Episode 86

full
Published on:

8th Feb 2024

Navigating the Podcast Editing Business Maze

Hey there, podcast aficionado! Strap in, because today we're serving up a heavy dose of reality about the business and mindset of podcast editing.

Imagine this: Bryan (one of your faithful Yetis) is in the thick of it - searching for quality-over-quantity clients, and we're joined by Jesse, Tara, and Amanda to help him (and you) cut through the noise. Expect unfiltered advice on pricing, embracing AI without losing our human touch, and finding that sweet spot between making bank and keeping the passion alive.

We'll dissect whether to fly solo or assemble a podcast editing army, tackle the tightrope walk between love for the craft and keeping the fridge stocked, and dish out strategies for staying sane in the editing game.

So perk up those ears, it's about to get real. We’re diving headfirst into the audio jungle, and trust me, you won’t want to miss a beat. Let's kick this off!

Listen to Discover

  • That even people who have been editing for a while face challenges
  • The key to finding the clients that are right for you
  • How understanding your idea client can help you be more focused in what you do
  • Why finding the intersection of your fulfillment and your client's needs is the key to unlocking growth, satisfaction, and success
  • How pricing is so much more than just a math exercise

Links And Resources

Keep in mind, we aren't responsible if any of these links lead to internet black holes where you'll find yourself binge-reading articles instead of getting work done. But I digress. Go forth and prosper with these tidbits of wisdom!

About Our Guests

Jesse McCune, Tara Kelly, and Amanda McCune run Tansy Aster Academy, a community for podcast editors and managers. Through courses, coaching, and resources, they help podcast production professionals start, grow, and run their businesses.

Connect with Jesse, Tara, and Amanda

Join Us Live!

We stream live to our Facebook page and to YouTube every other week.

Follow the Show!

Our Editor

This episode of the Podcast Editors Mastermind was edited by Alejandro Ramirez. You can find him on LinkedIn if you're interested in talking with him about editing your show.

Be a Guest

If you're a podcast editor, we'd love to see if you'd be a fit for a future episode. Fill out this form to let us know you're interested, and we'll contact you to see if it's a good fit.

Your Yetis Are

About the Podcast Editors Mastermind

The Podcast Editors Mastermind is for professional podcast editors who want to grow their business and get more clients. We’re creating a community of like-minded professionals that are passionate about the art and science of editing podcasts.

Our goal is to help you build your business by providing tools, resources, and support so you can focus on what matters most—your craft. This isn’t just another group where everyone talks about how great they are at podcast editing; we show our work!



This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
Voiceover:

So How much is that?

Bryan Entzminger:

Mhmm. Alright. Welcome. We are the podcast editor's mastermind, and

Bryan Entzminger:

we're getting started actually a little bit early again. That's twice in a

Bryan Entzminger:

row now that we've done that. Not sure what's happening. But anyway, tonight, I'm gonna

Bryan Entzminger:

be in the hot seat, and I'm not at all nervous about that. And we

Bryan Entzminger:

haven't talked about it backstage or anything, but We'll be talking about that. The hope

Bryan Entzminger:

here is that you'll pick something up for your business as well as we talk

Bryan Entzminger:

through some of the challenges that I'm facing. Joining me on this side

Bryan Entzminger:

is Jennifer Longworth with Bourbon Barrel Podcasting. You didn't say who

Jennifer Longworth:

you were, by the way. Oh, okay. I'm Brian. You can find me at top

Bryan Entzminger:

tier audio.com, which you may or may not wanna do this call. We'll see. And

Bryan Entzminger:

then we have actually 3 special guests. All of them are from Tansy

Bryan Entzminger:

Astra Academy, and you might recognize Tara And, also, Jesse, they've both

Bryan Entzminger:

been on the show, and then we've also got Amanda joining us on the side

Bryan Entzminger:

where my arm is sticking off the camera. So welcome to the 3

Bryan Entzminger:

of you. So I'm the newbie here is what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much.

Bryan Entzminger:

Yeah. You're the newbie, but that's okay because we're kind and gentle or something like

Bryan Entzminger:

that. Anyway, On the last episode of the Podcast Editor's Mastermind, we were

Bryan Entzminger:

talking about some of the things that are going on in our business, and I

Bryan Entzminger:

shared that I'd faced some recent business challenges through the course of last

Bryan Entzminger:

year. Business had declined for a number of reasons that had to do

Bryan Entzminger:

with people stopping production, all that kind of stuff. And we said, hey. Maybe on

Bryan Entzminger:

the next episode, we'll put Brian in the hot seat. I said,

Bryan Entzminger:

okay. And then the next day, Jesse reached out and said, hey. This is the

Bryan Entzminger:

kind of stuff that we do at Tanziastro Academy. Would you mind if we came

Bryan Entzminger:

on the show and talked to you about it? So that's what we've done. With

Bryan Entzminger:

that, I'm gonna try and get out of the way and let the 3 of

Bryan Entzminger:

them Make this into something useful. So I'm gonna pass it on to

Bryan Entzminger:

you. So you were talking about just

Jesse McCune:

problems you were You were trying to plan for 2024.

Jesse McCune:

Yeah. You said you were looking at pricing,

Jesse McCune:

marketing. I think there were a couple other things we'll get

Jesse McCune:

to. So, Tara, actually, Amanda,

Jesse McCune:

you and I can start with the pricing stuff. The first thing I wanna

Amanda McCune:

say, though, Brian, is you are not the only person who is dealing with this

Amanda McCune:

at all. This is very common what you're talking about. People who've been in

Amanda McCune:

business for decades run into the same issues you're talking about, so

Amanda McCune:

it's not a it's not a Brian specific issue that's going on.

Amanda McCune:

But pricing, I I feel like pricing is always the really

Amanda McCune:

tricky part because you wanna be competitive, but you want

Amanda McCune:

to make sure that you can get the clients, and you have to make sure

Amanda McCune:

you're not working twice as hard for the same amount

Amanda McCune:

as other people, and it's there's no right answer. You can't just Google

Amanda McCune:

what should my prices be, and then you're good to go. Though a lot of

Amanda McCune:

it, I think, just it comes into getting to know your clients, really talking

Amanda McCune:

to people, trying to find those people who will be honest about

Amanda McCune:

what They can afford to pay what they see value in

Amanda McCune:

how you can differentiate yourself from others, but it takes Time

Amanda McCune:

to build those relationships. I think sometimes people get in the, I need sales.

Amanda McCune:

I need a client right now. They're offering half of what I know that I'm

Amanda McCune:

worth, But I need the work right now, so I'm gonna take it. And that

Amanda McCune:

just kinda gets you in a trap, but usually, if you're able to talk to

Amanda McCune:

somebody and get to understand well, I

Amanda McCune:

offer the these same services as other people, but I offer them in a

Amanda McCune:

different way that might serve you better. But the communication

Amanda McCune:

has to be there. You have to get them first, which is where Tara

Amanda McCune:

and the marketing probably comes in. But And then

Jesse McCune:

AI is changing all of this too, and so

Jesse McCune:

many of us have, like, package pricing. And I think

Jesse McCune:

we need to start shifting away from thinking of packages

Jesse McCune:

as in the what that we do and more in the how.

Jesse McCune:

Start looking at offering levels of

Jesse McCune:

service where we focus more on giving

Jesse McCune:

premium service to those who pay The premium,

Jesse McCune:

having a standard service where it's a lot more we're

Jesse McCune:

using AI wherever we can to have a

Jesse McCune:

more efficient workflow because whether we

Jesse McCune:

like it or not, trying to sell people on the

Jesse McCune:

importance of quality is difficult enough now.

Jesse McCune:

Wait another year, 2, 3 years down the road. It's going to

Jesse McCune:

be almost impossible to try to tell people

Jesse McCune:

why they need to be hiring us to do all of

Jesse McCune:

this manual high quality work when they can't hear the

Jesse McCune:

difference. So there's a lot of things kind of in

Jesse McCune:

flux right now in the podcast editing space,

Jesse McCune:

and it's just kind of a matter of figuring out What value

Jesse McCune:

can we offer to clients that can't be replaced by

Jesse McCune:

AI? If we really look at it, production

Jesse McCune:

work is at the bottom rung of the overall

Jesse McCune:

ladder. If we want to do better with

Jesse McCune:

making income, We need to find ways to move higher up

Jesse McCune:

that ladder so that we're not focused primarily on

Jesse McCune:

the production. I mean, this has been kind of the

Bryan Entzminger:

underpinning of conversations over the last year. Right? And it feels

Bryan Entzminger:

a little bit like, Yeah. I know that, but,

Bryan Entzminger:

also, I don't really know how to think about some of

Bryan Entzminger:

this yet. There are certain parts of my workflow that do

Bryan Entzminger:

Include some AI tools. I think I probably use some of the same tools that

Bryan Entzminger:

Jesse does, which help with some parts of this. But there's still

Bryan Entzminger:

in everything that I do, there's a a human element. I was actually having

Bryan Entzminger:

a client call yesterday, and they were talking about using Descript.

Bryan Entzminger:

And because I've used Descript before, I was able to ask a couple of questions

Bryan Entzminger:

about some shortcomings of that software and highlight how I can do that

Bryan Entzminger:

better. But at the same time, like, I can't see myself ever

Bryan Entzminger:

offering what I would call only service. And I hate to pick on

Bryan Entzminger:

that software, but, you know, the automated removals and

Bryan Entzminger:

whatever it didn't properly scribe is assumed to be silent, and so you're

Bryan Entzminger:

missing stuff here and there. Like, I can't see that ever being something that I

Bryan Entzminger:

would offer, and so I'm a little bit uncertain to think about How I would

Bryan Entzminger:

think about different levels of service and differentiation as it relates

Bryan Entzminger:

to pricing. One of the ways is to Look at

Jesse McCune:

the different services you offer and figure out what

Jesse McCune:

stuff can we use more AI heavy,

Jesse McCune:

what stuff I mean, we know tools are going to keep getting

Jesse McCune:

better. Right now, the editing itself is the one thing that's

Jesse McCune:

going to be Difficult to move to strictly AI

Jesse McCune:

because more clients are looking for people

Jesse McCune:

who can offer everything, show notes,

Jesse McCune:

whatever the services are. Are there things we

Jesse McCune:

can use AI to be able to offer

Jesse McCune:

those without adding significantly to the price so we can

Jesse McCune:

still compete without making everything

Jesse McCune:

focusing on AI everything. So we

Jesse McCune:

use, like, AI for show notes and descriptions,

Jesse McCune:

titles, stuff like that, Not really adding a whole lot to the

Jesse McCune:

cost, so we can focus on the manual work we need to

Jesse McCune:

do. So is that kind of streamlining planning your internal processes so

Amanda McCune:

you're spending less time doing the work so you don't have

Amanda McCune:

to charge quite so much. Because if you can get into that flow where, Okay.

Amanda McCune:

I can use these AI tools. It cuts a lot of the manual time, then

Amanda McCune:

you're not feeling as crunched. Well, I have this show, and now I have to

Amanda McCune:

spend all of this time doing this. And then I have do these show notes,

Amanda McCune:

and I have to do all of this stuff, and then it becomes more

Amanda McCune:

time intense per each client. Is it kinda using those

Amanda McCune:

processes producer the amount of time you have to spend

Amanda McCune:

on the same thing so you don't feel like you have to keep charging more

Amanda McCune:

to balance your time. Because it's kind of a time management thing too. Right? Like,

Amanda McCune:

you're 1 person. You can only take on you only have so many hours,

Amanda McCune:

and it's being able to allocate those hours in a way that

Amanda McCune:

helps you a little bit more. And sometimes it's not even

Jesse McCune:

tools related to editing. There's the whole back end

Jesse McCune:

process, client interaction. If there's ways we

Jesse McCune:

can streamline the back end of the business, that helps us

Jesse McCune:

as well. If if I can ask, what are the some of the things that

Bryan Entzminger:

you've been able to streamline from the back end? Because I like to think mine

Bryan Entzminger:

is pretty streamlined, but, hey, I only know my business. We're in the middle

Jesse McCune:

of transitioning over to HoneyBook where we can

Jesse McCune:

basically Automate the entire process from

Jesse McCune:

the time they go to our website, they click a

Jesse McCune:

link, they can book a call, We can gather information from

Jesse McCune:

them, give then, say, have a

Jesse McCune:

discovery call with them, provide them a quote with different

Jesse McCune:

manager, they can choose the package. Once they choose

Jesse McCune:

that, they get invoiced, then they get their

Jesse McCune:

the client agreement. We can automate the onboarding

Jesse McCune:

producer. So that's one of the things we're working on

Jesse McCune:

right now as opposed to Having our contracts

Jesse McCune:

and PandaDoc and trying to bring everything into one

Jesse McCune:

place where we can automate as much of that process as possible.

Jesse McCune:

Okay. Yeah. I guess I was thinking more in terms of, like, the ongoing client

Bryan Entzminger:

interactions like file delivery, that kind of stuff. But that's a it's a good another

Bryan Entzminger:

good take on it. They have these fun portals where you can upload files

Tara Kelly:

and communicate that way to HoneyBook? And you can actually link it to your

Tara Kelly:

Gmail account. If you have, like, your or if you have, like, Google Workspace for

Tara Kelly:

your email, you can connect to that so you can sync your calendars

Tara Kelly:

and all of that fun stuff. That's HoneyBook as well? Mhmm. Yeah. Oh,

Bryan Entzminger:

wow. Okay. I guess I need to go check them out again. It does come

Amanda McCune:

as as an expense. You know? We always try to keep your overhead low,

Amanda McCune:

but It's that whole time time versus money. I

Amanda McCune:

mean, both have the the value, but it's if you're able to,

Amanda McCune:

maybe you spend the, And I don't actually know what HoneyBook costs, but you spend

Amanda McCune:

a little bit per month and but you don't have to put

Amanda McCune:

as much time and energy into all that back end and stuff. Now you have

Amanda McCune:

more hours available that you can do the marketing things that you

Amanda McCune:

don't really wanna do, but you know you need to, or maybe that's the time

Amanda McCune:

that you get to spend with your personal things that you wanna do,

Amanda McCune:

but it's sometimes that extra cost is going to be

Amanda McCune:

minimal when you compare it to the amount of time you save. Yeah.

Bryan Entzminger:

I I can totally see that. I was actually looking through my books earlier,

Bryan Entzminger:

and, one of the things that I discovered was one of the Most significant

Bryan Entzminger:

expenses I had last year, which wasn't a huge surprise, was subcontractors

Bryan Entzminger:

because I had some people working on some shows for me. And

Bryan Entzminger:

because the business has kind of declined, I've had to stop doing

Bryan Entzminger:

that as you would expect. Right? You have to preserve the margin, And

Bryan Entzminger:

so maybe there are some ways that this kind of automation could

Bryan Entzminger:

reduce the need for that. I don't know that I would ever get back 2

Bryan Entzminger:

hours per episode, but maybe there's enough there. Why do you think your business

Tara Kelly:

declined this year? Because I'm hearing it a lot across the board, and it seems

Tara Kelly:

like it's for similar reasons. A combination of client life

Bryan Entzminger:

changes and different directions. So there was I didn't have any clients

Bryan Entzminger:

that said I'm leaving you for another editor, but what I did have

Bryan Entzminger:

was Three shows that were through a production company,

Bryan Entzminger:

and that company stopped operations so I lost those

Bryan Entzminger:

shows Because they're not making them anymore. And then I had 2

Bryan Entzminger:

others where the hosts just stopped producing the show. You know,

Bryan Entzminger:

they just said, hey. I'm done. It wasn't a whole lot of I'm losing them

Bryan Entzminger:

to Jennifer or to Daniel or to Jesse. It

Bryan Entzminger:

was a lot of we're stopping the show. Won't need you anymore because we're not

Bryan Entzminger:

gonna pay you to not produce a show. Right? So that's kind of the driving

Bryan Entzminger:

factor for me. I mean, I could guess at the overarching

Bryan Entzminger:

Stuff. But I think it's it's really just the clients changing.

Bryan Entzminger:

Right? Yeah. I guess I should all say on the on the personal side, Once

Bryan Entzminger:

this started going, I didn't do a ton to go and try recapturing business.

Bryan Entzminger:

I mean, I did put myself out there a little bit, and I did have

Bryan Entzminger:

a number of client calls where Things

Bryan Entzminger:

just didn't line up and never really got any feedback. You know, is it price,

Bryan Entzminger:

or is it you decided you didn't need an editor. I never really got that,

Bryan Entzminger:

but Didn't replace them with anything during the year, which is how we got

Bryan Entzminger:

here. So I think that's a nice segue into marketing.

Bryan Entzminger:

Sure. I was just gonna say, I I think when

Tara Kelly:

people are fearing the, you know, recession coming, when

Tara Kelly:

we keep hearing the r word, when we keep hearing People are losing jobs. I

Tara Kelly:

mean, every time I sign on to LinkedIn, there's another layoff announcement, or

Tara Kelly:

my feed is just filled with more and more of my colleagues being laid off.

Bryan Entzminger:

Mhmm. My connection's being laid off. There's a lot of fear in the

Tara Kelly:

air, and I think oftentimes the first place

Tara Kelly:

people start to cut budgets is in

Tara Kelly:

creative marketing. And one of the things I hear and I've

Tara Kelly:

heard a lot this year over and over when it comes to podcasting,

Tara Kelly:

when have talked to prospects when I've talked to clients, and I ask,

Tara Kelly:

have you considered podcasting? Well, we did in the past,

Tara Kelly:

but it was a lot of work and a lot of cost, and we

Tara Kelly:

didn't see the return on investment. We couldn't really trace

Tara Kelly:

how it was helping us with our business or how it was, you know,

Tara Kelly:

helping us with conversions or getting us clients, so we stopped

Tara Kelly:

because it just seemed like too much work and too much time. I've heard that

Tara Kelly:

Over and over. And so when we're in this time period where there's a lot

Tara Kelly:

of fear and penny pinching, People are

Tara Kelly:

like, okay. I don't need the podcast anymore. Let's just stop that.

Tara Kelly:

So in the marketing and branding world, we call that threats. Like, we

Tara Kelly:

when we look for threats threats to our business when we do that

Tara Kelly:

little SWAT chart. Are you familiar with that? Mhmm. I think that might be the

Tara Kelly:

case here. Be and not necessarily that There's there was something

Tara Kelly:

wrong with your service or they weren't happy with your service. It does seem

Tara Kelly:

like a pattern across the board right now. So you

Tara Kelly:

said that you work a full time job and you're traveling

Tara Kelly:

a lot. A little more travel this year. Yeah. How many

Tara Kelly:

hours a week Would you say you have to devote to your

Tara Kelly:

podcast business? In the past, I've been doing about 10 hours

Bryan Entzminger:

a week. It's significantly less right now because I don't have

Bryan Entzminger:

the work to fill the time. But, yeah, 10, sometimes up to

Bryan Entzminger:

15. That once I got to 15 is where things kinda got a little

Bryan Entzminger:

shaky, and so that's when I started bringing in contractors because it it got to

Bryan Entzminger:

be a little bit much. And then I discovered that I only get, like, a

Bryan Entzminger:

50% return on having the contractor because I still have to go back and

Bryan Entzminger:

review stuff, and there's an administrative overhead on that, but I

Bryan Entzminger:

got back sometime. So you feel like 10 to 15 hours a week

Tara Kelly:

is about your limit. If you were to get the clients back, that's

Tara Kelly:

the most you could spend right now while working full time? I think

Bryan Entzminger:

that's I mean, I don't know that I would ever say the most. Right? Because

Bryan Entzminger:

there's probably a chance you could find something else here and there, but that seems

Bryan Entzminger:

to be what was sustainable. And I'll call it nearly healthy.

Bryan Entzminger:

I don't know that it was truly healthy, but at least nearly healthy. Okay. So

Tara Kelly:

it says your you said your ultimate dream, at least by

Tara Kelly:

2027 would be to have a full fledged

Tara Kelly:

production business. Mhmm. Now Is is

Tara Kelly:

your goal to eventually have your own business full time and

Tara Kelly:

that be your main focus? Yeah. I find that as The

Bryan Entzminger:

business grows. It becomes harder to maintain focus between the job and the

Bryan Entzminger:

business. And so, like, when it's small, it's easier. When it gets bigger,

Bryan Entzminger:

it's harder. So there's Eventually, you can't you can't have 2 full time

Bryan Entzminger:

things. Right? Or at least I can't. Maybe other people can. What does the

Tara Kelly:

production business look like? Does it have employees? Is it almost like an

Tara Kelly:

agency, or is it just you and some contractors still? So, I

Bryan Entzminger:

mean, that's partly what I've been struggling with because And maybe some of this

Bryan Entzminger:

is presumption, but it's hard for me to imagine being able

Bryan Entzminger:

to have a level of stability and provide stability for my clients

Bryan Entzminger:

without having at least contractors or some level of employees. And

Bryan Entzminger:

my experience so far has been that, contractors

Bryan Entzminger:

are expensive, Then they should be. Right? Because they're good at what they do,

Bryan Entzminger:

but there's a lot of not that I've had employees, but, you know, there's some

Bryan Entzminger:

additional overhead or additional administration from having employees.

Bryan Entzminger:

So I'm not super firm on what that would need to be. I just feel

Bryan Entzminger:

like I shouldn't be the only person in the business ultimately

Bryan Entzminger:

Producer because it all relies on me.

Bryan Entzminger:

And as much as I enjoy doing the work, I don't think that's right thing

Bryan Entzminger:

for the clients, and I'm not sure that it's the right thing long term because

Bryan Entzminger:

I would hate to get sick for a week and have all my clients miss

Bryan Entzminger:

their deadlines because I'm not there. Right? And, conversely, I'd

Bryan Entzminger:

hate to reach out to Jesse and a couple of other editors and say, can

Bryan Entzminger:

you do all of these this week? By the way, I don't have any guidelines

Bryan Entzminger:

for you. Just figure it out. Like, that's Not only expensive, but it's not right

Bryan Entzminger:

for them, and it's not right for the client. So, like, I feel like there's

Bryan Entzminger:

gotta be a sweet spot there for me somewhere. Do you always wanna do

Tara Kelly:

production? Yeah. That's part of the problem. Right? You enjoy

Tara Kelly:

it? I do. Yeah. There's just something about it. I mean, like anything, it

Bryan Entzminger:

you get into it, and sometimes you're not really feeling it. But, yeah, I love

Bryan Entzminger:

it. I really do. So it sounds like the perfect scenario

Tara Kelly:

for you. You get to continue doing what you love production, but you would have

Tara Kelly:

help so you're not overwhelmed, and you can have ample vacation

Tara Kelly:

each year. Yeah. You can have that flexibility to take time off when

Tara Kelly:

you need it and have you know, be with your family, have that work, life

Tara Kelly:

balance. Yeah. So I think the first question is thinking through

Tara Kelly:

what would it take to get there? How many clients would that be? What would

Tara Kelly:

that look like? What would you need to make? Right now, you said, you know,

Tara Kelly:

you're look you want it to at least be comparable with your full time role.

Tara Kelly:

Right? Yeah. I mean, it it would need to be pretty close, or I'd have

Bryan Entzminger:

to have some really hard conversations with my wife. Right? Because

Bryan Entzminger:

we have kids and and a house and stuff. Right?

Bryan Entzminger:

So, I can't just abdicate that responsibility

Bryan Entzminger:

because I wanna go chase my dreams. So, yeah, it has to be close. Yeah.

Tara Kelly:

And without throwing out exact numbers, how Sorry. I can't

Tara Kelly:

word this right. What percentage of your business income

Tara Kelly:

is, your full time income? Doing math in

Bryan Entzminger:

my head, which is a pretty bad thing to do. I would say as of

Bryan Entzminger:

last year, it was probably 10 to 15%,

Bryan Entzminger:

But the business declined through the year. And I'm also thinking profit,

Bryan Entzminger:

not gross revenue. And the year prior, it was probably

Bryan Entzminger:

closer to 20 to 25%, somewhere in that range. So

Bryan Entzminger:

think like, job went up, business went down, so that widens

Bryan Entzminger:

the gap. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's one of those things that's gonna

Tara Kelly:

take time to build. It's gonna take time to get up to equal what you're

Tara Kelly:

currently making in your full time income. Yeah. And I'll say, like,

Bryan Entzminger:

maybe this is just me, but I can't foresee how I could

Bryan Entzminger:

truly get up to parity at a part time level. Like,

Bryan Entzminger:

there would have to be some kind of plan to close the gap,

Bryan Entzminger:

or I'd have to be building out that employee base or whatever that looks like

Bryan Entzminger:

in terms of support Because I can't I can't foresee something

Bryan Entzminger:

where 10 editing only clients would ever get me

Bryan Entzminger:

to anywhere near what I would need to be even if I was charging

Bryan Entzminger:

Well, maybe with super premium rates. I don't know. I mean, it depends on what

Bryan Entzminger:

you can get people to pay, but how long will they pay that? Right? I

Bryan Entzminger:

mean, somebody might be willing to pay $1,000 an episode for an audio only

Bryan Entzminger:

edit Right now? 2 years from now, probably not. And that that's

Tara Kelly:

Amanda's expert. She is the expert of all things money, so

Tara Kelly:

I'll let her delve into that a little bit more. But the first part when

Tara Kelly:

you're thinking about brand and marketing is really clarifying those

Tara Kelly:

goals, figuring that part out, figuring out, okay, I

Tara Kelly:

have a ways to go before I can match my full time income. I'm not

Tara Kelly:

gonna do it all this year because that's not realistic. So how many clients

Tara Kelly:

do I wanna have this year? How many clients do I wanna have next year?

Tara Kelly:

What do I wanna be doing? What does that look like? Do I

Tara Kelly:

want to be managing employees? Would I feel more comfortable just

Tara Kelly:

having contractors that help me out when I need the help? You know, thinking through

Tara Kelly:

all that because managing and bringing on employees isn't for everyone. It

Tara Kelly:

could feel like a huge responsibility. Other people are like, yep. I

Tara Kelly:

wanna scale up. I wanna have a whole agency. I wanna go.

Tara Kelly:

So thinking about Where do you fit there? What's gonna

Tara Kelly:

be best for you? And then thinking about what income you

Tara Kelly:

ideally want to make and then planning toward that

Tara Kelly:

and thinking, okay. Well, what marketing activities can I

Tara Kelly:

do that will help me reach these exact goals? Because then it'll help

Tara Kelly:

you measure what your marketing efforts are doing

Tara Kelly:

for you. So in terms of, let's say and I'm just gonna throw this out.

Tara Kelly:

Let's say your goal this year was to get 20 clients. And right

Tara Kelly:

now, you have 0 clients. So where do you

Tara Kelly:

start? The first thing you'd wanna really look at is,

Tara Kelly:

okay, Is my messaging working for me? Do I really understand

Tara Kelly:

my target audience? Do I know where to find them? So I'll

Tara Kelly:

ask that of you. Do you have a certain niche? Do you have

Tara Kelly:

a certain type of client that you've worked with, that you

Tara Kelly:

loved working with, and you want a 100 more of them? Yeah.

Bryan Entzminger:

So that's kind of where I've been stuck. I've really enjoyed working with the

Bryan Entzminger:

indie podcasters. I'll call it the 1 person show

Bryan Entzminger:

Or a couple person show. Right? So you get to work with the

Bryan Entzminger:

showrunner. You don't work with a committee. I really prefer that.

Bryan Entzminger:

However, my experience has been most of them don't have the

Bryan Entzminger:

budget to support the kind of editing that they actually want. So that's always been

Bryan Entzminger:

the gap. So I have worked with a large company. We'll see

Bryan Entzminger:

if that continues. I don't know. Their show is on hiatus, so we'll we'll see

Bryan Entzminger:

if that ever comes back. I enjoyed that because I was still working with the

Bryan Entzminger:

showrunner even though it was a larger company, but then you've got the issue of

Bryan Entzminger:

payment terms. Right? You you never get prepayment from a large company. You

Bryan Entzminger:

get net 30 if you're lucky. Right? And so there's some some

Bryan Entzminger:

stuff I'm trying to work through, but I would say I like working with the

Bryan Entzminger:

showrunner. I don't necessarily have a specific niche. I would

Bryan Entzminger:

prefer people with a larger budget, business owners, that kinda thing, but not

Bryan Entzminger:

necessarily Not necessarily tied to, like, the coaching community or

Bryan Entzminger:

the whatever. I I don't really have a preference there.

Bryan Entzminger:

I just wanna work with people that are passionate about what they do and can

Bryan Entzminger:

pay. That's the tricky part. Are there any

Tara Kelly:

topics that have really fascinated you? So, I mean, one of the

Bryan Entzminger:

shows that I worked on was Focusrite's show, where

Bryan Entzminger:

they interview audio engineers because I love audio. That's super interesting to

Bryan Entzminger:

me. I was also really surprised that they would have outsourced their production because it's

Bryan Entzminger:

a whole company of audio people, but they did, and I'm good with that. The

Bryan Entzminger:

other one that really surprised me was I have 1 client right now that basically

Bryan Entzminger:

just Interviews people about things, doctors, whatever.

Bryan Entzminger:

It's just who she met and what what they can and, surprisingly,

Bryan Entzminger:

Like, she's probably 15 years older than I am, something like that. But the topics

Bryan Entzminger:

that she's choosing, even though it's not what I would normally listen to, I get

Bryan Entzminger:

done editing every episode. I'm like, I'm smarter because of what she did. So, like,

Bryan Entzminger:

it's just things I can learn about, I guess. I wish I was more

Bryan Entzminger:

specific. I really do. You just wanna learn new things. What do you

Tara Kelly:

really love about working with the indie show runners

Tara Kelly:

specifically? Yeah. I mean, they care about what they're doing.

Bryan Entzminger:

They enjoy what they're doing. If they didn't, they'd just stop. I mean,

Bryan Entzminger:

for lack of a better they bring it or they don't. And they the ones

Bryan Entzminger:

that I've worked with, they generally do. They care about growing their show. They

Bryan Entzminger:

most of most of the ones that I work with care about the audio quality,

Bryan Entzminger:

care about the show quality. Some of them, I haven't ended up with

Bryan Entzminger:

anybody that wishes they could just hold my hand while I do the editing for

Bryan Entzminger:

them. Like, can you like, they're not super control freaks. I don't have any of

Bryan Entzminger:

this whole we have to deal with legal or any of that stuff. It's just

Bryan Entzminger:

nice to work with the showrunner. I I think that's a lot of it right

Bryan Entzminger:

there. Yeah. I'm what I'm hearing is you love working with, like, passionate

Tara Kelly:

thought leaders and mentors Mhmm. Who love what they

Tara Kelly:

do, who love to teach and educate others

Tara Kelly:

and really want to keep growing and really

Tara Kelly:

care about the quality of their podcast and the quality of what they put out

Tara Kelly:

there. Like you said, they really care about what they do. So I

Tara Kelly:

think when you're thinking about your messaging, when you're

Tara Kelly:

thinking about your marketing, starting there, What would they

Tara Kelly:

really resonate with? Because you really resonate with them. What kind of

Tara Kelly:

messaging would draw them in talking about Those things talking

Tara Kelly:

about I work with podcasters who really care about what they

Tara Kelly:

do. I work with mentors. I'm a, you know, insatiable

Tara Kelly:

learner myself, And, you know, I love

Tara Kelly:

working with people who are passionate about these topics and passionate about educating

Tara Kelly:

their community. I'm just spitballing right now. But these are

Tara Kelly:

this is where you can start really connecting with the people

Tara Kelly:

you wanna be working with in terms of your

Tara Kelly:

external presence. Right? The other piece of it is

Tara Kelly:

doing that market research. It helps to know who

Tara Kelly:

you wanna work with, who you like working with. So you mentioned the indie

Tara Kelly:

showrunner, but thinking about, okay, which one of

Tara Kelly:

them has the budget? What are the ones who have the budget

Tara Kelly:

to pay for my quality of work? Where do they exist? Where do they live?

Tara Kelly:

Where can I find them? So thinking through that

Tara Kelly:

piece of it, where do these

Tara Kelly:

showrunners hang out online? Do you know? No.

Bryan Entzminger:

Because if I did, I would totally be there.

Tara Kelly:

Well, where did you find them? One of them was a referral from,

Bryan Entzminger:

Well, same person. So Jesse went through the podcast

Bryan Entzminger:

engineering school. That's how I found the Focusrite Show is through that. It was a

Bryan Entzminger:

referral through that. One of them was just a random

Bryan Entzminger:

post in a podcasting group where somebody said I'm looking for an editor,

Bryan Entzminger:

and Somebody, I think it might have been Steve Stewart, tagged me and said, hey.

Bryan Entzminger:

He lives in Nashville. You should talk to him because I think it was the

Bryan Entzminger:

Nashville group. It was it was that kinda thing. Almost all of the people

Bryan Entzminger:

I've found have either been referrals or somebody that I've

Bryan Entzminger:

interacted with online, generally in one of the Facebook groups for

Bryan Entzminger:

podcast, because I love those people even though, you know, there's a a

Bryan Entzminger:

zillion editors in there. Every once in a while, I find 1, and

Bryan Entzminger:

they actually wanna work with me. I I don't know why. I mean, you mentioned

Tara Kelly:

passion for audio, so maybe you can start

Tara Kelly:

there. Because it's easiest when you can at

Tara Kelly:

least think of, Hey. I'd really like to do more

Tara Kelly:

shows about audio, or I'd really like to do more shows about, I'm

Tara Kelly:

just throwing this out here, like marketing or music. If

Tara Kelly:

you have topics you already know you like in

Tara Kelly:

industries that you feel drawn to for one reason or manager,

Tara Kelly:

it helps when you're doing that research to be able to start with something because

Tara Kelly:

it's easier than to pinpoint where Those people might hang

Tara Kelly:

out and join those groups and join those communities. I find

Tara Kelly:

people have a lot of luck joining groups and just

Tara Kelly:

participating, engaging, and not selling anything, just being part of

Tara Kelly:

those groups on, you know, community. There's Discord groups, for

Tara Kelly:

instance. There's Facebook groups. There is Reddit.

Tara Kelly:

Like, you can find just about any topic you would

Tara Kelly:

ever want to know about, join. It doesn't matter what it is.

Tara Kelly:

Type it in. You will find it. You will find a

Tara Kelly:

whole group thread about it. But it it really is. It's

Tara Kelly:

a good place to start and really think

Tara Kelly:

of to start your research and gather that information

Tara Kelly:

And meet people and talk to people. The other thing that

Tara Kelly:

really helps is if you have, you know, communicate you're

Tara Kelly:

still communicating with former clients or current clients or you have good

Tara Kelly:

relationships with people who, hey. If they read a podcast, you'd love to work

Tara Kelly:

with them, being able to talk to them. Just say, hey.

Tara Kelly:

Would you have a coffee with me in person virtual depending on the

Tara Kelly:

situation? And just ask them about their day. Ask them about their challenges.

Tara Kelly:

Ask them, Like, if they were to run a podcast,

Tara Kelly:

what would they be concerned about? What would they wanna do? It's just being

Tara Kelly:

curious, learning about them So you have a better

Tara Kelly:

idea again of how to talk to them, how to communicate with them. So for

Tara Kelly:

instance, if you're setting up, like, a funnel on your website,

Tara Kelly:

you know what offers to make them that are really gonna entice the

Tara Kelly:

types of people you want to work with. So a lot of marketing isn't

Tara Kelly:

necessarily just writing a bunch of blogs and posting a bunch of

Tara Kelly:

social media. It's really connecting with and getting to know the people you you

Tara Kelly:

wanna work with and talk to. So those are 2 things that I might

Tara Kelly:

start with. Just figure out and get a clearer

Tara Kelly:

picture of What you want to do, where you wanna go, and who

Tara Kelly:

you wanna be working with. And I know that's hard when you're just a curious

Tara Kelly:

person and you wanna learn everything because I'm the same way. So many people have

Tara Kelly:

asked me, you know, Tara, you need to niche down with marketing? And I'm

Tara Kelly:

a marketer. And I'm like, I I Amanda's laughing because

Tara Kelly:

she knows. I'm like, I I love working with

Tara Kelly:

nonprofits. I love working with creatives. I love working

Tara Kelly:

with so many different types of people in industries, and I've I've

Tara Kelly:

enjoyed doing that. And when somebody asked me niche down, That's a

Tara Kelly:

little stressful because I'm like, I don't know. But I found

Tara Kelly:

it's much easier to just pinpoint 1 industry

Tara Kelly:

and start there and see how I like it. And if I

Tara Kelly:

feel like, you know what? I wanna work with other types of people, I can.

Tara Kelly:

I can branch out from there because it's so much easier to start

Tara Kelly:

smaller and mark it there and grow than it is to

Tara Kelly:

try and just say, oh, I'll work with anybody. You know?

Tara Kelly:

I just love people. I love connecting with people. You can say that, But it's

Tara Kelly:

a little bit harder to target your messaging and your emails

Tara Kelly:

if you wanna do that. And the last thing I'll talk about, because I feel

Tara Kelly:

like I'm taking up too much time on marketing, But, is

Tara Kelly:

really thinking through your prospect journey, so

Tara Kelly:

to speak, and what you're willing to do

Tara Kelly:

marketing wise. What are your passions? Because it's not helpful

Tara Kelly:

to do the things you don't love doing when it comes to marketing. Because if

Tara Kelly:

somebody says, well, you you need to write 5 blogs a month,

Tara Kelly:

Brian. How do you feel about that? Does that Make you excited?

Bryan Entzminger:

No. Makes me the opposite

Bryan Entzminger:

of excited. Exactly. What about if I said

Tara Kelly:

you have to produce 1 podcast episode a

Tara Kelly:

month talking about what you love and what's on your mind? That sounds a

Bryan Entzminger:

little more interesting. It sounds a little more interesting. So it's about figuring

Tara Kelly:

that out too. Yeah. You know, what are the things that you love doing

Tara Kelly:

that you can put out there that are helping people, informing

Tara Kelly:

people, educating people. I think the show is a really good part of

Tara Kelly:

that Because people get to know you, they get to know your personality,

Tara Kelly:

and that goes a long way. Yeah. I love doing this show. I

Bryan Entzminger:

I honestly do. I mean, we struggle a little bit internally because we're always thinking,

Bryan Entzminger:

like, this doesn't really point anybody else back to our businesses. Right? Because

Bryan Entzminger:

our audience is Editor and producers.

Bryan Entzminger:

So we're we're basically upskilling our competition, but we love them. So,

Bryan Entzminger:

like, how do we not do that? Right? But that's a wonderful thing. You're helping

Tara Kelly:

people, and you're actually growing

Tara Kelly:

your peep people's trust in you and your brand because they see that

Tara Kelly:

you're doing that, and you're not doing it to sell anything. You're just doing

Tara Kelly:

it because you love doing it, and it comes across as authentic and

Tara Kelly:

real, and I would wanna work with you. Sorry, Jesse.

Amanda McCune:

It's fine. I'm used to it. Well, I'd say

Tara Kelly:

the same thing about Jesse. You both have that. You're both authentic. You both love

Tara Kelly:

educating and just helping people for the sake of helping people. And

Tara Kelly:

who doesn't wanna work with people like that? You know? I mean, that is all

Tara Kelly:

part of branding and marketing. It's you're already doing it.

Tara Kelly:

It's more just thinking about, okay, what Avenues are gonna work best for

Tara Kelly:

me. Thank you. And that kinda ties into, though, like you said, you're building

Amanda McCune:

this community. Say you and Jesse have a lot of things in common. As

Amanda McCune:

you do build your business and you get to that point where you need to

Amanda McCune:

have somebody else because you can't be the only person doing the work all the

Amanda McCune:

time, you need to go on that trip, You had mentioned that you, you

Amanda McCune:

know, sometimes have to hire a contractor, but then you

Amanda McCune:

and all of that. So if you have somebody like I'm just gonna keep using

Amanda McCune:

Jesse because his face is right there, and he's the person to use for

Amanda McCune:

that. But If you and Jesse could probably come to some kind of

Amanda McCune:

agreement that would work, that if you work in similar ways, you

Amanda McCune:

care about people in the same way because it's really hard to find somebody that

Amanda McCune:

you trust that can do your work. Like you said, you even

Amanda McCune:

go back, and you kinda have to check the contractor's work because

Amanda McCune:

it's They're your clients, and you have a certain level of quality

Amanda McCune:

that you want to deliver. It's really, really hard to get to

Amanda McCune:

that point where you trust somebody else to do that same level of

Amanda McCune:

quality so you don't have to go check their work. And I I you'd

Amanda McCune:

say that from from my it took me years years years to find somebody in

Amanda McCune:

in my production work, which is more in TV and film, but finding

Amanda McCune:

somebody who I could actually just say, okay. You go handle this. I'm not

Amanda McCune:

going to worry about it. You're gonna take care of it. You're gonna do it

Amanda McCune:

in a way that I'm comfortable with. I don't have to second guess what you're

Amanda McCune:

doing. We're okay here. But having somebody like that

Amanda McCune:

eventually and I think a community like this, you're building that that

Amanda McCune:

networking thing, not just in terms of clients, because once you get a Client's

Amanda McCune:

word-of-mouth goes probably further than anything as far

Amanda McCune:

you know, you find somebody like, oh, well, this guy does really good work for

Amanda McCune:

me. Oh, You they then they hear somebody who might be looking for an

Amanda McCune:

editor, and they'll refer you. But also on the internal business

Amanda McCune:

side, If you have someone else that can help you with maybe the things that

Amanda McCune:

you don't like. Like you said, maybe maybe Jesse loves blogs. I I don't

Amanda McCune:

think that's the case, But maybe in this community,

Amanda McCune:

you you find someone, and you're able to kinda work things out in a

Amanda McCune:

way where you're supporting each other even if you're not in the same

Amanda McCune:

business necessarily. You're not business partners, but you can still

Amanda McCune:

partner with other, maybe, small business owners, individuals

Amanda McCune:

that can build things going forward. And that that helps too because

Amanda McCune:

then you're still doing your own business, but you don't feel so alone in

Amanda McCune:

that business. It's important to start to realize

Jesse McCune:

that the reality of making a living off

Jesse McCune:

of podcasters is going to be difficult.

Jesse McCune:

Ideally, we're looking for people who

Jesse McCune:

happen to podcast but are other things.

Jesse McCune:

Businesses, coaches, people who

Bryan Entzminger:

have a monetary gain from the podcast,

Jesse McCune:

They're going to value what we do better than podcasters

Jesse McCune:

who are struggling to even pay for whatever

Jesse McCune:

they're doing for the show. So like tarot was

Jesse McCune:

saying, trying to figure out who you can work with.

Jesse McCune:

If you try to market yourself to podcasters,

Jesse McCune:

What happens when you see somebody post in a Facebook group saying,

Jesse McCune:

I'm looking for a podcast editor? All the editors come out.

Amanda McCune:

Exactly. Yeah. You see a 100 responses within an

Bryan Entzminger:

hour. Mhmm. But if you go to let's use Tara's

Jesse McCune:

example of marketing. You wanna work with marketers. If you go

Jesse McCune:

into marketing group, you might be the only podcast editor

Jesse McCune:

there. So when people have questions about podcasting, They're going

Jesse McCune:

to go to you. So all of a sudden, you're the big fish in a

Jesse McCune:

small pond as opposed to a fish that you can't even see in the

Jesse McCune:

pond because there's so many of them. So that's one of the biggest things I

Jesse McCune:

found is my best clients aren't podcasters.

Jesse McCune:

They use podcasting as part of their business, whether it's brand awareness,

Jesse McCune:

Lead generation, personal branding, whatever

Jesse McCune:

the case is. So that's another

Jesse McCune:

thing that kind of ties in with what Tara was saying. If we

Jesse McCune:

try to target everybody, we can't really target anybody.

Amanda McCune:

And that direct? I was

Tara Kelly:

gonna ask. And what is your reaction to that, Brian? I can tell from your

Tara Kelly:

expression. You're like No. I mean, that's That's not new news.

Bryan Entzminger:

Right? It's just a real challenge to find that right

Bryan Entzminger:

group of people. I'm Obviously, not opposed to working

Bryan Entzminger:

with business owners. I do have a little bit of head junk to work through

Bryan Entzminger:

in terms of the coaching space because almost everything I've seen in that space

Bryan Entzminger:

is quantity, quantity, quantity. Who cares about quality?

Bryan Entzminger:

It it's it's your MVP. It doesn't have to be good, and that tends

Bryan Entzminger:

to overflow. And so my experience has been it's really hard to

Bryan Entzminger:

find somebody who cares as much about quality as they're going

Bryan Entzminger:

to expect you to care about the quality of their show, that makes sense.

Bryan Entzminger:

I don't like being in the position where I care more about the client's show

Bryan Entzminger:

than they do. That to me is very uncomfortable, So I wanna know that they

Bryan Entzminger:

do more, and most of what I've seen isn't that. That doesn't mean

Bryan Entzminger:

it's not out there. Maybe I'm just hanging out with the wrong groups. Well, that's

Jesse McCune:

where really qualifying your client your prospects really

Jesse McCune:

comes in. The more you can narrow that down, you can

Jesse McCune:

focus your copy. You can make it clear to them if

Jesse McCune:

you're the type that doesn't care about anything. You're looking for an MVP

Jesse McCune:

product. I'm not the person for you. You can make it

Jesse McCune:

clear. Like you were saying earlier, I wanna work with the people

Jesse McCune:

who take pride in their show. They want the best, and they're

Jesse McCune:

willing to pay for that. You use your website to communicate

Jesse McCune:

that, and that helps kind of weed out

Jesse McCune:

those tire kickers or the people that just want Fast

Jesse McCune:

turnaround, large quantities regardless of how it

Jesse McCune:

sounds. I'm taking notes as you should.

Tara Kelly:

What podcast do you really love listening to? What are your top 3 that

Tara Kelly:

you don't miss? So currently And it's not

Bryan Entzminger:

because of the quality of the show. But currently, the podcast 2 point o

Bryan Entzminger:

show, I catch that one pretty religiously, Pod News Daily,

Bryan Entzminger:

And then there's a couple others that are kind of focused in that same

Bryan Entzminger:

vein. But right now, because I don't have a commute and because I've

Bryan Entzminger:

been fairly busy, my listening is way down from what it used to be. So

Bryan Entzminger:

there are other shows that used to be in that queue that were more for

Bryan Entzminger:

enjoyment rather than just staying up to date that have kinda fallen by

Bryan Entzminger:

the wayside. So I don't really have one where I go like, that's my pleasure

Bryan Entzminger:

listen. Well, what was your pleasure listen? I'm trying to think because it's been a

Bryan Entzminger:

bit there there were some that kinda funny that I enjoyed. I'm not really thinking

Bryan Entzminger:

about those. I think probably from a quality standpoint and

Bryan Entzminger:

learning stuff, I really enjoyed 20,000 hertz, Which is, like, super

Bryan Entzminger:

off the chain from a quality standpoint. Most of the

Bryan Entzminger:

other scripted shows really kind of, I don't enjoy them,

Bryan Entzminger:

but that was one where I was like, I really like what they've done here.

Tara Kelly:

Do you enjoy more talk like, interview style type

Tara Kelly:

shows where it's like this, Just talking back and forth, that's nothing

Tara Kelly:

that's scripted? I tend to. Yeah. If I'm gonna do something scripted, it's

Bryan Entzminger:

probably gonna be streaming video or something like that. For

Bryan Entzminger:

podcasting for me, I tend to like it being that more raw

Bryan Entzminger:

experience. Not no shade on the audio dramas or anything. It's just

Bryan Entzminger:

If I'm gonna do a drama, it's gonna be something where I'm gonna sit down

Bryan Entzminger:

and watch it so that it's actually taking my attention. If I'm

Bryan Entzminger:

listening to a podcast, it's because I'm driving or doing something else.

Amanda McCune:

Mhmm. Are those the kinds of podcast that you prefer producing?

Bryan Entzminger:

The interviews? Absolutely. Interviews, monologues, panel discussions,

Bryan Entzminger:

I love those. I've not really done much in the actually, I don't know

Bryan Entzminger:

that I've done anything in the scripted space yet. Not that I'm opposed to it,

Bryan Entzminger:

but that's not really what my skill set is. At least from my perspective, I've

Bryan Entzminger:

gotten really good at the the audio repair, the mix and

Bryan Entzminger:

master, and the straight through linear edit. I don't Tend

Bryan Entzminger:

to do story edits. It's just not a skill set that I've really spent much

Bryan Entzminger:

time with, and honestly, I've never had a client with a budget that could

Bryan Entzminger:

support me going through and Mhmm. Mapping out their show and then figuring out what

Bryan Entzminger:

to cut because that's gonna be multiples of what I currently

Bryan Entzminger:

charge. I don't know how many, but it's not gonna be just 1 multiple.

Tara Kelly:

Understandable. So I haven't heard of 20,000 hertz. What is it

Tara Kelly:

about? It's about sound. I I know it sounds

Bryan Entzminger:

ridiculous. It's a it's put out by a sound design company,

Bryan Entzminger:

and they tend to go through weird things about sound. The one that I

Bryan Entzminger:

remember was The people that do voice overs for subways,

Bryan Entzminger:

I really enjoyed that one. That's kind of a ridiculous topic, but it was

Bryan Entzminger:

really well done, and I enjoyed it. I don't enjoy the ads. I realized

Bryan Entzminger:

I gotta pay for the show, but, man, 3 minute breaks for paid

Bryan Entzminger:

ads, I'll skip that every day. So it sounds like you are just about

Tara Kelly:

as obsessed with sound as Jesse, and I don't think I've met anyone

Tara Kelly:

as obsessed with sound as Jesse. Like, he will hear things in

Tara Kelly:

music And in TV shows and just about

Tara Kelly:

anything. He'll he'll tell me the frequencies in my voice, like, where my

Tara Kelly:

voice falls to a point where I'm like, I don't hear that. What are you

Tara Kelly:

talking about? He's like, you can't hear that? No. I can't hear

Tara Kelly:

that. Yeah. I have issues. They're

Bryan Entzminger:

similar to Jesse's, probably. My wife still doesn't know what I mean when I say,

Bryan Entzminger:

yeah. I can hear the tube saturation in that one, but That's okay.

Bryan Entzminger:

Shouldn't have to. I mean, yeah, you both have that

Tara Kelly:

similarity where it's really import that sound experience

Tara Kelly:

is really important to what you do every day. You put a lot of effort

Tara Kelly:

and love into that. So I think, again, Really bringing

Tara Kelly:

that out. And, again, I haven't I know I went to your website a long

Tara Kelly:

time ago. I haven't been to it recently. Talking about that

Tara Kelly:

more specifically, like, let that Love of sound

Tara Kelly:

and the experience that you wanna give others, the audio

Tara Kelly:

experience. Let that shine through and talk

Tara Kelly:

about it. Share your thoughts on it. Share the why. Get people to

Tara Kelly:

care about it. Tell your story about it. Because I think you

Tara Kelly:

know, granted, if we're using a bunch of Technical terms, and

Tara Kelly:

we're talking about I'm not even gonna try to use sound design terms.

Tara Kelly:

But if we're throwing a bunch of that out, Yeah. You might attract

Tara Kelly:

audiophiles. You might attract people like you. But if you can find a

Tara Kelly:

way to talk about what you do in a way that I could understand it

Tara Kelly:

and relate to it or Amanda and put that out

Tara Kelly:

there, I think, again, that's that can really help. You know, just thinking through

Tara Kelly:

really unique ways you can communicate and do what you love and

Tara Kelly:

put that out there in a way that's not forced. You're not writing those blogs

Tara Kelly:

every month to talk about this or that. Another way

Tara Kelly:

it's helpful to know who you wanna work with is you can actually

Tara Kelly:

talk about those topics that they care about. So using

Tara Kelly:

the example of marketers again. Marketers, they care about

Tara Kelly:

conversion rates and open rates on email and what

Tara Kelly:

What the latest thing with Google is and, you know,

Tara Kelly:

basically, the latest compliance we have to go after, and

Tara Kelly:

and we have to add these records to our, you know, business. Email

Bryan Entzminger:

thing? Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Looking forward to that.

Tara Kelly:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because the it is. Like, life in marketing

Tara Kelly:

is just filled with updates and keeping up with Technology

Tara Kelly:

and keeping up with what Google is doing and what the latest,

Tara Kelly:

you know, best practices are for our website and how we send

Tara Kelly:

emails and how we keep data. It goes on and

Tara Kelly:

on, and most marketers are just running around going, I don't

Tara Kelly:

have time for this, and now they want me to start a podcast. Are You're

Tara Kelly:

kidding me. I don't have time. Help me.

Tara Kelly:

So, you know, if you were interested, for example, in working with marketers,

Tara Kelly:

you might start Thinking through, okay, how can I help these poor people?

Tara Kelly:

How can I make their day a little bit easier talking about some of

Tara Kelly:

these topics? So, again, like, when you're thinking about

Tara Kelly:

who you wanna work with or if there are some industries that you feel like

Tara Kelly:

you can contribute to meaningfully, That's, again, a really good

Tara Kelly:

place to start. And we don't have to get it right the 1st

Jesse McCune:

time. This is all an ongoing iterative iterative

Jesse McCune:

process. What matters is starting

Jesse McCune:

somewhere, seeing what works, and adapt as we

Jesse McCune:

go. I have a question for you, and it it's My stuff is always

Amanda McCune:

the boring stuff. Right? It's like the business y stuff. It's the that's what nobody

Amanda McCune:

ever wants to talk about. But So you said said that you

Amanda McCune:

can allocate maybe 10 hours a week to your business,

Amanda McCune:

but you haven't as much because you're you've lost these clients. Are

Amanda McCune:

you still spending 10 hours on your business? Like, the time that you

Amanda McCune:

used to spend on client work, are you using that for your marketing,

Amanda McCune:

for your other things like, time management

Amanda McCune:

becomes a really unpopular thing, but a very

Amanda McCune:

necessary thing, especially, I think one of the hardest things to do is

Amanda McCune:

to manage a full time job and then

Amanda McCune:

try to build a a business in your off time Well, you said you also

Amanda McCune:

have a wife and kids, and that's a whole lot of stuff. And you

Amanda McCune:

are 1 person and, you know, same amount of hours in the day.

Amanda McCune:

So it sometimes it becomes almost, like, giving yourself a schedule. Like,

Amanda McCune:

you might only have a few hours of editing to do, but you'd know

Amanda McCune:

Like, are you filling that extra 5 hours then with doing

Amanda McCune:

things that can help you get to where you wanna be on the these next

Amanda McCune:

steps? Or is it more like, well, I don't have the work right now, so

Amanda McCune:

I'm gonna go do this other thing? Are are you thinking about

Amanda McCune:

it pretty actively? Or I've been kind of

Bryan Entzminger:

directionless, which is part of what led to the

Bryan Entzminger:

conversation that we had a couple of weeks ago. So the answer is

Bryan Entzminger:

no, But it's not because I haven't wanted to. It's because I

Bryan Entzminger:

haven't really had anything to put my focus against, and so I

Bryan Entzminger:

took the position. I'm not gonna sit flounder right now. I'm gonna wait until I've

Bryan Entzminger:

got a little bit of direction before I start doing something,

Bryan Entzminger:

and maybe that's an excuse. I'll Potentially own that as an excuse, but

Bryan Entzminger:

it's what I've been doing. So I've been sleeping, in the

Bryan Entzminger:

mornings instead of producing podcasts before I go to work,

Bryan Entzminger:

which has been nice, but I'm I'm ready to start doing some

Bryan Entzminger:

stuff. I think it's still finding that balance. Sleep is very important. You're gonna

Amanda McCune:

do better work when you you're well rested. You're gonna feel better,

Amanda McCune:

and I think it's it's the hard thing. Right? Everybody's trying to find this

Amanda McCune:

work, life balance. You just happen to have 2 works. You have

Amanda McCune:

your full time work, and you have the work that you're passionate about, and you

Amanda McCune:

want to make your full time work, but you have to like, if if you

Amanda McCune:

were to not have your full time job, Suddenly, you have, what,

Amanda McCune:

40, 50 extra hours in the week whether you commute or not. Like, there's a

Amanda McCune:

lot of time that is spent that you could then invest

Amanda McCune:

into marketing and all of these other things, but then you don't have the

Amanda McCune:

income to make you comfortable. It's that you know, it's

Amanda McCune:

And everybody has their different threshold of when it's time to make that leap

Amanda McCune:

of, okay. I'm I'm getting close, and I know that if I had more

Amanda McCune:

time, then I could get to that next step in my journey, but that

Amanda McCune:

next step requires letting go of the comfort and the security. And that's not what

Amanda McCune:

I'm telling you to do by any means. I'm not advising ever anybody

Amanda McCune:

to take that leap before they're ready because it you know, it

Amanda McCune:

can be scary. It can be very exciting and and fulfilling and all of that,

Amanda McCune:

but it's Do you have a lot of the things like, is

Amanda McCune:

it all in your head mostly? Do you think about it a lot, but there's

Amanda McCune:

not really like, I know you're taking notes now, but do you have any

Amanda McCune:

Anything kind of written down just to get it out of your head of these

Amanda McCune:

are the things I wanna do. These are things I need to do so you

Amanda McCune:

can kind of get them organized in a way. Sometimes if you're a

Amanda McCune:

visual person, just even seeing a bunch of things on a

Amanda McCune:

maybe not pen and paper, but sometimes that works or Whatever

Amanda McCune:

app you like to write or draw things in, but just to kinda get it

Amanda McCune:

all out of your head. Because I think a lot of times, people,

Amanda McCune:

Creatives, especially, but, you know, a lot of people, we just we think a

Amanda McCune:

lot, and it it seems like, oh, well, no. I I know all the things

Amanda McCune:

that I need to know. It's all in my head. But once you actually start

Amanda McCune:

writing it down or typing it out or however it is, then suddenly

Amanda McCune:

you realize, like, Okay. Yeah. I I I have some things to work

Amanda McCune:

with here. And if I started at this point and then okay. Now I have

Amanda McCune:

I can start building a strategy. Or if you don't like the word strategy, just

Amanda McCune:

a, you know, a step by step a to do a fancy to do list,

Amanda McCune:

if you will. Because sometimes words like strategy will throw somebody off. Like, no.

Amanda McCune:

I I don't I don't wanna be strategic. I wanna be creative.

Amanda McCune:

But that's the the other part about the running the business is You get

Amanda McCune:

to do all the creative things, but, unfortunately, it does require a lot of

Amanda McCune:

the this kind of stuff. Yeah. So

Bryan Entzminger:

I I would say, Currently, no. Not a lot written

Bryan Entzminger:

down. All the all the existing production processes, those are all

Bryan Entzminger:

written down. I can do those from memory, but, yeah, those are all written down,

Bryan Entzminger:

of course. The marketing and some of this

Bryan Entzminger:

stuff, no. No. It's not. Don't have a good reason why except I've

Bryan Entzminger:

not done it, I guess. I think you're good at you have the production processes

Amanda McCune:

down because that's what you like to do. And that's, I mean, the stuff that

Amanda McCune:

you don't wanna do, you're gonna intentionally put your focus on that because it's not

Amanda McCune:

fun. It's like yeah. I always use bookkeeping as a thing. Nobody

Amanda McCune:

wants to do bookkeeping. Keeping. Nobody is, like, thinking, I can't wait to get home

Amanda McCune:

tonight and go dig into my accounts receivables. It's just not

Amanda McCune:

really well, I there are probably people out there who do like that. I shouldn't

Amanda McCune:

say nobody, but in the creative world, I have,

Amanda McCune:

not met many of them. It's usually the first thing that people outsource,

Amanda McCune:

But it is something to think about too that and I forget. You'd mentioned say,

Amanda McCune:

like, again, we're back to blogs, and Jesse's, for whatever reason, not going to write

Amanda McCune:

your blogs, And that's what you think that you need to do. There

Amanda McCune:

is that again, with it's the value of time and kinda considering it.

Amanda McCune:

It's you can do it yourself, But if it it takes all the joy out

Amanda McCune:

of your world to think, I have to sit here, and I have to write

Amanda McCune:

this thing, how much time are you spending on it

Amanda McCune:

Versus if you hired somebody who loves to write blogs

Amanda McCune:

or if it's bookkeeping, how much you know, you might spend

Amanda McCune:

3, 4 hours doing this stuff that you don't enjoy doing is not making you

Amanda McCune:

happy at all. You could pay somebody else, and, yes, that's an expense,

Amanda McCune:

But that person who loves doing books might be able to do

Amanda McCune:

that 3 or 4 hours of your work in 1 hour. And

Amanda McCune:

so it's It's just but it frees up 4 hours of your time to then

Amanda McCune:

dedicate to something that will make you happier or maybe

Amanda McCune:

bring more value back to you. Like, maybe it's and maybe it is.

Amanda McCune:

It's finding these groups that you wanna hang out in, and then you spend that

Amanda McCune:

extra 3 or 4 hours interacting with the people you wanna be talking

Amanda McCune:

to, and then that could lead to some work. So I'm always a

Amanda McCune:

big fan of keep your expenses low. But if you're

Amanda McCune:

spending a lot of time doing something that you hate or are not good at,

Amanda McCune:

like, those are the 2 things that you outsource. If you don't like doing it

Amanda McCune:

or you're not good at it or maybe not good at. You're just

Amanda McCune:

maybe less efficient than others at. We'll we'll put it that

Amanda McCune:

way. But sometimes that's a way,

Amanda McCune:

Especially when you have such limited time to be able to

Amanda McCune:

you are spending a little bit, but it's kind of an investment that you

Amanda McCune:

can hopefully then because, you know, if you take that 3 hours and then you

Amanda McCune:

get a new client, now it just it paid for that, you know,

Amanda McCune:

BlogBryder bookkeeper person or people. And they're

Jesse McCune:

all finished. Thank you. I've got one little thing, and then I know we've gotta

Jesse McCune:

wrap it up. But, essentially, to get where you're going, you need to

Jesse McCune:

get started. Every journey is 1 step at a time. If we

Jesse McCune:

don't take that 1st step, we're never going to get anywhere. We

Jesse McCune:

can't let the analysis paralysis Getting our

Jesse McCune:

way. Thank you. Thank you all. With that, we do need to go ahead and

Bryan Entzminger:

wrap it up because we committed to an hour, and we like to be people

Bryan Entzminger:

of our word. But, also, I have a suspicion that some of the

Bryan Entzminger:

people either watching live or catching the the replay or the

Bryan Entzminger:

podcast later might like what they hear and might wanna take a

Bryan Entzminger:

similar step for themselves. You guys did this for us for

Bryan Entzminger:

free, which was very generous and very kind. But if somebody wants to be part

Bryan Entzminger:

of the community, who should I ask about how they can do that? Tara, you're

Jesse McCune:

kind of handling what we're working on right now.

Tara Kelly:

Yeah. So I would love to talk to people and help them out. You can

Tara Kelly:

reach me at tanziestr.com

Tara Kelly:

and schedule a call with me. And we're actually

Jesse McCune:

working on packages aimed at creatives

Jesse McCune:

to help Them solve the problems they're having like

Jesse McCune:

this. Which I guess made this the perfect time for us to all get together

Bryan Entzminger:

and talk about this and The right time for me to have problems. So, everybody,

Bryan Entzminger:

you're welcome. With that, we're gonna go ahead and say goodbye. If you joined us

Bryan Entzminger:

live, we're super glad that you were here. If you caught the replay or the

Bryan Entzminger:

podcast later, Glad that you could do that. So I'm Brian. I'm at top

Bryan Entzminger:

tier audio .com. And, then on this side is

Jennifer Longworth:

Jennifer Longworth, Bourbon and Barrel podcasting.com. Amanda

Amanda McCune:

Annette, you can find me at aardvarkgirl.com. That's 2 a's in

Amanda McCune:

aardvark. Jesse, you can find me at

Jesse McCune:

Tansieaster Audio or Tanziaster Academy. Tara,

Tara Kelly:

you can find me at tanziaster.com. And unable to

Bryan Entzminger:

join us tonight, we're Daniel Abendroth at rothmedia.audio,

Bryan Entzminger:

and Carrie, who you can find at carrie.land.

Bryan Entzminger:

I should remember that because it's so much fun to say, but carrie.land. Thank you

Bryan Entzminger:

everybody for joining us, and we'll see you next week. And I've gotta click a

Bryan Entzminger:

button, so we'll see if I can do that. Bye. Bye.

Bryan Entzminger:

So How much is that?

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About the Podcast

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The Good, The Bad, and The Yeti
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About your hosts

Jennifer Longworth

Profile picture for Jennifer Longworth
Bourbon Barrel Podcasting was founded in 2019 when Jennifer Longworth, with 14 years of audio editing experience, decided to get serious about editing podcasts for Central Kentuckians. Jennifer edits podcasts for established podcasters and helps new podcasters get started with the basics.

Carrie Caulfield Arick

Profile picture for Carrie Caulfield Arick
Carrie Caulfield Arick is a nerd for sound, stories, and listening. She’s learned from and worked with the industry’s best producers in her role as writer, editor and sound designer. Carrie is a co-founder of the femxle podcast post-production community, Just Busters and co-host of Podcast Editors Mastermind. Oh, and she likes cats… a lot.

Daniel Abendroth

Profile picture for Daniel Abendroth
Hi, I’m Daniel and my podcast editing services will make your podcasts sound smooth and professional, while saving you time and money.

Bryan Entzminger

Profile picture for Bryan Entzminger
Analyst by day. Podcast editor by night. Usually caffeinated. Husband, father, Jesus-follower all the time. Cohost of Podcast Editors Mastermind and The Podcast Gauntlet.