Niall: Welcome to another episode of Smarter Podcasting with me, Niall Mackay, the podcast guy. I started my first podcast in 2019 and it now has over 60, 000 downloads and is in the top 10 percent of podcasts worldwide. Since then, I took my hobby and made it into a full time business and work with podcasters around the world to help them make their podcast the best [00:01:00] that it can be. I’ve been excited to work with podcasts from the Netherlands to the UK, the US and Israel. And I recently worked with a podcast called The Human Being Project based out of Canada. And in today’s episode, I’m joined by a podcaster who I first met when we did a coaching call on how to use this script. And then she heard about my podcast audits I’ve been doing and she was like, yes, please give me an audit.

But, oh, I think I’m very scared to do that as well. I think she said as well, my guest today as a background in customer service, and she just wants to serve people and help people. So started a podcast with her dad, which means they actually have a good rapport together, which she says that like it’s obvious, but that’s not obvious that you have a good rapport with your dad and you can do a podcast, but she creates a podcast with her dad called The Human Being Project.

And their website is The Change Evolutionist. And my guest today is Janelle Thiessen. Thank you for coming on Smarter Podcasting and volunteering your podcast for an audit.

Janelle: Oh, it’s my [00:02:00] pleasure.

Niall: So

Janelle: I’m a glutton for punishment.

Niall: so tell me more about your podcast and how that came about. And how you ended up doing a podcast with your dad.

Janelle: Well, it didn’t start with a podcast. It actually started with the Change Evolutionist website because my dad is a licensed psychologist in Quebec, Canada. And he wanted to take like decades worth of um, teaching and coaching that he had done and get it into an online platform. So he asked me if I would help him with that.

And it just evolved into a podcast because we thought, why not play around with it? We both feel like we have the face for radio. That’s the joke he always makes. I have the face for radio and I felt the same way. So we’re like, why not? We’ll just have, we’ll have the conversations that we have in person on, uh, you know, in front of a microphone and see what happens.

Niall: Awesome. And how has that process been? You enjoying it?

Janelle: Oh, it’s so fun. It’s the best. I mean, I’m going to have this for the rest of my life. My grandkids will be able to hear their mom and, you know, grandfather talking [00:03:00] and having these conversations. It’s epic. Like, who doesn’t want that?

Niall: Well, and I don’t mean to overstate it, but I mean, I say this many times and it’s on my website, like podcasting changed my life. Um, and in ways I could never have imagined to the fact that I now have a business helping other podcasters, which when I started was never the intention and never what I could imagine, but other avenues it’s opened up for me. I’ve done voiceover work. I’ve done some commercials. Um, crazy things, met people, made connections with people. It’s probably the biggest thing around the world, um, that, yeah, I could never have imagined when I started back in 2019. So let’s get into your podcast. So we start every episode with some questions that I have.

So number one is what are you recording with? What equipment do you have? So we, I can see you’ve got a Blue Yeti Nano there, but I’ll let you answer. So what equipment are you recording with?

Janelle: Yeah. I’m using a blue Yeti Nano, like you said, and you know, cause you helped us with that. Um, And I just use my [00:04:00] earbuds, my Samsung earbuds instead of headphones because I’m, I’m a diva and I’m vain. I don’t want to have these big headphones on. Um, and my dad is, he’s got the blue, he’s got a blue Yeti, but it’s the big, big, big one.

So he’s using that. I’m, I’m in a little, uh, storage, like a walk in closet that I converted into a studio. And, um, yeah, he’s in a bigger room, so he has more sound. Issues, but I think for equipment, it’s just our laptops and our Blue Yetis and some earbuds.

Niall: And what are you using for editing?

Janelle: Descript, of course.

Niall: Yeah, yeah. So as anyone who listens to this podcast knows, Descript is the best program, I think, to use

for editing. It just makes it more, way more fun. And then any other equipment that you need for your podcast? No, the USB microphone. So they plug right into your laptop.

Janelle: That’s right. And of course we have lighting,

Niall: Right.

Janelle: like little for the video portion. But yeah, for the audio, I don’t think so.[00:05:00]

Niall: Awesome. And so the human being project, what is your podcast niche?

Janelle: Um, well, because my dad’s in the mental health sort of industry, it, it stems from that, but it’s cool because he pairs mental health from a psychological perspective with spirituality. And the whole purpose of the podcast is to balance or to find the balance between our human need to do, do, do and be productive and our need to actually be present and in touch with our essence.

So we combine the two things in the podcast.

Niall: So how would you describe that as your niche? What is the thing that. So my next question is, what makes your podcast different than the other 250, 000 podcasts that are published every week?

Janelle: The only thing I can think of that makes our podcast different is that we’re a father and daughter Talking about these things with two generational perspectives and the male and female perspectives Also with two different energies. So I mean, I know there’s a lot of co hosts and podcasts, but How do you [00:06:00] differentiate yourself between 250, 000?

It’s personalities, right? We each just bring our own flavor. Yeah

Niall: absolutely. I mean, and I think that sometimes it seems like the obvious answer, but the scary answer to give is like, well, the answer is me and it, but it helps to realize that. And it took me a long time to realize that, that, um, everyone does bring their own personality and, and if that’s what makes you stand out, then you have to lean into that. Now, what is the goal of your podcast?

Janelle: I think to bring awareness, to make it okay to talk about things like feeling unhappy or discontent with your life and what you can actually do about it. So it’s sort of to be a resource to people who feel that they already have everything, but for some reason they’re discontent or they’re unhappy. Why is that?

So we explore that together.

Niall: And so why should someone listen to your podcast for that?

Janelle: I don’t know, again, it just comes down to personalities and perspectives, right? So my dad can come at it with a very academic, sciency sort of approach, which as you can tell by me using the word sciency, that is not my approach. [00:07:00] I’m more of a, you know, intuitive, kind of whimsical, um, but you know, together.

We, we, and we have, we feature guests a lot. So together we can kind of get to the root of things and have really great dialogue with people.

Niall: So for somebody listening to you having this conversation with a guest, what lessons or values do you want the listener to come away with at the end of each episode?

Janelle: that they’re not alone. Many, many, many people feel the way that they feel and that there is hope and solutions and that. Ideally, uh, I think we come from the premise of, if you can tap into your authenticity, if you can just say, it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks about me. If I can just be me without apology, everything else works out from there.

Niall: All right, awesome. So let’s get into the audit. So I went through your podcast and I listened to quite a few episodes, obviously not I’m gonna talk the whole way through, but I listened to quite a lot of them. And first of [00:08:00] all, I thought, on the last episode specifically that I listened to, which was the one that you were sharing your story, I thought it was a great intro. It was really heartfelt and it grabbed attention. And most of all, just looking at it from like a quality level, the music levels were great and the music matched what you were saying. The music wasn’t too loud and overpowering. Your voice wasn’t too quiet. So I thought the introduction was great, it got you right away, I think if I remember you played, it was only about one second of music and then you started

talking, which which was good, um, really got into it right away. The biggest thing I noticed as I went through the episodes was that you have a different intro tune for nearly every episode. Some of them were the same, but most of them had a completely different song. So tell me what the thinking behind that.

Janelle: I, that’s just me. I just think it’s boring, um, to have the same song every time. I understand it’s predictable and maybe then it’s comforting. People get to know the sound, but I don’t know. I just feel like I don’t want it. I haven’t settled on a piece of music. [00:09:00] First of all, that’s just like, yes. That’s it.

So I’m just playing around

Niall: Right.

Janelle: have Epidemic Sound so I can use as many different music pieces as I want.

Niall: Well, just like you touched on, I mean, I would just advise that you choose one piece of music, uh, like a theme song, because it is, it’s what brands your podcast and it is comforting

for people. And it is when people come back, they know it just creates that, like, that’s the, that’s your show, you know, like, that’s why I just look to like, what. the professionals do, you know, we are indie podcasters, but what does a TV show do? A TV show has the same theme song for 10 years. You know, maybe they’ll upgrade it,

but not much. The Simpsons has been going for how long? 500 years or something like that. And the Simpsons theme tune is still the same. And so, I just kind of looked at those kind of even, even if it’s a different medium.

Like, those guys are doing that for a reason. Even radio shows that I follow, like they have the same jingle. And then I think of like Netflix and I remember [00:10:00] reading about they spent a huge amount of money just for that little Dum that kind of when you turn

on Netflix like that’s called. Um, I forget the name now, but I sound something I can’t remember the name then and i’ve started watching apple tv and they have a very similar one to netflix It’s different but similar in terms of like a

just a noise But as soon as you hear that noise, you know you’re listening to Apple TV or you know you’re listening to Netflix and these companies spend a lot of money on that.

I remember reading years ago, even companies like Abercrombie Fitch or Subway or I can’t remember the other brand, they spend so much money on signature smells. So that every

store smells the same. So when you walk in,

you’re like, I know where I am. So I understand what you’re saying. I think from, again, if you just look to what the professionals do, I think there is good reasoning and sound reasoning why to have the same theme start every week. Um, and you can have a kind of boilerplate intro a little bit. We’ll get into the [00:11:00] intro in a second, but I would advise to choose the same music and then stick with that. And I think it will be comforting for your listeners and. It’ll be easier for you to, instead of choosing a new one every week,

and we did talk about on your coaching call about being more efficient with your time, uh, and I think that would

Janelle: Whatever do you mean?

Niall: For anybody who doesn’t know what I’m alluding to, I’ll let Janelle explain. One of the biggest things we talked about was how long it takes to create a podcast, and I was shocked to hear this from

Janelle: Yes. I was shocked to hear that you said you could edit an hour long podcast in two hours, because it’s taking me an average of eight, sometimes nine hours. Although, since you and I spoke, I have gotten much faster. Because you said there are certain things that just aren’t as important as you think they are.

So I have let some things go and it’s taking less time,

Niall: So, what was that that you let go?

Janelle: Well, the transcript for one. Also, I found a great tool, Cast Magic, which makes the transcript almost perfect. With Descript, I find that there’s a [00:12:00] lot of editing that has to happen to the transcript afterwards. So… Yeah, I, the transcript, first of, editing, first of all, is one of the major things that saves me time.

But also, I’m just not as obsessed with people’s ums and ahs and spaces, and if they repeat their words. I was really obsessed with that for a while.

Niall: I found one of the things with Descript is, because it does give you the transcript, and I’ve noticed that when I give projects to clients, they sometimes focus too much on exactly what you said, like those repeated words. So when someone goes, Oh, it’s, it’s, it’s, but it’s the best thing to do.

And when, when you see that written down, because Descript highlights it as well, that it’s a repeated word, so it looks really bad, you’re like, Oh, he’s saying it’s, it’s, it’s three times. But in reality, when you listen to it, it sounds totally normal. It’s not like that bad because he’s not, unless they were really like, it’s, it’s, like, that would sound bad,

but it’s not like that. It’s just like a quick repetition at the start of the sentence.

Janelle: Well, since we spoke, Niall, that’s what I do. I close my [00:13:00] eyes. I close my eyes and listen to the episode, and that makes such a big difference rather than reading it, because you’re right. It does highlight all the ums, and its, and you knows, and like, and, you know, you can obsess over

Niall: Yeah, I’ve gone back and forth. Like, I’m not like, it’s not like I’ve just came to that realization because I’ve done it as

well. And then, then I realized a few months ago, I was sending projects to my clients and they were, focusing on that and I realized I was like they’re focusing on the transcript because it’s something because I was like that’s not really like that big a deal and it was causing me extra work because they were coming back and they were like can you cut this cut that like a whole list of specific words to cut and as I was going through it and I was like They’ve read this, this doesn’t need to be cut.

And so now, mostly when I, almost always, when I send a project back to a client, I don’t send it with a transcript. I just send the audio and I’m like, just listen to it. Don’t read it.

Janelle: Oh, smart.

Niall: Uh, .Yeah. Yeah. And it has, it has made a big difference. ’cause

you do stop paying so much attention. ’cause [00:14:00] it doesn’t help, the descrip does highlight it in the transcript.

Like it

underlines the, the multiple words. The other things, I think we, maybe the other thing we maybe talked about was. When I do the automatic remove filler words on, on the script, I unselect repeated words because those, when it people repeat them at the beginning of the sentences, it actually doesn’t really sound that bad.

And sometimes people repeat words for an for effect and it, and it deletes

them. Or I think the biggest example is the use of the world that, ’cause you can use the world like that, that. is

grammatically correct. And I’ve had it when I’ve done the automatically repeat, uh, remove the repeated words, it removes words that on the transcript are repeated.

But when you listen to it, you’re like, Oh, that actually was grammatically correct.

Janelle: It needed to be there.

Niall: Yeah, yeah, exactly. It needed to be there. So, um, but yeah, going back to the music, I would, I would, um, I would think about choosing one song and for your intro, there’s no like hard school of thought on that, but I would think about doing some sort of boiler plate intro almost, [00:15:00] you can switch it out. every like month or every couple of months or every season if you’re doing seasons so that it doesn’t get too repetitive but it’s pretty standard to have. You can have your music, boilerplate intro and then you add the episode intro. So one of the

Janelle: Oh, I see. Okay.

Niall: yeah, one of the things you would want to look to add is, um, And so you would maybe notice that this, this is what I do when I start my episodes is introduce who I am as the guide.

Why am I the person to tell you about this topic? So I say, Oh, you know, I’ve been doing a podcast since 2019. I’ve had some success and this is what I do now. Then I say what the general podcast is about. So I said, Oh, this podcast is about helping podcasts make the podcast the best it can be. And then the third thing I said was what this episode is going to be about. So it’s one, two, three,

like that. So your boilerplate could be that one and two. The, who are you and your dad? Why are you the guide? [00:16:00] Um, what your podcast is about? What is the niche? What is the goal? What is the value? And then you wouldn’t need to have this as a boilerplate because it would be what this episode is going to be about.

But you could also record that after the episode, which is always good. So if you do the episode and then afterwards you just have a quick note and then you record yourself saying in this episode I’m talking to blah, blah, blah. and then you go from there. Um, one of the biggest things I learned was how to introduce guests. And I learned this from YouTube and it showed you some examples. And I was like, Oh my goodness, this is amazing. I’ve been using it for years and I’ve noticed when I use it. And when I do it well, the guests nearly every time are like, wow, that’s the best, that’s the best introduction I’ve ever had. And I always have to cut that part out afterwards because I can’t, I don’t leave that in on the podcast, but they’re always amazed. So what the YouTube video showed me was what you do is, and this is why I asked you this at the beginning, you only need to give three things maybe about the guests. [00:17:00] about their accomplishments and who they are, what they do. And then you introduce the name. And so the example was, I remember it was Jimmy Kimmel or Jimmy Fallon.

Jimmy Fallon was introducing and he said, my guest today is a worldwide famous comedian, he’s just done a new tour and he’s got a brand new Netflix special. My guest today is Dave Chappelle. And then Dave Chappelle walks out. And so it builds up that excitement and tension. And

so since I started copying that technique, so that’s what I said for you.

My guest today, she’s worked in customer service. She’s got a podcast with her dad. She wants to help people. My guest today is Janelle Teason. And that’s just, I feel like a really great way to introduce the guest like that. So I would think about doing that if, if that’s something that you’re

interested in doing,

Janelle: That’s that’s perfect. That gives me some structure because we were very unsure how how we introduce guests and because we’re interviewing guests that are coming with a problem. It’s not necessarily their professional background [00:18:00] that is important. So it was tricky to know like what part, what aspects of introducing them are important to the actual episode.

So that’s good. It gives me some structure to work with.

Niall: that would set it up really nicely if you were like my guest today, their problem is this, that, and that,

and we’re going to talk to them about this, that, and that, my guest today is Claire Smith or, or

whatever the name is, um, with that boilerplate introduction as well, it’s really important because this took me a long, long time to realize is, It’s a really hard balance between talking to your listener that listens every week and that, and I used to think that the people I was talking to is the same person every week, which I do think is great, but at the same time, you’re also getting new listeners every episode as well. So you have to make sure there’s a balance between the two of those. And even I have a super fan, you could call him on my podcast, the Vietnam podcast, to the point where he got the tattoo of my logo. [00:19:00] Which

Janelle: Oh my goodness.

Niall: is still the coolest thing to this day. So Zion,

Janelle: No kidding.

Niall: still like, he’s an awesome guy. Um, but then I would message him and be like, Oh, what did you think of the latest episode? And he’s like, Oh, I haven’t listened yet. Oh, I’m a few episodes behind. I need to catch up. And then I was like, Oh yeah. Like even the superfan doesn’t listen to every episode as soon as they come out. And so I used to think like, because we create the podcast in like a linear direction, right?

We’re creating it every week. You think that most listeners are following you like that and many are and that is the ideal goal is like you have listeners that are listening to every episode but at the same time that’s not reality and so you might have your superfans. It depends on the content but so I know your content from looking at it is essentially evergreen content and did you plan that or do you know what I mean by evergreen content?

Janelle: I know what you mean by evergreen. I didn’t, we didn’t necessarily plan it, but it, it’s, it,

Niall: by

Janelle: it’s on theme.

Niall: so with my first podcast, and [00:20:00] well, most of them, they’re all evergreen content. They can be listened to at any time and the content is still relevant, right? And so a Vietnam podcast was always designed like that so that even the first episode I ever recorded, which was 2019, four years ago, if you listen to it today, you, It could have been done last week because we don’t talk about current

events and and things like that.

I mean there’s a couple of things that slip in but generally it’s evergreen content and that, that has meant that my downloads, my listeners are increasing to this day and I don’t produce any new episodes for that podcast. So I’m now getting more downloads than I ever had without producing any new content and because it’s still available and it’s still there and it has its own website and it built up a following, I guess, and SEO purposes, I guess, people are still finding that podcast and still listening to old episodes.

And I guess the opposite would be, you know, I listen to soccer, football podcasts, but they’re talking about the matches that happened last weekend.

I doubt that [00:21:00] anybody ever is going back to an episode from a year ago and re listening to it because it would be completely pointless. I assume those episodes are getting like zero downloads because I, but I do listen to the new episode religiously, but I would never in a million years go back and listen to an old episode. So that’s a long winded tale. My point is for your intro, I think it’s a, you gotta have that balance and it can, you can feel like I don’t want to do the same intro every week because person, that listener that comes back every week has to hear the same thing. But there is something again in that comfort of a TV show has the same, like, I just think of Friends

as one of my favorite shows of all time.

I don’t think their introduction there, um, theme tune and the video that went with the theme tune didn’t change in 10 years. They maybe added a couple of new graphic, couple of new clips, but it’s pretty much the same video. for all 10 seasons, 9 seasons? 10 seasons, right?

Um,

Janelle: Mm hmm

Niall: so again, you look at them and you’re like, well, there’s nothing, why can’t we do that?

So, and it’s just about keeping it quite short and snappy. It doesn’t have to be a big, long [00:22:00] introduction, but just that, who are you? What’s the podcast? What value does the listener get? And who’s your guest today? And that can be done pretty quickly. And going back to the introducing the guest as well. Again, when you think of what would the opposite be, so the, my advice is, you know, three things, introduce the name, get started. I’ve heard clients of mine do it, and I’ve heard other podcasts, where they literally, it’s like they read the LinkedIn bio, it’ll be like a minute to two minute introduction

of the guest, you know, they read down everything that they’ve ever achieved, and you know, you’ve just spent a minute Um, and so again, there’s no wrong or right, maybe that’s better, but for me, that’s like, it’s just such a long introduction and it’s an easy way

to lose guests.

So, so I would do that. But the

biggest thing I noticed from your introduction was, um, is that you don’t introduce who you and your dad are and why you are the guide for the listeners. [00:23:00] So when I asked you at the beginning, you know, why, how can I introduce you? You’re even a bit unsure how to answer that. But then when you answered it to me, I was like, yeah, that’s perfect. You’re into customer service. You like helping people. So I think right at the beginning of that episode, and I did listen as you went through a little bit, it did come out a little bit more from Ron. Cause You were saying he’s a qualified psychologist, and so he gave a little bit of that background, but I think right up the front there at the beginning, like I mentioned, so it’s, it’s almost the first thing, like, who are you?

Like, I’m Janelle Teason. I love helping people. So, and this is Ron. He’s 20 years as a psychologist and we want to do this. Here’s the value. So in this podcast, we’re going to do this. So right away, the listener knows who you are and why they should listen to you. Like that was the thing that I kind of took away a bit, not like in a bad way, but I was like, Okay, so this is your podcast.

Why are you the person to tell me how to be, how to do that?

Janelle: That’s, that’s such good advice. That’s really. [00:24:00] Yeah.

Niall: because it comes back to like, um, I don’t know if you’ve heard about like the hero’s journey. So every movie, every

book kind of follows like the hero’s journey where, uh, like Luke Skywalker is the example. And. So the thing is, your listener is the hero and you’re the guide. So it’s, why are you

Janelle: Oh, you’re talking StoryBrand. You’re

Niall: Yeah, yeah,

Janelle: Miller’s story. I just bought that book. I just bought it. I’m into it right now. So that’s why what you’re saying totally makes sense. It’s on par with everything I’m learning in that book.

Niall: yeah, yeah, exactly. So just always think of the listener as the hero and you’re trying to get them to a point, you know, overcome some obstacle and you’re the guide to help them get there, but right at the beginning, you have to explain why are you the guide? Why are you the person that will be able to help them? All right. Um, so then you’re the only thing I then noticed. So looking at audio quality on the last episode, you had the intro audio on your vocal [00:25:00] sounded a little tinny, not too bad. So I was just wondering how you recorded it, which so it was at the same setup that you have right now.

Janelle: Yeah. Directly into Descript. Um, and I used Studio Sound at 80, I think 80 or 90%, which is, I think you said don’t do 100%, right?

Niall: No, you can do a

hundred percent, a hundred percent. So all comes down to make placement really. And even now, when I set this up on SquadCast, there was a button that said Tips for Recording, so I clicked on it, I actually hadn’t seen it before, and the first thing it said was, the thing that I learned from Lewis, my music producer who makes all the music, sound engineer, and I tell everybody, and when I read that, I was like, alright, perfect. Your microphone should be no more than a fist away from your mouth and from, from looking at yours, I think it might be a bit further away. It’s hard to see with depth perception, but is your [00:26:00] microphone a fist away?

Janelle: Oh, I see a fist away this way. Is that what you mean? Okay. So

Niall: So you should be closer to your microphone

because,

Janelle: like here.

Niall: or immediately I can hear that that’s better audio.

Janelle: Oh, really?

Niall: Can you hear it?

Janelle: No, I can’t hear myself. I’m not wired up like you told me to be.

Niall: you’re not wired up. So immediately you’ve, that’s instantly better. This is me. A fist away, right? Now I’m in a big echoey room. Um, no sound protection at all.

the sound should be pretty bad. Now, hopefully when people are listening to this, because we’re going to turn on studio sound with the script, the sound will be good, but that’s mostly because the microphone is a fist away. Now look, if I move the microphone further away, if I move the microphone here, I You can hear it instantly, right?

So now suddenly the microphone is picking up way more, my voice is echoing off the room. So even if we turn, I mean now the listeners listening to this, studio sound will probably [00:27:00] be turned on and this will sound garbage because studio sound is not like a magician. It can’t make, they kind of claimed that in the beginning.

I’m going to put it back because it sounds so bad. They kind of make it claim that studio sound could take terrible audio and make it sound like you’re in a studio and in reality it can’t. But what Studio Sound can do is take not perfect audio and make it sound really good, but it all comes down. It’s interesting the more I’ve been doing these coaching calls and more I’ve been doing audits, I never realized mic placement would literally be the number one solution to all of these problems.

And I did it with Keir Messar on the Birth Education Center podcast and Same thing. Her mic was so far away. Our mic was like off camera. It was over here. And she’s like, we just can’t figure out why the sound is not so good. And I was like, just bring that microphone right in front of you. And she put it there and she’s like, oh my goodness, it changes instantly.

So mic placement is the biggest one. So you have to finagle that somehow and get that no more than a fist away.

 [00:28:00] And what was interesting, cause Ron’s audio was pretty good. And you said he’s not got like a, um, He doesn’t have a small studio set up like you, right? He’s in a bigger room, um, and we talked before when we did the coaching call about his mic placement as well.

Um, but his audio wasn’t too bad. His was pretty good. This one is not an expensive microphone at all. It’s all to do with mic placement more than anything then. Um, so you know, we’re going to get that figured out. That’s good. Um, absolutely splitting hairs here, but in the episode, which was the last one I listened to, I would have left just a few more seconds of the music playing before you started the main episode.

Cause you did the intro, which was great. It was heartfelt. It grabbed the attention. And then. It just kind of like went straight into the main episode and I would have just even three, four, five seconds of just the music playing to let that build kind of climax and then ease in, but that’s just absolutely splitting hairs.

Biggest things I look out for are [00:29:00] crosstalk and filler words. Crosstalk is the bane of my existence as a podcaster. Um, cross talk is when two people talk at the same time, and as I explained to everybody, completely natural in real life, when you’re having a conversation, to be like, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, or be in the background, be like, Ah, yeah, mm hmm, ah, totally normal.

On a podcast, it sounds Absolutely awful. And it can sometimes be difficult to edit out as well, even afterwards. And it just generally sounds terrible. I didn’t notice any crosstalk at all really when I went through a few of the episodes, so that was good. And it does take, it does take a skill to shut up basically, cause it is quite difficult as a podcaster means you like to talk.

And if you’re a guest on a podcast, it also means you like to talk. And it is a difficult skill to learn to be silent. and Engaging at the same time, but you guys obviously did that well. And I also didn’t notice too many filler words, so I assumed you cut them out and. And if you were cutting them out, I didn’t notice any really unnatural cuts, which is the danger when you start to cut out all those [00:30:00] filler words.

If you don’t do it correctly, then the listener can start to notice those like little cuts and they’re like, Oh, something was missing. There was one that I noticed, but I mean, again, not a big deal. There’s one I was like, Oh, I think that was a cut. Um, So, I always think of my wife as my biggest fan and she listens to all my podcasts and she notices all of these things and she’ll tell me so anytime I’m editing, I’m like, I’ve got to make it, make it good enough for Adri.

Um, and I also, as I went through the episodes, I really like that you’ve added background music to your interludes and the fact that you do interludes as well. I thought, uh, it adds so much depth and so much more kind of professionalism to it. I’ve not done it too much in many of my podcasts, but I’ve been working on with a client lately where it’s more of a narrative podcast and so we need dramatic music or happy music and things like that.

And it just has so much more. to the podcast. So that was really cool that you were, that you’re already doing that. Now getting away maybe mostly from the audio. So when I, when I look at a podcast, because I have to go and look at your Spotify and your Apple [00:31:00] podcast, I pick up on other small things that aren’t really audio related.

And the question for you is, what was you thinking? Why do you do numbers in your title? Hmm.

Janelle: Basically, I chose to do numbers in the title because I thought it would help to keep things in sequential order, but also just for referencing. So if you wanted to tell somebody, check out episode whatever, if it’s a number, it’s easier than a title. That’s what, that’s what my thought process was.

So I mostly do numbers at the head of a title because I think it’s easier for reference. So if you, if we were directing somebody to an episode, we, we would give them just the number instead of the title. I thought it might help it be more easily searchable, but also, um, I did see this done by Amy Porterfield, who is somebody I follow.

And she, uh, I basically just, when I was setting up the podcast, just went. to her podcast page and copied what she did and what she [00:32:00] did. And she uses, um, numbers in front of her episodes. So I was like, that’s what I’m going to do. Makes sense.

Janelle Add video here

Niall: So as caveat I gave, and I was going to give this at the end, but I’ll give it now. This is just Matt. No, no, this is just my advice. There’s so many ways to do it and there’s, there’s some podcasts that I work on that are so successful, like tens of thousands of downloads every seven days. And it goes against everything that I would advise, you know, and so it’s, this is just my advice on based on what I’ve learned over the years and what I do and what I think works and what I prefer as a listener, as a podcaster, but there really is no wrong or right way because there’s many like Joe Rogan is the biggest example.

I cannot stand that podcast. I turned it on for five seconds and turned it off. It’s not for me. I’m not the audience and that’s fine. And that’s why every podcast needs a niche because you’ll find your own audience. On the face of it, a three hour podcast shouldn’t work, [00:33:00] but it is the number one podcast in the world.

And so any advice I’m giving you always just take it with a grain of salt. If you’re following like somebody else who has reasons for doing it, then, then absolutely go for it. My advice though is. I would only use numbers if it’s a story podcast where the listener needs to know this is episode 1, this is episode 2, this is episode 3.

Because I listen to a lot of fiction podcasts and sometimes they don’t number them and I get confused because maybe you don’t know like when did this come out? Is this in the right order? Like if you really need to listen to them in order, I get what you’re saying about referencing them, but I want you to be like Pat Flynn or Joe Rogan and have hundreds of episodes.

When you get to episode 327. Are you going to be able to be like, go back and check out episode 255? Maybe like I spoke to somebody about this and they were like, yeah, well, but Pat Flynn has a team, so they will have planned their podcast and they will have looked up what episode to refer to because they maybe know that they’re going to refer to it.[00:34:00]

So if that’s what you want to start to plan for is having like a big team that’s going to be able to help you plan and tell you what episode to refer to, I, I just can’t see that coming up that often that you need to refer to another, an older episode by number. If you did want to do that, you could do it by date.

You could be like, go back and check out the episode on January 5th, blah, blah, blah. The biggest reason why I think not using numbers in the title is because, and what I read is you have such small real estate. On the directories for people to read your episode titles. And so if you start to add the numbers at the beginning, especially, so on my podcast, a Vietnam podcast, I do add the season number and the episode number, but it’s the last thing.

And so basically nobody really sees it. Um, it’s more, it’s more for my reference than anybody else, um, but I make it the last thing on the title. So when you’re scrolling on the directories, you can’t see that because on the directories you really do, do [00:35:00] have not much time, uh, not much space at all. If you go look on Spotify or Apple podcasts and you’re going to think about the listener, what are they doing?

When you listen to podcasts, you’re scrolling down and you’re trying to find something that resonates with you. Even if you’ve, you’ve decided, I want to listen to the human being project, right? I’ve done that. I’ve come across a podcast. I want to listen to the podcast. Then it’s like, okay, what episode am I going to listen to?

And then you start scrolling down Spotify or Apple podcast, trying to find one that you’re like, oh yeah, I want to listen to this. So if you use those first, like. Five to six characters saying episode one, season one. There’s zero value in that for somebody that’s scrolling down and trying to find something that resonates with them.

If they say, Oh, it’s season two, episode two, I don’t care. I’m just trying to find something that tells me how to help with my, you know, why I’m feeling the way I’m feeling in terms of your podcast. So that’s why my advice is not to have. The episode numbers or season numbers at the beginning at the very least because it’s just taking up valuable real estate.

Janelle: [00:36:00] Actually, you make a good point there, because it is taking up real estate, like you said at the beginning of the title. So, I think, um, it probably isn’t something that we need. And, of course, as all the things you’ve said so far, it’s very useful for us. So, thank you. I think I’m going to edit that.

Niall: And I think most of all, yeah, it’s just that put your mind, put yourself in the mind of the listener because I have to sometimes remind myself that I listen to podcasts as well. What are their behaviors? How do they do it? And they’re scrolling down. And unless it is a story and they need to be like, Oh yeah, the last one I listened to was season one, episode seven.

So now I’m on episode eight. That’s why I need it for like, I think it’s good for them. Fiction podcasts, because sometimes you go away from the podcast and you come back and you’re like, oh, where was I at? And if it’s just the title, it’s like boy runs, runs through woods. You’re like, was that the last one?

I can’t remember, but if you can have the number. So that’s why I think it’s good for, for those kinds of storytelling podcasts that each episode builds up on the next one. I think if you’re creating [00:37:00] evergreen content and you want somebody to be able to scroll through your podcast in three years and still find an episode that’s relevant for them and gives value to them.

I don’t think the episode number is, is useful at all really, so it doesn’t make much of a difference.

yeah, and then, again, diving in a bit deeper as well, I am, I looked in your podcast description, I saw that there was no links there, so there was, I thought you should have a link to your website in there at the very least as well, so that when people…

Niall: Yeah, so just small things like that. Then now this here is where I feel I thought you could tighten things up a bit. So to be totally honest for me, and this is just for me reading the title and the description, I didn’t really know [00:38:00] what your podcast does exactly. So talking about the title, the human being project.

It doesn’t describe what it is or what it does. And I’ve been through this cause my podcast was called Seven Million Bikes. Just Seven Million Bikes in the beginning, because I thought it was quirky and fun. It’s because there’s over seven million motorbikes in Saigon. And then it was like a business consultant I had a coffee with one time pointed out to me.

And she’s like, you think it’s quirky and fun, but nobody knows what that is. What does it do? So that’s now why my business is Seven Million Bikes podcasts, just so the Seven Million Bikes is still stupid, but at least the podcast adds that on. So what Adam Shibley advises from podcasting business school is, I follow what he does and he’s amazing, is you don’t need to rebrand it or change it, you just can add a tag onto the end of it.

So that’s why my podcast is called Smarter Podcasting, but if you look on, uh, like Spotify or Apple podcast, it says Smarter Podcasting colon [00:39:00] podcasting for beginners. And so he says you could just add on that. So you can go into your directory, whether it’s Buzzsprout or whatever, and just add that there.

So you don’t rebrand, you don’t do anything different in your, when you’re doing your introduction. It’s just purely for visibility so that when people are scanning and looking through, and he says it’s for SEO purposes, I’m not convinced on it does much for SEO, but just adding that tag onto the end, a few words,

But that still doesn’t tell what the listener gets out of it. So think of like, so who’s your listener persona? Who’s the ideal person that you want to listen to your podcast, and what do you want to get out of it? And can you’d make that in three words, . So that was like, mine was podcasting for beginners.

’cause I struggled as well, even with this podcast, like, who is it for? What is it for? And I still don’t think of myself as an expert at all. When I look at some of the other people and podcasting and, and maybe somebody who’s had a podcast for years, I’m like, I probably can’t give them much advice. But then I was like, no, but I can definitely, it’s that thing like, uh, I know more [00:40:00] about podcasting than a beginner.

So I was like, so my podcast is for. What I do is to help beginners because there’s always new beginners that need help. If you’re already an established podcaster with five years of podcasting and a massive audience, I don’t claim that I’m going to help you get a million more downloads and help you monetize your podcast.

Like that’s not my background in my experience. So that’s where my tagline came in from. Podcasting for beginners. So have a think about what could just be a very short tagline that if somebody’s scrolling through the directories, they’re like, I know exactly what this podcast does,

Janelle: This feedback resonates with me so much. I’m reading the book StoryBrand by Donald, Donald, I can’t, I never can say that guy’s name properly. I’m reading the book StoryBrand by Donald Miller and he’s talking about that, the branding aspect and how you have to make it about what people need and not who you are and what you do.

Um, so you are speaking my language right now. This is so [00:41:00] aligned for me. Uh, thank you, Niall. Great feedback.

Niall: I love when I’m giving feedback. And you’re like, okay, you know, that is good feedback. I’m like, okay, that’s, I’m on the right track ’cause.

Going down the same track was then when I got into your description, which I just thought was just quite broad. And again, I just didn’t really fully understand. And I’m looking at it from a really analytical point of view, because I did, I did share this with my wife last night, cause she’s amazing and I bounce everything off her and she disagreed with me.

She’s like, no, I know what it does, but I was like, well, that’s okay. That’s your opinion. And she’s right. She’s right all the time. But I was like, I don’t really get it. So. I wrote down some of the things you put. The description says, what happens when we don’t allow ourselves to simply be? So it might just be me and others might know what that means, but I honestly have no idea what that means.

If I allow myself to simply be what I’m doing, like, I think you could add more to that. Like, what does it mean? If you let, if you allow yourself to simply be, how does, how do you feel? What do you do? How does that make a difference to your life? What value, what [00:42:00] changes do I get? I think it’s always, I’m not so good at that as well, but you want to give change, you want to enact change, right?

So somebody listens to your podcast, they learn all of this, allow themselves to simply be, how does that change their life? How does it make it better?

Janelle: Yeah, we really need to articulate this better. I totally see what you’re saying. Um, it’s a language that may resonate with some, but probably not with a lot of people. And I think it would help once we have, once we determine what our brand is and what specific need we’re trying to meet, what problem we’re solving and how we do it, then it’s going to come across a lot better.

So that you’re directing me to evaluate this is huge. It’s on my radar and uh, yeah, you’re crushing it. You’re crushing this, man.

Niall: And then going back into the beginning when I was asking a little bit about your niche and things like that. So this is where it gets quite broad as well, because it says, then it says whether you’re looking to improve your mental health, cultivate more meaningful relationships, achieve personal goals.

So these [00:43:00] are all quite broad things. And again, my advice might be terrible because you can have a broad podcast and it can still do well. Generally, though, the advice from everyone is, and from what I see from successful podcasters, the more your niche, the better, because you find your audience and it’s easier to just have.

One thing that you’re doing rather than trying to do everything. So if you really wanted to niche down on your podcast, and if you do, you don’t have to choose one of those things that you want to help people with. So you want to help this podcast will help improve your mental health, or this podcast will help you cultivate more meaningful relationships, or this podcast will help you achieve personal goals.

And when I’ve started to do that, even like I said, with this podcast. Everything becomes easier because you realize you know exactly what you’re doing. And yeah, when you move away from that broad, broadness, and then it was similar as well. And then you said, we’ll give insights and advice that cover psychology, spirituality, business, or creativity.

And I was [00:44:00] like, that’s four massive areas, like psychology, spirituality, business, and creativity. So again, it was like, you imagine if you were like, we’re going to help you achieve. Your business goals through creativity. Like I know that made it sound, but that does, you can achieve your business goals through creativity.

That then immediately is something that’s so much more focused. You, you know what guests you want, you know what topics you’re going to talk about, we are going to talk about how to achieve your business goals using creativity.

So that, that would be, yeah. So from reading your description and looking at it, I was like, I think you can just, because I think you, you guys obviously are great. And like you said, it’s your personalities and you’ve got that. I mean, I didn’t even mention that, but just listening to it, you’ve, you’ve got like great rapport.

You’re easy to listen to. You’ve got great voices. You’ve got personalities. You opened up, you were vulnerable and it was, it was emotional and the music was great. So all of those technical aspects were great. I just think to niche down and make it as specific as [00:45:00] possible will make your life easier. I know when I’ve done it, I was like, Oh my goodness, it’s so much easier.

You know what guests you want, you know what to talk about, you know, the outcomes, you know what your goals are. So, um, yeah, I would, I’m glad you like that advice. So then. Uh, I looked at the main artwork as well, the main artwork was great, it was a short title, it was easy to read, your big smiling pictures, making eye contact with the camera so people can easily see that, so I thought that the main title was, was perfect, but for the episode artwork, um, there was way too much text, so Apple Podcasts, Apple Podcasts doesn’t even show the episode artwork, apparently that’s changing with the latest iOS update, but I checked my Apple Podcasts and I’m pretty sure I’m on the latest iOS And you still can’t see.

So Apple podcast doesn’t show episode artwork at all, but I think that’s changing. Um, and then if you go to Spotify, it’s just the main episode. Yeah. Cross talk. No, I’m kidding. Uh, [00:46:00] they show the main, they just show the main episode artwork. So even if you click on the episode, it only shows the main episode artwork.

so the reason why it’s important for the episode artwork as well as over 80 percent of people use the phones for podcasts. So it looks fine on a, on a browser on your, your desktop, but there’s less than 20 percent of people are actually finding, looking for podcasts on the desktop.

Most people obviously are using their phones. And if you go and look at your episode artwork on your phone, you cannot read the text. At all. You can’t see the guest picture and you definitely can’t see their name. I could see on my on my browser I’ve got a big monitor. So I was looking

If you open it, yeah, but that’s an extra step, right? If you’re scr I’m talking about when you’re just scrolling down, you want to be able to grab somebody’s attention, right? If you’re just scrolling down, you can’t read anything, right? So I learned this from Mark Stedman, who’s an amazing podcaster, like 20 years of experience in podcasting.

Um, and if you look at the artwork on my, on Smarter Podcasting, I took his advice. It’s just [00:47:00] my picture. It’s only me. There’s no text. There’s no logo. So every episode I choose a different picture that I try to make it like match the title, um, a little bit, but because the reason why is because when you’re scrolling on there, you can’t read it anyway.

So it’s just my picture and people like people, people like smiling people. They like eye contact. You know, I used to work in fundraising and you know, there’s testing that pictures of, People looking at you making eye contact would raise more money than people not making eye contact with a camera and so there’s a lot of science that goes in behind that anytime you see any ads on tv for charities and things like that.

There’s some weird things as well like girls raise more if you have a picture of a smiling female. Child than a Smiling Boy like that will raise more money than a yeah people respond more to helping females, which I guess there’s probably psychology behind that and stuff like that as well, but main point is just have your picture or your guest picture for each episode and that’s all you need for the artwork.

Nothing else, um, [00:48:00] because yeah, you just can’t see it and like you say you can see if you click in, but that on Apple podcast even if you click on the episode they don’t even show it anyway and. Apple podcast is still the biggest podcast platform, pretty equal with Spotify, but so you’re talking about the one of the biggest platforms.

You can’t even see it anyway. And when we talked about time and how much time you spend, I can imagine the amount of time it would spend to make that artwork because I’ve done it. Well, I do it and I know how long it takes. You’ve got to do the graphics, align it, center it. You’ve got to get the picture of the guest, then choose the font, all of that stuff.

All of your pictures have different. Backgrounds, I think when I saw it as well, so I, I know how much work goes into creating that artwork. Um, just make it all easier for yourself. Same background every time, so it’s on brand. I would just use the background from your main artwork and just change the picture with your guest every time.

Just make it easier for yourself and that will take you two seconds instead of I’ve done it before you probably spend like an hour or more making that artwork [00:49:00] and you can do it in one minute,

Niall: well, those, those were, those aren’t selfies. Those were professionally done.

So I would advise that though, because you do want high resolution. So they, they are very, but it depends what cameras are so good these days. But my friend is a photographer, Anastasia, and she was like, right, let’s get into the studio. And so she, we just took an hour. Um, and she just took a million pictures of me and sent them to me.

So I just have a folder of like a million pictures. I took three different t shirts with me that day. So those were all done on the same day. And I took three different t shirts and we just did a whole bunch of picture. Then I changed t shirts, then we did more. And, [00:50:00] um, do you want a funny story? She also came to take pictures of me doing standup comedy.

And I wanted to bring a whole bunch of different shirts with me. So I could change after every. Like five minutes so I could get the most out of her time there. All my shirts were in the laundry and the only ones I had that were clean were all navy blue, so I changed like three times, but they looked the same every time.

It was just like a different variation of the same navy blue polo shirt. I wear a lot of polo shirts, so I had like three different polo shirts that were all navy blue and one shirt that was a different color. So that was, that was pretty funny. But I would, if you have the time, the budget or a friend, um, But even phones these days are so good.

Um, just don’t do a selfie because the selfie camera is not as good as the, the front camera. So just get your husband to take like a million pictures of you with a nice background, a clear background, because you can do it on Canva as well. Like you remove the background anyway. So that’s what all my pictures are.

Janelle: Mine too. Mine too. [00:51:00] My, I, it’s the same thing. I just remove the backgrounds in Canva and use images like that.

Niall: That’s just the backgrounds being removed. So just get your husband to do it with your phone and just get a clear background and just take a million pictures, change your top like five times, just do it in an hour, half an hour, and then just put them all on your computer and you just have a bank of.

of pictures to use. Then, just to kind of finish up, uh, one of your episodes, I love that you put a disclaimer about the audio because, for the guests audio, because it is the most frustrating thing when someone has a bad mic or poor audio quality. And I think you mentioned you turned studio sound on, and actually it wasn’t that bad.

I was impressed. It was, um, I’ve just made a podcast

that was using the. I think the computer microphone and the raw audio was terrible and I was like, studio sound is not going to make this sound any better. And I was really surprised it did, 100 percent studio sound. It made it like really listenable and I was like, Oh, okay. So sometimes you get surprised.

but it [00:52:00] was good that you did a disclaimer because it does help. Set expectations for the listener that, hey, this might not be as good as normal, which was what you said. So that was, that was really good. Um, your outro was great. You asked to join the Change Evolution Community Chat on Facebook. The biggest thing again, I was just thinking was, what is it exactly?

And what value do people get? So just, what is it a bit more than just the Change Evolution Community Chat? What, what happens on there? What is it? And what value do people get? And then you also said, but you did do it with wisdom. So you told people to go to wisdom, which I’d never heard of. It seems like a great platform with that.

You gave a bit more of an explanation of what it is and what value people would get out of it. So that was great. Um, so maybe for the change evolution, Facebook chat, you could just add that in as well, but. Like I mentioned earlier, overall, it’s great. It’s well made, which was the biggest thing, you know, when I listen to a podcast, like, is it well made?

Does it sound like it’s in a big room? Is it poor audio quality? Is there loads of cuts? Is it just poorly made? But no, it was really well made. And [00:53:00] so, um, just as I mentioned before, the advice I’ve given, I, I don’t say it’s going to automatically get you more listeners or more downloads or suddenly make you be able to quit your day job, but learned a lot about podcasting over the, over the years.

And then I think that advice will just help your podcast be the best that it can be.

Janelle: Wow. I love all this feedback, Niall. Like this is so on point for us. This is super helpful because it’s helping us target the actual areas we need to focus on where we, for us, it’s branding. It’s that identity issue. It’s what problem do we solve and how do we do it? So thank you for bringing this to my attention.

This has been pure gold for me. I am so grateful to you. What a ton of value, dude. So good.

You really, really did your research. Like you put in the time, you dug through some serious episode action to find ways to be helpful. And I am so grateful. Thank you.

Niall: You’re very welcome. [00:54:00] Yeah, I did. I went through and I listened to all of it when I’m so excited to hear that because, um, I don’t, I don’t have imposter syndrome really much. You know, people always talk about imposter syndrome. I’m just. Stupid and just go ahead without thinking, but I do, even as I’m giving you this advice, I’m like, is that any good?

I don’t really know. I’m just trying to figure it all out as well. So I’m really happy to hear that that that helps and you’re gonna take it on board. So I’m excited to see when you’ve made those changes. Let me know. Obviously we keep in touch regularly, but let me know and so I want to see those changes and have a look at them.

And if it does make a difference to your downloads over time, and if you do get more listens, listeners, then definitely let me know that as well.

Janelle: Oh, you know, I’m going to keep you in the loop. You better believe it. I’m sure it’s going to help. I think anytime you fine tune your message and really get clear with your audience, obviously it’s going to be far more impactful. So I’m excited to see what changes happen to, you know, how many viewers or listeners we get [00:55:00] and, and how much we grow.

And I will definitely keep you posted, homie.

Niall: Awesome, Janelle, thank you so much. You got a busy day ahead of you then go do it.

Janelle: Thanks, Niall. This was such a pleasure. I really, really appreciate this and highly recommend it to anybody else who might be interested. Wow. What a gift you’ve given us today. Thank you.