← Podcasting Momentum - The Marketing Flywheel for your Businesss
Podcasting Momentum - The Marketing Flywheel for your Businesss
How to Master Your Audio Branding and Podcast Voice with Jodi Krangle
00:44:04
Loading summary
Transcript133 lines
- [00:00]
A
So many marketing companies talk about brand voice, but they don't talk about the voice that is your brand. This is especially true if you have a podcast of which we highly suggest that you do. That being said, this week's guest, she's got a background in voice. She does a phenomenal job with it, she teaches it, she helps people with it. All the best things. If you want to learn how to make sure that your voice supports your brand in the best way possible, you want to stay tuned. Jody, thank you for coming on. You've been the voice for companies like Dell, FedEx, I mean, a lot of big recognizable names, and you've started your podcast knowing that so many people think of audio last, which you've mentioned. Sometimes you're the last person hired as the, the audio person. Like, first off, I I hearing your voice. I know why you got into the voice acting stuff. You sound great.
- [01:10]
B
But thank you.
- [01:12]
A
How, what was it the, the moment that made you think, you know, I am going to talk into a microphone for a living and then I'm going to turn this into a podcast.
- [01:22]
B
I had no such recognition at all. It just kind of happened. I will tell you, when I was 11 years old, I used to call into a radio Talk show called CKEY590CKEY in Toronto, Canada, and I would try and record it with my boombox on
- [01:46]
A
a tape, as we all did, to
- [01:48]
B
see what it would sound like when I was on this talk radio show telling the person, the DJ, my opinions, because of course I had opinions at 11. This must have been like, I don't know, 10 at night or something. I'm sure my parents knew what I was doing, but they kind of let me get away with it. So. So it was kind of the thrill of hearing myself on the, on the show. That was the impetus, I think, for a lot of my decision to maybe make a living from my voice later. And I started by volunteering my time at the cnib, which is the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and did that for about a year. That was reel to reel tape. This was 95, 96. And I mean, they might have had better stuff then, but it was a government thing, so they had whatever they had. And I was reading magazine articles and such onto reel to reel tape. And it was fun. I really enjoyed it a lot. But I didn't actually end up getting into voiceover until I got super bored with what I had been doing, which was SEO and Internet marketing started that in 95. So I'm kind of like left and Right, brained, sure. And I really love computers and I love the Internet. I was a really early adopter of the Internet. Had a songwriting website for a really long time called the Muses Muse. Right up till about 2016 actually. So it's been about 10 years since it's been defunct. And I learned a lot promoting doing that. I was a songwriter early on, and by the time I was finished with that website, I was no longer a songwriter because I was facilitating other people.
- [03:34]
A
Sure.
- [03:36]
B
But yeah, but it was a lot of fun. I learned a ton. But by 2007, Google was it. There was really no other search engine to bother with. And I got so bored, Josh. I was so bored. So bored. It was like soul crushing. So I decided, okay, maybe it's time to do that voice acting thing. Maybe I should look into that. And 2007 was when I started getting coaching and going on message boards because they didn't have Facebook yet. And yeah, just learning the ropes. And yeah, I've been full time ever since.
- [04:14]
A
That's first off. That's amazing. And I love that it starts to make sense for me when it comes to the podcasting, because the SEO background, the marketing background, now I see how some of these dots are starting to connect. I mean, it's truly one of the things I like about podcasting. You get people to give you a couple of tidbits of information. You can start to kind of. Oh, I see.
- [04:40]
B
Yeah. The podcasting didn't actually start until 2019 in November, and I had a podcast before that called Jody's Silver Linings, which was just a little bit of, you know, conventional wisdom, like you don't have to be busy and productive every second of the day and you don't need to be taking a picture of every meal you have. Just enjoy the frickin meal, you know, like, things like that. Right.
- [05:07]
A
Yes.
- [05:08]
B
Just because I'm a little older and I have a different perspective, maybe. And then about 30 episodes in, I started getting email from people asking me to be a life coach. And I was like, what? First of all, no. And second of all, it really taught me. And you've probably figured this out, obviously, from working with a whole bunch of people doing what you do, that when you make a podcast, you are automatically perceived as a expert in whatever you're talking about, right?
- [05:46]
A
Yep.
- [05:46]
B
So it occurred to me, maybe I should talk about something I'm really actually passionate about as opposed to something I just have a passing thought on, you know? So I decided to do something in the sound realm because of voice acting and because I was finding that sound was often misunderstood and misused and not paid attention to. And it's so important. And it's not only important to production and commercials and advertising, marketing, branding. It's important to our daily lives. It colors everything that we do. So it just really. It's important. It's very important. And I wanted to talk about it.
- [06:33]
A
It's interesting because I find that is so much the case, and it is so often things that people don't think about just because of the fact that it's that sound that people are getting. It's such a representation of it. I forget. I forget where I've heard this quote. I've heard it a dozen times. But, I mean, I started in video production with our company a while back, and they said 70% of video is audio. It is those background noises you don't like. You don't notice the crickets in the video until you take them away. And all of a sudden you're like, this is way too quiet. It's the same thing with that. From your podcast. Has that. We always talk about that return on investment. Has the podcast turned into jobs for you? Turned into gigs for you? Has that. Like, what. What benefits have you seen from the podcast other than getting bombarded by people asking to be a guest on your show, which we've talked about?
- [07:37]
B
Yeah, yeah. You know what? For me, it's all about the relationships with my guests. So that's really what I'm doing. I'm talking with people who might conceivably hire a voice actor, but I'm not necessarily speaking with them specifically to hire me. I'm speaking with them to get out to their clients. Why this is important because it's the people who are signing off on the checks that really are the ones who are going to make the biggest difference here. I mean, unfortunately, that's how it goes, right? If they don't believe sound is important, it's just not going to get any attention. That's what's going to happen. And the people I have on my show, pardon me, they work in sound, so they already know.
- [08:24]
A
They know the importance.
- [08:26]
B
It's their clients that they need to explain this to, and it's my clients that I need to explain this to. A lot of them do already know because I talk about this a lot. But. But in general, the. The general public sometimes doesn't understand. Like when you're watching a movie, all the sound and the music and everything that is the background sound design is getting you to feel something. So the, the visuals are giving you information and the sound makes you feel.
- [08:59]
A
Oh, I love that the sound makes you feel. That's a great way to put that. Yes, yes. I like. Okay.
- [09:08]
B
That's the emotional context.
- [09:10]
A
It truly is with that there's. We always talk about the people that use just like, hey, I'm going to record in zoom. I'm going to use my laptop mic. And especially people that are first starting out go ahead and do that. But what are some of the mistakes that you see from podcasters that typically are like these easy, low hanging fruit things where it's like duh, for lack of a better term, what are some of the duh moments that you see from an audio perspective in podcast?
- [09:45]
B
For the love of God, be closer to your mic.
- [09:49]
A
Thank you. Thank you.
- [09:52]
B
Just please.
- [09:53]
A
Thank you.
- [09:55]
B
Do not be half a room away from your microphone and use a cardioid pattern. Do not use Omni. I don't know why people thought maybe it's a blue yeti thing. I don't know why people thought that was a good idea. But yeah, the pattern needs to be specific towards your mouth. That's really all you need. It's important.
- [10:21]
A
It's so funny, I always tell people about proximity effect. I'm like, low end frequencies die with distance. Be close to the microphone. So therefore you're going to get the fullness of your voice. And when I tell them that, they're like, great. And then they stick the microphone, like you said, halfway across the room and I'm like, okay. The other one is too, is on headphones. Oh yeah, I see it in so many cases.
- [10:53]
B
That's it. Wear them. Echo cancellation is where good sound goes to die.
- [10:59]
A
Oh, I love that. Do you have any explanation as to why that is? Because, I mean, I feel it and I know it. Can you give us the. I mean, I've got an explanation in my head, but I'm willing to bet this is your jam. Yours is going to be a lot better. So let's hear yours.
- [11:21]
B
Well, the thing about echo cancellation is it's canceling echo. The idea being it's keeping the person that you're speaking to from also being heard when you speak. So. So that like if they're projecting your voice from speakers, God forbid, then, then you're hearing this echo from their microphone of your. And I mean, that's still workable in some ways. That's what echo cancellation does. So when people are not wearing headphones and they're having the sound piped in from all directions. That isn't heard as an echo on the mic. But what it also does is it suppresses the person who is like maybe speaking over someone. You can't have concurrent conversation. It's just really hard because anytime someone tries to interject, they get tamped down and muffled. Right. So it just becomes less of a conversation and more of a one person can talk here and one person can talk here and everything's kind of compressed and smooshed into one thing and it just doesn't sound good.
- [12:32]
A
It does not. Another thing that I kind of want to ask about is we in so many cases. Now, for me, I do a fair bit of public speaking. Obviously I'm focused on the mic too. I want to make sure I do my best to avoid sibilance. I do my best to avoid pops. I noticed it doesn't look like you have a necessarily pop filter on your microphone.
- [12:55]
B
I don't, but I'm talking on an angle.
- [12:58]
A
I was about to say, is that another tip that people can use on the microphone? Because for me, I just know with S words I need to tame down the S as it comes out of my mouth so I don't sound like a sea of snakes.
- [13:15]
B
That can be a problem for me too, especially when I'm in the booth on my Sennheiser 416, because women tend to be a little more sibilant. I don't know why that is, but I don't know. It also has to do with the teeth. So, you know, there's a difference there. So, yeah, I find that talking at an angle is definitely helpful. It helps prevent pops. And also if you make sure that you know exactly where you're supposed to address your mic. Like some people will address like a side address mic on the top for some reason because they were told to do that. I don't know. But like, it just it you need to know where your mic needs to be addressed, where you're angling, your. Your sound, where the most sound should be going. And like, I know this is a side address mic, so I am talking at an angle to it so that I don't. That it's not a full on breath of like a pop.
- [14:18]
A
Right? You're not breathing into it.
- [14:21]
B
Like, yeah, but it's close enough that whether or not I treated my room, you wouldn't know and you wouldn't care because I'm close enough to it. You can't hear the room around me. And this is a cardioid pattern. This is actually a condenser Mic.
- [14:35]
A
Sure. So it is meant to pick up the noises that are close and pointed directly at it. It's not.
- [14:41]
B
Yeah, it's almost like a figure eight.
- [14:43]
A
Yes. So it's not picking up the room. It's almost like a cone on someone's ear would be the analogy I might use for that. With that. Why do you think. I mean, obviously, this isn't just a podcasting thing for you. This is through and through. Why do you think audio is so important when it comes to people's branding?
- [15:08]
B
I think that if you don't sound good, you sound bad. And, I mean, that's. And what I. Okay. I mean, it's obvious, right?
- [15:17]
A
I like that. No, I truly like that.
- [15:19]
B
But it's like if you don't train your voice, I hate to say it, you kind of sound stupid. Like, this is. Like, this is what happens. We make these automatic judgments about sound that we hear. And if you sound bad, it sounds like you did not do your homework. Like you just. You just don't care. And, I mean, that's some. That's some people's brands. Hey, don't let me get in the middle of that. If that's your brand, you know, I don't care. I'm just gonna do whatever I want. That's fine. You know, it's not my brand, but. Okay. But, yeah, you pay attention. Pay attention.
- [16:02]
A
It's interesting you say that, because I. I feel like there's people that do have the sloppiness to it. And once again, obviously, you've got a great. I mean, I try and do my best to sound good on the microphone, too.
- [16:14]
B
Sure.
- [16:15]
A
Not everyone is gonna. Not everyone's going to have the NPR voice. I totally understand it.
- [16:21]
B
It's all about what you do with it, though. And even being in voice acting. I know that because there are people in voice acting who have awful voices and still make very good livings. It depends on what it is you're doing. Yeah. Oh, sure. Animation, video games. Holy crap. You can get away with a lot of st. I mean, no one. I don't know anyone who has a perfect voice. I just don't. And sometimes an NPR voice can work against you in certain aspects, because if you want something like a commercial that's more raw and messy, unfortunately, you're not going to hire me because I sound like this. You can't. I get it. I get it. There are some voices that work better for different things, but. But there is a place for just about every voice. I would say almost every voice if there's a speech impediment, you might want to look into that. You know, if your voice is, like, horribly annoying, maybe there's a problem, but I really don't know a lot of people like that. I honestly don't.
- [17:33]
A
No, I. Most people. And the other thing is, is most people don't like the sound of their own voice, I think, in many cases, because it's different than what they hear. They hear what rattles through their skull. They don't hear what comes out of their mouth.
- [17:47]
B
Record your voice. That's what you sound like.
- [17:50]
A
Yes, yes. Record it with a good mic. That's close.
- [17:54]
B
Well, yes, that goes without saying. Yes. But yeah, you're going to get a more objective idea of what your voice sounds like when you record it, because like you said, when you hear it through your own head, reverberating in your head cavity, it's going to sound completely different. And. And yeah, a lot of people don't like the sound of their voice, but you can. I think it's more a confidence thing than it is a sound thing almost. Because, I don't know. I. I don't have a problem with most. The sound of most voices. It's just the way people talk. And that is totally fine. You being you. I don't have an issue with that. That's great. Be you. Just be comfortable being you.
- [18:42]
A
What's something that someone could work on to be more comfortable being them? To hearing themselves? I mean, I know you said record. Is that the number one tip?
- [18:54]
B
It certainly helps, I would say being on a podcast.
- [18:57]
A
Sure.
- [18:57]
B
Or having a podcast, because. Wow, you learn how to talk. You do. And that actually can work really well if you're doing essays or you're having a solo podcast as well as. I find the really interesting thing with interview podcasts is that you learn how to ask questions and you learn how to listen to the answers, which is another entire skill all of its own. Active listening. Oh, my God. So important in everyday life.
- [19:30]
A
It really is. And it's funny because, like, even, like, you've seen me look down at my notes here. I have notes. Oh, yeah. I want to make sure.
- [19:37]
B
I always do, too.
- [19:38]
A
Yeah. I want to make sure I'm asking good, good questions. I do research up front in the same sense. I have gone from question one to question four to question two.
- [19:48]
B
Yes.
- [19:49]
A
Because that's how our conversation went. And I. Because I'm actually listening to you and not. Not just forcing question to question to question. Yes.
- [20:03]
B
Yeah, we've all been there. That can make for a pretty tiresome. Yeah, yeah. And I've had those.
- [20:11]
A
I was gonna say we both. We both guessed it enough where. We've had those. Where you go on and you're like, does this person even hear me? Am I here? Hello?
- [20:19]
B
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, yeah, it happens.
- [20:23]
A
It really does.
- [20:24]
B
Yeah. Being. I will say being. It is kind of a poor man's journalist, let's just say, yes, I agree, it is journalism, but it's like, you know, down home journalism. I don't know what you'd call it.
- [20:40]
A
But yeah, down home journalism.
- [20:43]
B
Yeah.
- [20:44]
A
I mean, that's a very polite and appropriate way to put that.
- [20:51]
B
It's thinking and asking questions and talking about answers and discussion that isn't prescribed, that isn't on a major network, that may get heard by 10 people. You know, I mean, right. It's just humans being humans. And I think there's something really delightful about that.
- [21:18]
A
I wholeheartedly agree with that. It's one of the things that I truly love about it is the fact that it is. We're a couple of humans. We're laughing and carrying on as such, and it's been delightfully entertaining. That being said, as you've started to do, as you started your podcasting journey, obviously you had the first. One of the things that you learned from that was that you didn't want to be a life coach as you've gone through. And let's talk about your. The. The. Your most recent podcast journey. What's something that you've pulled, like, learned from that or pulled away from that? That's been just a huge, like, oh, wow, I had no idea about that. Is your podcast not getting the results you hoped for? Are you feeling stuck and unsure how to grow your audience or make a real impact? We get it. Podcasting can be a challenge, but with the right strategies, it can be an incredibly powerful tool. That's why we're offering our free no Pitch podcast consultation. We'll spend 30 minutes with you identifying areas for improvement on anything from optimizing your audio or video quality to developing a content strategy that resonates with your customers. If you're ready to unleash your podcast's full potential, visit the link in our show Notes to schedule. Your free consultation space is limited, so sign up today so we can help you create a podcast that truly shines.
- [22:52]
B
It's funny, you don't realize how many people are listening until someone you had no idea would be listening comes up and tells you like, it's I, I go to podcasting conferences. I would go to PodFest for. I've been to PodFest, I guess about four years. And, and the people that I don't know would come up to me and say they really enjoyed this particular episode. And my audience is limited. I know how limited my audience is because it is very specific to people who generally work in sound. So it has a broad spectrum of people who might listen, but mostly it's the people who make their living in sound. And so other people hearing it is just so strange to me. Like, I just, I. It just, it freaks me out a little every time. And it's lovely. It's a nice freakout.
- [23:54]
A
Right, right, right.
- [23:55]
B
But. But it just, it's amazing to me how many people hear that you would not think would be hearing. And yeah, I'm finding out a lot from YouTube video on Drop off and how long people listen to an intro. So I'm discovering that B roll intro on YouTube is less important and maybe the audio version of that works just fine, but on YouTube, it just. People tune off if that's all they're seeing. Right. So we've cut that off. Like it's, there's, there's growing pains. Right. YouTube is. And YouTube is different from the straight audio.
- [24:41]
A
It is. I love that you said that because so many people treat it the same.
- [24:46]
B
No, it is not. And let me tell you, you should not be recording a YouTube thing and then just automatically taking that audio and making it your audio version. Please don't do that. It's. Half the people aren't seeing what you're doing on that YouTube video. And, and you're not describing it because you're on video and you're assuming everyone's seeing what you're doing. It's frustrating. As an audio only listener, it can be really frustrating. Plus, the audio is usually 10 times worse.
- [25:23]
A
Sure. Yeah, I agree with that.
- [25:25]
B
Yeah, it's just. Yeah, that's just my pet peeve. Like a lot of people will make a podcast and say, we did this live YouTube and that's our podcast. Okay.
- [25:42]
A
For those of you that are just listening and can't see the look on her face, it is one of questioning and frustration. The quotation marks around the air quotes there.
- [25:54]
B
Yeah, the air quotes.
- [25:56]
A
Even if you were just listening, you felt those air quotes. No, I want to go back to something that you said that I found very interesting. You said it's, it's for audio professionals. You're not trying to talk to everyone. That was, I'm assuming A very, very intentional decision.
- [26:15]
B
Yes, it was. Yeah.
- [26:17]
A
With that. When you specifically went for that, is that because a, you just like, hey, I want to talk to. I want to talk to six people and no one else, or is it I want to talk to 10 important people? Because I know so many people get lost in the hey, I want to talk to as many people as I at in my industry as a whole. But obviously yours is. You got a niche industry there that you're talking about. Was that intentional to do that?
- [26:46]
B
It was intentional, but I have a really interesting broad spectrum of people that I can talk to that I'm very lucky. I can talk to. So I can talk to filmmakers, I can talk to musicians, I can talk to podcasters, I can talk to public speakers. I can talk to people in commercials, in advertising, marketing, and branding who hire voice actors. I can talk to voice actors, I can talk to casting directors. I can talk to all sorts of really interesting people who work in this industry and can explain it to people outside the industry who want to learn about it. But also I can allow the people I interview to take their interview and show it to their clients so that they can explain why they might want to pay attention to this kind of stuff. So that's really. I'm kind of trying to raise all boats for those of us who work in sound. That's the idea of it. And of course, nice byproduct. I speak with people who hire me, who hire voice actors. Right. So gotta. Like that doesn't happen all the time. Sure it does occasionally. And I have gotten some jobs from it, which is quite nice. But. But you know, I don't interview people specifically with that in mind necessarily. It is a nice byproduct.
- [28:08]
A
Right, right.
- [28:09]
B
And this is certainly long tail marketing for me, definitely. I, you know, I would never say it's not, but at the same time, I want to make sure that all of us who work in sound are able to explain to people outside the industry why what we do is important.
- [28:27]
A
Ooh, I love that. I love that. Like, your show's been fairly highly ranked too. And especially for being a niche show with that, I always like to ask, like, how long did this take to get there? Because we all talk about like everyone dives sticks a toe into podcasting, thinking, hey, I've got this, I'm gonna be famous by Thursday, and this will launch on a Tuesday,
- [29:00]
B
six years from now. But okay, correct.
- [29:02]
A
It's funny, I had Dave Jackson on recently too, and he gave that six year timeline. Also, is that Something that you've seen in terms of like, real notoriety, but. Or when did you start to see some benefits out of your podcast? When you started recording?
- [29:18]
B
Probably took about three years, I would say. But at the same time, I'm not sponsored. I'm not making money from my podcast. I'm spending money on my podcast. So I don't know what you would call, like, in air quot success. You know what I mean? Like, I don't really understand what that would mean for my particular podcast. As far as I'm concerned, I'll keep doing it as long as I have a passion for it, and I'll stop when I don't.
- [29:46]
A
I love that. And to me, that. The passion for it, that's. I'm assuming what kept you going from that through those early ones? Obviously you enjoy it. And additionally, I know you built some content out of those early ones and I'm sure you learned some lessons from other people. Oh, yeah, Talked with on those. I. The example I always like to give is a. Is a general practitioner doctor. They're going to talk to a cardiologist. They're going to talk to a. A radiologist. They're going to talk to an orthopod. They're going to talk to those different people to get their expert opinions and, and get all those other niches in there. As you look ahead, AI is doing a lot of interesting things. What do you see as the future of voice and what do you see as the future of podcasting with AI doing some of the things that it's doing?
- [30:41]
B
I see AI as a partner, not a replacement. So I see it as helping with the productivity and not the creativity.
- [30:51]
A
Oh, I like that.
- [30:52]
B
So I talk about this all the time on my podcast. My goodness. Because a lot of voice actors are very worried that AI is going to replace that them. And I think as time has passed, we've seen that AI has tried to replace.
- [31:09]
A
Sure.
- [31:10]
B
And people have gone back to human voices because there have been studies done that have indicated that even if we can't understand that a voice was AI or recognize it in the moment, we didn't connect with that voice, whether we knew it was AI or not. We just didn't get anything from it. We just didn't feel a connection. And that's a. That's a subconscious thing. Like we don't. We don't realize it, but subconsciously we know there's not a human on the other end of that. And it strikes me that if you want to make a genuine connection with People in advertising, in marketing, in branding and podcasting, you need a genuine human voice if you just want to relate information. Well, okay, fine, doesn't matter. But if you want anyone to learn anything, if you want them to retain information and remember what you're telling them, if you want to actually have a connection with the people that are listening to you, you need a real human voice. And that's the same for commercials and advertising and marketing and branding and all of that stuff that we want people to remember and buy things from us after. You know, there's that whole money thing.
- [32:33]
A
They don't pay you for feels, they pay you to help them generate money.
- [32:39]
B
Well, yeah, but, but, but feels are how you generate the money.
- [32:44]
A
Correct, correct, Correct that.
- [32:46]
B
You know, if people don't feel the feels, you're not going to be remembered or you're going to be remembered for bad things. And I don't think that's how you want to. You want your branding to go. I really don't that' to say that in some instances it might not work. I'm not, I'm not here to say it would never work. And you know, no, there's no scenario where it might work. But if you want to make a genuine human connection, you need a genuine human voice.
- [33:16]
A
It's funny. I totally agree with that. And for me, like our conversation here, I know you can dump information into NotebookLM and have it created a podcast, quote unquote about it. And I've done that before. When there's like long reports that I need to read on something, I don't want to read it. So I will have Notebook LM make a podcast about it and read it to me when I'm driving someplace.
- [33:41]
B
Sure. That's a great use of that.
- [33:43]
A
Yes.
- [33:43]
B
It also cleans up audio really well. Like if you have a really bad sounding audio and you just don't know what to do about it, you can feed it into an AI algorithm and it will get rid of some of the background noise. It'll make you sound like you're closer on the mic. Like it just, it cleans things up if you really don't have any other option. So I think that's awesome. I think that's fantastic. And I think that's going to contribute to not hurting our ears in the future. So thank you. AI right, but, but should that voice that's actually doing the talking be an AI creature? I know, I don't think so.
- [34:23]
A
It's funny you say that because as a video person, I often see like AI generated video clips where I'm like, nope, right off the bat, I can see it. And I'm like. And there's. There's not these obvious things. It's not like something falls up, but it is. There's something in there. I'm like, it's too clean. Yeah. That didn't click too.
- [34:43]
B
Yeah, too focused. I don't know what it is. There's some. There's some real. And there's a whole lot of misinformation on YouTube that is AI generated. That.
- [34:53]
A
Oh, is there ever.
- [34:54]
B
Like, it's dangerous. It's really seriously dangerous. And if you don't have the ability to. To research whether this is true or not and you're just trolling YouTube looking for confirmation bias. Well, you're gonna find a lot of it.
- [35:12]
A
Yeah, for sure.
- [35:13]
B
Yeah. So it's getting dangerous. And, you know, it's getting dangerous in that they're putting real people into AI videos when they didn't do things or, you know, changing photographs or like, all sorts of really awful things that. That humans can be awful.
- [35:33]
A
Yes, they can. And to me, it's one of the reasons why, coming back to it, that I truly love podcasting and I love the human to human connection. No one's going to have this. This is not going to be an AI generated conversation. I stutter and stammer way too much for this. There's far too many nuance. There are far too many ways that I screw this up for this to be AI generated. Likewise, I love that you said it's just too clean in order to be that. That it makes perfect sense to me. That being said, and you cannot say, just press record, because we. We've totally outlawed that as an answer now. I've had enough people say that where I'm like, nope, not allowed anymore.
- [36:15]
B
Okay, not allowed.
- [36:16]
A
It is like, if someone's starting off their podcasting journey or just anything where they're presenting, I mean, hell, it could be a zoom meeting with their boss. What, like, what would be your top suggestion for him? And I think I know what this is, but I'm ready for it.
- [36:34]
B
Well, I mean, your audio is important, obviously. We've had that discussion. So I know that being close to your mic is a good thing to do, but I think that a lot of people get bogged down in trying to be perfect. That's like Instagram culture or something like that. I don't know. Like, you don't need to be perfect. No, you don't. And when you're starting out I mean, good God, listen to my very first episode. I mean, listen to anybody's first episode. It's horrendous.
- [37:03]
A
Yes. I always encourage people go back and listen to your first episode every once in a while just to see. It's like the before and after weightlifting pictures.
- [37:12]
B
Yeah. You learn as you go. You learn as you do. So just do so that you can learn. That's. It doesn't have to be perfect.
- [37:21]
A
Oh, that's. That's awfully. That's dangerously close to just press record.
- [37:26]
B
Well, yeah, it is, it is, but
- [37:28]
A
I still like it.
- [37:29]
B
I get it.
- [37:29]
A
I still like it because it is. It's. It's. You. You have to be able to be willing to mess up at first, really, in order to do that.
- [37:38]
B
And I will say also, one of the things that will really help out is to be a little ahead in your schedule. So if you're starting a podcast and you maybe could get like five episodes in the can and then introduce those and then have a little bit of a buffer when you start making your podcast, that will probably cause a lot less friction and give you a lot less heart palpitations if you want a regular schedule. And I will also say that the way that I did this because I have a full time job is I split my 60 minute interviews into two 30 minute interviews.
- [38:16]
A
Interesting.
- [38:17]
B
So each of my 60 minute interview minute discussions are two parts and that means that I have two weeks for a guest, which works for them and then works for me because I have more of a buffer. That means I can be choosier with my guests. It means I can take more time with them. It means that I have a regular schedule that I have kept for, you know, since I started in November 2019, I have not missed an episode. So, you know. Yeah, weekly.
- [38:44]
A
That's amazing.
- [38:45]
B
Every, every Wednesday morning a new episode comes out. So. But it's because of that buffer.
- [38:51]
A
Sure.
- [38:51]
B
Because I schedule and because I'm lucky enough that I have an evergreen type of podcast. Now, if you have a podcast that does daily discussions on the news, then you may have a bit of a problem doing that. But you know, if. If your topic happens to be evergreen like mine is, it works in your favor.
- [39:10]
A
Speaking of your podcast, where can people find you? Where can people find your podcast? Plug away.
- [39:18]
B
Well, I am@voiceoversandvocals.com and you can find the podcast@audiobrandingpodcast.com pretty easy.
- [39:26]
A
Yeah, that's very easy. I really appreciate the time, the tidbits, the information. This has been Just a pure joy and I appreciate it. And we'll have to revisit this in another year or so to see if I sound any better, have gotten any better, and we'll see. We'll also talk about voiceover world stories.
- [39:50]
B
Sure. That's a rabbit hole, correct?
- [39:55]
A
Correct.
- [39:56]
B
My goodness. But thank you for having me. This has been a lot of fun. Josh, thank.
- [40:01]
A
Thanks for coming on. For everyone else, I will be right back. I'm gonna take my notes, summarize them, and we'll talk about that in a minute. I truly enjoyed my conversation. And a big part of that is the fact that once again, I mean, here's someone that has such a vast knowledge in a very specific area and she was able to, like, pass that knowledge on to me. And obviously you got something from it. Also, to me, it's all about sounding better. Because let's face it, as I said in the intro to this, so many people talk about brand voice, but they don't talk about the voice behind the brand, which is especially the case in a podcast. Your voice is representing your brand, not your guest's voice, because that's different every week. It is your voice that is the one that is representing your brand. Do you sound your best? Do you sound good? I love the part that she talked about where it's like, the actual voice doesn't matter in the person. You don't need to sound like me. You don't need to sound like the movie announcer guy. You don't need to sound like, like her. There's room for everyone's voice, but making sure that there's not cackles in it, making sure that there's not an excess of sibilance, making sure that there is not coughing in it, making sure, like, you don't want those things representing your brand. Why would you leave them in your podcast? Why would you leave that up to chance? Additionally, like when she said, we always tell people get right up on the mic and people get uncomfortable with it. It the mic needs to be here if you want to sound good. The microphone needs to be close. It's not going to get the full range of your voice if it's far away. Additionally, when a mic's close like this, there can be other noises in the room that the microphone will not hear. That's because it's quiet enough. The microphone sensitivity is turned down enough that it's, it's, it's only going to pick up your voice. It's not going to pick up those extraneous sounds. We want to make sure I always tell people that you look and sound your best. And sound is so, so so much of podcasting. It's everything really. Something to keep in mind when you're thinking about how you are going to present stuff and how you are going to do stuff for your brand. I pulled a lot out of this and really it really showed me what a voice actor can do and like her voice was consistent the whole way through and you, you knew it was her and she just sounded so, so good. You can sound that good. Also, if you don't think you can, by all means hit one of the links in the show notes. I would love to talk to you about it because typically it just takes a few small tweaks and you can get there. Do me a favor, take care of yourself. If you can, take care of someone else too, I will see you very, very soon. Creating engaging content can feel overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. That's why I'm excited to share our Stomping Podcasting newsletter. You'll get actionable insights and expert tips straight to your inbox. These are to help you maximize your video marketing and podcasting return on investment. Head over to the Show Notes and click the link to subscribe to our free newsletter. Don't miss out on this opportunity to become a video marketing and podcasting pro.