Note: This transcript was auto generated. As our team is small, we have done our best to correct any errors. If you spot any issues, we’d sure appreciate it if you let us know and we can resolve! Thank you for being a part of the community.
Verbatim text
Lee:
Welcome to the WP Innovator podcast, the podcast for web designers and design agencies. Exploring the world of WordPress and online business. And now your host, Lee Jackson. Guys, welcome to episode number 100. This is episode 100, and I am sat in the very room that this podcast began way back on the 27th of November of 2015. So this is a solo show, and really what I want to do is talk about the history of the podcast, the lessons that I’ve learned, the things that I’m still working on, and of course, what everyone can expect in the very near future as this podcast rocks on to 200 episodes. We’re not yet two years old, we are only 100 episodes old. So, hey, that’s an excuse for yet another party on the 27th of November of 2017. Until then, let’s unpack some of the history of the show. So if you were not part of the show right from the very beginning, then go ahead and check out WpInnovator. Com/podcast. And you can use the navigation to go all the way over to the last page and you can hear the very early episodes. And the structure of the episodes initially were heavily influenced by John Lee Dumas.
Lee:
I paid an awful lot of money at the time to go onto his course to understand how to launch a podcast. Now, to structure a podcast, now to structure a podcast. But I also copied, again, very heavily the structure that he would do. I didn’t copy his questions, etc. But followed that pattern of having some set questions with the guest and taking them through those questions. So that The course was phenomenal. It enabled me to grow an initial audience as well, to get some good reviews, to get some good feedback from peers as well. And I certainly recommend, if you’re going to launch something like a podcast or a webinar or getting to something new, is to invest in some form of course where the person who has run that course or creates that course has some real valid experience. So for example, John Lee Dumas at the time had already launched, I think at least 900, if not a thousand episodes of his podcast and millions of downloads. So I knew that I was in good hands going through that course. Now, since then, I’ve moved on a lot. I’ve changed the style of the podcast.
Lee:
And I also don’t really listen to John Lee Dumas anymore, shock horror. But that’s because there have been new people along the way. I think sometimes you tend to have different types of mentors for different seasons of your life. So when you’re in a certain place and you need to hear and consume certain types of content, then it’s great to follow someone. And then when you need to move on, that’s also cool. I’ve got so much respect for John Lee Dumas and everything that he is doing and still do duck in now and again when I’m going for a run and listen to some of the shows, especially if I see a title or a person that I really want to hear from. When I started recording, I invested in a whole load of tech and I bought a Blue Yeti microphone. I’ll tell you, they are phenomenally great microphones, but unfortunately, they are so sensitive. Very early on, I learned that having such a sensitive, expensive microphone was not a good idea when you were running a podcast in the back room of your house because it would pick up every single noise. You could hear the neighbours if they were to slam a door.
Lee:
You could hear heavy breathing from me whilst the guest was talking. You could hear my wife in the kitchen or my daughter opening the fridge. It was just all sorts going on, just noises, background noises, hisses, etc. Really what I should have done was used a Blue Yeti in an actual studio environment or a room that I had soundproofed. So I went ahead and recorded an awful lot of episodes underneath a blanket. And there are many episodes for at least the first 30 to 20 episodes where I was probably close to passing out. I think I nearly passed out at one point. I can’t remember. I’m not sure if it was Sheryl town or someone, and I was literally about to pass out. I was so hot. I was under a thick blanket. The heating was on, and I’d cobbled together this structure that I would sit inside using a clothes horse. I don’t know what you call them in the but essentially something that you fold out and you can then lay clothes over to dry indoors. I had that and balanced that on the table and then had this big thick blanket and a duvet, et cetera, over the top of me.
Lee:
Then I would lay that over and I would crawl inside, practically, and then sit inside this in my chair with all of these blankets over me. That would create some mini studio environment and would soak up a lot of the echo, but still wouldn’t get rid of everything. Quite embarrassing. That was exactly how I started a microphone that was way too sensitive and a room that totally was not perfect as it were for that room. But I found a way to do it and it worked and the audio quality isn’t terrible, especially to all the lengths that I went. Obviously, my health was severely affected, though, I think by just sitting there sweating. There’s so many times I’d have to go up for a shower afterwards. If I had back-to-back recordings, that was just a nightmare. I’d have to go out, run outside the cool and cool down and then go back to the torture chamber for another episode. So I think that’s where the 2016 Halloween episodes were probably inspired from. We can talk about them a little bit I’ll tell you the other later on. So anyway, as you know, I spent an awful lot of money on equipment, realising I’d bought too much, as it were, or bought too complicated tech for me to necessarily understand or get my head around.
Lee:
And really, I needed something a lot simpler. And that was when I grabbed hold of the ATR2100. It’s a USB microphone. I’m talking to you right now on it. It’s a bit bad and bruised because it’s been well-travelled. It has travelled the world with me, but it’s pretty much perfect for any environment. In fact, in our new office, it’s echoey in there, but still it’s good enough to not pick up too much echo. And the sound quality is, again, good enough for a podcast. And I think that’s something that we’re going to talk about later on. But a lesson I’ll just throw in now, which I’m not going to mention later on, is that I’ve learned that good is just right. That’s right. If it’s good, launch, you’ll never hit perfect. Good is better than perfect. Great is obviously better than perfect, too. But trying to get to perfect It doesn’t matter. Go live with whatever it is, including the podcast. So I learned very early on that I had to get something out there and struggled with the tech. And then eventually, when I found the mid-range priced microphone, I realised that this was good enough and I could continue to grow and continue to flourish with the show.
Lee:
Anyway, I alluded earlier that I was very much following a pattern of a set seven questions, and there used to be a URL that I would send to all of the guests, and I would ask them to prepare for those questions. These were the questions I was going to ask you, and I might now and again throw in the odd relevant question, but pretty much I was scared and would stick to those questions. I imagine, I don’t listen back to be honest, but I imagine some of the episodes may have been relatively stale because I was just going again and again on those same questions. I can’t remember when it was quite, but at some point during the early journey, I accidentally discovered the conversation and just being able to forget questions, forget hours and hours of preparation, and just be able to focus on having a conversation with whomever the guest was. Because I recognise that when I’m in a pub, I can have a chat. So I’m sat in a pub, I’m with a beer, whatever it is, cup of coffee, if I’m in a coffee shop and I meet up with someone and we can talk for an hour.
Lee:
And the conversation is fascinating. I met just the other day with my friend Mark from Picksuma. He’s a designer and sometimes we collaborate together and we met up for lunch and we talked for an hour. The content of that conversation, if we had have recorded that, would have made a fascinating podcast episode where we talked about our experiences in the industry, our experiences Our experiences with difficult clients, our experiences with great clients and what we learned, etc. If I had to have recorded that, that would have been a freaking amazing podcast. It was through conversations with other people outside of the podcast, meeting up for a beer, having a coffee, etc, that I realised that perhaps I was going about things wrong. Really what we should be looking at doing is allowing people to sit back and relax, grab a coffee, a beer, or whatever their tonic of choice is, and then just sit and chill with me and let’s just have a conversation. Let me ask you a whole lot of questions as we go through your journey. There’s usually a common focus where we’ll at least try and learn about the person, first of all, and what their initial journey has been to where they are now.
Lee:
But then that will essentially open up tonnes and tonnes of questions. And I kid you not, at the end of every episode, there’s at least 50 other questions I was dying to ask them. But hey, we need to keep this to at least 45 minutes, don’t we? So I have to hold back. But that’s led to some Phenomenal episode. Some episodes I’m so proud of because we’ve been able to have conversations, a natural flow, and the subject has happened perfectly and by accident. Every single subject of every single show, it’s rarely pre-planned. We’ve done a few recent pre-planned episodes with Frank, who is an amazing international public speaker, and there’s some more episodes coming up about public speaking. Me and Frank are very good friends. He’s a mentor of mine, so we’ve deliberately done a few planned episodes. However, the unplanned conversational pieces have been some of the most exciting and the most engaging episodes that I’ve ever done, I’ve ever been a part of. I ripped up those questions a long time ago. Now, that’s not I’m not going to say that I won’t prepare. I will be prepared. I’ll know who is coming on the show.
Lee:
I’ll have a basic history of them. I will know their companies. I will have some form of respect for them already because I’ve probably already invited them on the show because I’ve been following them. But I won’t have a list of 100 questions ready. I will let the conversation go where the conversation needs to go. And I learned that quite recently. I tried to record an episode for a new podcast that we launched, The Walt Business Show, and I tried to create an episode that hung around a very particular topic, and it was just too forced. I never actually made the conversation live because it felt too forced. We were still trying to around this one thing, and it wasn’t allowing the conversation to naturally go where the conversation needed to go. There is this natural flow of conversation. It happens accidentally. And whatever agenda you may have set, a conversation between people who are getting to know each other who are becoming friends will go where the heck it wants to. And at the end of it, if you sit back and think about where that went and what you learned from it, it is absolutely phenomenal.
Lee:
All right, so I’ve laboured this point way too much, but essentially not long into the show, I recognised that a conversation was going to be key. And if you watch any of the YouTube videos, if you hear me talk, I’m often referring to this as a conversation. And even right now, this is a conversation. I would love for you to talk back to me. And we have a Facebook group for that. If you head on over to Wpinnovator. Com/group, you can go and have a conversation with me and everybody else in this community, which leads me on to the next part of the journey where I realised that I was having these amazing conversations with our guests, but I wasn’t able to have conversations or get to know anybody who listened to the show. I could see we were getting hundreds and thousands of downloads, and I didn’t know any member of the audience. Only my wonderful friends and great support like John Perez and Kim Doyle, etc, who right from the very beginning have been there and I’ve been so helpful and inspiring and encouraging, etc. But I wasn’t I’m not able to talk to anyone else.
Lee:
It was just the small group of people that I’d built up. And some of the guests had then stayed on and continued to have conversations with me and continued to listen to the show. And that was all good. But that was where I realised I needed to launch this Facebook group so that we can all talk, we can all get to know each other. The Facebook group, that was around early 2016, and it really started to kick off in mid-2016. So it is over a year old now, I think about a year and a half old. And as of the time of recording, I believe we’ve got about 1,200 and odd. I don’t know how many odds or evens there are, but there are a lot of folks in there, and that’s WordPress people, that’s designers, freelancers, design agency owners. There’s a whole plethora of people in there. But that’s amazing because I’m connected now to 1,200 plus people who listen to the show regularly, who regularly ask questions, not just of me, but also of the community. And people are having conversations. It’s great. I can go and join in with other people’s conversations, or I can see someone ask a question that I don’t know the answer to, but someone else comes in and just gives a killer answer, and then I press like and pretended I was going to say that too.
Lee:
Yeah, because I’m a bit proud sometimes, and I can’t confess that sometimes I don’t know the answer. I really got to work on that, guys. That’s a character floor of mine. A bit of pride there. But no, it’s a phenomenal feedback loop. It’s great. The Facebook group has steered the direction of the show. The Facebook group has given me confidence to talk about things that I would never have talked about in a million years, especially things like stress and anxiety and depression and all of these topics that I’ve always felt taboo in the past. But I realised that we’re all struggling with the same sorts of things. We’re all in some form of agency or business life and things are stressful and there are challenges with contracts, with payments, with our own mental health, our own physical health, our own lifestyles. And all sorts of conversations have come up more than I would ever have dreamed of. So it was like throwing lighter fluid on the podcast the minute we opened up the Facebook group and was able to get this fantastic feedback loop, these fantastic conversations going And like I said, the direction of this podcast has since been predominantly driven by the group.
Lee:
I can’t even fathom if I would be able to have created 100 different subjects without having the Facebook group. And I don’t know how people out there with podcasts are able to just continually churn out content and ideas for content without some form of community connectivity and Facebook. Flipping it, guys. If I haven’t sold it and you’re not a part of it, please come on over. It’s Wpinnovator. Com/group. That is a redirect. It will land you straight into the Facebook group. It would be great to get to know you. And there are also some awesome people now who volunteered to get involved as a moderator. So thank you as well, Pete Ever, a recent moderator. To help make sure that it remains a good environment for everyone to have conversations, excuse me, to not be scared to ask questions. And also just to make sure that we don’t get any spammers, because unfortunately, with any Facebook group, now and again, you get the odd person doing a little bit of spam. So thankfully, most posts are not spam. Okay, so That’s essentially been the history. Fast forward a year and a half, it’s now episode 100.
Lee:
That blows my mind. It feels absolutely ridiculous in my head that we’ve managed to create 100 episodes together. At this point, I’ll try not to get emotional, but thank you so much for listening to the show. Thank you so much if you’ve ever emailed in. Thank you so much if you’ve ever joined the Facebook group. Thank you so much if you’ve ever, ever shared any of the content that we’ve created. Thank you so much for any way you’ve given feedback or supported the show because it means so much. And I’ll tell you, I actually don’t make money from this show. I don’t really load loads of affiliate links. I’ve got a few affiliate links in there, and I think I’ve generated a couple of hundred bucks here or there over the last couple of years. Really, this is out of love, out of excitement, out of passion for the industry. And of course, and we’ll go into this in a little bit more detail as well, but it’s obviously empowered me and me to create some form of online authority and has helped generate leads as well. So again, you’ve been a part of that.
Lee:
And I really, really appreciate that you’ve listened, that you’ve shared, that you’ve been a part of the show to help grow the show, to help add value to the community, and obviously for all the benefit that I’ve had with regards to my own personal network. I really, really appreciate it. And just thank you. Big high fives all around. I’m not going to buy presents. There’s too many people. Too many. Too many people. But let’s unpack some of the lessons that I’ve learnt. Right now, if you can hear the odd bang, it’s because I’m super animated and I keep catching the wires because I’m throwing my hands around like you can see me or something. But let’s just unpack some of the lessons that I have learnt. And the first lesson I’ve learnt is that I can be consistent. I can consistently put out content on the same day of the week, every single week. And that’s something that I was never able to do before the podcast. I had never demonstrated that I was able to consistently create content or consistently make a habit of something other than cleaning my teeth, once I’d mastered the art of daily cleaning my teeth in the morning and the evening, that was the last thing I was able to form as a habit.
Lee:
Now, you might be able to connect with this, but if you’ve ever tried to launch a blog and say, I’m going to do this every single day or I’m going to do this once a week, etc. Within a few weeks, you’ve probably stopped doing it. And I got to admit, I thought before I launched the podcast that this might be the same thing. However, I have learned that when you do something that you are passionate about, that you find easy to do, you will find a way of doing it, especially when you become accountable to people. By understanding that there was an audience, by being blessed with people downloading the podcast by being blessed by the people very early on sending emails in, et cetera, and me knowing there were people expecting another piece of content the following week, that made me consistent. That made me put the time and the effort into making sure I consistently delivered content for the people who were listening, but also for myself to keep building on that. And it’s unlocked so much more. Oh, man, I’m so excited. The other thing I learned was that I can attract big names, but weirdly enough, you don’t need to attract big names on a podcast.
Lee:
So first of all, we have had some huge names on the podcast. We’ve had Troy Dean. I was totally fanboying over Troy Dean the whole time. He came on twice, or if not thrice. I think I’m pretty sure he’s been on twice at least. We’ve also had my buddy Mark Asquith. He’s brilliant. I was so excited to get him on the show. I couldn’t believe he actually wanted to be on the show. We’ve had Chris Ducker as well. These are big names in their space, and that was phenomenal. But the other thing I learned was that regardless of the size of name, as it were, regardless of the celebrity of the guest, you actually still got the same amount of engagement, the same amount of interest, if not sometimes more, from just the The Everyday Joe, the everyday Sally. Someone in real life sharing their real life experiences, not multimillionaires, not hugely successful online celebrities, but just everyday people have got fascinating stories and everybody loves to hear stories that they can engage with. No matter what guest we’ve had, we’ve always had the same amount of engagement and sometimes surprisingly more when it is an average Joe or an average Sally on the show.
Lee:
So that was something that really blew my mind. If you are thinking of ever launching some form of interview podcast, YouTube channel, blog, etc. The temptation is to think you need the big names on the show because that’s going to drive lots of traffic. But actually, I found it doesn’t necessarily drive lots of traffic And even if it does, that’s only temporary. Whereas if you’ve got good content, that actually drives the engagement that you’re looking for. It’s not about the traffic. This is another lesson. It’s not about the traffic that you’re going to get to your show. It’s not about the number of downloads. It’s actually about the number of engagements that you get. It’s about the amount of people that you are helping with that valuable content rather than just looking at the numbers and feeling like, oh, haven’t I done well? We’ve had 10,000 downloads this month. 10,000 downloads means nothing to me if we’re not going to get some actual engagement, if we’re not going to get feedback, and if we don’t know that we’re actually helping anyone if the content isn’t great. I alluded earlier that the podcast has enabled me to generate leads, and it has.
Lee:
I’m very, very grateful that I’ve got a platform where I can share my own opinions, my own thoughts and feelings, and also interview people from around the world and learn from them. And at the same time, that has hugely boosted my own credibility. It’s hugely boosted my own network and has led to opportunities, be it opportunities through the guests that have been on the show, be it opportunities through people who have listened, or be it through an opportunity that I’ve been able to create myself outside of the show, but I’ve been able to demonstrate through the show by sending them as part of the proposal, as some of the best episodes that we’ve done and some documentation about the show, and people could then go ahead and check that out. That has generated huge credibility. This is a guy who puts content out every single week and interviews people in that very specific niche from around the world. Perhaps we want to work with this guy. By being consistent in that, it has definitely helped us win business, both outside of the podcast community community and within the podcast guest and listenership community. So again, as I echoed earlier, super grateful, super thank you to everybody.
Lee:
Now then, another thing I’ve grown in confidence. Maybe if we go ahead and listen to some of the old shows I’m actually very good at faking confidence. So perhaps you won’t hear too much of the panic and the fear, et cetera. But right up in the early stages, back in 2015, I didn’t have the confidence I have now. I wouldn’t be able to talk for hours and end like I’m doing without any cuts. I would be freaking out when the guest was coming on. I’d be nervous to get started. When I was doing the three, two, one and hit record, I would be doubting myself. Hundred episodes in, I don’t have any of those feelings anymore. I still get butterflies, and it’s important to get a few butterflies to be a bit nervous because it keeps you on your toes and it keeps you on edge. It keeps you focused on the task at hand so you’re not tempted to start surfing Facebook whilst your guests talking or you don’t get distracted. A bit of butterflies is always good. But the complete debilitating fear and nerves that I had right back at the very beginning have pretty much gone.
Lee:
Although I am a believer in fake it till you make it, but not in a business sense. I’m talking about an emotional level. If you can think like a confident person, if you can act like a confident person, then that’s going to follow through. Eventually, you are going to start thinking and acting like the person, the image that you’ve created for yourself, the target that you’ve got. Now, a lot of people would say, fake it, you make it in business where you’re pretending you’re a big, successful person. I don’t believe in that. That’s dishonest. And I hear anything like that. What I’m talking about is mind over matter, is creating in your mind the person that you would like to become emotionally and with confidence, etc. And then start to act that role. And as you start to act that role, as you start to realise you have the ability to be that person, then boom, all of the confidence floods straight in. And that’s been a wonderful experience over these last 100 episodes. And about… I don’t know. I’m getting old, guys. I don’t know if it was three months ago, six months ago, but some time ago, I then had the confidence to go ahead and start standing in front of a camera doing live streams first and then launching the YouTube channel as well.
Lee:
So again, that’s been building on the confidence that I’ve had growing over the last few years of doing the show. So if you struggle with confidence or anything like that, can I encourage you? Do something like this. Feel the fear and do it anyway, which is actually a very good book I read years ago. But go ahead and do something that scares you, that gets you out of your comfort zone because you’re going to learn so much and there’s going to be so many opportunities as a result. And that was one of my points I think I wrote down for later on. Another thing I’ve learned is batching. I was always able to organise my work day to get things done, but I’d never really done batching. And with a podcast, you have to be able to batch a few episodes up because there are holidays that you have to consider. I can’t be recording a podcast halfway through a holiday. My wife will kill me. So there are things you can do, good processes you can put in place where you can batch several episodes. So for example, when we were in Florida, we were travelling in Florida, we had at least 9 to 10 episodes already prerecorded with all of the show notes done, all the pre-rolls and the end credits all recorded so that they could simply be mixed and uploaded and scheduled out to go out automatically throughout the entire time.
Lee:
That was a huge lesson for us in being organised. We’ve since adopted those processes. We now know what all of our shows are. We actually have the time of recording now, 106 is already recorded. The show notes have already been written. Again, the intros and the outros have already been recorded. I already have several episodes planned to be recorded over the next week as well. That’s going to take that to 110. By the time this podcast goes live, we should be nearer 110 episodes already recorded. So that’ll be 10 new episodes ready to go out over the next 10 weeks. So batching is ridiculously important. People wonder how I’m able to create so much content all the time, but that’s because I’m focusing a day or two or up to a week of time on getting a whole lot of content creating, of which we will then drip feed over time so that we can give each piece of content its necessary attention. Once you’ve launched a podcast episode, it’s important not to keep launching more after it, but actually to put information out on social media, to share it, to have conversations about it in the group, etc.
Lee:
And also to receive the feedback from from listeners and learn from it. So batching and applying good processes. I mentioned as well, YouTube, that is something, again, that we’ve been able to use that batching lesson. So both with the confidence that I’ve learnt, sorry, or the confidence that I’ve grown from podcasting, and also the processing Processes of batching and streamlining things. So streamlining my processes, making it as easy and as quick as possible to record a podcast. We’ve done the same with video. We’ve made it as quick and easy as possible to record a YouTube video so that we can plan all of our subjects and so that we can then record them, mix them, and schedule them all to go live. So again, we have got consistently good content going out at a consistent level. So for example, for the last four weeks, we’ve been to put out a minimum of four videos a week via YouTube, again using the very same batching principle and also the streamlined processes of being able to keep things super simple. And adopting a good is definitely good enough because perfect will probably never happen. Oh, man. So I said a lot more than I thought I was going to say, but that’s because this is a conversation, I guess.
Lee:
I know you’re not answering back yet. You will be in the group. Hopefully, that’s great. But these are the things or some of the things that I’ve learned over the last 100 episodes of building this show, of building the community. So there are a lot of things that I still am working out. I’m sat in here right Now we’re in a room. This is my man cave at the back of the house. I’ve got a glass of wine with me. I’ve got a screen above me. There’s some notebook over there. I’ve got a prayer journal over there. I’ve got a whole lot of rubbish to the left of me. This is not really a great studio environment. There are things that will echo, etc. One thing I do want to get better at is the sound and also mixing the sound of the guests so that we’ve got good sound levels. We both sound like we’re in a similar room, but also I want to get better at onboarding the clients. Onboarding the guests so that I can make sure that they’ve got better equipment because a lot of guests in the past we’ve had have got a poor equipment.
Lee:
They’ve got a little microphone on their computer that doesn’t work very well. It’s echoey, it’s grainy, it’s sound, etc. So I want to get better at things like sound so that it’s a better listening experience. Now, content is clearly the most important thing, but there have definitely been shows where I’ve not really been happy either with my own sound quality because I’ve not been in the right environment at the time or I’ve not had the right settings. I’ve neglected to check before I get kicked off or again, because the guest has got poor sound equipment or lots and lots of background noise. So I’d love to get better at that and that is something that I’m working on. Another thing would be outsourcing processes. There’s an awful lot of stuff that we still do in-house instead of having other people do that. We’ll do a lot of the sound editing ourselves when we’re not really sound experts, but just because we’ve gotten lazy. Sounds weird saying we’ve gotten lazy by doing lots of extra work, but we’ve gotten lazy and not really taught anyone else what we do with regards to the sound. Getting more stuff outsourced so that we can focus on the stuff that we’re good at, especially when it comes to mixing all of the audio files together, doing sound levelings and all of that good stuff.
Lee:
I mentioned earlier that I haven’t monetised the show other than creating leads, which has been great and boosting my credibility and being able to create an online authority and I guess a mini-celebr, which I’m really trying to aim for so I can do speaking gigs in the future, the actual show itself doesn’t have any monetisation… I can’t even speak now. Monetisation avenues. That sounds good. Sounds lots of big speak there. But other than a few links to Beaver Builder and Project Huddle, I don’t actually have any other sources of revenue for this podcast. We are looking at getting sponsorship, so that would be fantastic. And if you are interested in having your business put out there amongst thousands of design agencies, designers and WordPress enthusiasts around the world, then please do get in touch. But that is one thing that we don’t do. We don’t have any monetisation streams from the podcast. At the same time, I don’t want to become a podcast that is all about generating money from listeners because that’s one thing that bugs the hell out of me when I listen to other podcasts and I see the shows evolve and I hear that we’re just being sold to all the time and that the people who are coming on the show are only on the show really because there’s an affiliate link and everyone’s all going to make money and it’s just a big pitch and a sales pitch.
Lee:
I don’t really like all of that stuff. At the same time, I’m putting tonnes and tonnes and tonnes of time in here and it would be great if I could do more and more of this. I love creating content. I would actually prefer to create content at the moment all the time or lots of business administration and dealing with certain types of clientele. If I could be doing content, that’d be great. So the idea is, I definitely want to find better ways to monetize this podcast, to keep the podcast going, to fund the costs that this podcast has itself. There’s things like transcriptions that I’d love to be able to pay for. There’s stuff, again, like outsourcing for better audio and all of that stuff. So it would be great to monetize it on that level, but it would also be great to monetize it on a level that would allow me to invest more time in the show and to be able to do more. So that’s something that I’m still trying to work out. I’m way out with the jury. I have literally probably two ideas on how to start monetizing things. If you have got any ideas, then please do feel free to get in touch and let’s have a conversation.
Lee:
Let’s talk about how I could start to generate some revenue. I’m definitely not an expert when it comes to this thing. So heart on my sleeve. There you go. That’s one thing that I’m still trying to work out. Another thing I want to do as well is get other people involved, especially whilst there are no ways of monetising the podcast right now or very minimal. It would be great to get other people involved because I do have the core business. That’s my day job. I’ve got two businesses, if you weren’t aware. And obviously, I have to put a lot of time into those. So if I still have to put a lot of time into those because I’m still not able to generate enough revenue through the podcast, then I definitely need some more help. So it would be great to be able to get other people in maybe as guest hosts or to guests, solo episodes where they’re adding value on a particular subject. Also in the Facebook group, maybe some people to help us in there to do things like moderation, etc. There’s lots of different ways that people could get involved, even maybe doing some audio editing or whatever.
Lee:
But if some other people could get involved, that would be great. Head on over to angledcround.com/contact and just reach out if you’re interested in being involved in any way of providing some skill or some talent to help us grow. That would be freaking awesome. Or again, if you actually want to be on the show as a guest. We always need guests. We do a lot of research in finding who the next guest could be. But if you feel like you could be a guest, you could add value, then hey, get in touch. Don’t be scared. We literally will have conversations with anyone around the world because everyone has an interesting story. Everyone is relevant. So don’t put yourself down. You are welcome on this show. We want to hear from everyone. Okay, and then the other thing I’m dealing with is the fact that I’ve got multiple brands going on. I’ve got the brand of Lee Jackson. People think I’m everywhere on the internet. I’m all over the place, commenting super quick. That’s just because I’m addicted to social media and that’s something I need to work through. But there is this brand of Lee Jackson.
Lee:
People have heard of Lee Jackson. There is also then in certain agency circles, the brand of Angled crown and Lee Jackson. Then there is this brand of Event Engine in the event industry and also the brand of Lee Jackson and Event Engine. There is then the WP Innovator podcast, which is, I don’t even know a sub brand of Angled Crown or whether it’s a brand in its own right. And then there’s Lee Jackson who is associated with… It’s just a mess of multiple brands. And then I’ve gone ahead and launched a new podcast, which is the Walt Business podcast, which is pretty much WP Innovator, but instead of WordPress, we’ve got Walt Disney. So we’ve got an awful lot of brands going on, and I’m in a bit of a mess in my mind trying to work out how I manage all of those. Now, Steve Bicanza, he is a legend. He’s from the Creative Hustler, and he’s started a journey with to help me understand my brand, as in my personal brand, but also understand how all of the brands around me work and how I benefit them and they benefit me, etc. But that is definitely a journey that I’m going through.
Lee:
So you’ll often notice things starting to change on the WP Innovator artwork because I’m trying to explore something else. You’ll probably see, especially if you’re a designer, and this will probably upset you, but some branding consistencies because I’m still trying to work out how all of these brands can work well together. And I mean, in the future, we might not even have the podcast sitting inside of angled crown.com. I don’t know. It started off as a podcast from the originally Jackson dev company that I had, and everything’s just grown organically. Yeah, so that’s something else I need to get better anyway. All right. So that’s what I’ve learnt so far. We’ve covered things that I’m still working out. We’ve also covered the history of the show. So I feel like we should wrap up now this episode with just unpacking some things that you can expect in the future. The first and the most important thing you can expect in the future is going to be more shows. I’m not going to be one of those podcasts that gets to 100 and goes, Yay, I did it, and then rides off into the sunset on a horse with emotional music playing.
Lee:
Although I could actually picture that. It would be amazing, except I think I would be a bit scared riding a horse, so I’d probably prefer to be on a push bike. Anyway, we digress. I don’t want to just stop at 100. I want to keep going. I love this show. I love the community. I love the Facebook group. I love having conversations with people from all around the world and learning from them because it’s great for me in my business because I get to learn from them. And I’m essentially just like everyone else. I’m like one of the listeners because I’m actually getting to learn from all of these people. And I’m also able to add value into loads of people’s lives. So this show is around at least for the next 100 episodes. So expect at least 100 episodes more for as long as I have breath in my lungs. I’m not sure. Actually, maybe if WordPress isn’t around in the future, maybe I’ll have to diversify. But anyway, I am still in this. Hopefully, you are too. Expect panel discussions. We want to mix a few things up. And just to create some variety in the content.
Lee:
There will be some newer styles of episode in the future where we will be doing some panel discussions on particular topics that have come up in the group, and then we’ll get some experts involved and we’ll unpack those panel discussions together. That will more often than not be done via the Facebook group in some live stream, and then the audio will be packaged up and mixed, and that will then be launched as a podcast episode as well, so you can consume it in both ways. Do expect more community involvement as well. So that would be Q&A sessions via live streams, again in the Facebook group, again packaged up then as a podcast. Do also expect new faces to get involved with the show. I’m really having conversations with people for guest hosting or providing a guest podcast, etc. There will be at some point over the next 100 episodes, some new faces. I’m not going away because this is totally my baby. I love this place. I love this show, but certainly want to get some other people involved as well and have some other voices and some other faces involved. That would be fantastic.
Lee:
Also, do expect some solo shows. It’s actually something that I’ve been asked about a lot is throwing in some solo shows now and again where I’m unpacking my thoughts and unpacking lessons just like this. You’ll get to hear me for so many minutes, 45 minutes, hopefully, sharing the lessons and all of that good stuff like an old man with sage wisdom and a long, wispy beard. So, yeah, I do expect a few of those, but I’m not going to do too many of those because I don’t want to bore you unless you love them and then let me know and I’ll do way more. Also, finally, expect a course. Yes, a course. And And in the vein of monetisation that I mentioned earlier, I’m probably going to give the course away for free, which is ridiculous. But what I would like to do is essentially put a course together about podcasting and about my own lessons on podcasting and how to launch a podcast, at least the way I did it. So it’s not being sold necessarily as this is the way that you will launch a podcast and become a millionaire and get six to seven figures at the end of the year.
Lee:
None of that. This is just going to informative course, along with some links to services that you can use. And I am totally going to include some affiliate links in that, at least to generate a little bit of income. So disclaimer or full disclosure, whatever the right word is right now, I’ll probably include some affiliate links to the different services that I recommend people look at. So these are services that I use that I would be recommending to other people, and that would at least generate a little bit of revenue to help pay for podcast hosting and all of that good stuff as well. So that’s my first foray into courses. More than likely going to be a free course with a little bit of affiliates in there which will help. And that really is to help me understand how to build a course and how to put things together. And then in the future, I will be looking at putting out some paid courses as well. But they’re not going to be things I’m shoving down your throat, to be honest. They’re things that I’ll be marketing through multiple different revenue streams, not revenue streams, advertising channels, whatever you want to call it, I Facebook advertisements and all of that good stuff.
Lee:
But I guess the thing I’m concerned about and the thing I really don’t want to become is that creepy weirdo guy who appears in a sponsored feed in your Facebook or Twitter and is on this video telling people that he’s got the playbook or the key steps to success and all of that stuff. I don’t know. I don’t want to be that guy. I just want to add value, I want to create some good content and generate some revenue. Why not? But yeah, so that’s the journey that I’m on. So over the next 100 shows, expect, obviously, more shows, expect panel discussions, expect live streams, community involvement, new faces, and perhaps I will also start creating some extra content to complement the show, which might be in the guise of courses, video content, or any of that good stuff. Guys, you have made it in now, 41 minutes listening to me talking. So Go ahead and pour yourself a coffee or a drink of choice and enjoy it and congratulate yourself, pat yourself on the back for getting to the end of episode 100. Thanks for listening. I’m looking forward to seeing you in episode 101.
Lee:
But before then, please don’t be a stranger. Join the Facebook group. That’s WpInnovator.com/group. That will redirect you to the Facebook group. Please join. Please do answer the pre-qualification questions you’ll be allowed in as long as you don’t say something rude, stupid, or if you ignore the questions, you won’t be allowed in. We just need to make sure that people aren’t spamming. If you answer the questions, that’s going to get you in a heck of a lot quicker. Then also do reach out and contact me via the main website. It’s Angled Crown, I’ll say that again, angledcrown.com/contact or [email protected]. Thanks for listening. See you in the next show..
