In-depth conversations with today’s most interesting world travelers, remote entrepreneurs, and digital nomads.
How I Produce My Podcast
Here is the podcast equipment and vendors I use to produce The Maverick Show
Lots of podcasters or aspiring podcasters have been asking me how I produce different elements of the The Maverick Show. So….I've completely pulled back the curtain and created a comprehensive behind the scenes look at all the moving parts that make The Maverick Show magic happen!
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THE DIGITAL Marketing AGENCY I USE
Galactic Fed is the award-winning digital marketing agency that I use for Search Engine Optimization and Conversation Rate Optimization of The Maverick Show website. They also offer services for email marketing, social media, website design, paid media and more. They’re basically a full-service end-to-end growth marketing solution. And they were founded by two digital nomads as a fully remote company which now has 150 staff across 27 countries, so they understand remote entrepreneurs. I’ve interviewed both co-founders on the podcast, Zach Boyett and Irina Papuc. What I love about working with Galactic Fed is that their team is fun and amazing and I’m smiling and laughing on pretty much every call we have. But I also love their scientific approach to growth marketing. They’ve worked with companies of all sizes and industries, ranging from Edible Arrangements to Picsart, and they’ve developed battle-tested digital marketing solutions that produce results that are scalable and repeatable. You can get a completely free marketing plan for your podcast or business here. And, if you do decide to work with them, like I do, just mention The Maverick Show and you’ll get 10% off your first month of services. To learn more and get your free marketing plan, just go to GalacticFed.com.
Podcast Equipment
(My Portable Professional Podcasting Studio)
The first vitally important component is to have OUTSTANDING audio quality. To get the professional audio quality level of The Maverick Show, I use a Heil PR40 Microphone with shock mount and pop filter, mounted on a Heil boom arm, and plugged into the Zoom H6 Portable Recorder.
The guest microphone is an Audio-Technica USB Microphone which also plugs into the Zoom H6 Recorder, which plugs directly into my MacBook Pro in this 13-inch case with a hard shell cover. And the headphones are Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones with bluetooth and built-in microphone for clear interviews. And of course, a custom mic flag!
It’s all totally portable and I carry my podcasting studio around the world with me in my carry-on luggage!
Professional Video Lighting for Remote Interviews
When conducting remote podcast interviews, whether you are recording the video portion or not, it is crucial to have professional studio lighting during the interview. I use the Lume Cube Broadcast Lighting Kit (2 Pack). This provides two very portable video conference lights with collapsible tripods and adjustable brightness and color. These lights are a game changer for how you appear on video, and they are very easy to travel with as well. These lights are a game changer for how you appear on video, and they are very easy to travel with as well.
Podcasting Course, Community and Ongoing Education
I’m a paid member of John Lee Dumas’s Podcaster’s Paradise community and have found it to be the most high-value educational content available on exactly how to create, grow and monetize a podcast. JLD hosts the Entrepreneur on Fire (EOFire) podcast which has well over 2,000 episodes published, 50 million+ unique downloads, and generates him over a million dollars a year in net revenue. And Podcaster’s Paradise is where John shows every single step of how be built and monetized his podcast.
In addition to offering video tutorials on every step of the process, it also provides ongoing new educational webinars relating to podcasting, and a supportive community of podcasters that can be accountability partners and provide feedback to you.
In my opinion Podcaster’s Paradise is the premiere podcast education and community space out there, and I highly recommend it.
Professional Intros, Outros, Promos & Editing
Having a professionally produced intro and outro for the podcast is crucial. I had mine professionally produced by Music Radio Creative. They helped me select the professional voice talent, pick the right music, and optimize the script content. Music Radio Creative also professionally edits every episode and produces a 60-second promo for each episode as well. Their ongoing customer service and commitment to the overall show quality has been amazing.
Podcast Cover Art
It’s crucial to have great Cover Art to make your show stand out on iTunes, Stitcher or anywhere else people are scrolling through podcasts. It’s also important that it looks great while people are playing it on their phones and podcast players. I used 99 Designs to create the cover art, and they crushed it!
Recording The Podcast
When I record an in-person interview, I record directly into the Zoom H6 Portable Recorder and afterwards transfer the audio files to my computer. When I record a podcast over the internet with a guest who is not physically present, I use SquadCast, which records each person’s audio track locally on their own computer and then, at the end of the interview, uploads the audio tracks to the cloud where it can then merge them. This is really valuable because it mitigates any degradation in audio quality due to internet connection quality.
Transcriptions
Each episode of The Maverick Show is transcribed by GMR Transcriptions. Their accuracy, turnaround speed and customer service has been impressive. PRO-TIP: GMR Transcriptions offers a “grammar correct” add-on feature which I pay for so that I can not only offer the text interview for people to read in the show notes, but also have the interview content ready to be re-purposed into a blog post or book.
Podcast Hosting Service
Website & Show Notes Page
My team built The Maverick Show website on WordPress and we host it on Blue Host which has 24/7 customer service that we really like. Both of these services are super easy to use and enabled us to build the website very quickly, operate it smoothly, and have our virtual assistant update it easily with each new episode.
My Podcast Production Assistant
Jayson Cubao is the backbone to the Maverick Show! He publishes the podcast episodes, creates the time stamped show notes, schedules guests, publishes the show notes page for each episode, and more.
The top service that I recommend for hiring virtual assistants and freelancers (for podcast production or anything else) is FreeeUp, for two reasons:
- They are all rigorously “pre-vetted” – FreeeUp receives hundreds of applications each week from freelancers and virtual assistants and only the top 1% (based on skill, attitude and communication), are made available to FreeeUp’s business customers.
- Freeeup provides all of it’s business clients a “no turnover” guarantee, covering replacement costs if a freelancer ever quits, along with 24/7 customer service.
Legal Disclaimers and Privacy Policy
It is legally important to have the right Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Earnings Disclaimer and Affiliate Disclosures. For drafting and placement of these documents, including compliance with the new and very strict GDPR guidelines, I used the services of Disclaimer Template.
Client Relations Management
(CRM) System
For the Client Relations Management (CRM) System I use Keap. This is how I easily capture leads, tag and segment them, create automated follow-up email sequences, scale personal attention, and track sales.
Repurposing Audio Episodes Into Video
I use a service called RePurpose to repurpose each podcast episode (and each 60 second audio promo) into an animated video, that looks like this (press play).
Getting Podcast Reviews
Getting podcast ratings and reviews is very important. Although they can be submitted by listeners from all over the world, the platforms typically restrict me to seeing only the reviews that were submitted by people in the U.S. To solve this problem, I use a service called My Podcast Reviews that aggregates all The Maverick Show reviews from multiple platforms in countries all over the world, notifies me when new reviews have been submitted, and allows me to access them all at once! It also offers tools that can help you get more subscribers and more reviews. Building up ratings and reviews is very important when growing a podcast, and My Podcast Reviews has been extremely helpful in doing that!
- Affiliate Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. If you click through any links and make a purchase, you should assume that Maverick will receive financial compensation (at no additional cost to you). We greatly appreciate you using our affiliate links because it helps to support the show and cover production costs of the podcast.
About The Maverick Show
In-depth conversations with today’s most interesting world travelers, location-independent entrepreneurs, and digital nomads. Matt Bowles travels the world full time to find the most fascinating people on the planet, draw out stories of their most epic adventures, and unpack the skills, tactics, and strategies they use to build their remote businesses and design their lifestyles. Ranked the #1 Digital Nomad Podcast by Web Work Travel and the Top 1% of all podcasts by Listen Notes, each episode pulls out actionable tips and advice you can implement in your own life each week. You’ll meet diverse travelers from every continent who share their personal journey to location-independence as well as their reflections on identity, the power dynamics that shape our world, and how we can be more thoughtful, conscious travelers as we move through it.
+ Learn more about the podcast, the host, and the production team here.
"This is truly the only podcast that I have listened to while doing nothing else, because it needs to be savored."
- Apple Podcast Review