Consider This Before Choosing What Kind of Podcast Editor You Want

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So you're thinking about hiring a podcast editor, but have you ever considered that editor's business

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model and how it matters to what you're looking for?

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There are actually four different categories of podcast editor, business models, and each one of them has its own pros and cons.

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If you're not considering all four of them, you might actually be leaving your best option on the.

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Welcome to Hiring a Podcast Editor.

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My name is Bryan Entzminger.

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I'm a podcast, editor and manager at TopTierAudio.com.

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This show is intended to help you be able to find the right podcast editor for you.

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Whether you're looking for your first editor.

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Or your next editor in season one, we're going to help you get clarity on what you really want before you

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start connecting with editors and then provide you with the tools to make the right decision for yourself.

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This show is sponsored by TopTierAudio.com, where we provide podcast production services for

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multi-passionate coaches, trainers, and consultants.

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Be sure to stick around to the end, and I'll tell you how you can get a free tool to help you organize

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your thoughts and make sure you don't miss anything.

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We've talked a lot over the last few episodes about what you want and need and that's important stuff.

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But one thing that I think a lot of people miss when they're looking for an editor, is that not

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every editor has the same kind of business model.

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Now you might be thinking well, does that even matter?

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And the fact is.

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It does your editor's business model will significantly influence the kinds of services they're

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able to offer the way that you work with them.

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And a whole lot of other stuff as well.

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Each one of these business model archetypes has some pros and some cons after today, you'll

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have an understanding of what each of them is.

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And have some information to help you pick the one that you think will work best for you.

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And it will absolutely influence things like where you look to find the best editors and also how you make your choice.

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So here are the four categories I'm just going to go through them quickly.

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Then I'm going to go through each of them a little bit differently.

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So here are the four categories.

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One category is freelancers.

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Then we have number two, a small team.

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Number three would be an agency.

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And number four.

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Is an employee.

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Let's talk about these a little bit more deeply.

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First up is the freelancer.

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And I think this is what most people probably think of when they're thinking about a podcast editor.

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This is the kind of thing that I see very often in Facebook groups.

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When somebody says they're looking for an editor.

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Typically, they're looking for a freelancer.

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This would be working with a single editor or maybe a podcast manager who is essentially a one person shop.

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There are some pros to this business model first off.

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Depending on your preference, it might be great to know that you're working with the business

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owner, that you have a direct connection to the person who's doing the work and owns the business.

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They're often very responsive to you and they may have, they may have a faster turnaround

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time than some of these other business models.

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And they may also have a lower price point.

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However, this does come with some cons.

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When your editor wants to go on vacation or has an illness, do they have.

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Any redundancy at all, or do they have limited redundancy?

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How do they handle that kind of stuff?

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And also if you have a freelancer who offers a huge suite of services, how do you know that they're

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actually able to do all of those at a very high level?

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So those are some of the trade offs there.

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As an example, I'm just going to make up a, a few examples to help demonstrate how these might play out for the freelancer.

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We're going to talk about freelance Freddie now, freelance.

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Freddie has a show.

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It's a combo show.

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He does half interviews and half monologues, and he's supporting his business by nurturing relationships and helping to stay in.

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Of his ideal listener.

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However, he has a very small budget.

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He's doing things like bootstrapping his social media content.

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He also batch records once a month and releases weekly.

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So he really just needs somebody to edit those.

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So he records at the end of a month and then re releases over the following month.

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So that editor has time to work on stuff.

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He doesn't need that person to.

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All of the other things just wants to work with an editor.

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In that case, a freelancer might be an I ideal choice for freelance.

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Freddie.

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Next up is a small team.

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Now this could be a business with some employees.

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There are definitely some of those out there.

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It could also be a.

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An independent contractor or a freelancer who works with a small team of other independent contractors.

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Some of them may be formal relationships.

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Some of them may be informal, but they work as a team.

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And so you're starting to get some of the benefits of having a team without the infrastructure

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of having to support a team as much.

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So this could be a small business, it could be a group of people that just work together.

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One of the pros is that it's still likely going to feel.

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Personal and very responsive because typically you're going to have a single point of contact who

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is the person that you're primarily working with.

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They're going to be responsive to you.

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They're going to have a team of people that are very good at what they're doing.

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So they're going to have some specialization, whereas a freelancer who offers everything may not have that.

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And they may even have some redundancy built into their network of businesses.

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They work with.

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However, this may also come with some cons.

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They might have a slightly higher price point than a.

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Person doing this all for themselves.

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They may still have some impact for vacations and illnesses.

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If, for example, you're working with one particular person who does have a team of independent contractors they work

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with, but this one person is still your point of contact.

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When that person is ill, there could be some challenges that arise.

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So that could be something to think about in terms of a small team, but it is another option.

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And it's kind of that middle place between.

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Working with a single person and working with a much larger business.

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For this example, we're going to talk about small team Sydney, small team Sydney interviews, thought leaders, and offers a

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membership program in coaching as well as a couple of courses.

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Because of this small team, Sydney already has a very full plate and she plans for her podcast to become the

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pillar content for her marketing strategy going forward.

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She wants help with production and podcast management, but also with creating and implementing social

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media marketing content and advertising programs.

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However, this is.

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All that small team Sydney is looking for and small team Sydney still wants some of that personal relationship.

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She wants to feel like she's got a connection with the person that she's working with.

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That she's really working with the business owner, even though this is a small team.

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So this is why small team Sydney might be looking for.

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A small team.

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Hi, there, I'm popping in for just a second to tell you about boom caster.

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If you're going to be recording your podcast while streaming live, either with a co-host or with guests

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or something like that, you're going to need a service that does that and gives you high quality

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recordings and boom caster is a great service for that.

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They offer an excellent live stream experience.

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And super high quality audio and video recordings.

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So later you can edit those into your final podcast episode.

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You can find them@boomcaster.com or click the link in the episode notes.

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If you use that, you'll also get a discount on your purchase and your purchase will benefit the show.

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So I'd really appreciate that.

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Boom caster is what I recommend for you to capture those great recordings for your podcast.

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The third kind

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that we're going to talk about

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is the agency model.

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This is typically going to be more of a full service business.

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Sometimes you'll find this where an agency offers a full suite of marketing services and podcasting is just a part of that.

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It also might be an agency that offers podcast production and management services, and they offer a full suite.

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Services to support that.

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So there's kind of a couple nuances there.

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Typically this is going to be something

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where you may have a dedicated account manager, or maybe they have a team of podcast managers that work with you.

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So you're going to get some

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level of relationship, but you're probably not going to be working day in and day out with the business

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owner or with the particular team member that you work.

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Other than that account manager, there are some pros to this business model.

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One is that with this kind of business model, you will often find a high level of specialization and

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redundancy.

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You're going to find that

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they have built their team with people that are very good at what they do.

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And

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typically they're going to have more

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than one person in each kind of

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role.

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They're going to have some

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method of planning for vacations within their team, and they may also offer a larger scope of.

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Or maybe a larger menu of offerings.

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So because they're a full service agency, they probably offer a large number of things that

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some of these other models couldn't support.

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And if you need those things, this is probably the way

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that you're going to get that.

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There are some cons though, an account manager could feel personal or it could feel like you're

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just getting the employee that was assigned to you.

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And so it's not maybe going to be quite as engaging as working with a business.

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If they've got a great account manager, it might be even more engaging than working with that business owner.

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You might also find that there's maybe a little bit less flexibility in what packages they offer, because

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they, they may be doing a large volume of work.

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They may have to build their business around having consistent processes for everybody.

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So you may not get as much flexibility for that kind of thing.

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And you may also find that there's a much higher price point to this kind of business model,

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because there's a larger infrastructure to support.

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Now, there may sometimes be some benefit because of things like economies of scale.

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But typically you're going to find that this is going to be a higher price point.

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And at some point there is going to be a diminishing return for your increased cost.

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And so that's really something that

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you're just going to have to think

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through and determine if this is the right tool for you.

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Agency,

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Annie, this is going to be the right

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solution.

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Annie is a full-time podcaster, whose podcast is the center of her content ecosystem.

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However, she also offers coaching and consulting.

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She sells advertising and has a magazine, and she also has three books that are out there and she needs help with.

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Everything she needs help with editing and content strategy.

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She wants to do something with a really high production value.

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So she's going to need help

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with story editing and writing scripts and research, and a whole gamut of other things.

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Her show is going to have a very

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high production value and she needs to know that it's going to be great every single time.

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So she's looking for an agency that can help her deliver.

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The last one.

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And I think this is one that a lot of people skip and it is probably because it's maybe not appropriate

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for them, but there is the option to have an employee working full-time or part-time for you.

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This may be something where they have additional duties beyond just.

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Editing a podcast.

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The pros for this kind of model is that you are typically going to have a stronger working relationship with this person that

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you may not have to share their workload with other people.

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Right?

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So if you're working with a freelancer that freelancer may have other clients, whereas if you have

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somebody working for you, they're working for you.

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And one of the benefits that a lot of people maybe overlook is that.

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You can define their success metrics based on what's good for your business goals.

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So you can make sure that the metrics that the editor that you're working with, that the editor that you hire

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as an employee are aligned with your business goals.

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So that everybody's sort of marching to the same drummer, if you will, as opposed to, if you're working with somebody.

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Is a contracted business or a freelancer.

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Typically what you're going to be measuring them on is what's specified in a contract, which

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may not be at all related to business goals.

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So that's, that's the benefit there.

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The cons though, is depending on how this plays out, it could be significantly more expensive when

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you start thinking about things like insurance and employee taxes and all of those kinds of things.

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It could be more expensive.

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You're going to be the one who's responsible for supplying an appropriate amount of work and

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management oversight and all of that kind of stuff.

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And you're back to being the one who has to plan for vacations and illnesses.

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This is just part of having a business.

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And so if you've got an employee, this is going to be part of that.

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Our

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example here is going to be employer.

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Eli.

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Eli has actually been in the process of outsourcing the production of his podcast for a while.

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He also has some other videos and some other content that a production team handles for.

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He loves what they do, but he's starting to feel constrained by having to fit everything into their production timelines,

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because they're always balancing the needs of multiple clients.

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He's decided

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that it's going to be the best

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thing for him to bring in the editing and production into his business so that he

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can ensure that everybody's working towards the same goals and can be responsive to changing business needs.

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He already has people in place who can handle things like social media and the other marketing and all that kind of stuff.

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Even though that other team was handling that he can bring that in.

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He's confident that his team can handle that.

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So he just needs to find somebody who can come in and be part of his business and handle the video and the audio content.

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So here's the question for you?

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Does one of these, describe you or maybe fit your needs a little bit, given the chance would you choose to

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work with a freelancer, a small team, an agency, or an employee make a note of that and then come back next

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week.

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We're going to talk about

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what you're going to do with all the time.

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You'll get back by having an editor working on your show.

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If you'd like to be able to get the clarity you need in order to avoid making a hiring mistake, be sure to download our

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guide 15 questions to ask before hiring a podcast editor, you can find it at HireAPodcastEditor.com/15questions,

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and it'll be linked up in the show notes.

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It's totally free.

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We don't require an email address or anything like that.

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We just want to make sure that you have the tools that you need to make the right decision for you.

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That guide has the questions we'll talk about on this show.

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Some instructions and suggestions.

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Even a place to take notes.

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If you want to get even more out of it, though, be sure to subscribe to this show at HireAPodcastEditor.com/listen

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and share it with the rest of your team.

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Your work is important.

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Now.