Interview - Process: Walk me through what goes on in producing one episode. Before / During / After.

Arjun Sundararajan: And walk me through your process here. Right? ...What goes on in producing one episode before the show including how you're getting your speakers and everything pertain to, like, during, I think we talked a little bit about during. And then more particularly about, like, what happens after.

Aaron Crow: Sure. So probably the hardest part for me now is is getting the guest. Getting them lined up making sure because right now, I'm releasing a podcast every week. So I have one a week. So it's a pretty aggressive podcast schedule. And and so that the biggest hurdle with that is finding guests that align and and having, you know, a buffer of recorded episodes. So if I go on vacation or I'm out of town or a podcast or a guest has to reschedule. I've got a few episodes. So I'm trying to be three to six weeks ahead of time recorded out, so that they're dropping in I I can have some hiccups in there. So I have had a couple of times where I ran out of guess, and we had a a week here and a week there that I didn't have episode to drop. And at the end it wasn't the end of the world. Guest came back. Right? They still listened. They just didn't get one that week. It wasn't the end of the world. Yes, My numbers dipped a little bit, and it hurt my ego. But it came right back. Right? When we when we recorded it. So so that's a big piece and in having that frequency, especially when you're going as aggressive as I am on that. If you're doing less aggressive, the the problem still the same. You have to have the... Especially if you're interviewing people, you have to have that. So that's the before. I told you I don't really prep as far as... Sometimes I do, I'll have an intro call... If somebody super uncomfortable, I'll have a thirty minute prep call with them and talk them through it talk the format, you know, have a dialogue with them sure that they're comfortable with me. And and the topic and then then we'll schedule it after that fact I use call to schedule So I'll just send them the link that way they can find time on my calendar that fits for them. And in that, I'll have all the information of make sure you have a microphone. Make sure you're at home in a quiet place and, you know, you you're... All of those types of things I put in there. So they're checking the box and making sure they understand the requirements when they come. I've had a few along the way that checked the box and then didn't have a marker phone and the audio quality wasn't good. And it happens. I still recorded. There's only been one episode where I didn't use. Because the guest was not a good guest. And that they just weren't able to have a conversation that was valuable. So I went through the whole process and recorded it, and then we just ditched it. Which again, I've been doing it for nine months. I'll release one one a week

Arjun Sundararajan: Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Aaron Crow: pretty good odds. Like, I've only had one that we've had to kick out. So not too bad. So that's that's kind of the pre process. Once they schedule that, it gets on my calendar, then we do the the recording I do right now have a... An editing company that does the editing for me. I'm using a platform that kinda helps with all that, but I do have a a third party that's doing editing just because I have a full time job, and we just don't have that in house and we're not doing that work. In the beginning, we were doing that. For the first couple of episodes, and it... It was just time consuming so we decided to to outsource that. But, you know, now we're using some different platforms forms and it becomes a little bit easier, but we're also doing little sub sub segment. So after we record, they're editing, we're creating the podcast uploading to Spotify and all the different places. We're also creating, you know, smaller video content that we can put on Linkedin and and social media platforms that's combine, you know, a shorten, like advertisement or or or of it. As well as doing the full video on on Youtube as So kinda hitting multiple platforms. And then, you know, afterwards, we're also we recently did this where we're we're afterwards we... We were sending some thank you. So the the guest gets an email, hey, thank you for coming aboard. They click this thing. And then they get some swag, they get, like, a t shirt and a

Arjun Sundararajan: Nice.

Aaron Crow: like a cup or something like that... It's not hugely expensive. But Because, again, I'm dealing with C suite executives and high level people It's nice to have... Not to mention from a marketing perspective, now they have my swag on their desk. And a lot of them are posting, hey, look at the stuff

Arjun Sundararajan: Right.

Aaron Crow: I got for being on the podcast, and, you know, it it entice them. The other thing that we're doing in that middle thing is when we're sending that email for them to schedule we're asking them to lock the show to write the show to share it on their their their their stuff too. Right? So when these things go live on on Linkedin, for instance, again, the lines of business podcast. But my guests are are entice to share it on their. Work. So I'm getting the benefit of all of my network plus all of their network So I'm stealing my guest network as all of these episodes come off. So then I get

Arjun Sundararajan: Right.

Aaron Crow: every time a podcast releases, I get fifty new connections and and all these different people that have never heard of me before that are now listening to me. They heard this podcast because they locked my guest. So now they know who I am, and now they're going back and listen to old podcast episodes and now they're reaching out to me for and interacting with me on social media. So every week, I'm gaining listeners to the show. I'm gaining, you know, influence on social media, all those things are just benefits that I have by just continuing to have value and throw value into into the ether of of this podcast world.

Arjun Sundararajan: I really like that. I mean, I I think you have a... Obviously, this processes evolved over time from, like, you starting to editing, to, like, finding out what are the more difficult parts and, like, telling to outsource. And I really like your post episode distribution strategy and, like, leveraging and serves of like, getting the brand credibility of your speakers and make sort of by transferring that to you as well. I love all. I mean, this is this is great.