Krystal Proffitt: 0:01

So one of the special things about being a content creator for many, many years now is that I get to share stories of wisdom, mistakes, lessons learned, cautionary tales, and today's episode is really centered all around that. So, whether it's you taking a break for personal reasons or you just need to step away from your business or your content for a while, I get so many questions about how to do this properly and what happens if you do this, and today I actually had a question from a member of Proffitt Podcasting who sent in an email. They were like I don't think I can make it to our monthly coaching call. Can you answer this email? You know, answer this question. I was like, absolutely, and because I've seen it come up, so so much about taking breaks and how to do it. I thought I would read this question to you and share my insights as if you are one of my Proffitt Podcasting students. Like, this is my digital course and I give them, you know, preferential treatment and they are my VIPs. But I thought today it would be fun to treat you just like one of my VIPs and give you the lowdown on how I would answer this if you are asking this question today. So let's get right to it.

Krystal Proffitt: 1:32

Welcome to the Proffitt Podcast, where we teach you how to start, launch and market your content with confidence. I'm your host, Krystal Proffitt, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging out with me today, because if you've been trying to figure out the world of content creation, this is the show that will help be your time saving shortcut. So let's get right to it, shall we? Okay, welcome back. I'm so excited about this question because, like I said, I've gotten so many versions of it over the years, but I just want to read it verbatim at how it came into me so that you can have a little bit more context around why the student is taking a break, what happened and all the things. So it says I was out sick for a few days. Who hasn't been right? Like if you can't tell, I have a cold right now. So I totally understand when you have to take a break for your own personal sickness, but let's keep on reading.

Krystal Proffitt: 2:29

My podcast published and I was not able to market or do any promotions for about five days after and I saw a 30% drop in my downloads. Very interesting Also playing with specific day of my emails to promote and social media. So they're talking about like they're trying to play around with. Well, when do I send my email? When do I promote it on social media? And just a few points. I've observed when I don't promote Pros, my podcast still was published thanks to batching.

Krystal Proffitt: 3:01

Let's just give a shout out to batching. Who doesn't love a good batching process? Right? The other pro I was able to promote once I was back in the office. So those are the two pros that they pointed out, which I think is great. Like what? What a fantastic approach. Then the observations right, we could call these the cons.

Krystal Proffitt: 3:21

My downloads took a hit when I didn't send out my email on my regular schedule day. I didn't post to my group page or IG, linkedin, any of those and then sound bites make a huge pickup for me. When I posted, even on a Saturday, my downloads increased. Not sure if that's what it is, but it may be. Would love your insights into the importance of marketing your episodes and tips to measure. So thank you so much for asking this question. It's such a great one and I love the context behind it because, um, like they said, they still published their episode, right?

Krystal Proffitt: 4:00

Um, I actually just went through this um for this entire month. I knew I was going to be out of town. I was taking this fabulous trip to New York with my family and leading up to it I was like man, I've got to bust my butt to get all of this content batched and scheduled that way I didn't have to work while I was there. I don't travel with a laptop. I know that like shocks some people. When I went to go see my friend Heather last year in Oregon, we were talking about running this event and she was like, well, you know, we could just use your laptop. I was like, hmm, I have an iPad. I don't. I don't travel with a laptop. I have my nice beautiful desktop gaming computer. That's like a monster, but it's not a laptop. So when I travel I literally just have my phone or my iPad. I mean, I guess if I'm traveling with my husband and he takes his computer like that's a backup, but that thing is so heavy that he usually like I'm not traveling with my laptop, I don't blame him. So that's where we are, like I didn't want to have to do anything while I was on vacation and this is a planned scenario, right, because I knew I was going to be out of office, I could plan ahead for it. Therefore, I batched an entire month's worth of content all of my podcast episodes, all of my YouTube videos, all of my email newsletters Like I had everything done before I left for this trip. And thank goodness, because I got back from the trip and now I have a cold and did not feel like recording over the last week. So I've never been more grateful to have had a few interviews and content pieces batched so I didn't have to worry about it.

Krystal Proffitt: 5:45

But let's go back to this person's problem, because they were sick. Right, this is unplanned. It was totally unplanned and there could be other things that happen in life, not even just a sickness, like we just had. One of our kiddos had an accident. He was, you know, driving his scooter home from school. He had an accident. He has a really bad sprain in his ankle and that totally took focus off of the next few days of what we had originally Planned to do, like we had to switch it up. We had to flip the script and say, okay, well, none of those things are gonna happen anymore. He was supposed to have, like, several basketball games, basketball practice. That's not happening and we had to be flexible with what we were doing but also take time out to go to doctors appointments and you know, schedule stuff with the school and make sure he's up to date.

Krystal Proffitt: 6:31

So there are absolutely unexpected things that can happen and I just want you to kind of look at your own content. This is why I always, always, always, recommend having a content calendar that is full of ideas Notice, I didn't say full of content that's already planned and recorded and edited and ready to go at a moment's notice. No, no, no, I'm talking about content that's already planned as far as this is the idea. So when I came back, like I'm just getting back into the swing of things, recording you know the next month's content and all the things that I need to do, I am looking at what are all the ideas that I have and how can I make those work for what I have over the next month. And that's really where I start, right, it's baby stepping into it. So if you know like, ooh, I'm coming down with something like unexpectedly and I'm gonna be out, the first thing that I always, always tell people when they know they're gonna be out sick is one you absolutely have permission to skip I mean skip your content.

Krystal Proffitt: 7:37

People think it's life or death and they think that I'm gonna tell them oh no, you cannot, absolutely not skip a week of your podcast or publish a YouTube video or send out a newsletter. Your audience think they're not monsters. They know that you're a human. At least I hope that they do. At least I hope that you talk to them in a way that is clear and transparent. They understand things happen. People have compassion and I always lean to the side of oh no, my audience will get this because my Audience is like me and those were guards, and so, first of all, give yourself lots of grace. This is what I always recommend, and the other piece of it is really just Taking a step back and say what's absolutely necessary. So if you find yourself, you're like okay, I have the content ready, it's gonna be scheduled, it's gonna be published, like if it's a podcast episode or a YouTube video, that's great. That's the most important piece. That's the most important piece. Is that content piece going out? Now you can't post on Instagram, you can't post on tiktok or you can't get your newsletter out. It's not the end of the world again. Let's go back and give us lots and lots of grace, but I do want you to take a step back.

Krystal Proffitt: 8:51

When you come back from your sickness or your unexpected thing what, what, where did the systems fall down? And I'm always asking this question when something unexpected happens or you know someone's out of office suddenly that you weren't expecting like if you have someone that's helping you on a regular basis and then, oh, you know, something happens in their life Unexpectedly and now they have to take several days off and you're like, oh my gosh, like this was not expected, what do I do? Blah, blah, blah. Well, this is an opportunity to create new systems and processes. So what does this look like? So for me it looks like scheduling as much as possible. So these were my three recommendations to you know the person that asks this question. It's schedule your emails, if possible, schedule your social post and schedule those sound bites, because remember that's what they said like my downloads took a hit when I didn't put out my email on my regular day, I didn't post to my group, my page like on social, and I didn't put out my sound bites.

Krystal Proffitt: 9:51

So how can you, on a more regular basis, plan to have that go out Routinely or in a proper cadence that's consistent with you publishing your other content. Now what does this look like for me? For me, this looks like instead of just sitting down and writing one email newsletter every single week, it looks like how about writing two or three like in one sitting, or maybe One a day for four days until I have a full month's worth. Now this doesn't like require editing and scheduling and doing all of that. It's just the first part. I mean I've said this till. I mean I'm blue in the face about my prep and method. So, if you're not familiar, that's plan, record, edit, publish and market. These are the steps that I take for any piece of content that I create.

Krystal Proffitt: 10:44

But it's really important because when I talk about batching, it's not just in the recording. I think this is where I get so frustrated when people are like well, Krystal, I can't batch. You know, I don't have that much time to record content. I'm like batching isn't just about recording multiple videos, multiple podcast episodes. It can mean that you are batch planning a bunch of stuff or batch editing. So whenever I sit down and write for emails in a row, I'm not sitting down and also editing and scheduling and publishing. No, no, no, I am just writing them. I'm getting the thoughts and ideas out of my head onto paper. In a Google Doc, in a sauna, like wherever you are putting your content, get it out of your head, right. This is the first one. You are planning everything.

Krystal Proffitt: 11:32

Editing is a totally different monster. It's a different mindset. You need to have, you know, your glasses and your red pin out ready to change things and cut things and make them better and make them sound fantastic. That is a different like. I'm a different person. Okay, like, I need to come up with the five personalities of the prep and method, because Krystal, who's in planning mode, is very different than Krystal. That is an editing mode. Like the editing mode, she's ruthless, she's, she's pretty, like I mean, let's just call it, it's sadistic at times.

Krystal Proffitt: 12:05

Whenever I'm editing a newsletter, I'm editing a script, I'm looking through things, like it is a very different monster than more of the planning. Like the planning, Krystal is very free form and creative and flowing. And now, like, as I'm sitting here talking about this, I I literally have just planned like an Instagram reel or really good YouTube video of me walking through the different personalities that I have, because you have to show up that way, so I'll I'll get off my soapbox in a second, but really, when it comes to batching, I want you to think outside the box of just recording everything. How can you batch, plan more of your content so that, when sickness comes up for you or someone in your family, you are able to take the time off that you deserve? You deserve to take that time off. You don't deserve to be stressed out in a doctor's office trying to figure out how to get your podcast out. Or, you know, you're traveling on the road, planning ticktocks or worried about oh my gosh, I don't have internet service and now I can't post this Instagram reel that had to go out today. It's not worth it. It's really not. It's not worth that stress that it's causing you or your family, and I really want you to focus on healing, recovering, getting better or caring for your loved ones in those times when you need to. But I want to talk about one more thing, because this is what I'm calling permission to break cadence, and really this just means permission to do whatever the heck you want to do, and if you've been around here for a while, you know I say this all the time.

Krystal Proffitt: 13:45

There are no rules in podcasting but I'm going to stretch that that to all of content creation. There aren't, like there are no rules. If people tell you that there are rules, like turn around and run the other way, you will never hear me say these are the five rules of podcasting and if you don't stick to these, then you're not a podcaster and you're a loser and you're going to fail. No, no, no, there are guidelines. Sure, they. Should you have good quality audio so people can actually hear what you're saying? Absolutely, if you're recording video, should you have things that aren't super distracting or, you know, good lighting? Absolutely, these are guidelines, but there are no rules.

Krystal Proffitt: 14:24

So, if you need to take time off, take freaking time off, recover, feel better. The only recommendation that I would have for you is let your audience know, whether that's through an email, it's a social post, it's, you know, a quick two minute episode on your podcast that says hey, guys, you know and you can share as much information as you want. You say, hey, I'm going to be out of office, like I'm going to be out of touch for four weeks, six weeks, six months, whatever that break is. Just let your audience know, because then they will be so excited to like welcome you back with open arms whenever you do return to your content. But if you ghost your audience, you're going to be so excited to like welcome you back. They're gonna go back and they're not gonna be waiting with open arms when you return. They're gonna say, oh yeah, she just ghosted us and completely forgot about us. Like I forgot to go back and listen to her content, because why would I? She hasn't been here for six months and now she showed up and Just expected the relationship to pick up right where it left off, and I understand that's not how it works. So I love this question so much. I really wanted to cover it because it's one that again, I've heard so many variations of this over the years and I think it's important that you know we just keep bringing it up.

Krystal Proffitt: 15:43

There's a reason why people continue to ask me about taking breaks in their content and, like I said earlier, I'm actually in the middle of suffering from a head cold. Sign is headache. All the things actually feel better today than I have the last few days. But I want to touch on one final thing that I do recommend. When people know that they have to take a sudden break and they're like how do I do this? Like, let's say you know that You're gonna unexpectedly be out of town for a month, what do you do? Do you just take the whole month off? Do you adjust your content? Like, what do you do if it were me? What I would do is adjust your expectations. So what does that look like? Maybe that looks like making everything shorter.

Krystal Proffitt: 16:30

If you typically have a podcast that is 30 minutes, what if it was five or 10 minutes? I know it makes some people really uncomfortable when I say that, but think about the reality of batching that kind of content. To record a single 30 minute episode, that's gonna take you 30 minutes. If you do that four times for a month, I mean that's two hours right there. That it would take you just to record it. That doesn't include editing, publishing, all those other things. But what if that all of a sudden turn into a 10 minute episode? Now to record for 10 minute episodes, that's 40 minutes. Two hours, 40 minutes, like I mean. It's quite the comparison. And, like I said, you can make it even shorter. You can make those five minutes five minutes times, for that's 20 minutes to record. And don't you tell me that there's not power in a five minute episode. I ran a podcast for three years. It was five minutes every single day, monday through Friday, and that podcast had so much power. So so if something unexpectedly happened and I had to record this podcast and it could only be five minutes, I'm so confident I can make a super powerful gesture In just five minutes. So I know it can happen.

Krystal Proffitt: 17:49

Adjust your expectations. Make it to where it doesn't have to be, as long as it normally is. That's for a podcast or YouTube video. Same thing with the newsletter Shorten it from what you know is typically a page in a Google Doc. What if it was like five sentences? Like just adjust it.

Krystal Proffitt: 18:07

Adjust your expectations and make sure that you are still focused on your audience, because that's what they care about is. How does this add value to me? How is this going to improve my life? Save me time, save me money, entertain me all the things. But that's all I have for you today. I hope that you enjoyed this quick, quicker episode. I'm taking my own advice. This episode is shorter than my typical ones, but it's because I'm adjusting to recovering myself and I hope that you found today's episode super valuable, if you did make sure that you are subscribed or following whatever you are listening or watching today. Make sure you check out all the other content that we have that can help you with Taking breaks and time management when it comes to your content. But that's all I have for you today, so, as always, remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.