Warmshowers.org Foundation is a vibrant community of cyclists and hosts who offer free reciprocal hospitality to touring cyclists in nearly every corner of the world. The organization began in 1976 when a handful of passionate cyclists created a simple database of 600 people they knew willing to host touring cyclists. Now Warmshowers has grown to a database of over 180,000 registered users in almost every country around the globe.
As part of their strategy to promote the organization and attract new users, Warmshowers started a podcast called Bike Life in early 2020. The initial response was overwhelmingly positive, with viewership taking off. However, Tahverlee Anglen, Warmshowers Executive Director, and podcast host, quickly realized that managing all aspects of the podcast herself was taking far too much of her very valuable time.
The Problem~
Except for audio mixing, Tahverlee was handing everything herself; reviewing guest submissions, doing research, scheduling pre-interviews and recordings, creating show notes, uploading to the podcast platform, and posting on social media. Managing the cumbersome process was distracting and taking away from time spent in her leadership role. Scheduling guests was tedious, and she often had to cancel due to conflicting schedules. The organization’s goal was to release Bike Life episodes bi-weekly; however, Tahverlee’s busy schedule often prevented that. Episode releases became sporadic, which in turn affected viewership.
The Solution~
Enter Virtual ME Solutions. After my discovery call with Tahverlee, I knew there were opportunities to organize and streamline the process. Using Asana, my favorite project management tool, I laid out a step-by-step process for producing Bike Life from start to finish. I began with retooling the guest submission process to gather much more needed information upfront and created a Calendly link to make it easier to schedule interviews and recordings.
From there, I standardized the podcast show notes to include better guest information and a strong call to action for Warmshowers. After the show is mixed, creating the show notes is easier using the enhanced submission form information. In addition, I created a system to gather all the necessary information before uploading it to the podcast platform, which has become a big timesaver.
Tahverlee knew that Warmshowers needed customized episode graphics for social media but never had the time to create them. I put my Canva skills to good use and created an easily customizable template for each new episode. We recently took this further by implementing Headliner’s audio/video editing platform to create audio clips for social media promotion. When each episode is released, we have strong social media assets to share on the Warmshowers platforms. We provide these assets to the guest to share on their social media as well.
Once the streamlined system was in place and running smoothly, the final step was to create an SOP to document the process from start to finish.
The Outcome~
Tahverlee shares three significant benefits of working with Virtual ME Solutions, “time saved that I can devote to leadership activities, a streamlined and improved process that has helped increase viewership because we are consistently releasing new episodes, and best of all, peace of mind that it will get done correctly without me having to think about it.”
Ready to take back your time and be more productive? Organization is my superpower! Contact Virtual ME Solutions today to learn how I can help you grow your business.
