The Easy Way To Make A Great Podcast

Podcasters are impressed when other podcasters make difficult tasks seem effortless. But generally speaking, the public cares more about quality than complexity. Sometimes the easier path is best.

Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.

I talk a lot about making podcasting better, not just easier. Heck, that's my mission statement, if, in fact, I have one. I think it's on all of my bios. But I'm a little concerned that the message I'm putting out there is "Don't do easy things." And that is not the message I'm putting out there. Because a lot of what we do as podcasters, that means behind the microphone like this, or also in the engineering thing, it should be easy.

Let's unpack this with one of my favorite tools of all times that's called a two-by-two grid. I'll describe it for you, but if you want to grab a pen and paper and make one of these, knock yourself out. So on the X-axis, that's the one that goes right to left, on the X-axis we're going to plot out things that are easy to hard with difficulty increasing over to the right. Makes sense.

On the Y-axis, that's the up and down axis, we're going to go from bad to good, with quality increasing across the time. So now I have difficulty right to left, quality up and down. Got it?

Now, when you do that, you will notice that your paper is now drawn into four, nice and neat quadrants. Hence, the two-by-two grid. Let's label these quadrants, if you will. Northwest, that's the upper left. Get my hands going right. In the upper left, we're going to call that one Staples, and I'll explain why in a minute. We'll come back to that in a minute. Staples. These are the things, in that upper left quadrant, that are good quality, but also pretty darn easy. They don't track over to the difficulty stage but they're also of good or great quality.

Northeast, right to the right of that, in the upper right-hand corner, we'll call this section Solo. I'll explain why in a minute. Again, quality is really good, but everything in here is a little difficult. It's not easy. It warranted being moved over to the difficult path. You have to struggle to get these things done.

Staying clockwise, going down, southeast corner, lower right corner that's Aspirational. These are difficult things that when you do them right now, really aren't all that great. You have room for improvement. Hence why we're calling these the Aspirational areas. Hard to do and they're not in the good sides of things yet.

Sliding around to the last quadrant, lower left, southwest corner, Inexcusable. These are easy things, but they sound terrible or they look terrible or they're just not good. Stop doing these. Hence the name Inexcusable. Okay.

So now, looking at this grid, either in our head or on the paper, what should we be working on other than no more Inexcusable? Right. We definitely want to do no more in that southwest quadrant. No more Inexcusable things. But where should you, as a podcaster, focus your efforts?

Obviously, Aspirationals are what you're going to think of right away. These are things that are hard to do and I'm not doing them great so I want to get better. You bet. But take small bites of these. Don't try and do everything in here. Whatever things you're doing, if they wind up in that quadrant and they're not good, well, yeah, you want to slightly try to make them better, but don't try and do everything all at once.

Now, above that's Solo. These are things right now that are difficult that sound really great, or that look really great, but are very difficult for you to do. Should you do more of these things? Probably not, in my opinion. And this is why I call them, this quadrant, the Solo quadrant because one, it's tiring for you to keep doing things that are hard to do, very difficult and of good quality. But also think about it from a solo from a musical performance.

Some people absolutely want to hear a seventeen-minute guitar solo. You bet they exist. But the vast majority of people don't have the patience or desire to sit through a technically proficient, extremely complex piece that goes on and on and on. And as their fan, they have their fans, they are there, but most people like, yeah, that's hard for me to listen to for a long period of time. So too, I say, for podcasting.

So instead that leaves the Staples quadrant. Why do I call them Staples? Well, it's like staples in your pantry. It's things you go to again and again and again. These are things where the quality is already good. It looks good. It sounds good. It is good. It works really well, but they're low-effort items.

Here's the secret. No one, other than maybe other pesky podcasters, but none of your regular normal humans listening to your show know these are low-effort things. And more importantly, they don't care. They genuinely do not care. They just know that the work that they're seeing, reading, consuming, interacting with from you is of good quality. Who cares that it's easy for you? They certainly don't.

Now, this is a really fun exercise to do on your own, but I think it's better when you do it with another podcaster. So share this episode with someone and then meet them somewhere virtually or in person socially. This is whatever you want to do. Draw your own two-by-two grids and then go through with the other person all the various tasks that you do during your podcasts.

I don't - again, not just behind mic and on a mixer, but also marketing and writing and ideation and all the other things that come out there. Work with them and find out where, how you can help that person put little things in your boxes and then they do the same for you.

Sharing the idea, share the love. It's a fun little group experience, and you'll find out where you have room for improvement and what more easy things you should be doing. Cause that's okay too. Don't be afraid of doing easy things when the quality is high.

Now, if you love this idea, please go to buymeacoffee.com/evoterra and buy me a virtual coffee to show me your love.

That's it. I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.

Cheers!