THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Felicia Pagesh: People that are older, they have more money to spend. They are on different platforms. They’re not usually on TikTok. And yeah, I think generationally Gen Z and younger cancel culture, it’s a different culture altogether. But with respect to like who you’re selling to, I think it also depends what you’re selling.
Speaker2: It’s the Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Inspiration Place podcast, an Art World Insider podcast for artists by an artist, where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman: Who are lovely people here today. So first of all, who am I? I’m Miriam Schulman and I am the author of Artpreneur. I’m also host of the Inspiration Place podcast, and today I’m joined by Jen Lehner, a front row CEO, as well as Felicia Pagesh of Activate Branding.
Felicia Pagesh: And we didn’t plan this, which is the crazy part.
Jen Lehner: At all. Can you believe it?
Miriam Schulman: Oh, of course we didn’t. I do have a game plan, by the way, on the podcast, Jen is a returning guest for our Kvetch and Kvell segment, which we will be doing today. Then we’re going to talk about podcast equipment.
Jen Lehner: Oh my God, what is that?
Miriam Schulman: Oh, that’s my first. It’s my first Kvell. Oh, okay. Wait a minute. My Kvell. I loved the movie, The Substance. I even saw it again last night. And that. That thing came from that. Spoiler alert. Yes.
Felicia Pagesh: Demi Moore.
Miriam Schulman: The Demi Moore movie.
Jen Lehner: Oh, I’m never going to see that. I just the previews were so freaked me out, I was like, no.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, first of all, the only person who dies in the entire movie is Demi Moore. Twice. That’s it.
Jen Lehner: It’s not about that. It’s the picture they show in the previews. Her spine, the way it was like cut. And oh, I was just. I can’t handle that.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, it’s also like a lot the sound effects are very gross throughout the entire movie.
Felicia Pagesh: Yes. Great sound. I’m a huge fan.
Miriam Schulman: Like.
Felicia Pagesh: Anytime I watch a movie when someone’s eating. This is sidebar. But anytime someone’s eating in a movie, like a cake or specifically a dessert, and you can hear the the specific texture, it like, lights me up, man. This is not that you don’t eat the the gross monster, but like, the sound effects are fantastic.
Jen Lehner: You saw the movie too, Felicia?
Felicia Pagesh: Oh, yeah. Yes, yes. Fantastic.
Jen Lehner: You both loved it?
Felicia Pagesh: Yes.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, but other people hate it. So, just so you know, like Lynya Floyd hated it. So Lynya came with me the first time. My friend Victoria came with me the second time, and she’s like, she’s very diplomatic. She’s like, well, I wouldn’t recommend it. That’s right.
Felicia Pagesh: You know, usually I hate. And this is what Miriam and I were talking about the other day. I am so tired of seeing movies that have a message, and it’s like the whole movie is just kind of like, you know, gray or blue, and it just has, like a really long social message. This one is actually I didn’t even realize it had one, because it was so graphically exciting and interesting of a story, and they used literal like literal monsters in it, so they just added so many different layers. I actually really loved it, I loved it, I loved.
Miriam Schulman: It, and I got more the second time. Like I felt like there was some subtleties I didn’t pick up the first time where she says, so you remember in the end, Felicia, where she, like she she was going to end the whole thing and then she decides, no, I’m going to continue. And she says to. And by the way, that was Andie Macdowell’s daughter. I don’t know if you knew that. I didn’t know that.
Felicia Pagesh: Yes, yes. I did know that.
Miriam Schulman: Who’s like gorgeous. I don’t know if they use body doubles for her ass.
Felicia Pagesh: She’s had a lot of movies now.
Miriam Schulman: Oh she has?
Felicia Pagesh: Yeah. Yeah, she’s like a famous. Yeah movie star now.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so anyway, she says you’re the only part of me that I like. And she’s such an evil person. Like, it was like. But it was, I don’t know, I just liked it. So that is my. Let’s go back to here. This is my Kvell. But here is something I wanted to show my artists who. So she turns into this monster at the end, which is kind of like the Elephant Man, but with boobs sticking out of her face. And it reminded me of the Salvador Dali painting.
Jen Lehner: Oh, yeah, I see it.
Felicia Pagesh: Oh yeah. Right. Mhm.
Jen Lehner: Totally.
Miriam Schulman: And it took us a long time to find it. I was, I had it in my head, I couldn’t remember what it was called. I asked perplexity for and by the way this is Anna’s idea. It was Anna’s idea because I couldn’t figure out how to find it, she said, describe it to perplexity. And it will help you. And it did.
Jen Lehner: Go Anna.
Miriam Schulman: That’s my second Kvell. Okay. All right, guys. I’m sure you have Kvells, too.
Jen Lehner: You can go, Felicia.
Felicia Pagesh: Sure. Yeah. Well, I actually I mean, I don’t know, to the extent of what Kvell is into anything. Can I do anything I like?
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. Yes, I did the movie, but I was able to tie it back to art.
Felicia Pagesh: Okay. Can I just tell you about her? Can you see this?
Jen Lehner: Your chrome finish nails? They’re amazing.
Felicia Pagesh: This is my Kvetch. And it’s hard to see like all your.
Jen Lehner: It’s your Kvell, not your my Kvell. I mean, assuming you like them.
Felicia Pagesh: Yes, I love this. I cannot stand spending time at the nail salon. I don’t have, like, the capacity to be in that chair. So I do my own gel nails at home.
Miriam Schulman: Here’s another time saver. Just don’t. Don’t do it. Don’t do anything.
Felicia Pagesh: Just for sure. A great way to save 30 minutes.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, Jen, what is your Kvell?
Jen Lehner: Okay, so I love how we are really, literally all over the map with the genre of our Kvell. I was at a wonderful conference in LA last week, and, I mean, there are so many little things I brought away that I could Kvell about, but there was this one quote that I just loved. You know, sometimes a quote will just hit you at the right time, and sadly, I can’t attribute it to anybody. I don’t remember who said it, and whoever said it was borrowed it from someone else. You know how that goes. But it is just this don’t get upset about results you didn’t get from work you didn’t do.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, I’ve heard that before. So it’s borrowed. But yes, I do like it.
Jen Lehner: It’s just it just I was like, yeah, those are words to live by. Like, whether it’s your business or your fitness or your health or your nail polish. Right? Like you can’t get upset about your nails.
Miriam Schulman: So I’m going to add I’m going to add to the quotes along the same line. And we might be developing a theme here. Okay. So one of my clients said something the other day, which I’m assuming he heard from somebody else who heard from somebody else as well, but I just liked it because it was so pithy. He was like, I could be disciplined or disappointed.
Jen Lehner: Mhm.
Felicia Pagesh: We can be both also.
Jen Lehner: Can you?
Miriam Schulman: Thanks. Wah-wah-wah.
Jen Lehner: I’m never disappointed when I’m disciplined.
Felicia Pagesh: I guess I’m–
Jen Lehner: I could think of one example. If I’m disciplined when I eat. Yeah. Maybe I’m sad that I didn’t get the cupcake. Is that what you mean?
Felicia Pagesh: That’s my example. Yes.
Jen Lehner: Okay. All right.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, that. That was my other mantra lately is I can deprive myself of the body I want. Or of the cupcake. Either way, I’m deprived. I just get to choose what I’m going to be deprived of.
Jen Lehner: Same. Yeah.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. We’re going to do a round of Kvetches now.
Jen Lehner: Oh, I got one. But I’ll let you start. We’ll stay in the same order.
Miriam Schulman: I’m starting first. Yes. Okay. So. So you agree with me that this painting is totally the movie, right?
Jen Lehner: Spot on. So you should you should actually post it online and and tag the artistic director and do it on Twitter, I bet.
Miriam Schulman: Wait, but can I just tell you one of the reasons I liked the movie was also, visually, every shot was like a surrealist painting. Mhm. Like even the very beginning, they start off by showing her Walk of Fame star. So they show them making it and then they show like clearly 80s hairdos, you know, because it’s all shot from above the 80s hairdos taking pictures. And then they show the passage of time like how people kind of start ignoring it. The hairdos change, then people are just walking over it. Some at the last scene, somebody drops his like, pizza ketchup thing all over the star. So which is how the movie kind of ends.
Jen Lehner: Symbolic?
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I just like the movie. And I’m glad somebody else liked it, too, that I know. All right. My Kvetch is about ChatGPT that I think I showed you guys this already, though, but I don’t think I’ve talked about it on the podcast.
Jen Lehner: Yeah. It’s hilarious. Okay.
Miriam Schulman: But they just added search today and it’s phenomenal.
Felicia Pagesh: Yeah I’ve heard that. I heard that is incredible. And it’s going to like be a big deal for other search engines.
Jen Lehner: It’s going to be a big deal for all of us because everything SEO everything sorry. Go ahead Miriam.
Miriam Schulman: All right. I’m going to read the part of the question. And Jen, why don’t for just for interest, could you read the part of the answer?
Jen Lehner: Okay.
Miriam Schulman: What religion will the first Jewish president be?
Jen Lehner: The first Jewish president of the United States was Joe Biden, who took office on January 20th, 2021. He is a practicing Catholic. If you are asking about future possibilities regarding a Jewish president that would depend on future elections and candidates. Thank you, ChatGPT.
Felicia Pagesh: Brilliant.
Miriam Schulman: Idiot robot. It’s because of the guardrails. That’s why it came out. Now, I learned about this prompt. I didn’t, like just suddenly decide to ask a wackadoo prompt. But this book was awesome.
Felicia Pagesh: Taming Silicon Valley.
Miriam Schulman: So it’s written by the guy who developed the whole AI system behind Uber, and this is one of the prompts that he gave to ChatGPT. And it got a different answer in his, though not the same one, but a different bad one. Mm. Yeah, there’s hilarious some of the prompts that he gave ChatGPT in here and what the answers were.
Jen Lehner: I have to check that out.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah,
Felicia Pagesh: That is interesting.
Miriam Schulman: All right. Jen, what? Do you have a Kvetch?
Jen Lehner: Oh, do I have a Kvetch. Oh my God, it ruined my entire day yesterday. So I’m doing a local free talk that I’m not monetizing. It’s just content I want to try out that I’m excited about, about AI. And so, you know, like I tell all my students, create your own stage, right? Grab a microphone and just get up there and talk about it. So I rented a room at the library for 40 bucks. And I thought, well, you know, I’ll do some organic social media promotion for it, but just to fill it up faster, I want to run a Facebook ad in the LinkedIn app myself, because I haven’t done it in a while, and I wanted to see how their AI targeting works. So for Facebook, I ran an ad with a $100 budget, and on LinkedIn I ran an ad for $150 budget.
Jen Lehner: With both of these, when the budget is gone, the ad stops running. I went and I thought about it and I was like, oh, I forgot about my ad. Let me go check on Facebook and see what’s going on. It was turned off. I got like ten leads. Okay. 100 bucks, ten leads. And then I was like, well, let me go look and see what happened over on LinkedIn. Do you know what happened on LinkedIn? I did not choose $150 budget. I chose $150 a day budget. No. And I had not looked at it. And do you know how much I have been charged on my Amex? $3,400 for a free non-monetized event that will now be monetized? Because I will be selling from the stage something to make up for this huge amount of money that I lost. So you get leads. I mean, that’s yeah, I got I got 19 leads for what was it, 100. It was like ended up being like $175 a lead that are not my leads because these are the only thing that I needed were for them to be a warm body that lived in Cleveland. Okay, so how valuable is that to me?
Felicia Pagesh: Have you tried geo targeting? I mean, also that I mean, obviously not going to solve today’s problem, but specifically looking in Cleveland would be like a good start.
Jen Lehner: That’s what I did.
Felicia Pagesh: Okay.
Jen Lehner: No, that was that was the targeting was Cleveland. But that doesn’t help me because I don’t typically work with local businesses. Do you know what I mean? So it’s not like I could say, oh, these leads will serve me better anyway. All my fault. I take 100% responsibility for it. Except I did reach out to LinkedIn just for pity. Mercy, please. You know this is the story. They’re like, too bad, so sad. The ad performed and you got your leads. But then I kept pressing and they they responded and they were like, we’ll give you a 20% refund and $900 in ad credit. And I was like, well, I’m still pushing. I’m like, can I wait and see what happens with my American Express dispute? Because my argument is that your platform is just really confusing. And, you know, I do this all the time, and there really wouldn’t be a reason why this would happen to me in any, you know, blah, blah, blah. But they’re responding to me and they’re continuing to have a conversation with me, so I don’t think they’ll give me anything more. But lesson learned. Check your ads.
Felicia Pagesh: That’s okay.
Miriam Schulman: I have something I want to share that I don’t know if this is a Kvetch or a Kvelle. It’s more like, here’s some cool stuff to talk about having to do with both YouTube and LinkedIn. All right, so right now there are only two markets to sell to. I want to see if you guys agree with this. As marketers there’s two markets there’s Gen Z and younger. And somebody’s got to tell me how old Gen Z is like is that our kids Gen.
Jen Lehner: That’s Scarlett, who’s 15.
Miriam Schulman: Really? Okay. There are two markets to sell to Gen Z and younger Gen Y and older. Okay.
Jen Lehner: What’s Gen Y?
Miriam Schulman: I think that’s like little younger than millennials or millennials. Do you know, Felicia?
Felicia Pagesh: I have I have no idea. Millennials are what I know I don’t know there’s anything between that and Gen Z.
Jen Lehner: I’ve never heard of Gen Y.
Miriam Schulman: I think it’s millennials then. Because it’s. Yeah, because Jen and I are Gen X.
Felicia Pagesh: I’m a millennial.
Miriam Schulman: You’re a millennial. Okay, fine. And you’re a younger millennial. I think you’re Gen Y though. I don’t I think there’s like people younger in between. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Old people and young people. There we go. Younger people follow micro trends. If you want to sell to them, you have to do constant content creation like TikTok. They want low ticket offers, and it’s part of the cancel culture. Okay. The older demographic, they are not part of so much the cancel culture. They are more loyal, more timeless. They like high ticket offers. They value discretion. It’s about longer relationships. And you can find them on LinkedIn and YouTube.
Felicia Pagesh: Yes and no.
Jen Lehner: I hate LinkedIn.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, well. You just said that.
Felicia Pagesh: Well, yeah, I mean, the high ticket offers that seems right up there with what Jen just said. I think like what you’re differentiating is that there’s the people that are older, they have more money to spend, they are on different platforms. So that’s where they would be most likely to be found. They’re not usually on TikTok. And you know. Yeah, I think generationally Gen Z and younger cancel culture, it’s a different culture altogether. But with respect to like who you’re selling to, I think it also depends what you’re selling. You know, like basically if you’re selling something that is a tangible product, right? Like if you are selling a tangible physical product that Gen Z and younger, a low dollar ticket offer or any shopping really in general, the platforms like TikTok and things like that are where you would sell them, and micro-trends are a strategy you would use to sell them too. Does that make sense? So I think like it’s there’s two parts.
Miriam Schulman: No, but you get you choose which, which demographic you’re selling to like who your products are for obviously.
Felicia Pagesh: Yeah. Of course. Yeah. And I think you could sell, like, if you have a product that would appeal to both audiences, you would just choose different platforms and different strategies for how and where to sell them.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. And hence that is why. Hello. That is why we are streaming today on LinkedIn and YouTube. Just so you know. We’re also live streaming there.
Jen Lehner: Oh. Oops, sorry. Okay.
Miriam Schulman: You can say whatever you want. The only thing you can’t say are curse words because we’re gonna crash
Jen Lehner: But I disagree about I mean, I think it is the common thought that people Gen X are not on TikTok. And I guess if you look at the percentage of ages of people on watching short form video on TikTok and shorts and all that, I’m sure it skews younger. However, I am so perfectly targeted when I log in. That algorithm knows me and I can’t even tell I buy something off a TikTok shop at least once a week.
Felicia Pagesh: Really?
Jen Lehner: Seriously? Oh, I’m so influenced because other women my age will be like, no more under bag eyes under under eye bags. You know this eye pencil? I’m always buying just the most random thing. But there are a lot of women our age on there. I mean, I mean, me and Miriam.
Miriam Schulman: We’re going to talk about things that we buy now because I have it linked up in the carousel. So this today’s live stream is sponsored by Amazon, by the way.
Felicia Pagesh: How I know. First of all, the reason I shop so much at Amazon is because they know everything about me. They know what size, they know what to recommend me. That is my TikTok shop. Like every day, what they’re showing me is exactly what I want, which is why there’s boxes at my door every single day. So when this showed up, first of all, there is a carousel ad that I get a lot that’s like, these are the top rated like clothing things on Amazon. When I go to Amazon, I can never find it in the platform. So I scroll through like social media and I go through all the things. Then I go and buy them in Amazon. And the truth is, like whether you shop at like a boutique shop or Bloomingdales or any other like major retailer, they don’t have as many customers as Amazon does. So like when something is a five star review from Amazon, you’re talking like tens of thousands or more five star reviews, and that stuff is always solid. I get more compliments on my Amazon five star stuff than anything else I own. I agree, and so when I found this baby, I liked it, I bought it, it was recommended five stars, brought it home, put it on for a work meeting. I was on a zoom conference with like 20 people on my team and maybe 15 people, and I got two different messages in Slack at the same time. Oh my gosh, Is that the viral Amazon sweater?
Miriam Schulman: Oh my gosh.
Felicia Pagesh: That’s how I knew.
Jen Lehner: It’s such good quality.
Felicia Pagesh: It is good quality. It is. And that’s why like if it feels good on you like people complain more than they like, boast about something by.
Jen Lehner: True, they Kvetch more than they Kvell.
Miriam Schulman: They Kvetch more than they Kvell. Exactly.
Felicia Pagesh: Yes. So when something is Kvelled out, five stars, you know, you got to get that.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Felicia Pagesh: So that’s how I found out about this. And I have like these. I buy like five of everything once I like it.
Jen Lehner: Me too.
Miriam Schulman: I just buy black shirts because I don’t like making decisions in the morning. What to wear. So I have, like, my collection, so I have different color windscreens I bought.
Felicia Pagesh: That matches actually this pretty nicely.
Miriam Schulman: I also have a purple one I guess I’m.
Felicia Pagesh: Like, I don’t know if I’m crazy about the purple. It’s not the right shade.
Jen Lehner: The purple pops. I mean the pink pops. Pink. Purple matches your shirt.
Miriam Schulman: I don’t know, let me know in the comments what you like better. The pink or the purple? If you’re watching, if you’re not watching, if you’re listening, you can come on to SchulmanArt.com/ I think it’s livestream. I should know that.
Jen Lehner: I’ve stopped saying forward slash, by the way.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, what do you say?
Jen Lehner: Slash. It’s always a forward slash.
Miriam Schulman: So is that a Kvetch?
Jen Lehner: No, I was just helping you.
Miriam Schulman: Thank you.
Felicia Pagesh: It is a bit of an old timer thing.
Miriam Schulman: Is that like when people say http like www dot?
Felicia Pagesh: On the interwebs.
Miriam Schulman: What was the last time you heard someone say ww dot? I heard it recently and I was like oh my god.
Jen Lehner: Www dot amazon.com.
Felicia Pagesh: I think I do. I think I might say it like, yeah, I say it really fast though, like w w dot so-and-so dot com, but I think I still do say it.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. Okay, so I have a couple of other things linked up. This is inspired by one of my clients, Natalie Bradley, very talented artist from Georgia and I guess she wants to get into podcasting. So I’ve linked up my podcasting headphones. When I’m on camera, i prefer the pretty ones, but when I’m recording by myself, I like the noise blocking ones. I also have the HD camera, which you can’t see because we’re using it. What do you guys use? Do you use Logitech?
Felicia Pagesh: I use Logitech Brio 4K.
Jen Lehner: And I have a I moved from the Logitech to the Lumina, which I love.
Miriam Schulman: Does it have a filter?
Jen Lehner: It does. Look at my blurry background.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, nice. Very nice. Okay, I also linked up. This is good for artists. These things are not just for podcasting. This is when you go to an art show. You can put your paintings and these are tabletop easels and they’re really cool. But I also I use it just to prop my books up here, but you can use it. Yeah, you can use that in our art show. Oh, now what are you showing us?
Jen Lehner: Oh, this. But I probably shouldn’t because now I don’t have the name for it. But yeah.
Miriam Schulman: So it doesn’t matter because I don’t have it linked in the carousel. So I can’t make money. I can’t make my $0.10 off of it if somebody clicks. R
Jen Lehner: ight. Well, anyway, it’s a really cool invention. It’s another video camera. But what it does is it goes down into the middle of your screen so you can look directly in people’s eyes. You don’t have, oh my gosh, you know, you know how sometimes you have to look up.
Miriam Schulman: Oh wait I want that.
Jen Lehner: I know and I don’t have the name of it. I’m going to have to—
Miriam Schulman: Alright just tell us later and then we can link it on.
Felicia Pagesh: Yeah I want that thing.
Jen Lehner: I will tell you.
Miriam Schulman: And it’s especially hard because like, if you do any kind of reading from a teleprompter, like, you see my crazy eyes going back and forth, and then I try to remember to look up. So my eye contact, which I’m not even really looking at it. Okay, I want one of those.
Felicia Pagesh: That’s awesome. That is awesome.
Miriam Schulman: That is awesome. I have a few more things on our scheduled program, so hold on. All right. This is now another commercial.
Jen Lehner: Wait, did you have your microphone? Don’t you want to talk about your microphone? You link that, didn’t you?
Miriam Schulman: I linked all my microphones. I have tried all of them. Yeah. And the one that I’m using right now, like I have like legit all the microphones that are in here, I have personally bought and tested out. So because I, I put them in based on my orders. Okay. The one that I have is the Shure. It’s a $99 microphone.
Jen Lehner: And it sounds great. I have to say.
Felicia Pagesh: Is it? What type of Shure is it? Is it The Mv7?.
Miriam Schulman: S58.
Jen Lehner: I used to have that one.
Miriam Schulman: And Jason Van Orden who who used to be known as like the godfather of podcasting, I don’t think he has that reputation anymore. But he told me this is the one that would be best for women. Like, the men seem to like the Heil, he says that’s better for dudes.
Miriam Schulman: I have the Shure too.
Felicia Pagesh: I have the MV7. That’s what I use.
Miriam Schulman: [inaudible]
Felicia Pagesh: So you have the SM7. Oh yeah. I think those are two. Those two are very similar.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, you guys ready for my actual commercial now and then we can talk about whatever we want for the rest of the show. Okay, so if you’ve been trying to build your audience and feel like you’re spinning your wheels, going nowhere, good news. You do not have to be dancing in front of the camera to find collectors who truly appreciate your art. Because, let’s face it, who has the time or energy for that? So just imagine connecting with serious collectors, just like we talked about earlier. They’re not on TikTok without this endless posting or heck, even leaving your studio because I know artists are shy. A lot of them tell me they’re introverts. They don’t want to do that. So I want to share three stories. They are all inside the Artist Incubator Grace Marquez, Elizabeth Mordensky, and Lynn Sammis. They prove you can get your art noticed without stress. So we’ll talk about Grace first. She does amazing art, by the way, guys. She does. She’s a diver and she paints the scenes underwater. So what she’s done is she’s gotten publicity through diving publications like Diver Boating. And now, because she started this publicity, these opportunities come to her. They come to her and they leave underwater commissions and sales. So she does. Yeah. Because she publishes her art in or gets press of her art in diving magazines. Her ideal customers come to her. Awesome. Amazing. Okay, then. Elizabeth, she different kind of artist. She’s a wildlife artist. And she was working full time when she was in the incubator, I said, listen, I know you don’t have time for shows.
Miriam Schulman: You should do publicity. So within six months of using these strategies, she surpassed her income goal. And one feature alone led to a repeat collector who invested over $29,000 in her cover art. Yeah. And then there’s Lynn. So Lynn is a client who last year she was in galleries, and she only made 13,500 from the sales of her art, which sounds amazing, you know, because some people aren’t making anything. But she felt really stuck. So after working with me, she’s now making more than five times her previous income. Like the last time I checked in with her, she said she was making over $80,000 and she’s a grandmother of four and her family comes first. And no, she doesn’t dance in front of TikTok either. So if you want to uncover the magic of publicity and email. This is something that you can do too, and that’s why I have my audience building workshop. It’s happening next week. I still have a little bit of that Halloween theme going on. Cast a spell and collectors from the comfort of your studio drawer in serious buyers by showcasing your art in the right spot and share your story with confidence, without the pressure to be visible or chase algorithms. So you can go to SchulmanArt.com/Audience. And yes, you’ll get lifetime access to the recording and the workbook that comes with it.
Felicia Pagesh: That’s got to be, you know, like just in marketing. It’s got to be like a breath of fresh air to know that you can get out there with in a way that’s comfortable because, like I, I work in digital marketing and I’m not even on TikTok, so I’m sure there’s customers there and clients and collectors, but I personally will never find them because I’m not comfortable using that platform. And if I’m not comfortable, I’m not doing it. You can’t.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, well, you heard me. I was totally mute when they were discussing TikTok because I don’t use it at all. Okay. So I actually we have a question from somebody who has a question about one of my supplies. So I am just reaching down here to talk about it. So I think Tracy was interested in the SD card slot. So this is what’s linked up in the carousel. Tracy I use this all the time. So I also use this when I was filming using my camcorder. I use it when I’m taking photographs with my camera, and I also use it when I’m podcasting because I record on a device, which is I can’t really it’s hard to pick it up, but it’s right here. And I do have that linked in in the carousel as well. I have the zoom device, which I record on, and I take this and I put it into here and this USB goes into my computer and let me know if you have more questions about that. Okay, Jen, what do you record on when you do your podcast? You always record on Riverside when you’re doing solos or what do you use?
Jen Lehner: Zencaster.
Miriam Schulman: Is that? Oh, zencaster. Yeah.
Felicia Pagesh: Oh, why that over what Miriam just said?
Jen Lehner: I don’t know, I just I have been using Zencaster for so long, and that is my answer.
Miriam Schulman: Even when you do solos?
Jen Lehner: Yeah.
Miriam Schulman: Because like, when I do solos, I don’t want it to come through the internet because I don’t want it to have any this. So this is kind of like.
Felicia Pagesh: Like hardwired.
Miriam Schulman: Offline recordings. I don’t have to worry about the internet being an issue during it.
Jen Lehner: Yeah, I mean, maybe I should, but it’s just what I do.
Miriam Schulman: Okay.
Felicia Pagesh: She does what she does.
Jen Lehner: I mean, it’s good. It served me well, you know. Yeah. You know, I once left the podcast hosting platform to go to the one that everybody was using, and it was so crappy. And I’m like, why did I do that?
Miriam Schulman: What was that?
Jen Lehner: The one. The original one. What was it called?
Miriam Schulman: Libsyn?
Jen Lehner: Yes.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, I’m still on there. I don’t know why it’s not that good.
Jen Lehner: I use captivate.com, baby. It’s so good. They’re fantastic.
Felicia Pagesh: Okay, so you guys have been doing this for a like, a long time. So you’re on platforms that you’re married to because you’re comfortable with them. But like if I like I am going to start a podcast. What are the like the platforms you would recommend for somebody that gets to start from scratch?
Miriam Schulman: I would still say captivate because I had to hop around. What happened was Whooshkaa was a free one out of Australia and they were freaking amazing free and they were better than Libsyn. I didn’t know that at the time because I didn’t try Libsyn. Then Spotify bought them only to squash them. You know how the companies will do that sometimes. So then they were no more. So that’s when I was like, well, I’ll, I’ll finally go to Libsyn where all the real podcasters are. And I was like, this is *** It doesn’t even—
Miriam Schulman: Remember our language because we don’t want Amazon to crash.
Jen Lehner: Something. It doesn’t even compare to. It doesn’t even compare to my free thing. And then some people were telling me about captivate and I’m like, this is great, and I’ll tell you why. And a lot of the services do this. But one of the great things is that you can create an ad after the fact five years after a podcast episode runs, and then you can have it just auto publish into 400 episodes at the beginning. At the end.
Felicia Pagesh: Oh no way.
Jen Lehner: And right. So if you’re if you’re launching, you could just go ahead and add those commercials for your launch and all those episodes with one button, push and remove them. One I really need to switch. Yeah. And and and there’s a million other things that they have that I haven’t even taken advantage of. They’re very reasonably priced. Their user interface is gorgeous. Yeah.
Felicia Pagesh: Is it Intuitive? Like, is it something, you know?
Jen Lehner: Yes.
Felicia Pagesh: When you think about podcasting, there’s so many different options. And like a lot of them still you have to do a lot of you have to have some knowledge of editing, and you have to know how to use different functions and features that are like a little bit more complex. Like if you’re, you know, a designer, then you might use Photoshop. But if you’re not a designer and you want to create great graphics, you’d use Canva, right? Like that’s. So some of them are like more hardcore.
Jen Lehner: For this is entry level to advanced.
Miriam Schulman: Wouldn’t you be using somebody else to help you anyway?
Jen Lehner: And that’s what I was going to say. Yes. You’re not going to be doing your editing. And well, I do have one client who I introduced to our, our friend who’s name sorry will be cut out of the actual podcast. So like she was doing all her own editing, I was like, you you’ve got to stop that. You’ve got to stop doing all your own editing. That’s not your job. Your job is to be a jewelry designer.
Jen Lehner: Yeah, editing is really time consuming.
Miriam Schulman: Yes, yes it is.
Felicia Pagesh: But you should know enough to know what a good edit is. You know, like, you should have some knowledge of what needs to be edited to know what creates a good product.
Jen Lehner: I still take out my ums and ahs and yeah, I make a gaffe, you know, as you can mark it as you’re recording, right? Like, you can just click a little thing and then it.
Miriam Schulman: So actually, Jen, let’s talk about it because people who are just getting started, they don’t know what’s good and what’s not good. And I’ve been through a lot of podcast editors. So would that help you, Felicia, if we just go through like what? Yeah. I mean like how to choose a good one?
Felicia Pagesh: Yeah.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, so first of all, when you interview them, I would ask what other shows do you produce and listen to them and make sure you like the way they sound. Now, if you’re doing an interview podcast, the most important thing is that the people have the same audio levels. You ever listen to a podcast where one person is really quiet and the other person is really loud, and it’s not like because they’re talking louder and more quiet, but it’s like the microphones are not matched up. So that’s a big thing of what they do is like, make sure the audio levels are the same. Yeah.
Felicia Pagesh: Samples I mean always right. Like anytime you it’s like a reference job reference. You want to hear examples to make sure that it’s something that you like. Also, it’s probably a good idea to see if they are not necessary. But I always like to know if someone is doing this for somebody that is similar in some way to me or my business, you know, has any familiarity with my industry, things like that, so that they can maybe pick up on some cues that even I wouldn’t, that would be helpful for me.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. Another thing to listen for when you listen to the way they sound, some people like it very raw and some people like very polished and I don’t like a lot of pauses. I like that all tightened up and I like it to go fast.
Jen Lehner: Well, we all, I think the three of us, we all have said that we listen to everything at like one and a half to two. Yeah. So yeah, we don’t have time for those pauses like that. No, no. Yeah.
Miriam Schulman: And it’s really helpful to have if it’s not the editor, somebody on the team who is really doing like a quality control, which could be the editor, him or herself, but it could be somebody else. So make sure that before it goes live that it really that human listens to it is my point. Because sometimes, especially now, there’s a lot of editors out there and they’re just going to run it through AI, using AI to listen to it right now. And you can tell when they don’t listen to it. Yeah. Like did you did you that’s why I fired people, is because they didn’t really listen to it yet.
Felicia Pagesh: Like a podcast with no hmmm and ahhhs, but also no pauses for inflection is not a good podcast if you’re not able to hear your tone, inflection or emotion or any of the things that are necessary in a in a platform solely designed for audio, then you know that person is doing it wrong. They need to understand what you’re conveying, and not just delete every bit of empty space so that it feels like a nervous, really long run on sentence.
Miriam Schulman: But also somebody who’s like, understands the difference between content that should be taken out and something that maybe is a good joke, you know, like so. And to be left in there because it’s funny.
Felicia Pagesh: Yeah, it should be entertaining or educational, but entertaining in some capacity no matter what you’re doing. It’s all about keeping a listener interested.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. All right, so we have just a few more minutes before we wrap up. So I just want to remind everybody about the audience building workshop if you haven’t signed up for it. So Artist Incubator members, they will get this no matter what inside of their library. Everyone else, if you want to join me live, go to SchulmanArt.com/Audience. Build your audience authentically. Plus, you get instant access to this workbook when you join. And we’ve included a lot of AI prompts in there to help you get results faster.
Felicia Pagesh: Awesome.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, my friends, do we have any last words before we call this? Whatever it is that we’re doing complete. Was there any unsaid Kvetches or Kvells that you wanted to talk about, Jen or Felicia?
Jen Lehner: Yeah. I’m going to start a Kickstarter for my LinkedIn bill. So if any.
Felicia Pagesh: Donations?
Jen Lehner: No. Yeah. No, I don’t have anything to add. This was so much fun.
Miriam Schulman: And people are finding this conversation very helpful today. So we appreciate you as well. All right my friends. Until next time. Oh wait, I have a few more commercials. If you liked today’s show, make sure you hit the follow button, because I don’t always announce when I’m doing it ahead of time. Like today was not on a regular scheduled day, so you want to make sure. And if you want to catch up on all live streams, go to SchulmanArt.com/Livestreams. W-w-w dot. All right, that’s it.
Felicia Pagesh: So much for letting me be here for this. I really appreciate.
Miriam Schulman: You. This was a lot of fun.
Felicia Pagesh: Bye bye. See ya.
Speaker2: Thank you for listening to the Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at Facebook.com/SchulmanArt, on Instagram at SchulmanArt, and of course, on SchulmanArt.com.
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