The LA Kings holiday pack is back the perfect gift for the hockey fan in your life a three-game pack starts at just $159 and includes a holiday blanket buy today and you'll receive an additional game for free Don't miss out visit la kings comm slash holiday today I've been asked a number of times by different listeners how I actually create the show.

What's the equipment that I use? What do I what kind of microphone do I use things like that? And so today I decided in honor of episode 200 I'll share with you how I create the show and some of the lessons that I've learned and I hope this will be of use to many of you who have told me that You're planning on creating your own shows.

So today I'm gonna help you get the shortcut through your educational process Welcome to the radical personal finance podcast. My name is Joshua sheets, and I'm your host and I have been your host for the last 200 episodes and so today Like I said, maybe I'll share with you some of the stuff that I wish I had known I'm gonna start with a little bit of a background on my podcast I'm gonna start with a little bit of a background on my podcast Like I said, maybe I'll share with you some of the stuff that I wish I had known I think I've made just about every mistake that could possibly be made Over the last 200 episodes, but I'm still here still cranking away.

I've learned a lot and today Hopefully you can learn something On today's show I don't plan to share any financial planning specific information for you so if you have no interest at all and creating a podcast or no interest at all and Knowing how I do it then feel free just to skip and doesn't bother me a bit and we'll be back to financial planning content Tomorrow, but for those of you who have expressed an interest I'm going to tell you a little bit about my process and and Through creating this show and some of the mistakes that I've made and some of the ways that I've learned to make things better Also specifically the equipment that I use.

I'll comment make a couple of brief comments on what Recommendations I would make because I wouldn't do the same thing I have done again if I were to do it again, and then also this will be important as I'm actually still Recovering from some of the mistakes that I've made and you'll hear Very soon here a couple some of you may lose the feed.

So right up here is a front a quick announcement I'm still gonna be changing one of the things with the feed my email newsletter system many of you have noticed has not been working for quite a while and the reason for that has to do With the feed issues that I've had podcasting specific term Don't worry.

This isn't gonna be a very technical show But some of you may see that the show might stop updating for you coming forward in a few days I'll put out a special episode as the last episode into the feed And you'll see that pop up in your feed if that's the last episode in the feed and if you've noticed that hey, wait a second Joshua disappeared unless you check Facebook and find out that I've died unexpectedly in the next few days, which I don't expect to happen Then you should know that what happened is your feed was one of the ones that was still affected And so what you need to do is unsubscribe from the show search in whatever podcast directory you're using For to download my show search for radical personal finance find the listing again And then just simply subscribe again or even better just search the App Store on your device for radical personal finance and install the app That's the best way to listen to the show and you'll know that is correct So a couple of questions and I'll just give you an example these use a couple of these as examples one question from Matthew comes In says Joshua was just curious.

What kind of microphone you use for the show? I've been looking into acquiring one and I wanted to reach out because I think your audio is extremely clear Thanks for the help Matthew Another one comes in from Trey and Trey says I've been listening to your podcast for quite a while now You've inspired me to start my own podcast and blog Question you ran it in one of your episodes how you dislike the way in which online affiliate marketing Influence the type of hosting service that you chose for your website I've come across the same listings as those you mentioned and I'm just wondering what web hosting services Do you actually use now and why I know you've said your original choice was bad because once you wanted to start expanding it With new content and code it failed So I make sure I'm starting off with the best host possible that will grow with my site Same question would apply for what podcast program or service you use to set yours up for you to share it.

I'd really appreciate it so there are other questions as well, but I thought I'd just share a little bit about how I actually create the show and When I started the show, I literally had it was a I don't know $10 recorder that I recorded the first 10 episodes on that and the onboard microphone on my laptop just a cheap Dell laptop and a cheap recorder the recorder came with a copy of dragon naturally speaking that I bought back in the day and it was just a cheap recorder and nowadays Every single one of you if you want to start a show you really don't need anything more than your cell phone You can do it with your cell phone It's not necessarily going to be the easiest or the best nor do I necessarily recommend it But every one of you has an audio recorder in your phone You have a voice memo function and with a little bit of planning you can create an excellent sounding recording with nothing more than that Microphone which is pretty cool when you start to think about it.

It's a pretty cool world We live in that you can do that. There's an app that you can use on your device. I think it's still only for iOS devices Apple devices But there's an app called boss jock Which is the best app to use if you're going to do something like that and you can just simply use your onboard microphone you can use your Headphones you can plug an external microphone into the iPhone and do that and I'll tell you about that in a moment how I how I do that and Or you can invest in a whole setup like I do like I have so I started the show without any equipment I just simply said well, let me see if I actually can create something the first episode I Sat in the middle of my bed and it was about the only semi padded place to absorb some of the acoustical sound waves that I knew of and so I sat down and Just started talking and then at the end of it.

I went back and listened to it and I asked myself the question I said would I listen to that? Would I be interested in that topic and I decided that you know, I I mean it wasn't great But I would listen to it. I would be interested in it and That was my litmus test or whether or not I should record a show and I did the same thing again And I I mean remember what the second show was but I did another I did it the same thing again And I went back and listened to it I said what I listened to that and I said well I probably would and I decided to go ahead and publish them and there's absolutely nothing more than that that was all I did and But I didn't stay there my point was starting there is the first piece of advice that I would give you if you were interested in really anything is I Don't believe even still to this day.

Although this is changing and I'll qualify this in a moment I don't believe that focusing on the quality of production is As nearly as is nearly as important as focusing on the quality of content Now that has changed dramatically in the last few years and Today it is so easy to have a high production value That in my opinion, there's no reason not to do both So focus on doing both But if you have to make a mistake in one direction or another focus on the quality of the content and if you're gonna go through the hard work of creating something a podcast or a blog make sure it's something that you Really want to spend the time doing that you think is important Because it will not be easy It will be fun at the beginning and then it will not be fun for a while and Don't expect quick results It's not gonna happen.

And if it does you'll agree with me and say well, it's not gonna happen. Don't expect quick results So if you still want to do it then go ahead and do it but start by focusing on the quality of content That quality of content is probably going to be dictated based upon how much you know About the subject that you're podcasting about I heard a speaking coach years ago say don't ever talk about something Unless you know ten times more than you're ever gonna cover in the topic of the show And I think that's pretty good advice make sure that if you're gonna make your take your time to sit down and work at stuff Make sure that you know a lot more about your subject than you're even gonna get into and talk about Even my own experience with personal finance.

I wanted to start a personal finance blog and I tried several times. I never formally went through the work of Starting a fancy site but many times I would say I want to write about finance. I want to write about finance I want to write about finance and I tried and I started and just was like pulling teeth because I wasn't ready even though I'd spent years Perhaps studying personal finance from the personal finance approach.

I really wasn't ready and it didn't flow At this point though, and this is not meant to sound arrogant I hope it doesn't but at this point though, I think I probably talk about on the show. I don't know three or four percent of It's not even 10% of the knowledge that I have in different areas But that's come after thousands of hours of study for me at least and that I find really helpful When I sat down and thought about what would make my show different and If you'll remember my story after those first for the first ten episodes, I didn't have a plan I decided let me just try this I wasn't sure that I was committed But then after I had to pull the show down and kind of think it through I thought through what was my plan?

What was gonna be different about my show? What could I compete on And I think in any business is important to start with figuring out. What is your unique selling proposition? Do you want to use the MBA speak USP? What's your unique selling proposition? What makes your content different?

I Don't have necessarily a very compelling story so I couldn't compete based upon that There's all kinds of personal finance people that do and I respect them and admire them for that But that wasn't me, you know, I didn't it wasn't I'm almost 30. I'm not financially independent yet I'm still working my way through so I couldn't point to my great story.

I'm not a millionaire yet So I can't point and say well look I'm a millionaire. So you should listen to me and I don't like making stuff up So even you know, a lot of people do that in this especially in this world I'm gonna make something up so I decided well that doesn't really that's not really my ability but what I decided I did have which most people didn't have don't have is I had a depth of knowledge in the technical formal financial planning space that very few people have and I had intended to do that I was just building my own career in as a financial advisor and trying to you know, invest in my income that's why I spent so many hours studying all that stuff and I had a breadth of knowledge because of my weird interests And I said well, what can I do then?

I noticed a distinct lack of depth of content from a technical perspective and a distinct lack of variety and So I decided well, I've spent all this time studying what I can do. I may not be have the best production value I may have my share of ums and ahs and I may have many things that aren't going for me But what I can do is I can focus on Creating a lot of content and Content that goes deep and since that's what I like I knew that over time the people that would be similar to me would find that and That was how I chose to compete And So far, it's it's worked pretty well Now I still obviously consider it from time to time, but it's worked pretty well.

I Was willing to do it because I believed that I could create a business Directly off of the show and everybody told me I couldn't and I decided that well, I might as well try Now I don't think you need to do that just a podcast Having a podcast as a part-time hobby can open up an incredible world to you And it can connect you with amazing people Even though your show may never be big or never be, you know top ten in any category Doesn't matter it still could be useful At this point the history of radical personal finance the show has somewhere my guests about four to five thousand listeners Most of the episodes are pretty consistently downloaded about five thousand times Some of them more a few of them less but usually pretty consistently about five thousand times That's pretty overwhelming to me when I actually sit and think about that.

So I try not to think about that I think about a few individual people that I've corresponded with a lot I think about some of the people that were around since the very beginning and I just try to think of a few individual friends and the cool thing is some of those few individual friends have been with a show from the very beginning and I don't think you need an audience of five thousand people or fifty thousand people to have an incredibly effective Successful show and I think as competition gets stiffer and stiffer.

I Think the tremendous benefit that we have in this independent media space is the ability to Focus on very small groups of people and help those small groups of people intensely When I came back and decided to start the show I knew that I was going to be creating a lot of content and I knew that I didn't have time to mess around with the audio stuff.

I'm not a techno nerd I don't like it. And so I said so what can I do and what I learned was Primarily, I watched a video there is a podcast consultant goes by the name of Cliff Ravenscraft He has a show called podcast answer man And I found a video when I was researching who are the people that would teach people how to podcast He's one of the big ones there are others as well But when I was researching How to podcast he has a video where he talked about his podcast workflow and it showed him sitting down and starting his show Playing all the sound effects recording into it and then just simply being done essentially in producing a finished audio file that didn't need anything further after that point in time and That made me realize that I needed to invest a little bit in equipment so that I could produce the show in one take So I bought a microphone the microphone that I'm currently using right now, which is a Heil PR 40 that was Cliff Ravenscraft recommendation, I wouldn't buy the same microphone again, but it does it for a perfectly good job I bought an audio mixer and that audio mixer makes all the difference in the world It allows me to bring in the sound effects.

I have a soundboard here And so if I have sound effects loaded up on my computer or loaded up on you know I have a phone here. So if I want to play this listening to today's show I can play I can play Have all that stuff right there where I can play it live Real time while I'm recording the show I can fade it in and out just like they do with a radio station normally That's also connected to the computer so that I can record the Skype calls and all of those things and I have an external audio recorder so I invested in that equipment so that I would be able to create the show in one shot and That's primarily what I do.

I sit down in front of the microphone and I try to have my notes laid out I have the audio I queue up the audio and I Have it ready to go. I do the little intros and I just record the whole thing in one shot the audio goes out from the soundboard into an External digital recorder and this external digital recorder that I use is a Roland R05 I wouldn't buy that again either but I it works fine and I Put the audio directly into that and so I can record the whole thing in one take Then when I'm done with that I take a little SD card out of the audio recorder and put it into the computer The audio recorder is nice.

You don't need all that equipment You can record directly into a free piece of software on your on your computer called Audacity it's the any the editing software that I use but the audio recorder is nice because it makes it so that I don't have to worry about the computer crashing and It's a useful backup.

It's just a piece of hardware. It works every time It doesn't have software glitches like the computer does and so that was really useful to me So I invested in that equipment so that I would be able to create the show quickly with a minimum amount of editing even going back to the USP I've thought a lot about the Lack of editing that my show has and I regret some of the shows that I have published Some of the shows have been too long.

Some of the shows have rambled some of the shows have not been perfectly done Some of the shows I wish I'd edited sometimes I wish I'd go back and edit the guests out But the problem is if I were to do that, I would be going away from my plan for a What is my unique selling proposition as a listener?

Although this is changing as a listener for me as a podcast consumer or a media consumer If the depth of content is strong enough, I can put up with some things that I don't love If it's a subject I'm interested in and the depth of content is appropriate Even the same way that if I bring in personal opinions things like that I listen to a lot of people that I disagree with and what I look for is not to agree with people but I look for them to Defend their case or to make arguments that make me think and so that's been my approach to the show So even though I often will get comments or people comment, man I wish Joshua would edit his idea his audio or shorten the showdown the problem is you have to focus on what you decided to do and what you decided you could do and then Check to see whether it's working or not.

It doesn't eliminate the ability to say I should do something more I should adjust something. For example, if I had the ability The financial ability and I decided it were a good investment I've thought about hiring an editor for the show, you know someone to go through and edit it Pull out some of the content that maybe is a little bit extraneous Pull out some of the rambling that I may have gotten into or maybe pull out a rabbit trail that I Allowed myself to go down the problem is that requires capital and If I do that if I do it, it takes time away from my ability to produce and It requires capital and I just haven't decided it's a good use of the dollar So if you're gonna start a show you have to know what you're trying to do and how you're trying to compete If you want to complete with compete with marketplace morning report you need to go and produce a tightly edited six minute update on the markets and financial news and get it on NPR and And trust me marketplace has a much broader listening audience than my show does But I don't listen to marketplace.

It's boring to me So a lot of people do I don't so I'm trying to create something and I had this I've had to stay focused on What I believe is my unique selling proposition and I'd encourage you to do the same thing If you have a vision for something that you'd like to create You have a vision that for something that you think should exist that doesn't then go for it my vision was to create the depth of content and the breadth of content that I always wished existed and I wanted that content to cross the divide between the low-level tactical put money in your 401k to get an employer match and the high-level metaphysical change your mental thermostat about money and connect those two and I never saw anybody doing it.

So that was my Decision I'm going to connect those two the reason that I'm emphasizing this is If you're thinking about getting involved in independent media, I Think you should But if you are thinking about that then You need to understand what you're doing and why? because if you go out and you start to look and say well who's doing this and is it working and You start to try to say I want to copy something you may or may not know why what they're doing is working There are a lot of shows that are extremely popular that are very tightly edited There's just best example the biggest podcasts that have hit the podcasting space or what are they?

What's that show about? The guy starting the business startup the guy who starts the does the show about his starting up his podcast It's an incredibly produced show It's in the style of this American life, which is a you know, they have a great show. It's in the style of That type of thing it's an incredibly produced show But if you just try to con copy the production value you might miss why what they do actually works Some of it is production value a lot of his storytelling ability It's a hugely popular show.

I don't listen to it Because I'm bored by I mean I listen to a few episodes of startup But I'm just thinking about things like this American life or whatnot. I'm often bored by it because it's not applicable to my life It's an interesting entertaining story and I think it's awesome the work that they do but it doesn't help me achieve my goals and For me as an individual I spend all of my time Looking for content that's going to help me achieve my goals If I want to lose weight and get stronger, which I do then hearing a story as Beautifully produced and developed and told as it may be about sharks in the Indian Ocean It doesn't help me So I go and look for a podcast and sometimes I'll find the most horribly produced podcast But if I find it to be encouraging or I find something where it's just helpful to me I'll listen to that one because it's helping me get towards my goals.

I Guess the two best examples that I would give here and I know I'm laboring on this point But I believe it's the fundamental basis of anything That you should be considering if you're considering starting a show but two examples that come to mind. I started listening to So Cliff Ravenscraft, I wanted to learn how to podcast so I started to go and find podcasts That was one of my goals.

Okay, I need to learn how to podcast So I went and looked for podcasts on how to podcast I started listening through them and what I first looked for was the basics Primarily the basics related to vision and so I focused on that later once I once I had the Technology established.

I had the show up and had it running then I started focusing and saying I need to become really Knowledgeable about the technical side of things because I need to improve my quality of my show So I started listening to content on all this audio geek stuff You know compression and normalization and equalization and blah blah blah all this audio geek stuff because okay I need to be exposed to it.

I don't want to be an audio engineer, but I need to at least have a Understanding of it so that I can do a better job creating my show So originally back to the two examples Because I was listening to podcast information. I started listening to Cliff Ravenscraft Cliff Ravenscraft Ravenscraft's Show called podcast answer man, and then I heard him He has another show and this show is called pursuing a balanced life So I went over and I said, let me listen to it See what it's about the show has very low production quality in terms of beautiful sounding microphone Generally He records it when he's out on a walk or literally on the treadmill or elliptical trainer or something like that He says an audio recording.

It's just him basically maintaining an audio journal But for whatever reason from time to time I found some of his content to be encouraging. He was super overweight He's been losing a bunch of weight. It's like wow, this is kind of encouraging and I like this no expert No fancy agenda to you know Sell me six-pack abs just and just a dude walking on his treadmill telling about what's worked and what hasn't worked But I've found some of the content encouraging now I don't listen to it all the time But that type of content what I mean is there's an audience for it even with the poor production quality Because I'm interested in the content The other example I would give what is the example of Jack Spirico's show the survival podcast?

I enjoyed listening to that show for years. Well, he started his show in his in his car He was on having a 50-mile commute to work and to turn his driving time into something useful He started recording a show as I believe his story is at some point. I'm gonna have him on I've reached out to him to have him on but his story was that He got tired of listening to talk radio and just getting angry at the radio all the time without knowing what to do About anything so he pulled out.

He got an audio recorder and he just started recording a show about survivalism in While he's driving to work every morning and putting that show on the air The production quality is terrible. He was in his car Driving at 70 miles an hour down the interstate But the content was good and when you get to an interesting niche, it's a topic that I find interesting But I find it hard because there's so many Very intelligent people who are legitimately concerned about things that are possible dangers in life and there's so many nut jobs That you've got to sort through them.

And so when you can find a show like his that was well balanced That was well built and that was both rational and real It's attractive. He's got a huge show so when you're starting a show spend a lot of time thinking about what you're trying to do and why and If you just want to do a show for fun to see if you like it, there's no problem with that I think that's fine but it's gonna help you if you're clear on what you're trying to do and why and It'll help you a lot if you can understand.

What is your unique selling proposition? What is different about you and your content? than anybody else May take you a little while to figure it out. That's fine But at some point you got to know the answer to that spend if you spend all your time on that and you sit down with a cell phone and Recorded on your cell phone and don't worry about all the rest of the stuff.

You'll be well served If you spend all your time investing in fancy gear and Buying all kinds of toys and then you sit around and Twitter your thumbs because someday I'm gonna record a show But you don't know when that day is you've got a major problem Don't do that Back to the microphone question.

So Matthew I use a Heil PR 40 and The key for you to know is not to use necessarily the Heil PR 40 But rather to use a type of microphone that's called a dynamic microphone There are two major types of microphones as I understand One is called a dynamic microphone.

One is called a condenser microphone Now, I'm not a techno geek and I haven't bothered to do spend too much time Understanding the difference here, but here's how I in my layman Vision understand the difference to be the dynamic microphone doesn't pick up so much noise in the room and The condenser microphone picks up a lot of noise in the room Now the dynamic microphone is far less sensitive To faraway noise so for example If I'm speaking to you like this and you'll notice if I start to back away from the microphone the actual sound quality will drop off Substantially when I do that There's a massive difference So the dynamic microphone I need is only good for recording Sounds that are specifically directly spoken into it And you have to be very careful and very precise if I even turn my head just a little tiny bit All I'm doing is swiveling my head here.

You'll hear the difference in the recording quality The condenser microphone is very useful for many things But the thing I don't like about it is you need to have and it may even be better quality I don't know you have to ask the audio nerds But what I don't like about it is you have to have basically a sound booth and I don't have a sound booth The room that I record my show in is probably the worst acoustic room that exists.

I have a Hard table in front of me. I have a hard Monitors right behind my microphone. I don't have a single thing on the walls The room is a tile floor without even a rug on it. It's got a ceiling That's drywall drywalled walls with no nothing soft.

There's basically nothing in here that has any kind of sound quality but because I use a dynamic microphone and I speak right into it and I can turn the gain down a little bit because I have a voice that I'm able to project Then I don't pick up so much of that room noise.

That would be very different if I were recording into a condenser microphone So that's the first thing that you want to look for. There are many types of dynamic microphones This microphone is certainly an excellent microphone It's an extremely high quality broadcast microphone. I think it was $350 or something like that.

You don't need one the best entry-level microphone. That is a dynamic microphone That's much loved and I have one as well is called a an audio technica ATR 2100 Audio technica ATR 2100. That's basically what every podcaster tells every other podcaster to start with I think it's 40 bucks 50 bucks something like that.

It's a great microphone it is unique because it has an a USB connection so you can plug it directly into your computer and It also has what's called an XLR connection and that's the traditional Connection that is used on sound equipment with a three-prong Connector and it's an excellent microphone.

I have one that I've used So for example the show that my wife and I did together I used that microphone for her and this microphone for me. I bought the audio technica ATR 2100 And by the way, there's another one called an AT 2005 audio technica AT 2005.

That's the one that I have there to save the same guts inside the microphone, but they have a different They have a different Body, there are different colors. I don't know what else is different with them, but they have the same guts They sound the same but I bought that so that I could record into my phone Because it's a USB microphone because it's a dynamic microphone.

I can plug it through the use of a USB adapter I can plug it right into the bottom of my iPhone and I can record a show directly into my iPhone That's really really useful. That is what if I were going to start over today knowing what I now know I Wouldn't buy this mixer that I have What I would do in order to save money is I would just simply buy an application for iTunes called boss jock It's about 10 bucks goes right under your iPhone.

I would buy the audio technica ATR 2100 and I would record directly into it the key about that app Is that you are able to play the microphone and your sound effects right over one another? So the same thing that I can do what you hear me do Let me not blast your ears out here But when you hear me kind of bring the music down so I can talk over and then bring it up And I can pull it down and talk over it which for a long time I was having issues which I won't even go into It's a lot of the early shows.

I was the audio the music was too loud over the voice. That was because of the Post processing application I was using and I finally found a solution for that But that ability you can do that directly on just this iPhone app so Now one of my goals has been to be able to record shows on the road And now if I were going on the road, that's exactly what I'll do So at some point in time, I'll be recording a podcast from Zimbabwe and I'll be sitting out in front of a mud hut I have a microphone on in my hand.

I'll be recording to my iPhone and then I'll upload it from an internet cafe and that's certainly doable in today's world, I think that If I were to do this over again, if I knew that that mic existed it what didn't exist when I bought my equipment I don't think it did or at least I didn't find out about it I probably would never have switched to this big fancy microphone because I don't find that for my style of content I'm not relying on my deep bass voice booming at you so that you feel Intensely about my show.

I'm just relying on the audio being clear And I probably would still just be using that $50 microphone and it would be doing a great job But the key I find look for a dynamic microphone instead of a condenser microphone If you have a condenser microphone, go ahead and use it What you want to do is you want to create however some kind of sound booth type of environment go on YouTube You can find some tutorials on this you want to create some kind of cardboard box with a bunch of padding in it if you're using your cell phone as an example, if you were to take your Smartphone and you were to go into the middle of your closet amidst all of your clothes sit on the floor with your back tucked up into the Into the clothes and get the clothes in front of you and basically sit in the middle of your clothes and hold your iPhone About six inches in front of your face and just speak into it.

You would be able to record excellent audio quality So if you have a cheap microphone or if you have Something that's just basic you'll need to make up for it with terms of soundproofing The advantage to this fancy microphone that I have is the fact that I just described to you.

I have no soundproofing whatsoever. I Have essentially the worst environment you could possibly create for recording. Why don't I do something about it? Well, I'm in kind of a temporary bedroom right now. I think the audio is perfectly clear It's good enough. And if I switch to something else, maybe I will go ahead and try to make it better But for now, I haven't there's no easy way for me to make the room acoustically Perfect, and I haven't needed to spend the money or the time doing it.

This is good enough. I Now own the other thing I would say and I said I wouldn't buy this microphone again I now own two other fancy dynamic microphones called a sure was sure SM7 and These are some massive microphones, but they're also dynamic microphones I bought them so that I could do in-person interviews at conferences and That's gonna be a big part of my show going forward is doing a lot more interviews out and about one of the keys I'm able to do a lot of interviews through Skype which works well and what I do there is I do what's called a mix - and Go find if you're interested go just do it You know duck that do a duck that go search and find some shows and they'll there's lots of tutorials out there on that But that's what I do I have my computer going into a soundboard and it coming back out so I can record things off of Skype but the problem is That a lot of the content that's created that way is people who are used to using Skype That's why in the podcast space basically the same 10 podcasters interview the same 10 guests over and over again well, I want to get in more interesting people so I invested in a professional quality studio quality Mobile podcasting interview setup and I can take this into somebody's office set it up in a few minutes It's in a little travel bag or I can take this to a conference and I can record all the audio directly While we're having a face-to-face interview now that I have those microphones I haven't chosen to go ahead and sell this one that I use every day and my only reason is because it's convenient to Have that as a kit and still be able to sit here and have this one on my desk every day But if I were gonna do it over again I would go ahead and and I wanted to spend money and get an expensive microphone I would go ahead and get the Shure SM7 and The reason why that one's more useful for interviews is because you don't have to be so disciplined With the position of your face compared to the position of the microphone Microphone discipline is a big deal I've tried to study and learn and and become more professional with regard to some of my techniques and Microphone technique is a big deal It's a good way to get better and as I was demonstrating earlier this tendency that if I talk like this I'm just moving about three inches here this tendency.

You can hear the difference dramatically in your in your Headphones or in your car wherever you're listening I'm used to being disciplined and staying right in front of the microphone keeping my mouth very consistently positioned But when interviewing guests at a conference or in their office, they're not Most people are intimidated by microphones So they tend to back away from them.

They tend to run away from them and the Shure SM7 the key reason why I spent a lot of money to get to get it is That it's very forgiving for a guest It has a much larger cone of sound around it Where instead of me turning my head for two inches and all of a sudden the the audio drops off With that microphone the guest can move around within a sphere of about five to seven inches and the audio doesn't really drop off But because the micro it's a dynamic microphone It does a good job of excluding some of the background noise that can be so strong with a condenser microphone So it's a really ideal setup for interviews in places without any sound enhancing material at conferences things like that and that's something that I'm going to be doing a lot more of going forward and It's a big part of my plan for this show With regard to my content, I'd love to produce a lot more deeper level content with fewer people that are often aren't interviewed You know I'd love to talk to Bill Sharp and fly up to Chicago and I think he still lives there wherever he lives and sit down with him for a few hours and Record kind of an in-depth interview rather than the more cursory 60-minute interview that is more common So I needed the equipment to be able to do that and to do it in a professional way Once I can get the revenue of the show a little bit higher to be able to justify that type of approach I'll do that at the moment the revenue the show isn't enough to where I can justify taking the time to prepare for that type of interview and/or to go and actually Do the expense of flying up there and making those things happen?

So we'll see that's one of the plans. So that's enough of a discussion on microphones. Look for the audio technica ATR 2100 I've gone through a few different things and don't worry too much about the microphone quality. It's at first but once you're sure of what you're doing, then go ahead and invest in quality and There are listeners like me who will listen to a poorly produced show if the content is good enough But that's changing and there are many people who won't put up with it So you need to have a high quality show and a high quality audio and it's worth investing in because the choices today It's a much more competitive environment There are many better choices that exist today than even six months ago, and it's only gonna get more and more competitive If your content is good enough, for example, go look at John T Reed site.

It's from like 1992 But he doesn't change it and it works and he makes a lot of money off of it and his content is good There are lots of financial bloggers who have very beautiful sites and who can't break Alexa 1 million So if your content is good enough, you can overcome just about anything But you do want to go ahead and do everything you can to put your best foot forward Talk a little bit about Trey's question here with regard to some of the mistakes that I made and the hosting situation Trey's referring to my upsetness with Using and going with a hosting provider called Bluehost.

I Don't think there's anything wrong with Bluehost and I didn't have a very bad experience there What I didn't understand was their poor reputation among the techies I'm a big kind of take action guy. And so I reached to the point I said, okay, I need to take action quickly And so that was where I just said well, okay, I'll go ahead and use this Bluehost This is what this person is recommending and what I wish they had done was simply said if you want a cheap solution for your site Here's Bluehost if you want a good solution for your site Here's this other provider the provider that I switched to is a provider called WP Engine It's a well-provided.

I think WP probably has to do with WordPress, but it's with WP Engine. It's a it's a much more robust More expensive but much more robust shared hosting platform without getting into the technical lingo Well to get into the technical lingo when you start off having a website you usually start off the most cost-effective approach is something called shared hosting and Shared hosting it costs almost nothing.

You've got tons of people on a single server and that's where your site is held The problem is if you're if you all of a sudden get a lot of traffic your site will not it's not gonna work now depending on your host provider you may Be helped or you may not be and so what happens is some the mainstream Hosting services.

The big one is Bluehost and Hostgator They're owned by the same company and they have another couple names for their stuff, but they're the same company but they put tons and tons of sites on the servers because most sites get not very many visits and even my site doesn't get very many visits to the actual site because the majority of you are Simply listening to the show and you never come to the site but if your site starts to get some traffic it can be quickly shut down and what they will do is because Each site affects the other sites on the server if all of a sudden your show or your site hits the front page of Yahoo!

Finance they'll shut your site down so that not all the other sites on the server will get shut down That's a real problem so It was fine for a while, but I I'm very uncomfortable with that. So WP Engine has a much more robust System much better technology behind it.

It's more expensive you went from four bucks a month to I'm hosting multiple sites now and splitting Splitting the fees it comes out to $100 a month. You're gonna have multiple sites mine, I split that plan with a Friend and it's 50 bucks a month out of my pocket to host the multiple sites that I'm hosting So we've worked that out and it and it works.

Well, it can host up to 10 sites. I think on $100 a month It's a much more robust system. That's what I've switched to at this point. I don't necessarily think that it is Necessary that you spend more money in the beginning the difference between the equivalent of $5 a month with Bluehost versus 10 or $20 a month is substantial So it's good to save the money.

That's what I wish those people had done. I'm actually in the process of in the coming days I'm gonna be setting up some affiliate links and I'm also gonna one of those things I'm gonna do is go ahead and set up an affiliate relationship with WP Engine because they have been excellent They're a good middle tier Solution now if your site grows at some point in time You got to get away from shared hosting and you get into I think they call it the virtual private server and then if you need to grow out if you outgrow that they need to go and basically set up your own server and Who knows maybe the show at some point will get to that level The major problem that I faced with the show was I followed most of the podcasting Tutorials that were out there and if you're starting podcasting you'll see them and the challenge is that I set up my site following the podcasting tutorials and most of the podcasting tutorials use Use a Way of setting up the feed and trying not to be too technical here But I'm but technical enough a way to set up the feed which is what all of you access on your device They deliver it through your server they set it up on WordPress and they deliver it through your server and So what happens is that you've got loads and loads of people and with the size of my files with the frequency of my shows and with the number of people downloading my shows that puts a ton of pressure on to the hosting system And that's a real problem Now I don't I'm not a techie enough to go any farther than that But I started to have some issues and this is what was causing it So what I did was I switched my hosting solution.

I think this is what was causing it It's fuzzy at this point and maybe the podcast techies could let me know but I switched my solution My feed from being hosted and coming through WordPress into your device To being hosted directly with the company with which I host my audio files, which is a company called Libsyn There are various competitors to host your audio files and there are many more today than there have been in the past SoundCloud there's Libsyn there's a blueberry there's Spreaker there's maybe put stuff directly on YouTube There's a lot of different solutions out there, but Libsyn is excellent and they have done an excellent job They have a long history and I think they actually have a business model.

I'm concerned about some of the Companies that are offering hosting at this point and some of the rates that they're doing it for because even though it's cheaper I'm concerned that they're not going to be able to stay in the business Libsyn has been awesome to work with and they have a very affordable and reasonable and value filled Plan and so in fact, I need to I need to go set up a Libsyn affiliate host So I'm gonna put a page on the show The next few days with recommendations and I would be thrilled if you guys would use some of my affiliate links to help increase the revenue Of the show but Libsyn has done a great job.

And so now my feed goes directly with Libsyn So your device your iPhone your Android phone your Windows phone your computer iTunes, whatever they're pulling you're pulling the feed the XML feed for the RSS feed from Libsyn and it's not connected to my site and that gives me an extra layer of protection Whereas if my site goes down it doesn't mess up the feed So your devices will still work and for as a podcaster, especially as a podcast Primary podcast primary content.

That's a big deal So I've got Libsyn taking care of my podcasting feed and the site is separate. I Wish I had done it that way from the beginning That would have saved me a lot now Most of you have made it back to the show But that was a real kick in the stomach to delete your entire audience when you're four months into the show right before you launch your membership program That wasn't and like I said, I'm still about to make some changes in the next few days.

That is going to affect some of you Still recovering from that because what's happened is the old feed Directions are scattered around the internet in different directories. Some of you will listen to me on one directory some of you find me on a different directory and So those feeds are kind of still sprinkled out there.

And so I still haven't fully recovered from that But Trey if you're gonna start off with blogging, I don't think there's anything wrong with Bluehost or the other cheap ones because chances are your site is probably not going to be that big that fast and if it takes you a few years of blogging and you've got five dollars a month versus twenty five dollars a month, then Well, it's probably gonna be okay You were probably better off saving your twenty dollars a month After all I would quickly run calculations.

I look at all this money that you can save For me, I can't take that chance because I'm putting a lot of pressure on this as a primary business Then as a business I have a much heavier incentive to invest in High quality solutions and if you want the robustness then you can then you can do that I think there are some other niche providers out there I have thought about even going ahead and as I've been thinking through what are the companies and and Services that I can recommend Frankly and happily with affiliate relationships.

I've seriously considered even recommending Bluehost But I need to do a little bit more because I had a fine experience. It was easy They have everything really integrated and they do a good job and and it was it's easy But I'm gonna do a little bit more research with my techie friends and just see if there's a comparably priced version crumpler comparably priced solution That might be better.

I think for most people I've I think actually Squarespace is a better solution than even WordPress because I've had to learn a lot about WordPress But it's tough. And so I think some of these other solutions that are out there Squarespace Wix some of these other ones were are a better solution where they're all in one like I'm a big fan now Squarespace I didn't understand it enough in the past, but now I understand it enough to be a big fan So it's not the end.

It's not kind of the biggest one of WordPress, but I'll go into that later I'm gonna see if I want to reach out to them and see if actually they want to advertise because I think When I get back to the fact that every single one of you and me we all need a website for ourselves And I think that the Squarespace value proposition is in many ways stronger than the normal Bluehost WordPress Solution and you don't have to be quite such the technical expert We'll cover that another day last couple of lessons here is One of the biggest things that I would encourage if you're thinking about starting a show is to recognize that podcasting is not blogging This one was tough for me to learn it still still affects me I Spent so much time reading blogs and I thought well, I'll just take this to an audio format but the type of content that is conveyed well and easily in Blogs is not necessarily conveyed well and easily in podcasting You can make a blog post.

It's interesting and that goes viral Off of something that is relatively small and insignificant, but if I got in here and said I'm gonna record this as an audio Podcast it usually doesn't work For what it's very different so Blogging has its place But blogging is not podcasting. So consider approaching podcasting as its own unique art form That's the reason why I have not Really written any blog posts on the site Because I'm focusing on trying to learn how to more effectively create podcasts Podcasts are unique.

They're also not radio. That's the other challenge They're kind of they're also not speeches They're not videos. They're pot. It's it's a different animal Radio is broken up by in general broken up by commercial Interruptions usually about 15 minutes is longest segment some of their segments are four minutes and because of those commercial interact interruptions If you actually listen to a radio show with all of the interviews cut out or the commercials cut out you'll have a very different listening experience than a podcast So It's not that it's bad or good or anything.

I just encourage you don't make the mistake I did which was try to say Okay, here's an idea. That's perfect for a blog That's short and focused and then try to turn it into a podcast. It's a different format another thing that I will just mention as far as a lesson is Interviews interviews are tough.

This has been the toughest thing that I struggled with have struggled with and still I'm grappling with is how to do an excellent interview and the mistake that I made many times was Primarily interviewing authors and I've gone back and forth trying to figure out what's the best way to interview an author My normal tendency is to research everything that I can about somebody Read everything they've written and then try to prepare a specific outline of what I want to take them through This is backfired a number of times there were some authors that I've interviewed on the show that I really was excited to talk to and yet what I realized was I was trying to take them through their book and They didn't want to go through a book because after all they wrote a book and if you want the book go read the book they just wanted to talk and They're kind of wandering here and wandering there in a story and I couldn't get him back to say look talk about your book Here's the outline look I prepared these ten points and how do you lead an author without just delivering it and So I learned that that excessive Research excessive reading thing at least right before the interview isn't necessarily a good plan so I switched and I started trying to just follow my curiosity and Trying actually not to prepare too much in advance but to have a general idea of who somebody is and then follow my curiosity a little bit and That's also very intimidating very challenging because then you arrive with a few ideas of ways that you're gonna go down paths of questioning that you can pursue But you're not quite sure and sometimes you're sitting there saying Okay, what do I ask next?

so if you are going to Create interviews and do an interview show. I think that's a good idea In some ways the interviews are easy because he just asked questions It's much more difficult to come up with an outline for a 60-minute show That has a lot of depth and a lot of breadth and moves with an appropriate pacing it's more difficult sometimes to do that than it is to Do an interview but interviews in and of themselves are tough At the moment I tend to be more in favor of the follow my curiosity approach.

It seems to be producing better results It's not a hundred percent Follow my curiosity I've been Having an idea of where I think we need to go because after all it's my responsibility as a podcast host to bring my audience Something that's useful but the approach of following my gut has been I think producing more interesting content and it has helped me to More effectively reign in somebody when they go off on a tangent or to just redirect the conversation a little bit so I've been learning and I hope that Many of you are able to hear that growth Which brings me to my final point and with this I'm done for today I've intentionally put everything out there with my show as far as leaving all of the old episodes and leaving the ones that Went crazy and did crazy tangents and crazy long and all of that because it's my goal to both teach The content and the ideas and the knowledge that I have that's specific But also to model my implementation of those things in a free and candid way If you've ever thought about creating independent media, please do And don't worry about being perfect but start Because you're the one who will gain the most from it.

I Have gained the most from this show And I will continue to gain the most from this show and If you start creating media of some kind any kind you'll gain the most We live in one of the most incredible times in human history Especially from the perspective of free and open communication We can break down some of the walls that have existed for so long It's Not easy to do But we can do it and I would encourage you to try As long as you're not worried too much about the number of people listening Then you can have a successful experiment a successful podcast if it helps one person As far as I'm concerned my show has already been a roaring success because I've gotten an email From somebody saying Joshua.

My life has been impacted now. I've been fortunate to get many more than one and That is the most heartwarming thing Had some former clients of mine over for dinner last night. We were talking and this was a client a couple that made tremendous changes in their life after our financial planning engagements and This couple was incredibly important to me as a young financial planner because I was so insecure starting off as a planner I've never even looked tell people what I did But then I started working with them and they would take me to you know They would want to a birthday invite me to birthday party and they would tell him this is Joshua sheets Like you've got to talk with Joshua sheets.

Like he's he's awesome. He's our financial advisor. I didn't know what to do with it But the cool thing was just experiencing the impact that had really encouraged me And I was telling them that they were asking about how the show is going. I said the best thing about the show is that I've gotten the same response that I got from you from hundreds of people One is enough Two is awesome Dozens are gratifying And you get that from hundreds.

It's worth doing One of the great benefits of independent media is we can model the growth factors We can leave the mistakes out there By the time you get to some big news anchor on TV, you never see the mistakes But the time you listen to Rush Limbaugh or whoever you know, I'm trying to think of who the the Counterpoint to him is on radio.

I don't know. It seems like all the radio hosts are Right-wing hosts by the time you get to Rush Limbaugh. You've got someone that's been broadcasting for decades Decades But the cool thing is we can leave those mistakes out there to encourage other people And we can provide ideas and inspiration that are exactly where people need to be And when you're forced to sit down and write your ideas out in an outline and then deliver them You're forced to get clear on them When I have to do a show on What would I do if I won the lottery?

I got to sit down and say what would I do if I won the lottery? How does it get any better than that because I Just wrote a show that was the result of my sitting down and saying well, what would I do and Then looking at my answers saying well, why do I really believe this?

Do I really believe that? And that's the cool thing about Independent media you don't have to have a massive audience to have an impact. You don't have to be super popular now It's awesome. I'm working hard to get there. I'm doing everything I can but I'm doing it. I Don't want to sound too I don't have the wrong tone here It's it's really encouraging when the numbers start to grow and I'm thankful for every one of you that listens but I Just hate seeing people do things and then only focusing on the numbers do something because you think it matters Do something because you think it should be done do something because nobody's doing it And let the numbers shake themselves out The cool thing about voluntary content is your audience will self-select themselves No one's forcing them to listen no one's forcing them to read They will self-select and a lot of people come in they'll dip their toes in listen for a little bit and say yeah Not for me and you got to be okay with that but the ones who stick around will be an encouragement to you in the same way that so many of you have been to me and The benefits are massive So if you've ever thought about creating independent media of any kind figure out what's your likely best way to compete What you really want to do?

Do you want to create video? Do you want to write? Do you want to speak and Do it because we need millions more people Doing this type of thing on millions more subjects It's just the beginning And if we get millions of people doing that Each person making a little change in their corner of the world The results are really gonna be amazing Hope this has been useful to you.

I know there's no real financial planning tips in it. I guess there is a little bit I guess this one will go in under the increasing your income section because in today's world We all have to be our own marketers and in many ways and one key aspect of it is you need a website You need a site And you might need a podcast and if you do hopefully this will help you.

I actually am say this earlier. I am going to create a Info product teaching financial advisors how to podcast and I'm gonna do it very specifically I'm gonna create a manual as far as all the technical stuff so that I can help people Avoid that but I read a real Heart to teach financial advisors how to podcast because I think every single financial advisor needs a podcast Not a podcast like mine not a podcast to try to get out five thousand You know listeners all of us cool if they can do that as many people have much bigger audiences to mine that's just I'm sharing my experience, but Financial advisors need a podcast so that their clients can get to know who they are in a non pressured situation I'm gonna create an info product teaching people how to do it.

It'll probably start with a basic With a basic course like a $97 ebook type of thing It might if there's a lot of interest and a lot of traction I might make it some I don't know some fancy big fancy video course if you're interested in that do one of two things go to Financial advisor podcast calm I gotta get I'm gonna get that up over the weekend It's not up yet, but depending on when you're listening to it It may or may not be up go to financial advisor podcast calm There's a quick video and an email capture for put your email address in I'll put you on the list and then as I get that Created depending on the feedback.

I may or may not do it I'm planning on it But I'd love to see you know at least a few people Interested before I put all the work into creating it if that sites not up just email me Joshua radical personal finance calm Let me know you're interested and I'll put you on the list Manual or give you the manual link to get yourself on the list Financial advisor podcast calm if you are interested in learning how to podcast with a specific focus on financial advisory space I'm not trying to be the next podcast answer man, but a specific focus on the financial advisory space And it'll be both the technical and also the big picture because I get a lot of ideas on this for financial advisors financial advisor podcast calm and Email me if it's not up Joshua radical person by calm.

I'll be with you all soon. Cheers Thank you for listening to today's show, please subscribe to the podcast with our free mobile app So you don't miss a single episode just search the App Store on your device for radical personal finance And you'll find our free app if you have received value from the content of this show Please consider becoming a patron your financial support is how I pay the bills for the show and how I plan to grow our content You can support the show with as little as a dollar a month or as much as you feel the content is worth Details are at radical personal finance comm slash patron If you'd like to contact me personally My email address is Joshua at radical personal finance comm or connect with the show on twitter at radical PF and at facebook.com radical personal finance this show is intended to provide entertainment education and Financial enlightenment, but your situation is unique and I cannot deliver any actionable advice without knowing anything about you Please develop a team of professional advisors who you find to be caring competent and trustworthy and Consult them because they are the ones who can understand your specific needs your specific goals and provide Specific answers to your questions.

I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate in today's show But I'm one person and I make mistakes if you spot a mistake in something I've said please come by the show page and comment so we can all learn together Until tomorrow. Thanks for being here when you download the Ralph's app You have easy access to savings every day get the most out of weekly sales and receive personalized coupons to save on your favorite items All while earning one fuel point for every dollar spent Ralph's makes it easy to save while you shop whether it's in-store or online So you get the most value out of every trip every time Download the Ralph's app now to save big on your next purchase Ralph's fresh for everyone must have a digital account to redeem offers restrictions may apply see site for details