462. How Free Sponsorship Gear Becomes Taxable Income Overnight

0:05 Good morning, podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Thursday, February 26th, 2026, and today we're tackling content creators, tax questions, opening up the mailbag and breaking down podcast news that might have you rethinking ads growth and where podcasting setting next. 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 catching us via podcast, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, 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. Thank you so much for being here. I am your host Mark Ronik and currently on stage with me, my Co hosts, producer Ashley Feller, Sid Meadows, BC Babbles, Ralphie Step, Nick Naulback and Dr. Fay. And we were having a little technical difficulties setting up this morning. I think we're good to go now, although OK, there's BC and he was with us and then disappeared. Now I think he's back. Yep, he's giving us the thumbs up. And by the way, I know all this because we are also streaming live on all the video platforms as you may have gathered. And if you want to learn more about how to see us here live or even come back later and catch the video on those various platforms, just go to podcastingmorningchat.com slash join us now. Yesterday, as you may know if you joined us, we did all things news and commented quite a bit on a lot of those news stories. And Ralph wasn't here because his wife was having a procedure done.

2:27 And a few people have asked for an update, so I figure why not? We brought it up yesterday. Ralph said it's OK to share a little bit today. So Ralph, good morning, Welcome back. How? Good morning. How's the missus doing? The missus is doing pretty good. I just want to say, first of all, thank you for everybody who reached out. That was very kind of you. My wife and I have been on a weight loss journey together and I've lost 191 lbs and she's lost 104. Well, the reason she needed surgery is if anybody's been on a journey like that, the body shrinks but the skin doesn't go away. And So what she was having done yesterday was a little bit of a combination of that and a combination of having two children. So if you're a woman, you can probably appreciate that. But wife is good.

3:13 She had an elective procedure. It went very well. But now she's in this stage of abdominal healing, which you don't realize until you go through it. How much of your abdominal you use for everything? I just want to thank everybody for reaching out. It was a complete success. She's doing great and she really appreciated all the kind thoughts. She doesn't know who all you people are, but she says that is really nice that you've got people over there that that care about us. And so thank you so much. That was a huge uplift for us yesterday, so thank you again. Yeah, you're welcome, Ralph. And I'm glad she's back home now. That surgery can be quite painful, at least afterwards. So we're wishing her well in a speedy recovery and a congratulations to both of you for all the work that you've obviously had to do in order to lose all of that weight, or as I like to really say, release that weight. Because if you lose weight, it means you could go find it again, right?

4:08 So instead, releasing that weight means it ain't coming back. Great way to look at a man for his. I had pushed it off into the universe. I had a friend say one time, it says when somebody loses weight, somebody else gains it. So don't get near me because I don't want to take it on. But but no, it's been a journey. Mine's been 10 years and over the last year I've lost about 70 lbs of that. It's just great. So thank you. Mark, you're welcome. And Ralph, you know what I would love to do if you're cool with, I'm sure you would be. You shared. I think it was maybe last week, an old TV commercial ad that you did years ago with when your kids were just little kids. And I actually showed it to my wife because she's gotten to know you as our accountant and financial advisor. And I showed it to her and her jaw hit the floor. She couldn't believe that was the same person. So if you don't mind, if you could get producer Ashley that link.

4:59 We'll put it in the show notes so our audience can check that out and see exactly what that transformation looks like. Yeah, you don't realize it until you think about £200 is a person and I look back at a video of me and I go, wow, I lost a person. I'll be happy to share it. That was a cool commercial, Mark. We did that with our two young boys and we spent hours trying to get them to say about one line each. So I think everybody will get a kick out of that. So absolutely, we'll definitely share that. That'll be fun. Well, we're glad to have you back Ralph, and thank you for pre recording your segment yesterday. The content creators bite new business bite and we actually had a few questions that popped up that we were I think deserved some answers and we tried to answer them the best we could as non accountants. So let's just dive into that because let's see you in your business.

5:51 Bite said that clothing generally may not be tax deductible. And as content creators, I was thinking, well, you know, clothing, we wear it on camera, so couldn't we do some kind of write off on that? So let me just jump to the first question for video podcasters and creators. When, if ever, can clothing or wardrobe be legitimately deducted as a business expense? It's a great question and I just want to take an aside for just a second. So I was listening to the show after the fact yesterday and I'm going, oh, I want to say this. Oh, I want to say this. I'm trying to click the pepper button, but it's not live so I couldn't do it. No. So basically the IRS code says if you can wear clothes outside to do other things besides your work. They're generally not deductible. So a great example of that is if you work in a law firm and you wear a suit everyday, generally you cannot deduct the cost of the suit.

6:47 Now if you have a costume, that's a different story. So what I do with my clients, if they have a shirt that has their logo on it, that's deductible. If they have something that's a costume, like if I showed up here every morning in a chicken suit, then I could probably write off the chicken suit. But I can't write off my Under Armour stuff. I can't do any of that stuff. So that really the distinction is if you can wear it somewhere besides you're, you're doing your work, then you're probably not good to deduct. Now, Jonathan mentioned renting clothes and I think with what he's doing, that's fine because I think the argument could be made. I'm not saying Jonathan was wearing a costume, don't take that the wrong way. But in some ways that could be a reasonable argument for if you got into a a decision with the IRSI think that'd be a reasonable argument. Generally, you know what we call street clothes, you're going to get yourself in trouble if you try to do that. But if they're embroidered with your logo, so. So here's a hint.

7:43 And this is a good thing anyway, embroidery your stuff with your logo, it reinforces your brand and it will be tax deductible. So I hope that answers your question. Mark Yeah. So let me ask now. I wish I had thought ahead and worn one of my podcaster T-shirts that I often wear. Today I'm wearing a Save Ferris in honor of the Ferris Bueller movie, which is, yeah, that's a whole other thing we can get into. But I often wear those podcaster shirts. Sometimes they say podcast and or podcaster. I also wear those out and about from time to time. So what does that mean for me as far as writing off those shirts that I I actually do purchase and then wear on the show?

8:24 I think those will be fine as long as there's some tie into the show, like I'm a podcaster, the pod father, you know, pot you, whatever. There's I've seen a bunch of them. I don't know that to say Ferris, today's going to work. No, but but as long as you're being reasonable, and that's what this all comes down to reasonableness. If you go out and buy, you know, Burberry stuff and high end stuff and you go to rate this off as a deduction on my show, I think you might get yourself in a little trouble. Now, that said, if you have a high fashion show and you're buying stuff for a fashion show, that could be a different discussion. But that's not really what we're talking about. So I mean, I'm not saying you can't wear it out somewhere. For example, like I've had contract, I have clients that working contracting and they may do contact, they get super dirty. They wear, my grandfather used to call them dungarees, but jeans and things like that, that they just get destroyed. Those we could write off, absolutely. OK.

9:16 Thank you, Ralph. Appreciate that. And Alex, I'm just going to real quick. Whenever you come off mic, it's very echoey and this has been happening the past couple of times. I think it's because Clubhouse is coming through on your phone and it's being picked up on the mic. So just heads up on that and yeah, thank you, Ralph. All right, that does make some sense. And there were some other questions that came about. So during that business bite yesterday, you said that free products like a $2000 camera are taxable income. So maybe you could answer a little bit about fair market value as well, but BC question how that works in practice since the creator doesn't actually receive the cash.

10:02 So how exactly should creators account for high value gear that they receive for free like cameras and mics etcetera in exchange for promotion? That was a great question BC and again, I was trying to click the answer while you were while I was watching this yesterday. The IRS and the state's going to look at it is if you got economic value, let's start there big 30,000 foot view. If you got an economic benefit from something, then that's income to you. If someone sends you some, and there's really another nuanced piece to this, if someone is sending you something, you may have to disclose it in your podcast as well. If you're doing a review or something like that, Federal Trade Commission would say, hey, if you got free stuff and you're talking about that free stuff, you may need to disclose it.

10:47 But basically, if you get any kind of economic value from anything that is sent to you, you have to declare that as income. Now, basically the way you would do it. Yeah. And at BCI, hear what you're saying, you're not getting any money for that. But if you got that $2000 microphone, we would use what's called fair market value. And what I mean by that is if you went to buy it yourself, what would you pay for it? That would be the fair market value. Now, there's a couple of workarounds because I noticed somebody had made a comment, but how about talk to your CPA? They can help you out with this. One of the things you can do is if you're not going to use it yourself, you could donate that to A5O1C3 charity or something like that, and then you would effectively not have to worry about declaring that as income. I think that would be perfectly fine. If you do have to declare it as income, then it becomes as if you had bought something.

11:36 And if you buy something, then you can take a deduction for the, you know, the, the, the interest and all that kind of stuff. Excuse me, the depreciation on that if you are going to capture it as income. So, yeah, BCII hear what you're saying. It's kind of like Mark had a great analogy. And that is, you know, you're on the price is right. And as you walk off the screen, the tax man's there. That's fact. And you don't have the physical cash to pay the tax. But guess what? The IRS wants their money. And it's no different than if you, a lot of people don't think about this one, you don't see it as much. But the old call in, you know, if you're the 5th caller on the radio show, technically you're supposed to pay tax on that money. And if it's over a certain amount, Jerry, the radio station would give you what's called a 1099 form at the end of the year. But all, all brilliant things.

12:20 And The thing is, the IRS is looking to make people pay this be we've seen a lot of high, some celebrities who got nailed on these kind of things. So this is one that really watch out for. When I saw that article come up from Yahoo Finance, I said a lot of creators don't think about that because we make these relationships shifts with shore or road or Riverside, and we don't think about the economic benefit that we've received for those things. So that's where, and here's the thing, it's like you're the IRS is going to win because they're going to look at your shop BC and see your shore microphone. And if you're talking about, hey, I got this shore microphone from shore, they'd be like, I wonder if he reported that. So listen, I know BC actually has a follow up question and let me get to before we get to you BC Mike Short is over on Clubhouse in the chat and he said if you bought it yourself, couldn't you write it off as a business expense? And then he follows that up with. If you get it free to use, how is that handled? Well, so if you get it free, you haven't, you actually haven't paid for it.

13:21 So you can't write off something that you've paid for. So it's a little nuanced Gray area thing if you think about it, because technically you could say, well, if I'm using it for my show, then I shouldn't have to declare it as income. That's also true. If you think about it, if you get a microphone and you use it for your show, then I mean, I think there's a reasonable argument to make that hey, I could have shown the income and taken an expense. So if you get it, you don't declare the income, but you say, hey, I'm going to use it on my show. Again, no tax issue. The issue is if someone sends you something like BC they say, hey, you know, we love BC, we're going to send him. AI don't know a fancy bag or something like that and you don't use it on your show. You take a carry bag for where you go shopping or something like that. That would be income to you.

14:02 But no, if you're going to use it on your show, I think there's no issue there. So if BC put that bag, let's say he hung it up behind him on the wall where he shoots his content, that would count. Likely so, because then you can make an argument. It's a prop again, you let me let me back up stuff. Mark, think about it like this. You're going to be sitting across from, if you're the unlucky winner of the audit lottery. First of all, you got to be unlucky and win the audit lottery. Second thing, you're going to be sitting across from a government bureaucrat who isn't going to appreciate nice stuff. And I don't mean that to be mean. So depending upon what it is, if you've got, you know, a fancy Louis Vuitton bag or something like that in your street, in your shop behind you and they're like, oh, I can't afford a $2000 bag.

14:47 You understand where I'm going with that. So just be aware of the we talk about audience on the show all the time. Be aware of the audience you're talking to. If it's something reasonable, if it's so I always say if you, if you can, if you can say to your grandmother and your grandmother tells you, Mark, get out of here with that. If if you can prove it to grandma, you're probably fine. Fair enough. OK, let's get to BC. Thank you for your patience. BC what was your question? Yes, it kind of reminds me of for those of us who attended the Empowered podcast in conference last year, we know that the Podcast professionals Association was doing the the lottery to see who would win a shore mic. And I'm so I'm, I'm wondering in, in that same instance when it's a lottery like that, if it's still something that has to be declared.

15:29 If so, I'm happy that I was too impatient and I bought my own without knowing who the winner was anyway. And. Seriously. Just to be. Clear just to. Be clear. You won that sure microphone at no DC. No, you didn't. I thought you did. No. To my knowledge I have got no clue who the winner is. I was too impatient so I went out and bought this the next. Look into this. I need to look into this, I swear. But I'm owed a microphone and I would like to hear about that. But in the meantime, this was paid for paid taxes already. But I'm interested in wondering in that particular nuance, Ralph, if that's kind of the same thing. And then also this whole discussion has me like thinking about all the influencers I see who get huge boxes of every what they call not media kits but they get all the gear from. Swags.

16:13 But like the boxes itself have have like dozens of products and I'm like, Dang, they have to declare all that stuff on their taxes. That's insane. Because if you're a huge influencer, you're getting a massive boxes of dozens and dozens of items every single week. So kind of sucks, but yeah, But about that nuance, Charles, does that. Does that also fit into this if it's part of a lottery? Like it with the mature microphone thing at the Empower Podcasting Conference. If you receive anything that enriches your bottom line, then that is a gift. And I don't want to confuse gift, but yeah, I mean, it's income to you effectively. Yeah. Once you talk about the influence, that's a big deal. Like the influence. We're getting these bags at the Grammy Awards and all that kind of stuff. Technically, they're supposed to report the value of those things and those things can be a ton. So that is absolutely true and and the IRS has made scapegoats of a lot of people in that regard. You got all these watches and bags and all this kind of stuff. What you will find BC is a lot of those folks will actually donate those items to charity so that they can push that out as not actually receiving that themselves. So if you do end up getting that that sure, Mike, then technically, yeah, it's a, it should be reported as income to you, absolutely.

17:22 But if you're going to use it on your show, I think the argument could be made that you could write that off. So therefore the net effect is 0. Yeah, I was going to ask. I was going to ask and see if that was a possible loophole. Now before you mentioned C3, do do C fours also count in that same as like a non profit donation? Yeah, I mean, as long as it is a true nonprofit as regulated by the Iris, there's a couple of different, a lot of people don't know 501 C is just the IRIS code section for the designation. There's AC3C4 probably AC 9:10 and 11:12. I'm not 100% sure. But yeah, as long as they are a charity, which gets a lot of people in trouble too and market, I don't take the whole show, but just be careful of that because a lot of people see, and I'm going to get on a soapbox for just a second.

18:03 A lot of people see these GoFundMe sites and they just assume that's a legitimate charity. It is not. If you donate to a GoFundMe site, that is not an IRS charity. And technically you cannot deduct the the money that you give to a GoFundMe unless they have a charity behind them. So just, and, and only reason I brought that up is BC mentioned that you just need to make sure the person who's giving the donor is responsible for ensuring that the donee, the person you're giving it to is actually a legitimate charity. There are IRS sites you can go to the check them up. Are they, are they really sites? Again, that's getting into weeds, but yeah, but so BC. But to answer your big question, yeah, if you get anything that's of value, technically you're supposed to declare it. Thank you BC I was just doing a little investigative work and I guess I was wrong.

18:50 I'm sorry to have said it, but I thought you won that. Mic, you got me so excited. First I'm like, wow, I'm about to have two sure mics in my studio. That's going to be awesome. But no. Hey, Ashley, Producer Ashley has a question. Go for it. My question is, what if what you receive is a digital product? For example, I write for an online publication. I received probably 5 to 10 digital albums a week. Am I responsible for writing that off since I've receiving digital albums? Yeah, technically. I mean, if they have value, Ashley, then one could make an argument that if you're receiving something of value, then technically that is income to you. There you go. OK, Thank you, Ralph. Let me make sure that I have.

19:31 Well, first, if anybody else has any questions, by all means, if it's under $600.00, does it matter? No, that's a popular misconception, Alex. A lot of people think that, oh, if it's under $600.00, I don't have to report it. That's not true. The $600.00 threshold is the person giving it to you should be filling out a 1099 if it's over $600. That's the rub. A lot of people think, well, if I pay somebody under $600.00, I don't have to report that. I don't have to show that that's not true. It it's only when it gets over $600.00 that you actually have a reporting requirement. But it you're going to laugh when I say this, Alex, but if you have a garage sale at your house, if you want to look at the full letter of the law of the IRS, you should be reporting the proceeds from your garage sale. Nobody does.

20:15 To be blunt, $600.00 is the thought of you don't get a form for that. They don't have to prepare a form for that, but if you get a nickel, technically it's reportable. Thank you, Ralph. OK, so let's dive in. Thank you, Ralph for all those answers to our burning questions around taxes. And clearly this is the time to be talking about it because tax season is here. And Ralph, I know I happen to know, is in the thick of that right now as an accountant. And by the way, go to contentcreatorsaccountant.com to learn more about Ralph and how maybe you could start working with him. Lots of great information over there as well. OK, so from the mailbag, this is actually pulled from Reddit. Just Full disclosure, this person is asking this. I am planning a podcast with my friend. It's a short, engaging podcast.

21:11 Since it's the start, I don't want to spend a lot of money. Kind of appropriate based on the conversations that we're having. Don't want to spend a lot of money on the equipment we have. We have an iPhone 14 Pro and a Canon EOS 700D with 18-15 lens. He goes on to say I need to get solid quality and sound. I have already designed how the background and setup should be, but I'm confused with the equipment he has actually a list of questions here first says should I go for the iPhone in landscape mode or the camera? I think what he means is front camera. My advice is go landscape every time. That's the way to do it.

21:58 Especially, you know, if you're planning on putting this video on say YouTube. I think that you want it to be horizontal. Now, if it's short form stuff, if we're talking 32nd clips, yeah, then vertical makes more sense. But if you're shooting a podcast, I say horizontal every time. And by the way, Janae has joined us on stage as well, who's one of our expert hardware guys here in the podcasting space. And Janae, any thoughts to what I said or you do you agree? Disagree. Can you repeat the question because I think I got half of it. This podcaster wants to use an iPhone 14 Pro as one of his cameras and he's wondering, do I go landscape mode or use the front camera, meaning basically vertical?

22:44 And my answer is landscape every time when you're, especially when you're shooting long form content. I agree they should definitely use the the back camera and landscape and if they can record in 4K again frame it so then you can crop out the Section 4 for vertical and still have a higher quality. That's that's would be the best way to do it. Awesome. Thank you. The next question he has here is what kind of mics should I buy to have solid sound output? And actually I please forgive me, I know Ashley wanted to chime in on the last point. So I'm going to go back track and then we'll get to the question I just read. Go ahead, Ashley. I would use both cameras and of course, to your point, in landscape for both of them.

23:28 The reason why I say both cameras is, especially if you're just starting out, you don't really know what your preference is. So I would record yourself at two different angles and then make a decision as to which one you like. Plus, if you've got the chops, it looks really good to have more than one camera if you're up to it. Yeah. Thank you. Ashley, BC, did you want to chime in too before we get to that next question? Yeah, I was going to say a couple of nuances here as well. I don't know if they've mentioned what they're planning to use in post production for the program. I would say just make sure if it's it's on the computer, if you're using 4K, got to make sure you've got at least 16 gigs of RAM on that computer. That's how much you need for kind of your basic 4K these days.

24:08 Sorry, 16 gigs for your basic 1080P then I think it's 32 for 4K. Janae might be able to correct me on that. And then yeah, use, use the horizontal on both those cameras and in post production, you want to make sure if you have again, if you have the chops, be sure to be sure. Wow, make sure to line up that audio first. Then remove the DSLR, the Canons audio, because likely the iPhone, even though it's not a DSLR, will probably have the better quality audio recording. Thank you. BC Janae, did you catch that and did you any comments as far as the amount of RAM you should have based on the quality of video that you're importing into your computer? It sounds like he wants to record on his phone and not on a computer, but that's the best way to do it. But if you are actually looking to record in 4K, recording directly on the phone would be better because it's not bogged down by any other applications running on a computer and more RAM, more possibilities.

25:15 But again, what I would do is test, test every single configuration you can. And that's something that we don't do a whole lot of time because we just want to go, go, go. So test as many different configurations as he can, multiple camera and see what you like because you're not going to. I mean, you can think all about it all day long, but unless you test, you're not going to know what's going to look good. Thanks. Awesome. Thank you, Janae. All right. And keeping it moving with this same person here on the mailbag. Oh, Ralph, did you want to add something before I get to that next? Question. I just want to say one thing. I believe what you just said, Mark, shoot in landscape all the time because you can always convert it to vertical and that's when I record my video shows. I always shoot it in landscape because I can always go in the descriptors what the tool my team uses and I can make a vertical out of it, but I can't go the other way around. That's my advice is just make a landscape. You can always cut it up from there. Awesome.

26:11 OK. And then the next question is what kind of mics should I buy to have solid sound output? I'm going to go right back to you, Janae, if you are able, because I think this is a little trickier of a of an answer to give when we're thinking about the fact that he's using an iPhone as one camera and quite possibly the Canon as another camera. What's the best way and best mics he should be using to capture that audio? It's going to go back to how much budget you have to be able to put on a microphone if he, if he's recording on the iPhone or whichever one it is recording audio separately on a dedicated microphone would be the best and then you can match it all up and post production. If he is using a wireless microphone that can connect to your camera through a a laugh pin, then the camera catches the full audio and you can match up the audio between the two shots. Again, it's getting really complicated right. So I would say pick the microphone that you want to go with, test the setup and do it all in posts. And once you have it down, then you say, hey, I like this style better.

27:30 And then you have a workflow setup that you can repeat over and over. Awesome. All right. Thank you, Janae. And then oh, BC had something I believe. Go ahead BC. If you're now looking to drop too much on a microphone right now and depending on the space you're going to you're intending to use for the recording, another good option for you might be to instead utilize some of the budget on sound panels. You know, put them up on the walls, you know, help to reduce any kind of ambient noise. And then typically, I think cap cuts are pretty popular post production tool for iPhone users. You can run your recordings through cap cut and there is a noise reduction option on that interface and that can help you get some pretty good quality for the final product as well.

28:11 Thank you BC, by the way, shout out to Jason Sirkone who is in the audience right now. He's been on this show many times before and also my business partner for Empowered Podcasting, our conference, by the way, that conference coming up August 21st in Charlotte, NC. If you want to get your tickets, do that right now. Go to empoweredpodcasting.com. Learn more and click that buy ticket button and get your tickets today. Those ticket prices will be going up again soon, so now is a great time to save a little money and look forward to a great event coming up for independent podcasters this August.

28:53 OK, let's see here. What kind of lighting setup should I have and how many lights should I buy? Janae, I'm going to go to you first again. Well, what I would do is I would send this gentleman the link to my gear guide. Yeah, well, why don't you give us that? Give that to producer Ashley and then we'll put it out in the show notes. Yeah, it has three different setups, 3 different layouts, 3 different types of things that he can go based on his budget. And this would answer literally all of the question that he's had so far. Go ahead, Ralph. Having built a professional studio that I'm sitting in right now, this got in much bigger than I ever expected.

29:34 So I figured I'm just going to have a key light in front of me. So lingo term key light, just a big bright light in front of you that flashes on you. And when I started really doing the work with Janae, so I'm going to work with some other people, then it turned into a light in the front on the side, a front in the back, one over my head. And next thing you know, I had a guy that does work for WWE, like coming through Zoom to test these out and you got light falling on your shoulders. Listen, I learned this the hard way. Don't overthink this. You can drive yourself crazy. This is not a theater production. Yes, you can spend money and make it look fantastic. I think mine looks really great. Got some good people like Janae helping me along the route. But if people can see you, I think that's the key thing because you can drive yourself crazy spending thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on lighting.

30:21 But focus on your content first, focus on connecting with your audience and focus on building that. Once you do all those things, then think about, well, I can upgrade to this and I can upgrade that because I to be honest with you sharing too much. I did all that other stuff 1st and then I went back and said, OK, well, now I got to figure out how to talk because I was not good at that when I first started. So thanks for letting me comment on that, Mark. Yeah, you're welcome. Let me go to Dr. And then we're going to go to Alex. Go ahead, Dr. Well, especially if you're brand new at this. I mean, a lot of people when they think about embarking on having a podcast, they start thinking about, OK, so I'm going to get this, I'm going to get that. You got to get this and that, and let's make sure that you like doing this.

31:06 I mean, the idea of doing it, it's very romanticized. Just talking on the microphone, interviewing people who you want to interview. There is so much more to this that involves labor, you know. So let's make sure that you really like doing this in the 1st place before you spend any big time money. Agreed. And, you know, using that iPhone 14 Pro is, is really a great way to do this because look, that camera, I know we're on the iPhone 17 Pro now, right? But that camera is still really darn good. And you know, he can shoot in up to 4K, right? So this is a great way to not have to invest a ton of money you've already invested in your iPhone. So why not just use that to your advantage? I think that that's a great point, Dr. that both you and Ralph had made.

31:58 And I think that this podcast or whether he's really consciously realizing it or not, he's doing the right thing here, just working with what he's got. Janae, do you wanted to add on? It's what I wanted to add on is one question that we should have in when they're asking these kind of question is have they already been producing a podcast? Have they been doing it for a year, right? Is their content already good that now they're upgrading to the next level? Because tell you the truth, a client came to me and he'd already been podcasting for one year, audio only. And he's like, you know what? I want a top notch studio because I'm getting results from my audio podcast. Every client that came through his audio podcast was paying him and K to get his services right.

32:45 So now he's, he's got the money to spend on a video studio. So he's got the he's got the ability to speak already and now he's leveling it up with that next level. So again, if we can have that little bit data from the the person who's submitting these kind of questions, that's always really, really helpful. Agreed. My impression based on the whole setup of the questions that this podcaster had, I think that he's a newbie if it feels that way. Based on the way the questions he's asking and the fact that he doesn't want to spend a lot of money on equipment right now, I think that in this case, this is probably his first podcast. Of course, I'm guessing, but by the way, I want to also give a shout out to Stacy Sherman, who is in the audience here on Clubhouse. Stacy, a long time OG of the podcasting morning chat and it's been a minute since we've seen her here. She's a very busy woman doing lots of great stuff in the customer experience space.

33:47 Good to see you, Stacy. Welcome back. It's great to have you here. Let's see here now. Alex, did you have anything else you wanted to chime in on when you're looking at podcasting on a budget? I wanted to dovetail what Dr. said. Before you start buying stuff, first do your research because you can do a lot with a little and just by placing a normal light in a certain way or opening the shades, it doesn't matter how expense, and I know Janae will say yes, it does, but it does matter. But it doesn't matter how expensive the light is. It's where it's placed. And that's the more important thing. And I think a lot of people want to go from level 1 to level 50.

34:31 A lot of times just by opening the shade and turning your body a certain way will create the shadows or the non shadows that you need. Yeah. And I just want to echo what you're saying too, because look, I here I am 20 plus year podcaster. I still use use the back of my iPhone camera for a lot of content that I make and sometimes for the podcast, sometimes for social media content, but these are really good cameras. Work with what you got. So you guys are all experts in your various areas of podcasting, whether it's audio, video, production, which is great, right? But if I'm this guy, I am so freaking confused, I don't know what to do. And so I just want to simplify it a little bit.

35:14 He asked about recording and then he asked about video and he asked about audio. In my opinion, because he's a newbie, he's never recorded before. He doesn't know anything, likely anything about any of these post production tools that we're talking about. And the answer to his question is yes, you can record on your I your iPhone, use it in landscape. Put it on a tripod so it captures all three of you because there's multiple guests. The only other put a light up there because you need to illuminate yourself. Maybe sit near a window. Let's be simple with this. To DRS point about spending money on tools and resources, he asked about a microphone. That's really the biggest question that should be answered here because he can't connect his headsets and everybody else connect their headsets to an iPhone. So he has to have some way to get the audio from all three people into the recording.

35:59 And that's really the simple. That's really the answer and in my opinion needs to be the simple answer because he's new, he's never done this before. They're going to do something that's kind of fun and engaging. He's asking really great questions, but I think we've over complicated it with all the tech to do this and do that and get this mixer and get this software. I would be listening to this if I'm him going, what the heck am I supposed to do? So I'm just encouraging if we could simplify like I would do 1-2 and three. That'll get him to test this out to the point that was made. See if you like doing it. And if you like doing it and you think this one you want to stick with, then go look and explore other options of things that you could do in order to make your show better. I appreciate you looking out for the newbie Sid and I'm just going to do it like this for you.

36:43 As far as like we said, iPhone, if you're using it as a camera, do it landscape. As far as microphones go, I always recommend to new podcasters to go with the Samsung Q2 UI. Think that's a great microphone sounds great, it's inexpensive. What I'll add on to that when it comes to equipment, sometimes it you can't simplify it. There are things a lots of factors you have to think about South. One of the things I'm going to throw in there is that maybe he wants to look into something like a Zoom Pod track P4. It's the equivalent of a roadcaster Pro, but it's a smaller, less expensive model. I would recommend that because that will probably make it.

37:24 It will make it a lot easier to capture everybody's audio together. It marries it all together. It's a centralized piece of equipment for you. It's specific to audio, but it is inexpensive and I think it will make your life easier in the long run. The simplest thing that they can do is instead of spending any money on the gear at all, make sure that the room that they're sitting in is treated, because then you can take the audio from the iPhone and cut it up. Simple as that. Yeah. And what we mean by treated is it's a room that doesn't sound echoey. It's got good carpeting or rugs. It's got even furniture in the room. It's got stuff on the walls.

38:10 All those things that I just listed helps absorb the sound. Essentially you want to eliminate flat surfaces and any corners you have, fill it with comforters and other cool looking things. Yep. Thank you, Janae and Sid, did we answer the all the questions that you thought we should hit to make this easier? Yes, thank you. I'm sorry if it came across as I was like lecturing you guys. That wasn't the point. It was a lecture. Sorry, I just like feel bad for this guy because I'm sure he's over because we all had a day one, right? We all had a day one and we all probably asked some similar questions, but somehow we all got started and we grew into where we are today.

38:52 And so I think it's just important to remember that everybody has a day one, and let's just help this guy become a podcaster. And get off my lawn, right? Said he would never say that, folks. Yeah, Listen, Sid, we, I talk about this behind the scenes with several team members and I think most recently Ralph talking about how I, I really want to make sure that we're aware of the fact that we have a lot of new podcasters listening as well as experienced ones. And so sometimes we do get ahead of ourselves and forget about that. So it's important for any one of us here on stage to stop sometimes and say, hey, is this making sense for all of our audience? We appreciate that even with a little bit of the lecture said it's OK BC did you want to ask, answer or ask something? Mark, what I think we should tell this person, and this is going to sound self-serving for you, Mark, but this person needs to get on a consultation call with you and they need to sit down with you and put together a plan. Because here's the problem, a lot of people do this. I made this mistake.

39:54 You don't plan with the end in mind at the beginning. Spend a couple dollars and sit down with a consultant. You can do a Zoom call with Mark. And plan out what your strategy is, because what you don't want to do is be 10 episodes in and figure out, oh, this audio is terrible. Oh, this video is not working. Sit down with Mark. Sit down. And I'm not trying to just plug Mark, but this is Mark's show. So let's just be blunt. Sit down with Mark, though, and say, listen, here's our vision. Here's what we're trying to do instead of trying to haphazard through it like all of us did, to be blunt, and then try to fix it later. Sit down with somebody who understands, who knows the stuff. The guy, the, the pod track P4 is a great idea, Mark, because I'm surprised Junaid didn't say to him. He's probably thinking it.

40:38 Sure, your audio is good. So you can get away with the video looking wonky in my opinion, if your audio is solid, because if you're getting good content and the audio is solid, your video is sort of a second, you know, jump cuts and all that. We can get into a whole level of discussions, but talk to a consultant that's been down this road before. 1st understand before you go and buy any gear, sit down with somebody. Thank you, Ralph, appreciate it and appreciate the plug as well. That is awesome. By the way, just want to shout out in our video chats that we've got somebody chiming in from Arizona and quite frankly, I can't really read the name because I guess my eyes are failing me. I think it's Killa. That might be Killa. Oh yeah, now I know.

41:20 Kilobytes. Yeah, cuz now I'm reading it. It's Killa. under score byte. Yeah. Welcome Killa. Good to have you here now BC what did you want to add? And get the idea of wanting to not overwhelm someone and but I think for those of us who do consult with in the podcasting realm, I do wonder a lot of times would it be to a degree almost a disservice if it was oversimplified. I like the idea when I'm working with someone to ingratiate them into the size of the world that it is, let them know, look, there are a lot of ways to approach this. So we will narrow it down to what you are currently looking at and what your budget speaks to it and what would work best for your situation. But, and this goes to DRS point too, it's it's a whole process.

42:04 It's not, you know, we make it look good here on the podcast in morning time because we've done it for X amount of years between each of us respectively. But we also know there's a lot that happens right before markets record, there's a lot that happens afterward. So I think to help even a newbie understand what the scope is going to look like because we have to eventually hit all those stages within the consulting so they understand what it's going to look like before the final product goes out there. Thank you BC yeah, that makes sense. And by the way, if you do want to get in touch with me or even somebody else here at the Podcasting Morning chat, one way to do it is going to podcastingmorningchat.com/contact. That's a great way to reach out.

42:47 If you want to set up that strategy call or have a couple of random questions, go ahead and go to podcastingmorningchat.com/contact. The last thing I think I'd like to do, I know I told you yesterday that we had a whole bunch of news that we didn't get to during our news and comment day. So there were some things that I wanted to dig into today. So first, this is actually something that wasn't prepared yesterday, but is something that I discovered just over the past 24 hours, or really when I say discovered just started using over the past 24 hours, it's something from Riverside. Now I use Riverside here to stream and record. They have this new thumbnail creation tool specifically for YouTube.

43:40 This is the deal. Their AI Co creator can now generate YouTube ready thumbnails directly from your recording inside the project page or the editor, again all within Riverside and analyzes your transcript and video. It detects the main faces on the screen. It suggests a headline, which by the way, the headlines that it suggests so so builds a background and lets you refine it with simple prompts like change the expression or make the text bigger. Nice expression there Ralph. I I actually tried this for the first time for episode 460.

44:21 That was our sub stack for podcasters conversation led by BC. It took about 5 minutes to generate the options and I ended up loving how it came out. I used it for the archived live stream on YouTube and it looked clean. It's on brand without me having to open up another design tool. No Canva needed in this specific instance. There are some guardrails. It only works for video recordings with transcripts. It won't generate thumbnails if there isn't 1 clear face detected. So if you're using Riverside and you turn off your camera, I have a couple of clients that I know does that, it's not going to work.

45:06 Riverside doesn't name the specific image model behind it, but they do confirm that they use third party AI partners along with in house systems. To be clear, you know, changing the facial expression, what it's actually doing is it's regenerating our faces and creating an AI version. Now they are pretty accurate, like they look good, but they I do happen to know being within a Riverside private chat that they are going to adjust that or at least give you options so that you could use the actual real faces if you prefer.

45:47 That's the big news. I actually ended up using it for first episode 460 and 461. If you want to go see that stuff, just go to podcastingmorningchat.com/join us and that'll give you links to YouTube and you can find it in our live videos section over there if you want to see what that looks like. It's a really cool tool and saves a lot of time, especially for someone like me who just does not like to deal with thumbnail images on YouTube, even though I understand that they are super important when it comes to the algorithm and of course capturing your audience's attention BC did you want to add something? I've seen that tool as well. I haven't used it yet.

46:29 I was a little concerned at first because if it has the same intuition as Riverside does with our live streaming here where it always makes it seem like Ralph and I have some kind of beef with each other, which not true. I was a little concerned about the the final product on that, but now I looking at the archive live stream on your on the YouTube channel. It looks like your guests keep holding you hostage. It just like it looks like for the audio versus video in the sub SEC. It's like you're nervous to be right next to me and Rob. Or maybe. Maybe I am me, never guess like. The showing the true nature of what happens behind the scenes. Well, you know, that could be something that I could go back into Riverside and tell it to change the expressions to maybe not look like this is so combative. This is why he's got a Save Ferris thing. It's going to say save Mark moving forward BC because it looks like Ralph and BC have them held hostage in the. I had to leave the recording.

47:25 You just, you just punched me right out. Come on. So listen, I real quick since you referenced the Save Ferris thing and you said, oh, well, we'll change it to save Mark. It's actually somewhat appropriate for those who have known me for a long time because my nickname in college was Bueller. So and and those people to this day still call me Bueller. So that hence I think my daughter bought me this sweatshirt for one Father's Day because she knows that that was my nickname. So yeah, this is kind of referencing save me from these terrifying people that are have joined me on camera Dr. There's a lot of school time, Mark. Is that what you're really telling us you didn't quite make? It really expensive cars like when? No comment.

48:08 OK, let's go to Dr. and hear what Dr. has to say. Mark, you showed me the thumbnail before we went on today and I chatted back to you that it looks like the three of you are getting ready to go out and kick some ass. So fascinating, you know, and I don't know why I'm looking at it. I thought we had smiles on our faces on those. Yeah. I mean, I have a smile on my face. Yeah, you're right. It looks like Ralph and BC are much more serious than I am in that thumbnail. None the less, it looks good. And you know what, it may create some curiosity. At the same time, if others feel the same way, they may like, may be like, what's going on here?

48:49 These people, are they fighting about it? So who knows, maybe it'll be helpful. We'll see if it helps with engagement over there and I'll keep you posted. We need a ring announcer and a Ding Ding Ding Ding between sections mark and then we really be knocking it out of the park. But no, the thumbnail. That's the thing people need to understand about thumbnails. You want something to draw your attention in, so if it looks a little wonky. That's OK. Exactly like you said, it draws attention. OK, the background's awesome. I love the background. Yeah, I love the background and that's the cool thing. It when you first tell it you want to generate a thumbnail, it gives you probably 678 different templates that you can choose from. And then from there it once you pick, it does its thing, adds the faces, and voila, you've got a thumbnail. I also did it for video or for yesterday's podcast news and comment.

49:42 It's the cover image is specifically focusing on video versus audio since that was probably the hottest topic of the day yesterday. Again, the facial expressions are curious. They look maybe a little angry, but yeah, we'll see. But I'm going to keep playing with that because look, our live stream archive, especially on YouTube, is starting to gain traction. People are starting to go back and watch over there. So I want to make sure that I'm really making the most of those videos over there. So to be continued, thought I'd share that with you if you are a Riverside user. We don't have enough time to get to news what we might do tomorrow before we share our wins from the week tomorrow, maybe I will pick one or two stories to discuss and then we'll share those wins from there.

50:36 So if you want to join us again, that's podcasting. Morning chat.com/join us to find out all the different ways you can connect with us, both live and after the fact. We'd love to have you be a part of this more frequently. So until tomorrow, make it a great day everybody. Take care.