Your Podcast Is Already Making You Money, You Just Aren't Tracking It (Why It's a Sales Tool, Not Top of Funnel)

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So you made $30,000 because of your podcast. You didn't even know. How many of your new clients in the last year have mentioned your show with how they found you? And she said, well, actually, you know, it's two or three. Cool, what's your average deal value? She's like, it's $10,000.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

How does a founder know when the show is working, when it isn't, and when to kill it? Megan Doherty, co-founder of One Stone Creative and author of Podcasting for Business. She built the Business Podcast Blueprints, a system that maps a show to 15 specific business outcomes you can actually track.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

The biggest one is going into the podcast hoping that it's going to be their main top of funnel. Any time that you're spending marketing your podcast, you're not marketing your business. A lot of people are probably getting a lot of value out of their shows that they're not noticing. Uh, because tracking it is challenging. The best thing you can do with your time for the next little while is okay, Megan.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

When a business has a podcast running, what is the first thing you look at to see if it's actually doing anything for their business?

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Well, the very first part of that conversation for me is when you started the podcast, what did you hope it would do for the business? You know, that's that's kind of where it says most people have an idea in their mind when they start the show. Oh, it's gonna do this for me, it's gonna do that for me, I'm gonna see this benefit out of it. And so the first point of check-in is, is it doing the thing that you hoped it was doing? If yes, okay, good. That, you know, that's a great starting place. If not, okay, is it doing things that uh you didn't expect that are also good? That that can be a win as well. And kind of the final option is is it uh not actually helping in a meaningful way that you can measure uh uh in terms of something that you can really look at? Like, is it bringing new leads? Is it improving your sales cycle? Is it cutting down your labor cost time? Is it improving your SEO? Uh if you can't point to something and say, this is the impact that it's having on my business, then it's it's definitely time to get into the refining and troubleshooting to see if it's if it's gonna work. But yeah, it always starts with what did you start out intending to do with the show? And is it achieving that goal?

SPEAKER_00 2:00

What did you intend the podcast to do in the first place? Are you achieving that? And if you're not, we need to fix that problem first off. And we need to, it sounds like you were getting into a way of being able to track how it's moving forward with that particular goal, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Yes, I'm I'm a big fan of metrics tracking, and I believe that if you put your mind to it, you can track just about anything that you want to. Uh so when it comes to podcasting, there's all sorts of things. I mean, you can track new relationships, you can track the length of your sales cycle, you can track your labor cost savings uh like from amongst your team. Uh, you can track if you're doing affiliates or sponsorships, that's something you could do. You could do brand mentions, opportunities that you're getting, new relationships you're building. It just kind of comes down to what's important, what it what is it meaningful for this show to produce, and how are we going to tell it's producing that? And that's the number that you want to track long term to make sure that it's it's a worthy investment of your time.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Okay. Can you give me an example of let's say someone wanted to make the podcast to generate warm leads? How exactly would you track that?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

See, for warm leads, there's a couple of ways we can do it. So there's there's a number of strategies you can employ with a podcast to try and get warm leads. My favorite is we call it a sales enablement podcast. And that's less about finding and attracting sales qualified leads and more about nurturing people who find you by other means. Uh, so a podcast, uh, let's say like a season of a podcast, 10 or 12 episodes really talk about your methodology, how you can help people, the things you can do, the things you can't, how to get good outcomes. You share a few episodes of that that are going to be really relevant to each new lead who comes into your discovery pipeline. And then by the time they actually talk to you, well, they've already got an idea of who you are, what you believe, and whether or not they're someone who can help and what it takes to actually get the outcome that they want. That sales conversation is often very short and it's often very positive because people come on saying, hey, you know, I I I'm picking up what you're putting down. Let's do this. On the other side, if they listen to you talking about, you know, the things you can do, the things that you can't, they can be actually, no, this is this is not helpful for me at all. They don't book the call at all. You've saved a bunch of time.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

You said deploy it within your sales process, the podcast. How exactly is it, how exactly is it being placed?

SPEAKER_01 4:18

So for this one, you'd have all of your episodes on individual pages on your website, as well as kind of your whole podcast page. And whether you're doing your sales yourself or if you've got a sales team or team members who do that for you, coaching them or getting really clear yourself on which episodes do I want people to listen to as they're deciding whether or not to try and hire us, or what do I need them to know so that I can decide whether or not I want to work with them. And so that would be something manually. So let's say you have a live chat on your site or a form where someone can uh submit their information to book a call with you. You can put links to those specific episodes into those systems and into those funnels so that when someone says, uh, watch this, uh you know, go to this page to book your meeting, the episode can be on that page as well. So they can see, oh, here's all of the services that this company offers, or here's some case studies of people who are like me, uh, who this lawyer, for example, has helped. That gives them a chance to really not just get the information that you're sharing with them, but hear your voice and get that knowing, liking, and trusting that is developed uh as well when you are listening to people or watching people. It really can make a big difference in sales cycles. We worked with one company once uh and they found, you know, after just a couple of months uh of doing this, they were going up from from you know three months down to two months uh to six weeks for an average sales cycle, which is pretty exciting.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

I think I'm getting it. So you kind of have already a funnel in place, and then you're putting specific episodes, specific topics into that funnel so that it's right there specifically for them to be able to see, build a connection with you, be able to have answers to certain questions so that it's warmer going into the sales call.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Totally. And that can be completely systematized. Uh if you know you're dealing with sort of the same type of person most of the time, or it can be customized if you have an like a person who is managing your sales intake process, or if you're vetting people before they get on the call, you can just say, Hey, why don't you check out this episode? And if you like what you hear there, let's book that call. Uh and that it feels very warm, it feels very personal, uh, but it's still really easy to scale up.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

That is interesting. Specific episodes made for that process is definitely interesting.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

But I think what what what I find really interesting about podcasting, especially for business, is that the podcast is it's the vehicle, it's the tool that you're using to do different things. Uh and you know, it doesn't have to look a certain way or even be part of a per particular sequence or or be presented in a particular manner. You you get to do whatever you want with it.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Without giving away the cookies, what is the process you run through with clients who come to you to help with their podcast?

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Definitely. I can uh I can give away most of the cookies. Uh I've got um a process, a process called the the business podcast blueprints, is what we use to help design shows that are doing jobs within uh companies. And so the way this works is there are five high-level podcast archetypes uh that exist for different reasons. There are relationship building shows, audience engagement shows, thought leadership shows, content shows, and conversion shows. So when someone comes to us saying, Hey, you know, I'm thinking about podcasting, we start with what's the most important thing that a podcast is going to do? Is it going to connect you with others on a one-to-one basis? Is it going to nurture an audience at scale? Is it going to establish your authority in your niche? Is it going to help change people from one type of relationship with you to another? Or is it going to create content that you're going to use in other places? There's no wrong answer. There's only better or worse for different businesses. We figure out what's the most important one. And once we have that, then we look at, okay, now that we have our main, like the prime directive, if I may be a little nerdy for the show, what are the other things we want to optimize for? Is it for referrals? Uh, is it for growth? Are we trying to get downloads? Is it for, you know, um uh uh uh opportunities to speak and connect with others? Is it for content that we're going to use in different areas? And so we pick a few of those to optimize the show for as well. So we've got your prime directive, you've got the individual things you're optimizing for, put it together and you've got a podcast that's going to be very, very valuable in a number of different ways for your business, all of which is trackable and measurable.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

Prime directive, what the goal is. What was the second thing? I missed it.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

The uh after kind of choosing the main goal, right is to choose the specific outcomes that you'd like for outcomes.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Outcomes, that's what it was.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

So it's like the the big umbrella uh and then the the specific spokes of it that you would really like to achieve. And like when you podcast for long enough, you're gonna get all you're gonna get all of the benefits. Basically, you'll be building thought leadership while you're building relationships, while you're doing audience engagement. I make people choose at the beginning because it makes all of the other decisions much easier. So if you have um if your goal is to build your relationships with people, if you need to expand your professional network, for example, uh, then yeah, you're gonna have to have guests. But you may choose not to have sponsors because that takes airtime away from your conversation. Uh, you know, and if you're having, if you want thought leadership, if you want to get your own authority established, you might have guests, but they're gonna be conversations between equals, not where you're interviewing experts, you know, because you need to get your own IP out there. So when you figure out what's the most important thing, it makes all of the other subsidiary decisions that you have to make a lot easier.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Right. You get a strong clarity on what the goal is, the outcomes they desire, so that you can make better decisions about the direction for their particular podcasts. And uh that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah. I found it to be pretty effective, especially, you know, we work with business owners like uh like you do. You don't have a lot of time to experiment and try different things uh to see what works over you know months and months and years. You want to have a pretty good idea from the outset what you're gonna be achieving.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

You have a book on this subject, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Oh, I do. May may I show it off?

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Go ahead, please.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

It's uh podcasting for business. It's how to create a show that makes a bottom line difference uh for your company. And in this book, it goes through exactly that process that I was talking about. So it's got the five high-level podcast archetypes. Uh, and then uh we break down how to optimize a show for 15 different specific business outcomes that you may want uh in fairly excruciating detail.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Excruciating detail. All right. I have more homework.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Uh it's it's available for free at podcastingforbusiness.com.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

I will make sure that is in the show notes and description for anybody who wants to pick that up. Me specifically as well. All right.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

I'll be happy to hear your thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

What is the biggest mistake that you've seen that founder podcasters make for their business?

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Oh, there's uh there's a couple that tend to recur. Um, the the biggest one is going into the podcast hoping that it's going to be their main top of funnel uh activity. Um, there are shows that can be top of funnel marketing materials, you know, it can work. But boy, the work you're gonna have to do to make that happen uh is is extreme. Um, so I find what happens a lot when we talk to people is they come in there saying, you know, I'd like this to be, you know, my top of funnel. I want to get my thought leadership out there. I want to, you know, become well known. I want to become a really big name in my space. Uh and then they start a podcast and they start doing it, and they're just like, no one's listening. You know, are you? I'm getting very small listeners. This is mainly my existing audience. It's just like, yeah, that's that's how it works. Audience building is its own job. Um, so these people tend to find they end up getting a lot more value out of, say, the relationships they're building with their guests, uh, or the way that they're using episodes, uh, as we were talking about before, like as part of their sales funnel, or even like as part of customer onboarding. It's once even it's like team member employee onboarding. Super cool use case there. So I think the the big mistake is looking at a podcast as a way to do one specific thing. You know, a podcast is a way to get our name and our brand out there. It's really a tool that you can just design to do different things. Uh, and I think when you make that shift in thinking, the podcast is a vehicle that's going to get me somewhere. And I can customize it to do the different things that I need in the business. It's going to be a lot more successful. Uh, and I think uh that's that's probably the biggest one is hoping that it's going to make you famous just for showing up. It won't. Uh, and then I think another one is this is mostly prevalent in the last couple of years, and it's getting more and more. And it's just assuming it still has to be video or that it now has to be video. There is still a place for audio podcasts. And I think a lot of the new video podcasts that are being started, um, for very good reasons, they're not as highly produced as really popular video podcasts. And they're not going to get the traction on video platforms that more highly produced shows will. Whereas you can still get really good traction and really good quality in your audio for uh considerably less investment uh of of energy and bandwidth.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Big mistake number one is that they're trying to use it as top of funnel rather than being a support system in their funnel. And this and mistake number two is was it that they were not using it as video or they're actually trying to compete with video?

SPEAKER_01 13:12

It's thinking that you have to be video.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Uh I see.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

Yeah. So you you can do video if you want to. Uh, but I think I think audio is being a little bit neglected uh in terms of the impact it can actually have on a business. And I think that there's a little bit of an a misunder like an an underrepresentation of the work involved in really good video content.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Agreed.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

It's hard to produce really good video.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Agreed. What what do you do to help people solve those two big problems when you see them come up?

SPEAKER_01 13:48

So for the, you know, the podcast is top of funnel, that's usually solved over the course of a conversation. Uh when we talk about kind of the reality of growing a show to be really large, when we start talking about the paid traffic campaigns that are gonna have to go into that, uh, the time spent promoting, the time spent being a guest, talking about your show, all of which is taking away from marketing the things that you actually do for money, by the way. Um, any time that you're spending marketing your podcast, you're not marketing your business. Uh, because if you want to grow your show into something that is really, really huge, that's basically starting a new business. And you that's a fine goal, but you need to know that going in, uh, what you're doing there, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Okay, quick one and then back to the episode. If you're a founder or business owner, also running a remote podcast, audio or video, and you're making the descriptions, doing the clips, editing, finding guests. Stop that now. That is not your job. You're supposed to be working on the business. The podcast is supposed to feed the business. At Pro Pod Concierge, you record, we handle the rest. Right now, we're taking on a handful of founders for a full free month. All I ask in exchange is for feedback or a testimonial if we knock it out of the park for you. Now, this isn't for everyone. If you already have your podcast handled and you don't feel like it's taking away from the time and bandwidth that should be working on the business, skip this. There's only a handful of seats available for those that qualify. Once the seats are full, you will be put on a wait list. If you're interested and want to apply, go to ProPyConcierge.com or click the link in the show notes. Now back to the episode.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

So I think kind of once we talk about, you know, do you want to invest all of those resources in having a really, really big show that, let's be honest, may or may not do anything for your actual bottom line at the end of the year? Or do we want to look at the podcast in a different way and like, let's let's talk about getting you and some new referral partners, you know, in the next, you know, three to four months. Or let's talk about really enhancing your SEO strategy over the next year so that you're actually coming up in those, you know, search and AI results. Uh, and that I think really when you when you look at the results that are actually possible in the near to medium term, when you focus on using the podcast as this tool to achieve other ends, it's a lot more exciting uh than working really hard and spending a lot of money to maybe like make number 99 in the top 100.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Big problem one conversation, just making sure they understand it is a tool. It is not let's get famous in the second thing. Did you explain the second thing?

SPEAKER_01 16:25

No, I don't think I did. For for video, that's that's a big one. Is it's it often comes down to is why do you feel like video is the way that we need to go? You know, if you think I'm gonna have a podcast, so I have to do it in video. All right, well, let's interrogate that a little bit. Do you feel like it has to be in video because those are the podcasts that you watch the most? Or do you feel like it has to be in video because everyone's talking about how it big video podcasting is, or because Apple and Spotify keeping release keep releasing all of these new video features? Um, so then we we want to think more about let's look at the reality of podcasting in audio versus in video. In video, you're going to have to worry about your lighting. You're gonna have to worry about looking good while you are worrying about sounding good. All of your guests are going to as well for the record, and that can cause friction, especially with people who aren't really media comfortable. If you're gonna be interviewing people who aren't commonly on video, they're gonna be nervous. And that's not gonna make for the best possible conversation. Then there's the post-production. Uh, you know, how much are you going to be able to invest in, you know, in, you know, lower thirds, in nice transitions, in, you know, your studio recording environment, in all of these things, that, you know, color balancing, for goodness sake, all of the stuff that goes into a video podcast. In some cases, that's gonna be worth it. If you know that your audience, they don't listen to stuff, they watch stuff, cool. That's a great reason to make that investment. Uh, or if you find, if you if you personally just don't like audio only stuff, cool, it's your podcast. You can be in video if you want to be. But I think it's really important to understand what are we actually trying to get out of this? And what is I'm a lazy woman, okay? I want to do the least amount of work possible to achieve my goals so that I can get to my hobbies, right? And I think that's that's how we should be approaching marketing activities. We want to do a really good job, but we don't want to do more than we have to do to get the results that we're looking for. And I think audio, especially if you're in relationship building, if you're trying to connect with other people, uh, if you're trying to teach people things, you could they can read the transcript, they can listen to the audio, you can make uh you can still get it on YouTube if you do like a wave, like an animated audiogram style video. You can do it. But I think it's making sure that if you're going to invest in video, there's a really good reason to invest in video. Like if uh if you need to demonstrate what you're talking about, if you've got a process that you need to show off, sure, that needs to be video, no question. Uh, but I think for a lot of businesses, uh, the default to video, uh, I think it's just it's I'm not gonna call it a fad, but it is just the current trend. But that doesn't mean it's appropriate for every business.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Generally just have a core reason for the video. Otherwise, maybe it's not the best idea because it's simpler and easier just to have audio in a lot of ways. So if you're gonna use video, make sure it makes sense for you the outcome that you desire for your podcast. Precisely. Gotcha. Gotcha. I'm trying to think, what's the reason for my video right now?

SPEAKER_01 19:14

And that's a really great question. I I would love to know why you decided to go video.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

YouTube.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

YouTube and the reach in YouTube. Yeah. That's I think the main reason.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Yeah, and I think there's there's something to be said for that. Absolutely. Like uh YouTube has its own algorithm for discovery and sharing that that is real. Like YouTube serves up videos, and it could serve yours, could be one of the ones that it's it's serving up, and especially if you know that your audience is there, or if that's where you spend your time to to learn and to connect with people. Yeah, it makes sense. Good.

unknown 19:47

Good.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

I think you're you know then we're looking at the the um uh I think we're you're gonna be talking about this later, but uh 58% of the top 100 business podcasts are what we call video first shows. So they were designed to be uh created and seen as much as they were designed to be heard. And for a lot of those, actually, they were just really designed to be seen and the RSS feed is an afterthought.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Yeah, about that. The you say you study 100 podcast shows every year. What is the winners doing that the other ones aren't that you've seen in your experience?

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Yeah. So the just for the the context of that, uh uh my company, we run an annual research report called the State of Business Podcasting Report, where we look at the top 100 business shows uh every fall to see what they're doing. We've been doing this since 2020, so we've done it six times now. Uh and the ones, the the things that these shows are doing that other people aren't, it comes from the starting position. They are starting with huge audiences going in, and they are starting with tons of financing, and they are starting with lots and lots of staff who have lots of time to work on it. Uh, and that's kind of the biggest differentiator between the shows that are on the top and everybody else. So, um and I don't say this to be discouraging. I think the the the thing about the report that we've kind of learned and and it's important to share over the years is that it's not a recipe for success. Like we've got this list of 75 different things that the top 100 business podcasts are doing, but they're not successful because they do these things. These are just the things that the most successful shows happen to be doing. We don't know what exactly is correlated to success and what isn't. It's really useful to figure out like what are the trends in podcasting, what are the benchmarks, what does art look like this year? You know, how long are podcasts this year compared to last year? It's really valuable information to be able to think about and consider to make your own decisions. But it's not if I do everything exactly the way most of the most successful shows do, I'm gonna be successful. No, most most of these, a lot of them are famous going into it. You know, a founder who is just starting from scratch and building an audience from scratch is never going to be able to compete with that. And that's not to say anything about the quality of their content. Uh, it's just it's just a resourcing issue.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Right. So a lot of the ones on that list already started off. With high resources, big team, already famous, biggest thing.

unknown 22:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

But you look at the list generally to see the trends, what's going on right now, and that can be useful, but it's not a list where it's like, let me copy them one to one, because it's not gonna create the same results. It's just more so useful information for maybe formatting essentially.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

For formatting for strategy for how things are presented on social media uh can be really useful. Uh, we've seen like over the last couple of years, uh like hooks. I know you start your show with a hook uh at the at the beginning or the sizzle clip. Um, and those have kind of gone gone up and down in popularity over the last couple of years. They were um rising in popularity around the 2020 when we first started the report, and it's now now about 50-50. More people are doing live uh uh live with music intros. Uh so it's just really interesting to see what's uh what's the latest in how people are presenting their podcasts. Uh and it's it's fascinating. Also, we I mean, we look at things like, you know, how how long are descriptions? Uh, how long are titles? Um, what what does art look like? It's still all about the headshot uh for the record, but it's it's just it's a fascinating snapshot uh of kind of a moment in time for business podcasting.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

What is the current snapshot this year?

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Well, so the most recent one is from 2025. We do it in the fall uh every year. So it's kind of our our end-of-the-year project. Uh and we can see right now it's uh podcasts are getting more frequent in release, is one of the biggest findings. So weekly has for a long time been the most popular um cadence, and it's still kind of just just one of the top two, but multiple releases a week have now kind of superseded uh once a week as the most popular release cadence for shows. So people are releasing more content. Um, they're releasing more audio or video content, but show notes and transcripts are getting shorter, which I find really fascinating. Um, because I think that's severely neglecting um search and AEO and GEO, which is going from written materials that come along with podcasting. Uh so there's um uh it's a pretty big report. We look at 75 different uh pieces of data. But if you'd uh like a copy of it, you can get it on uh on one stonecreative.net. The report's available there. And if there's anything specific you're wondering about, I'm happy to uh to pull out the numbers.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Oh, thumbnails titles?

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Uh yeah. So let me let me I've got it uh I keep this open when I do calls because it often comes up. Uh the most popular titles, the word count, it is three or four words long for the titles. Three three or four words for the for the titles of podcasts. And it's usually the something show is the most popular format of all. And then when you look at the descriptions that go along with it, uh the most of them tend to be uh between 50 and 150 words. So that makes up over 50% of the podcast descriptions, still really, really short, which also really interesting because there's a lot of kind of unused space in what the platforms give you to like add your keywords, talk about your topics, uh, and all of these other things. But uh I think what it comes down to is most people don't read the show descriptions past the first paragraph or two. So a lot of people are making the decision not to worry about them. What about the Oh, sorry, I was gonna say if you uh if you ever talk to Jeremy Enns, uh the podcast marketing academy owner, uh, brilliant guy. He's got some very interesting thoughts on podcast descriptions. Uh, so I would recommend you check out what he has to say about that.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Right, not name down.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

I can make an intro for you if you like.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

That would be appreciated. What about titles as far as the episode titles?

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Yes. So uh episode titles tend to be a little bit longer, and most of them tend to be a formula of some kind. Uh so I mean there's there's a lot of variance around this, but uh a really common pattern is seeing something like a an interesting or a hooky statement. Uh, you know, uh AI changes everything. Colon, here's my guest and their expertise. Uh or episode number 45, um big statement word, podcasts, or or you know, finance, and then a breakdown with a little bit more information about what that specific episode is about. So kind of a formula like that that's repeated from episode to episode. And then of course, there's the um, we call them like the the the journalist-friendly ones. So the the what, why, how, uh, why your podcast isn't growing, uh, how to get better guests on your podcast. Those ones are still like the they match the search intent, right? That's what people are looking for. So they tend to be to be really popular. Those are probably the two biggest categories that we see.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

Strong formats with a big kind of hooky front end and then kind of small details in the back end. Is that generally what you were saying?

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Exactly. Yes. I think when you think about how someone's looking for a podcast and they're scrolling on their phone, you want to get someone's attention with the first part of that uh that episode title. Uh so you know, you don't want to necessarily have uh say just the episode number or the name of the show because that's gonna be the same for every episode when somebody's scrolling through your list. Uh but if you've got something really arresting, something really interesting uh uh for that first bit, it's like, okay, that's okay, I'll click through and I'll read a little bit more uh and figure out what the rest of that title is when I'm looking at on my phone. So I think that's that's the reasoning behind it.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

What about the thumbnail that goes with the title? Because you know, you're scrolling. The title is kind of secondary to the thumbnail. What is the what's the trends on the thumbnails right now?

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Yeah, uh, if you'll give it just a second to look up my uh uh the podcast, the we call that unique episode art. So the stuff that goes along with uh with each episode. Uh and a shocking number of really big podcasts do not bother. So uh right? Right. I know. I'm right there with you. I find it uh a baffling uh decision. Oh wait, that's over in branding. Uh but yeah, so a lot of them um will just have it's their main podcast art goes along with every single episode. Some do make a unique thumb uh to go with each one. We especially see this if they if it's a YouTube heavy show or video first show, there's always a unique YouTube thumbnail. There's that's almost across the board. They never use the same thumbnail on YouTube. But for some reason, apparently on Spotify, they don't care if it's the same art uh from episode to episode. Um, and some do something I think is really, really clever where they've got a similar piece of branded art, um, but they change the color if it's a different episode type. So it'll look really similar, but say the uh the main background color is going to be blue if it's a solo episode and green if it's a guest episode. Uh and that is really fascinating when to visually differentiate it while still keeping that core branding. So I think that's just a fabulous strategy. Uh and when there are changes in the thumbnail, they're usually pretty minor. Uh rather than having a completely different thumbnail style for each art, it'll be like the the title will change or the guest headshot will change. Um just because that's uh that that's gonna be easier to do than creating something new and it creates that brand consistency uh over time so people start to recognize what they're seeing.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Do you recommend having those changing, well, brand recognized YouTube thumbnails or just the consistency of like the same one for episodes?

SPEAKER_01 28:54

I like um a lot of the shows that we do are um uh they're they're relationship-building podcasts. So if I'm trying to build a relationship with someone, you can better believe I'm updating the thumbnail to have their face on it, because that's one of the ways I show I'm caring about how they're presented and that they're getting some attention as well. Uh so it's it's kind of one of those things where it comes down to what's the main goal of the show, right? Uh if it doesn't really matter uh what the thumbnail is as long as people are listening, say the content's gonna mainly live on your website and the Spotify and the Apple, their bonuses, maybe I'm not gonna invest the time in extra thumbnails and instead I'm going to make sure that I've got a feature image for my blog that's different every time. Uh yes, that's kind of being discerning about where you're putting your effort. Um, but if you do have different episode types, for example, like if you do Q ⁇ A shows alternated with interviews, I would absolutely 100% make them distinct, uh distinctly colored arts because some people are gonna want to binge every QA episode that you've ever done, and maybe they're not so interested in the interviews. So make it really easy for people to find what they're looking for.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

All right. Generally make it easy to help them find what they're looking for. If you have a guest, probably best to go ahead and put their face on it.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

If they've got a good headshot, some people don't.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Fair enough. I'm following. I'm following. How does a founder know when the show is working, when it isn't, and when to kill it?

SPEAKER_01 30:12

So I think the the first and and most important one that I don't think we talk about enough in the podcasting space, um, is sometimes you try it and you hate it. And and you're allowed that you're you're allowed for that to happen. It's okay. Sometimes you just don't like it and it's not worth, you know, whatever it might bring to you. And that's a great reason to stop. And I think uh beyond that, though, if you do enjoy uh or at least can tolerate uh with a degree of calm the process of podcasting, um, you want to give it time before you really make an evaluation. You know, you're not gonna be able to tell if it's working in six months, most likely, unless, you know, it's a a seasonal show designed for a really specific purpose that's that's closed. But, you know, six months, a year, 18 months, that's gonna be enough time to really get some data in about is this working or not. And you should be doing a check-in every three or four months uh on the goals that you set, the metrics that you're tracking to tell whether or not you're hitting those goals. And if you're not hitting anything after six months, okay, reevaluate the strategy, maybe tweak some things. If you're not seeing anything at all after a year in terms of outcomes that really matter to you, like if you're not um if you don't have any more professional connections than you had before, if you're not getting any more referrals, uh, if no one is saying that they found your podcast and that's why they decided to talk to you, if none of those things are happening, your audience might just not like podcasts, you know? And that's that's valuable learning. Um, so I think it it's the best thing you can do is decide at the beginning of the project what success will look like. You know, is success going to mean I get two more referrals a month after six months, maybe four more after a year than I'm getting right now because of my podcast. Well, if I'm getting those, amazing. That's gonna make a huge difference to my annual revenue, uh, if that's happening on a really consistent basis, right? And that's gonna justify the investment I'm making in a podcast. So if you don't decide in advance what success actually looks like for your show, it's gonna be really hard to tell if you're getting it or not. And you're gonna be like, well, maybe I can't attribute, you know, all of our new business to it, but some of it is. It's you kind of have to have some systems in place to be able to validate whether or not the work you're doing is turning into anything else. Um but and that's if if you are tracking and if you are doing a reasonable job optimizing to try and make things work better and it's still not working, just kill the project.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

So, first and foremost, if you find out that you don't like it, then you can just stop. Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Just you can you can blog, go back to blogging.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

And if you have a clearer outcome and you're tracking like six months to a year, and it's not hitting that outcome that you desire, that you decided from when you started, that might be a good time to call it quits then too.

SPEAKER_01 32:57

Exactly. And I'd say as as long as you, you know, we're we're you're as long as you're like if you're trying to build relationships and you talk to people for a year, but if you never follow up with them, you don't get to whine that you don't have good relationships now. Like you have to actually do the follow-up and the the follow-through to make things work. But I think as long as you're doing that, um, you know, you can go in with the best strategy in the world and a really good, you know, a really good idea or a good reason to suspect this is going to work. Not every project works for every business. It's the same as any other marketing that you might do. Sometimes you're gonna get an out-of-the-park winner, and sometimes it's just not gonna work. And that's that's just the reality of marketing.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

Understood. I want to actually bring it back to earlier in the conversation when you were talking about that lead example where you had specific videos helping people to warm up to the idea of buying, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:49

When it comes to like that example, how are we tracking? How are we tracking and making sure we're actually getting those warm leads or things are actually panning out the way we want to? Because tracking, I feel like, is kind of your expertise here. And it's one of those things that I feel a lot of podcasting is lacking.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

Absolutely. And and sometimes it can be a little fuzzy because uh as as I'm sure you know the different platforms don't identify who is watching or who is listening. You can't like I, you know, if I I couldn't tell if you went to my show earlier and listened to a bunch of episodes. I've got no idea. Um, I can only see like the aggregate numbers. When you're doing a strategy like sales enablement or sales nurturing with your podcasts, there's a few different things that you can you can track. And and one is the number of times specific videos are shared by you or your team. So if you've got a salesperson uh and they are talking to a variety of people and they're selling that, that um or they're sharing that episode that's really good for lawyers and finance people. Well, if they are sharing that about say 20 times a month, okay, I'm gonna track that metric and compare that to the convert, like the number of actual sales calls I have with those lawyers and finance people and how much how often those close. When I'm on those sales calls with people, I'm also gonna ask, hey, were you able to watch that episode? I know Jane sent you. Uh and if they say yes, okay, good. So that's somebody who I can confirm has watched the video. And then I'm gonna pay attention to how that conversation with them goes. And I might note down, okay, was very warm, um, didn't ask me any dumb questions because they knew. And like, okay, good. So that was a smoother process. And so it's not um, it's not an automatable system in some ways. It's gonna have you have to, you have to spend the time thinking about it and doing it. Uh, and I think that's where a I think a lot of people are probably getting a lot of value out of their shows that they're not noticing uh because tracking it is challenging. Um, I I had a really interesting conversation with uh just a colleague from a networking group. It was earlier this year, and she was talking about not being sure she wanted to continue her show. Uh she'd been doing it. It was not a super huge show, but you know, getting respectable downloads and shares. Uh and so we had the conversation and I asked her, you know, how many of your new clients in the last year have mentioned your show is how they found you. Uh and she said, well, actually, you know, it's two or three.

unknown 35:59

Cool.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

What's your average deal value? She's like, it's $10,000. So you made $30,000 because of your podcast that you weren't even, you didn't even know. It's a very worthwhile investment of our time. And so it's it's kind of making the effort to find out where those touch points happened with people. You can control some of it by delivering people to specific episodes and guiding their experience of the show. Sometimes you have to ask them, and sometimes it's just going to be a mystery. Uh, so you want to be looking for those trends and keeping as close an eye on it as you can.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Simply put, it sounds like keep track of the metrics that are available to you, like the downloads, for example. Keep track of when you're actually yourself placing it in front of people, like the link or directing them somewhere. And then when you do have somebody like on a call or in a conversation that's leading to sales, ask, How did you find out about me? And if it was a podcast, take a note and then see how that happens. So, like, okay, she came from the podcast. That was an easier sale. Interesting.

unknown 37:05

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

And you can be able to take that in and see if it's tracking with your outcomes that you desired. All right.

unknown 37:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

It's not the easiest thing to do in the world by any means. Uh, but I mean, if you're going to invest in a marketing channel, uh, there are cheaper and easier ones than podcasting. So if you've got reason to suspect podcasting is going to help your business, I think it's worth investing the time to really monitor how it's performing uh and and really see if it's pulling its weight or not.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Final question. Yeah, one minute. Founder with a business is listening to the episode right now, and they want to know the single highest leverage move that they can take into the next episode that'll help them make the podcast work for their business.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

So the if you are a founder who is currently podcasting for your show, um, the best thing you can do with your time for the next little while is sit down with, you know, a blank page, piece of paper, uh, the AI of your choice, if that's your thing. Actually, no, not the AI, it'll lie to you. Uh, but write down every outcome that the podcast is creating. Uh, you know, everything that it's doing for you. Is it connecting you with interesting people? Is it giving you content to share? Is it uh helping your team, you know, learn more about you and building company culture, every single thing that you can think of that the podcast is actually achieving for you. Uh note it all down. And then look at that list and figure out which of these are the most important? You know, which of these are the ones that really matter to the business? You know, maybe it's it's maybe I'm really enjoying it, but you know, it's not leading to it's not giving me any sales, or it's, you know, really helping me on uh Instagram or, you know, it's really helping me with my socials, but I don't get any traffic from socials back to the website. So like really analyze what is the show doing? How is that playing out in my business? And then you're gonna be in a position to decide, okay, these things are really working. These that I've got this low-hanging fruit I can improve and I can take a few actions to really get a lot more out of these parts of the show. And anything that is not super valuable, um, see if you can cut it. See if there are parts of your workflow or parts of your process that you don't need. That's gonna streamline your process and make the whole thing less expensive. Uh, so just look at everything it's doing, rank them in terms of importance, optimize the most important ones, and cut the least important ones.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

All right, you heard her. Go ahead and get on that. That's everyone's homework. That's your all right. Megan, thanks for being on the show. Highly appreciated.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

Uh kind of it was a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

All right. This has been the Founder Podcast Lab. See you in the next episode.