So How much is that?

Welcome to Podcast Editors Mastermind. This is the business

podcast for you podcast editors out there. We started

as a small mastermind, what, 4 years ago almost

at this point, and now we share it with you guys. It's kinda

the thing about, like, it's it was like, what, in March of 2020? March of

2020. Well, our first episode was recorded in the hallway at

Podfest. Wow. Kinda nuts. But I'm Jennifer

Longworth with Bourbon Barrel Podcasting. And my cohost

today? Daniel Abendroth at

RothMedia.Audio. And not appearing are Bryan and

Carrie. Hopefully, they'll be back again with us soon. And we have a very

special guest today, Heather Zeitzwolfe. Heather,

unmute yourself and welcome to the program. Hey. Thank you. I I you

know,

like, probably Easter or something, but it looks like something out of,

like, Midsummer Night Dream. I I love it. Oh, there's Bryan. Bryan is

joining us in the comments today. He's not feeling well.

Unfortunately, he's still recovering from COVID. He's all good to go except a

cough, which, as you can imagine, trying to record an hour long podcast when

you have a tickle in your throat is probably not the best idea. So

he'll be joining us in chat,

though we do miss him on the show. And we welcome anyone to join us

in chat. We love to see questions, comments as we go along. Please

jump in and be part of the conversation. So our special guest, I'm

gonna give you the official bio here. Actually, I'm stealing it from your

LinkedIn profile. Oh, I don't know. I

haven't, but I don't know if I've updated that. It still sounds like you. It

says you are a creative, empathetic nerd who enjoys numbers.

Right? Yep. That hasn't changed. Right. She helps her clients understand their

finances so they can make empowered decisions in their business. Her approach

is nonjudgmental and shame free. She's not

your dad's accountant, unless your dad's accountant has funky

colored hair transforms tofu into delicious desserts and geeks out

on writing sketch comedy. Still you. Yep. That's still me.

All right. Right. Her passions include cooking amazing plant based

food, standing up for animal rights. This includes humans and helping

podcasters. So again, welcome to the show. Thank you.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. And if people were at

Podcast, you were the amazing closing keynote this

year telling us Thank you. The fairy tale of the

scope creep, which Yes. Basically was just

a message for Editor. And I felt very called out,

which is why you're on the podcast. Oh, well, you know, there was a lot

of juicy details that had to be cut out for time. And,

truth be told, I was scrambling to cut things before

coming on stage. That's why I was looking at my notes because

there was just so much to go over, and I had to cut a lot

of juicy good stuff. So I'm glad to be here to talk

further about this stuff. So give us a quick definition of scope

creep. Yeah. Scope creep. You know, it's one of those words that some people are

familiar with and other people have never even heard of scope

or scope creep. You know? And so I think it kinda just depends on the

type of business that you've worked for or, like, the type of

office or whatever. But scope creep can exist in pretty

much any kind of service industry. But with creative

people that are producing something, it can happen a lot

because the scope creep is this thing that comes in

where you end up doing things that were either

not what the client asked for, but you thought they

wanted it, or you're going above and beyond

more than they need the client, or the client asks

you to do extra things that you never intended to based on the

price that you came up with, or it can also

kind of flood into, like, not having the right communication with your

employees or your contractors where they understand

what you're getting paid for, so the company is getting paid for because a lot

of employees love to go above and beyond, or maybe

they're just dragging themselves and taking way too much time,

and then it blows your budget. So you can blow your budget either way.

So it can happen in all these different areas, so that's why we have to

look at how we're pricing ourselves, our contracts with our our

clients, and just having a real clear definition of

what it is that we intend to deliver and what they

want us to deliver. So one of the things you said when we were

talking about this about eliminating scope creep, because that's kind of what we

wanna do is starting with the right clients in the

first place and Exactly. Getting it a good understanding

of of the expectations and everything too. So

the most commonly asked question in the podcast editor group is how do I find

clients? But we also need to know how we find the right clients. So what

what's your insights on that? Yeah. You know, it's so so difficult

when you first start a business. You know, like, you're so eager to make money

because you gotta have cash coming in that, you know, tend to, like, just take

whoever or we may take our friends. And friends

could be a good relationship, but also friends may, like,

overstep their boundaries if you haven't really defined those

boundaries. They may also kind of expect a discount

or you feel obligated to give them a discount, and now you're

getting inundated with a bunch of work that maybe you're getting underpaid

for and you're maybe over delivering. So, friends, it's

a great way to kinda start your business off, especially if you're just kinda dipping

your toe into something and maybe you give them the friend's price or whatever. But

let them know this is not always gonna be the price and I'm doing you

a solid. So there's that. It can ruin a friendship

too. I talked about this in my presentation, the friendship thing.

And then the other thing is, like, looking for clients. So

probably you're gonna look within your network that you already are

surrounded with. So, Jennifer, you're in Kentucky. So you said

you've gotten some local clients, so you're looking in your local community. You meet people

in your local community, but are they going to be the right

fit for you? You know, it's a lot of it is just having really

good conversations with people and not being so eager to just take on a

client. And, again, granted, if you need money coming in, you're

gonna just take somebody, but you may decide later on, like,

maybe this isn't the right client for me. So have things in

place where you can evaluate, like, is this client the right

fit for me? Maybe I should get other clients,

and I believe that's probably something we're gonna talk about later on. It's kind of

looking to see who is the right fit clients. Yeah. I know

after I'm into it who's not a good fit.

Yeah. So once you start to get that data of, like, you know what

makes not a good fit, like, start writing those things down. And then when you

have, like, they call it discovery calls or whatever you wanna call it,

You know, start to ask them questions to kind of vet these things out.

What are some problems that you encounter, Jennifer? Like, late payments or,

like, delivering stuff to you too late or what a

It's Divas. Oh. Okay. So the, like, the high

maintenance, that sort of thing. That I'm expected to drop

everything and fix their show right now. And I've

lost 2 clients because they were divas, and I'm like, see you. Don't let the

door hit you on the way out. You know? Yeah. So

maybe you have like a no diva policy or something in your business.

Like I have like a no jerks. Like, I'm not work working with any

jerks. When I first started my business, I had a jerk. And I was like

I thought to myself, wait a minute. This is the whole reason why I started

a business to begin with is I don't have to take jerks anymore. Mhmm. So

maybe just let them know, like, in the scope of it, these are the

parameters of when you can, you know, ask me to do things. This is

the hours that I work, and then you can define it. And if they are

a diva and, you know, you can just say, like, hey, this was in the

contract that we agreed on, and I would just clearly define that.

But some people are still gonna be divas regardless. Right. You know? So I always

have this thing where at the end of the year, I look at, like, how

much clients paid me through the year. You know, if you track things like in

QuickBooks or, you know, some some way that you could track the invoices of your

clients, you could see, like, okay, which ones were, like, the the highest

paying ones. And then you can kind of rate them on, like,

pain in the butt client versus easygoing, always

on time, pays on time. And then you can factor

in, like, a pain in the butt fee if you really wanna keep them on.

You know? That's what I do. Yeah. I was telling my kid about that last

night when I was, you know, complaining about somebody. I was like, yeah. I need

the pain in the butt fee. Do you put that item line on

your invoices pain in the butt? But I put it on my calculation. It's in

my sales spreadsheet when I'm calculating the price. I put it in a little buffer

in there. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing is, like, if you find that certain

clients like, if you've got prices for things and you know that,

like, some clients are gonna ask for a little bit more and but

you don't know yet if they're going to ask you for those little bit more

types of things. Maybe just put in, like, a 10%, 20% buffer

of, like, time and and payment, you know, just to make up for

the the pain in the butt potential. Pain in the butt

potential. Mhmm. And then you just start working that in.

Or, you know, the first time you work with them have, like, an onboarding fee

and, like, kind of onboard go through the onboarding producer, and then

maybe you'll find from that isn't just not a good fit. I don't know. That's

true. It's like a probationary time, you know, where they're

filling you out and you're filling them out. But well, Bryan's not here, but he

has a question in the comments. Okay. Is there a common

driver between those who most often ignore their own

boundaries and step endoscope creep? Oh, that's a good

question. Yeah. I mean, I think that a lot of times it's just

that people just don't know because we haven't set any boundaries.

So I'm one of those people, like, if I get an idea in my head,

I'm just gonna text the person that's involved with it. Like, I don't even think

about, is it 2 in the morning? Is it the weekend? Like, the ideas popped

in my head and I just send it. And it's not like I don't respect

their boundaries. It's just like that's my thought. But I know people, like, put

things on their phone where it's like do not disturb and all that kind of

stuff. And then when I see that, I'm like, oh, they probably don't want me

to contact them. So, you know, let people know. I mean, it could be good

natured, like mine is. I'm not trying to I'm not trying to be a diva.

I'm just like ideas come into my head. I oftentimes have very little boundaries.

Like, I just let let people contact me anytime they want. So you

just have to to let them know, like, hey, I'm with my kids

3 days a week. Don't bother me during this time or something. But as

far as, like, what kind of people? I'm not really sure. I

mean, high maintenance people, I guess. Or really, really low

maintenance people who don't think about boundaries like me.

Yeah. I know I've run into, like, acquiescing too much

because, like, I have my email, you know, linked to my phone. So whenever I

get an email, like, 7 or 8 at night, it's like, I feel like that

urge to, like, respond right away and would, like,

take care of it. But it's not, like, stop myself and be, like, this can

wait until the morning. Yeah. And then once you once you set that standard,

if you do respond quickly, which I do oftentimes, then you've

set that expectation now forever. And so then when you don't respond

quickly, they're like, hey. Yeah. What happened? And maybe you just

say, hey. You know, I'm getting back to you right away on this because we're

we're first starting out together. But in the future, there's gonna be maybe

a 24 hour turnaround. You know? So let's say you

are working with a client, scope creep is happening. You figure

out, like, down the road, they're not a right fit. Like, I guess, what do

you determine is, like, not the right fit? And then how do you

proceed to essentially, like, fire your client? Like, what is your strategy there?

Because for me, it's like well, the one thing I struggle with is, like, I

guess, like, coming from, like, a scarcity mindset is, like, I don't wanna fire

this client because now I'm making less money. Mhmm.

And, like, that feels icky. But then also, like, the process

having that conversation of, like, we're not a good fit. Goodbye.

Yeah. Well, if you don't like that uncomfortable conversation, raise your rates.

That's even worse. But it was

seriously, though, if it's just not working out, maybe find somebody that would be

a better fit for them. Mhmm. I mean, do you work with

mainly, like, one industry? Like, I know some people are like,

oh, I only work with lawyers or, you know, with doctors, you know, whatever.

And they kinda know the expectations of those, you know, people that are,

like, are in that same industry usually have the same kind of tendencies.

But if you've got a whole wide range of clients, it may make it a

little bit more difficult. But you're saying, like, you've gotta pay the bills and

stuff. You gotta weigh that, like, the pros and cons of, like, if I let

this person go, okay, maybe my stress level is gonna go down, my

health is gonna be better. I won't be working such long hours. Yeah. I'll be

get paid less, but I won't have all those awful things. So,

you know, that is part of business, but I'd find somebody else for them.

Like, give them, like, 3 recommendations of other people that they could work with maybe,

but or raise rates. Yeah. Yeah. I think

I had, like, a a while ago or something that that like, it's always in

my head. It's, like, if there's something you don't wanna do or somebody don't wanna

work with, give them like a really high number because either one, they don't wanna

work with you and problem solved or 2, they do, but at least you're getting

well compensated for the discomfort. And I

tried to break up with a scope creep client recently. I was like, you know

what? Maybe I'm not the one for you because I

have this day job. I can't drop everything during the week. And

they went, we'll fix it. Oh. We'll cater to you. And I

was like, well, drat. Hope you get one in.

Yeah. Well, so sometimes, you know, you just have to and things will probably

turn around for that person, I would imagine. Yeah. I mean, a lot of times,

it's just like setting the boundaries. But that whole presentation that I did,

it really all came down to, like, the contract. And, like, from the contract, set

the terms. And that way, they know what to expect. You

know what to expect. And when those things don't align, then you're

like, hey. You know what? I know you're in a rush for this. There's

gonna be an extra fee, you know, and then, you know, you're gonna get paid

more and maybe you have to bring in a contractor to help you with it,

but at least you're getting compensated for it. So let's

talk about that contract. Yeah. Is what it all comes

down to. My contract is kinda weak right now, and I know I need to

revamp it, especially since I'm bringing on new contractors and,

and things are, are changing in my little business. That's not a one

woman show anymore. I'm like, oh, maybe need to consider

this. So when drawing up a new contract, what

are some things I need to be considering? What do I need to think of?

Okay. So if you are thinking that you're gonna outsource some of this work,

you'll wanna think about okay. It's different if you're doing the work and it's

going directly to you, but now you're bringing out somebody else, you have to pay

them. It's gotta be something that I mean, unless you're, like, sending it overseas or

something, you're gonna be paying a decent rate. Right? So then there's gotta be some

kind of markup for that. Again, in my presentation, like, I talked about,

like, rather than paying by the hour, maybe pay by the project.

Definitely. And so if you do pay by have them pay by the project, the

client should also be paying by the project, like, within a

certain scope. So that way you have expectations of, like,

okay. I know, like, every time I do this show for this person,

if it's x amount of length or whatever, I'm gonna pay my

contractor this, and I always know that I'm gonna make this percentage. And that

way, you know, you've covering all your costs. So I would make sure, like,

think about, like, okay. Am I gonna pay a contractor to do this? How much

am I gonna pay them for this? And then what do I wanna have

left over? So figure out those pieces, and then you can

do some things to kind of, like, sweeten the deal of, like, having a little

extra things, you know, like, I talked about bundling your offer. Like, you

could have, like, a, you know, 3 tiered thing, or you could have

little I was gonna say hors d'oeuvres. That's not the word I'm thinking. A la

carte. A la carte. Yes. You can have some a la carte

type stuff that will be extra. But, again, thinking about, like, if it you have

to outsource it, how much is that gonna cost? So put together a

spreadsheet, or if you hate spreadsheets, put it just down on a piece of paper

and kind of figure out how much you wanna make. And, you know, you can

start with, like, how long it took you to to do this, what you wanna

make from it, what you were making before, and then you're gonna have to add

a little bit of buffer. So prices are probably gonna have to go up if

you are bringing on contractors. Oh, yeah. Prices are going

up. Watch out. Oh, we got a question. Is there

a typical upcharge that would help us be in an appropriate

range? Yeah. You know what? It really depends on a

lot of your overhead. Oh, wait. I, enough to cover

the admin, but not so much as to be gouging.

Yeah. Okay. So, you know, the thing with our business is it kinda all starts

with if this is not a side hustle, if this is our bread and butter

business, right, this is our main gig, we need to be able to pay our

bills. Right? So we need to look at, like, what is our budget

for our personal life? And then how much do we need to make in

our business to cover that? Because, hopefully, our business is

gonna cover that. And then how much extra do we want? So we

can kinda start from there and kind of backtrack. Like, how many clients do I

wanna take on? How much do they need to how much would they have to

pay if for me to make the money that I wanna make? And you can

kinda back into it that way and start to figure, like, okay. If I'm

gonna have 10 clients and they're each, you know, spending

I'm just making things up. A 1,000 a month. Okay. Are you

making a 1,000, or is that, is that, like, net of all your costs,

or is that before all the costs? Like, is that the sales price? So you

gotta have to think about both. Like, what do I wanna charge them? What do

I wanna keep in my pocket? So I'd start with, what do I wanna keep

in my pocket and back backtrack? And you'll find that that's a

scary number. Like, you think like, oh, yeah. I wanna make, like, 200,000

net income. And then you, like, look and you're like, oh my god. I have

to, like, bring in $700,000 worth of,

you know, business. Then you're like, do I really wanna deal with that? Maybe

you don't wanna have certain services where the margins are

thinner. Maybe you wanna have things that have higher margins. So,

where you make more from that service. So you you kinda have to look

at the blend and the mix. That's why I like to have bundled services because

it's, you can, you know, put in some little extra things in there

that maybe are, like, recordings, you know, prerecorded

classes that you've done or something that you can offer them. Oh.

Something that's not gonna, like, take that like, you do it once, and

then you just give it to them. Like, you put together, like, a pitch deck.

I'm just making things up. Like, oh, you like to be on podcast. Okay. These

are great pitches that you can use to go on podcast, or maybe you've

done some research on different podcasts that would be great for them, and they could

buy this little book from you of, like, great podcast

to apply on. You know? I don't know. Mhmm. Something you just do once.

You know? Chap GPT it, you know, and then and then, you

know, and then you could put it as part of the bundle as, like, you

know, say, like, oh, this is normally, like, $700 or I don't know

what you're making, but, you know, so you can add it in. But I

like that because, like, initially, I what comes to mind is, like, okay. What can

I do that's worth a $1,000? It's like, okay. Well, I can, you know, show

notes, Francis, blah blah blah. Stuff that's, like, adds a lot more to your play

each episode. But the idea of having something that you create,

like, my wife and I, so we're, like, business partners in this ordeal.

Someone's been, like, on our to do list for years now is, like, a course

on, like, how to start a podcast or whatever. But just, like, have some sort

of, like, videos. Like, you put in a lot of effort upfront, but then

it adds to the value of your service without

adding work onto your plate for every client for every episode. I mean, as long

as it's something people want. Right. So you don't wanna go through all that effort.

I would, you know so before you do something I mean, check g g p

t, you know, so I'm not gonna take you long, but putting all the courses

together. But I would ask your stable of clients now. Is this something that

you'd be interested in? If so, like, how much do you think it's worth?

You know? And just ask around and put it in some podcasting

meetup groups or something and ask people, like because, I mean, it would be people

that are podcasting that would be interested in that. Right? So Right. You

get geared towards the people you're gonna edit shows for. So and maybe, like,

if you do stuff that's, like, like, just say it's, like, it's, like, the real

estate, I'm just making it. You know? You work with realtors or

something. Then you look into all the, like, the podcast that would be for, you

know, around real estate. And then maybe you find some good manager, and maybe it's

part of, like, helping them get on shows and it's already people that you already

know and it's not a big deal. You know? So So we talked a little

bit about the contract. So I get a contract. I figure

out how much I'm charging, but I gotta get

paid. Mhmm. How we get paid. Part of the

contract should have your payment terms in there. When you're doing

something like a podcast, you are You

don't want that to happen. Right? No. It sucks. Yeah. That would suck. You don't

want that to happen. Right? No. It sucks. Yes. That would

suck. And, you know, there are terrible people out there that

do stuff like that. And I've got a a client that works

in a creative field, and she was using

PayPal and I think Venmo.

And she would do the work, give them the deliverables, and they

would pay, but then they would take the payment back. Oh. And,

after she delivered it. And so they were just scamming her. You know? And it

wasn't that she delivered something bad. It was just they so you

wanna make sure that you when you're taking payment, it's through something that someone can't

take the payment back. Wow. I mean, it's it's different if you give them a

refund, but, you know, they can contest with PayPal or something like that.

So just be careful. Make sure that you get the payment up front if you

can. If you're, like, put them on a retainer, if that's a possibility where they

just get maybe they get a, like, a monthly invoice from you that,

you know, you have an agreement, like, you're gonna do 4 shows a month or

3 shows or whatever it is. And if they say, like, I can't afford this

now, maybe you just take a partial payment every week. But

before you give them the deliverable, make sure that they make the payment

because once you give them the deliverable even if it's friends. Oh my god. They're,

like, the worst. Oh. Because you, like, think, like, oh, I don't need a contract.

It's my friend. You know? Yeah. I've been burned by that. How,

like, ironclad does your contract need to be? Because one thing that I

struggle with is having just like, I'm

just turned off by the idea of, like, the legalese jargon and,

like, client, hitherto known as party a blah

blah blah agrees to the following term, but it's just like, ugh.

This makes me cringe. It's like, I want something simple that just

outlines what I need, but, also, I wanna make sure I'm protected. And I

think we sat down to do something simple. But by the time we actually

included, like, all the stuff we wanted to, it's, like, 8 pages. And now

I'm, like, oh, I hate it. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm not a lawyer, so I

can't really answer that. But I think Gordon Firemark, I

think he has something on his website that may or maybe he

has, like, something you could purchase from him. I'm not sure. Wanted specifically

for podcast editors. Oh, interesting. Oh. I

need to reach out to him about that. Alright, Gordon. That's something

he should draft. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I would just think

about, like, you know, if you're not into, like, the whole legal thing, I

mean, you want it to be something that they sign, that you both sign. I

mean, that's something you can take, like, a, you know, put it through

DocuSign. So it's, you know, can be a, electronic signature.

Again, I'm not a lawyer, but you could make some agreements through an email first

and then draft it up and then put it into a document of some sort

that they sign. So you can go kinda go back and forth with the terms,

so it's not like they're inundated by this, like, horrible thing. You know? You can

make it more casual at first and then just document the whole thing and then

have them sign it. But, yeah, I'm sure that there's

a gbt. I'm just taking a drink taking a

drink. No. Just I would think about, like, all the

deliverables that you do for clients, the areas where you, like,

you end up spending extra time, you know, like, is there a

buffer of, like, how many redos that you do? Like, I I would just, you

know, put in all the things where you feel like start to notice, like, oh

god. I feel like I'm going above and beyond here. And I'm just kinda go

back and look. Maybe look at some shows that you've editor and be like, oh

my god. Yeah. Oh, that was, you know what if there's, like,

sounds like the guy's got a lawnmower going on one side and you gotta deal

with that? Or, like, one time I interviewed somebody who was in a coffee shop,

and I'm like, oh god, why are you in a coffee shop? There's, like, so

much clanging and, you know, then it was terrible. So maybe just

have clear terms of, like, hey, you gotta be in a quiet okay. You know,

I don't know. Unless and just say, like, I gotta charge you extra. Yeah.

We need to have an upcharge for people who use Blue Yetis. Yes.

Thou shalt use a dynamic microphone or else I'm not editing your

show. No ifs, ands, or buts.

That's funny. So you had said freebies and incentives.

How do we leverage freebies and incentives, Heather? Okay. So

freebies and incentives. So that would be like, you know, we wanna try to

get in new clients. So if we're looking for leads, you mentioned like, hey. How

do we get clients? You know? We we can have some freebies, which

would be like a free download kinda thing. And, again, you could use, you know,

like well, maybe you don't wanna tell people how to edit it, or maybe you

make it look like it's so complicated people want it.

Look how hard this is. Don't you wanna hire me? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then

incentives would be like, hey. If you pay me for 3 months

worth of podcast upfront, I will give you

this deal, or I will, you know, throw in this extra thing

or, you know, something. You could, you know, give them a little something to

make them sweeten the deal. That that's what that is. So it may

be it doesn't, like, cost you much extra, but it sweetens the deal for

them. Maybe if they wanna pay you in increments because every time

you do a transaction, you know, there might be those transact extra transaction

fees. Say, like, hey. If you pay me in 6 months chunks,

oh, you know, reduce this by this amount for for that, you

know. That way you get the money upfront. Yeah. You can do things like that.

And then freebies, another freebie thing is, like, you guys could

put on events where podcasters get to come

on to Zoom and, like, podcasters meet you and they all get

to meet each other and, you know, this can be like a a networking group.

I mean, other people do that, and people love that kind of thing where they

get to network with other podcasters. So if if you start to be that person

that brings them in, then they're like, oh, and then by the way I add

it, you know, and then, okay, now they're gonna think of you. So, you know,

there's you you can get creative with it. That's an interesting idea of, like,

having almost kind of a podcast or mastermind or a meetup or something.

It's, like, come together and share ideas or ask questions and

get advice. I host 1 once a month.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You do it once a month. You can stream it. You

can also put on workshops. So, you know, again, maybe it's how to editor,

and then you just show them, hey. It's really you know, this is a lot

of work, and then they'll wanna hire you. So I'm sending a note to

my wife that we needed to, like, enter like, look at this. Yeah. Or

maybe it's why you need a podcast. Maybe that's better. Like Yeah. Do

a workshop on why you need a podcast, and then you can show them, like,

what your clients are doing. Like, you can show, like, the different shows that

you've been working on and how it's increased their sales or how

they've utilized it, how it's increased their

speaking. I don't know. Yeah. Whatever it's sent for them. Bryan's comment. We

say it's for the audience, but we're the ones taking notes. Hey. I brought Heather

on specifically because she called me out without knowing it at

Podfest. So, of course, we had to find out for ourselves. You know, it was

really funny. I had somebody contact me after my my speech, and she

was not an editor. She was a podcaster, and she

said, I I had to contact my editor right away

after your presentation because I felt so bad about all

the things I've been asking for. Oh, wow. Oh, I love that.

My biggest mistake lately that I'm fixing is being like,

oh, yeah. I can do that for you. Yeah. But now I'm adding I can

do that for you, and it costs this much more. Yeah. Yeah. You

know? I had that with, like, one of my first clients. It was, like, it

started out just editor, and it's, like, oh, I wanna start doing YouTube. Okay.

Sure. Well, not got charged extra, but not enough cause I didn't know what I

was doing. And I was like, hey. Could you, like, write a blur for the

for each episode? Oh, yeah. That's not much work. I can do that. Blah blah

blah. And then suddenly, I was spending 6 hours a week for a $100.

It's just like, okay. This is not working out. So one of the other

things you sent was look at your numbers and examine what went

right and what went wrong, then make projections for the future. So

I'm in a money class right now with our local chamber of commerce, and

I'm learning that I really don't know anything about this stuff.

So what are some basic how to look at your numbers and examine on

that, you know, talk to me like I'm 5 type thing. Okay.

Hopefully, you know, you're keeping things in, like, QuickBooks or some kind of bookkeeping

software. Maybe you're not. Maybe you, hopefully, you're keeping at least, like, an Excel.

No judgment if you're not keeping it at all. Hopefully, you got receipts and then

you add it up, you know, for tax time. But if you can do it

on a monthly basis, then you can kinda see how things are

going. Take a client that you feel like there was, like, a lot of extra

work there and kind of examine. Like, maybe when you first start with a

client, as much as I hate timing things, maybe you start timing things and

just see, like, how long is it taking you to do these things. I know

when I go to hire a contractor, every step that I'm gonna have them

do, I time myself doing that activity so I know

approximately how long it should take them? And then I can kind of figure

out by the hour that I'm paying them, or is it by the project? So,

again, whenever you can pay by the project, I'd rather do that. So kind of

examine each little piece and then go back and say, like, okay. What

were all the costs associated with me with this client

with this project? Did you have to buy, you know, new piece of

software? Did you have to learn a new piece of software? Did you have to,

like you were talking about YouTube. Like, now you're now all of a sudden, you're

having to do these, like, your thumbnails, you had to get software that did

that, and now it's taking extra time, like, all the extra little things,

and then figuring out, like, okay, if I did this, like, you can give

yourself an hourly rate or something, kind of look at and see, like, holy

crap. Did I only made, like, $5 an hour? Like, I mean, if you start

to look at all the stuff that goes into it and then

educating yourself and granted, you're gonna have that knowledge for later, but still, it

takes up time. You know, it's like, all that stuff goes into it. So

look at all the time that you spent and then put a

number attached to it, like an hourly rate or something. And just look look to

see, like, did I make any money off of this thing? Unless we're kind of

going back and and looking, we we may kinda have a gut instinct

about it, but we may not know, like, how bad it was or maybe it

was better than we expected. But then that gives us some data that we

can use for the future when we go to price something. So

we can make a standard, like, spreadsheet and try to figure, like, okay. If I

do show notes, I'm gonna charge this much. You know? And then but then

look and see, like, how long did it really take you to do those show

notes? Like, was it 5 manager, or was it, like, an hour? Do you

have a tool that you use to track your time? You know, there's so many

tools online to do that. I mean, you could even use your phone. But, I

mean, there's certain ones where you can, like, put in a client. I hate

timing things, so I I do too. But there's there's a lot of free

ones out there, and some of them have gone out of business. I don't even

wanna say what they are, but, like, I keep a lot of stuff in Notion.

Like, when I'm doing my podcast, like, everything is in there. So you

could depending on where you organize your stuff for your client, there may be a

timing tool. I don't know. What do you guys use to organize stuff for your

clients? I use Airtable. Okay. Do they have a timing thing in

there? I wonder. I currently use RescueTime because

I, like, tracks whatever software you're using. And so I kinda keep track of, like

Right. Oh, you're watching YouTube versus now now you're in

Reaper, so you're working blah blah blah. Mhmm. But it's just like it doesn't

track per project, so I don't know because I know, like, how long I'm working

and, like, being productive versus not. Mhmm. I used to use

toggl, t oggl, and you could, like, start as a timer.

So you put in, like, what I'm working on, you know, this client now,

start. And when you're done, you can stop it, then you get a report. Like,

my assistant uses that to keep track of whatever she's working on. Mhmm. And, like,

it be a report and everything. But my problem is I always forget to, like,

start and stop. And then I'm never, like, working on, like, one

client, like, one per thing consistently. So it's, like, okay. I'll

bring 3 shows into RX. Like, oh, I'm gonna work on

this one. Like Mhmm. Get this process going while that's running. I'm gonna do this.

And now it's just it may get convoluted. I need to, like

well, I really need to, like, do better at tracking and, like, focus for, you

know, a month and be diligent about tracking it and kinda see where I'm

at, but it's just I don't. Yeah. I mean, at least when you first bring

on a client or something and see unless you have, like, an extra fee for,

like, onboarding type stuff. But once you get in the groove of what it is

they're paying for, yeah, maybe time. I I know. I hate that too because I'm

Mhmm. I'm a multitasker. I work on, like, a bunch of things. But you could

be working on, like, bringing in something that's, like, it's generating the

transcript. So you can have that going, that time. Yeah. Is that still the time

for that? And then you could be working on email while that's still going and

or, you know, for another client and put that time. You could have double time.

I mean, it's still time. I mean Yeah. You still have to wait for it.

One of the other things you had also with we've talked about hiring contractors,

the difference between hiring contractors and actually hiring

employees. So there's a huge difference, and you just made a

face for those folks who are are listening later and can't see. I haven't made

an epic face over that of, oh my goodness. Don't make the wrong

decision here. With contractors, you know, it's gotta

like make the smell test for what a contractor is. And so

there's the IRS has their own standards of what a contractor is, and then each

state might have, like, California is very strict.

Mhmm. So you don't wanna you know, if you've got somebody working for you in

California and they're doing things that the smell test is

more like an employee, then you better have them on payroll. The thing with the

contractors, they had need to be invoicing you. They need to have their own

business separately. So, you know, it's like they invoice you.

And with contractors, they should be using their own tools,

making their own schedules. Like, there's, like, different parameters around

that. You're not giving them a laptop. I mean, I I'm sure, like, you can

probably have them log in to your software. You know? I'm not saying that

that's true for everybody. This is not tax advice.

You know, make sure that they kind of fit the parameters of what a

contractor is. It gets fuzzy in these creative worlds,

you know, I think people are probably acting more

like employees than contractors, but, you know, I oftentimes

see, he'll go to a website and I'll see people on the website

and it's like, this is my team. And I'm like, I thought they were supposed

to be contractors. Now they're showing up as your team on your website.

Like, that looks like an employee to me. So I'd be careful

about being, on the Internet with that kind of stuff where you're showing,

like, my team. And it's like, the IRS just does a

quick Google and they see that, and they're like, wait a minute. You don't have

any payroll. What's going on here? Not like they're doing that, but, you

know, I would be afraid of that. You know? Mhmm. The thing with an employee

is that you have to pay them their tax, payroll tax.

And so, you know, a lot of companies are trying to avoid payroll tax. So

that's why the IRS is so strict about this. And in California,

there's a lot of, like, employee protections and, like, they wanna make sure

everybody is okay, you know, paid correctly. And I'm not an expert in

California. For an employee that, you know, they've got you bring them on,

you hire them, there might be a set, like, as amount of

hours that you give them, they work in a certain

span of time, you know, like, from 9 to 5 or whatever it is

that you have them work. But you can look at on the, you you know,

on the Internet and see, like, what is the parameters for, like, a

contractor versus an employee. So, yeah, I would just be very careful.

But if you do do employees,

I definitely would use payroll software. Don't try

to, like, do it yourself. I've seen people try to do payroll

themselves, and you don't wanna mess around with payroll taxes,

like, no. Because you could find yourself in a world of hurt.

So I use Gusto. I have an affiliate link. If you wanna use it, you

get, like, a $100 or $200. It depends on when they when you sign somebody

up. So Cool. Yeah. Feel free to share that. Yeah. We'll put it in the

show notes. So if you anybody listening that wants to use that affiliate

link or honestly find any links we talk about or links to

work with or find more about Heather. Just check the show notes, podcast editors

mastermind.com, and you'll find it all there. I use wave.

Uh-huh. Yeah. Waveapps.com. It's free except you Yeah. Like, the

month what you pay is in transaction fees. Whenever somebody pays an invoice,

then they take a little cup of that. Super easy to use, and they do

offer payroll. I think it's $40 a month, and then it's, like,

$6 per employee, they kinda do it all

yourself, which is pretty nice. Never had to use it. I would imagine you could

set up your contractors through that too. And so they Yeah. You can file your

10.90 nines and everything through that. I did that 1 year, but it was

really frustrating because, obviously, around tax time, they

get really busy. And I made a mistake on the 10.99. Like, Like, hey. I

need to do revision, and it took, like, weeks before they finally get around

to it. And plus, like, you had to sign up for, like,

their payroll service. So, like, you're paying the $40 plus $6 per

person. And then after, like, that one year, it's like, you know what? I think

I use, it's like, 10.99 through text something.

Manager website, it's, like, $3 to file the 1099, so I said

that. But if I was doing payroll and, like, that would

totally, yeah, they can do the 10.99 filing and do all that

for you. Yeah. I would definitely use a cheaper software for that. Yes.

Made that mistake. 1 year, never again. I don't know if you ever listen to

our show, but towards the end of our show, we like to draw a card

from our pod decks. Oh. Deck of cards.

Okay. And has a random question on it. Now Okay.

I don't have the pod decks, but Bryan does, and I made him draw a

question before the show. He says, what's the

best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Oh, best piece of advice I've ever been

given. Oh, okay. This is one,

that I hold near and dear to me. I used

to volunteer for Big Brothers Big Sisters. Oh.

And I was matched with my little who

came from a home that was, like, poverty stricken. It was, like,

something that I've never witnessed before. And

the mom, some of the things that she did,

she wouldn't show up places. You know? It's like and I'm going through all this

effort to to be there for her little kid and, like, I

got her kid, like, all these, like, calendars and cute things, and then, like, and,

like, next time I'd come and they'd be in, like, in the garbage and, like,

just like all these. And then I knew that the the mom

couldn't pay rent, like, she was and, like, they were maybe gonna get

evicted and, like, but then she got some money and then she went and bought

toys for the kids. And I was just like and I'm like, oh my god.

Like, she's making all these bad choices. And this was my own judgment of,

like, what I thought what I would do differently. And I

was putting that those what I would expect her to act like

onto her. And I learned from talking to my

advisor at Big Brothers Big Sisters that, like, you can't expect people

to behave in the way that you behave. Like, they

have a background that's totally different. They're in a totally different situation.

There's all these different factors that are like, yeah. You're not walking in

the same shoes as this person, so you can't expect her to act the same

way that you would. And that was a very good

lesson because now when people act a way that I'm

like, god. Why are they acting that way? I'm like, well, you know what? I

don't know their whole backstory. I can't, you know, have any judgment

against the way that they act. That was a a great lesson. That was

quite a while ago now that I think of it. It was 17 years ago

or something. So So for me recently, it's,

it's yet to be determined if this was good advice. But, hey,

my business is growing. And I was in another mastermind group. They're like, well, you

have to raise your rates and hire people. Are you prepared to take on more

stuff? You're gonna have to raise your rates and hire people if you're gonna grow.

I'm like, okay. So we'll see what happens. So that's what I'm doing.

Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. If you wanna grow your business, unless you're

doing something that is passive where, you know, it's just you're

selling things while you sleep, if it's something like this where you're

producing something, yeah, you're gonna have to take on more people. And then

you take on that role of being more of, like, a manager of

manager and and CEO, the visionary. Right? Until you

can until you can hire a manager. Right. So, you know, a lot of times

people get into business because they like to do something like editing or, you know,

this is, like, fun for them. And then when they grow, they

find, oh my god. Now I have to, like, take care of a staff, and

now I gotta be a I gotta be a manager. Like, I don't like that.

I don't like hiring and firing and doing all these things. So sometimes

growth isn't made you know, it's not for everybody. Maybe it's just

like, you know, you just don't have one contractor. You know?

Everybody doesn't have to grow, but just depends. And then also,

when you do grow, that doesn't mean that you're not gonna have more money in

your pocket. That could mean that you actually are, like, you've got all these people

doing this stuff, but then if your profit margins

aren't a certain amount and your costs aren't a certain amount, you may end

up just taking home the same amount. Yeah. So it's wild that

you can have way more clients, and you're making the same

amount in net profit. Yeah. For me, it's,

imperfect action beats perfect inaction. Oh.

Better to do something, like, not ideal than

to wait and wait and wait to get it perfect, and then you end up

never doing it. Yeah. Nice. I use that with my clients all the time. Now

they're struggling to get started because they want it perfect. It's like, imperfect action

will beat it every time. Yeah. Well, yeah. And, you know, I I don't know

why. I mean, the one that I thought of of don't expect people to act

the same way Mhmm. I was like, well, how does this even tie into this?

And I'm like, oh, wait a minute. That is, like, with scope creep. It's like,

exactly. Like, you're expecting somebody to act a certain way or, like, behave a certain

way. Like, well, these are how all my clients, you know, treat me or this

is what I've always done, you know, but then they act a different way

and it's like so that's why we gotta make sure that's we have

clear Boundaries. Boundaries. Well, Heather, if people

wanna get in contact with you, the Radical Profit Fairy, as

you, sometimes call yourself, What's the best

way for us to connect with you? You can find me on

Instagram @getradbiz. That's probably the easiest

way to find me because my last name is kind of a a hard

one to spell. I know that feeling. But,

yeah, hit me up anywhere. You know, it's like, you know, you can find me

on LinkedIn. I'm barely on TikTok, but so

Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. You can send me an email

at heather@getradbiz dotcom. Yeah. Just contact

me and, you know, if you are interested in tax, bookkeeping,

or any kind of other kind of services, like, I do profit

advising. So this type of thing that we're talking about today, like, looking

at your business and, like, drilling down, like, if you don't wanna look at the

numbers, like, I will geek out on your numbers for you and look at the

data and we'll, you know, figure out some a good plan of attack for

you. Yeah. Love it. Well, Daniel, if someone wanted to be a

guest on our show, what would they need to do? They simply have to go

to podcasteditorsmastermind.com/beaguest, fill out the

form, and we will get in touch with you. And this is perfect for anybody

who, like Heather, is an expert and wants to share their knowledge and

expertise, or like me and are struggling

and want somebody to give them advice and expertise and to kind of soak it

all in. So if you are struggling with something and you want to mastermind

it and get advice from people that might have different experiences

than you, we love doing that as well. So

podcasteditorsmastermind.com/beaguest.

Alright. And this has been Podcast Editors Mastermind. I've been your host, Jennifer

Longworth. You can find me at BourbonBarrelPodcasting.com. My

cohost this evening has been? Daniel Abendroth, and you could find me

at RothMedia.Audio. And not joining us

live, but he was in the chat, Bryan Entzminger with Top

Tier Audio and also not joining us with Carrie Caulfield at

Carrie.Land. Heather, again, thank you so much for joining

us, and we'll keep in touch. Awesome. Thank you. Thank

you.

So How much is that?