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Podcasting's sense of “coopetition” isn't
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as common as it once was.
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But podcasters collaborating with other podcasters still happens, creating better
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shows than they can from solo efforts.
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Here's proof.
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Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
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Last night, the most ambitious, single podcasting project I've
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ever been associated with dropped.
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And no, this is not going to be a promotional episode about this new show.
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You know that's not really my style.
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No, instead, this episode is about recognizing your own limitations as
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a podcaster and then collaborating with other podcasters so you can
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achieve bigger and better things.
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It was almost a year ago, late May of 2020, pandemic just getting started, when
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an existing client of mine introduced me to an associate of hers who had
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an idea for a podcast and was seeking people to make this dream come true.
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Now, it was pretty clear in our early conversations, which started
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in June, that we had an opportunity to make, not just another podcast,
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but actually a very big deal.
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And the client was very interested in the idea of doing something quite different.
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This is a big company - I'll explain who it is in a moment - that has made
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plenty of podcasts in the past, but wanted to do something that stood out,
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that was different, that wasn't the standard way that they were doing things.
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And that was quite exciting.
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So, I used those early conversations and recognize that, you know, there's
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something here that's just a little above the standard, what I'm going
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to call, boring business podcast.
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So, I used this as an opportunity to reach out to Sam Walker, who lives
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here in Phoenix, of ex-BBC fame.
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And initially I just wanted Sam's eyes on this project.
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You know, what can we do that is a different way of doing things?
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But as those - and that was just, hey, I'm just going to pay you for some consulting
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hours, let's get some stuff done.
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But then I realized that no, this was going to be a bigger thing.
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Because the client - when I originally thought this, we were going to make
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a branded podcast, a branded content show, but that's not really it now.
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Branded content is usually pretty brand forward and this was going to
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be very light touch of the brand.
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It wasn't about chest-beating about how great we are and let's tell you a
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bunch of stories that emphasize that.
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No, it was quite different because it wasn't really about them, and it
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wasn't really about their clients.
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It was about the space.
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It's about this new space.
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It was going to be very business-focused.
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And it is very business-focused with lots of actionable data, but with these
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compelling stories and a narrative arc that really compels you to listen to this
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show, even if you're not in the industry.
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'Cause it's in an industry that we all happen to be a part of we
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just don't think about it too much.
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Most of us don't work in the industry, we're just the consumers of said industry.
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And I thought I was a pretty good storyteller.
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But as we started working on this project, it was pretty quickly clear
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that while I am a good storyteller, Sam is significantly better at telling
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these kinds of stories than I am.
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She has been instrumental in this show from the outset, pulling from
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her - my goodness, hard-fought let's call it - hard-fought knowledge of
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how to make compelling audio-based journalism, which is what we wanted to do.
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And so the good news is when we won the contract, which was just several
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weeks of going back and forth, maybe even a month or so, when we won the
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contract, I was told by the client that our proposal was completely
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different, which I think is code words for terribly expensive, compared to
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what other firms were bidding on.
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And which was great to hear, but that also put a lot of pressure on us, right?
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So then early on, Sam and I said, okay, well we can do all of these
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things pretty well, but we knew we wanted this show to be as close to
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perfection as we could possibly make it.
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We would never get totally perfect, we could make a really good show,
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but we wanted to make it as clean and pristine as we possibly could.
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Now, I had been wanting to work with Marcus DePaula, he's an excellent
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audio engineer, for some time, but hadn't really found the right project.
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Well, this seemed like it.
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So early on last summer, I reached out to Marcus and not only did he
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help us source some great music, the perfect composer - hi Charlie!
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- who made custom theme music, exactly what we needed for the show, Marcus
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also took the incredibly important and often overlooked task when
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you're doing something of this scale of mastering each episode.
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Now, mastering is something that if you don't work in the music industry,
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you're probably not used to mastering.
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But mastering does two things here - one, it ads in music, musical elements,
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again, from the custom themes we had developed, adds those in to give
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character and give texture and give it just, you know, make it sound better.
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That's there just to add that emphasis, right?
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That's a big part of the mastering process.
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But also, because we were recording twenty different conversations of
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people all around the world, really, with different microphones and all
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business people, so no one's in a studio here, we had to get the vocal tracks
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as cleaned up as we possibly could.
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So Marcus did all of that, scrubbed through and made it just, wow.
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I - totally blown away.
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And the end was last night.
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Gosh, many long days, many long nights, lots of communications back and
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forth with the client and the guests, just keeping things going forward.
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We finally have a podcasting project that everyone - our client, yes, the
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guests that were on the show, yes, and even those of us on the production
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side can point to and hold up as an example of one of the best and certainly
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biggest things we've ever created.
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And I couldn't have done it, honestly, could not have done this, at least
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nowhere to the level of quality and completeness that final product has,
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without collaborating with Sam and Marcus.
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So my message to you is go and collaborate.
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Find - this is the part of the show where I reach out to you and
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I tell you to reach out to a peer.
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And this is why I tell you to do that every week.
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Find out who you want to work with.
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Start reaching out to these people now, before you have an opportunity.
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I established a relationship with both Sam and Marcus well
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ahead of this particular ask.
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Ask now.
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And you too can create some pretty amazing content.
The big reveal:
the show is called ExPEERience.
The big reveal:
P-E-E-R because it's peers talking with one another.
The big reveal:
ExPEERience Podcast, and yes, I will list it here in the episode details.
The big reveal:
It's a show we created on behalf of SAP Customer Experience.
The big reveal:
It's only six episodes, twenty to thirty minutes each.
The big reveal:
I think you're going to love it.
The big reveal:
I think you're really going to appreciate what it is from a content point of view
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as a podcast, but also as a listener.
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Just packed with really good information because it's about customer
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experience and, you know, we're all customers at some point in time.
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So go take a listen to that.
The big reveal:
If you like this idea about collaborating and doing things with
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other podcasters to make something better than you can on your own,
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please go to buymeacoffee.com/EvoTerra and slide virtual coffee my way.
The big reveal:
And let's find out if there are ways you and I can work together.
The big reveal:
That'd be fun, right?
The big reveal:
Alright.
The big reveal:
That's it.
The big reveal:
I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.
