When we sit down for quarterly calls and we sit down on onboarding calls, when I sit down for strategy calls, and when I talk to podcasters ever, there are three questions that I always want to know the answer to. Knowing these answers is the KEY to getting more sales from your podcast. These answers are the missing link for lead generation and your podcast.
Today we’re going to dig into those questions and why you should be able to answer them for every single episode you release of your show. Plain and simple.
If you cannot answer these questions in your mind for the episode, it’s not ready yet, it’s not the right episode. It makes no sense to be working toward that. Today I want to break down these questions and I want to break down why they’re important and why they impact.
I want to say these three questions that we’re talking about, if you can’t answer these questions, don’t be hiring anybody. We say we don’t work with clients who can’t answer these questions, not because we’re super cool, but because there is no value. You are not going to reap benefits from a show if you can’t answer these questions.
If you’re running a show where you can’t answer these questions, you need to be finding the most efficient way to DIY it while you figure out the answers to these questions. Because it may be through the process of working on your show that you get clear on some of this, that you niche some of this down, that you narrow that focus, that you find that right rhythm. That’s why I would say 9 out of 10 clients who sign with us have been in their show about a year, roughly, somewhere between 8 months and like 16 months is the rundown, a year-ish. They’ve done 50-ish episodes of their show before they start working with us.
Because there is a lot to learn in that first year. There is a lot to learn in that experience. If you don’t have a firm grasp of what the answers to these questions are, it might be best to DIY it. If you’re going to invest with someone from the beginning and you’re not super clear on these, there needs to be somebody who can help you narrow that focus over that first year who can really help you and support you as you try to figure it out. You need to be willing to be in that with them. Then realize that the return on that investment might be slower. It might lag a bit more than it would normally.
The 3 questions you must answer to get sales from your podcast.
Q1: What are you selling?
Not the entirety of your business. Not ever in your life. With this podcast, where do you want to drive traffic? What are you selling to the people listening to this podcast? Because we’re going to be reverse-engineering all of this. Answers to these questions will give us the answers to future questions. Like how many episodes should I have, what should the format be, and how long should they be? It comes from answering these questions. What are we selling them? We need to have different conversations and we need to prepare them differently.
If they’re buying a 12-month mastermind with a retreat and two calls a month, then we need to prepare them differently than if it was for a $27 five-video course, we need to establish a different layer of trust. We need to establish a different level of expectation. We need to establish a different set of prep and pre-work, the things we want them to know, the language we want them to have, and the mindset and thought process we want them to have to go into our work is going to be different if they’re starting at the beginning with an entry-level program or if they’re signing up for a $40,000 mastermind opportunity.
What are you selling them?
It’s also going to be different if like me you’re selling a service, like me, you’re selling a recurring retainer service. We have clients whose shows we’ve been producing for three, four, or five years. I have marketing clients that I’ve been working with for nine years. The relationship I’m building with long-term clients starts from the first time they hear my voice on this show. I absolutely have clients now who we’ve worked with for, in some cases, two and three years since their first introduction to me was hearing me on this show.
This was the beginning of our relationship and I know that as I craft these episodes.
I know that as I plan what I’m going to talk about here, I know that about every part of this podcast because it’s built to start that relationship because that’s what I’m selling, is that long-term engagement with me and my brain. I’m building a relationship, you and I, I am as invested as you are. That starts here. It changes how I structure my show, it’s so important to know what you’re selling if the goal is to get sales from your podcast.
Initially, this may be more than one thing. It could be I’m selling XYZ outcome and that manifests itself in these three stacking offers. I’ve got a low-ticket offer, I’ve got a mid-range offer, and then I’ve got a high-ticket offer that I sell on a really limited basis. Maybe that high-ticket offer doesn’t even sit in public-facing. Maybe it’s a course and a group program that are public-facing and then you’ve got a private invite-only one-on-one work with you.
I absolutely have contracts with clients for work that I do, that my team does, that exists not anywhere in the show or publicly. There’s no sales page for it. Because we’ve built a relationship and I can fill a need that they have and so we temporarily expand our contract, we take on an additional project, or we do what we need to do to support them in that because we have that established relationship. I’m not worrying about selling that stuff. I’m not worried about talking about that stuff on the show. Because it’s an invite-only.
Maybe for you, that’s one-on-one coaching work. Maybe for you, that is a high-ticket mastermind. Maybe for you that is done-for-you services, maybe forward facing, it’s here’s how to do this thing and I sell this course and I do this consulting work, but also behind-the-scenes, there is a done-for-you option. I don’t need to be talking about or preparing people for that behind-the-scenes offer in the course of my show, in the course of my episodes. Think about instead the big picture: what you’re selling them, big picture, I’m selling people strategic content marketing.
Quite frankly, we could streamline that even further if we want to talk about global streamlined strategic marketing. Because that’s what I do. It happens to live in the land of podcasting. It happens to live in the land of content so that’s what we talk about here. Strategic podcast content, marketing, production, using your show as a sales asset, because that’s what we’re selling is that that lives in podcast production, that lives in the occasional strategy call, that lives in guest teaching and workshops.
Also, a thing I don’t do, I don’t promote forward facing, but I do a handful of them a year. I love doing them. If you’re booking professors for your mastermind, your coaching program, or whatever for 2023, hit me up. I’d love to do it. I’ve got one coming up in a couple of months. I’m so excited. But that’s not a public-facing offer. It’s not what the show is built to sell. I’m focused here on what this show is built to sell and I want you to be doing the same thing with your show.
Q1: Who are we selling it to?
This is especially important if you’re somebody who is maybe selling something to someone who’s not the decision maker. I see this a lot with clients who are selling B2B services. They’re working inside of other companies, consulting, done-for-you, freelance, whatever that looks like, but you’re going into larger businesses and you’re selling your expertise, but maybe you’re not sure you can get sales from your podcast in that format.
Maybe you’re actually selling your expertise to a management role, to a CFO, or to an HR rep. But in reality, somebody else is footing the bill. In the actual contract, someone else is writing the check, not the person you’re actually selling to. You’ve got to be aware of how your content is positioned so that they can go do the sales work for you to the person who is going to write the check, the person who is going to slide the credit card because if you don’t have that, it’s going to be really, really frustrating for you to get that contract closed. Because you didn’t go into it with a real understanding of who you’re selling it to and the assets they’re going to need to commit.
What did they need to know before they signed? For those of us who are speaking to the person who is the decision maker, which is what I do, I’m selling most often to the person who’s the only person who’s going to be involved in that decision, maybe they’ve got a coach or maybe they’ve got a partner who they’re going to run things by but they’re the primary decision maker. They’re the ones who are going to enter the credit card information and then see it hit their account.
I’m building a different kind of relationship. I don’t need to build them sales assets that they can go and use to get somebody else on board. I just need to build an asset to get them on board, which means I need to have a really clear understanding of what they need to know before they buy. What do they need to know before we talk?
That’s why episodes like What Working with Uncommonly More Looks Like exist, because in most cases, I was finding what they needed to know was “What the hell this actually looked like? What was this process? What happens when I book a call with Stacey? What happens when I show up on that call? What happens when I sign the contract? What exactly am I buying? That’s a worthy and completely necessary question because we’ve all bought something that we didn’t ask those questions and we went, “What? What is this? It’s not what I had decided it was in my head and you never told me what it was.”
I don’t want that. I make it really clear. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Here’s what’s going to happen in our sales conversation. Here’s what’s going to happen after our sales conversation. Here’s what’s going to happen once you sign the contract. Here’s what’s going to happen during our onboarding. Here’s what’s going to happen in working with you. Here are my expectations of you and here’s what you can expect of me.” Because oftentimes, I think we’re in such a hurry to prove that we can provide our clients with what they need. One of the biggest questions they have, especially for us, service providers, as experts are, “Cool. What do you need me to do? What’s going to be expected? How much do I have to show up? How much of my time do I need to invest in this thing?”
I think a lot of frustration in the execution of that service can be cut off at the pass when we establish those expectations for everybody involved while we’re selling them, while they’re learning about us, while they’re making their decision, they can factor that into their decision. This can end up looking great because they go to people who have not done this and go, “Wait, what does it look like?”
By the way, asking, “Wait, what does this look like?’” is a really good way to suss out those people who are not going to deliver very well, because they don’t know, they can’t answer this question on a sales call. I want you to be able to answer this question in your content. How do you think that does as far as setting you apart?
Q3: How are you selling it?
Is this something people go and click and buy? Is this something where we have a sales conversation? Is this something where we’ve got a long onboard? You know, coming back to this idea of, “Am I putting content in front of the decision maker, or am I putting content in front of the person who’s going to have to get the decision maker on board? Who’s going to be my point of contact?” Because I’m creating different content. I’m building different assets. I have different calls to action. I’m allowing for space. I also have different promotions schedules.
Because if I’m somebody who has a long close time, my sales process takes weeks or months, I can’t tell you three days before it’s going to close. A great example is if I was in a position where it was consistently taking me two months to close a client, that’s what our sales process was. Guess what? It will be really hard for me here in September to tell you we’re taking our last two clients of the year. I would have needed to do this in July but it’s not. As long as you know what’s the right time, our sales process can be a matter of days. Our proposals are only valid for 10 days. Once we hit 10 days, if you haven’t made the decision, the decision is no and we can re-quote you if we want to revisit it later.
Because that’s the structure I’ve built and so that impacts how we produce content. It also is why I build so many assets to help my prospective buyers make decisions. Again, that’s why What Working with Uncommonly More Looks Like, and we have a What Our Process Looks Like episodes exist. These episodes answer the questions people have BEFORE they buy, and that’s the key to sales from your podcast. You need to be able to answer these questions. We’re walking through these questions together so that you can come into our sales calls understanding what we’re talking about and how we’re having this conversation.
I’m answering some of the questions that prospective buyers are going to have with my content so that we don’t need two months of conversation and back and forth and education to get this done. I can send you a podcast episode, I can send you a playlist. You can see “This is what I need. This is what’s going to be expected of me. This is what I can expect. This is what the process looks like. Oh, that feels good. Well, I’m excited about this. Yes, let’s do it.” Then we get on a sales call. It’s a gut check. I send you a proposal. You sign it later that day. The next day, you take care of your invoice and we’re onboarding you inside of a week. As long as you have episodes for us, we can have our first episode out in two weeks.
Want more sales from your podcast?
You have to be able to answer these questions…
- What are you selling?
- Who are you selling it to?
- How are you selling it to them?
If you don’t know the answers to those questions, it’s time to pause your podcast, whether it be in the idea stage or in production. You’ve got to know the answers to these questions to get sales from your podcast.
These are the questions we ask our clients every quarter when we sit down and we build those 12 weeks of content, when we build that content calendar, when we look at what’s happening next and we go, “Cool, how do we support those goals? Here are the episodes we need.” What are the things they’re looking for?
This is how we’re building essentially a podcast funnel with our clients, so that the podcast can sit on top of the funnel and be effective as a way to move them through the decision-making process and either buy or go find somewhere else to be so that they can get the solution they need. Because I don’t want people who are looking for my solution to be sitting here in I don’t know land if they need to be somewhere else in a thing that’s going to be a better fit for them.
For example, if you’re thinking about a podcast and these are the questions you’re running into, I want you to go find a business coach, a really good one. I’ve names for you. Send me a DM. But you shouldn’t be having these conversations and talking to a podcast producer. You should be talking to a business coach. Shout out to Tara Newman and The Bold Profit Academy. In The Bold Profit Academy, she’s got something called Offer Creation. It’s going to help you be able to answer these questions.
If you went through that process, you would know the answers to these questions. Then we could have a conversation. But I don’t want you sitting here thinking I’m the solution if really there’s a whole other solution you need to find first. Because it’s going to mean I’m never valuable to you. If you can’t answer these questions, I’m no good to you. I want you to find a place where you can be supported.
On the flip side, if you can answer these questions, let’s go. Let’s do this. I’m excited. Let’s roll. Because you’re ready to take that next step. You’re ready to put some real energy and focus behind this and see results. If that’s you, let’s have a conversation.
Let’s get you on the books for 2022 or let’s get you started for January of 2023. Either way, I’ll see you back here next week and what’s possibly the most rushed outro I’ve ever done in my life. I’ll see you next week. Bye.
