J Cleveland Payne's Creators Pep Talk

You will hear many who have reached success in the creator’s community that you could be one show away from massive success. Well, chances are you are not just one show away. Keep producing anyway and find a reason to love the process to keep you trusting in the process.  

If you are unsure of just how the flow of your show needs to go, don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Review some work you admire in your genre and create an early model for your work of what you like from there. There are reasons why some genres seem to play the same between […]

Your larynx does much more than help you make a sound out of your mouth. It also directs food into your stomach and air into your lungs to breathe. So, any issue becomes not just a creator issue but also a health issue. You magic elixir? Lots of water and moisture from foods.

You want to sell non-podcast listeners on joining the club. Do it by pushing content from creators they are likely to listen to, not just your content.

The numbers are significant but not always the primary reason to start or continue a project. Documenting history, connecting with people, and learning from the process may be a stronger motivator to keep pushing on when the numbers lose their luster.

You don't help a surgeon with confidence by saying, 'Do surgery without killing the patient.' If making better content (or more engaging and entertaining content) is not second nature, consider why you are producing content. And consider what else your critics could tell you but aren't.

Who are your listeners not going to listen to from now on when they start listening to you? Knowing some answers to this question will help you target and capture more listeners.

I am telling you to drink more water as a creator for the same reason I tell people on my health and fitness podcasts: your basic health. Proper hydration is good for your voice (as a podcaster) and your skin (as a video creator).

You can not be discouraged by other people's talent. You need to define your goals, polish up your performance, and keep producing content. Because, in reality, you have little to do with the perception of 'good' once the listener presses play.

Once you settle your content creation process, take advantage of the consistency and create more work in batches to save you creation headaches.

As you see the number of episodes rising, you will gain comfort in your workflow and performance and won't worry as much about the things that seemed like nonstarters when you started.

The best day to post is the day that works best for you and your content. Other than when your listeners need to hear it for it to be relevant, the day and time rarely matter, other than consistency.

They are better at marketing, basically doing a better job telling you (and the world that consumes similar content) they are better than you.

Content first. Gear Second. Audience always. These are the three universal tenets all content creators need to follow.

Turn your audio into a YouTube video. Turn your YouTube videos into audio. Transcribe all your non-text work into text to post for newsletters and blogs. Make short clips for other social media platforms and send promotional materials. You can create a world of alternate content to bring in new subscribers to your preferred delivery form.

You know you need to promote yourself on social media, but are you doing it effectively and on as many platforms as possible?

Can't get sponsors or mass adoption? Know whether you're getting a sign you should drop the project, retool, or keep pressing as is. There is a fundamental difference between seeing that you don't have the talent versus you just aren't getting the right opportunities.

Ironically, the things one does to be a good guest also apply to being a good host.

You have guests on your show because they should be a draw for your audience. Find a way to ethically leverage the audience your guest has massed to help grow your own.

This is not a necessity, but as a way to give quick validation to a new project (and give people more to watch and listen to early in the life of the project) you can launch with at least three episodes of relevant and evergreen content.

Don’t get discouraged when you find out there is already a podcast or video series that takes the same angle and approach as you have been dying to try. Just take a slight pivot and do the idea better.

A project you work on as a solo creator is still a conversation playing out. Just playing out between yourself and the ‘world’ of watchers and listeners out ‘there.’ The key to success in these projects is to perform so that you are having a conversation that your average listener would want to eavesdrop on.

As much as we complain about the glut of sponsor reads in podcasts and videos, having a sponsor helps the creator fund their operation and give them the ability to keep working. But the more you do for the sponsor, the more it affects the content you present to the audience.

The key to success as a creator is to take good care of your target listeners, and the key to longevity is to take some consideration for your non-target listeners.

Bad audio will ruin your work, whether pure audio or video creation. A music bed is not a real 'fix,' but it can get you over the poor quality you hear in your recordings while you are working through the current limitations of your setup.