General Information about our gun podcast – The first episode is the hardest

The first episode is the hardest. Not for us. Sure we struggled. We hate the sounds of our own voices. Editing is tedious (who are we kidding – we didn’t edit), and distribution is the worst. We appreciate the 19 people who listened to some portion of our Firearms Industry Podcast in its inaugural episode.

The first episode is the hardest, mostly because it was probably painful for you. 

We are a marketing agency, and we have helped others do this for themselves before. It’s a great way to promote a business, and it allows a unique connection with the audience. But, as they say: the Mechanic’s car is never running right, and the shoemaker’s kids never have nice shoes. We really understand your grace and patience, having listened to that first episode.

Luckily for us – the learning curve should be swift and easy. We know a lot of things we did wrong on the first episode and how to fix them, at least a little bit before episode two. Luckily for you, we realize that we can do better, and are adamant about improving and failing forward.

We know that we shouldn’t advertise so early on in a podcast that is trying to gain traction. We will stop that. We won’t stop advertising, we will just start to do it right, e.g. not in the first 15 minutes, and not before a real intro for the episode.

We know we should have introduced ourselves after the content information. After all, we designed this to be a service for you, the listener, and in our haste to get a product up online, we didn’t perform adequate QA on the “finished” product.

We will do that better in the future – why would we want to gatekeep our own content? Yes, we realize now how odd some of our choices were regarding “how to structure the first episode of a podcast”.

So maybe this is a “post mortem” and a white paper on “how not to structure the inaugural episode of your future award winning podcast”. Is that a thing?

Don’t worry, it’s not lost on us that we are at no risk of being mistaken for an award winning podcast.

But here is some information about our gun podcast that we think you should know if you plan on joining us in our journey.

So what can you expect from our Gun Podcast going forward?

As a veteran marketing agency, specifically attached to industries like the gun industry, a space where there are not a ton of great marketing agencies (everyone thinks because they like guns, and read a few blog posts about SEO, that they are credible marketers), we feel uniquely qualified to talk about how to make a Gun Podcast. 

Now, this is important – we recognize that we are not podcast masters. We are very good at what we do, and we have more braintrust and experience in our management team than just about any other gun industry marketing agency or consultants. We ARE masters of content. We will produce more than 10 million words of content in the firearms industry for players of all sizes this year alone. We are absolutely confident that we write more words about guns online than any other agency. We’d love to be challenged on that – we’d be very surprised if anyone even comes close. 

So, since we feel so high on our horse – we promise it’s not meant to be aggressive or cocky (just to set the scene), this is about as humbling an experience as an agency of our caliber can have. We recognize that we are raw when it comes to podcasting. 

Guns, we know. Gunsmithing. Sport shooting. How to dial in a precision long-range rifle. How to sell AR-15 parts online. How to curate content from the best contract writers on the internet about firearms, and shooting, and hunting. We can do that. But podcasting superstars, we are not. 

NOTED.

About Gun Podcast: Why would we want our gun podcast to be raw and unfiltered?

And that is the point of this podcast. Podcasting is accessible. It’s normal people showing off that they “get” how to have a conversation. It’s about the little guy (or gal), having their voice heard and being reassured that what they are saying resonates with the audience. So yeah – we have to put our money where our mouths are. We have decided to be about the rawness, and the unsophisticated, unedited production. We help entrepreneurs and businesses make polished, highly produced content online in the gun industry and beyond. And we think it’s super important that this gun podcast of ours (along with other podcasts we are producing), is raw and unfiltered and uses long pieces of content that comes out of an expert’s mouth, without a bunch of editing, and jump cuts, and the such. 

We want to connect at a level that isn’t being done right now in the gun industry. Sure there are some very good podcasts out there. And we don’t expect ours to be the #1 listen for specific topics. We are trying to be a generalist. We are trying to be an approachable space where topics can be discussed without all the pretense. We will talk about gun politics and the Second Amendment, but not in a stupid or argumentative way. We will talk about gear, but not just because we have a corporate sponsor. We will talk about shooting, but not in that arrogant way that many people are turned off by, in the old school gun stores. 

Expertise is important, but so is approachability in the gun industry

So yeah, we said it. A lot of the gun culture is annoying. We shouldn’t be pushing this stupid ‘our way or the highway’ concept for people getting into the sport of it. It’s important to maintain gun freedoms, and protect the Second Amendment. It’s important to push real expertise up onto a pedestal so that people can learn the correct and accurate information they need to progress in the sporting, and technical aspects of the industry. But we don’t have to have this ridiculous gatekeeping we do. 

So this podcast – while run by actual gun experts (the small crew that handles it have more than 60 years combined experience in the industry at the highest levels), is going to be about more than just being an expert. It’s going to try to push all areas of gun ownership and use. It’s going to try to be “available” to those who want to learn, so they can do so in a comfortable space. It’s going to try to call out stupidity in our industry, and more than anything – it’s going to try to be different. 

• We want to take a look at the business of guns. 
• We want to do a gun podcast that caters to a wider audience
• We want to incorporate other ideas that can help gun owners and interested parties to do a lot of things better
• We want to be the #1 industry gun podcast – that businesses can look to for ways to improve their best practices
• We want to be approachable, and easy to understand
• But, we still want to highlight real expertise.

So many guru’s and youtube stars and bloggers in the gun industry are not experts. They hire other, often unqualified writers to write their content. They read a couple of blog posts and rewrite that content. They find keywords and make articles and videos and yes, even podcasts in the search of traffic for those keywords instead of just writing to the audience. This perpetuates poor information flow, and the transfer of suboptimal knowledge

Google misunderstands some of the SEO, and background, and intent, and nuance of the gun industry. A bold statement for a digital agency that relies on placement in Google SERP’s to help businesses succeed – to be sure. 

It’s hard for gun businesses to advertise with a company that hates it. It’s hard for gun businesses to showcase their wares and their actual expertise when everyone is gunning for them (see what we did there?). This podcast is about inclusion. It’s about showing people that there aren’t any boundaries that need to be arbitrarily placed on the industry. 

Yes, this is a rant, in a sense. But we promise it will make sense eventually. 

Our Gun Podcast Sponsors

How to run a gun podcast online

We aren’t sure yet how it best makes sense to run a gun podcast online. But as avid consumers of great podcast content, there are only a handful of podcasters that we love to listen to in the gun industry podcast community. Too many are too political. Too many are too alike. Too many are chasing google’s algorithm. Too many only cover the news and push a specific political agenda, as if a listener cannot easily form their own opinions 

We promise, and we will state it here and now: we DO NOT care if we have a core audience of a couple hundred listeners, because it’s not about the number of listeners, or the monetization, or the rate of return, or the marketing lead generation – yes those are nice – but it’s about the love of the game. We think this thing can be done better. So here we are to give it a whack.

We are making a podcast that we will do our best to:

• Ensure that it is raw and unfiltered
• Be produced without a ton of extra stuff
• Highlight new and under-covered, underreported concepts for a gun podcast
• Make sense to all the different types of listeners we can
• Offer long stretches between commercial interruptions
• Talk about things in a comprehensive way
• Talk at an expert level off the top of our heads in an unscripted way

We cannot make our voices sound better. Though, we will probably get better as time goes by. We are proud of the fact that we can ramble on in an authoritative, unscripted way. Time and feedback will tell us if that’s a game-changingly bad idea. 

We just think that someone shouldn’t have to take 4 weeks to practice for the recording of a podcast episode. We think 2-3 hours all-in, to produce a podcast makes sense. Then it’s available, easy to understand and real – even if it isn’t as polished to the listener. 

Again, we may be wrong, but at least we will own our errors and mistakes, and the words we stumble on. We will try our best not to make our mistakes and choices become distractions and annoyances. But we promise to try to keep it real, and true, and run by absolute experts, and not just some hired guns that read a lot of blog posts and script an episode. 

About “Gun Podcast”: Why are we so sure that we are experts in the gun industry?

Well, we have been doing this for decades. We have hundreds of clients in all corners of the market, and we get paid to fix other “experts” mistakes. We also write the most indexed content on the internet from an entity perspective, on behalf of actual, recognizable names in the industry. 

We’d love for you to listen to us. See if we sound like idiots. See if what we say makes sense. See if you agree with our takes on certain things. If we suck, you can always stop listening, and tell us how bad we are; publicly shaming us. 

We aren’t afraid to admit it if we get it wrong. No, we aren’t trying to be the absolute authority on handloading wildcats. Or the preeminent experts on how to produce a ¼ minute of angle group at 800 yards on an AR-15. We know what we know, and we know that there is a lot of poor information out there. We think our comprehensive and accurate approach to talking about concepts that appeal to many different segments of the market is an appropriate one. 

We are going to call out a lot of people in our gun podcast

We don’t want to make enemies, but we are not entirely enthusiastic about poor information getting out everywhere and dominating the market. We don’t like extremists on either side, and we can admit that politics run entirely too much of the gun industry discussion online. 

Misunderstandings, poor information control and the ever-increasing profit motives are threatening our industry, maybe even as much as ridiculous legislation, poor optics in media and bad attitudes in the gun store towards new consumers looking to engage with our industry. We aren’t trying to act like a superhero that can fix it all, but we can do our part to clean up our contributions to the public discourse. 

We can also promise to tell you what is real and why, and who, among all the commentators and “gurus” out there, may not be a great resource for learning about guns or the firearms industry. 

Too many brands and blogs and “gurus” have been forced into the mainstream that are not good for the industry – at least from an honesty and reality perspective. We think we can do our part to call those imposters out. 

The rest is going to be dictated by you, the listener. We are either going to be good at gun podcasting, or we are not.You will decide. Quickly we’re sure.

We will take as much feedback as we can, and integrate those parts that make the most sense. We will continue to produce raw, uncluttered and comprehensive content on this gun podcast. We will NOT, however, sacrifice our beliefs that approachability and accuracy is of the utmost importance when disseminating information about guns to the masses. 

We do our best to protect our relationships with vendors and manufacturers and companies we consult and provide services for in the firearms industry. We want it to be clear – we are not speaking on their behalf. They may be clients of ours and they may receive consulting from us, but our opinion is not necessarily their opinion. We will do our best to uphold a certain standard of ethics and structure to ensure they are not harmed by our statements and commentary. 

So, what’s this Gun Podcast going to cover from a topical perspective anyway?

So far, this has sounded more like a manifesto than an introduction to our values and our road map for the gun podcast we are now making. So, we think it’s important to talk about what we are going to be covering on the show. 

We haven’t landed on a name really, so we are calling it “Gun Podcast” at this point. This name makes sense from a marketing and culture perspective. 

• It’s sufficiently vague, so as to give us an appropriate runway
• It’s sufficiently specific, so as to let people know at a glance whether they will be turned off, or interested in the topical considerations
• It’s easy to understand, and it still offers that bit of polarization that makes the listeners know they are part of an exclusive group
• We are trying to be as transparent as possible, but we recognize not everyone is going to love us

Here what we plan to cover in some way on this new Gun Podcast

• Firearms, as in guns, and gear, and accessories, and shooting, and hunting, and sporting events that relate to the industry
• The business aspects of the gun industry, including marketing, sales, distribution, business building and market specific concepts
• Second Amendment politics, legislation, gun rights and gun control
• Law enforcement concepts as it relates to firearms and weapons
• Military concepts as it relates to firearms and weapons
• Gun content around the internet
• Marketing as it relates to consumers in the gun industry
• Industry events and news and product releases
• Some combination of content related to gun maintenance, hunting, other outdoor sports tangentially related; prepping, survivalism, defense planning, and associated concepts
• Defensive use of a firearm, training and safety, understanding how to properly use a firearm
• General sporting uses of firearms, and other hunting, and sporting-related gear, and concepts
• Concealed Carry, Constitutional concerns and CQB, and other related concepts
• Gun blogs, content on youtube, “gurus”, “faux experts”, bad information, and bad writers in the industry
• Gunsmithing concepts – though not in-depth tutorials
• General firearms and industry discussion

Here’s an important thing to note as well. We are likely to have a few guests on the show occasionally, but this podcast is going to be anchored by a single individual, and that individual has an annoying voice. As the same person authoring this long blog post about our gun podcast – it is not lost on this author and podcast host that my voice is grating, and sometimes I am long-winded, and too matter of fact. 

It’s my hope that I can always point to this initial blog post as a place where I publicly state: I am humbled by the grace and support I have received and continue to receive from people in the industry. I will do my best not to be a jerk for the sake of just being a jerk. And if I ever get too egotistical in a public venue, please knock me down a peg or remind me that this thing is bigger than me, and that you just want to consume content that makes sense for you, and is not some agenda I’m pushing. I promise this gun podcast was meant for you, the audience, and is a way for me to give back to the gun community. If it ever seems like I have forgotten that – please call me out. 

So without more rambling – I do tend to be quite long-winded – We, as an organization, welcome you to our Gun Podcast, and we hope that we can be a place that is inviting, accurate, and comprehensive and offers a lot of value in the gun industry. Our goal is to create a gun podcast that is unlike anything already in place, and we commit to trying our best to not be sell-outs, or cause drama in the firearms space online or off.

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