How to Produce a Weekly Podcast & What I Learned.

Producing a Weekly Podcast: “But That’s Not Important Right now“

As a weekly podcast producer, I want to share my challenges. Who wrote this anyway? I don’t consider myself a “Podcast producer” But my friend Jarrod and I decided one day to start talking on Zoom. I would then take the recordings and put them online. This in theory was an awesome idea. Doing it, that’s another story. This is some ramblings about the start of the podcast on advertising called “But That’s Not Important Right Now”.

My inspiration for starting a podcast – Looking for a new creative outlet

I was looking for a creative outlet that allowed me to create something from scratch. I felt that if I did not start doing something productive I would go crazy day in and day out. You don’t need to be a professional writer or artist to share your thoughts. All you need is a laptop and an internet connection, and you are set.

I wanted to talk about advertising on my podcast. My experiences working at a big agency have been both frustrating and satisfying. Advertising is a tough industry to work in, but it’s also very rewarding. I wanted to share my thoughts on how I got to where I am and what you should do if you want to get into the field. So I roped in a former coworker of mine who also had multiple personalities. This should be a recipe for either disaster or success. So far it’s been a little mixed bag of both.

Inspired the awesome Josh Awai & Co.’s @dlivingroom_ Instagram Live and @wearetracy’s YouTube channel I said “Jarrod,” I said. “I want to write a book about working in advertising in Trinidad & Tobago.” Jarrod hung up on me. I called back. “Jarrod let’s do a podcast every week.” This time he said “ok if we must, but we have to call it “But That’s Not Important Right Now”” If you recognise the line then you’re awesome. If you don’t:

The challenges of doing BTNIRN every week.

The global pandemic sent us all inside. Well for me I was already there, and when our second wave hit, we went into an even worse lockdown than in 2020. I also had no clients. Work dried up. Instead of twiddling my thumbs I thought that there could be money made by telling stories. I could only tell the stories that I knew. I knew a lot of them, but I also needed help to remember some of the juicer ones. This is where Jarrod came in.

Jarrod was also twiddling his thumbs, kinda. Jarrod’s full time job is at Radio 103.5fm. In the morning drive. So I said, I said, “Jarrod” we have so many stories, let’s just talk about it.” So after his radio show we started by just talking and recording ourselves on WhatsApp. Jarrod isn’t very technical minded and all he has is a mobile. So we used what he knew. The recording sucked. I used it anyway. Tilted it “The One With The Reverb” and away we went. It’s our most popular episode so far.

If tried to replicate that formula but with not much success. We have had a loose script we work by. The idea wasn’t to be strict and adhering to rules but simply to start with an idea and see if that sparks a memory. Sometimes it works

Sometimes it fails.

Most of the time it has worked well though. My major unfounded fear, was not having anything to to talk about. After ten episodes. We found a lot to talk about. I try to keep each episode to an hour. I know there are some podcasters that go on for hours. I don’t think people have that kind of time. One hour is fine. I’ve heard of people doing 5 minute shows everyday. I don’t have that kind of time either especially to cut and edit a show from an hour to five minutes! The idea scare me. I’m an Digital Marketer not a sound Editor! So I can only do what I can with the time I have. I’ve had no complaints so far.

What I learned from producing “BTNIRN” – There’s no one way to do it: Start with What You Know.

As a podcast producer, I want to share the challenges we face when inviting guests for our podcasts. We always try to make it as easy as possible for them and offer them help in any way that we can. That is why we cover their airfare, accommodation and offer to tell their story in an interesting way.

Airfare? Accomodation? We’re in a pandemic! No no ones buying anyone anything. In fact BTNIRN is done so cheap it’s not funny. We both do it home and I edit it on a piece of free software called Audacity.

Zoom is our choice of recording and I don’t even pay for a subscription. Though cheap and free can only get you so far. You need to invest in the technology. However I have not reached the level of generating an income from this. But if you’d like to contribute there are many ways to send Jarrod and me money. You can send it here: That way we can get a mic or two.

We are happy to have such amazing guests on our show who have shared their inspiring stories with us. These people have never hesitated to share tips on how they got where they are without being asked any questions at all! It has been very fulfilling for us to be able to connect with so many new people because of this podcast.

We always rely on humour. We have a running joke that if we don’t find a guest, we’ll interview the cat. Our listeners are some of the biggest fans of this idea so far, and that’s one way that humour is a key part of podcasting. We got a lot of positive feedback from people and comments. Our subscriber list is still small, but its growing and our listenership is ok. If we remain consistent we will grow further. Comments and suggestions and of course guests help.

Our last episode was a blast because we had so many guests. You can listen to Episode 10: The One About Mackeson Stout. So the stories are fine but are a little boring if you’re not in the industry. We’re a little too niche. So we need to broaden our horizons a little.

Podcasting for newbs

After the first recording I had no idea what I was going to do. Here I was with an mp3 and I had no idea where ot begin. So I did what any good bullshitter does. I went to Google. I found out that Spotify has a free podcasting service called Anchor.fm. Once I uploaded the .mp3 file there with a few tweaks I could have it fed to all the major subscription services.

Apple, however, was a different story. The people that helped coin the phrase “Podcast” required some more work to get it registered on their service. Most of all that it wasn’t “explicit”. In order to minimize it being labelled “Explicit” I had to check that box in Anchor.fm and also make sure there was nothing obviously “Explicit” in the cast itself. One “S—T” is all it takes for Apple to reduce the viewership by labelling it “explicit”. I also had to register myself as a podcaster with Apple, even though you don’t actually upload the file to Apple.

It’s a different matter with Spotify. Anchor.fm is owned by Spotify so it automatically got fed there. More of our listeners are on the Spotify service than Apple. That’s another story for another time. Suffice to say it’s all over the web. There is no excuse for not being able to listen to us.

Whyfore Podcast?

I started podcasting because I wanted to find a new creative outlet. Podcasting is an immersive audio experience that combines my love for storytelling and learning about topics that interest me with my desire to help others grow their understanding of things they think are interesting but don’t have the time to learn more about.

When you can’t find what you are looking for, create it!

Advertising is a tough industry to work in, but it’s also very rewarding. I want to share my thoughts on how I got to where I am and what you should do if you want to get into the field.

I wanted to talk about advertising on my podcast. My experiences working at a big agency have been both frustrating and satisfying. Jarrod and myself have done pretty well. We surprised ourselves when we realised we reached Episode 10. We were having so much fun. I have since put the show on hiatus as we both have increased work loads since the easing of restrictions. We promise to be back and we’re working on tweaking the formula. In the meantime please subscribe and share our stuff. I will put all the episodes on YouTube here so you can subscribe and wait for them to be uploaded. But we’re on most major podcast channels.

If you’d like to jump onto our podcast as a guest or guests get in contact here. Leave a comment down below and let me know if there’s anything I can do to improve the podcast and please share your own experiences doing one. Suggestions are always welcome. Thanks for reading.