← Podcast Editors Mastermind
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the Podcast Editors Mastermind show. I am Steve. You will not believe who we have on the show today.
- [00:06]
B
Stuart.
- [00:07]
A
With me, I have an original yeti, Carrie Caulfield. Welcome to the show.
- [00:10]
B
Hey, Steve. How are you?
- [00:12]
A
I'm great. This is so weird, introducing you to a show that you started with Brian Enswinger, Jennifer Longworth, and Daniel Abinroth, but you've been busy the past few years, and you've got a really cool. We're going to say you have a new job, even though you're still kind of a 1099 contracted employee, but you got a new job.
- [00:29]
B
I got a new job.
- [00:30]
A
I've been learning about it for the past couple minutes. We've been talking before the show. I think a lot of people here would see it as maybe the next obvious evolution, at least a facet of what you're doing into going past just beyond being a podcast editor.
- [00:44]
B
Can I tell you something crazy about how I got the job, Steve?
- [00:46]
A
I'd love to hear a good story. Sure.
- [00:48]
B
I got it while trolling the Podcast Editors group on Facebook.
- [00:52]
A
No.
- [00:53]
B
Yes.
- [00:55]
A
How did that happen? You're trolling the group?
- [00:58]
B
Yeah. So it was back in December of 2024, maybe a little bit earlier, but I just was looking for clients, looking for work, because I had taken a step back and reduced my client load for a while. And I just. I'm like, of course. Where am I going to look? Podcast Editors Club. And so it just happened to one day just logged on, and immediately there was a post from this guy, DM was his name. And he had posted something like, I'm looking to hire a producer. Give me your best pitch. And something like, I want you to wow me with your experience or whatever. I was like, well, I don't know if I necessarily want this job, but let me go ahead and practice my pitch.
- [01:52]
A
Excellent.
- [01:52]
B
And so I sent him a message with my pitch. I've worked on this project and that project, and I've been doing this for X amount of years, blah, blah, blah. And he interviewed me, and then I didn't hear from him for a few weeks, got a little worried, and then he messaged me back and said, I'd like to hire you. I'd like you to start in January. And that was for the Legal Media Network.
- [02:14]
A
Okay. We might have to just do an interview directly with you and what's been going on here in your life, because you said you did that in 2024. I think I remember you doing something with some kind of a. More like A storytelling, serialized show before that. So you were getting more into the narrative type shows even before you joined the legal media network?
- [02:35]
B
Yes.
- [02:35]
A
So that helped with that resume that you gave dm, right?
- [02:38]
B
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Because of my work. Because some of you might remember that I was working with a company called Audio up in Hollywood. I was doing editing, dialogue editing, specifically. I kind of parlayed that experience into, well, working on Psychedelic Frequency for Audible.
- [02:58]
A
Oh, wow.
- [02:59]
B
I was the dialogue editor for that show. However, it was something out of a movie because the producer, the executive producer, shown up Runner, whatever you want to call him, was just struggling. No judgment on him. But there came a point where we were up against the deadline for Audible where we had to deliver something or we'd lose X amount of dollars. So I went ahead just because I knew that there were some issues and I couldn't get in touch with the producer. So I went ahead and put together, just because I then had been doing it for a couple years. I put together a narrative for Audible. They liked it. It saved the show. And then the producer ended up. I think he left the show. I don't remember if he was fired, but, you know, I know they parted ways. So I had about 25 days to put together, I think, like nine or 10 episodes. I ended up taking his outline and kind of tweaking it to what Audible wanted and, you know, just made it happen.
- [04:10]
A
So were you developing a story based on an outline or an idea or just from scratch?
- [04:16]
B
They had captured a lot of interviews, so I had all the raw files. I had gone through most of them,
- [04:22]
A
you know, so this is based on historic events.
- [04:25]
B
The premise of the show is that psychedelic therapy is like this new, innovative idea for healing. Right. Healing from trauma. And they sat down and they interviewed all these famous people in the field. I had all the recordings into script. I had already gone through looking for, like, kind of the best cuts, the snippets for the producer. So I was real familiar with the material. So I was able to take those outlines, then create kind of a narrative arc across the whole series in a way that worked, that told the story, that hit on these different points. That was basically just. And this is just from dialogue. This all started from editing. That's the crazy part.
- [05:08]
A
Yeah, I think that's where I wanted to go.
- [05:10]
B
Yeah. This started from me having a crazy idea 10 years, 15 years ago that people. Somebody was going to pay me to edit their interview podcast. And, you know, you pay attention, you listen. All we do is listen and we can tell when Things are good or bad, like, what works, what doesn't, and you get a feel for that. That translates very well into storytelling. Right. And you think what an editor does in other mediums, like, they are shaping stories. And I think that even in interviews, we're shaping stories, we're deciding what gets cut, what gets kept, you know, so those skills translate.
- [05:46]
A
Let's do the evolution of Kerri Caulfield. Okay, so I think it was around 2014. 2015 is when you started editing for other people, or is it maybe a little bit before that? Because I met you in 2015. I think it was podcast movement, Philly.
- [05:57]
B
No, it was like 2016, 2017, maybe. Because I know for a fact that I started my business in 2018.
- [06:05]
A
That's, like, when you, like, officially said, okay, I'm doing this as a side hustle or a business. Okay, so 2018, you're editing interviews for people. Okay. And you weren't crafting narratives. You weren't trying to do real content editing, or were you deep into content editing at that point as well?
- [06:21]
B
No, I had about my first client, my first real. Like, I'm not doing it on upwork. I'm out on my own getting my own clients. And so my first client was a hypnotherapist, and I edited his interviews, right. I put in his bumpers, intro, outro, all that stuff. And, you know, and then my second client was, I think, Lessons from a Quitter, which I had to put down. Not. Not, like, kill her?
- [06:53]
A
Gosh, I hope not. No, that's a bad way to pot fade.
- [06:56]
B
Yeah. Yeah, that is a terrible way to pod fade. But, you know, she'd done something like 300, and at episode 365, I was like, okay, I love you, but I. I can't continue this and work full time. I just don't have the bandwidth for it.
- [07:10]
A
So you were. You were 1099 contract working with individual podcasters on their shows.
- [07:16]
B
Yep.
- [07:17]
A
2020 comes, the world changes. You started getting into the more of the content editing or narrative shows about what time?
- [07:26]
B
I think it was about 2020. 2019, maybe. Right before 2020. I think the first one maybe was 2019.
- [07:32]
A
Okay.
- [07:33]
B
I think it was Strawberry Spring, which was. If somebody's not familiar, it's a Stephen King story. So through my networking in the Potter sphere, in the podcast editing communities, I had met Lisa Orkin. She's really quiet in the communities, but she's kind of lurking. And I met her through Elsie Escobar, and we got to talking, kind of hit it off, chit chatted, stayed in touch, you know, little relationship like that. I, you know, helped her with some personal stuff. She started working for a company called Audio up and she was like, you know, ask for help with something. And then she'd recommended me to one of the executive producers when they were looking for help with editing, with the dialogue editing. Now, this is a little bit different than what I was used to. It's not just like interview editing. It was a fictional podcast. So they brought in actors, they recorded them, they gave me the raw tape, essentially, which some of them, it was the same. They were reading lines from a story like you would on TV. Right. And some of them went to like 20 takes. And the executive producer is like, oh, hey, can you get me a string out of these takes? And I was like, oh, yeah, sure. Had no idea what he meant.
- [08:47]
A
I'd have to Google that myself to see what it is.
- [08:49]
B
Well, I now know what it is. I finally put two and two together. It's when you take every take, you know, you cut the in between parts and you just string it out on a track so they can hear one take, then another take, then another take, then another take. Rapid fire. I didn't do that.
- [09:09]
A
But you were taking recordings from individuals who were doing it solo. They weren't all in the same room performing at the same time. So that's another skill. Yeah, that's another big skill. And you're saying that was around 2020?
- [09:21]
B
Yeah, that ended up being the number one podcast on Apple for a while.
- [09:26]
A
Oh, which gives you a little bit of credibility.
- [09:28]
B
Yeah.
- [09:29]
A
You were involved with that looks great on resume.
- [09:31]
B
It does.
- [09:32]
A
Okay, what happened after that? Where did you go after that? Because I think that's where you started doing more of the narrative show. Or am I getting my dates mixed up here?
- [09:41]
B
I did back and forth. So I'd worked on the Playboy series, the Playboy interviews. I did that. That was easy. It was just. It was basic editing, quite frankly.
- [09:53]
A
That's just straight up.
- [09:54]
B
Yeah. It's interesting in that it's an actor portraying a famous character, but the actors were so good that it basically was one long take. There wasn't much to edit. And then they put me on a project, Audio up put me on project called How Magicians Think. And this is about 2022.
- [10:16]
A
Yeah, I remember that one.
- [10:18]
B
And that really was the first narrative one because I had to figure out what exactly they wanted. We did this series of interviews and nobody was really sure. Again, had an outline of how they wanted things to go but nobody was really sure how to put it together to, like, follow that outline. And I think it was more of a kind of a pet project for one of the owners. So there was some freedom there. Right. I just got lucky in that they're like, oh, we'll put Carrie on it. We'll figure it out as we go.
- [10:50]
A
So was that more of a defined. We know there's going to be an end to this type of job.
- [10:54]
B
Oh, yeah. So all these. These are all project based, right? Right. These are not going on forever. So in some ways, it was really risky. I mean, I had other independent clients at the time. Right. I was still doing smaller shows. You know, I was doing Tourpreneur and Lessons from a Queen and all these other smaller independent creators. But working with Audio up allowed me to get a different take on editing, a different take on podcasting, essentially a different level. And there's nothing wrong with working with independent podcasters. Nothing wrong with, like, not doing what I did. Right. But I guess my point is that it gave me a different view of the industry and what could you do with it? And honestly, I mean, y' all have to remember that I was just. Every time they asked me to do something, yep, I can do that. Sure. I can do that.
- [11:49]
A
Stretching your skills.
- [11:50]
B
Yeah. And then I'm Googling. Right. It's all on Google. There's a YouTube video for that. But how much does Think was really my first parlay into narrative? Because I put it together kind of like, oh, I can't remember what they said, but, you know, like an NPR podcast, essentially. So very narrative. Wasn't fancy. It wasn't hard. It was. I had the tape, I had the ideas. It was just like, what narration do I need to bridge it from here to here? Which wasn't that hard. I won't say it's the greatest podcast in the world, but it worked.
- [12:24]
A
I think the big question that the listener or the viewer of this is probably coming up with is, okay, so you're spending all this time on one show that might have, we'll say, 10 episodes.
- [12:32]
B
Yeah.
- [12:32]
A
You can't make a living on that unless you charge a lot. I'm not gonna ask you how much you made, but obviously that's a different skill set. Yeah, that's a different pay grade, I guess. And it wasn't something that you had actually were trained in. I mean, do you have a journalism background? Do you have any kind of. Did you read storybrand by Miller's son?
- [12:53]
B
I was too busy working, Steve. Too busy working.
- [12:56]
A
Teaching yourself how to do it yourself. Yeah, learning on the job. What do they call it? Just in time learning?
- [13:01]
B
Yeah, something like that. Flying by the seat of your pants, Which I'm no stranger to, but yeah, I mean, I did, you know, I read, I listened. I didn't read like books, but I read, you know, articles. I listened to podcasts.
- [13:16]
A
There's a lot of time spent learning while you're trying to also spend a lot of time developing a 10 episode, not even a seasonal show, just a 10 episode series.
- [13:27]
B
Yeah, well, you know, you're not doing it by yourself either. So every time I finished an episode, you send it off for review and then you get feedback. You have to be comfortable with somebody coming back to you and telling you this is awful and you need to change it. And that's happened. You know, you spend all this time and you're like, you're so proud of what you've done. And then somebody comes back, says, no, this is not gonna work, so you need to try again. And hopefully they give you a little advice on that. It didn't happen a lot, but it did happen. You have producers, you have people you can go to if you have a question. It's not all on you, which I think is a. I think when just I was editing podcasts, it was pretty much all like, I didn't have like a collaborator sitting next to me giving me advice at all. I mean, other than the podcast editor community at large, which I leaned on a lot for a lot of things and for specific answers. But it just goes to show you how all these things kind of come together and you can apply them in different ways. But yeah, I don't know if there was a question there because now I just feel like I'm talking.
- [14:41]
A
You know, you start editing for individual podcasters, and most of the time, when I think of a podcast editor in my day to day, what I do it is working with that podcaster who's usually doing an interview. And it's every week and it's a different person, so there's no real crafting there.
- [14:57]
B
I think that can be almost harder.
- [14:59]
A
Well, you definitely got to hit deadlines.
- [15:02]
B
That's the scary part, you know, when the guest changes every week, there's no template for that. It comes with its own set of problems.
- [15:11]
A
Right. But you deal with it one at a time. Whereas what you're doing then in these series shows and what you're doing now at the Legal Media Network, you've got that. Well, I don't know about Legal Media Network. But it sounds like at the 10 series show you had time to work on the whole product. It wasn't like you had to get something out every single week with a 24 hour turnaround time.
- [15:31]
B
Yeah. Just to let people know, usually most of the podcasts I worked for, all the projects for Audio up, it was like a 90 day sprint, essentially. So you're trying to get everything your piece done in 90 days to hand it off to the next person who's gonna get it done in kind of their amount of time. And if projects run over, they're usually penalties. Not for you, you get a fixed rate, but for the company. And if you're somebody who can't meet those deadlines, then you probably won't be returning. So I was always very mindful about deadlines, but it's a different kind of churn, essentially.
- [16:08]
A
Yeah. So you could put in those extra hours when you wanted to, but then you could still take that day off in the middle of the week if you needed to.
- [16:15]
B
Yeah.
- [16:16]
A
Okay, that's interesting. So I want to ask, now that you're at the Legal Media Network, did you give a resume to dm?
- [16:24]
B
No, I gave him a pitch.
- [16:25]
A
What did your pitch look like then? Because you had. Now you had this skill stack.
- [16:29]
B
Oh, yeah. And I had these shows under my belt.
- [16:32]
A
Yeah. So what did that pitch look like?
- [16:34]
B
That pitch looked like a lot of name dropping. Right. Like I worked on Stephen King Show. I worked with Michael Cohen, who is an attorney, the one that put on house arrest for Trump, Stormy Daniels, that Michael Cohen. I used his name simply because. And I was only the relief editor for him. So Lisa Orkin was his editor and producer normally. But whenever she took a vacation, she called me up and had me sub for him or sub for her. But I'd been in the industry for 10 or so years. I run this community because I was doing just busters. I've spoken here, I've done this and that. So basically it was like just a mini punch list of all my greatest achievements in editing.
- [17:22]
A
Yeah, it does sound like an impressive resume. And that's kind of where I was going with this, is you started doing this and then you stretched yourself, started doing more other people, forced you to stretch yourself when people were going out for surgery or whatever you were talking about earlier. Wow. And so now you're with the Legal Media Network. It's not a 9 to 5 job, but it is a full time.
- [17:45]
B
It is a full time role. So basically I'm the director of production.
- [17:49]
A
Yeah. Explain to Us what you do day to day.
- [17:52]
B
So basically I run the entire production department for the company. We serve about almost 200 clients.
- [18:01]
A
Wow.
- [18:02]
B
Yeah, so we do turnkey podcasting for attorneys right now and we're going to expand that out to other professionals. But we've started with attorneys. They're a tough market. If you can work with attorneys, you can work with anybody, quite frankly. We provide the contents, we bring them into a streamyard studio. We shoot video and of course, audio. Each client has a producer with them and most of our clients use one of our talented hosts and the host will interview the client based on their practice area. And we. It's just a way to build out marketing content for attorneys. Then we take care of the post production, all the editing. We make 30 pieces of social media content per episode for our clients. So basically what I do is I sit right in the middle of the whole process. Right. So I touch every piece. So I work with content to make sure that clients content is correct. I oversee them getting. Overseeing the clients getting that content. So making sure those scripts are emailed out every. Every week to the clients.
- [19:10]
A
Scripts.
- [19:11]
B
So we call them scripts. So it's just like the interview questions got an intro outro for the host.
- [19:15]
A
So more of an outline.
- [19:16]
B
Yeah, it's more of an outline, but we call them scripts or questions. I work with the client success team to make sure all the clients are happy and being served. I've got I think six hosts right now that I coordinate and then I have two producers. So that's like a team of eight that I'm overseeing. Our post production team is in Pakistan. So that means if there's any question about very specific content or issues with any like the recording at all, you know, I'll. I'll make the final decisions on how we treat those. And I do a lot of education with the editors that we have. Right. Because I know how to edit. I know how to solve specific problems. And our editors, they haven't been editing for as long as I have. So I help them and teach them like different ways to solve different problems. So I still have my hand in that if there's anything specific that a client requests, like they want content edits, that really requires a native English speaker, especially for attorneys. So I'll go in and do the content editing. We use the interview questions kind of like as the upper third. So like as a. It pops up on the screen when it's being asked. We have clients who do make their own content, but they won't provide us with Any like outlining or anything. So then I'll come up with those upper thirds or have somebody on my team come up with the upper thirds. I do all the equipment recommendations. Currently we're in the getting ready to switch from Riverside from Streamyard. So whenever there's anything having to do with production, like a piece of software, that's my decision.
- [21:06]
A
Wow.
- [21:06]
B
Right. I get to meet with the vendors and, and choose where we should spend that money. I mean, I don't get to like have the final say, but I'll bring that, you know, if I, if I bring something. And Dennis dm's motto is better, faster, less friction for our clients. So I'm, you know, constantly looking for ways to make improvements. I work on internal podcasts for our company. I know I shared BAM with you, which is our founder interviewing people in media about different marketing. I think LinkedIn is our first series and then we're gonna do actual like podcasting and being on camera as our next series. But I write the script for that and then I produce it.
- [21:54]
A
So there you get a little bit of your crater on.
- [21:56]
B
Yeah, I mean I have to do all the approvals for those as well and make sure it sounds good, it looks good, that the sound design that we have for it is good. That's my latest piece. So we're trying to sound design in house, which means I'm doing a little education on sound design for our sound designers who uses Audacity. So I've had to stretch again because I don't know. And let me tell you, this is speaking of stretching, like we're doing video podcasts. Yeah, I don't like video.
- [22:29]
A
I'm with you, sister.
- [22:31]
B
But still, I've got to, you know, I had to like figure out what cameras should I be recommending to clients because we had a problem with clients. You know, their cameras were not good and we, you know, we set up packages of equipment for them to buy. So I had to revise like all of that. I make systems and processes like I'm sure you talk about all the time. Well, if a little company, a one man business needs a workflow. Imagine a company of like 50 people, they need workflows. So I'm doing a lot of systems and processes as we scale as well. So yeah, I'm taking all the skills that I have learned from editing, all those skills I learned in Podcast Editors Mastermind, all the skills I learned in Podcast Editors Club, all the webinars and events that I went to, all the learning that I did, I'm now applying it in this much larger role.
- [23:26]
A
Much larger.
- [23:27]
B
It's crazy. I'm like, who left me in charge? And now I met with DM today. DM is our CEO, in case that hasn't come across. Now he wants me to work on company culture because apparently I'm good at making everybody work together as a team.
- [23:51]
A
Now, I've known you for a long time.
- [23:52]
B
Yeah.
- [23:53]
A
You will push yourself.
- [23:55]
B
Yeah.
- [23:55]
A
Sometimes you feel like you need to push yourself, but you will push yourself regardless. It's like you have no fear. Have you always had no fear?
- [24:03]
B
I think maybe I'm a little bit crazy, Steve.
- [24:06]
A
Okay. So the lesson for the viewers and the listeners are you gotta be a little bit crazy to then elevate yourself up to the level that Carrie is at.
- [24:14]
B
And maybe not. Maybe crazy is the wrong word. Maybe get excited. Right. When you're excited about something, it's really hard to be afraid of it. Right? Yeah, yeah. It's all. It's. You know, of course there were times where I was like, terrified. I didn't know that Audio up was gonna keep using me, but I was like, I've gotta try. I'm not, you know, I'm gonna play it off like I know exactly what I'm doing.
- [24:37]
A
Fake it till you make it. Was that your motto?
- [24:39]
B
That's exactly it. Everything is figureoutable, but it's being willing to figure it out. Right. And realizing nobody knows what we're. We made this whole podcast thing up. I made up my job.
- [24:53]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
- [24:54]
B
I didn't know people, like, I didn't go to school for this. There was no podcast editing in the 1990s.
- [25:00]
A
No.
- [25:00]
B
For sure. Yeah.
- [25:01]
A
There weren't even any in the early 210s.
- [25:03]
B
No. No. And now we're just starting to see it.
- [25:07]
A
Yeah. I think there's only been some classes, individual classes, specialized classes in the past seven years. I think the first one I heard was just before COVID Not that that was the first one. It's the first one I heard of. But now everybody thinks they can just do it themselves on YouTube. And they can. They can. That's the beauty of it. Similar story to me is 2016. A couple well known bloggers in my community said, hey, we want to start a podcast. Steve's always trying to help people. Let's give him a call. By the end of the call, like, that all sounds really complicated, Steve. We just want to hit record. Will you do the rest? I'm like, sure. Got to charge you for it. And it started right There. So I pushed myself into an area where I'm like, well, I'm not a podcast editor, and now I'm a podcast editor. But you've stretched yourself way beyond, into almost a managerial role.
- [25:54]
B
It's a leadership role. And I joke with my team, like, I don't know why anybody left me in charge of this, but it really is just using all the skills that I've developed, working with clients, being in the editing community, learning from other people. Like, I didn't get here by myself, essentially. I took the whole community, and I'd love to take you all with me.
- [26:15]
A
Are you hiring?
- [26:16]
B
I don't think I can get you all jobs. All of you. Jobs.
- [26:19]
A
You haven't fell into the HR role there yet, have you?
- [26:22]
B
No, and I won't. I won't. We're gonna. Yeah, because HR is coming, but this is a startup, and because when you're a startup, you have to be scrappy. And I think that served me as well, because I am kind of scrappy, like, making things work. There was a time when I was. I worked in, like, every role in the company, essentially, except for sales.
- [26:43]
A
You'd pulled yourself up from your bootstraps. You pushed yourself through to go to that next position, that next responsibility role and the director role. And let me ask you this real quick. Do you have a college degree?
- [26:54]
B
No.
- [26:54]
A
Neither do I.
- [26:55]
B
No.
- [26:56]
A
And yet we seem to be successful in what we're doing, and it has nothing to do with where we went, the pedigree we got. Not saying that college. There's anything wrong with college. I still wish I had some kind of piece of paper, but we can make this world, this podcasting world, like you said, we built it from the start.
- [27:13]
B
Yeah.
- [27:13]
A
And I know I only started editing in 2016. Podcasting had already been around for 11 years at the time, But I was. You know, I started as a podcaster in 2010, and a lot of people are thinking, oh, we're too late to the game now.
- [27:25]
B
Yeah. When I started my. So my first podcast, foray into podcasting is a lot like yours. It's just like my favorite podcast disappeared. And my friend said, carrie, you should do a podcast about that. And I said, all right. Not knowing anything about it. Just got into it. And back then, the reason I became an editor is because from podcasting, I knew what a slog that was. But I got really good at being efficient at it. Right. And I started to enjoy it. But back when I was podcasting and editing my own podcast, like, there were no Facebook Groups with anybody advertising podcast editing in it. That was unheard of. It wasn't a thing.
- [28:08]
A
If you were to go back and go to college, I'm gonna, I'm gonna beat on the college idea for a minute. I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just pointing something out. If you were to go back to college for something, what kind of training or education would you want to get on a college level? Not just a skill based level.
- [28:25]
B
Well, you know, I did go to college some, and I was. My goal was to do fine art, surprisingly enough.
- [28:32]
A
How does that translate to podcasting?
- [28:34]
B
I think it's the ability to start something that doesn't look like the way it's gonna end up.
- [28:42]
A
Ooh, hit that quote button right there. Get the clip ready for that one.
- [28:48]
B
Yep. Mark clip.
- [28:49]
A
Yeah, that's good.
- [28:50]
B
In art, you have to zoom in and zoom out constantly, right? You have to look at the little granular stuff. Does this flower petal look like a flower petal? Is it right? Is the perspective right? Is the coloring right? Shading right? And then you have to zoom out and like, how does that fit into the larger picture? That's really what editing is. Okay, what happens if I leave this one, um, in here? How does that change anything? Does it change anything? If not, then, then take the out. But if it is an. With like a catch in your, you know, in. In a moment of emotion where there's a little catch in the throat with that, um, that I'd leave in because that expresses something that's some sort of communication that's important for the listener to have.
- [29:35]
A
But if you're zooming in and you're getting the one by itself, it's a minuscule decision. But then on aggregate, when you've got a thousand of them in a 60 minute interview, okay, now we step back and we can see, oh, this could be a problem. This could be annoying to some people, and they're gonna turn it off or they're not gonna take the person as seriously as they would had we moved just some of those pieces of resistance.
- [29:58]
B
And I really have to think about that in this new role, in this director role. I have to think about that all the time. Like, how is this one little decision going to impact not just my clients, but the 50 other people that are working with me? How do I make this like DM says, faster, better, with less friction? I mean, that really is what I think. That's what editors do for clients. They make podcasting better, they make it faster, and they give it Less friction because then the podcaster can focus on what they're actually good at. So I think if somebody's goal listening to this, if your goal is to get in with a company, do something like I'm doing, stepping into like a leadership role where you're working on the bigger picture while taking care of the day to day kind of thing. And you're not necessarily like editing every show. You're not actually. Or you want to be an editor, but you want to be a producer or you want to go into content. Like if you want to stretch your skills, I think you need to think creatively about what you're doing now. How is now going to get you to where you want to be and quite frankly, being open to different opportunities. Because you know what? I wasn't planning on taking this job. I wasn't seeking this job. For those of you who don't know, my parents were at the end of their life and I had to drop clients to take care of them. Right. Because we didn't want to put them in a nursing home and we didn't necessarily have the resources to put them in a nursing home. Right. We wanted, in the end my, it was very important to my dad that we kept the house. That would be our inheritance. You know, I stopped working for audio up. I dropped down to like one or two clients at a time. In 2024, I made $23,000 for the entire year. When I went to the podcast editor club looking for work, I was really looking for work so I could because by that time my parents had died. Now I have to pay their mortgage. I gotta keep things going so we can settle their estate. I have to pay a lawyer, you know, all these things that pop up. And I was like, I gotta get back to work and I gotta do something fast. So I took the job because it was originally a producer job. It, you know, paid $50 an hour and I could work from home. Great. Because I brought in all my skills. That translated into, hey, I want to make you a leader in this company. I want you to grow with me. So that's where it went. Now it's a full time gig and I'm actually, it's fun because I'm also designing the company I want to work for.
- [32:40]
A
You said it's a full time gig. Are you saying it's 40 hours a week, nine to five or because you're still a contractor.
- [32:45]
B
I'm still a contractor. I've got flexibility. If I need to take a day off, I take a day off. If I need to work from 9 to 11 and then 5 to 10, I don't know, I can't. The math escapes me. But I could do that, right? I could do that. I choose to treat it more like a full time job just so I can do something I didn't do for a long time in my own business, and that is step away. I now have boundaries around my off time. Like, that's why. And that's probably why I'm not on social media as much as I was. I don't regret the time I spent in social media because that's how I got here. People who know me will know, you know, that social media is social. You spend that time networking, you spend that time helping people. You spend that time getting your name and face out there. I did that and I think that was very important to my career. But now I'm in a different stage in my life. I'm not as young as I used to be. Steve, I hate to tell you, it's been about a decade.
- [33:51]
A
Well, that's a surprise to all of us that we all get old.
- [33:54]
B
Yeah, Surprise, surprise. Don't have the energy I used to.
- [33:57]
A
But you have, you have more cats than you used to.
- [34:00]
B
I think I have less cats than I used to.
- [34:01]
A
Oh, is it loud? I think you said you had five cats. I thought that was more than what you used to, so. Wow, that's a lot. Yeah. But you built this role into a point where if you wanted to step away, you tell them you want to step away because you're in charge. I mean, without Carrie, what are they going to do?
- [34:19]
B
Yeah, and I joke about that with my son. Like, oh, no, I took the day off. I'm the boss, I can do that. Dennis, if you're listening. Not really. I do make sure everything's covered. I do my diligence. So I can take off. Because, you know, just randomly taking off doesn't work so well. But yeah, I, you know, it suits me in this stage of life. And I, I think there's a lot of opportunity out there for editors to grow into larger roles. And I would like to see it usually in. You'll find in these larger companies and startups, you'll find people who have come from journalism backgrounds and more educated than I am, and that's fine. But that's not to say that, like, your opportunity isn't out there.
- [35:11]
A
Well, I've been very impressed with this entire story. I've been kind of out of the loop on your life lately and I've Been just seeing little bits and pieces of what's been going on. You now have this flexible 1099 job that's filling your schedule, your day, and you seem to love it, even though it seems like a lot of work over at the Legal Media Network. So look, there's a lot of listeners here who are fans of yours. Just because you're one of the original Yetis, we can't let that go. So if people wanted to reach out to you, where do they go?
- [35:40]
B
My Instagram, TheCari Caulfield or Threads. Threads is probably better. It's same thing. The Carrie Caulfield. You can go to my website, which I'm sure you'll politely link in the show notes, Steve. Although I don't keep that as updated. I haven't updated it in a year. I just looked at it. I haven't updated it in a year. But yeah, you can get me there. And carryayaya podcasting.com if you're not afraid to be left unread for a little while.
- [36:10]
A
Yeah, I've had a few people respond to my emails from like two months ago recently. They're like, I just got back to it. I'm like, how do you not get your email? I don't know that world. That's interesting to me.
- [36:20]
B
It is a weird place to be in.
- [36:22]
A
But you have your nose to the grindstone at the Legal Media Network. You guys just created this new product out there. I'd like to hear a little bit more about it. I did watch some of it. It's very interest. And it's another way that editors who don't like doing video can tackle a video product. So tell us about bam.
- [36:39]
B
BAM is our company podcast and BAM stands for Building Authority Through Media. It is superhero style and we've animated it. So my CEO dm sits down with an expert guest on this series that's running. First series is running is LinkedIn. So how to build authority on LinkedIn? We record for about 15, 20, 30 minutes. I actually write a script for this using AI.
- [37:12]
A
Oh, so you're even creating there. You're the author.
- [37:16]
B
Yeah, I'm the author, I guess you could say. Although my cortex, my GPT is called Cortex, he named himself, and I've spent a long time training him so I can get things done really quickly. So you know anybody who's into AI, and I'm sure you've had tons of conversations about this, but that training your AI is super important, especially for work. You have to give it parameters. You have to give it Guardrails. So I basically gave it the structure I wanted the topics and had it create a script. And then I would go through another important part about AI. I would go through the script and adjust it and revise it and get it to where I want. And then maybe I'll put it back into AI to see where I could tweak it, like with SEO and keywords and all those extra little things that you want to make things perform well. Dennis is the bam man. Right. So he reads it in his bam voice,
- [38:22]
A
where he's got his hands on his hips and he's like.
- [38:24]
B
Hands? Yep.
- [38:25]
A
Superman.
- [38:26]
B
Yeah. And it literally. So it's basically Dennis is ma man. And then whatever. The guest. The guest gets to pick their own superhero name.
- [38:35]
A
That's fun.
- [38:36]
B
Yeah. And then we create the villains. So the bamman is finding out how the LinkedIn legend defeated the host Goblin or something like that. Just. It's silly. It's fun. Then once we record it, it goes off to a fabulous AI expert. Kwan, who does actually uses AI to make the animation. And we've been working on this for a long time. So the animation actually started off very rudimentary. So for anybody who is interested in this kind of project, just know that it takes a little bit of time to get it right. And you're going to keep, like anything else. You're gonna start at the beginning. Right. You can't jump to the end of, like, super polished everything. No, you've gotta start with a little bit of rudimentary and a little bit imperfection and then kind of grow with that. And then we do this add in sound design, then becomes a whole cartoon about LinkedIn, about building authority on LinkedIn, which is probably the most unique business thing I've seen in a long time. So. And eventually we'll expand it out to our clients.
- [39:47]
A
How long does it take to produce something like that? Now in this current state where you've already put in the months of work to build the processes and the engines
- [39:55]
B
that run the thing, you know, honestly now it doesn't take all that long. I'm always surprised at how fast they deliver episodes. We're already done with season one. Yeah.
- [40:04]
A
Because you got to craft the narrative, you got to deliver the scripts, they got to then record and perform. Then you take it to the AI generating the person who generates the visuals, and then you gotta go make sure it's polished before it gets uploaded. And then we're talking a week, I
- [40:18]
B
think maybe like two or three weeks.
- [40:19]
A
Okay.
- [40:20]
B
The script to recording. I can do that overnight because I've set it up so I can just plug in the information. The AI spits it out, I just go over it. And then the more you do it, the better it gets. And I imagine it's a lot like that with the actual animation, but the editing, the audio editing, the sound design, that's not changed. That's not something AI is doing for us. That still requires a human touch.
- [40:52]
A
So there's still a lot in post production that needs to be done there.
- [40:55]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [40:56]
A
It's that polish.
- [40:57]
B
It is that polish. And it matters.
- [40:59]
A
Well, Carrie, I appreciate you giving me your time. I appreciate you being here and tell us your story. I am encouraged to see somebody who's come from, not to diminish what you were doing, but you have really elevated where you went from when I first met you, when you sent your husband back to go get your laptop because you left it at home and he had to drive like two hours one way or something like that. Ridiculous. And I always remember that story back then.
- [41:22]
B
Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm sure he will too.
- [41:27]
A
So I appreciate you being here on the podcast every Mastermind show. And if anybody wants to reach out to Kerry, we've given out the information. Of course, I'll have links to everything in the show notes.
- [41:35]
B
Thank you very much, Steve.
- [41:43]
A
I've been in the podcast industry for a long time. Podcasting since 2010, podcast editing professionally since 2016. And in that time, I've learned a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. And I've also learned you can never learn enough. Everything keeps changing. Look at what AI and video is doing in the past couple of years. The Podcast Editor Academy has a goal of helping you to migrate through all of these changes as well. Draw on my over 10 years of professional podcast editing experience and my more than 30 years of running small businesses. Wait, is that right?
- [42:14]
B
30 years?
- [42:14]
A
No, wait, it's 35 years. More than 35 years of running small businesses. Get access to me and other resources in the Podcast Editor Academy. Register now for a 249 quarterly membership. Every week I send out a weekly challenge. Get some of that windshield University Zig Ziglar always talked about with our private podcast you can take on the road with you and of course, our monthly office hours where you can get together with other professionals in this industry where the real learning takes place. Join now podcasteditoracademy.com that's podcasteditoracademy.com.