Kinda crazy but we recorded this episode before I even had a name for my own podcast. 😲 The reason is that I believe you can hack the learning process by simply learning from the best and Javier Mercedes has done hundreds of podcasts. Javier is the host of Passion in Progress show and in only about a year he went from 0 to 10,000+ YouTube subscribers. We sat down and went through the steps of what it takes to create a successful show.

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Javier Mercedes’s YouTube Channel

You’re listing to the establishing your empire show, a podcast that inspires entrepreneurs, creatives, and future business owners to pursue their passions, grow their organizations, and build their empire. My name is Darren Herman and creatively I’m best known for my photography, but business wise, my claim to fame has grown a company from 15 K per month in online sales to breaking the $1 million a month barrier. And I’m sitting down with interesting people to talk about their process, the lessons they’ve learned and how they have established their empires.

Hi and welcome to the podcast. Today we have Javier Mercedes hashtag #Merstation.

Yeah man.

So I do want to start the podcast with a request. Can you give me your infamous intro?

My infamous intro? What is up Merstation? Javier Mercedes here for yet again another Passion in Progress show where we talk to inspiring individuals and hopefully through hearing their stories you too motivated to go out and pursue your passions. Today on the show, we’re going to be talking to me, but somebody else is going to be interviewing me and his name is Daran Herrman.

I love it. See that’s so much better. I’m going to have to come up with one, but first I actually need to come up with a name for the podcast. I think. Otherwise it probably doesn’t work. So to start off, give me some background information. Who you are for those who don’t know you, give us your story.

Yeah. So the brushstroke version of my history is I was an audio engineer in well back in college. I went to school for audio engineering while I was in college. I wanted to get a, a internship that was paid in where I want it to go. So that means either in audio engineering, it’s live sound or recording like a recording studio. And so what I did is two summers I worked at this place called Interlochen where they have think of it as like the Hogwarts of, of child prodigies that are just amazing at instruments and they have seven concert venues there for these kids to play music. But also they have a state of the art facility where people like Sheryl Crow or like a Dave Matthews band, still Steve Miller band, people like that come through.

And what you get to do during the internship is like be a hand and actually get to set up speaker arrays and all this other sound stuff. Which is amazing. So I got experience doing a live sound at my second summer that I was there. They asked me to come back as lead sound tech. So right off I was like, I think a junior in college and I already was the lead of a production team of like 16 other sound people. Is this a paid internship or, yep. Yeah. Yeah. So this is a doll. This is actually a job pretty much. Yeah. And then they set you up with their room and board because interlock and Michigan is this beautiful place and you get like this little cottage to stay in, which is amazing. And that’s just one little I want to say shtick of my history.

Just know that I have live sound experience. I mean, I ended up moving to Atlanta, Georgia and got a job at a recording studio. So I wanted to get both a Spectrum’s live, sound and recording just to see how both of those are. And then while I was there, what ended up happening was doing like five different freelance jobs. But the one that I eventually took on full time was this at this place called Doppler studios. And I was there for four years. I got to record with people like dr J president Jimmy Carter. I have a recording on my phone of Morgan Freeman saying my name. So funny, funny story is I try, when you’re in a professional, well, you’re going to know this. When you’re in a professional environment like that, you don’t like, Hey, can I whip out my phone and take a selfie with you?

And what I was doing, he was recording their voiceovers for the other people that I was mentioning. It may have been their audio books or doing ADR. What I would do is while they’re on the microphone, I’d be like, Oh, hi, Mr. Freeman. My name is Javier. And he’d be like, well, hello Javier. And be like, got the audio signatures and done. Yeah. So I got to work on amazing projects with a whole bunch of amazing people and got the, it got some really good experience when it comes to, you really have to know your stuff when it comes to recording. By the way, if this sounds bad, it’s not hobbyists fault. I set up all the sound. So the professional audience just watched me do it. So from from there I moved to Austin, Texas and I started picking up a camera and I wanted to take on freelance videography.

Mmm. That actually ended up me landing a job at the child as the eventually the senior video editor where we had at the peak, I want to say about like 15 people in the production department and we were making daily content all the time. So there was a kind of a disconnect there a little bit. So you’re doing audio, audio, audio or video editor? Yeah, so I went from like recording the property brothers, like a, for a full summer for all their shows to be in. Like I run a pursue doing video and just going way back down to the bottom of the barrel. And but I, I when I got my Canon 70 and saw that sweet, sweet, buttery bokeh and the potential that you could have as a creator making videos, it just, and it’s like, man, I really like audio. But when you marry that to the visual aspect, I want to do both. So yeah, the 70 was my first a professional camera. I still have it or using it as their secondary camera right now. I hacked it to continuously record because it’s, and I have a, I used to have two of them. Both of them went over 200,000 shutters. And I’m still still going that the 70 is a tank. Yeah. I still have mine.

I feel bad. Get rid of it by original one. I think it’s just, I think always have it just to have it might not ever always use it, but it’s kinda one of those things. Yeah. So while I was at the chive, we did everything from daily content and think of what you may see on like a Buzzfeed. So like, here’s a overhead shot of a cooking thing. And then the next day I’m editing together a beauty reel for one of the chai vets. And then the next day we’re making like a super, super premium, what you would think of like a documentary, something that you would see on Netflix with shot on, like reds and Alexa is, and then the next day you’re just like editing a talking head video. So it breaches the whole spectrum of production, which was just like a trial by fire. But then you get to learn everything, not only in the production side, but then how to promote and do all of the how to create content for the internet in a way that’s digestible in a snackable way for everybody.

Yeah. People are going to actually see it because it’s, the tribe’s very good at that. So walk me through how you got that position because obviously you, most of your experience was in audio. Well, so, so it’s definitely, this is a who, you know, type of thing. So the owners of the chive actually went to my high school and the there sister ended up marrying my brother, who is also now the head of chive charities. So when I said I was moving to Austin, Texas they were going to start their chive podcast, which you can parlay into the, the rest of the conversation. But right when I got there, I didn’t know that they were going to be starting to try podcast, but they I told them my background and then they were like, Oh, well why don’t you just be the audio engineer for the tribe podcast?

And we ended up recording 93 episodes of that. But my brother definitely helped me get the job there. And when, when I started it was just me and another guy, Andy Fremberg. And from there it grew to a huge department. Yeah, it’s fantastic. But I mean, obviously using connections to get a job is the best way to me. I don’t, I don’t even know how I’d probably get a job without trying to reach out to my network and building a network, but you still have to back it up and keep the job. Yeah, exactly. And then obviously you did a good enough job to do however many episodes you just said like, you know, it wasn’t just like, okay, after two were done. Yeah. okay, so you, so you went from you, you were at the chive. That sounds like a great gig. Yeah, it was.

So then what made you leave, start your own thing? Like walking you through that thought process or what happened? Yeah, I think there’s this inkling in my body that always wanted to be an entrepreneur and I say entrepreneur lightly, but the, the same move that I went from my gig at Doppler studios, which was an amazing gig. Again, I’m going down to the bottom of the barrel and then coming, doing freelance video wise and then getting a job at the tribe. Then building my way back up. And then like now I’m stable there. And then I’m like, man, I would really like, I really like teaching people how to [inaudible] video edit. And I also liked the audio aspect because that’s what my degree’s in. So the other people that have come through the chive that have helped become better editors, like take them from being amazing editors in the beginning just to like see what I could do to accentuate their capabilities and seeing their growth was like, this is awesome. I wonder if I could scale this. Huh. You know what a great place to do that is? Youtube. So [inaudible] okay. Combining audio video, the editing tutorials, and also a podcast. It’s just the perfect marriage of doing everything with that on YouTube. So, but you have the idea, but like, obviously like that’s no guarantee of getting no money, no revenue.

So what, how did you actually get started? Like, did you already have a lot of this equipment? Like what? Tell me how, like you say, okay, but I’m going on my own. Both. It was I mean, just like we were talking about with the Canon 70, what happened was over a period of time I just had acquired the equipment. Not only that, but I also I feel like I knew where I was going to end up. And one of the things that I love about purchasing audio equipment is that it never gets like the, it never degrades. Whereas if you buy video equipment, there’s always a new and better camera. I mean there’s amazing microphones from the 70s or even before that. So it’s not like there’s this huge upgrade every year either. I mean there might be some things that work a little better or you know, have a little technology built into them.

But the actual, you know, sound coming from a microphone or from some of the record, this old [inaudible] that I have, it records same as anything. It just a little, it starts up a little slow. You know, there’s a few things that show its age, but then the other day the audio coming in and out of it is fantastic but not be the super professional best of the best. But it’s, it’s not bad. It gets the job done. Exactly. There, there is a speed diving into the YouTube. There is a comparison that I did on my channel of the H four N versus one of their newer models. And you can definitely tell the difference in how the audio is, but that comes more down to what microphone you’re using and how much power it needs in order to like not get hiss or whatever and what your end result needs to be.

That was a little bit of softball pitch cause I’ve actually watched that video thinking about purchasing an upgrade and I keep on thinking about it and I’m like, you know, yeah, I’ll just, I’ll just keep going. Yeah, for sure. For sure. The, so with the equipment that I have, when I decided that I wanted to leave the chive and pursue my own thing, they were nice enough to give me the two microphones that I use. And I was just like, this is awesome. So as of right now, what I do is about, I want to say 70%, no, it’s probably like 50% freelance and 50% YouTube things too. Create income for myself. And do you think that the things that you do for yourself as in the YouTube and all that helps you land the freelance gigs? Is it kind of your marketing approach almost?

Yes, yes and no. It comes back down to the relationships. The, what ends up happening when you start a podcast, just like this is you start meeting more people and then those people start meeting more people and then they refer you to whoever it is. And just by coming here and seeing the setup, the guests can be like, Oh, this person knows about video or photo or everything in between creating content. So when what ended up, what ends up happening is a couple months down the road, Oh, Hey, can we call up Javier to do this one thing? And you’re like, sure. So it, it can happen that way. What I will say is my second podcast interview in, I interviewed Scott Clark, who is a deeply, and he has like that interview or the time I spent with him, just that little bit was like a complete change in the trajectory of my career.

We we talked about his DP and everything or being a director of photography. So he, he owns a red camera. Andy owns an Arri Alexa. Oh wow. My conversation during the podcast was it about his career and everything. After that we recorded three more videos and I’m, I’m going somewhere with this. Those three other videos were me asking him questions about like, dude, how do you afford red camera? And when you make that investment, like how are you paying for these things? Costs as much as a house and not only that, but cameras are getting so much better. Why is it worth it to buy this kind of stuff? And then you have to constantly do assessors too. It’s like, yeah, it’s like buying a house and then furnishing it. That’s how our red camera or Ari camera is just, the base isn’t enough.

You gotta keep on going. That’s, so that’s one of the things I learned with an RA camera. When you do make the investment, it costs way more than the base value of a red. But when you buy an Ari, you basically, you, you buy the whole thing. But then obviously lenses like lenses that are going to be the big thing there. But like just talking to him about the Arri camera in discussing the pros and cons, it was like reds can do all of these things for, and I use the word cheaper, like very lightly because this is like a $13,000 camera I could make wrong. They’re like bass and that’s just the brain you don’t like. You need more things in order to use that camera. So with the Ari it’s like maybe 23,000 or whatever it is. I forget the numbers, but it’s just you’re chilling out a lot of money in order to buy these cameras.

Where I’m going with this though is that the podcast is awesome. What ended up happening though is I post the two videos about the red camera and it was just like the conversation we’re having right now where I was like, why? Like I have like a Sony camera that’s a DSLR or a mirrorless and why would you pay this much when I could maybe like if you AB tested these and everything. Now in the back of my mind, I know why it’s because of the bit depth and the colored dynamics and all the other things. But I want to say that to the audience and have us talk about it. Those two videos did. Okay. I went a whole year and a half and forgot that I recorded the video about the Arri Alexa and see that’d be the one that I know I’ve used the red, I mean I’m not a DP myself, but I’ve hired people with the red.

But Ari, that’s a different ballgame. Yeah. So one of the biggest tips I can give to anyone that wants to start a podcast yourself included, is consistency in through consistency. It breeds opportunity. And what I mean by that is when I was still working at the chive, I was coming back from a gig and we were on a flight and I just want it, I was starting my YouTube channel and I’m a couple months in and I’m like, you have to be consistent with the content. You have to get it out. Well, what ended up happening was I didn’t have anything for that week and we’re on this flight and it’s like getting to the end of the week and I’m like, I don’t, I didn’t film anything, whatever. So I’m deep diving into my hard drive. Mind you, this isn’t like a year and a half after this thing happened and I find the footage of us talking about the Ari and I was like, okay cool, I’ll just like put this together.

It’s like one of the worst sounding videos that I’ve ever had and it sucks cause I’m an audio engineer. Cause like when I, when I did it, I didn’t have the there because we were talking about the cameras there where our microphones are right now regardless. And in that probably another, another person to come up with a boom on top because it’s a one man show. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. When ended up happening was, and this was just by chance, but a chance kind of or luck kind of like gets more once you keep being consistent with your output. I posted the video right when I landed so I edited it. And right when I landed, I like got home and just like uploaded it right then. That was, it used to be my most viewed video. And what ended up happening was I put something about the Oscars like the, because I found out that the Arri Alexa is the one that’s gotten the most Oscars and like a red camera, like hasn’t even won one or that could be completely wrong at this point, but it may have gotten one.

But it just so happened that the Oscars were happening that day and I didn’t realize it. And when it, it, when people saw, I think it picked up in search with Oscars and this is completely, like, I wasn’t planning on that and it just gave me a huge spike. Where that led to is a couple months later I got called up by CBS to follow ’em through Scott in this connection to do the March madness. So I was pumping out content week or daily for CBS following Murray state. And this was like the, Oh, they did pretty well that year too. Yeah, yeah, they did. Awesome. So I was just like in the hotel rooms with all of the players, but I’m sitting at a editing table just like I’m literally backstage while they’re like doing all of their prep rallies and everything and also during the games trying to get this stuff out to a huge multimillion dollar, whatever CBS.

And that was like a learning experience in and of itself. Fast forward a couple months, get a call up from ESPN, then I’m doing a documentary series on e-sports for ESPN and it just keeps going from there. So [inaudible] the podcasts ends up being a lead magnet for your business, but you don’t know how to connect the dots, but you don’t know how to connect the dots until after the fact. Yeah. And well, the couple of interesting things there. One, it’s kinda like, you know, we build a lot of websites and do a lot of marketing and you know, you’re always testimonials. You want other people being shown when you’re on video with one expensive equipment. But also somebody who’s probably known in the industry too, especially somebody like CBS, you automatically get a little bit of credibility there just because you’re in the same room and you know each other.

And then obviously it sounds like a, he referred Joe as well, but that’s one of my, yeah, for sure. For sure. There was, you know, like I’m completely cutting you off. I’m sorry if I don’t, but to me what was crazy with the CBS thing is I got a phone call when I was on a walk from some producer and, or no, it wasn’t even a producer. It’s like the people that were the head of the March madness, whatever editing thing and they were like, Hey, so-and-so referred to you. Can you be here at this time? They need me to like look to any of my material. It’s like, it’s mind boggling to me how once you get to that certain point, that’s how it works. It has nothing to do. Well, yes, it has everything to do with your output as a editor.

But it, it’s more about like the connections that you have. And it blew my mind that it was more about that then, Oh, can I send you my demo reel or anything like that and you don’t want, and one key thing there is as soon as you’ve moved up that conversation, never go backwards. Do not send them a real after they’ve actually yeah, they might see something they don’t like, you know, you’re, you’re already there. So that’s fantastic. And you know, I think building relationships in any industry that you are is the best way to insure yourself. You know, your next leap or jump your next job, whatever it is, because it’s the easiest. They say 75% of jobs all happen by referrals and so, so it’s still a huge market of 25% jobs or you know, applied for through the different indeed and whatever it is.

So let me know, like how was it when you launched your first podcast, how was that, I mean, I know you’ve already done a bunch of the chive, but like your own, like what was that? How’d that feel like? It was awesome just for the people listening. One thing I would mention though on when you’re breaking into the market and what I want to drive across is just the consistency thing and how like that 75% is through referral and how you get that is just like you have to go out there and like maybe do jobs for free. But like I said, you have to connect the dots. Like the dots will connect afterwards and the more you put out work, the more people will see and somebody will give you a chance and that’s what you do with that chance is the thing.

Then I, so I’m actually a fan of doing stuff for free, but I only know with with some caveats. My thing is is don’t do something for free expecting to get paid later from that same client. You’re doing that for free for the work period. For some other client it’s you can’t climb that. You can’t be free and then, Oh, I’m 10 grand. You have to, you have to have that book of work and then you go to the $10,000, you use it to move yourself up the ladder of, of, of price. Cause I think somebody who gets a lot of people get really frustrated thinking that same client is going to pay him on the next one. No. As soon as they have a $10,000 budget, they’re going to go hire somebody else that is in that level in their mind, even if it’s the same quality of work.

Yeah. That’s it. I feel like one of the questions that people give the most is like yes you got whatever. Like it’s your connections and network and everything, but like what do you do to get your first job and everything and you’re like, well you have to, you have to put in the work. And I just very adamant about that. Yeah. Well for me it was actually interesting with the more photography than anything was like my friends were slightly annoyed cause I always would have a camera around and then they would ask me to bring the camera. Cause you know, they’d see Coalfire if you just have a camera on your body, you just are known as that guy. Right. And then they started paying me to bring the camera around, whether they’re at their jobs or they wanted a new headshot or whatever.

And that was my I always the said okay. Interesting. Cause it took a while for even my friends delight like the camera around cause they were kind of annoyed, you know, taking photos all the time. This is also 2008, a little different. You know, nowadays everybody wants their photo taken, but do it for the gram. That’s right. So, so how does one start up? Podcasts? Yes. Yeah. Again, getting back, getting back to the podcast thing. Mmm [inaudible] I’ll give a couple of pointers here. One. For me at least. I failed a lot in the beginning, but again, because I was being consistent that second podcast I did, this is a very second interview I did led to wa, like all that stuff that I just explained because if you put yourself out there, like I said, you will, like things will be incoming. Now the first thing I would focus on is the audio portion and the actual conversation at hand.

My fourth podcast that I did is kind of catching on in search right now in YouTube and it’s the worst podcast I’ve ever done. And I’m so thankful for the gas because he was so understanding. It was the owner of yellow bird hot sauce. And he, I asked him to be on the podcast and the first 20 minutes to 30 minutes of that podcast, I didn’t even ask him anything about hot sauce. I was like, so you went to the university of Florida, did you ever see an alligator? Like, like completely not on topic. And somebody commented recently on that video and said, Hey the podcast actually starts at like 21 minutes in and I pinned his comment and I said, yes, you are correct. I’m sorry. This was one of my very first podcasts. I was just learning. And you are completely correct in this comment, but I will say you have to put in the reps in order to get better at the podcasting format.

What [inaudible] it can vary from person to person. Like right now we’re having an interview podcast, but and when I went into podcasting, I didn’t even know all the different versions of podcasting and [inaudible] you want to hear a completely different format that I was, my mind was blown is something like business Wars. If you listen to that, there’s just a whole bunch of sound design and it’s almost like you’re watching a Netflix movie, but through your ears. And when after hearing something like that, it gave me more ideas of actually I have video I just released. It helped me with like, Oh I can create by characters in my video in talk, but then I can be those characters and like maybe change up my voice and everything. So there are different versions of podcasting, but if we’re just talking about interview a format, there can be a couple things.

One is maybe just you can have your questions prepared but then also be prepared to just go off into wherever the question takes you. After about the fifth, 18th episode that I did, I found that if I wrote like maybe one page of notes and if I went over that you, there was no way I was going to get to all those questions. The other thing is be okay with not knowing your next question. You agree with that one? If you don’t know your next question, it took me, there’s a podcast that I did with the editor of burn notice. He just did YouTube, Cobra Kai. He did a couple episodes of glee and the guys he also has his own podcast. It’s called optimize yourself. I’m in his place in Hollywood interviewing him and he gets to some point in the conversation and I just, I sat there and I was like I don’t remember, like I have a whole page of notes, but I like, I can’t find it and everything.

And again, I still cross-eyed again, I’m so thankful for him for being understanding. And he’s like, here’s what we’re gonna do. And he got up and he’s a big fitness dude and he’s like, we started doing like some jumping jacks and all that other stuff. And I sat down and I was like, that was the thing I wanted to remember. And I said the question. But what I would say is, if you can’t remember the question, don’t try and babble on and try and like segue into a different question that completely derails from wherever the conversation was going. Because when you get into the editing process, it just makes your life so much harder. And there could be a whole, like 10 minutes of a conversation where you’re like, this has no value whatsoever. And not only that I’m I helping a friend go through the interview process and [inaudible] the same thing goes in that environment.

If you don’t know an answer, don’t just try to answer it. It’s totally okay to pause, think about something different. In that environment it’s more, you know, I don’t know, but you could always be the politician answer and kind of move the conversation over. But people can see through when you’re trying to force through something. And you know, since you are a, if it’s not a live podcast, I do think that’s interesting. You could always pause and just be like, one minute it never feels good cause then the energy gets off perhaps. But you know, there’s no reason to what I’m doing now, try to try to make a point and not know where you’re going with it. Now what I would say is silence is key. If you’re the person, if you’re the host asking them questions, what ends up happening is the more you’re silent, the more the guest has to keep elaborating on their thing.

So, even if you have an, it feels like a mile of like a complete hour, but if you take like just five seconds, was it like five seconds is a little much. But if you, if you’re sitting there and just like what you’re doing, no, you’re like, you’re still smiling. But then if I were to stop, yeah, but you’re, listen, you’re, you’re filling the gap. If, but if I were to stop, but then if I were to try and like Oh, he’s not talking. I have to keep elaborating and keep elaborating. I feel like I was just snapping at you there. So this is actually a fantastic point because this has been what I’ve worked on the most. One thing that is interesting is when you start recording yourself, you start hearing it flaws as well as good points. But one of my big problems was filling the gap with audio with me just saying something or laughing.

Well laughing’s fine, but like I just use filler words in between any type of a pause. So I might, five seconds might feel hard, but I’ll count to three. Yeah. And that was completely just like to drive across the point. They’re like, don’t, don’t, don’t do five seconds, but if you [inaudible] one, if you are trying to search for that question in two, if you think that maybe they have something more to say about it or even if you don’t think they have something more to say about it, it might open up the conversation to some place that you’re like, Oh, I didn’t even know where that was going. In terms of the catching onto things that you say and that you do when you’re editing your own podcasts all the time. I realized that I say like personally in terms of, I just said it right when I was saying starting the sentence and a couple other things.

One thing that I try and not do is start things with the word. So in all right. One of my guests that I interviewed, he, that was a great point that cause he does a lot of blogging and, and I asked him, all right, what’s a good tip for like recording yourself? And he said, when you start recording, don’t start or try and get right to whatever it is that you want to talk about, which is like obvious. But in order to overcome that hurdle, just try and so we’re here are all right, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. Like maybe you need something like that to get into it. One of the reasons why I start my podcast the way I started is because it just gives me the Gusto and the energy to all right here. I already know what I’m going to say in the very beginning of the conversation.

And with that I don’t have to be thinking, what’s the question? What’s the thing? We’re like, no, you just go. And I, it’s prepared too, which is, I’m totally gonna steal the intro. I might not be as excited as you, but maybe I will be. You know, you never know. I think you’ll get better. I’m sure you’re so, so much better at your intro to now cause you’ve done it so many times that when you first started, I actually started, it was just for a branding standpoint. The episode that was just released yesterday. I in two, two for my last two episodes. I’ve changed up what I said. I haven’t I don’t have it, have it memorized and I’ve said my memorized one so many times that I could mess myself up if I didn’t do it. So I’m trying to switch up my branding in a way that it’s more it’s more straight forward what the podcast is about.

So I’m trying to say that in the very beginning when the pocket, like when you hit play on the podcast, here is the mission statement of the podcast. Then the podcast continues from there. But that’s, that took me up until like, I just released my 75th episode. So it, after continuing doing the podcast, I’m like, all right, I think this is where this kind of just show is going and what kind of people are being interviewed and what people can get from this. So walk me through a normal day in the life of Javier. It’s a lot. Well you wake up early late, like gimme gimme so there’s still, there’s, there’s two things. One is if I have a huge freelance project that I have to be working on. And then two, if this, if I’m pursuing the YouTube stuff or podcasts stuff.

And so you have, you got to do to day or be what decides which day it’s going to be for you money. So what I try and do is I try and get at least two or three gigs a month and then that helps sustain the like, all right, now I have like they care and all that other stuff. I know that I have enough that I’m contributing to my part in this regard for this month. Then the rest is for YouTube podcast. And I keep saying YouTube podcasts because I do do this as a video podcast. So anytime I release my show, it’s also, it’s an audio format and a video format in terms of freelance, it would be what you would think. I wake up, get notes from email, start editing some things and all that kind of stuff and I try and maybe segue in maybe a social post or something like that for my personal brand.

But for the YouTube S type stuff, I think the biggest thing that the listeners could get ease and what I’ve found to help is write three things down that you want to get done that day. And what I mean by that is it doesn’t have to be something super over the top. It could be something as easy as you sent me an email to be on your show, respond to that email and make sure that it’s solidified. And I mean, you make that process really easy by having your system in place already. Like here’s my schedule, pick the thing, and then we go from there. That could be one thing, like whatever that your three goals are, just have it be something that can move the needle in. For me. It wa it is something like send out the email to see if that guest is available.

So I’m batching my podcasts ahead of him. Yes. Ahead of schedule. Yeah. So I do it for something very similar. I, excuse me in the morning, I don’t need it to be three, but it’s usually one or two key things today. And what I would say to myself, if I at the end of this day, what would I feel like this day was a success. [inaudible] If I got one or two things done, I’m happy with the day because I feel like if the list is too long then it’s it. You’ll never get it done. Like you’re not going to get 12 things done. I mean you might, but like that’s very difficult. That’s a list like this is, and a lot of times these things could be, like you said email, it could be a proposal, it could be a five minute deal, but it has to be done today.

So it’s the highest priority. And then you know, and that goes down the line. Yeah. And from, from that regard it’s like it may be the email. And then the other big thing too is I find that physical health is a big the thing when you are doing all of the tasks. I was going to ask about that. You look at a little fit compare last time I saw you. Yeah. And I did do this thing called 75 heart. I do have a podcast about it. I know want to get into like all of the particulars of it. But the biggest thing that I got out of it was spending time outside and well I try and incorporate in every single day is at least like just a walk outside for 45 minutes. And that’s a good time to like, I could listen to other podcasts or not have anything in and actually just think about things creatively.

And then once I get down to my computer, I’m fresh and it’s, it’s weird spending time outside and actual oxygen in sunlight and I can’t explain how it really helps the body. But I noticed a change and I know if I, especially now that it’s getting colder, if I’m inside all day, I know how I feel and I know that if I were to be outside for just a little bit each day, it would help me out. So as your meditative process, I’m very similar as I tried to do the gym at lunch everyday. So breaks up the day for me and I can feel the difference. And to me, I don’t even know if it’s so much the gym. I do think there’s a lot of benefits for to move around, but it’s just get it out of the house cause we can sit. Yeah. Working from the home office for a long time.

I will say if you have something consistent weekly, like a podcast show, it at least helps you in a creative capacity to free up the memory or Ram in your brain of what am I going to do this week? What, how, what, what video am I gonna make? Well, I, at this point, I’m trying to put out three videos a week and every Wednesday is my podcast. But just the fact that I can at least be consistent to my audience, even if I didn’t have anything that week, I know that I can still put out my podcast because creatively it’s more about the conversation and all that kind of stuff. I don’t have to be thinking about the idea and then reef shooting and all this other stuff for the content. So what’s awesome about that is that if one thing I love to preach is the consistency thing and that’s what consistency in a show does.

Another great thing with creating something that’s weekly is it’s a show. The fact that you have a show, people can latch onto what you’re all about. And just from seeing the kind of content that you put out weekly, it gives you a back category, back catalog. It gives you a library. So when you start reaching out to other people, nice for me, you can go to my website and then all of a sudden there’s all of my web, there’s all of my episodes. And even if you knew nothing about me, at least you could garner some bit of information within a couple seconds, just like scrolling through my website to see, Oh, he interviews people and these people kind of do these things. Am I a part of that whole demographic? I don’t know. Like let me click on one and then you can dive in from there.

But within a couple seconds people can already get to know what you’re all about with the show. So in the beginning I would’ve said it was building all of these processes. It was like building a website building, which is funny because that’s what we were talking about when I had you on my podcast. I’m seeing what works on like Instagram, Facebook, all those other things and moving on from there. But I would say if it’s a pod, if I’m editing a podcast that day, it’s sitting down, going through and cutting together the podcasts and then the next day that will probably take my, my brain power and stamina of the day if I can. If I’m really on my game, then I can then start to make the social assets that will help market that podcast. And for mine, I like to go above and beyond when it comes to the the video, little highlights and everything.

And I try and just make it a good experience for the viewer to maybe have them come in and watch or listen to the actual podcast. And you have to do something different for, I mean, Instagram, 60 seconds max. So you know, you can’t put an hour long podcasts, just let it go out there. So you almost are forced to do it re-edit. But I, I’ve seen yours and what you’re doing is a mini highlight reel or King on one point, which I think is fantastic. I think. So is everything that you make, so you have released in three videos a week or trying to try [inaudible] idea, but are those all pre done like the week before or they don’t know? I’m getting it done Tuesday, releasing it Tuesday. Most of the time it ends up being that what ends up, there’s a lot of things that go into creating the UTV videos and this is like some people by chance can go viral and they can do their thing.

Like, like I said, I released that one video it, I only edited it on a plane. Like it took me maybe an hour to cut that thing together and upload it and then, Oh my gosh, that’s like my most viewed video, didn’t spend any time on it. There’s other that take a long time to create. And not only that, the biggest part of creating videos is the content. What’s in the video, your thumbnail and your title. So I would say that the content of a video would be your title, the thumbnail, and maybe some of your description in then the actual video itself. But mr beast, if you’re familiar with who he is, he’s a really huge YouTube or I just saw him talk at vid summit and one of the biggest things that he said is, did people click on the video and did people stay to watch it?

That’s the, if there’s anything that you get from making YouTube content, just like that’s the biggest point. Did people click and did they watch? And if they do that, then you will continue to be successful on the platform. And do you monitor those analytics and YouTube pretty often? Yes. All the time. Yeah. And the reason I’m bringing this up is because when you make content for YouTube now you have to spend just as much time. Well, it depends on the video, but your thumbnail, you could spend so much time on a video and it could be the most beautiful thing. It could be Oscar winning, but if nobody clicks on it, you’re screwed. Like there’s no point in you spending all that time to make that video and then all of a sudden nobody clicks on it. I put together, it kind of makes me mad sometimes.

The videos that I spend the least amount of time on. I got my Mac book pro and I was like, people like to watch unboxing videos. I put one camera up and I just put the much like the table that we’re sitting in right now. I put the thing on the table and I just open the thing up and then I just started talking about, Oh, this is my old MacBook pro. This is the new one. These are the things that I see that are different about it. I’m not like a very, like obviously I’m tech savvy in the term in terms of video editing and all that kind of stuff, but when it comes to like physical computers, talk to me about Ram and all that stuff and I’m like, just give me the most so I can video it. Yeah. So I talked about what I knew, but then I saw the home row thing that was on the new MacBook pros and it was like, man, this is really cool dude.

And I released that video at 1:00 AM I wake up and it had like 6,000 views, like out of nowhere. And I spent no time on that in like what ends up happening is I did search there’s a, a tool called two buddy and I use that. Yeah. Yeah. So with that you can kind of see where your video will rank in the in search. And what I did before I released the video is, let’s say I spentX amount of time actually like recording the video. I cut it together. But then where I spent my most time was what’s the thumbnail going to be and what’s the title going to be? And I just sat on two buddy until I got a score of above 70. So with all my videos, try with my title and uwhat I mean is,ulike as from zero to a hundred.

When you look something up on to buddy over on the side, you can see what the score will be and anything that’s 70 or above gets like a little green Mark and it’s like, Hey, your competition isn’t that much. So I kept just changing my title and changing my title and changing my title until I got like a 73 out of a hundred and then lo and behold, you can release something at 1:00 AM and then get like amazing view. Well for my channel, amazing views within like one day and that like can sustain for however long. The MacBook pro 2019 does. I mean it’s very interesting. So two buddy is, it’s a freemium, a Chrome extension, a plug. It, it’s a very fantastic, you could also see other people’s videos, what they’ve done right and wrong. So when one of the things with that is it’s a great research tool to what other people are doing right and wrong, and then also to make sure that your stuff is up to snuff.

Right too. Okay. So do you have a marketing budget? Do you spend any money on marketing or is it just let it go? No, it’s it’s completely let it go. And a lot of what I do, I guess my marketing budget would be time and what I try and do is learn the different I want to say platforms and how they, they work in order to have them [inaudible] organically. Yeah, there’s definitely idiosyncrasies of each one. So one thing I would recommend is some testing. He was in $5 testing. Get it out there and see what happens. See if it especially the stuff that you really like or you know, it would be interesting to see like one of the videos that have done well, see if they would do better with some some boosting or some ads, but, or even just to a different audiences perhaps for your freestyle freelancing, a freestyle, it’s different.

So how do you make money? You have the freelancing of course. Is that 100% of your revenue comes in again? No. like I said, I try and have a just like enough, like a chunk of money coming in from that each month. That helps with the sustainability of raising family and being a human being on earth. But Austin, Texas, yeah. Yeah. And what I, what I try and do is I know the amount of work that I put in with my own YouTube and entrepreneurial career. The more you put in now, the more that will compound later. So I try and do as much as I can, as often as I can with that. I’m probably too much at times, but I don’t know. You only live once type of a, that’s the part of my career where I’m at right now in that regard.

So with YouTube, one thing that you could do is affiliate links. So we were just talking about to buddy, if you want to try out to buddy, you could go to to buddy.com forward passion and then use my link to I th I think you may get some a percentage off if you were to start using one of the paid versions of to buddy. But you can, the thing, the topic that we were just talking about, you can utilize that completely free, like two buddies that good. I, they just got me one time when I was at vid summit and I was actually talking to the owner of two buddy or one of the founders and I the biggest in one of greatest capabilities of two buddies AB testing your thumbnails. So I didn’t know that. Yes, exactly. So if you have a legend if you have a legend, a subscription, which this isn’t, it’s not expensive.

It’s like maybe 50 bucks for a year or something like that. And just from the couple of videos that I’ve used and on and what you were just talking about with AB testing, the your whatever ads. Yeah, your ads. It’d be the same with thumbnails. So I get so much more information about what’s working, what’s not working by AB testing my thumbnails. And like I said, it’s actually more times, especially on YouTube, what’s your thumbnail and what’s your title? And you can AB test both of those. The title one, I’d try not to touch as much because that will completely do different things to you in search. But sometimes if you know a video is good, then if it’s been like a month or two and you know that, Hey, if people watch this, they would get something out of it, then try switching up all the things and you can actually set to buddy up to a way that will keep AB testing that content in perpetuity until it finds the best one.

So that’s very interesting. I love testing. I mean, I’m a marketer, so that’s what we do all day. So percentage wise approximately if you, if you don’t mind, ask answering is four for your revenue, what is the freelancer versus a your YouTube or other things, you know, other stuff that is non freelancer. I would say at this point I’ve been doing YouTube a year and it would be about 70% comes from freelance. So, so it’s actually less, I would have thought I’d been higher with only a year in on YouTube. Well, so the YouTube AdSense, let me just explain all the revenue sources. Right now I have the podcast right. And one great way to make money on your podcast when you’re starting out is what people would think would be sponsors, right? Well if you are just starting out like our sponsors incoming, do you have people come at, well, you could sponsor yourself by creating your own product.

Just w when I was on my way here, I got an email for somebody that just purchased my premier pro preset pack. And if you can create your own item or a course or whatever it may be, that is something that you can put or buy against quote unquote, that’s in the beginning of your podcast at the end. Once people know who you are or if you make something that’s really cool, they may want to check it out and at least you have something to send them to. So like right now we’re talking about podcasting. I’m making a pod, a video podcasting course on my website. Love it. So if you want to go to have your mercedes.com video podcasts, you can get in on the early bird for my video podcasting course. And, and approximately like how much is this course and how many hours have you put into that?

Well, so this is all my experience. This is all the DMS I always get. This is everything that I like to think about and what I would tell people. I’m just like in this podcast right now, what? Like here’s what worked, here’s what didn’t work with me. And the tough part is coming from the realm of, all right, who am I trying to talk to here? Well, with me, I have zero to no experience doing video podcasting, interviews over the internet. So if you were to be using something like zoom or Skype, I don’t really have those expertise so I’m not really trying to cater to people that want to do video podcasting where one person’s recording themselves on the other side of the camera and I’m recording myself. I’ve done it, but I don’t have like 75 episodes of that. I have like, all right, what’s worked in these kinds of situations?

What hasn’t worked? These are the things that you should think about. So the, I would say creating your own product in the beginning. If you have something that people have always asked you about, like if it’s you, then it would be like maybe something photography or whatever it may be. Or marketing services or whatever. Like have some sort of lead magnet to the other stuff that you do an eCommerce store. So I have my own eCommerce store, no pain, no champagne.com which is a legging store because I do eCommerce and I wanted to sell something online. Yeah. And what’s more fun than selling yoga pants and leg leggings? It’s a blast. Perfect. So, which I, and that was a little bit of a, of a portfolio piece, but you know, there you go. I can be my own sponsor now. Yes, yes.

That until right now I will say, and this a sponsored by no pain, no champagne.com. And the thing is, people don’t know about it until you start saying it. And I will say, I wish I would’ve done something like that. Way, way, way, way, way earlier on because it just can keep giving back and keep giving back and keep giving back. And then that starts growing. And then once people give more feedback about that, then you can know more about your audience of, Oh, what else can I make for them? And, and I know that this is valuable because people keep asking about this thing. So I would say your own products is one affiliate links is the most money that I make. So the in this could vary. So just to give you an idea, yesterday I made $25 on affiliate links.

Sometimes I open it up and I make 3 cents. Other times I opened it up. And then there’s like yours is $103. And what this is, is the most we talked about to buddy. So if somebody uses two buddy for an affiliate link but the easiest one that people can subscribed to or what’s the word I’m looking for? Like I’m a member. Yeah. Is an Amazon affiliate links. Yeah. What I do in this is where having a video podcast can Trump your audio podcast is because the description underneath the videos on YouTube, there’s a lot of pros to cons when it comes to monetizing your content. If you have the video portion. So with Amazon, what ends up happening for those that don’t know, when you have an Amazon affiliate link, let’s say it’s all of this gear that you have here.

Like, what microphones do you use? So I think that’s a bloom. Yeah. Yeah. So you can be like, that’s your main microphone. That’s how you sound amazing and so sexy across the ear lobes to everyone else. Very deep. Yeah. And somebody else wants to have that. So you have that link underneath your your video. And if people click on that, maybe they see that one and they’re like, ah, I don’t know about that one. But maybe this other microphone might be better if they click through to Amazon from your link. What you’re doing for Amazon is you’re driving traffic to them. So by doing that, Amazon wants to thank you. So because of cookies, what ends up happening if somebody clicks on your link within, I think it’s 48 hours. If they buy something, you get a percentage of that commission. So that’s how I can get completely varying degrees of Amazon money by an Amazon’s one share sells another great one racket and link share.

My favorite affiliate is actually WP engine. They’re here in Austin. They’re a hosting service for websites. Yeah. So there are about a $200 payout per sale. So it’s a huge payout. But to me, everybody’s always asking me, well, what’s for favorite hosts? It’s Bluehost and WP engine. Bluehost is low end. A WP engine is a higher end. WordPress hosting is my favorite, so I’m going to answer this question anyway. I might as well put a link in there and have somebody know, purchase it and pay for it. Typically to me it’s a here and there thing, but it’s, you know, it’s always great to have extra money and be rewarded for sending somebody a customer. You know, everybody wins with this. Yeah. So what I was going to say is just what you were talking about and how you were talking about it, even if you weren’t doing your own store, just say at the beginning of your podcast.

Hey guys, I want to talk to you about what WP engine. Yeah. Yeah. So they’re, they’re in and of itself. The more points of contact that you have just talking about it. Maybe it may like it may hit at some certain point in time, but the more that you talk about it, the more that people may get curious about that and then when it does come time or somebody else has to ask about whatever that is, like what you just talked about, I like, I don’t know anybody that knows anything about that now you become a somewhat authority in it. Even if you’re talking about it for like maybe 30 seconds or whatever before your podcasts. These, this is the way to, without reaching out to sponsors to like, Hey, can you give me money? It’s the way to get money from sponsorships, affiliate links.

I can’t stress that enough in, like I said, it may be a hit or miss in the beginning, but the further you progress with your podcasts, the more or just any content in general, the more you’re consistent, the more it will grow it. Like it just happens because you just have a bigger catalog and more chances are at bats to get that. The next one would be products. So a good one for anybody that doesn’t like, you don’t want to go through the minutia of let’s bulk order a whole bunch of, so for me it’s the, I have a passion and progress mug and so like do you want to bulk order a whole bunch of those? And then whenever an order comes in, you send one out. Like, sure, you could probably save money doing that, but if you’re just starting out an amazing website that does everything for you, you create the designs and like you just choose what you want it to be on.

So you could create one logo and put it on a tee shirt, a cup or whatever it be. Teespring takes care of all of that for you. Not the design part, but they take care of all of the backend print on demand, get an order, you get an order and they print and they ship it for you, right? Yeah, exactly. So for you it would actually be your leggings and all that stuff. But for me if anybody’s listening and wants to just make money from their own quote unquote merge, you could use a website like Teespring just to get your store off the ground. Now when you’re on YouTube, once you hit 10,000 subscribers and I just hit that you can then, yeah, thanks. You can then put that merchandise physically underneath your video. What ends up happening? Like I haven’t gotten an invitation yet, but I know that 10,000 subs is the cat are there the bar to get that qualification.

And I know other people that are just like a little bit ahead of me that already have it. So I know it’s coming, but that’s one thing to keep in mind and I just try making something, put it at the beginning of your podcast at the end or whatever that may be and just say, Hey, this is the, this is a thing that I really like and you may like it too in terms of merge. And if people buy it then awesome. Like I just went on the limb and made it and people actually bought it. So I mean, my thing with that is like I wouldn’t even care about the revenue. I think it’d just be fun to have you know, your name and then that person’s going to take a Instagram photo of it. And I think, I think there’s also a certain level of just enjoyment [inaudible] if you’re looking at this for like to be your whole career, you got to put in a lot of work, there’s a lot of steps to get there.

I don’t think you’re going to, revenue is going to be there immediately. And I think all these things you’re talking about, they don’t work if they’re not stuff you would use or you would recommend anyway. Yup, exactly. So you better have, that’s why I’m passionate in progress mug at their house. So I start, I like, I made a whole bunch of clothes and everything, but I was like, you know what, I really love coffee, so I’m just going to stick with the mug for right now. So I have the passion and progress mug. And that makes sense. Cause you’re doing video like you can yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean you might as well prep it, right, right there. The other big consistent source of income is Patrion. So people don’t know what Patrion is. It’s where you can have like behind the scenes content or people can opt into a membership four, whatever you want to create.

If you are creator, it’s a way to people to basically donate to you monthly because they just dig what you’re doing. And at first I was like, I don’t want to like just sit here and beg people for money, but it got to the point where people I, I won’t forget this, I was interviewing the one of the very first employees of PayPal back in the day and at the end of the podcast I was like, if you want to support the show, share it out on Instagram and blah, blah, blah. And then he just looked me dead in the eye. He was like, well, what if we just want to support you monetarily? And I was like I don’t know. I mean like give me a hot second, like, so obviously that was a prerecorded thing. So by the time I released the episode at the end of the episode, I say, you guys can check me out on patrion.com and everything.

So as of right now, I get 70 bucks or I think 75 bucks from all of my patrons a month now obviously it’s like that’s, I think it’s amazing that people, yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s amazing that people support you in that way, but you just don’t know about it until like you put yourself out there to do it. And I think there’s like two ways of going out. Like people may have different thoughts about like Patrion so I’ll jump in for a second. So I’ve helped a lot of musicians with Kickstarters. Yeah. A raise, I don’t know, $300,000 for different positions. I used to do a lot more. Yeah. And they’re there. They always have this apprehensive, Oh, I don’t, don’t want to ask for money. I don’t want to act like I’m begging. I’m like, look, people like to be a part of unique or fun things.

A lot of people’s lives aren’t, aren’t very exciting or they just really enjoy you. But it’s weird to sit there and say, Hey, here’s money. Right? So it’s asking, but it’s also giving value back with it. Ask your I’m sure there’s some kind of extra they can have or even just the fact that they’re getting weekly content from you, but they know that there are part of your, of your group of, of your, of your passionate and progress movement, whatever you want to call it. And I think people enjoy that and they want to tell they’ll actually probably become better fans now that they give you money than if they didn’t, because now they become what we call a true fan. And for musicians, we always say a true fan will spend $100 or a hundred to a thousand dollars. So you always try to get, you know, a hundred, two fans and a thousand true fans and then you’re able to go and one way, one great way to move up the ladder of somebody being like right there and supporting you is actually monetarily because then now they’re even more hooked into your, what you’re doing.

Yeah. Aye. I couldn’t agree more and it, I was the first, I was the first part of that where I felt like I don’t want to ask people for money. Then obviously I had that conversation with the guy and then obviously it’s, it’s helped me how if anybody’s a patron of me and is listening to this podcast. Thank you so much. The last one that I’ll bring up is YouTube AdSense. So another pro of having a podcast on video form is that you can monetize your videos within YouTube. Now at the beginning like hour long content is like, it may sound daunting, right? But people actually watched that. And I will give you like for me in my analytics, one of the videos that I just released is like two minutes long that could get 5,000 views. One of the big things that YouTube looks at is how much watch time the video has and how much of watch time you’re your channel has accrued.

Not only do they look at that, they’ll pay you for it. Yeah, yeah. The watch time. Yeah, exactly. So I in order to get monetized on YouTube, you have to have a thousand subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time. And I was doing tutorials and I like to do my premiere pro tutorials, like really short because ain’t nobody got time to be sitting through like a 10 minute tutorial. Right. And it, they were getting a bunch of views. But again, these are only like two minutes at a time. If you come out with like an hour long podcast and it only gets 50 views, a hundred views, the watch time on that is far superior than that one. Three video. Yeah. Three minute video. Now that three minute video may be a lead magnet to get people into your YouTube channel, but if they like who you are, the podcast gives them a opportunity to really get to know you as a person because you’re just having, you’re spending so much time with that.

I will say the audience retention on a video podcasts, at least for mine on YouTube, I would say people on average stick around for about 14 minutes of it. Oh, okay. Wow. So, and then [inaudible] and do you know like how many people stay for the entirety or close to it? Yeah. So when you’re watching, I would say it’s crazy to me, this gets back to my first thing about how much effort put into the video, right? What ends up happening is people will stay for like 14 minutes of the podcast and again, he may be like a hundred views, 200 views, but that’s like, it’s just two people talking. I could spend a whole two months on this highly produced video that’s 10 minutes long. My average view duration might be three minutes or like five minutes. It’s like, it’s so makes me, it irks me sometimes, but it’s just speaks to like, you can’t try and go against what the market is telling you.

So the reason I’m bringing this up is because monetization, if you have a YouTube channel and you have a weekly show that’s an hour long, that just helps you reach that 4,000 hour watch time so much quicker. When I started my show on my channel, my watch time exploded because I was doing the hour long podcast. And again, I was not getting gangbusters views, but it, every view that was there was like 14 minutes. That’s like somebody watching one of those other videos, I don’t know, five times or something like that, which was awesome. So YouTube AdSense [inaudible] another version of monetization. Another thing I’ll say with that though is when you are using YouTube as your, your video platform, I did a guest podcast with another guy that had like, at the time he had like 2 million subscribers and he asked to put the, the podcast on his channel and I was like, yeah.

And I’ll get to this in a second. His video, if you have a video over 10 minutes, you can insert ads ads halfway through in, you could insert however many you want to on his video. He put like seven different ads throughout the whole thing. But he has the true fans. That video I think has like a hundred thousand views and if you have one ad that’s like whatever, like a point of ascent. But if you have that many ads during that much time and people are watching that much, you can better believe he was making bank on that video. Sure. So the reason I bring that up though is to parlay into the audio version of the podcast. So video is awesome to get two months position. It is another degree of monetization. It is great in search. It is great in a whole bunch of other aspects but it’s not good at least from my standpoint in audience retention for the grand scheme of things.

If you have an hour long podcast and people, to answer your question from before, it drops down to about 30 to 20%. So 20 to 30% of people will stay for the whole thing. Wow. And what I’m getting to though, if they liked the video version, then maybe at least from my standpoint when I’m watching videos or podcasts, if I really liked the content, then I’ll just go seek it out in the actual podcast. Whatever application you’re looking at, Spotify or whatever you use for your podcast. So for those listening, if you do have a podcast or if you’re starting a podcast, they may know they’re analytics, but your audience retention on a audio podcast is going to be some thing upwards of like 80 to 90 to 200%. What that video on the other guy’s channel did for me is like, obviously I didn’t make any money off of cause it’s on his channel, but like obviously he’s helping me out because he’s giving me exposure on his channel, have like huge following.

But what I did ask him too is I actually didn’t want him to send people to my YouTube channel. I asked him to put my audio podcast first. One of the reasons was that he has a channel that where he teaches Brazilians how to speak English. And I was like, what? Who of these people are going to want to know about premier pro tutorials? And there’s one big thing about garnering an audience that just isn’t the right audience. And I was like, dude, I don’t need like I’m very grateful that you you want to send people to like the YouTube channel. But I like, even if you didn’t even put my YouTube channel in there, I would can be completely fine with that. Could you put my audio podcasts and it turns out that Spotify is way, way bigger than Apple in Brazil. My Spotify podcasts, just like, yeah, they’ve been investing in podcasts too.

So there, that was a big move. I hope Spotify, I hope Spotify overtakes Apple, but I think one of the things that sucks is people get paid for their content on Spotify. Podcasts probably are never going to get paid for the ads before their content on Spotify, which I wish it was true. But the reason why I like Spotify is because the analytics that you get on the back end are so much more, you can dive into those analytics than Apple, Apple, just like they’ve been the King for so long that they’re like, here’s an audience retention grid. And maybe somebody in the UK listened to your thing and like there’s it, if you dive into Spotify, you can know what your listener, the other musicians that your listeners are listening to, you can know the age, you can know not only when they’re, if they’re a unique person, if they’re not, if there’s somebody that’s subscribed to your thing and how many they listened to and all that, kind of like the analytics in Spotify are so much better.

So where I’m going with this though is, yes, YouTube can give is another version of pay getting paid. It’s not that much to begin with, but it does offer you so much. There’s so many more pros. But if you can take that audience and if they dig your content and convert them to the actual audio podcast, which I think is more efficient way to digest the the content, that’s where you get to actually spend more time with your audience. Yeah, I agree. So a what, what tool do you use to upload your audio? Lipson. Lipson. And there’s a, there’s a whole list of those. I’ve been kind of looking at those, so I’ll have to put lists. Lipson is, here’s the thing with Lipson. I think they’ve been in the game for a really long time and they, yeah. [inaudible] Like when I was at the tribe, that’s what they used it.

Like if you’re a professional, like if you’re Adam Corolla like Adam Corolla was on Lipson or Jenna Kitchener or Kutcher or a whole bunch of other big podcasters were audit. Pat Flynn is a really big guy that on YouTube, if you were to search how to start a podcast or anything, like he just has the SCL on lockdown, but for good reason, like he really gives you great information on how to start a podcast. He was on Lipson, I don’t know if he is anymore, but the thing with Lipson is I love it. I think it’s a great platform, but there are other competitors now where I haven’t used them before. So there’s things like simple cast anchor a couple other ones where those ones are more savvy to the cell phone age. Yeah, that’s what it looks like. The, I looked at anchor and that one look more tailored to somebody actually once he hit the record button on their phone to podcast and it’s owned by Spotify.

So I’m assuming if you were to, I’m not sure. I’m not sure. Yeah. I’m not sure if you would get a special treatment because you’re using anchor, but if it’s owned by Spotify, the probably, I don’t know. But there is certain aspects about Libson that I think are still amazing. One is when you get to a certain point, they do have a kind of like a sponsorship program. So if you were to reach 20,000 downloads per month, what ends up happening is you go into this pool and you just can grab or like you can see a pool of sponsors and be like, Oh, I want that person to be the sponsor of this episode. And you can apply to have that for that time. The other thing too is on the back end with Lipson, they can break up your, if you’ve tailored your podcast this way you can go back and insert an ad read on all of your pre prior.

Interesting. So if you got a new sponsor, you could actually, yeah, you could, you could offer more of a value buy from them. You could say like, all right, instead of just this one episode, what if you got my whole catalog in the beginning? And this is where if you had a insert on your podcast for if you had a part one of the podcasts and a part two and you can insert the ad read somewhere else, then you could have two of those. And they have the capability of putting the ad new on all of your old catalog. I think that’s very powerful. So I want to switch gears a little bit. Sure. A little bit more personal. So what does success look like for you now? I’m doing full time YouTube, like straight up, not having any freelancer or anything like that.

Just straight up creating what I want to create on my own accord and not having to worry about getting a paycheck from, well, I mean, even though you’re getting a paycheck from like YouTube and all the other revenue sources that’s like my own thing that I’m working on as opposed to projects for other people. Love it. You were so quick to that answer, so that’s obviously what it is. Yeah. So what’s your favorite memory so far in the passion and progress show? Yeah. I w well, it’s a combination of just meeting a whole bunch of people is because you have a engine or not an engine, but you have a platform where you can have a meaningful conversation with people and you can reach out to whoever that person may be. And before it may have been like, Hey, you want to go grab a coffee or whatever, but now you can actually provide value by recording the conversation in a way.

And it’s kind of like, look, it’s 10:00 AM on a Thursday. I’m probably not going to have a very interesting conversation without this podcast at 10:00 AM on a Thursday. Right. And that’s something that I was just talking with a, with a videography for free friend last night about a podcast that is exciting to me is just the, the, the [inaudible] the conversation is not going to, can I get to have with people and hopefully give back to an audience as well. So do you have any regrets? Do you have any regrets? The, well I will say for those that are listening that want to start a podcast, the biggest thing that you can do in Darren’s already doing it is run a backup. You have to run a backup and he has three cameras here, which is great, but he also has two audio recorders. The story that I always tell with this is we, for the tribe podcast, we were going to record John [inaudible], eh, in, in Washington D C booked our flight from Austin, Texas to Washington DC.

He was at an event that was like the WWE SmackDown, whatever thing and which is interesting cause you’re not in your home office so it’s not, we’re already a little out of your comfort zone a lot. Yeah. A lot of what I do or did on my show and I still do it, is I’ll travel to whoever. Like when I’m going to New York this Thanksgiving, I’ll try and get in a couple podcasts there and also helps with the LLC when you’re like, Hey, this is a business trip and all that kind of stuff. So it helps real quick. You can write off a per diem per city for your stay, whether you paid for hotel or not when you have LLC. That’s just one of the things in a place like New York is probably going to be in the neighborhoods of $250 a day of a write off whether you stayed with a friend or not.

Yeah, there didn’t know that. Awesome piece of information. So we were got the tickets went to go record them. We had like an hour or two or like an hour and a half with him backstage. It’s like while the people are like filing into the venue and John Siena, one of the most amazing guys. He’s like, if you think he threw all his memes and how cool he is, like on the internet, he’s just as, or even cooler in person. He’s one of the nicest guys. We were recording that podcast and I’m, we get to the end of it. It’s an amazing show. I go to hit stop on my recorder and it says SD card air, your life has done and you are going to be fired. And your heart is going to be just melted in the middle of earth because you know, I’m probably going to have to buy my own tickets back.

But the point that I like to drive across with this is that I was running an audio backup. I had my [inaudible] looping into my H four N and with that I didn’t have it was three guests and I was just recording a stereo feed. So now I don’t have manipulation of the microphones to like turn up or down one person’s microphone. But you want to know it’s a lot better than that or just not having the audio in, in general. It was way better. So came out with that podcast and nobody was the wiser. Like the, I could, I could sit here and for 10 minutes tell you exactly all of the different ways that running a backup has saved my butt. Just the other. So last week I was recording or I was, I talking about consistency. Wednesday comes along, I’m exporting my podcast.

I go to I head back up to my room and my computer is not on and I’m like, Oh it’s maybe asleep. Try to get my computer on. Nope, doesn’t even happen. I had a backup of the footage and the project file on the hard drive on a different one and I had another computer so I was able to still like get that content out and put it out. But I mean having another whole computer is like a different thing in and of itself. But I bought another one because of freelancing or whatever. But you had all the data backed up. But the more than, I will say having an extra recorder is one of the biggest things and just on that same pedestal is make sure you have your files in two different spaces. Yeah, I’m a big fan of that. I I have a whole system that I would take way too long to go through and that my vex would be a great podcast cause I have a pretty advanced system with my files.

I’m very scared of that. I used to be in the computer re manufacturing business and to see how often hard drives fail. It’s not if it’s when, so that, that’s always scares me. So you just mentioned John [inaudible], so if you were a WWE wrestler,

What would you be your intro song coming down the aisle?

Oh man. So I used to be in a band back in high school.

Every single person I’ve interviewed it has been, has been a musician in some shape or form so far. And I did not know that about you. Yeah, that’s very interesting.

Yeah. So I was in a band back in high school and we were called group shelter. If you were to look up group shelter on band camp, it’s still there. Funny enough, I was telling people about this the other day and speaking of monetizing somebody, it popped the album from you’re listening to that podcast. I was like, where’s this money on PayPal coming from? And I was like, Oh shoot, band camp. So you know, if you want to look up group shelter on band camp I would probably I, I still, you know what’s interesting is I went to college and I partway majored in piano and like learned all this theory and all this other stuff. But I think creatively, just not knowing any of the theory in high school actually was a more liberating creative thing because you just, I have a base, I know notes, I know piano or I know when I hit the piano I have these certain things. But like once you learn theory, then you can’t go back. You can’t, like if I hit a C chord, I know that I can hit anF or G and it’s going to sound good.

But like when you’re in high school, you’re like, Oh man, I hit a C chord, what am I going to do next? And then it could lead to completely different stuff. But it would probably be one of the songs from my group shelter days. Oh, fun. What, which song? I don’t know. Cause I want to jam it. Oh. So on our very first CD we’ll have the audio bed of it, right. We’ll have the whole audio, we’ll have the whole album. What’s funny is it’s actually in there, they say welcome to group shelter. So in I think our very first CD it’s called just intro and it’s this like tangential, not really in recording that song. It was one of the very first ones that I ever did on a computer and I didn’t know how to multi-track. And I don’t even think the software that I was using could multi-track, it was something where it was just like a two channel recorder, but at least it was on the computer.

So I had to record the whole thing, just like the old tape days where I would record one part then consolidate that onto my master track. And I did like eight part harmony or I didn’t do them, but I had somebody else do like eight part harmonies and now he’s like playing guitar and doing all this other stuff and like getting drums where the drums had to be good on that take. So it was legit. And I think this like still one of my favorite pieces of a video, or I guess kind of music that I’ve ever made. I love it.

So what would you title this chapter in your life?

A passion in progress.

Too easy.

Yeah, for sure. For sure.

And now last question. How would you like to be remembered?

How would I like to be remembered? That I did everything that I could to follow my passion and still get paid in support my family.

Love it. It was a pleasure to have you on the podcast. I really appreciate it.

Lead Cast

• Daran Herrman
• Javier Mercedes