What Mowing the Lawn has to do with Your Podcast Losing Money
If you’re in the northeast United States, you know you need to mow pretty much every week in the summer. Well recently due to rain, lack of child care, and travel, i didn’t get mow my lawn for nearly 3.
So one day, I set out to mow the very long, still kind of wet lawn. On top of that, I had to weed wack1, and take a hedge trimmer to some overgrown bushes. It was shaping up to be a big job. Something that normally takes an hour took basically all afternoon.
And because I was choosing yard work over billable work for my business, that afternoon cost me about $750.
Opportunity Cost
It was a big job. One my lawn mower couldn’t handle. Grass kept getting stuck in it. I kept having to stop and start. Weed wacking took forever. And I’ve never trimmed hedges before.
I could have paid someone far less to do faster. This is known in economics as opportunity cost. What was the cost of me choosing something I didn’t personally need to do vs. doing work that actually makes me money?
Most People Don’t See The Hidden Costs
If I hired someone to mow my lawn, they would have had better equipment to mow, weed wack, and hedge trim. They would have had more experience and therefore more skill to do the work quickly and efficiently. And they would not have charged more per hour than I charge, nor would it taken them as long.
But most people don’t see it that way. They strictly look at money in and money out. The lawn costs them nothing because no money came out of their bank account.
The people who do see this, and realize where they spend their time is directly relate to how their business grows, start to earn more.
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You Don’t Need to do Everything for Your Podcast
I know what your thinking: what does this have to do with podcasting?
Tell me if this sounds familiar: you have a great interview with a guest. Now it’s time to edit. You’re using software you’re still kind of learning. And this interview has a slightly different issue you haven’t seen before, so you’re watching YouTube videos on how to remove AC hum from your guest’s audio. You feel like you said “um” too much2 so you’re trying to remove some, but not all of them. You don’t want to sound unnatural.
Even though the interview was only 30 minutes, the edit takes 2 hours. That’s at least 3 other interviews you could have done.
Instead, you can hire an editor who, for less than $50, can do the full edit and send you back a file that sounds better than anything you’ve done.
And you need to ask yourself: Is your time worth $25/hr?
Free Up Your Time so You can Grow Your Podcast
The saying, “you gotta spend money to make money,” exists for a reason. In spending that $50, you’ve freed up your time to do more interviews. Now you have a month’s worth of content ready to go.
Instead of rushing each week to get an episode out the door, you can spend that time growing your audience by participating in Facebook groups answering relevant questions, and courting sponsors.
You can promote your show on social media.
You can turn your podcast from a money pit to a money maker.
Your Challenge
Hopefully at this point you’re thinking about opportunity cost. I want you to come up with 3 things you do for your podcast that you can hire out. THEN think about what you can do with the time you’ve freed up.
Let me know on Twitter, @jcasabona