Stop Making a B2B Podcast! Start Making a SALES Podcast.

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Welcome back to Business Talks with Business People for Business
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People, where we talk business talks
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about business people. This week we're taking a
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deep dive into the digital transformation in
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a post pandemic post SaaS landscape.
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My next guest needs no introduction, but I'm going to spend the next four
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minutes doing so anyway because that's what we do on
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B2B podcasts. Cut.
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Cut it. The whole thing. Cut, cut.
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Nobody will buy from you with this podcast. You've just made
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something tedious. Barely anyone will listen and watch.
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Welcome along to B2B Podcasting Insights with me, Neal Veglio,
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the founder of Podknows Podcasting, a podcast
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agency which helps brands and
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solo operators, solopreneurs, whatever you want to call them,
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lonely old business folk so they can get better results from their
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podcast. All right, let's have a grown up conversation
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here about something I see people commonly
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kind of approaching wrongly. It's something which sabotages
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podcasts for many years. If you don't identify the
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problem and get on top of it really quickly, it's
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labeling your show a B2B podcast. I
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know. Bit of a weird thing to pick a fight with, isn't it? Especially as
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this show is called B2B Podcasting Insights.
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Trust me, that's a search friendly
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term only for this show. And I'm gonna get to
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exactly why that is in a moment, so stay with me.
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Now, somewhere along the way, B2B
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podcast stopped, meaning a
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podcast made by a B2B business for B2B buyers.
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And it actually started meaning something a little bit more
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specific. It started meaning a podcast
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where someone, probably a founder, will sit down and either
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share insights in a monologue or interview other
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B2B founders and talking about industries in a
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very polite way, not particularly meaningful, but
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very balanced, very considered, very press,
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sound bitey. And during those shows, under no
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circumstances do we ever mention that
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we'd like the listener to buy from us, because that would
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be gauche. I love the word gauche. Wonder what
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the color of gauche would be. Anyway, that's not a B2B
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podcast. That's a LinkedIn company page with
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a microphone. And that's what you're
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probably making, whether you like it or not. The thing that you
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should be making, and the thing I'm going to make the case for
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over the next few minutes to you directly is a sales podcast.
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Now note I said sales podcast,
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not salesy podcast. Let me be clear here.
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I'm not talking about a pitch fest. I'm not talking about a weekly
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advert or fortnightly advert or monthly advert, depending on your
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cadence, that mentions your
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services and your brand and your business every two minutes
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and ends with anyway. If any of that sounded good to you,
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then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Buy my stuff. When
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I say sales podcast, I mean it in the way
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that it is a show where every
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episode has been deliberately designed to accelerate
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a particular decision to be made by
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your ideal customer listener. It's a way to
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amplify inbound conversion. But those people need
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to already be circling you. We have the
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capital ready for you right now. So every episode
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has one job, one direction
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and one ideal outcome. Every
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single episode. Here's the bit that's
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generally really funny to me.
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Marketers, whose job it is to literally
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market the thing that they use to generate
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revenue. Marketers hate the word sales. They've been
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conditioned to believe that the word sales
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is aggressive, loud,
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needy. Sales is the desperate cousin that turns up at the
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family wedding and tries to sell everyone Ann Summers and
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Betterware and Avon tries to get them on their
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Amazon affiliate pyramid scheme. Whereas
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marketing is the sophisticated one. Marketing
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turns up wearing the nice suit and has the color coordinated
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Filofax in their pocket just in case. So when someone like
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me suggests that a branded podcast should play the part of
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a sales asset, there's a visible twitch of nervousness,
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of reluctance, of oh no,
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gauche. We can't be seen to be selling. That would ruin
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our brand. That would alienate our audience. It would be
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awful. Stop for a minute, would you? Just listen to yourself.
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The business you work for exists to sell something, whether that's
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your business or you're a decision maker in
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somebody else's business. The whole point of that business
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is to sell to generate revenue,
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to build profits so that you can survive
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and the people that you have within your business
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can also survive. Pay the rent, pay the mortgage, pay the
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bills, enjoy themselves now and again, go to the cinema.
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None of that happens if you don't sell. And every piece of content
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that you produce within that business, whether it's this podcast
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or a YouTube or social media or your
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newsletter, all of that is produced
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ultimately in service of that end. And pretending
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otherwise is not being high minded. It's just
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expensive. It's costing you a fortune. So the dodge has become
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this, oh no, no, no, no, no, we're not making a sales podcast.
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No, we're making a B2B podcast. We're making a
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branded podcast with a B2B intent.
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And the B2 to be gives people
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permission to ignore the commercial job
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that the thing has. It's kind of a get out clause.
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It says, look, we don't have to justify any of
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this that we're making here with results because it's a
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B2B podcast and B2B podcasts are content
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and they're about the industry and about us being thought
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leaders and brand awareness. Yeah,
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about that. Let me be really clear about what I'm saying here.
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Let's leave no waters muddy. I'm not saying that
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every episode should end with a five minute sales pitch.
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I'm not saying you should hard sell any cold open. I'm not saying you should
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name drop your products and services every 40
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seconds like some cursed corporate
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idiot. A sales podcast, in the way that I'm defining
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it, is kind of the conversation
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that a genuinely brilliant person at your company who
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knows a lot, is great at talking to customers. A
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conversation they'd be having if they were sitting down
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in a room with a prospect who was pretty much 70%
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sure that they wanted to buy your products or your services. The kind
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of conversation where the prospect walks away, heads back home or
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to their office, and thinks to themselves, yeah,
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these are the people I want to work with. I don't really need to shop
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around anymore. It doesn't sell at them.
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It just removes any friction they might still have
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from signing an agreement with you. Think about that
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distinction, because that's exactly what we're talking about here.
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It's the whole game. The traditional B2B podcast
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tries to convince strangers. The sales
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podcast removes any remaining lingering doubt
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from the almost ready to buy that are lingering in
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the podcast apps or on your YouTube channel, loving the
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content you're putting out. One of those methods is a
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license to print money, sustain your business, grow
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and become the brilliant, brilliant company that you
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know you need to be. The other is a conveyor belt of hope.
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Let's talk about the three question test that I put every
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B2B podcast through to figure out whether or not they
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are genuinely making their podcast have a job. Go
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back to my episode about what job does your podcast do? To
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find out more about that. Here's how you tell the difference. Take
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your last three episodes, your most recent three episodes. Not what
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you plan to record, but what's already out there in the RSS feed
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on Apple podcasts on Spotify, and ask yourself these three
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questions. 1. Does this episode
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serve a specific buying trigger? Not a topic, not
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a theme, a buying trigger. A moment where prospect has
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thought to themselves, oh God, yeah, what
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I was doing isn't working. I really need some help? If the
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answer is eh, kinda maybe
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in a general way, then it's a no.
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Question 2 could a prospect comfortably
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bring an episode of yours into
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an internal conversation within their own business where they're talking about
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buying something? Could they present that to their boss
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and say this is why I want to hire these people,
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or would that feel embarrassing for them because
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the episode is too generic, doesn't get to the point, it's kind of
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meandering and it's too light and too safe to be
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quoted by any decision maker as evidence of a
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reason to buy. Question 3 By the end of the
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episode, is the next step obvious for them to take?
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Is it clear? Is it singular? You know, not check us out on
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our website, not follow us on LinkedIn.
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Just one clear place they need to go to to find out more.
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Take that next step in their relationship from
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being an anonymous listener or consumer of your content to someone
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that could be in a position to reach out and buy. And
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does it give them a reason why why they need to take that next step
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with you? Now, if you've answered with yes three times, you got a
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sales podcast. Well done. Two or fewer and you've got a pretty
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wishy washy industry podcast, a B2B podcast in the
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truest sense of the word, that's just operating very
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politely and doing not very much at all for your business. By the way, if
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you want to run this test for yourself properly, across
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all the questions I've shared and more, I built a one page
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self audit for you. I'll give you more on that in a minute.
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Here's the thing. When you start building episodes with this in mind, with
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this outcome designed in the process, when you accept that
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your podcast's job is to accelerate inbound
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conversions for those people who are already in your
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circle, then the whole thing changes for you. And
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I don't just mean the content, I mean what
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happens with and around your podcast. Your
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sales team starts using it confidently, adding it to email
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signatures, sharing episodes with would be
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prospects they want to get on the phone or in email. It becomes
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a specific sales asset, a weapon.
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You know you mentioned on our call last week that you are
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struggling with X
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and episode 11 of our podcast actually covers this off. That's the
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sales podcast earning its keep. When you know that your podcast
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is working, your prospects start quoting it back to you.
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I listened to your episode about why and that's
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exactly what we're dealing with. When can we sit down and have a chat about
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this? When can we start? That's a sales podcast doing the
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job. And it's the same as essentially doing the job of
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having three discovery calls in one hit. Just one
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download, just one listen. If this is working, then your
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marketing team stops panicking about reach and starts paying attention
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to the behavior of customers that are getting in touch.
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Who's binge listening? Which episodes are being shared, you
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know, inside the prospect's own company? Which ones are being
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quoted back on our sales calls? That's a signal. We talk
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about signals all the time in marketing. It's a
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real signal. It's not a download. It's not even a listen. It's a signal.
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It's evidence of customers wanting to buy from you.
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And here's the thing that really matters that nobody considers
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when they're just churning out content that they're calling a B2B podcast,
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your close rates change. Not because the
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podcast is converting cold strangers. No, it isn't.
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It's not meant to. If your podcast is doing its job,
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it's nurturing people from the top all the way down to that
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sales conversation. But if it's working, by the time that
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a prospect gets in front of your salesperson,
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a huge chunk of the heavy lifting is already done. They've heard you think
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they've heard what you got to say about matters. They've heard you disagree with
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industry consensus. It's a big part of why my show
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works, the one you're listening to right now. Because I don't go along with
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the industry norms, I challenge them. Doesn't make me popular.
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But it does mean my prospects totally trust that I know what I'm
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talking about. If they've heard you be specific about a problem that
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they're currently in, they're arriving pre sold. That's
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what inbound conversions actually look like when your
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sales podcast is doing its job and working properly.
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Not a flood of cold leads. A steadier, shorter,
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high quality pipeline where everyone who's showing
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up is already sold or at least halfway to signing with
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you. Here's the awkward bit that nobody wants to admit. Most
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B2B podcasters aren't accidentally failing to do
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this. They've been built on purpose in a way
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that makes it impossible. They've been built to avoid
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looking too commercial, to avoid upsetting anyone,
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to avoid having a point of view strong enough to stand for something
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and actually move anyone off of a fence. And the result is exactly
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what you'd expect in that scenario. A show that nobody hates,
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which is also a show that nobody buys from. If your podcast wouldn't
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make anyone in your industry slightly uncomfortable, it's not
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doing its job. Here's the way to look at it. If it couldn't
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possibly ever cost you any deal, then is definitely
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also not winning you one. A sales podcast has a spine.
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It takes a position on things. It names a problem
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specifically enough that the right listener feels seen and
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heard and the wrong listener moves on, blocks you
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and ignores you for life. Great. We didn't want them
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anyway. Still a bug in the matrix. It's the whole
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damn point. I hate your
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podcast. Whoa.
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Each episode I answer a question that's landed in my inbox from someone
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running or launching a B2B podcast. You can send yours to
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neal@podknows.co.uk, that's n e a l at p
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o d k n o w s dot co dot uk. this one's
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from Gareth, who runs operations at a B2B services firm in Cardiff.
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He says, neil, I'm recording my first episode next week and I'm already losing sleep
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about it. Every time I do a practice take, I freeze the second
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the red light comes on. Any advice before I completely embarrass myself on
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my own podcast? Gareth? First of all, breathe. Secondly,
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the nerves aren't the problem here. The cause of them is you're
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nervous because you're trying to sound like a podcaster. And
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we can tell, everyone starts out doing this.
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You got a voice in your head that's this, like, weird hybrid of
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every presenter, every podcast you've ever heard, and you're trying to merge them all together
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and make your own version of that. Don't impersonate people.
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You're not Stephen Bartlett or Joe Rogan. Thank God
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you're Gareth from Cardiff, who knows his industry inside
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out. And that is the person that people are going to press play to hear,
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not an imitation. Two practical things for you. Number one,
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before you record, pick someone real, like a colleague, a
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mate, a client that you actually like and pretend you're
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explaining the thing to them, not to a general audience.
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The audience is a collective, made up noun that makes you go
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weird on a microphone. A specific person in mind doesn't.
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Number two, stop listening back to the first 30 seconds of your
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takes, then the worst 30 seconds. I'm serious, that's
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where everyone sounds awful, including me, more than 20 years
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in. that point, you're still getting into your stride, getting into
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your flow. Start your listening back from about minute two, you'll
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realize you sound better than you think. Oh, and the final thing,
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the red light doesn't know anything about you. It's a
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diode. It can't judge you. You're allowed to ignore it.
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Quick tip for this episode and it's about your cover art. Your
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podcast cover art is not a logo. I see this constantly. A
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B2B company shoves their logo on a podcast
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Canva slide and calls it the podcast cover.
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They even put a microphone next to it. That's not cover art. That's
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company stationery. Cover art has two jobs. Neither of them are
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corporate. Job one Tell a human being in a
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thumbnail the size of a postage stamp what the show's about and who it's
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for. Job number two Be legible enough to
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match the Apple podcasts and Spotify search indexing
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and show somebody that's scrolling for a particular
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search term that this is the show for them. Your company logo
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tells them neither of these things, right? If any of this has landed
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if you've been listening to this episode, realizing that your show is a well
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produced industry podcast and not a sales podcast,
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I built you something for it. It's called the Sales Podcast Self
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Audit. It's a one page PDF with seven yes or no
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questions. You run your last three episodes through it. You score it honestly,
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and by the end you'll know exactly where your show sits on the
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scale between inbound conversion machine and expensive
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LinkedIn content filler. You'll find it at
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podknows.co.uk/sales-podcast
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test. That's P
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O D K N O
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W S dot co dot uk slash sales dash podcast dash test.
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The link is in the episode description. Until next time, stop
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making an industry podcast that hides behind the word
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B2B. Start creating a sales asset
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that earns its place in your overall company pipeline. Talk
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to you on the next episode.