John Berry: 0:00

So there is a startling a statistic about podcasters, especially new ones, that I want to talk about in this episode, and I want to specifically make sure I don't become one of those statistics, and I'm also going to talk about some frog legs I smoked, so stick around.

Announcement: 0:20

Time to fire up that grill from smoke for to smash burgers. Outdoor cooking just tastes better. This is the Okie Smokin Podcast, and here's your host, john Barry.

John Berry: 0:40

So let's just start by saying I enjoy making content. I enjoy making YouTube videos and I have made several of the Okie Smokin channel. I enjoy doing websites. I haven't done as much of that Okie Smokin website building as what I have on YouTube, but I want to do some more in that area and I do have another website as well. But what I am talking about, that startling statistic Let me just get right to it.

John Berry: 1:13

Most new podcasts Stop before or at episode three. They never get to episode four. A matter of fact, 90% of them do not get past episode three and it states near 2 million podcasts quit before they even get started. They create all the podcasts that get it done and never even start. And of the near quarter million left, 90% quit after 20 episodes. So most don't get past episode three. Of the 200,000 that are left that do get past episode three, never get past episode 20. And it's easy to fall into this trap or state or whatever it is. First of all, you have to have your mindset. You have to really commit, and that goes with creating YouTube videos as well as creating podcasts. So, to make a point, last year at the end of December or at the beginning of December, we launched this podcast. Let me see what the exact date was.

John Berry: 2:47

Oh actually, our first episode was November 29th of 2023. Then we had one on December 4th, 11th and 18th. Now we did have an intro in there, so I'm not going to count that one. We posted an intro as well. So we had three episodes. We had one regular episode Let me see and a second regular episode, and then we decided we would start a season and we did that and we did one episode. Was it one episode, Let me see? No, we did yep, one episode in the season and it don't look like we ever really did anything else, because we thought we'd do seasons and we had this ideal of doing suites for the first season, We'd do something else for the next season, and we never got our feet off the ground. We said we were going to post every Monday and we never did it. So we almost or I almost came that dreadful statistic and today I'm getting past I'm going to call it past episode four because we had an intro. We had another episode and then we had our season episode one.

John Berry: 4:19

So, I am remodifying it Once again it's my podcast.

John Berry: 4:25

So if I want to change things, I can. If I want to add a season later and maybe I will I can. But we're going to scratch the whole dang season ideal for now. I thought it would be easier because we could come up with ideals, but I think it's going to be better to just come up with random ideals throughout the year based on what I'm doing, not based on what I'm trying to create for a specific niche or season. So and then, of course, the next statistic I was talking about is, of the 200,000 podcasters that make it past episode four, most quit at seven and then very few make it past episode 20. So by the end of the year I will be past episode 20.

John Berry: 5:16

I'm not going to become one of these statistical podcasts that just do all the work, get everything set up. I mean, I got me microphone, I've got all this stuff. I've even got a second microphone so Dolores can jump in. She is still going to be the co-host on the show. She won't be in on all the episodes.

John Berry: 5:33

Occasionally I'll bring her in and she'll be a second part of the podcast, but for the most part I'm just going to come on here and talk about some of the things that that I've done throughout the week on my smokers, outdoor cooking, other things and I even this is pretty cool become a CBS or Kansas City barbecue judge. It's KCBS judge, so I'll make an episode about that and talk about how that class went. So that's going to be pretty fun as well, going into some insight on that. So that's going to be a different view from a judging's perspective. So that'll be interesting to cover on a future podcast episode as well. So basically, I'm just saying I'm not going to become a statistic and I'm going to keep going forward and we're going to continue to push out these episodes.

John Berry: 6:33

Not saying a week won't be missed, on occasion for various reasons, from holidays to other things that may develop, but we're going to continue with our Monday, maybe some special episodes, and we're going to get past. I'm making the commitment to all of you, to me, and I'm going to hold hold myself accountable Currently on YouTube, and I'll pull it up here on my phone If you don't know me. My name is John and I am from Oklahoma and I have a YouTube channel and it is called the Oki. That's O-K-I-E Smokin, just like this podcast, s-m-o-k-i-n. And if you look that up on YouTube, you'll find all my videos currently over 100 videos. Some of them are shorts, some of them are full blown content, most of them are regular videos and if I click on the channel information here, it should give me 136 videos.

John Berry: 7:40

So I have committed to the YouTube and what happened was I was committing to it so much and then trying to do the podcast, and then I've also got the website, and then I've got a regular job, and then it is not easy and that's why most people fail. And not only that. If you're trying to build a brand or something, it could take a couple of years or more before you really get anywhere. It's all the investment early on that really does not even show any payoff. It does not show anything at all. So it's like paying and hoping later, and eventually you should get to a point to where you start to take off. Your podcast grows, your YouTube channel grows, your website grows. So to build a full brand, I want the website to be updated weekly, and some of the videos I do.

John Berry: 8:45

And I want a podcast, that's contents added weekly, talking about maybe the latest video coming out, for example, or some other things going on, and then a video. So what I have decided is if I just do one of each a week, then that's not as much, and I would try to do several videos and then I'd get too boiled up in that and then you got to make time for the podcast, and then we got a grand kid and you got, you know, family and things that you have to attend to, and so it makes it difficult to put everything in order sometimes. So that's what we're gonna talk about a little bit here. And then I'm also wanting to talk about the frog legs. I did because this is the Oki smoking channel. You can't have a little episode about a little bit of smoking talk, a little barbecue talk. But just so everybody knows, my name is John, this is the Oki smoking channel, I am in Oklahoma and I do want to thank you If you have taken the time to listen to this podcast, and I hope, or I commit, to continue these episodes and not fall flat on my face and just go without any episodes, cause that's the biggest turn off.

John Berry: 10:01

Everybody will say, well, this one's already gone and I've seen a lot of that. I have seen a lot of that. I will find a podcast that I think's pretty good or has real good potential, and I'll be like man, this is good. And then they only have six episodes. I'm like whoa, and it's been two years. And then you find another. No, this is good. Two or three episodes, it's done, and that is a trend I just saw. I was just looking up stuff and I kept seeing it, one after another, after another, and I said I don't want to be caught in this trap or in this statistic. I guess I would say so let's go ahead and talk about this. Is we're going to go ahead and switch to the journey that begins and some of the challenges that I encountered when starting this podcast? So let's dive into that. Well, first and foremost, it's time it's making sure you dedicate some time.

John Berry: 11:08

And it doesn't have to be a whole lot of time Hour or two, do the podcast, an hour for some editing and it's done. So time would be one of the biggest challenges, also, if you are trying to do a co-host, getting both of you to be able to do it at the same time. That's why I think I'm going to go ahead and do it just myself, just myself, and then on certain ones I'll have my co-host, dolores, with me and that will also flow things and mix things up. You'll be like, oh, dolores is on this episode and that will be fun. Some of the uncertainties as well is you know, does anybody care? I'm just going to talk to a microphone and 25 episodes and have nobody listen.

John Berry: 11:57

That's the uncertainty, but that's also the expectations, because hopefully there's more than just a couple. You know people listening to the podcast, hopefully. But if there's not, hey, someone somewhere may find some information and if you think about it, it don't matter. You don't need 80,000 people like in a football stadium. If you look logic podcast and you have 10 people listen to it regularly, five people listening to it, 20 people, you have some people that are enjoying the content and those people are going to keep coming back, someone else is going to hear them and eventually you're going to add to it, so it don't matter. Most podcasts are not big in Thousands of listeners they can get there. So that's some of the insert uncertainties when it comes to a podcast.

John Berry: 12:54

That brings me to the next segment time management tips. So Effective time management when juggling your podcast with your other responsibilities Dedicating a particular time every week would be ideal. And Making sure that you are focused during that time. Making sure you have printed out a guide so that when you do your podcast, you can go through a flow. And I'm gonna tell you, ai is great for this now you don't want AI To write your podcast, your blog, create your whole video.

John Berry: 13:40

But you can actually tell it to give you an outline of what you're going to be talking about and it will help flow you with it. So if you're creating a podcast, try AI, try chat, gpt, dry Jim and I have them. Go ahead and create you an outline, tell it what your podcast is about. If you have co-host, tell it that and it will actually help you. It would give you a list so it'll have you something to follow. So that's going to be a great way to keep you organized, to keep you focused during the podcast. So that's something I'm doing to better myself and then here in a second, we're going to get into the barbecue part of this podcast. But just talking to you if you are new to podcasting I'm no expert, I'm new too I'm just telling you some of the things I'm doing to try to better myself, to make sure I don't become a statistic, to make sure I out do those 20 and and become a higher percentage and and not only that Want to continue it, wanting to to build it into the full brand of the oaky smoking YouTube website and podcast also got tick tock. That's fun, put some videos on there once in a while, but just developing it into a full package, a brand. So enough talking about the podcast. This is a barbecue channel. Enough talking about that kind of stuff. There's great podcast people out there that will you'll want to listen to. I listen to some of them. Look them up, and If I got some recommendations I can't think of them I will Let you know, in a future episode possibly. So let's go ahead and get into the Frog legs.

John Berry: 15:31

Yep, the frog legs Cooked frog legs on the pit boss smoker this weekend.

John Berry: 15:37

Now this is the second time I've done frog legs.

John Berry: 15:41

I did them a while back and I cooked them in a cast iron skillet, which I also Put on my pit boss because I got a pit boss pellet cooker. It's a pit boss 500, so it's not real big, but it's not real small, it's. It's decent and you could put your cast iron skillet right in the center and I like to remove because you can remove the center of it so the flames actually come up all the way through the when you can see the flames and you can put your cast iron skillet right there. It'll heat up pretty quick Through my oil in it and just fry them after I battered them. I battered them with some flour or some other seasonings and and I'll put this video in the show notes Below so you can check it out I'll put both of these frog leg videos in the show notes below, so please check it out if you'd like to see how I cook both of these versions of frog legs. But I went ahead and fried that one, which came out tremendous.

John Berry: 16:46

It really did and you know, they do have a little bit of a different taste and everybody says, well, what does it taste like? And people say it tastes like chicken. Well, it has a hint of that, but it's got a little sweeter taste, I think it's got a little different, unique Frog taste.

John Berry: 17:04

I don't know what it is, you can't describe it, but it's, it's really. It's not bad, it's good. Some people don't like the way they look, the legs and they bend. They look funny, they're thin, there's not enough meat. Whatever the reason is, they say, well, I'll just eat regular chicken if it tastes like it. Why, why eat a frog leg? I just will eat a regular chicken. And that is something a lot of people Do say, and they literally refuse to try the the frog legs. Now let me talk to you a little bit about the latest one that I did. So I went ahead and Heated my pit boss to 225 degrees and then I put these legs and butter, I just kind of put them in the fridge and let them set in the fridge for a while and marinated them for about a half hour while it preheated.

John Berry: 18:00

I just took them out there, put a bunch of garlic seasoning all over them and then I had some Arudis barbecue seasoning, whatever seasoning you like, whatever you could find in the cupboard hot, spicy, sweet, it don't matter what's your favorite seasoning, put it on there. I put it on it through some habanero seasoning on it for some heat, put those on the grates, let that cook up and man it was. It was really good. It was really really good. Cooked it for about two hours halfway through, brush some butter, garlic and butter on it, just for a little moisture and flavor and to keep it going, and flip them and man, they turned out really, really good.

John Berry: 18:45

The seasoning was phenomenal. So if you ever want to cook frog legs, you can smoke them and you can grill them and the grilling though I think it took like five minutes, two, three minutes per side or something, boom, they're done.

John Berry: 18:59

The smoking process took a little longer, between 200 and 225 degrees, got that smoke out of hickory pellets going through there and got that cooked up extremely well and that. If you don't like spice, just leave it off it. Have an arrow. I have some habanero seasoning which I get right here in Oklahoma. It's in Yukon, oklahoma, if you've ever been, and there is an outlet mall there called the pepper palace and you go in there and they have all kinds of peppers. You can get habanero, you can get Carolina reapers, you can get lower grades like jalapeno. I think they probably have scorpion, any kind of seasoning. You want, any kind of sauce you want.

John Berry: 19:41

It's there, it is really good and you usually go in there and they'll have something. You buy three, you get one half off or something. So you know if you go there one or two could be expensive. It's a little pricey. But if you just go ahead and get the package where you get three and maybe get another one for X number, dot, whatever discount you can go ahead and get you a few more. They usually have something like that, especially during big shopping event days or when people are shopping black Fridays, christmas and that kind of thing you can usually get some pretty good deals on them. So if you're ever in an area, check that out.

John Berry: 20:17

I don't know if it's there may be a pepper palace in other parts of the country. I don't know if that's the only one. I've never really checked, I just went to to that one. But that is pretty much how I did the frog legs. So just going into our last couple of segments here before I close out, just staying in tune, if you want to create a podcast, be sure you don't let cooking the frog legs get in the way of creating that podcast. You know you've got to be able to do both. So keep time available to cook the legs. And if it was like me, where I would be like I want to do another video and I have a problem with this, I'll cook something and I'll film it and I'll say I'm gonna schedule this for next week and I kind of get excited about it. Next thing, you know I'm just gonna air it tomorrow. I'm gonna air now, I'm gonna go ahead and upload it and then I might schedule it and I'm just gonna go ahead and publish it now. So I'm trying to take that planning to YouTube better and to the podcast better. So when I do, if I do a couple of films during the week, I'll schedule them out and only special episodes will I launch second. So, one episode a week and maybe a special episode on an occasion of collaboration or some special event. That away I'm organized. So trying to find out what organizes me or you in these situations is what you've got to really do and that's how I'm going to go forward and I'm going to start to try to organize a time and date so that I can better manage the podcast and the video.

John Berry: 22:18

Not worry about. I want to, you know, hopefully make it decent, but not worry overly. Worry about whether or not it's good, because you can also create something and just say it's trash. And many of the things I thought were trash have done the best and many of the things that I thought were the best have done horrible and found out no one liked it. So you've got to put it out there. Don't worry about it too much and hope for the best and continue on. So it has been great talking to you during this episode.

John Berry: 22:52

If you can simply leave a comment. You can also send an email at john at okey smoking com. I will get it if you have a question for the podcast. If you have a comment, I'll read it on a future episode, quite possibly. Love feedback and be sure and subscribe. Whatever you're listening on, we're on all of them spotifycom All the big ones, plenty of the small ones. I think you can find us out there and thanks so much for listening. You can find us on tiktok, youtube and Facebook. Thank you for listening to the okey smoking podcast. Episodes drop every Monday.

Announcement: 23:32

Don't forget to follow this podcast or you might miss out on some of the great things that you can do, and I'll see you next time. Keep firing up that grill.