What tasks can you outsource on your podcast?

Voice Over: 00:00:00

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Rachel Corbett: 00:00:10

Hello. Welcome to the show. Today I've got a question from Cassandra who said, what can you outsource on your podcast?

The answer, Cassandra, is just about everything. If you got the money for it, then you can answer, outsource it all. Obviously not the doing of the actual podcast.

If people have come to listen to you or watch you, then you must be the person that is sitting behind the microphone. Microphone and doing the content. But absolutely everything around your show can be outsourced. It is entirely a question of cost.

So obviously, the more that you outsource, the more hours you require from somebody and the more expensive that is going to be.

So I think the best thing to do is to really think about the bits of the process and maybe it's one bit at a time that you either don't have the time for, don't have the skill for, really don't like doing, and start there and see if you can then outsource things bit by bit. We obviously, at the networks that I run, have producers who work on the shows that we create.

They do absolutely everything for these shows except for the actual hosting of them. The things that are essential for hosts to do obviously do the actual show, but then I would say social promotion.

They have to be sharing their show and encouraging people to come into their show, because it is usually the host audience that are the people most likely to come and check out the show. Having said that, you can get someone to schedule that stuff for you. You don't actually have to be posting that stuff live.

So there really is very little that you can't get somebody else to do if you have the budget to do that.

One of the things I would flag around working with freelancers in any capacity is that you might not nail the perfect combination of freelancer and you from the very first go.

I've worked with a lot of freelancers over my my time, and some of them just don't have the same workflow or their quality of work isn't up to scratch. And so it might take a bit of clunkiness to get into the right rhythm with someone.

It's also really hard to find one person who does everything that you need really well.

And so I think if you are thinking about outsourcing for your podcast, it's good to have that in mind because there can sometimes be what feels like a Little bit of wasted money until you find the right person. Particularly because you're often going to websites like Fiverr or Upwork.

Now the great thing about these websites are that you can have a look at people's reviews and see some of their previous work so you can get a sense of is this person good at what they do and do.

I have a high chance of success, but I've still worked with people on Fiverr that have had great reviews but they haven't quite nailed what I'm looking for. Now that might be because I do this for a living. I know exactly what I want.

I have a pretty high bar for the quality of stuff that I want to come through. So it does sometimes not hit the mark.

Now I often don't have time to go back in and work with that person and get to the point where I can actually train them to be delivering the stuff that I need. And that is really the key. Even if you work with someone at the start and they don't deliver, that doesn't mean that they won't.

It's just that they need to understand what are your expectations, what do you want? How can you, you know.

And some of the editors that I've worked with over time as well, I go back and forth and sort of, I'm pretty clear with examples of audio, examples of like, hey, this bit here, this is how I would have cut it. Or this bit here, I would have done xyz.

So that then after a few back and forth of that, you're getting basically what you need from someone because you had the time to have that conversation. So I would say that is the key is to really understand that you're probably not going to find the right person straight away. If you.

Or if you have found someone that you really like and you do like working with, but their work isn't right on the mark, that's fine. They cannot read your mind and they're working with your content your show you for the very first time.

So if you give it time, work with them, give them feedback, be as clear as you possibly can.

If you can edit, for example, if you're getting outsourced edits, even to a basic level, if you can go back and say, hey, this is actually what I was looking for. Great.

If you can't explain it in words, say, hey, this bit sounds a little bit too tight or I can notice the edit here or you know, those kind of things. You are just trying to listen as your listener is listening. Listen out for can you. Does this sound normal? Does this sound like it's been cut?

Does this sound like a conversation that's just being recorded in one go and then just putting your own words? You don't have to be able to use their language. It's really just about, here's what I hear. Can you fix this?

So that's, you know, obviously editing is a very obvious one that everybody goes to, because for the most part, it's probably going to be the lion's share of your time and your workflow, particularly if you're doing video. I mean, Lord help us all. The workflows have doubled, right, with the video in the mix. And most people do not have video skills.

So if you need to outsource the video and the audio editing, those are the. Probably the. The places that most people start. The next thing you can do is anything around your show, you know, any of the social media, scheduling.

Even if you wanted to get somebody to work on starting to develop some ideas for episodes using AI tools. I have an earlier episode where I talked about some of the AI tools that you can use to help to generate ideas.

Now, you might have some clear prompts or some things that that somebody else could work on to almost get it to the point where it's ready for you to look at. And then you could look at it and kind of refine it.

You could get somebody to generate the content in ChatGPT out of your podcast and populate it in a spreadsheet so that you can go through it and work out. Are those captions good for social media? Are those tips? Do those tips work? That's what I do with my assistant. I get her to go through.

I have a series of prompts that we use for every episode, and she populates the content into a spreadsheet. And then I go through that spreadsheet and I work on the content. So I just.

And it's really just that grunt work of actually having to take it out of the AI tool and into a spreadsheet. So then I can look at like, okay, how can I lend my brain to this content? That's the bit that is important for me to focus on.

I don't need to be copying and pasting the stuff. So that's why I pay somebody to do that, to help me, because it takes a lot of time off my plate.

So I think anywhere where your brain, your personality, your person is actually required, those are the things it's going to be very hard to outsource. And I think it's really important Unless you've worked with somebody a really long time, you're like, they get me, they get my phone.

You still want to have an eye over your content in your social media content. You still want to see what's going out. And you might work with somebody to a point where you're just like, you know what? You've got my voice nailed.

You can just manage my social media.

And there are plenty of people out there who have people behind the scenes managing their social media, doing all the captions, every single thing, because they're nailing their tone of voice. And that person is like, yes, I'm happy for this to be so all of those kind of things can be outsourced.

It's really just about making sure that you have the time to give clear instructions.

Start with a really clear brief so that you kind of don't leave any guesswork, because you have to remember you're in your brain, but this other person isn't in your brain, and this other person is just being introduced to your content for the very first time. Anything that you can give them to get them up to speed so that they know exactly what they need to be doing is really important.

But if you can afford it, my goodness gracious me.

Can it really help for you to keep that weekly cadence of episodes, especially if you've got life, work, family, all of those kind of things to jump, and you can hire somebody online in another country that might be able to help you out at a price that you can afford? Because there are a lot of different services, particularly even podcast virtual assistant services, now that this industry has become so big.

So I would just encourage you to look around, read reviews, try and do interviews with people online if you can, to make sure that you get someone who's got that right fit, and then get off your plate what you can get off your plate.

My goodness, if I could get every single thing off my plate, including setting all of the lights and everything up in my house, that took me a bajillion years today, I'm not gonna lie, a bajillion years. All of that kind of stuff. I mean, whatever you can get off your plate, get it out the door and give it to somebody else. That is not cheating.

That is working smarter. That is doing what you need to do to get your content into people's ears every week. And that's what we're all here to do.

Hope you've enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for your question, Cassandra. Really appreciate it.

If you head to the description, you'll find where you can submit your question, as well as all of the ways that you can work with me. If you need a bit of help getting your podcast up and running. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next week.

Voice Over: 00:09:14

That's all for today.