Doug: Hey, what’s going on? Welcome to The Doug Show. Today I’m going to give you a little bit of an update on the new podcast that I’m going to launch. And I’m not going to tell you the name of it yet, although I have already named it. And I’m going to run through a couple things. I want to let you know that I’m actually recording this on my iPhone with no external microphone.
And if you’re watching on YouTube, you’ll notice there’s a couple lights. I did turn on some lights, so it does look better. And I am doing this for a specific reason. I’ll show you my desk over here really quick just for the YouTube people. I know most people are listening, but I just want to show you that you can record things.
On a very old iPhone, so this is an iPhone X, the X version, if people remember that. And I just put it on a little GorillaPod tripod here. And I’m just gonna record here. It’ll be kind of a quick episode. But I wanted to show that it is possible to record with what you have. And a lot of times people will set up obstacles for themselves.
They’ll think, Hey, I need to get a fancy microphone to record things. They think, Hey, I need this, or I need that, or I need a little bit, uh, just more equipment. And again, obstacles, but you really don’t need all that stuff and I’ll get into some of the details and I’ll tell you why I’m doing this. So I’ll give you an update on the, on the show.
So I don’t have a firm launch date for the podcast. I think it’ll be. Mid to late March, and I will tell you about like the launch that I am planning on doing which I’ve been a little bit Secretive of but I’ll I’ll say that to the end just to keep you around and listening So I don’t have a firm launch date.
I think that’s gonna be okay And part of the launch plan is the reason why I’m a little bit flexible, and I’m pushing it out. Because initially I was thinking maybe I could launch this podcast in February, but as time has gone on, I’m like, okay, it’s going to take a little bit longer. I always say everything takes longer than you think.
So I’m planning on that, and I’m not rushing. I have done several interviews, I think I’ve done six interviews so far. And I, I have some great guests. So some people you haven’t heard of, some people you have heard of, and one challenging thing is a lot of SEOs and professional marketers, especially SEOs, they live all over the world.
So I’m in the mountain time zone in the US. It’s hard to meet when there’s like a 13 hour difference and I’m, you know, I’m able to get up earlier sometimes. A lot of times, a 13 hour time difference is way off. So it’s either late at night or in the middle of the morning. And I, I can’t wake up in the middle of the night to do an interview.
So I’m not sure what I’m going to do with those, like, we just have to compromise. So sometimes I wake up a little earlier, they work a little bit later or vice versa, but we’ll figure it out. One challenging thing is I like to get up early, but sometimes. Like, right now, I’m recording this somewhat early in the morning.
My voice, it’s pretty rough in the morning until I like, wake up all the way, or I’m not sure what it is, but, you know, when you wake up first thing in the morning, your voice is a little gravelly. And I don’t know how long it takes for mine to like, work, work itself out. But, occasionally, I’ve, I’ve done an early call at like, 6am.
And I’m like, ah, just, it sounds, it sounds rough. I haven’t lost my voice, but it’s just, it sounds pretty rough. So, I’ve done some interviews, which is cool. I’m planning on launching with something like two thirds of the episodes with interviews. And then the others will probably be sort of like shorter form monologues where perhaps I’ve researched something or have some idea or it’s a business philosophy or something like that, which is perfect for a short form episode.
I have picked a name. It took me a little while to figure out. What I wanted the name of the show to be and I brainstormed a couple things nowadays with AI and Gemini chat GPT, you could put in some seed ideas and then ask for 50 more ideas and talk about the Target audience for the show and other pieces of information that might help come up with ideas.
So I found Whatever hundreds of ideas from these tools Obviously most of them aren’t great and then you whittle it down to the top 10 percent and then you need to check to see if There’s a domain available You need to see if there’s already another podcast or business with that name in the same industry So it took me a little while to find it, but I’m happy with it So I started to set up the site and the domain and just kind of have a skeleton of that right now I have a friend with a podcast theme Sorry with a WordPress theme and there’s different sort of styling and like one click I don’t know what they call them if it’s like a skin or it like lays on top of the the core theme but essentially it’s like this specific styling for a type of Website and the I mean the name of the theme is called popcorn so it’s the popcorn theme for WordPress and they’re going to create a podcast website theme for me and It’s you know available.
I’m an affiliate. I’ll link to it My friend Alex Cooper from WP Eagle is one of the founders and I was like, hey, I’m doing a podcast I’ll use your theme and talk about it And he was like, Oh, we’ll, we’ll create a podcast, uh, you know, version for you, which I, I mean, I’m pretty simple. I just want minimal stuff.
And I was like, I could just use a regular one or I can use the travel, but they want to show that it can be specific for different types of websites. So they’re going to build one. I think by the time this comes out, we may already have the theme. I think it’ll take them a couple of days to pull it together.
So starting to work on the site a little bit, and I’ll tell you about the boot camp too. So I decided to launch a boot camp at the end of December, which is a very tough time to sell things. So pro tip, don’t try to launch anything at the end of December. People typically already have their Projects for the for the beginning of the year and if they don’t have the same project like launching a podcast Then you may have a hard time getting people to sign up So anyway, I launched a boot camp a couple people jumped on part of it is me sharing and teaching And answering questions and showing and sharing my workflow like my Trello board templates all these different pieces that I’ve figured out Work for me in my workflow and then suggestions for you know What other people can do if they’re doing something a little bit different, but the other part of it is a mastermind group So, we have accountability, we set goals each week, and then we know we need to come the next week and say what we’ve worked on, any issues that we’ve had, and there’s a hot seat component, although I’m foregoing my hot seat component area, so that other people can have more hot seats.
So, that’s been great, and one of the reasons why I’m recording on my iPhone is just to show if you’re in a quiet environment, and I have a couple lights here so the lighting is But you could sit in front of a window. I mean, I’m in a dark basement. If the lights weren’t on, it’d be pitch black in here.
But You could record on what you have and if you do have a good microphone, it’s going to make things a lot easier for sure, but by a good microphone, it could be like a 20 to 30 microphone that you get on Amazon and it’s just a dynamic mic that is USB and you can plug into your laptop. They have inexpensive like lav mics that can plug into your phone.
I’m not using one again, I’m just using the Onboard audio. I’m just talking and I’m sitting next to the furnace, by the way. I just clicked on, but if you know what you’re doing, you could use like a free tool, like Authonic, which is, it’s free for two hours per month, but essentially this is a leveling and mastering audio tool and I’ve been using it since the very beginning, since I launched the Doug show in 2019 and.
Basically, it cleans up the audio, it will probably remove the hum of the furnace, like you probably won’t even be able to hear it. And then, I think it adds a little compression, it removes electrical hum. It won’t work magic, right? If I tried to record this outside and it was windy, it’s probably not gonna work that great.
I would need a more sophisticated microphone with some wind baffling things, but again, just to make a point, you can record on your phone. And if you got a 20 lav mic that plugs into your phone, or connects via USB, or you use your AirPods and you’re in a relatively quiet environment, you’re going to be okay.
And one reason why we could cancel out the furnace noise over here, it’s like right, right next to me, like three feet away, is because it’s kind of a constant noise. So it’s pretty easy for the software to filter that out. If it was like yelling kids or something like that, maybe it wouldn’t work that great and the better audio That you have like is an input the better you’re gonna have is the output So it is good to start with as good of quality as you can But my six and a half year old phone seems to be doing just fine By the way, I need to get I probably should get a new phone, but this one’s working.
Okay, you know This one’s working. All right But it’s getting pretty old. So The bootcamp is going awesome, uh, folks have recorded their first, uh, episodes, at least, uh, two folks have, and people, other people are, uh, coming right behind, and they, they’re working on their trailer, they’re getting things set up, and it’s been, it’s really cool.
At the end, you know, it’s a tight group, so at the end, we’re all gonna have our shows, and it’s super cool to see people launch it. So, that’s where we’re at. The next update I do, I’m probably going to have the site set up. So that I could share the name of the podcast. I will have an email list set up. So this is something I haven’t talked about yet.
But I’m gonna have an email list so I could point people in that direction so that you all will be informed about the launch. It will be a separate email list from my normal Niche Site Project Doug Show email list. As I mentioned before, I’m planning on selling the podcast. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna ramp it up, right?
I’m gonna ramp it up. We’re gonna launch it, which I’ll talk about in a second. I’m gonna Continue on, you know. Published for a little while, and I’m gonna potentially have some advertisers by the time I sell it, or I should have some advertisers. I have had offers for people to advertise for the launch, but I think I just want to focus on growing the show instead of monetizing early, which is a luxury that I have.
And it should help grow the show more, and then maybe in a couple weeks, or a couple months, or whatever, I could add advertisers to it after I have some. Establish, uh, listeners and stats and all that stuff, but there will be an email component. So it’s a full turnkey situation with a podcast, with a website, there will be a blog component because some of the content that I record will be able to turn that into a blog.
There will be a YouTube channel and there will be an email list. So it’s, you know, five things going on and of course there’s going to be some headaches and people are thinking, yeah, what are you going to do? For the host like if you’re hosting a tug, then what happens when you sell it? That’s just a problem to solve and if a company sees the value of having this, you know, five layered marketing piece Mainly with a podcast then they’ll figure out what to do with it Or the thing is it’s going to be profitable right a very low startup It’s pretty cheap to pay for the services, right?
Podcast hosting is relatively inexpensive. Editing software is inexpensive. Like, it’s going to be profitable. So, if someone out there wanted an individual, right? Maybe you’re out there and you’re thinking, Hey, I would love to take over that show for Doug. You could buy it. We could transition the show over to you and then you have a Marketing SEO podcast with advertisers already working with you, right?
So we’ll have that stuff set up. So it’ll be a profitable Venture one way or another and that’s one of the reasons why I was like, oh this seems like a fun project to work on So upcoming episode and then I’ll talk about what I’m doing for the launch so I’m going to talk about why I have created courses and why These days, I occasionally get pushback.
Actually, I was sitting here with my podcast co host for Mile High FI, my other show on personal finance. And I edited this part out of an episode. But he said, it was to a guest. He was like, Oh, how would you scale your coaching? Would you create a course and he kind of shit on courses? He was like, ah, like I hate to say, you know, create a course and he’s he said it before and I was like Hey, why don’t you like courses?
And he has like some preconceived notion that courses are like a money grab or something like that So I’m gonna tell you I won’t tell you now I almost did but I’m gonna tell you why I think Courses are not only valid, but for certain people, like you should create a course for specific reasons. And I have run into this where I’ve, I’ve actually like stressed out about it a little bit, but I will share that in a future episode.
So make sure that you’re subscribed and you’re paying attention. I think it’ll come out in like a week or two. All right, here’s what I’m doing for the launch. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I’m a, I’m a listener of podcasts as well. And I listen to all different kinds of podcasts. And what I’m going to do is take an idea, a full strategy for launching something, and I’m going to try to do it with a podcast.
To my knowledge, it hasn’t been done for a podcast, especially small scale, right? Like I’m a, I’m an individual. I don’t have a team of people. Really one executive assistant that helps me out, thanks Callie. And, that’s it. Like, I used to have additional editors and some other VAs, but right now, super lean, just small.
So, I haven’t seen this done by an individual. And, it’s pretty simple. I’m planning on launching the show. With 20 to 30 episodes most of those are going to be interviews probably two thirds of them will be interviews And I’m going to ask those People to share whenever I launch the show and this is pretty common, right?
People say hey if you’re on the show like, you know Share it on social media send it to your email list or whatever and I am trying to find You know, sort of high level people, uh, that maybe they have a YouTube channel, maybe they have an email list with thousands of subscribers, maybe they have a podcast as well, blog, whatever.
They have their own platform, right? They have their own platform, usually not social media though, because I don’t, I wouldn’t even know if they had one, right? So usually it’s one of the things that I just mentioned, and I’m going to ask them to share it. Now this is a brand new show. It’s often tough to get people to actually share and email and all that stuff, but luckily I’m a nice guy and over the years.
I’ve helped people out. I’ve helped them launch their shows I’ve helped them launch their podcast. I have been the two competitors right with competitors. I’ve Invited them on I featured them on the blog or I promoted their thing and happy to do it because I knew They’re not really competitors. We’re just peers that are working Maybe selling products that are comparable But at the end of the day like it’s just you know people you can network with Someday there could be an opportunity So I’m actually helping promote them because part of this is I have my own YouTube channel I have my own podcast.
So I’ll be able to promote my my own show and Hopefully a little clip. So this is another a little thing I’m actually gonna probably pick the the best say five minutes of every interview and I’m gonna put it on my main channel Which has a lot more subscribers a lot more viewers than a brand new channel, of course And then I’ll be able to promote the person, you know link up to their thing that they’re working on, whether it’s a blog, or email list, or it’s their YouTube channel.
So I’m going to be able to publish a short clip on my main channel, link up to my show, my new show, link up to all their stuff. So, it’s helping everyone. And the thing is, the more people that do participate, the more of a launch that we’re going to have, which is cool. And, I got the inspiration from Tim Ferriss, James Clear, Mark Manson, Morgan Housel, anyone launching a book, right?
So this is a pretty standard book launch strategy. I’m flipping it on its side a little bit. So it’s, you know, it’s not a completely copied idea, but look out for these things, right? If you see something that’s working really well in a specific industry, think about how you can take the core concept, shake it around a little bit, and then put it into whatever it is you’re trying to do.
Pick what you think will work. And that’s what I’ve done. I was like, okay, I can interview a handful of people. I’ll promote them. They will probably feel somewhat of an obligation, right? There’s a rule of reciprocity going on. So if I do something nice for them, and maybe I’ve done something nice for them in the past, right?
Over and over again, maybe I’ve had them on the show. It’s a no brainer for them. To share it out and what’s going to happen, my hope is, it’s going to look like, holy fucking shit, Doug has launched a new show, and like, everyone is talking about it, hopefully, it will annoy some people, some people will like, get the fuck out of here Doug, everyone’s talking about your show, but the orchestration required to do that, and the goodwill over the years that hopefully I’ve, uh, Nurtured is gonna come through with this show and then I’m gonna sell the whole damn thing, right?
So it ends up being kind of a cool thing and I’m not like I said, I’m not rushing I want to make sure I have enough shows to launch with so there’s a little bit of a splash So that enough people are talking about it that it’s gonna come across your radar. You’re gonna hear about the show That’s my hope it is not easy.
And when I’ve heard I think James Clear specifically He was on the Tim Ferriss podcast and he He talked about, you know, starting months ahead of time to schedule these interviews and, you know, certain, he’s targeted maybe like certain industries for his book Atomic Habits and, you know, it’s kind of a shotgun approach because you don’t know, like, which industry or which podcast or which host or whatever is going to actually move the needle, but if you do enough of this, then you’re almost, You’re almost guaranteed to have a couple things hit and that’s usually what happens like I think James Clear said that atomic habits did really well in the CrossFit community because I mean, it’s a little bit different like the ideas and atomic habits would fit in many different areas business You know fitness health dieting.
There’s a There’s a ton of things right any anything that you can improve on or that you have a habit around That is positive Or negative, or whatever. But it worked really well with the CrossFit community. If I remember the interview correctly. So anyway, that is the plan. I’m, I’m attempting to do a little bit more than what other people can do.
And I’ve had, uh, actually a few friends launch podcasts in the past, well, few weeks. And they produced maybe three shows at the launch. And you’ll hear this advice, by the way, a lot of people will say, and I’ve told the people in the bootcamp, if you’re launching your podcast, you know, launch with maybe like three to five shows.
So if people like it, then they could download a few and you get a little bit of momentum, right? I’m going to try to launch with 20 or 30 episodes, which is a lot more. And you may be thinking, well, if I’m starting out, I’m going to launch with 20 or 30 episodes as well. The reason why I’m confident to do that, and the reason why I don’t advise people to launch with 20 or 30 episodes, is, I’ve recorded like 700 plus podcasts before.
So I know what I’m doing. I have the audio, and the video, and the process, and all the, all the process from starting pre production, to recording, to post production, to publishing the episode. I’ve done it literally hundreds of times. So I know that any mistakes that are in there, they should be minor. If you’re just starting out, and you Don’t know what you’re doing.
You’re going to make mistakes in any new venture So you’re gonna make mistakes and the problem is if you try to do this at scale when you don’t know what you’re doing You’re gonna amplify the Issue and the problems and if you have one little thing off, let’s say you have your microphone plugged in Not all the way, right?
It’s sort of loose and you just hear static or there’s some setting that you’re using and instead of Stereo or mono you end up with audio just on one side. If you do that on two or three episodes You’ll think ah shit that sucks I’m gonna have to record those again or figure out how to fix it. If you make the mistake 20 or 30 times You’re probably gonna give up.
At the very least you’re gonna be very discouraged and think this is Sucks. And I made a huge mistake. And I am not enthusiastic because I have to fix the problem that I, that I propagated 20 to 30 times. So I figured out a lot of the issues already. And I, hopefully, I’m not gonna make the same mistake across all, all these 30 episodes.
But that’s the deal, right? I’m gonna be able to do a little bit more than what other people can do. The funny thing is, like, one of, one of my friends that launched a show, like, they, they know podcasting pretty well. And I think they rushed it a little bit, and if I was advising them, I would have told them to do what I’m doing.
That said, um, they, they weren’t in my boot camp, though. So I, you know, I can’t, uh, give out unsolicited advice to people that don’t want to hear it, and Yeah, anyway. I’m doing this. It should be interesting. It’s been fun so far Once I got the momentum going to do some interviews. I was like, this is great.
I’m having a good time doing it So stand by next week. I’ll tell you about why I think creating courses is fine to do and it’s not necessarily a money grab and I can’t wait to share the name of the episode or the new podcast I can’t wait to share the name of the new podcast and start telling you more about it Thanks a lot, and we’ll catch you guys on the next episode.