Max has produced more than 150 episodes of Wild Business Growth, and now helps other aspiring podcasters produce and promote their shows. He focuses on what he calls the 3 Ps: Podcast planning, podcast production, and podcast promotion.
“Consistency and having quality is really key,” says Max. “Also, making sure that the guest has the best experience possible. If the guest has the best experience possible, and you’re having fun as a host, that’s going to funnel through to the listener and the listener will pick up on that.”
We talked about:
Why business owners should create podcasts
How podcasting helps entrepreneurs
Tips to make your podcast stand out
Being consistent with your release date
What tech to use…hint: Zoom can do great things
How blogs/website helps in having your podcast show up in search
How awesome the networking part of podcasting is
Many dad jokes were also inserted throughout the show. Max will readily admit he loves a good dad joke. He also dishes a little on some of his dream guests to have on his show.
GrillGirl Robyn Lindars’ first grill experience included almost losing her eyebrows. Fast forward to today, and she’s been on the Today Show, Chopped Grillmasters, amassed an Instagram following of more than 30,000, and has her own magazine all thanks to her grilling skills.
She attributes a lot of that to being consistent and doing the basic stuff right when it comes to building a blog and social media audience.
On the podcast, we talked about how the GrillGirl business began, what goes into sustaining her delicious looking Instagram channel, what exactly a video shoot with food looks like, how important social media has been for her business growth, and of course I had to throw some fun ones in there. Robyn gives us her favorite recipe on her site, her favorite cocktail she makes, and tips for using smoke in your adult beverages.
Terry Schilling is a freelance copywriter for creative companies and entrepreneurs. I discovered Terry through an insightful post he shared a while back on LinkedIn around free productive tools that are worth paying for if they offer a paid subscription. For what it’s worth, I said Kapwing. Since then, I’ve found Terry’s LinkedIn content to be incredibly engaging and helpful.
He gets marketers to think about copywriting from different perspectives. One message he reiterates over and over on his social platforms is “Tell people how cool they can be, not how cool you are.”
Terry also cohosts a podcast called The Copy Corner that he also live streams on LinkedIn and YouTube. The episodes are short – typically around 10 minutes. They break down copywriting and go into specifics around psychology hacks, writing better headlines, doing calls to action, and more.
We chatted about how Terry markets himself and his business in the latest episode of the K-Stream podcast.
Charlene Walters, MBA, PhD is a business and branding mentor, corporate trainer, TV host, author, and contributes to publications like Entrepreneur Magazine.
Charlene joined me to talk about what it means to be a business and branding mentor, and how live streaming has helped her grow her business. She hosts a regular talk show that airs on the DB&A television network, a 24/7 streaming channel available on Roku and Amazon Fire.
Launch is a show for entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, side hustlers and anyone who wants to launch their entrepreneurial spirit and life to hear from other experts and authors who have been in their shoes.
She also launched a book earlier this year called, fittingly enough, Launch Your Inner Entrepreneur. We talked about what aspiring business owners can expect from the book as well as where the idea came from to write it.
Video and live streaming have become key to the networking aspect of Charlene’s business.
“You get to meet so many great people, and you also pick up a lot of tips from them as well,” says Charlene.
“I always recommend to entrepreneurs that it’s a good idea [to start a podcast] in some form just to network with other people. That’s been the brightest spot of this time home during the pandemic. My network has just exploded during this time.”
If you’re in the social media marketing space, you likely know the importance of adding subtitle overlays to your video content. It’s rare that social users stop and tap on a video to hear the sound, so having subtitles is key to getting the message across.
As I began building the social media channels for the K-Stream Podcast, I was searching for ways to do this without spending a ton of time on it. I wanted to share clips from my episodes, but of course considering the majority of the audience listening with the volume off. Then, I stumbled upon Kapwing.
This a great little browser-based platform for designers, offering tools for creating graphics, animations, editing video, creating memes, subtitling and more. Absolutely recommend if you’re a content creator on a budget. It’s amazing what you can do with the free version of the program.
In the video below, I go through a brief walkthrough of how you can add subtitles to video clips using the free version of Kapwing. Note that there are file size limits on the free version, but if you’re creating videos for social channels like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, your videos are likely on the shorter side anyways.
Let me know what other free tools you’re enjoying these days!
Monte Weaver is an entrepreneur, YouTube and Amazon Live influencer, Mastermind course teacher and tech guru. He joined me for the latest episode of the K-Stream Podcast to talk streaming tech and building a YouTube channel. And while we spent time talking about those things, our conversation went even further to include:
How he built his business
What’s behind his Mastermind courses
Helping video creators think more simply for content ideas
Focusing on message first before technical details when creating video
How he got into live streaming and made it part of his business
Why now is the time to get on Amazon Live if you’re a creator
How it’s actually not as hard as people think to get influencer brand deals
Monte is on the cutting edge of live streaming and digital tech, and he’s more than willing to spread the knowledge to fellow creators.
Jason Vaughn is the director of business development at CVW Event Productions in Washington, DC. Jason joined the K-Stream podcast to talk about his background in event production, which includes a stint with minor league Baltimore Orioles affiliate the Aberdeen Ironbirds and ultimately led him to CVW where he’s spent the better part of the last decade.
We talk about how his company reacted to COVID-19 and shifted their focus to producing virtual and hybrid events. Hear how a high school graduation spring-boarded them into finding success in the virtual production world.
Interesting Takeaways
Live events, whether it be sports or corporate events, are all about telling a compelling story.
Virtual events should be treated like live, in-person events. Even if there are recorded video elements, no re-dos. If we were not in a pandemic, you would be delivering the same message on a stage.
Live streaming is a never-ending learning session.
Streaming around the clock for four straight days is 100% possible.
With some venues starting to charge more for using their internet, hybrid events are forcing producers to re-think how they create solid internet connections in unique spaces.
It’s on producers, not the clients, to make sure people remotely attending a hybrid event get the same experience as those in person.
Kimberly Flowers is the founder of Remote Producer Live!, a fully remote production company that focuses on helping entrepreneurs produce online shows to help their business. Kimberly founded the company a little more than five years ago, and has seen tremendous success and growth over the last year.
In episode 16 of the K-Stream podcast, hear Kimberly talk about how the company came to be, why they’ve had success in taking the production element off the shoulders of business owners, the importance of the strategy that goes behind a production, and how setting up working systems helped her company grow.
I particularly enjoyed what Kimberly had to say about broadcast strategy. It’s easy to get caught up in the technical side of things. Yes, it’s essential that lighting, sound, internet connection and video quality are great when running remote live productions, but if you’re working with business owners and entrepreneurs that are more focused on their message like Kimberly does, you also need to help your clients understand how to effectively communicate that message during a live stream. They don’t really care about the behind-the-scenes.
For example, when considering live streaming on social media, you have to remember that a large portion of the audience is likely just stumbling upon a broadcast as they’re scrolling their feeds. They may not have seen promotions. How can you best grab their attention, and more importantly, keep it?
How often should you have the on-air talent repeat introductions? What’s the call to action at the end of the stream?
Those are just a few of the many considerations when it comes to live broadcast strategy. Hear Kimberly talk more about that in the clip below.
If you’re a remote live stream producer reading the above headline, you’re likely thinking “well, duh.” But, in my experience, some of my virtual event guests are rather comfortable just moving forward without tech checks and rehearsals. And while I think it’s great when people are comfortable with technology, we as producers must insist on having those tech checks and rehearsals. The flow of a good show depends on it.
Yes, the technology piece is essential. We need to be able to see and hear our guest speakers clearly. That means ensuring they have solid internet connection, good lighting, good audio, etc. However, one key piece of any event is the flow, especially when it’s all virtual or hybrid.
Things like transitioning from speaker to speaker, how to introduce presentations or videos being shown to the audience – all of that contributes to a good flow. And good flow comes from rehearsing.
If it takes too long to transition from one slide presentation to another, or your host is fumbling over who to introduce next, it’s very easy for an audience tuning in via internet to load another webpage or pull up their inbox and start doing other things.
“The show that didn’t go well…we didn’t have a rehearsal,” says Anthony Burokas, a 20+ year broadcast producer and founder of IEBA Communications and Stream4us. “As much as people think ‘Oh yeah, yeah, we’ll just go online. It’s just like Zoom.’ It’s not just like Zoom. This is television.”
Burokas has been producing almost only remote live events since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020, mainly for corporate clients. Hear Anthony talk more about the importance of rehearsals in the clip below.
And oh by the way, these aren’t the normal events speakers are used to. They can’t see the audience. They are not in the same room as the other speakers they’re communicating with. Sometimes they’re relying on remote producers talking into their ear for the first time to give them queues, or they’ve never done an event in front of a webcam, so they aren’t sure where to look.
Kimberly Flowers, founder of Remote Producer Live!, a fully remote production company that helps entrepreneurs stream online shows, really puts an emphasis on the prep work with her clients.
“Going through those steps really help the client feel confident in our ability to really support them at the level that they need,” she says. “And [we’re] taking that load off of their shoulders so they can focus on being the content creator and just focusing in on being a host.”
Again, it’s comforting as a producer when you get a guest speaker that is tech-savvy. It’s great when they can work a webcam and know how to turn on a specific microphone as the audio input in the streaming software. But as Flowers mentioned during our recent conversation, remote productions can throw a lot of new things at people that they’re not used to seeing, so they have to get used to the remote live environment before they’re thrown into the virtual spotlight.
I’ll admit, I haven’t been putting a ton of time into the show notes of my podcasts. I know I should give them more attention, but sometimes I’m so eager to get the next episode up, I scrap something together and click “publish.”
My recent conversation with Jaclyn Schiff, CEO of PodReacher, a company that helps turn your podcast episodes into blog posts, taught me a ton about show notes. In addition to how to better market your podcast, we talked about what should go in show notes, whether or not they attract a new audience, and the difference between show notes and a blog post for your episode.
One piece of the interview that stood out to me was whether or not show notes help with your podcast SEO. Will show notes help new audiences discover my podcast through a web search?
“I think of show notes as a resource for your current listeners,” says Schiff. “I don’t think [show notes] are an entry point for people to learn about your podcast.”
There just isn’t enough meaningful text within show notes to have them rank in a web search, she says.
This isn’t to say show notes should be neglected. They’re a great way to entice listeners to download or stream your content, especially your current audience and those searching around within a particular podcast app like Apple or Spotify.
Getting your podcast some visibility within those various apps or platforms is an emerging topic and one that Schiff says she’s paying very close attention to.
If someone is searching around within one of those apps, their search terms could be somewhere in your show notes, therefore potentially bringing in another listener.
Another piece to consider including in the notes are time stamps. According to Schiff, people use them as kind of a table of contents, especially if episodes are on the longer side and not as produced or edited.
I know, personally, I love this feature on YouTube videos and hadn’t even considered it for podcasts. But it makes sense.
In my case, I stream all of my podcasts to YouTube, so I could potentially be getting a nice two for one deal there. If I’m putting effort into my podcast’s show notes and including time stamps, that content is 100% relevant on YouTube as well – maybe with some minor tweaking.
Since your show notes, at least at the moment, may not create a ton of discoverability for your podcast, it’s essential that you’re marketing it elsewhere if you want more ears.
“If you want to focus on that, the better bet is to be turning episodes into blog content,” says Schiff. “Then people will find you through Google search.”
Don’t think you have time to create articles and blog content? I get it. It takes a lot of time. And not all podcasters are writers. Engaging people with the written word is not an easy skill. But podcasts that do well do a lot of repurposing, whether it’s posting video clips from their episodes on social media or streaming them on various channels, or creating blogs.
Just like there are companies out there that help you edit video or produce a podcast, there are companies that will help you write blog posts from your episodes as well. For example, Schiff’s company PodReacher.
“We optimize audio content for text…a question we get a lot is ‘is this transcription?’ It’s not,” says Schiff. “The process is to really organize and structure it with that audience in mind. What is the useful information from this episode that a person’s going to read?”
They provide someone who has an open mind and the brain space to think what is the show about and how can they entice people to want to listen?
Check out the full episode with Jaclyn to learn more about PodReacher, as well as what constitutes a good episode blog, good show notes, and what’s next for podcasting.
Jason Vaughn is the director of business development at 
