[Transcript starts at 1:19]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people and thank you for joining me for another episode of my favorite podcast. It is Monday, July 10th when this drops. It's not July 10th right now, which is, again, I know I've said this for a while, uh, for the past few episodes. Cause I batched a bunch of these. I got a bunch of travel coming up, uh, but it won't be that day.
Um, but it's Monday, July 10th if you're listening to this or watching this when it drops and we are talking about my podcasting process. So right off the bat, if you are watching this and you're thinking about starting a podcast, do not start a video podcast until you have hit 100 audio only episodes.
If you're listening to this same, same for you. Do not think about starting a video podcast until you have hit 100 audio only episodes. Video just adds an entire nother level of complexity, and it's so much friction that you will stop. The whole thing with podcasts, having a podcast is that everyone starts one.
Very few people keep on going. So my goal is to help you keep on going and the number one piece of advice I can give you is don't do video until you have at least 100 audio only episodes. It just by that time, you have the routine of it, you have the habit of it, you are proficient, you're skilled, you're efficient, you are comfortable with it, and you will keep going.
So I have released two episodes a week since 2018. I did take a, I switched it up for a little bit, I don't know which year it was. Um, during the summer. Um, but then I brought back the two episodes and I, I, I switched it to one a week for some summer at some point in time. I don't remember. Um, but I started off, I was doing guest episodes, one guest episode a week, and one, um, solo episode a week.
I, I came hot out the gates folks. I would not recommend that either one a week start off is, is fine. Um, but I've been doing this in 2018 and we are well over 1 million downloads. Y'all are fucking amazing. And we are approaching 500 episodes. And so I figured today I would sit and talk about my podcasting process and how I create this, these, um, with the help of of my team.
My team being Lex, Joe and Courtney. So zoomed out version of this, I record across the week, or I create these across a week, right? So I record on Mondays, I sync the audio and video on Wednesdays, and then I edit the transcript and pull clips from these longer videos on Friday. I do not do it all at once. I call this segmented batching.
Y'all know I'm all about time management and I love me some batching, and I batch it based on energy requirements. And so my creative day is Monday. It's, I'm at my best, I record, and I'm gonna go through each of these three days. Wednesday is very minimal effort. It's literally just putting the audio and video together, I'll talk about that.
It takes me like no time at all. And then Friday again, I am back in kind of somewhat creative mode, but still pretty kind of like executive functioning kind of things where I'm just editing the transcript and pulling out clips. Um, and that's what the week will look like. And then I have my team in there to get this out to your ears and your eyes.
So on Monday, my recording day, first thing I'm gonna do is pick a topic and a title. Of note, I didn't always do it this way. I actually did it the other way before where I would just talk and then come up with a title afterwards. Um, when I started using a recording video and working with Joe and we're looking to, you know, move into the YouTube space, started being a little bit more intentional with the titles, which is actually really difficult.
Um, and so I would come up with the title first and then the episode after that. So I have the topic, a title, and then I would, I will outline it. Uh, in a, in a Google, what is this called? A Google Doc. We have a shared folder with all the things in it. Um, there's no right or wrong way. If you want to just speak and then come up with a title and a topic afterwards, or excuse me, a title afterwards, you can. If you want to do the other way, that's fine too. Um, I also have a running list of topics in one of the notes sections, one of the notes. One of the folders in notes in my phone. Um, I will crowdsource, if you will, and go on Instagram and ask. And once I get re responses, I will save those and kind of as the mood hits me, um, I will record.
And I am typically going with whatever moves me that day because I do outline them now. I didn't use to outline the episode. I was just speak off the cuff and I felt very comfortable with that. But I need to outline them now so that I stay on, on task, I stay on topic and so that I don't have to do multiple takes.
I've pretty much always been able to do it in one to two, like takes, it's not that I start again ever, it's just that I would stop it, gather my thoughts and then keep going. I don't like doing that with video. It's just adds another layer of complexity when I have to sync things. So I get this done in one shot, one take.
So the thing that takes me the most time is actually outlining it. And then I will, I'm not reading from the outline, I am referencing the outline as I go. I don't have a teleprompter, so if you're watching this, you'll see my eyes do move down. Because I'm looking at the computer screen underneath the, uh, I'm using a camera, right?
A DSLR camera, and so that I have the outline underneath there. Uh, I will outline these while I'm walking in the morning. I, I sometimes I outline while I'm at the desk. It really just depends on how I'm, I'm feeling that day. But I have no problem outlining something on my phone as I'm doing my morning walk and then, uh, come in and, and record.
I will do both outlines first. So I do two episodes a week and I record both on the same day, both on Monday and I, I still batch how I do them, right, where I will do both outlines and then record both. It's not that I do an outline and then record and then an outline and record. Both outlines get done and then they both, or they each get recorded.
Again, this is the most involved part of the whole process for me. Um, and I do this so that it's easy after this, right? Once I've done the outlines, it's easy for me. I can just fly through it. Um, I reference the outlines as I go, and it's, it's pretty seamless. But that, that is definitely what takes the most time.
So if you're thinking about using this approach for your, for yourself, keep that in mind and have that expectation that yeah, the outline will probably take the longest and then after that it's smooth sailing. For those wondering, I record this using a Nikon D 6,300, oh no, excuse me, I'm on the D 5,600.
What am I saying? I'm actually just looked at it as I'm saying it. I'm like, no. Nope. That's a lie. I just lied. I use a Nikon D 5,600, um, And I actually make sure that it's in focus Using Zoom. It's a little hack, right? I use that to stream, and so I can go and it's just a bigger screen. Like yes, the D 5,600 has a little screen that comes out so I can see myself, but it's small.
So I go onto Zoom first, make sure everything's in focus the way I want, and then I will record. I record directly to a memory card inside of the camera. I don't record to the computer. I don't wanna lose any quality. I go directly to the camera and I record the audio separately and you see the mic in front of me and I record that to my computer using Garage Band.
So, very simple. I have two screens running. I got one in front of me, that's where the outline is. And then over to the side, that is where I have the Garage Band going just so that I know that the track is, is recording. Cuz sometimes it'll happen, it'll stop and I'm like, oh, gotta do that again. So this way I can see everything is going and everything's recording.
That's like the worst when you record something and you're like, ah, it didn't actually record. So I wanna make sure that that doesn't happen. That's why I got the two screens running. Like I said, I record two episodes, so the way that I do that, uh, make it look like two separate episodes is when I'm done with the first, I will change my outfit, and by outfit I mean my shirt and my hat, sometimes my glasses, something like that.
I'll ch I have the light there in the background. I will change the color of that and then I will record the second episode. From there I- hopefully you're laughing about this. Cause that's, that's, that's the process. It's very simple. Um, I will then take the audio and the video tracks, and I'm gonna put them in a folder on, I have an ssd, a, a solid state drive.
That's where I save it and it's an external hard drive. Um, and I will put the audio only into the audio only file into a Google folder so that Courtney can go and pull it and edit it. So that, if you're wondering how I get it to my editor, Courtney, um, it is through Google Drive. I will take the, um, actually we'll get into that in a second.
But I will share, thank you, Courtney, the solid state drive that I use to um, have all of my, basically all my backups are on there, and then I have another one, um, that's slower that it's like 12 terabytes, where everything goes on that as well, because one is none and two is one when it comes to backing things up. So we will share the things that I use.
Um, the reason I use an SSD is it's faster I work off of the ssd. Um, if this is too techie for you, just fast forward. If you're loving the techie stuff, you're my people. Um, but I work off of the SSD because it's faster, so I'm not working off of the computer. Everything is on this solid stage drive. All of the files are on there.
So that is my Monday. On Wednesday- then I'm done. I walk away from it On Wednesday I will use, I will do my syncing. So I'm gonna sync the audio and the video. So again, I record to the memory card for the video, and I record to the computer for the audio. I send the audio only file and Courtney takes that and that's what you hear if you're listening to on, you know, uh, Apple or whatever.
On Wednesday. I use Adobe Premier, and I actually match the audio and the video cuz it's two different files. So I've talked about this in the past. Really cool trick is that you just do this. That's a clap. You're gonna get a big sound wave with that, and you can just match the audio waves inside of Adobe because sound does come through the camera and it's called scratch audio.
You don't use that audio. You just mute that track and you bring the audio track from Garage Band and they will have the matching wave forms and you just line up that big audio wave from the clap and the video and the audio is now synced. You can do this manual, um, like auto, I don't know what the word is like, automatically, I guess I just do it manually. It takes literally two seconds and then I export each of these.
Um, Wednesday is like a really fun day for me cuz it's just like things just get done. I export each of these videos now cuz the video now has the audio with it. And the reason I do this is so that it can go on YouTube, right?
I save it to the ssd, I upload the video to YouTube, and from here then Joe can take over. So this way there's no loss of quality with the video cuz it's big files. So I just put it directly on YouTube and then it's all edited and anything like that. Because remember I do it in one take, so all I have to edit out is like the beginning and the end where I'm starting and stopping, but everything is synced.
I upload it to YouTube and then Joe can do all the other things that he does where he puts the, um, the, not the show notes, but the timestamps on it. Anything that's gonna go happen in YouTube, then Joe takes over from there. This process is a little bit more involved if I do a guest episode. If I'm recording a guest episode, I will use Riverside fm.
We have an affiliate link for that. Thank you, Courtney. Um, and I'll record inside of that. Riverside exports the video from each person and the audio file from each of the guests, each person that's on it, um, separately. And then so I have to sync all of that inside of, um, Adobe. Because if you ever watch a guest episode that I've done, I have a dope overlay.
My sister made it. So it looks like me and the guest are like in this really cool like LA apartment. Um, so I have to make that video and I do that inside of Adobe. It does, takes a little bit longer. It's not like a ton longer. Um, but I, it's, it is a little bit longer and then I make a vertical version of that because that is what I'm gonna use for Instagram, right?
So YouTube has the landscape version with the overlay, looking like, making it look like we're in an LA apartment. And then, um, I export a second one. I create and export a second video that's vertical. So guest episodes definitely have a bit more things involved to them, which is also part of the reason I don't do as many cuz it's just a little bit more work.
Um, and I've also had a zillion guests on already. Um, but that's the process that we're looking at for Wednesday. Of note scheduling the guest episodes, it's actually very simple. It's all automated. I use Acuity. That's my scheduler. All the information gets sent out automatically. So that's like very, very seamless to get the beginning portions of things.
It's actually just the, uh, the um, editing and such that, that takes a bit more time.
Uh, one more techie thing is the, I said that I export this video in landscape, right? And I record it in landscape cuz it's gonna go on YouTube. When I pull the clips on Friday, they are for Instagram, so that means they're now gonna be a vertical video. So it zooms in.
The reason I'm saying this is, this is why I use a DSLR camera to record, and this is why I said wait until you have at least a hundred audio only before you step into this. You can't use a shitty camera to do a video podcast. Because if you're like, oh, I'm gonna put it on YouTube, cool. As soon as that thing gets zoomed in, if that has not good resolution, you're gonna see that on Instagram.
It's just not gonna look good. So I will use Descript and we'll get into that for my, as part of my Friday routine, to actually make the clips for Instagram. And those clips come from this longer form video that's in landscape and it zooms in. It just cuts the middle of the video.
Um, lastly, I just wanna circle back. This is where my guy, Joe comes in. I said, I send, I put the videos, the full length videos on YouTube, and then Joe does the thumbnails. He does the timestamps. Which are the big, the big players, the big D uh, dial movers. I don't want anything to do with that. Joe takes care of all of it. He sends me some options for the thumbnails, and we kinda go back and forth if needed.
Um, although he hits it outta the park most of the time. And then we go from there.
After that, that takes us to Friday. So Wednesday's the editing day. It's actually not that big of a deal, um, unless it's a guest episode. Friday is where things get fun again. On Friday, I upload the full length videos to Descript
We have a, uh, affiliate link for that. Descript is actually pretty dope, yo. Um, pretty dope y'all is what I wanted to say. It's pretty dope. It will allow you to, it transcribes it, it creates the transcript, and you can edit the video from the transcript. Again, I am not doing any editing of the actual podcast.
I don't ask Courtney to do any actual editing of the podcast. It's recorded fine. Nothing needs to happen in the middle of it or taking out ums or butts or anything like that. It, it is what it is. It's fine. But when I go to pull clips I will chop them up and it's really easy to do when I'm just looking at the transcript and I can just cut words outta the transcript and it cuts the video.
That's pretty awesome.
So on Friday, I upload the videos to Descript and I read through the transcript. This is like a one to three ratio. It does. This takes the most time. Um, for sure. I'm just kind of like sitting there kind of in a non-creative mode of just like I have to, it has to go through the whole episode again and I read through it and I will select clips as I go.
Yes, there are, there is AI software that can do this for you. I don't think it's as good as what I make. And I know this is like all of us creators say this and it's like keeps you kind of, I don't say keeps you stuck, but it keeps you doing the same thing. But the reason I say this as of right now is that I have tried some of that software and I know that when I make the clips, I oftentimes pull from multiple parts of the podcast, not just one timeframe, which is what these clips will do. It just takes it from like minute 37 or minute 17, and it just takes like 30 seconds of it. I will sometimes mix from like the beginning and the end and kind of move things around to make it make more sense because when you just drop a clip on Instagram, it can feel out of context or there is no context around it.
So sometimes you have to bring the context in, which is why I continue to do it and will until I actually hate it. Um, I also just love doing it and I'm using it to create what I consider to be my most important, my most important content, so I don't want to outsource that just yet, especially not to, uh, to a robot.
So, uh, I pull the clips and each, when I say pull, I mean I identify and it's, it says like sections them out into a, another part of Descript and it saves them and Joe backs them up as well, which is really helpful. So I'm, cuz I was like, if Descript like dies, what am I gonna do? Um, but I pull, I pull each of the clips and I title each of them.
And then I, I put those titles on a running Google sheet list. Um, and at this point, folks, we have like over 500 clips cuz you can, from each of these videos, each of these podcast episodes, I can get anywhere from, you know, three or four clips up to, you know, 10 to 15 depending on what the, the topic is.
And they're all titled, and now I have them, I note when I post them, I note when I post them on, on, um, I note when I edit them, I note when I post them. I note when I post them on TikTok as well. So this way it's just like gives me organization and then when I go, want to go and post about the podcast episode or if I want to make a post, I have this running list that I can go and choose from.
Then I just go in Descript. I pull the clip, I edit it, just tighten it up, take out some of the fillers and some of the space in between, in between when I'm speaking, like the pauses, and we're good to go.
Uh, the audio from. The audio gets saved, like I said earlier. The audio, let me back it up. I will make a teaser for guest episodes while I am on Descript, right?
I'm pulling these clips. I put 'em together and I create a teaser. The audio of this teaser teaser I put in the folder on Drive and Courtney will add that to the audio version of the podcast episode. Um, takes a little bit of time, but I think it's, again, it's worth it. Um, and then I add the transcript and the SRT file, right Descript creates these.
The SRT file is what's used to create subtitles on YouTube. I export these and I upload them also to the drive folder. Joe takes the SRT file and adds it to YouTube. Courtney takes the transcript file and adds that to the actual podcast episode and ends, adds to the website. Um, that's a great segue into then what the team does.
If you're listening to this and you're like, holy shit, it's really involved. Remember, this is year five. This is what happens when you have a video podcast. If it's just a regular podcast, you're taking out a good portion of these things because you're not making video clips from this, right? My whole Friday would be different.
So this is why, again, I want you to have an at least 100 audio only episodes first before you go and move into video.
So, As for the team, I'm gonna say on the weekend, I'm not sure when Courtney does it, but we'll say on the weekend, cuz I know that at least one of the episodes gets done on the weekend cuz it gets released on Monday and the other episode gets released on Thursday.
I'm always a week ahead. Um, but Courtney will take the audio file, she will add in the intro and the outro music. She will add in my favorite and I say, Hey dj, gimme that heartbeat. She adds in the, the intro. Um, What do, what do I wanna call that? The podcast music. I don't know what it's called. Um, she adds the teaser to the guest for the guest episodes.
She, if, if any of these, um, episodes, and this is one of them that will happen, if any of these episodes are a little longer and I have to step stop it in the middle cuz my camera only records 20 minutes at a time. Um, then she will, um, we'll say, I don't, I can't think of the word. She'll put the two, uh, she'll take out the pause that's in the middle and make sure that it's just one continuous file there.
Um, she does the show notes, including any hyperlinked resources, and she creates that page for the transcript. So she's making sure that the podcast actually goes up. We use Blubrry as the podcast host, so that's the same. The process for this is the same as creating, uh, what would be a, a blog post. So you have to write all that things out and you attach the, um, the audio file, right?
It's, it's upload the audio file to blubrry, it gets attached, and she schedules all of that. So she makes it the make sure the podcast goes out. If you folks are listening to this and you're just starting a podcast, now you're just thinking about starting a podcast. Use Buzz Sprout. Just so you know. Do not use blubrry.
I'm 500 episodes in. I use a WordPress website. It just makes sense. But if you're just starting out, use Buzz Sprout. Um, as for the rest of the team, Lex makes the graphics, um, that go on the actual for each episode, and then she sends out any information to the guest afterwards, like the teaser, um, the, the link to the episode, things like that.
She's done this since like episode eight. Um, she was the first person I brought on to help. I brought Courtney on to help at episode 150. Um, so yes, it can take time to like, really outsource the big, big things. Um, but I have had help since early on with this. Lex also makes sure, makes sure that the episode is up because she's on the East Coast, so she's three hours ahead of me. Just not because of, uh, anything besides the fact that something's blueberry that doesn't work.
And we're like, where is it? Like the podcast didn't go up. So we, or I should say Courtney schedules this to go up at 1:00 AM on Monday morning and Thursday morning. If you folks ever get up and there's no episode, it means that something happened somewhere. Or that I died. But even, no, it wouldn't mean that I died cause I got the stuff the week before.
So it's usually that blueberry has broken. Um, and then we have to kind of fix something. It's happened a few times recently, um, but we get it up, worked out, but, but that's what Lex is doing. Uh, and then Joe, I said, he's doing all the, all the YouTube things. He brings the, the description over. Courtney writes it.
Um, he'll pull that over and put that in YouTube. He'll add the SRT file. He does the, the timestamps and, um, making sure that it actually gets posted and scheduled. And, um, he'll pull, he'll also do all my YouTube shorts. He'll take the videos that I make from, for Instagram, the clips, and he'll put them up on YouTube.
Um, as for actually posting things, I pull the clip, I edit it, and I post it on social the day of, right? So I said I have that running list that's in Descript, excuse me, that's in Google, the Google form, nah, Google sheet. Uh, and then all of the clips are actually housed within Descript. And I will pull one the day of and go from there.
If I were to have ads, I don't have any ads in this, but just if you're thinking about it, if I were to have ads, then you would record. I would record these things separately and then add them afterwards. I could tell Courtney where I'd want them to be, but I don't have any ads. Um, mainly cuz I hate them.
I haven't looked to monetize the podcast in that way. I'm kind of thinking about it, but also like, I just hate ads. I hate being beholden to someone. Um, so maybe that's a question for you folks. Would you be okay with ads? Would you be okay with commercials? I think they're annoying and I'm, so I'm trying to figure out the best way to do it.
Thus far, what I've really done is just brought the, if there's a product I like, I bring the founder on, I bring the CEO on, and then, you know, I ask for product in exchange as opposed to like, you know, pay me X dollars per month for, uh, for the podcast. I just really don't like being beholden. Um, and I don't like ads.
But thinking about it, I don't know, but would love to hear from you if you have a thought either way. I know some of these podcasts just have like, you know, zillion minute long commercials and you're just like, I don't wanna listen to that. So it wouldn't be anything like that. But I do wanna hear from you what, what your, what your thoughts are.
So gimme a dm, shoot me a dm, shoot me a text. 3 1 0 7 3 7 2 3 4 5. Would love to hear from you. So that right there folks is my process. I know that maybe you're sitting there like, holy shit, that I'm never gonna start a podcast. I'm kind of like, good. If you're scared away from doing video, good, because I want you to do audio only first and then you can add on video.
Um, we started doing video in November and now it's very seamless. It, there was definitely a lot of friction in when I started doing it in November, just cuz it had been so easy doing audio only. Like you don't, it doesn't matter what you look like. Doesn't matter, like what the room looks like. It's just easy.
And now I'm like, you know, we added it and I was like, okay, it's, it's another thing. But now, you know, I recorded four episodes the other day in, in a single day because I can do it. Um, when I first started, couldn't do that. But I promise you the process does get easier. And I don't mind that it's so involved.
Um, I love it and it's helping me create what I consider to be my most important content, which is a social media content. Um, and I would change if I didn't like it, I'd be like, if I don't care, or if it's just like, I don't wanna do it, it's, I would outsource it, right? But the whole thing is do the things in the way that makes sense to you.
I just wanna share with you how I do things. I also suggest knowing how to do all the things. This, this way, if anything does happen, you're good. You can fix it. Um, we've had some issues with blubrry. Um, like if, you know, one of your people on your team gets sick and you have to do it like this way, you can just pick it up and be like, all right, it's fine.
I can do it. Maybe you don't love it, but like, it will get out because to me the consistency and continuing to put episodes out is the most important thing.
So hopefully this episode has been helpful for you. Remember, I've been doing this for five years. You do not start here. Um, realistically, if you're thinking about starting a podcast, I think that you could do, you know, an audio only podcast and do one episode a week and devote probably about two hours a week to it and get something out. Um, and this is like if you're doing episodes that are like 15, 20 minutes long. I think you could devote about two hours. And in this case you would, I would, if I were you, I would really be leaning on AI because you can use AI to create your uh, show notes and like the blurb and the title, Buzzsprout has that feature. And if it was me, I'd really be leaning into it, especially if you don't have the money to outsource it to somebody else. You don't have the time to do that. I would lean on it. Um, it takes it Buzz Sprout, you just record the episode, upload it, it gives you the transcript, it pulls the, it creates a blurb, it creates a title.
It creates like the, the talk, the bullet points for that episode. And I think that's phenomenal. So, I would lean on that and I think that you could probably get it done in about two hours of work a week. So whatever you decide to do, just keep going cuz like I said, everyone starts podcast. Very many, few people keep one going.
Before I head out, we've been reading the the reviews. I'm gonna read another one. This is from my girl, Anna Rockstar. Y'all are the best. Anna, you are the best. And this one said, “This pod literally rocks. I have nothing but pure love for Shante and the value she brings every single time to every episode. I love her down to earth, in depth, meaningful and thought-provoking presentation style.
She never ceases to bring fresh ideas and food for thought that are actionable and practical today in business. Her get out of your own way and do the thing. Attitude is infectious. Thank you Shante and Movement Maestro team. Keep rocking the podcast world. Anna.” Anna, you know, I love you. Biggest, biggest love for you.
I really am enjoying reading these reviews and reading them out loud. Um, and I'd love to hear from you. I know I ask and I'm gonna keep asking cuz it can be a lonely, lonely space recording these. I'm just talking to the camera. That's it. So it is great to hear from you and let you let me know and, and learn and hear that, that it's helping you.
So if you've left a review already, thank you. If you haven't left one yet and you want, you want to, the spirit's moving you, thank you in advance. And Anna, thank you. All right, I, that's all I got for you today. Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
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