Podcasting Your Way Through The Coming Recession

It's not a question of if, but when the next big economic downturn hits, and it's a certainty that podcasting will be impacted when it does. So here are four things you need to do right now to survive the next crash.

Hello, and welcome to another podcast. Pontifications with me, Evo. Tara. I podcasted my way right through that 2008 financial crisis. Yeah. But don't think that I'm some sort of financial genius. I'm also the moron that bought a gigantic house. I couldn't afford at the height of the mortgage bubble. So no economic advice coming from me because clearly I can barely balance my checkbook.

Anyone balances checkbooks anymore. Evo. No. The topics I want to get into is surviving the coming recession for your podcast. Have more to do with positioning yourself now before it hits. Oh, and by the way, I'm not predicting this hits next week, next month. Now that not a prediction, not a prediction, just simply the ability to look backwards and say every 10 years or so we get in a recession, so there's going to be one coming and it's going to have some big implications.

So again, don't take advice from money from me, but you know, we're going to focus on things different than money. I mean, clearly, clearly if your podcasting efforts right now are propped up by money from other people, sponsors, advertisers, patrons. Big VC dollars. If that's your situation and you couldn't podcast without those monies.

Well, you know, economic downturns are problematic for you and, and I get it. So, and, and I'm not here to offer advice about that other than, you know, just like any good financial planner would tell you, you might want to have some money in reserve. If you're living hand to mouth with your podcast efforts and you just have the funds that come in each month and let you do the next month, Oh, that's kind of a problem.

You might want to put some money in reserve so that you can do it for a few more months when and if these troubles do actually hit. But again, I'm not here to offer advice in the financial sort. I am instead here to offer advice, practically things that you can do to prepare yourself for the coming crash.

And there are four things. I want you to think about and make sure you were doing. Number one, diversify your content. Kind of similar to the way you're supposed to diversify your financial portfolio. Diversify your content, diversify the content that you make. One, if your eggs are all in one basket, one podcast, you're doing, diversify that content.

Do other things. Do I mean make other podcasts? Yeah, probably. I do mean make other podcasts. You can probably do that relatively straight forward. You know how to make one. I mean, I'm doing a show four times the show that puts episodes out four times a week. I have other podcasting projects you likely can too.

The reason to diversify your podcasting content is, well, the reason that you diversify a portfolio. When the recession comes, it's going to hit different shows. Disproportionately it will not be even so the more different things you are doing in podcasting, whether that's hosting your own show or whether that's doing some work for other people or offering some strategic services, whatever.

Diversify the content you produce so that you can have a better chance that one or more of those won't be as negatively impacted when the recession hits. Number two, diversify. No, not diversify. Differentiate your content. I don't know if you've looked, but there are a lot of podcasts out there now doing the exact same thing and almost the exact same style where the only difference is the person.

Claiming to be the host. When the recession hits, a lot of those are going to go away. A lot of those differentiated, those undifferentiated shows that all seem alike are going to drop away. Now, on the surface, that sounds like a good thing because if instead of 3,152 entrepreneur interview shows, there are suddenly seven.

That's a big, big trap. Evo, you might, and yours is one of the seven that survives. You might think great. More chance of that show being there. I totally get that, but also understand something that differentiating your content is for the new wave of listeners that will be coming into the world of podcasts listening.

When the recession happens, it happened in 2008 we had a huge wave of new listeners come who were turning to podcast to do because they had free time on their hands, number one and number two, they were using it as a learning service. So I want you to start thinking about the content you can create that is different than what you're doing right now that other people are doing that might be supportive of that new wave of people who turn to podcast for alternate information.

A new way of doing things, learning, whatever it may be. Differentiate your content, so a, it might survive that calling, but also that you are making it attractive to new people. Doing new things with this new way that's going to bring a new opportunity. There'll be new things to talk about. I promise you that third thing, understand your stack.

That's the stack of how the whole process is done. If you're relying on other people, like my clients rely on me to do your podcasting. Remember when the recession hits, one or more of them will likely be impacted to the point where they're not doing that anymore. And if one of the cogs in your machine, one of the links in your chain pick your metaphor isn't available, thanks to that recession and the impact it's made, what are you going to do?

Can you quickly recover from that? Can you plug another thing into the chain? Can you be the chain that link that cog for awhile until someone else comes along? The only way you'll know that is by digging in and understanding your stack, how the whole thing comes together. Again, you don't need him to know necessarily how to do everything, but you need to understand all the processes for when you know the bad things happen.

And the final tip I have for you. Is start networking now, network with other podcasters, network with other podcast hosting companies, network with other businesses that are in your same city, in your same industry. Do whatever you can to start networking. Now, one of the biggest takeaways from the 2008 recession.

One of the biggest regrets, I guess from the 2008 recession with these people who got hit completely unaware and didn't have their network built, and they had the started over from scratch without access to their work email anymore without that Rolodex that they left on their desk. We had Rolodexes to in 2008 yeah, totally.

So start building that network. Now start making connections. Get out of your podcasting bubble that you have created for yourself and make sure you've got lifelines out to other people because who knows what might happen. They might get hit first and need your help. You might get hit first and need their help.

You might all act as an early warning system to say, Hey, things are happening. We need to react to this quickly so that we're not negatively impacted, or we limit the risk as much as we possibly can. Begin your networking now. And remember, it's not a question of if the next recession's coming. So quieter question of when I'm not here to predict it.

I'm not here to say it's coming next week. I'm just saying that if you want to survive the next recession and you want to podcast your way through it, those four tips will help you get there. Now three things. If you could real quickly, and I'll let you go. One, go to buy me a coffee.com/evo Tara so I can start patting my, Oh, no, no, no.

It helps me keep the show going because I know people care enough about it to support the program financially, even if it's, you know, a couple of bucks a month. Simple. Also rate this podcast.com/pod Ponte, thanks to the people that have been using that. I love it. It's a cool system. It's the easiest way to rate any show rate.

this1@ratethispodcast.com slash pod pond. And finally, if you're in business and you need help with your podcast or wondering what a recession does to your podcasting efforts, well, let me come in. And talk with your folks and find out what we can do about that. Get in touch with me, evo@podcastlaunchdotproorgotosimplermedia.pro to see a list of the services we are currently offering clients.

I'm off on Friday, so have a great weekend. I will be back here on Monday with another podcast on vacations. Cheers.

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