Jeremy Weisz 4:20
Yeah, I mean, the thing is, we talk about you kind of analogy, right? What we tell people is to focus on relationship building, right? How do you give to your relationships and your relationships within a certain industry is best so you don’t want to have necessarily your Anton or your cousin on that. We’re talking about b2b businesses here. So you want people in your industry so it starts with, you know, we talked to people about who are the people in your universe and world and we’re talking about business world that you really want to give to connect to, you know, allow them to talk about their thought leadership. And again, it goes without saying it’s going to be great content, because it’s going to be about that specific industry, but focus on who are the people and companies you really want to give to. And
John Corcoran 5:13
ultimately, that’s how you become a gold medalist is you first have thought through, okay, who am I going to focus on here? And I talked to someone the other day, who said, Yeah, you know, we’ve been doing a podcast for three years now. And I look back on the first years worth of content, and we really didn’t focus on the right people. And, and, frankly, I mean, what I was surprised about that conversation is that they’d continue doing it three years later, without having gotten a lot of results from it, because a lot of people, they’ll do it for six months or so. But after that point, they end up giving up. And so you have a really finite window of time, to get some success from it to get some actual results from it. Or else, oftentimes, we see people give up. And that’s, it’s just sad to see that sort of thing happen. So, you know, first and foremost, if you want to be a gold medalist, you got to view this as a relationship building tool. It’s a networking tool, it’s a tool for up leveling your network, it’s a tool for connecting and deepening relationships with people that are going to be valuable for you and for your business. And you got to recognize that that’s really some of the true value behind it. So talk a little bit about how that works. Jeremy? Yeah, I
Jeremy Weisz 6:24
mean, so it reminds me of, you know, as you know, I’m a huge fan of John Wooden, and he has the quote, I think it was attributed to him never mistake activity for achievement. And so just because you’re putting stuff out, and it doesn’t, you know, just because you have that activity doesn’t mean you are going to achieve what your goals are. And, you know, so actually, I was talking to someone and someone was, you know, didn’t know us. And they were saying, you know, Jeremy, what separates you? And they sent me actually some communication with someone giving some podcasting advice. And this person had done a podcast for a while. And within five seconds, I was like, I know exactly. You know why I don’t agree with this advice at all. And we are have a little bit different opinion on certain things from other people, sometimes, but this person in three different sentences was giving podcasting advice, because they podcast it for maybe, I don’t know, two years, which is a long times, some people and not to others, but they talked about different numbers, like when they’re talking about metrics, they’re talking about on the Download subscribers, and, and I said, Okay, you are an e-commerce business. Okay, you got e-commerce businesses, let’s say you get a million downloads, does that help your business? Are there are they all, they’re probably not all, you know, needing what you have. Now, if he has a mass market product, but this person serves is a b2b business. They help e-commerce businesses. So getting a million downloads, or subscribers or getting in front of 100,000, Instagram fans, right is not going to matter. That just doesn’t matter. Now, you want to be in the close circle of people that care about that stuff, and are in that particular industry?
John Corcoran 8:17
Yeah. And it goes back to what I say to people all the time, you have to know what your underlying objectives are in your business. What are your goals in your business, that’s what you want to really focus on. Because it when you accomplish those goals faster because of the podcast, then the podcast has been successful. And if it takes 100 downloads to do that, or 100,000 downloads, who cares how many downloads it takes, it doesn’t matter, in addition to the fact that, you know, people lie about these things all the time. Sad to say, but because the numbers are big black box, they’re not publicly known. 50 to 70% of all the downloads come through Apple. Now Apple doesn’t release download numbers that do it’s sad to say, but we see people all the time who posts like, I have a top 100 podcast. Well, what does that mean? I’m looking at the top 100 charts right now. I don’t see your podcast on there. On what by what metric? Are you counting that like maybe one seven years ago, it was on the top? 100? Yeah, you know, or you’re just making it up out of thin air. You know, so unfortunately, that does happen a lot. What are some other gold medal winning qualities that we see in really successful b2b podcasts? Yeah,
Jeremy Weisz 9:28
I mean, I think you hit on one which is know what your goal is. Okay, someone the other day called me as a Jeremy. I know that you guys, you know, help people launch in start podcast, I this person, and I think he should really start a podcast and he’s just gonna start his business. And can you talk to him? And I said, it was a little confusing. He’s like, he may be getting a job. job with a company or you may be starting his business. I was like, Okay, well, those are two totally separate things. And I have a totally different strategy and advice for him on his podcast, if he’s thinking of getting a job, because I’d be like, okay, cool. Like, he wants to get a job, let’s say in whatever the security industry, I would tell him to, you know, really connect with people in the security industry, maybe HR people in the security industry, and really network and add value to those people. And then if it was to start his business, you know, what’s, what’s the service? I said, before he should even start a podcast? I, you know, I said, I don’t even think you should start a podcast. So he has his main goal written out and know what that is. And he’s starting business, what’s the service he’s providing? And then that will depend on who he goes after. So, anyways, after that, short conversations, uh, yeah, you should just tell them that, and at least it gives them a starting place. But I would tell that person not even to start a podcast to start.
John Corcoran 10:58
I agree with that. One caveat, though, is that, you know, one of the best things you can do for figuring out your market or product market fit is to have great conversations with prospective buyers with other smart people in your industry. And so that’s a big difference between like, I might get a job with a company versus I might start a company completely different. But if you have more of a focus and a direction, I’m gonna start a company. But I just, I’m not exactly sure who’s our right client avatar, which is so common, so frequently, the case, actually taking the you know, the time to have conversations with existing clients, past clients, your champions, that people who love you, others in your industry, the thought leaders, the speakers, the authors in your industry, one of the best ways to figure out who your avatar is, and you should be going after some of the biggest insights we’ve had has been from that,
Jeremy Weisz 11:53
I totally agree with you on that, and to think about and dip your toe and explore different avatars in this situation, there was no business and my fear was, if it doesn’t create revenue, or money, people quit doing it. And so he in this situation had no business. So my fear was, he’s gonna quit after a very short period of time. If it doesn’t result in business. If you don’t have a business or services, then you don’t But yeah, if you’re going to explore different topics, or or avatars, Yes, totally. The other one that we talk about a lot is following up in getting more guests recommendations. You know, if we think of kind of gold medalist as a standard for podcasting, people are, we are and we tell our clients to to get asked for guest recommendations, ask for introductions have more of more great guests from your, from their network and your network?
John Corcoran 12:56
Yeah. And it’s funny people ask sometimes, should I use the podcast to get referrals? Well, yeah, absolutely. Yes, you absolutely should, it will work 100 times better than, you know, Hey, guys, reaching out to your your clients and saying, hey, hey, clients, you know, next month is looking a little light. Do you mind introducing me to some people that you know, that could maybe some others that I could talk to you about my service? But you know, we do a great job? And I’d love to tell them about that. And that’s not gonna work, right? You know, whereas leading with, you know, here’s the type of person I’d love to be connected with. We’re featuring these people on a podcast. Who should we feature? Who would you who would you recommend, and oftentimes, people will be really helpful with that. And of course, this comes again, with the presumption that you’re not going to try and immediately sell someone that you’re going to build relationship. First, you’re going to deliver value to that person, you’re going to give them exposure and thought leadership using your podcast. And in many cases, that will lead to other things. Nothing ever works 100% of the time, but in many cases, it will. What are some other qualities of gold medalist? And then we’ll get into the qualities of people who don’t land on the medal stand?
Jeremy Weisz 14:09
Yeah, I mean, the other thing is just focusing it goes deeper on focusing on that relationship. But what else can you do to deepen that relationship and help that person? Not just before the interview, not on even on the interview? Obviously, you’re going to promote it across the channels, but but after how do you deepen the relationship? So what else could you be doing for that person? Right? Could you be making introductions to that person? Could you offer that episode as a resource? Because that, you know, they talk about their skill set? What else can you do to help that person? Just think it in their shoes, like when you have someone on? What are they looking for? Right? Yeah,
John Corcoran 14:49
yeah, yeah. And oftentimes, they’re looking to get exposure for their, their company for their business for something new that they’re launching. interviewed someone earlier today who has a book that He hasn’t finished yet. But he’s going to be launching it is going to want to get promotion around it. Even just the opportunity to talk through the ideas that are going into that book can be helpful for an author as they get better at talking about these things that can be really helpful.
Jeremy Weisz 15:16
I have so many people, John, you know, I’ve had on my podcast, and they’ve gotten clients from being on the podcast, because it’s in maybe someone who listened to the podcast for me, I mean, numerous people, but it’s also something they can use. They can go, Hey, like, watch me talk about what I do. And they’ve gotten clients using that same asset.
John Corcoran 15:39
And one thing you are really good at is following up then making an introduction leader and sharing that link to that live episode to that person that you’re introducing them to. So imagine this scenario, you’re a guest on someone else’s podcast, a month or so later, your episode has gone live, and they introduce you to someone who’s a prospective client of theirs, and they link to that episode. You know, you look so great in that scenario, you know, that person is going to be, you know, love you. And if you do that, for someone who’s already your champion, they’re gonna love you even more. So let’s talk about the other end of the spectrum. So, you know, there’s a gold medalist, and then there’s everyone else who doesn’t land on the medal stand. So they’ve worked really hard, they trained really hard, and they haven’t gotten anything to show for it in and, you know, what we like to say is that a lot of times what happens is they focus on the minutia. And there’s limited time and energy that you have to put into this. It’s a very finite window, just like the Olympics to succeed. And focusing on the minutia. You know, what color is my jersey? You know, things like that, that don’t matter as much when it comes to athletics is, you know, that is a carryover to the world of podcasting. And so what are some of those different examples of minutia? Jeremy,
Jeremy Weisz 16:53
I mean, people spending too much time on, you know, like, for instance, people spend hours and hours hours figuring out what is the right software I should use for recording, okay? Just don’t overthink things too much. There’s already something you use. So use it like, is one of the software going to be better than zoom or, you know, the quality’s good. I mean, we use Zoom for interviews. Now, people are like, we have zoom, but I’m not sure if the video quality, great, okay, when you have like, millions of subscribers or whatever, like then go off and spend three hours doing research. Um, so just don’t overthink it. If you already use a company, use something, just use it. Second is, you know, again, on the technical aspects, people will spend hours and hours researching mics and equipment and technology setup. Again, we’re talking about a b2b podcast, if you are NPR great, like that’s your business, you can research all you want and get $1,000 mics. There’s very, there’s amazing easing solutions, affordable solutions, like we use, I use a Blue Yeti, Johnny’s, an ATR 2100, just don’t overthink those, those things just get it started.
John Corcoran 18:11
Right. Now another one is another example is people who they spend personally hours and hours too much time on the podcast, or their team spends too much time. And oftentimes for the team, it means they’re torn between client work, or internal initiatives or internal marketing work, like the podcast leads the frustration for so
Jeremy Weisz 18:34
when you say on the podcast, you mean, like trying to, it could be scour over the audio or what
John Corcoran 18:41
only that’s the case, right? It could be the post production. You know, I’ve talked to people that have $5 million businesses, and they’re editing video themselves, you know, and and they’ll say to you, you know, I’ll say what’s the big goal your business? Well, I want to go to 5 million to 10 million? Well, the Why are you spending time editing video yourself? You know, or why are you spending an additional 90 minutes or two hours after the interview is over, combing over and reading through the content yourself? You know, you shouldn’t be spending your time on that. versus getting an introduction from a guest that you had on to someone else following up with that person. having a conversation with that person about being a guest on the podcast, that one relationship could be tremendously valuable to you. So you got you’re stealing your own time and energy and attention away from what you should be doing spending time on stuff which admin which has minutiae, and I would put it in that category, also spending a lot of time fixating on the audio quality, you know, and includes cutting out arms and ahhs. And you know, and we don’t say this because we believe in inferior quality sound. We say this because we know we’ve seen this many times before. We’ve seen people that focus their time and attention on the wrong things and it steals time and attention away from the things that they should be focusing on.
Jeremy Weisz 20:00
On that front, you, you still want to keep the authenticity of the conversation and, you know, making it too polished. People sometimes see through that. And also, it doesn’t allow you to, it doesn’t force you to get better necessarily as an interviewer, if you do, like I say certain things, and it forces me because I’m not telling the audio or audio person cut this, cut that out. I keep it in there. So I’ve had people criticize me on YouTube and say, You’re doing this and if I cut that out, I wouldn’t get better and when realize that,
John Corcoran 20:37
right, yeah, it becomes kind of a crutch. If you know that someone’s cleaning it up for you afterwards, then it it allows you to depend on that, rather than and I’m choosing my words really carefully right now you can tell rather than trying to get better naturally, which is a skill, which is incredibly important. If you want to be a speaker, if you want to speak on stage, if you want to be on other podcasts, you get have to get better at that you have to learn to improve your language, and it definitely will over time. I mean, podcasting has definitely made me a better speaker 100% another, you know, some other qualities that people focus on who don’t land on the metal, sand versus gold medalist, focusing too much time on on the written content or the production end of things, rather than making sure they’re using the right strategy rather than using it as an outreach tool rather than having great conversations. And then also, of course, this goes without saying, but people who try and manipulate and use a podcast in a salesy way, trying to in a manipulative way, get tricked, quick trick prospective customers into what effectively becomes a sales conversation. Now I’m all for people who use a podcast, connect with people who might be a prospective client, have a great conversation, and at some point transact business together. But we all know the difference between someone who’s just trying to trick you into a sales conversation, and those who are doing it in order to deliver value. Don’t be those types of person who’s just trying to trick you into a sales conversation. I
Jeremy Weisz 22:18
mean, if your thought should be, how do I add as much value as humanly possible this person? That’s the mindset that we go in with?
John Corcoran 22:24
Thank you all for being here and go check us out Smart Business Revolution, Inspired Insider is Jeremy’s podcast. That was a pleasure talking about this and we will talk again soon.
