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Welcome to "Producify Stories: Unveiling the Art of Storytelling," the podcast that delves deep into the world of storytelling across industries. Join us as we explore how the power of storytelling is harnessed by storytellers, business development professionals, diversity, equity, and inclusion managers, and all other creative minds in the business world.
In each episode, we sit down with inspiring guests from various backgrounds and professions, ranging from renowned storytellers to corporate leaders and content creators. Together, we uncover the fascinating ways storytelling intertwines with their work and industry, shedding light on the art of crafting narratives that captivate, engage, and drive results.
Discover the secrets behind effective storytelling strategies that leave a lasting impact on your audience. Whether you're an aspiring storyteller, a business professional seeking to elevate your communication skills, or simply someone who appreciates the magic of a well-told tale, "Producify Stories" is your go-to source for insightful conversations and valuable insights.
Join us on this journey as we unravel the art of storytelling, one captivating story at a time. Subscribe now and embark on a storytelling adventure that will transform the way you connect, engage, and inspire in your personal and professional life.
Producify (00:00.27)
This is a really fun podcast that we're going to be a part of. We've been doing a lot of content surrounding storytelling, how that fits into whether it's business development, sustainability, DEI, or anything that's sort of crafting your story or your business and how storytelling fits within that. And today, what's really exciting is I have Rob with me. He runs a podcast company and he's going to talk all about...
Podcasting and what we're going to talk about specifically is how storytelling fits into to podcasting Can you give us a little background about yourself? You just asked me an open -ended question. So I will warn you You're gonna have to rein me in because will you talk about yourself is the sweetest thing I've ever heard my podcasting background is probably a little different than people would be accustomed to I Am criminal justice undergrad law school criminal defense attorney
And then podcast producer to law firms, some of the largest in the world, probably a path that is unique to me. And I, I went to law school for probably the wrong reasons and I ended up in practice and it wasn't a good fit for my mental health. I ended up doing a lot of marketing at the firm and never had this idea. I could do this, but I enjoyed it.
And I appreciate you talking, getting open like that and talking about that. Rob and I actually spoke on a con at a conference about a year and a half ago. And, we were discussing video content and podcasting day that you kind of closed your doors, you as an attorney and saying, Hey, I'm doing podcasting. Can you talk a little bit about that? I decided to close down my law office probably in late 17. I was, I was done, done. I didn't know what I was going to do at that point. Like zero idea.
I had a few irons in the fire. I was trying a few different businesses. None of them were making any money, which wasn't that dissimilar to my law firm. And so I made the decision to pick one thing because I had a lot of irons in the fire. And the thing I really did have the most joy around was podcast. But the holdup there was who am I? I just, I didn't believe that I was the person to do that.
Producify (02:21.87)
Like that's somebody who's creative. That's somebody who went to school for business and marketing. There's already people doing that. It was just like my mindset was not where it needed to be. And that was really the biggest holdup was I didn't feel like I was the kind of person that did that, which is nonsense now. I love all the work that you're doing. What I find unique, you focus on legal and it's interesting that you're like, Hey, we've got like some of the largest law firms in the world that I'd imagine is more on like that.
corporate side, but you also focus a lot on trial lawyers and PI firms. There's some similarities and parallels, but once you kind of get into that industry, there's some differences as well. Let's talk a little bit about storytelling in specifically in like the trial lawyers or PI firms and how that fits in with podcasting. Storytelling, we hear it. I feel like at this point in time, it's a criminally abused word.
And I feel like storytelling was one of those chic words that showed up and everyone was using, but it's so, so important to think about when you're telling your message, because I think everybody struggles with this. We want to tell people how great our service is. And a lot of times our service actually is us. We are the service, especially for a smaller firm. And we want people to know here's where we went. Here's where we've been.
Here is our 9 ,000 years of a combined experience and our billions of dollars recovered. All of those things I think are very important, but they're not the star of the show. People aren't there to find out about you. They're there because something bad happened to them. Let's say you're an injury attorney. Something bad happened to them or someone they love and they have a pain point and they want that pain point solved. And we get so wrapped up in being like you should hear about.
my story that we forget to address their story. You know, if you if anybody knows Don Miller story brand, that is maybe the resource to begin with. If you want to understand how to tell your story because you want to remember you are not the hero. You are not Luke Skywalker. You are Obi -Wan or Han Solo. You are there to help them. Who is the hero of the story in your story is important.
Producify (04:47.662)
That's why we get spinoffs. We have the Han Solo story. We got an Obi -Wan show because we care about those characters a lot, but they weren't the main character of the story. Right. And when we are approaching our marketing and we're thinking about storytelling, we want to use our story in such a way that positions ourself as that person that's going to help. We want to speak to their questions. We want to talk to the things that matter to them.
answer their questions while also letting them know why we are uniquely qualified and situated to help them with their journey. Most of the people that you work with specifically are attorneys, correct? They're not marketers. They're not on camera personalities. So how do you get them to like go from, to be Yoda? Yeah. And it can be a challenge. And that is one of the reasons that I am at a position now where I understand so much about.
This angle of it because in the beginning I didn't but I saw a pain point in my business Where I thought I was a production company. I thought I would record the audio edit the audio Draft some written material maybe make some videos and just push that stuff out and That wasn't what a lot of people only needed they I would do all of that and I do an excellent job and the product would still be meh and
That was because they didn't really understand how to position themselves, how to create something of value. And I wasn't providing a lot of feedback in that area as far as here is what we should do, here's how we should do it. I did what I do at every point in my life when I have a problem, I figure out, okay, how do I solve this?
Like what do I do? And I got into it and I loved it. It really resonated with me. It made my clients better. It made my business better. Now, instead of thinking, okay, you want to podcast. Here's how I'm going to execute all the technical side of that. First question I want to know is why, why do you want to podcast? Why are you doing it? Who are you doing it for? What do they want to know? How are you going to explain it? Why are you uniquely qualified to be the person to talk to them about it? And then really importantly, how does this turn into money?
Producify (07:02.51)
because lawyers will show up and they will say, I want a podcast. We'll say, okay, why? Well, people told me that I should have a podcast and I read all these articles. I see that it's really becoming a valuable marketing tool and I want to have a podcast. And so I'll start asking questions instead, cause they'll say, well, how do you do it? What do you do? Tell me how much it costs. And instead of jumping down that rabbit hole, I want to back up and find out why frequently.
I'll get answers. I'm going to make a podcast. They're thinking about Joe Rogan or Brene Brown. I'm going to make a podcast. It's going to be interesting. And people are going to listen to it on Saturday while they're walking the dog or mowing the lawn or going to the gym. And then I'm also going to let them know, Hey, I'm also a lawyer, right? And not that I have anything against that. I think that that can be a monstrously valuable branding tool, but that is a long play.
And it's hard. And I got to tell you, if you are so entertaining that you can get someone who has limitless options of entertainment and information, limitless to use their time to listen to your podcast, then maybe you should consider a different career because you you're onto something there because it's really, really hard. Attention is so valuable.
It's so hard to get. That's all that's all marketing is is trying to get somebody to stop and pay attention. And if you can get somebody to stop and pay attention to something entertainment when you are battling Netflix and stand up comedy and every other podcast on audio book in the world, that's incredible. So that's usually not what you're trying to do because that's hard. It takes a really long time. It takes a lot of.
What people usually want to do is drive business a little bit quicker than that. They want some, you know, content marketing isn't immediate ROI. It's not how it works. You're being the foundation, but they want it sooner than later. We want to drive business. And the way that we'll usually do that is also, what do people want? Why are we doing it? How does it turn into money? What, where are we going to make all of this turnaround and become money? And there are a few ways.
Producify (09:19.79)
that lawyers, but also other people in different industries do this. And one of the most popular ways is the FAQ model. If you're a family law attorney, a PI attorney, something's up, something's bad in somebody's life. That's why they're on your website. They have questions. They have pain points and our marketing, our podcast is a valuable and often evergreen opportunity to answer those questions, to speak directly to the pain point.
The episode title is probably what they Googled before they landed on your web page. And boom, there it is. Can I take half the money in the bank account? Let's talk about that. You answer that question for them. But during that time, you are your personality is coming through because you're not reading a script. That would sound ridiculous. You are the expert. You have been doing this for a long time. You understand this. You have been asked this question from every.
Possible angle you understand the nuances you understand what the follow -up question after you tell them the initial information is so you're ready to answer that too They spend some time with you. They get to know you they get to go know your sense of humor a little bit They get their question answered because they just want to feel better at the end of the day They don't want the kind of client you probably want isn't the kind of person who's gonna listen to all your podcasts and they go Aha, I'm gonna go do this for myself now If somebody does that great, let them do that They'll be back, right?
almost always with a really messed up case. And, but what you want is the kind of person who just wants to feel better about the bad thing. And then once they feel better, you made them feel better. And now we're getting past that friction of picking up the phone, setting the appointment, sitting down, let's talk. And that is one of the most valuable ways. There's a handful of other ways that we can go on and talk about, but that's one of the most valuable ways. And that is we get to that because we're figuring out why we're doing it.
who we're doing it for, what they want to know, why is it us, how does it turn into money? Okay, so if you are not trying to be the next Brene Brown, if it's more of a, hey, we are a business and we want to run a sort of a, we're a legal law firm and we want to run content that is going to attract viewers, you are suggesting that FAQ is one of the best ways that they, that sort of realm or style is the best way for content for them.
Producify (11:46.542)
I think it's one of the best ways and frequently for a smaller firm that, or even, I mean, it's good for any firm, the FAQ model, but it, if you are looking to move revenue a little faster, I think that is one of the most powerful ways to do that because people right this second are on your website and they want to know. And this is content that will answer those questions. You can clip that content up.
and put the short videos on social media so when they're looking at your feeds they see answers to their questions. But there are other strategies that are very powerful as well and one of my favorites is educating referral sources. Is we are creating content so if I'm a lawyer I'm going to create content that other lawyers would want to listen to. I'm the authority in this subject. I've been doing this for some time and I'm going to talk about what I know. I'm going to teach you the things that I know. We have a handful of shows that we sponsor and produce.
that are doing this model of trial or nation elevate trial and medical error. These are all trial or shows that are positioned to educate other lawyers to help them learn about trial techniques. Some of them are about running businesses a little bit. And so these lawyers are listening to these shows. They're getting to know the host like the host trust the host and it's elevating the host status host firm.
positioning themselves as a thought leader in the space this can lead to speaking gigs at conferences when I've had I've had clients that use a lot of their podcast content they'll mind that and put it into really long -form content whether it be long PDFs or books now they've also got a captive audience to sell those books to as well but also hey we have a conference coming up we'd like you to come to our conference and But a lot of these start as a way to network
We're meeting other lawyers by bringing them on the show. We're getting to know lawyers as listeners. Now, when those lawyers have referrals, we want them to send them to us. Hey, we're happy to work with you, bring a co -counsel case to us. And so you can drive your net. You can make your network larger. You can drive revenue in that way as well. That is a model that can take a little bit more work. You've got to be consistent. You've got to constantly deliver value, but it works really well if you commit to it.
Producify (14:10.798)
And then thought leadership is another one. Big firms do this really well when something happens in the world, whether there's a change in the tax code, there's solvency to problems in the EU and whatever's going on legislation right now. I have firms that are doing stuff around the shutdown in the United States government and they are the first people they get on. They talk about it. They can have it out really quickly and they're the first people talking about the things when they come up.
And now people that want to know about those issues know where to turn. They know this is where I'm going to find out about the thing I need to find out about. And that can position you really well. And we have some of the biggest firms that we work with that are getting clients coming in directly because they were podcast listeners. I listened to the podcast, really liked the team and I want to work together. And that's, that's so valuable. And you, you connect it with that person in a way that other forms of marketing are really hard to do.
Because so many forms of business development for lawyers revolve around speaking engagements. You can only be in one room at a time. And you can only speak to a certain number of people. You're at a networking event. You can only talk to so many people at that event, shake so many hands, really have a conversation with so many people. It's very hard, it's very intense, very exhausting.
podcast allows you to speak to an unlimited number of people however big your audience can potentially be some of my shows are getting 300 downloads and that's massive for them massive some are getting 4 ,000 downloads and that's a great number for them and but because the important part is who's listening who is the listener how valuable is the listener to me these FAQs I would imagine are our longer format right well it depends
I get that question all the time. Lawyers say, well, how long should it be? And I love to lawyer them back. Well, it depends. And it really does because if you are answering a question that only requires 10 minutes, it should only be 10 minutes. People are there for information. They're not there for the Joe Rogan experience. They are there to get an answer to their question and move on with their life. They don't care about you. And that's good. That's fine. They don't need them to care about us. We need them.
Producify (16:27.662)
to get questions, to get answers to their questions. We need them to feel better and then associate us with that feeling of feeling better. There's so much in that realm with FAQ. We used to work with a firm that, I mean, basically all they, these weren't podcasts. This was like 10 years ago. It was a lot of YouTube content, but they would create these long format FAQ videos about specific topics that were specific to their industry.
At the same time, there would be all these companies that were producing these like 10 second FAQs that somebody would put on their site that was really the only purpose of it was for SEO purposes. And it was garbage content. You know, it was like five seconds or maybe 20 seconds of an FAQ, but it really didn't have all the other things that you just went into.
which builds on storytelling, which it didn't show their mannerisms. It didn't show their personalities. It didn't show any background or who they are or their expertise. It was just like, basically, you're frequently asked question. You got to call an attorney. It wasn't good storytelling. It wasn't authentic. And I love what you all are doing with the way you're handling it with podcasts, but it's not all video. It's funny. You mentioned, and I don't know if I'm butchering it, but something about like audio first. So like.
You're going to kind of explain that a little bit better than me, but what do you mean by that? We are thinking first and foremost about the audio product. We have a webcam and almost every client we work with from three attorney shops to 5 ,000 employees, we're shooting with a webcam. The video is with the webcam that they have on their computer. We're not overthinking it. We're not getting really complicated with multi -camera setups because at the end of the day, the lawyers are busy.
They want to create marketing, but they also want to do it really quickly without a ton of time and energy. And when it gets scheduled, sit down, have a conversation and go back to practicing law. You know, I understand that really well. And so I have been meticulous about creating a product that is as valuable as it can possibly be. And that value is in the content being good and in it driving whatever our metric is that we want to drive. But a part of that value has to be.
Producify (18:49.23)
easy when somebody's working with us and or even if they just ask me a question at a cocktail party, I tell them, get a USB microphone, get a dynamic USB microphone. It plugs right into your computer. You're going to sound almost indistinguishable from the way I sound right now with a much more expensive setup. And you're going to use your webcam. Maybe you get a ring light, whatever. Don't sit with a window behind you, but it doesn't have to be complicated. Don't overthink it and just make the content.
That ends up being really easy because everything, the whole setup can fit in a box like this big. I have lawyers that are frequently in hotel rooms on other continents and they travel with their rig because it's tiny, it fits right in their suitcase and they're not overthinking it. They're just making the content and they're thinking about the audio first. And the reason that we do that is because most people and our metrics bear this out for every show that we have. Most people are listening. I would say.
At least 70 % are going to consume the content on a podcast app or in some type of audio form. And so we're thinking, let's settle down. Let's get this story out and let's move on. But also because we're just using a webcam and a really basic setup, we're not overcomplicating it. We're not bringing in a makeup team for every time we try to film. There's not a bunch of big bright lights and which cuts down on the cost significantly.
Not that there's not a time and place for that, but when you're trying to get out something weekly or twice a month, that is a huge burden. And I don't think it necessarily will prove itself out to be good, but it also has the unintended consequence of making the whole thing feel like a much bigger production. And when it feels like a bigger production, there's more stress and you see it. I know you do a lot of video and it can be hard to get someone settled.
Because that's what we want. Because when we're making content, one of the most important things that I want is relatability. Relatability is so much more important than having that light just positioned so the shadows aren't wrong. For instance, you talked about whether you're creating content weekly or twice a month, and we're definitely going to talk about that a little bit later. I know from just talking with you that's really critical in...
Producify (21:11.118)
anticipation with your audience and whatnot. But you also talked about a little bit in depth about like the storytelling. What are some challenges you face when creating stories? People are, their attention is fractured. And if you make them wait or they have this moment of like, eh, I don't know what I'm doing here. It's bam. It takes them that long to, to leave and never come back. And so here is value statement. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to go right to the thing.
Now, once you've got them hooked there, they know what they're going to get, they understand. Now we're weaving in things. And for lawyers, one of the best ways that you can do that is tell stories about your practice, tell stories about cases you've had, make it real, tie in the things that you're discussing with real life examples, because that does a few things. It helps them understand who you are a little bit better. You're telling stories about things you've actually done, but it also establishes your credibility. It tells them that you've been there before.
You understand this problem deeply and you've come out on the other side for a lot of other people successfully. And that's what they want. They want to know that this thing, this problem that you can take it from them and using your stories in a way to drive that home for them can be really valuable. But also one -off comments that let somebody understand who you are a little bit. You played golf this weekend, just you're peppering these things in.
to the podcast itself instead of front loading it with a bunch of stuff about you. And that is, I mean, this is, we could, I'll go on forever if you let me on the subject, but that is one of the ways that lawyers can leverage storytelling without driving people away by front loading your content too much, by thinking too much about, well, let me talk about all of this instead weaving who you are because you're a lawyer.
You work on these kinds of cases. You have thousands of stories that relate to every possible topic you can talk about. We don't really care about so much your bio or we don't want to know about your title as much. We just want to get in sort of the fact and then you can weave in after you've already given some some value. Maybe you can talk a little bit about yourself. Is that sort of where you're going? Or am I off? No, I think you nailed it. I think if you do it right, you shouldn't have to tell them any of that.
Producify (23:37.71)
You shouldn't have to tell them your title or your bio because a lot of that came out. My sense for content is you are demonstrating authority through your discussions, through addressing problems, not by showing a big long list of accomplishments and how many times super lawyers said that you were X, Y, Z. It's not to discredit any of the types of awards. I think that we might think people care more about those awards than they do. So what should they be doing?
I will preface it by there's going to be other voices in the room on this. I welcome those. I love to learn from people who have different angles than me, but I'm pretty good at what I do. One of the things that I've learned is I have a good sense for things that work and things that don't. When you come right out and you're just like, call us, call us, call us. People know they're being sold to and they feel that. But to circle back to the original question, I think your content should give whatever the pain point is. I think your content should be giving to that.
And for me, a lot of times the ask is implied. I know why you're here. You're here because you have a problem. You know that I solved that problem. But when somebody hears you speak one time and the story you tell resonates with them, the way that you craft something, something about you strikes them that sticks. That is something like they want to now do business with you. Even if they don't have a problem right now, they are going to remember that a little bit better.
than just another ad saying, have you been injured in a car accident? If you're looking to make, get the most value out of content like this, where people are having conversations, people are listening, they're getting answers, I think that going right for the ask all the time is gonna do you a disservice. It just depends on the medium. Depending on if you have a billboard ad, if you have a Super Bowl.
TV commercial, depending on how you're delivering that, it's going to be crafted a little bit different. And I think the way you're crafting with podcasts is that value, right? And not the hard sell. Our first thing when we're creating, whether it's a documentary or it's a video for a corporation, it always starts with, well, you know, who's the audience? And then how are we going to script that? We don't usually do, I come from a documentary background, so.
Producify (25:55.342)
I don't like to script anything. I like everything to be sort of Q &A and we're going to get the script from the transcripts. And that's how we're going to like piece it together. We are sort of almost reverse engineering it in a way where we're going to have these discovery calls on who that buyer persona is, who it is that we're looking at the target. And then we're going to sort of craft those stories around that so that we can get those non -selling warm conversations going.
Like how do you guys do it? The last thing I ever want to see is a word for word script anywhere. I hate scripts. What I like are outlines. Here's an outline of what we're going to discuss. And with just a word, I think one word, because we're talking about things that we understand deeply. We're the expert. That's why we're talking about them right now. I have the only things I can see in front of me right now are there's you, there's me. That's it. My other screens are off.
because I don't want to be distracted by anything. I don't, I know what I'm talking about. Now that doesn't mean that every now and again, I take a second. I've got to think about how I'm going to respond. You asked me a novel question that I may not have thought about that much yet. And so I'm talking in real time and the beauty of this medium is we're not live right now. If we end up going somewhere that we don't like and it just doesn't work and eh, let's cut it. It never existed. And that's.
That's the beauty of it. And so that's why I really encourage our clients. Like let's let's create an outline. I want to talk about because we talked about it earlier, whether you should be doing weekly, monthly, daily. You just mentioned live as well. So there's there's a couple of different things we can go into. What I find interesting about podcasts is that it's not just the story of the podcast that you're watching. Podcasts become a series. It's almost like a Netflix series, if you will. One of my favorite podcasters is Peter Ritea. His podcast isn't always just
the topic at hand. It's the plethora of content that he's got on the behind it, if I maybe missed an episode or two, or the other ones that are coming forward. In regards to storytelling, I look at it like it's not just that one video that's or podcast that's an hour long or 30 minutes or whatever your timeframe is. It's the ones before it and it's the ones after it. Am I right on that? Is that how you sort of work when you're crafting with clients on telling? Because it's not just one story. It's like that whole.
Producify (28:19.63)
their library. I'll say it comes back to that same question of why are we doing it? Who are we doing it for? Because it changes the way that I want to present information changes based on who that listener is and why they're there. If I am making content for a referral source, if I'm a trial lawyer creating content about trial, I, my whole intention here is to accumulate regular listeners who are subscribed to my podcast.
who are going to listen to every episode, who are going to discover my podcast tomorrow, and then dig into the back catalog. They want to know all the things. They want to learn. Every episode is potentially for them. That. Now when we're telling stories and we are presenting our information, we're doing it in a way where there can be a theme to it. You're learning a little bit about me here, a little bit about me there. And that's so much different than the FAQ model.
because the FAQ model is there's a pain point. They want to get an answer and they want just enough information to get them over that hump to pick up the phone. They don't have time to waste. The reason they're there is different and you don't have to get to the point so quick. People are going to listen to a lot of episodes, but with your FAQ podcast, people aren't going to listen to that many. They're not going to be subscribing to your podcast to see what you think.
about different issues that are FAQ. They're just going to listen to enough. So the referral lawyers, right? So it's a lawyer that's looking for basically they're creating content for other other lawyers. And then you've got your FAQ, right? And that's probably a little different, right? Creating content specifically for like, like you said, something's wrong.
and I need to call somebody. Can they bridge those? You know who does it really well? It's different though. They're not legal. The Freakonomics, where they'll just say, hey, this month we're gonna focus on inflation. Next month we're gonna focus on education. The month after that, we're gonna focus on, you know, XYZ. So can a lawyer do that as far as, hey, this month is just gonna be referral or would he or she like just destroy their FAQ sort of...
Producify (30:31.502)
No, I don't think you're going to destroy it. You have to be more careful about what you're doing with your content when you have subscribers. Michael Cowan at trial or nation is never going to put FAQ stuff on his trial or nation podcast. And his listeners would go, why are you talking about what I should do after? I, what, what? They would be very confused. They would think he had done something wrong and cause that's not what they're there for. Now, if I have a podcast that is mainly FAQ stuff,
I have clients that do this. They will do some FAQ stuff, a good bit, but they'll also interview other lawyers about things that they've been dealing with, certain political issues that will matter to the area of law that they practice. And that's all on the same feed. I don't think there's as much danger there because they haven't built a feed that they're looking to get regular subscribers on. They're not looking for people to want to listen to this all the time. They'll bring on a lawyer from another jurisdiction, have a conversation with that lawyer.
And now that lawyer is added to their network. They just spent 30 or 40 minutes, maybe getting to know that person on the microphone in real time. And that's a criminally undervalued part of having a podcast is that ability to network with other people, to bring people on, get to know them in a way that might be really hard. If you were just like, Hey, lawyer who's tried all these big cases, I would love to get 30 minutes of your time. Well, yeah, everybody would go away. But when you offer them a platform, you offer them something of value.
Give us a microphone and some self promotion. Love it. So you can use a podcast feed like that software. And I know in regards to like what you all do, software is like such a broad term, right? We can talk about editing, audio, lighting, scripting, whatever. But I actually wanted to talk more about what do you recommend as far as somebody is going to do a podcast? Like there's what does it transcends? There's a few different like, like, and I don't know all of them. So, you know,
Please enlighten us, Rob. Sure. No, that's a good question. That's the technical side of it that I think a lot of people struggle with is, okay, I recorded this piece of audio. What do I do with it? How do I make it go to all the places? And I think the natural idea is, okay, I gotta go to Apple. I gotta get it there. I gotta go to Spotify. I gotta get it there. It's not like that at all. It's actually much simpler, might not be the right word, but more streamlined once you figure it out is you want a podcast host. You want a place that you can upload that audio file.
Producify (32:54.414)
Put your show notes, put all of the information about that episode and then hit publish. And what you do with that podcast host is you upload it there and then you take that little feed. It's just a URL and you submit that one time when you launch your show, you submit that feed to Apple, you submit it to Spotify, you submit it everywhere. It's annoying because everywhere you submit it is slightly different in the way that they are going to ingest it in the time it takes to ingest it. And so launching a podcast can be very different.
than launching a lot of other campaigns because there are places that you don't get to tell them, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to give you this feed, but, but wait till Friday morning at three. No, it's just going to go live when it goes live. I mean, Apple, it hasn't been that long since Apple changed and Apple's approval process was super Apple like where it would be in 12 hours or seven days or 10 days or two and a half days.
And there was no rhyme or reason, you never had no idea how long it was going to take. And it went live when it went live and it didn't matter. There's still a number of services like that. Spotify is one of the few that within minutes, usually of submitting your live, but it gives you that ability to put it all in one place. And then you submit that feed to all these different places. And then when you hit publish, you upload a new episode, whether it's episode one or episode 30 and each of these different platforms. Every so often.
looks at the feed and they see if there's anything new there. And when they see something new, they go, aha, and they pull it in. That's how an episode ends up on Apple. You don't go to Apple each time you upload it in one place. You hit publish or schedule, and then it releases to those feeds. And it'll, you know, when we first start working with a client, one of the most frequent emails we get, which is why we address it upfront, they'll say it's on Spotify, but it's not on Apple. What's happening? What's broken? I understand you think something's wrong, but different feeds.
are gonna scrub at different times. That's why a little tip that I'll give people that can be really helpful to solve that problem is just release it a couple hours before people wake up. Is there one podcast host that you like better than the other or it doesn't matter? Are you agnostic? I spend a lot of time, Captivate .fm. One of the main reasons I really like to push them is I believe in their product. Mark and Kieran have been in the podcast world. I met them at one of my very first podcast events back in like 17.
Producify (35:20.334)
And they, this is before this product even existed. I think they had podcast websites at the time was their product and they saw a need in the market. They saw podcast hosting as an area that needed improvement. Cap of eight came in and they addressed it like a tech company would address it. They would say, how can we make this easy? How can we make it work? But also how can we constantly be thinking about ways to make it better? How can we listen and not just add features that we think are cool, add features that actually add value. And so we tested a lot.
and landed there. Can I upload the video and it'll send that audio and video file to Spotify, Apple, etc. Or do I have to upload the video directly to each one of those? That is an issue that is still getting ironed out. Most podcast hosts do not support video. And because most podcast platforms do not support video yet, Spotify is pushing video.
And but the way to upload video to Spotify is to do it through what used to be called Anchor is now called Spotify for podcasters. And so you would go there and really have a separate feed. You have a separate feed with Spotify for podcasters. That was also your video. And that way somebody can listen to your podcast. Like Joe Rogan's a really good example, probably the most famous example. If you go to Spotify and you go to one of his episodes, you can hit play and you can watch that video, but you can also close your screen, put it in your pocket.
And now you're listening to a podcast, but it's the same. And, but you couldn't go to captivate and upload your video and make that just work wherever they support video. So that is a, it's a bit of a complicated problem right now. There are people trying to solve it. Spotify is one of them. YouTube is right now. YouTube is supporting. You upload your video there to it like a regular YouTube video. And that's what we do. You upload your video.
And then you put it on a playlist and you mark that playlist as a podcast. Captivate is like an absolute lifesaver if you need to be at like, you know, there's a there's a whole bunch of like like podcast platforms. So so you obviously want to be there. But then if you're going to get in doubt, dip into, hey, I want my video to be on Spotify, go directly to Spotify and then YouTube's YouTube. Should somebody be doing a podcast? And I mean, general, because I know you can go into it deep, but.
Producify (37:41.838)
Should they set up once a month, once a week, bi -weekly, live? Like where does somebody, like what's optimal? Where does somebody start? Yeah, I mean, I'll hammer this point again. Why are you doing it? Who are you doing it for? That is the first question because if we're doing it for subscribers, regular content, we've got to have regular content on a schedule. We want to build a habit with that person. They know on the morning of the 15th.
And the morning of the 30th, they're always going to spend some time with you. That's part of their life. You want to be a part of their habit. And if you start to break that for them, they might not really recognize it at first, but they'll find a new habit. So that can be really catastrophic to miss your marks on that. When it comes to creating content for the FAQ model, I don't think you necessarily have to release it on a schedule. The best thing about a schedule is it keeps you consistent because when we are making content, we're making content because it converts.
because it helps us with our conversions. It helps nurture the lead in the funnel. It looks like what you work with your clients directly on is like audience metric. You're looking at, well, who are the subscribers? Is it other attorneys or is it people that have slip and fall cases? So how do you do it? You're always going to get your numbers. You're going to see how many unique downloads you have. And that, and when I say unique downloads, that's a separate, a distinct device that is downloading that unique listeners.
That is a metric for a podcast that has some returning subscribers where people are subscribing to the show and they're coming back frequently. When I say unique, that means now somebody might listen on one app and then might listen on the computer. That's unique. There might there's some overlap there, but generally it's a different person. Now are they are you getting some of those metrics from Captivate or are you using something different? Yeah, Captivate provides some pretty robust metrics. We can find out downloads, unique downloads, whether they listened on Apple, Spotify.
Google Chrome, find out where they listen. But we can also get very granular to location. We can see what, what country they listen from. We can see what state we can see cities that they listen from. And that information can be really valuable. We can do episodes, compare episodes against each other, which episodes did better in the first 30 days for a subscriber show. That can be really valuable. Do you recommend that they edit their podcast down? Do they just kind of shoot it live to?
Producify (40:01.934)
Like it's not live, but it's almost it's basically a live recording where there's very little cutting or when you're doing these like FAQ stories, is it a lot of like piecing things together to get that story? It depends. If editing it, if editing it is going to stop you from publishing it, then I think you shouldn't edit it as long as it's serviceable. You know, I mean, everybody can sometimes be their harshest critics. Some people maybe aren't harsh enough on themselves. But that said, I'm a podcaster.
I have an agency that makes podcasts and we really care about the work that we do. So to me, everything's edited. We edit everything. And not only do we edit it, we're audio engineering it as well. We want to bring it down any background noise. If we've got a guest that is in a busy location with a lot of chatter, we're going to mute them anytime they're not speaking. So they're not distracting the entire episode. And if they have a
dings in the background, we're going to do everything we can to make the listening experience a little bit better, to make the content shine a little bit more because everybody's making content and anything that I can do to make the listening or viewing experience better is something I'm going to try to do, but it's always going to be within reason. I'm not going to spend a week editing an episode. That would be crazy. I would rather make five more episodes and spend less time editing them because the content's what matters.
getting information out there in a way that people get value from it. Most of the value is in the content. It is not in the presentation. It sounds like it could be catastrophic to the story to an extent with like bad audio or dings or sort of distractions. If it gets to a point where it is taking front and center where all I can hear is construction noise. All I can hear is a jackhammer. All I can hear is the computer fan.
That's a real bad one is people will not have an external mic and I get it not everybody's a podcaster But if you're trying to make a podcast if you're the host of the podcast you can buy a $60 microphone the Samsung q2u should be around 60 bucks and It'll sit right on your desk. It plugs with a USB cord right into your computer. Boom Now you have an external mic that's gonna sound really good and it's so easy such a low barrier to entry to make that happen But if you're on your computer
Producify (42:24.814)
your laptop, especially if it's got a year or two under it and you're running some intensive programs, programs like the one we're using Riverside here can be kind of intensive on your computer and your fan will start running. And that fan is right beside the microphone on the laptop. And so now it doesn't sound that loud to you, but it's going into the microphone. It sounds like a jet engine and that can be catastrophic.
to the end product. It can be almost impossible to do anything good with that because the audio that went in is so just destroyed. Yeah, no, I agree. It really can can cause some issues. You know what I've been messing around with? I don't know if you've messed with it. It's a it's a piece of AI, but it's Adobe podcaster. And it's pretty ridiculous. But like going back to your statement. Well, anyway, it's pretty ridiculous about what
what it can do with some really bad audio. I mean, it's moving quick. I will say it's time to embrace AI. There's a lot of people in the creative space. I work alongside a lot of other agencies and creatives that really don't want this to happen. They are scared. they're scared. And I get it. It changes the game. There's things happening. Adobe Podcast. I work with people who are very worried that...
Adobe podcast is going to put them out of a job instead of facing the problem and understanding how do I fit into this potential new world. They want to tell you all the reasons that they are better than the AI, why the AI is trash and it's not there and they don't want to work with it. And those are the people who are going to have their lunch.
It's all fascinating. It's all amazing. I can understand how it can be scary. You know, anything else like that we didn't really go over in regards to like podcasts and storytelling. I mean, we you kind of went through everything on the types of software you might want to use, how you should craft it, who your audience is, sounds like is really, really important. Focus on the content. Focus on what you are trying to communicate, the problem that you are trying to solve. Why are you doing it? Who are you doing it for?
Producify (44:40.814)
And if you are nailing those, the rest of it really is details. There's always going to be a little thing that you can change to make it look a little better, sound a little better, but that's not the most important thing. The most important thing is speaking to the reason that somebody showed up in the first place and go from there. Make sure that your content is strong. For me, that's the biggest thing. If you're doing that, you are going to have almost a hard time not being successful with it.
Thanks a lot, Rob. I really appreciate it. This was like so much fun. Dude, it's my pleasure. I spend so much time helping people be on the microphone themselves that anytime I actually get to be on the microphone is a joy.