It’s the end of 2020 (thank God) and now is the perfect time for your first “purge”.
A great man once said, “Stop spending major time with minor people”. So stop giving your most valuable resource (time) to your worst clients.
Links:
Instagram: @podonthego
Transcript
(00:00):
What’s up everybody on today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about the hardest decision you’re going to have to make as a podcast studio owner.
(00:07):
No, try not to do or do not. There is no try.
(00:15):
All right. So as a studio owner, the hardest decision you’re going to have to make is cutting clients. You’re going to have to purge some clients. You’re going to have to get rid of the ones that are dead weight. The ones that are taking up all your time, the ones that are don’t pay on time, the ones that ask for a thousand edits after you’ve given them a great product, you gotta let them go. Some people just don’t value your time. They don’t value your expertise. Don’t value your services. They think they can do better or something about some people just think that being a perfectionist is a great thing. When it comes to podcasts, can you, you do have to be professional sometimes as editors or studio owners, we’re going to make mistakes. So the feedback is always good, but there’s a point.
(00:56):
There’s a line you have to draw in the sand. It’s like, how much work am I going to do? How much time can I spend on one client? And that’s, that’s what you have to figure out yourself. And the, the beauty of it is the, of once you’ve purged your worst clients, then you’re going to find some new clients that are going to be better than they’re going to pay on time. They will value your work that will give you glowing reviews, send recommendations to you, bring people to you to start the new podcast and share things with you that will help. Like there are great people out there like that. So you have to find those types of people, the people who are going to be your biggest supporters. That was the biggest mistake I made when I opened my first studio is I was putting in 60, 70 hours a week, recording things in studio, recording things on location and working with anybody who came by anybody who had a question hour, spend an hour, trying to help them with a question, you know, and then not charging them for the time that I spent working on it.
(01:52):
I would just go project by project. And I worked with these clients for way too long. I should have cut them off a long time ago. I got a call the other day. She gave me the, she was trying to hint at me that she wanted me to do something for free or very cheap. You know, I gave him a price to help her launch a podcast. She wasn’t giving me many details. So that’s also something. And also I do have a questionnaire that I send people of free, you know, just a questionnaire, just to kind of figure out you know, how much they already have done, how much they have prepared. Just, just a few basic questions about the podcast, where they want to take it, how far along they are gets their contact information, stuff like that. And the lady, she didn’t even want to take the questionnaire.
(02:32):
She was just trying to beat around the Bush to ask me to do something for free. And I told him my price and I just stuck with my price. And I think I dodged a bullet by doing that. She had a great podcast ideas. She was brought in for a great cause. You know, it’s had passion with it. So I, I know the podcast would be great, but that doesn’t mean I have to work on it. That doesn’t mean I have to do it. You know, the biggest key is just figuring out the line. You’re going to draw in the sand for, because people will not value your time. And then as soon as you say, no, they’ll go find somebody else to do it for cheap. Or instead of using, you are paying you appropriately. They’ll use you to figure out how they can do it themselves.
(03:13):
And I get it. That’s the game. You know, I’ve done it before with the other things. You know, if an electrician comes by or a contractor comes by to my house and fix something and I watch them very closely. So if the next time I could do it myself, if I can, if it’s worth it to me, you know, so, and that’s what people are doing in a lot of the studios. They come by, they ask questions, they talk to you and then they look around and just, just trying to, you know, and it’s fine to help people. I love helping people. I want you to do it yourself. But I also have a price that said when I was first starting out, I took on every client and I did all types of work hours and hours of work just for the minimum test for the minimum. And that is, that’s what got me. So you have to learn how to cut out your worst clients, you know? And how do you figure that out?
(04:07):
All right. So let’s deep dive into it just a little bit. So what, what are you looking for on a good client? What you should do is look at your finances. Look at the time you spend, look at what makes you happy. Look at what you really enjoy doing in your business, and then go from there and figure out who your best clients are and who brings you joy.
(04:27):
Right? Who brings you joy? It doesn’t make sense. If you need the money, you need the money. You need the money. You got to do what you have to do, right? To keep your doors open and to keep your kids fed. Right? But if you can’t, if it’s a client, that’s not paying you on time anyway, then you can let them go and figure out exactly what you want to do. So, one thing you want to look for is how much time do they expect you to spend on a project? Are they sending you a ton of edits? Are they sending you back a specifically what they want? Sometimes that can be good. Sometimes that can be bad. Are there three chefs in the kitchen? In other words, like, are there three people leading that you have to respond to? Are there three or four or five people that are in charge?
(05:06):
Are you working for an organization? And everybody has a say so in a project that’s terrible. That is the worst situation possible. So what you should do is prep them. My buddy, Tyler gave me this Tyler EDIC, I’ll put a picture of him right here with the creative truth. He always preps his clients before. And especially when he’s working with the organization, says, give me one point of contact for the project and let them be the go between between us and the rest of the organization. Because otherwise, if one person says they like the sound, one person says they liked the color of the video, but another person doesn’t and you have to go back and change it three or four times. That is a waste of everybody’s time. Honestly. So one thing I learned when I was a real estate agent that applies here tremendously, and really every sales funnel you’re ever going to do in your life is book like book and selling is what they called it.
(05:56):
And that’s when you do a ton of work in the beginning and a ton of work at closing and in the middle, you kind of let the client figure out everything. They need to figure it out. So what I take from this is number one is like at the very beginning is you want to sit down with a client, a prospective client and just talk to them and figure out, ask as many questions. You can have a notebook where you write down answers have not a phone, not a cell phone. Cause it looks like you’re texting, but have a notebook of physical notebook where you’re writing down answers to the questions. And you have a set list of things that you ask them, ask them what their budget is, ask them what their timeline is. When do they want to launch the podcast, ask them you know, how much equipment they have now ask them the topic of their podcast.
(06:37):
And to give you some ideas for a podcast topics, ask them if there’s going to be a cohost who else is on their team? Do they have an editor? Do they have a marketing person? Do they have a social media person? Do they have a, do they have sponsors already? And do they plan on getting sponsors? Ask them about the expertise in the topic. You know, what have you done before? Why this subject, ask them all these questions and then ask them what they want from you. You know, what they expect from you. Do they expect you to just edit? Do they expect to come into your studio and use your studio or do they expect you to also do graphics and for their podcasts to do marketing and promote it on your website and on their website and all this pre-work this, this preparation before the podcast is going to make everything in the middle easy.
(07:27):
You know, it’s going to make that first, the first 10 episodes so much easier. If you can get the questions up front, right? If you guys can learn how to communicate with are the, you know, what the expectations are for each of you? You know, this is also a great time to say, these are my prices. This is what I’m going to charge for this service. You know, it’s more, if you want me to also to create graphics and promote it on my podcast is more. If you want me to promote it on my platform, maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. It’s up to you all. That’s up to you, but the preparation is key.
(07:58):
That’s going to make the rest of the process so much smoother. You know, if you guys have communicated for, you know, a long time upfront, otherwise things are going to go into a Ray and they’re going to feel like you’re not doing enough. They’re going to feel like they’re paying you too much, or you’re going to feel like they’re not paying you enough. If you have not talked about these things upfront. So that is a great way to find new clients and weed out bad clients before we even get started on a project.
(08:26):
And so finally, I’ll just leave you with this really quick, the most valuable resource we have as a human being while we are alive on this earth, we don’t know what happens after. We don’t know what came before us, right? But the most valuable thing we have is time. And if you’re not tracking your time that you spend on each client, you’ll be used up. And before you know it, you won’t have time for friends. You don’t have time for family. You won’t have time to see your kids grow. You won’t have time to work out or eat, right? You won’t have time to build a following field for your business to grow your business so that it becomes a way more passive than it is a non passive. What’s the opposite of passive active. Right, right. Because, right,
(09:10):
Right. Now, a lot of you probably, maybe not, maybe some of you have it in the bag, maybe, you know,
(09:15):
Business owners who’ve been in business over 10 years, 30 years, and you know exactly what you’re doing, but some of you out there don’t, and I just want to tell you, starting out, this was my biggest thing is I put so much time in, I was listening to people like Gary V and David, David Goggins, and Joe Rogan and all these other people who just work hard. And I thought if I just put the time in that things will grow and they did, but because I was just focused on working hard and not focused on working smart, I made a lot of mistakes and I spent a lot of time doing things with free or cheap with bad clients that I could have been spending with my kids or with my wife or with my friends, or, you know, hobbies, working out, eating better, managing the finances or even in the business growing it so that I don’t have to work so hard to get a client because that makes sense.
(10:11):
You know, I would have more time to create audio grams to promote the podcast on Instagram. I’ll have more time to create clips of my shows. I’ll have more time to create anything that helps grow the business, right? Education, learning how to edit audio, better, learning how to market, better, learn how to manage my finances better. That’s always a big point. And if you’re spending all your time with bad clients, you don’t have time to build your skills as a business owner, even that’s the tip for today and this ongoing series of tips with podcasts, studio owners. So please reach out to me. If you have questions, if you have a topic you want me to talk about, or if you want to be
(10:50):
Featured on, on the show and I can interview
(10:53):
You and you can send me pictures of your studio and we’ll do like a virtual walkthrough of your studio, that will be really cool. I just want to promote this for you guys. And hopefully you’ll check out the website Potter and the goal that he got to watching. I’m Rez with Potter on the go. We’ll see you next week.
