The Big Swing Interview
Episode Show Notes
On this PodOn episode, we chat with Cooper Searls and Ross Stripling from the overnight podcast success, The Big Swing Podcast. From fanboys turned professional interviewers, Cooper and Ross are playing the podcast game right. Remote recording, outsourcing, live events… they’ve done it all! Listen now to learn valuable tips and tricks from their experience and avoid the common mistakes rookie podcasters make.
Jump straight into:
(02:43) - The Big Swing Story: A podcast success born from passion — “I remember waking up in the morning and asking ‘Are we serious about this?’, and within 48 hours we were announcing it on social media.”
(04:57) - How they defined their podcast and audience from scratch — “We didn't really anticipate how many people would listen.”
(07:41) - Finding balance with your podcast compadre — “I remember thinking we wanted to look like two guys talking about sports.”
(10:12) - How to stay authentic: should you be cutting content down? - “I think people want to hear Cody Bellinger say ‘uhh…’ and not be perfect all the time.”
(13:49) - How Cooper and Ross found their cadence - “If we are gonna post it soon we stay current and talk about what is going on right now, and if it's not gonna be one we are releasing soon, we keep it kind of broad.”
(16:37) - How they prepare their guests for the show - “Basketball, golf and people in the acting realm, those people want more defined days before they share their contact information.”
(19:08) - The good, the bad and the ugly of podcasting - “Ross didn't sound good, I sounded mad, but we've had the self awareness to take a day and re do it tomorrow.”
(23:39) - On remote recording and how to get the right setup - “The person that is editing... it's a responsibility to listen to the whole thing, just to ensure there is now slip up somewhere or someone's microphone went out.”
(27:42) - Outsourcing audio editing and focusing on your podcast — “I get to a point where I can get couples out in the wild and for me spend the time to do so, but I can't just be editing.”
(30:59) - What to expect when you’re building a podcast — “As far as the podcast itself we never sit down and brainstorm, or a year from now this is our goal, we kinda take it almost week to week.”
(33:54) - How to profit from podcasting — “You can get stats and share those with sponsors and say this is the growth that we are seeing over these 65 episodes.”
(43:21) - Live events: Cooper and Ross in real life — “I just told Cooper, ‘Let’s do it! Let’s explore what it is and let’s pursue it’.”
(48:43) - Their advice for the curious, scrappy podcaster - “The biggest advice I would give is just press record and post it.”
Resources
PodOn is hosted by TJ Bonaventura and Julian Lewis, founders of the full-service podcast company based in San Francisco, StudioPod. If you want more details on how to fully record and produce your podcast with our services, you can reach us at http://studiopodsf.com, send us an email at info@studiopodsf.com or contact us through our social media channels as @studiopodmedia. Music by GaryOAKland.
Episode Transcript (via Rev.com)
TJ:
This is the PodOn Podcast. We're your hosts, TJ Bonaventura that's me and Julian Lewis.
Julian:
That's me.
TJ:
As founders of a podcast media company, we had to start a podcast. Join us each episode as we and our guest drop knowledge on podcasting for you, the curious and scrappy podcaster. Welcome to the pod on podcast. We're really excited for our guest today. We have the host of the Big Swing Podcast Cooper Surles and Ross Stripling. Welcome on guys.
Cooper:
How's it going?
Ross:
Yeah, Awesome to be here, man. Thanks for having us.
TJ:
I'm very excited to have you on. Julian is very excited to have you on because, Ross, I actually don't know if you know this or not, but you, when you came on with Rich, you guys were the first people to record in the studio at StudioPod way back when, almost a year ago. It's come full circle here.
Ross:
Yeah, pretty special, man. I got to see the genesis of StudioPod and see you right when you were getting started and you didn't even hardly have furniture yet. And I can tell from your background now it's very different from that room I recorded the Rich Hill pod in. Really cool to see, man. I guess, in heck, less than a year, you've done some pretty awesome work and got that thing up and running. It looks great. Pretty cool that I can say I was the first one.
TJ:
And then not far after that, Cooper, you came in, you got to see the transition as we went through too. It's exciting to have both you guys here and talk about just podcasting in general and your genesis as co-hosts and what you guys have learned. And then as always, I have Julian, my co-host and co-founder in StudioPod. Julian, do you want to go ahead and say hi?
Julian:
Of course. Yeah. Hey guys, I think I'm stoked to have you all on because hearing your initial podcast that was recorded at StudioPod, I also was a client of TJ's and that legitimized the white walls that were in that room when I first walked in there, but the quality was there, but I really enjoyed listening to that episode that you all had with Rich Hill. Really powerful episode and it was great for you all to capture that story. And I've definitely listened to a handful of episodes since.
Cooper:
Yeah. You talk about it being special for you all that we were the first podcast there, but we always talk about the opposite way. We think about StudioPod in a special way, because it was the Rich Hill episode where he was able to tell this incredible story, got emotional several times and probably our most memorable podcast that we've done in, I think 65, 66 episodes. Very, very cool stuff. And to do it with you all was really neat.
TJ:
Yeah. We were super appreciative to have you guys, and we're lucky enough to have you guys take a chance to record with us and hopefully in the future, we can have you guys in again, that'd be awesome.
Ross:
We need baseball to come back so I can come back to San Francisco, man.
TJ:
I know. We'll get you in, man. We'll get both of you guys in. I want to get into, Cooper, you mentioned 66, 65 episodes now, but I want to go way back to episode one and even before, and just start talking about how the Big Swing came about. I know there was some initial talk at a Rockets game way back when, but what was that first conversation like? How long did it take from idea to, "You know what, let's actually start recording and make this a thing."?
Cooper:
Yeah. It was very quick. Like I said, we went to a Rockets game and we were just talking about podcasts and I said, " Man, I love them. I listen to a bunch of them." I gave Ross some recommendations and we just organically said it like as a joke like, "Hey, we should start a podcast." And our wives were both there. And we went out after the Rockets game and they were encouraging us. And so, I remember waking up in the morning and texting Ross and just being like, "Were we serious there? Are we actually doing this?"
Cooper:
And he was like, "I think, I don't know. Let's do it." And I think Ross, maybe within, what? 24, 48 hours we were announcing it on social media.
Ross:
Yeah, it did happen extremely quick. And it had been talked about before in that Cooper was passionate about podcasts and I was not, I didn't know anything about them. When I'm riding in a car, I'm just listening to music or something totally different from podcasts, just wasn't on the scene at all. And Cooper started talking about, "Hey, check out Pardon My Take." "Check out some of the stuff on..." I can never remember the dang guy's name. Cooper, he just sold it.
Cooper:
The Ringer.
Ross:
The Ringer, yeah. The stuff on The Ringer, Revisionist History and I loved them all and obviously Cooper was telling me the best ones to check out. And by the time we got to that Rockets game, I was probably had to listened to podcasts for six weeks by then. It was just like, "Dude, I love them. I want to be a part of it." And thinking about my network and the guys that I have around me in the locker room and the baseball side of stuff, and then have Cooper's expertise of behind the seeds and the tech stuff that he's figured out and his passion for doing it. And it just seemed like a no brainer.
Ross:
And that's why it happened so fast. It was like, "Should we do this?" "Heck yeah, let's do it." And like he said, 48 hours later, we were recording episode one and kick started the whole thing.
TJ:
And so, did you guys really just think about having a mic in front of you and recording? What was your setup like? Did you guys do anything around defining your audience and who was going to listen or were you just winging it?
Cooper:
Really winging it. I think that we knew we would have a built-in audience through Ross and through the Dodgers, so we felt like we would at least get a few people to listen initially, but as far as the organization of doing a podcast, I think that we just based it on other podcasts that we enjoyed listening to. And we put a mark in our faces. I remember the first episode and it was a grind, three or four hours to get through 15 minutes of just an intro pod. And I remember leaving that episode being like, "This is going to be difficult."
Cooper:
And now we sit down and we can grind 45 minutes out without even trying. It's crazy how quickly it's evolved, but it was a grind there at first.
Ross:
I think we recorded it three different times. We recorded it, we listened to it. We said, "That stunk. Let's try it again." Recorded it, listened to it be like, "No, we can get better here." Recorded it again. We're like, "I guess it's okay." It was a battle man, like you said, and I remember thinking the same thing, but I think we just walked into Best Buy. At least I did. I bought a microphone of some sort, I don't even remember the brand or what it was, and we just set it out in front of us, plugged it into Cooper's work computer. And we're like, "We got to do something better than this."
Ross:
And we were like that really for a while. And once I left for spring training a few weeks later is when we had to get creative on how to figure it out remotely.
Julian:
What do you think it was that got you all over the hump from recording those first three and then realizing like, let's just put it out there and see what happens?
Cooper:
Yeah. That's a lot of anxiety putting out there initially. We didn't really anticipate or know how many people would listen and really, those first few episodes once we started to get some pretty big time guests, they had some of our biggest listens, I think our biggest listens since we've been doing the podcast. It was definitely nerve-wracking and to listen to yourself back as the guy that's editing the podcast, it's absolutely brutal. You're totally critical of yourself and I would bring up stuff to my friends like, "I can't believe I said that." And they didn't even notice it.
Cooper:
But as far as getting over the hump, I think it was just trial and error. Finding out what programs, whether it be Skype or Zencastr. And I think TJ, you helped us out all a lot on that, but trial and error, doing a lot of research and just finding out what works best with us, because it is unique. Ross is on the road a lot, obviously with his career. And then with my career, I'm traveling about half the of time too. It's definitely different for us.
TJ:
When you're thinking about the different programs, and you're thinking about the setup and what your guys' roles are as co-hosts, how long did that take to figure out? I'm sure you guys are buddies, so the conversation between you two would be pretty smooth, but when you go in front of the mic, you become someone different, you have a little bit different of a persona. Did you guys think about who should be handling what types of questions or who should be addressing different topics? Can you talk about that a little bit?
Ross:
I think from the start we knew, or at least I knew that Cooper was going to be the intro outro guy. He had that ability, he did it right off the bat. That was the first thing he killed from the start. It was like, "Hey, welcome to the Big Swing podcast. This is Cooper Surles with my..." What did you say? "Co-hosting podcast compadre."
Cooper:
Podcast compadre.
Ross:
Yeah. He just opened up with that and I was like, "Heck yeah." And just let him run with that. As far as from there, man, I remember thinking we wanted it to sound like just two guys, kick back talking sports and for a while, that's what our audio sounded like. And we needed to fix that big time, but I feel like we've kept that ability just to banter back and forth. And when you have a guest in there, it's not, obviously some of them are more interview style, but theoretically we wanted it, if we had a guest just to be three guys sitting out talking sports.
Ross:
And not just like, "Hey man, what's your favorite color? What's your favorite memory?" That kind of stuff. We wanted it to be an open conversation. And obviously that took time, but that was the structure from the start that I remember us talking about and really wanting to pursue.
Cooper:
Well, and I think too, when we're interviewing a lot of athletes with Ross, obviously being a professional athlete, I'm of course going to defer to him on the more technical, three, two count, what pitch are you throwing? Stuff like that. I'm obviously not going to be able to provide a lot of insight on that. But I think what I can do is just little bit goofier or say something that maybe a fan was thinking at home. And I think that that structure we really never talked about, but I think it was just understood.
Julian:
I think That's the approach that TJ and I are trying to define with the PodOn Podcast whereby I came to him as a client and he was that expert to help me get going. And so, when we have guests like you all on, I'm empathizing with you all from a perspective of, we're both podcasters trying to make this happen. Whereas TJ's an expert voice that weighs in on the strategies and how you can go ahead and get started and continue with your podcast.
Ross:
I guess one thing to consider on our end is how, TJ, you talked about, we’re going to chat here for about 60 minutes and cut it down to 40, 45 minutes of content. We've never really done that. I hear a lot of podcasts, people talk about that, but I'm not going to do that because my job's nuts and Cooper is the only guy as part of our two-man team that can do that. And he's got a real job. We basically turn the mic on and what you get is what you get. And yeah, he might go in and edit a little bit and stuff like that. But if we record 45 minutes, you're going to get 43 and a half of it.
Ross:
And I've always wondered the guys that record 60 and cut down, that takes a lot of time and effort, and props to you for being able to do that, man.
TJ:
Thank you for saying that. And we think about it is you want to cut it down if you need to focus your show or that episode on your target audience, and making sure that you still capture the authentic content in 60 minutes time, but not all of that is going to be really focused on your audience and what they're going to care about. So for us, we see our audience as a curious scrappy podcaster and that could be someone who's an individual who's getting started. That could be someone who laps and wants to get restarted.
TJ:
It could be someone who's an organization and wants to do it for their company, given internal podcasts are growing and growing. We want to make sure that we get them talking, our guests talking as much as we want and making sure it's authentic and then cutting it down to make sure it still fits in the mold of what we're trying to do for our audience. I think one thing that we're noticing is now there's over a million podcasts, literally over a million podcast out there and listenership is getting very saturated, is how can we up the quality listener versus the higher quantity of listener?
Cooper:
Yeah. And I think there's really two things that I made the decision to not edit as much is because one, when we have a lot of these athletes on that are our guests, fans and listeners are so used to hearing the just regular coaches speak general answer. And I think people want to hear Cody Bellinger say uh, and have to think about it, not be perfect all the time. And then I think too, just feeling less insecure about what we're saying and feeling more okay with the fact that I said like for or times in a sentence, you know what I mean?
Cooper:
And I think you get more comfortable with that and you realize that people enjoy hearing that, at least for our setting.
Julian:
Yeah. That makes perfect sense. And I think there's the conversational type podcast which you all have unlike ours where we're focused on making it educational. And so, making sure that we do cut it down to the things that the curious scrappy podcaster is looking for. But even with myself, like with my podcast, Couple Collective, I oftentimes go on rants where I'm talking to these couples about the relationships and I want every single essence of that podcast to come to life.
Julian:
Because if there is a moment that might be a vulnerable moment that they forget that they're on a mic, I want to make sure that that's captured without just focusing on cutting it down, just to talk about that topic. The way you all do it makes perfect sense. Especially because, like to your point, when somebody's in front of a mic being interviewed by a major network, they're going to be really short and concise and to the point, but when they're just sitting down with two buddies, they’re just going to have more of an open real conversation.
Cooper:
Yeah. It's funny some of the best stuff that we get that doesn't make it in the podcast or when we're just talking before the podcast or right after we started recording. And there's so many moments where I'm like, "Man, that was so authentic that they just said that." But when you press record, it is a different ball game.
TJ:
I want to talk a little bit about when you first got started, you're defining your cadence and how often you wanted to release, because one thing that we constantly find with newer podcasters is they get super ambitious to have a conversation with themself or with a co-host much like you guys did at the Rockets game and start to think that, "We want to get this started." They get very gung ho, but once they start to record, they realize they can't keep up with the release schedule. A tactic that we always like to recommend is batch recording.
TJ:
And I think, Cooper, we have talked about this before, but recording let's say three or four, five episodes at a time or within a week's period. And then if you want to release on a weekly cadence, you now have five weeks worth of content that you're ready to release in the bank and then you can start recording more regularly. Did you guys have any thoughts around that when you first got started and did you guys find a rhythm that made sense to do that?
Cooper:
Yeah. I'd say initially that we typically were trying to be as scheduled as possible. Like, all right, who's our guest this week? And then when are we going to post it? Who's our guest next week, when are we going to post it? Whereas, right now I think we have maybe three or four podcasts in the bank ready to go and that's made it super helpful for two guys that have full-time jobs and really aren't seeing any financial reward from this right now. To prioritize that where you're having a schedule weekly, it's important.
Cooper:
And I've been really proud with how we've been able to do that. I thought going into it, there would be a lot of different moments where it just got crazy at work for me and we couldn't record for three weeks or vice versa, and I think we've been pretty consistent and maybe only missed a few weeks throughout the year plus we've been doing it.
Ross:
Yeah. At first I was a little skeptical about logging, five weeks ahead is quite a bit of time in the baseball world. If I record... I remember. I think we sat on the Cody Bellinger one for maybe a little bit and I was worried that his MVP race would go maybe downhill or God forbid he gets hurt or whatever. And then I'd feel bad about putting my teammate's podcast out there. I remember not really wanting to sit on them too long, but now I've gotten more and more comfortable because I think we've learned that one, if we're going to post it soon, we stay current and talk about what's going on right now.
Ross:
And if it's not going to be one that we post-super soon, then we keep it broad. And that way, if we do talk something super current, like I know we released a David Dahl one and we recorded it weeks ago and he went on to do this MLB, the show video game tournament, and he's already lost and been kicked out. And on our podcast, we're talking about, what's your strategy going to be like going into it? So anyone that really knows both of those things is going to be like, "Hey, this was recorded a month ago." I do worry about people that pick up on that, but really, it hasn't been much of an issue.
Julian:
In terms of preparing your guest for that, one, how do you prepare them to come on your show? And then what is the expectation that you do set in terms of when it's going to be released? In your world where you are talking to public figures, are there restrictions in terms of what they allow for you to do and not do?
Ross:
Sure. A lot of them are my teammates. Let's say we've done 66 episodes like Cooper talked about, I bet 15 to 20 of them have either been Dodger teammates or Dodger related, whether it's our broadcaster or something like that. Luckily, I have a good friendship with pretty much everyone that's come on from the Dodger side of it where I can just be really upfront with them and say, "Hey, we're recording now and posting it in two days." Or, "Hey, we're recording this now and I'm not sure when we're going to post it." And they're always very comfortable with that.
Ross:
Now, where we've gotten some other guests are through my agency who has basketball, golf, and even people in the acting realm and those people want much more defined dates before they share their contact information. For instance, an NBA player who I'll leave, I guess, nameless didn't want to exchange phone numbers with me until we nailed down an absolute date of when we're going to record. And once we did that, then we exchanged phone numbers.
Ross:
I sent him a text and said, "Hey bud, this is Ross Stripling from the Dodgers. I'll text you again next week when we plan on recording, just as a reminder and I'll talk to you then." He responded, "Okay." A week later we synced up. It just depends on, I guess, the person a little bit and how, I don't know, maybe they view privacy and want to stay private and that kind of stuff. But for the most part, it's been pretty easy. I guess I can, sorry, I'm getting longwinded, but as an athlete, myself and somewhat of a public figure, I view myself as a human being.
Ross:
Like when someone wants to ask me to be on their show, I'm excited and happy to do it. And if I agree to do it, here’s my email, here's my phone number. Let me know when you're ready and I'll be there.
Cooper:
But I would say, Ross too, not everyone is like you that's in your position and rightfully so, I totally get it. They're hounded every single day before games, after games, during practice with media requests and the idea that they want to spend 45 minutes with us may be questionable, especially if they don't previously know us. I think that we've proved that we're not going to put people in a position that’s going to make them look bad or anything. And we're pretty easy to talk to, I would say generally.
Cooper:
I think people, once they do come on, we haven't had any issues with people being upset with what came out or when we posted or anything like that.
TJ:
I want to quickly transition and talk about it's challenges. I think one thing that I've always appreciated about your podcast is, you guys, whether the quality was as good as it could have been when you first started to where it is now, you guys have always released the content and it shows that content and what you guys talk about matters. And you're going to get listeners if you're really engaging as co-hosts, but I'm sure there have been times where maybe you guys weren't on your A game as co-hosts or interviewers or the quality wasn't there.
TJ:
I'd love for our listeners to know some of those things that you face, because I think ultimately what we put out there is going to be a finished polished product if you will, but behind the scenes, there's going to be some tough times.
Ross:
I remember once specifically, Cooper, was this spring training where I had had a weird day at the field, I think maybe I'd thrown a bad bullpen or something. I just didn't like my day at the field. And we were going to talk about, I had almost gotten traded to the Los Angeles Angels and that trade fell through and it was a huge topic. We got Mookie Betts and David Price, these mega stars and I was in that trade and then not in that trade, it was something that I was going to be able to talk about firsthand that most people don't get to really share.
Ross:
I went through a massive trade and I get to talk about it and I just had bad energy. And I think I ran off on Cooper a little bit too. He had weird energy and we still grinded through 30 minutes of both of us knowing, this is terrible. And we got done and we texted each other and we were like, but I think Cooper might have said it first like, "Dude, that was awful. We have to do that again." And I was like, "I agree. I don't..." And I think we waited till the next day when I woke up on the right side of the bed and was in a good mood.
Ross:
And sometimes life happens. You're just not in a good mood and that's going to come out in your podcast. If I had a bad day, I'm not going to all of a sudden sound super excited to talk about whatever it is on the docket that day. And that one, I remember specifically for whatever reason, we just kept going despite knowing how just blatantly awful it was.
Cooper:
That was the exact example I was going to use. I remember right after the episode, I was like, "Okay, I'm going to go ahead and just start grinding through and editing this podcast." And I got through 10 minutes and I texted Ross like, "Man, this is not good. You didn't sound good. I sounded mad. It just didn't sound good." And we've had a couple times like that, but I think we've had the self-awareness to look back and be like, "Hey, let's just take a day. We got a little time. Let's just redo it tomorrow." And when we did redo it, I remember it turning out really, really good.
Cooper:
I think a big part of that was you'd went through all the stuff with the trade, so obviously you were stressed out and then the idea that the podcast was in limbo. I probably was a little bit stressed out too. And I think it came out on the podcast whenever some real life stuff is going on. It's not that always easy to talk about what Patrick Mahomes did last Sunday.
TJ:
You can't edit attitude, right?
Cooper:
Yeah.
Ross:
Yeah.
Julian:
I love that story too because TJ and I have been recording on Sundays for the PodOn Podcast and we meet on Tuesdays, we meet on Thursdays, we're really trying to do something with the StudioPod thing. And on Sundays we're wiped out and we could tell that our energy levels are low. And so, I think the second time we recorded was the first week that The Last Dance was coming on. And TJ's handle is @tjforthree, which I haven't seen him on the court yet so I don't know how legit that is. But we started talking about that and I'm a huge Jordan fan.
Julian:
He's obviously a huge Hoops fan and that helped to get our energy levels up. But with the other ones, I think just being self-aware of the fact that, "Hey, today's just not our day." Or, "We've already recorded this. Let's just go back and do it again. When we do have that energy or we have what our listeners are used to hearing on the mic."
Cooper:
Yeah. And I, I think too, just personally for our podcast, when Ross and I started it, we were definitely friends. But I would say that we were not close friends by any means. Our wives were best friends, so we had hung out a lot just through them, but just individually, we didn't hang out a lot. So I think over the course of the 66 episodes, we've been growing our friendship and learning things about each other and how we work and everything. There's been a, while we're recording and growing this podcast, we're also growing our friendship. There's been some things like that.
Ross:
It's weird that you've seen it that way because that's not how it's been for me. Just Kidding.
Cooper:
Well, I'm still not friends with you. That's-
Ross:
[crosstalk 00:23:35]. We need another 66 before we're there.
Cooper:
Yeah.
TJ:
I do want to talk about remote recording, then we'll go there for a second because obviously you guys both travel for work. Ross you're constantly on the road in large stints. What was it like getting that set up? I know it seems that you guys were doing it perhaps in a lot of hotel rooms. Did you care about the quality at that point? Where was your focus and how were you getting set up? How did you guys communicate with each other? And I know you were using Skype, there was that whole genesis of figuring out how to do it remotely.
TJ:
Ross, can you talk to getting that set up and someone who's not technical, what was that learning curve?
Ross:
Well, the learning curve was whatever Cooper told me to do. It was a learning curve. We were trying where we just put a microphone in the middle of two people and would just hope it would pick up, and then based on whatever room you're in depends on the audio because you're bouncing sound on different things in your room and some of those were just awful. And then we figured out how to get multiple mics. We bought this little thing where you could plug in multiple mics and then that would plug into your computer. And we had more issues with that thing.
Ross:
It was supposed to be so cut and dry and it just never was. For whatever reason, we couldn't get the levels right. Sometimes it wouldn't pick up both mics. That was a disaster from the start. And then what happened was we did a podcast with CJ McCollum. He's a shooting guard for the Portland Trail Blazers. And he pulled out this little bitty handheld Zoom recorder that was where it all changed for us. When we saw that, and he just explained how he used it. And from there that's been an absolute game changer for us, but we tried everything under the sun for the remote.
Ross:
We did Zencastr, we tried just about everything and this Zoom remote, I guess recorder has by far been our best option.
Cooper:
Yeah. I would say initially, to put it frank, it drove me nuts, the quality of it, because I do listen to a lot of podcasts and I really care about the quality. When I hear podcasts with low quality audio, I'm almost out immediately. And so, it drove me crazy, but my level of knowledge on what to do was just not there yet to figure it out. And so, we just had to play it by ear. And as far as recording remotely, I knew that I knew a little bit more than Ross knew, so I didn't want to put too much on his plate. We're like, "Okay, let's put a mic in the middle and see how this works."
Cooper:
And it worked fine. But on the editing process, I couldn't control Ross's voice versus Cody Bellinger's voice. If Ross was talking loud and he was talking quiet and to not have multiple audio channels where you can edit and play with it is just a nightmare in the editing process, which you know.
Julian:
I guess with that at editing piece, it sounds like now that you all are essentially putting your intro and your outro on, and sometimes you have an ad read in between. Is that the extent of the editing that you're doing today? Or it sounds like you've learned your way to control the audio, but what's the editing that you're doing now?
Cooper:
I would say that's typically it. I would say initially for the first half of the episodes, we were doing a significant amount, more editing just in the actual podcast. Like I said, we just weren't as secure with what we were saying and we wanted it to sound perfect. And I think we realized that that's not why people are listening. We've toned down the editing there, but we've figured out some ways to add ads in the middle of the podcast.
Cooper:
That's required a little bit more work, but I still think even if you're not editing fully throughout the podcast, as the person that is editing, I think it's your responsibility to go ahead and listen to the whole thing, just to ensure that there's not a slip up somewhere or someone's microphone went out. The process is still long aside from not editing as much.
Ross:
I think for a while, Coop, weren't you going in and literally highlighting the word um, and deleting it in some drastic ones? He would go in and physically find the word um and delete it.
Cooper:
Yeah.
TJ:
That's a good little transition. What is your process of editing today then? What tools are you using? How long does it take you? This is not meant to bring in StudioPod at all, but I'd love to know, have you considered outsourcing some of that to free up some of your time?
Cooper:
Yeah, I would say at the moment, I think we have just enough time to record and for me to edit and put out. But there has been so many times where I've reached out to you, TJ, just for advice like, "What do I do here if it sounds like this?" Or, "This audio didn't pick up as well as the other one, what do I do?" And the idea of using someone like you would just be exponentially easier for us because although I do know a little bit about this and learned a lot, I don't have the time and resources to put that much knowledge into it. It's been difficult and I think that there's a lot of room for us to improve still.
Ross:
TJ of the million plus podcasts that you mentioned, I got to think the vast majority of them are just buddies or someone in their room talking into a microphone that can't afford to outsource their audio. What are you guys, and I guess I'm turning the script here. What do you guys recommend to people like that? Just to Joe Blow who's talking sports in his room at night, what can he do to make his audio better?
TJ:
I think there's a lot of things that you can do to make the audio better. And the dirty little secret, that few people know, it's less about the mic that you have. It's more about the condition or the environment around you. As much as you can soundproof that, that's why you often see people recording in a closet with a lot of clothes because it can condition the room naturally. But what we always like to talk about is, and I want to turn this to Julian, because he actually went through this process is the time benefit or the cost benefit of what you could be doing with your time, if you did decide to outsource it.
TJ:
Because one thing that we tend to see is podcasting is not easy, but it doesn't have to be. There are certain things that you can do yourself. There are some examples of where you can turn to other people, that way you can free up your time to get more listenership. And I think Julian has a good story of when he got started and how we got connected.
Julian:
Yeah. I think for me in particular being that it was just me recording and then interviewing couples, my entire Sundays were spent editing and it was just the time suck for me. I did commit to saying that I'm going to invest some dollars in outsourcing this because it's necessary. In an ideal world, I'd be sitting next to TJ in the studio and we'd be having this conversation, but now I'm at home. I have my blinds drawn I'm in front of a window, which is definitely not ideal, but I got these SelectBlinds, which is not an ad.
Julian:
And they actually block out the sound, so I sound a little bit better, but with my podcast, I set a goal that I wanted to make it something more than just stories of couples and the relationships. I eventually want to get to a point where I can get couples out in the wild doing retreats and doing things like that. And in order for me to spend the time to do so, I just can't be editing. And that's why I outsource it. I think understanding what the ultimate goal of that podcast is, is key to helping somebody who is currently trying to figure it out at home what they want to ultimately do with it.
Julian:
But I guess segueing from that, I guess I'd love to understand, what are your aspirations with the podcast? It sounds like, from a revenue perspective you do have advertisers. And so you're able to make some money there, but is it just to put out great content and great stories from these athletes and people that you're capturing stories from? Or do you have aspirations beyond that as well?
Ross:
I think for one, Cooper and I's personalities, if we're going to commit to something, we want it to be successful and we've said that from the start, if we're going to do this, it's not for fun. We're going to try and be successful and try and build it into something. And we're always trying to do that. Now, you have time constraints, we both have jobs. That stuff is definitely part of it. There's no doubt about it. But I think that we have really... I don’t know. We've battled to figure out exactly what we want to do. We made hats as Cooper has one on right now.
Ross:
And you make merchandise and stuff like that. You really push it and try and sell it. I don't really necessarily know what the growth potential is of a podcast. We think that we have as good a guess as anyone around in the sports world yet we struggle to really, really grow as fast as we feel like we can. And I remember when I first started this or we first started this, what I wanted to do was I wanted to get my teammates to open up because I'm used to seeing Cody Bellinger give the, take it one day at a time answer.
Ross:
And I know the real Cody and he's unbelievable and he's a goofball and he is one of the funnier guys that I've ever met. And I wanted to give people an opportunity to hear that. But as far as the podcast itself, I think that we've never sat down and brainstormed like, "Dude, a year from now, this is our goal. Five years from now, this is our goal." We take it almost week to week.
Cooper:
Yeah. I think we're in a unique spot because we do have to constantly remind ourselves that like, "Hey, we got into this with no expectations, so if this is what it is, and this is what it ends up being, we got to be happy with that." But at the same time, like Ross said, our personalities, if we're going to do something, we're going to try to do it right. And so, it is a grind to figure out what the next path is, because I think we don't necessarily know where we're personally going to be at in a year.
Cooper:
I may be at a different job where I just can't commit the time and Ross may get traded and the podcast falls off. For us to plan a year ahead is just difficult, but I would love for us to have some clarity on where we're going, but again, there's so much uncertainty.
Julian:
I think when you reference back to the a million, we talk about pod fate and I think a lot of it does land in that realm of there's situations that happen, which co-hosts can't necessarily get together or just life gets in the way. And so, I definitely think that you all have a great platform that you're starting that's going to really grow into something that can be beyond just you two on the microphone. I think that is the base of it and just continuing is going to get you where you ultimately want to land.
Ross:
I totally agree with you, Julian, and I just... Your advice is to basically keep plugging away. Just keep doing it, but as far as you say, it'll grow into something else, do you wait for someone to come to us and say like, "Hey, we like what you're doing. Why don't you try this?" Or we need to see what those avenues are to grow it into something else? We did our first live event, it was a blast, but now how do we pursue other live events? Do we just keep DMing companies about sponsorships, about live events? It's just, as far as direction, I think that's where we lack is we need someone to steer us.
Julian:
Yeah. And that's one of the things that I love about this space in general and the reason why TJ and I interact so often, I think I mentioned we meet three times a week is because we're always trying to figure out, we have a podcast studio, but we want it to be more than that, which is why we then created a podcast. We can't have a studio and not have a podcast. That just sounds crazy. But beyond that, my background is from the marketing world and you mentioned live events.
Julian:
I think that's going to continue to be so huge for podcasts because not only seeing you two in person, the people who love listening to you and also having your guests come on and do that and figuring out, how can you activate around an All-Star game, for instance. StudioPod's in San Francisco, we have arguably one of the best sports franchises right there. And a lot of other great ones in baseball, hockey and all those things. How can we activate and let them know, anytime you have a guest in town, come to StudioPod 2021, All-Star games there?
Julian:
But I think around your sport specifically, being able to capture the stories in all the different cities that you go to and potentially... And obviously your schedule might not permit you doing a live event around a game, but figuring out the moments in which you can, I think that alone is going to help to accelerate you. And then people are going to see the merchandise in all those things and start to realize that it's a brand, it's not just a podcast, which I think that's exactly what you're building.
TJ:
And they think, when it comes to growth, one of the number one questions we get, number one, how am I going to make money from this? Or number two, how do I get people to listen to it? And they go hand in hand. And the thing that we always recommend is leveraging the network if you're going to have guests on. If you have a guest that you don't know, giving them time to plug anything that they're doing, and then making sure that they're comfortable with resharing something on Instagram or Twitter, where they may have a large following.
TJ:
That's a natural and organic way to get a larger audience and more listeners. And from there, once you start to get that over time, then you can embrace sponsorships, a lot of hosting platforms out there. I think you guys are using Anchor today, right?
Ross:
Mm-hmm (Affirmative).
Cooper:
Yeah.
TJ:
Using Anchor, so you can get those stats and then you can share those with sponsors and say, this is our growth that we've seen over the 65, 66 episodes. We're looking for help to push a brand or an item or product that matches who we are as co-hosts and as a show. Because you want to make sure that you're getting something that's aligned with what you guys are talking about and you don't want to be too ad heavy either.
Ross:
How about the idea, TJ, that, I love the stock market. I love to invest. Typically, if you buy stock XYZ, and you put money into it and you let it ride and you let it be consistent, it'll make money over time. That's what the stock market has proven. I think that we're selling the idea that if you just keep plugging away, you're going to grow. And I don't know if that's necessarily true. I don't know if you go do a hundred episodes that you're going to have more listeners on episode a hundred than you did on episode 20. You can't necessarily guarantee that.
Ross:
There's got to be other ways, I don't know what they are obviously, or else we'd be doing them but I don't like saying or promising people that when they ask me, it's like, "Yeah, just keep plugging away because people will come." This isn't Field of Dreams, it's not necessarily true, but obviously that is the best way to do it. Be consistent, put good stuff out there and people will come. But some people obviously really struggle to find that content.
TJ:
And this is full circle of what we were talking about a little bit earlier in Julian's story of where he decided to, instead of spend the time editing, he'd now spend that time creating more of a marketing around the Couple Collective. Creating more social posts, creating newsletters, to gain more people, maybe even put some ad dollars behind it, like SEOs type things to grow the business. I call it a business, but essentially sometimes podcasting is a business. Especially if you get more sponsor reads and more ads involved, because now you are generating revenue from it.
TJ:
I know Julian, and I think that's a good approach that you took.
Julian:
Yeah. While you all were talking, I just went to your Instagram and one of the things that I've noticed that more recently with one single piece of content, you now have four or five posts to promote it. I think that's a way to evolve for people to continue to not just say like, "Hey, we have a new podcast out." And that's it. And we've seen that from some of our folks, but continuing to take a clip of it and add that into your Instagram stories and start to do that. And that's another reason why I was like, "Okay, I need to make sure that the editing is happening elsewhere so I can focus on this."
Julian:
Trying new things, live events. As you mentioned, Ross, if you build it, they will come. It's not going to happen unless you're trying new things and finding new places in which your content is landing. And I would even argue, how can you start to expand your guests that are still aligned with the stories that you're capturing, but even guests that might be adjacent to the sport of baseball. And it sounds like you're getting entertainers as well as other athletes from sports that are within your network.
Julian:
And I think that is huge because now you're not only getting somebody who is the baseball fan, but also the larger sports fan when you're starting to do those cross things like that. And so, continuing to experiment and try where you're seeding your content that you're continuing to build, that's going to help to start to expand it. And then figuring out, I know you're on the younger side of your baseball career, but how does it evolve beyond just your career as well?
Julian:
And thinking about some of the old timers and what they're doing now to really cement themselves and like one of my favorite athletes is LeBron James. And I love LeBron James, not just because of what he does on the court, but what he does beyond that. And capturing more of those stories, because life after baseball, unfortunately is going to be a real thing. But continuing to expand where you're seeding your content, I think is going to help for you all to evolve.
Cooper:
Well, and I think too, for anyone that's listening that wants to start a podcast or is new to it, it's important to step back and look at it from a further place because when you're in it and you're recording every week and you're editing, you're posting everything, you tend to feel like things need to happening quicker than they are. But I think for us, when we do step back, the few times that we are able to do that, we start to think, "Man, we've done pretty much an episode weekly for the last year, or year and a half." And we never thought we'd do that.
Cooper:
"Man, we've gotten X amount of these great guests. We've had multiple MVPs on our podcast." That's stuff that we need to take stock of and be proud of. But I think Ross and I's personality, we just are not the type of people that really look back and do that. We're always looking forward, but it is important to think we have came a long way and now that we have this base of knowledge and expertise, we can continue to grow through that.
Ross:
And one thing I thought I heard you touching on a little bit, Julian might be not to pigeonhole yourself a little bit. Right? When we first started, we sat down and we said, "Hey, this is not going to be a Dodgers' podcast." And really, we might be 10 times more successful than we are right now, if we were a Dodger podcast, if we just did Dodger content twice a week, Dodger guests only. And we just-
Cooper:
I think we would be.
Ross:
Yeah. And we just decided not to go down that path because, as Cooper said, we wanted to talk to other walks of life, other sports, whatever peaks our interest that week, that month. And I'm so glad we did that because I think it's kept it interesting. It's kept our passion for it as oppo... I'm already in the Dodger locker room 10 hours a day, the last thing I want to do is go home and talk about it for another hour. I think that was one thing you're touching on Julian, is don't pigeonhole yourself thinking you specialize in this one thing when really you might be passionate about something else.
Cooper:
Yeah. I think just being true to whatever path you feel comfortable on. We had an opportunity pretty early on to join the athletic and have a Dodgers podcast and we would've been making more money off the podcast than we are now. We'd probably have more exposure, but in the end we made the decision, we're not going to be happy and we're not going to have as much fun talking about Dodgers baseball every single week for 45 minutes.
Cooper:
And it was a great decision, I think in the long run for us to do that because we've had actors, we've had finance people, we've had a guy that does marble races just on our podcasts and those have been some of our favorite podcasts, the non-athlete ones.
TJ:
And that goes back to, Cooper, you said at the beginning of the podcast that's not your expertise. And if you're pigeonholing yourself then you're limiting what you could be talking about. I'm sure there's been podcasts where you found yourself maybe talking a little bit more about something that you're passionate about and you were able to take more ownership of that particular show or episode. It's interesting that you go guys decided to take that route, because I feel like most people would go and follow the dollars, but I appreciate that you guys have stayed true to yourselves and what you believe in.
TJ:
The one thing that you touched on and I want to hit on it because it's something that Julian had mentioned is becoming more and more popular is the live events. And you guys did one. I'd love to go through the process of what that was like, how that came about, how it was different for a normal podcast. And if you'd want to do it again.
Ross:
Definitely want to do it again. It was a blast and it's an adrenaline rush. It's totally different, man, when you got a hundred people staring at you and waiting to see what's going to come out of your mouth. We were very, very lucky to get in with Baseballism early as a sponsor. And they seemed very, very happy to get in with our podcast. We've been lucky to work with them. And one of the first things they mentioned was, "Hey, if you ever want to do a live event, we'd love to have you." And I remember that was, we might have only been 20 episodes in at the time.
Ross:
And I remember thinking, "That's way over our head right now. We are not ready for that. Let's just stick with this 30 second ad read and see where we go." And every time we kept renewing advertisements, they kept saying, "Hey, we got stores in LA, San Francisco, there's one in Phoenix during spring training, if you ever want to do a live event, let us know." And I think one day I just said, "Cooper, let’s do it. Let's explore what it is and what they're looking for it to be, and let's pursue it." And got the ball rolling really quickly.
Ross:
And before we know it, we had it planned for spring training, maybe six weeks in advance. We knew we had it on the docket and I got more nervous every day leading up to that thing because I can pitch in front of 50,000 people, but talking in an intimate setting like that is more nerve wracking.
TJ:
And Baseballism, just to make sure every one of our listeners know what that is, it’s a shop, right?
Ross:
They started as an online basically brand selling t-shirts and they make these crazy soft t-shirts. They fit athletic, built people like a Lululemon or an Adidas or whatnot. And they make these really cool shirts. And then they started opening up storefronts. I think they have maybe 10 or 11 storefronts across the nation, mostly centered around baseball facilities, whether it's stadiums or spring training. Their stuff's awesome. Everything I've ever gotten. I love it.
Cooper:
The biggest thing too, where we were worried about the planning, we just didn't know how the setup was and even weeks the leading up to it, when we did confirm, I remember I had a, oh shit moment where I was like, "All right, I don't know if we need a speaker or do we need a stage, what microphones are we going to use? And so the idea that we planned all that and pulled it off, I was very, very proud of us because we had no expertise in that. And I do think figuring out all the podcast equipment and just on a smaller scale made me less nervous tackling that as a live event.
Ross:
And we didn't know whether we were supposed to sell tickets, we didn't know how many people were coming. We had no idea. We didn't know if eight people were going to be there or 800. We originally had Justin Turn... The one in Arizona's tiny. I think we had 90 something people show up and it was packed. Once we went and saw it in person, we were like, "Hey, we got to limit this in case it is bigger than we expect." And we had Justin Turner as our original guest and Justin Turner is beloved in Los Angeles rightfully so. He's an unbelievable human being.
Ross:
But Justin Turner would've brought 2000 people to that event and we didn't know what we would do so we ended canceling Justin Turner and just doing it ourselves. And it ended up being perfect. We got really lucky, but it was very much learning on the fly with that thing, because like I said, we'd never done it before.
Cooper:
And now that we have done it, I think we feel fully confident because it went well and we figured out the technical side of it. I thought Ross and I eased into it really quickly. It was funny, the podcast we did before Ross was giving me a hard time. He was like, "Man, I don't know if you're prepared for this. Do you realize what we're about to do?" He was like, "I pitch in front of 50,000 people. I do interviews all day. You've never done anything like this." But I felt like we eased into it good.
Cooper:
I think it was nice because everyone that was there was already familiar with our conversations. They listen to our podcast; they love Ross in the field. It was a stack deck, but I think that's part of what a live event is for.
TJ:
And did you guys see any uptick from there or what was the results of that?
Cooper:
I think that what I determined from that was there was less variance in our listeners going forward. The people that went and the people that followed it on social media are going to be loyal and listen to us forever because they feel a certain connection meeting us, taking pictures, seeing us in person. I think from a loyalty standpoint, it was huge.
Ross:
Yeah. I would agree with that spot on. And I think it put us on the map to look out for ones moving forward. Where, I think we mentioned on podcasts after that, or maybe during the live podcast that we want to keep doing them. We want to do them in Los Angeles, if Cooper can fly out. We want to do them every year at the Baseballism store in Phoenix, if we can. And I think it just gave something for people to look forward to as another chance to come meet us, come see it live and in person and get a feel for what recording a podcast looks like.
Cooper:
Well, and I think it was ammo for future sponsorships and stuff to say, "Look what we've put on. We brought a hundred plus people into this store and we were pretty good at it." And I think that that some good ammo for us, because before that we didn't really have anything to offer.
TJ:
That's awesome. I love to hear that. One thing that I would love to do and you all have given so much valuable content that we can share with that curious scrappy podcaster. But if there was one last piece of advice that you'd give the curious scrappy podcaster, what would it be? And maybe each of you separately.
Cooper:
I would say the biggest advice I would give is just press record and post it. You just got to break the seal at some point. It's nerve wracking. You're not going to be great initially. You will improve. Ross and I have improved just tenfold, and I think our ability to conversate, if you have a co-host that's going to also improve. Don't get discouraged too soon and just keep grinding. Make a goal for yourself and make sure you have an episode every week or whatever that goal is and just do it. It is attainable. You do have time to do it, so just do it.
Ross:
Well said. I would obviously say all that as well. I guess if I had another thing to add to it would be do what you enjoy, don't do what you think people want to hear. Don't do what you think is the popular path to take. It's not going to be fun to do an hour a week talking about something you're not passionate about. Find something that you are passionate about, pursue that and do it as long as it still brings you joy and it makes you happy because that's what it's real about. If it blows up great, if you make money great. But if it brings you joy an hour of your week, that's all that you need to know.
Cooper:
I think too, like you said, Ross, for a lot of people and even for us at our level, it's really just a hobby and it's just like someone that loves to go play golf or go fishing. Someone can have a hobby of podcasting and spend money and invest in that just for theirselves. And I think that's also important.
TJ:
Thanks for joining. You guys were the first people in the studio, so we had to have you on as guests. Please, if you guys don't mind, tell the audience where they can find you.
Cooper:
Yeah. You can find us anywhere you listen to your podcasts, Spotify, Apple Podcast, we're called the Big Swing Podcast. My name's Cooper Surles. And then Ross is a pitcher for the Dodgers. We've been doing it for about a year and a half now. We're on social media at Big Swing Podcast and then we also have a website, bigswingpodcast.com. We talk at sports, we've had actors on there, we have financial people. Pretty much everything with the focus on sports and we really appreciate you coming to listen.
TJ:
PodOn. Every episode of the pod on podcast is produced and edited by StudioPod Media. For more information about our work and our clients go to studiopodsf.com. Gary O.
This is the PodOn Podcast. We're your hosts, TJ Bonaventura that's me and Julian Lewis.
Julian:
That's me.
TJ:
As founders of a podcast media company, we had to start a podcast. Join us each episode as we and our guest drop knowledge on podcasting for you, the curious and scrappy podcaster. Welcome to the pod on podcast. We're really excited for our guest today. We have the host of the Big Swing Podcast Cooper Surles and Ross Stripling. Welcome on guys.
Cooper:
How's it going?
Ross:
Yeah, Awesome to be here, man. Thanks for having us.
TJ:
I'm very excited to have you on. Julian is very excited to have you on because, Ross, I actually don't know if you know this or not, but you, when you came on with Rich, you guys were the first people to record in the studio at StudioPod way back when, almost a year ago. It's come full circle here.
Ross:
Yeah, pretty special, man. I got to see the genesis of StudioPod and see you right when you were getting started and you didn't even hardly have furniture yet. And I can tell from your background now it's very different from that room I recorded the Rich Hill pod in. Really cool to see, man. I guess, in heck, less than a year, you've done some pretty awesome work and got that thing up and running. It looks great. Pretty cool that I can say I was the first one.
TJ:
And then not far after that, Cooper, you came in, you got to see the transition as we went through too. It's exciting to have both you guys here and talk about just podcasting in general and your genesis as co-hosts and what you guys have learned. And then as always, I have Julian, my co-host and co-founder in StudioPod. Julian, do you want to go ahead and say hi?
Julian:
Of course. Yeah. Hey guys, I think I'm stoked to have you all on because hearing your initial podcast that was recorded at StudioPod, I also was a client of TJ's and that legitimized the white walls that were in that room when I first walked in there, but the quality was there, but I really enjoyed listening to that episode that you all had with Rich Hill. Really powerful episode and it was great for you all to capture that story. And I've definitely listened to a handful of episodes since.
Cooper:
Yeah. You talk about it being special for you all that we were the first podcast there, but we always talk about the opposite way. We think about StudioPod in a special way, because it was the Rich Hill episode where he was able to tell this incredible story, got emotional several times and probably our most memorable podcast that we've done in, I think 65, 66 episodes. Very, very cool stuff. And to do it with you all was really neat.
TJ:
Yeah. We were super appreciative to have you guys, and we're lucky enough to have you guys take a chance to record with us and hopefully in the future, we can have you guys in again, that'd be awesome.
Ross:
We need baseball to come back so I can come back to San Francisco, man.
TJ:
I know. We'll get you in, man. We'll get both of you guys in. I want to get into, Cooper, you mentioned 66, 65 episodes now, but I want to go way back to episode one and even before, and just start talking about how the Big Swing came about. I know there was some initial talk at a Rockets game way back when, but what was that first conversation like? How long did it take from idea to, "You know what, let's actually start recording and make this a thing."?
Cooper:
Yeah. It was very quick. Like I said, we went to a Rockets game and we were just talking about podcasts and I said, " Man, I love them. I listen to a bunch of them." I gave Ross some recommendations and we just organically said it like as a joke like, "Hey, we should start a podcast." And our wives were both there. And we went out after the Rockets game and they were encouraging us. And so, I remember waking up in the morning and texting Ross and just being like, "Were we serious there? Are we actually doing this?"
Cooper:
And he was like, "I think, I don't know. Let's do it." And I think Ross, maybe within, what? 24, 48 hours we were announcing it on social media.
Ross:
Yeah, it did happen extremely quick. And it had been talked about before in that Cooper was passionate about podcasts and I was not, I didn't know anything about them. When I'm riding in a car, I'm just listening to music or something totally different from podcasts, just wasn't on the scene at all. And Cooper started talking about, "Hey, check out Pardon My Take." "Check out some of the stuff on..." I can never remember the dang guy's name. Cooper, he just sold it.
Cooper:
The Ringer.
Ross:
The Ringer, yeah. The stuff on The Ringer, Revisionist History and I loved them all and obviously Cooper was telling me the best ones to check out. And by the time we got to that Rockets game, I was probably had to listened to podcasts for six weeks by then. It was just like, "Dude, I love them. I want to be a part of it." And thinking about my network and the guys that I have around me in the locker room and the baseball side of stuff, and then have Cooper's expertise of behind the seeds and the tech stuff that he's figured out and his passion for doing it. And it just seemed like a no brainer.
Ross:
And that's why it happened so fast. It was like, "Should we do this?" "Heck yeah, let's do it." And like he said, 48 hours later, we were recording episode one and kick started the whole thing.
TJ:
And so, did you guys really just think about having a mic in front of you and recording? What was your setup like? Did you guys do anything around defining your audience and who was going to listen or were you just winging it?
Cooper:
Really winging it. I think that we knew we would have a built-in audience through Ross and through the Dodgers, so we felt like we would at least get a few people to listen initially, but as far as the organization of doing a podcast, I think that we just based it on other podcasts that we enjoyed listening to. And we put a mark in our faces. I remember the first episode and it was a grind, three or four hours to get through 15 minutes of just an intro pod. And I remember leaving that episode being like, "This is going to be difficult."
Cooper:
And now we sit down and we can grind 45 minutes out without even trying. It's crazy how quickly it's evolved, but it was a grind there at first.
Ross:
I think we recorded it three different times. We recorded it, we listened to it. We said, "That stunk. Let's try it again." Recorded it, listened to it be like, "No, we can get better here." Recorded it again. We're like, "I guess it's okay." It was a battle man, like you said, and I remember thinking the same thing, but I think we just walked into Best Buy. At least I did. I bought a microphone of some sort, I don't even remember the brand or what it was, and we just set it out in front of us, plugged it into Cooper's work computer. And we're like, "We got to do something better than this."
Ross:
And we were like that really for a while. And once I left for spring training a few weeks later is when we had to get creative on how to figure it out remotely.
Julian:
What do you think it was that got you all over the hump from recording those first three and then realizing like, let's just put it out there and see what happens?
Cooper:
Yeah. That's a lot of anxiety putting out there initially. We didn't really anticipate or know how many people would listen and really, those first few episodes once we started to get some pretty big time guests, they had some of our biggest listens, I think our biggest listens since we've been doing the podcast. It was definitely nerve-wracking and to listen to yourself back as the guy that's editing the podcast, it's absolutely brutal. You're totally critical of yourself and I would bring up stuff to my friends like, "I can't believe I said that." And they didn't even notice it.
Cooper:
But as far as getting over the hump, I think it was just trial and error. Finding out what programs, whether it be Skype or Zencastr. And I think TJ, you helped us out all a lot on that, but trial and error, doing a lot of research and just finding out what works best with us, because it is unique. Ross is on the road a lot, obviously with his career. And then with my career, I'm traveling about half the of time too. It's definitely different for us.
TJ:
When you're thinking about the different programs, and you're thinking about the setup and what your guys' roles are as co-hosts, how long did that take to figure out? I'm sure you guys are buddies, so the conversation between you two would be pretty smooth, but when you go in front of the mic, you become someone different, you have a little bit different of a persona. Did you guys think about who should be handling what types of questions or who should be addressing different topics? Can you talk about that a little bit?
Ross:
I think from the start we knew, or at least I knew that Cooper was going to be the intro outro guy. He had that ability, he did it right off the bat. That was the first thing he killed from the start. It was like, "Hey, welcome to the Big Swing podcast. This is Cooper Surles with my..." What did you say? "Co-hosting podcast compadre."
Cooper:
Podcast compadre.
Ross:
Yeah. He just opened up with that and I was like, "Heck yeah." And just let him run with that. As far as from there, man, I remember thinking we wanted it to sound like just two guys, kick back talking sports and for a while, that's what our audio sounded like. And we needed to fix that big time, but I feel like we've kept that ability just to banter back and forth. And when you have a guest in there, it's not, obviously some of them are more interview style, but theoretically we wanted it, if we had a guest just to be three guys sitting out talking sports.
Ross:
And not just like, "Hey man, what's your favorite color? What's your favorite memory?" That kind of stuff. We wanted it to be an open conversation. And obviously that took time, but that was the structure from the start that I remember us talking about and really wanting to pursue.
Cooper:
Well, and I think too, when we're interviewing a lot of athletes with Ross, obviously being a professional athlete, I'm of course going to defer to him on the more technical, three, two count, what pitch are you throwing? Stuff like that. I'm obviously not going to be able to provide a lot of insight on that. But I think what I can do is just little bit goofier or say something that maybe a fan was thinking at home. And I think that that structure we really never talked about, but I think it was just understood.
Julian:
I think That's the approach that TJ and I are trying to define with the PodOn Podcast whereby I came to him as a client and he was that expert to help me get going. And so, when we have guests like you all on, I'm empathizing with you all from a perspective of, we're both podcasters trying to make this happen. Whereas TJ's an expert voice that weighs in on the strategies and how you can go ahead and get started and continue with your podcast.
Ross:
I guess one thing to consider on our end is how, TJ, you talked about, we’re going to chat here for about 60 minutes and cut it down to 40, 45 minutes of content. We've never really done that. I hear a lot of podcasts, people talk about that, but I'm not going to do that because my job's nuts and Cooper is the only guy as part of our two-man team that can do that. And he's got a real job. We basically turn the mic on and what you get is what you get. And yeah, he might go in and edit a little bit and stuff like that. But if we record 45 minutes, you're going to get 43 and a half of it.
Ross:
And I've always wondered the guys that record 60 and cut down, that takes a lot of time and effort, and props to you for being able to do that, man.
TJ:
Thank you for saying that. And we think about it is you want to cut it down if you need to focus your show or that episode on your target audience, and making sure that you still capture the authentic content in 60 minutes time, but not all of that is going to be really focused on your audience and what they're going to care about. So for us, we see our audience as a curious scrappy podcaster and that could be someone who's an individual who's getting started. That could be someone who laps and wants to get restarted.
TJ:
It could be someone who's an organization and wants to do it for their company, given internal podcasts are growing and growing. We want to make sure that we get them talking, our guests talking as much as we want and making sure it's authentic and then cutting it down to make sure it still fits in the mold of what we're trying to do for our audience. I think one thing that we're noticing is now there's over a million podcasts, literally over a million podcast out there and listenership is getting very saturated, is how can we up the quality listener versus the higher quantity of listener?
Cooper:
Yeah. And I think there's really two things that I made the decision to not edit as much is because one, when we have a lot of these athletes on that are our guests, fans and listeners are so used to hearing the just regular coaches speak general answer. And I think people want to hear Cody Bellinger say uh, and have to think about it, not be perfect all the time. And then I think too, just feeling less insecure about what we're saying and feeling more okay with the fact that I said like for or times in a sentence, you know what I mean?
Cooper:
And I think you get more comfortable with that and you realize that people enjoy hearing that, at least for our setting.
Julian:
Yeah. That makes perfect sense. And I think there's the conversational type podcast which you all have unlike ours where we're focused on making it educational. And so, making sure that we do cut it down to the things that the curious scrappy podcaster is looking for. But even with myself, like with my podcast, Couple Collective, I oftentimes go on rants where I'm talking to these couples about the relationships and I want every single essence of that podcast to come to life.
Julian:
Because if there is a moment that might be a vulnerable moment that they forget that they're on a mic, I want to make sure that that's captured without just focusing on cutting it down, just to talk about that topic. The way you all do it makes perfect sense. Especially because, like to your point, when somebody's in front of a mic being interviewed by a major network, they're going to be really short and concise and to the point, but when they're just sitting down with two buddies, they’re just going to have more of an open real conversation.
Cooper:
Yeah. It's funny some of the best stuff that we get that doesn't make it in the podcast or when we're just talking before the podcast or right after we started recording. And there's so many moments where I'm like, "Man, that was so authentic that they just said that." But when you press record, it is a different ball game.
TJ:
I want to talk a little bit about when you first got started, you're defining your cadence and how often you wanted to release, because one thing that we constantly find with newer podcasters is they get super ambitious to have a conversation with themself or with a co-host much like you guys did at the Rockets game and start to think that, "We want to get this started." They get very gung ho, but once they start to record, they realize they can't keep up with the release schedule. A tactic that we always like to recommend is batch recording.
TJ:
And I think, Cooper, we have talked about this before, but recording let's say three or four, five episodes at a time or within a week's period. And then if you want to release on a weekly cadence, you now have five weeks worth of content that you're ready to release in the bank and then you can start recording more regularly. Did you guys have any thoughts around that when you first got started and did you guys find a rhythm that made sense to do that?
Cooper:
Yeah. I'd say initially that we typically were trying to be as scheduled as possible. Like, all right, who's our guest this week? And then when are we going to post it? Who's our guest next week, when are we going to post it? Whereas, right now I think we have maybe three or four podcasts in the bank ready to go and that's made it super helpful for two guys that have full-time jobs and really aren't seeing any financial reward from this right now. To prioritize that where you're having a schedule weekly, it's important.
Cooper:
And I've been really proud with how we've been able to do that. I thought going into it, there would be a lot of different moments where it just got crazy at work for me and we couldn't record for three weeks or vice versa, and I think we've been pretty consistent and maybe only missed a few weeks throughout the year plus we've been doing it.
Ross:
Yeah. At first I was a little skeptical about logging, five weeks ahead is quite a bit of time in the baseball world. If I record... I remember. I think we sat on the Cody Bellinger one for maybe a little bit and I was worried that his MVP race would go maybe downhill or God forbid he gets hurt or whatever. And then I'd feel bad about putting my teammate's podcast out there. I remember not really wanting to sit on them too long, but now I've gotten more and more comfortable because I think we've learned that one, if we're going to post it soon, we stay current and talk about what's going on right now.
Ross:
And if it's not going to be one that we post-super soon, then we keep it broad. And that way, if we do talk something super current, like I know we released a David Dahl one and we recorded it weeks ago and he went on to do this MLB, the show video game tournament, and he's already lost and been kicked out. And on our podcast, we're talking about, what's your strategy going to be like going into it? So anyone that really knows both of those things is going to be like, "Hey, this was recorded a month ago." I do worry about people that pick up on that, but really, it hasn't been much of an issue.
Julian:
In terms of preparing your guest for that, one, how do you prepare them to come on your show? And then what is the expectation that you do set in terms of when it's going to be released? In your world where you are talking to public figures, are there restrictions in terms of what they allow for you to do and not do?
Ross:
Sure. A lot of them are my teammates. Let's say we've done 66 episodes like Cooper talked about, I bet 15 to 20 of them have either been Dodger teammates or Dodger related, whether it's our broadcaster or something like that. Luckily, I have a good friendship with pretty much everyone that's come on from the Dodger side of it where I can just be really upfront with them and say, "Hey, we're recording now and posting it in two days." Or, "Hey, we're recording this now and I'm not sure when we're going to post it." And they're always very comfortable with that.
Ross:
Now, where we've gotten some other guests are through my agency who has basketball, golf, and even people in the acting realm and those people want much more defined dates before they share their contact information. For instance, an NBA player who I'll leave, I guess, nameless didn't want to exchange phone numbers with me until we nailed down an absolute date of when we're going to record. And once we did that, then we exchanged phone numbers.
Ross:
I sent him a text and said, "Hey bud, this is Ross Stripling from the Dodgers. I'll text you again next week when we plan on recording, just as a reminder and I'll talk to you then." He responded, "Okay." A week later we synced up. It just depends on, I guess, the person a little bit and how, I don't know, maybe they view privacy and want to stay private and that kind of stuff. But for the most part, it's been pretty easy. I guess I can, sorry, I'm getting longwinded, but as an athlete, myself and somewhat of a public figure, I view myself as a human being.
Ross:
Like when someone wants to ask me to be on their show, I'm excited and happy to do it. And if I agree to do it, here’s my email, here's my phone number. Let me know when you're ready and I'll be there.
Cooper:
But I would say, Ross too, not everyone is like you that's in your position and rightfully so, I totally get it. They're hounded every single day before games, after games, during practice with media requests and the idea that they want to spend 45 minutes with us may be questionable, especially if they don't previously know us. I think that we've proved that we're not going to put people in a position that’s going to make them look bad or anything. And we're pretty easy to talk to, I would say generally.
Cooper:
I think people, once they do come on, we haven't had any issues with people being upset with what came out or when we posted or anything like that.
TJ:
I want to quickly transition and talk about it's challenges. I think one thing that I've always appreciated about your podcast is, you guys, whether the quality was as good as it could have been when you first started to where it is now, you guys have always released the content and it shows that content and what you guys talk about matters. And you're going to get listeners if you're really engaging as co-hosts, but I'm sure there have been times where maybe you guys weren't on your A game as co-hosts or interviewers or the quality wasn't there.
TJ:
I'd love for our listeners to know some of those things that you face, because I think ultimately what we put out there is going to be a finished polished product if you will, but behind the scenes, there's going to be some tough times.
Ross:
I remember once specifically, Cooper, was this spring training where I had had a weird day at the field, I think maybe I'd thrown a bad bullpen or something. I just didn't like my day at the field. And we were going to talk about, I had almost gotten traded to the Los Angeles Angels and that trade fell through and it was a huge topic. We got Mookie Betts and David Price, these mega stars and I was in that trade and then not in that trade, it was something that I was going to be able to talk about firsthand that most people don't get to really share.
Ross:
I went through a massive trade and I get to talk about it and I just had bad energy. And I think I ran off on Cooper a little bit too. He had weird energy and we still grinded through 30 minutes of both of us knowing, this is terrible. And we got done and we texted each other and we were like, but I think Cooper might have said it first like, "Dude, that was awful. We have to do that again." And I was like, "I agree. I don't..." And I think we waited till the next day when I woke up on the right side of the bed and was in a good mood.
Ross:
And sometimes life happens. You're just not in a good mood and that's going to come out in your podcast. If I had a bad day, I'm not going to all of a sudden sound super excited to talk about whatever it is on the docket that day. And that one, I remember specifically for whatever reason, we just kept going despite knowing how just blatantly awful it was.
Cooper:
That was the exact example I was going to use. I remember right after the episode, I was like, "Okay, I'm going to go ahead and just start grinding through and editing this podcast." And I got through 10 minutes and I texted Ross like, "Man, this is not good. You didn't sound good. I sounded mad. It just didn't sound good." And we've had a couple times like that, but I think we've had the self-awareness to look back and be like, "Hey, let's just take a day. We got a little time. Let's just redo it tomorrow." And when we did redo it, I remember it turning out really, really good.
Cooper:
I think a big part of that was you'd went through all the stuff with the trade, so obviously you were stressed out and then the idea that the podcast was in limbo. I probably was a little bit stressed out too. And I think it came out on the podcast whenever some real life stuff is going on. It's not that always easy to talk about what Patrick Mahomes did last Sunday.
TJ:
You can't edit attitude, right?
Cooper:
Yeah.
Ross:
Yeah.
Julian:
I love that story too because TJ and I have been recording on Sundays for the PodOn Podcast and we meet on Tuesdays, we meet on Thursdays, we're really trying to do something with the StudioPod thing. And on Sundays we're wiped out and we could tell that our energy levels are low. And so, I think the second time we recorded was the first week that The Last Dance was coming on. And TJ's handle is @tjforthree, which I haven't seen him on the court yet so I don't know how legit that is. But we started talking about that and I'm a huge Jordan fan.
Julian:
He's obviously a huge Hoops fan and that helped to get our energy levels up. But with the other ones, I think just being self-aware of the fact that, "Hey, today's just not our day." Or, "We've already recorded this. Let's just go back and do it again. When we do have that energy or we have what our listeners are used to hearing on the mic."
Cooper:
Yeah. And I, I think too, just personally for our podcast, when Ross and I started it, we were definitely friends. But I would say that we were not close friends by any means. Our wives were best friends, so we had hung out a lot just through them, but just individually, we didn't hang out a lot. So I think over the course of the 66 episodes, we've been growing our friendship and learning things about each other and how we work and everything. There's been a, while we're recording and growing this podcast, we're also growing our friendship. There's been some things like that.
Ross:
It's weird that you've seen it that way because that's not how it's been for me. Just Kidding.
Cooper:
Well, I'm still not friends with you. That's-
Ross:
[crosstalk 00:23:35]. We need another 66 before we're there.
Cooper:
Yeah.
TJ:
I do want to talk about remote recording, then we'll go there for a second because obviously you guys both travel for work. Ross you're constantly on the road in large stints. What was it like getting that set up? I know it seems that you guys were doing it perhaps in a lot of hotel rooms. Did you care about the quality at that point? Where was your focus and how were you getting set up? How did you guys communicate with each other? And I know you were using Skype, there was that whole genesis of figuring out how to do it remotely.
TJ:
Ross, can you talk to getting that set up and someone who's not technical, what was that learning curve?
Ross:
Well, the learning curve was whatever Cooper told me to do. It was a learning curve. We were trying where we just put a microphone in the middle of two people and would just hope it would pick up, and then based on whatever room you're in depends on the audio because you're bouncing sound on different things in your room and some of those were just awful. And then we figured out how to get multiple mics. We bought this little thing where you could plug in multiple mics and then that would plug into your computer. And we had more issues with that thing.
Ross:
It was supposed to be so cut and dry and it just never was. For whatever reason, we couldn't get the levels right. Sometimes it wouldn't pick up both mics. That was a disaster from the start. And then what happened was we did a podcast with CJ McCollum. He's a shooting guard for the Portland Trail Blazers. And he pulled out this little bitty handheld Zoom recorder that was where it all changed for us. When we saw that, and he just explained how he used it. And from there that's been an absolute game changer for us, but we tried everything under the sun for the remote.
Ross:
We did Zencastr, we tried just about everything and this Zoom remote, I guess recorder has by far been our best option.
Cooper:
Yeah. I would say initially, to put it frank, it drove me nuts, the quality of it, because I do listen to a lot of podcasts and I really care about the quality. When I hear podcasts with low quality audio, I'm almost out immediately. And so, it drove me crazy, but my level of knowledge on what to do was just not there yet to figure it out. And so, we just had to play it by ear. And as far as recording remotely, I knew that I knew a little bit more than Ross knew, so I didn't want to put too much on his plate. We're like, "Okay, let's put a mic in the middle and see how this works."
Cooper:
And it worked fine. But on the editing process, I couldn't control Ross's voice versus Cody Bellinger's voice. If Ross was talking loud and he was talking quiet and to not have multiple audio channels where you can edit and play with it is just a nightmare in the editing process, which you know.
Julian:
I guess with that at editing piece, it sounds like now that you all are essentially putting your intro and your outro on, and sometimes you have an ad read in between. Is that the extent of the editing that you're doing today? Or it sounds like you've learned your way to control the audio, but what's the editing that you're doing now?
Cooper:
I would say that's typically it. I would say initially for the first half of the episodes, we were doing a significant amount, more editing just in the actual podcast. Like I said, we just weren't as secure with what we were saying and we wanted it to sound perfect. And I think we realized that that's not why people are listening. We've toned down the editing there, but we've figured out some ways to add ads in the middle of the podcast.
Cooper:
That's required a little bit more work, but I still think even if you're not editing fully throughout the podcast, as the person that is editing, I think it's your responsibility to go ahead and listen to the whole thing, just to ensure that there's not a slip up somewhere or someone's microphone went out. The process is still long aside from not editing as much.
Ross:
I think for a while, Coop, weren't you going in and literally highlighting the word um, and deleting it in some drastic ones? He would go in and physically find the word um and delete it.
Cooper:
Yeah.
TJ:
That's a good little transition. What is your process of editing today then? What tools are you using? How long does it take you? This is not meant to bring in StudioPod at all, but I'd love to know, have you considered outsourcing some of that to free up some of your time?
Cooper:
Yeah, I would say at the moment, I think we have just enough time to record and for me to edit and put out. But there has been so many times where I've reached out to you, TJ, just for advice like, "What do I do here if it sounds like this?" Or, "This audio didn't pick up as well as the other one, what do I do?" And the idea of using someone like you would just be exponentially easier for us because although I do know a little bit about this and learned a lot, I don't have the time and resources to put that much knowledge into it. It's been difficult and I think that there's a lot of room for us to improve still.
Ross:
TJ of the million plus podcasts that you mentioned, I got to think the vast majority of them are just buddies or someone in their room talking into a microphone that can't afford to outsource their audio. What are you guys, and I guess I'm turning the script here. What do you guys recommend to people like that? Just to Joe Blow who's talking sports in his room at night, what can he do to make his audio better?
TJ:
I think there's a lot of things that you can do to make the audio better. And the dirty little secret, that few people know, it's less about the mic that you have. It's more about the condition or the environment around you. As much as you can soundproof that, that's why you often see people recording in a closet with a lot of clothes because it can condition the room naturally. But what we always like to talk about is, and I want to turn this to Julian, because he actually went through this process is the time benefit or the cost benefit of what you could be doing with your time, if you did decide to outsource it.
TJ:
Because one thing that we tend to see is podcasting is not easy, but it doesn't have to be. There are certain things that you can do yourself. There are some examples of where you can turn to other people, that way you can free up your time to get more listenership. And I think Julian has a good story of when he got started and how we got connected.
Julian:
Yeah. I think for me in particular being that it was just me recording and then interviewing couples, my entire Sundays were spent editing and it was just the time suck for me. I did commit to saying that I'm going to invest some dollars in outsourcing this because it's necessary. In an ideal world, I'd be sitting next to TJ in the studio and we'd be having this conversation, but now I'm at home. I have my blinds drawn I'm in front of a window, which is definitely not ideal, but I got these SelectBlinds, which is not an ad.
Julian:
And they actually block out the sound, so I sound a little bit better, but with my podcast, I set a goal that I wanted to make it something more than just stories of couples and the relationships. I eventually want to get to a point where I can get couples out in the wild doing retreats and doing things like that. And in order for me to spend the time to do so, I just can't be editing. And that's why I outsource it. I think understanding what the ultimate goal of that podcast is, is key to helping somebody who is currently trying to figure it out at home what they want to ultimately do with it.
Julian:
But I guess segueing from that, I guess I'd love to understand, what are your aspirations with the podcast? It sounds like, from a revenue perspective you do have advertisers. And so you're able to make some money there, but is it just to put out great content and great stories from these athletes and people that you're capturing stories from? Or do you have aspirations beyond that as well?
Ross:
I think for one, Cooper and I's personalities, if we're going to commit to something, we want it to be successful and we've said that from the start, if we're going to do this, it's not for fun. We're going to try and be successful and try and build it into something. And we're always trying to do that. Now, you have time constraints, we both have jobs. That stuff is definitely part of it. There's no doubt about it. But I think that we have really... I don’t know. We've battled to figure out exactly what we want to do. We made hats as Cooper has one on right now.
Ross:
And you make merchandise and stuff like that. You really push it and try and sell it. I don't really necessarily know what the growth potential is of a podcast. We think that we have as good a guess as anyone around in the sports world yet we struggle to really, really grow as fast as we feel like we can. And I remember when I first started this or we first started this, what I wanted to do was I wanted to get my teammates to open up because I'm used to seeing Cody Bellinger give the, take it one day at a time answer.
Ross:
And I know the real Cody and he's unbelievable and he's a goofball and he is one of the funnier guys that I've ever met. And I wanted to give people an opportunity to hear that. But as far as the podcast itself, I think that we've never sat down and brainstormed like, "Dude, a year from now, this is our goal. Five years from now, this is our goal." We take it almost week to week.
Cooper:
Yeah. I think we're in a unique spot because we do have to constantly remind ourselves that like, "Hey, we got into this with no expectations, so if this is what it is, and this is what it ends up being, we got to be happy with that." But at the same time, like Ross said, our personalities, if we're going to do something, we're going to try to do it right. And so, it is a grind to figure out what the next path is, because I think we don't necessarily know where we're personally going to be at in a year.
Cooper:
I may be at a different job where I just can't commit the time and Ross may get traded and the podcast falls off. For us to plan a year ahead is just difficult, but I would love for us to have some clarity on where we're going, but again, there's so much uncertainty.
Julian:
I think when you reference back to the a million, we talk about pod fate and I think a lot of it does land in that realm of there's situations that happen, which co-hosts can't necessarily get together or just life gets in the way. And so, I definitely think that you all have a great platform that you're starting that's going to really grow into something that can be beyond just you two on the microphone. I think that is the base of it and just continuing is going to get you where you ultimately want to land.
Ross:
I totally agree with you, Julian, and I just... Your advice is to basically keep plugging away. Just keep doing it, but as far as you say, it'll grow into something else, do you wait for someone to come to us and say like, "Hey, we like what you're doing. Why don't you try this?" Or we need to see what those avenues are to grow it into something else? We did our first live event, it was a blast, but now how do we pursue other live events? Do we just keep DMing companies about sponsorships, about live events? It's just, as far as direction, I think that's where we lack is we need someone to steer us.
Julian:
Yeah. And that's one of the things that I love about this space in general and the reason why TJ and I interact so often, I think I mentioned we meet three times a week is because we're always trying to figure out, we have a podcast studio, but we want it to be more than that, which is why we then created a podcast. We can't have a studio and not have a podcast. That just sounds crazy. But beyond that, my background is from the marketing world and you mentioned live events.
Julian:
I think that's going to continue to be so huge for podcasts because not only seeing you two in person, the people who love listening to you and also having your guests come on and do that and figuring out, how can you activate around an All-Star game, for instance. StudioPod's in San Francisco, we have arguably one of the best sports franchises right there. And a lot of other great ones in baseball, hockey and all those things. How can we activate and let them know, anytime you have a guest in town, come to StudioPod 2021, All-Star games there?
Julian:
But I think around your sport specifically, being able to capture the stories in all the different cities that you go to and potentially... And obviously your schedule might not permit you doing a live event around a game, but figuring out the moments in which you can, I think that alone is going to help to accelerate you. And then people are going to see the merchandise in all those things and start to realize that it's a brand, it's not just a podcast, which I think that's exactly what you're building.
TJ:
And they think, when it comes to growth, one of the number one questions we get, number one, how am I going to make money from this? Or number two, how do I get people to listen to it? And they go hand in hand. And the thing that we always recommend is leveraging the network if you're going to have guests on. If you have a guest that you don't know, giving them time to plug anything that they're doing, and then making sure that they're comfortable with resharing something on Instagram or Twitter, where they may have a large following.
TJ:
That's a natural and organic way to get a larger audience and more listeners. And from there, once you start to get that over time, then you can embrace sponsorships, a lot of hosting platforms out there. I think you guys are using Anchor today, right?
Ross:
Mm-hmm (Affirmative).
Cooper:
Yeah.
TJ:
Using Anchor, so you can get those stats and then you can share those with sponsors and say, this is our growth that we've seen over the 65, 66 episodes. We're looking for help to push a brand or an item or product that matches who we are as co-hosts and as a show. Because you want to make sure that you're getting something that's aligned with what you guys are talking about and you don't want to be too ad heavy either.
Ross:
How about the idea, TJ, that, I love the stock market. I love to invest. Typically, if you buy stock XYZ, and you put money into it and you let it ride and you let it be consistent, it'll make money over time. That's what the stock market has proven. I think that we're selling the idea that if you just keep plugging away, you're going to grow. And I don't know if that's necessarily true. I don't know if you go do a hundred episodes that you're going to have more listeners on episode a hundred than you did on episode 20. You can't necessarily guarantee that.
Ross:
There's got to be other ways, I don't know what they are obviously, or else we'd be doing them but I don't like saying or promising people that when they ask me, it's like, "Yeah, just keep plugging away because people will come." This isn't Field of Dreams, it's not necessarily true, but obviously that is the best way to do it. Be consistent, put good stuff out there and people will come. But some people obviously really struggle to find that content.
TJ:
And this is full circle of what we were talking about a little bit earlier in Julian's story of where he decided to, instead of spend the time editing, he'd now spend that time creating more of a marketing around the Couple Collective. Creating more social posts, creating newsletters, to gain more people, maybe even put some ad dollars behind it, like SEOs type things to grow the business. I call it a business, but essentially sometimes podcasting is a business. Especially if you get more sponsor reads and more ads involved, because now you are generating revenue from it.
TJ:
I know Julian, and I think that's a good approach that you took.
Julian:
Yeah. While you all were talking, I just went to your Instagram and one of the things that I've noticed that more recently with one single piece of content, you now have four or five posts to promote it. I think that's a way to evolve for people to continue to not just say like, "Hey, we have a new podcast out." And that's it. And we've seen that from some of our folks, but continuing to take a clip of it and add that into your Instagram stories and start to do that. And that's another reason why I was like, "Okay, I need to make sure that the editing is happening elsewhere so I can focus on this."
Julian:
Trying new things, live events. As you mentioned, Ross, if you build it, they will come. It's not going to happen unless you're trying new things and finding new places in which your content is landing. And I would even argue, how can you start to expand your guests that are still aligned with the stories that you're capturing, but even guests that might be adjacent to the sport of baseball. And it sounds like you're getting entertainers as well as other athletes from sports that are within your network.
Julian:
And I think that is huge because now you're not only getting somebody who is the baseball fan, but also the larger sports fan when you're starting to do those cross things like that. And so, continuing to experiment and try where you're seeding your content that you're continuing to build, that's going to help to start to expand it. And then figuring out, I know you're on the younger side of your baseball career, but how does it evolve beyond just your career as well?
Julian:
And thinking about some of the old timers and what they're doing now to really cement themselves and like one of my favorite athletes is LeBron James. And I love LeBron James, not just because of what he does on the court, but what he does beyond that. And capturing more of those stories, because life after baseball, unfortunately is going to be a real thing. But continuing to expand where you're seeding your content, I think is going to help for you all to evolve.
Cooper:
Well, and I think too, for anyone that's listening that wants to start a podcast or is new to it, it's important to step back and look at it from a further place because when you're in it and you're recording every week and you're editing, you're posting everything, you tend to feel like things need to happening quicker than they are. But I think for us, when we do step back, the few times that we are able to do that, we start to think, "Man, we've done pretty much an episode weekly for the last year, or year and a half." And we never thought we'd do that.
Cooper:
"Man, we've gotten X amount of these great guests. We've had multiple MVPs on our podcast." That's stuff that we need to take stock of and be proud of. But I think Ross and I's personality, we just are not the type of people that really look back and do that. We're always looking forward, but it is important to think we have came a long way and now that we have this base of knowledge and expertise, we can continue to grow through that.
Ross:
And one thing I thought I heard you touching on a little bit, Julian might be not to pigeonhole yourself a little bit. Right? When we first started, we sat down and we said, "Hey, this is not going to be a Dodgers' podcast." And really, we might be 10 times more successful than we are right now, if we were a Dodger podcast, if we just did Dodger content twice a week, Dodger guests only. And we just-
Cooper:
I think we would be.
Ross:
Yeah. And we just decided not to go down that path because, as Cooper said, we wanted to talk to other walks of life, other sports, whatever peaks our interest that week, that month. And I'm so glad we did that because I think it's kept it interesting. It's kept our passion for it as oppo... I'm already in the Dodger locker room 10 hours a day, the last thing I want to do is go home and talk about it for another hour. I think that was one thing you're touching on Julian, is don't pigeonhole yourself thinking you specialize in this one thing when really you might be passionate about something else.
Cooper:
Yeah. I think just being true to whatever path you feel comfortable on. We had an opportunity pretty early on to join the athletic and have a Dodgers podcast and we would've been making more money off the podcast than we are now. We'd probably have more exposure, but in the end we made the decision, we're not going to be happy and we're not going to have as much fun talking about Dodgers baseball every single week for 45 minutes.
Cooper:
And it was a great decision, I think in the long run for us to do that because we've had actors, we've had finance people, we've had a guy that does marble races just on our podcasts and those have been some of our favorite podcasts, the non-athlete ones.
TJ:
And that goes back to, Cooper, you said at the beginning of the podcast that's not your expertise. And if you're pigeonholing yourself then you're limiting what you could be talking about. I'm sure there's been podcasts where you found yourself maybe talking a little bit more about something that you're passionate about and you were able to take more ownership of that particular show or episode. It's interesting that you go guys decided to take that route, because I feel like most people would go and follow the dollars, but I appreciate that you guys have stayed true to yourselves and what you believe in.
TJ:
The one thing that you touched on and I want to hit on it because it's something that Julian had mentioned is becoming more and more popular is the live events. And you guys did one. I'd love to go through the process of what that was like, how that came about, how it was different for a normal podcast. And if you'd want to do it again.
Ross:
Definitely want to do it again. It was a blast and it's an adrenaline rush. It's totally different, man, when you got a hundred people staring at you and waiting to see what's going to come out of your mouth. We were very, very lucky to get in with Baseballism early as a sponsor. And they seemed very, very happy to get in with our podcast. We've been lucky to work with them. And one of the first things they mentioned was, "Hey, if you ever want to do a live event, we'd love to have you." And I remember that was, we might have only been 20 episodes in at the time.
Ross:
And I remember thinking, "That's way over our head right now. We are not ready for that. Let's just stick with this 30 second ad read and see where we go." And every time we kept renewing advertisements, they kept saying, "Hey, we got stores in LA, San Francisco, there's one in Phoenix during spring training, if you ever want to do a live event, let us know." And I think one day I just said, "Cooper, let’s do it. Let's explore what it is and what they're looking for it to be, and let's pursue it." And got the ball rolling really quickly.
Ross:
And before we know it, we had it planned for spring training, maybe six weeks in advance. We knew we had it on the docket and I got more nervous every day leading up to that thing because I can pitch in front of 50,000 people, but talking in an intimate setting like that is more nerve wracking.
TJ:
And Baseballism, just to make sure every one of our listeners know what that is, it’s a shop, right?
Ross:
They started as an online basically brand selling t-shirts and they make these crazy soft t-shirts. They fit athletic, built people like a Lululemon or an Adidas or whatnot. And they make these really cool shirts. And then they started opening up storefronts. I think they have maybe 10 or 11 storefronts across the nation, mostly centered around baseball facilities, whether it's stadiums or spring training. Their stuff's awesome. Everything I've ever gotten. I love it.
Cooper:
The biggest thing too, where we were worried about the planning, we just didn't know how the setup was and even weeks the leading up to it, when we did confirm, I remember I had a, oh shit moment where I was like, "All right, I don't know if we need a speaker or do we need a stage, what microphones are we going to use? And so the idea that we planned all that and pulled it off, I was very, very proud of us because we had no expertise in that. And I do think figuring out all the podcast equipment and just on a smaller scale made me less nervous tackling that as a live event.
Ross:
And we didn't know whether we were supposed to sell tickets, we didn't know how many people were coming. We had no idea. We didn't know if eight people were going to be there or 800. We originally had Justin Turn... The one in Arizona's tiny. I think we had 90 something people show up and it was packed. Once we went and saw it in person, we were like, "Hey, we got to limit this in case it is bigger than we expect." And we had Justin Turner as our original guest and Justin Turner is beloved in Los Angeles rightfully so. He's an unbelievable human being.
Ross:
But Justin Turner would've brought 2000 people to that event and we didn't know what we would do so we ended canceling Justin Turner and just doing it ourselves. And it ended up being perfect. We got really lucky, but it was very much learning on the fly with that thing, because like I said, we'd never done it before.
Cooper:
And now that we have done it, I think we feel fully confident because it went well and we figured out the technical side of it. I thought Ross and I eased into it really quickly. It was funny, the podcast we did before Ross was giving me a hard time. He was like, "Man, I don't know if you're prepared for this. Do you realize what we're about to do?" He was like, "I pitch in front of 50,000 people. I do interviews all day. You've never done anything like this." But I felt like we eased into it good.
Cooper:
I think it was nice because everyone that was there was already familiar with our conversations. They listen to our podcast; they love Ross in the field. It was a stack deck, but I think that's part of what a live event is for.
TJ:
And did you guys see any uptick from there or what was the results of that?
Cooper:
I think that what I determined from that was there was less variance in our listeners going forward. The people that went and the people that followed it on social media are going to be loyal and listen to us forever because they feel a certain connection meeting us, taking pictures, seeing us in person. I think from a loyalty standpoint, it was huge.
Ross:
Yeah. I would agree with that spot on. And I think it put us on the map to look out for ones moving forward. Where, I think we mentioned on podcasts after that, or maybe during the live podcast that we want to keep doing them. We want to do them in Los Angeles, if Cooper can fly out. We want to do them every year at the Baseballism store in Phoenix, if we can. And I think it just gave something for people to look forward to as another chance to come meet us, come see it live and in person and get a feel for what recording a podcast looks like.
Cooper:
Well, and I think it was ammo for future sponsorships and stuff to say, "Look what we've put on. We brought a hundred plus people into this store and we were pretty good at it." And I think that that some good ammo for us, because before that we didn't really have anything to offer.
TJ:
That's awesome. I love to hear that. One thing that I would love to do and you all have given so much valuable content that we can share with that curious scrappy podcaster. But if there was one last piece of advice that you'd give the curious scrappy podcaster, what would it be? And maybe each of you separately.
Cooper:
I would say the biggest advice I would give is just press record and post it. You just got to break the seal at some point. It's nerve wracking. You're not going to be great initially. You will improve. Ross and I have improved just tenfold, and I think our ability to conversate, if you have a co-host that's going to also improve. Don't get discouraged too soon and just keep grinding. Make a goal for yourself and make sure you have an episode every week or whatever that goal is and just do it. It is attainable. You do have time to do it, so just do it.
Ross:
Well said. I would obviously say all that as well. I guess if I had another thing to add to it would be do what you enjoy, don't do what you think people want to hear. Don't do what you think is the popular path to take. It's not going to be fun to do an hour a week talking about something you're not passionate about. Find something that you are passionate about, pursue that and do it as long as it still brings you joy and it makes you happy because that's what it's real about. If it blows up great, if you make money great. But if it brings you joy an hour of your week, that's all that you need to know.
Cooper:
I think too, like you said, Ross, for a lot of people and even for us at our level, it's really just a hobby and it's just like someone that loves to go play golf or go fishing. Someone can have a hobby of podcasting and spend money and invest in that just for theirselves. And I think that's also important.
TJ:
Thanks for joining. You guys were the first people in the studio, so we had to have you on as guests. Please, if you guys don't mind, tell the audience where they can find you.
Cooper:
Yeah. You can find us anywhere you listen to your podcasts, Spotify, Apple Podcast, we're called the Big Swing Podcast. My name's Cooper Surles. And then Ross is a pitcher for the Dodgers. We've been doing it for about a year and a half now. We're on social media at Big Swing Podcast and then we also have a website, bigswingpodcast.com. We talk at sports, we've had actors on there, we have financial people. Pretty much everything with the focus on sports and we really appreciate you coming to listen.
TJ:
PodOn. Every episode of the pod on podcast is produced and edited by StudioPod Media. For more information about our work and our clients go to studiopodsf.com. Gary O.