Lessons

Lesson Info

Create, Grow, Monetize Your Podcast 1

So I'm really excited to be speaking here live in front of this audience and hopefully to a lot of people around the world, so welcome one and all, we have an incredible day plans we've been putting a lot of time, a lot of effort into this, and I'm just the beginning of what's going to be a great day today, we're gonna be talking about creating, growing and monetizing your own podcast with me here today, we're going to be focusing on we're going to having greg hickman of mobile mix coming up talking about mobile podcasting, which is a really powerful way to expand your reach in the mobile world. We have michael o'neill from solar for new, our who's going to talking about building your brand, your podcast and really turning into a profession, and there will be ending the day with nick tons worth of life on fire who's gonna be talking a lot about video podcasting, which is really critical these days and how to take that video podcast and turn into a real business through virtual summits ...

and so many other really cool. Thanks. So, though, for further ado, let me kind of get into what I'm going to be focusing on today in today's workshop, we'll be walking us through my journey as a podcaster, and we're taking you through how to actually create a podcast how did grow that podcast audience after you've created at and launched that podcast, we're talking about monetizing your podcast, we'll be going through some live podcast training room, walking you through exactly how and what steps to go through when you're doing that creation and launch process, I'm gonna be doing a little deep dive, a little intro into podcasters paradise, which is the number one podcast in community in the world. Do we actually have a couple paradise? Er's in the room here today, which I'm excited about, and then we're doing a live q and a, so we're looking for some great audience participation throughout this day. It's a ninety minute segment with me, so I'll be clearing you guys about what? Maybe going on in your world so kind of keep that fresh and minds be writer, raise those hands, grab those microphones and just have a blast. So my journey started the state of maine, so it couldn't be further away from where I am currently now, which is san diego, and I grew up as a boy in southern maine. There you have, they little little autumn day in maine with the least falling. We don't get that in san diego anymore, because every day, just sixty eight and sunny, but as you can see, I was ah happy boy at least during this picture and as I grew I went to province college in rhode island's on army rotc scholarship so post college actually spent four years as an active duty officer thirteen of those months I was were spent in iraq during a tour of duty and you can see there in that image on the far my rights that's I was actually smiling even though I was in was called full battle rattle I was about to go on a night mission in fallujah which was a really scary experience I had to do that many times over the thirteen months that I was deployed as an officer and armor officer in iraq and I really bring up these pictures specifically as my journey to show you that throat the first twenty six years of my life I was a really happy person I was optimistic I was positive I really enjoyed life and no matter what the situation was jumping and dry leaves going to college or a belt to embark upon a really scary night mission in a war in iraq I really tried to keep that positive smiling like attitude and outward facing and it really was me for the first twenty six years but then I was doing my active duty service as an officer when it was time to enter the real world and to become a civilian for the first time in my life and I didn't really know the direction I wanted to take so post military I went to law school my father was a lawyer a lot of family members were in law or judges so I said hey, this could be a great experience for me this could be that next amazing step unfortunately one semester later I was like this is not may I am a depressed boy I I you know I've lost that smile I've lost that energy I just just wasn't for me so I left it was the hardest decision I had to make because every step up to that point in my life had been a success had been graduating high school and college and an officer in the army and now here I am for the first time a failure a failure in the eyes of my family and my friends and it was a tough period so then I tried corporate finance that kind of rebound a little bit night what teo john hancock in boston and was insurance and you know that was good for some time that has some great experiences but overall you know, life in a cubicle just wasn't for may wearing a suit and tie to work every single day talking to other people who obviously didn't love what they did either again brought another another frown face like I was now going up throughout my life in my mid to late twenties not happy and so then I tried both residential and commercial real estates you know, it was in san diego doing residential real estate when l two main tried commercial mail state but again just this wasn't me I did that for over four years ball thing in different areas regions, residential, commercial trying different things trying to find my swing and it never happens. And here I am thirty two years old now wondering like why does my life seem to be so off track? Like I don't have any path I don't have any direction and what I look back now and I see is I had no passion for what I was doing I had no fire in my belly when I was waking up and I was wondering, you know what? What am I doing things like why am I getting in the car and driving toe work to a job that I just simply don't love and that's what I did of my ah ha moment it was semi out of desperation, it was semi out of frustration it was semi out of because the reality that I was reading the right books I was listening to the right audio books I was subscribing to podcast and listen to this amazing and great content that was so powerful and that content gave me that ah ha moment which has now turned into entrepreneur on fire and I want to be honest, when a launch on tamir on fire, I had no experience whatsoever. So if you're in this room right now or if you're at home and you're saying, I don't know the first thing about podcasting when I launched september of two thousand twelve, I knew how to press the play button on my ipod, nothing else about podcasting, that was all that I knew, but that is ok, because that's, where everybody needs to start and I was taking a very aggressive goal ultimate our fire is a seven is a seven day a week podcast I've done over seven hundred and now thirty episodes to date, and it all started from a place of literally zero experience also getting back to things. I did go from clueless toe launch, but a lot of people should be asking, well, how did you do that? And I will be honest with you like everybody that's in this audience right now, like everybody at home, this considering podcasting for any number of reasons I went searching, I went searching in a number of different areas to find the contents that I needed and I invested in myself and I was willing to invest in myself. To get that knowledge to get that information that I needed in my first mentor was jamie tardy of the eventual millionaire she was somebody that was at a place that I wanted to be and that was really powerful, so when you're looking for a mentor, look for somebody who's there and reach out to them and they might not personally be able to mentor you, but I can tell you, when people reach out to me, I'm able to give them for five great recommendations, so don't be afraid to reach out to anybody, to be a mentor and cliff revis craft had a great podcast masterminds and is no longer in existence, but I joined it for an entire year, and this mastermind was incredibly powerful to actually surround myself with successful and some unsuccessful podcasters, but that we were all together looking to build our podcast together to ask each other the right questions, to give each other the support and guidance that we needed as beginning podcasters to get to the place that we wanted to bay. So those are a couple of huge in critical steps that I took I also invested in conferences I went live in person to coughed is like agents of change in portland, maine I went there three years ago for the first time, just as an attendee just less than a month ago, actually I was honored to be speaking live in portland, mann agents of change, my home state, which is really powerful blawg world was actually my first conference that I ever attended live that takes place is now actually called new media expo was called log world, and that takes place in a new media expo every single year, and it's a powerful conference to go in, to meet people and to engage and then there's social media marking world in san diego that I went first as an attendee. And like all three of these conferences, I've now spoken multiple times at these conferences, so I want is an attendee, and then the success of baltimore fire happens, and then I was speaking at these conferences, and this is the evolution, because you're interacting with the right people, you're interacting with people in your net, you're making connections. That's, actually, how greg hickman in myself became great friends at a conference back before greg evenly took his major leap, and he became friends with a lot of the speakers and things progressed, and now you know, he's here today, I also invested in courses I was willing to actually invest in courses like a creative life, there's courses, you confide in your niche, injure industry, a great resource I like to recommend for people getting started pretty much any single course that you want to at least get some knowledge on to begin with and go and watch these live and keep them in the archives and go back to them over and over again. So we're thinking about how you can invest in yourself as an entrepreneur and initially you want to be in so two years later, after that initial launch that I had autumn, you're fire has been now awarded best of itunes in two thousand thirteen has generated over ten million downloads to date has built an incredibly large audience I lovingly refer to his fire nation, and we currently generate over two hundred thousand dollars every single month and revenue. So yes, there is money in podcasting is the biggest question you'll get from people when you start a huge is the most commonly asked question that I got when I started I'm not here to answer a lot of those questions today, so this did all come from a podcast this all came from on tamir on fire. Everything that I've built was based around this and that's why I'm excited now really be diving into some major content of some really actionable advice about how you and you at home can create. Your podcast this is going to be the first segment of the three segments creates growing monetize so we're going to have some great crowd interaction during the second right here, so get ready guys because we're going to have a blast so the number one question that I get from future podcasters is john what should my podcast topic be like? I want a podcast I get it I understand it's a huge opportunity but what like what my podcast about? How do I know exactly what my knit should be? My industry, my topic, my format, my flow, everything it's a very legitimate question so right now I want to take you through an exercise and this exercise is incredibly simple, but I want to clarify something its beauty is in its simplicity. This is an exercise that I've had every single one of my personal one o one mentees go through over forty and I have over four hundred members and podcast is paradise and many of those have gone through this exact exercise and many were skeptical at first because it is so simple but this is what we need to do is entrepreneurs in general is work that creative muscle actually be there sitting down thinking about things that you really want to accomplish in life and this is where it starts so with just a piece of paper you draw a line down the middle on the left hand side, you could be reading your passions doubt things that excite you right now, things that when you were a kid really excited you like jumping in the lease when you are a four year old in the fall of maine, you know, maybe it's you loved to fish are fitness or health or gardening, whatever it might be right down things that just really excite you right now, things you do on the weekends when you have free time, picture and a completely free day tomorrow, what are some things that you would dio if you had a whole open day and then ask your friends, your family, your loved ones query them say, when you look at me like, what are some things that you think like me up inside? Like, what do I get excited about in your opinion and then the exact same thing on the right hand column for your expertise, you need to start right down skills that you've acquired, and you will be shocked at the amount of skills that you've acquired when you start writing them actually down and then think that all of the years prior, the things that you've learned studied, start writing down your skill sets and just like you do with passions, query people asked them, what do you think I'm good at? Why do you think I'm gonna that? Ask these questions, it's, incredibly powerful and don't just do this one time. This is a five day exercise, so you do this day one, you're gonna look at the page paper and you might be like, yeah, I'm not really that excited about what I'm reading on that and that's ok, because this is day one do this day, two day, three day, four day five, and what you're going to see is that you're working that creative muscle just like if you're training for a marathon, you don't just start running twenty six miles, you gonna run two, four, six, eight and keep progressing just like that. You need to progress in your mind with your creative mind and start writing these things down, and by day five you will be shocked that what you see on this piece of paper, you'll be just blown away when you start to see what I like to call your zone of genius. And that zone of genius starts to happen when you start to see some overlap between the passions and the expertise that you have to start to see where things that you're excited about, that you also have skills in start to overlap. And that is a really exciting time. This is a zone of genius and there's a great book called the big leap by gay hendricks and he talks about this zone a genius a lot in that book and it's a powerful way of thinking that you can really over bill it to separate your passions in your skill sets this have to be two separate lives. This is where your podcast topic starts to formulate and then ninety nine times out of one hundred and actually want to say one hundred times out of one hundred. I have my mentees people with podcasters paradise. They get so excited they say, john, I did, and I couldn't believe it was on that piece of paper like I found my zone of genius and then I googled it and somebody is already doing it. Ho hum back to the drawing board. I need to figure it all out again. And I say a little a little bit of my my army officer, this comes back and I say, like soldier like about face one hundred eighty degrees, that is the exact wrong idea. That is the exact wrong way to think about the situation, because the fact that somebody is already doing it that's proof of concept, that means that somebody's figured out how to turn your zone of genius into a viable business, and that is really really exciting now all you need to dio is do it differently you need to add your u s p which is your unique selling proposition and then you seem to add your personality and you can't help but add your personality because everybody in here and everybody listening at home has their own personality and so let's give an example right here with entrepreneur on fire I was not the first person to interview entrepreneurs and talk about their jerry but I was the first person to do it seven days a week so I did it differently I added my u s p a flow of formats so my listeners when they press the play button they know they're going to hear my guest share a failure a lesson learned from that failure and ah ha moments steps they took to turn that moment in a success and then the lightning round with five powerful questions I have a format that was my us pay and then of course I added my personality I couldn't help but at my personality and neither can you and that's the beauty of podcast is your personality comes through in such a powerful way so this next slide I truly consider the most powerful slide on the entire presentation it's kind of a bold statement and I really want to start getting people ready tio contribute here because this is where I want some audience interaction defining your avatar in ninety nine percent of podcasters get this wrong and I want to be completely transparent ce I got this wrong for a really long time and it hurt my business and hurt my podcast it slowed down a lot of things that have now been able to build today so it's the number one thing that I stress when I have meant when I have a mentee or I'm teaching people had a podcast within podcasters paradise the fighting your avatar changes everything and this these next couple slides here are just going to be like a massive weight being lifted off your shoulders if you really listen if you really absorb it because right now there's still a million questions running in your head like all these different things about podcasting or about creating that podcast and all things around us. And if you really just kind of listen to the next three or four slides and release soaked us in you will people in a way because your avatar is that one perfect listener that one person that you are creating that podcast for that you are interviewing that guess for when you're interviewing that guessing you're getting contents you are just getting that content and repackaging it and unpacking it for that one perfect listener that avatar so let's get some some crowd interaction here now with the audience people that are in the audience here I would like to know if you have a business and if you within that business have an avatar and if that avatar exists for whatever next, whatever industry it might be, I'd like to hear a little description about that avatar syndicate. You can hand that teo, our friend and entities yourself, please anything, and I have ah, podcast, microbrewer and I interview brewers and brewery owners with the purpose of helping the audience start a brewery or take their existing brewery to the next level. But I really feel and people have told me that people hurt just fans of beer would like listening in and going behind the scenes, so I haven't like really I have a hard time narrowing down my my avatar to the war in audience, so try right now just for the case of this experiment, give us who you view is your perfect listener, ok? If I'm going to, like, do what you're asking me to do and really narrow down, I'm going to leave out the beer fans, ines and I'm just going to go to somebody who wants to start a brewery or has recently started their berry I guess I'm going after narrow down and say somebody who wants to start a brewery, so they're probably sorry about the ladies. The audience I know there are ladies, but actually this month we have three out of four recent guests were women on the podcast but also typically it's men who are maybe my age I actually got into this podcast sort of I know we're in a roundabout way because I was interested in starting a brewery so it's like mid thirties kind of disenfranchised you're sick of the corporate world sort of similar to your story and probably a lot of us here and they really like beer they really like talking about it with other people and, um I guess you know, one question that I wanted to ask you today is where I can find democratics about podcast listeners because if I'm doing a podcast obviously this beer fan has to be into podcast or some kind of tech interests as well. Great so great question about the demographics and that is actually part of my presentation today is we're gonna get to that and really dive into some specific demographics and then even more so into where you can get specific demographics to your podcast, which would be very helpful. So nathan gave a great example of what he is viewing as his one perfect listener and he described, you know, a person a male in his mid thirties that you know is a little jaded from corporate america likes beer, maybe wants to start a brewery and that's a good start, but the reality is, and you are in the exact situation that I was when I first started my podcast, I mistook an avatar for a targeted demographic, and they're two completely different things when nathan described really well and what you need is a targeted demographic, everybody needs to know what their targeted demographic is, and he did that really well, I'm actually going to get to that in a couple slides, but that's, not an avatar and your avatar is your most important step that you can take as a part castor and really as an entrepreneur and john, you can apply this to any actuarial business. So let me just give you an example of what an avatar should sound like to show you the depth of the meaning, the power behind an avatar when you do this right, that image on the screen, there is jimmy he's, thirty four years old. He has a wife and two kids. Jimmy drives the work by himself every single day it's a twenty seven minute commute to a job at a cubicle that he doesn't like, he says there for nine hours, board depressed, sad gets back in his car, thirty two minute commute back by himself. Thirty two minutes because there's a little bit of traffic in the evening, jamie gets home, he plays with his kids, has dinner with his family, puts his kids to bat, hangs out his wife for a little while and then jimmy sits on the couch and jimmy, thanks to himself, why am I wasting eighty percent of my waking hours doing things I don't enjoy doing? Why am I only spending ten percent of my waking hours doing what I love spending time with my kids with my family, the uae, my spending, the other ten percent of my waking hours sitting on this couch feeling sorry for myself for that wasted eighty percent of my waking hours doing other things jimmy needs to be listening toe entrepreneur on fire. Jimmy needs to be listening every single morning as he drives toe work needs to be hearing my guests sharing a failure and their lessons learned. So jimmy knows that it's ok to fail with jimmy drives home. He needs to be listening to entrepreneur fires who can hear my guest sharing an ah ha moment and the steps they took to turn that moment in the success so jimmy could start to see howto unpackaged that and how to maybe apply that to his life. And then when jimmy sing on that couch at night, instead of feeling sorry for himself, he is re listening to the lightning round to my guests best resource best books we could be filling his head with the right kind of things and right kind of knowledge instead of this perpetual cycle that he's caught himself in jimmy is my avatar I know jimmy inside and out and this is the thing as an entrepreneur is it hard castor you will come to one thousand forks in the road one thousand forks in the road and if you as a podcast host as the entrepreneur are at every single one of those forks in the road and you're trying to make that decision you're spending time energy band with and money making a thousand decisions at a thousand different forks in the road in your business in your podcast cause you think you're supposed to as a podcast host as the ceo is the founder of your company but the reality is you're not the person that makes these decisions at these forks in the road I just get to these forks in the road and I say w w j d what would jimi dough and that's my answer and so I know what my perfect listener wants at every single decision at every single fork in my road so that entire weight that I was carrying it on my shoulders that I know a lot of people you have a lot of you are carrying on your shoulders right now should be lifted because if you just sit down a craft, your perfect avatar, that person gives you every single answer you just asked them because you know them, I've created a four minute video of jimmy, so I know him it's an animated walkthrough of his day you can find out about on my belt, me site like that is a really powerful way to get to know your avatar. So every fork in the road, you know that you know the answer because you know who to ask. So some frequently asked questions that I get from my mentees from people in this audience from people at home. I'm sure they're typing it right now, they're saying. But john, what should not? You know, what should my podcast be about? How long should obey should be interviewer topping based how many shows should I publish per week? What category should I be in? And the answer to every single one of these questions? My response every single time is w w y es w you could tell I love acronyms, what would your avatar wants? So if you come to me the question like that, I'm not the person answer that question any less than you are, or any more than you are, but your avatar every single time is that person to answer that question and that's where the power lies so that we're getting nathan to that targeted demographic which, again you have dow pretty well could use some refining, but that targeted demographic is important you need to have a targeted demographic as well, and so that let's take another another audience member to raise your hands right there in the purple and what we're going to do here is share with us a little bit about your business and your targeted demographic and about a minute great, thank you so much I'm excited cause I think my avatar might be in this room. What I do is I work for a company called radio to me and we basically take podcasters to internet radio and make them internet radio stations to expand their audience and really take them into kind of what I think is the future of broadcast iq. But my concern with my avatar is that as soon as they reach this larger audience, they're going to start to water down their content because they want to appeal to everyone and that's the death nail. Yeah, it's kind of what we've seen with traditional radio frankly it's watered it down trying to hit as many people as possible and then you lose the passion you lose you know, the specific so my avatar is someone who's passionate about a topic who knows how to create great stories and and we hope to help monetize them because sustainability is really the case. So so hopefully you're here somewhere thank you. I'm sure they are for sure way go back right? And and I just do want to clarify for everybody in the audience at home like again that was a targeted demographic which is powerful you needed an avatar will have a name it will have s so maybe you guys need to talk and she just just becomes your avatar and what's amazing about that is that you can just pick her brain asking all the questions I need to be asked and then boom, you have that avatar just like you already have your targeted demographic and something that you touched upon that so powerful I just want to leave this part of the presentation with this statement if you try to resonate with everyone, you're going to resonate with no one and that applies even so much more when you first start because when you don't already have that audience when you're just getting going, you're not going to resonate with anybody if you have this broad wide open niche but if you really focus in niche down miss down again, then it's down a third time till it hurts until you're the only person that's dominating that niche because you're the only persons putting that much time energy effort into it, you will get a foothold you will build a reading fan base no matter how small it is in that area and that's your mo mentum, that's, your star, and then you can build from there, and then as you get that moment, um, as you get that growth going forward, then you can broaden yourself out and become more open because you have that audience. You're getting that feedback, so we'll talk about naming your podcast, and this is something that's really powerful because believe it or not, naming your podcast is something they get it's a lot of people hung up and naming your company, you know, whatever it might be it's, the thing that really slows people down, but it is an important aspect of it, because there's a lot of things you can change, but your company, you can change and just talk specific about a podcast, you can change the direction you could change the flow, the format, you can change the logo, you can change a lot of things, but once you've really named your podcast, that name is going to be pretty much in stone. So when you do need, I do want just kind of run through some things, because you do now have your topic if you've been following along and you've been doing the exercises and you you know you now have your top but you know what you're gonna podcast about you know your avatar or this you know how to create your avatar you understand the targeted demographic you know what that point means like what it means to have a targeted demographic in the importance of that and now toe actually name your podcast you wanted to be short the podcast name needs to be memorable in short comes memorable it also needs to be simple if we try to be too clever and there's a great quote I have from jason freed of base camp slash thirty seven signals coming up that really emphasizes this powerful e you want to be descriptive at the same time you want your avatar you want your targeted demographic to be able to look at your name and say I get it I know what it is I want to find out more you want that to happen you wanted to be unique you don't want to be super similar to other names that are out there and I want to give you a quick rundown about my story because I struggled with my name as well quick little inside I wasn't playing was sharing this but I think they think my buddies in the back row here know this but my first domain that I bought and what was going to be my podcast was biz john dot com thie isay joh n dot com and I was like, yes, the domains available I'm in business john dot com luckily my lovely girlfriend kate was like that's all I needed so I went back to the drawing board is I was in my living room one down just folding laundry and stewing just mindless tasks and espn was onto the backgrounds so stuart scott was talking about some basketball highlights and I was just thinking, I know I want the word entrepreneur and there because I'm an entrepreneur I want to interview entrepreneurs like I feel like that we're needs to be in there and then as I'm thinking along those lines, I hear stuart scott in the background saying lebron james for three he makes it he is on fire and I was like, I get it everybody knows what it means to be on fire, whether in sports, whether a business whether life you get what it means to be on fire so flame action entrepreneur on fire was born from that moment in time. So that's why it's powerful when I tell you to do those creative exercises right down your passions, your expertise that's the kind of thing that gets your mind flowing the right direction so you have these ah ha moments and you're open to that doing the right things and that's so powerful question sure to grab the mike here there you go so what if you already have a podcast and you're realizing that the name may not be perfect? Mind meets some of these criteria, but not all of them, and the direction my podcast is kind of shifting, and so I'm wondering, is it possible to add a like a subtitle and keep the first name? Or how would you recommend someone potentially renaming their podcast? So let me ask you this question first, so keeping my candy, like, how long have you been part of asking for? And would you say you've built a large, dedicated like audience following at this point, it's still pretty small, it's pretty niche, so I mean what you could do, and this is, you know, something that I've seen happen very successfully before is you can, you know, sit down, you can really craft when you think would now be the right podcasting, if your podcast, the right logo, the right brand, and now you can take everything you've learned over these six months and have a complete re launch and it's going to be a new podcast on a new feed, going to get the benefits of a potential another eight weeks in the new and noteworthy, and then you can run a simultaneous podcast for a while in the intro of your finish your current podcast to say, hey, I just went through this rebranding I've had a lot of fun doing it x y z you can now find my current show over here when you keep running them on this on this podcast for another month or so then this will tail off so comes describes my new podcast come check it out it's gonna be a blast this is why we re brand this is what it's about this is the values you're going to get and that could be a very successful transition and it could be an event you could make it an event which could really spark up a lot of new and exciting organic listeners for you that you might have had before. So don't be afraid to do that like a this point onto our fire, I'd be leaving like a large, dedicated audience behind you want to be careful of that, but still early with you if you just at maybe a couple hundred listens a day or so like this is totally transferrable, okay the pure energy podcast it's for the san francisco area travel on community and I think that the fact that it's based in the bay area and it's on track flynn is about triathlon is not necessarily reflected in the name. When I started my podcast, I intentionally left it kind of a little vague because I could see going in different directions but now it's starting to gain traction with a specific demographic when I'd like to rename it to make it more appealing and he's here to find for that demographic well, this is a key point I want to bring up here as well. Key words play a huge role in your itunes discover ability and so if your podcast name has those key words that you want to appeal to your state like see your avatar is going to go to itunes use that search bar what what words they type in there you want your podcast too to be a result for that key word search and it's really simple do on itunes if you have the right name the right subtitled right keywords in your description great. Thanks. Cool. So there's a quote that I really want to focus on real quick that kind of ties us all together by jason freed of thirty seven signals which is now base camp be clear first and be clever seconds if you have to throw one of those out, throw out clever and jason freed writes for and he's a you know, great entrepreneurs and a lot of successful things he's like this tester like he's tested everything he realizes that just a clear, simple, concise getting the point across we're not trying to change the world here guys so logo simple bolds pops fourteen hundred by fourteen hundred and that's a pixel so that's the minimal you want for your pixels square that itunes requires to be featured in their store aeons in my opinion that's I am oh no self portrait now this is just my opinion you'll see a lot of logos that have self portrait but I think it's a mistake personally because that logo is just so big and you need to use that logo that fourteen hundred by fourteen hundred and the best way possible to get that message across you know that it's for you know by athletes or that it's about fishing or that it's you know about entrepreneurs being on fire and my big mug taken up three quarters of it is going to have a hard time getting that message across as clearly but here's an image right here some top podcast right now and in itunes I want you to kind of look at you know look at the screen and if your home check that out and just ask yourself like, which ones pop out to you like which ones if you're just looking at this sea of podcast logos which is how you find podcast nineteen which ones pop out to you and I can tell you like I see someone the bottom right hand corner there you know, with the with the picture there's nothing wrong with that but again, this is my opinion you can't even really read the tax that doesn't pop out, especially the far bottom, right? I mean it's way too small the's the things you have to think about when you're creating your podcast low this is what people are going to see this is how people are going to organically find your podcast, you know, a couple that really jump out to me, I might be a little prejudice, but I think the the orange entrepreneur on fire does kind of pop a little bit and I try to keep it simple is possible, but getting things across and the number one podcast right there I mean, start up I mean, simple blue white, it pops there's a hands I'm like, is he trying to shake my hand like I want to shake his hand? Let's click on that and find out what's going on, and we do have a little treat for the audience here today. Actually, the founder and hosts of this podcast startup, the used to be ah, the actual host of this american life of planet money he's joining us here today, I'd like to introduce and bring him up on stage here. Mr alex bloomberg way have alex here and again, he's, the founder of a great new podcast called startup it's not only number one in all of business, but it's just crushing the charge and the overall itunes podcast ranks which is incredible he's only five episodes in but I already feel like I know him as a person even though I just met him this morning for the first time because of just how he delivers his podcast why just highly recommend everybody checking this party cast out there's a reason why it's number one and alice why don't you kind of introduce yourself and show that's what you're going to win this couple days it was it was really interesting here you talk about the name because we just our last podcast episode number five was about how we had to come up with a name for our company and it was it took a six month to come up with him but and I'm really glad that you put out that look we spent a lot of time thinking about that logo for exactly what you're talking about like this is this is all most people encounter it it's like a little teeny little box on itunes and the simpler the better my background has been I've been telling stories on the radio and in podcast for fifteen years at this american life and that planet money and for npr um and I'm going to be telling all the tricks that I've managed to learn over that time about how to tell an engaging story you know, my number one rule starting out was like don't keep people from turning off the radio and so, you know, and so we've learned a lot of things, a lot of a lot of tricks about how to keep them from turning off and keep them from clicking away, and I'm gonna be sharing all that stuff that I've learned next next tomorrow and friday outs mover the right way weii getsem effects in there. So what I love about alex and his story is that he gets it, he understands that podcasting is a story and that's why the next couple days that he's going to be presenting a going to be so powerful if anybody here has been listening to the evolution of entre you're on fire from episode one to now episode seven hundred thirty something they will see that I didn't understand that when I first started, I didn't understand the power of story. Fortunately, as I became a more experienced podcasting host, I did experience that and I did understand the power of story, and I made that a huge part of my podcast, and I make my guess not just tell what they think you know, failing for failing fast fail often like we've all heard those bite lies but what's the real story behind their journey what's the real story and lessons to be learned of their experiences and that's just something to keep in mind as you're going forward either with interview based podcasts. And you want to pull those stories out of your guests? Or, if it's, a topic based podcast, don't be afraid to tell your story. That's, a powerful thing.