13 Questions to Ask a Podcast Production Company Before You Hire Them

Unless you’re overburdened with free time and a desire to learn a variety of new, highly specific skills or have a team member with the time, interest, and aptitude, starting a podcast for your company usually means hiring a third-party service provider.

You’ve got a lot of options for what that relationship can look like. There are solo providers like editors and promoters, podcast coaches and consultants, full-service production agencies, training companies, niche-specific agencies, and recording studios with in-house production—all with their own spectrum of price, quality, and capacity.

As you know, hiring a third-party provider can be such a thing. When hiring for a podcast, it’s also fairly high-risk; your show needs to reflect well on your company and help you achieve important goals, and the provider you choose to work with needs to be reliable and produce high-quality work.

When you work with a great one, then creating your podcast is going to be a really pleasant part of your workflow. You’ll get to focus on creating interesting and valuable content and won’t have to do much else while the benefits to your business stack up. But when you end up with a less than satisfactory one, it will be one heck of an expensive nightmare and time-suck.

Today, we’re talking about what information you should gather from the different providers you talk to when you’re exploring hiring help for your company’s podcast.

Listen to the episode or head on to https://podcastingforbusiness.com/71 and read the blog post!

Tune in to learn about:

• Considerations for hiring a third-party podcast production service.
• Questions to ask potential providers including success metrics, contract terms, ownership of episodes, handover points in the process, and support provided.
• Understanding the provider's workflow, turnaround time, and use of AI.
• Importance of trust and clear communication with the chosen provider.

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Before we start…

We published a version of this back in 2022 in our very first podcast season, and a lot has changed since then—the podcasting industry has exploded.

There are so many different kinds of providers and different technologies available to help or hurt your show, and generally, there's just a lot more noise you’ve got to cut through in order to make a great decision for your organization.

So, when you’re ready to take the plunge, or less happily, if you took the plunge and sank, then you should probably plan to talk to at least a couple of different providers; the types of services and prices for production can vary really widely.

If you have friends or colleagues who podcast, asking for recommendations is a fantastic way to get your starter list, and if you don't know anyone, join literally any podcast group on Facebook, post that you're looking for an editor, and be prepared to receive dozens and dozens of messages from people wanting to sell their services.

You will almost certainly find a decent fit within that horde of eager humans. (And you’re warmly invited to talk to us too!)

Once you’ve got your discovery calls booked, here’s what you should ask:

1. What does a successful podcast look like for your company?

2. Do you need a contract? What are your terms?

3. Who owns the life of an episode?

4. What are the handover points in the process, and where and how are information and content shared?

5. Is there any kind of coaching, feedback, or strategic help provided?

6. What is your turnaround from raw audio to finished episode?

7. Is your company utilizing AI? If so, how?

8. What assets do you provide?

9. Who is providing the service, and who are your points of contact?

10. If you're starting a new show, what is included in a launch? Follow-up: How long does the podcast launch take?

11. What type of editing does the firm do?

12. How long do their clients keep podcasting?

13. What do you do when there are problems?

Key Quotes

"When you work with a really great producer, production company or other kind of provider, then creating your podcast can be a really pleasant part of your workflow." - Megan Dougherty

"What does a successful podcast look like for your company? As a producer, this is one of my favorite questions to be asked because it means that someone is thinking seriously about how to evaluate the podcast as a marketing channel." - Megan Dougherty

Resources

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Podcasting for Business Conference 2023 Recordings

Learn about what other business podcasters are doing:

• State of Business Podcasting Report 2023

Related:

• Achieving Business Goals with Podcast Managers with Ted Cragg
• Should You Book a Podcast Studio? with JP Davidson
• Working with VAs for Your Podcast with Kristy Yoder

PFBCon 2023 Recordings

Whether you're a solopreneur, manager of a department, principal at a firm, or a non-fiction author ready to expand into audio, the Podcasting for Business Conference will help you leverage a podcast to meet your business objectives.

Missed PFBCon 2023? Check out the recordings!