How to Shape Your Podcast Vision and Goals for 2025

Marc Ronick  0:00  
Music. Good morning podcasting. Morning Chat. Today is Monday, January 6, 2025 and today it's all about your 2025 podcasting goals. We'll share visions, spark ideas and get empowered to make this year the year of big achievements. So if you're listening live on clubhouse, hit the share button bottom left hand side of the screen and share it however clubhouse lets you. And if you're listening via podcast, please share this episode with a fellow podcaster. And now give us about 30 seconds, and We'll get things rolling. Thanks for Being here.

You Good morning again. Podcasting, morning chat. Happy New Year to you. Oh, and I see we've got Wow full stage here. Happy to see it. And I am your host, Marc Ronick, and here with me on this very stage are my co hosts. We have Dr Fauci, Jonathan Howard, producer, Ashley Feller, Alex ballish, Nick Nahl back, Dominic Howard, and we have guest host, Johnny Gian Gregorio here as well. And Oh and also, Jackie is here and now. Amanda sharp is on stage, and Ben the failure guy is on stage. Welcome back, everybody. So good to see a full stage as we kick off the new year. It's great to be back. I've missed this space and all of you, and I hope your break was restful, energizing, or at least full of lot of good stories. And by the way, if you missed it, please check out the new episode I put out last week. It was an interview. Actually, I was the guest. Even though it is on my show, I was the guest. I was interviewed by Dr Jen Riley of Vanderbilt University. She's a professor there for the business school, the master's program there, and specifically, she interviewed me for her digital marketing students, talking all about podcasting. And I figured it would be a great way for a lot of you who know me here as the host, but you don't necessarily hear probably enough about what I do normally, day to day in this world of podcasting. So you'll get a better sense for what I do, how I got into this, and, of course, how to apply podcasting specifically to a business. So please check that out. Let me know what you think. And as far as today, yeah, I want to talk about goals, and specifically podcasting goals. I know sometimes I will say to you, you know, can be about anything, and look, I'm not going to kick you off stage if you don't give me a podcasting goal. But let's try to make this podcasting specific. We're creating a space to share our podcasting dreams for the year ahead, and brainstorm the ideas and support each other as we look to take our shows to that next level, whatever that means to you. So maybe you're starting fresh. You haven't started yet, and maybe that's your goal, or you're leveling up or just try and stay consistent. It doesn't matter whatever stage you're in, this is your place. This isn't about perfection. It's about progress, and it's about this community helping one another. And as I mentioned, we have Johnny here, and I'm really excited that he agreed to join us, Johnny from the lifey brand, and also the very first keynote speaker at our empowered podcasting conference. Johnny is someone who absolutely is absolutely passionate about helping people and specifically helping them set meaningful goals, take real, actionable steps towards achieving them. And I know he'd probably cringe at being called a goals expert, but his experience speaks for itself. He's helped a lot of people with goal planning, goal setting and. He's got a great knack for it, and I'm excited he's here. So first I'll say, Johnny, good morning and welcome

Johnny Giangregorio  5:07  
Good morning, Marc. And it's so good to be back with this group. Really, really appreciate being here and excited to chat about goals. Yes,

Marc Ronick  5:17  
indeed. All right, cool. Great to have you here, Johnny. And here's what we'll do. Let's do this in traditional podcasting, morning chat fashion. And what I won't do is go down the line, because we have so many people on stage. I will ask you the question, and then show a hands, and I will pick some people at random, and let's hear I want to know what's your biggest goal for 2025 and when I say that by big, I mean most meaningful to you, what's that? That big goal to you, that thing you are after, that you are determined or hope that it will happen this year. And I see Jackie is on stage, and I know Jackie is recovering from, yes, a concussion. I'll let her tell her story. Good morning to you, Jackie. If you could keep the story brief, please do because, like I said, full stage here, and, yeah, share what's that big? 2025 goal.

Jacquie Norton  6:22  
Okay, so, yeah, I had a concussion. I'm feeling fine now. It was kind of like a factory reset. I go into it and my podcast, so listen there. Anyways, so 2025, goals, I am expanding Rise and shine with the mama Jack. And what does that mean? I'm creating a nonprofit. So goal for 2025 is my birthday, November 3, I will host an event for that nonprofit, and that will be the kickoff, the huge kickoff. Hopefully it's a thing before then, I've started to go fund me for it, because we don't have the money to start it. So we're trying to get, like, help with that. First, I'm going to start looking for sponsors, but the nonprofit, yes, we're taking it a step farther. I'm not just speaking about it. I'm putting my words into action. I'm ready to help people and hit the ground running. Also, Johnny, I have been writing something special, and I've been meaning to contact you, and I lost your contact, so I'm happy I'm seeing you here, because I have some business to talk to you about. So yes, that's just one of my goals. But yes, turning the mama jack into an empire. It's not just the podcast anymore. It is going to be a whole thing, and that's all I'm going to share at this point. That's

Marc Ronick  7:37  
awesome. Congratulations on that. And yeah, please put it in the chat. If you don't mind the link to that GoFundMe, we'll pin it here on clubhouse, and we'll also put it in the show notes for you as well. Let's support Jackie, if you are able. Yes, congratulations, Jackie. And let's see who else would like to share. What's a big goal specifically around podcasting for you in 2025 who would like to share, let's go to Dominic. Dominic, good morning. Go commanders. What say you, sir? Happy New Year.

Dominic Lawson  8:15  
Happy New Year. I hope everybody as well. Yeah, might as well say go commanders. At this point,

Marc Ronick  8:20  
I haven't been able to say that with confidence in a long time. Dominic, I need to say it now.

Dominic Lawson  8:26  
Listen, you have a franchise quarterback and a division title. You can say whatever you like.

Marc Ronick  8:31  
Not we're not going division title The Eagles got Yes, yes. All right. Anyway, this is a show about podcasting, right? Absolutely, absolutely.

Dominic Lawson  8:39  
Podcast goals. I have a big 126, Podcast Awards this year, and one of those, including being named a Tribeca Official Selection, mental health rewritten is going really, really well. The first draft of episode one is complete. I've sent it to a few people, and reviews are really, really well. So yeah, 26 Podcast Awards, and one of those being an official selection at Tribeca. That's the goal this year. Wow.

Marc Ronick  9:09  
Love it. Love it. One thing I will say, I would encourage, if you're not following Dominic, please follow Dominic. Because, I mean, it's, I can't explain it other than it feels like every year, every month, every day, when I see Dominic posting something new, there's this level of confidence that just continues to go up, up, up. And it's really inspiring for me. It's really motivating for me to see that. And it's, it's actually shown me a lot Dominic, to really embrace and be okay with sharing my confidence publicly. I think I kind of suppress it a little bit, and probably need to bring that out more and live more of that confidence. I think by suppressing it, I'm not really. Live in what I what I preach. You're definitely a motivator for me. Appreciate you being here, and thank you for sharing your your big goal. We're all cheering for you, and if there's anything we can do, let us know. Let's see here, anyone else want to share before we dive in little deeper to our goals, because I'm going to be coming back to you at some point and asking you more about it. So yes, Amanda, let's check in with you. Good morning, Happy New Year. Good

Amanda Sharp  10:28  
morning, Happy New Year. Well, you know, so this, this is a big goal for Chris and I, because we're kind of back at square one, where, what does our podcast look like for 2025 so he got an exciting new vision, new job. We are so grateful, so happy for him, but that's kind of like shook up what our schedule looks like. So we just have to go back to the basics, figure out where we can even start again, and then start creating from there. So you wouldn't think season five would be about that, but for us, that's our goal this year.

Marc Ronick  11:02  
Interesting. So right now, it's just a temporary hiatus for the song swap showdown.

Amanda Sharp  11:06  
It is unlikely we have a gazillion like pieces of content that Chris is scattering here and there to kind of keep us active to some degree. But yeah, we, we aren't sure if live is an option anymore. Are we going to do every other week recording. You know, we're just, is it going to be together? Is it going to be separate? We have a lot to figure out.

Marc Ronick  11:26  
Interesting. I would love to dive into that a little bit more later in the show. So let's put a pin in that. And yeah, really interesting. Congratulations to Chris. I did see that announcement, and I did wonder what that might mean for a lot of the things that he's he does a lot of the different projects he's been working on, including your show. So yeah, let's dig into that soon. Let's go to Ben, aka failure guy. Good morning. Ben, Happy New Year. What's that big podcasting goal for you this year? So

Ben Currier  11:57  
I don't know if this is, like the official big one or anything. But last time we talked here, we did some predictions for 2025 and what might happen, and we talked about an AI hosted podcast, or at least I threw that out there, and then I realized that I wanted to do it myself. So the first AI hosted podcast that has human guests is going to be what I'm working on, and I've already got a lot of it set up and ready to go. So I'm going to be doing that very soon. I'm going to put a link in the chat, if anybody wants to check, take a look at it. But already got the host and everything squared away. And my first interview, which is with me, but is not live, is in the works. And then I'm going to have live ones with other people, so we'll see how it goes. Very

Marc Ronick  12:39  
cool, Ben, and I know you are a more recent regular here at the podcasting morning chat, and therefore you probably may not be aware anyway that Nick has done something similar with the AI briefing, which I think Nick, I know you're working on a revamp on that, aren't you? Hey,

Speaker 1  13:01  
good morning, everybody. I was actually just this weekend playing with different ways that I want to approach the podcast make it a little bit different than it was before, but, yeah, it's in the works. That's That's one of the goals, is getting that rebooted and now playing with some of the improved 11 labs features and things like that. So it's, it's, it's in the works.

Ben Currier  13:24  
I love that also, Marc, just to be clear, though, the only part that's new is that it's going to be an a live human guest, entirely interviewed by AI live. I love that part that's new, at least. So I'm sure, like other things have been done, I'm not sure exactly what Nick did, but I'm sure it's great, and I'm happy to be the second if that's the case too, but either way, it's going forward. Well,

Marc Ronick  13:43  
what I was getting to was maybe you guys should talk a little bit and collaborate. I'm sure that you know, Nick has gone through some challenges that if you haven't faced, maybe you will. So, yeah, get in touch with Nick. Yeah, absolutely. And that's awesome. I love the concept. I love the idea of having the AI interview, the human I think that's an interesting way of going about it, and looking forward to hearing more about it. Thank you for that link. We will put that in the show notes as well. And let's see, Ashley, I think you had something you wanted to share too. Good morning to you. Officially Happy New Year to you. And yeah, what say you? What's that big podcasting goal for 2025

Ashley Feller  14:22  
Good morning. Happy New Year. My big goal for this month is just to simply restart Sunshine State showcase. I got really busy last year, and the wheels fell off the wagon, so I'm going to start again. And this time I'm shaking things up. Normally, I record all my episodes in person, on location, but I'm just not able to do that, all that all the time, and I'm finally accepting that. So coming up for the first episode returning, I'm actually collaborating with someone who works with one of our music festivals that I help do the marketing. For His name is Hugh, and he's a videographer, and he's turning 70 the beginning of March, so we're having a music festival for his 70th birthday, and so I get to do all the marketing campaigns for that. And one of the things we're doing is a podcast episode which covers the bands for his Festival, and we're going to talk about why he chose those bands and that kind of thing. So that's going to be fun. That's

Marc Ronick  15:27  
awesome. Congratulations. And yeah, I saw, I just came across a Facebook post of yours this morning, and read a little bit about that and that, and it was a really thoughtful post. Check that out. If anyone's interested. Read, read a little more of those details about Ashley's goal here. Congratulations, Ashley. Looking forward to being any part of it that we can in order to help you make that that come to fruition. All right, anyone else want to share? I have a few questions for Johnny, and then we're going to go back into some of these goals. And if you don't want to share right now, no problem. We will give you more opportunities to do that. And let me go to Johnny now. And actually, dr, I know you have something too. We'll, we'll get to you as well. Maybe we'll do that after a couple of questions with Johnny. Johnny, I think my first question to you, is around, well, look, we hear, we've been hearing it, or at least, I have a lot of people talk around the new year about goals and setting your goals for 2025, and I also hear that then they say that by this coming Friday, I believe, is when most people stop taking action toward those goals, right? So with that in mind, I guess my question to you is, how is it too late, right? Like we're starting now. This is January 6, and we're just now as a group talking about our goals, is it, is it too late to really start planning for your goals at this point in the year? And how do we avoid that, that burnout, you know, by the second Friday of the month, it's not

Johnny Giangregorio  17:15  
too late to start your goals. I think you already know the answer to that, Marc, it's not too late to start your goals. The goals are actually something that can evolve as well. So even if somebody did have a clear goal that they worked on for a really long time coming into the year, and they set it, there is possibility for that goal to evolve into something bigger or slightly different, but now is a perfect time to get going. I've heard about this Friday. Also. This is actually the first year I've ever heard about it, but the second Friday after the New Year, apparently, is when New Year's resolutions. A lot of people drop out from whatever they had committed to, and that, to me, right off the bat, sounds like it wasn't actually their goal. It's what they thought that they had wanted, and they tried it out. They really went for it, and were relying more on some components. I'm thinking of the gym in particularly and they're like, I'm gonna work out this year. I'm gonna hit this goal. And it wasn't truly, if you peeled back all the layers, they probably hadn't identified the why behind that goal, which is really one of the most important parts.

Marc Ronick  18:42  
Okay, so, and that was going to be my next question. So then I'll ask you to come up with a different answer, because I'm curious. You've worked with a lot of people on setting and achieving goals. So what's, what's one piece of advice that you'd give someone to set a goal that really matters to them?

Johnny Giangregorio  19:00  
The goal is going to be inside of them. So the piece of advice would be to go inward. We can have a knack for wanting to go outside of us, or look outside at other people's goals, and we can get attracted to that, and yet, until we go internal and really sit with our goals, I've heard a couple people on this show that have actually already done that. Dominic's got great clarity on, you know, 26 awards, the failure guy was like, Yeah, I don't know if a human has ever been interviewed by AI on a podcast live. So that's a goal that I have. Those are goals that they went internally to find because they might not have had an example externally that is doing that exact thing that they're envisioning you.

Marc Ronick  19:59  
Yeah, Okay, gotcha, yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. Having that clarity, I think, really does make all the difference. And I think it's been a challenge for me over the years, including this past year. I think having that clarity, really taking the time to sit there and and be clear about the goal itself and what's behind the goal, like, what, what's the motivation there. I think that that can be challenging, and it's something that I continue to strengthen as each goal is applied. And I'm going to ask you one more, what's what's one of the biggest lessons that you've learned about setting or sticking to goals, either from your journey or from some of the other people that you've

Johnny Giangregorio  20:43  
helped. I'm not sure how many Ted lasso fans we have here.

Marc Ronick  20:47  
Oh, you got one, at least, right here.

Johnny Giangregorio  20:50  
The that whole concept of believe is so powerful. So your ability to believe in your goal, your ability to surround yourself with other people who believe in you hitting your goal. That belief part is huge. I know we opened up the show with some sports analogy, talking Super Bowl, believing that you can win it is such a huge piece. And you can see in real time, in sports and in various other aspects of life, of the moment where people start believing, and in those moments, how everything could change. You've also seen the moments where people stop believing and everything goes downhill from there. So one of the biggest lessons that I've learned about setting or sticking to the goal is when I do that original inward turn, that gut check to find that goal is, do I believe I can achieve that goal? And if not, why? And at that point, potentially turn to some trusted resources to bounce it off of them.

Marc Ronick  22:07  
All right, very cool. Thank you for that, Johnny. And you know, I'm thinking one of the other challenges around goals is that, especially when we are looking, you know, we're at the beginning of the year, and we start thinking about, all right, what do we want to do this year? What are the things we want to accomplish? Sometimes it can bring up some frustration, because we may start thinking, Well, wait, I didn't accomplish a goal from last year. And sometimes that can make at least me feel kind of crappy about myself, right? And, Dr, I know this can be relatable what I'm saying to you right now, and I'm curious if you would be, if you'd be open to sharing a little bit about your frustration right now.

Dianne-Romelle Fay (DR)  22:59  
Well, okie dokie, so Well, first of all, before I start, I want to give a big shout out to someone. I was in a virtual networking situation last week during the break, and I met David, who is now in the audience, and he said I didn't even say anything about being a part of PMC, and he, he's the one that mentioned it first, and it just picked up my entire day. And so thank you, David for that. I appreciate it. So yeah, my goal in going into the last half of December was to start on my podcast, podcast help desk, and the first one I chose, it's the concept is people call in with their questions. I play their questions on the air, and I use the entire episode to answer their question. Maybe come up with some alternatives. So the first one I chose was a fairly easy one. I think it's a gentleman who has a podcast all about autism, and I listened to a couple of his episodes, and his his question was about promoting outside of social promoting, and I had a full outline done in front of me on my tablet, and I had the scenarios in my head of what each of those suggestions would look like. And when I first recorded it, it turned out to be like two minutes. And I'm like two minutes, it's two minutes. Oh, thank you for the link. I appreciate it. So I think I DM you, and I said, this is the only two minutes. What's going on? Yes. And you said, Well, what's wrong with two minutes? I said, No, I have, like. The full thing in my head. I have the scenarios and everything in my head. So I sat with it for a little while, and so I decided to take that issue to AI, and I told him what my suggestions were, and I said, you know, this has to be a, you know, 20 minute episode. And so it kind of flushed it out for me to where I could, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I should have done that's right, that's right. So I got on that, and then I don't know, it just got so late in my little two week vacation ish, and then more client work started to come in for after the first and I just lost my I lost my way, and I am so deflated. I'm so deflated that I did not get and I discovered during the process that with these suggestions, I can take them in sections, like the first suggestion I can record that the second suggestion I can record and and I do like a stream of consciousness. It goes from one to the other, but the thought of editing them could really be in sections. And so it wasn't that overwhelming to me when it came to editing it, because there were a lot of stops, starts, gaps I just couldn't find. And this is a musician kind of phrase, but you know, when you're a musician and you're in the pocket, that's the that's the place that you want to be. That means that everyone is just, I can't talk about in the pocket without sounding like an aging jazz musician. You're kind of all kind of, it's a well oiled machine. Everyone is doing exactly what they're supposed to do, and it's like cruise to the end of the song, and I just couldn't find my pocket during the recording, and so I'm a little I'm a little deflated. All right.

Marc Ronick  27:08  
Well, first, thank you for sharing that. And I know we spoke before the show, and I know at first you weren't sure if you wanted to share it. So thank you. I appreciate that you did. And like I told you this morning. I think this is very relatable. I think there are a lot of us here who intended on starting a podcast by a certain time or day or whatever, and didn't come through and probably for similar reasons, because we didn't feel like the episodes were good enough, long enough, whatever, enough. So I appreciate that you're sharing this, and I want to hand it to Johnny. And I first want to ask before I do, because I think Johnny, I feel like you could probably help, Dr a little bit here, and I'll ask you this question that I asked you, I think it was last week, or whenever it was, we spoke about your frustration about the episodes not being long enough. What does that matter? Why can't they be two and a half minutes, three minutes long, if you're if you're doing a show about one question that you're going to answer, why not just deliver that answer and be on your way. I personally feel like some people would probably really appreciate that. They're not they, you know, the people that want quick to the point, I want this in and out. Boom, you're serving that audience, that and that audience may not be interested in a show like this, because this is an hour long conversation, right? So what's, what is the hang up for you about it being, quote, unquote, too short.

Dianne-Romelle Fay (DR)  28:48  
It's just that I had all these scenarios in my head for each one of these suggestions, and I just couldn't get it out of my mouth.

Marc Ronick  28:57  
Yeah? So it's that, it's that you were caught up. You're caught up in that vision that you've had for the show. And, yeah, yeah, okay, I'm gonna hand it to Johnny. Johnny, what are your thoughts? Questions for Dr, go for it.

Johnny Giangregorio  29:13  
I've got all the questions for you. Dr, no, the first one was actually the same thing that Marc had touched upon just now, that was the first thing that popped out in that moment where you shared the length of 20 minutes. I noted that down as like, okay, like, Dr has a goal to have 20 minute episodes, or at least something substantial, and has a goal of answering this question, and has a goal of audience experience. So some of the things that I was hearing initially was just that there's multiple goals at the same time, and when, anytime we have that going on. And if we don't have clear clarity around the re like the underlying goal to start with, it can become confusing and overwhelming, and it's almost as if you're serving multiple goals at the same time, which are competing with each other in one way or another. So the question is, if you were to be able to narrow it down to one thing, that is the goal of this podcast, what would you say that single goal of the podcast is

Dianne-Romelle Fay (DR)  30:35  
to stay consistent? That's my yearly goal. Is to stay consistent, and I'm so scared that my client work is going to get in the way of that. And for every client I get, I'm so grateful for it, of course, and the irony is that I'm still looking for clients. You know, that's the irony, but I'm I keep promising myself every client I get, okay, this is the one I'm going to scale. This is the one. But it seems like there's always a mastermind, a community that I have to pay for, a something that I have to pay for that. Okay, the right after I pay for this. This is the one. This is the one where I'm gonna start scaling. And it's something, it's it's another, it's a mind block.

Marc Ronick  31:30  
I want to jump in real quick. Johnny first, when I hear you say, Dr, that your concern, your fear, is that client work would get in the way, or vice versa, right? Or the show would get in the way the client work. Client work get in the way the show. Do you feel the same? Would would it be? Would you feel the same now about putting out two to five minute episodes? Would that be? Does that make it then more manageable? If you did say, You know what? Yeah, these are going to be two to five minute episodes. Would then the concern about client client work still be a concern,

Dianne-Romelle Fay (DR)  32:08  
yeah? Because of just the it's not the actual recording, it's the prep work that goes into it. I want to listen to a couple of episodes. I want to see where their head is at. So it's the prep work that is the time consuming part of it. And and, of course, not being able to, you know, find the pocket is, is another issue. Okay,

Marc Ronick  32:33  
that's fair. And Johnny, I'm going to hand it back to you. Her answer to you about what's the big, or the main goal for the podcast was consistency. Is that, is that what you're looking for? Or are you looking for something more about just, you know, the purpose of the podcast? Or, you know, why Dr is inspired to put out the podcast. You want to any clarification on that? Yeah,

Johnny Giangregorio  32:56  
so that question is for me. Marc, yeah.

Marc Ronick  32:59  
I was just curious, like, Did Dr answer the question? Yeah,

Johnny Giangregorio  33:03  
this is one of those conversations, like we could do an entire episode on this, and I do want to be mindful the the pocket that Dr was looking for. Part of me thinks that, because it was two minutes. Maybe Dr didn't have enough time to build that momentum. I even think of like this conversation this morning, and how I felt initially when I first got onto this call, and I didn't have any momentum, of sorts, and still we until we started talking, and I became inspired by different people's conversations and their goals for 2025 and then I could almost feel that train start to get going in the in a certain direction that I would like it to go. And that is completely understandable, like I think of a band and finding that pocket, and I can only imagine the prep work and the practice that they did, and it might not be the first minute of the first song, but it's something they find that when they're on that journey. So I think there's a lot to play with here. It does depend. Are these Live episodes? Dr, or are you recording? They are Live episodes? No, they're recorded. Oh, they're recorded. So essentially you could just keep going, keep going, keep going until you find that pocket, if you needed to. Yeah,

Dianne-Romelle Fay (DR)  34:34  
and I tried that. I mean, I did. I recorded, I re recorded, I rerecorded. I must have done about 30 different Okay, recordings of that first episode, looking for that and there would be huge gaps before I would, you know, I'd stop speaking, huge gap. And then I'd start speaking again, looking for that pocket. And. It just wasn't happening

Johnny Giangregorio  35:02  
at a certain point. I'm you do let it go right like at a certain point, you let it go and revisit it. I also, I can't help but think of how much practice went into becoming the musician. And if this is a thing of, I don't know how long you've been up to this, up to the podcasting, but in this is where the podcast community could really speak to this, more so than I can. But is this a newer venture, or have you been up to this for a while?

Dianne-Romelle Fay (DR)  35:39  
It's relative. You know, time is kind of relative here compared to Marc. No, I'm not, I'm not even I've probably been at it for maybe three and a half to four

Johnny Giangregorio  35:52  
years. Okay, yeah, I'd love to get some other people's thoughts. Just because I don't with this particular one, I don't feel like I've got it nailed down. Yeah, sure,

Marc Ronick  36:02  
no problem. And I think to me, what this is, what it sounds like to me. Dr, it sounds like to me you are shooting for perfection and not progress. That. Again, that's just how it sounds. And it's nothing that you're specifically saying, other than hearing little things like, you know, I record, I tried it 30 different ways, 30 times I, you know, I went to to AI to get more ideas, suggestions, how I can do this and that and the other thing, to me, it sounds like you're judging your work to a point where you're not putting it out. And I would, I would encourage you to think about, what's the harm in putting out the short episodes and start building, you know, you're, you know, you got to put out the episodes and then start finding your way. It's almost similar to what Johnny was saying, in the sense that you got to put something out there and then let it evolve a little bit, right?

Dianne-Romelle Fay (DR)  37:03  
No, I think that the shorter episodes that I tried for the first Oh, 10 or nine or 10 times, I think it would have been a disservice to the guy who actually posed the question, and actually when I did have a chance to expand on it. I I felt like it was almost there, like it was I was right on the brink of getting in that pocket, and it felt better. It felt like I was on my way to something. The old adage start messy is not something that I adhere to, because my podcast is about basically being an authority figure on how to make your podcast better. And if someone listens to that first episode and it's bumpy and rugged and gabbed and just icky, then people are going to say, Why the hell should I listen to her,

Marc Ronick  38:00  
I actually, I actually want to do an episode on this idea of starting messy in podcasting and what that means. Because I want to be clear, I'm not suggesting that you start messy. And I also believe that you are a professional Dr. I don't believe that you're going to put something out that's messy. I believe that you're going to put something out perhaps that isn't, isn't exactly the way you were hoping for it to be, but I don't think your audience is going to listen to it and say, Oh, that's messy. Or, you know, this needs a lot of work, right? I know you're going to put out a polished, professional product, and I'm talking more start, so you can evolve, not start messy. Yeah, all right, we have lots of people that also want to chime in. Jonathan, I saw his hand come up a few times. Go ahead, Jonathan, and then we'll check in with a couple of the others. Yeah?

Unknown Speaker  38:57  
Therapy session. Jonathan,

Speaker 2  39:00  
yes. And since you're a part of my membership, I'm gonna give you it to give it to you the way I did in my membership as well. Dr, you know that you have value in what you're offering, even in a two minute episode, and you can't say that you don't know that you you may have answered the man's question in that two minutes, you may have given him the exact value that he needs to take his next step in that two minutes. So you have to get past what you're having, which is mental block against you putting it out there, because it's not perfect. You have to get past that and start to figure out ways to get that content out there, but know that you're providing real value for them and that they will get something out of your podcast, and you are a professional, and you have nothing to worry about, and you're not an imposter. You're not doing anything wrong. You're creating content that people need, so put it out there so they can actually consume it.

Marc Ronick  39:58  
Thank you. Thank you. Jonathan. Yeah, and let's see here. I know. Was it Amanda sharp I saw with her hand up. It was, go ahead, Amanda.

Amanda Sharp  40:07  
I'm gonna reference a quote that John and cash said, and I've shared this before, but he said, basically he was singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. And when it was over, they were like, I don't know. That's too short. And he's like, I don't know I feel like when I've I feel like I've sung my song, and it's sung no matter how short it is, it's good. And I think you maybe can take something from that. I think your expectation of what length should be isn't to Jonathan's point what's necessary. So my recommendation would be maybe to just, can you grab a different, like question, a different mailbag type of thing. Yeah, this room, yeah. And how we cover questions and content, and it's never, you know, it's bite sized answers from a lot of different people. So if each one of us were given our answer in a bite size and trying to make it a podcast, it would be as short as what you're coming up with. I think maybe your expectation of length was what was incorrect, while what you're trying to achieve is spot

Marc Ronick  41:06  
on. I'm with you. I'm with you. Amanda, thank you for that. Let's see a lot of people want to chime in, and I still want to hear from some other people, or at least dig into some other goals for 2025 that said I want to go to Ashley. We're going to do Ashley Alex, and then we'll wrap this part of the conversation up with Dominic. Go ahead, Ashley. Thank

Ashley Feller  41:28  
you. So this kind of goes back to the whole musician analogy. You probably already know this. Dr, but for people who are listening, whether it's music or people speaking, the passage of time is perceived differently for the listener than the person who's delivering the message. I've noticed this because my nerves get the best of me. Sometimes, when I play music, I tend to play too fast sometimes, and I think it's going by so slowly, but I'll have like, my friends give me feedback, like, man, you were playing so fast tonight. Why? So there's that. And I was just thinking if, if a challenge is, you know, it not being the ideal length that you want, maybe consider if you have some questions that maybe compliment each other, have segments where you cover one question and then have another one where you cover the other question, that's an idea.

Unknown Speaker  42:22  
That is an idea. Thank you,

Marc Ronick  42:25  
awesome. Thank you, Ashley and Alex, good morning to you. Happy New Year to you. And what do you have for? Dr,

Speaker 3  42:31  
stop tuning the guitar and play the freaking music. You know what everybody in this room is guilty of it, yep. The best piece of advice, somebody said, when you podcast, shut up and play record. Hit the record button. And you know what? If it's too short, yeah, oh, wow. But then, then, then, like Ashley said, put another question in there. But when I started daddy daughter, it was like five minute episodes. Our first couple of things were like five or eight minutes, and I'm like, oh my god, I'm used to doing an hour, but you know what? You're in and you're out, and what's going to end up happening is, as you get more comfortable, you're gonna start lengthening also yes, you're a professional. Yes, you're new, but you still have to start somewhere, and you can always revisit the questions later. Nobody's saying that once you do the question, it's over. You know that's the thing. Things evolve over time. So give yourself a little out, even in the podcast, and say, as of right now, this is my answer in some way, so that you can't go revisit it if you want to do another 510, 20 minutes. Yeah.

Marc Ronick  43:53  
Excellent. Yeah. Thank you, Alex. Thank you and Dominic, you've got the final word. Go for it. I know. Keep it

Dominic Lawson  44:01  
brief. As somebody who gets criticized often about not having enough episodes, I can relate to this. But what they don't criticize me for is for the quality. So if those two minutes are hot fire, then those two minutes are hot fire. So I wouldn't even care about if it's two minutes long, three minutes long, if you spit in hot fire then, then you got it. So I would just know if it's going to be two minutes. I would just focus on the quality of that two, three minutes.

Marc Ronick  44:30  
Yep, I'm with you and and what's funny is, is that I think sometimes, as the quote, unquote experts, we feel like we owe a very long, detailed answer to the person asking us for advice. And sometimes it's the short and sweet answers that make the biggest impact. And also, your words are probably going to land a lot differently on them than they are on you, because you've heard these answers a million. Million times. Probably you, you know a lot of this stuff, and to you, you feel like, Maybe you feel like you have to really make the answer rich and engaging and something that they can walk away with and just feel so empowered. But again, sometimes all it takes is that specific piece of advice that is short and sweet, that does the trick and makes all the difference in the world. So I don't think length is as valuable as you're you're giving it, in my opinion. All right, Nick I said Dominic would have the last word. Then I stole the last word, and now I'm going to let you steal the last word. Go ahead.

Speaker 1  45:41  
I wanted to chime in because I I feel this very close to myself, like this is, this is something that I've dealt with, and exactly what you're talking about is like, join me on

Unknown Speaker  45:53  
the therapy couch. Nicholas,

Speaker 1  45:58  
you're, you're creating content, and you want to, you want for it to be the most valuable thing possible. So then in your mind, you feel like you have to come up with something that has never been heard before, something is completely new. And then you can take that to the point where you almost feel like it has to be some revelation or something new to you even. And the reality is, the answer can be so simple. So it doesn't have to be something that's like, completely revolutionary for it to be beneficial for somebody. And as the content creator, it's very easy to get caught in that like, Oh, shoot. This has to be completely mind blowing for it to have an impact in many cases, Like Marc said, the simple answer is, usually what people resonate with the most. I don't know how many times I've attended, like, webinars and conferences and things like that, where I'm sitting from a position where I have a lot of knowledge and I'm hearing the content being shared, and I'm like, Okay, this isn't like anything new to me, like, I get it, but then you look around the room, or you look at the chat, and people are just like, blowing it up, like, oh my gosh, this is so great. This is so amazing. Thank you so much. And I'm sitting there, like, okay, like, it's information that's that's the kind of thing that I think is hard to kind of wrap. Let's take a step back and realize, like, sometimes the simple stuff is the most beneficial for somebody? Yeah, I

Dianne-Romelle Fay (DR)  47:22  
I realized that I just had to walk away from the record button and just get my thoughts together. It's like taking a walk around the block. The weather hasn't been walk around the block lately over here, so, so I did it metaphorically, but I feel like I can do another stab at it today, and I feel good about it, actually, that's good to hear. Thank you for your help, everyone. I appreciate it.

Marc Ronick  47:46  
Yeah, you're welcome, Dr and yeah, good luck, and feel free to text me, message me, call whatever throughout the day. If you're feeling any signs of frustration, I'm happy to be a sounding board for you. And no, I will. Yeah, thank you so much. No problem, no problem. I want to. I want to talk to, let's see, I want to talk to Amanda a little more, and maybe Johnny has some thoughts too, on the challenge with song swap showdown. And as Amanda shared, Chris, her co host, got a new gig, and it's a full time job, and it interferes now with their usual Monday morning recordings, in which they usually do live. So Amanda, what are your initial thoughts here, like, what Where are you guys at at this point? Because it's been, what, a week or two now since he's announced the job. So what are your initial steps here in figuring out what to do next?

Amanda Sharp  48:45  
Well, first, let's not use the word interferes, because I feel like that means like, it's a bad thing, and this is such a fair sound, so awful, but like, this is such a good thing for Chris, and I think we were super lucky that we got to live by, like COVID rules, as far as, like work schedule for so long. So we missed a lot of other times that we probably would have been experiencing this problem already, and it's really not even a problem. Because I feel like oftentimes, sometimes when we shake things up, it's for the better. So there's something really exciting about this, for me, I feel like that we may stumble on something that we wouldn't had otherwise. And so first and foremost, I think the thing we have to figure out is what like his workload and schedule even really looks like, and that we won't even know for a few weeks, probably. And then from there, we can start figuring out, like, where we can fit in our recording? Will it be live? Will it be a two hour show, like we normally do, or will it only be 45 minutes like it was when we first started type of thing? So I don't think we have any data to be able to really know the direction we're going. I just think we're both very, very open minded to. What the solution may be. And I think that's a really good thing. Absolutely,

Marc Ronick  50:04  
I have your solution. Go ahead, Alex. What's that?

Speaker 3  50:07  
Alex, folks, they're gonna rename it song swap show. Get showdown after dark, and it's gonna start at five o'clock PM, because she has to get to bed early because she needs to rest. And, you know, we don't want to have it too late for her, but it's gonna be, it's gonna be after dark and, and that's the best way to do it for

Amanda Sharp  50:30  
you in the winter months. That is totally accurate. It could be after dark, and we could get away with that. But that's really, I am a huge part of this issue, because I'm I'm very useless after like, six o'clock, when it comes to being

Unknown Speaker  50:46  
I said five, I gave you an hour. I know

Amanda Sharp  50:49  
five, made it sound really pathetic, so I bumped it to six.

Marc Ronick  50:55  
What time do you go to bed? Normally? Amanda,

Amanda Sharp  50:57  
Oh, I I am in bed, physically relaxing by eight o'clock, yeah,

Marc Ronick  51:03  
yeah. So I get it, yeah, by then it's like, yeah, you're wiped. You don't have the energy to do a whole podcast, and you guys have so much energy on that podcast, yeah, I get it. That will be to realize

Speaker 3  51:14  
that's seven o'clock Standard Time. Just, just saying, and I'm not trying to be funny, because it really can. It really is an issue. And I think that that's great that you have that limitation.

Amanda Sharp  51:26  
It's a pathetic one.

Marc Ronick  51:29  
All right, let's, let's check in with Ashley. Ashley, your 2025 goal was to get back to your podcast. Is that a safe, quick wrap up of of of your goal

Ashley Feller  51:41  
absolutely for

Marc Ronick  51:42  
sure, okay? And what, what was the inspiration to get back to it, right? We know we you've shared with us this morning the inspiration behind the podcast, and you shared in that Facebook post as well. You know you want to highlight different people in that in the Florida area that usually you know that they have a big story to tell, right? So, but what inspired you to get back to it? Now that's what my going to be, my first question, and then I'll have a few more. Well,

Ashley Feller  52:12  
I had an SD card on my audio recorder break several months ago, and I had it in my mind that I had deleted the backup of three recordings that I had done interviews at the Florida Folk Festival. But it turns out, long story short, I didn't believe that delete the backup. I just put it in a folder, incidentally called figured this out in 2025 and I forgot that I put them in there, silly me. And I just got to digging around and cleaning stuff out. And I found them. And the minute I saw the folders that had the all the audio tracks, all the video tracks, my heart just lit up. I was like, Oh my gosh, they're not gone. And I felt completely, like, energized. And then I was like, I really want to get back to this. I miss it. You know, I might not be able to release as often as I would like, and I might not be able to travel to interview everybody, but I'm going to do the best I can to stay consistent.

Marc Ronick  53:18  
That makes a lot of sense and good to hear the where you found that inspiration. It's that must have been, man, to find stuff like that after thinking they're gone. It's there's nothing like that feeling, for sure. So Ashley, now you're going to bring back your podcast. You produce at least two or three others that I'm aware of. What challenges are you anticipating, as far as bringing back this podcast? If any? Do you have any that you're you foresee? Oh, absolutely.

Ashley Feller  53:53  
I struggle with time management, kind of like I mentioned earlier. My perception of time passing is off, and that causes a little bit of anxiety for me, but I'm trying to navigate that. So definitely the time factor, and also, I really was steadfast on wanting to interview everyone in person and travel to them, but my car is held together with duct tape, so I just can't do that. So I think, I think those are that

Marc Ronick  54:24  
Okay, that's fair. And do you have your first steps planned out as far as getting this thing back up and running? Yeah, I've

Ashley Feller  54:36  
picked the interview that I'm gonna edit, and I'm gonna do something that I don't normally do, and that's just work a little bit on the weekends and get it done right

Marc Ronick  54:45  
on very cool. Well, we are all here to support you as well. Ashley, keep us posted, and before we wrap up, Alexandra is on stage, and Alexandra is celebrating her 32nd birthday. Day, she just put it in the chat, happy birthday to you, Alexandra, any big plans for the birthday?

Speaker 4  55:07  
No, my big plans were on Saturday. We went to my favorite restaurant, and all my favorite surfers were there, but they did not sing to me, because I know I hate being sung too, so they just get so they just gave me a free dessert, and I was happy, but nice. But actually, I do have a couple of plans, because I am one of those people that like facts, who has, like, has the rewards programs for like, every freaking restaurant in your city. So I'm, I'm going to rack up all the birth all the birthday foods, all the free birthday foods, and one of them is a free is a free pie. If I buy a pie, get a free pie from one of the local pie shops. And so I'm going to treat my mom to a pie, because without my mom, I would not have a birthday. So she gets a birthday party. Nice.

Marc Ronick  55:53  
Yes, I my wife, has a friend who, unfortunately, is no longer with us, and one of that was, one of her things is to wish the moms a Happy birth day. I think moms don't get enough celebration when, when it's their child's birthday, when it's their children's birthday, they need a little more credit. I think,

Speaker 4  56:17  
yes, and I do want to shout out Jen, and then in the audience too, because it is her birthday. We have birthday

Marc Ronick  56:22  
twice. Happy birthday to you, Jen. And by the way, thank you all for being here today. There. This is a full house, and it's been a minute since we've had so many people live, listening and participating. Really appreciate that. And again, Alexandra, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you Jen as well. So that's interesting. We have a couple of birthdays here today, and I've done such a bad job. I was trying to collect birthdays and be able to just say your birthday without anybody having to tell me. And I got to work on that. Maybe that'll be one of my goals. And speaking of which one of my goals this year, I didn't share for the podcasting morning chat, specifically, I'm going for by by year end, minimum of, well, I'll just say, like this, 1000 downloads or more per episode. Yes, I'm shooting, shooting high 1000 downloads per episode, with a minimum of 80% or more of a retention rate. And look, I haven't quite landed on this yet, and I'm, I know downloads aren't important, right? We talk about that a lot like, that's not the number that you have to focus on. And let's also be real. It's, it's one of the few numbers we're given as podcasters. In our analytics, we don't get a lot of details no matter what platform we use, some more than others, sure, but downloads is a number that people pay attention to, whether it's the podcasters, whether it's if listeners can see it or viewers can see it right. Like on YouTube, you can see how many views things are getting, but it's important. It is something that we pay attention to. Therefore, I don't want to send a mixed message where we say, like, Oh, don't focus on the numbers. Don't focus on the download numbers. They are something to help you see if you are improving, or, you know, you are bringing in more people. If one of your goals is growth and discoverability, that's one way to measure that. So it depends on your goals, not it's not a blanket statement when we say, don't, don't worry about the download numbers, and it's important to me and the 80% or more retention rate, that's my standard for anybody that I work with. I want people, I want audiences, to listen to at least 80% of your episode, hopefully more. So that's my goal for the podcasting morning chat. And how am I going to do that? Well, one of my first steps is going to be to start looking into and putting money into advertising. And I'm not talking about 1000s of dollars here. I'm gonna start small, see if it starts working, and start build up to that, building up to that, to a bigger number. And speaking of which, I'm thinking about doing that on Facebook and Instagram. And the reason why I say speaking of that is because tomorrow I'm going to play an interview for you guys that I did right before we took our break with your everyday podcaster. His name, His name is Tyler, and Tyler is your everyday podcaster. Started from scratch, and in a very short amount of time built up to close to around, I think he I, I have to go back and listen to the interview again. I think it was around 100,000 downloads a month, if I'm not mistaken. Again, starting from scratch, only using Instagram ads specifically, and he's going to share how he. Did that and his story on tomorrow's episode. So we'll do that here. I'll play it for you live here, we'll be chatting about it in the chat room. And Wednesday, we're going to do news. Thursday, Tyler will probably be joining us, so that we can talk a little bit more about advertising and what that looks like and learn. I think for some of us, we'll learn it doesn't have to break the bank to be very effective. He did this on a really small budget, and it was relatively simple, so check that out with us tomorrow, Wednesday, news. Thursday, he'll be back with us for more insights, and then Friday, we're celebrating our wins from the week. So come join us there, Johnny, thank you for joining us. Thank you for being a part of this goals conversation. Love having you every year. Join us for those conversations. Hope you'll be back again soon and until tomorrow. Everyone, make it a great day. Take care.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai