Leveraging Podcasts for Business

Welcome to building better developers, the developer podcast, where we work on getting better step by step professionally and personally. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back. We are continuing our interview with Jason Sarkone and we're going to be talking podcast stuff. We're going to actually get a little bit more into how you can leverage and use your podcast for your business. Talk about some of the things that make it important for any business to have a podcast, to get out there, to be heard, to get your message, to get your brand out there in front of your customers. But I don't want to spoil alert too much of this and let's jump right back into our conversation with Jason Sarkone. One of the things that you list and is part of your, we'll call it your cell of podcast, is that all and like, you know, I'm not shouting, but it's in all caps, entrepreneurs and professionals should use the podcast platform, which anytime anybody says something that is all-encompassing, you know, that's that to me like in an extreme, like a very hard point. It's very interesting to see where you get that. So why is it that you think that everybody that doesn't matter, you know, any professional, any entrepreneur should find a use for, make use of podcasts? There are a number of reasons. I mean, I think that the most important is understanding what your brand objectives are. And typically people believe that the only way that you can really leverage the podcast platform is to have your own show. And that's simply not true anymore because the number of new podcasts that are coming out is it's growing leaps and bounds each and every day. Those podcasters need knowledgeable, high quality, qualified guests to join them to talk about their area of expertise. So the savvy podcasters of the world are the ones that are finding a subject that they can zero in on and be incredibly niche and create content for a specific type of listener. Trying to go broad makes it a little bit more difficult. But if you're thinking about what your ideal customer would want, ideally that's going to be your ideal avatar for a listener as well, because that's who you want to communicate. And we're talking on the business side of things. But honestly, I think that everyone can benefit from this if you identify what you want to accomplish with your brand and then determining whether it makes sense to have your own podcast or just be a guest on shows that are speaking to your target audience. And oftentimes I find myself talking people out of starting a podcast, especially if they've never done one, and starting with guesting because guesting offers opens up so many opportunities for growth and for exposure. And you don't have to learn all that back end post-production work, which, Robert, you can attest as a podcaster, it's not easy. It can be very time consuming. And maybe you have a team that you're working with that can do that for you. I know many people that do that, and that's fine. But starting with guesting gives you a foundation to build on. So if you've never done podcasting and you're looking at this medium saying, how can I leverage this? Jason's saying that all entrepreneurs and professionals need to be part of the podcast platform. How do I do that? That might be the question you listening to this show or asking yourself right now. So starting with your brand objectives, determining what you want to accomplish and how you'd like to use podcasting as a vehicle, that would be step one. You really need to determine your why. And I think that's something that's common practice for all of us as we build our brands and build our businesses. But once you decide, OK, podcasting seems right for me, I feel like I have a story to tell. I have ideal listeners that are listening to other podcasts in this space. If I get my voice in front of them, maybe they will connect with me as well. That's the objective you want, right? So you're opening up this world of opportunity to network with like minded individuals, because if you treat a podcast as a transaction, it's really not going to pay off. But as you connect with other podcasters, there's a number of things that can happen there. So in that networking time, whether it's before the show, after the show ends or the recording, I should say, after the recording session ends, we call those green room chats. And if you have an opportunity to maybe offer an affiliate program or maybe you have something that the host needs that maybe they want to buy on the spot, you can monetize your offer before it ever goes live, before it even hits that audience. And that's when you show up with value in mind. These are the type of scenarios you create for yourself, because I have to respect what you want to accomplish, Rob. You're trying to create great content for your awesome audience to gobble up and love every second of. So they come back next week and listen to the next show or start to go back in the catalog and binge episodes they've missed. If I just show up as a salesperson and just start rattling off why I'm awesome and you need to come buy my thing, most people are going to get turned off by that because no one turns into tunes into a podcast for a sales pitch or for an infomercial. That's just not compelling audio. A lot of times you as the podcast host may say, well, this is never going to get aired. If I'm in sales mode, you may be thinking right there, well, I'll never air this. We'll just see this through to the end. I've talked to people that have just stopped recording sessions dead and said, listen, all you're doing is selling and that's not what my audience shows up for. So I'm going to we're going to nip this in the bud and just call it a day. You don't want to put yourself in that type of situation. So guesting opens up a lot of opportunities, but you need to know how to do it right. Some of those opportunities I didn't name off are SEO benefits. The more, the more interviews you do, that's more backlinks that could be pointing back to your website. It's more pieces of social proof that show your audience. You're an expert in your field. There's the opportunity to have all of these many pieces of evergreen content working for you in perpetuity because podcasts are evergreen. Your interview today could serve you five years from now, as long as those podcasters don't take that content down, it's out there working for you. The more interviews you do, the better you get. I could list the benefits and go on and on, but typically what I tell people is if you're fresh to this, if you're brand new, let's start with guesting. Let's get you booked on some shows where you can start to develop your brand story. Start telling it to an ideal audience, get some confidence in your voice and learn about podcasting from this end. Down the road, it may make more sense now to say, okay, I've got, I've gotten comfortable, I've gained some confidence. I know what I want to accomplish. I'm going to start my own podcast. I love this. So you get some time to practice without investing thousands of dollars in equipment or whatever someone decides to spend. I know you can do it a lot cheaper than that, but point is you're developing a base and developing a network. So if you do decide to start a podcast, now you've got all these podcasters that you've collaborated with and you can return the favor. Hey, I'm starting a show. I'd love to have you on my show so we can continue the conversation that we started on yours. Makes sense to start that way versus trying to build this massive entity from the ground up because a lot of podcasts or a lot of people will do that. And then they'll look at their metrics too soon and get frustrated because they don't see immediate growth and think podcasting doesn't work. And then they walk away. And that's why there's so many shows. I think the average is like seven or eight episodes. That's the average number of podcast episodes get released before somebody quits. That's a scary, ugly statistic. And I would, if people think about things from a different perspective, we may be able to curtail that number to some degree. So that is where I say start guessing first and then build from there. That is a, that is one of the more interesting skewed numbers is, you know, there's, I don't know, whatever it is now, I know there are over a million podcasts on if there are two or 10 or where the number is, but the number of those that have 10 episodes or less is, is pretty sizable. There's a lot of, or the, it was, it's been amazing when I'll go to like podcast or meetups or conferences and talk to podcasters that they turn out like one episode a month or, you know, they've, they've been doing it for four or five episodes. And, you know, to me, it's like, you're just, you're just getting started. Now, if you're, you know, if you're Dan Carlin and you've got like, you know, you can write basically an audio book for your episode, you know, for your episode, once a year or 18 months, whenever he turns something like that out, that's a little different, but, you know, typically it's going to be more. And like you said, it's, there's that investment of time that I think a lot of people, they, they go into it. There's it's a, it's weird. There's, there's people that go into it too soon, like you mentioned. And I think there's people that, you know, that don't go into it because of those fears that we mentioned. And I guess, because you use the M word, I do want to jump on, get that before we moved on as, as metrics is the download numbers. That's one of the things I noticed that you've mentioned is that there are download numbers and podcasts are. Well, I'll let you like give your, your thoughts on what those are. They are plentiful. I will say that flaw download numbers are flawed. It's, it's a vanity metric. It's it's skewed. It derails efforts. I, there's so many negative terms that I can throw at this. And I think a lot of it comes down to some people will say, oh yeah, you're, you're, there's so much that you can learn from your metrics. And I don't deny that. I really don't. I know that there is a lot that you can learn about, you know, if you've got a 45 minute show, but like the trends or the metrics say that people are bailing after half an hour, maybe, okay, cut that back to half an hour. Fine. Again, things you can learn, but in the very beginning, if you're just getting started, this is your first podcast. Most people go to the one metric that they think is determining whether that makes sense to keep going. And that's the download metric. How many people are listening to this? And 10 times out of 10, that number is not going to be what you want it to be. Because you're fresh, you're new. You have to build and establish a loyal audience. And you have to do that through compelling content. And the only way to build compelling content is to get good at your craft. So if you are three or four episodes in and you start looking at them or start looking at download numbers and thinking they're not high enough, you may say, well, this is just not working. I guess people really don't care what I have to say. Now your confidence starts to suffer. Your content may start to suffer because of that. There's this downward spiral and then it becomes less of a priority. So your consistency starts to wane as well. And all of a sudden you were doing a show every week. Now it's every other week. And now I'll get a show out this month at some point. And that eventually just goes away. See you next week. And we never hear from you again. Happens far too often because I think people look at that metric and are analyzing it the wrong way. I look at it at, from the standpoint of, if you want to really pay attention to that number, don't look at a per episode basis, start looking at what your entire catalog is doing because we have this tendency and I know because I've done it and I just finally snapped myself out of this. This is on a past show that I had done in the years past. That overall catalog is what it's all about because your podcast is getting discovered at different times and with different episodes. And just because you're now on episode 123, it doesn't mean episode six is any less valuable, but because we're in that mindset of having to promote the new show and get information out to the world about this brand new episode we just released, some of the shininess off of the past episodes starts, it starts to wear off and we don't push it as hard. But in my mind, you should be just as proud as of episode one, two, three, all the way up to where you're at. You'd be just as proud of those as you were when you first released them. So when people find them, that may be what triggers their love affair for your show. And it could be episode 31. So now they can say, Ooh, this was really good. Oh, they're on episode 126. This is awesome. I've got so much content to get caught up on. So I'm going to go listen to that. And those, and then they start binging your catalog. That's making your numbers trend upward. The more they listen, the more they may fall in love. Now they're telling others, you got to listen to this podcast. I just found it's phenomenal. Now their friends are tuning. It's this is how that exponential growth begins. But if you get hung up by episode eight on this download metric, telling you, you don't have enough listeners, you quit before you even started. And, you know, I challenge any new podcasts or first of all, I will tell you this, you're, you're still new until you break a hundred episodes. There's something about that hundred episode mark that shows that you're for real. I don't know what, there's no science to that. It's just something that I see. And I've worked with clients with shows. They've been on reach seems to be better on the episodes or on the podcasts that have over a hundred episodes, something about that number. But I would challenge any new podcasts or not to look at their metrics for six months. If you want to start a podcast, you probably are doing it because you love the subject matter that you're talking about. That should be the reason you start a podcast. So if it's a play, if it applies to your business and your brand, of course, that's something that you're fully entrenched in and you should be able to talk about it. Even if nobody was listening. Cause the reality is at the beginning, that's there's, there's a lot to that. You people will listen, but you have to build the audience. So use that timeframe in front of a smaller audience to build your skill set, to keep honing in that message that you want to communicate to the world. And as you do that, again, there's all there's, there's a little chain reaction that we've talked about many times as you build that confidence and build that skill set. Good things start to happen. More people start to listen because they're getting into the content that's compelling. So keep at it. Don't let a download metric throw you off. And I'll end with this for this rant. If you have 35 downloads on a podcast episode and you think that's too little, what if those 35 people were in your living room? Would you break out the crappy beer or did you bring out the good stuff? And would you really take care of those people? You would do the latter because they've shown up. Those 35 people have proven and they love what you're doing. They're your loyal advocates already. And you need to keep building on that number. If you look past them, wondering where the other hundred thousand people are that haven't shown up for the party yet, they're going to feel disrespected and they're going to leave because there's other parties. There's other podcasts. So every listener you get, treat them with the respect they deserve and keep giving them valuable content that they're going to love. And that's how you'll grow. And that's how you can dismiss any BS around this vanity metric of a download number. That is a good, I don't think, I don't know, rant doesn't seem like a good, because there's too much good information out of that. It's not as far too useful to just simply be a rant. I might ask you for the raw clip of this recording so I can cut that up and put it on my YouTube channel. Put it on the loop. Yeah. This is really all you need to know. Just listen to this. Whatever it is, five minutes and you will be sold. That's right. Now I do want to go, one of the things you mentioned was that you took time off, essentially you did a podcast and then you said, all right, I want to, I want to research this. I want to learn this. Now during that time, you're, you're 18 months in the wilderness, we'll call it or whatever. How did you, how'd you go about that? What was your approach to researching and learning about this thing called podcasts? For me, I mean, it's all, it's, it's very subjective. I mean, if you, and I'm not saying that everyone has to do this either. And for me, it really wasn't even like a goal of like, okay, I'm going to take this 18 month period year and a half and not, no, like it just happened to go that long. All I did was just put on an analytical cap versus an entertainment cap. So instead of watching the news for the news, I was watching for how they delivered the message, which was actually refreshing because then you don't have to be drawn into the crap and violence and nonsense they're talking about on the news all the time. But for me, that's really what it was all about. Like instead of saying, okay, they're talking about this car accident or this car got stolen, whatever. How do they tell this story? How do they communicate? How are they looking at the camera? How do they, what is the inflection in their voice? Then I extended that to the radio and listening to how the radio people were doing interviews, podcasts, exactly the same. I found some shows that I really dug and was able to sink my teeth into those and just really listened to how they were communicating. And that was really what it was all about for me was just, I wanted to find some communication that made, I don't want to say, I mean, yes, to some degree made me stand out, but it was all about doing this well, because what I had learned from my very first podcast was that this is all about the listener experience. End of the day, that's what matters. And I knew that I had a few episodes in that podcast catalog that were the worst listener experiences ever. And I looked back on those saying, if I was the consumer of this podcast, I'd be so pissed that this is what they're giving me. Let me, and I'll break this down. So it was a beer podcast. We had a blast doing this show and we got to meet some great people and it opened up some good opportunities. One of those opportunities was there was a beer festival in Pittsburgh at one of the breweries and I knew the owner real well. And I said, Hey, well, how would you feel about us doing a live podcast from your event? And we'll talk with people. They can come. He's like, Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Bring your equipment. We'll get you set up in a little corner and let people know what you're doing. So we would have like interviews with different people all throughout the night. And it was a good time in my head. I'm thinking, well, this is great. What I didn't plan for was the fact that we were drinking for about an hour and a half beforehand. And then one of the whiskey reps that I knew put three shots in front of me and said, you can't record until you do these. It was so bad, Rob. I introduced myself wrong and didn't even realize I did it. Introduced my, my, me and my co-host had the same first name. I said his last name is me. Did not even realize I did it. And then when, when I went back and edited, I'm just shaking my head because there were like three or four different conversations happening at the same time. I'm like, you know, from, from the pure recording production side with us doing this, we had so much fun, but to go back and try to listen to that. Terrible. And that was where I learned the lesson. So in many ways, I'm glad it went down the way it did. Cause it taught me if I'm going to put podcast content into the world, I need to respect my listener and give them what they show up for and not some cluster of four different conversations being thrown together for the sake of saying, we have a podcast episode. And that really was what drove me to keep getting better. And it still drives me to continue getting better because I want anyone that listens to my podcast or even tunes into listen to me as a guest on a great show like yours. To feel value when they're done listening. If they walk away from this feeling like they learned something, maybe they were entertained, maybe they've got some new perspectives, maybe they're thinking podcast guesting sounds good. Maybe I'll reach out to Jason and pick his brain about how to move forward with this. Maybe starting a show is something I want to do. Does Jason have to say, well, I've got this episode, but now I can reach out to him because they'll have all my information when we're done talking. I want to make sure that the impact that I leave behind is something that's valuable versus something that makes somebody say, well, I'm going to be able to make somebody say, I don't want to ever talk to this person or ever listen to this person on a podcast again. That was really the driving force for me because I always want the listener experience to be the best it can possibly be. That's a, that is a, it's such a good focus. And I think that there are too many hosts and guests that come in. Like you said, it's, it's about them. So they, they've got their product. They want you to buy their product. You know, I know there's a lot of people that don't really understand the value that a show can bring to you. But I think that's really important, is as opposed to giving the listener something of value outside of, Hey, you can buy my product. You know, giving them something entertaining or informative, or preferably all of the above, you just give them a sales pitch. And it does come so that I think it is very much a turnoff, you know, if, and or it's so heavy on that without anything that's of value to me. And it's like, okay, I, you know, part of the reason I like podcasts is that a lot of them don't have commercials. I don't have to be sold to, I'm okay if somebody's selling to me as part of their story, they're saying, Hey, this is what I do. And this is why I bring value to my, I give my customers value doing what I do. I'm okay with that. Cause then you, then it's a story, then it's entertaining. I'm not just being sold to, I'm being entertained. And it's like, okay, I will pay the time of my, you know, the price of my time to talk to you because, or to listen to you because I'm getting an interesting story. Yeah. Think about it this way. Like, okay, let's use sports as an example. Very early on in life, more than likely, if you're a sports fan, like I am, you gravitated to a specific team. If you, Rob, you see my background, my team is the Pittsburgh penguins. I love hockey, my favorite sport, and that's my team. And what happens when you get invested in a product, a team, you start to pay a little bit more attention. You start to see the value in what they're giving you. They're providing what they, they're giving you entertainment. What do you do next? You start investing your money in t-shirts, jerseys, posters, mugs, you name it. And merchandise out the wazoo because you want to show your love and affection for this team that you've bought into. This is no different. If you were building your personal brand and you're using the podcast space to do so, you're going to gain so much more by being a valuable resource and showing up to actually provide some impact versus selling. Because as I connect with other people, as I talk to people, my goal is to showcase that I do know what I'm talking about and I can help you learn just from listening to this podcast. If you want to take it to the next level and have a conversation with me, I've created avenues for you to do that. So you can continue to get invested in what I'm doing and my approach to helping you get the transformation that you seek. This is where a lot of people fall short because they think they always have to be in sales mode and where they really miss the boat on podcasts is if they show up and help the podcast or create great content that they will then in turn share with their audience and their audience will listen to and hopefully recommend to others. So they continue to grow. That host is going to do all the selling for you. They are going to tell their audience why you need to invest in what this person has to say. If they, if you're looking for this particular transformation in your life, go check out what Jason's doing. Here's his website, because I held up my end of the bargain. I showed up and I brought value to the show, but if I just brought a sales pitch, a no one's going to want to listen to it. B you're going to question whether it makes sense to even put it out there and see if you do. Most people are going to say, well, if I'm not buying, I've got no further reason to look into what this guy's doing. So the sports analogy is a little, I don't want to call it short-sighted, but it's a little out there. But if you think about how you get emotionally invested in things, typically the next step is to start throwing money at it. So if you let's real quickly switch it to movies, if you fell in love with star Wars, what'd you do? Action figures, t-shirts, Halloween costumes. You took it to the next level because you wanted to show the world how much you cared. And you knew that what you were investing your money in satiated you to some degree. So if you show up with value versus showing up with a sales pitch, that's going to put you in a much better position to win. Yeah, that's a, that's one of the things I'd, I'd always enjoy the sports analogies because they do. It is amazing how much they can be very simple like that. I say, Hey, you like that team? Like you like this podcast that makes you more likely to go out. Like if you're sitting there and you see a bunch of hockey jerseys, you're not going to buy like a Philly Jersey because you're like, no, there's a Penguin's Jersey. I'm going to buy you. You probably stab yourself first, but yeah, that's one of those where you're that, that loyalty translates to so many other things. And that's where a lot of that, that's honestly, that's where a lot of the niche marketing and sales and success kinds of things focus is it's like you would, you're better off having a small number of highly loyal customers and working with them than trying to satisfy everybody and, and, you know, have them very, you know, with, with no loyalty where they'll just, they can move off at any time. Yeah. Running out of time, but one thing I, because this is a soap box, I occasionally get on and I would love to have you give your voice to it. The idea of the, of getting skills or having an advantage from just doing a podcast or whether it's a host or as a guest and the benefit that you get going through that process or that activity. The, the skillset that you develop as a guest, a host, as long as you're on the microphone, you're learning these active communication skills and really, as you get better at it, mastering the art of conversation, which can then translate to a lot of other areas of your life. So on the professional side, once you get into the rhythm of telling your story and having those one on one interactions, you'll start to have better conversations with your colleagues. Your sales presentations to potential prospects or potential customers that are prospects, they are going to be much more valuable and packed with a lot more value. You're going to have better interactions with your team members. It's just, it just naturally transitions just because you're learning new ways and more powerful ways to communicate. That also bleeds over to your personal life as well. The conversations that you have with loved ones are going to be amplified. I know that I've said this a number of times. My daughter may hate that I'm a podcaster because I don't just let her off the hook with when she gets home, she's in seventh grade as we sit and record and she gets home and I ask her how school was and she says, good. She knows the conversation isn't going to end there because dad's going to have a few follow-ups. Well, tell me one thing you learned today. Oh, why was that so impactful? Because in my mind, this is what I do when I'm talking to a guest on my show, I'm digging a little deeper because I want them to go deeper and tell a more engaging story. And every time we do that exercise, she's usually got a good story to tell and it gets her talking. It gets her active and I want her to take this skillset into everything she does. That was one of the best pieces of advice I was given in college. I had a teacher in my communications program, which is what I majored in. And it had a lot of radio, television, things like that. But there was also some interpersonal communications classes and I learned a lot there and developed a great relationship with one of my professors. Cause we always just had such good conversations. And she had commented on that for to me and said, you really do have a gift for talking to people. I can just tell from the way you and I interact. And she said, keep building on that as you go through life, because that's going to help you in so many areas. And that advice stuck and I, and I use it every day because my goal is to have those very powerful conversations in all areas of my life. Even if it's at the grocery store with the cashier, just something to make life more enjoyable and having those conversations can be the catalyst to make that happen. And you can learn so much about doing that right here on the podcast microphone. It's pretty incredible. Agreed. That's part of the, the joy I get of doing it is having, it's always an interesting conversation. I it's amazing. Everybody's got a story. And if you can get them talking about it, then the next thing you know, you're hooked and you're ready to hear more about that, that specific story. For your story, what is the, you know, we'll have links, everything, but what is sort of your preferred way for people to get ahold of you? If they're like, ah, this Jason guy is awesome. I want to, I want to learn more from, I want to, you know, learn from the master and take everything that he's, he's talked about and embrace it and make it a part of my life. Well, I would say the best way to connect with me is just come over to my website, Jason, Sir, cone.com. In fact, you can go right to the link, Jason, Sir, cone.com slash podcast love. And I've got access to some great information that will really set the table on how you can use podcasting in your world and use it to your advantage. And when you're on my page, please feel free to look around because I've got a lot of different resources that also speak to the same subject, but more than likely you're going to stumble upon my calendar. And for me being the conversationalist that I am, it all starts with a good conversation and I don't make any bones about it. I tell people, I might not be the best fit for you. You may not be the best fit for me, but we're never going to know unless we have a conversation to see if our philosophies and our objectives align. And if they align, boy, we can make some magic together. So if you're on my site, feel free to look around. If you want to take things to the next step, set up a call and we'll have a talk and get things rolling. Excellent. Excellent. I want to thank you. This has been as, as you sort of promised, you know, this has been an excellent conversation. I think you brought a lot of value. Hopefully people were taking notes along the way even. And I just want to thank you for your time and hope you have a good rest of the day and hopefully catch you again sometime in the future in the podcast space. Absolutely. And thanks for having me. Rob. This is a lot of fun. I had a pleasure getting the chance to talk with you. And like you said, I hope your audience feels that they get the walk away with some value from this conversation today. Thanks a lot, Jason. Have a good one. You too. And that will wrap it up. I hope that you enjoy just listening to such an incredible voice, but also all the information he shared with us. There will be links as always in the show notes, if you want to reach out, if we want to talk to him, he's always looking for a conversation, as he said. And when somebody is doing that, it's very useful to take advantage. Go ahead. Listen, get some of that experience, some of that knowledge and see where it takes you. You'd be amazed at how just a simple conversation can turn into a wealth of knowledge for you. And turned out to be something that you realize you really are far better off having done that than sitting around and not having that conversation. That being said, it's time for you to go out to the world and converse with whoever you can. And of course, we'll still be waiting here when you get back. So go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week. And we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember, just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success. Please check out school.developaneur.com. That is where we are starting to pour a lot of our content. We've taken the lessons, the things that we've learned, all of the things that make you a better developer, and we're putting it there. We have a range of courses from free short courses up to full paid boot camps. All of these include a number of things to help you get better, including templates, quick references and other things that make us all better developers.