Podcasting is a powerful tool. But most leaders have not recognized the potential of this format for their businesses. Building brand original podcasts can help to build authority and community to sell, recruit, and influence. Wide audience reach only matters to advertisers. We need a different metrics for measuring the impact of business development.

Unless you want to sell ads, it is much more worthwhile to build your podcast around growing your ecosystem and thought leadership. Talk about topics within your industry that you encounter everyday. Gather your partners and leaders to have a conversation. Show what your company cares about and why you are different. This is how you start a B2B podcast for leaders.

Count the meetings and aligned conversations, not the downloads.

In summary:

Use podcast as a biz dev tool to create thought leadership, build ecosystem, and recruit
Give voice to your people and humanize your brand
Podcasts create conversations at scale to amplify your message
Don’t treat it as media, use it to get meetings

Why this matters: Because so many people making business-to-business podcasts are wondering, “How do we know if our show is successful or worth the investment?”

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2

Building Your Podcasting Dream Team: Social Media Manager

From Caitlin Van Horn on the Simplecast blog:

When we asked podcast creators what their 2020 resolutions were, we heard one specific response over and over again: building a team! Whether it's outsourcing your production or finally bringing in a graphic designer, we wanted to give you a how-to on how to build your podcasting dream team. First up? Social media managers.

Why this matters: Social media matters for the success of a show, but it takes time and effort. If you're already over-worked or if you're not interested in mastering social media promotion for a podcast, you should consider hiring a social media manager.

In this article, Caitlin breaks down what to look for in a social media manager, where to find a good one, how to vet them and set expectations, and how much you can expect to pay.

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3

My Interview and Podcast Production Process on the Hanselminutes Podcast

From Scott Hanselman of the long-running Hanselminutes tech podcast:

I recently got a tweet from Xi Xaio asking how I host my show. The planning, the content, the restricted timing, the energy, avoiding wasted time and words, etc. Getting a good question is a gift as it leads to a blog post! So thank you Xi for this gift.

Scott answers a bunch of frequently asked questions in this blog post, including:

How do you keep up the number of guests for a weekly podcast?
What drives you to keep publishing even when you are on holiday, for the promise of a new episode each week - for better audience engagement, or for the demands of the advertisers?
You introduce the guest on their behalf. Why not let guests do it themselves?
You keep the episode length within 30 mins. Guests are different, some keep talking and some are succinct. How do you achieve this goal?
Would you mind sharing your content producing procedures after recording? I'd love to learn what steps you take from editing to publishing, and tips to be more efficient.
In addition to your perseverance, what other recommendations do you have to new tech podcast hosts, like me?
How much should you talk (during an interview)?

Some of my favorite takeaways:

Lots of folks have a PR or press person (I get a dozen pitches a week) but the most interesting people aren't doing podcasts because they are making amazing art/tech. So I like to talk to them.

Consistency is key and king. If you publish regularly people start to (consciously or unconsciously) come to expect it. You can fit into their life when they know your show is every week, for example. Others “publish when they can” and that means their show has no heartbeat and can’t be counted on. Life is a marathon, not a sprint, and step one is showing up.

Most people aren’t good at introducing themselves, advocating for themselves, or talking about themselves. I like to take a moment, be consistent and talk them up. It starts the show well because it reminds them they are awesome!

Perseverance is key. No one listened to my first hundred shows. Do this for yourself first, and the audience later.

Also, audio quality is everything. If it’s low or bad or hard to hear you’ll lose audiences.

You can't just randomly chat with folks, you need to have a plan and a direction. Where are you taking the listener? How will you get them there? Are you being empathic and putting yourself in the shoes of the listener? What do they know, what do they not know?

Why this matters: Interview shows are an extremely popular show format for podcasts, but if you want to host a successful interview show, you'll need to put in work to make it great and show up consistently to grow your audience. This article has a bunch of great tips that will help.

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4

5 Ways Starting a Podcast Can Help You Reach Your Career Goals

From Hilary Sutton on the Washington Posts's Job blog:

Podcasting is hot and it’s likely to continue to grow in popularity. But there are so many reasons to start a podcast beyond riding the wave and looking for compensation from advertisers. Podcasting can present you with surprising new opportunities. Perhaps for you, like me, launching a podcast is the best next step in your career journey. Here are five ways that launching a podcast was a game-changer for my career and could move the needle in yours too.

The 5 ways podcasting can help you reach your career goals:

Podcasting gives you the opportunity to network with people who you wouldn’t otherwise know
Podcasting can help you find new clients and opportunities.
Podcasting helps grow your platform and widen your audience.
Podcasting gives you an opportunity to establish thought leadership and expertise.
Podcasting will likely surprise you with transferable skills.

Why this matters: If you're thinking about starting a podcast related to your work or career, or if you're a podcast producer who will be helping other people with making podcasts related to their work, this article has a great list of the top benefits and reasons to do it.

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5

Luminary Lowers Subscription Price to $4.99/month or $34.99/year

From the Podnews newsletter:

Premium podcast service Luminary has announced new pricing: a significantly cheaper monthly plan: down from US$7.99 to $4.99, and a new annual plan at US$34.99 (about $2.99 a month). The company tells Podnews that the new prices are “based on the success of Luminary’s holiday promotion, our latest consumer research, and data insights about the evolving streaming content ecosystem”. International pricing has also been reduced: the pricing is available in the app now.

Why this matters: Luminary has made a bet that people will pay a monthly or yearly subscription to listen to exclusive podcasts in their app, and a lot of people from the podcast industry are watching to see how it works out.

My opinion: $5/month is the sweet spot for podcast subscriptions, but the challenge Luminary faces is that hardcore podcast fans usually already have an app that they prefer to use to listen to their favorite shows.

This quote from a Reddit thread sums it up nicely:

I wouldn’t buy a TV just to watch a channel, I sure won’t switch apps just to listen to subscription content.

Stay tuned.

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6

How to Start a Podcast on Top of Your Full-Time Job, According to People Who've Done It

From Alyse Kalish on themuse.com:

Side hustles come in all shapes and sizes. You can start a blog, a consulting company, a YouTube channel, a dog-walking service, a wedding-speech-writing business—all gigs that people I know have pursued.

The idea of having one, as you know, is to do something that gets you excited. It can also (but doesn’t have to) make you some extra money, boost your resume, and elevate your personal brand.

So it’s no surprise many people have turned to creating podcasts on the side for various purposes. If starting one—while still maintaining a full-time job—piques your interest, I spoke to four people who did it (and are still doing it today).

You may read this article and think, This seems hard, I don’t think I’m cut out for this.

But, to be successful in launching a podcast (or any side hustle for that matter), “The biggest thing is to just start,” says Brunick. “I talked about it for two years and everyone was like OK, just do it. When you start Googling how to start a podcast everything seems daunting, everything seems like it has to be picture perfect, but the reality is…there are millions of podcasts, and it’s actually to our favor because it gives us time to start putting content out, start refining our technique, and also early on get that feedback so when you’re at 10 thousand, 100 thousand, a million listeners, you have a product that you’re super proud of—but the only way to do that is just by starting.”

Why this matters: Podcasting is fun and rewarding in so many ways, but it can also take a lot of your time. If you're thinking about starting your first show, this article will help you understand how much time and effort you should expect to invest in your show, and also give you the important bits of knowledge that will help you be successful with your show.

Just start is great advice. If you're looking for a tutorial that walks you through what you'll need to know, I recommend the 4-part blog post series on the Simplecast blog called Absolutely Everything You Need to Start Your Podcast.

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7

Critical Mass in Podcasting: How big does your audience need to be, before it starts to grow all by itself?

From Jack Rhysider on his lime.link blog:

When I started out in podcasting I was obsessed with answering this one question. How big does your audience need to be, before it starts to grow all by itself? At some point it has to hit a critical mass, a tipping point, which once you get to, growth is automatic.

After doing more research, I concluded a mere 150 fans is all it takes to get your show to spread by itself.

You want 150 listeners? That's easy. Just buy $1,000 worth of Overcast Ads and boom you have 150 subscribers. But that doesn't give you immediate organic growth. To reach that critical mass, these need to be fans of your show. They need to really like it. See, people don't tell other people about good podcasts. People don't even listen to good podcasts. They turn good podcasts off and go listen to great podcasts. And they only rave about great podcasts. Good is not good enough. So it's essential that your podcast is delivering maximum value to the listener, and the listeners you have, love it.

Why this matters: Growing an audience for a podcast from scratch is a daunting and challenging task. In this blog post, Jack (who makes the Darknet Diaries podcast) walks you through exactly how he did it. It's an excellent tutorial about audience growth.

The technical part of making a podcast has gotten easier. Making a show that people will love and talk about is still challenging, but I believe it is something that anyone can do with the right combination of hard work and passion.

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Podcast Episode Recommendation for the Week:

Culturally Relevant 23: The State of the Podcast Industry (with Nicholas Quah)

David Chen chats with Nicholas Quah (Hot Pod) about the state of podcasting in 2020 on the Culturally Relevant podcast.

The very things that make open podcasting work is the thing that makes it difficult for you to make a living out of it at scale.

If you'd have told me 5 years ago that among the hottest technology today would be email newsletters and podcasts, I'd have said "That's a little bit silly".

Why this matters: Nicholas Quah is someone who's taken on the job of paying attention to what's going on in podcasting and then writing about it.

This is an insightful conversation worth listening to, but my favorite part was towards the end of the episode where Nick opens up about his personal fears and struggles related to his career in the podcast world and the instability of it all. Really interesting and relatable stuff.

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Closing Thoughts

That's going to do it for this week's episode. I'm heading to Los Angeles this week to visit some friends and escape the (admittedly mild) Texas winter, so if you're anywhere close to the west side of LA and want to grab coffee or hangout Friday or early Saturday, let me know.

Have a great week, and happy podcasting!

Aaron Dowd

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This show was produced by me, Aaron Dowd.
Music and SM7B illustration by Sean McCabe.
Hosting and technology by Simplecast.