Episode 16 – Full transcript
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(Automated) Full transcript
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Get yourself a good laptop computer, go out and buy yourself a very nice USB microphone to plug it into. You should have a pair of earphones too. So you’ve got all you’ve need. Now, leave it all on the box and figure out what in the hell are you going to talk about?
no. What you’re going to talk about. Get a schedule together, release your shows on the exact same day, every week or every two weeks or whatever. So you build an audience that way. once you’ve got all that written down, then ask if I don’t make any money from this and I don’t ever get famous.
Yes. Is that enough? If the answer is yes, go ahead.
for me. It’s whatever’s listed in the top 100 on Apple. By category, you know, and I I’m always looking at comedy cause that’s what I do.
Of course I’m not in the top 100, I think it’s at 11,000 downloads now, which is fine because I’m just an indie. But for me to be a hit would be somewhere in the top 10 on Apple
Richard: so, is that still his own? What about money or is it just statistics that make a hit show?
Mike: Drive me to keep going, to make the top 100. And then it used to drive me to keep going, because I thought I could turn this into extra income through advertising and I’ve had advertisers and I’ve lost advertisers. Sometimes it’s my content.
Sometimes, you know, I’ll just agree to a three spot deal and that’ll be it.
So start some money. Don’t provide the answer. What does let’s, you know, For this show, it’s pretty clear that what motivates each of us can be very different for me. For example, I was in radio, I’ve tried multiple podcast, none of which has exactly set the world. Alight.
And I really genuinely want to know if it’s actually still possible in a funny way. It’s the raw emotion of frustration that drives this podcast for me. So what about for Mike?
Mike: the vision that I wanted to achieve would be a show of my own.
Right? I didn’t have to answer to another, um, radio exact. Because I was on radio like yourself for a while, and I didn’t want to go through the whole rhythm, a role of getting back on the air and re-establishing an audience. And then getting my contract done. I didn’t want to go through all that and then be scared half to death every week when the books came out and where I was at and the ratings, you know, I wanted to do it on my own.
Of course, most people starting a podcast won’t have been on the radio, but I think the key thing here is it’s your personal reason that matters why you want to do this. It has to be something personal. I think, you know, whether it’s a chip on your shoulder. Public attitude. You want to change a product you believe in so much that you want to sell it. You know, whatever it is.
It could just be like Mike, uh, wish to entertain. So that’s a reason to start, but what about to keep going?
Mike: so I guess what motive beats me is what’s going on in the world. You know, I’ve done standup comedy and things like that. I don’t need the, the comments from the public to keep going. I don’t need the couple of bucks you’re going to make from, you know, advertiser for a few seconds, bots to keep going. I keep going because I’m a creative person and this is my outlet.
Creative people need an outlet, but artists have got to paint. Wise ass is like me. I’ve got to turn on a mic. And put out into the ether, everything that’s on my mind,
If you’ve done podcasting before, we’ve all experienced the polar pod fade, which is where you start to give up. And I really wanted to know from Mike, what he had done, when he felt pod fade looming.
Mike: I do have a lot of dedicated fans. A lot of, some of those are my friends. Some of those are people that I’ve never met. So I guess the darkest point of my life was when I was going through my divorce and I didn’t feel very funny.
I didn’t want to do a show every week. talking about it. Cause I usually talk about my life. So that, that was my biggest, uh, Hurdle, I guess in this whole podcast and career with pod fade was when I got something major going on in my life. And this podcast is not generating an income. So I didn’t feel that beholden to putting out a weekly episode, but once the divorce thing kind of figured itself out, I found the podcasting was very therapeutic.
Another reason for pod fade of courses, because if negative comments and in the kind of area that Mike sent in comedy and social commentary, Has that been an issue for him when it came to pod fade?
Mike: I have a revolving. Co-host on the show. Like one will be my girlfriend. The other one is the producer. And the third one is my 14 year old daughter, but it revolves. And all three of them listen to this show, especially my producer.
His name is Paul Lamby. He gives me the most honest feedback about every episode. He’ll tell me if he didn’t think it was funny. He’ll tell me if I thought I went too far on something. So I guess Paul’s opinion. And my girlfriend’s opinion matter the most to me then Joe bag of donuts sitting in his parents’ basement in Detroit, you know, not that concerned about what he thinks.
And I’ve had people come after me before on different subjects, but I, you know, there is no bad press, bad comments, good comments. You’re getting a reaction from people. So I guess that’s good. Good and bad.
can do a whole episode and read comments about my show that are all pretty mean. The meanest ones I get are when I pay to advertise my show on Facebook. and it pops up on people’s feeds and they think that that’s really annoying.
They’re like, I’m not listening to your POS show, stop paying the, put it on Facebook. Cause you’re wasting your money with me signed, you know, angry American ex you know, I love those, but once in a while, they’ll the comments will grow on these, uh, Paid for sponsored posts or whatever. And people will begin to argue about the things that I brought up in my episode.
Like I talked about, for instance, Minneapolis thinking about disbanding, the police department, which is insane, and that caused a lot of comments.
What about the time it takes to edit. This is something I really want to look at in this series. As I know it puts many podcasters including me off, and frankly, it’s certainly a big cause of pod fade.
Mike: I think you, you brought that up pretty early on, on one of your episodes about if you go out and you record one hour, a one hour podcast, you’re looking at three hours of editing and that is 100% correct.
And that’s the way it is, how you manage that time. For me, it depends mood. If I feel like editing right after a show, I’ll go up and I’ll edit and I’ll set a limit on it for like an hour. And then I’ll just stop where I’m at. And come back to it a little later on. there’ll be times when I’ll say down at the computer and I’ll do like a marathon three hour edit. If I have nothing else going on.
One of the issues with editing is the quality of your guests. As you know, I’ve been looking at this in the show. And I remember editing an interview with a local council official many years ago when I edited out all the ums and ERs and stumbles, it turned a five minute interview into a 92nd one. I hadn’t edited any of the content out owning the mistakes and it took ages so good guests can reduce your editing time a huge amount
Mike: I need people that can deliver, and that are good at this.
Not everybody is good at this. I’ve gotten this some forums on Facebook with other new podcasters who are wondering why they don’t have a hundred downloads, an episode or 200 downloads an episode. And I’m always brutally honest with them. I’m not probably the most popular person Matt grew up, but I’ll say maybe you’re just not any good at this.
So, what does Mike think is the secret of success in how do you get started today? Well, first I asked him, can you really become famous quickly?
Mike: if you want to become the number one show, you should probably go out and become famous first and then do a podcast
we’ll point to Joe Rogan. Who’s the number one podcast are in the land, but he was famous before that, you know, I think he really found his niche with this, though. He does put out really great content.
Okay so what about now what about in the 2020s? what can you do now
Mike: five years ago, This was pretty new. There weren’t a ton of podcasts out there. So I thought I could jump in, get a big audience right away and be set.
well, in the beginning, I, I did an hour show weekly every week. I’d put it out there and I get in the heyday, I’d get it between three and 500 downloads, an episode, which was good. Okay. Not bad for an indie, but over time as the market became more saturated with more shows, you know, Joe bag of donuts, every five minutes had a show and that’s more competition for me.
So after years of doing it, I kind of let go of trying to make money and trying to do this as a full time job and treat it for what it is.
It’s a hobby. It’s a fun hobby. It’s a lot of laughs. I love doing it. I have a, You have a great time with, and you’re not agonizing over money.
If you want to make money, then go out and get a regular job.
If you’re using a podcast to market your business and your motivation may be different from Mike’s, but Mike’s advice for creative podcast. Like his is to do it for love or as your passion, not money and realize instant fame of course is not going to happen. But does Mike have any suggestions on ways to give yourself a headstart as a creative podcaster?
Mike: , the, advice that I would give podcasters now, Is to do some horse trading, like my logo and my website. I acquired from other companies. I traded spot time for their work. You know, them signing my logo, then building my website, all that stuff.
So if you don’t have any listeners and most of you don’t, do some horse trading,
there’s one more clip. I want to play for Mike in this episode, it was absolutely fascinating getting his perspective on things. And he was really honest. And I love that for this particular show, because this is what this is all about, right? Cutting through the online over-hyped waffle that can be found in places and seeing what really works. Now, every podcast is going to have a different perspective on this, and I would love to know yours if you’ve been podcasting for a while too. So please feel free to get in touch.
Remember these comments you’re hearing here are also just clips from our full length chat, where you will find Mike’s natural humor shining through as well. And you can get the links of course, in the show notes. So there is one more clip I want to share with you, which might just give you the motivation you need to start. If you haven’t already, Mike talks about the conversations he had.
With his girlfriend.
Mike: I kind of the way, a little bit from podcasting, like a couple of years ago, and she, you know, every morning she would call me and every morning the phone call would go at least 35 minutes.
And she would call that that year. You are my new morning show. I don’t listen to the radio anymore. I listen to you riff on whatever’s in the news. You’re still doing your shell, but I’m the only one that’s listening. She’s like, I love you, but why don’t you turn the microphone back on? Cause I think it had been a couple months since I did done a show.
And this was right near the end of my divorce. And so, yeah, I turned it back on. So the driving force for me is a not drive my girlfriend nuts and B, I got to have a creative outlet. Creative people need an outlet.
You’ve been listening to a special episode of can I make a hit podcast with my guest Mike winter of wise, cracking with winter podcast, you can find Mike’s links in the show notes and a link to our full one hour chat, which covered a lot more besides podcasting.
This show, can I make a hit podcast, has one mission of coals to get real about podcasting for me and for you so that we can find solutions that really do work in the real world to help us build hit shows when you have a full time job, having a little time and energy or resources as well. I’m asking the question. Can I make a hit podcast? The mission continues next week.