► Tell us about you and your podcast
I'm Keith and I've been a blogger and podcaster for over a decade. My first foray into the world was with TheTwoCents and TwoCentsTV. I became a member of the Broadcast Television Journalist Association and loved being a critic. I 'retired' from that world of TV to focus on family and my little family farm.
I started Mind of Modern Man with my buddies Jon, Jay and Mat to help break the stigma that guys don't 'talk' to one another. We've recently changed the focus of the site to really show how Pop Culture affects our lives as men in our 40s. From Star Wars to the Marvel Universe to TV, Disney, Books and even Style - we talk about it all.
Our community of listeners are people who grew up in the same time as we did and share in the stories. However, we also have lots of younger folks looking to see what the future holds, and the older generations reading to remember what it was like "back in the day" too. It's an awesome collection of folks!
► Why & how did you start this podcast?
Please see the answers above in my rambling answer to #2.
► How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?
We release an episode maybe every month, unless we get in a roll and do more. The real challenge is finding the time. Jon and I do most of the podcasts together and he's in L.A. while I live in New England. We all have little kids, jobs and homes to deal with - so we really have to schedule well in advance to make it happen.
We have a small group of patrons on Patreon that give us the 'seed money' we need to host our podcast and the software we need to make it happen.
► What do you gain from podcasting?
I make no money on this venture, I do it cause I love the performance of it. I grew up on the stage and when I hit my 40s and had three little kids, the time to dedicate to perform didn't exist. I was happy to walk away from that. However, podcasting allows me an outlet to still 'perform' and 'entertain' people. If nothing else, my Mom always thinks I'm funny.
We don't have any sponsors at a corporate level, however we have a few companies who help us with products for review. Some of our favorites are Chill Boys and Wohven.
► How does your podcasting process look like?
Mind of Modern Man Podcast is a true Frankenstein Monster of a product. I record on an older Radio Shack (remember that?) microphone on a hand-me-down Macbook using Garage Band. Jon (who is a musician in Los Angeles, and composed our theme song in the Podcasts) records with the top of the line equipment in his office/studio. Jay will often blend it all together for us using his skills as a former record producer and sound tech. It's a big group effort.
We FaceTime each other while we record, and then send each of our separate tracks to Jay to combine. Or sometimes Jon will do the edits, or I will - who ever has the most time.
Depending on the topic of each episode, we all write notes of what we want to talk about and then chat for 5-10 minutes first to have an idea of a direction we're heading - however, the conversation is real and we never truly know where it will end up until we sign off at the end.
► How do you market your show?
We have our podcast feed on most all of the podcast download sites (Stitcher, iTunes, TuneIn, Spotify, etc.) We market mostly with word of mouth and on our Instagram and Facebook pages. It's a real guerrilla style marketing attack for us.
Our listeners tend to use Chrome and play the podcast right off our Modern Man website. Other big downloads from from iTunes and Alexa/Echo.
► What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?
My biggest 'trick' is to be true to who you are. It sounds cliche, but people can smell a rat a mile away. If you're being ingenuous or talking about things you don't have a true passion for - it shows through and the people won't come back.
Talk about what you know, what gets you excited. Make sure you talk in a conversational tone and have fun with it. No one wants to listen to someone reading (poorly) from a script.
If you visit MindofModernMan.com you can learn more about us, our mission and what we want to be. We're still one of the 'little guys' but the dream lives on!
► Where can we learn more about you & your podcasts?
Again, you can see our bios on the website: mindofmodernman.com/about
Instagram.com/mindofmodernman
facebook.com/mindofmodernman
Patrons: patreon.com/mindofmodernman