On today's episode of Podcasting in Real Life, I get to sit down with our first-ever repeat guest - Rob Bowersox, host of "Major League Eventing."
We talk about dealing with internet haters, what it's like to cross the 1-year mark as a podcaster, and how Rob started a Facebook Group that grew to over 2,500 members in less than 6 months.
If you’re a fan of eventing and would love to hear from the riders and professionals that make it all possible, make sure to check out “Major League Eventing” at majorleagueeventing.com and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
Want to be featured on a future episode of Podcasting in Real Life?
Click here to submit your application.
Subscribe to Buzzsprout Conversations on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.
Do you know somebody we should interview on Buzzzsprout Conversations? Reach out on Twitter.
On today's episode of Podcasting in Real Life, I get to sit down with our first-ever repeat guest - Rob Bowersox, host of "Major League Eventing."
We talk about dealing with internet haters, what it's like to cross the 1-year mark as a podcaster, and how Rob started a Facebook Group that grew to over 2,500 members in less than 6 months.
If you’re a fan of eventing and would love to hear from the riders and professionals that make it all possible, make sure to check out “Major League Eventing” at majorleagueeventing.com and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.
Want to be featured on a future episode of Podcasting in Real Life?
Click here to submit your application.
Subscribe to Buzzsprout Conversations on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.
Do you know somebody we should interview on Buzzzsprout Conversations? Reach out on Twitter.
So I had my wife bring my laptop into the hospital and I edited everything. No, you did it. Oh my goodness. I did. I ended up from in hospital. I used my Wifi, my hotspot on my telephone to upload it. The Buzzsprout did the all phonic everything.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 3:welcome to podcasting in real life, the Buzzsprout show where we dive into the real life stories of podcast, yours in the middle of their podcasting journey. I'm your host Travis Hall Britain, head of content at Buzzsprout and you won't hear anyone famous on these podcast episodes. Instead, you'll hear everyday podcasters just like you, share personal stories about how podcasting has impacted them and the things that they've learned along the way. Now today's a special episode because we are actually bringing back our first return guest and that is rob Bauer sox who co-hosts his podcast with his wife, Major League eventing, and a couple of things that we talked about in this episode that I think are really valuable for you as a podcaster. First and foremost, we talked about how to deal with haters because once you start to put some episodes under your belt and crossed the one year threshold, like rob has, you're sure to encounter people that aren't necessarily big fans of your podcast and they'll let you know it. And so we talk about how he has learned to cope with that kind of feedback and to not take it personally, but finds the constructive criticism that he can use to make his podcast better. And then we also talked about their new Facebook group that they started just a little over a month ago, that within the first six weeks exploded to 2,500 group members. And it's a highly active group where everyone's engaged and contributing. And so rob shares his tips for how they went about creating the group and how they've been able to sustain a level of growth and success with that group so far. But to start off, rob caught me up on everything that's happened in the last six months since we had our first interview.
Speaker 1:Since we've talked last, we've had, um, we recorded our, our, our number one episodes since, so the one that was like a longstanding episode from maybe our first 10, we had a guest that we knew. We're actually pretty good friends with this fellow and he's one of the tops in the sport. I mean, he shattered, uh, the all time downloads in, in a week. And, um, really, it was funny, it was our first, um, it was our first exposure to huge widespread, you know, people who don't listen to podcasts, but they followed this one competitor, you know, so people were introduced at a podcasts into sport and things like that. And a lot of really good, awesome feedback. And then it was my first taste of Internet hate. So, and that's tough to swallow because you know, you, you, you, you think you did great and have all these people to love it. And, uh, you know, someone on the Internet calls your archaic or because of some opinion that we had. So basically in a nutshell, our normal interview style is to try to get to know a competitor. You know, we learned the origin and then where they're at today. So it's a very, we've kind of come to an outline of, you know, people are going to know what they're getting when they listen to our show. But with this one guest, he's super, super popular. Everyone knows his origin story, everyone knows about his current business. So we, and we're really good friends with the fellow. So we decided, hey, we're going to go more of a Joe Rogan style, for lack of a better word, more of a conversational, more just talk about thoughts, his thoughts on, on different things and who did that get me in some trouble. So, so I mean generally overall did great. It shot up huge, you know, gave us great numbers and for the most part everything was very, very positive. Except we didn't have a little bit of my first taste of people saying, wow, this, you know, this guy's a real jerk. Or, and I think some people did not even, you know, on some different message boards and things. I think some people who really didn't even listen, just wanted to jump on and have a, you know, that anonymous a jab at somebody who's trying to do something good for the sport, you know, so that was weird. But so that, that, that, that was um, our big thing. The funny thing about that was we recorded the interview. It was huge. We were, we were, we knew this is going to be a huge interview, especially, you know, leading up to where like, hey, we got this great guests. Then when we did the interview was like, wow, this is fantastic and wouldn't, you know, I had a heart attack the week I was editing this show. So it was a mild heart attack and I didn't have, you know, going to hospital, I was in here for a couple of days and like that Wednesday, it was a Saturday morning, he had a heart attack and it was like that Wednesday this thing was supposed to drop. So I had my wife bring my laptop into the hospital and I edited everything. No, you did it. Oh my goodness. I did. I edited from in the hospital, I used my Wifi, my hotspot on my telephone to upload it. The Buzzsprout did the authentic everything from the hospital. I had gotten out of the hospital, I guess Tuesday morning and Wednesday morning hit. And um, and so kinda funny, but it worked really good. Cause one of our, um, our missions that, you know, we're trying to have a couple of things growing a sport, it's a question is where people can get hurt. So we've kind of come up with a mission to try to get a thousand people first aid and CPR train. Well, I had my heart attack a week after our training with the guy who was gonna we were gonna work with to supply the training. So when we brought him on the show to do an episode to talk about our mission and trying to get people certified and it was like, hey, and just the, you know, two weeks ago I had a heart attack. So it can happen to anybody. They're kind of embarrassing. But yeah. So, um, that's kind of where the podcast has been. You know, a lot of growth. And you know, the numbers just steady, steady, kind of grow and kind of like on our last interview we were talking about every time someone new learns about the show, they they tend to go back and listen to old, old episodes and it's just kinda like interest, you know, it just keeps growing and multiplying and, and we're there, you know, so some weeks are better than others, but the growth is, I think it's pretty steady. So I'm pretty happy with that.
Speaker 3:That's great. So I do wanna I do want to hear more about this hospital editing
Speaker 1:challenge that you created. I'm not sure if I would recommend it, but it does make for a great story.[inaudible] I'm so committed to my podcast. I'll even edit episodes. So they go out on time when I'm in a hospital bed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty much what was up normally I try to have my shows edited probably by my show drops every Wednesday at midnight. I guess it would be eastern and I try to have it uploaded by Sunday evening so I can start a couple of promos. I do, you know, the video, the boast sprout soundbites. So I was like, man, not going to get this out. And you know, to be honest with you, I didn't know what it was a heart attack, and this sounds crazy, but it was the most, I was having a heart attack for probably an hour. We were actually driving to, here's the kind of funny story you might like this. We're taking my mother to what's called the sight and sound theater, which is a Christian theater. And we were going to see this show called Jesus. And so I started not feeling well is my mom was on her way. It was like a mother's day gift, birthday gift slash thing. And we start driving and I'm not feeling well and we're driving to, to the show. And my mom says, I can't wait to see what Jesus looks like. And I, and I thought in my head, I said, I might be able to tell you what the real deal Jesus looks like here. And that's why I decided let's go to the, I can just take me to the hospital. And by the time we got to the emergency room and parked I it had subsided. So when I walked in emergency room, I felt 100% EKG is all this stuff. Okay. So the truth is, um, it was really good for me to, once I was, I kind of admitted to just have something to work on that would keep me occupied so I wasn't dwelling on, you know, catheterizations and am I gonna have surgery and what's, you know, what's next. So it was good therapy for me. I love it. It's not anxious, it doesn't make me anxious. It doesn't create anxiety for me. It's more therapeutic sitting down and editing and trying to make something perfect as best it can. So that, that was it. So I was the health, I was just telling people I was the healthiest heart attack patient in the hospital. So.
Speaker 3:Well that's good. That's good. So we'll[inaudible] something else that I wanted to follow back on that you mentioned was when you had this really big interview with this well known person and it started doing exceptionally well and you got your first taste of the negative internet, right? They're not exactly like fan boys. So that's something that is, is pretty much inevitable. Whenever you put yourself out there and you're creating something and you have opinions or take stances and doesn't really matter how careful you are. Eventually someone's going to offended by
Speaker 1:something you say. So I'm curious like if there was any, anything that you learned or took away from that experience that you plan on doing, moving forward to not just, you know, make sure that you feel great about the content you produce, but then also to kind of develop a thick skin, right? So when you see that you don't let it get you down cause it's super easy to see someone leave a negative comment on something that you just spent hours doing and think, well you know, if this stranger doesn't like it then why am I even doing this? You know? Oh, it's so crazy. Cause I would, I listened to tons of podcasts and lots of learning type of things. I always try to better myself and get better at everything that we're doing here at major league venting. It's so funny that everyone says don't, you know, don't dwell on that hater, Yada Yada. It's funny that um, Pat Flynn had just released at literally like the same time I was coming through this, uh, thing on cyber bullying and people, you know, talking about how to deal with this cause I was really struggling. And my wife Karen, she, she's my cohost and my business partner, like we'd said in the last interview, she and I are kind of Yin Yang and she, she helps balance me out. And you know, we solve this stuff. It was so funny, some people actually said, Oh that rob is a neanderthal. Really not nice stuff. And then they said, but I know Karen is a wonderful person and I just love her. And I'm thinking, wow, we just want to, so it's like as if that's not going to bother her, that they hate her husband or they had these nasty things to say, but, and then, and I thought, you know, what would I rather be me who they're hating on or my wife and I would take it over her having to deal with that. And she and I talked, you know, like we are, we are a team. And I talked to her about how I should handle it. Should I, you know, should I do a rebuttal, should I, you know, and she said, no, just let it go. It's just a couple of people you're going to engage and it's only gonna go south. And I didn't want to engage in a way to create an argument. I want to engage and say, hey guys, you know, like, sorry, you feel that way. But I think a lot of times with that kind of negativity, it's just people are looking for that argument. They're looking for that reaction from me. And if you give him that reaction, they win. It doesn't mean you don't care. And for me, I always want to let people know I care and I care about the sport. I care about the people who listened to our podcast. But at the same time, there has to be a level of understanding that, you know, let them vent, let them get it out and we'll just keep trying to do the best thing we can. And then I just got our first apple podcast forced our review. So up until now, everything's going to five stars, either on our Facebook page or on apple podcast and we've got our first four story and that cut me like a knife, a[inaudible] and that's four stars. It's fantastic, you know. But uh, you know, it's like you said, you put hours into it and you put your heart into it and you, you know, we're, none of us are doing this because we, you know, we want to put it the best possible product. You know, we want people to listen. And their biggest complaint was that our audio wasn't great during the beginning of the show. We have a little bit of music that we fade out and, and you know what, I, I probably was doing a poor job of fading that out low enough that people can hear our conversation well. And then they had a critique about our guests audio cause we do ours more like we just do a phone call through Google hangouts. Sometimes there's little blips and cutouts and stuff, but our type of guests is very, they're on the move and I ask them to have a USB microphone or to even just be sitting down in warm places. We would never be able to get a guest every week. So we have to compromise that. So what we did was one, our show, we always recognize any reviews that we get. Every person, they gave us a five star review or or whatever. And we read it and we told them we thank you. So we read the four star and this was someone who wasn't some form, it wasn't something like they went on our apple podcasts and left the review. So we acknowledged that and it wasn't hate. It was these people like the show, they want to be able to hear it better and it's like, wow, well it's audio. And I had trouble hearing it. I'm going to like, I'm going to try to do a better job and I'm going to tell them I'm doing a better job and, and explain, hey, we're going to try to do a better job with this music that we fade out. And then I explained how just like just now, sometimes our guests, we're just, we can only ask so much or else we won't have guests. And at the time we don't know how good their connection's going to be. And for the most part, we've never had one that you couldn't hear, just maybe a blip here narrower. We literally had someone, it's a horseback riding. We've had a girl, she was trotting her horse, like doing fitness work on her horse, riding her horse during the interview and, and she said, you know, my Internet is better in this field. I'm riding my horse than at my barn and my house where I live. So what are we gonna do? We're gonna say, Hey, and, and we think it makes for a good story. Sometimes we hear horses in the background or, or gates rattled in or something. We've had people sitting in front of a market just so they had wifi to take the call. So that's my first couple tastes of, of people who weren't 100% satisfied. And that's how we handled the two different ways. The one where if someone comes on, if someone was leaving apple podcast review and said, you guys are horrible, we'd read it and we would try to talk about it. But I don't think to engage on the forum is the way to do it because it becomes like a, I'm defending myself and I'm attacking you. You know, and, and it's you against whoever else wants to gang up on you and they're anonymous people and odds are they've probably seen as out and about at a horse show and had been like, hi, how are, you know, the same people who are anonymous that are hating on us probably love it. Who knows? The one person that seen the note, my wife Karen. Very well. So, and she was hitting on me. So, and you know what, to be honest, I don't care from my voice either. And there's times I listen to the show and I said, Gosh, I should've shut my mouth. Or you know, I put my foot in my mouth or you know, so that's me. That's my own voice and I can't stay to sometimes I, you know, if someone's listening and they get a little tired of hearing me, well do I really blame them? Travis? You know, I don't love everything about me. I'm just stuck with me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I think that's a great perspective and I think it, it really comes down to, you know, only focusing on what you can control, right? There are certain things that are out of your control. Like you can't, I mean, you can change how your voice sounds, but it's a lot of extra work and I'm not really sure it's gonna pay off for it, you know, either way. But also I think it was really cool how you took the initiative to read the four star review talk through like, Hey, yeah, I recognize that sometimes our guests don't have great audio and boat, you know, this and that. It's important to take constructive criticism. Well, right, because all of us have areas that we can grow and improve and, and if we're not willing to accept constructive feedback that says, Hey, you know, this isn't as great as you may think that it is and here's a way you can make it better. You know, like that's, that's just a part of the game that's a part of growing, becoming a more well rounded podcast. You're, and having a higher quality podcast, you know, if you live in a bubble and nobody ever says anything negative, then then you'll never improve. You'll never make it better.
Speaker 1:Sure. And you better bet that very next episode, we love her down the, you know, the audio in the background, you know, and it's, it's, you know, we've done, I don't know, 80, I don't know how many total episodes because we have episodes that we count. And then we have bonuses and we don't number the bonuses. So I'm not sure where exactly we are, maybe 80 90 episodes, but um, you know, hey, in the grand scheme of things, if we did it daily for our job, we'd be in two and a half months in, you know, if it was a full time job. So you think if you've only done your job two and a half months, so we're still learning. Hopefully in a couple of years we'll get good. You know. But again, that was a person who said, hey, they literally said I love what you're doing. I just wish I could have heard the guests better and hey, I'm a little hard of hearing. So that, and music in the background made it difficult for me. So it was constructive criticism and at the end they didn't say, you're bad people. They said, we love you, we want to hear you better and how do you, how do you get upset with that? You know, you just yet to say thanks and then we'll address it. Cause if that person wrote that and it was an honest review that wasn't a, you know, it's one thing you can kind of tell when someone's just kind of wanting to needle you. This was a person who really cares. So this person had that feeling someone else does or a hundred people, you know, and hopefully they hear that and they say, wow, well Robin, Karen Care, they're going to listen to us. They're not going to take it and get Nasty Addison and um, you know, they, they value our opinion. So that's that.
Speaker 3:Now, now I do want to talk about one thing which has happened recently, which is that you guys started a Facebook group. You'd had a Facebook page for quite a while, but in the middle of June, 2019 said, we're going to start a group. Why did you decide to start a Facebook group? What went into that thought process? And then, uh, how, how have you been able to sustain its growth where now, I think the last time I checked, you're almost at two and a half thousand members, which is incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah. Um, thank you. Where mom and pop, where private, like Kinda independent, really. The whole Major League eventing started two years ago and it started as a Facebook page and an Instagram page and it's grassroots. We already have it, no big budget. We take a lot of pride in the growth that we've, we've had. And basically through you guys listening to your educational information and some others, like I say, I'm kind of a learner. You know, it's funny sometimes I think I'm thinking it's pretty common. You have to hear things over and over and over again to finally sink in. And I had heard from you guys in some other training type of things and said, Facebook groups are being favored by Facebook or being pumped, bumped up and kind of like the podcast. Like who am I to have a, a podcast, you know? So when we did our podcast, we said we're going to be buying many fans for how many fans, you know, kind of, um, were to fans perspective. We, we don't try to say that we're the expert. We had the expert on as our guests and we just ask questions as fans. Same thing with the group. We build a website and we put a forum on there and it was like we right in, pump it up at all a little bit and forums can be great, but you had to moderate them really closely. My wife and I, we just did not have it in us too. We're not big form users, so we eventually sit down and let's just take that down with the website. And we did. And then again, our whole mission is to build a community for our sport and how do you build a community without having a place where people can congregate. A community is a place where people can gather in some way. And again, we were like, boy, who are we to start up a group? Like what would a group be about? And then it's just kind of like, look, art identity is everyone's welcome. Who's into this sport? If you're, whether you're an amateur event rider, oh professional, an owner, a fan and official, you're into the sport. Everyone's a fan in some level. So we said, let's just make a place where everyone can come. And it's kind of our whole mission is because just the backup. Our sport has a governing body and recognized horror shows. You have to be kind of a mid level competitor on up. And then the lower lower levels and up to just a little bit above that middle level have what they call unrecognized competitions. So let's just say you're, you're a novice, you have your day job, you have your pocket, but you really love horses and you, you want to compete, but you have no great aspirations of being an Olympian. You just want to do something low, low level. So you're not a member of that recognized the organization that hosts the shows and things. So where we are was where to community that says, hey listen, you can be a person who goes out once a year and does the elementary or the little green bean level competition. Or you can be the person who's an Olympian. You're welcome here. This is one community. So that's the gap we're trying to bridge. So that's how we did. We said, let's, let's start a group where people can just come and and support each other and be positive and supportive. And then the questions of, well, how do you do that? How do you regulate the people are going to be the good people? Well, it starts at the top. My wife, Karen and me, the people who created the groups, so how do we do them? It was a Saturday morning. I said, well, I'm doing it. Starting a group booms. You know, it's a button on Facebook. Start a group, boom, it's done. Pick a picture you're in. And then I invite a couple of friends and then within a minute we had five members and it just grew like crazy. So we want to create this positive enforcement. So for people who don't have a group, when you're the moderator of a Facebook group, there's a very simple button on the right that tells you, you know, basically how many people are on the group and how many had joined this month or week or whatever. You just click a button and it'll, you can, it'll say like, welcome the new members. You just click that button and it populates a post that says welcome the new members and it lists everyone and tags them in your post. So it's very easy. And I think when we first started the group, it would populate a hundred people, which is very important to know that now I think it's 50 I don't know why it changed, but it changed. But it's important to know because it only the your last 50 or a hundred whatever Facebook decides. So we were going so fast, you know, we would hit it and then people would say, hey, you didn't, you didn't walk on me to the group, you know, but basically no show. We hit that button and then it says, you know, welcome to new members. And then under it I would just type in a, please take a moment, introduce yourself and share a picture of yourself. You know, one person doesn't and then another person doesn't. Next thing you know, you had these people introducing themselves, saying where they're from in the country, what level they're doing. We've had everything from people who were at the top, top, top of the sport, and people who are thinking about getting into sport. We have a guy who just joined up, he is, um, revolutionary war calvary reenactor and so he put pictures of on the self up and he's, he makes his own costumes and modifies, you know, the safety equipment, the helmets and stuff, you know, so all different types of people. So, and then what we're finding is that community by, there's people introducing themselves, they're fun and people in your area that are similar. So some people are connecting and saying, Hey, I'm a, I'm from that area. And, and, and, and I'm, uh, I'm a little green bean, you know, person to that just jumps little logs and stuff. Let's hang out. So that's how the community is starting. So it's a lot of work though, cause early on, wow. It was, it was twice a day in order to make sure we did not miss that a hundred percent cutoff. We would have to do a morning and night. I'd get up, have to do it. And then at night about eight o'clock in that I was gonna it again within a month we were at about 2000 members. So it was pretty good. We had more members in the group than our Facebook page has been around for two years. So, and engagement's good and, and it gives us a place to continue to promote the podcasts and things like that. We've started trying to ask the Facebook group if they have questions for guests. So we think that's a nice little perk to being in the group as you get a little heads up. You know, we had this one lady on, she's what's called a groom. And a groom is the person who, who takes care of the horses for the competitor. They do everything from the, the care, the travel with the horses to making sure they're safe and sound. And if there's a problem with a horse calling at the vet, you know, they really manage the horse for the rider. She's world-class. She literally wrote a book called world-class grooming for horses. And it was the first time we tried it. We said, hey, let's um, you know, just put it on the Lord Group. Hey, Emma's coming on the show. Does anyone have a question for Emma? And man, it like wildfire. Just tons and tons of questions. So then an episode, you know, we, we read a couple of fan questions, you know, people from the group. So, and that's another cool thing is we have our guests, not all of them, but some of them are part of the group. So then you have, I'm a fan of the sport who's able to smell message a top rider or a guest on the show and say, hey, you know, I loved you. Whatever. We have the CEO of that sanction body for our sport. He's a member of the group. He, we welcomed, you know, he was part of the list of Milkens. He walked in the sub with a picture and said a, and I'm the CEO of the United States of any association. So it's Kinda cool to know. We just had another girl. The pain in gains are coming up. Everyone's trying to figure out how to live stream some of the competition and we have a girl who's the social media marketing manager for United States equestrian. She is on our group and she's given us kind of the inside scoop and saying, all right, I'm going to keep you guys posted. So the group is really turned out to be quite awesome. I'm very, very proud of it and it's become very supportive. We haven't had a single person not be supportive of someone else. We actually had a picture when we first started out. I still do it. I have'em I'll take photos I've taken and then put like a motivational quote on them. And I had a, from a couple of years ago, maybe four or five years ago, I took a picture of a, a foreground woman riding. She's walking her horse and next to her is her coach and she's talking to coaches, they're talking to each other and it kind of gets smiles and you could kind of just tell it was a positive exchange between the two. So I just took the picture and I put up a quote that said something along the lines of, um, you know, being an encourager, there's enough critics in the world that was on the photo and in the description on Facebook. So the quote was, this is the essence of major league vendors, you know, basically let's be uplifting. And that was humongous. The person on the horse, she was like, I need this picture. That's my coach. And you know, the bicycle stuff that's happening just not even two months. I mean, maybe six, seven weeks tops. Lot of really, really cool things. I'm, I looked forward to the future of that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And something, I don't know if you did this deliberately or not, or intentionally, but if you want your group to grow and be an avenue for you to introduce new people to your podcast, it can't be named my podcast Facebook group. It needs to bring in people that don't even know who you are yet. Right. So like by calling your Facebook group, Major League eventers there are people that are searching through Facebook and they're like, oh that's, that's a group that I would probably love to be a part of. They've never heard of you never heard of your podcast, don't know anything about your Facebook page. They're like, wow, there's all these people that are into the eventing sport that are in this group. I want to be a part of it. Oh look at these buzz prowl, visual sound bites. That's really cool. Like they have a podcast too. And so I think that's, I don't know, was that intentional that you said we're going to create something that's community oriented first and then, you know, as a, as appropriate, we'll throw stuff about our podcast in there. Was that something you did intentionally?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was, you know, everyone has like their, you know, you're trying to have your, uh, what your audience is going to be called. You know, uh, your tribe, your tribe names, you know, the tribe name. You know what, what do people call each other? And I can never, I can never come up with it. Uh, I can never think of it. And then just that day that they were coming over and I, I think it was the night before the major league vendors and it just kind of went and so it was intentional. I didn't want it to be Major League eventing group cause it's supposed to be a community. It's supposed to be the communities page, not our page. You know, we, we started and we kind of manage it, but it's the w we want it to be a community space and we want everyone to understand like, oh another thing that we did to grow was every time someone introduced themselves, either myself or my wife personally replied to that introduction and said this, something as simple as, hey, welcome to the group or welcome to the club. And if we had a little bit of time, we tried to comment on what they had to say. And I think that went a long way too. Because then when other people say, wow, this guy's actually replying like these guys not only said, hey say hello. But they read it and people like to be heard and acknowledged. You know, that might be the only time that day that person felt heard ever. We want everyone to feel like they are major-league and no matter how small the jump is that they jump or no matter if they only get to go and pay to trail ride once a year, but they feel they have that heart and you know that we want everyone to feel like they are major league. And I don't know if that, I don't know if I'm explaining it well, but we want people to have a pride in whatever level they compete at basically is as low or high. I don't even ride horses. I don't ride horses. My wife, she rides, but she's on a break and me financially we're trying, you know, we have our, our, our kids ride and stuff. That's why you'll never catch me like knocking somebody for how they ride or, or anything like that. But sometimes people say, Hey, I'm, I'm anything, you know, they'll introduce themselves and they say I'm the opposite of major league, but here I am on jumping this little log going elementary and I'll reply back. Everyone is major league on this page in our book. And uh, I think people appreciate it, you know, and I hope that's not savvy, but I, this is the way I feel and that's the way I want the community to be. If the community's prideful of not or what loved. See, the thing is if you're doing elementary and you're jumping that log, it's like, it's like anything else in the world. If you're a podcaster but you're recording on your iPhone and you do a 10 minute show and it kind of doesn't sound so great, you may not feel like you're as worthy as a person that's got that big mixer or the latest fancy Mike, you know? But again, like with our thing, if someone's just jumping that low, we want them to be proud of it and, and really feel like they belong. Because if you're just jumping lows and you're doing elementary, you're not going to join the United States eventing association. There's no reason to. You're not doing recognized competitions and so it's very easy to feel like you're left out of the crew because you don't have the sticker on your trailer that says you're a member of that group. Well you're welcome to our group no matter what. How big or small you you, you, you jumper or ride or what type of horse you ride.
Speaker 3:Very cool. What has been the impact to your podcast growth since you launched the Facebook group? Because you have like, you know your numbers that you kind of expect to get used to, the number of downloads you get per episode within the first several days, what kind of jumps or increases did you notice in your download numbers since you started the group?
Speaker 1:They didn't really go crazy. I did see a jump and we are getting more new people and more, more cities and things like that. I think right now this time of year is a very busy kind of time of year for the riders. So we're not getting quite as many of the top, top people. We're kind of in a mode where we're getting a little bit more of the, you know, the people who are up in commerce and things like that. So the numbers are definitely stayed with us. And I think that because of the group, they've, they've hung steady, they have gone up. It's just not like, I mean my perception would be, wow, this guy just got 2,500 people in a month to join the group. His numbers have to be like ridiculous and it's not the case. However, we have had multiple people say, I discovered the podcast through this group. Like I had no idea this was even here. So I think that it's the time of year, the numbers normally dip and because of the group we were able to kind of stay steady. And in what happens is you'll see this bump all of a sudden. So like, uh, it's Kinda funny, but the last yesterday and the day before, there was a couple of horse shows that are national where people are trailering a lot and there's a lot of traveling and you can see a big bump on those days when a lot of people are going to this big national show and earned a trailer for seven, eight hours and you'll see a big spike for the day. But um, yeah, so we have had a lot of feedback saying because of the group people found it for sure. For sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And summer is just a weird time for podcasting in general, right? Cause typically people have your podcast in their daily routine or their weekly routine and then over the summer everyone a totally different routine. And so, so it's, it's very normal to see your numbers dip over the summer months and then pick back up after labor day after the kids are back in school and no more routine and people aren't traveling and going on vacations anymore. So, so the fact that you're not only holding steady but growing still I think definitely shows the staying power of that Facebook group and the impact it's having. So
Speaker 1:yeah, I, you know, it's tough. Travis, I know who you guys talk about. Everybody says don't look at the numbers, but you know, you, you and me both know, you know, you look at your stats for this show and every other show that you do more than you should because I know I do. And uh, as much as I say, I said, I know when the last episode I said, you don't want to beginning, nobody's listened. Don't worry about it. And that's true. And everybody helped me back there. But now it's like, come on, lets you know, every episode it's like, Yo, you're looking at how it opens, but you know, a show how it opens. Now when I wake up in the morning and I look and I have 70 or a hundred downloads before I woke up in the morning, that was just overnight. And, and, uh, as opposed to early on when it was, I woke up and there was four downloads and you know, two of them were me, you know, in a video soundbite, you know, so I'm glad we started when we did. I'm glad for the opportunities that we've been given in the short period of time we'd been podcasting. I just, I wouldn't trade it for anything. I love it. There's no, it's never a chore. I love everything about it. I do have a little bit of anxiety sometimes before I interview someone cause you just don't know where it's gonna go. And I don't know, I do get little anxiety there, but it's not, it's a good anxiety. It's a, it's a, it makes me sharp for the interview. But man, I tell you, editing, putting it out every episode with my baby, my wife and I were just talking. We say, boy, someone asked who, who's you been your favorite guest? I tell Ya, we could not, we couldn't decide. I mean, every one of these shows is like a little baby that we cultivated. You know, we love them all, you know, for different reasons. And that's the cool thing too is about after every interview we get off and we turn off the mix and then we talk about what we loved about meeting that person. My wife and I, we really feel, and maybe this is unique to us, I don't know, we've made a lot of friends through podcasting. We spend this hour talking to people and we don't even do a video like we are now. We do it just audio. And in that time we really build, I believe a friendship with a lot of these guests. We've only had one guest that, it's kind of funny because a lot of times what we do is we go to horse shows and then we'll try to get a selfie with the one of our former guests, their rider. And they always love it. And when we've had the riders come up to us and say, Hey, I'm here, let's get our picture. You know, it's Kinda funny cause it's like we're looking up to these people normally and they're coming to say, Hey, I'm here for that picture. We're going to get, we've only had one guest ever take the selfie. And she just had no clue who we were. She just thought we were some fans that wanted to selfie when we had something, like she was just an oblivious person and, and uh, you know, she's still to this day has no idea who we are or whatever, but, but it's an, it opened up this, um, this really cool thing. So now what we're going to do this really cool is there's a horse show coming up this fall that's a really big, we're not far from home. We're gonna do a tailgate and we're going to invite the riders who are now like kind of friends to come and stop by and have a drink, play some cornhole, and our hope is fans come and then they can come and they can actually commingle with some of their, their idols. You know, some of these writers that are really cool. So that's the community that we're trying to grow and, and, and it really, uh, it's very gratifying. Very proud of that. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think, I think what you said about not looking at your downloads as much as you as all of us do is true. I think this might be a good opportunity for me to explain my more nuanced position that I led on I t I tend to be pretty hard line is like a everyone you know refreshes their stats every three hours like oh maybe I got five more listens. Right? And that's just not helpful. Like stats, stats are great. They're a great metric, they're a great tool for what they are. But my beef has always been, you know, looking at stats in a way that can't help you make decisions about how to improve your show. Right? So if you see like, wow, this episode got 50% more downloads than others, what is there about that episode that did well and how can I do more of that? Because clearly that's working or you know, is my audience growing steadily over time or do I notice a drop off him? What could have contributed to that drop off? Right? Like stats are a tool. I think that the danger is getting so caught up in them that the reason we keep podcasting is to see numbers continue to go up. Right. And that's, that's where you get into kind of a danger zone where you're just doing it for the numbers instead of for the reason you got into podcasting in the first place. I agree. I mean, it's fun to say, Hey, people are listening. You know what we do, which is kind of cool. I think it's fun. Normally like a day or two after the episode drops, I'll message the guests, you know, and we'll let them know that you know, how it's doing and things and I'll tell them how many countries it's been downloaded in and how many cities. And sometimes I'll make like a, like yesterday I said, hey to the one person I said, yeah, and you've been downloading in 300 plus cities and did you know you were popular in Portland, Oregon, you know, and which was like their number one download, which is a completely non eventing town. I don't know where Portland started listening to this show, but for this episode, Portland, Oregon was the top city for her at that time and she was like, wow, that's, you know, it's just really cold to think, you know, the fact that we're giving a feedback not to the guests so they know, hey, I was downloading in 10 or 15 countries and, and, and these crazy cities. So, and your stats are very good. I know that's a lot of question that people get is, are the stats good with Buzzsprout? There's certain horse tans, especially like our sport, our sport has certain areas of the country that are very, very popular and those areas show up on our stats so that they're good. You know, a lot they give, if it's a general podcast, you don't know if it's makes sense that you know the cities that are coming up. But for us, a lot of those cities are really, really very eventing ground zero type of city. So your stats are good in case anyone ever wants to know.
Speaker 3:Thanks rob. I appreciate the vote. The vote of confidence there.
Speaker 1:And we get a lot of cool countries that are, that are eventing, you know, are ours, is the United States, Canada, Great Britain. Those are always the top three. Australia is big and New Zealand, you know, and those are all big eventing countries and Germany's in there and stuff. But a plus for the stats. I, I appreciate them. I think they're good.
Speaker 3:Thanks rob. Now one thing I'm curious about, so you hit the one year mark not too long ago and, and I know that as you put out episodes and refine your process and get into a rhythm and know how you want to do your episodes, you kind of settled into a nice routine, right? With your podcast and your flow and everything like that. But I also know that as you continue to put out episodes, you want to keep it fresh. You want to try things, you want to try different ideas and experiment with different ways of doing the audio or different ways of doing the conversation. And I'm curious, how has your podcast evolved over the last six months and then, and then what are some things that you want to try in the future just to like test and see and see how things work?
Speaker 1:That's a really, really good question. Early on was very, we wanted to make sure that it was very obvious that we didn't think we were the stars of the show. So we were very much more structured in, in the show asking the questions, a little bit of followup, but it was very much more to the script and over time we've gotten more comfortable. So we've talked, we do a little bit more a banter back and forth and things like that. And I think that that's helpful because one thing is I think that people want to hear the guests and we do see numbers go up, but they're kind of, the bigger the name or the more popular the guests, the better the downloads are at least early on. But for w we, we still need people to like Karen and myself, we need to share that we have a personality or else when we have that guest who's an up and comer who that fan doesn't know about. If they're, if they're just at least if they're, if they at least like Karen Rob, they'll, there'll be, they'll get introduced to this new guest. So we haven't interjected a little bit more of our personal life, again, is more of just our personal side, not that we're the experts in this sport. So we've done a little bit more of that. That's evolved since, since the beginning for sure. And, uh, I think the future, and I've thought about this a bit lately, we still have a lot of guests, a lot of people that we have not had on them. We want to have one, but eventually we're going to have to start having guests. It may not be for awhile yet, but you know, and, and I think how are we gonna integrate that? Because you know, the formula is the, where'd you come from and what's your current business and all that stuff. And I think that kind of just like what you have just done with me is what we're going to do. I think there's going to be a little bit of this of, Hey, where have you been since we've talked last? Because everyone's life changes in every year or two years. And, um, and we know for a fact some of these riders who we've interviewed have had major changes, whether it be they've, they've, uh, moved to Europe to train horses and, or they've had kids or all the sudden they've went from, when we talked to them, they were just sitting out on their own. So they had two or three horses and training and now they're killing it and they have 25 horses in training. So we're probably gonna do kind of like what you're doing here and, and just kinda circle around and just do an update here and there. And I think that's the future. Even though we're still[inaudible], we still, there's always plenty of people that are new to introduce, but I think that, um, it'd be crazy to say, sorry sir, you've been on the show. That's it. You know, find someone else to talk to. We've had a few repeat people, but now they were all bonus people. Really. They weren't really the real essence of the show, which are like the guests. So, you know, and we're trying some different stuff. Like I said earlier, we, we, we had, um, you know, we had this kind of mission to get people first aid and CPR trained. And what we did was the goal was one year, 1000 people trained and we're not trainers. Again, we're trying to work with a person who does the training and then the, the, the spiff is every, the first six months, Whoever's group office, Barn Club, whatever it is, has the most, they can be a guest on the show. So we're hoping that that kind of stirs people up. So if anyone wants first aid, CPR training, you know, too, cause we don't, don't have to just be a horse person, but you know, and then also we're working with another person who is, they do riders safety and fall training off of horses. We just, unfortunately, two weeks ago, a 13 year old young lady who, um, was on a really, really Nice, beautiful, wonderful horse, just had a tragic fall and her and horse did not make it. These people do a, um, they do rider fall training. So if you fall off the horse, they kind of help give you the best chance of creating a system for getting out of harm's Wang. So we're working with those people and that's kind of just a, you know, they're not a sponsor, they're just someone that they're not paying us. We're just someone that we believe in what they're doing and where we're trying to go with them. So things like that. In the future, I think we're actually going to come up with a, um, now that we have like a store on our website, we're going to do a fundraiser for, um, breast cancer research since it's primarily, we're 95% ladies on our group and everything. So we think that it'd be great to do a fundraiser for breast cancer, you know, charities. So that's kind of some stuff that's coming up in the future. And we're trying to, we're not just trying to grow ourselves in our, in our growth, we're trying to really make an impact and help a broad range of people.
Speaker 3:That sounds very exciting. Let me know how that goes. I think it's some really cool stuff coming down the pipeline.
Speaker 1:I'm probably focusing a little too much on helping everyone else and you know, then than actually making money. But I think that, um, the more impact we can make and helping people, you know, we're doing okay. You know, we have a nice, really, really wonderful sponsor and they, they, they basically cover all of our podcasting expenses and uh, you know, we'd like to get some more sponsors and all that too and want to grow the business. But, you know, we're, the number one thing is if we can make an impact and help the sport and help their community, everything else falls into place. You know, same thing with, like you were saying with the, with the statistics and looking at your numbers, it kind of drives me crazy sometimes. I see people say, oh, what, what should my numbers be right now? And it's like, and you know, in the back of their mind they're saying, so I can get a sponsor like this. Everyone's looking for that dollar amount. And it's like, just if you don't enjoy this, it doesn't matter how much money you're getting paid, you're not gonna. It's, it's, it's either it's not going to be good or no one's going to listen. So just do it because you enjoy it. And then money in and fame and fortunate o of your dreams will come true. But if you focus on doing a good job at this and enjoying what you're doing and making it a show that you would want to listen to. Why his advice, why his advice?
Speaker 3:Well, rob, it's been great having you on the, on the podcast again, we thought we could do round two together. I've got one last question for you bud. If you had a time machine that could go back in time to the day before you started your podcast and give yourself one piece of advice, what do you think that would be?
Speaker 1:Use Our phonic. I'm a big Gal, phonic guy. Can I see you? Awesome. Why, why, why use orthotic? How has it helped your podcast? I found x phonics been great for the big boisterous laugh of mine. It really has helped smooth things out for me. It just really does Polish it. I don't know that's, that's the right word for it. It just polishes it off. I'll use all Udacity for editing and the setting the volumes and things like that are, um, you know, audacity, I don't know if it has it or not, but there's nothing that I've found that says the lofts and things of that sort. So a phonic just makes it very simple. There it is. It's, you select what you want, normally 16, negative 16 or 19, depending on, you know, you said use negative 19 for a motto and that's what we use. And um, you're like my mentor in this whole thing. I gotta be honest with you. Um, even though I started podcasting before how to podcast podcasts came out, I still went back and listened to it and you taught me a lot and you really have been a mentor to me. So I would also, I guess, I guess I couldn't give that advice but I'll phonic. That would be my go to thing. Nice. Very nice way to wait and strong pair out. That was good. I really appreciate it man. I'll tell you what, Travis, you really are my mentor buddy. I thank you so much for everything. If you are a fan of eventing and would love to hear from the writers and professionals that make it all possible, make sure to out Major League
Speaker 3:eventing@majorleagueaventing.com and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Do you wish that you could be featured on a future episode of podcasting in real life? Well, you can just click on the link in the show notes to submit your application and if today's episode inspired you, resonated with you or if you learn something new, I would love to hear from you. The easiest way to do that is to leave a review in apple podcasts to let us know what you thought of today's interview. And if you don't have an iPhone, you can jump into the buzz sprout podcast community on Facebook and make sure to stick around for the bonus episode coming out this Friday. Right. Answer Rob's number one question about podcasting. That's it for today. Thanks for listening, and as always, keep podcasting
Speaker 2:[inaudible].