Secrets To Building a Thriving Podcast With Dave Jackson

Dave Jackson 10:05

I’m like, There’s nothing about this, yeah. And so when I finally parted, one together, there was this software and a big picture of a lemon on it called juice. And I downloaded it and installed it in the voice of one Adam curry came out. And I was like, Hey, I know that guy from MTV, former MTV. VJ, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I was like, Huh? And once, I finally, you know, pieces parted, one together, and I remember uploading the file and then seeing it come down in the software. And all of a sudden, the light bulb went off, and I went, Oh, wait a minute, this is, this is global. This is not like a radio station, where you’re only as strong as your station.

And I was like, and being the teacher, right? If you give a podcast to a teacher, it’s like, oh, we’re all going to learn from each other. If you give a podcast to a salesman, they’re like, oh, I can sell so much stuff, and if you give it to somebody else. So for me, I was like, Oh, I’m gonna, I’m gonna learn about what life is like in Africa and, you know, different cultures, and this is going to be amazing. And so I just turned what was my blog into a podcast. And what was interesting is I got feedback like, wow, this is really cool. You. You just went from being words on a piece of paper to a person, because now you can be sarcastic and things like that. And it technically wasn’t a podcast, it was audio on a website at that point.

And then when I figured out, you know what a feed is, and subscribing and all that stuff, and that was amazing. And I got that going, and I got to work for Adam’s company at the time, which was called pod show. And what was interesting as I was around. This is before Apple, and I remember when Apple took, uh, iTunes, back then, and brought podcasting into and it’s the only time I’ve ever seen the you know, which is hockey stick growth, my good deal, my my numbers just will, and they just went straight up. And I was like, holy cow. But yeah, back then you actually would have had a little portable recorder. It’s right here, called an Eye River.

Is that the original? This is what’s not the original. I lost, but I bought this just to remember where I came from. Yeah. And it’s this thing about the size of your thumb, and I think it holds 256 megabytes, which, back then was a lot, yeah. And so I would plug this thing in, I’d fire up my juice software, and I don’t remember what the internet speeds were, but they’re nothing like tapering now try dial-up.

John Corcoran 12:28

Possibly, yeah, five was broadband around by then, I don’t remember.

Dave Jackson 12:33

Yeah, barely, maybe, okay, but I just remember I would go up, take a shower, get ready, and come down, and there’d be like, six episodes of something, and I would have to plug this little gizmo in, and it would show up like a external hard drive, and I would copy and paste them onto the the little iRiver device. And then I somehow had a way to listen to this in the car. I don’t remember exactly how I got this into my stereo, but it was a day.

John Corcoran 12:58

It was like putting a tape deck thing that had a port coming out of it and that would plug into it. And, yeah.

Dave Jackson 13:03

And I just remember, you, you’d listen to your five episodes because I was a copier guy, so I’m traveling all over Ohio, yeah. And all of a sudden, you’d run out. You’d like, oh, not gonna listen to the radio.

John Corcoran 13:15

But you saw the potential of it. You, you know, enough that you realize that, okay, this has got great potential.

Dave Jackson 13:21

And I just saw so many things come and go, and I’d always like, oh, I should go into that. I should jump in, or I should do it. And it always kind of, you know, and then so this came along, and I was like, You know what, I keep missing the boat on all this stuff. At the time, I’d missed the boat on MySpace, which was this huge pre Facebook kind of thing, that everybody had a MySpace page, and I had one, but I I’d really, you know, I latched on to the caboose of MySpace, and I was like, I’m going to jump in now and, you know, it’s and see what happens.

John Corcoran 13:55

Did you think that it could get to the point where it is now? I mean, to me, it’s crazy, because I started my podcast around 2010, much like you, it was just simple, like recording a file and embedding it onto my blog. It wasn’t even an RSS feed or any of that kind of stuff. And to think that today there are celebrities that come onto the Tonight Show as the first guest, and they’re only there to promote a podcast, to me, that blows my mind a bit. You know, going back to when no one knew what a podcast was.

Dave Jackson 14:22

Yeah, somewhere in either one of my first five episodes, I need to go find this clip. But I say, Hey, I think podcasting is going to change the world. And I remember, you know, hearing myself say that, and I’m like, Yeah, you know. And then every year, something else would happen. I remember when we all got excited because Maytag, the company that makes washers and dryers, had started a podcast. And we’re like, ooh, Maytag knows what a podcast is, you know, and just watching it explode.

And I remember when cereal came out and I had like, six people, because I was the podcast guy, and they’re like, Hey, have you heard of the cereal thing? And like, the sixth person told me that. I’m like, oh. This is, this is cool. And then when they parried it on Saturday Night Live, I’m like, Oh, we’re mainstream, if that’s on Saturday Night Live, yeah. And that’s a milestone. So it’s fun to watch.

John Corcoran 15:11

Of course, it’s also had its downturns too. You know, it was, it was a bubble, and it went down. And sometimes you get negative feedback from people like, Oh, podcasting. That’s so like 2020, or something like that. What are your responses to people who say things like that?

Dave Jackson 15:25

Well, listenership has gone up every year, but what happened was, you had people paying way too much money for podcasters with way too much staff that they didn’t need, you know. So it’s costing them, you know, 1000s and 1000s of dollars to do an episode when you’ve got people like Joe Rogan that has a staff of three, if not two. And so what happened was they then tried to monetize through advertising, which doesn’t really work for most people. And in the end, they’re like, Well, we’re losing our shirt.

And so when you hear that, you know, NPR is canceling a bunch of staff, which is sad. I’m always sad to hear somebody lose their job. But on the other hand, you guys were getting stupid money, and the stupid money dried up. And it wasn’t that podcasting was bad, it was just they were way, way, way overpaid. And so when they finally started, you know, checking the numbers, they’re like, Yeah, that’s we’re not going to do that anymore, so, and there’s still, even now, Spotify is paying people to go exclusive on with a video on their platform. And I’m like, oh, here we go. You know, we’ll see how this works out.

John Corcoran 16:33

So the exclusivity thing, do you think that that is a short term trend, or what do you think about that?

Dave Jackson 16:41

Yeah, I think it’s horrible. I think what happens is you’re okay. So I’m Big Joe Schmo celebrity. I go on Spotify. Well, if somebody says, Man, did you see that video about that kid on the bike, where are you gonna go? You’re gonna go to YouTube. You’re not gonna go to Spotify. And so you have to tell all you know, fans. Hey, you have to listen to me over here now. Well, if they don’t go over there, and some of them will, but not all of them, they’re going to forget about you, so that when four years later, when your contract runs out and you’re like, Hey, I’m back, well, guess what, they filled up.

They had a slot for you in their routine, and you left. And so now they’re like, Hey, I’m back, you can put me back in. Like, Remember how you used to listen to me in the car Tuesdays at 10 on the way to work? Like, they’re like, Yeah, I’m listening to somebody else. But, you know, I’ll put you in the queue, but I’m probably not going to listen to it. So, yeah, I know. I think her name’s Brene Brown. She had an exclusive deal. There are a bunch of people that had exclusive deals, and just, they’re like, Well, that was kind of, I mean, they got paid up front, but in terms of longevity, yeah, great.

You got, you know, millions of dollars. But once that contract is over, you’re all you’re not back to square one, because you still have some celebrity. But it’s, I don’t know many people that return to where they were post your, you know, post being exclusive, so, right? Just, I think it’s great, you know, just spend your money wisely.

John Corcoran 18:03

It’s interesting, because in some ways, a parallel could be what happened to Howard Stern. So I actually just listened to Howard Stern on the Smart List podcast, which was really interesting, because he, you know, and I think it was 20 years ago now, or something, was on terrestrial radio, and then got this deal with XM satellite radio, went to satellite radio, and he’s been there ever since, for a long time, and then he was being interviewed by the SmartList guys, who, of course, got one big deal with Amazon, and now they have a big deal with XM and but they’re not exclusive to XM, so that seems like a bit of a distinction. Is that they’re they’re on, at least not yet.

Dave Jackson 18:38

Yeah, and Howard’s the thing that’s great about Howard is, once he went to XM, he just realized that if he wanted a wider audience, he had to kind of change some of his content without completely abandoning his audience. And he’s one of the best interviewers ever. He’s amazing with that. And so, yeah, I have heard about this video thing at Spotify. That’s the fun thing is they’re getting paid to move but in some cases, they’re not exclusive. They’re just trying to get people and here’s why Spotify is is its own little ecosystem, because if you can get people to listen on Spotify, then the number of active users on their app goes up, and if the number of active users on their app goes up, their stock goes up, and everybody’s happy on the board of directors.

And I’m like, Okay, I guess. But it’s, it’s, I always just tell people, never forget, Spotify is run by people from the music industry. And, you know, just Google music and just go talk to Billie Eilish. Or, you know, now she might be actually making some money, but there are a lot of people who go talk to the Smashing Pumpkins. About right? Music business, it’s, it’s not, not always the people you want to like, put all your eggs in their basket right, right?

John Corcoran 19:48

And what are your thoughts on video with podcasting today, you know? And when I started in 2010 It was much less common. My business partner actually always had video so. But today. It’s a different ballgame.

Dave Jackson 20:01

Well, it’s it’s been video has been around since probably 2006 and then this thing came along called YouTube that was free, so you could host it on and that’s the problem hosting the files because they’re so much bigger, it gets kind of expensive if you’re trying to do a, what I call a true video podcast. But YouTube came along and it took over. And that’s fine. The thing that drives me nuts is YouTube and Facebook pretty much had advertising locked up, and then this little thing came along called Tiktok that took about, you know, 4 billion out of their their budget, and they went, Hey, we got to do something to get people talking about YouTube.

And I don’t know, they had a board meeting or something like Larry, what do you got? And Larry’s like, da podcasting is hot. So they’re like, all right, fine. Everybody on YouTube is now a podcaster. And it’s like, I always use the analogy of country music. Country music is now the number one selling genre if you listen to country music, it’s ACDC with a banjo. It’s not Merle and you know, Waylon Jennings, and it’s, it’s the country is not country at all. And so they changed the definition. So what drives me nuts about this is people go, Oh yes, video podcasts are exploding on YouTube. Well, a video podcast is a YouTuber, so, and then everybody goes, that company then says, Oh yeah, you should be video podcasting.

Well, where did that come from? YouTube. So I’m not anti video. I’m just like, Look, if you’ve got the budget and the time and the desire I have, the thing that kills me is I have people like, oh, I want to start this podcast, and they’ll tell me about it. Like, that’s amazing. I can’t wait to listen. And they’re like, Yeah, I’m not going to do it. I don’t. I don’t want to be on video like you don’t have to be on video, like you don’t. And I’m like, No. They’re like, well, everybody says. I’m like, everybody is on YouTube. I go, No, there are plenty of shows Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History gets millions of dollars.

John Corcoran 21:50

Smartless is not on video. Yeah, yeah. So you don’t have to be on video.

Dave Jackson 21:55

And then it gets tricky, because, like, a video podcast on Spotify only goes to Spotify, a video podcast on YouTube only goes to YouTube and YouTube music, where, if you have an actual video podcast, it’ll go to About 18 different apps. Most, most of the apps will do something with them. Some won’t like it, I think Apple will play the video. Overcast will play the audio from the video, but you can’t watch it, but it’s just one of those things where, like, if you want to do video, go on YouTube. That’s where everybody goes.

John Corcoran 22:27

But it definitely feels a little bit like rebuilding the plane at 30,000 feet. To use that analogy. You know, podcasting has been going along for so long, and now videos have become so common that I didn’t even understand all those different nuances that you’re talking about there. And I’m sure as heck that new podcasters don’t understand that. They don’t understand how the video and the audio and the different pieces work together.

Dave Jackson 22:50

Well, it kind of doesn’t make sense. Because, okay, I’ve got an audio podcast. I’m going to start a video podcast to promote the audio podcast. I’m okay, great. How are you going to promote the video podcast? Because that has to grow on its own. And that’s where I always say, if you start a video podcast, you end up with really three things. You have an audio podcast, a video podcast, and you have to feed the YouTube algorithm.

And there are many. If you look at the super successful YouTubers, when they cut out, they’re like, I just cannot take the pressure of having to feed the algorithm, and it’s, it’s interesting, and just realize Google’s going to take 30% of any money you make from super chats or all the other things that they have for monetization. And you know, oh my God, that’s better than a poke in the eye. And there are plenty of people that are absolutely crushing it on YouTube. I just always say, just realize you don’t have to be on video if you want to, by all means, be stupid not to be on YouTube. But if you’re, if that’s stopping you, don’t let it stop you.

John Corcoran 23:46

Just, of course, you and of course, you know when people ask me, or when I talk to people about doing whether to YouTube or not to do YouTube. And there’s certain people that decide between like, should I start a podcast or should I start a YouTube channel? Like, like, as if that’s binary, deciding between those two things. The challenge with, you know, building something on YouTube is then that tech platform owns your butt, you know, and they can change the rules of the road.

And as you said, the algorithm can change, and you no longer have any control over that versus the I think the thing that’s been so wonderful about podcasting and its origins is that it was democratized and it was decentralized, and you owned it, and you can distribute it, and you’re not totally dependent on one big tech company that can change the rules of the road at any moment, right?

Dave Jackson 24:30

And then, when you’re on YouTube, you’re always kind of wondering, you want to make sure not to put out, you know, fake news or whatever the catchphrase is for, you know, things that they don’t agree with, right? Yeah, and I’m like, so that’s just another thing you have to worry about. And, you know, that’s the thing. I just interviewed Tom Webster, and I asked him, I go, why can’t a content creator just say the views and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the sponsor? I go, shouldn’t that cover us?

And then. Like, well, that works because it’s, it’s not kind of a legal thing. It’s about the court of common opinion. And I’m like, Well, have fun changing that, you know, but that’s just where if somebody goes, well, I don’t, I had somebody once I did an ever so slightly blue joke on the show, and they got upset and said they were going to tell their friends not to listen anymore. And, you know, it was just me being me at the time. And you just kind of go, well, aren’t if you don’t want to listen, you know, I can’t stop you, yeah.

John Corcoran 25:29

But that’s still, though, from a newer podcaster, especially if you’re a people pleaser, that can be one of those things you kind of got to be okay with, or you have to get comfortable with it well.

Dave Jackson 25:37

And that’s where, going back to childhood stories, Junior High was an absolute mess for me because I didn’t realize it, but we were poor, and I grew three inches one summer and went back to school, and I needed to buy new clothes. Well, we’d already bought my school clothes, and so now I had these giant floods of pants just nowhere close to the top of my shoes. So my mom had a sewing machine, and she bought fabric and sewed them to the bottom of my pants, but they were a different color.

Like, I had, like, you know, blue jeans, but then I had light blue at the bottom, so it just was a giant beacon of, like, look, Dave’s got weird clothes, you know. And I had to learn real quick. Like, okay, either like me for who I am or don’t like me, and I just, that’s just something I had. It wasn’t easy, by any means, but I just had to realize, like, Okay, this is me. I don’t have anything to do about this.

John Corcoran 26:29

So, now, you are someone who’s actually obviously comfortable talking in front of an audience. You’ve been a pastor, been a technical trainer, been in front of, you know, crowds and classrooms, teaching people. Is that necessary, you know, for people to do a podcast these days? You know, could our introverts? Should they not bother?

Dave Jackson 26:47

Well, it’s beautiful if you’re an introvert, like nobody believes me, but in certain situations, I’m still very shy. My first job as a grocery bagger, I got fired because I was too shy to talk to people, and nobody believes that.

John Corcoran 27:00

But I know that was a mandatory part of the job.

Dave Jackson 27:03

Well, just, just literally, like, hey, how used to go. And I was like, I put it into the capital. I’m an introvert, yeah. But with podcasting, it’s a great way to meet 1000s of people without meeting 1000s of people. Like, when I turn on the microphone and I’m recording my show, none of this Hey guys, stuff I talked to one person. I’m always like, Hey, thank you so much for tuning in. I’m so glad you’re here. So I’m only talking to one person when I do my show. That’s just a way, and it’s, it is one of the things that, even the nice things you said in your intro, of me it, my brain can’t comprehend that. I don’t know why that’s just the way I’m wired. When I was married, we were at a podcast event, and my wife finally looked at me and said, You are awful at accepting compliments.

She goes, You always make jokes and kind of brush them off. She goes, just looks at these people and says, Thank you very much. But it’s just something I’ve never been, you know, great at but I’m much better at it now than I used to be. But, yeah, you don’t have to be super outgoing. In fact, I always tell people to kind of be yourself, because if you try to be somebody you’re not, it typically doesn’t work. Yeah, it takes a while to get used to that. When I got fired, one of my teachers got me the job. I was in a business class in high school, and he said, Well, just act the way you want to be, and someday you’ll be the way you act, which we now call fake till you make it.

But that’s what I basically did. And it wasn’t until I got to speech class, which I thought was going to be like, Oh my gosh, I’m going to hate this class. But I got up and did one and made some jokes, and all of a sudden people laughed. And I was like, Oh, this could actually be fun. So, and that’s just something, my mom was just hilarious. So we would always feed off of each other and, you know, really bad puns and things like that. So I’ve always enjoyed trying to make people laugh.

John Corcoran 29:02

What about the big Amma question monetization? People love to ask about this. How do you make money off of a podcast? You actually have a couple of chapters in your book dedicated to this topic, no doubt, because it’s a very important topic for people.

Dave Jackson 29:15

Yeah. First of all, I always say when you first start off, don’t even think about it like you need to think about it in a way of like, okay, maybe get people on an email list or things like that. That might be your call to action. But you cannot monetize dust. You have to have an audience. You don’t monetize a podcast. You monetize an audience. And what I hate to see is, when you start off and you really want to make money right out of the gate, you’re going to get maybe 20 downloads on that first episode.

And so by the second episode, when you’re all the way up to, you know, 26 and it’s not growing as fast as you thought, and you’re not making any money, it’s like a double whammy. And I’m like, let’s just focus on growing the audience first. But yeah, and everybody says, Well, I’m going to start a podcast, and I don’t know. Now, I guess somewhere down the road I’ll get sponsors. And this is where I always feel like I’m Dave Jackson dream crusher, you know? I’m like, well, less, less than 10% of podcasts get enough downloads to get a sponsor. The best way to monetize your show is to sell some sort of product or service. So for me, I’ve got the school of podcasting, I’ve got books. I also have affiliate marketing, so if somebody clicks on a link and goes to Amazon, I earn a small commission on some of my shows.

I play with crowdfunding, so that’s patreon and supercast and all that stuff. And people always go, Okay, well, which one should I use? And I go, yes. I mean, it’s like, yeah, because about the time, you know, one month, somebody will buy a big screen TV on Amazon. My affiliate income will go through the roof, and then the next week it’ll be nothing, but I’ve got three new patrons, so it kind of ebbs and flows that way, but it all starts with making a good podcast, and that means knowing who, who is your audience. And there’s a big difference between males that are 25 and males that are 50. So you can’t say males 25 to 50 because, or I’m doing a show for widows.

Okay, well, these are females that have lost their spouse. But again, there’s a big difference between Mildred at 92 who just lost Harold, and Karen, who lost her, you know, spouse at, you know, 38 in a car wreck. There’s a big difference between those. You have to really know who it is you’re talking to. And then why am I doing this? And it’s fine to do it for fun. And again, you don’t have to monetize your show. But why am I doing this? Because the hard part is okay. What can I talk about to entertain the who, but move them towards my why and where those overlap, that’s your what. And then from there, it’s a matter of making a show that’s so good that the listeners can’t help but tell a friend about it, and then have a website.

So it’s super easy to share your information and get found by Google and then. And nobody loves this stat, but in about three years, you will probably, hopefully be in a situation where you can actually start monetizing and they’re like, but I want to quit my job in six weeks. And I’m like, Yeah, that’s probably not happening.

John Corcoran 32:09

Yeah, yeah. And a lot of times, I think that when people monetize it, they’re trying to monetize it with something that’s like, tangential or not really related to what they’re talking about. Do you notice this as a common thing, you know, like they, they’re like, I’m gonna make T shirts with the name of my podcast on it. But you have 20 listeners. You know, you’re an accountant, why don’t you sell your accounting services, something that’s maybe relevant to the people that are listening to you talk about accounting?

Dave Jackson 32:33

Yeah, exactly. And that’s where, especially with things like Patreon and any kind of thing where you want your audience to take action. And I always tell people 3% 3% of your audience will take action if you’re really good. When I interviewed the people from teachable, which is a course software for my book, they said 2% and last month, I was at Podcast Movement, and I just got so lucky enough to hang out with the head of NPRs, plus, that’s their kind of, you know, premium offering. And I said, I’m not trying to get in your wallet. I said, but I usually say three.

Teachable says two. And he goes, Man, we’re we’re right at 1% and so when you have 100 people, and you’re like, if I could get 50 people to give me 20 bucks, and you’re like, you’re not going to get 50% you’re not going to get 20% now, feel free to prove me wrong and email me. But it’s usually, you know, that the crazy people are getting 5% and I always tell people it’s closer to three, and if you want to do merch, that’s one of the worst ways buyers are the way to monetize. Because unless you are better, and it’s funny, because people just like copycat other people.

John Corcoran 33:35

They seem like Mr. Beast doing it, and they think, I should do it too. Yeah,

Dave Jackson 33:40

who has billions of, you know, views, but yeah, and the only people I’ve seen have success, and they’re, they’re, in my book, is they had, like, catch phrases. They would say something and it would just strike gold, and they would turn it into a t- shirt. And then it was limited time only, like, now through this time, if you want this shirt, you got to buy it now. So they threw in a little fear missing out. And then the die hard fans could say, Hey, I got, you know, when they show up at an event, or something like, Oh, I know you’re, you’re a listener, because you got that limited time offer kind of thing. So yeah, then that’s just kind of marketing 101,

John Corcoran 34:15

So let’s talk about growing your audience. Another common topic for people, there’s a lot more, I think, tools now than there were, you know, when you started, so 1718, years ago. You know, there’s paperclip, there’s ads, there’s appearing on other podcasts, there’s social media, many others. What are your thoughts on that today?

Dave Jackson 34:37

Yeah, the big one is because a lot of people think about social media. And I don’t know about you, but when I get sucked into YouTube shorts, I’m just going to the next, the next, the next, the next. And if somebody’s like, Hey, I have a really cool episode, you should listen to it here. And then I’m just like, Okay, well, that was boring next. You know, it’s like, I’m usually, don’t I’m not in the mood to stop. And do whatever I’m doing and go watch a podcast when somebody’s doing that. So I always say, try to get your show in front of people who listen to podcasts. Like just today, I got something in the mail from somebody trying to reach out to authors, or author something like learn how to sell more books or something like that, and he did have a QR code, but I just remember thinking I am so far away from my phone or a computer right now at the mailbox.

I’m like, Wow, this guy’s maybe thinking that nobody else is doing this. I’m going to stand out. But I’m always like, if you can find shows that are like yours and that you can deliver value to, then absolutely go on that show and talk about your stuff. Don’t be a giant, you know, commercial, but bring value to the conversation. So that’s definitely one being on other podcasts. And when I first started, like mid, like, 10 years into this, some of my best friends were my competition. And so Ray Ortega did the podcaster studio. Daniel J Lewis did the audacity to podcast, and I did the school of podcasting. And when we went to these events, we would hang out together, and we had these really great conversations. And Ray said we got to start recording these. And so at that time, Google Hangouts had just come out, and Ray said, Hey, we’re doing it like we’re going to call it the podcasters roundtable.

And what was interesting is that these are all my competitions, but we would tell all of our audience, Hey, me, Ray and Dave, are all going to get together, and you can come watch us here, and we’re going to talk about this topic. And I had so many people like, Oh, I heard you at the round table, and they were from, like, Ray’s camp, and I decided to check you out. So as much as we think people are a competition, it’s not radio, where we’re both on at 730 Monday through Friday. You can listen to me on Monday, listen to Daniel on Tuesday, and listen to Ray on Wednesday. So I had a fair amount of people discover me just by networking with other like minded people and like minded shows. So that’s a good one. A newsletter is always handy.

Newsletters that would be like, step one, launch your podcast, start making content, and if nothing else, get a newsletter going, because somewhere down the road you’re going to go, oh, man, I should have been collecting email addresses, because there are times in my newsletter, it’s just a quick little podcasting tip, and then it’s like, here are my latest episodes, and I have links to that episode. But I also have a link to follow me on the different apps I use. I have a page on my website where people can go and here’s Apple and Spotify and Amazon and all that stuff. And I can go into my newsletter and see people click on that stuff. So they might even be people that already listened, but they’re like, Oh yeah, I was going to listen to that.

Totally forgot about it. Click so and then you can advertise. And the further you get away, like there might be a newsletter about your industry, whatever it is, so you could advertise there, but now you have to ask yourself, all right, I know these people like to read, but do they like to listen? You know? So cross promotion is handy, but you can. There are places Buzzsprout ADS has a, I think it’s, it’s either 100 or 200 bucks for 10,000 impressions. And what I like about that is you get to pick what show your ad appears on, and then likewise, they have to, okay, yes, I will take your ad. So through that kind of double opt in, you usually end up in front of the right audience. And even though we’re all looking for that 10,000 download switch, right? If I could just do this and then, and I’m like, as soon as I find it, I’ll let you know, right? The easy button, yeah, the easy button, exactly.

John Corcoran 38:33

But, It’s a great point that you make about embracing your competition and collaborating with your competition, because it’s, I said it differently when I was starting, I was an attorney practicing law, and I started my legal practice by interviewing my clients, and what really helped me was interviewing other lawyers. And I was in a county of 300,000 people, even fewer lawyers, and a very specific legal practice, which was land use and real estate law. And I’d interview other land use and real estate lawyers who were my competition.

But what ended up happening is they ended up referring business to me that it wasn’t a good fit for them, and over time, embracing your competition was really helpful. It also brings to mind, like the diamond district in New York, which is kind of a classic example of you know, you would think that wouldn’t work because there’s 1000s of like, all diamond sellers all in the same area, but it floats all boats, because then all like people know about it, and they all come there, and many more people come to buy their diamonds and their engagement rings than would come to any one off shop.

Dave Jackson 39:33

Yeah, uh. Daryl Darnell is another podcast consultant, and he got a deal, and they wanted him to come record, I think it was NPR there. The Republican National Convention was in Cleveland, and NPR was doing this thing at the Rock Hall, and he was in Oklahoma or something like that. He’s like, Hey, can I hire you to go record this thing? And I go, Yeah, okay, sure. I’m like, how, what? What percentage of this do you like, do? I get he goes, Oh, 100% he goes, you’re just doing me a favor. He goes, and it makes me look good, because, you know, I’m connected, and can get somebody there to record.

But you know, it is one of those things where, and there are times, if, like, I know video, but it’s not my it’s not where I really, really excel. And if I have somebody who wants to go deep on that, I’ll go, I’ll go talk to Chris Stone, over to castahead.net who’s a member of the School of Podcasting, but he’s also a consultant and way into video, much more than I am. So, yeah, it’s nice to know these people, and because we’re all, I think at the bottom, you know, it all comes down to, I want to serve my audience the best I can. And if I have somebody come up and they’re like, hey, I want to do this three camera shoot with I’m like, You know what? You already went over my head. Sorry. I’ll get you here. I’ll send you over to Ray Ortega. He’s another video guy, right, right?

John Corcoran 40:49

That’s great. You know that time has flown by because I’m mindful of the clock. We’re almost out of time, so unfortunately, I have to wrap things up. But this has been so interesting. Dave and I always like to give my guests a little bit of space at the end and an opportunity here to express some gratitude. So I just love to hear people say, you know, especially peers, contemporaries, mentors, who’ve been really, you know, impactful in your career and your journey, and who you would want to shout out and thank Yeah, this

Dave Jackson 41:20

one’s kind of easy. Unfortunately, I lost him last year, but there was a teacher of mine. His name was Jim Blackstock, and when I went to get my first degree, I think I had him for tech report writing or something that was really, really boring, and somehow I wrote a piece, and it was, there was a rumor going around that if you ate enough wheat bread, you would get high. And so I wrote this weird piece, and it was called wheat bread, the big lie. And it took all the stupid cliches from every drug commercial you’ve ever seen, you know, you know, I went into I went in the bathroom, and everyone was in the stalls. They were all doing wheat bread and all this just stupid stuff. And he read, he goes, Well, this is really creative and pretty funny. He goes, You should do more of this.

This is really good. And I, when he died, I kind of had to flash back to, where did I meet this guy, and how did this work? And he then got me involved. I became the editor, going back to being a writer of the student newsletter. And when I eventually had to retire from that because I was having too much fun being a reporter than actually getting my degree. But when I graduated, he became a friend and a colleague. And so I remember they had to, they had this, like test class, and he goes, we need students. Jackson, get in here, because you’ll tell me if this is good or bad. And so it just a great guy. And a lot of his style, he would come into a really boring class, blow off the first 10 minutes, yuck it up with the students, and build that relationship with them. And it’s like, Okay, you guys ready to do some boring stuff? All right, here we go.

And I just remember thinking, Hmm, this is, if you can make, you know, learning fun. It’s a whole lot different. And then I remember once my niece was three years old, and there’s nothing better than the belly laugh of a three year old girl. And I was just, I walked by, Emily, what are you doing? And she said, Roger Rabbit is teaching me to read. And I was like, she doesn’t even know she’s learning. And she went on to be like, spooky smart. And I just so I always learned, like, if you can make education fun and somewhat entertaining, people don’t realize they’re learning so, because so

John Corcoran 43:27

many parallels to podcasting with that too, right? Yeah, yeah.

Dave Jackson 43:31

And so I’ve always just kind of been, you know, I didn’t coin the phrase, but I always use edutainment. And so I try to, you know, every now and then I would just throw my audience a curveball, just to have them go, wait, what? What did he just do? You know, and so, and it’s just for me, just to see what happens. I always say your podcast is a recipe. It’s not like a, you know, piece of, what’s the word here for like, a piece of art that doesn’t change. It’s not, not

John Corcoran 43:56

static, yeah, it’s just in place, yeah, yeah. So you can,

Dave Jackson 44:01

you can absolutely change it up. It’s your show. Yeah. In my last episode, I pointed it out. I was interviewing somebody I’ve known for years, and as I listened back to this conversation, it dawned on me, there were times when I just flatted. Didn’t ask him a question. We were just talking about something, and I’d shut up, and he’d kind of fill in stuff. And I was like, wow, that’s a really, this is really not.

It was a great interview, but yeah, in terms of nuts and bolts, and I just, I started the interview where I introduced him, and then I went back and added questions to really get to the points that he was making. And at the end of it, I said, Hey, have you noticed I went from just an interview to what I call a narrative style interview. And I go, you can do that. It’s your podcast. If you want to switch styles mid episode, it’s yours. Do whatever you want, as long as you’re delivering value.

John Corcoran 44:48

That’s great advice. I love that. Dave. Thank you so much for your time. Where can people go to learn more about you and more about the school of podcasting? Yeah,

Dave Jackson 44:55

School of podcasting. You could find at schoolofpodcasting.com you can find, if. You want to find everything I’m doing in podcasting [email protected].

John Corcoran 45:05

Awesome. Thanks so much, Dave. Well, thank you.

Outro 45:10

Thanks for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. We’ll see you again next time, and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.