Busting Myths and Navigating Challenges in Podcasting w/ Dave Jackson

This is Tools of the Podcast Trade, where you can learn about the tools and resources you can use to start and grow your podcast. Tune in this week as we talk about the help you need to remove the mystery from podcasting so you can become a successful podcaster that can reach your audience where they are. My guest today is People's Choice Podcast Award winner, dave Jackson. Didn't know I was going to say that, did you? Hi, dave, welcome.

I didn't. Thank you so much for having me.

Yes, thank you for coming and talking to us on Tools of the Podcast Trade. Before I get into what you do, which is a lot, I noticed, could you tell us who is Dave Jackson?

Dave Jackson is boy, there's many. He's an uncle, he's a brother, he's a teacher. Primarily, that's my background. I spent decades teaching people in the corporate world. I'm a podcaster, I'm a guitar player. I always categorize myself as edutainment. I try to educate people while they're having fun. That came from I had a niece who was probably three at the time and there's nothing better than a three-year-old belly laugh. She's just cackling it up. I walk by and I go Emily, what are you doing? I said Roger Rabbit is teaching me reading. I went huh, she has no idea that she's actually being educated because she was having so much fun. If I can somehow make education fun, it's not quite as painful, not as much something people go ugh school. In a nutshell, that's who Dave Jackson is.

Yes, okay, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And speaking of painful, I'm going to dive right in and ask you this question because I've been talking to aspiring podcasters for the past three years and I want you to answer this for me because you've been at this longer than I have. So why do you think intelligent people are all thumbs? You know, they just seem lost when it comes to podcasting.

Yeah, there are a couple things. The biggest one it's funny in podcasting, the thing I fight more than the technology, it's the human brain imposter syndrome, to which I say Garth Brooks has imposter syndrome, tom Hanks, meryl Streep All these people think they're frauds and we think nobody will listen to us. And a lot of that also comes from we hang around with people who know the same things we do. So I remember once I was out to dinner with someone and they said something and I said oh man, total Pete Best. And they said who's Pete Best? And I go you know who Pete Best is. She goes I have no idea who Pete Best is. I go he's the original drummer for the Beatles. And she said how do you know this stuff? And I go everybody knows who Pete Best is. And she goes nope, you grew up with a bunch of musicians. You think everybody knows that nobody knows who Pete Best is. So I think that's another one. We undervalue the knowledge that we have. And I think the other one is we we're afraid we're going to look stupid. You have the ability to edit out anything. It's not a live radio show, so you can always go in and edit out anything. You can redo it. The only way something that makes you sound stupid goes out is because you published it. So that's another one that I run into, and then the other one is part of a podcast is kind of putting yourself out there. So on one hand you are convinced that nobody wants to listen to you, but you're not sure. And if you put out a podcast and you get 13 downloads and there's 15 people in your family, then you kind of somehow get confirmation that nobody wants to listen to me, and when you first start it takes a while to build an audience. So those are some of the things that I see that stop people from actually starting a podcast.

Okay, so it's a mindset thing then, I guess, and that applies to everyone really.

Yeah, it really is, because I mean I've got a $80 microphone right here. I could plug it directly into my computer and be up and running by the end of the day. I always say if you've uploaded like a Word document, if you've attached a Word document to an email, then you can upload an MP3 file to your media host. If you've ever been in the car and your favorite song comes on, so you turn up the radio and then the phone rings. Well, you turn down the radio enough to where you could hear the phone, I'm like ha, you know how to mix audio. So I'm not going to say there's no learning curve, but it's not as hard as you think. I've had many a client that I'll be like okay, there you go. Now you're in Apple and Google and Spotify and all the different directories and I'm like now all you have to do is create a new episode and be like great, but what's next? And they go, that's it. And they're like no, seriously, what's next? I go, that's it, create another episode and tell everyone you know about it, and they're always thinking it has to be harder than it actually is.

Yes, I think that that's the same thing with set, with you know, imparting knowledge. When you know something, you figure everybody knows it right, no matter how difficult it is to you. You think that everybody knows this stuff and nobody wants to hear it. But I've been surprised about this. The simple things I think are simple. How many people didn't know?

that stuff right? Yeah, absolutely. And that's why, again, why some people they don't think their knowledge is anything special and then Throw on top of it, even if we all knew the the same thing, I mean, every night there are at least four channels, if not eight of that, that cover the news. Well, why do we need eight channels? Because they all have different perspectives and different slants on the news and things like that. So you might know the same information as your neighbor, but because of the way you were raised and your personality and whatever it is, I have a friend of mine that does a podcast about podcasting. Like I do, I'm a little more goofy than he is and he's very much just the facts, and we both had people say hey, I tried to listen to your friend, but you know they'll tell me that guy's way too dry and his audience will tell him that guy's way too goofy. And so your style, your personality, may really resonate with someone who is talking about the exact same thing that somebody else is.

Yes, definitely. You kind of answered my next question, which is about and I got this from your episode on parameters and perspectives. I wanted to ask you is there a competition in podcasting?

there really isn't. I mean there is at some point. There's only 24 hours in the day, but we kind of get that from radio, where every morning show starts at whatever seven in the morning, so you can only listen to one radio show at a time. With a podcast, you can listen to me on Monday, you can listen to Daniel on Tuesday, you can listen to, you know, elsie on Wednesday, whoever, and so I have a huge queue of Episodes that have come out. I just listened to a show yesterday that came out in December of last year. So that's one of the benefits of podcasting is it's time shifted, so somebody can find you. You know, if you find me today I'm getting ready to produce episode 900. So I've got 900 episodes that you can listen to all the way back to 2005. So it's Is their competition kind of, in a way that Studies show that right now the average American listens to about nine episodes a week. So in that aspect there's nine slots and if they've got nine shows are already listening to, you've got to bump somebody out to claim their spot. So in that aspect that there is kind of a bit of competition.

Sort of kind of. But if you're niching down, like people are emphasizing now, then you really don't have a lot of competition, do you?

because people are specifically Looking for you and your perspective right, yeah, and the people that that, in theory, are your competition, those are people you can collaborate with and maybe do a joint episode together, and there are promo swamps, there's all sorts of ways, because what we're really looking for is People that don't know about my show but should be listening. I was just speaking in in Houston, texas, and I started off every talk and I said I have extra skin, I need you to answer this question. And I said I'm gonna take a picture. I said everybody who has no idea who I am and you've never listened to my show, please raise your hand. And then I took a picture and the one room they're probably about 11 people in there and I'm like that's how you grow your audience. You you find people who should be listening to your show but they don't know about you and so that's you know. I was like well, there's 11 people that might actually be listening this Monday that weren't listening listening last Monday.

Yeah, absolutely All right. Tell our listeners about the school of podcasting.

Yeah, the school of podcasting has kind of three aspects to it. One, it's online. It's not a physical thing, but it's online, and there are a series of courses you can take them. The one that's probably the most important is planning your podcast, because it really walks you through, determining who is my audience. It determines why are you doing this, and then what are you going to talk about to hold their attention. And then from there it's everything from what equipment do you need? If you don't have a website, I'll show you how to build one. And then how to get into all the directories. And If you want to make money, how to make money. So there's a bunch of courses. And then there is a really awesome community of people that range from everything from marketing people to psychologist to college professors to, you know, just your average show person and the average she and whoever else is in there. So we're all helping each other and we have one goal and that's to help each other make the best content. So a lot of times somebody like, hey, I need some honest feedback on this. Does this hold your attention? Somebody will throw up their artwork, things like that. So there's the community. And then last year I started something, and that is I now offer unlimited coaching. So if you're a member of the school of podcasting, there's a link you use and you can schedule a quick thirty minute call, which often isn't thirty minutes, it'll go longer, but that's because I love teaching and I used to. I still offer, if you want to hire me, one on one coaching. I still offer that. But I just spent so much time Knocking on doors trying to get somebody to hire me. I was like I've already have people who have said yes to the school of podcasting. Let's just shower them with coaching. So that's the. That's the school of podcasting in a nutshell. A lot of people say they came for the courses, but they stay for the community.

Yeah, that makes sense, right, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I know it's pretty standard, but I'm we're aspiring podcasters want to know what is the great for today.

Oh, boy, so much. My family, my brother, my sister are great resources and it's it's interesting as I travel around, because you don't realize that you are Sowing the seeds of friendship and relationships. So when I go to places and I like this week I hung out with alex and filipo from pod match super nice guy and you kind of know each other online but you kind of get to know each other a little better. So I would just say, friends, you know I don't take much to to be grateful. I try to to recognize, just how you know worse life could be the fact that I have a house, you know, a roof over my head, I've got food in the fridge and if I want to go buy something in amazon I don't have to go check the checkbook first. I grew up fairly poor. I've been in that situation where you're looking at the, the vending machine, and you're like do I want mountain do or gas for the ride home? Which one do I? You know? So there's a difference between poor and broke and I've been broke and so I'm grateful every day I wake up and you know I'm above ground and I have the opportunity to serve people.

Awesome, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. I can relate okay. So I know we're having some technical difficulties, but I want you to tell An aspiring podcaster one of the most difficult challenges you've had podcasting and how you learned from that challenge.

Yeah, I am when there's so many, because that's the thing you just have to be willing to to try something, because you're gonna end up with Something successful or you're gonna end up with a great story for the podcast, and so I think my original one. I Back in the day when there were a, you can make dvds or cds that were were learning tools, and so I made one for as a resume and I sent it to a company and actually got me hired. But you basically put it in. It would play a presentation and at the end it'd be like your next should be your next step should be a Call Dave Jackson at this number, b called a Jackson at this number, or c called a Jackson at this number. And it worked. They called me and I got the job, and so Everybody said you should market this. This is great, you could call it a digital resume. And so I build a website. I got everything all set up and was put it out there and in A lot of nothing happened. And then I was like, well, that's interesting. So I google the phrase digital resume and it turns out there are a bunch of people that were way ahead of me with this idea and they were doing it better and they were doing it cheaper, and so I learned from that. The lesson I learned from that was always see what currently is out there. As much as I just said, we don't have competition. You do want to know what you're up against. And the other thing. I would say that the thing that most people don't do and they end up wasting a lot of time is they don't find somebody who will tell you the truth. I'll give you an example. Two months ago, a member of the School of Podcasting came to me Kim from the Pharmacist Voice and she said hey, dave, you know I love you. I'm like uh-oh, what's going on? She's like do you know? You have a typo in the name of the School of Podcasting? I was like that can't be true, seriously. She's like yep. I went over and I saw it said plan, launch, grow, monetize. I was like we're missing an eye that's supposed to be monetized. And so, uh, you need somebody to listen to your show. I had a guy on my show that was getting six figure downloads like huge, huge show, and I said how, what do you attribute to that? And he said well, I got a bunch of people together and I said I'm making this show for you, you're kind of my target audience and I want you to listen to this episode and I want you to answer just a few questions. Number one did you listen to the whole thing? And then number two if you did listen to the whole thing, how far did you listen and why did you stop? And then his last one was on a scale from one to 10, where 10 is. I'm going to tell everybody how likely are you to share this episode with a friend? And if he got a seven, he wasn't really happy. He was looking for nines and tens. He might settle for an eight, but seven is a, is a C in you know grading, and that was average and he wanted to be more than average. And I just read a book called Listenable About Podcasting and that person made a great point. He said you don't just want to be liked, you want to be loved, you want to be their favorite podcast. And so I think a lot of people and I I totally get it that I just spent 10 hours on this episode. I just want to get it out there. I'm tired of listening to it. So the last thing you want to do is is give it to somebody and have them critique it. But and everybody assumes that people are just going to rip it to shreds and there might be something I'm a teacher. I'm always of the mindset there's something else I could improve. But there's no sense trying to market this and promote it If it's not going to resonate with your audience. Ron Howard's a famous director and actor and he's won, you know, a gazillion Oscars and Emmys and things like that. He sits in an audience before he releases his next movie because he knows when they're supposed to laugh and when they're supposed to cry. And he said if I sit in the audience and they're not reacting the way I want them to, he goes. It's back to the editing room. Because you want it to resonate with your audience and I think that's one of the things that a lot of new podcasters skip. They're just happy to get it out there and that's fine. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. But in the end you want to make sure it's resonating with your audience. Then it makes sense to start telling the world about your show.

Yeah, that makes sense. Thank you, you're because your podcast is for someone else, not you, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I use myself as kind of a sounding board, like if I'm not interested in what I'm talking about, I shouldn't be talking about it. So I kind of use myself as a measuring stick. But I also I've been, yeah, I've been lucky enough to meet some of my listeners, so I can think about Ken Blanchard and Kim Kragi and other people that listen and I'm like okay, is this gonna work for Ken? And a lot of people talk about that making a, an avatar, you know, a target audience member, so that when you're putting together your content you're like alright, is this gonna resonate with so-and-so? And you know once you get that it's. That makes editing easier because you can listen to something like oh well, this is gonna be boring to to this person and they, they move them out. So it's, it's tricky, but it's it's. You know, for me it's a lot of fun, but it is a lot of work.

Yes, yes. Thank you, dave Jackson, for coming and speaking to us today. I'm sorry about the technical difficulty, because I would have loved to get more out of you.

Well, that's one of the things that's kind of nice about podcasting is you do get to play with technology and sometimes it works and Sometimes it doesn't, and I know my ability to roll with the punches is better because of my time.

Thank you. Yeah, sure, is there anything you want to share with us before you?

go. No, just, I think everybody and I again consider the source, but I really think everybody can benefit from a podcast, especially if you're, because if you think about it every week, if you do a weekly show, you have to kind of assemble your thoughts, you have to put them together and I know I've been in situations like today where you kind of have to to Pivot a little bit. You have to be able to improvise and I know I've been in situations where I was. I know we talk about divorce on this show my, my second wife. I actually was invited to her third wedding. I've had a very friendly divorced and and the pastor that married her didn't show up at the reception and she looked at me and said hey, jackson, you know God, why don't you get up there and pray for the meal or whatever it was? And you know I was like okay. So it gives you skills that are not only great in podcasting but they're also great in other areas of your life. So you know you don't have to be great to start. This is a zig-ziggler line. You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great. So that would be the thing. Don't be afraid? Again, nobody's. We have a running gag at the school of podcasting. Nobody's gonna punch you in the face because, well dear, you know it's remote. Give it a shot and come visit me at school of podcastingcom.

Okay, thank you, and we put that link in the show notes, along with anything else that you might have. I Appreciate you, dave.

Oh, thanks so much. I'm I'm with you. I wish this would have been. You know, technology is not always our friend, but I appreciate your patience and repeating the questions a couple times and things like that. And you know, best of luck and all you do.

Thank you, dave, I appreciate you.