What Job Should Your Podcast Do for Your Business?
You can have thoughtful guests, polished production, and a reliable publishing schedule while still struggling to explain how the podcast helps your business.
Before changing microphones or recording more episodes, examine the purpose of the show.
In her Founder Podcast Lab conversation, Lauren Harris explores why a podcast needs a clear business job. A show designed to support sales may require different guests, topics, and next steps from one designed to develop partnerships or establish expertise.
That decision should shape the work.
Choose a primary purpose
Start with the outcome you most need the podcast to support.
For example:
- Sales support: Help potential clients understand your approach and decide whether you can help.
- Relationships: Create opportunities to know relevant clients, partners, or other people in your field.
- Authority: Demonstrate expertise around a defined problem.
- Audience growth: Reach more of the people your business serves.
These outcomes can overlap. Choosing a primary purpose gives you a basis for making decisions when time and resources are limited.
Write it in one sentence:
“Our podcast helps [specific people] understand [specific problem], so that [desired business outcome].”
If that sentence feels vague, keep working on it before adding more production.
Make the guest list serve the purpose
Lauren’s episode emphasizes the guest list as part of the business strategy.
Consider why each conversation belongs on the show. A potential partner may offer both a valuable discussion and a relationship you want to develop. A customer’s experience may help prospective buyers understand a problem. A specialist may deepen the audience’s understanding of a topic central to your work.
The guest should still have something worthwhile to contribute. A strategic relationship is a reason to consider a conversation, not a substitute for an episode that serves listeners.
Connect the episode to a useful next step
“Subscribe” helps someone continue listening. Some episodes also create an opportunity for a more immediate action.
Depending on the topic, that might be reviewing a process, using a resource, exploring a service, or starting a conversation.
Choose a next step that follows naturally from what the listener has just learned. Make it clear enough that they know what to do and why it could help.
Evaluate the show against its purpose
If relationships are the priority, review the relevant connections and follow-up conversations the show creates.
If sales support is the priority, ask how episodes help prospects understand your work. If authority is the priority, look for evidence that the right people increasingly associate you with the problem you address.
Downloads remain useful context. They cannot answer every business question.
Your next step: Write your podcast’s primary job in one sentence. Review your last three episodes and ask whether their topics, guests, and calls to action support it.
