Episode 278: A Week in the Life of a Podcast Manager with Gabriela Valdez

Full Episode Transcription:

[00:00:00] Arianna Vernier: Hey guys, welcome back to the Virtual Assistant Mama podcast. We are continuing our series today going through a week in the life. So in today’s episode, I brought on a special guest, Gabriella Valdez. She is a podcast manager and producer and has been one for three years. So I brought her in just to show y’all what it’s like to be a podcast manager and producer, and just walk us through, you know, what a typical. Week in the life of a podcast manager looks like so welcome Gabriella. I’m so excited to have you.

[00:00:34] Gabriela Valdez: Thank you. Thank you for having me

[00:00:36] Arianna Vernier: All right So I would love if you would just start out with telling the listeners a little bit about you Maybe what you like to do outside of your job and how you got into this role

[00:00:49] Gabriela Valdez: So by profession, I am a psychologist And just like many of us in 2020, I saw myself in a pretty weird situation I had moved to Austria . I’m Mexican, but I had moved to Austria about 2 or 3 years before that and, I was really, really underpaid and I didn’t really like what I was doing. So, in 2020, I saw myself in a very weird situation and I also saw an opportunity and I thought, okay, I will just try to find something to do and I ended up working as a podcast manager. Because one of my favorite things to do is handcrafts. So, and I like cooking, I like baking, everything with my hands. Everything that needs to be fixed or created, I love to do that. And I can spend hours on end doing those things. So for me, podcasts are a big thing because you can just press play and spend 2, 3, 4, 5 hours. As long as you want, and so I liked podcasts. I liked, well, I wanted to employ myself and I saw an opportunity and I took it and I said, outside of that, my life looks like I would say a pretty normal life because I wake up. I feed my cats, I pray, I maybe tidy up my house a little bit, and then I, I work. But also, it doesn’t look like a normal life at all, because if at any time I feel like, oh, you know what, I feel like going to the lake, then I just go, I pick up my lap, I pick up my laptop and I go. Or. You know what my family’s coming and I have a lot of work. It doesn’t matter. I can go and travel with them because I can just pick up my work and take it with me. So it looks my life looks like a pretty normal life. Most of the day, most of the time, but also I have the freedom. To do almost all the time, whatever I want, whenever I want it, not always, but that’s pretty much how I would describe it.

[00:03:00] Arianna Vernier: That’s amazing. I see a lot of similarities between you and me. Like I love to work with my hands. I love to bake. I just made sourdough bagels this morning before we hopped on this podcast. So that’s awesome. And I love. You talked about the flexibility because I think that’s what a lot of the listeners of this show are looking for. They want something that works around their life instead of their life and their passions having to work around their nine to five job. So, yes, it is a lot of work and it takes time to build up. But once you get there, this. Job this virtual assistant work, whatever service you decide to offer it has the flexibility to work around whatever you want to do. You want to go to Lake. Like you said, you want to spend time with family. You have kiddos. You need to work around their schedules for it is totally possible. In this arena, so I’m glad you mentioned that.

[00:04:04] Gabriela Valdez: Yes, I think, especially when you have children, I think it’s very important to have the flexibility to work around their schedule and what you have built with them. I used to work at a child care center and oftentimes. Usually moms would come and they would have, we would call them. Hey, you know what your child is sick and he’s feeling really, really bad. So can you come and pick him up or her up and then they have to leave work and then take the child home. But I feel like if you manage to go through the 1st stages of having your own business and employ yourself which to be honest is really difficult to begin some people make it and within months they start making I don’t know five thousand dollars per month but most of the time it doesn’t look like that it’s it’s an uphill work or it’s an uphill road but if you manage to pass that and find momentum, I think it’s a very good opportunity for people to spend time at home doing things they like and doing things that really matter, like looking after your children and maybe even homeschooling while maybe contributing to the home finances and also doing something with your time because we all want to do things that we enjoy.

[00:05:26] Arianna Vernier: Yeah, and like you said, building it at first is challenging, but the really beautiful thing is that you can build it in the pockets of time that you have. So if you have half an hour here or two hours there, it doesn’t matter. You can build it in five hours a week, ten hours a week. Ten hours a week starting out, I always say, is like really good. But if you only have five hours that you can make it work a week. Like maybe you’re waking up an hour before your kids twice a week and that’s already knocking out two hours out of that five like you can Really figure out what works best for you and the important thing is just remaining consistent in it And like you said it’s building that momentum To get it to the point that you actually want it to and the great thing is doing it in those pockets of time You can still work a nine to five Potentially while you’re building this as a side hustle until it gets to the point where you can leave

[00:06:21] Gabriela Valdez: Yes, also because if you don’t do it, something will fill those pockets of time, it’s going to be either your dream job, as you build it little by little, or it’s going to be 15 minutes in the morning, afternoon and evening of Instagram scrolling, or an episode on Netflix that then whenever you, you don’t realize that it’s not an episode, but it’s already 2 hours. So if you don’t do this, if you don’t work on your business, something is going to fill up that little bit of time that you have. So in my opinion, I prefer to feel like to use my time doing something that I’m passionate about.

[00:07:01] Arianna Vernier: Yeah, and that’s going to help your dreams come true.

[00:07:04] Gabriela Valdez: Yes. Yeah. Definitely.

[00:07:06] Arianna Vernier: I totally agree. So let’s pivot a little bit. I would love if you would share with my listeners what kinds of tasks that you do as a podcast manager and producer throughout the week, both for what you do for your clients. But then also, what kinds of tasks you do for like growing your own business?

[00:07:25] Gabriela Valdez: Oh, okay. I love this question because it has changed a little bit what I do for my clients, but what I do for my business has not changed. It has evolved. I will start with my client work. I started as a virtual assistant, but pretty soon I realized There’s something I can do to work in podcasting. So that’s what I did. And, what I did for my clients before was customer service and general admin tasks, but that only lasted like six or maybe 10 months. And I think that’s a, that’s a solid start because everybody. Has some type of skills to provide customer service or to do admin tasks. Most of the time you already do those things in your day to day life. You just have to transfer those skills. When you go to the bank, you know how they talk to you. And that’s how you can talk to a client clients, for example. And you already do the admin of your home, you go to the supermarket, you manage your finances. Those are skills very easy to transfer. So that’s where I started. But then a few months later, I started doing podcast management. I did take a course, a project management course. I also took an audio editing program. So, I equipped myself, I thought I was ready, and I got my first client as a podcast manager. And then I switched from admin and entry level tasks to audio editing. I wouldn’t say copywriting per se, but I also took a copywriting course, which helped me a lot. For example, to craft the titles of the episodes and the show notes. Yeah, so there’s what I started, but then as I kept growing, my clients started getting started getting bigger and bigger and they needed more things from me, for example, to manage the whole project and not just the audio.

[00:09:28] Gabriela Valdez: And that’s when I really became, before I think I started as an audio editor, but then I became a podcast manager and I was handling maybe tasks that their team members have to do, like, for example, scheduling the posts for social media regarding the podcast and newsletter and all those things that are directly related to the podcast, but maybe I don’t do them myself. Then I started offering those services. And then very quickly, I realized that what my clients want is PR. So anything related to booking clients, pitching my clients to other podcasts, and getting podcasters to come on my client’s shows. Uh, so that was Like another pivot, so from virtual assistant, I became an audio editor, then a podcast manager, and then I was already managing PR and from there, because I knew what my clients wanted and who they wanted to interact with. I also was able to manage the content calendar and the content strategy for their podcast. And that is very different skill than how I started. So that’s the path I followed. There’s where I am at now. That’s what I really like. And I am very good at it because I’m very good at sales and customer service. So again, I brought my skills from before and I use them. To provide services that my clients need so that’s in terms of my clients and my own tasks. What I do is everything I do my admin. I do have a virtual assistant. My 1st 1 and she is a very new team member, but. I do everything other than the entry level tasks that she has. I do everything. And this is something very new. We’ve been together for 3 months now. Okay, so for for 3 years, I did everything. I did my admin finances, my growth strategy, and that was, I think, the most difficult part. Because in the beginning, I was just, how do you say it in English? Eyeballing. I was just throwing spaghetti on the wall and see, to see what sticks.

[00:11:58] Gabriela Valdez: And some things worked, some things didn’t. Until I sat and I thought, okay, I have to have a plan, a growth plan. And so I started taking care of the business strategy per se. Plus the operations, so sales, marketing, and my marketing is only word of mouth. I, I do have an Instagram account, but this is not going to be the same for everybody, but my clients come for, uh, through referrals and by talking to people, that’s what works for me. And that’s why I stay there. But the few things that I post on Instagram and mostly stories, I also have to do that. Yes. Tax returns, everything I do myself. And yeah, if you are organized, I think it’s pretty doable and I think you can definitely be a one team person for a while, but at some point you start needing someone to help you with some of the tasks that maybe don’t make you a lot of money. So you need to outsource that eventually.

[00:13:00] Arianna Vernier: Yeah. There’s a couple things that you talked about that I just wanted to point out. So first, you started with virtual assistant services that, you know, you felt like you had those skills right off the bat, but then you realized, hey, I really like this audio editing. So I’m going to just niche into that. That’s exactly what I did. I started out very broad and then niched into website design pretty quickly. So I relate to you definitely there. And then once you got into managing the actual like audio editing, you realize, Oh, there’s much more to a podcast manager than just editing audio. And so you learned how to help businesses market. Their podcast and you learned how to repurpose that content because you can take a podcast episode and you can turn that into a social media post and an email and a blog post and all these things. And so that helps businesses reach even more people. So, those of you listening who are interested in podcast management, I just want you to understand that, yes, it’s, it’s managing the audio, but it’s a lot about helping your clients. Get their message out on multiple platforms and just repurposing that information from their podcast to those different places. So I love that you talked about that. And then, yeah, what you said about, you know, you pretty much do everything in your business and you’ve just now started to outsource some of the tasks that either. Don’t necessarily make you a ton of money or even just tasks that you don’t really love to don’t like. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, you’re gonna have to do it all at first once when you’re building your business, but just keep a list of those tasks that you don’t necessarily enjoy. And then when you’re ready, you can hire a virtual assistant for just a couple hours a month to take those tasks off your plate. So then you can focus more on finding another paying client and all that. You don’t have to focus so much on like the admin tasks in your own business. So I love that you talked about all of those things.

[00:15:00] Gabriela Valdez: Yes. I don’t know if it’s going to be easy to understand my accent, but there’s something called the Pareto principle, the 80, 20, so 20 percent of the things that you do in your business bring you money and 80 percent don’t, but they have to be done. So. It’s so, so, so smart to really make a list of all the things that you have to do, all the things that you like to do, the things that you maybe don’t enjoy or that you’re not good at. And then using this principle, eventually you can allocate Resources, either time or money to get things done.

[00:15:42] Arianna Vernier: Yeah, I love that. Absolutely. I love that principle and that’s something I work by as well. So that’s awesome. So roughly how many hours would you say that you work a week and then? Out of that number, I know it’s probably going to fluctuate depending on the week, but just an average and then how much of that time is spent on like your client work. And then how much of that time is spent on growing your own business.

[00:16:08] Gabriela Valdez: Okay, so. At the moment, I don’t charge per hour anymore, that’s a disclaimer. I have only one client that I do hourly work, but if I have to account and if I have to give a number, then I would spend about 21 hours doing client work per week. And then depending on what I have to do and the time of the year, for example, now that the year is coming to an end, I don’t stop now. This is when I. A lot of people are kind of like leaning onto the holidays and taking time off and that’s okay if you need it, you need it. But what I do is I power through this moment because I have a lot of work at this time of the year. So I power through and now I work around. 10 hours a week. But for example, in summer, I don’t have a lot of work. A lot of podcasters, they, they, they do produce content, but maybe in summer everybody’s busy, so they’re not launching new products necessarily. If they have subscriptions, maybe it’s really, really slow, at least my clients. So in summer, it’s easier for me to manage my time because I don’t have that much to do. And then I can work sometimes five hours a week on my own business and I enjoy my summer because I, I like to enjoy my summer so it depends on. Yeah, it depends on the time of the year. So it’s between 5 and 10 hours a week in my own business and about 21 hours for my clients. It didn’t always look like this. I used to work a lot like a 9 to 5. Job 40 or 50 hours per week, because as you get more skills, you are able to raise your, your rates and then you are able to, you need less clients to, to reach your goal. So, yeah, you are able to, or you can outsource all that work and then you still make more money. But in my case, what I did was I raised my rates and so I was able to reduce the amount of work. So in a very busy week, I work about 30 hours per week, and this is client work and my own work.

[00:18:32] Arianna Vernier: So I like how you mentioned that you started out charging hourly, but you pivoted. I mentioned this a lot. There’s a couple podcast episodes I have focusing on hourly versus packages, and I always say like. Pivot to packages as soon as you can, because one, it’s kind of a pain to charge hourly, and two, you’re doing yourself a disservice when you start being really skilled and getting a lot faster. You’re not getting paid as much for the same amount of work. You’re just doing it a little faster, you know, so I always say pivot to packages as soon as possible.

[00:19:06] Gabriela Valdez: Yes, I agree because you do yourself a disservice and also because not only get faster, but better when I started guest outreach for my clients, it used to take me sometimes up to five people to get one guest that we really, really wanted. But so I had to start with, say, five prospects, and then one of them would be the dream guest. But as I got better, not only did I get faster, but I got more skilled and now maybe I need two or three prospects to get like we love this guest It’s a dream guest is the perfect guest. So you get faster, but you also get better and You are helping a company grow and you are delivering results that drive money So I think it’s very fitting that you pivot to package Because it’s like an exchange. You see what you bring to the company or to the brand and also you are pricing your services in a way that you feel good about it and you don’t feel like, oh, I’m working so many hours or oh, I’m working so I’m working two hours and it’s not worth it. So I think it’s a very good way to give yourself like a confidence boost.

[00:20:23] Arianna Vernier: Yeah, definitely. I agree. So, I would just love if you would share with us a little bit about, like, how you structure your week. I know you already mentioned, like, how much you work, but just walk us through kind of, like, what your weekdays look like and then what you do on the weekends. I think it would be really cool for my listeners to just see, like, What it’s like in a week in the life of Gabriella.

[00:20:47] Gabriela Valdez: Oh, I love it because I need a solid routine. Most of the time I don’t love change unless I desire that change. Like for example, working from a café or a lake. There’s a, there’s a lake very close to my house. That’s why I keep saying I go to the lake. So I think creating a routine. That works for me. It’s what worked for me. And that’s what I recommend to people, because how many times you’re scrolling through Instagram and you daily blog, um, get ready with me to go to do whatever. And then it looks really good on Instagram or on YouTube or whatever you are on Tik TOK. And that looks amazing, but that’s not the reality. That’s content that it’s heavily edited and it looks like it works, but they are. Not living their life like this. Like it doesn’t look like that in, in reality. So I think what works is something that works for each person. And what works for me is to have a lot of time in the morning to have a slow morning. I am an an early bird. What I do is I allocate about four hours to do all kinds of things before work. So I wake up, feed my cat, and then I pray. And I spend anywhere from 15 to 60 minutes praying. And then, yes, then I go to the gym, I have breakfast, I go to the gym, then I come back, I get ready, and then I start working. And I do try to start working around 9, but It doesn’t always look like that. Sometimes it’s 10, sometimes it’s 11, but that’s, that’s how my mornings look like. What I like to start is doing something that it takes not a lot of time. For example, checking my email. Okay, done. And something that is very quickly so that I can catch up with important things, checking email, replying to emails and getting things done like quickly. And I make a list of all the things that I have to do. And for my clients, of course, I already have the things that I have to do because most of the people will use a project management software. So there’s where those things are. And then I do creative work, anything that requires my creativity. Yeah, then I just take a lunch break and I keep working on the things that I have for today.

[00:23:16] Gabriela Valdez: So that’s what a weekday looks like for me, a very structured morning. With activities that I enjoy and then once I am happy with my morning, I can get to work and then in the evening, I just do have to do a lot of things with my cats because they are in their cats. So I have to walk them. So I have to take them out for a walk with a leash and play with them because they need to exercise or they get sick. So I spend probably 3 to 4 hours per day with the cats. And then, yes, and then just I, I go to sleep. And on a weekend, on Saturdays, I like my mornings pretty straightforward. Okay, this is the breakfast, and I want to do things that I, that I want to do, which usually is just prayer and exercise and breakfast. And then on Sunday, it’s the Lord’s Day. I go to church, and I spend the day in prayer. I like to spend the day in adoration, and more prayer, and resting. Yes! Gaining energy for the week. That’s how my week looks like. I think

[00:24:28] Arianna Vernier: I absolutely love that. I think that you’ve got a really good balance going on. We’re very similar. I like to have a very slow morning as well. I like to meal prep my breakfast because I just want to have that. Like I know what I’m going to eat in the morning. Don’t want to have to worry about it. Go exercise in the morning. Just have that slow start to your day. Trying with the Lord all the things so we’re very similar in that area as well. Thank you I’m just so grateful for you for sharing that with my listeners because I think it’s really cool for them to see What does it actually look like when you’re offering the services? Like, can you really design a life that you love when you’re doing these different entrepreneurial services? And yes, it takes time to get to the point where like you’re super happy and you’ve got a super pretty solid routine. That’s a little flexible, but it can absolutely happen for you if you set your mind to it. So thank you for sharing that.

[00:25:30] Gabriela Valdez: No, thank you for letting me share this. I think it’s very important to have the flexibility to, and especially for women who have children, I don’t yet, but when you have children, I think it’s very important to have the flexibility to take care of your house, take care of your family while building something for you. And it’s totally possible. It is possible. It might not always look like a straight line, but it’s definitely possible. It is possible. And if you want to do it, don’t think about it. Just. Start today, repeat tomorrow, and also take imperfect action because you will evolve. But as long as you keep taking action every single day, you are going to get really, really far.

[00:26:23] Arianna Vernier: Definitely. And I always say, like, just keep taking that next step of faith. Like, you’re not going to know the exact destination of where you’re going to end up. But You’ll be amazed just if you start today what your life looks like a year from now.

[00:26:38] Gabriela Valdez: Yes, I totally agree. Yes.

[00:26:43] Arianna Vernier: So I would love to ask you a question that I ask every person that comes on this podcast. It’s if someone wanted to start their journey out of their nine to five, but it just felt too overwhelming. What would you tell them?

[00:26:57] Gabriela Valdez: Take imperfect action. Do it, but ask yourself, what can you do today that will change tomorrow? And sometimes it’s not about the job itself. Sometimes it’s, for example, leaving your purse prepared with A notebook so that during your lunch break, you can write down your business ideas. Sometimes it looks at small as that, or sometimes it means to leave your sink clean in the evening. So that in the morning. You can write down those business ideas and you don’t have to think about the dishes and it doesn’t take space in your brain. So take the smallest step that you can take today, even though it might seem imperfect, but you have to take that first step and take it again tomorrow.

[00:27:59] Arianna Vernier: Yeah, I love that. I, I 100 percent agree. So it has been so great having you on today, Gabriella. Where can people come and connect with you?

[00:28:10] Gabriela Valdez: I think on Instagram, my name is really, really long and the name tag, the tag is also really, really long. So I think it’s better if people check it in the show notes. I think on Instagram, I don’t post much, but I do share stories. It’s, to be honest, it’s usually about my cats and what I do in a day for my clients, but I’m always there. And yes, there’s where I’m at most of the time. And I have TikTok and everybody has a Facebook, but I’m a millennial. So I hang out on Instagram.

[00:28:43] Arianna Vernier: Yep. Same. All right. And yes, I will have those your website, your, your Instagram all linked on the, in the show notes. So those of you listening can go and get connected to Gabriella.

[00:28:53] Gabriela Valdez: Amazing.

[00:28:56] Arianna Vernier: All right. Well, thank you again for coming on today. It’s been such a blessing having you and I’m just so grateful for you sharing your story of what it looks like in your business so that you can just inspire others to do the same.

[00:29:09] Gabriela Valdez: Oh, thank you for having me.

[00:29:11] Arianna Vernier: Awesome. All right, y’all, make sure you go and get connected with Gabriela. I think she’s amazing and you’ll just be so inspired by her. So yeah, go get connected. Make sure you leave a review on the podcast if you are loving it. That helps us get even more amazing guests on just like Gabriela. And again, I just thank you so much for listening. All right. I love y’all so much and we will see you next time.