What Is The AI-Powered Human Video Podcast Challenge?

Full video transcript

Darby says he’s wanted to do this video podcast challenge for a few months. It’s been in his head as he’s processed the growth he’s experienced over the past three years in communication and other areas by getting more comfortable speaking on video, specifically with YouTube in mind. Over the past six months to a year, he’s noticed a growing trend toward more video podcasting, since it’s one of the most effective and most leveraged forms of content — you can create it once and repurpose it in many different ways. If you’re an expert or thought leader on a specific subject, video podcasting is a great way to put your face online, connect with your ideal target market, and build a relationship by putting a real face to your content. Of course, there’s still a place for faceless channels and outlets for media and consuming content, but specifically for this video podcast challenge, the goal is to put faces on camera — whether using an iPhone or a $10,000 Sony camera, it doesn’t really matter — as long as you’re progressing forward, putting content out there, and doing so in a structured format where you can define what success looks like.

The way Darby is defining success for himself in this challenge is by launching a mini season of episodes that are congruent and aligned with his book launch, since he wants all of his content to resonate with that. He mentions watching the new season of True Detective: Night Country and noticing that at the end of every episode of a show they clearly invested a lot of money and time into, there’s a companion podcast that goes deeper into what’s happening in the show. He suggests doing the same thing if you have a book launching, a course, or anything else you’re leading a conversation on in your industry — a video podcast is a great way to do that for yourself, but also a great way to build new relationships and connections with other influential people who could be valuable to collaborate or do business with.

The video podcast challenge itself is going to be simple, similar in structure to the initial 7-Day Book Challenge, but as more of a framework you can apply over a 5 to 30 day range depending on your comfort level and how much time, resources, or a team of editors you’ve already invested. It starts with your why: day one is finding your why and getting crystal clear on what that is. Once you’re clear on that, the next step is casting the vision behind that why — what you’re going to rally yourself and anyone working with you around. Once you can define that vision, the next step is identifying the separate goals within it and what success is ultimately going to look like — whether that’s building one new relationship a week with a podcaster or industry leader, for example.

In Darby’s case, he’s doing this solo, producing a 10-mini-episode series based on different sections of his book, so it won’t require booking a bunch of appointments, though he encourages others to consider leveraging other people’s audiences and networks by opening up those conversations. Once you set your goals, you turn them into actions — which tools to use and when. He mentions you could use an iPhone, or a free tool like Anchor (a Spotify-owned platform) to launch a voice-only podcast on Spotify, but he’s going to be using YouTube, creating a podcast playlist on the Gen AI University channel with a clear start and finish. He’s also using a tool called Opus Pro for repurposing content, clipping, and editing — something he says a lot of professional editors use to streamline their process — plus a platform called Riverside that he’s been exploring, which he says has much better recording quality than Zoom, and Descript as well. He notes there are plenty of cost-effective tool options and encourages people to test out whatever works for them, whether that includes investing in microphones or cameras or not.

Once the action steps are lined up, the next stage is making an impact and measuring that success. For his own season, Darby is producing a 10-episode series he’s calling “The Buyer Brief Podcast”: episode one is an introduction to the buyer brief, episode two covers the MarketSauce method, episode three is the buyer blueprint, followed by the strategic brief, the branding style guide, micro-content questions, and an implementation guide — to which he’s also adding the “$100 million workflow” — before wrapping up with additional resources and final thoughts. That will be season one; he says he’s not considering a season two until season one proves successful, and if it flops, he’ll take a different approach rather than repeat it. He’s confident he can film all of the content in one or two sittings, roughly 2 to 4 hours once research is pulled together, getting it done in about half a day.

From there, he plans to upload the content to different tools for processing and show everyone how to edit it quickly, encouraging people to bring teammates into the challenge so they can learn the process too — letting AI tools handle a lot of the heavy lifting so you can get something up and running, then start cutting it into micro content. He suggests not posting everywhere, but picking a few platforms where your audience is actually active — YouTube and LinkedIn as a combo, for example, or Instagram or TikTok — since you know your audience better than he does. Inside the challenge, participants will build buyer briefs that outline their audience so they can create content that speaks to their pains, fears, desires, and the things holding them back — building trust and relationships while leveraging time more effectively. Darby closes by inviting people to join the challenge: video podcast challenge, AI human podcast machine, let’s rock and roll.