Secure Your Podcast's Future: Oscar Vasquez on Estate Planning for Content Creators
Have you ever thought about what happens to your podcast if something unexpected happens to you? It's a thought that most podcasters might overlook, but it's crucial for protecting your hard work and legacy. Many podcasters don’t realize that their podcast is more than content—it’s intellectual property, a brand, and potentially a significant revenue stream.
If you are interested in securing your Podcast's future and safeguarding your assets this episode of PodcastingTech is tailored for you.
In today’s episode, Oscar Vasquez, founder of EstateDocPrep.com, explores the necessity of estate planning for podcasters to secure their digital assets and future-proof their creative endeavors. Dave dives deep into practical financial tools that podcasters can use to maximize revenue and minimize future costs.
With a career spanning 28 years in the real estate industry, Oscar is well-versed in the realm of estate planning and digital assets. He has now transitioned into helping people protect their digital and physical assets through comprehensive estate planning.
Our conversation covers everything from understanding a living trust to how it applies to digital content like podcasts. Oscar emphasizes the importance of having a plan in place, whether your podcast is a hobby, a budding business, or a full-fledged venture.
This episode is vital for any podcaster committed to safeguarding their podcast’s future and ensuring their legacy continues.
IN THIS EPISODE, WE COVER:
- The importance of digital estate planning: Oscar defines what a living trust is and why it's crucial for podcasters to consider, even if they view their podcast as just a hobby. (03:21)
- Formal business structures for podcasts: Oscar talks about how to make transitions smoother for your podcast in unforeseen circumstances. (07:01)
- Managing digital assets and credentials: Learn how to maintain an up-to-date inventory of your podcast’s various accounts and assets. (08:51)
- Lasting legacy and revenue: Oscar discusses why having a plan for ongoing revenue streams is essential for protecting your legacy and continuing any monetary benefits. (14:28)
- Myths about wills in estate planning: Oscar addresses common misconceptions and the limitations of using only a will for your podcast assets. (18:35)
Links and resources mentioned in this episode:
- Discover Comprehensive estate planning solutions - EstateDocPrep.com
- Contact Oscar's AI Receptionist: (805) 909-4689
- Get your free Estate Planning Guide: estatedocprep.com/guide
- Win a gift coupon by using code: PodcastingT for $1,000 off estate planning services for the first ten users - estatedocprep.com
- Connect and book with Oscar Vasquez via PodMatch
- Follow Oscar Vasquez on social media:
Join us on this episode as we discuss protecting your podcast's future and legacy beyond the content you create. Subscribe to podcastingtech.com and follow us on all social media platforms to receive the latest podcasting content and expert insights.
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Welcome to Podcasting Tech, a podcast that equips busy
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entrepreneurs engaged in podcasting with proven and cost effective
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solutions for achieving a professional sound and appearance. I'm
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Matthew Passi, your host and a fifteen year veteran in the podcasting
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space. We'll help you cut through the noise and offer guidance on software and
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hardware that can elevate the quality of your show. Tune in weekly
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for insightful interviews with tech creators, behind the scenes studio tours, and
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strategies for podcasting success. Head to
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podcastingtech.com to subscribe to this show on YouTube or your favorite
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podcast platform, and join us on this exciting journey to unlock the full
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potential of your podcast. Gonna do
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something very different today on the show. We are chatting with Oscar Vasquez.
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He is the founder of
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estatedocprep.com, and he's all about
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helping folks with their estate planning. And something that most podcasters don't think about
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is what happens if something were to happen to me? What happens to my show?
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What happens to my brand? What happens to this business that I've put together? And
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Oscar is gonna help us do that. Oscar, thank you for joining me today. Well,
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you know, I'm excited to bring some value and bring some thoughts into your
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head that most people don't think about.
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It's funny. I just had this thought the other day about something completely
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different, kinda unrelated, but then I realized, oh, you know, this could work really well
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with podcasting as well. So first of all, let me just ask you. Like, where
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did your interest like, how did you get you know, make your way into the
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podcasting space? Well, I went I got into the
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podcasting space because, while I first started,
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I've been in the real estate industry for about twenty eight years.
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And then what happened is I've I've started to help homeowners
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protect their homes. And then I read an
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interesting statistic probably in the summer of of this last
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summer, and I kept thinking of a way to be able
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to bring awareness. But 68% of homeowners
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do not have an estate plan, and that means that the government
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decides on what happens to your assets. And
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so I what I decided is I said, how what's the best way to be
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on a crusade that's not gonna cost millions of dollars, but
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that can give it? And I figured people don't protect their
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assets, whether they're digital or
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or economical or anything. Their assets, they
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don't protect them because they don't care about the beneficiaries
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or their kids. I think they don't protect them because they don't know how and
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that that needs protection. So I wanted to join a crusade,
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and and once again, thank you for allowing me to bring the crusade
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out and bring the information to now that people will
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know that, you know, having
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a living trust is is that. So 68%
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of people don't have it. We're on a crusade to be able to educate
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them and bring awareness to the
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living trust arena or the estate planning arena of how
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to protect your assets. So when we talk about podcast
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estate planning in this case, first of all, if I'm just doing
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this for fun, I'm doing this as a hobby, do I still have to think
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about this stuff, or is this only if, I really treat this like a business
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or money making venture? Well, I think here here's the
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here's the situation. One, I wanna define what is a
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living trust and how it could be used. Right? Because if
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if if if it becomes and there's there's some
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moments there I that because that is a loaded, but I wanna define what is
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a living trust. A living trust is a contract
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between you, which is your the the parents,
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and the beneficiaries, which are usually the kids. And
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that, the government enforces. Now
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that is a living trust. It's your instruction to your kids on what
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you want to have happen with your assets. So if your
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podcast will be monetized someday listen. I
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just created a living trust for a faceless
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YouTuber that has, like, seven channels. He's
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still generating a revenue from
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videos that he generate that he produced
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almost four years ago. So is that something
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that's necessary? That's gonna be up to you. If the if it's going
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to get monetized and there's gonna be an income and you want somebody
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to benefit from it, then that might be a wise decision
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to be able to do that. Now let me go in before is
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this something for you or not? I wanna be able to tell you what
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happens if you have an asset and you don't protect it.
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And let's just say if you're a podcaster and it starts to take off,
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you never know what topics you come up. I mean, there's trends all the
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time. However, if you have an
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asset, a podcast that starts to
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get monetized and it has and it it exceeds
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a let's just say, in Colorado, it exceeds a
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$60,000 valuation,
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it's gonna go to probate. That probate means that the court
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is going to decide on what happens to your asset.
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That's what that means. So one, if we have an
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estate plan, aka a living trust, then
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we decide the individual decides on what happens to the
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asset. A b,
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if you don't do if you don't create an estate
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plan, then the government already has a plan in place,
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which means the government decides on what happens
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to your asset. So in short, if if you really
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feel and you're committed to having a successful podcast and
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being able to create, to create an asset
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or the gift that keeps on giving because now it's a digital asset.
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Right? Digital assets live forever. They outlive
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us. They out they may outlive everything depending on the topics
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and how the world turns. So my recommendation be something
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to consider, to do that. And and if you wanna ask
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a question, specifically, we have,
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an artificial intelligence twenty four hour receptionist
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that can answer any question about your business
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or how to structure that. And if that's something that's doable, and we'll give out
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that number in a little bit. Very cool. So so,
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again, going back to podcasters in particular, should they then be
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considering more formal structures
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for their podcast to make that
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transition from, you know, them to somebody else easier?
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Or, again, if they if they're not in the business, right, they're doing this for
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fun, but they're enjoying it. It's building up an audience. Maybe somebody
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you know, maybe want they wanna pass it down. Can they just say in will,
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I, you know, bequeath my podcast to you so and so?
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You know, a will? Now that's that's that's one of the
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biggest perception of an estate planning is having a will. And the
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reason why is that a will says, I love you.
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I leave you everything. That's it. And an estate
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plan is a comprehensive estate plan that has specific
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instructions on what you want. So if
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if you have an asset, if you feel that the assets so
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look. I just got into podcasting, but I'm gonna tell
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you, starting starting to get to understand the amount
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of assets and the amount of things that come to play
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when you're creating a podcast, there's there you got advertising. You
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got revenue. So the structure should be this. So in order
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for an estate plan to be effective, the
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estate plan needs to be the recipient
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of all revenue so that way you can control it if you
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pass. So, yes, if I think that any
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podcaster that is taking this serious, an estate
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plan should be something to really take into
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consideration to protect your assets and, more importantly,
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to protect the legacy and the
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additional revenue that keeps coming in if if you
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decide to monetize it. What about the just the idea of
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planning in general? Right? You said that these podcasts have lots of different things attached
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to them. Right? I've got a, login credentials for my
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hosting plan. I've got login credentials for my Apple account, login credentials for
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Spotify, then I've got my website, then I've got my show notes
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service. How do you ensure that if you are
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passing this on to somebody else, if you wanted to live on, that
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they are able to access all those assets on your
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behalf should you pass? Yeah. You know,
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those those are called an asset inventory. One of the things that we
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started to add on add on was an asset inventory
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to social media. Like, Facebook won't give you access to
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anybody's account or any social media won't give you an access to the account
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if you're not the beneficiary or you have a written you
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have a written power of attorney to do that. So, yes, keeping
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inventory of your assets and what what you
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can do with them so you could reedit and remaster them,
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that would be something that is part of the
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estate plan, and that should be something that you should take into consideration.
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But more importantly, you wanna make the as
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the living trust is a revocable living trust
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that you need to put assets in. There's three things that make
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a as a living trust, a living document
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that make that needs to be that can be enforced by the courts.
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One, it needs to be signed in front of a notary.
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Two, it needs to be signed in front of two witnesses so that
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it's beyond reasonable doubt that you executed and those are your
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wishes. And three, more importantly, it needs
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to have assets put into it. Because if you
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don't have assets inside your living trust, if you don't say,
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hey. That the the corporation if you become incorporated
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or I own this podcast and this is my asset
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and everything in my podcast, including but not
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limited to any and all logins to
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Apple, the all the all the portions. I I'm not too well
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versed on the wording of of all the places where where podcasts
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get in there. But you put all those assets in there, and
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this is where they live, and you put in a login and password,
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that is that is some of the parts of the estate planning.
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Because if you pass or you become incapacitated,
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where do checks go? Where does the money go? And those are all
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that's why you want to put some of the majority of the
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assets. Now I've been I've have been very fortunate. I own a few
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businesses. A lot of the income goes into our
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trust as far as for our revocable trust. So
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everything is planned in case something were to happen to us. I'll give you an
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example. There was a gentleman
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that, had a bakery that we that we
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helped and created it. We may one because of the estate planning,
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he created what's called standard operating procedures for his
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bakery. And then he ended up getting key key
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person insurance because that bakery was
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he was the main person he was the main person,
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to be able to function the
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the the bakery. And so what he did is he
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got key person insurance to be able to replace him if he
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were to pass. And that insurance policy was a million dollars.
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So, for example, if you're a podcaster and you did many
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interviews and you had this on there and you wanted your podcast to
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keep living, but you wanted to generate the revenue, if you
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got an insurance policy that made
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the living trust or your trust the
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beneficiary to keep it operating,
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then that is another way on how you could create
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legacy, legacy money for for for
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your life. But your podcast keeps living on with your
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name, and your business continues to generate some revenue while
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you're not longer here kind of a thing. Right?
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Here's a here's a scenario that I'm sure comes up more often than not.
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Let's say I am I cohost a show with a friend,
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partner. It is a monetized show, right, it's making
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money. Something happens to me.
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What happens to that show? Does it automatically all go over? If, like, if there
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is no living trust, if there is no will, if there is no declaration of,
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you know, my intentions there, does basically that other person
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just gain control of the whole thing and that person's estate is maybe
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left down the cold from potential future earnings? Absolutely.
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And that happens more often than that. That's one of the scariest
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things, by not having a partnership,
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written agreement, or not putting your assets in,
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that you have a written that you have a,
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be because in order for the living trust to be to
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be be the benefit or to be able to distribute
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and take action, it needs to be the owner
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of the asset. So you need to name them, hey. I'm
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the employee or I am the I am the owner. Because
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as a living trust trustee, you control
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it, but you don't own it. The living trust does, which which
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pre, creating what's called a corporate veil,
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protects you from everything else because it's an individual
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entity, in essence. However, that can
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be prevented, by being able to add
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the living trust as the owner and the bin and then your
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beneficiaries can benefit from from that partnership.
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Gotcha. Anything else that we as podcasters
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and digital content creators should be keeping in mind when, you
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know, we're thinking about the future of our digital properties and and
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what we leave behind? You know, I think this I think
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one is that, if you if you're generating any kind
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of income, that that's passively you need to
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have an estate plan, period. You need to plan
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because if that money is gonna has the potential to
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outlive you, you need to make sure the right people get it,
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period. And I could tell you that the gentleman that I spoke to on
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the YouTube channel, he said that his YouTube he
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sold one YouTube channel for 32
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times revenue,
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32 times revenue. And I was like, wow. That's amazing. I've never
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heard that kind of a multiplier, but he said because it's a digital
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content. So if it has any kind of passive income,
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consider an estate plan. If you own a
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home, you gotta have an estate plan. If you own a home
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and you have young children, obviously, you
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already have a business if you have a podcast. Even if you're trying to do
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this, as as a hobby, it's I mean, we're doing it at sometimes
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we start as a hobby, and then we get in and it starts to gen
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you you happen to get on a good topic and you go viral with something.
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Right? So, yes, I would highly recommend that,
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something to consider. And I would love to give out I brought some
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a couple of gifts that I love to give to people, if that's okay.
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I got three gifts. I'd like to give one. I'd like to give you the
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phone number to call an artificial intelligence,
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AI, twenty four hours a day, receptionist. Ask her anything
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about your business, and she'll say how you could structure your
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business. And if you wanna speak to a human, you'll probably get transferred to me
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or one of our state coordinators. That phone number is,
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(805) 909-4689.
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9 0 9 8 0 5 9 0 9
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4 6 8 9. Now you could call
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it twenty four hours a day. She doesn't take any time off. Wafu, there's no
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power. Obviously, she's not gonna talk, but you could ask
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her anything. The second gift that I wanted to give you guys today is I
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wanna give you a comprehensive live estate
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planning guide. It has a ton of questions. It's a guide.
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It's a it's a working document that you can put in.
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Now full disclosure. If you fill in all the blanks,
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that is not a living trust. Okay? Just could you
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fill in all the questions? It's not a living trust. I wanna give you that.
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It's estate planning
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estatedocprep.com/guide.
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Estate Prep forward / guide will get that. And the
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last gift that I'd like to give you is part is a
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coupon code for the first ten users is if
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you want if you decide that you're a homeowner, you have young children, and
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your and your business is going to thrive, you wanna prevent
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yourself from letting the court decide to make
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a decision on what happens to your assets, you can get a
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$1,000 coupon code or discount code, which is
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called pod castine t, pod
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castine t. We'll put that in the description. You could
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use that. You could save $1,000. Your checkout would be for a
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lifetime access to software with unlimited
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updates. That means every time you add a digital asset,
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you'll be able to update that and be able to get that
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on on, update your living trust at no
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additional cost. Average attorneys car charge
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about $1,200 for an update on a
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restatement for a living trust. These are my gifts to you.
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Thank you for letting me have, be bring awareness
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to all the podcasters out there.
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You never know when the asset is going to outgrow
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its potential or outgrow it, and if it's gonna generate revenue, protect
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it from the government. That is very generous of you. Once again, we
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are chatting with Oscar Vasquez. He's the founder of EstateDoc
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Prep. He just mentioned a phone number for an AI receptionist, a website
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so you can get your estate planning guide, and a coupon code, podcasting t,
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to get a thousand dollars off. We will have links to all of that in
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the show notes so you can find it. But as as you said, Actfast, the
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coupon code is only good for the first ten people who are going to use
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it. Oscar, before we let you go, we have a couple questions we'd like to
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ask everybody. The first one is, is there any place in podcasting where you'd like
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to see some things improve, whether it's listening, production,
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distribution, anything in particular that, you know, you would just love to see
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podcasting do better? You know, I just I just got I just
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got into it. I could tell you that the technology, every day, I
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learn something new. You know, I've had this mic for two years, and
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I never knew how it functioned. And I learned something I
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mean, so simple, but it's gonna make my life easier. So,
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you know, I could say that, if there was something that I
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could I could tell you my experience been with podcasters
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is that there's some very gracious people out there. I think that,
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if I had to describe most of the hosts, they were all gracious, helpful,
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and kind people, and I think it's a great community. I haven't
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had a bad experience yet, and, I don't not
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today. I I don't know enough about it, but but that'll be something
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that I will take into consideration. And if I do, I I will bring that
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back to you, Matthew. Sounds great. Speed of technology, is there
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any on your wish list for your podcast, whether it's hardware, maybe even some
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software that, would make your life easier? Yeah. You know what? I just found,
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Riverside, I think, is something that's that's probably,
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the people that that produce at a high level. We we
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we will become a host probably in the next in here soon as I'm
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learning. I've learned more than I'm learning about it. I
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did get myself, you know, kinda get mic'd
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up, but as far as technology, I'm not too far in it. But, you
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know, I you know, what I would like to see is a something that can
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take the podcast information and make it into
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clips without so much editing something that maybe cut down
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editing. That would be Good news is you've
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already found that tool. Riverside does that. There are a bunch of others that well,
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so, you're on the right track. And lastly, are there any
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podcasts, one or two that you are listening to that are your absolute
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favorites, the ones that you will not let a new episode go unlistened
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or, you know, you will stop what you're doing and check them out? Yeah. You
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know what? I'd I'm I'm a big fan of Joe Rogan. I
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just I I love that. I mean, you know what? Some of his topics and
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the people that he's got on has been has been there. I'm
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starting to, you know, I'm starting to learn more and more and starting to
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see other podcasts. I like marketing podcast. I don't
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I don't not not been a diehard
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loyal fan other than to the Joe Rogan one because that's the one I usually
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go out of my way to. But I'm starting to look at listen
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to more and more. So thank you for that.
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Excellent. Well, once again, everybody, we've been chatting with Oscar Vasquez,
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founder of
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estatedocprep.com. Lots of
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great resources from him. Lots of ways where you could follow him and check out
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what he's doing on social. We'll have links to all those there. Oscar, thank you
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very much for joining us today. Thank you very much, Matthew. Thank you for having
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me and allowing me to bring this awareness to a state
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planning that most people need. Thank you. Thanks
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for joining us today on Podcasting Tech. There are links to all the
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hardware and software that help power our guest content and
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podcasting tech available in the show notes and on our website at
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podcastingtech.com. You can also subscribe to the show on your favorite
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platform, connect with us on social media, and even leave a rating and review while
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you're there. Thanks, and we'll see you next time on Podcasting
Speaker:
Tech.