Content Versus Sound Quality And The Mindset Scorecard

There was this influencer who had a chance at making a difference. But unfortunately, due to bad planning, a poor room, an old microphone, and a number of other things, he never really got the chance to give the world his message. His name was Martin Luther King Jr. He had this idea, he had a dream, if you will, and he wanted to share that dream. But unfortunately, instead of going into a good sound studio, and instead of getting the most expensive mic possible, and instead of being really strategic about the sound bouncing and this kind of stuff, he had this crazy idea to go outside with a silly old mono microphone, put it on a stand, put a bunch of people in the audience, and include the background noise of the people listening. Include sound, include the air. If there was a plane flying over, who cares? And we all know that that kind of recording makes spore terrible, terrible content. If Martin Luther King Jr. Had actually gone into the studio and recorded his I have a Dream speech, you know, better, maybe got a guru and maybe, you know, got himself the right microphone, the right mixer, he could have done something with his message. Now, obviously, I'm being tongue in cheek here. I have a Dream is one of the most important speeches of the 20th century, more important every day. And what was important about I have a Dream was that Martin Luther King Jr. Had a dream and use the tech to share it with the world. Why do I tell this story? Well, the problem is, the issue is in the podcasting space, there's this idea, there's this meme, there's this theme that if you don't produce the best possible quality audio with the best possible quality mic technique and all this stuff, your show be damned. And the fact of the matter is it's, you know, do good audio, make it sound great, do what you can. But obviously more important than anything is the content. This is number six of an eight part series about the Mindset Scorecard. And the Mindset Scorecard is a tool we use the podcast partnership when we're dealing with potential clients to decide if we're working from the same mindset. And what I've done is every week or so, we've missed a few here and there. We were looking at the different mindsets in the scorecard, talking about how they matter to the big picture of podcasting at the podcast partnership. And I was encouraged to actually share this with the podcast report audience, and I thought I would. So last week we chat about the idea of effort versus strategy. The week before that, who versus how. The week before that, the tech. The week before that, the idea of Seasons and the week before that, podcast gold. But today is this idea of content versus sound quality. Now, if you want to get the Mindset Scorecard, you can listen to the back episodes and put it all together if you want. Or if you head out to headsuptuesday.com that is the new weekly newsletter. And one of the things you do when you sign up is you get access to the back that has actually the PDF of the Mindset scorecard. Go ahead and use that. Honestly, if you don't want to be subscribed to it after that, click the unsubscribe button. There's no desire to send an email that nobody wants to read any more than there is to make someone listen to a podcast that they don't want to listen to. But content versus sound quality and the way the scorecard works is there are four areas. There's 1, 2, 3, there's 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. 1, 2, 3 is basically as far away from our mindset on producing content. 4, 5, 6 is, you know, not all the way to the end, but definitely not what we're thinking. 7, 8, 9 is. I was starting to think along the same lines. And 10, 11, 12 is the beautiful world of we're together in this. Now. My phone just went off and many podcasters would say, kill it. No, we're on stream here. We're doing okay. So sound versus content versus sound quality. 1, 2, 3. The concept is the better the sound, the better the show. Now, there are some who honestly believe that and who act on it and play with that, and that's just not us. The better the content, the better the show. The better the message. The better the show, the better. Entertaining, the better show. Not the better the sound, for goodness sakes. Now, in the 4, 5, 6, once I have my sound figured out, I can work on my strategy. Sound is part of your strategy. Sound is not the first strategy. The first strategy is what is your message, what it is that you're trying to tell other people. That kind of thing. Once you have your sound figured out, you can work on your strategy. Sound is part of the strategy. Message is part of the strategy. Monetization is part of the strategy. Longevity is part of the strategy. That kind of thing. Sound figured out. Work on my strategy. 4, 5, 6. When you start to get closer to where we think and what we do, I'm seven, eight, nine. I need to make sure every episode has good sound. Sure, great. But I also need to make sure that every new episode has good content. Has good purpose follows that mindset of Podcast Gold that we chatted about in the first of this little series. Then finally, 10, 11, 12. My impact will come from my content. My team will worry about the sound. My impact will come from my content. My team will worry about the sound. I am thrilled that Martin Luther King Jr. Didn't worry about a sound. Now, I'm not putting me or any other podcaster on the same level as him, but he knew what was important, and he knew the communication was what was important, and he handed the tech over to someone else. I bet you he couldn't even tell you the name of the audio video company who set up that big event because that wasn't what his message was about. I want you to think about what your message is about. I want you to think about what you bring to this game, and I want you to think about why you might have a consultant or a guru or a little voice in your head that says that the audio is more important than something else. Let me suggest a couple of things. It is hard to have good content. It is. It's not hard to buy an expensive microphone. It is hard to know what it is that you're trying to do, what it is that you're trying to accomplish, who it is that you're trying to reach, what impact it is that you're trying to make. Selecting the stand, the audio, bouncing stuff for your walls is not that hard. We want, when we do anything, man, woman, old, young, professional, amateur, we want to have mastery over something. We want to be able to, well, I did this correctly and honestly. It's easy now. Easier now in podcasting, to make your audio the thing that is mastered, to make your sound design, the thing that you can brag about, to make the tech behind everything, the very thing that you rest your success on. One of the things we chatted about in Gold was when the content was engaging and we could even put great sound in that. But you're not meeting your audience and you're not meeting your business goals. You're going to be in a mess. And soon somebody's going to run the numbers. If you do it by yourself, you're going to be the one who runs the numbers. But at some point, somebody's going to go, why the heck are we doing this? And that's not where we want to be. So when we work with clients and they talk about the microphone, we say, later, now again, sound great, please sound great, look great. You know, do everything you can. But until that message is figured out, until that purpose is figured out, until these things are figured out, we have no reason to worry about the microphone and that kind of thing. What do you do with this? You know your microphone, great. You know your soundproofing technique, great. You know your limiter and your cloud suppressor and your mixer and your gain and your gate and all of these things. But do you know your purpose, your meaning, your position? I'll tell you this, you probably don't have enough time or effort to, or ability or really anything to do it all. What's the part that's key to you? There are a lot of people. Go to itunes and find a lot of them. There are a lot of people really good at microphones. There are a lot of people really good at editing. There are a lot of people really good at putting music and that kind of stuff up to this. They're not a lot of people really good at making content. Beautiful thing is, is you know what your content is, you know what your message is. And if you take that time and you take that attention and you take that focus that people spend on, on getting sound, the beep just popped on the computer. Spend that time, effort, and focus on your content, you're going to be at a much better place. Now a little sneak preview. The next session. We'll check with the idea of assets versus episodes. What's amazing here is we're still talking about I have a dream, you know, decades and decades later, because his concern was his content, not the audio production. There are podcast episodes, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt they're going to be talking about in 10, 20, 30 years. Is that the kind of stuff you want to produce? We will chat about that next session, but only comes when you have this idea that the content is more important than the sound quality. So again, this is number six of eight. I'm recording most of these on Facebook, but the source for all this is the podcast report. You can see the logo behind there. Podcast report on any of your platforms. The podcastreport.com is the website. If you want to get the newsletter, it is headsuptuesday.com that can get you the blank scorecard or we will go from there. I don't want to lighten the good doctor's work at all. Take a moment to think about what he's done. But now my dream. Content beats content wins. Thank you so much. We'll chat next time. Bye.