How to Make Your Podcast Stand Out

Adam Vazquez 0:06
Alright, everybody. We are back for a new episode of Content Is for Closers. New interview episode today. Carlton, you have heard it. It’s your job to describe the person in such a way that people won’t click out of this in the next 17 seconds. Go.

Carlton Riffel 0:21
Oh, I love it. So we have Johnny Podcast. That’s not his real name. That’s just his—

Adam Vazquez 0:27
His given name, right?

Carlton Riffel 0:29
Yeah, it’s his given name. He is a podcast producer. So he’s not your typical guest that is going on podcasts all the time. He’s the one engineering them, making it sound good. So he’s got a great mic, we’ll say that about him upfront, and his background is really just making it himself. He didn’t go to school for audio engineering. And I love this about a lot of different people that can basically pull themselves up by their bootstraps, start doing it for somebody, figure it out, do it in a way that’s excellent, and then just grow from there. He’s producing for some really big-name podcasts right now and just doing a great job with it and offers some really interesting insights for how to grow your own podcast and how to build them out.

Adam Vazquez 1:13
Yeah, so many of our audience are here because we talked about a lot of things about content about marketing, we talk about business, but podcast is what we were born from and what we focus on. And Johnny is a fellow podcast warrior. He’s doing this every single day, he’s staying on the current edge of what’s happening in terms of trends and technology, and all those sorts of things. So we talked about a bunch of those things. But his story of how he got started, how he really failed at another position in a more traditional career out. And that brought him to where he is today, which is much better than what the alternative would have been. Had he succeeded, I think is really encouraging and inspiring. And I think anyone who enjoys hearing entrepreneurial stories will enjoy this one as well.

Carlton Riffel 2:03
Yeah, I think as far as takeaways go, there are two things I would say. One is for younger people that maybe we’ve got some aspiring engineers or artists or content producers that listen to this, he did the old internship move, which is you just get an internship with somebody and learn on the job. And I love that there are people look for the traditional internship role that where it says, Hey, we’re looking for an internship, and then there are people that can just jump in there and say, Hey, I’ve got free time. But can I do this for you? Can I learn as we go, I’m not an expert. But I just want to intern or I want to join you as you work on this. And I think that’s phenomenal for getting people who have experience, who have knowledge but maybe are in broadcasting that they need help. So that’s one for people that just want to check out one.

Adam Vazquez 2:56
Also, if that’s you, shout out to your boys because we’re always looking for interns and talent. Our last intern is now “copywriter Tristen.” She used to be “intern Tristen.” She’s full-time Tristen. That could be you as well, so reach out. Good one. What’s your other take?

Carlton Riffel 3:13
Well, yeah, and then as I said, for many people that are in the podcast industry and a little bit more experience, he talks about this idea of a mini-series. And I know we’re all intimidated by the idea of people coming back week after week after week listening to our podcast, being dedicated, basically being committed to a certain amount of podcast so that’s intimidating. So one thing that you can do, even if you can’t commit to doing this on a weekly in a really frequent cadence, you can produce a quality mini-series maybe it’s four episodes maybe it’s six episodes maybe it’s eight episodes, like a typical TV series and make it awesome get the highest profile guests you can and tell them this is we’re only doing this for six episodes, I want you to be part of this special series on the topic they’re an expert in and get those people to come on and so that they’re they can speak to and give authority to the topic that you’re discussing. So I think that was a good insight that he has. Don’t want to steal his thunder. But without any further ado—unless you have something, Adam—we can jump to the episode.

Intro 4:24
Put that content down. Content. The close is over. What’s your name? Content. That’s my name. You know why, mister? Because you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight. I drove an $80,000 BMW. That’s my name. Content Is for Closers.

Adam Vazquez 4:47
Alright, we are back with another episode of Content Is for Closers and a special guest this week the hardest working Johnny in podcasts, Johnny Podcast. Thanks for joining us, dude.

Johnny Podcast 4:57
Happy to, dude. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Adam Vazquez 5:00
So we’ve already gotten off air to a good start talking hoops, talking Ben Simmons (unfortunately), talking about Twitter. I feel like this could go a number of different ways, but one of the… Well, first of all, let me— You’re a podcast host—

Johnny Podcast 5:17
Technically no. Technically, no. I’m a podcast producer. I don’t host my own show. My full-time job is doing audio and video production for other people who have podcasts. So this is one of the few times I actually get to be the focal point and be on the mic and talking.

Adam Vazquez 5:33
Cool. Well, in that role, you said you had a couple potentially basketball-related questions. Kick us off.

Johnny Podcast 5:40
Since you’re a Philly guy, I saw this on your Twitter and just I’ve been pocketing this question ever since we scheduled this podcast. Again. I need to know your take on Ben Simmons from the jump, I guess now get me from when he passed up that dunk at the end of the playoffs against the Hawks, which was kind of like the snowball that turned into the giant rolling boulder down the hill that became the last year for you guys.

Adam Vazquez 6:06
Yeah, I would say the boulder started rolling down the hill like four years prior to that, really. When they fired hankie, like the boulder we started to crush our souls and all of our collective minds. The moment that they fired Hanky Panky didn’t want to want didn’t want to draft Simmons. So my first take is he never should have been a sixer. Pinkie would never have made the full trade to give the Celtics sick Tatum for two to draft slots. And so he even if he did get forced to take Simmons like he got forced to take jello Oka for other people, then he would have built better around him but yeah, it’s just a nonstop nightmare of being a six or fan being a Philly fan. Simmons, whatever. It seems like he’s going through stuff. He’s dressing like a clown on the sidelines of playoff games.

Johnny Podcast 6:57
Dude, why would you dress like that with the amount of attention on you? The best thing I saw on Twitter was that he looked like a Skittle.

Adam Vazquez 7:08
Especially when he knew like you said there was attention on because he was that was the game that all year rich Paul’s like he’s gonna be here for game four is gonna be more can’t even show up and then dresses like that. But yeah, it’s a broader, it’s a bit I mean, look at heart and we get harden. And he seemingly sometimes forgets to shoot. So it’s something with us. It’s happened to many times now where I can’t blame it fully on Simmons. And look, yes, he should have dunk the ball in Atlanta, and we probably would have won that game and moved on. But we got to the same place. We actually got one game less once we got rid of him. So it’s on his shoulders.

Johnny Podcast 7:43
Yeah, it can’t all be on his fault. It’s just, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was out of the league in two years, just because he’s just these guys are just such head cases and you can handle it with some players like a Kyrie Irving you can kind of handle this off the court antics. But with someone like Ben, it’s like, Have you earned it to act like a complete diva?

Adam Vazquez 8:03
Yeah, you’re too weird of a player anyway to layer that off-the-court thing on top of it.

Johnny Podcast 8:09
And why don’t you want to shoot? I don’t under the whole like, you look at seventh graders now they’re pulling up from half-court because all they want to do is be Steph Curry. How do you not even want to shoot jumpers, but it’s different. He’s built different in a bad way he’s built there for his back is built completely different.

Adam Vazquez 8:25
Yeah, but thank God we don’t have to talk about the Sixers on this anymore. I was looking through your background through your Twitter and some of the shows that you produce, obviously, we produce shows as well. And one of the things that caught my attention was just the variety of shows that you produce, you have a bunch of different shows with a bunch of different kinds of hosts. And so it just led me to think like, how does he connect with all these people? How did you cultivate that? And I was just curious, how did what was your first job? Like how did you get in, in started in—

Johnny Podcast 8:56
In podcasting?

Adam Vazquez 8:58
No, no. Just in general because I’m sure that relate somehow to your business now. But yeah, I’m just curious how you got started.

Johnny Podcast 9:05
Yeah, so this wasn’t my first job. I’ve worked ever since I was like 15. I don’t know what it was. I just liked having extra pocket money, so I’ve worked at typical places. I worked at Jamba Juice. I’ve worked at Chipotle, so I can fold a nasty burrito. If you ever need a burrito folded, I’m your guy. When I was a junior in college, I went to Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas and my junior year everyone’s getting internships and I’m working at the Rec Center sitting at a desk checking people in for $8 An hour and I have just anxiety through the roof 24/7 Because I’ve sent out like 30 applications for internships to just random different places. majoring in marketing, no real direction on what I wanted to do. And I finally get one internship at this tech company. And I was like, “Oh, I’ve made it. I’ve got an internship. I’m gonna have a job. My life’s gonna turn out okay. I’m not going to end up living in a box on the side of the road,” which is over exaggerating, but that’s where my mind was at. And I showed up to this internship and it’s your typical nine to five just complete bullshit like, oh my god, like they had me working on spreadsheets and they were really nice guys, no bad will against the company, just wasn’t a good fit. I was falling asleep during meetings as an intern like normally as an intern, you’re like, you’re supposed to be the high-energy guy doing whatever it is you want, like just to get a job. And it was no surprise that they didn’t ask me to return as a full-time employee just because I did nothing. They didn’t ask me to do anything. And I had no drive to do anything. And so that really showed me like, Okay, I have no direction. I don’t know what I want to do. And before I got to TCU, I was a college basketball player. So I played college hoops for a couple years in California. And so I said, Okay, I had always loved podcasting. I don’t know what the medium was about it. But just listening to someone I love comedy podcasts for the first show I fell in love was a congratulations by Crystal Lea. I started listening to him in 2017. Okay, and halfway through this internship, I was just gonna be like I said, Screw it, I’m just gonna start a podcast, maybe I can start making money off it. So I start this, this basketball podcast, the classic blue Yeti USB microphone in my closet, it just recording with that. Awesome and just kind of taught myself how to do it. And my senior year rolls around, I have no direction once again, and I’m sitting in one of my marketing classes, and I happen to brag about having a podcast as all people with a podcast do. They’ve mentioned, it’s like, it’s the same as being a vegan. If you’re a vegan, you tell it or CrossFit, you tell everybody about it within five seconds of meeting him. So I tell I bring it up in class. And my professor goes, Hey, Johnny wants you to stick around after class. And she goes, there’s an alumni who’s looking to start a podcast, can you help them and I’ve been doing mine for like three months, I barely know what I’m doing. I’m teaching myself editing production, I think all my podcasts are peaking like crazy. I think I’m plus six decibels on all of my podcasts. Just haven’t figured out all this crap yet. But I go, absolutely, I can help him. And so I Googled this guy’s actually Chris Powers, who’s the on one of my Twitter profile, or one of the names on my profile that I produce for. And I put together this whole one-sheet forum, I did all this research on him. He’s this real estate guru in Fort Worth. And I’m like, Okay, here are 15 names that we could call the podcast, here’s 20 different topics that we could do the podcast about, here’s a list of every single real estate executive in Fort Worth that you could interview, here’s all the equipment you’re going to need. Here’s how we’ll get started. Put it all on this one sheet, put on my suit and tie show up to him. He just takes one look at the one sheet and just goes throws to the side and goes you’re hired. And he’s like, I’ve never been blown away more by someone being so prepared for it. And I went, Wait, this is such a different aspect between how I approach the internship versus how I approach this first meeting. And so me and him just figured it out. From there, we figured out all of the equipment that we needed, we set up in his office to start recording. And so I kind of did a faux internship for him for the entirety of my senior year. And graduations rolling around and he goes, “What do you want to do?” He’s like, “I think you can make a legitimate business out of this. You don’t have to produce just for me, you could there’s a ton of people that I know that you could do this for.” And so he and I partnered together, he funded me for one year he gave me wrote me a really small check just to keep my lights on for the year so I could get basic clients going. And that was in 2018. Four and a half years later, I produce podcasts full-time, I’ve moved, grown my skill set from just audio now to video, and produce for people all across the country. Universities, business owners, entrepreneurs, executives, people like that. And a lot of it has been through Chris, a lot of these people come on his podcast, they get introduced to me I follow them on Twitter, they follow me back I get shouted out online people DM me and that’s really it’s all a word of mouth kind of referral business for me.

Adam Vazquez 13:44
So it wasn’t that you lacked drive or that you didn’t have some it factor at the agency you were at (or whatever it was, the tech startup), it just hadn’t clicked yet. Why do you think it clicked so clearly when you had the opportunity to not even work for Chris but just pitch him?

Johnny Podcast 14:06
I’m a big believer in that everyone— and this is somewhat controversial because a lot of people do jobs that they hate. And so this kind of rubs those people the wrong way. I’m a firm believer that at some point in everybody’s lives, you will find exactly what it is that you’re meant to do. And it happens to people at different stages of their life. And it may take you two or three career changes to figure out what that is. And maybe it’s a passion that you decide not to pursue your career around a great alternative I’ve heard too, that is you can use your nine to five to fund your passions that you do outside of the office, which I think is a fantastic approach as well and probably the right way for most people. But for me, it clicked when I was 22 and it’s podcasting and I just knew this is what I love to do. I don’t love real estate. I don’t love tech, but those are the shows that I produce for but I love the medium of podcasting and I love that something that I would normally spend eight hours listening to podcasts every single day. Now I get to work in them and figure out how they work and learn audio engineering. And that takes a kind of passion to teach yourself how to do I didn’t go to Full Sail University and get an audio production degree. This is completely self-taught.

Adam Vazquez 15:14
Yeah. So okay, let’s talk about that for a little because I don’t get to really do inside baseball with other podcast producers.

Johnny Podcast 15:21
No, let’s do it.

Adam Vazquez 15:22
When it comes to the medium, what is it that excites you so much? Or why are you so bullish on it for? Because betting your career on it (which I have as well) is a big step. So what is it about the medium that’s so attractive to you?

Johnny Podcast 15:41
I think it’s just a feeling, honestly. People love to hear themselves talk and I think I equate it a lot to like television or television news. If you look at the news. And this is not meant to be political, but you only get like a five-second blurb into what somebody really thinks with podcasting, your time is your own. I can spend three and a half hours discussing the minutiae of how this microphone works and the best microphone techniques. Why you need to have it here and not here because the audio is just going to be better. You don’t get that in any other medium. And so the way that it’s dissimilar to YouTube. YouTube is very visual and it’s its own medium in its own right. But podcasting, I can put it in my pocket, and I can listen to two comedians make me crack up like crazy for two hours while I’m getting groceries, driving to Austin, going to the gym working out. It’s just in my pocket. And there’s just such a wide variety of content out there. And it just has opened up so much career opportunity for so many people to make their living off of doing podcasting.

Adam Vazquez 16:43
Yeah. Based on the interests I’m gathering so far, if you haven’t heard the podcast have The Rights to Ricky Sanchez—

Johnny Podcast 16:50
I have not. I’m going to write it down.

Adam Vazquez 16:51
Okay. They call themselves “the only Sixers podcast.” It’s a comedy writer named Mike Levin he’s written for. Yeah, he’s written a bunch of stuff. And spike Gaskin, who’s a, he’s part of the historic sports families in Philly. And you don’t have to like the Sixers at all. It’s just if you like basketball, and you like comedy, it that’s what that show is. You would probably appreciate it.

Johnny Podcast 17:20
And that’s how podcasting grows: word of mouth. People always ask me, how do I grow my podcast? What’s the best marketing strategy? What agencies should I partner with to grow my podcast? That stuff works, but the best way that you can get your podcast to grow is to have the content that makes an impact on someone like you, Adam, that inspires you to tell me, you need to go listen to this. And there are a lot of factors that go into the right Syracuse Sanchez podcast where it has to be really good. And it has to be at a certain level for you to put your reputation online and be like, I’m gonna actually recommend this to somebody else.

Adam Vazquez 17:51
Yeah. 100%. So digging a little bit more into the medium of it. Obviously, there’s like an intimacy that comes with podcasting that you really can’t— I mean, look: I’ve known you for 13 minutes and we’re having this conversation. Almost no other medium would allow that. Maybe I could just say, “Hey, you want to jump on a call?” But that’s kind of weird and this feels like natural, just based on the medium that we’re using. What do you see as it evolves, as it gets better? What are you seeing that you’re like, “Yeah, I can see that as an improvement to podcasting.” I’ll give you an example. It feels like right now. A lot of podcasts, especially people who are just starting start with, like, their equivalent of a radio show. It’s just like, Yeah, let’s talk about the news in our industry, just like NPR would or just like, whoever would on the radio. But I think that’s going to change and continue to change. There’s personality-based podcasts, there’s interview-based podcasts, like all that stuff. But what are you seeing that you’re like, I think that’s where the medium is headed as we continue down the road here.

Johnny Podcast 19:03
Do you know the statistic behind the amount of podcasts that are in the average person’s rotation weekly rotation?

Adam Vazquez 19:11
No, I don’t.

Johnny Podcast 19:11
It’s eight shows.

Adam Vazquez 19:13
That’s actually higher than I would have thought.

Johnny Podcast 19:15
It’s higher than you would have thought, but still it’s less than 10. And if you think about there are like 2 million podcasts that are currently out there now. So if you and I were to start a podcast right now, we have to approach it with the idea of okay, how do we crack our audience, our target audience members, top eight, can we get in there on a recurring weekly basis? That is very difficult, and probably the answer is no. So where do we go from here? We still want to have a podcast. What I’m really interested in right now and this is something that I’ve recently been thinking about is taking after the Netflix binge model and doing short limited series, just a quick six-episode run. Because what I want to do is I will Want to drive the audience member to something else I know, I’m probably not going to monetize this podcast. But I know that I can make money through it indirectly, if that’s your goal. I’ll take Chris, I’m just gonna use Chris as an example. So Chris uses his podcast to drive people to invest in his company’s Real Estate Fund. So that’s how the company is, that’s how the podcasts indirectly makes money for him. If you and I wanted to do that, what we would do is, instead of trying to crack somebody’s top eight, you and I could do a six-episode extreme deep dive and on how to do the perfect real estate deal, it’s going to be six episodes, it’s going to be extremely highly produced. And we’re going to be very selective with the guests that we bring on who are the absolute top 1% in their field, people can listen through to it once without having to worry about I need to have this on every single week and get this into my rotation. They can take it, learn my name, take the information away from it, something that’s really actionable and walk away. And that still made a huge imprint on them. And it doesn’t have to just be one season, we can do one every six months, we could do one every quarter. But we’re doing something that is in a really short timeframe, really short number of episodes. So that is kind of the hack around of getting into somebody’s top rotation and getting people to actually listen to your content.

Adam Vazquez 21:12
Yeah, that’s a great idea. We’ve seen that a little bit, but it hasn’t taken off yet as a full trend, I would say, and also all of those things are probably evergreen.

Johnny Podcast 21:22
Oh, absolutely. That’s the other thing you have to implement into it, too. It needs to be evergreen. If it’s like you said, if it’s like a radio show or a news program, if you don’t catch somebody on that 24-hour period, the new cycle moves so quickly. And industry has changed so fast. Your episode is already outdated after like a month.

Adam Vazquez 21:38
Yeah. So let’s just break that down a little bit. Let’s say that you were going to do that for Chris or for someone else. I think one of the challenges is finding a storyline that makes sense and that really valid because the tendency and the temptation is for the customer for the host, I should say, to make themselves the center of attention. Like, that’s the big thing you see in podcasts, like you said, every host of a podcast wants to be the guy or the girl. And then they tell everyone that they have a podcast like it’s my podcast, but the successful ones connect directly to some bit of customer value. Yeah, and are able to so if you’re doing a mini-series, then it like is all the more you have very few reps and it’s in this concentrated fashion to be able to show that value. We use something we use, like the hero’s journey model to try to develop a story is there anything that you have that is helpful for that creative process?

Johnny Podcast 22:42
I don’t have like a necessarily the hero’s journey archetype structure that you would need. But if it were me and I were advising a client on this, I would assume that the host is going to be doing a podcast on a field in which they’re a professional. And so it’s going to be within their profession. Now, we need to knit your professor will take the world of real estate just because we’re on that topic. If you’re going to take the entire world of real estate, and you are an expert in just residential real estate, so you focus on exclusively helping people buy homes. And now we need to niche down even further, if you’re going to do a mini-series, it has to be so concentrated on one small aspect that’s also super important to the person so well, let’s pick choosing your realtor. So now we’ve gone from the entire arena of real estate all the way down to residential real estate all the way down to how do you find the perfect real estate agent for your home buying journey? And you do just six episodes about that. So I would recommend you niche down as absolutely as much as possible because there’s such a wide audience for just even that small niche of content.

Adam Vazquez 23:43
Yeah. Then would you brand that? Like, “six ways…?” Or would it be a broader concept that can have multiple seasons within it? Does that make sense?

Johnny Podcast 23:55
I think the first season would just be picking your realtor and then it would all be just kind of subsets of the home buying process within residential real estate. And so the next season would probably be like choosing the market that you want to live in something like that. Or determinate, like how homes are valued. How do you determine whether the home you’re looking at is properly priced? Something like that.

Adam Vazquez 24:20
Yeah, I really liked that idea from a content production standpoint. I really like it from a promotion standpoint because podcasts are so difficult to find they’re so difficult to share. And just like Netflix, six months before their new original series comes out, you start seeing clips, you start seeing promotions, it doesn’t have to be that much of a lead time for a podcast.

Johnny Podcast 24:44
I’d say a month for a podcast is kind of when you want to start marketing it and putting it out there.

Adam Vazquez 24:49
Yeah, and it gives you all of that lead time to be able to start the conversation in different places and hopefully drive people to your eventual execution. Have you done much of the mini-series thing yet?

Johnny Podcast 25:01
No, this is just kind of something in the last couple months that’s been playing around in my head. I’m toying with doing one myself just so I can, so I can really figure out what goes into a great mini-series. All of the podcasts that I focus on are recurring episodes.

Adam Vazquez 25:16
Gotcha. Yeah. If you do, let us know. I’d love to love to listen. I’d love to hear more.

Johnny Podcast 25:22
You want to talk about it now?

Adam Vazquez 25:24
Oh, you have an idea?

Johnny Podcast 25:25
I have an idea now, I just haven’t put pen to paper completely. The idea is a six-episode run. And this is all trademarked folks, so you can’t steal this.

Adam Vazquez 25:35
Don’t steal it. It’s verbally trademarked.

Johnny Podcast 25:38
It’s verbally trademarked. What’s that? That’s a verbal agreement. So the idea is called Why We pod and so the idea would be I would interview basically, probably my three top clients along with three other people that I don’t know, just because you have that personal relationship. It’s easier to talk to people you know, and then I can branch out to people that I don’t know. But basically, it’s a deep most interview. Podcasts are like so where are you from? How’d you grow up? Things like that? Why are you in the career that you’re in? I really want to focus on why this person has a podcast and how it’s and how it’s improving their business their life, helping them scratch that creative. So really be a deep dive into the pitfalls I ran into along the way tech, the technology that they’re using, what microphone? Are you using? What is your setup look like? How do you record with guests online? And if I’m the producer, then I would probably touch more on that if I’m producing their show, but basically deep diving into why they have a podcast so people can see across a variety of industries like I do one with a guy who runs a meatpacking company. Basically, they make bacon. And they have a podcast for their company. Why the hell do you have a podcast? Something like that. So that’s just kind of the idea that I’m toying with right now.

Adam Vazquez 26:49
I love that. I already have visions of the trailer of hearing music and then hearing the voice talking about meatpacking and immediately it’s like, what is this? And then you talk about the fact they have a podcast. Yeah, I really liked that idea. It reminds me I love specifically what I like about it is the personal experience of it. And you said, How does this scratch your creative itch? And I think that that is such an underrated part of podcasting, like Eric Jacobson has been on our show before. He’s coming on again soon. He runs Lemonpie, which is another production company, and they have a show called Brand That Podcast and it’s really good. People should check it out.

Johnny Podcast 27:32
Eric, I’m gonna steal all the good ideas you’ve done from that podcast and put it on mine.

Adam Vazquez 27:36
Well, I think the big difference right off the bat is the individual. Like, you can talk about why Salesforce has a podcast, but to talk about why whoever—Johnny Peterson—has a podcast and how that allows him to make personal connections and like, act like our show writer, creative, it’s like that is so much of it and is so important to the creative process of podcasting. So I think that’s a great idea.

Johnny Podcast 28:06
It’s another thing. It’s another thing to have the under-the-creative itch thing. And when people approached me that want to start a podcast there, and I’m sure you’ve dealt with this, too, people will approach you about wanting to start a podcast because they think it will make them money. A core critical aspect of someone having longevity in their podcast is they have to actually enjoy it. They have to be like, Yeah, I listen to podcast, I like podcasting. Not just hey, podcasting is hot right now. NFT’s are hot right now. Crypto coins are hot right now. I want to get into it. There has to be the passion behind it for it to succeed. And I think a lot of people don’t really take that into consideration.

Adam Vazquez 28:43
Yeah, totally agree. We’ve been doing this show version of this show for like four years now. It’s had different names. But like, there’s no way we would be still doing this and having these conversations, were it not for just the love of talking to other people who are creating. We’ve made money for sure. But it’s not like we make money on an episode basis because we have so many sponsors signing up. Yeah. So there’s definitely that component to it.

Well, Johnny, this has been great. I the only other thing I was gonna ask you about was trends. Any or specific projects that you have coming up that you’re specifically excited about? We kind of talked a little bit about trends, but anything?

Johnny Podcast 29:20
I don’t have any like— Like I said, I have that podcast in the back of my mind. It’s funny, I want to create more content, but I get so I’m sure you’ve gotten this too. You just get so wrapped up in creating content for other people that it’s hard to find the time to do it yourself. I do have kind of a bold trend prediction for podcasting long term. In our previous chat, we were like, it was like, what do you predict in the next 12 months? I don’t know if this will happen next 12 months, but I think long term, I think that every single company, every single university, every single entity, LLC, whatever it is, is going to have a podcast and it will be the same that it will be as table stakes as having a website for your company. He is having a podcast. And I’m kind of seeing I work with some companies that are implementing podcasting into their work processes. And I think if you want to reach your target customer, and you want to create an intimate relationship with the people that you want their money, whether it’s for your product or your service, or whatever it is, you need to have a podcast, and it doesn’t have to be your CEO, it doesn’t have to be your VP of sales. But it’s got to be somebody from the company that is doing a company-focused podcast, talking about what you’re doing, and showing that you care about improving whatever industry that you’re in, or at least showing your passion for that industry. And so that’s kind of what I think is gonna happen in the future.

Adam Vazquez 30:45
Okay, so let me— I agree with you, obviously. I’m doing the same thing. When I say statements like this, this is some of the pushback that I get: if that is true (which I believe it is, but putting that aside), then how will companies be able to create a show create a podcast that isn’t white noise? Because if everyone has a podcast, nobody has a podcast, like kind of that idea. And I think that sort of happened with blogs, and we’re so far from having the critical mass of blogs, but yeah, just in your mind, what are the what are some things that you do? Or how do you see that happening to where it’s effective, despite the fact that the volume is gonna go up, and it has gone up, and it will continue to go up?

Johnny Podcast 31:31
Yeah, I think a lot of these companies that already have kind of the name brand recognition, definitely have a head start. But I think this doesn’t apply necessarily only to companies. But I think you need to be bigger online somewhere else in order to have a successful podcast. So when I talked to people about they want to grow their audience base, I say, You got to get big on Twitter, you got to get big on LinkedIn, you got to be big on Instagram, you already have to have iBill eyeballs somewhere in order to drive them to your podcast. So if you’re starting your company out, you need to have some kind of viral moment viral product viral service that people know about, and then use that to drive them to your podcasts. Because if you’re kind of just Joe Schmo everyday advertising tech company, no one cares that you have a podcast.

Adam Vazquez 32:16
Yeah. I would layer on top of that, too. I agree with that. 100%, I think to your mini-series idea earlier, like, it’s when you layer on lenses of specificity, that you become a unique voice, and you have a story that you can tell that nobody else can tell like, and that can look a different bunch of different ways. We have a medical construction materials company that does a podcast like that, what else? Are they talking about that? Yeah, that’s super niche. But even if you’re not that niche, even if you’re something a landscaping company in a specific area, well, there might be a million landscaping, podcasts, 100, landscaping, just whatever. But there are probably not 100 Landscaping podcasts that are focused on specifically lawn maintenance, that are also in the same geo-location as you— You know what I mean? Like, the more layers you keep adding—

Johnny Podcast 33:11
Yeah, absolutely. To not become the white noise, you can’t be the white noise. The white noise of podcasting is, “I’m just gonna be broad, general industry, just interviewing people” and there’s no real flavor behind it that makes us anything different. If you want to succeed and not being white noise, you need to niche niche niche get drilled down into the absolute deepest, darkest corners of your industry, maybe some of the ones that people don’t talk about. And I think that if you want to set yourself apart, these companies are going to have to kind of set aside the, hey, we might get some backlash on this on Twitter, but screw those people. They’re not the ones spending money on our products we need to get at we need to move away from the whole politically correct world. We need to talk the way that normal people talk. And yeah, I think that’s that combined with being super niche and really showing your passion and knowledge for your industry. And again, deep dark corners of your industry. That’s how you set yourself apart.

Adam Vazquez 34:05
“Deep dark corners” might have to be the title of this episode. I love it. Great takeaway. Well, Johnny has been awesome getting to know you and connect with you. If people want to follow what you’re doing, maybe see some future miniseries, everything else that you’re working on, where can they keep track of you?

Johnny Podcast 34:24
I’m super easy. Just follow me on Twitter @johnnypodcasts.

Adam Vazquez 34:28
Great name. I love it. How did you come up with that name?

Johnny Podcast 34:30
My last name is Peterson and my old handle was Johnny 3-terson, which was like a basketball thing because I was the white kid they stuck in the corner to shoot threes. And so 3-terson, Peterson. There’s Johnny this, Johnny that. “Johnny whatever” is kind of a used trope and I don’t think anyone had taken Johnny Podcasts, so luckily the Twitter handle is available.

Adam Vazquez 34:52
Awesome. Well, we’ll link that, of course, below and I appreciate you coming on. I will have to catch up again with you soon.

Johnny Podcast 34:58
Appreciate it, Adam.

Carlton Riffel 34:59
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