26: Tips for Hiring a Podcast Editor
In last week's episode, I explained what a podcast editor is, how they can help you, and why you should absolutely hire one.
In this week's episode, I'm explaining where you can find a podcast editor and the questions you should ask before working with them to make sure it's a great fit.
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Transcript
Welcome to podcasting for coaches. I'm Britany Felix and I'm a podcast launch consultant who specializes in helping coaches and consultants utilize the power of podcasting as a way to build brand awareness and generate new leads for their business. I realize not every new coach or consultant can afford to hire someone to help launch their show. So I created this podcast as a way to guide you through the process of launching and utilizing your very own podcast to help you grow your business and reach a new audience of adoring followers and potential clients. If you're ready to get your voice and podcast out into the world, head over to podcasting for coaches.com to learn more. Welcome to Episode 26 of podcasting for coaches. So as promised last week, when I explained what a podcast editor is, and why I feel you should have one, this week, we're going to talk about where to find them and what questions you should ask them before you hire them. As I mentioned in last week's episode, I do not really recommend going to places like Fiverr to find a podcast editor, are there some gems on there? Yes, but you have to go through so many most likely to find that right person, you're gonna waste a lot of time, a lot of money, you're going to have a lot of headaches and frustration over it. So just don't do that to yourself. Instead, you have a couple of other better options. One is I actually occasionally take on additional podcast editing clients. So if you think that you might want to work directly with me, feel free to reach out to me via the contact form on my website, or just email me Brittany br it a ny at podcasting for coaches calm and ask if I have any current openings for editing clients. And then we can set up a consultation call where we can talk about your show further. And I can give you a customized rate. If I am not taking on additional clients or if you don't want to work with me, which is perfectly fine, you can still reach out to me via those same two ways. And ask for recommendations for editors, I have so many that I am in touch with. It's a close knit community and we all are incredibly supportive of each other. And I can let you know who I personally would recommend that you work with. If you don't want to reach out to me directly. If you're a little bit shy, I understand, I recommend putting a post out looking for a podcast editor in a podcast Facebook group. These are great, great resources for so many different things, including finding service providers. My favorite podcast Facebook group that is open to kind of the general public, if you're a female is she podcasts. So I'm going to have a link to this and all of the other resources mentioned in this episode in the show notes on my website, which you can find by going to podcasting for coaches.com. And just clicking on the podcast tab in the main menu and go to episode number 26. So again, we have sheep podcast, which is only open to females. So you can just put a post in the group, hey, new to the group, getting ready to launch looking for a podcast editor who can help me out who has recommendations, you'll most likely get a lot of responses, especially in this group, from people who are already editing people who edit their own show and are maybe looking to help other people out. And people who have already worked with editors are currently working with them, who are recommending them to you because I enjoy working with them. So another group is podcasters support group. And a third group is podcasters. Hangout. Again, links to all three of those will be in the show notes for this episode. Once you get those comments, you can reach out to these people directly. If they are the editor themselves, who's commenting, ask for their website, ask for a way to connect with them. If they just say, hey, email me here, I don't really recommend working with them, because it kind of seems like they don't have their stuff together. Maybe they're just getting started. Maybe they're great. You can connect with them, see if you vibe with them, you know, via messenger or something like that. But you really want to have somebody who is a little bit more established and is going to take your show seriously and not flake out on you and has references for you and samples and all of those kinds of things. So next, we're going to talk about the questions that you should ask when you're interviewing this potential editor. So after you've gathered up all of those resources, from the comments that you have posted, or that I have sent you, I want you to get on the phone with this person, don't just communicate via email or via Facebook Messenger, get on the phone with them and see how you vibe, see if they're a good fit. If anything rubs you the wrong way, do not hire them. Because I promise you your instincts are correct. And they will be right every single time. Every time my instincts have told me not to work with a client and I ended up doing it anyways, I've always regretted it for one reason or another. And so the same goes for the client, you are both interviewing each other to see if you're a good fit, if they're super, super desperate to work with you. And they're just really given you a hard sell. And they're really going after and they're just really trying to get you to sign up with them. And they're not really asking you any questions about you or your show. As a coach or consultant, I hope you know that that's not exactly a good sign. That is a huge red flag and I would not recommend working with them. So if you get on the conversation and you're vibing and it seems to be going well I want you to ask these questions. One up of course what is the right this is important because a budget is a budget you can either afford them or you can't and there's no sense in wasting anyone's time if you can't afford it however i will say if it seems a little high hear them out at least see what is included before you just automatically shut down and dismiss it so in their rate i want you to also find out whether that's going to be hourly or per episode i recommend doing per episode rates if they are willing to because you have no control over how long it takes them to do their work maybe they're a fairly new editor and it still takes them forever to get through an episode that a more experienced editor could do and half the time you know why should you pay for that because they're not quite as experienced and they're not quite as efficient plus you also have no way to verify how long they're actually working on your episodes now the per episode rate may be based on the length of audio of your show so they could do an hourly rate in that form so it could be that a per episode rate is $80 per episode up to 60 minutes of audio that's pretty standard because obviously a longer show is going to take longer to work on so i also want you to ask if there are going to be any surcharges at any point if your episode goes over on length or if you submit the files late one time are they going to tack on any additional charges for anything that you're not already aware of now when you ask if they're going to be charges for submitting your files late i want you to clarify that you're not expecting your files to ever be late it is incredibly important that you meet the deadlines that the podcast editor has set however life happens eventually it's going to happen something's going to be late and i want to make sure that you're aware if there's going to be an additional charge for that now from a podcast editor standpoint asking about this is a red flag so please make sure that you're explaining it in those terms i don't anticipate ever being late but life happens if this ever does happen you know will there be a charge so next i want you to find out what services are included in that rate you know if they're charging you $200 just to edit your show and send it back to you for them to do everything else you can find a better deal i promise so have them give you a breakdown if they could put it in writing that would be fantastic what's included are they going to write your show notes for you if they do write them are they just going to put them in a word document or are they going to actually upload them and schedule them on your website are they going to provide any transcriptions are they going to upload the show to your hosting service are they going to do any audio grams or social media posts so audiograms you might see them their videos was just like a static image and maybe they'll have like a caption for a quote and it's just a little clip of the show and there might be like some waveform in there you know just a little graphic that moves up and down some editors provide that and some don't i used to i personally didn't find it was worth the time or the money to do those but some editors still provide it so it might be a nice little bonus for you some editors will also schedule your social media posts for you and some editors will also help in creating your episode artwork if you have a template so i want you to find out exactly what that rate includes next we need to ask what their turnaround time is how much time do they need to work on the episodes so how far in advance do you need to get the audio files and the information to them for my clients i recommend everything a week before the episode is either due to be published or due to them for review i have a longer turnaround time then a lot of editors actually though an editor that i currently outsource some of my work to her turnaround time is four days and another editor that i refer a lot of people to when i am fully booked his turnaround times only 48 hours so definitely ask for this because this may be a big factor in who you choose to work with you may not be able to give files a week ahead of time so you may not be able to work with me based on that one thing alone even if you really want to so along the same lines of submitting files i want you to find out how you do the files back and forth you know maybe they use some kind of crazy system that you're just not familiar with and you don't really want to learn it maybe you're like me and you despise google drive and you really really really don't want to have to deal with that every week with this particular editor you know find out are they using dropbox google drive a file submission through their website whatever that is just so that you're fully aware of what the process is going to be so every week there's going to be transmissions of files back and forth different tasks that each person's going to have to do you are the editor or someone on their team there's going to need to be information that's transferred back and forth and i don't recommend having this be buried in emails it gets a little bit chaotic things get missed it's just kind of a mess when you deal with emails and if you're like me you already get enough emails as it is you don't need any more added to it so i want you to ask how they're going to keep track of all of this information and if there's any kind of a system that they use so with my clients i tried to get them to use an actually now every single one of them does use a program called air table which is an online spreadsheet program and it's amazing and i freaking love it and i'll link to it in the show notes some people choose to use trello basecamp asana there's all kinds of different programs so if they have something like that in place i want you to find out about that as well because you need to know whether or not you're comfortable with that program Whether you want to use it, if they don't have anything at all, that's good to know as well, because you may want to suggest that they start a system, something to help keep both of you organized to make sure nothing gets lost or missed. One thing I do want to mention here is that you don't really want to try to dictate their exact process. So because they're the only podcast editor you're working with, but you may be one of 10 2050 clients they're working with, so they have a system that works for them, I don't want you to be extremely inflexible and closed off to new ideas, you know, maybe they do use a program like air table or Trello. And you've never used it and you're not comfortable with it. But if you start to use it, you may find that you love it and will implement it in your own business. That's how I have come across a lot of different programs. So next, I want you to find out if they have any samples of their work that you can take a listen to. A lot of them will probably say yes, here I've worked on this show and this show and the show. But the thing about that is you have no idea what that sounded like before that show was completed. You don't know if that audio quality was, you know, NPR quality to begin with, you don't know if they recorded in a professional recording studio. So you don't know what the raw audio sounds like. And you don't know how much work they had to do to it to make it better. So you don't really get an accurate representation of their skills. So if they can provide before and after samples, that's ideal. Unfortunately, most editors Don't do this. And I have been working for a while now to try and convince editors that I'm familiar with to provide these before and after samples. So again, if they have samples, ask if they have any before and after, or if they can putting together if they're not willing to do that they don't have any ready. That's not a huge deal breaker, it's not a huge red flag, still take a listen to the finished episodes. Because it's a finished episode is crap, well, then there you go. You don't want to work with them. I also want you to ask if they have any testimonials, or current or previous clients that you can speak to, for a reference, they should say yes, now the reference one, a lot of editors don't really think about this. So they may have to like reach out to a client and make sure it's okay with them. So that may take a little bit more time. But they should at the very least have testimonials. Next, I want you to ask whether or not they'll be editing the show themselves, or if they outsource to someone else. So outsourcing to someone else is not necessarily a bad thing. I know several editors who have a team of quality editors that they work with, and they'll outsource the show to them. And it actually allows them to give you a little bit of a lower rate. Because they're not the ones devoting their time to it, they can spend their time on higher level projects. But it's just something that you should be aware of and be familiar with, because you may hire that editor, but then end up working directly with one of their editors on their team. So again, it's all just a matter of having that knowledge, having those expectations set and knowing exactly what's going to happen. If they do outsource to an editor, you could also ask if they review the files of the information before submitting it to you. Now, they may have some editors where they really don't need to they trust them. And it's great, and it's fantastic. And there's never an issue, so they don't need to take the time to review it. Then there are some other people who, like me are a little bit of a control freak. And even when I do outsource things, I still go through the episode myself. And I still read over the show notes, just to make sure that everything is good to go. So again, it's just managing expectations, gather all the information. And the last question that I want you to ask your potential editor is what happened I asked that I should know a lot of people don't really think to do this. But you're reaching out to somebody who you really probably have no idea what it is that they actually do on a minute level. You don't know what their processes, you don't know what it's like to normally work with an editor. So you don't know what you don't know, basically, and asking this question will allow them to give that information to you. So I find whenever I'm on a consultation with a potential editing client, nine times out of 10, they will never ever, ever ask me what my billing terms are. And I purposely save this person for the last because of this example. The potential clients never asked how often they're going to be billed if they have to pay in advance or if they pay after the services have been performed or how they have to pay. So what type of system I use for invoicing. So if you ask your podcast editor, what Haven't I asked you already that I should know about? They should be able to provide any of those other things that you haven't already covered that they feel is important that you know before you make a decision. So in the show notes for this episode, I'm actually going to have a PDF for you with a list of all of these questions because I know that there's a lot to remember. And then that way you can have it handy as you interview a few different podcast editors to really find out who is the best fit. To find that PDF just go to podcasting for coaches. com, hit the podcast tab in the main menu and go to episode number 26. Thank you so much for joining me this week. And I hope that you will come back next week where we're going to dive more into doing interviews for your podcast. So the first topic will be how to find your guests. Thank you so much for joining me and I hope that you have a fantastic week. And that wraps up another episode of podcasting for coaches. If you're wondering if now is the right time to start a podcast for your coaching or consulting business, head on over to podcasting for coaches.com where you can either take a free quiz or schedule a one on one consultation with yours truly, thank you so much for joining me today and I will see you back here for the next episode.