76: Ask Me Anything - Part 2

Written By Britany Felix
 
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To celebrate my birthday last year, I decided to do an Ask Me Anything (AMA)-style episode of the podcast where you were able to ask me any question you wanted and I answered it in the episode. It was such a hit that I decided to do it again this year!

In this AMA episode, I answer the following questions from listeners just like you:

  • Do I believe in have teasers at the beginning of the episode?

  • Do I believe in having a professional edit a show down?

  • What is the best approach of making money with a podcast?

  • Should you place your podcast under an LLC?

  • If you upload your episodes to YouTube, do they own the rights?

  • Why do I prefer Cleanfeed over Zencastr?

  • What is my other podcast that occasionally reference?

  • What would I do differently if I could start my podcast and my business again?

  • What non-podcasting tools do I use for my business?

  • Do I edit this show or do I have an editor of my own?

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Transcript

Welcome to podcasting for coaches. I'm Britany Felix and I'm a podcast launch consultant who specializes in helping coaches and consultants utilize the power of podcasting as a way to build brand awareness and generate new leads for their business. I realize not every new coach or consultant can afford to hire someone to help launch their show. So I created this podcast as a way to guide you through the process of launching and utilizing your very own podcast to help you grow your business and reach a new audience of adoring followers and potential clients. If you're ready to get your voice and podcast out into the world, head over to podcasting for coaches.com to learn more. Welcome to Episode 76, of podcasting for coaches. So as promised, we have an exciting and different episode for you this week, we are doing around to the AMA style episodes, which in case you don't know ama means asked me anything. So I have been sourcing some questions from my audience over the past couple of weeks. And I am not going to answer those questions. I don't remember which ones came to me in a public platform. So like commenting on a post, and Instagram or Facebook, and which ones came to me via email or DMS, I forgot to make a note when I was logging all of these questions down, like which ones are public and private. So I'm not gonna say the names except for the one that I do know for sure it was public. But other than that, I want to respect everyone's privacy just in cases in these questions to me privately. So the first question is, do I believe in teasers in the intro. And I do remember, in having a follow up conversation with this person, which was via dm, we were talking about taking a clip from the show and putting it like at the beginning of the episode. So that the episode actually starts off with a clip from you know, whatever they're going to hear in that. Now, I personally, am very much not a fan of this practice. The reason for this is because you want to treat every single episode, as if it's the first time the listener is hearing it, while also still keeping in mind that you will have people who this is their, you know, 10th or 20th, or even a 100th time listening. But if you're coming at this from the perspective of the person who is tuning in for the very first time, they've read your description, they've read the title of the show, they've read the title of the episode, they're going into this with certain expectations. And if you start the recording off, in the middle of the conversation, it is jarring. I personally cannot stand when shows do this because I have no idea who is talking. I don't know whether this is a host, I don't know whether this is a guest, I have no context or what they're talking about. I just don't have any of the information. And it's just a very confusing and jarring experience, which is not the emotions that you want a new listener to go through right off the bat, that's not the first impression that you want to give them. So I do not recommend putting teasers in your intro. However, that's not to say the teasers can't be used. This takes a bit of planning, you have to always be working one episode ahead. But I have had a client who very effectively used a teaser at the end of the show for the next episode. When they ended up the show they went through and they did their episode specific outro. And they tease and said make sure that you come back next week for my interview with such and such where we're going to talk about this thing, here is this clip from that Joe. And then they play like a little clip from it. That sets it up that gives you context, you're not being dropped right in the middle of the conversation. And then it gives them a little teaser, so that they're like, Oh no, yeah, I do need to come back and check that out next week. Of course, that only works if you've already got that next episode already edited, so that you can take that clip and put it in the one you're releasing this week. But if you can do that, if you can manage that, that's really effective and almost nobody is doing that. So that's how I recommend using teasers. Okay, and the next question, do I believe in having a professional quote, edit your shows down and quote. So again, in a follow up conversation, I took this to mean, do I believe in having a professional, take some things out of the show to make it concise? Now, whether that's filler words, or crutch phrases, or entire segments of the episode? My answer is the same. And that is yes, being somebody who is a professional editor, I do obviously believe in having editors work on a show. The reason for this is because your listeners are giving up valuable time to listen to you. And you need to respect their time by not taking up any more of it. Not a single second more than you absolutely have to. So leaving in those filler phrases, those crutch words, those stumbles those long pauses when they're not there to convey some type of an emotional response. It's really just disrespectful. To your listener, honestly, it's showing them that you don't care enough about the time that they're giving you to take up the least amount of that time as possible. And I know I have received a lot of pushback on this over the years, there are people who, when I say, it's disrespectful, they get very offensive, because of course, they're not editing their show, they want a natural conversation. And I promise you, if you have a good editor, you can have a completely natural conversation that you never even know was touched by an editor. It sounds raw in the terms of the content, but it's much more pleasant to listen to. And it doesn't waste the listeners time. Now, as far as editing down entire chunks of the conversation, like taking out parts that you don't feel are relevant, it's kind of the same principle, if the listener doesn't absolutely need that bit of content, if it doesn't provide some sort of value, be it information, entertainment, helping to build up the chemistry between the host and the guests, helping the audience to get a better feel for their personality and connect with them more, if it doesn't serve some sort of purpose, and you can get rid of it without it affecting something later on, you know, like it being referenced later on in the episode, then yeah, sure, go ahead and get rid of that. Now, I will say that is more time consuming for you or the editor. And I actually, as a professional editor, I will not even make those decisions. Because those are more editorial decisions. And they can impact the flow of the conversation and just the overall experience for the listener. So I do have some clients who remove certain chunks, because they just don't feel it was really relevant. But they have to give me timestamps for the start and stop and let me know exactly what they want to cut. Because these are very personal decisions that you have to take on a case by case basis. And I can't make that decision for my clients. So I do believe in it in theory, but I think that it has to be done in a very smart way of you're taking out entire chunks of the conversation. Okay, so the next question, the best approach of making money with your podcast, if you're listening to this show, I hope it's because you are in fact a coach or consultant. If that is the case, then I would hope that you have your own products and services. And that is exactly what you should be selling and making money on from your show. If you have your own business, where you're selling your own products or services, you should not be having sponsors, you should not be chasing that dollar from those ads, because it is nowhere near as lucrative as if you were to sell your own products. And it cheapens the experience for your listener. Okay, so the next question, should I place my podcast under an LLC? Unfortunately, I cannot answer that for you. In this situation, you absolutely want to talk to an accountant and probably even a lawyer as well. There are a bunch of different factors, I believe it even depends on what state you're in. There's legal implications to this in terms of what you're liable for, if you were to ever get sued or anything like that. And then there's also tax benefits depending on how you register your business. So definitely get with an accountant who is certified to work where you live, and then also talk to an attorney as well. And then the next question, if I upload to YouTube, do they own the rights. So I'm going to be really transparent here and say, I have no idea. I don't do anything with YouTube. Because most of my clients don't mess with video, we record remotely for most of them. And having video tends to really impact the quality of the call because it affects the connection for the call. And this causes a call to become really spotty and just have a lot of technical issues. So we don't do video. Now you can absolutely have another device setup. That's how I recommend it if you want to do video. So you have your computer where you're dedicating everything to the recording program without video. And then maybe you set up your cell phone on a little tripod. And that's what you're using to broadcast everything to you know, Facebook Live or Instagram or YouTube. I only have one client currently that has a YouTube channel. And I know that she's even been struggling with it because she's not verified. So she can only upload like up to 15 minutes at a time. So I just honestly don't know if YouTube owns the rights. If anyone who is listening to this does know if you're an expert in YouTube, maybe even want to have you on the show someday. So we can talk about that because YouTube is kind of a foreign land for me. So I'm sorry that I cannot answer that question. But I will try and find some resources for you and put those in the show notes if I am able to find anything that definitively answers that. But again, that is not my forte, because I don't really even think that most of my clients need to mess with it. There's just not right now for most people. It's not worth the ROI. Okay, so the next question and this one I do know was asked publicly so I want to give a shout out to the person that asked it. And that is Jen McDonald, who is the host of the mill spouse matters podcast. She actually responded to my post A day or two ago on Instagram. And she had a couple of questions for me. If you are not familiar with Jen or her podcast, it is for military spouses. So if you are a military spouse yourself, I definitely want you to check this out. Jenna is a total sweetheart. She has been a listener of the show for a while now. And I think that you'll find her show really valuable if you are a military spouse, and I will have links to both our Instagram, and either her website or her podcast in the show notes for this episode, as well as all of the other resources that I talk about when I'm answering these questions. And you can find the show notes by going to podcasting for coaches. com, click on the podcast tab in the main menu, and then go to episode number 76. Okay, so her first question of two was when I think the benefits of clean VR over a Zen caster. So if you listened to Episode 75, you know that I broke down recording with clean feed. That's what I currently use for this podcast when I conduct interviews, which I'm taking a hiatus from at the moment, but I have been using it for the past several months. And I do still use it with my co host for my other show. And I actually used Zen caster a few years ago when it first came out on the market. And it was wonderful, I absolutely loved it. I shouted its praises from the rooftops. It was amazing. After having so many bad experiences with other programs, I was so excited to find Zen caster on board. Unfortunately, the very weekend, they came out of beta, it kind of all went to crap really fast. I started having a ton of connection issues. And I lost five interviews in like two weeks or something like that this is a couple years ago. So I don't remember exactly. But it was like five or six interviews in a very short time period, because the audio was just unusable or I would download the track. And then I would go to put it into my editing program and find out that there was actually no audio on it at all, or it was like zero seconds long. And I just couldn't trust it anymore. And even now still like two years later, I still see constantly in Facebook groups who will talking about issues within caster The main issue with it now, because I believe they've worked a lot of the kinks out. But the main issue is something called audio drift, or drifting is sometimes it's also called. And that is basically where your tracks become out of sync. So for whatever reason, in Zen caster, something happens where it's almost like each track records at a different speed. Now this can happen, I'm not going to get into it too. Technically, this can happen with other programs, if you have the tracks that on different bit rates, you don't need to know what that is, just know that it causes an issue where your tracks are no longer in sync. So you have to manually like either cut and paste to add extra time or delete some time from the track. Every single time someone talks just to get it to line up properly. So you're not like talking over each other. It is an absolute pain in the butt to have to edit, I actually charge my clients extra whenever this happens, which I haven't had that happen for a long time because I've gotten all of my clients off of Zen caster. But that's why I do not recommend Zen caster. However, if you are using it and you've been using it and you have not had any issues, you don't experience a strip Do you haven't had any connection issues, you haven't lost any interviews? That's fantastic. And I'm very jealous of you because I have had to struggle to find decent recording programs since then there are a very small number of people who can use them caster without any problems. And if that is you, by all means stick with it. Don't fix what ain't broke. So if the pastor is working for you, then go ahead and stick with that. But if it does fail you clean feet is what I would recommend. The second question Jen had, she says she also wants to hear more about my other podcasts that I reference from time to time. So that podcast is extremely different from this one. It's about as different as you can get. It's purely a hobby show for now. And I co host it with one of my best friends who lives in Florida, and it is called gruesome gossip. And it is all about true crime, morbid historical stories, creepy pastas, which are basically horror stories, we talk about really just all of the gruesome things like serial killers, all of those things, that actually you may not know it by listening to the show. But those things are all things I'm interested in. And so this is kind of my outlet where I go over there, I cuss like a sailor. And it's just a way for me to just have fun with a friend that I don't get to talk to all that often normally, because I live in Colorado, and she lives in Florida. And we just come together to talk about these things that we find really fascinating. And we try to have like a little bit of a comedic spin to it because my friend is absolutely hilarious. So if you want to check that out, I will of course have a link in the show notes. But it is also you can just search for it. It's on pretty much every major platform. And again, that gruesome gossip. Okay, and then the next question is, what would I do differently if I could start my podcast and my business over again. So I'm going to treat these two different ways, one business and one podcast and I'm actually going to go back to my original podcast not even this one. My very first one because right now with the two shows that I have going these are technically my third and fourth podcast. So the very first one I I launched over four years ago. And it's the thing that changed my entire life. Before I started that podcast, I had no idea even what a podcast was. And what I would do differently if I could go back and do it again, is, I think I would have gotten a scheduling system a lot sooner, because I did have the struggle of going back and forth with like emails and setting things up. And I was interviewing people who were traveling full time. So we were definitely dealing with some timezone issues, and I was having to convert it. And we had some mishaps where maybe we didn't calculate it just right. And so we missed each other on the call. And it was just a lot more of a pain than it needed to be, because I had no idea that automated schedulers even existed. So that's one thing I would have done sooner than I did, which I did it pretty quickly, I think within the first few months, but I would have done it right from the bat If I had known about it. And then Honestly, I'm not sure if there's anything else that I would do differently. I went into it expecting, I think like a lot of podcasters that I would get sponsors, and I would be able to replace my you know, full time income with all the ad money I was going to make. And I was going to be a professional full time podcaster, I had all the same grand illusions, a lot of podcasters have. So it was a little bit disheartening when that didn't happen, obviously. But it very quickly turned into this other business. Like within just a couple months of launching, I basically had the business that I had now I had the very first client for that and the makings of what it you know, is today, four years later. So yeah, I think I would have positioned myself to have something of my own to sell rather than thinking that I was going to have a sponsor approached me or be able to find a sponsor, I would have come up with something that I could have sold, I think that's what I would have done differently. Of course, granted, two years later, I actually sold the podcast itself, which was pretty cool. I haven't really ever heard of anyone else doing that. So I did actually sell that original podcast to a listener, when I announced that I was retiring it, they reached out and asked if I would be open to purchasing it, we had several conversations over a few months, because I wanted to make sure it was genuine interest. I really liked him, he believed in the mission of the show. And it was going to help with his existing business. And he was going to carry on, you know, in the same method and manner that I was, so I felt comfortable handing it over to him. So it all worked out in the end. And then what I would do differently if I could go back and do my business again. Hmm, that is interesting. I had a couple of nightmare clients over the years. So I would like to say that I would say myself some headaches and not take on those people because hindsight is 2020. And there are two clients that come to mind who are just absolutely awful. Like I literally have PTSD, basically from working with them, as evidenced by the fact that at two different conferences recently, one of those clients was there. And the very first time I saw her from across the room as a 33 year old woman, my very first instinct was to duck and hide underneath the table. I didn't do that. Luckily, I restrained myself. But I've literally was like resorting to hiding behind things so that this woman would not see me because I was terrified of having to interact with her. And then she was at pod fest that I went to most recently. And it was my second time seeing her and she actually did come up to me and approach me but she didn't realize who I was I don't think. And I just started to kind of go into this panic mode. And I started freaking out because I just I didn't want to have to interact with this woman because she treated me so horribly. So yeah, maybe, maybe I wouldn't do that again. But honestly, I learned so many lessons. I know it's cliche to say that, but I really, really, really did. Those two nightmare clients. And some others who aren't necessarily nightmares, but weren't good fits have taught me so much about how to recognize red flags, and how to trust my gut when it comes to who I want to work with. And now, you know, I can say that I love every single one of my clients, which I don't know a lot of people that can say that, especially in the corporate world who can say that they love every single person that they work with. And I really do. But it's because of those horrible experiences that I've been able to weed out the bad apples. And now I'm just left with amazing people to work with. So I guess maybe I wouldn't do that, which is just a whole waste of an answer. But it sure would have been nice not have to go through those things. And that's for sure. So I think the other thing that I would have actually really, truly done differently is I would have changed how I bill. So for a lot of my editing clients, I take payment after I do the work. And I do it on a per episode basis. So every month, at the end of the month, I am putting together invoices based on their custom rates and based on how many episodes they released that month, and scheduling those to be sent out and yes, I can have a VA do it. That's not really the point. I know so many other editors, though, who set up almost like a retainer where it's like one flat rate every month and is automatically charged. And that would be so nice. And I've tried to move My clients over to that system or that process, and they're just not really happy and it doesn't really work for them which I get it, it's change. And it was actually going to equate to them basically getting like a bonus episode free every few months when there's five of their release days in a month, but they still didn't really prefer to do it that way. So I just kind of left it where it is now. But if I could go back and do it again, that's how I would have set it up from the beginning, just to make billing easier for me. Other than that, I've loved pretty much everything else about my business. It's been profitable. I mean, since year one. And I know a lot of people that cannot say that, and I have more revenue now than I ever did working in corporate, it allows me to work from home, it allows me to travel for months at a time, it's amazing. I'm not gonna say there's not some really hard days, because it's entrepreneurship. Of course there is I know you can relate to that. But this business has been one of the greatest things to ever happen to me. And I am so thankful, especially with all this going on right now that I have the ability to control my schedule, and you know, be able to work from home, because it's allowed me to really do some things to make our lives easier during all of this craziness. So the next question, what non podcasting tools do I use for my business? Okay, there's a few I love my little tools and systems. First one, we will go with acuity, which is the program that I use to schedule my not only my podcast interviews, but every call for my business now. So that is the automated scheduling system that I've talked about. I do love it, acuity scheduling, again, links to all this will be in the show notes. Next up is Asana, I use Asana with my lunch clients and my auditing clients. So basically anything that's gonna be like a one off project, not anything that's ongoing, where we have the same tasks week after week after week, I don't think it works very well for that. But for these one off large scale projects, where you have a lot of tasks that need to be accomplished to get to one end goal is a wonderful for that. So I do use that program quite a lot. The next one I use is air table. And that's actually how I keep track of my ongoing work. So air table is like Excel just on steroids. And it's online. But it does have a mobile app as well. And it's just so much better at the spreadsheet system. That helps you keep track of all the information for every episode. And I have every single one of my clients using it, because I mean, it's free, so why not, and I set it up for them. And it just helps us keep super, super organized URLs, all of this stuff would be lost and emails buried in folders, and it would just be really, really chaotic. So the next thing I use is a program called later, which helps me schedule social media posts on Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest, which I don't have Pinterest for this podcast. But I have dabbled in it for my other one. I'm kind of like testing some things out and playing around with it, seeing how it works for podcasts and bringing in new listeners not going super well so far. But that has more to do with me than the platform, I'm not really putting much effort into it. But I do use it for Instagram, a lot of Thai schedule pretty much every single Instagram post. So I do love that. And then another program I use speaking of Instagram, and when I post on there, I do audio grams. And I use headliner to do that. So that's like where it's like the image with the automated waveform that goes along with whatever I'm saying in this little video clip. And then, for billing, I use PayPal to create those monthly invoices and then for everything else, where it's like a one off payment or recurring payments, because I do offer payment plans for my like high end launch packages. I use stripe for that and it's connected to my website. Speaking of my website, I use Squarespace I have used WordPress and kajabi. In the past, I vastly prefer Squarespace to both of those. I use Dropbox to store everything from my files on the cloud so that I can have things synced to my desktop and work offline. But then I have a backup online so that if I have to replace my computer like I've had to do at least once a year for the past like four years, I don't have to worry about losing anything on my computer itself, because it's all in Dropbox. Another program that I use going back to Instagram is I actually have an app called unfollowers for Instagram. And it's kind of nifty because one of my pet peeves is when people follow you just to get you to follow them back. So like they follow you. And as soon as you follow them back, they unfollow you. So they can keep the number of accounts they follow less than the ones that follow them or something I don't really know. It's all Instagram hacking and strategy, and it irks the crap out of me. So this lets me see when people do that. And if that's the case, and they do that I just unfollow them right back, because to complete that game, you're not going to be sneaky with me. And then another program I use is called Lightroom. So it actually has a mobile app. And it's a really easy way to edit some images. So some of the things I do for Instagram, I will run through Lightroom first and that's been a nice little fun app, you can get different plugins and different like filters and stuff like that. And they're pretty cheap. Like you can get like a package of, you know, I don't know 20 or 30 different filters for like 20 bucks or something. I mean, there's tons and tons and tons and as soon as you buy your first one, I promise you you will see ads for it everywhere. And then I use Gmail for my email. What I think everybody does. But there's a feature in there that I think a lot of people aren't aware of. And that's that you can schedule your emails in advance. So like when I have a guest on the show, I have a template that I send them for all the information in case they want to share it. And just so that they know, you know, like, hey, it's gone live. And here's some, you know, copy for your social media posts, and here's some images and all that stuff. I just copy and paste that each time and update it with the relevant information. But I don't want to have to worry about sending that out every time on the day, I want to do it while I'm working on the episode. So I go ahead and create that all in advance, and then I just schedule it to be sent out the morning it goes live. And so that's a really nice feature that I use pretty often. I also do the same thing for following up with clients. So if I have somebody who wants me to follow up with them, you know, in a month or so to check back and see if they're ready to start together, then I go ahead and schedule that email right then in there so that I don't forget about it. And then if we happen to touch base a little bit sooner, I'll just go in and delete that email that was scheduled, so it doesn't go back out. But it's really nice. And I don't have to like constantly set reminders and follow up with people later. I just do it right there while I'm thinking about it. And then I do have a program that I use for recording video tutorials if like my screen, but they've actually kind of pissed me off here lately. I'm going through an issue with them right now, because I had just had to replace my computer yet again. And I'm going through some licensing things with them, and they're not handling it well. And they're refusing to do a couple of things. And I don't think they're being very fair about it. So I'm not going to mention them and recommend them. I've loved it up until now. But their customer service is really letting me down at the moment. So I don't have a recommendation for a screen recording app, if you want to do video tutorials, asked me in a couple of weeks, if they resolve this in a manner that I am happy with, then I will let you know the name. And then the final question is do I edit the show? Or do I have an editor of my own? So you might think that since I want people to outsource their editing to others, that I would do that for the show? And the answer is I don't I edit the show myself, and I edit my other podcast for some gossip myself as well. And the reason for that is not to be a hypocrite necessarily and say, Oh, you should work with an editor. But I don't. It's more that this is my marketing, like this is my sample of my work. Every time you tune into this episode, you are hearing what I can make a show sound like, that's why I still edit this, I am a little bit of a control freak, okay, I'm a lot of a control freak. And it would be really hard for me to let the editing go, I could absolutely do it though. Because I do have some quality editors that I actually outsource some of my client work to. I have one girl that I've been working with for a few years now. And she's amazing. And I'm to the point with her where I don't even listen to her work anymore. I haven't for a very long time. So I would absolutely feel comfortable handing the show over to her. But I don't think that that's really fair for me to put myself out there and say, Hey, I'm an editor. And then you know, have all of the editing on this show be done by somebody else. So that is how that gets handled. If you have any other questions that you didn't get a chance to ask, go ahead and feel free to reach out to me via the contact form on my website, or Instagram is really the place I spend a lot of my time I'm on there multiple times a day. So you can definitely just send me a DM or comment on any post pretty much. And then if it's something I can answer really quickly, I will just send you an answer right then and there. But if I have some other answers that come along, I really enjoy these ama style episode. So I may do one sooner than my birthday next year. And if I get more questions, I'll definitely do an updated episode of this. Thank you so much for listening. And I want to invite you to come back next week, where we are going to talk about how to tag your audio files with ID three metadata and if that sounded like gibberish to you, then you absolutely need to listen to this episode. Thank you guys have a fantastic week. And that wraps up another episode of podcasting for coaches. If you'd like to connect with me further, you can do so on Instagram at podcasting for coaches. If you know it's time to finally get serious about starting your podcast, go to podcasting for coaches calm and click on the work with me tab in the main menu to learn more about my one on one launch consultation packages or my self paced online course. And I look forward to seeing the podcast that you create and put out into the world.

 
Britany Felix
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