Joe Casabona [00:00:00]:

I think even if you're doing an interview, you still want to tell a good story. That doesn't mean that you need to edit the life out of a raw interview.

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:12]:

Welcome to the creator's adventure, where we interview creators from around the world Hearing their stories about growing a business. Today, we're gonna share behind the scenes of how a successful podcast is run. Hey, everyone. I'm Brian McAnulty, the founder of Heads Platform. Let's get into it. Hey, everyone. We're here today with Joe Casa Bona. He is a podcast systems coach who helps busy solopreneurs take back their time.

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:41]:

Joe's strategies come from his many years of experience, over 10 years creating podcasts, more than 15 years teaching, and over 20 years as a web developer. Joe, welcome to the show.

Joe Casabona [00:00:52]:

Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Bryan McAnulty [00:00:56]:

Yeah. I'm looking forward to talking with you. We we got to talk a little bit Quick before, about being on each other's podcast and stuff and found out it seems like we've got a lot in common. And you're also doing a lot with podcasts, so I'm looking forward to talking about that.

Joe Casabona [00:01:10]:

Yes. Likewise. Likewise.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:13]:

So my first question for you Is what would you say is the biggest thing either that you did or you are doing that has helped you to achieve the freedom to do the things you enjoy?

Joe Casabona [00:01:25]:

It's it's gotta be automation, I think, because, well, let me set the stage here. Right? I've got 3 small kids. I'm self employed, and my wife is a nurse. And during the pandemic, things kind of came to a head. Right? My wife was still going to work. And so I was watching first 1, then 2 children, and then eventually 3 children. And I was having trouble running my own business at that point. Right? Because I was only really working when she wasn't working.

Joe Casabona [00:02:05]:

And I had a little bit of a panic attack. And it was, like, my first one ever. It was very strange. I had never experienced anything like that. And I realized it's because I was so stressed that I wasn't like, my salary from my business was still, like, the breadwinning, salary. And I I realized that things needed to change. And so I looked at I made a list of everything I I did, and I circle the things that I personally had to do, and then I either hired a VA to do things or I created an automation or a process to do the rest. And doing that saved me 12 hours per week.

Joe Casabona [00:02:52]:

And so I could focus when I could work. I could focus on the things I needed to focus on to make money and know that the rest of the stuff was happening behind the scenes.

Bryan McAnulty [00:03:03]:

Yeah. That's great. Yeah. I mean, I can only imagine I've got 1 daughter, but 3 during the pandemic And trying to find time to to get things done. Definitely. That is a challenge. So at that point, like, how long have you already been Podcasting. Like, how did you get into podcasting and coaching?

Joe Casabona [00:03:23]:

Yeah. So I my 1st podcast, I started in, like, the end of 2012, maybe early 2013, but that was a dumpster fire. It was just like a bunch of white dudes talking. Right. Like, the worst kind of format for a podcast. No good moderator. It was just, like, a lot of nonsense. No offense to me and my friends who did it, but it wasn't it wasn't good content.

Joe Casabona [00:03:50]:

And so I launched my main show, which is called How I Built It. In July 2016, I bought the domain How I Built dot it while we were on our honeymoon in Italy. And I was like, I need to figure out a a a thing to do with this awesome domain. And then I started interviewing a few of my friends about how they built their WordPress businesses, and I thought, oh, this is this is a good idea for a podcast. So I launched in July 2016. I have been self employed, basically since I mean, if we count high school since I was 14, say for about 6 years between grad school and 2017 where I had, like, full time jobs to have health insurance.

Bryan McAnulty [00:04:43]:

Interesting. So we know that now you've got 3 different podcasts, podcast workflows, how I built it, and start local. So first of all, I guess, like, what's the inspiration for doing all those? You really enjoy podcasts? And then in In doing all those and doing them for so many years, can you think about maybe one key action that has helped to grow those podcasts?

Joe Casabona [00:05:08]:

Yeah. So how, again, how I built at my main show, like, that made money instantly. Like, I had a a sponsor before it actually launched. And so that is an income generator for me. When I pivoted

Bryan McAnulty [00:05:23]:

I wanna stop there quick. How how do you find how do you find that sponsor? Because that's, like, that's the dream I imagine for a lot of people saying, oh, I wanna start a podcast. When am I gonna be able to get a sponsor?

Joe Casabona [00:05:33]:

Let me tell you. It was kind of due to a glib email that I sent to somebody who asked for a backlink. The you know, they said, like, oh, hey. Like, you're well known in the WordPress space. I have this new guide. Will you link it on this specific page on your website? And I said, oh, I don't do backlinks, but I'm launching a new podcast that talks about WordPress stuff. For $99, you can sponsor that episode, and it'll have a forever on there. And he said yes, and I was floored.

Joe Casabona [00:06:05]:

Now the behind the curtain look at all of that is that I had spent years building my network and authority in the WordPress space. I had actually written 2 books on WordPress at that point. And so I was already a recognized authority in the WordPress space. So I think that's the key. Like, if I had started a podcast on fountain pens or cigar smoking or Disney, that wouldn't have worked because nobody knows Joe for those things or at least not as well as they know me for these other things. Right? So

Bryan McAnulty [00:06:44]:

Yep.

Joe Casabona [00:06:44]:

If you're starting a podcast today, think about what your expertise is in, where your where your network lies, and where people trust you because that's initially how your show is going to make money.

Bryan McAnulty [00:06:59]:

Yeah. That's good advice. When I started my first podcast was In, I guess, 2012 when we actually launched it. 2011 when we started recording it. Maybe actually 2010 when we started recording. I don't know. Around then. Nice.

Bryan McAnulty [00:07:13]:

Yeah. It, it only lasted for, like, 1 season. We recorded almost 2 seasons. Unfortunately, it didn't get to release the rest. Part of the problem was the the process for editing and everything. We made it way too complicated on ourselves.

Joe Casabona [00:07:27]:

And, I mean, in in 2010, it was already really complicated to do what we're doing today.

Bryan McAnulty [00:07:33]:

Yeah. The idea of exporting, like, a 10 80 p video even, like, on a good computer, it was still like, okay. Let's Let this render for 48 hours, and

Joe Casabona [00:07:41]:

then it'll

Bryan McAnulty [00:07:42]:

be ready. And then uploading was a whole another thing. So, yeah, much faster now today to do these kind of things. But, also, video hosting was so expensive back then, and that made me think of, like, our our 1st sponsor with that. And one of the only ones we really had was the video hosting company that, we approached them and said, hey. Like, we're going to have this podcast. We'd like to use you as the video host. If we, like, keep your logo in there, mention you sometimes in, like, the description, can we get free video hosting? And at the time, like, what they were gonna provide us, it would have been, like, $1,000 a month or something.

Bryan McAnulty [00:08:16]:

Like, video hosting was ridiculous then. And, like, if you didn't wanna be on YouTube and wanted, like, private video hosting. And Right. So we got we got that, which was great. But, again, it was similar because, like, we had we had been known as a Web design development studio already. So we had some presence to be able to say, like, hey. We're known for this thing. We're starting this show now.

Bryan McAnulty [00:08:38]:

Would you wanna sponsor it? For somebody who's never done podcast before and doesn't really have the audience yet, One thing I saw that people approached us with, which was interesting, is they said, hey. I'm starting a podcast. If you Mention the link to promote my podcast because I think it would fit your audience just in a tweet or something. Then I'll give you a sponsorship slot in, like, this episode. Yeah. And so they gave it away for free, but I think that was a great strategy because then they got a little bit of promotion from us. I doubt it really did anything, But it also helps them in the long run because when they approach a sponsor in the future, they can say, like, look. I've had these are some sponsorship, like, slots I've done, And here's, like they you get an idea of, like, them reading off the ad copy, like, how it works, and, it's better than not having anything.

Bryan McAnulty [00:09:28]:

So I thought that was an interesting approach as well.

Joe Casabona [00:09:31]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's really smart. And I've seen people do the same thing with affiliate, links. Right? Like, so they'll say, you know, this especially if we both come from the web design space. Right? One of the most generous affiliate programs come from hosting companies, and so they'll say, you know

Bryan McAnulty [00:09:46]:

And and Audible too. I remember we did like, we made a custom video for Audible just because the payout would be really good when people would sign

Joe Casabona [00:09:52]:

up for trials. Yeah. So you could always try that if you don't have sponsors. I recommend most people I mean, especially your audience. Right? If you don't have a sponsor, quote, unquote, you could sponsor your own episode. Right? Because you probably have a course or a digital product or an email list that you're trying to build. So I would say, make those spots for you and give yourself some dedicated promotional time in your own show.

Bryan McAnulty [00:10:20]:

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's Great advice. And, like, right now on this show, like, we don't have any sponsorships because it's mainly meant as a marketing thing for us. So, Definitely. So if somebody's trying to do that and they say, okay. I get it. Podcasting is good.

Bryan McAnulty [00:10:34]:

I can grow my brand. I have the potential for sponsorships. Then back to what I was asking you. Now you've got 3 podcasts. What's, like, one of the the key actions or secrets of how to grow those podcasts?

Joe Casabona [00:10:48]:

Yeah. Right. So let's close this loop. Right? How I built it, my main show Yep. Makes money through sponsorship. I started podcast workflows for that for this exact reason, right, to build authority. I don't want sponsors on it. And then Start Local is a local podcast that I do with a friend because I am relatively new to the area, and I don't know a lot of people.

Joe Casabona [00:11:08]:

And so the podcast is a vehicle to help me meet business entrepreneurs, activists, people in my area. Yeah. And so growing each of those podcasts is going to be a little bit different. Right? I wish I could tell you that I knew, like, the secret sauce to building how I built it. It kinda just it was good timing. Right? The type of show I was doing was still pretty new at the time, I was telling in not just the success stories, but the failures. I probably benefited a benefited a little bit from, auxiliary search traffic because How I Built This came out 3 or 4 months after How I Built It came out. And so we were kind of doing, like, similar things.

Joe Casabona [00:11:58]:

That said, I didn't see, like, a spike 1 week and then it dropped off. Right? I still saw regular growth. I think the thing for that one was bringing quality content to the table because I planned, I knew the people I was interviewing, and I knew the story I wanted to tell. And so I think with any of these shows. It really does come down to the quality of the content you're putting out and the story that you're telling. Right? Because everybody, you know, everybody thing is the hero in their own mind, right, or the hero in their own movie. But when you're creating content for somebody, they really are the hero. Right? You wanna act you want them to be the hero in the story you're telling, and then you or your guest serves as the guide, taking them from where they are through some transformation by the end of the episode.

Joe Casabona [00:12:53]:

And I think that each of my podcasts do that particularly well because it's always something I'm thinking about.

Bryan McAnulty [00:13:01]:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could tell even looking at, like, I I'm set up to be on your show, and you've got that right there in the forum describing that just to make sure that the guest understands. Like, Hey. Like, the the audience like, they're the hero, and, like, you're the guide to explain that to them.

Joe Casabona [00:13:19]:

Yeah. In our, I mean, in our show doc, right, I have it broken up into acts 1, 2, and 3, right, where act 1 is the setup, you know, I guess, to peek behind the curtain again. Like, Brian's gonna be on my show. You know, we're gonna set it up and talk about, like, AI with course creation. Act 2. I don't wanna spoil, but it's gonna be a conflict. Right? Especially, it's, like, easy to create a conflict with AI. And then act 3 is the resolution.

Joe Casabona [00:13:45]:

Right? So we're taking our hero through, okay, they're starting out on this journey. Oh, but they now there's this tension. How do we get over this tension? And then the resolution is, how can I apply what Brian just taught us today?

Bryan McAnulty [00:14:02]:

Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I wonder like, we don't We don't think about that as much in our, like, question planning and research. And, like, there's definitely a structure to to how we do that, But I I like the idea of purposely ensuring you're setting up, like, a conflict resolution in a way. Like, however small it is. Like, not not trying to agitate your guest, of course. But Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:14:26]:

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. Just

Joe Casabona [00:14:27]:

I know. It's not gonna be like, oh, isn't what you do BS. Right? Like

Bryan McAnulty [00:14:30]:

Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't have to be like that. So Yeah. Yeah. I think that is interesting because, like, that can happen and come up naturally, But why why leave that to chance if you can kinda design for it in your process?

Joe Casabona [00:14:44]:

Right. And and then if it does come up by chance, how are you gonna cleanly resolve it? Right? I was just kind of saying this to somebody, the other day. Right? Like, when you fly, it's not because, like, a lot of people will just say, like, oh, I just show up to an interview, and I wanna be as surprised as my my listeners are. So I don't do any research on my guest. Right? But, like, when you fly, imagine a pilot saying that, hey, everybody. I just learned we're going to LA today. I've I don't know how we're gonna get there, but we'll get there. Like, that that would be an insane thing to hear.

Joe Casabona [00:15:18]:

And so when you're when you're driving a story for your listeners. You wanna know where you're starting, what the conflict is gonna be, and where you want your listeners to end up. That's going to be a much more enjoyable experience for your listeners.

Bryan McAnulty [00:15:38]:

Yeah. Yeah. I like that. And it it's interesting, though. I'm trying to find the balance in between those things in a way, and I'm Not sure if you would agree with me if it's even possible or not. But, personally, like, I guess my view is I also wanna find, like, the balance of what's the right Amount of time for me to commit to the podcast because it's not, like, the main business for me. It's something I'm doing for marketing. And so I have a team involved that's they're helping me do the research, come up with the questions.

Bryan McAnulty [00:16:10]:

But for me, it's kind of like I'm getting, Like, sometimes my producer will make me a video, say, like, hey. These are the things you have to know about the person. These are different things that that would be great to cover or get into And then all the questions. So I I get, like, briefed on it. So I'm the pilot who says, hey. I've never, flown to LA before, But I've got a map. I know what direction to go, and these are the important things I have to look out for. So

Joe Casabona [00:16:35]:

Yeah. You have your flight plan, at least. Yeah. Like, that's yeah. Like, the pilot doesn't make the flight plan, I don't think. I don't know. Now I'm talking out of my depth here, but someone makes a flight a flight plan. Right? I I think the balance you're trying to strike is a common one.

Joe Casabona [00:16:50]:

Right? I was talking to Jay Klaus about this, from Creator Science. And he said that he doesn't wanna do so much research that his interviews feel like a profile on somebody because that's very different content. Right? Yeah. That feels inorganic. Whereas the best interviews, if you look at, you know, Barbara Walters or Larry King or somebody more contemporary than both of those people who I can't think of right now. Their interviews feel organic even if they are edited. Right? Because they don't necessarily know what their guest is gonna say, but they do know the story they're trying to tell. 60 Minutes.

Joe Casabona [00:17:34]:

Somebody on 60 Minutes. Right? They, like, they tell

Bryan McAnulty [00:17:36]:

take a good story. Process of discovery for the person interviewing, asking the questions to be able to to learn new things instead of just, I know the answer to this, but I wanna ask it anyway for my structure.

Joe Casabona [00:17:49]:

Right. Because because at some point, it feels contrived.

Bryan McAnulty [00:17:52]:

Yeah.

Joe Casabona [00:17:53]:

Right? Because then you're like, so blah blah. You did this. Tell us about that. Blah blah. Right? Like, it's just like, that feels boring. Yeah. So you do need to strike the right balance. And I think editing can help with that too.

Joe Casabona [00:18:08]:

Right? If you get, like, a lot of you know, some people will just get a ton of of b roll and then edit it together later. And, like, that's another balance that you wanna strike. Like, do you wanna do a lot of prep ahead of time to get the good conversation on tape or on bytes, or do you just wanna, like, have a free flowing conversation and then pick out the best bits later. Right? That's a lot of work, but you can really craft a good narrative if you get the right stuff that way.

Bryan McAnulty [00:18:40]:

So with all the podcasts that are out there right now, how can you actually differentiate yourself? Because in the past few years, there's been so many Different podcasts that have been coming up. Everybody wants to create a podcast. Would you say there's a a better path of, like, choosing, like, to Highly edit an interview or even releasing it raw.

Joe Casabona [00:19:02]:

Yeah. So I think that, again, like, the thing that you want to do is create content that differentiates you. And the most popular content today, I'm noticing, is story driven content. Right? History Daily is one of my favorite podcasts. It's a daily event sometime in history, it's 15 minutes. But the host, Lindsey Graham, not that Lindsey Graham, tells a story, has a character, names them, sets up sets up the environment for you. And so I think even if you're doing an interview, you still want to tell a good story. That doesn't mean that you need to edit the life out of a raw interview.

Joe Casabona [00:19:50]:

But it probably means that you need to do more prep than just record and release. Right? A lot of people say, like, oh, I just wanna do like Joe Rogan does and just have, like, a raw unedited interview. First of all, we don't really know if if Joe Rogan is not at like, I don't think he's ever explicitly said that his his interviews are not edited. They just feel that way. Just, again, like a Barbara Walters interview where a 60 minutes interview feels like it's not edited, even those those definitely are. And it's hard to drive a story when it's not edited. So, I think that when you plan your show, think about the story you wanna tell. Think about how your listener is the hero, and think about how either your guest, probably your guest or you are the guide and then the transformation that you want them to go through.

Joe Casabona [00:20:45]:

If you have those 3 things, then you're you're gonna be able to craft something that the listener will be engaged with and will get something out of. Right? Because your audience, Brian, my audience, we're we're solopreneurs. We're trying to establish some expertise. So we're not making, like, serial or criminal or some other true crime podcast. We're making a podcast to help us, hopefully, grow our business. And so because of that, your listeners want to learn something, and you wanna do that in the most clear but also entertaining way possible.

Bryan McAnulty [00:21:23]:

Yeah. Yeah. And I definitely agree with With all of that, I think that the the format and everything is also important to pay attention to. Like, when you mentioned somebody like Joe Rogan, like, this is a long form podcast. Like, they're, like, what, a couple hours, like, those episodes.

Joe Casabona [00:21:40]:

They're, like, 3 hours. I don't even know how I'm

Bryan McAnulty [00:21:43]:

gonna do this. So I think that there's a big difference of saying, like, okay. I want a podcast that's 30 minutes long or 20 minutes long. And That podcast also being with somebody who you haven't met or don't necessarily know very well versus somebody like I don't know Joe Rogan's process either or or how well he gets to know some of these people before he first talks with them. But I also find, like, if you if you know the person, if you know a little bit more about them, It's easier to ask these different questions to kind of uncover things that they might think about or or know these paths you can go down and kinda just have that conversation for a couple hours versus somebody who you've never interacted with before. So I think figuring out your goals, The kind of people you wanna have on, how the format's supposed to work, that will kind of help piece everything together of what would make sense for your podcast.

Joe Casabona [00:22:34]:

Yeah. For sure. And I I tell people they should have a podcast mission statement. Right? So I say, your podcast should answer 3 questions. Who are you talking to, what problem do they have, and how do you help them solve that problem? And that usually forms a sentence like, my podcast helps blank solve blank buy and then the goal of each episode. Right? So my podcast helps solopreneurs win back their time by teaching them how to work more efficiently, own their business instead of in their business.

Bryan McAnulty [00:23:12]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And I like the part, though, also about the entertainment because I think In the space of, like, this not necessarily, like, how to podcasts, but a podcast where you're trying to share knowledge and and teach your audience in some way. It's important to keep the the entertainment part in there because everyone like, you're listening to it not only to learn something, but also to be entertained at some level. And I found that I went maybe too much into, like, learn how to do things at first, and that, actually, some of the more personal stories that people had told, like, Those are the popular moments that everyone can connect to. And I don't know if you have advice for this, but I wish I could come up with A couple questions or ways to ask things to uncover those better because it's easy to ask somebody like, hey. Like, Joe, how do you do this with podcasting? And you might happen to have a a cool story about that, but I can't just say, like, hey, Joe.

Bryan McAnulty [00:24:08]:

Tell me a really cool, like, personal story that, like, your friends really or something and connect it to something about podcasting. Like, you're

Joe Casabona [00:24:14]:

just supposed to be time you had a panic attack.

Bryan McAnulty [00:24:17]:

Right? Like Right. Yeah. You you either don't know the the context to ask the right question, or you're just putting somebody on the spot that they're not gonna think of what's the right thing to say. Do you have any suggestions for that?

Joe Casabona [00:24:29]:

So Andrew Warner has a really good book called, Stop Asking Questions. Right? Yep. I think one of the things that he says in the book that really resonated with me was the pre interview. Like, get deep in the pre interview where you're not courting. Because there, you are learning about your guest, and their guard is down a little bit because you're not recording. And so you can, prep them a little bit and say, like, hey. I'd really like to ask you about this, or tell me about this time. Right? Or, like, you know, when we were going over the questions before and and you asked like, we were going through them, it didn't come up, but I I had that's the story holstered.

Joe Casabona [00:25:13]:

Right? What I didn't include in that story was that my 3 year old, like, brought me a bottle of water and told me it's gonna be okay. Right? A very emotional impactful moment in that story. But doing the pre interview, can really help with that. Right? And so, there are probably also some some kind of leading questions that you can ask during that. Like, tell me about a time where you were struggling or, you know, like, you run 3 podcasts now. Was it always that easy? Oh, tell me more about that. Like, just kind of the tell me more. Oh, what's your family life like? And this and what are the struggle that you have being a course creator or a solopreneur? I tell people who are going on podcasts, have 3 to 4 stories ready.

Joe Casabona [00:26:01]:

Right? So, like, I mean, that Yeah. Panic attack story, like, I have that bolstered. Right?

Bryan McAnulty [00:26:05]:

Because, also, you have to you have to be prepared when you're going on a podcast. The person interviewing you may not necessarily be good at interviewing, and they may not ask the right questions to get to any of that. So You wanna have those things in mind that you you can bring them up if the question is not really, I guess, correct or or going down the right path, To do that naturally.

Joe Casabona [00:26:27]:

Yeah. And, like, sure. A good interviewer will do it. A bad interviewer won't, but you could still have that story. Right? So, like, I was watching, this is really timely, actually. Right? But I was watching I I like to watch, Jimmy Fallon, like, clips the night after they're published because 11:30 is too late for me. And he had please don't destroy on. This is, like, the 3 young guys who do those digital clips for SNL every week.

Joe Casabona [00:26:55]:

And he was talking about one thing, and he kind of brought up. He's like, so you've had some really cool guests on, including Taylor Swift. Right? And then they launched into the story about having Taylor Swift honest a very popular and funny skit called 3 Sad Virgins. Right? And they were ready to tell that story. Right? So it's it I I'm going to guess that Jimmy didn't just bring that up in the moment. Right?

Bryan McAnulty [00:27:24]:

Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Casabona [00:27:24]:

He probably said, like, hey. I'm gonna bring up Taylor Swift because she was probably the biggest person you've had. Are you prepared to tell that? And they're like, yeah. Of course. So, you know, it's it's a little bit it's a little bit of that. And this is why, like, research and prep, like, a pre interview are so important.

Bryan McAnulty [00:27:40]:

Yeah. Yeah. I think I mean, I wrote that down myself. I think something that we can probably Improve is instead of me just talking about what we're gonna talk about in a pre interview, I should poke around a little bit more, ask a couple questions just to kinda find out Maybe these are some other places I can go down when I actually do the interview. And, yeah, like, I I interviewed Andrew Warner on our podcast. It's been nice. He he lives here in Austin, so I've I've gotten to know him.

Joe Casabona [00:28:07]:

Oh, that's awesome.

Bryan McAnulty [00:28:09]:

Like, I know I've followed Mixergy and listened to his show for a while. And so his his book came out, and I thought, like, I wanna get him on the podcast and teach everybody how to interview. And it was funny because that was one of the moments that One of the big things I feel like I learned from him that I'm sitting there trying to interview him, and I was actually a little bit frustrated because I'm trying to figure out to To tell my audience and be the guide and say, hey, guys. This is how you should properly interview somebody. But he starts going on and about all these And I'm thinking, well, why are you telling me all these, like, these different things? Like, I wanna learn how to to interview. And then I realized that The stories are important because that's what keeps people engaged. And one of the clips actually that we had with him, we shared one of those stories about his kids, selling lemonade, and he told his kids, like, just tell people they can pay whatever they want. They ended up into a business lesson, but that clip got us, like, over 50,000 views On Instagram, it beat all of our other clips that year, and it was because it was that personal story.

Bryan McAnulty [00:29:11]:

And so It wasn't that he was, like, off that day or something or, like, I was not asking the right questions. He was doing everything exactly right of realizing The stories are what keep people engaged.

Joe Casabona [00:29:23]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's that's exactly right. I mean, again, let's look at History Daily. Right? Lindsey Graham could just easily just as easily say, you know, today is, November 7th, on this day in 2018, blah blah blah happened. Right? But he doesn't. Like, he never does that because that's super boring. Instead, what he does is say, you know, it's a cool, crisp autumn evening.

Joe Casabona [00:29:52]:

And, Joanne is out for a walk along her favorite river, the River Liffey in Dublin, Ireland. The wind brushes past her hair, and then all of a sudden, she hears gunshots. Right? Now you're in it. Right? You'll get to what the actual historical event is, but now you're emotionally invested in it. And so just the same thing with Andrew telling the story about his kids in the lemonade stand. Like, oh, man. Am I a bad parent for not giving my kids better business lessons? Oh, let me listen in more and see what he did because I wanna take that and integrate it into my parenting. Right? Yeah.

Joe Casabona [00:30:31]:

Like, it makes you emotionally attached in some way.

Bryan McAnulty [00:30:34]:

Yeah. Exactly. Alright. So you talked a lot about The automation. I wanna get back to that now and learn a little bit more about this and share with our audience about, like, The process behind podcasting, how they can automate that and and add that into their business if they want to, without worrying about, like, It being this whole other thing that they have to do. So I want to kinda hear some some tips and advice for you on those processes. But before that, I thought it might be good to kinda share a little bit of, like, the background for our podcast and what our kinda workflow is. It'd be interesting to hear from you.

Bryan McAnulty [00:31:13]:

Maybe if you have pointers, if you say, like, oh, I'm doing that too, or anything like that. Or even just to see maybe maybe both of what we're doing Is different but still works, just to give people even different perspectives. So in our podcast, I don't know if it's as much automation, but maybe more delegation where I have 4 different people, including myself, that are involved in Making the creator's adventure happen. So I get to do the fun part. I get to sit here and and talk with people like Joe and, get to, learn things and, have these cool conversations, but there is definitely a lot of Other work that is involved in the whole process. So what we do is we have a process for researching for guests And also, like, guests that approach us and say, hey. I wanna be on the show, like vetting them and deciding if they're right. And I'm not gonna go through the whole thing, but kinda, like, condense it down so people get the high level overview.

Bryan McAnulty [00:32:14]:

And that is that everybody, no matter if we're asking them to be on the show or they're pitching us, They have to fill out this application form. And that gives us an idea of the kind of things they're gonna talk about, but make sure that we have, like, their headshot, their website link, Social media and all that's ready to go. So that way, when we do produce the episode, if we move forward with it, we don't have to go back and forth and ask them for things. And then Once we know that we've got that filled out and then internally, someone from my team approves them. So I have 1 person doing, like, that research scheduling, all that, and we send them the scheduling link with a a Calendly link, get them booked, with the Riverside link to to come and record here. And then once that is scheduled and we have a date for the recording, someone else on my team then does the research, like, ax access the producer role to learn about that person, learn about both from what they submitted to us and website, their social media, things they've talked about before, to make sure that, number 1, like, we're not repeating just the same exact thing they've always talked about, that we can uncover something new and that we we ask the right questions to kind of give our audience something useful. So then after that, then I actually do the recording, and we don't really have a pre interview process where we're scheduling hold separate time for that. I just do something real quick before the actual recording.

Bryan McAnulty [00:33:40]:

And then finally, I'm done that. I hand it off to our video editor, And he puts in the intro that I record, finds the intro clip, and then puts it all in our nice, kinda background and everything like that for export. And the way that we manage that together is we just use a click up list, and we have every guest inside that list with A status and, like, a template for the task that has all these subtasks. Because there's a bunch of little things I didn't mention, like creating the thumbnail for the episode, Uploading everything to the right places, getting the audio version versus the video version, and then sending, like, a thank you email to the guest, sending the guest the link, That kind of thing. So the way we manage that is we've got the ClickUp task, and then we've got these different statuses that is like, once they're scheduled, then it's in the recording state, Then it goes to editing once all the recording files are ready, then edits complete, uploaded, and scheduled, and then complete. And at each of those steps, we've got an automation and click up that is basically notifying the right person. It says like, hey. Your turn.

Bryan McAnulty [00:34:46]:

Now it's like an assembly line of, like, alright. Now you've gotta do this little task, and then the next person does the next task. And that's worked out really well for us so far. But still, like, in our case, like, it's it's been really easy, at least for me, but There are 4 people involved in total.

Joe Casabona [00:35:05]:

Right.

Bryan McAnulty [00:35:05]:

So I wonder if you have any any recommendations or anything you see From what I described there, that's that's missing or that could be improved.

Joe Casabona [00:35:15]:

Yeah. So one of the most time consuming things for interview based podcast is, like, the guest research and scheduling dance, and it sounds like you've got that down. Right? I have a very similar process where users get the same form or potential guests get the same form whether one thing I like to do here, especially if I'm inviting someone onto my show, is prefill the form out as much as possible so that they don't have to do as much filling in. And I do that through, like, URL, like, query string URL variables. Until, like, I have a little builder for that. That's like a little extra. I don't know how many questions you're really asking, but, like, I try to make it as easy as possible, especially if I'm asking a high profile guest. So that's one thing.

Joe Casabona [00:36:11]:

And then, as they move through my process, which it sounds like since you're doing everything in ClickUp, it's kind of the same thing. Once they book through Calendly, I I pass all of that form stuff to Calendly as well. So all of that stuff is already filled in on Calendly for them as well. So, they don't have to, like, fill in the form twice. And they get a Google Doc created, did they get added to my IUs Airtable? I'll probably be switching to Notion. And there's 1 more bit here that I feel like I'm kind of oh, and then they get their own, like, guest notes and things like that. Right? So

Bryan McAnulty [00:36:53]:

Yeah.

Joe Casabona [00:36:53]:

I I send them the guest notes, and they see what's happening. Right? And all of this is automated, so they'll know kind of what to expect on the day we record. I include the preinterview at the beginning as well. So I think you're doing all of that really well. Prove it, but maybe not. Right? Because your, like, your team goes in and grabs the files from Riverside. Right?

Bryan McAnulty [00:37:19]:

Yep.

Joe Casabona [00:37:19]:

How are you doing edit notes?

Bryan McAnulty [00:37:23]:

Well, we don't edit the main interview. Mhmm. So what it ends up being is Like, in this case, actually, we did have to pause one time real quick

Joe Casabona [00:37:32]:

Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:37:32]:

And and restart it. So what I'm gonna do is go and leave a comment on Your guest task and say to our video editor, hey. Actually, I had to pause this, so there's 2 files that have to be combined. Just make sure You're checking during that area to to edit everything together. So, yeah, usually, it's just a comment with me that I'll leave immediately after to make sure I don't forget.

Joe Casabona [00:37:54]:

Gotcha. And then I think you also do a cold open, right, with the with the guest quote too, or you do that sometimes. Right? So

Bryan McAnulty [00:38:01]:

Yeah. Yeah. So I record that after the episode as well.

Joe Casabona [00:38:04]:

Okay. Cool. So what I'll do there, right, is, during our interview, view if you say something that I think is a really good way to open the show. I'll make that time stamp. And then I put everything in a folder, put it in Dropbox, and then, like, Airtable automatically updates, my editor gets an email, etcetera, etcetera. So, I think another place where, it sounds like you're doing pretty well, but where a lot of podcasters can improve is taking more notes during the interview. I know it's a skill that you need to kinda learn because you're trying to actively listen and take notes. But something that saves me a ton of time is, like, when there's an edit point, for me, like because I edit con I edit for content.

Joe Casabona [00:38:51]:

I'll usually write the time stamp down and then, like, in big bold letters, edit, so that I can provide more context later. And this is where, like, a Riverside or a Descript and with their automatic transcripts helps a lot now.

Bryan McAnulty [00:39:06]:

Yep.

Joe Casabona [00:39:07]:

Because I usually just would say to my editor, like, somewhere around 10 minutes and 19 seconds, we messed up. Can you fix that? But now I can say, like, oh, yeah. They went on for, like, 2 and a half minutes starting here. Just cut that whole thing out. And I'll do this again, I'll do the same thing for the cold open. So when I pass it off to my editor, I don't have to relisten. Right? Some people are like, oh, I relistened to the whole thing at two x. Don't do that.

Joe Casabona [00:39:33]:

You don't have to do that. You can take notes during the the actual interview, and that can save you a bunch of time. Because now you're

Bryan McAnulty [00:39:43]:

Yeah.

Joe Casabona [00:39:44]:

You know where to edit. You don't have to listen for edits.

Bryan McAnulty [00:39:47]:

Yeah. That's a good point. And I I think that's definitely something we could Improve, and I could improve. I'm not really good at clicking, like, the the clip button or the or the marker here in Riverside.

Joe Casabona [00:39:57]:

And Yeah. Right. I forgot that there is a a clip button here in Riverside that can do that.

Bryan McAnulty [00:40:01]:

Yeah. What we end up doing is later like, I use their their magic clips thing that goes through and tries to make AI clips and then their transcript. But then we also take the transcripts, and we put them into a tool called Cast Magic, which does, like Yeah. A bunch of AI prompts on it. And then that makes it easier to pick out things for, like, social media clips and all that kind of thing. But definitely, like, I'll take a part of the transcript and then just screenshot that And send it to the editor to say, like, hey. Here like, this is the exact moment so that he can go and find those words instead of having to listen back to it because, yeah, they're still not completely satisfied with our our process for making the social clips. I think it takes us too long.

Bryan McAnulty [00:40:44]:

I know it takes us too long because we're we've got such a backlog right now. And, yes, still, it I know we can do better with it now that we've got AI, but until we fully optimize that, like, previously, someone would then go back, listen to the whole podcast over again, and then try to pick those things up.

Joe Casabona [00:41:01]:

Yeah. And that's tough. Like, that's like people ask me, like, how can I automate my social media or my clips? It's just that still needs a human touch, and you can improve your process to make the human touch more accurate. Right.

Bryan McAnulty [00:41:18]:

Yeah. Definitely. Cool. Well, I was thinking about that as I was talking about it with you here. One of the things that is really easy If you wanna start this and you're saying like, okay. Well, I'm not sure about setting up all these pieces to automate right away. I mean, on one hand, I would say if you're starting a podcast, you should plan to, like, commit to it for a year. So it could make sense to invest into doing all that, make it easy for yourself.

Bryan McAnulty [00:41:43]:

But one of the pieces that Doesn't really require any, like, technical ability to automate is giving the guest all the information that they need of saying, like, this is how we record it. This Just, like, make sure you're in a good room with a good microphone, headphones, all that kind of thing, those notes. And, like, that, you can just put in the calendar invite In the email that they get right after a document somewhere. And so that's easy to make sure that they just have it rather than trying to say, I'm gonna start doing everything manually. And then, like, the day before you realize, oh, I didn't tell them anything about this. Right. Or you just never never do that. And then they show up, and then, they're in this really dark room, and they didn't know it was gonna be on video or who knows?

Joe Casabona [00:42:27]:

Yeah. Absolutely. Actually, one of the one one of what I think is the killer features in Calendly, is the ability to redirect a person to a different page. I don't know if this is just on the paid plan. I like I but Calendly provides enough value that I pay for it. But when someone books for my podcast interview, they get redirected to a page called recording notes. So it's in the email. It's in the calendar invite, and it's the first thing they see after they've booked.

Joe Casabona [00:43:01]:

So I know for a fact that they they see these things. Right? And that's really helped. Like, I've had way more prepared guests, like, since I've started doing that. And I've also had guests tell me like, hey. Thanks. This is the most prepared I've ever felt for a podcast interview. So, like, little things like that really do help. And and, Brian, I felt the same way.

Joe Casabona [00:43:22]:

Like, got a few emails from your team. Here are the questions we're thinking about asking. Here's all the stuff that you need to know. I need to

Bryan McAnulty [00:43:28]:

be sure to do that. It's it's not like you don't know our process. You've kind of been through it. So

Joe Casabona [00:43:32]:

Yeah. Yeah. But but that's great. Like, so from, like, it from a end user point of view. Right? I did. I felt I felt more prepared than usual. Right? I'll definitely more prepared than, like I'll tell you. I I canceled a podcast interview that I was supposed to do this morning because they reached out on LinkedIn.

Joe Casabona [00:43:53]:

They I guess if they're listening, they might know who I'm talking about. But, they reached out on LinkedIn. They said, hey. Do you wanna come on my podcast? I just automatically said sure without really realizing or without really, like, doing my due diligence. I was, like, traveling, and I was like, oh, yeah. Let's do it. And then I started to do my due diligence. I hadn't the only the only emails I got from this individual was their welcome sequence.

Joe Casabona [00:44:18]:

So they automatically subscribe me to their email list, which don't do that. Like, that's like don't do that. Like, don't automatically do it at least, and nothing else. So I just canceled, and I said, hey. I don't really think I'm a good fit for your podcast. Like, I didn't know what it was about, until I did my own research. I didn't know what kind of questions it was gonna be. And to be honest, I kinda got, like, you're gonna sell me you're gonna do, like, a hard sell at the end of the interview feeling.

Joe Casabona [00:44:52]:

So avoid that by preparing your guest and letting them know everything that they can expect.

Bryan McAnulty [00:44:58]:

Yeah. Yeah. Because they'll they will feel more comfortable to to open up more to you on the actual show rather than that that'll help ease some of the tension Along with, like, the pre interview and what you talked about. So

Joe Casabona [00:45:10]:

Yeah. And then they'll be more yeah. They'll tell those those personal stories that stick.

Bryan McAnulty [00:45:16]:

Yeah. So any any tools or software that you find indispensable in in kinda managing and automating Tasks related to podcast creation. I know I know you mentioned Calendly. That's one of them.

Joe Casabona [00:45:28]:

Yeah. How much time you got? No. I'll I'll mention, like, 3, I guess. Calendly is one of them. Really, any scheduler, that works best for you. SavvyCal is another really good one, that does a lot of the same things that Calendly does. Some automation tools so I use Make.com. I know that Make .com is a lot more affordable than Zapier, but can also have a higher learning curve learning curve than Zapier.

Joe Casabona [00:45:58]:

So one of those. Right? Because, like, even with the Zapier free plan, like, you can connect Calendly to, let's say, your project management tool. Right, where, like, where where it's Trello or ClickUp or Notion or whatever. So you can at least set up simple automations that way. But make .com for me, like, it might as well be my 4th employee. Right? Like, it so it's super crucial for me. And then I also advocate for doing solo episodes, especially if you're a small business owner and your podcast is designed to help establish your own expertise. You can't always do that with a guest, right, because you're kinda giving the spotlight to the guest.

Joe Casabona [00:46:43]:

And when I do solo episodes, Descript is invaluable to me because it's really easy to edit. It transcribes as you record. And so I will usually if I need to edit or rephrase something, I'll usually just stop recording and then just, like, delete the text and then pick up where I was, pick up where I left off. You can have the video on. Even if you don't release the full video, it can easily convert to, like, a, like, a Instagram reel or YouTube short or TikTok style video captions and everything. So really good tool that has has sped up my production process by a ton. That didn't exist when either of us started podcasting.

Bryan McAnulty [00:47:35]:

Yeah. Yeah. And so if if you guys haven't heard of that or used it before, like, essentially, you see the transcript, and you can just select a sentence or a word and just Hit delete, and now it's gone from the audio and video. And so it makes it really easy to edit even if you're not any kind of video editor yourself.

Joe Casabona [00:47:54]:

Yeah, really, really good. I will say if you have edited video or audio, it's going to feel limited. But if you haven't or if you understand that okay. Well, like, this is just kind of making it so editing my podcast is like editing a Word document or Google document. Like, come with that framing, and it it will make a world of difference.

Bryan McAnulty [00:48:20]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Alright. So we covered a lot here, but I think there's still so many things that we could talk about. I know that you've got An online course for people who wanna learn more about this. Could you tell us more about that?

Joe Casabona [00:48:35]:

Yeah. So it's, it's a video library. I've I've called it by many names. Right now, it's just called the Podcast Lift Off Playbook, where it's over a 100 videos on everything I know about podcasting, broken up into different tracks, we'll say. I call it the Netflix of of podcast videos. So, I'll tell you what. If you go to podcast liftoff.com slash brian, b r y a n. I will have a special discount for listeners of this show.

Joe Casabona [00:49:04]:

And I'll also have a free resource that is my favorite podcast automations.

Bryan McAnulty [00:49:10]:

Awesome. Alright. Cool. And I've got 1 more question for you, and that is if you could ask anybody in our audience or our audience in general a question, Either something you're curious about, something you kinda wanna get everybody thinking about, what would that be?

Joe Casabona [00:49:27]:

I think it's gonna be this. Right? Because we have a lot of solopreneurs, probably a lot of course creators listening. As you approach your course or maybe your own podcast, what is the story that you're trying to tell? My friend Troy Dean has talked about how when he creates a course, he looks at the whole course, and he looks at how to get students from 0 to win. And then each module in the course, how he can get students from 0 to 1. So I want you to think about your content maybe like a TV series. Right? Over the entire series, what story are you trying to tell? And within each section, maybe each episode, what story are you trying to tell? Because that's really that's what's going to keep people coming back to your content.

Bryan McAnulty [00:50:22]:

Yeah. That's that's great advice and a great thing to think about. Alright. Well, Joe, thank you so much for coming on the show. Before we get going, where else can people find you online?

Joe Casabona [00:50:31]:

My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I am at jcasabona. Everywhere, that's jcasab0na. I am on x, formerly Twitter. Threads, TikTok, Instagram, basically everywhere.

Bryan McAnulty [00:50:48]:

Alright. Awesome. Thanks so much, Joe.

Joe Casabona [00:50:50]:

My pleasure. Thanks, Brian.

Bryan McAnulty [00:50:52]:

I'd like to take a moment to invite you to join our free community of over 5,000 creators at creatorclimb.com. If you enjoyed this episode and wanna hear more, check out the Heights platform YouTube channel every Tuesday at 9 AM US Central. To get notified when new episodes release, join our newsletter at the creator's adventure.com. Until then, keep learning, and I'll see you in the next episode.