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​Russ Johns
Nothing like getting the morning started with a pirate broadcast. Hey, it's Russ and I'm here with Harry Duran from none other than fullcast.co And we're talking about podcasting today a little bit of this and a little bit of that. So, Harry, good morning. How are you, are you freezing?

Harry Duran
Yeah, little bit, Russ. Good morning. How are you?

Russ Johns
I'm doing well. Thank you for being here. And thank you for joining the pirate broadcast. I know we met earlier. We're actually doing Another program, and it's nice to finally actually connect on the #piratebroadcast and get going and, I've enjoyed podcasts for years and I kind of wanted to hear your backstory and how you actually got into podcasting. how you got started and how you been developing this fullcast.co and you're helping other podcasters get launched, because I know you've done a lot of work in the background and strategy and everything that goes along with that. So if you could share a little bit with us, that'd be awesome.

Harry Duran
Yeah, the backstory is I was in corporate America for 2015 to 20 years at last count this point with the related story is that I've always had a love of music, electronic music specifically like house music I grew up DJing with I've had my first set of turntables that Techniques 1200s. All right. And I learned vinyl. So like how to beat match and all that stuff. So that was a lot of fun. That's very

Russ Johns
cool. That's very cool. I used to do dub music over in Houston with APC 40.

Harry Duran
Very good. So then what would happened is, I would go to music festivals and see the DJ.'s And I thought it would be interesting to creat an app sort of like a Pandora for electronic music. And for people to understand it for me specifically to see you know, which DJ are playing. And so it would just be an app for DJ. So with a friend of mine, we put it together. It's called know your DJ. It's no longer available. And it was just a cool way to kind of like have all the information about the DJ is in one place. So fast forward around late 2013. I figured I want to promote it. So I wanted to start a podcast. And I was a fan of a show called Resident Advisor. So long form interviews with DJs, which fascinated me. So I went to New Media Expo in Las Vegas in January 2014. And, and then when I went there, I saw the Pat Flynn speaking Ian Porterfield was speaking Cliff Ravenscraft was speaking. So it was this interesting. And another side note, which all these It's funny how all your interests dovetail. I studied acting a little bit when I lived in New York City. And I was always a fan of that show, Inside the Actors Studio.

Russ Johns
Oh, I love that.

Harry Duran
So I thought of that. And I said, What about something like that, but for podcasters. I was listening to Cliff speak. And he mentioned or someone mentioned, Chris, who introduced himself This idea of podcast junkies. And I was like, No, that's me and came back home, registered the domain and started inviting a couple of people that I met and the idea was born. It's been met on a podcast where I interview other podcasters

Russ Johns
that's brilliant. I love that. I love that. Well, this is this kind of like what I'm doing here is I'm just, I'm interviewing interesting people doing interesting things, because I find it interesting. It might be interesting to someone else you never know like, right?

Harry Duran
And so once I came back, I started doing that I was still working my full time job. And I was just having these face to face conversations. I was doing Skype with Call Recorder now we use a tool called squad cast.fm. To record and because I was always a fan, and I'm sure you can relate to this, of having a face to face connection with your guest is really important. Yeah. And so when I Then I, basically about a year in, I hired a business coach because the entrepreneurial bug was like, really like kicking in. And that's another story if we have time for that, but I started basically looking and seeing what I could do in starting my own business. So I got up as coach. It was a high end like business mastermind. And it was like, my mind was kind of blown because I started meeting all these people that are running like six and seven figure businesses all online. I did not know this stuff even existed Russ was a business Narnia who is this, how is this possible? And then, you know, something that I started seeing, like, you know, inspirational speakers and I saw my I always discuss name first name now, the guy who inspired Tony Robbins. But he says, You are the average of the five people you spend time with. Jim Rohn. Yeah, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And this goes for everything like in business and stuff like that. So I really needed to up my game. So about a year into the podcast, I started full cast. And I realized there was a need for a premium done for you service for specifically the type of people that I was meeting in this mastermind. Like people who understand opportunity cost. They understand what an hour of their time is worth. They value their time. And when they need help, and they want to grow their business. The first thing they do is they look for the who not they don't go do it themselves. They figure out who could do this for me. So that's so Fullcast was born. And now I've been doing that for five years now the podcast six years, and we've been serving brands and businesses, helping them with everything from the startup other show. To production and the ongoing marketing of this show as well.

Russ Johns
Well, I really love the direction to in where podcasting is developed and, you know, Spotify purchase gimlet, and they just bought another, platform. And so, you know, I'm sure they'll be knocking on your door anytime soon now.

Russ Johns
They bought the ringer.

Russ Johns
Yeah, they bought ringer. Yeah. And and, you know, the newest ESPN style thing. And Bleacher Report, I know is out there too. And, you know, it's, it's all of these things are coming into focus. Because, you know, years ago, I actually taught workshops and podcast movement. I think it was probably about 2014 as well. And I've taught podcasting here and there and one of the things that I've noticed over the years is that it's getting easier to actually start a podcast and it's not getting any easier to grow and develop a podcast and I think that's really the the highlight that I want to shine for you is, is this idea that, you know, because I preach this all the time, it's like just pick up your phone and start a podcast, you know, fire up an anchor account and you know, you got a podcast, right? And the reality is though, is a lot of people have a misconception about what it takes to podcast and what it takes to grow a podcast. And consistency is key. So I kind of want to go through and I downloaded your PDF for anyone here he's an amazing resource that if you're not connected with and get connected with on LinkedIn, and and go visit, you know, Harry over at pod, the full cast website and you know, get to know Harry because he's a he's an amazing individual that you should know. And I want to make sure Harry that people understand a little slice of how Challenging it can be to grow a podcast. Because I mean, and here, I want to give you a round of applause, your number 100. On the pirate broadcast episodes, this is 100, Episode 100. That's cool. I haven't been naming, you know, numbering the pod the episodes and the channels. But I mean, we're streaming right now to Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Periscope, right now. And then by the end of the day, we'll have I'll have a podcast and the transcript and a post up on my website. So exposure is part of the equation. Yeah, strategy is another part. And I want to I want to dive into a little bit what what you've discovered along your journey and in terms of the strategy of podcasting.

Harry Duran
That's that's a good point. And thanks for highlighting That because it's, it is it's one of those things, it's it's easy to learn and like they say with a lot of things, but a lifetime to master and the basics that you need, you definitely want to start with quality. And the microphone that I'm using now is a Samsung Q2U. It's $60 on Amazon. It's a dynamic mic. You can see that it's has USB and the XLR and the high gear. Russ is it's sort of like the next step up from the ATR 2100. And I got started. That's that was my first podcasting mic as well. And what's interesting is that what I'm noticing is a lot of people in the business of podcasting lose an opportunity to engage with people who like their product. And so just, I just wanna talk about the mic specifically, when we started going to the conferences, audio tech technical is nowhere to be found, like will everyone was using and talking about their mic. It was a really a missed opportunity, which is interesting. In turn Samsung, if you go to the to the conferences, I've met the people at Samsung. I've spoken at a Samsung event at b&h photo in New York City. working on with them on content for their site. I know IRA and Sean who work at Samsung. So in the podcasting community, and I'm sure you've experienced some of this, you have an affinity for a product when you can develop relationships with the people who who run it are the people who represent it. So that's one of the reasons why I'm just a huge proponent and you know, give free advertising whenever I can to these products and these brands and these, these folks that I work with. So start with a mic, you always want to try to have just headphones as well because and not be like speaking into a laptop because you will get the feedback. We use. I have earbuds on right now but you can use like a these Sony and the headphones are 15 bucks. They're not economics at all. And while you are just, it's just these little things that make us sound more professional. And then the first thing you want to do is really think about and I jumped into the gear. But when we talk with clients, the first the first thing we think about is what you want your show to be like planning and positioning your show. Too many people think they can have a fun name, or a cool name on an apple podcasts. But the reality if, depending on what your show is, if you're trying to build a show about a brand name that like pirate broadcast is awesome, because while it will take some time for people to figure out what it is, once you have that brand, people are going to associate it with you. So that's going to be a little long tail of it. Yeah, but if but if you're starting a show and you want people to listen to it, it's best to leverage the SEO power of podcasts and too many people like lose sight of this. One of my earliest clients was a angel investor and she was struggling The name of the show I said can you do me a favor and see if angel investing podcast.com is available?

Russ Johns
okay, that would that's what we called it. We called it the angel investing show. Another another client is a photographer who teaches photographers that have grow their photography business. No surprise, but we call it photo biz help

Russ Johns
Well, sometimes as marketers, we, we tend to get and to get, I'm not going to lay this out on everyone, but it's like, okay, I want I want a little fancy thing. You know, it's like, it's like, just keep it simple. Just keep it simple, right? And the latest, that's a good point is is you know, for SEO and everything else a simple name is you know, a good way to good way to start.

Harry Duran
Yeah, and with 800,000 plus podcasts and the apple podcast directories like you really got to do what you can to stand out. And then there's from a graphics perspective, like, like San Sara fonts, high contrast in colors, you're trying to catch people's attention from the beginning, as you're, as you're organizing your show, think about what you want to do. Are you? Do you have content already that you can repurpose? Or do you teach something? Do you have a course, just take those modules and make those the episodes. And just always, anyone who's teaching content or wants to be seen as a thought leader already has things that they do for other people. And people get worried, well, I'm going to give my best stuff away on a podcast, and then people won't won't have anything to come back for the framework to understand is you give them the what and the why for free, but what they're paying for is the how, yeah, a lot of times where people need help is with the implementation. So think about that, as you're going to frame the content for your episodes. Plan your episodes out, use a tool like air table, we prepare templates for clients, where we help them plan out the first 12 episodes. Yeah, so you know, we know what you're going to talk about, you know what the topic is. You're using an SEO friendly title is again, people lose an opportunity, like talk about, if it's a well known name, put that at the front of the title. But if it's a topic that people are interested in lead with that. I think best practices is about seven to nine words for an SEO title, because Apple will cut that off podcasts. So just little things specific to podcasts or things that people should be thinking about. And then record, high quality, you know, something where people are going to hear it and realize that it's not an amateur hour. Yeah, that's where the gear comes in. If you're doing remote interviews, obviously, you can use a tool like stream yard. There's we we use a tool called squadcast.fm. It captures both sides of the conversation as a WAV file, so through a browser as a WAV file, so if there's a choppy to do that Yeah, so it doesn't affect the quality of the recording. And then it's backing up to the cloud and V eight seconds. So if you lose a quadcast.at FM, and I've been working with the team since I met them at podcast movement in 2017. And then about a year later, they brought me on as a founding advisor. So help them like, like, give them guidance on the UX and the UI of the tool. really hone into the design. So it's favorable for podcasters. And most important thing is I started introducing him to the podcast community so people know, Zach rock, the founders of squad cast. Yeah. So record high quality. And then once that's done, you want to edit and and keep it short 30 to 45 minutes. You don't have you're not going to be Joe Rogan out of the gate with a three hour interview.The interesting thing and that leads to the conversation about how long should a podcast be right? Yeah, as long as it needs to be to keep your your Audience entertained and for Joe, because of his raving fans, that's three hours. There's a past guest minion Fogarty episode one or one on podcast junkies. She's grammar girl. She's got a whole network of shows that are about five minutes long.

Russ Johns
Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. Hey, I want to I want to give a shout out to the people in the room because I know a lot of them. Vicki O'Neill has a podcast. She does a lot of lot of great work. I think Wendy Gilhula is going to be doing more podcasts and Wendy is amazing. There's a lot of people that thank you so much for being here. I just really appreciate you. Uh, you know, Harry, jumping in and helping us Kiran Bedi. Thank you. Sherri Lally Gabriel just launched his podcast I had a conversation with Gabriel and he's doing some live streaming on YouTube now and getting his first show started. You know, it's like we all start at zero. Right, we pick up a whatever we pick up and we get started. And in today's world, we all have an opportunity to share our gifts and our messages. So just get out there, Michael Rey's in the room. Good morning, Vicki. O'Neill, thank you so much. For all of you for getting up so early. Yeah. Bernie is here and thank you, Bernie for being here. I think in fact, Harry, I, I think I have four slots left in March, until I'm completely booked. So five days a week, I'm booked for March. So there's a lot of interest I think in people in, you know, being present and helping in share, you know, some of the ideas that they're putting out there. So it's really, it's really amazing to to see the excitement, the enthusiasm around this.

Harry Duran
One thing I want to touch on what you're doing which is interesting. It's something that relatable to podcasting is recognizing the people who support your show, day in and day out. As podcasters. What we can do sometimes is read out the reviews that people send us. So we still clients, make time at the beginning or end of your show. But give a shout out to the people who are reviewing your show. Or if you've connected with a listener, like everyone remembers, or maybe just old people, older folks like me, when you would call into a radio station and request your favorite Duran Duran song, they would play it on the air and you're like, Oh my god, like he meant Russ mentioned my name. So cool. That still works. And there's still ways to do that. So I really applaud what you're doing and supporting your audience as well.

Russ Johns
Well, in LinkedIn, it's a little more challenging, but if you're joining in like from like I can, I could put this in here. I Angie, from Wisconsin is in from Periscope. So and Facebook, they have an opportunity to actually post in the show and it's kind of cool. It's I think it's awesome. And thank you, Angie for being here. And thank you for posting on Periscope. So I can illustrate this, thing. And and the reality is, is it's, it's, you know, I love the people that are coming in here and I've met some incredibly amazing friends on LinkedIn. And LinkedIn is an amazing community. I would love to see a little more opportunity to engage with the audience on LinkedIn, because it's a little more challenging. And so it's crazy, but Gary's here. Leslie Osborne, thank you so much. All of these individuals that take the time to come in and watch it live. That's amazing. And then also, it's, you know, it's after the fact it's, you know, the replays and everything else. That's the interaction that comes along with that. And that's, that's the intimacy that podcasting brings to the table, you know, it's you're in the ear, like, Hey, you could go for a walk with you and everything that goes along with that. So, I love the idea that, you know, that you're bringing to the table is like, okay, communicate with the audience, bring this out, engage, make sure that you're building a relationship with your audience as well. So, so what's the biggest challenges you see podcasters getting to there's a lot of buzz around getting in new and noteworthy, and I've been in podcasting long enough to know that it's a long game, it's a marathon, you know? And so, showing up on a regular basis and being there for individuals, and knowing that, okay, you know, there's a lot of people say, well, that I can't make the time of the show is like, well, it's a live show. You know, like, it's like, thank you for getting up early, you know, and being here and there's some others that you know,They haven't had the opportunity to get up and be on the show. So, yeah. All right. That's okay. Not for everyone.

Russ Johns
I think what's important is to have a clear understanding of why you want to do this show, because it's going to help you through the lows help you, you know, figure out if you want to keep doing this. And quite honestly, there's different flavors of that. You could decide you just want to have like a brochure in the podcast world. So you do like a limited series, you do an eight part 12 part series, you make sure, that your content is evergreen, that it's not dated, that you're not referring to like a date. So when people find you a year from now, or three years from now, they can still come back to your content. And that's still pretty powerful. Because Apple keeps those podcasts as long as you're paying your hosting like that that podcast is going to live on in eternity in Apple podcasts. That's why there's a lot of podcasts that are still ranking high that haven't published an episode in like Two or three years, there is an option. But if you do want to continue like think about why you're doing it, be consistent record ahead of time batch. I'm a huge fan of batching record four episodes in one day. You know you can. JOHN Lee Dumas is famous for his approach when he got started Entrepreneur on Fire a daily podcast. He, which added a podcast movement years ago, and he said, he records he was batching, seven or eight episodes. And one day, I spoke to him a year or two later, he was because he's, he's telling me to miss batching that two days 15 episodes in one day, 15 episodes the next day and he had his whole month of content done completed. That's not for everyone, believe me. Their results may vary, but it's just the idea of preparing and being prepared for your audience because it'll show

Russ Johns
Yeah, and live streaming shows a little different. I you know, I was thinking about the YouTube effect and you know, doing more on YouTube. And I like the fact that I can just get up. It's a great way to start my day I was a musician for years I played Okay, actually. And, you know, I, for four years, I played almost every single night, back to back every single night. And it was part of my routine is just like, Okay. And the way I look at this right now with pirate broadcast is if I can get up in the morning, knock out a show, it starts my day gets me going, it gives me a new perspective. every guest gives me a new, a new energy to say, Hey, I can go I could go do something great. And then also I can help other people along the way. And as this this, you know, and I'm really an advocate for kindness and, you know, smiles and just having enjoy the moment you know, find the joy in the day. And that's my motivation is like, interesting people having interesting conversations that a fly on the wall and, you know, a whole whole bunch of people People can join in and listen in and, and then get their day started as well.

Russ Johns
Yeah, it's very, it's very inspiring. And I think the reason that there's people connected live is because you've built up a brand, you've built up a relationship, you know, in podcasting and talk about the know, like and trust factor. So they know you, they like you, they trust you, they know what they're going to get day in and day out with you. So that's really powerful in terms of building a community.

Russ Johns
Yeah. So, longer term, you have 100 episodes. You're you have a little bit of an audience. How do you start getting the numbers? I mean, What are your techniques that you make recommendations for that urge you notice that are, you know, because the algorithms are always changing, you know, Google, and Apple's changed and you know, things have evolved over the years, and I've never been one to chase numbers. I do notice the numbers and it's, it's reflection of you know, something else is and, and so, you know, downloads are, you know, evolving. There's lots of different you know, Spotify is really getting into the the podcasting arena. So what are some trends that you notice that are working for podcasters once they have an audience, and they start growing this audience, I mean, it's just really about, you know, extending the reach and, you know, getting into some new audiences, I would imagine.

Russ Johns
Yeah, and I just want to manage expectations. Rob Lyps was the VP of Lypson has a biweekly show with Elsie Escobar, who they're both on podcast junkies, pioneers and veterans in the podcasting space, but he has a he releases stats and media numbers because Lypson has so many podcasts that he can do reporting on that. If you're getting about 140 downloads within the first 30 days and episode goes live. You're doing better than 50% of all shows. And then The number jumps up a little, if you're doing about 1100, you're doing better than 80% of all shows. And that's enough for most people because then it jumps to 4000, top 90, you know, 14,000 for top 95 and then 50,000, top 98 or something like that. But I just want to kind of manage expectations because people get start getting a couple of hundred downloads and like, Oh, my, my podcasts are doing so good. We see this in like the Facebook groups and all of us who've been podcasting for a while, like, kind of want to like do the virtual like slap upside the head, like what are you talking about? If I put you in a room with 200 people, you know, who had your attention? I'm sure you'd be really happy. So yeah, focus on delivering value. If you're doing it for a vanity play, you know, that's going to be harder because you got to build an audience, and it is getting to those 10s of thousands. But if you're trying to build a business off of it, you don't really need. It's not about the quantity of people. It's about the quality of the people that are listening, or the following you weekend and week out. Are you asking them to engage? Are you taking them off of the podcasting platform onto the next Next part of your funnel? Like are you asking for an email? are you providing a valuable lead magnet? Like I'm going to do for you in a couple of minutes? Are you telling them to join your Facebook group, or you tell them about all the different places you can connect? Typically, I like one call to action to get the email. And then you can slow down the conversation and be like, Oh, thanks. Here's what I promised on the on the podcast. Now, let me tell you about the other great things we do. And for my clients, at least, they're trying to build a relationship with someone who's getting value from what I'm saying, and then becoming down the road client.

Russ Johns
That's, that's fantastic. And you know, the online space that what I love, what I really love about it is that I have friends now all over the world. And same with podcasting and you don't know where people are going to show up and consume your content. And the relationships you build are amazing, like you're talking about earlier, is you go to conference and all of a sudden all these people are opening up an entirely New World you never realized existed. it's amazing. So what's on the future? What's on the roadmap for harrion and fullcast.co? What your next steps?

Russ Johns
we just have a mission to help a million people find their voice and there's gonna be various ways that people can do it. I'm not gonna be able to, like we get to one to one contact with these people. So I help I'm building platforms for people so that they can amplify it and just the network effect if I you know, get a show and they get 10,000 people, you know, we did a show for Samantha Pascha, who's Olympic medalist. she crossed a quarter of a million downloads mark, she's now producing the show with her to season three just launched and but small shows big shows, and I'm just trying to let people there's a they have a voice inside of them and I don't want them to like, realize that they couldn't get their message out because you There's a couple of roadblocks there. So anything I can do to like, help one person or help one person help, you know, 100,000 people find their voice is something I'm excited about. And my personal podcast, podcast junkies helps me have that and continue that relationship with people in the community.

Russ Johns
That's awesome. So awesome. Well, I appreciate podcast junkies and I love the fact that you're doing this and I, you know, I've been in radio and broadcasting and I started out kind of in a different arena, coming from radio, and it's just still I just watching this grow and it's just like, it's amazing. We had Mark Sean yesterday, we talked about the spotaguest and podcast. And you know, it just happens that you guys were back to back but as the podcasting theme exists, and, and I've been podcasting, I probably I've helped produce over 1000 shows at some point in time. So it's like, the reality is that helping people to share their message is an incredibly valuable gift. And thank you for sharing it, Harry, I really appreciate what you're doing. And I applaud you and I look forward to even more opportunities to connect with you in the future. And it would be nice to, you know, have you back and share some more stories as well. So you're always welcome now that you're an official pirate number 100 pirate.

Harry Duran
Nice.

Russ Johns
You know, let's keep this going and help more people out in the world. And I'm kind of doing the same thing. I'm just launching the pirate syndicate where I'm helping people live stream and then once it live streams, I'm just converting that into a podcast and a post that a transcription and it's it's kind of a it's it's a more of a streamlined strategy. And so you know, if people need more strategy and they need more coaching, you know, it's probably something that we could work together on and in their great some of those areas. So it's good No, a Lonnee Rey?

Russ Johns
I don't know, we haven't met.

Russ Johns
Okay, so Lonnie Ray's been on the show she actually has a coaching for podcaster you know, on their, their voice and their question.

Harry Duran
That's great.

Russ Johns
That would be another collaboration that would be pretty interesting to connect with.

Harry Duran
So, yeah, and if people need help launching the show, I created a special link just for your audience fullcast.co/pirate and its ultimate podcast launch game plan that you mentioned earlier and it'll help them get started. But what I realized is a lot of basic questions that people were asking. So just put it all in one PDF to help people kind of get through the humps and and not go down some YouTube rabbit holes that are like with three year old advice.

Russ Johns
Well, it's it is evolving all the time, so it pays to connect with the professional. Thank you for being here. So if you had to leave the guests with one item In the world, what's your word? What's your word of advice for today?

Harry Duran
I believe everyone that's listening that's either live watching live or gonna catch the replay has a unique voice that needs to be heard by your audience. So, you know, today is the day that you decide that you're not going to let that voice die inside of you. And take the next step and then figure out what that means for you.

Russ Johns
Awesome, that's beautiful. Thank you, Harry, so much for being here. And as always, you know #Kindnessiscool, #Smilesarefree. And you #Enjoytheday..

Harry Duran
Likewise, brother, thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai