Welcome to episode 513. I want to talk today about what you need to know before you hire us, honestly, and how you know that it’s the right time for a solution like the one we provide and that’s because there are a ton, a ton of podcast production and podcast support service providers. And there’s also a lot of ways to get your show done. We’ve talked about this in the past, the stage you’re in right now.
I think it’s a huge misconception actually that our clients all have been working with us since day one of their podcast. The bulk of the podcasts we produce, we’re actually running for a year plus before we started producing the episodes. Either those clients were DIYing completely alone, or they were DIYing maybe with some strategic support via my standalone one-on-one sessions, or maybe they were working with somebody on Upwork or Fiverr just to get their audio cleaned up. That’s it. That was the entirety of their support staff and that is completely acceptable, that can also be the right way. One is not right, the other is not wrong. However, that chapter, that time where they were figuring things out, made them ready to come work with us when it was time to come work with us.
And so, we’re going to talk about today are A, some of the things you need to know, some of the questions you need to be able to answer, but also a sign that it’s just time to get a different support. And maybe that different support might be any support at all for somebody who’s DIYing.
So first let’s talk about where you need to be before a production agency like ours makes sense and that is podcasting for you is a longterm strategy.
Podcasting is not something you want to do for the next three months and then you want to transition to video. Podcasting is the thing you’re going to do for the next 12, 24 months. If it’s not, that’s fine, that’s absolutely acceptable, but there’s a lot of other agencies and ways to get that done if this is a temporary thing.
The reality is, is we are not a good investment if that’s the case. So the clients we all work with are really in this for the long haul. And part of the reason I highlight this is podcasting is not some magical button you push and customers fall out the bottom. Remember those quarter machines when we were kids at the grocery store, you’d go and you’d put a quarter in and you’d turn and tattoos would come out at the bottom or stickers or those real slimy hands that you would swing and attach to your window and they would either get left there and dry and do really gross things on the window or you would lose it forever because it was not actually sticky? Do you remember those? Podcasts are not like those. You do not put in a quarter and get out something fun and entertaining out of the bottom immediately.
What happens is it’s much more like, I always think of used to be this cartoon floating around the internet. Around Success and it was this guy in a mine. And he is standing in the cave he’s got the pickaxe in his hand and he’s like, “I give up, I’m never going to get there.” And you see this cave space that he has dug through this mine forever and ever, and ever and never around anything. And just on the other side with one more time of the pickaxe is this gigantic diamond and he gives up before he gets it’s there. Podcasting is like that. Podcasting is one of things where it’s going to take a little bit for you to get the traction that makes it feel like, yes, this thing works. And so, if this is a three month, six month strategy for you, it’s incredibly unlikely that you are going to have some magic gangbusters, 100,000 downloads brewhaha in three months.
So first and foremost, this needs to be a long term strategy for you. Number two, the second thing that I think before you invest in any amount of podcasting, whether you’re DIYing and you’re only investing time, or you’re getting some support.
You need to know who and what.
Who is this podcast for and what is the purpose of this podcast? If you do not know what the purpose of the podcast is and who the podcast is for, stop podcasting, stop creating any content. By the way, this same set of questions can be applied to Instagram. Should I do reels? Should I do Tik Tok? Should I go live on Facebook? Should I have a LinkedIn group? Should I write blog posts? Should I put videos on YouTube? Should I start a podcast? If you can’t answer these questions, then the answer is no.
Who is it for and what is its purpose? And when you start looking at the purpose, look at the layers of the purpose. Meaning, what is the purpose for you? Well, the purpose for me is to grow my audience is to sell production services, to book out my one-on-one calendar, to sell spots in my mastermind, to sell spots into my membership. Whatever the thing is, what is the purpose for you? What is the purpose for the listener? What is the purpose for the person consuming the content? Why are they showing up for this conversation? Because they are looking to get inspiration, because they are looking to figure out how to get out of their day job, because they are wanting to be better writers, because they are wanting to be more profitable in their business next year.
Because they are looking to get better sound quality in their podcast, whatever the thing is, right? What is the purpose of the show? And I think that question is surprisingly one of the questions when I get on calls with people that they have the hardest time answering. Not who do you want to listen? Who do you want to listen, surprisingly, not too bad. Now sometimes we have to get a little more specific, we’ve got to narrow it in a little, but generally they’ve got something in the neighborhood of. But when I ask them, what is the of the podcast? What is the point? More often than I’d like I get, I don’t know or well, my coach said that a podcast really helped them sell. Okay. That’s not an answer. That’s not a purpose for you. So know your who is listening and your what is the purpose.
The third thing is less a you need to know the answer and more, you might be feeling this right now.
This is probably the most common reason, the most common sign our clients have before they start working with us is they’re feeling really disorganized. They’re really feeling the hamster wheel of podcast list to-do’s because there is a lot to do and specifically our launch clients. It’s so funny, we were talking to somebody about launch and they were saying, “Okay, so if the podcast is going to launch in six weeks, then what exactly happens before that?” And I’m like, “Well, all the work happens before that, really.” So when a launch client hires us, we have a 90 minute kickoff call and that’s where we start talking about equipment and strategy and your launch and your first 12 episodes and the content strategy there.
And then we go and we find intro music and outro music. Our design team is working on your cover art. We’re building out the social templates that come with that package, we’re starting to get your descriptions SEO optimized and set up. We’re helping you figure out your title. We’re setting up your host or setting up every single distribution point. We’re editing your trailer. We’re editing the raw episodes that you’re recording or getting audio grams and show notes ready for all of those episodes, so that when that six weeks later rolls around and it’s launch day, you’ll have three months of podcast content ready to go and scheduled so that you can be living in for that first eight weeks marketing your show. Telling people, “Hey, my show is here, come listen. Hey, this episode we talk about blah, blah, blah, come listen.”
And then at that eight week mark, we can start recording month four of your show. We talked about that a little bit in Pod Fade. Like we set this up to avoid it, but so much of what the listener experiences you don’t know about until you start doing this. And so, recording, editing, creating social posts, creating graphics, creating audiograms, uploading, creating show notes, optimizing those show notes so that they’re actually helpful and effective. All of that can feel like a lot to do and oftentimes when you’re DIYing, people end up giving into the hamster wheel of creation and forget the marketing of their show. And then they wonder why their show’s not working, or they end up in these peaks and valleys of, oh, I’ll be really good and I’ll put a show out for six weeks and then there’s two weeks where there’s no episodes because I just didn’t have the time to record.
And so, so, so often that discomfort of the hamster wheel is exactly why clients come to us. It’s why we built out a dashboard that our clients all get access to that shows exactly what episodes they have coming up in the next 12 weeks and where in the process it is, it has every episode that we’ve produced for them thus far with links to where they find the assets in Google drive. Because also part of what we set up as a whole infrastructure in Google drive where all of this stuff is stored. It’s where on their website, the podcast exists because if you’re a podcast or so often in talking to clients or answering questions in DM’s or getting emails, it’s a, “Oh, hey, yeah, I’ve talked about that on the podcast here, go listen to this episode.”
But instead of having to go find that episode on your website, you just go to your dashboard, you go, “Oh yeah, it’s this episode,” and you link it out. Also, the stats for the first 30 days of that episode being out in the world are all existing in that dashboard. We are literally building an infrastructure and a home for this content to live in and a place for us to go when we need to know what’s happening. And that feeling of uncertainty, that feeling of being crushed by the task list that comes with your podcast is a really good sign that it’s time to get some support or change the support you’re getting. Like I said, it’s why we built out the dashboard is because even with the infrastructure and the strategy that we have built out for clients, this dashboard is really the next level of delivering it with ease, making it really clear, giving them a clear place where they can come in and ask questions specific to each episodes like, “Hey, where’s this, or hey, actually I wanted to change the outro on this, could you use this one?”
All of that can happen in our dashboard, which is built into our project management software. And so, if you’re feeling crushed by that task list, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the process, it’s time to get help. It’s time to get some support. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, by what to say, it’s time to change something. I know in the last couple of weeks, I’ve talked about the inevitable valleys that come as a podcaster. We talked about it a lot in the Pod Fade episode, the inevitability that there will be weeks you’re not excited to record. If you’re falling into that frequently, if you’re falling into that and not being able to get out of that, it’s time to reevaluate, it’s time to get some support.
And I think oftentimes when we go to reevaluate it’s, well, should I not be podcasting? When we don’t need to burn the house down, we just need to put in some things that make the house more usable, some things that make the house more comfortable. The things that help the house and the structure support us more instead of us being responsible for supporting it, all right? All right. I’m going to put my soap box away. I’m going to wrap it up, but I want to remind you if you’re wondering, if you’re unsure, reach out, let’s have a conversation. If it’s not us, I’ll tell you. And if it’s somebody else, I might have a name for you. So just let me know, all right?
I would love to chat with you, head over to uncommonlymore.com and learn more about how we work with clients in production. And I will see you next week. Oh, do you know what next week is? Next week is February. Do you know what February is? February is birthday month. Maybe we should do something cool for birthday month. I just thought of that. Oh, nobody tell Cali. All right, I’ll talk to you next week.
