So, last week we sat down and we talked about the time I almost quit this show. And today I think we should take it a step further because in that story, I had all of the data to see that the purpose of my show was being fulfilled. I was helping people. I was getting clients. All of the boxes were getting checked on the results side. But the process, the process was the problem. But sometimes it’s just not right. It’s just not the right time. And that’s the story I want to tell today. Now in full disclosure, this story technically has another part because this podcast was actually co-hosted with someone you have heard on the show before, someone whose show I was on recently, and she launched a podcast this year, Brandy Lawson of FieryFX She was my co-host on that show, called Your Biz BFFs. It was a great show. We had a really good time doing it. I’m going to talk a little bit about it today, but spoiler alert, we only did that show for about a year.
So I want you to notice some of the differences, some of the contrast, and how we came to the decision to quit versus the choice I made in last week’s story, where I was like, actually, there’s just a problem here we need to solve. Here’s how we solve it. Things are better now. Because it’s different in this story.
So flashback with me with you back in the way back machine.
The year is 2015. I know, it was a different time. I was living in Arizona still. I was still living in Phoenix, which is where I actually met Brandy. We both lived in Phoenix. We had at that point been friends for a couple of years, and I was really craving putting together a small intimate group for women who owned businesses and wanted to come together and network, but also actually be really honest about what was happening in their lives and their businesses as whole ass individuals, which there wasn’t a lot of, and that part remains to be true.
So I started hosting these weekly coffee chats, coffee dates, coffee meetups at this really cool coffee place that I loved in central Phoenix, and Brandy started co-hosting them with me. And after about a year, we decided we should start a second business together around this, mostly honestly just to cover the cost of doing this thing. Also so that we could provide some additional support. This was never meant to replace or subsidize our core businesses. We both owned businesses individual. I was running The Stacey Harris. She’s got FieryFX. This wasn’t a replacement for, this was just something we were going to do together.
So when we decided to formalize that, we realized we were going to need some content. So I of course immediately said, “We should have a podcast.” So we started looking at what we wanted to do on the podcast. And ultimately what we did is we turned the podcast into a bit of a book club. I think we did like one or two episodes a month, and mostly we talked about books or things that had come up in conversations inside of our membership that we were running, which is how we expanded our in-person meetups, was with an online community, and we were managing it. We were making it work. I was doing all of the editing. We were obviously recording together. We were planning together. I was doing all the editing, Brandy handled all of the websites stuff. The division of labor was pretty solid.
But we got to a point in probably early, early, early fall or late, late, late summer of 2016. I think we technically finished that show in like October or November of 2016. And we one day looked at each other and we were like, do we want to keep doing this? Our first batch of people who had joined us for this membership were getting ready to renew. We were deciding what we wanted to do with the business, but we had to first decide what we were going to do with the show. Did it makes sense for us to keep this going? We had a really good time doing it. This is one of the places where there was a real contrast to what I went through when I got back from Mexico and I was dealing with my show alone is we both really enjoyed it. It didn’t feel like too much work or too much effort, but we had to go through a very similar process.
We had to look at the data, the numbers, the math of it all.
We had to sit down and we had to say, “Cool. What are we getting out of this?” Honestly, it wasn’t converting into a ton of new members. Mostly people who already knew us listened to the show. And as new people found us, they really just enjoyed the show, which is fine, but wasn’t our goal. So the show wasn’t really serving its purpose and more and more and more the show was becoming an expense, both financially, but also time-wise. When I looked at how much time it took for the two of us to get the show out, even splitting it up, we each had our things. We both had to sit down and record, we both were planning things. We were both marketing the show. It’s all of those things.
We look at these and we go, “So what’s the payoff here? What could we be doing with his time?” So ultimately we had to sit down and look at, is this thing actually making us any money or is it just costing us money? And we could not find a way to work the math where that show was making us enough money that it made sense for us to keep it going, mostly because of where our individual businesses were at the time. There are certainly times in my life and business where I would have kept a show like that show going every once in a while. I joke about forcing Brandy to start another show with me or doing another show on my own or finding somebody else who wants to co-host the show, maybe completely outside of the world of business and we just talk about stuff. The running gag on this show constantly is me talking about starting a Schitt’s Creek podcast.
So it wasn’t just like, oh, I have too many things happening. No, it came down to this show is not serving the purpose that this show was meant to serve. And if you’re sitting down and you’re looking at your show and there is just no version of the math where the show is fulfilling its purpose, it’s time to let it go. And ultimately that’s what it came down to for us. We couldn’t refine the process any further than we had. The process was great. Now in full disclosure, with hindsight and several more years experience, there are things about our process I would have changed. But ultimately that wasn’t the problem. The problem was a purpose problem. The problem wasn’t a production problem. The problem was not a process problem. The show could not fulfill its purpose, not in the restraints we had given it. Maybe if it had been both of our full-time gigs and it had our undivided attention, certainly things would have been different.
But at some point doing the podcast was costing us time, money, and energy that needed to be redirected into our individual businesses. And I’ve worked with clients where this was true as well. The way their podcasts stood, it was costing them time that they could have spent on marketing that was actually getting them traction. I did some consulting work with a client years ago now, probably not long after this probably, probably like 2018. And she and I were talking and she was doing these videos, and they were killing it. They were killing it. All of her traffic, all of her sales were coming from these videos, but she also had a podcast. And some people referenced it and occasionally it would come up in a conversation with the client, but generally people found the podcast because they found the videos.
So at some point we had introduced just another nurture step, a whole new nurture loop. When what clients were actually trying to do was come pay her, come hire her, come buy her programs. And so we were like, maybe it’s time for this to go because this time, this energy and this attention, both yours and your potential clients, could be going and should be going elsewhere. And that’s the discussion Brandy and I were in, is we’re now spending time on this show that could deliver us a better ROI somewhere else, our own individual shows and our own individual businesses and something unrelated altogether.
So ultimately we decided that this was not a thing. This was not an entity worth fixing. It didn’t mean we were wrong to do it. It didn’t mean that we had some major falling out and everything. She had been on this show subsequently. I’ve been on her show subsequently. We’re still very good friends. We may do something like that again in the future. Who knows? But in that time and in that season, it wasn’t right. And this is where I want to point you and anyone who maybe is listening to this conversation and says, “Damn, I’ve got to quit the show. It’s just not worth it.” Cool. Save an episode of this show that we’ve done talking about relaunching versus launching a new show, and give yourself some space and time. Take the time to do whatever will work, whatever will deliver you your result, whatever will serve you. Do that.
And then maybe go to that episode if you ever catch the bug again, because not everybody should be podcasting. On the flip side, if you’re listening to this conversation and you listened to last week’s conversation and you’re going, “It’s not a purpose problem. It’s a process problem. It’s a production problem.” Those are solvable problems. Let’s solve them. Let’s sit down and get you a better process, a better structure, a better system and foundation. Let’s fix that. We can do that. Maybe it’s a production problem. Cool. Hire me, hire our agency. That’s how to solve production problems. That’s the easiest problem. I can solve that in an hour. We’ve got that. Get the support you need. But again, if it’s a purpose problem, if the show is not fulfilling the purpose for you, the purpose for your audience, both, which is entirely possible, it’s time to let it go.
And again, this doesn’t mean it’s forever. It just means that as it is right now, no, it’s not working. It’s time to figure out something else. All right. That’s a quickie once today. If you have questions, you have thoughts, I’d love to hear from you. Reach out, let me know. And again, process and production problems, head over to uncommonlymore.com/podcastproduction. We can solve that problem by the time this week is over. Reach out. We’ll get you on my calendar. We can talk about what your next steps are and we’ll solve that problem. All right. I will see you on our call, and for sure next week on the show. Talk to you soon.
