The Honey & Hustle Eras Tour (But Make It a Podcast)

Season 1. Team: solo. 1:1 in-person interviews with only Triangle business owners. I learned all parts of video podcast production, from pre-production to editing and marketing. I started the show only posting episodes to Facebook and YouTube. I didn’t put the audio on streaming platforms until after season 1 finished. They are no longer available because the audio was terrible, thanks to the aforementioned shitty lav mics and my inexperience with audio. We live, and we learn.

Season 2. Team: solo. Virtual interviews with a mix of Triangle and national business owners. With less camera gear involved, I spent more time learning to be a better interviewer. I recorded these on Zoom and Streamyard. Not great quality video. I also didn’t have a dedicated mic at the time, so the raw audio was only passable. However, I did learn how to edit audio a little better, given the simplicity, so the quality is still decent.

Season 3. Team: me, 4 editors, and a social person. 1:1 in-person and virtual interviews with only Triangle folks. I finally accepted that I was drawn to the North Carolina business ecosystem and wanted to focus on local media. The show improved in quality; I was putting out episodes more consistently, and I had more social media assets. I definitely learned a lot about building a creative team and had a better understanding of the importance of establishing processes and hiring standards. Because I had a team, I had more time to focus on learning our brand voice and positioning. I want to say that this was the season that Honey & Hustle hit 1,000 followers on Twitter, when that still meant something.

Season 4. Team: me, 2 editors, a YouTube marketing consultant, a podcast marketing consultant, and a BTS photographer/production assistant. 1:1 in-person and virtual interviews with North Carolina business owners. We expanded our reach to business owners outside the Triangle, established our taste, and I grew my brand profile by speaking at events. At Resonate Podcast Festival, I learned how to build a business and community ecosystem around a podcast. It was the push I needed to start this newsletter and gain our first multi-episode sponsor. Because I was attending so many audio storytelling events, I learned how to get great audio in any scenario, live or remote, thanks to learning about mics and pickup patterns. It’s almost like learning about how lenses and composition allow you to tell different stories in photography and filmmaking. This is probably the most consequential season of the show. With a team of this size, my growing expertise in packaging and marketing a show, and growing the show into a dedicated multimedia platform, we really grew our listenership and viewership. Paying team members and traveling to podcast events were very expensive, but it helped propel the show forward in ways I couldn’t have done alone in the same amount of time.

Season 5. Team: me. I did fewer interviews and more crossover episodes with creators and media friends on topics related to business and creativity. I took some time to experiment with different audio storytelling formats. This is the first season without any video episodes. Season 4 was a huge lift in every sense of the word. So, as you can imagine, I got burnt out with 1:1 interviews and felt that I could be more expansive with the show and the medium of video podcasting. I wanted to take some time off, spend more time behind the scenes in video production and research, and do some lower-lift but still relevant episodes to fall back in love with the medium. Because I started doing so many solo episodes and co-hosted episodes, I learned how to build host affinity and deepen the relationship between my community and the podcast. I also spent a lot of time learning how to successfully package new show formats for different platforms (social media, newsletters, and YouTube): daily podcast challenge, elevator pitch, crossover episodes, and event recaps, to name a few.

Season 6. Team: me and a camera operator. Documentary-style episodes, narrative vignettes, and short-form audio pieces. We’ll even be recording a live episode. The daily challenge for Black History Month/ February returned with a theme: Book Club. I built on the daily podcast challenge with more structure, more curation, better marketing, and garnered a way better reception. My whole goal with this season is to show the fruits of my labor while I was hibernating a bit from video podcasting. I’m putting my foot on the necks of everyone complaining about why their show won’t grow when they won’t spend at least as much time as I have making and marketing a better show. Expect to continue seeing more formats, greater consistency, and higher-quality episodes. This is the result of years in film and audio production, developing systems that not only work for me but work with a team, and having trusted creative collaborators and sounding boards for ideas. I’m not abandoning everything I’ve done in the past; I’m building upon the foundation of the show. The daily challenge has returned and will continue to be an annual staple of the show. Elevator pitch will return. Video interviews will return, with higher production quality. Honeypot Hotline, our new short-form audio segment, will make some appearances (testing the limits of what I know about sound design and audio mixing). However, media isn’t our only area of innovation this season. We’re also diving more into products, both digital and physical, and live events, both in-person and virtual. We’re creating products and experiences that are unique to us. The magazine is just the beginning. Product development is just taking longer than I thought, which is okay. The quality of everything that we put out is extremely important.