Today I look at some things using my experience and share them with you so you can avoid those pitfalls.  Focusrite: The Vocaster Series Made For Podcasters AutoGain - Easily set your levels with the click of a button, with more than enough gain on tap (70dB) – no booster needed Enhance - Four podcaster-approved voice presets bring out the best in any voice Mute - Silence the mic with the touch of a button - don’t let unexpected interruptions get in the way of recording Connect your phone - Record phone calls, high quality music, or other audio from your device, seamlessly  Record to a camera - Plug in your camera and record directly to its memory card  Loopback - Stream calls or any other audio you can think of from your computer with two sets of stereo loopback Included software - Hindenburg Lite to record, three months of SquadCast Pro + Video to bring in your guests, and six months of Acast Influencer to publish, you’re ready to get your show out there Learn more at: Focusrite.com/Vocaster  Kudos to Descript When something motivates me to tell my friends about something, I stop and look at why. Descript did a webinar and to spruce it up, they had a mock customer who kept interrupting the webinar because he couldn't remember his password. At first, it was, "Did that just happen?" By the end, we had all figured out after the third appearance that the "Customer" was a plant, but it was creative and made the webinar (that showcases new video tools) very entertaining as well as educational.  Give Out Website Addresses that You Control Instead of sending people to www.patreon.com/davejackson I send people to www.askthepodcastcoach.com/awesome this way if later I change to a different tool, I don't end up with all my past episodes with links that no longer work. Tool for this are: Pretty Links WordPress Plugin Podpage has a built-in tool for Pretty Redirects Rebrandly.com is a cool tracking and redirecting tool Go Through All The Steps of Your Second Show Once you start a podcast you often feel like starting an additional show. You know the process, and off you go to start podcast #2. I advise that before you do this DO ALL THE WORK.  In other words, don't just design it on paper, but go through all the steps of actually creating an episode (even if you don't keep it). I didn't do this with the Podcast Trailer Show and what was (on paper) going to take about 15 minutes per episode is taking me twice that.  How did I miss this? I did "shallow" investigations into all steps, and it seemed like everything was going work. However, I didn't actually go through and make some test episodes. I didn't do a dress rehearsal. Consequently, it is taking more time, and its cutting into my schedule and causing issues.  Amazon Rolls Out a Portal FYI, Amazon has rolled out a portal where you can see how many followers, downloads and more. Go to podcasters.amazon.com  Choose What To Monitor Before Paying to Promote Your Show If you are going to pay for a promotion, you need to identify how you will gauge success. I recently played with Buzzsprouot ads where you can advertise on other shows. Halfway through the campaign, I realized I hadn't looked at my numbers before running the campaign so I could see if they went up.  Portal where you can see subscriber/follower accounts podcastsconnect.apple.com podcastsmanager.google.com podcasters.spotify.com podcaters.amazon.com  Put All Of Your Content On Your Website I have a YouTube channel, and I occasionally write a blog post on Medium. When I looked at my Google Analytics, I saw that one of my top pages was a post that featured one of my YouTube Videos.  Your website is YOUR MAIN HUB, and it makes it easy for people who enjoy your content to find it in one place. I do spotlight it in my newsletter, but if should be on my website as well Leave Time On Your Calendar To Learn New Stuff When you purchase courses, watch webinars, or buy software (Surferseo in my case) you need to leave time on your calendar to go through the learning curve. No matter how easy it is, there WILL BE some amount of time needed to add to your arsenal of skills. It Doesn't Need to Be Perfect To Start I have gone through so many different school to manage my learning content. I've been on Thinkific, and almost moved to Teachable (and used Circle for my community), and have now decided (and am 90% moved) to Podia.  The maddening part is Podia was...