89. From Strategy to Action: How to Execute Your Podcasting Goals with Precision

00:00:00
Hello, and welcome to part three of the three part Deirdre's Creatively Tapped Out series of the Grow my Podcast Show. Yes. If you don't know me by now, my name is Deirdre Tshien and co-founder of Capsho. And this is Bona Rai. Hello.

00:00:17
Okay, so you didn't want to go for the soldier? No. Right, okay. So if you've been following along, you would know that when I'm Creatively Tapped Out just means a ramble conversation between Bona and I. And welcome to another one.

00:00:30
You're in for a treat. We're bringing extra rambles for this. Extra rambles? Yeah, because we're talking about implementation, which, of course, that makes sense, and specifically the implementation step that I bet you're missing. Skipping right past yeah, because Bonna ended last week's episode on this hook, and I was like, oh, we're going to open with this again.

00:00:48
Yes. And I do want to talk about what happens when we can well, okay. We say the implementation step, but there's actually, like, a few anyway. But there's one that you've been missing. Yeah, there's one that you've been missing, for sure.

00:01:02
The others are just unnecessary things that maybe you haven't been missing, but let's just recap on them, shall we? And so this has been a theme throughout this series, and probably more and more through this podcast, is all about the focus and being able to shut the noise down. And what I spoke to from two episodes ago was all about being able to when you know the strategy, you can put them into their component boxes or drawers, and then you shelve the should, which really means that you give yourself permission to ignore it for now, just ignore it now. There are a few caveats to that. One of them is unless your why your goals and your outcomes are changing.

00:01:46
Right. That's a big caveat, because we can never like, I'm all about stick to one path, but it's never at all costs. And I went into that even last week, where I was, like, wearing it on. It's up to you. Just do whatever you want.

00:01:58
So if you're confused, welcome. To my mind, it's called a paradox, but yeah. So basically, there's kind of like there's a strategy, which and the good thing about a strategy, when you start to really think about it, is that the things inside it get to be flexible. Yes. That's why I think last week's episode was all about do whatever you want, because that's the tactics become flexible within that overall strategy.

00:02:22
It's like when you have a really solid plan and real life happens. The strength of the plan is in its ability to flex to real life. Yes, exactly. It's really wise. I don't know.

00:02:31
I can't help it. Let's just end the episode there, shall we? Because everything I say from there will just be going we'll be going downhill for sure. You hit the pinnacle with the shelve the shirt. Oh, that's episode one of this.

00:02:41
Yeah, I peaked early. Okay. Why this is important is because, yes, we need to focus. We need to shut the noise out, but that does not mean that it's at all costs. But I do want to give an example of what happens when we focus really well and we do shut the noise out.

00:03:01
And I'm going to be having Laquita on this podcast in a few weeks time. She's actually a Capsho, and it was amazing because we met her at a Podfest meetup here in Austin, and she was so lovely. I think she was super excited to meet us because she's been a Capsho. She'd never met us in person before, so it was so cool. She's the best.

00:03:20
Hi, Lacrita. And we were I think you were having a really deep conversation with her about what it was that she was doing. And she was talking about some phenomenal results that she was getting with her podcast. And it really came down to, I'm sure she's doing other things, but really, by and large, it came down to because of the fact that she was focusing on one thing, which was her blog post. Her blogging.

00:03:44
Right. She followed the strategy of record a podcast episode, put it into Captcho, create a blog post, but she wasn't stopping there. And this is where, again, like how last episode, we said this strategy under each tactic. Let's say the tactic itself is blogging. Now, there's a few ways, there's a few strategies.

00:04:02
Even within that, some people might just be like, okay, how do I just optimize for SEO on the blog part? And yes, that's one. And there's a full strategy that goes into that. She took it a step further to be like her strategy was, how can she actually amplify that blog post and adjacent blog posts because she was using Capsho to create more than one blog post. How does she leverage other distribution platforms to do that?

00:04:27
Which in and of itself is a strategy? Because she's on the likes of Medium and Substack, I think, and other military because she talks to military spouses. Other military spouses. That's right. Other military based blog platforms.

00:04:41
Yeah. And so there was a whole strategy that she was going into. So we'll have her go into detail about that in a few weeks time on this podcast. But the great thing is, because she was focusing on blogging as her thing, as her tactic, she got great results, which is, that's what we want. Right.

00:05:02
That's our why that's our goal outcome. And that's why focusing is so important. Yeah. And the great thing about what Laquita shared with us, even on that evening and on the podcast, too, I'm sure, is that she did that step to a point where she was like, I love you guys. And obviously with our Captrovians, we share a lot of educational resources, challenges and things like that.

00:05:20
I love that they're there when I'm ready. But if I haven't come to this thing or haven't seemed like I've been engaged, it's not you guys. I'm really focused on doing this, and once that's good, I'm going to move on to the next thing. And I thought, wow, that's awesome, we can learn from you. Which is why she's been able to have, to your point, the success with blogging because she has been able to shut out the noise so that there's room for insight.

00:05:41
Yes. Now, this is probably the part that I think this is the implementation step that you're missing. And we say that like, oh, drama. But it's actually not. I mean, I think we all know this, but I think there's a nuance in this that we're going to call out.

00:05:56
And so this step is which is not the thing that you're missing because I'm sure that you're doing this, but it's find the help that you need. But it's more like in the how. And I'd really like you to talk to this, actually, Bonner, because I think when we were talking about this episode, you raised this as a big part that even for you was a recent AHA moment. Even though we've known for a long time that you need to find the help, we've had many coaches in the past. Totally.

00:06:23
We've invested in ourselves a lot. As I said in the first episode, I've consumed a lot of things more than my fish. We've found help. But I think I'd really like for you to talk to your AHA moment around this. Yeah, for sure.

00:06:38
I think that's right. If you're not asking for help, that's number one. Go back to doing that because I know that can be difficult for a lot of people and you put a lot on yourself to figure it all out yourself. So that's definitely a key step. But if you are someone who is open, who's coachable to your point, maybe to a fault, and that's where you're falling over.

00:06:54
The nuance that I found here that we were missing as people who were super open to learning from other people, was that we would get a lot of strategy help. And that's important. Definitely not. But it was like, in a way we overweighted on that because as in our team, because that's like your thing, right? You employ that.

00:07:11
Yeah. And you're really good at it. Give me strategy any day. Don't tell me the how, just give me the what, though. I'm like I love it.

00:07:20
You love it, and that's great. But I think where we would get to is and this is where it's like but how do you take intelligent action on intelligence, right? If you kind of broadly boil it down, the strategy is the intelligence. Like it's the mind part of what you're doing. But how does the mind talk to the hands and the legs and the feet and all the things that you need, the heart, and it needs to be pumping at the right for optimal performance.

00:07:42
And that what ended up happening, at least in our case, and I see this happen with all entrepreneurs as well, is cool. We've got this really great, awesome for that intelligent intelligence. But we're not taking intelligent action because we're skipping the step where it's like, okay, given that, how do we actually execute in a way in that same seat? You need the advice specifically maybe on the tactic that you're trying to employ. Right.

00:08:05
So I feel like a lot of it is like, then you take it upon yourself to join the dots and you kind of do it. And definitely my bias used to be, okay, cool, that because I'm quite conceptual too, and that strategy makes a lot of sense to me. You do this and then yeah, and it all comes together here. Awesome. Now we'll just implement that whole thing.

00:08:22
But the thing is, you really need the step to translate what that looks like in the real world, right. And the sequence. So it's kind of like social media marketing whilst just a little tactic over here in this grand plan for world domination. There is a real strategy there and some real pitfalls in terms of like, if you're first starting out or you've done it for a while, whatever that is to really watch out for and really translate what that means for you in this moment. And that could be cool, that's part of the grand plan.

00:08:51
But it's going to kick in next quarter for us, or maybe not for a while. And that's okay. Just completely miss that step thing. So it's just taking it upon yourself to go, I'm just going to implement this myself. Now, you still have to do the doing.

00:09:03
No one's going to come in and save you. We talked about even team members. They're still going to need you to be like, hey, do this at this time until they grow into the role. But whoever is the implementation arm, the hands and the legs, they still need to know in which parts of the intelligence to consume and do when. So really, I think the change for us has been taking that pressure off firstly, but having that next level of engagement with people who are masters in each tactic.

00:09:31
They're strategic masters of each and they have tactics within their strategy. Let's not get into the semantics there. But it's like, cool. Now I can go to this person for this part because I know I've got the big picture, like you said, I know which drawer I'm opening because I'm happy to open that drawer. And in that drawer is an expert who owns that space.

00:09:50
And now that I know where it all fits in, I can have a very open discussion with them that's going to be really helpful for me to implement, to go given all of this now, how do I implement in a really specific way for the outcome that I want? Yeah, so for example, we lean on our own and we call it almost an advisory board. Right. This is kind of like your implementation advisory board in a way. And we lean on many, obviously, many of which are actually going to be speaking at Capsho's live.

00:10:16
So you will actually be able to leverage our own advisory board to create your own advisory board if you wanted to. So one is Katie Brinkley. So she is our social media expert and she consults to us about how it is that we need to implement the strategy for the tactic as part of our strategy. Yes, because that's the thing. I'll go the other way.

00:10:41
So the strategy is obviously traffic pyramid. Within that, there's the bottom two tiers, I would say more so pulling the second tier, but like the bottom two tiers of organic marketing, passive and active within that is a tactic of for us, LinkedIn and Facebook. Those are the two channels that we focus on. And so Katie consults to us to be like, okay, so in this for that tactic, this is now the strategy that you're going to follow. And we're like, okay, cool, we're doing the doing.

00:11:11
But she's pretty much like telling us as the expert what it is that we need to do to get results. Same with Facebook. And so you're right, because I think before what we were doing was like, oh, okay, Facebook and LinkedIn are going to be the thing. So let's just I don't just we'll just do it post something. Exactly.

00:11:30
Exactly. I think there's too much of a again, it's we're being strategic in our planning and we're being not so strategic in our implementation. And I think sometimes those things are looked as two different things. Strategy needs to be planned with action in mind, and action needs to take into account strategy. A lot of the time they can be disconnected.

00:11:49
And I think this is the part where to take that extra step. And by the way, it's not about having ten coaches. By the way, this is the whole difference between just listening to ten different people, having ten different people telling you what to do in your head, to going it's really just the few. Sorry. It's really knowing what the overall picture is and then choosing the few in the sequence that works for you.

00:12:09
Yes. So right now we're definitely working heavily with Katie until we really understand social media strategy for ourselves at this stage, for this business, because we understood it for a different business at a different stage. And then when we're ready, because we need to close the loop on YouTube because we've seen sort of DJ stops popping out every couple of days. We're like, we need to be on YouTube, but that's going to come. But again, we have JP, who's going to be the person again when we've done it in the past?

00:12:32
I'm like, yeah, you're on YouTube as well, and it's me making decisions around thumbnails. It shouldn't be. It could, but I'm not the expert. And we take on all of this implementation stress when really it's like understanding from JP the core principles around thumbnail design, and then it's implementing it, which takes the pressure off. So I think it's just the sequence and the number of voices you let in at a time in a way that you can fully focus on what they're saying.

00:12:57
Yes. Oh, that was a big one. I hope other people are hearing this and they're getting the distinction that we're trying to make because it's very subtle. Because when we're speaking about this and you mentioned, I was like, oh, my gosh, that is so true, and even rehearing it again, I'm like, yes, that is what we're doing. Which is very I'll probably fail at this a few times.

00:13:23
Again, it's knowing it and it's embodying it as two different things. But I think just speaking it out so that other people can hold you to account or you can hold each other to account is really important because we will slip into behaviors of thinking we know how to do it and we can move on to the next thing very quickly. If that's definitely my bias, or if you have a bias to stay kind of paralyzed on stuff, we will fall into that. But knowing, I think this will hopefully help. Yeah.

00:13:46
Awesome. That's so good. And then I guess the last piece that we should probably close this out with is then under that tactical strategy, under the strategy of the tactic, you then do need the tools and the systems to implement. So this is almost the final tactic layer. Yes.

00:14:06
So if you followed along since part one of the series, of this three part series, then you know that we start with our strategy, our overall strategy. That's our cupboard with all the drawers, and then we pull a drawer out. And that is a tactic. But that draw has its own strategy, which is what Bonham just spoke about, leveraging someone, like surrounding yourself with that advisory, your execution or implementation advisory board to help you with the tactical strategies. And then now under that, it's going to final layer of tactics, which is, okay, what are now the tools and the systems that I need to be putting in place to actually implement.

00:14:46
Yes. To be there to help with the hands and the legs and the doing of the thing. Yeah. I think a lot of us also, just on this point, a lot of us jump straight to the tool. I think that's also the problem.

00:14:56
And as someone as people who have a tool that we sell yeah, we see this so many times. Oh, my gosh. So many times. Yes. I'm glad you went, yes, keep going, please.

00:15:05
It's one thing to be I think we've said, oh, one mistake. We see people mistaken the tactic for the strategy. People mistake the tool for the strategy, and then they have a go at you and why the tool is not working in their imagined way. Anyway, let me not rant, but this is again, because it's a quick fix in our mind, but if you haven't gone through this process, we've just laid out the tool, as amazing as it may be, or the system or the process or the framework actually doesn't work. It doesn't help.

00:15:30
So I think if you have a tendency to do that, I don't know, pause your subscriptions or something and unless it's captcho, oh, of course. No, it's okay. We can be in a support group together. Exactly. So definitely head over to the show notes and leave me a message if you're finding yourself leaning on any and it doesn't look we were being glib about Capsho, but it can be any other tool that maybe just like really interrogate that and go, oh, this seems familiar.

00:15:55
Yes, maybe I am looking for this tool to be the answer to everything, to be the strategy for me. So if you're doing that, let us know and we can have a maybe we'll do another podcast episode about it. Yeah, but this is actually a really important thing because, by the way, we've done that, right? Oh, yeah. We speak from extreme intimate knowledge of the topic.

00:16:17
Yeah. But then being on the other side of it now, where we actually have created a tool, we've seen this. We're now on the other side where we're seeing other people and we're like, oh, it's all falling into place now. This is why we made exactly those same mistakes before. And we totally get it because it's so easy to do.

00:16:37
But hey, how do we now stop ourselves as really smart entrepreneurs from continuing to make that same mistake? And because if we cannot make those same mistakes, then we can actually get the results that we're looking for. Exactly. That's what it all comes down to. At the end of the day.

00:16:55
It's like, how do we get the results that we actually want? Exactly. And when you do it the right way, quotation marks. Because the right way is in following the process as opposed to any one way of doing it. Strategy.

00:17:09
Understand the strategy overall, the tactics. And then tools and systems can be extremely powerful when you go through it in the right order. Because then you're like, cool, I understand exactly what I'm doing, why, how I'm doing it, and now these things will help me either do it faster to a greater extent, whatever it is, but then that's where tools like capture can truly shine. Because you understand you have a roadmap, basically, that you're following. In the example that we've been following with Katie, she's explained social media.

00:17:38
Her strategy under the tactic of, say, LinkedIn and gone to the level of, hey, Bonner, like, this is what we would use polls for. This is what we would use. This is how you want to update the banner of your page and all of these really specific things. And then it's just finding the tools and systems that will help you do that. And that might be setting up the right team to make sure that they can do that.

00:17:57
It's just very simply right now, a system between you and I, we're the people. And then we're like, we don't need fancy posting software and all of these other tools yet because we just need to do this part of it. And sure, there may be a point in time we do need that or we may not, but sometimes it's so easy to just go to straight. We need that analytics tool to understand how social media is going to help us. And it's no, that's like the completely wrong way of thinking about it.

00:18:21
Yes. Wow, that's so powerful. And the cool thing is that even as we're talking, we've gone through this three part series, which was pretty, like, relatively off the cuff because it was the deidre is creatively tapped out. It wasn't very off the cuff. But more and more I'm realizing that this is what we need to go deeper into at Capsho.

00:18:44
We do. Yeah. So for anyone who hasn't heard about Capsho, or if you don't have your tickets, then I just don't know how to stress enough how important this event is going to be. Because it's not just an event. It's very intimate, designed to be because to the point of what we're saying today around you, build out your implementation advisory board.

00:19:04
We made it this intimate so that you can start to do that right. Like the speakers who are going to be on stage could be. They don't have to be, but they could be your advisory board, or at least parts of it, depending on what it is that you choose to prioritize. And it's designed to be intimate so that you can actually have deep conversations with them about that. This is not about here are these really cool speakers and they're wash them from apart.

00:19:28
Yeah, wash them from high and then they've chuffed off. No, they are there to serve you, and they're really excited to do that. And then apart from that is the reason why it's also not just an event is because we're going to get like super. We're going to be going through all these layers. We're going to start, obviously, strategically so that you have the full picture.

00:19:48
We're going to then go into what are those different tactics? And help you prioritize the ones that you want to focus on. Then we're going to go through, and each of the speakers are going to go through. Okay. For those tactics, what is the strategy?

00:20:00
What is the right strategy to actually get results for those tactics? Yes. And then under the strategies, what is the final tactic? Right, we're actually going to go through that. We'll probably give you a workbook, to be honest to us, so that at the end of those two days you're going to be able to know exactly for 2024 what that overarching strategy is.

00:20:19
So you have that cupboard, you can see it and you can show off the shards and you can be like, okay cool, I know where everything is, but I give myself permission to ignore those things. And then the things that you're not ignoring, you can be like, okay, I know what the strategy, I know what I need to do to get results here and I know who I need to go to help me get those results. This is so powerful. I just can't stress enough what you're going to get. I'm personally so excited to be learning from everyone at this event.

00:20:48
Even as we have these conversations, I keep learning myself. Yes. To be honest, things that I probably obviously because I'm talking, so I'm like, of course I know this stuff. But it's so important to be in a room with other people, have these conversations so that even you get these AHA moments where you're like, oh yeah, that's actually becomes really clear. That's what I meant to say, or that's what I've been thinking.

00:21:09
And now you've just helped me crystallize that. And that's what this room is for. So you've got to be there. Capshovians Live. So go to www.Capshovians.

00:21:17
C-A-P-S-H-O-V-I-A-N-S. Love it. Live. L-I-V-E all one word. Seriously, get your tickets.

00:21:26
And if you get your tickets now, by the way, you also if you've been thinking about going to Podfest, you also get a ticket to Podfest. So it's like a two for one. Why wouldn't you? And Podfest is right after the event. It's right after.

00:21:37
So you just roll straight into it and you'll see all the different tactics being spoken at Podfest. But you'll have now the strategy in mind. You'll just be like, this is this drawer over here. Let me just put it there. Oh, I'm super excited.

00:21:47
Let me lean into it 100%. And as an added bonus, actually, some of these principles we're talking about helping reduce overwhelm. Shelving the shoulds. We're starting to bake into Capsho as well. And a Capshovians Live is going to be the place where people get to see it, like what we've got planned.

00:22:05
Yeah. So we spoke about in the email where we spoke about the changes in our team and I mentioned next gen capture. Next gen we are going to be unveiling what it is. It's seriously going to blow your mind. It's been blowing other like we've done some testing, some UX testing, things like that.

00:22:22
And literally everyone that we've spoken to. I don't know, Bona, what's some of the feedback that we've been getting because we have been very hard on ourselves about where capture hasn't hit the mark and perpetuating some of this ADHD we've been talking about. And I think we've definitely spoken to people who've used current version of capture and people who are completely going to be completely new to next gen. And the key thing that's been coming through in terms of is they are completely it's very been very unexpected to them as to what else the platform is going to help with. And the most common noise I've heard is when they see what other than we're known for yes.

00:22:58
That we're doing, which is going and then they're like, this is going to be the game changing part. That's still cool, by the way, but this is going to be the part that's game changing. And we're not unveiling anything until capture events life. So if you want to be the first to know and be in on this, you've got to come to Capshovian's life, because that's when we're going to be unveiling what Capsho Next Gen is going to be all about and what it's going to look like. And we're partway through building it.

00:23:24
So it's happening. It's happening. Oh, my gosh. So exciting. So many things to look forward to.

00:23:29
So head over to Capshovianslive.com and get your tickets now and we will see you in Orlando in January. Get an in real life hug. That's priceless. My name is Deirdre Tshien. I'm Bona Rai.