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Branding is a powerful tool that creates lasting impressions on individuals. Although people may only see ads and logos, creating a successful brand takes time, effort, and creativity. We Built This Brand is a podcast that delves into the process of building a brand by interviewing founders, marketers, and creators who have successfully created powerful brands. Through this podcast, listeners will gain practical applications and a better appreciation for the brands they encounter every day.
Taylar: Truly, you get to see the growth, and it is a friendship that we have with our listeners and our besties because they made Creeps and Crimes by listening and by sharing and by talking about us and by forcing their co workers to listen to us while they do things.
Chris: Welcome to We Built This Brand. Today, I join you from a creepier site than normal. I figured this was appropriate for recording the interview we're about to do. Behind me sits an old, dilapidated building. Welcome But I thought it was appropriate to stop by kind of a creepier, crimier looking place because, well That's the podcast we're doing today. The Creeps and Crimes Podcast with Taylar Fetzner.
We're going to be talking about everything from how she got her start in podcasting to where her podcast is today and everything she's done along the way to grow it, the marketing, the branding, the strategy she's used, how she's managed to monetize the podcast, the way she's connected and built a community.
I mean, this, this is such a wealth of information. And for those of you who are interested in creating podcasts or using your podcast as its own brand, this episode is going to be for you. Taylar was a great guest. I loved having her on. We talked for quite a while. In fact, the interview ended up running, I think, a total of about two hours.
Now we've cut the episode down, so you're not going to get to see every little bit of the episode. But if you'll go to YouTube, we're going to have some additional bonus clips on there as we go. So you can learn a little bit more about Taylar and her background and what makes her show so unique. But for now, um, this is too bright and shiny for a podcast about the paranormal and murder.
We need it darker, stormier. Um, Zwick, my editor, if you could please like, make it kind of dark, put some lighting effects in, make it stormy right now, that'd be great. And now, it's time for my interview with Taylar Fetzner of Creeps and Crimes Podcast.
Welcome to We Built This Brand. Today, I'm joined by Taylar Fetzner.
Taylar: Hi, I'm so excited to
Chris: be here. Taylar, we're happy to have you. Of course. And today we're here to talk about the, well, the Creeps and Crimes podcast. We're in the studio where it happens, where you do these recordings and have the interviews, and I think it's pretty cool.
You know, Knoxville has A burgeoning podcast scene. And it's really cool to be able to talk to someone who has managed to grow quite a successful show. And I'm just here today to talk to you about that and how you got your start. So yeah, let's dive into it.
Taylar: Yeah, of course. So this is a Creeps and Crimes studio.
We do at home studios because it just makes more sense for us. And because of what the foundation of the podcast is. was. But we started the podcast, and when I say we, it's me and my best friend, my former college roommate, Morgan Mounts. She is the creeps to my crimes. She is our creepy girl. I'm the crimey girl.
But we lived together in college, and we had, we both went to the University of Tennessee. We were both in the same sorority, and that's how we met. And at first, we kind of weren't friends. We were more each other's competition because we did all the dance things together, all the cheer things together.
And, um, We decided our second year that we were going to coach together. And the way that came about was over a great handmade funnel for tequila and a cabin party in Gatlinburg. And I pulled her up onto the island with me and I was like, We're going to be best friends and we're going to coach together and this is what we're going to do.
And she was like, okay, and we did it. And that's exactly what happened. So our junior year of college, we moved in together and that led to us staying up every night until three in the morning. Well, after our other roommates went to bed and watching Shane Dawson documentary, like YouTube videos, watching scary documentaries, all this.
Terrifying haunting of Hill House that came out. I mean, everything that you can imagine from conspiracy, paranormal, true crime, we would stay up all night and discuss cases after cases and just dive into it until we looked at the clock and we're like, Oh my God, we have classes in like three hours. We need to go to bed.
So we would just down bottles of wine while we did this and we decided like, you know, when we moved out and we graduated and I got married and she was moving back to Pennsylvania where she's from, she moved back for two weeks and then she called me and was like, I'm moving back. Um, me and my fiancee, we're coming down.
We're gonna put our roots down in Knoxville. We miss it. And so she moved back and she was back for like a week when I called her and I was like, all right, remember back in 2019 when I ordered that. Podcasting mic because I was obsessed with and that's why we drink podcast. And she was like, yeah, I do.
And I was like, well, I ordered another one. I'm starting a podcast and I want you to do it with me because I want it to be our 3am talks. And she was like, hell yeah, I'm in. That's literally what her text message said. So we, that was, I think, September 19th. We just started brainstorming. We went through a million.
I have the original notebook of us shopping all the different names and brands and colors and then we take it to Canva and create these designs and say like, okay, what do we feel about this? And we didn't know exactly where our topic was going to land or how we were going to make it different from other podcasts.
But the one thing about it was that. We knew that it was going to be paranormal conspiracy and true crime. She was going to take over the conspiracy paranormal because that's totally her thing and true crime was mine. I can research it. I can dig deep into it. I can investigate. I'm not scared of phone calls and I can make those calls.
And so we decided like, all right, that's how we're going to do it. But what is going to be a topic? Are we going to do all of the above? Which is what we ended up doing. Or are we going to center it on something like college campuses? Are we going to center it on historic cities and, you know, where there's history, there's hauntings and all that type of, uh, all these different types of ways that we were going to go about it.
And then we decided, like, the thing that makes, you know, Our relationship, what it is, is the chaoticness of it. So we were like, let's just make it an umbrella. Let's name it Creeps and Crimes, because I was shocked that I couldn't find anyone who was an active podcast using that. And we put the name on. We originally started off with it being like red and dark because we thought we're going to be scary.
And no, we were not scary. We just talk about it like you would with your friends at 3 a. m. in your living room of your college apartment. And we We made that our brand. Like this is how you would talk to your friend if you found out some piping hot goss and called her and like ranted about it forever.
And that's kind of where we landed with it. So like I said, that was September 19th and we launched the podcast on October 1st, 2020. So just weeks later. We recorded, we Googled, how do you record a podcast? We Googled, how do you fix microphones? How do you do, uh, two microphones into one computer and make them both record?
That was a whole thing learning about aggregated devices or whatever they're called. And we watched like a million YouTube videos doing it. At the time I was working full time in my career of sports. She was babysitting full time and then working like two other jobs. So we would get these recordings done on.
At the latest, Wednesday nights at nine o'clock at night, record until three in the morning and just immediately drop it. Do a little bit of editing, barely, and put it out. And for the first year and a half, we knew no one was going to listen to it other than our moms and our friends that we forced to.
And, uh, I don't really know when it, how, why we started doing this, but the thing was, when we, from episode one, we kept saying, like, go into this recording like we have a million subscribers and act like it and talk like we do. So we would get on there and manifest it essentially by being like, hey, we wanted to welcome our one millionth listener.
So and so, like Joe Schmo, and we would do all of this craziness and we would sell merch when no one was listening to us , and we would give it away to people to wear that were like our friends that were going on trips. Mm. We were like, Hey, if you're going to the airport, wear this. And so we'd give them their, our, our sweatshirts that we made to wear and.
We just started anytime we go to out to eat, we go to bars, we go to restaurants, we would talk to our waiter and our bartenders and be like, Hey, we subscribed to our podcast and make them subscribe right there. And we'd like, we'll give you a hundred dollar tip. If you will literally just get on your phone right now and subscribe and listen for 10 seconds and people did.
And after a little bit, of this Delulu, that's truly what it was, was straight up delusion. In October of 2021, I, up until this point, I was out of my former career in sports, and my husband told me like, hey, take a year. Do what you need to invest into your podcast and figure out who you are, what you want to do, how you want to, you know, move on with work and how you want to work.
Because I had worked every day since I was 15 years old. I love working. It's one of my favorite things to do. I come from a dad who's an entrepreneur and a salesman and works in marketing. And so I have that drive in me. And I want to build things from my mind like my dad has. So I just, Went full out with it.
At first, I tried on TikTok to do vlogging, vlogging. This is a day in the life of a True Crime Podcaster. And I started them all, all off like that. I did it every day. I went live in the morning once I got a thousand followers. And then one day, It was January, I think, 18th, 2022, after two months of doing these Day in the Lives and them not going anywhere.
I was in the Fresh Market parking lot here in Bearden, and I had just gone to Petro's because I was having a hard time. That type of day. I was so down bad. I was so depressed. I just felt like that was my one year mark, and I still hadn't made anything yet, and I was so down on myself. But I was going to make a dinner, and I was like, just go cook, and I'll make you happy.
So I was going there to pick up like a little meal, and do something, and make something that's good, and um, I had the orange tea. And I was sipping on it and I was listening to a podcast and they were talking about the Gabby Petito case. And I am someone who doesn't report on active cases. Um, it's an ethical thing for me.
We don't know what's coming out. We don't know what the full story is. Who am I to, if I need to be an advocate, I absolutely will. No matter what. However, I'm not going to give an entire episode on something that we don't know the full truth about until the court documents come out. Right. So people were talking about the Gabby Petito case as it was unfolding, and it was really bothering me, the narratives that were going out, because we know how good the media can be for true crime cases.
However, it can also be detrimental. Because then you have biased juries, you have people, you can't find people who don't have an opinion about the case, and also you have these preconceived ideas about people whenever We have, we don't know the truth. Right. So there was a really big content creator that had made this video with a lot of speculation in it that people were taking as fact and it really upset me.
But as I was listening, I was more angry about how some people in the case were handling other people in the case, people that should have been leaning on each other and how negative that looked To the public and how they need a PR team. So in the Fresh Market parking lot, took a big swig of my orange tea, set it down and set up my phone, just started recording.
And I just talked about it and then I posted it and I didn't think anything about it. I put my phone in my back pocket. I walked in the Fresh Market, got my stuff. Went home, cooked it, got ready for bed, was chilling by my, like, fireplace, and my friend calls me and she's like, dude, have you been on TikTok?
And I was like, no, what's going on? And she's like, your TikTok is viral. I was like, what? Like, how viral? Like, is it like fake viral or is it like big viral? And she was like, no, it's like big viral. You need to get on there. And I get on there and I just started I was panicked, but I googled, what do you do when you have a TikTok that goes viral?
And I sat there for like 20 minutes and I watched every YouTube video. I read every article that I could about it, the algorithm and how it works. And I realized that what I needed to do right then was respond to every single comment. There was hundreds at this point. So I spent like two hours going through and commenting back to everyone and giving like opinions and having conversations, which took Threw my engagement up and then it was getting spread further and further and further and people started sending it.
So then my engagement went up again and then the next morning I woke up and I went into my notes from cases because at the point, at this point, like I said, it was January 2022. We started the podcast in October of 2020 and we don't miss a Thursday. We have never missed a Thursday since we started. It's kind of like, you know, when you have attendance records and it's like your entire like value as a child,
Chris: you've got the gold star.
Taylar: I have the gold star and I cannot let the gold star go. So I, I refuse to miss a Thursday. And I have, that meant that I had. An arsenal behind me of all this, all this research and all these notes and scripts from the cases I had done on the podcast, which would be a way for me to promote the podcast. So then I started making two videos a day, that of me telling the cases I've already covered and saying, you know, I talked about this on episode of Creeps and Crimes podcast.
And. Out of nowhere, that night, the next morning, we woke up and our podcast was thrown on the charts on Apple and on Spotify. And that had never happened. Like I said, we had a hundred downloads for every episode. And it just went from a hundred, and I was totally good with that, to it being thousands and thousands overnight.
And We, I just kept doing it. I kept posting. I kept going live. We kept the small town podcast feel of it because that's what it is. It's your best friends. We call them our besties and our listeners and we DM everyone back that we can. Now it's a lot harder because Got a lot more people. Got a lot more people, but we try to keep that relationship with them.
Like, you are on the phone with your best friend, and it's our weekly calls on Thursdays of us catching everybody up because we spend the first, you know, should be 10, but sometimes it turns into 20, uh, of an intro just chit chatting about our lives. And we catch everybody up on our lives and then we're still kind of laughing after we say, let's get creepy.
That's our little intro and then we get into Morgan's case because those are typically a little bit more fun. It's a haunting. It's a conspiracy and we like to let our minds go way off into, you know, non existent thoughts and everything when we cover cases like that because I mean Two things can be true in everything.
There, there's truth where there's smoke, there's fire. Right. So we like to, you know, let ourselves go there, but by the end of it, we've completely debunked everything without, you know, being disrespectful, especially to spirits. That's something we're very strict about, um, because we are very spiritual people and We record in my home, so I'm not going to talk badly about any spirit that we bring on to the podcast because I don't want them to throw my laundry
around.
Chris: You mentioned when you started the podcast that the colors you picked were like red and black and kind of murdery.
Taylar: Yeah.
Chris: Um, but. I see pink. I see neon signs. It's cute, and I love the aesthetic, but like, where, where along the way did you make that decision to, to change and be more girly? Yeah. Um, cutesy as opposed to just dark and dreary like a lot of podcasts
on True Crime are.
Taylar: So, when we actually made the first logo, and listeners, you probably aren't going to be able to see this, but Chris can behind him. The tan one that we started off with, and these, if you are interested in seeing them, they're all on our website in order of what we made them, um, which is www.
creepsandcrimespodcast. com. And I believe it's on the second page. If you scroll down, you can go through the evolution of our logo. But we started off with one that's got like knives and a Uh, a planchette for a Ouija board and black cats and wine and spilled blood and all that. And then we were like, you know, it's kind of unethical.
Like we don't need to really have that in our logo. So we took it off before. That was what the first episode went out with. And then the next day after we released it, I was like, Uh, I don't like the look of that. So then I changed it to the one behind me with the red and the trees and all the things.
And we kept that one for a little longer than we did the first one. But about, I'd say about 15 episodes in, we realized like, we're not going to be scary. This isn't gonna work. We can't be scary because we're not scary people. Um, we're more like, let's laugh about that, but also cry about it a little bit because it's so creepy, talking about like paranormal stuff.
But then also the more that, because being a true crime creator of any type is very, very, very, eye opening from where you start off because there is this culture, and especially during 2020, there was this culture of like, oh, true crime, and you know, wine, and watching it on TV, and oh my god, let's have a true crime party.
What's your favorite true crime case? Like, that sounds awful saying that out loud, and you don't really realize that until you're in it, and you're telling these cases, and you're working with families of victims, and Once I got there, because that's my passion, my passion is justice, and once we got into it and we started meeting people and working with people and I learned how to research and get access to autopsy reports and having to read about these people and how they're Life's ended.
It really made it clear to me like this is something that when I do, I want to have the energy behind it. Like when I'm covering this case, I want to have the energy behind it. Like I'm being serious, you know, when we're working on these cases and I want to make sure that I have the energy behind me.
When I'm telling this case to make sure that you know when you're listening that this is something I don't approve of. This is something that these investigators should have done differently and should have known better to do differently. And why were they not giving this case the time of day and being really hardcore about it?
Like, I don't want to play around when I'm talking about someone's family member who lost their life to senseless violence. and wasn't taken seriously, or this was a missing person, but oh, we have to wait 48 hours. Well, if you would have searched after the parents who try to convince you that this is not like their child, you probably would have been able, if you put the manpower behind it, to help them in some way.
And it truly became like more advocacy for us, and we realized like we don't want blood on our stuff. When we're marketing it, because that would be triggering for someone's family member who saw that. And so we decided like, let's take it to what we are because the logo, I mean, the name itself tells you exactly what you're coming for.
You're coming for creeps and crimes. And whatever you interpret that as, don't worry, it's going to be on there, you know? And so we decided like, it says enough, just the name. We can make it. It reflect who we are and how we host. So we decided to make it pink and purple. We decided to make it more fun. We decided to make it look like how our intro feels because that's how we bring you into it.
We're your friends and you wouldn't ever send your best friend like red, scary, dark forest that you're walking through. Like if you're describing your best friend, I mean, of course, unless they were just like some hot goth chick. But like, if it's like you're describing like who me and Morgan are, it's going to be pink and purple.
And then also like, Black behind it because we are darker minded people. We can think dark and we can take ourselves there. We also have dark humor when it's needed because trauma. But, you know, like that's how we kind of understood it. And then we actually didn't have our faces on the logo for the longest.
The first one that we did is actually way behind you in the corner. And it was a cartoon drawing of us that we did on our iPads. And we threw it on there. And then, um, In September, uh, when we were launching season, season two in, so I guess it would have been October of 2021. It was, we were going into season two.
I, we were like a week out from launch. So it was like the last week of September and I got in the shower. And I have these things called shower thoughts. I've told you about them when we've talked before. They are like magical from the source, I guess, because when they come, if I do it, something good comes of it.
And I was in the shower, and I was sitting there washing my hair, and I was closing my eyes, and Which I don't typically do because I'm scared to death someone's gonna stab me while I'm in there. But I close my eyes and I see a new logo. And it was a real picture of us. Like, and I saw how my hair was supposed to look.
I saw what Morgan was supposed to be wearing, what I was supposed to be wearing, how our mics are gonna be held, where it needed to be taken on our picture wall that we used to have at the time. And, um, I woke up the next morning, I called Morgan because I was still thinking about it. And I was like, Hey, I'm going to get us a photographer, a professional photographer, which we had never done before.
And, um, I'm ordering us these clothes and I'm getting hair extensions, 24 inch. You're going to get some blonde in your money pieces and we're going to post this picture. And she was like, if it was a shower idea, I'm in. So we went and we did it. And thank God we did because three months after that, October, November, December, January, February.
We went viral for the first time, and I think it truly had to do with the way our logo looked also, that people were like, Oh, like, oh, these look like young girls that are my age, and I can relate with them, and like, I want to hear what they have to say. Or like, oh my god, they look like my daughter, or, you know, they look like my little sister.
And so, they would come and listen to us, and it was, my face, which was valuable too, because TikTok was my, is only my face. It was a green screen behind me when I tell cases. So it worked out amazing. And then that was in January after a month, we were like, okay, let's make it a little bit more. Let's keep the logo.
Let's keep the colors, but let's tweak it to look a little bit more like how we feel. And that's where you get the pink sitting on the couch. which was our college apartment couch, in holding wine glasses like you're on The Real Housewives, but in comfy clothes, so we're in our merch, like in our hoodies and stuff.
And that one stayed for a really long time until it came to season three, and now we change it at the top of every season, and we keep our faces on it. But that's kind of how we realized, we were like, it took about 15 episodes for us to be like, here is how we report, this is how we Our listeners perceive us and this is how we are in real life.
We keep everything really raw and real and we talk about things that a true crime, creepy, paranormal conspiracy podcast probably typically wouldn't. A big part of that is, is how do you balance Being relatable and being respectful when you're talking about these cases and the way that we learned to do that was by setting up the way that we report.
So we have 20 minutes to get all the chattiness out of our system, and then we have Morgan's case, which gives me about 45 minutes to get into a real zone, and by the time she gets done with her case, she's a little exhausted, so our energy's down, and then I go into the true crime case, and we start advocating.
Right there. And we end the episode with a call to action of sort, depending on what the type of the case is, but also like a moment to cool down at the end. We used to do TFU sections when we would drink throughout our episodes, uh, because it would just be a mess by that point. But, um, we stopped doing that.
Thank God. And now when we get to the end, we just kind of, you know, help everyone. Calm down. It's heavy. It's a lot of heavy stuff that you're talking about. Not only are you talking about spirits or conspiracies, whether they're government, whether they're, you know, alien, whatever, there's still heavy things that your brain is thinking a lot about.
And then when I tell my case, it's emotional. It's emotional for me. It's emotional for Morgan. It's emotional for our listener. to sit through and have to, you know, think critically about and what can we learn from this? And how can we prevent this from happening to other women, to other children, to other men, to other people in the future?
And what are things that we can implement to make us safer? And a lot of the time we really do focus on women and because that we are very strong advocates for women. So it's a lot more personal to us when we're telling the case and a lot of tears are shed, uh, throughout recordings and we cry our little eyes out, but it's because we're that, you know, that passionate about what we do.
And so that's kind of how we found that rebrand. We, it took us a little bit to figure out like, okay, Let's see how, how this plays out and who we become. And there was really no pressure because no one was listening at that point in time. And thankfully, we figured it out at the time that we did, and it worked out perfectly.
But you know, now What's crazy about it is, is we branded it when we were 22 and now we're 26 and so we're sitting here and we're like, okay, how do we let this brand grow with us? How do we bring it along with us? And of course we lost some listeners that have been like, Oh, I liked it better when they were 22 and da da da da, just drinking the whole time.
And we're like, yeah, of course. But we want to grow it into bigger things and take it, let it grow with us because that's what Creeps and Crimes is. Creeps and Crimes is Morgan and Taylar.
Chris: Yeah.
Taylar: And it's just as much about our lives and how we relate to cases as it is. Reporting on these cases and just talking on a mic.
So we've been learning how to do that. And that's why we kind of do that rebrand at the beginning of every season. We give ourselves a new logo that matches and is more better rep, a better representation of who we are and who we have become. And what's so sweet to see is like the listeners that found us before we went viral, like in 2021.
that still listen today. Like, they feel like they grew up with us in a way because those 22 year olds that started it are nowhere near who we are today and way less educated and knowledgeable about things than we are today. And it's so sweet when these people go back and listen to like our season one just for funsies.
They're like, it's so crazy. You sound like little kids on there compared to what you sound like now. And so anyways, we do that rebrand at the top of every season. To make sure that it's still in line, aligned with who we are and what we're doing. And it's been incredibly valuable too, because it communicates that to new listeners.
And also, but that's another thing, then they'll start a season one and be like, What the hell is going on here? And we're like, We don't know, we were 22 years old. But you know, it, it's been such a gorgeous ride to be on. And like, I call it my audio journal in my life because of that intro, like, I can go back to any episode and I can hear about what I was doing that week.
And we just talk about like, oh yeah, this week I did this, this, and this, or this is something I'm dealing with. And like, uh, emotional things too that we're going through. Like, yeah, I'm having a really bad week because of this, this, and that. I feel like I don't have I'm not valued this week and we talk about that in detail with each other.
So it's truly you get to see the growth and it is a friendship that we have with our listeners and our besties because we pour into them and it's the least we can do. They do, they make us who we are and I could cry over them but like they, they truly do create. They made Creeps and Crimes by listening and by sharing and by talking about us and by forcing their co workers to listen to us while they do things.
So the least we can do is make sure that they get a true and real conversation from us, not one that is scripted. Yeah. You know. Well,
Chris: I think, I think that authenticity lends itself to growing a bigger audience. Like people are going to connect with you emotionally and like even, even changing the way you did change the logo.
It makes a lot of sense because as I look at this dark, and we'll probably put up an image here for the video, but the, the darker image where it's creeps and crimes, it looks completely different in tone than when I see you and your co host in, in the picture together. And yeah, the timing of that, I mean, it might be the perfect timing for it, but it was, it was definitely the right thing to do because now you have someone who can say, Oh, these people look like me.
They're going to talk about stuff like me and, um, it's going to be relatable just because you see the people that are doing the show. So I think, I think you've done a really good job with that branding, that repositioning and um, and yeah, I mean, I think the, the key thing to not forget for listeners that are here, especially for anybody who works with HumblePod, just saying, um, you know, is that you spent a year and a half not like growing wildly or anything.
It took you a lot of time and, um, dedication to do that.
Taylar: A ton of time. Like, so, and And a lot of questioning, like, am I doing the right thing? And that was so hard because when you're so passionate about something and you know there's good in it, then, and it's something, and that's what I always say, like, I call Creeps and Crimes, mine and Morgan's love child, because it truly did, it's the only thing that we've ever made that came from our heads, and we created something out of it that is physical and that is tangible.
And we just kept being delusional. We were like, this is straight up the best podcast ever. Everyone's going to listen to it. It's going to be number one. And that's what we had to keep telling ourselves to keep us going sometimes because you start questioning when you're like, why is no one wanting to listen to me?
Why is, why are these other podcasts, what is their secret sauce that they have that's making them explode within the first 15 episodes versus me who took, I mean, my God, it had to be like, Over 50 because there's 52 weeks in a year. So I was well in, like, I think actually, I think the first episode that was really big was like 62, episode 62.
So it took a really, really long time to get there. And we knew it. We knew it was going to be like that. Um, no, it would have been in the 70s actually. Um, so we did, we knew it was going to be like that because luckily we had friends that were small podcasters at the time. And we They taught us everything we knew.
Like, they were like, look, it's gonna take a hot second before you even see an extra subscriber that you didn't fight to do at the bar. You know, like, it's going to take a minute. And then they were right. We did get like a random few people that started listening to us. People that we still are best friends with today because everybody else was just like our friends.
And then we'd have like random people and be like, Oh my God, how did you hear about us? And then they'd be like, Oh, I saw you on da da da dub. I'm like, yeah, I boosted every single post that we ever did back then. But also was a big part of that was learning how to, based off of the little analytic that I did have, was, okay, who is coming back every, what demographic is coming back every single Thursday to listen to me?
And like I said, I'd never done anything like this before, but I just, You know, it kind of came to me of like, well, it's that natural, like, entrepreneur type of personality where it's like, I am going to figure it out. So it's constantly changing, which is good. I always say, like, I would never, I would never ever in a million years want to be content with anything.
Like, I want to constantly be uncomfortable. I want to be changing. I want to be creating. I want to be learning. I want to be, you know, I don't want to be the same person today that I was yesterday. And that's also hard when you have a podcast, which I would love to hear your opinion on because you have been podcasting for so long and do know podcasters and work with podcasters.
Like it's so crazy because, you know, if someone listens to an episode from 2020 of us, there are some opinions that we have then or things that we thought we knew about back then that we don't know now. I mean, that we know that that was incorrect back then. It's interesting because with it being this audio journal, even though I recorded that episode three and a half years ago, people are listening to it right now.
You know, I'll get DMs about things from the past and I'll want to go and correct it, but not all the time do I want to correct it because it does show like how much we grew as people and just being open with our listeners and being like, hey, like totally understand and all that stuff. But I'm curious as to how if you've ever had that affect you in any way.
Chris: Um,
we've had a few instances of like, Um, I think what we've seen more of is like a guest that we had on a show that ended up Exactly. Getting cancelled. Yeah, getting cancelled basically, or doing something that was just not in alignment with our client's views. And, um, and we've definitely taken down those episodes.
Um, I mean for something like you're talking about, it just depends on how you want to position it. I think if you had, um, you may not have to go back and edit it, but maybe add in a note in the show notes. Yeah. That says Be aware that this may contain older views or this was recorded, you know, it's kind of like Disney's
doing now.
Taylar: And another thing like talking about, you know, talking about certain people that are topical at the time can be really, like you said, people getting canceled. That's another one that comes up and it's such an interesting take because It's not something that you necessarily want to take out because you want to show progress of the mind and of knowledge and also of like us as people.
But then there are some things like people that have come on and you're like, I don't even want to support them or give them a platform. And so you do want to take them off. But it's an interesting, I do get curious all the time just of like, watching big, big podcasters and how they handle it. Because you, they can't go edit out every little single thing that ever has been said.
If they're talking about Trisha Paytas in an episode or whoever it may be, not that she's, whatever she is, but like what, you know, whoever it may be. But it's so interesting too, because as a listener, some people won't go past and they won't learn about the growth and they won't, you know, continue on. And, you know, It makes you frustrated because you want to stand up for yourself and your brand because it's your baby, you know, like, you're like, Oh my God, how dare you say that about her?
She's, she didn't know any better. And, uh, like, don't be mean to creeps and crime. She's just a sweet little girl. And she's only four years old. And you can't because you also have to be real with yourself in that moment. And like, okay, well, Let's, let's really go listen to that. You can't. And then you have other podcasters that act like never did anything wrong, or creators, or whoever it may be, and just like, let me keep moving on and they'll forget about it.
And you see like on Reddit forums and stuff, and you read about how these podcasters, instead of just addressing it and having a conversation, they just ignore it and want everybody else to ignore it. And they lose so many people and for me what I've learned in podcasting is in the type of podcasting that I'm in which is being personal and it does have to be personal because I'm talking about real people's lives, but you know, it's so crazy to with doing conspiracies and stuff because the vault comes out and you know little every year we get like So Stuff that confirms stuff that was conspiracy or completely debunks things, which is awesome.
Fantastic. We love when it debunks things, but I can't go back to the front of every episode. So instead, it's the intro of the most recent one. So if we covered whatever this was that got debunked three years ago, you're going to find out about it on this week's episode, you know?
Chris: Yeah. I mean, that's, that's one place where, um, like you could use Sorry, I'm getting really nerdy here.
Like, you know, track your transcripts from your episodes and have some type of an archive that allows you to track and update.
Taylar: Yeah, I should
do that.
Chris: An idea for the future.
Taylar: That sounds like I need to pay someone to do that because that sounds like I'm going to accidentally delete every single episode that I've
ever had.
Chris: You need a researcher to do that, but even like, uh, like what you're doing makes sense. I was going to say right before you said, hey, we actually issue these corrections now. Like, maybe just a whole episode. Here's what we got wrong.
Taylar: Yeah, exactly. Like, so at the beginning of this year, typically what we do the first episode of a new year.
So like right after new year, we do an episode about the recap. So the 2023 recap, and then we talk about like cases that were hot that year, that new developments came out, um, whether that be creepy, whether it be crimey, and then we sometimes do like a, but here's the stuff that came out right at the beginning of the new year that you might not have seen because of all the New Year's posts on your stories and everything.
So that was interesting. That, that's always interesting because there, with doing true crime, there's updates in cases all the time, especially old cases with new geneal genealogical DNA where we can go and take, extract the smallest sample of DNA and rebuild it completely back to get an identification on a victim or a suspect and put that person away.
An example of this would be C. C. Moore with the Golden State Killer, uh, who was the original Night Stalker. But, um, that's interesting too because that's new. You know, DNA is so The advancements in DNA happen daily and when these updates come out, like an example of this was the boy in the box and he was a young boy who was found deceased in a box and no one knew where he came from or who he was, no one reported a missing child.
They brought in psychic mediums to help in the case because they truly were out of options as to whose child this is and why this child is here. And they recently identified him. And then also the Somerton Mann case of, uh, Australia, they just got the confirmation of that and they identified him and it made complete sense.
Like the names that were, or the initials that were in the checked luggage at the railway station, it had, um, these, you know, These tags torn out of it, and then there was initials on the back, and it was this guy's brother in law's. He was borrowing his brother in law's clothes to go on a work interview, and no one knows what happened.
But you saw how those conspiracies rolled out, where it was like, me and Morgan, we called those trifectas, where there's paranormal conspiracy and true crime all in one. And so, like, it was a true crime case, but it had so many conspiracies, like, oh, he was a secret spy who took a pill to kill himself after the information that he got, or he was murdered on the beach and, you know, they could never figure out what truly happened to him and how everything went down.
But, and he had weird stuff in his system. They recently identified him. So then we got to go back and be like, guys, we, we have the answers now. We didn't need to speculate for four and a half hours on that last episode because now we have it. And that's really fun too. But I don't go back and I put it in that episode.
Instead, I just do it in the new one.
Chris: I think that makes sense.
Taylar: But it's, it's such a shot in the dark of like. If I go back and edit that episode, will it make sense? You know, it doesn't, because there are different microphones because we've been upgrading our microphones over the years and I'm pretty positive one of those episodes is one that sounds like we're talking on our phones and recording on our phones because no one talks about that with baby podcasters.
If you do get big and you don't, didn't have, a team in a professional studio like we didn't. There, you go back and listen to our first episode, and I don't know how anybody ever stayed past it.
Chris: Yeah, I, yeah, my very first podcast the same way.
Taylar: Yeah, it's truly, like, embarrassing. We tell them, like, please don't listen to season one until you love us.
Like, come listen to the current season, and then you can go back once you love us enough to sit through that and fight through it.
Chris: That's amazing. So you, you got to a point in, in your journey where you got viral, you got bigger, you got a lot more downloads to your podcast, and eventually you got to the point where you got advertisers.
Yeah. Like you started making money.
Taylar: Being with networks.
Chris: Being with networks and stuff like that. What was that experience like?
Taylar: It was fast and furious is what I call it. I mean it, the first time that we, so that video went viral on January 18th. By January 20th, we were signed with a network and this network offered us to come in and they were going to give us dynamic ads at first. We had to have three months of downloads with them before they would offer us host red, which is where the value is in terms of making big money in advertising, but just getting dynamic ads, which are like the flow from progressive commercials that you'll get at the beginning and end and throughout episodes.
Those are long term, really good for making money. But what's so wild is that most people think like, if you do just get an advertiser, like, oh, you're making money, but. Podcasting is, you got to truly have your heart in it. You're not going to make big money off of it until you have been in it for a minute.
And you have good, good amounts. And networks too nowadays are pulling back in because it's so, there's so many people with podcasts. So there's no minimum guarantees anymore and stuff like that. But um, You know, going into a network, it was crazy. Thankfully, we did it a really good way where we went in and I didn't have a editor or producer yet.
We just still kind of did what we were doing and added in ads. But what was so valuable about it was that everything started making sense. I had heard up until that point, like, you know, certain terms and I, you know, be reading an article about podcasting. I had no idea what CPM was or anything like that.
And so. And being there, I got to ask people questions, and then, the most valuable thing with a podcast, the way to truly grow your podcast is cross, cross episodes, cross promotion, sorry, I don't know why. I'm like, uh. No, I gotcha. I call it hanging out with my friends. But, um, you know, going on other people's podcasts or giving them a trailer to put on theirs and then you swapping with them and putting it on yours.
And that's, we were with Audioboom at this time, and we loved Audioboom. They were phenomenal. they came in and they provided us with so many connections and gave us an incredible network of people and other podcasters and relying on these other podcasters like, Hey, then texting them personally. Hey, did you, do you guys have a spot for our trailer?
We have an open spot. We'd love to trade with you. Oh yeah, we don't this week, but we do next week. You guys can put ours in this week and we'll put yours in next week. Oh, okay. Perfect. So we, we started making these awesome connections and we're growing without me having to make a TikTok video for it, which was.
really great and because TikTok's really hard to do. It's so crazy because it doesn't seem, it's not like physically hard to get done. It's the, it's the mental aspect of it. The fact that people can in real time comment on you and say their opinion and you just, it's sometimes deteriorating to your like mental state and like also like your value of what you do.
It can hurt you sometimes. So I went in. You know, when I got to TikTok, I was just so concerned with being able to handle that, where on the podcast, you can't comment on a podcast as it's coming out, you know, it's, it's just, it is what it is. You can, if you really want to tell me that you hate it, you got to come to my Instagram and let me know.
So that's bold, and that's a lot of work. Or you can leave a review. And Spotify, thank God, doesn't give typed out reviews. Uh, Apple still does and those will beat you down. But when we got with these networks and they sat us down and they taught us these things and they, you know, were so kind enough to connect us with these amazing networks of other podcasters that were with them.
And then because through these other podcasters, we made more friends. And before that we were only in just like podcasting groups on Facebook or in YouTube. These massive Twitter group chats, and it just wasn't sustainable for us. We didn't know how that worked out. And not that we were bashful in any way.
It's just like, we just didn't want to go out with just anyone and promote them. I'm very strict about that, especially true crime. A true crime podcast wants to come and promote themselves on creeps and crimes. You have to, I have to listen to at least five of your episodes fully before I'll bring you on, only because I'm so particular about like what your friend says.
Like, I can't take the, who's your favorite serial killer? Why would you ever say that? Like, that doesn't sound good, friends. Please don't. And not that I'm judging people for doing that, because I used to probably do things like that. And there's probably audio clips of me saying some really messed up things like that, but just not being educated about it.
So the more I learned from doing it and from meeting with people and from talking with people, the better podcaster and the more ethical I've become over the years. And I'm still learning. There's things that I today will probably look back on in two years from now and be like, why in the world girl, would you ever say that?
But, you know, being with these networks, they taught us things too. Like they'd be like, Hey, we were listening to this and you said this. And, Though you know this, this, and this, and this, it just might be easier if you say it like this instead, which was incredibly valuable for us because we didn't know. We truly didn't know.
We're just two little 20 something year old girls in Knoxville with no, like, network around us that does what we're doing. So when they came in and they helped us and they gave us these ads and they gave us these connections, It totally changed it from a fun side hobby to like business now. We got ourselves an LLC.
We went and set up a bank account for us. We got everything set up and luckily I knew how to do all of that. But then Patreon. Patreon is life changing and if I could do it all again, I would have had a backlog a year before I even launched the Patreon.
Chris: Wow.
Taylar: Because it is something that we do an episode weekly public.
And then an episode weekly Patreon. Back in the day, it was only two bonus episodes on Patreon. But learning to get to this point of a recording schedule has been very hard. And if I would have had that backlog in my back pocket back then, it would have been life changing and I could have made a lot more money.
faster than I did because people didn't want to, you know, join for 5 a month to only be able to get two episodes. They wanted to wait until we were five months in and we had 10 episodes that they could binge. So, and that's another thing, if I could go back in time and restart the podcast, I would have dropped five episodes on the first day.
I wouldn't have dropped one episode, I'd have been five. Because people want to binge you. Master of the Air that me and you were talking about before we recorded. It's still rolling out. I don't want to watch it as it's rolling out. I want to watch it as it's already out so I can binge it all in one night.
And that's the type of listener I am. And if you can only listen to one episode of a podcast, you're going to get into it and be like, dang it, you know, man, I wish I had three more to listen to. So if I could have gone back in time, luckily, I had a year under my belt before people started listening to me.
So, you know, they had 75 episodes, who knows. But, um I would have done that, but Patreon and working with these advertisers, that was the only way we made money. Like, our business became profitable in that, other than merch sales and stuff, but we were basically breaking even with that and just doing it for funsies and marketing.
And, you know, we both invested a lot of our own personal money into the company at first, and we still have that money sitting in here, and it's in our operation agreement. Um, but what's so, what's also interesting is, the negotiations that goes into changing networks and joining networks and getting offers from networks.
And that's something that no one really teaches you about or podcasters don't talk about because it's the behind the scenes showbiz, obviously. Yeah, but you probably do a whole other episode. I mean, we could sit here and we could do a five episode series on that because I I wish I would have had a location to go to learn the terminology before I had to go meet with these networks.
But my saving grace was that we got an agent from WME, William Morris Endeavor, out of New York, who reached out to us in June of 2022 because We had like three more videos go viral and we stayed on the charts for like months. And I didn't know how to handle it. It was to the point that I no longer had control.
We had reached the end of my education in it. And the amount of articles I could read, like they were, I've read every article on podcasting. And he came in at the perfect time, Grayson, like was our saving grace. He walked in and totally helped us. He did all the. Legal things behind the scenes, all the negotiations.
So we didn't have to. He taught us things. And then, um, we've gone, we've switched networks three times now. Not switched, but graduated on and changed just to see, you know, what type of network we need to be with and we work with. Currently, we are independent, which was really needed. And I do encourage people that do have a podcast and do have gone through networks to maybe take a little break, a little hiatus for yourself.
Because what this has done for me, this last three months for Morgan and I, my business partner, it has allowed us to. Take it back to the beginning and be the only thing, the only reason that this thing keeps going, you know what I mean? Because when you have a big team, sometimes you get lost and you like delegate things.
But when it's all back in your hands and you're taking care of it again, you're more creative about it. You can think bigger about your brand and what you want for your brand and how you want to do this podcast. And you start thinking out of the box again. Because sometimes when all of the like business like, Math comes into it, all the spreadsheets and all the taxes and everything, you lose that little like creative spark that you have.
So being independent right now has been so great for us and it's been like a little bit of a breath of fresh air because again, it's only, it's back to me and Morgan. It's back to what it was and where we started and having to look back at the girls who started this podcast, the 22 year old girls who did it and, We're in the most echoey room in the world with the worst microphones that ever existed on the earth from Amazon.
Like, looking at those girls versus the girls today that are independently doing this, not completely on our own. We still have our agent. We still have, we now have a manager who, she is our nine shining armor. We call her Mama Mags, our, our Momager, but also our Magager. She is truly like, so amazing to us and like, really keeps us encouraged and, also validates a lot of things like, you know, this is normal for podcasters.
It takes a minute. And that's the kind of the thing that you hear over and over again. When you think you've made it, you're not small enough to do what small podcasters do, but you're not big enough to do what the big podcasters do. So you're in this little in between and that's kind of where we sit right now.
We're big, we're too big to do the small things, but we're too small to do the big things. And having a manager. or someone, just an advisor to sit with us and be like, Oh, this is totally fine. This is normal. This is what we're going to do. And then also at the same time, being able to take it back to the bare basics of what Creeps and Crimes is and where it started has been like amazing.
And I, Wish every brand had an opportunity to kind of press that pause button on their business and take a step back and look at it and not be so panicked. Like I've seen my dad over the years have to be so stressed out and unable to think big enough to, you know, how do I, how do I take my next step as a company, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur?
And then him having to be like, I need to step out. I need to go sit at the river and fish like I did when I was 15 and play my banjo and do the things I need to play my guitars, have my buddies come out with me, take a day, and I'll come home with all the ideas that I need to survive. That, and having to make yourself, because as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, you have to Like, you know when a dog puts the brakes on when you're walking it?
You have to literally, like, yank yourself, like, Taylar, pull yourself away from this computer, pull yourself away from this spreadsheet, go and take it back and take a breath. That truly, learning to do that for myself, has saved creeps and crimes many a times. It could have been done before this, even though it's been successful and it's been on the app and it took a while to get there.
You think once you finally get there, it's gonna all be smooth sailing, but it's not. You kind of lose yourself in it a little bit. And it's, that's a hard thing to deal with.
Chris: Finding space is something, I mean, I struggle with it, but it's something I try to do in my business as much as I can. You know, take those mental health days and, um, not to relax per se, but just to, just to give myself the space.
There's that, you know, Um, like you mentioned, shower thoughts and things like that. Like you got to give yourself time, um, you know, as much as possible to have that ability to access that creativity and yeah, if you lose that, yeah, you just become, okay, we need to get it done. We got to fire here. We got to change this here.
We got to do all that. So it makes total sense.
Taylar: And all, you know, one of the things that my dad has always said is. And like I said, he's an entrepreneur. My, I was the first person in my family ever to go to college. Um, my dad, he tried to go to college, but he just was like bored in the classes. He's like, I could just be making money right now.
Like my dad is incredibly intelligent, truly like taught me everything I know about owning a business and being passionate about things. And so he went off on his own and he created who he is. from the ground up. He had the idea in his head that he turned into something that was tangible. But that meant that one day he had to be the boss of a lot of people.
And my dad is a scary boss, but he's a good friend and he's a good person. And he had, it took him a long time to learn how to work with his friends because he loves working with his friends. And that's another valuable lesson that he taught me is how important it is to, as a business owner, as a small business, to work with other small businesses and to support them and love on them and give them your business and trade with them and make sure that you guys are both doing good and you're both being taken care of.
And, but it's also a hard thing where you have to create boundaries that this is business and this is personal. And that was hard for him, but One of the things that he always taught me is that you work circles around everyone around you. Like if someone's working harder than you, you work double them.
You do double what they're doing and you put that pressure on yourself. But also what you have to do is you have to When you are the boss of everyone, it feels like the weight of all of their families is also on your shoulders. So not only are you worrying about providing for your family and making sure that you have a roof over your head and that your children have food on the table and have, get the opportunity to do things that they want to do to better themselves.
As the boss, you're thinking about those people too that you're hiring. You're thinking about their kids. Do their kids have the ability to do what they want to do? Extracurricular activities, to go on vacation with their dad, to have their dad home at five o'clock, to have their mom be able to pick them up from school some days, to have their mom being able to stay home with them one day when they're sick, to, you know, Mom to be able to come home and have dinner on the table and not have to make it for everyone You know Things like that that you don't that you think about for yourself when you're the boss and you have a business and you have this Thing that you've built underneath you and you have these people that have supported you and make it to where you can be who you Are you also have to pay them back and give them that grace too that you need So that lesson from my dad taught me to check in with my business partner More than just getting frustrated because sometimes you can get frustrated because in your head you're like I'm here Why aren't you with me?
And then they're like, you know, I'm having an off day So we had to start implementing like hey, are you okay? Like do you have the energy to come and do this recording today or do you want to take a step back or hey? Do you need something from me or and her because I'm very prideful. You have to ask me And you have to dig a little bit because I'm in back, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm totally fine.
I'm not okay, I'm wearing a ribs now, it's been a bad day. You know, but learning to not only give yourself that grace and that space to be able to go and, you know, close out everything else and listen to that creative voice inside of you, that entrepreneur voice that's, naturally in us, giving yourself the grace and the space and the silence to hear them.
But you also have to do that for your employees and for your partners, because if they aren't happy and if they aren't fulfilled and if they aren't calm and relaxed and creative, then you don't have a business without them.
Chris: It is a challenge. You become, you become a parent, as a parent, you become a parent twice over.
Um, because now I have two families to feed. And, um, yeah, the minute you get into a bigger business and you have employees like Colton, who's sitting behind the cameras right now. Um, and other people, it's like, how do I make sure that they're supported? How do I make sure that You know, he's gonna, you know, be earning enough with us to where he feels comfortable.
It doesn't feel like he's got to go out and find 15 other jobs or things like that. And yeah, it's a, it's a battle. It's, it's definitely a challenge. And it's something that, um, yeah, it's a extra burden you carry. You don't really think about it first. But yeah, once you get into it, it's like, oh, wow, I'm really responsible for all these people.
Yeah. Kind of scary.
Taylar: It is. It's kind of scary because you feel like they're your family and they are your family because you can't do anything without them. They truly are your keepers too. Your business partners, your employees, those are your keepers. They know what's going on within your life and within your business more than anyone else does.
And they kind of set the tone for how it goes out because you're trusting them with different pieces of you. But in media, it's very different. My dad's in mortgage, um, mortgage loan officer and marketing. But, um,
Chris: Much different.
Taylar: Much different. But in, in, it's hard in media too, because, you know, your agents and your managers, they only make money if you make money.
Yeah. And you can't, you know, hope and pray. You, you hope and pray that they'll stick beside you until you do make enough for them, but it's. It's an added layer to be like, I wanna make sure that you are just as bought in and you're getting reward too. And in fact, I would almost rather you have it before I did.
Because I know that I'm gonna have this passion for it and I'm gonna make it work because it's mine, but it's not yours. So I want you to keep up with me. And in media and in podcasting, your only money is advertising, Patreon, That's about it. Like, uh, advertising and Patreon. That's it. So you have to make sure that when you're doing these deals and stuff that it's also profitable for everyone around you.
And then with me being a co hosted podcast, everything's 50 50 too between her and I. So we make sure that, you know, hey, we know this is a little bit, only a little bit tiny money, but. Another thing is, is we don't, we haven't written ourselves a check for the podcast. We have never taken money from it. We buy our clothes and things that we need to do the podcast and furniture, and we help each other out when we need it.
Like, you know, if you need to cover your mortgage this month, Friend, it's like, but for the most part, we keep it as savings until it comes to the point that we can grow with it. And that was a conscious decision that people told us, like, hey, don't really do, like, be careful with how, you know, money is the driver in a lot of things.
And of course it is. 100 percent is.
Chris: It can also be a catalyst when you have a business partner.
Taylar: Absolutely. So we just have done our best this entire time to, you know, hey, we need to be business partners today, but. In an hour, let's be besties again, you know, like, let's, you know, rant and whatever. But it's, it's been a really cool and honestly, like, something so important to me to see my, my best friend become my business partner.
And people were like, Hey, y'all be careful going into business together. But we knew that we could work well together because we coached together for years and we choreographed and we put together incredible performances together and so we knew that we worked well together and she is so laid back and chill and I am all over the place all the time.
She's my girl that keeps me grounded but also is never ever going to tell me I'm being too much, which is something that I ran into a lot and put me down growing up and it was, oh you're too much, oh you're too loud, oh you're too much, okay, whatever. I have a podcast now so I can be as too much as I want to and it's mine.
So, you know, that's what I also value with Morgan is that she is the girl that's like, you're not being too much, you're just being you, like, keep going, like, do your thing. But also, it keeps me grounded, like, that's a really good idea, Taylar. I would love to have an alien spaceship abducting us in this film, but that's gonna cost us about 32 grand to do, so let's not do that.
And I was like, yeah, you're right, you know, just keeping me grounded while also being the dynamic, we're two different thinkers. are able to think in very dynamic ways and help each other shop through decisions that we're making as a business and as friends. And having, if I had to do it with another business partner, they would have to be just like Morgan for me.
And have to be the yin to my yang. And I think where a lot of people run into issue when they're working with friends or family is that they don't have the conversation prior of like, Hey, when we're talking about this, let's talk as professionals and then let's talk as personal besties. And me and her luckily did that very early on just because we knew better.
But if we didn't, like, I don't know that we would have gotten this far in the podcast.
Chris: Having started a podcast with a co host that ultimately led to me creating HumblePod, I can definitely identify with that. We've had a lot of the same conversations around How do we manage this as friends? How do we manage this as a business and all that stuff?
So, um, yeah.
Taylar: Making sure your visions align to like the five year plan of the podcast. I would love to one day have a network. I would one day love to have not only a network for big podcasts, but like for small, small podcasts, like the ones that typically a network wouldn't look at and go and reach out to them and give them the resources and the education that The first network that we went with gave us because if someone would have taught me that back then I would have learned, you know, the boundaries, I guess, of podcasting a little bit better.
And what I mean by that is like, this is where you should stop the hard truths. Like, you got to let this go. This one's not going to work out versus like, no, this is something really good and it's just going to take a little extra time, but you have to keep on pushing those type of things. The hard truths is what I would love to be able to be like a branding.
Consultant on with people because you can change and you can change how you do things to make it more Valuable to other people or to listeners and make yourself stand out But you have to be able to rebrand and some people are so hell bent That they can't do a rebrand. And luckily Morgan and I learned that together.
So we know that the five year plan is what we would like in true podcaster, entrepreneur fashion, and the type of people who want to have a network like that one day in the future. We know that it's going to have to change daily. Those, those goals are going to have to be moved around and we can't be upset and we can't be devastated when they do get shifted and they do get moved.
But right now our main goal is we're looking at going on a tour here soon. So that's what I would absolutely love. We're also looking into doing more like, um, TV features where we, you know, Narrate cases or do anything like that, which I just had an opportunity to do. Yeah, I just did that on Death in the Dorms Season 2 on Hulu.
You guys can go check it out if you want to. Episode 3 is the one I'm on. But, you know, doing things like that that are really professional and the classical meaning of broadcasting because we want to be honest. All across the board educated on what the field that we're in. So we've done some film, we've done some, you know, TV, we've done stuff like that.
We do interviews with people, we bring on people to interview. We don't do that very often because sometimes hard with the way that we have the podcast set up, but you know, branching out and doing things that are out of our comfort zone is so our thing, but we want to add it to our, you know, Portfolio and the fact that she can be just as flexible and as free spirited and delulu as I can like totally helps our business run and I wouldn't be able to do it without her because she is that person who she's like my tracks and I'm the trolley I'm just rolling down and she's taking care of me you know so and also like her reasonable thinking helps a lot.
Um, but she can also be Delulu with me too, but you know, that, that dynamic that we have in our business, I think has gotten us this far. And I think is what, you know, has created the friendships that we do have with our listeners is because they get to see our friendship change from college best friends to people that are living two very different lives, but live on the same exact life and have a business together and do different things.
And it, it changes with us and we grow with it. And luckily we. Keep each other, like, grounded and we keep each other passionate about this because it's ours.
Chris: Well, speaking of passionate, last question for you. This has been a great conversation and I can't wait. Send this to an editor to clean up.
Yeah, I apologize.
No, do not. Yeah, to
them I do. Yeah, well, sorry, Zwick. You're gonna have some fun with this one. But Last question for you, I always ask people is what brand, because this is a branding podcast, what brand do you really admire right now? Or what brand do you just have a crush on?
Taylar: Taylor Swift.
Chris: Taylor Swift?
Taylar: Or Alex Cooper.
Chris: Okay, Alex Cooper? Alex Cooper. Not Alice.
Taylar: No, Alex. Alex. Alex Cooper, the host of Call Her Daddy. Mmm, okay. Her and Taylor Swift, their branding is phenomenal, because Taylor Swift, That's her name, but that's her brand, you know? And, me, the reason I'm so obsessed with them is because they're women in, in entertainment, in podcasting, in music, in artists.
And the way that they have, both on very different levels, Conducted themselves, they came from very different brands from what they turn to today and and there's some that are very, you know questionable on either side about you know whether it's ethical or not but if you take a step back and you look at the way that they have handled their businesses as Themselves, which I think is the hardest thing to do is brand yourself.
That is what to me is ethical. Absolutely mind blowing and seeing how Taylor Swift by just recording, I'm not even a Swiftie, like I'm, I'm truly not like I, I wish I was. I'm not super into her music. I like her as a person. I like her as a businesswoman and I respect the hell out of her. She truly re recorded all of her music, released it to a brand new generation of people.
and made it to where they truly will not listen to anything unless it says Taylor's version beside it. And how she really stuck it to the man, which is my favorite thing to do, and then goes and does this incredible world tour. And not only is she making insane amounts of money, but she's donating it all back because at the end of the day, she is truly like an advocate and she's a philanthropist and keeps to that and her brand without showing it all off, you know, without being like, we just made a million dollar donation to da da da da.
She's not necessarily doing that, it's other people releasing it. Granted, it could be her team and her camp, but at the end of the day, like, she truly has done a great job at giving back to the people who have made her, and making them have a personal connection with her. Feeling like they're besties. And then the same with Alex Cooper.
Alex Cooper went from being Call her daddy on Barstool with a co host, to which was made fun of, said awful things, you know, very vulgar, very nasty, to turning it into something where she's interviewing the top celebrities and people that we are all obsessed with in professional setups, where there are True conversations and branding with this whole team behind her to where she's made herself somewhat of a media I call them like social media socialites where they're they're not like Anne Hathaway level of Socialites not going to the Met Gala, but they're for sure like going to the big spaces in Podcasting, and if you say their name, you recognize it if you're in the space because of how she handled her business.
Barstool wasn't paying them enough for their value, so what'd they do? Stop putting out episodes. We're just not gonna record it. You can keep the name, you can keep the episodes that you have, but we're not gonna put an episode out. And then, if you want to pay us the right amount, we will. Oh, no? Okay, well then we're gonna move on.
And then she goes and she works with Max Cutler with Parcast, which is someone who I have copious amounts of respect for as Max Cutler. He goes over and he sells Parcast to Spotify, starts working under Spotify, and brings Alex Cooper because of how amazing of a person she is, and how incredibly How incredible of a businesswoman she is.
She's able to brand herself all the way to being like a Spotify princess. And then now is across all of these platforms, truly like gone all over again. And is on massive world tours. And those, these type of women who can take themselves from being someone who wasn't really necessarily respected by all people to being like, yeah, I do recognize her name.
I do say her name and I, I do know her brand. Like that is what branding is about. At the end of the day, good, you know, bad PR is good PR, you know,
Chris: there's no such thing as bad.
Taylar: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So that's cool. It's just, I'm really, really not that I necessarily want to have like the, you know, the former brands that she had or anything like that or get famous on scandals by any means, I just respect people who are able to Keep their narrative and keep it for themselves and rebrand off of that because that is jarring when you if something were to happen to where you were to get cancelled or something that's traumatic like seeing how people go down so quickly even even when it's deserving and you like are in support of them being cancelled or whatever it is then you watch it roll out and you're like Jesus that's who I would literally not survive and you see these people come back from that that's crazy.
You either you your PR team is the devil himself and he's making deals or like I don't know what because it truly is like Rebranding. It is a whole new brand. I'm curious about whose yours
is.
Chris: So my favorite brand at the moment actually is going through a scandal right now. So I'm very, very sad. Um, and that would be Red Bull.
Taylar: Red bull? No, wait, Red Bull's going because I do a whole thing on, I do a bit on Red Bull.
Chris: Red Bull, red Bull Racing right now is going through a scandal. So the team principal, Christian Horner, who prior to the past two months, I would say he's a man that like I love and respect because he, he was with Red Bull Racing from the time basically since it started and he is the brand of Red Bull Racing.
Like he's the team principal who's been with them for over a decade.
Yeah, I recognize his name and I know nothing about him. Yeah,
yeah, and he, you know, he helped bring and build the team that is now a three time champion. Well, he's had more than three world championships to his name at Red Bull, but, you know, Max Verstappen now three time world champion with Red Bull and all that, like, he's responsible for helping build all that stuff up and get the team to where it's at, um, so I really like that.
But now he's in a scandal that is the The weirdest scandal and like, this is a whole other show in and of itself.
Taylar: Yeah. I'm gonna have to get on Google. Huh? You need to Reddit. I need to be on
Reddit.
Chris: You need to get on Reddit. Yeah. And, and check it out. Because one week they're saying there's, it's like sexual harassment.
Oh. And then the next week they're saying, oh, it has nothing to do with that. And then the next week it's back. It's just back and forth, back and forth. And I think he's about to step down as team principal, which breaks my heart because of,
Taylar: because where there's smoke, there's fire. Yeah.
Chris: Yeah. There, there's something. And it makes me very sad. He's also married to Ginger Spice.
Taylar: Oh. Yeah. Well then, well that's crazy because are they, are they, like with Beckham and all of those people, are they still friends?
Chris: I think so, yeah. Because like he, he lives in that world, like he was a
Taylar: Yeah, he totally lives in that world. Yeah.
Chris: And so like, he's like, I don't know what happened, but I've seen some, oh, I'm about to on some photos lately where like, he's still with her.
Oh. They seem to be still friendly and amorous. Like I don't. So, so it makes me wonder like what's really going on with the scandal. Um, there's there's rumors of a power grab within the organization Because there's a korean team. I think it's korean or southeast asian somewhere Um that owns a majority stake in red bull right now Um or red bull racing and they're in favor of Horner staying on and then the the dutch side wants him out And so I don't know what all that drama
Taylar: my lord. That is a lot of drama I'm gonna have to get on there and read that
Chris: But but from a marketing perspective
Taylar: Their marketing and branding, phenomenal
Yeah, outside of Red Bull racing for Formula one like everything else they do, the content they put out the races, the creativity like I just, I'm a huge fan but the one thing I have, this is my bit about Red Bull, I love Red Bull and you know how it gives you wings, but like, why is it bulls on the side of the, whatever's in the center of it? Is it supposed to be the bulls look like wings from afar?
Or is that what it is? Because I Googled it and I couldn't, it's like me with the Geneva convention, whenever it comes to learning about the branding behind Red Bull, because I'm truly, I'm like, I don't understand the logo. Were we going a different direction before we got the slogan or what happened here?
And I've looked it up before, I say that alongside the Geneva Convention because anytime I'm bringing up the Geneva Convention, I have to Google it because I'm like, I have literally no idea what, I have more and more questions the more I learn about the Geneva Convention. So it's kind of like that. Me and, me, Red Bull and Geneva Convention, Roman Empire and Easy Bake Ovens.
That's another one. Easy Bake Ovens recently have been my Roman Empire.
Chris: Oh, I saw that too.
Taylar: Yeah, you saw that?
Chris: Yeah, I saw some of that. Interesting.
Taylar: Yeah, so we've been digging in on those things and the shark. The stingray that's pregnant in North Carolina. I don't know. They haven't been posting. I don't know if there's an update recently.
So that's another Totally not on brand. Okay, totally not what we're talking about, but there we are
Chris: But yeah, it's it's just a fascinating story to me. And um, and yeah, I just i'm i'm sad to see where where it's currently taking the team but like as a As an organization and as a race team, like their racing team is just
phenomenal.
Taylar: And their brand, like, you know, you see Red Bulls color, you don't even have to see their, their name and you know, you know, like, how is it that recognizable? Yeah. Coke to Coca Cola. That one's crazy. Coke and Pepsi. Crazy. I don't know how they did that. Or Oatmeal, Quakers. Craziness. We could go down a whole rabbit hole with that too.
Chris: Yep, that's all about positioning.
Taylar: We'll do that on another episode, guys. I'll be back for that one. I'll be back for the Quaker episode.
Chris: Awesome. Well, Taylar, this has been a pleasure. I've really enjoyed it. We could probably keep talking for hours. There's so much more I could talk to you about. Maybe we'll have you back for
Taylar: Yeah, let's do a part two. Thank you so much for having me on. This has been so fun. This is a new way for me to do podcasting, so I really enjoy it.
Chris: Yeah, awesome. Let me ask you this before you go. Where can people find Creeps and Crime? Where
can they follow you? Oh yeah,
Taylar: so, um, you can find Creeps and Crimes, yeah, you can find Creeps and Crimes at, on all social channels.
Uh, Just don't go to Twitter or X or whatever it's called now. We don't do that anymore. I tried, it's still up, just don't. But everywhere on socials were Creeps and Crimes Podcast, at Creeps and Crimes Podcast, and my personal is Taylar FetznerTAYLAR TikTok, which is my true crime channel, and then on Twitter, Instagram, I'm Taylar J and my name is spelled T A Y L A R.
So I normally say Taylar J with an A. And our, my co host, just because she's my best friend, I have to give her a shout out. She's Morgue. M double the G. And she's also linked off of the Creeps and Crimes podcast. But if you want to go listen to us, we're wherever you get your podcasts. We're on YouTube.
I'm a little behind right now. Don't judge me. But we're also on YouTube. We're on TikTok. We're on everywhere. We do our weekly updates for releases and cases that have pictures alongside of them on our Instagram. So that's the best place to go. If you want to DM us, or you can reach out to us via email, which is CreepsAndCrimesPodcasts at gmail.
com. If you have a creepy account that you'd like to send in, which is a listener story, that's something scary and terrifying that's happened to you, that you just want to get off your chest, you can send that in to CreepsAndCrimes. ca at gmail. com. Those are our creepy accounts, but yeah, come listen to us.
We are everywhere that you get your podcast. And then if you guys want to see me on Hulu, Uh, Death in the Dorm, Season 2, Episode 3, Marlon Barnes, Tim Winnicka, Lumpkin's case out of the University of Miami. I got the opportunity to go on there and work with them, so that was a lot of fun. And that's it, I believe.
Chris: That is it. Thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you so much. All right.