Should The Podcaster Batch Their Episodes - The Podcast Report With Paul Colligan Episode #90

Should the podcaster batch their episodes? It's the podcast report, episode 90, show notes, links, conversation and more@the podcastreport.com 90. If you don't know why you're recording your podcast every week, you might want to figure it out. This is Paul Culligan, author of how to Podcast, Podcaster for the Podcast Report, as well as a couple of others. I'm also an executive podcast consultant with some high level clients that you've probably heard of, but that's not important right now. This is the podcast report. This is the show where I show you the podcast how to reach more with your message and profit more from your content. The big idea for this week is simply your weekly podcast doesn't have to be a weekly thing. That's right, your weekly podcast doesn't have to be a weekly thing. How is that possible? Well, working on a four part series, episodes 89 through 92 are about the different production models for podcasting. This week we're chatting about batch production. Batch production is where you record more than one podcast at a time. You do a batch of them. The fun thing is to speak from experience and I'll chat a little bit more at the end of this. This is actually a batch production in and of itself. Episode 90, 91 and 92 were recorded as batch and I did this one last so I could share the experience with it, share some thoughts on it. But now I don't have to worry about producing a show next week. I don't have to worry about producing a show a week after that. Ah, interesting. Is this new? No, it's not new. It's actually something that podcasters have known for a long time. There was a show back in the early days and they're still going on Grape Radio. Hi, the Grape Radio guys. When they started initially, I do not know their production model right now, but when they started initially, they really only had the capability to get together once a month to do four episodes of the show. And it was fun because you could always tell being a show about wine, Grape Radio, you could always tell what episode it was by the amount of laughing on the show because they certainly enjoyed the products that they reviewed. We've been doing it for a while. Entrepreneur on Fire, John Lee Dumas obviously made things famous with where he does a whole week of shows on Mondays. Many times he actually even does more than a week of shows on Mondays. I've heard him doing eight shows on any Monday. Pretty, pretty powerful. But what's interesting about batching is that I, when I go to consulting gigs. When I help people launch their podcast, I see in their eyes this terror of, do I have to commit to this every week? What happens if I get up Wednesday morning and I'm just not in the mood or I'm not in the groove for the podcast? What do I do? Well, here's the thing. Your weekly podcast doesn't have to be a weekly thing with batching. Your daily podcast doesn't have to be a daily thing with batching. Heck, your monthly podcast doesn't have to be a monthly thing with batching. What you do is plan out the show and we'll go into more specifics here. Work it out, then record them all at once and you'll be at a better place. Right now, as I said, I'm doing 90, 91 and 92 at the same time. And what's funny is I recorded this one episode 90 last. So I have, in my own personal timeline, already recorded episode 90 and 92, and I'm knocking three episodes out today. And I'll tell you, it's been nice. The thoughts that next Tuesday morning or next Monday evening and then the week after that, I don't have to worry about anything is really empowering. And what's fun, now that I've got the past two episodes in my head from just having done those a couple of minutes ago, if you will, I am more empowered to do a better show. So for me, this works and for a lot of people this works. And I want to share some thoughts on the process. We're building out a matrix of the four different models. If you head out to the podcastreport.com 90 sign up for the matrix, we will get that to you. The matrix will come when the series is done published. But if you go there right now, give us your name and email address, I will set you up so that when it comes out, you get it live. Obviously, if you're listening to this at some point in the future, not on the Tuesday of release, that thing is ready. It's going to be good, it's going to be empowering. And when you take a look at that and understand how this all fits together, you are at a better level place. So batching, it's a number of episodes at the same time, but it's a number of episodes at the same time, strategically, not just to only knock out your podcasting time one half of a day, once a month, although that might be part of the strategy. There's also higher levels of strategy that we'll chat about. In a second. Once you realize this, once you understand this, you might change things. You can do a season at a time, you can do a month at a time, you can do a week at a time. One thing that's interesting is when you do that, instead of the what am I going to chat about this morning? What am I going to chat about this afternoon? You can begin to work to an editorial calendar, which we'll chat in a second. So the so what to this scheduling? Could you podcast more if you didn't have to take a slot out to do it every week? The answer is yes. If you didn't have to make time for podcasting every week, you could podcast more. I mean, that's just math. Scheduling is easy for you. It helps. I've got one client right now who has paid for production of a show. We've got everything lined up, everything done. But the problem is the idea of getting a show out in the midst of his busy schedule is kind of crazy. The only saving grace, the only way we're going to get the show out the door is I know that he records, and by the way, he's listening. I know that when he records, he's going to record a batch of them and get them to me. That's going to be the only saving grace. Scheduling is a huge part of batching. It makes your life easier. The other thing that's beautiful is the editorial calendar. Instead of me saying I'm going to go on a thread, I'm going to spend a little while speaking to the different production models of podcasting. And I said, okay, what are the four? What I want to say in the four, I can produce the four. I can go as deep or as I can go as short as I want to. That's why I'm doing this four part series. That's why I will probably do more series in the future. The other thing that's great about batching is you don't have to batch all elements of the show. If you listen to episode 90, 91 and 92, you will hear that it is the same ending for all of them. I'm not going to say that on the other two episodes, but when I tell you to go to social, when I tell you to subscribe, it's going to be a recording. I did once. So in this batch, I didn't even record three full episodes. I recorded three full chunks, recorded the finish once, and I'm going to have that edited in. How cool is that? You don't even have to record all the elements of the show now focus. When you batch a, kids can be out of the house, noise can be out of the house. You can be at a time where you have more energy. Maybe you've, after you've had your coffee, maybe your bulletproof coffee, if you will. You can knock it out on the weekend, you can knock it out over an evening, you can do that kind of thing. Time management, it helps some people. Takes a while to get in the groove. And you know, if it takes you 15 minutes to get in the groove and then you do that every week, that's an an hour just getting in the groove time. And if you got in the groove for 15 minutes and recorded two months worth, you're basically saving yourself just for that element alone, two hours a week. There are a lot of things that take time. Getting the microphone lined up, getting everything else lined up, can take the time when you knock these things out. It is a time management game. Very, very powerful. The other thing too is simply the strategic engineering of a batch type of process. If you have to do it every week, you're bringing down your costs because how many people are going to get involved when I'm producing my one every week. But if I'm knocking out a whole season, if I'm knocking out a couple of months, maybe that's when I bring in the video guy, maybe that's when I bring in the multi camera shoot, maybe that's when I bring in the sound person to make it all. Well, strategic engineering is huge. I'll tell you right now. I've known, I'll be honest with you, batching is a key. I've done it for other podcasts, have never done it for the podcast report. But now that I've got the next three weeks knocked out of this show, I, I am empowered. The engineering is there, the focus is there, the elements haven't been recorded. We're in a better place. So what do we do with this? I would like you to just spend some time and maybe it's in your head, maybe it's on a walk, maybe it's on a piece of paper and a pen. I want you to visualize what batching would be like for you. What would it be for you to batch out a month? What would it be for you to batch out an entire season? I'd like you to give it a try. At the very least, record two episodes in a row, even if you have to toss away the second episode. What you'll learn from that is really, really interesting. And when you do that. Examine how batching changes the game for you. Obviously, if you've got a weekly show about a weekly topic, you're commenting on the news, you're commenting on a television show or that type of thing, you can't do it. I've spoke examined in previous episodes as to why maybe that is not the best idea. But if you're teaching, if you're sharing your wisdom, if you're edumattaining, if you will, the this batch process could be really interesting for you. Visualize what it would look like, give it a try, see how the game changes and go from there. If you head out to the podcastreport.com 90 again, you can sign up for the Matrix for the different ways, the different approaches to podcast production that we examined in 89 90, next week's 91 and next week's 92, which again has already been recorded. Paul gets to take those two weeks off. I'd love you to grab that matrix, compare them. More importantly than understanding how cool batching is or doing remote interviews or live from video or anything like that, I want you to find the technology that is the most empowering for you. If the weekly podcast gets in the way because it's weekly, you could be in a much better place through some kind of batching. This could be daily, this could be monthly. I want you to be empowered to have the technology and the approach to produce the show that makes them most sense to you. That is what the podcast report is about. The Matrix that compares them at all is@thepodcastreport.com 90 and you've got to wait a week for next week's episode, even though I don't have to wait a week to record it. Chat with you then. Bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Podcast Report. I love interaction. Head out to thepodcastreport.com and interact with this episode or any other that you might listen to. But don't just visit the website and click play. Subscribe to the podcast report. Thepodcastreport.com iTunes the podcastreport.com Thepodcastreport.com Google Once you subscribe, once you set it up so that every time a new episode comes out, you are automatically updated, you are experiencing, you experience the power of podcasting. It's not that you have to come out to my website. It's not that you have to go anywhere. It's that the content comes straight to you. Once we understand that power, podcasting will get to a better place for all of us. So please do subscribe. Once you subscribe, let's interact. You can do it at the website or you can do it on social. Thepodcastreport.com Twitter. Go to podcastreport.com Facebook. Pick the social network of your choice and we are there to interact. The website's great, too, but when you do social, the world sees more. Find out about podcasting more. Find out about how to make their podcast better, and the world becomes a better place. So go ahead, interact with us on social. This is the Podcast Report. My name is Paul Colligan. I'm thrilled you've been listening. Please subscribe, please interact, and I'll chat with you next week. Bye.