Episode Summary
Starting your own podcast is a big deal and it takes thorough strategic planning and preparation to get it right. But you shouldn’t strive for perfection; instead, strive for progress and to create value for your audience.
In this episode of the Recorded Content podcast, we’re switching things up a bit to celebrate our 100th episode. Our host Justin Brown is interviewed by our guest Neal Stewart, the Director of Marketing at Holland. Since Neal is about to launch his own podcast, he has a ton of questions for Justin. So make sure you join us for this exciting Q&A session on B2B podcasting and getting started with podcasting.
Guest Profile
Name: Neal Stewart
What he does: He’s the Director of Marketing at Holland
Company: Holland
Noteworthy: Neal is a strategic branding and marketing leader with over 20 years of experience and a track record of delivering profitable growth by fostering a culture of collaboration and creating an inclusive work environment fueled by creativity. He is also about to launch a podcast in his area of expertise.
Key Insights
- Practice makes perfect: Your first podcast episode will not be your best one, and that’s okay. It’s all about practicing and improving your skills. Justin says, “Just work on it. At this point, I can say ‘Hello and welcome to another episode of Recorded Content. This episode is brought to you by Motion, a B2B podcast agency for small scrappy B2B tech marketers blah blah blah.’ I have done it so many times that it’s off the tip of my tongue. Having it there in front of you, I think it’s okay to be reading off of something or what have you, but just practicing and trying to make it organic. And another thing, when you do anything like this, smile. It helps a lot.”
- Create value for your audience: Your podcast’s top goal should be to create valuable content for your audience. Justin explains, “I hear it constantly, which is like B2B is boring and we need to do something exciting, and I just disagree with that premise. I think it all revolves around what is something interesting that you can provide to your audience and what are the ways that you can do that. So I think it’s just the balance of not doing some segment or some style for the sake of doing it, but that you feel like it’s intentional and has value.”
- Experience is the best teacher: Every new episode you record is a new chance to learn and grow. So don’t strive for perfection; strive for progress. Justin says, “I would argue that Neal, the only way you’re going to learn what you want to put into an episode as a segment or a style or a new structure or what have you is from doing it. You’re going to do it. You’re going to be like, ‘Hey, here’s where I actually think that we can do something interesting,’ versus just getting in a room never having podcasted before and saying like, ‘All right, we’ve never done this before. Now let’s get super creative.’ And it’s like, ‘Okay, good luck.'”
Episode Highlights
Set your guests up for success
“Inherently, I would say even before interrupting them, this was your fault. You didn’t set expectations well with the question and what your expectation was, and this person feels like they’re just trying to help. But as the interviewer, it would really help you to try and jump in at some point if possible. Recognize your mistake in the question that you asked and that this person is only trying to help you, and then try to find a way in which you could maybe ask a question and redirect the conversation.”
Make your job easier
“One of the things that I’ve really tried to learn how to prepare for a podcast is to try and make these things easier on myself, and so I’ve rolled out different styles of episodes that might be a little bit easier in nature for me to pull off.”
Tackle a specific problem in each podcast episode
“You’re not just setting out to have an interview with someone who has the right background, but you really need to set out to have some topic, some theme, some premise, some problem that you’re tackling with that.”
Make room for improvisation
“I think 75% of my questions are scripted, and I think that is because I come in with a topic. I think if and when I used to have much more of a broad show, I would be trying to spend the episode trying to figure out what direction I want to go. And now with having a very detailed premise and a problem that I want to tackle, I really do feel like it’s kind of that journalistic approach. I do have my questions that I’m pretty interested in getting answers to, that I hope will have pretty detailed answers to, and I do stick to my script a lot or my scripted questions, I guess. Now where I’ve really evolved over the years has been my ability to expand on what my guests said or how they answered.”
Bring positive energy to your podcast
“My biggest recommendation for anyone bringing in an episode: Put a big old fat smile on your face. Get to the point where you’re almost laughing at yourself, and it’s just going to come off with very positive warm energy for your audience. That is above memorizing it or having an amazing ad read, my biggest recommendation for people. Come out of the gates for the audience as someone that they’re excited to hear from.”
Make sure you understand your metrics
“We could do a whole podcast on KPIs for podcasting, but at a high level, I would say make sure you understand what podcast downloads are and what good qualifies as, and then really understand what you are trying to get out of this. Is this a push for you to just have an audio app, an audio show that people are going to listen to in Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or is your podcast really an extension of what you’re doing from a content standpoint? And that’s typically where our customers lean.”
