Have you ever thought about what happens to your podcast if something unexpected happens to you? It's a thought that most podcasters might overlook, but it's crucial for protecting your hard work and legacy. Many podcasters don’t realize that their podcast is more than content—it’s intellectual property, a brand, and potentially a significant revenue stream.

If you are interested in securing your Podcast's future and safeguarding your assets this episode of PodcastingTech is tailored for you.

In today’s episode, Oscar Vasquez, founder of EstateDocPrep.com, explores the necessity of estate planning for podcasters to secure their digital assets and future-proof their creative endeavors. Dave dives deep into practical financial tools that podcasters can use to maximize revenue and minimize future costs.

With a career spanning 28 years in the real estate industry, Oscar is well-versed in the realm of estate planning and digital assets. He has now transitioned into helping people protect their digital and physical assets through comprehensive estate planning.

Our conversation covers everything from understanding a living trust to how it applies to digital content like podcasts. Oscar emphasizes the importance of having a plan in place, whether your podcast is a hobby, a budding business, or a full-fledged venture.

This episode is vital for any podcaster committed to safeguarding their podcast’s future and ensuring their legacy continues. 

IN THIS EPISODE, WE COVER:

• The importance of digital estate planning: Oscar defines what a living trust is and why it's crucial for podcasters to consider, even if they view their podcast as just a hobby. (03:21) 
• Formal business structures for podcasts: Oscar talks about how to make transitions smoother for your podcast in unforeseen circumstances. (07:01) 
• Managing digital assets and credentials: Learn how to maintain an up-to-date inventory of your podcast’s various accounts and assets. (08:51) 
• Lasting legacy and revenue: Oscar discusses why having a plan for ongoing revenue streams is essential for protecting your legacy and continuing any monetary benefits. (14:28) 
• Myths about wills in estate planning: Oscar addresses common misconceptions and the limitations of using only a will for your podcast assets. (18:35) 

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

• Discover Comprehensive estate planning solutions - EstateDocPrep.com
• Contact Oscar's AI Receptionist: (805) 909-4689
• Get your free Estate Planning Guide: estatedocprep.com/guide
• Win a gift coupon by using code: PodcastingT for $1,000 off estate planning services for the first ten users - estatedocprep.com
• Connect and book with Oscar Vasquez via PodMatch
• Follow Oscar Vasquez on social media:

Facebook

Linkedin

Twitter

Instagram

Join us on this episode as we discuss protecting your podcast's future and legacy beyond the content you create. Subscribe to podcastingtech.com and follow us on all social media platforms to receive the latest podcasting content and expert insights.

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Welcome to Podcasting Tech, a podcast that equips busy

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podcast platform, and join us on this exciting journey to unlock the full

potential of your podcast. Gonna do

something very different today on the show. We are chatting with Oscar Vasquez.

He is the founder of

estatedocprep.com, and he's all about

helping folks with their estate planning. And something that most podcasters don't think about

is what happens if something were to happen to me? What happens to my show?

What happens to my brand? What happens to this business that I've put together? And

Oscar is gonna help us do that. Oscar, thank you for joining me today. Well,

you know, I'm excited to bring some value and bring some thoughts into your

head that most people don't think about.

It's funny. I just had this thought the other day about something completely

different, kinda unrelated, but then I realized, oh, you know, this could work really well

with podcasting as well. So first of all, let me just ask you. Like, where

did your interest like, how did you get you know, make your way into the

podcasting space? Well, I went I got into the

podcasting space because, while I first started,

I've been in the real estate industry for about twenty eight years.

And then what happened is I've I've started to help homeowners

protect their homes. And then I read an

interesting statistic probably in the summer of of this last

summer, and I kept thinking of a way to be able

to bring awareness. But 68% of homeowners

do not have an estate plan, and that means that the government

decides on what happens to your assets. And

so I what I decided is I said, how what's the best way to be

on a crusade that's not gonna cost millions of dollars, but

that can give it? And I figured people don't protect their

assets, whether they're digital or

or economical or anything. Their assets, they

don't protect them because they don't care about the beneficiaries

or their kids. I think they don't protect them because they don't know how and

that that needs protection. So I wanted to join a crusade,

and and once again, thank you for allowing me to bring the crusade

out and bring the information to now that people will

know that, you know, having

a living trust is is that. So 68%

of people don't have it. We're on a crusade to be able to educate

them and bring awareness to the

living trust arena or the estate planning arena of how

to protect your assets. So when we talk about podcast

estate planning in this case, first of all, if I'm just doing

this for fun, I'm doing this as a hobby, do I still have to think

about this stuff, or is this only if, I really treat this like a business

or money making venture? Well, I think here here's the

here's the situation. One, I wanna define what is a

living trust and how it could be used. Right? Because if

if if if it becomes and there's there's some

moments there I that because that is a loaded, but I wanna define what is

a living trust. A living trust is a contract

between you, which is your the the parents,

and the beneficiaries, which are usually the kids. And

that, the government enforces. Now

that is a living trust. It's your instruction to your kids on what

you want to have happen with your assets. So if your

podcast will be monetized someday listen. I

just created a living trust for a faceless

YouTuber that has, like, seven channels. He's

still generating a revenue from

videos that he generate that he produced

almost four years ago. So is that something

that's necessary? That's gonna be up to you. If the if it's going

to get monetized and there's gonna be an income and you want somebody

to benefit from it, then that might be a wise decision

to be able to do that. Now let me go in before is

this something for you or not? I wanna be able to tell you what

happens if you have an asset and you don't protect it.

And let's just say if you're a podcaster and it starts to take off,

you never know what topics you come up. I mean, there's trends all the

time. However, if you have an

asset, a podcast that starts to

get monetized and it has and it it exceeds

a let's just say, in Colorado, it exceeds a

$60,000 valuation,

it's gonna go to probate. That probate means that the court

is going to decide on what happens to your asset.

That's what that means. So one, if we have an

estate plan, aka a living trust, then

we decide the individual decides on what happens to the

asset. A b,

if you don't do if you don't create an estate

plan, then the government already has a plan in place,

which means the government decides on what happens

to your asset. So in short, if if you really

feel and you're committed to having a successful podcast and

being able to create, to create an asset

or the gift that keeps on giving because now it's a digital asset.

Right? Digital assets live forever. They outlive

us. They out they may outlive everything depending on the topics

and how the world turns. So my recommendation be something

to consider, to do that. And and if you wanna ask

a question, specifically, we have,

an artificial intelligence twenty four hour receptionist

that can answer any question about your business

or how to structure that. And if that's something that's doable, and we'll give out

that number in a little bit. Very cool. So so,

again, going back to podcasters in particular, should they then be

considering more formal structures

for their podcast to make that

transition from, you know, them to somebody else easier?

Or, again, if they if they're not in the business, right, they're doing this for

fun, but they're enjoying it. It's building up an audience. Maybe somebody

you know, maybe want they wanna pass it down. Can they just say in will,

I, you know, bequeath my podcast to you so and so?

You know, a will? Now that's that's that's one of the

biggest perception of an estate planning is having a will. And the

reason why is that a will says, I love you.

I leave you everything. That's it. And an estate

plan is a comprehensive estate plan that has specific

instructions on what you want. So if

if you have an asset, if you feel that the assets so

look. I just got into podcasting, but I'm gonna tell

you, starting starting to get to understand the amount

of assets and the amount of things that come to play

when you're creating a podcast, there's there you got advertising. You

got revenue. So the structure should be this. So in order

for an estate plan to be effective, the

estate plan needs to be the recipient

of all revenue so that way you can control it if you

pass. So, yes, if I think that any

podcaster that is taking this serious, an estate

plan should be something to really take into

consideration to protect your assets and, more importantly,

to protect the legacy and the

additional revenue that keeps coming in if if you

decide to monetize it. What about the just the idea of

planning in general? Right? You said that these podcasts have lots of different things attached

to them. Right? I've got a, login credentials for my

hosting plan. I've got login credentials for my Apple account, login credentials for

Spotify, then I've got my website, then I've got my show notes

service. How do you ensure that if you are

passing this on to somebody else, if you wanted to live on, that

they are able to access all those assets on your

behalf should you pass? Yeah. You know,

those those are called an asset inventory. One of the things that we

started to add on add on was an asset inventory

to social media. Like, Facebook won't give you access to

anybody's account or any social media won't give you an access to the account

if you're not the beneficiary or you have a written you

have a written power of attorney to do that. So, yes, keeping

inventory of your assets and what what you

can do with them so you could reedit and remaster them,

that would be something that is part of the

estate plan, and that should be something that you should take into consideration.

But more importantly, you wanna make the as

the living trust is a revocable living trust

that you need to put assets in. There's three things that make

a as a living trust, a living document

that make that needs to be that can be enforced by the courts.

One, it needs to be signed in front of a notary.

Two, it needs to be signed in front of two witnesses so that

it's beyond reasonable doubt that you executed and those are your

wishes. And three, more importantly, it needs

to have assets put into it. Because if you

don't have assets inside your living trust, if you don't say,

hey. That the the corporation if you become incorporated

or I own this podcast and this is my asset

and everything in my podcast, including but not

limited to any and all logins to

Apple, the all the all the portions. I I'm not too well

versed on the wording of of all the places where where podcasts

get in there. But you put all those assets in there, and

this is where they live, and you put in a login and password,

that is that is some of the parts of the estate planning.

Because if you pass or you become incapacitated,

where do checks go? Where does the money go? And those are all

that's why you want to put some of the majority of the

assets. Now I've been I've have been very fortunate. I own a few

businesses. A lot of the income goes into our

trust as far as for our revocable trust. So

everything is planned in case something were to happen to us. I'll give you an

example. There was a gentleman

that, had a bakery that we that we

helped and created it. We may one because of the estate planning,

he created what's called standard operating procedures for his

bakery. And then he ended up getting key key

person insurance because that bakery was

he was the main person he was the main person,

to be able to function the

the the bakery. And so what he did is he

got key person insurance to be able to replace him if he

were to pass. And that insurance policy was a million dollars.

So, for example, if you're a podcaster and you did many

interviews and you had this on there and you wanted your podcast to

keep living, but you wanted to generate the revenue, if you

got an insurance policy that made

the living trust or your trust the

beneficiary to keep it operating,

then that is another way on how you could create

legacy, legacy money for for for

your life. But your podcast keeps living on with your

name, and your business continues to generate some revenue while

you're not longer here kind of a thing. Right?

Here's a here's a scenario that I'm sure comes up more often than not.

Let's say I am I cohost a show with a friend,

partner. It is a monetized show, right, it's making

money. Something happens to me.

What happens to that show? Does it automatically all go over? If, like, if there

is no living trust, if there is no will, if there is no declaration of,

you know, my intentions there, does basically that other person

just gain control of the whole thing and that person's estate is maybe

left down the cold from potential future earnings? Absolutely.

And that happens more often than that. That's one of the scariest

things, by not having a partnership,

written agreement, or not putting your assets in,

that you have a written that you have a,

be because in order for the living trust to be to

be be the benefit or to be able to distribute

and take action, it needs to be the owner

of the asset. So you need to name them, hey. I'm

the employee or I am the I am the owner. Because

as a living trust trustee, you control

it, but you don't own it. The living trust does, which which

pre, creating what's called a corporate veil,

protects you from everything else because it's an individual

entity, in essence. However, that can

be prevented, by being able to add

the living trust as the owner and the bin and then your

beneficiaries can benefit from from that partnership.

Gotcha. Anything else that we as podcasters

and digital content creators should be keeping in mind when, you

know, we're thinking about the future of our digital properties and and

what we leave behind? You know, I think this I think

one is that, if you if you're generating any kind

of income, that that's passively you need to

have an estate plan, period. You need to plan

because if that money is gonna has the potential to

outlive you, you need to make sure the right people get it,

period. And I could tell you that the gentleman that I spoke to on

the YouTube channel, he said that his YouTube he

sold one YouTube channel for 32

times revenue,

32 times revenue. And I was like, wow. That's amazing. I've never

heard that kind of a multiplier, but he said because it's a digital

content. So if it has any kind of passive income,

consider an estate plan. If you own a

home, you gotta have an estate plan. If you own a home

and you have young children, obviously, you

already have a business if you have a podcast. Even if you're trying to do

this, as as a hobby, it's I mean, we're doing it at sometimes

we start as a hobby, and then we get in and it starts to gen

you you happen to get on a good topic and you go viral with something.

Right? So, yes, I would highly recommend that,

something to consider. And I would love to give out I brought some

a couple of gifts that I love to give to people, if that's okay.

I got three gifts. I'd like to give one. I'd like to give you the

phone number to call an artificial intelligence,

AI, twenty four hours a day, receptionist. Ask her anything

about your business, and she'll say how you could structure your

business. And if you wanna speak to a human, you'll probably get transferred to me

or one of our state coordinators. That phone number is,

(805) 909-4689.

9 0 9 8 0 5 9 0 9

4 6 8 9. Now you could call

it twenty four hours a day. She doesn't take any time off. Wafu, there's no

power. Obviously, she's not gonna talk, but you could ask

her anything. The second gift that I wanted to give you guys today is I

wanna give you a comprehensive live estate

planning guide. It has a ton of questions. It's a guide.

It's a it's a working document that you can put in.

Now full disclosure. If you fill in all the blanks,

that is not a living trust. Okay? Just could you

fill in all the questions? It's not a living trust. I wanna give you that.

It's estate planning

estatedocprep.com/guide.

Estate Prep forward / guide will get that. And the

last gift that I'd like to give you is part is a

coupon code for the first ten users is if

you want if you decide that you're a homeowner, you have young children, and

your and your business is going to thrive, you wanna prevent

yourself from letting the court decide to make

a decision on what happens to your assets, you can get a

$1,000 coupon code or discount code, which is

called pod castine t, pod

castine t. We'll put that in the description. You could

use that. You could save $1,000. Your checkout would be for a

lifetime access to software with unlimited

updates. That means every time you add a digital asset,

you'll be able to update that and be able to get that

on on, update your living trust at no

additional cost. Average attorneys car charge

about $1,200 for an update on a

restatement for a living trust. These are my gifts to you.

Thank you for letting me have, be bring awareness

to all the podcasters out there.

You never know when the asset is going to outgrow

its potential or outgrow it, and if it's gonna generate revenue, protect

it from the government. That is very generous of you. Once again, we

are chatting with Oscar Vasquez. He's the founder of EstateDoc

Prep. He just mentioned a phone number for an AI receptionist, a website

so you can get your estate planning guide, and a coupon code, podcasting t,

to get a thousand dollars off. We will have links to all of that in

the show notes so you can find it. But as as you said, Actfast, the

coupon code is only good for the first ten people who are going to use

it. Oscar, before we let you go, we have a couple questions we'd like to

ask everybody. The first one is, is there any place in podcasting where you'd like

to see some things improve, whether it's listening, production,

distribution, anything in particular that, you know, you would just love to see

podcasting do better? You know, I just I just got I just

got into it. I could tell you that the technology, every day, I

learn something new. You know, I've had this mic for two years, and

I never knew how it functioned. And I learned something I

mean, so simple, but it's gonna make my life easier. So,

you know, I could say that, if there was something that I

could I could tell you my experience been with podcasters

is that there's some very gracious people out there. I think that,

if I had to describe most of the hosts, they were all gracious, helpful,

and kind people, and I think it's a great community. I haven't

had a bad experience yet, and, I don't not

today. I I don't know enough about it, but but that'll be something

that I will take into consideration. And if I do, I I will bring that

back to you, Matthew. Sounds great. Speed of technology, is there

any on your wish list for your podcast, whether it's hardware, maybe even some

software that, would make your life easier? Yeah. You know what? I just found,

Riverside, I think, is something that's that's probably,

the people that that produce at a high level. We we

we will become a host probably in the next in here soon as I'm

learning. I've learned more than I'm learning about it. I

did get myself, you know, kinda get mic'd

up, but as far as technology, I'm not too far in it. But, you

know, I you know, what I would like to see is a something that can

take the podcast information and make it into

clips without so much editing something that maybe cut down

editing. That would be Good news is you've

already found that tool. Riverside does that. There are a bunch of others that well,

so, you're on the right track. And lastly, are there any

podcasts, one or two that you are listening to that are your absolute

favorites, the ones that you will not let a new episode go unlistened

or, you know, you will stop what you're doing and check them out? Yeah. You

know what? I'd I'm I'm a big fan of Joe Rogan. I

just I I love that. I mean, you know what? Some of his topics and

the people that he's got on has been has been there. I'm

starting to, you know, I'm starting to learn more and more and starting to

see other podcasts. I like marketing podcast. I don't

I don't not not been a diehard

loyal fan other than to the Joe Rogan one because that's the one I usually

go out of my way to. But I'm starting to look at listen

to more and more. So thank you for that.

Excellent. Well, once again, everybody, we've been chatting with Oscar Vasquez,

founder of

estatedocprep.com. Lots of

great resources from him. Lots of ways where you could follow him and check out

what he's doing on social. We'll have links to all those there. Oscar, thank you

very much for joining us today. Thank you very much, Matthew. Thank you for having

me and allowing me to bring this awareness to a state

planning that most people need. Thank you. Thanks

for joining us today on Podcasting Tech. There are links to all the

hardware and software that help power our guest content and

podcasting tech available in the show notes and on our website at

podcastingtech.com. You can also subscribe to the show on your favorite

platform, connect with us on social media, and even leave a rating and review while

you're there. Thanks, and we'll see you next time on Podcasting

Tech.