5 Secrets To Make Your Podcast Instantly More Engaging

0:04 Good morning podcasting Morning Chat. Today is Tuesday, November 6th, 2025, and today we're breaking down a listeners podcast from a from top to bottom, exploring the branding, storytelling and strategy behind what makes a show stand out, connect, and of course, grow. 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 this via podcast or YouTube, Facebook, 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 on stage with me my Co hosts we have feel better producer Ashley Feller, Dr. Faye, Nick Naul, back Sid Meadows, Jonathan Howard and Matt Bliss has joined us as well. So good morning to the crew, the team, and thank you in advance to most of you who have taken the time to evaluate today's podcast. We'll get into the details here momentarily. I first want to thank, I think Ralph, who's in the audience right now. I want to thank him because I noticed a couple of days ago and I just hadn't gotten to sharing here, I noticed that he left a review for us on Apple. It's a five star review, I should say as well. And he titles it great Daily Show for content creators and goes on to say, so glad I found this Daily Show. But even better, the community.

2:22 If you're a content creator, this is the show for you. Short and sweet and much appreciated. Thank you, Ralph. And I ask you, the listener who's hearing my voice right now, please, if you don't mind, if you haven't already, go to Apple, go to Spotify, whatever you prefer. Leave us a five star if you feel so inclined and give us some nice words of encouragement. Again, if you feel so inclined, if you're not feeling it, I certainly don't want you to do it. But thank you, Ralph. Appreciate you. So today we are digging into a podcast titled You Are Your Biggest Asset. The host is Karina Groombridge, the episode that we're digging into today.

3:11 In case you're following along at home, it's episode 42 and the title is want five extra hours in the week. The format seems to be a solo at least. This episode is definitely a solo hosted podcast. The duration of this particular episode is about 12 minutes. That works really nicely for us as we're, you know, we want to evaluate the episodes and it gives us a nice bite sized piece to do it. And Phil, I'm going to go to you because we know here at at least most of us do that. This is one of your clients. So do you want to tell us a little bit about her and or the podcast?

3:54 You are your biggest asset. Good morning podcasting, morning chat. How are we all doing? The podcast is by Karina Groombridge. She is a female service based coach. She wanted to start this podcast to help other service based business owners scale up their business from you know, 6 figures to 7 to 8 figures yearly. She is looking to inspire, to connect and share the stories of her clients who are getting the successes that she wants to provide to others. OK, so we and we will read her official description and get people a little more of an insight. Did you say I may have missed this, Phil? Did you say who her target audience is? Yes, her target audience is female service based owners. You more more like mompreneurs since she is one herself. Got it.

4:56 OK, cool. And I knew that of course, but I am asking for those playing along at home. Sid, good morning to you. Did you want to ask a question or did you have something to add? Good morning, everybody. Yeah, I had a question for Phil. Phil, did she share with you why she wanted her podcast evaluated? The reason is she just wants to improve. She's never done podcasting before, and she's looking to improve it so that more people can find the podcast does. That help Sid. Yeah, got it. Thank you. Did she share any goals with you at all, Phil? As far as? What she is, what she hoped to accomplish from hearing our review. Just I'm just curious. OK she didn't give me any specific goals from the review, she is just open for everything she wants to improve because she's never done it.

5:44 So she's like, any advice you amazing people can give would be excellent. Perfect. And she may be joining us, according to Phil, before we started, he said she might be popping in. So looking forward to that if that can all work out. By the way, I wanted to say a quick shout out to Chris, who is in the audience. It's been a minute since Chris has been here and not on purpose. Well, I guess maybe on purpose, but I know that Chris hasn't been able to join us due to some stuff at work. So great to have you here, Chris. It's like I said, it's been a minute and your presence is definitely felt. Welcome back.

6:24 OK, so with that, let me see. Ralph, you're on stage. Did you just want to play along in the conversation today or did you have anything specific you wanted to chime in with? No, I just hear it better when I'm on stage, so thank you. You got it. Yeah. And feel free to chime in at any point. And like I've told some of the moderators who maybe didn't get a chance to listen to today's podcast evaluation, there's still plenty that you can chime in on because we're not just talking about this person's episode, we're not talking about, we're talking about way more than that. We're talking about the branding, the overall concept, the title of the show, the description, all the things, the cover art, etcetera. So as Phil said, this Karina's show is geared toward female service based business owners who want to grow with confidence and clarity.

7:15 And she's in this podcast series, she's sharing stories from her own journey and from her clients to inspire and motivate. And the episode that we're going to listen to promises to help listeners 55 extra hours in their work week. Let's start here. What was your first impression of Karina's style as a podcast host and her tone overall? Who would like to share first? Let's just get a little overall thoughts and then we'll dig into some of the branding. DRI. Thought that her voice was very clear. There was a lot of authority in her voice and I think the flow was great. I really do.

7:56 I think that she had a great flow and like I said, just as she exuded authority. So that was great. Yeah, I have a note here somewhere that I really loved her energy. Here it is. Yeah, I wrote. The host has great energy. She's personable, and it really feels like she's talking to her audience, Avatar. It feels like she's having a conversation and. And I appreciated that. It's not scripted. You can tell it's not scripted. She's probably using an outline, but you can. It feels more conversational. Go ahead, Nick, I got the same feel like it felt very comfortable and feel not said that she was brand new to podcasting.

8:41 I would have thought she's been doing this for years. She's confident. She does feel like she's talking to you. I was really impressed. I thought she did a really good job overall. Cool. That sounds like, and I do want to say this, if you're listening right now, even though you haven't heard anything yet, pay attention to what some of this feedback is already because these are the things that I believe that we look for in a successful podcast. These are the things that really gravitates an audience to a podcast, at least so far, right? We might hear some of the opposite side of the fence, but still something important for you to pay attention to. I'm going to go to Jonathan. Go ahead, Jonathan. Good morning.

9:22 Good morning. I'll be really quick and I will say that I agree with TR and Nick. She sounded very confident. She sounded like she was a seasoned podcaster. My only thing was by the end of the episode I still didn't know how to save my 5 hours a day. So that was my only thing with that. I can find a clear direction in the in the. Podcast It looks like Sid may be agreeing with you. I know he's agreeing with you. He just flashed the 100% emoji. OK, that's fair. And we will play some clips to help people connect with that. Ralph, did you want to chime in? I thought she started all great. Like I felt really like it was an engaging thing, like I was sitting in front of a fireplace with her. But I kind of agree like at some point, and I don't mean to miss to be mean spirit, I kind of just got lost and what are you saying to me?

10:11 And by the end of the episode, I don't know that I had a strong take away. So great voice, felt like she was connecting but I'm not sure what she connected to. OK, OK. So we've had a couple now that have shared, they're not quite sure that they got the the clear guidance, the clear message. Fair enough. And again, we will play you some clips so you can decide for yourself as well. Sid, did you want to add your overall impressions? She's got a great voice, great tone, great energy. As you mentioned, Mark, and kind of to the point of Jonathan and Ralph, this show needs structure, needs a little bit of, if she's got an outline, maybe she's not following it or maybe she didn't have an outline. But this show needs a little bit more structure because I was looking for tips to save five hours in my day and I got one leadership tip out of it.

11:06 Tip is going to save me 5 hours in my day as a coach. And so when he works with leaders, I really appreciate the tip about empowering your people to solve their own problems. That that's a really great tip. But I didn't feel like I got 5. I got tips that are going to save me 5 hours in my day. I did enjoy listening. I actually listened to a couple of them because I wanted to just kind of see what the flow actually is. But I just think that structure of this show would really, really improve the takeaways and what you're going to get out of it, what the promise is from the show to save five hours. And then the only other thing that that that this bothered me a little bit. This bothers me a lot in any show is that it was 5 minutes and 42 seconds into a 12 minute show before we got to the tip.

11:56 And it was only one tip. So I could either the 1st 5 minutes was her talking about sitting on her couch drinking coffee, looking outside. Her audience may really, really identify with that. But it took 5 minutes and 42 seconds to actually get to the tip. You guys have heard me, I'll say about how much Mel Robbins drives me crazy with six minutes worth of ads. And Mark, you coached me on this, like, let's get to the conversation. Let's get to the point, let's start and let's do so. I wish that the content of the show, the promise of saving five hours, had come a lot sooner than 5 minutes and 42 seconds into the show. I think that's fair. Particularly also I think that some may be more sensitive to that based on the length of the show. So this episode's 12 minutes long, you might say. Some people might say, well, you know, OK, taking 3 to 5 minutes to really get into it is OK, But when you're talking about a 12 minute show, we're talking about almost half the show now that we haven't even gotten to it.

12:59 And this is honestly not to attack, This Is Us just trying to be constructive here. I'll jump back in real quick though, but like when I say structure, she could very easily say Today I'm going to give you 3 tips that are going to save you 5 hours in your day and here they are. Boom boom boom. Now let's get into them kind of thing like the structure of that, like give me the promise or you gave me the promise in the title. Now give me the promise when you start the episode. If you want to have a little friendly conversation at the beginning, that's great. But just structured in a way that's going to give me, you know, give me 345, whatever it is, tips that are going to save me 5 hours in my day.

13:39 And I do want to say it. When I listen to the other episode, I listen to episode #42 I loved the intro of episode 42. I felt like it was different. I didn't go back and listen to the other one. Was it 42 that we listened to? Excuse me, I went 45. I went to episode 45 and I that intro was like it sounded different. I didn't go back to 42 and listen to the intro, but I really liked the intro of episode 45. It was full of energy and excitement and got me really wanting to listen. OK, let me go to Phil, who produces the podcast, and then Dr. I'll come back to you. I just want to ask Phil about that. That is it a different intro in one episode, I guess in episode 45 versus 42? With the podcast, we are doing a different intro. We're doing AI like to call it the hook intro. So she, we, we have her say, give a little bit of an intro like a question or posing a statement to the audience. Then we go into her musical intro and then we start the episode.

14:39 So after the the episode we're reviewing, we've started doing that to kind of tease a bit before it was straight into musical intro. OK, so 42, the one we're talking about, starts differently than future episodes after that. OK, got it. Dr. Please forgive me. I know you wanted to chime in. I was going to say at the end, maybe she could have tied everything up as a, you know, do like a take away moment to help us figure out what she actually said. And we'll get to that too when we dig into the outro. Let me, I know there are others that want to chime in and you'll have plenty of opportunity. Let me keep things moving because I want to make sure our listener feels like they're in the know here, right?

15:25 Like I wanted to get overall impressions to kind of set the tone. And now let's dig in. And since we're talking episode specific, I will put on hold some of the branding stuff. We will get to that in a minute, but I figure let's dig into what we're talking about here. So with that, I will play how this episode starts, which is with what I'll call the generic intro. It's up until episode 42 the way that the podcast starts and then we can also dig into the episode specific intro as well, but here we go. Hello and welcome to you are your biggest asset be home for ambitious women looking to scale their service based business. Because I know you didn't start business to be underpaid and work 24/7.

16:18 We are going to build your freedom and your bank account so that you can make an even bigger impact. It is time to clean up those boundaries, ditch the people pleasing and build out your team so you can thrive. But most importantly, I'm going to introduce you to someone. She is powerful, she holds her ground, she knows her value, and she knows how to create what she wants. In case you're wondering, it's your future self. She's waiting for you. Let's go. And there's that example of big energy and confidence behind the voice. I feel like she's been doing this forever. She just has this confidence, this poise that some new podcasters, you know, it takes a while to get get through. And granted, she's already done 42 episodes, but she really has it together.

17:09 Any thoughts on the intro? I will share one thought for constructive criticism. I actually personally felt like it was a little too long, even though I think what it was maybe a minute, but I think it was a little too long. I'd like to, I'd like that to be cut down to, I don't know, 15 seconds or so because I think you can get it out there quicker and to the point that Sid was making. We want her to to get into it. So that would help jump quicker into the meat of the show. Go ahead, Ralph. Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. And what I would have thought would have been more impactful if you took that 15 seconds to to key in on the promise she made in the title and said, here's what we're going to talk about today. Here's how I'm going to save you 5 hours in your week. Instead, it kind of me felt like, oh, I'm going to puff you up a little bit.

18:01 And really what I'm doing here is selling coaching services. That's my take away from listening to that, and I've listened to it a couple times as well. Yeah, and I will say, and I'll play for everyone in a moment, after that generic intro, she then does start to set up the episode. Did anyone else want to comment on her opening on her intro? I loved the I'm going to introduce you to somebody. I loved that. I thought that was great and I thought it was just like really cool and different. I've never heard that before. And it's your future self. I just thought that was very creative and I really, really like that. Awesome. And was it you, Matt, that wanted to say something? Something that I wanted to say earlier that maybe is will help contextually further on with the way that I thought about approaching this podcast.

18:49 All the stuff you guys are saying is great. I think I had a look at the website and I had a look at what the whole ecosystem that she's trying to create as a result of the podcast, I assume and the whole coaching and selling services acts aspect that's big. But what I heard in the podcast is that she's bringing herself to the table as much as she's bringing her knowledge and her expertise and her business. So for most aspects, when I tried to frame what my feedback would be for these is I tried to think, well, Karina really wants to put herself out there. Like they are going to connect with her as much as they're going to connect with the advice. And so this intro, I think does a great job of being like a the calm waters that has a bit of depth to it that you're not quite sure about.

19:45 And like Sid, Sid gets to that little bit that he likes and he's probably like, oh, yeah, OK, yeah, OK, we've got a few minutes here. Let's let's see what's going on. And I think that's part of it too. Like she's selling herself as well as saving five hours in your week. So I think the intro did a pretty good job. Just to my mind. Yeah, thank you, Matt. Appreciate that. And I think Nick also wanted to chime in. Go ahead, Nick. I actually really liked the intro. I didn't think that it was too long. She again obviously brings the energy, but she touches on the pain points in my opinion. She hammers in what? Her audience wants freedom, more money to be able to grow their business.

20:28 Like, that's what you're going to get out of this episode. And then I'm with Sid. When she started talking and saying, let me introduce you to something, I was like, oh, shoot, did she get a voice actor to introduce herself into the show? Like, that's kind of cool. And then she's like, that person's you. And I was like, oh, Dang, OK, that's sweet. I loved that, too. There was this. It caught my attention. And that's what this is all about. Especially in the very beginning, saying those things that perks your audience's ears. It's a great job on that. All right, unless anyone else wants to chime in on the generic intro, I'll now play a small piece of what follows that generic intro and then we can comment on that as well. Hello and welcome to episode 42 of You are your biggest asset. I am your host, Karina Groombridge. And today I am very excited.

21:20 I think I say that a lot, but I am thrilled to bring you this little story, this little behind the scenes because I want to inspire you to find time in your calendar. And really today we are talking about buying you back time, getting more of your precious time back for you to do other things with. Because let's be honest, have you ever had that question somebody post this question just the other day where they said, what would you do if you had an extra 5 hours a week? And everyone was just like, oh, that would be so amazing. Like I would sleep, I would exercise. I like, you know, all the, all the answers are coming up of those fun things that you would do with an extra 5 hours a week. I'm going to tell you what my client has gone and freed up for herself and how she was able to do this and how you can do the same.

22:25 After the intro, there's the first minute plus of her setting up the the episode. Thoughts on that setup? Anyone have any feedback? Thoughts. Do we feel like she's set the tone? Set the Set the mission of the podcast episode. I think I've said this about all the podcasts. I want a really strong hook as soon as they open the show, something that's to tell me what I'm really getting out of this show and get me excited about it. And I felt that she felt the energy of the intro then fell flat right here, and it kind of lost my interest in my flow.

23:06 Now I get that. And I actually really like that. She kind of called herself out for saying the, you know, I'm excited because I always say that I, I like those things. I thought it was really her personality was present, but it wasn't what I wanted to hear to get me motivated to watch, to listen to the show. I appreciate that feedback and I agree with you. I like that she called herself out. It reminded me of what I've been doing lately, right? I've been calling myself out for constantly saying, there you go. I think I've done a good job today, by the way, I caught myself a few times, but I like that she calls that out. She's calling out the imperfections. She's seeing those crutch words and making it clear. And by the way, if just a little feedback, if she wants it, Jonathan will appreciate this.

23:51 So is another one of those words for Karina. I noticed she says it frequently. And again, not trying to be insulting because I probably do that too, but that we're podcasters, so calling out those things I think are important to help us improve. So yeah, I'm there. I said so. Oh yeah, I was just about to say. I'm with Jonathan there and let's check in with Sid. Go ahead, Sid. So I in this very beginning, can you hear me? Yeah. I I was just laughing because you also just said so. Oh, dude, I Oh my God, that between that and right? Yeah, I because that's my crunch word, right? I wish she would have hit me over the head with the problem, like she teased it just a little bit.

24:33 You want to exercise, you want to sleep, You want this. But like hit me over the head with the problem of why I need 5 hours back in my week. Like what's the benefit of me getting hit me over the head because we all experienced it? So hit me over the head with a problem when you're setting it up. Are you struggling with sleep? Do you need more time to work on your business? Do you need more time to spend with your family? Do you need more time for this? Like hit me over the head with those problems and then go into what the solution is. She she softly did it. I wish she would have hit me over the head with it. OK. Yeah, I would agree with you there. I think it would have been strong if she LED with the pain point, LED with the promise and giving us a little tease of how we're going to get there. Matt, did you want to chime in?

25:24 I think this is where the segment kind of thing can save it a little bit because she may have a coaching methodology where you don't just sit down and go, all right, what's your problem? Let's go fix that. She might have like a, hey, how you going? How's your week been? Oh, what's been, what's been happening? And that might be kind of the vibe she's going for here. We don't know what to expect when we walk straight in and it kind of feels like she's ramping up to getting ready to warm up into the topic a little bit, which I think it again, for me, it works for her, this being about her as much as about her business and the advice. And So what I would love to see is something tailing off from the intro, maybe something custom that says like, and this week we're going to be talking about how you can get five hours back in your week every week. And it's going to save you a bunch of time. But first, let's catch up.

26:23 You know, music out. Duh, duh, duh, duh. And then, hey, how's it going? Yeah, you know, I'm sitting on my couch and catching up. I'm having a try and staring at the the ocean or I can't remember what specifically the ocean that the starting bit was. But that relaxed intro with just like a little sentence segment that tails off from that main generic intro sequence, that tells me what to expect as a new listener. And you know, your SIDS who want to get straight into it, they might be like, oh, next chapter, let's get right into the good stuff. I think. I think the segment stuff can really help. It adds a bit more work, but that's for me. You have a great point. I think adding segments clear places what you know what we're doing right now in this moment, moving on to that next segment.

27:07 I think that can really help keep that audience engaged and understand what's going on at the same time. Anyone else want to chime in before I play you the next clip? And we might as well keep going with the clips. Yeah, Dr., go ahead. One of the things that I wish she had done is go into because when you wrap it up, it was delegate some other things to other people. That's how you say that. That was basically what she had said. But I wish she had gone into the mindset of letting stuff go. That's that was a huge thing for me. I could not when I finally outsourced some stuff to free my time up, it was a huge deal.

27:58 Just emotionally, mindset wise. Are they going to do it better than me? Should I be like a helicopter parent and just hover over them? You know, are they even going to understand what I'm trying to do? So I think I think she should have gone into something like that a little bit. OK. Yeah. Thank you. DRI will go to Matt. Go ahead, Matt. So what Dr. Just said is actually really spot on as well, because I've picked up something similar with my own podcast episode structure on Rethinking Podcasting, where I spend a lot of time outlining what I've seen as a problem and recognizing and observing what the problem is and how to spot it, and then not having anything at the end to say.

28:42 And this is what you should do about it. Mine is a more of a philosophical take. So we're good at navel gazing and not solving any problems. In this case, it could definitely work and mark for what you played as the kind of intro to what the episode should be, maybe even saying as a marker for herself as well As for us. And at the end, I'm going to tell you about what you need to get those five hours back. And again, I'm, I think segment is going to be my crutch word for this episode. But yeah, having those segments in there might address the problem for herself. So she gets to what Dr. wants and what Sid wants and what Jonathan wants. The solution at the end, like how to save those five hours? I think I I just know that because I miss that all the time.

29:27 I'm going to fix that next. OK. Thank you, Matt. What I'll do here is keep it moving with the next clip and admittedly, I don't I don't remember why I chose it other than I think my point here is that this is, let's call it the next segment from the first two pieces I've played for you. So I think the reason I'm sharing this partially is to acknowledge that now I feel like it's almost getting a little too repetitive and not getting into the meat of the show. So here's what I mean. Today's episode is really all about opening up your brain to look for all the opportunities and the areas that you can get back your time. So this is something that I am constantly doing with my clients because there's there's always this like next level that we can get to with how we're spending our time, where our attention and focus is going.

30:30 Especially as you're stepping more into ACEO role in your business and more of a leadership role in your business. We don't like you're not going to be spending your time on the same things now as you will be when your business has doubled in size or when you have, you know, brought on the next five team members or as you're growing, your time is going to be devoted to different things. So why not start that now? Let's go and free up some of your time so that you can focus on other things, so that you can devote your time to the things that are going to create the reality that you're after and the big results that you're after. I almost feel like that could have been the second clip. We could have gotten rid of that second clip altogether that I played and gone from that generic intro right to the clip I just played.

31:24 I feel that was a little bit more to the point and it's just a lot of build up to get there. This for me was where I started to feel disconnected and I almost feel like she's being too broad with how she's speaking on the topic instead of directing it directly towards her ideal person. Like, and knowing the language that her ideal person is going to use and really focusing in on it 'cause it, it just felt very broad. Like this is what you know, so many people have this problem and this and that it it needed to be laser focused in my opinion at this point in the show. Yeah, I noticed, and I do this too sometimes when we say things like, yeah, so many people deal with this. Sometimes I think we're doing that as hosts to help the audience identify with the problem or the pain point. And instead, instead of just getting into it, sharing a specific example of a pain point, of what that pain point is, so that they can really feel that. I hope I'm making sense there.

32:28 I Yeah. But I and I am with you there, Jonathan. I'm going to keep it moving and go to Sid. I meant to say this earlier, I don't think she needs to say the episode number in the beginning. Welcome to episode 42. She does it in episode 45. I don't think she's to say the number. That's just my opinion. But Jonathan, I think hit it on the head with it's too vague and she said open up your mind. And what does that mean again, come at me with the challenge, come at me with the problem that I'm having. So I think she this she's sitting on a gold mine. What I mean by that is she's got she knows who her customer is.

33:09 She knows what they do and she knows their pain points because she is one of them. So many times when we create content, that's who we're talking to our younger self. So she knows the problems. But I think she could benefit from a bit more deep dive research into the real problems that her ideal client is having. And rather than tell me to open up my mind and get ready to find the ways to save time in my week, tell me what I can do, Like just again, it's like I said this earlier, just hit me with the problem. Hit, hit, put it in front of my face. Because if I'm having that problem, I'm going to go, oh, wow. Because it's entrepreneurs.

33:49 So many times we don't know the things that we're doing that are wasting time because we're working on it, We're working in our business. So we have to do this. We have to do that. And we don't realize the areas where we can save time and energy and be more productive with it because we're so involved in doing it. I hope that makes sense, Mark. Yeah, it does make sense. Thank you. Sid. Did anyone else want to comment on this portion or maybe something else? As far as you know, we've been listening now, so maybe there's some audio quality suggestions or kudos for the overall audio quality of this show. Phil, I want to ask you, do you use Adobe Podcast Enhancement tool? No I don't, I use podcast AI for 90% of the editing and yes I realize the breath marks are prevalent and I am working on getting her to step slightly back from the microphones for the breathing.

34:55 Editing it in post takes a lot of time. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, it does. I will admit, I when I was first listening to it, I wasn't quite, I wasn't really noticing the breaths. And then I think I saw from Matt sent his feedback and I saw him comment on the breaths. And once I saw that comment, then I got sensitive to it. So I think sometimes we get really sensitive to it. Again, as podcasters and producers of our podcasts, we get sensitive to that stuff. I sometimes will stop and pause and ask myself, are are the masses really focusing on that or is that more just me and my podcaster ear? I'm not saying one thing or the other. I'm just saying that's a question I ask myself sometime. Yeah, I have that problem too.

35:43 Yeah, Matt wants to chime in. Let's check in with him. Go ahead, Matt. Yeah, you've called me out now, so I feel like I should probably account for. Well, Phil said it too. Just before context, I wasn't sure if I could come today, so I'd sent you both my notes in the case that I couldn't be present. And the, the breaths thing, like I think my notes specifically was I think they need to go, yes. And breaths can be very deliberate in the way that I address them usually. Like it's so annoying to get rid of with a decent gait. And as long as they're quiet enough, it's fine. But it's not necessarily a matter of getting rid of them. It's if they add value to me. So it got to a point eventually where I don't think the breaths were adding much value. But at the same time, again, my whole shtick about this is that it's her podcast and it's her.

36:32 So if she's a breather, then that's, you know, that's fine. I think overall the breaths wouldn't have been as harsh if perhaps the AI processing wasn't as lower frequency heavy. I think that's the the biggest thing that I have with the processing is that it's just, it's too gamery. I'd say a lot of the gaming frequency advice is just just boost the low end and make it sound as bassy as possible. Like a microphone is sitting just behind your teeth in terms of proximity to your larynx and it's she doesn't need that. I think the the sparkle in her voice needs to be accentuated a little bit more, but those breaths sound a lot harsher simply for what the AI has done. So I actually ducked out for like 2 minutes and put you guys on mute to do a processing of her audio again for what I would prefer from what was available in the thing, just to lighten that bass a little bit and to remove the breaths where I could.

37:35 I'll send it to you in a SEC. Mark, in the case that you do want to play it and see if there's a comparison. But in short, there is a place for breaths. I think higher frequency bump and a lower frequency removal might help to deaccentuate them in the case that they're there. And the last thing, thinking about breaths, is that just like a crutch word like an and or an arm, if it's just filling what would otherwise be space for the person listening and adjusting that value, then I think it has to go. And I think for her it should go like she wants you to think about things. And if someone was breathing in your ear just after they told you to think deeply about a thing she's just said, it probably doesn't create the mental space that you want it to.

38:22 And I think deliberate silence is a great way for people to just sit back on a thought and think about it. So it's a very considered, get rid of the breaths. It's not a, it's not a hey, I hate that because I'm a podcast producer, rah, rah, rah. But yeah, that's my count. I'm with you there and Phil is giving you some applause as well. Yeah, And thank you, Matt. I appreciate your feedback because what I'm appreciating is the fact that we're also giving some technical advice on top of strategic advice. I think that's something that maybe we don't do enough of when we're having other conversations on the podcasting morning chat. So that's really helpful. I appreciate it. Matt, I want to play another clip. This one I think I pulled mainly to because she gets she starts to talk about storytelling.

39:13 She literally says, I have a story I want to tell you about a client. And I think storytelling is an important aspect of an evaluation. So let me play this clip for you and let's talk about it on the other side. To really like hit this home, I want to give you one example from one client that went and freed up five hours of her week like like that by making one tiny shift, she was able to do this. And I find like many of my clients do this and they have it. They're all different examples, all different ways. So the path for you to get the there for yourself might look different.

39:54 It will guaranteed look different but my point in sharing is to get your brain thinking how can I? Free up some of my time. What do I need to let go of? What needs to shift for me? So what I would for said, so I'm going to take a shot. I put it in the chat anytime we start with. So we should take a shot of a virtual shot. I'm not literally speaking. Well, I guess depends on where you are and what time it is right now. I think that I would have liked her to have actually just jumped into the story without all of that set up. I want to, I want to hear the story. I want to start being pulled in.

40:41 I want the scene set. I want to feel the I want to feel the character in the story that she's telling. I want to, I want to relate to that person. I think, again, sometimes we feel as hosts that we have to be literal. And I think we can sometimes, if we know how to tell a story, I think we can rely on the story itself to get that message across. And then once we've told the story to make sure the message got across, we wrap it up with those points. We want to make sure to make that. We want to make sure they walk away with Jonathan. I know you are big on storytelling. Any thoughts around this? Well, 100% agree with what you said there. And I think that one thing that I actually, I do this myself, I start to say, I'm going to tell you a story about this. And I was reminded in my prep for Empowered podcasting to not say that because people understand that you're telling a story when you start telling the story. So just jump into the story and even don't even necessarily say these are the point points from the story. I want you to know, just talk about the points so that you're not your audience gets that you're telling a story. And I, I, I wanted to hear the story. And I think the story could have provided the details necessary to tell me how to actually do what you wanted to tell us to do at the beginning of this episode. So yeah.

42:11 Take a shot. Just sit. So yeah, I mean, it's think about it, when we go to a movie or AT or watch ATV show, they're not telling us the struggle. They're showing it to us. We're watching the main character go through the journey. They're not telling us, OK, this is what you know, OK, this is a struggle with that the person has with their family and this is how they're going to get through it right there. No, we're watching it unfold. I was just going to say, and that's not easy to do. My talent coach helps me with that all the time. He always says, Ralph, just say what you want to say. Don't lead up to it so much.

42:55 Just say it. But as a podcaster, you know it's easy to fall back on, you know, setting a table too much. Yeah, I agree with you absolutely. Anyone else want to chime in? I just kind of stuck in here. Hey, everybody. We always try to overqualify stuff, like we have to explain everything. And sometimes, you know, silence is golden In Toastmasters, they talk about that a lot, whether it's a podcasting or anything like that. Sometimes you just have to have that pregnant pause. And it really solves a lot of problems, though. Don't qualify, Just get right to it. Yeah, thank you. Drawing, allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions can be way more empowering for them than us just spoon feeding it to them. But sometimes I think people do that because they're nervous. And I think that's the biggest thing. And when you do have that, again, I call it that pregnant pause.

43:51 It gives you time to think and say what you want to say. And I think that's that's one of the things that we all have to kind of remember. Agreed. And by the way, I wanted to say something because I wasn't sure of the meaning behind something Jonathan had said about, you know, just getting right to the story. And I know I said something similar, but I personally don't have a problem with you as the host, literally starting by saying I've got a story to tell you about a client that struggled with managing her time. I don't mind that kind of setup. And then I want you to just get right into it. All right, I'm going to keep it moving out. Let me play this next clip. It's more from the story. And then let's take the last 10 minutes or so to talk a little bit about her branding, her strategy around that, etcetera. For my clients and how this worked specifically for her is she has employees working for her. Each everyday employee she had delegated out work and every day one of her employees was coming to her with questions. Yes, of course you are going to have to field questions as a business owner, but there are very different ways that that kind of look.

45:08 And when we got into the nitty gritty specifics like as I was coaching her through this, she was explaining, OK, well this is what happens and this is the conversations that we have. And one of the things that I, that I noticed was how she was responding to these questions is she was helping to solve the problem rather than empowering her employee to say to essentially coach her employee to be like, how do you think you would handle this? Like what do you think the answer is? What? How do you think you could resolve this and essentially making the employee go through that problem solving phase?

45:53 Here, I think that the story missed the mark a little bit because it was told in, or at least so far it's being told in broad strokes. Give me the story. Walk me through the scenario. I want to get to know the characters in the story. Help me relate to the client that you're talking about. I want to be in her shoes. I want to feel it, but I think this is another trap that we fall in where when we start to tell stories as podcasters, I think sometimes we're afraid that we're giving too many details and we want to try to get right to the value, right to the points. But I think that there's a happy medium. I think that it's helpful to give me some of those details. Tell me who the client's name is, even if you have to make it up if you want to protect their privacy, or just give me their first name.

46:47 I want to know some details to really connect to the story, connect to the struggle so that I can relate to it, and then my ears are perked when you're going to give me some solutions. Does anyone agree, disagree, or have any other points? I agree, Mark, and I think this is one of those opportunities where as a coach, the story that you're sharing to teach the lesson doesn't have to be 100% grounded in in the facts of it. You can take, you know, parts from your stories that work to really illustrate the point and give the details of it. Again, you don't want to use the client's name, that's fine.

47:29 But you know, I was really, I was working with Becky and she went and spoke with Beth about, you know, whatever it is, you know, this problem. And she instead of solving, instead of giving her the ways to solve the problem, she solved it for like. Just giving us the details would have been so much more useful in my opinion. Thank you, Jonathan. Ralph, do you want to chime in? Yeah. What I was going to say is think about it, the story with the end goal in mind, what are you trying to teach? And if you have to embellish that a little bit, if you have to make the edges look a little fancier, if you're getting to a point you're trying to make a point with it, make sure the story leads it there.

48:10 Thank you, Ralph. Sid, I see you were agreeing. Did you want to also add something? I wonder because I was listening to it, I didn't pick this up. When I listened to it the first time that I was listening to your clip, I picked it up. She's not telling us her client's story. She's telling us her story. She's telling us the story of how she solved her customers problem. She's selling to us. And as a coach, I understand the value of showcasing your skills so that people can hire you, especially in a platform like a podcast, right? You want it to attract people. But she's not telling us the story of Becky as Jonathan T's Jonathan's term. She's actually telling us her story of how she solved her customers problem.

48:54 And I think there's a big distinction and a big difference there. And now as I was listening to it, I felt like she was selling to me, like, I can do this for you too. So there's probably a better way to, as everybody has said, to restructure the story a little bit, to embellish the story a little bit to make the story more powerful. I can appreciate that, Sid. I didn't personally feel like I was being sold to, but I felt like something was missing. Something felt a little empty to me there. I'm curious and OK, Jonathan in the chat. Wow, pick up Sid. What? What did you mean, Jonathan? Good pick up Sid. Pick up Sid. Yeah. I left words out so I clearly can't think this morning. Yeah, sometimes, again, in Sid's case, he has his business hat on, his coach's hat on.

49:41 And so, you know, he can see, see that approach. That's what's happening there. I would one, I'm just saying, I wonder if a typical audience member, an average audience member would pick up on that too or would feel that way too. Just a thought. All right, You know what, I know I said I want to do the branding, but being that we have 5 minutes left, what we might do is dig in a little bit to the branding tomorrow, since tomorrow we have also wins to do. So usually we need, you know about, we like to have around 30 minutes of podcasting discussion, so maybe we'll dig into the branding stuff. But I do have another clip I want to play before I do. Sid, did you have something else? Before you close the show today I would love for Phil to share with us what for his perspective what it was like being part of this conversation because it's his client and brought it for she joined us for just a few minutes in the beginning.

50:35 I should love to hear his perspective. This is the third time we've done it last week we had the actual host there with us for most of us. So I just would be curious this feels thoughts about. This, I appreciate that, Sid. I actually want to skip what I was just about to do and go right to that. I think that's a great way to wrap up this part of the whole, this part of the conversation. So Phil, yeah. What what say you as the producer listening in to all this? And, and also maybe you want to just share? Yeah, she was here for a few minutes and had to go. You can share a little bit about why she had to just jump out like that. But yeah, go for it. 1st I want to thank everybody who provided feedback. I can do 100% I appreciated it.

51:19 I know my client did because she did message me when she left saying this is great, I have to listen back to it, but I have to get the kids ready for school. So it's early for us. So she's getting her kids ready for school. But I know she appreciated it. She's going to get a lot of the feedback and take it to heart because she does genuinely want to improve being a podcaster. So I thank you so much for it. A lot of this is great for her so that you know she is a speaker. She does do speaking. So if you do hear some of the hitch in there or some of her stories sound like they're pitch esque, it's generally because she does do speaking gigs. So she does speak on stage a lot. So there's some of that in it.

52:06 But I know she will greatly appreciate this because all the feedback has been very, very constructive and helping her become a better one. And I thoroughly enjoyed this and I'm looking forward to bringing more of my clients and podcasts on here so that I can get more advice to help them grow. Thank you, Phil. And yeah, it's funny, as podcast producers, sometimes, after working with clients for a while, sometimes you give advice or direction and they don't always want to take it. And I think what we've provided here is a space also for us producers to give our clients an opportunity to hear some of that advice from someone else. I think sometimes that will help it drive home. It's almost like the scenario I'm coming up with in my head right now.

52:56 It's almost like you give your kid advice, maybe they take it or maybe it falls on deaf ears, but then they hear it from someone else and they're they have a big epiphany. They have a big aha moment. And I think that can apply to us as adults too. Dr. Did you want to say something? Just remember that how many times do we actually ask for feedback from our audience and don't get it? We don't get a single word. So I'm hoping that this will take the place of, you know, all the feedback that we're, we ask our audiences of and we never get any of it. Yeah, agreed.

53:39 And Matt, did you want to add something? Dear, put something useful in. I was just going to make an analogy to telling kids not to eat too much candy. And you don't necessarily get a stomach ache if you don't fix your podcast up. So this is incredibly valuable post Halloween. Yes, thank you. Final thoughts. Go ahead, Alex. I think it's really amazing that the show has evolved into this because I think this is what this is what contact creators, podcasters need the most is whether it's something that they're, you know, affirming what they're doing well and maybe tweaking some things because it's a very lonely hobby profession and you just don't know.

54:21 I know when people come up here, I mean, it takes a lot of guts to have somebody review your podcast. And you know, I've been listening to the show. I know I haven't been on as much, but I've been listening to it. And it's hard on both ends because you don't want to be you want to be respectful and everything else. But at the end of the day, I think this is a great direction because there's just so much content. And just because it's content doesn't mean that it's always good. But at the same time, it's nice to get of the things that you are doing right. Thank you, Alex, I agree with you. I'm really excited about this direction that we're taking and doing this every Thursday, at least for now. I've shared with you all before over the past couple of episodes that we've done this.

55:06 It's a lot of work for all of us, and it's a lot of work for me because not only am I having to do my own evaluation of the episode, I've also got to, and I'm just being a little tongue in cheek here. I've got to wrangle the kittens and make sure that the crew is also doing their evaluations because I don't want it to just be coming from me. And then I've got to organize everything and structure this in a way that makes sense. And I've got to pull the clips, edit the clips and prepare them to play for you. So it is a lot of work and I'm grateful that the team behind the scenes are working with me to try to find ways to make this more smooth and and less painful of a process.

55:52 Even though the results are well worth the pain. I'm truly enjoying these episodes. It's really, I think, helpful and I think both for the audience and helpful for us because we don't just have to talk in theoretical terms when we're giving advice. We can actually apply the type of advice we give to real cases, real life scenarios. So thank you all for being a part of this. We are back tomorrow, 7:00 AM Eastern Time. We'll talk a little bit more about the branding of this podcast, see if we can help tweak anything there. And then, of course, we, as we do every Friday, we'll share our wins from this past week. So bring anything that you've accomplished this week and let's celebrate it together. So until tomorrow, make it a great day everybody take care.