Embrace Podcast Flexibility To Create Content on Your Terms w/Vince Quinn

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (00:01.262)
Today I'm speaking with Vince Quinn, the co -founder and creative director of SBX Productions. Thanks for coming and speaking to us on Tools of the Podcast Trade Vince.

Vince Quinn (00:14.069)
Yeah, thanks for having me, Jen, I appreciate

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (00:15.954)
Yes, my pleasure. All right, before we get into what you do, could you tell us who is Vince Quinn?

Vince Quinn (00:23.703)
Wow, it's a it's a lot to say. I'll keep it short on the base level. Yes, I am a podcast producer. That's what I do. I help people build and manage shows. I'm also a video game obsessive, an average cook, I would say, and a barbecue enthusiast. I'm a lot of things. But yeah, I mean, I got started in radio, so I did that as well. I sports talk radio for 10 years. And that's how I got into podcasting and everything else.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (00:52.48)
Okay, all right. Thank you for that. I like to ask people about that because sometimes we get some tidbits. All right. Okay, so podcasting. What is it about podcasting that you

Vince Quinn (01:08.567)
Yeah, part of it, funny because how I got into podcasting, like podcasting got me a job in radio because in like 2012, I started a sports podcast because everybody in Philadelphia had a sports podcast in 2012. So I did. And I got work at a radio station. And the fact that I was doing a podcast was proof that like I can host a show. I have an interest in this and I can carry a conversation and I'm trying to do

So it was proof of concept for me to get on the air when they needed somebody in a pinch. And then from there, like working kind of backwards as it's all come full circle, it's funny because part of the reasons why I love podcasts is I started to hate radio. Like it's a four hour show. don't, five days a week. For what? You know, like sometimes, so many times people were just killing time or like didn't truly respect.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (01:54.126)
done.

Vince Quinn (02:01.099)
the what they were presenting to the audience like they would half ass things or whatever it was. like looking at podcasting where it's like, OK, I don't have to try to talk to everybody. I'm actually very specifically talking to very specific people. And so I can get more granular in conversations. And I don't have to be like so it doesn't have to be surface level. You can be deep. You can be as long or as short as you want. You can have as

production or is little production. I've worked on shows that were two minutes and had a thousand sound bites. felt like in a two minute show and there's other stuff that's two hours and there's not a single sound effect played. like all that kind of flexibility and everything. I love that. I think it's what makes it great and why so many people are drawn to it and why it's, just such a great medium.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (02:42.466)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah. Podcasting is awesome because you have control. I mean, we're in control. We don't have to depend on corporate types or whatever. And that's what I love about it. Yeah.

Vince Quinn (02:56.215)
Freedom. It's true freedom in what you talk about and when you do it and what you want to get out of it. And that's what's

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (03:04.364)
Yes. Yes. Awesome. Thank you. So I'm going to go basic with you because our audience, they're mostly aspiring podcasters or new or, professionals who want to listen. So what's the best way to start a podcast?

Vince Quinn (03:18.486)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, so everything is about pilots like pilots are the world to me. And what I mean by that is the idea of testing something out before you commit. Right. And for the people who are like, I'm thinking about doing a podcast. I don't know if I should do it. Like a lot of times what people tend to do is they just tell the world they're like, hey, everybody, I've started a podcast and they make the logos and like they try to they just put episodes

And they have no idea if they actually like it. You don't understand what the workload is. Like you don't know if the idea is actually any good, you know, whether or not the public likes it, you might do your own show and listen back and go like, actually I don't like this. Like, this isn't what I thought it was in my head. So what I'm a big believer in is that idea of a pilot, which is on your own, like don't tell the world about it. You know,

Do the episode of a show of what you think it would sound like, what you would want it to be, and see what that is. See what kind of research you do to put that episode together. Are you doing a lot of research? Okay, you can. Are you gonna be able to do that all the time? You know, like think about that. So I think going through the process with the idea that it's not a commitment where it needs to be this big public thing, but rather let me see if I like this and what the experience is and get to know it a little bit and sharpen it

Like that, think, is everything. It's like the most basic way can say is like a band doesn't just go like, hey, I just thought of this song yesterday. All right, one, two, three. Like, you know what I mean? Like they practice it. They write it. They rewrite it. Like and people should do the same thing with podcasts. So I think that's really the fundamental thing is just like test it before you put it live. And I think that applies to, you know, experienced people as well. If you want to do something for bonus content, you want to do a new segment.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (04:51.096)
Ha

Yeah. Yeah.

Vince Quinn (05:12.779)
You want to move the show to twice a week. Practice doing two shows in a week and see if you feel comfortable with that, like whatever it might be, but just the idea of test, analyze, refine, and figure out where to go from there.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (05:27.342)
makes absolute sense and have me thinking. So we have this statistic that we throw around that says 90 % of podcasters fail, they podfade before by seven episodes or something like that. And you always think, well, maybe they didn't have enough audience or something like that. But maybe if they did what you're suggesting, do the pilot, see how much work is involved.

maybe some of those people would either still be around or never wasted the time starting in the first place,

Vince Quinn (06:01.015)
100%. I think one of the things that happens a lot with podcasters is on any level, whether they're trying to do it for fun or they're trying to do it for business and they're going to just bootstrap this thing and do it on their own. I think the problem is they get to editing and they're like, I hate this and it's a lot of work. If you're not into editing, it's not fun. It's a massive chore. And to have to go, okay.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (06:16.536)
Yeah,

No. Yes.

Vince Quinn (06:23.863)
Well, I had the conversation, I love that. Now I've got to edit this thing and then I've got to upload it somewhere. And like, I don't know how hosting works and now I have to promote it too. And like, how often do I do that? And people aren't comfortable promoting. Like there's so many different things that go into making a good show. And so yeah, the testing, that's 100 % why I say it, right? It's like, and especially anybody who's doing a show like with a friend or a group of friends, right? Like, okay, who's doing the editing?

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (06:38.828)
Yes.

Vince Quinn (06:53.345)
Who's posting the show and running the social media? You gotta figure out those roles. And if nobody's willing to commit to do anything, and from the start it's just like, I don't know, we're all just happy to be here, then yeah, odds are it's gonna fall apart quickly because nobody's truly committed to what it is or doesn't understand the kind of work that's actually involved.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (07:13.708)
Yes, yes, yes. And if you're not a true entrepreneur, you know, with that entrepreneurial spirit, you will give up soon, right?

Vince Quinn (07:25.547)
Yeah, it's a drive. It's a major commitment, you know, and people tend to, you know, and that's why they all quit so quickly, right? They prove to themselves of like, well, I'll just do it next week or like, I'll do it Tuesday or whatever. Like they just, they push it off because ultimately deep down they don't want to do it or they don't want to do all of the work that's connected to it. And so they just let it die and it dies quickly. But that's the thing. Yeah. Just test it out. See if you like it. See, try the idea. Cause like,

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (07:26.072)
Yeah. Yeah.

Vince Quinn (07:53.943)
I think a lot of times, you know, people don't experience the energy of a show and what they're thinking and how that actually presents, right? Because like when you're doing a show, the whole goal of all of this is you have a goal. You have something you want to actually accomplish from doing the show. So like, what is that goal and how does what you're talking about on the show, what you want this content to be, the brand, the message, all of it,

How does that help your goal? Does it accomplish your goal or not? Does it need fine tuning or not? And so that's why it's like, yeah, do these pilots, take your time. There's no, like you're on your own time and it always feels like you're on everybody else's time because they're all posting and there's all these successful shows out there and all this stuff. Like you're on your own time, you do it your speed.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (08:24.226)
Yes.

Vince Quinn (08:42.355)
and make sure you're accomplishing your goals in the process. And if you're not doing it, then please, for the love of God, give it up. Don't do the show. Like, it's not the right thing for you. But yeah, determine what the right thing is. And pilots are really the way to do

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (08:48.888)
Yeah.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (08:55.618)
Yeah, I like that. I love it actually. So before we move on, I want you to tell us what you do for your clients and how we can get in touch with you. And then we get into some more stuff.

Vince Quinn (09:09.899)
Yeah, so one of the things they do is a pilot program. Like I give people the opportunity. And with that, what we'll do is let's say, OK, we're going to have a conversation. I'll figure out what your goals are and work with you on that to define what that is and how it works as a show. We'll do one episode of it. Like my people will record it, edit it. We'll review it together. We'll have feedback on it. If you think, it's close and like we're talking about it, like it's almost there. But like let's do it one or two more times or let's try it this way instead of that

We will do that with you so you can get up to three recordings of a pilot. And then from there, we'll give you ideas of, okay, here's how you can execute this in a way that you can actually maintain. And here's what it would cost for us to do that. And if you want to do it on your own, then like no problem. You can do it on your own after that, but we are available to help you with all the other stuff that we do, which is engineers on every single recording. can help you schedule your guests work on the release order for the season.

If you want basic transcripts, so like AI transcripts or you want a professional transcript and have that edited, we do that. So there's a lot of different things around the show that we can help with managing, growing it, social media clips, like all the things of getting the word out there and just running an efficient show day to day. That's what we

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (10:26.242)
Yeah. Okay. All right. And your website, any contacts, information?

Vince Quinn (10:33.047)
So yeah, sbxproductions .co. It will be .com, so it is changing. yeah, but S -B -X, so like sandbox, sbxproductions .co. And there's a contact form there. Anybody who wants a free 30 minutes with me, that's all it takes.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (10:50.688)
Okay, all right, let me put that in show notes so people can see that. Thanks, Vince. All right, so I've often talked and heard people say, well, everybody with a business should have a podcast, or if you wanna have a business, you should have a podcast. Is that true? And what's your opinion on

Vince Quinn (11:15.767)
I think it's a nice idea. It's absolutely not true to me because here's the thing. think one, especially for people who are like solopreneurs, which is a lot of people that I deal with, they don't have the time to actually do the show. Like if you're gonna do this, you know, and even scaling it back, right? Like one of the ways that I'll work with certain people and say, okay, here's how we can make the show work is we'll do a season, which is we do 10 episodes, right? So let's just do

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (11:29.804)
Yes.

Vince Quinn (11:44.631)
And then we'll release that like a TV show and then we'll take a break and then we can do another season. And like we just keep it moving that way. So it's not every single week and it's not as much of a grind. But that still doesn't work for everybody, you know? So like that that's one of those things where I'll say, OK, maybe you should be a guest and you should put your energy into guesting that way. You can do it as little or as much as you want. It's like driving an Uber, right? If you want to get booked on 10 shows, all right, then send out a bunch of invites. And once you hit

You're done. Or if you want to have shows every week, do it all the time. Like it's as flexible as you want it to be. And a lot of times it's a good build up to running a show. If you do in fact, get the time down the line, but to start that might not be the best bet. It might be the best bet to sponsor a local show instead, because you know what? You're not the voice or maybe there's a show that's local and it's got your audience that you want to talk to and you can accelerate

then be a sponsor of that show, build out a relationship with them, try it for a couple of months and see what it looks like to have somebody else who does have the audience. You're a part of the show. You're still embracing podcasting. that's the beauty of it. And that's part of why I love all this too, right? Like I think so often people are hooked in on the idea of, like to talk and shows are fun and this can be this great thing. So I want to do that. And like, I totally understand. That's what I do. I built my life on it. But

There's so many ways to approach it where you can get value out of it and that's okay because it's really just how does this help you grow? Right? Like what are those goals? What do you want to get out of it? And if it's just an entertainment show and you're just doing it for fun and like there's no pressure then great like go do it have have the greatest time of your life, but You know if you're trying to build your business on there's just so many ways to go and don't feel like you have to host

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (13:34.498)
Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I appreciate that. Cause I was one of those who actually started out thinking like, well, they're, they're, you know, a divorce lawyer. Maybe they should have a podcast, you know, like, you know, something like that. But yeah, I'm learning that, you know, it doesn't always work being a host of a podcast. It can work the other way. So yeah, thank you for that. All right. So let's start out with,

Vince Quinn (13:59.382)
Mm -hmm.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (14:03.498)
Another basic question. You want to start a podcast. You actually decide you're going to and you embrace the work, right? Where do you start? Like, because I'm going to tell you, it took me six years to start my first podcast. This is my second one. And I went through this rumination on lots of stuff. The microphone, the this, the that, the, and I had all the setup when I first started.

Vince Quinn (14:21.387)
Okay.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (14:33.314)
But we don't have to do all of that, do we?

Vince Quinn (14:36.927)
No, not at all. mean, and that's the whole point of it, right? Like that's the beauty of it. I think the equipment a lot of times can be a distraction, right? Especially if you're just trying it out. And that's what the pilots are for, right? Like it's figure out when you're going to approach a podcast. What do you want to do? Like what is the goal? What do you want to get out of it? How are you communicating with the people? Let's say you're driving business, right? You want to get business, you want to get clients. Great. Who is your target audience?

What kind of things are you gonna say that solve their problems? How are you doing that on the show and doing that consistently? So you gotta figure all those things out. Then you do a pilot, you see if you like it. Then maybe you do two or three episodes, record ahead because before you release, then you give yourself time. You can breathe, like do multiple episodes and it still gives you that off ramp. If you do three, four episodes and you're like, no, I like this pilot, I'm gonna give it a try. But then.

you just can't commit the time to it because you're too busy, you got too much going on, then you'll know. So it's just like, yeah, breathe on the release because everybody wants to be public. Take your time on that. Figure out those steps. Make sure you like it. Build a rhythm with it in a comfort level. And the equipment, I mean, there's things for editing that can be pretty easy to make you sound good. There's people on Fiverr that can help you out to make you sound good, even if your quality isn't very good.

There's equipment that's really affordable that you can invest in. You don't need a $200 microphone. You can get a $50 microphone, in some case a $25 microphone, you know, cheap webcams, used equipment. Like there's so many ways to go about it affordably. And so yeah, like those, those investments, make sure you like what you're doing, but before you, you really do it, right? Like I'm not going to buy ice skates if I, you know, I'm not a good skater. Like it's

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (16:04.546)
Yeah.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (16:20.088)
No.

Vince Quinn (16:22.039)
I'm going to rent skates first, you know what I mean? So it's very much the same idea.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (16:23.918)
All right, yeah.

Yeah. Good. And thank you. And that's where someone like yourself comes in that you do all the dirty work, so to speak. And if the person decides, I really do like this podcasting thing, then you know what, what Vincent is an SBX showing me. I want to do this going forward. I have the funds. can pay Vince or, know, I don't have the funds and I do it myself. So I think I like that.

Vince Quinn (16:54.731)
Yeah, because we try to be lightweight and we try to be like a support system. You know what I mean? Because like for me, I'm a small business owner. Like I am one of the people that I work with. So I totally get that. And I'm just trying to do it in a way. And that's what I've spent really three years developing is like, how do I get this process where people are getting the right kind of attention that they want and they can manage a show in a way that doesn't crush them and be able to grow that thing and grow their business while I'm growing mine and

in that same philosophy, right? Like that's what everything is about for me. So trying to help people as much as possible, find answers to those problems. like I've done other things where it's like just editing here and there, or really what it goes down to now is I just do a lot of coaching. Like people want to check in, hey, once a month, once every three months, whenever there's an issue, like whatever it might be. I do a lot of coaching in that way, feedback on how the show's going, how they can be a better host, ways to approach interviewing.

what their production process looks like. Like a lot of things that I can just give a peek under the hood and just do that for a flat hourly rather than committing to all that production work, even for a season if you can't afford it, like no problem. And let's get you moving.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (17:56.781)
Yeah.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (18:01.496)
Right.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (18:06.274)
Yeah, makes sense. I appreciate it. All right. What is Vince grateful for today?

Vince Quinn (18:14.325)
Wow, I'm grateful for my patience. I'm grateful for my patience because it's been tested and if I was a less patient person, I would have been ballistic like these last weeks. It's just the summer pace sometimes kills me because I'm so hungry and I just want to be out there and I just want to be making stuff happen all the time. And it's the heat of July, like nobody's doing anything.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (18:37.667)
Yeah.

Vince Quinn (18:38.435)
so I would be a complete raving psychopath if I didn't have patients. So I am always told I'm an incredibly patient person and it's been tested this week and it's held strong. So thank very thankful. I'm patient.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (18:52.046)
I'm thankful you're patient too, Linsen. Thanks for sharing that with us. Okay. All right. So before I let you go, I want you to give, you've given us a lot that, you know, a new podcast that could, you know, chew on. But before I let you go, can you give us two or three tips to an aspiring podcaster?

Vince Quinn (18:57.399)
Absolutely.

Vince Quinn (19:15.531)
Yeah, so one, be selfish. Talk about things that you are truly passionate about. Don't worry about speaking to the whole world and every single person on the planet. That's not your audience. That's not what this is. You have to share who you are and what you're about and be confident in speaking your opinions on things. So do that. Don't worry about what you think other people might want. Especially if you're doing an entertainment show.

Like if you're just trying to build a community and be a part of a community, say your opinions on things. Because if you sound like everybody else, nobody cares. That's number one. And the second thing is for anybody in any show on any level, be willing to talk by yourself. Do segments by yourself. Take those opportunities. Pilot them if you haven't done it before, right? Practice doing those segments on your own, episodes on your own. Guests are gonna cancel. You've got opportunities. You have a regular audience.

They want to hear from you, giving them more of you should not be something you're afraid of doing. So find those things that you want to talk about that, that enhance the experience that you're already providing people and go about doing that. So be confident in that or work on building your confidence in that, because you'll be amazed at the things that you've developed in your mind that are buried deep down there and they just need a space to truly breathe. And, and you, you can learn a lot. yeah, don't be afraid to speak about yourself.

J. Rosemarie Francis (Jenn) (20:42.734)
Thank you. That's pretty awesome. My great tips. Thank you, Vince Quinn for coming and talking to us on Tools of the Podcast. I really appreciate

Vince Quinn (20:51.563)
Thanks for having me, this was fun.

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