Podcast Episode 247: Behind the Scenes: Celebrating One Million Downloads – Jon “JAG” Gay

[music]

[00:00:01] Announcer: Welcome to Sound Bites, hosted by registered dietitian nutritionist Melissa Joy Dobbins. Let’s delve into the science, the psychology, and the strategies behind good food and nutrition.

[00:00:22] Melissa Joy Dobbins: Hello, and welcome to the Sound Bites Podcast. Today’s episode is a behind-the-scenes look at the podcast as we celebrate 1 million downloads. Woo.

[00:00:33] Jon Gay: 1 million.

[00:00:34] Melissa: 1 million, and another milestone that I’ll share with you in a little bit, but my guest today isn’t really a guest. My co-host, I guess you could say. He is my editor, producer, and friend, Jon Gay or JAG in Detroit, and like I said, he’s not really a guest. We’re going to have just a fun conversation. When people asked me how I was going to celebrate 1 million downloads, I said, “I just want to do something fun,” and Jon was game and he wanted to do this with me. It’s all about how it started and how it’s going and just just sharing some bloopers and some other fun stuff with y’all today. Jon, welcome to the show.

[00:01:15] Jon: Thanks for having me. We’ve got our party hats on and I’m picturing that meme in my head now of how it started versus how it’s going, so we’re ready to go.

[00:01:20] Melissa: Yes, that’s what it’s about. Yes, absolutely. Jon, I ask all of my guests to tell more about themselves, but I would love for you to share with the listeners more about you and your past life in radio, which is one of the reasons I was so interested to have you work on my podcast. I love radio, and just the work that you do today and how you transition from radio into podcasting.

[00:01:45] Jon: I appreciate you asking, Melissa. I was a radio DJ for 15 years, 2004 to 2017. It’s about 15 years. I worked in Burlington, Vermont, here in Detroit, Michigan, then down to New Orleans, Louisiana, then back up here to Detroit, and anybody who knows much about the radio industry knows that the radio industry is struggling right now and there’s a lot of cuts and there’s a lot of tough decisions happening. That was true in 2017 when I was laid off from my last radio station the week after my wedding and I was trying to figure out what to do next, and my new wife, God bless her, Ellen, was very supportive in trying to figure it out what I was going to do.

Took me about a year to figure it out, but I started a podcast business. 2017/18 was really when podcasting was starting to take off before it skyrocketed during the pandemic. I started a business where I was creating broadcast-quality podcasts for clients, whether it’s companies, small business owners like yourself. I have to say you were one of my very first clients back in, I want to say 2018 or 2019, and it was a great match.

What I love about working with you, I want to toot your horn a little bit here with a party favor but is you are always on the cutting edge of what’s going on in podcasting. My Melissa email folder in my Outlook is quite hefty, which is great because you’re always asking questions of, “Hey, I heard this. Have you heard about this trend? What do you think about this trend?” It’s why I love working with you as a podcaster because you’re always looking to evolve and grow your show, which is a great thing for me because I love having a partnership like that.

[00:03:12] Melissa: Oh, thank you so much. That makes me feel so special and so smart. I love that. It was late 2018, early 2019 because I remember vividly, I was at FNCE in DC, that’s our annual dietitian conference in October, and my editor that I was working with at the time dropped me like a hot potato, and I was having a moment. I was freaking out. I guess it was only three or four years that I’d been podcasting. I’d been through several editors. That was the most stressful part of podcasting, and I would literally be in tears at the computer the night before an episode would release because I hadn’t heard back from my editor like everything was ready to go.

I was like, “I can’t do this.” I could do almost anything else but that I had no control over. I remember really freaking out. It was a big FNCE meeting for me in DC. I literally was speaking or doing something important every day, and the next episode that I was going to release was sponsored, and so I was stressing out. Well, first of all, I’m like, “Why are you doing this?” His reasoning was that my show was too big for him to handle. I thought, “Well, you’ve got all these big clients or whatever,” but what he explained to me and Jon, you can appreciate this. As an editor, a lot of podcasts is just a person talking into a microphone. I interview guests, and the show is rather lengthy, and so I was glad that I had the courage to ask, “Why are you ruining my life? How are you doing this, really?”

[laughter]

I said it in a nice way, but I really needed to know, “What did I do? What did I say?” He was nice enough to explain it, and I thought, “Well, okay, can you just please at least do one more?” Which he did, and that bought me some time to reach out, put my fillers out to people, and ironically, the world works in interesting ways, and things happen for a reason. I truly believe that, and your good friend Stacey Simms had been on my podcast before. She’s a podcaster, and I have been on her podcast. Her podcast is Diabetes Connections, and she had reached out to me about helping her promote a diabetes-related event, and I just said, “Hey, by the way, do you know any editors that I could work with? Because I’m on the hunt. I’m on the look.”

She suggested you. I had a couple of other people give me names or whatever, and we talked on the phone, and I was a little hesitant to hire someone just to do the editing because there’s other pieces in the podcast production space, but it was the best decision I ever made. It was. Not only did it seem to not make sense to split up all of those things, but actually, how are you going to find– you’d have to have a big company for somebody who is good at editing, good at graphics, good at copywriting, all of those things. I actually took on some of the things that I could do, had my web team take on some of the things that they could do, and just had you do the editing, but it’s become so much more. You are my producer. You are my friend. We get along so well. I will ask your opinion on everything from soup to nuts. Not all the time. I try to leave you alone, give you some space, but I really value your opinion, and you’ll say-

[00:06:36] Jon: Thank you.

[00:06:36] Melissa: -“Well, since you asked, and you know that you can be honest with me,” and I’ve gone from the pain of sitting in front of the computer crying the night before to the joy of knowing that we communicate. If I don’t hear from you, I’m going to call your wife Ellen, and say, “Is Jon okay? Because I never not hear from him.” It’s never been a problem and we communicate well.

[00:07:01] Jon: Right, and I think part of that is, let’s be honest, you and I share a brain. I think we look at the world in a lot of the same ways, and I think if I’m being honest, we’re both people pleasers a little bit, which the people pleaser thing is certainly top of mind for both of us. One of my favorite things, when I worked in radio, was coaching talent, was when I was a program director and I was running a radio station in New Orleans, yay beads, is working with talent, say, “Hey, you know what? What you did on the air was great. Here’s something to work on. Why don’t we work on this next time? This was great. Let’s try to improve this next time,” and then the next time we sat down, they did exactly what– I just said, “Wow, this sounds great. You executed this perfectly.” Coaching talent is something I’ve long been passionate about and someone who is as coachable as you are and open to constructive feedback and criticism as you are. Again, it just speaks to the partnership that we have.

[00:07:47] Melissa: Thank you so much. Yes. I want to hear more about your background in radio, because my background before podcasting was a lot of traditional media, mostly TV, but still a lot of radio. Back in 2013, YouTube was becoming really big, so a dietitian colleague and I thought about launching our own YouTube channel. We were totally on the same page as far as what we wanted to talk about, myth-busting, nutrition in the news, misinformation, disinformation, but we didn’t have a visual, and I kept trying to figure out a visual. Not lending itself to a recipe demo or just food, props, things like that, and my brother suggested a podcast, and I’m like, “What is that?”

Once I figured out it was basically having your own radio show, I was like, “Okay, I will never be interested in editing it myself,” because some people do. I don’t know. I was like, “That’s not going to happen,” and so that’s why I launched my first podcast a year before I launched this one with another dietitian. That only lasted six months, but I don’t know, I just wasn’t done podcasting. I wanted to learn more, and I wanted to interview people. I didn’t want to just be talking in the microphone, so I went back to the drawing board and launched this podcast in 2015. Then fast forward. We’ve been working together four, five years now. I can’t do the math. Tell me more about your background in radio, and also you and Stacey went to school in Syracuse together. That’s how you guys knew each other.

[00:09:25] Jon: Yes, it’s funny. Stacey and I were not classmates. We were not at Syracuse at the same time, but we have an incredibly active and supportive alumni association for our college radio station at Syracuse, WJPZ 89. We have a reunion banquet every year that’s very well attended. Even though Stacey and I weren’t in school together, I got to know her over the years because I would see her every year this weekend, and we’d chat, and we both had the podcasting thing in common. She’s become a dear friend. She’s somebody I’ll ask podcast advice to, and then I’ll provide some to her when she has a question about something. We’re known as the two podcast people in the alumni association for sure. She’s wonderful. When she knew I was ramping up my business and she had the opportunity to connect us.

My radio background is really– I was in top 40, so after graduating Syracuse in 2002, went to Burlington, Vermont from 2004 to 2011, and was at a couple of different stations there. Then got my big break to come to a big market. Anybody who’s worked in media knows that the goal is to get to bigger and larger-sized markets. I was able to make the jump from Burlington, Vermont, Market 137 to Detroit, Michigan, Market 11. Came here in 2011, did nights for nine months, did midday for nine months. They had budget cuts, they let me go. Found the gig down in New Orleans, went down there for three years where I had the best food of my career. Maybe the coolest name, radio station of my career. Voodoo 104.

[00:10:44] Melissa: Ooh.

[00:10:45] Jon: That was when I got into management, became a program director. Then you referenced my wife Ellen earlier. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. The first time I lived in Detroit, we were just friends. Then over three years in New Orleans, friends became more than friends, became, “Okay, I’m going to quit my job and move back to Detroit and move in with you and give this a shot. We’re not getting any younger,” so moved back to Michigan in January of ’16. Found a radio job a little bit later. Nine months after we moved in together, we got engaged. Nine months after that we got married. We’ve been married since July of ’17. Then she, like I said, has been super supportive of me starting my career. She has a great business sense about her, so she helps me with the books. I do the work. She also has a full-time job, but she helps me with the books on the side. It’s a great partnership.

[00:11:24] Melissa: I love it. We’ve had the pleasure of meeting and so I just appreciate that as well. You were in the Chicago area for some family event and we met up. I got to meet your lovely wife, Ellen, and CFO, right?

[00:11:38] Jon: Yes, CFO. She’s the CFO, I am the CEO. Then our former dog is the chief napping officer, and our current dog is the VP of napping.

[00:11:45] Melissa: There you go. I love it. Then I should give a shout-out to my husband, Mark, who handles my books.

[00:11:49] Jon: Yes. He’s wonderful as well.

[00:11:51] Melissa: Yes. He was at breakfast with us, so the four of us got to meet together.

[00:11:56] Jon: A quick side note for our listeners, by the way. When Melissa and I first started working together, she was here in Michigan, we got dinner together, and then a couple years later we were in Chicago and we got breakfast together. She had to assuage my fears because when you go out to a meal with a dietician, there is this, “Oh, shoot, what should I order?” Then you very quickly said, “No, no, no. I’m off the clock. Whatever looks good on the menu, you order.” I’m like, “Okay, I don’t have to get a salad. This is good.”

[00:12:21] Melissa: That’s right. Oh, no, absolutely. I forgot about Michigan. I was in Michigan doing a media training and I believe you drove about an hour to meet me. That was really nice. I tell people so dietician thing, oh, I don’t want to eat in front of you or order. I’m like, I was in a business meeting once at a restaurant. I was a supermarket dietician at the time, and I had french fries with whatever sandwich I was eating. I ordered a side-carved mayo, and I started dipping my french fry in the mayonnaise. My boss looked at me and I said, “Oh, am I doing this in public?”

[laughter]

I said, “I shouldn’t be eating french fries, dipping them in mayonnaise.” No, no, no. It’s all good. All foods fit.

[00:13:03] Jon: Good food shouldn’t make you feel bad, right?

[00:13:05] Melissa: That’s right. I’m the guilt-free RD. Got to love it. The other milestone that we’re celebrating, and here’s my virtual glass of wine, fresh from the pandemic. Fresh, it’s dusty

[00:13:14] Jon: [laughs] Virtual glass of wine. There it is.

[00:13:15] Melissa: [crosstalk] it’s a glass of wine. There’s nothing in it. People, I’m not drinking. I’ve never drunk wine on a podcast, just people know that I love [crosstalk].

[00:13:22] Jon: There’s some podcasters that do, but that’s not your brand. Understood.

[00:13:24] Melissa: It’s not my brand. My husband created this for me. This virtual glass of wine during the pandemic. We have the 1 million milestone, which I’ve been podcasting over eight years. I didn’t first of all know that I would do it that long. I never had this million-mark goal, sort of like my black belt that I earned. It’s important to me. I don’t know how important it is to other people or impressive, whatever, it is what it is.

The number I’m really excited about is my regular listeners will know, first of all, you don’t have to be a dietician or a healthcare professional to listen to this podcast. In fact, I have many just regular general public consumers that listen to the podcast. I hope I speak to both of those groups because that’s what I’ve done in my entire career is speak to both of those types of groups, give you enough science, but hopefully explain it in a way that– That’s one of the things I say, “Jon, did that make sense to you? Does that clear it up?

[00:14:24] Jon: As the layperson, yes.

[00:14:26] Melissa: I love the–

[00:14:26] Jon: There have been episodes where I’ve said, yes, that got a little too far into the weeds there for me to follow it. There’s episodes where I’ve said, wow, the eggs and avocados I eat most mornings now are thanks to editing episodes of your podcast, so there you go.

[00:14:38] Melissa: Right. No, and I love that. I love that feedback. As you said earlier, I’m always trying to think about what can I do to improve the podcast, especially on an annual basis. I’ll think, okay, now I have the bandwidth to do transcripts because that certainly takes time and money. Now I have the bandwidth to offer continuing education. That’s something that I started a little over three years ago. Honestly, just like everything I try with the podcast or just with my business in general, I’m willing to give it a try. I got to see what the ROI is. I got to see how painful it is for me to do. I really didn’t think that was something that was going to stick, but got it down to a science. I feel good offering this extra value to the dieticians, diet techs, and diabetes educators who are listening. So I’ve been doing it for a little over three years.

I asked my web folks to tally up the numbers and I have provided more than 16,000 free continuing education activities through my podcast in a little over three years.

[00:15:44] Jon: Wow. That’s amazing.

[00:15:44] Melissa: That’s a staggering number to me. I’m really, really happy about that. Then I’ve got to give a shout-out to Alice Henneman, who’s a dietician who had recommended this to me multiple times before I eventually had the bandwidth to even look into this. Other people mentioned it, but she was really an advocate for it and a supporter for it and just encouraging me to do it. I wanted to let her know.

[00:16:05] Jon: If I could jump in here for a second, Melissa,

[00:16:06] Melissa: Please.

[00:16:07] Jon: That is to your credit because I have a number of podcasting clients and obviously one of the big questions I get is, how do I grow my show? Sometimes you want to think outside the box to grow your show. The first thing I tell people is you have to be consistent. You’ve done that over eight years now that you’re coming up on 300 episodes. There’s consistency there. The people know they can expect new content from you.

Your CEU idea is brilliant. I’ve told some of my other clients in the space too, hey, if you want to boost numbers and you’re now giving people more incentive to listen to the show, besides just the content, hey, if you want to get your CEU, you can listen to this podcast while you’re going for a drive or you’re walking the dog or whatever it is. That’s a brilliant way for you to add in listeners. I’m sure you’ve seen the listeners grow and you’ve seen the numbers since you started doing the CEUs for the podcast.

[00:16:50] Melissa: Yes, you know how it is in the podcast space, if you are consistent and you provide quality content, you should see a general increase over time. We could talk for hours about the rules in the podcast community. I appreciate you saying I’m consistent, almost without exception, over the past eight years, I have released at least two episodes a month. I don’t do seasons. I haven’t taken chunks of time off where, okay, you’re not going to get another podcast for six weeks. I’ll see you back then. I’ve never done that.

[00:17:24] Jon: Batch recording is another tool that I tell my clients. You’ve done that sometimes too. If you’re going to be traveling somewhere, going on a trip, let’s have these lined up. You are super organized, which I appreciate as your producer and editor, in that, okay, we’ve got these episodes lined up for these days, and whatever works for you as a podcaster. Some folks use products like Airtable or Trello or one of those workflow software. You and I have got email and we will email and call and text and whatever it ends up being. I’ve just got a list of things to do. I’ve got tracking a spreadsheet, here’s when this episode needs to come out.

Just organization is key. The good content is so key. Yes, as you build that audience, podcasts grow by word of mouth, by social media, and by Google search, so you’re optimizing your episodes with good show notes, with good transcripts, and encouraging people listening to, hey, tell a friend.

[00:18:10] Melissa: Thank you. I think it all bears repeating, so maybe some of the regular listeners are wondering why she say that all the time. It’s interesting, even though I’ve been doing the CEUs for three years and 16,000 plus, there are still regular listeners who are surprised to find out that I offer continuing education free. Which, by the way, if you are listening and you’re interested in that, you can literally get more than three years’ worth of continuing education from my site for free, including ethics CEUs.

Again, that’s only if that’s what you’re interested in. If you’re not, there’s a lot of other things there for you. We have some bloopers and I think some listener feedback I could share maybe what are some of the most popular episodes, but I do think that it’s interesting, just the perseverance. Just to keep going, because you don’t want to podfade, but honestly, you are a huge reason why I continue to be able to keep going and not podfade. Thank you.

[00:19:14] Jon: I appreciate that. As I’m looking through our outline here, we both got outline of stuff we wanted to cover today. You want to give a shout-out to Dave and Jill for their help with the podcast too before we move on?

[00:19:23] Melissa: Yes. There’s so many things involved with launching a podcast and one of them is finding music. I reached out to a friend of mine who’s a musician and asked if he would write me some original music. This is David Burke and his wife coincidentally does voiceovers. David Burke and I were in musical theater together back in high school. We were in West Side Story. He was Baby John on the Jets and I was Candy and also did the Maria ballet. We were jets. When you’re a jet, you’re a jet all the way.

[laughter]

[00:20:02] Melissa: He wrote the music that I’ve used from day one, and his lovely wife, Jill, does the voiceover. I love the music. Every time I hear it just makes me want to dance.

[00:20:12] Jon: Let’s get to the bloopers because we’ve got two here. We’ve got a little bit of the longer ones, about a minute, 20. This is one that you called to my attention because what’s interesting is behind the scenes. This is the wizard behind the curtain thing of the podcast, where every time you have a guest come on, before we hit record you go through the spiel of, “Hey, it’s recorded, it’s not live. It’s audio, it’s not video. We can cut stuff if you start to sense by the way it sounds, you can start over again, and all that.” Then this blooper– You want to set it up actually?

[00:20:42] Melissa: Sure. Yes. Like you said, I always have this pre-chat and sometimes I record it, sometimes I don’t. Depends on the situation and the platform, but this particular time I was just recording the pre-chat and we started talking about– This is pre-pandemic.

[00:20:59] Jon: Yes, that’s important to note here.

[00:21:00] Melissa: It’s pre-pandemic just talking about how if your kids, or your dog barks, or the UPS guy comes to the door or whatever, we can pause and we can pick back up. The guest, Liz Ward, she and I just got to talking about something that had happened in the news that–

[00:21:18] Jon: The viral video. You’ll hear the two of them reference this in the clip, Melissa and Liz, but there was the video that you may remember for 2019-ish before COVID where the gentleman was on a conference call for work and his kid just came busting into the room and causing a stir. That comes up in this clip as well, so let’s check it out.

[start of audio]

[00:21:34] Melissa: We’re just human beings who are not perfect when we’re talking, but if the UPS guy comes or something, and you’re like, “Hold on a minute,” we can edit that stuff out. It happens.

[00:21:44] Liz: I’m actually upstairs in my happy place. I’m on the third floor in my padded room, which is my office.

[00:21:51] Melissa: Your bedroom.

[00:21:52] Liz: People have been warned and the dog is on the first floor, so I’ve read everybody the riot act.

[00:21:58] Melissa: I know, right?

[00:21:59] Liz: I’ve told them to stop.

[00:22:00] Melissa: Because you do so many interviews this is easy for you, but I hear you. To this day I’ll still be like, “Reminder, I’m doing a podcast at 12 o’clock,” and my husband’s like, “Well, I’ll just come in real quietly.” I’m like, “No.”

[00:22:13] Liz: No, you won’t come in.

[00:22:14] Melissa: You don’t come in.

[00:22:16] Liz: It’s like that interview. You know that guy that is in the interview and his kids came in?

[00:22:20] Melissa: Oh my God, that’s the best.

[00:22:22] Liz: That guy had no business doing an interview with those two kids in the house. He should have said, “Sorry, I can’t do it.”

[00:22:31] Melissa: The best part was the baby is in the roller thing, so she’s pulling the baby, but the kid, she is dragging the kid on the floor.

[laugher]

[00:22:41] Liz: I know. She’s trying to sneak in and crawl on the floor. We all have done stuff like that. We’ve all done it, that’s why we think it’s so funny.

[end of audio]

[00:22:50] Jon: You mentioned your wonderful husband, Mark, earlier. This segues into one of our favorite bloopers that’s related to this, but we don’t have audio of. You want to share with the audience what Mark did in the middle of a recording once?

[00:23:00] Melissa: Sure. For the life of me, I wish I could remember which episode it was. I’ll try to look back and find it. If any listeners know, please give me a heads-up. I’m in the middle of recording and not only does he pop his head in and wave, he brings me lunch, soup and sandwich. I said, “I’m in the middle of a interview.” “Yes, I know, but I thought you might be hungry.” I’m like, “Well, I can’t eat while I’m interviewing somebody.”

[00:23:28] Jon: Slurping the soup as your guest is talking. Yes, exactly.

[00:23:31] Melissa: Even today, this morning, he was out playing paddle ball and it’s getting close to when I’m going on to record, so I text him, “As a reminder, because we talked about it last night, I am recording at 9:00.” Then I just said, “I left the back sliding door open for you,” so he could go through the yard and come in. It’s funny because when I said on that clip about the guy with the kids in the background, and the mom comes in and drags the kids out, and I said, “Well, you’ll never have to worry about that,” and then–

[00:24:08] Jon: Then COVID.

[00:24:08] Melissa: Right. We’ve all had something like that happen.

[00:24:12] Jon: I’ll share a quick story with you from the other side, from the dumb husband side. That would be, I have been working from home since before COVID. Well, when COVID happened Ellen started working from home as well. I was used to being home alone all day and having my castle to myself all day. Well, it was probably the first couple weeks of COVID, she is on the couch on a conference call with her whole team and all the people that report to her, and just forgetting that she’s home, I walk out of my office, scratch my belly, and belch.

[00:24:44] Melissa: What?

[00:24:45] Jon: She looks at me. If looks could kill, the daggers that came out of her eyes, and I was like, “Oh, that’s right, you are here and other people can hear me right now. Sorry honey. Love you.”

[00:24:57] Melissa: [laughs] Were you on camera though?

[00:24:59] Jon: I was not on camera, but my audio definitely was.

[00:25:04] Melissa: So they couldn’t see you scratching your belly?

[00:25:07] Jon: I don’t think so. I’m not sure the angle of the room, but potentially, yes.

[00:25:12] Melissa: Well, this reminds me of, I have a blog post on media nightmares. I try to strike a balance about how much personal stuff I share on the podcast because-

[00:25:21] Jon: Yes, it’s tricky.

[00:25:21] Melissa: -I’m interviewing other people. I don’t want to share too much about myself. Some people say it’s too much, some people say it’s not enough. If you want more, I have blog posts and things like that on my website at soundbitesrd.com. The media nightmares post is hilarious because I interviewed a bunch of dieticians about, what are some terrible things that have happened during media?

One of my biggest media nightmares was I was doing a radio interview from my home and it was live. A lot of radio interviews are short. This one happened to be a long-form, hour-long, interview. Well, my son was in grade school. I think he was maybe second grade, and he was a little under the weather, but he didn’t have a fever, but honestly I was like, “I’m just going to keep him home today,” because my schedule did not allow for taking a call and picking him up. Right as they’re introducing me on this live radio interview, my son starts throwing up.

[00:26:17] Jon: Oh.

[00:26:18] Melissa: Yes, and so I’m texting the woman, it was Samantha Heller, and I’m laughing, because what am I supposed to do? I said, “My son just threw up. He’s really sick. I’ll try to be present as much as possible.” She’s like, “Okay, fine,” and then during breaks I would take care of him or whatever, but an hour stayed on that. That’s dedication. I should have said, “I got to go,” I don’t know, but it was a live– what were they going to do if I said I can’t?

[00:26:48] Jon: Yes. I’ve got one quick five-second blooper here that in full disclosure to our audience, Melissa does not know the audio in this blooper. There’s a quick five-second blooper as we talk about funny moments that she may remember.

[starts of audio]

[00:26:58] Melissa: Thanks again for listening. Oh, shit. Okay, wait, before, “Thanks again for listening,” I had forgot the third one.

[end of audio]

[00:27:05] Jon: I just had to throw that one in there as well too. Oh, bleep.

[00:27:08] Melissa: I’m glad you bleeped it out. You have to bleep it again. I will have to mark it explicit.

[00:27:16] Jon: For anybody listening who is a podcaster or wants to get into podcasting, the risk there is if you have explicit content in your podcast and don’t mark it as such, if someone were to report it to Apple or whomever, Apple can boot you. Apple is still one of the big king platforms for podcast consumption. You don’t want to take that risk of someone listening with their kids and hears something they don’t expect, and reporting you, and you could be gone, and there goes your podcast. Always mark it explicit if there’s any language like that in your podcast.

[00:27:43] Melissa: Yes, and just think. If someone is driving the car with their family listening to it and they got kids in the backseat, you don’t want to do that. It’s not cool.

[00:27:51] Jon: Yes, it’s just consideration too.

[00:27:53] Melissa: Jon, I get a lot of people asking, “How do I listen to podcasts?” Even in this day and age, I try to tell people, look, you can just go to my show notes. At soundbitesrd.com, there is an embedded player, you can just listen right there on the desktop, you can do it from your phone, but of course, if you have an app like Apple Podcasts, if you have an iPhone it comes right with the phone. It’s a little purple microphone thing. Spotify is, I think, the next biggest app, but there is so many different apps. Why are people still so confused about how to listen to a podcast?

[00:28:31] Jon: It is interesting, and yes, the top three consumption platforms are Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. I was just at the Podcast Movement annual convention a couple weeks ago, YouTube is growing exponentially in the podcast space. A lot of podcasters, particularly audio-only podcasters, get a little scared when they hear that because they think, “Oh, geez, I don’t want to be on camera or I don’t want to have to do hair, makeup, all that,” but you don’t have to put the video on YouTube. The point is to just be on YouTube. You need a YouTube strategy because as you may know, Google owns YouTube. How many times have you Googled something and you get a bunch of YouTube results of how to change a light bulb or for whatever it is?

The point of being on YouTube is for discoverability. Actually, YouTube does pretty well age 25 and up, which was surprising in one of the surveys that we saw, because there are some folks, if they don’t want to learn a new app, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, whatever it is, almost everybody knows how to use YouTube at this point. Having your show, even just the audio with the little moving waveform, on YouTube is good.

YouTube Shorts is huge right now, those are those 60-second or less clips on YouTube. You can even do a quick YouTube Short saying, “Hey, it’s Melissa. I just celebrated a million downloads. I had my producer Jon on the show with me and we talked about this.” It’s something as simple as shooting it on your phone, and don’t even worry about the lighting, and getting that done, and getting that up on YouTube. When people are searching for the content that you’re talking about, your content is popping up for them. Even you having the show on your website as well, so you don’t have to be podcast super literate to find it on an app. You can go on the website and go on YouTube. It’s the old marketing adage, fish where the fish are. Have your show where people can find it. Don’t say, oh, if they don’t want to come to Apple, they shouldn’t get my show. No, be everywhere your listeners can possibly find you. You’ll grow your audience that way. I’m not sure if that answered your question.

[00:30:18] Melissa: It did, and I feel like I got to give a shout-out to Lipson, my podcaster t-shirt that I got. I’ve been with Lipson, the podcast host from day one, and they just make it easy to send your podcast out to all the different destinations and they’re just so great to work with so shout out to them.

[00:30:36] Jon: There’s a little behind the scenes here too, as well, for those who don’t know podcasting is a hub and spoke deal. You put your audio on your host, in this case, Lipson. Once you’ve connected Lipson to Apple, Spotify, all that, you just put it up into one place and all the apps will pull it in automatically. It doesn’t cost to be on the apps. You pay a small fee for your hosting platform. It’s like you would if you owned a website and it’s off and running.

[00:30:58] Melissa: People ask me what are my most popular episodes, so I pulled that data and oftentimes some of the most popular episodes aren’t not my personal favorites or I’ll have some-

[00:31:08] Jon: Never what you expect.

[00:31:09] Melissa: -really favorite ones, that just don’t and I think, oh, maybe I didn’t come up with the best title or something, but I’m happy to say that these top episodes that I pulled are all favorites of mine. Episode 207, Sugar and Added Sugars. 203, Protein and Muscle Centric Health. Episode 94 is the number three top listened-to episode, The Whole Truth about Grains. 202, Defining Quality Carbs. 189, Added Sugars and Sugar Substitutes. 206, Dysfunctional Eating Behaviors. 190, Interval Weight Loss, and 196, The Disease of Obesity & Weight Bias in Healthcare. Even though I do a variety of topics, we’re seeing a trend here. Sugars, carbs, weight.

[00:31:58] Jon: All these trending topics in the field and again, this speaks to SEO and searchability, you are talking about topics that people are looking for information for online so you’re hitting the bullseye on that, Melissa.

[00:32:10] Melissa: Well, thank you, and I have to say, every one of those guests are just amazing guests. They’re doing amazing work in their areas and that’s why I wanted to interview people and not just have me talk. I learned so much from the guests so that’s really what keeps me going. Do you want to share a few listener feedback testimonials?

[00:32:30] Jon: Sure. One we have here says, “Melissa is relevant, relatable, responsive in research.” I like the alliteration there. “Her podcast really too have a purpose without forcing me to watch a screen and listen to someone read their slides to me, which is refreshing. Her show notes are more extensive than any competitor I’ve seen, which saves me hours of research in areas new to me about which piqued my interest, so again, you are providing relevant info. It’s the power of audio in a podcast. Audio is a much more intimate medium than video because it engages your brain,” because your brain has to paint the picture. It’s not there in front of you as opposed to someone reading their slides like listener said, “and then I do have to give you a lot of credit here, Melissa, of all my clients, your show notes are the most extensive. You provide a ton of information, you spend a ton of time on it, and it shows if somebody’s interested in what you’re talking about, they know where to go to get more information.”

[00:33:18] Melissa: Thank you. I do spend a lot of time on the show notes and I’ve gotten more efficient over the years and I do an annual podcast survey where I ask people, are you even going there? Because it is something, I think if it’s not something that people are visiting, I understand that podcasts are a mobile medium. People they’re listening on the go. They’re not necessarily going to go straight to the show notes and all the resources that I share, but I want it to be there for those people who are. A lot of the feedback I got on the annual survey is what you just said. I don’t visit them often, but I know where they are when I need them so I do put a lot of time into it.

[00:33:59] Jon: If you think about somebody listening or consuming a podcast, like I said, walking the dog, driving the car while they’re cooking dinner for the family, whatever it is, you are probably not in a position where you can go pull up a website at that time but you can know, you know what, I want to follow up on that. I want to learn more about that. You can just come back to the podcast when it’s convenient for you and it’s right there in the show notes.

[00:34:18] Melissa: Yes.

[00:34:19] Jon: I’ll read one more testimonial here, Melissa. “What a gem, Melissa delves deeply into the science of food nutrition with transparency about funding, which is refreshing. In spite of some serious science, there are many podcasts which I freely share with clients and friends because she helps make that science understandable. As a former college instructor of hopeful dieticians, I love that she enforces the fact you have to be able to enjoy good food before good nutrition is possible. That kind of sums your show up right there, I think.

[00:34:47] Melissa: Thank you so much. Yes. I love getting feedback, constructive criticism, but also the kudos. It does make me realize that there’s a value and that people are appreciating it and so it makes me feel really good.

[00:35:02] Jon: I want to come back to something you said a minute ago too, which is your annual listener survey and it’s an Amazon gift card you give away at random to a participant, right?

[00:35:09] Melissa: Right.

[00:35:09] Jon: It’s an easy motivation. It’s not a long survey. A lot of times clients will say, well, how do I know what my listeners think about my podcast? The answer is simple. Ask them. Ask them what they like, ask them what they don’t like. Ask them what they want to improve, what features they like, what they want more of, what they want less of, anybody who’s going to fill out that survey is an engaged listener with you and you’re taking the old radio term is hug your P1s, hug your most important listeners and give them what they want.

Find out, make sure that it’s not just a one-way conversation, make sure you’re hearing from them as well. I also do want to ask you about the Do More with Dinner kit because it’s something you’ve referenced in a number of your recent episodes, and I know you’re making progress on the revision to that, right?

[00:35:46] Melissa: Yes, and I feel this weight on my shoulders. I have been working on this updated version for almost two years and I just want to apologize to everybody because I bit off a little bit more than I could chew. The original version is available on the website. It’s just a PDF with some of my favorite resources, just links. This revision is going to have actual content in it. At least 10 of my favorite recipes including my mom’s chili that I have, I don’t want to say perfected over. It has evolved over time. My mom loves it.

[00:36:21] Female Speaker: Tweaked.

[00:36:22] Melissa: I’ve tweaked it, and some of my recipes from my colleagues, but then there’s also at least 10 different really helpful resources. There’s actual content in it and then it links out to even more information and there’s just a lot of moving parts, images, copy. For example, in the chili recipe, the tip on that one is if you’re like me and you’re like, “Oh, geez, I forgot to thaw out the ground beef for ground turkey or whatever,” there’s a very quick and safe way to thaw the ground meat in your microwave. I can’t tell you how I use this on a weekly basis.

It’s just stuff like that where one of the recipes, it’s like a deconstructed California roll salad, and the sticky rice was a little hard for me to find in the supermarket and I didn’t want to have to order it online, so I went to my brother who taught me how to make sushi years ago and said, “I know you have perfected your sticky rice recipe. Give it to me. Can I share it?” It’s just stuff like that so just stay tuned. I’m really proud of it, but it is definitely a bigger project than I originally thought so it’s just taking a lot of time.

[00:37:35] Jon: Fair enough. Anything else you want to cover before we wrap up, Melissa?

[00:37:38] Melissa: I guess I want to say really those show notes we talked about, there’s a lot of stuff there. I’ve been doing transcripts for several years now. You’ve helped me with that. We’ve tried different companies and I’m now at the point where I don’t have to sit there for two hours and fix all the errors. I’m always trying to make the show better and I just want to thank everybody for listening and definitely give me that feedback, whether it’s the annual survey, which I usually do in December, so keep an eye out for that. It’s usually coming up towards the end of the year. Or just email me @melissa@soundbitesrd.com or connect with me on social and just any feedback you have, good, bad, ugly be kind because I have feelings. I’m a real person after all.

[00:38:25] Jon: She’s in her feeling sometimes.

[00:38:27] Melissa: [laughs] Yes. I’m just so happy to celebrate this milestone with you, Jon, and thank you for making the show possible, and a shout out to my web team too, STRING Marketing, Jackie in particular, it’s so refreshing and heartwarming when you find your people, you find people that you can rely on, and it just makes all the difference in the world and it makes what I do fun and enjoyable, so thank you.

[00:38:53] Jon: Well, Melissa, we’ll leave our listeners with this, here’s to the next million.

[00:38:57] Melissa: [laughs] Oh, wow. Maybe, hopefully, it won’t take another eight years. No, I feel like the show is going strong and I have no shortage of the interesting people and topics that I want to learn about, so thank you for going on that journey with me, everybody listening and as always, enjoy your food with health in mind. Till next time.

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[00:39:19] Announcer: For more information, visit soundbitesrd.com. This podcast does not provide medical advice. It is for informational purposes only. Please see a registered dietician for individualized advice. Music by Dave Burke, produced by JAG in Detroit Podcasts, copyright Sound Bites, Inc. All rights reserved.

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