Jan. 31, 2024

Live Reviews of Our Shows

The 5 Podcast Producers get together to critique one another's shows. We offer feedback to both the producers and the performers from the following shows:

That's Business The Distribution by Juniper The 905er Smidgen Sports Card Madness

In this episode you will hear some of the feedback offered amongst the Podcast Superfriends. Things like:

How to make your show more conversational, why you should or should not swear in your episode, whether or not you should be using artwork and/or episode artwork, and why you should get into the show quickly. We also touched on some of the opportunities to create a preview clip at the beginning of your show. (And all that was just in the first 20 minutes of this epic episode.

Would you like us to review and critique your show? Go to our website and fill out a form and submit your podcast elevator pitch along with the episode you want us to review. (It'll be up shortly)

If you want to listen to the episodes we were talking about - click on the show title. You will be taken to the episode page.

That's Business

The Distribution by Juniper

The 905er

Smidgen

Sports Card Madness

Transcript

Sarah Burke (Voiceover)  0:02  
welcome to the podcast Super Friends. Five podcast producers from across North America get together to discuss podcasting.

Jon Gay  0:13  
And welcome to this episode of the podcast Superfriends January 31 2024. I am John gave jagged Detroit podcasts we're going to do today is we've all submitted a client show with clients permission, I'm assuming at least. And we're going to round robin around and give some constructive criticism and feedback for each other's client shows. I'm going to put my clients podcast first. Matt has cued up the first 45 seconds of each one of our client podcasts and probably helpful for our audience. If we all give a quick elevator pitch about each show that we're that we've submitted what it's going to be about about excuse me, so my client is Angela Buccellato. She owns a business called the resume rescue where she helps people update their resumes, change careers, all sorts of career advice. Her podcast is called that's business where she interviews various entrepreneurs and here's their stories of the episode that I submitted was Pam Ames Koch. She is a teacher turned grant writer really interesting story with her. So Matt, if you want to fire up that's business

Johnny Podcasts  1:20  
welcome back to another episode of that's business. Today's guest Pam came to entrepreneurship from education. She started her career as a middle school English language arts teacher went to graduate school and dedicated 20 years of her life to academia as a teacher, educator. Pam has always been a strong believer in the power of goals and dreams. In February of 2022, she started her own grant research and writing business intentions granted, she uses her writing and storytelling.

Jon Gay  1:50  
I will throw it out to the room who would like to jump in first on Angela and that's business.

David Yas  1:55  
I'll go first. Yeah, I didn't have an opportunity to listen to a lot of the full episodes here. So I'm gonna comment a lot on the first 37 seconds. But that but the the logo is the logo is great, I think simple punchy. You know, we're limited sometimes by copyright free music. But that didn't sound too like infomercial ish. To me, it sounded catchy, it did bring me in the quality of the the audio on the intro was was excellent. I'm not necessarily a fan of huge BIOS being read at the beginning. And we got through 37 seconds. And we're still kind of being explained as to who the guest is. So I would favor tightening that up. But because, you know, we, we want to get to the meat and potatoes. We already know who the guests is when we clicked on the episode length. So that's what I'd say.

Johnny Podcasts  2:54  
I would like to go, Johnny. So I did have a chance to listen to this entire episode jag and congratulations, great podcast quality wise, I was very impressed. It was a one thing I wrote down as it was one of one of the interview podcasts, I actually enjoyed listening to really nice slice of life show,

Jon Gay  3:14  
it would be very happy to hear that it

Johnny Podcasts  3:16  
was just it was just really wholesome. And I really enjoyed it. And that is where some of my criticism comes in from a content perspective. So this podcast pitches itself as here this is the episode description. This podcast is designed to help all professionals, whether they're looking for a new job, starting a business, negotiating salaries or improving their public speaking skills. That's amazing. And if they if that's something I'm listening to like, that's kind of what I'm hoping to get out of it. I don't know that I necessarily got enough out of it from this particular episode. The fact that the guests have interesting backgrounds is great, I really want to hear that. But I really, as the listener, focus on the value that I'm going to be walking away from, via listening to this episode. So if you're telling me that when I'm walking into this, the podcast is designed to help me, for instance, for PAM, specifically, she started two businesses. And if I look at the podcast, show description, I say that this is helpful for people starting a business fantastic. But I feel like that they may have spent a little too much time of doing. I wrote this down promo of Pam, and not so much about how Pam got this done. It's amazing that she started these two businesses, but I would have loved to hear heard more about how she actually got that done. Not so much of like what the business actually is. So that was that was more of my critique. From a production standpoint. There's a really great hook in there about Pam says that she was the only applicant out of 500 people interviewing for a teaching job for an English teaching job that said that they wish she could name what books she was reading and reading. That was that was so great. Take that hook and drop that right in the front that is such a great lead in and would just get people All right into the episode I thought that was I thought that was fantastic. And then I think How long do I have a time moving on this? I have like two more points that I want to know though right here. I would tweak the introductions to be more direct with the listener. I hit a hit on that already. And then Angela is a great interviewer. But again, if the goal is to help people who want to start a business and Pam's case she's an entrepreneur, then the question questions like specific examples of questions that she asked where, what's your favorite client success story? Or what, you know, what does a $50 million deal look like? Or even trying to get Pam, new clients, like the goal is to help the audience not necessarily help Pam get new clients, that's just kind of seeing where it started to skew towards is like, how can we get him in front of more people? When the audience is? Well, I need help trying to start my own business, not hire pan. So that that was my heavy critique, overall love that love the show, I thought it was I listened to the entire thing without stopping. And that is very hard to say, in podcast world today. So with that, I yield my time.

Jon Gay  6:06  
You yield your time. That's helpful, Johnny. Thank you, Catherine. You were about to jump in. Now. We'll go to your next.

Catherine O'Brien  6:10  
Oh, sure. I actually agree with a lot of what the other guys were just saying. I thought that first of all, what really stood out to me is that there was a real instant rapport with Angela and Pam that really came through Angela's personality comes through it shines through, which is really great. I would say I did agree with it. There was a lot of intro to what they were getting to getting to the there's a lot of journey getting to introduce what Pam had been doing. But it was really interesting. So I'm really I followed along, just like Johnny was saying it was all of it was very compelling. I would suggest just some two sort of technical tweaks that I would add in there. I think the show could really benefit from a tagline that the amount of business podcasts that are out there is just massive, that is a huge sector of podcasting. So what differentiates this show, it took me a while I didn't read the description the way Johnny did. So I was kind of like, what who is this for? Is this about the journey? How did you get there? Is it about who who Pam is all of those things I didn't quite know. So this would be a show where I would say a pit a pitchy punchy tagline right up the at the beginning. This is the podcast for blank who are doing blank. Something that is telling people with the mission of the show is why are we talking to Pam, why is Angela involved in this? What does this have to do with Angela's business? All those kinds of things in a really tightly punched up tagline I think would be very beneficial. The other thing sort of on a technical level is there were some really poignant moment moments in this podcast, really touching, thoughtful comments that came across. And I just would have loved for a little bit more silence after those hitting moments like Johnny pointed one out there a moment that that is hits and really sinks hard. Give it a little buffer of silence before you get to the next topic that we're going to on just to let it sink for your audience. I think that would have been really effective in in this podcast. But overall, I really enjoyed it a lot.

Jon Gay  8:17  
Appreciate that last piece of feedback for me as the editor of the podcast. That's why I'm bringing it up. Then I can I can leave a little bit more room in there. In in there. Angela is a phenomenal networker. She is one of the best networkers that I know. So she she's a friend, in addition to being a client, and she really has this tremendous group of folks that she's gotten to meet through LinkedIn and social media posts. She's very active LinkedIn, Tik Tok in other places. So she's got this tremendous network. But I appreciate the feedback from all of you so far about maybe tweaking the direction of the show a little bit shortening up the intro. That's helpful, Matt.

Matt Cundill  8:49  
I did notice quietly that it was missing from from iHeart. It's not a podcast I would expect to find on the I heart app, but you can you can take a sneak that one on there anytime and hopefully, maybe grab a little bit of audience from there. I like I like the music at the front. The base and enjoyed that. And the conversation we've already talked about the conversation going from end to end. And to Catherine's point about what I call the qualifier, that's business and then just define what that's businesses. And I had a radio consultant told me that once we have a 30 minute rock ride, well, you have to tell the audience what that means. And it turns out that that means 30 minutes of non stop rock. Right. But again, that's very astute of Catherine to point that out about qualifying the title. Everything else we talked about, you know, the conversation and the branding of the podcast. It's excellent. And I ran through the technical specs have lofts and sounds and beeps and bops and that sort of thing, and it all checked out perfectly. It sounds great. Thank

Jon Gay  9:53  
you RTD to approves. Who would like to be on the hot seat next

Johnny Podcasts  10:00  
Okay, all right, you can you can do mine. All

Jon Gay  10:02  
right, Johnny, I'm gonna give us the elevator pitch on yours. Yeah. So this

Johnny Podcasts  10:05  
is for a corporate client that I work with. And I got permission from the host to do this. He's very excited about getting a lot of feedback. He's new to the podcasting space, his podcast is less than a year old. It's called the distribution by Juniper square. And what Juniper square does is they offer a software to real estate companies that are raising money. And those companies that are raising money need a portal or a software to collect all of that investor data where investors can look in and see okay, this is how much money is being raised for this deal. Yada yada yada communications between people raising the money and people giving the money. And essentially what this podcast is about is talking with various folks across real estate and investing whether that's private markets, public markets, and just getting a lot of their kind of how they how did you get here today? And then a lot of like, what are your thoughts on the market today? And then what are you working on specifically so the the audience here is executives within real estate people that are raising money people that are investing money in real estate?

Speaker 1  11:10  
I'm Brandon said law Managing Director at Juniper square and you're listening to the distribution by Juniper square. Join us as we sit down with experts from commercial real estate, venture capital and private equity, to discuss trends in technology, fundraising, and private markets. We'll cover this and much more. On today's episode of the distribution, I sit down with David Haber, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, at Andreessen Horowitz, David focuses on technology investments in financial services. Andreessen Horowitz is a venture capital firm that backs bold entrepreneurs building. And

Johnny Podcasts  11:48  
before anyone says anything, yes, the plosives are a problem.

Unknown Speaker  11:53  
Problem. So what is the microphone?

Johnny Podcasts  11:55  
He's using this just okay. He has a tendency to have heavy, heavy plosives. And okay, you know, I'm not, I'm not going hard enough on removing these. The problem with plosive removal is, and I'm just gonna go deep. Now, the problem was, if you go too heavy on it, it removes a lot of the equalization and it makes your voice very tinny if it if it kind of if you push it into overdrive. So it's finding that kind of balance.

Catherine O'Brien  12:20  
And I knew that that the plosives was a scuttlebutt issue. And honestly, I think to the average listener, it's not going to be it's not that big of a deal. It wasn't it wasn't harsh to the ear.

Matt Cundill  12:30  
I didn't catch it. Yeah, I didn't know.

Johnny Podcasts  12:35  
I know Jack did. Yeah, Jack did

Jon Gay  12:38  
that offline. Boston public, but go ahead. Go ahead, Dave. Do

David Yas  12:42  
Oh, yeah. Go ahead. Just a couple. Thank you, Kevin. comment than a question. I guess. One is, so Juniper is the name of the company that is funding this podcast? Do I have that right, or John? Okay. So I just, I think that I guess that was pretty clear to me. I just the thought did cross my mind. Does it sound a little bit too much like an ad for Juniper at at the top? But, but it does get it did? It did sort of explain what we were gonna get to my question about the so you had the standard, the intro. And then you had the episode specific intro talking about the guest. Yeah. And I know, it sounds slick. It sounds professional productions. Excellent. The question I have is, well, could it be easier on everyone, if instead of doing that, pre recorded, that they read it, and I go back and forth on this, I have clients do it both ways, but that they read it at just at the beginning of the interview, you know, when they sit down with the person I'm today I'm sitting down with so and so. Yeah, bla bla bla bla bla. Okay. So I

Johnny Podcasts  13:53  
think it's some of that's one of the issues where we get cut off at 37 seconds is, is that you know, that intro is half background half? What did we discuss over the course of the hour? So it's hard to read that at the top of you don't necessarily know where the conversation is gonna go. But you're, you are correct.

Matt Cundill  14:13  
So I don't mind jumping in here, because I gave this a thick lesson. And there's a lot going on at the beginning. And then when we finally get to meet Mr. Haber, the question is what Brandon always ask as the first question that's Tell me about yourself. And from that, you can get many different answers from many different people. I don't think it's a great way to lead a podcast because people are going to go off into whatever direction so the answer to that tell me about yourself was six minutes and five seconds. And that's, that's a long time. Yeah. You know, and some people will I'll go, I'll do it in 15 seconds. You know, because that's my elevator pitch about who I am. But I know they realize that they're on a podcast. I just don't think of So there's two traps to these types of interviews that happen. One, you read the LinkedIn bio, which, you know, you know, that business happened a little bit, although I will point out that we got to the guest in the first minute of that that's business. But what people need to do when they bring a guest on, you need to tell them immediately, why does the listener need to listen to this entire show to the end, you need to get that reason out. Now. We can't sit and wait to find out why we are listening to listen, because we're just going to be looking for jump off points. So it's Brandon needs to really just tell me why this is so important than why I need to listen to David Haber. And it turns out, David haber is a pretty interesting guy, and has a lot of stories. But there's a few things that happened with the phrasing of the questions throughout the show that that we danced around, and not until about minute 30 that I really say, oh, okay, I feel like I know the guests now. And I'm going to listen to the rest. Most people may have already kind of dove off a little bit. So the only other thing for Brandon, who has he has a tough job here, because he's got to make make us interested in this show. Is is the questions. So he will ask a question. He qualifies why he's asking the question on just about every question. So it's things like Well, before we talk about this, and before we cover fin con. And before we do this, I'd like to do that. And if just ask the question and just make it the shorter Brandon can make the question. I think the more conversational, it's going to flow. And I know that Brandon has a responsibility to keep it on brand. And to keep it keep keep all the topic and subject matter going. But if you ask a nice short question, you can talk about fin con, when you're ready to talk about fin con, you can talk about some of the other stories about you know, Harvard and why he was studied biology at the beginning, we can get to that thing. It's just a way of making a little more personal. So think shorter questions. And, and I learned this a long time ago, because I made mistakes. When I interview the Rolling Stones right interview, somebody famous, I would ask long question. I eventually determine if I could ask even the shorter the question I can ask, the smarter I sound it ranges as that sounds fantastic feedback you get you get all the credit for it. But the shorter questions will also keep it very conversational. And it will make it sound a little bit conversational.

Johnny Podcasts  17:32  
Yeah, less less like an interview and more like two guys talking. But there's the added value of what we're sharing.

Matt Cundill  17:39  
I have two other things that I noticed, I really want some artwork in the show. And I know sometimes it's like, well, who's got time for artwork? Well, I checked their website and they have an entire back room full of 10 people who are making artwork of all these guests all over the blog and all over the website. inexcusable square 1400 by 1400, please put it into Spotify and, and now Apple is supporting this stuff. Want one more piece of art will go a really long way to making the streaming the RSS feed look fantastic. And one of the things I do really like, I'll just argue a little bit against myself on all those long answers that the guests gave is it's all being it's all being used and repurposed and blog, it's very clever. The way it's appearing on the website, the way they're using the content the way they're pushing it out there. It's all being done really, really well.

David Yas  18:31  
You talking about episodes specific artwork, Matt or Yes. Okay. Yeah.

Matt Cundill  18:37  
I found I found there was a rectangle picture of the guest in the back end, well just make a square one too, and put it up on into the into the episode artwork.

Jon Gay  18:48  
If I may go next. You may of course, pick up that Matt and I share radio background because I kind of agree with everything he's already said. But let me let me reinforce a couple points. The generic open the very beginning I really liked because the show is called the distribution. The distribution doesn't tell me anything. But he does a very good job, the host of explaining what the show is about in that very first piece. I liked that I agree with everybody so far, and that the episodes specific info could be shortened down a lot more as a lot of that's going to come out in the interview with the guest. My thing is, and Matt touched on this a little bit, that first answer I jotted down went from minute to two minutes seven, it was five, six minutes long. But in addition to that, there were really no spot spots where the host jumped in to what the guest was saying the host would ask the question, and then the guests would answer for four or five, six minutes. And then when he was done, the host would just proceed on maybe comment on it and then go to the next question. A podcast in my opinion really should be more of a conversation there was one point where the host sort of interrupted and then said sorry to interrupt and they kind of got back on track which could be cut out and editing that's that's a stylistic preference honestly, but I would like to see the host interact with the guests a little bit more as a host. It's very, it's very difficult and to sort of get past the oh, I'm being rude. I'm interrupting somebody, it's very hard to sort of jump in. But as you do it more, you'll get more comfortable with it. I'd like to see more of a back and forth as opposed to question answer, question, answer, question, answer question answer. And I would like to see the host jump in a little bit more. And to Matt's point, they were really great topics in terms of, you know, Fin tech, there was one point where the where they said dumb it down for me, which was good, because it was some of this content was over my head, because I don't know a lot about the space. So I liked when they said dumb it down, talking about interest rates. So there were a lot of good topics and a lot of good contents in here. I just would like to see a bit more back and forth. And then one last technical critique. And I had told Johnny this offline to the disclaimer at the end of the show was read by Gianni. And it's read slowly, I would say recut that or just speed it up and post it's a disclaimer, it's just kind of there. Because it has to be you can just read it quickly or or speed it up with your audio production software.

Catherine O'Brien  21:08  
Wait, now wait a second, because I was actually going to use the contents of the podcast episode for investment advice. And then I heard Johnny's voice his dulcet tones, encouraging me not to do that. And I just I turned my entire life around. So loving counterpoint, but I don't know about that job.

Sarah Burke (Voiceover)  21:31  
The podcast Superfriends support podcasting. 2.0. So feel free to send us a boost. If you're listening on a newer podcast app, find the full list at new podcast apps.com.

Jon Gay  21:42  
Matt, just put up a question from listener Ellen grego. From apologize, I'm pronouncing your last name wrong, but how to politely cut off an interview subject. I think if you're recording on video, and you can see each other my tried and true was always just to put a finger up or wave or try to get their attention visually. Because I think sometimes you'll have a really insightful comments about what your guest is saying. And if you're afraid to interrupt, they may move on to the next point, and then it becomes disjointed to try to come back. Well, that's a really good point. But before that you said this, I want to come back to what you said about this, if you can say it's sometimes it can be rude, and you and it's being rude is the lesser of two evils between that and losing some really good back and forth and really good content, if you've got a really good follow up question. Of course, I'm not saying cut them off every chance you get. But if you feel that you've got something really important to say that's going to contribute to the conversation, and the overall quality of the show as the host, sometimes you just have to put the etiquette to the side and jump in. I'll

Johnny Podcasts  22:42  
piggyback off that I've said to hosts directly to do this. And I've I've seen it happen in action. This is all edited afterwards. None of this is live. So what I've encouraged and what I've seen hosts to do is if we've had tons of episodes where the guests just ramble on and on and on and on and on, they never shut up. The host have to jump in and be like you have to let me have a chance to talk. And yes, that might be awkward in the moment. But all of that's going to be edited out so the listeners don't hear it. But you you you also you layer on top of that you say look, I want you to come off in the best light, this is supposed to be a conversation, you talking for seven or eight minutes. Like that's just it kind of stagnates everything, we need to have this kind of back and forth. So let's, let's try that again. And you know, let's try and get something be you know, be like that, like it's, it's, it's supposed to be a conversation. Sometimes you have to be kind of Curt and say, Hey, stop, stop talking for so long. One.

Jon Gay  23:35  
One radio analogy that I'll make here is when we when I was running a radio station in New Orleans, we had a male and a female voice over talent that we do our 32nd promos, whatever contest we had coming up on the radio station, and whenever we produced the promo, I'd go male voice female voice male voice female voice male voice female voice and the reason is, every time there's a change in who is speaking, that gets your attention. And if we all have the attention of goldfish, one voice going on for too long. It's going to be very easy to mountsorrel your point to tune out if you have that change in who's speaking. Nothing. It's got to be every 10 seconds. But the but if you have that at regular intervals that will help keep listeners attention.

Catherine O'Brien  24:18  
I'm pointing at Katherine. Oh, thanks. Okay, great. And I I wanted to share some of the comments about the podcast episode. I do also want to mention, I do have a family member who works for Juniper square. So just putting that out there. As I before I talk. One thing that really did was really winning quality for this episode. Johnny was expertise. It's really obvious that the host is an expert in his field. He's, he knows who he's talking to as an audience, and he knows who he's got as a guest. So all of that came through really strongly on this episode, which I think was really great. I mirror a lot of the comments that the other guys have already said. And I just wanted to put it out there too. In the idea of the journey. So a lot of the podcast, as we've talked about was the journey on how the guest got to where he is. There's also the chance to you were just talking about this a moment ago with the editing, you could even try an editing trick where you as the producer puts that later on in the in the episode of the podcast episode, this, this, this show could have really benefited from get to the good stuff sooner and faster. Again, because you know who the audience is, it's a very specific audience, you could even try and see if the journey story could work further in the podcast episode, as I just get through editing, because I do know that when you're talking to a guest, sometimes the go through the journey is just a warm up to get comfortable with each other and get that get that flow going. The the contents that ever everybody knows you, you know your own story. So maybe moving that physically, I mean, it as an editing idea might be a good idea to do down just to give that a try. instead.

David Yas  26:02  
We keep saying that podcasts would be conversations and not interviews, and that is really part of the art form of a podcast. So I completely agree. The question looms to me, what percentage of time should the host be talking versus the guest talking and when I have coached up the hosts, I've I've thrown out the numbers 4060, you talk 40% of the time, the guest talks 60% of the time 40 percents a lot, right. Yeah. But in my opinion, unless the host hosts is really annoying. The host is the constant of the show, the host is often why the guest, the listeners will come back to the show, they might come for the guest. But if they're going to come back, they gotta come back the host just the constant. So if the guests shares a story, and the host has a similar story reminds me of a story when I was when I used to work in Detroit with Jack, what a great guy. Let me tell you about the time me and him bumped into Jared Goff terrible anyway, I'm so sorry. But my, I'd be curious to hear what you guys think about that the 4060 I just made up I don't know if there's supposed to be a standard. As far as interrupting people, the only time I would really avoid interrupting a guest is if they are just telling some compelling story that you're on the edge of your seat, and they're doing it wonderfully. There are all kinds of reasons why you would want to interrupt not just that going on too long. But if they say something that you think the listener doesn't understand, well, you know, back when I was working for the gray stone Incorporated, you know, you know what they do? Keep talking, it's like, well, now we don't know what gray stone is? Can you just for the listeners sake? All kinds of stuff like that. And then my last question, I just come full of questions today is if Tell me about yourself is not a good first question, which I agree it is not? What is a good first question, because I go back and forth with this. And sometimes I just say, tell me what you grew up. Because that because then you know, you might get a little color but what it was like when I grew up, but there's no right answer to this, but I welcome thoughts on all the stuff I've thrown out there. I'll

Jon Gay  28:07  
jump in here because Angela's first question is always tell me about your childhood because that sort of sets the stage. That's that's her go to First Question. I am trying to one of the podcasts I work on is a for a local Chamber of Commerce. And we've realized our mistake in the first couple seasons of the podcasts of asking all about their business folks interact with each other and our chamber of commerce and do business with each other when they get to know each other at events on a personal level. So we've pivoted in our third season to start asking the guests about them as a person first. And I'll even in my prep before the podcast say give me an icebreaker. You know, tell me something interesting about yourself that nobody would expect. And you know, it might jump in. Okay. Who knew you play the pig? You played the piccolo How long have you been playing the piccolo I you know, whatever it ends up being. So having having a hook up. I'm going to use Joel saucy Hi, who produces the Stacking Benjamins podcast used to be based here in Detroit. Now he's based out of Texas. He had a podcast a few years ago, we've talked about this before he put up a slide of a car crashing into a lake. Anybody said know what this is? It was the beginning of a James Bond movie. The James Bond analogies, every James Bond movie starts with a car chase a car crash some action scene that hooks you right away. And I'm not saying you've got to have something sensational in every podcast. But if there's a really good piece of content, you guys gave me the now the analogy from the podcast with Angela where she you know, the guest got a teaching job over 500 of the candidates because she was the only one in the interview could say what books she was reading and for earning potential English teacher that's compelling that you're right. The show could have started with that. So give me something right out of the gate.

David Yas  29:44  
For that as a friendly amendment. I might say I liked the childhood question. How about Tell me a pleasant memory from your childhood? Tell me Tell me from your childhood. And then then you get a store. I mean, why not?

Matt Cundill  29:56  
I asked the same question on my podcast. match every time. The podcast is about broadcast and everybody can relate to this. And that's how did you get into broadcasting? Yeah,

David Yas  30:08  
that's good because that prompts a specific story for sure.

Jon Gay  30:13  
Are we ready to move on to our next podcast? Sure. Matt, if you have your own audio you are going to be in the hot seat for this one, this is called the 905. Or as if you want to give us your elevator pitch on the show.

Matt Cundill  30:24  
Okay. So just for I do not produce the show it is. It is presented live on crier media, but I am their consultant. Okay. So I have been working with them the 905. If you ever punch that into your phone, it means you're going to be dialing the area surrounding Toronto. So not 4016 Is Toronto, it's the area surrounding Toronto, so very suburban, and thought to be a bit of a bellwether, when it comes to elections in Canada can be very liberal, or it can be very conservative, but it is generally thought that if you can win this area, you can do quite well in an election. The show is done by Ronald Tanner and Joe McLeod. They are longtime activist volunteers and clearly want to be politicians. But they do a lively weekly podcast featuring interviews with people in the news, they do some roundtable discussions, the episode I gave you was the year end in a review, and it's a Christmas episode, or at least was released around Christmas. Their aim though is to be intelligent, thought provoking, lively and entertaining all at once. And with that, we'll just fire up the first 37 seconds of the show.

Speaker 2  31:40  
Hello, and welcome to the final line of fiber episode of 2023. And as I guess it's now traditional, traditional for us and traditional for just about every other news current affairs program in the known universe. We're going to look back on the year that was and also look forward to the to the new year to come and kind of review what we looked at and make some

Catherine O'Brien  32:10  
there you have it. That's the first cliffhanger

David Yas  32:14  
on the edge of my seat.

Johnny Podcasts  32:17  
Can I just say something right off the bat. And then David, I know you're you're you're keen on doing the first 30. So I would just pump up, I would change out that show artwork really quickly. Because I know I know that image because I've used that image and it's podcast microphone on Google search. I would do a skyline of the 905 area in Toronto, I think because and that's kind of the bigger thing on mine is this community building aspect. But I would just I would change that quickly.

David Yas  32:50  
I have a question. It we know that it's a news we know from the very top. I mean, I learned it's current current affairs knows. And I know that this episode is going to look back on the year that was that's all really good. Does the podcast have more of an angle that separates it from other news that you could say this is the podcast where we look at news in a particular way or? Not necessarily?

Matt Cundill  33:18  
No, I would say say that I think there's a lot of assumptions about who they are and what they what their stances are and where they come from. I also have time I mean, if I didn't know the show, I'd probably wouldn't know the difference between the two hosts. Like which ones Joel?

Catherine O'Brien  33:35  
Yeah. And they don't they don't announce that either. So yeah,

Matt Cundill  33:38  
so that would be supporting your partner. So using the names, I guess between one another when you're doing show?

David Yas  33:45  
Yeah, for sure. But I mean, if it's a leading, if they're leading personalities and news in Toronto, maybe then you've got yourself a shell and they're gonna have their audience but do you see what I'm asking you about? Like, there are a bazillion news podcasts? Could this be the one that does? XYZ?

Matt Cundill  34:04  
Yeah, I think the thought was it's the 905 or so we deal with the area around 905 Because so much about Toronto, is is 416 in Toronto, Toronto Maple Leafs. If you just if you just turned on the TV in the British Columbia, you think the Toronto Maple Leafs were the only team and I think most Toronto media is really centered in downtown Toronto. But then when you get to the outside of the city, it's the 905 Feels like a forgotten area. And I think they feel as though they're serving that particular area. So that's

David Yas  34:31  
your niche. Yeah, that that answers the question.

Jon Gay  34:35  
I'll jump in. Matt can give us a little bit of color here because the first story they talked about was this big corruption case. They called it interesting. They called it they compared it to Watergate. And then there was actually even a genocide comparison at one point which was like rubbing a little bit the wrong way. But what was the what was the Corolla was the corruption case that they were talking about just for our listeners here today.

Matt Cundill  34:58  
So the premiere or of Ontario is Doug Ford. He's a conservative larger than life kind of guy. His brother is the late was the mayor of Toronto, he passed away. The Ford family are a little bit their characters as it were. Doug Ford, I think there's a great there's a Greenbelt area around Toronto wishes like we're not going to develop here. Well, amazingly, somebody found a way to start developing there, and it has a government connection. And it was very dirty. And in the end, there was really no choice but around I think, October, November for the for the premiere to say, yeah, you caught us with hands in the cookie jar.

Jon Gay  35:35  
They did a very good job. Thank you. For that math. They did a very good job of citing narwhal, which is a local news organization and the reporting they did on that I give them I give them credit for giving narwhal credit, for breaking the story and really taking the lead on it. I'm glad you specified Matt that this show was done live because in the first few minutes of the show, they were just to me an excessive amount of ohms and ahhs. I wonder if it's worth an investment from their side, or whoever's in charge of the show, to have somebody edit the podcast version. I found it to be very distracting the amount of ohms and ahhs from both hosts at the very beginning of the show. There of course, aside from Toastmasters classes, they're you know, the one of the old tricks is take a breath, silence is better than are off you give yourself a beat to think about what you're going to say next. You know,

Matt Cundill  36:28  
can you give a quick tutorial on how easy that can be? Because I don't think a lot of people know how easy it can be to remove items in AWS with with the programs like the script and stuff. Yeah,

Jon Gay  36:39  
the script has an auto feature that does that. There are other programs that edit as well as as you get experienced editing, you can often see what an unmooring looks like as you're flying through the wave formula. It's that little block that you get rid of. You can load your audio into a program like descript with the right level of subscription. I think it's 30 bucks a month, you can have it sorted out all ohms and ahhs and a couple clicks and they're all gone. I think that can be very useful to a lot of our listeners. Is it foolproof? No, do you have to go through by hand afterwards and check it? Yes, but it'll do 90% of the work for you. I think that's certainly a very helpful there. One thing I wanted to call out on the show as well is the language and Matt here's we're gonna have Mark listed because I'm gonna quote them directly later than the show they got into one of the challenges for Prime Minister if I'm not mistaken. We call him a quote. Fucking stupid little shithead. And one of the most odious creeps in Canadian history. I

Matt Cundill  37:42  
can play it if you want.

Speaker 2  37:45  
And if all you're doing each time the province makes a screw up is uploading those costs and those responsibilities to the federal government, then we're kind of in trouble, particularly when good chance the next prime minister is fucking stupid little shithead. odious creeping Canadian history before he's even in government. You know, God help us.

Jon Gay  38:15  
That, again, I'm not I am certainly not one to complain about language. But I think if you're going to use language like that, and I did apologize for the language at one point, because they're Canadian, and they're nice people. But I think if you're going to use language like that, that's got to be part of your brand. You have to decide for your brand. yea or nay on language like that. And occasional four letter word here and there. But to use language that strong obviously, this is somebody who they detest politically, and that's fine. Are they going to? Or is that going to be part of your brand that you're going to just go off like that? And if so, that's a strong statement. And that's fine. I'm not saying anything wrong with it. But if you don't want that to be your brand, you've got to pull back on the language a little bit. I thought what

David Yas  38:58  
kind of kind of takes to kind of takes you out of the show? Doesn't it? Like yeah, the and maybe it's because we're dumb Americans when we assume anyone with an accent like that is refined and smarter than us. And then all of a sudden they drop an F bomb like that. But I agree with you jack and and that but then you know, I have certain pods where where the F bombs sound natural because it's comedy or it's just in the flow of things. And for those for whatever it's worth, if I use a promo or a teaser quote from like, pull that and it contains a swear word I will be put out there and a teacher I agree in a teaser because I don't want to I don't want to slammed over people's heads like that. But anyway, I will think about

Johnny Podcasts  39:37  
let me let me let me counter what you guys have said loving pushback. But I made a note here that said political shows tend to have rabid listeners. People like are tuning into the show because they're politically aligned with these folks. Most likely. They may want to really hear that they're just like yeah, sure. So Right. Thank you for saying that. Like they're just it's so Like, when people tend to listen to political content, they're wanting to have their beliefs affirmed and be like, what I what I believe is right. And they may hate this guy so much. It sounds like he's like a Trump type guy that just people just have like such this like horrendous reaction to them as a person and their politics that like, that may be how a lot of their listeners are feeling. And they may love the fact that he said that about that person. So

David Yas  40:24  
I think you might be a little bit Yeah, well, that's, that's a great point, do they? What's the name of the pod save America drop? Did they drop F bombs on that show?

Jon Gay  40:35  
They do. And I'm, quite honestly a fan of that show. I because I lean left politically, but they go back to my original point, I don't have a problem with it in principle, my my question is, do you want that to be part of your brand? Are you that gung ho,

Johnny Podcasts  40:50  
guy? Yeah.

Jon Gay  40:51  
Are you hating this guy that much? That you're okay with that in the show? Or do you want to pull back from that strong language a little bit? But, John, you want to continue with any other critiques you had on the show? Yeah. And

Johnny Podcasts  41:01  
I apologize if there's anything else you wanted to wrap up?

Jon Gay  41:03  
No, I'm good. Okay.

Johnny Podcasts  41:05  
So number one, I thought that this was an excellent exercise to listening to things outside of your political circle, I don't lean to the left. And so to for me to have to sit down for an hour and listen to people that lean very left and listen to what their beliefs are outside of American politics, even listening to like this little section of Canadian politics was really just like, I think it's healthy for people to listen to stuff outside of their bubble. So I would encourage people to do that. My biggest thing was really just one community. And to a little bit of shownotes improvement, like you hit on jag with the narwhal reporting, let's throw some links into what those articles were all of the give me the narwhal website. Let me go, let's promote these people. If they did such an amazing job of like, calling out this government corruption, let's give them their flowers, not only in the audio, but in the shownotes. Let's push people to their website. I would love to have seen articles linked to the million March protests against the school boards that they talked about. Let's see all of that reporting that you guys are talking about, cuz I'm sure you have it pulled up in front of you. Like, let's just let's just, you know, it's easy as pie to throw that in the shownotes. Another quick thing would be I didn't hear any call to action. What do you want me to do? Like I found your podcast, you want me to follow you? Where do you want me to follow you? Or you guys on social media? Where else do you guys talk about this kind of stuff, give me something to do. Now that I'm listening to your show asked me to do something. And if I enjoy the show, I'm happy to do it for you. The last thing is community building. Like I said, these political shows tend to have very rabid listeners and they want to find like minded people like themselves. I think that the show would benefit from creating some kind of community whether they mentioned that they have like the buy me a coffee or they have their own website to get extra content, but maybe include something where the listeners can actually engage with each other if they want to build up this nanofied community and really push their political agenda they need. They need foots, they need foot not foot soldiers, but they need people behind them to come together and connect. And that's how they can also monetize on top of that is like Hey, join our community for $1.99 a month meetups online message boards, I'm sure there's a huge opportunity for because it's so it's so based around their geographical location, that the opportunity for in person events, whether it's built around, like protesting something, or whether it's like just meeting up and hanging out with the host, I think there's a huge opportunity for that.

Matt Cundill  43:21  
I have something I wanted to share to share with you. Because I think the show is gonna go through a little bit of a transition. So are you guys seeing this on my screen here? Yes. Okay. And you're seeing Oh, good. You're seeing a lot of it, too. So this is Joel, who's the host. And he goes, he went and tweeted the other day that he doesn't understand how and this is the guy that was being sworn about how this conservative politician, you know, I don't know anybody who likes something. There's just utter contempt for most of the people we talked about for this man. And then I retorted, I said, Well, it's simple math. The price of this man is better than the price of our current prime minister. And then Joel says, well, not according to everybody I speak with and I said, Listen. Here's the 905. Okay, the spattering of red that you see in the middle, that's Toronto, and that blue is mainly the 905. So you might need to figure out why most of the people in the 905 seem to have switched and gone blue. And he agrees it's not a bad idea. Okay, that's fine for one episode, but I think he's dealing and I think the show is dealing with change in the area it's going from being a liberal area to a conservative one so how do you we wrestle that does this mean Johnny we can swear more does it mean we can double down on on the stance or and what's going to happen when we they build that community? Is it going to be like it's going to be Fight Night?

Johnny Podcasts  44:46  
Quick fight is the color is the color correlation to political parties the same as America blue is left. Right? Yeah, it's reversed. Okay, so

Catherine O'Brien  44:58  
blue is conservative. Yeah. Lou is

Johnny Podcasts  45:00  
now looking towards the more conservative Republican as it would be an American Term versus the red in Toronto is very liberal progressive as it would be blue and American. Correct. So you

Catherine O'Brien  45:11  
just pointed out a huge echo chamber to them, Matt, that's I mean, that's like the classic. I don't know, anybody who voted for Nixon that's like a sort of an American Comparison, where it's like, oh, well, yeah. Because you don't know it. Yeah. Just because you don't know anybody that's going there.

Matt Cundill  45:24  
You have to change their show at all? Or what do they need to pay attention to? Or do they do nothing,

Johnny Podcasts  45:28  
but I just need changing their political beliefs. Because these guys I mean, very far to the left in an era that's becoming more right leaning.

Jon Gay  45:37  
Just natural friction in there, which could be a great show. Yeah,

Catherine O'Brien  45:40  
I was gonna say the thing, one of the strengths of the show is that these guys know who they are. And they're, they're standing on their, their beliefs, they're, they're putting forth their, their, their viewpoints, and that's coming through. So I don't know, as long as they know that that's what they are. You're now you're making me question, maybe they don't know what they are. And then I wanted to write off of one of Johnny's points about the community building, if they're actually doing something, I think that this show would be have a do well, to have their housekeeping, all the stuff that's at the end, all those call, calls to action, all those ways to get involved, I think that they should integrate that into the middle of the show where more people are paying attention, and they can do it very naturally. And then I think that they can encourage that feeling of like, we are an you know, it's you guys with us, it's the audience with us, we are this community and make it feel more instead of just two guys talking. Like they're they're doing something they're demonstrating political power they're forced to be reckoned with or whatever they want to whatever their goal is. But I think that they could you could build that in a little bit earlier in the show naturally, like it's part of the show, I also want to share a comment about structure, this show to me really could have benefited from some even subtle structure. Talking about the you know, this was the year end wrap up announcing at the start of the show, we're going to talk about the top five stories from 2023. Or, we've we made seven predictions back in January. Let's see how we did. Because I think this this episode really would have benefited, in my opinion from milestones so that the audience knows where we are and where we're headed. They could even be kind of fun. Like, if it's top news stories, you could say, or let's say predictions, you know, the feds are gonna get involved in housing, which was one of their one of their topics. How did we do prediction came true or you know, that even just saying the word prediction, and then a short sentence on what that prediction was boiled down nice and crystallized, and then announcing we got that one right and then go into their discussion just helps break up the show keeps it a little bit organized and moving along.

Sarah Burke (Voiceover)  48:00  
The podcast Superfriends support podcasting 2.0 So feel free to send us a boost. If you're listening on a newer podcast app, find the full list at new podcast apps.com. Alright,

Jon Gay  48:11  
next, we will put Katherine in the hot seat quite literally because she is the co host of the show that you submitted to us. All right, faces

Catherine O'Brien  48:21  
I will say on our producer, how about that smidgen is the podcast of red stick Spice Company. It's all about home cooking. If you need inspiration in your kitchen, and Melnik chef and Spice Girl has something for you.

Anne Milneck  48:34  
I love food trends. Why food trends give me a peek into what people are getting excited about. They give me a sense about what home cooks are thinking about what their mood is what's going on in their families and their homes. food trends also give me a chance to bring out well tested tried and true recipes that I know my customers are going to love. So when I saw this list from Southern Living about the food trends for 2024 I knew I had to talk about it on this episode of smidgeon seven food trends that are going to shape your 2024 I'm an Melmac. Chef Spice Girl.

Jon Gay  49:12  
I like Spice Girl by the way. Yeah,

Catherine O'Brien  49:15  
that's sorry. And this is Smiljan then music right after that. Who

Jon Gay  49:20  
wants to jump in first?

Johnny Podcasts  49:22  
I only Oh, no good. But yeah, I

David Yas  49:25  
mean, I only have one one thing and that's Don't make fun of me. And that's that an opening like that. I want I want it to be a little more conversational. She sounds like she's reading from a script. And maybe she's not. But to me, that should be punchy. It's like, hey, you know what I love trans whenever I see one of those lists, I want to see what the trends are for the year. So you know, I saw this article and so we're going to talk about it today. I can't wait to get to the show. Here we go. Something like that. That's my laptop.

Jon Gay  49:58  
I'm gonna give a loving counter Point A Dave because I actually really loved the intro because I think she in that first in that clip that you heard it for how many seconds Matt chose but for the 4337 37 and

Matt Cundill  50:11  
to be completely unfair to Katherine at 38 and a half the jingle to the Showcase.

Jon Gay  50:18  
I loved the first 37 seconds because and got my attention right away. She said, she told me we talked about the James Bond thing earlier. She told me what you what is coming up in this episode, trends, why she loves trends here what the trends are going to be going into 2024 I thought the setup was terrific. I think Katherine and the producer, co slash sort of co host role but on your producer, if you prefer. Thank

Catherine O'Brien  50:44  
you. Okay.

Jon Gay  50:45  
I think you did a fantastic job throughout this podcast of making in the star and making sure the spotlight stayed on her making sure that it was about her and what she wanted to accomplish and promote in the show, you did a very good job of putting her front and center and that's not an easy skill as a whether you want to call it a producer or co host but that's You did a very good job of that I feel. She does a very good job in going through different trends. She talked about French toast Italian food mocktails teas as the episode went through, she does a very good job. And this being a branded podcast of tying in your new as well, of tying the trends back to things that they have available at the red stick Spice Company without being overly salesy. It was not an infomercial by any stretch of the imagination. But she seamlessly wove those into the conversation of our talking about this trend with you know, if you weren't sure if you can pick up this spice or this ingredient. We have that for you here. Very well gone in there. Talked about a tahini latte and the emphasis of make this make this like she had conviction when she said that, her that said that? I think that yeah, right. Minor critiques. There was a little bit of crosstalk throughout the episode or I think you've stepped on each other a little bit. I think that can be fixed a little bit more in post production. And I think there was something you can clarify on this, Catherine, about a drinking game by mentioning a chef Kenji or something along the way.

Catherine O'Brien  52:19  
Yeah, so we have a running gag on the show about because there are some things that we were repeat a lot and one of them is Kenji Lopez alt, who is a sort of a very prominent, famous food writer, Chef, he's got shows he's got the whole shebang. Yeah. So he came up a couple of times. So I was like, I'm sorry that drinking you know, you're overly committed with the drinking game here. Yeah.

Jon Gay  52:44  
So is that is that? Is that an inside joke between listeners in the host between episodes, or just that particular episode that

Catherine O'Brien  52:50  
runs? No, that runs through? We have a drinking game mentioned, not just with him, but just there's several things that we that come up throughout all the episodes. So if you've listened to more than one episodes, like I'll sometimes they'll say, Oh, if you're playing the smudging drinking game, a little notice coming up here we're going to talk about quick pickles, because that's one of the things that comes up a lot.

Jon Gay  53:12  
And I think you explained that well later in the episode with the quick pickle analogy, but I think glossed over it with the chef Kenji piece of it. Sure. Maybe keeping in mind this was the first episode I've heard of the show and the listener is going to hear your most recent episode first, most likely, I think if you're going to reference the drinking game, even if it's to take a quick five second stop down to reference what's happening because for a moment I got lost. So

Johnny Podcasts  53:34  
so fun content idea. Just me just really quick point jag and right back to you. Fun content idea, Catherine is if you're running a show that has a lot of inside jokes, every like 10 or 12 episodes or so a fun segment to do is like, Alright, one of the worldly things is that our community is still growing. But we have people that have been listening to us since day one. And we have a lot of inside jokes we've developed over the years. So we're gonna spend the next 10 minutes going over the top five inside jokes where they came from what they mean, because you're gonna be hearing them a lot throughout the show. That's

Jon Gay  54:06  
great. Final, final point. At the end, Katherine, your tie in to sharing the episode and getting it out to friends and family I thought was phenomenal. I thought you did a terrific job with that at the end. As far as getting it out. The two of you have great chemistry it shows you genuinely like each other it shows, I think, I think there's a lot of a lot of good banter and back and forth. I really enjoyed this episode a lot.

Catherine O'Brien  54:31  
Thanks. Good. Very good feedback. John.

Matt Cundill  54:34  
I'd like to apologize by the way that the artwork that I have here has nothing to do with the episode but it's the best picture I could find.

Jon Gay  54:42  
I want to duck when I see that. Look out for

Catherine O'Brien  54:45  
the cast iron.

Johnny Podcasts  54:45  
So Catherine smidgen red stick spice. Food is huge in American culture, not only because we love to eat it, we love to look at it. We love to cook it. But the key word there is look at it. We can't do that on a pie. webcast. Why are the shows like Gordon Ramsay shows, there's a million different cooking shows out there. And they're so popular on visual mediums because food is such a visual concept. I feel like there's room to improve the podcast to make it more appealing because of it. Because it's food. It's hard to, it's hard to really detail recipes and the different types of food that we're making when it's only audio, I think that my biggest thing here is that we can really differentiate the show through sound design. Food again, is it's such a visual type of content. So how do we quote spice things up when we're audio only? I know you mentioned you guys are potentially getting into video soon. I want to clear the cat out of the bag.

Catherine O'Brien  55:41  
Yeah, let's we'll talk about that more. But I

Johnny Podcasts  55:44  
think that you could really benefit from stock sound sizzling fizzy water being poured in the background when we're talking about different foods. If we're talking about the Italian homemade dishes that was mentioned in the episode, music from the countries like that. So some bait some stock Italian music in the background just to just kind of get us really into the mood and the feeling of cooking and what because cooking is such like, it really brings us back to our roots, I think that is a really great opportunity to just make the show feel feel something so much more when you're talking about these different things. Okay. Oh, and then the other thing was, is there opportunity to like discuss the origin of this is maybe there's history behind all of these things that we come to know and love that we make in the kitchen. So I think that history and providing backgrounds of where these dishes weren't when they were invented how they were came up, if there's a funny story behind it, I think it can just bring a different angle. Other than just like I really love making this, but I think the biggest highlight of the show is that you can tell that the host really loves food and cooking and everything around it. And the passion really comes through and it makes you really even if you don't love food or cooking, if you're listening to this, you're like holy shit, like this is so exciting. And you can really, it's infectious, you can feel our passion coming through. So I think overall, you know, duplicate what Jack said, You guys have a great chemistry in the show. The show is great.

Matt Cundill  57:07  
So I concur with all that I was sorry to come back to artwork with this. But you mentioned you've got something in the works for it. The show makes me hungry. You're talking about using brioche bread to create french toast off the top. So that's a bunch of calories there.

Jon Gay  57:24  
And then making me hungry now.

Matt Cundill  57:27  
Get this there was no boil lasagna. Like how to use the lasagna noodles to like in a no boil fashion. I'm like, I totally want that for dinner every night. And I totally should not have that for dinner every night. So there's a bit of a guilty pleasure. You know, listening to this. And I do enjoy. Listen, I know I say Oh, come on artwork. Come on sound design. I just love listening to people talk about food because it makes me hungry and gets me excited to eat. So yeah, I love I love the show and you do a great job with it. The intros, by the way are quite there's more of the intros what I know we got through the first 37 seconds and that was that they're kind of poetic the way they come together and lead into the jingle for the show. So I went back and listen to a few other intros like, the kind of poetic I like him. Thanks, man. So some work that goes into it.

Catherine O'Brien  58:21  
Let me just say thank you. Wow, well, let me just say this smidgen has by far had a huge impact on my own home kitchen. I benefit from all of these recipes. Bob My dear husband is a smidgen superfan and I benefit royally from this so I it's been it's been glorious but those are all excellent points, especially some of the history I'm going to think about the sound design because we can dip into cheese pretty fast there are no pun intended but yeah that I like Yeah, I like those five

Johnny Podcasts  58:51  
seconds of like, Oh, we're talking about tahini latte and you hear the kettle boiling in the back. Yeah,

Catherine O'Brien  58:55  
we've done we've done some like a toaster being to like to indicate different things so well but I'll look back into it. That's great. Thank you so much. You guys

Jon Gay  59:02  
you get to the cheese Be sure to fold in the cheese. Just fold it in.

Matt Cundill  59:07  
Do you have a zoom h5 or something like that? I do. Bring up the kitchen. You

Jon Gay  59:14  
don't even have to worry about royalty or buying sound effects. You could just record it yourself like like old school now as we got our final podcast sent in order in which it was submitted to the group would be would be the sports card bad in the show from David. Yes. Elevator Pitch Please, sir.

David Yas  59:35  
Yeah, so it is what it sounds like. Nick Andrews and his buddy lb our sports card enthusiast. They took up the hobby about a year ago and it is your classic passion niche podcast is a better word for that but it's for people who are want to collect sports cards autographs memorable Do you think that's all it needs to be? So?

Speaker 3  1:00:03  
What's up everyone? Welcome to another episode of sports car to madness, the podcast that focuses on sportscards collectibles, the hobby, and everything else in between. And now brought to you by fanatics live. We had an amazing guest on this week, Scott Smith. He's also known as the Sports Illustrated king. And he told us a lot of great stories about some of the celebrities, he's chased everything from trying to give MJ $10,000 in cash to science magazines to hanging out with others, and it was pretty wide.

Jon Gay  1:00:42  
Question for you off the bat day. Was this done live in your studio? Or is it done online but recite how to be clear?

David Yas  1:00:50  
I helped launch the podcast and I've stayed on sort of as a consultant. So this particular episode, I didn't have hands on producing but it that's that's just Nick talking into his microphone. And I for the

Jon Gay  1:01:04  
for the for the interview. Do you know if it was done live or was done online? Do you know?

David Yas  1:01:07  
I'm almost sure it was done on Zoom? Okay.

Jon Gay  1:01:11  
The quality was very good. I could have, I would have I could if you had told me that they were all in the same room sitting around the table, I would have believed you. I thought the quality was very good. It sounded very good. I love the producer. We didn't get to there. We as a Boston sports fan. You've got the Patriots winning the Super Bowl and the steel by Bird and all that I thought that produced open was great. That's get your fingerprints as a blessing guy all over it. Which ironic

David Yas  1:01:32  
Yeah, ironically, I didn't do that. But he's referring to there's a bit of music, followed by famous sports calls a couple of them Boston themed. But Nick actually took great pains to get something that sounds a lot like a Nirvana song. But it actually isn't to avoid to avoid copyright problems. But then, and sorry, Nick, if you're listening, but you probably should have thought about copyright law when you had the sports broadcast, although maybe he gets away with that, because it's news that

Jon Gay  1:02:05  
the I think the others will echo this as we get on with it. But the content was great. The content was an interview with a Sports Illustrated collector who gets all these autographs from various athletes and celebrities and really gets into the nitty gritty of how he finds out where they're going to be at a hotel and get some to sign things would be what the what Nick alluded to in the intro about offering Michael Jordan 10 grand to sign the the Sports Illustrated that were that he was on the cover of that Nick didn't have or sorry that Scott, the guest didn't have. It was a great story. I thought Nick could have used a little bit more energy in that in the open the dry open that that Matt just played. This is goes back to a point we made about the other podcasts, the clip about him telling offering Jordan 10 grand cash on the golf course assigned a stack of Sports Illustrated's. It's a great teaser, give me the audio of him telling that story as opposed to Nick telling us about what happened. It's a good tease. But the audio I think would print more and have more of a pop to it. And then also, Nick did not introduce himself by name. He said I'm here with LZ. At no point did I know his name was Nick until LZ addressed him by name several, several minutes into the show. He you know, the content was great. The guests was great. The questions were great. The interview was fantastic. And you know that I learned something that there's this is a there's a thing, there are people who actually do this and get and get autographs. And you know, and I was left with the question of, well, if the if he gets all these people to sign things for free, do you know, and then he sometimes turns around and makes a profit off it? Is that? Is that a little odd? How does that play out? Like that was asking myself about this a little bit too. I would have liked to see maybe a question about that. But overall, I thought the show was very compelling and very interesting.

Catherine O'Brien  1:03:59  
You know, David, you said earlier you said you said own niche, but I don't know if that's the right word. I think that's the perfect word. Because these guys know, they're part of the niche. They're part of this niche community. They know it inside and out. There was a couple of times and they used a little bit of jargon, which I think maybe, but it worked because it's for this community, a community that I'm not a part of. And to me, that's always the true test is like I don't you know, I don't know all about sports. I you know, I know. I know, the magazine Sports Illustrated I had no clue this kind of fervor for I didn't know this was a thing, but but they do and it but it was still very interesting. And I you know, I listened to I followed through completely so that all really worked. I have to say the one thing that I would add to this show is kind of like what we mentioned for the nine oh, fiver. It sounds like that there's Facebook groups or there's other communities that they're a part of. I would have loved them that for that to be part of their call to action. I don't know if they have their own Facebook group. But it sounds like this is a pretty tight knit community, and maybe connecting with the audience members in that way might have been have been a little effective. And then my other comment is they they have their one stock question that they asked at the end, I would have loved to have like a fun lightning round this community has a lot of I'm guessing lore, I'm guessing. Common things that everybody knows about. I would love them to do like, boom, boom, boom, yes, no, true, false, overrated. Underrated, kind of fun thing. Towards the end, I think that would have been great. But this was a very interesting walk into a community I know nothing about.

Johnny Podcasts  1:05:40  
Yeah, Jack and Catherine, you guys echo My thoughts exactly the 10k that Jordan like, I would have loved to have heard that right off the top you talk about, we have three seconds to hook our audience, whether it's a short, whether it's a podcast, that is something that just gets you in there. And it sounds like this is gonna be that's gonna be a recurring theme. Like they, these people are people that collect cards and autographs and sports memorabilia. They're interesting people. So you're never going to be short on a hook, you will always have a three to five second thing to drop at the beginning of an episode. So I would just make that a part of the formula. And then the community thing is what Katherine hit on to like these people. They live off of collecting things, buying them from other people, and then selling them to other people. They're all like bringing them all together to share what they have, and potentially doing deals with each other and things like that. There's such an opportunity there. And for the podcast to be kind of the HQ that brings them all together as a huge opportunity to bring in more listeners, because there's great plans, tons of people that collect sports, memorabilia, and cards and things like that, that that may not know about this podcast. Yeah, I

David Yas  1:06:43  
don't know what you guys have found. But the great point about community and my advice usually is if because there are a lot of Facebook groups that are homes for these these niches Right? Or whatever they are these passions people have, a lot of them won't let you advertise a podcast on there, because they think you're being self promotional, or whatever. My advice is Tuesday. So start your own group, you know, yeah, they could start their own group. And don't don't call it sports card madness necessarily. I mean, I could, well, just because it's the point of it is to be a community for not just the podcast, that's all I'm saying is like it really should be about the topic. So maybe it is okay to call it sports, God madness, but create a community where people are just talking about and then you've got a natural way to promote the podcast. So

Matt Cundill  1:07:33  
you already outed me. For Nirvana come as you are the robot that is very, very clever. Yeah. And I liked it. I don't think it's a problem. But I did enjoy it. I felt there were three intros to the show. So there's the one off the top. And then there was the next intro, then the next intro, and I'm not sure who sponsors this show is

David Yas  1:07:57  
mentioned it up the top. That's a new sponsor. So that was news to me. Great for them for getting sponsor. Yeah.

Matt Cundill  1:08:01  
I mean, that's awesome, too. But then, I think, to the you know, the clip of the intro, the Michael Jordan in the Bahamas. Yeah, that that's probably the way to lead. I mean, there's three intros there. And it took a little time to get into it. The only other thing I would just point out, David is if you've got a few minutes, just toss this into Amazon and I heart, and especially I heart because they've got a lot of sports properties. And so maybe you can catch a little bit of extra search. So those two

David Yas  1:08:29  
apps, if you can. Thank you, Matt. That's a good, that's a good point. The

Matt Cundill  1:08:34  
rest of it. I mean, Reddit comes to mind, you can actually get your own group if you want for that for this for chain. Yeah. Great show, by the way, great length, but it was good length. And enjoyable, too. I spent a long time since I've thought about baseball cards or sports cards anyway. In a week, by the way, when Sports Illustrated let everyone go. Yeah,

David Yas  1:08:58  
that went under pace. Oh, the irony here. Yep.

Jon Gay  1:09:00  
I listened to it on a plane last night. I thought it was I thought it was a very enjoyable flight. podcast. Thank you. Excellent points. All right. Does anybody have any way? I know we've got long tonight. But does anybody have any final thoughts? A Jerry Springer final thought as we go around the table here are we should we just give our plugs and wrap up?

Johnny Podcasts  1:09:23  
You can find all of us on Twitter. So if you want us to do this with your show? Yes. And we will do it. So all five of us are on Twitter x. That's probably the best place. At least for me. Our feet went in our plugs, find other ways. But if you want this to happen to your show, I think we gave out some everyone gave some really great advice on five different podcasts

Jon Gay  1:09:45  
and that you'll link to each of these episodes in the show notes when you publish a podcast, I hope. Yeah,

Catherine O'Brien  1:09:49  
absolutely. And I will say one underlying theme that I just saw that one of the strongest critiques was about the double or triple intro so maybe that's something we can think about for the show. The future and getting to the good stuff fast actually,

Matt Cundill  1:10:02  
I often take our like all that stuff that banter we do at the beginning off and take it out on the audio side

Unknown Speaker  1:10:12  
I like our bits are

Jon Gay  1:10:17  
sending out to Yeah, starting to drag a little bit let's everybody give me a Jewish Give. Give your plugin your Twitter and we'll wrap it up

Catherine O'Brien  1:10:27  
why bother? We're gonna this is gonna get caught off anyway doesn't matter I'm Katherine I'm gonna leave and goodbye. what's

Jon Gay  1:10:32  
your what's your Twitter look at Katherine or your Hello,

Catherine O'Brien  1:10:34  
Catherine. No,

David Yas  1:10:35  
Dave. I'm an Irish do so I'll do the Irish goodbye pod 617 dot com Dave Sia,

Matt Cundill  1:10:44  
Matt@mattcundill 

Johnny Podcasts  1:10:45  
John, at Johnny podcasts. And I

Jon Gay  1:10:48  
am at jag in Detroit. Thank you all for listening. And thank you to our five clients who all were willing to put themselves on the proverbial chopping block for some constructive criticism on their podcasts today. And thank you for listening, watching or consuming in whichever method you did. We'll talk to you next time. Thanks

Sarah Burke (Voiceover)  1:11:04  
for listening to the podcast super friends for a transcript of the show, or to connect with the Superfriends go to the show notes of this episode, or go to sound off dot Network.