Simplify To Succeed: A Guide To Streamlining Your Podcast With Streamlined Solopreneur Joe Casabona

Wish you were one of those influencers with raving fans who binge on your every word, consume all your content, buy everything you have to sell, and demand even more. Then stay tuned while Authority magazine columnist and buzzfeed contributor Tracy Hazzard shares strategies, tips and tactics from top videocasters, podcasters, authors and social influencers on creating that bingeable factor. Now let's join Tracy as she explores how to rise above all the digital noise with the Binge Factor.

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Binge Factor. I have been on a little break, I'm sure you've noticed, but we're back podcasting, but not for long. And you're going to want to catch some of these really exciting episodes that I have been banking up. So we're going to probably do a couple a week right now, so be prepared to binge. Today I've got Joe Casabona. Joe has been in the a podcast systems coach for quite some time and he's really helps busy solopreneurs take back their time. He perfectly blends content creation and technology like it's a great cup of coffee or tea. Joe's strategies comes from his many years of experience over 10 years creating podcasts and more than 15 years of teaching and 20 years as a web developer. So he knows what it takes to build a podcasting platform underneath it all. That's why his podcast was called How I Built It. But as all great podcasters, you gotta refresh your content now and again. And that is exactly what he's doing. He is refreshing it to be called the streamlined solopreneur and we got a little sneak peek of that before it was live. Some of the great things that we're going to talk about is, is that systems flow, what it really takes to produce great content and make sure that your content is consistent and constant. So let's with Joe Casabona. Joe, I'm so glad to talk to Both a longtime OG pro of podcasting, but someone who's hitting almost 500 episodes of one show and you got another one, you've way done more than 500, I'm sure. Overall.

Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. Absolutely. Yeah. I guess between all of the shows I've done over the last 10 years, it's probably closer to 600. My first show is like very fledgling and not very good. It was like a panel show with five dudes who were talking about things we didn't know we were talking about.

But we all have to have one of those that we like, hardly mention Anymore.

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I've been doing it for a long time. That's almost 500 is wild.

And I think that your focus on trying to hit people time, podcasting takes a lot of the issues out of why people quit and your focus on that sort of streamlining of things, which is now the new name to your show. I still liked it before. How I Built it was a great name, too. But streamline Solopreneur, that expands what you can talk about. So why did that shift come about from how I built it to streamline Solopreneur?

Yeah, so I was a WordPress developer for 20 years, and when I. Which is also, like, gross to say. Like, can't believe I've done anything for 20 years. But when I started the show, I was interviewing other WordPress developers about how they built their WordPress businesses. And so during the course of the interview, I would say, all right, we've talked about the successes, we've talked about the failures. Now tell me, how did you build it? Title of the show. I launched in, like, July 2016 with this show. In October, September, October 2016, another show came out called How I Built this by Guy Raz. And I was, like, super bummed. I was like, let's just validate my idea. And so we've really been neck and neck for the last eight years, but How I Built this is a little bit more popular. And about four years ago or three years ago maybe, I really stopped asking that title question because I stopped interviewing developers. I really started focusing on Solopreneurs after the pandemic was particularly hard for me. My wife's a nurse. I have small kids at home. And so I couldn't focus on my business and run the household with the kids at home. And so I really had to take a lot of things off my plate. So I wanted to help more people do that. And so I finally. While I was talking about artwork, I was like, my name makes no sense. If I was auditing this show, I would be like, why is it called How I Built It? This doesn't tell anybody anything about your show. I just finally decided to rip the bandaid off and rename it.

You know what? I've heard you say this on another episode, that the name almost doesn't really matter. And I think that's honestly, those that I find who come out of the website world actually believe that too. They're like, I can drive traffic to a website named anything. It's the same thing with a podcast. Right. I think tone, though, and when the tone of what it was to the tone of what it is doesn't match anymore, then it's time to make a change. Right. I think that's really the case. And that's what you're saying here.

Yeah, that's exactly right. If you are. I love A Christmas story. Right. And so if you are opening a package that you got in the mail, that's a major award and it's like a giant leg lamp, you might be disappointed because the packaging and what you thought you were getting doesn't match what you actually got. And that's how I started to feel with the show. Like the name was called how I built it. And we weren't really talking about building necessarily. It was like mindset. And there's always actionable advice. But the show's mission drifted very far from the original mission of the show.

Are you thinking some more changes to the show now that you've got that rebranding under your belt?

Yes. So I really want to do more solo episodes. I think this is something that I have a blog post that's maybe one of my most popular ones on my site about a mini podcast, which is that. Right. They're solo episodes. And I think a lot of people are starting to realize this. Interview shows are very common and they're great. We're doing one, I have one. But if you are starting a podcast to show your expertise and your authority, it's very hard to do that when you are always doing interviews. And so right Now I'm about 70. 30 interviews, solo shows, maybe 75. 25. Cuz every fourth episode I would love to get to 50. 50. And so that's the next big change I'm doing.

So I'm hearing that a lot. So we're getting a lot of shift in the solo to guest model. The issue for a lot of people though is that guest model is the show growth. And so you have to have that balance. So I'm glad to hear you're at least going to keep it 50 50. Because you do have to work harder when you have a sol to grow the audience.

Yeah. And also I'm like a guy. I'm like one guy doing one thing in one field. I'm not an expert in everything. And in order for my show, this show at least to be really valuable, I do need to bring on other voices. Like I just had. I interviewed somebody yesterday and she like absolutely blew my mind with list growth techniques that I would have never thought of that now I benefit from. And she has A podcast that I'll be going on. And so that. That part is really important to me. Like, one of the other reasons I started the show was I was working from home. I was no longer teaching in the classroom. I had a remote job and we were moving away from everybody. Right. My wife got a job in a place that was like halfway between both of our families and friends. And the show was the outlet for me to. Very extroverted. I don't know if you could tell, but me too.

So.

So that was my outlet. So I'm still always going to have that because it's a really amazing networking.

Yeah, I love that. I love it when I get a guest on that blows my mind. That's such a fabulous tip. And I can't stop thinking about it and how to apply it. That's my favorite part about the guest side of the show. That's why I keep my show separate. So I have four interviews and four solo shows. They're not really solo shows because Tom and I do them together, but co hosted shows. But they're still like our opportunity to talk about our expertise. And I keep them separate for that reason because I just really didn't want to split my. I didn't want to split my audience on that sense. But it ended up being more beneficial because somebody who really wants all of my solo shows can get them in one place. That's why I like that idea that you're talking about, like a mini show. Right. So do you have plans for how you might reorganize those solo shows on your website? Because you're a website guy. So I really want to ask that question.

Yeah. That's another thing I'm working on right now is I have a big old spreadsheet of all because I've never been good at. I've never really SEO'd my podcast website.

But you come from a web.

I know. And yeah, the developer experience, the basics are there, the headlines are right. And I focus on the. And like, the transcripts were like a game changer for me when I added them.

They are a game changer. And like, it's a big deal difference.

Yes. And I, yeah, I couldn't believe it was like the first big, like, growth spike for me happened when I added transcripts. And I added them pretty early on because when I was in the WordPress space, we. I knew a lot of accessibility advocates and they were like, you really need transcripts? And I was like, fine, this is a business. I have sponsors. I will use sponsor money to pay A human being. Because this was before AI transcripts were a big thing.

AI transcripts are still not quite good enough.

No, they're not. That's like what I add initially and then my VA will transcribe them later. But yeah, so from like the metadata, like the categories and the tags, I haven't done a really good job of adding that information. And so now I, now that I've rebranded, I'm changing the categories to fit into more solopreneur categories. And one of the categories will be solo episodes. And so there'll be a section on the website that is just the solo shows if people just want to hear me wax poetic. And then there will be the full feed, of course, and the interviews.

So we started our very first show, as in 3D printing is really geeky. And it was on a revenue generating website that was run by a web developer. And so they insisted that we blog every week. And I didn't have time. And that's how I accidentally created this. We call it verbal SEO blogs. But the verbal SEO blogs happened because I was too busy to write the blog. So I just used the transcript, edited transcript and I just used it. And they were like, it's killing it. It's out. It's beating out every other one of our websites, what you do. And I told them what I did and they were like. And I'm like, and I'm really sorry, I know I was supposed to blog and I didn't live up to my end of the bargain here. And they were like, no, keep doing this, this is a happy accident. And then we started doing more and more of it and that's how we refined our model. So I get where you're, why you're seeing a boost in that. It's one of the reasons. Also when we made our potato hosting platform, we did website statistics and podcast statistics side by side. So you can flip between your analytics there because most often you'll see your website grows before the podcast. And that can be. You gotta find a way to get people to go, my podcast is worth it. And so if it's worth it on the website traffic, then it's still worth it.

Yeah, for sure. This is something I think about all the time. Cause like we. I have a locally focused podcast that my friend and I started for our Chester County, Pennsylvania during the pandemic and we've continued it and we find that 80% of people listen on the website, which is wild. And it's because it's like mostly non technical, like blue collar Y folks, right?

The local shows are like that, right?

Yeah. Like we interview a lot of farmers because we have a lot of. Kennett Square is the mushroom capital of the world apparently. And so we have a lot of great farmland. And those people are just not, they're not checking the apps on their phones.

All the time and sometimes they. It's just how they find it initially and you're just getting a lot of new listeners through that model and then when they do feel like they're repeat listening, it's easy enough for them to figure out how to subscribe at that point.

Yeah, for sure. And like our chamber of commerce shares our episodes out and they're linking to the website.

It's a lot easier to share the blog than it is to share a subscribe somewhere randomly on Apple.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I think that's so smart. So anything else that you're thinking about changing about Streamline Solopreneur as you shift to that, are you going to shift some questions? Are you going to shift the way the website works? What else?

Yeah, that's always. That's something. Again, I'm a web. I'm like always redesigning my website and that's something I really considered and that will be a down the line thing after I find better organization for these. Like you said, near 500 episodes. Right? There's a lot of stuff here. We cover a lot of ground and so eventually I'd like to do recommended.

Playlists or like a start here model.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, we were just talking about that with YouTube. They make it so easy to create playlists and we have a playlisting function and potatoes that we utilize. So it creates tabs on your player so it can help you with do that too. But there really isn't a great way to organize your website besides making categories. And it's a little clunky, right?

Yeah, that's like tags are maybe a little bit easier if you want to add a bunch of them, but then you need to remember what tag. This is like the struggle I have right now. I'm like, oh, did I. Do I have this category or tag already? Because I'm not working inside WordPress right.

Now and it blows up. Yeah, yeah.

And I'm like, how did this happen? So that's definitely like what I'd probably do. I don't want to get too nerdy here, but there is the ability in WordPress to create. To basically create a list of posts based on a set of criteria. And so I think that's probably how I'll do that. It'll be pages and then it'll have this post list functionality.

I love that. So that's. It's almost like creating landing pages for specific areas then at that point.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

So a couple other things that you have that are unusual and I want everyone to hear about this. So you have your show as a subscription show and it's A$7 a month and they get the episodes early and there's some other features because eventually you can get them free on your site and you can get them on Spotify, but it's premieres in Apple if I understand right the way you've got it structured. So how does that work and are you getting a good return on it yet?

Apple specifically? No, I basically added Apple because it's a place where people can certainly give me money, but I am getting a return on the. I use a host that has private feeds and so people can. You can pay me directly and then automatically get their own private feed on the host. So the episodes will also go there. All members, no matter how they become a member will get the episodes early. What Apple users don't get that the people who pay me directly do get. Because again if I had like hundreds of members on Apple they would get this. But I have like maybe half of. I think it was like somebody who tried in is not really into it because they haven't listened to any episodes on the right.

So they paid but they're not listening.

They're like I want to support your work but I'm not going to listen. You're a nice guy. Like it felt like you're a nice guy. So I'll do Q some money.

No, it's something.

Yeah, right. Is they get extended episodes. So after the sign off I'll do an extra 10 minutes with my guest and then they'll get bonus episodes as well. So every I do the month in review where I go through my time tracking and kind of the things I worked on and the things I wish went better just so people can get an idea of what a. What my solopreneur business at least looks like. And it's not a model, it's just stuff I'm trying that maybe they could try as well.

And do you find it hard to get subscribers to it? Like it's. How are you marketing it?

Yeah, it's tough. I haven't. This is one of those boulders, rocks, pebbles or rocks, pebble sand things where the membership is the sand right now. It's not A high dollar thing. Those $7 or $5 per month memberships work really well if you have a big audience, but for a small audience. For a small audience creator like me. And I know I'm like aware that I'm still in like the top 3% or whatever of podcasters and. But I'm not any of the like Relay FM shows where they're making appreciable money, or Twitter where they're making appreciable money from their membership. So I do have a call to action in the episode. That's really the main way I'm promoting it right now because I am more focused on my coaching, which is the rocks. Right. The big things that, that pay the bills. The thing I think about. So I'll pause here. I do think about this membership in a way that makes it feasible for me to do it at all. Because I did have two.

Yeah, because that's the question. Is it worth it? Especially if you're trying to streamline your time.

Yes. And so I had two memberships for a while. One was like a higher dollar membership called Podcast Foundry. And one was the. Was just the pro version of the show and you would get the pro version of the show and Foundry. But it was very confusing. Right. I was just like, last year was a rough year for me. Like most of my money came from ads on my show and nobody was advertising on podcasts last year. And so I was stabbing wildly at a bunch of things. And so at the beginning of this year I was like, you know what? Like, Podcast Foundry needs go away. It's taking too much mental energy. No one is biting. And I feel like I need to deliver for people. And so I had a few signups. I downgraded them to the $7 a month. So like I said, you can quit or you could keep getting basically what you're still getting and pay like a third of the price. And so this membership works for me because I tell people, like, if you're going to offer a membership at first and you're not sure if people want to buy for like validate, if people want to buy first. But if you get like lukewarm responses and you want to try it, I say do things that are low effort for you and high value for your listeners. And ads free is usually good enough for five bucks a month, especially if you have a lot of ads. Right. Stuff you should know I love that show. They have, I think, six minutes of ads in their 15 minute shows. It's a lot. And if it's Like Josh and Chuck reading. And I'm like, yeah, fine. But if it's like some announcer guy, I'm like, all right, well, not really interested in this. So it's gotta be low effort, high reward or high value for your listener. So ads free extended episode. This is. It takes me literally no extra effort to do that, except for talk to a very interesting guest for 10 extra minutes. And so we usually before the show, I'm like in the pro, I ask if they're okay with it because I'm getting paid for that content and they are not. So I ask if you're cool with it. Everybody has been cool with it. And then we figure out a topic and then I'll tease that topic a couple times in the episode on the.

Show before you go off. Yeah, yeah.

So hey, oh, by the way, we're going to talk about that in the pro show. Or accelerated is what I'm calling it now. That is. Is usually good. And then early get the episodes early. Right. Again, as long as I'm not under the gun and trying to publish the day before. I usually publish my subscribers get it a few days early. They get it before the weekend so they can listen to it over the weekend if they want. The last thing that I'm thinking about adding, and this is a direct result of me talking to the. The fine folks over at Memberful. CEX is an automation of the month. And this is low effort for me because I have an automations database already. And so automation of the month is not just pick one and give you it, but do a couple minutes video walking through it. And so again, that's low effort for me because it's going to take me like five to ten minutes max. And each month the members will get exactly how an automation I use works.

Oh, I like that. And it's short, so that's going to be valuable too. That was kind of my next question thought is I for some of the memberships, it's like the extended episodes. Like all of those things make sense. But are you thinking about shortening your regular episodes an hour long? It's streamlined solopreneur maybe a contradiction in terms. I don't know. Like you might find that you might find that you really shorten your regular episodes and then have provide more in an extended model.

Yeah. Is it Sam Harris, I think, does this really effectively where he'll basically say, hey, if you see the red artwork, you're not a member. So you're only gonna get the first half of the episode. And I Think that's really smart. Right. Because it's like a call to a visual and people are like only half of the episode. I've thought about that and it's. Recent episodes will not show this, but I do try to keep it 40 minutes. Real bad at that. It's something I definitely would like to consider. I do want the listeners to get a full takeaway. And so I'm telling a story and we gotta get to act three. I'm not just gonna give them acts one and two.

Good. Yeah.

Yeah. Cause that's mean.

Yeah. So I. That's why I'm not a total fan of Sam's model, because he leaves them hanging. And I really feel like the. You really gotta provide them a full version. But that doesn't mean there's not something so exciting that they could get in the second half that they. You wanna know how to do this? I got that in the second half or whatever that is.

So I just revealed that I haven't listened to Sam's podcast at least in a while because, like the call out is effective. Maybe someone more controversial who I had listened to at some point in the past is Ben Shapiro at the Daily Wire. He has a segmented show. And so you do get full segments and then the members get like the third or fourth segment. So you do get the whole.

Which I like that model better. That's what I think. It's really useful to people because I think if I feel like you left me hanging and didn't provide me the full value for the. I don't know if I want to pay for that. I don't know what it's like yet. And that's an issue.

It's. You go to a what? Like a news site with some breaking news that you want to read and it's. You got to be a member to read this. And I'm like, this feels important though.

Do you even write real good articles? I'd like to read one for free first. Let me double check. Yeah, that's how it is on all of that. Now you are scripting some of your shows and those are usually your solo shows. Tell us how that process works for you.

Yeah, so I feel I'm better at completing my thoughts in written word first.

Because you come out of blogging.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I come out of blogging. I've written five books. I love writing and so I feel like I can organize my thoughts right when I do. So if you listen to one of my time tracking shows, they are not scripted and sometimes I'm struggling to find the words, or I'm clicking around going, oh, what was that? I don't want my. Not that I'm giving my members lower quality stuff because they get a whole bunch of other better stuff too. But the real value in the monthly retro is just me kind of processing the month with them. Right. It's like, oh, this is the stuff I outlined. And I'm like, now that I'm thinking about it, I didn't launch that product or whatever. So when I'm doing a solo show and I really want the point to land and I really want to get the story right because I try to start with a story for all of my solo episodes and it's not a story I always tell. If you've listened to a bunch of my episodes, Tracy, which it sounds like you have, it sounds like you've really done your research, which is awesome, you'll know that there's a story I almost told before, but I've told a ton about when I had a panic attack in 2020. That's a very well rehearsed story. And so I don't need to script that one. But when I'm doing newer topics or topics where I'm crafting a story for the episode, I want to get it. I want to get that Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, or the way Kendra hall puts it, is normal explosion new normal for the story to really line things up for whatever I'm going to talk about. And I found that scripting is good. Yeah.

So otherwise you end up like me, where I've been accused of never giving the new normal, like I give him the explosion. And I'm like, was there anything happy that came out of it? Like, I never did. Whoops.

Yeah. And I'll test my stories on my wife sometimes or my friends and see how it goes. But if it's something I'm crafting for a new episode, I'm not always widespread testing those. And so I script them to make sure I'm hitting those story beats.

So now you have a. I'm going to call it a teaser piece or like intro piece that you do for your guest episodes. Do you script those as well?

Yes. So I'll write the summary and the top takeaways before that's outside of the interview. That's the most work I do for my show because my whole process, like when I'm done recording, it's basically I never see it again until it's in my feed. But I do work there because you want to hook your listeners. Right. You have maybe 60 seconds. And so I try to do a really good cold open that is less than 60 seconds. And then I come in with. I want to provide them value within the first five minutes. Because if someone doesn't know me, then they're like, why am I here? I'm just gonna give them the top takeaways at the beginning. Right. It's like how every math teacher I ever had is, here's the syllabus. Here are the test dates. If you never show up and you still pass, fine. If you feel like the material, you don't have to sit through the class. That's basically my approach. Like, I'm gonna give you the top takeaways. And if you feel like you get it, great. Thanks for listening long enough for Apple to count it as a. As a listen. Yeah. And Spotify. Yeah, fine, you can leave now. Hopefully you don't want to leave them. You want more of what I just told you.

But I think that's part of the problem with a lot of other shows. And not that I'm necessarily have to script it, but I always think it's a really good idea to come back and do those introductions after because you do know what's happened in the show and you can make those points to get them excited to listen. So even if it's just the passion of excitement of what's coming, that's good and that'll draw people in.

Yeah. Cause what ha. And I've done this before and I've gotten the worst feedback I've gotten is too many ads. And that's when I oversold an episode without realizing it. And then I was like, I oversold it, so I gotta deliver. So it was too many ads. And then the other really negative piece of feedback I got was, takes too long to get to the meat of the episode. Because what you do is. Hey, I'm here with Tracy Hazzard. Tracy Hazzard is the founder of Pottiti. She runs it with her husband and blah, blah. And then it's. And then you come in and you're like, hey, Tracy, thanks for being here. Tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do. I'm Tracy Hazzard. I'm the founder of.

And it goes over again.

Yeah. So great. I'm 10 minutes in and I know that Tracy is the founder of Potatoes. That's all I've gotten so far.

Yeah. No, I so agree with you. And I think that's a novice. I don't want to do that. I want to get to the meat of it, because that's what's interesting to me. Right. Which is why we do the show the way that we do, which is we're just jumping into our interview part. And you didn't even hear the introduction. I'll get to that later. Because then I know what's important. And so I love that you do that, though. I think it's really important, the value of the descriptions of our show, those first 60 seconds, that all of those things are not apparent. I think when you're a new podcaster, you don't really understand that those are the things that are making it so your show's not growing fast enough.

Yeah, I agree. And I think it's probably because people listen to the huge shows, right? The Joe Rogan, Dax Shepard, and I don't listen to Call Her Daddy. So I don't really know what that format is, but. And they're just like, oh, yeah, these sound like casual, raw, unedited conversations. That's what I'm going to have, too. Except the problem is you don't know that they are like, 60 seconds is maybe obviously edited, but Barbara Walters interviews aren't obviously edited or weren't obviously edited. And people know who, like, Joe Rogan and Elon Musk are, Right. And so they're like, fine, I'll sit through this because I'm interested in them as people. If people don't know who you are, they don't want a raw, unedited interview. They are there. 78% of people listen to podcast to learn something. And so the faster you can get them to learn something, the more trust you'll build and the longer they'll stick around.

Such good advice. Jo, I'm so glad you said that. So let's go to some of the best advice you can give us for streamlining things, because this is where your expertise lies.

Yes. So I think the reason that I can spend time at the end of the interview writing a summary and, like, I use AI a little tiny bit, right? It's what are the things that I missed in my note taking? Right. That's basically what I'm asking AI. But one thing I'll do, and this takes practice, people have told me that this is actually really hard, and it was something that I thought, like, you could just do because, like, you take notes in class, is I will take notes during the interview, and if a guest says something that is of interest to me, I will timestamp it. I'll say, oh, around 11 minutes. Tracy said this cold, open question mark or edit here and then I'll write the big broad strokes. Right. I'm not taking like minutes because I am engaged. But I'll write timestamps later. Right. And then I will. So I use Riverside and Riverside added. I'm pretty sure they've just added like Cast Magic integration. It looks almost the same.

That's what it is. Yeah, it is.

That's what it is. Right. Okay. So I was using Cast Magic and they just cut out the middleman here to get like the timestamps. And I have a custom query for or a custom prompt for. What are the top three to six takeaways? I do top three. I ask it for six.

Because you want to pick and choose. Right.

And at least one of those is going to be pretty bad. Or from the pro show. Right. Because again, I record it all together and the pro show is different. That's the. That is one big thing that I would recommend. Get into the practice. Keep a notebook or a very quiet keyboard. I have a very clicky keyboard, so I can't type.

So I've got my notes from us. It's like hen scratch though, so I do have to type it out later.

Yeah, that's exactly what I do too. I'm like, all right, I put it in the Google Doc, but then you don't have to go back and listen later. But aside from that, write the summary in the transcript. Have an editor. I can't recommend that enough. I just did a poll on LinkedIn and I'm like, where do you spend the most time? And 40% of people said editing and post production.

I can't do that. Look, I own a production company and I can't do it. It numbs my mind. Again, this is not the best use of my time.

No. Three episodes in, I was like, I had a guest who said, I don't advocate for editing out every an ah.

Because I don't either.

We say an ah in real life and like we breathe in real life and it's not like mouth sounds right. It's like you're. I'm just breathing and. But he said like for. It was a distracting amount of UMS. And so I spent two hours editing a 30 minute conversation and I was like, I need to hire somebody.

Never again.

I just spent 500 bucks or whatever I spent on this. So, yeah, I think edit. You can find reasonably priced editors, right? You don't need to hire the 300, 100 an hour editor if you're not creating an audio drama, but. And then make notes for them because then it's easier for them and they'll put it through their magic macro thing in Audition or Logic Pro or whatever that they already have set up that it takes them 10 minutes instead of you an hour. So that's one thing. On the front end, I will say use a booking link and get as much information as possible and then use some sort of automation tool, zapier or make to send that information from the booking link to a podcast planner. Because there is. Where you will see. Oh, in three weeks, I don't have an episode. And instead of scrambling to be when it hits, you can be like, I better prepare for that. All right? And so that flow has saved me so much time. Not to mention, if I have interviews, I want to communicate a bunch of stuff to them and I don't have to remember to communicate a bunch of stuff to them. Your scheduler will do all of that for you. Right. Like your scheduling link. And then the last thing I would say on the publishing side is, you don't need to publish your episode. Like, I used to think that I had to publish my episode. A VA could do that for you. Like another person in intern. Right. I don't want to timestamp this, but if it's. If it happens to be graduation season and there are students maybe looking for something to do for the summer, you can hire an intern and create that sop. And I promise they will do it just as well as you because you're pushing some buttons. Right. My VA is in the Philippines. She's. If she's not. If she's.

It's amazing. Yeah.

Yeah. If she's like, out sick or something and I have to do it, I'm like, I don't even remember how to do this. I have to watch my own video on how to do it.

Yeah, No, I think there's so many things like, yeah, you don't need to do yourself anymore because the systems are so simple and it's. It's really straightforward and. But I love that you really mentioned that booking calendar, because I think it's a sign of a professional, too. So if you're not acting professionally with your guest of it, you're not building rapport with them either.

Yes. I. And I've had guests say, oh, I can just use your scheduling link. And I am in a place of understanding because I help podcasters with this. That's. I don't like that. I don't like that. I want. I'm coming on your show. I want your systems. We're not going to use my Zoom link to record your show.

Right. It just doesn't make sense. It's not, it's. Yeah, there's a lot of systems built into everything we do.

And you know what? Something I discovered just today actually. Cal.com is free and open source. Like I use Calendly. Like I use Calendly. They were first to market. I have too much technical debt to want to move them right now.

Yeah, I agree with that.

To move from them right now.

I love that term, technical debt. Yeah, I have that same issue in Zoom right now.

Yeah, it's just like all of my systems are here and it's not the juice. Is not worth the squeeze right now. But Cal.com is for like completely free. So if you're looking to. Or like tidy Cal, I don't like that one as much. That's the one from Appsumo. That's like a one time payment. But like Cal.com looks really good. My friends who use it love it. And it's free, so start there.

Yeah, yeah. I think more of it is. It's. It doesn't matter what calendar program you're using, as long as you're using one. Like it's. And you're got a few forms and you're capturing the stuff that you need later. Because Zapier always works with everything. And so I'm glad you say it like me. Like I wasn't sure if every time I go it's like, like Zapier is the way my team says it and I always say Zapier.

I asked about this, I asked somebody and they're like Zapier makes me happier. That's how you remember.

That's great. Oh, I'm so glad you said that. Now I'm gonna go back to them. It's. It's like the debate in my house in generation, we have a generational debate on GIF or gif.

Oh yes, it's gif. Because it's not, it's not jaffical interface or graphic or whatever. Yeah, file. That's it. Graphical interface file is what GIF stands for. I taught computer science at the University of Scranton for 10 years. There you go.

There you go. A pro just answered this debate. I'm playing that for my kids right now. I love it. Jo, thank you so much for bringing podcast workflows, streamlined solopreneur. Before that how I built it to the world. And thank you for so much that you do for the podcast industry in general and making sure that people aren't quitting their show too soon because they're not getting streamlined fast enough.

My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. This has been great, Tracee. I appreciate it.

There were so many things I wanted to joke with Joe about. I mean, I feel like I could have him on like three or four times if we could take a totally different take on everything. I mean, I love this idea of the subscription show. Three minutes of real value right at the beginning and then connections throughout. I just really think that he's got so many great ideas about how to really make compelling content work. But at the same time, there's so many things that are changing all the time. And that's what I really love about people like Joe Casabona. I want to see something where it's flexible, it's moving, it's taking advantage of the time. So often when we have podcasters who have been there for a decade or more, it hasn't moved forward into the place that it needs to be. But Joe has done that and I really think that it's it. We can learn so much from these OGs, from these people who have been doing this for so long, and especially someone who's really great at stuff that we're not. If you're really great at the people stuff and if you're really great at the podcasting speaking stuff, that's great. But what if we're not good at the workflow? What if we're not good at the production? And what if we can't afford to hire someone to be good at that for us? That's really where someone like Joe comes in. So you're not going to want to miss this podcast. Go check out Streamline solopreneur How I built it and check out what Joe Casabona has to teach us about podcasting. Everyone. I'll be back next time here on the Binge Factor with another binge worthy podcast who is going to teach you something great about how to be an og. A great podcaster.

You've been listening listening to the Binge Factor Podcast. For more information on podcasting and videocasting success tips and tactics, please go to thebingefactor.com and be sure to listen to our other show for podcasters called Feed you'd brand. If you'd like to be interviewed on this show as well as featured in Tracy's column, please go to thebingefactor.com guest and apply.

Sam.