How to Lose the Producer but Keep the Friendship

You've known a person for years, you've been best friends, and then they decided they wanted to help you with your podcast.

Here's some things you need to do to make sure you never lose your friendship.

Welcome to youo Podcast Consultant.

Small lessons with big Value.

With more than a decade of experience and millions of downloads, this hall of fame podcaster is a featured speaker, author, and mentor to thousands.

Now he wants to work with you.

He's your podcast consultant, Dave Jackson.

So I'm on Reddit and I see this post and it says, I've just started my podcast.

This time I will make it professional, improving equipment with guests.

I love it and I want to make a living from it.

I've improved as a creator, producer, editor, interviewer.

But my friend who helps me, not for free, because I do pay him with the production part, does not improve.

He continues to make basic mistakes, such as not taking care of the audio, not focusing well, not taking care of his frame.

His frame.

That's what he says.

Not even putting his phone on silent.

He is not interested in the world of creators, much less podcasts.

So he does not improve.

He does not misunderstand.

If you.

He.

Wait.

So he does not improve.

He does not misunderstand.

That's a double negative.

That means he understands.

Just for the record, if you see motivated and willing, but you are not up for the task.

I already had a convert, which again, is not a full sentence.

Anyway, if I'd already had a conversation with him in which I asked him to improve if he wants to be my producer, someone who just presses play and that's it.

That.

That doesn't work for me.

What should I do with my friend?

Is it convenient to look for someone else or just try it?

What do you think?

So this is where I will share a little story.

I had a friend of mine once that hired me and promised me the world.

Oh, if you can come work for me, we're going to do this and that.

You're going to end up certified, and you're going to get this and that and I'm going to pay you.

Yeah.

And none of that happened.

And I left my job for this.

And I was like, ooh, I've heard.

Never go to work for friends.

And so after a while, I was like, hey, remember when you promised me this and that and that and that, and then you're gonna pay for me to get certified?

None of that has happened.

Like, what's going on?

And he went, yeah, I had a plan for that.

And it fell through And I went, well, I moved over here for that and I'm not getting it, and I love you, buddy, but I'm out of here.

And he was not happy because he had paid me for about six months.

And in the meantime, we were kind of just working on plan B.

And all the money he paid me went out the window.

Although I never really got trained on much.

But anyway, this is what you want to do if you're going to have a friend of yours work together.

I talk about this all the time.

If it's a co host, then you need some sort of prenup, almost like you're getting married, so that everybody knows exactly what they're expected to do.

Exactly.

You will do this three times a week.

And then in there, put the criteria for being fired if you miss more than two episodes a year, you know, or three, or whatever, just put the criteria in.

You want to put this in for the worst case scenario.

And that way when you have this list, like on paper, like, we've all signed it kind of thing, then you can go, okay, remember when we started this and you said you were going to do this, this, that, this and that.

You're only doing one of those, not the other three, and you agreed you were going to do this.

So let's talk about this.

How can we make this so that you can hold up your end of the bargain or, you know, do you want to leave?

And what happens then is this is not, you're a horrible person and you lied.

It's simply, hey, you agreed to do this and you're not doing it.

Do you want to do it or should I find someone else Now?

Again, this doesn't always ensure that.

That your friendship will survive this rocky little hurdle.

But in my case, when I left, my friend was not happy.

But years later, we're fine.

It's, you know, it just needs time.

And he was probably mad at me, but probably more mad at himself that he tried this and then it didn't work.

And so you just want to make sure everything is clear.

Who's doing the social media, who's doing the recording, who's doing the editing.

And then if there is any money ever involved coming into the podcast, how is it split up and make sure everyone is aware of who does what, who gets what, and when you do this, I call this the awkward conversation.

When you have the awkward conversation once it's done, and again, if this is a Google Doc something, make sure you are all on the actual same page.

Once that's over, then you can get back to talking about what you love and recording your podcast.

But when I worked at Libsyn in tech support, it's one of the oldest.

What is the oldest podcast media host.

I would see this all the time where co hosts would basically break up and then it would just get really nasty.

And this is a way up front to say, this is what we expect from each other, and then you could move forward.

So I'll put a link in the show notes to a podcast prenup.

Yeah, there is such a thing.

And in the end, realize that it does take a mature person who's not holding up their end of the bargain to go, yeah, my bad, and turn it around.

Often, you know, life has changed, priorities have changed, and people no longer want to do the show, but they want to do it for you because you're friends.

And so again, by having a crystal clear list of this is what's expected of you when you don't do it.

You're doing it because of their performance, not because they're a bad person.

Blame it on their performance and you have a shot at saving your friendship.

Now, if you need help with other things in your podcast, you might be going, Dave, I don't even have a podcast yet.

Or I got a show and I'm trying to get it to grow.

Come over to schoolofpodcasting.com, use the coupon code listnr when you sign up for either a monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription, and we will get you going in the right direction so you avoid little things like this and hopefully keep your friendship.

I'm Dave Jackson.

I help podcasters.

It's what I do.

I've been doing it for 20 years and I can't wait to be your podcast consultant.