and then they figured out

16:52

how to make it into something that was

16:55

big, but it started off just being

16:57

fun.

16:58

Yeah. You don't make a podcast, so you can be sponsored

17:00

by cash app.

17:01

Right. Right. But there are

17:04

, you know, there's this comical New York times

17:06

article that came out a couple of months ago, this woman,

17:08

she and her friend put a , put out a marketing

17:10

podcast and stopped a couple months later because

17:12

they hadn't gotten any sponsorship offers.

17:15

And it's just like, it was like, is this

17:17

an onion article? It reads like,

17:19

it's like, what were they thinking

17:21

was going to happen? And , and

17:24

I think that, you know , some podcasts

17:26

that could be very good embracing

17:28

what they are and have a fruitful

17:31

long life and really be

17:33

a rewarding experience, both for the creator and

17:35

the audience, they get discouraged

17:38

and stop because they just,

17:40

they just don't understand how to set expectations.

17:42

I think that's an important part of the

17:44

creative process

17:46

For sure. Well, and you touch on this a little

17:48

bit in the book about the balance of ambition

17:52

versus resources and,

17:54

and you couch it in the terms of like, if you're doing

17:56

a live radio show, there's only so much editing

17:59

you can do. Uh , but

18:01

if you have three months to

18:03

plan out this serial podcast and you can do a

18:05

lot more, but even applying that

18:07

to time and financial resources

18:10

for independent podcasters versus

18:12

the podcasts that a lot of people

18:15

see as being like, this is what a successful

18:17

podcast sounds like. It can

18:19

be very overwhelming to think, well,

18:21

that's what I have to do to make a podcast. Um,

18:24

but what kind of,

18:26

what you were talking about, what counts as success for an NPR

18:29

style podcasts with a team of 15 people

18:32

is totally different than someone

18:34

talking about what they're passionate about in their bedroom.

18:37

Um, so I thought that was just a great point that you made in the book.

18:40

Well , thank you. I , I think that , um, a lot

18:42

of people , um, get

18:45

very confused about the

18:47

amount of resources they should be putting into something

18:50

, um, and think that they can

18:52

spend their way some companies, if they can spend

18:54

their way to success. And other people

18:56

think that I have to lower my editorial ambition,

18:59

cause I only have so much time. And I think both those

19:01

are absolutely wrong. Um , a

19:04

w my company works on a podcast

19:06

with SDR Parell , um, where she

19:08

is giving therapy to romantic

19:11

couples, and it's called, where should we begin? And

19:13

then there's another , a new one we're doing with this dare , uh,

19:16

how's work, which is looking at work

19:18

relationships. And that

19:20

whole podcast is designed

19:22

around having a very limited

19:24

resource, which is just time that

19:26

she doesn't have time to sit there and spend

19:28

15 hours to prep something and write a huge

19:30

long script. And whenever we get her in little

19:33

grabs and dribbles and throughout

19:35

her schedule. And so we had to design the podcast,

19:38

not about money, not about, you

19:40

know, you know, we had the best

19:42

asset we had was the most limited

19:44

thing we had, which was her time. And

19:47

so we kind of figured out how to make the

19:49

podcast with that as a factor,

19:51

other, other , um,

19:54

podcasts have different creative restrictions.

19:56

You know, I am a believer that creative

19:58

restrictions actually , um,

20:01

editorial restrictions, time restrictions, asset

20:03

resource restrictions are

20:05

inspire creativity. And because

20:07

people are wanting to come up with solutions

20:10

to problems. So if you don't have a lot of time

20:12

or you don't have a lot of help, or you don't have a lot of money,

20:15

that doesn't mean you can't do something

20:17

really exciting. It just means you have

20:19

to think about how to work with those realities.

20:21

Right. If I have two arms

20:24

and I lose one arm, I'm not

20:26

going to say, okay, well, I'm done living now.

20:28

I figured out how to live with one arm, right?

20:31

So what , if any scarcity of resource

20:33

is something that is almost a scarcity of resources,

20:36

something you can kind of counterbalance with

20:38

something else.

20:39

So I want to get into some, I guess, some more practical

20:42

questions that I think will specifically

20:45

relate to , uh , questions

20:47

that independent podcasters would have. Cause that's,

20:49

most of the people that'll be listening to this. Uh

20:51

, the first one would be , um, the,

20:53

the nature of the launch and

20:56

how much of early success is

20:58

attributed to the connections and exposure

21:01

and the network that you have and can tap

21:03

versus the quality of the content

21:06

itself. Um, cause I know

21:08

a lot of independent podcasts just feel like, well, I'm in

21:10

control of making a podcast. I'm proud of,

21:13

but I'm not friends with Mark Marin . I'm not

21:15

friends with Joe Rogan. I'm not a part of the

21:17

NPR podcast network and getting airtime

21:19

on all those other shows. So

21:21

for them, for an independent podcast or this trying

21:24

to pop this, trying to really have a great

21:26

launch and get some positive momentum,

21:28

what are the things that they could focus on that might be more

21:30

in their control?

21:32

There's a lot more in control than most people think.

21:34

I think people look at the resources

21:36

that some podcasters have and they think

21:38

I don't have that. So I can't set my

21:40

ambitions high, but there's again, there's a work around

21:42

for almost everything. Um , I

21:44

say all this with a caveat that the best

21:47

marketing plan starts

21:49

with an a tenacious

21:51

efforts , just make the next episode better than

21:53

the last one. Like how can

21:56

I make it better? How can I be sharper

21:58

if I'm interviewing someone? How can I think

22:00

of something? They get something out of that conversation.

22:02

That person hasn't sent 80 times, if

22:04

I'm doing a narrative, how can I, can I bring more to

22:06

the story or tell a better version of

22:08

this story and just being relentless

22:11

in pursuing, being a little

22:13

bit better every time you do it, because

22:15

you could have the best marketing resources in the

22:17

world and a crappy show.

22:20

And it's what you'll see. Or even you see all this all the time

22:22

when celebrities jump in, there's

22:24

a huge splash. And then where are they? Two

22:26

months later. Now, if they're

22:28

still doing it, it's not, as you know, they're

22:31

not as high up in the charts. They're not commanding

22:33

the attention. They were people aren't as excited

22:35

about it. Cause they've heard the reality and the reality, isn't

22:37

all that great. Um, many

22:40

times, not all the time, obviously, but , um,

22:42

so I think that having great content

22:45

is key. Number one, and always trying

22:47

to improve it , uh, is , is part of

22:49

that as well. Uh, so if you

22:51

don't know a Mark Marin, or you don't

22:53

know a Joe Rogan or don't have an NPR

22:55

or Radiotopia or whatever , um,

22:58

how can you create something that may

23:00

not be one friend, but there's a bunch

23:02

of other friends. So

23:04

if you are making

23:06

a podcast about beekeeping and

23:09

you are trying to make it a podcast

23:11

for other enthusiastic and beekeeping,

23:14

like where do those people congregate? They congregate

23:16

and Facebook groups and conventions and newsletters

23:19

and websites and forums, whatever.

23:21

Like you can sit there and list off without spending

23:25

a lot of time. Like where do these people congregate?

23:28

And I mentioned this in the book, it's

23:30

actually all ideas that I have stolen

23:32

over the years from various guerrilla marketers

23:34

, um, that you really

23:36

have to build a network of

23:39

people who are

23:41

connected to the subject matter, who have a little

23:43

bit of influence, even a tiny bit influence. And

23:46

if you look at like, if you get 20

23:49

people to tweet on your behalf who

23:51

are reaching the people you care about

23:54

or have those friends, that's more powerful

23:56

than one big, huge thing. If

23:58

you're trying to make a podcast about beekeeping, you

24:00

actually don't want Mark Marin tweeting about

24:03

you. Cause most of his audience, aren't going to care

24:05

about what you're talking about. But if you

24:07

go to the people who do care, find out where they

24:09

are, build yourself into that community

24:11

and say, Hey, I'm doing this for our community.

24:13

Would you like to be part of it? You

24:16

know, the story in the book I tell, which is , which

24:18

is, which has proven true time and time again,

24:20

which is a podcast I was working

24:22

with as a client is like this guy. I don't even

24:24

really charge him very often, but I

24:27

like this guy. He's like, I feel kind of flat-lined

24:29

, I can't get my numbers to grow.

24:31

And I said, for six weeks, start off every

24:34

episode, he's doing a weekly podcast. Start off

24:36

every episode with, if you

24:38

love this podcast, I need something from you

24:40

to help it grow. Um , I need you to tell

24:42

one person, I need you to tell

24:44

one, find an email, a tweet,

24:46

Facebook posts , reach out to someone and

24:49

tell one person and six

24:51

weeks went by and I'm talking to him and

24:53

I called him up and he's like, something's wrong? I don't understand

24:56

what's happening. Like what is happening? He's like my

24:58

numbers are up 35%. There's

25:01

no mystery to that. You asked your audience

25:03

of people who love you and care for you.

25:05

And in his case where he was already doing like a, like a

25:08

listener support thing that were giving him money

25:10

said, look, what I need from you now to

25:12

really keep this going is just to share

25:14

it with somebody. And they did it and

25:17

it worked right. Didn't cost

25:19

a dime. And it's

25:21

probably there's no I

25:23

say frequently and people raise their eyebrows.

25:26

When I say this who are at larger companies

25:28

because they spend a lot advertising podcasts.

25:31

I tell them I have never seen anyone

25:33

spend a dollar advertising, a podcast

25:35

that paid back. I just

25:37

don't think it works. I do

25:39

see network effect of, I

25:41

love this. Listen to it. You'll love it too. That

25:44

works. You know, bringing

25:46

people onto your podcast and kind of you

25:48

being guests kind of swapping guest spots

25:50

on each other's podcasts works dropping

25:53

in promos into one podcast. Feed works

25:56

, uh , dropping an episode into a podcast.

25:58

Feed works like all this stuff works and

26:00

it doesn't cost anything. Right.

26:03

And if you can't do that on a massive scale,

26:05

like at Radiotopia or a Stitcher, you

26:07

can do it on your friends and other podcasters

26:09

or find people in like a

26:11

ring of influence where you can all support each other.

26:14

Uh , what they, I mentioned the book is find five

26:17

other podcasters and agree that every week

26:19

you're all going to promote one of you and

26:21

you just circle it around. So every, so every, everyone

26:23

gets a turn being in the spotlight and

26:26

you spend the other four or five weeks giving

26:29

the spotlight. And that works.

26:31

It works. We , we, we, we, we

26:33

figured that out at NPR and the NPR still follows

26:35

those tactics today that we developed the

26:38

best marketing we have is just telling people

26:40

who probably are interested, that they would like it

26:43

well, and I love

26:44

How everything kind of comes back to

26:46

understanding your listener super well,

26:49

the better you understand the listener, the better

26:51

able you are to , to make those decisions

26:53

about what to include and not include in your podcast,

26:56

where to find more of them , uh

26:58

, how to speak to their pain points and

27:00

why they would want to listen to a show like that. So,

27:03

so I love that it all kind of comes full circle.

27:06

Now, one other thing I want to make sure that we have time for

27:08

is you go pretty in depth

27:10

in the book on the art of

27:12

interviewing. And I call it the art of interviewing

27:15

because every single person

27:17

brings their own sense of curiosity

27:19

and their own angle of the kinds

27:21

of questions they'd like to ask and the

27:23

process that they have. But I would love

27:25

just to hear you walk

27:27

through kind of the process of

27:30

preparing for an interview, what

27:32

goes into that? And then even

27:34

after the interview is done, when you have all

27:36

the tape that you're going to have, and you have to figure

27:38

out what's going to make it into the final episode, what kind

27:40

of decisions that you make as a

27:42

producer to really create the best

27:44

episode possible?

27:46

That's a, that's an interesting question because of all the

27:48

things I wrote about in the book , uh, interviewing

27:50

is the thing that I think I am weakest

27:53

at and have struggled the most with. Um,

27:56

uh, you know, there's two basic forms of interviews. One

27:58

is when you're like out in the field, working

28:00

on a narrative story and you're interviewing people who

28:03

will be part of your narrative

28:05

story that you're producing. Um,

28:07

if you have any clip in any narrative podcast

28:10

that came out of an interview, most likely, and

28:13

, uh, I love doing that. And actually I think I'm

28:15

, I'm , I'm competent at it. Um,

28:18

uh, I am not someone who shines

28:20

in like a situation like what we're doing, being the

28:23

questioner. I find it

28:25

really difficult for me to do, and

28:27

I've struggled with it to the point that I didn't

28:29

really do that much of it anymore.

28:32

Um, because I just think there's other people

28:34

I'd rather put the position of doing it cause they're stronger

28:36

at it. Um, but in

28:38

my struggles with it, I've learned a couple

28:40

perspective approaches that I think really help

28:42

. And the first one is to

28:45

stop pretending to be Terry

28:47

Gross or Howard stern or Trevor Noah

28:49

or Ellen or whomever you admire.

28:52

Who's an interviewer. And just trying to be that

28:54

person like you're a play acting. And

28:57

, uh, I think that's , that's where most interviews

28:59

go sideways is people forget

29:01

to just be themselves. If

29:03

you aren't, if you don't have a sense of wonder about

29:06

your , your subject, there's lots that you want to ask them.

29:08

If you're a curious , um, you shouldn't

29:10

be doing that interview, they aren't the right

29:12

booking or you aren't the right host

29:15

for that conversation. And

29:17

so that's like number one, 80%

29:20

of problems are solved with that. Just that perspective

29:22

shift. But

29:24

you know, so let's say you are really curious.

29:27

Um, you want to go in and interview someone?

29:29

I believe I make my

29:31

staff do this. When we're doing interviews,

29:33

I train the people that we work with to think

29:35

like this, have you walk into

29:38

that interview with a plan, you

29:41

what you're going to talk about? You know,

29:43

what order you're going to talk about. Things in

29:46

you have written out questions, you've debated

29:49

questions with your colleagues, or if you

29:51

have them or had somebody to give you feedback

29:53

and give you like, what are we really trying

29:56

to find out here? And what are we trying to know?

29:59

Um , why do we try to learn? Um , and you come

30:01

up with a real rigorous plan and then

30:03

you go into the interview prepared to throw

30:05

it out. If you want to. Um, I

30:08

often counsel people, we went out and did a field recording

30:10

the other day of I'm like, you know what you

30:12

need to get in this interview. You know what the

30:14

table stakes are for this to be an interview.

30:16

So go in , get that. And then don't

30:18

worry about the rest. You'll remember

30:21

questions that were on your

30:23

list. You'll think of new questions

30:25

you'll be listening so that you'll follow up on

30:27

things and just make sure

30:30

that you have both

30:32

the discipline to have a roadmap of where to go.

30:34

But then the freedom of allowing yourself

30:36

to just follow your what's . What , what the moment

30:39

feels right. And trust that that's probably,

30:41

if you find it an interesting subject,

30:44

most other people are in your audience

30:46

are also gonna find it interesting. Then

30:49

in , in you scale this, depending on

30:51

the amount of resource and time you have , um,

30:55

you afterwards, what I

30:57

like to do my process is I use a

30:59

program called descript, which is

31:01

a fantastic program where you dump audio files

31:04

in, and it does an AI transcript kind of on the fly

31:06

and you can edit the text and it actually creates

31:09

a , a pro tools and audition

31:11

session for you based off

31:13

the cuts he makes. So we often make the first cut

31:15

of an interview in the script just

31:17

based off paper, without even listening to it. But

31:20

you go back in once you've had that you've

31:22

dumped into scripted, happens like in a minute. And

31:25

I believe from even in an entry level,

31:28

you get a certain amount of time that they will do it for free. So

31:30

it's very low cost. And

31:32

, um , you look at what you have and you read it and you

31:34

I'd Mark it up like, okay , this is this section. This

31:36

is about when they were, you know , learning

31:38

to play guitar. And this is a section

31:41

about their first band, and this is a section about

31:43

their recording contract. And this is a section

31:45

when they brought the song, right. And

31:47

I kind of write this. I'm like, where do I want to start

31:49

this conversation? And how do I make it flow? And

31:52

I make little notes and

31:54

, uh , treat an interview. Like it's a story.

31:57

Like you're actually creating something

31:59

that is meant to be listened to in an order as if it

32:01

was, you were telling a story and

32:03

even very technical interviews still can follow

32:06

into that same flow. And

32:08

that's when you start to edit. And whether you have an

32:10

hour to edit or 20 hours to edit,

32:12

there's a version of that process that you can use

32:15

of if I only have an hour to edit something.

32:17

And sometimes when you're editing on deadline, that's the reality

32:19

of it. Okay. Where are,

32:21

what are the most important beats here and how do I get rid

32:23

of everything else? I don't worry

32:25

about time because in podcasting, there are no rules.

32:28

So you can make it whatever length you want to usually make

32:31

it as good as it needs to be in not a minute

32:33

longer.

32:34

No, I love that. I love that advice. Um,

32:36

and I was at on first

32:39

overwhelmed by the amount of editing

32:41

that goes into it because your

32:43

background is NPR. Um , some

32:45

of those shows where it's 15 hours

32:48

at times of prep for an interview. And

32:50

then that long, if not longer

32:53

on the backside , on the back, on the backside to actually

32:55

create the episodes. Um,

32:58

and for me, it just gave me a real appreciation

33:00

for when I listened to a podcast

33:03

of that quality of a production,

33:05

just how much goes into it. Uh , but

33:07

then also on the, on the flip side

33:09

of that feeling at peace that, you

33:11

know, I don't have to compete with that. That's not

33:14

my metric for what I'm trying to achieve. And

33:16

, and that's totally fine. I don't have to be NPR

33:18

to have a great podcast.

33:19

No. And you could also, you

33:22

know , think of the reality of like what , what

33:24

if you have time to, I always

33:26

tell people take the amount of time you have to

33:28

spend an episode and divided in half half

33:30

of it should be before you do the interview and half of it afterwards.

33:33

And , um, if you only have

33:35

two or three hours, you can devote to it. And there are many people

33:37

that's the case hour and a half thinking

33:40

about how you want to do the episode hour and a half

33:42

afterwards to clean it up and get

33:44

rid of the stuff that doesn't really feel exciting to

33:46

you. And that's enough, you

33:48

know, I think any investment of time is a good investment

33:51

of time. You know, I see some of these people,

33:53

I just talked to a couple of them for , for my,

33:55

my media tour of, you

33:57

know, they , they crank out an episode a day, you know,

34:00

they, their , their limit is how many hours they

34:02

have in that day to prep for an interview.

34:04

Do the interview, cut the interview and post the interview in

34:07

a day. Right. You know, and that's, and they

34:09

turn out good stuff. So sometimes

34:12

just because like an NPR takes 15

34:14

hours of prep and 15 hours of editing doesn't

34:16

necessarily mean they end up with something

34:18

that's 15 times better than the guy has

34:20

an hour to prepare in an hour to edit afterwards.

34:23

I think that's a false

34:24

Final question for you. What would you say

34:26

is the piece of advice you find yourself

34:28

giving most often to people

34:31

that are just getting started or on the front end

34:33

of their podcasting kind of trajectory.

34:35

I often tell people , um,

34:38

forget about format

34:40

and function and worry more about function.

34:43

Like who are you talking to? And what's your

34:45

message. If you want to make a podcast

34:48

about the future. And you're really excited

34:50

about the future and think the future

34:52

is full of great things. That's a very

34:55

different podcast than if you think the future

34:57

is dire and

34:59

maybe the end of our species,

35:02

or what have you. Right. Um

35:04

, those are two very different podcasts. So

35:06

when you say you want, even when you want to have a podcast of interview

35:08

with people about the future, what does that

35:10

mean? What does your message, your attitude?

35:13

What are you bringing to it, your perspective, and

35:16

spend as much time in the questions

35:18

about like, what format

35:20

should I have? Should I have a cohost? Should

35:22

I have any people, should I be interviewing once all that stuff

35:25

is like the last thing you think about and

35:27

just spend time thinking about who are you, what

35:30

do you have to say and who you want to say

35:32

it to? And that most

35:34

people don't take the time to think that through. And

35:36

that's why most people struggle.