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Tom Webster: The Importance of Editing Your Show
Episode 94916th September 2024 • School of Podcasting - Plan, Launch, Grow and Monetize Your Podcast • Dave Jackson
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In this episode of the School of Podcasting (episode 949), we get some great insights from media research expert Tom Webster. With a focus on optimizing podcast content and strategy, Tom and Dave explore common pitfalls that podcasters face, particularly the importance of engaging content from the outset. They discuss practical tips on improving podcast narrative and editing, handling advertiser concerns, and leveraging audience feedback to refine your podcast. Whether you're a seasoned podcaster or just starting, this episode provides valuable lessons on creating captivating content that resonates with listeners and satisfies advertisers. Don't miss the unique strategies and actionable advice that could transform your podcast into a must-listen show.

About Tom Webster

Tom Webster is a partner at Sounds Profitable, dedicated to setting the course for the future of audio. He has thirty years of experience in streaming, podcasting, audiobooks, terrestrial radio, and everything else that we stick in our earballs. In his previous work, with Edison Research, Webster was the co-author of the annual Infinite Dial® study, the longest-running study of consumer media habits since 1998, as well as the Share of Ear® and Edison Podcast Metrics studies. With Sounds Profitable, his body of work includes dozens of the most influential reports in podcasting, and he is one of the most widely cited audio researchers in the world.

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Mentioned In This Episode

Join the School of Podcasting Community

Profit From Your Podcast Book

Power of Podcasting Network

Dave's YouTube Channel

Dave's Podcasting Newsletter

Buy Dave a Coffee

Put Dave In Your Pocket

Where Will Dave Be?

Question of the Month

The Audience Is Listening: A Little Guide to Building a Big Podcast Book

Tom's Webster's Website for the Book

Sounds Profitable

Podcast Guru App

Podpage (website builder for Podcasters)

Listen Notes

Chartable

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ThanksDaveJackson.com

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Question of the Month

When it comes to this show, the School of Podcasting: If you were to make it shorter, what would you cut? If you were to make it longer, what would you add? Would you choose to keep it as is?

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PodINDY-24 is all about "Profiting from Your Podcast Magnified by AI" and features the author of "Profit from Your Podcast" (Hall of Fame Podcaster) Dave Jackson. Dave is joined by Dr. Craig Van Slyke, Professor of Technology from Louisiana Tech University and the creator of the "AI Goes to College" Podcast; a preeminent scholar and thought leader on all things AI. Tickets (in person and virtual) are very affordable. Check out www.podindy.com

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Transcripts

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Today on episode number 949 of The School of

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Podcasting, I've been dying to do this interview. The one and

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only Tom Webster talking about his book, The

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Audience is Listening, a little guide to building a

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big podcast. And I also ask him a little bit about

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brand safety. Let's start the show. The School of

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Podcasting with Dave Jackson.

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Podcasting Sense 2,005. I am your

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award winning hall of fame podcast coach, Dave Jackson, thanking

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you so much for tuning in. If you're new to the show,

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this is where we help you plan, launch, and grow your

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podcast. Wanna monetize it? Yeah. We can do that too.

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Everything is out at our website, school of podcasting.com.

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Use the coupon code listener when you sign up for either a

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monthly or yearly subscription. And, of course, that comes with

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a 30 day money back guarantee.

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There is a new service online that I'll be

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telling you about a little later. A lot of people think, I don't

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know, it's the bee's knees. And I'm here to say, you gotta

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be careful with it. But right now, here's my talk with Tom

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Webster. I've said the audience is

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listening about, I don't know, 10, 12 times on my show. It really is

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required reading. If you're a member of the school of podcasting, it's it's one of

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those books that's like, go ahead and read it. If you don't like it, I

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will buy it back because I will give it to somebody else. It's really that

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good of a book. And so, I'm very happy to have the one and

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only from Sounds Profitable and many other things in podcasting. The one

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and only Tom Webster. Tom, thanks for coming on the show. Dave, you're you're so

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kind, and you've been so kind to mention the book as as much as you

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have, really. That's, maybe maybe more than you should excessively. So

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thank you for that. Writing a book is a lot of

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work. I know I've got my book. I'm working on the audio version.

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So what inspired Tom to write this book? Because

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it's really, really good book. I'm so grateful for that,

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David. You know, I wrote this book because I have all this weird experience,

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and I didn't want it to you know, when I eventually retire to podcast

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island or on the on whatever, you

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know, floating device that podcasting has enabled me to buy, I didn't want

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this knowledge to kind of disappear. And and it really it comes from a

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a, you know, background in in media research, a background in radio, a background

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in entertainment, and all these other things. And, you know, I've had

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the privilege in a 30 year career of being able to

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work, you know, sort of behind the scenes on audience development for some pretty

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pretty big shows, both in podcasting but also in radio. I've done

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research on The Howard Stern Show. I've done research for, you know, Elvis Duran, who's

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a very big syndicated morning show host across America, and

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and what struck me was how much of the,

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you know, literature material, helpful advice that's out there for

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podcasting about the mechanics of doing a

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podcast, right, the equipment and

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formats and things like that, but not enough about how to understand

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an audience. And I wanted to do the best I could to kind of

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correct that balance because I can guarantee you, you know, when Elvis

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Duran steps into the studio or or Ira Glass steps into his

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closet to record with a blanket over his head or whatever, He's not

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thinking about the equipment, you know, or what

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platform he's going to they're gonna record on. That's not what they're thinking about. They're

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thinking about their audience, and I wanted to put the focus squarely on that. So

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for the brand new podcaster, what would be your advice? For

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the brand new person, I would get very, very clear on

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who you're for. Right? And it's not I want to talk about

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this. You don't get the benefit of that unless you're already John

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Grisham, and you're writing your 68th book. I wanna write a book

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about Christmas. Okay. We're gonna give you a pass because of the

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Pelican Brief or whatever. You don't you don't get that pass necessarily. So before

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you get to, I have an idea and I want to write about this, the

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thing you want to do is not necessarily the thing people want to hear. And

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that's not to discourage you from making your art. But I do think you

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need to be very clear on, alright, if I'm going to do this, who is

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it for? And the answer is not men 25 to

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54 because men 25 to 54 have very little in

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common with each other. You have to get a lot more specific than that. Can

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you imagine the exact human name, rank,

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serial number, maybe somebody in your life that you're making this show for,

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and then make that show. Right? Make a show for that

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human, that individual single human. Make 6 or 7 of

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them, put them under your bed, and think about it for a while. And I

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think, you you know, this culture with the this sort of cult of

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entrepreneurialism and and things like that and the, you know, all the things that we

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tell ourselves about you know, the Jeff Bezos's of the world and

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the Elon Musks and the Richard Branson's and the Steve Jobs's and all

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that. Well, they're outlier humans. They have been

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able to win by ignoring popular opinion and just moving forward.

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Most of people are not gonna have that, and I think it's

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not enough to to just ship it, to just

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iterate in public because you are producing an entertainment that people will

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give exactly one shot. I always recommend do a bunch of

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shows, stick them under your bed, go back to them later. Could they

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have been better? If the answer is yes, then make them better.

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From the get go, I just wouldn't release something that you're not proud

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of. Could you can release something that you know could be better as your skills

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get better. But if you could have fixed it yourself, maybe

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do that before you release it because it there's just you know, your

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competition isn't another Cubs podcast. Your competition is Netflix. Your

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competition is, you know, the new David Gilmore album. Your

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competition could be silence. And so when you're first starting

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out, one of the things that can make your show

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set apart from other brand new shows is, as Tom said,

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think about it a little bit. Let it sit under the bed. Get some feedback.

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And then one of the big chapters in the book is

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all about editing. There's 3 levels of editing, I

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think. I you know, level 1 is I don't edit at all

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because I'm authentic. Well, authenticity,

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yeah, authenticity means different things to different people. If I'm being authentic,

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it's that I want to present the very best side of myself and

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my ideas for my audience so that they will be understood in the

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way that I want them to be understood. And for me not to do that

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is to be inauthentic. So yeah. But, you know, I think, you know,

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level 0 is no editing at all. Level 1 is where I think a lot

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of podcasters are at, and that is, you know, let's remove the cough noises

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and the ums and the ahs and someone stumbled and said, can you back up

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and all that? And that's sort of hygiene level editing. And sometimes your podcast

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needs a podoscopy. But advanced editing is this.

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And I think, really, the podoscopy that I talk about

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is a very careful and detailed listening

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back to one of your shows and getting it completely

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human transcribed. Every every

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every hiccup, get it completely transcribed. Read through it and take a

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red pen to it. Circle paragraphs and say, you know what? That should have been

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before this paragraph. This would have been explained so much

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better if I'd have asked this first. Well, you can do that in

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editing because the job is to create an entertainment. It's to

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create a narrative arc. It's to create something that from start to finish

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answers the next question that the listener had, and you have the opportunity to

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do that with editing. That's a lot of work for people. A lot of people

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are gonna say, I don't have the time to do that. I don't have the

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desire to do that or whatever, and that's totally fine. Don't do it. But

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it is the path to a larger audience. That's you know, make no question about

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it, is doing the is doing that work. And it's funny how everybody

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says, oh, my content is fine. I saw someone in a

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Facebook group saying, hey. How can I grow my audience? And,

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look, we all start wherever we start. But I listened to the

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show, and the first two minutes was the one cohost was

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complaining they had a cold and they had a sore throat, and then

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the other, cohost went into some other tale.

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And I look. I'm no prude. They dropped a bunch of f

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bombs that made, some adult jokes that weren't exactly funny, but that

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was the first five minutes of the show, and that's one of the

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areas that Tom feels a lot of people just blow it. The first

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5 minutes of a podcast. And I think podcasters of all

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sizes are guilty of a lot of throat clearing in those 5 minutes.

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And that's not how a great TV show that you watch starts.

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That's not how a great movie that you enjoy starts. It doesn't start with the

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actors talking about what they had for dinner last night. Alright. Now let's get into

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the script. That doesn't happen. And equally with the largest

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podcasters, nothing irritates me more than, you know and I'll

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I'll throw one out here. I listened to the Bill Simmons podcast, and

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the first 4 to 5 minutes of it are ads. Well, your favorite

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TV show doesn't do that. Your favorite TV show starts with content. It

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starts with hook, then some ads. It does not start

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immediately with the thing you absolutely did not tune in for, whether that's

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an ad or extraneous content that isn't your topic. And it's

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people's time is so valuable that it just it it it

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literally pains me when I hear podcasters of any size waste

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it. For me, Conan O'Brien, I like many of the

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guests he has on his show. I think he does good interviews, but I

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have to skip 7 minutes. And sometimes that's not

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enough to actually get to the interview. And you can't

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use those big shows as examples for stuff like that. Like, you know, if you

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type well well, Conan O'Brien does it. Okay. Step 1, already

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be Conan O'Brien. Yeah. That's gonna take a little while

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to do. Now the last thing, if we think about this, we

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have put a couple episodes under the bed. We let them

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sit, then we got them out. We did a little podoscopy on

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them. How do we know when we're done? How do we

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know when it's good enough? Yeah.

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That's a that's a really, really good question. I mean, I I think for that,

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you know, you really do need to get some advice. And, you know, look,

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writers workshops stuff all the time. You know, there are all kinds of

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systems and applications and and methods out there for writers workshops, and I'm a big

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fan of podcast workshops. I think getting their opinion in workshops, and I'm a big

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fan of podcast workshops. I think getting their opinion and their input into the process

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as much as you possibly can is going to make it better. And,

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again, that doesn't mean that you are giving up your vision or your road map.

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And as a lifelong media researcher,

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I think research is often blamed for things that it doesn't do. I think what

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asking for people's opinions even at the basic level of, quote, unquote,

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research, it at least gives you the guardrails of

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what not to do. Don't turn that far to the right. Don't turn that

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far to the left. But in between those rails, that's where you can make your

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art. And I think knowing both of those things is super valuable. If you wanna

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get the book, I'll have a link in the show notes. Go out to school

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of podcasting.com/949, or just visit

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Tom's website for the book, audience is listening book.com.

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But before he left, I had a couple things I wanted to ask Tom that

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he kinda threw out there. He worked with Howard Stern. I was dying to know

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what he did for The Howard Stern Show. I was studying the audience, and I

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was you know, a lot of it was Howard has always created

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controversy, and a lot of it was how wide are those

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feelings? Is this a a noisy minority,

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or is he really screwing up? And that was the thing that, you know, syndicators

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and and local affiliates really wanted to know. And, you know,

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I can tell you that the, you know, the FCC investigates

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when for for AM FM radio. The FCC investigates every single

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complaint as if it were a a bomb being dropped. And

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I think over, one stretch of time, there were something like 233

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complaints against Howard Stern, and 200 of them were from the

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same person. And so it looks like it's like shark attack. If you

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if if there's 2 shark attacks at a beach, then don't go to that beach.

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It's a shark beach. Yeah. Okay. But, you know, the thing about Howard

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and why Howard has been and continues to be so successful, you know,

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his notoriety may be around controversial things that have been

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said. Howard Stern is one of the 2 or 3 best interviewers on the

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planet. He has the ability to immediately disarm a

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guest and immediately get them to share things that they never would

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have dreamed they would have been sharing in an interview show, and that's a gift,

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and that's genius, and that's skill. And since Tom works in what I

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call the advertising bubble, right, there are different bubbles in podcasting,

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and Tom works with these big agencies and giant shows

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around the advertising market. And so I wanted to ask

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him because so many advertisers are worried

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about buying advertising and podcasting because somebody might say booger,

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to quote WKRP. And so why can't a podcaster

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at the beginning of his episode just say, hey. The following views and

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opinions are not necessarily, those that are shared by their

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sponsors, and here was his answer. What you are establishing here is

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not a legal precedent. You are acting in the court of public opinion.

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And I think I'll I'll say this about brand safety and brand suitability because I

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hear it a lot from our partners. We have many of our content producing partners

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who who produce true crime content. And they hear from

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advertisers, I don't want my brand associated with murder. Right? I don't want,

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you know, murder brought to you by Toyota. Toyota, drive to your

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murder. That, I think, is dramatically overstated

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unfairly in podcasting because those same advertisers, you

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know, watch any network news broadcast, watch any, you

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know, either police procedural show like, you know, NCIS

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or Law and Order or things like Dateline NBC or, you know, any kind

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of true crime thing on TV. They're brought to you by insurance companies and

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pharmaceuticals and financial services. They don't seem to have those issues on TV.

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You know, I think that that those things are more a function of

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skeptical buying public than any specific

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objection to to to questionable content. Merely giving a

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disclaimer does not let you off the hook. And then he let me know

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one thing that's going on inside of ad agencies. Here's the

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thing, Dave. The number one goal of 99%

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of media buyers, brand teams at agencies, and so on, they have they

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all share the same goal. So don't get fired. And one of the reasons why

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this book is so good, yes, Tom works with big agencies.

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However, never forget You know, I may earn a living

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by partnering with, you know, with big podcasting. Right? With the larger

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networks and things that are our partners, it sounds profitable. But, you know, my

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feet are also squarely with the indies. I've been a podcaster myself since the

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mid 2000. And some of the things that I talk about there

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are lessons for big and small. And that's what makes the book

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great. Again, the website for the book, audience

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is listening book.com. I'll have links in the show notes.

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Thanks, Tom, for coming on the show. I deeply appreciate it. Dave, an honor. You're

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a legend. Thank you so much for having me.

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Couple things that really stood out from this is

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I don't think I'm that crazy when it comes to editing. I really do just

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kinda level 1 stuff. The thing I noticed if you notice, we started

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off with me kinda live with Tom, and then I switched

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formats. Can you do that? Hey. It's my show. Yeah. I switched to a

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narrative style podcast. You know why? It wasn't a bad

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interview, but I I've known Tom over the years,

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and I kept just saying something and not asking

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a question. And so I went in and listened

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to some of the questions I did ask and listened to the answer. One of

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the questions you didn't hear was, how long ago did you write the

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book? Because does it matter? Like, would you buy the book if it

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was a year old versus 4 years old? No. I'm telling you right now,

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it's a really good book. So I took that out. And when

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it comes to the opening of your show, I love the

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line from my cohost of the podcast

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review show, Eric k Johnson. You can find it at podcasttalentcoach.com.

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He says nobody's getting on a bus without knowing where it's

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going. And so the intro of your show

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should be welcome to the blah blah show and explain what that's

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about. So welcome to the School of Podcasting where I help you plan, launch,

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grow, and if you want to monetize your show. And then

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explain what today's show is about, today's episode is about,

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and then get to that as quickly as possible. That's really

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it's not that hard of a recipe.

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And Tom calls it throat clearing where we're just like,

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I'm getting ready to get ready. And I loved his point

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about you don't see that on TV. You kinda see

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it in movies. And what I mean by that is I am one of

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the weird people that when I do go to the movies, and I don't go

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that often, I I go to see the trailers.

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But he's saying when the movie starts, you don't see

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them chit chatting. And I always say, put the

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chitchat. Hey. What you've been up to there, squirmy?

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Oh, well, you know, Nobles, I've been doing

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this. Well, put that at the end where your superfans are still

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listening. You really only have a

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chance to make a you know, to get your hooks into them to where they

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go, well, I wanna hear more at the beginning.

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And it is kinda sad that there are apps. I'm right now

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playing with Podcast Guru, and this might be

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the app because it's got my favorite, which is a smart

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playlist, where I can say, hey. When there's a new episode

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from this health related show, put it in my health playlist.

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I can have it download stuff. I can program what

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speed I wanna listen to at, and it has the whole podcasting 2 point o

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streaming thing. Although, I will say that right now, the

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streaming satoshi things is kind of on pause unless you're using

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truefans.fmorfountain.fm.

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And so the feature

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that more and more apps are putting in, Overcast,

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Podurama, and now Podcast Guru, they make it

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so that when you hit play on a podcast, you can skip Truefans,

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by the way, truefans.fm. You can skip x amount of minutes

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to get to the meat and potatoes. And I just

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don't think that's the way to hook somebody in

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by bombarding them with stories about your cat and

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advertising. Think of your title of your

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episode as a promise and get to that as soon

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as possible. If you wanna hear more about this, I

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do have a show. Yeah. I only do it when people pay me

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for it. It's at podcast rodeo show dot com where I grab

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a podcast and see how long I can hang on, and you will hear

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people blow their first impression over and over

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and over. Now if you I do have multiple ways. If you're looking for

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feedback, I've got multiple ways of doing it. There's the

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podcast rodeo show. There's the podcast hot seat.

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That's where you get a free month at The School of Podcasting when you

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order basically me to look at your episode and your

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website and give you feedback. And while you're at The School of Podcasting,

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you get unlimited consulting. Now if you want

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more than one opinion and what an opinion it is, you can have

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myself and Eric k Johnson, who I mentioned earlier, the podcast talent

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coach. We do a show called the podcast review show, where, again, we

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look over an episode, and we look over your

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website. We bring you on live to kinda go over

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what you were thinking, what's the the brand vision

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of your show, and kinda help you polish it up a little bit. So

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if you're looking for feedback on your show, we've got you

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covered. And over the almost 20 years now that

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I've been podcasting, I notice 2 things that

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go hand in hand. A person says, I'm trying to

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grow my audience. And when you ask them, did you get someone not

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named mom or somebody that you're not related to to listen

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to your show and give you constructive feedback? The answer is

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always, oh, no. I don't think

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that's a coincidence. I really don't. And that's something

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you might want to consider even if you've been doing it for

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4 years. I see a lot of low hanging fruit. Now another

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mistake I'm gonna tell you about right after this.

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When you are talking about a service you use so

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let's say you're using Patreon. You shouldn't be

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telling people, oh, go to patreon.com/davejackson.

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You should be saying go to ask the podcast coach.com/awesome.

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Why? Because I control that website.

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And one of the things that when you first launch your

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podcast, you wanna put links to

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your show on places like Apple and Spotify

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and Amazon and such. And there have been a

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number of websites that have popped up. And one right now is

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getting a a fair amount of people talking about, and that is episodes.fm.

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It's a handy site. Nathan is the guy behind it.

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And you can go there, search for your show, and it will give you

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links to your show on Apple and Spotify and about

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50 other websites. Now what I don't wanna hear people

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do well, it's your show, but I wouldn't do this. Episodes.fms/whatever.

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School of podcasting. Because right now, episodes.fm

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is not charging anything. And I have noticed, again, in my

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years of doing this, that free is not a good business model.

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So if you're going to do that, do your

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website.com/follow, which is what I do,

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except I point to Podgagement. And then the other

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thing I do is I have a page, school of

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podcasting.com/subscribe. And that's typically what I

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recommend. You want that page on your

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website or a domain that you

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control. Because if you were to

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share school of podcasting.com/follow,

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I really don't get any Google juice from that because it just says, oh,

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that website's really over there on Podgagement. So I'm not

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getting any SEO from that. So I always recommend putting the

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links on your website, have it some sort of easy

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to remember address like slash follow.

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And now that I work for PodPage, I

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wanna point out something else that I went, oh, you might wanna pay attention to

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that. Because with PodPage, you can go into settings

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and then go into I believe it's podcast player links or

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something of that nature. And you can put the link

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to your show on Apple and Spotify, and it does exactly what I

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just said. It actually makes a slash follow page, and it's on your

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website. So it reinforces your brand,

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and it makes it super easy for people to listen on whatever platform.

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But then you're like, ah, I gotta go get the link to my show on

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Spotify, which isn't hard for the record. You search for your show,

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hope that you can find it, and then there's a the 3 little buttons

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that you see, you know, the 3 little dots. You click on those and copy

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the show link, put it into your website, and there you

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go. Well, you might go, oh, you know what? I can just get my links

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from this episodes.fm place. And that sure looks

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like you could. But here's the thing. When you search for

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your show and you find it, the

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link you are actually top, copying and this is

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not a, you know, sinister thing

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that the owner of episodes.fm is doing.

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But when you go there, you type in your show like, oh, there's all my

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links. Well, here's the thing. The link to my show on Apple

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from episodes.hafem is episodes.fm/launch,

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question mark show equals ID, which is my Apple

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ID, 8365-8679, whatever it

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is, at platform equals Apple, which will work

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as long as episodes.fm, a

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free service, is around. So

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if you wanna use episodes.fm, a, it is super

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simple. However, I would

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say find the links yourself, put them on your

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website to help reinforce your brand, and

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boost your SEO. Now, like I said, I use school of

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podcasting.com/follow to point people at

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my Podgagemens, site with the links there. At

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least that's a, you know, URL that I own.

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I am not getting any SEO from that. So make up your

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mind which one you want. There are multiple ways of doing it. You could point

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people at, you know, any of these sites. Their Podlink was another

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one back in the day. You can use those. Just realize

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you're sneezing away your SEO. And like I said, you want to

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get links that are the link to those platforms,

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not something in the middleman. Another

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service I've talked about with not a lot of, well, I

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just didn't like it, is Listen Notes. And

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somebody brought up a point, and I went, well, yeah, that

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does become something you could use it for. So I've somewhat

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changed my opinion on it. I'll explain why right after

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this. The school of podcasting.

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. The following is just an opinion.

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But if you're talking to someone and they go, well, I'm a top

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0.5% podcaster at

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listen notes. And if you're new to the show, the reason why that's

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kinda bunk is Listen Notes compares you

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to 100 of thousands of podcasts.

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Many of them like, congratulations. You're beating that show about

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Tiger King from 2020. Yeah. I hope so. My

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buddy, Steve Stewart, had a show that was ranking, I believe, in the

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top 5 or 10%, and he hadn't put out an episode

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in 7 years. So if someone, in my opinion,

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quotes their listen notes stats as a way

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to validate their,

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I don't know, podcastness. I think I'm gonna make up a word there. I

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think that's bunk, for lack of a better phrase. It's just like, okay.

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Congratulations. You've you've beaten something, you know, that show

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from 2,011 about whatever.

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Yeah. Congrats on that. So that's I've I've always kind of

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cringed. I I actually have friends that do that. I'm like, because to

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me, they know that. If if they're worth

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their weight in in podcasting consulting, they should know

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that status is bunk. It's

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and yet if they still use it, that means either a, they're just gonna use

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it because it's marketing. And, you know, marketing's kinda lying or

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or just kinda politely pulling the wool over people's eyes.

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And I'm like, I nope. Sorry. But

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somebody did go, couldn't you use listen notes for this?

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Then I went, well, yeah, you could. So what

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is that? And I still think this is not a a great idea, but

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I I've switched my opinion on well, yep. You could use listen notes

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for that. And these are people that are trying to get booked

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on big shows. I wanna get booked on the top shows of

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podcasting and, you know, money will fall from heaven.

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Yeah. Okay. So even though the way they rate

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shows is is flawed, It

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is consistent. So if you wanted to see

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what the biggest shows were in your field,

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you could use that. Just realize that I

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would not put in my marketing materials, I've

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appeared on a top 0.5% podcast, etcetera,

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such as such and such because there are people that know that

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stat is, like, not good. And you're gonna end up being

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kind of a millivanilli kinda way where all of a sudden, everybody's gonna find out

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and go, oh. Now that's just my opinion,

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but I've seen it happen before. And so I guess

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if you really want to see the top shows now you could also go to

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Chartable and search the charts that way. You could go to

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Apple and search the charts there. But I I think you're

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missing one of the key points of being on

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shows. It's not about being on the big shows. It's

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about being on the right show because you could be on

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a top 200 show about beans,

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but your show is about motocross. And,

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sure, some motocross people may eat beans,

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but wouldn't it be better to be on a show about, I don't know, motocross?

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So that's my thought on listen notes. And

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since I somewhat almost went, yeah, I guess that

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would work, I thought I would share. I'm always open to suggestions

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and ideas just because I expressed an opinion that's based on

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the facts and the

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actions and results that I see in the podcasting

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space, and I might be missing something. So I'm always open

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for new input. The school of

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podcasting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Last little thing I

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wanted to throw in here and as I mentioned earlier, I'm all about

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feedback. And I got some feedback from my buddy Ralph

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over at ask ralphpodcast.com. If you're looking for a show

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about finance from a Christian point of view, check him out at askraufpodcast.com,

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and he was listening to the show I do called Ask the

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Podcast Coach. And we were getting, I would I

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that's a show I do crowdfunding. I do I have a, an account

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at Supercast. I used to use Patreon.

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And while I'm doing it live, people are doing super

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chats because it's on YouTube. And,

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apparently, and I know I'm guilty of this, I often call

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those donations. I'd be like, hey. Thanks so much for the donation.

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And Ralph, being a guy with 30 years of

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tax knowledge, politely said, hey,

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Dave. You might wanna be careful throwing out the word

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donation unless you're an actual nonprofit

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because the FTC doesn't like it when you bend the

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truth. And so that's why the FTC has busted influencers

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who are saying they'll hold up a bottle of something. They're like, I love this

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stuff. Yeah. Well, you need to let your audience know that you just got paid

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$35 to hold that up. There are the FTC is

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now going over people who are fudging your numbers. So if

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you have a bunch of people overseas clicking on

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iPhones to run up your numbers, especially if you

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have advertisers, I like to call that fraud, but the FTC

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is starting to crack down on that. And so

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as influencers, and that's a word I am really not comfortable with, but

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you get the idea. When we have an audience, we have to be careful

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what we say because the bigger we are, the bigger the

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chance that the FTC might come knocking on our door,

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and they go, okay. So I understand you're a nonprofit. And you're

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like, no. And they're like, well, you've been accepting, in quotation marks, mister

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Jackson, donations. And then in the immortal

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words of Ricky Ricardo, I got lots of explaining to do.

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What kind of accent was that? I have no idea. But, just thank

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you, Ralph, for the input. And, so what do you call

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it when somebody sends you money? I talked about it a a couple episodes

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ago, but there are these ways for people to support your show,

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And I believe that's the phrase I'm gonna be using. Thank you so much for

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your support. That was an old remember Bartles and James? Anybody

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around here from the eighties? There was a, 2 old guys on a

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porch drinking wine coolers, and they'd be like, thank you so much for your

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support. Maybe that's the line we need to adopt. Instead of thank you

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so much for the donations, it's thank you so much for the

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support. And with that, I say, thank you so much for your

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support. Anybody who went out to thanks davejackson.com,

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That's the thing I threw out there just to see if anybody would. So thank

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you to everyone who did that. If you are looking

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to really, like, take your podcast

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up a notch and you need some feedback, and and you need

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somebody to go, hey. You got some low hanging fruit there.

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I would love to help you. It's what I do. Go to school of podcasting.com/listener

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or just use the coupon code listener when you sign up. That's great

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on a 30 or 30 day or yearly

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membership. And if you're worried about that, don't because you can go, hey, Dave. It's

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day number 29. Can I get a refund? And I will go, yes. And

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that comes with unlimited consulting. It comes with an amazing

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an amazing community with people like Ralph and Craig

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and Chrissy and the whole Chrissy, I shouldn't have named names Stephanie. See,

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I could be here for an hour now naming names. And, also,

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step by step courses on how to plan, launch, and grow your podcast.

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And if you wanna monetize, there's stuff on that too. Schoolofpodcasting.com.

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Thanks so much for tuning in. Until next week. Take

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care. God bless. Class is dismissed.

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