43. What to Ask Before Hiring a Podcast Manager

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Laura McRae shares the questions you should ask before hiring a podcast manager

Laura: Welcome to Podcasting for Business Owners. I’m Your host, Laura McRae, a podcast consultant, educator and self confessed podcast nerd. If you’re thinking of launching a podcast or want to grow the one you have, you’re in the right place. Hold on to your headphones and let’s go. Hello and welcome back to Podcasting for Business Owners, the podcast that helps you share your story, lead your industry and grow your network through podcasting. I’m your host, Lauren McRae, and if you’ve been thinking about hiring a podcast manager, this is for you because I’m sharing the questions you should ask before you sign on the dotted line. There’s more to podcast management than editing your audio and uploading it. And choosing the right person can make the difference between your podcast feeling like a chore or it becoming the best marketing method you ever started. When you bring someone in to manage your podcast, you’re not just outsourcing a task. You’re handing over your message, your brand and your connection with your audience. So it’s really important to make sure things are set up in a way that protects you and supports your business long term. Unfortunately, I’ve seen what happens when this is overlooked. A client I worked with recently had a previous podcast manager who set everything up in his name. The podcast hosting account, the music licence, and the Apple and Spotify accounts. When we started working together, we needed to set up a new hosting platform for her. This meant transferring the RSS feed that, her previous hosting platform had created to the new one. We needed to create a new RSS feed. The RSS feed holds all the data for your podcast. So it’s really important when you change hosting platforms that you also update your RSS feed. And then once you’ve done this, you also have to go in your Apple and Spotify accounts and update the RSS feed there manually. But we couldn’t even get on our hosting platform because our, podcast manager had set up the account and his own personal account and we didn’t have his login details. Not only that, he’d connected her, podcast to his own personal Apple account and he connected her, Podcast to his own personal Spotify account. So we were unable to go into those accounts and update the RSS feed there too. Luckily, my client still had his contact details and he was happy to do that for us. So he had to then go and contact Apple and Spotify and ask for the podcast to be transferred into my client’s name and, my client’s Apple and Spotify account so that she could get access to her own podcast. But had their relationship ended on bad terms, or if she didn’t have his contact details anymore, then we would have been stuffed. But it was a bit of a process and it took quite a few weeks to get this all sorted. We managed to do it in the end, but it would have been so much easier if everything was in her name to start off with. Not only that, she didn’t own the music for her, podcast. So she had music in the podcast intro and outro, and she didn’t have the licence for it. Her previous podcast manager had purchased the music through a music subscription he had. Luckily, we got onto this quickly and she purchased the music herself, so she’s got the licence to use that music. Like I said, we were able to resolve everything in the end, but it was a lot of back and forth and it could have been avoided if she’d asked him the right questions to start off with. So now grab a pen, because these are some things you want to ask when you’re talking to a potential podcast manager. If you don’t have a pen handy, don’t worry, I’ll list all these questions in the show notes so that you can just copy and paste them later on.

You should create accounts and make your podcast manager an admin in those accounts

Right. Number one, will everything be set up in my name and my accounts? So, like I was saying earlier, your hosting platform, Apple, podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, iHeartradio should all be in your name. Using your login details. I recommend you create accounts and, make your podcast manager an admin in those accounts. If you are unable to make them an admin, create the accounts yourself and give your podcast manager your login details using something like 1Password or LastPass. The music licence should be set up in your name too. Your podcast manager may help you choose music, but when it comes to actually purchasing the music, you should create an account and log into the site where you’re buying the music. This could be a site such as audiojungle. Then you need to purchase the audio, download it and then share the music with your podcast manager. The music should be yours. Question 2 Will I have access to everything? If your podcast manager answered yes to question one, then you should have access to everything. But

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ask just in case. Number three, what project management tool will you use? There’s lots of project management tools out there, like Asana, ClickUp and, Monday dot com. I’ll use Trello, but if my clients don’t like Trello, I’ll use whatever one they already use. And I’ll ask them to make me an admin for that preferred tool. If they don’t have a preference, I’ll ask them to set up a trello board and make me an admin. That way if we stop working together, they still have access to the board. It’s not mine. They simply remove my admin access. And that’s the same with all your other accounts. I recommend that you make your podcast manager an admin and then should you stop working together, you can just remove their admin access easily.

Question number four what’s included in your service? Don’t assume anything

Question number four what’s included in your service? Don’t assume anything. Ask what’s actually included. Here’s a list of things that podcast managers generally do, but their packages will probably differ. So obviously editing, uploading to the hosting platform, writing show notes and episode descriptions thinking at podcast episode titles, uploading show notes to your website, social media promotion, guest management, transcripts and YouTube uploads. Get a breakdown of what’s included in their packages. Number five this is something that a lot of people don’t think to ask. What’s your editing style? There are different types of editing. There’s basic editing. Well, they’ll just optimise the sound and mix in your standard intro and outro in every episode. This will be the cheapest form of editing. The next stage up will be those that take out the long pauses, the ums and the ahs and the filler words. Then there’ll be some that will do their best to take out all the stumbles or anything that’s repeated unnecessarily in the podcast. Then there’ll be editors that listen to the actual content of the episode whilst editing and come back to you with recommendations on what could be edited out. For example, this could be if your guest goes off on a tangent, you’ll no doubt pay a different price for how thorough the editing is. Question number six where do we share our files? Most podcast managers will either use Google Drive or Dropbox to share their files. So for example, you’ll record your podcast episode and save it on a Google Drive. I’ll then download it, edit it, and save it back in the Google Drive, and I’ll give you the link to where I saved it so that you can listen to it and review it again. I recommend that you create a folder yourself in Google Drive or Dropbox and then share the folder with your podcast manager. Don’t get them to create a folder and share it with you, because then it’s their folder. The folder needs to be yours so that when you stop working together, everything that’s shared in the shared drive is yours, and then you can just remove their access to it. Question number seven how do you communicate and track progress? Will they use Trello Email Voxer? Ah, Messenger. You want to know how they stay organised and how you’ll stay in the loop. So for me, I email clients once a week with deadlines on where episodes are due. Once I’ve edited the episode, created the show notes and done everything for that particular episode, I’ll save it all in the folder and give them a link to that folder for them to review and then I’ll give them a deadline of when I expect to hear back from them. I also use Voxer or WhatsApp to stay in touch with clients should they wish to send me a quick message or if I want to send them a quick message too. And like I said earlier, we have Trello to keep on top of the podcast as a whole. This has all the deadlines of what needs to be done and when and, what topics they’re going to cover in the episodes. I just make sure I email clients too once a week as I know they’re busy and to be honest, most of them don’t even look at the Trello board and I use it for my own organisational tool. Question number eight what happens if I stop working with you? There should be a clear handover plan. Ask what you’ll need to do if you decide to pause or end your contract and with or you’ll walk away with everything you need. This happened to me recently. A client and I stopped working together and she asked to do a handover. I told her she’s got everything already in her name and we didn’t need to do anything and she was so happy. When we stopped working together, I just removed myself as an admin to all her accounts and removed all her logins from my password protection app.

Question number nine how do you support content planning or strategy

Question number nine how do you support content planning or strategy? Do they help you plan episodes that align with your business goals or do they just edit what you send? I do this for some clients, but not all of them. The

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The ones that I do do this for, we meet up every two months and plan their content together and run through anything else they need help with than their podcast? Question number 10 how do you handle podcast promotion? Do they create promotional content for each episode or is that up to you? Podcast managers can support you to repurpose your content in order to promote it in a number of different ways, not just through social media, but by writing newsletters and blog posts. Too. Question number 11 can you help me with guest management? Do they book guests, send reminders, chase bios, or prepare your guests for interviews? If you’re planning to do interviews for your show, organising guests can be quite time consuming and if you don’t have a VA to help you with this, it can be a bit of a pain. So you might want to ask your podcast manager if this is something they do. Question number 12 what happens if I need to take a break? Ask how flexible they are. If you need to pause your podcast, they may have a minimum contract length. So for example, my clients start on a three month contract, then if they want to take a break or finish working with me, they’ll give me 30 days notice. Question number 13 do you work with video podcasts too? All podcast managers edit audio, but not all edit video. So if you’re planning to have a video podcast, make sure you hire a podcast manager that can do this for you and knows their way around YouTube. Question number 14 what’s your turnaround time? How long will it take from the time you send your audio to having everything ready for you to review? This is important to know so that you can tell how organised your podcast manager is. I know it’s a long time ahead, but I ask my clients to have their audio recorded in the shared Google folder three weeks before it’s due to be released. This is because I know that business owners are busy people and if they’re two or three days late giving it to me, it’s no big deal. It also means that I can give the edited audio and the assets for each episode back to the client at least a week before the planned schedule date so that they have plenty of time to review the content. Question number 15 what tools or platforms do you use? You want to know what tools they use to manage the process and if you’re expected to learn something new. This isn’t usually the case as your podcast manager should take care of the tech, but it’s best to ask just in case.

Question number 16: Do you help with launching a podcast or just ongoing management

And now the last question. Question number 16 do you help with launching a podcast or just ongoing management? If you haven’t launched yet, this is really important. Obviously, some podcast managers don’t help with the setup phase. Others, like me, guide you through the entire process. So that’s it. There are so many talented podcast managers out there, but not all of them will be the right fit for you. Asking these questions will help you make a smart, informed decision. If you’re thinking, actually, I’d love to have someone take care of this for me then I’d love to help you too. I offer one to one podcast management for business owners as well as one to one launch packages. You can find the details on my website at ah, Podcast Support Services or message me on Instagram at Podcast Support Services. I’d love to hear what you’re working on. Thanks so much for listening. If you’re about to jump on a call with a potential podcast manager or even just thinking about it, I’ve added all the questions from today’s episode in the show notes so you can copy and paste them. See you next time.

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