Welcome to Podcasting Tech, a podcast that equips busy

entrepreneurs engaged in podcasting with proven and cost effective

solutions for achieving a professional sound and appearance. I'm

Matthew Passi, your host and a 15 year veteran in the podcasting space.

We'll help you cut through the noise and offer guidance on software and hardware that

can elevate the quality of your show. Tune in weekly for insightful

interviews with tech creators, behind the scenes studio tours, and strategies for

podcasting success. Head to podcastingtech.com to subscribe to

this show on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform and join us on this

exciting journey to unlock the full potential of your podcast.

It's always nice when I get to connect with somebody I already know to do

this podcast, and today is no exception. I am chatting with Tracy

DeForge. She is the founder of produce your

podcast with a ton of experience in broadcast and and executive

management and more. We will have a lovely discussion about where the space of

podcasting is and some thoughts on monetization. And, Tracy, thank you for joining me

today. I am so happy to be here, Matthew. We were just talking off mic

about how it's so fun that we're connected in so many other ways, but getting

together on the podcast is sort of the natural thing, but neither one of us

ever thought about doing it until now. So it's great. No. Right. It's the obvious

thing to do. How do we overlook it? Exactly. Which is funny. You know,

it's funny you say that when I was giving podcasting advice and I was doing

audits, it it always felt like one of the big things that I was doing

was telling people something that they already knew, and they would just be like, oh,

duh. Of course. Why didn't I see that? Right? It's like right in front of

my face, but, right, it takes somebody else to to kinda point it out to

you. So I'm glad your team pointed this out to us and that we are

getting together. So before we jump into what Produre

podcast is and some of these other strategies, tell me, how did you find your

way into the world of podcasting to begin with? Well, I fell in

love with the platform of audio just actually really, really

young. I loved radio. I used to

I've shared this before, but I literally used to sleep with the radio underneath my

pillow listening to AM transmitter or ghost

stories. And when my friends would come over, we would I would have

them make, radio shows. And my dad was the

president of the March of Dimes when I was growing up, and the walkathons had

live radio remotes. And so for me, it just was like a first

love, first sight, scenario for me. And then I

had the most amazing opportunity to work for over 2

decades in broadcast radio professionally. But it wasn't

until I was my own business owner and

working and doing business business development strategy for Fortune 5

100. There's a specific project I was working on with Weight Watchers

International that was just it was a catalyst for

me to want to start my own podcast. And at

that point in time, I I looked around and there weren't

really this again was 2015. There weren't a lot of full

service production and marketing agencies at that time,

if any, really, that that was totally done for you.

And I think because I worked in radio for so long, a, I was spoiled

and I wanted a broadcast quality show, and b, I knew exactly

what kind of work that was gonna take. So I pulled a team together,

of people that I had worked with in the industry, and we launched my first

podcast in March of 2016. And

swiftly after that, I just really

realized how many been as business owners could really benefit from a

full service podcast production support because I knew it it was gonna be

just like social media and websites and ultimately people were gonna have a

podcast for their business just like they had those other marketing vehicles. And I just

wanted to be there to help be a catalyst for their podcasts.

So with so much love for radio, experience in the

broadcasting world, you, you know, make this transition over to broad,

podcasting. You bring, you know, management expertise, all these

different things. You know, one of the things that people love about podcasting is it's

different from radio. Yes. But but

there's a lot we can learn from the broadcasting and the radio world.

What are some of the the key things that you brought from your

expertise to podcasting that still apply today? I

think for me, because my the majority

of my broadcast radio experience was on the sales and

management side, so that involved a lot

of working with strategic partnerships and bigger brands and

local businesses and really helping them build an audio brand

for themselves and and really leverage radio

in an in a way that was a business development tool. And

so I think for me, having that level of

expertise and how to work with the radio

stations and the brands and the radio stations and the businesses was just

such a natural transition for me on the audience

growth and monetization side of podcasting because it

a lot of the same formulas apply, a lot of the same

strategies apply. But I also think what's so great

is that, like, for me growing up, I mentioned how much I loved radio and

I mean I was that girl who would call into the radio station and

request like 2 out of 3, 8 bad for meatloaf and like I would

listen for when they would play my song. Radio was such

a as an aspirational place for me all

through my youth high school college. And so when I actually had the

opportunity to go work for radio, it was a big deal for me

because it was so unattainable. And what I love

about podcasting is that it's really made the platform

of getting your voice out. It's made it so possible

and it's made the technology now over the last 10 years has evolved so

much that it's made it easier and more simple to get your

voice out. So I think from a strategy and execution

standpoint, my expertise really helped with businesses to help grow

their businesses through podcasting. But I also just think in general,

podcasting has given accessibility to a platform that was so

unattainable in the past. So so many more people

can have their voices heard and change conversations about things in their

industry or things in their life. So that's why I truly love how

the 2 have merged. When you are working with businesses and

they're developing a podcast, what do you find are

the strategies that help them reach more

listeners with their podcast and then from

there, turn that into useful conversions for their

business? Yes. So there's kind of a for me, there's a 2

pronged answer for that, and it's a carryover from your first question. So

when we build shows for clients, we I fall back

to the original radio clock, if you will. So

we literally will and I use the language, the

structured, unstructured podcast. And what we mean by that at Producer

Podcast is that we will align a format for

the host that how they're gonna open the show, how they're maybe they're

gonna highlight industry insights if they're gonna do q and a

interviews, integrating a special segment that has an

opportunity for sponsorship and really showcase their expertise, how

they utilize a music bed, professional open and close.

So just that piece alone has been a really nice transitional

piece of education and motivation for

us to build shows that sound and feel and the

listeners enjoy because it's edutainment. It's not

an infomercial. And I think that's just really important to

start with a quality product, especially if you're a business owner.

You need your podcast to be as professional as your

website, as your social media needs to be an audio brand

extension of who you are in your own voice. And then the audience

growth piece becomes a little more simple, not too much

more, but a little bit more simple because everything is has that

continuity when people experience your brand on the different platforms.

They listen to your podcast, they watch it on YouTube, they go to your website.

Everything has a nice continuous flow. So that builds the

trustworthiness and the credibility factor. And then when you get

into really specific growth tactics, I mean, we could talk all

day about that, but there's, you know, consistency compounds over

time. You've got to commit to a schedule that is gonna be attainable for

you that you can not only just survive to maintain, but also

thrive in. And because that consistency is so incredibly

important for audience growth. And then looking at your

marketing strategy and what are you doing organically, What

are you doing to integrate your podcast in all the other areas that you're marketing?

And then are you setting aside a specific budget to

market your podcast maybe inside other podcasts that have

similar audiences? So it's not a

simple one size fits all, but there are

certain pillars of this strategy that I just outlined that if all of those

come together, then you're going to have organic

and accelerated growth. Do you

find that there are particular platforms,

and I know this is gonna change for business to business, depending on what they

rely on, what they use, and where they target stuff, but just in general,

is there a platform that you think drives more direct

listeners or subscribers to a podcast? Because, you know, we put out a

ton of stuff on social media. We do email newsletters. We

do podcast. And, right, like, there's lots of these growth

hacks that are out there. Some of them have a lot of merit. Some of

them work brilliantly. Some of them, you know, people trying to, they don't work

all that well. Maybe it's for lots of different reasons, but, like,

it's I find it's hard to go from

brand recognition of a podcast to actual conversion of listening. And

have you seen or found any trends that really show a

better direct relationship with that with, you know, where you're putting the message

versus where they're coming in and becoming new subscribers?

Yes. So the the first answer to that, I'm gonna just pinpoint

how you started out that it may be different for everyone. So at produce

your podcast, we work primarily with business owners. So we are

working with the brands and the businesses who want to

leverage their podcast to basically increase their bottom

line for visibility, for leads, and for sales. So the why

for that and the end game for that is gonna have a different strategy than

someone who is maybe doing a true comm or entertainment focus

or a narrative storytelling focused podcast. Those are definitely

2 different types of growth strategies. So we're gonna be

focusing on the one that's gonna be really optimized

for the businesses who wanna grow their business through their

podcast. And in doing that, there's 2

basically, there's 2 schools thoughts. And one is make sure those foundational

pieces, like you said, are all buttoned up and

have the podcast integrated into them. So that's the newsletter. That's

your social media. That's how you have it presented on your website.

That's your call to action in the show itself. That's a huge

thing that a lot of times people get they overlook the call to

action. I literally just did a podcast audit yesterday for

a business owner who is very successful and has a very

successful show. But the way they ended their show was, okay. Thanks.

Bye. And then it and and one of their biggest

objectives for doing the podcast audit was because they said that they

weren't getting enough conversions from the podcast to their

newsletter or from the podcast to their website. And that was just such

a simple okay. But because you're not asking people to continue the

conversation with you after the show, like highly engaged

host, super powerful, guests,

really great show, but zero call to action at the end.

So you've gotta go through almost like a checklist of these foundational

pieces first. And then you also have to have your mindset

around your metrics to be appropriate because I

think that what is going to be successful

for a niche podcast or business focused podcast,

those metrics are gonna be different than what you're expecting

to hear out of a celebrity podcast or a

Joe Rogan podcast or, again, the True Crime podcast. Those who have a

wider audience and and achieve wider

results, lots more downloads. But in business focused podcast, you

don't need 1,000 and hundreds of thousands of downloads.

If you are using the right call to action and the right strategy,

you can convert quality over quantity. So

that mindset around your metrics is really important. And then

let's look at the platforms like you're asking. I personally

am a huge advocate for leveraging

other podcasts to promote your podcast because

you are already reaching people who are, a, consuming content that they like

on podcasts. Easy peasy.

And then 2, they're already consuming content that's similar

to the content that you're putting out. So it is the perfect

place to introduce your podcast to

this audience who's already listening to podcasts and listening to

podcast content similar to yours. So it's a natural conversion to be

like, oh, well, I'll definitely check out this show because

I'm already meeting box 1, box 2, and now box 3.

Yeah. I mean, I I couldn't agree more that one of the best ways to

promote your show is to have it on other

podcasts because at least you know there, the target audience

knows how to listen to a podcast. If nothing else. Right? You put it a

Facebook ad, you put it a Google ad, you put it anywhere else. It's like,

I hope they know how to consume podcasts or I hope they do consume podcasts.

In a podcast ad, we know they're listening to podcasts. That's

how they're getting this information. So it's just And if if you are

using those other platforms, I run across this a lot too. It's like,

Instagram might be your marketing platform of choice for your business.

Let's say you're an interior design business, for example.

Podcasting can work really well for interior design businesses. We've

been producing multiple different interior design firms for years,

but Instagram doesn't necessarily grow your podcast audience because

you can't link directly to the episode from the stories,

from the reels, from the post. So you also wanna be

mindful of being on a platform where your audience is

engaging. Yes. But also being in marketing your podcast

on a program or platform where they can link to the

episode because we want everything so easy right now. Right? Like, we don't wanna have

to go hunt for anything or search for anything. Even if we know how to

listen to podcasts, we if you don't make it super simple

easy, then you're gonna lose the opportunity for somebody to find your

show. I couldn't agree with that more.

So shifting just a little bit because I wanna make sure we we get on

this topic of monetization. And, you know, for businesses, obviously, the

big part of monetization isn't so much we're gonna directly

build an audience and sell ads and make money that way. Right? It's

usually, we have this podcast so that we can make money over here where

we tend to make more money or, you know, we've been working on this for

a long, long time, right, things are good. But you have an interesting

series on other ways basically to monetize a podcast,

and I'm curious what you think the future of that looks like for podcasters today

who, you know, they're reading the headlines. They're reading people saying podcast is, you

know, we were it's the bubble has burst. It's not as good as it should

bubble. Wait. Like, all the doomsayers are out there. I I don't

believe that, and I sense you don't believe that, and that the future is is

pretty bright for podcasters who are taking this seriously. A 100%.

And so monetization, again, it's not a cookie cutter one sauce fits

all. And I think, what you're speaking to is

we do a lot of coaching for podcasters in how to

monetize their show, and we focus on a couple of things. First of all,

the cost per 1,000 model, it does work. If you are in those

higher tiers of listenership, 10,000 downloads of your

podcast episode or more, then you're naturally gonna be able to make more

money off of the cost per 1,000 model. But most

podcasters fall into the 9,999

or less or significantly less category. But

that does not mean that they cannot monetize their podcast.

You can start monetizing your podcast even in a prelaunch

stage based on the network that you bring

to your to your business, to your audience. And what I mean by

that is very similar to how we started out this podcast when we were

thinking, hey, we've known each other for years, but it never crossed our mind that

we should actually, you know, get together on a podcast interview. I encourage

people to think about their immediate network the same way when it comes to

monetization. Most likely, again, as a business owner who's

using their podcast to grow their business, you have vendor relationships

that you've built over time that you've purchased from for years.

You have clients that own their own businesses that know you like

you trust, you know, that kind of work that you do. So they're going to

believe that your product of the podcast that you put out is going to be

similar to the quality of the work that you do in other areas. So you

can start having conversations with people that you

know that, you know, and there's a phrase that I use quite frequently and

it's that most people over s

underestimate the number of people they know. They underestimate the

number of people they know, and they overestimate the number of people

that know what they do. So if you really think about

that, you underestimate the number of people you know. So if

you really just sit down and think about, okay, who do I know that might

be interested in being aligned with my podcast or my podcast content

or who could benefit from being in front of my audience? Mighty

quality of quantity audience. And then

don't overestimate that people know what it is that

you're doing or know what it is or know that you even have a podcast.

So so many people just assume that

everyone knows what they're doing and that they have a podcast and then they end

up on the ball field or church or somewhere else and

they find out that, oh, I I just launched a

podcast last week and I'm like, really? Did you know that I do

that for a living? Like, you know, it it can happen to anybody. So you

have to you have to be very mindful of just really being able

to acknowledge and put out to people what it is

that you do so that they think of you either when they're

ready to use a product or service similar to yours or they know somebody that

they can refer you to. So that immediate warm network is

incredibly important as you start the process of sponsorship and monetization.

And then to your point, you're marketing your own products and services in your

own show is often sort of a, like, duh moment

because that's your oceanfront real estate. Your podcast is your

oceanfront real estate. No one is gonna explain your products and

services better than you're going to. You can bring in your own clients. You can

bring in people that have worked with you, share their stories. You can share success

stories through podcast interviews like we're doing right now.

And your own products and services, you can get conversions

that way. That is a monetization strategy. And then the 3rd

piece is I'm gonna, again, circle back to what we were talking about.

A lot of times people don't think about marketing their podcast on other

podcast, but the piece that they really don't think about, which is what

where we're finding a lot of success with our clients right now is

invest in the ad strategy to grow your show

and have it underwritten by your sponsors. So what

very specifically how this works is that if you sell a sponsor into

your show, they can access your audience vertically and

the audience that you're already currently reaching. But if you

supplement that with an audio ad spend strategy that you're

getting in front of mirrored audiences that are consuming similar content,

then they are likely gonna wanna do business with the sponsor that's interested in your

audience. So include that sponsor in that ad

strategy. So then you go to your brand and and this can

work for local businesses up to, you know,

household name brands. You're saying you're gonna reach my highly engaged

audience vertically, and then we're gonna get this many impressions

and this many plays of my podcast

in an widespread mirrored audience that is

listening to similar content. So you're gonna get a wide

horizontal reach and a vertical reach. And once you can have those types

of conversations, it's almost a no brainer because they get

impressions. They get the whole language

around cost per 1,000. They get the whole you know, that's where you can compete

with digital marketing in a big way because you can bring the same language to

them in those conversations. So we're getting a little bit in the weeds about it,

but I really like talking about it because it's something that

people aren't really necessarily connecting the dots on quite yet, and

I feel like it's something that could really explode for people with smaller

audiences to really be able to achieve bigger results. Well and so

that was actually gonna be my next question, which is, you know, what we're talking

about easy easier said than done when you're getting 5, 10,

50000 downloads in an episode. What if you're a smaller show,

very tight niche audience, you know, you're very specialized,

your audience is engaged, but, you know, often we say

podcast ads, and company

first question is how many downloads do you get? And you're gonna be like,

not enough. But but how do you turn that around? How do you make

a smaller show work for you? Yes. So I think

that's an excellent question. So much of that, again, has to

do with your mindset around your metrics because how you feel about

them is going to translate in the energy of what you bring in

the conversation. So if you are in in and this is a

100% the the types of audiences that we're working with, we're

seeing sponsorship work successfully in, for example, of

an a divorce attorney who's licensed to

Minnesota and Wisconsin need you know, they're geographically

restricted. They are a divorce, podcast.

So they're already a niche audience of either you're going through 1, you know, somebody

who's going through 1 or you're thinking about going through 1. And so

that strategy, I mean, her downloads are 300 maybe or

less on average. But the conversation that she has with

the brands that have sponsored her show are

it is a smaller audience, but the quality of the audience

that I'm reaching is exactly who you need to be

talking to. So you're not just doing a ricochet

sporadic approach to your marketing. You're getting, you know, every

single episode you're getting in front of people who need

your services or and we're and that can be anything from

travel to weight loss to, recovery

programs like you have to think about what are the services that your

audience needs when they're going through a divorce and how can those businesses

support them. The same with a podcast that we produce called Bury Nation,

which is very specific to people who are having

gastric bypass surgery or they are considering

having gastric bypass surgery. They're very

specific nutrition drinks, protein bars,

how they travel changes, their wardrobe changes,

even psychology, the mindset around food changes. And

so that's a very niche audience, but they're able

to connect with brands who wanna reach that very specific audience.

And then they also have a community so they can convert people from their podcast

into their community and monetize it that way. So I'm I'm one of

those people that's like, yeah. Don't talk to me about small audiences

that don't work. Talk to me about how smart small audiences

can work. And, yes, it's a more difficult

conversation to a cold outreach. And this is

why we encourage you to start having these conversations with brands

that you already know that and already know of you. And then

you hit that bull's eye target in the center with your warm

network and then go out from there. But it's a 100%

possible and probable to get sponsors

for 1500 downloads or less. I mean,

literally, we specialize in it, and we've seen it happen successfully over and

over. But you've gotta really be comfortable having

the conversation, and that can be done through you can gather

your own social proof. How how are people acting on your podcast?

Do you do podcast surveys? Are you getting

comments on your social media that you can screenshot? You

know, what are your reviews like on your show? Like, there are ways that you

can show transformation of your audience from your

podcast, even starting by marketing your own products and

services and track your own data that way. And then have

that as a case study story as you're talking to other advertisers. This

is all as we are starting a new year here, this is some great advice

to think about how to approach your show, how to, you know, really

hit your revenue milestones in 2025 is

to think about your show differently, put more credence to all the, you know, all

the specific things that you're doing, put more into, you know,

all the extra places that your podcast touches people,

not just right directly in the earbuds, you know, coming through Apple

Podcasts or Spotify or something like that. So, love these

thoughts and and hope more people, get a chance to act on them. As a

reminder, we're chatting with Tracy DeForge. She's the founder of Producer

Podcast. She's a consultant. She does a ton of other stuff. She hosts

Growth Accelerator podcast, Journey There, and Ask Brian

Radio Show. Is that right? Yeah. It's a live radio show that's based out of

Los Angeles. It's repurposed as a podcast. It's probably, you

know, I'm a little bit of a shoemaker with no shoes when it comes to

my end podcast sometimes. But even that's one of the things I started produce

your podcast so that I wouldn't put my own shows. But what I

didn't because I'm so focused on our clients. Right? And I was doing

business development strategies strategy at that time, and I was like, okay. I need

a team because if left to my own devices, I know I'm gonna put my

clients first. And so I need a team to hold me accountable. And then I

started a podcast production company and all my clients have podcasts. So

it so I I I have challenges,

people. I'm not going to lie, but a live radio show keeps you accountable

because you have to show up every week for that show, and we repurpose

that as a podcast. But, so thank you for that.

But, yes, produce your podcast.com is by far the best way. You can check out

all of those and, and some of the examples of some of the

sponsorship integrations that we're talking about today. That's one of the things I love about

our portfolio page. You can go hit some of these shows and you can hear

how the sponsors are integrated into them or you we have some great blogs

and on sponsorship and monetization that dig a little deeper into what I was

talking about today. But I, you know, I just encourage people to start where

they are with it because, you know, I come from a background of broadcast

radio sales. It sounds really easy for me to sit here and say,

oh, all you need to do is this. All you need to do is that.

I get it that if you're a financial adviser or you're

an interior designer or you're a coach or you're a consultant, this doesn't come

naturally to you. But talking to people that you already know that

you're already doing business with does come naturally for you. So all you have

to do is just pivot that conversation around. Hey. Have you ever

considered wanting to be involved with my podcast and just start

the conversation from there and build on that

because that really truly is the easiest way. And think

about all of the other touch points you

can give your audience through your news I mean, to your sponsor, to

your audience. So you like you said, newsletter, social media, blog

post, website, show notes, like, you can feature them in all of

these other areas. So all of a sudden that conversation isn't just about how many

downloads you have. It's I have this engaged audience plus all these

other touch points you'll be included in, and then they're like, hey.

Sign me up. Great. That's all they want is access to

people. So if you can just provide them as much access to people as you

can, then you're doing your job. Well, as a reminder, we'll have all those links

here in the show notes, but produce your podcast.com is the best place to, you

know, find Tracy and all the the great things that she is working on. Before

we let you go, couple of questions we'd like to ask everybody who appears on

the show. First one is, is there a place in podcasting

where you would like to see improvement, whether it's from

content creation, distribution, consumption? Is there just something that's

annoying at you about podcasting that you'd like to see fixed? I

don't know if this is something that's fixable, but what I would love

to see is people not diminish their

perception around the power of audio podcasts.

Yes. There's a place for video. Yes. There's a place for audio.

Audio is very strong. Theater of the mind is

amazing. The ability to connect with people in a portable

medium to get around screen fatigue

to all of the things like the 2024 was the year of

conversation around video, and then it became video podcast.

And then it became, oh, you have an audio podcast?

So, you know, I I'm often thrown a

temper tantrum saying I did not launch

and grow produce your video podcast. I built produce

your podcast, and the power of audio

from early radio days preceded television.

You know, audio podcast preceded the term video

podcast. Like, audio podcasts are still

incredibly powerful, so I just don't want that perception to be

shifted, changed, or diminished just because

YouTube plays strongly in the video

space now. Yeah. I mean, I I think I listen. I I

agree. Video is obviously an important

video is very popular. It's popular on all the platforms. Right? We we prioritize

video in our lives. We see it everywhere we go. If you can do

video, if you could put out video, it can only help you, right, reach

more people, find more people, but I'm not convinced that

just because more people are consuming podcasts on

YouTube, that more people are actually watching podcasts.

Right? Pod the the joy of podcasting is it's

one of the mediums that you can really absorb, be

entertained, laugh. Right? Like, you can feel all those things while still

doing something else. And with video, that becomes a lot harder. So I agree

with you. Produce video, use it to your advantage, but

don't don't forget the audio audience. Don't forget the people who listen

while they're driving, while they're working, while they're working out, doing dishes, running,

whatever. Like, don't lose that focus. You

know, audio conversations have been around 1000 of

years and will be around 1000 of years in the future even when even when

the RSS feed and YouTube go away. Yeah. You know, and a piggyback to that

because you're asking, like, what what would be one thing you would change. So this

you can change right now if you're a podcaster. If you were recording a

podcast, if you're creating content for audio and for video,

please do not forget that your audio audience cannot see

what it is that you're talking about. So be very mindful

if you I I use this very specific example we're recording

right now in video. You can see the back of my wall. The back of

my wall, for those of you listening, are multiple different

examples of cover arts of pod casters that we produce, shows that we

produce. Awesome. By the way, it's a great wall. Thank you so much. But if

you had just said, hey, Chacey, that's a great wall. And I said, thanks,

Matthew. I appreciate it. Then the person listening would not

be able to feel included or part of our conversation. So we're

automatically dismissing and and alienating them.

Where if you said, hey, Tracy, tell me about that wall. It's pretty

cool. And then I said, thanks, Matthew. It's a it's a wall full

of shows that we produce over the years. Then the person listening

can visualize that in their own mind, and they don't feel like they just got

kicked out of a conversation. And I think if you're a podcaster,

if you don't take anything else away from this conversation today,

be mindful of your listening audience when you're recording video.

And I would also stress, you know, there are lots of shows that, you know,

they talk about something they saw on social media or things like that, and you

can't really embed images into your podcast post, but you can embed

links. So go ahead and say, oh, you know, I saw that

post on Instagram. There is a link to it in our show notes so that

somebody listening can go quickly click it, see it, and then be a

better part of the conversation. So love that advice. And, yes, I I

would encourage people who are listening, go look for a clip of Tracy. I'm sure

we're gonna post plenty of them, and check out her wall behind her. It's very

cool, especially if you're a production company or clients are lots of

podcasts. It's a great way to design your, office. Is there

any tech on your wish list, like, hardware,

software, something either that's out there that you just haven't quite, you know,

pulled the trigger on or something that's yet to be invented that would make your

life better, easier, or more enjoyable?

Wow.

God, that's such a that's a question that stumps me a little bit because

I love to adopt new technology. Like, I'm I love I

like to be I like to experiment with the new

stuff. But I think I think where I am as a

business and right now, I feel like we have really good

podcasting tech and engineering, tech in our business.

So my focus right now is I'm just gonna answer this of where I am.

I'm really, really looking

at support technology for lead generation, for

business development, for, you know, I love our

we already have an amazing project management software that we use, and I

feel really confident about our engineering technology. So what

I'm exploring right now and really looking at are things that make

lead generation, cold outreach, things that

are are good aggregators as business development tools

for us to grow our own business. So I don't know that that's

really necessarily a fair podcasting tech question,

but I do really feel strongly that that's an important part of business

is to be able to establish your systems

around lead generation and outreach and how you're growing your business outside

of your podcast. So that's really that's our 2025, that's what we're really

focused on for next year. Love it. Alright. And last

thing, is there a podcast or 2 that are your absolute favorites to

listen to, the ones that regardless of what else you're listening to, whatever you're

doing, they drop a new episode, you're going to listen to it.

You're not gonna expect this answer because no one will probably.

But this is such also a good example of why you should never,

if you can help it, not pod fade. And if you do, just

acknowledge it and come back. So one of my all time

favorite podcast for years has been Alana's Morsetz's

podcast. Now I'm huge into

music and I worked in, as we know, in the industry for years, but her

podcast is actually not about her music.

It's about her personal growth journey, her journey as a workaholic,

her, issues around hers, you know,

really getting a lot she interviews a lot of really great

people around the personal growth side of things. But

she hadn't released an episode in, I wanna say, like, 4

years. And it was about 6 months ago,

it popped up in my feed that she had a new episode. So

that's what triggered the memory when you said, like, what's the podcast? When it pops

up in your feed, you're like, stop everything and listen. I literally

was like, what am I doing right now? I lost my I had

to send her episode out. And I posted about it because

she had been gone so long without releasing 1, and then she released

1. And I was like a kid in a candy store, could not wait to

listen to it. And sadly, she only just released the one, and I was like,

I thought she was gonna be back in her groove. So

my lesson and takeaway for this with people listening is, like, your audience loves

you, and they love when you they hear from you. And don't disappoint

them. Like, figure out a way to have a sustainable

release schedule and stick to it even if it's once a month,

once a quarter, you know, probably more frequently than that.

But just really be mindful that you're building a relationship. And so if

you ghost them with your podcast, you're gonna be disappointing them. And then

when you reach out and do the text and

reengage with them like you would if you had ghosted somebody and reengage

with them, then they're excited to hear from you. Don't do it again. Well, even

though it's technically a coincidence, I'm just gonna say, isn't it ironic?

We have a chatty with Tracy DeForge, founder of Proteus Your Podcast. Learn

more at produce your podcast.com, and we'll have links to that and all the other

things that she's working on in the show notes, Tracy. Thank you for joining me

today. Thank you, Matthew. It was so fun. Thanks for

joining us today on Podcasting Tech. There are links to all the

hardware and software that help power our guest content and

podcasting tech available in the show notes and on our website at

podcastingtech.com. You can also subscribe to the show on your

favorite platform, connect with us on social media, and even leave a rating and review

while you're there. Thanks, and we'll see you next time on Podcasting

Tech.