EYL #56 Full Court Pumps feat. Mandii B

An illegal alien from Guatemala charged with raping a child in Massachusetts. An MS thirteen gang member from Al Salvador accused of murdering a Texas man of Venezuelan charged with filming and selling child pornography in Michigan. These are just some of the heinous migrant criminals caught because of President Donald J. Trump's leadership. I'm Christy nom the United States

Sponsored by the United States Department of Homeland Security.

All right, guys, welcome back EU.

I L.

This is gonna be a.

Very exciting so for sure, but before we start, we want to let you guys know last minute run but we are headed to Atlanta. You got probably a lot of times. Comes out a few days ticket tickets. It's gonna be crazy atl I can't wait. Touch the Town January twenty fifth, January twenty six. It's a two day event. We're doing a live podcast on January twenty fifth with the PTG Boys, I Got, I Got Brandon and the whole crew. They're running the car game right now. They're

First Family of Fitness is going to be their.

First Family of Fitness. Mister and missus two weeks out. They're doing anything in Atlanta for sure. And our brother Kenny Burns legend. Yeah, we'll be for sure for sure.

Culture himself, that's a fact.

And then after that it's open bar and it's catered and it's a private networking event.

Everybody acting clearly.

It's a whole vibe.

Stay off the Hendy and Sunday, the day after, we have a workshop with our guy Alex Good Energy.

It's on my trucking.

Andy from Y two K Credit Solution's gonna talk about credit MG, the mortgage guys I'm gonna go over mortgages and everything you know about real estate and the King of Wholesaling Max Maxwell was gonna talk about wholesaling. So it's crazy and this is everybody else is coming. Wall Street Travel will be in the building. Mobile homes Elite will be in the building. Business, our guest today will be in the building.

It's gonna be crazy.

Man, Like I said, shout that Jay Morrison spoke to him. He might pop out. So yeah, all the information is online. There's a couple of different varieties as far as if you want to break it up on the earner leisure dot com events tap so Atlanta looking forward to seeing you guys. Man, can't wait. So we're gonna jump right into it.

This is it's gonna be a very good episode.

So it was crazy because me and Troy was out at dinner about a few weeks back. Yeah, and one of our friends are good friends of ours, told us about a podcast and the podcast name was Horrible Decisions and home.

She was.

But with her and she was telling us about it and I'm like, oh, I never heard about it. I'm like, that's that's interesting. And then she's like now that big like it's really like it's a big deal. And then like two days later one of the stars, one of the stars d m us and told us about their podcast and was like, Yo, I'm interested in being on your podcast.

I'm like, yeah, funny you say that.

So I thought it was people. I thought it was a setup. I'm like, yo, they said that, so they can hit us up, and I'm like, no, none of else things just a coincidence.

Yes, So so we got none other than Mandy b a k A Full Court Pumps, Yes, co host the Horrible Decisions podcast. So Horrible Decisions is a sex podcast, yes, and it's huge. It's it's one of the top podcasts in the top one percent.

That we shouldn't even just say sex, that we suld say women's empowerment.

So it's it's women's empowerment. But we focus on anti We do do anti shaming, anti kink shaming, so we don't allow the kink shaming to happen. But we focus on just bringing more so the things that are taboo and sex to the forefront and having those conversations with everyday people who are in the kink space, and just having those conversations that you made that you probably never had with your mom and dad. You probably never chance good chances. So we literally we dive into it weekly.

That's a fact, big part. But so that the interesting is part of the store. Sorry for us, since with a business podcast is that Mandy used to be in corporate America and we're gonna talk about her whole journey.

But so the podcast.

Industry is a unique industry and we've talked about podcasts a little bit from our standpoint, but this is the first time we've actually had another podcaster on Oh wow, well I shouldn't say that, but this is the first time that we've had another podcast going in depth about

So all right, it's twenty twenty two, and I'm just make that and know it was like, we want to empower our women. We would make a conscious effort to make sure we have more women on I.

Literally told him on the phone, I said, y'all need more of women.

I like hearing from the men twenty twenty were making it, were making it happen out here too. Effort to that that happens. That's killing it.

That's a fact. So you're a full time podcast that's what you do for a living.

I just left my corporate job June twenty sixth, twenty nineteen.

Yes, so can you tell about that because you was with Ernest Young.

Yes, and so I worked at Ernst and Young for I left right before my one year anniversary. Prior to that, I was at Goldman Sachs for about a year and a half. And then this was all while I was in school obtaining two of my degrees. So I was on path to be a CPA in New York. You need one hundred and fifty credits to get your CPA license. So I ended up getting two bachelor's degrees in a four year time. So that was one hundred and fifty

Dope, and what did you do at Goldman?

So at Goldman I did the same. So I did investment tax so I was in the investment tax group. And then at Ernst and Young, I did taxes for financial services. So I did taxes for hedge funds and private equity funds, investment institutions.

Do you don't do you come from a family of finance or you're just like I'm.

From Florida, So like I actually even wanted to get into opening these conversations to just the younger generations of careers that you could have. I went to a school that focused on putting everyone either in as a nurse or cosmetology. That's it. That's what they pushed people for just to go to Neither of my parents went to college,

So so you got one of the top podcasts in the world, Thank you, and you do this full time. You quit your job at Corporate America, which couldn't have been an easy decision to make. How much was you making at Ernest Young?

So Ernst and Young as a first year associate. Yeah, so I was, well, I was a staff accounting that's right. So you go through about two and a half to three years of being a staff before you reach senior. Then you go through three levels of being a senior before you reach manager, and then that goes up until

Okay, so you're making sixty eight thousand on a career path to a couple of years probably makeing over one hundred thousand dollars. Yes, and you quit to do the podcast full time. So can you walk us through the journey of your podcast journey. We're going to talk about like funding and all of that. But when you first started a podcast, because you did the podcast simultaneously while you're working a.

Job, while I was in school and working.

So what was was what was this? What was the steps to start the podcast.

So the steps weren't much. It was okay. Me and my co host sat at are like, we had dinner. I owed her some money because she didn't sleep with someone I thought she was going to sleep with. So I was like, fine, I'll take you out to dinner since you won the bet. And so we sat literally across the table from each other at dinner and planned out what we wanted as a podcast. I'm very organized. I'm the friend that when we go on vacation, I have an Excel spreadsheet on when everyone arrives, the tours

Yeah, but you had some experience though. You had a podcast.

Oh yes, So I had a podcast with Lamar Woodley and thousand that was his name, and we did a sports podcast. And even with that, we made sure we touched on certain events that happened in the week, our thoughts on the business aspect of sports gossip. We literally added those into that podcast, which stopped because we were all remote. Thousand was in Pittsburgh, Lamar. At the time we started the podcast, I believe he had just left

So people are writing in their own stories and.

They want advice from us, so any relationships, sex advice, and now we are flooded with you know, emails all the time. Yeah, and she actually had a studio that she recorded out of, and so we went there. It was thirty five dollars an hour, and I was like, all right, let's do it. And so we started literally recording out of out of Brooklyn. So I would leave from having a half a day at school, half a day at work, and go from Jersey City at the time, all the way to Brooklyn to record these episodes.

And then when you first recorded it, were you uploading it because you were you were for agency now, but was independence.

We still own one hundred percent of our content, all of it. So even though we're signed with an agency, even though we're on a network, we own one hundred percent of our content. So literally, I mean it's not much to Google. We SoundCloud as our host, and then a monkst being on SoundCloud I ended up getting Spreakers so that we can be distributed to iHeartRadio on Spotify, and so we paid those two hostings a month, and in the beginning, I was just like, girl, don't say nothing.

So speaker with r a distribution.

They distributed before you could actually get before you could just go to Spotify. Spotify was actually hard, and so was iHeartRadio. So this was a host that could distribute your content through your RSS feed just through being a member on there and paying I don't know, we paid eight dollars a month with them and fifteen dollars a month with SoundCloud.

Troy, you want to say, you want told an RSS feed, So.

The r S feed is the actual I guess it would be like the website address for your actual podcast. So when you put that out and you could distribute on multiple networks, so we can be on anchor and we can be on Spotify, we can be on Apple podcasts or stitch your a multitude of things. At that time.

How many were you how we started? I mean, so our host was SoundCloud and at that time we also set up our Apple Podcasts, which was separately, well it was linked to Look, I didn't know none of this when I started, so it's linked to my goddamn email, so it's linked to that. I was like, well, I have iTunes, let's just go on Apple podcast So now everything's yeah, through my iCloud account, which I wouldn't suggest for anyone, but yeah, just just literally made it on

Yeah.

Actually I told a story about that the other day. I was on the phone with this young man that we met in DC, and he was like, what podcast should I listened to? God, what did you guys listen to. I'm like, well, we really didn't listen to any I don't know if that's a good way to go about it. But we kind of just did this thing, like we just do it. And then I think after like three months, we even like we didn't know that there was charts

Yeah, we were wondering why we never got into the new and noteworthy and then there's a whole politics.

All these things.

Yeah, we really didn't know much either. And and like I said, she's a huge Bodega Boys fan, so she listened to them. I had only really listened to the Read and gotten into Brilliant Idiots around that time, and now I literally listened to Joe Butten faithfully. But like, even yeah, we started the podcast, and outside of me having a podcast, I still wasn't familiar.

With I think I think that's that's important for people to understand too, is that we haven't really done then episode about how to start a podcast. People have always asked for that, and it's like, it's really not that difficult.

It doesn't take a lot of money.

Yeah, we use anchor for now do the right thing Spotify and yeah that's a fact. So and they distribute our show to like eight different channels, so like iTunes, Spotify, where else are we on?

Podbean?

Podbeans, Stitcher, Stitcher and all that stuff?

So yess, all you do is you recorded and then you uploaded from the computer or whatever the one thing and then yeah, you put it out.

So that's the easy book.

It's really easy.

The heart.

The hard part is to actually grow the audience, right, that's the most the toughest, that's most people struggle with.

So how'd you how'd you call your audience?

Honestly, and we like to say it was done pretty organically. I did already have I mean I would say a regular size not even a regular size following, because I had the blog and I was very active on Twitter since nine. I was a part of black Twitter. Like when we started, you know, when we started the podcast, I did, I was maybe sitting on forty thousand followers, so I was like, okay, let me just feel this. This is something new that I have. Let me shoot this out to them. And then I had a lot

Yes, she was on the show with a little kid when they.

She is our first episode of twenty twenty. We have gone together and what she's done, And like I said, I know, I knew Maul prior. So Maul was on episode thirty from the Joe Button podcast and we just literally brought all of our friends who were already in this space because we're like, Okay, they have podcasts, people maybe want to hear them on another one.

So cross promotion.

We cross promoted a ton and it wasn't until we landed on loud Speaker and had that Brilliant Idiot's feature that literally shot us up thirty thousand people. That was our game changer.

Changed everything it did.

And then what's crazy is I thought that that was our biggest jump. And then we had Rory on from the Joe Button podcast and continued with just really dope content that our numbers kept growing. So it wasn't just the spike from Brilliant Idiots. We were able to keep those listeners obtain them and then keep growing.

So being on Brilliant Idiots or idiots that's Charlemagne's podcast. Let us know that increased your listener base by thirty thousand per episode, per yes.

Per episode, So so we literally went from like ten to twelve thousand a week, and after that we were seeing between thirty and forty thousand.

How many listeners do they have?

Oh god, they probably get a quarter million.

Quarter million per episode?

Yeah wow, yeah, yeah, how'd you get connected with them?

So I want to well, a king who was a part of Loudspeaker. I remember he got brought into like our third episode of recording and the studio at the time, the guy who was the owner of that was just like, yo, these girls are dope. So he came in and listened to us, and he was like, Yo, y'all got something here. Keep working on it. We were at three episodes in. He didn't know we were gonna last a month later

So yeah, I'm glad we're having this conversation for a lot, especially for people that are starting podcasts, because this is all stuff that we're learning, like we didn't know because me and Troy never listened to podcasts before before we start a podcast.

We still only listen to podcasts to be honest.

Hoble Decisions is now on the subscribe to.

It, so you've already said you couldn't make it. It gets a little run.

I got to make sure my son's not in the car phones needed so, but it's it's important for people to notice because nobody really knows this stuff. So the podcast world is kind of similar to the music industry. I'm finding out very much where it's like the music industry, you have labels, right, so you have like a death cham, you have Universal, you have labels, right, so you have networks in the podcast game, so you're on loud Speaker.

Yes, that's that's a network.

So, and we're on a network with probably, as we mentioned, the top one percent of podcasts specifically in the black space of podcasting. I'm amongst the top. So there's the Read Read Friend Zone, who also does touring. They just had a they just went on tour with McDonald's at HBCUs. Of course, you have Angela's Lip Service, which I love and I love her, and also brewin Idiots with Charlemane Andrew Schultz and Flavorant too, which Andrew is now selling out everything. He's doing everything.

So yeah, so that's so that's a that's a network. You have shouts shout out to our brother willow to sixty seven and Keilly, congratulations. They just signed with Barstool.

Marstol's huge.

That's a network. So there's a few other networks so and similar to a record label. So like if you if you're a deaf jam artist, right, it's easy. They're gonna they're gonna collab with other deaf jam artists, right. So if gz's on deaf Jam and they just got a new artist on death Jam, the best way to give him that look is to put him on a record everybody. So it's like quality control, right, like quality control,

And who's featured on your first single?

They put you on, idiot? So how did that? How did that work? Like? Did they have to?

And I knew they were scared of us. We literally were also on only for the last twenty twenty five minutes of the episode. So Andrews Charlamagine did a whole episode. We come in the last twenty twenty five minutes. So to have been able to reach thirty thousand new listeners in a twenty to twenty five minute here you go, Like they put us on the hook. We didn't even get a purse.

So they did they have to get the okay from Charlemagne.

Chris Morrow, who was head of loud Speaker. He I'm sure they did.

Spoken He's like it's cool whatever.

They were like these girls are ready.

Now because it's interesting because like I said, so, all right, so in this equation, if you're a loyal listener to or Alsha, we're like coch Records, like, we're comply, we're completely independent, and we're just flying by the bootstraps.

We don't know anything. We're just figuring out as we go.

So it's good to notice stuff because it's like, oh, this is how these things actually work. On the other side of the table, we're like the underdogs in this whole scenario.

Well no, even talking to you guys. A lot of people look at podcasting as it's a hobby, it's something to do with your friends. And I remember even the conversation Weezy and I had before starting the show. I was just like, listen, if we're going to follow the model to try to make money on this thing, we got to look at this as a business. We have to operate as a business. And I don't see no money. Girl. I got a career.

I'm going to it.

I got a plan, you know, I never in my wildest dreams again. We started this podcast less than three years ago, April of twenty seventeen. It's now twenty twenty and and we've done We're now on our second technically tour, and like I said, we made a quarter million dollars last year on what a lot of people see as a hobby and I was able to leave what I thought would be my career for the next twenty thirty years.

And it's only gonna get bigger from you.

Yeah, that's the plan. That's the plan.

Sure, so all right, so we only go in the next time, we're gonna talk about the business breakdown how you're actually making money. But before that, you said, like in the podcast world, there's like politics like stuff like that, right, yes, so can you talk about that briefly because it's like, so like if you're on one network, you might not be able to collab with someone on another network.

No, I haven't seen that really happen. But we're all humans, so you have I don't want to say human era, but human relationships. And so you do have people who aren't friends or have a history for some personal reasons and now you'll probably never see them collab and' that's just more so. Yeah. That, And then you also have to look at it as a business, like does it make sense for me to go on a podcast that talks about cooking?

Probably somebody might have a food finish.

Look okay, But you also have to look at it like, okay, does this make sense? For me to collab with this person, does it benefit my brand? Does it benefit their brand? And again, also like I said, there is the human aspect of things. So even though we're all podcasters, that just like all rappers, aren't friends all podcasts.

And it's like I said, the whole underworld of podcast So I definitely thank you for giving us information. Thank my brother Whilow. He gave us a lot of Chad from eighty five South show I.

Love I love all the I love Carlos and DC's still waiting for them to come on. But no supporting everything there yea.

They just give us game and it's like you know, those those guys are established in the podcast world. So like this podcast award shows, it's like iHeart and it's like different things and it's like exclusive deals now that that podcasters are signing like exclusively where apples on Spotify, and it's so much different stuff.

Well, we're going to see in the space of podcasting even over like it's just getting started, specifically in our space where talk radio has been out Howard Stern. What I'm doing now isn't new. We're talking about sex in the same way that Howard Stern did he brought on porn stars and had them do wild things, but it was just talk radio. Talk radio is essentially what podcasting is. But in our I guess communities, we didn't listen to talk radio. No one wanted to turn on and hear

Find because they found a lot of value in it. Right, So, like this is the way we educate now, Like we used to get educated through the music. The music so much that we listen to. Now where the kids listen to now not the same message, right.

Yeah, No one wants to pick up many books. Really, they want to get it in one hundred and forty character tweet what's going on, and that's the limit to what they're reading.

So we're putting it. We're putting it through the airs the same way we learn from music. Now we're putting this education through the airs because that's what people have. They have their phones. They could just hit the podcast, right and they go away with the education.

That's the fact.

So all right, So the next segment we're gonna we're gonna get to what everybody wants to know is how do you make money on a podcast?

We're gonna blow it out the water for sure, all right.

So in this segment, we're going to go into the deep dive of the numbers. As you said, you're not doing a podcast just for fun, You're doing it business full time.

I mean, you walked away from a full fledged career.

Yeah, from being a public accountant. I walked away. And again, I spent four long, stressful years of my life getting getting the degree to that point, just to get to that point, and I left it within the first year.

Can you can you just talk about that for just like a second, like the feeling or the build up to knowing that, you know what, I have to leave or I can't do both at the same time anymore.

I mean it came from not only just juggling time. I mean when I first started my job, and I started in July, so it was right before we got into busy season, and me and her were recording still like I have to go, So I was like they wanted me to stay, and I'm like, I got this schedule studio at seven o'clock. I gotta be up out

That's crazy.

So I'm busting seventy eighty hour weeks and I'm like, I'm giving someone else seventy eighty hour weeks of me at a salary. I said, those additional hours and even the hours I'm giving them. If I put that into myself, what could I really make? And so I paid off some of my credit cards, I started the savings, and I was raising a single parent household. My mom was a tech nurse. We grew up Section eight food stamps.

Gotta do it to do it all right?

So that podcast made a quarter million dollars in the first six months of twenty nineteen.

Right, No, so a quarter million dollars in twenty nineteen. Twenty nineteen, we made a quarter million dollars through all of our avenues. But by May, which is when we finished our first tour with ads with Patreon, with that, I had matched my accounting salary, so I had made sixty thousand. So I'm looking, I'm like, okay, So I made about sixty thousand and five months with the podcast. I just worked half a year. So I saw one hundred grand in like the first half of twenty nineteen,

All right, but yeah, all right, So how did you make the money. So there's a couple of different ways how you make money on the podcast and your guys specifically. So first I want to talk about Patreon. Yes, Patreon is something that once again mat out to them. We didn't know anything about Patreon n til we started a podcast and somebody actually put in a comment on Instagram like you guys have a Patreon on and.

I'm like, yo, you know what Patreon is? Like no, I'm like, all right, let me just type it in. Let's see what this is.

Actually, that's the one site that there's a ton of Google about. Like, when you start podcasting, there is no blueprint to what we're doing. There's not so I can give you all of the steps that I did exactly. That doesn't mean you're gonna see the success money I made. There's just really no blueprint of this, but Patreon there is.

So, all right, so you guys really doing really well with Patreon, So can you talk about that, Like what what's your model for Patreon?

So for Patreon, we wanted to you have to give them more than what they're getting. So as podcasting, I don't think people realize like the amount of information we give out that's for free to a lot of people. And we started growing. We really have supporters. I like to think of our audience as there are our sisters, they are our best friends, We're in their head as those things, and so being as vulnerable as we have in transparent with our lives, people wanted to support us,

For creatives question and it doesn't have to be podcasting any videos. Anybody can have a patri You can have a Patreon g account and how much you make a Patreon So.

Currently we're seeing close to nine grand.

A month, So what do you? What do you? What do you have?

So right now we offer a two dollars tier, a five dollars tier, and a fifteen dollars tier, and for our fifteen dollars patrons and five dollars patrons, they get three bonus episodes a month. So as a creator, we are you know, creating now seven to eight episodes a month. And then for our fifteen dollars tier patrons, we send

Sope, and how long did it take to grow? How many patrons do you have?

We have about fourteen hundred.

How long did it take to grow deck?

We started our Patreon account December of twenty seventeen, and I can remember shit, sorry, I think we started with maybe getting eighty dollars a month and then that grew to two and three hundred and it's a slow climb. But then that's when we went from giving them one episode to two episodes to now three episodes. So we've grown to let them know that they're getting you know, their money.

Now.

That was crazy. The first month we started Patreon, like I said, we had no idea, like even creating the tiers. It was like how we even price it. We try to figure out what would make sense, and then like the first month we had like two people.

Oh, we were happy because we were like cover our studio. Like now we weren't having to pay for the studio because these five people who you know wanted to support us was now it was covering our costs.

No, Patreon has a great idea, and like I said, not just for podcasts, any creative that's looking to grow organically, because what it allows is for your your natural supporters, people that really really supports you to support you financially. And it's not just charity to get something for it as well. So, like what we've done with our Patreon is that we've given like the top tier, top two tiers,

The events and to the and to our merch but when they go to Leader dot com about.

Emerging, they get FaceTime at the highest level.

Right, yeah, we're going to So like now we started to call Girl.

We're in the process of revamping it because it's like, yeah, we we've added so much content now that we can maybe offer like another episode, So we're gonna start doing things.

Like that too, maybe even transcripts, transcripts episode people want to like, they take note, they want to open above. So I really like when you told me that you was making nine thousand a month for for Patreon. I really like that because it's a way to because like you said, the podcasts are free, so it's like it's hard for podcasters to provide so people don't understand how much work it takes to take to a podcast.

It's a full time, full time.

And the time too. The time too was like it's crazy.

Yeah, but even so, and then travel, Oh and that's what I was gonna say. So with those funds, we were able to, like I told you, our merch for our tour this go around calls us damn near eight grand. Like it's expensive to buy merch, to sell merch, to go on the road. And so our very first tour that we did, mind you again, just being on a network, we still own a lot of our content, and so our first tour we had no agent, so Patreon funded our first tour. We spent about twenty thousand dollars getting

How much was that?

New York City? That one was about five thousand. Yeah, and for a mattin Asha. The comedy clubs weren't dealing with us at all. They didn't know who we were. They didn't really We had a four pm on a Sunday. So for you know, for the comedy clubs, they were a little bit more pricey. But our venues ranged anywhere from you know, our venue in Chicago was our least expensive. That one was I don't know. I think we got for like one hundred and fifteen hours and it's that

How many cities? How many city you doing your first one?

Our first tour, we did eight cities and in about three or four of the cities. We had to add an extra show because we sold out.

The first show. How much money did you make on your first tour?

Our first our first tour, we made about one hundred and ten thousand profit. If you take out the venue calls, we saw almost one hundred grand.

And but now you got an agent. Yeah, that's changed some things changed the game for you.

Yes, we are now signed to w with me and they are now doing our second tour and we went from doing eight cities to seventeen cities.

And how has that helped you as far as like boost up the amount of cities.

It's been amazing because we don't have to we don't have to call the venues and be like, hey, so we want to do a show Like that was the thing. We're walking into these venues. We're doing tech, we're doing sound, we're making sure the green room is cool, we're handling the guest list. They're like, y'all don't have anyone. And it was literally me and my co host with our friends that wanted to help. And so we're going into these venues as the booker, the talent, the management, the

Up and put on a show and get paid.

Yes, our assistant we pay salary, our tour manager we pay salary, and the agent takes a percentage. Writers writers so like the things the hospitality writer, but they ask for in our green room. So I want it to be like I want with the purple ones taking it out. But I was like, no, let me stop. But I was like, ooh, we talent.

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We went to Howard Theater, which was one of our biggest venues, and my name was on the room and I was like, I need all them pictures, but no, I'm a writer. It's Tito's which I might have to up that because it'd be going before the show start, So I got Tito's my co host has like red Bull, like it's simple. That's our hospitality writer. And then we have our production writer. So what we need on stage, the music that we're going to play, the host, what

Okay, and that's dope because that's important to us.

It's so the podcast game is becoming like a real, real crazy thing where it's like, as a podcast, you can go on tour just like a musician can go on tour, and you get the same benefits and it's like what you described for your first ship. That's like where we're at right now because we're doing we're on our tour right now where we do everything ourselves.

So that's the thing that I will say a lot of people see a lot of podcasts going on tours or doing live shows and they automatically think they have

But what we did, and this is a tip for people, what our blueprint was. We did networking events. We did free networking events in six cities in America. We did La Chicago, Houston, New York, Atlanta, anywhere else got them five we did five free and no we're not a networking event. We did five free networking events last year free, completely free come and we just made money off of merch and the bar. We split percents on the bar, right.

I really liked that It's show our first live show again. Like I was I was telling you guys before, as an accountant, I'm looking at margins and break even and all of the things necessary and looking at what we had to put out and so what we needed to sell tickets at. We did have our studio that we recorded at at the time, he put up the money and then we paid him back with the ticket sales. But we literally our first show, we saw no money at all, and we did We weren't doing it for money,

Yeah and yeah, so it's it's dope because it's all learning experience. It's just like so for us now, like I said, we're in this stage where we're not signing to anybody and we don't have any booking ages or anything, so we're doing all this stuff.

It's a lot of work.

That's why we kind of like spread it out like six weeks in between shows, and we do too, so we do like a live podcast and we do a workshop too, so it's like a two day event. But when we got invited, like I said, shout at eighty five South and we got invited to they were guested on lip Service on the Lip Service Angela Yee's podcast. So we went to the show that they had in New York City. No, and where was it at?

Joint?

Uh Lincoln Hole?

Was Lincoln Hold? I think it was, yeah, but it was so they were guessed on lip Service. So we got there before eighty five South got there, so they were They brought us to their like room, the green room, and like they had the liquor bottles and it was like a real like backstage for performer.

But as a podcast, especially if you're doing the like you're an artist like and so yeah, it's entertainment being on tour, Like we're going through writers, we have day calls, we have might like we have sound checks, we have it's really crazy, like and when I'm talking to my friends who are in the music industry, they're like, you know, dang, you have like a real tour, like a real schedule, like and I'm like, yeah, it's kind of like I'm a music artist is kind of.

Yeah, But I say, I have to say, it's like it's a it's always a progression in the business. So it's like, as you so now you you have staff that handles your touring for you.

That helps it out.

Now you can add more shows and it makes it, you know, easier transition. And that's something that a lot of times people don't really think about as far as like, especially like with a podcast or any type of creative it's like there's more to it than just the content.

But I think, I think, and it's one of the things that we're trying to get now. I don't think people realize the importance of a team, and so for a lot of the beginning of us, it was just me and her and we did We thought we could do it all. Like like I said, we were every position imaginable, and it's there's only so far that you could take yourself before you create a team. So you guys having someone behind the camera, that's hope. You guys now don't have to deal with the video element of

That's the fact. Eighty five South show. So they are nineteen people and they said they started with they was doing I think like one hundred to two hundred people. Now they do like three three thousand three people.

They started out with a wood table and three microphones. Yes, you know what I'm saying.

So I mean, get anyone, anyone looking to get into the space, if they're looking for it to be a business, this definitely is something that you can grow to be like very you know, profitable.

So hosting you get paid on hosting tour.

Yes, ianns hostings. That just goes with bookings. And I love it because it's literally like bro, I'm getting paid to talk. It's like like this is still it's a nuance that I can't even explain. Like I'm the one that had to be told to shut up in the classroom, like talking too much.

You know.

So they're speaking engagements right now. We're trying to do after parties just again, just to be more after our live shows. Again. You have to realize that the booking of hostings and clubs, that whole scene has changed they realize that certain people aren't bringing it out. Just because you have a million followers doesn't mean you're even going to bring a crowd so right now, because promoters don't do that as much anymore, it's us trying to y'all

The agent handles that stuff yourself.

No, got booked on that by ourselves.

Okay, Yeah, So another major portion of your money comes from ads, right, yes.

Ads, And that's probably one of the hardest things for podcasters and it's probably the one thing that they look to start to get is ads. And that's the toughest thing I think to get as as a podcaster. You don't know who to reach out to, you know, Okay, we talk about sex, Okay, Blue Choo, Adam and Eve, like, there's certain brands that we know would align well with us, But who do you get in touch with to say, hey, give me money so that I can say your name.

Prior to Loudspeaker, were you guys when you were doing independently, how did you get those people or we did?

I remember this guy hit us up and was like I got a song, and I think we charged him, like, I come on for one fifth. We got other people that would send us stuff and we were doing ads, but we were doing for like fifty dollars, like just so that we can, well, this will cover our studio time. So you know, when we first started, we we literally were getting We thought it was anything that mattered. Oh

Try it out.

So there would be companies that would hit us up, and I was like, girl, my vibrator died the first time. Like, we're not doing that ad on the show.

So.

I know, but serious.

So I think it's important that you're not just accepting any money that comes in because it's being thrown at you at.

First, or just in general.

At first, we were like listen, like we we were talking about how much we liked our vacation in Thailand. We would get DMS because you said you're going to Thailand. I'm going. Now where did you say? And we noticed just how much like people were following what we were saying. Yeah, we had a strong impact. And I was like, well, if we're gonna have our people spend their hard earned dollars not only at our shows but in products that

N That's a fact.

Yeah, And we told all that before in another episode like CPM how to engauge that. Can you just talk about that like.

We so CPM if you google it. This is how you can determine how much maybe an AD would be worth on your podcast. So twenty five dollars is the basic CPM rate. You multiply that by every thousand listens that you get. So if you're getting ten thousand listens multiplied by twenty five dollars per thousand, that's two hundred and fifty dollars, and you can get that per ad. And of course the number of ads that you approve

Because some people look at it like what's your first week?

Right, yeah, no, no, no, so yes so. And also you have to realize when you're getting paid for these sometimes you're not getting paid until net thirty or net sixty. So even though you're getting this money, you're not getting it up front. You're saying the ad and you're not seeing that money till down the line. So being kind of up on when you're owed when to sound invoices. This becomes now a part of the business where you need to keep track of what your money is coming in and what's going out.

Now.

Also it's important for podcasters to understand too, is that they allow of the ad agencies they base your numbers off of previous pre data like data, so it's like where we could be in January right now, and then they'll base the numbers off of October. Yeah, and it's like six thousand less listeners than what you currently have. And then by the time you get paid it's not till March. Right now, you got a whole so it's like you're always chasing back.

But also knowing that you can include your numbers not only from your audio, but you could be like, yo, listen, I also get another thirty thousand views on YouTube, so you're allowed to kind of combine those.

You know.

It's funny that you said, and I have to cut you off with a lot of because I was talking once again to one of our good friends in the podcast space and they were saying that another ad agency that he used to use and that we kind of use sometimes they don't they didn't allow that. A lot of ads don't allow YouTube.

Yeah, but it doesn't changing.

It's changing a little bit now. But also, if you guys want to make money for your visuals and your audio, you can just base your audio numbers, which is what we do now because our videos have been pretty inconsistent so it's not fair to the to the you know advertiser. But there's Google ad sets, so you can still make money off of all of the ads that YouTube is putting into your videos as they still please, We're not

Yeah, you have to plus check out, but you.

Can log in, get your Google ad Sense, and you can monetize and get paid off of what YouTube ads are.

Another podcast hacked to get paid double is that you can do an ad for audio because most most companies just want to advertise audio. So you can do the ad for audio, but then if somebody else wants to do an ad, you might not have enough ad space. You can do the ad for YouTube, and you can outside of the ads that they already give you, like you can place an ad in the episode just for YouTube.

So and I wanted to say that too. So because our podcast is not current event based, we do pre record a ton of content. So we'll go into the studio and bust out two or three episodes in one city, and so we may get an ad last minute. And now I have to record it and we're fitting it into audio. So that's also something for people who pre record their content. Don't feel like you have to miss out on an AD. You can always record it, edit

Yeah, and that's like I said, that's important. People don't know. So it's like if you have a business that you know you're promoting, you know, teef straightening. You know, if you're a dentist and somebody else wants to do the exact same thing, you can't have two of the same

Audience and beauty. The beauty of the YouTube is that literally you can place it anywhere and as many as you want. Really, it just has to be after I think ten minutes, that's when you can start placing ads. So you could just place them anywhere.

So that's what right, And then I mean, if you are a podcast that is going to start inserting all of these ads, that's where Patreon becomes a great platform because now you can say this is ad free content. So a lot of people don't like they don't want to hear it. They just don't want to hear it. And so now that becomes a selling point to where okay, well you can listen to the episode's.

Ad free, and our Patreon members listen to our episodes early, not only early, not only ad free, but early as well.

Yeah, ran we ran into a like we have posted that we were about to put out the episode, and Soondy was like, yo, I loved it was our favorite and we were like, yo, how do you hear it? It was like ya, I'm a Patreo.

I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, out.

To you shoutouts. No, actually I made it.

I'm like, yo, it didn't come out yeah, And everybody started laughing. In the comments section, he was like, yo, he's bugging, and he's like, now I'm on patient.

I'm like, I apologize.

But I mean, inside of making the money, I think one of the other things that is the most important as a content creator is to literally just learn whatever you think you're gonna have to pay somebody to do, teach yourself. So, like I was saying, I got a MacBook of a gift because I said I need a MacBook because I need Premiere Pro to edit because all the people who edit stuff have MacBooks, so I need a MacBook. And so I taught myself how to edit

There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the blueprint or how to make money on the podcast. A lot of jewelry in that in that segment, for sure. So last segment, we're gonna we're gonna bring it home with a few more actionable items in scaling model for you going forward. All right, so we're gonna we're gonna close it out. But before we do, I want to Troy, can you just tell because a lot of people always ask I get this question so much my personal page or your

I kind of did an episode on Universe and University. We give the whole entire exact thing. I actually brought the boxes down, like yo, this is the box. Yeah. But so for the mice, we were looking at industry standards. So we kept watching podcasts and I'm like, yo, listen, that's the one we need. I went to the Breakfast Club. I'm like, we need that. So the mice we use or the shore at the seven B mics and they're like the industry standard, that's hu r e sure, sure yeah,

Yeah, there's and yeah. I think mics are probably one of the most important.

Our voice needs to be heard. It has to be so we try to get something that would canceled out noise and capture everything that we're saying.

Can I say what not to do that? I see a lot of new podcasters doing and I wish they would stop. There's a mic that you just sit down. It's supposed to be a globe mic. Oh yeah, stop doing it. If you have guests, if you have more than one host, it does it picks up everything and it literally sounds like you're in a bathroom. And we struggled with audio even being in the studio sometimes like or even you know, guests would lean back or come on. You can't change that. So there's nothing you can do

Multi track is important.

Multi track is very important. So if you're going to have a podcast with five hosts, you need five mics. Just know that every every person needs.

To have their own mind important and listening to. Like what's multi tracking? So multi track means like every mic has a track that goes into where it's recording from. So right now our laptop is recording three different tracks the three different mics. So we have four guests before and.

Fright, So if I came here and I was talking like this most of the episode, they could actually turn my levels. And then once you compress all of the files together, it's just one MP three or wave track and then it all sounds fine. But you can actually adjust levels if you're a multi trider.

Most people like we like to use Wave because it keeps the audio and it's purest form.

Sometimes the files are also a.

Lot larger, a lot larger.

Yeah, larger space is important.

You gotta have space. So yeah, we gotta. We got like one of the highest tiers of the Google Drive because we have not only do we do the audio, but we also obviously do the visuals. Right, and so you want to talk about large files, like every time we do an episode, we're talking about sixty gigs per camera, right, So that's.

Important to And if you have Patreon, they don't allow large files. So Patreon is m P three upload and yeah, wave files are large cameras.

So we went we for the cameras. We obviously we started with the iPhones. But we got these looming gets some iPhones like straight up and I'm talking like iPhone six, like yeah, yeah, exactly. But we got the job done the content.

With he had he had an iPhone six.

I never had.

I had the eight, had the eight eight plus, I had a ten. I had a eight plus.

Ok, that's plus.

No, I got the six from my pops. I got the six from my pops because he just got his first cell phone. But now we got the Lumix cameras, and somebody actually asked me, why do we use the Lumix ones New Mix ninety Five's it's because we want to record in HD and most cameras if you even try, like they'll let you record not ead four K.

They let you report thirty minutes at allynutes.

That's it.

Yeah, that's it. Seems you have to take it out sport and then put it back.

In hopefully, hopefully they'll cut us a check out of this. But the Lumics ninety five it's unlimited four K. Yeah, so like that was like a huge thing because like a lot of our content is like an hour long, so when we recording four K, there's no time limit to it. Okay, but part of that is like you have to have storage for it too, so like having large uh scan disc five twelve gigabytes just to hold

And also what I learned is that you can actually make a movie on the iPhone because what I learned is that uh lighting is the most important thing. If you have bad lighting, you can have the best cameras in the world. It's not going to you, guys, we had we had best the lights because it's like lighting changes everything. You got an iPhone with good lighting and it looks just like any camera lighting, So that's it. That's that's another tip. Lighting is extremely lights.

Do we so we got the g v M the great uh Maker lights. We went to B and H said what can we get for a relatively respectable price and get three of them? Right, so if you look like obviously they know the green wall that that's my dining room, it lights the room up a little bit differently.

And you can also just get ring lights on Amazon as well. Those are very very.

Yeah, you can get them, That's what I saying. And people think like, oh, it's a podcast, but I'm like, now we need all this like some people have seen us in the airport right, They're like, no, where are y'all going with all this?

And I'm like, we're a podcast carrying my retractable banner. I carry my my phone in my I mean my my my microphone and my book bag. And of course that has to go through the scanner.

Like what do you do then? And then we upload the audio to garage man, Yeah, I use it.

So the audio right now is going into garage garage band.

What is that?

So that is our interface, that's what we're recording on. So everything people like to use logic, some people want to use other things. I'm like, yo, listen, I'm gonna use garage band because it came with the Mac and I'm just gonna do that.

So for people that have no idea about computers, like myself, what does that mean?

Like what is garage garage band? So like right now we're talking right, garage band is recording it right. So once that happens, now we can turn volumes up or turn them down, or we can edit parts out, or we can add ads into the space.

You can add sound, you can split.

The tracks for the exactly.

So there's garage been and like I mentioned earlier, for post production, I've focused now on Audacity using Premiere Pro, which Premiere Pro is very pricey, But what you could do is actually purchase the Adobe Suite and pay twenty dollars a month, which is what I do, so instead of spending one thousand dollars on the Adobe sweet or however much it is. It's very pricey for the Adobe Suite.

And one thing I told I paid one thing I was, I was, I was crazy. One of our favorite episodes is Chris Gotti shout out to Chris he irv Gotti's brother. I used to run Murder Inc. And he said something that was extremely key. He said for independent artists music artist, he was like, you're not competing with other independent artists. You're competing with Drake, even though you don't know it.

That's a fact in the world. But so when I was telling them, like.

Look, we're not we're not competing with with other independent business podcasts. We're competing with Wall Street Journal, Gary V. Grant Cardon, so our audio needs to sound like them because there are competitors. So I was like, in the car, I'll be listening to it and like I said, I'm like, turn it up.

It needs to sound louder. They're like, I'm like, no, it needs to sound louder. Like he's going back and forth.

This is what we learned. That's when I learned, like, oh, I'm sending him the MP three when I listen to it.

It's a wave file, so that turning up the levels to where a lot of our Number one audience is in New York. To me, if I can't hear you on the train, it's a problem. So now I'm like, I would much rather people turn us down. Once you're turned up, you can't turn up no more. You can turn down love like you can turn a phone down. So to me, as long as you're not hearing a static, I want to be sure everyone is at their highest level. I speak loud, my co host speaks loud. When we

It's a learning lesson. It was like, yo, you would call us yo. This is how y'all even listening to this? I'm like, yo, bro, it sounds fine when I'm listening to it, and then I realize, like, oh, when I have to send it to him he listens to the MP three version, I'm like, okay, that's why.

The same way certain music bumps through headphones and you can hear them listening through headphones. I want I want you to have to turn down your head.

That was my guy. I put it, I put it, he didn't. I kept telling Toy.

I kept telling Toy like, Yo, it doesn't sound it doesn't sound good, Like it's not a lot. He's like, no, it's loud enough. I'm like, come in my car. So he came my car and I played the radio. I played the radio on the highest level possible and like, blow the speakers out. I'm like, that's how it should sound,

I agree. And that's where I mean. We've struggled a lot of people know with our sound for a lot. But we've changed engineers. Again, I was doing some of the editing for a long time, so it's me changing. But again, when you have people talking away from Mike, there's only so much you can do. And I'm not the one who can adjust your level for this sentence, but not the rest of your chary like there's there's just a lot when it comes to audio that even

That's the fact. That's the fact. That's yeah, extremely important important.

So ra after that car visit, I went aside, I was like studying, how do you do this?

I gotta go.

It's like I always, I always, I'm always like a pestimist, Like I always like everything could go right, but then it's like one thing that went wrong and I'm like I can't sleep, Like I lose sleep over stuff like that.

So it's like that's a.

Good way to And I just watched that Kevin Hart documented and I was like, we're a lot alike. And I know people were coming down on him on some certain things, but I was like, I was like that me in a Little Black Man body because me and him are the same.

I watched I randomly, it just came on and I just started playing. I actually watched the entire season. I was like the first time, I.

Thought it was three episodes. No, it's like seven. I just watched. I literally watched from the beginning to end. But in this space as people, I would never tell someone to quit their job and chase their dreams. That is not realistic, and you need money to live, you

We say that old time man, you're nine to five is your first investor. So you know what I appreciate, And I said this to you earlier. It was like, just because of what you talk about on your podcast, people think you lack intelligence. Yes, you're You're brilliant, So thank you, thank you.

And it's funny because my friend used to shout out to him. He's like like, we'll be talking and I'll send him my media kit that I made on Campa and he's like, Yo, you never see's too amaze. What girl, It's just like, here's my media kit that I made on Campa. While also editing audio, and like I was saying, like it is unfortunate that as women we can't be sexually liberated or be a hoe and also be smart. So and it's also a part of me. I'm not

And it'd be okay about it.

Like I said, I say, it's all twer and Alisha is a tent that welcome to everybody. Yes, and we have people from all walks of life. We have people that went to Harvard, people that did twenty years in jail, turning citizens yup. We have people that have sex Kink podcast. But you know, the good thing is that everybody has a story, everybody especially everybody has a business story, and there's there's somebody that can relate to everybody. So did

Mean, one of those things.

Yeah, whatever, But.

Yeah, like I mean, I mean, I and for you guys to have Harvard graduate. I went to a city university. I went to Lehman. Didn't know about it. I'm from Florida. I'm like, you know about before you guys. I didn't know about Baroke. I didn't know about none of these schools. I was like, I remember, I'm not even gonna lie to you. I remember when I was looking for schools

Yeah, well man, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for joining us.

Welcome to the alumni.

Oh yeah, thank you, thank you.

And if anyone has any questions relating to podcasting, listen back to this episode. No, but I do want to give a shout out to you, my friend if I can, Carlo will Marris, if you guys are looking to start your podcast, she offers a portal, so I know again I found you guys through Alex who has the trucking industry portal. And again, thank you for that episode. I'm looking to now invest so you what, yes, listen, listen.

Podcast and how can people check your podcast out and your social media.

So if you guys want to listen to a sex based podcast for colored people, it is for us. I'm not gonna lie white people. We talk about y'all, but it is a safe space for black people wanting to listen to sex, dating and relationship conversations. You can catch us every Monday wherever you listen to your favorite platforms. Horrible Decisions dot com type in whor whr E we pop up And if you guys want to catch up with everything I have going on, you can check out

Full Court Pumps yes, facts Troy.

Yeah, shout out to everybody on patreon dot com or our patriots. We have some new ones and is an interesting story. She actually came as a gift from somebody. Somebody gives them a Patreon membership. So shout to uh and Alisa and James. Those are new members. And James, I think comes in at a tier four or five, so he'll be getting eyl University. He has access to that. And that is our weekly school. Really, I heard you

Guys listen to the podcast, follow them on Instagram. You guys go live almost every day, but live with a lot of just entrepreneurs and alumni.

I see lives.

And the lives are like really no, so follow them on Instagram too. Because I follow them, I'll be like, oh they going live, let me leave met TV and larn.

So it's like like when we go lives usually like I'll go on he goes on his page. But I like watching people call in. So it's like Instagram. They need to come with a function where we can have like a party call, like we can both be on and we can take it or take a gain, because that's what I really like seeing. I'm like, yo, somebody called it from London. I'm like yo, I'm tuned in. Like I was like, wow he heard us in London. Somebody called him South Africa. I'm like wow.

The lives are really dope and I appreciate that you.

The reach is crazy. Yeah, so shout everybody on Patreon, Shout everybody that has been supporting dot com and buying the merchant. Obviously see that we have our Euyo University apparel on today and we're going to be coming to Atlanta with a lot more apparel.

Yes, I'm excited for Atlanta. Yeah, I'll be there I bought my ticket, so I'm excited. So anyone who may be listening, that's a part of the whore Hive, which is what we call the war Hive. If any of you guys are in Atlanta and are looking to get into any type of investments or just you know, be around me, I'll be there, So get your ticket.

That's a fact. Mandy will be in a building. She actually brought her ticket before she even became an alumni. Yeah, it's a fact she would be there Sunday. So make sure I'm telling you. I'm telling you my just saying this. Atlanta's gonna be crazy, two day event twenty six. We got all our friends coming. Everybody's coming out. So if you're in Atlanta, man, don't sleep on it. Make sure you make sure you pull up on us for show. A book tip of this week is start with why

Peace peace, Pease.

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