3 Places to Look When Your Podcast Feels Like It Isn’t Working

Way too often, I sit down with a coach or consultant who tells me their podcast just isn’t working. Then we start talking about their sales calls, and it turns out nearly everyone mentions the show, brings up an episode, or has already implemented something they learned from it.

That means the podcast is working. The problem is that getting the show done still feels too hard, too heavy, or like the juice is no longer worth the squeeze. Before you walk away from something that is already helping your business, you need to figure out what part of the podcast is actually creating the problem.

In this episode of The More Profitable Podcast, I’m walking you through the three places I look when a podcast feels like it isn’t working, even when it’s still bringing the right people into the business. We’ll sort out where the weight is actually coming from so you can fix the problem without changing a bunch of things that were never broken.

1:19 - How to tell whether your podcast is actually working

4:30 - Clarifying the job your podcast needs to do in your business

6:40 - Checking whether your podcast still matches your offers and ideal clients

10:24 - Building your show around the people who are actually paying you

12:57 - When the process of creating your podcast no longer fits your capacity

15:52 - A better way to batch podcast planning, prep, recording, and production

20:16 - Adjusting your podcast outline and recording process based on capacity

24:34 - What podcast production includes beyond editing the audio

30:16 - What changes when a strategic production partner owns the process

Mentioned In 3 Places to Look When Your Podcast Feels Like It Isn’t Working

Podcast Strategy Intensive

Podcast Production with Uncommonly More

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Transcript

Way too often I sit down with coaches and consultants and service providers and they tell me their show just isn't working. But the reality is, is it's more of a situation where the juice isn't worth the squeeze. And that is a solvable problem. And in most cases, their podcast is working. It is getting them clients. But there is something in getting the show done that's still too heavy for them to actually feel the benefits of that payoff.

I want to talk through today how you can diagnose where those problems are and build in your solution so that you can keep your podcast working, but better. Let's go. 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. When your podcast feels like it isn't working, it's really important that we actually check to make sure it isn't working. Because like I said, oftentimes, they come to me and they say, it's just not working.

And I say, cool, let's talk about your last few sales calls. Did anybody mention the podcast? And without fail, they go, yeah, you know, pretty much everybody on my sales calls mentions them. Okay.

How do they mention them? What do they talk about? Oh, they like bring an idea, or they have a question from an episode, or they talk about something I mentioned, or maybe they've implemented something I've taught there. And we talk about how that benefited them and what they could have done better with that or whatever it is. But that means your podcast is working.

You are building trust. You are converting listeners into sales calls, and probably clients. What's actually happening is your podcast just feels hard. It feels heavy. The process of getting your show done isn't working. The show itself is.

And so today I want to take you through three areas of your podcast so that we can actually diagnose for you where those problems might be. Heads up, there might be more than one. You might feel like there are more than one place.

And so I'm going to offer you some solutions. But what I want to say right up front, right here at the beginning, don't try to solve everything in one day. Just like we learned in like sixth grade science class, right? When we're doing an experiment, we tweak one thing at a time.

Because if we tweak all the things, generally, it all blows up. But what really happens is we may get to a solution, but we don't know what solved it. And so we have to keep sort of testing or just keep doing all of those things.

And then we end up doing things that aren't actually moving us forward. So as we talk through this, I want you to think through not just what you want to go and explore, but prioritize it. Because, again, one thing at a time, we're all doing enough, right? So today, we're going to talk through the three places to look at in your podcast.

And that will help you diagnose what's next. I want to start with the least checked in on and honestly, one of maybe the number two level culprit in this whole thing. And the reason I'm starting here is because it's foundational, you're going to hear as we move through these things, sort of how they build upon each other.

And so if this is where you get some red flags, or even some yellow flags, this is where I want you to start. Because everything else you look at cannot be really deeply improved until this is improved. And frankly, this is most often the spot that needs changed.

If you feel like your show isn't working, as in, like, it's not getting the right people on sales calls, or it's not getting folks who are ready, or just a bad match, as often the problem comes from this first place. So this first spot is your purpose. I know it's so annoying.

What purpose? What job does your podcast have in your business right now? Not just what it's doing, not just what it currently is executing on. But what is it supposed to be doing? Is it supposed to be a sales tool? And it's just not getting you the right clients? Is it supposed to be just an info dump? Is it supposed to help feature your clients? Is it supposed to help you feature people you respect in your industry? What is its job to do right now? So for our production clients, this usually falls into one of two categories. Either they have a guest-driven show, and the job it does is help them build and leverage their relationships to generally go and work inside of the businesses their guests are in, or get referrals from those folks.

It really is about building in a cadence of connection with their network. Extending these relationships, learning more about them in what is a really sort of comfortable space. Because it's not the, like, here, let me learn how to pitch you.

It's let me feature the work you've done, your expertise, whatever, and extend our working relationship. Number two, the job is marketing and sales, right? And I say marketing and sales because it both attracts the folks we're looking to attract and nurtures them. And it also, in many cases, is converting them with the podcast to go make that purchase.

Either in a click-to-buy kind of setup where they're buying a course or joining a membership, or they're going into a sales call conversation. So, think of a high-level mastermind, done for you or done with you services, something like that. Those are the jobs most often our clients are looking for their podcasts to do.

I'm guessing the same is probably true for you. The number two piece of this is what are we trying to move them towards? And this is actually the one that I think most often is missed. Because we built the podcast, let's say, a year or a year and a half or two or in some cases three or five years ago, maybe our offer structure or our ideal clients have changed.

So, let's even extend this into, like, the what are we trying to move them forward and who are we trying to move forward towards that thing? So, the offer and who the offer is for. Check in there. Because, again, this is maybe the most frequent in this purpose category that I find a misalignment because we built a show, we made decisions, and then we put all of those on a shelf and just did the episodes week to week.

And so, what can happen is we built a show for somebody who's maybe newer to our problem or the problem we solve than who our clients are. And we end up talking to a lot of folks and keeping content at a level in which we're talking to a beginner. But in reality, we're talking to somebody much more established.

So, let's take an example. Let's say you help folks with launches. But specifically, you help established business owners who have maybe launched this program two to five times before and are really looking to up level their launch.

They're really looking to get bigger results, expand their audience, maybe they've done some upgrades to the program itself. They're looking to really, like, I'm going to say go pro with this next launch. But when you first built your podcast and sort of decided what you're talking about on that podcast, you were looking to help people get their first launch done.

And we're dealing with a lot of, mindset stuff around having to do launch or making early tech decisions and really helping them almost DIY their launch when you're somebody who actually offers done for you launch services. That can be a disconnect. Because as your business evolved to a point where you were speaking to a more experienced course creator, and by experienced, I mean literally they've launched this program a couple of times.

And now those folks don't resonate with the content you're creating because you have not also up leveled the podcast. You have not also upgraded the content you're talking about. The other version of this is the content is not connected to what you actually sell now.

So, for example, when I first launched this podcast, I was selling social media services. If I had just kept talking about social media and never started talking about podcasting, but moved to podcast production, you see the disconnect? Now that is a pretty distinct, a pretty wide gap. There are certainly less obvious versions of that, but it's something we see not infrequently where I'm just like, okay, you know, maybe you're consulting on scaling your business and all of your content is speaking to folks who are growing or stabilizing and are not yet ready to scale.

And so you think you're getting folks ready for the level where they're going to be ready to work with you, but in reality, you're just attracting clients who aren't fit for your services because they don't need what it is you sell. And so looking at what are we moving them towards? And then is our content actually connected to that? And who are we moving towards the offer? And are we actually talking to that same person now? I want you to be really clear in this purpose place that your show is built for the people who you want to buy. And so don't look at who your listeners are and say, okay, yeah, that's great.

I want you to start with who am I selling to? And then make sure your listeners match up with that. Because too often what I see is when people sit down to evaluate this, they're looking at who their listeners are and then trying to build offers for the listener. I want you to focus on the people paying you and make decisions from that place because that's how we're going to attract more people who will pay you.

That's who we want to be talking to. Not just your biggest fans, not the people who email you every weekend, love your show, unless those people are also paying you. In my experience, that's actually not how it works though.

The folks who are in my inbox regularly, the people who I hear from the most often are often the people who are not buying from me. They love the show, but maybe they're not ready yet. Or maybe we worked together in the past and they're just not in a place right now where we need to re-engage. But they love the show. We've got a great relationship. They are often great referrals. But when I'm making decisions, I'm thinking about my clients. I'm thinking about the people who already got their credit card out, who already wrote their check. Yes, I said check.

That's who I want to be making decisions from. So when we're reverse engineering this, when we're looking at it, that's where we want to start is who's paying us. I want to shift now into how we realign that. And this is really a foundational strategy thing. This is your foundational problem. None of the other solutions we're going to talk about are relevant until you fix this.

So this could look like sitting down with your coach. This could look like sitting down with somebody like me, who's a podcast strategist. This could look like sitting down with your favorite preferred chat bot and having it ask you questions.

I think that third one is the most dangerous, but it's also the most accessible. So if you're going to do that one, pair it with sitting down with a biz bestie, sitting down with a coach. I would most highly recommend sitting down with somebody who is a podcast strategist, a content strategist, who has expertise in pairing your show and your offer. Somebody, again, like me. This is a really great fit for our podcast strategy intensives. This is the kind of work we do there.

When this is the problem, that's a really great place to start. The second sort of big spot that we see problems in is the process. So if your strategy is good and your podcast is technically working, but it's hard to get it done, it's probably a process problem. And here's the reality of this. It's entirely possible that the process you use used to work. It's not because it's a bad process.

It's usually because you're in a season that does not have a good match for that process. This is especially true of my clients because I generally mostly work with women. We have one male hosted podcast on our roster and they're in all sorts of stages of life.

So we've got some who are dealing with young kids and managing that. The school schedule and time off and they live in places where it's crazy snowy. So when we have snow days in the winter and that gets harder and the schedule changes, I have other clients who are closer to my age who maybe have older kids and that has its own thing, or they have no kids, but they are in fact perimenopausal.

And honest to God, that might be like, I am now a kid that I have to manage. Whatever it is, something has changed. And little flag on the play here, this might not be personal. It might be in your business. So if you're somebody who runs seasonal launches and there are maybe two times a year where you're extra deep in launching and the responsibilities that come with that, those might be harder times to get content done because you're doing other things. You're on sales calls or you're doing webinars or you're appearing on other people's podcasts.

Whatever it is, there's been some disruption in your process. And most folks I work with just keep powering through. Well, it's got to get done, so we've got to do it uncomfortable.

And eventually doing it uncomfortable just becomes the norm instead of solving the actual process problem. Because we tend to think we've got to get back to the process we were using before instead of being open to a new process. And so what I want you to look at is what does your process look like? So what do I mean by process really? And this is the thing I want you to write out. Literally get out the old pen and pencil and write down what it looks like. Everything to get your show recorded. So that means figuring out what you're going to talk about.

That means prepping the episode, doing any research you need to do, getting any resources together, building an outline, maybe writing a script if that's something you do, and then sitting down and getting it recorded. What's that process actually look like? Don't just write down the steps. Also make note of when you do them and how you do them.

So the biggest change I think I've ever seen with any podcaster I've worked with in a podcast strategy intensive was they had been doing all of this all in one go. So they did each episode start to finish and they were trying to batch. And so they were trying to do two to three episodes a day start to finish.

As in have the idea, prep the episode, create the outline or the script, record, and then they were also trying to handle production. Which is what we're going to talk about next. It's not even part of what we're talking about right now.

And they were trying to do all of that two to three times a day. The thing is is each of those things is kind of a behemoth thing. And so the change we made is we just started batching differently.

They started moving towards they would get four episodes together at a time. They would do the content plan together. They would prep all the resources and research together.

They would do all the outlines together. And then they would record everything together. And then they would handle production all together.

And again we'll talk about that in our next one because that's our third piece that we're going to talk about. And it changed everything. Because trying to shift your brain to the way it needs to think at each of those prep steps in the process meant a lot of mental shifting.

Only to revert back and try to go through that whole process again. Instead of just staying where they were mentally and getting all of the things they done for all of those episodes done at once. This is what I'm talking about when I talk about process.

Where can you get more efficient? Here's the thing with this one. This is the most you. This is the one where talking to a biz bestie or somebody you know a friend who has a podcast might help. Because I really like hearing how other people do it. Mostly because we tend to just think about the way we do it. And it's hard to sort of get creative from that point.

So I'll ask like what does recording look like for you? What is the actual process of getting your show done look like for you? And I have absolutely stolen borrowed ideas. I mean like I love that. Especially when I need to get flexible.

And so first of all acknowledging that what worked before worked before and is still not working now. And then getting curious about what changing it could look like. And then starting to make some of those changes.

The first one off the top I'm going to say is if like my client you are batching everything in one sit. Oh love give yourself a big break and stop doing that. Because it you are making a huge lift.

You are working harder than you need to. And all of us are working hard enough. We don't need to make it extra hard.

Life is hard enough. We don't need to create more difficulty. Depending on what your week looks like try batching it by day. Try doing two episodes a day. Try having a time of the week you record. For example I'm recording this on a Friday. Because my Friday mornings they're podcast recording time. That's all I'm doing right now. I have already prepped. I have already outlined. I have already pulled anything I needed to pull that is going to go in the show notes so that I can reference them here. All of that stuff is done.

All I'm doing right now is recording. None of my production work which again we're going to talk about in a second is happening today. Everything you're creating is creating a new task. And when you try to keep chasing that next task on the current episode you sort of perpetually end up in this loop. Instead of ever finding a way to get ahead. That is a process problem and it's changeable.

Talk to other podcasters. Talk to podcast experts. Drop me a DM. Ask me a question. Tell me how you're doing it right now. I'd love to help. Talk to your coach especially if they're a podcaster. Use a call with them to talk through what it looks like and ask where they see holes. Again talking with somebody who's a podcast strategist.

Ask where they see gaps. Just start trying to find ways to make it easier or more efficient. The other one I'm going to tack on here before we get into production and we're going to do that in just a second is the biggest place for me that this changes based on my capacity or the episode or what I need is how heavily outlined the episode is.

So when I'm in a rhythm, when I'm feeling good, I need the three bullet points I need to make and a working title. That's it.

When I am coming back from a break, so we take the last two weeks of December off, I work really hard to have not just my show but all of our clients' shows, and by I mean our whole team and our clients, frankly, work really hard to have everything through the end of January done, as in scheduled and ready to release, before we take our break in mid-December.

So when we all come back in January, we're not sort of under pressure to get an episode out. But it always means that when I sit down in January to start recording February episodes, it takes me a minute. It takes me a little time to find my groove again, right?

And so those episodes are generally a little more heavily outlined because I'm trying to get back in my rhythm. I need a little more of a crutch than I do when I'm in my flow, right?

Maybe for you it's a script. You know, you're doing a really sales-like, maybe it's an audio sales page. It's a heavier bunch of information than you normally do. It's not just you riffing on your expertise, but actually, like, what's in this offer? Who's it for? What do they need to do to join? What happens once they join? Those kind of things, those I almost fully script because I don't want to miss anything.

And if I don't have it basically scripted, I'll forget something. And in my brain, I'm worried about forgetting something the whole time. And so those ones are more heavily scripted.

They're not fully scripted because if I say fully scripted, I get so in my head about, like, pronouncing every comma, like Aaron Sorkin rules, that I remove all bit of personal interest and, like, vibe from the show. And so I don't ever go that far. But that's about me knowing my process.

I have clients who love a script, love a script, and it's how they actually get to be able to focus on adding that personality and those connection points. It's because they know all the content is in this script, and so they can add the flavor and the color. They can layer in that personality because they trust the script to make their point.

So start testing things. Having strategy days. Having recording days. How many you batch.

I also, when I'm first coming back from that break I mentioned, I'm not batching four episodes a day. Now, sure, I can do that. But when I come back from a break, I'm getting two max because I've got to rebuild that routine and that muscle.

So play with things. More than anything, what I want you to do is not try to fit yourself into a process that has worked before because it wasn't the process alone that was making it work before. If the circumstances have changed, I'm guessing the process needs to too.

And by the way, and this is the last thing I'm going to say here, factor in your personal capacity here. Make sure when you're accounting for what may have changed, you are accounting for the fact that your kids have been home more, or that you got knocked out with some crazy bug while you were traveling and it took you longer to get back from your trip than you thought it would, and now you're needing to really get your feet underneath you as you get back into it.

Or you just came out of a launch and it went really freaking well, and now you have a ton of delivery to do. That's going to change your mental capacity. Both personal and professional can impact that capacity level that you have.

That does not mean there is something wrong with you. It means there is something that needs to be adjusted in the process. Just a little soapboxy PSA, as I know we are all wishing we had a bit more capacity, and I don't think that's going to happen, maybe ever. And so we've got to be factoring that in here.

All right, the third piece is production. So this is what happens after the show gets recorded.

Now, this is not, let me be clear, just getting your audio edited. This is dealing with the files, knowing where they are, getting the audio edited, certainly, but also your show notes written and a transcript created and marketing assets created and getting it uploaded into the place and making sure everything is what it's supposed to be, and then starting that whole process over again.

And, oh, by the way, all of that, getting that done, leads to something we're not even going to talk about today, which is then marketing your episode. Actually sharing it on social media. Actually getting the email out.

And so if you're like, yeah, I can get it recorded, but getting it over the finish line takes me so long I have no capacity to share that the episode existed, then it's time to get some support on production.

That can look like a lot of things. What I recommend is partnering with a strategic production agency. Uncommonly More is a great one to get that support and getting all of this stuff done. Hand over ownership to someone you trust.

Because even bringing in contractors or freelancers to, like, maybe just edit, and then maybe somebody else to write the show notes, and your social media person is going to help you with the graphics and getting those things scheduled, but your VA is going to actually get it up on the episode, that's still a lot of you managing it. That's still a lot of you managing the process.

And what I see with our clients who have an existing show and shift to working with us is, a lot of times, they weren't DIYing their show before. They've been working with someone. It just isn't working for them anymore.

And again, this process and production is really tied together because oftentimes that's the same problem. Your capacity has changed. Your team's capacity has changed. Whatever it is, what has been working isn't working now.

Maybe the agency you were working with before fit your budget but didn't do all the things you wanted them to do, or didn't do them at the level you wanted them to. Then it's time to explore working with a new partner or talking to them and seeing if adjusting your contract with them might be able to get you some things that you didn't think you needed before but now feel really helpful.

For example, we've had clients who have worked with really great teams who maybe did the editing and the transcript, but they didn't do anything else. And they were doing a great job with that, but that's all they offered.

And so it did mean moving to a different team, moving and working with our team, so that they could get somebody who's managing the process, somebody who's managing the files, somebody who can do the editing, show notes, transcription, graphics, and audiograms or short-form video, depending on if it's audio or video based, getting the episode uploaded, scheduled, getting the website updated, doing all the QC stuff, making sure that the process and the production stay on track.

And again, it didn't mean what they had before was a bad idea or that they made a bad investment or that those production partners were a bad fit. They just no longer served what they were looking to do.

Now, here's what this often looks like for the folks I talk to. It's that getting your recording, your process, like getting your episode recorded, not a problem.

But we had a client who reached out earlier this year who had, like, 10 to 15 raw episodes ready to go. They just didn't know what to do next. They didn't, you know, the production partner they had been working with shifted their business and was no longer offering the services they had offered before, and they hadn't really found their next production partner.

And they were like, oh, maybe I'll just DIY it while I figure out who I want to work with. And they just ran into a brick wall because, like, their brains sort of shut down. What do I do? What do I do next?

And they tried using some AI tools, but they found it was just a bit more laborious than they wanted, or they weren't getting the results they wanted. And so it came time to be like, now, to get this out, it's got to be somebody else's job.

I had another client who started working with us a couple of years ago who, again, had been working with a really great partner, and they provided everything, but they didn't actually schedule the episodes.

They got them show notes. They got them a transcript. They got the edited audio, obviously. But that having to stop and do the actual, I call it button pushing, of getting the episode onto the website and into the podcast host, that's where they kept falling behind.

So it would be the night before they were supposed to release, and they're like, oh, I forgot, I got to get that uploaded. And then they would scurry, scurry, scurry and get it uploaded at nine or ten o'clock as they were starting to wind down. Their whole week would just sort of like, whoop, oh no, and they'd have to go and run and do that.

That's not sustainable. It's certainly not pleasant. And so that's where it's time to look at what does it look like to have a production partner.

And frankly, if your purpose and your process are both feeling good, but your show still feels heavy, you've got to look at this because it's the only thing that's going to change things for you.

And again, production can look like a lot of things. The benefit of working with a partner like us is we're really focused on the strategy element of this. So we're sitting down quarterly and we're realigning that purpose.

When you feel like your process needs to change, you have somebody you can talk to about that. You have somebody who can give you feedback. You have somebody who you can brainstorm ideas with and say, well, what do your other clients do? Or have you had anybody who tried this? Or what do you think might work for me right now? Or what do we need to do to get creative to get me some space because I've got this coming up?

And you've got somebody who you can work through that with. And then, because it's professional production work, you can also trust that the episode's getting out once you get it recorded.

Our clients hand over a raw file, and next thing they know, they're getting the assets and links, and all they need to do is, like, go write their email and schedule their social. That's what it can look like.

And again, if your purpose and your process are on point, but your show is still a struggle to get out, it is time to get a production partner because it's time to buy you that capacity so that you can be in the benefit of your show, which is that you are in client work because you are making sales.

You can be on those sales calls. You can be doing that client delivery stuff. You can be showing up in your group programs, whatever that is, because you can trust that once you got it recorded, everything else is handled.

So I really want to recommend, if what I'm talking about today is kind of needling at you and you're like, oh, okay, it might be time to look at that, let's have a conversation.

Let's fix this now before you sort of accidentally fade out with your show and you do lose the benefit of all of the energy and the consistency you put into your show up until this point.

Head on over to uncommonlymore.com/podcastproduction to learn more about what it looks like to work with the team and I, and most importantly, book a call so you and I can just have a conversation about if production is the right fit for you, or if maybe one of these other places needs to be looked at so that we can really get you some benefits in production as well. All right. All right. Thanks for hanging out with me. I'll see you next week.

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