The Operation - Finishing Up The Team Clarity Matrix - Part 6 of 6

If you've made it this far, you know the simple truth that if everybody is in charge of everything, nobody is in charge of nothing. And that couldn't be more true than on the podcast. One of the things that happens in the world of podcasting is there's this idea that you put together the team and you know, well, the editor will make sure the edits sound good and the promotion will make sure the right things are promoted and the talent will make sure that everything is to the strategy and everybody's going to be this one big happy family that talks to each other and makes sure that everything happens. And that's just not the truth. If you are going to build a true podcasting team, you have to have somebody in charge of the operation. You have to have somebody where to use the North American parlance, the buck stops. Who is the buck going to stop with on your podcast? This is a. This is the six part of a six part series we're doing on the team Clarity Matrix, a tool that we use at the podcast partnership to make sure that our clients have the ideal podcast team. Now we're making this available to the general public. We've got the six part series that's going to be both here at Facebook as well as if you head out to team before tech.com you can sign up for a blank PDF of the matrix and all six of these recordings. Let's do a quick review and then let's get to the elements at play here of the operations. First thing you need is strategy reviews. Somebody's got to have a strategy for the podcast, but then somebody has to actually be watching to make sure that the podcast is scoring up against the strategy is moving towards. The strategy is doing what needs to be done. Having an idea and then hoping it happens without ever checking if it happens is a really bad idea. Who's in charge of that? The talent. The talent has to forward the strategy and the review has to be the spokesperson for all of this. Who's going to run that? The edit. Different types of edits, different ways to edit. But are you editing towards the bigger picture at hand? Publishing is a process of not just clicking the right buttons, but knowing what's going on in the industry and being ready to perform an act to it. And then finally the promotion is how do you get people to consume and watch and listen and be part of the podcast? This has to be run by an operations person. And an operations person is not in the best situations, is not someone who's like, well, you're in charge of making sure this all comes together. The operations person is someone who is skilled in this. There are people who are really good project managers, program managers, who have these natural born skill sets and making sure everything comes together. These are the ones that you want to put in charge of operations. This is an important skill set that some people have that some people don't. I cannot manage and operate my way out of a box. And that's okay because I have other skill sets. The same is true for other managers. Two things you want to think about. Number one, a lot of people say, well, isn't there just software that manages all this? Can I just use insert software of the month here? No, the software supports the team. The software supports the people who are putting all this together, not vice versa. And this distinguishing difference is something that you definitely want to take a look at. If you want to go a little bit deeper into this, the whole world of Colby. Colby.com, k O L B E. What you're looking for here is someone with a high follow through. Colby's perfect for making teams. That's the tool that we're using to build out our team. A lot of other people have done, but regardless, you want someone who's skilled at doing this, someone who likes doing this, has talent at doing this, and is really good at follow through. The operations is not just a checklist, busy body kind of situation. The operations is really the big picture play. At the beginning of this, I said the classic, if everybody's in charge of everything, nobody's in charge of nothing. That happens all the time. The operations is the one who needs to make sure that everybody's thinking of the big picture. If the town's job is just to talk and the publisher's job is just to get it out there, and the promotional job is just to let people know that the podcast is there, Nobody's looking for the big picture. And this is what operation has to do. When you have a good plan, when you have a good strategy, operations can come in and can make sure that everybody is following them. Nobody else on the team is responsible for thinking about the big picture. And to be honest with you, nobody else on the team necessarily even has the capacity to think about the big picture. This is what operations is for. You want to use them. Operations is an issue of really everything. And there's three everythings that operations is an issue of. Number one is of course, the obvious. Everything has to be done on time. Yes, a podcast might not come out until Friday, but you know that doesn't mean they can record it Thursday night if the editor works on Wednesday, you know, yeah, the show notes don't have to happen until it's published. But what if that person isn't around to take the publisher? Running operations for a podcast is an issue of everything done on time. And it's also an issue of not just being done on time, but coming together on time. You know, does the publish group have the show notes in time to do an accurate publish to make sure that gets out there? Sure, someone might have done the show notes, and they might be on a hard drive or on a cloud file somewhere, but has that been given to the publisher person on time? Again, it's that whole big picture thing that's really, really key. So everything has to be done on time. Everything has to come together on time again. Someone has to do that. Someone has to be responsible for that. Then finally, everything has to be the right version. I've seen way too many podcasts where the wrong edit goes out or the wrong show notes go out, or maybe something happened, like the edit was made, some sort of QA looked at it, changed it, and now the show notes reference something that isn't in it. Even though the new show notes did, the person didn't get the new show notes. Lots can happen. So everything has to be the right version, has to be at the right time. It has to be done on time. It's an everything process, and that is what operations is in charge of now. Once this happens, it actually becomes a really soothing element. It becomes an exciting element of the podcasting process. Because now, once you get past the emotions of someone, where is it? Why isn't it they're on time, following up, that kind of thing. Once you get past the emotions of that, and some people don't necessarily do well with that, you can take a deep breath. If you are talent, Operations is there to make sure that you are producing the right content. So you can just sit in front of the microphone, or you can just sit in front of the camera, make your stuff come out. Maybe they tell you to change things. They might have to send you talking points or a reminder list. And on occasion, you might have to do a reshoot or rerecord, but you can relax when it's done. Your job is done when the notes are done, when the publishing is done, when the promotion's done. If operations has done things correctly, you could take a sigh of relief. It's really nice because you simply do your part, everything else falls into place and you got yourself a podcast machine that's bringing in profit. And that's actually the heart of the Team Clarity Matrix. When each person strategy, review, talent, edit, publish, promotion and operations. When each person is doing everything right, the podcast moves from this annoyance to. To this machine that works fantastically on time, predictably, to growth and to profit. And that's why we've put together this matrix. Put everybody in the right place, make sure they're doing the right thing, make sure it's being managed and we're in a good place. Thank you so much for watching this series or if you've been listening to this on the podcast, thank you so much for listening to it again. You can get all six of these, an article with some more information, and a blank matrix of your own. Please print this out and use it and update it when and where is needed. If you're going to get a successful business podcast out there, you need a team. You need clarity on your team. And the Team Clarity Matrix is the place to do that. You can pick up your blank copy@www.teambeforetech.com. thank you so very much. We'll chat soon. Bye now.