Is Your B2B Podcast Doing Its Job?

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Most B2B podcasts don't actually have a job. Get
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a job. Why are you just sitting here? He's completely
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useless. Go find some work. Yeah. Stop being so
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lazy. They exist because someone somewhere
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decided at some point this company should really have a
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podcast. But in most cases, nobody actually
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decided what the podcast should do.
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When a podcast doesn't have a job, it quickly becomes what
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I call pamphlet podcasting. It's kind
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of like a stakeholder within the company sitting down in front of
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a microphone and reading out company literature.
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And who wants to listen to that? Certainly not me. The
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truth is, with some podcasts, the sole
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duty is to fill space in the content
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calendar. It makes the company LinkedIn page
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look a little bit busier, but it doesn't change anything for the wider
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business. Not really. And that's what I want to talk to
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you about today. Welcome to
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B2B Podcasting Insights with Neil Velio,
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founder of PodKnows, a podcast agency helping you get better
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results from podcasting. So let's get into it.
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Why is your podcast jobless? I want
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to ask you a grown up question that nobody tends to
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answer when they start a podcast. And it's this. What
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job is this podcast actually meant to do
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for your business? Ask yourself right now. Do it
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while I'm with you. What job is this podcast
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meant to do for my business? You might be
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forgiven for asking, what on earth do you mean by a job?
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How does a podcast have a job? When I say a podcast
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needs a job, I mean it doesn't need to be something
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vague or polite. A podcast's job is not
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really brand awareness. That's a facade, not a
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function. A podcast's job is not really
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thought leadership. That's just a label that people use
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when they don't want to be specific about things. And it's
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definitely not furnishing you with more content. I mean, that's a
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given. It's content. A podcast's
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job is something operational. And a
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podcast's job looks something kind of like
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shortening sales conversations, aligning
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expectations internally within the business before someone ever
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books in to have a chat with you, pre educating
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any prospects that you might have coming in so that
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you're not starting from scratch within your sales calls.
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So really it's about building their belief in you
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before there's any direct contact.
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Here's the line I come back to time and time again when I'm talking to
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my corporate clients. If nobody inside the business
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can tell you what should happen after someone listens to your Episodes,
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then the podcast doesn't really have a job. I mean, it might well sound
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good, it might even get compliments from your regular listeners,
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but it's not doing any actual work for your business.
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And it may well have become your most overpaid,
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underdeveloped member of staff. So how do
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podcasts end up jobless?
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Well, you see, this is where things you usually go sideways when
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it comes to starting and producing
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a podcast as part of a business. First of all,
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the podcast gets handed over to the marketing team, and that's
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not really the best way of treating it. Not because it's wrong for
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marketing to be involved. Of course it is. It's a marketing tool.
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It's a marketing asset. But that's not why it's ended up with
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them. It's usually because no one else quite
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wants to take responsibility for it. They don't understand it, it's
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uncomfortable. And it also seems like a heck of a lot of
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work. Someone within the team has probably realized that
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it's gonna have to have weekly content, and they're already at breaking
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point with having to get the weekly email newsletter together.
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And nobody has time within the business to come up with more
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original content for the podcast. You know, even if it's a case of just
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uploading the content from the email newsletter into ChatGPT
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and getting it to repurpose it for reading
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on a podcast. And they probably realize even then,
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surely it's just gonna sound like someone reading out our company emails.
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Good instincts. So then what happens is it defaults
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to interviews, because interviews feel easier.
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You send an email, you ask somebody to be a guest on your show, and
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then you sit back and let someone else do all the talking, all the work,
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and it still feels productive. It fills the gap in
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your social media content marketing calendar. Oh,
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and let's not forget the KPIs. I mean, the success gets measured purely
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in downloads, because downloads are easy to understand.
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You can see them, they're a number in a dashboard.
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And so once the show is actually live, it's published to
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an RSS feed, and it's in the podcast apps. Nobody really owns
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the strategy anymore. It just plods along,
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continues aimlessly. There's a routine built around it.
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Oh yeah, we record Monday, we publish Fridays. And I want to be
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clear, not all of these podcasts are that bad. Some are
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actually really well produced, well intentioned,
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perfectly pleasant to listen to. I listen to these kinds of podcasts
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all the time. They're great for some free advice now and again, but
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they're strategically jobless. None of them shift me from being
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a casual listener once a week to being a
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paid customer. If you think about it as another staff
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member, they're kind of the person that rolls in every
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single week. Nobody really knows what they do, but they sit at their
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desk, they do stuff, and then they go home at the end.
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They're showing up to your business as required, but they're not
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anchored to a real business outcome. Now I've put together a
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visual on what it might look like when a podcast doesn't have a job
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compared with when a podcast does have a job. And you can find
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that@podnos.co.uk,
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that's podnows.co.uk
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and of course I'll put the link in the episode description for you. So
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what changes when your podcast does indeed have a job?
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Let's get into that.
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So when your podcast does have a job, this is the bit that people
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don't really expect. When a podcast has a
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clearly defined job, it behaves differently
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inside any company. It doesn't matter whether it's a small business,
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a medium sized business, or a massive corporate with
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thousands of employees, maybe around the world. You will
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start to quickly notice the benefits of having the podcast,
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which in my experience is one of the biggest challenges
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of a company running a podcast. Nobody gets
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the benefit of it. This is that thing that takes us time to
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make and then we don't really get any measurable results from it.
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Here's what it might look like. Episodes start getting
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shared internally as a form of stealth team
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building. You know, the CMO might pick up on something that
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somebody did on the podcast that was really great
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and share it around the team. Hey, listen to what
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Helen talked about on last week's episode. Well done, Helen.
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Round of applause. And that makes them feel good.
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Sales teams start to send specific links to podcast episodes
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instead of explaining things from scratch to their would be
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clients. And if you're really on fire with this thing, well
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then prospects start referencing episodes on calls without
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being prompted. You'll start to hear things like I already
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know how you guys work, so we're definitely aligned. When can
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we start? Or that episode you just put out this week
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completely answered the question I was going to ask you today. When can we start?
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You might even get someone saying to you, I feel like I'm talking to a
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celebrity. It's happened more than once with my clients. When
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you've got a podcast that's doing its job, your conversations
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don't start from building trust. It starts
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when trust is already established. And this is the key distinction,
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I think, for me, the best B2B podcasts,
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they don't just create demand, they accelerate
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decisions. Once that demand has already been met,
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they don't need to compete with other shows to convince strangers.
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They help the already interested move faster along your
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sales pipeline. And then, of course, they'll have more confidence to make
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a final decision. That's your podcast's job.
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I want to give you a test for this podcast now. Not a framework,
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not a worksheet, a test. You can do it in your
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own time. And here it is. If your podcast
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disappeared tomorrow, how would that affect the business?
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Would sales conversations suddenly get longer? Would prospects be
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a little bit harder to qualify? Would you lose a shared
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internal language for explaining what it is that you guys do
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and how you work? Or would nothing actually be
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affected at all? And if the honest answer is nothing,
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that's not a failure as such, it's just
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information. But it does confirm your podcast
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doesn't currently have a job. And that's something that you need to think about
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changing if you're going to continue with that podcast
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over the next 12 months. If you're
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responsible for a B2B podcast, whether it's your own business
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or or as part of a wider brand, and you can't
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clearly explain what is meant to change inside
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the business, that uncertainty doesn't stay
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theoretical. It shows up as longer sales
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conversations. It shows up as content that feels
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busy but inconclusive. It shows up
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as a podcast that keeps running on empty
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without ever quite earning its keep. The
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Podnos Podcast Growth Diagnostic exists to
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resolve that. Let me briefly tell you a bit more about it. It's a single
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session designed to answer one key question for you,
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and that is, is this podcast actually doing a useful
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job for our business, or is it just taking up our attention?
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By the end of the session, you'll leave knowing whether the show is
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worth doubling down on, maybe simplifying somehow, or
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rethinking altogether. And it will also help you understand what you
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can safely stop investing any more time and money in. This
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diagnostic is not about improving the podcast. I have my
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audits for that. The diagnostic is about removing the
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uncertainty so decisions get easier
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afterwards. If that's the kind of clarity you'd like to
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have before you keep publishing more episodes this this year,
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the details to book for your session will be in the
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episode description or go to
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podnose.co.uk
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diagnostic that's
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podnose.co.uk
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Diagnostic. And remember a podcast
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without a job actively wastes
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attention, yours and your listeners. And
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we all know that attention is the most expensive
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thing in a B2B business and marketing in general.
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So if you're not quite sure what job your podcast is meant to
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be doing, that's literally what I will help you untangle.
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Stop making a pamphlet podcast and start making an
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operational asset that helps move your business forward.
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Again, the link is in the episode description.