Dave Jackson's Podcast Industry Predictions

Mark: 00:00:01

Hello there and

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welcome to the Podcast Accelerator, this show that brings you some straight

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talking actionable advice along with opinions that may not always be popular,

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but that you probably need to hear and what a treat I've got for you today.

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When I got into podcasting about a decade ago now, through my

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love of DC comics, there were a few people that I got to know.

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There were a few people that helped me along the way.

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There were a few people that have been there.

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Ever since.

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And this person is each and every one of those, along with also being

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an absolutely fantastic friend and an even better guitar player.

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So I'm gonna go deep into the past of podcasting and we're gonna take a crystal

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ball and we're gonna look ahead to the future of podcasting with my friend Mr.

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Dave Jackson.

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How are

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you, mark?

Dave: 00:00:49

I'm doing great.

Dave: 00:00:50

Uh, happy to be here buddy.

Mark: 00:00:52

Always a pleasure, mate.

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Always a pleasure.

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And we saw each other in London not so long ago for the podcast show.

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How was the, the, the trip over to Old Blighty?

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Was it all

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right?

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It was okay.

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I kept, uh, I think on the way over was where I had a gorilla of a man.

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He had to be some sort of professional, uh, you know, sports person.

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And so I was on the aisle and I just had to the whole, the whole trip.

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I'm leaning outside of my chair just to give this guy some room.

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So, but, uh, all in all, it wasn't bad.

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It's not like you came from Ireland either.

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You didn't have a 40 minute flight mate, so I can sympathize with that one.

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I've, I've been there flown coach and flown the red eye all over the

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world in the name of podcasting.

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And for anyone that doesn't know Dave, he's, he's a fantastic friend to not just

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me, but to, to everyone in podcasting.

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But, you know, he's forgotten things that I will probably never know.

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And he's just, he's, he's, he's just one of those people that

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you'll look forward to seeing.

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So I'm not gonna do the thing at the end.

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Which is, tell us where people can find you and all that stuff.

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Let's do that now mate.

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'cause I want as many people to, to just get to where you are as possible.

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So what are you up to right now?

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Anyone that knows, you, knows, but for those that might be new to

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you, what are you up to now mate?

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And where can we get ahold of some of that stuff?

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Everything podcasting related.

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Most of it is at, uh, school of podcasting.com.

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That's kind of the, the flagship show.

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I guess we could say.

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What I do, podcasting is a sickness for me.

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If you stand next to me for 20 minutes, I'll probably start another one.

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And so I, I came up with a domain power of podcasting.com, which is kind of a

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link tree kind of site that just has a link of all the different things I'm into.

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I love it, mate.

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I completely sympathize with that.

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Every time, every time I get into something it's like I'm

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gonna do a podcast about that.

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And it might be, I've just found some new bread is, you

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know, this isn't Bread's nice.

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I'm gonna do a podcast about this bread.

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This is cool.

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And I know you're the same mate.

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I know you are exactly the same.

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That's it.

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What, what is it, what is it about podcasting?

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Like, you've been in this since 2005.

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What do you think it's about podcasting that makes us like that because I feel.

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Like certainly for me, I've been like that since I discovered podcasting.

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And I, and I'm assuming you have too.

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Like what is it about the medium that makes us like that?

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I think the biggest thing for, I mean, you're a musician.

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I'm a musician.

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I remember growing up and thinking I'd be at a, a record store and I'm

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like, man, is there any way we could ever get my band's music in here?

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And there are all sorts of gatekeepers.

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And with podcasting there isn't one.

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I mean, the, the good news is anybody can start a podcast.

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The bad news is anybody can start a podcast.

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And so for me it's always interesting as I help people, 'cause first.

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I gotta talk 'em into turning the microphone on.

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They're, they're worried about the audience.

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And I always say, eh, nobody's listening yet.

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Don't, don't worry about it.

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It's not a big deal.

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You're not gonna look stupid.

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It's not radio.

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And then when they first launched and they get their, you know, 10 people, if you

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count, your cousins are listening, and then all of a sudden it starts to grow.

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And it's interesting 'cause first they were worried.

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About starting and looking stupid, and then all of a sudden they're

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like, oh wait, PE-people are, people are listening to this.

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And I go, yeah, I, I kind of told you, you can grow an audience.

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So I think part of it is not so much an egomaniac kind of way, but we all want

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to get our voice out there and it's, you know, a pretty easy way to get there.

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And for me, what, what really?

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When I grabbed my flag and, and I planted it and said, oh, I, I, I claim podcasting.

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This is, this is my new jam was I'm in the middle of nowhere Ohio, out

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with some cows and a guy found my podcast from Nuremberg, Germany.

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His name was Michael Van Lar, and he sent me a voicemail

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and I was like, wait a minute.

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There's, there's a guy on the other side of the planet that not only

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found my show, 'cause this is in 2005.

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And not only found my show, but he liked it and he sent me a voicemail

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and I went, oh, oh wait, hold on.

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I get this now.

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This is global.

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And that's, I think another, uh, big selling point.

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The fact that you can reach everybody.

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I love the accessibility idea of that.

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The fact that you can talk about the thing that you love from the place that you

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are and someone who is in the place, that they are in the place that they love, just

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happens to love the same thing that you do and you make a connection around that.

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And I've always been fascinated by.

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By that as well.

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And there's a real dopamine hit when you get that first listener

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reaching out to you as well.

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You know, when someone says that, I have heard what you have said.

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And you know, even, even if you know, potentially contentiously, even if they

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don't like it, someone's heard that.

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And that's a real dopamine hit man.

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So I, I completely get that.

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And it's, it's fascinating to watch people flourish and their

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attitudes change in their.

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Almost their eyes light up when you catch up with them three

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months in or six months in.

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So I get that, man, you must, you've helped thousands of

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podcasters, haven't you?

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Is that, is that a fairly common thing?

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Is that, does that dopamine hit get everyone?

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Yeah, and one of my favorite things to see, and I got

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to see it kind of in the wild.

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I was coaching somebody the other day on Zoom, and I'm helping them submit their

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show to all the different directories.

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And we submitted it to Spotify first, and then we went through the whole list and.

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We're, we're getting everything done.

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And I said, Hey, you know, it's, it's been probably a half hour.

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I said, go back to Spotify and do a search for your show.

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And he does.

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And it was there and he clicked on it.

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I go, look at you podcaster.

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And just to watch his face like, holy cow, that's my stuff right there.

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And it was so cool because I've taken people that have approached

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me and said, I hate technology.

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I'm never gonna be able to do that.

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And then, you know, a month and a half later, they're in Apple and

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all the other different places, and it is, it's a dopamine hit.

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I'm, I remember, you know, I wrote a book and, and the first time

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I saw it in Amazon, I was like, wait, that's, that's my stuff.

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So it's, it's cool.

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And I know I just had a guy come in from out of town, he's a listener and he said,

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Hey, I would love to take you to lunch.

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So I went to lunch with him and I've kind of known him.

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He was a member of the school of podcasting.

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And all he wanted to do, the biggest reason why he wanted to take me to lunch

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is just, I, I call these because of my podcast stories where things that have

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happened because he had a podcast and so he's a, a pastor and he's now kind of a, a

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church consultant that led to him meeting the head of an agency and just, just

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keep climbing up the, the giant pyramid.

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And he ended up talking to like one of the top, top people of this big organization.

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He goes, I never would've done any of that except I had a podcast.

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And he goes, like it or not, he goes, your thumbprint's in there somewhere.

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And it's, you don't realize that so many times you're just talking

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into a microphone and you think nobody's listening, and then

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somebody blows through town and says, oh wow, you changed my life.

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And you're like, wait, what?

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I mean I started in the basement of my brother's house.

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I just got divorced.

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My brother said, ah, come live with me for a while.

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So I'm down by the water heater.

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Hope in the furnace doesn't turn on.

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You know, I never had any idea, this is where I was gonna end up.

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That's the beauty of it, my friend and I, it, it's, I think everyone has

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a story like that to different degrees and it's what's so beautiful about it.

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I remember going to one of my first events, so I, I was,

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I started podcast in 2013.

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That was my first foray into it, and then got a bit more serious in

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2014, um, and went to my first event at n MX in Vegas, which is where I

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met you for the first time, I think.

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And it was, That was a wild event.

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'cause it was, it was at the Westgate, it was co-located with, what was it?

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I can't remember.

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The NAB show maybe.

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And, uh, it was just this weirdly wild little event that that then disappeared.

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But what really struck me about it was that I.

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Every, everyone felt the same about podcasting and, and we all, like I used

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to come from sort of a digital agency background and came from, like you said,

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being in bands and being a musician and then come from, um, being like a

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contract trainer and freelancing in every world that I was in prior to podcasting,

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everyone was out to get you or the best, they were ambivalent that you existed

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because, It, it, it didn't matter to them.

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And what struck me so much about it was everyone was just so supportive.

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Everyone wanted to see everyone else succeed.

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I know we're gonna talk about the past and we're gonna talk about

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the future and so on, but I.

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That, that's what got me really hard to lean into it.

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And, and, and I know that's sort of, I know that's what you support

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people through, and I know you, you, you've experienced the same thing.

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Does it feel the same today, especially after Covid and we've all

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been locked, locked in a little bit.

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Like what, what is that side of things like at the minute?

Dave: 00:09:05

Yeah, it's, it's a little different, but it, I always say at the heart of

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every good podcast is a servant, somebody who wants to serve their audience.

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And so, Uh, with that, I think we all kind of wanna get the message

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out, whatever it is, if we're talking about DC comics or, or whatever, we

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wanna talk about those things we love.

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And so that is just something, and, and again, the dopamine kick, we know what

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it feels like when you have somebody that says, man, I love this show.

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I, I swear you made this just for me.

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And so we know what that feels like.

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So when somebody comes along and goes, I'm, I'm trying to figure out should

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I call it this or what microphone we're, oh, hold, let me help you

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because we want you to feel like we do.

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So there's that.

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The biggest difference I remember in the very first podcast conference

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was in California and myself and Paul Culligan looked at each other and

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said, you know, if we actually got enough people listening to this thing,

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We might be able to make some money.

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And people looked at us like we were the devil.

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They're like, it's my art man.

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Why would I want to, you know?

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And I was like, easy, easy.

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So there is a definite monetization thing that's going on much now that that's

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going on that's a little different.

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And the, the big networks, 'cause in the early days we were all independents.

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Now you walk in and there's the wondery and the, all the different

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big networks and, and I don't really know that many people.

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That are in the big networks.

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I remember once I went to, uh, a thing in Brooklyn, New York, I

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forget the name of the event, but it was very much all big networks.

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And I remember I walked up to a guy and I said, oh, what do you doing podcasting?

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And he goes, oh, I'm, I'm part of the storyboard.

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I.

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I like put the, and I was like, wait, what?

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And I was like, I, you know, I write my notes down on a post-it note and put

Dave: 00:10:49

it on my monitor and hit record, and they're writing out these, so it was

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one of those where you listen to a show and there's like 18 people at the end.

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That was kind of that thing.

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So that's, that's something that has come along and we'll see if that continues.

Dave: 00:11:02

You know, we keep hearing about people losing their jobs and podcasting,

Dave: 00:11:06

and maybe it's the guy that you know, Did the storyboard and maybe, maybe

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they figured out that maybe we don't need a guy doing the storyboard.

Dave: 00:11:13

I don't, I don't know.

Dave: 00:11:14

So it's, it's the same in many ways.

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As it grows.

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You know, the great thing about it, there are no rules.

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So you can do whatever you want.

Dave: 00:11:22

One of the things I love about your show, mark, is the fact that a, it's

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your opinion and you know, the, shall we say, the mainstream, you know, if,

Dave: 00:11:32

if everybody in podcasting is saying, oh, everybody go left, go left, go left.

Dave: 00:11:36

I can turn on Mark Show.

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And he'd be like, ah, it's crap.

Dave: 00:11:38

Listen to you.

Dave: 00:11:39

Go to the right.

Dave: 00:11:40

And you know, and I love the fact that you get a different opinion and you

Dave: 00:11:43

go, I've never thought about that.

Dave: 00:11:45

So that's, I, I think when we started podcasting was like

Dave: 00:11:49

a big, giant middle finger.

Dave: 00:11:50

The, the radio in the US is horrendous.

Dave: 00:11:54

It's the same 17 songs.

Dave: 00:11:56

I love ac, C D, C, I never want to hear a single song Off

Dave: 00:11:59

A Back and Black ever again.

Dave: 00:12:01

It's just been played to death, followed by 30% commercials,

Dave: 00:12:05

30%, and it's just ridiculous.

Dave: 00:12:07

So we were all, Hey, you know what?

Dave: 00:12:09

We're not all gonna talk about this.

Dave: 00:12:10

And weather on the tens, not all nine yards.

Dave: 00:12:12

All right, everybody.

Dave: 00:12:13

'cause nobody talks like that.

Dave: 00:12:14

I think that was one of the big things that, that really kicked off podcasting.

Dave: 00:12:19

It's like, wow, these, these people sound real and they're not, you know,

Dave: 00:12:22

it's not binky in the Wiz or whoever.

Dave: 00:12:24

It's, it's real.

Mark: 00:12:26

Yeah, I understand that.

Mark: 00:12:27

I appreciate the kind words as well.

Mark: 00:12:28

And it's, it's, uh, it's, it is always been interesting for me because I've

Mark: 00:12:31

found podcasting as a way of, um, what's the best way to articulate it?

Mark: 00:12:37

Like, fitting in.

Mark: 00:12:37

I, I, I've never fit in, like I've been, you know, I've been in bands, I've played

Mark: 00:12:40

around, I've, I've always created things.

Mark: 00:12:43

Um, But you know, I'm a really big A D h D brain.

Mark: 00:12:46

I'm a really big sort of, I'm a strategic thinker and I've never, I've never

Mark: 00:12:51

fit in because of those two things.

Mark: 00:12:52

I, I tend to see things ever so slightly differently.

Mark: 00:12:55

And podcasting.

Mark: 00:12:57

When I started creating content, it was, it was sort of weird 'cause

Mark: 00:13:00

it was never in the, never, the intent was never to be contrarian.

Mark: 00:13:03

It was more just, just the way I sometimes see things.

Mark: 00:13:06

And I think one of the big things for me that podcasting

Mark: 00:13:09

has allowed is almost for me to.

Mark: 00:13:14

Give myself some sort of self therapy.

Mark: 00:13:16

Like genuinely if I'm struggling with something, especially at work or if I'm

Mark: 00:13:19

struggling with something in the industry or if I'm struggling with something.

Mark: 00:13:23

Um, for example, you know, we got acquired, we became part of global

Mark: 00:13:27

18 months ago, nearly were two years ago now, which, which has been great.

Mark: 00:13:30

It's a fantastic move.

Mark: 00:13:31

And the the team are wonderful.

Mark: 00:13:33

And, and you, we, we had a tour around Global's offices.

Mark: 00:13:35

You've seen what it's like, um, But for a year, it took me a little bit of figuring

Mark: 00:13:40

out, like, why couldn't I create content?

Mark: 00:13:42

And it was, 'cause I was a little bit burnt out for the

Mark: 00:13:44

last 10 years of doing it.

Mark: 00:13:45

And I was a little bit, I didn't really know what I wanted to say anymore.

Mark: 00:13:49

I, I, and it took me a year to sort of figure that out.

Mark: 00:13:51

But when I started this show back up, it was genuinely like therapy again.

Mark: 00:13:57

It was, it was, it was the release of, right.

Mark: 00:14:00

Okay.

Mark: 00:14:00

Actually, here's a way for me to say the things that I need to say without.

Mark: 00:14:07

Anyone really caring, and I know it sounds bizarre and a bit flippant to say

Mark: 00:14:13

that, but honestly, like you either like the shows or you don't like the shows.

Mark: 00:14:17

If I start a show about the new bread that I found at the store and I love it,

Mark: 00:14:21

it doesn't matter whether someone likes it or not, I'm sort of doing it for me

Mark: 00:14:24

and that's why we run Star Wars shows and we are on golf shows and you run

Mark: 00:14:28

shows about the things that you'll have.

Mark: 00:14:30

Do you think there's.

Mark: 00:14:32

Because of the way that podcasting seems to have, have split, you know, we've got

Mark: 00:14:36

podcasting, the media, so the networks, we've got the big brands, we've got

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everything from programmatic advertising right through to people building

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networks for, for mass IP players.

Mark: 00:14:45

You know, and then you've got us, you've got the people that do

Mark: 00:14:48

it because, because we love it.

Mark: 00:14:51

What, what do you say to those people who, who, who approach things like

Mark: 00:14:55

we do, we do it and we want to do it because we love it, but we're

Mark: 00:14:58

now worried that podcasting is.

Mark: 00:15:00

Quote, unquote, too big.

Mark: 00:15:01

There are too many podcasts.

Mark: 00:15:03

You know, if we believe the media, if we believe the hype, that podcasting's too

Mark: 00:15:06

big, someone knocks on your door, Dave, I wanna do this thing, but I'm worried.

Mark: 00:15:11

Is there any room for me?

Mark: 00:15:12

Like, what's your answer

Dave: 00:15:13

to that?

Dave: 00:15:14

Well, think about this.

Dave: 00:15:15

If, uh, there's a junior high kid and he's a pretty good quarterback, He thinks I'll

Dave: 00:15:23

never be Tom Brady, so I'm just gonna quit or think about all the authors every year.

Dave: 00:15:27

I mean, every year in the book industry, there are 27 different books about how

Dave: 00:15:33

to lose weight that probably are saying the exact same thing that somebody else

Dave: 00:15:37

has said many, many, many, many times.

Dave: 00:15:40

And if you look at, uh, the news, if you turn on the news at night, wherever

Dave: 00:15:44

you are, you probably got at least four or five stations that are talking

Dave: 00:15:48

about everything that happened today.

Dave: 00:15:50

Well, why do we have five?

Dave: 00:15:51

Why do we have five stations talking about what happened today?

Dave: 00:15:54

Because some people like this person.

Dave: 00:15:56

The, what I did watch, I don't watch hardly any news anymore,

Dave: 00:15:59

but when I did, I watched this one channel, and I'll be completely

Dave: 00:16:03

just, you know, a, a, a pig here.

Dave: 00:16:05

Uh, the, the reporter was hot.

Dave: 00:16:07

She was absolutely stunningly beautiful, and that's why I wanted that channel.

Dave: 00:16:12

But, so we have different reasons why we do different things, and so the person

Dave: 00:16:15

that goes, well, who's gonna listen to me?

Dave: 00:16:17

It's saturated number one.

Dave: 00:16:19

There are a lot of podcasts.

Dave: 00:16:20

If you hear there's like 4 million podcasts, which is true, but only

Dave: 00:16:25

maybe a couple hundred thousand are actually producing podcasts.

Dave: 00:16:29

There are a lot of people that start off and they're on a free media host,

Dave: 00:16:34

and they do maybe three episodes.

Dave: 00:16:36

They figure out that, oh, to make this good, it's gonna take a little more

Dave: 00:16:40

effort than just talking into my phone.

Dave: 00:16:42

And they quit.

Dave: 00:16:43

Well, if it's on a free media host, it stays there forever,

Dave: 00:16:46

until they, you know, pull it down.

Dave: 00:16:48

And so I always say, if you look and you go, oh, there's so

Dave: 00:16:50

many podcasts about my niche.

Dave: 00:16:52

I'm like, go dig one step a little deeper.

Dave: 00:16:55

See when the last time they put out an episode and you're gonna

Dave: 00:16:57

see a lot of them were like, 2020, because that was like pandemic time.

Dave: 00:17:01

Everybody's bored.

Dave: 00:17:02

Let's start a podcast.

Dave: 00:17:03

So, uh, you know, and you're.

Dave: 00:17:06

You know, you never know what's gonna happen.

Dave: 00:17:07

I always say when people, I have people like, Hey, I'm

Dave: 00:17:09

gonna do a podcast about this.

Dave: 00:17:11

Do you think people would listen?

Dave: 00:17:13

And I'm like, that's like coming to me going, Hey, I'm

Dave: 00:17:15

gonna mix these ingredients.

Dave: 00:17:18

Do you think if I put these into an oven and bake them, they'd be good?

Dave: 00:17:20

I'm like, there's only one way to tell.

Dave: 00:17:22

You know, do it and taste it.

Dave: 00:17:24

Go, yeah, this is actually pretty good, but you can't, you know,

Dave: 00:17:27

there are best practices that you can talk about, but in the end, if

Dave: 00:17:30

you wanna see if it's gonna work or not, you gotta put out the podcast.

Mark: 00:17:34

It's like anything, you know, if I wanna play guitar, you know, you and I

Mark: 00:17:37

have, have, have, have drunkenly shared stages together in Florida a few times,

Mark: 00:17:41

and I, if I, if, if, if I want to start learning to play bass and I want to get

Mark: 00:17:46

up on that stage and play stand by me, or I wanna play a journey song, or I

Mark: 00:17:50

wanna play whatever it is I wanna play.

Mark: 00:17:52

The first thing I've gotta do is get up, make sure the guitar's got some

Mark: 00:17:55

strings on it, stick a strap on, get it over my shoulder, and just hit the

Mark: 00:17:58

thing with something to make a sound.

Mark: 00:18:00

And it might sound good, it might sound bad, but I've got to

Mark: 00:18:04

start somewhere with that one.

Mark: 00:18:06

A lot of people, certainly over the last five or six years

Mark: 00:18:09

have thrown out that phrase.

Mark: 00:18:11

It's never been easier to start a podcast.

Mark: 00:18:13

And you alluded to it earlier, you know, one of the upsides of

Mark: 00:18:15

podcasting is everyone can start one.

Mark: 00:18:16

One of the downsides is everyone can start one.

Mark: 00:18:20

With, with the change in technology, the availability of cheaper,

Mark: 00:18:24

higher quality microphones, the availability of online software, the

Mark: 00:18:28

availability of different hosting platforms and different web platforms

Mark: 00:18:31

and ai, this, that and the other.

Mark: 00:18:34

What, what do you see that landscape as being like at the minute?

Mark: 00:18:38

The, the number one, the ease of starting a podcast, and then number two, the

Mark: 00:18:42

ease of starting a quality podcast.

Mark: 00:18:46

What does that feel like today?

Dave: 00:18:50

Oh, man.

Dave: 00:18:50

Compared to 2005, I was actually, I, I hadn't even discovered WordPress

Dave: 00:18:56

yet, so I was making my website in Dreamweaver, and then I used a software

Dave: 00:19:02

called Feed for All to make my feed.

Dave: 00:19:04

It was an absolute nightmare.

Dave: 00:19:06

So that's definitely easier now you just upload your file to your media host.

Dave: 00:19:10

They give you a feed that's done.

Dave: 00:19:12

There are tools like the VO caster from Focus, right where you press

Dave: 00:19:15

and hold down a button and it sets your recording level for you.

Dave: 00:19:19

I just saw there's a Zoom F three that now, and let's get our geek on records

Dave: 00:19:24

and 32 bit floating, which means basically it's really hard to make bad audio.

Dave: 00:19:28

Uh, so things are definitely getting easier.

Dave: 00:19:31

That's the beauty of it because.

Dave: 00:19:33

Man, the early days of podcasting things just sounded horrendous.

Dave: 00:19:37

And if we can get people to only use the phone as a last resort, and

Dave: 00:19:42

if you are recording on your phone, get that microphone by your mouth.

Dave: 00:19:45

Don't do the whole put it on speaker and stick it on the desk.

Dave: 00:19:47

That's not gonna work.

Dave: 00:19:49

But it's, it is so much easier to do that.

Dave: 00:19:52

And I've, I've had people that, you know, we get 'em into Apple

Dave: 00:19:56

and Spotify, et cetera, and they're like, okay, what's the next thing?

Dave: 00:19:58

And I go, well, now it's just make great episodes.

Dave: 00:20:02

Promote it, and that's really it.

Dave: 00:20:03

Just repeat over and over and over the, you mentioned things like ai.

Dave: 00:20:08

That's gonna be a fun one to watch because when it's, when I'm having it write

Dave: 00:20:14

stuff, and I usually don't use what it writes for me, I let it write something

Dave: 00:20:18

and I go, oh, that's where I should go.

Dave: 00:20:20

And then I go off and write it.

Dave: 00:20:21

I use it as almost like a brainstorming.

Dave: 00:20:24

Tool because I know so many people are saying, oh, people are gonna have chat,

Dave: 00:20:27

g p t, write a script and then I'm gonna throw it into revoice her and have it

Dave: 00:20:31

voice it and put it out and automate it.

Dave: 00:20:33

So you know, it'll find content, record it post.

Dave: 00:20:36

I'm like, yeah, and that's gonna be awful.

Dave: 00:20:38

The, the one thing that AI can't do, I was listening to an episode, uh, Adam A.

Dave: 00:20:44

Adams does a show, I think it's Grow Your Podcast.

Dave: 00:20:47

If I remember right, I had to met up with him a little bit.

Dave: 00:20:50

He's a nice guy.

Dave: 00:20:51

But he did an episode that basically he said, I'm just gonna kind of

Dave: 00:20:55

go a little bit on a tangent.

Dave: 00:20:57

And he'd had a kind of a hard year and he, he kept losing friends.

Dave: 00:21:01

And he goes, all I wanna say today is car diem.

Dave: 00:21:04

Seize the day.

Dave: 00:21:05

We don't know how many days we have left.

Dave: 00:21:07

And you know, don't, don't go to your grave with your podcast in

Dave: 00:21:12

you get it out there, you know?

Dave: 00:21:13

And I was like, chat g p t can't do that.

Dave: 00:21:16

Because it was very emotional and it was based on his in, you know, his

Dave: 00:21:20

influences and things that had happened.

Dave: 00:21:22

And I'm like, chat G B T can't do that.

Dave: 00:21:25

And so I'm not sold that AI is gonna be the savior of making

Dave: 00:21:29

content going forward in the future.

Dave: 00:21:31

I mean, it's, on one hand it's as bad as it's ever gonna be

Dave: 00:21:34

right now 'cause it's brand new.

Dave: 00:21:36

But I, I think the human side of podcasting is a what attracts people.

Dave: 00:21:41

They're either gonna like you or they're gonna, or they're gonna love you.

Dave: 00:21:43

I have a, a friend of mine, Daniel J.

Dave: 00:21:45

Lewis is who is very much a deep dive, just the facts kind of guy.

Dave: 00:21:50

That's the way he is.

Dave: 00:21:51

And I'm a little more looser, a little more goofy.

Dave: 00:21:54

And we're both very good friends and we have both had I.

Dave: 00:21:57

A, a listener say, Hey, I, I tried to listen to your friend show,

Dave: 00:22:00

but, uh, you know, in my case that that guy's just all over the place.

Dave: 00:22:03

He's like a campaign for a D H D and I've had other people go, yeah, try to

Dave: 00:22:07

listen to Daniel, man, that guy's dry.

Dave: 00:22:10

And so you put it out there and you're gonna attract the people that

Dave: 00:22:13

like you and the people that don't.

Dave: 00:22:15

That's fine.

Dave: 00:22:15

There are other 4 million podcasts to go listen to that aren't this one.

Dave: 00:22:20

It is

Mark: 00:22:20

funny, isn't it?

Mark: 00:22:21

The, the, that alludes to, to the, the kind of question earlier as well.

Mark: 00:22:25

It goes back to that a little bit in, in sofar as you know.

Mark: 00:22:27

What would you say to someone that, that, that is thinking about starting a show but

Mark: 00:22:30

is worried there are too many around you?

Mark: 00:22:32

And I can say the same thing in different ways and have different

Mark: 00:22:34

opinions and all the, the life experience that we've got leads to

Mark: 00:22:37

that opinion and, and I think that is the beauty of any kind of creation.

Mark: 00:22:40

You know, whether it's blogging, Whether it is, whether it's YouTube, whether

Mark: 00:22:43

it's, it's, it's, it's audio recording and, and putting it out as a podcast.

Mark: 00:22:47

You took me back there with Dreamweaver mate.

Mark: 00:22:49

I was using that as well when it was Macromedia.

Mark: 00:22:51

I remember before Adobe even bought it, and I was doing the same, I

Mark: 00:22:54

was coding websites, using tables.

Mark: 00:22:56

You know, c s s had not taken a hold.

Mark: 00:22:58

We were, you know, we were, wow.

Mark: 00:23:01

We were going, all, all the styling was in line, if there was any styling at all.

Mark: 00:23:04

And it was building r s s feeds for, for, for blogs and.

Mark: 00:23:09

Man, like the halon days of, uh, of, of the web 1.0 timeframe.

Mark: 00:23:14

And it was fascinating.

Mark: 00:23:15

But that, that sort of leads me onto technology.

Mark: 00:23:17

'cause we talked about AI and we talked about Dreamweaver.

Mark: 00:23:19

All right.

Mark: 00:23:20

I think it's pretty rare that they're gonna come up again in the

Mark: 00:23:21

same conversation, but the Yeah, we probably got tick in a box there.

Mark: 00:23:27

Mentioned Dreamweaver and AI in the same sentence.

Mark: 00:23:30

But the, so AI is fascinating to me, and, and, and there's a.

Mark: 00:23:35

Even if we don't think about ai, right?

Mark: 00:23:37

The tech of podcasting is something that I talk to.

Mark: 00:23:45

Uh, this might, I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna avoid try and avoid this going into

Mark: 00:23:48

rant mode, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of rubbish out there, right?

Mark: 00:23:54

So we're in the hosting game, all right?

Mark: 00:23:55

You work over, at, over at Lipson.

Mark: 00:23:57

Our friends, Rob Elsie and Brad and Laurie and yourself and, and

Mark: 00:24:00

some fantastic people over there.

Mark: 00:24:01

Highly, highly recommended Libsyn for, for years and, and what a fantastic team.

Mark: 00:24:06

And obviously we work on Captivate and it's.

Mark: 00:24:09

I've always been a fan of collaboration ever since I got in the industry.

Mark: 00:24:12

You know, my goal has been to, to to, to, um, be friends with

Mark: 00:24:16

people and all ships rise.

Mark: 00:24:17

And, and that's why I never see anyone as competition.

Mark: 00:24:20

And I, I, I think that's why everyone's such good friends.

Mark: 00:24:23

But I'm seeing recently that there's a lot of technology companies that

Mark: 00:24:29

are doing things with quote unquote ai and they're putting things like the

Mark: 00:24:33

podcasting 2.0 stuff and they're doing like half baked implementations of it.

Mark: 00:24:37

And, and, and, and whatever else, just to get a tick on a feature list

Mark: 00:24:42

and, and, and just almost do a little bit of every piece of buzzword just

Mark: 00:24:48

so that they can use it in marketing.

Mark: 00:24:51

And the reason that I say that is because it's, it's the, it's the stepping stone to

Mark: 00:24:56

the, the next set of, of logic, which is technology and podcasting has been great.

Mark: 00:25:02

But every time I see someone say, we've created this AI tool

Mark: 00:25:06

that's gonna do magic clips for you, which is great, that's cool.

Mark: 00:25:09

And we're gonna allow social sharing.

Mark: 00:25:10

And all I do is think of clamor.

Mark: 00:25:13

You know, we've been there, we've done it, and I think,

Mark: 00:25:15

and it happens again and again.

Mark: 00:25:16

Okay.

Mark: 00:25:16

We're gonna build a network.

Mark: 00:25:17

It's gonna be a sports vertical, and it's gonna be an app.

Mark: 00:25:20

It's gonna be the Netflix of podcasting, just in the sports vertical.

Mark: 00:25:23

And I'm like, all right.

Mark: 00:25:25

You mean like Spotify or Apple Podcast is, you know, so there's a lot of repeated

Mark: 00:25:30

stuff and people pick upon buzzwords and they try to use those buzzword buzzwords

Mark: 00:25:36

to elevate themselves within the industry.

Mark: 00:25:42

Does that, is that just me being the grumpy guy in podcasting?

Mark: 00:25:47

Or is there any logic and any reason to just slow down as a podcaster?

Mark: 00:25:52

Don't worry too much about the trends and just focus on distributing good content.

Mark: 00:25:57

Like where, where's your head on that one?

Mark: 00:25:58

Because it's like, it frustrates me a lot.

Dave: 00:26:02

Yeah, it does.

Dave: 00:26:03

I had, 'cause what happens is I had a guy in in at the London Show that's like,

Dave: 00:26:09

oh, well you're just an old podcaster.

Dave: 00:26:10

And I'm like, well no.

Dave: 00:26:11

I've been around and I've seen it.

Dave: 00:26:13

I know there's something now about, it's an app.

Dave: 00:26:15

It's like cherry picking or something.

Dave: 00:26:17

Cherries, I forget what it is, but it's clamor.

Dave: 00:26:20

It's clamor with an absolutely new name.

Dave: 00:26:22

And I just said, go Google clamor.

Dave: 00:26:24

I go this, this has been tried.

Dave: 00:26:26

I'm not here saying it's not gonna work.

Dave: 00:26:27

I'm just letting you know the history that this has been tried.

Dave: 00:26:31

It failed.

Dave: 00:26:31

And if I have another person that come up and says, Hey, I've, I've got

Dave: 00:26:35

a tool, it's gonna solve this, the discoverability problem, and podcasting.

Dave: 00:26:40

And I go, podcasting doesn't have a discoverability problem.

Dave: 00:26:43

And I got into an argument once and somebody said, well, I.

Dave: 00:26:46

There's no, uh, oh, I forget what it was, but discoverability.

Dave: 00:26:50

And I said, okay, explain that.

Dave: 00:26:51

And they said, well, that's where, you know, some sort of algorithm, watches what

Dave: 00:26:55

you do and, and, and learns what you like, and then recommends things that you like.

Dave: 00:26:59

And I go, oh, I have that.

Dave: 00:27:01

I go, it's not artificial intelligence, it's actual intelligence.

Dave: 00:27:04

They're called friends and they go, oh, you like that one thing?

Dave: 00:27:08

You should listen to this podcast.

Dave: 00:27:09

And if a friend recommends it, I'm gonna go listen to it.

Dave: 00:27:12

And.

Dave: 00:27:13

It's just one of those things where you know you have to market your show.

Dave: 00:27:18

Um, I was talking with Gary Art.

Dave: 00:27:19

He does a show called Everything Everywhere, super popular show, and

Dave: 00:27:23

he's just knocking it outta the park.

Dave: 00:27:25

Well, he pays for marketing.

Dave: 00:27:27

I.

Dave: 00:27:27

He said, well, think about it.

Dave: 00:27:28

He goes, the, the second Avengers movie now, I think they're like three

Dave: 00:27:31

or four, but you know, the, there was the one where everybody didn't

Dave: 00:27:34

end so well and then there was the follow-up and we're all waiting to

Dave: 00:27:36

see, oh, what happened to so-and-so Who's gonna make it and who didn't?

Dave: 00:27:39

It's this giant cliffhanger and they, they spent $200 million promoting a

Dave: 00:27:44

movie that everybody was waiting to see.

Dave: 00:27:48

Now that went on to make like 2 billion with a B, but they

Dave: 00:27:51

still had a marketing budget.

Dave: 00:27:53

And so I'm with you on that.

Dave: 00:27:56

When I hear, oh, it's this, the, you know, this is gonna solve

Dave: 00:27:58

discoverability by placing a, uh, promo of your show at the very, very,

Dave: 00:28:05

very, very end of somebody else's show.

Dave: 00:28:07

And I go, okay, that might be a trickle, but I don't think

Dave: 00:28:11

that's gonna be the giant fire hose that you're painting it as.

Dave: 00:28:14

Well,

Mark: 00:28:14

and that's the, I think that's the funny thing, man.

Mark: 00:28:16

The, the, the, the, the trickles turn into tributaries and each one of those leads

Mark: 00:28:19

into a river, and that river is marketing.

Mark: 00:28:21

And it's, you're absolutely right.

Mark: 00:28:23

There is no one way to do it.

Mark: 00:28:24

And I, I often say this on this show, it's, you know, people will, you see

Mark: 00:28:28

all the time in the, in the Facebook groups, how do I grow my podcast?

Mark: 00:28:30

It's the number one question.

Mark: 00:28:32

And I always think to myself, right, okay, let's swap the word podcast

Mark: 00:28:36

out for anything else, right?

Mark: 00:28:38

How do I grow my band?

Mark: 00:28:39

You do gigs until you cannot move your arms.

Mark: 00:28:42

How do I grow my business?

Mark: 00:28:44

You go out and make sure that everyone knows what you do and where to find

Mark: 00:28:49

you, how to find you, and then you let them know that you will do a good job.

Mark: 00:28:54

Right?

Mark: 00:28:54

If I'm a plumber, that's all I do and it's, that's why, you know.

Mark: 00:28:59

Old podcasters.

Mark: 00:29:01

It was like my old dad, the electrician, he's still getting work 'cause he's the,

Mark: 00:29:04

he is the old guy that has been there for a long time doing the marketing.

Mark: 00:29:08

And it's quite a flippant thing from, from certainly from my side

Mark: 00:29:11

to just say, go and learn marketing.

Mark: 00:29:13

'cause there are so many facets to that one.

Mark: 00:29:15

But to me there is, there is, there will never be one single way to grow.

Mark: 00:29:22

Or to do anything with success.

Mark: 00:29:25

It's a range of things, and that's why the marketing mix exists.

Mark: 00:29:28

It's not, that's not made up, you know?

Dave: 00:29:32

Well, and, and the thing that I think, and I'm just pulling this

Dave: 00:29:36

number outta my butt, I'm gonna say 90% of podcasters don't do the

Dave: 00:29:41

one thing that every business does.

Dave: 00:29:43

If I'm opening a restaurant.

Dave: 00:29:45

I'm not going to open a restaurant with food that's never been tasted.

Dave: 00:29:50

I want somebody to eat this and go, Ew, it needs more salt.

Dave: 00:29:53

Or this, can we, what's that?

Dave: 00:29:55

And, and I get it.

Dave: 00:29:57

I totally understand why people do this.

Dave: 00:29:59

You just spent 15 hours making a 15 minute podcast because you're

Dave: 00:30:03

going through the learning curve and I just want it out there.

Dave: 00:30:05

I just want to, but you need to stop.

Dave: 00:30:08

I mean, Ron Howard is a super famous director, actor.

Dave: 00:30:12

He's won a gazillion awards and before a movie goes live.

Dave: 00:30:16

He sits in a theater with the audience because he knows when they're supposed

Dave: 00:30:20

to laugh and cry and shriek or whatever, and he goes, if it's not getting the

Dave: 00:30:25

reaction that I'm looking for, he goes, we need to go back and edit because

Dave: 00:30:28

I want this people to, to cry here.

Dave: 00:30:30

And they're, they're laughing.

Dave: 00:30:31

Instead, there's something really, really wrong.

Dave: 00:30:33

I.

Dave: 00:30:33

And we ask our mom, and mom says, oh honey, it's, look at you.

Dave: 00:30:37

You're so professional.

Dave: 00:30:38

Look at you with the microphone.

Dave: 00:30:40

And she sends you off to, and now I'm gonna go spend money on marketing because

Dave: 00:30:44

you know, Dave said that one guy did well.

Dave: 00:30:46

Yeah.

Dave: 00:30:46

But is your podcast getting the reaction you wanted to?

Dave: 00:30:50

And because of you, mark, you'd said you need to go learn marketing.

Dave: 00:30:54

So I bought a Dan Kennedy.

Dave: 00:30:55

'cause I've heard about Dan Kennedy from every single person.

Dave: 00:30:59

And he, he asked the question, and I think most podcasters don't, which is,

Dave: 00:31:03

why should someone listen to your podcast?

Dave: 00:31:05

What, what's gonna make you different?

Dave: 00:31:08

How are you delivering value?

Dave: 00:31:09

And I get it.

Dave: 00:31:11

Look, if you just want to talk about.

Dave: 00:31:13

Whatever in the basement.

Dave: 00:31:14

I, I love, you know, tennis, I'm gonna do a tennis podcast and

Dave: 00:31:18

I just wanna talk about tennis.

Dave: 00:31:19

Okay, that's fine.

Dave: 00:31:20

But if the goal was to grow it and maybe later even monetize

Dave: 00:31:23

it, It's gotta be a good product.

Dave: 00:31:25

And I'm not sure everybody does that.

Dave: 00:31:28

I mean, I just went through this, I redid my sales page and brought in a coach

Dave: 00:31:32

and they said, oh, this is good this.

Dave: 00:31:33

Ooh.

Dave: 00:31:34

And I was talking about features, but I wasn't talking about benefits and I was

Dave: 00:31:38

just way too close to my own material.

Dave: 00:31:40

And I went, oh, you know what?

Dave: 00:31:41

That's absolutely right.

Dave: 00:31:42

And so, you know, when you talk about marketing and growing your show, I think

Dave: 00:31:47

a lot of people are trying to grow a show that's not really connecting the

Dave: 00:31:50

way they think it is with their audience.

Dave: 00:31:52

I.

Mark: 00:31:53

I wholly agree with that, and I, I, I think so many people are so

Mark: 00:31:55

close to the thing that they love because they love it, because, you

Mark: 00:31:58

know, podcasting we said right at the beginning, it's the thing that allows

Mark: 00:32:01

us to talk about the thing that we love.

Mark: 00:32:03

So, and we, and we never, I'm in a band and I, I, you know, someone says, you're

Mark: 00:32:08

gonna, you're gonna go and tour, or you're gonna do X, Y, and Z and you're gonna

Mark: 00:32:11

do all these gigs, and that's amazing.

Mark: 00:32:12

It feels good.

Mark: 00:32:14

If someone says, I dunno if how big McFly are out in, in the us but in the

Mark: 00:32:18

uk if you are McFly, you've done your time, but you've gotta make two albums

Mark: 00:32:22

that are really poppy and you'll, you'll do well off them, but they're probably

Mark: 00:32:26

not the thing that you want to do.

Mark: 00:32:28

But after that, you can make what you want.

Mark: 00:32:31

You're gonna probably do it, and it's one of those things where

Mark: 00:32:34

it'll feel uncomfortable, but the, the fact of the matter is the music

Mark: 00:32:38

that you make and the brand that you put out there is the product.

Mark: 00:32:41

And once people like that product, you've got latitude to introduce new things.

Mark: 00:32:46

It's like the successful restaurant.

Mark: 00:32:48

Okay, here's a preview night.

Mark: 00:32:49

We're thinking about bringing some Asian infusions into this menu.

Mark: 00:32:53

Let's just do one preview.

Mark: 00:32:54

Now, we're not gonna change the whole menu, but we understand the

Mark: 00:32:56

menu is a product, and I agree that a lot of podcasters don't

Mark: 00:32:59

necessarily think like that.

Mark: 00:33:00

I've, I've, I've always been, weirdly, I.

Mark: 00:33:05

I don't wanna s Yeah, probably lucky just because I, I've, I've been in, I've been

Mark: 00:33:10

working for myself since I was like 21, 22 years old, just through a D H D necessity.

Mark: 00:33:15

It was like, better work for myself, otherwise I'm gonna

Mark: 00:33:17

get fired three times a year.

Mark: 00:33:19

So it was, which was, that's my twenties mate.

Mark: 00:33:22

That was my twenties.

Mark: 00:33:24

So I've always been able to sort of say, Okay, with your podcast,

Mark: 00:33:31

why don't we approach this, for example, like a tech startup.

Mark: 00:33:33

You know, if, if I do something at Captivate, I want to test it.

Mark: 00:33:35

You know, if I bring out membership and tipping functionality, it's not, I'm not

Mark: 00:33:41

just testing the technicalities of it.

Mark: 00:33:43

I'm testing, does anyone actually want this?

Mark: 00:33:46

So, we'll, you know, we'll, we'll devise some tests and that might be

Mark: 00:33:49

going out and speaking to people.

Mark: 00:33:50

It might be going out and testing, uh, you know, whatever the user flow

Mark: 00:33:53

and, and, and, and x, Y, and Z and going through and making sure that

Mark: 00:33:56

they actually want the thing that we're going to build as a podcaster.

Mark: 00:34:01

Like you said, we just let go.

Mark: 00:34:03

We just let go.

Mark: 00:34:04

And if that's me wanting to do that for that cell therapy, that's cool.

Mark: 00:34:08

But as you say, if it's gonna be a product, There does come a point

Mark: 00:34:12

where we do what you've just said.

Mark: 00:34:13

We, we, we tighten up, we think about things a little more, which leads me

Mark: 00:34:18

to, to, to the next train of thought, which is I'm a busy kind of podcaster.

Mark: 00:34:22

Okay?

Mark: 00:34:23

So I'm, I'm someone that is on the cusp of great numbers.

Mark: 00:34:26

I know it's a good show.

Mark: 00:34:28

I know it is a show that people respond to.

Mark: 00:34:31

I get feedback from people.

Mark: 00:34:33

Um, I'm on what I feel to be the cusp of making.

Mark: 00:34:37

Money and good money from this.

Mark: 00:34:38

Maybe covering a car payment, maybe even covering a mortgage payment and being

Mark: 00:34:41

able to go four days a week in my day job.

Mark: 00:34:44

That's where I am.

Mark: 00:34:46

I can't seem to get it over the line.

Mark: 00:34:49

What, what do you tend to see as someone that's done this since 2005?

Mark: 00:34:54

What are the things that people are too loose on that will stop them?

Mark: 00:35:00

Turn it into that thing that they want it to be.

Dave: 00:35:03

Yeah, the, the one that always really makes me scratch my head, and

Dave: 00:35:08

this is again, in podcasting, like you mentioned, you have a lot of little garden

Dave: 00:35:13

hoses that fill up a river, and so, but I will see people like, I'm trying to

Dave: 00:35:17

grow my audience and I'll go and look.

Dave: 00:35:20

And they're in Spotify, but they're not in Apple.

Dave: 00:35:22

Or maybe they're in both, but there are another like 10 directories

Dave: 00:35:26

that you could list your show in.

Dave: 00:35:27

And I was like, you know, if you, in the US we have Halloween and, and you

Dave: 00:35:32

dress up your kids in weird costumes and they go out and get candy and usually

Dave: 00:35:36

it's anybody with their front porch light on, they have candy and that kid

Dave: 00:35:40

doesn't look at the street and go, well, alright, so everybody has their light on.

Dave: 00:35:44

I might go to this one and, and Nah, not that one.

Dave: 00:35:47

Not that one.

Dave: 00:35:48

And then no, they want candy.

Dave: 00:35:49

So they go to every single house and they get candy and every podcaster's

Dave: 00:35:53

like, I want more downloads.

Dave: 00:35:54

And you're like, okay, here, here are all these directories that

Dave: 00:35:56

have their lights on and have thousands of people that love audio.

Dave: 00:36:00

And you're like, nah, I don't need those.

Dave: 00:36:01

iHeartRadio.

Dave: 00:36:02

Never heard of it.

Dave: 00:36:03

Amazon.

Dave: 00:36:03

Nah, maybe I'm like, list your show everywhere.

Dave: 00:36:06

So there's that.

Dave: 00:36:07

And then you get into, I see, uh, I know there was a database of newsletters

Dave: 00:36:13

and again, Not a horrible strategy.

Dave: 00:36:16

If there's a niche that you know, this is a bunch of people that raise cows

Dave: 00:36:20

and you have a podcast about raising cows, okay, it might make sense to

Dave: 00:36:24

advertise in that newsletter, but we know those people like to read and you're

Dave: 00:36:28

looking for people who like to listen.

Dave: 00:36:30

And so that's where trying to find other shows like yours that you can

Dave: 00:36:35

either be a guest on or you know, sponsor them or things like that.

Dave: 00:36:40

'cause you really want to go to where your audience is and your audiences.

Dave: 00:36:43

Primarily listening to podcasts and the thing that drives me bonkers,

Dave: 00:36:48

'cause I get about four a day, is, hello, I found your show and I love it.

Dave: 00:36:53

So right there, I'm like, okay, my name's Dave.

Dave: 00:36:55

Not that I'm an egomaniac, but it's pretty easy to find.

Dave: 00:36:58

I say it at the beginning of every episode and when you say, I love your

Dave: 00:37:01

show, I have about five, which one?

Dave: 00:37:03

So I know right there.

Dave: 00:37:05

I'm just gonna get a bunch of spam.

Dave: 00:37:07

And then it's all about the guest.

Dave: 00:37:09

And I always tell people, if you want to be a guest on another show,

Dave: 00:37:13

make it all about their audience and how you can serve their audience.

Dave: 00:37:16

Again, good podcasters are serving their audience and explain to the the host how

Dave: 00:37:21

you can help them serve their audience.

Dave: 00:37:23

Oh, I, I heard you talk about topic A.

Dave: 00:37:26

I'm also in this field.

Dave: 00:37:27

Have you've ever talked about topic B and go that route.

Dave: 00:37:30

So when you can get your show in front of other listeners,

Dave: 00:37:33

that right now seems to be.

Dave: 00:37:35

You know, whether you're doing paid advertising and some of that gets

Dave: 00:37:37

really expensive, so be careful if your podcast isn't used as a

Dave: 00:37:42

marketing tool to bring in more money.

Dave: 00:37:44

You're kind of just lighting your money on fire.

Dave: 00:37:47

It's gonna be hard to get that back.

Dave: 00:37:48

So, uh, you know, but, you know, getting your show in front of other listeners

Dave: 00:37:53

seems to be the way right now that, that people are growing their show.

Mark: 00:37:58

It's fascinating that, that people often.

Mark: 00:38:04

We'll start a podcast and they'll, you know, they'll say, well,

Mark: 00:38:10

okay, I've started my, my show.

Mark: 00:38:11

I've got two or three episodes out there and it's not growing.

Mark: 00:38:15

And when can I monetize?

Mark: 00:38:17

When can I make money?

Mark: 00:38:18

And what always amazes me is that I, if I say, if I walk in, I've got a,

Mark: 00:38:23

I'm on a startup accelerator, okay?

Mark: 00:38:25

I've got a new startup business and I register my limited company here in the

Mark: 00:38:28

uk and I get some business cards done.

Mark: 00:38:33

I get some flyers or some leaflets done and I don't really do anything else.

Mark: 00:38:37

I just walk in there on that startup accelerator and I say,

Mark: 00:38:41

well, I've got the business.

Mark: 00:38:43

I've got these flyers.

Mark: 00:38:45

Why is it not making any money?

Mark: 00:38:49

I'm gonna get sort of laughed out of the building.

Mark: 00:38:51

I.

Mark: 00:38:52

Because I'm expecting a 40 hour a week job to deliver a 40 hour a

Mark: 00:38:57

week salary, but I'm only putting in one hour or two hours per week.

Mark: 00:39:03

And for me, the expectations with so many people are that you can start

Mark: 00:39:08

a podcast and you can make money.

Mark: 00:39:10

Right away.

Mark: 00:39:12

Where the hell has that come from, man?

Mark: 00:39:15

Like, why if I start playing golf, I, I don't wanna make money.

Mark: 00:39:19

Uh, just if I start playing guitar, don't wanna make money.

Mark: 00:39:22

If I do a YouTube channel, I don't wanna make money.

Mark: 00:39:24

If I write a blog, I'm not thinking about making money.

Mark: 00:39:27

Why do you think it is that podcasting suddenly people are

Mark: 00:39:30

just saying, I start a show.

Mark: 00:39:31

I should be making money.

Mark: 00:39:32

Where's that come from?

Dave: 00:39:34

I, the easy money is the part I'm with you that scratches my head.

Dave: 00:39:38

I think part of it is the, the kind of span of time we went through where Spotify

Dave: 00:39:44

was just spending money, like it was, you know, uh, free basically, you know, 200

Dave: 00:39:48

million to Joe Rogan and things like that.

Dave: 00:39:51

So I think that's part of it.

Dave: 00:39:52

And I also think.

Dave: 00:39:54

Some of it is, uh, we'll, we'll call them gurus.

Dave: 00:39:57

The people that sell hope for three easy payments.

Dave: 00:40:00

You know, I can change your life.

Dave: 00:40:02

Just give me, you know, $300, three easy payments, yada, yada, yada.

Dave: 00:40:06

And, and they say things that you like.

Dave: 00:40:09

Think about it.

Dave: 00:40:10

Uh, and I know you guys have different singing, uh, contests.

Dave: 00:40:13

In the UK we have American Idol.

Dave: 00:40:16

Anybody tell me who the season six American Idol winner was?

Dave: 00:40:20

So you can get tons of exposure, but if you haven't put in the reps and not that

Dave: 00:40:25

those people aren't un, they're not, you know, they're obviously talented, they

Dave: 00:40:28

won, but it takes more than exposure.

Dave: 00:40:31

It's about a relationship that you build with your audience.

Dave: 00:40:34

And I, I know I've mentioned the.

Dave: 00:40:36

I did a book on uh, uh, podcast monetization and I asked people, how

Dave: 00:40:40

long did it take you to really, you know, generate some, some decent income?

Dave: 00:40:44

And it was somewhere between two and three years leaning much more towards three.

Dave: 00:40:48

Nobody wants to hear that.

Dave: 00:40:50

They want to hear.

Dave: 00:40:51

And you know, I had somebody the other day and they have about 60 downloads

Dave: 00:40:58

an episode now that's three classrooms.

Dave: 00:41:00

You know, my background's in teaching.

Dave: 00:41:02

That's half a hallway.

Dave: 00:41:03

That's pretty good.

Dave: 00:41:04

Those people could be listening to satellite radio or playing

Dave: 00:41:07

Xbox or all these other things.

Dave: 00:41:09

But what nobody says is 5% or less are gonna take action If you

Dave: 00:41:15

have something to sell and you're like, oh, that can't be real.

Dave: 00:41:18

But I'm here to tell you, I, if you keep your ear open for it, anytime

Dave: 00:41:22

I go to a podcast event and they're talking about monetization, if somebody

Dave: 00:41:26

brings up like, how many, how much of your audience can you expect to.

Dave: 00:41:31

To actually, you know, go for a premium, uh, effort and it's around 3%.

Dave: 00:41:36

When I listen to, uh, when I talk to the people from Teachable,

Dave: 00:41:39

that's a, a training platform, they said 2% and Radio Labs a really,

Dave: 00:41:44

really popular science podcast.

Dave: 00:41:46

And one time they were doing.

Dave: 00:41:47

Kind of a uh, a fundraiser like, Hey, we know you like the show.

Dave: 00:41:50

Thanks so much.

Dave: 00:41:51

We appreciate your po your support.

Dave: 00:41:53

There are millions of listeners and for that we're eternally grateful.

Dave: 00:41:56

Uh, we're just trying to get up to 1% of you Contr.

Dave: 00:41:59

And I was like, wait, radio Lab.

Dave: 00:42:01

'cause if you're in a room and you say the word radio lab and there's a fan of the

Dave: 00:42:05

show, they could be like 15 feet from you.

Dave: 00:42:08

They hear Radiolab, they're going, oh my God, I love that show.

Dave: 00:42:11

It's crazy that they have these rabid fans and they were trying to get up to 1%.

Dave: 00:42:15

So I don't think most people talk about that.

Dave: 00:42:18

'cause it's hard to sell your life-changing podcasting

Dave: 00:42:22

course for three easy payments.

Dave: 00:42:24

When you say, oh, by the way, it's kind of hard.

Dave: 00:42:26

I.

Dave: 00:42:26

Not everybody's gonna buy.

Dave: 00:42:28

And it's not 50%, it's not 20%, it's 10%.

Dave: 00:42:32

But you build the trust like I trust you, mark, because I know your background.

Dave: 00:42:36

I know you've got a lot of marketing in your background, and I just love

Dave: 00:42:39

the way you think and I love your sense of humor and things like that.

Dave: 00:42:42

So if Mark says, you know what you need to do, you need to go learn marketing.

Dave: 00:42:45

I'm like, you know what?

Dave: 00:42:46

That's right.

Dave: 00:42:46

My background's in teaching.

Dave: 00:42:48

I need more marketing chops.

Dave: 00:42:50

So that's where that really is the power.

Dave: 00:42:53

Again, it's the relationship.

Dave: 00:42:54

So, but I don't know, I, you know, the poor music industry, everybody

Dave: 00:42:59

thinks music is free and you know, every musician's truly starving.

Dave: 00:43:04

Now there are, I, I just, there's a musician I watch on YouTube and she

Dave: 00:43:08

said, I'm not putting my music on Spotify, because if you buy my CD

Dave: 00:43:13

for like $9, And I, it was something ridiculous, like 38,000 plays.

Dave: 00:43:19

She goes, one CD is worth like a gazillion different plays.

Dave: 00:43:22

And she says, so consequently, if you're a true fan of my music, I've

Dave: 00:43:26

made the packaging special and you know, come buy my actual physical cd.

Dave: 00:43:31

And I was like, well, good on you sister.

Dave: 00:43:33

Bucking the system.

Mark: 00:43:37

Creativity is, has always been one of those things that's

Mark: 00:43:40

so difficult to, to, to monetize.

Mark: 00:43:42

You look at.

Mark: 00:43:43

You know, you and I come from that, from that musical background, and you, you,

Mark: 00:43:47

the, the amount of gigs that you have to do to, to earn the first hundred bucks.

Mark: 00:43:51

And then to go from a hundred bucks a night band to a 500 and to a thousand,

Mark: 00:43:55

and then to actually supporting people.

Mark: 00:43:57

And I mean, it's, it's not a dissimilar journey, is it?

Mark: 00:44:00

It's like you say,

Dave: 00:44:00

it's the reps.

Dave: 00:44:01

Well, and, and when people go, can you make a living in podcasting?

Dave: 00:44:04

You go, absolutely.

Dave: 00:44:05

Can you make a living as a musician?

Dave: 00:44:07

I.

Dave: 00:44:07

Or an athlete, or an author, or an actor.

Dave: 00:44:10

'cause we're in the entertainment business, like it or not.

Dave: 00:44:13

And so sure you can, but there are a lot of really, really

Dave: 00:44:17

talented musicians in Nashville.

Dave: 00:44:19

You know, tendon bar, you know, it's, it's not a automatic thing.

Dave: 00:44:23

I, I've seen people, they'll, they'll hear me say that three year thing

Dave: 00:44:27

and then they'll do a, a podcast that may or may not be growing a whole

Dave: 00:44:31

lot and they're like, I've already been doing it for three years.

Dave: 00:44:33

I'm ready to make money.

Dave: 00:44:34

And I'm like, No, no, no.

Dave: 00:44:35

It's three years to grow enough.

Dave: 00:44:38

It's not based on time.

Dave: 00:44:39

I mean, otherwise I should have a Grammy.

Dave: 00:44:41

I've been playing the guitar since I was 12, so, you know, it's not time-based.

Dave: 00:44:45

It's the size of the audience and the more niche you are, then you might

Dave: 00:44:50

get away with a smaller audience.

Dave: 00:44:52

Uh, I think one of my favorite.

Dave: 00:44:54

Just examples of a niche podcast.

Dave: 00:44:56

There's a guy that does the chameleon breeder and he makes cages for chameleons.

Dave: 00:45:01

So he's actually making a decent amount of cash, but he

Dave: 00:45:05

doesn't have a ton of downloads.

Dave: 00:45:07

Well, yeah, but the people that listen to that are exactly who he's trying to reach.

Dave: 00:45:10

So it, it varies on that, but it's, it's not based on time.

Dave: 00:45:14

It's based on growing the audience, and that's the part that's not always easy.

Mark: 00:45:19

That's a great example.

Mark: 00:45:20

That's a great example.

Mark: 00:45:21

And it, it, it's, you have to become so many other things.

Mark: 00:45:24

When you get to that stage as well, you have to become the startup founder, the

Mark: 00:45:26

business person, the bookkeeper, the marketer, the sales executive, the, the,

Mark: 00:45:31

the, the, the administration assistant.

Mark: 00:45:32

So there's a heck of a lot that goes into that.

Mark: 00:45:34

Now, my friend, I'm gonna have to put a pin in it in just a second.

Mark: 00:45:38

I could talk to you forever and I think we should absolutely jump back

Mark: 00:45:40

on and talk a little bit more about the future of podcasting because I

Mark: 00:45:43

think there's another hour in that.

Mark: 00:45:44

So I, I, I think we should actually book a bit of a follow up on that one.

Mark: 00:45:48

Just to wrap up and to give people a bit of a taster, what are you worried about?

Mark: 00:45:53

Podcasting.

Mark: 00:45:54

We're 20 years in.

Mark: 00:45:55

What's the, what are the things that are on

Dave: 00:45:57

your mind?

Dave: 00:45:58

The thing that makes me worried is, look, advertising is definitely

Dave: 00:46:02

a way to monetize your podcast.

Dave: 00:46:04

If you have enough downloads, and we just talked about the niche, but what

Dave: 00:46:08

I'm hearing are there are companies now that Mark, you remember that one

Dave: 00:46:11

time, and I'm just making this up.

Dave: 00:46:13

You remember that one time you got pulled over, you got a ticket.

Dave: 00:46:15

And, uh, as the police that gave you the ticket was driving away,

Dave: 00:46:18

you gave him the big middle finger.

Dave: 00:46:20

Well, well, somebody took a picture of that, and I know you were only

Dave: 00:46:22

18 at the time, but guess what?

Dave: 00:46:24

Because of that, you're now seen as anti-police and consequently you are

Dave: 00:46:29

not viable for advertising because of something you did forever ago.

Dave: 00:46:33

There are companies, and I'm not making it up, that are doing that and they

Dave: 00:46:37

explain, I was listening to a show about advertising and it, it was this company

Dave: 00:46:41

explaining what they do and they have like 20 different services that they use

Dave: 00:46:45

to go and research, not just the podcast.

Dave: 00:46:48

But the podcaster, so if you wore a shirt that was maybe not

Dave: 00:46:52

something, you know, whatever.

Dave: 00:46:54

And I was like, who, who wants to step into a position where

Dave: 00:46:58

you're just gonna get scrutinized?

Dave: 00:46:59

So I'm worried about advertising.

Dave: 00:47:01

I, I've listened to some popular podcasts and I've busted out the stopwatch and it's

Dave: 00:47:06

30% and I'm like, look, radio's at 30%.

Dave: 00:47:09

One of the reasons podcasting was so popular in the beginning

Dave: 00:47:13

was 'cause it wasn't radio.

Dave: 00:47:15

So I'm worried that.

Dave: 00:47:17

Some of us want to turn it back into radio, and I'm like, no,

Dave: 00:47:19

let's, let's avoid that, shall we?

Mark: 00:47:23

People get comfortable with what they're comfortable with.

Mark: 00:47:25

That's, that's a sad fact.

Mark: 00:47:26

And I think when money starts changing hands, people rely on what they know,

Mark: 00:47:31

which can stifle, I don't like the word innovation 'cause I think it's

Mark: 00:47:33

overused, but it can stifle genuine.

Mark: 00:47:36

Innovation.

Mark: 00:47:37

Alright my friend, listen, I will stick a pin in it right there.

Mark: 00:47:39

I think we should do a follow up 'cause we could talk forever and I'd love to get

Mark: 00:47:43

even more into the future of podcasting.

Mark: 00:47:46

But I want to, I wanna ask where are you gonna be in person?

Mark: 00:47:49

'cause I think everyone in podcasting, I.

Mark: 00:47:51

To be honest, I think everyone outside of podcasting should meet Dave Jackson.

Mark: 00:47:54

So where, where are you headed mate?

Mark: 00:47:56

Where, what events are you at

Dave: 00:47:56

next?

Dave: 00:47:57

I'm gonna be in Denver, uh, at Podcast Movement.

Dave: 00:48:01

I'm going to be at an Arkansas podcast, uh, event.

Dave: 00:48:04

I just got that yesterday.

Dave: 00:48:06

I'm gonna be speaking at Indie podcast.

Dave: 00:48:08

That's Joe Pardo's thing in New Jersey.

Dave: 00:48:11

Uh, and I'm gonna be in New York at a, and this is sad 'cause I

Dave: 00:48:15

don't remember the name of it.

Dave: 00:48:16

It's a Christian thing that just came up as well.

Dave: 00:48:19

If you wanna see where I'm at, just go to school at podcasting.com/where

Dave: 00:48:23

and I'll have my schedule there.

Dave: 00:48:25

Is Joe's event in the same

Mark: 00:48:27

place?

Dave: 00:48:28

It's in a different place.

Dave: 00:48:29

He moved it and it's not the, and I love that event, by the way.

Mark: 00:48:33

I love that event too.

Mark: 00:48:34

That was my staple event for ages, man.

Mark: 00:48:36

I used to fly into Jersey just for that event.

Mark: 00:48:38

I used to love it.

Mark: 00:48:39

Ask Jess Cook Forman about the chicken bus.

Mark: 00:48:42

Next time you speak to a, I got from, I got from New York City to Joe's event

Mark: 00:48:46

on a bus that I shared with chickens.

Mark: 00:48:50

Someone did me a dirty there mate, I'll tell you that.

Mark: 00:48:52

I think so, right?

Mark: 00:48:55

That is enough of that chat.

Mark: 00:48:57

Go and find Dave Jackson anywhere you can find him.

Mark: 00:49:00

He's an absolutely wonderful person and an absolute, absolute friend

Mark: 00:49:04

to everyone in podcasting and a mighty talent within our industry.

Mark: 00:49:07

So Dave, thank you so much my friend, and to you the ever

Mark: 00:49:09

present, beautiful listener.

Mark: 00:49:11

Keep on doing what you do, keep sharing your voice 'cause remember, it

Mark: 00:49:13

does matter to those who follow you.

Mark: 00:49:16

Keep doing it and I'll see you on the next run.