Boosting Listener Engagement with AI Voice Cloning

Jim , how's it going , buddy ?

But you know , it's sometimes you go left to center , you try something new and then sometimes you just want those things the way they always have been , like starting off your day with a hot cup of java .

But I also want to remind you that if you need a website , or if you need to update your website or if you need anything that and it's just one of those days that Mark can help you with pretty much everything , whether it's business cards , whether it's a lead magnet , if it's something you want to look good and it's going to be facing your audience , then you

got to go talk to Mark and he's going to sit down with you one-on-one to make sure that whatever he makes is in alignment with your brand . And if you're like Dave , I don't even know what my brand is Well , mark can help with that . He's the marketing brain . You're the podcaster .

When you get together with Mark , you're going to get your message in alignment so that you can get maximum impact , whether it's via audio video , pdfs , whatever you need . It's all there at podcastbrandingco .

We'll go into this , maybe a little bit later . In a second , if it seems like we're a little distracted .

I have recently had six great guests that have given me very positive feedback and increased listeners a bit . I always get 100 or more downloads per episode with the first week or so Not bad but I get no feedback , no comments , no interaction , no corrections , even when I specifically ask which is interesting because I told him you got to ask specific questions .

But anyway , he says according to analytics , more than 50% of my audience listens to the entire episode . I'm not sure I'm proud of 50% . I'm an old teacher . I'm looking for 80 , 90% . Those are B's and A's , but anyway . But then he goes no , no . Therefore , I'm getting kind of burnt out .

I've planned episodes for the rest of 2024 , but unsure about 2025 and beyond . I'm even developing resentment issues when I'm trying to control which I'm trying to control . I see this happens when I see other podcasts at my level getting feedback letters , words or praises to where he then thinks well , what about me and my podcast ?

Ha , I know it's pathetic , but it's true . This is merely a venting session and so there are a couple of things , although I missed it when he said , even when I asked specifically , because I know a lot of people like I'd love to hear your feedback on the show .

And I'm like okay , when you ask a generic question , you're going to get a generic answer Like it's good , you know nothing . But he says he's asking specifically . But when I saw he's getting burnout , followed by I'm looking at my competition I was like , yeah , don't do that . That , really , I've seen that . Just suck the life out of people .

When they'll be like I can't believe I'm getting 100 downloads , that's like five classrooms , that's amazing . And they're thrilled to death . And then somebody will go into some sort of Facebook group and like , hey , we just went over 5 million . And they're like don't compare yourself to .

I now have my new saying podcasting is like darts , because if you think about it , your dart game is dependent on one thing you Like that's it . If you're , if you throw a little left , it's your fault . If you throw a little right , it's your . It's like if you want to get better at throwing bulls' dice .

Do more of it and find out what you're doing wrong , and do less of that . Find out what you're right doing . You know , it's really that Now , granted , you can play darts against somebody and see how you stack up to them , and sometimes that's good . It lets you see maybe you could be better , things like that .

But I just I saw that , and so you were saying , when I say , though , judging that 50% is not a good ratio , you're like no .

It's just the human psyche is built to just continue to want more . I'm not saying you shouldn't that's bad Use that more as a desire to continue to reach out and reach people .

I'm always intrigued , dave , when we get comments like this , or when you read comments like this and they're like I'm doing this and I get zero feedback and I , you know it , kind of you gotta ask the . I have to ask the question what are you doing ? And the statement maybe it's you is probably true . I don't listen .

I don't mean to be mean in this case , but people who are good at attracting people , it's talent , it's one of those kinds of things that just some people can do it and others just can't , and so you may , you may not be doing the right things For me . Let me just talk personally . For me , I don't get a lot of interaction .

But I realized my writing interaction is terrible . Like I'm short , I short sentences , I'm kind of grumpy when I'm writing . I don't write a lot , I don't sometimes want to respond . Well , yeah , you know what . You have a history of those kinds of things and people are like , well , I don't want to , I don't want to send that guy a message .

He's going to bite my head off . So because I , you know , because I am short that way , I'm not encouraging people to send me notes . Now , get me on a call , I'll talk to you and maybe I can , if I can , ask some people who would be honest with me right , because you're listen , your mom's going to say you're great .

But if I could ask some people hey , how do I come off publicly ? It wasn't until someone told me that , honestly , one day they're like hey , your written communication and your verbal communication are two completely different things . I needed a little self-awareness and I still struggle with it . Dave , it's not like I've over magically overcome that .

I just don't like writing . I hate writing , so it comes across as few words . I never say I hope your day is great and then start the you know or you know , hope you're doing well today . I just start with I need this from you right now .

Because if the one thing that leads to burnout is when you don't get your why you're like well , then why am I doing this ? And the answer is I don't know . And then you quit . So think that out . And but I know , just moving from Libsyn to Podpage , libsyn had a lot more tickets and so it was very much . Do your research answer the question ?

Get them going . You know , blah , blah , blah . And at PodPage we get far less tickets .

And so I have the opportunity now , and there are times when Brennan will say like hey , you could have been a little more like , you don't have to be so , like you said , short , and I'm just trying to get to the point , and he's like , you know , he's like mix in a little Dave Jackson in there , and I'm like , oh , okay , so I'm just used to like get to

the point . Here's your answer , thank you . Goodbye , you know , see , ya , so that's always kind of fun . We do have a question from the chat room . This is from Mark . He says what would be the best setup for three podcast hosts in the same room to record each host simultaneously on separate tracks . You got two . Well , you got a couple options .

The cheap one , 150 bucks right now . The Zoom PodTrack P4 is my favorite piece of equipment because A it's $150 . You can record up to four people in the same room , or three people in the same room and somebody on Zoom , or two people in the same room , one person on Zoom and somebody on the phone , and they all hear each other .

It's got a built-in headphone amplifier . If you want to play little jingles like you can do that on that , and this is why I like it more than any other Zoom product and I wish they would . It's a recorder and an interface at the same time , and I'm dying for the new , like the new version of this in 32-bit float .

That would be awesome , but everything they keep coming out is you know the new version of the H1 and the new version of this and that , and then , if you got the budget and you're going to be doing live streaming , then you can go up to a Rodecaster Duo or a Rodecaster Pro things like that ? I don't know , jim , any thoughts ?

So if you're hoping to have super clean , if you're all in the same room , and you're hoping to have super clean separate tracks because you want to do some things , oh , some of it'll be okay If they talk over each other , you're going to have , you're going to .

You're going to struggle If somebody sneezes , even if they hit the mute button on their own , you're going to hear it . So you want that room as flat . If you have to do it that way , I always say listen , if you want clean , separate tracks , you need clean , separate rooms . That's just the way it works . You got to separate people out , right ?

bleed . When I did a show with my now ex-wife , I was in this tiny little office and at one point she was in one corner of the office and I was in the other , pointing directly . You know , the microphones were pointing the direct opposite direction . And now the fun thing was I was sitting in a quiet office with my headphones on going .

Yeah , I can still hear your . You know , when I'm listening to the playback there's still a little bit of bleed . And then at dawn , dummy , nobody sits in a quiet office pressing their headphones into their head , like that's not how people listen . Uh , you know , but I would . That's where the roadcaster comes in handy . Why is my thing paused ?

Okay , well , I guess we're using the audio from youtube . I went to make a chapter and hit pause instead . Yeah , but , that's where the roadcaster comes in handy , because it has noise gates so it can kind of turn off your mic when you're not talking , kind of thing , and those are good , go ahead .

You know , and you're like , yeah , you should probably throw some blankets up , test it . If it's the first time you're doing something , test it . Listen , you can do it . It sounds okay . If you're going to do a single-track recording , you could even do multiple tracks .

Just know you're going to have bleed in those tracks and it's what you think you're getting may not be exactly what you're looking for . So just make sure you know what you're doing when you get into it .

If it , if none of the bleed matters , like , if you're like , oh , I want a separate tracks , just so I could do some edits , well , you probably 85 or 90% of the separate tracks you're going to get there are going to be just fine . It's going to be one person talking at a time on that track .

If you're good at that , if you're good at separating them , you could throw some gates and some things at this , but that just complicates it even more in the process . You could do some audio or editing on the backside to take some of that out . It's going to wash out some of the sound of some of the people you know .

The bleed over will wash out some of the sound of the other . So just know you yes , you can do this .

When I watched it I was okay . I think I get it . Where you create this virtual input so you can say , hey , assign the sound of my Spotify that I'm listening to while I'm playing games to this channel , assign this sound to . So that was kind of neato .

I just don't know if I'll ever use that , because I can't stream Spotify while I'm streaming live because I'm like that's a red flag right on YouTube . So it was interesting and I guess it was to me . I just I'm like I don't see where a podcaster is going to use that , but you know somebody is going to see that and go oh , I could do this with it .

But for me I wasn't like oh , yippee , because I'm not a gamer and it just wasn't that . Here's a fun one . Daily Sports History says what is the best way to batch , record episodes ? I'm not sure I understand the question , because the answer is well , when you get done with the first one , press record again and do the second one .

But I think , if I , I think what you mean , how do you ? I use NoteJoy to anytime I get an idea and I'm thinking , oh , I'll remember this later . Well , I'm not , I've learned that , so I write it down in NoteJoy and you can use whatever you want .

I used to use Evernote until they tripled the price and this week right now , I do not know what I'm talking about tomorrow for the School of Podcasting . Now am I worried ? No , because I know I've got billions of ideas in note joy that I've forgotten about that .

I was like , oh , I should talk about this in the future and so I'll open it up , cause I go like I got nothing and I'm like , oh , actually I have like 13 ideas here , so maybe that's what you mean . I don't know what . Do you , jim , any thoughts or can you expand on that ?

I think John Lee Dumas used to do six or seven hours of he would re-record them all in one day . I tried doing that with . I've actually tried doing that a couple times with folks at Gallup and boy , you get about an hour or two in and you get on .

Especially when you try to repeat things over and over again or create quick episodes , it the fatigue sets in pretty quick and you're like oh , like , yeah , you can sit down with a group of people where it's you know , not you all the time and maybe go for three or four hours .

I mean I know everybody's like , oh , yeah , I could create a four hour podcast , you could do that , like that's . But usually generally you've got somebody else with you . You're doing some things like that . So just be aware of your stamina and your quality starts dropping pretty fast as you're going out .

I mean I do Home Gadget Geeks and it's a fun show , but at the hour 30 mark . I start slurring my words . I mean that might be the old-fashioned too , but I start slurring my words a little bit bit and I kind of begin to dip . So just be aware of your stamina in that kind of scenario .

Yeah , if you're doing interviews cause I think that's what John does he has a day where he just does back-to-back-to-back-to-back interviews and by the time you get to the fourth one , you know it's .

I know this just from teaching and any time , well , even on this show , when I get done with this show , after being kind of up for 90 minutes and going , hey , here we like I'm not putting on a persona , but I've got a lot going on and I'm paying attention I will go make whatever lunch I have and it's not a big lunch and I will sit down and take a

nap , whether I want to or not , because there's just this coming from all this adrenaline for 90 minutes . And now you're like , ah , and so I think that would be the toughest . But now it's great , and I know some people with businesses . They will have someone like Mike Wilkerson or Chris Stone or whoever , and they'll go and record a bunch .

They'll just go in and talk and that's the easy part . If it's a solo show . Right , they'll just go in and do that Again still by episode four . You're a little wired . But then they'll hand it off to somebody and that's the best way to batch is just you walk in and talk .

But it is a performance in a way and Jim hit the nail on the head in my book it's a matter of keeping that energy up and that whole nine yards Craig says I batch , record three episodes back to back with my co-host . We record in the same room . So it saves him two trips to my co-host re-record in the same room .

So it saves him two trips to my studio . Yeah , there you go and it's just . I think a lot of it is just planning . It really is . That's half the reason for me . And time you know Jim and I were both talking earlier about is something worth your time , and so it's funny because when you ever see something new and it's bright and shiny for me .

I moved from Evernote to NoteJoy Seamless integration , awesome , clicked a button , imported , done right , and then forgot to cancel my Evernote and they charged me anyway and so I had to go through this whole thing of getting a refund , but anyway , and I moved to PodPage recently . That's my job now and he really is into Notion .

And the more I play with Notion , the more I'm like , ooh , this could replace Todoist as my to-do list tool . It could replace this , it could replace this . And the one thing you need to remember , which is kind of what I'm doing now , is if I actually switch to NoteJoy or from NoteJoy to Notion A . It's not as seamless Like .

While Notion imports a lot of stuff , notejoy only exports and I need to double check on this to Google Docs , and then I have to import the Google Docs and it doesn't really say I'm not sure how it works , but the thing I saw there was oh , if I want to move to Notion , that's going to take a lot of time and it would actually be two more dollars a

month . But that's where you start doing math . You're like , yeah , but if I use Notion , I could cancel my Todoist and I could cancel NoteJoy and that's actually saving me money and it's a matter of just saving whatever $13 a month .

Saving whatever $13 a month , is that worth the probably six hours it's going to take to import , export , import , export , import , import . Move this over here , like I just imported something and it was just a mess .

And that's where it dawns on you that like , oh , you know what , this was a mess in Evernote and the mess from Evernote moved into NoteJoy in the same very messy thing and I'm like eventually you have to clean things up . And so that's where you have to think about the time .

And , jim , you were doing some stuff with file cleanup this week and that gets you thinking .

Right , you're going into . You know , I have 623 episodes just of Home Gadget Geeks and I keep raw and I keep edited and I'm like do I need this and is it going to ? You know , you start doing that for about 30 minutes , I get tired , and so you kind of almost need a plan . This is where I'm at .

I need a better plan for some of those things , because you get in and then you're like , oh , this was exhausting , and then I don't want to go back to it , so I let it sit for six months , and then when I come back to it six months later , it's twice as bad and I never really get to the bottom of it .

So I think I need to do some better planning around that , some thinking through , figure out how do I do this in a way that's sustainable , because otherwise I just say I'll just say to myself I'm just going to delete it all , and I feel so guilty when I do that . I mean I could easily .

I'm dealing with a B2 Backblaze , backup Marv and I talked about this on Thursday that I'm going to have to go to and download these files out of . And here's the . Here's the conflicting things . I'm sure nobody else is this way , but here's my conflict . I got all this valuable stuff to me emotionally on B2 that I backed up .

It costs me money to pull it off of B2 with egress and I'm super cheap . So I have this emotional conflict where I have meaningful things to me . I don't want to pay to get them back right and , to be honest , I don't have to pay . I've been , they've been sitting there for 20 bucks a month . They can continue to sit there for 20 bucks a month .

It's a conflict . And listen , you guys I'm sure everybody else listening you guys are perfect , you got this all figured out . It's you're . You're like I don't worry about this , jim , but it's emotionally . It's one of those things . And then , so what do I do ? I get in , I do it for a few minutes and then I'm like I'm not going to do this anymore .

I walk , I walk away , and it's now I have seven years worth of a problem out there that you know I'm going to have to clean up eventually . So I'm going to have to , I'm going to have to trick myself . Go in , do some things just .

Oh , ralph is here , or no , mark is here We'll see in just a second , mark Cause I'm like I have that now make a noise . It freaked me out . I was like what magic fairy has entered the room ? I was like what the heck ?

But anyway , I'm now comfortable Once I make sure the finished file is there and I'm not going to lose it , going in and deleting the episode folder , because the way Hindenburg works , when you save a Hindenburg project and this is not a huge deal , but it saves all the files again . So I open it up . I have a template .

There's all my intro music and stuff and when I click save , it saves all those . So I have , like the intro music of the School of Podcasting saved 949 times on my show and I was like I don't really need that , I need it once .

And so it is weird because there are shows like the Customer Service Show , which had all of seven episodes , and I'm like , yeah , I could probably delete that one , but there is a weird thing in your head that goes , yeah , but you spent hours like working on that and I'm like , is this for the Dave Jackson Museum ? Like , why am I saving files ?

Have I listened to an episode from School of Podcasting , episode 200 to 300 ? No , not at all . So it's weird .

I'm kind of thinking I don't need to keep any of those things , just to be honest , because you you said this to me . When was the last time you went back and pulled from those data files to get something for your podcast ? The answer for me is zero . I have never gone back to anything that I've kept for anything . I used to think it was a big deal .

I'm kind of thinking I may go inbox zero on this thing and I know some of you are dying inside at the moment for me saying that and wiping out all back episodes . Maybe keep 10 . Like , like , just keep the most current 10 things there and wipe everything else out . Why wouldn't I Cause ?

We rented houses when I was married and I eventually kept moving boxes of actual vinyl that I never even unboxed from the last three moves and I just was like , why am I moving these vinyl ? And I actually just put all my vinyl records on the curb because I had them on CD , I had Spotify , what was the point ? And so I just got rid of it .

So I think that's again part of it . You have to be okay with that . But theory , this should work . When I hit this button , we should have the one and only Mark Ducote from podcastbrandingco . Is that true in theory ? No , it's this button . It says I know I have a button here that says three people .

I used to have bookcases , I had all my cases and I eventually took all the cases , threw them away and got this giant binder of CDs where I just have the book and the actual CD and I don't touch that at all , even yeah .

I've got another podcast for the show the Last of Us . Anyways , that's not what I want to talk about . What I want to talk about is how I'm using AI to help me with that show in a way that you haven't really talked about before , and that is when I first got started . And I'm a solo podcaster .

I don't have a co-host , so when I talk about a TV show , I don't have somebody to say hey , what do you think ? I talk about it , but I rely on my audience . It's a feedback driven show , so I need people to submit stuff .

You know what they thought of the episode and that's what my whole podcast is about , and my community loves it because they get to hear so many different voices . So when I first started , I set up a Google Voice , I set up SpeakPipe and , of course , email where they can send me stuff , and at the beginning . You know I would accept anything .

If somebody sent me an email , I would read it on air and you know it's very easy to read something that you wrote . It's not easy to read something somebody else wrote and I hated reading the emails , especially some of them sent long emails .

So after , when things started picking up and I was getting dozens of feedback submissions per episode , I eventually I just said you know what ? I'm no longer going to read email . If you want to submit feedback , it has to be an audio format . This is a podcast after all .

I started accepting just the Google Voice SpeakPipe and just email me the audio and that went well for a number of years . But earlier this year , when I was doing , I did the show Orphan Black , which is what originally got me into podcasting .

They had a new show or from Black Echoes that came out that AMC just canceled a couple of days ago after season one . But anyways , what I'm , what I started doing is I signed up for 11 labs and you're familiar .

You've got an affiliate for 11 labs and I started telling my audience that if you want to send me a written email , you could write your email in and I will put it through 11 labs and it will read it . It'll read the thing in a very human-like voice . And I know the first time I did this I got .

My very first email came in from somebody named Aaron , like R-O-N and I in my mind that was a guy , so I put a guy's voice . In the next week they said yo , I'm a woman , could use a woman's voice . So since that time now I say if you want to submit a written email , do so , but let me know if you want a female or a male voice to read it .

And I don't hide the fact , I say it on the podcast . I'll say here's Monica's feedback . It is read by the voice of Nancy from 11 Labs . And now let's hear what Monica had to say . Say , and I can tell you that I've had a whole bunch of people reach out to me that say mark , I've been following you for a long time .

I've always wanted to send something into your show . I don't like the sound of my voice and that was what was holding me back . I didn't want to record , I didn't want to submit my voice . But now that you are allowing this , I feel like I can be part of your community .

I can now participate because , you know , and some of them are funny , like some of them , it's like please could you give me a British accent or something like that . You know , just I want to sound cool , but yeah . So now I've been using that and so I signed up for a subscription to 11 labs and I'm loving it .

I've opened up a whole bunch of people that now had always wanted to but never could are now participating with my podcast and I'm getting tons and tons of submission from feedback . And so I just thought you know your listeners , if anybody has a show that has feedback and that and I know a lot of people will read emails on air .

But it got to the point when I was getting , you know , 40 submissions and you know 10 or 12 of them were emails . It was enough . This is a podcast , give me audio . But now I've opened it up .

Now yesterday I think it's called Voice Impersonator or something . Now they you can have , you can put a voice in and have it redo that voice in another voice . Or you can train . You know , on the free plan or I think on the $5 plan you get minimal training on your own voice and on the $11 plan you get that you can .

I mean , you can submit a ton of audio and have it build a model for you . And so what I did this week is I recorded an intro for a podcast we were doing . I was too far away from the mic when I recorded it but the take was really good .

So I put the take in , had it read it , had it re-read it in my own voice and that that AI voice whatever we're going to call it is perfect audio Like . It's really good . So it took a substandard recording of me re-recorded it as me kept the inflections . In fact , at one point I even chuckled in it and it chuckled for me in the audio .

Right , I thought , holy moly , like , what a like , what a next step in cleaning up bad audio . You know we get this question all the time , like , hey , I got a piece of bad audio , how do I fix it ? Well , this is how you fix it . Now you make sure you have a good AI version of your own voice . Run that thing through .

In theory , with 11 Labs , you could also like your co-host . You have slots for more voices that you can make there . So you could get a couple hours of your co-host . You don't have one , but just say you did Mark for a second . A couple hours of your co-host . Train them .

You're going to need to get them to talk to the model before it starts because they want to verify that the person's you're not impersonating the person . You know you're not making a without their permission . But you could do your co-host that way and you could fix bad audio with 11 Labs . Clones , basically it's slick , it's once you start doing this .

I wasn't a believer in this until I started doing it . Dave put the link to his affiliate out there and it makes sure you use that as you go through . But yeah , it's , and I did the $5 plan . I was so impressed . I immediately upgraded to the $11 plan to get that , that model mark . Have you done your own ?

I think I've gotten down to , like you know , the B's or the C's because there's so many . My issue is I have to now keep track of okay , you know , monica , I used the voice of Nancy to read Monica , so now I have to keep track that every week I use the same voice for her or , you know , for somebody else , like you know , when , when .

Like people call in and they , like they listen to the podcast for me , but they , a lot of them , say , like you know , I love hearing from Jeff , I love hearing from Fred , I love hearing from AJ , you know , I love hearing from Aaron and , and you know all these Denise and all these people . So they get to know these people .

So I want to use the same voice so that , even though somebody is writing in , if it was a different voice every week , they wouldn't associate like this is the same person every week , but if I'm using the exact same voice and I only use that voice for that person . But with 11 labs , I don't even know how many voices there are .

As I said that you can just scroll and scroll and yeah , there's a lot . There's some , you know different ones . You can go by gender . There's nationalities , there's even they can tell you like . You know , here's a voice if it's for entertainment , here's a voice for technical stuff and all sorts of really cool things .

Yeah , so I have to keep track of you know I use this voice and then so if that person ever submits something in the future , I'll know that voice was used for that person or not . To use that voice for a different person .

But yeah , it's really helped out and , as I said , a lot of people have reached out and said thank you so much for letting me do this , because now I could be a part of your community . I've always wanted to be , but I never felt comfortable with my voice . I didn't want to submit my voice . Very cool .

I think , if you're trying to pull it off , as this is a real caller , that you're putting your integrity on the line well , okay , but I put some text in , I did text to speech and on some models that I trained didn't sound great .

When I had it read it in my immediately trained that the cheap $20 one or the cheap 20-minute one , it was slow and it sounded like this and it you know you're like oh , okay , that's not great , but if you get one of the really good voices it will add the inflections and do all the necessary .

So make sure , yeah , some of the AI stuff that we're doing is it's not as good . So you got to kind of work and train the model . I played it for my wife . She came down here and I'm like you got to hear this is me , but not me , and I played it .

I cleaned it up and I was like , wow , I can't believe , from this hissy , crappy recording , this sounds really good . And then the bell went off . Wait a minute , can I clone grandpa ? And I did . And I ended up . I made a message for my brother that said hey , doug , love what you're doing with your girls , so proud of you .

Keep up the good work , love Popo . And sent it to him and he sent me a text . He's like I am crying like a baby because it sounded like my grandpa . And then he said you know what voodoo are you playing with now ? And I said I just cloned grandpa . It's no big deal , but it is kind of where my aunt , when she was in town that's her dad was .

Yeah , I don't want to hear it Like I want to hear it , but it's kind of like giving a crack addict a little bit of crack , just a little bit no-transcript , because at first I was like I'm still not a fan of using AI for content .

But there are some things that I think it's funny that I'm going to be a thought leader by using regurgitated thoughts and I'm like , yeah , that's not thought leading unless you have somehow you know , yeah , but that's really cool .

And it's funny because the AI voice will read the poorly written ones just as well . I mean , they're still poorly written , but the AI voice does a great job reading them .

Whatever I gave it when I ran the model against just regular text , it was't . It was very deliberative and slow and I thought do I talk ? Do I normally talk that slow , is it ? So I got some work to do there .

The voice-to-voice is amazing Like that is the most incredible , and then I'm hoping I think Mark alluded to this the endgame here is I can replicate my voice in different languages . That's the end game . I can take stuff I've already done and convert it into different languages .

The video didn't sync with my mouth so it looked like I was in a bad Godzilla movie . But from what I understand now they can make it to where it syncs with your mouth and that's just creepy . Yeah , the other thing I wanted to talk about , ralph brought this up .

Ralph , if you want to jump in , you can , but I think it was last week or maybe the week before and we were talking probably about Patreon or I use Supercast now and things like that , and he said you've got to be really careful with the word donation , because the last time I checked we are not a , what is it ? 1030 , 10 , something C ?

I forget the actual 503? , that's it . Yeah , we're not a 503C .

actually making money at it , a couple of years ago it wasn't the FTC . There he goes , the one and only Ralph . I love the fact that I can assign him to guest two and just click on this button and there he is . But yeah , the SEC , which is kind of a government thing about money , fined Kim Kardashian . I think it was $2,500 or $25,000 .

It was a lot of money , whatever it was , unless you're Kim Kardashian , to where she goes , $25,000 . Oh , I got that here in the couch cushions , but she had promoted a brand that she part-owned and did not disclose that she kind of part-owned .

Same thing the guy from Diary of a CEO has been promoting some sort of protein drink that he owns like lots of stock in , and they're yeah , you need to disclose that when you're saying this is the best thing ever and I'm going to profit when you buy my yeah , so you have to do that .

So , ralph , thanks for coming on the All right , I'm not a 501 three C . What's ? How's that gonna ? What's going to happen if I just make that a habit of saying donation ?

Issue number two is if you don't have that quote for profit motive , then when you go to do a tax return at the end of the year for your podcast and you want to take the expenses or you want to take a loss on your podcast as a side business , the IRS will disallow that loss and call it a hobby . So it's really twofold .

Number one you're putting yourself out there in basically saying that you are a nonprofit because you're using the word contribution . You're using the word donation , all that kind of stuff , and the second thing is just that whole for-profit motive . So that was my main concern , Dave .

Now , like I said , I'm not the world's policeman , but I just feel like there is a question . Why create the question in the first place if you can avoid it ? But you know a lot of people use the word support , so I'm not going to move against it , other than to say that you know you might want to say this is not a tax deductible contribution .

This is not X , y or Z . If you're using one of the third parties , I'm less concerned about it , because then I think the liability falls on them , like the Patreon or the Super Chat or something like that . But if you've got a website that's saying donations or contributions , I'm just concerned about that .

Like I said , I'm not the world's policeman , so I'm not trying to make it this complicated discussion , but I just feel like it's somewhat dangerous .

It's not a matter of what word to use , it's a matter that I have to disclose that I'm not a nonprofit .

Because you know , when we , like I , do audit work , you know one of the things about our audit is you could have something's completely right , but what is the person's perception of it ? So if their perception is they're supporting your show from the standpoint of , they're not going to take a deduction for it , then I think you're fine .

But if the , if I see the word contribute , if I see the word donate , if I see the word and support is one of those ones , I think it's very gray , yeah , so . So I would say that if you can get away from using the word support , I think you're better off , and I don't know what the wordsmith word to use for that is .

As a you know , or so you can say it this way Thank you for your support of the show . This is not a nonprofit organization and there's no expectation that you will be able to take a deduction for this as long as you say that I wouldn't use the word donate , I wouldn't use the word contribute , support the show .

I think is fine with that mark that says , hey , this is not a donation . Because even at my church , if we sell a t-shirt or if we have a trip or something like that and people pay for those things , we have to disclose to them that the cost of this t-shirt or the cost of going to this dinner or something like that is not a charitable contribution .

So I think you just have to be cautious in how you do that . And , dave , here's my big concern . Right , and it's going to come out the wrong way . But a lot of people are like podcasting from their basement and that's not a bad thing .

But the problem is it's those people that'll end up getting tied up in knots by the Federal Trade Commission and from the IRS and from some stupid person that wants to sue them because they don't have a team of lawyers . They don't have these people that surround them .

So that's why I think it's more important If you were one of the big podcasting platforms use whatever term you want because you've got a team of lawyers that can fight those things . But if you're this person that's just doing it as a side gig or doing it for fun or something like this ? Why set yourself up for a problem in the first place ?

It's like a hundred pages . They have a short , easy form but then they have the big form and if you don't have that letter or you don't have that notification from the IRS that says yes , you are a 501 C3 technically well , I shouldn't say technically , you are a 501c3 technically . Well , I shouldn't say technically , you are not .

So it's like this is a funny thing . Dave and jim , like a lot of people , think they go out and they give money to go fund me . Well , go fund me isn't a 501c3 technically . Those go fund me . Quote donations or help or contributions are not tax deductible .

I know I've lost this in the tax deductible weeds but , like I said , I say these things only because I hate to see the sideline podcast . People get themselves tied up in knots when they can avoid it . That's my big concern .

Do I think the guys from the IRS with the gold badges and guns are going to come take you out of your basement and take you away to the clink . No , but if you can prevent that from being , because here's where it'll be an issue .

It'll be an issue when somebody gets audited who made a contribution to your show , and the IRS is going through their records and saying , oh well , every week I send Dave and Jim 20 bucks because I support their show . It's a contribution and I put it on my tax return .

That's when you're going to get yourself in trouble , because then the IRS is going to say , well , let me go find Dave and Jim . It's not so much that they're going to just pick on Joe who's making a contribution . They're going to say , well , where are those contributions going to ?

I think that one doesn't worry me , that one doesn't worry me at all , patreon , in fact , that one doesn't worry me as much unless the funnel is somehow saying you know , contribute to the show , donate to the show , as long as it's saying , I think the word , like I said I'm going to go back with what I said a little bit if you use the word support , then

I think you have some kind of you you know wording or something that says that this is not a contribution . If you're using the word buy , dude , if you want to sell something , there's no question mark there at all . You know , buy me a coffee is you're buying something . You know support the show by buying a .

You know I love Dave t-shirt , or you know whatever those things . I think you're fine . But it's when we use the word contribute , when you use the word donate . Those things make me nervous . So if I said thank you for helping me pay off my window loan , that would be . Actually , I think that's fine .

But again , like I said , I don't want to get so legalistic that we lose ourselves in crazy town . I just think that some podcasters don't think about the legal ramifications of the things they're doing and unfortunately , we live in a time where now there is regulation upon regulation and there's regulations of regulations .

It's what you don't know that ends up biting you in the long run .

And then they come into someone like me to get their taxes done . I said , okay , well , what did you make for donations ? Well , I gave $1,500 . I'm not really going to dig into what they gave it to . I'm going to assume that what they said was accurate . I might ask them to give me some receipts so I can scan it into their file .

But you're still claiming income . I get it . I'm not worried about that side of the transaction . I'm worried about the perception of the person who is making that payment . That's what I'm concerned about .

The IRS comes back to me . Is it ? Whose problem ? Is it ? Is it my problem for trying to take it as that , or do you ? Is it your problem because I gave it to you ? And I'd love to say , well , it's obviously my problem , but this is legal stuff and you never really know .

So I'm just really hesitant to give any kind of tax or legal advice to folks , and disclosures and disclaimers don't always cover you .

So there's a confirmation bias at the front end of that . I can say that as a tax expert . Now , from the other side , my point , jim , was just if you're using the word donation , contribution or something like that , are you holding yourself out to be something that you are not , and could that be seen as misleading ? That's my big concern .

I think you could say it because of that burden of proof , concept written . Again , we're very US-centric right now . Everybody , all other countries , consult your tax advisor in the country that you're living in . But I'd be a little more open . I do , it's a good thought and I don't think it's the best word , and so I love support .

I love support that doesn't have any implications of tax , where donation kind of does and and especially if you're , if you've been in the 503 , 503 , no 50C3 , is , I think , the right way to say it no-transcript and at the end of the year you go to your tax person and you want to take a loss .

know we're getting down to this small level of people who that affects . But I'm just saying like . That's why I say it's got multiple porcupine things sticking out of it .

You can tune into my podcast to hear all about Ralph's crazy life . But anyway , thank you very much .

I just say , hey , you know , if you want to join the Patreon , if you want to join our Patreon team , we have plans that are as little as $5 a month and you can join for one month or as many as you want , but appreciate it if you want to support it . So if you want to support this show , see , I do say support .

So I have to think , I have to think through that .

If I send money to someone who is a coach and I categorize it as education Consult your tax advisor ? Yeah , I'm going to say you know what you need to do . You need to ask Ralph at ask ralphpodcastcom . Yeah , that's a good question . Yeah , that's a .

I'd love to have you join our Patreon team . I think I'll just work on striking out the .

So I say at the end of that spiel so if you want to support the show and so maybe I'll , maybe I'll say if you want to just join our team , just cause I say that in the beginning , why wouldn't I just say that at the end , if you want to join our team , join us . Theaverageguytv slash Patreon . That's kind of the spiel I give .

By the way , I like having that memorized so that I say it the same every time . You're not making up different things that may go awry on you . When words matter , you might want to memorize something . So now I got to change that there you you go .

There you go , and yeah , and read it really fast like in the car commercials well speaking of , because we do call them awesome supporters , our awesome givers that have joined our community . No , not give , yeah they don't give . So thank you to everyone who is doing that and for some reason this is not letting me go to the here . Can I use my arrow keys ?

What is going on ? All right , kids , I cannot advance my slides and Ecamm will not let me move this . There it is to another . Here we go . Teams yes , you can be an awesome supporter by going to askthepodcastcoachcom slash support or help pay the bills , something like that . Yeah , and the show is brought to you by the school of podcastingcom . You can be a .

You can join the school of podcasting by going to ask the podcast coachcom . No , go to school of podcastingcom slash coach . I think we'll get you there and that'll use the coupon code . Coach , you can join with a 30 day money back guarantee . So if it's not for you , you can quit on day number 29 and I'll give you your money back .

Ask the Podcast Coach if you go to askthepodcastcoachcom . That runs on PodPage and you can learn PodPage at learnpodpagecom . Or you can try PodPage that's my affiliate link at trypodpagecom and we are using right now Ecamm , which in a second I'll be switching screens and we'll be doing the wheel of names which we have figured out is illegal . So that's fun .

We're rebels and we run with scissors . But if you want to check out Ecamm , go to askthepodcastcoachcom . Slash Ecamm , I don't know why . There we go . If you need more Jim Cullison and who the heck doesn't need more Jim Cullison you can find him over at theaverageguytv . Check out his show Home Gadget Geeks . And again , it's time for the Wheel O' Names .

So who will it be ? Will it be Chris at castaheadnet ? Ed at Sonic , cupcake , ross Brand they're all there . Craig at AI Goes to College . We spin the wheel and the winner is this week the one , and only maybe because I said his name . Is he , like Beetlejuice Chris Stone over at castaheadnet , which I think is the current one ?

I know I've made a thing , because what I do is at the beginning of the episode . My pre-roll now is whoever the featured supporter is . So thank you , Chris , for enlightening my wallet in a positive way . How's that ? That'll work ? And if you would like to be an awesome supporter ? This is so weird .

This is the part that always is a crash and burn , because I end up what it is . There's a preview window of Ecamm and then there's the actual Ecamm window and I keep clicking on the preview window . But hey , if this show saved you time , save you money , saved your headaches , or it keeps you educated .

You can be an awesome supporter by going to ask the podcast coachcom slash awesome and join our community , is that ? Yeah , see , he's got me thinking . Now that's kind of tricky .

Use the coupon code , dave , and so that also gets inserted in there . And so if you're tired of hearing about PodIndy and that's not nice because Brad's a great guy and it's going to be a great event , but you know you can . An awesome supporter now doesn't get the dynamically . You get the because I upload it directly from the computer there .

So you'll hear me talk about the awesome supporters and such , but you won't get those dynamic ads thrown in . Yeah , I'm going to close this preview window . It's nice to see what's going on , but I don't need that . But here's the ace , since we're on a go ahead .

There's no free subscribing Right , or maybe there is Followers , but there isn't . Well , follow and subscribe are the two words right , all of the many of the podcasts at both spotify and apple podcast . When you now follow , you don't subscribe . We used to say subscribe . Now you follow on those two platforms and so follow . I like subscribe . I'll just be .

I'll just be honest . I think if there was one word that I would needed to use in that , besides join , I'd say subscribe . That's pretty clean .

Because , yeah , there you go , jim , jim has his what are those called reactions going ? Can we get some balloons ? Can we ? Can you do a ?

I know it's Mouthy Broad something . So I just remember , like , if I say it , I'm like am I going to get in trouble because I said the word broad and I'm a middle age white guy ? That could be , you never know . But I saw this one , since we're in the category of let's talk about legal things that we don't have the legal expertise to talk about .

But this one I was like oh , get a lawyer , and that is the . This was out of Reddit and the person said my friend is a TV writer and asked if he could adapt my podcast into a series . I think it's fine . It could potentially be very good for the podcast , right ? Has anyone else been through something like this ?

Are there things I should be considering before giving permission ? Yes , contact a lawyer , because if this person writes it and it gets picked up now there's a lot of you know this might happen , that might happen , but you better get that in writing , that you know any sale of this , like what percentage ? And this is where I don't know what I'm talking about .

But I would get a lawyer involved because I mean , we've heard of all these bands and Van Halen was in a horrible contract because they're just like look boys , it's a record contract and they're like woohoo , and they signed it and it was like I own your soul and it's like so know what you're getting into , because on one hand , it could be great for the

podcast , because on one hand , it could be great for the podcast , but if the podcast isn't , you know okay , I always say congratulations , I've waved my magic wand , voila , you have 25,000 downloads . What are you going to do with that ? Like ads , great . So you have 25 times 20, .

You know , like a couple of hundred bucks , whatever it is , thousand maybe , like . But you know that's one of those . I think it was . Sylvester Stallone on the first Rocky movie took all sorts of stuff because he kept insisting I'm the actor , I'm the support , I'm the rescue .

And they said , okay , but then we're not paying you for this and that and you have to give up the rights to this and that . But he got the first Rocky made , but and then he made money on , you know , the second , the third , the 12th , the 27th version of Rocky , and so I would .

Just when I saw that I was like , oh yeah , don't tread in waters that could have legal issues later . And you go , oh , I didn't know that there was a something fee and I could have made this or that . And so I know the Beetlejuice movie I just saw the sequel and it is that's , that's once . Don't say it yeah .

And it's one of those where it's like you can wait till that comes to . The streaming Wasn't a bad movie , it was cute . But at the beginning it said based on characters from such and such , which is probably the guy that you know . The screenplay from the first one was made on that .

But I'm like , well , that guy's probably getting paid because you're still using his characters . But if he said , well , it'll be good for the book and didn't get anything , that would be a problem . So anything like that you got to be careful with . This . One is just a great . Please don't do this .

Is someone who still kind of works in podcast or tech support ? Does anyone produce two podcasts on one feed ? And I always used to say , well , do you watch everything on Netflix ? And they'd be like , no , and I'm like , well , so you're assuming your audience wants to listen to everything that you do , because that usually was it .

Now Captivate , I believe , does have a network feed . So if you want to have a , like hey , if you want all things , dave , subscribe to this feed . But what happens is people try to save , you know , 12 bucks a month .

So instead of having two separate podcasts with two separate feeds and , of course , with Captivate , it doesn't cost you extra to start a second show .

But let's say you're on Libsyn or Buzzsprout or somebody like that different business model , they're trying to save 12 bucks and what inevitably happens months later is their audience is like is there any way I can just get show A and not show B ? And then they come to the support people like how do I separate these ?

And it's a mess , it's a giant mess and you don't want to do it . Yeah , don't do that because it's just you know , like I say , if there's something that I captivate where they give you a network feed , I think Libsyn Pro has a network feed , but in general , most people don't want everything you do .

There's a , you know , there's that fringe of people that just love everything you do , but it's a nightmare to unravel and you're saving $12 a month and I'm like , just skip a Starbucks and you should be good to go . Or use Captivate , where it's $19 a month for as many shows as you want . Just don't go over 30,000 downloads , which I just checked .

I was nowhere near it and we're three-fourths of the way through the month and I've got probably 12 . Now , you know three-fourths of the way through the month and I've got probably 12 , now . Granted , probably 50% of the shows that I have on Captivate are dead and that's why they're there , because Captivate doesn't charge you anymore for an extra podcast .

But you know school podcasting's on there , a couple other ones . Do you have anything like that ? For I know you do a bunch of shows for Gallup , but is it all separate feeds for everything ?

In both cases the podcasts two separate podcasts . They have a long form , two hours in a 30 minute short show . They in . In the case of one , they added it to the feed , they took it out of the feed , they added it back to the feed and then they canceled it . The short show part of it .

And so I , you know , I was like no guys , I just want to go . I , I like your content , I just want to go there and listen to it . In the other case , the long show actually gets better numbers than the short show does , and so you kind of wonder how is that possible in the same feed ? It is . It's possible for whatever reason . It's a quandary , dave .

I think there are some who say don't do it like you're saying . I think there are some who say don't do it like you're saying .

I think there's some listeners who say do it , because if the content's very similar , I would say if the content's drastically different different in style , different in content , different in hosts , different in those kinds of things yeah , it's probably good to have its own feed .

If it's the same , just throw it in the same throw it in the same feed Folks can figure out . If they don't want to listen to it , they can skip it . It's literally a swipe and a delete , saying you know , it'd just be a lot easier . The confusing thing is if you get an audience that says a little bit of both , they're like get rid of it .

The other half of the audience is like keep it , and then you have a us presidential election .

Because she's asked . Well , first of all , she said yes , I am Mouthy Broad Media and I appreciate middle-aged white guys . Thank you for that . But she says so if Buzzsprout is putting the newsletter blurbs and then there is pod indie blurbs , how many call to actions are in the episode ? I'm always worried .

Well , number one , these little blurbs are little Like the one is . Well , first of all , buzzsprout will be like you know , we'll be right back . And then you hear me go hey , if you enjoy this podcast , you should join my newsletter . That's the podcastcoachcom slash newsletter . It's literally like 15 seconds or less . It's quick .

And then it's back and I am approaching too many calls to action because it does interrupt the flow and that's actually a strategy , not one . I'm really I'm playing with this right now , but there is a strategy of like Pocket Cast , wait a minute .

Podcast Addict has this strategy If you go to their website , you will be swarmed with advertising and , from what I understand , it's in their app as well . And they're hey , are you sick of all these ads smacking you in the face ? Pay us some money and they'll go away .

And I remember Kevin Smith in the early days of his podcast Jay Moore , they all did the . I'm going to YouTube is the best for this . It's weird because my Gmail for my personal stuff . Weird because my Gmail for my personal stuff . I'm on YouTube Premium . My email at PodPage is not .

And I'm always amazed when I go to YouTube and I'm logged in as Dave from PodPage because it's just like ad after ad on YouTube . So how many calls to action are too many calls to action ? That's a great question . I think part of it is and this comes from Tom Webster people hate ads when they're bad ads Like you know what I mean .

It's like now , there's always that extreme person . I loved it . I , when I interviewed Tom , you know there are people like well , you know , conan O'Brien does five ads at the beginning and he's like okay . So if you're going to do a podcast like Conan O'Brien , step one is be Conan O'Brien , be funny , yeah . And I was like that's it .

But I think to me too many calls number one the Kelsey brothers had all their calls to action at the beginning and I'm like you know there's a reason the offering in the church . Actually it's funny because the offering is usually before the sermon , at least when I go to church .

It'd be interesting if it was after the sermon and you were paid based on the value the sermon gave you . That's fighting words right there . But I guess to me it drives me nuts , like I've noticed . When I listen to Jordan Harbinger , who I think does a good job with his ads , and I listen to Feedback Friday , I don't .

I mean , I'm sorry , jordan , I don't usually listen to the other episodes unless it's somebody really cool , but I love Feedback Friday and he will do two stories and these are horrendous stories , like well , I found out my stepdad's got a peephole in the bathroom and blah , blah and like , oh , what kind of advice is Jordan going to give to this person ?

They're horrible stories . But he'll do two stories and then he'll do two ads and his ads are super . This is why I like this . Here's what it is . Go to . You know I forget . This is funny , I can't remember . Oh , jordanharbingercom slash ads . And then it's another one . It's quick , it's succinct , it's to the point . Go to jordanharbingercom slash ads .

And then he's now back to the show and he always kind of has the ads are pre , I think they're pre recorded , but he always has a clear break that we're going to it and I don't mind them because the two stories I just heard were very valuable .

It's when you give me crap and then make me listen to ads that are also crap , that I'm like , wow , I'm 30% into this show and I've got nothing but crap , that I go . And then when they come back from the ads and it's more crap and I get some point , I go okay , I've now wasted 15 minutes on this swipe left delete .

I'll give you another chance next week . But if next week is the same thing , I think the calls to action is more of a ratio with the value . Jim , you have any shows that have too many ? calls to action .

If you've been doing your show for , say , you've got 100 episodes , you've gathered all the people that like your show by 100 , most people have left . If they show up and they didn't like it , then they left again , like they're not there anymore . So you're probably in a situation where your audience is tolerant of what you're doing . The risk then is change .

If you change some things , you know , oh , I did 100 , I'm going to , I think I'm going to change it up because I'm sick of it . Well , guess what ? Your audience isn't . They're there because they like you . If you're consistent , they're there because they like you . People keep listening . Do 50 call to actions . Like it , it works , keep doing it .

If you know . Now you have to ask yourself the question are my 50 CTAs keeping new people from listening ? That's a completely different question . Right , and so you ? But just be cautious . Like you may have gathered with the style that you have , you may have gathered some very loyal people , especially if you've been consistent for a while .

This speaking of churches , this happens every time a church changes a pastor . Right , they new guy comes . I don't like this guy . He does a massive turnover in the church , but usually , in a lot of cases , I shouldn't say it that way . Sometimes the audience goes down and then it comes right back up because it attracts a new you know new people .

Oh , I really like this guy or lady .

There's no right or wrong answer . I love Captivate because I can put the ads where I want .

Buzzsprout listens to your content and does a pretty good job , as does AI most of the time , of putting a spot with the ad , and then you just pick what ad , and so I made one for Pod Indie , I made one for the newsletter and then I have a post roll at the end . So after we're done , thanks for coming . See you next week .

Another episode of Ask the Podcast Coach . Then there's one that says hey , if you're not listening live and you want to ask a question , go to askthepodcastcoachcom . Slash voicemail , and so far nobody's done that . But I throw that at the end .

So that's another dynamic tool , but that's , I think , another reason why I can get away with these little baby ads is they're every 20 minutes . The guy from Oxford Road , dan .

I love that guy because there are people that are into the advertising bubble of podcasting and there are some people that just want to bring as much money in because they're going to earn a commission and they could care less what happens to the content . Dan seems to be a guy that is at podcast movement said we need to kind of cap this at about 10% .

So if your podcast is 10 minutes long , you know you shouldn't have more than a minute of ads in your show 10% . And so we have cause .

Radio is 30% and there are people that came over from radio and they're trying to make podcasting radio , and those are the people that I politely want to and lovingly , you know punch in the face and go , please don't make podcasting radio , and then I forget . That's not your style .

Punch in the face and go , please don't make podcasting radio , and then I forget that's not your style , but that's not your style .

So I and go ooh , I really like this because it sounds like radio what I'm comfortable with . That's true I think we have to be careful the way we say that , right , I mean , yeah , we don't prefer that , but that's not our preference , that's not the way we do things .

You and I don't have a radio background , but for folks that do , and maybe for some individuals that want and maybe there's some folks who never listen to radio , who go this format is great . So I think we have to be careful there .

That's a real thing , right , and that then you kind of go oh okay , someone's listening , they're finding value . People just don't throw their money at you . They do it because they want to and there's value associated with it . How do you know you're doing well when these kinds of things happen on a regular basis ? I think people do vote with their money .

If you are listening later , you can now you're going to hear me see , I shouldn't say this because I'm going to say it in about . You know 49 seconds that you know you can go to ask the podcast coachcom slash voicemail and leave us a message . Maybe next week we'll have AI read some of our questions that I get from Reddit and things like that .

Just to play with Jim . What's coming up on Home Gadget Geeks ?

He talked about earbuds Are expensive earbuds worth it , and so that's available for you right now . Homegadgetgeekscom and Marv . Thanks for joining me as you do every other month or so Appreciate that .

I think that's what I'm going to end up talking about . Mark will probably make it to the School of Podcasting . I'll probably pull a clip from that because I have been using things I know . Well . I'm not going to tell you you have to listen at the School of Podcasting , but I've got my Saturdays back thanks to some tools that I'm using .

But thanks to everyone at the chat room , thanks to podcastbrandingco , based on a truestorypodcastcom , mouthy Broad Media and Ask Ralph at askrffpodcastcom . We're askthepodcastcoachcom . We're here every Saturday . We will see you next week .