Success Beyond Downloads: Creating a Podcast That Makes a Bottom-Line Difference in Your Business with Megan Dougherty

Hello everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of the Marketing Media & Money Magazine and podcast. So I'm really excited to have you all here, and I'm excited to share our guest today. Let me ask you a question. Do you think podcast success is all about downloads? Think again. Today, we're going to reveal the secrets to creating a podcast that drives real business growth and impacts your bottom line. So I have to tell you, there's a lot of things that we could talk about about podcasting, but today we're going to tell you the secrets behind the podcast. So let me tell you a little bit about our guest. Megan Dougherty is the author of podcasting for business. She's a digital marketing strategist with a background in online business development. She's had the opportunity over the years to work with hundreds of business owners in a huge variety of industries. She co founded one stone created a podcast production agency specializing in leveraging podcasts as marketing channels for small businesses in 2021 stone creative developed the business podcast blueprints to help companies and executives dial into the specific ways they can leverage a podcast for their content marketing and business development goals. So I'm so excited to have you here with me today. Megan

Patty, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

You're so welcome. I have to tell you that I think whenever people think about podcasting, whichever side of the mic that they happen to be on, they're always thinking about, how am I going to leverage this? They're always thinking about how I'm going to post it on social media. They're thinking about vanity metrics, right? You know, and all of those things, like, how many downloads? What's the numbers, all of those things. And not to say you shouldn't look at those things, it just doesn't tell the real story. And I have to say, when I had a conversation with you, the reason I wanted to have you come on the show is because I thought that really we pulled back the curtain and you really talked about the business of podcasting, right? You know. And I think a lot of times if people think about questions we should ask ourselves, like, why are you doing it? A lot of the things we hear is, oh, I wanted to give me more visibility. There's a lot of reasons people say, but I don't think they really think of it from a business point of view. Now I do, but then I'm in marketing, right? You know? So I have to say, I think that is really interesting, because you know, what the listeners experience when they listen to or watch a podcast episode is kind of the result of a whole lot of planning, strategy and labor, which they probably don't realize. But what podcast hosts experience is sometimes challenging, frustrating and expensive, and can be unclear exactly, why am I even doing it, and what's the point of it? Because they're not really thinking, think of it as a business strategy, right? So I think that's where we're going to jump in, and I'm super excited. So in your book, podcasting for business. Great name of a book too, by the way. Thank you. You discussed creating a podcast that makes a bottom line impact out of business, right? And I think that a lot of times, while I will say that a lot of the part of the podcasting that I get is comes in opportunities, and that has affected my bottom line, right? You know. But can you elaborate on how Podcasts can drive business growth? Because I think that may be something that people aren't thinking about, or maybe they're not thinking about it till they're a little bit further in the game and they're like, Oh, how am I going to have this? You know, do more than just get engagement on social media, right? Yeah,

Yeah, absolutely. And I think you're really nailing it. And I think you know, because you have your background in marketing, these chairs, that's exactly why you're having a different experience than many hosts do with their podcast, because there's you need to kind of make a shift in your thinking about a podcast if you want to leverage one as a marketing channel. A podcast doesn't exist, as you know, a discrete project, its own thing that has its own objective rules and its own objective criteria for success or failure. It's a tool that a business can use in a whole variety of different ways to achieve a whole bunch of different outcomes. And when you start looking at the podcast as a tool that your business is using to do specific things, all of a sudden you have a lot more flexibility in terms of who you're talking to, what the format's going to be, how you're going to repurpose it, who you're going to try to get to listen to it, who you're going to talk to as guests, and all of those things can contribute to the different outcomes that you're creating. And so when you start with, what do I need for my business that a podcast might be able to help me achieve, all of a sudden, you are using this tool to achieve business goals, rather than doing a project that everyone else is doing, and hoping you're going to get some good results of it on the backside, of it on the backside. So it really is about intention at the start,

which I think is really important. So how important is it to start with clear goals? So, like, that's what we're talking about, right? Being intentional and having clear goals. But how could these goals enhance the profitability and the impact of the show? Besides just saying, Oh yeah, I have some goals, I want to have 1000 downloads a week or like, you know, not to say those are bad goals. But really, if you have clear goals, because we all know that if you're going to have a goal, do you have a way to track it, right? You know, you measure it somehow. But how can they enhance profitability and the impact of the show? Because really honestly, those are not the same thing. No, no, and

That's why I was really strongly recommend people start with business goals and see if a podcast can work. Rather than I'm going to start a podcast and I'm going to make specific goals about the podcast, because your example is great. 1000 downloads a month, fantastic. Who cares? What does it mean? What impact is that making on the business? Now, if you've designed a podcast where you know that out of every 100 listeners, every 100 new listeners, one person is going to convert to my membership, well then all of a sudden, that 1000 downloads a month, that means 10 new customers. Okay, that's a goal. That's we can work towards that, and know that when we increase downloads, we're going to be increasing conversions into this product. But that came from the starting goal of I need to increase memberships in this, say, paid community that I have. Therefore I'm going to create a show that is going to convert people from strangers or from people who are vaguely aware of me into people who want to join my membership community. And it works the same way with any goal that you have, whether it's networking and meeting maybe new referral partners, whether it's training and onboarding new staff. Can be a really fun goal, whether it's shortening a sales cycle, whether it's creating content that other team members can use or that your clients can use. When you start with something that your business needs and design a podcast to do that thing, well, then all of a sudden you've got real metrics and real KPIs that you can look at to see how well it's performing, and you can kind of dial up or dial down the investments of time and money and energy based on how important those goals are and how much of them you need,

Which I think really makes a lot of sense, because I think that every time I've ever heard anybody talk about wanting to start a podcast, right? Obviously, I'm in the marketing space, like we said, and I'll have people who'll come to me, whether they're clients I've already had, or somebody who comes to me for that reason, and they say, oh, I want to start a podcast. And when I ask and why? Literally, the first question that they want to know is because they want to know, who should my guest be? Should my guest be big name? Should my guest be people I think I want as clients? Should my guests be who I want as partners? Should my guests be like? It's always about like, who should I invite on my show? But they never take it further than that, like, well, let's take each one of those you said, and what is the reason why, and how is that going to affect your business, right? You know, so to me, it's almost like reverse engineering, right? You know, this is the thing that I want more people in my mastermind, like, what you said more people in your membership, and then asking yourself to work backwards, like, what do you need to do in order to get that objective, I think is really important. So I know that for you, you have literally thought about what these goals are. And I love that you're one of the few people I know who said this, and I want to get more people in my membership, or whatever the case may be, right? You know, what is the reason why you're even doing something in the first place? I also know that you have created this business podcast blueprints, which I love. I always love a framework, right? You know. So can you explain the business podcast blueprints framework and how it helps companies and executives make strategic decisions regarding their podcast? Because really intentionality strategy, that's really the name of the game. So having a framework, I think, is only so can you tell us a little bit about that framework?

Oh, with absolute pleasure. So the business podcast blueprints are they're kind of five high level reasons for podcasting, and I like to have people start with choosing one most important reason, or one most important high level goal for their podcast. And it's not because you can't achieve a whole bunch of different things with a single show. It's because it's going to focus your thinking. It's going to make your decision making a lot easier, and you're going to make sure that you make decisions that are consistent with your most important goals. So the business podcast blueprints are relationship building. So if you would need to use a podcast to connect with other people, audience engagement, if you've already got traffic sources or a community that you already have and you want to engage them in some way, thought leadership, if you want to get your IP and your IP and your ideas out there and become more known in your industry. Then there is conversion, if you need to kind of change people from one state to another, or have them opt in or join something. And then content, which is kind of the bonus, because you're always going to get content out of a podcast. But there are some shows that really just exist to create different kinds of content for a business, and when you know which of those is most important, you can make sure that you make decisions that help you with that goal. So if I have a thought leadership podcast, and the most important thing that I'm going to do with my show is get my ideas out there, share my IP, well then I'm not going to have a podcast where I talk to a bunch of guests about what they are really good at. I'd be showcasing their expertise and their thought leadership and their IP. And that's not. Helping me achieve my goal of sharing my company's thought leadership. So instead, I might have conversations with experts, I might have more solo episodes. It's going to make impacts on how I promote and so kind of choosing that one archetype is going to filter down into all of the other decisions that you make. And some shows, some some goals, some outcomes are in conflict with each other. You know, it's really hard to have both relationship building and conversions, you know, or in they can you want to make sure that you're making choices. They're going to make your life easier rather than harder, and not have your podcast trying to achieve too many different goals, but have everything that you do for it be aligned towards that kind of one specific I call it the prime directive of the podcast.

So does that have to be you make that decision upfront, and that has to be how it is always. Or can it change from, you know, episode to episode, like, I know people who interview experts, and they kind of spotlight them, and then they do a solo episode once a month, or something like that. So can you combine some of those directives that you want to do, or find a way that, you know, those five that you just said, Are there any that can be combined together, that would work well together, and then kind of seems like, then you're having, like, a comprehensive plan on, oh, okay, well, on the first, you know, Wednesday of the month, I'm going to do a solo episode where I'm going to talk about my thought leadership, And my goal for that is to convert them into whatever the thing is. So you're kind of doing that, and maybe another one you're going to talk about relationship building, and maybe you have a community that you want, and that's kind of what you want to do. So like, can we talk about, like, how you could combine them, whether it's a couple of them in one or whether you're doing, you know, one of them, like, I said, a solo episode a month. Or, like, how does that work? Or does it take away from the goal? Does it enhance it take away from the goal? Does it confuse people? Yeah.

So trying to do everything very often results in achieving nothing. But you can definitely mix and match a little bit and kind of, there's all sorts of individual outcomes like KPIs that you can they're blueprint agnostic, I call them, but for really high level, you can have one, you can have two, and having different episode types for different purposes can be really, really effective. The danger there is that you want to make a show that's consistent and cohesive, and that people, when they listen, they understand what they're going to get. So I would not try to get all of them into one podcast. Maybe one or two tends to be the most effective, and some work together a little bit better than others. And you know, you can always do a bonus episode or a special series if you want to do another kind of mini goal or really focus on another blueprint within that. But, you know, the people that we work with, at least they're business owners. They're running businesses doing a lot of different things well, with one podcast, takes a lot of time and a lot of planning, so it often tends to be a lot easier to narrow the focus just a little bit, especially as you're getting started, if you've been podcasting for years and you're seeing great results, you can absolutely have a lot more freedom and make a lot more changes and mix and match a lot more because one you've got the audience, the credibility with your audience, and you've got the experience, you've got the chops, you know what's going to sound good. You've probably got a great team supporting you and everything. And you can be a lot more creative at the beginning. Keep it simple. It's going to be a lot more effective if you're more tightly focused.

And do you think, like I know for me, I have my podcast, and everybody knows it's every week, and this is when it comes out. And I'm very, very consistent. I've also had people say to me, oh, Patty, we would love to hear you share more about your point of view. And so I really had to wait. Did I want to have one of my episodes be a solo episode? And then my question to myself was, well, if I'm going to do it, it needs to be the same one every month so they know it's, you know, the first one of the month, or whatever, so they know exactly what they're getting, yep. Now for me, I ended up deciding to do a separate solo one that's shorter, that focuses on that, but that was just my decision that I made. I do know people who the last one of the month is a solo episode or something like that, but when you were talking about like, relationship building, relationship building could be with the person who's the guest, that's why you are bringing them on, right? You know, because it's somebody that you love, what they stand for, and you just really think that they can certainly support your community. I bring a lot of people on for that reason, yep. So I think that is really good, but I think that knowing what it is, I think that's where it doesn't get me confused for for your guests that are listening, because they're like, oh, okay, I know what I'm going to get. So you're relevant, you're consistent, and I think that is important. But when you're talking about business, what makes a podcast valuable to a business, and how can hosts optimize their shows to generate more value? Yeah, and

I think that's the most important question that a lot of business owners don't ask before they get into podcasting, because, you know, it is, it is just boom, right now. It's huge. It's not going away. But what makes a podcast business for valuable for a business is very often bottom line. It's a return on. Investment. You know, there are people who podcast because they love it, and it's a hobby, and it's wonderful. And there's people who podcast because they want to start a business around the podcast, and that's cool, too. But if you've got a business, if you've got clients, if you've got a team, you've got services to deliver, you've got products to create, a marketing channel has to pull its weight. It has to result in something. And the type of value, well, that's up in the air. There's all sorts of different value that you can optimize for, but you need to decide what that is. Is it going to be lowering my labor costs by creating materials my customer service team can use? Is it going to be shortening my sales cycle and improving my cash flow? Is it going to be meeting new people who could be potential referral partners, who are going to send me business, or could be, you know, interviewing and having conversations people who could become clients themselves? You know, maybe it's getting more opportunities. As you said, that's a huge benefit, and you can often benefit. And you can optimize your show for any of these things, and you can measure how any of these things are going in your business, and that's going to tell you whether or not the podcast is creating value. What's not going to create value is if you start podcasting without a clear goal or a clear intention of what is going to be valuable, and then you'll get something that's probably doing some good. You know, it's it's obviously like it's doing something, but you can't point your finger and say that is it. That's the value. And that's a problem. Accountants don't like that. You've got to be able to show really clearly how this expense is translating into some kind of benefit for the business. And that's where the planning and the intentionality and the admittedly tedious job of tracking those results comes in. Really

Thought you said that because I wanted to go there net. So when you're talking about, like the note, you really have to be able to measure it some way, right, some way the ROI, and because I love that, you just said all those different ways, right? You know, it isn't always cash. That's not always that way. And I know for me, I've had opportunities that resulted in a lot more than just if I were to make cash, right? You know, so, but when you're talking about optimizing it, like, what are some of the ways that you suggest some strategies for tracking it so that they know if it's optimizing, are they getting the value? Are they getting that ROI? So I mean, is it as simple as well? There's always automation, so we know that that's always that. But could it be as simple as having a spreadsheet? And these are the things that you should be looking at, because it's not just vanity metrics. How many downloads, etc, we're talking about that. But what should they be looking at when they're tracking?

So let's take one of the, maybe the one of the more oddball ones to look at kind of developing metrics for the hard to measure type of stuff. So let's say thought leadership. That's when your really big goals, you want to start being more known in your industry, and you're going to use your podcast as a vehicle to do that. Well, how the heck do you track that? Often thought leadership is going to mean people are thinking about you. They're aware of you, they're talking about you. So if I want to measure the impact of the thought leadership I'm creating for my podcast. I'm going to look for mentions on social media I didn't ask for so that means people are finding my work and they're talking about it without me. That's excellent. That's a really good sign. I'm going to count those, and I'm going to see how that number changes. I might also look at the times that I'm invited to speak since I started the podcast, maybe I've gotten more invitations to keynote, to present at summits, to attend, to present at webinars, if that increases over the time my podcast, that's an indicator I'm developing my thought leadership. Well, also, any kind of earned media can be tracked for that really well. So Anytime somebody's talking about you that you didn't have to directly beg for, or that you had to beg for a little bit less than in the past, that is going to indicate that it's working. And you can do that kind of reverse engineering for pretty much anything in the book. We've kind of done that math on 15 different kinds of value, but there's really the sky's the limit. When you understand exactly what's creating the value and what is the indicator that the value is happening, well then you can count that. And I do have to say, I wish I could say it was otherwise. It's hard getting this kind of number, and this kind of tracking is not easy. There's not an AI, there's not a tool that can do it, yet. A lot of it does have to be just kind of done by a person on your team, and that isn't fun, but it's how you can measure the value. And if it is, you know, if it's often, it's an expensive part of someone's marketing activities, you want to know how it's translating into value. So it's very worth the time, in my opinion.

Okay, so I want to pack a few things there. So one of the things that I know that I have a hard set rule in my business, that is that every single division of my company has to pay for itself. So modcast has to pay for itself. The magazine has to pay for itself. You know, my clients have to pay for self. The mastermind, every single thing I do has to pay for itself. And so I have tracking for each one of those things, you know. I think sometimes when people put them all together and they just look at their bottom line numbers, well, something could actually be dragging that down, and you just wouldn't know what the thing was, unless you do them separately. So that's really, really important to me. So to know what real metrics, you know, should you track right? You know? So that's going to be a question I would ask you in a second, but you said something else first, and I think it's important that the people listening really catch this. So I want you to define this first. You said something about earned media. Now, obviously I'm in marketing media, and I know what that means, but will you share with them what earned media is versus a. Earned, earned media, and so that we can really talk about, what are the real metrics should they track over time to evaluate success or failure?

Absolutely. So my understanding of earned media comes from Ginny Dietrich's work with the PESO model, so it's paid, earned, shared and owned media. And earned media under this model that she and her team developed is when, basically, people write about you and do the work for you of creating the content. So it's when you get to write up in the newspaper. It's when you get citation. The thing that might be considered like traditional PR earned media, is when someone else is saying, Oh, yes, this person did a great job, and they need to be seen for that. We need to talk about what great job they did. That would be, that'd be how I look at earned media.

I think that's true. You know, I love it, even though I write for Forbes magazine, even more I like it when other people that write for Forbes magazine mention

In the right, right? It's so good.

It is just phenomenal, right? So I think that is good. So what are some of the ways that there is unearned media, right? With unearned media? And then we'll kind of go into what the metrics they should track over time.

And when you say unearned media are talking like owned media, like the what you create and put out into the world, yes, then that would be anything that's on your platform, that you've developed and that you have done yourself, basically, that would be your your own, or your unearned so

I think that's important, because when we're talking about metrics, right? And I'd have to tell you, I think the reason why having these goals and knowing what to track is really important, because I know for me, I'm going to say better than 60% of the people who hire me will tell me that they have followed me on so across social media, They read all the things, but they don't comment. Yeah, and I think that's so interesting. And I've asked many, many times why? And they're like, well, until I made my decision to hire you, a lot of times, because people don't always do social media right. I do, but not everybody does right, and they, a lot of times, people don't want to comment on somebody's social media because, you know, everybody talks about, you know, a DM strategy or whatever, and as soon as they just like it, they're going to get hit up in the, yeah, you know, in the private messages and all this kind of stuff. So a lot of times people will socially stalk you. So to say, Yeah, you know, because they're just kind of watching before they make a decision, and then they reach out. And then when you go back and look, you realize, oh, they have been kind of on the peripheral there, watching you. They just hadn't made their decision. So if a metric you used was just how many people engage on your social that may or may not actually be an anchor, it really number. So when you're thinking about real metrics, right, that they should track over time that will actually tell them success or failure. What are some of the real metrics that you suggest that they really track?

Okay, so one of my favorites is, and I'd like everyone listening now to go open up your calendar app when someone's going to book a discovery call with you, and I want you to add a new question, if it's not that already, and it's, how did you hear about me? And one of those options in the drop down list you're going to create is going to be my podcast. My podcast, and that is a huge, important piece of data when it comes to understanding how people are coming into your orbit, because that's what we all want to know, right? How did somebody first hear about us? Was it a friend tell them? Did they hear an episode? They see me on social? Did they see me keynote? Figuring that out just is so important for direct Where are you going to direct your metrics. So that's the biggest one, make sure that you have everything in place to try and know where people are finding you. Other metrics that can be really, really good are, again, based on your goals. But you know, can be how many people that I have on my podcast become clients or refer business to me, and then how much business do they refer can be the content that I'm reusing within the business. So I'm creating might be solo episodes, and I answer really common questions, well, then they go into a library, and all of my clients can ask that library instead of asking me right now, I've saved a bunch of time. So I'm saving time labor costs with my podcast. There are even cases when you'll want to be tracking your downloads, like I found most businesses, downloads are not very impactful, but if you can draw a line between the number of downloads and some other business outcome, like, like sales, like conversions, like more engagement, that can be a really good thing to optimize for as well. I wish it was a little more hard and fast than it is, but it kind of comes down to what's important in the business. What are we optimizing the podcast for, and what are the numbers associated with that? I think

That really makes a lot of sense. Like, I know that for me, that one of the things that I really track are referrals, but referrals in several different ways. So I have it several different ways to result in a referral. Did it result in a referral to be on another podcast? Right? Yep. Did it result in introductions? Did it result in a speaking engagement? Did it result in any type of other stage to be on, whether it's virtual or in business, but sometimes it also results into an introduction to somebody, and then that introduction of being on somebody else's podcast that resulted in you getting a client, right? And so you have to. Know that you can track it from that podcast guest episode, but does it really go back to the introduction, to the person that you never would have been on that podcast. You didn't even know that person if somebody hadn't done that introduction? So you kind of have to have some type of system in how you do that. But I think I love that what you said about the drop down box that they heard from you from the podcast. Because I know that one of the very first questions, even if I'm having coffee with somebody, is, how did you hear from me? But I also know that when I'm wanting to serve them, I also ask them, which things would serve you the best? What are you looking for? So if they say, oh, I want to be on more podcasts, or whatever the case may be, I always like to track that too, because I feel like that number is really important to me too. So if I have say, for example, done five referrals for somebody to be on a podcast, and then I they come back to me and say, Oh, thank you so much patty. Or I have coffee with them again, and they tell me that you have to know that when they say, just reciprocity being what it is, when they say, Well, you know, what? Gotta you put me on these five podcasts, and they were really, really great for me. What can I do for you? The ask that you're asking can be a little bit higher, yeah, because you've done something for them, right? So rather than just something super simple, you might be able to say, well, you know, now that you've actually seen, you know, the type of people that I can introduce you to, like, who do you know that this or that, right? You know? So I feel like there's kind of a branches of things in the tree of your podcast. And so I think that if you track it, it really is important to know, especially when you're thinking about opportunities. And I know that some of those opportunities have led to people writing for my magazine or sponsoring my magazine. I actually found the sponsor of my magazine from an introduction that somebody did. So I really feel like, what's the value in that, and then from that one thing, how much value is that, you know, branching off from that? So I think that sometimes when people get caught up in the ROI, meaning cash, the return on investment, can be a lot of things. And I have to say for me, ROI is not always return on investment. Sometimes it's return on influence. That's what sometimes ROI can be for me, but that's, again, depending upon what world you're in and in my marketing world that it is. But thinking about those metrics, which I think are really important, let's talk about what happens after a podcast episode is recorded, right? You know. So you have a podcast, you record it, how can the host and the production team make the process more efficient? Because, as you said earlier, the more efficient it is. Save some time, labor costs and all of those things, time is money, right? So what would you say are some of the ways they can make that process more efficient?

Definitely. So within, as you well know, and as many of your listeners probably know, a podcast has a lot of moving parts in it. There's a lot of things that have to be done right in the right order and on the on time every single week for the show to get to where it needs to be. And so the most important thing in efficiency is everyone who's involved needs to know what their part is and how it impacts the whole and when their part needs to be done, and that needs to be very, very taken very, very seriously. And so what I like to do, especially if you, if you're looking at your process, and you're just like, This is a nightmare. You know, it's getting out every week, but everybody's miserable, like, we've all been there. The first thing to do, if you don't have this, is to just get the process down on paper. Every single step in the process, from coming up with ideas to researching guests to having interviews to quality assurance to editing to creating the notes, to scheduling everything on social to engaging it all needs to be there in black and white. And once you do that, you can start organizing things into kind of different buckets or categories that each and like that each have an owner. So maybe there's the planning phase and he was the host. You own that bucket, and then there's the recording phase, which you may be a part of. Mostly it's your assistant who makes sure that it gets happens when it's supposed to be the guest is there. So you organize things into buckets, and you start looking for tasks that can be automated. You start looking for where you can ease the communication between things. If you've got systems that can talk to each other, it's like, Oh, great. A file has been uploaded. It's going to automatically tell our Slack channel the episode there, then the next person's gonna know they're teed up. So the first step to making it more efficient is understanding what's happening, making sure that there's a clear owner for every major phase of the process, and then looking for those little time savers that are still the responsibility of that owner of the task, but that can ultimately save a little bit of time in the process.

So whether somebody's working with a third party service provider, right, or they have an internal team, what strategies like? I know you just said a couple of buckets, and I really like that. And I actually know when I first did my podcast, one of the things that was happening to me in the beginning, before I really got my process down. Was that, you know, I recorded when I wanted graphics or the reels or the videos done, you know, they would say, Well, I can't, because I haven't got it from this person. And then, yep, when this person was here, they didn't get it because, you know, it all had to go, and I didn't have a clear system or process for that, right? So that's talking really about process. But if they're working with a third party service provider or an internal team, what strategies? Because strategy is not being in this process, what strategies do you recommend for refining, really, their podcast operations, so that they can get more out of less, because refinement to get more out of less? Really, really works. But sometimes people are like, oh yeah. Give me a process, but you kind of have to have a strategy before you really have the process, right? So except for

that, I'd come right back down to your business goals again, because you can, you can spend as much time and money as you want on producing your podcast, on creating assets for it, on promoting it. But if your goal is to specifically say, meet people who could become referral partners, then it doesn't really matter how much you promote the podcast, you want to do a little, of course, to be polite and to get it out there, to make it known that you have it. But the really important thing is that relationship that you're building so ruthlessly get rid of, remove from the process anything that doesn't help you build that relationship, and instead focus that extra time on maybe adding more touch points, a prep call, a follow up call, a thank you gift, and really focus that energy on the things that are going to help build the relationship with the person who you hope is going to become a great referral partner. That's going to save you a lot of time and energy on everything else. Maybe you're going to do less fancy production, so you'll save time there. Maybe you're going to promote it on fewer channels, because hey, the people you connect with, they're only on Instagram, so I'm not going to bother spending my time on LinkedIn. When you really get clear on what is the outcome to the business. You can just save so much time and all this other like traditional podcast stuff that everyone else seems to do because you don't need to. I knew one show and they, I don't think they ever promoted a single episode. This is a client we had a few years ago, because their whole purpose for the podcast was to increase the knowing, liking and trusting factor of new leads coming into their business. So they had the host, was one of the partners at the firm talking about how they solve specific problems, or they helped clients achieve specific goals. The sales team directed new leads directly to specific episodes that reflected their situation, and then they jumped on a call, and that was a really easy sale for that partner at that firm. They never sent an episode outside of that context. They didn't need to. They were making money hand over fist with that podcast, and so they were able to save a lot of time and a lot of energy by having a strategy for what the podcast was meant to do and just ruthlessly ignoring anything that didn't contribute to it, which

I think really makes a lot of sense too, though, because a lot of times that same information that they gave Well, not everybody wants to read or watch. They want to hear your voice, right? So that creates it, so doing it in that podcast way, is it? It's kind of up the level of that. But also had another touch point, because they were actually hearing their voice. And I think that's really important. I know one of the strategies that I really love doing is when I am deciding the order of how my podcast, you know, I record months ahead of time, right? So when I'm deciding how they're going to roll, I also try to, I don't want to say, have a theme, but I think of something that's happening in my business, and I really love being able to create, like, a list on Spotify. So that way I can say to somebody, I'd say, you know? Oh, well, here, here's a playlist on Spotify where I did five podcasts on that same topic, and I interviewed some guests on that too, on different points of it. And here's a solo episode for me. Here's four other episodes where I brought in experts and stuff, and then I can just give them for that. Now, those are all separate too, you know, whatever. But people won't always binge, right? Or they don't do them in the order, but you just made a little playlist. So that's kind of just being a little, you know, strategic in that way. Have you been hearing about this new, I don't know how new it is, but kind of relatively new. People are talking about it anyway, about this whole private podcast thing, right? You know, having private podcasts. And I have to tell you, there's just something about the Word, right. Private podcast makes you sound like, you know, oh, when you're privy to it, right? You know, how nice is that. So are any of your clients really kind of leveraging that type of thing? Because, you know, every time something really new comes out, or people are like, Well, how could I put that strategy into place and stuff, though, but I have to tell you, I'm hearing more and more about private podcasts, and also, literally, you know, it's all about video, right? You know, live streaming. But now we're also hearing about people that are like, I don't have time to watch videos all the time, right? Or to go to live streams. And so I'm noticing that there's also been a little bit of a turn for people who are like, You know what? I know, summits and stuff. But I just want it in 1520, minute, little bite size things, and I want you to just do it audio, and I want you to just put it in a private podcast or a series, so that I can just binge. Doing those little, bite sized pieces. So I'm seeing both of those in the process right now of actually integrating those into my own business model. But from where you are, since you're talking about podcasting as a business and using it in your marketing channel, where do you see that going? Because it's really all about forecasting the new stuff. What are the new trends, right? You know. So what are some of those, the trends that you're seeing that people can really use, and you know, by making their podcast as a business marketing channel, definitely.

So I mean, private podcasts are definitely one of them. Now that more and more people are familiar, kind of with podcasting as a whole, you can have kind of a more nuanced strategy within podcasting. And private feeds can be really interesting to share member content with people, as you're saying like a sum. Saying, like a summit recording can be a great use. I've seen one of our clients had their audiobook available as a private podcast feed for people who bought a physical copy. They got that as a bonus. Brilliant strategy to engage them people and get them on on her list. Other trends that are continuing video is people may be getting a little bit tired of it, but it but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere by the data. YouTube is the biggest distributor of podcasts of all of them, but those numbers are a little bit hazier. There are shows that are designed and you know, the really big ones, like the Joe Rogan the the big guys like that. They're designed as video first shows. They're basically talk shows that go on YouTube instead of network. And they get such huge numbers, I think they skew the data a little bit towards video. But YouTube has better search and better algorithms and better discoverability and deliverability than any podcast player that exists so far. It's going to be easier Google Exactly. Tell my Google, and it's not exactly the same algorithm, but they're really similar. So you should have your podcast on YouTube, whether or not you're doing live action, get it up there, just so that you can be if you ever want to do it later, you'll at least have the channel, and you'll have the content up there. Lives, I think for a while having a live podcast was really popular, and I think everybody's sick of the bad audio that results from that. So I'm seeing fewer and fewer lives being repurposed into traditional episodes, which I'm profoundly grateful for. My biggest pet peeve is alive that is then run as a podcast. But terms of trends, the length of podcasts, surprisingly, hasn't changed much in the kind of four years we've been at least looking at the data for business podcast, about 45 minutes is the average length of a business podcast, and that has been a really robust and consistent result over time. So alternating episode formats, like you're planning to do yourself, and having a shorter solo episode, very common. That's increasing. Another little trend that is changing is the introductions to podcasts are changing, which I think is really interesting. And instead of having a long produced intro, people are doing live hosts are doing live intros to get right into the content more quickly with a little bit of music. And I love that. Music. And I love that trend now

I really like that trend too. I think that, you know, it used to be in the beginning, back when I first started, it was always like introducing the guests and then having them share their journey and their story, and then, because they got away from that, because people like, right? Who cares? Something really valuable and really good. I don't really care, right? You know, that kind of really comes later. Now we're like, oh, okay, that's good. You're really credible. Like, where did you get that credibility? Now, I kind of want to know, right? It's sort of even goes back to even when people were networking, and people would start their elevator pitches with blah, blah, blah, right? You know? And the thing is, until you said something really good, at the end, you're like, oh, wow, that was really good. What was their name, right? Because now you cared what their names right at the beginning, when they started, you didn't care. I think the same thing could be said for podcasts. I do think people want to know, you know, they pop in and you need to catch a run in the beginning, like, what's the value they're going to get out of that podcast? I think people want to know, why should I stay and listen. So I think that is really important, but I am seeing all kinds of different ways that people are doing it, and I'm paying attention to that because I think data plus behavior is really, really a good thing, which kind of leads me to kind of another question. We all like to talk about what we should do. Let's kind of talk about what we shouldn't do, right? Let's talk about what some of the myths are that's got to talk about some of the mistakes we're you're seeing over and over again. What are the things that will kind of drag down those metrics you can be doing all these things like, like, what you said? Bad audio? Well, bad audio is just kind of a killer, right? For sure, and stuff. But what are some of the other like, mistakes that you're seeing that people make that aren't getting them what they want. Because I'm sure when they come to you and they want you to help them with that, well it's probably because they're not getting good results. So what are some of the common things that people are doing over and over again that are really not what they

Should be doing? Yeah, so one of the biggest mistakes that people make is relying on guest sharing episodes as a growth strategy. It never has been. It never will be. It just for very legitimate reasons. Often doesn't work out for a guest to share the episode, and there's no no value judgment on you or your show associated with that. Just maybe it doesn't fit the production calendar. Maybe they've got something else. Maybe they've already talked about that topic to their audience recently. Yeah. It's not a strategy. I think another really, really big one is that you're going to get famous podcasting. And there are some people who will, there are some people who will have popular shows. That number is going to be far fewer than those who can have a profitable show for their business. And so I think if you go in and you think, I want to be the, you know, the Oprah of my industry. I want to everyone to know us, and I'm going to use my podcast as a vehicle to do that. I hope you're ready to spend a lot of money on promotion, because that's going to be the only real way to do it. You can really if you narrow down that goal and you think about what's actually going to be profitable for my business, what's going to really make an impact on how my work looks and how my team is able to work and clients we get to work with, you're going to have a lot more fun podcasting. It's going to cost you a lot less to get there. So I think that's a really huge time, too, and a lot less time you can have a podcast that is bringing value to your business from, you know, the first month of releases. I don't say the first episode, because while it can, it's that's a lot of pressure for a first episode, and you're already doing a whole new thing, so let the first episode just be the first episode. But I think that's the big one is, is not setting a clear expectation for yourself for what you want it to be and then being disappointed when it didn't work

Because never so we know that podcasting can be challenging, right? And yes, trading, right? I think that see what you just shared about some of the myths and the things not to do. But I think that a lot of times hosts, we actually get our own weight. Imagine that we get in our own way. We get these obstacles. And I think sometimes, because we sometimes, we fall in love with our own stuff, right, you know. And and we just can't let it go, right, you know. So I think that some of the obstacles that people have is really not being able to pick some of those goals, like you said, or they want to be all over the place, or they want to do what I like to call spaghetti marketing. They want to throw everything at all to see what sticks right. You know, if you had to narrow it down, if you had to narrow it down, what would be your like number one, marketing, media, money strategy that you would actually really share with somebody on what they should be thinking about, whether they're taking on this endeavor or if they're already doing it, it's just not getting them the results they want. Maybe they could just change some things and get a better result. Yeah.

So I think that the biggest one for me, I know it's been the most impactful for me in my own business, is at the beginning of a new project, whether it's a new podcast, or whether it's, you know, new any other kind of initiative, is deciding at the outset, if it achieves this, it's successful. If it achieves that, it's a failure. And here's the spectrum in between, and I like to do that really, before getting into the weeds and getting into the work. Because if you have invested all of this time and editor, you know you've got opportunity sunk cost there, right? So you want to continue it. But if you know, if you've decided of clear mind before you're emotionally invested, this is what success is going to look like. Or this is what is going to be my signal after six months that I need to make changes and do things differently, or the project was a failure, I'm going to cut my losses and end it and direct those resources somewhere else. Now, deciding that before starting the project, rather than trying to add it afterwards, has just been huge, and I recommend everyone try to work that into their planning processes.

I love that, because that's not just KPIs. That's like looking at milestones and benchmarks, right? And that actually helps you to make a decision too. Maybe really a podcast, really wasn't the way to get in front of the right people. And there's another Right, right? It could be my series, or whatever. It might not be a podcast, which kind of actually leads us into the gifts that you actually bought. And I have to tell you, lots of times people bring a gift you bought two, which I really love, like you gotta over deliver right there, right? So you bought two of them. So let's kind of talk about them both. So the first gift is your will a podcast work for you business guide. So tell us a little bit about that, just so you know audience, whether you're watching or listening, wherever you went. To get that button, the buttons are right there for you to be able to get these, so you don't have to worry about it. But go ahead and tell us a little bit about it. Bit about it. Perfect.

So if you do not currently have a podcast, but you are maybe thinking about one, you're what we call pod curious, and you're trying to decide, is this going to be a good move for my business or not? This is a short PDF guide that is going to answer that question for you definitively. You'll be able to go through it'll take you through the basics of the business podcast blueprint framework. You'll be able to look at your own business, what it needs, what a podcast can do, and make the evaluation. Yes, a podcast will help my business right now or No, I should not podcast right now. So if you're in that pre podcasting phase, I really recommend getting it taking a read. It won't take you more than 1015, minutes to make that decision firmly.

I love that. And then you have this podcast impact assessment, where you said that you find out if you can create more time opportunities or profit with your podcast, or if you're maxed out on all three. So I love love, love that. So tell us a little bit about that assessment. What made you create that? Because I'm sure that this is going to tie into the goals. For sure,

Absolutely it will. And so this is for if you have a podcast and you're not 100% convinced that it's working as well as it should. And so what we've done is looking at all of the shows we've studied, all of the shows that we've produced, and we've come up with 15 different indicators of Yes. This is just it is rolling perfectly as we want it to. It is being profitable or it's not. And so it's a really quick checklist of 15 yes or no questions that will kind of highlight to you, either Yep, this is working exactly as it should, and it's doing as much as it possibly can for my business, or I've got some stuff to work on. And so it'll it'll point you at where you should start making changes if you're not entirely happy with your podcast performance, which

I really love. So say somebody doesn't have a podcast that's going to help them, that guy that's going to actually help make that decision. Make that decision. And sometimes, you know, people can agonize over, should I? Shouldn't I, should I, shouldn't I? So just having a definitive answer doesn't mean No, it just means no, not now, maybe, right? It also Yeah. So I think that's beautiful. But if you do have one having 15 questions that you can just answer like 15 questions and kind of no really will help you to know. Oh, okay, so maybe I'm not doing as bad as I thought. These are doing good, but now I need to get a little bit better at these. But then I think the greater gift there, the greater gift there, really is in which one of the things that I'm maybe not doing so well on. Do I have the team in place, or do I even want to do those things? Or is this the time I might want to consider hiring out for some of those things, either bringing on an internal team member, hiring somebody else to do those whatever? So I know that that's going to happen. So my next question for you is, how can people get a hold of you now, how do they best connect with you? Because I'm going to tell you, I think, after all the great information that you have shared, and as well as once they actually look at both of those two things, they may have some things that they want to connect and talk to you about. So what's the best way for them to connect with you?

I am very active on LinkedIn, so I would love for you to I'd love to connect with you and chat with you there. And you can use any contact form on podcasting for business.com It all comes directly to my inbox.

I love that. So speaking about that, not only do you have this production company and this book that's going to be coming out, right and probably by the time you actually get this, it will already be out. So there will also be a button below for her book, and I want you to really think about that. I want you to think about the book, podcasting for business like, you know, there's lots of podcast books, but podcasting for business, right? How to create a podcast that makes a bottom line difference in your business? So I'm going to encourage you to get the book. But she also has a podcast, go figure, right. She actually has a podcast. What's the name of your podcast?

It's called the company show, and in it, we talk to different experts who can help you podcast more efficiently, teach different skills and strategies. And we do, of course, solo episodes with content from the book and from the business podcast blueprints. And May I share something about the book? Patty, there is absolutely can a special bonus right now, because I think when you are hearing this, it is available for pre order. And if you decide, hey, this might be a useful thing for my business, I'd love to invite anyone who pre orders the book to come as my guest and have a complimentary ticket to our annual conference, the podcasting for Business Conference. The details will be as Patty says below this screen, and the details of how to get it will be at the link you find there.

That is perfect. You're being so generous, so not just two gifts and an invitation. Oh, that is really good. Thank you so much, Megan, for being here. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time, your information and literally, your resources as well.

Thank you so much, Patty. It's been pleasure.

Thank you. And to my guests, thank you so much for spending this time with me. And if you liked this episode, and I am sure you did, please like subscribe and review it on your own favorite listening platform. Make sure you check out our sister magazine, Marketing, Media Money Magazine, and you can get a copy of that by going to m3digitalmag.com until next week. Thank you so much. Have a phenomenal week.