Podcasting For Profit with Evans Putman

Evans Putman is the founder of Podcast Profit School and a business consultant who partners with visionary, collaborative entrepreneurs. And if you have ever thought about podcasting or guesting on podcasts, This conversation with Evans is for you.

[00:00:19] Are you looking to improve your sales skills without compromising your values? Welcome to Sales Made Easy, a podcast or Business and Personal Growth.

[00:00:29] Now, here's your host, Harry.

[00:00:32] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Welcome to the Sales Made Easy podcast. What's the good word? Hey, thanks, Harry. I appreciate it. I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so it's going to be fun. Evans, if you like it or not, I know that you're super patient already because I've shared Evans, my new application here that I'm working with.

[00:00:54] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Evans is a master of podcasting. So Evans, why don't you give us a little bit of a background about what [00:01:00] got you into podcasting and why you think it's valuable for people? Absolutely. I'd love to. So it's an interesting story because I wasn't actually. I had no plans to be in the podcasting space. I wasn't really, it wasn't part of my, I guess, wheelhouse at the time.

[00:01:21] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: I was working as a marketing strategist and. Your listeners will like this, right? I was keeping my pipeline empty, not full at the time, unfortunately. And I lost some really good clients and found myself sort of in a pickle. And long story short, I ended up meeting this guy who needed some help with his podcast.

[00:01:46] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And we ended up connecting, we met in person, it was a real estate podcast. I'd been working with realists in the real estate niche with most of my consulting clients. And I [00:02:00] got together with him and we started talking and I discovered, actually I uncovered some places that he was missing out and was looking to accomplish.

[00:02:10] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And part of that was. Creating real estate sales training courses and coaching and to sell that through the podcast, but he had no idea how or if it was possible. And I just, I let him know, I was like, give me the weekend. I'm going to put together a plan and we're going to go do this. And so I sort of found myself trying to figure out how do I get a podcast?

[00:02:38] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: To be the engine that fuels a business and we just ran with it from there. And the next thing, you know, we, we ended up going from a contractor client relationship to a business partnership. We grew the podcast to over 150, 000 monthly listeners. And in the first 12 months, [00:03:00] we went from basically zero to half a million in sales.

[00:03:05] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: All through the podcast. There was no other marketing efforts that we were doing. It was just through a podcast that we had turned into this systematic approach for driving audience members, traffic, leads. And sales through the business. Wow, that sounds very exciting. So a lot of people who are out there listening really don't see the value of podcasting.

[00:03:30] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: There's like some curiosity. There's the should word. I know I should be doing this, but they don't really see what the potential outcome is. And you're really sharing here that there is plenty of business potential. Do you want to elaborate on that? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think. I think the important thing and that, you know, over the years, ever since that business, I ended up leaving that business, Harry [00:04:00] just to sort of wrap a bow on it.

[00:04:02] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And the system that we had put in place, actually. My business partner, Pat, was able to sell the business, sell the podcast. So we basically turned what was a failing podcast into a sellable business in the long run. So, but what I, what I would share to answer your question, and it's interesting cause I had this conversation with someone the other day.

[00:04:27] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: The biggest thing that I run into probably 80% Ish of the clients that I work with come to me in the position of I've launched this podcast. I've been doing it. I love, I love the connections. I love talking to the audience. I love sharing my message, but Evans. I'm a business owner. I'm an entrepreneur.

[00:04:48] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: I'm not getting an ROI. It's starting to become a liability. It's not really an asset. So, what generally is missing is not starting with the end in mind. How am I [00:05:00] going to attach this to my business? And, it's and it's also a very powerful tool. Like I shared with a podcaster the other day. The Your Voice as the podcast host, as the business owner, you have a powerful tool at your hands to be able to shift people's identities, to transform their beliefs, to move them closer to becoming a lead or a client or a customer.

[00:05:30] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And it really vastly shortens the sales cycle. When you use it the right way, and if you have a system installed and what, what I teach my clients is, is the one to many approach. So it's not, it's not me bringing you Harry on my show and then me trying to pitch my products or services or offers to you, which that can be done in a really great way.

[00:05:53] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: But what we focus on doing is actually moving the audience, growing a really big [00:06:00] audience. Helping shift their belief, helping overcome objections, overcome false beliefs that they may have so that they become one step closer to being your dream client and in the process focusing on how do we not move them from listener to sale, but how do we move them from listener to lead and then have a process in place that helps shift them from a prospect to a buyer and it's but it's a really powerful tool when done the right way because.

[00:06:30] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: You're in the voice of your ideal clients and they're listening to you that you have their captive attention Unlike many other mediums out there. They may be on a walk. They may be on the treadmill But you've got their captive attention and they're listening and think about how many times how I saw this the other day too with audio Think about how we listen to music We listen to audio, audio shifts, our feelings.

[00:06:58] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: It helps raise our [00:07:00] feelings. It helps us feel better, gets us excited. I guess you could say, raise your energy. And you can have the same kind of process when you're using a podcast, if you use it the right way. Yeah. There's so much good in there too. Pick a part here. So the first thing that you mentioned was really to have a vision or a strategy as to what the podcast can do for you.

[00:07:22] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Speaking for someone I know very well he looks a lot like me. When I look in the mirror I started podcasting because someone asked me to start podcasting. And then when I wrote a book. I felt like, well, having my own podcast would be advantageous without necessarily thinking it through. So what are some of the things that someone might want to think through before they get started, instead of just saying I should do it, maybe.

[00:07:53] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: What's your thought there? Yeah, well, one of the things that we focused on and we, we sort of learned things step [00:08:00] by step, right. It was that entrepreneurial spirit where I was like, Oh, I can figure out how to grow a podcast and had no idea. And we figured it out. Right. Oh, I think we can get sales from this.

[00:08:09] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: We figured it out. But it. It was a step. It was a lot of sort of trying things, having given ourselves permission to go with what felt right, not knowing if it was going to work. And 1 of the things that I would share that most podcasters, and if you're in sales, this is really important. If you're a business owner, obviously, it's really important.

[00:08:33] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: But you can't control who comes to listen to your podcast, but you can be very specific speaking to your ideal dream client, or as one of my clients calls them, your clonable clients, right? So if you start looking at your clients, who you love working with, who you can help get a result, a really big result in an easier, faster way than most people.

[00:08:59] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: [00:09:00] And you look at their qualities of who you'd love to work with. Then you can sort of back that up and start working your content in a way that it, it speaks to those people and it pulls them towards you so that within that, that audience set, there's a subset of listeners. Who then are more likely to be your clients and you're speaking to them.

[00:09:25] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: In our case, in the real estate space, we knew that we were wanting to speak to real estate agents who, one, they were not hustle and grind. They were the kind of agents who had a family at home that wanted more time to spend with their family, but they wanted to be really successful. And they invested in themselves.

[00:09:45] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: By, you know, whether it's professional development, personal development, whatever that looks like. So we sort of had that person in mind and then we thought about, okay, how do we speak to that person? In a way that shifts their beliefs, that [00:10:00] builds trust, that moves them one step closer to them raising their hand and saying, You know what?

[00:10:06] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: This Harry guy, I think he's the right guy for me. Let's, I think I'll reach out to him and start working with him. So, It's really, it really is focusing on who is that perfect dream client. What's that one big result you can get them. And then maybe what are the objections and false beliefs you have to shift in your content to move them through that sort of buyer's journey to where they're ready to take the next step with you.

[00:10:33] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Yeah, it is. This is really good. So it's, it's understanding your ideal client profile, right? Mm-hmm. , so that your podcast, I was having this conversation with someone recently and they were all about healthcare. Their business was a hundred percent was going to be in healthcare space. Their podcast had nothing to do with healthcare, which, you know, the person started like I did, at [00:11:00] least I kind of had a topic in mind that it was, it was going to be about sales, but this person just went with.

[00:11:09] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: The idea of growing a podcast and getting money off of the podcast, like, it's like, well, I'm going to make money off of my podcast someday. So I'll just keep interviewing these people. And there's a lot of great people on the podcast, but it's not turning into any business related conversations. So at that point, it's really just a hobby, right?

[00:11:34] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Is that how you would describe that? Absolutely. And I think a lot of people sort of fall into that. That sort of idea when they hear monetize a podcast, they immediately go to, you know, the, the old way that we always thought of, like, you know, getting commercials, getting sponsors, same thing with the TV or the radio space.

[00:11:54] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Right. But what we discovered now, one, you, [00:12:00] you have to have a really, really large audience to be able to get any kind of. Revenue that way. And when we started building our audience, like I was sharing earlier, one of the goals when I started working with Pat was, can you help me grow my audience?

[00:12:13] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Because it's not growing. I have no idea how to do it. And that was another one of those entrepreneurial moments where, yeah, I can do that. And so I had no idea what I was. What I was doing, but I just went back and looked at what worked with me and how I helped grow get traffic to my other clients and just sort of use that same model, but in a podcast space.

[00:12:37] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: But what we discovered was Harry was, you know, we got to really quickly about six months or so. We were at around 000 monthly listeners with this growth or all organic growth too. We didn't do paid media. It was all organic. Then within about 12 months, we were at about averaging 150, 000 monthly listeners.

[00:12:59] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: [00:13:00] So at that point, we were getting a lot of people reaching out to us saying, hey, We've got clients that would love to sponsor. We'll cut you a check. You'll, you know, it's almost like there's that guaranteed prize money. So this will be guaranteed for the next six months, but then we started looking at it and we're like, Okay, that's guaranteed, but we can actually, through our services, through our offers, we, with one sale, we can pretty much cover what that check's going to be.

[00:13:33] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: So what I always tell people, especially in the entrepreneurial space, the business owners who have podcasts, is, you know, if you're going to sponsor anybody, you need to sponsor yourself. Right. Because they're, the sky's the limit with the amount of revenue you can bring in from your podcast when you are building.

[00:13:55] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: That traffic that's coming in, which is one of the most valuable assets. [00:14:00] When you're, when you're helping them see that they can be successful with what you offer and they start to believe in your system and believe in you and believe in themselves, then, you know, it's just inevitable that they're going to work with you.

[00:14:15] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And if you put this in and install it, like I was sharing with Pat and with the podcast that we had. It just became, he actually called it an ATM. That's where I know in my bio, I mentioned the podcast ATM model, the business model that those were his words, or he was like, you know, Evans, this is like, you've created the, you've turned my podcast into an ATM where I just get behind the microphone.

[00:14:40] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Share my passion for helping others and, you know, sharing my message and the podcast just brings in leads and sales on autopilot and that's the really powerful thing about it. Once you install it. It, it can be that powerful and you don't have to worry about [00:15:00] all, you know, we, we had never ventured. We, well, I will back this up and say we did try a webinar, once, but Pat didn't really have the, the patience for that.

[00:15:11] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: He was like, we're just going to record it. We're going to do it once and that's going to be it. We needed to do a few extra runs to dial it in. Right. But it can be really, it can be a lot of hard work, but if you love sharing your message and your mission through a podcast. You can easily start not doing the marketing activities that you don't like doing and focus on the thing you do like doing and just amplify that.

[00:15:36] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And it's, it's amazing how powerful it is because you may have experienced this area. We, we did multiple times when people listen to your podcast. They feel like they know you, like they're your friend, you'll see them in person. They walk right up to you and they're like, Hey, it's Harry or, you know, Hey, Pat.

[00:15:55] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And you're, I remember Pat one time looking at me like, was this person on the show? Do I know them? Like, [00:16:00] no, they're just a listener. Right. But they feel like they know you. They become really good friends with you, even though it's just a one way conversation at that point. Yeah, it's a beautiful, I mean, so the thought that's coming to my mind right here is that someone's listening.

[00:16:17] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: They're excited. Now they see the dollar signs that there is potential and maybe their thinking is a little bit different. It's not so much about the number of people that are listening, but if my avatar, my idea, client profile person is listening. Then I'm basically putting them in now, not that I'm a big fan of the word sales funnel, but they're part of the community of potential buyers for those who don't like the funnel word, right?

[00:16:49] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: So they're part of the community that look at you and maybe they're not, you're not top of mind that you need this problem fixed today. But if they're listening to you every [00:17:00] week or every month for that matter, if they skip a few episodes, it's like, Hey, I have this problem now. Who's best to figure out how to, I mean, I've done that.

[00:17:10] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: I've reached out to podcast hosts before and said, I like what you're doing. How do you, how do you do that? So, you know, and that's and I was in their funnel, right? I didn't realize what was going on in the world, but that's. That's how it works, folks, is that you have people, you have conversations with people and you know, you show some interest and then you know, things can happen.

[00:17:34] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: So picking up on if someone wanted to start a podcast and they said, Okay. I like this what I'm hearing. Do I, what would be the format? Do I have to speak on my own? Do I just do like you know, whatever once a day, do I do it once a week? Do I need to have guests? You know, what are some thoughts that you might have in that regard?

[00:17:59] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Yeah, [00:18:00] those are all these are questions I get all the time. So they're perfect questions, right? Generally what I share with business owners and when we do a lot of relaunches as I was mentioning to you before where people come to me and they're a little frustrated because they're like, you know I feel like it's becoming an ass a liability not an asset And we'll do what I, a relaunch, which is not necessarily, I know that sounds sort of scary, but you're not actually scrapping everything and starting over.

[00:18:28] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: It's generally just a shift in the strategy and let's sit down and figure out and put the pieces together. But what generally what happens is, is that, as the expert, as the business owner, as the, you know, the entrepreneur. I recommend that you, at least when you start or you, you have this flow of yourself being the solo episodes, right?

[00:18:55] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Sharing your stuff, positioning yourself as the expert. [00:19:00] And I can give a real world example on this just for your listeners so they may be able to visualize it. I had a client one time that came to me. Runs a Facebook ads agency. She's amazing at what she does. Has some of the, if I started naming her clients, people would just say, Oh yeah, I've heard of that person.

[00:19:17] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: I've heard of that person. She had a podcast. And she came to me and she's like, Evans, I started it just because people told me I needed to start it. And the problem is, is that people are coming up to me in person and tell me how great my podcast is and that I'm an amazing podcast host. It's like, I don't want to be a podcast host.

[00:19:38] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: I want to be the go to Facebook ads person. And so we shifted it and instead of Her doing nothing but interviews, we did, we, we did a relaunch with a specific sort of flow of 5 to 6 episodes that follow a specific sort of pattern, a framework. She did [00:20:00] those solos, and then we started interviewing probably about 70, 30.

[00:20:06] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: So about 70 percent were solo, 30 percent were interview and we interviewed her clients, right? So instead of just random guests, we actually brought on her clients. She interviewed them and they got to shine and show off their superpowers and sort of put them on the pedestal. But the whole time. They were basically discussing how amazing it was to work with her.

[00:20:30] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: So even the interviews shows while they provided immense value, they also worked in her benefit for her end goal, which was to bring in clients for her Facebook ads agency. So to me, those are that, that is the best sort of ratio to do when you're trying to. To turn this into an engine to run your business is to focus more on your expertise, position yourself, then bring on guests who are [00:21:00] your clients.

[00:21:01] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: But then also every now and then you may see somebody who you really, I mean, we all know, and in the sales industry, if there's someone you want to meet, someone you want to do business with, maybe a JV opportunity, a collaborative opportunity, you might want to invite them on your podcast just because it's such a great way to break the ice, right.

[00:21:22] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: To start connecting. So there are always those sort of. Options as well that don't fit into the two I just mentioned before. Yeah, I it's, this is really good. I was listening to something on YouTube, maybe whatever. So Gary Vee talking to someone who has said that they have podcasted for a number of years.

[00:21:45] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: They had like 500 episodes. It was doing nothing for their business. And Gary Vee just said, you need to pivot and hearing from what you just said. It's maybe it's the pivot [00:22:00] isn't as drastic, like the person that I'm describing earlier that is completely in a podcast unrelated to their business. I would say that person really needs to pivot and focus on healthcare professionals.

[00:22:18] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Absolutely. And just, just forget about the fame, and work at making money, and then eventually have fame because you've done so well. Mm hmm. Absolutely. But in, in the cases that you're describing though, that pivot might be... Just going from you're always interviewing people. Why not show some of the magic you have?

[00:22:39] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Yeah. And it's absolutely, yeah. Yeah. It's really good. What about, okay, you go. I was just going to say real quick too, and to sort of help people with. I don't know what to talk about, right? I'm not sure. What should I, what should my content be about if I'm doing solo episodes? Yeah. Great. Think about how many,[00:23:00] well, this is something that I get all the time.

[00:23:02] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: So it's like, I know that the questions come in and somebody in your listeners minds, but, think about how many times you speak to prospects. And you're probably taking notes about where they, you know, maybe what their objections are, what they're struggling with. Take all of that and like overcome those objections in your solo episodes.

[00:23:26] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Because guess what? You've now, you've massively shortened the sales cycle, because if you can overcome all their objections, Before they ever become a lead or or get on the phone with you or however your sales process works, then it makes that go so much better than it just becomes an enrollment conversation and not really a sales conversation.

[00:23:47] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: So. To me, those are like the keys. It's like focus on the false beliefs and the objections and help them overcome those in your content as a solo episode. No, I love it, man. This is [00:24:00] just incredible value. Is there anything. That I'm missing in the questions that people typically ask, you know, better hosts that might be asking those questions.

[00:24:09] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: What would that be? Well, no, but I will share this because it's sort of funny because I know we're on, we're on a sales show, right? A sales podcast, because I did get asked this one time when I was on another sales podcast and they were like, well, that's amazing at, you know, what was your secret from going from zero to half a million dollars in sales in 12 months?

[00:24:32] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And I told him, I looked the host in the eye and I was like, well, we stopped selling. But which is not necessarily 100 percent true. We had a sales process, but what we started focusing on doing was is like, we're trying to get people from first date to marriage instead of just, you know, letting them move nicely through the flow for where, when they're ready to take the next step.

[00:24:57] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: So we started focusing on our lead gen [00:25:00] process. And to me, that's what I tell people. I was like, the biggest mistake that podcast hosts and podcast guests make is that they don't, they don't have a really good lead gen process for those guest appearances for their own show. And instead they ask people to like, you know, come follow me here on LinkedIn or go, you know, go here and give me a review and things like that.

[00:25:25] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: It's like, no, you need to get these people on your list. And then you need to have a process in place that builds the relationship versus just a transactional approach at, at lead gen. And we actually, once again, because we were, we stumbled forward a lot, we fell a lot, but it was almost like we fell, we rolled and got up and kept going.

[00:25:49] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Which was great because Pat allowed me is that. He gave me permission for us to fail as much as possible. And so we just tried stuff and we, we came up with a lead gen [00:26:00] process that ended up blew our minds because we had no idea if this was going to work or not. But we had a, from our podcasts to lead was 78.

[00:26:11] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: 6 percent opt in rate, which I remember that number by heart because it was just so crazy. And once they. Got into our lead flow. We focused on continuing to deliver value when they were a lead. And you mentioned this earlier, and this sort of brings that point home where you were talking about some people are not ready yet to buy.

[00:26:36] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And so I would go back and look, and I remember somebody one time bought our highest package. And I would always go back and look and sort of track, you know, the, the path. This person had been listening. They'd been on our list for 12 months. They listened to, yeah, as a listener and as a lead, I was able to track them as a lead.

[00:26:57] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: So they were a listener, they were a lead [00:27:00] and they opened up every email. You could see all the green dots. They opened up everything. And eventually 12 months later. They just came to us and bought something our most, our highest package. So it goes to show that, you know, there were some people that bought immediately.

[00:27:18] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: There were some people that took longer, but this really is a great way to have a pipeline of, of traffic on the front end of prospects who, you know, get on your list. And then people who want to buy your stuff and you don't have to, you don't have to worry about being convincing, pushy, that kind of salesperson.

[00:27:40] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: You can just sit back and shine and pull the right people towards you and get them right into your flow. But to me, I would say that. That long winded answer to you asking me that question, but it's, it's the leads that people miss out on that. They don't, they don't really focus. They think about, you know, like, how do I get this listener [00:28:00] to buy my stuff?

[00:28:01] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And that's not the right question. The right question is how do I move them from listener to lead? And then let them sort of self choose themselves as the next step when they're ready to buy. Not that you don't give them the opportunity, but you don't need to, we were failing because we were trying to move people from a listener to a buyer.

[00:28:23] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Right away. And it just wasn't working. Yeah. I mean, like anything in sales. People want results like yesterday and there is no magic pill that's going to give you results today, but doing the right things over a period of time will get you repeatable results in time, right? When the time where enough people.

[00:28:49] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Get to hear the message and in this approach, which I love because it's people raising their hands versus you badgering people into submission, [00:29:00] which, you know, gets old quickly if you're on the other end of that. Yeah, absolutely. This is super. You can allows you to, it allows you to Harry to. Give value and to just be that type of giver, right?

[00:29:17] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: To continue to give and give and give. So you're right. It, it's not, and I share this with my clients all the time with people that come into my world, I'm like, we're going to grow your podcast, but it's not going to happen tomorrow. Right. We're doing a lot of things that build a foundation because you hit the nail on the head.

[00:29:34] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: It's you're putting something in place. That will do it over and over and over in time, but you have to build the foundation. Across all aspects of this first and that's the, you know, I was very impatient back then and luckily my business partner was one who was like, no, no, let's just let's quit trying that.

[00:29:56] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: It's not working. What? Let's let's get together and try something [00:30:00] different. Right? So we just kept shifting and kept trying. And you know, that's the other thing I would share with people is test things, right? Test. Maybe your listeners, because a lot of times people ask me, well, should my podcast be 20 minutes long, 30 minutes long, 10 minutes, and I tell them, I'm like, I don't know, you know, you know, who's going to tell you is your listener is going to tell you, right?

[00:30:24] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Your market, so let the market sort of dictate to you. How to do some of these things, but if you don't give yourself permission to fail, then a lot of times you don't, you don't uncover a lot of hidden gems that you're missing out on. Oh yeah. I mean, this is great. The, I did originally when I was doing a podcast, I didn't really know what the analytics were.

[00:30:47] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: I had someone helping me with the, you know, putting together the podcast. And so that person saw the analytics, but didn't really. That wasn't their strength. Let's put it that way.[00:31:00] So once I took over that and I could see the analytics, like how many listeners do you have, how long are they listening? That gives you a great idea.

[00:31:10] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And so you can even put out surveys on LinkedIn. If your audience is business owners or people who are in business, then you could put out a poll on LinkedIn and say, when you listen to podcasts, how long do you like the podcast to be? Right. So sometimes it's going to be in a conversation like this. So typically I like to be around a half an hour or less, right around that timeframe, but I've gone over.

[00:31:40] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: It's just like, the conversation is so good that I can't stop it. It's just, it's too valuable and I don't want it to end sort of like what's happening here. Is that there's ample opportunity to continue. And maybe someone says, y'all, I'm going to listen to it later. It's not the end of the world. You can divide it up into two parts.

[00:31:59] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: There's all [00:32:00] kinds of things that you can do, but the key is don't worry about that stuff in the beginning. Just, just do it, right? Build up something and you can always make some changes as you go. Thoughts? No, I love it. And you have, you, you, you brought up something that we haven't really touched on that was really important to our listener growth.

[00:32:23] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And that was because we engage the audience. We, we let our audience know that they were seen, heard, and acknowledged. Right? We would ask them for their feedback. And we, we would actually read their reviews online. We would read emails that came in in the, not online, but on the podcast. And we would answer their questions.

[00:32:47] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: So we treated them like real people, right? That we're like, we believe we value your input. We value you as a listener. And like I shared with people, when you have people that don't leave [00:33:00] to go listen to something else, you're not constantly having to continue to fill your listener bucket. It's already full all the time.

[00:33:08] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: So once we hit. The type of numbers that we hit, we didn't ever go backwards and it became, it's sort of like that whole, you know, you get the boulder to the top of the mountain and just give it a nudge down the other side and then everything changes. So, but I do want to, I do want to share this too, because I want your listeners who are thinking about this, like not to stress out.

[00:33:30] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: You don't have to have. 150, 000 monthly listeners to be successful, right? You can, the important part is, is that if you engage them, if you let them know that they are acknowledged, seen, and heard, and they feel really valued, then you can have a smaller audience that will be out there promoting for you.

[00:33:51] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: That'll continue to listen. That'll bring you, it's almost like having referrals, like listener referrals that are bringing you new listeners and [00:34:00] bringing you new clients. through that process. So I just wanted to clarify that too, because I know a lot of times people are thinking that, oh my gosh, well, am I going to have to build up such a huge audience?

[00:34:10] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: But I've, I've had clients before that have done really well. They hit their first 10, 000 overall listeners, not monthly, but overall. And they were already filling their pipeline with qualified leads and getting sales. So it's all about, you know, whether or not you want to grow it to a massive audience, maybe you want to keep it tighter.

[00:34:34] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And you know, you mentioned earlier that the one in the medical space, the healthcare space actually talked to a client one time, well, not a client to a prospect to, we, we podcast.

[00:34:47] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And it sort of blew me away because I was like, there's actually a podcast about that. People listen, but it was about like sterilization in the healthcare space. Right. Talk about niche, but guess [00:35:00] what he did. He had a company that sold Sterilization tools and services. So he had a very small audience, but it was very Dialed in to wanting to know what he was sharing and wanted to buy that so you can get really niche and still have a really Good successful podcast that ties into your business Yeah, it's amazing.

[00:35:21] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: I, you know, you think about the number of people, what comes to mind for me is the number of people that will be your clients. How many you need, you know, for your, for your business. I mean, do you need a hundred a year? Do you need a thousand a year? Whatever that number is. And you think, well, people who listen is your audience.

[00:35:44] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Every time that you have an audience of whatever it's 50 people or a hundred people or 500 or 5, 000 people, they're showing up at your door. You know, they're just, we're there. We're tuning in [00:36:00] because we want to listen to you. So how many people out of that group that are already showing up at your door will become your client?

[00:36:07] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And I think the percentages are way better than just randomly putting stuff out there. Yeah. Yeah. And if you think about it too. Harry, it's like you're creating and I bring this up a lot to my clients. It's evergreen content, right? Where if you go on social media and you're worried about social media all the time, it's like trying to fill a cup that has holes in it with water because it's just disappearing in that you don't have control.

[00:36:35] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: First of all, the algorithm controls it. Your posts show up. I mean, I have people like liking posts that I thought it disappeared like a week ago. It's like, what is that? What, why is this randomly showing up at that person now, but with podcasts, as you mentioned, you create it, you create it once and it's out there.

[00:36:54] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: It's like an evergreen lead and sales machine bringing people to you on an [00:37:00] every, you know, an everyday basis. So that's the real power. It's once again of building that foundation. That's why. One of the big pieces that we use to grow our podcast was getting targeted and being on other podcasts, because guess what?

[00:37:16] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: That's also evergreen content that's going to continue to send you listeners, and if they've already raised their hand. And they say, I like listening to podcasts. They're more likely to come from that podcast over into your world and start listening to yours too. So it's to me, it's, it's a really great medium for anybody who wants to build a loyal.

[00:37:39] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: Following and do it in a way that, you know, it's almost like you sharpen the ax and then let it do the work. You build that foundation. And over time, it just, you're creating content that's living out there and it's continuing to work for you 24 seven. And you don't have to do the work 24 7. Yeah, wonderful.[00:38:00]

[00:38:00] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: All right, Evans. This is great. Very excited. Yeah, I was already excited about podcasting, but you even got me more excited. Is there anything else you want to share to close this out? Like where can people find you or anything along those lines? Sure. Well, thank thank you for asking. And I did bring a gift for your listeners.

[00:38:21] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: We talked about, you know, that whole process of not jumping from listener to sale, but instead, the important, the pillar that worked for us, it was the lever that changed everything for our business, was the lead gen side of things. So, what I did was actually, I created, it's a listeners to leads to high ticket clients blueprint.

[00:38:44] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: That I'd love to give your listeners and they can they can get that and get direct access if they text the word leads 5, 5, 4. Four, four. So it's text. The word leads to 5, 5, 4, 4 4. Or they can go to [00:39:00] podcast sales machine do com slash leads, and they'll get instant access to that either way, and they can, they can dive in and start it.

[00:39:09] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: It's a pretty detailed blueprint that shows you the framework for turning on a flood of leads and sales as a podcast host or as a podcast. So I wanted to get, cover your whole audience and give, give whoever is out there, something they can utilize. Well, I know I'll be texting. So I'm definitely texting five, five, four, four, four.

[00:39:30] 603beb10-6082-4fe7-8845-00b8863e2f90: And the word is leads. Yes. Yes. Awesome. This has been a blast Evans. Thank you so much for joining us.

[00:39:37] Thank you for listening to Sales Made Easy. If you found value in our conversations, please subscribe and leave a review. Our goal is to provide practical strategies for growing your business while staying true to your values. Remember, six. Success in sales is about [00:40:00] serving your clients. Serve first and the selling will follow.