Be Our Guest: Managing Podcast Guests

Matt Cundill 00:00:02
Hi, everybody. I am Matt Cundill. I am the owner of the Sound Off media company. I'm also the host of the The Sound Off podcast. Today, I'll be leading the charge with the Podcast Super Friends, who joined me from parts of unknown, but we'll make them known as we go around the table and introduce ourselves. Catherine.

Catherine O'Brien 00:00:20
Oh, thank you, Matt. My name is Catherine O'Brien. I'm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It's warm. It's very warm today here in Baton Rouge. But I produce podcasts for businesses here in the beautiful Red Stick, and my company is called Branch Out Programs.

Matt Cundill 00:00:35
Johnny.

Johnny Podcasts 00:00:35
Hey, I'm Johnny Podcasts. Coming live from Fort Worth, Texas. I produce podcasts on the back end- video, audio engineering. That's what we do. And we're here to help you podcast better.

Matt Cundill 00:00:46
David.

David Yas 00:00:46
Yeah, this is Dave up in Boston, having a wicked good time up here. It's 100 degrees and very hot. And I produce podcasts at the Boston podcast Network, pod617.com.

Matt Cundill 00:00:58
And back from a trip to Iceland: Jag.

Jon Gay 00:01:05
Yes, I escaped the heat by going to Iceland. My name is Jon "JAG" Gay. I own JAG in Detroit podcasts here in Detroit, where I produce podcasts for businesses, nonprofits, edit, co host, produce whatever it is you need. I consider myself a JAG of all trades.

Matt Cundill 00:01:21
All right, so thanks a lot for joining us all in the middle of summer. I hope everyone's summer is going well. We do this monthly. We get together, we have the Podcast Super Friends, and I'll start today. I guess I woke up this morning, and then I saw it on the calendar, and it turns out I'm the only one who had this on the calendar. And I said, I can't wait to do this show today. And, yes, the first thing that came to my mind was guesting, because there was an article that came out last week talking about podcast. Guesting and there are people paying a lot of money to be on podcast. So I want to start with Catherine O'Brien, who is well aware of the Bloomberg article that came out last week. And I think a lot of people were surprised, but not surprised by the whole thing. Catherine, what do you know about podcast? What do you know about guests paying to be on podcasts?

Catherine O'Brien 00:02:09
Well, thanks to this article, which really, I think, was eye opening. And I like how you set it up, Matt, because I think it's one of those we knew, but we didn't know. The framing of the article was to say, this is reminiscent of Paola from radio days, and I'm not sure exactly if that's true. Really sort of the punchline of the article was that there are some people who are paying a tremendous amount of money to be guests on podcasts. Now, instantly, when I read this article, the thing that really stood out to me was like, hey, I know that podcasting, I want people to be compensated for their podcast people work very hard to put these shows together, whether it's advertising your own products, if it's taking on advertising money, if it is sponsorships, I think all of that is great. But I do think that there is a problem with if you're having a guest on your show and the reason that they're on your show is because they paid to be there, that's just a little bit different than a sponsorship that is clearly sponsored for a product or service. There was just a little bit of murkiness, and I think to my read on it is that a lot of podcasters were kind of blown away that somebody could reportedly pay $50,000 to one of the sort of top level podcasts to be a guest on the show. So I think it's just a little bit of our industry still being relatively new and some of these kinks being worked out a little bit. But to make that determination between advertorial guests, sponsorships and advertising, I think it's something we all kind of need to do. I put out a tweet that said, this article brought around a sense in me of contempt and like a loss of naivete at the same time. And I'm thinking that's really sort of what brought everybody. That was sort of a common saying for people who read the article and it just kind of put some different things into perspective.

Matt Cundill 00:04:07
So the first thing that happens whenever something like this comes up is we call a lawyer. So we'll get David to weigh in on this and you're in Boston. And so what are the legal implications behind this sort of thing, if any?

David Yas 00:04:22
Well, I'm not sure there's anything going wrong from a legal perspective. In other words, I don't think you're breaking any laws if you have someone on your podcast as a paid guest and don't inform the public simply because podcasting is nowhere near as regulated as other media. Because I don't know if we're still in the wild, wild west, but maybe we're in the Wild West is still pretty wild and so there's still a lot of making stuff up. I come from the newspaper industry and it would be simply a cardinal sin for you to appear in a front page article like Acme Company Booming thanks to David Jazz. And it turns out I've paid for that front page story that would completely destroy the integrity of that newspaper. So I'm with Catherine when she says, if you want some integrity, either make it clear that this person is paying to be on there, or don't do it. Don't pay your guess. From a legal standpoint, I'm not so sure you're not necessarily committing any kind of overt fraud. It just feels uncomfortable and unethical in the podcasting world.

Matt Cundill 00:05:36
I see JAG with his hand up because I know he's got the experience in radio where he probably had to give up probably his airshift for some infomercial time at some point in his career. I'm in Canada, the rest of you are in the US. And you've got the Federal Trade Commission who might have a say about some of this stuff, right?

Jon Gay 00:05:54
That's actually where I was going to go next with this, Matt, is we made the comparison, dave made the newspaper comparison, I'll make the radio comparison. Radio and television here in the States, of course, regulated by the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, they own the airwaves. Anything goes out over the air, and the FCC can more tightly regulate the content over television radio. So with podcasting, as Catherine said, it's still kind of in its infancy and still new, the Wild West, as David said. So what's interesting here is where does the FCC end and where does the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission come in to regulate these things? For me, before we even get into the legality of it, I want to speak to the moral responsibility that you as a podcaster have to your listeners, and that is to be honest with them and keep your credibility with them. If you have somebody on your show that has paid to be on your show, that in and of itself is not awful, but you owe it to your listeners for the sake of your credibility, to say, hey, just so you know, this guest has been compensated to be on the show, or the guest has compensated me rather to be on the show. As long as you're transparent about it, it's not the most evil thing in the world, but you owe that to your listeners. I, for example, have a podcast client who has a number of episodes that are sponsored. They may be sponsored by an organization that has a guest on the show, and she does a very good job at maintaining her credibility with the science of her show. She's a dietitian, but she does disclose if she has been compensated by to have that guest on her show, and her listeners respect her for that.

Matt Cundill 00:07:30
So I'll just ask Johnny here about trust and podcasting. Does this hurt trust in podcasting?

Johnny Podcasts 00:07:39
It depends on how you approach that thing. Because I didn't work in radio, I didn't work in newspaper. I put myself in the position of if I was hosting a podcast and referencing the article that we're talking about that Catherine has deep dive for us. If someone offered me 50 grand to be on my podcast, I'd probably take it. I think we all would.

Jon Gay 00:08:04
You disclose it, though.

Johnny Podcasts 00:08:06
See, that's the issue right there. Now I put myself in the listener category. If my favorite podcast put up on the episode title or called it out in the beginning, like, hey, this guy's paid to be here, in my mind, I'd be curious to see what all of your thoughts are. I would probably not want to listen to that episode. I would probably be turned off from wanting to listen to that being like, this guy paid to be here, how credible can he really be? If the host that I care about, I love listening to them and them talking to people that they're interested in, which is what we all do as podcasters that host interview shows, if that person didn't come to my mind as someone I wanted to talk to, I'm only having them on because they paid to be there. I feel like the host would phone it in. Me as a listener, I wouldn't be as invested in the episode. So maybe that's why the host wouldn't disclose it is because if I put that this person is paying to be on here, people may be turned off by that.

Jon Gay 00:09:01
Johnny, can I interrupt you for 1 second? I thought it was really interesting the way that you phrased that when you said they're only on here because they're paying to be here. They may not be only on there because they're paying to be there. They may be somebody that the host is willing to have on as a guest to begin with. Or they might say, I'm only going to allow you to pay to be on my show if you're a guest that I would have on my show anyway. Like if I lean politically one way and someone off from the other side offers me $50,000 to be on the show. Sorry, no, your views don't align with what I'm doing on the show. These two items may not be mutually exclusive. As far as wanting you on the show and paying to be on the.

Johnny Podcasts 00:09:40
Show, yeah, no, I think you're right. I think there's a lot of nuance to this. So we should go through all kinds of types of examples of where this is. That's just where my mind went if it said, sponsored episode brought to you by Bill Smith. Bill Smith has paid to be here and I run a real estate podcast and Bill is in some other industry that I don't care about. That doesn't make any sense to me. But, yeah, you're absolutely correct.

Matt Cundill 00:10:03
I want to take it one step further to what Jag said. Maybe the person would be on the podcast. Oh, by the way, the guests left behind $50,000 to market the episode, which sort of you see that harkens back to the radio days of a record company saying, we'd love for you to play the song, sure would love to leave a buy for your sales department for $100,000 for Limp Bizkit or whatever it was. I'm not trying to implicate that it was Limp Bizkit.

Jon Gay 00:10:30
No, don't say Limp Bizkit. I just watched the Woodstock documentary last night.

Matt Cundill 00:10:34
That's on my list, too. Thanks for reminding me. But to Catherine, and just- talk a little bit about the trust and podcast issue when it comes to this and the steps that are going to move ahead with this. So let's say the FTC does sort of clamp down and say, you've got to disclose it. But then you have my scenario, which is, here's $50,000 of marketing money to market the show that I'm a guest on with you.

Catherine O'Brien 00:10:58
Well, okay. So I do think, sort of to Johnny's point too, I do think that trust and podcasting is really important. And my question is, why would we wait to be told what to do instead of just doing what is like a best practice? Right off the bat? I think it's a best practice to disclose those things. And actually, Matt, I have a great example of what I thought would be kind of a comparable example to this whole situation of something that I thought would work really well. So this is a very specific example. I don't have a relationship with any of the people I'm about to talk about, except that I'm a fan. Let's just say that. So there's a company called Crowd Health that does a cost sharing plan for healthcare in the United States. So Crowd Health, they have sort of what they're offering. They targeted podcasts that they're going on to talk about their product and service. They started advertising. As a listener, I noticed that they were advertising on certain podcasts that I was listening to after the success of these ads on the show. Then the host interviewed the founder of the company, Crowd Health, and then attached that as sort of like, if you forgive the jargon, like a minisode. So this little mini episode that was on the start of a regular podcast episode and it was abundantly clear that the ads had been successful. This guy who founded the company, he has a particular point of view, and then the podcast host interviewed him about that. To me, that's a total win across the board because it was obvious that this was the reason that he was being talked to by the podcast host. It all linked up really well and there was no sort of like, ethical gray area. It was all very clear. And I thought, okay, well, that to me is like a great example. And I think that to me, there's like a little bit of an X factor here, is that if I trust a host, I think that the reason they're bringing on a guest is because there's something that they want their audience to hear from that guest. And if it's financial first, I can see why somebody would be sort of bent out of shape about that. And I think that there are ways to do it in a way that's constructive and is going to be like, ethically sound for all around.

Matt Cundill 00:13:13
David?

David Yas 00:13:13
Yeah, I think we're getting into all these gray areas, and some of them may not be so bad. In other words, let's say, for example, you're a podcaster and you're a marketing company or you're a PR person or something, and you want to invite your guests onto your show. You want to provide a vehicle for your clients to be on a podcast, and what you say to them is, we're going to do your PR campaign, we're going to write a blog for you, and you're going to be on our podcast three times a year, or whatever it is, so that in effect, the client is paying this PR person. And so what you're saying is, I'm giving you something of great value. In the same way that we produce blogs and articles and place articles for you, we're going to create the show and showcase you on the show. I still think that should be disclosed, but that's one example where there's nothing really dirty about it. It's like, here's the PR hour from Finnegan Communications or whatever, I don't know. The guests on the Finnegan podcast are paid clients of the firm. Quick disclaimer, get it over with. And then, I mean, let's face it, most podcasts are showcased for the guests. It's not as if most podcasts are these hard hitting interviews where the integrity of the host is paramount. I still agree that it should be disclosed and all that, but just another way to look at it, maybe. Yeah.

Matt Cundill 00:14:52
Also, this is not new. I mean, one of the first persons I met was Interview Connections in 2016 at Podcast Movement. Aren't they kind of doing the same thing? They're taking money and putting people on podcasts, and it's not the same thing.

Johnny Podcasts 00:15:07
But the host isn't being compensated directly. Right. In that sense, in the situation we're talking about, it's a direct hand off to the host who has access to the audience rather than signing up for paying a third party service of Get me on this podcast. Okay, but maybe they are paying. I'm not familiar with sort of that third party, actually.

Matt Cundill 00:15:29
I think the podcasters were paying Interview Connections as well for access to these people. At least that was the model, the way it was explained to me then. As we know since 2016, there's at least 15 of those now, maybe more, maybe 17. I guess we've sort of gone around the table enough on the subject, or do you want to move on to other parts of this, or does anybody have anything else to say?

Johnny Podcasts 00:15:57
I just thought it was funny that once we started bringing up FTC, FCC and Legalities, that everyone started prefacing stuff with, like, now, I don't know this organization, I'm not affiliated with these people, but everyone's given their own personal disclaimers.

Matt Cundill 00:16:10
Yeah, it's funny because how big the United States is. Most of the time I get into discussions whether they're legal ones, and it all pertains to the United States, go, Well, I'm in another country, so I don't know how any of this should pertain to me. And of course, what if the guest is in another country and all that stuff.

Johnny Podcasts 00:16:28
I think ultimately what it comes down to is as the host if someone is paying you to be on your podcast, you have to have some level of like what JAG was talking about, a level of morality, level of integrity, of does this balance well? Of, yes, I'm being compensated for this. Also, this guest would be really beneficial for my audience. It's a win win situation. If it's a win for the audience, then I think it's okay to do. I think the legality stuff is like what Catherine said. It's one of those things where eventually they'll start creating rules and laws around it. But as of right now, we're sort of in the Wild West, so it doesn't seem to be any issues with it right now, but we will have to see.

Jon Gay 00:17:09
Johnny, during my time in radio, the FTC started to tamp down a little bit on endorsement copy for radio DJs, and the rules started to get a little bit tighter on that. I want to go back to something you said a moment ago, though, and it's really about respect for your audience. We talk a lot of times to our podcast clients. All five of us edit podcasts, and we talk about the debate about taking out the odds versus making the conversation just naturally, how it came out and how it flowed in real time. And what I always tell clients that I know all of you do too, taking out the UMS, and odds is respect for the audience time. So, on average, I pull up probably about 10% of an episode when it comes to Fall starts. And Oz likes, you know, the 30 minutes episode ends up being 27, a 60 Minutes episode ends up being 54 by the time I'm done with it. And really, you're giving that time back to your audience. An audience really cares enough about your show to download and listen to your podcast as part of their day to spend 15, 30, 60 minutes with you. You want to be respectful of their time, and I think at the same time, you want to be respectful of them in terms of disclosing what you need to disclose and not, for lack of a better word, hoodwinking them.

Johnny Podcasts 00:18:20
I agree.

Matt Cundill 00:18:21
So I want to talk a little bit about bringing guests onto the show. Let's use our expertise here to really I get this question a lot. How do I get guests to come onto my program? And so we'll start with Johnny. Johnny, do you have any tips for getting and landing good guess onto a podcast?

Johnny Podcasts 00:18:38
Yeah, I would say it's the same sort of process that you follow when you want to just grow your audience in general. The way that I always recommend it is being big somewhere else, picking one. And you guys know I'm a Twitter slut. I think that having a really active social media presence in the niche that your podcast pertains to is a way to build yourself credibility. And if you can build a following online. People want access to that reach, and it's a great way to meet people within the niche that you are playing in when it comes to your podcast. And that's a great way to meet other people online. We have access to one of the greatest inventions in human history, the Internet and social networking and the ability to meet people hundreds of thousands of miles away that are much better at what you do in your industry or doing just as well and would benefit from reaching your audience. So I would recommend using the Internet, using social media, whether it's LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, being great at one of those platforms, and networking, and finding the right people who are unique match with your audience and just building a relationship with them. Hey, do you want to come on my podcast?

Matt Cundill 00:19:48
Catherine do you ever run into any instances where the guest has no experience in podcast, doesn't know what it is, and doesn't know what they're in for? And how do you alleviate those fears?

Catherine O'Brien 00:20:00
Those fears? Well, as we shared in the last Super Friends, I have been the handholder through an emergency ditch out of Zencaster back onto Zoom. Oh, the dreaded Zoom. Because it was just too technologically difficult. But I always try and just frame it as casually as possible. I think that just telling people, you know, this is to have a conversation, and we're going to try and make you sound we want this to be positive. And I'm not doing any sort of hard hitting reporting with any of the podcasts that I work on. So really just framing it in a way and say, I often side discussion point here, guys. I always wonder sometimes, is it good to tell people we're going to edit this or is it better to keep people on their toes? Like, hey, let's do our best job the first time to create less editing for me. But again, maybe a discussion for another.

Jon Gay 00:20:55
Time quickly on that. Catherine I find myself always telling my clients that everything is edited. I tell them, hey, we're going to see each other, but only the audio is recorded. That puts them at ease visually if we're not doing video. And I tell them everything is edited, nothing you don't want in the final product will be there. I find that puts guests at ease very frequently, and even if it means a little bit more editing work for myself on the back end, I only.

Matt Cundill 00:21:17
Give, like two instructions before an interview, and one of them is if you don't like the way it came out, just restart your sentence because it's a lot harder to clean up when they're flubbing their way through. And then you're trying to really paste the words together.

Johnny Podcasts 00:21:30
Yeah, I think that's pretty what Jag said is a really good rule of thumb to follow. I do a lot of in person recording podcasts, and I can't tell you how many times my favorite thing to do is to watch a guest hands when they're talking before and after I tell them that it's edited, not even that they're talking. And I literally their hands are sometimes shaking because they think for whatever, even if it's a small podcast, they think that thousands of people are watching in the moment and they have to get it right the first time. And you always caveat it with, take your time. None of this is live. People aren't going to see this for a few weeks. Just be calm. You're on here for a reason. You're smart, you're knowledgeable. We wouldn't just bring you on if you didn't know what you were talking about.

Jon Gay 00:22:10
Gosh darn it, you're good enough.

Catherine O'Brien 00:22:13
Well, back to Matt. One thing I have definitely dropped and I do not do anymore is I do not share questions in advance. And that is after all the years that I've been doing this for clients and for my own things, is that people can't take that as like, these are approximately what I'm going to be asking you, or these are some of the things I will be asking to you. Too many people took it very literally and they would script answers to those specific questions and that led to very stilted and wooden responses. So now I just try to give people topics that we would like to talk about or things, and occasionally there will be a specific question, but I really stay away from doing the giving questions in advance because it tanks the interview.

Johnny Podcasts 00:23:04
Yeah, the other side of that is, yes, they will script out answers, but they will also you can bring on a guest who thinks they're too, like, they think they're so incredible and so amazing and that this podcast was built to have them on it, that they now have full access to be like, we're actually going to change all of these questions. Here's what my client would rather you ask us. And in that case, you just go, well, I guess you're not coming on the podcast.

Matt Cundill 00:23:33
David, I know has experience with Zoom and I know a lot of people use Zoom to record their podcast. So David, what's the best way to prep a guest with Zoom?

David Yas 00:23:43
Yeah, some of it has already been said. One tip I'll offer is that it's great to have a one pager on this, whether you can put it on your website and then I just have a link tell my guests, go to positive one seven. Comguidelines. You'll find our guest guidelines and that way that answers a lot of questions about and you put whatever you want on there. You definitely want to prep them a little bit. On being a quiet place if you have a microphone, please plug it in. You might want to put something like Chad mentioned, you'll see us on video, but we're only going to use the audio. Everything is editable and things like that. So you do want to prep your guests to some degree. But it's tough. The questions ahead of time thing is tough because if you work I agree with you, Catherine. In a perfect world, don't give them questions. Most of the time I don't even have questions, I just have a curiosity about the gas. So I just tell them I'm very blase. I'm like, we're going to talk about what you do. Why do you think I'm having you on the podcast? You just open this pizza place that everyone's raving about. That's what we're going to talk about. We're going to talk about pizza. But then I sympathize with the podcaster who's been trying to land that guest for a long time and get the guests to agree on the show. And then they say, the only thing is we ask is, please send the questions ahead of time. So I can see why you would do it. Sometimes it might help to say, we don't really have questions, but we definitely have bullet points and we'll put them down. If there's anything you don't want to discuss, just let me know. And I have had plenty of places, times when a guest has said, I actually had a guest and I asked him he was an icon of Boston, a restaurant, and I asked him about a particular politician. I won't say it because he didn't want it in, but as soon as I mentioned the guy's name, he was like, I'm not going to talk about that bastard, right? And then there was just a pregnant pause. And I said, okay, we won't use that.

Johnny Podcasts 00:25:41
That's an edit. Anyway, I've actually pulled up the one sheet that I use for one of the podcasts that I work on. If you guys don't mind me, I can just hit some of the highlights. So this goes out to every single guest for a remote recording. So it starts off with the calendar attachment and then this document gets attached, which is there's a quick paragraph that's about the podcast, describes the show, who the host is. Below that it says post production. The podcast will be professionally edited after recording, so please don't worry if you stumble or make a mistake. Just correct yourself and move on. You're welcome to pause before answering. These can be edited out later. There's a podcast technical instructions. We use Riverside, so it's just basic one two steps how to use Riverside and then there's a section called Important Reminders. Headphones. Headphones are necessary when recording to ensure that each voice is isolated in the final recording doesn't cause an echo. A separate microphone is preferred, but earbud might combos work as well. A quiet space. Please find a relatively quiet non echoey room where you won't be disturbed. Close your door, turn off fans. And please also turn off notifications to your computer. Or turn off the sound to your computer. And then it talks about how you get on Riverside and then there's the podcast distribution afterwards. So just putting together a one sheet like that is very easy to do. You can make it specific to whatever platform you're using, whether it's Zoom, Squadcast, Zencaster or Riverside, but giving all of the guests that information takes away a lot of sort of the back and forth that would normally cut into your recording time of, oh, actually, do you have headphones? They're in the other room. Can you go grab them? Your dog's barking. Do you mind putting in things like that? So just having that and it's not like you have to do it for every single guest. You just do it once, attach it into every single guest calendar invite, and it's a very easy way to make the process go a lot smoother.

Matt Cundill 00:27:26
So, JAG, can you rate Johnny's one sheet out of 10?

Jon Gay 00:27:33
10. What I love that he said, and this is very useful for podcasters and podcast hosts that are launching right now or listening to this later. Headphones are so important, particularly if you use a platform like Riverside or Squad Caster Zencaster. What I think people don't know until explain to them, and I've had this happen with clients is there's a phenomenon known as ducking, and it's the only time my phone has actually said duck when I've mentioned duck, but not auto corrected. But if you are not wearing headphones, the software will need to use what's known as echo cancellation. It will cancel out the sound coming out of the speaker on your computer so your microphone doesn't pick it up. When that happens, there is obviously going to be a moment in the conversation when two people speak at once or something funny happens and two people are laughing. And if you don't have headphones, and as a result that echo cancellation is on, the software will duck down the level of the audio of one of the participants in the conversation and distort it. And that's really not usable in the final product. If you want a clean cut version that makes it sound like everybody in the podcast is in the same room, regardless of where they're recording from, everybody needs to wear headphones. They don't have to be fancy studio headphones, like four out of five of us are wearing right now. Sorry, Dave. They can be any headphones that are going to work with your computer, that you would use with your computer, just so you're not getting that audio coming out of the speaker and having to cancel it out so it doesn't get picked up by your microphone. That is such an important point. I'm glad Johnny brought it up.

Matt Cundill 00:29:02
Does anybody have any feedback on AirPods?

Johnny Podcasts 00:29:05
Not great for mic, good for speaker, good for listening.

Jon Gay 00:29:09
Not I'll add on to that. Yeah, better for listening, not as great for audio. They can be used in a pinch for both if you're using them as headphones for listening. It is one more fail point to have a Bluetooth connection as opposed to a hard wired connection. So a hard wired connection is always preferred. Sometimes your guest or you may only have the AirPods and you're stuck with them, and so be it or they're not charged. Also true. I have found in my experience that AirPods specifically play better with Mac computers than they do with Windows computers because of the whole Apple ecosystem. With Catherine's favorite topic, we won't get her started on that. But also, a lot of these apps now do have a lot of these podcast recording platforms have mobile apps. And if you are recording on your iPhone through Chrome, or through Safari, or through the app, the AirPods will work in a pinch, if that's what you have.

Matt Cundill 00:30:07
So I have to tell a story about- I got to the end of a podcast that I was recording and there was a dog that had barked for most of the podcast. I said, could you please send me a picture of your dog? And she said, Why? And I said, Because the dog is going to get an account on podcaster for an appearance credit in this entire podcast. 

Catherine O'Brien 00:30:24
All marketing back to the dog.

Matt Cundill 00:30:28
Yeah. And I know you were touching the desk earlier and rattling the desk. And that was something on my latest podcast, which isn't out yet. Somebody said, the person who edits my podcast, Taylor, she wrote back and she said, banging table here, here and here, and passing trucks here and here.

Jon Gay 00:30:46
It's time stamps.

Matt Cundill 00:30:47
Yeah. And you can't necessarily take it out when the guest is talking. So those will just have to exist inside the show. Right?

Jon Gay 00:30:53
Or a siren.

Catherine O'Brien 00:30:55
I was just going to say, talking about FTC requirements. That should be the only one we embrace is if there's a siren sound. Because let's think of all the podcast listeners who are driving their car and then thinking that they're suddenly looking around because there's a siren sound. I mean, come on, take that out. Have them redo it.

Jon Gay 00:31:12
It's like Nelly and his old songs with the have the siren at the beginning. If you hear it in the car, you start looking around.

Johnny Podcasts 00:31:18
Can I make one more note on this, Matt? The last thing is, occasionally there's someone with the wired headphones. Those still exist, the ones with the attached microphones. One piece of sort of like advice is that the mic here will scratch against your shirt as the person we're talking. Or God forbid, they have a beard and it's scratching against their beard. That sound is nearly impossible to remove and post. So if you're going to be someone who's doing that, have them literally hold the mic like this away from their face. Or I've even seen it. There's a guy I watch on podcasts who literally ties it around his neck like this. Ties up all of the loose cords so it's just hanging off of his face and doesn't do it. And people make fun of him, be like, does he not understand how Apple headphones work?

Jon Gay 00:32:08
And I'm too, he really understands.

Johnny Podcasts 00:32:10
I was going to say, I was like, I'm too lazy to get into a YouTube argument with Morons online. But he actually is doing the smartest thing possible and keeping that microphone in one place at all times and it's.

Jon Gay 00:32:22
Not rubbing against that's a really good point, Johnny. I've seen it brush against necklaces of someone wearing a necklace on their podcast. And collared shirts. If you're wearing a collared shirt, it will brush against that color. Like Johnny said, beards is it virtually impossible to remove. So just don't hold the microphone. Hold the cord right next to the microphone so it's in one place and not brushing against you or the lusciously locked.

Catherine O'Brien 00:32:44
People like myself here with the yes. Long hair. Okay. My mic friends here, my very mic knowledgeable friends. I still don't know why somebody, maybe they have haven't made like a headset style for people who are guesting frequently on podcasts. I think that would be a great product like the Megachurch Pastor or a fancy version of the old Navy staffer who's going to check the back for your size of jeans. That would be such a great product. I know Plantronics for Econ Talk, they send out headsets for every guest so that's going to be on the show. So that's a little relationship there.

Jon Gay 00:33:26
And some of those headset mics they're built for more of a telephone than for webcasting, have a cut off where the high frequencies in the voice are not there. And you have that headset artificial sound that doesn't sound like a real person's voice in person.

Catherine O'Brien 00:33:39
Exactly. So I think there's an opportunity to make like one of our top tier mic producers could make something like that. For somebody who is going to be.

Matt Cundill 00:33:46
Frequently guessing, I think that they do exist. I know they would like in the broadcast booth for a sporting event. Some of those high end things, they're very expensive in the end. We talked about the ATR 2100 X being $100, but these ones for Sports are seven $800. And to JAG's point, I've never met a headset mic I didn't know sounded exactly like a headset mic. This is my Bill Belichick moment. The minute I get a podcast to edit, or I see somebody like set up with the wired headphones that are scratching with the beard and every other nightmare that we've already talked about and I mumble like Bill Belichick. Oh, Jesus Christ.

Jon Gay 00:34:35
Look at that.

Catherine O'Brien 00:34:36
Okay, but even the broadcaster ones are so bulky. That's what I'm saying because now people are using video clips for their podcasts and stuff like that. I'm talking about a low profile.

Johnny Podcasts 00:34:44
I'm on Sweet- Well, yeah, but when you go low profile, Catherine, you sacrifice the quality of the microphone, the smaller the microphone is, the shittier.

Catherine O'Brien 00:34:53
The qualities I'm dreaming right now. Johnny, don't crush my dream.

Johnny Podcasts 00:34:57
Well, let me grab the paddles and bring them back to life. I'm on Sweetwater right now. Sorry, I'll stop cursing, JAG. I'm on Sweetwater right now. And there's the audio technica BPHS one broadcast stereo headset with dynamic boom microphone. Looks great for $219. So if you're a frequent guest on podcasts, something to consider.

Matt Cundill 00:35:21
All right.

Catherine O'Brien 00:35:23
We are not sponsored by Zoom. We're not sponsored by Pizza.

Johnny Podcasts 00:35:29
They only paid us $30,000, so split between the five of us is not great.

Catherine O'Brien 00:35:33
That's nothing, that's peanuts.

Matt Cundill 00:35:35
So I want to talk a little bit about there's a couple of things I see on the message boards that make my head spin a little bit, and I'll start with David and just ask, is a guest obligated to share and promote the podcast after they've been on the podcast?

David Yas 00:35:50
Obligated, no, of course not. But it's in their best interest, too, right? If you don't do it, you're kind of missing the podcast magic. And that's what I tell people, that the vast majority of podcast guests are there willingly and happy to get a little attention and probably want to promote something. And so it is frustrating, I'll say, as a podcast host, if your guests don't do that, but I think you guys can agree or disagree, but we kind of write it off to some people are just not savvy with that stuff. But the podcast wheel will spin with more vigor if you have both host and guests sharing that episode, because then you're capitalizing on two different networks. And the great thing as a podcaster is if that guest has a wide network, then you're reaching a whole bunch of people that you would never know. And who knows, maybe they come for the guest and they come back for the podcast because they liked what a good job you did as host. So I'd say it's a powerful tool, but I wouldn't require it as a host. That goes back to the purist, and I think we would probably agree, but you do want to make it easy for your guests to do so. We tend to send a follow up email when the podcast post here's. The links make it as easy as possible for them because some of them will be more savvy than others.

Matt Cundill 00:37:17
Okay, so we do have a comment here from Mr. Drunk. He says, if you come on my podcast and don't share, that means you don't respect my platform, and maybe you can feel that way. However, what I think is the minute you sort of oblige your guests to do something, they're not really a guest anymore. They're now your coworker, right?

David Yas 00:37:39
And your hype man and your shill. I mean, that's not their job, really. Their job is to be an excellent guest. It's just nice when they share it. That's all.

Matt Cundill 00:37:47
Right, listen, it is the dream. You summarize the dream, David. You said they come on, they come for the guests and then they stay for the podcast. I think that's really nice if that happens. But isn't there a bit of a myth, though, JAG, that by having, like, a great guest on your show, somebody famous, even a Joe Rogan, that that's going to be some sort of magic bullet to success on your show?

Jon Gay 00:38:10
Absolutely. It's not a panacea. And I was thinking, as we were pre planning today's show, that I was going to come in hot with the idea that you should make your guests share the podcast as a prerequisite for coming on the show. And I think you actually just kind of talked me out of that guy, but it's not necessary. It's really nice if you can and maybe you phrase it after the podcast and say, hey, thanks for being on the podcast. We really enjoy you as a guest. This is a great opportunity to promote yourself and you got to make it as turnkey as possible for them. Here is the link. Here's the Share button for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, whatever. All you've got to do is copy and paste this on your social media and done. And you really got to see if you can explain to the guests why it is in their best interest. But to answer your question, Matt, I can't tell you how many times we've had a big name guest that has a massive social media following and you're so excited because you've got that magic syrup and they don't share it. And you can't force them to and you can't ask them to. Aside from having a great relationship with them and making it a great experience for them, you can't guarantee they're going to share it. So I've had people with no social media following share podcasts and get some traction, and I've had people with tens of thousands of Twitter followers just not share it. So it's really hard.

Matt Cundill 00:39:26
So you said something that I really like there and that's- you want to make it easy for them. To Mr. Junkier, who commented, that it's really nice when they do share it, the way to make it easy for them is to tag them in it, because then it's as simple as a retweet.

Johnny Podcasts 00:39:45
Yeah, I think a lot of people think, oh, you should be writing like, evergreen posts, pre written tweets and all that stuff in order to share it. But if we can make it as easy as possible for them to do it and I just tag them. In fact, anybody who gets mentioned on the podcast, I just tag them. You got mentioned, you got mentioned and you got mentioned. And then they're thinking, oh, shit, what did they say about me?

Jon Gay 00:40:06
You got a mention. You got a mention.

Matt Cundill 00:40:09
Exactly. Catherine?

Catherine O'Brien 00:40:12
Well, I have a great story of a super guest who was on a show that I produce and she has set the bar so high for guests sharing the show afterwards that everything will be compared to her. Her name is Kelly Corsan, and she has a blog that is all about celiac disease. This is a very special disease. A lot of people who have Ciliac go gluten free, and she knows the media landscape. So she came on the Smidgen podcast. When she got off, she not only shared all of the posts that we made about the podcast appearance, she made her own original shares that she put out on her social media channels. Then she went the one step further, which is where her savvy about the media came in, and she contacted a bunch of companies that she referenced on the show. So she reached out to every company that we talked about, similar to what you were just talking about, Matt. She said, oh, I promoted you. I said, you're my favorite brownie mix for gluten free. You're my favorite. This I just wanted to let you know, here's a link to if you'd like to listen to the show. Shazam. And I was just absolutely blown away by her commitment to really put out that information. And frankly, it gave me a little bit of, like, I need to step up by producer game. Like, this is an opportunity. Even if I'm shouting into the void 95% of the time, if I'm just telling people who get mentioned you got a shout out on the show, just wanted you to know that's. Kind of like completing the circle. So it really did sort of call me to task, like, okay, this is something I could be doing for my clients in the future. And it really is. It's sort of like a righteous circle in the sense that we want to share that episode with people. We want to know that we're talking about you in a positive way, and that just kind of keep those things going and make the most of our opportunities is what it felt like. So good job, Kelly. That was the standard for me.

Matt Cundill 00:42:13
Now the ideas are beginning to pour in here.

Catherine O'Brien 00:42:17
Yeah.

Matt Cundill 00:42:18
This a relation?

Jon Gay 00:42:19
Yeah. That is my very dear Uncle Jeff who is watching. Thank you for watching Jeff.

Matt Cundill 00:42:25
The suggestion being offering financial value like a gift card if the guest shares.

Catherine O'Brien 00:42:31
We started talking about us getting paid for, now we're paying people to do it.

Matt Cundill 00:42:37
Yeah, absolutely.

David Yas 00:42:38
It's not the worst idea in the world. I don't know about a gift. We've experimented with the idea of swag guests on the Boston podcast receive a Pod617 t-shirt, whatever, something like that. It doesn't hurt, you file it under every little bit helps.

Jon Gay 00:42:56
Depends on the budget for your podcast, too. You may not have an Amazon budget. You may have a budget for T shirts. You may have a budget for fidget spinners. Who knows?

David Yas 00:43:05
Yeah. Matt, something you mentioned. I just wanted to go back to. I think what you were saying, Matt, is when you get that monster guest, don't expect your subscribers, your followers, to all of a sudden go crazy. Because as much as you may do a terrific show, if people are tuning in for that guest, that might be the only reason why it's doing it, right? Is that what you're getting at, Matt?

Matt Cundill 00:43:32
I've had some big guests on before and I didn't get the results I thought I was going to get, and I think that works for a lot of people that way, especially the bigger the guests, it's like, oh, you're having so and so on. Well, they already know so and so much, they don't need to hear them for another hour because they already know more than anything else, right. And they're going to go and listen. Are you going to listen to anything new? Will anything new be revealed about this guest on this show? So I think it's really important that when you bring them on, I think it's nice to regurgitate and listen to their entire career about what happened in the past. But what are people really looking for when they go online? Whether it's like a Tik Tok or a podcast or anything, they're looking for something new.

Jon Gay 00:44:16
I will say if it's an A list, a number one guest, for example, I'll come back to the Patriots. I'm a huge Tom Brady stan, as the kids would say. If you tell me Tom Brady was on a podcast, it doesn't have to be anything new. I will listen to it. I will listen to Tom Brady, read the phone book. If I see Tom Brady is on a podcast, I will listen to it. I don't care who the host is and what the topic is.

Matt Cundill 00:44:39
Well, there is a podcast and Tom Brady is the host.

Johnny Podcasts 00:44:44
That's Tom Brady.

Matt Cundill 00:44:49
By the way. I've just, by the way, violated the.

Johnny Podcasts 00:44:50
Rule about being a guy.

Catherine O'Brien 00:44:52
I have a one sheet thinking.

Matt Cundill 00:44:57
Now I've got editing to do.

Catherine O'Brien 00:45:00
Oh, no. That is staying in. That is staying in.

Johnny Podcasts 00:45:05
Leave it and Jack, I don't think the term is stan anymore. I think that was five years ago. The new term is simp, which you are most definitely a Tom Brady simp.

Catherine O'Brien 00:45:13
Oh, my gosh.

Jon Gay 00:45:13
Oh, jeez. Well, leave it to the 25 year old in the group to keep us updated on slang, by the way. We can explain you later what a newspaper is. Johnny yeah.

Johnny Podcasts 00:45:22
Is that like an email, like Google Docs?

David Yas 00:45:27
Matt, I liked what you said about getting something new out of the guest, and if you can do that, then great. If you can't necessarily get something new out of the guests, why are they coming on your show? If I'm going to listen to most things about Tom Brady, maybe I'd be more likely to listen to Tom Brady if he's on a movie podcast talking about his favorite movies, because that's a different spin. And I like this movie podcast because they do all kinds of little interesting segments and stuff, which is I'm kind of dancing around the point here. The point is, improve your show. Improve. Getting great guests is one way to improve your show, but it's hardly the only way. So make the best show you can get. That's the way you're going to improve your audience. And that's what you're going to take most pride and inspire you to keep doing it.

Jon Gay 00:46:14
And for more tips on how to improve your show, listen to previous episodes of this podcast.

Johnny Podcasts 00:46:19
There you go.

Catherine O'Brien 00:46:20
SuperFin. And let me say this too. I'm not going to be able to properly attribute this, but one of the first things I heard in my early journey of podcasting is the influencer stays the influencer. There's like this thought, like, oh, if we get that big person, it's going to produce. That's going to be the thing that rockets our show to this, some high level. But like Matt, you said, it rarely produces the results that we think it's going to. And just know that the influencer stays the influencer. You can't ride on their coattails.

Johnny Podcasts 00:46:52
And it's more often than not that I've seen in the podcast that I've worked on, it's the guest that no one's ever heard of that people download the most. Like people want to hear somebody new, especially. It's really all comes down to how interesting is that person? Like we said, do they have something to say? And if you're the first person to get this person on beautiful.

David Yas 00:47:14
Do you guys explore the mystery as to why certain of your shows have the most downloads? Because I look at the list, I've done 300, 400 episodes of Boston podcast. The top ten. I never would have guessed that they have nothing in common.

Johnny Podcasts 00:47:29
What are you talking about, David? I have a lot to say. That's why my episode was in the top ten.

David Yas 00:47:36
You were fantastic. But usually you like to think you can predict these things, but sometimes you just can't. I mean, I think you guys would agree. And sometimes someone who you've never heard of has a massive following that you've also never heard of. Or they're just good at promoting themselves. Or you just did a great show, pat yourself on the back.

Matt Cundill 00:47:55
What about, can't we blame Google for some of this? Aren't those episodes probably the most searchable?

David Yas 00:48:01
And to what end, though? Do you do this match? If you see that one episode spike, do you look at the show notes? Anything else?

Johnny Podcasts 00:48:13
Is there something that I can duplicate from this episode?

David Yas 00:48:15
Yeah, exactly.

Matt Cundill 00:48:17
So if I were to look at my top five or six podcasts, it's Google driven. So Tom likes is behind a paywall and he has a podcast, so people are saying Tom like his podcast. Well, I actually have one with Tom likas on it. So people go, there and he's quite popular in Los Angeles and chunks of America, too. Bob and Sherry have a huge following across America, and people are Googling their podcast, and then they find my podcast, and they find, oh, look, here's Bob and Sherry. They're Bob and Sherry fans. Corey Carter. And this speaks to what David just said. This is a surprise. Corey Carter is the program director of Wixx 101 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Well, if the packers aren't just some sort of noisy football team and everybody's looking for news about the packers or a packers podcast, and they find this one. So these are some of the things that people trip over and find, because there's really no reason that and nothing against Corey I love Corey, and I love Wixx 101.1 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. But it's because you broadcast the packers.

David Yas 00:49:27
So that begs the question, are their tried and true strategic ways of writing show notes to make them more Google searchable?

Matt Cundill 00:49:34
Absolutely. Okay. And not every app behaves the same way as well, but you should be writing good show notes. And it's one of the things I see and again, I don't mean to let's not get all stereotypical with men and women, but the number of guys I see who write two lines and the number of women who write good, solid show notes that are detailed, it seems to be rather obvious to me.

Johnny Podcasts 00:49:59
Case in point, Katherine is the content person. Katherine specializes in the actual content.

Catherine O'Brien 00:50:05
Thank you.

Jon Gay 00:50:06
I think it's worth mentioning Matt's point about how different apps behave differently. The most tried and true method is to make sure that your title for the episode is SEO optimized, because that's the first thing that anything is going to search for. If you've got a guest, get their name in the title, and you want to walk that line between appeasing the people who see the title and appeasing Google and their spiders or crawling or whatever you want to call it, you want to walk that line between a good headline but making it relevant to SEO. So your name of your podcast itself, the title of the episode, are of the utmost importance, followed then by the show notes. So be very intentional and deliberate. When you write the title for your episode, it's very important.

Matt Cundill 00:50:50
Do not put the word episode in.

Jon Gay 00:50:52
The show title or the number or the podcast.

Matt Cundill 00:50:56
Do that. Please just stop that. Do not do that.

Jon Gay 00:50:59
Oh, yeah. Name of your podcast, put the name of the guest and the topic. That it. Is that's your newspaper headline again, Johnny? Newspapers.

David Yas 00:51:07
So, yeah, when you're a guest, on my podcast, I wrote John Jag Gay, the King of Detroit podcasting, who has nothing to do with Kim Kardashian, because I just wanted to make sure I got Kim Kardashian and the title.

Jon Gay 00:51:20
And that's a great joke, Dave, but you will. But Google will eventually catch you with keyword stuffing and spamming. So there is a temptation to try to game the system, but it will always come back around to bite you. So I'm glad you made that joke, because that's actually a real pitfall to mention to our listeners today.

David Yas 00:51:37
Well, right.

Johnny Podcasts 00:51:38
And also the trust thing, too, with your audience. It goes to YouTube as well. I was talking with a guy who's big on YouTube trying to optimize titles and thumbnails and things like that, and he was saying like, you want to be as clickbaity as possible without lying.

David Yas 00:51:54
You don't want to bury in your show notes a whole bunch of things about The Bachelorette or whatever happens to be trending that day. Because then because what's the point? Why would you want to trick someone into clicking on your podcast and then finding out it wasn't what they're looking for?

Jon Gay 00:52:12
Once you lose them, they're gone.

Johnny Podcasts 00:52:13
The news has been doing that for ten years. You get you to click on it, and then it has nothing to do with what they were talking about.

Jon Gay 00:52:19
Does anybody in the room have any experience using Keywords when writing a show description? Anything positive or negative related to adding keywords?

Johnny Podcasts 00:52:27
No, because Keyword and SEO is literally its own industry. You would have to even to try and get a baseline understanding of how it works. I think it would take so much work. But Katherine has something to say about it, actually.

Catherine O'Brien 00:52:42
Well, I have been listening to the clarion call about the titles and using Keywords, and let's just say I'm starting a side study program about those things because I'm just finding it has to be so important for podcast discovery. And I have some clients who write original blog posts where the episode player goes in. So it seems like one of those things I really just need to learn more about. So I am now a paid client for a headline analyzer that I'm using for titles of episodes. I don't have a full report for you now, but it's definitely something on my mind to where I'm investing the time to learn about Keywords and SEO and especially the headlines for those episode titles.

Matt Cundill 00:53:29
I think it's about matching match the words of your guests to who they are and what they do, because Google will figure it out and go, this is relevant. And if you put Jack and Kim Kardashian together, that might cause a little bit of a flag, perhaps. But yeah, I think matching it to the industry and whatnot is important.

Johnny Podcasts 00:53:54
Well, we can rely on Catherine to be our SEO expert going forward. Thank you for doing that work.

Catherine O'Brien 00:53:59
Yeah, let's see if I can get my homework together first, and then we'll see. Let's have some results, and then I'll have a full report for you guys.

Matt Cundill 00:54:06
Okay, so I did have a couple of other sort of things that are lingering about, and this one is how much, say should a. Guest have in the final product?

Johnny Podcasts 00:54:14
One round.

Matt Cundill 00:54:15
Really?

Johnny Podcasts 00:54:18
My idea is if we even offer the ability to edit on the back end, I think the best rule of thumb, in my opinion, which is not written in stone, they get one listing through and one round of edits, and after that it's going out there.

Jon Gay 00:54:35
Are those guests, clients, or both?

Johnny Podcasts 00:54:37
Johnny the guest, specifically, the host is different. The host is paying me to put together the best product possible. We can do it as many we can do it 100 times of editing. I'm going to get pissed, but we're going to do it.

Jon Gay 00:54:51
That's interesting that you say that, because with my clients, I include in their contract one round of editing free, and then every time I open that file afterwards, you're going to pay for it. Unless there's a specific back and forth case, I say, hey, listen, if you could take a listen, anything you want changed within reason will change it. But if you say, oh, no, let's do this now, let's do this now, let's do this now, that can be a quagmire as a podcast editor. So I think that's important.

Johnny Podcasts 00:55:19
Yeah, I think it's important, but I think that that's on a client by client basis with a brand new client. Sure, you should have that upfront, but I mean, the guys that I've been working with for like, four years, they know my style of editing. They trust me enough to get it done the first time. And I hear what you're saying, I was pointing it more towards the client or the guest side of it because guests can often, like, they get this illusion of I didn't like the way I say that. Can I actually go back in and rerecord this answer, which I actually just did on an episode before I was happy to Redrop it back in. That's fine, that's no problem. But it can get to a point to where the guest, not the client, the guest can become so crazy about editing things that because they want it to sound perfect, that it's just like, look, removing this, you know, from that sentence at 52 minutes and 12 seconds is not going to affect the amount of people that respect you or not. After this episode. It's going to be the other 99% of things that you say. So I think as guests and hosts, if you're going on a podcast, as a guest, you kind of have to go in with the assumption of whatever I'm going to say is fair game.

Matt Cundill 00:56:24
Two minutes, you're in the end zone.

Johnny Podcasts 00:56:26
Yeah, if people have even made it that far. Okay.

Matt Cundill 00:56:29
Does anybody use guest intake forms or waiver forms?

Johnny Podcasts 00:56:35
No.

David Yas 00:56:38
It seems to be more trouble than it's worth. Of course, I'll probably get sued tomorrow because I just said this, but the podcast industry has developed a way that's a lot more looseygoosey, and you can do it if you want peace of mind to sign something, but I think you're just inviting a hassle. I have a very simple form when people sign up to be a guest on the show that just allows them to feel to say, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you'd like to discuss on the show. That's helpful. But the legal stuff, I do have.

Jon Gay 00:57:10
A quick two line disclaimer in contracts not with guests, but with clients, where I say Jag in Detroit reserves the right to remove any content deemed libelous or offensive, something to that effect, with consulting of the guests. I'm not going to pull something unilaterally. I will talk about it so with the host. I will talk about it with the host. But this contract stipulates at the end, after said discussion, I have the final say because I don't want to get sued for something that I produce that.

David Yas 00:57:39
Somebody says, yeah, Matt, to go back just super quick to go back to your point on whether you allow the guest final say, I would be very hesitant. Just reasonable minds may disagree here, but Johnny but I'd be hesitant to provide the entire episode for them to listen to because I think you're inviting a lot of work. On the other hand, though, if a guest I do say to a guest after they leave, if there's something you think of that you don't want in there, just let me know. And sometimes they do take up on that. They're like, you know what? I talked about my sister, her alcohol problem. I just realized I really shouldn't have done that. Could you take it out? And so now, as the podcaster, you can say to yourself, no, I'm sorry, I think that was the best part of the show. But you're making an enemy. You're not the New York Times. You're a podcaster. So you invited the guest on in good faith. The guest came to good faith. I almost always just say, no problem, take it out. Let's move on.

Johnny Podcasts 00:58:41
Also, to avoid on the things that could be questioned that a guest may want to remove beforehand, I often preface guests when they come on. I say without the host, even like the host trusts me to manage this relationship, I will say, hey, if so and so asks you a question that you're not comfortable with answering, just state that, and I will edit it out so they don't feel like they have to answer it. But having that it's like we talked about before, having that preface of this is edited, it's okay, and it's not live. Offering that as an additional sort of words of comfort can be helpful too.

Catherine O'Brien 00:59:17
I was going to say too. I think that for the scope and scale of the shows that we work on, this is not the issue. It would be in other circumstances. If you're working on it like a news program. If you're doing something that is journalism, then that's a totally different standard. And quite frankly, I live in a state in the United States that is a one party state. So if I lived in California, I might treat this entirely differently because California is litigious and because it's a two party state that you have to have two parties consent to being recorded. So those things weigh on my thinking about all these things.

Matt Cundill 00:59:53
Yeah, I've always found that weird. So I'm not even sure what the law is. And I know that Gordon Firemark will be talking a podcast movement about things like this, as he always does it. Podcasters should have a consent form. And I just say, Well, I'm in Canada, so your form has no good to me here. But at the same time, I have no idea what the loss of land are in Canada. I think there is probably an understanding that if I welcome you to the show, that you understand that you're on the podcast and we are podcasting.

David Yas 01:00:24
I don't think that's where Catherine was going. I think she was just kind of speaking in general to how stringent laws might be. I agree with you, Matt, when you say welcome to the show, you are implicitly yeah. You're consenting to being recorded. I mean, it'd be kind of weird if you went on great podcast, but you didn't record it, did you? Because I didn't want you to record it.

Matt Cundill 01:00:46
But the guests would have a right to the content, though.

David Yas 01:00:50
Well, I'm sorry, what do you mean? The guest would have a right to control over it?

Matt Cundill 01:00:56
Yeah, we co authored it by participating together, and I think that's what that release form that Gordon Firemark circulates on his website indicates.

David Yas 01:01:05
Yeah. Again, I'm more of the law of common sense, but you're right in identifying that's the imaginary horrible that you worry about.

Johnny Podcasts 01:01:14
I guess I would be curious with that specific instance, what a show like the Tim Ferriss Show or Jocko Willink or Joe Rogan, a guest coming on with the malicious intent of we technically co authored this together and I now am culpable to competition.

Catherine O'Brien 01:01:31
That's what I was saying about size and scale. Those folks are targets and they know that they're targets. Right.

Johnny Podcasts 01:01:40
So the key takeaway here is have a podcast, but don't get too big, okay? Just keep it small and have fun.

Catherine O'Brien 01:01:46
I just have the release.

Matt Cundill 01:01:47
Yeah, that's all you want half of this podcast here's your episode taken.

Catherine O'Brien 01:01:59
Well.

Matt Cundill 01:01:59
It'S great to kick this around. Does anybody have any final thoughts on guests?

Jon Gay 01:02:04
We all own 20% of this, right?

Matt Cundill 01:02:05
Yeah, absolutely. See, that we agreed upon, right?

David Yas 01:02:09
I'll just say, if you're looking to land, a great guess, sometimes it really is simple as just asking if it's some celebrity. Find the website. They all have contact forms, PR people. You can go through, you can go on IMDb and pay like $9 a month. Get IMDb pro and get all the names of all their agents and everything, you'd be surprised who will say yes.

Jon Gay 01:02:26
People's favorite subjects themselves.

Johnny Podcasts 01:02:28
My final word is shoot for the second rung on the ladder. If you are doing a business type interview podcast, don't shoot for the CEO. It's harder to get them. Go for the VP of sales. Go for the people that aren't often asked for to talk publicly. They're very smart, they're getting paid a lot. They're very interesting people. Most of the time, they just don't have that C in front of their title. So don't feel like you're shooting yourself in the foot. By going a few rungs below, you may get access to a lot more interesting people than you think.

Matt Cundill 01:03:00
Catherine, do you have a tip for landing the big guest?

Catherine O'Brien 01:03:03
Well, David stole mine. I was going to say, oh, all the big guests that I've landed. Yes. Let me share my words of wisdom here, Matt. No, yeah, I think that asking and you're absolutely right. And just having the attitude of people do have something to share. And if you're shooting high I like what Johnny said about going for the second rung. People want to be, especially now, if everybody is asking the top tier, if you frame it as an opportunity. And frankly, one thing I like to do is I tell them why we're inviting them specifically, so like something that I or my clients sees in them that they would be able to bring to the show. I really try and highlight those things. It doesn't always work, but it lets them know that I care enough about what they are doing or being about to say that we have a little bit of knowledge about what they're putting out there.

Matt Cundill 01:03:55
I love it. We're going to talk about A, B and C. I have one. This is an app for your Chrome browser, and it's called Hunter, and it's an extension, so you can find it in the Google Chrome store. And from it you can go to a website and you can get a list of the email addresses on there that are stored inside the website. So that is the Hunter app. I will put that in the show notes of the episode, but it really works, especially if you want to push them when you go. Quite often these stars have their own email address that is embedded behind the website, and this app will find the.

Jon Gay 01:04:32
HTML code and back in. That's brilliant.

Matt Cundill 01:04:34
All right, well, it was great for everybody to make time today. Seems how I was the only one who put this down on the calendar. I'll do better next time and make sure that we're a little more organized for the month of September.

Catherine O'Brien 01:04:44
But look how amazing we were. No matter what.

Johnny Podcasts 01:04:44
I think this was our best one we've done.

Matt Cundill 01:04:48
It was. How did that happen?

Johnny Podcasts 01:04:52
We've when we let Matt do everything, it turns out the best we've ever done.

Jon Gay 01:04:54
It's a happy accident.

Catherine O'Brien 01:04:56
Our lives are in your hands, Matt.

Matt Cundill 01:04:59
My life is so much better with that Saturday afternoon nap. I wake up all creative and fresh on a Monday. Thanks, everyone.