Tag: podcasting

How do I: record my podcasts?

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Tools of the trade

A while back, I used to use Skype with some recording software to record my podcasts.

Then, I noticed the audio quality difference between Skype and Zoom.

Zoom is my go-to for reliable calls, recording podcasts, and creating webinars for several years now.

Zoom can also split the audio recordings between each speaker to easily avoid crosstalk (talking over each other) or audio volume differences which is important for podcast recording.

Scheduling

Using Calendly.com, all podcast interview scheduling was completely automated based on my preferred availability on my Google Calendar when I wanted to record audio podcasts.

Recording Asynchronous Podcasts

Note that all of my podcasts are interviews now. I ask the same questions and get different answers from each person interviewed. I personally do not add value to the conversation by asking the same questions, therefore I could remove myself from the interview process.

As of October 2022, I found out about rumble.studio where I can record podcasts asynchronously. This means the two parts of the interview are recorded separately.

Part 1 is the Questions.

Part 2 is the Answers.

I record myself asking those same questions one more time for each podcast (Yes, I have several podcasts). Not per episode. The intro, middle roll and outro are recorded all separately.

Now ALL of my podcasts are recorded asynchronously. After 12 years of podcasting, I can say that I no longer schedule time to interview someone… anyone for a podcast because I can do this asynchronously. And you can too. And no one wastes any time.

Each interviewee gets a step-by-step process where they hear the question I recorded (they see the text question too), then they record their answer to their hearts content (as many times as they wish). This cycle of steps repeat for each question until they submit their last answer and then I am notified when they are done.

No calls. No scheduling. Once answers are all captured, the recordings are ready to be edited and packaged as new episodes. In a future post, we will cover editing as a matter of documentation, delegation and review.

Have you tried asynchronous podcast recording?

Launched: 9th podcast and 9th book

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Happy to have launched my 9th podcast series on January 5, 2022 and published my newest book on February 2, 2022. Both are titled after the niche topic of interest that you will hear a lot more about… Synthetic Media

What is next after 9 podcasts and 9 books?

More. Already more consulting. Already more speaking. Already more writing on the next two books. Already more podcasting.

There are multiple projects going on at different stages in the calendar, Gantt chart, and other goals.

Life, as well as work, is not just one project at a time. It is not about having only one project to work on at a time. That seems too boring to me if it were.

If you need to get started, yes, start with one project, but watch for that boredom and burnout before it kicks in. You will then understand the need for more than one project to work on at any given time. This will provide you a change of pace regularly, instead of the same daily monotony.

Want to discuss how to accomplish more? Schedule a call with me.

How do I: Start a mastermind group

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After reading Eric Moeller‘s book Levelling Up: The Complete Guide to Starting a Mastermind Group, I started several virtual masterminds:

Writers’ Mastermind Group

A group of writers who all have the common goal of completing their own book project and self-publishing it before Thanksgiving.

I had the idea of having a group of writers who want to complete a book and then pushed them forward (including myself as a peer) with:

  • Creating a daily habit of writing – a manageable 30 minutes every day
  • Holding weekly accountability sessions online for peer accountability and peer support over the summer. This changed to meeting twice a month in the Fall due to other meetings for the same group.
  • Setting realistic goals for each of us (example: write 1 page per day) and declare them
  • Share online resources for design, editing, layout, self-publishing, and other helpful tips to accomplish the ultimate mastermind group goals

Started with an online survey in June to have writers opt-in with qualifying questions.

Two weeks later, I followed up with a scheduled Q&A session via group Zoom call for those already committed and anyone on the fence. Locked in the group that night and we got started. No more procrastination.

We wrote during July, August, and September. Then we had the books edited in October. Pushed for cover designs, formatting, layout, and marketing.

Pushed to finish their book projects and ready to publish in late November.

Podcasting Mastermind Group

During the summer, I also started a mastermind for podcasting with a few podcasters.

Want to join a Mastermind Group? 

Schedule a complimentary call to discuss if it is right for you and get your questions answered today

 

How do I: plan a podcast

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I plan most podcast series that I created.

How I do plan podcast episodes which are mostly interviews?

  1. Pick a niche topic that enough people care about and isn’t talked about much (hence the niche topic we will call XYZ for this article)
  2. Test the topic by asking a lot of people (that you don’t know) how much they care about topic XYZ and see if the market (people interested in the topic) is willing to talk about it who knows a bunch about topic XYZ or work in the field of XYZ. Look it up to be sure there is a network or groups of people interested in XYZ and join their network, group and/or conversation.
  3. Find 52+ people to interview on topic XYZ who are willing to answer a handful of pre-prescribed questions. This often means you need to ask several hundred people if they are willing to be interviewed because A) not everyone will say yes to the interview. Follow up and move forward. B) not everyone can schedule time to do this with you. Follow up and move forward. If they can’t, move on.
  4. Schedule all interviews over a 4–6 week period for 15–30 minutes calls. Mass interviews. Sometimes a few per hour, back to back. This can be all scheduled and managed.
  5. After the interviews are recorded, bulk edit all interviews in manageable groupings. I edit blocks of up to 10 interviews at one time. Schedule the time for everything if you want to get it done.
  6. Bulk approve edited interviews with interviewees. Email them the edited audio for their approval.
  7. Once approved, bulk schedule the release of episodes with a year (52 weeks) from those 52 interviews. Grouping or batching tasks is much easier than the start-stop-start model. It helps maintain consistency too. It is easier to schedule too. This is auto-pilot after you grouped up and did all the work ahead of time. Some podcasters I have met do 4 episodes at a time.
  8. Release weekly with some marketing to the XYZ community, interviewees, relevant social media channels, all the podcatchers, email marketing, interviewing with other podcasters/bloggers and word of mouth.
  9. Repeat the process for the next podcast series. You can do this a few times just like I did if you want to.

Questions?

Need help creating a podcast series for yourself or your business?

I can help you as much or as little as you like.  

Schedule a call for consulting on your existing or future podcast.

How I do: launch a podcast series from just an idea

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I was asked to write about how to create a podcast series from just the idea. I thought I would share the process I use, the timeframe I do this in, as I do it. Again. I have created a few podcast series over the past few years, so this time I am documenting the process as it happens. Journaling as this journey happens…

Thursday, February 14

Got an idea. New topic for another potential podcast. Not every idea becomes a podcast.

Researched the topic in the early morning before going to work. Looked up how many people do something on this topic via social media and how many people have talked about this already as a podcast via Google and iTunes.

If I was starting another book, I would search the topic in question on Amazon. If zero to a handful of articles or podcast episodes are found, this means a niche has been found. If there are a few thousand people do this, there is an audience. I like niche topics more than overtalked about topics that we hear about too often.

What is the problem you are trying to solve? (what is this for?)

Who is the audience you want to talk with, about and to? (who is it for?) I rarely write just for me, however, it helps to be curious about the topic. So I create for myself first for the level of satisfaction unless I am creating for someone else… and someone else is paying the bill.

Went on Upwork and assigned someone the task of web scrapping 1000 contacts to reach out to people specific to this topic.

Sunday, February 17

With a boilerplate invite message, I invited over 100 of these people (I did not know) via social media to connect and I would send them the interview questions to ponder in advance with context about the podcast idea to be launched.

Why would I give my idea out so openly? The short answer is: who is going to do the work of implementing this idea into reality and follow through? If there was such a person, this would already be available. “Idea theft” is not my fear. It’s an excuse too many people use to not build/create and then share/sell.

Thursday, February 21

A week after the idea was generated. With the goal of scheduling 60 individual interviews for this podcast series to create a weekly podcast lasting 1 year, I already have 15 interviews scheduled. When people accepted my social media invite that showed they were interested in my idea and might want to be interviewed, I emailed my ask (interview them in the coming weeks) with context about the podcast (what’s it for), a little info about me and potential dates to click on so they could schedule the interview with one email. By this day, I had 12 interviews scheduled for the coming weeks of March. 48 more to go.

Why schedule and record 60 interviews for a year?

Weekly interviews equal 52 interviews for a year, however it is recommended to launch with a few interviews day one. And some interviewees may flake out or not respond to approvals. Not everyone is dependable in case this is something not realized. This is also why I have a 1000 contacts to revert back to if needed.

Thursday, February 28

Recorded my first interview for the EIR podcast.

Friday, March 1

Recorded 3 more interviews for the EIR podcast.

Monday, March 4

Recorded 4 more interviews today.  Have 11 more interviews scheduled in March so far. 50 other people interested in being scheduled for an interview this month. Following up on all invites later this week since the goal is 54 interviews recorded, edited, approved and scheduled by April. Still planning to launch in Spring 2019.

Friday, March 8

Have 12 interviews recorded and 12 others scheduled. There are 44 more people interested in being interviewed as I follow up with them each week.

Thursday, March 14

A month after coming up with the idea for the EIR podcast, I have 18 interviews recorded and 6 others scheduled to be interviewed. There are 48 more people interested in being interviewed, however yet to be scheduled. Not all schedules work out for a brief call this month.

Friday, March 22

Interviewed 21 and 13 others scheduled. There are 45 more people interested in being interviewed.

Tuesday, March 26

Interviewed 28 and 9 others scheduled now. There are 32 more people that claim to be interested in being interviewed and following up with them one more time on Wednesday, March 27.

Have 37 people say ‘No’ so far. Thought I would share the fact that the people saying “Yes” [counting recorded and scheduled only as “Yes”. Not counting interested parties] and the people saying “No” is 37 to 37 “Yes”s after a month of work. I hold no emotional attachment nor value to ‘rejection’ since that should be expected as a norm. Just move forward. It is not worth the level of effort to negotiate a “No” to Yes” for this project nor this timeline.

Friday, March 29

Interviewed a total of 35 people and 5 were scheduled for interviews. There are 30 people that mentioned they were interested in being interviewed; however, after 5 follow-ups over 5 weeks…they might not be interviewed. Have a few last interviews scheduled for the first week of April and then wrap up the interview process. Had a few people reschedule several times; however if they can’t find 15 minutes for a call within a month, it’s not worth chasing them with more than a few follow-ups.

Thursday, April 4

With all interviews recorded for this project, I am now in editing mode. Bulk review and writing of the edits needed for each episode. These edits will be sent in bulk 10 episodes at a time to an audio editor via Upwork for all audio editing to be done. Seeking an intro and outro (audio clips) for this series for the start and finish of each episode of the EIR Podcast. Need to record a ‘Welcome to EIR podcast’ now that I heard common themes from many EIRs during the interviews.

Friday, April 5

Too much going on to work on this project for now. Vacation is coming up on Tuesday, April 16. Plenty of time to catch up then.

Wednesday, April 17

While on vacation in Santa Rosa, FL, trained two people (Addie and Emme) to review and write the editing instructions for my podcasts. Walked them through the process with one episode, provided them an emailed template per episode to fill out, and gave them most of the episodes to listen and write down instructions in an email. These instructions include links, phrases to start and stop on along with timecodes.

Saturday, April 20

All editing instructions are completed. Still waiting for my intro/outro to be re-recorded.

Tuesday, April 23

Received Intro/Outro. Added this to editing instructions for each episode. Sent first 10 episodes for editing through Upwork.

Thursday, April 25

The first 10 episodes were edited and received. Sent the second set of 10 episodes for editing. Downloaded images for podcast cover/logo art.

Friday, April 26

20 episodes edited. Sent the rest of the episodes for editing on Upwork. Approved the podcast cover art after three iterations and some feedback from a few people.

Sunday, April 28

All 39 episodes were edited and sent for approval. This will be my latest MVP (Minimum Viable Product). If I get more along the way, that will be for the next season. Got 2 approvals already. Building the website now and connecting to the distribution for many podcast channels.

Wednesday, May 1

Entrepreneurs understand what an MVP is. So I am launching a podcast series with the first 14 interviews approved to date. 4 other interviews need more edits per the interviewee to be approved. Week 1 will have a welcome episode plus 2 interviews to provide content right away based on those first approved interviews. First approved interviews become the first released interviews.

When do I interview these people?

Since I work 10am-6pm EST for a remote consulting client, I schedule interviews between 7am to 10am EST for people in the Eastern time zone and after 6pm EST for people in the Pacific time zone. A few were interviewed during the weekend if that worked better for those schedules.

How long are the interviews?

The actual interview lasts about 4 to 15 minutes. Most calls are 10-15 minutes in duration including the interview itself (when I am recording). I often schedule 15-30 minute calls to work out any technical difficulties.

Changed this to 15-minute calls only since I was not using the second half of the 30-minute time block for calls and saw that as an inefficiency to be eliminated. Don’t need the time break either. I would often have 2 to 4 calls scheduled back to back in the morning or evening. It is a process of batching tasks or grouping similar tasks together back to back. Recording 4 interviews in one day equal 1 month (4 weeks) of weekly podcasts. Get it done. Move forward.

Everything is done in bulk by time-blocking tasks daily

As you can see, this is just another exercise in bulk tasking. No start-stop-repeat.

  • Bulk research for idea validation.
  • Bulk invites. Not sending one invite or email per hour/day, but rather 15-50 per hour.
  • Bulk scheduling. Once a day for the month of February.
  • Bulk follow-up once a week.
  • Bulk interviewing. Time-blocked to 30 minutes per call to record the 5 to 15-minute individual interview. During the last three weeks, I changed this to a 15-minute time block per call for 5-minute to 10-minute individual interviews.
  • Bulk reviewing of raw interview audio to create editing instructions. Insourced this thanks to Addie and Emme.
  • Bulk editing with instructions with Upwork with an offshore resource using different timezones to my advantage so work gets done while I sleep.
  • Bulk approvals.
  • Bulk scheduling for release after approvals for the next 35 weeks.

And this is how I launched a 7 month-long series of weekly podcast episodes.

Want to listen to this podcast series? Find EIR Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.

Want a course on this? Want more details, costs, links, and all the tools used? Let me know

Want to create a podcast series? Schedule a call to discuss how

Questions?