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One Podcast, Ten Assets | Madison McCann | Full Battery Media

• Sean Trace

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In this episode, I sit down with Madison McCann, founder of Speakeasy Productions, to talk about what it actually takes to build a podcast that works - not just one that exists. 

We get into why most podcasters quit before episode 10, how over-relying on AI tools is killing authenticity in content, and why choppy auto-edited audio is doing more damage to your brand than a few filler words ever could. Madison breaks down how to decide between audio-only and video podcasting based on your audience, your preferences, and your real bandwidth, not just what the algorithm tells you to chase. We also dig into the podcast-as-ecosystem model, where one core show can power your newsletter, social media, and YouTube without needing a separate team for each. 

Whether you're just getting started or trying to make your existing show more sustainable, this conversation will help you cut through the noise and focus on the one thing that actually moves the needle: content that is genuinely, unmistakably you.

Are you team audio-only or team video podcast, and what made you choose that path? Drop it in the comments 

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I would say it's not even anything related to podcasting. It's not the tech. It's not having a great idea. Like I talk to people all the time who have great ideas for a podcast. I would say it's more about capacity, like the mental capacity for it. They think they won't have time to do like guest outreach or to actually promote the episodes. And so it seems like uh, you know, until you actually get in it, it it's just overwhelming, all of the things that you'll have to do. So I would say it's more of like the mental component as opposed to, oh, what microphone do I need? Because I I get that side too. People do like over-research, but if that is the holdup, I would say just try something. Like just buy a microphone, just buy a camera, or rent a studio.

SPEAKER_01

Welcome everybody back to the Full Battery Media Podcast. I am your host, Sean Trace, at least I think I still am. I hope so. And I've got an awesome guest with me today. Would you like to tell people who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_00

Sure. My name is Madison McCann. I own Speakeasy Productions, which is a podcasting production company. So I help my clients with producing, aka recording their podcast, editing, distributing, getting it out there. And I would say usually my clients are business owners. They're usually business owners. So the things that we talk about today will come at probably from that perspective, not like hobby podcasts.

SPEAKER_01

That's interesting. I love it because I think I love helping people get into podcasting because, first of all, I think we need more great voices out there. And to me, podcasting is like kind of the antidote of late to some of the spam content. You know, it's like there's so many people out there doing AI generated scripts. And like, I'm here to tell you why you need to do these are the three things that will help you be more resilient. And I mean, I love AI and I use it for a lot of, I mean, the questions I sent over, I take people's bio, plug it in there, and I refine them. But there's a certain level of spam these days that just makes me crazy. And I love podcasting because I feel like it's way more authentic and organic to a degree that you're getting people that are just speaking their truth. And sometimes their truth is a bit out there. But to me, you know, I I love the conversations because I think that's how so many people throughout history have been shaped. Great conversations, you know?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I mean, I get questions whenever people are wanting to start a podcast about like, isn't it saturated? There's already like hundreds of podcasts in my industry. How will I stand out? And I'm like, yeah, there are a lot of podcasts out there, but there are not a lot of great podcasts out there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So we can make you have a great podcast.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. I'm um, I've got a lot of podcasts because I've got kind of uh I'm kind of weird like that. I like to talk a lot. Uh, you'll notice that today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Most everyone can. You have a lot of interest.

SPEAKER_01

I do. I do have a lot of weird interests. And uh one of the things that I found though is that, you know, this podcast, I've I'm super happy. I just crossed 25 episodes. Uh my barrels and roots podcast has like 35. That's all about wine, which is a pretty awesome topic to talk about. I know that not a lot of people are drinking as much these days, but wine is wonderful. I grew up around wine. Uh, then I have my Growing Money podcast, and I'm 150 episodes in on that. And then I've got my Chantre show, which is about 250. Now, I'm not trying to flex much.

SPEAKER_00

Um, but I think it's justified.

SPEAKER_01

At that point, it's a lot of light nights, man. It's a lot of tired, you know, waking up early. But one of the things that I do is like I just live for the conversations. I enjoy getting to speak to these people that have such unique perspectives. And when speaking to the saturation point, one of the things that I've found is that not everyone makes it past, you know, episode 10. And so one of the things that I like to do with my clients is go, I'm not just here to help you make a podcast. I'm here to drag you across the finish line. I'm like, I'm gonna get you there because sometimes it's hard to stay consistent, you know. And I think that's one of the things that a lot of people say they want to start a podcast, but most actually don't ever actually launch it. Like, what do you think people think people are really stuck on and getting going or creating, you know?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I would say it's not even anything related to podcasting. It's not the tech, it's not having a great idea. Like, I talk to people all the time who have great ideas for a podcast. I would say it's more about capacity or like the mental capacity for it. They think they won't have time to do like guest outreach or to actually promote the episodes. And so it seems like uh, you know, until you actually get in it, it it's just overwhelming, all of the things that you'll have to do. So I would say it's more of like the mental component as opposed to, oh, what microphone do I need? Because I I get that side too. People do like over-research, but if that is the holdup, I would say just try something. Like just buy a microphone, just buy a camera, or rent a studio and get started.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. Like, do something, just like yeah, anything somewhere. I had a tough week, and I'm gonna I I I'm gonna bring the energy down a little bit, and I still bring it back up. I had a little mark on my skin right here, and I was like, but then finally I was like, I should go to the doctor and get that checked. And so I went to the doctor, and that was the hardest part, was just getting my butt up and driving to the doctor. And then I pulled up to the to the the clinic, and I was like, all right, I'm gonna get a parking spot, get a parking spot. And I went inside, went inside, and said, You have a doctor that I can see. They got paid for it. God sat down. Luckily, it's a lot cheaper here in Southeast Asia, and you know, one step led to the next step. And then finally I got this wonderful, you know, incision. They sewed me up, sent me home. And hopefully everything's okay. But the uh the lesson of that story is that was hard stuff for me. I am not the guy that is easy at doing stuff that's hard. And when you get freaked out about things, um, one of the things that you gotta do is recognize that it's just one step at a time. If you can do things one step at a time, it will you'll you'll be able to get there, you know? But you gotta do it one step at a time.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and now that you've done it once, maybe it'll be easier if it happens again.

SPEAKER_01

Right, right. Oh, I don't have to do anything again, but if I do, I'm not gonna be freaked out because I did it once. I know what it's like. Once you know that thing, I know the doctor, I know the room, I know all these different things I gotta do. Um, I want to ask you uh about this because one of the things that with content I hear is like when people start making a podcast, um, first of all, I I was reading some of your posts, and you've said not everyone needs a podcast producer, just people who want to get there faster. What is the biggest mistake people make when they try to do it alone, though?

SPEAKER_00

Um, I would say that I I see a lot of people, and this isn't specific to podcast, I would say this is all content now, is basically outsourcing everything to AI. Yeah, including their thoughts. And it's obvious because it's like I if I couldn't if I wouldn't know that that was your story, like if it was just any anyone could post the same content, and I guess it's it's just not personalized. Yeah, there's no there's no expertise being shared. Um and on the technical side of it too, specific to podcasting, they use all of these AI editing tools. Like I I know um no shade to descript. I've used Descript before and I I actually really like them, but they have this AI filler word removal. And I've seen when people use that and it's very choppy. And I I've even had people push back and say, no, I it it's gotten better. You should try it again. I've tried it again recently. And it it just chops the words because people naturally will go into a word or into word with um, and it's chopping basically the word in half. And it's very distracting to the listener. So if you are using those tools as a podcaster, I would recommend go back and listen to the final product before you actually publish it. And maybe even just don't use those AI tools. I think people are more forgiving with filler words specifically in this example than you think they are. I would I would rather listen to ums and likes than choppy audio.

SPEAKER_01

I'm with you as well. I try to tell my editors not to trim things out. I mean, when I do reels of stuff, we have to try to trim to a degree because uh you gotta get under a minute 30. And that's really hard. It's really hard to get a lot of things under a minute 30. But when I have a just a natural podcast, I tell people don't go to town on it, man. Just let it be natural. If there's something that's super awkward, then obviously you can, you know, trim a bit. But the reality is, is I think that I wasn't aiming to dive into AI tools too much, but I'm not a huge fan on them. I mean, there are certain things that I like tools versus AI assisted editing, but one of the things that I'm not a fan of is that we need the naturalness. There's like a descript has some features too. There's one of the features that I hate, the eye contact feature. Oh my god, it's just like yeah, it it like people can be moving their head and it keeps this eye contact directly on the camera, and it does it in this unnatural way. And one of the things, like, we don't stare, no one stares. Like, if you meet someone and they're like, hi, I'm Sean, and I'm gonna talk to you like this for the next 45 minutes. Like, it's it's terrifying. I, you know, we look at Al, we look up, we look away. That's that's kind of normal. That's how people interact, that's how people engage. And to me, I think that I feel like one of the things that we have to remember is that authenticity is just isn't just a um a word. Like it's not just something that you strive to do. You should be more authentic in your podcast. One of the ways to do that is allow a conversation to be a conversation, allow it to be natural, allow it to flow. And the biggest amount of energy that you should be putting out there is not some fancy editing, not using this or that. Your biggest focus should be on aligning up great guests and having phenomenal conversations. Like that is where your energy should be going. Think about what are topics that people need to hear about? What are things that people need to be, you know, talking to people about? That is what's so much more important than all this other noise because it really is noise at the end of the day. And I think that that's what I try to tell people is get rid of the noise and focus in on your storytelling. But I wanted to ask you this because we're entering into this new world of podcasting, and I I love it because I am a video first person and I've been doing video for a long time. And you know, I before even I got into podcasting, I was doing you know, video production, music videos. Um, I'm not a huge fan of short form, but I was doing short form music videos, vlogs, um, short films and things like that. And so now when as podcasts have started to make this transition over to uh video, I'm just like super happy and super excited because I'm like, yay, fun video. And there's what you can tell more of a story for me, but there's always a debate around audio only versus video podcasting. How should a creator or business owner actually decide what makes sense for them?

SPEAKER_00

Oh gosh, okay. There are so many variables.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Um, before I answer, I do want to just comment on something that you said about the focus should be on having great guests, great conversation. And I think a lot of people lose their own curiosity because they think, oh, this is what my audience needs. And they ask questions like, uh, you know, tell tell our listeners, and it it kind of jolts the listeners out of the experience. If people can go into the conversation thinking like what they're actually wondering and ask those questions, it's a much better experience and I think a much better episode at the end, whenever you just let your curiosity take control. So, um, but to answer your question, I think uh I and I guess that kind of does answer the question too. Like you have to think about your own preferences. And I have two great examples of this. Uh, for audio only, I had a client come to me and he his background was in TV. And he said, I am done with that. I don't want to do any video, I only want to do audio. I'll never change my mind, basically. You won't convince me. And I was like, Okay, great. So, how can we have a really awesome audio only show for you? And we've been able to get creative and leverage partnerships. And he has a newsletter and of course social media. And I would, I would say he has a really successful podcast. And I have some clients who come to me and they are excited to show up on video and like they they want to do it, they want to uh they're comfortable doing it, but they want to have the video content for social media to grow and leverage the YouTube algorithm and all that good stuff. And we're able to do some really cool things with that too. So I would say preference is a big part of it because if you if you feel like you have to do video and you hate doing it, you'll never do your podcast.

SPEAKER_01

I agree.

SPEAKER_00

But aside from that, I think, you know, where is your ideal audience already hanging out? Are they on YouTube? If your ideal audience isn't even on YouTube, why would why do video? And I think those are really the the two key things. I mean, that there's a lot of more nuance that we could go into, but I would say from those two questions alone, you would have a pretty solid answer of which path you should take.

SPEAKER_01

I think that's really interesting. And one of the things too is like, I love that because one of the things I try to tell people before they get into podcasting or even go down this path is like, what are you is there something you're selling? And and by that I mean this. Like, are you selling your brand? Are you trying to sell people on who you are? Are you trying to convince people to follow, read your book? Are you trying to convince people to listen to your music? Are you trying to, you know, I I I follow this one guy named Harry Mack. I like Harry Mack a lot. He does these freestyle raps on YouTube and he goes on Omegle and he surprises people and he does these amazing freestyle raps. And now he's got a podcast talking about how he freestyle raps. And I was like, that's actually pretty cool to me, you know. And so it's interesting because what is he trying to do? Well, he's trying to get people go to go back to the YouTube to try to get people funneled back into his larger, you know, thing. Is there something he's selling? Is he selling a freestyling course? I mean, I don't know. But if you can figure out, because if you want to, you know, sell something, whether that be you know, you know, one of the things I'd love to do. Um, I am kind of my own product. I want to be doing uh what do you call it? I'd love to do like public speaking more, like to get paid by a company to come there. I don't know if I am too off the wall at times and say some crazy shit too much that companies are like, hmm, should we hire Mr. Trace? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

No, I think that makes you stand out.

SPEAKER_01

I I hope so. I hope so. I hope I can be the guy who's a little bit of a stand-up comedy, you know, take at the same time. But one of the things, like that's one of the things I'm trying to do. And as I think about that, it makes it easier to figure out what I need to be doing with my podcast, you know? And you know, I know that people that I want to kind of interact with are mainly on LinkedIn, and I know that I need to have really good visuals, I need to have things look nice and very clean so that I get, you know, it's not super fancy. Why? Well, I'm not using a super high-end camera because I'm using uh DJI Pocket 3, Osmo Pocket 3. And the whole purpose of that is because I can tell my clients that it's something they could use as well. Like they're exactly it's easy, it's easy to get. You don't have to go buy a five thousand dollar camera. I've got one in the next room, but I'm not gonna use HAP because you know, I don't want people to feel intimidated by it, you know? And I think that's one of the things too, is like making this accessible. But you, you know, you talk a lot about making podcast decisions based on like this is tied into the last one preference, audience, goals, and bandwidth, which is kind of what I was talking about. Like, what are you making it for? Like, which one do you people usually underestimate the most of those? Or maybe we could frame it a different way. What's most important for people to focus on?

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. Can I say like it's 33%?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Because if you if you focus too much on what you want to do and don't make sure that there's an audience for it, right? It's gonna be an uphill battle, and you'll get really discouraged that you're not getting as many listens or views. But if you only focus on your audience and not what you want to do, you're gonna hate it and not want to do it, even if it's wildly successful. And if you don't account for bandwidth, you might say, I'm gonna do you know, video episodes every week. Well, when are you going to record those? When are you going to plan them? When are you going to edit them or or outsource the editing? But then surely you want to review that. And then you actually have to promote it. If you have a guest, you have to like get the the guest there too. So it it you know, weekly is a hard jump for a lot of people that I talk to. So I I I always recommend to them, let's start with every other week. And then whenever that feels easy, we can we can increase it.

SPEAKER_01

It's interesting. That's really interesting because um to me, you know, it is it is such a dance. You have to love what you're doing, but you also, like you said, you have to focus on you gotta focus on what's working, what's not, and also what people are wanting, you know. And I think that if you can find that balance, you can find a space where you can be successful. And and I think that most people want to succeed at what they're doing, but it takes time, it takes time and a dedication to learning. And I think that's one of the things too, is I I think one of the things that I'm so many episodes deep in all my podcasts, and I'm just figuring starting to figure it out. I don't have it figured out, but I'm I'm starting to get my flow and understand my style, you know. And I think that one of the things that it took was taking the time to learn my own style, you know, and why this is important is because I think that we need people who can kind of tie it all together, you know. When I when I approach an episode, I try to to really kind of connect things on some level. And you know, if that person has a certain skill set, figure it out how we can lean in on that skill set and and and really hone into their level of knowledge because man, they might be the only person in the world that knows about this one thing. And if I can be the person who can ask that and help share that, maybe they don't even know that thing. For themselves, you know, maybe they're they need to discover that they're the only person. Because you know why I bring that up is a lot of content feels fragmented now. You know, a post here, a reel there, a newsletter when they remember, you know, but you know, like with a good podcast, it can become even stronger than just constantly posting everywhere. A podcast can be kind of an entire ecosystem that pulls things together, which to me is so important.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Oh my gosh. I was just having a conversation the other day with someone about what I actually do for my clients. And I was saying, well, you know, this one I am just doing the podcast for them. This other one, I help them with their YouTube channel. They also have a newsletter that that I do. Um, this other one I manage their social media too. And I was like, but I'm not a marketing agency, I promise. I'm a podcast production company who have I have a marketing, a general marketing background. So I'm able to do all of these other things too, but it's all funneled through the podcast. Like I wouldn't just do someone's newsletter if I'm not doing their podcast. I wouldn't do someone's social media if we're not doing a podcast. So because of the podcast, we're able to create all of these additional assets. And it just kind of makes sense for me to do all of it because I am so intertwined with the core piece of content. It would be kind of silly for them to have someone else who then has to go and listen or watch the episodes and think through what the key parts are. Whereas I'm already doing that in the recording. I'm taking notes and then I'm basically verifying that and getting that content whenever I'm doing the editing process. So it ends up saving them a lot of time and they can just do everything through one person or one company, as opposed to, well, Madison does podcasts, and then I have this person doing social media, and then I have this other person who does all of my uh writing, like newsletter, blog, whatever. It it's it's just uh a better str like a better ecosystem to have the podcast as like the source of truth for all of your content.

SPEAKER_01

And you can kind of pull everything under the same umbrella, which is a very good thing. You know, one of the things too is I I I feel like you know, because people do get scattered, and I think that if you can help people kind of figure out where to put their energy, you know you think about that. You want to push a rock up a hill. Not an impossible task, you know, it depends on the size of the rock. But if the hill goes this way and I'm pushing that way, there's no amount of force that I can push that's gonna make that rock go up the hill. It's gonna go the wrong way. And I think that one of the things too that I'm realizing, and this is why I think people need, at least when you're getting started, you need help. You know, you need help from people who know which way to push. You know, it's like if if you're like, I'm gonna push this way, and you're like, Well, you're hill, you want to be going that way, you know. And I think it's so important to like, you know, and that getting help can be watching videos on YouTube. That can be, you know, joining an online course, you know, that can be whatever it might be for you. It can look any way you want, but figuring things out by getting information from people who've been there and done that is so helpful, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh, I I love YouTube. I mean, that's how I learned.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Which we don't have to go into that whole path, but I will say before I started my company, I was working for a nonprofit. I was the one-person marketing team, and they were like, we should have a podcast. AA, you should do this podcast for us.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So fortunately at that time, we were able to outsource and I was able to get some expert help. And then over time, we were able to bring more and more onto my plate. And how I ended up getting my first client was they knew that I was doing the podcast, and they were like, Hey, can you can you help me with mine? I never went into this thinking I should start a podcast production company. It just happened because I had people reaching out to me who knew I was helping someone else. That's awesome. So yeah, but I relied a lot on YouTube whenever I first got started. And I think, you know, that kind of takes us back to the AI conversation where, and I have a great example of this too. AI is great for taking whenever you have like no understanding of something and getting you to like that first level. Like I have been looking at potentially buying a new car, and I'm not a car person. And so I'm like, what does what does this mean? What does you know? So it's really getting me to that level one of understanding different things about cars. But I know if I talk to a car person, they would just be like, oh no, like the AI is wrong about that, that, that. And I'm like, but it it's okay because I don't need to be an expert. I just need to have that like base understanding of things. And I see the same thing with podcasting, where it's a great step, like it's a great first step so that you understand what questions to ask of someone who is an expert. But whenever I see the outputs of what AI is telling people to do with their podcast, I can immediately say, well, it won't work for you in this scenario because of X, Y, and Z, or it's not accounting for this part of your business. Or and even excluding AI from the conversation, people will look at these big name podcasters and think, okay, I need to, I need to, you know, not copy them, but I guess take inspiration from what they're doing and and well, I guess copy them. But um they're not thinking through, does this person have the same goals that I do? Are they trying to sell something similar to my service or product? And so they're just blindly copying and pasting and wondering why that doesn't work for them. So anyway, that was a whole lot of hopefully helpful stuff.

SPEAKER_01

I love it. One of the challenges that I see, and I I think you hit the nail on the head. Like, I have one of my clients that I do uh podcast for, great guy, awesome stuff that he does. He's a junior college professor who teaches accounting and he tries to help people learn to love numbers. And when he's out there doing it, though, he was running all of his feedback through Chat GPT, and it was giving him all of this advice. And he came to me and he was going nuts. He's like, Sean, it tells me to do this and it tells me to do that. I'm like, no, you don't want to do those things. That's not like gonna help you get across to where you're trying to go. And I slowed him down. I was like, and I'm not saying AI couldn't have gotten him there, I'm saying it didn't have the right information because he might not have been asking the right questions.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and so he was like asking this question or that question. I said, What's one of your main goals? He's like, I want to do like TED Talk type stuff. And I said, Then you need to slow down on this and focus on this. And he's like, Oh, and you know, and it was one of those things of you have to get clear on what it is that you really want to do. Because if you can get that clarity, it makes everything else easier. And you know, it leads to another question for you though. Um, to get into this, it takes a lot of energy. How do you think people can make this a sustainable thing for the long term?

SPEAKER_00

Uh aside from hiring someone to help them, right? Because I feel like that's a cop-out answer. And I'm not trying I'm not like trying to sell my services here. I'm I'm really just trying to be realistic. Like, because I I work with a lot of business owners, and their goal is to, you know, get done with content so they can focus on sales. And eventually, hopefully quickly, the content will help with the sales. So you can't you can't ignore the content. You know, they they go hand in hand. But you know, if they don't have a lot of time, I'm like, you need to at a base level hire an editor because you don't have time to go and learn how to edit. But I I feel like it's a a cheat code whenever you have a producer, whenever I'm on site with them or in like the virtual studio, and I can correct issues before they are an issue. Because I've I've seen uh I have one client that they send me their files. I'm actually not in the studio or virtual studio with them. And I'm like, uh, like I'm gonna need you to record this part or something like that. And it's like, ah, if I if I would have been there, I could have caught that issue and it would have saved them a lot of time. But aside from that, whenever I'm in the recording with them, I can be getting more context for things. And I can do, you know, titles and show notes and thumbnails and video clips, and it's all cohesive back to that ecosystem conversation we were talking about. Not to say that they can't do that themselves, they can't do it.

SPEAKER_01

It makes it a lot easier. Yeah, it makes it a lot easier, and there's less of those revisions that take a lot of time. And so I I firmly support what you're saying and completely agree that there is something to be said for um the ease that it can provide, like you know, and I I I know you said it's a cop out to say hire someone. I'm gonna say the opposite. I think it's just a very integral thing that people can do to kind of level up is to find out like like this, right? Can I change the oil on my car? Yes, I can. I can. Do I want to? Probably not. And if I put my time into the things that I would prefer to be putting my time into, then I'd be a lot less stressed, you know. And I think that's the same thing. People are out there going, I could do content and the AI stuff does it for me. It doesn't do it super well, you know, and yeah, you still have to plug it in, you still have to revise it, you still got to do this thing. I tell people, like, off, pass off whatever it is that you really don't like doing. If you like editing, dude, go fun, have fun, man. Go to town. But if you don't, don't lean in on that. You know, I love the storytelling. I am a rock star editor, but I have someone edit my podcast. Like I have one of my team members do it because I don't want to. I like I like the conversation part, I don't want to have to do it again and again and again. And I hear myself talk again. I feel so self-conscious. I'm like, oh man, I shouldn't have said that there, or I missed that. But it's just easier to to pass it off to someone. And one of the things too is like, I think that if you can help people find the tools to help them succeed, they're gonna be more likely to stick with something, you know?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Can I add something? Because I don't I don't want to like make people feel like I can't start a podcast if I don't hire someone. So I do want to like give one piece of advice of like if you're not at that point, but you feel really passionately about starting a podcast, you have something to say. I would say just block an hour or two on your calendar every week and just knock out as much as you can in that one to two hour time block. And whatever you don't get done, okay, it's the next week. And if you can just make a little bit of progress every week, I think eventually you'll see enough success that you're like, okay, I like proof of concept. I I can justify like high like outsourcing some of this work now. And you also have a better base understanding of what you need help with and and what you like doing, what takes you a long time. So just get your feet wet a little bit. And I yeah, I would say that's probably like the minimum that you could do to actually start a podcast. Like you need at least an hour or two every week.

SPEAKER_01

I 100% agree. Well, I want to ask you this other question too, because a lot of people think that, you know, a podcast will instantly bring clients, authority, and growth. What expectations should people have going in if they want a show that actually supports their business?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So I will say I have had clients see relatively quick success with their podcast. But I think a lot of it is because they already had a good foundation with, you know, their LinkedIn network, or they were already doing content in another way. And the podcast just like accelerated things. And then I have clients who, you know, they're basically starting from scratch. Like they may have had a YouTube channel, but it only had like two videos and they were posted six months ago.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Or they have an Instagram, but they have 200 followers and it's all family and friends. So I would tell that person, like, it's it's probably gonna be slower. We can do some things, you know, we can optimize the podcast to hopefully reach your ideal audience a little bit faster, but this isn't, you know, overnight. You can also like sponsor the content, boost it, you know, pay to play. But how long can you sustain that? Uh that, you know, that's a conversation I would have with them. And whenever you stop paying for it, what's gonna happen?

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, I mean, there's so much nuance there, but usually what I tell my clients is within the first four to six months, we're gonna have a pretty good baseline of how the content is performing. And I do quarterly check-ins so that we can analyze where we need might need to pivot or might need to double down on things. And, you know, if we're not seeing something at that point, then it's like, oh, do we need to go back to the drawing board on like the entire concept? Um, I just had a not that exact conversation with a client, but we realized that her YouTube channel was attracting the entire like 60% of her audience was the wrong audience. So we're working on repackaging her existing episodes so that it it's they speak to her ideal audience. So that I mean, that's something you can do. You can always go back and tweak things, but you know, if she was expecting to see something in the first three months, it's like that's a tough conversation because we didn't have any data to base anything off of at that point.

SPEAKER_01

That's so interesting. I want to ask this one last thing. If someone is starting a podcast today, what are the things that they should focus on first?

SPEAKER_00

It has to be the content. It has to be content that they can't get somewhere else. And part of that is because people are coming to the podcast for you, like the host. They they like personality, they like the questions that you're asking or the expertise that you're sharing. But going back to, you know, people look at these big name podcasters and think they have to copy them, and it's really not true at all. Um, I had someone come to me and said they they wanted to do like basically hot ones. They were gonna plagiarize hot ones. And I was like, But do you even have anything related to hot sauce or chicken or anything? No, no, it's just a cool concept. And I'm like, let's figure out what makes sense for you and not and not copy them. So you can have a lot of fun with podcasts. There are some really cool ones out there, there's some really bad ones out there too. So I think just prioritizing good content that is uniquely you will set you apart more than you know, copying what the top podcasts are doing.

SPEAKER_01

I love that. I I agree entirely. Where can people go to find out about what you and your company do?

SPEAKER_00

So I'm most active on LinkedIn. It's just my name, Madison McCann. But I also have a website, speakeasyproductions.co. And if you reach out to me there, I'll I'll reply.