When is it a Good Idea to Join a Network?

Speaker 1 (00:02)

Hello and welcome Podcast Me Anything and ask me Anything for all things podcasting. I'm your host, Ben Clay, and I am joined here in the studio with Matthew Passy. The Podcast control. Matthew and I wanted to move the conversation beyond the Podcasting 101 topics and move into the intermediate to advance podcasting strategy. To reach your goals, to interact with the show, submit your questions to be answered live, book a podcast audio with Matthew, or find the notes from today's show. Head on over to Podcastnathing.com. Welcome back to another Podcast Me Anything. I'm here joined with Matthew Passy where we speak on all the things paranormal, strange, and weird out there in the podcast universe. And today will not be anything different because we have a great news article. Welcome to Podcast Today. Matthew.

Speaker 2 (00:45)

It's great to be here. And you say it's not going to be different, but we are going to do something a little bit different later on.

Speaker 1 (00:49)

We are going to do something different a little bit later on. We're going to flip the script. We talked about how we can change it up and bring in some spice and variety into the podcast today. And I hinted at the strange and paranormal because the things that people do in podcasting world to inhibit it, to put some security around it don't always seem natural. And the news out of Facebook in the past week was that Facebook is now putting the mute button automatically on any music that it determines to be copyrighted. Now, this doesn't determine you have the Copyright. It doesn't mean if you legitimately purchased the Copyright, if it detects as an original artist, it's automatically going to mute it despite any legality you have for a right to use it. And it's one of those is like, really, do we really need that within the Facebook community? Is that really going to create all this big, like, fanfare that we need to manage? It was a weird moment. Similar for you probably. Matthew.

Speaker 2 (01:42)

Yeah. I mean, I don't really use commercial music. I don't encourage anyone. In fact, I strongly discourage anybody from using commercial music in the podcast that we produce. But I do think it is an interesting thing that Facebook is just blanket muting anytime they hear any music in podcasts that they are going to feature on their platform. So like I said, it doesn't matter if you have the rights, if you've secured the rights, if you spend a lot of time or money or energy or whatever it is to get the rights to a commercial song, if it's on your podcast, it is not going to show up when you're listening to it on Facebook. And by the way, this is one of the reasons I've had clients who have said to me, I really want to use a commercial song. And they said it's really expensive and difficult. And they said, no, I want to do it like I'm going to spend the money. I'm going to go after I'm going to do this. I was like, listen, you could spend the money. You could do all those things. You could figure out how to get it done.

Speaker 2 (02:37)

But at the end of the day, you're still going to be playing defense on your show constantly because the platforms, obviously Facebook included, are going to assume that you don't have that rights, right? Even if you have it, you publish it, somebody's going to report it. And then you're going to have to be the one who has to respond to all these things and say, no, I have the rights. And all that is to say that playing commercial music on your show, you're not going to get the return on investment that you have to make in terms of money and effort to secure the rights.

Speaker 1 (03:09)

It's like buying a $1000 microphone. It's not going to grow your podcast overnight. Just like $1,000 copyrighted song isn't going to grow it overnight either.

Speaker 2 (03:17)

Well, and if you think $1,000 is going to get you a commercially copyrighted song, you're out of your mind. But then, right. Think about how much you have to spend in lawyers and coming up with the agreement and then defending it and then responding to all these DMAs and takedowns. Right? It's just not going to make a difference. And so I really don't think it's worth it. Listen, it's one thing if you do a music show, right? Your whole thing is reviewing music, talking about musicians and stuff like that. I understand it's a little bit different, but for everybody else out there, just stop. It's just not worth the effort.

Speaker 1 (03:49)

There was also a moment where I thought, like, Facebook has only been in podcasting for less than a year. And usually when you're trying to make a splash in podcast and you're trying to be innovative, you're trying to do things that the other players maybe haven't actually give a reason to actually care about listening to podcasts within the Facebook app. It sounds good on a whiteboard, but in reality, I'm not thinking of Facebook as a place to go search my podcast because the user experience makes apples looks like it's a red carpet experience. And so out of all the things that Facebook could have put energy towards putting energy behind this mute button that most people would have said it is a problem, but most people just deal with it and they just assume it's not a problem to work on other things. Like, none of the other players are even focusing on this. And instead of giving Facebook news to talk about something really innovative in their Facebook atmosphere, they decide to make the news for something that just seemed really weird and bizarre to put energy behind.

Speaker 2 (04:43)

Well, listen, Facebook and all these other platforms, they have to do a lot of work in rigmarole and dealings with the music industry, the licensing industry. There's so much content that gets posted to their platforms that should not belong on there Facebook. In the one article that we are looking at that will post on the show Notes with us, it talks about Facebook has a special relationship with Sony. Not going to say who knows, but there is way more going on that is way costlier to Facebook to allow people to just get away with playing music on their platform. Then you and I need to understand it is just a big, big corporate mess when it comes to copyrighted content. And these platforms. Most of them have agreements in place. We can use music in our reels and our tick tocks and all these different things. Right? Companies are paying for the ability to let their users do it, but many times they didn't or don't think about podcasts. So for them, it's just it's not worth a headache. Mute done right. We've already negotiated enough. We're not dealing with this right now.

Speaker 1 (05:53)

Well, let's dive out of the paranormal world and jump into a flipping the script. And we're going to talk about not necessarily a deep dive today, but we're going to talk about how we listen to podcasts, but then also kind of expand a little bit about how people listen to podcasts because it's something as a podcaster, you spend so much time focused on your little ecosystem, making sure that all little corners are pinned and done, everything's done where it needed to be. But we often don't really enter the stream of regular podcast flow. Like, I've been in car rides, for example, with completely different podcast listener habits, completely different subscribing podcasts, and we'll binge different podcasts, and I'll be exposed to like, man, that was a really good podcast that I never even fathomed of a podcast being done like that. And those worlds happen all over the place. So tell us a bit about what your podcasting habits are and what makes a podcast worthy of hitting that follow button.

Speaker 2 (06:48)

So for me, it is difficult to find time to listen to podcasts for personal consumption because I do spend all day listening to audio for work, and so I don't have a lot of time. I used to listen to podcasts when I was taking the kids to school. If I was commuting, running around doing errands, cooking, cleaning, I would say exercising. But I haven't been exercising lately, so I can't give that as an excuse or as a time that I listen to the podcast. These days I primarily listen when I'm making breakfast in the morning for the kids, cleaning up from that and if I'm doing any other light chores around the house or if I'm driving around and running errands. So not a lot of podcasts. I don't have a lot of time for a ton of podcasts during the week. Every day. I do listen to the Start Here podcast from ABC because it gives a nice breadth of the news that is happening in the world without taking itself too seriously. I think the host is a fun job of laying out the story and having some fun with it. And they've been doing it for just over a year now and good job on them.

Speaker 2 (07:52)

A few others that when I have extra time I listen to. I have always listened to wait, wait, don't tell me again, being a bit of a news chunky that was also one of the first podcasts I ever listened to and so it just has a place in my heart that I will never let go of. I actually abandoned recently. Not abandoned, but I don't listen to it as much. I used to listen to podcast America more often because I wanted a little bit more politics in my world, especially when things were feeling more uncertain and scarier in the political situation that might be coming back next year. But for right now, I don't need that anxiety in my life. What I have started listening to more often is Smartless, the Jason Bass Bateman, Will Arnett, Sean Hayes podcast or The Interview other celebrities. I just find it fun, relaxing, and very enjoyable to check out and pretty light hearted. So again, I don't drive all that often, so when I do have time, there's just enough extra content out there for me to get behind. But in fact one that I recently wrapped up and it's because of Smart List because they recently joined the Wondering Network.

Speaker 2 (09:05)

So every so often Smart List will throw a promo to another show in their feed. And so whether or not you ask for it or not, you can get teasers of episodes of other podcasts in there. And one that really caught my eye was this one called Operator and it was all about and this is going to sound horrible when I say this, but it was all about this massive phone sex operation in the 90s that absolutely just took off and kind of changed the world for 1801 900 numbers. A lot of the technology that we know about phone technology today came from this industry and it was just a fascinating story of what they did, who worked there, what are some of the technology and why they blew up? And so that one kind of caught my attention like eight episodes. It was really good. Do not listen to your kids on that one. It's not super graphic, but obviously anybody who is even mildly impressionable is going to hear the wrong stuff. And then more recently I forgot how I discovered this podcast. But I started listening to one called Doomsday and honestly, I don't even know the host name.

Speaker 2 (10:15)

I don't even think he mentions it in the beginning of the show. But they look at very tragic historical events break down, what happened, what went wrong, what are some of the lessons that can be taken away? But what makes it so weirdly enjoyable is this guy just like deadpan dry delivery on everything. And so like you talked about, there was like a massive pile up in Kalamazoo, Michigan five or six years ago that luckily didn't kill a lot of people, but just was like this spectacular disaster in the middle of the winter. There was one about oil energy plan in Venezuela that blew up and unfortunately took like hundreds of people with it. But it was just the way they deliver it, the way they get involved in it. Again, it's just really fascinating. But a couple of things that I've been hearing on podcasts that I listen to, some things that are good and some things that are bad. So starting with some things that are good, one, as I kind of alluded to with the Smart List and the Operator podcast, people dropping episodes or previews of other shows in your feed.

Speaker 2 (11:26)

I think it's one of the best ways that you can get attention for a new podcast because you're giving me a good sample. If you make the sample Interestingly enough and you leave me with a reason, I want to listen to more. Boom, I'm hooked. I take those previews and teases very seriously. And I have discovered other shows that I don't have time for, but wish I did consuming that way. I've also noticed a lot more dynamic ad insertion, which I think is good, getting ads that are a little bit more tailored. Or in my case, I'm even starting to hear more ads that are geographically tailored to my region. I think I heard a big dealership in my area advertising on the podcast, which is like, oh, that's pretty impressive. However, what I have been noticing about dynamic insertion lately and this is on the bad side is some places it's not being done well in start here a big ABC News production right now, a small company, part of the Disney Empire. I was getting the same ads back to back in one break, or I was hearing the same ad twice in an episode, even in different breaks.

Speaker 2 (12:38)

I've been hearing them they don't change their copy enough. So I've been hearing this one ad for months and months, and right as soon as they come on, I can recite the ad back to you. And that's not good or that makes it off putting in the doomsday one, he was having a problem where you have the same ad was playing back to back, and it was a terrible ad nonetheless. But I think one of the biggest flaws is this whole not updating your ad copy enough. One of the things that I think made Pod Save America Super successful, not so much. I mean, their show is good, their content is good, if you like that sort of stuff. But one of the things that I always found enjoyable about that show was their ads. Their ads are custom made every single episode. And the ads themselves have become part of the enjoyable content because they throw a lot of jokes in there, they make fun of each other in there. They bring in something topical into the discussion, into their ads. And so you never hear the same ad twice. And I think it's because of that that their advertisers are so happy with their product.

Speaker 2 (13:50)

Whereas if I hear the same ad for Supercuts and start here, I'm going to go crazy. It's kind of driving me nuts right now.

Speaker 1 (13:57)

I have so many questions. But when I want to comment too of the angle where you talk about the ads being back, I see that I hate having the paid subscription with advertising for Hulu, because Hulu does this really horrible. And also the History Channel that they'll actually put the same commercial right back in front of each other. Like, I'll have to literally watch the same thing three times before I'll get back to my show. And it's just so annoying.

Speaker 2 (14:24)

I've had the same commercial across different breaks, but never back to back with them.

Speaker 1 (14:28)

Yeah, it's just like a broken loop. It's like, really, you couldn't just sell it at a discount to give me something different here some of it's just like, I feel like the slots didn't get picked up in the default is it just takes what's already in the queue and just regurgitates it again. And I don't need to remind why Tide is a great product five times. And when I'm trying to watch Oak Island and figure out why they're not getting to the bottom of the money pay yet, like, all of those things don't matter in broadcasting in radio.

Speaker 2 (14:53)

When they don't have slots, they usually pump in a lot of PSAs public service announcements. Like, why doesn't dynamic ad insertion do that? Right. Why don't they have a library of either self promotional content or public service announcements that they can throw into the mix as a placeholder? Now I know somebody is going to say, why don't you just give us less ads? Yeah, they could give you less ads, but then if they go down to one ad and then they do well, and then they start selling three ads, you're going to get mad at, why are you giving me three ads when you used to give me one? So if you want to train people to be ready for three ads, keep three ads in there. Keep three pieces of content in there at all times.

Speaker 1 (15:30)

One question I want to dive into, and I've seen it so many different times going back and forth. What makes a format different enough that you really enjoy it? Because a lot of times when you go with different podcasts, iHeartMedia does the sidecar promotion of other podcasts really? Well, any time you're listening to an iHeartRadio station on the radio in your car, they're always promoting podcasts that are part of the iHeartMedia network on there, and they got so many good, different formats. And when you check out some of those, there's such a different flavor to those different kinds of podcasts you're like. I've never even considered structuring my podcast. Is there one in mind where you see the structure of it and you're like, I've never actually considered building up the podcast skeleton like that.

Speaker 2 (16:11)

I don't know if I would say that there is one structure in particular that I like over others. What I will say is that I do like structure in my show. One of the things about wait, wait, Tommy that I've always noticed is that they have a very good structure. It started as a radio show, right? They're up against the clock, but they do the show in a particular order. It's this and this and this. And any time they go to like a best of episode or they do something a little bit different, I listen. But I'm like, weirdly, unconsciously uncomfortable at first because I am prepared for a certain experience and I am not getting that. And so I think it's important for podcasters to have structure, have a format. I'm not going to tell you what is the best way to do that, because I think it's a little bit different for everybody else, but I think you have to be more than just let's Freeform it. I don't think you're going to build enough consistency and enough comfort in your audience for that to work. That's like what I would say there. As far as what attracts me to a new show, it really is a mix of do I enjoy, like, does the host bring me into the story and do I get an emotional attachment to it?

Speaker 2 (17:35)

I think a lot of podcasters are really good at telling me what they're going to do, but they don't make me feel anything for their content. And if I don't feel anything for your content, whether it's I laugh, I cry, or I'm interested, I'm curious. I go right there's. That old saying, you'll forget what people said to you. You'll never forget how they made you feel. Well, the same goes for your content. If you're not going to make me feel something for your content, it's probably going to be very forgettable to me. So I like shows that make me feel something, and usually it's curiosity or humor or smarter than I typically go for in my content.

Speaker 1 (18:17)

What about I think you're going to be biased because you are at heart and audio engineer. What about those podcasts that do a brilliant job bringing the audio experience into not just like what you're saying, but that maybe have like one of those subscriptions where they have a repertoire of music to tone with the different swaps going in and out, and it's more of like a production. Do you get any additional value? One that comes to mind is 20,000 Hz, which kind of takes weird bizarre things and dives into them. But they do a brilliant way of orchestrating the ads, the intros outros, and they're never the same. It's just kind of like Orchestra effect that the podcast brings that you're just going along with this feeling of the music. Do you get a similar one with that?

Speaker 2 (19:01)

I mean, I would say that shows that have the capacity to do that and do that well will hold my attention and will do a good job. I have unconsciously been listening to a couple of shows and been like, oh, what made them do that? Why do they put this here? How is the music helping me? Even at start here, they kind of have some of their regular elements that you listen for and that you're used to and like helps with the timing of the show. But then when they tell a good story, they'll pop in some different music and it's almost like a composer is sound design in the show. And sure, it helps, but I also don't want people hearing this and thinking, oh, I need a sound designer. Well, a sound designer is not cheap for every episode and it takes time for you to establish your sound for this person to do that. And again, I think it's one of those things where for most people, the payoff is not going to equal the return on the cost of it will not bring them the return on the investment that they're hoping for.

Speaker 2 (20:04)

At least the return on the investment isn't necessary for what they're trying. Basically what I'm saying is for most people, it's way too much money. It's not going to make that much of a difference.

Speaker 1 (20:14)

Well, let's turn that question on its head, because there is a customer out there and most of this podcast, we're deep diving past the one on one stuff, past every podcast that can podcast without a big sound designer in the background. But if I'm a brand wanting to bring a feeling Besides words to my podcast, how do I decide as a Bryan of business that maybe has the production value to throw $2,000 at an episode and to get maybe like a full day's work to prepare an entire episode done? How does a brand decide? Yeah, that's what I want versus what's the right question maybe is the right thing to think about of when do you go big because you can and you want to and when do you meet yourself with? I don't really need to do that.

Speaker 2 (21:04)

I think it depends on what is your expected outcome. So if you're a ABC News, not just a national you are a global news brand. You put out one of the most popular and most watched news programs every single night. You have a certain level of respect and gravitas that when you are going to put out a podcast, you can't put out a podcast, expect to get 5000 listeners, sell a couple of CPMs, of hello fresh ads and consider that a success. There is a level of return that big brands are looking for, whether it's direct return because they're able to monetize. So let's say for a Disney owned news podcast on the number one broadcast news network, maybe they need to hit a million listeners to consider that a commercial success for them. And so if that's the case, if they're going to get a million listeners, million listeners is X CPMs, which means they expect to make X amount of dollars, which means the budget for making each episode is X. And so if those numbers work out, then you do it. If you're a financial advisor and your big thing is I need to pick up five new clients this year.

Speaker 2 (22:34)

And that's the reason why I'm doing this podcast. Each of those clients will get you call it $5,000, then maybe the cost of producing your episodes doesn't warrant spending $50,000 a year on just a dedicated sound designer and the rights and all the different things that would come along with it. So it really is a matter of looking at what is going to be your return or what is your expected return, your expected audience on this. Now, that also means that it might not be there. Look, not everyone's going to launch on day one and have exactly what they want. You need a three to six month plan or whatever it looks like to possibly get to where you want to be. But I think that's the difference. If you're happy making a couple of hundred extra Bucks a month on your podcast, then it doesn't warrant spending $100,000 a year to produce it. But if you're expecting to make millions off your podcast, then yes, spending $100,000 is proportional to what you hope to get out of it.

Speaker 1 (23:45)

You know what I heard that is one word, leverage and understanding. What are you trying to leverage with your podcast as a tool? And if you think of just like basic simple machines and mechanisms, when you want to lift something heavy, you try to create the right lever to lift this heavy object. And if you're trying to lift an advertising budget to a million dollars, you need the right lever that's going to be able to be able to handle that and creating the right vehicle within your podcast, the right structure, investment kind of answers a lot of those questions that I put you up for. So we didn't actually intend to deep dive into that question. But I think that was a really good place to park and to think about because leverage is a great example of when you're designing a podcast of what people will listen to and why people listen to other ones. Figuring out what you're trying to leverage is a good example of figuring out where to throw your money at as well.

Speaker 2 (24:39)

Well, and I think it goes back to one of the original points that we make over and over again each and every week. And in fact, it was a point I talked about with V. Dave Jackson, who I had a chance to chat with last night and mentioned that he listened to an episode of the show. If you don't know why you're doing this, don't do it right. The thing that always drives me crazy is the person who says, I really want to start a podcast, but I don't know what I want to talk about. Then don't start a podcast. It's not a need to have. It's not something that everybody is entitled to. It is a delivery vehicle for content. And if you have the right content, or if you have the right strategy, or if you have the right personality, if this medium makes sense for something that you are passionate about, then do it. Don't just be passionate about having an RSS feed. That's not that interesting.

Speaker 1 (25:33)

The RSS feeds learn how to code them into the Web browser because there's a whole ecosystem of figuring out how to get technology to read RSS feeds automatically.

Speaker 2 (25:42)

Yeah, I'm second with Ben Says.

Speaker 1 (25:45)

So let me put a cherry on top of this, because a question that we want to tie it to of how we listen and figuring out ties into what I perfectly set up there with. Leverage. When do you leverage a podcast network to reach your goals?

Speaker 2 (26:01)

So I like the way that you're putting leverage on there. I'm going to flip it just a little bit. For someone who might be hearing this and wondering what that means is when should I join a podcast network? Or what do I consider when joining a podcast network? So what happens? One is that people either get a cold email, right? Somebody is going around scraping RSS feeds, finding email addresses, and sending it out to whoever saying, hey, I really like your show. I like you to join our network. Sounds nice, right? Somebody wants my show. That's cool. But you have to ask yourself, what are they getting from you and what are you getting from them? And are they equal? Right? There are some networks that want your content simply because they are going to sell as many impressions or downloads as possible to the current advertisers that they have. They don't care who your audience is. They don't care how good your show is. They don't care what else they can leverage from you. They just want more downloads. And so they will cram your show so full of ads because all they're doing is selling time to somebody else.

Speaker 2 (27:13)

That's not a good fit. Or you have networks that promise you the stars and the moon and the sky to get your audience, and then they don't deliver on anything. They get you to sign the contract, they get ownership of your content. They get to take over all of your intellectual property, and then they basically tell you, go spit when it comes time to actually asking for things that you were supposed to be asking for. This actually played out for me very recently. I'm not going to name names because I don't want to incriminate anybody but a potential client of mine. We were talking about working together. We were talking about getting their show launched. They discovered a studio that had its own podcast network, and they were promised all sorts of things advertising this and this. And at every turn, they were running up against the walls. One of the big ones was they were told they could sell their own advertising on top of whatever the network can get away with. So in order to do that, they need their analytics. Well, they were getting analytics, but they weren't getting analytics that were acceptable to the Advertiser because they weren't IAB analytics coming from one of the reputable services.

Speaker 2 (28:35)

And so we're like, okay, why is it such a big deal? Like, let these people get their analytics, let them get access to their Apple account, let them see what's going on in Spotify. Right. Just stop hiding stuff and let's see what's going on here. Well, they kept pushing and pushing and pushing and kept getting weirder and weirder excuses. And finally they were being told that they were getting 30, 40, 50,000 downloads a month. We finally got control of their Apple account and a couple of other things, and they were maybe getting three or $400. So this person was trying to bring big name shows into their network to build their network gravitas, to sell sponsorships and other things to other people. But it was all smoke and mirrors. And so I think you have to be really careful when you join a network. The question becomes, again, what are they getting from you and what are you really getting from them? And don't sign anything until you have a real lawyer look at your agreements because they could tell you what's on that paper. But you might be signing away stuff you don't realize you're signing.

Speaker 2 (29:54)

So I'd say if they tell you that they're going to help you monetize what's the percentage that you get versus they get? And are there any minimums or do you have any control over the content? Right. If I'm doing a show about mental health, maybe I don't want you jamming all sorts of weird stuff into my show. Or if you're doing a show for families, I don't want you selling pornography into my show. You need to have a level of control because you have the relationship with your audience, not the network. What are they giving you? They claim marketing support. Okay. What does that mean? How many posts, how big is your network? What are they really going to reach? Are you going to have to do cross promotion? Are you going to have to do cross promotion with shows that you don't agree with? Or you're not going to go along with make sure you know about that. Will they own your content? At the end of the day, if somebody is buying you your content, your brand, I would say that's a little bit of a red flag, right? If at the end of the day, if you want to get out of it and you can't get out of it and you've lost access to everything, you're not going to be very happy.

Speaker 2 (30:59)

So anything that locks you into something that you can't get out of, there's a reason why they're doing that to you. And I'm not saying don't, but I'm saying just be very careful before you sign the dotted line and get excited because somebody says they want you to join their network.

Speaker 1 (31:16)

And I think what you just highlighted is there's a beginning word question like, oh, what's podcast network? That sounds interesting. I'd like more publicity for my podcast. It sounds like something I should put energy to, but there's so much extra behind it. And I recently learned this past year that when you get a book deal from a big house publisher, they're actually buying your intellectual property. That when you do, like a book deal, generally with Penguin ramhouse, they own what you thought of. And if there was a movie created from your book, they would be the first ones to be benefited from that book and you would be beneficiary of it. So there's like, even just basic things of like, do you go the traditional route or do you go your self publishing route? One of the basic reasons could be I want to continue to own the intellectual rights of what I do and these questions of leverage. And then also another word that kind of came out in my head is gravitas. Does the podcast network have any gravitas that comes with it? And to me, as a person that's coming up and growing your podcast, you want something that's going to grow and raise your podcast to a higher level, not necessarily someone that's just going to come in and use you as another tool.

Speaker 1 (32:16)

Because we don't get into podcasting become a tool. We get into podcasting to create something that can change someone's life, usually, and to impact them and educate them and entertain them. So holding on to why you started and making sure that that network aligns with your why even going back to Simon Sinek start with Y is a good reason to figure out for the podcast network as well.

Speaker 2 (32:37)

Listen, your credibility is on the line here, right? You've built up the audience, you built us the trust, you build up the relationship. Are you willing are you getting enough out of the deal to throw all of that away? You really have to ask yourself that, because then if you say whatever, they can have it, I'll start a new one. Are people going to trust you again? It's an important question.

Speaker 1 (32:59)

Yes. And your name is on that's part of building your personal brand. Like, you're usually sharing all these things on your own social. So that part comes with an idea. And even if this is a branded podcast, making sure that there's no backlash from a brand of what does this network have within this catalog is a podcast that I don't want to be associated with this brand. There are so many big other questions that come from this podcast network. But like what you said, they do have a perfect fit. And a big one that came, I think, in 2021 was John Lee Dumas joining HubSpots podcast network that they had just formed, large entrepreneur podcaster. He gets 11 million downloads a month. And he joined what we know as a CRM system for entrepreneurs. And he's part of their network now. And a lot of his advertising comes in there. I have no details of what the actual deal entails, but there is an example of a really large podcaster partnering with a really large network to gain. And there's other businesses, but there's like maybe ten podcasts within the network. So it's a very tight knit group of these are brands that HubSpot agrees with how they talk, and they want to promote their processes as well.

Speaker 2 (34:03)

Yeah. Like I said, the benefits of being a part of a network could be right. For example, you join the Wandery Network, let's say. And don't get me wrong, they do very highly produced shows. So you're probably not getting asked, but you join the Wondery Network. Well, they're going to put teasers of your show and other feeds. They're going to put teasers of shows in your feed. They're going to run ads for your show and other shows. You're going to run ads for other shows on your show. Right. Like there is power in being part of a network. Don't get me wrong. And I think there's power in people creating and forming their own networks. I just know that there are some people out there who are trying to gobble up downloads and they sweet talk you into joining something that if you knew what you were really getting, you would never join. So just be careful and make sure you ask yourself, what am I getting out of this and what are they getting out of this? And is it really what they're telling me or just read the fine print?

Speaker 1 (35:00)

Yeah. It also kind of reminds me to wrap this whole discussion up. If anybody outside of podcasting knows what co Ops is in agriculture or any co op that's formed for any type of business function, it is essentially a podcast network just in a different industry. It's taking, for example, food co Ops. They're taking farmers that grow local vegetables and bring it to a commonplace where people go and buy it and consume it. And everybody is theoretically in a win win scenario to leverage what a little podcaster can, but a little farmer can as well as those co Ops that also help manage prices, help manage and glaviate resources. So there's a lot of benefit. Like co op co Ops exists all across the United States and those ideas have value. But again, co Ops can also be destructive and they can be very quick to set up as a way to hide maybe some alternative motive of what they're trying to get out of you. So you definitely have to go in with your eyes. But open and like you said, make sure you get a lawyer to read it over because unless you have experience in understanding what they might be trying to get or even experience with people being mischievous to you.

Speaker 1 (36:02)

Like a lot of people like me, I don't have a lot of that experience so I don't really think about how people have screwed me because it hasn't really happened. So I don't really know. But a lawyer is definitely looking into places of where people getting screwed in basic contract 101 and the golden rule.

Speaker 2 (36:17)

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is wholeheartedly do not get tricked by people promising you the moon and the stars.

Speaker 1 (36:28)

Well, Matthew, that does it for another episode. Podcast me anything. Hopefully this flipping the script we dive into a lot of different areas but we still found a way to deep dive into some different areas completely serendipitous through the conversation of talking about just what Matthew likes listen and what makes a good production worth listening to in our own behavior. So, Matthew, thanks for joining us today and we'll be back again for another episode.

Speaker 2 (36:50)

It was a pleasure and yes, if you don't mind somewhat salty content, I highly recommend checking out the operator and if you're okay with and if you like history told in a very dry, deadpan kind of way stories that are probably not being told I do recommend the doomsday podcast. Those are my two recommendations this week.