Carl Richards on Evolving with Podcasting

Rich Bennett 0:00
Thanks for joining the conversation, where we explore the stories and experiences that shape our world. I'm your host, Rich Bennett, and today I think I am joined by my younger twin brother, if that makes any sense. We have a special guest joining us, a seasoned veteran in the world of podcasting and an influential figure in the industry. Carl Richards is a three time bestselling author, a TEDx speaker and the founder and CEO of Carl Speaks and podcast Solutions Made Simple with over 25 years of experience. Carl has been captivating audiences worldwide, both behind the microphone and on stage. He's dedicated to helping coaches, consultants and experts establish themselves as authorities by launching a world class podcast from his home in Ghent in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, where he enjoys the serene beauty of the Thousand Islands. Carl brings a wealth of knowledge and insights into the art of podcasting, so get ready for a conversation filled with wisdom, tips and the secrets to making your podcast a standout success and the reason I say my twin, even though you all can't see us, 

we're both bald. We both been in radio, 

we're both podcasting and we're both podcast consultants. 

Carl Richards 1:25
There you go. That works. 

Rich Bennett 1:26
I'm telling you, I think you are my long lost younger twins. 

Carl Richards 1:31
I think we should just leave it at Bald and Radio. I think we lost our hair because of radio. Maybe. I don't know. I think that when I went to radio it was starting to recede. I still had a full head of hair. But now, yeah, know. 

Rich Bennett 1:43
No, I. I'm. I'm in the house of two Irish women. That's why. 

Carl Richards 1:49
I. Oh, that would do it. And how many Listen to the show. 

Rich Bennett 1:54
Actually, my daughter does. Well, there you go. Okay. Yeah, She's like, Dad, you started to lose the hair before I was born. I want to go back a ways before it, before podcast. And because you're in we talked before you were in radio. How long were you in radio for? 

Carl Richards 2:09
I was in radio for almost 25 years. Wow. 1997 was my birthing into the world of Radio three years. Campus radio. Before that, I graduated in 94 from community college. And you know how. 

Rich Bennett 2:23
Fun it is to get into. 

Carl Richards 2:24
Radio, right? Huh? For every radio job that was out there in the nineties, there were like 50 people lining up for it, including all the newbies graduating college. So it took me a while to get there. But that was dedication, you know, really, you know, sticking around for three years, trying to find that find that first elusive radio gig. But yeah, 25 years in radio and just like we've heard in the television show, you know, town to town, up and down the dial, that the therapy style from oh my goodness, music formats from music of your life, the music of your life format, that was pretty much if it fit. It's hard to explain to to a non radio programmer. Obviously you know something about radio, but music if your life was anything that ever the radio station wouldn't play pretty pretty much right but but also pop country soft rock. Yeah. And everything in between. 

Rich Bennett 3:18
Are you sure you went to community college for that? 

Carl Richards 3:21
Yeah. And the school in Canada is a little bit different. So we had universities and your community colleges is where most of those, they call them techs and trades, right? So radio being more of a technical or they would consider it a trade. So it was like three years of university or two years of college. And I'm like two years of college sounds good because that will get me into the industry quicker. But yeah, so it was, it was a great journey into, into the, into the foray but couple of years community college Mohawk College my alma matter there and yeah, here we are. 

Rich Bennett 3:56
So I'm glad you said that because actually our sponsor HFC, is the community college radio station here. 

Carl Richards 4:03
Nice. 

Rich Bennett 4:05
And they also teach podcasting now. Oh really? Yes. Yeah, they had their student learning center. They're teaching podcasting and they I'm telling you, they've turned out a lot of great radio personalities from there. The podcasting part is pretty new. Mm hmm. But still, it's a lot. And it cracks me up because a lot of people say, Oh, well, now I got to go to college and get my degree in, what do they call it, mass communications or whatever. 

Carl Richards 4:36
Oh, yeah, something like that. 

Rich Bennett 4:37
If I want to get on radio, I No, you don't. You can go to community college now. Me, I went to, there was a broadcasting school here which I think it was six months 

unfortunately then it's closed now. But we with radio again before we get into the podcasting, what, Because you're no longer in radio, right? Yeah. What is If there is, what is one of the biggest things that you miss about radio? 

Carl Richards 5:06
Oh, my goodness. When I got it. Okay. Okay, let's let's back the train up a little bit when I got in. The reason I got in was because of the the personalities that I grew up listening to. And they they were having fun. You know, They were having fun. You could hear the character creation that they did every morning. There was a the morning show that I listened to AM radio back of the day, Top 40, and they had these characters. They had Mr. Science. It was this weird guy with the white picket fence around his laboratory or whatever, and he created these crazy experiments. Anyways, I grew up saying, I want to do that. I want to be this. I didn't know what it was then, but this guy that creates all this awesome content and talks on the radio and has fun all day as opposed to going to work. Right, Right. Realizing that it would to be a job. But. But I think the big thing that I miss about radio is that that theater of the mind that getting on the radio and knowing that how much influence you have on people's lives and I know that sounds a little bit superficial in that way but but you do you do have influence from giving people the time check. Yes. We're in a very tech driven world now where we have all our information on those idiot devices we carry around in our pockets known as cell phones, cell phones, they're smartphones. I don't know. They're smarter than me, but but we have everything we need on that device. But we still rely on the radio for, you know, immediate things like, oh, what's the time check? Because I, you know, dozed off or. Right. What's happening in the world of the of traffic right now as I'm in the middle of a traffic jam and I can't reach my phone without a eleventy billion dollar fine and possibly causing an accident. You know so all of those things I used to be back in the day to the, you know, the phone would ring where I am. We get a lot of snow, the phone would ring if there was a snowstorm and everyone wanted to know the bus is canceled. Are the schools open? Right. So all of that stuff that makes you such an influential person and in some cases, the entertainment that that gets people through their day Because you you know, people can't be on their cell phones all the time when they're at work, but they can have on a radio and that companionship. So that influence in various capacities I think is what I miss. 

Rich Bennett 7:12
Yeah, that's and I was the same way I remember as a kid just listening to the station. Now, of course, of that originally I wanted to be a rock star and then when I realized that I sucked at that was like, Well, if I could play the music that's I really want to do. 

Carl Richards 7:29
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 7:31
But the weird thing now I'm the weird guy because even though I, I did like DJ some times, I didn't like the fact that I couldn't use my own name. But I what I really loved the most about radio was when I did sales. 

Carl Richards 7:45
Oh, okay. 

Rich Bennett 7:46
Yeah. I've told you I'm the weird one, man. 

Carl Richards 7:49
It's the one of radio I never got into. Somebody told me, they said, You know what you might like on air, but you should really get into sales because that's where the money really is. It doesn't. But if you can sell airtime. 

Rich Bennett 8:06
Oh, you're going to do well. Oh, yeah. Especially if you if you were the lucky one to get the car dealerships. You were making money. Without a doubt. So how long how long ago was it that you actually got out of radio? 

Carl Richards 8:19
I got out of radio four. You probably heard this a couple of times from colleagues or other friends that that were in the biz. But I got out during COVID. COVID was a huge catalyst that changed the industry a lot. It used to be that, you know, certainly where where we are a your local radio stations rely a lot on local advertisers. Yeah. You know, there's only so many national advertisers, especially in Canada, that you can rely on for your everyday bacon. So during COVID, when everything was shuttered, 

radio pretty much across the board lost about 70% of its revenue. Yeah. And you knew it was only a matter of time before there was going to start be a you knew it was just a matter of time before they would start cutting or, you know, making changes. And I was one of the first people in our station to go hang around for the first six months of COVID. But then September 2020 was when we we parted company and it was a great opportunity for me. I had already had a part time business that I had started in 2011, in late 2010, when I was let go from my first radio job, which you can relate to this. They say you haven't made it in radio until you've been fired at least once. Yes, right. Yes, I guess I was fired. But I mean, as detrimental as it was at that time, back in 2011, I remember pivoting and starting a part time business, doing speaker training and it stayed part time because I got back into radio and there were so many opportunities that presented themselves that why would I leave, right? But in 2020, when this big bad COVID 19 hit, it was yeah, it was a great opportunity. And and I haven't looked back other than still wanting to, you know, every now and again I'll go, God, it would be fun to be on the radio. But then it really would be, you know, would it be the same level of fun it was before? But yeah, 2020 was when I pivoted out of radio. The speaker training business would have been great to take that full time. But everything was shut down. Yeah, nobody was getting on physical stages, so everyone's vying to get on virtual stages and a podcast is a virtual stage. So that's when I did the 180 degree flip and said, okay, well let's take what I know about broadcasting, you know, radio plus stage plus. I am already I was already a podcaster. So I said, Well, let's let's turn this into a business. And that's how that got started. 

Rich Bennett 10:43
Well, so you are already podcasting when COVID hit with another podcast. 

Carl Richards 10:47
Yeah, I launched a podcast of my podcasting journey. That's an interesting one. And you actually hit the nail right on the head a few minutes ago when you said that, you know, nobody knew what a podcast was. Well, I had a colleague come to me in 2012, and when I told him I was doing speaker training, he said, Oh, you should you should start a podcast. And I remember saying, What's a podcast? Even after they explained it, I still said, okay, why would me? A speaker trainer was training people to get on physical stages. Why would I why would I want my own? Whatever the the thing you want to call a radio pod broad thing? I don't know. I can't even articulate it properly, as you can tell. So a few years later, I'm at an event in Toronto. It was the Real Estate Investors Expo, and one of the main stage speakers was Tony Robbins. But they had all these breakout rooms, they had a ton of breakout rooms, and they had a lot of other thought leaders in those breakout rooms. And one of the guys who was in one of the breakout rooms was a guy by the name of Sam Crowley. I don't know if you know Sam. 

Rich Bennett 11:49
But that name sounds very. 

Carl Richards 11:51
Familiar. Yeah, he's been podcasting, said since podcasts were in diapers. 

Rich Bennett 11:55
Okay. 

Carl Richards 11:56
And he said his whole session, his whole 90 minute session was you can start a podcast for free. And he walked you through everything you need to do to start a podcast. And he would interact with the crowd and say, What's your podcast going to be about? What's your podcast going to be about and pick people out of the audience. I remember putting my hand up and saying public speaking or something like that, Right? Right. Anyways, I was so proud, foolishly proud. I thought, okay, I can do this myself. So that's around 2016, 2017. I didn't launch my podcast till 2019 because I thought I knew it all and I could get it and I could figure it all out. Right, right. Broadcaster I know how to talk, I know how to record, I know how to edit, not knowing that there's a few other moving parts to putting it. 

Rich Bennett 12:39
Together, right? Yes. 

Carl Richards 12:41
But finally figured it out. Launched was seven episodes in 2019, so I already had that and that's when I realized that. Now, why don't more people know about this? Why aren't more people taking this? Again, this is 2019. This is before the onslaught of the massive growth in popularity in the podcasting space. There are I think there were around three quarters of a million podcasts when I launched my show. There's something like 5 million Now, let's not talk about Pod Fade, but there's about 5 million out there roughly. And I remember saying, Why don't why don't more people know about this? So 2019 was when I launched my show and it's morphed from being just about speaker training to communication strategies and all kinds of different things. 

Rich Bennett 13:23
Yeah, you're right. I remember and I've mentioned this a lot because before COVID hit, I think you're right, I was like right around 700,000 active podcast. 

Carl Richards 13:32
Yeah, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 13:33
COVID hit everybody. Well, nobody had they didn't have anything to do. Everybody got into the podcast world. I think that number went up to a little over 7 million. I think. Yeah, And I know Alex from Potlatch put that chart out all the time. I think there's now there's a little over 5 million podcast, but it's only a little over 3 million that are active. 

Carl Richards 14:02
Yeah, something like 60% are. 

Rich Bennett 14:04
Yeah. It's, it's, 

well you know, because you've been in the podcasting field, what do you think the biggest problem is? Why people think it's so easy. They get into it and then they just stop and Alex put a good number out there. He said it's, 

it's, it was like four times easier to start a business than it is a podcast and be successful. But why do you think so many people jump into it and they just forget about it? 

Carl Richards 14:44
Well, I think I think you already mentioned it. I think you answered your own question because. Because they think it's easy. Yeah, I can do a podcast. My friend, my friend Rich Bennett, he's doing a podcast. I could do that. I can talk and, you know, do that with people. You know. 

Rich Bennett 14:59
I can do. 

Carl Richards 15:00
That. Not realizing that, you know, firstly, Rich has been doing it for a while. You know, Rich girl, you've been doing it since 2015, You said, I've been doing it since 219. So I've got a little bit of longevity and we've already made our mistakes, right? 

Rich Bennett 15:12
Oh yeah, of them. 

Carl Richards 15:14
But, but I think that's you know, people get into the space, they go, I want a podcast. My question that I always ask people and, and maybe do this to, I say, why do you want a podcast if you can't articulate why you want to show your goal, the outcome that you want and who your audience is that you're going to serve, you're going to struggle. Not only that, it's it's easy when you know what needs to be done, and it's also easy when you chunk it into bite sized pieces. Yeah, when we work with clients, we always say, Give us 60 days and people think we're crazy, so, well, can't we launch sooner? I said, Yeah, sure, we can launch in three weeks if you want, but are you going to have a chunk of content ready to put out there so that we can effectively launch? And it's not just having the show. The one piece that I think people forget about is you have to tell people you have a podcast. All too often what happens is people will put all this effort into putting in and it's usually one or two most episodes. They'll put together one or two episodes and go. 

Rich Bennett 16:22
I have a podcast. Yep. 

Carl Richards 16:25
Don't tell anybody, but I have a podcast. You're not going to get you're not going to get results from that. So you really need to know your why and all sounds like like Simon Sinek when I say that, But you really do. You really. 

Rich Bennett 16:37
Do. Do you? That's the. 

Carl Richards 16:38
Purpose. What's the why? Why are you doing this? And once you know that you need to do the work, there's a lot of moving parts to this that a lot of people don't realize. And when I work one on one with people say, Have you thought about theme music? Theme music? Really? Yes. What about artwork? Artwork? What's that? Is that something I hang on my wall behind me? No, no, that's not what podcast artwork is, but nice try. So things that people don't realize that I didn't realize when I got into the game, but that's I think part of the problem is and the other piece is we live in a world that wants immediate gratification. Yeah, we want, you know, we listen to podcasters out there. Some of us are listening to the fame and fortune ones like the Joe Rogan's of the world and all those other big thought leaders that are, you know, already have arrived and they already come with 2 million or billion listeners. And we think that we can get a traction just like they do, not realizing that, you know what, when we first start, we might get three listeners. Yeah, two of them might be our mother and father. You know, that kind of thing. Or our kids. We have to realize that you have to build it and it's going to take time. Podcasting is a long game, not a short game. I have people that you probably had this happen to rich people that'll come to you and say, okay, I'm ready to monetize my show. And I go, That's nice, but what do you have to offer, right? Potential? If not sponsors, then partners that are going to joint venture with you on the show. What do you have to offer them? Well, my show wants what else do you have to offer that? So everybody's got a show? Yeah. Some of the reasons why I think that people don't quite hit the mark and. Right. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 18:26
Well, and I tell people this. That's all true. That are thinking about getting into podcasting because you have your hobbyist. Mm hmm. And then you have the ones that do it for business, and we'll get into that in a minute. But I always tell that I always first ask them, which one do you want to do? Because if you want to monetize it properly, 

think of it as a business. Well, it is a business if you're going to monetize it. It is a business put together a business plan just like you do with any business. You always have a business plan and it changes throughout the years, sometimes months. But put that together along with a media kit. Even if you haven't launched yet, you still need to know who it is that you're approaching. Who do you want your listeners to be? Who do you want? It's what's your message that you want to get across and I think that's where a lot of them are failing to the business part. And I'm with you 100% on this. This is something that I believe every business should be doing is having a podcast. Mm hmm. Apparently they don't like my reason why. So could you explain why it is important for business to have a blog? Oh. 

Carl Richards 19:47
I'm sure your reasons are good, but. But I always say that 

there's only been one business owner since I've been talking about podcasting. Mm hmm. Ultimately declare that he did not need a podcast for any reason, be it for a hobby, be it for business. And they this individual dealt with computer software that they would 

install and maintain with municipalities. Mm hmm. Right. Okay. So in that case, maybe you don't need the. I still disagreed with him, but he was able to. He's the only person that's been able to convince me 

if no other reason. Here's the thing. It's the same reason why in 2024, well, even before that, we all have websites. It's not because we want to go through the pain and agony of having a website and upgrading it all the time. It's because we know that if we don't have presence out there, our clients, our prospects, they won't find us. So think of a podcast as a website into an in 2000 to 24, somewhere around there, there were a lot of people that didn't want Web sites, didn't feel they needed them, a lot of mom and pop shops that didn't need them and those mom and pop shops, if they're still open, guaranteed, they have a website because it's that presence and people want to. People will do business with you once they have developed enough of a relationship with you and a know like and trust factor. So if you want to do that, you need to be able to connect with those people. And I don't know about you, Rich, where you live, but I know where I live. They're not looking for me in the Yellow Pages. They're not looking for me at the community center where there's a bunch of posters up their list. They're not looking for me on their local radio station or television station that might not even have local programming anymore, because that's where a lot of conventional media is going. MM They're looking for me online. That's where they're looking for me. They're searching for my business in their municipality. The largest sections in the Yellow Pages. I remember as a kid growing up, I think they were pizza 

lawyers and something else. I think those are the but pizza. I know was a big one pizza and I think Chinese food that were two of the big. 

Rich Bennett 22:05
Pizzas always it was you can't go. 

Carl Richards 22:08
Wrong with pizza. But the point is, is that that's where people are looking for you. Yeah. And people are now especially the the gen even the gen I'm a Gen Xer. There are a lot of Gen Xers that are looking for information online, the Gen Ys and the Gen Zs. They represent something like 60% of the podcast listening audience. MM And 60%. But if 60% of your clientele is looking for you online and you don't have a podcast, you could be doing your business a disservice by not being out there. 

Rich Bennett 22:43
I'm glad you mentioned the website part two because I am still shocked by how many businesses or even artists and authors, because as an artist and author, it's still business, don't have websites or rely on social media as their website. And I, I've seen a restaurant that does that they strictly rely on social media to push it. I guarantee if they had a website and even a podcast because it's a coffee shop, I believe is 

a it's a great podcast, You have your name right there, coffee with or whatever. You have customers coming in all the time talked there are so many stories there that you could build around your coffee shop and if you had the podcast and the website, I guarantee you you'd probably have lines outside of your coffee shop because you know, people waiting to get in oh one without without a doubt actually. And with the social media, 

I don't know how you know what you think about this, but you see a lot of podcasters, 

they're relying on social media when it comes to advertising or podcasts. Yeah, that's their biggest advertising source. Is social media because it's free. 

But what you're as far as advertising your podcast, what do you believe is your your best way to do that? 

Carl Richards 24:32
Well, again, I'm going to shout out and give a shout out to word of mouth. 

Rich Bennett 24:37
It's a good way to do it. Yeah, that's true. You know that's. 

Carl Richards 24:40
True. But the other thing too, is if you're in business. 

Rich Bennett 24:44
Mm. 

Carl Richards 24:46
You probably have somewhere you have a customer list that you email on a regular basis. And I know there are people out there who hate email marketing. Here's the thing with email marketing. It. Email marketing is when done correctly, that's the key. 

Rich Bennett 25:04
Well, yeah, you. 

Carl Richards 25:04
Don't want to spam peoples inbox, but when done correctly can have a huge impact on your success in reaching your audience. So let's say I'll take me as an example. I have a boat. It's not a massive list. I've got a thousand people on my email list. I have way more people in my social media channels. But you know what? I get more traction from my email list than I do any of my social feeds. I still post on social media, right? But I also make sure that when I have a new episode going out, I create that into an email and I send it out there. The other thing that I do is I do just like what you and I are doing today. I partner with people. I have come conversations with them on their platforms and I say, Hey, guess what? I'm a podcaster and I know Rich being a really nice guy and, you know, brothers to the core, if we just go, we just look at our hairlines and our posts and radio he's going to ask for. Okay, Carl, can I get your email address, your social channels, all of that stuff. So if you want to connect with me after today, Rich is going to have it right. It's all going to be there if I have something to promote or that it's all going to be there. So connecting with people in this world is another way to let people know what you're doing. But you know, really and it's funny you mention Alex Sanfilippo because I think he mentioned something, Oh gosh, it might have been in a social post or it was at one of his events and he said, What would happen if you didn't have social media? MM How would you promote your podcast? What would you do? And I've quite often said that to people, what would you do? You know, it's, it's a world where you need to do something. What would you do? And if you tell people you do it organically, yeah, you can do paid ads, but if you do it organically and you do it strategically and an email list, as I said, is a great way to do that. Yeah, when you do it the right way. 

Rich Bennett 27:03
Yeah. No. Yeah. Alex, Alex and I agree a lot on that with the Social media part. Grant it. Yes, I still use it totally. So yeah. And the biggest thing I like is when you create the group because if your listeners join the group, that's where you can get ideas. One of the things I've found that helps me a lot more and you mentioned it number one, being on other podcast. Mm hmm. Because your podcast listeners are listening to podcast. 

Carl Richards 27:34
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 27:35
And advertising on other podcast. Yeah. If you create that ad, that's the radio with me again to radio or sales, but you create that ad and you can there are some sources out there where you can almost like geo targeting, where you could pinpoint it to where it'll only play on certain podcasts. Listen to in this area. But again, that's where your listeners are. Yes. So that's where you have to go get them. I'm actually intrigued by the five myths that you often talk about that might be holding people back from diving into podcasting. Can you shed some light on those? 

Carl Richards 28:15
You probably know what all of these are actually, you. 

Rich Bennett 28:18
Know, you might have wrote them before. 

Carl Richards 28:20
I did. Who knows? But yeah, sure I can. I can. I can certainly run down these for you. The first myth is the is the money myth. That's where we look at the podcast and say, how much money is it going to bring in? And I always slip that around and say, You have to look at it differently. You have to think of what's what's the value of the content that you're going to be putting out there. And if you're looking at this from a business perspective, how can that value come back to you? So it's not how the podcast is going to make money, it's how your content is going to be riveting so that your listeners, which again, as part of audience building, but your listeners are going to come back to you because you're the subject matter expert. So that's the first myth. The second myth is the competition myth. There's too many out there and you know who's going to listen to me? Well, we already talked about the numbers a little bit, right? It's about there being 5,000,060% of those are active. But if you compare that to the number of blogs, I think and I don't know what the exact stat is, but it's something like four every 400 or 500 blogs, there's one podcast. So for all the bloggers out there listening, you should maybe think about putting those, you know. 

Rich Bennett 29:32
Having a. 

Carl Richards 29:32
Blog and podcast together. But not only that, but when we talk about who's listening, well, people are listening. I can give you those numbers and people are listening. There are tons of people listening to podcasts. Moreover, if you think you're not famous enough, the fame, the people who are celebrities or that we know that reflects less than probably half a percent of all of the podcasters out there right? The third myth is the content myth. What am I ever going to talk about? I love this one because this is where people throw their hands up in the air. It's the the analogy of can't see the trees of the forest, What am I going to do? And I say, and I'll ask this when I do training, I'll say in the last, you know, let's say the last year, have you posted something on social media, written an article, published a book, ran a course, ran a program, guested on another podcast. What have you done in the even in the last calendar year? And if you say, Oh, I've done all that, well, then guess what? You have content. So it's not about content creation, it's about curating your content. So it's ready for a podcast audience to engage them. All right. So that's the third myth. The fourth myth, you'll love this. It's the tech myth. It's too complicated, it's too confusing. I don't even know where to begin. I quit. And I'll be honest, it's the same reason why I don't fix my own car, other than the fact that my car is a Tesla. And if I lifted the hood and went and looked in under the hood like, Oh, hey, what are you doing? There is no engine. So but it's also why we don't perform our own dentistry, you know, on our show. Oh, God. You know, if I had to remove my appendix, I wouldn't just think to do it myself. When we need expert help, what do we do? 

Rich Bennett 31:17
Reach out. We ask the. 

Carl Richards 31:19
Experts. Right? But like I said, I was one of those proud people who said, I know everything about podcasting. I'm a. 

Rich Bennett 31:27
Broadcaster. 

Carl Richards 31:27
I can figure this out myself. And it took me two years. 

Rich Bennett 31:30
Yeah. 

Carl Richards 31:30
Yeah, two years. Okay, so when you need help with something, you ask the expert, you ask Rich, you ask me. Well, we'll help you get started. We'll help you. We'll answer your questions. That's what you need to do. And then the fourth. The fifth myth is the time myth. It's the. I don't have time. How am I ever going to fit this into my day? And here's the thing about podcasting that a lot of people don't realize. There are podcasts out there that are 2 hours long. Maybe you've heard some by certain people that go on for 2 hours and there are podcasts out there that are 2 minutes long. So moreover, the question is how long will your audience, which you have to identify, right, should come from your client avatar, if you're setting this up for business. But how long will your audience engage with you? Now there is a sweet spot, and the sweet spot is between 25 and 35 minutes. Right? But again, it goes back to your audience. How long are they going to engage with you and where is it going to be audio? Is it going to be video? Because when you start breaking down the time, especially if you're bringing in somebody like me or Reggie to help you put your show together, guess what? We're going to build you based on how long it takes to do the work. It's kind of like an oil change for your car. Back to the car analogy, it takes a short period of time, but if you need an engine rebuilt, it's going to take longer. Yeah, so same thing. But it's again, it goes back to asking the right question. It's not how am I going to fit this into my day to get it done? It's who do I know that can help me get this done and prioritizing it to get it done? And that's the five myths. 

Rich Bennett 33:06
I'm sure you're probably on a lot of the groups on social media for podcasting. 

Carl Richards 33:12
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 33:13
And this question I saw a lot and you just mentioned it there about how long should my podcast be? And you'll get some because it all generally be 20 minutes. It should only be four. You don't want to go over an hour. Yeah. Do you all this stuff. I think there's something that a lot of podcasters are forgetting. When you and I were in radio, 

we had a disadvantage. All right, let me rephrase it. Now that we're podcasters, we have an advantage that we didn't have in radio. It's called a pause button. 

People don't realize that if your podcast is that good and people are, I mean, they're just glued to your show, but now they pull up the work and they're like, Oh man, I can't listen to the rest of it. Hit their pause button because now when you come back, you could finish listening to it. Yeah, you can't do that with Radio Illustrated. It's got a built in DVR that we don't know about. 

Carl Richards 34:20
Some people would think it does, but yeah. 

Rich Bennett 34:22
You know. 

Carl Richards 34:23
And I think you're right I think that 

the real answer is a podcast episode should be as long as it needs to be. Yes challenges. I think we get it stuck in our noodle that a was you know, so-and-so does an hour long show. I should do an hour long show. No, if you have 20 minutes of content, don't stretch it out to an hour. If you have an hour's worth of content, you know what? I might convince you to try and break that into two parts. But if you think it's worthy of a solid episode, then do it. Because Rich, to your point, yeah, you will have people who will listen. I, I was listening to a podcast a couple of years ago and I was doing some work in the bathroom. I was painting the the painting, the bathroom. And these were long episodes. These are like an hour, hour and 15 hour and 20 something. But I mean, it meant that I had four or five, six, seven solid episodes to listen to while I was basically and I still listen to that podcast. But now I find that when I'm driving, for example, or out for a walk, I can only catch the first 20 minutes. And then if I put it down for a couple of days, I don't go back to it. So. So again, it's all human behavior. But the bigger question is, is it riveting content enough that will keep people there? Yes. For the duration. And the other thing that we haven't even talked about, which is part of the time factor, because, Rich, I'm sure you've come across this, is that people will say while my podcast episodes are roughly an hour, how many podcast episodes I've listened to where they're an hour or so and, you know, as a skilled podcaster and editor, that you could easily shave ten, 15, sometimes 20 minutes off it because of just repetition in or, well, let me do this and let me do all kinds of craziness or mistakes that are left in there. I always believe in putting you the best version of yourself out there, and if you're not prepared to do that, that's going to be a struggle in the space because we think that quality doesn't matter or sometimes will. And let me qualify that by saying that we think that it's good enough, it's good enough, it's fine, it's good enough. The listener might not think it's good enough. And if the listener doesn't think it's good enough or the viewer doesn't think it's good enough, guess what? They're not sticking around. So there's a few different things to consider there. When How long should your podcast be? As long as it needs to be, but it better be good if you're rambling or if there's any irregularities in the quality. Bad video, bad audio. I remember listening to a podcast once and I was blown away because I thought the podcast was the channel was broken. I think it was Apple actually. I thought, there's something wrong with Apple. There was two and a half minutes of you'll appreciate this. As a former broadcaster, there was two and a half minutes of dead air. What, at the beginning of the podcast. And then I'm like, okay, well, okay, I'll let it go. One episode I listened to every episode and there was at least 45 to 60 seconds of Dead air. 

Rich Bennett 37:32
I think I know who you're talking about every episode. 

Carl Richards 37:35
And I'm like, Yes, 

why is that? There? And it wasn't a strategy. It was because then when I listen to the episode, I'm like, Yeah, this is not a very good show. So yeah, so that's what I mean about, you know, really wanting to, to put that out there as the time factor is that is part of that. 

Rich Bennett 37:58
When 

I'm glad you mentioned that with Oh my God that did air I haven't heard that term Bill I 

with when people are recording their podcast what do you believe are some of the things that drive the listener away? And I want to talk about the platforms that people record on, whether it's in person or they're recording virtually platforms that they're using. Do you think there are some platforms out there which just does not have that good quality that would drive listeners away or even devices? Because, you know, some people record Yeah. On their phone. 

Carl Richards 38:45
I'm I'm a huge proponent too. And again we're here the difference between if you're doing this as a hobby and you want to be in your garden while you're recording your gardening podcast, okay, fine. But if you're really trying to put your best version of you forward for business, you should invest in, You don't have to spend, you know, you don't have to build a 

$75,000 or $100,000 studio and hire a production team. But you know, a couple of hundred dollars of investment for microphones are some decent lighting if you're if you're relying on video. But definitely the microphone is very important. So I think relying on your cellular device doesn't matter which one it is. I think you will. They're good, they're okay quality, but you will never get a studio sound from a device. Never. Right. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever. It's number one. So you should be recording into a microphone. As far as platforms go, I do know that 

Zoom, for example, I think lowers their video quality, but the audio is decent. But again, some of this is repairable. Some of this is fixable in post, but it's easy to fix bad audio, it's harder to fix bad video. So you want to make sure that if whatever platform you're recording on that it's going to give you a top quality product for sure. So avoid your devices again, especially if you're wanting to level up for business. Don't rely on just earbuds. Don't rely on your computer audio, you know, your computer microphone you can't watch. Of course you're not seeing it because it's an audio podcast. But but I'm speaking into a microphone and so is rich. I don't have earbuds on or a on, but he does have a headset on. Right? So so you know, really think of the quality of what you're putting out there. And if you want it to sound crisp and clean, by the way, the audience will tune out if it's not right. So not your device 

computer, microphone, proper video. If you're shooting video, which means proper lighting and proper background as well. But definitely a platform that's going to record stored in good quality audio. And by the way, there are so many tools out there. If you're audio isn't perfect, it can fix it a little bit, but don't rely on them because it can create dropouts in the sense of if the audio is really, really bad or if it sounds like a reverse aurora, it's not going to it's not going to help. 

Rich Bennett 41:18
Right? 

Carl Richards 41:19
So that's what I would say in that sense. So I always record on my computer, always, always, always. Even when I'm on the go, I'll record on my computer. Always. 

Rich Bennett 41:29
Yeah. You got to have Yeah. And you get a lot of people say, well what, what if it crashes? You know that's why it always say the computer is the hard drive, it is your memory card, whatever. Never. Because I'm the same way when I'm in person. Now I don't have my laptop, but I have Zoom, which has the memory card in there. So I consider that my computer because I could take it right out and put it in my computer here in town. Always had the backup to. If you're going to do a recorded person, bring a. 

Carl Richards 42:01
Backup. Yeah, always. I mean, and in 2024, the chances of your computer crashing, you know, you're more likely to have a power outage. 

Rich Bennett 42:11
If that happens, then. 

Carl Richards 42:13
Then having your computer just crash. Yeah, If your computer crashes, it's because it didn't have enough juice to begin with. Yeah. So plug the flippin thing in, and before you start doing a recording, reboot your system, restart, do a full shutdown. I've had to do that where I've got to jump on a recording and I go, which is not working right? Like, oh, probably because I haven't done a restart in the last week. Maybe that'll do it. So there there are some little things that are just and again, the more you do this, the more you'll understand that it's just like any other tool. But when you show up to a pro, let's give a sports analogy. When you show up to Little League, guess what you're looking at little people or you show up to a fun league. Even as adults, you're just there having fun. If you're just having fun with your podcast, great. But when you want to talk the big leagues and you want to talk about competing in to in the podcast Olympics, so to speak, or you want to really, you know, play on that level, you have to make sure that you have the tools, the technology, the backup, as Rich said. And that might mean going a little bit beyond your device that you carry around in your pocket. It's going to mean definitely more than just a set of earbuds. It's probably going to mean having a couple of backups in place just in case the world doesn't go round for you while doing recording. But the nice thing is, rich, you've probably done this too, is that if it's really bad, like a power outage, for example, most people in recording sessions, they're understanding, yeah, they'll rebook with you if they really wanted to be there, they'll rebook with you, which I think we had to book this a couple of times because of scheduling issues. 

Rich Bennett 43:52
It was when I was kind of saying. 

Carl Richards 43:54
Yeah, it. 

Rich Bennett 43:54
Happens, it happens. 

Carl Richards 43:56
Right? Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 43:57
It does. And that's why I love using, you know, this source. For those of you. Listen, I use squad cars a lot. They all knew that. No, they do not pay me for saying that. But I had you know, I'm always afraid that the Internet's going to go out. I had it when I was recording with somebody. We had a power surge. So my computer shut off. It came right back up. I got right back on and she was still there. And I was able to continue recording. Yeah, which I think that's something else a lot of people got to look into. Look at your platform. If you recording through your computer that if it does crash, will it pick up from where you left off? Yeah. Yeah. One other question I have for you before I get to my last question. Well, couple questions. It this is this is something that irks the hell out of me, even as a business podcast. If you're monetizing your podcast, 

do you feel that if you are using, say, a free hosting service, it's almost a slap to whether it be your sponsors or whatever. However, your monetizing your podcast, let's go to sponsors, do you feel as though that's a slap in the face to your sponsors? Because my take on this is I just wanna let you know my take. If I have sponsors, I am going to, of course, use a hosting service that I pay for. I want the quality stuff out there. They're paying for it. Then I should be using the best. But what is your take on if somebody is has sponsors for the podcast, should they be using free stuff for free platforms? The host, especially, you know what you're talking about here, right? 

Carl Richards 45:47
I think this goes back for putting your best face forward to putting your best foot forward. Right. Is, you know, if you're doing it for 

you're looking for free, that's fine. I consider you to be a hobbyist. You have a low budget. You're looking for free, and that's fine. And that's that's totally fine. And yes, I probably do know who you're referring to, but I believe that if you're going to invest in this, especially for your business, that you need to be willing to invest a couple of dollars on a hosting site that's independent 

of, 

what do you call them, the directories that are out there. So you want an independent hosting site, and I'll tell you why you want an independent hosting site. There are several of them out there. The reason why you want an independent hosting site is let's say I'm I'll do some name dropping if that's okay. Let's say I'm Apple and you want to use my platform to record your podcast and put it out there. And the world is lovely because you're using my software and my platform and I'm helping you put it all together. That's great. So I'm going to make sure that you're posted on my podcasting platform, right? Of course. And you know what? Because of because I'm such a nice platform, because I'm Apple, I'm also going to make sure it goes to Spotify, even though it's our direct competitor and it's going to go to all of the other platforms as well that we want to play with. But that's the point. It's going to go to the other ones that we want to write with, and I might not want to play with all of them. And by the way, you know what? If Spotify really gets under my skin, one day, I might not want to post your content there. Well, now all of a sudden, guess what? Apple pot. And again, this is just an example. I'm just saying that that so you that's why you want it to be independent of that and that and most of the hosting sites out there that are independent they also have tools and functionalities to help with things like audio quality. They have audio enhancement tools or and some of them aren't great, some of them are better others, or they'll have transcription services or they have ways that you can help put together your show notes and things like that. So all of those things. But again, this is a leveling up piece here. If you're doing it for free and it's a hobby, great. If you're doing it for free and it's for business and you're asking your sponsors for money, no. If you're not putting skin in the game, why are your sponsors putting skin in the game? If you're not willing to put your best face, your best foot forward? Why are you asking your sponsors to do that for you? So that's my take on that. 

Rich Bennett 48:44
It's going to hurt your brand. 

Carl Richards 48:45
Absolutely. 100%. 

Rich Bennett 48:48
Without a doubt. And that's I mean, that's one for a business. That's one of the reasons you're starting to product is is to help build your brand. 

Carl Richards 48:55
Absolutely. And here's the thing. I think the reason why some of us will go the free route is because someone told us on a webinar that you can do this for free. There's so many free resources out there, I just use my phone. You can use your phone too. And to me, this is if I'm out there advocating anything, it's all these misconceptions about how easy it is to get out there. Podcasting, Yes, it's easy. Yes, there's an easy route to do it. The last time I hit the easy button, it took me I don't know how many months to correct that to get on the path where I was doing it the right way. Yeah, right. Just like you get rich, you'll like this. You can build your own website. Did you know you could build your own website? Rich, do you think going to be as good and as functional as the one that you were? You invested the few thousand dollars or more for the right, you know, professional company that knows about SEO and all of those stuff. 

Rich Bennett 49:53
Though not so so it's not a new thing. 

Carl Richards 49:56
So if you're going to invest, let's just pick a number out of the sky. If you're going to invest $5,000 on a really kick ass website, if I can say that, why wouldn't you invest for the training, the tools, the, the, the information that you need to launch? A and I'm going to say this a world class podcast because your listeners are worthy of it. Yeah, certainly they are. And you know what? You're sponsors are definitely worthy of something that is high quality and something that they're comfortable putting their stamp on. 

Rich Bennett 50:28
Exact Lee Gravy 100%, 110%. 

Carl Richards 50:32
They're Oh, that much. 

Rich Bennett 50:33
Oh yeah. Okay. 

Now something your company offers and I don't actually offer this, I just do the consulting part. But you offer editing, you help them launch and everything. How could people get in touch with you to hire you for their, you know, help them get their podcast out there? 

Carl Richards 50:53
Yeah we're podcast solutions made simple dot com. You can find out more about us. They're rich I'll make sure you have all of those all of that information to put in the show notes but on there you'll find some of the the clients that we work with on a regular basis on the Contact Me page or the get started pages where you'll find out the process of how we get started. And it starts out by booking a call with us and then we figure out what, you know, what what it is. I mean, some of this we've already talked about, Rich, and I've covered it, but. Well, what's your what's your what's your starting point? You know, what's your why what's your goal? Where do you want to go with this? And then we then we look at the dollars and cents because it doesn't make sense if you're a hobbyist and you really don't have a budget. We want to make sure that we're working with business owners who really want to play a serious game at this. We want you to have fun doing it. We're not that serious about it. It's podcasting. It's not brain surgery. Well, maybe it isn't. That's your business. But. But we definitely want to have some fun with it, right? We want you to have some fun with it. But we don't want you to have sticker shock when you look at it. Do right. So we want you to be able to put your stamp on it as well. So. So that's the best way to get a hold of us. We're all all over social media as well. Huge presence on LinkedIn. You can usually find me there. Just search Carl Richards Like solutions made simple. You'll find us. We do trainings as well. So for people who want to learn more about this first, they want to learn. You know, we're doing a lot of bootcamps this year, this calendar year. The recording of this is 2024. So we're doing bootcamps for newbies, We're doing bootcamps for experienced podcasters always. Yeah. So the guys gain podcasters out there who have shows that now want to start leveling up and start talking monetization. So we've got a lot ization and marketing bootcamps out there. The biggest thing that we're also doing, and I know that you mentioned we've mentioned Alex Sanfilippo is name a little bit too is we're building community. The biggest thing that you can do for yourself, I think if you're getting into the podcasting space is think about not just your content that you're going to put out there, but how can you build a following? And that following is community. You want people to be there. You want people to to follow you to the ends of the earth. I guess with your show you want people to be there all the time. And that's what something that Alex has been very good at, which I think you've been very good at it as well. That's something that we are doing more so than we ever have before this year, but it starts with a conversation at podcast solutions made simple dot com all the links there to find out more about us and how to get started. 

Rich Bennett 53:21
Yeah, communities are very important thing because it's my it's because of my listeners they've 

contacted me and told me hey Rich we need you. We would love for you to get this personal. We would love for you to talk about this. Listen to your listeners because they're going to help you. Anything you like to add? Before I get to my last question. 

Carl Richards 53:46
I think we've covered it all. I Think just start. 

Rich Bennett 53:50
Yes. 

Carl Richards 53:50
You know, you know, when's the best time to launch a podcast? Probably about 2004, 2005. The second best time is now, right? 

Rich Bennett 53:58
So exactly. 

Carl Richards 53:59
Just start just hit the go button and maybe that starts with a conversation. Maybe it starts with, you know, attending a course or, you know, jumping into somebody community and seeing what this thing is all about or guesting on a show. But start when you start. That's the beginning, really. 

Rich Bennett 54:15
And it's fun. It's a lot of fun. And the one thing we haven't covered because we talked about listeners, the podcasting network, the people you meet not just the other, you know, guests that aren't even podcasters, but other podcasters. It's tremendous. You mentioned earlier competition. I don't even look at other podcasts as competition. I look at them as partners because you listen to them, you learn from us as podcasters. We listen to podcasts. I listen to Karl's podcast. And speaking of which, if you haven't listened to it yet, you better listen to it because you learn from it and it's you have to. So my last question, you've been on several podcast, you've been interviewed a lot. Is there anything that a host has never asked you that you wish they would have asked you? And if so, what would be that question and what would be your answer? 

Carl Richards 55:13
Oh, 

I'm. Have you talked to Rick Bennett yet? 

Rich Bennett 55:19
Oh, God. 

Carl Richards 55:24
Who's your barber? Actually, no, I think I think I think that I think that pretty much most of the hosts I've talked to have been pretty end to end in their in their questions. 

And now I can say when people ask that if they forget to ask that question, have you been on Rick Bennett's show or if they do ask, guess what? I now have the answer. 

Rich Bennett 55:49
Because you crack me up. 

Carl Richards 55:50
But 

was that the right answer is. 

Rich Bennett 55:55
You know, I ask that question all the time. And some of the answers I have gotten have floored me. But I got to admit, that was a first. That was really, really hard. 

Carl Richards 56:07
You can't edit any of that out. 

Rich Bennett 56:09
You know, I'm not you know, I'm not because this is why I wish there was. 

Carl Richards 56:14
Video I do with the times. I wish there video because you don't understand that kept talking. This was this is skilled radio broadcasting one on one because Rick couldn't talk so I had to keep talking because he's too busy busting a basically with my my answer. But no, there isn't anything that's earth shattering that or or even and yet there's nothing I think that that it's it's all been covered and including the part about Rick Bennett. 

Rich Bennett 56:46
God Karl I want to thank you so much continued success and I know we'll be talking again in the future. One of these days, one of these years, I should say. I'm hoping to make it, you go to fest, don't you? 

Carl Richards 56:59
I have. I have only attended the virtual pod fest event. 

Rich Bennett 57:03
Yes. 

Carl Richards 57:03
May 21, I think. 

Rich Bennett 57:05
Okay. Yeah, me too. But I do attend. Was it Alex's pod talks, right? 

Carl Richards 57:11
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 57:11
Which are very good. 

Carl Richards 57:12
So very good. 

Rich Bennett 57:13
One of these days will connect in person. We will. Take care, Carl. Thanks a lot.