The purpose of this episode above all is to give you clarity on who we work with, what we do, and really how to know if now is right for you. As you listen to this episode, I want you to be thinking about any questions that aren’t being answered here. Because if there are questions that aren’t being answered here, I want to encourage you to reach out to me.
I want you to reach out with those questions because if this episode is leaving you wanting anything else, then it’s time for us to talk. That’s a really good indicator that you are ready to have a conversation and we can get into the specifics for you and your show then.
Let’s jump in first and foremost and give you some examples of who we work with and who we don’t work with because we do work with a very specific kind of show.
We work with podcasts that are similar to this podcast, meaning they are structured as a sales and marketing tool. You don’t hear me talking a lot about other sponsors, or you don’t hear sort of like drop-in commercials from your local car dealership. Whatever the case may be, this is self-sponsored, right? This show is sponsored by Uncommonly More. So that means what we’re doing here is we’re using this show to build expertise, grow trust, and help you identify if and when you are ready to work with us and/or not work with anyone and run off into the night. That’s cool too.
But we’re helping you decide. That’s what the purpose of this show is. And those are the kind of shows we work with. So, we’re working with shows where the host is generally in some sort of expert service-based business, think coaches, and consultants. I love working with these kinds of shows because this is an incredible way to build relationships and connections with the people who you want to help. It’s a great way to showcase and establish expertise. It’s just a really good format for that. And so I really like working with that kind of client.
If you’re building a show where you need to be netting a ton of listeners so that you can be selling ad spots at X amount per show, or per download or whatever, that’s not the kind of show we produce, and so they’re going to want to look for a different agency. And I say that not because those shows are wrong and one kind of show is not better than the other, it’s because that’s not where my expertise is. My expertise is in building shows that are marketing tools. These are content marketing strategies. That’s the kind of strategy we build. That’s the kind of assets we create and those are the kind of shows we create.
I have had clients who have asked us about layering in a sponsorship component and I always have to say we’re going to have to find somebody who has expertise in sponsorships to do that because it’s just not where my expertise is. I don’t have enough information to be helpful.
I want you to hear that because I want you to understand the kind of show you have is going to impact the kind of team you work with.
The kind of show you have is going to need to be fully understood by anyone supporting you with that show — an editor, show notes writer, a strategist, a VA, or whatever it may be. I want you to be asking them about their expertise around the kind of show you have or the kind of show you want to build.
The same is true if you’re looking at somebody who works with launches versus ongoing shows. We primarily work with people who have already been in their show for a while. We will launch one or two shows a year, but we don’t do a ton of launches because generally speaking, the clients we work with, they’ve been kind of DIY-ing it or minimum viable product-ing it for a little while on their own so that they can get a sense of if this is something they want to keep doing, if this is something that’s going to be helpful in their business, if this is something that’s going to fit in their business. They would kind of feeling it out and now they’re ready to take that next step and expand their show, expand the possibility, expand the value, expand the quality, whatever it may be.
There are some agencies that work only with launch shows. They work only with brand new shows. I don’t do this for a reason. I don’t do this because most shows that launch don’t last, like, really. It’s that simple. Most shows that launch, don’t last. If you do more than 20 episodes, if you do more than like 10 episodes, you’re doing better than 90% of the shows that exist. We have a whole episode on the show talking about podfade and how to avoid it because it’s a lot. It is. There’s a lot that’s going on. We’re going to talk about our process and what happens when working with us, and you will hear how it’s a lot. It is a lot. It’s a lot to DIY. It’s also a lot to have help with, and I will say if this is something you’re serious about doing and you know you want to commit to for the next year, then we’re in.
That’s generally what’s going to be the big question when launching with us because we sign 12-month contracts with our clients. We are working with people who are in this for a while because the reality of this genre and really just about anything is that it takes time to grow. It takes time to see an impact. It takes time to see the results that you want to be seeing in your business and from your show. And so, that’s not going to happen in three episodes. I absolutely just laugh out loud at the frequency at which I see in podcaster Facebook groups and private communities where some say like, “Okay, I just launched episode four. How soon until I hit like 25,000 downloads.” I’m like,”I would be happy if you had 25 downloads. What have you been doing to market and grow your show?”
And so, we tend to work with people who have been around for a while because we’re building assets that are going to last a while and we’re building shows that are needed as a content piece in the marketing. Again, this is something I want you to look at when you’re looking at hiring. Do they specialize in the ongoing? Can they be in it with you when the doing of it gets rough? I have a conversation on this show, what? Twice, three times a quarter, about repurposing and creating space.
We talked a little bit about this on the Podcast Newsroom this month, how to take space and how you make decisions around repurposing. We’re getting ready to do that. You’ll hear all re-release episodes in August. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because guess what? I’m taking some space from the show and this is something we help our clients do. We have a couple of clients who have re-released episodes happening in August and then September because guess what? We’re taking some time, and that’s what we’re helping build. And so again, looking at are these people who we were looking to help with focus on a launch or focus on the longevity of your show and really staying with you for a while.
Let’s shift gears now and let’s talk a little bit about the process.
You’re all excited. You decide it’s the time and you go to the page that I send you to at least once in every single episode which is uncommonlymore.com/podcastproduction, and that is our podcast production sales page. It’s real simple. You’ll find the price there, you will find a lot of what we’re talking about right now in a written-out form as far as what happens, you’ll see some testimonials you’ll see from some people who have worked with us in the past and most importantly, you will see several big, big, big buttons. They say, “Chat with Uncommonly More. This is how you book a call with mwah.
You’re going to hit a button, choose a time. I, generally speaking, do calls on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. I’m on the West Coast and I do calls in the first half of my day. So you’ll see some available times, you will select one.
When you select one, you will see a form that pops up and it’s just going to ask you a couple of questions. These are mostly so that I can come to our call super prepared and having done some light, very loving stalking, which is going if you have a show, listen to your show. If you don’t, scroll around your website, and see what you do. The big question that I really want to make sure you answer here is, who do you work with?
The reason this is on there is that this is one of the really big indicators around readiness. This is a really important thing that you’re able to answer. If you can’t answer this question easily and with clarity, podcast production is not a sound investment. Podcast production is not going to help. I would encourage you to go work with someone who can help give you some clarity around ideal clients and getting to know them better. If you need names for that, drop me in DM, I can give you some names.
From there, the other question is, what are your podcast goals? This is what I want to know what you want your show to do. I want to know what you want to see results from. This is the other indicator of readiness. If you don’t know what your goals are for your show in the next 12 months, you don’t have enough clarity to be investing because you’re not going to invest in the right place because you don’t know where you’re trying to go. So these are important questions.
There’s a couple of other questions like around budget and when you’re looking to get started. The last one I really want you to make sure you drop in especially if you’re listening to this episode first is, are there any questions you have that you want us to answer on that call? If there are still questions you have at the end of this episode about working with us, leave those in there on the form. That way, we can make sure we get those answered on the call because sometimes, when you fill out the form, you have questions you cannot think of when you are on the call. Please tell me that’s not just me, but it certainly is me, and I want to make this really easy. So just leave us questions there and we’ll have them for when you and I sat down together.
Speaking of when you and I sit down together, what does that look like?
When you book the call, you’ll get a confirmation, you’ll get a reminder email the day before our call and you will get another reminder the morning of our call. It will have a Zoom link in it, that’s where we will meet. We will connect via Zoom and we have a 30-minute call on the calendar. That 30 minutes is for you to ask me literally anything you want. I want to be able to walk you through the process of what working with us looks like. Most of the time, people who show up for that call have already listened to this episode. So they already know what our process looks like. But we start talking about what your podcast process looks like, what your goals are, who listens to your show, what you’re trying to sell with your show. We start getting some vibes for what your podcast really looks like and how it functions.
I will answer any and all questions that you have. Most frequently, those questions are around specific parts like timelines. So, how many episodes do you need to have banked before we can start working together? And the reality is, if you have none banked right now, it’s fine. It will just delay when our very first episode can go out. Our team works with a bit of a tight turnaround when we first start, because generally speaking, podcasters who join us are not currently batched up.
We do occasionally have clients who come to us with like four episodes ready to go and that’s a dream. That’s always really great because we can jump right in and we can get moving, but sometimes, part of what they’re looking for is that strategic support in choosing what episodes they should be talking about. And so recording doesn’t really happen until after we have our first kickoff call, which we’ll talk about briefly. And so, that’s fine. It will just impact how quickly we can get episodes up. And what we’ll do on this phone call is get clear on that. So if we start on Friday with our kickoff call, that means our first episode could be done by XYZ and we’ll actually plan out that specific for you situation based on what we have going in the production cycle already, what you can have to us, how long that episode will be, etc, etc. So we’ll talk about those kind of things in that initial call.
When we get off that call, I will send you a proposal.
The proposal generally comes over within the next couple of hours after the call. I’ll be honest as always. Our proposals look 98% the same every time because this is what we do. I don’t, however, send them until after the call because sometimes there is some nuance customization that needs to be laid in. So I lay that in and I send it off. You have 10 days after I send that proposal to respond to that proposal for the quote on there [inaudible].
Again, full transparency, this is not because our pricing changes particularly often; however, our availability and our ability to onboard a new client does. So we take a limited number of clients each month. We never ever on board more than two clients in a month. And we don’t necessarily on board two clients every month, but we never on board more than two clients in a month just because it impacts our ability to fully show up during that onboarding process. We want to be here for you and so we have to have space for that. So that 10 days is important.
Once that 10 days lapses, we will need to reissue a proposal based on availability and, of course, pricing. So you get the proposal, you’re so excited, everything you thought I said it turns out I really did say which full disclosure is why I like written proposals because several times after calls with people, I have gone like, “Did she say that or did I just hope she said that? Is this included or am I just hoping they included this?”
So, you’ll see the proposal, you realize everything you thought was true really is true and the way we will go. You will sign the proposal or approve the proposal, there’s a check box. You will get a contract and you will get your first invoice. Your contract will be signed, and your first invoice will be due within 5 days. We get started once both of those things are done. That first payment is done, and the contract is signed.
After the contract is signed, our team will email you with a “Welcome to Uncommonly More” email.
And inside of that email is a ton of information, full disclosure. Inside of that email, there will be a scheduling link to book our kick-off call which we’ll talk about in just a second. There will be a link to your Monday dashboard which we will talk about in just a moment and there will be links to your Google Drive folder which we will also talk about in just a moment, as well as a Loom video that walks you through all of those pieces.
The final piece that is in that email is sort of like worksheet of passwords and requests for links to folders and stuff like that. Basically, what we need is your username and password for your podcast host for your website. And then, any graphics we’ll be using or templates you currently have, we’ll drop in the folder. Again, all of that is spelled out in much more detail in that email and so that what you get then.
From there, you’ll set off that kick-off call.
So what happens in a kick-off call with Uncommonly More, I’m so glad you asked a lot. So, generally speaking, by the way, we meet quarterly with all of our clients. Our quarterly calls are one hour. Your kick-off call, which will essentially be your first quarterly call, it’s going to be 90 minutes because this is where I’m going to… Remember how before our initial call, I lightly and very lovingly stalked you. Well, now on this kick-off call, I’m going to lightly and very lovingly interrogate you because that’s how I get my information.
I kind of love this part. It’s an absolute blast. I always start with, do you have any questions? Is there anything that’s come up since we last met that you have questions about? Occasionally, there are, but generally, we’re able to jump right into getting to know more about your clients, your ideal clients who we want buying, what your offers are for that next 90 days. Again, this is your first quarterly kick or your quarterly call with us and sort of where the show is now and where you’d like the show to be. We talked through all of that. So I ask a lot of questions, I get a lot of information and also, we will plan out that first generally 12 weeks of content. Unless, for some reason, you’ve hooked in with us in an odd time, it might be shorter. But generally speaking, it’s that first 90 days of content that we cover.
Let’s talk a little bit while we’re here about quarterly calls and what that looks like.
The quarterly call part of working with us is maybe the most valuable. I mean, obviously, editing and show notes and all of that is the meatiest part of our offer and an absolutely high-value component. And, I’m not going to say but, and having someone you can sit down with and talk through what’s happening, what you’d like to see happening that isn’t happening where we’re trying to drive people to and what to talk about is really nice to have. It’s really easy to get inside your own head and choosing your content and mapping out what you want to talk about. It’s really, really easy. I say this as somebody who’s hosted a show for 9 years. It’s really, really freaking easy.
And so, I like to be the person who’s helping sort of light the way, the person who can sort of stand outside of your show and outside of your business and help shine the light on places that were just too close to it to see ourselves. So that’s what happens in our quarterly calls. This is also where we check in on like, do we need anything updated for the podcast covered? Do we need new music? Is it time for new intros? Is it time for new mid rolls? Things like that.
So those happen once a quarter, and they are 60 minutes. Those happen in the last month of the current quarter, and we plan the next quarter. So those calls happen on the same schedule for everyone. So, your initial kickoff will be whenever you sign your contract and then your first quarterly call will be whatever the last month of that current quarter is.
So if you have been working with us for a year and you’re just on the regular schedule, then this is when you have calls with us. You have calls with us in March, you have calls with us in June, you have calls with us in September, and then you have a call with us in November. That’s right. November’s funky because we close completely. The whole team takes 2 weeks off at the end of the year. So we are closed in December. Meaning, we’ve got to do Q1 calls in November so that we can be ready for, not just Q1, but that time off in December that we take, and we encourage all of our clients to take as well.
So, those are quarterly calls. That kick-off call is your first taste of it. And again, we’re going through the content calendar for that first generally 12 weeks of working with us.
From there, we actually get started with Podcast Production.
Your podcast dashboard is sort of your one-stop shop for working with us. This is the place you will be for absolutely any information. We break it down in a couple of areas. We’ve got sort of our pre-production episode idea kind of area. This is really helpful because when you are on calls with clients, or you’re working with your coach, or you are singing in the shower and you get a great idea, you can go and leave them there so that we can talk about them when we have our quarterly meeting. I know, it’s such a good idea.
Below that, we have our in-process area. And these are the episodes we’re all touching and handling right now. And what’s cool about this is you’ll see where in the process an episode is. What we need from you and then based on where it is in the process, who’s holding it right now. So we’ve got a couple of columns, we’ve got recording, editing, transcription, blog, show notes, and scheduling, and that’s because that’s what we do. So our clients, you would record your episode, you would put it in your Google Drive folder under a raw episode, and it would have an episode number and you drop it in there. And then, you would mark on the dashboard recording as complete. Our system will then notify our editor and say, “Hey, so and so is done with their episode. Let’s edit.” And it moves the due date and assigns it.
Once our editor is done, our editor goes in and marks it as complete, and our transcriptionist is told, “Hey, it’s ready for ya.” Our transcriptionist transcribes the episode, she marks it as complete. Next thing we know, our show notes writer is on the case. Once they are done with it, it moves to scheduling and our scheduling person can go in and push all the buttons and bring everything together and it’s marked as scheduled. And when that happens, it actually drops down to the scheduled area and what’s cool is you’ll get assigned the episode once it hits scheduled and you’ll be able to see everything that was created, a link to the episode and a link directly to go find all of the assets we built, the graphics, the audiograms, your transcript, your show notes. By the way, transcripts and show notes are often used by our clients to create social content and emails promoting the episode. So, feel free to lift that out for marketing. And of course, you’ll have the graphics and audiograms to be using alongside that.
And then, the last couple of columns on your dashboard are actually stats columns. So after an episode goes to scheduled, it will stay there until it actually releases and our system will drop it down into the released area once it is actually released and then we’ll start leaving stats information. Meaning, that you’ll see the 1-day, the 7-day, the 14-day, and the 30-day download numbers for each and every episode we produce. This allows you to see line of sight about how your show is doing. It also allows us to get really good information like our most people listening to the episode the day it releases or in that first week or maybe it’s 2 weeks, and that can really impact where we put timed episodes for promotions.
Let’s say you have a class you’re selling on the 30th and you want to put an episode out promoting it on the 25th, but your data shows that most people take 2 weeks to listen to your episode, so that thing you’re promoting for the 30th actually not need to start being promoted on, let’s say, the 10th or the 15th, because it’s going to take those listeners a little bit of time, and we don’t want them listening after the promotion’s already closed. And so I love having these stats really front-facing, really easy to see, because it helps us make decisions and helps us look at what we can do to optimize each and every piece of your show. So, that’s the dashboard. Again, it kind of goes with the Google Drive stuff, because that’s where your put your folder in Google Drive. You’ll see things like raw audio and edited audio and all of those things will be broken up.
Again, you’ll get a full tour of this. It’s part of your onboarding. But each of our clients has their very own Google Drive area, and their very own dashboard where you, someone from your team, maybe you have an OBM, or a VA, or marketing assistant, or a copywriter, or I don’t know, anybody who might be helping you with your business who would be helpful to have in there. We can have them in there. Most frequently, it tends to be like marketing assistants, OBMs, social media managers, people who are actually going to be doing the marketing for the show. They tend to want to be in the dashboard with us so we add them.
And then the other side of that is just our team. If you have questions, there’s actually an update area in every single episode so that we can leave notes for the episode right there with the episode so everything is documented together instead of having things stuck in email, or Slack, or Voxer, or wherever else on the internet, everything is in one place with the dashboard.
And what’s cool is the bulk of your communications will happen with one person. Right now, that person is me. I tend to be the point person, the project management person on all of our shows because it’s me who’s doing the strategy. It’s me who’s in it with you. I’m who you’ll be talking to on phone calls, I’m who you’ll reach out to. It’s not particularly secret around here. It’s you and me babes, alright? And then our incredible team doing all of the editing and show notes creation for us behind the scenes. But what’s cool is you won’t have 15 people reaching out and asking questions. You’ll have one point of contact, with me. All right, so that’s our dashboard. That’s our Google Drive.
What’s this actual process look like with these tools?
So we kind of walked you through what happened with the automation sequence of recording and editing and transcript. Generally speaking, our team takes about 2 weeks per episode, so you’ll see your deadlines on the dashboard for 4 weeks before the release date. That gives us enough time to get the show done and then you enough time to schedule any and all marketing well before that episode is going to come out. And we’re always scheduling 12 weeks at a time. So we’re always looking at the entire quarter so that we can have an idea of, am I going to need to record things ahead of time off of travel?
And also, because we have it booked out, if you get ill or something is going to happen, you can simply reach out to our team and we can either say, “Hey, we’ve got plenty of time. No worries.” Or, we can move some things around, or we can help choose some appropriate re-release episodes so that we’re still hitting your long-term goals, we’re still hitting what you are trying to do with your show, but we’re not necessarily having to sit down behind the mic and record right then. But, we just need to know. And all of that is mapped out because we have line of sight with the dashboard. So all of that’s easy to do.
So, when you get assigned back an episode, you will have several pieces ready to go for your marketing. You will have your show already uploaded to your website and your show notes set up on your website. You will have your show uploaded and the description and all of that optimized and set up to your podcast host. All of that information will be SEO-optimized.
If we have transcripts also going on your website, which we do encourage, if your website will allow the functionality relatively easily, then that will all be optimized and set up as well. You will have audiograms square and story-sized. You will have some social graphics square and story-sized. Most frequently, also of a website graphic, it just depends on the size needs for your website, but generally speaking, we do need a website-size graphic as well, and you’ll have all of those things in a folder ready to go for your promotions. You’ll also have, like I said, the transcript and your dock with the show notes that we put on your website and your podcast description as well.
The kind of show notes that we do generally, we do timestamp show notes for our clients that allows us to optimize them, make them really easy for your listeners to move through if they’re listening on your website or skipping around based on the podcast description. But also, it allows us to put like the keywords we need to put in there and build some interest with what the episode is about. So that’s what we do most often. We can also do a blog post based on the transcript if that’s something you’re interested in. Those are the kind of questions we’ll have in that initial call to find out.
So that’s kind of the process front to back as we wrap up and I do want to wrap up because this one’s getting to be a bit long. How do you know if you’re ready? I’ve mentioned a few things here and there in this episode. The most important pieces are really three. Do you know what you’re selling? Do you know who you’re selling it to? And do you know how you sell it? This is not an oversimplification. These aren’t easy questions. Realistically, these are important questions, and the reason you have to know these is because if we start working on your show and you don’t know these, it does not end well. Your show will never work the way you want it to, and your show will be incredibly frustrating in the meantime because you won’t know what to talk about. I can’t strategize, I can’t support you in that if we can’t answer those questions because we’ve got to have a direction we’re trying to move in.
So, what do you sell? I sell podcast production services. Who do you sell it to? I sell it to business owners who have been in business for a few years. They know how to sell, they know who they work with, they know what they offer and they’re experts. They’re absolute badass experts, and they know what they’re talking about. And they just need a platform where they can establish expertise, build trust and convert listeners. And that’s, that’s who we work with. So, how do we sell them? We’ll, we sell them through sales calls. This isn’t a click to buy because we’re getting into at least 12-month relationship, full disclosure. I mean, this probably is really important.
Most people who start working with us really like us.
I have clients who I’ve been working with for 8 years at this point. I think our second longest below that one is 5 years. And then we’ve got a couple in like the 2 to 3-year spot right now. We have a few clients who just passed their 1-year mark with us. They’re just getting into their second year with us. So we tend to keep you once you get here.
So, we want to make sure it’s a good fit. I don’t want it to be a click to buy. I want to talk to you. I want to know you’re a human because I’m a human and we’re all humans, and I’d like to still be humans together. So, I know those things. If you can’t answer those things, then you need to go talk to somebody else. You’ve got to sit down with some very likely a business coach, business consultant to help you around your offers, to help you around your ideal clients, to help you around conversion and sales, because getting more listeners will not help if you are currently not able to sell or convert any of the leads you’re getting from your podcast now. More listeners won’t change that. You got to learn to sell. And again, I’ve got names for you. Drop me an email, drop me a DM, I will give you names.
But if you have all that figured out and you’re tired of struggling with your podcast and you feel like you’re spending hours and hours every single week just managing your podcast, in some cases, even when you do have a team, then this is the time for us to have a conversation.
Let’s be honest. If you made it here, it’s time to talk.
If this sounds incredible and it’s just not yet the right time, make sure you’re on the email list. Make sure you’re listening to The Podcast Newsroom because that’s a great way to start getting some of my strategic brain and access to it before you’re actually a client.
