444. Four Listener Questions Every Podcaster Can Relate To

0:04 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Thursday, January 29th, 2026, and today mail back questions from real podcasters on using iPhone versus cameras, choosing affordable mics and lighting, recording interviews with Google Meet and how to get past episode writer's block. So if you're listening live on Clubhouse, hit the share button on the left hand side of the screen and share it. However, Clubhouse lets you. And if you're catching us via podcast, YouTube, LinkedIn, 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.

1:20 Good morning again, podcasting, Morning Chat. Thanks so much for being here. I am your host Mark Ronik and currently on stage with me. We have a full house for sure. We have producer Ashley Feller, BC Babbles, Ralph E Step, Dr. Faye, Sid Meadows, Nick Naulback and Alex Baelish. You can learn more about all these fine podcasters, content creators by going to podcastingmorningchat.com. Go to the about section and you can learn about each and every one of them, including how to connect with them as well. So if somebody resonates with you and you want to let them know about it, by all means, go for it. And Ralph, who's on camera with me here on Riverside.

2:01 Ralph, I know that you made a connection with a listener recently. I did I've been really working my LinkedIn profile and I've been reaching out to people one-on-one and I heard back from a fellow named Josh and it was so great to hear from him. He he was making comments about how how he's getting a lot from PMC. So I just want to pass that along to everybody. He felt like he was really connecting with us. So that's a a big thing and and a big take away for me is reach out to one person, reach out to one person and start networking one by one. We think we've always got to be putting out content and social media posts, but just reach out to one person and you make that connection and they make another connection. So that's my big take away before we get started, Mark. That's my big take away for today. I love it and I'm excited for that. And yeah, Josh is a big loyal listener, I should say, of the podcasting morning show.

2:48 We just read something from him not too long ago as well. He has sent in feedback multiple times and we absolutely appreciate it. Thank you, Josh. And yeah, I agree with you, Ralph. The one to one approach, I think a lot of people avoid it 'cause they feel like, oh, it's just a big waste of time. I have to, you know, reach out and hope that they get back to me and why not just put out content and get to the masses. But look, I'm a perfect example of that. And a recent example of that is the last two tickets sold for two hour Empowered Podcasting Conference. That didn't happen for me promoting it here. It happened from me making one-on-one connections.

3:30 People that I connected with originally at Podfest and then after Podfest made connections with them, talked with them and as a result they were interested in in empowered podcasting and they went ahead and bought tickets like that. That's the way it works. I love that that you shared that. Thank you. OK, so we're going to do the mailbag. I don't have a sound effect, but I have my manual sound effect. Get all my mail out here. And before I dive in, I just want to say hello to Nick Nolback. As I said, he is on stage and he has not been here lately. And Nick, does this mean you've got your power back from the big winter storm? We have power.

4:15 It took a long time. We're finding like the house is finally back to like a normal temperature. But I'm ready to put a wrap on 26th. I don't know about anybody else, but it's been a rough January, yeah. At least, at least it's time to put an end to January. I'll give you that a. 100%. Yeah, I think there are multiple people that would agree with you, and I don't know if you heard it in my voice when I was doing the intro this morning. Just saying January 29th already is pretty crazy. To think that we're already a month through the new year is a little nuts. Dr. You wanted to say something. I wanted to ask Nick are the roads passable? Because we're I'm in Nashville, TN and there are lots of roads that are not even passable still. At least in our area, everything is passable. The day that we lost power, we thought it was kind of strange because we had a salt truck come through our neighborhood like early in the morning and then we didn't see him again. And once we finally like went to go venture out, we saw like there was a tree, a massive tree cut down like in the middle of the road, like someone came through with a chainsaw and cut it so that people could get through. We weren't going to go venture out anyway, but that was a big problem.

5:26 And as we were kind of getting out there to go to our friend's house who had power, we was just like, trees were down everywhere. It was just wild. Yeah, it's been crazy all over. I'm just glad everybody's safe. I am too. Thank you Alex and BCI know you wanted to say something and I think I want to put a close on the weather discussion. We are not a meteorologist podcast. We are a podcast for podcasters. So I want to get to the mailbag as I dig through and pull out the first item of business. This is actually something that Dr. found on Reddit. This comes from Crazy Crockett.

6:06 I won't read the whole thing, the whole username, just because I don't know if he would want us to or not. So I'll just say Crazy Crockett. And this is on posting video podcasts. He says. I have a question. I have an audio podcast that I like to air in the mornings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My friend though now has told me to do a video podcast. However, I know that videos are not reached by the masses until a certain time of day, usually in the afternoon. Does it make sense? Does it make more sense to air the videos later so that YouTube can push it out at a time viewers will watch? OK so my I have two questions here. 1 is that I'll just pose this to everybody, is the podcaster correct about videos reaching the masses at a certain time of day specific to YouTube? And also, how should this podcaster approach scheduling episodes, whether it's video, audio, or both? I see Nick's doing a thumbs down. I'm going to go to Ralph because I know Ralph has been very active on YouTube and has had some YouTube success. Ralph, I think what was it, 100,000 subscribers 200,000 recently?

7:21 So we yesterday we hit 225,000. It continues to grow. Now I will answer that question directly. So I think what that person's getting to and I use Vid IQ as a tool to help me with the video stuff. There are times when they say this is a great window to release something. I don't think unless you're doing a live show, that's a different story. If you're doing a live show, then of course that makes sense to me. But truth be told, people get stuff on demand when they want to embark, you know, and take it in. Now, it could be, it's possible that YouTube is going to promote that if it comes out at a certain time. I don't know the answer to that. I know with the vid IQ, when I'm putting shorts up and things like that, it does tell me, hey, here's a better window for this particular type of video. But Mark, that, that's been my experience, Yeah. And I've leaned into video as well. And here's the thing I want the other thing I would say is you don't have to do video.

8:16 If you're totally content with doing audio, stay in the audio lane. Because if, if you listen to the show before, you know, I've said this, I truly believe the content you put on audio and the content you put on video needs to be different. And, and that just means more work for you. I'm not saying that you that it's not a good thing. Like I've grown the video side of my content creation and I'm happy for that, But it is a different mindset. It's a different editing. I have a team of editing people and we edit the audio differently than we edit the video. So you're taking on more, you're worried about backgrounds, you're worrying about cameras and a whole bunch of other things that can make it more complicated. So if you're loving where you are on the audio side, don't let anybody tell you have to do video because you just do not have to do video. I fully agree with you there, Ralph. Absolutely, especially that last point. And I think when there's an instance like this where you hear, yeah, there is a time of day that is recommended for highest potential of reach, sure, you may want to think about that.

9:17 You may want to consider, OK, well if that's the case, then I want to schedule these things at those times. But ultimately, I think there are two things to consider. One is you can see on most platforms when your audience is most active. So I think what's more important is to respond to when your audience specifically is active on those different platforms, if that's the strategy you want to take. Ultimately for me, you know, we don't have a specific time, even though there may be an ideal time for us to post. Our mission is just to get this live show cleaned up and out the door for everyone to consume before the morning's over. Just because I like to keep it real with the name, right? If we're called the podcasting morning chat, I like to release in the morning, but ultimately I know that people are going to watch, listen when it's convenient to them. I don't like to put too much weight on that strategy because like we all know, we are an on demand platform. Our content is listenable, watchable whenever it's convenient to our audience.

10:21 So I think we have to take that sometimes with a grain of salt. Did anyone else want to chime in on this? I would lean into the time that he wants to post. So if it's a morning thing, lean into that and make it an event and you can do that through YouTube or whatever else. People. Love to, to know when things are being released. If your audience knows that you're going to release at 7:00 in the morning or, you know, whatever time they're going to look for it, they'll make time or they'll do it on demand. YouTube's a weird beast in the sense of I don't think it's a timing issue. It's just a matter of just get it out and, and get it to where you need it. That's what we've been doing on the stuff that I've been doing and it's been pretty successful.

11:04 I think on the timing piece of it, like I agree with everything that you, Mark and Alex have all said about it. As a YouTube user, I don't think I've ever been fed a piece of content as it's gone live. I always end up catching a video or something like that. You do like a day, 18 hours later or something like that. I've never had myself be scrolling through YouTube and then all of a sudden be like, oh, by the way, someone that you follow just posted a video catching it like almost in the instance that they uploaded. So I don't think being that specific to say, OK, everyone's, you're going to be on at 11:00, so I have to make sure I get it out at 11:00. If you've set that precedent and your audience is looking for your content, they're going to know to look for it at a specific time.

11:45 But as far as new people discovering your content, I don't think it's going to work quite like that. It's not like a TikTok and an Instagram like they're going to get fed. After YouTube's had time to process your video and decide when who to distribute it to, I wouldn't be as concerned with the time. Unless you are catering to an audience and giving them that expectation, then that makes sense to me. I think that's a great point, Nick, because I don't know about anyone else. In fact, Ashley, let's put up a poll. Do you respond to when a podcast comes out? In other words, you get a notification or you would just know, oh, my favorite podcast comes out at Tuesdays at 7:00 in the morning, so I'm rushing to my phone. Do you do that, or do you just go look when it's convenient to you?

12:32 Mark yeah, here's the answer to the question. Hey Lucy, what happens at 4:30 on Friday? I watch Mariah Elizabeth, my favorite YouTube. There you go. It could be a generational thing too. Maybe. You know, the kids, especially because we know and Alex, you've told us this with your kid and her friends. TV isn't really the thing anymore. Now it's YouTube, right? It's like, you know, coming home from school at a certain time, your favorite cartoons coming on, and so you're sitting down and turning that cartoon on after school. We're not as structured as our kids. Yeah. I think another big thing that we're to keep in mind here and going back to convenience is that I think most of the time US podcasters have a podcast because we're looking to provide a solution through conversation. So I think outside of timing, assuming that this is the goal for the person who provided this comment, you know, making sure that your title, your copy, your SEO, not to throw jargon in too early to the conversation, but making sure that you are framing each episode in the form of a solution. People who are going to be looking for that regardless of time of day.

13:39 So that's going to allow your content to be discoverable whenever and whenever. Yep, thank you BC appreciate that. And Dr. oh Dr. might be cooking eggs at this point. Now it's better too because I don't have to look at the clock to figure out if she's there. I can see when she turns her camera off here. That's how I know. Actually, Riverside is not all of a sudden recognizing my camera. I tried forever, but I am in the kitchen. Anyway, I'm going to answer the pole question verbally. If it's a short, I'll watch it right there. If it is like one of those, what's the opposite of a short long form? Called the long. But yeah, if it's long form, I have to put it on the shelf and, you know, find time to to see it.

14:26 That's fair and it's looking like the voting right now. It's still going on but as of now 89% say no. I don't respond to when a podcast comes out based on a specific release time. I want to preface this because I think BC and I are in a weird situation. I don't know BC. I do a lot of movie reviews and stuff about TV stuff. It is time sensitive, but as long as you get it out as quickly as possible. So it's kind of like this thing. You want to just get it out as quickly as possible so people can listen to it. So it's kind of a weird type of thing. That makes a lot of sense for sure, yeah. So then I think we're going to move on from this one and get to the next question. Let me pull it out of the mailbag and see. All right, so this is a short and sweet one. This is an e-mail that comes from Janet. Janet wants to know, how do you handle writer's block when it comes to episodes coming up with new topics? I'm assuming because literally that's the only question we have here.

15:25 How do you handle writer's block for episodes? So I'm assuming that's planning them out, coming up with the content. How do you plan them? Yet sometimes, I guess there are times where some of us, it's like, what do we do? In fact, I had that moment this morning. I did not plan ahead for today's episode because normally Thursday's our evaluation day, but we've since made it every other Thursday. And I woke up this morning and said oops, right. So it wasn't quite writer's block, but at the same time, I had limited time and had to be quick with what are we going to do today. And so some of it might be to have in using us as an example, might be to have a few topics that are on standby in your arsenal.

16:08 One of those for us is the mailbag. It makes it pretty easy to fill some time. OK, we've got lots of people that want to chime in. I'm going to go to the clubhouse stage before I go to the video, the Riverside stage. Let's go to Sid because I don't think we heard at all from Sid yesterday even though he was here. So I want to hear from Sid this morning. Good morning, Sid. Good morning, everybody. So I think there's two things that I would find is Rob's block is a real thing. It happens whether you're writing an article or a column or writing a script for a podcast. I think the first thing to do is when you feel that like you're stuck and you're there, it's just totally walk away from it. Disconnect. Go do something different.

16:48 Go do something that brings you energy. If you like walking and that excites you, if you want to call a friend or go to a coffee shop or play a video game, do something completely opposite of writing. That can help to maybe get you re engaged because writing is a creative act. So whatever you need to do to get into the creative juices flowing to to write, then just I would just completely step away. The other thing that I would do is if you're struggling with like what to talk about is use AI, use ChatGPT as a brainstorming partner and like talk to it, tell it, Hey, I've got writers block. I'm struggling with what to talk about. And if you've been using it for a while, it knows you and it knows the things you like to talk about and it will make a great brainstorming partner for you.

17:32 So very practical and then very like, let me get back in my creative mode. Love that I practice both of those suggestions walking away and also then brainstorming with AII think is always helpful. And you're right it it should get to know you after a while. And when it does, it does make that conversation much easier to have. You don't have to preface with a lot of information. I would still say that if I'm going to use it, I'll at least like Sid said, I'll tell it. Yeah, I'm dealing with writer's block. I'm trying to come up with new episodes. I'm not sure what to do. I might still tell it. This is my target audience. I might tell it. Here are some of the topics that I've talked about recently so that it doesn't just spit out, regurgitate things that I've already done and then see where it goes from there. Go ahead, Ashley.

18:21 Good morning. Good morning. I've got two small things. So the first one comes from Julia Cameron's concept of doing morning pages. If you want the water to flow, you have to remove the dam, even if that means by blowing the dam up. So what I would recommend is don't try to write anything that's related to your podcast. Write anything, write anything that comes to your mind for 25 minutes. Even it is it's I have nothing to say because what this does is it just gets you in flow and then eventually something will come and hopefully it's related to your podcast. The other thing I would recommend is if you scroll video sites like TikTok or Instagram, Facebook, what have you, any site that has Reels, make a folder because you can make collections and you can put something you'll remember, like for inspiration. That's what mine's called for Sunshine State inspiration. And for any video that I see that I think, oh, this would be worth talking about on the podcast, I just add those videos to that collection on those sites. And then when I'm trying to construct my episodes, I refer to that folder and rewatch those videos for inspiration. Thank you, Ashley, love that.

19:36 And can you repeat that quote again? That was completely off the cuff, believe it or not, but if you want the river to flow, you've got to remove the dam. Something like that, yeah. OK, well that would I would write that down Ashley. I like that a lot. Thank you for that. And Dr. just put something in the chat here that I definitely can relate to. She says to what Dr. Go ahead, you share. Are you able to? All right, well, she says get in the shower, get in the pool. Water gets my creative juices flowing. Yes, I think shower time is a big one for me. I know my wife often gets inspiration once she's in the shower and pops out.

20:18 And the frustration sometimes is, is, oh, but I got to capture this. What do I do? I don't have, I don't have a pen and paper right now. And that wouldn't work very well either in the shower. But, you know, if you've got your phone nearby, you might be able to just call to your phone, whatever name it uses. I'm intentionally avoiding saying it out loud. But yeah, do a smart device, talk to your smart device, leave it in the bathroom with you and say, hey, make a note and tell it what that note is. OK, Ralph, I'm coming to you. So the struggles, I do a Daily Show, one of the things that I do and the thing that I found is I've built a content calendar and that really helps me. So because I do a seven day a week show, it's about a 15 minute show.

20:58 I actually have all 365 episodes already planned out for this year. And I used a lot of AI tools to do that. I've written a couple books. I plug the the transcript of my books into AI and say what would be some good daily topics to use for this? But I actually think that having a calendar, being intentional of what you're going to plan and in thinking through that process is the way to avoid that in the 1st place. So that's just, that's just my two cents. I'm a sort of an organized type A personality guy. So I've got a content calendar out there and that just that helps me keep it in touch with where I need to go. And I don't get stuck in that, you know that that worrisome of what am I going to do tomorrow. Kind of going to ash this point about, you know, letting the damn loose.

21:40 I'm always a big fan of the word vomiting onto a solid piece of paper or to a nice notes document just to get everything out of your head first. Another thing I would say is don't always assume a singular topic can't flow into another topic. Always keep in mind when you're discussing something that you've already planned, do you notice whether or not any branches of that topic starts to pivot into something else? Write that down when that happens because that helps you realize naturally a whole new thing to discuss. And then if anything else, I would say if you have a good audience that's engaging so far, pull it. Ask them you know if they're your audience and you they know what your endeavor is through your podcast. Ask them what they would want to see in the future. Fair enough, thank you BC I'll see if does anybody else want to add anything to the writer's block conversation. Mark, one thing I will say is don't put out slop content just for the sake of putting something out. And I know that might not sound like a popular thing to say, but don't just put something out.

22:44 Well, I've got to post something this week. I've got to post something. Don't do that because that's not a service to your audience. And I know there's a pressure sometimes that I've got to put something out and you got to bring remarkable content every time. And don't let your quality get lost in that writer's block because sometimes it's better to skip an episode. And it might not be a popular thing to say, but maybe the consistency needs to stop until you're back on point with where you need to be. But I've seen other content creators put something out. And I'm saying that's not your best work. And in fact, I've even reached out sometimes. I said, you know what? I'm a, I'm a follower, I'm a friend of yours. Can I give you some feedback? And they said, you know what, Ralph? That wasn't my best work, but I had to get something out because it was Monday and it needed to go out. So that's just my $0.02 worth there, Mark. Thank you, Ralph.

23:31 Yeah, absolutely. And Dr. wanted to chime in. Go ahead, Dr. Yeah, I haven't heard anyone mention pillars lately. Content pillars, I swear by them. They are so helpful. I think content pillars should actually go on the jargon wheel. It's not on there now. Put that on there. And if you want to know more about content pillars, you can certainly look it up on YouTube or Google it, but they're very helpful. Nick, you wanted to add something? One thing that I feel like we all as creators kind of don't take advantage of enough or don't really pay much attention to is like rehashing old content. I know for me personally, I I would go in and create the content and be like, OK, well, I've already created content about that, so I can't create content about that ever again. I've already done it.

24:22 And you look at the creators who are out there crushing it, like they are hammering their message out that they're talking about the same thing day in and day out, and they're just spinning it a little bit. But the message is the same. The content is virtually the same, and they still crush it. They're not pushing people away because of it. Like it's OK to talk about things you've already talked about. Real quick heads up before we move on, I wanted to remind you as I shared yesterday and have shared previously, when we were attending Pod Fest, we ran a special ticket offer for the Empowered Podcasting Conference. We decided to extend it, which it's going to be extended, but you only have about two days left because well, maybe 3-4 days because we're doing with this is only going to be good until the end of the month. So what it means is if you go to empoweredpodcasting.com, click the buy Tickets button, use the promo code PODFEST 26. Between now and the end of January, you're going to get a ticket to the conference that is hosted by yours truly and a few others for just under $200, the lowest price you will get ever this year for the conference.

25:41 So again, go to empoweredpodcasting.com, use that promo code PODFEST 26, and if Empowered Podcasting and Charlotte are already on your radar for August, come on down to empoweredpodcasting.com and get your ticket today. All right, I want to continue the mailbag and I think what I'm going to do is quickly share something from a new listener. Her name is Vanessa. She's been chatting with me on LinkedIn and I met her at Podfest and she had commented on one of my posts and I think it was something encouraging, something positive about the podcasting morning chat about the post, which was related to an episode that we had recently.

26:31 And I commented back and asked her to eventually come back and give me some feedback, some constructive feedback. She actually took that to heart and did so and listened. I think my, from what I gathered here in her answer, I think she basically listened to all last week of shows and had some comments on it. So here is what she says. I love your show. You have a great presence and tone. I was going to skip this because she's complimenting me and I'm not here to get my back patted, but I'll, I'll continue. You have a great presence and tone, dynamic range of voice, which is great. Your guests are always complimentary to you.

27:11 Great fit. And by guests I am assuming she means those of you who are here with me on stage. She had some questions first. Why the 32nd wait between the intro and show? This is a thing that I have struggled with as far as keeping it or removing it for years. In fact, in the early days of the PMC, before we even took this to a podcast, that wait time was way longer than 30 seconds. It was probably around 2 minutes. Why do I do it? Well, it's a live show. Those 30 seconds are valuable to me. Before we really dig in. It gives me the last few moments of prep, make sure everything is in order. It also gives me 30 seconds to invite people to the live stream.

27:59 If you're watching me ever in those 30 seconds, you probably see me feverishly doing something and it's all on my phone. So you probably see me tapping because I have the phone placed right near the camera here and that's what I'm doing. I'm prepping last minute and I'm inviting people to the show. Do I think it's a smart move? No, it's like the old parents saying do as I say, not as I do. But my thought was is that, you know, I'm doing a live show. So I'm probably doing things a little bit differently than I would if I was doing a pre recorded show, but it still gets me. There's one thing I one idea I've been dancing around with, which is during that 30 seconds, if I really feel it's valuables, maybe do some kind of promo, some kind of ad, if you will, but maybe promoting something about this show, maybe promoting something about the services that I provide to my clients. So more to come on that, but a really good question and I appreciate her asking.

28:59 She goes on the reviewing podcast episodes, so she's talking about our evaluations. Nick, listen up because you said the same thing recently as what I'm about to share. She said that those episodes feel a little jarring to her. She says maybe it's me, but I'm lost because we're walking into a review of a show that we never heard. Does that make sense? Again, I don't know if there's something I'm missing like sound samples I didn't hear or a link to the show in prior days asking folks to listen and come for the review. It's the greatest idea overall. I just wish as a listener I got to hear so I could compare contrast. But even then, 7 to 10 seconds, sound samples or an audio summary could be near.

29:51 So first, I would say that this could be a result. I have a feeling Vanessa listened a little bit, got confused and stopped listening because it took us a minute. And I say that figuratively, it took us more than a minute to get to the clips. We didn't play the clips probably until about like 15 minutes in or so, using the last one as an example. And Nick, you shared about that with us after the show because you hadn't listened, but you came and joined the conversation and you said you were feeling a little lost and a little confused. I don't know if you want to add on to that or provide a suggestion of some kind. You are more than welcome.

30:33 I know a lot of you on stage as well. You're listening to the episode, so you go in with that predetermined, like knowledge like you. You've heard it. You have things you're ready to talk about. But yeah, we're coming in not knowing anything about what was being discussed. It's like you hear people saying good things about this show and things that they can improve on, but you're like, there's no context. For me, I just kind of disconnected from the conversation because I'm not in the loop on what's happening. So one of the things that I was thinking is like starting the show with some sort of clip from the episode or maybe the intro or something that can get the audience involved with the show right from the beginning. Like they hear something and what's being talked about is in relation to what they just heard instead of just kind of being thrown in almost like getting put into a conversation.

31:21 Like mid conversation you're like, I'm trying to catch up to speed. Like what's going on here? Agreed. I think so. And that's, it's funny because that's something that has been on my radar. I've noticed that I've felt like I've had the debate in my head. Do I start with a clip? Do I wait and help set up the show a little bit more? But the fact that this is two people in a row from the last episode that felt a little bit lost tells me that, yeah, I think maybe starting with clips could be helpful. Or even maybe if the show that we're evaluating also has a trailer that is maybe not terribly long, a couple minutes long, maybe starting with their trailer just so everybody gets a good sense of what this show is and they feel a little bit of a connection. I'm going to go to Sid, and then I'm going to go to Alex. Go ahead, Sid.

32:10 I also think it would help if we promote the episodes that we're listening to that we're going to review for a week before we review it. So tomorrow share the show that we'll be reviewing for everybody. Drop a link in there so that everybody in the audience and the listening audience on the podcast can actually go listen to it and just say it everyday. As a reminder, on Thursday we're going to be review. The crew will be reviewing this. If you would like to listen and join the conversation, here's the episode that we'll be reviewing. So I think the other thing is that way at least people hear it and they have the option to go and listen to the show, right? And being repetitive with it is what will get people to actually go and click the play button. Because I know it's like pulling teeth sometimes to get us to put our our valuations in, harass the audience like you harass us. The other thing that I would say is in the beginning, maybe, maybe before you play Eclipse, give a little synopsis about what the host said to you that they were looking for. Like we received a submission and Ashley is looking for feedback on Boom, Boom and Boom about her show. This is who she is and what she does. I'm going to jump right into a clip and play a clip or play whatever you want to right after that. So at least we, the audience gets to see what here, what we see on the form, but maybe not as in detail as you put on the form.

33:31 Yeah, Thank you, Sid. Great suggestions. I know I was getting a little bit better about teasing throughout the week, the episodes, but I think doing that more consistently would be important. Full disclosure, we need another podcast to evaluate. So tomorrow we can't even tell you yet unless we get a couple of submissions today, we can't tell you yet what we're going to do for the next evaluation episode. We may not have it depending on who or who doesn't apply. We had about, I don't know, a dozen or so. There were a couple that just weren't a good fit. I could go to those, but I just don't think they're a good fit. So we're, we're looking for a new batch. So if you're interested, by the way, to have your podcast evaluated, there is a link in the show notes.

34:18 So you can go click that, fill out the form and go from there. I want to say this before we go it further. I debated whether even to go into this because you know, we're kind, this is kind of inside baseball for our audience, right? You're you're hearing us go through the brainstorming process. What do we do or what don't we do? But I think that this overall is valuable to you. You're a podcaster, right? So to hear how other podcasters go through and breakdown, how do I improve my own podcast, I think that this could be valuable to you. So that's why I'm doing it and that's why I'm going to just say I'm going to, I want to limit to 1 answer here and then keep moving. So I'm going to go to Ralph and then I'm going to keep going through this and get to maybe one more mailbag question. Go ahead, Ralph.

35:10 Yeah, Mark, while you were talking, I had an idea. We could ask the content creator to send us a one minute recording of what they're hoping to gain from this. Tell us about your show. Tell us about what you're trying to accomplish. And we could actually start the episode with that. It's like we received this submission from Ralph. Here's Ralph. We were talking about content creators, so they understand how to get in front of a camera, in front of a microphone. So maybe that's an idea, Mark, so they can actually lay the groundwork of what we're trying to accomplish. Because then right from the beginning, we're going to understand who they are. We're going to understand their tone of voice. We're going to understand what they're bringing, what they're asking for. Just an idea, as we were talking, a sort of stream of consciousness. I love that idea. Maybe even using something like Speak Pipe for those people who are submitting to, yeah, introduce themselves and what they're looking for. It's kind of a step further to what Sid was suggesting. So thank you for that.

36:02 Ralph. Actually, you know, I was just going to switch into the next mailbag. But I will say that Vanessa did go on to say she loves the mailbag segment. She said, I'm going to quote Janet from friends. Oh my God, she said I loved that episode. She's talking about the last time we did this a million times over. Listening to people's issues and the team or you with guests dissect it. I love it. I'm such an AV nerd. I was answering with you all lol. Overall I can see why you are who you are and I'm so proud to know you and of you.

36:42 I hope nothing I said offends you. I promise you Vanessa, it did not. If it does, I blame it on health. I just got home from a trip. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't read this last part. At least I forgot about this last part. I just got home from a trip to the ER, so I hope you feel better Vanessa. And I apologize, I missed that in our correspondence, so I don't even think I said anything to her about that in LinkedIn. OK, this last one. I'm going to hold this next one for Janae because it's more of a an equipment question. Here is the question. This comes from someone on Buzz Sprouts Facebook group. It says we're a camping podcast and a bunch of our listeners tend to download episodes to listen on their commute. By the way, kudos.

37:34 I love that this person knows that about their audience. They go on to say, so they don't have a screen in front of them to quote UN quote buy us a coffee or whatever. In other words, BIOS of coffee equals support the show financially donate to the show person goes on to say, does anyone know of a way to offer an app or software for our listeners to be able to toss a voice command at their system to do the hands free version of contributing to a podcast? That question is very specific, but what I want to do is ask, what do you do if you know your audience is more engaged when they're doing something that they can't interact with their phone at the time? How do we get them to take action? Because I think also it's fair to say a lot of us have every intention of doing the action that the host is asking us to do.

38:27 But then life goes on and we forget about it or we don't remember which episode we heard it on. So we don't know what that action is and what the steps are. And yet it's just, it's too much and we just decide to move on. So what? What do you do, Ralph? You've got your hand up. Go for it. I think this is where we do a bad job of promoting ourselves. And what I mean by that is have your domain slash support. You know, if you want to support me and I would say that every single episode, just make that part of your call to action. You know, if you like to support my show, go to Bop bop Bop slash support. That's a great way to connect with me. And I just think you have to reinforce it because when I'm, when I'm looking at other people's content, I mean, this is this is stellar content, but they haven't told me one time how I can get in touch with them.

39:11 I'm not going to read their show notes. I'm not going to go check that stuff out. I mean, show notes are great, but I don't know if anybody ever actually looks at those. But if you reinforce it in the content, they start to hear it and they're like, Oh yeah, you know what? Slash support. That's what Ralph said to do, go to slash support. I think we just have to, I'm going to use a funny word. You got to pimp yourself out a little bit, Mark, and just put it out there and be consistent with it because it's all about repetition with advertising. How many times have they heard that? If they hear it every single time, after a while, they're going to be like, I'm going to give them some support because I want to hear it anymore or you're just going to do it. Yeah, thank you, Ralph and Ashley, you had something. Go ahead. I just wanted to add on to and say everything that Ralph said, but see if you can provide some kind of incentive along with that. I don't know what that would be.

39:55 It might depend on, you know, if you're a business person, what your services are. For example. I don't know if you're a hairdresser, you can offer 20% off your next haircut, just as an example. Yeah, I'm going to keep this moving. Thank you, Ashley. Let's go to Alex. I don't know how you would do this. If you could do something with Siri, or you could say Siri, buy a cup of coffee, whatever it is. That's one way. But again, yeah, unfortunately you got to pick yourself out like Ralph said. The challenge with your suggestion is we were will then be asking our listeners to do some kind of setup to make that happen because I think there are ways you can do that with the iPhone, for example, but there are it's a little bit of a tedious process to do that.

40:40 Then I don't believe an audience is going to. What I want to say about this is that for a first, I love that this person's thinking about making it easier for their listeners to support them. Here's a thought that might spark something. What if what if we just said instead of waiting for buy me a coffee, you know, hey, buy me a coffee and here's what you do Go to this website, click this link, do this and that and the other thing. Instead, just say something like, hey Siri, remind me to support the podcasting morning chat when I get home, or remind me to support them at, you know, 10:00 PM or remind me, remind me to support them when I arrive at my location.

41:31 Something like that, I think could go a long way. Sure, we're still asking them to do something. We're asking them to take steps, we're asking them to do it after the show. But I think even encouraging them to tell their smart device to remind them later could go a long way for you. That's how I would do it. Anyone else want to? The only other thing along that same lines, you could probably try to. If they're campers, there's probably a point at where they finish one project, whether it's put up a tent or whatever else. When they're in that one moment, get them to try to train themselves. OK, now that you're all done and you've listened to the show and you've put your tent up, that's when you can think about us again.

42:15 Or I, I, you know, I don't know how you mark it, but Janae just came in. I know we got. That's true. Yeah. That just gave me an idea, you know, maybe that this podcast would benefit from doing some camping merchandise, something that's something that, you know, a camper who's setting up camp needs. Maybe it's a mallet. Maybe it's a mallet for the steaks and it's got your podcast logo on it. A coffee mug, Yeah. Or a coffee mug, right? Yeah. Camping coffee mug, Something like that. Because then now they're going to hopefully use that. And that's just that reminder. Oh, yeah. They asked me to support them and I meant to do that in your that they just needed that little reminder with the logo.

42:59 On it supported somehow it's a supported you know this coffee supported by you know or powered by. Absolutely, Yeah, I think that this is a good place to stop. I think that Janae, yes, Janae, we called out your name because earlier we were holding a question that is a more technical question. It's about podcast setup and equipment, but it that will take more than approximately 8 minutes that we have left. So I think that what we're going to do is 1st I'm going to go to Ralph. Ralph, you're going to take over the show tomorrow for me because I'm traveling. I do some work with a nonprofit organization called CMTA. CMT is a disease that one of my closest friend suffers from, or I hate to use the word suffer because he certainly doesn't suffer from it.

43:49 He presses forward, but it is a disease that he deals with every single day. I go for one week at in the summer to a summer camp for kids that have that disease. And this weekend we're doing a retreat to plan for next summer. So that's where I'm going to be. Ralph's going to take over and Ralph, what are you guys going to be talking about tomorrow? Tomorrow I want to talk about how to be good with your interviewing. And specifically I want to lean into the idea of a pre interview and how you can set the table for your audience. How to prepare for that with things to look out for, what questions to ask. Because I am really a believer that we got to do pre interviews because we need to understand what somebody's bringing to our audience. We need to set the table for that. We need to understand their audio quality, their video quality, what's their space look like? And I, I do a lot of interviewing through Pod match and Mark, I know you have an affiliate for that if you want to mention that.

44:43 But the benefit to that is you really understand what they're bringing to the table. And honestly, at this point, I don't even take interviews if they don't have a pre interview. So that's what I want to talk about tomorrow is what have you learned through the pre interview process? What works for you? What doesn't work for you? Because it's real easy to get frustrated when somebody shows up with bad audio or they're not prepared or they just don't understand what they're doing. And you've got an obligation to your audience to make sure that this person is bringing value. So that's exactly what I want to talk about tomorrow. I encourage everybody to join us. I'll talk a little slower, I promise, but that's exactly what we're going to talk about tomorrow on the show. I love it and that's near and dear to my heart. I am in the camp of pre interviews and I know that there are podcast out podcasters out there that don't believe in the pre interview. And I encourage you to come listen if you are one of those people too, because I just think it's important at least to understand both sides of the coin and how it might benefit you from doing a pre interview.

45:43 And if you already do them, I think this is going to be helpful just to hear how different podcasters are doing those pre interviews, what they're looking for, what they're hoping to accomplish, etcetera. So come join us tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern. I will try to pop in in the morning. I don't think I'll be doing anything specific at 7:00 AM, but I won't be equipped to do a full show. So join us tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern and every Monday through Friday at 7:00 AM Eastern live on all the platforms that you can find in the show notes or just go to podcastingmorningchat.com. So until tomorrow, make it a great day everybody take care.