Read The Transcript

Connect with Tracie
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracie-strunsee-4b4868121/
tracie@thepiratesyndicate.com

Connect with Russ
https://russjohns.com/
https://thepiratesyndicate.com/
https://nextstepnext.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nextstepnext/

Audio digitally transcribed by Descript

Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns: [00:00:10] What an amazing day, what an amazing time. And I know that you're probably wondering, Russ, oh, there's 380 episodes and you've been like clockwork and there's sometimes we have to experiment and change and we have this down and we have this just like we nailed it. And I want to introduce you to Tracie. Tracie is the number one pirate ship mate here, running the show. Running the levers and all of the controls in the background. Good morning, Tracie. How are you?

Tracie Strunsee: [00:00:45] Good morning. I'm doing well. Thank you.

Russ Johns: [00:00:47] It's really fun for us to take a moment and kind of help people understand what it is  behind the machine that runs the #PirateBroadcast™, and also allows people to be on the #PirateSyndicate™. I want to take the show today and break it down and explain to people what it takes to actually do this whole process. And I know that you have been involved in this for a little while, so I thought, Hey, Tracie knows how to do this. We've been producing shows for a few things. Yeah.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:01:24] For awhile now. I'm sure I've produced, I don't know how many shows now? Probably close to 175, maybe. I don't know. At least.  It's gotta be way over a hundred.

Russ Johns: [00:01:33] It's over a hundred shows.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:01:36] It's been six months, over six months now.

Russ Johns: [00:01:38] Yeah, and I want to start with the guest process. So when I invite somebody to the show I have them fill out a form. I'm going to play with this a minute. I have them fill out a form and they actually have an opportunity to fill out a little bit of information, and sometimes you get a little bit of information and sometimes you get a little, a lot of information.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:02:02] Sometimes I get almost no information.

Russ Johns: [00:02:04] And sometimes you get no information.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:02:06] Too much information, yes.. You can't really ever get too much information, but I get a lot of information and then I feel bad that I don't use all of it.

Russ Johns: [00:02:13] Help us understand what is ideal in the amount of information that we can receive. I'm going to try to get my screen here working.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:02:22] You're fine. Now you're more centered than you were before. Only half your face was showing.

Russ Johns: [00:02:26] That's true. All right.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:02:28] So I can really see all of you now. First of all, probably most of the people watching have already been a guest on the show. So they're a little bit familiar about how the process goes after they sign up. But what happens is you invite them to come on and then they go to the calendar, they select a date, they fill out their information. There's a couple of things on the form that it says to keep it under a length, certain length, but most people don't. But the reason we have that is I have a space for your title, for you to enter your title. The reason for that is because on the graphics, as everybody that watches knows right above your head here is going to be your title. Some people have done many different things and sometimes if I looked at LinkedIn and I look at their profile, their company title isn't what they're on the show to talk about. They're on the show to talk about a book or a podcast, so it got to the point where I wanted people to pick their own title, what they wanted it to say. The problem is sometimes people put a three sentence long title, because they've done many things and I can only fit about 40 characters. So for a few people, if you wonder why I just chopped it off at a certain point, that's why. I can only put about 40 characters where it looks okay. Even shorter is better. If you can keep it under 20, then it can be bigger and stand out more. The other thing is when you provide a bio. We ask that you keep it under 180 characters, no 300, 300 characters? 280 for social pilot.

Russ Johns: [00:04:09] It's actually ideally Twitter's only limits us to 240 characters..

Tracie Strunsee: [00:04:15] Yeah. I don't know why they limit it to 280 on social pilot. So in the bio, it says, keep the bio under 280 words and then people give me their full bio. And I have to truncate that in several different ways. The whole thing can go on YouTube and can go on Facebook and usually on LinkedIn. But when we put everything up on the website, we need to create an excerpt. So a shortened version. And then for social pilot, I can only have 280 characters and that includes the title.

Russ Johns: [00:04:46] So it's really important for us to receive something that is very what I call a Twitter post.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:04:52] What I suggest for everybody is that if you're planning on being a guest on podcasts or any type of show, any live stream, put together a media kit and in the media kit have your headshot. And it doesn't have to be a professional headshot, just something taken with a good camera so people can recognize you and then have a long bio, a short bio and a blurb.  That's usually what I recommend because I love it when people just send me their media kit and then I'm like, I have everything right there. And then I don't have to worry about accidentally cutting out a part that was important to somebody because I have to just use my judgment sometimes on what to put on all of the media that goes out and all the graphics.

Russ Johns: [00:05:36] Yeah. That's really important to to be a good guest anywhere, podcasts, broadcast, live stream, wherever it happens to be is just have a media, just take a little bit of time and just create a media kit, so it's all in one document. It's really nice. We'll say hi to Angie. Hey, 2 of my favorite humans,

Tracie Strunsee: [00:05:57] Hey, Angie! Can I say happy birthday to you again, even though I've said it to you15 times already since Thursday?

Russ Johns: [00:06:05] Happy Birthday, Angie! Fantastic. Jorge from Spain, greetings from Spain and pirates. And Angie says, it's a great idea.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:06:16] Of course, yeah. And then the other thing that I would want people to know is that remember there is a production schedule. We don't plan these shows the day ahead of time, we have a production schedule, and usually I work on about a 12 to 13 day production schedule. So if you give me your headshot the day before, I'm not going to use it, unless I don't have one, but then that makes me have to rush and do a lot of work at the last second to try to get it right, because if you notice, we create the shows a week in advance, social pilot goes out eight days in advance. So we really need to have...

Russ Johns: [00:06:52] Those that don't know about social pilot. So the posts that you see, the notifications you have in your social stream that says, Hey, Russ is going to be going live. The #PirateBroadcast™ is going live with this guest. That is actually in a program called social pilot that actually we have to program, we have to enter these graphics. Tracie has to create these graphics. All of this work has to be done in advance.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:07:19] And we post on four different dates and times. So it goes out several times before your show. It goes out, I believe, six days before the show and then three days before the show and then the night before, and then the morning of. So again, if you're sending me your headshot within a few days before the show, I create your graphics. Sometimes a weekend might fall in there, but essentially it's nine days before your show. But again, if there's a weekend in there it'll be longer, it'll be up to 12 days before your show. So that's how far in advance I create the graphics. So if you send me the graphics at the last minute, send me your bio at the last minute, I try to accommodate people the best that I can, but sometimes I just don't have the time to be able to do it that late. I have to put in extra time actually to do that, which I'm willing to do, but I would prefer not to. And I send out a welcome letter, either the day you sign up or the day after, depending on what time it comes in. And in that email, I tell people I need your bio and I need your picture. I will be using your picture from LinkedIn, unless you send me something different that you want me to use. Sometimes people do send me something different. Most of the time, they're fine with their LinkedIn profile. And so I do send people that right away. So they have plenty of notice that they need to have that in. So just putting that out there.

Russ Johns: [00:08:40] Yeah. And pay attention to your notifications because Tracie works really hard to be able to get all this stuff put together. She's very diligent about it. And. I just know from experience because when we first started the #PirateBroadcast™, I did all of this and it helped create these systems and these sequences and these events in order for us to actually create this every single day and produce a show time after time. And this is the experience that people have when they come into the #PirateBroadcast™. And this is the same kind of experience that you can expect if you produce your own show or have us produce your show on the #PirateSyndicate™. And that's really the magic of what we're doing here is we're providing you the experience of what it takes and what is involved. To produce your own show and there's a lot of work that goes into it. So if you're a busy executive or your business that wants additional exposure and experience in live streaming we've been doing this for awhile and it's really part of our daily process. So Tracie, what are some other things that we have that are important for people to understand so they can improve their guest experience?

Getting their image in, getting their bio in.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:10:04] Yes, getting your pircutre and getting your bio in, preferably several versions of your bio. If you want to say more about yourself, I will put that in the description when we live stream on YouTube, but something shorter to use for the website and for social pilot. The only other thing would be that I would ask people is to talk slower. Slow down, take a breath and...

Russ Johns: [00:10:31] And why is that Tracie?

Tracie Strunsee: [00:10:33] Because I have to transcribe these episodes. And sometimes people talk so fast that the transcription can't keep up and I have to fill in all the gaps and everything. It takes a long time. Also try to avoid, just take a breath and try to avoid a lot of the conversational language that we're used to using. Everybody says um, and, uh, but the likes, the you knows, things like that. The less of them there are the easier it is for me.

Russ Johns: [00:11:08] I'm guilty. I'm guilty.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:11:11] And Russ is probably the worst. But luckily, fortunately, we changed transcription programs and now I have a program that with just a couple of clicks, removes all of those words. And so far, I think the record in one show was about 382 words were removed.

Russ Johns: [00:11:32] They're called filler words, folks.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:11:34] They're called filler words. Sometimes I do have to add some back because there are times when you actually do want to use the word like, or you do want to use, you know,  as you know, then you'd want to keep it in. They do have to adjust things, but that's what's nice about it. You cut the filler words out, but it doesn't completely take them away. It just hides them. And then I have to put in the different speakers, I have to add the intro and the outro and all of that. So that would be my biggest thing for guests is to just take a deep breath and talk slowly and with purpose. That was, and I am just as bad. Lately, I've been noticing I've been saying like a lot.

Russ Johns: [00:12:20] From hanging out on the #PirateBroadcast™.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:12:20] I've been around you too much. I'm hearing you talk every day and it's ruining my grammar, Russ.

Russ Johns: [00:12:25] Yeah. Angie says, that's why people should hire the #PirateSyndicate™. You make it easy for everyone, anyone to have a show. That is so true. That's my goal. That is actually the reason I started the #PirateBroadcast™ is to figure out how I can help more people produce their own show without the technology that the resistance, because that causes a lot of friction for a lot of people. They say I want a show, however, I don't necessarily want to do all of the work that goes into producing a show. I don't have time for that. I don't have time for that. If you don't have time for that, you just need to get connected with the #PirateSyndicate™, hire the #PirateSyndicate™. Contact us..

Tracie Strunsee: [00:13:12] And I will add this. It takes me three to four hours on a good day where I'm not receiving anything last minute, or I don't have a lot of new bookings. It takes me three to four hours a day to do everything needed for the show. And that's including the fact that we don't do one of the most time-consuming components for this show and that is the editing. We don't edit this since it's live streamed. We put it up as is for the broadcast. Now I edit my own podcast and that can take a couple hours right there. So you're talking for a regular podcast, six to eight hours possibly to produce, whereas, for us to do it, I can do it a lot faster because I'm so used to doing it. I can cut that down to probably four hours and that doesn't include all the pre-production stuff. Post-production is  a couple hours.

Russ Johns: [00:14:05] And just imagine how much time you can save by having a show produced for you. And it's really a nice process and it's smooth Tracie, you make it so easy. And I'm so thankful that you are my producer and support me and laugh at me and with me and make sure that I'm all taken care of.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:14:28] We may pick on you a little bit, but we love you. And I say we, because I'm referring to Angie too, obviously, because we both, we're both your advisor.

Russ Johns: [00:14:36] Yes. Wendy says, yeah, Wendy says, I thought we were born a pirate. Yes. Nice to meet you, Lady Captain, the Admiral speaks very highly of you. Absolutely. And Wendy says articulate. We want to hear their ideas, right? Absolutely. And Hiett Ives says, better late. Thanks for the how to session. And Angie says, words matter.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:15:09] Yes, they do. And when people come on, they're  there to promote themselves, to promote their message. And you don't want that message to be lost because you're mumbling or you're talking too fast. And sometimes I can't pick things up and I'll just leave it blank because I can't even understand what's being said, and I do my best, but there are times when you're talking, if you're talking really fast and you mumble a lot, which I have had people that do both at the same time, and those are probably the worst days. Oh and the other one is please don't say right after every sentence.

Russ Johns: [00:15:44] I remember. For the people of North, eh?

Tracie Strunsee: [00:15:48] Yeah, but a lot of people say that. 

Russ Johns: [00:15:51] A lot of people do.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:15:52] They say, so I'm going to work, right. And then I did this, right. And then I did that, right. And that is when Tracie's head explodes. Yes, I would actually tell people if you want to be a better speaker because you don't notice it when you're doing it, just let me know ahead of time before your show, and I will keep a raw transcription for you to see. I am happy to do that to anybody that wants to be a better speaker or wants to know how they sound. What words are actually  coming out. Cause if you look at the transcription afterward, most of that stuff is all taken out.

Russ Johns: [00:16:26] You probably notice also the people that have been trained in speaking like Toastmasters, people that are seasoned veterans that are really articulate, pause, and actually avoid filler words. And can actually deliver a message, very clear and concise

Tracie Strunsee: [00:16:51] Well, you would be surprised how many people that have public speaker up here, when it comes to conversational speak, they're just like the rest of us. And that's the blessing and the curse of your show, Russ, is that people feel so relaxed, it's just having a conversation. It's not an interview. People are just talking like two friends getting together and talking, which is great as far as the rapport goes between your guests, but then all of that public speaking stuff goes out the window.

Russ Johns: [00:17:29] And down here, it's y'all from Hiett Ives.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:17:32] And that is perfectly fine. Regional dialects and regional phrasing are perfectly fine. Cause it actually picks up a lot of that. It knows when you say y'all.

Russ Johns: [00:17:42] Angie says, you make the process seem like magic. And it is magic because we have invested years of experience and training in techniques to be able to bring it all together all at once every single day. And I don't know how many episodes we have actually, Tracie, I think probably closing in on 380 shows episodes.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:18:12] I'm sure. I'm not counting them. I actually could look, let me look right now. Cause I bet you, it would say in the, in our podcasts.

Russ Johns: [00:18:21] Yeah. It's the podcast is what I go through.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:18:25] It would say how many, let me look.

Russ Johns: [00:18:29] Yeah,

Tracie Strunsee: [00:18:30] Nevermind. You would think that it would say, but it doesn't say.

Russ Johns: [00:18:34] It does say.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:18:35] Where does it say that? Oh, there it is. 375 episodes.

Russ Johns: [00:18:39] Yeah. So today we'll once it goes up, it'll be 376.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:18:44] 376.  That's a lot of episodes.

Russ Johns: [00:18:49] Yeah. Hiett Ives says,  even 50 year Toastmasters make mistakes. We all make mistakes, Hiett.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:19:00] Noone's perfect.

Russ Johns: [00:19:01] Noone's perfect. That's the beauty of what the #PirateBroadcast™ is all about is the impact we can make by our imperfect actions and the fact that we're taking steps to help each other out and share a little kindness and a couple of smiles here and there is not going to hurt anyone. So just continue to be here, support the community and let people know that they can have a show and they don't have to be concerned about the technology, they don't have to be concerned about the process. They don't have to be overwhelmed by the technology because we just make it look like magic and you can have a show just like this. The #PirateSyndicate™ is here to be available and help you out.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:19:50] And I don't want anybody to think that I'm picking on them. If you say a bunch of likes and you knows that's fine, I can take it out of my program. So I'm not gonna hate you for it or anything. It's just a tip to give to people that do a lot of these types of podcasts or are trying to get more um, visibility. I just said there um, visibility, because I couldn't think of the word and that's what we do when we can't think of the word, we fill it with space, the trailing, so is another one. And I am very guilty of that. You end a sentence and then you say so, and you're not intending to go anywhere with it. You just say so. And I thought at first that was a Midwest thing, but it turns out no, everybody does it.  It's interesting the things you learn about grammatical patterns and regional dialects and things like that when you do a transcript.

Russ Johns: [00:20:42] What are some other things that we really can avoid

Tracie Strunsee: [00:20:45] I catch myself, when I do it now, not always, but I do catch myself. So what are some other things we do as far as which part?

Russ Johns: [00:20:55] Let's talk about, let's talk about the process of the follow-up, because I know that there's a lot of guests and I love it when you share the event and you put a post out there for it and you support the interaction and then follow up with interaction and actually connect with us on the #PirateSyndicate™ and, follow us on social media. It's actually surprising to me that a lot of guests will come on and you'll never hear from them again. And I'm just befuddled by that.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:21:31] We do send out a followup email. Thank you for joining us. I hope you had a good experience. If you need anything, that type of thing. Some people respond to it. Some people just say, thank you. Some people don't respond at all. Most people don't respond at all. And honestly, followup is more your thing because you're the chatty one. You're the one that talks to people, I'm behind the scenes. So I just forward those things to you and then we don't really do much after that.

Russ Johns: [00:22:00] I think it's really amazing because I use Dubb and this is another, we have another rabbit hole and one of the limitations of Dubb is that it may not necessarily get past all the firewalls out there in corporate America. So if I send an email out to someone in an enterprise environment, a lot of the firewalls in safety protections for cybersecurity, stop it from getting delivered. So it's not necessarily a universal tool. However, I can use it in LinkedIn messaging fairly consistent. And I like to be able to take the episode... because at the end of the day, when Tracie's completed with a transcription process, everything's up on the website, it's a post. So they have words, images, audio, and video, all in a single post. And I can share it with the guests. That's the essence of what the #PirateSyndicate™ delivers. And it's really very nice to be able to deliver that to individuals after the show. And after the process is completed. And so I just want to thank you publicly and professionally and personally, Tracie, for all the work and effort you do cause it's amazing process that we go through for this. And you're a huge part and component and I couldn't do it without you. So I just want to thank you.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:23:32] Thank you. You say that all the time though. You are a very perfect boss. You're a great guy to work for because you are always complimenting, and you're always so gracious about all of that. And I appreciate it because there are days when things are a little crazy when I got a lot going on and and you always make sure that I stay calm. 

Russ Johns: [00:23:56] Yeah,

Tracie Strunsee: [00:23:57] and I don't panic. It'll be fine. It'll all work out.

Russ Johns: [00:23:59] Remember to breathe.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:24:01] Remember to breathe.  It will all work out. It always does. It's just that momentary stress when you have that panic moment that things aren't going to work out.

Russ Johns: [00:24:10] Well, today is a perfect example. So lessons learned kids. You cannot process a show an hour. Less than an hour in advance for LinkedIn live. So it just ain't going to happen. 10 minutes before Facebook, you have to actually schedule the show 10 minutes in advance for Facebook. I think YouTube is a just fired up and go. However, those are some things that you need to consider and we're not. Anywhere close to perfect. And we continue to evaluate these things, test them, so you don't have to. That's the beauty of the #PirateSyndicate™ is we're doing all this work for you. We're doing all of the heavy lifting. We're doing all the technology. We're finding the processes we're optimizing, and we're not using the same transcription service that we started out with. And the processes that you use now compared to when we started are a little different. We can continue to improve and optimize the process. Right, Tracie?

Tracie Strunsee: [00:25:16] Yes. And I highly recommend our latest transcription service Descript and I even told Russ, I said, sometime I have no problem coming on and doing a little tutorial to show people because you can edit your audio, you can edit your video, you can edit your transcript. It's very powerful. It's still relatively new, but they are constantly updating and adding new features and I love it. There are some things still about it that drive me a little crazy, but I know they're in the queue of people requesting that these changes be made, so I think they will get to them eventually. But yeah, it's a really great program and I love using it.

Russ Johns: [00:25:55] Angie says, I would think it's up to the guests to share their audience, share with their audience. So much content for them from being on the #PirateBroadcast™. You have a ton of content that you can share with your audience.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:26:11] That's the other big thing that I can't believe I forgot to mention was that when you're a guest on the show, I send you the YouTube link. How far ahead of time? I'm trying to remember... a week ahead of time. When I set up the actual show and I have the link to it, I send the YouTube link out to the guests. And as a guest, you should be sharing that with your social media, sharing that with your followers, saying, hey, catch me on the #PirateBroadcast™ on this date. And even after the fact, even after the show has aired, that same YouTube link, it never changes. You should go back to your followers and say, hey, if you missed me, I was on the #PirateBroadcast™ today. Please check it out. And then, obviously we want to build a bigger YouTube audience. So it would be nice if guests ask their followers to subscribe, not just to tune into your one show, but just subscribe to theThe #PirateBroadcast™ and tell them because there's a lot of great information. There's a daily guest every day, and it's a great way to start your day. It's very positive. So those are the types of things that it would be nice if more guests did, if they did more promotion on their end, because I can only do so much.

Russ Johns: [00:27:26] Yeah, same here. We only can do so much on our own. And that's why we want to include and invite you to become part of the community, part of the pirate community and share this stuff out and support the message of kindness and also the message that you are the media. We all have an opportunity right now to pick up and create some content. And it's really nice to be able to get help with that as well. Tracie, this has been an awesome, amazing episode, even though we actually had a few challenges.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:28:08] It was a last minute thing. We just decided late last night, for me later last night that I was going to come on. And then I didn't even think about the fact... I thought we could just set it up before we started. And that would be fine. I didn't realize that we needed an hour to set it up before we go live.

Russ Johns: [00:28:25] Live and learn.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:28:25] I usually set them up a week in advance, so I don't usually have that problem.

Russ Johns: [00:28:31] So Angie says I couldn't do life without Tracie.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:28:34] Same. I couldn't do life without Angie, nor do I ever want to.

Russ Johns: [00:28:38] Thank you so much. Well Tracie, this has been fun. This has been a good exercise, a great opportunity for people to understand behind the scenes of the #PirateBroadcast™, what it takes to actually create a show and some of the things that take place before, during and after. So thank you for sharing.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:28:58] Thank you for having me on and am I going to be coming back later this week? Are we going to do that?

Russ Johns: [00:29:03] Yeah, let's do a tutorial on Friday and let's set it up in advance, maybe with some graphics that we can.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:29:10] If I want to do a tutorial, I will be more prepared. What tutorial do we want to do?

Russ Johns: [00:29:15] Let's do a tutorial on the Descript. Okay.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:29:20] I definitely know I'll be doing that one because you don't use that.

Russ Johns: [00:29:23] I don't use it. That's the beauty of having a producer.

Tracie Strunsee: [00:29:30] All right. That sounds like a plan. Then I will see everybody again on Friday.

Russ Johns: [00:29:33] Thanks everyone. And also, as we have a podcast, love to have you go follow the... Apple's, changing it from subscribe to follow the podcast, comment, review the podcast. And make sure that you're involved in our YouTube channel as well. Cause YouTube is always giving us some love there, make sure that you're involved and engaged in the YouTube channel. Let's grow that and subscribe, get this message out because #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree and we want you to #enjoyyourday. Thanks Tracie. Bye everyone.

Exit: [00:30:18] Thank you for joining the #PirateBroadcast™. If you found this content valuable, please like, comment and share it across your social media channels. I would love the opportunity to help others grow in their business. The #PirateSyndicate™ is a platform where you show up, we produce the show. It's that easy. If you want to be seen, be heard and be talked about, join the #PirateSyndicate™ today.

Join the next #PirateBroadcast™ on your favorite social media channel.