We’re back with a new guest, who, after editing podcasts for six years, is now co-hosting a show. Meet Marisa Eikenberry!
Marisa is the web developer at the Kevin Eikenberry group, and she has been editing their podcast Remarkable Leadership since 2016 and Talk Like a Leader since 2019.
Marisa goes into detail of how these shows are recorded, her process with the hosts and the differences working between shows, talking about how much editing she does for both shows, what she looks out for when she’s listening back, etc.
This will be of interest to those of you who are starting to podcast and wonder what is involved in working with an editor, and get some ideas of what to look out for when working on a show. (And Pilar realised how much she enjoys talking about editing.)
As well as those business shows, Marisa is also part of the editing team that turns Twitch streams into podcasts for GodSquad Church.
10.52 mins
The podcast Long Distance Work Life started as a way of promoting the group’s new book – well, actually, Marissa had been waiting for a while to get her co-host Wayne to do a podcast. Once they decided to start the show, they thought of ways in which to differentiate themselves from other shows covering similar topics.
Wayne works well when bouncing off others, a guest or a co-host for example. And he approached Marisa to co-host with him for the episodes when he wasn’t interviewing guests. This made her a little bit nervous, but she was ok with the dynamic Wayne was after: amateur-expert.
The amateur-expert dynamic or teacher-student is a fun one to listen to, and Pilar has experience of that in My Pocket Psych, where she plays the “voice of the public” to occupational psychologist Dr Richard MacKinnon. (Pilar also mentions The Story Grid, as an example of this.)
Marisa is having a lot of fun with this format, asking questions that she knows other people have, but also those that she’s unsure of, such as what’s the difference between “remote-first” and “remote-friendly”.
16.35 mins
On top of enjoying working with Wayne Turmel, her co-host, Marisa now feels a complete part of the podcast community, something she’s never felt before, even though she’s been editing podcasts for a long time. She used to say she was “just an editor”, which now she realises was not being fair to herself. This raises questions like who makes up the podcasting community, etc.
Recording for this show has changed her mindset. For example, she’s more regularly on LinkedIn, mindfully asking questions about podcasting and networking with other podcasters. She now feels like she can be part of those conversations.
This resonates with Pilar, remembering the conversation with Bernie J Mitchell, where he talked about podcasts giving people the space to talk and gain confidence. He was talking about guests, but this is similar to what Marisa is experiencing by being a podcast host. She feels like she now has enough credibility to talk about podcasting, as opposed to when she was “just an editor”.
22.00 mins
Marisa has been listening to podcasts since 2014 (she mentions the comedy podcast My brother, my brother and me) including ones on podcasting, like Podcasting Business School.
Pilar mentions The Audacity to Podcast, Podcasters’ Roundtable, Buzzsprout’s Buzzcast (here’s my affiliate link to Buzzsprout hosting) and Libsyn’s The Feed.
27.05 mins
Marisa mainly listens to podcasts with more than one host, or a host in conversation. Something she’s struggling with at the moment is taking up enough space in the conversation and also delivering the intros and outros, which would be easier if they weren’t also releasing the video version. (Pilar forgets her calls to action too…)
Past guest Myriam Hadnes talked about how she’s also learned to take the space with her guests, as a way of giving guests something to bounce off of.
It’s getting easier for Marisa with each recording, having less awkward pauses, adding to the conversation and asking better questions.
(Pilar is enjoying this conversation because it’s unusual to talk to someone when they are at the beginning of their host journey, as we usually hear from podcasters once they have released quite a number of shows and though they refer to the time when they were starting, it’s not the same as hearing about the learning almost as it’s happening.)
The co-host dynamic is also affected by the difference in age between the co-hosts. Marisa is a millennial and has grown up with technology.
Look out for more editing work from Marisa in an upcoming show, and maybe at some point she might start her own show…
Connect with Marisa on LinkedIn.
Get in touch if you would like some coaching and advice yourself or connect on Twitter @Inpodcasting
If you want to support this show and are looking for a media host: I recommend Buzzsprout, and for web hosting, I recommend Bluehost (affiliate links).