How To Build a B2B Podcast

Speaker 1 (00:02)

Hello and welcome to Podcasting Anything and ask me anything for all things podcasting. I'm your host Ben CLOY and I'm joined here in the studio with Mathew passy the podcast control. Matt and I wanted to move the conversation beyond the Podcasting 101 topics and move into the intermediate to advance podcasting strategy to reach your goals to interact with the show. Submit your questions to be answered live, book a podcast audible with Matthew or find the notes from today's show. Head on over to podcastnaothing.com. Welcome back to another podcast, meaning I am joined here with Matthew in the studio. Matthew, how is the weather out there in New Jersey these days?

Speaker 2 (00:40)

It is weird. It was super hot over the weekend. The temperatures dropping. It was like 70s just kissing the 80s after being nearly 100. And it's going to be almost 50s by Wednesday, so tons of fun out here. What about by you?

Speaker 1 (00:55)

It's kind of a little bit yoyo as well. We've had a great weather today and then I had to turn the heat on tonight, so I haven't turned the fireplace off yet. Still got his gas pilot light on. I feel like I'm going to James at the moment I turn it off, I'm going to want it to give the house a quick heat up. I got a question. Randomly when it's hot out in 100 degrees, are New Jersey and called automatically to go to the beach and even pretend that the water is warm or what do you guys do? Because I feel like I have the stereotype that you guys just all flock to the shore. What do you guys do when it's spring and it's hot? What's the default thing you guys do to cool off when you can't get off?

Speaker 2 (01:29)

Lots and lots of people will head down to the shore. I know a lot of people are down there this week and I have a few friends who said they went down there. They might not actually go in the ocean because like I said, it's going to be cold in those water.

Speaker 1 (01:40)

Yes, pacific or the Gulf.

Speaker 2 (01:44)

Yeah, no, it'll just be cold. But even so, when you go down to the beach, like just the breeze coming off the ocean will drop the temperature about ten degrees or so, which is always nice. We've also got a ton of lakes in New Jersey that people were hanging out in and doing their thing. Lots of pools getting ready to open because Memorial Day weekend is coming up. But also people were just outside. There were tons of people walking, running, skipping, jumping, playing in the park, going to the playgrounds. We can be very outdoorsy in New Jersey, despite whatever stereotypes you have in your head there, sir.

Speaker 1 (02:16)

Most of them are not any good ones and most of them come from the Jersey shore. And I've only been to New Jersey once, so I'm looking forward to and our friendship has kind of knocked down some of the New Jersey stereotypes in my head. I do have one question. When you were out exploring in nature, did you notice any scrolls run by because we had two of them happen in the podcasting industry. We had Roadcaster First, Hint and Leak. I don't know if it was purposeful or if it was an accident, but they leaked the new Roadcaster Pro Two and then it just launched as well. And there's also another device out there, a vocal Cast right? That's the name of it, if I remember the name of it correctly.

Speaker 2 (02:53)

Vocabulary. Yeah. By the way, funny you mentioned the squirrels. We just got a bird feeder. The kids love filling it up and watching the birds come by, but damn squirrels were just killing it. So we had to go out and get the spicy hot bird feeds. The squirrels would stay away. But yes, to your point about these two tech drops that we got recently. So you're hearing this after June 1, when Focus Right will have announced the Volcano One, this is a nifty little device. So Focus Right famous for their solo two I two interfaces, a few other ones that are very good at just plugging in XLR microphones, converting to digital, and being able to bring that into your computer with these simple, effective nine times out of ten, they sound great. So it's a pretty good device, but they haven't really had a major upgrade in any recent time. Introducing this Volcaster one. So there's actually going to be two models. There's the one and there's the two. The one. That's the one I got my chance to put my hands on before the official release. Has a single XLR input. So one microphone Right Left outputs for stereo monitors, USB connection to your computer.

Speaker 2 (04:10)

It's got a jack so that you can connect your smartphone or other devices through a TRRS cable, similar to what you would see on the Roadcaster and many other interfaces that are out there in the world. It also has a camera output, so you can sync your audio with a video or with a video device, which is kind of nice. Now, what makes this thing really special is that it has a loop back feature so you can record audio off of your computer back onto your Daw or any other system. Thanks to having this connected to your computer, which is great, in the past, you couldn't really route your computer audio back to your computer. So if you're someone like me, who's like, yeah, you should always have a backup of your audio. Well, let's say you're recording on a riverside, a squad cast, even a zoom. Sure, I can open up QuickTime, microsoft voice recording app, Adobe Audition, and capture the sound coming off of my microphone, no problem. I always have a backup of what I'm saying. But you were never able to capture your guest, and so if something went wrong with your recording, if they weren't recording themselves, you're kind of sol.

Speaker 2 (05:20)

But now, thanks to this, I can run an audition in the background, I can capture my signal on one channel, I can capture the USB on a separate channel, I can capture even the phone on a third channel. And so it's almost like having that roadcaster experience, but without needing four microphone inputs and more bells and whistles that are probably necessary. So I really like this for the podcaster, who wants to have more of a production studio experience but doesn't need to show up six or coming soon, almost $700 on a device that's going to give you more bells and whistles than you probably need. So keep on the lookout for the focus. Right. Volcaster one, I think that's definitely going to be making its way to a lot of podcasters desks over 2022.

Speaker 1 (06:10)

So when those squirrels run by, because I have essentially seen them run by for three and a half years that I've been in this industry, and the only squirrel that I've taken is when you told me to buy the new shirt microphone that came out, the MV Seven. MV Seven. That's the only squirrel that I've actually ran with and I've been okay with. I love my MV Seven and it's the only tech and it's still a USB tech. I still have not even gotten XLR connection, so I've avoided it. I've held onto a USB connection to the very end. How does one either indie business like, how do you know when these squirrels are worth chasing? Like, to me it's, you got the money, maybe go for it because you can. But if you're not really sure if you need audio equipment or podcast advertising or whatever, how do you decide what's some of those metrics that maybe you coach on when you need to upgrade your system?

Speaker 2 (07:03)

I think what it really comes down to is, are you limited by your current setup? For many podcasts, when we're giving equipment suggestions, it's what are you going to be using it for? I'm mostly going to be at home interviewing people over Zoom or Riverside or Squad Cast or something like that. Like, okay, a USB microphone with built in headphone jack is simple, easy, works, sounds good if you get the right one, and that's probably more than what you need. But if you find yourself trying to hack your computer in several different ways so that you can record sound off the computer, or you're like, oh, there's somebody wanted to call on the phone. And so now I'm holding my phone up to a microphone and letting that play into a speed any time. You're just finding yourself holding it without the right solution. Yeah, right. Anytime you pull up the duct tape with a WD 40 and you're realizing this just like, I'm doing it, but it's not really creating quality results or it is so much work and it has so much chance for mistakes to happen. That's when I would think about a device like this.

Speaker 2 (08:12)

Most podcasters, do they need a vocabulary one right now? Again, probably not, right? It doesn't do you much good in person because it's only got one input. Maybe if you get the one with two inputs and you're going to be out there, fine. But truthfully, if you're doing a lot of stuff in person, I'd much rather have a device like a P Four, which has a built in SD card and record straight to that. But again, if you're someone who's recording a solo podcast from home, but you want to up your production value to either play your intro and outro live, maybe you're doing a lot of live streaming, maybe you're connecting to a camera, all those different places. In the past you would have had to go out and get several different pieces of equipment to kind of make those connections work or lots of different software to have those all talk to each other. In this case, I think the volcano would get the job done for you again, especially if you're mostly alone in your studio when you're doing this kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (09:09)

Now, what about the Roadcaster Pro too? Because for me it has a cool factor because the first time you showed me the volcano I was like, it doesn't have any of the fancy buttons on it because the other one looks like you're launching NASA. This one just looks like a big giant 995 bad phone design and it functions, but it looks like I have an old big thick phone. But I'm like, the other one looks cooler. So when is the other one the Roadcaster Pro Two the right choice? Is it because of the cool factor and maybe sometimes it's cool factor, but what's a good tech reason why I want eight colored buttons that could play anything I want that are programmable?

Speaker 2 (09:48)

So my thing with the Roadcaster, first of all, what happened was there was I guess like an Australian blogger or podcast or somebody wound up catching a glimpse of the Roadcaster Two on a retailer's website and it was not supposed to be out there, but this person saw it, screenshot it, downloaded some of the text material that was on there and posted about it. And Rhode was like someone's on the naughty list, right? They weren't too mad because they said news about it was going to be coming out soon. But still they were like, you kind of spoiled our announcement. Like we would like to announce our own thing. So then sure enough, Monday night we're talking just last Monday in May here, all of a sudden I get an email broadcaster to announce it's on presale. You can go out and buy, you can pick it up. I think it starts shipping on like the 15 June or something like that, which by the time you're listening to it might be today. Why would you need a roadcaster? Or better yet, why would you need a roadcaster too? Here's the thing about the roadcaster that is phenomenal for people who are one, not just impressed with shiny objects, one, it's four XLR inputs, right?

Speaker 2 (11:02)

That's four microphones easily connected. It couldn't be any easier than that. It's not common to have a lot of four people podcasts, but in situations where you have one, it's nice to have one that works. It also has the ability to play your USB audio, right? Any sound coming off your computer. It can connect a TRS cable like we were talking about the other one. So I can literally call somebody on the phone or play something off my phone and have that come through my stereo mix or come through my board. You can even connect your phone to the board via Bluetooth, which would work the same way as the TRS cable. I tend to prefer the cable over the Bluetooth just because I always prefer wired over wireless. But technically speaking, you could have four microphones, somebody coming over Zoom or Riverside or whatever, I mean, multiple people. But you could have an individual coming over a USB voice connection. You have somebody with a plugged in phone and you can have somebody with a Bluetooth phone. You can technically get seven isolated vocal tracks through your Roadcaster pro. And that still leaves you the last track where you can play your sound effects.

Speaker 2 (12:09)

Now, the Roadcaster is a well built device. It's got really great preamps. Microphones tend to sound really good in here. Phantom Power, write the whole nine four headphone outputs, plus monitor outputs, plus an additional headphone jack in the front so everybody at the table could be listening with their own set of earbuds. And you can have a separate producer who is monitoring the whole thing. And it's just a well crafted device, but it's also a really simple device. What I think I've always loved about the Roadcast is when we've had clients buy one and start to use it and train with it, they kind of look at it at first like, this thing looks a little intimidating and then you start using it like, oh no, it's really easy. There's a big green button that says Record. You hit that, it turns red. You pot up your levels and you see them bounce on the screen and it just works the way you want it to work. So what's so special about the Roadcaster too? Why should somebody be investing in that? Why would you want to upgrade? Or why, if you're in the market for a device, would you possibly want to hold out for this new one?

Speaker 2 (13:13)

So a couple of the upgrades that they are promoting, one better preamps. So they're always going to make sure that your microphone, your inputs, everything you plug into this is going to be.

Speaker 1 (13:25)

The camera on the iPhone. It's like it's always going to get better, right?

Speaker 2 (13:29)

They're not just going to put the same thing in there, they're always going to try and improve it a little bit. They've also changed the inputs on this. I'm pretty sure in the current Roadcaster Pro it's just XLR inputs. These are kind of like those hybrid XLR quarter inch input. So if you're actually someone who wants to do music, you can also plug in guitars and keyboards and things like that in here. And so it's kind of built for a little bit more pizzazz than the previous one. Something that I find interesting, it has two USBC outputs, meaning you can run your Roadcaster Pro into two different computers. This might be super useful, especially in the case of a studio where one computer might be working. Call it your VoIP connection, right? Your Riverside, your squad, cast, your zoom and maybe that's using up a lot of resources, maybe that's using up a lot of bandwidth on your computer. And so you're like, if I also run my Daw on here, things might get a little hairy. Now, computers say they should be able to run most of that stuff, but who knows, maybe you have an older device with that second output.

Speaker 2 (14:40)

You could be running your sound to a second computer and that second computer could be handling some of the other more strenuous tasks that might be left to do. So maybe you do video and so maybe that second computer is just dedicated to video. And so now that gets the dedicated line from the roadcaster so you can get that high quality sound as opposed to having to sync up your audio and video later. Or maybe your second computer is your dedicated streaming computer. So this one is recording or this one is connecting with people, but the stream one that takes up a lot of bandwidth, a lot of space, that's the one that you want to hear the sound coming out of. And so kind of neat to be able to connect two different computers to one device. That's why I think you're going to see this in a lot more studios, maybe. Again, our houses are our personal studios. Probably not as important, but I could definitely see where folks who are building out studios who want something simple and easy to use, could find this. Another thing that I found really intriguing about is that it has its own cat five Ethernet connection.

Speaker 2 (15:43)

Now, I'm not really sure how you are going to use that. I haven't had a chance to read on that. I haven't seen anything that really talks about what that is for. But my sense is that having your own mobile connection to this could also open up the potential of dedicated streaming, high quality streaming, maybe even you surf the computer. So I'll be curious to see what that is all about. How people are going to use that I'm sure smarter computer people than I already know the answer to that question and are probably screaming at the computer that I don't. It might also just be a situation where it'll help you transfer content off of this faster to your computer. Right now the podcast transfer mode is pretty slow on these things. Slight upgrade on the design. Still looks pretty, still looks smooth. Screen pops up a little bit more. There's going to be a mobile app for controlling certain parts of it which you don't have currently. But listen, if you're in the market for a roadcast or if you've got the budget, wait a couple of weeks or go preorder one now they hit it out of the park with the first one.

Speaker 2 (16:52)

I got to imagine the second one.

Speaker 1 (16:54)

Is better and it sounds like in some ways maybe they add things to it. Like there was a joke in engineering when my previous job where companies were adding sensors to devices that they had yet not figured out what to use, but they knew in the future they were going to need them. And so maybe that cat five is like, you know what, we're not really sure what we're going to do with this, but we can't do something with it if we don't add it. And right now it's penny on the dollar and if we try to do it later, then we're talking about a whole nother launch. So sometimes they throw things into products because they don't yet know what they want to do with them or future design where they can get it out but they don't know yet. Maybe that's a future release of Firmware or something.

Speaker 2 (17:32)

I would agree with that. The one thing I would say does annoy me is that they did lose that fifth headphone jack in the front of the device, which I kind of call like the producer headphone jack. Not the end of the world, but I always found it convenient. Like right now I'm plugged into that front jack because my headphones are not very long as opposed to if I had to run a cable and extension and go around the back, blah, blah, blah. But again, not the biggest loss in the world.

Speaker 1 (17:57)

Classic Apple move to courage to remove the headphone jack.

Speaker 2 (18:01)

Matthew, I'm just not responding to that.

Speaker 1 (18:07)

Well, let's go ahead and pivot to our deep dive, which is kind of perfectly teed up to our conversation of like a makeshift production studio, a makeshift having four people around the table. Today we want to deep dive into B to B podcasting. So prior to recording this, Matthew and I were talking about how the podcasting industry kind of has a stereotype of being a business that either you build through indie, through finding your voice or a project and it speaks to a consumer. And that's the general mindset of most podcasting. And even if you think of any of the big podcasts that have made it, almost all of them are pitching to consumer content as a consumer bull, and they're being marketed to as a consumer. And the B to B doesn't often get as much traction. Even when our friendship first started, B to B was something we were really putting a lot of strategy behind because a lot of the podcast conferences and overall gatherings of people word focus is very much on B to B. And it's a very small niche within podcasting even to go find those conferences that focus on this business of business.

Speaker 1 (19:09)

So the first question at Bad here, Mathew, is first set up, like, what's the basic, really good idea if I'm a business and I want to market this to other businesses, like, what's a good one point out idea to start with before I even think about maybe understanding what a podcast will look like in a B to B industry?

Speaker 2 (19:30)

I mean, I would say one of the main reasons to have a B to B podcast is that it is a fantastic networking product, more so than audience building, more so than thought leadership. And don't get me wrong, those things are good, those things are important. But I found through the clients that we have worked with, most of the biggest value from B to B podcasting has come from that ability to reach out and connect and network with other people in your target audience, in your community, potential clients, competitors, customers, influencers, right? All those different folks. It's often hard to get through and to make a connection when you're doing B to B work, right? You can cold email, you can cold call. Most times that stuff goes straight to voicemail or spam or whatever. But a real, genuine podcast invitation gives you the opportunity to talk to someone and build a relationship. And from there, people have turned those relationships, turn those connections into deeper relationships, deeper connections, and they've been able to why am I blanking this word, Jesus, am I having a moment? They've been able to capitalize on that networking, on that opportunity, better so than if they had just gone through to somebody on the phone or got into their inbox, right?

Speaker 2 (21:03)

Slid into their DM, so to speak. So, I mean, I think, number one, that's probably the number one reason why BTB podcasting is so good. It's probably also why you don't hear as much about BTB Podcasting, because people who are doing B to B podcasting effectively, they're rarely concerned about how big the audience is. If your target isn't the audience, but the people who are on the other side of the microphone, you're not doing a ton of advertising, you're not doing a ton of promotional work, you're not doing a ton of marketing work, right? You're doing a ton of networking work and a ton of connectivity work with those other people. So that's why you don't see a lot of B to B's in the new and noteworthy, so to speak, or in podcast articles. I'm sure if you are paying attention to industry newsletters, right, you're paying attention to folks who are writing about your specific business, your specific niche, right, your specific topic, things like that, then yeah, some of the deeper writers are probably pulling out some of those B to B podcast me, anything about how valuable they are, how great they are, the kind of knowledge you pull from them.

Speaker 2 (22:10)

But they typically don't flow to the level of the consumer facing podcast that get a lot of noise and a lot of attention.

Speaker 1 (22:17)

And what I've heard, what you've mentioned is kind of like what they call a guest monetization where the person sitting across from you is in your funnel versus the person listening. And it's like one of the easier things that's overlooked. And sometimes when I've talked to different people, it can be easy to kind of overlook the value in that idea because often one of my favorite questions asked to someone that may be thinking like this is like if I could just have a row of people that were your perfect customer, who would that be? And then my second question is what kind of podcast would attract that raw people? Because you don't even have to have it even attached to what you're doing. There's a lot of great B to B podcasting where they actually do podcast production in the background and they're essentially bringing people in front of them on the microphone who would potentially be good clients for a business podcast. And it's just, again, like you mentioned, really overlooked on that value and relationship that you can build. Is there an idea within this that is beyond this basic idea of the person in front of you that we might overlook as well?

Speaker 2 (23:28)

Well, I mean, listen, I would say that is, like I said, the first focus. That's the one that I think has been the most common and probably one of the most effective. But there are certainly lots and lots of people who use B to B podcasts in other ways. We've worked with a few folks who basically use it as a way to communicate with their own teams, right? So they're putting out the normal company wide newsletter. Nobody is reading it, they're encouraging you to go to the company portal to check up on whatever. Nobody's paying attention to that. But what we found in a couple of different cases was there were people who would do like training material, who would do corporate updates. We even worked with a client who basically used it as almost like a feel good. Here are some of the things that we're doing inside of our company that are positive stories about changing culture and ESG. They were basically just using this format as a way to share all the great things that they were doing on a regular basis that truthfully, they just weren't getting to those folks through the normal channels that we're used to hearing from.

Speaker 2 (24:44)

So I think that's another interesting use case. Of course, you've also got the B to B play where it's just, hey, we happen to be here's what we're doing, here's our research, here's our white papers, we are interviewing some other smart people. That's raising awareness for you. Because if you are interviewing somebody in your space who is well known, popular, smart, then yes, just like any other podcast that is going to pull people who are interested in that person into your orbit and then while you have them, you can show them, hey, not only do we bring on smart people, but check it out, we're pretty smart. Or if you're just using them to read your white prey papers, your quarterly updates, whatever that looks like, then of course, just like any other podcast, that's going to help you out as well. So there's plenty of B to B podcasts that are not just focused on network building, but they are using it in fact, in the traditional sense of hey, we are in fact the smartest people in the room when it comes to topic X. Here's an example of that, whether it's us reading the white paper that we just did, here's a blog post that we did, here's some new technology we're working on, here's a recap of the conference that we just had where we brought in these kinds of speakers and we made this kind of news.

Speaker 2 (26:03)

So that's definitely common as well in the B to B space. But right, if you're not, the problem is that there's lots and lots of B to B podcasts out there, but their target audience is small and it's already hard enough to attract a large audience in the podcasting space, right? If you are lucky, you can pull a few dozen million listeners if you're a Joe Rogan or a New York Times or Ben Shapiro, if you have that kind of reach, right, you can get a few million. If you are even a middle tier popular, talk about some of your average comedians, maybe even some television shows where you've got like the Office ladies who are doing a show that I'm sure is very successful, probably not pulling millions of listeners, probably a few hundred thousand listeners, but those are the numbers that they're looking for. It gets rave reviews from the people who are interested in The Office and I'm sure it's great. We just had news, right? Conan O'Brien just sold his podcasting business to Sirius XM for $150,000,000. So there's something going on there. But as you get smaller and smaller, there are plenty of podcasters, you get 20,000, 10,000, 5000 downloads who are very successful, who are reaching their target audience, but their target audience may still be a general audience or a more wide reaching audience.

Speaker 2 (27:28)

Once you get into some of these B to b niches, right? That potential pool of who is important to you gets considerably smaller. So a successful B to B podcast may only reach 500 people, but that is highly successful to them. And those 500 people are spread out all across the country, so it's kind of hard for them to make noise and to make a splash. So yeah, we're not going to hear about it. But that doesn't mean there aren't tons of BTB podcasts out there that are very successful, that are accomplishing goals and that are really worth the investment for those companies to put them out there.

Speaker 1 (28:05)

I've always had one idea and I'm interested to see if you've seen anything like it within this particular industry, like the energy industry. In this case, I'll even slanted towards renewable energy. Like just the noise that can come with all the renewable ideas and even how much stuff has been thrown at the wall over the last 20 years in the renewable category. It's a lot of news, it's a lot of content, it's a lot of companies. In the previous job that I was at, I would Google for years and I would still find new things that I had never known that had been going on for 20 years. It was a very frustrating thing to stay connected. And I'm interested if there's an idea within a B to B world where you actually become like a hub for an industry, like on a wide scale, like, you interview all the different things going on in your niche and then let your company sponsor it with whatever product they're doing. And almost like if you're a sales guy and you needed to know what the energy news of the day was, the energy you use the week, or you need a perspective on the energy network in order to do your job.

Speaker 1 (29:06)

So you come here to get this daily digest and then meanwhile you're sponsored by this company that in the podcast, you continue to hear their name, you get more Bryan recognition from them and you look them up and you're like, oh man, you know what? You guys sell the relays that I've been looking for all my life. And I feel like that strategy within it's, a wide but micro niche, could potentially get some traction on a place for being that hub where there's already misinformation that Google can barely tie together.

Speaker 2 (29:34)

There's definitely those places where they start by doing one podcast and then the next thing they're like, oh, we've got some traction. So they put it out a little bit more and then they put a little bit more and then the next thing you know, their business is a but all of a sudden they're like, we can actually also be a media company and make some more money there, right? This is profitable. And even if it isn't very profitable, it is driving so much attention, so much marketing and branding awareness for the business that really makes money, that in fact it is worth it. And I guess what that kind of raises the question of is it better or which strategy should you go with? Do you run a podcast and you call it hey, this is the blah blah, blah podcast brought to you by or blah blah blah companies, let's make up a company, right? We'll call it the just for example and because I'm working on it, right? This is the Town Cast Studio podcast, right? So we are towncast Studios is a company. We are literally associating the podcast with that brand directly.

Speaker 2 (30:42)

So there's no question in the world this is a Towncast product created by Comcast brought to you by TomCast to help raise awareness of Towncast, right? Everything we do is there and sure we can then run ads, but basically in our intros and outros, we're probably going to say by the way, you can learn more about us@towncast.com, right? That's going to be our ploy here. But you can also run a different podcast and do something like hey, here's the how to podcast local. Just a totally independent project. And by the way, our main sponsor is Towncast, right? So you are separating the show from the brand, but obviously the brand is supporting underwriting, sponsoring whatever language you want to use. But it kind of seems like it's a little bit more separated. So the question I think that brands who are going to get into the space have to reconcile is which one of those strategies really makes more sense. Do you want to be the company podcast brought to you by the company, overseen by the company, hosted by the company on the company website. There is nothing else about this other than it is for the company or do you want to put out a great product and then just say that the company is the sponsor of that show.

Speaker 1 (32:08)

You reminded me of an idea that is kind of similar to yours where you take I'm trying to think of a way to explain it, where you have these products, what you're talking about and you have your name recognized in the product either as like when you talk about the podcast itself or it's a sponsorship that this podcast is sponsored by TomCast. There is an expensive lesson that I learned that it's a term in marketing that most podcasters might not fully be aware of, but it's called brand impression value. And it's like the larger companies actually know that for every $5 they spend they'll get 100 brand impressions and they know how much those like if 100 people know they exist, they can funnel back and know that we make a million dollars, for example, in this case with the B to B. I bet there is also a deeper lesson where brand impression of how important is it for people to know your name? Not because they might go out and buy it. But when they do that, you want to be the one they remember. And I'm always remembered by Geico. Geico spends millions of dollars every year, if not closer to billions, on car insurance ads.

Speaker 1 (33:19)

Do you think many people literally stop their night and go convert because they want to save 15%? No. But when they need to switch insurance, there's definitely one in their head when they come to it because they're going to think of Geico, because Geico spends millions of dollars to make sure that Geico is at the top of the list when you need to make that choice. And I think there's also within B to B, there's an opportunity for that brand impression because another expensive lesson magazine industry magazines and business to business is really expensive to advertising. Like a half a sheet of paper in a magazine can be like $3,000 in certain industries, and that magazine is done once it's out of circulation, like it's gone $3,000. And you can't measure a single thing from that magazine. Maybe you put a QR code, maybe you put an impression there, but unless you're some massive GE type brand, you're not going to have a good traction on that. Podcasting could offer a better way to measure, get more bang for your buck, and offer more, like especially when it's baked in, where these brand impressions continue to be impressed whether you're paying for it or not in distribution, like in a magazine.

Speaker 1 (34:28)

So that could be a good pivot to why B to B would be a really good advertising strategy and for brand impressions as well.

Speaker 2 (34:37)

Yeah, listen, I can also argue that, right, you said $3,000 for half a sheet of paper, and it can be kind of fleeting. Well, at the same time, people who are doing B to B effectively, who understand their audience, who know what value they bring, and more importantly, forget the audience, who kind of understand who their advertisers are, might be charging $3,000 for the impression of 500 people as well, because they understand that one person out of those 500 making a sale or buying a product or becoming a client of that sponsor could be worth ten times that, depending on what industry you're in, who's advertising. There's a lot of potential there if you know what you're doing and if you're doing it correctly. We have plenty of clients who use podcasting whose CPMs are way above $25 CPM, right? We're talking $1,000 CPM or higher because they understand what value their audience actually is and the fact that it is targeted messaging. Also, going back to what you're saying about Geico, it's also the same reason why car companies advertise 100 times during the same game, right? You see a football game, you watch a baseball game in any sporting event, pretty much, and you're going to see at least seven, probably commercials for the same car company, probably advertising the same vehicle.

Speaker 2 (36:06)

It's not like on that 7th turn, all of a sudden you're like, you know what, I do need an F 150 and you're going to go out and spend $40,000 on a brand new truck. But it is that brand awareness, right? It is that thing of the more they show it to you, the more it's in your mind when you do think about making that purchase. I guess the other question really that I would think of if I'm a B to B company is you can advertise in podcasting, right? You could be the company that says, listen, we could spend the money, we could spend the time, we could spend the energy putting on a podcast, growing the audience, reaching these people, or we could just take advantage of what's already out there, right? Company B is already doing a great B to B. We know they're reaching our target audience, let's just be their sponsor and know that we're getting in front of the target audience. I would say that's pretty effective, especially if you are totally new, right? Trying to build up impression, trying to build up awareness, trying to understand the market, trying to see what could be effective messaging.

Speaker 2 (37:10)

However, the thing about producing your own B to B podcast that I think brings in more value than just that potential audience that you're reaching or the guests or whatnot is that trust factor, right? We don't just listen to podcasts. Typically we build relationships with podcasts, at least with good ones. If you are listening to the same person every week, every day, whatever it is, you are not only building kind of this relationship with who that host is or who that company is, but you are creating trust. And so, like you said, when it comes time to buy insurance, I think of Geico because they throw their name at me 100 times. But on the B to B side, when I think of oh, I really think I need to go and based on I'm really interested now in localized broadcasting, who should I turn to? Well, I'm going to turn to the person who has provided me this value, who has provided me this insight, who has kind of given me this motivation to do it because they've shared excellent speakers, excellent advice, excellent wisdom. And so now I'm like, well they were kind enough to share all that with me, I might as well turn to towncast for my local podcasting needs, right?

Speaker 2 (38:30)

There is something to be said about not just the impression and not just the repetition of it, but really that relationship almost, I hate to be corny, but almost like that intimacy that you build with listeners if you do this correctly.

Speaker 1 (38:44)

And to close out this idea on B to B, I think the unique opportunity you inspired with your rift there, which was a beautiful rift, is before you start a business to business podcast, you really should do a healthy look at two categories. What issues do your sales funnel or your sales team currently have? And what issues with your marketing dollars are you currently struggling with? Because I believe a conversation with Matthew Passy and those two areas, you could potentially I think it's almost like a Swiss Army knife. I would almost go as far as to say that if you have a clear understanding of your sales problem and you have a clear funnel of what you're not getting in marketing, a B to B podcast can be well executed with a strategy to solve both in a Swelt soup in one, two birds, 1 st and get your results that you haven't yet done. I believe with podcast and business tuned to the right frequency, it break glass. And it often takes, though, it takes that mind outside of your podcast because if you're just starting, you don't have that experience. And I think that's what I've learned with Matthew over the years, is that you need to have someone that can see the perspective, is just this basic idea, and it's not emotionally attached to your forecast and your sales number and your marketing budgets, but he can be like, you know what, if you tweak that dial two extra degrees and you tweak this other dial two extra degrees, you have something that's going to be a megaphone that's going to blow up your world.

Speaker 2 (40:10)

Hopefully.

Speaker 1 (40:11)

You think you can pull that off?

Speaker 2 (40:15)

I mean, I hope I can, but just because you do it doesn't mean you're going to be successful. And listen, like we said before, if you can't do it right, if you're not going to do it right, if you're going to have asked this operation, or worse, if you're going to put out an episode, stop for three weeks, put in an episode, stop for three months, put out another episode, you're kind of showing your audience, how reliable are these people? And if you can't be reliable with this, are you going to be reliable and servicing them when it comes to your business?

Speaker 1 (40:47)

I agree. And you want motivated people within the team. You don't want to assign it to someone that doesn't want to do it because you want people to have fun with it as well. It still has the basic podcast rules. If you're not having fun doing it, it's going to come to us in The Voice and no one's going to listen because they're going to be like, this person sounds like they're paid to be there and they do not want to be there.

Speaker 2 (41:04)

Yes, I would agree with that.

Speaker 1 (41:06)

Well, Matthew, let's go ahead and dive into a question. So a question that I often have here sitting in my studio is what comes next? Now, this is a loaded question, but I'm kind of loading it up to let you riff on it in a different direction. So as a podcaster, we have lots of different things at our disposal. We have podcast conferences. We have new tools like Roadcaster Pro Two. We have different strategies and social on those days where maybe you're close to giving up, that you're close to not sure what that next right step is. What is your go to advice when a podcaster is uncertain? Like, where next to go? What's your pep talk to someone who might be on the edge of like, you know what, I can't figure this out anymore. There's just too much noise. I'm out. What is that simple step that I need to always remember in the back of my head?

Speaker 2 (42:08)

That's a really good question. And I think it's going to be so different and it's going to be so unique for everybody who is coming across those kinds of issues. I think the real person that you have to be listening to is just yourself. I think we've said it many times on the show and I think it holds true whether it's B to C to C, B to B solo or whatever kind of podcast you're doing, if you are just not having fun doing it, if you are not getting joy, if you are not passionate, if you're not curious, if you can't smile every time you turn on the microphone and do it, then there's no reason for anybody to smile while listening to it. And so if you've kind of lost that pizzazz for the project, all those other things that you talked about really don't matter.

Speaker 1 (43:09)

You're chasing the more you're probably avoiding this question.

Speaker 2 (43:17)

True.

Speaker 1 (43:18)

Like, you're looking for things to avoid, answering the big question or collecting a stuff. So you don't have to decide whether, you know what, if I had this NASA control panel next to me, maybe then I would love this idea.

Speaker 2 (43:30)

Yeah. And I've definitely been guilty of that in the past when it's like, oh, I want to do video, but I needed this.

Speaker 1 (43:35)

Oh, I need this.

Speaker 2 (43:36)

And then I got this piece of technology and then I was able to get this piece of software and like, now I'm going to do it. The spark wasn't there. And it's hard to give up on that because so many people want to believe that every one of their ideas is gold. And so you really just have to be true to yourself and know, like, am I still passionate about this? Am I still enjoying the process? Or do I find this to be a chore and a slog? And if it's a ladder, it's okay to step away, it's okay to take a pause. It's okay to also say, no, we're done. We're going to try something different and new. You don't have to have a podcast. I think you should. I think you get value out of it, but you don't have to.

Speaker 1 (44:20)

I love that, and it reminds me of some advice that I gave a podcaster recently that just because your first idea maybe doesn't have the momentum it did when it got started doesn't mean that there wasn't a second idea that you discovered along the way in that journey. And I mean, I'm a two podcast kind of guy and so there was a second podcast that I discovered along in my journey. And almost like what we really struggle with in podcasting is you initially fight, I can't quit because then I'm a quitter. And that's what everybody does in podcast. And they start these things and then they want to quit, but they don't quit and they want to get to episode 100 and all these different things that they're shooting themselves essentially. When in reality it's like you're not fighting that. You're just fighting this inner voice of what's next. And your world changes as a podcast, especially if you interview show like every conversation, you see the world differently. It's okay if you see it differently. And there's a new idea to go embrace and say goodbye to one and to embrace another. And it's not like podcasts get deleted as long as you're paying the credit card.

Speaker 1 (45:23)

Podcasts stay out there in the universe for a long time. So it's almost like podcasters need permission to avoid I'm not a quitter podcast. But then embrace some other voice inside them. Like a lot of podcast shooting that goes on in the industry, I can almost feel like especially when you first get started.

Speaker 2 (45:42)

And I think we think that the reaction from our peers and our audience, we sometimes think in our heads that everybody is watching us and paying attention to us and is going to think poorly of us if we quit. And most of the time if you're in a place where you're thinking about quitting, you're probably there because you're not getting a reaction, right? You're not getting a ton of feedback. You're not getting a ton of engagement because that engagement typically does fuel the desire or the passion. And so a lot of people are like, I can't quit because then so and so is going to think I'm a quitter. And truthfully, if you quit, that person's probably not even going to notice.

Speaker 1 (46:24)

Or if they did and then they're moving on with their life, right?

Speaker 2 (46:29)

They are paranoid and making up stuff about themselves. They don't have enough time to worry about your nonsense. So be true to yourself. Be true to what you're doing. If it's not working, if you're not feeling it, your instincts are probably right. Put it aside, like you said, and you don't even have to pay for it. I know in the past I've said, don't do this, but really, I've had a couple of shows that I just was done with, don't want to do anything with it anymore. Moved them over to Anchor free hosting. They were alive and well. I don't have to think about it anymore. Easy done.

Speaker 1 (46:59)

I hadn't considered that. Anchor is kind of like the tombstone of tombstone stone. It's almost like the graveyard of planes in Arizona where they go to the rest.

Speaker 2 (47:09)

Yeah, well, I mean, it's a lot of things, but for me, I kind of use it sometimes. It's my podcast graveyard.

Speaker 1 (47:17)

Yeah. And to the audience, they don't know any different. The website might be a little bit different, but the audience is still a play button on a podcast player.

Speaker 2 (47:24)

Truthfully. If I'm sunsetting a podcast to the point of moving on an anchor, I probably don't have a website for it anyway.

Speaker 1 (47:30)

True. Well, Matthew, thanks for giving us permission to hear the inner voice and pause. And I think the Invoice is a podcaster. We have a voice that we put into this microphone, but as a host in the process for this three and a half years, and I know you've been in this for almost ten years, like, putting your voice in the world is one thing, but almost reflecting and listening to what is your voice in your voice actually telling you that's actually like a secondary journey, but important one to hear, like, to make sure you're in the right spot and that another idea hasn't come along and you need to go embrace.

Speaker 2 (48:06)

Amen to that.

Speaker 1 (48:07)

Well, Matthew, thank you for another episode tonight and a great one. We wrapped into a lot of different topics. Hopefully you didn't get squirreled on a few of those new tech that we launched here. But Matthew, have a great night and we'll be back again next week.

Speaker 2 (48:20)

Talk to you next time for my role cast or pro Two.