Podcasting: The Secret Weapon for Business Growth and Community Building

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Sandy Springs, Georgia. It’s time for Sandy Springs Business Radio. Now here’s your host. This episode of Sandy Springs Business Radio is brought to you by Connect the Dots Digital. When you’re ready to leverage LinkedIn to meet your business goals, go to Connect the Dots Dot digital.

Rachel Simon: Hi Lee, how are you?

Lee Kantor: I am doing well. Welcome to hosting your show virtually.

Rachel Simon: Yes. I’m sorry we can’t be together.

Lee Kantor: I know there was. The Sandy Springs Perimeter Chamber had some issues, but we’re here making it work virtually.

Rachel Simon: So well. I’m super excited about the show today. You know, normally we have a guest, but it’s the summer and everyone’s schedules are a little wonky, including my own. So I was out of town. And so I think we have a really fun conversation for the two of us to have on a topic I’m a big fan of, which is podcasts. You know, I was just out of town and I listened to I listened to podcasts a lot. But when you’re on vacation and I was sitting on trains in Europe, I listened to even more. So, um, I think we’re gonna have a lot of fun things to chat about in, uh, in the value and sort of challenges when it comes to creating, producing and maintaining podcasts, which is something obviously you are an expert in.

Lee Kantor: Yes. I you know, I’d like to tell people if you do something a few thousand times, you learn a couple things from it.

Rachel Simon: Exactly. So, you know, I’m sure you’ve heard this stat before, but it is a bit jaw dropping, which is that, um, only 90% of podcasts make it past episode three.

Lee Kantor: Yes.

Rachel Simon: Which is amazing.

Lee Kantor: It is. It’s kind of shocking because there are millions of podcasts kind of in the library of the various third party platforms like Apple and Spotify. And sadly, most of them have, you know, less than four episodes. And I think a reason for that is podcasting is easy to begin. It’s just hard to, uh, sustain over a period of time, and especially if you’re not getting any kind of results in terms of, you know, how you imagine it to be. So it’s easy to start, but hard to sustain.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, it’s interesting because I over many years of, you know, being in lots of different communities with entrepreneurs and business owners, there’s been many, many times that somebody is like, I’m going to start a podcast. And I’m always like, okay, do you know how to start a podcast? Do you have the time to, you know, make it happen? Do you have the what you need to record it for the sound? Are you going to edit it? Are you going to how are you producing it? How are you pushing out? Um, and you know, the amount of time and energy is that something that is particularly when you’re a business owner or a small business, is that going to push your revenue goals forward, or is it just something that feels like work? And it’s kind of fun, but may take up more time than it’s worth? It’s very interesting, and many of those people, I think, are in that category of having produced, you know, less than ten and have been kind of thrown in the towel.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s one of those things that, uh, since I’ve been doing this and I’ve been doing this for, uh, close to 20 years. So I was doing it at the beginning of podcasting, and it’s something that I didn’t even it wasn’t even on my radar, because most of the people I work with have shows that last for years. I mean, we have lots of people who have shows five, six, seven years. Um, you know, I host the Atlanta Business Radio, which I’ve been running continuously for the almost the entirety of my time doing this, like since the beginning of podcasting almost 20 years ago. So it’s one of those things I didn’t realize that so many people start and then quit so quickly until I heard that stat. So it is pretty amazing to me that folks go through the effort to begin and then quit so quickly.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, I mean, it’s very, you know, it makes sense, I think on the again, on the small business, the entrepreneur side. But I think where it is surprising, um, that falls into that category is when organizations, when larger companies decide to, you know, get leverage their expertise, leverage their thought leaders to produce a podcast, and they still run into challenges. And so, you know, a stat that I um, saw is 60% of companies, uh, cite a lack of internal expertise as a barrier to podcast production, which makes sense, right? Who’s going to be the one internally? Who’s going to create it? Is it going to be your marketing director who already has 15 other things on their plate? Are you going to outsource it? Um, and if so, you know, where’s that budget coming from? Um, in order to get get your return on the investment of doing so. Uh, so I thought that was very interesting that companies struggle with this as well.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And a lot of times in their head, they’re like, oh, we’re going to just have our, our leader be smart. And so we’ll just interview them or they’re going to share their expertise, or they’ll be the host of the show. And then reality strikes that their leader is busy leading and they’re not busy, you know, kind of doing all the work it takes to execute a podcast on a regular rhythm and that they realize pretty quickly they’re like, okay, we’ll do this once a month. It’ll be the third Tuesday of the month, okay, let’s do it. And they get the first one. They’re like, oh, that was great. And then the second one comes along and they’re like, I got a meeting or, oh, this thing came up or there’s a fire I got to put out and I can’t do it. And then all of a sudden they miss that month, and then one month they miss it turns into two months. And all of a sudden you used to be doing a podcast and that was, you know, now it’s a back burner thing. It’s no longer a priority. So it’s really hard for, uh, especially growing, fast growing organizations to have their leader carve out time to do a podcast on any type of regular rhythm. Um, and to get that return that they’re looking for.

Rachel Simon: Right. And I think that that, you know, the the intentions are always, you know, from coming from the right place as far as, again, we have got this all this internal expertise, we need to leverage it. It’s so easy to because we just need people to talk. And how hard could that be? Just talk and we’ll do. We’ll take care of the rest. Um, but, you know, one of the other challenges I see all the time is when these shows are are created. They’re not leveraged well enough beyond sort of that initial push out. Right. So maybe it gets pushed out on LinkedIn through the company page like, hey, here’s our newest episode, but that long form piece of content, your podcast, there’s so much richness in there and it’s just kind of sitting there collecting dust. And, uh, unfortunately, you know, that value is not fully taken advantage of. Um, whether this comes, you know, company A is able to produce five shows or they are able to really get in that rhythm of producing something on a consistent basis.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, that’s a mistake. I think that a lot of podcast guests make. Um, they don’t take that piece of content and repurpose it. I think you can repurpose it multiple times a year. Like I would look at any piece of content I create and put in my calendar. When it comes out, I’m going to put immediately into my calendar every at least quarter. I’m going to just put it out again and say, hey, I was on this podcast because no one’s going to remember and it’s still good information. Most of what we’re talking about in a business to a B2B podcast is kind of evergreen. We’re not talking about breaking news where it becomes irrelevant in a month. We’re usually talking about kind of, uh, things that will be true in three months, six months, a year. So why not just put out a blurb in your social media again about something you did three months ago no one is going to remember, and the way these social media platforms work. Anyway, your initial post didn’t go to your entire list anyway, so who cares if you know this will be new people that’ll see it. So I have no qualms at all about repurposing content. You know, multiple times the same piece of content, you know, three or 4 or 6, as many as you want really, over a period of time.

Rachel Simon: Oh, I you know, I love repurposing content. Um, and so I completely agree. And, you know, something that I’ve done is, um, is now I’ve been on a had the, you know, honor of being on a bunch of different podcasts. And so I have created a Spotify playlist of all the shows I’ve been on, which is in my featured content on LinkedIn. There’s a little tip for y’all if you’re a frequent guest, make a playlist. And I’ve actually sent that to prospects. They want to get a sense of sort of how I present on my area of expertise, which is you’ve been listening to us for a while, you know, is LinkedIn. Um, I send them an episode that I’ve been on and say, oh, here in this one, I specifically was talking about how leadership can position themselves on LinkedIn or how a sales team can leverage LinkedIn because nothing is better than you kind of talking about your area of expertise very organically to get for someone to get a sense of what it would be like to work with you. Um, and so that’s a fun little thing that I, I use, and I should just go back and repost some of those episodes. I’m going to go ahead and schedule that into my content calendar.

Lee Kantor: And it’s one of those things. And that’s a great idea with the playlist because it’s in essence, your portfolio. It’s giving a person a prospect. This this is the last mile, right? This is the time they’re going to make a buying decision. They can hear your own voice, your own passion, your own expertise in your own words shine. And then they can make that buying decision. Okay. I believe Rachel is right for me. I can tell she thinks like I think she’s she’s going to be able to help me solve this problem. Look, she’s obviously an expert. She’s been on all these podcasts. So it checks the box of social proof. And it also checks the box of hearing your own kind of expertise in your own words, your own passion. Um, so that’s it’s in essence to me, your portfolio. Um, it shows you that you can do the work that you’re promising that you can.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s a great way of describing it. And it’s just a nice asset to have as well. And, and, you know, one of the things I mean for people listening, if you have been on podcasts, if you I mean, I don’t know, I listen to all the shows I’ve been on and there have been some where I’m like, this lady really knows what she’s talking about here. Like, because when you’re in the moment, you’re not really thinking about it and going back and listening. But it’s also helpful to kind of think about content ideas that are coming from those conversations that you’re having with people that I know on our shows here, our guests always get a, you know, they get the show, they get their audio recording, they also get a written transcript. And so that is such a great tool to be able to kind of mine content ideas from whether it is, you know, blog posts, LinkedIn social media posts, um, you know, ideas for presentations. Whatever the case may be, there’s just tremendous amount of rich, uh, content to be found in, in your conversations that you’re passionate about, because that’s the best way to kind of showcase your expertise is when you’re excited about it.

Lee Kantor: Right. And that’s something that we do at Business RadioX that’s a little different is we transcribe every, um, interview. So it’s important to grab that audio content, which really right now isn’t, uh, the ability to search that isn’t great right now. It’s getting better, but it’s not great. But the transcripts to create the digital text, which is searchable, is so important because that is where those chunks of information will be grabbed by the search engines. And and you’ll be found that way. And then from in terms of content to have for the guest, they can see all the words and they can grab chunks and they can say, oh, you know what? This would be a cool little quote on Instagram. Or this I can take this little clip here, starting from here to there, and I can edit it out and I can make a little video about this, a little highlight reel or, you know, you can use it in, in so many ways, when you have the text in front of you that you can read or like you said, you can make a blog post or you can go, you know what? I’m going to flesh this out and make an article about that, or I’m going to send this chunk to a prospect to remind them that I’ve solved this problem before. So having that, uh, an audio podcast, also in digital text format is so important. And it just kind of like you said, adds to this exponential pile of content that you can repurpose, you know, for months or years.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, switching gears a little bit, I know, um, on our show, we’ve had a few guests who are involved with different, um, community organizations, associations. And so, you know, what is it that, um, associations can do to really kind of pull podcasting into their, um, into their marketing plan, into their membership plan. Like how is podcasting an asset when if you have a membership organization?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, this is something that we’ve stumbled upon, uh, several years ago, is to create an offering just for, um, associations and business groups. And, and our model of doing this is we realized, like we discussed earlier, that the thought leaders intentions are good and they want to capture some of that thought leadership. So we include some of that thought leadership capture as part of the deliverable to them. But what we’re doing on their behalf on a regular basis, which is kind of counterintuitive, is we’re interviewing the members of the association and giving them a platform to tell their stories, and this activity is really a game changer for associations, because what it does is it allows them to show their members that they value them, and they are helping promote them and helping them get their next client, which is one of the reasons that a lot of these, especially B2B association members, are joining the association is to get more clients. So not only are they learning stuff from the association and getting the advocacy from the association, they’re also getting the association to kind of promote their work and share the stories that, uh, about their work to their other members. So that’s super important, um, for the membership. Because what we do when we do the interviews, we’re not only just hearing their story about what makes them special and unique. We’re also in the course of the interviewing. We’re asking them why they joined the association, what they’ve gotten out of the association. And when we do that, I would say 100% of the time we’re getting a great testimonial from the member.

Lee Kantor: And then when we one of our deliverables back to the association is we pull out that, um, that testimonial and we give them the association, the interview in its entirety. But we also pull out the testimonial. And so what they’re able to do is create that library of testimonials so they can do what you suggested and create those Spotify playlists of just testimonials so they can hear from the members mouths. Exactly why it’s great to be a member of this association and what they’ve gotten out of it. And I’ve had one association, even at their annual meeting, they took all of the clips of the testimonials, and they were just running it in a loop, um, at the, at the conference in the background. So they’re seeing all these members just talk about how great the association is. And, um, and what it did is it created a lot of engagement and a lot of positive feelings about the association and an unintended consequence of doing this kind of work is these associations realize the spotlighting of their members, and giving them that kind of love is a great way for them to refer new members to them, and these people are now looking to reciprocate back to the association and helping that association find their next member or two. And that is really where the rubber hits the road, and that’s where they see this tremendous ROI. Not only are they getting just tons of content, tons of testimonials, they’re capturing their leaders thought leadership. They’re also getting their members engaged and looking for ways to help the association grow by building their membership.

Rachel Simon: I mean, it’s like it’s like a win win, win, win win. There’s so many wins in there across the board. Um, and I love it for so many reasons. Uh, but one of the big main areas that what you were saying that I think is, is really so important to highlight is that there’s a lot of people, a lot of really smart professionals who have a lot of wisdom to share and And maybe a goal is to get on podcasts more often, but it can be a scary prospect of like, how do I find them? And I’ve never been on one before. Like, we’ve had guests on our show that it’s their first time ever being on a podcast, and they’re so nervous. Even though we try, we make them feel very calm and at ease because there’s nothing to be scared of. Um, but there’s a level of of, you know, nerves that go into it. And to make it so easy where these associations are just saying, sit down, we’re going to have a very comfortable conversation because we know you and you know us, and we just want you to talk about what you do. And we’re going to put the spotlight on you. Um, is such a good way of getting people to feel, uh, valued and at ease and start to build their library of podcasts, because once you’ve been on 1 or 2, it’s a lot easier to get on more, in my experience. So I just love that so much. It’s such a huge, huge value.

Lee Kantor: Right. And that’s what, um, one of the tenants of Business RadioX since the beginning is we always want to be the safe place for these people to go. And we understand these are not professionally trained media, you know, media people, they’re business owners that are just trying to get through the day in their business so they don’t really have the time to be an expert, uh, you know, media performer. So we try to be a safe place. And, and our intention is to support and celebrate their work. We’re not investigative reporters, so we try to give them a safe environment for them to share their story, to be comfortable and to know that we’re there, kind of watching their back and to help them articulate what makes them special and unique.

Rachel Simon: Yeah. And I would imagine that, um, within, you know, various associations, then it becomes a, uh, you know, something that members want to do, right? Oh, how do I get on there? When can I book a show to, uh. Because I want to do that. That looks like fun. And I think that’s so smart that that one group that you mentioned kind of used all those testimonials, um, during their conference as a loop because it first of all, you know how like when you are at a like some sort of event and there’s like a photo montage, you always get so excited when you see yourself in there. And I’m sure that the people whose, uh, testimonials were shown, like, were so excited when theirs came up, like, hey, that’s me. People love to see themselves exactly talk about themselves.

Lee Kantor: And they become a little bit of celebrities because the other people see them too. And they’re like, oh, I saw you on the screen. Like then they get that kind of, uh, attention that it’s all positive, it’s all kind of supportive. It really kind of leans into the mission of most associations that they’re trying to help their members be more successful. So this type of activity, while it might seem counterintuitive to spotlight your members, is really a great way to create that win win, win all the way around for everybody. Because by spotlighting your members, you’re really showcasing how important the association is, that they have members like that and it lets people connect easier because now they know this a little bit about them that maybe they didn’t know before. The members have a way to kind of share how great the association is because they take their interview and like you mentioned earlier, and they repurpose it, and it’s going out to the world about how this association spotlighted them. Oh, I didn’t even know about that association. Let me learn more about it. Like so it creates content in a very engaging way, and it makes the members feel good about being a member of this association. So it does create a lot of good vibes in a kind of win win win all the way around, um, elegant manner.

Rachel Simon: It’s like it’s like when you see yourself on the jumbotron and a Braves game, you’re like, that’s me, right? Damn. Um, well, for these, uh, when you’ve done this for different associations, how often are they producing shows?

Lee Kantor: Well, we have, um, our main service when we do this is we have a done for you element where we’re just we’re doing the interviews of the members, Um, at whatever rhythm they want to do. So some people want us to interview, you know, one, two members a month, some want to do. We’re doing interviews. I’ve done weeks where I’ve done five, ten interviews for one association. It just depends on how they want to, um, do this. So they have to reach out to the members. We do the interviewing on their behalf. We execute the podcast on their behalf and we give them back the content. We give them back. The testimonial pulled out, um, and then whenever rhythm they want, we also facilitate some sort of a roundtable or a subject matter expert episode where we’re interviewing the leadership on whatever rhythm works for them, because, again, the leader is busy, and I think that is like we discussed earlier, that’s where the disconnect happens. The people who want to do the podcast want to focus in on the leadership and make sure they get kind of the attention as the host or as the expert, but they don’t realize how much work goes into it and how how much it affects their schedule.

Lee Kantor: So we do that, um, whenever they’re available so we don’t have to worry about, oh, I got to get that leader in here every week or every month. We’ll get them in whenever we can get them in. And we don’t have to focus in on one leader. We can focus in on whatever leader is available that month. So we do this done for you. Turnkey association service that creates content as much as they want, really on whatever rhythm that works for them. And but it’s focused mainly on spotlighting members and then also capturing the thought leadership from their leaders. So it’s a done for you, a little done with you, but it’s one of those things where they can kind of set it and forget it. As long as they have kind of a good admin, they can just invite members on the show. Then we take care of all the rest.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, that’s I mean, what a great service. Um, for so many reasons. Right. Generating a ton of content, generating a ton of goodwill. Um, you know, another little stat I saw was 50% of companies find it challenging to measure the success and impact of their podcasts accurately. I would imagine that in a model like this, you’re measuring success based on, you know, you can come up with a few, uh, metrics to track. And that might be, you know, membership referrals, membership renewals. Right. If your members are happy, they’re going to continue to stay within your organization. Um, there’s probably a few other, you know, KPIs that could be. Yeah, you.

Lee Kantor: Can measure how much engagement the content, like you were saying earlier about the content, look at how much more content engagement, because each one of those guests is incented to share the content about the association with their network whenever it comes out. And if you teach them like we were going over earlier, hey, you should be repurposing this every month or every three months that the association goes along for the ride every time they share that. So, you know, some of these members have followings of, you know, 500, 1000, 10,000, 20,000 people. So they’re sending out that interview to that group, you know, multiple times a year if you train them.

Rachel Simon: And I would imagine, too, that this would be a great model for conferences where you could because I know that because I’ve come to events with you where you’re doing live podcasting, right, interviewing people, five, ten minute little snippets. Um, and that is always a fun sort of value add at conferences and in-person events to be able to just do it in real time, right?

Lee Kantor: It’s one of those things we tell them we can take the show on the road, so when they have a conference or it doesn’t even have to be their own internal conference, they could be going to a conference where maybe they’re speaking where they can tell the conference, hey, I’d like to have a booth where we’re doing our podcast at that event so it can be used in a variety of ways. But yeah, we do take the show on the road, and we’ve been doing that for decades now. Um, where we show up at these conferences, trade shows, other kinds of events, doing live, um, interviews.

Rachel Simon: Yeah, so much fun. And, um, I was at a conference last fall for it was a health care conference, and there was somebody there similarly like set up and was just interviewing, you know, had a constant stream of people coming in for these little snippets of interviews. And, um, it’s just a fun little activity, particularly for, again, for people who maybe don’t have experience, um, or looking to kind of kind of get that first couple of interviews, uh, under their belt and realize that, oh, being on a podcast is really, really fun and really, really easy because I just have to answer questions that are things I love to talk about.

Lee Kantor: Which is themselves.

Rachel Simon: People love talking about themselves.

Lee Kantor: Yeah.

Lee Kantor: And I, I’ve had multiple times people come up to me, um, thanking me, you know, years later. Oh, you were my first interview. That was the first time I’ve ever done this before. And now I’m, uh. You know, my business is killing it. And we’ve interviewed literally people who at the time had five figure businesses to now have nine figure businesses. So, um, we’ve been doing this for a long time, and we’ve been around people, um, doing their interviews early in their, in their kind of trajectory. So it’s been an exciting ride for us to be able to have been doing this kind of work for so long and spotlight so many great business leaders out there.

Rachel Simon: Yeah. So, Lee, does this model work within companies as well?

Lee Kantor: Absolutely. But what it requires, if they’re going to do it as a company, I would highly recommend instead of trying to just create content that is, uh, build it and hopefully they’ll come spotlight your clients, do this and focus in on the clients you already have and just show them more love and you’ll be amazed at the type of engagement and that they they’re going to want to reciprocate back to you and help you get your next client. Um, because most vendors are not are are treated as vendors. And then the relationships transactional. When you do this kind of work and you spotlight and promote your existing clients, what you’re doing is you’re elevating your relationship from transactional to relational. And what that does is it bonds you more with the client. The client sees that you’re trying to help them get their next client, and that’s ultimately why they’re hiring you, is they want more business, and they’re hiring you to help them get more business. So by promoting them to your own network, you’re helping them get the word out. You’re appreciating their talents and what they’re doing, and you’re helping them get their next client. So I would recommend any organization do a podcast, focus in on your clients. First, sprinkle in some thought leadership, but do a guest oriented, client oriented podcast. And I think you’re going to be a lot more successful and a lot more happy with the results you’re going to get.

Rachel Simon: I that is so smart. And you know this because again, lots and lots of companies love the idea of podcasting. But you know, again, all of these stats, whether it’s the amount of time it takes to produce the lack of technical experience and skills, the the challenge of staying on a regularly, you know, on a regular schedule. Um, you know, again, like I said earlier, like the ability to measure the results by finding a partner that you can outsource all of that to, and you literally just have to book your guests and show up, takes so much of that stress off the table and then leaves you with just a tremendous amount of content. And and then again, goodwill and relationship building. Um, that is only a value add for the organization. I mean, so smart, I love it.

Lee Kantor: Well, before we wrap, I want to make sure that people understand you are the expert on LinkedIn. You’ve mentioned some ways to leverage the content on LinkedIn, but what do you think would be some other tips you can give people regarding LinkedIn when it comes to this kind of work, or just content in general?

Rachel Simon: Yeah, so I think when it comes to, you know, podcasts and specifically since that’s what we’ve been talking about today, I think, you know, making it as easy as possible for your guests to know what to do. Right? So, um, if you, you know, give them directions when you send them the show to say, here’s if you, you know, you could give them a little blurb as a starting point for them to post, put a post out of it, make sure they know who to tag. Right. Because like, you want to make sure that you get tagged, your company gets tagged, your association, whatever the case may be. Um, but getting it out in a, in a in front of as many people as possible is super important. Right? And again, if you’re going to, um, you know, let’s say you do a do it as a video podcast, right? That can go up into a number of different ways. You know, we tested it one time on our show to do a do it as a LinkedIn live. It didn’t totally work. We’ll have to try that again. Um, but, you know, you could put that stuff up on YouTube, post those videos on LinkedIn as well. So it’s really, again, leveraging that content as much as you possibly can. But I do believe that one of the challenges is that guests don’t always know what to do after they get the show, so they might just click repost on something as opposed to creating their own original piece of content that talks about their experience on the show. You know, you could either give even give a couple prompts for a post of like, what was your favorite part of being on the show or what? What surprised you? This, that, and the other. So I think it’s just the ease piece is super important. And obviously before you’re going to do any content on LinkedIn, your profile obviously is going.

Lee Kantor: To be.

Rachel Simon: Looking good. So if it’s not, then you know where to find me.

Lee Kantor: And to find me you can go to Lee Kantor. Com you can book time on my calendar at Lee Kantor. Com and that schedule gets to my calendar. You can book a 30 minute call. Or if you want to learn more about how Business RadioX does this kind of association work, you can go to Business RadioX dot com and then you can look in the tabs for how we help associations. Um, and Rachel, thank you so much for allowing me to be a guest on your show. I love doing it every month with you. Um, and it was great to chat with you in this way.

Rachel Simon: Absolutely. Super fun. And, um, you know, y’all can find me at Connect the Dots digital.com or on LinkedIn. I’m very easy to find. Uh, Rachel. Simon. Just look for someone with big, curly red hair. Very easy to spot. Me. And until next month, hopefully, we’ll be back in the studio. This was a fun one.