Topsail Insider, LLC!

Topsail Insider Intro and Coming Up

Christa 0:02

Welcome to the Topsoil Insider Podcast , where you can hear all about the businesses and events in the beautiful coastal towns of the greater Topsoil area of North Carolina Coming up . Today's episode is all about Topsoil Insider because Topsoil Insider just became an LLC . I'll talk about why I do it , how you can do it too , the new website , all the new series coming in 2024 , the services I offer and pricing and , my favorite part , how you can get involved . Stick around ,

Sponsor: Saltwater Suites

Christa 0:41

experience a new level of luxury on Topsoil Island at Saltwater Suites in Surf City , north Carolina . With no nightly minimum , you can enjoy short getaways or an extended stay . Each suite features luxury bedding , full kitchens with dining tables and dishwashers . In all suites other than the 3 ADA suites have full-size washers and dryers . And don't forget about those beautiful ocean views . 24-7 Self Check-In provides a hassle-free and seamless experience . Saltwater Suites is the perfect choice for your next speech getaway . Book your next Topsoil visit at saltwatertopsilcom . You'll call 910-886-4818 . Saltwater Suites , topsoil Island's premier luxury hospitality experience .

Episode Introduction

Christa 1:32

Hello everyone , welcome to the Topsoil Insider podcast . My name is Krista and I am your host . Today I am interviewing no one . I am going to tell you all about Topsoil Insider . I have now published 22 episodes and , as of last Tuesday , topsoil Insider is now an LLC . When I interview folks , they always ask questions about how long I've been podcasting and why I chose to do it , and so I thought I would take some time today to explain things to everyone all at once , while also introducing some of the upcoming series that are in development talk about the new website . Talk about ways that we're going to get the audience to participate . We're going to talk about sponsorships , advertising , my interview process ,

How we Landed in Hampstead

Christa 2:14

all of it . So a little bit about me . I grew up in North Carolina on a farm . I am a country girl through and through , but after graduating high school , I did head out west to California and I attended school in Los Angeles so I could pursue jobs in the entertainment industry . I fell in love with Southern California and I stayed out there for 25 years , working in and around the entertainment industry in film , television , sony Studios , animation departments and animation schools . But eventually I got married , I started a family , and we just realized that California was no longer right for us , and so we headed back to where we were both familiar the East Coast . So my entire family is still here in North Carolina . My husband trained in Virginia . He was Marine Corps , he trained in Virginia , he was stationed in Buford , he actually studied in Florida and he has family in Florida , so it just made sense for us to come back here . We took a road trip from North Carolina to Florida . We passed through Wilmington and those old homes and the downtown area caught our eye and we started researching the area and we landed in Hampstead

Why I started Topsail Insider

Christa 3:20

and we absolutely love it here . The why for creating Topsoil Insider podcast ? There's a couple of reasons . I have a strong entrepreneurial drive and so I've started and stopped several different small businesses . My favorite took a dive when COVID hit . I loved that one and I still want to return to it one day . But each time I try I learn valuable business lessons . I have so much respect for people who really put everything on the line . They invest money , time , energy , their family's time and energy to build a dream , to start a business , and it's scary and I want to reach out and help those people get seen and heard . Topsoil Insider podcast is really three things for me . Number one is my way to return to the entertainment field again in a way . I love recording , I love editing , publishing , I love the deadlines . I love meeting the amazing people along the way that I'm interviewing . Number two is my way of helping entrepreneurs to get the word out about their business , to share their passion , to share their stories , to let folks get to know them and want to come in and meet them and ultimately shop local . The third reason , and probably the main reason , is I am a mom of two boys , nine and eleven . So I'm in all the mom groups on Facebook and , without fail , there are at least one to two posts in those groups per week Saying we're so excited to be moving there in two weeks or two months and can anyone tell me where to find this service or where to eat for this occasion . Or they're requesting information about the schools in our area , which are superb . Rather than answer these questions over and over in these groups , I decided to create a library for folks to tap into to get those questions Answered . So building the library is very slow moving . I'm doing one interview per week right now and only 22 episodes in so far , but over the next few years I'll have created a great library for anyone looking to find a plumber and electrician , spa , nail salon , restaurant . They'll be able to listen to two or three or hopefully more options and pick the one that Resonates with them the most , that they want to do business with . With pender County Schools permission , we're also entering production on a top school series . We'll be interviewing the teachers , the staff at each top school school in the top school district to talk about their achievements , their goals , their school culture and such . This library is for three groups of folks . Number one is for locals . The locals who have lived here for a very long time and are sort of Stuck in a routine and they are unaware of all these new businesses that are coming into greater topsoil . This is for vacationers who come here for one or two weeks per summer and they can learn about the things to do here besides enjoying our beautiful beaches and they are beautiful , but sometimes they're rainy days and so they're on the socials asking what to do on those rainy days . Well , we have a lot to offer them Besides our beaches , so we're going to let them tap into this resource as well . And for perspective Residents , those that are moving here and trying to figure out what is available to them before they actually make the move . They're asking questions about the neighborhoods and the schools and the local resources . So I want to speak to them , and While we are overcrowded and we're suffering some growing pains in our area , these people are moving here anyway and they're reaching out and they're asking for these answers , and sometimes they just aren't able to get them on social media or they're being met with Some negative

Topsail Top Ten!

Christa 6:59

responses saying don't come here . Well , but they're coming here anyway . We must accept that , and so I'm creating a resource for them as well . So topsoil insider has a couple of new series coming out . If you're a listener , you've been exposed to the Wilmington series , and we just had our first series where we interviewed Cape Fearless Extreme , so check out that episode if you missed it . It's a wonderful adventure in the trees where you're doing ziplining and ropes courses , and they even have a paintball facility there . The one I'm most excited about right now is the topsoil top 10 . So we are gearing up for a new element of topsoil insiders called topsoil top 10 , and I'm really looking forward to this and I hope it's as much fun as I anticipate . I will be announcing topics for the audience to vote on , like best restaurant , bar , salon , spa , mechanics , electricians , etc . I'll give a deadline for voting and once the votes are in , I'll create an episode Counting down the top 10 and hopefully maybe having an interview with the vendor in that number one spot at the end of the countdown . If you do not make the top 10 list , then my goal is to get you interviewed so that the listeners can learn about you and your business and we can push you to get listed the following year . This episode won't only be about the businesses , though . We will incorporate some fun topics like the top 10 ways to help preserve the sea turtle population , or the top 10 things to do on rainy Days , or the top 10 winter activities top 10 best Christmas lights in the area . There may be some slightly controversial episodes like top 10 things we wish people knew about driving on highway 17 , or the top 10 reasons to avoid an HOA Top 10 list why I loathe our population boom like we're gonna have some fun with it . We want some witty comments . We want some really good ideas that can be fun and kind of make light of those controversial issues . I'm looking for suggestions for these topics from our wittiest folks in the topsoil area . So

“Send a Voicmail” Feature on our Website

Christa 8:55

if you have some top 10 topic suggestions , please email top 10 at topsoilinsidercom . I'll give you full credit in the announcement for your topic . To hear these topics , you need to either go to topsoilinsidercom and join the mailing list , or you need to find and follow us on Facebook or Instagram . I'll be making the announcements via those platforms . To vote , you will need to email top 10 at topsoilinsidercom . You cannot vote on the social media platforms , however , because that would give away our answers to the top 10 countdown . But the most fun way to vote is to go to topsoilinsidercom and click on send a voicemail , record your vote there and you can listen and rerecord as many times as you like . You want to state your name or you can keep it anonymous .

Wilmington and Crystal Coast Series

Christa 9:42

You might want to say which part of topsoil you live in whether it's Holly Ridge or Hampstead or wherever and you want to state the topic that you're voting on and your one answer . So don't give me 10 answers . You're gonna give me the topic and then your answer . For that , your answer

Topsail School Series

Christa 9:59

just might be chosen to be a part of the top 10 countdowns . So make it good and make it fun . I'm most looking forward to these voicemails , so you can leave me voicemails for that , or you can leave voicemails for other things as well , like show

Faith Series

Christa 10:11

or episode feedback , businesses you would like to hear interviewed . If you would like to co-host anything , have at it . I want to hear from you About our new series . So we're venturing up and down the coast from Topsoil . So we've already mentioned the Wilmington series and Cape Fearless Extreme . There will be others to follow . We haven't launched our Crystal Coast series yet , but that is also coming in 2024 . And I'm in the process of building relationships . As far north there's Beaufort . Already mentioned is the Topsoil school series . This series will take me about a year to complete and once completed , if Pender County schools are happy with the content , then I'll offer it to other schools in all of Pender County . I'm pretty excited about that . We will also be offering a faith series .

Services Offered Starting with our Business Interviews

Christa 10:55

Again , many folks are in those Facebook groups asking about churches , and I'll be incorporating a new faith series that's going around and speaking to church leadership and finding out about their particular denominations , their service types and times . The programs offered , like youth groups , bible study groups , communion , homecoming missions , vacation , bible school is a big one . This series is currently in pre-production , however , and won't be launched until 2024 . And I'm looking for co-hosts to assist with this series . So if this is something you are interested in , please reach out to me . You can email me at Christa at topsoilinsidercom . I would love to hear from you so talking about the services that Topsoil Insider offers right now and may be coming in the future . Obviously , we're interviewing business owners and founders , and directors of nonprofits and directors of special events . It is free to be interviewed . You just need to be open and willing to talk and share your story . If you're interested in being interviewed , please go to topsoilinsidercom and click on the register to be a guest tab . Fill out that form . This auto generates a release form , so be aware of that . But please know that you get final approval of your episode . You get approval of the questions and talking points . You get edits on the edited episode before it goes live . If you're completely unsatisfied with your episode and you don't want it published , I won't . If you're not happy with the episode , I'm not happy with the episode . This is about helping you and I will not do anything that you feel might hurt your business in any way . So you get final say on everything . My goal was to interview folks in their places of business , but I found it very difficult to control sound in their spaces , and so I created a home studio that is working quite well . Now you need to be willing to come to my home in Hampstead to be interviewed . The studio is in a room just after entering the front door , so you're in and out in one hour . I am working on remote recording but I'm not there yet . There have been recent integrations within my editing software that allows for better sound quality than I can get from Zoom , so that's definitely on the to-do list . I have several folks that are waiting for that option , but we're just not there yet . Just to touch briefly on the process if you're going to be interviewed once you reach out to me or I reach out to you and we decide that you're gonna do the interview , I do require a 20 minute phone call so that I can learn more about you , I can hear your conversing style and I can gather the main talking points so I can build the episode . Once we hang up , I will build that episode out , I will PDF that and email it to you where you can review it and decide if you want anything added or deleted . And then , when you come in for the one hour interview so you come over , you sit down , I get you mic'd up and I get your headset on and we start talking . We go over last minute notes and changes and then we hit record . Once we hit record , we record for about 40 to 45 minutes . Sometimes they go long cause I like to talk , but the goal is to get you in and out in one hour After you leave . I give my editor , jim shout out to Jim , he's amazing I give him my raw recordings and he turns it into something wonderful and I send that back to you for final review

Sponsorships - Baked In

Christa 14:21

Once you listen . At this point you can have me remove things like I don't like that sentence or if we can take out that little section , that's fine . I can do that myself , even without sending it back to Jim . And then , once you email saying that I approved this episode to be published , then I will put it up on my RSS feed and push it out on socials on a Friday morning . And that is my process , not scary . And , by the way , when we're recording , you can stop and start as many times as you want . You can take a breath . You can say cut that , I don't like the way I sound , let's start over . You can take a beat . We can start sentences over , paragraphs over . We can just start over , so there's no fear involved . It's all edited . Feel free to come in and make mistakes and jump around and laugh and have a good time . Okay , regarding sponsorships , I allow for only two sponsorships at a time . As the relationship is more involved

Advertising - Dynamic

Christa 15:10

than just advertising , I ask for a minimum three month commitment from my sponsors . You are listed as a sponsor on TopsoilInsidercom with ad copy and contact information . Your business name , tagline and contact information are in the show notes of each episode . Your logo is displayed under sponsored by on my Facebook page . You're also listed on my Instagram and ex account as a sponsor . You are baked in at the top of each episode , meaning that your ad will run in that episode so long as the episode exists . I create your ad for you at no additional cost and the ad rights are yours after the partnership ends . That is $100 per episode . Advertising I have three advertising spots per episode . There's a pre-roll at the top before the Topsoil Insider intro . That is $50 per episode . I have a mid-roll in the middle of the episode . This is the most listened to spot . That is $75 per episode . And then there's a post-roll at the end of each episode . That is $25 per episode . I ask for a one month minimum

Audio Commercial Production

Christa 16:19

for advertisers . I will be discussing the ad production in just a few minutes , so stick around for that . These ads are dynamic rather than baked in . So your ad will run in all the published episodes , from episode one until the current episode . But this means that once you tell me to pull your ad from Topsoil Insider , it is pulled from all episodes two . So I require a pre-payment the first of each month for running that full month . You can pay with a credit card A link is provided in the electronic invoice for you or you can pay via Venmo . Regarding the sponsorship and advertising fees , these fees are subject to change , but these fees that I just announced , they are good through March of 2024 . So let's talk about creating those ads . My audio commercial production I create audio only commercials for your business . The fees are based on your level of involvement and there are three elements to the production . There's the writing , the recording and the editing . My fees are built like this right now , but they are also subject to change . Right

Start Your Own Podcast

Christa 17:23

now it costs you $50 for writing the commercial . If I do it for you , it's $50 to come into the studio and record and it's $50 for the editing . These fees are again good through March of 2024 . If you want to save money and write the copy yourself , that's totally fine . Just keep it between 30 and 45 seconds , or I can write the copy for you . We can record in my home studio . You can read the copy , or I can read the copy , or you can bring friends and family in If you want them to read the copy . It's your choice . It doesn't change the recording fee , however , for editing , either I or my super awesome editor , jim , will edit the commercial for you . We'll add in some sound effects , we'll add in some music and then we will deliver that to you for review so you can come back with any changes that you won't made . If you want to run the ad in Topsoil Insider only , there are no other fees regarding production . If you want to purchase the recording for use outside of Topsoil Insider , you'll need to pay an additional fee to get full rights to that commercial . Then you can choose to run that commercial on other podcasts or other audio broadcasting platforms . At that point it will be completely yours . That fee is $200 . Another service that I'm offering is my podcasting space and some training . So if you're interested in starting your own podcast and I hear this a lot like I've always wanted to start my own . You are welcome to come and try it out before investing money into your own equipment and space . So podcasting is a great sales tool for anyone who owns a business

Posterity Recordings and Senior Series

Christa 18:50

. Many business owners who used to blog are now podcasting to get the word out about their goods and services . Or maybe you want to podcast about your favorite hobby or break down episodes of your favorite TV show . Whatever your passion is , podcasting is a great way to share it and also find other folks that share this same passion with you . You can use my equipment and space for the recording and I'll be there to help you along the way with training and recording . This service is $50 per hour for both the recording and also the training . We will not dilly-dally . I'll get right to the point . I'll tell you all the things that I've learned along the way and that will help you get started and up and running in no time at all . Anything that you record in my home studio , I'll drop those raw recordings into a dedicated drop box for you . Afterward you have access and own those recordings . You can edit yourself or I can train you to do that as well , or you can do like I did and find a great editor to do it for you . My editor , jim , is wonderful and I highly recommend his services . This information is listed in my show notes of every episode . I'm also doing something called , and I haven't started this yet . This is new or this is coming soon , in 2024 . I'm doing something called posterity recordings and maybe a possible future senior series . I love seniors and I once started a driving service for seniors , getting them to and from their doctor appointments and such , as well as assisting with the like grocery shopping and delivery . I got really close with a few of those and they really find a way into your heart and they're just so full of wisdom and they're not heard and I want to make them heard . I'm actually planning to reach out to the senior center soon and see if I can go and just teach the seniors in there how to listen to podcasts and find podcasts that suit their particular needs , because there's so much out there and it's better than the radio or TV . You actually get to choose your content from millions of different podcasts . I want to go in there and sit down with them , teach them how to use their phones . There is an app on

Future Plans and Final Thoughts

Christa 20:57

all of their phones already . They just may not know it's there or how to use it and then teach them how to search and find the podcast that's meaningful to them . Thinking about these seniors , especially my own parents , I came up with posterity recordings . I will have a set list of questions to ask your favorite seniors . What advice would you give your younger self ? What is your biggest regret in life ? What advice do you want to give your children and your grandchildren ? Tell me about your first love . What advice do you give for a long happy life or a long happy marriage ? What is your favorite memory from childhood ? There's so many questions and you can even write the questions yourself if you want . You can ask the questions or I will do it for you if you'd like . I'll bring my equipment to their homes and I'll get them comfortable and we'll just sit back and record as long as they want to talk . Then I'll have those recordings edited , I'll add some pretty music and make it really beautiful and I'll share that final edit with you to keep forever . The recording is $50 an hour . This does not include the travel time , as long as it's in the greater topsoil area and it doesn't include set up and breakdown of equipment . That's on me . I'll do that . But for every hour that we record with your senior it is $50 . The editing is going to be an additional $100 and that's total the final edit , the recording . It should not exceed 60 minutes . Okay , so $100 total for the editing , so long as it does not exceed 60 minutes for the final edit , and if the content is wonderful and it's something that you don't mind sharing , I would love to push some of these out as a senior series down the line . It's just something I'm thinking about . It could be pushed out anonymously no names , use a fake name or whatever . But I just know that there's going to be so much gold in these recordings and if everyone agrees to share them , I would love to push them out and share that at just honoring our seniors . We've come to the end of what turned out to be a much longer episode than I anticipated , but I would like to talk about future plans . I always ask this of my guests , so I'm going to ask it of myself . My primary goal is to get all these new series up and published in 2024 while I'm still

Contact Information

Christa 23:10

going to be serving my first love greater topsoil businesses and events . You will not get lost , I promise . My long-term and admittedly rather lofty goal is to have my own brick-and-mortar recording studio and podcast production network . I would love to have a professional studio one day where people can come in and record not just audio but also video something that I'm not interested in personally for myself , but I know others definitely are . I want to have the option for them but also a podcast network where I have podcasts under one umbrella network that we push out together and advertise together , and so forth . I learned a term from my last employer I want to give a shout out to the Brigances and Liberty Disposal Particularly , I learned the term drinking from the fire hose . Well , I have been drinking from the fire hose since I started this last March and this is my 23rd episode . I have a lot more drinking to do , not of the alcohol beverage kind , but from that same fire hose before opening a studio . But , as Ms Cookie Tilman taught me , when you're doing something you love , you'll never work another day in your life , and this is something that I truly love . So I'm loving what I'm learning , I love podcasting and I love the people that I'm meeting along the way . So for my final thoughts , I just ask that you keep listening . Please offer me some feedback and suggestions . I want to hear this from you . I want to become better . I want to make Topsoil Insider the best that it can be . I want to offer you valuable and really fun content . So I do want to hear from you . Please reach out , leave those voicemails , send me an email , give me a call , send me a text message . I don't care . I love podcasting and I love where I live and I thank the listeners and I thank the folks that have allowed me to interview them and I thank you for sharing your story with Topsoil Insider and our listeners . My contact information is as follows so you can reach me . You can call me or text me 910-800-0111 . My website again is topsilinsidercom . You can email me at christa at topsilinsidercom and remember , for our Top 10 list , any topic suggestions or voting , you're going to email top10 at topsilinsidercom . Please find and follow me on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter , which is now X , and also YouTube . So thank you , listeners , for joining us today . As always , I really appreciate it and I will see you around Topsoil .