► Tell us about you and your podcast
I worked in radio and television for 17+ years hosting and producing local, regional, and nationally syndicated programs but the achievement than broke me and rebuilt me was the sketch comedy TV show my brother and I created. I can admit that our ignorance was bliss when we started in 2014, as I didn't even know what an 'entrepreneur' was, let alone that I was one. I would end up doing just about everything wrong as a business owner, including developing an opioid addiction that nearly killed me, but the one thing we did right was the TV show. When they gave us the green light we had just 2 months before it would primiere on NBC following Saturday Night Live.
We had to figure out a way to produce a weekly 30-minute television show on a budget of only $500 per episode (and that was before taxes). We had no studio, no writers, no cast, only one video camera and 4 functioning lights, and yet my brother Ben and I somehow pulled it off. Not only did it turn into the highest-rated show in our market that ran for over 100 episodes and 7 seasons, but the biggest compliment was how everyone thought that this was produced by a the NBC affiliate's professional television production studio. In reality, this was filmed guerrilla style and produced in the basement of my girlfriend's house.
Today, my brother and I have taken our production company, 'Two Brothers Creative,' from the basement to a brand new state-of-the-art studio we work out of today. Our specialty today is combining the strengths of podcasting with high-quality video to deliver your entire marketing strategy for every day of the week. We call it 'Content in a Box.' Our podcast is all about helping other business owners and entrepreneurs with the unique style of midwest marketing that includes all the tricks we've developed to produce high-quality video content on a fraction of the budget, along with the marketing-made-simple techniques to help you grow your business.
► Why & how did you start this podcast?
We started it to connect with other entrepreneurs and businesses locally, so that we could collaborate. Honesty, Quality, Creativity, Growth, and Collaboration are our 5 core values. Collaborating is something we love to do and we also love just helping people, something we've always done since we started in radio way back in the day.
► How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?
We pay for it ourselves and do all of the writing, hosting, post-production editing, show notes, post the video shorts and content to social media, and basically anything related to this podcast we handle ourselves. We do this already for about 20 other audio and video podcasts, including remote podcasting with multi-camera set ups from all over the country, so we have an efficient process for this that definitely helps.
► What do you gain from podcasting?
We are open to sponsorships at some point, but right now we are genuinely interested in simply collaborating with other podcasts, helping other podcasters and business owners, and growing our own podcast so that we can reach more entrepreneurs who listen.
► How does your podcasting process look like?
We have built a legit full-fledged Television studio that is only for video podcasting. We have lights, 4 hard-wired cameras (with another 4 more we take on the road), a switchboard, a full control room, teleprompters, and a full set that turned out far better than anything I could have built. We designed it and used our past experiences building our own sets to create this new studio that is literally the best podcast studio in the Midwest (and I only say that because every podcaster who visits says that exact same thing lol)
► How do you market your show?
Our standard podcast package has 9 vertical video shorts, social graphics created, blog posts, transcript, and optimized social posts that we have developed for all of our podcast clients to use too, so we have a decent amount of experience promoting podcasts and growing an audience via social media.
► What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?
The development process at the beginning is the most important part of the entire life of your podcast. Most people ignore it and don't know who their specific Ideal Listener is, what their podcast is specifically about, what makes them unique to lead people as the host, or what they want to actually get out of it for themselves or their business. We take 4 weeks to do this as a team before we ever record an episode. The other thing is to not shy away from finding local producers in your area to help. You need to look and sound great, so either invest in the equipment and learn how to do it yourself, or invest in someone who has the equipment and knows what they're doing. Treat your podcast like a business, because it is one! The only way your podcast succeeds is by doing all of the 'boring' things, like reading books, taking training courses, networking and researching gear, etc. but it's the only way to be able to do things the right way. Most podcasts give up after just 7-10 episodes, and these are the reasons why.
► Where can we learn more about you & your podcasts?
Email is the best way to reach me anytime and that addy is twobrotherscreative@gmail.com.
You can find us on Facebook, Instagram as @theomahapodcast
https://www.facebook.com/TheOmahaPodcast/
Our YouTube channel is Two Brothers Creative.
https://www.youtube.com/c/TwoBrothersCreative
Our website is currently being remade into something new and spectacular that we're very pumped to reveal, as soon as it's ready. You'll be able to see the new website soon via www.thecontentbox.com, or www.twobrotherscreative.com