The Podcaster's Path

00:01 - Chris (Host)
Hello podcasters, welcome back to the Podcaster's Path. I'm your host, coach Chris. Today we have very, very special guest, scott Johnson, a legend in the podcast industry. I've seen this guy around a podcasting space for years now. I mean when I say years, I mean a pretty long time. This guy's a veteran, somebody I've been following for a while, scott. Welcome to the show I've been following for a while, scott.

00:23 - Scott (Host)
Welcome to the show. Hey, chris, it's great to be here.

00:25 - Chris (Host)
I don't know if I qualify for two varies in front of special that's maybe pushing it a little bit, but anyway, yeah, I'm happy to be here.

00:41 - Scott (Host)
So I always like to start off with your kind of tell us a little bit about your show. Okay, yeah, the show that I do right now it's actually the third podcast that I've done and, um, it's my full-time job now and it's called what was that like? And so each episode is a conversation with just a regular person who's been through something really unusual Like they, uh, like they were in a plane crash or they survived a mass shooting, or they were attacked by a grizzly bear. They went on the Price is Right and won the showcase Any kind of unusual story like that. There's a few that I don't do, but most of the time it's something really weird that people want to hear about. So they just come on and tell the details of what happened.

01:20 - Chris (Host)
And what inspires you to start a show like that? Because I've heard of different kind of shows like that.

01:37 - Scott (Host)
They're usually business focused, like how did you start this business or built this company, but yours seems like it's more about this. It was because I listened to podcasts, of course, like we all do, or podcasters usually do anyway and I just loved hearing stories. It's the power of storytelling and I thought, man and I looked around and I couldn't really find a lot of shows doing that and not the way I would do it anyway, or not the way I wanted to hear it, and I already done two podcasts previous to this, so I knew I knew how to do a podcast. So I figured, yeah, I'll just, I'll just do it myself and maybe people will like it, you know man, that's a really unique perspective because I kind of envy that.

02:20 - Chris (Host)
people have those shows where you can talk about pretty much anything like that. You don't really. You kind of have a boundary that it has to be interesting, story and personal to them, but it's so broad Like you can talk to a president eventually on your show and it would be in line with what's usually on your show. Like, I love podcasts like that Cause you have so much freedom as a creator.

02:44 - Scott (Host)
It is I. It's. One of the things I love most about it is the creativity that it allows me, and yeah, it's. You know, they say the riches are in the niches. In my case, though, my target audience is anyone who likes a good true story, which is I don't know, I guess that's everyone, but I don't know. It seems to work.

03:04 - Chris (Host)
Yeah, and that's kind of what I think the best podcasts are is stories. I think Joe Rogan does so good, because he simply brings on really famous people everybody knows about and they're going to have a three-hour session of just telling stories back and forth. That's pretty much all it is. That's really it. And in some of the more popular celebrity shows they bring on celebrities we all know about and they tell us stories we've never heard. So if you can put storytelling into your show, I can see how it's really never ending. It can always continue to grow.

03:37 - Scott (Host)
Yeah, that's, that's the real power of it.

03:40 - Chris (Host)
So, with your show right now, who would you say your target listener is Like? Who's the person that you want to be tuned in every week?

03:47 - Scott (Host)
Well, I think of it as not who I want to be listening every week, but who actually is listening. I did a listener survey and you know figure out some of the demographics, and I know most of my audience is women, probably about 75 to 80 percent, probably about 75 to 80 percent, and usually they're between ages of like 30 to 55, maybe something like that. So that's who. That's who is listening to this. I guess they. They're the ones that like stories the best.

04:17 - Chris (Host)
I suppose so and do you think that you know so when you have that kind of target audience? You know you said this was full time for you. I don't want to get into monetization yet, but how did you find out? Like you said, listener survey. Can you explain that process a little bit Sure.

04:36 - Scott (Host)
Yeah, I did a listener survey just before I was thinking about monetizing, was thinking about monetizing and this was about three years after I started the podcast because I wanted my audience to be big enough that it was worthwhile. You know, I don't want to bug my audience, my listeners, with a commercial and I'm going to make 50 bucks on it or something you know. So I waited until the audience was large enough that it was. That it was that it made sense. And but I knew if I'm going to be talking to advertisers or sponsors, they're going to want to know who is my listener. What's the demographics? Do I have their customers in my audience or potential customers? So that's why I did that and I used you know everybody uses this thing called, I think, survey monkey. That's a pretty popular one, but I think there's a free version of that, but the paid version if you want all the features. But I didn't bother with that at all. I just used Google's sheet, no Google Forms, I think is what it's called.

05:36 - Chris (Host)
Super easy and free and everything.

05:38 - Scott (Host)
Yeah, completely free, you can completely customize it and it worked perfectly. You can completely customize it and it worked perfectly. So, uh, so I just I just created a bunch of questions like, um, you know what, where do you live? And uh, what's your favorite type of uh story? Uh, I mean, there was probably I don't know, there's probably 30 different questions on there, and, uh, and I incentivized people that you know, if you want it, at the end, if you want to leave me your name and your contact information, I'll put you in a drawing for a $50 Amazon gift card. And I was hoping for a hundred responses and I got 115. And that was because I mentioned it a couple of times on my show and also in my Facebook group. That's a big place where we engage, where I engage with all the listeners, and so I put it in there and so, yeah, people responded and I learned a lot of stuff. Sometimes you learn stuff you don't want to learn, but that's that's part of part of improving.

06:35 - Chris (Host)
Yeah, yeah, I love that. We'll have to get back to the marketing in a second. I really want to dive deeper into that one and so far, since you've had the show, what would you say has been your biggest milestone, like the biggest accomplishment you're most proud of?

06:49 - Scott (Host)
Hmm, wow, um, well, it certainly. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with numbers or late 2023, early 2024. I don't know exactly when, but I had like a mind shift and I wasn't even aware of it. But I realized that at that time when someone asked me what kind of work do you do? I say podcaster, because that's that's what I do, that's what I spend most of my time doing Now. Prior to that, I have a computer business. I've had that for 25 years, but that's kind of taken a backseat. And podcasting, you know, I, I spend more time on my podcast and I, I make more money in my podcast. So, uh, so that's kind of that's my mindset, that's that's what my full-time job is. But as far as what I'm most proud of, I would say just the fact that I can, this show sometimes makes a difference in people's actual lives and that really is very, very gratifying.

08:04
I've had one of my earliest interviews with a guy named Mark and his story was that he donated his kidney to a stranger and he went through the whole process. You know how he, this guy? He's a lawyer right Not far from me in Tampa and there was a thing up on a bulletin board at work that this person needed a kidney and he'd been thinking about it before but he'd never taken an action. But now this is somebody you know, like a relative of somebody that he worked with or something in the office, and he thought, okay, I just I need to look into this. So he started the process and checking it and and so he was in the hospital for a few days. This guy that he gave the kidney to was there. They actually met each other and it was.

08:46
It was so nice to hear this story, but what's really nice is, since then, that was one of my earliest episodes, so so almost six years ago. Since then, I've gotten messages from listeners who said I heard this story with Mark and I just donated my kidney because of that story. And I actually interviewed a second kidney donor just not too long ago, within the past year, and she said she was initially inspired by hearing Mark's story. She was initially inspired by hearing Mark's story. So, man, when you can get something like that out there, and that I mean people die waiting for kidneys and now there's a few people that are still alive because of it, and if I can do something like that, that's yeah, that's pretty amazing.

09:33 - Chris (Host)
Wow, that is incredible man. You know, I think when I ask people that question at events and I talk to podcasters, it's so funny because their first thought is to talk about downloads or dollars or something, and that might be the reason. So people get started. But the impact is the reason why you keep going, like you might start because you want to make some money from it or whatever it is, but I can pretty much guarantee if you're doing this, after a year you're making some kind of impact somewhere. That's the only thing that'll keep you going. That is just from my perspective.

10:07 - Scott (Host)
Right, Because when you start you don't have any listeners, so you have to have some kind of passion about what you're talking about in order to keep going. You know, after, after you know a month, and you've done four episodes, or you know you've done eight or 10 episodes after a little while and you can see your downloads. You're getting like 15 people listening to it or something it's. You know, you gotta, you gotta be able to get through that initial time when you got no listeners, which is that's the good time to have no listeners, because that's when you usually suck.

10:37 - Chris (Host)
You know, yeah, so, uh, I listen to my old episodes and I kind of cringe, you know right until you get better over the years and I think that's fun to me too, to listen back to the old stuff and just even look at some of the art, design and oh man, it's so funny. The messaging, like all of that stuff is really shaky in the beginning, but I think that's a good thing. It kind of shows you you just got started and you figured it out along the way, which is, I think, what you kind of have to do as a creator.

11:05
Um, you mentioned that you use a facebook group to kind of market the show. Explain how that works, because I think most podcasters use facebook the wrong way completely. So I would love to hear how you use Facebook for your show.

11:20 - Scott (Host)
Sure and I use it multiple ways. Yeah, and yes, you're right, most podcasters don't use it the right way because they have a new episode. They go in the local Facebook group or something and say, hey, I just had a new episode, here's the link. And nobody clicks on it. And they say, oh, oh, yeah, facebook sucks. It doesn't even work Well.

11:40
For for almost six years since I've started my show, my primary call to action at the end of each episode not everyone, but most of them is hey, join the Facebook group. And it's not a Facebook page, although I have that too but it's a Facebook group where it's a community and we talk about. Every time I have a new episode, of course, I post in there and people can comment after they've listened to it what do they think, and and all that, and they engage with each other, but we do we talk about so much more in there. Um, big questions. You know, like every Tuesday I post a new question, some kind of thought provoking question, like if you got a million dollars for every year you spend in a maximum security prison, how long would you stay? Oh, that's a good one.

12:28 - Chris (Host)
Oh man.

12:29 - Scott (Host)
Yeah, and everybody's got an opinion. And people come up and you know they love giving answers, they love giving their opinions and they talk with each other. But yeah, I started that with with nothing and now I think I most recently it's a little over 8 000 people in that group and it's wonderful. You know I use them to bounce ideas off of. You know, if I get a story idea and I'm thinking, okay, this sounds really interesting, but I want to make sure my listeners find it interesting, I'll just go in the Facebook group and create a poll and say, hey, I've got a chance to do this kind of story.

13:03
Is this something you'd want to hear? And if it's at least 90%, yes, then I go ahead with it. But if it's less than that, you know, the big rule is give listeners what they want. You know, give them the content they want to hear, and so I try to stick with that. And I also, every time I have a new episode I post in probably 60 or 80 other Facebook groups, groups that are designed specifically to promote podcasts. Those groups are usually full of junk because it's nothing for people promoting their podcasts, but I still get new engagement and new listeners from it all the time and it costs nothing, so it's worth it.

13:41 - Chris (Host)
That's where I think Facebook kind of has an advantage, because everything you just explained is free. Yes, everything is free and it doesn't cost the community management you have there, the promotion, other groups, the connectivity you have there it's free, you don't have to spend any money on that. I think that that is like really undervalued now, because Facebook itself did become kind of like just spam heaven for a while. It was all spam everywhere and I do think if you're going to use it as a podcast, you have to find your way around that Yep and it's cheap.

14:15 - Scott (Host)
So you have to find your way around that. Yep, and it's cheap. Even if you want to put some money in, you can do a, do a post in on your Facebook page and then boost it and, you know, give it a budget of like a dollar a day or $2 a day or something, and and you can put your show in front of who you know already is your target audience, if you know who your audience is. So it's a cheap way to advertise, you know in a targeted way which is effective.

14:44 - Chris (Host)
Yeah, I've done some stuff on Facebook where I will post longer clips of the episode and then, for the people who watch it, retarget them and say, hey, if you watch this clip, you love the show, you should go and follow the show. You know, it could be as simple as like 50 bucks a week or something like that, and it goes a long way to just build that brand notoriety, um, that brand awareness. I think Facebook still might be the best platform to do that.

15:08 - Scott (Host)
It could be. And I don't even like Facebook. There's so much, there's so much bad about Facebook, but still it's. You know, I tried moving my group to another community off of Facebook and we were over there for about three months and I knew not everyone was going to transfer over. You lose people when you do that. But after a few months I had about three or 400 people over there and I had so many people saying, man, I, I really want to be in that group, but I always forget about it. But they don't forget about it on Facebook, because they're always on Facebook anyway, right.

15:42 - Chris (Host)
Yeah, that's kind of the advantage there. Again, it's so many upsides to it and I try to tell podcasters not to lean into just social media to market their show, oh for sure, I think you kind of have a really good approach where you have the social platform and then you have the community part attached to it. I think that's what makes it more valuable. So it really takes a different approach to kind of leverage these social platforms the right way.

16:06 - Scott (Host)
Yep, yep. And you got to promote everywhere I do anyway. Well, I shouldn't say everywhere, but go to where your listeners are. That's where it's going to be the most effective. Go to where your listeners are.

16:17 - Chris (Host)
That's where it's going to be the most effective, and so, when it comes to monetizing, I don't know how comfortable you are with you know going too deep into it, but I'd love to hear more about your strategies and what's been successful for you so far and what hasn't worked in terms of making your show profitable.

16:32 - Scott (Host)
Yeah, well, like I said, I mentioned that after three years I figured, okay, I've got a big enough audience time to start, you know, figuring out how I can put some ads in here, and that's the way I do it, it's just sponsored ads. And so I went with an ad agency and they started bringing me sponsors and I was with them for two years and the last year it was terrible. They brought me maybe, they brought me maybe one. There was an eight month period where they didn't bring me any new ads, any new sponsors. So I was having to, uh, sell my own ad space. You know I would advertise in pod news. Um, you know, know to other podcasters, if you want to promote your show, buy an ad on my show and, you know, get it in front of other listeners. So that was.

17:27
That was not a fun experience and I didn't. This company I didn't know really who I was supposed to talk to about anything, and it was just communication was terrible. Then I left them. I went to my current platform, which is Glassbox Media, and it was like night and day the difference and I have meetings now every month with Glassbox. They fill up all my ad spots either with a host read ad with a company that I'm endorsing, or with dynamic programmatic insertion ads, or with promo trades. I've found that very effective, too, to grow my shows trade, swap, you know, swap promos with other shows, so and they handle all that for me and it's just that's. I mean, glassbox is what has enabled me to to be a full-time podcaster. So if any any podcasters that have a sizable audience and you're thinking about putting ads, I'd be happy to talk with you and, you know, connect you with Glassbox if that's, if that's something you want to do.

18:32 - Chris (Host)
I love that and I I've heard so much about those media companies and sponsors and stuff and it's funny because I think every podcaster wants to be sponsored but I'm not sure they're aware of even half of the process that goes with being sponsored. Like they think I just get this money from them and then I read the ads, like they don't even know how you get paid and stuff and it's. It's so funny because I ended up teaching a whole there's a whole breakdown of what it means to be sponsored and what comes with it. You know, and building that awareness, um, with you working with the sponsors through a glass box Now, um, it sounds like you're pretty happy and you want to stay there like long-term and this is like set up for you, are you doing?

19:14
anything else outside of that to monetize the show.

19:22 - Scott (Host)
No, no, I'm not. And I mean I'm going to write a book. That'll be another stream of revenue, but I haven't haven't done that yet. But yeah, if somebody, if somebody approached me saying, hey, I want to buy ads on your show, my first thing is hey, glassbox handles that. Here's their contact information, so I don't even have to think of it. I can focus on creating good content, because that's what I'm good at and I don't even want to. I don't want to mess with any any other part of it.

19:45 - Chris (Host)
I love that. I love it. That's a great setup you got. So we talked about marketing and monetizing. Let's talk about some of the struggles with the show. Since you've been podcasting for years now, what would you say has been the most challenging thing in the past year or so? That's like man, if I could just fix this thing, it will make my life as a podcaster a lot easier well, uh, I would say initially it was finding guests.

20:12 - Scott (Host)
That's when I started, because I mean, these are crazy stories and it's not something you read in the news every single day. But I just made a list of who I wanted to talk to and then I started looking for those particular stories and I started contacting people. But I'm I'm kind of it's nice now because most of my stories come from listeners, because the audience is big enough that they you know they have stories, they hear these stories and they think, wow, I had this thing happen to me, maybe, maybe I should go on the show. And so they pitched me the idea and some work and some don't. But, um, so yeah, that was the.

20:44
That was the biggest struggle in the beginning. I would say right now, the biggest struggle is the time that it takes to edit my show, because I edit it myself and I'm not really sure I would ever find someone who I could trust enough to edit for content. Now, if for someone to go through and like, say, like, make a first pass and get rid of the like, the crutch words or the mouth clicks or lip smacks, and you know, get rid of all that stuff, and then I would go back and you know, edit for content. But I don't know. I know after I've, after I've spoken with someone and you know we've recorded the interview for an hour or so, I'm I know the feel for the conversation. So, as I'm editing, I kind of know which stuff to take out and which not to take out, and if we over, if we talk over each other how to slide that and so that and what to keep, and especially, like if there's something that happens later in the conversation, if I somebody that doesn't know that they might take something out in the beginning and then later in the conversation the person refers to that thing. Well, now you've, now it doesn't make sense, you know. So, yeah, but it just, it just takes time Cause I edit, I call it a surgically editing because I listened to every single minute of the show and cause I want to make sure my guest sounds as good as possible.

22:11
Because you know they, they come on and they these are people that don't get interviewed normally they just they just had this one weird thing happen to them. So they're nervous, they haven't been on a podcast before and they're not public speakers and so you know, and they're not necessarily always good storytellers, but when I can guide them through the conversation and then edit it and make them sound really good. I've had so many people say, man, I can't believe how good it sounded when I because they listen to the final product when it comes out. Oh man, so that's. My biggest thing now is, you know, it just takes time to edit, but I can't complain. I'm being paid to do this. So you know, I mean, come on, scott, put in the hours, it's okay.

22:55 - Chris (Host)
Yeah, you're one of those people that, like for me, AI helps out a lot with editing and all of that stuff because I can just move super fast. But it wouldn't really work for somebody like you because you're very meticulous about the things you want to keep in and take out, Like it'll be hard for you to throw it into the machine and have it remove stuff, because it just wouldn't work for somebody like you that wants to be really selective about that and it makes sense why you would be. I get it.

23:22 - Scott (Host)
Yeah, and it works. Ai works fine for some shows. It's just uh, but not all of them. So what's next for the show? Like, what's the long? Don't know if I have a particular goal for a year from now, you know, I mean we're coming up to the end of 2024. I would you know, I'd love for, at the end of 2025, to be at maybe half a million downloads a month. At the end of 2025, to be at maybe half a million downloads a month. That would be great. But if it doesn't happen, that's okay. You know, I'm making a living. I just love deep conversations with people and when you can get someone to come on the show and they are vulnerable and they're telling, I mean I know if a guest is crying, it's going to be a good episode because they are, they're just being transparent and they're just telling this really personal story and they feel comfortable telling that story. And, um, as long as I can keep doing that, I'm happy.

24:35 - Chris (Host)
Man, you've kind of got a perfect setup, man, I love that. That's amazing, wow, okay, so where can people find this amazing show?

24:48 - Scott (Host)
Well, it's on every podcast app. Just do a search for what Was that Like. It's on Spotify, apple Podcasts. You know any of the apps, or you can get all the information at the website. That's whatwassatlikecom.

25:02 - Chris (Host)
All right, man. Scott, I think a lot of people learn from you, especially with the Facebook thing and how you're monetizing and shout out to Glassbox. You showed them a lot of love, man.

25:13 - Scott (Host)
Well, they show me a lot of love. So it works both ways I'm happy to promote them for sure.

25:19 - Chris (Host)
All right, man. Well, thank you for being here. Thank you for being such an amazing guest. Awesome, chris, thanks very much.