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Tips on the incredible value of podcasting with Tom Schwab
- The value of podcasting is it’s a great way for people to get to know, like, and trust you
- What is ordinary to you is AMAZING to other people
- Think of a podcast as an inexpensive way to do inbound marketing
- Another value of podcasting is that podcasts have lasting value and give you important backlinks to your website
- “I’ll put the shameless plug out there. If you enjoy this podcast, go and leave a rating and review.”
- Podcasting is a great way to create friendships and build relationships
- If you are thinking about starting a podcast, first ask “why are you doing it?”
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SHARE THIS EPISODE: – THE INCREDIBLE VALUE OF PODCASTING
THE INCREDIBLE VALUE OF PODCASTING
Among many other things, the value of podcasting is it is an incredible way for people
to get to know, like and trust you.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Doug: Well, welcome back. listeners another episode of Real Marketing Real Fast. Today I’ve got a special guest with me, it’s a gentleman I met at a New Media Summit in San Diego and he quickly joined what was a very small running club. We did our Starbucks run, which was literally a two mile run to Starbucks in the morning to grab our coffee before the conference.
In addition to running in San Diego and grabbing a coffee, Tom is a very successful online entrepreneur. In this noisy digital world, you can’t break through the noise, you just add to it and that’s certainly not what we want to do. Instead, you need to get into a conversation where your ideal customers are listening.
As a Navy veteran SEAL who ran nuclear power plants, an inbound marketing engineer, Tom Schwab is a refreshing, unique approach. He focuses on time-proven strategies, he then supercharged it with today’s technology and podcast interview marketing. He is an author, a speaker, a teacher and he will help you get more traffic, more leads and raving customers and fans by being interviewed on a targeted podcast.
I’d like to welcome Tom to the podcast this morning.
Tom: Doug, the only thing could be better is if we were together with a cup of coffee but thrilled to catch back up with you and we had such an interesting conversation, the ideas, and everything and that’s what I love about podcasting, so I’m excited to talk with you.
Doug: Yeah, it was such a blast. I mean in these days of everybody saying digital online and I understand that there’s nothing that compares to getting face to face and having a conversation or in this case, sweating together before we sat and worked together.
Tom: I have to admit though, your voice sounded really weird to me, because typically when I listen to you on the Real Marketing Real Fast podcast, I’m running at half X speed as I’m listening at one and a half or two X speed, so when I actually hear you in real life, it was like wow, he sounds a lot different.
Doug: Well we can always try that for an episode. You could get on the treadmill, we’ll see how that works for you.
Let’s dive into what you’re doing. Is there anything I left out in your background? I mean, I remember when we met you were talking about being an engineer for a nuclear power plant. I’m thinking, wow that’s crazy, I mean what couldn’t you do if you can run a nuclear power plant.
Tom: The thing on that is, I always look at that and say, the smart people were the ones that came up with the manuals and the systems and the processes so that I could do it, right, and that’s one of the things that always struck me when I got out into the civilian world and worked for a Fortune 500 company and they would say, “Yeah, half of our marketing dollars are wasted. Half of our sales dollars are wasted. We just don’t know what half,” or the people that say, “You don’t understand my business. It’s too complicated to systematize, to put a process in.” I’m like, no, it probably means you don’t understand your business, so that’s one of the things I’ve always looked at with what we do here is called podcast interview marketing, is how can we always make a process so it’s reproducible, it’s not art, it’s not magic and so that we can make that sure everything we do is providing return on investment.
Doug: Let’s talk a little bit about podcasting. We met at the New Media Summit and it was a group of podcasters that were there and a group of people who were interested in podcasting, so obviously, that was a good market for you. Why would someone want to be interviewed on a podcast?
Tom: To me, marketing, at its heart, is starting a conversation with somebody that could be an ideal customer, right, and there are lots of ways you could do that. At one time they used billboards to do that or telephone calls or emails, but the problem was is that all of those got to be really noisy and people start talking about, well how do you break through the noise, and like you said, most of the time you’re just adding to the noise.
I think podcasts are a very interesting medium because you’re not breaking through the noise, you’re getting in on the conversation and that’s either yourself as a host or as a guest. It’s a very intimate means of communication and for people to get to know, like and trust you and really that’s the way you build any business, is getting your ideal customers to know, like and trust you.
To me, it’s never been easier to do a transaction online. If you want to sell something, just go on Amazon and be a penny cheaper than the next person, but chasing that transaction is not the same thing as building a business. To build a business you need to build up lifetime value, the know like and trust of customers and podcasts are just such a great way to do that and it’s not just my opinion, it’s the data that supports that also, Doug.
Doug: What was interesting was this morning, was having my first of coffee, I was flipping through my social media as I often do and looking and there’s a PR gal by the name of Susan Horrow and Susan’s post today was talking about why you should get onto podcasts as guests and she’s offered some information on why from a PR point of view, and so that’s what she does. I mean, so she’s now advising her clients that if you’re wanting to start the PR of your business and start to develop these relationships and get some media coverage, podcasting is a great place to start.
Thought it was interesting coming from somebody in the traditional PR business.
Tom: Oh and it’s interesting because PR used to look down on podcasts for a long time and I think as they’ve got more traction they’re getting more recognition. I mean heck, when there’s a television show out there now about a guy that’s starting a podcast, that’s when it struck me that podcasting is no longer a niche or something that hobbyists are doing in their basement or garage.
Doug: Yeah, absolutely. What do you think the biggest myth is? What do you think holds people back from getting interviewed or wanting to reach out? I mean, after the New Media Summit, obviously I booked a number of guests and I did have somebody send a note to me or a couple people saying I don’t think I’m ready yet. Obviously, there was some fear or something in their mind that was holding them back, so what has been your experience? What would you say to people that are feeling that way?
Tom: To me it’s that thing, that what I have to say doesn’t matter and everybody thinks what’s ordinary to them is ordinary to everybody else, but really what it is is what’s ordinary to you is amazing to other people.
When I was in the Navy, I could always tell somebody on the aircraft carrier that had only been there a few days. Every free moment they had they’d go up and watch the airplanes take off and land. Well after a few days that got really normal and it’s like, I’m not climbing all those stairs or the ladder just to go see that. Now that people ask, “Well did you watch those things?” You’re like, no that just sort of became ordinary and I think people see that in their life too. If I know this, everybody must know that, so they undervalue what they know or how they could help people or they say, well I’m not the expert.
Someone helped me with this years ago. The legal definition of an expert, at least in the US, is someone who by their training, experience or knowledge knows more than the average person. You don’t have to be the undisputed only expert, you just have to know more than the jury and can bring some knowledge to them. I think that’s the same way with us. Am I the ultimate expert in podcasting? Heck no, but I bring a certain expertise to it, a certain viewpoint to it that can really help people.
The other thing is, a lot of times people are asking you for your opinion and your experience, and I can tell you, I am the undisputed expert, in my opinion, Doug, and so from that standpoint I just … I look at it today, there’s never been an easier time to share with people what you know and it can help somebody’s life and so that’s … I always encourage people that your first podcast, whether that’s as a podcast host or a podcast guest, will be your worst one, just like anything you do. The first time you ride a bike is probably going to be the worst time you ride it, but get out there and start practicing and start sharing what you know with the world.
Doug: Yeah, that’s a really good point and I like your definition of expert, it’s better than mine. I’ve always said an expert is basically made of the Xs and some have nothing and a drip is water under pressure, right?
Now in terms of what your company does, I’m assuming that the clients who have come to you have made a decision, they’re at some point in their business and they want to grow. What’s the primary reason that people would first contact you guys?
Tom: Yeah, and for us, it’s really … We look at it, not as a PR issue, we look at it as an inbound marketing avenue. My background is inbound marketing using content to attract, engage and delight customers. About four years ago we said, well could you use podcast interviews the same way you use guest blogs? That’s what we’re seeing a lot of people doing. We’ve got some big software that service companies that measure their cost of lead acquisition and cost of customer acquisition and they’re realizing that Facebook is getting more expensive and less effective, same way with email marketing and they’re just seeing great results through podcast interviews.
Most of our clients are coaches, authors, speakers, software to service companies. Somebody that has a high lifetime value to a customer, they’re not just trying to do a transaction, and they also realize that their best use their time is performing.
One of our clients, I always say clients are the best copywriters, Doug, came to us and said, “I like working with you because Sinatra only sang.” I’m like, “Okay, what’s that mean?” He’s like, “Well, it’s the same way. I get to get up there, I get to perform, I get to do what only I can do and you guys take care of all the rest.” From that standpoint it was, you know, it sort of became our tagline, you be the guest, we’ll take care of the rest.
Doug: That’s a really good point. I mean, everybody seems to be overworked and just trying to juggle too many balls at once and so for you to make that so easy, that all I need to do is show up is obviously the perfect scenario. I just show up and have my interview and then after that, I market the interview but I have to do the looking for the ideal podcast and pitching the people and you take care of that, so I just do, like you said, do it at your best.
Tom: Yeah and I have done over 1,000 podcast interviews and people just ask me, “Well, how did you ever find to do that or were you able to do that?” To me it’s not magic, it’s not art, it’s just a system.
I do it the same way our clients do, that I’ve got the team that’s going out there and prospecting the right shows, pitching the right shows and then also preparing me for it, so five, ten minutes before a podcast interview I can pick up the brief sheet that the team has provided, go through that, know the podcast, have a great interview and then afterwards they’re taking care of everything also, you know, to help move people from being just passive listeners, to help them moving and becoming engaged leads or to serve them more.
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SHARE THIS EPISODE: – THE INCREDIBLE VALUE OF PODCASTING
THE INCREDIBLE VALUE OF PODCASTING
Among many other things, the value of podcasting is it is an incredible way for people
to get to know, like and trust you.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Doug: Now, you mentioned a little bit about the industries that you work on. Are there people that would say, “Hey, this won’t work for me.”?
Tom: Yes and I always say that when people say one thing works for everybody, you know, one size fits all, it really means one size fits none.
Doug: Right.
Tom: I look at that and say, if you’ve got a very small lifetime value of a customer, it probably won’t work for you. We do a lot of virtual book tours, but they’re always for non-fiction and where there’s a product behind there. Getting on a book tour to sell a fiction book where you’re making $1.00 or $2.00 each one, that’s probably a really hard way to do that, especially when the next book is probably coming out four or five years from then, so if there’s a low lifetime value.
The other thing is if you’re just focused on a transaction, so if all you want to do is sell your widget, podcasts are an awful place for infomercials. Nobody likes to be sold, so from that standpoint, if that’s your focus there.
The other thing is that, if it’s very time sensitive, so to go onto a podcast for me to sell tickets to my event two weeks from now, is probably not a good use of the medium. It may work for radio or live television, but podcasts are evergreen.
You know, somebody … We’re recording this in early 2018, I guarantee you there’s somebody in 2020 listening to this right now, Doug, that’s finding it for the first time and they’re like, “Oh that’s neat.”
Doug: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.
Tom: With that, you don’t want to be talking, “Come to my event next Tuesday,” because it really doesn’t mesh with the medium. Those are the things we’ve really looked at and with our experience, after the first hundred clients that we had, we looked at it and said, well how come some people get good results and some people get great results? There are three factors that we could really point to, all multiplied on themselves, so if one was weak, all of them were weak and it really boiled down to message, market, and machine.
The message is, do you have stories to tell and not just a product to sell. The market is, do you know who you want to talk to and is there something you can help them with. Then the machine is just, do you have a website and a social media presence that builds you up as an expert.
Doug: Those are really good points and I think what I hear you saying here is that this is a long game. This isn’t an I want to be on a podcast and I want the cash register to ring tomorrow.
Tom: Very much so and it’s not focused just on the transaction. I mean Facebook ads can be great, right? I invest $100.00 today and I see the traffic today, but it’s purely a spent, right, because …
When I was doing a lot of Google Ad Words, so probably eight or ten years ago, I called it My addiction phase because I’d spend some money, then I’d get high from it, but the next day I’d have to spend even more money to get a bigger high. With that, this is more of an investment, a long-term investment and it’s really a strategy.
Then things are is it’s not only the clients you get, the traffic you get, but there are the social media reach that’ll build your social media, and think about it, every podcast interview gives you a backlink to your site. Even though Google changes its algorithm all the time, good backlinks have always been critical to any of the algorithms, so we’ve got some clients that are doing it just for the backlinks.
Doug: Well, and I think the thing that people often forget is a lot of podcasts will transcribe the podcast and then publish it on the blog, so what you’re really getting in terms of what Google and the search engines like, if you’re getting a four, five or six thousand word interview that’s in natural language, that’s using the appropriate keywords and that people are searching for, so you’re getting great content and it’s great content that you and I can get together and do in 30 minutes as opposed to pulling your hair out trying to write a blog post that long.
Tom: Doug, it’s like you know me too well. For me, writing a blog post is like, it’s a chore, it’s a homework assignment. I’ll clean my desk and go to the dentist before I get that blog finished.
The way I’ve always done blogs is I come up with the idea, I’ll go on a four or five-minute rant, then I’ll have that transcribed and then I’ll have somebody on my team clean it up into a great blog post. For me, podcast interviews are great because I love talking. It’s easy and so with that, like you said, you can transcribe these. There’s an online service now called Temi, T-E-M-I.com that transcribes for 10 cents a minute. It’s all artificial intelligence but think about it, for a half hour conversation it costs you $3.00 to transcribe it and then you can take that and make blogs, you can make memes.
You could even get tweets out of it. If I talk long enough, I’ll come up with 140 or 280 characters of genius.
Doug: Yeah, absolutely. No, that’s so true. How do you become … How do you find or become a great guest for somebody to be on a podcast? We’ve got listeners saying, “Hey that’s really interesting. I like listening to podcasts. I’d like to be a guest. I would like to have the results that you talk about.” You hit on the three points in terms of getting results, so what would be the next steps to be a good guest.
Tom: Yeah, and I would say listen to what Doug just said there and change the words from “I”, what’s in it for me, to what’s in it for the host, right. There’s a podcast out there … In fact, you know Doug from Nice Guys on Business. I always loved what he says. He said, “Don’t promote yourself. If you do a good job the host will promote you.” I think that’s what’s really important. When you go onto a podcast, it’s all about making the host look like a genius for having you there.
You should always focus on what value can I bring to the audience and I think that starts from the very beginning. A lot of people will come back to me and say, “Well. how do I get on this podcast? How do I get on Real Marketing Real Fast?” I’m like, what have you done for that community? They look at me funny and I’m like, have you listened to some of the podcasts, have you understood what it is and then could you leave a rating and review.
I’ll put the shameless plug out there if you enjoy this podcast, go and leave a rating and review. It not only helps other people find it, but it’s one of the nice benefits, the “at a boys” that podcast hosts get. I guarantee you, if you leave a rating and a review, the podcast host will see it and know who you are. Leave a rating and review, then share some of their content. Retweet something, comment on it, post it on Facebook, do that for a couple of weeks, then you can reach out to the podcast host and opposed to saying, “I want to be on your podcast because I want to promote my business,” put yourself in the hosts shoes and say, “Doug, I’ve listened to the podcast. I’ve really liked this. I think that I could bring value to your audience and sharing these things and these things.” Make it all about what value you can bring to their community and then when you get on, do the same thing. Don’t be trying to pitch things and sell things, really add value.
Give out added value afterward, extra resources. It could be checklists, it could be books, it could be free consultations. Whatever it is, just keep adding value. It’s that … Gary Vaynerchuk talks about jab, jab, jab, right hook and I probably missed a couple jabs in there.
I look at that as give, give, give, give, ask, and most of the time that ask comes from other people asking, “Hey, how can I work with you?” I think that is a proven strategy.
There are some people that say, “Well, I hire a VA and they’ve emailed 100 podcasts to get on.” I’m like, how’s that working out for you and it typically isn’t. I get pitched probably once a day to be on my podcast and the funny part is I don’t have a podcast. Every email is about the same thing, it’s like, “I love your podcast and I would love to be on it to talk about this.” I’m like, if you’re going to lie to me, don’t tell me you love my podcast, tell me I’m pretty or something.
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SHARE THIS EPISODE: – THE INCREDIBLE VALUE OF PODCASTING
THE INCREDIBLE VALUE OF PODCASTING
Among many other things, the value of podcasting is it is an incredible way for people
to get to know, like and trust you.
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Doug: That’s funny. Well I mean, and you’re speaking my language in terms of engagement. I have done a couple blog posts and a podcast on why social media doesn’t work and it totally applies here. You’re showing up and you’re asking and I think that your audience or our audiences, whether it’s on social or on podcasts or whatever media, can immediately detect if you have an alternate motivation for whatever it is you’re doing. If they can sense and smell that it’s just all about sales and it’s not about adding value.
With social for example, I’ve done exactly what you’re saying and I stole that from Gary Vaynerchuk, in terms of reaching out and using Instagram to reach people that I couldn’t get any other way, but I didn’t do it with, hey, you don’t know me, you’ve never seen me, buy my stuff It was a longer-term plan, so it wasn’t a, lets sell them something today, it was more about lets see if we can get a relationship offline and see if there’s a fit or there might be an opportunity in the future.
Tom: Everybody is vain, right? We all listen for our own name, so if I quote somebody in a Facebook post or retweet them and I tag them in that, they’re going to see it and you’re going to get on the radar screen a whole lot faster than just sending robo pitches from a third world country.
Doug: Absolutely and after each show, I make sure that I send the podcast to my email list, I send the podcast on my … Promote it on my social media and I’ll promote it over and over and over again because it’s good for my guests to make sure they get exposure, but it’s also good for my podcast. You know, because like you said, the guests will see it and they will retweet it and re-share it and re-comment, so I look at it as a relationship and the goal here is to, like you said, to serve people and there’s two of us in this conversation and hopefully between the two of us there’s some information that people can take away and apply to their lives and their business to make it better.
Tom: Really, it’s really if you’re focusing on the relationship or the transaction. I said before if you’re just trying to make a transaction, it’s not the medium for you, but if you’re trying to build a relationship … And I’ve seen podcast guests start business relationships with the podcast host, become friends. I can’t tell you the number of people that I’ve been on their podcast where I would consider them friends, we talk regularly, but I’ve never met them in real life and it’s always funny to see what they actually sound like and then again, how tall they are, because you’ve never seen them outside the digital world.
Doug: Yeah, you’re right. I mean there’s just … I haven’t been doing this for years, but in the months that I’ve been doing this, I’ve really enjoyed the before and after conversations and lots of situations like you’ve mentioned. I’ve actually reached out and in as many cases, I’ve bought the services or the products of the person that I’ve interviewed because I’m trying to get really good guests on the podcast to provide value for my listeners. People go, “Well, what’s in it for you?” It’s like, well it’s a way for me to have an extended interview of a potential supplier that I would use for my company or my clients. You get to see what it is I’m interested in and trying to help them and the same is true with our conversation, is that I met you, we spent some time together so I like you, I trust you and here we are having a conversation, so I would recommend you.
Tom: It’s funny, as I look forward, I think my grandfather would be better suited for the future that we’re going into than my grandchildren. Right, because my grandchildren will learn all of the tactics, they’ll know how to use the newest plugin, the newest app, the newest platform, but will they know why they’re using it and I think the strategy is the most important thing and then you can figure out the tactics, the tools.
Doug: Yeah.
Tom: I think too often people just jump on, well if I only had this then my business would be great, and I always push back and say, “Well, why are you doing it?” In podcast interview marketing, well why are you doing it? To build relationships. To build relationships with the host, with the guest, so that they visit your site, so they link to your site, so they follow you on social media, so they actually engage with you. Like I said, marketing is starting the conversation with somebody that could be a great client.
Doug: What are you most excited about moving forward in the next 6 to 12 months? I mean this is an evolving world and evolving space.
Tom: To me, I think podcast interview marketing is going to be as big as Facebook marketing or email marketing in five years and I’ve been saying that for probably about 18 months. A year ago we did a … We sponsored a study called the State of Podcast Interviews, and in there we asked 10,000 marketers, podcasters, guests, to rank the return on investment of different forms and I was really surprised. Podcast interview marketing, by a hair, beat out Facebook marketing and email marketing.
It really shocked me because I thought wow, most people don’t know what a podcast is and I would still … People would ask me what I do and I’d say podcast and their first question would be, “What’s that?” Lately, I’ve just seen this upsurge in the word podcast and people getting to know about it.
Like I said, there’s a new show on ABC now, where it’s all focused on this guy that quits his job to start a podcast. The other day I saw, they mentioned somebody in the news and in their headline there, they referenced that they were … Where they were from and they were the host of this podcast, and I clicked on the podcast and it wasn’t that big of a podcast, but it gave them that credibility and I’m thinking, if television and news is starting to recognize podcasts, that is a very good trend.
I think the biggest problem, Doug, is that whole name of the podcast. My two youngest daughters are 18 and 21 and a while back I asked then, what’s the pod stand for in podcasting and they looked at me and they rolled their eyes and they’re like, “I don’t know dad. What does the pod stand for?”
The thing is, is they don’t know a world with iPods. To them it’s just on-demand radio, so they could be listening to it in the car, straight to the dashboard, they could be listening to it online. A lot of Sirius XM is just repurposed podcasts, so to me, what I’m most excited about is that podcasting is breaking out from this little hobbyist endeavor that it’s probably been for maybe the first 10 years of its life, and it’s really going mainstream and people are finding it and they’re excited about it.
That’s where I’m excited. I think we’re just at the dawn of it and people will come back and look at you as one of the early podcasters, even though right now you’re looking at it and saying, wow it’s … You may not view yourself that way.
Doug: You know, to the argument that hey it’s too late, what would you say?
Tom: People will always say that. How many blogs are there right now? I think there are 10,000,000 blogs out there. I think there are 30,000 or 40,000 podcasts, so from that standpoint, there’s a lot of podcasts out there, but there’s a lot of room for different opinions, different views.
People could say when we had the first three television networks, right, that it was too late, that there was no room for Fox or CNN. Well they proved that wrong and then you go television right now and I mean there are hundreds, there are thousands of channels out there. You go to YouTube and you look at how many quote-unquote “television stations” there are out there.
I think if you’ve got something to offer, to help that community, I think there’s still opportunity there and the whole goal of podcasting is not to be the next ABC or NBC, it’s very focused, it’s very niched down, but you’ve got people that are listening because they want to listen. They love to listen, they love to choose that content, not just because, well that was the only thing on.
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SHARE THIS EPISODE: – THE INCREDIBLE VALUE OF PODCASTING
THE INCREDIBLE VALUE OF PODCASTING
Among many other things, the value of podcasting is it is an incredible way for people
to get to know, like and trust you.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Doug: You’re so right and I asked you the question and then I thought, geez, should I really have asked that question, but I know there’s probably somebody that’s thinking that. It’s like, oh I missed the wave. If only I had bought Microsoft when fill in the blank.
Yeah, I think you’re bang on. The opportunity’s there, the marketplace is growing and it’s only going to continue to get bigger, as we heard with the stats that you’ve shared and also the fact that every car now you’re going to be able to listen to a podcast.
Coming back to your comment about people are wanting to listen. You’re so correct in that because we need to think about how people consume a podcast versus how they consume an email or a text message or a Facebook ad, and it really is the ultimate permission base because you physically have to go and listen to this, opposed to me seeing an email coming and thinking, yeah I don’t really want to look at it right now or I’m just going to delete it or a Facebook ad, I’m just going to skip over it.
When I click on iTunes and listen to a podcast, I won’t see your podcast because you don’t have one right?
Tom: Not yet.
Doug: Not yet, but we’ll come to that. I’m making a decision and the decision I’m making not only is to commit to listening to the podcast, but it’s a time commitment because it’s not like I am just looking at a text message or an email, it’s going to be 10, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes or it could be an hour that I’m committed to, so you’ve really got an opportunity there to have an impact on people’s life.
Tom: It’s the only communication medium where you can choose when you’re going to do it, what speed you’re going to do it and that you can multitask with. I can watch Facebook videos or YouTube videos of cats, I can watch them anytime but it’s not like you can really multitask when you’re doing it or listen or watch at whatever speed you want, so it’s very interesting from that standpoint.
The other thing is that I think that shows the value of podcasting is it’s the most intimate form of communication. I’ve had this discussion with other people and they’re like, “Well what about a video?” I’m like, well you know if I’m on a video you’re not quite sure, is it the first take? Is it the third take? Is it with cue cards? Is it my radio, video voice there? To me the best podcasts are like sitting down at a Denny’s and listening in on a conversation of two interesting people in the next booth and it would be rude for you to turn around and watch those people and it would probably be rude to just get in on the conversation, but it’s just interesting conversation where you’re listening in and learning and to me, that’s the amazing part.
Somebody asked me, “Well, when do you think podcasts are going to get to 100%?” I had to think about that and I’m like, well television and radio never got to 100%, so I think there’s always that subset of podcasts who will work well and if you look at the research from Edison Research, they’re sort of like what Nielsen Ratings was to television, or is to television, and they say that the average podcast listener is above average income, above average education and that they listen to seven hours of content a week.
I had one of our clients tell me that he likes talking to people on podcasts because when he used to call on people live in their office, he said, “If I walked into a prospect’s office and I saw books on their desk, I knew that was my kinds of client. It was somebody that was always trying to learn. They were inquisitive. They were looking for people and answers,” and so he said, “That’s who I want to talk to on podcasts.”
There are some people that will be happy to listen to 80’s rock and commercials all the time, and God love them, but then there are other people that are like, no, if I’m going to listen I’m going to learn something here and they don’t want the commercials, they don’t want to be fed what somebody else wants to feed them, they want to choose. To me, those are my ideal customers.
Doug: Yeah, I totally agree. I mean for me, if people aren’t willing to learn and stretch a bit, they’re just not going to be a good fit for me long term.
Now, I’m going to give you a pass on the toughest question I always my guest and that is, who’s one person I have to have on my podcast. I don’t know why that stumps people. I think they automatically think of, oh who am I going to leave out, so we’ll move along to … We’ll have that conversation another day. We’ll move along to the next question, that is, how can people find you, reach out and connect?
Tom: Oh sure, and I realized that you’re multitasking as you’re doing this. You don’t have something to write everything down, so we’ll make it easy here, just come back to interviewvalet.com/RMRF, so Real Marketing Real Fast. Interviewvalet.com/RMRF and I’ll put all my contact information there, everything that Doug and I talked about will be there and there are a few things that I’d like to offer also.
There’s a checklist that I go through and all my customers go through before every podcast, put that up there. I wrote a book called Podcast Guest Profiting and while it sells well on Amazon, I give away more copies of that than any other. If you go there you can get that also and I’ll put all my contact information here at interviewvalet.com/RMRF and if I can be of any service to you, please reach out to me.
Doug: Well that’s excellent. That certainly makes it easy. We’ll make sure we transcribe this so people can read and or listen. Obviously reading is going to be a bit difficult if like you, you’re out running or on the treadmill.
Hey, I want to say thanks so much for taking time today. I know it’s an early start to the day. Really enjoyed our time together when we met. Really enjoyed our conversation. Listeners, I think there’s some great value here. I think Tom’s a really sharp guy and I think his predictions in terms of what’s going on is it’s going in the right direction.
Just a quick side note. I feel strongly enough about this media that we are putting clients into this space, we’re setting clients up with podcasts and we’ll then be moving clients to be positioned as experts and then we’ll be contacting Tom to be able to book these guys on the show, so I think it’s a great opportunity to grow your business and to grow your audience and develop some relationships.
Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom and knowledge with us today.
Tom: Thank you, Doug.
Doug: Make sure if you have enjoyed this episode, don’t be shy, leave a comment on the blog and or subscribe to us on iTunes and leave a review. Have a great rest of the week.
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SHARE THIS EPISODE: – THE INCREDIBLE VALUE OF PODCASTING
THE INCREDIBLE VALUE OF PODCASTING
Among many other things, the value of podcasting is it is an incredible way for people
to get to know, like and trust you.
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