Evo Terra:
Easy peasy lemon squeezy does not make for a compelling podcast.
Evo Terra:
At least not for your listeners.
Evo Terra:
If you want to be a more proficient podcaster, you can't ignore
Evo Terra:
the hard parts of podcasting.
Evo Terra:
Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
Evo Terra:
Podcasting's too easy.
Evo Terra:
Oops.
Evo Terra:
Let me put that another way.
Evo Terra:
It's too easy to gloss over the difficult parts of podcasting that,
Evo Terra:
when done right, help make a show truly outstanding and remarkable.
Evo Terra:
I firmly believe that.
Evo Terra:
To illustrate the point, I want you to think about your own process
Evo Terra:
of making a podcast episode.
Evo Terra:
Just an episode.
Evo Terra:
It's always fun to - it's always smarter to drill down.
Evo Terra:
Don't want to look at the whole thing, just one.
Evo Terra:
Your process of making an episode.
Evo Terra:
Or maybe if you are a part of a podcast production service, and you do kind of
Evo Terra:
one thing, think about the process you go through fulfilling that particular role.
Evo Terra:
Okay?
Evo Terra:
Either or.
Evo Terra:
And I want you to start from the beginning, whether you're a
Evo Terra:
podcaster that does everything on your own, or you're just one part.
Evo Terra:
Start from the very beginning.
Evo Terra:
Think, like, episode planning.
Evo Terra:
What am I going to talk about tomorrow?
Evo Terra:
Next week?
Evo Terra:
Whatever.
Evo Terra:
I don't know.
Evo Terra:
Or maybe thinking of figuring out topics and angles.
Evo Terra:
Maybe even before the episode, what are the topics and what
Evo Terra:
are the angles going to be?
Evo Terra:
Just think about that process.
Evo Terra:
Put it in your mind for a moment.
Evo Terra:
And from there, I want you to walk through all of the steps that you
Evo Terra:
go through from that moment when the podcast for you truly begins, all
Evo Terra:
the way through until it is done.
Evo Terra:
And I don't just mean publishing.
Evo Terra:
I mean, all the post-publishing work you do as well, like updating your
Evo Terra:
website or doing marketing and promotion or whatever else you do at the end.
Evo Terra:
Think through all those things.
Evo Terra:
Now, when you've got that done, you'll figure out that some of
Evo Terra:
those things are probably easy.
Evo Terra:
Hopefully, if you've been podcasting for a long time and you're
Evo Terra:
getting better and better at your craft, most of them will be easy.
Evo Terra:
Again, the longer you podcast, the better you get and the
Evo Terra:
easier all of this becomes.
Evo Terra:
But still somewhere in that list, there's at least one thing that isn't easy or
Evo Terra:
it's not as easy as the other ones.
Evo Terra:
There's something in there, and maybe somethings in there,
Evo Terra:
that are actually difficult.
Evo Terra:
I am proof of this because there are things in my process that are difficult.
Evo Terra:
Here's what I mean.
Evo Terra:
Here's what they could be, right?
Evo Terra:
So these are things that maybe you just don't have enough
Evo Terra:
skill in that particular area.
Evo Terra:
There's a lot to podcasting and we're all better and worse at some aspects.
Evo Terra:
So maybe the difficult things you're identifying right now are areas
Evo Terra:
where you don't have enough skill.
Evo Terra:
Maybe the difficult things you've identified are things that are just
Evo Terra:
too time-consuming for you to do right.
Evo Terra:
You know you could do it better, but that's not easy.
Evo Terra:
That's difficult.
Evo Terra:
So therefore you're forced to take a shortcut.
Evo Terra:
Maybe this is a thing where these are things that you were told to
Evo Terra:
do by someone, maybe me, and you're not sure why that's in there.
Evo Terra:
It's part of your process, but you're just really not sure why.
Evo Terra:
And when you get there, it's always kind of a speed bump.
Evo Terra:
Or maybe these are things you just don't like doing.
Evo Terra:
Maybe it's, there's always this thing that I hit, I just hate it
Evo Terra:
every time, so, finally just plow through it cause I do not like it.
Evo Terra:
Now, think back to your process, all things I just said, and identify a
Evo Terra:
particular difficult thing, just one, one difficult thing and write it down.
Evo Terra:
Grab a sticky note, put it on your monitor, your microphone, your mixer,
Evo Terra:
your whatever, identify that, and write it down because that's what I want
Evo Terra:
you to focus on for an entire month.
Evo Terra:
A month.
Evo Terra:
You cannot fix this in one day.
Evo Terra:
You cannot fix this after listening to my rambling and rantings right here.
Evo Terra:
If it's difficult for you to do, it's going to be difficult for
Evo Terra:
you to move past that thing so that it becomes less difficult.
Evo Terra:
It may never become easy, by the way, you can make it less difficult, but I cannot
Evo Terra:
promise you that it will become easy.
Evo Terra:
You see, we tend to ignore difficult things because we're people, you know?
Evo Terra:
And also, there's a lot that goes into podcasting and somehow we've done this
Evo Terra:
weird mathematical computation in our brain that says, well, if we do these
Evo Terra:
ten very easy things great, then just doing one difficult thing poorly?
Evo Terra:
Ah, that's not going to show up.
Evo Terra:
We're wrong about that.
Evo Terra:
We're terribly wrong about that because the poorly-executed thing stands out
Evo Terra:
like a sore thumb to those who are unfamiliar with all of the others ten
Evo Terra:
easy things we did in the process.
Evo Terra:
Because they don't care about those ten easy things.
Evo Terra:
They care about the final product.
Evo Terra:
And that one difficult thing is a problem that's getting in the way.
Evo Terra:
So what's the one difficult thing about podcasting, about your own podcasting
Evo Terra:
processes that you want to work to make easier in the next thirty days?
Evo Terra:
I'll tell you mine.
Evo Terra:
Mine is EQ and vocal track cleanup.
Evo Terra:
My own vocal track clean up, my own EQ, and then also for
Evo Terra:
the ones I do for clients.
Evo Terra:
But primarily it's all about me.
Evo Terra:
And my problem is - I know what the problem is.
Evo Terra:
I'm not picky enough and I'm a pretty picky person, as I've
Evo Terra:
said on this program many a time.
Evo Terra:
But I'm not picky enough when it comes to this particular aspect.
Evo Terra:
Worse, I'm taking the easy road.
Evo Terra:
I'm taking the easy road right now.
Evo Terra:
I'm doing some, but I'm not doing nearly enough.
Evo Terra:
So what I've decided to do is get some one-on-one training from a person
Evo Terra:
who's much better than me - Hi, Marcus!
Evo Terra:
- and investing in my brand new set of tools.
Evo Terra:
Well, not brand new to me.
Evo Terra:
Tools I use right now, but not the advanced mode.
Evo Terra:
I'm going to step up and spend the cash to get them so I can get better at it.
Evo Terra:
This process of EQing and doing vocal track cleanup is quite time-consuming.
Evo Terra:
Especially for a guy like me, who's putting out an episode every day, the
Evo Terra:
same day he does it, which is always a bad idea, but it's the format I have.
Evo Terra:
So I'm going to have to figure out what to do about that, how that's going to
Evo Terra:
impact my production process internally.
Evo Terra:
Again, for clients, what I'm doing is fine and great.
Evo Terra:
Cause it's a different process and I can use Marcus when I need to.
Evo Terra:
But for me, I want to make it better.
Evo Terra:
And that might mean changes to Podcast Pontifications, but it might also just
Evo Terra:
mean I get up and do things earlier.
Evo Terra:
I don't know.
Evo Terra:
So for the next month, I'm going to identify that, get the training I need,
Evo Terra:
get the software I need, and work on a better way to make this difficult
Evo Terra:
aspect of my podcasting process a little bit easier for me, and, hopefully,
Evo Terra:
a lot better for you, my listener.
Evo Terra:
So what's yours?
Evo Terra:
What's your difficult thing you're going to work on for the next thirty days?
Evo Terra:
This can be very hard to see from the inside looking out.
Evo Terra:
You're too close to this.
Evo Terra:
So guess what?
Evo Terra:
It's that thing I say all the time, ask your podcasting peers.
Evo Terra:
Ask your podcasting peers who also listen to your show and
Evo Terra:
know your process, ideally.
Evo Terra:
Ask them what stands out as less-than-perfect to them.
Evo Terra:
It's probably difficult for you.
Evo Terra:
Of course, it's difficult to get them to be honest, but hopefully,
Evo Terra:
if you can get them to be honest and you're open with them, they can
Evo Terra:
give you some really good feedback.
Evo Terra:
Because they probably know what that one thing is and they're
Evo Terra:
just not ready to tell you.
Evo Terra:
So ask.
Evo Terra:
See what you can get out of them.
Evo Terra:
And if you love this idea, please go to buymeacoffee.com/evoter ra
Evo Terra:
and slide a virtual coffee my way.
Evo Terra:
That's always nice.
Evo Terra:
That's it.
Evo Terra:
I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.
