How to Know When You Need Podcast Support Instead of Another Course

Established service providers are very good at convincing themselves they need to learn more before they can move. Another framework, another course, another round of “let me understand this better first.” And sometimes, yes, that is exactly the right move.

But there is a point where more information does not create more progress. It just creates more homework. If your podcast has been sitting in the “I know this could be doing more” category for months, the missing piece may not be a better understanding of podcast strategy. It may be the capacity to actually get the damn thing built, produced, and working.

In this episode of The More Profitable Podcast, I’m walking through when a podcast course or group program makes sense, when expert support is the better fit, and why I’m pausing Profitable Podcaster Summer Camp this year to focus on Podcast Launch Accelerator and done-for-you podcast production.

1:28 - Why I’m pausing Profitable Podcaster Summer Camp this year

2:43 - When more information is not the missing piece to launch your podcast

5:19 - The difference between an information problem and a capacity problem

6:36 - Why courses can still be the right investment in the right season

9:44 - When learning the system yourself helps you hire better later

10:33 - Using courses to build foundational clarity in an earlier business stage

13:45 - Why capacity is the bigger issue for many podcasters right now

15:59 - When podcast ideas start feeling like homework instead of strategy

17:27 - Why I’m focusing on Podcast Launch Accelerator and done-for-you production support

Mentioned In How to Know When You Need Podcast Support Instead of Another Course

Podcast Launch Accelerator

Podcast Production with Uncommonly More

The Podcast Newsroom

Rate and review The More Profitable Podcast

Transcript

Let's talk podcast course versus podcast expert because both are valuable. I know because I luffer both although we have some news about that. I want this episode to sort of live as a tool to help you choose which you need right now.

Welcome to the More Profitable Podcast with Stacey Harris. I'm Stacey and this is the spot to learn more about the strategies, tactics, and tools you need to build your more profitable podcast. My team and I work every day with podcasters like you to shift shows from frustrating time sucks to productive members of your sales team because your show should be built to generate and convert leads.

So let's get into it. This is going to be a good one. I think that when the people I work with so often end up forgetting how much they know, especially established service-based coaches, consultants, people who care about their clients, who care about doing good work, who are doing what they do in the world for a bigger reason than like, I gotta make a living.

Those are the kind of folks I work with and so often you are wildly underestimating how much you know and how much you need to know to do something and so I want to talk about that today. Before we jump into that though, I have to make a bit of an announcement because some of the clarity I'm going to share today came out of my making this decision and that decision is I will not be running the Profitable Podcaster Summer Camp this summer. Not because it's not a great program, not because it's not ready.

It is in fact way ready. It is all built, the marketing assets were all done. I was sitting down to, it was scheduled, I was sitting down to hit the buttons and I just had an instinct to press pause for this summer and as I sort of evaluated and dug deeper into that instinct, I figured out why and honestly that's what gave birth to this episode because that program has been really impactful for people who genuinely needed more information, who genuinely needed a deeper understanding of how their content could connect with their offers and how to build real meaningful sales assets with their content.

However, I was also finding that we were ending up with at least a few people each run in that program who 100% didn't need more information. What they needed was more capacity and honestly that's part of the reason last year we launched the Profitable Podcaster Launch Accelerator. The reason we launched the accelerator was for folks who wanted to build a season of a show, who wanted to build this asset for an offer, they simply don't have the capacity to do that.

They don't have the capacity to figure out the tech and figure out how to edit and that's completely setting aside the strategy necessary to build something built to sell and in looking at what happens for folks who go through the accelerator every single one of them is still podcasting, is seeing sales from their shows. In some cases within those first 12 episodes they're starting to see leads come in, they're starting to get on sales calls with folks who are saying I heard this on your podcast and that's true for some of the folks who have been through summer camp as well but you know what the folks who it's true for who have come through summer camp were in a different place in their business when they joined summer camp and so I have decided for this year just for this year we're going to put pause on summer camp. I'm going to open up a few additional accelerator spots so we will have July's already booked but we've got August open, we have one June spot open and then we'll be going into the fall but I'm going to focus there because in more cases than ever when I sit down and I talk about what's going to be the best fit for the folks who are interested in working with us in whatever way the problem is not a lack of information it is a lack of capacity.

So what we're going to go through today is I want to sort of get into the distinction a little bit just briefly and then what I want to spend the bulk of our time in is talking through the signs that of course and more information absolutely the right fit right now versus it's time to bring in some actual support where capacity is the problem not a lack of information all right so first and foremost let's name the actual difference because a course is going to solve specifically the problem of information and understanding and I'm going to be honest I have 100 gone through courses over the last oh my gosh how long have I been doing this 15 years now 15 years of being a business owner 13 years as a podcaster I have absolutely bought courses where when I was done I was like yes the biggest thing I got from that was I actually did know the thing I didn't think I knew I knew way more than I was giving myself credit for and I bet I'm not alone I bet you could think of a program you bought right now where at the end of that you were like yeah the big win here was that I was like oh I I did have an understanding of that and in those programs I met incredible people and I'm sure I got new perspective on the information I am a big I always challenge an instinct to say I already know this as I'm sure you do too because there's always some sort of nuance or something new or something that can be brought back to surface that maybe you did know but like kind of got buried under all the other stuff you know but there are also courses I can point to where I was like yeah figuring out that is what made all of these other things possible and there's absolutely seasons in your business and season in your marketing and your life and your expertise where a course is great I still take courses 15 years in I absolutely still take courses however when I want something done I'm often not looking to a course first because at this point I don't necessarily or even kind of a little bit and again I bet you're gonna nod along to this have the capacity to be doing more in my day-to-day because I'm running a team I'm working with clients I'm doing the marketing in my own business I'm having a life I've got a very nearly almost adult kid who I'm enjoying our sort of last days of what our family unit looks like in this season I got a lot of other things I want to be doing and so if I want something done in my business I want to implement something that's going to require work I'm often looking for an expert instead of information because that is where I'm going to be able to get the thing done get the thing fixed get the thing implemented while being able to keep a lot of my time my energy my capacity for the things that are already using it up this is not about I want to launch a podcast should I buy a course or hire somebody to do it it's about do I have an information problem or do I have a capacity problem as I move forward into implementing this thing I want to implement that's the distinction we need to understand that we don't always so often it's like oh well if I just knew more it would be easier and then I would have more capacity that's we both know that's not true right so big news aside not running summer camp opening up some additional accelerator spots I want to talk through some signs that a course is a right fit one because I think it's easy to read everything I've said so far and be like well Stacy hates courses even though I really really don't again I sign up for them I am I have rules around them I am not a course collector I will be a hundred percent transparent with you I've never been somebody who bought course for the sake of buying a course I have to know what I'm going to be getting out of it I will say I sometimes join containers only because I want to be around the people in the room and so I'm doing less of the content but courses and group programs can be great when you have the capacity to implement when you want to learn a system yourself so that you can hire more directly your implementers in the future this is actually one of my favorite reasons to buy a course there are several courses I have bought not just in like my work like my professional life but in my regular life either from somebody who I wanted to hire to deliver a service for me or because I wanted some baseline knowledge so that I could feel competent in a conversation with the expert I was going to hire to do the thing so that's what I'm talking about when you want to learn the system yourself sometimes I will absolutely buy a course because I or join a group program because I'm like I want to spend time with people in the room and I want to have a working understanding of what's going on another reason you're in an earlier stage and you need foundational clarity so if you are somebody who is newer in your business and maybe lack some sales experience this could be huge this this is a big part of it you know when we shifted the business from the Stacey Harris to Uncommonly More and I moved out of teaching and training and into done free services and running a team I joined a couple of group programs really focused on team management and agency building because I needed an understanding of how I could build a really solid foundation mostly honestly I needed to know where the holes were in my Swiss cheese I needed to know where my structure was not going to be able to support the growth that I had planned to work towards and anticipated coming my way and so that's a great example of like if you're at the beginnings of something and you just need an understanding of like am I is this going to hold what's to come course group program hells yeah great time for that uh another option that sort of fits in that same space maybe more the earlier stage stuff like if you have more capacity than you have money courses group programs awesome awesome place to go I did a lot of that early early early in my business that's actually when I built I don't know how long you've been around but if you've been around a while you remember I used to run a membership site I had membership site for five years called take the mic backstage when I was building that I had a lot more capacity than I had cash and so I was in memberships I was in group programs I bought courses on building all of those pieces when I initially started my business way back in the olden days of 2011 I bought a course on how to build a website and that's how I learned to build my first website because I had the capacity to learn to do that I did not have the money to pay somebody to do that and frankly really glad it worked out that way because a now I can maintain my own website all these many many moons later which is really handy on my pocketbook uh and for my confidence honestly in like operating a digital storefront as it were uh but also when it came to hiring people to do website stuff for me later I had the conversational language to confidently hire someone I knew what to ask and so if any of that is is where you're at right now then yeah a course or a group program is gonna be the right fit with that said I'm finding right now the season we're in with the world i.e dumpster fire uh with the way the online space is moving and honestly just in conversation with everybody I talk to is that it's actually not about a lack of information and they actually don't check a lot of the boxes we just talked about the problem is they don't have the capacity to implement the thing they want to have they don't have the capacity to do this the way they want to be doing it and that's where it's time to get support it's time to invest in a person expert support is going to be a better fit when you're in a place where you know what you sell you know what you do you know what your clients sort of need to hear to become clients you just don't have the capacity to do those things you're spending too much of your week trying to shoehorn chat gpt into a strategist you are in a spot where this one this one feels real where you've been trying to do xyz with your podcast for months you've been staring at that cover art saying it's got to go you've been putting off doing your next season or recording your next episode this is this is where we get into pod fade territory and I mean it's real it's real for all of us even experts if you're sitting week after week knowing your podcast could be doing more but you're just trying to get it done then it's time to bring in some support because the capacity or lack thereof it is the problem what's happening is when you are in this spot where there is a gap between what you know you want happening and what's actually happening because you don't have the time to be that bridge is every single idea every single marketing improvement every single content idea is just homework it's just one more thing you've got to do one more decision you have to make and that is not sustainable and when you get to that place that's when it's time to bring in support that's when it's time to get help this is why when I one of my favorite things that has been sort of a recurring line with every launch accelerator sales call I've had is I've wanted a podcast for years and the thing that stuck with me is I was on a sales call for the launch accelerator when I was finalizing summer camp and they said that to me and it occurred to me how often I hear that from folks who go through summer camp who maybe have a podcast or are launching a podcast but that language is always I've really wanted to do this for a long time and so now I'm going to do it but the lack of information is not what was keeping them from doing it it was the capacity to actually do it when I looked at the people I most wanted to support this summer and the people who are most likely to get meaningful results quickly meaning they're actually generating an asset that's impacting their business they didn't need me to talk at them they didn't need me to sit next to them while they did the work they needed a focused plan an actionable strategy expert eyes on what they've done and what they're doing they needed decisions to be made often by someone else they needed assets to be built not just content to feed the machine they needed something they would actually do something with that would actually create an end result and that's why I had to say this summer we're just going to focus on launch accelerator and we're going to put a pause on summer camp for now this doesn't mean that summer camp isn't great it doesn't mean it's bad it doesn't mean I'll never run it again it doesn't mean you're never going to hear me launch or offer a sort of learning focused group program container because honestly I really like them I like doing them I've always liked having that piece in my business but I couldn't sell information when I knew the actual problem was capacity and so I had to put together the thing that was going to help with the capacity problem because in nine out of ten cases in the conversations I'm having with people that capacity problem is the actual problem so if you're listening to this and thinking like oh I'm all in I want to do this I want to launch my podcast great let's have a conversation let's talk about launch accelerator like I said July is full but we do have spots for August we do have one spot left for June if you want to talk about that fantastic let's do it if you're bummed that summer camp isn't happening I totally get it I hear you I'm bummed too what I am going to do is I'm going to be looking at some ways we can be building in some teachable stuff here and over in the podcast newsroom I'm going to be looking at where maybe this group program fits better in the future so we might run it at some other time next year as of right now I'm kind of planning to run it next summer I just am not running it this summer because right now every conversation I'm having is coming down to a capacity issue it's coming down to yet there's just not enough hours in the day or space in your brain to get this stuff done and that's what I want to be helping clients with actually getting this stuff done not just filling their brain and by the way clients who work with me to get stuff done learn all the time because man you just can't shut me up from explaining things uh but they're getting that information while also getting the end products that's huge I should add because not everybody we work with is launching a podcast in fact many many many of the people we work with came in with the show that already existed many most of in fact the people who join us in summer camp are folks who have an existing show that's just not doing what they want it to be doing cool that's production and we have spots to work with us on the production side as well you can head over to uncommonlymore.com podcast production and we can talk about what production with our team looks like so that we can take this off your to-do list build you some real capacity and make sure that you have an ongoing strategic asset in your business all right so again my summer this summer I'm going to be focused on capacity I'm going to be focused on helping the folks we work with get more out of their podcast without adding another full-time job with of to-dos to their to-do list because my guess is like me you already have a couple of those on your to-do list all right any questions please reach out I will see you right here next week for a really really big episode because I don't know if you noticed but this was 699 and next week we're celebrating 700. Thanks so much for listening to the show remember that content consumption does not make changes so commit to doing something from today's episode maybe it's taking action on what we talked about maybe it's reaching out to me and learning more about podcast strategy intensives or what podcast production looks like with our team all of that is over at uncommonlymore.com and if you haven't yet signed up for the podcast newsroom I want to remind you that is a great next step if you're not really sure what comes next hang out over there get those exclusive private episodes that's over at podcastnewsroom.com and the last favor I will ask because social proof is endlessly important for sure is to leave a rating or review for this show if you go to ratethispodcast.com/more that's the easiest way to do it but I would love to hear what you thought of the show what you think of the show and if the show has been helpful for you I can't wait to chat with you so this is just the start of the conversation reach out so we can keep it going talk soon.