Welcome to Episode 536 Uncommonly More with Stacey Harris. I am spoiler alert, Stacey Harris. I’m really excited because we’re gonna talk about falling in love with your show again. I think we’re in that time of year for a lot of us where we are shifting from sort of the summer slow down to looking at what we want to do with the second half of our year. What we want to get back on track on, the gap we need to close to hit the goals we set at the beginning of the year.
At least that’s what we’re doing around here, and I wanted to talk about this because I think it’s easy as we get through, having other things to do in the summer, or I mean in the case of what has been the last year and a half. And we’re still very much in with things like COVID and the uncertainty of what’s happening as far as openings and vaccine roll-outs, and things like that. We’re very much so in this time of flux, and so it’s really easy to continue to deprioritize things like our podcast. And it’s really, really easy to get stuck in a cycle of doing this because I have to do it and really be uncomfortable in that process, which is hard. It’s just harder to move through it.
It moves slower, and it takes this thing that is really– can be a really creative outlet and a place where you get to show up and connect. And instead, it takes that thing and it makes it a chore and a task, and a boulder to push up a hill, and I want to shift out of that. So when I need to shift out of that and I’ll be honest, I’ve had to do this a few times in the last 18 months because so much about my life and the structure of my day has changed. And so frequently I have to check in with a sort of the 3 P’s we’re going to run through today. And so don’t feel like this is a set it and forget it. Don’t feel like this is something that, you know, you should need to do.
There are seasons for all of us where our podcast feels hard, and if I’m honest with you, the podcast is very rarely the problem. The content itself is very rarely the problem. The process of doing it is very rarely the problem. Oftentimes it is that I need to make a change somewhere in my structure, in my life, in my, in my work, in my day. Something I need to reconnect with that I’m currently disconnected from or I’m trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, process-wise. Something is happening there, almost always externally. And so going through these things that we’re going to talk about today really helped me reconnect with “Oh yeah, I love this thing.” “Oh, yeah this thing works.” “Oh yeah, this is why this is so valuable for us.”
So I want to jump right in and if you’ve heard me talk about purpose, and process, and production, and these 3 P’s of podcasting before, then you’re going to recognize some of the languages we talk about because that’s pretty much what we’re going to move through today. If you don’t, then I will link to that episode in the show notes and make sure you listen to that episode because it’s an important part of the work we’re going to talk through today.
Before we jump into that, though. I do want to remind you if you haven’t yet, to head over to uncommonlymore.com/newsroom and make sure you are subscribed to the new private, exclusive podcast called the Podcast Newsroom. We are going to be sharing news related to podcasting and audio. We’re also going to be sharing some marketing tips and podcast trend kind of stuff so that you can get a better sense of what you need to know right now, to improve your show, to get better results from your show, to make a more profitable podcast.
If you haven’t subscribed to that, the place to go again is uncommonlymore.com/newsroom. It is a private feed, but all you have to do is sign up and then you can add the Podcast Newsroom, feed it to the podcast player of your choice. Episode 1 from August is available now, and Episode 2, September’s episode will be releasing September 1st. So you’re going to want to make sure you get on that list and listen to the first episode where we’re talking about things like Apple podcast download numbers. And if that problem has been corrected, and also some of the larger lessons you should be taking from that.
So, let’s dig into today, let’s fall in love with some shows. What do you say? First and foremost, what I want you to do is
I want you to check in with your purpose.
The first thing when I’m in a not very happy place with my podcast. When I’m having a hard time doing this, sitting down, talking to you, and getting these episodes done and out. The first place I checked is the purpose because if my podcast is not fulfilling its purpose, everything else is going to be harder, right? So what again is the point of this show. And here this is something, I mean, real talk. I went through this year a couple of times and the purpose was the problem because I needed to dig deeper into who I wanted listening to the show. I needed to dig deeper into what would best serve the people I want listening to the show.
So much has evolved and changed in the eight years in November, of doing this show, inside of the show. If I didn’t connect with a purpose regularly, this show would not be the show it is now, and I reminded myself of that this year. We rebranded the podcast a year ago. That’s right. A year ago. We rebranded from “Hit the mic with Stacey Harris” to “Uncommonly More”.
We narrowed the focus from social media and digital marketing as a whole to very specifically “podcasts” and using your podcast to grow your business as a sales tool, as a nurturing tool, as all of those things. And so it’s been a lot of me having to check in and further flesh out that purpose. Because it’s evolved as I’ve learned more, as I’ve worked through client situations and team situations and podcast nuance and my own expertise and education which is always, always growing to the benefit of working with a production agency, in my opinion. It is generally they are doing some sort of continuing education and training and research into what’s working and what’s not working. Soapbox away.
So I want you to check in with your purpose and when we talk about your purpose, not just “I have a podcast to sell my program or to grow my email list” but also, “what is the purpose of them— of the listener listening?”
Why are you here for this show? Why do you listen to me yammer on for 20 to 40 minutes a week? 52 weeks a year, right? So I want you to check in why are they listening? Why are you showing up? What is your goal?
So very plainly, the goal of this show and the goal of every show we produce, the kind of shows we produce, is to generate leads for a program. So we want to help them solve a problem. We want to help podcasters get better results from their show with less on their plate as far as the production goes. You know, dealing with things like show notes and social posts like graphics and audiograms and things like that for them, the edit, the website setup. All that stuff we want to help get that off their plate so that they can focus on this part that’s actually profitable, which is the content itself, and so reconnect with that.
Who do you want listening? Why are they listening? What do you want them to do next? So that’s the part that, you know, where are you trying to move them to? Reconnect with that, and clarify. Is that still an alignment? Is this still true for you? Is what has always been the purpose still the purpose of your show? Is the person you want listening to the show, still the person you’ve always been talking to?
I, more and more and more am narrowing who we’re talking to on this show. Because last year, honestly, we had a lot of content geared towards people who are launching podcasts. And more and more, I’m having clarity on who we best serve. And so, in some cases, yeah, that’s occasionally a launch client, but most frequently, it’s somebody who’s been doing their podcast 6 to 18 months on their own. Like they’ve been DIY-ing it, and they’re figuring it out and so they’re somebody who’s in those first 6 to 18 months. You know, that that one year, year-and-a-half kind of bubble, they’ve been doing it a while.
This show is to serve you until you get there. To give you some perspective and some strategy to help you make some decisions until you get to the point where you’re like, “Yeah, I’m absolutely ready to hand this off because I have this information.”
And so we had to clarify what kind of content we were doing. We had to reconnect with that purpose and further flush out, who that ideal listener was. Now, will you have listeners that fall outside of the scope of that ideal listener? Absolutely. There are still people who listen to the show who have been listening to the show since that was brand, brand-new, and who don’t have podcasts or necessarily have the intention to have a podcast but they enjoy the show, and that’s cool. You’re always going to have those people in there. That’s fine.
Thank you. I love you. Thanks for listening. Share it with your friends. That’s the best way to pay back the podcast host you love. To share their show, leave reviews.
But if you’re listening because you’re trying to find a solution to a problem, which is the kind of listeners you want to be attracting. Then we’ve got to be creating content that’s going to help them move the needle and gain some of the clarity they need to get through the problem they’re having. Or to, you know, figure out they are having the problem that they’re having. Which is also sometimes one of the things a podcast should do.
And so reconnecting with that purpose. Is it still aligned? Is it still true? What have you learned since the last time you checked in with it?
The second thing I want you to do is I want you to check in with your process.
I’m so guilty of this one. I will find a routine and a structure that works, and I will ride it until it’s so uncomfortable that it happened. Like until it breaks, essentially. Which is not necessarily the best choice. Because here’s the deal, your routines and systems are going to evolve, they’re going to change based on circumstance. You know, in March 2020 when everything kind of shut down and my workspace changed, my production process had to change, how I got this show recorded had to change. The energetic and mental capacity to outline had to change.
You know, if you’re somebody who’s been doing a seasonal show and your routine is to batch everything and then release everything, and you go to an evergreen show. You’re going to have to change some of your processes because no longer are you batching and releasing, and then once everything’s released, then you check in with batching again. You’ve got to be batching while you’re releasing, and so that’s going to mean a change to your process. But I see podcasters all the time who don’t evolve that process, to reflect the change in circumstance, to reflect the change in strategy, to reflect the change in routine, in exterior noise and disruption.
A great example of this is when I started, when I, when I moved back to my home office, I kept trying to record on a certain day of the week that I had recorded on previously, except that is when my landscapers come to my house. And so, I would sit down to record, and the landscapers would show up. And I went through this for weeks, where I was just, I kept pushing it off and pushing it off. Then I went, maybe I should stop trying to do it on the day that the landscapers are here because yes, that worked in the office because the landscapers were not at the office, but now with the home office, the landscapers are here on this day. So this day no longer works.
You’ve got to remember that a plan and a structure is in pencil.
And so your process is in pencil. It may very well, and you know what? I’m just going to absolute this. It will need to change at some point. It will have seasons where it needs to be different. And I may go back to some structure. A great example is in the summer, I don’t work a couple of days of the week and I do work on the weekend. So I’m recording this on a Saturday because I’m on summer hours right now. And that’s my favorite time to record because there’s definitely no landscapers and it’s just I don’t have stuff going off on slack and I don’t have Monday, our project management off for digging and I don’t have emails and I don’t have calls scheduled and I don’t have other things. I don’t have other interruptions that can happen. Distractions that for my brain are detrimental to me trying to get into any kind of flow. And so Saturday mornings are great. And so summer hours mean this totally works, but it doesn’t work when school starts in a couple of weeks and I stopped working my summer hours and I go back to working five days a week.
And then I try to record on Saturday mornings. Because we have other plans, we have other things going on and so it shifts. And for me, it shifts even more, because then I start prepping to be off in December. And so, I want to have December and January, totally done. And the earlier I can start batching a little bit extra, the less I have to do in a big chunk. And so the number of episodes recorded in a day may change. And then we hit January and I generally have a harder time getting back into things. And so we need a certain schedule there.
And so look at where in your process. Maybe you’re not allowing for the circumstances you are in right now, and where you can maybe build a check-in when you do your quarterly review or your monthly review or your, you know, mid-year reviews or whatever it is, you do. So you can say, ‘Hey this is what I have coming up I need to pay attention to this.’ You know, in July we went through and we did all of our Q3 quarterly calls with all of our production clients. Every single one of those conversations we started talking about Q4 because I know every single one of our clients will take off Q4, will take up some time in Q4. Not the entirety, but we’ll take off some time.
And so they’ll be a little extra we need to do somewhere and if we don’t bring it up until we’re in it, it’s going to be a much much harder thing to figure out. And so we start talking about it now. So where can you put those mile markers? Those check-in points into your system that you already have? Where can you build into your process, room for your process to change, room for your process to evolve?
The third thing I want you to check in with– if you’re feeling really frustrated with your show right now. If you are falling out of love with your show right now.
It’s checking with your production.
Really, if you have been doing this show 12, 18, 24 months on your own, or with very minimal production support and a lot of this stuff is still sitting on your to-do list. It is time to hand it over, it just is. And if you don’t know if your show is working well enough to justify the investment and you’re a year or a year and a half or two years into your show. You need to go back to purpose.
It’s time to sit with that purpose and look at those numbers. It’s time to build into your process data points, data collection, stats reviews. Because if you’re sitting at this point of your show, and you don’t know if the production investment is worth it. Or worse, you do know that you cannot at this point see a return on that investment from your show. You’ve got to go back to one and two.
But if you are two years in and you’re like, yeah this show works, it generates leads, it converts clients, it does what I need it to do. It’s growing, maybe not as much as I would like, then it’s time to get some help.
It’s time to shift your focus from getting your show out to making your show better.
And that happens when you have strategic support, that happens when you have space. It happens when you have the capacity to listen to the questions. And I mean, really listen to the questions that you’re hearing over and over again on sales calls. Or over and over again in client conversations.
And until you create that space for yourself by getting yourself some support, your show is not going to shift from good to great. It is not going to up-level or, or evolve or change, you’re going to plateau and you’re going to get stagnant and it’s going to keep feeling hard. It just is, I mean, I would love to give you a different answer. I would love to say that it’s just like, “Oh no, you just sit down with your purpose” and you go, “Oh my God, my process is great” and the production stuff sorts itself out, but it’s not true.
I really, really try not to lie to you. Certainly about things that are this important. You’re building yourself a thing that is always going to feel hard most of the time because you’re doing things that aren’t your job. You’re doing things that are not the best use of your time, the most profitable use of your time. You are doing things in a wildly inefficient way. It’s time for you to get some help. If you have been through this whole thing and you went through purpose and you’re like, nailed it. And you want to process and you like, nailed it. Great!
Get yourself some support.
That support can look like a lot of things. It can look like handing more to your existing team as far as to show notes and distribution. It could look like having an editor do you know, the actual edit for you. Depending on where you are, how much you are DIY-ing or not DIY-ing right now? It’ll depend.
My recommendation? Let’s have a conversation, head over to uncommonlymore.com, and look at what production services look like. Submit an application and let’s have a chat. Let’s talk about your show. I will tell you if we’re the right fit. I will tell you if we’re not the right fit. I want you to feel good about the show you put out. I want you to feel good about the way the show gets done. Now, even with production support, there are really times where getting it done feels hard.
I have a whole team that helps me and I’m an expert and there are times where doing the show feels hard. It’s never going to feel easy all of the time. That’s just not the nature of the beast. As much as we love our businesses they don’t feel good all the time. It’s why we love our dogs, and our kids, and our lives. They don’t feel easy all the time and we wouldn’t want them to.
Because that discomfort often is where the lesson and the growth comes from. The pain that your podcast might be causing you right now is going to cause you to do this check-in and give you these insights and reconnect you with these things. So that you can start seeing better results. So that you can build a more profitable podcast. All right? So head over to uncommonlymore.com, check out the podcast production, and let’s talk about getting you some real support.