Should You Start a Business Podcast? Answer These 5 Questions First

Podcasting seems like a crowded space, but it's really not. It’s a blue ocean opportunity. Especially for expertise-driven businesses who need to build trust with buyers, accelerate network growth, and create endless content. If you’re asking yourself, “should I start a podcast?” then you’re in the right place. This episode explores five critical questions that you need to answer before you launch a podcast for your business:

1. How would a podcast roll up to your business goals?
2. Why would your ideal clients listen?
3. How many podcasts are there in your niche?
4. Are you willing to commit to 12+ months?
5. What do you need to start a podcast?

Read the article here:
https://www.redcedarmarketing.com/blog/should-you-start-a-business-podcast

This episode was produced by Red Cedar Marketing. Need help launching and running a business podcast that actually produces results? Visit www.redcedarmarketing.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:30 How does a podcast roll up to your business goals?
• 12:13 Why would your target clients listen?
• 15:27 How many podcasts are there in your niche?
• 17:04 Are you willing to commit?
• 19:26 What do you need to start a podcast?

Transcript

John Tyreman: 0:05

Welcome business podcasters to another episode of podcasting and professional services. I'm your host, John Tyrement. If this is your first time listening, this show is focused on helping expertise based businesses achieve podcast led growth. I do that in a number of ways. I feature interviews with successful business podcasters. I share research and my own experience. I gave a short brunch and learn talk with a small group of about 20 or so folks from a community called the escapee collective, through Brett trainer, who I actually had, on the podcast recently. he's growing a community of gen Xers who have escaped the nine to five corporate grind. And the talk that I gave to that group was titled is a podcast right for you. And it went so well. I decided that I'd record an episode on that same topic. I wrote a blog post about it too. You can check that out at redcedarmarketing. com. I've also linked it in the show notes. so that's what this podcast episode is all about is should you start your own business podcast? on this episode, we're going to cover how your podcast can roll up to your growth goals. Why your ideal client would even want to listen to your podcast in the first place. I'm going to bust a myth of how everyone has a podcast. we're going to talk about the importance of consistency and then what you can do to get started with your business podcast right away. Speaking of. Let's launch a podcast for your business. As we'll detail in this episode, there's no better way to build trust over long sales cycles, accelerate your network growth and create endless content. Reach out to me on LinkedIn or check out red suiter marketing. com to learn more about how we can launch a podcast together. All right. So before you start a business podcast, you really need to ask yourself five important questions. Number one, how would a podcast roll up to your business goals? Number two, why would your ideal clients even want to listen in the first place? Number three, how many podcasts are there in your niche? Number four, are you willing to commit to 12 maybe even more months of podcasting? And then number five, what do you need to start a podcast? Podcasting today. All right. So let's, let's unpack at each one of those questions and look at some of the considerations. So number one, how would a podcast roll up to your business goals? In the blog post that I wrote for this podcast episode, I have a, one of the condescending wonk on memes on there. So you want to grow revenue. Great. Tell me how you plan to do that. and essentially I'm poking fun at the fact that of course, your firm wants to grow revenue, but how? Right. Are you going to generate leads for services? Do you want to command more premium fees? Do you want to improve your close rates? do you want to generate revenue through courses and community? Are you trying to attract sponsors for your podcast? so there's a number of different ways to generate revenue. but once you understand that, then. You, the next step is you can connect the podcast to your business that way. So I'll give you some firsthand experience. I launched two podcasts for my business in Q3 of 2023, with three goals. Number one, to generate business leads. Number two, to accelerate my network growth. And then number three, to create a content engine for my business. So, I'll unpack this a little bit. So in to generate leads, let's go back in time a little bit. I landed on my offering and target audience. So podcast marketing for experts and firms in Q3 of 23, a couple of months later in Q4, I launched two podcasts, breaking biz dev and this one podcasting and professional services in service of those three goals. each of those podcasts, those two podcasts independently had an impact on my sales pipeline within six months. so I was able to just start to generate leads, accelerate my network. but don't take my word for it. Recently, I interviewed Aaron Moncur from being an engineer. And you're going to get a little sneak preview of that full conversation. I haven't released this episode yet, but he talked about how his podcast has an impact on generating leads for his engineering firm. Here comes Aaron.

Aaron Moncur: 4:35

A friend of mine likes to say, there are feel good and real good activities that we can participate in. And the feel good activities are maybe the fun ones that will make us feel good, but the real good ones are the ones that actually matter, that move the needle for whatever our goal is. So I had some vanity metrics that I was trying to hit, which I still have not hit. but the, the real good goals were, I wanted to. Acquire more revenue or generate more revenue for, for my company and that we have done, I can, I can measure, a significant amount of, of revenue back to the podcast. So, in, in the real good sense, it's been definitely worthwhile.

John Tyreman: 5:19

So when you say attribute revenue to, is that in terms of like leads that have been generated from the podcast, either people, either leads listening to the podcast and reaching out to you, or were they previously guests on your podcast that decided to work with you? How did that materialize?

Aaron Moncur: 5:36

Yeah, mostly the latter. in fact, I'm not sure we've had any just kind of leads float in from listeners, but guests who have been on the show, you know, I can, I can, I can Call a VP of engineering somewhere at a company that I'd like to do business with. And this person is almost certainly not going to answer the phone and almost certainly not going to respond to my email because he or she gets, you know, a dozen interactions like this every week. However, if I have that person on the podcast as a guest, now I get to spend an hour with him or her. Talking about engineering, getting to know each other, building rapport, developing a relationship. And this has happened several times at the end of the podcast, we finished recording and the guest says, so tell me a little bit more about what you all do. And I say, great. Yeah, this is what we do. And, and then a few times those conversations have led to, we actually need some help in that area. Why don't let's set up another call and talk. So in terms of generating revenue for our business, which is a service Based business, we do engineering services. It's been a lot more effective, just developing relationships with guests on the podcast, as opposed to generating leads from those who are listening.

John Tyreman: 6:55

All right. So that was Aaron Moncker about how his podcast impacts his lead generation, new business development efforts. podcasting can also have an impact on your network growth. And so for example, earlier in 2024, I had an open slot for a client. And so I used that capacity. for my business to get serious about outbound prospecting. And so I segmented my prospecting efforts into three different buckets. Number one was cold outreach to prospects who fit my ideal client profile, but they don't host a podcast. Number two was listeners of Breaking Biz Dev who are second degree or third degree connections of mine. And then number three was, I prospects who fit my ideal. Client profile and they host a podcast. So for that first bucket, the cold outreach to prospects who fit my ideal client profile, but they don't host a podcast. I was able to connect with them, at a 30 percent rate on LinkedIn. So, for every 10 connection requests I sent out. Three would accept that those connection requests. And this is important because folks that are connected to you on LinkedIn, they see your content in their feed. So if they're connected with me, chances are they've got a better chance of seeing my content in their feed when I post to LinkedIn. so that's a 30 percent connection rate. The second bucket were second degree and third degree connections. they're listeners of breaking biz dev and how I know that is, Mark and I, my co hosts will invite connections from our network to come and follow the page. Occasionally we'll get folks float in and follow the page just from, you know, the content entering their feeds. And so what I'll do is I'll wait about one or two months for folks, new folks to follow that page on LinkedIn. Let them get familiar with some of the content that we're, we're posting on there. We do about three posts a week. and then I'll reach out and I'll say, Hey, thanks for following the page. hope you're enjoying the content care to connect on LinkedIn. And so simply my goal isn't to sell them anything. My goal is to connect with them. So they start seeing my posts in their feed. Maybe they want to start a podcast because they listen to podcasts. My theory is if you're a podcast listener, you're more likely to want to start a podcast of your own. and so that, that got me a 50 percent connection rate. So I'm able to connect with, 50 percent of those prospects. And that third bucket, is guest outreach for this show. So folks that fit my ideal client profile, they host a podcast, they're a successful business podcaster. They are a good fit as a guest on my show. I'll reach out to them. After doing a little bit of research on their podcast, listening to a couple episodes and I'll determine that they're a good fit. I'll reach out and say, Hey, love what you're doing with your show. Congrats on making it past X hundred numbers of episodes. would love to hear your experience. Would you be open to a podcast interview? And I'm able to connect with 60 percent of those prospects who fit my ideal client profile and would be good guests for my show. which is double that of the cold outreach, right? So, and these are no small samples either. I mean, 200 cold outreach, 120 for the breaking biz dev and 120 for the podcast guest outreach. so that just goes to show you that podcasting can have an impact on your outbound prospecting efforts. My approach was a bit analytical and technical, so I'll let Scotty Scarano put it a different way. That's maybe a little bit more simpler to understand. Here's Scotty.

Scotty Scarano: 10:31

Well, that's what one person said. I just had a guest to recency bias. I had a guest say it was like having the house with the parties in high school. Parents go out of town, you're hosting this party and everybody shows up at your party. That's like having a podcast. Having a podcast is having the party and then the next person wants to host. So you can be a guest on their show and then you can hop around to different shows, go to all the parties, but then host the parties too.

John Tyreman: 10:57

All right. And finally, I use my podcast to create endless content for my one person business. Recently, I created a visual for all the different platforms and how that content gets repurposed across different channels. I take one podcast episode and I'm able to turn that into a number of different assets. I'm able to turn one podcast episode into. A blog post, an email newsletter, five YouTube shorts, videos, five LinkedIn posts, videos, five video posts for X, so on and so forth. I'm able to repurpose and recycle that content over time. Calendly takes the back and forth hassle out of booking podcast guests. Riverside lets me record high quality recordings and gives me flexible video outputs. Descript makes video and audio editing a breeze. I can publish from there straight to YouTube or straight to Buzzsprout. I use Squarespace for my website where I turn each episode into a blog post. I notice patterns across the interviews and blog posts, and that fuels my weekly newsletter via ConvertKit. And then the 60 second video clips, I use those across X, LinkedIn and YouTube shorts. So yeah, check out the blog post. it's in the show notes, RedCedarMarketing. com. And check out that visual. It's a, it's pretty cool. All right. So the big question, number two. So we talked about how a podcast can serve your business. And there's a lot of different ways that a podcast can have a business impact. So let's shift our attention now to why your ideal clients would listen, right? That's like the big thing is, You need to really understand why your clients would even tune into your podcast. why would they listen to your show over other podcasts? So according to Pew Research, 60 percent of podcast listeners do so for entertainment. 55 percent say that learning is a major reason for listening. So they want to be entertained and they want to learn. You're not just competing with business podcasts. You're competing against sports shows, true crime dramas, politics. according to the infinite dial 2024 weekly podcast, listeners consume eight episodes per week on average. Right. And so if you're going after busy professionals and business owners, chances are, they're going to be, even if they are a weekly consumer of podcasts, they're probably going to be consuming less than eight episodes a week. so you're competing with other kinds of shows. Will your show be one of them? Well, that depends, right? if you're crystal clear about your ideal listener and how you add value to them, and if you're able to add some entertainment value as well, then maybe you've got a good shot. so here's, here's some examples of podcasts who have a clearly defined ideal listener and why they would listen. So example number one, the corporate escapee. this is Brett trainers podcast, and he is focused on corporate Gen Xers who want to escape the nine to five grind. Okay. That's very clear of who he wants to serve. Another example, number two, accounting high. We heard from Scotty Scarano just, just now about the house parties. he's going after firm owners and practitioners who want to learn how to run a practice. Okay, so again, very specific in a specific industry, accounting and firm owners and practitioners, they want to learn. He's going after that education angle, but he's also doing it in an entertaining way. He calls it edutainment. another example, the AI powered business leader with Alistair McDermott. He was a recent guest on my show as well. He's gone with that show. He's going after solo consultants and experts who want to harness the power of generative AI in their business to improve workflows, to expand and amplify their expertise. I think he's doing an awesome job with that show. I'm really excited to see where he takes it. another example, shameless plug breaking biz dev, Mark and I are going after technical experts who now need to develop new business for their practice. We call them business developers, do or sellers, anyone who has a hand in new business development for the firm. That's who we're going after with breaking biz dev. All right. why would you are ideal clients? Listen. Give a, entertain them, help them do something, help them learn something. there needs to be some level of value that your listeners get out of your show. And that needs to be a central focus. all right. Big question. Number three, how many podcasts are there? In your niche. Look, I get it. It seems like everyone has a podcast these days. Right. And that's not necessarily the truth though. let's break it down. So for context, there are 600 million blogs on the internet. Okay. There's only 3. 6 million podcasts. That's like 200 times fewer podcasts than blogs. And of those podcasts, business shows make up about 8%. And then of that 8%, 15 percent have actively published an episode in the last 90 days. So simply by publishing consistently. You'll be among 40, 000 business podcasters. And then after doing a little market research, you're probably going to find only a handful of shows you'd actually be competing with anyway, with the right strategy and with good content, chances are you'll be the top show in your niche within a year, just a year of publishing the number one media personality in your niche, that's absolutely. attainable within a year. the best part, the best time to start podcasting maybe was four years ago in 2020 during the pandemic time. The next best time is now start a podcast. Let's do it. you know, you know, my offer, reach out to me on LinkedIn, reach out to me on red cedar marketing. com anyways. All right. So how many podcasts are there in your niche? You'll probably be surprised to learn that there's only a few that you would actually be competing with. All right. Big question. Number four, are you willing to commit to 12 months of podcasting? So a podcasting is a long term investment. It's not going to have an impact on your pipeline. Even this quarter, if you were to start, maybe you get lucky. It can absolutely have an impact on your overall visibility this quarter, just maybe not your sales pipeline. all right. On separate occasions, Two of my podcast guests drew a comparison between podcasting and going to high school. Scotty Skirana, who we heard from earlier of Accounting High, he talks about how he's in his sophomore year moving into his junior year. B. J. Kramer is in the same boat. And it's so funny how they both independently of each other drew that comparison to high school. BJ Kramer is a host of inspiring people in places. it's a podcast that's focused on AEC professionals and, It was really interesting how they drew that comparison. I pulled a clip from my interview with BJ. and here's what he had to say.

BJ Kraemer: 18:08

The only way that you do anything successful around a podcast, in my opinion, is by creating a cadence. So you have to, you have, I told my team, I'm treating this, so I'll, I'll talk about how we got there, but I said, I'm treating this like I'm going to high school and then we're going to figure out if I'm going to college. So you're, you are. A nobody freshman year of high school. You got four years to become big man on campus. So I looked at it and I said, I don't want to, I don't, I don't want to judge whether this is a good idea or not for four years. I want us, I want us to look at the data and I want us to try and continue and improve. It's like, give ourselves a report card, but I'm committed for four years to doing this because I think it would be too easy to walk away. So I said, if it's like, it's like quitting a diet because she didn't lose weight in two weeks, you got to commit to being on the long haul. You have to have kind of a long, a long view of the game.

John Tyreman: 19:17

All right. So BJ Kramer is working to be big man on campus as he's going through, his podcasting high experience. All right. So big question, number five, what do you need? Well, it's never been easier to start one, that's for sure. All of this fancy equipment. Now I'm, I'm certainly, you know, I have a really great mic, this shore and MV seven. now I've been podcasting for five years. but you don't need fancy equipment to start seriously. your computer and your smartphone, they're good enough to get started. don't let those artificial barriers stop you from recording content. the hardest part is really knowing what to talk about and making it interesting enough for your target listeners to actually care. but. If you need help, I did put together a few resources that can help you start a business podcast. Uh, check out my weekly newsletter where I share business podcasting insights. you could listen to more episodes of this show, podcasting and professional services. Follow it on Apple podcasts, follow it on Spotify, follow it on our YouTube channel. you can take my free 30 day email course on how to launch a business podcast. Check that out. Red cedar marketing. com go up to the top. There should be a little banner there. I'll include a link in the show notes also, and you can always schedule a free consultation directly with me. Just reach out to me on LinkedIn. Submit a contact form on my website. Either way works. They go right to my inbox. and just say, Hey, John, we'd love to pick your brain about podcasting. Just let me know. happy to have a conversation. Well, if you made it this far, thank you so much for listening. Please give the show a rating and review on Apple podcasts. Say hi to me on LinkedIn and we'll talk to you next time. Happy podcasting.