Your Mic

Freddy Cruz
  • 5.0(3개의 평가)
  • 언어 학습

Your Mic is the podcast about podcasting for new, stuck, and almost‑quit hosts. Hosted by Speke Podcasting founder and 25‑year broadcast vet Freddy Cruz, it blends hard‑earned lessons, failures, and irreverent stories with sharp tactics you can actually use. Listen on your favorite podcast app!

  1. 18시간 전 ·  비디오

    Too Many Ads, Not Enough Show: Why I Built My Own Network

    Free resources from Speke Podcasting: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/freeresources Work with us: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/pricing-plans Seven minutes of ads. Then more ads. Then a 45 minute episode where maybe 30 of those minutes were actual content. Freddy Cruz watched it happen from inside the radio world and saw the same disease spread into podcasting. So instead of bloviating about it, he built something. This episode is the official introduction of the Speke Originals Network, two highly curated shows launching in late September with an ad model that respects the listener, pays the host everything they earn, and gives advertisers full season buyouts instead of spray and pray placements. The shows: The House of Theft, a nonviolent true crime podcast hosted by Chris Richardson, the son who had no idea his parents stole $3.8 million in merchandise until the feds showed up. And Made in House: Houston, a food podcast hosted by Megha McSwain, whose bylines include Texas Monthly and the Food Network, dedicated to the Houston restaurant scene that mainstream media keeps sleeping on. This one is the origin story. Get in early. Follow Speke Podcasting on all socials for cover art reveals, launch party details, and debut announcements. Key Takeaways The podcast ad model is broken when a 45 minute episode contains 10 to 15 minutes of back to back commercials that have nothing to do with the show. Listeners are not going to tolerate it forever and they are already tuning out. The Speke Originals Network runs three ad units per episode: a presenting sponsor mention at the top with a tease, a host owned ad between 40 and 60 percent of the way through, and a supporting sponsor at the very end. That is it. The host owned tier is where the upside lives. Speke Podcasting takes zero percent of that revenue. The host owns the product, the pitch, and every dollar that comes from it. Full season buyouts protect the advertiser and the listener. No rotating strangers in the feed. A brand buys in for the season and becomes part of the show, not an interruption. The House of Theft is not another true crime show. It is told through the eyes of the son who grew up in the house and had no idea his parents were stealing millions until federal agents came through the door. Made in House: Houston fills a real gap. The Houston food scene is massive and underserved by everyone except viral vloggers and occasional press. Mega McSwain brings real editorial credibility to the restaurants that deserve more attention. Timestamped Overview 0:00 The broken ad model: seven minutes of commercials, 30 minutes of actual content, and why the industry is losing listeners 1:30 Who Freddy Cruz is and why he saw this coming before he left radio in 2021 2:45 The decision to stop talking about the problem and build the solution 3:30 The Speke Originals Network: the philosophy, the gear, the team, and what makes this network the only one Freddy could launch 4:45 The ad model breakdown: presenting tier, host owned tier, supporting tier, and why the structure protects everyone 7:00 Host owned ads explained: infinite upside, zero percent to Speke, all revenue stays with the host 8:30 Full season buyouts and the sponsorship structure across both shows including the 10 percent discount for dual show sponsors 10:00 Introducing The House of Theft: Chris Richardson, his parents, $3.8 million in stolen merchandise, and the feds at the door 12:30 Introducing Made in House: Houston: Megha McSwain, her Texas Monthly and Food Network bylines, and the Houston restaurant scene that needs a real show 14:45 The launch timeline: late September debut, cover art reveals, and an intimate private launch party in late August or early September 16:00 How to follow along and stay ahead of every announcement

    9분

  2. 2일 전

    Turn Your Biggest Podcast Errors Into Armor, Not Exit Signs

    Free resources from Speke Podcasting: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/freeresources Work with us: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/pricing-plans This is the episode you wanna play immediately after your first true podcast disaster. Freddy starts with a Malcolm Gladwell story about cold‑calling a billionaire, sitting down for the interview, and realizing there is no SD card in the recorder. From there, he walks you into his own mistake reel: phantom recordings, kicked power strips, overheated cameras, and a full episode accidentally shot in slow motion. Instead of pretending these things do not happen, he shows you exactly how he handled the fallout, what he changed, and how you can build systems to keep one glitch from ending your show. You walk away less terrified of messing up and more committed to becoming the kind of host who can take a punch and still hit publish.

    10분

  3. 6월 30일 ·  비디오

    How one rejection email helped create Speke Podcasting

    Free resources from Speke Podcasting: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/freeresources Work with us: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/pricing-plans In this origin‑story solo, Freddy walks you through all the things that were never supposed to happen but did, including this podcast and the company behind it. You hear about the seventh‑grade Bo Jackson dream, a coach’s speech that quietly closed a door, and the long, messy pivot from bench‑riding high school player to 25 years in radio. Freddy breaks down how a career in broadcasting was never the plan, how it still turned into 17,000 hours behind a mic and over a thousand interviews, and how that door slammed shut too. Then he talks through over 450 unanswered job applications, the one thoughtful rejection from a podcast company, and why that email shifted everything. You walk away seeing your own “wrong turns” as reps, not waste, and your podcast as the thing that might not have been in the plan but absolutely belongs in your life now.

    10분

  4. 6월 25일 ·  비디오

    Your Show Is Supposed to Lose Before It Wins

    Free podcast roadmap: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/freeresources George Washington's first run for office got 6.88 percent of the vote. Statistical humiliation. If that were a podcast launch today you would already be drafting your quitting post. He came back. Won the next one. Survived smallpox, a mutiny in his own ranks, a winter that killed men from exposure, and people who wanted to replace him with someone shinier. Then he won the whole revolution and walked away from the crown. This episode is a Fourth of July gut check for every podcaster who thinks a bad month means it is over. Key Takeaways Your first season is your 6.88 percent phase. It is not proof that nobody wants this. It is data. Use it to find who listens all the way through, which topics hit, and where discovery is actually happening. Washington did not win the second election because of rum. He won because after his first loss he actually studied the game he was playing. Know your listener before you spend a dollar on promotion. Your show will get sick. A guest ghosts you. Downloads fall off a cliff. You publish your best episode and hear crickets. That is your inoculation, not your obituary. Every show has a Conway Cabal phase. Someone starts a better show, gets the guests you wanted, goes viral doing sloppier work. Stay in command. Adjust tactics, not your identity. Your Valley Forge is the long flat middle where growth slows and feedback goes quiet. If your why is thin your listeners will desert. They should. If your why is real you have an obligation to show up anyway. Washington walked away from the crown. Your show is not yours. It belongs to the people who listen. Every decision about format, sponsors, and segments should serve their growth before your vanity. The point is not to become the King of Podcasts. It is to build a scrappy little republic of people who choose week after week to show up, hit record, and refuse to quit on themselves. Timestamped Overview 0:00 Cold open: Washington at twenty four, 6.88 percent of the vote, and why that should make every podcaster feel dangerous instead of defeated 1:00 The booze election: 144 gallons of rum, 391 voters, and the lesson podcasters almost always get wrong 2:15 What the rum actually teaches: leverage only works after you understand your listener, your niche, and what hooks them 3:00 The Barbados trip, smallpox, probable anthrax, and why your hard weeks are inoculation not obituary 4:15 The mass inoculation order: how Washington turned his biological L into one of his best strategic decisions and what your equivalent looks like 5:00 You build mental toughness by shipping on the weeks you least want to, not by journaling about how hard it is 5:45 The Conway Cabal: senior officers whispering about replacing him and the podcaster version of that exact scenario 6:45 Washington's response: restrained letters, showing up to the next miserable encampment, letting outcomes do the talking 7:30 Your two options when the cabal shows up: pivot yourself into oblivion or stay in command 8:00 Valley Forge: freezing troops, a brutal winter, and why your listeners are somewhere in that same cold mud right now 9:00 What it actually means to walk the camp: reading DMs, checking completion rates, finding where your audience is freezing and changing their conditions 10:00 Why a thin why produces deserters and a real why produces an obligation to the mic 10:45 Washington wins and walks away: resigning his commission, serving two terms, refusing the crown 11:30 The podcast version of giving the power back: decisions based on listener growth, killing segments you love but they skip, saying no to the wrong sponsors 12:15 Tying the bow: from 6.88 percent to Independence Day and the six lessons that connect them

    13분

  5. 6월 23일 ·  비디오

    The Founding Father Who Proves Your Small Show Is Enough

    Free podcast roadmap: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/freeresources Benjamin Franklin had no viral clips, no trending page, and no follower count. He had the right people's attention in the right room at the right time. He turned that into ships, guns, and loans that kept a revolution alive. Your small show is not a liability. It is a long game. And Franklin already proved it works. Key Takeaways Franklin understood at sixteen years old that choking the flow of information is how you destroy liberty. Every time you record something true and necessary you are stepping into a five hundred year old argument about who holds the mic. The room judged Franklin by his gout and his age. History judged him by his impact. If someone only sees your follower count they are looking at the wrong thing entirely. Franklin did not have mass reach in France. He had depth not breadth. He monetized trust not impressions. That is the playbook for every niche podcaster with a small but serious audience. Vanity metrics are the cheap seats. Your actual receipts are the clients, the partnerships, the referrals, and the revenue that the show is quietly pulling in while the algorithm crowd chases thumbnails. You do not need a million followers to fund a revolution. You need the right people paying attention and a host who refuses to shut up. Your Franklinistas already exist. One DM that said I needed this. One peer who screenshotted your episode. One small cluster of people who rearrange their day when you drop. That is the seed. Declare independence from the algorithm first. Then build something so undeniably useful that you are shaping the future even when you do not look impressive to the naked eye. Timestamped Overview 0:00 Cold open: the least sexy founding father and why he should vaporize your obsession with views 0:45 Franklin at sixteen, fake names, newspaper roasting, and the earliest version of free press as a weapon 1:45 Why recording your small show is not just content marketing: it is a very old fight about who holds the mic 2:30 The Constitutional Convention: Franklin walks in pushing 80, gout, chronic everything, and gets dismissed as the mascot 3:15 The speech that saved the signing and why the frail unimpressive old printer was the one the room trusted when it mattered 4:00 Freddy's dashboard versus Freddy's client list: what the optics miss and where the real power actually lives 4:45 Franklin ships to France: the fur cap, the plain clothes, the salon charisma, and the Franklinistas in powdered hair 5:45 What he actually did with that cult: turned gossip and chess games into ships, guns, and loans for the Revolution 6:30 Depth not breadth: the right people's attention in the right room at the right time is the whole playbook 7:15 Freedom of speech, pamphlets, newspaper wars, and where your podcast sits in that tradition 8:00 Every time you tell the truth about your niche instead of selling the fantasy you are exercising the muscle Franklin spent his life defending 8:45 Vanity metrics versus founding father level impact: the client list that looks nothing like the follower count 9:45 Your Franklinistas already exist and the three questions that prove it 10:30 The impact metrics that actually matter: retention, replies, client quality, and a P&L that beats creators with five times your audience 11:15 Fourth of July homework: four assignments for the host who is done worshipping the wrong numbers 12:30 The close and the Speke Roadmap CTA: what to do next if you know you are Franklin in France but still do not have a plan

    13분

  6. 6월 18일 ·  비디오

    The Castle Is on Fire and You Have a Podcast

    Free resources: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/freeresources Work with us: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/pricing-plans Every time regular people got a new tool, the people in power called it the end of civilization. The printing press. The typewriter. The internet. YouTube. Podcasting. Same panic. Different century. This episode is a history lesson with a blueprint attached. Name your industry's ivory tower. Map the moat. Pick a breach point. Ship the rebellion. The gates are not just open. They are on fire. Key Takeaways Every technology that lowers the cost of expression raises the blood pressure of the people who used to own the mic. That pattern has not changed in five hundred years. The castle is not the enemy. The moat is. And the moat is not what it used to be. Distribution, credentials, shelf space, capital: all of it has a workaround now. Podcasting did not kill legacy media. It killed the part that mattered most to them: the exclusive authority to decide who gets to explain the world. You do not need to storm all four walls. Pick one breach point and attack it consistently. One show. One channel. One newsletter. One wall. Ship a rebellion, not a rant. Complaining about the castle is easy. Making the castle less necessary is the actual work. Measure progress in castle damage, not likes. Who switched from legacy sources to you as their primary teacher. That is the metric that matters. The printing press let people write without permission. The internet let people publish without permission. Podcasting lets people speak without permission. You are still early to the breach. Timestamped Overview 0:00 Cold open: the printing press, the typewriter, YouTube, podcasting, and five centuries of the same panic 1:00 Show intro and the one blunt question driving this whole episode: what is the ivory tower in your industry 1:45 Before Gutenberg: who controlled the scribes, the books, and who got to be considered smart 2:30 What the elites actually said when movable type showed up and why it sounds identical to what they say now 3:15 The typewriter arrives: no scribe, no calligraphy certificate, just you and a machine 4:00 The broadcast era: spectrum licenses, expensive gear, and a handful of execs who owned the yes 4:45 The Buggles, MTV, and why Video Killed the Radio Star was actually a eulogy for gatekeeping not for radio 5:45 What the internet did to publishing and why the walls of the castle started creaking with blogs and email newsletters 6:30 YouTube: a kid with a Logitech webcam quietly pulling more views than a cable network with no casting director 7:15 Why podcasting is radio with the locks removed and what that actually means for epistemic authority 8:30 The castle structure explained: the institution, the moat, and the tiny group of gatekeepers in every industry 9:15 Your industry's version: certification bodies, trade associations, agencies, and whoever hands out the speaking slots 10:00 Move 1: Name the tower out loud on paper with no metaphors 10:30 Move 2: Map the moat and identify what they used to control that you can now bypass 11:00 Move 3: Pick one breach point and attack it with one consistent project 11:45 Move 4: Ship a rebellion not a rant and build the thing that makes the castle less necessary 12:30 How to measure castle damage: who switched to you, who landed something because your content existed 13:15 This week's assignment: one tower, one moat, one breach project in the next 30 days 14:00 The close: the gates are not just open, they are on fire, and you are still early

    17분

  7. 6월 16일 ·  비디오

    Why Discipline Will Never Fix What Is Actually Wrong with Your Creative Brain

    Learn more about Elizabeth Coles: https://www.elizabethcoles.com/ Subscribe to The Mind Madame: https://youtube.com/@elizabethdcoles?si=Sc7kTTH0j_j_DOsk Free resources from Speke Podcasting: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/freeresources Work with us: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/pricing-plans There is a team running your creative life. You did not hire them. They are called soldiers. The controller. The fixer. The guardian. The avoider. Elizabeth Coles, The Mind Madame, breaks down why discipline will never fix what is actually a wiring problem and what to do about it instead. Key Takeaways Your coping mechanisms are not character flaws. They are conditioned behaviors that kept you safe when you were young. If you were conditioned into them, you can be conditioned out of them. The controller, the fixer, the guardian, the avoider: these soldiers are useful when deployed correctly. The problem is when they run rogue on a mission you never assigned them. Fixing the symptom without finding the root is a bandaid on a broken bone. Putting a screen time limit on your phone does not fix why you are reaching for it in the first place. Your body fires first. Before the story, before the emotion, before the spiral, there is a physical sensation. That is the ignition point. Learning to catch it there is how you interrupt the loop. Timestamped Overview 0:07 Cold open: the covert team of soldiers co-opting your show and your sanity 1:00 Introducing the soldier archetypes: the controller, the fixer, the guardian, and the avoider 1:54 How long does it take to rewire patterns that started in childhood 2:19 The life jacket analogy: useful at the beach, ridiculous in a business meeting at 45 3:22 Why diets fail, why weight comes back, and why the identity was never aligned to begin with 4:30 How rejection, loss of control, and inadequacy sit at the root of almost every creative problem 5:16 The client feedback loop: tweaking, re-tweaking, and why it is almost impossible not to take personal 6:14 Elizabeth's guardian soldier, her history with coercive control, and why she will burn down a comment section to prove an ethical point 7:47 How to spot the pattern: the body response that shows up before the camera goes on for editing 9:09 Freddy on air checks with the program director and picking his worst day on purpose 10:51 Why intentionally selecting your worst work is actually a control response in disguise 12:00 What to tell the creative whose person they care about gave their best work a shrug 13:15 Why entrepreneurship challenges your identity more than almost anything else because you are the product 14:55 Selectively numb and bubble wrapping your life: why you cannot have one without losing the other 15:31 The 1% who built the Gutenberg press and the iPhone and why safety wiring is the reason most people stay on the sidelines 16:11 The porcelain toilet marketing problem and why being ahead of the conversation takes grit most people cannot sustain 17:08 The doctor who told everyone to wash their hands and went mad because nobody listened 18:19 Introducing the mechanism: discipline does not override the wiring, interrupting the wiring does 19:03 How the body fires first, what the physical sensations actually signal, and the sweater in the corner 21:11 Separating the body response from the old story and getting to the actual fact of the situation 21:34 Elizabeth's upcoming book: gamifying the five soldier patterns with characters, origin stories, deployment zones, and missions

    23분

  8. 6월 11일 ·  비디오

    Two Things That Will Save Your Podcast When Life Gets Hard

    Free podcast roadmap: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/freeresources Work with us: https://www.spekepodcasting.com/pricing-plans Podfade is real. Four shows since 2020. Over a thousand interviews recorded. And Freddy Cruz has wanted to quit more than once. Not because podcasting is hard. Because life is hard. And podcasting sits on top of life. This solo episode is short, direct, and built for the host who is one rough week away from going dark. Freddy gives you the two things that have kept him in the game no matter what was happening around him: treating your own show like a client account, and batch recording before life gets a vote. No pie in the sky guru pep talk. No ten step framework. Just the two moves that protect your show from the version of you that is exhausted, behind, and staring at a mic at 3pm with nothing. Key Takeaways Podfade is almost never about loving your podcast less. It is about life piling up on top of a system that was not built to survive pressure. Treating your own show like a client account changes the psychology completely. Skipping an episode stops being a personal fail and starts being the thing you simply do not do to clients. A client folder, a production calendar, and the same urgency you give a paying account. That is the entire framework. It costs nothing to set up. If you are recording the day before your release, you do not have a content problem. You have a systems problem. One bad Monday wipes you out. Batch recording even two or three episodes ahead removes the pressure that causes most hosts to go dark. Your future self on a rough Tuesday will thank the version of you that recorded on a Saturday. You do not have to hit your batch goal every month. You just need a system that lets you get back ahead of the curve when life catches up. Timestamped Overview 0:00 The cold open: four shows, a thousand interviews, and wanting to quit more than once 0:30 Who Freddy is and what Speke Podcasting does 0:50 Thing one: treat your podcast like a client show and what that shift actually looks like in practice 1:45 Why putting your show in a client folder with a production calendar changes everything about how you show up 2:15 Thing two: batch recording and the Monday morning nightmare scenario 3:00 How Your Mic runs biweekly, the goal of staying six or seven episodes ahead, and what a Saturday recording session actually solves 3:45 The close: leave a review, subscribe, and grab the free roadmap at spekepodcasting.com/freeresources

    3분
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Your Mic is the podcast about podcasting for new, stuck, and almost‑quit hosts. Hosted by Speke Podcasting founder and 25‑year broadcast vet Freddy Cruz, it blends hard‑earned lessons, failures, and irreverent stories with sharp tactics you can actually use. Listen on your favorite podcast app!

정보

  • 제작진
    Freddy Cruz
  • 방송 연도
    2024년 - 2026년
  • 에피소드
    96
  • 등급
    무삭제판
  • 저작권
    © 2025 Freddy Cruz
  • 웹사이트 보기
    Your Mic