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7-Figure Small with Brian Clark
Confessions of a Pink-Haired Marketer
Copyblogger FM: Content Marketing, Copywriting, Freelance Writing, and Social Media Marketing
Get More Clients With Smarter Email Marketing
Hack the Entrepreneur
Members Only
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Site Success: Tips for Building Better WordPress Websites
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Technology Translated
The Digital Entrepreneur
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The Showrunner
The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience
Youpreneur with Chris Ducker
Zero to Book
The Showrunner
hosted by Jerod Morris and Jon Nastor

No. 095 5 Steps to Hosting Successful Live Online Events

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Previous Episode:No. 094 Sponsorships or Affiliate Marketing: Which Is Better for Your Podcast? More Episodes Next Episode:No. 096 What Got You Here Won't Get You There

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No. 095 5 Steps to Hosting Successful Live Online Events

We have a special guest on this week’s episode of The Showrunner: David Bain from Digital Marketing Radio. He provides us with five steps that will help you evolve from podcasting to hosting successful live online events.

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David is very knowledgeable and experienced, and you’ll find his insight valuable.

By the way: this episode was part of an interview swap between Jerod and David, so look for Jerod’s interview over at Digital Marketing Radio a few weeks from now.

Listen, learn, enjoy …

Listen to The Showrunner below ...

No. 095 5 Steps to Hosting Successful Live Online EventsJerod Morris and Jon Nastor
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What Could Happen if You Launch a Podcast in the Next 30 Days?

The Beginner’s Guide to Launching a Remarkable Podcast is a simple, no-frills, 9-step plan to get your podcast off the ground..

Are you ready to start a remarkable podcast?

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The Show Notes

  • If you’re ready to see for yourself why more than (not over) 201,344 website owners trust StudioPress — the industry standard for premium WordPress themes and plugins — swing by StudioPress.com for all the details.
  • Digital Marketing Radio by David Bain
  • Digital Marketing in 2017: 107 Experts Share Their Top Digital Marketing Tips for 2017
  • Follow Jerod on Twitter: @jerodmorris
  • Follow Jonny on Twitter: @jonnastor
  • Showrunner FM

The Transcript

5 Steps to Hosting Successful Live Online Events

Voiceover: Rainmaker FM.

Jerod Morris: This is Rainmaker FM, the digital marketing podcast network. It’s built on the Rainmaker Platform, which empowers you to build your own digital marketing and sales platform. Start your free, 14-day trial at RainmakerPlatform.com. Welcome to The Showrunner, where we have one goal: teach you how to develop, launch, and run a remarkable show. Ready?

Welcome back to The Showrunner. This is episode number 95. I am your host, Jerod Morris, VP of Marketing for Rainmaker Digital. I will not be joined momentarily, as I usually am, by my punk rock drumming and t-shirt wearing co-host, Jonny Nastor, the host of Hack the Entrepreneur. Instead, we have a special guest this week on The Showrunner. He is the host of Digital Marketing Radio, and the creator of the 26-week Digital Marketing Plan. I will introduce him here in just a moment.

First, real quick, I do want to let you know that The Showrunner is brought to you by the all-new StudioPress Sites, a turnkey solution that combines the ease of an all-in-one website builder with the flexible power of WordPress. It’s perfect for bloggers, podcasters, and affiliate marketers, as well as those selling physical products, digital downloads and membership programs. If you’re ready to take your WordPress site to the next level, see for yourself why over 200,000 website owners trust StudioPress. Go to Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress right now. That’s Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress.

As I mentioned, we have a special guest on this week’s episode of The Showrunner. He is David Bain, the host of Digital Marketing Radio, as well as the brains, face, and voice behind the 26-week Digital Marketing Plan, and the 13 Pillars of Internet Marketing. David, welcome to The Showrunner.

David Bain: Well hello there, Jerod. Thank you so much for having me on. It’s an absolute pleasure to be on with you on The Showrunner.

Jerod Morris: Absolutely. No, it is our pleasure. You and I are doing an interview swap. This is the first time I’ve done one of these, and this is pretty cool. I’m interviewing you for The Showrunner and you’re interviewing me for your show. I mention that so as you’re out there listening — this is something pretty cool and worth trying if you’re looking to get content for your own show and obviously put your ideas in front of other audiences. Doing an interview swap like this, if there’s synergy between the audiences, can be really helpful. Have you done something like this before?

David Bain: I’ve done a few of them before. I think you tend to do more of these kind of episodes with fellow podcasters. I remember doing one with Colin Gray, if you know of him, from PodCraft. He’s actually a Scot as well.

Jerod Morris: Very cool. It’s been really cool. I’m enjoying the process, and I look forward to sharing your insight with The Showrunner folks. I think we have a really unique angle today. What we’re going to talk about, David, is how you go from podcasting to hosting your own online live event, which you did, and which eventually led to a book called Digital Marketing in 2017: 107 Experts Share Their Top Digital Marketing Tips for 2017. You can find that book on Amazon.

David, I believe you’re going to give us five steps to follow for someone else who’s listening who wants to do the same. Let’s jump into it, because I love the idea of going from podcasting to hosting an online live event. As listeners to The Showrunner know, that’s part of what I do over at The Assembly Call, is we host a live post-game show after every game. I love anything that involves a live broadcast. Let’s talk about this. What is the first step that I need to take if I want to go from podcasting to hosting my own online live event as you have done it?

Step 1: Prerecord Audio

David Bain: In terms of how I got actually thinking about this, Jerod, I’ve seen quite a few live broadcasts with very flaky video or flaky audio. There’s nothing wrong necessarily with jumping on there and not being afraid and getting the experience to do that, but the way that I have done things myself is I started off with pre-recorded audio podcasting. Then, through a sequence of trying different things over a couple of years, ended up hosting online live events — and indeed physical events as well, and making them into online broadcasts.

I think that that process, what I learned along the way really helped me present more effectively and have a few less technical gremlins when I was doing that as a big major live event. I still have had significant technical gremlins, however I reckon I’ve been a little bit more relaxed and confident and comfortable in dealing with them when they do occur.

Jerod Morris: Is it even possible to get rid of the technical gremlins? I have those too. It’s our sixth season of doing The Assembly Call, and even this year I had a couple of shows where something unexpected went wrong, and you’re live so you have to deal with it.

David Bain: It’s a mindset of what you associate that as being. I try my best, if something like that occurs, to actually think of it as something positive. A learning experience, something that I can actually gain from. If something like that happens, then hopefully you’re going to stop it from doing again in the future. It’s a learning experience as it happens.

Jerod Morris: That’s true.

David Bain: What’s the worst that can happen really, if someone sees something go wrong? It’s not a …

Jerod Morris: The nice thing is in our position — me hosting a podcast about podcasting, you hosting a podcast for digital marketers — we can always use it as a lesson to help teach our audience.

David Bain: Exactly.

Jerod Morris: It’s never in vain when you have a show like that to talk about it on.

David Bain: You asked about number one, and I don’t think I gave you the answer about number one. That was a preamble before number one. Number one is pre-recorded audio. A lot of people probably try and start off by doing Facebook Live or something like that nowadays. I think doing pre-recorded audio and getting comfortable with using a microphone to begin with — getting comfortable with the sound of your own voice and recording decent audio … Obviously you and the majority of the audience know all about things like position of microphone, but a lot of people starting out or intending to do video don’t really think about that sort of thing to begin with. I think that pre-recorded audio, getting your right starter equipment to begin with, and getting comfortable doing that to begin with is a great initial bedding in of things to do before you actually even consider producing video.

Jerod Morris: I like that. Get the basics out of the way. Don’t just jump right on to video and make some of those mistakes out in public, but record your audio, get a little bit of practice in, and make sure that when you go out you’re doing it the right way.

David Bain: Yeah. A lot of people actually don’t even think about the quality of audio when producing video, and that’s a real shame. If it’s a long show, someone perhaps actually plays the show and then steps away from the computer if they’re intending to watch it on a computer. They’ll listen to the audio, and if the audio is shoddy, they’re not going to be on there for very long. So it’s an essential first step.

Jerod Morris: Do you have any tips or recommendations from an equipment standpoint, especially for folks starting out? What is the minimum nowadays that people need to have to sound good enough?

David Bain: For me, I think it’s either the ATR2100s or the Samsung Q2U, which is obviously the dynamic microphone that is also USB as well as XLR. Having a microphone windshield is important as well. Then just having a table folding spring stand. You can use probably the USB functionality of the microphone to begin with. That’s getting started for about $100 or something like that. I’m not sure if that’s the kind of equipment that you talk about as also being the bare minimum for getting started as a podcaster.

Jerod Morris: No, I think that’s about right. We’ve talked about the Blue Yeti before, some microphones like that. Essentially, the microphones that you’ll spend $75 to $100, $125 dollars for to get started. You can certainly go record some audio and take some practice reps with an Apple microphone or headphones that have a little microphone on them, but if you’re actually going to put it out into the world you need it to at least have that minimum level of quality.

David Bain: I’m going to also talk about some software as well, and using Skype. To get started, I’d just recommend a bit of software called MP3 Skype Recorder, which is a free bit of software that will record Skype calls. It’s not really what I use now, but it’s a nice easy bit of software to use to get started off with. And then to edit audio, it’s probably Audacity that I’d recommend to get started with.

Jerod Morris: We’ll typically tell people GarageBand for a Mac, or certainly Audacity. The Skype Recorder, that’s different from Ecamm’s call recorder, I imagine?

David Bain: Yeah, it’s a similar kind of thing. It’s free, actually. It seems to be a good reliable thing. It’s automatic as well, so whenever you start up Skype it’ll start recording, just in case you forget to click the recorder button.

Jerod Morris: Yes, and don’t tell people that you’re recording them, which you never want to have happen.

David Bain: One or two podcasters will probably relate with that, with having actually recorded the best episode they’ve ever done and they turn to the recorder and thought …

Step 2: Record “as Live”

Jerod Morris: Oh man. It’s the worst. Okay, so what is step two as we talk about moving from a podcast to hosting your own online live event?

David Bain: Obviously step one involves more doing everything beforehand and then doing things like adding intros and outros afterwards. Step two, I recommend using a bit of software called Boss Jock or something similar. I use that on my iPad to bring in intros and outros and different bumpers as part of the show. Recording the show as live. Producing it as live. Getting comfortable doing that. If you do that, then you’ll be able to recreate that kind of thing in a video format later on.

Jerod Morris: How exactly does that work with Boss Jock? You said that you use it on your iPad?

David Bain: Yes, I use it on my iPad. I’ll bring in different intro noises, outro noises, and bumper noises through that as well. By this stage, if you’re serious about podcasting, I’d probably recommend upgrading equipment a little bit from there. I actually use a Zoom H5 digital recorder. I use an Electro Voice RE20 microphone. I also use the Soundcraft Signature 12 mixer — that produces a nice warm sound — in conjunction with Boss Jock. And then possibly moving up to editing using Adobe Audition afterwards as well. Getting really comfortable with producing a better quality audio and producing it as live, as in it’s not necessary to do any post-production edits.

Jerod Morris: That’s interesting. I’ve actually used Spreaker for that. Have you used Spreaker’s recording program?

David Bain: Yeah, I’m aware of it. I’ve tried it once or twice. I’m not majorly aware of everything that they do. I’ve used Zencastr quite a bit, if you’re aware of Zencastr as well. But obviously there’s quite a few different ways of doing it, and that’s the way that I just became comfortable doing things.

Jerod Morris: I love the idea of recording as live. Playing your intro music, playing your outro music. It’s a huge adjustment — at least it was a really big adjustment for me — trying to keep track of all that, hit it at the right time, and talk over it at the right time. Once I got used to it, it was much easier, and it did really cut down on post-production time.

David Bain: It really does.

Jerod Morris: It was like, “Yay, we’re done and the episode’s ready. It’s amazing.” I would suggest it to anybody. If you’re a little bit afraid of that, it’s certainly okay, because I was and it was hard. I felt like I was learning to walk again trying to do it. Once I got the hang of it, it really was a lot better. I’m glad you brought that up, because I don’t think we’ve talked about that much on the show before. That’s really something to take your podcasting to the next level, for sure.

David Bain: The time-saving aspect of it is massive for me. Also, once you start editing your own show — if you want to do that yourself — if you insert the same intro and outro 50 times, then you’ll get fed up of doing things like that. Anything you can do to limit the repetition that you do in terms of your show production is probably a good thing.

Jerod Morris: Yes. Okay, so that was step two. We’ve talked about the pre-recorded audio and getting everything done before you go out and go live. We talked about recording it “as live” with something like Boss Jock bringing in the intro and the outro. What is step number three?

Step 3: Record Video, but in a Pre-Recorded Format

David Bain: Step number three is start to record video, but do it in a pre-recorded format. You can use Google Hangout On Air — it still exists, people. You can still use that quite effectively. The nice thing about it is you can record without actually broadcasting live to the general public. To start off with, you want to be sharing the link with your guest. It gives that sense of if the worst did happen and if your guest didn’t turn up, or if you completely muttered through things and made a mess of things, then you could restart or you could edit afterwards.

It’s not got the same stress of doing live video. It’s getting you comfortable with doing things like looking into the camera as you’re doing your introduction, seeing how you actually position the camera, and seeing what your setting is like behind you. You don’t want to just start doing your video and doing it live and then find out that you can see someone walking behind you or something like that in the office.

Jerod Morris: As someone who uses Hangouts myself to someone else who uses them, how much do you trust the future of Hangouts? Obviously it’s been the same now for a couple of years. Do you trust that it’ll stay stable and that we can continue to use it, or are you often trying to look for an alternative?

Hey, it’s me, Jerod, real quick. We’ll get back to my interview with David Bain here in just a second. I do want to remind you about why it would be such a good idea to head on over to Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress and check out StudioPress Sites. StudioPress Sites is WordPress made easy without sacrificing power or flexibility, which is nice, right? It’s perfect, as I mentioned before, for bloggers, for podcasters, and for affiliate marketers, as well as anyone who is selling physical products, digital downloads, and membership programs.

You get a lot with StudioPress Sites. You get an industry standard framework, you get 20 mobile optimized HTML5 designs. You get fast loading performance. You get zero hosting hassles, rock solid security, and, of course, world class support in addition to advanced SEO functionality, automatic WordPress and Genesis updates, one-click install, and included plugins — it goes on and on.

You get a lot with StudioPress Sites. Go over and check them out. No obligations obviously, but go to Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress, and if you’re getting ready to launch a new site, or you’re looking for a new place for your current site, give StudioPress Sites a look and see if it’s right for you. Rainmaker.FM/StudioPress. All right, now back to my conversation with David Bain.

David Bain: I think it’s important to be aware of alternatives and have that option. I did actually quite like Blab when it was up and running.

Jerod Morris: So did we. Oh man. Yes.

David Bain: There was one show I did there about a year and a half ago or so, and I think had about 700 people live on with me. That was incredible.

Jerod Morris: Blab had so much potential. So much potential.

David Bain: It was so sad the way that it just turned off. It deteriorated a little bit, but they didn’t want to give it any love in terms of podcasting. I think they were aiming for a slightly different audience.

Jerod Morris: Yeah, they were.

David Bain: Didn’t go ahead. Google Hangouts — it is a little bit scary the way that Google aren’t giving it too much focus. The scary thing is it’s difficult to find a real alternative. We were chatting a little bit before we started recording in terms of the different software that I use apart from that. I do sometimes produce live video for Facebook using another bit of software called vMix. Using that, you can have multiple sources to produce your final video version.

It is a little bit more complicated to use, but you can quite easily do things like bring in different screens or different browser windows into vMix and mix things together and have it looking fairly professionally, and then broadcast wherever you want, essentially. You could broadcast from vMix to Google Hangouts, or you could also broadcast directly to Facebook Live, or loads of other different services. That’s probably a decent backup to have at the moment. In saying that, I’m going to be hosting a webinar for someone else, and we’re going to be using Google Hangouts to start out with. I think in the short term it’s reasonably safe, but maybe have a backup policy.

Jerod Morris: Now, when you’re using vMix, are you doing all of that yourself? You’re hosting. You’re using vMix. You’re producing. Are you doing the whole thing?

David Bain: I’m a bit mad like that. Yes. I do like to do things like that, or at least figure out how to do them, first of all. I suppose that’s the reason that I know quite a bit about different digital marketing things and different technical things. I tend to want to dive in there to begin with. Maybe it stops me progressing as fast as I would want to in certain areas because I want to know everything about everything.

I’m comfortable with doing that at the same time, but you do have to be careful that you don’t have too much going on. You’ve got to have — if you have a script in front of you — within that script things like paragraphed sections giving you a bullet point of precisely what to do with vMix at a certain point during the broadcast, just to make sure that you order things and make it as easy as possible for yourself.

Jerod Morris: It can get hugely challenging, especially if you’re trying to think straight and say the right things and then also do the production part of it. It can certainly be a bit of an adjustment.

David Bain: Yeah …

Jerod Morris: Oh, go ahead.

David Bain: No, I was just going to say that it did actually catch me out a little bit the last major live event I did. I don’t know if it was vMix struggling or the fact that I was trying to do too much on my computer. I had 107 different digital marketers join me for this one live event. That was once every two minutes for four hours. I had them join me using a common Google Hangouts link. I took this and I added a few things in vMix, and then broadcast that using Facebook Live. Unfortunately, initially, I could hear my guests completely fine through the computer that I was listening to them on, but the final broadcast only had my own voice going out on Facebook, not my guests at all.

Jerod Morris: Oh no.

David Bain: I did have a few friendly faces that helped me out who were my guests for the first half hour or so. Thankfully, one of them jumped in and ended up being guest presenter while I fixed the issue. It was a bit of a sweaty experience.

Jerod Morris: Yeah, I can imagine.

David Bain: I am probably trying to do too much, but I like the challenge as well.

Jerod Morris: Yeah, it is a fun challenge. It goes without saying as we talk about all this, when you’re doing these videos and broadcasting this, you’re obviously pulling the audio down and posting that as a podcast or keeping the audio separate, right?

David Bain: Absolutely. I always record my own audio using this trusty Zoom H5. I really like doing that separately from my computer just in case there’s any computer problems. Then my audio is going directly into that, so that’s unlikely to get affected. It’s always good process, of course, to record your audio in multiple places if you can. That’s what Google Hangouts provides as well, that will provide that backup audio recording of you as well.

Jerod Morris: What is step number four?

David Bain: Step number four. We’ve kind of migrated towards that because …

Jerod Morris: Oh, did we?

Step 4: Live Video Show

David Bain: Step four is the live video show. Doing that probably using Facebook Live at the moment, that’s probably the place that you’re likely to get the biggest audience and the most interaction at the moment. The great thing about doing live video on there, is that compared with a post, you’re likely to get about 10 times the amount of interaction. That’s absolutely wonderful. It really hits Facebook’s algorithm in terms of wanting to rank content. That interaction is really what you’re looking for as part of a live video.

Of course, if you’ve done the previous steps and you’ve gotten yourself comfortable at doing audio, at doing pre-recorded video, and at looking into the camera, then doing Facebook, hopefully through something like vMix, you’ll be producing the quality of video that will be a little bit above other people on there. That will, in theory, mean that more people are likely to actually stick around and watch your live video.

Jerod Morris: Do you ever just hop on and do a casual Facebook chat with your computer camera, or are you always doing something more serious with vMix?

David Bain: I have done that. I don’t like doing it that much. I know a few people that seem absolute naturals at doing that, and perhaps that’s something that I should do a little bit more. Someone like Mark Asquith from Excellence Expected — he hops on there and he talks and looks into the camera — he’s so unbelievably relaxed at doing things. All, “Hi,” this person’s name, “How are you doing? Good to see you,” kind of stuff. I don’t like to have everything scripted, but I like to know what I’m doing and what I’m doing next. I really like having conversations with people as well, and having a guest on. I think you have to select the way that you prefer to communicate and try and master that, rather than necessarily try to do everything and try and copy other people as well.

Jerod Morris: That’s the issue. If you want to have a guest — obviously you can’t just hop on there with Facebook and one camera and try and have a guest. That’s something that I actually … I’m really glad we’re having this talk now. You’ve already given me a whole bunch of ideas. I want to start using Facebook Live in that way to actually be able to broadcast conversations over there, rather than just hopping on myself. Sounds like vMix may be a good option for that.

David Bain: Yeah. I use this other bit of software that I’ve just started using called BeLive. called BeLive.tv, I think is the website address. I’m intending on using that with you in about half an hour for the show that we’re recording for me afterwards.

Jerod Morris: Oh, okay. Exciting.

David Bain: That seems to be a great bit of software. It’s free at the moment, but it’s got their branding on top of it. If someone wants to do a face to face interview with someone but not have all the technical, complicated stuff that can be a bit of a challenge with vMix, then I would recommend using BeLive. I’m looking up the website now, it is actually BeLive.tv. That’s a cool free tool that is certainly worthwhile checking out.

Jerod Morris: Very cool. This brings us to step number five. What is the fifth step to go from podcasting to hosting a live event?

Step 5: Host a Live Event

David Bain: It is the actual live event. You can use all the tools that you’ve used so far, things like Google Hangouts, but then you can incorporate things like OptimizePress or Lead Pages and actually get people to register for your live event. Do it as an untitled video — I think it’s called — on Google Hangouts. If you do that, then hopefully you can also bring in lots of different people that you’ve interviewed already.

After I interviewed about 100 people for my podcast, I did my first end-of-year show, which is basically digital marketing predictions for the next year, for the upcoming year. I had about 54 guests on the first one, and all I did was I gave them the same Google Hangout address. When you start a Google Hangout, you don’t have to invite them by email through the procedure that Google sets up. If you start the Google Hangout and you copy and paste the Google Hangout URL that you get minus the query string at the end. So the question mark that’s at the end, minus that. You copy and paste the URL, then you can share that URL with your guests and give your guests a very specific time to join you.

You can actually create a really nice flowing show with a few people joining and a few people leaving at different times. Hours can go by. It can be quite effective at actually building a big audience as well, because the nice thing about lots of people taking part is you can sometimes persuade them to share the show with their own audiences, and that gets a lot more traction socially as well.

Jerod Morris: You just had people coming in and out? Every few minutes they would come in and someone else would come out at pre-determined times, and they were just using the Hangout link to get there?

David Bain: Exactly, yeah. I was doing that first of all with Blab, but Blab of course disappeared. Blab was a really cool way to do it because you could actually kick people out of Blab, which was quite useful sometimes. With Google Hangouts you can’t actually do that. That can be a bit of a pain. You have to ask people, “Will you leave now please?” rather than actually kicking them out.

Jerod Morris: I’m glad you mentioned that. You’re right, on Hangouts, the actual way that you’re “supposed to invite people” is kind of clunky, and I found that people would just get confused. If you just grab the link, put it in an email, and tell people to click here, it’ll take them right to the Hangout window. How have you tried to avoid the other issues that could come with Hangouts? For instance, people need a certain upload speed for their connection, making sure that their microphone settings are okay so they’re not coming on and doing a check, check, or they’re muted and you can’t hear them — how did you work out all of those issues when you were broadcasting live?

David Bain: I used ScheduleOnce for people to book with me. When they book a time to join me on the show, they’ll automatically receive an email that gives them another link and will explain to them precisely how the event will work, when they’re expected to join, who else is joining, what my advice is in terms of basic audio equipment, what to do, and what not to do. That does help a lot of the time.

You will, of course, sometimes get people joining who have selected the wrong microphone in Google Hangouts, or Google Hangouts has selected the wrong microphone for them. It means that sometimes it’s an issue with, “Well try this. Try that.” That can be a bit frustrating. With so many guests joining over a period of time like that, you do tend to get issues like that. I had a few issues with that kind of thing for my last live show.

What I ended up doing, was I had the book produced that you mentioned at the start of the show. I had the book produced from the live event. I had a transcriber write everything to begin with. Then I categorized everything, made everything into chapters, wrote some context around it, and then actually re-recorded the video based upon the format and the sequence that I had actually written as part of the book. I haven’t really pushed the original live video from that event because there were some issues, but it gives me an opportunity to cut the video down, make it better quality, and then submit them separately to Facebook. I then did some paid boosting on Facebook as well. There are other ways that you can use the content afterwards if you do have challenges.

Jerod Morris: Very cool. Very cool. I’m assuming that everybody that’s listening has gotten a lot out of this. I certainly have, as someone who does a lot of live videos, so I’m really excited that we had this chance to talk David. I want to give you a chance — you obviously have a ton of experience in podcasting beyond just creating live events. I think you’ve done — is it over 200 episodes now?

David Bain: Yeah, 200 episodes of this show, and probably another 100 of other shows as well.

Jerod Morris: Congratulations on making it that far. As we all know, it is not easy to make it.

David Bain: Thank you. I recorded my first podcast in the year 2006 I think, but took it very part-time until about 2014 where I really kicked on and committed to it.

Jerod Morris: We could talk for hours, I’m sure, about lessons that you’ve learned and all the experience that you’ve had. Just to close this, what has maybe been the biggest lesson that you have learned during all of your time in podcasting, or the thing that you would go back right now and tell yourself back when you started in 2006 to maybe help make your road a little bit easier as a podcaster?

David Bain: A single one? It’s tough to choose a single one, but I will try. I will actually distill it down to nothing technical, nothing to do with setting up how to podcast runs like that. Simply, people are people. No matter who you want to be talking to, they’re still just a person. They’re still just the same size as you, and you needn’t have any fear talking to anyone. Everyone just wants to have a normal conversation. Relax, have a normal conversation with someone and your listener will appreciate it more.

Jerod Morris: You know what’s beautiful about that? Have you ever talked to Jonny Nastor, my co-host? My normal co-host on The Showrunner.

David Bain: I haven’t no.

Jerod Morris: He basically says that exact same thing. That’s his main philosophy, just be human. Be a person. Treat people like they’re people, which they are. Have a conversation. It’s awesome that that is your final lesson, because it’s exactly probably what Jonny would have said if he were here. I could not agree more. I think it’s an essential lesson, so I’m glad that you said that.

David Bain: That’s a great way to finish it.

Jerod Morris: It is. It is a great way. Well David Bain, thank you very much for joining us. What is the best place for folks who want to connect with you more and learn more about what we talked about today?

David Bain: Thanks again for having me, Jerod. It was really great to be on with you. In terms of reaching out to me personally, probably Twitter is the place that I use personally the most, @DavidBain, David Bain, and of course DigitalMarketingRadio.Com.

Jerod Morris: Excellent. Reach out to David. Again, David, we appreciate you being here on this episode of The Showrunner.

David Bain: Thanks again.

Jerod Morris: Thank you very much for joining us on this episode of The Showrunner. Jonny should be back next week. We will have a brand new episode. In the meantime, make sure that you go to Showrunner.FM/Report. Check out our free report, “The Beginner’s Guide to Launching a Remarkable Podcast.”

It’s geared toward beginners, but even if you’ve been around for a little while and you just want a refresher or you want to check and make sure that you’ve got the fundamentals correct, go to Showrunner.FM/Report, get the report, and you’ll also get a really cool email sequence too that will ask you questions like, “What are you afraid of,” and make you face up to, own up to those things that you might be afraid of, because our goal is to help you get moving and to help you move past some of those fears so that you can experience all the wonderful benefits of running a remarkable show. Showrunner.FM/Reports. Thanks again, and we’ll talk to you next week.

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