You hired a podcast editor. Maybe even a full production team. Your show sounds amazing. The visuals are slick. Everything looks right... except for one thing:
Nobody’s listening.
Nobody’s buying.
And your ROI is trash.
In this episode of It’s Not Just Talking, I break down the #1 trap that kills branded podcasts, pouring money into production with no strategy to back it up. Because great editing doesn’t grow your business. A smart, aligned podcast strategy does.
We’ll cover:
The real reason most branded shows flop
Why hiring a podcast editor might be a waste of money
What to actually invest in if you want a podcast that gets clients
This is for any business owner tired of throwing money at a show that’s not delivering. You don’t need “better production.” You need a plan that ties directly into your offer.
Chapters -
00:00 – The Production Trap
03:39 – Pretty Podcasts Don’t Pay
07:06 – What Strategy Actually Looks Like
08:33 – Pick a North Star: Sales or Ego?
14:25 – Netflix, Spotify & The Future of Podcasts
[00:00:00:07 - 00:00:07:18]
Speaker 1
You paid for production help for your podcast. This could be editors. This could be a whole production team, studio, whatever. And you feel like your money's going down the drain.
[00:00:08:22 - 00:01:04:13]
Speaker 1
Probably is. I hate to break it to you, but let's talk about the dangers of hiring production help for your branded podcast and what you should really invest in if you wanna have a successful show and a business that grows around it. This is, it's not just talking where we help business leaders increase their reach, create meaningful relationships and land more clients. I'm your executive producer, Vince Quinn, along with Taylor Credatus, business partner and engineer. And just this week, we helped the client cut down their weekly time spent working on the show from let's say eight hours a week to two hours a week. It was a 75% decrease in time on his show. So that's what we do every day for businesses to make them more successful. So let's talk about this production trap, okay? Because what happens is, and this is an incredibly common thing. This is why for all the podcasts that are out there that get made that go to the graveyard,
[00:01:05:17 - 00:02:16:18]
Speaker 1
this is why it happens. This is a major contributor. What you're getting is you are starting a show, you don't know where to begin. You don't know what an RSS feed is, right? You don't know how to go and build that. You don't know how to deal with distribution. You don't know what any of it's worth or how to get music for your show or do any of the editing. So you do the very natural and smart thing. What seems like what you should do, which is you get somebody else to do that for you. And you might get somebody that's great and you've spent a lot of money to do that. So what does that mean? Your branding is killer, right? It looks gorgeous. It's so well edited, the quality of the sounds effects. They're putting in the ahs and ums. They're mastering your voice. They're recording on some mic that you bought for like 50 bucks. You don't even know if it's any good. They make you sound immaculate. And maybe the cameras, the video editing, the cuts, the zooms, the clips, everything feels like this is a really great show. And you're excited about that because you feel like you're doing all of the things that you see in other successful podcasts.
[00:02:19:07 - 00:02:20:11]
Speaker 1
And then the show comes out.
[00:02:22:11 - 00:02:23:05]
Speaker 1
You got like four downloads.
[00:02:25:11 - 00:02:29:00]
Speaker 1
And then nobody's buying your stuff. Nobody's coming out of the woodwork to work with you.
[00:02:30:07 - 00:02:31:16]
Speaker 1
And you're still paying for more episodes.
[00:02:33:01 - 00:02:36:07]
Speaker 1
And then you're starting to look ahead and you're going, oh my God, am I gonna do this for three months?
[00:02:37:14 - 00:02:39:23]
Speaker 1
Am I gonna do this for another month?
[00:02:41:12 - 00:02:43:22]
Speaker 1
Can I afford that? Is there value in that?
[00:02:45:01 - 00:02:51:08]
Speaker 1
And this is the fundamental problem because again, this happens to people all the time. Why does this happen to people all of the time?
[00:02:52:08 - 00:03:37:12]
Speaker 1
It's such a complicated issue, but it boils down to basic misunderstanding. And what I mean by that is for the production company side, in their defense, they've done everything that they said they would do, which is they'll give you a gorgeous show that is well-produced, that is completely professional. So if they're giving you those things, you feel like the quality is great, or at least good, or what you paid for, right? If all of those things before the show launched or as it launched early in it, they felt good, they delivered on what they said they were going to do. Your editor, your production company, they're not lying to you, but what you expected them to provide is different.
[00:03:39:06 - 00:04:00:09]
Speaker 1
And that's where it gets complicated. That's where it gets really messy. There's a major difference between having a great-looking podcast and having a great podcast. They're not the same thing. You can have incredibly flashy things. You can have the best editing in the world. You can have the most expensive cameras in the world. But if this show isn't built in a way that's actually going to make you money, then it doesn't matter.
[00:04:02:00 - 00:04:10:07]
Speaker 1
And that's not necessarily the production company's job to tell you to have it built that way. It's in their best interest,
[00:04:12:07 - 00:04:15:03]
Speaker 1
but also that's not what they do.
[00:04:16:16 - 00:04:36:15]
Speaker 1
And so again, this is the disconnect. Their job is to make the show look and sound great and take all the grunt work of producing the show off of your plate. So the recording, the editing, the posting, that's what they do. But they are not the marketing strategist, the sales strategist, the things that you need to get the show to support your business.
[00:04:38:13 - 00:04:56:09]
Speaker 1
But if you're expecting them to be, then that's a major problem, right? This is where the disappointment comes from because you assume, oh, they're podcast people, they're professionals, they have all this experience, they have all this equipment, they have a team, I'm paying all of this money. So surely I'm doing the right things.
[00:04:58:08 - 00:05:33:23]
Speaker 1
That's not a given. For most people, it's a given that they're not. And that's why we have this show. That's why it exists, right? It's talking about, hey, there is a path that needs to be followed if you're going to do this the right way for your business to make it sustainable, to make it long-term, to get you the kinds of clients that you're looking for, to get the long-term value of creating all of this content and the benefits of it. So that strategy, that's not what these people are. And I say this because I was one of those people. When we got started in this, when I left radio and got into podcasting, I didn't have business experience. I didn't know what I was talking about. All I had was the production.
[00:05:35:04 - 00:05:46:14]
Speaker 1
So that's what I held on to because I could produce this shit out of your show. Was it any good? Was it going the right direction? Was it making you money? No, but I had to survive.
[00:05:48:02 - 00:05:59:11]
Speaker 1
And that's part of it. Like these people that, look, it's a hard economy. Everybody's trying to make money. Everybody's trying to get by. It's not their job to do things that are going to disservice themselves. On some level, the pressure is on you to know.
[00:06:00:13 - 00:06:01:17]
Speaker 1
Is that shitty? Yes.
[00:06:04:00 - 00:06:08:22]
Speaker 1
But again, it's not their fault. And it's not your fault or somebody else's fault for not knowing.
[00:06:10:12 - 00:06:28:00]
Speaker 1
So that's why it's important to know. That's what I'm trying to break down here is like production companies and editors, a lot of times, have the experience with the ins and outs of making it genuinely look and sound great. But if your whole thing is you are doing this directly to make money for your business, then you've probably made a bad investment.
[00:06:29:14 - 00:06:34:12]
Speaker 1
And so you need to be very careful about where you put your money.
[00:06:35:13 - 00:07:05:06]
Speaker 1
So what we're going to do in just a minute is we're going to talk about what a good investment is for your business when you're putting money into this show. And that's coming up next. If you're looking for more ways to grow your business through podcasting, sign up for the SBX newsletter. The link is right here in the show notes. And each week in your inbox, you're going to get tips, opinions, strategies, all the things that we talk about here on the show in your inbox, the SBX newsletter right here in the show notes.
[00:07:06:12 - 00:07:08:13]
Speaker 1
So we've talked a lot about production,
[00:07:09:13 - 00:07:12:17]
Speaker 1
making the show, making it look great, paying somebody to do that.
[00:07:14:09 - 00:07:23:10]
Speaker 1
But what they don't provide, because when you're thinking about, okay, all of the different editing tools and all the different stuff that goes into it, what they do not provide is the things that,
[00:07:25:09 - 00:08:01:06]
Speaker 1
put this on one hand and the other. What would you rather have? Would you rather have all the fancy things that we've been talking about? Or would you rather have an idea of what platforms you should really be focusing your marketing on? Would you like support for who your ideal client is? And what kind of messages they need to hear? And making sure that you consistently hit those messages and present it in a clear way that's relevant. Like you can see how quickly it is, you go like, I want that, give me over there. That's why you really got into this. So you need strategy if you're going to have the podcast succeed. That is numbers one through 10.
[00:08:02:17 - 00:08:32:19]
Speaker 1
Because it impacts everything that you do, every decision that you make as you're building this show. I'll take you to a call that I just had, literally like 30 minutes before we got in to sit down and record this show. I was talking to somebody doing an audit of their show. They're at an opportunity where they could make millions. And I'm not kidding, they could make millions of dollars on this show if they followed the blueprint. That they followed the branded content, the branded strategy and tried to bring in business.
[00:08:33:23 - 00:08:42:19]
Speaker 1
And for lack of engagement with the medium, being new to it, whatever it is, they have been going an entertainment route.
[00:08:44:17 - 00:08:46:03]
Speaker 1
Which is costing them millions.
[00:08:48:20 - 00:09:03:17]
Speaker 1
So you can understand like the gravity of this situation because all of the decision making then, and they asked me like, what are we going to do? We're trying to balance all these priorities. We're a small team, we've got to manage this whole show. We don't know what to do. And so I said, look, you need to choose your North Star.
[00:09:04:23 - 00:09:37:17]
Speaker 1
And that's really what it comes down to. Are you doing this for the engagement and the entertainment and awareness? Or is your number one thing that you're looking to sell more? Because if you're looking to sell more, your whole thing is you got to worry about who are the kinds of people that you're bringing onto this show? What is your process to do that? How are you getting them comfortable with the brand along the way? What are some of the things you're doing after the fact that you're doing that recording and recording process to make sure that you're getting them into your sales system or connecting them to the right people in the business that need to be introduced to this person and then ultimately landing the sales?
[00:09:38:17 - 00:09:51:04]
Speaker 1
Because even in an ideal world, right? Let's say ultimately you're going to do that stuff because you have to, but you're really in it for the numbers. That's what's going to make you happy. That's the kind of projects you want to work on. Well, is it going to be easier to justify the budget
[00:09:52:16 - 00:09:56:06]
Speaker 1
to do the numbers if you're making millions of dollars?
[00:09:57:15 - 00:10:40:15]
Speaker 1
Or in a small, more normal sense of things, thousands of dollars. Doesn't it become easier to justify those things? And that's supposed to be the goal, right? You want to, it's all marketing. So land the sale. You're using this to hunt. You're using the show to find the people that you need to build the right relationships, to turn them into clients. As you do that and get better at that, you have more in that you can invest. And so now you can expand that. You can amplify it. And that's what this is about. But you can see again, like how production is a part of this process, but it is a front facing thing. It's not the substance.
[00:10:43:03 - 00:10:55:08]
Speaker 1
And so you need to be really particular about the strategy element of this. Because a brand new podcast is not just sales strategy.
[00:10:56:12 - 00:11:14:03]
Speaker 1
It's also marketing strategy. It's also content strategy. Like it is the three different things that you're doing all at the same time while you own and operate a business or have a high profile executive job that keeps you incredibly busy. You don't have time to waste. You don't have budget to waste.
[00:11:16:17 - 00:11:34:18]
Speaker 1
The production stuff is easy to find. There's a lot of people out there. You can find affordable rates. You can find VAs. You can do all the different things that make it easy to justify. And again, they're not going to tell you no. They're just gonna cling on for dear life because it's a hard business to be in. I mean, I've seen editing studios, production companies go belly up all the time.
[00:11:35:21 - 00:11:50:05]
Speaker 1
And I've seen it coming a mile away. And I feel bad for those people. I genuinely do because I know that they're looking for answers. Everybody wants to have a good business, do good work, prosper, thrive, live. But when the dynamics change and the world changes, I mean,
[00:11:51:05 - 00:11:52:11]
Speaker 1
you gotta do what you can to survive.
[00:11:53:14 - 00:12:22:10]
Speaker 1
And so, hey, somebody wants to come to me and they don't have a fully developed show. I think this thing's gonna be a total flop, but hey, they're gonna pay me $2,000 to go and edit this thing. Then you know what, goddamn it, I'm taking $2,000 and I'm gonna run with it for as long as I can. And they're just hoping for the best. Like they're in the same way that you might look at an editor at a production company and go, "Man, these guys are really killing me. I hope they were gonna provide more." I mean, they're kind of hoping the same thing. They're feeling the same thing. They're saying, "Man, I wish this person had like a better business strategy and was getting more out of this show." They're hoping that you bring that to the table.
[00:12:23:19 - 00:12:26:07]
Speaker 1
Because if you have all of that, then it's easy.
[00:12:28:04 - 00:12:57:09]
Speaker 1
You're getting the results that you need. But otherwise, they are now looking at a client the same thing. Hey, these people come, they look really promising. They've got good businesses. We wanna work with them. This could be great. We've created a great looking show for them in an environment for it, but they don't know how to sell. They don't know how to market. And so because of that, now we are losing a client. That's what they're thinking. And again, I'm telling you this because I've lived it myself.
[00:12:58:20 - 00:14:24:11]
Speaker 1
So this kind of stuff matters. But again, it's all a misunderstanding. Really, genuinely, it comes from a good place. It's totally innocent, but it's dire because it is killing shows. It is killing businesses on both sides of the equation. So be mindful again about this production cost and really cost and mindful about the strategy and what that genuinely is going to give you for the longterm and what the value of that investment is. So plenty to think about there. And if you're looking for help with the quality of your content, right? It's not giving you the results that you're looking for. You're not seeing the return. You need to update your strategy. You're already paying a production company and you're like, oh shit, I am stuck right now and I need serious help. Like what am I gonna do to get out of this situation and make the most of this situation to turn this thing around? Freepodcasthelp.com is the easiest way to go about this. You get 30 minutes with us to sit down, talk about everything going on with your show, your business. What are the main problems? What can we fix right then and there to get you moving in a way that's going to support your life, your business, your career? So freepodcasthelp.com, free 30 minute compass call with us. So with all of that out of the way,
[00:14:25:14 - 00:14:39:22]
Speaker 1
major news. In the last couple of weeks, there's been a story going on and it involves Netflix entering into the podcast space in a really major way. So I know Taylor, first off, hi Taylor, how are you?
[00:14:39:22 - 00:14:41:21]
Speaker 2
I'm doing good, doing good.
[00:14:41:21 - 00:14:42:18]
Speaker 1
Wonderful.
[00:14:43:20 - 00:14:51:16]
Speaker 1
You've been particularly keeping an eye on this. So like from the standpoint of just what has happened here with Netflix first, just kind of set the scene for us.
[00:14:51:16 - 00:14:54:04]
Speaker 2
Yeah, so just quick overview,
[00:14:55:11 - 00:15:06:21]
Speaker 2
Spotify and Netflix have agreed on a deal that Netflix will stream a curated slate of Spotify studios and ringer video podcasts starting early 2026.
[00:15:07:21 - 00:15:12:23]
Speaker 2
So that means all the major ringer shows, major sports shows, culture,
[00:15:14:03 - 00:15:20:12]
Speaker 2
anybody that's an upper echelon over at Spotify, they're going to be on Netflix now.
[00:15:21:21 - 00:15:53:22]
Speaker 2
In theory, that sounds like an amazing idea. Like why wouldn't you want to be on Netflix? Like people always put on Netflix, have some background noise, just stuff playing. So if you can go through all these podcasts and it's just easy background noise, then yeah, that's great. But there's one stipulation that I think is a major mistake. Okay. Those video versions of the podcast are only on the Spotify app and Netflix. So no YouTube. Oh.
[00:15:56:03 - 00:15:56:13]
Speaker 2
Oh man.
[00:15:57:13 - 00:16:06:17]
Speaker 2
Yeah, so if you're not too familiar of, the real power of YouTube is discoverability.
[00:16:08:01 - 00:16:30:10]
Speaker 2
Like the YouTube algorithm is super powered. The way that you can get discovered on YouTube compared to Netflix. I mean, who knows what the Netflix algorithms like or the Spotify algorithm, like they're not really recommending things or curing things as well as YouTube is. So yeah, any initial thoughts there?
[00:16:30:10 - 00:16:49:01]
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's a major investment from Netflix. And I mean, it's gonna make you think like, what is the long game, right? Because having shows on Netflix to watch, I mean, sure. Or they've gotten YouTube content in the past, like they syndicated Hot Ones. So they've made some moves like that, but ultimately,
[00:16:50:08 - 00:17:23:01]
Speaker 1
I wonder what the competition is going to be. I mean, is everybody gonna start investing in these shows, like bringing them over for syndication? Like is Hulu gonna start doing this? I just wonder where it goes. Cause on some level, it feels like, oh, this is an interesting thing to do, but long-term, how valuable is it? And I just don't know what the, like I don't understand the end game. I think it's my biggest problem. I don't understand what the end game is of bringing this kind of content and brokering these exclusive deals on Netflix. I just, I don't see where it goes.
[00:17:23:01 - 00:17:44:10]
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, that's a fast track to alienate any loyal listener that you've had. Like what if I love this Ringer show, but I don't pay for Netflix cause I don't like anything Netflix has made in the past couple of years. I'm not, I'm probably gonna just drop out of the show. Like I don't want to put extra money into a subscription to see, you know,
[00:17:45:10 - 00:18:09:18]
Speaker 2
one show that I watch once a week or have her, you know, whenever they do their show. So yeah, I think long-term might bite them in the ass, but it does, I don't see any specifications for how long that deal is really. So I assume it's a trial run and they're gonna see some not good feedback from that, but yeah.
[00:18:09:18 - 00:18:33:15]
Speaker 1
Okay, well, you know what actually, cause something struck me as we're starting to have this conversation. I want to play devil's advocate now. So think about it from the standpoint of I am Netflix. I am Hulu, any major streamer. And I'm looking at the landscape. Television is generally expensive to produce. Even when you find creative ways to keep it low budget, it's expensive to produce. You got to deal with unions.
[00:18:34:17 - 00:18:38:02]
Speaker 1
There's a lot of fighting about AI usage. You know what I mean?
[00:18:38:02 - 00:18:45:01]
Speaker 2
That's why everybody went to reality TV. Yeah. Non-scripted television is way easier than scripted television.
[00:18:45:01 - 00:19:04:17]
Speaker 1
And when you see certain things too, like Netflix, for example, what they do a good job of is they'll make sitcoms and things where there's like literally two people on set. You know, it's two people in a house. There's nobody in the background. When they're on location, even their empty sets, like it is very bare bones. And they do that because you don't have to pay people for that, like it's just, it's less work. It's easier,
[00:19:05:23 - 00:19:24:14]
Speaker 1
which is fine, right? If the content's good, I guess it's good. But when you're thinking about the big picture here, is it really just evolving to a point where podcasting is essentially going to replace television as the primary format? Like, let me say this, is podcasting going to be the new TV format?
[00:19:25:15 - 00:19:30:10]
Speaker 1
What I mean by that is you think about sitcoms, sitcoms come out, those things balloon.
[00:19:31:11 - 00:21:17:00]
Speaker 1
And, you know, and generally speaking at the time, right? Hey, easy to produce, generally affordable, like, and it proliferates. So you get a lot of sitcoms that get made. And that's a cool thing. But now when you think of what people consume, what they're interested in, what's able to be produced, where do you require the budget? And being able to do things like, because as far as I know, there's not like a solid podcasting union. I don't know how many people are in a union, or you know what I mean? So like, okay, I'm getting non-union labor that's producing their own stuff for the most part, or like these centralized production companies are doing it for us. So we don't have to front that bill. We just need to pay these people to get on. And now it's not like a season of a television show. It's basically a soap up. I mean, you've gotten now the weekly show, and you can do that in perpetuity for as much as these shows are interesting and relevant. And so maybe that is where it moves. It's just all these streamers are gonna go, you know, we can do all these random sitcoms that nobody really cares about, or we could get these podcasts where people engage with it on multiple platforms. We don't really have to pay a damn thing to have these things operate. And we can just ride the wave. That's what Amazon's doing with like new heights, right? I mean, they build a partnership and they get these guys, they put them on Amazon Prime, they get to feature Jason Kelsey on other properties, you've bought a reality star and a weekly television show, and you've done that all in one, and a sports analyst. Like what a great place to be. So they nailed that. But that is, if you're a streamer, that's where you're going to look, is you're just, yeah, podcasts are the next frontier. So maybe that's it. It's just a podcast is gonna evolve into cheap, lightweight television production that also happens to be audio occasionally.
[00:21:18:03 - 00:21:20:01]
Speaker 2
Yeah, I'll say my last point is,
[00:21:21:15 - 00:21:53:04]
Speaker 2
an obvious point doesn't matter how old you are, you do not like paying for an additional subscription service, no matter what it is. Nobody likes that. It's always been like that. It's only getting worse, especially in the sports industry or any live TV format, like YouTube TV doesn't hold certain networks now. Like there's too many subscriptions and people are gonna be making pretty cut through choices with whatever their content solutions are for that.
[00:21:53:04 - 00:22:22:13]
Speaker 1
Yeah, no, it's tight out there and it's only getting tighter. So yeah, there's gonna be a lot of decisions to make in that regard. But yeah, fascinating development with all this. So I'm glad you brought it up. I'm glad we got the chance to talk about it. So with all of that, it's all we got for today. So thank you for checking out the show. Again, if you're looking to get in touch with us, the newsletter is the easiest way to get continual weekly updates. So go subscribe to the newsletter. It's the first thing here in the show notes and we'll talk to you soon.
[00:22:22:13 - 00:22:31:00]
(Upbeat Music)