Podcasting as a Personal Growth Tool: Insights from Junaid Ahmed

The Journey to Podcasting

SPEAKER_05 0:00

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SPEAKER_00 0:46

Podcasting isn't just content creation. Number one, it's personal development. Number two, if you're an interview podcaster, you're building a relationship with these people. Alright. These people's the long-term people that are gonna come back onto your show, they're gonna work with you in the future. That like what you do, like what you are. Basically, you're building connections, deeper connections. Okay, we're hanging out here for about 40, 35, 45 minutes together uninterrupted. When do we actually get a chance to do that? Not a whole lot of time, right? It's only in the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Today's guest is Junit Ahmed, host of the Hacks and Hobbies podcast, where he explores the journeys of entrepreneurs who have turned their passions into profitable ventures. What started as a way to document his own adventure into beekeeping has grown into a show with hundreds of episodes featuring speakers, authors, and business members from all walks of life. June is also an educator and author of the book Seven Stages of Home Studio Evolution, helping creators build their ideal recording space from the ground up. Let's get deep in this conversation and learn more about podcasting.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

So um, yeah. So let's start with that question. Janaine. Why should you start a podcast?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

You know, that's a great question. Back in the day, um people or entrepreneurs or people would write. They would write blog posts, they would show up as a guest on other blog posts, and you know, building the authority, building content essentially. And I just did it for fun. You know, I just had blogs about random things, and I start realizing that there's just somebody named Seth Goten, he would he's been blogging since email was invented. Like every single day he's got a blog post out, which is like anywhere from you know 150 to 300 words. Not too big, not too long. But that having that consistency. So podcasting, when it entered the space, I didn't really know much about it till much later. And because I was experimenting with literally anything and everything, and I'm just uh you know, testing new software, testing new tools and ways of creating content. I was like, let me try podcasting. So I started my first podcast in 2012 just to have a conversation with my buddies, with my cousin, and you know, talk about tech. So we called it Still Brewing It. We lasted about four podcast episodes and then that pot faded, you know, because we didn't have the tech that we have now, like we were using Riverside or using ECAM. We didn't have that kind of tech back then, and it was kind of hard because you know, no matter. Now, fast forward 2018 for the for the six years that we didn't do any podcasts and kept bugging them like, hey, let's do let's let's go back to that podcast. It's gonna be so cool. But of course we all had different agendas, different uh life changes. We all had, you know, one, two kids, um young kids in our in our families that required attention. So you know, it the podcast took a b back burner. Now when I did finally start the podcast, and I'm coming to the why is let me go to the why why people did the blogging or why people even do journaling, right? It's a personal development tool. Because

Overcoming Consistency Challenges

SPEAKER_00 4:32

what happens is we store we use our brain as a storage rather than a execution chamber, right? We're not using it for executing and executing an idea, we're just storing information, and unfortunately, unfortunately, schools taught us to use our brains to store information. Right. So journaling, blogging, podcasting enables you to empty your head so that you have more room for execution. And when I started my podcast in 2018, it was basically following in the footsteps of what Gary Vanderstreck told me in his book, Crushing It, just document your journey.

SPEAKER_02 5:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Okay, that's easy enough. I don't know how to tell stories, but I can definitely document the journey, right? So I started that journey with documenting my beekeeping journey and the rest is history. The first year was hard. It was really hard because I didn't have the consistency, I didn't have I had all the tools. I had I bought a microphone, but I didn't have the discipline to sit down and and you know, sitting down and recording the thing. That's the hardest thing, especially if you're doing a solo podcast episode.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

And luckily I was driving back and forth, so I would just record myself talking into my phone just to get that consistency up. But what really helped with consistency was is having guests come on, having that time locked into my calendar. I'm like, hey, at this time I gotta show up and be with Gabe, I've got to show up and be with Brian, I gotta show up and be with uh, you know, Donna or Nancy or whatever. So that was important. So interview podcasting, I think, is is the easiest way to get started because somebody else, you're accountable to somebody else, as opposed to a solo podcast, which it again, I'm trying to start a start a solo podcast for the past three years and it hasn't happened yet. So the why for it is it helps you develop a better understanding of who you are. Right? When we know who we are, then it's easier to define and tell people who we are, and you know, then people are attracted to who you are. So that's I think that long story short, yeah, why the podcasting is to understand who you are and who you serve.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

Oh man, I love that answer. Um, so you hit you touched on something um that in your in your story there that you know you you had the equipment, you you did, you know, you just it the consistency part. Um why do you think that most podcasters probably struggle with um finding a rhythm for consistency? Because you can go on the any podcast platform you want, and I I can name them all of them, and just type in a random podcast name and find how many have like one or two or three episodes and they're just there. They're no longer, you know, it was an idea that started but didn't have um the ability to find sustainability. Why do you think a lot of podcasters do uh or what can you do to move past that if you're you're a podcaster?

SPEAKER_00 7:50

Yeah, so the number one, the reason why that happens is the same reason why New Year comes, people have tons of resolutions to stick to those resolutions for maybe four weeks, maybe eight weeks, and then you know they kind of lose track of it. It's the same thing that goes with um gym memberships. There you go. Right? Like you're motivated, like, oh my god, I'm gonna do this. You sign up for that gym membership, and uh you go one week, two weeks, three weeks, and then you start fading and you don't go anymore. So it's it's motivation fades, it comes real fast, you do something and then it fades. What keeps you in the game is the discipline, right? But it's not easy to build discipline. But what it what is easy is to find a counterpart, find a partner that can keep you accountable. That's why in cycling you have you know cycling teams um for racing. And even in running, you know, you have uh running mates that are keeping you going. You need a community, you need you need other people around you, human beings, we riff off of that external energy. Even though we gotta have the internal fortitude to keep going, but then the external motivation and accountability is is super powerful. And that's how, like, if for six months, man, I wanted to become a beekeeper for six months. What was I doing? I'm consuming content on YouTube day after day after day. I'm like, I want to be a beekeeper, I want a beekeeper, but I'm consuming his content. I'm like, why am I not a beekeeper yet? And then the last video I watched, the guy's like, well, if you really want to be a beekeeper, you need to go join a local beekeepers association. I was like, of course, obviously, yeah. I can I can consume all the things I want in in in on YouTube, but until I take the action, until I go find other people that are already doing it, I'm not gonna do it. And that was the thing that helped me move the needle.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Yeah, okay, I love that. Uh the ability to have accountability. Um that's that's huge when it when you come in the sphere of like I've had numerous episodes already where I've interviewed people, and the ones that do have a co-host, that's probably a big one is saying, you know, we have the accountability of someone else to kind of rely on. So I want to move

Building a Home Studio

SPEAKER_02 10:30

into the next thing because, first of all, then one of the things that catches the eye is the background back behind you. People who are listening, you can't see this, but it's uh it's a very nice background. So you got into doing home studios. You've actually created a course about this that you taught, you've written a book about this. Um where did the fascination come with in you know learning how to master building your own home studio and using the space that you have if you are going to become a podcaster or a content creator?

SPEAKER_00 11:02

So it all it all goes back to about 30 plus years ago when I was introduced to photography and filmmaking. I maybe even yeah, maybe even longer, 40 years maybe. I was about 11 years old, and my uncle was like, hey, for one dollar, I give you this film camera. I'm like, oh sweet, let's let's get it. So I get this camera, get the film, and I'm I'm like 11 years old taking photos of all sorts of things, and that was it where the fascination started, and as I'm moving forward, I'm you know sticking with learning new things. Fast forward to 2001, I joined this company and they have a digital camera. Like, hey, here's a digital camera, so we can take product photos, and I was like, oh, cool. So it reignited that desire that I have for photography again in 2001. Fast forward to 2013, my wife gets me a DSLR camera for what anniversary. I'm like, okay, this is it. I need to learn everything to take these photos properly. So I took 15 plus courses, joined um meetup groups where they use you know, they taught photography and they, you know, how to use it properly, understand everything. So I like dive deeper into it. I joined filmmaking uh meetups where we're we're make you know, we're making short films, making documentary films, doing uh 40 hour, 48-hour projects, 12-hour projects, again, using cameras, setting up the stage, setting up all these things. So even took courses on Hollywood camera work, again, understanding how to block a frame, how to set up the stage. So now that the pandemic hit, right, um everybody's showing up on camera. I'm like, oh my God, maybe I can use the stuff that I learned from all those years of photography filmmaking into here. So as I put started putting stuff together, of course, I learned from other folks that are teaching, uh, and then the number one guy who actually led me into this area was Pat Flint, because he's live streaming every single day. He posted a blog post, again, right? Blog posts were connecting the dots. And he listed all the gear he was using in the studio, and I'm like, wait, I have like 80% of the gear that he's talking about. Let me start pulling things together. So as I did that, people that saw me on Zoom, they're like, wait, are you using a different software than what I'm using? I'm like, no, I'm using Zoom. And they're like, why is your picture so clean? And then I would switch the camera angle. I'm like, well, because I'm using these lights and this over here, and you know, I've got this stuff set up. They're like, Whoa, can you teach me? Can you consult me? So I started, you know, helping people set up their spaces. I found some other 3D software that would help visualize what their room would look like. Kind of like HGTU. They're like, hey, this is what your house could look like if you do the work in here. So I dug into the same software and I started playing around and showing people what their rooms could look like, and that way they had a visual understanding of where to put the camera, where to put the lights, and what they would see from that camera. Because here's a fun fact. When I was setting up my office when we moved into this house, I picked that spot to set up my computer desk because it's like a uh an inset, you know, spot. And I'm like, okay, it's gonna be out of the main room area, and I can sit down and what I focused on everything that I saw. I didn't think about what the camera would see. The camera would see everything that we don't see because it's behind us.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

So as soon as I turned the camera on, I have these two blaring windows in the shot. I'm like, okay, this is not gonna work.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

So that's how it all started, and you know, eventually we I turned the room around, uh, we had these windows redone, and then started, you know, putting the stuff together in the room to make it look uh presentable.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

I love that. That the journey had led you on to discovering different things. Um all these this is what I tell people, all those acquired skills. Um just because they're not being used at the moment doesn't mean they won't apply to something else down the road.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

I call it I call it still skill stacking.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

Yeah, there you go. That's a good way to say it. Okay. You've spoken at Podcast, excuse me, at Podfest, at Podcasting Made Simple Live. You've been in rooms with a lot of your colleagues. So, you know, what is the one question you most often hear on stage when it comes to asking about podcasting advice uh or things within the industry that you see that most you know creators are are curious to learn.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

You know, most people are always asking, hey, what camera should I use? What microphone should I buy? They're they're trying to put the cart before the horse. Right? You can buy all of that gear after you've worked on the horse. Who's the horse? We're the horse. Right? You gotta be able to drive

The Importance of Guidance in Podcasting

SPEAKER_00 16:31

and pull that cart, but if you put keep keep putting stuff in the cart and you don't have any um stamina built, you're not gonna be able to pull it. Just like my journey, I had all this gear, but I didn't know how to speak, I didn't know how to talk, I didn't know how to start a story, didn't know how to start a podcast. I wasn't comfortable in front of the camera. Like all of those things are skills you cannot buy, unfortunately. Unfortunately, we don't live in that kind of matrix where you could tell uh Trek, like, hey, I want to learn Kung Fu, and then you know, five minutes later, I know Kung Fu. Show me.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Right. That doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

So, you know I mean they're they are working out in that technology. I mean, don't get me wrong, the CPU that's in an iPhone are smaller than our fingerprint, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:23

It yeah, so I I think what you've just mentioned there is what some people commonly call gear paralysis, or if in our community we call it gas gear active syndrome. Um so what is the most common reason people delay starting a podcast knowing you know that they have the gear, but yet um why is there a delay tactic as far as trying to get started? You know, there's again you you said you had all the gear and yeah, it took you so long. And even now, you've waited three years before starting a solo podcast. So what is that, you know, how do you move past that so that you can find eventually what works for you?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

I think two things you need. One thing is you need uh somebody in your corners encouraging you. And I got a lot a lot of people that have said that have said to me, like, hey, you gotta do you should do this, you should do this. And you know that you need another person that's leading you the way or even a solution that can help you pave the way. Right? Um I think those are very important things. When you have somebody leading the way, it's almost almost like you're standing on the bottom of the stair step and you're just scared to take that first step. And if somebody just comes along, like, hey, let me show you the first step. Let me show you the second step. And then when they get that hang of taking that first, second, third step, they're like, Oh, this is easy. I got this. Like I spent three hours the other day with my friend setting up his environment on his computer so he can vibe code. Yeah. And it took us that time to set up everything, and then and he had been working on himself. He's like, dude, I'm constantly copy pasting code from here to here, here to here. How can we make this easier? Like, well, I've already done this, let me show you the way. So I spent some time with him. We set up his environment, and he's like, dude, I ran off uh I ran out of my tokens by the end of the night. I had to upgrade my plan. I'm like, now you know. Now you know how to run up the stairs.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

And I think that's super, super important to to have somebody guide you in that first three steps, because that's all it takes. One, two, three. You know, ABC is the first three letters um schools teach to kindergartners. Oh, that's all you need to know. A B C. You know, Abercadabra. Apple, bat, cat. So if you can take somebody through those first three steps, I think the rest, they're like, hey God, this same thing with cycling, right? You you the first time you're learning how to ride, you're gonna lose your balance because you don't know which way to turn, you gotta keep pedaling. But once you've got that hand hang of it, you can never forget to ride a bike.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

I love that. So um you know, when we go down the progression of starting a podcast, right? Um, what's the first thing do you think that most new podcasters probably need to focus on more than anything before they sit down to record?

SPEAKER_00 20:44

I think the first thing they need to know is why they're even doing a podcast.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

Right? If if they have that why defined, then it's much easier to go through. For me, I was like, hey, I'm why I'm doing this podcast because I wanted to, and then I get to document a journey that I'm going on starting next month. And this was April 4th, 2020 uh sorry, 2018 is when I started documenting the beekeeping journey. And I still had a few steps to go. Like I I I knew what I was gonna talk about, I knew where I was gonna record, because I was discovering all these things, but I didn't know how to get started, even that first episode. And then it was talking to a colleague of mine, he's like, Hey, you should talk about Queen Bee. Because it's about beekeeping. I'm like, Yeah, of course. Like, no, not that Queen Bee. Beyonce. Like, what? So that gave me a, you know, really creative way to get started with that episode. You can go listen to that first episode on my podcast. I didn't even have I didn't even talk about the what the podcast is gonna call, it's gonna be called. Like, but I wanted to get that thing going because I had all of the The initial ingredients to make that sandwich. So you can you can't make a peanut butter sandwich without toast bread. Sorry, toast, jam, and peanut butter, right? You can't make a sandwich without those ingredients. So you need those first three ingredients to get you started.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Absolutely. So now that you've come to a point where now you're 700 plus episodes into creating podcast, what do you what do you

Finding and Inviting Guests

SPEAKER_02 22:33

what advice would you give somebody who's you know either just started or somebody that's even been doing it for just a couple like 20 episodes that will have to maybe lessen the mistakes that are gonna happen along the way? So for example, like finding and implementing a vetting system. Do you have a way that you would say, you know, these are a few steps that you could possibly implement that'll make it a little bit easy for easier for you instead of having to do so much work because this is the reason this show was created. I want to I want to put less resistance for new podcasters who want to get started and have no clue. They have no idea when they sit down, just the idea.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

You know, the first thing you want to start with is have an interview session with your chat.

unknown 23:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Right? Because now somebody else is asking the question and you now get to be creative and speak it out. Because what back in the days I would say, hey, just sit down and just write out all the thoughts you have in your mind. And this is something that my English teacher taught. And she would say, Hey, every day you gotta do free write. Free writing. I'm like, what is free writing? Like just write whatever comes to your mind. Like, whatever, but I can't even think. Like just write that. I can't think of what to write, just write that is exact sentence. Because what we were trying to do is we're trying to get the engine started. Right? Yeah. Right.

Finding the Right Podcast Guests

SPEAKER_00 24:07

Once and it's sometimes it's hard to get that engine started, but now I can't stop the damn engine because I have so many ideas, right? But once you got that engine started, you're not gonna be able to stop. So to do that, we have so many amazing tools now. You can just say, hey chat, I want to start a podcast, interview me so I can get all these thoughts out of my head. And we've got this companion now that can do that. And if you don't want to use chat, just ask a friend. Just ask anybody, right? They're probably gonna be more um they're gonna be probably more blunt than chat because chat's just gonna go along with whatever you say. Yeah. But if you talk to another person, there's so many podcasters around, just ask anybody, like, hey, can you help me get this thought out of my head? And when you do that, you're much more you're you're you're you have a lot more clarity to understand what the next steps are gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 25:12

I love that. So when it comes to interviewing people and uh reaching out to guests, what are some of the methods you have used that you find a lot more success in? Because it's um, you know, one of the things that I've seen in doing the research for this show was people asking, how do you find your guest? How do you and then how do you invite them on to actually have an interview

Navigating Podcast Themes and Niches

SPEAKER_02 25:37

session with them?

SPEAKER_00 25:38

And that's a great question because how do you find a guest? Well, guests are a dime a dozen, like literally, there are more guests available for a podcast host than there are hosts available for a guest. The ratio that PodMatch recently published probably six months ago was one host to 26 to 46 guests waiting to be on the podcast. Because you know as a podcast host how hard and how many different things there are to do. Yes. But as a guest, I just I just got um I just text, you know, you texted me like, hey Janet, where are you at? Here's the link. I show up, have the conversation, and by then I'm done, um, by the time I'm done, I'm done. But you still got work to do, right? So that's why there are more guests than there are hosts. So that's not a problem. There's a ton of guests available. There they have a ton of uh sites available. Any anywhere you throw a rock, like, hey, I'm a I'm looking for a guest, everybody's just gonna jump on, like, hey, I want to be a guest. So that's not the first question you want to start with. The first thing you want to start with is having clarity on what type of guest do you even want? Because that might be hard. Right? What is a guest coming and talking to you about? If you brought somebody on and they're talking about their bacon business and you have nothing to do with bacon, it doesn't make any sense. Are you hungry this morning? Is my question. We talked about I'm fasting, and then you know, this guest came on my podcast because my podcast is still very broad because it's passion to profit stories around what thing? Entrepreneurship. That's still very broad, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

So this guy comes on and he's talking about how he makes this stuff, and I'm like, oh my god, why am I talking to somebody who makes bacon? I don't even consume this product, and anyways, that's something else. So again, right, so you once you have that first clarity, right? Then it's a lot easier to find the guests. Now, how did I find my first

The Importance of Audio Quality

SPEAKER_00 27:46

few guests? I talked to my friends. I'm like, hey, Ull, we were in the band together. You want to be a guest on my show? He was one of my first podcast guests. My cousin, my brother-in-law, they were fun, they were some of my first podcast guests on my podcast. Like, hey, just love to have a conversation. And then they came on. I even wanted my wife to be a guest on the show, but that never happened. I mean, I know you you you have a whole show with your wife, which is amazing. And I'm like, oh my God, I want to do something like that. Right?

SPEAKER_02 28:19

It's great because she's willing to. That that's the thing, right? You gotta be have a willing participant for a lot of these things to happen.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Um, but I wanted to kind of just, you know, what you're mentioning here, uh, because we're talking about when people get started, and there's a lot of people that have the idea of starting a podcast, but then it's the idea of picking a genre or a niche that kind of hampers a lot of people from starting because they go, hey, I don't, I don't know, uh, I want to talk about so many things, right? The idea behind this show, right, was that I wanted something that could be niche, but also broad. That's hard to do. That's hard to find a mix between both. So I was like, why not talk about a podcast about podcasting? Because the niche is podcasting, but what makes it broad is there's so many different people and genres creating podcasts. And I get to pick their minds about how they get started, and then hearing, you know, why they chose their niche or why they're in that genre that they're yeah, passionately talking about. Um, so have you ever found a little bit of resistance in dealing with such a broad topic as entrepreneurship, where you said, Man, maybe I need to become a little bit more hyper-focused on a certain just area of it or particular or saying, let me maybe I need to refocus it.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Well, I have thought about that many times, and I was like, maybe I should do a speaker series, maybe I should this series. But what I found is what the service that I provide is again for podcast hosts and podcast guests because they are showing up on camera, they are showing up on microphone. So what a service that I'm this I'm delivering, I'm service I'm providing people to set up their home studios, I'm providing people to set up their lighting, their cameras. So I technically want to talk to anybody who's in the podcasting space. But then I also want to be able to um provide my listeners to say, hey, here are different ways you can make your passion grow to profit. So it's a two-parter, you know, two-sided angle that I look at it. But some of the most popular podcasts are super niche and broad. This gentleman is the reason why people like Amy Porterville, yeah, John Lee Dumas, Pat Flynn have podcasts. He taught them how to podcast. His first podcast, get this, was about a TV show where a bunch of people were lost on an island because a plane crashed there. His podcast was about lost, and he would publish this episode right after the ep the TV show would go on, and then his podcast would be a recap of what happened and what he thinks. So much so that people from all around the world were listening to his podcast because they were also watching that TV show at that same time.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Right. And you know, that's kind of it's kind of funny that you mention that because it's interesting that sh um I've seen this uh a course on the uh if you have Apple TV, you'll notice this. But they're starting to create podcasts that align with their shows. Netflix is doing this as well. The entertainment industry, they see the value, and of course, having a companion podcast piece for people to come along and say, I want to talk about this. I'm obsessed with this show or the characters or the themes or whatever, and you know. Um and it and it's only niche for that show, right? I mean, that's that's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Uh but there's millions of people watching that show.

SPEAKER_02 32:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Right. So you might think it's niche, but every niche has so broad and can go so much deeper, right? It's about the depth, and that's where you get you get depth within the niche that you pick.

SPEAKER_02 32:41

Yes. Oh man, I I love that one.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

An another example uh that I want to share. So when Game of Thrones came out, I was like, I don't know what the heck is this show, what is happening. So, anyways, season two, my wife used to watch it, and after two seasons, I was like, okay, I want to catch up, what's going on? I'm interested. So I discovered this one girl, uh, she had a YouTube channel, and she would talk in in at length about the different characters, the storylines,

Promoting Your Podcast Effectively

SPEAKER_00 33:14

about Game of Thrones. So now I knew after consuming her content, I knew more about the show than my wife did, who'd been watching the TV show for like two years.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Well, you know, and and that's here's that's the beauty in what we're getting to do here. Um, is the fact that we get to pass along um information that reaches people uh through multiple mediums. Um because I've had people who come on and they do enjoy the audio part and having an aspect like also adding video, not everybody watches it, but still um in being able to use both, you have people who might be able to watch on, say, like you said, a YouTube channel. You have people who are able to consume a podcast while they're working out, while they're running, while they're doing stuff around the house.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

So there's an added value in being able to create both. Um now this show will primarily focus in on the audio aspect because I do want to uh I do want to teach people how to do this, and you know, maybe if they're maybe not so inclined to want to jump behind a camera. Um, but I also want also want people to understand that you know podcasting is no longer just the idea of creating an audio medium. Yeah. Um it's now a little bit more vast and expanded of what people look at. And there are there are podcast purists who say, no, it's only audio. So when it comes to that, speaking of voteum, that's kind of the lead in I wanted to. Is it more important to have a great to build studios, a great setup? Or is it better to have a a better set up uh a better build that speaks to having your audio quality sound great? What is more important? I've yeah, this is like the chicken or the egg.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Well, I would start with the chicken, which is the audio. Right? Because an egg doesn't make any sound. It's really right, you gotta start with the chicken, which is you gotta make sure that your audio is dialed in. And the cool part is podcasting has been around for 21 years. Right. And the reason a ton of people still buy the Blue Yeti is because Blue Yeti has been around from day one. They put a lot of marketing into it. Logitech now owns Blue Yeti. And you can start with that microphone, but st record that episode in a closet because it needs a lot of it it picks up literally everything. So you want as as dead as possible sound as possible. Yes. Uh because people are focusing on that audio experience. It's an intimate experience, so you want to make sure that you your audio is dialed in. Now video aspect gets you more people, more eyeballs. Uh, YouTube has a lot more people coming to, you know, how do you discover new content? It's YouTube, it's Facebook, it's Instagram, all of those platforms, you can attract new audiences, but once they've discovered you they stay for the audio experience. Like I still join Clubhouse on a daily podcasting morning chat from 7 a.m. to eight a.m. Eastern time every single day. And it's an audio experience. I get to talk with my friends, I get to listen to them talk about podcasting, right? It's it's really important to have both aspects. But if you can only afford one, make sure you have the audio dialed in. Because if they can't hear you properly, if they can't understand the words that are coming out of your mouth, to quote Chris Tucker.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Yes. Yes. Rush hour.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

Rush hour. Um that's that's where it's gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 37:26

That's where it's I love that. And you touched on uh one other aspect of uh podcasting as well, which is how do you how do you approach your own personal approach to promoting what you've created with your podcast? Um, you know, again, for the the new creator out there who's just getting started, um those are the main questions, you know, the audio in my content. Um so then oh we we'll we'll talk about promoting first. And then I there's one more question I need to ask you about. But how do you find your uh your methods to promote your podcast on the regular? Because you've 700 episodes and you've had to do a lot of promotion.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Absolutely. There's a ton of promotion happening for these episodes, and I think the the most fundamental is what's the common denominator in promoting literally anything? Is it video, is it audio, is it text, or images? Right? We have four mediums that we can attack. Which one do we count on literally every single day? Yeah. So think about that for a minute.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

How do you read your news? How do you listen to your news? Or how do you consume your news? Like what are those elements? Well, the number one thing most people do is wake up and they check their emails. They're reading text all the time, more than anything else. Even when they're watching video, they're looking for something that has the burned-in text. So they're still reading text. So text is the foundation for everything. We're going back to blogging, we're going back to email, right? Yep. That's the foundation of literally everything, of language, of everything that we do, communicate. How do you communicate with with computers? We use text. How do you communicate communicate with LLMs? You use text. Audio to text transcription, right? Text is the foundation for literally everything. That's where the gold is. Libraries

Distribution Strategies for Podcasts

SPEAKER_00 39:40

are full of textbooks and notebooks. Um Einstein they found stashes and stashes of his notes in in these uh storage rooms. Those are the notes that he would write down. So text is the foundation for literally everything. And the reason I say text is because that's the easiest thing to manipulate. That's the easiest thing to promote. I ask these um hand raising questions on my social media all the time. It's easy to read, it's easy to respond, and it gets the momentum moving. Yes, you can put a lot of effort and time into creating some beautiful video, but then you gotta look at the ROI. Right? Once you have the engines in place, then you can do a ton. But until you're there, build that foundation on the text. Promote email newsletters. I mean, why are people loving Stubstack right now? Yeah. It's because of the text.

SPEAKER_02 40:46

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

The newsletters, the emails, like all of the stuff. Like we think it's video and we think it's audio, but it's actually text. Right? Yeah. Because that's the foundation of literally everything. The transcripts that we're creating. So that's what that's how I've been promoting uh my stuff. We tried all different ways, and text has come back to be the number one um thing.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

Yeah, because I'm I'm eventually gonna write you know all a lot of this stuff into uh articles and posts because yeah, it it it finds an easier discoverability. Uh that's what SEO ranking is. It's gonna find the words. So yeah, love that. That is again, this is gold, new podcasters. Listen, take notes. This is why I'm having these people on. Okay, so the next thing I want to move into is one of the ones that a lot of creators have a hard time with, and this is distribution. Um, so what have you found that works? Um, you know, in your opinion, to find ways to distribute your podcast, whether it's video or an audio uh medium.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

So with podcasting, we already have uh video. Uh we we have with podcasting, we already have syndicated platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, um, Cast. Uh sorry. There's so many different platforms. I know. There's so many different platforms that

Introducing PodGlue: A New Podcasting Tool

SPEAKER_00 42:20

promoting audio. iHeartRadio, Audible, you name it, right? E YouTube, like everybody's ingesting that audio so that you can listen and you know come back to the source. So audio is number one. And if you have your RSS feed set up correctly and you're going out to these different places, you're golden. The next level up is video, right? If you are creating video, you can post a video on multiple platforms. Apple Podcasts just announced that they are going to be supporting video, HLS format, which is again HLS format is a the same format YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix. They've been using HLS for ages, right? So now Apple's like, okay, we'll add it in too. So then number two is video, audio video. Uh and then of course you gotta have you know, talk to your people on your email list, newsletters, LinkedIn articles, Facebook posts, Instagram posts, threads, Twitter, like all of these places are really low-hanging fruits that you can create content and post on there very swiftly. Right? Doesn't take a lot of time. You can easily put that content together and even schedule it and post it out there. So it's simplifying your reach and your um thing. And once you know where your most audience is coming on, then you can spend more time on that specific platform. But you gotta know where that is.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

Yes. So now this leads into the fun part of the um the interview where we get to. Ask um, you know, a lot of the things like what you got going on, some of the projects you're going to be working on. One of the ones that I want to mention is um one that you've recently started putting together, which is called Podglue, which is I I love this idea. Um, so you're creating a podcast app that you're calling an operating system for people to uh for episode growth, for publisher, everything that we kind of covered here, the distribution, to find an all-in-one way to make this easier for podcasters um who really again want to start putting their voice out, but yeah, there's the resistance of of learning the tech, learning the the promotion, learning the distribution, the learning the channels of how to actually engage with people and guests and build communities. So, what was the idea behind getting started with uh podglue and what do you see for it um once you feel like you're comfortable saying I'm ready to start full-on launch or you know, uh getting it out there for people to start actually using?

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Yeah, so uh it's already in beta. There's a few people already using the application. I'm getting feedback and I'm you know making those changes and squashing those bugs. But the launch date is April 4th, 2026, marking my eight years into podcasting. Uh and it's it's uh paired with a book that I've written, which basically what pod glue is the implementation of the philosophy in the book. The book is called Podcast Relationship Management. And this is something that I discovered over the eight years of podcasting, is that I'm not just creating content. Podcasting isn't just content creation. Number one, it's personal development. Number two, if you're an interview podcaster, you're building a relationship with these people. Right. These people's are long-term people that are gonna come back onto your show, they're gonna work with you in the future, that like what you do, that like what you are, you know, basically you're building connections, deeper connections, because gay, we're hanging out here for about forty, thirty-five, forty-five minutes together uninterrupted. When do we actually get a chance to do that? Not a whole lot of times, right? It's only on a podcast. So you build a deeper relationship that way, and then when the guest is done, then they go back and listen to the published episode. I'm like, hey, that was such a cool applic, cool uh conversation. Let me go see what Jeanette is doing now. Right? And then they come back, like, hey dude, what are you going on? I've got a new book coming out. Can you promote? Can I come back on? Right. There's so many things that happen because you've built that foundational uh investment into building that connection. So I think that's really important. And that's why we should be looking at it instead of saying, hey, I need more downloads, because more downloads is not gonna get you it's probably gonna get you ten dollars.

SPEAKER_02 47:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

Okay. Ten dollars per million, whatever that might be. But again, it's the the the game is long term, it's a long tail game, I think what it what it is. So pod glue came out of a frustration that I had four years into my podcasting journey. I was jumping between calendar, between spreadsheets, between Google Drives, between um recording software, become between distribution software, between like I'm jumping through so many hoops just to keep track of one podcast episode. And guess what's happened after I'm done with that um one episode? I gotta start over again. Gotta start over again. So I interviewed about 15 podcast agency owners who were managing hundreds of podcasts, and I asked them the same question. Hey, what is your process looks like? And guess what? They had a very simple process of what I was already doing. They're jumping through hoops all day long, right? And if s if if one of their employee leaves, they gotta learn all over again how did they what did they do? Like they did they're not leaving their knowledge behind or downloading it to somebody else because they're gone. Hundreds of podcast hosts, same issue. So I've done all this research and I'm like, okay, I gotta make something, but it's at that time it was probably gonna cost me half a million dollars to create something like that. And then luckily, last year I took the fourth quarter off from recording anything, and what that gave me is that gave me more extra time to spend in my mind. Like, okay, what am I working on? What problem can I solve? So I went to work. I'm like, nobody's gonna come solve my problem for me. I gotta solve it myself. And about two months later, I had a working prototype which did exactly what I wanted to do. And then since then it's just grown and grown and gotten hardened, gotten, you know, streamlined. Uh I showcased it to 40 other podcast hosts that manage multiple podcasts, and they gave me tips. They're like, hey, this should be like this, it should be like this, and I'm tweaking this thing and making it more robust. So it's coming out April 4th, and I'm just so excited to again help my team help myself start that solo podcast that I've been waiting for for three years and help others, you know, jump through that journey and shorten that gap as well. Awesome. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

So when you launch, let me know. Um, I would love to do a lot nice little write-up on it because it's great that again we're we're doing the same mission. We want we want to we want to lessen the resistance for people to get started in doing this and yeah, being able to craft and share their voice without having to do um everything that we've you know. I'm trying to rely on the the acquired knowledge of multiple podcasters to make this a little bit easier, which you've done essentially the same thing. Now you got it in an app. All right, Janaid, I gotta get going because I have another episode to record here in about a minute.

unknown 50:28

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 50:29

Well, this was fun, thank you, Mitch.

SPEAKER_02 50:31

This was fun, I appreciate it, and we will have you back on because um I'm gonna be doing this for a while. This is this is my fun thing. Awesome. I love it. I'm passionate about just interviewing, podcasting, finding different people. Now I found the medium to do it that'll actually help people. All right, June. Thank you so much. All right, you have a good one, buddy. You too. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_03 50:53

Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to check out Junaid Ahmed's podcast, Hacks and Hobbies, where he walks through the journeys of entrepreneurs redefining what success looks like. Visit hacksandhobbies.com. And if you're ready to take your home studio to the next level, grab his book, Seven Stages of Home Studio Evolution, at Home Studiomastery.com.

SPEAKER_04 51:16

If you've been listening to this show, you already know the audio quality isn't an accident. Those intros and outros? Created with Eleven Labs. And no, I didn't spend a fortune or waste hours in a studio to get there. 11 Labs gives you access to a massive catalog of professional grade voices. Or you can clone your own. Either way, you get broadcast quality sound that makes your content feel legitimate from the first second. Right now, you can start a free trial and get 10,000 credits for just $11 a month. That's professional level audio production for less than two cups of coffee. Click the link in the show notes and start elevating your creative process today.