99: Pro Tips for Avoiding Podcast Burnout with Sasha Huff

Written By Britany Felix
 
99 Podcasting for Coaches Britany Felix.png

What’s This Episode About?

Sasha Huff is a 10-year radio veteran turned professional podcast producer. She ditched corporate America after building her career in Los Angeles to work with small, mostly women-run businesses to help them spread their messages authentically online through podcasting, content marketing, and storytelling. She now runs the free community 'Women Who Podcast' and offers professional podcasting services to clients around the globe!

In this episode, we chat about the main struggle she sees new podcasters face after launching their podcast, what an editorial calendar is and why every podcaster should have one, how far in advance you should create your content, the affordable offering she has that can help you podcast like the pros do, and her advice for what to do when you start to feel burnt out and find yourself struggling to keep your podcast going.

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 99 of podcasting for coaches. I am very excited to bring this interview to you today. with Sasha huff Sasha is a 10 year radio veteran turned professional Podcast Producer. she ditched corporate America after building her career in Los Angeles to work with small mostly women run businesses, to help them spread their messages authentically online through podcasting, content, marketing and storytelling. She now runs the free community women who podcast and offers professional podcasting services to clients around the globe. Now it may sound like Sasha is a direct competitor of mine, because she literally helps people do exactly what I help people do. But I am one of those people who don't like to look at other people in my industry, especially other women. as competitors, I consider them callings. We all have different personalities and different styles and slightly different offerings. So I am thrilled to bring you Sasha because maybe you don't fully resonate with what I do. But you'll absolutely love Sasha. So I also want to point out that this interview was recorded last fall. So you'll actually hear Sasha talk briefly about a membership that she has, and she is no longer focusing on that membership and our offerings. But you can definitely still reach out to Sasha about anything discussed in this episode, because she absolutely loves helping serve podcasters just like you in any way that she can. In this episode Sasha and I chat about the main struggle she sees new podcasters face after launching their podcast, what an editorial calendar is and why every podcaster should have one, how far in advance, you should create your content, the affordable offering she has like an help you podcast like the pros do. And her advice for what to do when you start feeling burnt out and find yourself struggling to keep your podcast going. That is a very familiar feeling. And there is even a term called a pod fade. Because this is so prevalent, that podcasters get burnt out, and they eventually just kind of fade away and their show goes to the podcast graveyard. We want to avoid that happening with you. So make sure that you listen to this episode all the way through to the end. To find the links for Sasha's resources, just go to podcasting for coaches. com, click on the episodes tab in the main menu and go to episode number 99. All right, let's go ahead and jump right on in with Sasha half. Sasha thank you so so much for coming on the show. You and I have been aware of each other for a while now. You have an amazing Facebook group about podcasting, which of course, we'll link in the show notes, and I'm sure will come up at some point. But I've known you from that sphere. And recently, we've become connected in another way. And this is our first time finally getting to chat. So this is so exciting.

 

03:46

It really is thank you so much for having me on. I've been looking forward to this mean to.

 

03:51

So we just decided for you listening to completely change the topic of this episode, like literally about a minute ago, because Sasha has this amazing collective that will absolutely come up throughout this episode. So we were originally going to be talking about like guest pitching. But Sasha, I really want you to help my listeners understand have a better idea of what it takes to really manage a podcast I talk a lot about watching. And of course I help like with ongoing editing. But in terms of actually managing a podcast. One is probably the biggest question that you get from your audience, when they come to you and they're like, please help. I don't know how to do you know this one thing?

 

04:35

I think that the thing that comes up most often is that people don't really have a plan. So they have an idea for their show. They're really excited. Maybe they have a couple episodes ready for that launch period. But they forget that maintaining takes a lot of intention. And it takes a lot of strategy. And a lot of times they want to do either a show that ends up being sort of one of those never ends Right, there can be 300 episodes. And they're just they get burned out pretty quickly. So what I like to always share with people and what I'm really trying to get people to understand is that there are ways that you can go in it with intention go in it with strategy, similar to how a journalist would go into maintaining the types of things they need to be ahead of each quarter or each month. And the way that I suggest that is to have an editorial calendar as a part of your toolbox, right. And that's something that I provide to my members very specifically, because it gives you the opportunity to see what are the big topics that are national or international that are coming up, maybe those are holidays that are, you know, every year, maybe you know, we're in an election season in the United States, right now, these are big topics that people are talking about. And it can serve as inspiration to get ideas for the shows that you would like to have coming up. And the other thing that I think people forget to do is, remember that brainstorming and creativity and inspiration tends to come in bursts. It's not necessarily going to be on that Monday that you decide, okay, I'm producing my show on Monday, as I'm recording on Tuesday, as I'm editing on Wednesday, and then Monday hits and you're tired from the weekend, or maybe you're overwhelmed by what's coming up. And so I always suggest that people keep a notepad near them, or the notepad in their phone open at any time you, you hear something that sparks something inside of you to jot it down, keep a journal by your bed, jot it down. And then you'll always have a never ending sort of inspiration sheet of episodes that you could jump to on those days where inspiration just isn't really hitting you. And so again, I just I really think it comes down to having a strategy, having the systems in place that keep you inspired, and going into it with intention so that it doesn't seem like a never ending task.

 

07:03

Right. And I love that idea of having this kind of running list of things. I do that with both of my own podcasts, for those exact reasons for what I'm like, okay, I just wrapped up this social media series, like what am I going to talk about now, and yet I have talked about on the show, like planning your content, you know, since the people listening to this are business owners, for the most part, planning your content around your offerings, and like when your launches are and kind of reverse engineering from that point. But there are inevitably going to be those times where you're like, there's not a holiday happening. I don't have a launch going on, like what am I going to talk about, and it's so amazing. When you're like, Oh, well, I have this list of 20 topics right here that I have just randomly jotted down at various points throughout the past several months. And you can just pluck right from there. And it's kind of a nice little safety net.

 

07:50

Definitely. And I always recommend to putting that on a producer spreadsheet, right. So I have a spreadsheet that I have it has episode numbers, it has tentative dates that I would like for it to be published. And within that I'll just drop in all of those random ideas, right. And what's obviously great too, is I can change those. So maybe I put in that I wanted the topic next week to be this. I mean, this episode is a great example of that where something's flips, right? Right, where do you start, which is totally fine. But then you just have it in front of you. And you can see it all. I can't tell you how many times I've forgotten some of those, like, I'll go back to it and be like, Oh my god, that was a good idea. I would have never remembered that. Because, again, that inspiration comes at different times. So yeah, keeping it in one place, and going back to be able to reference those, especially like you're saying, on the off weeks, if you will, where there isn't something that's very obvious, but you know, you want that content. As we all know, consistency and showing up weekly for your audience, especially as coaches is the most important thing you do. Now you have a little safety net that you can always go back to when your brain is just kind of fried.

 

09:01

Right right now, in terms of having this kind of content ready to go. And those those moments when your brain is fried, or life just happens, you know, COVID and protests and just 2020 in general, things just go a little bit crazy. How far in advance do you recommend that people have their content actually created? So maybe not necessarily, like edited and published but, you know, created because I ran into the issue with some of my clients who had recorded months in advance, and they've done these interviews that they've been sitting on for three months, because they recorded them in like February, and then COVID happened and suddenly the things they talked about weren't relevant anymore, or then the protests started happening. And actually some of the topics were completely inappropriate. I mean, just not things you would want to say at that moment. Just out of, you know, being sensitive for other people. So where do you find that balance? What do you recommend when people come to you and they're talking about, you know, managing and having this stuff planned out in advance.

 

10:01

Definitely I that's actually something I also ran into with my clients. And I think we all sort of had that stopped down moment, right where we're looking back, like you said at that content, and we're realizing it's super insensitive to post something like that. And I am a big believer in batching, your content and the big believer in trying to get as much work as you can do up front, because I know that it can, again, that the big burnout, right, we're all trying to avoid that all the time. But I don't really like to record much more than four episodes ahead. And it's for that reason. In addition to that, what I always like to try to do if I can is think about my content being evergreen. And this is a turn of phrase that some people haven't heard before. So if you don't know what evergreen means, it's literally just a topic that at any point at any time, you could publish it and promote it. It's not, it's not topical, it's not trendy, it's not surrounded by a holiday or something like that. And so I generally try to keep most of my content evergreen for that reason. And then I think, really, at the end of the day, sometimes we just have to scrap it. And that's just like, it comes with the territory. But yeah, I wouldn't go much further than four episodes ahead. That gives you a full month of content, it gives you that month to now work on the next coming months content. And so I generally say don't get too far ahead of yourself. And that also comes at that launch period. You know, I'm sure you've been a part of these conversations before where a client is saying they want to launch with 10, fully edited episodes. And they, you know, they want to have it all in the bag and

 

11:45

literally have that conversation today.

 

11:47

Did you? Yeah,

 

11:47

it's so common. And I and I appreciate that. That means there's someone who's really inspired to work and we love those clients. But I try to remind them and I say this to my students to my members, I say this to the people in my free group, is that it doesn't leave room for our audience to give us feedback,

 

12:06

or for us to look at data and say, Hmm, okay, that topic worked a lot better than this other one. And now you have 10 episodes that maybe it turns out isn't your best content. And it really isn't what you should be talking about. And so I just, you know, it's not a magical number four, three, whatever. I just don't like to get too far ahead. Because of that exact concern. I don't want it to end up being scrapped. But yeah, again, be ready for that to happen. Nobody could have predicted COVID. But things do happen. So yeah, don't get too ahead of yourself. But you know, batch it so that you're not getting to that burnout phase.

 

12:45

Yeah, I 100%. Agree. batching is amazing. And I also agree, I tell my clients a month. So if they're bi weekly, you know, that's two episodes, just to allow for things to come up. Thanks to change new ideas to happen. Time for your guests to come back and say they're not actually comfortable with something that they said in it. So it just gives you that space, but it's created, it's there. But you have given yourself again, another safety net of having time to make a shift and adjust if you need to. Definitely. So in your membership, which we've alluded to a few times. So why don't you actually just really quick explain what that is, what the membership is and how you help people in it. And you know what it looks like for the members.

 

13:30

Definitely. So the membership community is called the women who podcast collective. And it's the paid membership out of the free community, women who podcast or want to that I run. And it basically came out of this need that I wanted to help more people on a deeper level. But I couldn't help one to one every single time, as you well know. We're in the scaling of that power. But at this time, it's like, you know, the one to one clients, or it's me in them, right? I knew I wanted to help more people. And I wanted to create a space that was more affordable for people to have access to a professionals brain and have that guidance that they need to help them maintain and grow their shows. So I kind of sat on it for a while. And I decided, you know, this is how I want this to go. This is how I want to run it. And what I offer is that editorial calendar that I was talking about earlier, that is sent once a month at the beginning of the month to all members and it has everything from all the national holidays to those silly social media holidays that could make sense in some worlds, you know, there's right everybody has different topics you never know. And it also has just overall monthly themes and it's meant to be an inspiration pop off for people. And we take that calendar and once a month we get together and all the group members come together virtually and we just chat about what we're doing on our shows what goals we're trying to reach for the month. They can ask me any questions they have about anything from recording to marketing to editing, it's really a free for all. It's it's an open q&a that anyone in the group can have. And it's been really cool because people have come together, and we're supporting one another. And it's just an opportunity to have that one on one feel. But in a group setting, and yeah, we have our own little private Facebook community just for that group. And I'm now giving them access to my other product called the pocket producer, which is like an all in one system to keep you maintaining your show. So now all my members get that with their community membership. And, yeah, it's a lot of fun. I really, really like being able to connect to so many of my members on such a personal level. Awesome. And

 

15:45

I love that you brought up the pocket producer, because I was actually going to bring it up if you didn't. And just kind of have you explain what that is. So this is also a standalone product that you don't have to be a member to get Correct,

 

15:58

correct? Yes. Yeah. So the pocket producer just came to me one day, when I realized a lot of the systems that I'm using for my clients to keep us organized those one to one high ticket, like, you know, the people that I've needed to really be there for every single day, were things that I could absolutely offer to others. So it's basically just the all in one system, you need to maintain your show. So it has that producer spreadsheet that I mentioned earlier, that helps you just keep your ideas all organized. There's like a note section. And in there, you can put that you emailed the guests, but you're waiting on a response. And it just keeps it all in one place. So you can kind of get the big overview of what is happening with your show. It has guest pitching templates in it. So that's another thing that I know. Yeah. And I know I'm sure, again, we're in the same communities. So I want people pitching to guests. And I want people pitching themselves as guests in the most professional way possible. So that has verbatim templates that you can use, you plug in all your own information, I obviously tell them make sure that you're pitching to a podcast that has a crossover audience. And they will find value in you just as much as you get value in being there. So there's those kinds of professional tips involved as well.

 

17:20

And podcasts that actually have guests.

 

17:22

Yeah, sure. Because that happens all the time. And I do not understand it. I swear it's just like a bot system or something that's sending them out in mass. But yeah, so we want to avoid that. So there's the you know, little bit of tips there. I also did some social media templates for people so that they could have some really nice designed templates to use in their social media marketing. And yeah, it's just that it's that whole kit of everything you need to really run your show in a way that the professionals are running, there's but again, at that easy to access price that makes it so that anybody can really do this the right

 

18:00

way. Hello, that's so much. So Sasha, if there is one thing, one piece of advice that you could give somebody who is in the thick of it right now they're starting to feel that burnout, they're feeling overwhelmed. They're feeling like they're drowning in their show. And they're just not quite sure how to write that ship. They're not quite sure how to make it so that it's not as overwhelming, what would be the very first step that they could take today to help start relieving some of that.

 

18:28

I think first is stop down for a moment and remember why you're doing this. So this is definitely one of those like, whoo, Coach kind of things that I would laugh at before I used it for myself and realize, oh, it works. This is why this is why it's constantly sprouted all over the coaching community, but really stopped down and look at your why, like, why did you start this podcast in the first place? Are you still getting the type of enjoyment that you once had for it? Why are you burnt out? Are you burnt out? Because you're not as passionate about the subject anymore? Are you burnt out because you're trying to record and edit on the first day, or excuse me on the same day, and you're realizing it's just too much work? I think so often the burnout happens when we haven't stopped down in a while to be intentional in how we're working moving forward. So I think that anyone who's at that burnout phase, it's time to audit, sit down and look at what you're doing. See if there's ways you can outsource some of it. I know a lot of hobbyist podcasters are saying to themselves, why would I spend money on something I'm not making money on? And the answer is you're never going to make money if your show doesn't exist. So start to consider outsourcing some of it. You know, I'm not a huge proponent of the fiver options because a lot of times it's you get what you pay for. However, if that's where your budget is right now, consider doing that. Maybe there's a student that's looking for some internship. have opportunities just you know, get creative in the ways that you can outsource that and just look at what parts of it you still really enjoy. And the second part is, is give yourself grace. Maybe it turns out that you did 100 episodes, and this just it's done. So let it go, right, close your show, find the thing that you really feel passionate about again, and go start something new, do not be afraid to just say, when I think too often we give ourselves this need to push. And there's this unnecessary pressure that I have, you know, it's coming from various places in our lives. And it's a voice that is pushing us towards something that no longer really serves us. So I would Yeah, sit down audit, see if you can send any of that work off to other people. If you can't, maybe it's time to look at your systems again. Are you sitting down and brainstorming? Are you keeping ideas easily accessible to you? Or are you just flying by the seat of your pants, because most of the time burnout I see comes from people who have no plan. So even if you've been doing this for 50 episodes on the fly, and you've somehow made it work, still could be time to stop down and put a system together, and then go from there. Perfect. Well,

 

21:15

Sasha, thank you so much for being here on the show with me today. And to wrap up, please let everyone listening know where they can find you where they can get access to the pocket producer, all of those things. Yes.

 

21:27

So everything is available at my website. It's just Sasha hough.com. So my first and last name calm. And you're all welcome to join my Facebook community. You can search women who podcast or want to should pop up or you can get access on my website. And yeah, I'm all over the internet. So go to my website. You'll find me there and we'll connect that way. Perfect. Sasha.

 

21:50

Thank you so so so much for coming on the show. It was so fun chatting with you, and I have a feeling this might not be the last time you're going to be on because I have a bunch more questions for you.

 

21:59

I would love that. Thank you so much for having me on.

 

22:05

And that wraps up my interview with Sasha Huff. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. She definitely will be back on the show at some point. And I cannot let you go without mentioning that if you were listening to this episode, pretty soon after it comes out especially before the evening of March 1. Sasha and I along with a few other amazing women are actually hosting a micro con at pod fest global virtual summit. This is a Guinness Book world record holding event for podcasting so you don't want to miss it. And the micro comm that Sasha and I are helping to put on is actually for women in podcasting services, which probably doesn't apply to you. However, if you use our promo code, which is just busters JUSTB u s, t e r s, you can actually get a free ticket for the entire event. It has already been going on for a week, but there's still a whole week left from March 1 through the fifth. So just go to the link in the show notes for this episode podcasting for coaches.com. Click on the episodes tab in the main menu and go to episode number 99. And you will find the link to get your free ticket to the pod fest global virtual summit right there in the shownotes. Thanks so much and have a fantastic week. I will see you back here next week for our 100th episode. And you definitely don't want to miss that because I'm going to be doing some pretty freaking amazing giveaways. Have a fantastic week. And that wraps up another episode of podcasting for coaches. If you'd like to connect with me further, you can do so on Instagram at podcasting for coaches. If you know it's time to finally get serious about starting your podcast, go to podcasting for coaches comm and click on the work with me tab in the main menu to learn more about my one on one launch consultation packages or my self paced online course. And I look forward to seeing the podcasts that you create and put out into the world.

 
Britany Felix
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