to manage a busy season with your kids, to focus on client
work, or simply to protect your mental capacity. Stepping away
from the microphone is a requirement for long-term
stability. The fear of losing hard-earned listeners, however,
may keep some of you from actually taking that step today.
I'm going to be sharing with you exactly how to plan a strategic
podcast sabbatical that protects your energy while keeping your
audience fully engaged while you take a break. Welcome to
Podcasting Unlocked, the show for purpose-driven podcasters.
I'm Alesia Galati, founder of Galati Media, and I'm here to
share actionable strategies to help you amplify your message
and grow your audience. Hey friends, it's Alesia. I'm so
glad you're here today. This one hits a little more close to home
because I am feeling this right now. I am in the thick of very
close to burnout, but I love round numbers, so I'm going to
get through to 300 and also considering you might be feeling
the exact same feelings, and maybe you don't want to stop
your podcast entirely, but you need a stinking break. How can
we make sure that we get that strategically set up for you
without making it feel like you are just throwing your podcast
away. Let's talk about the elephant in the room, which is
consistency. You've probably heard the phrase content is king
and consistency is queen. Well, you know my little take on that
is your capacity is the key to both of those. So often we have
this pressure that we have to show up constantly, that every
single piece of information that we are putting out into the
universe is brand new and exciting, or interesting, or
simply created recently, and that's not actually what we have
to do, even if you look at content creators who go on
maternity leave, a lot of those folks are batching their content
far enough ahead, so that way they can still keep showing up
while taking that step away. A sabbatical is going to be very
similar, so the first thing you want to do when you're creating
a strategic sabbatical is to start with how long you
realistically need, and I say realistically need because I'm
someone that will say, "Oh, I'll just take a week off and I'll be
fine. Usually I need more than a week, and so what does an actual
sabbatical, look like for you, is that a month, is that three
months, is it six months? You get to decide what that looks
like. So, first, going into what is that sabbatical realistically
look like for me, and what do I need next, going into planning
it, what time of year do I want this sabbatical to be? We don't
want you to get to the point where you need this break
tomorrow. You want to be able to have a plan ahead of time, so
even if it's three weeks out or if it's two months out, then
that at least gives you space right now to batch ahead or to
create a strategic plan. So, when do you want that to start
next? Going into communicating what exactly that might look
like, communicating that pause with your audience. Let your
audience know that you're taking a break. Sometimes that might
look like simply having a pre-roll at the beginning of
your podcast that says, hey, friends, we are on a break right
now, we are not releasing new episodes, you can expect me back
at this date, right? If you want to have a full official break
from your podcast, where you're not releasing new episodes, your
audience isn't getting new information from you again, you
get to decide what that looks like, but you can say, all
right, I'm going to have this pre-roll at the beginning that
says I'm taking this break, here are the episodes you should go
back and listen to, here's what I'm thinking about, I've created
playlists for you, whatever that kind of strategy looks like, in
that you want to make sure that you're giving your audience an
exact deadline of when you can be expected to come back. I do
this on my other podcast, we read smut. I take seasonal
breaks, so I do five months on, one month off, five months on,
one month off.
And in that last episode, it's always a solo episode. I let
folks know, hey, this is what's happening, here's what to
expect. We are on a break, and you can go back and listen to
past episodes. And here's when I'll be back. Now that I'm
thinking about it, it probably would have been a good idea to
have a pre-roll in my season break, saying, "Hey, we'll be
back on july 3, which is today, the day that I'm recording this.
We'll be back on july 3. And you can make sure that you listen to
past episodes. Here are some of my favorites. Be sure to go back
and listen to those to help you find some new authors or some
new content that you can read, and then that will help with
letting people know, no matter where they're listening in your
catalog, to know exactly when that new episode will be
dropping for your new season.
The same can go for that sabbatical. Another idea is that
maybe you want to fill this space with replays,
compilations, feed drops, or anything like that. So, to kind
of go through some of those examples, a compilation episode
is where you take a collection of past episodes, and you take
three to five minute clips from each one, compile it together.
Usually, there's a theme. I would recommend there be a
theme. Usually, there's a theme, and you can have some type of
script that you are vocally saying in between each of those
segments to kind of lead people and transition people from one
segment to the next on some overarching topic. You will see
an episode, the next episode after this one is a compilation
episode, so that's a great example if you're trying to get
a better idea of what that looks like. So you could have
compilation episodes going live, you could have direct replays,
maybe that is you have a new setup for that episode, but
you're simply just copying and pasting pretty much what you
said in the first one, and having that audio or video
playing in this new release. A feed drop is where you have an
episode from another podcast getting dropped into your
audience's feed, so it is on your podcast. So, for example,
after I take about a month break from this show, I want to use
this space to amplify other podcasters. What are they doing?
What kind of exciting things are they exploring? What are the
topics that are really impacting them, and introduce you guys to
some incredible podcasters that I've met over the last nine
years that I've been podcasting.
So, what I'm going to be doing is taking their whatever episode
that we agree makes the most sense for my audience and
highlights their expertise or their podcast in the best way, I
will record a quick little setup, and then we will kind of
mesh those together, my setup, my intro, and then here is that
podcast episode from the other podcast, and then end it with my
typical outro, and what this does is it allows my audience to
get exposure to new podcast, it would allow your audience to get
exposure to another podcast. If you are part of a podcast
network, or you are part of the Feminist Podcasters Collective,
that's the community that I'm part of, that I really enjoy
being in that space. And I'm excited to grab some feeds from
that community to have my feed drop, so you'll be able to see
those coming in September and October. So that is a feed drop.
You might want to do a mini feed drop, which is just releasing
the trailer of another podcast, just showcasing, hey, this is
what they're about. Here's this information.
Another option that we didn't discuss, but I think it's
definitely a great one, is like a feed drop, but instead of
highlighting just that podcast, you go and look at all of the
podcasts that you've been a guest on in the last year, two
years, three years, whichever ones are most relevant to your
current expertise, and ask them if you can have the original
video or audio or finalized audio or video from their
podcast episode where you are being interviewed as the guest,
then you can add in a quick setup, let people know what to
expect, and then it rolls right into their content, that is a
great way to continue to showcase your expertise without
having to create something brand new or rerecord a conversation
from a one-sided point of view, instead just be able to still
showcase that person's podcast while still showcasing your
expertise as well, so those are a few different ways that you
can do that. I think that what that does is it allows your
listeners to feel like you haven't forgotten them, like
you're still showing up for them. They have something to
listen to every Wednesday or Monday, or whenever you release
episodes, and that can really help with keeping the momentum
going, so when you come back, you're not starting from a lower
place of less listeners, because maybe people unsubscribed or
forgot about your podcast because you haven't released
anything in that time. Let's talk about setting some clear
calendar boundaries while you are on your sabbatical. Your
sabbatical is not going to be a time to. Take pitch meetings to
outline episodes to manage guest logistics in the background.
None of that. Truly take a step back from your podcast. Maybe
you write down some ideas. I'm not saying don't think about it
at all, but give yourself some space to explore what is it that
you want to create next? I think so often, especially as business
owners, we push ourselves to keep showing up, to keep talking
about the same thing over and over again, even if we're sick
of it, even if we're burnt out, and honestly, I think it can
lead to us feeling like our business is a chore when it
historically has never felt like that for us, and so, while
you're on the sabbatical, truly take that break, block off your
calendar if you need to, and use that time for what you really
want it for, whether that is high-level business strategy,
maybe you want to catch up on some reading, or maybe you just
want to be fully present with your family without all of the
other things that are pulling your attention and your time.
So, to recap, if you are deciding to take a sabbatical at
one, I'd love to hear about it, but make sure that you set that
clear timeline for yourself and your audience communicate what
that break is actually going to look like for them, automate as
much as you can, if that's having somebody else do the work
to compile those episodes, or to reach out to people that you've
been a guest on their podcast, whatever you need to do that
makes the most sense for your calendar to be able to batch
these ahead in a strategic and streamlined way. Add in that
pre-roll to let people know that things are changing, whatever
that might look like for you.
And then also make sure that you are setting those strict
boundaries with your calendar.
We want this to be a true sabbatical for you, so let's
make it happen, so your challenge is to open your
calendar right now, and I want you to look at the next six
months, and I want you to block out a minimum of two weeks for a
dedicated podcast pause. And again, that's not that you don't
have to release episodes during that time, you can batch ahead,
you can actually take a pause, you can do re-releases, a
compilation, you get to decide what that looks like for you,
but give yourself those two weeks, please, especially if
you're someone who is releasing on a weekly basis, and you do
not take seasonal breaks, and you do not give yourself that
space, or have not given yourself that space at all.
Let's go ahead and do that, and if you would like more help
around trying to create a strategic sabbatical plan, or
even just you're about going on maternity leave and you want to
have a better idea of what that strategy might look like for
you, or you need support with helping you with your podcast,
you can go to Help my pod.com Let's chat. I'm happy to just
hop on a call, figure out if working with us makes the most
sense, give you any insight I might have, and get you on your
way. All right, until next time.
Happy podcasting.
Unknown: Bye.