Hiring a Podcast Editor

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We've talked a lot over the last few episodes about what you want and need, and that's important. But one thing I think many people miss when they are looking for an editor is that not every editor has the same kind of business model.

Think it doesn't matter?

Think again. Your editor's business model will significantly influence the kinds of services they are able to offer, the way you work with them, and so much more. Each different business model archetype has some pros and cons.

After today, you'll have an understanding of each, and be able to pick the one that you think will work best for you. And it will absolutely influence where you look for the best editors and how you make your choice.

Here are the 4 categories:

1. Freelancer
2. Small Team
3. Agency
4. Employee

Listen now, and then take a minute to think through what will be best for you!

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15 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Podcast Editor

If you want to get the clarity you need to avoid a hiring mistake with your podcast, you will want to grab this free guide. No email required. We just want you to make the best decisionfor yourself and your show.

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Try Boomcaster for your podcast recording and streaming.

If you're going to record your podcast while streaming live with cohosts or guests, you need a way to capture great recordings. Boomcaster offers an excellent livestreaming experience, and also captures high-quality audio and video recordings. You can pre-schedule your livestreams to Facebook, YouTube, or LinkedIn. Or all of them if you would like. Use the promo code 'TOPTIER' or the link in the show notes to get 20% off your purchase. And if you do that, you'll also be helping the show (and I'd appreciate that). Boomcaster is what I recommend to capture a great recording while streaming.

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

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

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

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

Welcome to Hiring a Podcast Editor.

My name is Bryan Entzminger.

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

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

Whether you're looking for your first editor.

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

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

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

multi-passionate coaches, trainers, and consultants.

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

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

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

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

every editor has the same kind of business model.

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

And the fact is.

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

able to offer the way that you work with them.

And a whole lot of other stuff as well.

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

have an understanding of what each of them is.

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

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

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

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

So here are the four categories.

One category is freelancers.

Then we have number two, a small team.

Number three would be an agency.

And number four.

Is an employee.

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

First up is the freelancer.

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

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

When somebody says they're looking for an editor.

Typically, they're looking for a freelancer.

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

There are some pros to this business model first off.

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

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

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

time than some of these other business models.

And they may also have a lower price point.

However, this does come with some cons.

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

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

How do they handle that kind of stuff?

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

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

So those are some of the trade offs there.

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.

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

Freddie has a show.

It's a combo show.

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

Of his ideal listener.

However, he has a very small budget.

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

He also batch records once a month and releases weekly.

So he really just needs somebody to edit those.

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

So that editor has time to work on stuff.

He doesn't need that person to.

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

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

Freddie.

Next up is a small team.

Now this could be a business with some employees.

There are definitely some of those out there.

It could also be a.

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

Some of them may be formal relationships.

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

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

of having to support a team as much.

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

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

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

is the person that you're primarily working with.

They're going to be responsive to you.

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

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

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

They work with.

However, this may also come with some cons.

They might have a slightly higher price point than a.

Person doing this all for themselves.

They may still have some impact for vacations and illnesses.

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

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

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

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

And it's kind of that middle place between.

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

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

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

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

pillar content for her marketing strategy going forward.

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

media marketing content and advertising programs.

However, this is.

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

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

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

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

A small team.

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

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They offer an excellent live stream experience.

And super high quality audio and video recordings.

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

You can find [email protected] or click the link in the episode notes.

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

So I'd really appreciate that.

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

The third kind

that we're going to talk about

is the agency model.

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

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

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

Services to support that.

So there's kind of a couple nuances there.

Typically this is going to be something

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

So you're going to get some

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

owner or with the particular team member that you work.

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

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

redundancy.

You're going to find that

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

And

typically they're going to have more

than one person in each kind of

role.

They're going to have some

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

Or maybe a larger menu of offerings.

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

some of these other models couldn't support.

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

that you're going to get that.

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

just getting the employee that was assigned to you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

because there's a larger infrastructure to support.

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

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

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

And so that's really something that

you're just going to have to think

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

Agency,

Annie, this is going to be the right

solution.

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

However, she also offers coaching and consulting.

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

Everything she needs help with editing and content strategy.

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

So she's going to need help

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

Her show is going to have a very

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

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

The last one.

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

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

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

Editing a podcast.

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

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

Right?

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

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

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

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

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

as an employee are aligned with your business goals.

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

Is a contracted business or a freelancer.

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

may not be at all related to business goals.

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

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

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

It could be more expensive.

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

management oversight and all of that kind of stuff.

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

This is just part of having a business.

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

Our

example here is going to be employer.

Eli.

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

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

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

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

He's decided

that it's going to be the best

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

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

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

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

He's confident that his team can handle that.

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.

So here's the question for you?

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

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

week.

We're going to talk about

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

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

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

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

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

It's totally free.

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

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

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

Some instructions and suggestions.

Even a place to take notes.

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

and share it with the rest of your team.

Your work is important.

Now.