There is a myth in the entrepreneur/solopreneur/influencer world that some people are just superstars who do it all themselves. It’s easy to believe this if you only see what people share on social media. But it’s simply not true. The myth of doing it all yourself is what kills a lot of podcasts before they reach their full potential. And we don’t want that to happen to you.
In this episode Tiff and Christine give their candid perspective on how important a team is in media production and how to tap into the power of a team before you have the budget to hire one.
“The missing factor really could be just having someone else.”
Tiff Tyler
Topics covered:
- (1:10) How to tap into the massive power of having a team
- (5:25) What to do if you aren’t ready to hire someone
- (9:45) How to get accountability for your project
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Links mentioned:
- Tiff Tyler
- Christine Baird
- Aspiring Podcast Hosts & Producers – check out the Think Like a Producer Membership Group
Subscribe to the Podcast!
Many thanks to our production team
- Worthfull Media for audio editing
- Mosaico Productions for video editing
- Amela Subašić for artwork
Transcription of this episode:
(auto-generated, please forgive typos)
Christine (00:04):
Welcome to Think Like a Producer podcast. I’m your co-host Christine Baird.
Tiff (00:09):
And I’m your co-host Tiff Tyler. Being in the podcast industry, being in the content creation industry. This is what we learned, and this is how you can get out of your own way and get started.
Christine (00:20):
You name it. We’ve probably done it. This podcast is about bringing all the wisdom to you. Tune in weekly, to learn how to think like a producer.
Christine (00:32):
I’ll find my way through this.
Christine (00:35):
I’ll find my way through my own notes. Okay. Hmm. Ready? Yes. Welcome to this episode of think like a producer today, we’re covering something that we actually talk a lot about to our friends, our peers show hosts. Who’ve been doing podcasts and media production for awhile, and it’s this myth of doing it all yourself and how easy it is for people to fall into the comparison trap of looking at other people who have great shows, great content, great brands, and be like, wow, how do they just do it all? I mean, they probably have like an assistant, but it seems like they’re just doing it all themselves. And everything’s so good. And I, I’m not there. And I’m struggling with my mental health and I’m feeling depressed and like I’m behind and I don’t have anyone to talk to cause trying to do it all myself.
Christine (01:21):
Well, we’re going to break it down today because this is a key part of having a successful show or brand really, but it’s also a big fat myth that people do it themselves. And we’re gonna show you why. So first of all, there is massive power in having a team and no matter where you are at in the process, I want you to just open your mind to the fact that you already have a team, even if you haven’t been thinking about it that way. So I’m going to kind of cover the more professional, traditional ideas of team. But Tim’s going to talk about like your bigger team that we all have. So obviously it makes a massive difference. If you have just one other person working on your show with you, and that could be a cohost, like Tiff and I are technically our whole team right now.
Christine (02:14):
Like I do the audio editing. She does the video editing, we’re marketing together like we’re, but we’re a team. There’s two of us. It makes a huge difference. Tiffany said this before. I’ve said this before. The reason why we have a lot of fun with this show, why we’re consistent, why we keep going, even though we’re not like a mega brand yet where like everybody knows about think like a producer is because we have each other and we have a shared vision and we have, you know, highs and lows have come and we’re able to kind of pull each other through and pick each other up and give each other pep talks and give each other feedback. So a co-host can be an amazing teammate. And just the two of you, depending on your skillsets might be enough of a starting place for you. If you’ve been thinking about doing a show and the idea of doing it by yourself has just been overwhelming.
Christine (03:04):
Consider having a co-host like, this could be amazing for you, especially if you already know someone who immediately comes to mind where you’re like, Oh my gosh, like that would be so much fun. They would bring so much value. We would have great chemistry. So think about a co-host that may actually be a great place for you to start building your team. Maybe, you know, co-hosting is not the way you’re going to go, but just having a producer would make all the difference in the world. And I’ve been this person to a lot of my clients, right? A lot of my clients host shows by themselves, but because they brought me on board, I was there, you know, a person they could talk to when they had ideas, when they had doubts, when they had questions, I was helping them with all their production, obviously, but that was massive.
Christine (03:51):
And so maybe just bringing on a producer is going to make all the difference. And again, we’ve had other episodes where we talk about like 12 different roles that you could hire people to help you with your podcast. But we’re just starting at the basics. If you feel like you’re doing it all by yourself and you’re trying to figure out how to make it not so lonely, not so challenging mentally, just maybe bringing in a producer will be huge. Okay. And then third, a producer might be a little more involved than you need, but even just to an editor or someone who’s working on giving you like creative feedback, that might be really helpful. Right? So an audio editor to state the obvious, even if you hire a freelancer off of a site or someone, you know, in your network, that can be massive. Even, you know, at times in my career where all I’ve really been doing is editing.
Christine (04:41):
I still am able to help the host of a show with certain just check-ins they’re like, Hey, did that, did that episode go? Okay, did it sound weird? I wasn’t sure about this. What do you think about this piece? Even an editor can be a huge support. Um, you might assume, you know, all the creative vision, but that could be the teammate that you start with that could make a huge difference, not just in terms of the workload, but in having someone else to talk through the ups and downs, the good, the bad, the self-doubt, the transitions, the growing pains. Um, it makes a massive difference. And we know this because we’ve been producers, we’ve been editors. We’ve been co-hosts, we’ve been consultants. We have been that person for a lot of people. We want to be that person for you just through this podcast. And so that’s something we want to just bring to the surface, right? At the beginning, the myth of doing it all yourself. There’s always somebody, if there’s a successful show, that’s doing well and it’s consistent. There’s always somebody helping behind the scenes or maybe publicly. So that’s a bit of the breakdown on like someone you could potentially partner with her hire, but Tiff, let’s talk about another part of team that maybe some people haven’t even considered.
Tiff (05:58):
Absolutely. You know, I’m thinking kind of like what everyone’s thinking when they’re listening right now. Like, but Christine and I just don’t have the money. I just want to get this going. I just want to get started and I don’t have the funds yet to hire anybody. I don’t feel like I have like necessarily equal partnership that maybe you and Tiff have where I can handle something that the other person can handle. It doesn’t seem as fair. Friends. How many of us have them friends? The ones we can depend on. No kidding, um, friends. So for feedback, this is something that, um, I used a lot, even when I work with different people and I work on different clients, sometimes I am just so in the hustle and bustle of making things that I need to send out just this quick video that I made, or like sometimes because Christine is like the grammar queen, I’ll send her something.
Tiff (06:47):
Can you just look at this real quick and just read this over and just give me some feedback. Did this make you feel any kind of emotion? Did I misspell that thing? Was that grammatically correct? The way that I phrased that? Um, because just having a friend in someone who’s like, you know, they’re not expecting anything in return, right? They’re not expecting you to go do something necessarily, uh, of, uh, equal feedback or anything, but just someone you can reach out to for support. And when these little moments come up, listening to your show, maybe you’ve done what Christine’s recommended over and over again on this podcast, you’ve just started recording. You’ve just started kind of, um, batch recording. You have your catalog a little bit before you’ve released your show and you’re just like, I’m not sure. I don’t know if this is ready.
Tiff (07:30):
I don’t know if people are going to love it, like send it to that best friend. Who’s going to be like that encourage or that person’s like, yes, this is amazing. And send it to that like super critical friend who like will tell you for real, if like something’s off or not quite there. And you can get feedback from people who you’re not necessarily paying for feedback who don’t, who don’t need to have the same experience as a podcast producer or a video producer to just be able to say like, as a listener, as someone who has heard other podcasts or have heard other shows or have just watched TV before in their entire life, I think this content is great. I think this might be something that people want to listen to you, or here’s a couple of things I didn’t quite understand. And maybe you can explain it, you know, on your next recording.
Tiff (08:13):
And um, so that’s just like, I guess, uh, something that we’ve, uh, some, some, Oh my gosh. Some way that, um, people have phrased it for me is like, use your resources. Like I have a team of people in LA that have just become friends, have become my found family, have become people that I know that are kind of like in the industry with me, but have no problem. I like waiting for that text. And I am the kind of person that maybe you might be listening to. I kind of like, don’t want to ask people for favors. I don’t want to ask and reach out because I’m like, Ugh, like, you know, I already asked them a favor last week. This is going to be another thing like that is the whole point of having a friend. And I’ve recently had a friend just yesterday, remind me like that is the point.
Tiff (08:56):
Friends are supposed to be there for each other. We want to be there for each other. We’re not looking for a give and take. We just want to be able to support. Um, and we’ve had friends, like Christine mentioned, like we were friends with that, run the show, but we’ve had friends do our artwork with no expectation of getting anything back. We’ve had friends who’ve helped us with editing and motion graphics with no expectation of getting anything back. They just love what we do wanting to help us and get the show going. And we would not have been able to start without having that friendship and those resources to be able to get us going. So if you’re feeling like I don’t want to ask, just send them a text, send them a happy, whatever date is this, that’s my trick. Whenever I’m kind of nervous about asking a friend for something like, Hey, happy Thursday, uh, how’s everything going?
Tiff (09:40):
You know, just get the conversation going and let them know what you’re up to. And you’ll be shocked. I’m always shocked that even when I’m afraid to ask a friend for support or to listen to something they want to not only do it now, but they’re like, when’s the next episode was the next thing coming out. Make sure you send me the link to the next one. Cause I want to share and I want to help. So this is just a reminder. You have people around you that aren’t professionals that can help you and you are not a burden. It is okay to ask it is okay to get support from the people who love you. And then Christine, I think this is something that I learned, man definitely in Los Angeles, but working with you and the teams that we worked on, just the importance of this next piece that we’re going to talk about.
Christine (10:18):
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s accountability now that can be used a lot of different ways, but the way we mean it in this episode is having maybe just one or a few people who you have requested, keep you accountable to making your show to being either consistent with your schedule or your production, or just being accountable to them for your mindset, for your mental health, for your optimism. These are people that you’ve asked to keep you accountable to what your vision was for your show, right? So maybe this could be like your partner, your spouse, your mom, your brother, your best friend, like Tiff said earlier, it could be someone who has absolutely no connection to podcasting the media industry business. But this is like an, I call them an accountability, buddy. I have a few, and these are people that are like a hundred percent in my corner.
Christine (11:09):
I do this for them. They do this for me. And if I need accountability with something, cause I know, Hey, I’m taking this project on by myself. If I don’t do it, no one will know. But me that’s when I reach out to a friend and like, Hey, can you hold me accountable? I have a vision for my podcast. I want to do X, Y, and Z with it. I want to be this consistent. And I, I need someone to know that that’s my goal. And to ask me about it and to check in with me about it. And that can be just, that can be all the difference in the world because as we’ve talked about and just to dive a little deeper as we continue this episode, it is an interesting world that we live in because of social media, because of the extreme amount of content, we’re all exposed to every day, our brains are battling every day to try and process the reality of how we fit into the bigger ecosystem of society, right?
Christine (12:06):
It’s proven fact, advertising, billions of dollars work on us all the time. Social media is full of paid ads to try and tell us what, we’re not what we need, how we’re not enough. And, and this is subtle, right? We all know it. If you’ve watched the social dilemma as a documentary that came out recently, that really peels back the curtain, but you don’t even have to watch the movie to know what we’re talking about. So knowing that you’re kind of fighting an uphill battle mentally, when you’re doing a creative project solo, it’s like this could be said for anything, not just podcasting, right? You may be, you’re a photographer, a filmmaker, a painter, a writer, anything you name it. It is extremely valuable to have accountability, to have people in your life who you know, are invested and care about you and what you’re up to and your vision.
Christine (12:51):
And they are the people that you can say, Hey, I’m going to text you every week. When I post an episode, I’m going to check in with you every month and tell you, you know, where I’m at with my goal, this, this is something people use all the time and like health goals and fitness and nutrition, like take that same principle and apply it to your podcast because without accountability, it’s so easy to feel like this doesn’t matter. No one’s listening. I’m not enough. And that’s simply not true. So Tiff, what else should we just uplift and encourage these amazing listeners about accountability and the myth of doing it by yourself?
Tiff (13:29):
I mean, I think personally, I, I have started and stopped so many projects and, um, this is episode 26, most likely. So this is the 26th time you’ve heard me say I would not have started the show without Christine, but this is the longest personal project that I’ve actually been able to stick to. And it’s not because I’m not a reliable person or because I’m not a hard worker, but because it is sometimes tough to have bills to pay and projects that you need to get to you and clients that you need to work with. And then also have this thing that you want to kind of turn from a side hustle to a business or a hobby to a business, to just have all that on your mind and constantly juggling over and over and over again. And so while I could see in there and not like shy to compliment each other, um, it’s just great to know that, okay, it wasn’t that I wasn’t capable or that this just, it just, I was missing that element of having someone else hold me accountable, to be dependent on what I need or what they need or what the show needs.
Tiff (14:32):
And I’m saying that, and obviously full transparency because I’ve been in Los Angeles, I’ve been working on this for seven years. My video and production career I’ve named would be successful in so many different areas. But sometimes, like I said, there’s no direct necessarily business attached to it. It might just be something you’re doing to help the world in your kind of way when you start your show. And so that feedback, that encouragement when you’re posting on your Instagram and using social media in a positive way of just having your friends and family, see what you’re doing and give you those hearts and those DMs to keep on going. There’s ways to just to use the people around you, for the things that you need to keep going in the best way possible. So I’m saying all that to say, you’re not alone. If you started something before and we’re enabled to actually get it done, it’s okay to have an accountability and a goal.
Tiff (15:20):
And a by when and someone who’s really going to help you hit that by when, um, and man, like, if you haven’t heard it from us already, like you deserve to have a show. It is like your voice matters. We’ve said this on multiple episodes before, but the missing factor really could just be somebody else that you know is going to like, keep you going after episode 20, after episode 30, that you’re actually going to show up and keep going and keep moving forward with all the self-doubt with all the things that can possibly pop up in your head. It could just be that you just need to ask for help that you just need a friend that you just need a family member or a chosen family member to help you out. So this is all to say, we encourage you. Thank you for listening to this episode.
Tiff (16:05):
Thank you for being a part of our, think like a producer community. And trust me when I say that sometimes when we’re just like, what are we going to do this week? What are we going to record? We go back to your DMs. We go back to your questions are always thinking about the feedback that you give us. So please continue to give us feedback on our Instagram. I think like a producer, leave a review and a rating on our, um, audio podcasts, whether it’s on Spotify, whether it’s on Apple podcasts. We’d love to just hear from you and know which parts of this show are really standing out to you. What’s been helpful, what you can, um, what you want to know more about, especially. I mean, I need to say this, you know, we’re coming to an end of season one, we’re going to have 30 episodes in our first season. So we are wrapping up here. So if there’s any of those lingering questions, those things, you’re like, Oh, I want to ask them this before they go on their little break, whatever that looks like. Um, make sure you send it to us. You can send us an email. Think like a [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks for watching subscribe to our podcast. I feel like I did all of it. Is there more Christine?
Christine (17:06):
You covered it. You’ve covered it. We’ll see you on the next episode.
Christine (20:59):
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Think Like a Producer. This has been a Worthfull Media production. Massive thanks to our team who makes the show possible. Worthfull Media for audio editing, Jorge and Veronica from Mosaico Productions for video editing and effects and Amela Subasic for our amazing artwork and graphics.
Tiff (21:22):
If you want to learn more about how to market, monetize, and grow your podcast, we have a membership group where you can get more access to us and feedback on your show. As a special bonus, you get free access to Christine’s DIY, do it yourself, podcast course when you join the group. Check the link in the show notes for more information.
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