Welcome to Podcast Suck, a podcast about starting a podcast, where we dive headfirst into the wild, wacky, and sometimes frustrating world of podcasting. If you've ever sat down with a microphone, hit record, and thought, what on earth am I doing? Or if you're just curious about the magic behind your favorite shows, then you're in the right place. You're ready for laughs, insights, and a whole lot of what not to do advice as we embark on this podcasting journey together. Let's dive in. What's happening, everybody? Happy Monday to you. Coming to you from the brand new Podcast Launch Lab studio. This is all you see right now. because we're still getting settled, but we're in, we're open, we're live. Only took a couple of weeks to get settled. I had to switch things up a little bit as we're constantly doing as business owners and entrepreneurs and podcasters. And we decided to close the last studio that we were in because some big daddy Warbucks company came in and said, Hey, we want to take over this whole floor. They were all executive suites. So I had just built the thing out. We had just moved. And I thought, come on, y'all. He said, we're going to move you to another space. I said, the heck you are. So my lease was up on my home soon. And I said, you know what, let's just move out of here. throw everything in storage for a couple months until our lease is up. And let's go get a two bedroom. It'll be double the space that I'll have. I'll use the extra bedroom as the new studio. I don't have to go there. We are officially work from home, baby. Work from home again. I'm kind of excited about it. I go in and out. gosh, I got to get out of here. I want to go work somewhere. And then back in the season of man, it's really nice to just kind of do my morning routine, go to the gym, workout, do my thing, and then just walk down the hallway and boom, we're ready to podcast, baby. So we're podcasting, we're recording content. We're helping folks launch a podcast. We are off to an absolutely record start for 2025. I am so excited about that because well, there's not a better way to start off a new year with breaking records and helping folks understand what they don't know that they don't know about the world of podcasting. More importantly, what's possible with the world of podcasts. So if you're tuning into the podcast, listening to the show, Hey, thanks for tuning in. We record the podcast live on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. so that there is a video component to the recording of this. This is by no means, no stretch of the imagination, a video podcast, you knuckleheads video podcast do not exist. I don't care what anybody says. If you're a celebrity and a big gigantic name, you probably have a show on YouTube and it gets distributed as a podcast and on YouTube and the other platforms that you've got out there. but you ain't got no video podcast. Okay. It's either a video or a podcast. So everyone argues with that. And I know it's a very unpopular opinion, but I'm sticking to my guns. And for good reason, there's enough work in and of itself. We just recording a podcast episode. Heck you turn your camera on. You got a video component there. Sure. You chop up the content. I've never seen a podcast take off in astronomical numbers on YouTube, unless you're a gigantic name or a celebrity. So there's that. Okay. Rant over. So it's the beginning of the year. It's beginning of February. January is finally over. Holy cow. Everlasting gobstopper, January, 2025. But a lot of people complaining that January took a long time. I'm all right with January taking a long time because it's the beginning of the year. We want as much time as possible. I swear this headphone cord is the worst part of podcasting. It's the worst ever. Those of you listening to the podcast, my cord always gets in the way. I know I can use Bluetooth. No, I can't. You know why? I am anti-Bluetooth in podcasting, anti-Bluetooth in any content for good reason. You know why? Because Bluetooth works when you don't need it to. It doesn't work when you need it to. It cuts in, it cuts out, it's wireless, it's not dependable. I know, I know, I know. Your AirPods are life. Your Beats by Dre, they are the deal. You use them for sales calls and content and blah, blah, blah. Listen, good old hardwired, especially into my RODECaster here. Best case scenario, but you gotta deal with the wire. So today I wanna talk to you about starting the new year off right, even though it's February 1st. with getting into the content game. Well, social media has been around for 20 plus years now. I think, okay, let's just call it 17 years, 2008, okay? 2006, Facebook came on the scene. People were like, I'm not doing that. MySpace started to fade out a little bit. LinkedIn's the first player on the block, fun fact. But we've been in this game here for, a good 17 years. People are finally getting the memo that all the eyeballs are in the newsfeed. That's right. There are scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. If you're not there, well, guess what? It's just like being in the yellow pages or having a billboard back in the eighties and nineties. People just don't know about you unless you're an advertiser. You're advertising in newspapers and in magazines and in D all the bubble. Guess what? Friends, Let me welcome you to the 21st century. Let me welcome you to 2025, a brand new year. We are living in a content era that we have been, by the way, for the past 17 years. You're just getting the memo though, but a better way to get in the content game than to start a podcast. Why? Well, a podcast is a piece of content. So number one, you're recording a podcast episode, just like I'm doing right now. I'm also going live on Facebook and on LinkedIn and on YouTube. Those will permanently stay there as video pieces of content. a video recording of this podcast episode. We're then turning it into a podcast episode as well. So the podcast episode gets distributed to Apple and Spotify and everywhere else. Podcasts are consumed. So that gives me a handful of platforms to distribute both video content and audio content. Now we can take it a step further. My team will take this episode, we'll turn it into a blog post. We'll post on podcastlaunchlab.com. That'll help out our SEO efforts, help us get index. So when people are searching, start a podcast or best podcast, Mike, or who's this Sebastian Russ guy, boom, website pops up. You got to be creating this content in order for it to get indexed. All of this content gets indexed. You ever search for your name, ever Google your name and your LinkedIn profile shows up. Well, I don't know, Sebastian, cause I'm not on, I'm not on LinkedIn. You may want to change that. Cause I think LinkedIn is a 365 day, 24 seven perpetual nonstop networking opportunity. It really is. You just got to post once a day between eight and 10 AM. I've posted about, uh, those of you sleeping on LinkedIn before, and I'll continue to. preach that LinkedIn gospel because LinkedIn is a very effective B2B platform. YouTube, obviously people are going to YouTube for two reasons, to be entertained and to get their questions answered. Okay. So you're able to achieve a bunch of different objectives by going live on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn. You only need, maybe, maybe you just want to go live on Facebook. That's cool. But if you have a structured way of going live and what you're going to talk about, a lot of people are like, I just want to go live on Facebook.

Sebastian Rusk

And then I want to turn it into a podcast episode.

Listen, if you're not talking and teaching something tangible that people can go, Oh wow, I really needed to know about that. And then you're, you're, you're structuring it in such a way that it can be edited and turned into a podcast episode. Sure. Go live. That's exactly what I'm going to take my, take my game plan right here of going live on Facebook. And then my team extracts the audio from it. We'll put an intro on it. We'll put an outro on it. That's, Hey, welcome to this podcast. Here's your host, Sebastian Rusk. End of the episode outro. Thanks for tuning in, subscribe, and we'll see you next time. That's an intro and an outro, the bookends of your podcast episode. They will, uh, turn that into a podcast episode. Then they're going to take the video of this. and they're gonna chop up clips for reels on Instagram and video content for LinkedIn. LinkedIn's going big on video content. Shorts on YouTube, that's, but just so you know. If you're like, I want to just start it on YouTube. Listen, YouTube is a gigantic time and money investment. And unless you can invest into actually having someone get you launched on YouTube, help you coach you through every single video and the strategy and the uploading and the thumbnails and the keywords and the descriptions and the titles don't bother with YouTube. Okay. It's not a post and pray. Well, at least we're up there. No one cares. You're up there. If you're doing a crappy job, So I've been at the YouTube game, shout out to my boy Owen video for probably about, I would say a good seven years now we're, we're hovering around 6,500 subscribers. We can check every month for 150, 200 bucks a month, no big deal. And we do get leads from time to time. We have figured out the YouTube strategy. It can always be better, but I'm here to tell you the most traction that I get on YouTube. is with YouTube shorts. And when I go live, I do videos just like this. So that's just a little YouTube. So let's see out there. I want to, I want to do it all. I want to, I want to do podcasts. I want to do you. Hey, why don't you get really good at one thing? If you start a podcast, get really good at it, get 50 episodes underneath your belt, then you can start swinging for the fences and talk about YouTube and the other. Stop trying to be all things to everybody because it's not sustainable. If you have a full content team and a marketing team around you and all you got to do is show up and share what you know. Cool. Most people are not doing that. but at least start somewhere. Podcast is a great place to actually start now. Great. Sebastian. I get this question a lot. Where do I start? Well, that's a load question. Cause there are several different steps in that process. I got a YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash podcast launch lab. That'll has an entire library of every single thing you can ever ask about starting a podcast. I also have this podcast that you're listening to or watching a recording of the podcast episode. called Podcast Suck. Go to podcastsuck.com, subscribe to the podcast. And there are, uh, I don't know, 40, 45 episodes in there. And I try to teach people as much as I know in every single episode about the power of podcasting. Start with episode one, unpack it from there. But of course, I'm going to tell you, don't try to go at this alone. The faster that you can, as my coach and brilliant mind, Dan Martell would say, buy back your time. Great book, by the way, bestseller. detail and for good reason. When you read it, you'll learn how to buy back your time and start doing things that matter and spending time on things that matter, not that things that don't matter. Gosh, I see so many people on a weekly basis trying to, Oh my gosh, you're like, I'm editing my episode and then I'm trying to do the cover art. And what do you think about YouTube and spot? Just stop trying to figure it out on your own. Find a freelancer, hire a VA, Get it off your plate. You're not going to be able to leverage a podcast as a sales generation and networking tool. If you have to constantly record the episodes, edit the episodes, upload the episodes and be all things to everybody. It's just not sustainable. Well, Sebastian, I enjoy it. You don't enjoy editing podcasts. Okay. I would rather wake up in the morning, punch myself in the face and eat my pillow and then edit anything. But I have a whole incredible team of individuals that love editing content. Shout out to the podcast launch lab team, they love it. They take great pride in delivering quality work, taking my work, chopping it up and turning it into the content that I don't want to personally do myself, which is allows me to do stuff like this, create content, work with our existing clients, get in the right rooms, get on the right stages, write books, create content, do what I do to share my message with the world. I couldn't do all of those things if I tried to be all things to everybody. And I just, let me just handle it all. Let me just burn that midnight oil and edit away. I used to do it. It was miserable. It brought me to a place where I hated the work that I did. Literally. I'm like, I hate this. I don't ever want to do this ever again. And then I hired one person and then I hired two people and then I hired three people. Now we've got a nice little T5 and it's a streamlined process. It's like an assembly line. I record this episode. I upload the raw content. I move on with my day. Next thing you know, we got content. We got an episode out. We have multiple pieces of content.

That's just the way it works.

So I hope this resonates with you.

And I hope this starts to land with you on, should I be editing the episode or not editing the episode? So here's the deal. Starting a podcast will solve all of your social media content problems. Number one. Number two, that's the downside of working from home. Somebody just knocked on my door. I'm not going to get up though.

Maybe it's Amazon. Anyway, starting a podcast will solve all of your social media content problems, but it also, it's a vehicle for you to be able to network and build relationships, new people, and also be able to create content consistently so that you are in the newsfeed and people are finding you. I'm telling you, I am living proof that this strategy works. And then my clients, we have an entire roster of agency clients of shows we've launched and shows we manage of people that actually use their podcasts on a daily basis to grow their business. Hey Bob, let's get you on a podcast. Hey Jenny, let's get you on the podcast. I know damn well that you don't have a podcast, but I want to have a relationship with you. I want to do something for you first. And then I want to offer you the opportunity to launch a podcast. Once I do that, we have a relationship established. We're gonna do business together. I've turned a podcast episode into a revenue generating opportunity. You can do the same thing. I don't care what you do for your business. I don't care if it's service-based business. I don't care if it's online business. I don't care if it's offline business. I don't care if you're an attorney, a realtor, mortgage broker. I don't care what you do. You have to generate new business, even if it's from referrals, even if it's from marketing, even if it's from advertising. And the only way that you're doing that is getting in front of the right people in order to be able to build a relationship with them. A podcast allows you to do that at scale. Okay. What do you mean it's scale smash? Listen, you can record a couple episodes a day. If you really want to do, if you, if you said, I'm going to record a couple episodes a week and all they are zoom meetings, that you have scheduled with somebody you want to do business with who's happened to be recording a podcast episode and building rapport with them, then it's a sales call, podcast interviews, networking opportunities, networking meetings, turn to sales opportunities, all because of the podcast. Then the podcast episode drops. People hear about it. New people learn about it. New people learn about you. They reach out to you. Hey, I heard your episode. Really love that. Really need some help with that. Can we schedule a call? Then they see the micro content to chop up and get posted on socials. Wow. That was a really cool read a lot. That helped me a lot to actually answer my question that I had pending in my mind. Anyway, do you have a link that we can schedule a time to chat about doing business together? This happens every single day, all day long. I don't care what business that you're in. I want this to really land for you. I really want this to resonate with you because unless you hate money and you hate new business, The podcast is an absolute no brainer for you. I've been preaching this gospel for the past nine years and I'm not slowing down. We are just now entering in to the audio era that Gary Vee predicted we were in seven years ago. We're just getting started as radio continues to get replaced as The audio era of content continues to be unpacked and established. Podcasting is not going here. I was at Podcast Movement in D.C. last year, and I felt like the tiniest minnow in the fricking pond. Why? Because there were big, gigantic brands there. I'm heading to New York in a couple weeks for On Air Fest in Brooklyn. CNN and Bloomberg and all these major news outlets are gonna be there in addition to major brands. Spotify, Apple, these cats are not slowing down by any stretch of the imagination. I feel like a teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny little minnow in this big, gigantic audio pond, and I am so glad to be there. In fact, I'm not speaking in honor of Fest this year. I probably will next year, but I'm not speaking this year, but I wanted to get so in the mix and so in the fold with what's going on with the podcasting, slash audio content industry so much. I decided to volunteer for a few hours every single day and it's my birthday. You gotta understand my life is events. I'm usually on stage or doing something content wise when it comes to live events. I'm going to be on the other side of the fence. I'm going to be checking folks in. Hey, listen, I'm the first person that they see every single person comes get their name tag and check in. I'm going to get the opportunity to meet. You got to think strategically here. Plus I'm getting in the mix with Dean that's hosting the event. I'm getting in the mix with speakers. Um, I get, by the way, when you're, when you volunteer, you pretty much got all access to the event too. It's like a two day event all across Brooklyn, large brands everywhere. You got to be strategic to really understand and capitalize on these opportunities. Now I'm just using this example for the podcasting industry and world. but there's a event and interactive installations and experiences for just about every industry out there. And you've got to be creative. One of my favorite things to do, if you're attending an event and you want to meet people, I'm also in March next month. We're taking our talents out to Las Vegas for Grant Cardone's final 10X Con. I've never been to one of Grant's events, but 10X Con is undeniable. The speaker lineup has always been undeniable, and this is the last time he's ever doing it. Events cost a lot of money. They're money makers. I completely understand. filthy rich. I completely understand why he's no longer doing these events, but I'm going cause there's about 7,000 business owners and entrepreneurs that are going to be there. And I want to meet them. I'm going to be running around with my podcast, suck shirts and podcasts, suck hats on. And I'm going to be connecting with people and I'm going to be interviewing them in the hallways. I'm going to be interviewing them at the networking events. I'm going to be interviewing them in the lobby. Why? I want to meet them. I want to build rapport with them and I want to generate a lead while I'm there. Multiple leads of qualified people that want to do business with me and want to start a podcast. Take my phone and get my. my wireless mic setup. I put this on an iPod, find some decent lighting in the lobby. I hit record, give them a mic, put on a mic on my shirt, and we just have a quick 10 or 15 minute conversation about them. What's your business about? What are you all about? What brings you to Las Vegas? What's your biggest takeaway so far from the week? Do you understand how easy it is to create content, build relationships, and close new business, increase sales, and grow your business if you're just willing to get in the podcast game? You don't need a studio, head of this, I gotta need, everybody's waiting for everything to be all perfect, instead of just grabbing your phone and pressing record. Imperfect action. You can always refine as you go, but just get started. All right, I'm a little bit, I'm on a little bit of a rant today, and for good reason, because, well, I wanna make sure that what I'm telling you is landing. I want to make sure that what I am communicating to you when it comes to how you create content, what you can be doing to create content and the opportunities, most important, everybody loves new business, loves new deals. I love a record month. We all love that. But you got to do the work and content is the vehicle in order to do that work. I got a call right now that I'm late for, so I got to run. Thanks for tuning into this episode. If you're listening to the podcast episode, thank you so much for tuning in. Please share the podcast with people that you know that may want to start a podcast or maybe they don't even know they want to start a podcast. That's how the show grows. If you're tuning in on YouTube or Facebook or LinkedIn, thanks for watching. Leave me a comment below, questions, thoughts, ideas, concerns. I got you. Until next time, listen, remember the time is now and podcasts suck. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. That's the way we get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and share the show with someone you know should start a podcast or may already have one. And remember, podcasts suck if you don't have one. Until next time, friends.