DIY vs. Pro: Making the Right Call on Podcast Production Support

Knowing when to make the move. Oh, it's hard, right? I feel like it's sort of the constant question for you and I, people who are self-employed, people who are managing a team, people who are running a business and building offers and all of these elements, there's always that question of when, of timing.

Is it now? Is it later? Is it never? How do I know when it's time to bring in support, to make a change in support? That's the conversation I want to have today in regards to your podcast and growing your podcast team, making your process a little easier. We're going to talk about some of the options, we're going to talk about some of the signs it's the right time. We're going to talk about some of the signs that it's definitely not the right time. We're going to get into it. You ready? Let's go.

Welcome to The More Profitable Podcast with Stacey Harris. I'm Stacey. This is the spot to learn more about the strategies, tactics, and tools you need to build your more profitable podcast. My team and I work every day with podcasters like you to shift shows from frustrating time sucks to productive members of your sales team, because your show should be built to generate and convert leads. So let's get into it.

If there is one thing that I have been reminded in these last few months/years/every day of our life, it is that life will life. That sometimes, capacity is even more at a premium than I normally have it. It can be overwhelming. I had gotten behind in our own recording of this show. This feels so silly to share. But I had gotten behind and I had shifted back in the last couple of months to largely doing all of the post-production for the show myself.

I was doing the editing, I was doing the show notes, everything. I was reminded at how much that is to carry, and it encouraged a huge amount of batching, which I'm so glad is back because I have been able to hand the show back to my team, who by the way, does a much better job.

It really inspired me to have this conversation because so often, we work with podcasters who come to us and start working with us and experience a level of relief. It's because about a 50/50 split, honestly, they've either been working who hasn’t worked with clients in the way we do, which is A, strategy first, we meet quarterly, we talk about what’s happening with the show.

The work we do impacts other parts of our client’s business in a way that other podcast production teams might not because there’s such an emphasis on marketing and sales strategy in our production work. There's also an accessibility. There's also a line of sight over what's happening that I have learned is not universal.

Then on the other side of that, the other half of folks are somebody who's been DIYing their show. That's why I had to put together this episode because as I slipped back into DIYing my show, it made me think of the clients, and we've brought people on, even in these last few months, who fall into this category of they had been doing their own show, in some cases, for years, and oftentimes, beating themselves up when it all got to be too much, and they'd miss a show, or they'd miss a couple of weeks of shows, or even in some instances, a couple of months of shows because they just didn't have the capacity. There was too much to do.

As I felt that discomfort again that I hadn't felt in quite a long time, I was reminded how easy it is to get stuck in the idea that just keeping going, just continuing to push this particular rock up the hill, is easier than just figuring out what I need to do to not have to push this rock anymore.

So I want this episode to serve as that check-in. I want this episode to serve as a way for you to evaluate which heavy rock you want to push. Because I'm not going to lie to you, finding the right fit, making a change in your process, working inside of somebody else's system, all of that has a learning curve, all of that has an effort and a capacity that is needed so it is going to be pushing a rock.

I would argue it is a much lighter rock depending on who you partner with but it is a lift. It is something that has to be done. So what I want to do with this episode is talk through how to evaluate if it's time and if it's worth pushing that particular rock up the hill instead of continuing to push the rock up the hill, that is you working in whatever process is uncomfortable right now.

Maybe that process is working with a team who is almost a great fit. Maybe it's working with a team that is straight up a poor fit, and you know that, I've had this conversation with people too. You know it's not the right fit, but it's the fit you're in, it's the routine and the structure you're in, or on the flip side, you're DIYing it. You're holding this whole show together and pushing it up the hill.

Both are huge, huge, huge lifts, and so much capacity can be bought in solving that problem and going through the effort of solving that problem. With that said, and I think that this is an important element of this, sometimes it's worth continuing to push the rock up the hill that you're currently pushing. By that, I mean DIYing it, working with this almost great team.

I'm going to find less cases for that, I'm going to be honest. But definitely, if you're in that category where you're talking about DIYing the show and doing it on your own, that can be, it really can be the right choice in certain seasons of your life, your business, and your show.

So we will make space for that today, but I want to talk through five evaluation points, five questions to ask yourself so that you can get clear on if now is the right time. What we'll do is if you go to the show notes for this episode, I will have a PDF, a journaling page that you can download and you can fill out.

Put this in your next debrief time, put this in your next planning time. But I want you to commit to finding space to get clear and evaluate where you are now, if now is when you need to make a change, if not, now when, all right? Head to the show notes, you can find that link there to grab that just single page journaling page. It's really just going to put all the questions we ask you today in one place. Make it a little easier for you, all right?

Before we jump in, if you have questions as you go through this process, that's a great thing to bring us in The Podcast Newsroom. We've got twice monthly episodes coming out on the first and third Monday of every month. This is the place where you can get your questions answered. So submit your questions over at uncommonlymore.com/ama.

Of course, if you have not yet subscribed, make sure you are subscribed at thepodcastnewsroom.com. All of those questions are answered over on that private podcast. So you do need to set up that private feed to get access to hearing the answers to the submitted questions. Again, that's at podcastnewsroom.com.

All right, I want to dig into our first question. This one's going to be about time. Stay with me here, but be aware that if you're struggling to answer this question, the answer lies in doing the thing you don't want to do. That is actually tracking your time.

First of all, the question, are you spending more time on podcast production than the tasks that would grow your business? If you're finding that you don't have any time to do big-picture strategy, but you are getting a weekly episode of a podcast out, yeah.

If you can't find 30 minutes on Fridays to debrief your week and set up your next week, like you literally cannot find that time, you're spending too much time on production and not enough time growing your business. This is something I will be completely transparent with you. I struggle with this.

I have the entire, oh goodness, what is it now? 13 years, I've owned a business, I think it has been best in the last six years that I've run the agency, but it's something I really struggled with this summer. It's something I really struggled with this year in deprioritizing my strategic work, my internal work.

The time where we do big picture thinking, the time where we are goal setting, the time where we are looking at what's next and what could be new and what we need to improve and where we can make things better and where we can clean things up, that high-level time, I'm really, really good at deprioritizing it.

I'm really, really good at saying, “Oh, but instead I should record podcasts,” or “Instead I should do client work.” That's usually what I'm using to distract myself from growing my business is doing deliverables because that feels like it grows my business. If I don't serve the clients I have now at the highest level I can serve them, what more business development growth-oriented task could I do than serving the people already paying me, serving the people that are my wonderful, fantastic, amazing referral sources?

And that's not totally true. It makes sense. It absolutely makes sense. I see my logic and it's a really, really attractive place for me to hide. It's a really, really attractive place for me to stay comfortable and not stretch and not get visible and not show up in places that I know will serve me and not sit through the ways that I could improve or streamline or make better my business for me, for the team, for our clients.

So, I often look at when I'm talking to people, most often this comes up in intensives, I'll be honest, but when we're talking about having support and we're talking about the amount of time production is taking on their schedule, it almost ends up a place people are hiding.

It is visibility. I'm showing up. I'm sharing my thoughts but I'm also doing it in a haphazard way. I'm just getting the episode out and so in the same way that I deeply know and have experienced things like what I call procrastiplanning—and I don't think I invented the word but it's it's the word I always use. I'm sure somebody said it to me and that's why I stole it—but using planning as a way to procrastinate, because it feels, it feels like I'm super productive, I'm doing something very important, but it is just a way for me to not do the thing I'm supposed to do that day, I feel like sometimes people use their podcast in the same way.

It allows me to feel like I'm visible, but I'm not promoting the show. I'm not growing the listenership. I'm not building assets that are strategically moving the listener forward and into a decision. I'm not educating into a decision. I'm not talking about my offers, but I have a podcast, so I have chickadee checked that box.

I put an episode out every week, so I am chickadee checking, chickadee checking, chickadee checking those boxes, and none of it's moving the needle in my business, and I am finding ways to make my production process more and more elaborate by adding videos, by custom editing reels, by adding these elements to show notes, to revamping the way I handle interviews, to moving people around and making all sorts of space for people where clients should be going.

But instead, these “big name” guests are going to be because that's what's going to grow my show. But none of that is going to grow your business. This is such an easy trap to fall into. It's one of the reasons that I think production support over editing support is the solution to this one.

If as you go through and you're thinking about your time, look at how you spent your time in the last two weeks, if you have no idea, track your time for the next two weeks and see what it looks like. I really recommend trying to do a whole month if you can track your time for four weeks. I think you will get incredible insights.

It's something I used to try to do twice a year and I have not probably done it for like 18 months now and I probably really should do. Numbers don't lie. You know, we talk a lot about adding facts to feelings. This is a really insulting way to add facts to your feelings because you will see exactly how many hours you are losing, exactly how much time is getting dumped into this thing that is ultimately maybe not paying off because you're not even moving it in a direction that serves your goals.

This is not about just getting in an editor and having them clean up your audio and oh my god your whole life is going to be changed. No, this is going to be about fundamentally changing your approach to your show and that's going to be partnering with a producer who's going to take a lot more than just the edit off of you.

This is one of the ways that I think our team uniquely serves business owners, is this isn't just about taking even the editing and the show notes off, it's about building into your process, my process, which is that we come together quarterly and we make business decisions, not just podcast decisions, business decisions.

What are we selling? Who are we selling it to? How are we selling it to them? That's the decisions we need to be able to make before we can plan content. Quarterly I'm coming together and I'm talking to my clients and I'm asking them those questions and then we're building content from that.

We're building something that sits as the engine of their business, forward-facing. Do you want to know what's happening in their business right now? Go listen to their podcast. You'll know what they're selling, you'll know who they're selling it to, and you'll know how you can buy it.

What happens is when clients work with us for a long time because most of our clients have been with us for quite a while, we've got clients who have been with us for two, three, and five years, guess what? They often come already knowing these things because this habit, this structure has been built into their business.

Now we're able to have even larger conversations. Now we're able to really be leveling these things up. It's not just saying what are we selling? It’s, “Okay, I know we sell this every year because we've built these structures into their business. What can we leverage to make this better? What can we do better than we did the last time we ran this? How can we get people ready earlier? How can we down-sell folks on the back end of this launch into this new idea you have?

It becomes about looking at the big picture of their business and we get to really get bigger and bigger with that picture and refine and refine and improve and improve because we're doing this habitually. I think that's the biggest value in partnering with a strategy-focused production agency instead of hiring an editor.

Because not only are we shifting how you're spending your time, we're not just shifting you out of podcast production tasks so that you can go do these things, we're also building in markers each and every quarter for you to check in, for you to get support, for you to get ideas, for you to brainstorm, and for you to talk ideas through with someone.

More often than not, our clients who have been with us multi years, two, three, five years, they're going, "I had this idea." Then we talk it through, and sometimes that idea evolves, sometimes that idea gets set aside, sometimes that idea is just a yes, and we figure out how to implement it.

But we're able to really work through the big-picture stuff because in addition to taking this podcast to-do list off, we're having the conversations and looking at their business and marketing in a holistic way that allows us to see the real impact with those podcast tasks we've taken off their plate.

I want to dig into our next question now. Is your podcast delivering the results you want? This one's a sticky one for me because I know I cannot universally say to you that production is the solution to this.

If you are struggling to get the results you want from your podcast, I actually wouldn't recommend running right into production unless you first take some time to evaluate whether production is the problem.

In the same way, we talked about from a timing perspective, bringing in a strategic partner like us who can come in and make sure that your podcast is tied to your offers, and that we're making these decisions, again, holistically, we're looking at all of these things, we're building the podcast content from what are we selling, who are we selling it to, and how are we selling it to them, using that as the framework that we make content decisions from, that's absolutely going to help. But only if you can answer what are we selling, who are we selling it to, and how are we selling it to them.

Sometimes I find that that's actually the problem. Somebody is maybe too early in their business, maybe too early in their offer development, to be able to firmly say, "I know what I'm selling. I know who I'm selling it to, and I know how I sell it to them." Because maybe you do think you can answer that question, but there's a disconnect.

The who is not interested in the what, or they don't understand the how. I would say it's more often a who and a what problem, to be honest. Your offer is a mismatch for the audience. Your audience isn't in a place to invest in the kind of high-level offering you want.

The one I see this with a lot, again, this tends to come up for people more in an intensive place, but we have had people interested in working with us for production and on their sales calls, we've gone through our conversation and I've got, “No, you need a sales coach. You need a consultant who can help you build out your offer.”

Until you understand those things, yeah, keep DIYing your show. What I want you to do instead is get support in building out that offer. Get support in refining who your audience is. Make sure your offer and your audience are a match. If you want to continue podcasting while you're doing that because I do think it can be a good way to test messaging, it can be a good way to feel through the language and work through, it's literally talk out and evolve your messaging and your marketing, I think it can be great, but do it as simply as possible.

DIY, keep it real simple. Keep your edits to a minimum. If you really, really don't want to edit audio, maybe hire somebody to handle your editing for you. But simplify your process and just get that show out. Because again, it can be a great way to be testing messaging. When you're testing messaging, it's not the time to hire a production partner. 100% not.

If you want to sit down with somebody so that you are creating things as aligned as you can be as you fully test out your offer suite, intensives are great for that. Podcast Strategy Intensive with me is a great solution for that, but I would not recommend anything more than that from a production support standpoint.

Now, if you're somebody who's been in business for a few years, you know your offers work, you have no problem selling your offers, but you find that your podcast is not what's coming up, they're all referrals and none of them ever listen, they're shocked you have one, we've got a marketing problem. We're not marketing the podcast enough. We're not talking about it like it’s an offer, first and foremost.

But more importantly, the content of the show is not built to sell. You've built something parallel to your business, instead of truly integrated into your business, into your marketing, and into your sales cycle.

In that case, a production partner like us can be a great fit for all the reasons we talked about when we were answering the last question because we're looking at it holistically. We're looking at it from a big-picture sales and marketing perspective, not just something to feed the content machine.

We're looking at ways to create assets. We're looking at ways to build something that we can use again and again. We're building things that can go into email sale sequences. We're building things that can go into our social media content library. We're building things that we can do more with that can be there in the middle of the night when our prospective client is stressed out and searching Google and trying to find their answers, they can find us.

They can find their answers. They can find their solution because that's their 24/7 whenever they're ready. To be doing that, to be building those assets consistently, that's where a strategic production partner can be hugely beneficial. But only once you have a firm understanding of what you sell, who you sell it to, and how you sell it.

The last question I want to cover here in the show, and I'm going to put two bonus questions in that PDF in the show notes, but the last question I want to cover here is what if the show is delivering the results I want but I want more?

Is it time to scale your show as a part of scaling your business? This is the one that I think is the biggest line in the sand for me. If you're looking to scale your business, you have to be willing to invest in high-level production support.

If you are somebody who wants to scale your business and you have a podcast, you have to be outsourcing your production work, ideally to somebody who's also thinking about this at the same high level you are.

You're not going to get that from a freelance editor and your VA doing your show notes, which can be a great solution when you're growing and even stabilizing. When you're first figuring this stuff out, when you need to get the minutia off your plate, you need to get the tasks off your plate so that you can show up and record and you can show up and promote.

You need to get some of that middle-production, post-production work off your plate. Cool. But when you're talking about really meaningfully growing and seriously scaling your business you are going to need a strategic partner.

That's going to mean looking for somebody who is strategy-focused. Who can come to you with ideas, who can challenge your preconceived notions of what's possible and what's not possible. You need somebody you can truly partner with for your show.

That's where bringing in, again, a strategy-focused production partner can pay huge dividends. It's one of the reasons we sit down with our clients quarterly. It's one of the reasons we have a dashboard where clients can communicate with us anytime. It's one of the reasons that our production clients talk to me.

You're not coming in and you hear my voice on the podcast and then you get handed off to your production expert and you never hear from me again. No. If there's a problem, you email me. I respond to that email. If there's a question or an idea, you and I discuss it.

That kind of partnership I think pays huge dividends and I'd highly recommend if you're sitting down and asking yourself the question, "Am I ready to scale this podcast? Am I ready to scale this business? Am I ready to reenter a growth cycle for both podcast and the business?”

If the answer is yes, then it's time. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it, it's time. Okay, I am going to put the link to the PDF with these three questions and two bonus questions in the show notes. Grab yours, work through it, but most importantly, know that we do have space to partner with another podcast.

This doesn't happen all the time. We were full for much of this year. We have had some clients roll off and close their business, which is very, very exciting because they stepped into some really incredible opportunities.

But what's cool about it, is it means that we have space for you. So I would love to sit down and have a conversation about what partnering with our team looks like. Head on over to uncommonlymore.com/production. Book a time for you and me to have a chat, talk through what's happening with your show, talk through your business, talk through what working with us looks like, and let's kick this off. Again, uncommonlymore.com/production. I'm super looking forward to talking to you, and I will see you right back here next week.

Thanks so much for listening to this show. Remember that content consumption does not make changes, so commit to doing something from today's episode. Maybe it's taking action on what we talked about. Maybe it's reaching out to me and learning more about Podcast Strategy Intensives or what podcast production looks like with our team. All of that is over at uncommonlymore.com.

If you haven't yet signed up for The Podcast Newsroom, I want to remind you that is a great next step. If you're not really sure what comes next, hang out over there. Get those exclusive private episodes. That's over at podcastnewsroom.com. The last favor I will ask, because social proof is endlessly important for sure, is to leave a rating and review for the show. If you go to ratethispodcast.com/more, that's the easiest way to do it. But I would love to hear what you thought of the show, what you think of the show, and if the show has been helpful for you. I can't wait to chat with you. This is just the start of the conversation. Reach out so we can keep it going. Talk soon.