#642 – How to Make a Podcast

What if launching a podcast could be the game-changer you need for your personal or E-commerce business brand? In this episode, we explore the transformative power of podcasting, sharing insights from over seven years of experience and success stories like Helium 10, which started with the AM/PM podcast before evolving into an e-commerce software powerhouse. We reveal how podcasts can build vibrant communities around niche interests, from pet care to other e-commerce topics, turning listeners into brand advocates and opening up new revenue streams.

Dive into the essentials of crafting a podcast strategy that resonates with your audience. We discuss the significance of maintaining a consistent theme, memorable tagline, and engaging format while ensuring your podcast is easily discoverable through effective SEO techniques. Our discussion guides you through selecting the right equipment for high-quality audio, whether you’re recording solo or hosting multiple guests. Plus, get practical tips on logistics, from scheduling with tools like Calendly and Zoom scheduler to streamlining guest preparations, ensuring a smooth production process.

Learn how to leverage analytics to fine-tune your podcast and expand your reach by repurposing content across platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Hear how collaborating with other podcasters can organically grow your audience and enhance your brand presence without heavy reliance on ads. Whether you’re an Amazon seller, consultant, or simply passionate about a topic, podcasting can be an invaluable tool for promotion and engagement. We invite you to start your own podcast journey with us and discover the endless possibilities it offers.

Bradley’s Podcast Equipment List:
Rodecaster – https://amzn.to/43pwtY7
Rodecaster Duo – https://amzn.to/4gQGwbI
El Gato Camlink – https://amzn.to/4ibTjXf
Shure SM7B Mic – https://amzn.to/435H2iM
Shure MV88+ Mic – https://amzn.to/3Xfz2YD
Godox Light – https://amzn.to/3EP2kqR
El Gato Wave XLR – https://amzn.to/3QwoFMp
Rode Pod Mic – https://amzn.to/4gSRH3m

In episode 642 of the Serious Sellers Podcast, Bradley and Mhel discuss:

• 00:00 – The Power of Starting a Podcast
• 01:57 – Building Community and Revenue With Podcasts
• 06:19 – Podcasting in Education and Credibility
• 10:05 – Developing a Successful Podcast Strategy
• 15:33 – Importance of High Quality Audio
• 15:58 – Choosing the Best Podcast Equipment
• 19:00 – Benefits of Using Headphones for Podcasting
• 23:36 – Importance of Audio and Video Quality
• 26:13 – Scheduling, Prepping, and Editing Podcasts
• 29:17 – Podcast Editing Process Basics
• 35:47 – Leveraging Podcast Analytics and Repurposing
• 36:55 – Repurposing Content for Multichannel Engagement
• 40:53 – Promoting Brands With Podcasts

Transcript

Bradley Sutton:

What’s one of the best ways to build your personal or business brand and build a community of fans? It’s making a podcast. Today, I’m going to go over the steps of how to make and produce a podcast that have helped Helium 10 podcast get over 5 million downloads. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think.

Bradley Sutton:

Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that’s completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world.

Bradley Sutton:

And that’s actually what we’re going to be talking about today, the Serious Sellers Podcast. And should you make a podcast and how can this help an Amazon business? Or maybe you’re trying to be an influencer or a thought leader in the space? All right, so we’re going to talk about every single one of the secrets of the Serious Sellers Podcast, the AMPM Podcast, all the podcasts that Helium 10 produces, and how it can benefit you as an Amazon brand or even if you have other endeavors. Now the first question you might have is why should I even be thinking about having a podcast? Well, like I said, there’s a variety of reasons that you could. One is like a brand building. All right, you know there are so many podcasts out there that have to do with a certain niche or brand. I mean, if you’re not sure of the power of podcasts, you know, like, look what they say. You know politically in the country of United States the last couple of years, about how much you know different podcasts may or may not have influenced a great number of people when it comes to voting. What about some of the you know biggest you know personalities out there, like, if they’re YouTube personalities or influencers, what do they have? They have podcasts. There’s probably people that you don’t even realize it’s a podcast you’re watching from YouTube or others, but you’re just kind of like addicted to what they do. I mean, podcasts have a lot of sway over people. It’s a great way to build community. Like, let’s say, you’re in the dog, you know dog niche, pet supplies, right, if you had a podcast about dogs and pet care and things like that and you all of a sudden built a following of hundreds, maybe it gets to thousands of followers. This is a free community that you then can market to and it’s not like, oh you’re cold marketing to them or cold calling them or trying to talk about some subject that they don’t even know about. No, this is a community who is all interested in the exact topic of the kind of products that you sell and thus, like, when you do advertise them, it doesn’t even feel like an ad. They’re like happy to support.

Bradley Sutton:

Podcasts can be revenue generating. You know, if you get a podcast that is actually, you know, gets a big following, there’s advertisers who reach out to you, who want to put their ad spots on your podcast. The list goes on and on of reasons of why to make a podcast. And actually today I’m going to be focused not on this other stuff of hypotheticals and stuff I would need to do research on and give you guys a broad picture. I’m going to be mainly focused on exactly what we’ve been doing here at Helium 10 to build up our own podcast and personal experience, and if you guys want to research other things, you can feel free to do that. But I think I’ve got enough information here about how we produce our four different podcasts. That is going to help you have an idea if this is something you want to get into. And, you know, have a pretty good start because we’ve kind of been through it all over the last seven, eight years or so.

Bradley Sutton:

You want to know what keywords are driving the most sales for listings on Amazon. To do that you need to know what highly searched for keywords the product is ranking for maybe at the top of page one. You can actually find that out in seconds by using Helium 10’s keyword research tool, Cerebro. Now, that’s just one of the many, many functions that make this tool my favorite tool in the whole suite and it’s the most powerful keyword research tool ever created for e-commerce sellers. For more information, go to h10.me/cerebro. H10.me/C-E-R-E-B-R-O. Don’t forget to use the Serious Sellers Podcast discount coupon, SSP10.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, a little known fact you know. Some of you OGs might know this. Did you know that the start of Helium 10 was not software? Helium 10, the name of it was not the first thing that this company did. If any of you see or know my company email address, it actually is not at Helium 10. It’s @ampmpodcast.com. And the reason is for the original Helium 10 employees everybody had @ampmpodcast.com. And the reason is for the original Helium 10 employees everybody had @ampmpodcast.com email addresses because that was the first company, the founder of Helium 10, Manny Coats.

Bradley Sutton:

He started Helium 10, not as Helium 10, but he just started the podcast. He was starting to sell on Amazon on his own. He was a software developer from before, or he had commissioned different softwares to be made, like for the app store, and he’s like you know, I want to shift gears, I want to become an amazon seller and I’m going to chronicle my journey via a podcast. This was back in like 2016, 2015, 2016, around there actually 2015, I’m pretty sure it was and so he started the AMPM Podcast, the whole. That’s where guys the how cool is that? Pretty cool. I think that’s from the original AMPM Podcast. That was one of his taglines and the whole thing of the show was like hey, I’m learning how to make money in the AM and the PM, all day long, even if I’m not, you know, working, and this is just my journey about what I have, you know what I’m doing to scale to a million dollars, which he did within a few months of selling on Amazon. So that was the start of Helium 10.

Bradley Sutton:

And then, all of a sudden, he was like hey, I have experience, you know, developing software tools. So there’s a couple of things that I need to do for my own Amazon business. You know what, I wonder if I could offer this for free and then that’ll help get the podcast more listeners. And so that’s what he did. He’s like let me make this, in a 5k Checker it was like an index checker and scribbles this tool that helped him, you know, make his listings. And he’s like, okay, I’m gonna put this on an episode of the AM/PM Podcast and see if it helps me get more listeners. But that part just blew up. And then he was like, wait a minute, I should be focusing more on these, these tools for software. So this is a crazy demand but he would have never. He would have never even thought of Helium 10, potentially, if it wasn’t for starting a podcast first. So just a little personal history of the company, history of how Helium 10 got started, actually owes its existence to a podcast. In the AM/PM Podcast we still have going down to this day now the host is Kevin King.

Bradley Sutton:

Another reason for podcast is it’s actually funny, like if you’re doing one with guests. It’s a way to get near course level education for yourself, like I mostly you know, obviously this episode it’s just going to be, you know, just us Helium 10 employees here. But most of my episodes, as you know, are with guests and these are thought leaders and experts in their space, right, and I’m bringing them on and they’re sharing freely their knowledge with me and the audience I mean mainly the audience but I’m learning along with you guys, like the amount of value that I’ve gotten from having guests on the podcast and just listening to them and learning along with you guys. That’s another benefit. It’s like I’m getting a free course that you know, most of these people probably have their own courses with this information that they’re charging hundreds thousands of dollars for and I’m getting it for free. And then, of course, that’s the value you’re giving.

Bradley Sutton:

When you give a podcast, it actually gives value. I know those podcasts are just for entertainment value, which is totally fine as well. You might find that you wanted to do one of those, but when you’re able to give this level of value, it just adds to your credibility and how much people appreciate what you’re doing, because people understand it takes a lot of effort, as you guys are going to see, to produce a podcast and I have never gone to an event where at least three, four people did not come and express their thanks for the Serious Sellers Podcast, the AMPM Podcast, etc. About what they have learned and some of it being like life and business changing information that they’ve gone over, and that’s, you know, that’s goodwill. You know you can’t really put a value on that kind of thing. Yeah, I’m not sure we’re not charging for the podcast, but you know, some of these listeners, some of you listeners out there, you know, might be maybe Helium 10 members for life, with a small part of it being because of your appreciation for the podcast. So you can’t really put a value on the value that you’re giving out there.

Bradley Sutton:

Now let’s say you’ve decided hey, I’m ready to start my own podcast. Do I just put myself in front of my phone and upload something? You probably could do that but it’s not going to be successful. So I’m going to give you guys step by step of what we do for our podcast and what you would have to do. First thing to decide is hey, what’s the name of the podcast? And you can even think SEO a little bit with the description. It needs to be kind of something that is really going to give an idea about what the show is going to be about. If you’re a big celebrity, you can just put your own name on it the Joe Rogan experience or whatever it’s called, right. But then there’s got to be names that kind of really make people interested in it. One of the most popular podcasts, what’s it called? Call Her Daddy. It’s like what in the world is that? Now, it just makes you interested. Ours is Serious Sellers Podcast.

Bradley Sutton:

Remember AM/PM Podcast, and then the whole like kind of like theme of it was how to make money in the AM and the PM. So come up with a name, all right, of your podcast. And does it have to be SEO related? No, like, if I wanted to do something SEO, I couldn’t put Amazon in the title of our podcast. There would be probably like copyright issues there. But you know, like if I was really thinking about Amazon only I’m trying to rank for Amazon keywords I would put Amazon in the title if it was allowed. But it doesn’t always have to be like that. But it needs to kind of like be a good representation of what the show is about. For when somebody is just scrolling around, they should be able to see hey, this might be something I’m interested in.

Bradley Sutton:

And then think about your theme. Is it going to be a solo podcast? You’re just going to give like educational information in every episode. Nothing wrong with that. It’s not as dynamic as having guests. But if you script out stuff and be a little bit creative with it, make some story time stuff, you can have a podcast that’s run all by yourself.

Bradley Sutton:

Is it going to be a podcast that’s going to have guests in, and what kind of guests are you going to have? You know, like, what’s the flow going to be? Are you going to prepare 20 questions and ask the same 20 questions to everybody? Is it going to be a different set of questions for people? Is it going to be just fully organic, you know, kind of like this one is. Is it going to be unscripted? Is it going to be scripted? Is it hard hitting? Is it an expose? Is it kind of like a feel good podcast?

Bradley Sutton:

I mean, there are so many different directions you can go, but it’s important to think about what your general theme is. You don’t want every single episode to exactly be just carbon copies of each other, but you want an overall theme. I think you guys can see that with the Serious Sellers podcast. It’s like hey, this is serious strategies for serious sellers of any level. Have a tagline like that. Open up with something. Come up with a couple of phrases that maybe, after a while, some of the guests or the listeners, like you guys, could probably have memorized. I’ve been saying the same thing for 650 episodes or however many. It’s been serious strategies for serious sellers of any level. And that’s the vibe that this podcast has. We’re not here just to talk about life and things like that. I always bring things back to strategies, whether it’s life strategies, business strategies, and it’s for sellers out there, people who are striving to be a seller, or you could be an eight figure seller, you could be a brand new seller. That’s why I say serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world, and you guys need to come up with that.

Bradley Sutton:

What is the theme going to be, what is like your tagline, your initial opening, your intro going to be, and like what kind of vibes are you going to have? Now, for me, I’m very comfortable, you know, just talking extemporaneously. All right, that means I can just, you know, come up on stage or anywhere and just like start having a conversation. Just that’s just what I’ve been doing almost since I was a little kid. You might feel a little bit nervous on camera or live or different things, no problem, we’ll script your podcast accordingly. For me, I’m actually most comfortable just going up there, you know, without scripts, like I am right now, just talking, you know, with the guests or just talking to you guys, and that’s what’s most comfortable for me and I think that would come across the best. But you might be different, all right, there’s no right or wrong way to do that.

Bradley Sutton:

But again, come up with a theme. Don’t make one episode fully organic and let’s just have a conversation like we’re sitting in a fireside chat, and then the other one is just like you’re like an IRS person who’s auditing somebody, asking like 30 very serious scripted questions. The audience wants like the same feeling with a podcast the Joe Rogan podcast, other podcasts out there. It’s a very similar vibe. Know the Joe Rogan podcast, you know other podcasts out there. It’s a very similar vibe throughout all the episodes, even though the subject material might be different.

Bradley Sutton:

Decide what’s the length of your episode is going to be. I’ve targeted for ours, you know like, hey, let’s try and keep it between 30 and 45 minutes, depending. You know you don’t want to have an hour and a half episode and then the next one’s like a 20-minute episode, kind of like. Have a target time of what you want. Another thing that’s important is decide your cadence.

Bradley Sutton:

We have been doing this 640, 650 episodes it’s actually like 800 or more if you count the Weekly Buzz episodes that we do, which are not counted in the numbers for six years. We have not missed one. We have not missed one where we are launching on the day that it’s supposed to be. Now Weekly Buzz sometimes we do it Thursday, sometimes we do it Friday, just depending on how much news there is. Again, that’s not even a number podcast, but it always comes out Thursday or Friday. And then our other podcast every week, 52 weeks in a year. So times by six, more than 300 weeks in a row. We have not missed a Tuesday episode or a Saturday episode there. More than 300 weeks in a row, we have not missed a Tuesday episode or a Saturday episode.

Bradley Sutton:

There is no right cadence. There are some people who do a podcast every day. It’s only 10 minutes if that’s what you do, but you got to stick to that. All right. If it’s going to be a monthly podcast, well, stick to it. If it’s the first of the month, you got to stick to it. Ours Tuesday, Thursday for a regular podcast, and then we do Weekly Buzz on Thursday or Friday. Set never changes, no matter somebody’s on vacation, that means we do podcasts ahead of time, et cetera. So figure out your cadence, what it’s going to be, and stick to it. Be consistent.

Bradley Sutton:

Other things to consider that you have to set up is like podcast descriptions. You might have to have some SEO there, like here this is our podcast description for Serious Sellers Podcast. You’ll see there’s like a little kind of like description. This is all SEO. All right, so this is SEO. This is how people can find your podcast. So I don’t have Amazon in the title, but I’ve got it here in my description so that people are looking for hey, give me a podcast on Amazon. Matter of fact, we need to change this. I’m going to talk to Mhel, who’s going to be on the show. We need to change to add TikTok shop here, because we talk a lot about TikTok shop now. So put your message here, what your podcast is about in a couple sentences.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, once you’ve got all this ready. You’ve got to sign up with a podcast distribution channel, all right, so this is the company that is going to distribute your podcast across Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, like every single platform. You don’t want to just sign up with all of these different platforms one by one and try and upload like that. That would take forever, it’d probably be super expensive, et cetera. So we here at Helium 10 use a service called Podbean, P-O-D-B-E-A-N. It’s actually not that expensive at all, as you guys can see here. It’s, like you know, depending on different plans, there’s like $9 a month, $29 a month, $79 a month, and with that you can get like lots of analytics.

Bradley Sutton:

Like you can see here, we’ve got 5 million all-time downloads. We haven’t been on this platform the whole time, so that 5 million downloads that’s not all of our downloads. Before, for the first two, three years actually four years almost we were on a different platform and we moved to this one. So the number of our downloads is actually a lot more than 5 million here. But anyways, that that’s the platform where that host our podcast and then we upload once and then it publishes to like something like 30 or 40 different platforms or something crazy like that. But most of your downloads are going to be from Apple Podcasts and Spotify and then kind of like, the rest are less than 10%.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, let’s talk about hardware, software. If you really want a high quality, what I have is I’ve got the Rodecaster Pro. All right, these are expensive. These are like $700, $800 for the Rodecaster Pro. They’ve got a newer one that’s smaller. That’s only $500. But that’s important to have really good quality audio. Guys. I cannot stress this enough. There’s something you’re going to learn today, good audio quality is the most important aspect of a podcast.

Bradley Sutton:

Even if you’re going to do a video podcast, like we have, good audio quality is so key, even for the video part, but especially since thousands of people are going to listen to your podcast without video, that just makes the audio so much more important. So Rodecaster Pro that allows me to record guests, like if I have a studio, which I did before in the Helium 10 office, but here I’m just at my home I do almost everything remotely I could do without the Rodecaster Pro. So another thing you could use is the Wave XLR Pro, like it only has one input and that’s only about like $139, but it’s still a good audio mixer with preamp that allows you to have some good recorded quality and so this is important to have. Again, if you’re going to do a podcast, it’s going to have a studio where you have guests. Highly recommend the Rodecaster Pro.

Bradley Sutton:

You can hook up to like four XLR microphones. XLR is that like microphone cable, that’s really big, it’s not like a USB or anything like that. And, like I said, Rodecaster Pro if you’re going with multiple guests, or the Elgato Wave XLR if you’re just going to do it by yourself. But then you have to get like some other software. Microphone. You know the microphone that you know, like Joe Rogan has always used that Michael Jackson used to record the Thriller album and pretty much all serious podcasters use is this one here is the Shure SM7B.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, so Shure SM7B, this is not a cheap microphone, you can see. It’s, like you know, three, four hundred dollars or sometimes more, but the quality is just really incredible on this microphone. We’re not doing too much post-production on the audio quality. Just because it is, it already gives a lot of good quality. Now if you want to go a little bit less budget and you still want a professional like, kind of like podcaster microphone, there’s also the PodMic, the Rode PodMic. I’ve actually used that before when I was in the office and I still do whenever I have guests. A Rode PodMic is only about $129.

Bradley Sutton:

Now sometimes I record mobily, like on the road. I cannot bring my Rodecaster Pro gigantic thing and big microphone arms and all that stuff you know, to the Prosper Show or to Amazon Accelerate and where I do my remote podcast. And for that I’ve got this remote Shure mic. It’s called the MV88+, a tiny, tiny thing, it’s like this big, but it’s so powerful, all right, and it attaches directly to your computer. You don’t have to have a Rodecaster Pro but it’s a condenser microphone. So that’s why it sounds good and it’s 200 bucks.

Bradley Sutton:

But again, if you want high quality like you don’t want podcasts to sound so different. I mean, you can probably still sound, you know, tell the difference a little bit when you hear me on the road, you know like when you’ve heard me at elite workshops doing podcasts. But the quality isn’t that notable, even though I don’t have that, you know, amp, and that’s because it’s a high quality microphone that’s got some good software and then, so you know, you want to have a similar experience throughout your podcast, whether you’re in your studio or whether you’re recording on the road, and the Shure MV88+ microphone can definitely do that. I’m going to have links for all these things. I’ll try to even do I’m trying to be an Amazon affiliate so I might make some Amazon affiliate links. I’ll have some links in the description below for a lot of these products so that you know, you can take a look at them later.

Bradley Sutton:

You’ll notice I’m wearing headphones now. I’m wearing headphones right now because I’m going to have a guest on in a little bit. But this is important for audio like you don’t want when you have guests. You know if you’re doing a solo podcast you don’t need headphones. But I’ve got some really nice quality headphones. Number one it allows me to play back my audio when I do a test before I start recording, just to make sure it’s on the right microphone and how the quality is, that there’s no buzzing etc. So a really good microphone or really good headphones like this actually comes from a DJ friend of mine, Celestia. He’s the one who makes the intro music for the Serious Sellers podcast that you hear. He gave me this one, so I don’t even know what it is or how much these cost, but any kind of headphones will be good to have, not AirPods or something like that. The reason why it’s important, especially when you have guests, is you don’t want their audio coming out of the speakers and then your microphone is picking it up and things like some background noise and things like that and there’s going to be some echo and stuff. So important to have headphones when you are recording.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, with the software I’m using which I’ll talk to you or the kind of like subscription, I have web-based software to record this episode. Now, with whatever podcast kind of like streaming service that you are using to record your podcast I’m going to talk a little bit about that. It records your video and audio, but I always actually make another recording while I am doing that recording. That’s with Adobe Audition, all right. So Adobe Audition is you know, everybody knows what Adobe is the same ones who make Photoshop and Pear and stuff. It’s a really good kind of like audio recorder which even is processing. It’s processing the audio as well while I’m recording so that it sounds like really, really crisp, and it’s, you know, I have settings where it’s going to record it in kind of like podcast, kind of like mode, so that I again you don’t have to do so much audio engineering after the fact. All right, so Adobe audition I’m recording in addition to my audio that I’m recording with a podcast recorder so that I also have a backup to in case one fails, which has definitely happened over time.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, for recording the podcast I usually use I’m not using it right now, but I usually use a service called Zencastr. There’s a lot of them out there. I think Riverside is another one. I’ve been using Zencastr for years and this is important to use instead of like Zoom and things like that. Now, this wasn’t available. Back in the early days, Manny, with the AM/PM Podcast, he used to use a service called or actually no, I think he used to use Skype and Zoom.

Bradley Sutton:

The difference between trying to do Skypes and Zooms and things like that and video calls. It’s recording in the cloud. So the audio quality, first of all, is not really good. It’s condensing it down so that there’s a good bit rate. But then what happens is it’s also reliant on everybody’s internet connection. If all of a sudden somebody’s internet gets slow their bandwidth like somebody in the other room is recording or watching their K-dramas on Netflix or something well, it’s going to affect the quality of the stream and whatever your internet quality is that’s what it’s recording, because it’s recording to the cloud with Zencastr and actually StreamYard, which is what I’m using right now to record, so that I can do screen share. Zencastr, I can’t do stream share, StreamYard. I can do stream screen share, but with these it is recording things locally on everybody’s computer. So your internet can be on a dial-up modem and I might not even be able to see my guests because the internet connection is so bad, but it is recording in high quality in 1080p onto their local hard drive and then, after the podcast is done is it uploads it up. So it doesn’t matter if their internet even goes out like their internet could cut out, but the recording is saved and so that’s important to use. Zencastr or StreamYard is a great company to use and I’ll have like links in the bio as well for those.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, what about the room that you’re in? These are good microphones. So if you do get the Rodecaster and then the Shure SM7B, you can almost record anywhere and it’s going to sound not bad. But here’s the thing you don’t want echo. And so if you’re do not record in like a room with like hardwood floors or like tile and there’s nothing on the walls and things, that’s not good because there’s going to be echo. Especially if you don’t have a good microphone like this.

Bradley Sutton:

So like, for example, I’m in a room where I had a carpet already, but then I got like this shag rug that’s like this thick. I put it around all around me where I have this podcast. So, again, it absorbs the audio. Nothing’s going to be bouncing off. I’ve got these curtains all around. I have windows all around here, but now I’ve got these sound absorbing curtains all around. I have tiles, like special sound absorbing tiles that I got from Amazon that go on the wall. Maybe you remember some of those from the Helium 10 office when I used to record this podcast there, those blue and white tiles. That helps with the audio quality as well. But again, audio is so important. You don’t want echoes, you don’t want to be in a place where there’s other sounds, you want a high quality, and so that’s what I do for my room. It doesn’t cost too much money.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, for those of you doing video, if you’re going to do a video podcast, which is all the rage nowadays, I’m going to talk a little bit about that more. Actually, there’s more video YouTube downloads than there are audio downloads, which has definitely changed over time. But you’ve got to have good lighting. You know, I’ve got a humongous light here, a Godox light right here. I’ve got another ring light coming to give effect. I’ve got a ceiling light that’s coming down. I’ve got two lights on the ground here, that kind of like light up the background a little bit. And lighting is very important for anything that you are doing video. It’s even more important than the camera you have. Now I do have a DSLR camera I’ve got here and that is connected via what’s called an Elgato Cam Link. Elgato Cam Link is what I use in order to connect the DSLR camera to my computer.

Bradley Sutton:

I’m not going to go too much into the video aspect. I could probably do a video just on that, but again, it’s important to have decent video and good lighting if you are going to do a podcast. That’s got audio and video, all right. So now you’ve got all this set up, all right. It’s a lot. We just went over a lot. You’re ready to do your first episodes, so let’s have this in a conversation with our podcast producer and editor, Mhel, who’s been working here. So let’s bring Mhel on for first time. Or actually, he’s been on the podcast before, like I’ve had him on for little tidbits of the Weekly Buzz and different things. Mhel, how’s it’s it going?

Mhel:

Hello, thanks for having me.

Bradley Sutton:

Where are you based, Mhel? Where are you at right now?

Mhel:

I’m here in the Philippines, in Baguio City.

Bradley Sutton:

Baguio City, the city with the best weather in all of the Philippines, where you don’t even need air conditioning. I’ve been there a few times. It’s a really great place. If you guys ever want to go vacation to the Philippines I know the B that everybody thinks about is Boracay want to go vacation to the Philippines? I know everybody, the B that everybody thinks about is Boracay. But also think about Baguio. Now, Mhel, how long you’ve been working here at Helium 10 now?

Mhel:

I’ve been working with Helium 10 for almost eight years.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, almost eight years, good grief, and for like probably six of those years, he’s had a lot of different roles. He started out as, just like my assistant and he still is my assistant, where he schedules my meetings and checks my emails and things like that. But then a few years ago he became the full podcast editor here and where he kind of decides what goes in the podcast, what gets cut, and uploading it. A whole bunch of things we’re going to talk about. But one of the first parts of the podcast journey here is he books the guests. So like I come up with a guest, like I’ll usually have a group chat going, and so how do you schedule, like how do you send them the schedule for it, or how did you do it before? And then what are you using now for them to pick a time that they want to use?

Mhel:

Yeah, we just use Calendly and right now we’re using Zoom scheduler in order for them to book and already preset.

Bradley Sutton:

So then that gets booked, they pick a time that’s open, that obviously has to be linked to my calendar, and then do you go in and edit the actual links of when they’re recording and things like that.

Mhel:

Yeah, we edit the calendar event in order to put the different links. If we use Zencastr, we put the Zencastr link. If we use StreamYard, we put the StreamYard links and we add some additional reminders for them to make sure that the podcast recording goes smoothly.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, excellent, and then what goes in the packet? You send guests. How do you prep the guests? And this is different for everybody. Like me, I actually don’t have much prep because I don’t have pre-prepared questions. Everybody knows that it’s going to be organic and we’re just going to decide what to talk about when we’re talking. But there are some things you prepare or ask of them or give them some information. What are some of those things?

Mhel:

Yeah, first of all, we ask for their picture, for the thumbnail. And then for the Serious Sellers Podcast, there’s not too much questions from you. We just ask them about to prepare some stuff, like on normal questions that you ask, and then that’s about it, and it’s almost an organic conversation between you and the guests.

Bradley Sutton:

All right and then we do a kind of release, a form release, like that’s just basically them saying that you know we can use their audio and their video wherever we want. That’s important, you know. You don’t want people saying, hey, you don’t have the rights to publish this and use my likeness and stuff. So we have that. Like you said, we’ve got the thumbnail. Another thing that Mhel tells them is he’s like there’s some things like sometimes I want them to prepare like a 30 second tip, and so he’ll mention that. So if you guys have stuff that you want the guests to prepare, you’ve got to let them know beforehand. Also, let them know about, you know, we use Monday as kind of like a task management system, I guess, because there’s a lot of moving pieces, a lot of people who work on the podcast with us, and so, like, once we schedule the podcast or even when it’s just a plan, we’ll make a Monday pulse for that podcast and it’s going to have the details of who’s the guest, and then that’s where we also upload notes and the files and things like that.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, I record the podcast by myself, you know sometimes, you know, if you’re not good with technology and multitasking, it might be good to you know sometimes, you know, if you’re not good with technology and multitasking, it might be good to you know, have your own.

Bradley Sutton:

Mhel, I guess, who’s helping you? While I don’t need Mhel to help me when I record the podcast. He’s never on there because I I’m putting guests, you know, the video up and down and checking audio and things like that myself. But you could have your podcast editor record, you know, in the background with you when you’re recording to manage some of those things. Now, after the podcast is recorded, most platforms they all upload automatically. You got to make sure you’ve got everybody’s files and then, we put all the different files and the links in the pulse, the Monday pulse that I was talking about, and then now, next is the editing step. So then you are listening, Mhel to the podcast, or you’re watching the podcast. Are you doing it in 1x speed or do you speed it up or what?

Mhel:

Yeah, I speed it up a little to hasten it, not too much.

Bradley Sutton:

Okay, and then what are you looking for editing, like cutting out and content-wise and things like that? What’s your thought process when you’re editing this podcast?

Mhel:

Yeah, so I’ve been in the podcast for a lot of years now, and since episode one. So we usually look out for content that is valuable to the listener, so it provides value and actionable steps that they can apply immediately. And we remove a lot of banter out so that the listener…

Bradley Sutton:

My bad jokes sometimes.

Mhel:

Yeah, your bad jokes sometimes it slips through, but you know, yeah, we just make sure that it’s tailored to the listener so that they could, you know, apply everything in their Amazon business immediately.

Bradley Sutton:

You know, there’s some people who just don’t have staff or don’t have the time and they actually use AI to edit episodes, and the other things we look for is like is there a dog barking in the background we’ve got to make a note for and we can try and get that out in post-production, or there are long pauses between answering questions. We’ll take all of that out. But, like Mhel said, there’s also editing for content. So that process of making the edit notes that we give next to our editor, who’s actually editing it in fancy software, how long does that take?

Mhel:

Yeah, it depends on the length, but it’s usually one hour to two hours.

Bradley Sutton:

And it’s obviously longer for AM/PM Podcasts, since Kevin insists on making one hour and a half podcasts, but mine are pretty fast. And then we also do Spanish and German podcasts. So, guys, we have the Serious Sellers Podcast en Espanol, Serious Sellers podcast auf Deutsch. Now, Mhel doesn’t speak German and Spanish, so we actually have the host of those shows give their own edit notes and then Mhel just gives it to our producer. All right, so you make the edit files and now you give it to our editor, who is now Andre. We had another editor who worked here for years, and Andre’s worked here for years too, but then we gave him the podcast to keep it in-house. And so now Andre records or edits the audio and video. And then what’s the next step after he uploads what he thinks is the final version?

Mhel:

Yeah, and the next steps are building up the blogs, figuring out the titles, and we get them published using Podbean and also publish it on YouTube so our listeners can enjoy the content that we produce.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, we got to put it on YouTube too, and then it’s not just, you know, he made it sound easy. But another step is having to listen to the whole thing again to make sure the edits went smooth, because everybody’s human like sometimes maybe Mhel forgot to edit something, or maybe Andre didn’t see something in the edit notes, and so it’s got to be changed, and so that’s another step. And then now I’m looking here on one of our finished podcasts that we’ve recently done this whole section up here. What is this called? This is like a description of the episode, like a summary, or what is this?

Mhel:

Yeah, I think that’s called the description of the podcast.

Bradley Sutton:

and so this goes also for the SEO as well in the podcast, like players like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. So this is where we can get SEO and like tell people about what the episode is. And then what about this right, this section right here that we’re looking?

Mhel:

At that section is the timestamps, so that the listeners could see the content immediately if they are interested in a single topic or something else.

Bradley Sutton:

Skipping around, and now is AI doing this? Either of these or are you doing this 100%?

Mhel:

Yeah, AI definitely helps right now but before I’ve been doing it myself.

Bradley Sutton:

So then you let AI do it and then just edit what the AI does, just to make sure it’s okay,

Mhel:

Yeah AI is not perfect, but, yeah, you need to edit some of the words so that it would be more accurate than what they write.

Bradley Sutton:

Excellent, excellent. then what do we use to make the transcript? Because this is also important. This allows the entire podcast to get SEO for the blog version, and some platforms like Spotify include the whole transcript there, so that’s even SEO. How do we make the transcript currently?

Mhel:

Let me start with before. Before we use a different software, but right now we it’s 100 percent AI generated transcript, but it’s still being edited to make the spellings correct and the sentencing correct.

Bradley Sutton:

Yeah, because it makes a lot of mistakes, because it can’t pick up things, especially if somebody has a stronger accent or something like that. And so we’ve got a team Nikko kind of coordinates on our team to have these podcast transcripts done.  And then we have other members of our team Ralph, Maia, Bill and Klaudine who go and then do the final look over of the transcript and make all the edits. All right. So now we’ve got all the audio files done, we’ve got the transcript done, we’ve got this blog part done here, we’ve got the timestamps done. What’s the next step?

Mhel:

Yeah, we’re ready to publish after that, and then, after publishing, like I mentioned earlier, the steps, and we will be sending the episode links to the guests so that we could have promotions on their end and on our end.

Bradley Sutton:

We could, with Podbean, upload to YouTube it goes to YouTube podcast but we actually choose. Since Helium 10 has its own YouTube channel, we actually upload it separately and, like I said, the podcasts nowadays are getting sometimes thousands and thousands of views. By the way, this is another step where we have to pick, like short titles for the thumbnails, you know, and make fancy thumbnails for YouTube and also thumbnails for the podcast. We have editors, Nico, another Nico, and N-I-C-O is the one who helps with those but we get tons and tons of downloads. It’s up to like, I think, something like 60-70,000, 80,000 downloads a month on YouTube of the podcast and about 30-40,000 on audio. Before it was opposite. Before we would get like almost nothing on YouTube. We didn’t do anything on YouTube and we would have 100, 000 audio downloads. But a lot less people listen to the audio downloads now than before and so we actually focus more on promoting the YouTube part of it. All right, Mhel, thank you very much for your insights and your continued support on the podcast. Hopefully, you keep up the good work over there.

Mhel:

Thank you, Bradley. Thanks for having me.

Bradley Sutton:

All right, so now, what else are we doing? The important thing is once, if you’re releasing things to Podbean, right, you’re going to have a lot of analytics, just like with the Amazon business. Analytics is important. Analytics is also important for the podcast. Like, you want to take a look at, hey, what’s going on with your downloads? What country are your downloads coming from? Like, look, United States is dominating this podcast here, but then let’s just go all the way down here. Oh, my goodness, I had one download in Lebanon and Latvia. Maybe I want to promote a little bit more. I had two downloads in Andorra, four in Egypt, 20 in Romania last week, 42 in South Africa, Pakistan, 90. Good job, Pakistan. Australia 647, et cetera, et cetera. So now I can see, hey, by the time of day, when are people listening to the podcast? All right, like, when do they listen more? That’s going to affect, like, when I release the podcast to Podbean. Where’s the download sources? Look at this 62% to Apple Podcast, 17% to Spotify. I don’t even know what the heck Overcast is, but we got 724 downloads on Overcast. Google Chrome 463. What’s the retention? What’s the top episodes? You’ve got to look at your analytics to really get a good idea of what is going on. And then the next part is it’s not just hey, I recorded one episode. I upload it to podcasts, I upload it to YouTube. I’m done.

Bradley Sutton:

One thing I learned, especially from the school of Gary Yee, is that you’ve got to repurpose, repurpose, repurpose. These podcast episodes are good content and you can repurpose clips of them. So what do we do? We take highlights of the podcast. It’s another thing that Mhel actually does, where he’ll take the best 360-second to 90-second clips from each podcast and then he’ll give that to our team Nik-the other Nikko, and he’s going to make an what we call an audiogram. And so where do these go? These can go like on Instagram, like we’ve got the Serious Sellers Podcast Instagram, where it’s got these 60 to 90 second clips, where people who don’t want to listen to the whole episode but want to get, you know,  some insights onto what the episode was about, can watch it there. And what happens is people are like, get interested. Now they listen to the whole episode. Do we just put the audiograms right there on the Serious Sellers Podcast Instagram? No, we upload them to YouTube Shorts. We upload our videos to other platforms like X and Rumble and LinkedIn. We’ll take the audiograms, we’ll put it on TikTok, we’ll put it on Facebook Reels and the list goes on and on.

Bradley Sutton:

So one podcast we get like 10, 15 pieces of content that go out and also get thousands of views. When I said we get like 100,000 downloads a month, that was only like the actual full podcast episode of either the audio or the YouTube versions. That does not count the thousands and thousands of downloads we get a month for our reels and TikToks and Instagrams also that are from clips of the podcast. So the reach that you can do. I know this sounds like a lot of work. You know we’ve been talking about here a lot of it was just in prep. But then each episode, yeah, it takes work. It takes a couple hours more to produce it, it takes somebody else a couple hours, but still you consider all of that work, you know where it’s maybe eight hours an episode total, you know, based on everybody who works on it, you know. Or maybe six hours or less, including the time it takes me to record it. But we are getting thousands and thousands of a hundred percent organic downloads and views and exposure for our brand. You know our Helium 10 brand, our Serious Sellers Podcast brand. It’s hard to put a value on that. There’s not many things you can do out there that only take a couple hours of work and has such a wide reach of listeners and people who are going to consume this content.

Bradley Sutton:

Now, as your podcast grows, like I said, there might be an opportunity to other people might reach out. Everybody reaches out to me and say hey, I would love to put an ad on the Serious Sellers Podcast, but we don’t do that. Here we only like very rarely. We’ve taken some ads when there’s like big events happening and we’ll get a placement and there’s good money in that guys, but we just choose not to do it like on a weekly basis. We just put our own little like Helium 10 advertisements in. But people are willing to pay big money because they know, if you’ve got, one of the top podcasts in the space, which you know Helium 10 has always had the most downloads.

Bradley Sutton:

That’s a thing that people want to be a part of and they’re willing to pay big money for ad spots. You want to grow your pocket. You can pay other podcasts to get on, like as you know for ad spots, or you try and get on as a guest on other podcasts. You can promote your podcast organically on there while you give value to somebody else’s podcast. It’s not like you know the rest of the business world, like you know, Coke is not going to go and get on a Pepsi commercial right. That doesn’t happen. But any other podcast? We’re not really competitors. We don’t really consider podcasts as competitors with each other. Podcasts we’re not really competitors. We don’t really consider podcasts as competitors with each other.

Bradley Sutton:

So I’ll go on other people’s podcasts. They can go on mine if all they’re talking about. It’s not a promotional podcast about Helium 10, or it’s not a promotional about some other software or something. I love going on other podcasts and others love going on here who have podcasts as well. So this is all just another way to grow organically. So, guys, this has been a step-by-step process that has gotten us to millions, over 5 million, over 6 million downloads across our podcast. It’s still a very great way in 2025 to reach out to new audiences, to build your brand, your personal brand, your business brand, et cetera.

Bradley Sutton:

So if you’re an Amazon seller, think about. You know, can a podcast, you know, help you promote your brand and your Amazon or TikTok shop business? Or maybe you’re working at an agency and you want to promote your agency or your own personal brand. You’re a consultant. Think about doing a podcast. You might not have the full resources like I have for our production, but you don’t have to have such high production quality always, like we talked about in this episode. You can just start off a little small, but I highly recommend thinking about podcasts and so bookmark this one. If you guys start and then, hey, you do start a podcast, let us know. I would love to be one of your first guests on there and maybe, you know, have you on as a guest in the future as well. So thanks a lot, guys, and we’ll see you in the next episode.

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Want to absolutely start crushing it on Amazon? Here are few carefully curated resources to get you started:

• Freedom Ticket: Taught by Amazon thought leader Kevin King, get A-Z Amazon strategies and techniques for establishing and solidifying your business.
• Helium 10: 30+ software tools to boost your entire sales pipeline from product research to customer communication and Amazon refund automation. Make running a successful Amazon or Walmart business easier with better data and insights. See what our customers have to say.
• Helium 10 Chrome Extension: Verify your Amazon product idea and validate how lucrative it can be with over a dozen data metrics and profitability estimation.
• SellerTrademarks.com: Trademarks are vital for protecting your Amazon brand from hijackers, and sellertrademarks.com provides a streamlined process for helping you get one.