Full Written Transcript of The Episode

Matt Tompkins: What is a podcast? When we’re asked that question, I think each of us has a different idea of what a podcast is in our head right now. For some, you may be picturing Marc Maron interviewing a celebrity in his garage or for others, it’s Joe Rogan. That’s a pretty obvious go to for podcasting. He’s sitting in his multi-million dollar studio stirring up controversy. Or others may be picturing video, only it’s just a YouTube show. Others may be it’s only audio. It’s Serial, it’s NPR, New York Times. Everybody has a different idea in their head of what a podcast is.

But on today’s episode, I want you to set that aside and I want you to think of a podcast as what it really is a tool. Podcasting is a tool. And not only that, podcasting is the most affordable and effective marketing tool for growing your business. On this episode we have not just one, but two podcast pros here to give you the secret to Skyrocket your Business.

A podcast. Hello and welcome back to Midwest Mindset, the podcast that gives you the small business owner, the big Agency Secrets to Marketing. I’m Matt Tompkins of two Brothers Creative, where we believe every business deserves affordable and effective marketing. If you’ve ever been to a local business networking group or just had conversations with other business owners, you have probably been told the very long list of things you need to be doing or should be doing with your marketing. Yet other business owners are happy to tell us what we need to be doing.

From SEO and SEM to blog articles to videos over here that are different than videos over here. And no, this new social channel is the social channel you want to be on, but they neglect to tell us how we’re supposed to do all these things or when we’re supposed to find the time to do all of these things.

Matt Tompkins: So as small business owners, we’re constantly on the hunt trying to find this this singular thing, the silver bullet that will check off every box on our marketing wishlist. Podcasting is exactly what we have been searching for.

Podcasting is unlike any other medium in the way that it builds trust. The ways that it can be utilized, the techniques we’re going to talk about today on this episode that Trump cold calling and cold emailing that establish you as an authority, as a credible go to in your industry as a thought leader for branding, for content, for just pure SEO output, you get four times the SEO output from every single episode. Podcasts are tracked just like the written blog now, just like the written word.

You can quadruple your SEO output with just 110 15 minute episode. And we are going to go through the process of how you can minimize the time down to just 20 minutes per week and fulfill an entire week’s worth of marketing for your business. It truly is incredible.

And I’m not going to do this alone. We didn’t want just one podcast expert, one podcast pro here. We wanted two. And that’s why I went to my podcast coach and mentor. I work with him in radio. He was my program director for over a decade and he is still the VP Senior VP of Programming at Iheartmedia, as well as the podcast talent Coach. Eric Johnson Podcast Talent Coach.com. I asked Eric, why does every business need a podcast?

Erik Johnson: Podcast is the best way to build rapport with your clients. Nothing is like audio. If you and I are watching a video together, we’re watching a movie, we’re watching a YouTube video. We see the exact same thing.

There’s very little left to the imagination and so it’s very black and white, cut and dry. When I’m telling you a story and you’re listening to audio, the audio leaves a lot to the imagination. If I if I describe to you a red Ford Mustang sitting out front of a casino, you’re envisioning that Mustang in a way that’s ideal for you and brings you the most pleasure. Is the Mustang a 68 or an 86? Is it convertible or hardtop? Is it cherry red? Is it running? Is there anybody in it? Is anybody standing around? Is it daytime or nighttime?

Matt Tompkins: Mine has Chevy Chase driving it for some reason. I don’t know.

Erik Johnson: Why. I don’t even want to know. I don’t. That’s very odd.

Matt Tompkins: But you know, it’s my imagination. Okay, Let me chase.

Erik Johnson: It reminds me of a National Lampoon’s Vacation.

Matt Tompkins: Yeah, That’s the way it came into my head.

Erik Johnson: That’s why. But I don’t know that Chevy Chase was driving. Okay, Maybe.

Matt Tompkins: I should have imagined the beautiful woman.

Erik Johnson: In it, but that would have been more comfortable. So that’s what audio does for you. It lets you build that rapport.

So the four steps of the sales process, you build a rapport with your with your prospect, qualify them to make sure they’re right for you and you’re right for them. You educate them on your solution and then you close the sale. But everybody rushes to that educate. Hey, let me tell you what I have to sell you. Here’s my thing. And we haven’t built the rapport yet.

Building rapport is about 40% of the sales process and then that qualifying your prospect is another 30. Like I need to make sure you’re right for me and you need to make sure I’m right for you. And a podcast allows your listener to self qualify themselves. They understand what you believe in, what you value, how you operate, and by listening to your podcast and the stories that you tell and what you share about yourself, they build that relationship.

Matt Tompkins: People want to do business with people they know, like and trust. Trust is everything. Everything comes down to trust.

Trust is what every marketer, every advertiser, every business is chasing after. Because once you have established trust, people will fill in the blanks. We’ve talked about the difference between our feeling brain and our thinking brain and how we make decisions based off of our feeling brain That’s all about who we trust.

And podcasting is a format that is designed to be unlike any other medium. It’s intimate, it’s personal. It’s one on one. I mean, you’re literally inside someone else’s head speaking to them.

Erik Johnson: Know, like and trust is just another way to say rapport or friendship relationship. You’re building that bond when people are consuming video. A lot of times if we’re watching TV, we’re watching it with other people and we’re seeing the exact same thing.

And it’s a communal activity. When it’s audio, you’re listening to audio while you’re driving, you’re listening to audio while you’re working out, exercising, riding a bike, walking the dog. It’s usually just you and what you’re listening to.

The only reason people listen to audio is for companionship. They don’t want to do whatever it is they’re doing by themselves, so they have something on to listen to. Video, especially on YouTube, is a phenomenal way to get discovered. It’s one of the best search engines there. There is in a way, for you to get discovered and people see what you have to offer.

The podcast builds the relationship. With everybody. So use your video to get discovered. Use the podcast to build a relationship so you’re right there in their pocket, in their ear, talking to them with a one on one conversation every week.

Matt Tompkins: What I love about podcasting for small business owners who are limited on time and need maximum results is that you do one thing, you do one action, and you get many things out of that one action.

For example, we’re talking about some of the many benefits, the very effective results driven benefits of an audio podcast distributed to 45 plus audio platforms from Apple to Spotify and everybody in between. But you also can layer video on top of it. So you’re still doing that one action recording, that audio podcast. Now it is a video podcast on YouTube and we’re going to talk about some of these techniques that we use with our clients every day to get even more value out of it, especially when it comes to your SEO. Absolutely.

Erik Johnson: Video is such a powerful medium to get discovered and bring people into your world. So start with the video to get discovered. Take that audio, use it as your podcast to build a relationship and then use the transcript of it or your show notes for the blog post on your website. So you’re taking the same piece of content, repurposing it in three different ways. It starts giving you SEO Google juice so people find you when they’re searching for you. You have those keywords in there and it’s just a great way to build your brand and build your business and attract new clients. Every business should have a podcast.

Matt Tompkins: Now, as with any other form of media, it is important that you know what you want your audience to do. Who is your target market? Who is your ideal customer, or in this case, your ideal listener?

And hopefully those two align so your podcast can help you grow your business. But then what is the message you’re going to craft? How are you going to resonate deeply with that audience and what is it that you want them to do?

Erik Johnson: Your podcast is a marketing tool for your business, and so before you ever record a podcast, you need to decide what you want your audience to do when the episode is over. What is that first step? They can take down the path to doing business with you That could be downloading a free resource you have on your website to put them on your email list.

That could be sign up for a webinar that you’re holding that could be attend a free event that a networking mixer that you’re holding on Friday afternoon could be an open house that you’re having on Saturday. Whatever it happens to be, decide what that call to action is before you record the content of the episode, then make the content of the episode, stir that emotion in them, and talk a lot about the why and why they want to take action and why they want to accomplish what it is that you’re going to help them accomplish.

So the call to action becomes powerful at the end. But there’s so many ways to get leads. If you get people on your email list by offering them a free resource over on the website, now you can follow up with those leads. You can get people to sign up for a sample of your product or service. You can get them to attend an event you’re holding and get them to sign up, buy tickets, come to a free event. There are so many ways to get leads, but they’re building a relationship with you. They’re building that rapport. They’re getting to know who you are by the stories that you tell.

So many people want to create a podcast and they just want to make it information like, I’m going to teach you my six steps to success. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. I can take your six steps to success success, and I can teach them as well. There’s nothing that’s going to separate the two of us. The only thing that’s going to make you different is your story and your personality and your journey. It’s your opinion and your take on the information. Why are you.

Matt Tompkins: The person to lead people on this?

Erik Johnson: Why should I listen to you? Right. I has information cornered like you’re not going to out information. I am right there aggregating everything on the Internet. It’s your opinion and your thoughts of that information that will separate you. And that’s what I can’t copy. And that’s how you’re going to build a relationship with your audience. I mean, pun intended.

Matt Tompkins: It’s your voice. It is your voice, both literally and figuratively. It is your.

Erik Johnson: Voice. You have to be authentic. You can’t be out and pretend to be something you’re not. You can’t be this persona and this, you know, you don’t you don’t need a big radio voice. You don’t need to be somebody you’re not.

You don’t need to be Joe Rogan. You just need to be you and have an opinion and make somebody care. I often say if your audience was to rate you on a 1 to 5 scale one, I hate him. Five I love him. If everybody’s rating you a three, you’re dead in the water. Like three means I can take it or leave it. I don’t care if you have more fives than ones you’re doing all right.

Matt Tompkins: Eric coaches his podcasters on the many, many different ways there are to generate direct leads and sales from a podcast to profit from your podcast. One of the most effective is interviews, and I’ve seen this firsthand. We had a client and they were sending out cold emails, not getting the response rate that they wanted, and we simply shifted it up.

We flipped the script, as they say, and in. Invited those same people to be a guest on their podcast. 80% not only responded. 80% said yes. Compare that to the 8% response they were getting in just their normal cold emails. So imagine if you have this big name client, the CEO, this top executive, this person you admire, you want to collaborate with.

You want to partner, you want to do business with or it’s just a client you want to land using your podcast as a way, a proverbial foot in the door to invite them on your show is a way to leave them with an unforgettable first impression and build and nurture this new relationship that you would have otherwise had no opportunity to begin.

Erik Johnson: Zoe Roth came to me looking for some coaching, and she’s a consultant. She’s she lives in Australia. She’s actually from Canada. She goes into businesses and helps them tear down the silos so departments can work better together. And so she she’s a consultant in that arena and she came to me to help her with her podcast. And I asked her, how many downloads is your podcast getting? And she goes, I don’t know. I don’t even look.

That’s not what I do it for. And I said, Really? Why is that? And she goes, I use my podcast to open doors to prospective clients. She said, When I try and cold call a client, it’s very difficult to get past the gatekeeper and actually get an appointment scheduled with them to talk to them about what I can do for their business. But when I call and and invite them to be a guest on my podcast, they take my call nearly every time because they all want to be on my show.

So I’ll invite the CEO to be on the show. We’ll have a conversation about booking the interview, then we’ll have a pre interview conversation where we can kind of get to know each other and talk about what the interview will be about. Then we’ll do the interview, they’ll come in and we’ll sit down and we’ll do the interview. So I met with them a third time and then when the podcast episode is ready to be published, I reach out to them again and say, We’re publishing the episode, Here are the assets, here’s the link to the show and here’s when it’s going live and that sort of thing. And then I reach out a fifth time and we talk about how it went, how everything went. And at that time we now have a relationship built because we’ve spoken on the phone five different times, and that’s when we start talking about how we can work together. Now, before.

Matt Tompkins: You let that imposter syndrome creep in and tell you who’s going to want to be on my podcast, I only have 100 downloads an episode or ten downloads an episode. Let me tell you, hear firsthand, they do not report downloads publicly for any podcast.

That is another way. Podcasting is truly unique and nobody cares. Podcasting is a lot like your bench press. You are the only person who knows how much you can bench and you are the only person who cares. Podcasting is not about how many downloads you matter. Size does not matter. It’s about the quality of those downloads and who is listening to your show. Trust me when I tell you that people will say yes to coming on your podcast as a guest.

Erik Johnson: So many people are worried about the size of their audience. Well, who wants to be on my show? I don’t even have you know, I don’t have that many listeners. I don’t think I’ve ever had a guest say, How many listeners do you have on your show unless you’re shooting for the top of the top?

Like if you’re shooting for an A-list celebrity who is who is limited in their time and very selective on who they grant interviews to, nobody’s going to ask you what your audience size is. They’re just flattered to be interviewed by your show. Well, an average people don’t even know what a good download number is. Yeah, they.

Matt Tompkins: Don’t know what it means.

Erik Johnson: I have 512 downloads. What does that mean? Yeah. Is that good? Compared to what? Like, I don’t know. I don’t.

Matt Tompkins: Know. We don’t do this with television ratings. We don’t know if I want to watch that. Jimmy Kimmel. I mean, he’s only got 3 million viewers compared to, you know, Jimmy Fallon over here. He’s got ten. I’m going to watch him like, no, nobody cares.

Nobody cares. Nobody cares. It’s just in our heads. So far, we’ve talked about how to generate new business leads with your podcast, how to use your podcast as a platform for branding. When you layer in video, the other truly substantial value to your podcast is with SEO search engine optimization, or as we like to call it on this show, trying to start a trend being search engine friendly podcasts are the most search engine friendly thing that there is, especially when you follow the formula we’re going to give you here in just a minute.

Erik Johnson: Absolutely. I like the way you say SEO or search engine friendly rather than optimization, because so many search engine optimization companies promise to make your website and your content optimized. Well, the problem is the search engines change their algorithms all the time.

Matt Tompkins: Google just did their 3,000th change over the last year. So yeah.

Erik Johnson: If it’s optimized this year, it’s probably not going to be optimized next year. So just create great content and make it very rich and valuable and search engines will find you. Don’t don’t try and game the system. Don’t. Stuff your content with with search engine phrases and terms and things like that. Because if you’re gaming the system today, it’s not going to work tomorrow. But if you’re making great content and you’re sharing valuable information and it’s unique because you’ve added your story and your opinion, then it will stand out from everything else and it will get noticed and it will get shared by other sites and other people. The number one way people discover podcasts is through word of mouth.

They hear other people talk about It might be mentioned on another podcast. A friend might tell you, you might see it mentioned on social media, you might see it mentioned in an article. But that’s the number one way. And the way to get people to talk about you is do things worth talking about. Just create great content, share valuable information, help people, provide them information on your show, and then give them an opportunity to take a next step with you to to work with your business and really succeed through the information you share with them.

Matt Tompkins: And in the in the show notes, we’ve had this in the show the last few episodes. We’ll put it in there again today for you. You can download a free checklist on how to write and or structure, I should say an SEO friendly blog article so you can use this. It’s not advanced math, trust me.

They act like they wrote the algorithms themselves. Right. But these agencies, they’re just doing what other websites are telling them to do. That’s all that they’re doing. So they failed college math just like the rest of us, you know? So except for maybe Eric, because I know you were an architect, so you’re good at math.

Erik Johnson: The problem is AI is coming in and AI and it’s taking over. Yeah, they’re going to it’s going to make you optimize it anyway. You’re not going to need an agency. Just ask Chatgpt how to optimize your website. It’ll tell you so.

Matt Tompkins: So Eric, you coached a lot of podcasters. I’m curious what you think, what you think of this process. This is kind of how we work through it. It’s kind of our secret sauce to minimize the time, kind of simplify the process. So what we do is we say, okay, we’re going to do some research for whatever your podcast or business is, and if those two align together, that’s that’s a good thing. Your ideal customer or ideal listener go through that process.

So let’s say for the year we’re going to really own this certain phrase, you know, we’re going to own the word marketing or whatever it might be your video podcast, and then build out content and the episodes. What we advise clients to do is go through and write this, follow that checklist for the blog, write a blog article, then use your blog article as your prep for your podcast episode.

You can link back and forth as we’ve talked about, and then you can also break up your your blog into little sections for little additional video content that you can use for your company. And you really kind of that’s kind of how we streamline and simplify the process of start with writing it, then you record it in an audio form, then you have the video, then you have however you can kind of parcel up that podcast to amplify all of that content. So you’re getting, like I said, at least four times the output. Is there any other tips you give for business owners who want to.

Erik Johnson: I like the own the phrase for the year and I like taking the blog post and making that into various pieces of content that you can share on social media and your videos and that sort of thing. I like a piece in the middle of it and it’s themes that might stretch for a length of time. So you might do over four weeks or 12 weeks where you have a content plan.

So on my show I might talk about the confidence to start and imposter syndrome on one episode, and I might take that into how to structure your podcast and I might take that into content ideas and I might take that into interviewing style, and I may take that into storytelling, and then I might take that into how to generate leads, and then I might take that into how to grow your business. So it’s a, it’s a story arc that starts with where do we start with our podcast?

How do we get the confidence to start? And it ends with how do I drive my business with the show? So it’s it’s a story arc that leads into that monetization of your podcast. So if monetization is the my phrase of the year that I want to own, what is the path over the course of the next 12 weeks or eight weeks or four weeks?

Matt Tompkins: It’s like the transformation. What is the transformation your listeners going to undergo? Absolutely. And to know that you have to know where they’re starting and where they’re going to end up. Same thing, by the way, for any business, you’re here with a problem. We have the solution. And then here’s the end result. Here’s where you’re going to end up, Right.

Erik Johnson: Here are the steps you need to take. And now I create episodes for each of those steps. So I love the way that you break it out and then repurpose the content on video on YouTube and your podcast and your blog and your social media and all of those little areas where you create the content one time and then just use pieces of it to be everywhere. And now they’re all linking together and now all of a sudden your SEO friendly put them all.

Matt Tompkins: Back to your website where you own the content. And Eric, you know, you coach a lot of podcasters. Eric By the way, full disclosure was, you know, Ben and I’s coach for I don’t know how many painful years that was for you in radio and broadcasting. You came a long way.

Erik Johnson: It was. That was a lot of fun.

Matt Tompkins: It was fun, though. Yeah, I remember starting. Or not if it was just don’t even want to listen to my first aircheck. But mine either. But Eric is great if you’re a business owner, if you’re a podcaster and you want somebody who can help you through this process. Eric is the guy. That is why he is the podcast talent coach. And speaking of websites, podcast talent coach, dot com slash magnet. We have so and then tell us what that is exactly.

Erik Johnson: So that’ll give you 21 lead magnet ideas. So we talk about generating leads. How do we get people on your on your email list? Well, here’s a little secret. Nobody wants to sign up for your newsletter. Nobody wakes up in the morning going, Oh, I hope I have another newsletter in my inbox.

Matt Tompkins: You know what I’m going to do today? I want to go read the About Us section of some random company.

Erik Johnson: That doesn’t happen. That doesn’t happen. So let’s give them a valuable piece of information in exchange for their name and email address.

So it might be seven ways to attract your ideal listeners. Or it might be how to grow your business with podcasting or something like that. I have 21 different lead magnet ideas that you can use in your business to give people value, to get them on your email list when they’re on your email list, then you can nurture them, send them great information, bring them back to your podcast, get them to your free events, and start building that relationship so you can get that at podcast. Talent coach.com/magnet.

And I’m all about helping people with their content. You know it’s so many people will teach you how to launch a podcast you know go watch a YouTube video. Launching the show isn’t the hard part, but so many people get their show launched and they go, okay, now what? Now what? Now what? Know what? 7 to 10 episodes. Seven is the average.

Matt Tompkins: Before people throw in the towel.

Erik Johnson: People give up at seven episodes because for three reasons. One, they they figure out it’s more work than they thought it was going to be. Right. Because they don’t have a strategy. Right. They don’t have the plan like you just discussed. Here’s how you do it without eating up your entire week. If you watch the YouTube video, they don’t show you that. Yeah, they don’t.

Matt Tompkins: Show you the hard part. Yeah, They.

Erik Johnson: Don’t grow their audience fast as they thought they would because they don’t have a plan and a strategy to go get in front of new listeners and bring them in. You know, they figure if you build it, they will come. That doesn’t happen and they don’t monetize their show as fast as they thought they would because, again, they don’t have a strategy.

They don’t do what we just talked about. They don’t have a plan to walk people from discovery to enrolling as a client. And without that plan, they give up. They throw that towel in at seven episodes. So that’s what I help people do. I help them take their content, turn their information into entertainment and turn their podcast into powerful, profitable relationships so they can grow their business with their show.

Matt Tompkins: Thanks, Eric, for joining us here on the podcast today. If you would like to download Eric Johnson’s Free 21 lead Magnet ideas, the link is in the show notes from the podcast Talent Coach himself. We’re going to have Eric back on the podcast again to do a whole episode dedicated to specific lead generating techniques that you can implement with your podcast to grow your business.

Thanks for joining us here on Midwest Mindset and we’ll see you on the next episode.