Rob Greenlee shows three concrete outline examples for podcasts and video series, explaining how structure changes by platform: YouTube, audio-only, or hybrid. He covers timing segments, placing calls to action, handling guests, and staying flexible during live recordings.
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Well, welcome to Podcast Tips. My name is Rob Greenlee, and thank you so much for being here with me tonight. I appreciate you being here. And so let me pause the music here and kind of fade it out, and we can really kind of get right into the show here. This is episode 48 of the show. My name is Rob Greenlee. And in tonight's episode, I'm going to dive into this, this kind of area of— this is more focused on being a content creator here around creating show outlines, right? Ones that can help guide you on, on the screen mentally and that you can follow along. I mean, I'm, I'm using an outline right now and. And this outline kind of keeps me on track, keeps me focused. And I'm going to show you tonight 3 different outline, you know, examples so you can actually see it for yourself. I use Google Docs for this, but I'm kind of getting a little bit ahead of myself here. You know, so the purpose of this is what makes a podcast or a YouTube show stand out in the crowd, right? You know, from others out there. And I think it does really get back to an outline. This isn't really a conversation about specifically about what's in the outline or the content of the outline, though it, it may have some connections to that because it depends on what kind of a format that you want to produce as a content creator and, and what that that flow looks like and what is good for you in what you present and what you think your audience— and it really, it can really depend on the actual genre of the show, where it's being consumed, what platform. Are you making it for YouTube? Are you making it as an audio and video podcast? Are you making it as just an audio podcast? All those things will have a big impact on a show outline. And a show outline can live in a variety of different tools, right? So some people will use a teleprompter that will actually have text that is available on the screen that they're either reading. I don't prefer to specifically read word for word my outlines. My outlines are typically in in my view, in my ideal view, is to spark the flow of the conversation and to flow that conversation around a topic that really triggers you as a host. You know, because there's different formats, right? There's solo shows like what I'm doing here, and then there's co-host shows, and then there's a host with a guest. Those all require kind of a different outline, right? So you need to take into account the flow of that, being able to, to bring the guest in, maybe reintroduce your co-host. So all those elements go into making that outline. And I think it's an important thing for podcasters to think about. You know, they, it'll oftentimes be talked about online from, well, your podcast script. And I think once you use that word script, you're basically implying that what you're creating there is something that will be read verbatim, word after word after word off of, let's say, a teleprompter, right? That is my vision of what a script is. So if you think about it from the perspective of an actor, right? In Hollywood, they get a script. And that show that's being produced has the expectation that the actor will say every word that's in that script, right? And that can be an okay format. And I do believe that people do that more often in podcasting when it comes to shorts and then also very, very structured shows. Now granted, it depends on the kind of show you're doing, like this kind of a show it for me is really me tapping into my experience. What I'm trying to communicate is, is outlined in my outline, and I can actually pull that up right now, and I can actually show you. The other truth about this is that I don't always follow my outline, right? It'll be there to trigger me, and, and as you can see on the screen, so I I basically have in tonight's episode, we're gonna delve into the comprehensive guide around showing examples of 3 different podcasts and YouTube show outlines, right? So it's very meta that this is like, I'm showing you an outline that I created in a show that's talking about outlines, right? And so this is just an example of what one could look like. And I put information in here that will trigger me to talk about a particular element that's in this outline that maybe fits with the flow of how I'm thinking, right? It's not so much me looking at this and saying, like on that second paragraph, it says, what makes a podcast or YouTube stand out in a crowded space? And it's not just about content. It will share tips. Now, you can get into this process of reading. And some people are good at that, right? Where they can actually read something and it sounds like they're speaking it with passion, with authenticity, and it just flows, right? And there's other people that when they read that, you know, like the next bullet item, it says show some outline layouts and strategies. I could say that, right? And And I will, because that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to show you some actual outlines like I'm doing right now, but I'm going to show you ones that are more specific to different types of content that's being produced, like a, like a video show. Now, this is, this is really kind of a comprehensive one, but it's really a solo show is what, what it is. So this is a solo show outline for me, and it's pretty extensive, right? I can actually scroll down this list. So you you know, this line down here where it says— and I, I don't know if you can see this on the screen or not, but, but it says preview the top 3 outlines. So I'm going to mention that, um, I'm going to break these down, these different outlines. And these outlines tend to be, um, shows that I do, um, either as podcasts or video programs, um, or they're just a YouTube series, or they're just primarily an audio podcast. So you've got, you know, a good kind of representation here, I guess is what I'm trying to say, of the different types of shows that need maybe a slightly different outline. Now, granted, you can create an outline that you reuse over and over and over again, and you just have major headings in there. That you fill in with different content, right? So you just, you know, if you have standard structure to your episodes, let's say you do a tease at the beginning and then you roll into like an intro, you know, music bed or something like that, that, you know, flashes the show logo on the screen and then you come back and you get into the episode, that will be reflected in your outline. So that's the way that you can stay on track and you don't forget to do things. Because that's happened to me too, where I get going on a topic and I start going, you know, off into left field, and I got to get myself back. You know, I got to come back and get focused because I got off track. And, and that happens a lot on this, this pick of the show. But it— but an outline helps me at least keep some semblance of structure, because what, what happens when I do this show is I I start going down these topics and I have 20 years of doing this kind of stuff. And I'm not perfect at it and I don't profess to be perfect at it, but I will venture off into left field because I have real-world, real tangible experience at doing this over many, many years and many, many different situations. And so, you know, these, these outlines that I've pulled together, like I mentioned earlier in the show, and you can see it on the screen, I use Google Docs for this. And you can see how I'm using this outline is it triggers me, right? It keeps me flowing down the path of this topic. And this can be done with a co-host too. So you have an outline that takes into account your co-host or your guest. So you, and oftentimes you'll go off the script on that too. So, and that's okay as long as you've prepared yourself to be able to quickly adjust based on the flow of the conversation. Sometimes it's hard to predict what a guest will say at the beginning. So you'll say, well, George, why Welcome to the show. It's great to have you here. And, you know, George has this background doing this and this and this. And then George will just kind of like jump in and start talking, right? That has happened to me before. And you haven't really finished your introduction because he got triggered by something that you said, right? And wanted to get into it, right? Wanted to talk. And that doesn't have to be a bad outcome. But then you can always, after he's done, you can also say, well, you know, George had this and this in his background, and I'm excited to have him here with me so we can dive deep into that topic, right? And, and so that gets him involved in the show early, which is okay, but it also allows you to complete. So you have to be able to have this flexibility in your ability to not feel obligated that the outline has to be followed strictly, but I do think that it's important, you know, and then as we think about this, I mean, I use Google Docs, but that's not the only tool out there. There's Evernote, there's all sorts of AI tools that are now available that can help you write a script outline. Create a description from an episode, all these things. So we're dealing with a lot of tools. I mean, I use ChatGPT to, to contribute to this workflow progress, but then I will go in and actually edit those things. You know, whatever ChatGPT creates, or any of these AI platforms, what they create is not always what I want to use. So, you know, it's, it's just one of those tough tough things. You know, I'm going to pull this down for a minute and go back full screen here, but it's, it's difficult, um, to rely too much on these AI tools because it, it needs to be in your gut. It needs to be driven based on what you are feeling during the show. But this also comes, you know, as a learning process too. You're going to make more mistakes if you go off the outline earlier in your podcasting efforts than later in your podcasting efforts. It's going to be easier for you to mentally adjust to all of the elements if you have experience in those elements. And that's the challenge that very new podcasters or new creators getting in the space that don't have that experience, right? Don't have that confidence that they can move from one topic to another and just flow with the conversation. I'm a big fan of conversations, not interviews. So this whole concept of bringing on a guest to do an interview, I almost never— maybe I'll use, maybe I'll create a list of like maybe 20 questions or something like that, or, and I increasingly over the years I've thought about them as topics, not questions, right? So I can formulate the question that flows out of the prior discussion and flows into something new. So let's say the guest says something very interesting, right, that wasn't on your list. What are you going to do? Are you going to pull back the conversation from where it was going that maybe sounded really interesting and change the topic completely and move on to something else? Or are you going to flow with the conversation and explore that new thing that the your best guess just exposed. And I think that's the magic sauce of this that is difficult, I think, in the early— well, I think it just depends on you. It depends on you, the creator, and what your skills are as a communicator. Are you a listener or are you a talker, right? And there are personalities out there, and I've struggled this around this with co-hosts and that come from being a solo caster to becoming a co-host or being a guest on another show. And it's difficult if they come from a background of doing so mostly all solo shows. They, they will struggle to engage in a conversation with another human in a, in a podcast. So I think one of the things as, as a host of a show that's doing an interview show is that part of your investigation into this person, um, find out if they're doing solo episodes or if they're doing, um, conversational shows, if they have a podcasting background, or, or possibly maybe do a pre-interview with them and find out kind of their ability to to engage in a conversation and what their tendencies are towards wanting to do a solo, right, or a monologue of sorts. Because if you ask them one question, it could be like opening Pandora's box, right, of things that they'll just elaborate on for 10 minutes. And it's difficult to pull them back, but you have to be able to engage and pull it back. I've kind of gone off the rails here a little bit on this topic, but But I do think it's relevant to this much bigger issues. And, and there's so many elements of podcasting that take you into these gray areas, um, that need to be understood, that they will come up and they'll hit you between the eyes, and you need to be ready to be able to adjust them. And if you have a guest that just goes on and on and on and on, um, you got to be able to interject. You have to find a, a pause, right? A pause in his you know, he breathes or she breathes, and that's when you have to inject yourself. Sometimes it's hard to do that if they speak with a bunch of ums and ahs between their breaths, where it's like they continue to talk, and if you say something, it's going to be like you're interrupting them. And that's the challenge that you have with that. And that's more of a kind of like in the weeds kind of an issue, but You're going to face it if you're doing an interview program, and it's important to be cognizant of that and understand that that's going to come up. And but manually editing those outlines before you do the episode, no matter what ChatGPT or any of these AI tools creates for you, it needs to be written in a way that will be able to be read if you want to. Which it's going to have to be, you know, like conversational editing, right? So it needs to be starting with words that make sense, right? Starting with inclusive words, starting with invitational words, making statements versus making a sentence, right? And because that's not how people speak. People speak in a flow of thought, not a sentence structure. You know, when people speak, they don't necessarily have a period or they don't have an exclamation point or they don't have a capital letter at the first. There's no reason why you have to have that kind of structure. So write your outline as though you're gonna say it, right? And that's a different kind of editing. But let's go ahead and move on and talk about the specific types of outlines. So I've I've put in here kind of some concepts to think about in your outline as well. I'm going to pull up on the stage again here. So this show, Podcast Tips with Rob Greenlee, the outline that I usually do in here, and this is increasingly becoming important, is to have a clear topic and promote that topic in the introduction right at the beginning of the show. So you want to welcome your audience to some degree, But the big thing, and this is especially true with like a YouTube, but it's also important in really any of the platforms short of maybe Shorts, which you just gotta get right into whatever it is right there. But if you're doing an audio podcast, I think it's very helpful. And then video also is to tease the topic of the show, right? Entice people to stick around so they can learn more. They wouldn't be there to begin with they weren't interested in your topic because you've teased them with artwork and with an episode title, even if it's live or if it's prerecorded published, they wouldn't be there if they didn't have an interest in that topic. So make sure you tease a little bit of the depth of the topic just to make sure that they stick around. If they don't feel like they're going to get anything out of the episode, and this is where the very beginning needs to make some promises of actionable focus items that you can you can basically focus on to make sure that they see that there's value in this. And also say who you are, do it quickly, don't spend a lot of time on that. And also, I also advise not to talk too much about your distribution, like you're, you're in Apple Podcasts and you're in all these listening platforms because they won't, they, your audience has already picked where they're going to consume you, or else they wouldn't be watching it. So it's, it's one of those things. It's okay to mention it toward the end because at the end is the people that listen to the end are your most devoted listeners. And it may be helpful for them to know that the diversity of your distribution. So they may be able to watch it on YouTube on their big screen television, or they may be able to get it in Instagram or or an X or any of these platforms as well. So it's always good to have options and especially now, but get to the content fast, right? So that's the key because people will click the button, they'll start playing the episode and they wanna start getting the value right out of the gate because if you look at watch time on a lot of the platforms, that is the key metric that a lot of the platforms are gauging in their algorithms now is how long are people listening? So that's why we're seeing such an emphasis at the beginning of shows for people to tease the topics, right, into, into like, um, ask a question that the producers of the show think the audiences wants an answer to. So you tease the question or the topic, and then you cut it off right as, as the guest gives, gives the answer, right? So you're giving that audience a mental reason to keep listening to get to the answer, right? So, those are kind of structural things that you can play a little bit of, you know, psychology games with your audience and to be able to do that and have a balanced structure, you know, combine your experience and also help educate with examples, which I'm doing tonight. You can actually see my outline and what I'm doing here and what I'm telling you. And so, and then further down, I'll actually show you what that looks like, just like I did in the early part of the episode here, what the actual outline looks like, right? So, it has bolded areas, but at the end of the day, it's the content is the value, right? It's the, it's your experience shared. It's your examples shared. It's the top 5 tips Or it's the top 2 tips, or it's the number 1 tip. It's the number 1 thing that you need to do to, you know, be more successful, make more money, get more listeners, all those kinds of things. And even if you get those tips, that doesn't guarantee that they're gonna work for you. They are tips and ideas that you can do in your content. It gets back to how they're delivered, what the context is. Really how successful they are versus just a talking point, right? So, but it's also helpful for the audience to leave the program with a feeling that they have, you know, an actionable item, something that they can take to their own show, or they can help gauge their choices around becoming a content creator. Can I do this, right? So, you know, this program is very, very meta to being a content creator. So, you know, as I'm talking about this, I'm actually showing you the actual behind the scenes of what's going on here in this program. And then I'm also a fan of having minimal demands around calls for action, right? And this is kind of where we blend in with this concept of advertising, So you have this, as you grow your show, there's gonna be more opportunities for you to monetize. And you'll also have to build into sections in your outline to accommodate areas in the content that you're gonna want to insert programmatic advertising, let's say. So at some point in the flow of the content, you may just wanna take a pause, which basically just means you just stop talking. And, and maybe you remember that or you jot it down somehow during the show, or you do it on purpose, right? So you set a marker in your outline that basically enables you to create a gap in the content that you can insert advertising that can slide right into that point using programmatic advertising and, and have that be consistent in your episodes. Once you start getting into monetization, you start getting into a little bit more structure, a little bit more segmentation of your content, which is not necessarily a bad thing to do in any case. But in this particular show, I'm not doing any monetization, direct advertising monetization in the program at this point. But that's not to say that that shouldn't be taken into account in the outline. So, you know, and also Like I said, making it actionable, making it approachable, making it easy to comprehend is the pathway to build trust between you and me, right? That I'm here giving you, you know, logical, reasonable, and experience-based advice. So that's what I'm here to do with this. And let me scroll down here too. And on the video-only side, which is I do do another series on, on YouTube. I've been doing this series for, I think it's 18 years, uh, but not consistently. So I've done a series called Behind the Wheel, and it's basically a video series that I started many, many years ago, like, like I said, 17, 18 years ago, um, about, um, changes in the technology with electric cars. I started, uh, profiling very early electric vehicles. Some of them are no longer around. They were essentially golf carts back in those days that you could drive around. I think they had a maximum speed of like 35 miles an hour. So I would go out and find these dealers that were selling these early, early electric vehicles, and I would test drive them. I'd take them out and I'd bring my video Actually, at the time, it was just my mobile phone. And I would record my experience with those cars and have kind of continued that series for a few years. You know, I had a Toyota Camry hybrid back in 2006, which was the first year that they made a hybrid. And so, you know, and documented that. I made like 4 episodes of that just with that Toyota Camry. And between all those episodes, they probably got, you know, half a million views. So it was really, really a successful video that was really roughly made. It really didn't have any structure to it at all. It was just me talking into a phone, walking around the vehicle, talking about the vehicle. And that series over 17 years has garnered hundreds of thousands of plays, and, and it's, it's, it's remarkable. I'm not saying that you're gonna gather that kind of success now. I don't think you are. But anyway, I'm, I'm spending too much time on that. This, this particular, um, what you're seeing on the screen right now will give you kind of a tease of what I'm talking about. So The Behind the Wheel, I've been recently featuring topics about the full self-driving of the Tesla Model 3, and I've mounted a camera in the car pointed at my screen, which is the large flat-screen video screen that's in the car on the dashboard, and then the camera also shows over the top of the big screen to the road, and it, and it is easily able to see how the car self-drives itself. And I can give commentary around that. So like, like a title of an episode would be like, um, Winter Driving with a Tesla FSD or something like that. And, and, and that would have a timely and relevant topic, uh, like, uh, real-world driving, um, in a, in an FSD vehicle from Tesla. And How does the FSD software work in ice or snow or something like that? That's the kind of demonstrative video that has a structure to it. When I'm actually creating this video episode, and I do this with another series called Walk Talks that I do, where it's just off of my own memory, I have a focus that I walk into to talk about in the car, but I really have to be in the moment and I have to share what I'm seeing in the moment. As I'm driving this full self-driving vehicle around, this vehicle will make mistakes. Things will happen at an intersection and I can give instant commentary about what I'm seeing there. And that's a different kind of content than what I'm doing right now. It's very real time. It's like you're testing it in real time. So you're giving that viewer of that content an experience of what it's like to be in a vehicle that is driving itself. And what are the risks? And what's the experience? How does the car behave? Does it hesitate? Does it drive too fast? Does it make dangerous moves? I mean, I've had all those things happen in my series when I've had my camera mounted to my glass roof of my car. Pointed straight ahead, right? And I'm driving the car, I've got both hands on the wheel, and the camera is mounted to a suction cup on the ceiling of the vehicle. And so I'm able to just be very natural, organic in my thoughts. It's not scripted at all. And all of the things that I have to do to the video are all in post-production. So I can edit out or I can add elements to it. I can cut different scenes. And a lot of people on YouTube create a lot of content like this. So it's a different kind of a format, and it's not necessarily one that's going to work for podcasting per se, though I could take the audio out of this. But the problem is the context to the visual experience is so integrated into this that it doesn't make sense to actually do content like that unless I want to do a scripted show, which I could do about Tesla, right? And some people will actually structure the show where they will have in-car kind of relevant demonstrative, uh, real-world taping, right? And that they intermix that with, let's say, a, a spoken word kind of, kind of video scripted video production, right? Where they transition between segments and they talk about it and they cut to different scenes and things like that, where it's just more like, like a news program type of a scripted format, um, that— but you have to do that in two separate, um, stages, right? So, so you have to do your, your, your scripting in, in your studio, um, as well as, um, know what specifically you're going to talk about when you're taping in the vehicle, right? So you can take that, be able to integrate it into an outline that's in your, um, your full episode. So these are important things to think about from a different, more organic production. And then I do another show called Spoken Like Me. And as you saw there, there's a couple of other— yeah, if you're seeing the screen, there's a couple other elements in here that I didn't talk about, but maybe I should. But it's like You know, I want to bring to that EV kind of car series new observations, one that I didn't think about before I started to record and tap into relevant audience-specific concerns. So if I've heard some news that's come out about Tesla that maybe isn't good, am I able to confirm that that is actually happening in the vehicle? That's a problem, or is it doing something amazing that nobody's noticed, right? Um, that also happens, and it's really showing the real world to people. And, and I love doing content like that. It's just, it's, it's so good. And then the other, um, show that I do is called Spoken Life. And what's, what's different about this show is it's primarily an audio-only production, which means that it's, it's really kind of very traditional audio podcast. And in the title of this particular outline here, and it's covered up by the logo here, I'll pull it down so you can see it, it says Spoken Life Show: The Power of Positive Words. So the name of the show is about people, what their experiences are in their kind of ability to present and speak and talk to others and what that power looks like. What's the responsibility of using positive words or negative words? And this topic of the show really kind of dives deep into emotions that resonate, deep conversations and experience, right? Focuses on the universal theme of positivity, which is, I have in my outline here, making it relatable to a broad audience. So that's, these are really engaging, deep conversations. If you go and actually look for Spoken Life Show, you will find that a lot of the programs in there are very conversational and very digging into people's perception and experience around content, right? So it's, it's, it's again very meta to what it's talking about, but it's, it's a more traditional podcast to some degree, but it's very conversational. And it has some, some elements like I will record in restaurants, or I'll record at a conference, or I'll— I will be outside or something like that, having, you know, I use a platform called Nomano, which is basically a platform that you can use that has lavaliers, that has audio editing, or not editing, but optimization capabilities to it that can take noisy environmental recordings and actually strip out all the background noise. So I use those kind of tools with this so I can engage with content that can come from all sorts of places. And still sound good. So that's the idea behind it. It's really kind of getting out in the real world to some degree. It's about having very natural conversations about the whole topic of, you know, all of us having a spoken life, right? So that's the idea behind that. And trying to incorporate personal stories that connect emotionally with the audience, but also are very, you know, personal, experiential. Um, in its core. And these are all things that can be applied to the, to the outline, right? So oftentimes this particular show doesn't really have an outline because I'm, I'm doing it in the real world. I'm, I'm sitting down with somebody. It's not like I have a script in front of me or something like that. I just know what I want to talk about, the topics, and then I just let the guest kind of take us on this path and this meandering down the the road of this, of these, like, maybe key topics that I want to talk about with this person because I know their background. I know what they love to talk about because I've listened to the other things that they talk about, but can I find things that they haven't talked about yet that I want to, you know, prod them about and see if they'll take the bait and actually start talking about something. If you go listen to the most recent episode that I have up there, that's exactly what I did, is that I, I found a person that has a very unique experience in being an audio creator on the radio and in podcasting, and, and has a very deep experience base around being an actor and a performer and stuff. So it created this very interesting kind of convergence of a, of a person that can really talk about spoken word communication and how powerful that is and how heartfelt and how really powerful it is. So that's kind of how— that's the spectrum. I do other shows too. I do another show called The New Media Show, which talks about the industry of podcasting, and it's a little closer to what I do here, but not so much. So I'm very— I really transitioned the show into being very very tactical about podcasting, very, you know, getting in the weeds. Like the last episode of Podcast Tips, I talked about the power of emotions in what you do in your podcast, you know, making the audience laugh and make the audience smile, you know, find the ironies, find the funny things in what happens in the world and kind of bring that together is really a powerful capability that not everyone has. And I do think it takes practice to be able to do that comfortably and come across that way. And as you can tell, I'm not reading this from anything. This is how I actually feel inside about what I do with content. And that's why I've been creating content for really it's close to 25 years now. I started on broadcast radio back in 1999 and took it out as a podcast, um, in, in the early 2000s. And, and then, uh, podcasting started in 2004, and so that's— I took it out, uh, in that direction. I quickly kind of shut down my radio show when podcasting started, um, and started to transition over to doing everything in a podcast form back in 2004 to 2005 time frame. So, it's a powerful medium. So, let me go into the next phase here, and that is, you know, practical steps to implement this. You know, some key takeaways from these examples, you know, really define a clear objective with what you're trying to do, the purpose of the show. And what the show is trying to accomplish with its audience. And actually with you as the host, what's the purpose of the show? Build in the elements that are relatable, that are timely if that's appropriate, because some content can be evergreen. It doesn't have to be timely. Is there some elements in the content that will pull out an audience question or something like that? I want to mention here that if you have a question or comment, I will pull it up on the screen and we can talk about that very specifically. If you have an example that you want to share with me about, you know, any of these elements, you know, I know that this topic probably doesn't lend itself too much to a Q&A type of a format. I'm trying to present very important concepts here. But if you have some, I would love to hear it. It'll pop up on my screen and I'll be able to bring it up and share it with everybody. And I can talk about it a little bit, but there's some practical steps to implement. Start each episode by identifying its purpose, right? Outline the flow of the show, right? Ensuring each segment serves the objective of the show as best you can. Always include a call to action that drives engagement. That's typically toward the end of the show. I wouldn't do it too early in the show. And also, you know, having a little bit of a listener challenge to comprehend what you're talking about and encourage— and I want to encourage you to test around some of the ideas that I'm sharing here and to create an outline for your podcast. And I would love to see it if you wanted to to share it with me. I can give you some, some feedback on it as well if you wanted to send me an email. I'll bring up on the screen here. I, I would love to see that, and I could give you some feedback on your outline and to give you some other things to maybe think about. But my email address is rob.greenlee@gmail.com, and I'm also available on X, um, @robgreenlee. And so I would love to, to hear from you. And if you're watching this live, I do have a YouTube channel as well that you can get the on-demand playback on all this stuff. And this series, this show that I do, is also an audio and video podcast on Apple Podcasts. So you can get a different version of this show in video over there as well as audio, and then in Spotify as well. So, so in the Listener Challenge, you know, Identify the segments to educate, inspire, and engage. And identify the outline on social media as well. Tag the show for feedback and have an outro that has a call to action. You know, like, like subscribe to the show. You know, if you haven't followed this show, please do in YouTube or in Apple Podcasts. It would be great, which means that you're going to get notified whenever this episode is published. And it's also live every— most every Thursday night at 7:00 PM Eastern, 4:00 PM Pacific. So, and then let's jump down and I can actually show you actual what an outline looks like, a normal outline looks like here. This may be a little hard to read because it is fairly small text. I can probably make the text a little bit bigger here. But it has, you know, each of the segments and you can create, you know, like how long is your outline for your intro. You know, this particular one could be for 2 minutes at the most. You've plotted out how long that you're going to go in the episode and this episode already going a little bit long compared to what I was planning on doing. But, um, that's the thing about podcasting and being live is that you have that flexibility to talk about things at a, at a level of depth that puts you in a situation where you may go along. So let's say I set, you know, I'm going to do a, a 30-minute episode of podcast tips and I'm going to cover these topics. It can be very difficult to stick to that exact 30-minute threshold, right? Because you may get in a situation where you don't cover everything you wanted to cover, right? Which means that your episode is probably incomplete. The other option is just put fewer stuff in there and then break it up into two pieces. So you have episode one and then episode two, which will continue that conversation down that thread. So it just depends, you know, have a quick welcome to the show, and just start going through your theme, your introduction, as you can see on the screen here, and then get right into the content. I mean, I'll do this within like a minute and a half at the most, right? And then get right into the content, you know, strategies to build, you know, loyalty and audience. That's a big chunk. That's a 10-minute piece in a 20-minute episode. So get in there and really dive into the, the, the meat of the topic of the show. And then, and then if you want to talk about toward the end of the show, which is where we get into the, the outro, call to action is the, is the engagement with the community around getting them involved in maybe some private groups or paid platforms that can add more depth and direct consultation or something like that in whatever area. I'm actually building that myself, so at some point here I'll, I'll be talking about my, my, my Adore platform that I'm, I'm creating right now that you could go in and join and be a part of that. And you can have my direct, um, you know, assistance in starting a new show. So, and then your outro call to action is right here and you just type in what you want to do. Like I showed up above, that probably needs to be bolded so it shows up on the screen. So as I move down into the behind-the-wheel outline, you know, this is stuff that you're going to have to have in your, in your mind as you're out there in the real world recording. So you can have kind of like a consistent flow of what you do in the, in the car real time. You're not going to have probably a piece of paper in front of you because you're going to be driving the car. So you don't want to be looking at a piece of paper, filming a video and driving in the car at the same time, even though the Tesla drives itself now. So I might be able to do that in the car actually, because— but it's my eyes. My eyes have to remain on the road in the Tesla or else the self-driving won't work. So if I'm looking down at my outline while I'm driving, it's going to disconnect from, from self-driving. So that's not going to work. Until there's unsupervised full self-driving, which is, I think, coming. But as you can look at this, so you have different themes that you'll bring up in the flow of what you wanna do in your real-time or organic recording of your episode in like a behind-the-wheel type of a series. But you still wanna have the same kind of intro. You still wanna have kind of like an exit, you know, thank them for being there, thank them for joining you, tell them your name, tell them what this series is. But you can also do a lot of stuff visually because it is a video program. You can do it in, you know, like opening videos and kind of like titling that you can do in post-production. So you don't have to do a lot of this in audio and actually in the recording. So you can just, you know, tease, just welcome people there, thank you for watching, and get right into driving. Right. And start talking about the driving, and then you can get into post-production and add the visual elements toward the end. But thank your audience for spending time with you in this video and encourage them to come back and check out your next episode. And then at the end of the video, you want to put up a tile on the screen and then let's say in the YouTube platform that will tease like your episode from before. Right? So you have this kind of overarching structure and then you've branded the show, you've created some title screens, things like that, that you can brand the show a little bit. I wouldn't overdo that and I certainly wouldn't do it too much to distract. Whatever kind of video you put into the structure of the show needs to add to and be interesting and entertainment in and of itself, not just be a branded kind of a thing, right? I kind of started out doing that with some of the things I did online, and I kind of have shied away from it to some degree as I've continued to make content. So in the Spoken Life series, you know, I've talked pretty extensively about this, but, you know, that's more of a conversational thing. So have an opening story. About your guest and about the topic, you know, share your insights at the beginning and bring your guest in if you're going to have a guest and talk about why the guest is there, what's their background, and what's the context to adding value to this episode, right? And then just dive right into getting into it. You know, get into it, get into the, you know, this guest sharing these key things that you've outlined in your mind about what you want to extract and just take it on a journey, see where it goes. You know, don't pull the horse back on that ride. You know, take the reins and let the horse run, you know, and go with the flow. You know, where does the horse want to go, right? And, but find those little nuggets of value in that conversation that maybe answer your probing ideas going into the interview at a deeper level and maybe a more engaging level. Try and find those, and sometimes they'll just appear, and you're like going, "Oh yeah, I want to dig into that. That sounds like an interesting—" You know, don't say that, but maybe say something like, You know, that's a very interesting thing that you shared there. Let's, let's dig into that. Let's unpack that a little bit more and, and help our audience really understand what happened there and why that happened and why that was so impactful or why that was so important to, to you as speaking to the guests but also speaking to the audience. Why was that important to you? Why did that Why was that such a big impact on you? You know what I mean? You know, that's the opportunity there of being flexible around real-time recordings, but you have to have confidence in it and you have to be very focused. I think that's something that I haven't really talked about in here too, is the focus that's necessary to do all this stuff. So that's all of the the kind of outlines that I wanted to share tonight. And I certainly appreciate you being here with me tonight. I've gone about 50 minutes, which is about probably about 20 minutes longer than I wanted to go necessarily with this. But I'm a podcaster, I like to talk. So it's, uh, and I have a lot to share on this, and I want to share a lot, um, about, you know, doing content now and my learning process, because I've, I've dove, you know, with both feet and diving in headfirst into learning how to create content again. I've really never been a solo creator before, and me doing this show has really opened my eyes to being a solo creator. And I've done a lot of interviews with this series too, the Podcast Tip Series., and, and, and have appreciated that learning process as well. So, so if you wanted to, uh, contact me, please do. Oh, looks like I got a comment in here from Barb Tomlin. Let me, uh, pull that up on the screen here. Um, Barb, thank you so much for, for writing me. It says, uh, thanks so much for sharing your insights with, with us, Rob. Grateful we connected years ago. You're, you're one of the best on this topic. I thank you so much for that, Barb, and, and I want to continue to, to share these, these ideas that I have. And, and I, I really appreciate you. I know you've been in the space a long time too and, and are probably going through a lot of the same things that I've been through. So I appreciate your, your thoughts and being here tonight. I appreciate that a lot. Thank you so much. And, but I think I'm gonna, uh, call this episode and close out tonight. And thank you so much for, for joining me in this December of 2024. Uh, 2025 is almost upon us, and, and I'm excited for what the new year looks like and where we might, uh, be going with podcasting. It It seems like it's a very tumultuous time in the podcasting space right now. I'm, I'm going to be down in Orlando at the Podcast New Media Expo or Podcast Expo January 16th through the 19th. So if, if you're considering going to a podcasting conference, this would be a good one to go to. And if you wanted to go to that and also attend the Podcast Hall of Fame at podcasthall.com. I'm actually the, the chairperson of the Podcast Hall of Fame and am in the middle right now. It's a full-court press to get everything pulled together for our next induction ceremony that's going to happen on January 17th at 7 PM down at Podfest down in Orlando. I've got 11 inductees I'm going to bring into the Hall of Fame this year, so it's a little bit ambitious because last year we just had 8. So it's a terrific class that I'm going to be announcing in the next few days. Hopefully by Monday or Tuesday, everybody will know who the next 11 inductees into the Podcast Hall of Fame are. And I'm, I'm really excited by the, this 2024 class and, and what that's gonna, gonna look like. So keep an eye on the website podcasthall.com and, and in your favorite, uh, news platform like podnews.net and, and those, those type of platforms. So, and then I also do another show called The New Media Show, uh, that's usually live at 8 PM on Wednesday nights. Um, I do, and I do that with Todd Cochran, the CEO of Blueberry, and we talk about, uh, the industry of podcasting. And we just did an episode last night, and that's up there right, right now, talking about all of the controversies around video in podcasting. And Todd and I really get into it on that show about what's happening in, in the medium and really flesh out what those key topics are. But anyway, I appreciate you being here. Thank you. And I remember to go to my YouTube channel and check out all these, all these videos. And I would love to hear your comments and, and follow in there. And, and hope you have a wonderful evening. And thank you so much for watching, the live podcast tips show. This show is live every Thursday at 7 PM Eastern or 4 PM Pacific. So good night and thank you so much for— well, looks like we got another comment from Barb. Let me pull that up on the screen here really quick. Um, Barb Tomlin writes, uh, podcasting will be bigger than ever in the next 4 years. Well, I have a hard time arguing with that. I think that it's gonna be a little different than I think how it is today, but I don't think it's gonna be that much different actually. I mean, I've been in the medium here for 20 years and I have to say it really hasn't changed that much in 20 years, especially the audio podcasting side. So it's gonna be interesting to see what Spotify is doing and what YouTube, what the impact is long-term. And any new entrant that comes into this medium on the technology side, hosting as well as consumption platforms. And we'll see what Apple does. Actually, Apple's the one I'm most interested to see how they react to this new environment. So Barb, thank you so much for the additional comment. I appreciate it. And I'm gonna say goodnight finally. I know that this is another long goodbye and I apologize for that. So goodnight everybody, and thank you so much for being here with me
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