PlayerFM to Castmagic: How Greg Wasserman Shapes Success Through Networking and Relationships

[00:00:00] I'm big on breaking the fourth wall. It's a skill, but it's also something most of us don't do in the podcasting space. It's breaking the fourth wall is engaging your audience real time. What up, potty people? And welcome back to Clipped. As always, I'm Eric, your host.

[00:00:27] And Clip brings you podcast production tips, resources, industry insights, education and conversations with my potty pals. I'll aim to help you become a better, more efficient podcaster. I'm on a mission to help you start grow and monetize your show.

[00:00:42] And speaking of potty pals, I've got a fun one for you this week. I had an awesome conversation with Greg Wasserman. He's head of growth partnerships and community at Castmagic.

[00:00:53] You're going to hear all about his story, how he used to work for CBS radio and then transition to a role at a company that actually bought the app PlayerFM. Then how he worked to generate more revenue and grow PlayerFM.

[00:01:10] We talk about the state of Castmagic today and the things he's doing there and all the cool AI stuff that Castmagic does to make your life as a podcast easier.

[00:01:21] If you didn't know, Castmagic is an AI platform that can repurpose your show into clips, show notes, transcriptions, quotes, you name it. I've used it before and I dig it. And I think it's a great tool and so stoked to introduce Greg to you as well as Castmagic.

[00:01:39] But before we get into it, just want to give a shout out to Riverside. This episode sponsor, if you didn't know Riverside is an online platform. The URL is riverside.fm. There you can record 4K video and high fidelity audio all remotely strictly from your web browser.

[00:01:58] Everything is cloud based, super easy to use, super high quality and they just released a new tool called Magic Editor. That's going to beef up your audio, reduce background noise, get you sounding really good and full on the microphone.

[00:02:12] So if you haven't checked out Riverside, I highly recommend it. Go to riverside.fm and to promo code CLIPPT, the name of this show that's CLIPP C-L-I-P-P-E-D for 20% off. And now, here's my conversation with Greg. So let's give it a go. Greg, welcome to the show.

[00:02:44] Great to be here man. Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you. We've met briefly remotely, stoked to meet you in person at Podcast Movement. But this is a question I ask everybody and I actually just got the answer off air show. I should have saved that.

[00:02:58] But where are you originally from? And the reason I ask that is because it just kind of sets the tone for a little bit about like who you are and your background and your vibe and such. Yeah, born and raised in Chicago, moved out to LA for college.

[00:03:10] So everyone thinks I'm an east coaster but now Chicago born and raised and living in LA now. And so where did you go to college here? USC, fight on. When I think of you, I think of you as like a connector.

[00:03:23] And I see you on LinkedIn networking with all a variety of types of people. And that's something that I put off for a long time like in my entrepreneur journey and podcast journey is like the importance of like relationships and networking.

[00:03:37] Because for me, I feel like it was a little bit challenging to do that or I didn't know where to start. Is that something that like you've always had in you or did you have to teach yourself how to do that?

[00:03:47] Tell me a little bit about like your philosophy with that and how you view connecting and building relationships with people. Yeah, I mean the answer is it's innate in me.

[00:03:57] It goes back to the playground school days where you're like, how do I bring in all the different groups of people that are on the playground?

[00:04:05] Like, you know, whether the to classify the clicks like, all right, you got the nerves, the jocks, the cheerleaders, like all of these. I'm like, but we're all just humans. We're all just people then the day.

[00:04:16] And so like, I was friends with everyone, like my friend always my best friend always made fun of me. It's like, you would love to walk down the school and just like say hey to everyone. I'm like, yeah, because like, I like everyone.

[00:04:26] Like even if you don't like them, like you don't know where those things are going to go. Like there's no point in bullying. Like that's just the insecurity. So yeah, it just goes back to who I was as a kid of how do I bring different groups together?

[00:04:36] And then it's just kind of gravitated towards the ethos of life is about time relationships, you know, being in a revenue role for me.

[00:04:45] For most of my career, it's always been like, all right, well, I'm trying to sell, but like, I don't know if my product is going to be a fit, but I know you're going to change jobs. I'm going to change jobs like no one stays in their jobs.

[00:04:57] We're not like our parents who stay there and get the Rolex watch and graduate and all that fun stuff. I'm like, no, like, I don't know where this conversation is going to go. So you're a good person. Fine. We can't work together now.

[00:05:08] Who knows where our relationships will take us? But maybe I know someone that you may find valuable. I'm like, all right, let me connect and like, let's just be connector. So it's truly just been who I've been.

[00:05:19] And it's just served me in the terms of like, I don't know what I don't know. So let's go curious, which is one of the values I live with in my life is like curiosity.

[00:05:28] And then how do we just bring good people together and see where it takes you? I love that because I, and I agree in it, but it's taken me, I think just a little longer to realize that or how to go about it.

[00:05:42] If I am kind of pitching or someone's pitching it. And I don't know. I always just looked at it as like transactional thing, but I guess you're right. It's like, whether or not we work together or what I'm doing fits with what you're doing.

[00:05:56] We might as well enjoy the ride to get to know each other. If you seem like a cool person. Yeah. Let's chat. Let's keep in touch. And like you said, you never know where, where it could go.

[00:06:06] I guess it just seems like some people kind of struggle with that. And maybe I'm just speaking about myself. It wasn't until maybe like a year, year and a half ago when I started this podcast and I found like a group of like online people.

[00:06:20] That I started connecting with and now we meet every Friday and like a quote unquote like mastermind. It's more of kind of like a hangout, but I really have realized just those like six, seven people.

[00:06:30] It really has just made an impact on me and my journey for podcasting, but also just in life in general. It truly is, but you also have to think about beyond transaction, right? Like it's hard for some people maybe. What is because you're like, I'm in this space.

[00:06:47] This is the box. This is a lane and if you aren't in those lanes, then I'm not going to be able to talk to you. The problem is is and scientists prove this.

[00:06:55] You think about the instance where someone goes from a completely different industry to a new industry and they change everything. Why? Because they came out with a fresh perspective.

[00:07:04] They thought of things that the rest of everyone with their blinders on are like, this is just the way we do things. But all of a sudden you're like, well, I don't know how you used to do it, but this doesn't make sense.

[00:07:14] So let's think outside of the box. And that's the same way to think about relationships is like, I don't know what you know and I don't know why or what you teach me could lead to in the future.

[00:07:25] So like maybe you tell me, I don't know that your, your hobby is sewing. And I'm like, Oh, well, I know three people that have podcast on sewing. Like, have you listened to those? And you're like, no.

[00:07:37] And I'm like, so heads you not connected it, you're not even told me about this sewing passion. I could never gone down this path of like just random connections. You don't know, but too often we focus on what do I want to say before I say it?

[00:07:51] What do I think I can get out of this before I actually get it? And that becomes a limiting belief in that regards with which would I believe piggybacking on that as far as like podcast growth?

[00:08:03] Because I know you do some of this and you have done some of this, but like, so what how, what's the best way for like a podcaster to network? Like you don't want to just go up and like talk about your show.

[00:08:13] And I got this, like, did someone give a shit about your show? But then you're over there like a podcast movement. You want to like talk to people about your show to try to like get something from them.

[00:08:22] Well, I guess what, what's the best way to like in person to like talk about your podcast in like a way where you don't sound so like desperate, you know? Well, I guess what are you trying to achieve?

[00:08:33] So the analogy, the example you're throwing in is like, you want to talk about your show. Why? Why do you want to talk about your show? Because you're hoping that they'll listen to your show. And so why do they want to listen to your show? Right.

[00:08:46] Like what is the exchange here? Like I want to talk about my show because hopefully you listen to my show or you find my show interesting. But like, you don't even know if they care about what you do and who you are.

[00:08:55] Like so just starting the networking of things like if you go, if you're at a podcast event. This is what I love about the podcast community is like everyone has vulnerable honest conversations and it's like, hey, you're in podcasting. Like what tools do you use?

[00:09:09] That's always my favorite question. Like what tools do you use? Right. And then you start geeking out over like, oh, you do this. Why do that? Like, hold on, what's your show? Right. Now you can have a natural lead in of like, oh, you clearly have a podcast.

[00:09:21] So what tools do you use? I don't care what the podcast is. But when I was just geeking out about tools and how long have you got into it?

[00:09:27] You're really, at least for me, the questions I love is like, how did you get into podcasting and what tools do you use? Those are so generic, but they get to the core of like how someone got into it.

[00:09:40] And what is the system that they've started playing around with those things then have nothing to do with your show, nothing to do with networking, nothing to do with listen to me. It's not a me thing. It's more of like, how do we connect?

[00:09:52] And then once you've got the connection, now you're like, all right, where do we take this? Go like, oh, you use Riverside. Well, I use this. What made you choose Riverside?

[00:10:02] And then you can go like, well, because my show, this is the kind of conversations I'm having like, oh, you know, just told me what your show's about. All right. It's a give to get. So you've kind of given me that kind of insight.

[00:10:12] So now, well, this is why I use, you know, whatever service I use. So you're literally able to pull back that layer is no different than your podcast. And you're like, what questions do I ask? Same thing in a networking expands. We not me. I like that.

[00:10:27] But tell me a little bit about how you got into the podcasting, the business side of things would love to hear a little bit of your story as far as sales and revenue generating and development. Let's hear a little bit about that. There you go.

[00:10:39] You're picking up on exactly how I network with people. Like, how'd you get into it? Yeah, I mean, I love I love that piece because I got into podcasting. I was at a company we got acquired by CBS radio and going from a startup to a large behemoth.

[00:10:55] It was an interesting shock in that regards. And one of the things that I really gravitated towards was the podcasting space is we're building that out.

[00:11:03] So it allowed me to start selling host red ads and understanding, you know, what talent has to go through, what the brands have to go through and make goods on host red ads and everything else. And this was 2016 2017.

[00:11:18] So this is a time where podcasting at least for the radio companies were still just kind of figure that piece out. One could argue they still are.

[00:11:27] But the got out of the media game because my background is in media got out of the media game and ended up at a company.

[00:11:32] Where we acquired apps through the apps we acquired, or in the podcast space player of them breaker and potkicker day one bosses like go figure this out.

[00:11:42] So when you're at a listening platform, you realize you have to go and work with the host and the host it's like look shows are hosted on your platform.

[00:11:51] We need to make sure that people can listen to them whether it's Spotify, Apple or in my case the three that we had so worked with the host to figure out what their needs were where they were.

[00:12:02] What differentiated the host but also how do we make sure that their shows are integrated into our platform. Once we did that, it was a matter of working with podcasters and saying like hey, you have a show on our platform. How do I help you grow it?

[00:12:17] And then it was just connecting like I would reach out to podcasters and say look, you have a show. I want to help you grow it. And if there's four million shows out there, either you take my call or not.

[00:12:27] And if you take my call and you take the advice I'm giving you perfect. If you're like, no, this doesn't make sense. Great. There's four million other podcasts that we can help. And so it was from the networks to the indies. You name it.

[00:12:39] I was working with all different kind of podcasters to ultimately answer the three questions that every podcaster ask. How do I get more distribution? How do I grow my audience and how do I monetize? And those are the three questions I hate. It's not easy.

[00:12:54] There's not one right way to do it. A, that's true. B, it goes back to the way I think about networking. Podcasters are thinking about an answer to those questions only from a podcast standpoint. The way I'm answering those questions is treating yourself as a brand.

[00:13:11] Stop focusing a person in a winner take all scenario of downloads, downloads, downloads. Is everyone going to listen to your show and me and you talking right now? No, but that's okay. They can go eat your newsletter. They can read your social promotion.

[00:13:26] They can engage with your brand and what we're saying and without having to sit here for 45 minutes consuming your podcast. And once podcasters start understanding in that through you open yourself up to more ways to monetize,

[00:13:38] more ways to distribute, more ways to grow your audience besides just how do I get more listens? How do I grow my downloads? How do I get more people to know about my podcast? No, think about how I grow my brand.

[00:13:50] That's really what I would kind of preach even always running a platform where I needed to help you with listens. Looking at the whole ecosystem with like the podcast at the center and then like you said the newsletter, social. It is a spoke.

[00:14:06] It is the content engine for your brand. But if we go back to the networking piece, and if I think about networking, I don't know where a conversation I have no clue. Once you've hit record and you distribute the show,

[00:14:19] I have no clue who's going to listen to this in three years. Maybe you stopped producing this show, but the show lives on unless you take it down from anywhere. I have no clue who's going to listen to this. Maybe three years from now, someone's like,

[00:14:30] I really liked Greg and what he had to say or maybe they really liked what Eric had to say and you were doing some other project. You don't know where someone's going to find you. So putting the content out there, pushing out the volume,

[00:14:41] not just hitting play and putting out a podcast, but going I can put a blog and put something on my website. If you start thinking of yourself as a brand and just like brand Greg is I'm life is about time relationships.

[00:14:53] I don't know where this conversation is going to go. I don't know where this piece of content is going to go. So I'm going to put that post out there. I'm going to put that article out there. I'm going to put this content everywhere.

[00:15:01] And I don't know who's going to engage with it. Who's going to see it? I'm going to start tracking that. So if you start doing that, you get out of the how do I make money off of my podcast and you have a better understanding of like,

[00:15:12] well, is it guessing? Is it tools? Is it clients? What are you trying to accomplish and have an identity in that? I think more people are starting to get that with smaller like knee shows like this

[00:15:24] and repurposing the content and trying to grow a brand while you grow the podcast from all different angles.

[00:15:31] And I think you kind of have to look at it like that unless you just have a massive audience and your show is big enough to get advertisers where you can go by like the CPM model and you're generating a lot of revenue.

[00:15:45] So I think that's a good piece of advice just for anyone listening really. Two examples I'd like to go to just because most people know them is let's go Joe Rogan. Let's talk about Joe. Sure. Right? I like Joe Rogan. Yeah. Where did Joe start?

[00:16:00] I'm making the 80s in New York. Right? So think about he had to consistently get on stage, get booed, get crickets and work his craft. So if you are in the podcast space, are you working your craft? Are you working on putting content out there? Just continuing.

[00:16:15] And then he played the long game and now he's making $250 million but where he started it right? So if you start your show small and you just keep growing, you put up consistent content which most people don't because they stop after three or 10 episodes.

[00:16:29] So if you're putting that out but you're also putting out all these other feelers with your blog, your newsletter and everything else.

[00:16:34] That will then build your audience, builds your engagement and allows you to become maybe not a Joe Rogan because that also comes with being good at your craft and maybe not everyone's there whether you say it. But then the other pieces is he knows who his audience is.

[00:16:49] Love him as a comic but listen to his show. It just doesn't do it for me. But I'm not his audience. He doesn't care. So if you understand who your niche is and your audience is, you're going to talk to him.

[00:16:59] Most people are trying to go and beat everything to everyone. You're nothing to no one. And I think it's a testament to like with that like patience and like consistency. I've been in podcasting for a while but I've only had this show coming up on two years.

[00:17:13] But yeah, it's that grind of consistency and patience and controlling. What did someone say the other day that I really liked? Oh, controlling the output, not the outcome.

[00:17:26] But if you're in the right place and you're being consistent, you know, eventually, yeah, you might not get to 250 million, but good things will eventually slowly start to steamroll and you'll build that momentum.

[00:17:37] And I think you just have to keep dragging that and like the little wins along the way so you don't get discouraged. But Greg, let's segue a little bit into AI and AI specifically in the world of podcasting.

[00:17:50] And we're going to get into your role at Cast Magic and the awesome things Cast Magic is offering. But just initial thoughts like AI and podcasting. Do you love it? Are you worried about it?

[00:18:02] Kind of what's your overall take on how it's, where it is now and where it's going to go? I've got a biased view as we know because it worked for an AI company.

[00:18:11] But even before I worked at this company, when I left my last company before I joined Cast Magic, one thing I was trying to figure out is you got B2B podcasters take a B2B SaaS company and they have a podcast part of their marketing mix.

[00:18:30] As a revenue generator, I didn't understand why my marketing team has always given me case studies and white papers to go ahead and push out there. I'm like, no one wants to be going back to our networking conversation. They feel like they're being sold.

[00:18:44] Like that doesn't actually create trust relationship, doesn't build it. But if you have Eric on your podcast for a SaaS company and Eric is in a space that everyone wants to be associated with in that regard,

[00:18:57] it's like why wouldn't want to take a quote from Eric and go, hey, here's what Eric's saying and then push that out there and either my email to my cold prospects or put it on my LinkedIn. I didn't understand why more people weren't doing that.

[00:19:09] Point of the story being is you can start thinking about podcasts and how AI is ultimately leveraged to get that message out there so much easier.

[00:19:21] So now I can go ahead and as a marketing department go great, give me the top 10 quotes that Eric said for me to do that. As you know, as a podcaster, it's a hard work to go ahead and time mark, mark. These are good quotes.

[00:19:36] These are good quotes. Let AI kind of pull that gives you 10 quotes. Great. Let me pull things come up with the title. Do you want to sit here after this conversation and try and write a title? Do you want to write a newsletter?

[00:19:46] Do you want to write a blog? Do you want to write all these things? I mean, you know what it takes to produce a show yet alone find the guest air for 45 minutes, cut it down and then do all those other pieces.

[00:19:57] AI is truly making the podcast space a better place because it is allowing most podcasters who are solo pernewers or their podcasting is a side thing trying to make this their brand building and they have a full-time job. How many hours do you actually put in it?

[00:20:13] So AI for the podcast space is incredible and I'm all for it. AI overall has its downfalls and everything is just means you don't publish, you still read, you still consume what it's giving you.

[00:20:28] But I'd much rather me personally and I can speak to thousands of other people that feel the same way and much rather have 20 pieces of content made for them and then they can start using their brain and their strategy to edit and go like this sounds good.

[00:20:43] I want to tweak this as opposed to like, I got to use my brain power right now to come up with 20 pieces of content. I don't get time for that. I'm overwhelmed just thinking about that.

[00:20:52] So AI in the podcast space game changer well here to stay and I'm all for it.

[00:20:57] It definitely saves time and then like you said tweaking using your brain to make things maybe sound a little more original or add some of your personality or the vibe of what you want written. I remember literally writing show notes.

[00:21:09] I would put markers when I would edit and then when I would write the show notes after I would go back and be like, okay, this episode is about XYZ and they're talking about yada yada yada. It's so time consuming.

[00:21:22] And so yeah, some of these AI tools are absolutely crushing it. I don't think I know anyone that's like kind of against it. I know people that maybe haven't like gone into it yet but surely surely they will.

[00:21:34] I do know enough people that are against it for two reasons. One, I guess we can say is ego. They're like, I can write better than AI can. Okay. And second one is it's kind of their job and they're like, well, I don't want this.

[00:21:49] This is going to take my job. The problem with both of those people ego and it's it's fear. So I guess if we go from that technology, if you're fearful of technology, you're probably going to lose because usually technology kind of ends up winning. Here.

[00:22:04] And if you are egotistical in the sense like I can do a better job, then you aren't thinking about how AI is actually helping you because you're looking at it is I can do a better job.

[00:22:14] It's like, yeah, but could you use your brain power once again to not write 20 pieces, but actually come up with a starting point for you and that's really going to help you. So I'd say to those two groups, give them a couple months, maybe a year.

[00:22:31] They'll make the switch. Otherwise they're going to be behind. Yeah. Like the resistance to change. But like you said, they'll get there. They're going to have to get there.

[00:22:40] I mean, should I think whatever industries, even the ones that are like slower to adopt it or don't know how yet to like implement it eventually that will happen. But it's funny for me.

[00:22:51] Like I mentioned, you have manually writing the show notes, but now I do have a girl, a freelancer on my team that writes show notes for the shows that we produce and she uses cast magic actually.

[00:23:02] And I told her, I was like, yeah, like use it all you want. You know, make sure you tweak a few things. I can't imagine her having to write all whatever how many shows a week it is by hand.

[00:23:13] I mean, you know, it has definitely improved her life and proved my life. So all for it stoked for it, stoked to see where it's going to go.

[00:23:22] But tell me about your role at cast magic, how you got involved and how things there have changed and grown and kind of, you know, the whole thing what you're looking forward to there and the tools. And that is a long-winded question.

[00:23:35] But yeah, tell them a little bit about cast magic. Yeah. So let's go back to networking. This is how it all starts. You don't know where you are going to go. So do you even have a resume or do you just meet people and they hire you? Right.

[00:23:49] That's how I've gotten in most of my last few jobs. It's through LinkedIn.

[00:23:53] So I got this job because every Monday I post three podcasts on my LinkedIn that I think people should listen to happen to have done the show DTC pod at the time, the guys who then created cast magic didn't even think of cast magic.

[00:24:09] They hadn't even thought of the idea yet. Months later, because we then got connected because I posted it. We added each other on LinkedIn. They hit me up and like, hey, you seem to know a lot about podcasting because I posted a lot about podcasting.

[00:24:22] Hit me up and like, we built this tool. Can we show you? Showed me cast magic on my game changer. This is literally going back to my story about the SaaS company. So like, this is what I've been trying to get podcasters to think. Think beyond the downloads.

[00:24:34] Think beyond just audience growth with downloads. And think about how do you take this great rich conversation and repurpose it? And that's really what cast magic does. So I came on board here, April 1st. We're coming up on a milestone in that regards.

[00:24:50] And then from what cast magic does. So it originally started off as a podcast, this podcast repurposing platform. So the guys have a podcast. They were paying an agency to do it for them. And they're like, we could do this better.

[00:25:03] Built cast magic is an AI tool that allowed them to create their titles, their show notes, their timestamps, their LinkedIn posts, their blog, the newsletter. All this stuff is done automatically for you with the recording you've got. And then cast magic is expanded from there.

[00:25:18] So we realized once again, you're not just a podcaster. You do so much more. So we've got spaces for coaches for courses. I can literally take a podcast with a prompt, turn into a course, go to a PowerPoint

[00:25:32] or Canva, build that course, deliver my master class, record that master class, come into cast magic, use the course profile and turn it into a worksheet, turn it into a quiz, turn it into all these handouts that I can give to people.

[00:25:46] So it goes far beyond just podcasting. Once again, the power of AI to how do we extract knowledge from conversations. And that's really what we're focused on. It's just wild to me and what you can do with AI. And it feels like it happens so fast.

[00:26:01] Is there anything that you could talk about that's coming up for cast magic or not talk about or give us a hint? Is there anything in development? Yeah, I mean, look for those that are listening here, right? So cast magic, take your podcast, you load it in there.

[00:26:18] It's going to create a great transcription for you. That's what we pride our stuff on North Star once again. I don't have the time to make the edit. Then out of the box, create all this AI content that we've already know you're going to need.

[00:26:30] Then there's a section that you can automate like chat GBT prompts in there. And then we just released a studio function. So now you can start creating quote cards and audiograms and image overlays. So getting into the visual components of it,

[00:26:45] not to compete with some of the tools that are out there, but just to have you create a workspace that everyone can live inside there. And I think that's going to be a game changer. I know I use those functions because I'm like,

[00:26:57] all right, I need AI image generated with my quotes. So how do I help and accomplish that? So I think for your podcasters that are listening here, not only do I urge you to test it out if you haven't,

[00:27:10] but also think about it once again outside of the box. Don't just think of your neuro focus of just podcasting. Cast magic does so much more than just podcasting. I take memos. We have an iOS app. I will literally take my voice memos,

[00:27:25] take a two minute thought I had while I'm walking the dog and turn that into 10 pieces of content that I'm able to leverage. I take coaching calls and I turn that into a course. Like there's just so many conversations you're having. How do we start repurposing them?

[00:27:40] And I think of repurposing as two ways, whether it's extracting knowledge or it's turning into an asset that you're going to leverage. Yeah, the repurposing piece is huge. I mean, that's a lot of what I use AI for. Do you use it in some of your LinkedIn stuff?

[00:27:54] Is that part of your workflow for that? Because if you guys don't know, definitely follow Greg on LinkedIn. Super active on there posting a lot of interesting thoughts about podcasting and networking and also sharing different podcasts. So tell me a little bit about that

[00:28:13] because that's something I've noticed too. And so I didn't know it was every Monday, so I have seen it multiple times. So tell me about that. And is that just like a community thing to like introduce people to new shows?

[00:28:25] Tell me how did that start and what shows do you pick? So I guess the, I'm trying to remember how it started. I think the way it started is I was working for, you know, play our family at the time. I'm talking to podcasters all day long.

[00:28:38] And I'm like, all right, well, let's start eating the food that's being fed to me. So let's start listening to shows and then you start realizing like what's good, what's not and you start gaining an understanding there. And then I steer at a computer 11 hours a day

[00:28:52] and I'm like, all right, think about what most of us do. We stare at a computer all day, then you for me, I go work out. Then I sit on the couch and I watch TV. My eyes are like, oh my God, I can't see anymore.

[00:29:04] But the joys of a podcast is I can listen to a podcast laid down on the couch, right? Maybe you fall asleep. I'm not going to, but like I'll listen to a podcast and go give my eyes, and that's literally my LinkedIn post.

[00:29:16] Give your eyes a rest, take a break from the screen, keep feeding your brain and listen to something good. And then you can go down sci-fi, you can go fiction. You can get any, that's a joys of podcasts. It can be anything you want

[00:29:29] and your mind can allow you to either consume content in an educational way. You can make it, you know, a narrative, whatever you're looking for. And that's really where it was. I'm like, all right, I'm listening to all these podcasts. Let me start recommending some

[00:29:43] and let me try and engage people to take a break from from their daily lives of TV. Yeah, getting away from the screen. I'm big on that too. I am a big consume podcast like via audio. You just kind of mentioned that you do that too.

[00:30:01] So this is like a two-parter. One, what's your favorite app to listen on? And then two, where do you fall on the video podcast spectrum? Do you consume any video podcasts? Do you think podcasters need to have a video component?

[00:30:16] I would love to hear your thoughts on that. And there's a wrong answer. I'm just curious because everyone's got a different approach because this will be video and I do put out video, but I was very reluctant. I still, it's a lot more work.

[00:30:27] So yeah, what app do you mostly listen on and give me some thoughts on video? So I was literally just talking about this with a shout out to Daniel Lewis, Hall of Fame podcaster here. I was just talking about this with him because he's testing out

[00:30:41] some podcast listening platforms. And I'm like, what I really need in my podcast listening platform is the ability to have spaces. And so I could have one for my business, one for this, one for that, as opposed to everything all in one place.

[00:30:54] One thing that I enjoyed and I worked there, one thing I enjoyed about Player of Fem is the ability to categorize and have my different folders of spaces. So I still use Player of Fem, but I don't have any ties to it now that I'm no longer there.

[00:31:07] I never even heard of that, like breaking up like play, almost like a playlist kind of. Yeah, I can have a playlist tied to business, to playlist titled to comedy. So I'm like, what am I in the mood for right now? I want a self-help one.

[00:31:19] So instead of scrolling through your whole feed on Apple Spotify, you're like, let me just put this into a category folder and go like, these are my go-to self-help ones, like as an example. So yeah, that is the way I look at that.

[00:31:33] Player of Fem, wow, good for you. That's a rarity. No, no, that's cool. I'm a basic guy listening on Apple. And so for your audience here, that's a good thing to think about. Going back to the three questions, how do I grow my audience?

[00:31:46] How do I grow my distribution? How do I monetize? Most people who have a podcast, they're only thinking of the top five, which is about 70% of your market in terms of listens. But if you have someone like me, which is another 30% of the people not using those five,

[00:32:02] the unique piece is I literally, that means I sought out an app. I sought out a platform that gave me what I needed. So most likely I listened to far more podcasts than the average person because I literally found something

[00:32:16] to give me what I wasn't getting from your general Spotify or Apple. So if you're missing, I don't know, 30%, those are your hardcore listeners in that regard. Dedicated. You're actually in the game and you just use Apple, but like, hey, maybe you didn't realize

[00:32:31] like there's, you don't know what you don't know. And those 3% of us who knew something to figure out like this is what I'm looking for. This is a cool feature. Then we go out there. So I highly recommend for your podcast listeners, double check your hosting company.

[00:32:46] And if you're not part of all the listening platforms, it's free. Take the time, get your show everywhere and start reaching other people they may not because as I always sold at PlayRFM, we had 2 million people, we're not the largest show

[00:33:01] but our largest platform, but you could be a big show in a small pond and then you can start ranking and that helps you organic. And then you can start saying like, we're the top five, you know, sewing podcast and PlayRFM. No one cares what PlayRFM is.

[00:33:16] You're just able to say we're a top five something. That's always a cool little advertising thing for you. Oh yeah. Everyone's so focused on I'm charting on Apple and charting on Spotify. Do people really like, most of us are skeptical like fine,

[00:33:30] you're charting as a top here on Spotify? Like I'm an indie. Am I ever going to be there? Maybe not. But hey, if I'm on this third party platform that's got a smaller audience but I'm actually doing really well and they're dedicated listeners, that's good to know.

[00:33:45] So I would say that is the first part of your answer. Long wind it. Second part of your answer, it goes back to just cast magic and everything else I keep saying. Content repurposing. Put your camera in there, it's easy. Put your audio and strip it out there,

[00:34:00] create your blog, create your newsletter. The way I look at it is education. And what I mean by that is people learn different ways. Personally, I listen, I don't watch. Goes back to the whole thing. I don't want to be sitting in front of a screen

[00:34:14] and consuming more content when I'm already staring at a screen. So let me just take a break and listen. Other people I know they watch it, and I definitely say do both. It doesn't cost you much to have both. You also are able to reach a different audience.

[00:34:30] The person who likes to watch it on YouTube versus the person who's going to listen on Spotify. Or I will never listen or watch either, but give me your newsletter. I say this all the time, there's a guy, he sends out a newsletter every Thursday.

[00:34:45] I never listen to his podcast. I texted him like last week for his birthday. He knows I don't listen to his podcast, but you know what? I wait every morning for his newsletter on Thursday. What does that mean? I'm always thinking of him. He's top of mind.

[00:34:58] I'm engaging with his brand. Does it matter that he's not getting downloads? No, because he, I'm thinking of him. I'm referring business to him or I'm reaching out to him. Like that's all you want. You want that engagement. You want the conversation.

[00:35:11] It doesn't matter if it's in your podcast or if it's on a YouTube channel. You just want to make sure you've got your audience there. So that's my take on the second part of your question. Greg, what's one piece of advice that you would give to podcasters

[00:35:24] if you kind of had to narrow something down for what you're thinking about lately? I'm big on breaking the fourth wall. I think that is a, it's a skill, but it's also something most of us don't do in the podcasting space.

[00:35:38] And for those of you that most don't know with the break in the fourth wall, but they know it, they don't know by term. I guess living out in Hollywood, I kind of always think about that. Right? So breaking the fourth wall is engaging your audience real time.

[00:35:54] And you've done it a couple of times during our conversation here where it's like, Hey, for our audience, but one person who does a really good job that I think that I try to model or I tell others to model is like someone like Mel Robbins.

[00:36:08] And so she does a great job because she was like, hold on, everyone, community, let's just stop here and take a moment and realize what did Greg just say? And the nice thing about that from my standpoint is

[00:36:22] as an audience member, it's not just a fly in the wall you're bringing me in. You've broken that fourth wall and you're like bringing me into that conversation. The other thing I love about that is it gives me a moment to process it.

[00:36:35] She's literally processing what's being said right now, the therapy session they're having, but she's then giving me as an audience member a moment to go like, you're right, I did. As opposed to 45 minutes, everything was really great. You just kept talking, you just kept talking.

[00:36:50] I'm like, how do I even process what you guys just said? So breaking the fourth wall, the examples I always like to give is Deadpool. If anyone knows the movie Deadpool or fierce beavers day off, he talks to the audience, he stops

[00:37:03] and he starts talking to you as if you're there. That is breaking the fourth wall. It's a theater term. I'm not a theater person, but I just love that. I try to do it, I guess, as like a teachable thing.

[00:37:16] So if you had to tell our audience this or show somebody this or that. So then you go beyond that, it's like, hey, teach our audience this. You're like, you're bringing them in, but it's still more of you and I teaching the audience

[00:37:29] and going like, hey, if you're listening, here's the advice. The break in the fourth wall would be even more going like, all right, I taught you something like, hold everyone, let's just process what Greg just said. So it's actually doing it in reverse going like,

[00:37:42] oh, you just gave me a teachable moment, recognizing the teachable moment going like, hey, everyone, that was a moment we should all just process. Kind of it's a reverse moment. I did love that advice. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, that's also the joys of guessing a lot

[00:37:57] where you're like, all right, I listen to a lot of shows. I see what is being done. You take the tips and tricks and then you share them. And that's why the joy is we're all still learning. We're all still trying to hone our craft.

[00:38:09] And if we never stop, that's why everyone goes to podcast movement or podcast events. Like you've got the experts there, but they're all still picking up things. I'm sure there's plenty of that. Everyone can still keep learning from each other. Oh, absolutely man. Absolutely.

[00:38:24] Greg, as we're rounding home here, give our audience one podcast that you think they should check out. Could be any genre. What are you listening to that you recommend someone check out? So I'll be biased on this one because I just went to their second season live taping

[00:38:41] here in LA in a studio. The show is called Table Reads, or I think, sorry, Table Read, No S. And it's incredible concept. I've always been skeptic of listening to podcasts that are fiction, that are like a narrative. I'm like, I want this, the education. Right.

[00:38:58] I never have. Right. I'm not against it. I just never have. Right. And I will say Table Read has done an incredible job. Imagine taking a Hollywood script and creating a Table Read. So imagine you've got 20 people sitting there. They're all doing the voices, they're reading through it.

[00:39:15] They've got a narrator, but then they produce it and they add the effects and the sounds and so forth. So you can actually visualize what this would look like at a show or as a movie because it's there.

[00:39:26] You can follow along because the narrator is literally telling you who's who and what's going on. I'm really stoked for the second season, but each episode is its own little story and how they recommend just diving into one that fits your goal. I listened to, what is it?

[00:39:44] Love in Darkness, which was like a World War II story. And you're like, I could see this as a movie. Like I would sit in a theater to watch this. It was incredible. So that's the one I would recommend. Yeah, that sounds fun dude.

[00:39:57] I will check that out. We'll link to it in the show notes. And then Greg, one final question. When are you launching your podcast? Have you ever thought about that? It's got to be whether you do it or not.

[00:40:10] There has to have been something stewing a little bit. So the joy of this is first off, I've wanted to go down the guesting piece. Let's start learning what it's like to be a guest, but also learn from host. It goes back to what I tell podcasters.

[00:40:25] Start doing your research. Too many people don't listen to other people's podcasts and they're like, what do you like about these other people's shows? What don't you like about it? How do you incorporate it into your own? So being a guest that starts seeing that,

[00:40:38] but also you get to start seeing what is the process that hosts go through. Good example is I work for a company where you can automate all the content for me as a guest because most hosts struggle getting their guests to post.

[00:40:52] Why? Because you don't give us much to do. They're like, hey, here's your link. It's live. You can literally use a tool like Cast Magic, automate my blog, my newsletter and everything else. Whether I liked it or not, you at least gave me a starting point

[00:41:04] and there's a function with inside Cast Magic that I can go ahead and I can create it if I didn't like it. So I'm learning all the different tricks and tips and tricks. It wasn't until about maybe a month ago

[00:41:14] that I thought of what the topic of my podcast would be when I started it. And so yeah, I think by the end of the year I'll probably go down that path, but there's something brewing. I've stolen a couple things from actually a couple of the shows

[00:41:29] that I work on and kind of the way that they do and the way they lead in. And of course I'm still a work in progress, you know, but it's totally true because I have, you know, studied a little bit of some people

[00:41:40] and tried to implement some stuff. It's kind of like with music too. I've been a musician all my life and you know, you start out all your influences and you learn, you kind of copy it first then you tweak and try to make it your own.

[00:41:52] So I think that's a good piece of advice as a guest and as a host to pick up on the relationship between the two. Greg, want to thank you for coming on the show. Guys, Greg and I will both be at podcast movement, Evolutions in LA.

[00:42:08] So if you're there, hit both of us up. We'd love to hang out and chat. And Greg, if people want to learn more about you, where can they find you? What's the best place to get in touch? I mean, we've talked about it. I live on LinkedIn.

[00:42:19] So Greg Wasserman on LinkedIn, that's where I'm at. Add me, follow the content. I love engaging. And then if you end up joining Cast Magic, I'll see you in our Slack community because we didn't talk about it, but I'm head of partnerships and community for Cast Magic.

[00:42:35] So I'm always helping people out in that regards. Perfect. Well, Greg, thank you for being on the show. Hey, pleasure. Thanks so much, Eric. And I look forward to finally meeting you in person in a few weeks.