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Guest: Ian Mackenzie

Release Date: 7/11/2022

Welcome to Trulyfit the online fitness marketplace connecting pros and clients through unique fitness business software.

Steve Washuta: Welcome to Trulyfit. Welcome to the Trulyfit podcast where we interview experts in fitness and health to expand our wisdom and welcome I am your host, Steve Washuta, co-founder of Trulyfit and author of Fitness Business 101. In today’s episode, I speak with Ian Mackenzie he is the host of the average bros fitness podcast. And he’s also a National Academy of Sports Medicine certified personal trainer in is in fitness media.

 And his goal is to bring humanity back into fitness. He wants to show people, fitness heroes, so to speak, how well you can be your own fitness hero.he’s got a great podcast, he actually has a lot of overlapping guests with my guests. But today, specifically Ian and I talk about podcasts, why you should start one why you shouldn’t start one. 

Is it difficult? Is it easy? What programs should you use? What microphones should you use? And What advantages does it have to your overall business? How long does it take to grow? What are the points of starting a podcast? Is it just monetization, is it for outreach, or is it for personal growth? It was a great conversation. And I really appreciate allowing it to be really just an open conversation. 

Typically my podcasts are strict interviews where I have eight to 10 questions. And the guest is really the feature and I don’t talk much but this was a really good 5050 back and forth between Anna and I just waxing poetic about everything and fitness and health, and especially podcasts and why to start one and how to start one and give really actionable great items and insight into how to be successful if and when you do decide to start your own podcasts. 

If that is the case if you’ve ever had the driver poll or thought you know what, I think I should start my own podcast. There’s just something you know, nagging at me, that tells me it’s worthwhile. I will tell you it is worthwhile for a variety of reasons you’re going to hear that in the podcast. But in the show notes, I’m going to link Buzzsprout Buzzsprout was the most important tool that I used in my podcast journey as a podcast hosting site. 

And you by signing up for Buzzsprout and putting my information can get a $20 amazon gift card once you sign up for their plans. With no further ado, here’s Ian Mackenzie and I discuss why and how to start a fitness podcast. Let’s do it, dude. I randomly came across your page. And yeah, I think we might have had a similar the same guest on maybe else. Yeah,

Ian Mackenzie: it was. It was Mr. Rocky Schneider. No. He had me on his , yeah, that’s how I knew him. He wanted me to jump on his and he’s wonderful. I think maybe I did have him on mine. Yeah, I did. I think we swapped it out. We did him, he did mine. Yeah, yeah. That’s awesome, though. And when you hit me up, I was like, Fuck, this is an honor. This is really cool.

Steve Washuta: I think Allison Jackson. Was she on numerous?

Ian Mackenzie: Alison Jackson. Um, so I don’t I don’t know the name doesn’t sound familiar. Maybe I emailed her a while back.

Steve Washuta: Yeah. But it’s funny just to see someone who does something almost the same.

Ian Mackenzie: The same shit. Yeah, that’s so cool. It’s an honor. It really is. When you hit me up. I was like, wow, me.

Steve Washuta: Tell the audience a little bit about yourself. Whatever your fitness background is. Exactly. Yeah,

Ian Mackenzie: no worries. I’ve been in fitness, probably, I don’t know a little over 10 years now. I got into it academically speaking. I majored in it in school, and I went down the path I got my masters and everything and exercise and all that shit. Conducted studies, the whole shebang, you know, crunch data, did numbers and, and I did competitions. I competed for a while so I did some physique stuff. 

Ian Mackenzie: And what I was doing, I kind of did the freelance training gig for a while. And I went down that road I was training people at Planet Fitness, that kind of stuff. And I did it for a while. But you know what’s so funny? I never felt like I was that good at it. I never felt like I did it like some other trainers did. 

Ian Mackenzie: And so I just got out of it. And I was like, you know, I’m not passionate about this. I’m not I’m not as good at it as I think I should be. And I live in Louisiana, you kind of clientele differs in accordance with some places, like it’s just a different type of people that you’re dealing with, you know, you’re not necessarily dealing with this, this huge crop of athletes that are so driven, you know, it’s like, they need this, they want this, you know, they need a trainer. And you know, I’m kind of dissing my state, but whatever. But hey, it’s the environment. 

Ian Mackenzie: You know, we’re like the third most obese state. That’s right. But um, no. I went into media, I decided to start a podcast, but what I felt like doing was along the lines of bringing humanity back into fitness because looking at the fitness landscape nowadays, it’s pretty much all ego based everything behind Did has that foundation of ego so everybody is building up something from their transformation or their approach to fitness or their personal training program. 

Ian Mackenzie: What I felt like doing was giving people a platform that collected stories from people who did it themselves and completely took my solutions or advice out of the equation because even though I’ve got all the academic stuff, my best experience can be gathered from everybody who’s done something amazing in the fitness industry. I started approaching different avenues. 

Ian Mackenzie: I go to gyms, I’ll sit down with them do a video with gym owners to learn about their gym, and learn about their approach. I’ll do transformation videos for people on Instagram. And then the podcast itself is very, I wanted it to be so variety driven. I’ve, I’ve had the craziest just amount of guests from all over the spectrum of fitness. And so it’s really cool. I’m blessed. I’ve gotten so many insane guests on my show. I don’t know. I’m here, though, led me here.

Steve Washuta: Today go here with this really fun podcast where we’re all about exercise. It doesn’t matter how you do it, right? People are so dyed in the wool. This is the only way you do things. This is the only thing I think why that’s a mistake is Rocky Schneider, actually, and I were talking about on the last podcast, there were things we thought in the 70s and 80s, and 90s, that we know now that is wrong, right? Science is always changing, things are changing, and you can’t be dyed in the wool. 

This is the only way to do things you have to be willing to learn. And then ultimately, like you just alluded to, there might be a general population in the middle of Louisiana, or Oklahoma or IMAT, who are much different as far as what they need for their bodies and their minds than let’s say, the fashion models in Miami.

You know, there are different modalities of training, there are different styles, and there are different nutritional concepts. And I think we just have to be open to learning all of them and not sort of pointing fingers at who’s right and who’s wrong,

Ian Mackenzie: man, and I completely agree. It’s so true. And one of the things I think maybe people enjoy hearing is even the stories from these Instagram personalities like trying to find a way to dig into the core of who they are. And maybe just instead of giving people these vapid approaches to fitness, you know, take everybody and try to find a story that can connect with unique individuals. 

Ian Mackenzie: It’s, you know, it’s a matter of maybe asking the right question, and I guess, I’m trying to do that as best I can. But it’s amazing how the information is the same from somebody who is quote, unquote, a pro and fitness, their information is going to be the same as somebody who figured it out themselves. It’s just worded differently.

Ian Mackenzie: And that’s what I’m finding out. It’s like, all these people have useful, tangible information. It’s just worded differently using different structures, you know, to approach it. That’s, it’s incredible. Coming across that

Steve Washuta: when you interview people, as you know, you start to hear this, like you just said, the same kind of storylines for people, right? You heard people say, like, Oh, I got lucky, I met the right person, I was there at the right time, and they gave him a job and I got this, that’s a big part of it.

You hear other people say, I signed up for a bunch of free shit, like, I gave free assessments, or I shadowed or I interned, or I did this right, you’ll hear people say, how they screwed up like they made big mistakes, or there’s all that, like, during the journey, they all making sort of the same path like you said, they’re telling you a little bit differently, but more or less, it’s the same story.

Ian Mackenzie: Yeah, yeah. And people figure it out themselves, I think, I think and it’s bold to say, I think people don’t necessarily need a trainer, fitness coaches and trainers don’t define fitness is what I’m coming to find out. We’ve got the pendulum swung so far to one side, where you have to be a coach or a trainer to some degree to even open the door to a fitness business or fitness popularity. 

Ian Mackenzie: And I just don’t believe that’s true. I just think it’s flawed logic. And I think, you know, it’s a huge undertaking, but trying to push that to the other side, where fitness should not be looked at in that light is the root of it. That’s what I want to show people.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, yeah, Dr. Mark, who I just had on Mark Morris, on my podcast, who’s a nutrition expert. He was talking about the same thing and that attrition world is that people are sort of gatekeepers, and because of their one degree or whatever they say I’m the only one who can give information because of this one degree I have, even if they have no experience is the same thing as fitness. happens, right? Like, I have friends who have worked out their entire lives and who know a lot about fitness, but they just they’re in other professions. 

And maybe they never decided to stop for a weekend and get some certification. That doesn’t mean they know any less than anybody else. It doesn’t mean they’re not allowed to give information, I think we have to be, you know, we have to judge people on their information, not just on their credentials.

Ian Mackenzie: Wow, I love that you said it like that the whole gatekeeper approach, I think, I think I’m tired of that. I really, it’s true. It’s this, it’s this thought that certain people are the gatekeepers to fitness. And that’s the whole idea of re-humanizing it again, not, not thinking that fitness is is this pedestal that has to be climbed up to everybody’s got their own approach to it, and you can’t, the approach that somebody used to achieve their transformation is not going to be the same for you. 

Ian Mackenzie: I think that coaches and trainers can apply certain logic to help people, you know, teach them how to use equipment and machines, but they should be looked at more as maybe just knowledge banks, you know, just go to them for general knowledge, but they can’t necessarily be the well of motivation and drive that you’re searching for. 

Ian Mackenzie: They can’t give it to you, no matter how much people think they can, this, this idea that it has to come from you is the root of it. Yeah, it’s got to come from inside. It can’t be given to you by somebody else, no matter how much they try to give it to you. It can’t just totally don’t believe it totally.

Steve Washuta: And you know, what, you have to ask why to anybody, I don’t care what their credentials are, and then make your own assessment or judgment. Or sometimes someone responds to you like, Oh, you have to do this. And then you say why? And if they don’t have a good reason why? Well, maybe they were just told that by someone else, and they sound like an authority, or maybe they have the credentials, but if they don’t know why, why am I doing? It doesn’t matter. 

Like if a client responded to me, if I said, Hey, we’re gonna move in all directions. That’s my goal for you, I want to hinge I want to lunge I want to squat, I want to push I want to pull I want to rotate. And they said, why? And I couldn’t explain it to them and say, Well, you know, the way your body’s built, your shoulder sockets, ball, and socket, we need to move in circles, we can’t just move in the sagittal plane, we have to keep your joints healthy. 

It’s not just about building muscle. If I can’t explain that to them, then they should tell me to screw off. Because you should question people in the fitness industry. And I think some of it is just that people seem to like, they have the credentials and their authority, and they say it and then someone else just repeats it, but they don’t actually know why they’re even repeating it.

Ian Mackenzie: Oh, and I love that. And you know, it’s funny, I, that’s why I stopped is because I found myself just saying the same stuff over and over and over again. And I realized I was like, I’m not giving them anything useful. It’s, and it was I really I stopped because I felt like I needed to know more. And so it’s, it’s, it’s something I see, you know, not only me, but I would see it and other trainers, just the same rhetoric was used. And you’re right. I think that there’s not an understanding of the why. 

Ian Mackenzie: And especially with clients, I would talk to, it’s, it’s almost like, they knew exactly what they wanted, right? They knew exactly what they wanted from me. And, and I felt like they should do it by themselves. You know, if they are completely they understand what they need from somebody, they understand what it is, um, like, maybe, maybe you get it already and maybe you just got to do it yourself if you know exactly what’s supposed to come from training.

Ian Mackenzie: You know, I don’t know how much I could have helped them i really don’t you know, they’ve got the layout already set up in their head. Maybe it’s just a matter of figuring out what their drive is who blar in their life that can give them a deeper focus on fitness and then utilize those motivations and put it into the gym. Yeah, like that’s kind of what what the conclusion I drew at the time.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, I mean, I guess there are some people who need financial motivators meaning not not

Ian Mackenzie: just getting out of that to that dude, that’s a good point. Yeah.

Steve Washuta: And it’s not always just getting money. It’s, it’s like if I if I’m invested financially in this, then I have to listen to a little bit. For me, let’s say, having a financial advisor, right, someone to pay to do my taxes, do this stuff, like could I sit down and do it? Probably, but number one, it’s a pain in the ass. Number two, I don’t want to learn about it. And if I hire someone, I know that they’re going to keep me on track. 

And then I’m going to make sure that I’m not let’s say circumventing my tax codes and doing all the wrong things. Right I think that’s a part of hiring a trainer right? It’s just to have so some sort of accountability, but eventually, the accountability has to be the onus has to be on the person in here. 

Because I can tell you I’ve, I’ve, um, you’re probably gonna say the same thing. But I’ve struggled where I’ve had clients, like, I worked with him for two years. There’s like, there’s not a ton of transformation. It’s like, well, I only work with them for two hours a week, let’s say on Wednesday and Friday for an hour. 

No matter how much I tell them, they have to do these things, you know, Monday through Sunday, as far as what they eat and what they work out what they do, like, I’m not with them, I’m not their mom. What do you do, you just, I’m not going to fire them. Because if they go to another trainer, guess what it’s gonna be the same shits gonna happen is the same stuff. 

And we need to make a living, right? Like, it’s hard as a trainer, like when you’re young to be like, Oh, I’m not making a difference in their lives, I’m gonna leave, you’re like, No, I’m making money, and I am making a difference for the hour.

It is a hard part of the business where you can’t control everything, you only can control through a sort of like a few hours in the day, and then you got to hope that you have someone like an Ian or like a Steve who tries to convince their client, this is on you, the onus is on you to make these changes.

Ian Mackenzie: Yeah, and, and people want you to control everything. It’s tough. It’s like that go, you know, goes back into communication skills, and learning what the right fit is and try and, you know, it’s funny, because I didn’t even think about the concept of firing clients until one interview I had where they said that that’s totally logical. 

Ian Mackenzie: And that’s totally something that trainers who have achieved a certain client, you know, level of success can do like, it’s, it’s a favor to the client if you don’t think you’re a right fit. You know you can’t, you can’t force that relationship. And that’s something that dawned on me with these interviews.

Steve Washuta: totally, yeah, that’s a great point. I think there are people it’s early on in your career, it’s difficult to do, whether it’s from a financial standpoint, and it’s probably good to learn all the different types of people. Maybe you don’t want to do that. But, as you grow it, maybe you have a waiting list. And you don’t need the money as much. 

There are just certain people you know, you’re not going to, you’re not going to mesh with whether it’s your trading style, whether it’s your personality style or both. I mean, it’s funny, like if you if you’re ever working in a gym, where there’s a ton of personal trainers, and you look around a lot of times you sort of see the personalities just like clicks on like, Oh, that guy with his five clients, like I couldn’t work with them. Like I’m there with him. Yeah. And these clients, like, I’m glad they’re with me because they fit my personality. And they just everything just merges.

Ian Mackenzie: Yeah, you can almost sense the vibe. You can see it in their faces and their reactions and everything. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s Damn, that’s a good point. That’s so true. But I’ve realized that to it looking around, it’s like, you just know that they’re meant to be with that trainer.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, yeah. It’s the personal part of personal training, right? A lot of it is just being driven by the person, not just the knowledge, but the trainer’s personality.

Ian Mackenzie: Oh, that’s a good point. That’s a good point. Yeah, every trainer is different. I feel like people want certain kinds of motivations from trainers. And that’s, again, that’s another matchmaking thing to consider. But yeah, like, I want you to yell at me. I want you to make me really do this. And I’m like, Well, I don’t I’m quiet. I don’t like doing you know.

Steve Washuta: Yeah. And then there’s a, it’s another conversation. But then there are the very hansy trainers, right? There’s always a trainer who’s like, to others like their clients doing pull-ups and they’re, you know, assisting them by putting their hands in there. But that’s

Ian Mackenzie: a funny thing, though. Just just as a side note, like, I would see that as a trainer who really likes unsolicited spots on the squat. And I’m like, don’t do it. Don’t you know what You’re doing? You’re gonna get called out for that God. But yeah, I would see that too.

Steve Washuta: well, I want to talk a little bit about the podcasting here, right, because I think people are so interested in podcasts now they’ve blown up and fitness podcast specifically, you know if I’m a trainer if I’m a young person, you convinced me to do a fitness podcast or convince me not to do a fitness podcast?

Ian Mackenzie: Well, what I’m finding out with the podcast so if you’re, if you’re gonna go into it, the cool thing about it is that it’s the easiest setup ever. And I think when I started it, it sounded daunting because of certain things, you know, you got to get your feed so immediately that that’s the first question is how do I set up my feed and you guys know, so for me, it was so cool that there’s so if you’re gonna do it the easy way set up the podcast the easy way I loved anchor by Spotify, I frickin love anchor.fm by Spotify. 

Ian Mackenzie: That’s like the easiest, coolest free tool to set up a podcast immediately and then you can freakin record it on your phone and then just post it so the thing generates it immediately and puts out your feed, and then it can push it out to the different networks and everything but as far as like a desire to start a podcast I know And then monetizing it is always a big issue and learning how to monetize it is a big thing. What I found was so cool about the podcast is that I kind of changed the model a little bit for my vehicle. 

Ian Mackenzie: Instead of going down the route of sponsorships, and everything, which I have, I tried to do podcast series for companies, so I’ll reach out. And what I do is I’ll set up a series of podcasts that exists only within that company. Those companies give me people to interview and it’s in, it’s essentially a different take on and I forget the word, I always forget the damn word. 

Ian Mackenzie: A different take on testimony. Instead of reading a testimony on their website, or something, they have a personal story associated with the product. Sure. For me, for me, it gave me an avenue to create a service that really hasn’t been done too much before. You know, it’s not that no company I’ve ever approached has ever been approached about it before. They’re, you know, they don’t and hear about a podcast series. 

Ian Mackenzie: Like that’s a different thing. You know, so if I wanted to do something different, but you can take all these stories that you’re collecting from people, and you can create a service with it, that’s what brought me to build a podcast and then set it up as easy as getting your phone or you know, getting your microphone or whatever. 

Ian Mackenzie: But yeah, it that’s, that’s what it was amazing. And then what’s cool, though, that I loved when I started it is that you go on Instagram, people with 1000s upon 1000s of followers, you could just email them, you shoot them an email, and they’d be happy to jump on your podcast. That’s what blew my mind. It’s like, Oh, holy shit, you know, like, I had a Beachbody celebrity trainer on one time. 

Ian Mackenzie: And this is early. He just like Hell yeah, man. I was like, what? Okay, so yeah, I think what surprised me is that people talking about themselves, is the most inviting thing ever. And you don’t have to be famous. You don’t have to be a big podcast to get big people on. That’s what blew my mind. It was like, I’m unknown. And I’m getting people who are very well known on, you know,

Steve Washuta: totally true. There’s a lot to unpack there that you said all great impression. But yeah, I’ll start with the last thing and work back Go for it, you can totally get people who you would never think are within your reach. Now that doesn’t, but it’s a good and a bad thing. It’s a great thing, because you have this conversation with somebody, and you’re really happy about it. And maybe they give great information. 

But that doesn’t lead to like your instant success.I think that’s another thing that people think is like, oh, yeah, I’m going to like interview someone who has 45,000 followers, and then maybe they’re a TV celebrity, and they have a deal with Reebok, that doesn’t mean the next day that they’re going to be sharing it with all of their people and that you’re going to be famous.

That just means that they’re willing to come on your podcast and promote themselves and hope that you promote them and hope that you get big one day so that they get even bigger. They’re not always looking out for your best interest in you. And I think that’s important for potential people coming into this industry to understand.

Ian Mackenzie: That’s great, yeah, that’s a great caveat, because it doesn’t, you know, I’ve had these big people on and it doesn’t, it doesn’t do much, and it really doesn’t, you know, that’s the cold, hard truth about it, is that it really doesn’t, I think I think what’s cool is, is you can or the thing that you need to do and what I’m realizing is that you’re right when you reach out to these people, and you maybe get them on the show, they’re not necessarily hitting your target market. 

Ian Mackenzie: Maybe they’re not hitting the listener base that you’re trying to appeal to. You know, if they post it and they share it, it’s kind of just, it’s like a weed sprayer, it’s just going out to random people, people who probably don’t care as much about that person as they may have when they first followed them. It’s so it’s funny, I’m seeing it’s, it’s, it’s good as like just a super spreader, you know, spreading your message out there to a random amount of people.

Ian Mackenzie: But these people have maybe plateaued and they’re following and so I’ve interviewed people who kind of you know, maybe they had their rise there spike, and then they just leveled off and so nobody really, you know, they still get likes and stuff but it’s so just that it’s so transient it’s kind of just one and done and they move on

Steve Washuta: that’s very interesting. Yeah, maybe they had one sort of big hit or they were on like they were on some viral video doing like one on push-ups but like people don’t so like if I have Ian on maybe Ian has like 1000 people who like love him right not only love him from like a like media standpoint, but maybe they really know you like they’ve met you in person or you’ve had conversations with them. 

And they’re willing to give it a listen because of that. But like there could be someone else who likes the only reason people follow them is that they look great with their shirt. off, I don’t really care what they’re saying, necessarily. I’m not going to download that podcast because they’ve never shown me anything. They said that was important. I’ve just looked at them with their clothes off because they’re in really good shape. Right?

Ian Mackenzie: And that’s the majority of it. Honestly, that’s like, that’s almost 90% of what’s on Instagram, you know, even no matter what your business is, you’re always going to again, you know, focus on the ego, or the thing that makes you look handsome or pretty, or, you know, ripped, shredded, whatever. And, and again, it, I think, I think it’s, it’s way better to just grind it out and maybe build a steady following, as opposed to just being a flash in the pan, like, a lot of people seem to be on Instagram. 

Ian Mackenzie: That’s because it’s a highlight reel. You don’t know what they’re going through in real life, you know? Yeah, it’s all fake. You’re right. That’s it. And, yeah, it’s, it’s, but again, I do like the idea of getting very unique fitness info from just the most just the craziest areas of fitness, you know, so whether it’s just like a weird sport, a weird coach, a weird training protocol. There are just so many cool things out there. There really are things I’ve never heard of before that people were telling me about. You know,

Steve Washuta: yeah, there are so many different areas to go into, as far as fitness conversations are concerned, right? That’s why I tell people who want to do a podcast. First of all, let’s go back to that a little bit. That the purpose of your podcasts, if it’s just to monetize, like, good luck, you’re going to be spending a lot of time doing this and not getting a lot of money back. 

Like it should, it shouldn’t be specific, like just a monetize, like, good for you. If you can do that right away. There are different ways you can do it. As you said, maybe you can partner with companies, maybe you can get advertisements, I decided not to do that with Trulyfit mainly because we instead use this as this sounds really bad, but sort of like a net, to get personal trainers to listen to the podcast. They understand what we’re trying to do as a software company, and then they jump on and use our software down the road. Right?

Ian Mackenzie: I love but you’ve got a great business model like it’s, it’s perfect. Like that’s people need to maybe do it your way, I think that’s the best way to do it. You get yourself an app, you build a platform for trainers. And it’s it doesn’t seem like there are many apps out there that do that I know of a couple that is big, but you guys are in HR, you’re in blue ocean, you know, you’re kind of one of the few that are doing this. It’s unexplored territory, as far as I’m concerned, from what I’ve seen,

Steve Washuta: well, I appreciate that. Yeah, that’s what we saw, too. I mean, ClassPass does it for gyms. But the problem was something like class passes, they’re against what I would call our ideology. ideology is a completely free market, Ian, Ian goes on. And he creates his own personal training page, I don’t care if you charge $600 for a 30-minute session or you towards $6. Because it’s your page. 

And it’s your time, I’m just giving you the platform where like class pass like, will make you like do free classes, they’ll allow people to sign up, like back to back. And so someone could book you like in a back-to-back class, but the first one is free. Now they have like two hours with you. But they’re only paying for one hour. Like none of that stuff would be allowed on Trulyfit. Because this is just an independent platform where you run your business, I don’t want to tell people how to run their business.

Ian Mackenzie: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, that’s, that’s the beautiful thing about it is that you really, you’re trying to create autonomy as much as you can for this trainer. It’s really cool. And it’s, it’s nifty because it also, it’s a different avenue because you’re not trying to teach coaches, anything you’re not kind of coming across as like a mentor.

Ian Mackenzie: You know, it’s, it’s again, it’s just more autonomy because I see that all the time to coaching mentors, and that’s, you know, that’s another conversation, but that’s the other business Avenue. It’s like, I have taught 1000s of coaches how to do a squat.

Steve Washuta: and how how to make 20k and how to make 20k.

Ian Mackenzie: Exactly.Yeah.

Steve Washuta: Spending one $1 a day on Facebook ads, I can make you 20 Yeah, I mean, I do. I will say this from the podcast perspective, another good thing about it is again, you have to have the time, and you have to maybe not make it your number one priority to monetize because that might not happen. And then you’re just gonna give up like anything else. 

This is a long ride, right? If you’re expecting to start this and, and be good right away, you’re not going to be right, you’re going to screw up it’s going to be difficult. You’re going to forget to turn the mic on here and there. You’re going to things are gonna go wrong, but you have to be in for the long run. 

But what where I find great is that you know, I get to reach out to people and speak with people who I never thought I would get to speak with in great conversations. I’ve had these like, great doctors on my podcast, awesome. They send me their book, I get to read their book, and then I get to question them About very intricate topics that I’m interested in because I have clients who have these issues, right? Type two diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, or things like this, right?

I get to learn about it and then ask the questions from the perspective of Okay, so if, if I’m worried about this, there must be hundreds of other trainers who also have clients with gout and diabetes, and they want to know how to deal with it. It’s serving a purpose of education, but, but it’s not like, I don’t feel like you said, like this weird mentor who’s like trying to pitch anything to you. I’m just asking questions, and I’m interested in if you get information out of it, too, then great.

Ian Mackenzie: Yeah, and that’s a shoot, that’s an amazing thing. But it’s, yeah, you gotta be in it for the long haul. Everybody who tries to do something with podcasting, it’s always you always have to be the last man standing, if you’re gonna get somewhere with your podcast. And you’re right. It’s, it’s, it dawned on me that the money definitely has to come from somewhere else. 

Ian Mackenzie: Or you can find a way to package your brand in a different way and create the content in a unique way. That’s what I’m doing is that I get I monetize everything. All the different media aspects, and it all wraps around the one mission I’ve got. That’s so cool that you said that, but yeah, you got hundreds of episodes. It’s like it just keeps going.

Steve Washuta: You know. I mean, it takes a lot of time, like anything else, but it does. In some respects. People say this all the time about things. Time flies, before you know it, you know, you turn around, you’re like, Oh, I remember what I was, ordered my first mic, and now I’m 100 episodes in or something, right? 

I would never tell someone not to do it. I would just say if you’re going to do it, number one, at least this is what the podcast experts say is you better have a really good niche and it should be even like a niche within a niche right? A niche isn’t like a kettlebell, OSHA’s me, CrossFit. CrossFit is not a niche, it would have to be like, CrossFit classes in southeastern Louisiana, right? Like, yeah, like, Oh, I’ve been to all the CrossFit gyms in southeastern Louisiana. And I’m just going to talk to the people there. 

And we’re going to talk about which one is the best and how they do different things, right? That’ll sort of get you to build an audience. And then maybe you could expand out afterward. But to jump into the podcast game now and be like, Oh, well, you know, my, my passion is discussing movies. It’s like, okay, well, guess what?

Ian Mackenzie: There’s only a gazillion of those.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, so you’re not going to compete, you have to really like niched down like two or three levels. And then maybe if you start to get big, then you can sort of start to expand on that and get a little bit bigger. That would be the one piece of advice I would give to people who are starting.

Ian Mackenzie: Now. It’s yeah, and you brought that up, too. I started doing some, you go through so many iterations of the podcast to try to do different formats like interviews and stuff. And I took a page from I don’t know if you ever heard a loud wire? I have not. Okay, so loud wires like that. It’s another interview thing on YouTube. And they interview rockers, right? They interview just famous rockers, and the dude sits down with them. 

Ian Mackenzie: And he does Wikipedia Fact or Fiction. And it’s, it’s like the coolest just interview format ever. Because he just pulls up their Wikipedia page. And he asked him is like, is this true? Is this not elaborate? And so I started doing a little bit of that. And it’s fun actually to like, do the Wikipedia shit because there’s a lot of stuff that’s wrong on there, you know? If you get somebody on there, but to your point, you, you, you’re constantly changing stuff. It’s like it’s just never consistently one thing as you go through it. It’s always different.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, I mean, it’s such as business, right? That’s just life, we learn we grow, just like we did as personal trainers, right? I’m sure. Whatever you’re initial like a consultation.

Ian Mackenzie: I was like, Yeah, screw this.

Steve Washuta: Like, I’m sure my initial consultation as a personal trainer, when I sat down with someone the questions I asked them, the first day I was a personal trainer, as opposed to 10 years in was way different. Because I just learned more I learned how to ask better questions, I learn how to get to the answers quicker, if that makes sense. Right? The consultations are essentially an interview.

 And that’s, that’s what’s going on in the podcast. Now my, my, I guess you would say the format is copied off a guy named Russ Roberts, who runs a podcast called econ talk. And basically, you know, he’s, it’s more interview format, right? Eight to 10 to 12 questions.

There’s always a push back or to where he’s asking a question that he doesn’t necessarily believe, but he just wants to push against your beliefs to see how you’ll answer. And then sometimes at the end, he does like a rapid-fire, which I do sometimes. And I’ll say like, quickly, give me 30 seconds. I’ll say this one word. What do you think?

Ian Mackenzie: It’s cool. I like that a lot. That’s really interesting. It’s almost like you’re, you’re keeping the person on their toes a little bit

Steve Washuta: on their toes a little bit, but I also don’t know the reason I do that is because like we just talked about people are so dyed in the wool with some fitness and nutrition concepts that I might have someone in Come on. I’m sure this is the same thing that’s happened to you. I’ve But someone comes on. And then like the next podcast, someone who comes on, disagrees with everything that that person said. 

Yeah, yeah, yet I’m intrigued yet. Yeah, but yet I’m interviewing them and I’m trying to keep like a conversation. If I’m agreeing with both people, then I’m a fraud. Right? I have to make sure that maybe I’m staying out of the conversation if I don’t agree with it, or that I at least push back and put them on their heels and make them answer the tough questions so that my audience knows. I’m not just catering to this person. I’m here to give you good information.

Ian Mackenzie: Yeah, you’re there to support the new logic, you’re there to support the new thoughts and fitness and everything, you know, since it’s always changing, you’re trying your best to be one step ahead, as best you can. But man, it’s funny after a while, though, like the information totally sounds the same, from coach to coach to coach to coach. It’s like, it’s just it all blends together. 

Ian Mackenzie: And after a while, I’m like, I’m running out of questions to ask him, so tell me what you think about restrictive dieting. And, you know, so I go down that path all the time. I’m like, come on, and you can do it, you can come up with a different question. Think about something go, you know,

Steve Washuta: so I’m with you. And that happened to me kind of early on. And then what I decided to do instead was for like, season two is I wrote down each month, I’ve sort of stuck with it. Not totally, but I wrote down a month. And that month had a particular theme so that I can go out and look for those people and answer those questions. And then I don’t have to talk about that subject anymore, right? 

Hope so like in April, it’s all interviews of people who have worked at like boot camp B type places, and then they tell us how it is to work at a 45 Barry’s Bootcamp solid core, these sorts of places, right. And in May it’s like psychologists who work with people with mental health issues. 

How to work with an adult who has adult-onset ADHD, how to work with adults who have issues with depression and anxiety and things like that, so that I can sort of like get the get that shit out of the way, and then move on to another subject so that I don’t have like you said, that problem with like, oh, like I have to keep answering the same questions talking to the same type of person who just doesn’t like a little bit different

Ian Mackenzie: get another coach there. And you’re like, you know, it’s, it’s so you’re always just, there’s just this line of the same stuff. And nobody gets Yeah, that’s a good idea, though. I love that.You’re segmenting everything and kind of putting them in different boxes for different times,

Steve Washuta: trying, but it’s hard as you know, it’s like, someone, someone may reach out to you. And you’re like, oh, shit, like, this is a great interview, like, this is a good person to talk to, like, I want to talk to them. I don’t care if it doesn’t fit directly into my box. Like, I’ll fit it into the box, right?If somebody is like, relatively, let’s say famous, or you know, they’re just a good speaker on they have good things to say you’re like, well, this isn’t like exactly what I was, like, wanting to do. But like, I’ll figure it out. Yeah.

Ian Mackenzie: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s true. And then, for anybody trying to start a podcast, you go down the road of learning how to interview people, you know, which I kind of just had to learn on the fly. But it is funny how you’re just you know, your, your brain is just constantly moving. You just got to kind of let the words just kind of come out. 

Ian Mackenzie: I’ve ended up asking, the most random ask questions sometimes like, Oh, how’s that show on Netflix going? Tell me about that. That’s cool. Vikings? No way. I want to thank you for the cool content. You know, I’m not complaining. It’s pretty damn cool.

Steve Washuta: I want to ask you a little bit about I’ll go first and you can tell me your stuff. Because you already mentioned anchor, I actually never used anchor. I’ve heard great things about it. I’ve used Buzzsprout. We have our own like a person who handles like we have our own RSS feed connected to our blog and our website that like I have a computer engineer who handles that, like that sort of end. 

But as far as we talked about, the mic setup is so easy, like all you need is any sort of mic from $110 to $400. If you buy it online, you’re good to go. You have a laptop, and you can do different things with Cambering I don’t know if you edit your own videos, I use Camtasia

Ian Mackenzie: Oh, go away. I use Camtasia

Steve Washuta: so tell me about all the stuff you use and how you go yeah,

Ian Mackenzie: we’ll go through the tech and everything so so this is and I’ll tag people whenever I share the posts and everything in the podcast, but I got this thing is amazing. It’s like the road MC. It’s so cool. I love it, I just got that but I use so I’ve got a mixer. Used a mixer and it’s I think it’s like a pro FX or something. It’s good. I go mixer Mike and I do the whole big setup because I just I don’t know I just wanted to look cool. 

Ian Mackenzie: I was like you know, I just need some that look dope and you got the same thing. You’ve got an awesome setup too. But no, so use Camtasia for the audio stuff. Any kind of Audio stuff just because you know, it’s so easy. Camtasia is awesome, like just the easiest layout for oh, it’s fantastic. And then it’s easy to export, it’s easy to turn. And I actually use just as a little dinky online converting tool. It’s called, like, convert eo.org. 

Ian Mackenzie: And it’s just this free, easy-to-convert thing that turns on my shit to mp3, and then I can post it on Captivate. I use captivate my platform for like the podcast, and that, you know, all my analytics and all my shit goes there. But the anchor is cool, because it really, it’s the most, like, it doesn’t look cheap. It’s very streamlined, and it’s free. 

Ian Mackenzie: And it’s basically the same thing as Captivate it gives you all the same shit, you know, captivates a little more extensive, it’s got all kinds of other plugins to work not, but Ankur distributes your podcast everywhere, just like what you get with Captivate or something, you got to pay for it. 

Ian Mackenzie: I liked it because it’s the idea of pushing it out to different platforms like that’s the thing that you got to look for. You want something that does that for you, you know, so, but yeah, and I did.That’s, that’s my setup. I kind of got this right now. And I have another mic. My nice, fancy, expensive mic that I’m not using right now. It’s a weird flex, but you know, that’s my other microphone. 

Ian Mackenzie: But yeah, that’s, I’ve got that too, in case I need to go to somebody’s place and do an interview with them. But yeah, that’s pretty much it. And yeah, I love Camtasia. Nobody really knows about it, though. It’s kind of its kind of software that people don’t really know about whenever I talk to other podcasters.

Steve Washuta: Yes, whenever I talk to other podcasters, they never mentioned Camtasia. I’m very surprised you used it, i love it. It is recommended by things. Yeah, I was I got it recommended by a buddy of mine, who also has a podcast, but he didn’t get it for podcasts. He was just, he was building a course like a video course. He got it for that, and he told me about it. 

Then you know, I bought it and thought it was just, it’s just so easy to use. Oh, it is like I don’t have any skill set in that realm. And it just so quickly, like I’ve learned how to use it so quickly. Now, I can’t compare it to other programs. But I do know that a lot of like, so I had somebody on my podcast two months ago, I won’t say who it is just because they don’t want me to but that’s okay. 

They pay $75 per podcast for someone to create their podcasts. I’m like, I’m like I can I can sit down and create both my audio and video once it’s done in like 20 minutes.Y ou’re only paying me like three? Like, like, what like why? Why are you paying someone $75 an hour to do that? Now, I didn’t call him out on that. I didn’t tell him about that. Because I don’t know how I didn’t know how busy he was. 

Maybe and you know, $75 could be nothing to him. Right? But to me, I’m like, why would you? Why would you do that? It takes two seconds to create these things. I think that’s another thing people are like, Oh, is this podcast? It must be so difficult to create. You’re gonna hire all these experts. It’s like, Nah,

Ian Mackenzie: you can, you can do this is out there now.

Steve Washuta: As you know, it takes a little while to learn. But once you’re in, like in rhythm, it’s easy. It’s very easy.

Ian Mackenzie: Yeah. And zooms wonderful at you know, the audio always sounds good through zoom. I do use Adobe for my videos, though. I’ll do pro for videos and everything. Yeah, that was a hassle to learn. Tell me why. Premiere Pro. The reason why they give you so many graphics are are better than Camtasia. I will say that I think Camtasia I only use Camtasia for the audio because it’s so much easier to do audio Premiere Pro just has all these cool plugins. 

Ian Mackenzie: The graphics look better, it can handle video better, it is a little bit of a pain in the ass sometimes just because it’s a big program. Sometimes, you know, every now and again, it kind of lags on me. But no, it’s it just gives you options. You could sit there and make it professional. 

Ian Mackenzie: The cool thing about it is that like Premiere Rush it is the plugin the thing for people who kind of want it to be like Camtasia so if they want simplicity like Camtasia rushes unbelievable and it goes to your phone. You could sit there and edit a video on your phone if you need to. I think Adobe’s just got cool shit. 

And then you could pay like the whole student monthly fee like $20. And you could get all of their apps for $20 a month and I’m like, Ah, you know, yeah, so yeah, so I just think it but it is it’s a hassle though. If you want to sit down and learn Adobe, you’re gonna be there for a while. It took me forever to just figure out pro because it pulls it up and it’s like all these different windows and you’re like, ah, you know, so

Steve Washuta: I want to ask you about some pain points. I’m going to go through one first that I had this was just a random I don’t think most podcasters are going to have this but I had Set up an RSS feed to Spotify initially, almost like I don’t wanna say forgot about it, but then just forgot that I already had one. Then my second I had a second RSS feed. There were two Trulyfit podcasts that you could access.

Ian Mackenzie: Two RSS feeds for the same show for the

Steve Washuta: same show only. But it was only the second one that was only on Spotify. But what happened is eventually I had to get rid of that. Right? And the problem is, is that I had so many followers on one, I had an equal amount of followers on both pages, right? One wasn’t more important than the other. I just wanted to keep one RSS feed, but I can’t i You can’t like to reach out to them, you don’t have their information, right? 

I can’t You can’t reach out to Spotify, and be like, Hey, can you inform the however many people are following this account that I’m shutting down this RSS feed, they have to go to the other one. Now I just have to hope that one day when they click on the podcast, the following that doesn’t come up. It’s just oops, sorry that they actually look for it again, instead of just saying, Oh, screw this. Guess I gotta listen to a new podcast now. And I just lost all of those listeners. But that’s just you know, that’s just a road bump you have when you’re,

Ian Mackenzie: yeah, when you’re starting in what’s funny, I can troubleshoot it a little bit because I was actually looking up something similar and trying to figure out a solution to this is not an answer to that by any means. But it is something that people can look into if they have a problem that’s similar maybe you know about it, I was looking at how to redirect RSS feeds. How to change platforms, how to go from maybe like Captivate to anchor or back and forth. And you can, depending on what, platform you have, have the option to cancel the feeds. 

Ian Mackenzie: You can just completely get rid of the feeds or you can generate I think it’s called a 301 redirect. Ah, yes. Yeah, the 301 redirects. I think there’s, there’s, there’s maybe a solution in there where you can sit there and maybe generate, like a redirect somewhere and maybe combine the two feeds in one, which is, I don’t know, now I’m just like going to the Twilight Zone of like podcasting. But, you know, that’s my, that’s me winging it. Just do that. Maybe it’ll work, you know.

Steve Washuta: I have thankfully, a partner in the Trulyfit business who’s a computer engineer. You know, whenever shit goes here, I, I send it to him and you say you take care of this, or hopefully, it never goes awry in the first place. Because he has already thought of all of those things, except when I go rogue on my own, as I did with the Spotify thing, and just decide to hook up an RSS feed before I’m told. 

And then I have two RSS feeds going on. But yeah, that’s just that’s the nature of the business. Like anything else. You’re gonna, you’re gonna screw up, you’re gonna fuck up at first and then you’re gonna learn, and before you know it, you’ll correct those things.

Ian Mackenzie: Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s exactly what it is. It’s so true. Just oh my god, anything technological, it’s always gonna hit you immediately, and it’ll still happen. That’s the shitty part about is that it doesn’t just stop. It’s like, you could be in it. 100 Plus episodes and you’re still getting shit happening on you. It’s like God, thought this was done, you know,

Steve Washuta: have you? Or do you use any of the sites where there are podcast agents for lack of a better term, who then reach out to you and pitch you guests who they think would be fitting for your show?

Ian Mackenzie: I had? Yeah, I had some agencies do that randomly, automatically, for no reason. I’ve had like, three or four just start emailing me, people. And you know, in my pride, I’m like, No, don’t tell me who to get on my show. You know, but no, they’re great guests. That’s the funny thing is like, I whenever they reach out to me, I think I think the reason I don’t follow through with it or I don’t like it, is because I’m looking for maybe uniqueness. 

Ian Mackenzie: I don’t mean to be like mean to the people they give me but I do. When you look at somebody’s profile, or you look at somebody’s knowledge, you want there to be a little spark a little something that goes wow, like, that’s, that’s insane. Shit. Like, that’s so cool. You created that you did that. You created this mission. 

Ian Mackenzie: And the people they send me, you know, they’ve always had like, multiple publications, multiple books, they’ve been on 100 Plus podcast episodes, you know, they’ve, they’ve been around and I’m like so. Basically, it’s, it’s just, it’s gonna lump me into all the other podcasts that have had that same guest on.

Ian Mackenzie: Now I’m looking for people who may be a little bit out there. You know, maybe they haven’t done that many podcast episodes. Maybe they’re just in a weird ass sport. And they’re just doing weird shit over here and I need to, I need to point them out and you’d be like, Hey, man, come on. Come over here. Do you know?

Steve Washuta: Yeah, I mean, listen, it’s your podcast. It’s your direction. You get to choose who wants to be on and that’s the gray Just thought about it, when those people reached out to me, I never signed up for it. But now I have like probably six agents who regularly reach out to me and I have a running list that my virtual assistant has. I’m talking like 400 guests just like a running list of people who have asked to come on. 

And I will tell you that I’m just making up a number here, but I don’t think I’m overexaggerating. 250 of the 400 Guests are some sort of like, nonsensical like a life coach or like childhood Trump’s gotten those are like, it’s always these like really woo-woo topics and I always write back I’m like, listen, that’s this is not my podcast, you must listen like, I have people I have like physicians on I have coaches on I have registered dieticians on like, I’m trying to have like a short interview, where my listeners can learn something really quick, that’s useful, not talking about just like woo-woo nonsense, like, you have to better yourself and you have to do this like I’m okay with people wanting to do that. But like, I don’t want life coaches on my podcast like that. 

That’s just not what I have. It’s very hard for me to like, find these people. But now I think the agents are finally getting it because now I’ll get like, Oh, this is a physician who’s like a, he’s a urologist. He talks about like, sex health or something. And like, Oh, that’s interesting. Like, I can talk about that. At least I can ask him, directed questions about science and not just about the woo-woo Schiff.

Ian Mackenzie: I think I guess they keep tabs on the podcast, they kind of track the guests, you know, the series of guests and everything. But yeah, it was, you know, I get all these unsolicited emails of like, Hey, we got a guest for you is like, I didn’t sign up for this. Where are you coming from? And, but it’s okay, it’s, I’m not mad at it. I’m, you know, it’s cool, you know, part of you, if you’re starting a podcast and everything, I think, even beyond getting monetized. 

Ian Mackenzie: Just getting to a point where you get emails for people, like trying to set you up with guests is like, people are seeing your shit. Like, like, and it was so cool. When you asked me to be on it was like, people were seeing my shit, you know, he ran across my thing, you know, and, and it’s so cool to just know that if only if, if you only get seen by a couple of people who really take an interest in what you do, or want you to be a part of what they’re doing. 

Ian Mackenzie: That’s all that matters. Because then you know, you’ve got something you can push it forward, and you just have to keep going like those are the little validation points in your process of building something. I think I think monetization takes a backseat to that, honestly,

Steve Washuta: totally. I’m with you. And you know what, I always try to bring this back home and sort of like compare it to things in the fitness industry. It’s like, it’s like, you don’t skip step on the scale every day and write and go, Oh, well, I’m, I’m not three pounds lighter than I was the day before. If you do, or somebody does that, guess what you have, you’re gonna have like mental health issues, right?

Ian Mackenzie: You’re gonna be screwed.

Steve Washuta: Your physical goals, right? Whether that’s weight loss, muscle building, whatever else, you can’t look in the mirror or look on the scale every day, you have to look at it, like on a monthly basis, or even every three or four months or even a year or two out. And you have to say, okay, these are my goals for like, the next year or two. 

And that’s really what podcasting is, it’s like, you’re not going to suddenly put out one episode, and have, you know, 20 25,000 unique fans who are all pushing your content, and stuff like this isn’t about going viral? Because you’re what you’re doing is, in fact, I would argue that I wouldn’t want to go viral going viral is about a short clip where people know nothing about you that they think is either funny or useful. 

But they don’t actually think about you, right? This is what we call like, like long, slow content, I want people to get to know me to get to know my services, get to know my guests. And trust me that I’m going to provide them value from now until I stopped the podcast, not that I’m we’re a flash in the pan as Ian said,

Ian Mackenzie: yeah. Yeah. And you just don’t want it. But you know, that’s the cool thing about the podcasting game, is that it is long, and all you really have to do is be consistent with the episodes and just go down that road indefinitely. Because that’s, you know, you look at shit, you look at Rogan, you know, he’s the biggest podcast out there ever, you know, and he’s, he just kept eating, he just kept going. He’s put out 1000s of episodes is, you know, yeah, you just keep going. And, and eventually, you get to a point where you’ve carved out some kind of weird reputation. 

Ian Mackenzie: And to your point, though, I think, I think it’s actually better if you’re not, like going up quickly. In fact, if people are unfollowing you and maybe they don’t like what they see or, or you’re getting some pushback on the content, you’re probably doing the right thing, you know, because you’re, you’re, you’re striking a chord, you’re hitting a nerve, you know, if you can be a disrupter to some degree then and make people not like you a little bit. You’re, you’re on the right track.

Steve Washuta: That’s a great point. I never thought of that. But sometimes it’s not good to chase what you believe your audience is. Yeah, what you put out the content and let your audience Chase what they want. Right? Yeah, you out a little bit, we’ll find you. I think that’s a good way to go about it.

Ian Mackenzie: And I mean, they always say the bad press is good press. You know, if you develop some haters, and you get some people hating your shit or being jealous about what you’re doing, it’s good stuff. It’s good.

Steve Washuta: Also add this in the end. And I don’t know if you can, you know, give an example from something that you did beforehand. But I talked about in my book fitness business one on one, I’ll shamelessly plug it here that you can use your former careers and your former skill sets to merge with whatever you do. Now, you just have to think about how you can do it. Right. 

I was in public relations, and that’s basically like, creating and maintaining relations between an organization and its constituents. Right. That’s what you want to do. Really, what that is, is just like, telling the truth, being honest, and always doing the right thing, right, and having like, good strategic two-way communication and like, I can use those skill sets.

 And especially I learned how to talk to journalists, because that’s what I did in media relations, right? I know how to reach out to journalists, I know how to use things like Haro leads to promote my stuff. I know how to use things like what used to be called cision, where I can go on and I could find journalists and I can reach out to them and be like, Hey, if you’re looking for an article, you can write an article about this, I’ll give you all the information and things like that. You can use your skill set. 

Now that was a unique skill set that really merged with this sort of media, like the concept, but there is it doesn’t matter, like what you whatever you’ve done, like maybe you have a little bit of background in using computers. Well, guess what? Now you can design a podcast better on Adobe. You’re like one step up. I think for people who go, Oh, I’m starting fresh, none of us are starting fresh. You can pull on skills from other areas to help you in this venture.

Ian Mackenzie: It’s so true. And I mean, it’s it. Yeah, it helped me like I had spent so many years learning how to crunch numbers and do studies and everything. The whole academic side of things, it made it easier to sort of, you know, work with programs to make my content a little more crispy. A little sounds better.

Steve Washuta: And analytics. I imagine you’re gonna read in the analytics.

Ian Mackenzie: Yeah, exactly. It learning all that shit. You know, I’m able to work with it. I had you had to do all that for so many years. And so, but yeah, which is boring as hell, by the way, you crunching numbers and anything everything for like a study. It’s like the worst shit ever.

Ian Mackenzie: And all the professors like it, they’re like, You got to do this, you’re gonna get you to know, you’re gonna go somewhere with it. I’m like, fuck no. But no, to your point you are so true. You could draw from past experiences, you know, past skills that you’ve worked on.

Steve Washuta: we talked a little bit about the mic situation, and very easy for people who are wondering, you can order a mic anywhere you can. Well, we’ll put your mic down below the one that you plug specifically because I don’t I’m not in love with my mic. It’s just a mic.

Ian Mackenzie: you do you have the Do you have a? Sure. Sure. Mic.

Steve Washuta: I do. I do. Okay, yeah. And then, you know, we talked about Camtasia. We can plug that below, I can send links to people below the podcast, we talked about as far as the, you know, the Adobe, Adobe for

Ian Mackenzie: Adobe and then Adobe Premiere, and then Captivate is great is my platform. It’s new, Captivate hasn’t been around long at all, and it’s paid for.If you want something that’s a little bulkier, a little beefier, then captivate you know, because it gives you captivate gives you just a wild amount of things to be able to do to monetize, because it’s so it gives you it’s probably the best platform to more quickly monetize a podcast, if that’s really what people want to do. They want to do it quicker, quite possibly Captivate might be able to lead you there.

Steve Washuta: well, you have Captivate I use Buzzsprout. I’m on Buzzsprout. It’s great to yes, that’s pretty good. And we talked about the anchor, obviously, and how that can help you and make sure that you have, you know, an RSS feed, probably not more than one unless you want to go through what I did, and have that connection with everything. 

Now I’ll also say we didn’t talk about it, and I’m not sure if you do this. And I think it’s very important that you transcribe your podcasts, right? You can use something called otter.ai. It will transcribe your podcast now. It’s not perfect. I’d say it’s about 95% Perfect, but guess what, that 5% still needs somebody to go over it right and then make sure that edit it out, I might say ultimate and it reads it as like ultra or something right. You have to fix all the small words little Yeah. 

And then once you have that transcribed, you can then put it on a blog. Then I can embed The audio and the video onto that blog page, right, and pictures, and have all other information. What that does is really helps your search engine optimization, if you have a website for your podcast or some sort of website affiliated with it, it really helps the search and a to like, what I do is I take advantage of sounds really bad. 

Some of my guests who I’m like, You know what, I think this person is going to be really popular one day. I’m going to name the article of this blog, their name, and I’m going to use that as my keyword so that when I search for whoever, you know, Bob Thompson just made that name of that the first or second thing that comes up is my art my podcast, or hey, your posts about Bob Thompson, right comes up even before maybe Bob Thompson’s website. 

Awesome. I just think it’s it’s important to repurpose all of his information, you use clips on Instagram, you put things on LinkedIn, you have your website, you have all of these things. That’s why the podcast is good, too. I think people think like, oh, it’s just a conversation. No, no, this is content that you can spread through every social platform very easily.

Ian Mackenzie: It’s so true. And you can use, there’s a couple of things. I’ll point out a couple of things I’ve tried in the past, and I usually do. People want to go into live streaming, if they want to do live streaming, right? You,  they can use stream yard, I tried stream yard for a while, it’s actually a great service that allows you to stream on every platform at the same time. So it connects everything and so you could do Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, all at once. And the cool thing about stream yard is that it doesn’t shut off. If your internet connection is bad, it actually maintains the connection for you. 

Ian Mackenzie: Stream yards one I love Canva I Canvas my thing for graphics, so I’ll do Canva ship there was one other one. God dammit um Canva trying to think of the other thing. I don’t know that’s about graphics. So putting that stuff, Oh, and then Wix. I do like Wix, his plugin for podcasts. I think it’s superior to like, if somebody wants to do a podcast website, I like that. 

Ian Mackenzie: The way they embed the podcast into a Wix website is very easy. The structure that they give you is very organized and looks nice. And it’s like, I don’t have to do anything to it. It just goes straight to it. I was like, perfect. Yeah, that’s, those are my other plugs.

Steve Washuta: I mean, I think I think we hit on a lot of things. As far as somebody who wants to start a fitness podcast we gave, we gave people the reasons why they can potentially do it. Right? You can do it because you think you want to monetize you can do it. Because if even if I told you you’ll never speak to more than 100 people at a time, that’s your absolute growth.

 Imagine speaking to 100 people in a room once a week who love what you say that could really help your business, right? Because then you can start selling them things, right? Things that you believe in, maybe it’s something small as a microphone, or maybe it’s something as big as a personal training package. 

Yeah, they believe in you. Right. We talked about that we talked about, if that’s from the monetization standpoint, we talked about how to repurpose all of this thing at the very end, right? and cuts this up on Adobe and uses it on Instagram, then he cuts the audio up, and he uses it on a Twitter post. And then he cuts this up and uses it there, right? So you can use all of these things, cross-platform to promote yourself and make yourself bigger. So there are a lot of good reasons. 

And it’s not that expensive to run a podcast. But we both agree. And you can add anything else after this. Sure. In my opinion, the last thing you want to do is be Super General, you’re almost better being like, weirdly targeted, right? I’d be like, Oh, I’m only talking about this board game, like you’re more like you’ll have more people who eventually click and want to listen to this research for you.

Because you’re just so far behind the eight ball, if all you want to do is talk general health, or general movie reviews, or general TV reviews, there’s just too many people who do it. And you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle, especially if you don’t have money behind it.

Ian Mackenzie: Yeah, yeah. And the cool thing too, if you do start the podcast, every single platform or plug in everything that you need to be able to organize a podcast can all be free, there’s so much free shit out there. And so if you don’t have any money to put into a podcast, you could go to my you know, the cheap little convertido that’s free that converts all your stuff. 

Ian Mackenzie: You can go if you and have an apple GarageBand is frickin Wonderful. GarageBand does all the mixing and there are tons of free mixers that I’ve like used in the past just to put something out there. WvErything is free. It might be cheaper and might not be as quick as some of the other stuff but it’s it can work. 

Ian Mackenzie: That’s what I love about is that everything’s free. All the other stuff we talked about, gotta pay a little bit but you know, you don’t need to so yeah, it’s true. And yeah, the in the mission thing to i o tell you this, though I do disagree just a little bit. I do because I think I think that you’re right. It’s got to be specific. But with me, what I try to do is I try to make, I guess, the mission-specific. And then all the people that maybe are general and fall into general categories can somehow answer the question of my specific mission just a little bit. 

Ian Mackenzie: And so. But I mean, that’s still to your point, though, that still falls into what you were saying. It’s still specific. I’m just asking all these general people to answer my wildly specific mission statement, like try to give me something that falls into that category, because I want all these different opinions. But I want you to be able to say it in a way that brings humanity into fitness.

Steve Washuta: Yeah, that totally and I do think there’s a there’s a misconception in amongst everybody. We see what we’re targeted to see. We think there’s more of it than there actually is sometimes, right? Like, Ian, and I’m like that. Yeah, you and I might be like, Oh my god, everyone does this like fitness podcast where they interview like fitness people, but like, that’s not the case. 

It’s just that we’re targeted to see that shit, right? If you run a movie podcast, you’re targeted to see people who move your podcast so I don’t think what you do. And what I do is really like, it’s not like not everyone’s doing that I think people are giving like what like you talked about people are trying to mentor like your lead, let’s say like your BEN greenfields. Like this is how you make your body more optimized or like this is how you like eat the perfect diet, those sorts of things. 

But I don’t think there are people who do what you and I do, we’re saying we’re genuinely interested in you as a fitness professional. Yes. What your, what your story is and how you do things. And I think the time I think that’s the unique part is not it’s not even always the information they give, it’s just that we are interested in, in hearing from them and not just teaching people.

Ian Mackenzie: Yeah, very, very genuine, like people a genuine personification of like who they are, where they’ve been and why their info can potentially help somebody but yeah, and to your point, though, because it’s the people who are famous in the optimizing the body realm are already famous like they’ve, they’ve got their niche. Now that’s theirs. 

You know, Ben Greenfield, all those people, the biohacking people, they’ve achieved that. This kind of area does seem blue ocean, it seems like a different category that people aren’t taking, taking advantage of, you know, the trying to get genuine stories, genuine personalities and trying to create a pool of genuine feeling, you know, yeah, yeah, that made any sense that feeling Yeah.

Steve Washuta: No, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s lacking in the fitness industry in the health industry. It’s not, you know, yeah. It’s, it’s tough to balance those things. And again, I will say, you and I don’t do the same exact thing. We just had we have a similar approach in which we’re we talk to fitness professionals or health professionals about different things in their life and what’s going on but we don’t do the same exact thing where Oh, no,

Ian Mackenzie: it’s different. Yeah, it’s similar is a similar approach, you know, to understanding people but no different categories entirely with just like, what the packages are what we see, you know, what we put out there all that stuff, but, ya know, it’s just us simply asking me on was like, yeah, he, he knows what’s up. Yes. Yeah.

Steve Washuta: Well, I mean, that’s legit. It’s been great clicking through your content. Oh, cool. And looking at the people who you’ve been interviewing and watching some of that, and you’ve gotten on some great guests. And the first thing I thought when I saw your guest is like, you know, they’re all over the board and fitness. You’ll have like, you know, these like, jacked CrossFit female

Ian Mackenzie: Olympic ice skater on there one time, like, I had a sit, I’m trying to think, yeah, I had a Beachbody celebrity trainer. I had an Olympic ice skater. I had a snowboarder on a four-time Olympic snowboarder recently. I’ve just got the crazy, I’m trying to get a curler on there. I don’t know why I’m all wintery right now. 

Ian Mackenzie:But so but no, it is because I think that, people are always looking for a new avenue. People are always looking for a new solutions. People are always looking for a new approach to developing internal drive. And these guys have answers, you know, that can be synthesized and packaged in really cool ways. Do you know?

Steve Washuta: Totally. Yeah. I mean, interviewing anyone who’s successful at anything, you’re going to find out more information. And I will also say, well, we didn’t hit on to here. Lastly, is like the networking components. You know, you are going to meet 1000s of people during this journey, and it only takes maybe one of those people to Be like the golden ticket for you not that you should be doing it for that reason, 

but for all you know, right 1015 15 years from now and owns his own podcast company and produce his podcast all around the world. And he goes, You know what, I really liked Steve’s Podcast. I’m gonna have Steve join my team, right? Sho’s going to be helping you along your journey? It’s a great networking tool as well.

Ian Mackenzie: I’ll tell you, this is just quick, though. And you’re right about that it was there. I don’t know what podcasts. This was who the guy was. It was like a success-driven podcast or something. And somebody had asked him like, how did you end up getting Matthew McConaughey on your show? Like, how’d you got him as a guest? And he listed it out? He said, easy. I did. 800 Plus episodes, I reached out to something like 10,000 Plus company, like some insane numbers, this dude was throwing up. 

Ian Mackenzie: But to your point, it’s it. It got him to that one person, right? That that made him well, no, like, This dude has Matthew McConaughey on he’s a big deal. You know? And this wasn’t it wasn’t Joe Rogan? It was it some other guy some success podcast? And he just said no, I. I’ve been at this for years. Yeah, yeah. It’s about the long haul. It’s about trying to get to the tipping point where you do get that one guest that changes your trajectory.

Steve Washuta: I just interviewed a guy in maybe about four months ago or so. And he just had Gary Vee on his podcast. Wow. He had to travel to New York to do it. I know, I know the kind of person he is. I know that he was doing nothing but probably like, emailing 100 times a day and jumping through loopholes and just doing whatever he could to do it. But yeah, I’m not even really sure this guy has great information to give to be honest with you, but he, he you he’s a go-getter. 

That’s what I can say. He’s a go-getter. And, and he did it. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s possible to get any of these guests on your podcast eventually. If you work hard enough. And you’re willing to go through the loops. I mean, Tim, Tim Ferriss, right, he’s got famous podcasts. Yeah, the four-hour workweek The Four Hour Chef, all of these books. 

Yeah. I mean, he talked about how he got, I don’t know, a phone call with like Bill Clinton or something at some point, because he just like, had emailed him like 3000 times, he was just like, emailing his like Secretary like every single day, and was like, I just need five minutes. I just need five minutes. And eventually, they just what’s called, like the strategy of attrition. You just keep wearing them down. And eventually, they say yes, so you can do it. It’s possible.

Ian Mackenzie: It is and yeah, and then it goes to that tipping point, again, you know, maybe you’re not getting anywhere for years, but then, you know, you just have to keep going. And maybe by that fourth or fifth year, something happens and the floodgates open.

Steve Washuta: And I think part of that is twofold. And I want to add to that, cuz that’s a great point. You said before, that I just forgot to comment on it, as you said, you just got to stick it out because people drop out. And, and that’s like such a great point, because there is a pyramid, right? And we’re all starting from the bottom of that pyramid. But eventually, like, one year in this guy can’t do it anymore. 

This guy can’t do it anymore. This guy can’t do it anymore. And that pyramid starts to thin out and you become sort of you rise towards the top of that pyramid in that particular subject niche. I think it is important for people to stick it out and kind of like stay around the fold. Because eventually, things will click it’s just a matter of time. 

And then also it’s could be a matter of one episode. Doesn’t even have to be a guest right? Ian does an episode in advance. And I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you how I want to phrase this. There’s a guy who did this. What’s going on right now in Ukraine, right? I don’t want to talk about politics, but

Ian Mackenzie: it’s okay. It’s okay. No, it’s Yeah, for sure. We all know,

Steve Washuta: there’s a guy who did a YouTube video on like, why America cause what’s going on in Ukraine. Now. He did this like six years ago, it had like 8000 views. It has 12 million right now, right? Because people were YouTubing like America, Ukraine, and it came to the top. And now this guy went from 8000 to 12 million views. 

Ian can do a podcast on like, the all of the real uses of the kettlebell and Ian gets like the most famous kettlebell expert from Russia on his podcast. He wants to know how he uses the kettlebell and then like six years from now like kettlebell becomes more important than it ever has before because of some like, fitness fad that Chris Hemsworth is doing and now everyone is searching for kettlebell workouts and E and stuff come up so like, you have to stay the course because of these fats.

Ian Mackenzie: Yeah, the best stories to the funniest ones. He kind of falls into that category. But the people who get famous because of a meme like that, you know, they get their picture taken because of memes. You look at like BuzzFeed and they do the stories where the people talk about them becoming a meme right? And every single story is that they took a picture Something like 10 years ago or something, and it is just, there’s just a random ass picture. 

Ian Mackenzie: And then all of a sudden, somebody, somebody online, comes across it thinks it’s funny and then puts like little lines on it, you know, a little, little funny, funny quotation and all of a sudden that person just, you know, flies into the atmosphere, because they’re so popular, you know? It’s funny, because that meme culture works that way. You know, you never know some stupid pic. You didn’t think one thing about 10 years ago? makes you super famous all of a sudden.

Steve Washuta: It’s so true. Yeah. Yeah, I’ll never know what it’s gonna be. You just have to keep you know, putting content out there and doing the right thing. And you never know your golden ticket. As I’ll also say, I’m not sure if it’s coming up before or after this podcast. But I basically have on like, the number one TikTok agency owner in the world coming up. His name is Kyle Kaplanis, and he tells me all about like how exactly we use TikTok for fitness businesses. 

I think it’s important because eventually, I will listen to that one. Yeah, because I don’t know. Now, I don’t know anything about TikTok. I know, I do know that we can’t exactly repurpose this shit as we do for Instagram. Like, you have to make it like TikTok ish. But he shows you how to make it TikTok-ish. 

And it’s important. You have to keep up with the times you have to be able to like, make sure that these young kids coming up are also listening to your podcast because you’re not going to just grow by, you know, getting an older audience. You have to grow by getting a younger audience as well.

Ian Mackenzie: Yeah, you’re really TikTok is so trend based, and I think, I think it’s, yeah, it’s weird. The stuff we do can’t be translated to tick tock real well, and that’s always a question I’ve had, you know, sometimes I feel like you run the risk of becoming a joke, you know, because you kind of, if it’s gonna be on tick tock, it’s got to be like, it’s got to be funny. It’s got to be a little goofy. It’s got to be kind of, you know, like, Oh, look at me do this dance. Yeah,

Steve Washuta: that’s what I thought too. He convinced me otherwise, when you listen to the podcasts, you’ll hear. He said, There’s room for education based things on tick tock, there really is if you do it properly, you can be yourself you can be authentic, you don’t have to be someone else. 

But you have to do it in a way maybe where it’s not filmed. Maybe it’s where you’re just like, the things you do in your car, for example, writing where you’re just in your car, and you’re talking about what’s going on in Louisiana or whatever else and you have your phone up like that is TikTok s where people can see the real you as opposed to like it being more like, you know, to pre-plant

Ian Mackenzie: Yeah. To film to glossy

Steve Washuta: stage to glossy Exactly. It needs to be raw, but it doesn’t matter what the content is you can you can have raw E and content on there. It just It can’t be glossy and staged like you said, and I think that’s good to know.  

Ian Mackenzie: Because that is on only fans. Subscribe if you’re not just kidding.

Steve Washuta: We’ll put the link below

Ian Mackenzie: make me some money.

Steve Washuta: Now we know how eon monetizes the podcast so yeah, so just

Ian Mackenzie: yeah, you know, that’s another option if they’re feeling up to that you know if they really want to sell some premium fitness content that’s the highest level package actually for Yeah, I’m the Charlie Demello up No, that’s not no she’s tick tock shit. Nevermind. I messed up, my comparison there. Cut that out. It’s okay.

Steven Washuta: Well, yeah, and any other tidbits of information that you can give to anybody if they’re starting a podcast and fitness or obviously you can plug all your stuff tell us where they can locate Yeah, so

Ian Mackenzie: if they want to go to my stuff, it’s averagebrosfitmedia.com And the mission is bringing humanity back into fitness. If people want to go there, they can go check out the transformation videos, they can go check out the bro biz interviews, bro biz interviews are where I go to gyms all over the country, sit down with the owners and I learned about their story. And I try to give people a new dimension on fitness through their story, right? Their mission is is how they built the gym. And then they can go check out the NPC walk-around interviews where I actually go to shows and hold microphones in people’s faces and go here to answer my stupid questions. 

Ian Mackenzie: And they can go check that stuff out. Another one will be coming out soon with those and then they could go check out my bro info vids. Shoot. I’ve got I’m trying to say ran out. I ran out of space there. Um, the blog they can go check that out. But yeah, and as far as services go, they can message me as far as you know, sponsorship opportunities go podcast series for companies. 

Ian Mackenzie: Those are the services I provide as of right now or if they need me to go to a show if they’re a show promoter and they want me to interview and talk to their people talk to their businesses try to bring humanity and kind of tell people about their show. That’s another marketing option. But yeah, that’s it. That’s it in a nutshell. And they can listen to the podcast itself on anything, any podcast platform out right now. 

Ian Mackenzie: It’s everywhere. And then your Instagram handles average rose fit media and think Hold on Hold on. Let me before I tell you let me make sure I’m telling you the right thing because I think I switched it recently for no reason. But average rose fitness media sorry super laurels fitness videos media. Yeah, yeah. Average in the BRS fitness media.

Steve Washuta: Yeah. And if people reach out to you on there, you’re the one who answers directly.

Ian Mackenzie: I’m yeah, just me.

Steve Washuta: my guest today has been Ian McKenzie and thank you so much for joining the Trulyfit podcast.

Ian Mackenzie: Sweet. Thank you so much, man. This is an honor truly.

Steve Washuta: Thanks for joining us on the Trulyfit podcast. Please subscribe, rate, and review on your listening platform. Feel free to email us as we’d love to hear from you.

Social@Trulyfit.app

Thanks again!

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