0:00

It was very key that this did not

0:02

become a job for me to produce and sell

0:04

a product. The job is to

0:06

produce the podcast content.

0:09

That's what makes the whole thing go.

0:12

I'm not in this to make money. I'm

0:14

in it to provide something and then also recoup

0:16

enough that I can keep the program going, but

0:19

if you're in this thinking, I'm going to come

0:21

out with a product in six months from now, I'm going to Hawaii.

0:23

Just stop

0:37

Welcome to podcasting in real life, the

0:40

bus sprout show where we dive into the real life stories

0:42

of podcasts , yours in the middle of their podcasting

0:45

journey. I'm your host Travis

0:47

Hall Britain , head of content at Buzzsprout and

0:49

you won't hear anyone famous on these podcasts episodes.

0:52

Instead, you'll hear everyday podcasters

0:55

just like you, share personal stories

0:57

about how podcasting has impacted them and

0:59

the things that they've learned and picked up along

1:01

the way. Then today's conversation, I

1:04

had the privilege of sitting down with the host

1:06

of excel, still more Chris

1:09

Emerson. Now Chris and I have been interacting,

1:11

working alongside each other for the

1:15

last several months. I first got in touch with him as he was launching

1:17

his podcast and saw that he was

1:19

doing a lot of things really well, especially

1:21

for someone who was just getting started. And

1:24

so in this interview we kind of talk

1:26

about the first six months or so

1:28

of his podcast, specifically how

1:30

he landed his Christian podcast in the

1:32

apple podcasts, new and noteworthy,

1:35

and even landed in the top 200

1:38

for all religion and spirituality

1:40

podcasts in the u s for a

1:42

considerable amount of time, which was an incredible

1:44

accomplishment, especially when you're first getting started.

1:47

And then we also dove into his recent

1:49

launch of his first physical products coming

1:52

out with a daily planner and just the whole

1:54

behind the scenes how he came up with that as an idea

1:57

and how that went, how that launch went and the

1:59

reception that he got from his audience.

2:01

And so if you've been thinking about creating something

2:03

like that, whether it's merchandise, you're coming out with

2:06

a physical product, something that you can offer

2:08

to give back and to help

2:10

your audience, then I think this is a great interview

2:13

to listen to. Now Chris's podcasting

2:15

journey started when he turned 40

2:18

and one of the way to share what he had been

2:20

learning in his daily life with others.

2:23

How would

2:24

say it began with all the preaching?

2:26

I've been preaching full time since 2001

2:29

so I've worked with a lot of Christians and preached,

2:32

I don't know how many hundreds, maybe

2:34

in the thousands of sermons, you know, a lot of preaching and

2:37

love to do it, love to study. And

2:39

as I was going through the last, I'm gonna say

2:41

maybe three years, I just started

2:43

reading a lot of things to try to make myself

2:46

a better person. You know, you can know

2:48

exactly what the Bible says, but if

2:50

you don't have some great strategy on how you're going

2:52

to implement that, then Bible

2:55

commands don't get done. So

2:57

I started working on that a lot. You reading

2:59

guys like how l rods , books. I love

3:01

that guy reading James clear

3:03

articles. Love that guy. You know, lots

3:06

of them. I've got a whole list and

3:08

I would put that into sermons. Sometimes

3:10

I get excited about it and I'd say, all right guys, we're studying

3:12

Philippians here. But let me tell you a

3:14

little bit about like habit building and

3:16

how it works. And I think it was

3:18

pretty well received. But if you worship

3:21

somewhere, here's what you've got. You've got a room

3:23

full of people. Let's say you've got 300 people in the room

3:25

and they're all there to worship God, but

3:28

maybe they're not all there to get

3:30

better. You know, you may only have a smaller

3:32

percentage who are saying, I want to transform

3:35

myself. I want to change. And I thought, man,

3:37

what if I could put something together to

3:40

draw those people where

3:42

they would get these little 15 to 20 minute,

3:45

you know, soundbite , these little power packaged

3:47

ideas. And so I started

3:49

thinking about a podcast. I had a friend say, man, you should

3:51

do it. A lot of folks are doing it and it's , it's really

3:53

easy. It's not very costly

3:56

and hard. And I thought, well,

3:58

Huh. You know, I think I've got a pretty good wealth

4:00

of material. I've been studying a while on this.

4:02

So in the last year I turned 40 that

4:05

was my big deal, man. I turned 40

4:07

last December and I said, I'm 40

4:10

I'm going to make some changes and let some stuff go

4:12

and try some stuff. So I started researching

4:14

it . I think I found you around that time, got

4:16

some information about Buzzsprout set

4:18

up through the system. It was really easy and

4:21

kicked out those first three episodes. I

4:23

think January 24th of this year,

4:25

2019 I don't have much

4:27

man. I've got the garage band going on

4:30

the Mac book . I typically am in a little sound

4:32

room with some, some draped, you

4:34

know, cotton to help mitigate a

4:36

bought this microphone here I think

4:38

per your request or your suggestion

4:40

I should say on Amazon and just

4:43

jumped in and dropped some stuff on

4:45

excel. Still more. First Thessalonians

4:47

are just get better, but he was small

4:50

and I don't know, it's just been a really fun journey since

4:52

then. I've learned a lot a lot about this. I mean

4:54

there's a whole podcast Travis'

4:57

world out there and you

4:59

know, cool people like you and learned

5:01

a ton about it. Had to go

5:03

through a lot of trial and error on how to build the

5:05

episodes, how to edit the episodes,

5:07

like do you stop every 30 seconds or

5:10

do you record the whole thing and

5:12

go back through it. A lot of that. But

5:14

just getting the feedback along the way, people

5:16

have been really patient with the sound quality

5:19

and figuring out how I wanted to do it

5:21

and the audiences, you know, grown

5:23

over the last five or six

5:25

months and you know, that's Kinda

5:27

how it all got going. What were some of those

5:30

early growing pains

5:32

as you are learning new skills,

5:34

when you jump into podcasting it's like trying

5:36

to suck down a fire hose, right? It's

5:39

overwhelming at times. So I'm curious

5:41

like what were some of those early obstacles that you had overcome

5:44

skills you had to acquire, things

5:46

he had to hammer out. You mentioned a couple of those things

5:48

like sound quality and editing

5:51

your episodes and you know, trying

5:53

to go for done versus perfect.

5:55

Like, so just kind of take me some of those early

5:58

lessons. Well, I would say this, anybody

6:00

who preaches or teaches or

6:02

speaks publicly in any way,

6:04

you really should do this. It

6:07

was incredibly valuable to

6:09

the preaching to do this.

6:11

When I'm preaching, I'm more repetitive

6:14

because I'm trying to make sure I've got this person engaged

6:16

and I want to say it a little differently. To get this other

6:18

side of the room engaged and there's

6:21

some speed that you use where you're

6:23

accelerating your speech to energize

6:25

the room. In podcasting,

6:28

it's really about getting

6:31

your face in front of that mic , being

6:33

deliberate and concise

6:37

and strong and just laying

6:39

it out there and that was something that took

6:41

a while to learn. Putting myself on the clock

6:43

was the best thing ever. I don't know how long

6:45

the guy preaches where you go to church,

6:48

but where I preach there's really

6:50

no clock set, but setting

6:52

this thing to 18 minutes, I will not record

6:54

more than 18 minutes on the topic

6:56

has been ridiculously hard and

6:59

awesome. Like I'll go back through and edit

7:01

out. I'll think, no, this is the perfect 22

7:03

minute product. Like this is the best episode

7:06

that's been recorded in the history of mankind and

7:08

I go back and man, there were four minutes

7:10

that just did not need to be there. And

7:13

going back and editing in

7:16

the sense of which content

7:18

really matters versus just

7:20

what you wanted to say. Sometimes

7:22

the same thing in a different way has been so cool.

7:25

So that's been really the neat part. I , I'm

7:27

a guy when I'm preaching I'll walk all over the place, you

7:29

know, I'm always that guy moving and I stopped

7:31

doing that. I stand, I mean I move a little

7:33

bit but I just noticed that

7:36

a stand right there in front of that microphone in front

7:38

of that room full of people and say, here

7:40

we go. I learned that through podcasting. So that

7:42

part's been really awesome. The

7:44

learning curve on the podcast part is,

7:46

yeah. Do you go back and edit out like all

7:48

the lips smacking and

7:51

the ums and some

7:53

little weird background noise for the first 10

7:55

episodes? Yeah, I was that guy. You

7:58

know, it took forever and

8:00

I stopped doing that and that's felt really good.

8:02

Part of it is make sure you've got the right room

8:04

and sound set up and

8:06

then you won't have a lot of those incidentals.

8:09

So there's been some, some things that have really benefited

8:11

the preaching and then you know, other things

8:13

that it's just taken 10 or 20 episodes to

8:16

figure out what matters. Yeah,

8:18

nothing has quite stretched my

8:21

podcasting discipline as

8:23

doing the five minute Monday episodes for Buzzsprout

8:26

where it's like in the title, right.

8:28

So I can't, I can't even cheat it a little

8:30

bit. Like what if it's like five minutes

8:33

and 10 seconds? Nope,

8:36

it's gotta be right on five minutes or less.

8:39

Now when you launched your podcast,

8:41

it was, it was like you just have

8:43

this bottle rocket go off and you

8:45

know, you had a lot of people

8:48

listening to your podcast very

8:50

early on, which is not normal.

8:52

And so when we were talking kind of after you had launched

8:55

it, you gave me some, some behind

8:57

the scenes details that I think we're really illuminating

9:00

and so I would love for you to dive

9:02

into how you went about launching

9:05

your podcast, how you reached

9:07

out to people that were in your network to

9:09

help you both to listen

9:11

to it, but also to promote it to other people,

9:13

to kind of give people an idea of what

9:16

it actually takes to properly

9:18

market your podcast and

9:20

to have it be successful

9:22

in the way that you hope that it is. Man,

9:25

that's been neat. It was

9:27

starting from ground zero. I didn't understand

9:29

anything about this, so I was just devouring

9:32

copious amounts of articles and

9:34

reaching out to guys like you. And so

9:36

I came up with a pretty standard approach in

9:38

terms of the launch, which was

9:40

to record three episodes, advertise

9:43

that launch. We'll talk about how we did that in a minute

9:46

and then dropped those three episodes and let

9:48

them know right. Then here's how often

9:50

episodes will be released. And I've just

9:52

tried to stick with it like right on the minute, stick

9:55

with it. You know, Monday 5:00 AM Thursday

9:57

5:00 AM but I knew that if

9:59

nobody knew about it, it didn't matter

10:02

how many episodes that were dropped. I've

10:04

been on Facebook a long time. The the place

10:06

where I preach and Lindale , we have a Facebook page

10:09

with the, you know, some people who listen to the sermons

10:11

and got quite a few friends. I've just

10:13

been one of those Facebook nerds since like , I don't

10:15

know, 2008 or something. So

10:18

I created a page, the excel still more page

10:20

and invited everybody to

10:22

it. All of my friends invited

10:25

to it. And of course your friends will kind

10:27

of wear out after a while, like a few months in

10:29

and they'll be like, all right dude, I'm on to something else. But

10:31

in the beginning, your friends are your friends.

10:33

So they all friended it. And then

10:35

I would ask them, you know, do a little video and say,

10:37

hey, would you mind maybe clicking

10:39

here and inviting all your friends to it? And

10:42

they did. It was so cool. Like a handful

10:44

of them did. So by the time

10:46

January 24th came like

10:49

launch day, there was a Facebook page and

10:51

I don't know how many, maybe 500 or a thousand

10:54

people already. We're going to see that.

10:56

And they shared it and it was just

10:58

using your friend's energy

11:01

in the first three months made

11:03

all the difference in the world. I don't know how many of those

11:06

friends still listen. I think quite a few

11:08

do, but it was because of their work.

11:10

And the other thing is the iTunes new

11:12

and noteworthy. I'd read about,

11:14

you know, if you really get people to rate and review,

11:17

you know, I don't, I'll be honest Travis, you can jump in on

11:19

this in a minute. I don't know that rate and

11:21

reviewing makes any difference now

11:23

personally. But at the beginning I

11:25

was like, please go rate and review. So, you know, a

11:27

couple hundred of them went and rated and reviewed and then

11:30

boom, there we were. It was the coolest thing.

11:32

Middle of February, I'm right there on

11:35

iTunes, new and noteworthy, you

11:37

know, religious section and it was there

11:39

for eight weeks and I'm just telling you man,

11:41

we got, you know , 50 people a day

11:44

above what it was doing before we're

11:46

checking it out. So it was a lot of early energy.

11:48

I think this is one of those things unfortunately where

11:51

if you don't do it right, you can correct me on

11:53

this.

11:54

If you don't do it right the first couple

11:56

of months, it just may not work

11:58

out. There's a lot of energy you

12:00

have and your friends have that

12:02

you really need to get going

12:04

early that you may not have

12:07

four months later. So that was kind of how we got

12:09

going. Yeah. And thank you. Just for like

12:11

diving into the specifics about setting

12:14

up the page, not being shy

12:16

about the fact that you're really excited about doing a podcast.

12:18

I think that's one thing that a lot of podcasters

12:21

can feel weird about is like promoting themselves

12:24

and what they're doing. Right. And so

12:26

you were, you were very upfront about like, this is a podcast

12:29

I'm passionate about. You get your friends

12:31

involved, we're able to kind of hack

12:33

Facebook a little bit to get more people to

12:35

jump onboard and then had a plan

12:38

to , to launch it. And you did exceedingly

12:40

well, like considerably better than most

12:43

other podcast launches that I've seen. And

12:45

it is easier to kind of

12:47

harness that energy at the beginning. There

12:49

are ways that you can do that even

12:51

after you've been podcasting for awhile

12:53

. One of those would be to go on a break and

12:56

then to basically relaunch your

12:58

podcast like a couple months later. So you're

13:01

essentially, you know, simulating

13:03

a new podcast launch even with

13:05

an existing audience. But I think that all

13:08

of those things that you did really set

13:10

you up to be able to get into the new and noteworthy.

13:12

That was another thing I wanted to ask you about because

13:15

it's one of these things that you know , everyone

13:17

kind of hopes happens, but

13:19

not many people actually know somebody who is, who's

13:22

been a new and noteworthy and so I'm

13:24

curious like from your perspective,

13:26

seeing your dashboard and you know like seeing all your stats,

13:28

how it was affecting your stats, those kinds of things. What

13:31

impact do you think being in the new and

13:33

noteworthy hat on the longterm

13:35

audience sustainability and and

13:37

kind of keeping people around? Well , I

13:39

did not know what to expect. I'd read all

13:41

about it and was really fortunate

13:43

that it all worked out and we got there. It was

13:46

good. I would say it's good, but it's

13:48

not like you have to do that to be successful.

13:50

If I look at the audience who's

13:53

listening now and

13:55

I had to give you a percentage, how many of the

13:57

audience listening now are either friends

13:59

or friends of friends or people in the same

14:02

belief system as me versus

14:05

people that I picked up who were perusing

14:07

the iTunes page looking for new stuff?

14:10

I would say that's a pretty small

14:12

piece of the Pie. I'm

14:14

sure they're there. I think it's really cool that they're

14:16

there. I ever once in a while I hear someone who, I

14:18

don't know, I don't know them. I don't know anybody

14:21

who knows them, but they found it through that.

14:24

But I would say, you know, again, how many

14:26

listeners, somebody getting will be different for everyone.

14:28

But I felt like, well , let me

14:30

put it this way, I'm what, six months in?

14:33

And I'm constantly kind of tracking the

14:35

first episode, like who is

14:37

still listening to episode one? And

14:40

it was probably three times

14:42

as high during those eight

14:44

weeks, three to four times as high,

14:47

which was awesome. And then also

14:49

depressing, right? So you

14:51

know,

14:52

one day you look in and you go

14:54

back and track episode one. It's like, what happened? You

14:56

know, did it iTunes forget me?

14:58

Well they, they did, they moved on.

15:00

And so it was, it was cool.

15:02

But I really feel like if you don't

15:05

get that, don't worry about that. It really

15:07

is your circle

15:09

and circles attached to

15:11

your circle. That's

15:13

where the audience grows.

15:16

I'll give you a quick example, Travis. I

15:18

got an email yesterday from a

15:20

friend of a friend. I mean we know each other now, but

15:22

we hadn't been close before. He's in another

15:24

state. He likes the podcast . He's a Christian. He likes

15:27

to listen. His father is

15:29

not a Christian, doesn't listen to sermons.

15:32

His father listens to the podcast. He

15:34

said, I just want you to know my dad, whom

15:36

I've almost never been able to talk to about the Bible,

15:40

has first of all lost 25 pounds

15:42

because he's put into place on this stuff

15:45

you've talked about. He's a regular listener

15:47

and we were just talking about baptism the

15:49

other day for the first time in 10 years, man,

15:52

that's what I'm talking about, Travis. That's a guy

15:54

that would have never gone, listened to a sermon, a

15:56

guy I may never meet, but he's

15:58

a, he's a circle connected to a circle

16:01

that was connected to a circle and I

16:03

would just tell people to keep working on that.

16:06

And you know, don't worry about some advertisement

16:09

on apple to people that you know are outside

16:11

of all that. Yeah. Those

16:13

are some of my favorite stories when I hear about

16:15

how listeners , right in saying,

16:18

you don't know me, you'd never heard of me,

16:20

we've never met, but you've had a profound impact

16:23

on my life in some way, shape or form. I

16:25

think that's just so cool to me. And it's always like

16:27

one of those pinch yourself moments

16:30

or you think, man, this is so cool that having

16:32

a podcast is allowed me to, to

16:35

connect with somebody in this very

16:37

cool way. That's one of my favorite parts about podcasting

16:39

personally. So since you've graduated

16:42

from the new and noteworthy section, because you're neither, you're

16:44

not new anymore, what has been

16:47

kind of the continued marketing strategy

16:49

for promoting new episodes? Cause

16:51

I know you have the Facebook page, you know I've seen

16:53

you doing some, some guest podcasts

16:56

like going on other people's podcasts. What

16:58

are some things that you do to continue to

17:00

market and promote your podcast? So

17:02

I think I can reveal a couple of things that I learned

17:05

that you probably wouldn't know

17:07

until you experienced it. First of all,

17:10

doing things like videos, like I did

17:12

videos and I was on the beach somewhere saying, hey, I'm

17:14

about to go for this run. And in the

17:16

early stages putting out videos

17:18

and lots of content, drawing people

17:20

to the podcast on Facebook was good

17:22

at this point, it's really not a great

17:25

usage of time. I've tracked, you know

17:27

how many people listen to an episode.

17:29

If I really do that, I really, I make

17:31

a little video or a little teaser, it

17:34

helps. But there are diminished returns

17:37

on pushing social media

17:40

after everyone's done being excited

17:42

at that point. And this is what you told me early on,

17:44

Travis, and lots of people have said, you just have

17:47

to put out good content and be consistent

17:49

at some point. All that early, you know,

17:51

awareness and flag-waving is done

17:54

and now it just becomes

17:57

the methodical, keep it going, keep

17:59

it moving to grow. So I've

18:01

put less emphasis on

18:03

social media, still do some and

18:05

still put out the episodes on Facebook

18:08

and Instagram each week. I know that helps,

18:10

but I've tried a couple of weeks where I didn't do that

18:12

and I still had the same almost audience, you

18:14

know at this point. But I did

18:17

invest in a product. Somebody

18:19

told me once, they said, look, people

18:21

who love your show love

18:23

your show. Like they want to talk about

18:26

it. And if they had a product

18:28

in their hand that connected to it, they

18:30

would feel more connected to you. Because

18:33

as you know, Travis, there's something really awesome that happens

18:35

in podcasting. They feel like they're sitting across the

18:37

table sipping coffee with you and

18:40

I'm sure you do this, but I try to use pronouns.

18:42

I don't use collective pronouns and podcasting.

18:44

It's me and

18:47

you. They love that connection.

18:49

So products feel

18:51

like I reached across the table and handed

18:53

it to them even though they may have paid me for that. So

18:55

we created a journal, the Excel still more

18:58

three month journal. I got some friends to

19:00

really help out. I don't like make money and

19:02

go spend it on fun stuff. I just use

19:04

what comes in to reinvest into the program

19:06

and advertising and other products and stuff.

19:09

But that's been neat. You know,

19:11

we had uh , somebody said, well, you know, if you do a product,

19:14

only 1% of all your

19:16

listeners are actually gonna pull out their credit

19:18

card and purchase that product. Well

19:21

that person was pessimistic and

19:23

you know, needs to reevaluate his life

19:26

goals because

19:28

we did a lot better than that. We didn't

19:30

do, you know, not everyone, but

19:32

it just created another kind of buzz, you know. So

19:34

now you've got people talking about the episodes,

19:37

I hope, but also some

19:39

of them are holding this book in their hand. And

19:41

that's been a real neat tool for me. I've seen

19:43

results from that, the

19:46

journal. And I've even gone and done a couple of seminars

19:48

where we gave everybody journals

19:50

and work through them. And then you know, a

19:53

couple weeks later you'll track your stats a little bit, which also

19:55

took your advice and don't do very often. But

19:58

you'll find that like that city, that city

20:00

becomes a top 10 city now, you

20:02

know, the product was helpful for that. That's

20:05

really neat. And I want to ask you a little bit

20:07

more about how you came up with

20:09

the idea for the journal, how you put it together.

20:12

Because that is kind of one of the more popular

20:14

monetization strategies is selling your own stuff.

20:17

And so, so I'd be curious for someone

20:19

that's listening that to like, Oh I wonder

20:21

what it's actually like working with somebody

20:23

to come up with the concept for the journal.

20:26

What's going to set it apart, designing it,

20:28

working with a printer, figuring out a price,

20:31

shipping fulfillment. So I would

20:33

just love to hear kind of the behind

20:35

the scenes of how you brought that

20:37

journal to market to

20:39

the point where you could actually ship it to people, will

20:41

choosing what to do was important.

20:44

Again, as a preacher, I

20:46

have to be, you know, I'm not going to

20:48

sell intellectual

20:51

content like spoken word. I'm

20:53

a preacher, I preach, I don't, I don't

20:55

ask you to subscribe to hear

20:57

me speak at, it feels strange to me,

21:00

but a physical product felt like something

21:02

they could use. I mean it, it has tangible value

21:04

for them, but I wanted

21:06

it to be something that connected with the program. Well,

21:09

here's how this ought to work. I don't know, Travis,

21:11

how would work for you? I mean there's so many things you know

21:13

and you can help people with. But

21:15

I started journaling based on

21:17

the concepts of the podcast.

21:20

I was taking the very lessons I was sharing with people

21:22

and I was doing that and I thought, man, if I'm doing

21:24

this, maybe other people

21:26

would like to do it as well. So I reached

21:29

out to a friend who's really good with software

21:31

and he had designed my logo. Remember

21:33

I had a really atrocious logo early on and he

21:35

fixed that. I think that may have been an iTunes

21:38

key as well that the , the logo didn't make

21:40

you want to, you know, jump in the lake. But after

21:43

that he made it and he was really

21:45

cool. It took him awhile and he put it together and we edited

21:47

it and then we actually had a friend who

21:49

has a printing company and they printed

21:52

it and shipped it for me. It was

21:54

very key, Travis man. It was very key

21:56

that this did not become a job for

21:58

me to produce and sell a product. The

22:00

job is to produce the podcast

22:03

content. That's

22:05

what makes the whole thing go.

22:07

So he did a lot of the work and so

22:09

did my friend at the printing company.

22:12

You pay the guy to print it and ship it. You give

22:14

some funds to your friend for building it to my

22:16

brother for the webpage . I'm not in this to make money.

22:19

I'm in it to provide something. And then also

22:21

recoup enough that I can keep the program going.

22:23

And then if one day you told me about the hockey stick, if

22:26

one day, you know I'm on Jimmy

22:28

Fallon or something, you know, and you sell a billion books,

22:31

okay, well let's go on vacation. But

22:33

if you're in this thinking I'm going to come

22:35

out with a product and six months from now I'm going to Hawaii,

22:38

just stop you

22:40

know, you , you've got to do something that you believe

22:42

in and that you think will help people.

22:45

And then maybe the hockey stick happens. I don't know. Well,

22:48

and it's so funny to see that people

22:50

that start podcasts to make money

22:53

rarely do. And then people that start

22:55

podcasts because they have a message that they want

22:57

to share end up finding a way

22:59

to make money down the road. It's just kind of funny how

23:01

that works out. So that's really cool. That's really

23:03

cool. Hearing about your journal, it's a very creative idea.

23:06

I don't think that's something that people normally

23:08

associate with podcasts and

23:11

then and also cool just to hear how it's

23:13

helping people be more connected to you

23:16

to the show and feel like more engaged

23:18

and like they now have an outlet to actually

23:20

apply the things that they're learning from your content. Let

23:23

me add this to Travis. By the way, journaling may

23:26

not have been the best choice because

23:28

most people don't want to do that, so

23:30

you had your real die hard. People come

23:32

in and get that and men like men

23:34

just think it's a pink diary that's going to show up in

23:36

the mail. So I chose

23:38

it because I am passionate

23:40

about doing it. I would love to talk

23:42

to other people who've been about

23:45

okay,

23:46

what it maybe , this is my big question for you for the bonus

23:48

content, Travis, what if I

23:50

produce something for advertisement

23:53

that everybody would like, like a coffee cup

23:56

or a sticker for their car or something?

23:58

I may do that next just because there are people who

24:00

love the show in La and want people to know about

24:02

it, but they don't want to journal. So I

24:04

chose something, I don't know if this is something

24:06

you'll agree with or not. I chose a product

24:09

that I was passionate about using,

24:12

not a product that I thought the most

24:14

people would purchase. And

24:16

that's just part of this journey. This is about helping people. It's

24:18

not about sales. Yeah. I think

24:20

that's the decision every person has to make for themselves.

24:23

Right. And it comes back to what your goals are,

24:25

what your values

24:27

are, how you want people to

24:30

have a relationship with you and your podcast,

24:33

you know? And so, so I think that going with the journal,

24:35

especially as your first thing was

24:38

a great idea. Like I've done stickers before.

24:40

I don't sell the stickers. I give them out

24:42

as like free swag, which

24:44

ends up ending up on the back of cars of friends

24:47

that drive around. So it's always fun like pulling

24:49

up to my friend's house and seeing two or three cars with my

24:51

podcast sticker on the back. But yeah,

24:53

no, I think the journal was a really cool idea

24:56

and it was cool kind of as

24:58

someone who journals and understands the value of

25:00

it. Seeing that you're able to kind of share that , that

25:02

knowledge with others. One thing I wanted

25:04

to ask you about, because, and you've alluded

25:07

to this several times already, that you're not, you're

25:09

not trying to become a professional podcaster

25:11

. That's not why you started it. What

25:14

are your longterm goals for the podcast?

25:16

Like what do you hope it becomes? What

25:19

are you building it into? Like imagine

25:21

yourself five years down the road. If this podcast

25:24

is still here, what

25:26

does it look like? I

25:28

think I'm just going to keep doing

25:31

it until no one

25:34

is getting helped. You know? If you

25:36

go a month and it doesn't

25:38

seem like it's helped

25:40

anyone, people are saying,

25:42

you know, I'm just not

25:45

using it anymore. I think that that would kind of

25:47

be the, maybe that'll never happen, Travis. Maybe there'll

25:49

always be somebody who gets something out of it. I'm

25:51

just saying that when there's no

25:53

change, then

25:56

maybe keeping it going won't have a

25:58

purpose. Maybe that's it. So I guess I'm

26:00

just working from the effects.

26:02

I don't know [inaudible] and how it's helping people maybe.

26:05

Yeah. I know for me, the , the thing that I always

26:07

come back to is I have to enjoy doing it. Like

26:10

it has to be selfishly beneficial for me

26:13

and that it's making a positive

26:15

impact in people's lives. Right? I don't

26:17

want to do anything that's, I don't want to call it a waste

26:19

of time, but not the best use of my time. Maybe

26:21

there's a better way to think about it. So,

26:23

so I think we're, I think we're similar in a lot of ways

26:25

and kind of our motivations for sure. I

26:28

would like to ask you this. What I'm trying

26:30

to do is put a couple of checks and balances

26:32

in the future, some options

26:35

in the future to keep from that first thing happening.

26:38

What I don't want to happen is, hey, we're still

26:40

helping people but I don't want to do this anymore.

26:42

So I've thought about go

26:44

to one episode a week instead of two

26:46

at least for a period of time. Or

26:49

you mentioned earlier about taking

26:51

a hight , it's like a season and

26:54

then relaunching because look guys,

26:56

get ready for this. If you're new at podcasting and I'm

26:58

new, I started in January, you

27:01

will not get as

27:03

much listenership and feedback

27:05

in the summer. Like in the

27:08

summer. Everybody I talked to, they were like, look, I'm

27:10

just gonna be honest with you. I'm eight episodes behind. It's

27:12

summer. There are periods of time

27:15

during the year where people are out of their routine.

27:17

Podcasting, if nothing else is something

27:19

people do as a routine. So

27:21

maybe you know it put in the option of

27:23

taking the summer off or something and

27:26

launching in the fall, like a school season where

27:28

you think about that. Yeah, I think that's

27:31

wise. That's something that I do

27:33

for Buzzsprout. For instance, we have had to start a podcast.

27:35

We did a season of episodes

27:38

and then, and then we stopped him . You

27:40

know , we got season two in the works and that'll come out

27:42

later this year, you know? But that

27:44

was designed to have space

27:46

in between. And I've had other podcasts

27:49

where even though they were weekly

27:51

shows or where I put out multiple episodes a

27:53

week, after several months, I'd say, all right,

27:56

I'm taking a two month break. And

27:58

the fear is always, I'm going to sabotage

28:01

my audience, right? That if I stop, they're

28:03

going to unsubscribe and not listen anymore.

28:06

But all you really have to do is say, hey guys, it's

28:08

been a lot of fun. I'm going on a two month break,

28:10

but I'll be back on this day. So make sure you

28:12

stay subscribed and this is why

28:15

it's going to be even better when I come

28:17

back. And then you don't have to worry about that. And

28:19

after you do it once and you kind of break

28:21

that anxiety and you realize,

28:23

oh, there's actually more people

28:26

listening to it after the break

28:28

than before the break, because people continue to discover

28:30

old episodes, right? It's like, oh, it's

28:33

not that big a deal. I can take a break and it's

28:35

okay. It's okay. Yeah.

28:38

That's cool man. Give people time to catch up. Right.

28:40

That sounds like a neat idea. Yeah, and even

28:42

even changing your, your publishing frequency,

28:45

that's another thing you can do. I've run

28:47

the gamut of doing a daily show where

28:50

literally every

28:52

single day, seven days a week publishing episode, I've

28:54

done weekly shows, I've done biweekly

28:56

shows, three times a week,

28:58

the whole spectrum and in one podcast

29:01

went from every day to week , days

29:03

to three times a week, and then

29:05

it's on a break and when it comes back, it'll be twice a week.

29:08

So you know, you can make it whatever

29:11

you want and as long as people like your episodes,

29:13

they'll keep listening to it. I'll tell you one other

29:15

thing that's kept me motivated. I don't know if this will work for

29:17

everybody, Travis, but the episodes

29:20

and the podcast are not a standalone

29:23

thing, isolated from other things in

29:25

my life. For instance, sermons,

29:27

which is what I do just work. My

29:30

family is minister work

29:32

sermons, become podcasts

29:34

and podcasts become sermons. Well that's pretty

29:36

cool. Now they're , they're serving something

29:39

else. Books that I read become

29:41

podcasts

29:43

and things that I share in podcast

29:45

find their way into articles that I write or

29:48

things that I post for social media content,

29:51

keeping. All those things crossed over. And

29:53

I guess what we're saying is if you want to become a podcaster

29:56

, choose something that is in

29:58

some way integral to your life.

30:01

It is in some way woven into the tapestry

30:03

of who you are. You know, I , I like podcast

30:05

by dads about

30:08

being dads man. How cool

30:10

is that? Like you go be a dad

30:12

and then you talk about being a dad or you talk about

30:14

being a dad and then you go and be one, you know

30:16

the overlap. I just don't

30:18

think I could do it if I had to shut off everything

30:21

else that was going on in my life and do

30:23

this other thing in this box by itself.

30:26

And I think that's what's helped to keep it going. I was talking

30:29

the other day to someone about taking some time

30:31

off or going down to one episode

30:33

and I thought, I don't know man, like doing these,

30:35

keeps my fire lit for sermon

30:38

illustrations or stuff like that.

30:40

So I don't know if everybody can do that. But that's just

30:42

been something that's kept that fire burning.

30:45

Yeah. And the more that you can make your

30:47

podcast an extension of

30:49

who you are, like your authentic self,

30:52

the easier it is to stick with it and continue

30:54

to make new episodes. Right. Because it's,

30:56

you're not trying to pretend to be something

30:59

or you know, put on your, your

31:01

stage act, right. You

31:03

just turn on a microphone and talking. And

31:06

when you're just doing that, you know, all of a sudden it's not

31:08

super overwhelming anymore. So how

31:10

has your podcast changed

31:13

from episode one two ? You

31:15

just recently crossed episode 50 so

31:18

what was the difference between episode 50 and episode

31:21

one with the content, the structure,

31:23

how you edited it? Cause I'm always curious

31:25

like how people refine their processes over time.

31:28

Yeah. Well it's Kinda neat.

31:30

You know, you ever watch Seinfeld? Yeah.

31:32

Okay. So you know, I'm guessing

31:34

that when they came out with season one of Seinfeld,

31:37

they knew pretty much some of the stuff they wanted to talk about.

31:39

You know, this is what we're about. This is the kind of characters

31:42

that we have and you know , this is the story

31:44

we want to tell. And then I did that with my podcast

31:46

in the first 15 episodes. I knew the excel

31:49

still more concepts that just get better

31:51

stuff. The Bible verses the whole

31:53

thing. But you know, when

31:55

you get Seinfeld in like how many seasons where they're

31:57

like ten eight at

31:59

a point about midway, they just

32:01

find humor in everything. Like

32:04

the way a door closes is a whole episode.

32:06

Now, you know, there's no way in season one

32:08

they thought, let's do a season on the creaking sound

32:10

of a door closing or whatever. But I

32:12

think with this, you keep your impetus,

32:15

your theme, your, your drive.

32:17

You know, in my case it's, it's, let's get better.

32:20

But I see stuff everywhere.

32:22

I'm just like driving down the road and I see

32:24

a FedEx truck and I noticed that little

32:26

Arrow, if you haven't noticed that

32:28

before in the FedEx sign. And I'm like, what? I

32:30

never would've seen that. How many things do we look at

32:32

in life? And we don't see

32:34

the obvious until somebody points it

32:36

out to us and then you can't unsee it. I thought episode

32:39

Bam,

32:40

I keep notepads

32:42

and the notes app with

32:44

me everywhere and I just

32:47

see things, I dunno how to explain that, you

32:49

know? And a lot of the episodes at

32:51

this point are just life

32:53

happening and how

32:55

in many cases, how I think God is saying,

32:57

Hey Chris, she said you want to grow, check

33:00

this out. And it's changed in that

33:02

way. I think it's become more, I don't know if the words like organic

33:04

or something, it's just the things that are happening

33:07

around me I guess. Well you become much

33:09

more observant, that's for sure. Especially

33:11

when it comes to the content

33:14

of your podcast. Right? So like

33:16

when I'm having conversations

33:18

with people about podcasting, I

33:20

always have this like sub routine running in the

33:22

back of my brain thinking is this going to

33:24

make a good podcast episode or good

33:26

blog article? And then sometimes

33:28

that thing fires often said you found

33:31

something you should go deeper on this

33:33

or you should figure out how would you teach this

33:35

to somebody else. And so it's true,

33:37

like once you, once you start exercising

33:40

that muscle and figuring out

33:42

what am I going to talk about and how

33:44

am I gonna come up with new episode

33:46

topics, it's just something that goes into

33:48

the background, right? So even if you're

33:50

first starting and you have 10 episode ideas,

33:53

that's all you really need. Cause you're going to discover

33:55

new ones as you continue to put out episodes.

33:57

So I think, I think that's totally a

33:59

podcast symptom symptom

34:02

of being a podcasters . You start observing

34:05

things and think that would make a good podcast

34:07

episode. That's right. That's right.

34:09

Which I've always done with sermons, but it's just,

34:11

it's different in this. I kind of have a question

34:13

for you about that. At some point,

34:15

going back through a lot of the same concepts

34:17

is important. Some of the feedback

34:20

that I get is, okay, Chris like this

34:22

stuff twice a week, but it's something

34:24

new twice a week and

34:26

it's almost like it's too much. I can't

34:29

process it all, you know, and, and

34:31

so I've thought about, well do I introduce something

34:34

new and unique and perhaps interesting

34:36

every time? Or should

34:38

I go back and pick up a concept from episode 10

34:40

and give it a couple of episodes? What

34:42

I'm struggling with right now, I don't know if you're going to ask

34:44

about things we're struggling with is

34:47

do I keep letting those new lights

34:49

that come on and revelation turn into check

34:51

out all this cool stuff or at some

34:53

point is it TMI for people

34:56

and there needs to be more consistency

34:59

on a tighter collection of topics.

35:02

I'm kind of working on that right now. Not Real sure about that.

35:04

What do you think? I'm not sure if there's a rule

35:07

or like a vow shout do

35:09

this or that's about it. I

35:11

can share things that I've experimented with

35:13

that have worked out that I've gotten positive feedback

35:16

on. One of those would be doing like a mini

35:18

series, like a series of episodes,

35:20

right? So like five episodes that all revolve

35:23

around a similar topic. Maybe

35:25

it's attacking it from different angles and

35:27

that's helpful for me not

35:29

only breaking up the content so I can go deeper,

35:32

but then also from the perspective of

35:35

trying to come up with new things to talk about,

35:37

like there was one where I did a 10

35:40

episode series on

35:42

a book and so like each

35:44

episode was like a cliff notes

35:47

of the chapter in like applying it,

35:49

you know, that ended up being almost,

35:52

you know, a month and a half of episodes. So

35:54

there's things you can do that are both

35:56

self-serving and that they make your job easier

35:58

with coming up with original ideas.

36:01

But then most of the feedback I get with those series

36:03

is that people are able to

36:06

follow along a little bit better like you were

36:08

mentioning because not only are

36:10

they coming to your podcast with a particular

36:12

mindset of this is what I'm expecting to listen

36:15

to, but when you pair that with

36:17

doing several episodes in

36:19

a row around a similar topic or theme,

36:22

then I think that does have the potential to

36:24

help people absorb the information

36:26

better and apply it. Especially if you're a

36:29

podcast where you're teaching someone how

36:31

to do something. If you're just like reviewing

36:33

a TV show or talking about politics

36:35

or whatever, you know, I'm not sure that the supplies,

36:38

so it's definitely case by case, but it's

36:40

something that I have experimented with and have

36:42

gotten positive feedback about, so you

36:44

might try doing something like that. I may look

36:46

into that. I get concerned about if I say

36:49

the next six episodes are going to be on this

36:51

and people who love it, you're going to eat that

36:53

up. People who are like, Eh, that's not my favorite

36:55

topic, or going to take three weeks off in

36:58

preaching. I think you kind of

37:00

hide it. Like let's say you want

37:02

to talk about unity among brothers and

37:04

you don't do six sermons called unity men , brother

37:06

and part one unity, part two. You

37:09

preach six sermons spread out over

37:11

about three months, like hidden and

37:13

you title it. Interesting things like unity

37:15

or togetherness or love or overcoming

37:18

obstacles or building something amazing

37:20

and I think that's been my strategy.

37:22

I would say an excel still more. It's really only

37:25

a small collection of topics excelling

37:27

in your faith and your finances

37:29

and your friendships and with your fitness. We

37:32

just spread them out and word them

37:34

differently and yet I think

37:36

they all kind of come back to the same small

37:38

collection of four to

37:40

10 topics, but I've just

37:42

been thinking about whether to kind of reveal

37:45

that or just let people randomly

37:47

encounter variations

37:49

of it weekend and week out. Yeah, that

37:51

actually brought something to mind, which is something that

37:54

I learned since kind of diving

37:56

deeper into the world of podcasting

37:58

that I don't think is common knowledge or that

38:01

you don't normally necessarily assume, which

38:03

is that a majority of people that have subscribed

38:06

to your podcast don't listen to every episode.

38:08

So when you see episodes that do well

38:10

versus some that are kind of more average,

38:13

that's because that episode resonated with

38:15

people that are just kind of scrolling through the

38:17

show they're subscribed to and they say, oh, that looks

38:19

interesting. I'll click on that.

38:22

I would encourage you to not make

38:24

episodes for those people and

38:26

here's why. Because the

38:28

strongest connection you have is with people that

38:31

listen to your podcast every single episode, right?

38:33

They've committed to it. You're a part of their routine, a

38:35

part of their schedule, and they look forward to hearing from

38:37

you. Those are the people that are going to be

38:39

your greatest ambassadors, your greatest spokespeople

38:42

and marketers, and you know, if your

38:44

focus is trying to help more people, they're going to be

38:46

the ones empower and equip. It's

38:48

the same thing as you know, trying to get

38:51

somebody to always go and check

38:53

the Wall Street Journal for new articles

38:55

versus somebody who happens to click on a buzzfeed

38:58

article and Facebook cause it had a catchy title.

39:00

That's the difference. And so I'd encourage

39:02

you, if your goal is to develop a longterm

39:05

relationship with your audience, you

39:07

want to serve people that are coming in, they're listening

39:09

to every episode instead of trying

39:11

to go for the one off success

39:14

that won't necessarily lead to longevity.

39:17

Yeah, makes sense.

39:18

So just to kind of like start wrapping up, I'm curious

39:21

as you have interacted with other podcasters,

39:25

jumped in different groups and connect to the people

39:27

and got on other people's podcasts. What

39:29

is something that you've learned from another podcast

39:32

or that you ended up applying to

39:34

your podcast?

39:35

I've learned that I do not have

39:39

Mike Rose voice nor ever

39:41

will. People are

39:43

naturally able to do things

39:45

that I cannot do. They have

39:48

abilities that I don't have and

39:51

I've decided to appreciate that. I love Mike

39:54

Rowe's podcast the way I heard it ridiculously

39:56

good. And I

39:58

take things from it I can

40:00

use and grow in, but

40:03

I don't get down about the things that I can't , I can't sound

40:05

like him, but I like his brevity. I

40:07

like the way he teases and misdirects

40:10

a bit. And so I thought, Hey, I think

40:12

I've got a couple of topics on my could do that with. So

40:15

I like listening to things

40:17

that I like. In other words, I don't listen

40:20

to podcasts just because I think they'll teach me something.

40:22

I listened to ones that I like and then I think,

40:24

man, why do I like this? Like what is it about

40:26

this that I really enjoy? And

40:28

then that comes down to two categories. Things

40:31

he does or she does, I cannot do fine

40:34

or things that they do that, you know what I think

40:36

maybe I could do that. And just kind

40:38

of learning. And of course people like you

40:40

and some others have just been really kind and helpful

40:43

along the way. But I think by the time you've been

40:45

doing it, three or four months, you kind of have your way,

40:47

you know you don't go and asking for a lot of help

40:49

after that. Mainly it's just,

40:51

it's just learning from listening and

40:54

if you like something or the way

40:56

someone does something, others probably will too.

40:59

And that's been really helpful.

41:01

Yes. Well Chris has been a blast having

41:03

you on. I've appreciated US building

41:05

an intranet friendship, a long distance

41:08

and getting connect to every once in a while . But

41:10

I've got one last question for you before we wrap up. If

41:12

you had a time machine that could

41:14

go back in time to January

41:17

23rd the day before you launched your podcast and

41:20

offer yourself one piece of advice, what

41:22

would that be?

41:23

You baited me with this question because

41:26

the answer is something you've told

41:28

me that I didn't listen to right off

41:30

the bat. So you're so self-serving.

41:33

This Travis . Well, I would say if

41:35

I could give you two , the one big one is

41:37

just don't live and die by

41:39

those numbers, man. Just do

41:41

what you love and give it some

41:43

time. I'm reading a hell rod book

41:45

right now where he says, look, you got to give something 18

41:48

months to really see if it's a creature

41:50

that can live in this habitat man.

41:54

Be in two or three weeks in and like trying to figure out the

41:56

algorithm for listeners and

41:58

where you guys at Buzzsprout or coming up with that

42:00

stuff. Don't do that to yourself man.

42:02

Just do something that you

42:04

love and try not

42:06

to worry about. So you've told me that all along. Listen

42:08

everybody, I would message Travis and be like,

42:11

I think there's something wrong with your system because I'm

42:13

only reporting this many listeners today and

42:15

Travis is like, dude, you just sure lax

42:17

, it's going to be okay. The other thing probably,

42:20

Ooh, I gotta take this one cause this is big.

42:22

Don't get too excited and record

42:24

episode one like in

42:26

a closet with your kids microphone or something.

42:29

Like I was so excited to start that.

42:32

I ran into my little closet and I recorded

42:34

the episode and it sounds pretty terrible

42:37

and it's edited pretty poorly. But I just

42:39

wanted to get going. Well

42:42

a lot of people have listened to episode one,

42:45

you know it's still there and episode

42:47

one doesn't sound real great

42:49

and you're hoping that people, I

42:52

mean, look, I don't know what your math is Travis, but 50%

42:55

of the people who have listened to episode

42:57

one listened to episode two. There are twice

43:00

as many listens historically in episode one. So

43:02

okay, I lost half of them, but could it

43:04

have been a little better if I would have

43:06

spent a bit more time on

43:08

the recording side? So anyway, those are a couple

43:10

things I'd probably tell myself.

43:14

If you want to deepen your faith, improve

43:16

your relationships, and get the most out of your

43:18

life, then make sure to check out

43:20

excel still more at excel,

43:22

still more. Dot Life and

43:25

subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

43:28

Do you wish that you could be featured as a guest

43:30

on a future episode of podcasting in real life?

43:33

Well you can. All you have to do is click on the

43:35

link in the show notes and submit your application.

43:38

And if today's episode inspired you

43:40

or resonated with you, I would love

43:43

to hear back from you. The easiest way to do that

43:45

is to leave a review on apple podcast to let me know

43:47

what your thoughts are or jump

43:49

into the Buzzsprout podcast community

43:52

on Facebook and make sure to stick

43:54

around, as always, for a bonus

43:56

episode this coming Friday where

43:58

I answer Chris's number one question

44:01

about podcasting. That's it for

44:03

today. Thanks for listening, and as always,

44:05

keep podcasting inaudible

44:19

] .