Welcome to the tech talks daily podcast, where you can learn and be inspired by real world examples of how technology is transforming businesses and reshaping industries in a language everyone can understand. Here is your host, Neil C. Hughes.
Welcome back to the tech talks daily podcast. Now we're approaching the end of 2021. And many people out there are starting to think about their goals for 2022. And podcasts may play a big part in that whoever you are. So today, we're going to be discussing three big questions in the world of podcasting. And hopefully, we can help you or your business on your journey next year. And those three questions are, how do I launch a podcast without the hassle of editing audio files? And thinking about submitting it to all those podcasting platforms? And to? How do I get guests onto my new podcast or five episodes? I've had guests of people I know, where can I go to get high quality guests onto my podcast. And then also, if you're a business leader thinking, I want to get on 20 podcast in 2022, and position myself as a thought leader. We're also going to talk about how to do that with Ryan STS, from a company called kit caster. So to begin with, as many of you know, I do help people and businesses launch their own podcast. And in a nutshell, they record a zoom or teams call, and I edit the audio files and add intro music etc. Take a few ohms and ours out and take care of submitting to Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Apple Music, and I think there's 30 Plus podcasting platforms there. So I take all that hassle away. And anyone that wants to launch her own podcast, maybe they're happy doing it on their own, you're going to need a podcast host. And I always work very closely with a company called Lipson, who are one of the oldest and most established podcast hosts out there. There are many alternatives, how many of them are going to be here in five to 10 years, that is a big debate. So that's one of the reasons I work with Lipson. And they've given me a promo code, which is T B. W stands for tech blog writer. So T V w, that will enable anyone to receive the rest of the current month and the entire next month for free. But just like the Gremlins movie, there are three simple rules to ensure that you secure the most value from that code. And essentially, the promo code only works for your first show. So if you already have a podcast on Libsyn, and the code won't work to get the maximum value at the code on the second of the month, because that will ensure that you get the entire of that month for free. And the following month too. So for example, if you applied it on the second of December, you get all of December free all of January free, you'd have to pay a thing till until February the first. And I think it's much safer doing it on the second of the month due to any potential confusion with timezone. So do it that way. One other bit of advice there, choose your data package wisely. If you need any help on that pop me a quick email. But if you change your account level, any time during your free trial, it will instantly kick the account into payment mode. So don't sign up for the $5 a month package, and then change it to $15 after a couple of weeks because, again, you miss out. So that's creating a podcast sorted with or without my help. But what if you want to be a guest on a podcast? How do you put yourself out there? What equipment do you need and reach that goal of appearing on? I don't know 10 or 20 podcast in 2022, which is great for SEO against your name, business. And alternatively, what if you've launched your podcast successfully, and you're looking for guests? These are just a few things we're going to be talking about today because I've invited Ryan esters from Kitt caster who's going to share his insights around how to leverage podcast interviews to generate leads, validate new products and create new opportunities. How Podcasts can be utilized in modern public relations efforts. create brand awareness through personal connections, and so much more. We've got a lot to get through as a man after my own heart a great guys too. So buckle up and hold on tight as I beam your ears all the way to Denver, Colorado, where Ryan is waiting to share his story and insights with us today. So a massive warm welcome to the show. Ryan, can you tell the listeners a little about who you are and what you do?
You bet. First off, Neil, I really appreciate you having me on the show. Love your podcast. So it's great to be here. Like you said, my name is Ryan. I live in Denver. I'm a father husband, martial arts guy, outdoorsman, probably if you looked up Coloradan in the dictionary, there'd be a picture of me standing next to my truck and a flannel shirt. So that's a little bit about me.
What I've got to ask though, is obviously you sound great. You obviously got a podcasting microphone a good One. So what's your origin story? Where did your passion for technology and? And how did the world of technology and podcasts collide for you? And what was it that that put you on this path you find yourself on today?
You bet. I think I've always been obsessed with technology. It's a little kid couldn't have imagined where it got today. But as far as podcasting, you know, I think my career in podcasting really came from from music, but maybe even before that, just like coffee shop culture, you know, I'm kind of a kid of the 90s. And what we did, we didn't have like skate parks and cool stuff that kids have now, what we did is just went to like village in and got coffee until God hour or god awful hours in the morning. And you know, we had little journals, we do our sketchbook and do paintings and write poetry and just talk about stuff. You know, so that's like, that was like my high school experience, you know, and I absolutely loved it. So I think that just got the bug started early of like, just conversation in general. And, and just kind of the camaraderie of, of good friends like, chopping it up.
Yeah, man. It's funny how things have evolved. Because, obviously, our ancestors and sacred have started having those conversations around campfires. And then then you go into journaling and sharing ideas there and create in your own tribe and groups online. And then we've almost got, I see podcast is almost like a virtual campfire. It's funny how things have evolved, isn't it? But it's exactly the same, sharing conversations with people that you'd normally wouldn't do, I suppose as well.
Yeah, maybe it's even got more intense because we have headphones on now. So, you know, maybe, if we're sitting around a campfire, you hear the crackling of the logs and stuff. But right now, I just hear your voice in the center of my brain. So you know, it's a little less distraction. And we can get a little bit closer to those conversations, which I think is awesome. For people
hearing about you guys for the first time, what is caster? And who are your customers? And what kind of problems? are you solving for them?
You bet. So kick caster is a podcast booking agency. All we do is book guests on other people's podcasts. We work largely with funded startup founders, entrepreneurs with exits, and C suite execs. So really, we work kind of within the the business tech categories.
And on this podcast, I'm passionate about hearing very human stories behind those big tech companies and the real problems that they're actually solving. And one of the things that I've always loved about what you guys are doing is your team seems to instantly get that and only pitch me guests who kind of fit my show and what I want to achieve. But I'm curious, is that something that's important to you, when working with your clients, whether they be podcast hosts, or somebody wanting to appear on a podcast?
Yeah, it's really important, you know, there's, there's kind of three criteria is that we're going to go look for a podcast and hope to match it with our clients who would be the guest for that podcast, you know, the audience size is great. But in podcasting, it's really hard to judge the size of the audience, or know where this the audience is. So, you know, we look at that as like a big audience's cherry on top. But if we can really match the outcomes of what our clients with kind of the content of that podcast, you know, like, is it a good match? That's the number one thing you know, so if, if you're selling purple elephants, and there's a purple elephant podcast, that's gonna be a good match. And then the other is just the quality of the show itself. You know? Is it produced? Well, is it and that's not necessarily always the best audio quality either, but is it like prepared with care, you know, is somebody actually putting their heart into this and doing this for the right reason are they just kind of churning and burning because there's a little bit of that out there too. So if we can get the relevance, right, for a client, that's a great step, if we can find a big audience, that's even better. And if the quality is good, we consider that a great placement for our, for our clients.
And you and I, we want rays in a different time, five fires 5000 miles apart, we've seen many, many chat shows where the guest comes on, plucks their new book, new movie or whatever. And it's just a big PR exercise, it can go a bit tiresome. And in podcasts, it seems to be much more authentic than that. So in your view, how can podcast be used utilized in a modern public relation effort without being too cringy, self promotional kind of approach? And how do you get that balance right when they can deliver the message but again, without being too making it all about them and their pink elephants or whatever they're trying to sell?
Yeah, I think it podcasting has a charming amateurism. Yeah. You know, like, yeah, like my idea of like an interview is probably 60 minutes or something like this television show where they sit down the lights and it's like, we're getting to the bottom of something here in podcast, kind of meander around the point sometimes, you know, which I think makes it more pleasing to listen to, you know, I don't want really intense interviews. I mean, I They just don't. So as far as like our clients, and we kind of do a little bit of coaching sometimes and say, you know that this kind of primary thing like, Hey, don't, don't beat your chest as much, don't worry about the product, let the product kind of infiltrate into the conversation. If you're going to speak about the product, speak about the benefits, not the features, you know, or even better, you do you speak about the features, be very self promoting, and watch how boring it gets really quick, you know, it kind of solves its own problems, you know, I, it's hard to, to train for it. But you know, I like to just say, like, hey, going to podcasts will twinkle in your eye, who knows where it's gonna go, you know, if you're just out there hammering the product, you're gonna put some gaps in your story, you know, and I think people really resonate with other people's story. Because of the campfire analogy you had more than what they're selling. If you resonate on a personal level with somebody, they're much more likely to go discover your product, I kind of come from the school of thought that says, you know, you can't really tell anybody anything, you know, they have to discover it for themselves, and then they kind of own a piece of it. So best case scenario, they can kind of fall in love with you, for lack of a better word, and then go figure out what you're working on, you know, and have a have that experience himself.
I completely agree with you, it is all about that story. I'm curious, do you have any examples of how your clients have been able to leverage podcasting views to maybe generate leads, validate new products and create those new opportunities? By simply sharing those stories?
Absolutely. You know, and this is what's probably most important to me, you know, is that people get something out of it. You know, and so in the beginning, we really spend a lot of time looking for those outcomes, you know, so what is it that you're looking to get? It could be fundraising, you know, finding venture backed, or venture capitalists and angels to help with their project oftentimes, is, is an outcome they're looking for could be recruiting, they're looking for new talent. Everybody's looking for prospects, of course, people are looking for networking opportunities, people are looking to volt, their personal brand, and thought leadership and things like that. So we spend a lot of time really prioritizing which of these outcomes they're looking for, so that we can kind of match the audience and then therefore match the podcast to it. And we've got examples of all of that, I'm happy to say, whether it's folks that are looking to sell books, which is notoriously difficult sell goods, which is notoriously difficult, you know, if you're going into a podcast expecting the listener to get off the treadmill, open the app, click the liner notes, go to your website and complete a purchase. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. But that's kind of a it's a rare kind of thing. More what they're trying to do, or what you're trying to do as a guest is have them get to know you a little bit. So so we're looking for these outcomes and some other examples. We've had people do seven figure raises, introduced to an investor that listen to them on a podcast, we've had people do senior engineer hiring from podcast interviews, where they listen to the person like that, maybe that's a cool company to work for. So generally speaking, we're pretty confident that we know maybe the half dozen outcomes our clients are looking for, and we've delivered on those. The thing that's maybe a little more squishy, that's also interesting to me, and kind of like a unquantifiable type of outcome that people might overlook, is just the clarity that podcasting gives you, you know, let's say you go on a dozen different podcasts and, and largely, the interviews will start out very similar to this one, you know, introduce yourself, what are you working on, and then that gives the host an opportunity to dig deeper? Well, you tell those two stories, who I am and what I'm working on 12 times, you get pretty good at talking about it, you know, and you also find kind of the things, the way you describe it resonate with the host and therefore the audience. So the clarity of really what you're doing comes to the forefront, and maybe some of the things that you're stumbling over, you know, you might be safe to assume that your clients are stumbling on some of those things too. So that that clarity, I feel like it's something that's hard to quantify, but also is definitely a great result of doing podcast interviews.
And on the other side of the fence as the host of those guests I often hear get the pitch emails coming through. And the guest will be very concerned about who I am, who my audience is, where they're located, how they can get their message across to my audience, but I think often that they forget that if they share the view, yes, it's good for my show that they they share among their connections, but also Podcasts can create brand awareness through their own personal connections. But I'm curious, is that something that you see too?
Absolutely. Again, we're talking about the the host audiences being just cherry on top. Yeah. But if we're calibrating for outcomes, we'll go ahead and assume that zero will come from top of funnel traffic from the podcast host. Like I said, if there was like a YouTube count for for podcasts, if we're looking for audience size, that would be great. But there isn't really the only way to get those numbers is to ask the podcast host. And personally, I find it kind of unsavory and a little bit rude, you know, approaching a podcast host with like, Wow, your podcast is awesome. But before I make a decision, how many 1000s of downloads? Do you have a month? It's like, you know, I don't know, it just, it just feels a little bit rude to me. So you know, from kind of that lens, then we say, okay, what can we do with this episode? Yes, you got to publish it in and publish to your socials, let people know on your, your email newsletter, maybe even throw a little link in your bio, on your emails, let people know you're doing it. But on top of that, like, you can repurpose the content into all kinds of different sales and marketing assets in your sales pipeline. So if there's a hot 92nd segment where you really nail the the the benefits of a certain product, maybe somebody who's got three touches in your sales pipeline, they're on that fourth email, they're on the fence, you give them that little snippet. And that's enough to get them to commit, you know, and jump off the fence. So we like to put keep the tools in our clients hands like, Hey, here's this, if you go on 12 podcasts that might be 120 hours of you speaking about your podcast, you know, how can you use this? You know, how can how can you find this newfound clarity to update your sales and marketing assets to reflect you know, the way you want it to be? So really, when we're looking about at return, that's how our clients get the best return is by actually repurposing the interviews and not relying on the top of funnel traffic.
No, I completely agree with you on that point, I must confess as the host of a podcast, if I get that pitch with someone that just cares about download figures, I probably won't get back to it, maybe you're not, you're not a good fit for the podcast. And something I always think as well is if if you've got 1000 listeners, a small podcast with 1000 listeners compared to a big podcast with 100,000. Listeners, if there was 1000 people queue and outside that guests venue, waiting to hear them speak, sat down, waiting to hang on every word, their voice going directly into the audience's head, they would jump at an opportunity like that. But when it goes online, it's like, oh, well, I mean, 1000? I don't think so. And I completely missed the point,
though. Yeah, you know, there's an argument there. I mean, not to your point, like, I like to say, you know, I would rather have 300 Spartans than a million indentured soldiers of the Persian army, you know, I'm saying, like, give me the people that are, that are utilizing podcasts as a resource, like they have problems, they're using podcasts to solve those problems, those people are going to convert, you know, and that's fantastic. Now, there is a point in time, where you're just looking for maths and numbers, you know, where it's like, I have a personal brand, I want to be on tip of somebody's tongue, every time they think about sales training, or something, you know, so then, really, all you want is big audience numbers, because it doesn't really matter how those are differentiated. And we have a product for that for folks that just want big audiences. And we can go out there and get it done for them. So little bit different because there's a little bit of an interview process on the client side, you know, because giant podcasts want the same thing that these clients want, you know, which is giant audiences. So there's kind of like apples with apples, you know, if you've got, you've got your million people on tick tock or Twitter or something like that, then you might be in a good position. You know, if if you've really this is your you're new to personal branding, then going to the very top is probably not wise for you. Only because, you know, that kind of rejection is is kind of hard for the stomach to handle over and over again.
So if we do have let's say a startup founder tech or business leader listening to this now they're probably thinking, again, if it resonates with me, but then got this whole heap of problems on their back then if Oh, my God, what microphone do I need? What tech do I need? How do I be a good guest? Where do I start? So what advice would you offer to those people listening?
You know, I put together a blog post on our site. It's like podcast tools for podcast interviews. And I just go as deep as you possibly can. On on hardware. Now this slippery slope, especially for people that Chase shiny things because you can get in podcasts and spend lots of money but it's not it's not necessary. You know, with a couple 100 bucks you know, a good microphone. Maybe add quality preamp. You're getting Go, you know, in some cases, just like, you know that $90 Snowball microphone is gonna do a great job, you know. So there's there's a lot of ground to cover as far as hardware goes, which is why I put together that that that that blog post but I don't think it should be a barrier of entry for anybody. I mean, if you have you know, the Apple headphones, you know the air pods not not great, but those Apple headphones that are wired and connected those sound great, throw those into your phone and do your recording over zoom and you can get some good tones out of that.
You really caught it I must confess, I think I have the Blue Snowball microphone for the first 50 episodes and it took me a good What 1500 episodes before a treat myself to you know, the setup and everything. Because you don't want to be the guy with no idea all the gear and no idea and then quits after 10 episodes and thinks this isn't for me. You know, it's finding balance and you got to grow with it and evolve with it, haven't you?
Yeah, well, it reminds me I'm a jujitsu player. So it reminds me of that white belt that goes in there and grinds his ears and gets these big, thick cauliflower ears, but has zero skills. You know, you're like, Wow, man, you better stick with it now.
Well, I love chatting with you today that one of the things I always ask my guests, we especially when we come full circle because we started the podcast today talking about your origin story, how the worlds of technology and podcast collided for you. Now it's time Phil, I'd have a bit of fun with you and ask you what's the soundtrack to that origin story? Is there a song or piece of music that has inspired you in your career just helps you get your head in the zone. If you've got a song and story for me, I'll add it to our Spotify playlists.
You bet the song that gets me really fired up is a song called electric powered by a tribe called red. That song you put that on? If that doesn't fire you up, man. Nothing well.
Oh, man, not every guest that comes on here and gives a song a great choice. That one I've not heard. So I'm quite excited to check that one out as soon as we're
in for a treat turned up to 1111. That's right.
And then a particular reason why that song.
You know, why was this song I you know, I think I first heard this song as an intro to like a snowboarding video. And I was like, What is this song? It was like, so epic. It was such a great edit. And then when I sought it out, I was like, Oh, this is this is what's up. And so I used it as like an intro for my podcast for a while. And so you know, I'd play it. And when I was doing this incarnation of the podcast, I would actually listen to the intro music with the guest. And so I'd get fired up from the song and like I'd bring that energy into the interview. So it just stuck. So if I need that extra juice, if I'm in a car or whatever, I need that extra juice I put on that, that uh, that song and it does it for me.
Well, obviously it's November now and people are starting to think about their goals for 2022. And I suspect there will be a lot of people listening thinking, maybe I do not need to start getting myself on podcast, so many positives around that it's also great for SEO is which is something we didn't talk about either. So anyone thinking about that one in a find out more information about those first steps to take find you online or even contact your team? What was the best way of doing that?
You bet. You find out more about kit caster, you can go to kit caster.com. There's a big button there it says Apply now, you can go to the application and our sales rep. So we'll get back to you. If you want to reach out to me individually, my my email address is Estus, which is my last name at kick castro.com. And I'm always happy to field any podcast related questions at all. I mean, if if you just filed me into your mental Rolodex as the podcast guy, if we don't do it, I can always make a recommendation for somebody does podcast wise.
So well, I know there'll be a lot of people wanting to appear on podcasts. Or maybe they've created their own podcast and need guests and can't get people on there. So whatever it is, I usually check you guys out. But thank you so much more than anything for taking the time to come on here. Share your story because like we said at the very beginning, that's what all this is about your origin story how those worlds collided. And we even got a great song. That's a great song. I'm not heard it yet, but I've got a great song to watch it down with. So thanks for joining me today, Ryan. Sure. Appreciate
it now.
So hopefully, if you want to launch a podcast, get guests for your podcast, or position yourself as a thought leader and appear on lots of podcasting 2022 I think we have covered all bases today. But if there's anything we've missed anything you would like us to explore in more detail. Let me know I'll happily get Ryan back on here and we can go a little bit deeper on some of those areas. Or if you just want to ask me a few questions or Ryan a few questions, whatever it is, email me directly tech blog writer@outlook.com. You can also get me on Twitter, Instagram LinkedIn, at Neal C. Hughes and my website if you'd like to work with me, is tech blog writer.com Got UK and I'll have all the links etc for Ryan and kick caster, so you should have everything you need to start 2022 with a bank. Hopefully you found today's podcast useful and like I said, keep those messages coming in. But a big thank you to Ryan for agreeing to come on here share his story. Even bigger thank you to each and every one of you for listening. Until next time don't be a stranger.
Thank you for listening to the tech talks daily podcast with Neal C. Hughes. Remember, technology works best when it brings people together.
