Chad Franzen: 09:25
Is there something that makes video content more watchable when it comes to podcasts? Or if the two people are there talking? That’s pretty much good.
John Corcoran: 09:34
I think it’s, you know, it boils down to personal preference, but I mean, I personally usually I’m different from you because I actually usually watch the videos. I am sorry, I usually listen, I’m usually driving, I’m walking, riding the bike when I am listening to a podcast. So I actually don’t usually listen to the video. But having said that, actually a lot of the podcasts that I do consume have video also. So sometimes I’ll turn it on on my phone.
I’ll see it for a little bit and then I’ll walk around. I’ll go make coffee or I’ll go for a walk or something like that. And I’m still listening to it, but I’m not looking down at the video. So it gives flexibility because everyone consumes differently. You might watch it on video, I might listen to it.
And you know, having video gives you the option of doing either.
Chad Franzen: 10:24
So video is one aspect of podcast production services. Another one is editing. A lot of people underestimate editing. What does professional podcast editing really do to a listener to really add to listener retention?
John Corcoran: 10:38
Well, most of the time podcast editing needs to just be not noticeable. It needs to get out of the way. If you’re noticing it, they’re probably doing something wrong, especially in a B2B context. And secondly, you want to make it less complex. And so I made the mistake in the first early years of my podcast of having too much complexity came to the editing, and so I had multiple different files that needed to be tracked, and I lose track of different files, and I had to get them to the editor, and then they would send me an email, which I would miss, that I didn’t send them the right file, and I would forget about it, and I’d see it a few weeks later.
Jeremy helped me to revamp all of that, realize that it wasn’t really materially adding anything, or if it was, I had no evidence of it. It was only my assumption. You listen to other podcasts and you hear it done a certain way and you think, oh, that sounds cool, I’ll do it my way, do it that way as well. But never mind the fact that you’re listening to a super high budget entertainment podcast that can do those types of complexities. And when you’re creating a podcast for a B2B purpose, it’s not as meaningful.
It doesn’t matter as much. So.
Chad Franzen: 11:47
So when people say, oh, it’d be nice to have editing services because they can take out all the time I say or make me sound smarter or something. Is that realistic or is that a good way of thinking about editing?
John Corcoran: 11:58
I actually believe that not relying on that as a crutch has made me a better speaker. I tried to say that very carefully, so I didn’t actually insert any in there. It’s never flawless. It’s not perfect. And there’s some people that have certain patterns of speech where they would really benefit from cutting out those things.
But most of the time, I would say that it’s too much of a crutch because it just creates an episode that sounds really stilted and cut down, and it creates for people a feeling of there’s something being cut out and people will distrust a podcast. I’ve heard lots of people say that they can’t listen to a podcast because it’s edited too much, you know? And so like for as a host of a podcast, by not relying on editing or, you know, saying that it will, that you’re going to edit it extensively, it just simplifies the process for you. It also simplifies the process with the guest. So if you tell a guest having done 1500 episodes, I know if you tell a guest that yes, we’re going to edit it, they’re probably going to stop themselves seven times in the first 15 minutes and say, no, no.
You know, I actually cut that out, but didn’t cut it out when I said this part. Cut it out when I said this part. And let me start over. And here we go, I’m going to start. And it’s just like a complete waste of time, you know.
And so you don’t want to do that. I say to the guests, don’t worry about it. This is an authentic medium. What people like about podcasting is that it’s an authentic conversation between two people. You could get to be like a fly on the wall and don’t worry about excessive editing.
And then that way, people are less likely to cause those types of issues that just require excessive editing.
Chad Franzen: 13:38
You know, I used to produce a podcast for another company, and I would always tell the guests, okay, so if you if you screw up or something, you can just tell, let me know and we’ll stop and we’ll start over from there. And she actually told me, you know, she had to stop like five times. And she actually told me, you know, I probably never would have had to stop if you hadn’t told me that I could. I was like, yeah, I’ll never do that again.
John Corcoran: 13:59
Yeah, yeah. And I, I often say to people, look, if something extreme happens, like a car crashes into your living room. We will stop. That’s fine, you know? But otherwise, don’t worry about it.
Chad Franzen: 14:10
Sure. Thought leadership services. That’s another service provided by Rise25. Just tell me about that in general.
John Corcoran: 14:21
So a lot of people, when they think of podcasts, they have certain assumptions, and they think that podcasts are, for example, just interview shows or they are just entertainment shows. The truth is, it’s the Wild West. You can do whatever you want. So I encourage people to do a lot of interviews on their own podcast, because it’s an incredible tool for networking and meeting people that you admire and trust, and deepening relationships with clients and referral partners. However, in addition to that, it also is a great way for you to share your own wisdom and your own expertise.
And you have years and years of wisdom and expertise that you can share. We call those thought leadership episodes. It’s what we’re essentially doing here today, and it is a really easy way for you to share something, some wisdom that you have, some expertise that you have. And I believe that it is really something that you should do with your own podcast, because then you create an asset that you own and control. It could be answering frequently asked questions.
It could be you talking about why you’re different or unique or something that you do. You know, we’ve gotten to a point where now we expect this sort of thing. We expect to be able to go and learn about someone, you know, if someone gives you the name of a vendor or a service provider and says, hey, go work with, you know, so and so, what do we do? We immediately Google it, or we go to ChatGPT and we search for that person’s name. And if we can’t find anything, it’s kind of confusing.
Like, wait, do I even want to give this guy a call, this woman a call? You know, I mean, I, you know, I’ll go to YouTube frequently and I’ll search up someone’s name. I’ll go to Spotify and I’ll search up someone’s name. And I expect to be able to find something and be able to hear what they sound like. Does this sound like someone that I even want to have a conversation with?
Do I even want to reach out to them? And if that doesn’t exist, if that’s not out there, you know you’re kind of a ghost. So I say to people, you need to have these things out there and doing a thought leadership on your On your Own podcast around content with questions that you have some kind of reasonable control around or direction that you’re focusing on is a great way to put content out there.
Chad Franzen: 16:33
And then short form video, I know video, my wife just sits there and watches podcast shorts for like hours at a time. Yeah. How should podcasters be thinking about short-form video differently than maybe just simply clipping long episodes?
John Corcoran: 16:46
There are some people that consume just short form videos. It’s also a great way for podcast discovery. It’s a great way to take the time that you’re already spending creating a podcast, and to have it go further. So I’m a big fan of creating short little snippets from a podcast episode and sharing them on, you know, LinkedIn, sharing them on different social channels. It’s just it’s a way of kind of having your time.
Time goes further. Another benefit to it that people don’t think about is that from the guest perspective, it’s a real benefit to them. So you’re more likely to get guests to say yes, to be a guest on your podcast when they know that you’re going to create those assets as well. In fact, I’ve even talked to people that have been, you know, in-demand speakers who’ve been on lots of different podcasts, and they will say that they will only say yes to a podcast guest invitation from someone who they know is going to be creating those digital shorts as well, those dynamic snippets. So that’s a great thing to do.
And the other thing you can do is that like, look, we all get busy. We have different things going on. Sometimes there are stretches of time when you can’t put out a podcast episode. If you put out those little shorts. No one will know the difference.
And you know, Gary Vaynerchuk I had on my podcast a long time ago. He’s a big marketing expert. He’s written a bunch of books and things like that, and I kind of had this assumption about him that he just does marketing non-stop because he pushes out a ton of marketing. His team does, partly because that’s what he does. But I interviewed his right hand man at one point, years after I interviewed him, and his right hand man basically said that he’s running his company 99% of the time.
He’s not creating marketing. You know, you’d be shocked about that. And so these dynamic snippets have a way of making a perception that you are far more present and active and out there while you’re doing the most important thing, which is running your business. So it’s a great way of getting more, kind of getting more, getting more hours out of the day.
Chad Franzen: 18:47
I would think that if you’ve decided that those are going to be something you prioritize, having somebody do podcast production for you would be particularly valuable, because that can be pretty time consuming.
John Corcoran: 18:58
Oh, absolutely. This is not something again, this is a theme here with me. It’s not something you should be spending your time on. And again, I’m the biggest, most guilty person of it. I’m a recovering perfectionist, recovering lawyer, recovering perfectionist, spent tons of way too much time in the early years thinking that I needed to touch all the different pieces on the podcast production process.
It wasn’t until I let go of that. It wasn’t until I realized that the most important thing was me building relationships and letting go of the rest, that I was able to get more value out of my podcast. So I would say the same thing to others, you know, let go, let it go. Let a team like ours or one that you trust to handle the production pieces because your time is more valuable doing other things.
Chad Franzen: 19:47
Okay. Sounds good. Hey John, always great to talk to you. Very interesting and informative. Thanks so much.
John Corcoran: 19:52
Thanks so much, Chad.
Chad Franzen: 19:53
So long, everybody.
Outro: 19:55
So long, everybody. Thanks for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.