The last in the series. This is the journey of How I put this together.
It’s worth pointing out right now, that I’m still fiddling with some of this. It’s not perfect. I think it’s always going to be an evolution. But this is the story so far.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I bought a nice little Shure mic for my iPhone back in April. I use it for creating the odd video and suchlike. Blimey, I love this thing. The quality is SO GOOD. I recorded the trailer episode entirely on it. I thought for a little while that I could use this, and a gimbal I have had for a little while, to record the interviews on through Zoom, and that would probably suffice, albeit on a small screen. It wouldn’t matter for the audio recording, but I had to admit a bigger screen would be nice for longer calls.
Then Black Friday happened. And I spotted a very, very good deal on a Blue Snowball mic. In my recent research, I’d heard good things about Blue Microphones (their Yeti range is one of the most popular among podcasters), and this deal was too good to pass up. It’d also propel me to produce the podcast, thereby justifying the purchase. Also, seriously, how beautiful is this thing?
I work in front of a huuuuge reverberating window. Echo is enemy of podcast. So, I added this beauty to a cheapo desk-mounted boom, and got an isolation shield, and a pop filter. At first, I added this in various combinations to the boom, but quickly came to the conclusion that almost any useable combo was too heavy for the cheap boom. I’d either need to revert to the Snowball desk mount, or invest in a proper boom. For now, I’ve done the latter.
Shock mounts were a problem I hadn’t really thought about, but I’ve finally (just) settled on really investing in the one meant for this mic – the Blue Ringer, which was pricey, but got great reviews.
Theme music was almost an overwhelming consideration. Music is really important to me, and while I’m not an audiophile to the extent of understanding and obsessing over speaker quality and vinyl-vs-mp3, I do know what music I like. My taste is eclectic, old-school and personal. I wanted the theme to speak to me.
I scouted around, and landed on a piece called “You Have The Answer” from Epidemic Sound, which I loved, but which was only available under their subscription model. So I went to Fiverr to try and commission something…similar. It didn’t really work. I got a good piece, but I didn’t love it. So I plumped for the subscription. Heck, it was just another reason to publish fast.
Then I started approaching my network for interviewees. And boy, this was the fun bit. I’ve currently got about 15 leaders either already interviewed, or scheduled for the next few weeks. That’s a lot of expertise. Some of them I knew very well, and some I was just going to get to know through the process. All of them have been super enjoyable to record.
Come December, I committed to this properly. I started talking about it on my network. I built out a new section of customersupportleaders.com for the show notes, and built a template post format for each episode.
I recorded the trailer. For inspiration here, I listened to a bunch of pilots on Apple Podcast’s “New and Noteworthy” section. Found some key approaches, and just went for it.
Once I had some early interviews in the bag, I got to editing. I use good old GarageBand for this, which has been quite a learning curve! I’ve spent more time playing around in here with effects, making my own keyboard shortcuts (particularly Opt-Cmd-M to cut out a section but move the rest of the track up to fill the gap!), and splitting long recordings into multiple short episodes, than I actually care to admit. My first seven-minute episodes took around 90 minutes to edit and finalise, but I’m getting quicker. I’d say I’m now down to about 25minutes, and still finding efficiencies in process or tools.
I was going to host the episodes on a newish service called Anchor, which claimed to make monetisation a cinch (I’m doing this for love, but it does cost money, so it’d be nice for it to mostly support itself!). But, hosting the trailer there for one day only, I realised that practically all those options were for US-based clients only. No good for me. So I decided to switch to BuzzSprout, where I got a voucher, and take it from there. I have to say, this service has been great. It’s so simple, in particular, to get listed on podcast directories (like Apple Podcasts or Spotify), and the stats are transparent and accessible.
Really, once I’d figured this all out, it was a piece of cake!
And that’s it so far! If you listen and love the show, please leave a rating, subscribe, and share it with your friends!
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