0:04

Voiceover: So How much is that? Bryan Entzminger: Mhmm. Alright. Welcome. We are the podcast editor's mastermind, and

0:22

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

0:25

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

0:29

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

0:31

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

0:35

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

0:38

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

0:42

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

0:46

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

0:49

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

0:53

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

0:56

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

1:00

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

1:03

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

1:07

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

1:10

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

1:14

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

1:18

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

1:21

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

1:24

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

1:28

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

1:31

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

1:35

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

1:38

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

1:41

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

1:45

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

1:47

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

1:50

Bryan Entzminger: you. So you were talking about just

1:54

Jesse McCune: problems you were You were trying to plan for 2024.

1:58

Jesse McCune: Yeah. You said you were looking at pricing,

2:02

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

2:05

Jesse McCune: to. So, Tara, actually, Amanda,

2:09

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

2:13

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

2:16

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

2:20

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

2:24

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

2:28

Amanda McCune: But pricing, I I feel like pricing is always the really

2:31

Amanda McCune: tricky part because you wanna be competitive, but you want

2:35

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

2:39

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

2:42

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

2:46

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

2:50

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

2:54

Amanda McCune: to people, trying to find those people who will be honest about

2:57

Amanda McCune: what They can afford to pay what they see value in

3:02

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

3:06

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

3:10

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

3:13

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

3:16

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

3:20

Amanda McCune: somebody and get to understand well, I

3:24

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

3:28

Amanda McCune: different way that might serve you better. But the communication

3:31

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

3:35

Amanda McCune: and the marketing probably comes in. But And then

3:39

Jesse McCune: AI is changing all of this too, and so

3:43

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

3:47

Jesse McCune: we need to start shifting away from thinking of packages

3:50

Jesse McCune: as in the what that we do and more in the how.

3:54

Jesse McCune: Start looking at offering levels of

3:58

Jesse McCune: service where we focus more on giving

4:01

Jesse McCune: premium service to those who pay The premium,

4:05

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

4:09

Jesse McCune: using AI wherever we can to have a

4:12

Jesse McCune: more efficient workflow because whether we

4:16

Jesse McCune: like it or not, trying to sell people on the

4:20

Jesse McCune: importance of quality is difficult enough now.

4:24

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

4:28

Jesse McCune: be almost impossible to try to tell people

4:31

Jesse McCune: why they need to be hiring us to do all of

4:35

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

4:39

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

4:42

Jesse McCune: flux right now in the podcast editing space,

4:46

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

4:50

Jesse McCune: can we offer to clients that can't be replaced by

4:53

Jesse McCune: AI? If we really look at it, production

4:57

Jesse McCune: work is at the bottom rung of the overall

5:01

Jesse McCune: ladder. If we want to do better with

5:04

Jesse McCune: making income, We need to find ways to move higher up

5:08

Jesse McCune: that ladder so that we're not focused primarily on

5:12

Jesse McCune: the production. I mean, this has been kind of the

5:16

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

5:19

Bryan Entzminger: a little bit like, Yeah. I know that, but,

5:23

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

5:27

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

5:31

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

5:34

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

5:37

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

5:41

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

5:45

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

5:48

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

5:52

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

5:56

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

6:00

Bryan Entzminger: that software, but, you know, the automated removals and

6:03

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

6:07

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

6:11

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

6:14

Bryan Entzminger: think about different levels of service and differentiation as it relates

6:18

Bryan Entzminger: to pricing. One of the ways is to Look at

6:22

Jesse McCune: the different services you offer and figure out what

6:25

Jesse McCune: stuff can we use more AI heavy,

6:29

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

6:32

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

6:36

Jesse McCune: going to be Difficult to move to strictly AI

6:40

Jesse McCune: because more clients are looking for people

6:44

Jesse McCune: who can offer everything, show notes,

6:48

Jesse McCune: whatever the services are. Are there things we

6:52

Jesse McCune: can use AI to be able to offer

6:55

Jesse McCune: those without adding significantly to the price so we can

6:59

Jesse McCune: still compete without making everything

7:03

Jesse McCune: focusing on AI everything. So we

7:06

Jesse McCune: use, like, AI for show notes and descriptions,

7:10

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

7:14

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

7:18

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

7:22

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

7:26

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

7:29

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

7:33

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

7:36

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

7:39

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

7:43

Amanda McCune: time intense per each client. Is it kinda using those

7:47

Amanda McCune: processes producer the amount of time you have to spend

7:51

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

7:55

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

7:58

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

8:03

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

8:06

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

8:10

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

8:14

Jesse McCune: process, client interaction. If there's ways we

8:18

Jesse McCune: can streamline the back end of the business, that helps us

8:22

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

8:25

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

8:28

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

8:32

Jesse McCune: of transitioning over to HoneyBook where we can

8:35

Jesse McCune: basically Automate the entire process from

8:39

Jesse McCune: the time they go to our website, they click a

8:43

Jesse McCune: link, they can book a call, We can gather information from

8:46

Jesse McCune: them, give then, say, have a

8:50

Jesse McCune: discovery call with them, provide them a quote with different

8:54

Jesse McCune: manager, they can choose the package. Once they choose

8:57

Jesse McCune: that, they get invoiced, then they get their

9:01

Jesse McCune: the client agreement. We can automate the onboarding

9:05

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

9:08

Jesse McCune: right now as opposed to Having our contracts

9:12

Jesse McCune: and PandaDoc and trying to bring everything into one

9:16

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

9:21

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

9:24

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

9:28

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

9:32

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

9:35

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

9:39

Tara Kelly: your email, you can connect to that so you can sync your calendars

9:43

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

9:47

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

9:50

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

9:54

Amanda McCune: but It's that whole time time versus money. I

9:58

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

10:02

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

10:05

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

10:09

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

10:12

Amanda McCune: more hours available that you can do the marketing things that you

10:16

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

10:19

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

10:23

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

10:27

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

10:30

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

10:35

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

10:38

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

10:42

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

10:46

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

10:50

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

10:53

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

10:57

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

11:00

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

11:04

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

11:08

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

11:12

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

11:15

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

11:19

Bryan Entzminger: was Three shows that were through a production company,

11:23

Bryan Entzminger: and that company stopped operations so I lost those

11:27

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

11:30

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

11:34

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

11:37

Bryan Entzminger: to Jennifer or to Daniel or to Jesse. It

11:41

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

11:45

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

11:48

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

11:52

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

11:56

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

12:00

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

12:03

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

12:06

Bryan Entzminger: a number of client calls where Things

12:10

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

12:13

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

12:16

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

12:20

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

12:25

Bryan Entzminger: Sure. I was just gonna say, I I think when

12:29

Tara Kelly: people are fearing the, you know, recession coming, when

12:33

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

12:36

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

12:40

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

12:44

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

12:47

Tara Kelly: air, and I think oftentimes the first place

12:51

Tara Kelly: people start to cut budgets is in

12:55

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

12:59

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

13:02

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

13:06

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

13:10

Tara Kelly: but it was a lot of work and a lot of cost, and we

13:14

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

13:18

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

13:21

Tara Kelly: helping us with conversions or getting us clients, so we stopped

13:25

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

13:28

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

13:32

Tara Kelly: of fear and penny pinching, People are

13:36

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

13:39

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

13:43

Tara Kelly: when we look for threats threats to our business when we do that

13:47

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

13:51

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

13:54

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

13:58

Tara Kelly: like a pattern across the board right now. So you

14:02

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

14:06

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

14:10

Tara Kelly: hours a week Would you say you have to devote to your

14:14

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

14:18

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

14:22

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

14:25

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

14:29

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

14:32

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

14:35

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

14:39

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

14:43

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

14:47

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

14:51

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

14:55

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

14:58

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

15:02

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

15:06

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

15:09

Tara Kelly: it says your you said your ultimate dream, at least by

15:13

Tara Kelly: 2027 would be to have a full fledged

15:16

Tara Kelly: production business. Mhmm. Now Is is

15:20

Tara Kelly: your goal to eventually have your own business full time and

15:24

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

15:27

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

15:31

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

15:35

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

15:39

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

15:42

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

15:46

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

15:50

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

15:53

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

15:57

Bryan Entzminger: to have a level of stability and provide stability for my clients

16:01

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

16:05

Bryan Entzminger: my experience so far has been that, contractors

16:09

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

16:13

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

16:16

Bryan Entzminger: additional overhead or additional administration from having employees.

16:20

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

16:23

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

16:27

Bryan Entzminger: Producer because it all relies on me.

16:30

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

16:34

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

16:37

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

16:40

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

16:44

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

16:47

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

16:50

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

16:54

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

16:56

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

17:00

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

17:04

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

17:07

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

17:10

Bryan Entzminger: it. I really do. So it sounds like the perfect scenario

17:14

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

17:18

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

17:21

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

17:25

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

17:28

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

17:32

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

17:36

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

17:40

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

17:43

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

17:46

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

17:50

Bryan Entzminger: we have kids and and a house and stuff. Right?

17:53

Bryan Entzminger: So, I can't just abdicate that responsibility

17:57

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

18:00

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

18:04

Tara Kelly: word this right. What percentage of your business income

18:08

Tara Kelly: is, your full time income? Doing math in

18:12

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

18:15

Bryan Entzminger: last year, it was probably 10 to 15%,

18:19

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

18:23

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

18:27

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

18:31

Bryan Entzminger: think like, job went up, business went down, so that widens

18:34

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

18:38

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

18:42

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

18:46

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

18:49

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

18:53

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

18:57

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

18:59

Bryan Entzminger: in terms of support Because I can't I can't foresee something

19:03

Bryan Entzminger: where 10 editing only clients would ever get me

19:06

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

19:10

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

19:13

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

19:16

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

19:19

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

19:23

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

19:27

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

19:31

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

19:34

Tara Kelly: goals, figuring that part out, figuring out, okay, I

19:38

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

19:42

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

19:45

Tara Kelly: do I wanna have this year? How many clients do I wanna have next year?

19:49

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

19:53

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

19:56

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

20:00

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

20:03

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

20:07

Tara Kelly: wanna scale up. I wanna have a whole agency. I wanna go.

20:12

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

20:15

Tara Kelly: be best for you? And then thinking about what income you

20:19

Tara Kelly: ideally want to make and then planning toward that

20:23

Tara Kelly: and thinking, okay. Well, what marketing activities can I

20:26

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

20:30

Tara Kelly: you measure what your marketing efforts are doing

20:34

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

20:37

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

20:41

Tara Kelly: now, you have 0 clients. So where do you

20:44

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

20:48

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

20:52

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

20:55

Tara Kelly: ask that of you. Do you have a certain niche? Do you have

20:59

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

21:03

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

21:07

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

21:11

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

21:14

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

21:18

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

21:22

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

21:25

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

21:29

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

21:33

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

21:36

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

21:39

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

21:43

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

21:47

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

21:51

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

21:53

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

21:57

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

22:01

Bryan Entzminger: necessarily Not necessarily tied to, like, the coaching community or

22:04

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

22:08

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

22:11

Bryan Entzminger: pay. That's the tricky part. Are there any

22:15

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

22:19

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

22:23

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

22:26

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

22:30

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

22:34

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

22:37

Bryan Entzminger: just Interviews people about things, doctors, whatever.

22:41

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

22:45

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

22:49

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

22:52

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

22:56

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

23:00

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

23:03

Tara Kelly: really love about working with the indie show runners

23:07

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

23:11

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

23:15

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

23:18

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

23:23

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

23:26

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

23:29

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

23:33

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

23:36

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

23:39

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

23:43

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

23:47

Tara Kelly: thought leaders and mentors Mhmm. Who love what they

23:50

Tara Kelly: do, who love to teach and educate others

23:54

Tara Kelly: and really want to keep growing and really

23:58

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

24:02

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

24:05

Tara Kelly: think when you're thinking about your messaging, when you're

24:09

Tara Kelly: thinking about your marketing, starting there, What would they

24:12

Tara Kelly: really resonate with? Because you really resonate with them. What kind of

24:16

Tara Kelly: messaging would draw them in talking about Those things talking

24:20

Tara Kelly: about I work with podcasters who really care about what they

24:23

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

24:27

Tara Kelly: learner myself, And, you know, I love

24:31

Tara Kelly: working with people who are passionate about these topics and passionate about educating

24:35

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

24:39

Tara Kelly: this is where you can start really connecting with the people

24:43

Tara Kelly: you wanna be working with in terms of your

24:46

Tara Kelly: external presence. Right? The other piece of it is

24:50

Tara Kelly: doing that market research. It helps to know who

24:54

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

24:58

Tara Kelly: showrunner, but thinking about, okay, which one of

25:02

Tara Kelly: them has the budget? What are the ones who have the budget

25:05

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

25:09

Tara Kelly: Where can I find them? So thinking through that

25:12

Tara Kelly: piece of it, where do these

25:16

Tara Kelly: showrunners hang out online? Do you know? No.

25:20

Bryan Entzminger: Because if I did, I would totally be there.

25:24

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

25:29

Bryan Entzminger: Well, same person. So Jesse went through the podcast

25:32

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

25:36

Bryan Entzminger: referral through that. One of them was just a random

25:39

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

25:43

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

25:47

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

25:50

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

25:53

Bryan Entzminger: I've found have either been referrals or somebody that I've

25:57

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

26:00

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

26:04

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

26:08

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

26:12

Tara Kelly: passion for audio, so maybe you can start

26:15

Tara Kelly: there. Because it's easiest when you can at

26:19

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

26:22

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

26:26

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

26:30

Tara Kelly: you have topics you already know you like in

26:33

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

26:37

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

26:40

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

26:44

Tara Kelly: out and join those groups and join those communities. I find

26:48

Tara Kelly: people have a lot of luck joining groups and just

26:51

Tara Kelly: participating, engaging, and not selling anything, just being part of

26:55

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

26:59

Tara Kelly: instance. There's Facebook groups. There is Reddit.

27:03

Tara Kelly: Like, you can find just about any topic you would

27:06

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

27:10

Tara Kelly: Type it in. You will find it. You will find a

27:14

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

27:17

Tara Kelly: a good place to start and really think

27:21

Tara Kelly: of to start your research and gather that information

27:26

Tara Kelly: And meet people and talk to people. The other thing that

27:29

Tara Kelly: really helps is if you have, you know, communicate you're

27:33

Tara Kelly: still communicating with former clients or current clients or you have good

27:37

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

27:41

Tara Kelly: with them, being able to talk to them. Just say, hey.

27:44

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

27:48

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

27:52

Tara Kelly: Ask them, Like, if they were to run a podcast,

27:56

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

27:59

Tara Kelly: curious, learning about them So you have a better

28:02

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

28:06

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

28:10

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

28:14

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

28:18

Tara Kelly: necessarily just writing a bunch of blogs and posting a bunch of

28:21

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

28:25

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

28:29

Tara Kelly: start with. Just figure out and get a clearer

28:33

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

28:36

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

28:40

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

28:43

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

28:47

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

28:51

Tara Kelly: she knows. I'm like, I I love working with

28:54

Tara Kelly: nonprofits. I love working with creatives. I love working

28:58

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

29:02

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

29:06

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

29:09

Tara Kelly: it's much easier to just pinpoint 1 industry

29:14

Tara Kelly: and start there and see how I like it. And if I

29:17

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

29:21

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

29:24

Tara Kelly: smaller and mark it there and grow than it is to

29:28

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

29:32

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

29:35

Tara Kelly: a little bit harder to target your messaging and your emails

29:39

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

29:42

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

29:46

Tara Kelly: really thinking through your prospect journey, so

29:50

Tara Kelly: to speak, and what you're willing to do

29:54

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

29:58

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

30:01

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

30:05

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

30:09

Bryan Entzminger: No. Makes me the opposite

30:13

Bryan Entzminger: of excited. Exactly. What about if I said

30:17

Tara Kelly: you have to produce 1 podcast episode a

30:20

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

30:24

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

30:28

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

30:32

Tara Kelly: that you can put out there that are helping people, informing

30:36

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

30:39

Tara Kelly: that Because people get to know you, they get to know your personality,

30:43

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

30:47

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

30:51

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

30:54

Bryan Entzminger: our audience is Editor and producers.

30:59

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

31:02

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

31:06

Tara Kelly: people, and you're actually growing

31:10

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

31:14

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

31:18

Tara Kelly: it because you love doing it, and it comes across as authentic and

31:21

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

31:26

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

31:30

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

31:34

Tara Kelly: educating and just helping people for the sake of helping people. And

31:38

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

31:41

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

31:45

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

31:49

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

31:53

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

31:57

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

32:00

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

32:04

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

32:08

Amanda McCune: know, sometimes have to hire a contractor, but then you

32:13

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

32:16

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

32:20

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

32:23

Amanda McCune: agreement that would work, that if you work in similar ways, you

32:27

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

32:31

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

32:35

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

32:38

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

32:42

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

32:46

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

32:50

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

32:53

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

32:57

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

33:01

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

33:05

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

33:07

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

33:10

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

33:14

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

33:18

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

33:21

Amanda McCune: word-of-mouth goes probably further than anything as far

33:25

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

33:28

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

33:32

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

33:35

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

33:39

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

33:43

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

33:46

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

33:50

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

33:54

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

33:58

Amanda McCune: partner with other, maybe, small business owners, individuals

34:02

Amanda McCune: that can build things going forward. And that that helps too because

34:06

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

34:09

Amanda McCune: that business. It's important to start to realize

34:13

Jesse McCune: that the reality of making a living off

34:17

Jesse McCune: of podcasters is going to be difficult.

34:21

Jesse McCune: Ideally, we're looking for people who

34:24

Jesse McCune: happen to podcast but are other things.

34:28

Jesse McCune: Businesses, coaches, people who

34:32

Bryan Entzminger: have a monetary gain from the podcast,

34:36

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

34:40

Jesse McCune: who are struggling to even pay for whatever

34:43

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

34:47

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

34:51

Jesse McCune: If you try to market yourself to podcasters,

34:55

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

34:59

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

35:03

Amanda McCune: Exactly. Yeah. You see a 100 responses within an

35:07

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

35:10

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

35:14

Jesse McCune: into marketing group, you might be the only podcast editor

35:18

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

35:22

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

35:25

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

35:29

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

35:32

Jesse McCune: found is my best clients aren't podcasters.

35:36

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

35:41

Jesse McCune: Lead generation, personal branding, whatever

35:44

Jesse McCune: the case is. So that's another

35:48

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

35:51

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

35:56

Amanda McCune: And that direct? I was

35:59

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

36:03

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

36:07

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

36:10

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

36:14

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

36:18

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

36:22

Bryan Entzminger: is quantity, quantity, quantity. Who cares about quality?

36:26

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

36:30

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

36:34

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

36:38

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

36:41

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

36:45

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

36:49

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

36:53

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

36:56

Jesse McCune: where really qualifying your client your prospects really

37:00

Jesse McCune: comes in. The more you can narrow that down, you can

37:04

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

37:07

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

37:11

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

37:15

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

37:18

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

37:22

Jesse McCune: willing to pay for that. You use your website to communicate

37:26

Jesse McCune: that, and that helps kind of weed out

37:29

Jesse McCune: those tire kickers or the people that just want Fast

37:33

Jesse McCune: turnaround, large quantities regardless of how it

37:37

Jesse McCune: sounds. I'm taking notes as you should.

37:41

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

37:45

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

37:48

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

37:52

Bryan Entzminger: show, I catch that one pretty religiously, Pod News Daily,

37:56

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

38:00

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

38:03

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

38:07

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

38:10

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

38:13

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

38:17

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

38:20

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

38:23

Bryan Entzminger: about those. I think probably from a quality standpoint and

38:27

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

38:30

Bryan Entzminger: off the chain from a quality standpoint. Most of the

38:34

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

38:38

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

38:41

Tara Kelly: Do you enjoy more talk like, interview style type

38:45

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

38:48

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

38:52

Bryan Entzminger: probably gonna be streaming video or something like that. For

38:55

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

38:59

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

39:03

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

39:06

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

39:09

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

39:13

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

39:17

Bryan Entzminger: The interviews? Absolutely. Interviews, monologues, panel discussions,

39:21

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

39:25

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

39:28

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

39:32

Bryan Entzminger: gotten really good at the the audio repair, the mix and

39:35

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

39:39

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

39:43

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

39:46

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

39:50

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

39:53

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

39:57

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

40:01

Tara Kelly: about? It's about sound. I I know it sounds

40:04

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

40:08

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

40:12

Bryan Entzminger: remember was The people that do voice overs for subways,

40:15

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

40:19

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

40:23

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

40:27

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

40:30

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

40:34

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

40:38

Tara Kelly: music And in TV shows and just about

40:42

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

40:45

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

40:49

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

40:53

Tara Kelly: that. Yeah. I have issues. They're

40:56

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

41:00

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

41:04

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

41:08

Tara Kelly: similarity where it's really import that sound experience

41:13

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

41:16

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

41:20

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

41:23

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

41:27

Tara Kelly: more specifically, like, let that Love of sound

41:30

Tara Kelly: and the experience that you wanna give others, the audio

41:34

Tara Kelly: experience. Let that shine through and talk

41:38

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

41:41

Tara Kelly: care about it. Tell your story about it. Because I think you

41:45

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

41:49

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

41:52

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

41:56

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

42:00

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

42:03

Tara Kelly: and relate to it or Amanda and put that out

42:07

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

42:11

Tara Kelly: really unique ways you can communicate and do what you love and

42:15

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

42:18

Tara Kelly: every month to talk about this or that. Another way

42:22

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

42:26

Tara Kelly: talk about those topics that they care about. So using

42:30

Tara Kelly: the example of marketers again. Marketers, they care about

42:33

Tara Kelly: conversion rates and open rates on email and what

42:37

Tara Kelly: What the latest thing with Google is and, you know,

42:40

Tara Kelly: basically, the latest compliance we have to go after, and

42:44

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

42:48

Bryan Entzminger: thing? Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Looking forward to that.

42:52

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

42:56

Tara Kelly: is just filled with updates and keeping up with Technology

43:00

Tara Kelly: and keeping up with what Google is doing and what the latest,

43:04

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

43:08

Tara Kelly: emails and how we keep data. It goes on and

43:11

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

43:15

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

43:18

Tara Kelly: kidding me. I don't have time. Help me.

43:22

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

43:26

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

43:30

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

43:34

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

43:38

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

43:42

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

43:46

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

43:49

Jesse McCune: time. This is all an ongoing iterative iterative

43:53

Jesse McCune: process. What matters is starting

43:57

Jesse McCune: somewhere, seeing what works, and adapt as we

44:00

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

44:04

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

44:08

Amanda McCune: ever wants to talk about. But So you said said that you

44:12

Amanda McCune: can allocate maybe 10 hours a week to your business,

44:16

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

44:20

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

44:23

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

44:27

Amanda McCune: for your other things like, time management

44:31

Amanda McCune: becomes a really unpopular thing, but a very

44:35

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

44:38

Amanda McCune: to manage a full time job and then

44:42

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

44:46

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

44:50

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

44:53

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

44:57

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

45:01

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

45:05

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

45:08

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

45:12

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

45:16

Amanda McCune: it pretty actively? Or I've been kind of

45:19

Bryan Entzminger: directionless, which is part of what led to the

45:23

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

45:27

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

45:30

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

45:34

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

45:37

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

45:41

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

45:45

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

45:48

Bryan Entzminger: mornings instead of producing podcasts before I go to work,

45:52

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

45:56

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

45:59

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

46:03

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

46:07

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

46:11

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

46:14

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

46:18

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

46:21

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

46:25

Amanda McCune: lot of time that is spent that you could then invest

46:29

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

46:33

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

46:37

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

46:41

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

46:45

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

46:48

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

46:52

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

46:56

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

47:00

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

47:03

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

47:07

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

47:10

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

47:13

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

47:16

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

47:19

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

47:23

Amanda McCune: visual person, just even seeing a bunch of things on a

47:27

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

47:30

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

47:34

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

47:38

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

47:41

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

47:45

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

47:47

Amanda McCune: writing it down or typing it out or however it is, then suddenly

47:51

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

47:55

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

47:59

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

48:03

Amanda McCune: a, you know, a step by step a to do a fancy to do list,

48:06

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

48:10

Amanda McCune: I I don't I don't wanna be strategic. I wanna be creative.

48:14

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

48:18

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

48:21

Amanda McCune: the this kind of stuff. Yeah. So

48:25

Bryan Entzminger: I I would say, Currently, no. Not a lot written

48:28

Bryan Entzminger: down. All the all the existing production processes, those are all

48:32

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

48:36

Bryan Entzminger: of course. The marketing and some of this

48:39

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

48:43

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

48:47

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

48:50

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

48:54

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

48:58

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

49:01

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

49:05

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

49:09

Amanda McCune: say nobody, but in the creative world, I have,

49:12

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

49:17

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

49:20

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

49:24

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

49:28

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

49:32

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

49:35

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

49:38

Amanda McCune: this thing, how much time are you spending on it

49:42

Amanda McCune: Versus if you hired somebody who loves to write blogs

49:45

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

49:49

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

49:53

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

49:57

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

50:01

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

50:05

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

50:08

Amanda McCune: dedicate to something that will make you happier or maybe

50:12

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

50:16

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

50:19

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

50:23

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

50:27

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

50:30

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

50:34

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

50:36

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

50:40

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

50:43

Amanda McCune: way. But sometimes that's a way,

50:47

Amanda McCune: Especially when you have such limited time to be able to

50:51

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

50:54

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

50:58

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

51:01

Amanda McCune: BlogBryder bookkeeper person or people. And they're

51:05

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

51:09

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

51:12

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

51:16

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

51:20

Jesse McCune: can't let the analysis paralysis Getting our

51:23

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

51:27

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

51:30

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

51:34

Bryan Entzminger: people either watching live or catching the the replay or the

51:37

Bryan Entzminger: podcast later might like what they hear and might wanna take a

51:41

Bryan Entzminger: similar step for themselves. You guys did this for us for

51:45

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

51:48

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

51:52

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

51:56

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

52:00

Tara Kelly: reach me at tanziestr.com

52:03

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

52:07

Jesse McCune: working on packages aimed at creatives

52:11

Jesse McCune: to help Them solve the problems they're having like

52:14

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

52:18

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

52:21

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

52:25

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

52:28

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

52:32

Bryan Entzminger: tier audio .com. And, then on this side is

52:35

Jennifer Longworth: Jennifer Longworth, Bourbon and Barrel podcasting.com. Amanda

52:39

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

52:43

Amanda McCune: aardvark. Jesse, you can find me at

52:46

Jesse McCune: Tansieaster Audio or Tanziaster Academy. Tara,

52:50

Tara Kelly: you can find me at tanziaster.com. And unable to

52:54

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

52:58

Bryan Entzminger: and Carrie, who you can find at carrie.land.

53:01

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

53:05

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

53:08

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