320 - Sponsorship Stress & the Truth About 'Explicit' Tags

0:04 Good morning podcasting morning chat. Today is Tuesday, June 10th, 2025 and today the tables turn as I open up about sponsor struggles for the Empowered Podcasting Conference. Then we dive into whether the explicit tag could be holding your podcast back. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button, bottom left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're listening via podcast, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds and we'll get things rolling. Thanks for being here. I am your host Mark Ronic and on stage with me currently we have Dr. Faye, Nick Naulback, Jonathan Howard and producer Ashley Feller is on stage with

1:35 us. Thanks to those of you joining us bright and early this morning live on Clubhouse and potentially I haven't looked yet live on YouTube. I think maybe we have one person on YouTube so far and that's OK. I don't really publicize it. I'll be. There. Oh, well, thank you, Dr. Appreciate that. So thank you for bearing with me Yesterday, kind of a last minute call decided to cancel the show. I wasn't really feeling well. And admittedly, both mentally and physically, but more so physically, I think is really what pushed it over the edge for me to decide. Yeah, it's maybe not, although it was a bit of a struggle.

2:19 Dr. Could tell you whether or not I could make that call. Oh, my goodness. Mark Ronick, you crack me up. Why? Because it was such a dilemma. Going back and forth. We we do everything on DM, on messenger, going back and forth. And it was the oh, maybe I should. And then the next. No, I'll go off it. No, I'm gonna wait. I'm gonna look at mailbag. No, wait. OK. I don't feel good. What I can't, It was going back and forth. I'm trying to keep up with you. As soon as I answer one message, it was a change of mind. So. Yes, welcome to my world. Yes.

3:02 And then I asked the question. Do you remember what the question was? I remember vaguely, like I remember why it. I remember it was the thing that made me say, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to cancel it, but I can't remember what it was. The question was why is it that you aren't allowed to get sick? Yes, yeah. And it's a fair question. And I think I get caught up in the strategies sometimes, Like I think many other people who listen to this can sometimes get caught up in the strategies. And my thought process was, well, look, I took two weeks off in May. Granted, the show went on and I felt guilt. I felt guilt about walking away from the show, especially last minute.

3:52 The strategy being consistency, right? And I felt like if I'm not showing up consistently enough on this day-to-day show, it's not going to do do well for the show. It's not. People are going to give up on it. People aren't going to listen. They're going to forget about it if I start being too inconsistent. Yeah, well, the difference between this show and our clients show because all of my clients are one weekers or maybe even twice a monthers. And I think most of your clients are one weekers. And it's just that it's that every single day of showing up. I mean, you aren't.

4:35 I know we want you to believe that you're Superman, but you know Superman has to take off his Cape every now and then, dude. Well, we'll see when that movie comes out in July if that's the case, which I'm really excited about anticipating. Yeah, you're right. I see Sid Meadows has joined us, which I'm surprised to see. Sid is at a conference, not podcasting related. And I thought, Sid, I thought you were. I'm not dodging, by the way. I'll get back to it. But Sid, I thought you were not going to be able to make it until Thursday. Good morning. Good morning everyone. I am exhausted. Do you? Sound dead? I'm exhausted and so usually we walk in the morning, my friends and I walk in the morning and we decided no walk today and so I am on a meandering stroll with my coffee just so I can get outside for a few minutes before I get dressed.

5:29 And so I thought since I'm not walking with my friends and talking business stuff, I thought I would come hang out with you guys so for a few minutes. So that's why I'm here. I'm glad that you're here, glad we can keep you company, glad that you are still getting, getting outdoors, especially at conferences because I get it, conferences otherwise if we're not conscious, if we're not making that conscious decision of getting outside, we'll never see the light of day other than through some windows here and there. So I think that's awesome that you're doing that anyway. And funny, I feel like maybe the universe put it in your head to show up cuz I even was telling Dr. that there was something I also wanted to talk about today before we get to the mailbag. Besides yesterday and me deciding to cancel last minute cuz I wasn't feel feeling good.

6:21 And as I said, mentally and physically, physically I my stomach was really bothering me. It's still kind of bothering me today. And that was what really pushed it over the edge, really made me struggle with whether or not we were going to do it. And Les Dr. was sharing once she said, or isn't Mark Chronic allowed to get sick too? That was a good cue for me to say, yeah, OK, I I can, I can take the day. But I was also thinking. So I was thinking you'd be a good person to join us here for insights on that and insights on my struggle, the mental part. And I was telling DRI was debating whether to to share it and why not, right? I encourage everyone to be real, be authentic, share some of your stuff.

7:10 And being that I share a lot with you about the conference, that's where I'm struggling right now because we don't have a single sponsor. And it's not that we haven't been trying. We've been trying all year long and we have yet to secure a paying sponsor. And it's freaking me out. I'm just going to admit it. It's freaking me out because we had some last year at this time of the, at this phase of the planning and I got none. And that's a little scary because it means one of two things. It means it's all coming out of my pocket. And again, if I'm being real, business hasn't been great for me this year.

7:52 So it's a little scary or option B is to cancel it, which I just can't even, I can't even fathom. I think that the weight of it all was getting to me as well yesterday and maybe that's why my stomach isn't feeling great either. I believe that mental health can be attached to gut health and actually is. I do believe that. So that's behind yesterday and I'm not sure what to do about it. We've been like I said it, it's not that we haven't been trying to get sponsors. I've been at it and still have some calls with sponsors. I had, we had a call yesterday with a potential sponsor who basically going into it said, you know, we don't really have a budget set to do this this year. And it's not the most ideal audience for them, the audience that's coming to Empowered Podcasting. So it's not a perfect match.

8:46 So to ask them to be a title sponsor would be asking a lot and we're hoping maybe they'll buy into something else as opposed to just be as opposed to a title sponsorship so that you can sponsor individual things that are going on at the event or items that are at the event. Fingers crossed on that because again, I any sponsorship money at this point is going to be really helpful. It's scary. So what? Thank you for sharing that. And I can imagine that pressure that you're feeling in order to get the right sponsors, right. Can I ask you a couple of tactical questions? Sure.

9:29 How many sponsors are you trying to get and how much money are you trying to, let's call it raise? Like how much money are you trying to raise? How much money I'm raising? It would be ideal to raise between 10 and 15 grand, which would essentially help me cover the costs. It's not really about profiting. OK. So you got a target and you don't necessarily care about the number of sponsors, correct, Just as long as you get to that, to the dollar amount? Correct. And what's been the push back that you've gotten from the people that you talked to already? If you've been talking to people for several months and stuff like what's been the the why, I'm not being a push back. Some of it has been.

10:11 It's not in our budget. We didn't plan for it, so we don't have that earmarked and we can't pull funds from elsewhere. And as the event gets closer, it's also about timing now. So those are the main two factors. OK. Budget, overcoming budget constraints is not something that can easily be overcome, right? Because a lot of these corporations put their budgets together years in advance and they are year in advance, sorry. And then they earmark it for certain things. And so you're coming in likely well into their budget. So I can understand that. I mean, is there a way to overcome it? Probably, if we think about it, we could probably try to owe us on that budget hurdle timing, meaning the timing of the event isn't working for them or the timing of your ass.

11:01 Does it look into them? Yeah. It's the timing of the event at this point between now, you know, it's only what, almost four months, a little less than four months away. And I think it's just, yeah, I think they're just having trouble coordinating it at this point. I would also reframe that to say it's four months away. We got plenty of time agreed, right. So there's there's still plenty of time to raise money. And so I think if we can figure out the how to overcome some of the the no hurdles, maybe it's reducing the size of the package, right? Maybe it's changing up what they get right. Maybe it's leaning into more of finding sponsors that address the needs of this audience that's here today, right?

11:45 That, you know, because what they want to know is that they either going to get some kind of brand awareness that's going to drive a customer to them. Like that's they're looking for us to figure out how we're going to buy or how they're going to get us to buy from them, right, to make it even more worthwhile. So I'll put some thoughts on it, Mark, and see if I can't give you some feedback. I would love it if you'd send me a list of the people that you've talked to as well, right? But I, I just believe there's a way to overcome everything. And so my encouragement to you would be to not let this get you down, to let this fuel you to keep moving forward, right? And to figure to be creative with the solutions, to be creative with the ideas, maybe change up the packages, maybe don't try to get one, you know, flagship sponsor.

12:25 But don't let this discourage you. Let this encourage you to keep moving forward to create an event that you know is impactful and meaningful not just for you, but for the community of podcasters that you impact every day. Thank you, Sid. I will work hard on that of not being discouraged and be feeling encouraged. And yeah, any support from you or anybody? Yeah, I appreciate that. I appreciate that help. I appreciate that nudge and that reframe. Yeah, Dr., go ahead. So my question is, last year when you were four months away, where were you with sponsors? How many had signed up?

13:08 We had we had a man, I mean, I, I have to actually go and look to give you a clear answer. And we probably had three or four lined up already and maybe raised at that point maybe like half of what we needed or so that's all you needed. Dr. That's. That's what I wanted to know. I'm sorry. I'm on my way to the kitchen. Yeah, no problem. Egg time. Yes, Jonathan, good morning. Go for it. Good morning. So the three or four that were sponsors last year, have we approached them because they should have it budgeted? Yes, we have approached and one of them I meet with early next week.

13:49 He's he scheduled it with me. Another one. How do I put this where I'm not calling anybody out? Another one was made through a contact that's no longer a contact for this event and it's been hard to get them to connect me with the original sponsor connections there, if that makes sense. Yep, Yep. Yeah. So we, we have tried to reconnect with last year's past sponsors and so far and, and some we, we've been able to connect with some we just haven't. And none have said, yeah, we'll be back, which I don't get because it was very successful last year. But there are a couple to be fair that we haven't reached out to yet that I will be reaching out to this week. And I appreciate that reminder.

14:41 But let's Crowdsource really quickly. Name some brands that you would like to sponsor the event and maybe somebody in this room right now is connected some way to somebody at one of their brands. Sure. Well, first I'll give an example of somebody who I, I believe we're very close to signing on just because of their enthusiasm from our first call is Riverside. So essentially software applications etcetera that are very useful to podcasters. Another, so an example would be of somebody who we haven't connected with yet that I think would be a fine choice would be Buzz Sprout. I think that's their target audience is the same in my opinion, target audience as empowered podcasting, independent podcasters, DIY podcasters, which some of those can include hobbyists, some of those can include entrepreneurs, some of those can include businesses. And usually they are the people that are actually making the shows themselves, doing it on their own. And Bus Sprout tends to gravitate or at least their audience grab it that an audience like that gravitates to Bus Sprout.

15:54 I should say all. Right, keep going. Who else? Another one would be an AI tool. Any type of AI tools out there that are useful to content creators? I think that would be a great match and go ahead said I was going to say I'll pause. Well, no, I was just going to. Yeah, well, I mean, Billy, just don't talk nonsense. But but I think right there, that's highlighting maybe possibly a roadblock is a definitive list of target companies like name them like boom, boom, boom, boom. These are the people. And maybe that's what we could help you with is everybody reach out to Mark with the send an e-mail or DM or something with the name of a company that you use in part of your production or part of your process that gives him a list that maybe he hasn't thought about a company that could potentially be interested in sponsoring, right? So I think that might be a really good way to get you a a more definitive list Mark.

16:54 I think that's totally fair, Agreed. And I'm going to do that today. By the way, Dan in the chat says maybe my math is off, but $200 a a ticket at 200 people, that's 40K. So Dan, yes, in theory you are correct, Sir. Your math is not off. And as we learned last year, and I'm hoping that's just the trend this year, we haven't had many people sign up yet. It took people till, I'll just call it the last minute for people to sign up. And if and when they do, I don't get that money until after the event. So it's just still creates a bit of a challenge for me to have to put the money up front. And that's the other discouraging thing that I'm dealing with right now is not seeing those ticket sales come through.

17:43 And again, that's it is what happened last year. So I'm not panicked, but it's something that I clearly feel like I can't depend on as far as helping to fund the event. And God willing, we get 200 people there and then we have that kind of budget. Then we can really open the floodgates and put put in place some of the plans that we have to make the event bigger and quote UN quote, better. Billy, welcome to the stage. What did you want to add? What's not Mark? Well, I love this topic of sponsorship stuff, and so I was going to make a recommendation to go check out some other podcasts. I wish, I'm sure you've done this, but go check out some other podcasting events. They always love to put that little sponsor list on there. And I go check out those sponsors because I know that they've already sponsored a podcast event. And I can say that I can say, hey, look, I know you guys do pod fast in a podcast Expo or you do podcast movement, yada, yada.

18:44 I'm looking, I got another event maybe you'd be interested in. So that might be if you're looking for potential sponsors, that's half the battles figuring that out. So. That's a great call. That might be good. Yep, that's definitely good. Thank you, Billy. By the way, you could always. Call Billy Thorpe. Yes, as a sponsor. I just want to ask Sid how. I mean, I might be interested in being an investor for sure. There you go. That's that's of interest. Yeah, we could talk about that. And Billy, I was going to ask you a side note. How are you? How how was the move? Are you officially moved out and in wherever you are? I forget where you ended up going. I am officially moved. We are in Puerto Rico and yeah, we sold our house and everything.

19:28 So we made decision April 18th to move and then by May 18th my family was here and I came a week later with the dogs and we sold our house couple weeks after that. So yeah, so it's been a wild, it's been a wild ride. But we're here. The last piece of the puzzle is we're waiting on our moving truck to come, I think either today or tomorrow to get the rest of our stuff. But yeah, man, cars are here. House is good, all is well. I can see I'm looking at the ocean right now from my kitchen window. It's a distance away and I got a squint a little bit through some trees, but I can see it. Very cool. Congratulations total one hundred. 100% respect to you and your family for making that call so quickly, making it happen and embracing change, right?

20:20 I think that's a tough call for a lot of people to just pick up, sell stuff, pack stuff and move to, I don't want to, it's not another country, but it for all intents and purposes, another culture, I'll say in such a far distance from where you were. So kudos to you for sure. Renee, welcome to the stage. What did you want to add? I got two things to add. Good morning, everyone. Number one, this event is on my radar as a possibility. I live in Pennsylvania and I have a son that lives in Raleigh. And so I thought I could get to this event and also visit my son. So it is I'm a potential that might be coming. But the other thing I wanted to bring up because of something that Billy said got me thinking was can't keep my marketing hat off for too long.

21:14 I think with this event, I would, I would spin this if you're looking at podcasters, I mean at sponsors is maybe catch them in the cradle concept, which is hey, the people that come to this event. I'm not saying that these aren't professional career podcasters, right? That are that at your event. That's not what I'm insinuating. But I think I would use that for my marketing to maybe some bigger fish that say, you know, when people get committed to a a platform, a product, they're going to be harder to move them when time goes on. So you want to catch them in the cradle now you want to come to this event now, show them how they should be using your services now instead of them.

22:01 Fine, because you said DIY. That's what I'm kind of spinning off of. So get, get them now, get them now instead of waiting until they're already committed and got three or four years into another product. And then you're saying, oh, now we want to market to them. No market to them now. Catch them in the cradle. That's, that's my thought. If I was going after, I was going to go after a sponsor. Yeah. Thank you, Renee. Love that. Appreciate that. And wrote it down as well. Thank you. I appreciate that. So Renee, I really appreciate your marketing self coming up here today to share that because it made me think about something else. Mark, you're zoning in on podcasting, which is at the core what you do and what this community is about. But I might broaden that to content creation because we all think content, not just podcasting and we create various types of content.

22:53 So I might broaden my sponsorship search to tools that are beneficial to content creators. I like Wix, for example, a website platform. My new business just started using them super easy. Their person that is over brand ambassadors. That's not the right word, but that they, you know, she's very public like on TikTok and she talks a lot about how they find creators to support their brand. Like that's a great one. I know that Katie Brinkley promotes this scheduling tool on her podcast and for the life of me, I can't remember the name of it, but that's another idea, right? Like so broaden the search to more content creation scope and the things that we need, because how many times do we talk about are we get the question, what website should tool should I use to post my podcast? Right?

23:44 Like think about that. And that might give you some more ideas companies to reach out to and some of them especially if they're if they're brand marketing and is a public facing and always out there might be a really easy approach to somebody like that. Yeah, thank you, Sid, totally agree with you. Expand it more to more than podcasting for really to anybody or any anybody who's trying to attract a content creator, I'm with you. And yes, I'm seeing in the chat this long list of ideas and potential sponsors to reach out to. Thank you for all of these and I will also remind people that we are going to offer, we are offering a 15% Commission on any sponsors that you bring our way that we close.

24:32 So it can't just be, hey, have you tried this? It has to be you. You've got at least a contact or a foot in the door some way that hey, here's somebody reach out to them and then then if I'm able to close them, yeah, I'll give you a 15% Commission on that. All right. So with that, does anyone have anything else because I don't want to just end it because I say the conversation's over. If anybody else wants to chime in, feel free. OK, Well, thank you. I appreciate everyone taking the time really spending listening and being in my head and hearing what I'm struggling with these days. I appreciate the advice and direction. And yes, overall I am.

25:14 And I think most of you know me well enough to know that I do try to look at things from the positive side. I do try not to be discouraged and instead encouraged. And sometimes I got a venting and let it out right. And I, and I believe that to be true for everyone. It's OK to have that down moment and sit in that and sit in those feelings. If if anything, sometimes that's what turns the discouragement into encouragement. I think it's important not to let things just Stew and not say them out loud, not bring them to the surface, because I think you're operating from a place of discomfort. And I don't think that that's the the right mentality when trying to put together something as big as I'm trying to put together. Can I jump in one more time?

26:05 Sure, Renee, before we close this, I want to make sure that you are offering three levels of sponsorship packages. So the middle one of course being the one that you want to sell and then you stop the top one that I, I may never sell this and it would include getting mentions here, sponsoring this, this podcast, this show and just have 3 levels. Just make sure you have that basic salesmanship going with your sponsorships also. Yes, I do. We have 3 tiers, gold, silver and bronze. And then we also have that we don't throw out until if we are to receive a no, like none of these tiers work for us. Then we have individual options for people to, if they want to buy in on just an aspect, an area of the conference. That's our way of at least trying to have them participate in some way, shape or form.

27:02 But we don't just throw it all out at once. We first start with those 3 tiers and go from there. Yes, Dr. OK, so I have a question. This isn't a suggestion, this is an actual question that I'm curious about. Does it make sense to, because I've never done anything of this scale, so I don't know. Does it make sense to start courting these sponsors, these potential sponsors, even the ones that say no? Does it make sense to court them for next years because their big excuse was we didn't have it in the budget? Do you know what I'm saying? Do you know what I'm asking? Yeah. I had a call just yesterday with a company and that's they even started by saying, listen, we're just going to be upfront. We really aren't budgeted to do anything like this for 2025. Although they hadn't seen that a la carte menu yet, which they are looking at, but they followed that by saying we're not prepared now, but if you're doing this again in 2026, let's talk.

28:03 We're interested. So yes, that is those are conversations that we're having. And it's hard for me to shift gears and you know, because right now I'm so focused on making sure we have the funds for this event that it's a little hard for me to think about the next event, especially when we're struggling to, to get sponsorship money right now. I get that, yeah. So in order for them to stay on the lines, so to speak, how do you start courting them? When do you start? Do you send a, an e-mail? Hey, this was, you know, we had a great event this year. Or or you know, what if we I don't know.

28:47 So. Yeah. No, I think now is the time to probably start courting them. Yeah, because we're a little over a year away. I think as long as we are, I'll continue to use your words as long as we're courting them before the end of this year, I think we're in good shape because a lot of companies are budgeting for their next year in that last quarter, sometimes even sooner. So that's why I say now is probably right around the time where we could start those discussions. I could probably let a month or 2GO before I really have to start taking that seriously. But yes, that is that is an important question and one that I'm going to keep on my radar. And again, just being real with you guys, it's hard for me to think about it when it's kind of up in the air, right? I mean, I can't imagine not doing this event. It's just that it's really terrifying knowing that it may all be coming out of my pocket.

29:45 It could change a lot of things for me. And so, yeah, it's hard for me to think. OK, let's talk about next year. Yeah, Nick, go ahead. I. Mean, I think looking at worst case scenario, say you do start talking with people from next year, just no sponsor comes in. I don't believe this is going to happen. I think all the sponsors are going to start flooding into this event and everything's going to be good. I'm looking at worst case scenario if you start lining up sponsors for next year and none are gotten this year, there's nothing to say that we can't push the event until next year and have a head start and keeping ahead of everything. You know what I mean?

30:26 Yeah, just because skip one year doesn't mean that it's done. You can never do it again. Obviously don't want to do that, but it's a. A route. Yeah, exactly. And that's, I actually really appreciate that perspective. And yeah, it is an option that I wasn't really thinking about. So thank you for saying it. And yeah, I don't want anybody to think, OK, that's what I'm going to do. And I don't want anyone to think that up. Mark's going to call the event. I'll be honest and I'll keep the discussion going through the weeks ahead here and let you know where I stand. And look, last year I had to front some of my own money and everything turned out fine. It all worked out.

31:09 But yeah, that is a that is a possibility that I could just say, you know what, we are doing empowered podcasting, but it's not happening the last weekend of September. We're going to push it to X and work toward that. I'm not opposed to it. And we've made such efforts that I'm going to do my best to to make it happen anyway, Mike Short, welcome to the stage. What do you got for for me? I should say, not us. Yeah. I think, Mark, one of the things that you might do is you mentioned Buzz Sprout in a couple places like that, but I would blast every provider of every service that's associated with podcasts. And I think it's the smaller ones that are more likely to say, hey, I can get some traction at this event. And at this point, I would not limit sponsorships to where you might have one per category.

31:59 There may be in, in use that when you, when you reach out to Pod Bean and you, you say, hey, Libsyn is one of our sponsors. We'd love to have you there too. It creates a sense of urgency in a FOMO that you want them to have so that they'll jump on. But I would be looking at the the smaller not so popular as well as the big ones for sponsorships. So I don't know if you've done that, but the couple of companies you mentioned are all kind of whales in the industry as opposed to companies that are really struggling to catch up with the whales. And I think that that you might have a lot of success with that strategy.

32:39 I agree with you. And yeah, there are a few that I would say are smaller. They're not considered the whales of the industry. One that I'll be speaking to next week comes to mind. So yeah, that I'm with you there. And I also think that our pricing is much more affordable for sponsors than some of the other big events. I've seen the decks for some of the other events that are out there, and it's a pretty penny to be a sponsor. And yes, we also do offer more than one option. So with those 3 tiers, we would accept more than one sponsor for those tiers with the exception, I think of that main one, the gold 1, I think would be the one and only. But then as far as silver and bronze, we offer several slots for that.

33:27 And then like I said, we also have those a la carte options as well. Thank you for that, Mike. Appreciate it. OK, So what I'm going to do here is I thought we were going to get into the mailbag and we're almost 40 minutes or so into the show. So we will get to, let's go to 1 mailbag question, see what kind of time we're working with, and then maybe we'll wrap it up and keep it moving tomorrow when we're doing our news and comment episode. So first let me find which one I want to go with first. OK, this is the one I want to go with. This is from Josie from Florida. Hi, I have a question. I'm reading her e-mail.

34:07 I've been podcasting for five years and I do get some listeners and some downloads, but nothing major. My podcast is about separation and divorce. She goes on to say sometimes I drop an F bomb and because of the topic we do talk about relationships and sex. Not in any serious detail though. When I started the podcast, I thought I needed to pick the explicit tag because I use bad words and sometimes and because sometimes the conversation includes something about sex. Has this been hindering me all these years? Was I write to Mark explicit? Can I curse and or cuss however you say it? How do we say it?

34:48 Is it cuss? Is it cursed? Can I cuss and lightly cover sexual topics and not have it marked explicit? And that comes from Josie. Thank you, Josie. And by the way, if you want, if you have a question you want answered by our team and our live audience, you can go to podpage.com/PMC/contact and leave us your question there. So what do we think gang? Let's talk about the explicit tag. Oh, we got several people participant that want to participate. I'm going to go to Ashley first. Good morning, Ashley. What say you? So I think my general rule of thumb would be if it's something that you can't drive in your car and listen to with your kid because it's it's just not a age appropriate for your child, that it's most likely I would mark that as explicit.

35:44 Or if it's just, maybe it's not the whole subject matter, but just like continuous F bombs, I would consider that explicit. OK, cool. Thank you. Yeah. So Ashley sharing advice on when she feels it's appropriate to mark episodes as explicit. And I think that's just that's important as well. And yeah, I agree with you. I think if you are dropping the F bomb or the seven dirty words, if you will, if you're not familiar with that, just Google it. I think if you're using those frequently, absolutely. I think the whole show, if you know that that's just part of your show and part of the way you talk, the people that you have on the show talk, etcetera, I think the whole show needs to be marked as explicit. I do think it can also be an on occasion scenario too, where maybe it doesn't happen all the time. I might consider avoiding using that explicit tag overall for the entire show and only marking individual episodes as such. Jonathan, did you have something you wanted to add? I guess I have a slightly different view on it because I do curse at times in my podcast, but I don't it's not often. And even the episodes where I do curse, I haven't marked them as explicit and it hasn't really been necessarily a problem. I think when we you drop a curse word here or there, it's not. You don't really have to mark it as an explicit episode. I mean the F word maybe, but

37:19 honestly I hear it in plenty of podcasts that aren't marked explicit so. OK, I don't know. All right. So, John, that's my thought. You're not worried about it personally. I wouldn't be worried about it, yeah. OK, OK. And yeah, you know, I mean, I get it. I think the only reason why I personally would be worried about it is if the platform is known to take down content because of bad language or, you know, sexual content or something else like that. I think Apple used to be kind of known for that. And I feel like they've pulled back on that. Don't take me for that, for my word. But yeah, I know Apple used to be a little more strict about that, but I think maybe it's now just there's so many out there that they're not as diligent. I'm not sure.

38:09 Alex, I have seen your hand come up a few times. Welcome. And what and what say you? What say? Well. 1st I love this question. This is something that I kind of would battle with on our podcast network. Not battle, but it's like, do you put the explicit tag or not? I love Ashley's answer and I also love Jonathan's answer. I put explicit because I tend to have a potty mouth when I do my podcast and it's not intentional. I just have to clean up my mouth for what is from. But because I figure if you're going to use one of the seven words, it should be explicit. I don't know why I just, and I think what's really kind of funny is I mean, with all the different types of podcasts, if you're listening to a podcast on X and it's known to be like we do a horror type show, well, there's going to be a lot of jump scares and all this other kind of stuff.

39:04 You kind of should know what you're getting yourself into. But at the same time, I just think it depends on the content too. I like Jonathan's take two. But anyway, sorry I was late. I had to drop off my daughter for her last day of elementary school, so it was a little sad. It's awful. It's just awful. I'm not in a good place right now. I need a podcast I think. You may have to mark it as explicit as well. Yeah, thank you, Alex. Appreciate that. And Jonathan, go for it. Quickly, I just pulled it up, and according to Apple's own community chatter, a single shit or similar curse does not require labeling your podcast or episode as explicit.

39:46 Sanitized descriptions titles too, so those get flagged by bots. So it says that it's just a single. You know. If your show contains an F bomb or discusses adult content above the PG level, you might want to consider it explicit. OK. That's helpful. Thank you, Jonathan. And I appreciate the investigative reporting as well. Yeah, I thought I saw somebody else have a hand up. Did anyone else have a hand up? Just want to make sure. OK. Yeah, so and so and I'll say, Ashley, since you are the one that publishes our episodes, don't mark this explicit because we used a single S bomb and that's OK according to Apple.

40:27 So we won't mark it as explicit. I have had people send me a message before saying hey, watch the language because I listen to your show with the kids in the car and I know Alex does. He sometimes has Lucy in the car and I think we do a pretty good job though overall of not using bad language. We'll go back to Alex and then check in with Dr. Two things. One, my daughter's probably heard worse than this on this podcast from her own father. So let's just put that those blanks out. But what I find is interesting about what Jonathan wrote was talking about and also goes back to like what's PG versus R? When Hamilton the play was being done as a movie, they had to take out like one or two sleeps so we can keep it clean and they had to change stuff and they actually put out, I don't give two blanks about this because it wanted to be PG versus R or whatever it was.

41:25 So yeah, it is kind of interesting how the clinical algorithm is so, but I'll let Ashley go. Ashley, did you have something? Oh. No, I didn't have anything. OK, OK, no problem. So here's what I'm going to do for this person asking the question, because one of the things that we haven't touched on as far as her question goes is really about discoverability. Is this hurting her podcast? That's what I was going to say. What did we actually answer that question? Yeah. Well Dr., do you have an answer or if not I can take it, but I just wanted to see if you had any thoughts. I don't know, other than doing an AB test, I don't know what the answer is. I mean, she can certainly take it off and continue with the content that she's doing. And if the listenership is still low, then she knows that that's not the issue.

42:15 Maybe it's just her content, you know, in and out of itself. Yeah, or just getting the word out there might be the challenge for her as well. Yeah, Jonathan, go ahead. Her audience is adults. Adults have been through a divorce. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're going to be OK with explicit content. I'm pretty sure they're probably using some explicit content here and there for as an experienced divorcee, I could, I would say the same. And yeah, they probably, I would guess that audience may not care. Now, sure, there's probably plenty of people who don't use bad language and are going through a divorce and separation. Ultimately, look, I think that this does come down to that word that people seem to hate, including Jonathan, is authenticity.

43:08 If this is who you are, if this is how you feel, and F bombs are something that you use, then absolutely continue to use it and you will attract the people that use bad language. There are plenty of people out there that use bad language or have no problem with bad language. And yeah, sure, there will be people that are turned off by it. And you probably, in my opinion, you probably want those people to go away. They aren't your target audience in my opinion. And as somebody that's gone through a divorce, you use at least one S word and 1F. Word. You do, you usually do. I would. I think that's safe to say. I think it would be kind of neat if she did do like a, a not a Well, yeah, maybe kind of like a funny disclaimer in the beginning of her podcast.

44:02 And that might be her thing like. And again, I, I know that sounds kind of silly, but luckily I haven't had to deal with that. But you can make fun of the fact of all the points that you just made. I mean, you guys were kind of chuckling the fact that, yeah, you know, it's not pretty. And we may drop some, some F bombs once in a while because there may be topics like you said that where, where there might be some words that, you know, an F bomb or a other word that men or women are listening to in the car with their kids. So I mean, you know, maybe if you, you know, without being overly protective of your podcast, I have something like a disclaimer in the beginning that's kind of like a little comical that, you know, hey, divorce is the divorce isn't easy sometimes, you know, the wrath of whatever comes out. So just be advised or something silly like that. I don't know.

44:58 Now see, I think that you should, on that disclaimer, just dive in and just have it overflowing with first words. Yeah, although I do think you want them to at least be prepared. And I was just thinking, as Alex was saying it, I hope that you're not listening to a show about separation and divorce with your kids in the car. There are exceptions in for every role and in general probably not the best content for the kids to listen to probably even if you feel like it's educational for them. I feel like maybe, and this is just my opinion, maybe it's better for you to have that discussion with your kids first and teach them a little bit about divorce and separation on your own and not from an an adult podcast.

45:47 Even if it's in a Kermit the Frog voice. Well, if it's Kermit the Frog, sure. OK. I just want to make sure we had our, we had our standards. Thank you, Alex. Janae, welcome to the stage. Did you want to add to this conversation? Good morning everyone, super excited to be here. It's a fun conversation for sure. And the explicit rating, you know, it's it's there for a reason. And I think she's asking the wrong question. OK. And this the question, the question is, am I getting enough audience for my continents? Is a similar question to say, Oh my God, I put this in the front of my episode. I think it's all about marketing because we all know Gary Vaynerchuk in the past he used to use a ton of F bombs is like, no, I'm not going to change my language. But then over time he's come around because the parents of the kids that are listening to his content started reaching out to him.

46:43 So now you won't hear as many Christmas or whatever in his content. So again, it all comes out to how are you marketing? Who are you trying to attract? What's the lesson that the episode is delivering and is it a growth or is it just venting? Like it all comes down to the why am I doing this podcast? What's the reason? Is it for me only? Like I'm just doing this so I can get it off my chest. And you know, it's totally fine if you're not getting hold by the Javadis because you're growing. But then if it's there's specific content that you want delivered that's going to help somebody to go over things, then you know, you think differently about those things. So those are my few takes on that. Thank you.

47:25 Yeah. Thank you, Janae. I do think you're right. I think that this is more of a a marketing promotion problem than it is an explicit tag problem. I'm totally with you there. So yeah, I think that for me personally, here's what I tell my clients as far as if they're debating, do I use an explicit tag or not? I would say you're right to mark it as explicit if you're using strong language frequently, much like, I forget who shared, oh, maybe it was Jonathan, much like Apple was describing. As far as you know, if it's content that would be in something rated in a movie more than PG, then you probably want to mark it as explicit. You can occasionally touch on adult themes even if it's not in graphic detail.

48:16 I would say I'm trying to think do you? I would probably say if you're again doing it appropriately PG style, then don't mark it explicit. Otherwise, I would say if you're getting more detailed, I'd say it deserves the explicit tag. And moving forward, I would say just mark the individual episodes, not the overall episode, not the overall series. Don't mark it as explicit. You may want to go through your episodes again and maybe this is an use for AI where you can kind of set those guidelines for your AI and tell it to share the transcripts and say, should should this be marked as explicit based on these guidelines? If it says yes, go and mark the individual episode as explicit. If it says no, then you don't need the explicit tag. That's probably how I would handle it, but ultimately it is not, in my opinion, going to be the reason that you lose an audience.

49:17 I think sure you will weed out the people who don't prefer bad, who don't like bad language, but I think that's kind of what you want if that's your style of show. Like I said earlier, OK, we are back tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern. As I said earlier in the show covering all the news around the world of podcasting, content creation, etcetera. We'll comment and share our thoughts and opinions on the ongoings. We'll also share some updates on analytics as well as tools, etcetera, things that might be new to you. So come join us tomorrow morning, 7:00 AM Eastern, live on Clubhouse, live on YouTube as well, or you can pick up the replay on your favorite podcast platform just a couple hours after we wrap here.

50:02 So until tomorrow, make it a great day everybody and thank you.