key piece is showing up you have to show up in whatever you're creating. So if you're creating a podcast, you have to show up for the interview. When you show up, you're giving yourself that reinforcement and you're really driving home how important this particular thing is for you. And I truly believe that if you really want something in life, you will make the time for it, and you will figure out how to get it done.
Dylan Schmidt:This is the show for creative entrepreneurs who have a message to share and want to live a life of freedom. Learn how to grow your network and net worth. Hear from exciting guests and more. My name is Dylan Schmidt, and welcome to Digital Podcaster. My guest today is Simona Constantini. She helps six figure entrepreneurs in the health wellness, parenting and marketing spaces bring their passion, voice and expertise to the mic by helping them launch, manage and grow their podcast. This was a super fun conversation with Simona. What we talked about specifically was how you can manage your own time as a business owner or just a busy person and still be able to podcast also what she sees holding back a lot of podcasters growing their show, please enjoy my conversation with Simona Constantini Welcome to Digital Podcaster Simona. I am so honored you are here today.
Simona Constantini:Thank you so much for having me today. I'm so excited to be here with you.
Dylan Schmidt:Well, let's dive right in first question I got for you. What's the best way to manage a business and podcast at the same time?
Simona Constantini:Okay, that is a great question. And I feel like I can actually answer this from a place of integrity because I do both. I have two podcasts. And I have a business that manages podcasts for other podcasters. So one thing that I would say is time you need to structure your time, know where your time is going. Understand how much time every single item in your business and your podcast takes and just be so intentional with where you're putting your energy. I think that's so important. And then having a strategy behind getting yourself there. Do you mean,
Dylan Schmidt:I know what you mean? How do you like manage your own time?
Simona Constantini:Yes, great question. I use Google Calendar. It's my favorite way to keep everything on track. I actually time block everything. So I look at my week ahead. And I figure out I look at all of like my clients and from week to week it can change just depending on who is delivering me what at what time because sometimes client will need extra time for X y&z But whatever. I digress. So I take a look at my calendar, and I color block it based off of what am I doing in my business? What is client work? And then what are calls. And so I kind of have these three different color coded ways of looking at my calendar. So I know that when I look at Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday or Friday, I can see how much time am I spending on client work? How much time am I spending on my own business? And then how much time am I dedicating to calls and then it's extra cool, because then you can go back and you can look back and you can say wow, I spent like 15 hours on calls this week, you know what I mean? I spent like 20 hours doing client work this week, or whatever that breaks down. So that's one way. And then another way that I manage my time is by creating to do lists the night before. So I created to do list the night before for my next day. And I just put all of like my major things that I need to get done that day. And I'm a huge, huge checklist person, if there could be one thing that I would love in my life is to just check mark all of the things when they're done. Like I just love it so much. And so I create a list and I go through my list every single day based off of what is in my calendar. If it's not in the calendar, it doesn't get done.
Dylan Schmidt:Are you more of a physical write it down with a pen or diaries,
Simona Constantini:more tech, so I use Trello for everything. And my to do list is in Trello my calendar is digital. So I use the Google calendar because I can access it from my phone as well. And then it's interesting because like when I go on a call or something like that, or if I'm strategizing something or writing something out, I like to write it out by hand. And then I'll transfer it into the tech stuff. But there's something about writing it down and having that pen to paper and then like the connection to your brain to really solidifying it in there. So kind of a combination of both.
Dylan Schmidt:It's funny, you mentioned Trello to me, because I use Trello as well. I've used it for years, like I really credit it to how I can sleep at night. Quite literally, like so much extra brain space. And it's funny because I had Mark Raonic on the podcast not that long ago and love Him is the best shout out to mark shout out to mark he's also a fan of Trello. And then you mentioned Trello it's cool to hear you and Mark are still Trello users because I use it every day. It's incredible so
Simona Constantini:much. I completely agree with you. And when I worked in corporate before I went out on my own, I used to use monday.com. So I had a little bit of experience with Monday and it almost felt like too intricate for what I needed at the time. And I think now I mean, all of my stuff is in Trello, the amount of energy, like if it ain't broke, don't fix it, the amount of energy it would take to transfer all of the things from Trello. Because I've been looking at notion because I'm like, notion is so cool. And the things you can create in there is like endless. And then I think to myself, I'm like, imagine taking every single client board, and transfer every single client board into notion, and every single document and every like, I'm just like, Oh, I feel I have to hire a team for that. It's not, it's not an easy task, my team and I use a combination of Trello and clickup. So we use clickup, for task management, like recurring tasks on a weekly basis. So everyone knows what they're doing when it needs to be done by and all of that, but client facing stuff goes through Trello. And then my personal stuff goes through Trello. But my editor team, and my content creator team, we all are in clickup. We all know what episode is do when what's the status of the episode. So makes it really easy. So sometimes it's a combination of two, right? Because like not every platform will do everything that you need it to do.
Dylan Schmidt:Yeah, it's surprising how much you can get done with Trello. So you are a business owner, you're a podcaster. And you also work with business owners and podcasters. Right? Yes. And so one thing that, you know, you don't have to be a business owner to know, but business owners are busy, or I don't know, I've worked for some business owners that I wonder, are they actually busy? Are they just sitting around all day making money? But, you know, when I was younger, you know, like, what, are they just collecting money? But What are y'all doing? Reality was there probably stressed out trying to figure out how to do all these things. Business owners are short on time. For someone who is short on time, you don't have to necessarily be a business owner to be short on time. But if you're short on time, how can you still make a podcast happen?
Simona Constantini:That's such a good question. The first thing that comes to mind is systems, you need to have a system in place. When I started my podcast, my very first podcast, I was working in corporate, I was on somebody else's time. Sometimes I was there eight to four, sometimes it was nine to five, sometimes it was like 10, to wherever, right? It really depended on the day. And so what I found was, is if I just created a little bit of space in my life, to bring the podcast to life and figure out exactly how much time does it take for me to edit the podcast? Then how much time does it take after the podcast is edited? How much time does it take to create social media content, right show notes and all that kind of stuff. So once I figured out how much time it all took, I figured out a system that worked. Okay, so maybe the best place for the show notes to live is in the Google Drive. And then I can put the show notes in the Google Drive, I can put the episode in my Google Drive. And then when I go to upload the episode, all of my stuff is right there, I don't have to look for everything, I have to find all these different documents, which one is the right version, whatever, whatever. So I created a system that worked for the time that I had, and made it so that I always showed up for it. Because I think that's such a key piece is showing up, you have to show up in whatever you're creating. So if you're creating a podcast, you have to show up for the interview, right. But if you're creating a new business, you have to show up and put the time and effort and energy into that business, right. So when you show up, you're giving yourself that reinforcement, and you're really driving home how important this particular thing is for you. And I truly believe that if you really want something in life, you will make the time for it. And you will figure out how to get it done. It just has to be important enough
Dylan Schmidt:good thing your mic is attached to a microphone on. That's a mic drop moment,
Simona Constantini:it may be rolling down the road,
Dylan Schmidt:just That's awesome. I love that. And that's so true, you can't really show up without the process of making time. Because there's plenty of times where I'm tired, maybe I don't want to do this. And I know the same goes for business too, right? There's so many things to do. For me, personally, I like treating my podcast like a business or treat it like anything else I would do.
Simona Constantini:Exactly. That's how I probably should be with social media content. Because I'm not that way with social media content. It's very challenging for me to create it, but I won't go down that rabbit hole. But one thing that I've noticed, this is something that all of my clients have said to me when we're in the onboarding phase of either starting their launch or starting a new podcast or whatever it is that we're doing together. I give them access to a Trello board. And the first thing that they say is wow, this is so organized. I don't think we realize as creators how much mental stress you have in your mind when the process doesn't feel organized. And a lot of the time as like a visionary or creative. We get really wrapped up in the idea and this is how it's gonna look and this is all the different segments like how are we going to get there and when you take the time, just take a step back and create organization in whatever it is that you're doing in your life in your business in your podcast. Just organize this a little bit and figure out what That system is for you, that actually works, it makes showing up so much easier. It's way easier to show up when you know exactly what you need to do and when. And honestly, there's so many times Dylan when I have client work due and I have, like, you know, an episode that I need to get to a client and I'm just I've mentally I just, I can't right now you know what I mean? And that's okay. Sometimes you also have to take a step back, and you need to go for a walk, and you need to just do something different. You need to watch a TV show. And the way that that shifts your mindset, you can come back to it with a different perspective, you know, so it's like, if you're not feeling into it, Don't pressure yourself, create the space, let the energy flow, let it move, and then come back to it. But always, always come back to it. Like, make sure you're being accountable to yourself, right? You gotta be accountable to yourself, then you gotta be accountable to your listeners, and people who are listening to your podcast.
Dylan Schmidt:So dang truth. And it's hard to if in the very beginning, you don't see any feedback or response from the audience, right? Because then you're like, What am I showing up for?
Simona Constantini:Yeah, where are you all?
Dylan Schmidt:Hey, there ever notice how I don't run any ads on Digital Podcaster. It's because I want you to have a great listening experience, no sponsors, this is completely self funded to do want to ask for one thing, though, if you know anybody who could benefit from listening to the show, please, please share it with them, message them, tag them in a post, take a screenshot of this, put it in your stories, wherever you share your stuff with the world with people that you care about. I want to provide as much value as possible to as many podcasts as possible. So your recommendations go a long way in helping other people become better podcasters as well, which is the only reason I do this. All right. So appreciate you. And let's get back to the show. So we're accountable. We're showing up, we're organized. We've got help running this thing. What is one thing that you see holding back shows from growing? Hmm,
Simona Constantini:okay, this is something that I've noticed more in the last little bit. And I don't know if it's an effect of me launching my newest podcast that I'm noticing this more, because I'm seeing it and myself. The biggest thing that I see podcasters make a I don't want to call it a mistake, because I don't want I don't think it's a mistake. But the biggest thing that podcasters can improve on is showing up for themselves and showing up for their show. You spend so much time and money and energy and mental capacity, creating your podcast right? Creating the episode finding the guest editing the podcast, pulling out all the content, creating all the content for it doing all of your podcast uploads uploading to every single platform YouTube, doing your tick tock your Instagram, like the list goes on and on and on that sometimes we just don't have any more energy left to actually promote the episode. So your podcast won't grow at the same rate. If you're not showing up for that podcast for that episode once it's live.
Dylan Schmidt:Yeah, and can you say that just made me think about also how many podcast episodes do you think are out there that got recorded and then never even published? Oh my gosh. It's weird. There's got to be a lot.
Simona Constantini:Let me tell you a secret. So my first podcast happiness happens I haven't
Dylan Schmidt:everybody listening right now someone is sharing a secret. So please do not share this with anybody tell anybody? Yes, super secret.
Simona Constantini:Okay, don't forward this episode episode to any of your friends and don't share it with anyone.
Dylan Schmidt:Ever psychology share with everybody.
Simona Constantini:So I haven't published a new episode on my happiness happens podcast since June of 2022. end of June 2022. And I pod faded my own show, which is advice I don't give to anybody or any of my clients, at least if you're not going to show up, at least come on there and be like, Hey, guys, we're going on a hiatus? You know, I mean, Nope, didn't even do that. And I still haven't done that. Okay, it's been months. I still haven't done that. I have six or seven interviews, edited and ready to publish. That I have not even pressed go live. And they're amazing conversations too. So yeah, I can imagine because if I if I'm over here doing that I can only imagine. There's
Dylan Schmidt:so and thank you. I really appreciate just you sharing that. I know people hear that. Oh, you know, permission to never really snap is a no, no, just kidding. But go do that
Simona Constantini:mission to let your audience know you're gonna hate us. Yes.
Dylan Schmidt:Yeah, but just the honesty of even if you know what to do, sometimes it's just so much going on. It's hard to still do it. Yeah. I have to ask though. Are you gonna plan on releasing those episodes that you have?
Simona Constantini:Yes, yes. Yes, I am. The podcast is I mean, it's more on like the mental health and like self help space. And I, when I tell you, Dylan that I've been going through it. I have been going through it and so I was like in integrity with my own self. I cannot release these episodes and pretend all is well and dandy. So my plan is when I feel ready, I'm going to record an episode and be like hi every I'm so sorry I ghosted you all this was not a bad first date. Thank you so much for coming back to my podcast. And then I will release all the episodes when it'll be in the new year. But yeah,
Dylan Schmidt:yeah, that makes a lot of sense why you not have released those episodes, you know?
Simona Constantini:Yeah, exactly. But I look forward to sharing them. And what's interesting because we were talking earlier about when you don't hear from your listeners, you don't hear from people when they're listening. That was part of it, too. I started getting a little bit like I was like, wow, like, Okay, does anyone care about this podcast? You don't I mean, I was like, I don't hear from anyone. Not realizing, though, that it's a heavy topic for some people. And it's not one that people are necessarily going to reach out and be like, Oh, my goodness, your episode changed my life. Some people will, and then some people won't. But now I look on the back end, and the podcast is still getting pretty much the same amount of downloads that it was getting before I even went on hiatus every single month. I'm like, Okay, so the content is gonna be resonating. It's just maybe I just don't get to hear from them. And that's okay. But it was a mindset shift around that too.
Dylan Schmidt:And what's the name of that podcast?
Simona Constantini:That podcast is called happiness happens.
Dylan Schmidt:How do you work with people? How can people work with you? For sure. So
Simona Constantini:I own a podcast production agency. It's called Constantini productions. Our main bread and butter stuff is podcast launches. So we do podcast launches for entrepreneurs primarily, and podcast management. So full service from start to finish podcast management, and I also do strategy reviews for existing podcasts. So that's like the core stuff. I'm gonna have two podcasts. The first one happiness happens I was telling you about. And then the second podcast is called as it relates to podcasting. And it is a podcast about podcasting. It's a little bit different than your traditional podcast about podcasting. Each month is a closed and mini series with one industry leader in that particular niche. And we deep dive in topics so we talk all about like Pinterest, email marketing, tick tock private podcasts, launching a podcast, all that kind of stuff. So it's a new show. It's brand new, still adding content. But yeah, those are the main ways sure
Dylan Schmidt:to check the episode description for direct links to all things Simona thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.
Simona Constantini:Thank you so much for having me. This is so much fun.