When we’re talking about building assets with a podcast, we have to be looking at it converting, it resulting in business. That’s what I want to talk about in this episode of Uncommonly More because there are some core sales assets you need to be building with your show and we’re going to dig into what those are today.
Welcome to Episode 538. This is going to be one of those episodes where I need you to go out and do one of the things we’re going to talk about today, because these are the episodes that have tangible return on your time investment because we’re going to talk about the difference between content and content that converts. What we’ll talk about today is not going to be every episode of your show but it needs to be a regular part of your show and it needs to be repurposed, reused, and done in different ways. That’s why we’re going to talk about some different ways we can do it.
First, I want to be really clear about why this conversation is important.
We talked a lot this year about the purpose, the process, and the production, those being the buckets that any problem with your show is going to be found in one of those buckets. Those categories are what we have to go look at to diagnose the issue. This lives firmly in that purpose bucket and this is the bucket that no one else can do for you. Hiring a content manager, hiring an SEO strategist, hiring social media people, hiring a podcast production agency, hiring us, hiring Uncommonly More will not solve problems that live in this container.
Now we talk with our clients a lot about this container and help them find the answers to some of the questions we’re going to talk through, but this purpose container is all about where does this live in the big picture of your show, of your business? What is the point? What is the reason for doing it? There are absolutely reasons that are all about serving our audience and getting content and value in the hands of people who need it, but there’s also going to be a “I do this to sell that” for podcasters who are using their show as part of the marketing engine in their business—part of that purpose has to be—because this generates sales to XYZ.
When we talk about podcasts, so often, we have the conversation about “How do I get more people to listen? I need more downloads because other shows have more downloads than I do,” and that’s why they’re able to convert more business. But if you look at the numbers, you’ll see that the average show probably doesn’t have more downloads than you. In fact, it’s entirely possible that a lot of those downloads are significantly less than yours. This is one of the reasons I love Buzzsprout, which is the podcast hosting company that puts out on their website global stats for the shows that host with them, these are the average stats. One of the stats listed is downloads for an episode after seven days. If the episode comes out Monday, by the following Sunday, how many downloads has it had? The median show, the median number is 28 downloads in seven days.
Most of our clients live in the 10% or top 5% of these shows where we’re talking about hundreds of downloads in the first seven days. Why are we continuing to have a conversation about more downloads if we don’t first have a conversation about “Does this show work? Do I get business from it?” When you think about the number of people you want to work with, the number of sales you need to have come in to hit your revenue goal each month or each day, I’m going to guess that that number is not tens of thousands of people. You probably don’t want tens of thousands of people listening. What it has to be about is having a conversation about getting the right listeners and then getting them to take the next step.
This conversation today is about that next step. Because if we’re not currently getting our listenership and our downloaders to take that next step, more listeners, more downloads isn’t going to solve the problem, isn’t going to make my show more successful because I’m not successfully converting the listeners I have now. I really encourage you to look at your show and look at how you got your last 3, 5, or 10 clients and how many of them listen to your podcast? Ask them, “Hey, did you listen to the podcast at all to help you make this decision? Are there any episodes that helped you get lined up with the fact that this was the right solution for you?” Or however you want to ask the question, whatever makes sense for you. But you probably have a pretty good idea.
I know who listens to the show usually during a sales call because one of a few things will happen, they’ll actually reference an episode when asking a question, they reference things I’ve said in specific episodes—which is something we’re going to talk about today—or they’ll straight up say, “Oh, I listened to the show before we met.” They’ll just tell me. Guess what, every one of the people who I met with, who I have had sales calls with for my last 3, 5, 10 clients, listened to the show either before they decided or when they were actively considering purchasing from me, investing with us. It became really, really easy to see that the content we’re putting out is working because it’s doing what it’s supposed to do. But it’s also built to do that. It’s built to help people decide. It’s built to tell you what to do next once you decide. That’s what I want you to have in your podcast. These tools that help people make decisions.
It is our job to tell our listeners what to do next.
It doesn’t mean that everybody’s going to do it but by telling them what to do next and telling them what’s going to happen there, it becomes possible for people to make a decision. This is not about getting them to make a decision to buy from you, it’s about getting them to make a decision at all. Oftentimes, the reason my show is successful, the reason my clients’ shows are successful, the reason my friends’ shows when we talk about this are successful, is because they help people decide we’re not a fit for them. We’ve helped people then get out of the mental whirlpool of trying to decide if we were a fit and go find their actual right fit.
I think the biggest service your content can do is release those people who have the problem you speak to but aren’t fit to work with you. You’re not wrong, they’re not wrong, everybody’s right but everybody needs to go find their right fit so that they can move forward past the problem that they have right now. You need to have your content built to help people decide. A big part of that is telling them what to do next. I don’t mean this in a, “Well thanks for listening. Come pay me later,” it’s got to be more than just an outro, it’s got to be built into your content. This is going to happen when you have strategically focused content that’s answering the questions that your customers and prospects have when they’re in the buying process, it’s going to be the content that helps them identify what their problem is, and maybe even get some of those quick early wins with your content, absolutely.
Sometimes, paired with those episodes, you’re going to need to have content that is a real clear shot at “this is what’s next”. Let’s talk about what that looks like. What kind of episodes am I talking about? Real, real simple. When is the right time to work with you? There are episodes of the show—I will link them in the show notes—completely centered around how to know when it’s the right time to work with us. We’re going to have more coming because quite frankly, I’ve gotten even more clarity on it this year. As it evolves internally, we share more. We have whole episodes on what it looks like to work with us. I absolutely resisted releasing that episode, I’m like, “This is not going to be interesting to anybody. I don’t know. I’m going to sound really obnoxious.” I really, really resisted it. Every client who has joined us this year has mentioned that episode because it gave them an idea of what to expect in the process.
Let’s find ways that we can let them into the process. That could be by taking them behind the scenes, giving them an example of what experiencing your work is like. That could be through sharing parts of live calls with your group programs or sharing parts of course structure publicly, it could be coaching sessions that you release parts of. It could be walkthroughs of projects, of experiences, of a process. It could also be you just explaining what happens after they apply or they buy or they get on a sales call with you. It can also be case studies. When can you bring a client on and talk through, not just what happened for them in working with you, but how they knew it was time to hire you, how they decided to hire you, what the process was like to start working with you as they evolved through their work with you. Now what’s on the other side? Talk them through the whole story.
Giving your listener an inside look, a different perspective than we do when we’re just giving value because although the value is incredible. It should be a part of your strategy, it cannot be the whole thing because the actual value—and this is something I get pushed back on all the time—is not your content, the actual value, the actual change comes to your client after they invest because most people—certainly there are exceptions to this rule—but most people don’t take massive action based on a podcast. I could do a whole podcast that walks you through step-by-step everything we do inside that trains you how to do it and there would be a very small percentage of people who would follow that path and do the thing. If we’re not showing up and telling them, “Here’s where you go get the real answer,” and instead we are just flooding them with solutions without any implementation, again, we’re doing a massive disservice to our listenership.
I want you to commit to building out in Q4 one of these assets: Either a behind the scenes of the experience. That could be like a listen in on a coaching call or a group call, or a snippet from a module in your training, but sharing what’s behind the scenes of the experience. What does this experience look, feel, and sound like? The second option, a breakdown of the service. Think about the episode we did about what is working with Uncommonly More like, that episode is what we’re talking about here, taking you step-by-step through what is the process of applying our initial conversation, our onboarding, and then the day-to-day, month-to-month difference. What does that process look like?
The third option, case studies with clients.
Bring clients on and talk through the story, the process of how they made the decision to work with you, what that looks like, what happened inside of it, what happened on the other side of it. Walk them through the process and let your clients tell that story to somebody who’s just further behind on the same journey than they are. There’s a lot of connection there.
I feel good. I’m so excited for you to take action on this and I want to remind you before we wrap it up quickly, if you have not yet signed up for the Podcast Newsroom, our new exclusive podcast where we are dropping news and the inside baseball stuff, what’s happening and the things you need to know now, you’re going to want to join us. So far we’ve released three episodes, we’ve released three things you need to know in August, we had a breaking news bonus episode in August, and we have of course the three things you need to know for September show. This is the news and what’s happening inside of podcasting and in the content marketing space right now. Head over to uncommonlymore.com/newsroom to sign up for that exclusive podcast feed and listen to those shows. I’ll see you over in the newsroom and I will see you back here next week.
