Effort Versus Strategy And The Mindset Scorecard

Oh, I remember the first time it happened. You always remember the first time it happened. The client tells me their strategy for the media. They tell me an idea that they think is going to work, and then I ask them a simple question, not that complicated of a question at all. How are you going to get the word out? They look at me straight in the eye and they say, well, we're just going to go viral. And this happens a lot. People get this idea in their head that if they just create something, you know, it's the Kevin Costner, if you build it, they will come type of situation, and it's just a bloody mess because it's not necessarily the case at all. It's not the truth at all. If you build it, that means you built it. That means you've spent the time on it. That's it. It doesn't mean that anything else going to happen. See, it's an idea of effort versus strategy. Hey, we are chatting about the Podcast Partnership Mindset Scorecard and you can pick up your copy if you head out to headsuptuesday.com that's the weekly email newsletter. If you sign up for that, we'll send you a copy of the Mindset Scorecard. Do you want to unsubscribe at any point? I don't care. We only want people who want the newsletter. But I think Heads Up Tuesday is pretty viable. And in this Mindset Scorecard, it's the eight mindsets of the podcast partnership. The way that we work, the way that we build our podcast for our clients. And basically the idea is if we have the same mindset, we're going to do really well. If we have completely different mindsets, we're not going to do well at all. And yes, I think my mindsets are correct, and yes, I'm excited about the mindsets that we've built over these years. But the fact of the matter is my job is to communicate the mindsets. A couple episodes we had Dave Jackson on and we chatted about this and we came up the whole idea. I'm going to take a different episode of the podcast report to hit all of the different mindsets. So far, last four episodes, we've hit the idea of podcast gold, the idea of podcast seasons, the idea of podcast tech, the idea of who versus how. And now it is the idea, the concept, the struggle, the battle, whatever it is that you want to call it, of effort versus strategy. I remember the very first Podcast movement event. I appreciate Leo Laporte and all that he's done, but Leo gets up and says, podcast your passion and the profits will follow. Not the case. I know a lot of podcasters who podcasted their passion and still have the day job. It's not just effort, it's strategy, and it's that balance between the two. So let's chat about that. Let's chat about that balance. So on the mindset scorecard, if you have it, you've got it. You can play along at home if you don't. Basically, there's 1, 2, and 3. There's 4, 5, and 6. There's 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. The higher the score, the more our mindsets match. In the 1, 2, and 3 category, basically, we're not matching at all. Is this mindset that, you know, the more time I spend on my podcast, the better it's going to be. Now, it's not necessarily not true, but the fact of the matter is just spending time on the podcast, time in front of the microphone, time in front of the camera, is by no means the track to figure out what's working. The track to figure out working is know what it is that you're trying to do, run it, test it to see if it works, and get yourself better. And the thing is, a lot of time spent finding your footing. We don't have time for that. It's funny, I record this at the height of the coronavirus. There's a lot more people with a lot more time than we've ever had before. But it's still a bad strategy. Just throwing time at the podcast to see what works is a really bad idea. The more time I spend, the better it's going to be. No. So in the 4, 5, 6, we start to get a little bit closer in. It is the idea of, I don't have the time to look for a strategy for my show. We're busy. And there's this idea that, well, I'll do an episode about this, I'll do an episode about this, I'll do a talk about this, maybe a season on this, interview somebody about this. We'll see what happens. We'll see what cream rises to the top. Well, think about that logically. You've listened to podcasts where the people have no idea what it is that they're trying to accomplish, and they just, oh, today I've got an interview with this person. And this week we thought we'd talk about this. And this week we thought we'd talk about this with no theme, no business, no purpose, and it's really kind of ridiculous. And this idea that I don't have time to look really goes back to the whole idea that the more time I spend on my podcast, maybe that time spent looking. I'm sorry, Maybe that time spent performing should be time spent looking. Time spent strategizing, time spent trying to figure out what it is that you are going to accomplish. A couple hours of really good content, strategically done is a lot better than 10, 20, 30 hours of podcasts kind of vomited out on your audience. I don't have time to look for a strategy for my show. Yeah, it takes time. I appreciate that. But you do have the time, and you need to take the time. That's 4, 5, 6. Where we start to get better is in the 7, 8, 9. Where the concept is I should probably work smarter in my show production. Now, largely that comes from, you know, when so many of us know it and many podcasters watching this or listening to this know it. That, oh, crap, it's Wednesday morning. I got to get another episode out. What am I going to do? Kind of thing. And the idea that if I had a little while to work smarter, I would, but I don't have the time because I have to get an episode out. And really, it goes back to those other two things. The more time I spend, the better it's going to get. And I don't have the time to look because I'm so busy producing. See that trend, see that flow, that. That mindset is just not effective. That mindset is just not going to work. It's not an issue of probably should or work smarter. It's an area. It's an issue of please, for the love of, you know, logic, if you will work smarter on your podcast, maybe that means we don't launch for a month. Maybe that means we don't record for a couple of months. But if we work strategically on this, we're going to find ourselves in a very, very different place. We're starting to get closer in 10, 11, 12. In the place where you and I begin to have the same mindset is the idea about this. The more strategic I am about content creation, the better the show is going to be. And by the way, being strategic about content creation has nothing to do with making sure you find the right mic or making sure that your lighting is perfect or making sure that the music selected is there, or that kind of thing that has nothing to do with strategic content creation. Or maybe it's a tiny little piece of the tiny little pie of content creation. Content creation. Back to number one in The Mindset scorecard is the idea of podcast gold delivering to your audience exactly what it is that your audience needs that's engaging to them, that fulfills your business goals. See, when you work for the podcast gold, you become strategic, the show becomes better. Now, let's be honest. Strategy is scary because if you throw away an episode, you can always say to yourself, consciously, subconsciously, oh, well, that was just a throwaway, not that big of a deal. I just turned on the mic and I wanted to see what happens. But let's admit it, if you go in strategically with a goal, a purpose, and then it doesn't work, that can be a bit upsetting. And it often is a bit upsetting. But really, I don't know. In our mindset, it's not, because if the strategy is X and you try for X and you don't get X, there's only two possible responses. Number one is you didn't do it right. Learn it quickly. Fix it, possibly. Number two is X is a bad idea. Great. Stop doing it. Find another strategy. The more strategic you are about your content creation, the better the show is going to be. That is the top of the idea of effort versus strategy. I would dare say, I wish maybe one day we'll develop a calculator or something on this. But, you know, 10 hours of podcast strategy is better than 100 hours of content production. You know, and if you spend some time to do it. And the great thing is we've got our tools and we've offered our things and we work with people on this. But to everyone listening to the podcast report here, it's true for everyone. If you don't know what it is that you're trying to accomplish, if you don't think through what it is that you're trying to accomplish, you're not going to have a show that attempts to accomplish it, and you're not going to have the ability to figure out if the show is accomplishing it in the first place. And after six months, a year, two years, you're going to be asking yourself, what in the heck am I doing this for? It's an issue of effort versus strategy. I would encourage you on this episode of the Podcast Report to be strategic as you possibly can about your podcast and the models. I would suggest is be strategic to people who have had success in being strategic. There are some people who have had a lot of success in selling books and courses about being strategic on the podcast who maybe probably have not been as strategic on their own podcast as they could look. At the shows where you can tell their strategy, model that strategy, follow up on that strategy. Spend more time in strategy than content production and the content production will reflect. That's it. That is the idea of effort versus Strategy. The Next Mindset the next element of the Mindset Scorecard Number six is a big one. We'll have fun with this. We'll bring in Martin Luther King Jr. And some others into the conversation. But this idea of content versus Sound quality. As long as I sound good, everything else will fall into place. We know that's not true. We'll chat about that on the next episode. Again, if you want to get your mindset scorecard blank PDF, you can head out to headsuptuesday.com and next session we'll talk about content versus sound quality. Heck, after that we'll talk about assets versus episodes. And then the big one at the end, we'll chat about impact versus downloads. Thank you so much for either watching or listening. I'll chat with you soon. Bye now.