How a Strategic Approach to Your Podcast Can Change Your Business

Stacey Harris: Too often on this show, I'm doing you a disservice. I am talking about podcast strategy too often in a silo. And so today I want to walk you through some of the ways that taking the time to build your plan and build your show strategically impacts the totality of your business. And frankly, some of the things that can be created when you take the time to be focusing on the strategic role your podcast plays in your business. Welcome to the More Profitable Podcast with Stacey Harris. I'm Stacey, and 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.

Stacey Harris: Obviously, we talk a lot about strategy. We talk about it in this show, we talk about it in every way we work with our clients. But one of the things we don't talk about is how the podcast strategy process can really sit in your business as sort of a small bite strategy structure. Meaning this can be your on ramp to really thinking and processing through your business differently. You have an opportunity with podcast strategy to build a structure that sort of forces you, encourages you maybe to think through things in your business a bit differently. It prompts you to ask questions that you might not be asking right now. And I say might because I am a wildly generous person. I say might, but I know it will because it does.

Stacey Harris: It's happened in every instance of working with our clients. We hear about this again and again, and we're going to talk about some of the ways that's happened today. Because this is one of those elements that I haven't done a good enough job of telling you about. Because it so often feels like an afterthought to me, because it is just so ingrained in how we work with our clients. It's so ingrained in how I approach calls with our clients. It's so fundamentally built into our process that sometimes I miss it. And I want to highlight that this is one of the big values of getting out of your own head, processing this stuff through with someone else. I was sitting down recently with some peers of mine to talk through our business.

Stacey Harris: We meet monthly and we connect and we sort of get feedback from each other, decompress with each other, and just get some perspective. And this is incredibly important to me because it is impossible to give yourself perspective. It is impossible to get a shift or a different view of what you're trying to work through when you're the only one working through it, when you're doing it in a silo. And so lean on your people, lean on your coaches, lean on your service providers, lean on your peers and your colleagues and your biz besties and your mastermind people and whatever else you have in your life to help you process this stuff. And, oh, by the way, this is a big part of our work with our clients. This is one of the things I'm endlessly grateful for with our clients is we have built into our structure where we do this regularly with them, where we process regularly with them. And that's one of the big benefits. A great way to connect with other podcasters is coming up.

Stacey Harris: Before we get too far into the episode, I do want to remind you we've got our October Podcasting for Profitability Roundtable happening today. Like, if you listen to this, the day it released, it's happening that day and our final one for this year happening in November. So if you want to head over and join us, you're going to want to go to Uncommonlymore.com Roundtable. This is a great place to start getting some of that feedback. We are structuring these as Q and A style calls, which means they're your opportunity to come in and ask questions and get my perspective on something that's going on. Oftentimes in the chat, you'll also get perspectives from other podcasters. Building the kind of show you're building. Building a show built to generate, educate and convert right fit clients where it's not about growth for growth's sake, it's not about farming yourself an audience so you can sell them to advertisers.

Stacey Harris: It's about building an audience and building a relationship with that audience so that they convert into your services and become customers and become advocates for you referrals all of that. Again, Uncommonlymore.com Roundtable is where you go to reserve your seat. November will be our last one for this year, so I would love to, love to love to have you join us again. Any questions are welcome. And what happens is when you sign up, you get an email and there will be a form to drop your questions so you don't even have to remember it come call time, you can absolutely just leave it for me and we will cover it in the call. All right, again, on Commonlymore.com Roundtable, I want to dig into this because I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and we were talking through some things I've got planned for next year, which I'll be talking more about in this episode. And we started talking about some of the unexpected aspects of working with us. And there was one thing that came up that was recurring regardless of how our clients worked with us, and that was the impact that having our podcast strategy time, the impact of having this sort of small bite strategy structure in place really helped create.

Stacey Harris: It looks different in each of the ways we work, but in each of the ways we work with clients, there was some larger business impact, there was some major shift in how they approached strategy for our clients in the profitable podcaster mastermind. In a lot of cases, it was for the first time looking ahead at their sales cycles and saying, oh, I'm not actually sure when I'm going to open this up. Or I actually. Okay, so to plan content that sells the thing, I need to know now when I'm going to sell the thing so that I can be working towards something, so that I can be guiding my listeners in a direction. I can be moving them and educating them towards a decision, because I know when they'll need to make that decision. And this is something that these clients had never done in their business before. They had sort of just said, oh yeah, now's a good time, or they've thought about it maybe a month or two months in advance. And now we're thinking about it quarterly and we're thinking about it for next year.

Stacey Harris: In late q three or early q four? We're planning Q One, q Two in some cases, Q Three of next year, because I start to better see the path that these things go on. I better start to see how all of these planning components line up. When we start talking about the podcast strategy intensive, this goes even further because now they're doing that with support, now they're doing that with me. I'm asking them the questions. One of the biggest components of my job as podcast strategist is to be your strategic advisor. And that's really what comes into play when we start talking about podcast strategy intensives. So often we end up having questions about things like who are you selling this to? Who is the ideal client? What do they need to know to make that purchase decision? Because if we don't know who they are, we don't know what their needs are. If we don't know how they're asking their questions, what language are they using? When we talk about this, it gets really hard for us to answer those questions.

Stacey Harris: It gets even more difficult to answer them in a way that it feels like an answer to their question. Because oftentimes we're building content that answers questions they're asking but not using the language they're using. We're not speaking about it in the same terms. And so when you go to look at it, it doesn't look like we're talking about the same thing at all. It looks like we're having entirely different fragmented conversations because we're not using their language. And that comes back to not knowing well enough who it is we're trying to put in these containers, who it is we can best deliver results for. And this becomes exponentially more impactful when we start talking about our production services. When we sit down with our production clients, I am sitting down with you one on one each and every quarter.

Stacey Harris: And it is so fun to see how frequently this becomes the sort of landmark, right, the indicator that it's time to do larger business quarterly planning. Because you know you're going to get on a call with me and I'm going to ask you the same questions I ask every quarter, what are we selling? Who are we selling it to and how are we selling it? If you've been listening to this podcast a while, you've heard me say that because it legitimately is the questions I ask most frequently in the conversation. Hi, how are you? What are we selling? Who are we selling it to and how are we selling it? So you start to build in a rhythm of understanding what you have coming ahead. And one of the things I love seeing, because I sit in this strategic advisor role, I don't have to do what a coach does, which is ask you questions until you get to your answer. And I don't have to sit all the way in consultant where I just say, here's what we're doing, and then execute it. But I really get to sit in that strategic advisor role that sits sort of in the middle in my mind, where I get to ask you questions and together we start to find those answers. Together we start to see what needs to be implemented so that as a service provider, my team and I can then come in and execute exactly what needs to happen. But also you're creating raw audios, you're creating opportunities outside of the podcast.

Stacey Harris: We're able to start creating ideas and suggestions and plans beyond just the structure of your show because we're spending that strategic time together quarter after quarter. And as that progresses, it becomes bigger and bigger picture that we're looking at. It's so interesting because I see the clients who we've worked with for years. We've got shows we've been producing since we launched the agency in summer 2018, winter, like early in the year 2019. January 2019 is when we officially launched. But we started taking clients in 2018 and we have the same production clients now that we had then. And it's so interesting to get on calls with those clients now because often we're thinking well ahead of what is just the next quarter because we are in such a rhythm, because we've been doing this together so long. We have built these assets together.

Stacey Harris: We have built this structure, we have built this rhythm that really is the foundation of their whole business strategy, of their sales strategy, of their larger marketing strategy, of their timing. They're able to answer a lot of questions in their business because we spend this time together once a quarter and that's what happens. And so often I'm going to get a little soapboxy here, but just remember you love me. So often the pushback I get on strategy, the pushback I get on this idea that we're prepping and batching and planning ahead, is that they want to be in the moment that that's where their creativity really thrives, is being present to what they want to say now. They want to be able to just put on their mic and say what they're feeling and then push it out to the world because that's where they do their best work. That's where they stay inspired. And that's fine. You can absolutely run a show that way.

Stacey Harris: You can even run a successful show that way. You can get some results that way. But it will always be that your show and the planning for your show and the lifecycle of your content sits parallel and separate to your business. It sits on its own, riding alongside what's happening in your business. And that means it may work, but it will never work as efficiently as it could. It will never deliver results at the level you would like it to deliver results, and it will be harder. There's not a nicer way for me to put that. It will be harder.

Stacey Harris: Whereas when you can take this small bite and start putting together this structure where you know why you're sitting down and saying the thing you're saying right then, I'm going to get annoyingly transparent now. But this episode is happening today because I need it to start something. There'll be an announcement at the end of this episode. I'm going to talk about it in just a minute that you'll see why we're having this conversation now. In fact, let's just do it. Let's just have this conversation as transparently as humanly possible because I want you to see how this works. I want you to understand what's happening in this show and why we're doing it this way. So that you're able to see how you do your version of this in your own planning.

Stacey Harris: So that when we sit down to build your plan, whether it's in The Profitable Podcaster Mastermind or in a Podcast Strategy Intensive or in our ongoing production work, you can see how these things fit together. This episode is built to make a very important announcement, and that is that in January of 2024, our prices across all three of our services will be increasing. Our production work is going to go up. Our podcast strategy intensives will go up. And in January, when we open the doors for The Profitable Podcaster Mastermind, which will start in February, that price will be higher than it was last time. Now, in full disclosure, again, we're being crazy transparent here. It's uncomfortable. I'm telling you this now so that you have the opportunity to get in for all three of these offers before the year ends and at the current rate.

Stacey Harris: So if you're somebody who's got the Profitable Podcaster Mastermind pinned to their wish list, but you'd really like to do it at the price point it's in, now, you're going to have the opportunity to pre purchase, pre reserve your spot to start in February at the current rate. Same with podcast strategy intensives. We have closed up our podcast strategy intensives for this year. We will not be doing any more intensives this year because we're going to go into November in a couple of weeks and we will be in our production calls with our clients. We are batching content and getting stuff prepped. When we go on our end of the year break, we take two weeks off at the end of the year. The whole agency closes. When we do that, we leave with our clients podcasts produced and scheduled through the end of January.

Stacey Harris: That way we're not coming back in a push and they're not coming back in a push. We get to ease into the new year. We get to ease into getting our feedback underneath us. And so October, November, early December, little bit nutty around here, a little bit busy around here. We don't have the capacity, I don't have the capacity in my schedule to take on podcast strategy intensive calls. That means if you would like to get in at the rate they are now, you need to book your January or February podcast strategy intensive now. You will have an opportunity to do that through the end of the year. Last but certainly not least, our podcast production services will also be increasing in price starting January 1.

Stacey Harris: We do have room to have one more show start with us this year. So if you want to do this and you want to do it at the rate it's in and you want to get started before the end of the year, we have one spot. Otherwise you have the opportunity to sign a contract and put down a deposit for our services to get started in January, our kickoff call and all of that. We would take over production starting in January. So the first episodes produced by us that would get released would come out in probably late January, early February, depending on how on the ball you are and how ahead you are and all of those pieces. But for that to happen and be at the current rate, you're going to need to have signed that contract before the end of the year. When I was sitting down and looking at how am I going to start this, announce this, share this, it came really clear to me that the biggest advantage, the biggest differentiator between me and our team and other podcast producers and agency teams is this is the spider web. I call them the gravy benefits of working with a team like ours, working with a strategic advisor and a producer, a strategic producer like me.

Stacey Harris: It's that we're not just talking about your podcast in a silo because your podcast is not your business model. I am your strategic advisor as we move through the decisions you need to make around what you're selling and when. Oftentimes what comes up in my calls, especially once we start hitting the like nine month to a year mark is those quarterly calls are yes about content and we're always, always signing off those calls with our next twelve weeks planned. But we've often talk about larger marketing initiatives, offer ideas, potential sales opportunities, conversations you've been having with networking at networking events, or with maybe not yet hot ready to buy leads and how we can serve them so that they are comfortable making the purchase or get them ready to be able to make that purchase. We're often talking about the larger picture and not just your podcast and up until this point I don't think I personally have fully recognized the impact of that and it's not something that I've made space for when I talked about working with us. But I do believe it's one of, if not the most impactful way of working with us. I mean, I've walked you through examples and I could walk you through a dozen more of the ways that doing this, what feels like siloed work. What doing this what feels like smaller byte work looks like when it starts to impact the larger picture.

Stacey Harris: When we start looking at this small structure of strategy and we start sort of thinking about this one element of our business strategically and approaching it in a way that builds assets and not just content, not just episodes, not just something to feed the machine, the impact it has in how we look at every part of what we produce, how it helps realign, how we think about putting together offers, because we start thinking about the offers as assets, too. What does this work, how does this work, what components of this deliver, the results? There is so much gravy benefit here that we've not fully talked about in this show, we've not fully talked about in our copy, we've not fully talked about in our marketing, and is really only a conversation we're having with our clients after they worked with us or after they've started working with us. Because in the case of production, again, we have clients who work with us for years and years and years. So it's not really going to end in some cases, but generally we start really seeing the day to day. Week to week, month to month. Strategic impact around the six to nine month mark with our clients because the tone of our quarterly calls shifts so much and we start talking about it in a bigger and bigger and bigger way. And this doesn't change our deliverable. Our deliverable is still high quality podcast episodes.

Stacey Harris: You give us the raw, we give you the cleaned up audio, the optimized show notes uploaded everywhere it needs to be. In the case of the podcast strategy intensive it's, the deliverable is still your strategy doc and our call recordings and your content plan. In the case of the profitable podcaster mastermind, it's still learning these processes of building the strategy. But even when you're in it before we even get to month three where we actually do the content planning. I'm getting feedback from people saying, I'm looking at my business differently, I'm looking at my numbers differently, looking at the data differently. I'm actually looking at the data that's actually a really big one because we can find a way in that is not the whole view. We can find that small bite where we start to practice these skills and develop the vision and understanding of what we're seeing and then we can apply it to other places. And that fundamentally changes the way your business operates and more importantly, the way you operate in your business.

Stacey Harris: So this is something we're going to be talking about a lot more. This is a perspective I want to bring to you more often, but I wanted to bring it to you today because I wanted to share with you a I see this now, I've always seen it, but I've never seen it in the way I'm seeing it this year. It's been feedback. We've gotten a lot this year, but also it's been more obvious this year as our clients and our community, it's even been coming up in our podcasting for Profitability roundtables. The conversations as we've navigated this year and the economic weirdness and what feels like slower, longer sales cycles. We've seen how important this is, how impactful this element is, how empowering this skill and this support is. And so that's why I want to really bring it front and center, because I think it is a really important perspective when sitting in a sea of one inch deep experts and 32nd content ideas and download the 100 podcast titles now and you'll be a star too. And again, a time where we're going, what do I need to do? I know there needs to be a shift here, but I don't see how to do it or I'm just going to keep trying to feed the machine until I figure it out.

Stacey Harris: And we find ourselves getting further and further from where we want to be. And I don't want that to be what's happening for you. I don't want that to be what's happening for anyone. And so I want to invite you to take a look. Head on over to the Uncommonly More website. Check out the profitable podcaster mastermind. You'll see an opportunity to put a deposit there if that's the right fit for you. Look at the podcast strategy intensives.

Stacey Harris: Again, you'll have an opportunity to put down a deposit and reserve your spot at this price point. Same with production services. Again, if you want to get in at the rates we're talking about now or the rates we have now, now is the time to do that. If you're looking at those options and you're not sure you're like, I know I want to work with you, Stacey, I know I want to work with your team, but I don't know which box to choose. Book an exploration call in the link in the show notes. I will have a link to the direct to our exploration call and we'll book 30 minutes. You and I sit down and we will talk about your show, where it is now, where you want it to go and the best way we can help you to get there there. If there is a good way for us to help you get there, I'm going to tell you right now.

Stacey Harris: If we're not the right fit for you, I will tell you and I will help you find the right fit because we're not the right fit for everyone. There are clients I have turned down this year because we were not in alignment as far as readiness. We were not in alignment as far as goals. We are not the right agency for everyone. We are probably the right agency for you but we can figure that out in that exploration call. So head on over to the show notes@uncommonlymore.com or in your podcast player and you'll see a link to book that exploration call. I would love to sit down and chat with you so that we can find the right fit for you and you can take advantage of the pricing as it sits now head on over again to uncommonlymore.com to find. Everything I mentioned today, I know I mentioned a lot.

Stacey Harris: I would love to hear from you on this one specifically, if you have questions, if you have feedback, if there were insights, if there were like oh wait moments, I want to hear them, drop me an email, drop me a note on Instagram, whatever works for you. I'd love to hear from you and I will see you right back here next week. Thanks so much for listening to the 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@uncommonlymore.com.

Stacey Harris: And 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@podcastnewsroom.com. And the last favor I will ask, because social proof is endlessly important for sure, is to leave a rating or review for this 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. So this is just the start of the conversation. Reach out so we can keep it going.

Stacey Harris: Talk to them.