Ep. 196 The Power of Podcasting

Joe Pici discusses how  even non-technical business owners and entrepreneurs can host a successful podcast. Discover the benefits of tapping into this rich resource for brand expansion and client acquisition.

Voice over:

Get ready for an unfair advantage over your competition. This is The Sales Edge podcast. Where globally recognized sales expert and trainer Joe Pici helps you sharpen your skills for booking more appointments and closing more deals. And now here’s your host Joe Pici.

Joe Pici (JP):

Hey team, this is Joe Pici of The Sales Edge. Thank you so much for being here. This is podcast number 196 and we’re so excited. We’re going to explore some of the components of the power of podcasting. Some of the benefits, some of the reasons why you would even want to consider it and I’ll tell you this. Two years ago, February or two years ago February. My son sat down with us Mario. He’s our partner in our podcasting business in and he sat with us and he said Dad, Mom, you got more content than anybody we know and I believe we found a way to grow your brand, get you more exposure and really start to create some scalability. And it’s called podcasting and I had listen to some podcasts. I thought they were great.

And he said but let me caution you and let me tell you this. Over 90% of the people who start podcasting will stop in about a hundred and twenty days. You know, they run out of content. They’re looking for fasts explosion. They didn’t realize the commitment involved. He said but if you want to go down this road, I’ll help you get set up and I believe it can help the Pici and Pici brand so much and so we looked into it and we made a decision to move in that direction.

So today we’re going to be talking about from our perspective. We are not podcast experts. We you know, we’re not the kind of people you come to and say, you know, what software and we can tell you what we use but we’re not the kind of people that say, you know, well you should do this. This is the mic you have to use, we’re going to I’m going to give you a perspective of what some of the benefits of podcasting and what you may want to consider in looking into it. So this is podcast number 196 The Sales Edge is sponsored by Pici and Pici, which is a speaking, coaching, training, consulting firm specializing in helping their clients book more appointments, reach the decision makers, recapture lost revenue, also SellMoreVirtually.com. Which is a membership platform, whereby you can access me live on Thursday nights. Coaching and or training and also downloads and interviews. Tremendous interviews.

As we move forward. Let’s talk about podcasting and and I’m a fundamentalist. So to speak with respect. I assume nothing, you know podcast is a recording of audio discussion. It can be a single person like I’m doing today or when we have guests, have other people on, its specific in topic. Okay. It’s a personal way to reach out to potential clients. You know, they get a chance to hear your insights, your thoughts, your values, your content, how you run your business, what you can offer. You know, it’s many podcasts you can find on iTunes, Spotify, in many many places. And so I’m going to give you some ideas about podcasting today. Just some ideas. Let me have this disclaimer. Okay? I don’t say that Joe and Dawn Pici are at the elite level in podcasting.

You know, we we are this is podcast number 196, every Tuesday, every Thursday, we have Podcast that comes out. You know, one of the things Mario said to us was that the thing you’re going to want to do is make sure you are consistent. If your podcast is coming out on Tuesday and Thursday. You don’t want to skip. You want to be a he said, if you look at this the way you’ve looked at your training, your consulting business, your whole life that you’ve never been late. That you’ve always over-delivered, that you were willing to give great content. It’s the same thing.

So the goal for podcasting, you know, if you’re an entrepreneur, then of course your idea for a podcast should be centered on your product and service. The podcast you create should help your listeners and capture and nurture listeners and leads and convert them eventually to a paying client. So the ultimate goal of a podcast is to generate business. You know, and so benefits. Let’s talk about some of the magnificent benefits.

First of all it’s about brand expansion. When I look back at where we were years ago. And I thank you for voting for me on Global Gurus in 2020. 2021 hasn’t come out yet. But 2020. I was ranked number one in the world as a sales trainer and speaker and our our sales program was ranked number one in the world. And I would have to say part of that brand expansion has come through podcasting, whether it’s on our own show. Whether we’re on somebody else’s show. It is just brand expansion and I’m not going to go into branding. I will say that, you know, branding will follow your expertise and elevate it. And as more and more people hear you and listen to you it tends to grow that brand.

The second thing. It’s going to elevate you to an expert status. You know when people listen to you all of a sudden, you’re you have an expertise and that elevates you to be an expert in whatever you’re talking about.

Another one is you’re more likely to be asked to be a guest on another podcast if you have your own. You know, my goal is to be on four podcasts on a month and you know, I’m not on their ranting and raving. I’m on there to give value. Same thing in our podcast, our podcast is content-rich. Okay, but to be able to be asked to somebody else’s podcast a lot of time, you have to have your own podcast. You know that the thing is is it’s easier and less intensive time than video. Is video important? Vitally. Are we in video? Yeah, we have video guests, you know, we’re doing more and more with video. However a podcast is less time consuming. It’s less intensive than the video.

Number five. I think one two, three, four, five, six. It increases traffic to your website. Ultimately you want to drive potential clients somewhere. And so we want to drive potential clients to PiciandPici.com and SellMoreVirtually.com. So your podcast allow you to drive people to your website. Which is really not easy to do. So, that’s an important aspect of a benefit of podcasting.

The next one. It’s great for building relationships with your audience, because it’s it’s in real time. They can hear you, you’re making that high-touch, and so podcasting will nurture and grow relationships. Which is what this is all about.

Podcast the next one, is podcast can be accessed from anywhere. I’m getting people, I think we’re in over a hundred countries. And and and thank you. Well, I have people that contact me from around the globe. That they heard me teach on something. I’m doing a training in Abu Dhabi, but I’m going to be here in Orlando and that lead came from somebody over there hearing my podcast. And so this is tremendous because it has such far-reaching.

The next one. It’s convenient for the listeners. I think sometimes we make it too hard for people to get to us. Yet a podcast is so easy. One you download the app and you know, you’re riding on your bike. You’re on a treadmill, you’re in the car, you know, you’re in your office. It’s so easy for listeners and we want to make things convenient. We want to make things easy for a listeners.

It will definitely improve your public speaking skills. The more here on a podcast, the more you’re talking. The more you’re talking, the better communicator you’re becoming and especially when you get into the world of guests. Having guests interviewing is a whole different skill set than being interviewed. Because I always want to give the our guest more time than I take it. So that’s a skill. It’s about serving your listener. You know, every podcast needs to be relevant. Why am I doing this podcast? Because I’m getting so many questions from people about podcasting. You know, they I remember when we first started it was so funny. We started in my walk-in closet, you know, we got the great mic, we got a great recorder and we wanted to sound buffer but we wanted to start.

And now, you know, we were not in that closet anymore and and things have gotten better. Now. I’ve got baffles everywhere. But the whole thing is it’s about serving the listener. What value am I bringing our listener? So when you start to assess some of the benefits, even more benefits than what I told you. You know, here’s some here’s some things you may want to think about when you’re serving the client. Okay, what is your passion and knowledge about? What do you know most about? You know, what is how much content you have on your topic or you going to run out of content? Okay, you have to be deep in content because these podcasts they start coming at you like the waves of the ocean. Alright.

Now, the next thing is you want to niche your topic and early on we we almost got off course. And thanks to Dawn, this whole thing is called Sales Edge. So our focus is on strategies, skills, mindset, motivation, collaboration, about what? Growing businesses. It’s about sales and marketing. It’s about focus and priority, time management. But everything we do is based on productivity towards growing the business. It was very niche, so although our audience is so huge and diverse, they all have a growth mindset.

They all want to grow their company, their association, their chamber, whatever. The next one is begin to identify potential issues, gaps, and problems that your audience may want to resolve. So all of our podcast is about here may be some of the challenges, here’s some solutions. Even when we have our guests were aimed at what are the challenges you may be facing, you know, we always have our our guests go through what they’ve done before. What they’re doing now, the transitions they had to make, where sales plays into it. So we want to stay very tight. And so, you know, the more narrow that you are and the more loyal your base will be.

The thing I will tell you and I’m not getting into a lot of do’s and don’ts but, I’ll give you a couple.

Number one. Unless your podcast is about politics, unless your podcast is about religion, unless your podcast is about those certain topics. I would stay away from it. I would stay strictly in what your audience is coming to hear. But that’s something we do from a live stage also. We are not our podcast philosophy is not to be controversial. If yours has to be controversial that’s fine, ours is not.

I would make sure you create tremendous consistently and see make sure you’re consistent about when it comes out. The other thing is the amount of time. Now I know there’s some famous podcasters that have our long, two-hour-long, whatever and they do great. But the average listener is about 18 to 22 minutes. So we want to keep our podcasts in that arena because we’re looking to grow listeners. So so when you look at some more benefits, you know having a podcast will help you access potential clients. Having a podcast will create a community. It will create a following, it will create a team, with that whereby there is engagement.

A podcast. Another benefit is its on-demand anytime, anywhere, anyhow. I think the other thing is you you can build a listening base for minimal cost. It doesn’t cost a lot to get into podcasting. There’s podcasts are are really good with optimized voice search. So people can voice search you. It’s a it’s a very cost-effective marketing technique. I know, you know, we have many many ways in our marketing campaign but podcasting has become one of the top three on lead generation and marketing. It definitely allows you to take advantage of the omni-channel marketing approach. How many different ways are we touching people? They are it’s also excellent for your business SEO and like I said before podcasting will definitely drive people where you want them to go.

It will drive them to your platforms, your website, your membership program. And so, you know the thing about podcasting when I look at it and I simplify everything. Okay, it’s going to help you to become an authority in your field. And I’m not saying that with pride or ego, but it helps you to elevate an authority. It’s going to help you build influence in trust in your area. We want to have great influence and trust with people.

When it comes to client acquisition, when it comes to getting in front of their target market. When it comes to Virtual or physical selling. You know, we want to become experts in helping speakers, coaches, and trainers also monetize their their intellectual property.

The other thing it’ll help you gain great credibility. This is something we can tend to fight to get. It’s hard to generate credibility in this market. It allows you to promote your products and services. It also it’s something that it will gradually help matriculate prospects to leads to paying clients. We’re you know, probably now our third way of generating quality leads is when I’m on some of these podcasts, or through our own podcast.

And so this is all part of the grand strategy. This has been some reasons why would I be on a podcast? Why would I want to have a podcast? Now in some future, in some future episodes we’re going to go a little deeper on the do’s and don’ts. But I want I want to do share this with you. Podcasting has far exceeded my expectation for what it’s doing in our business. But it does take a commitment. There’s many times that I’m at four o’clock in the morning. I’m putting out a podcast. Why because nobody’s mowing a lawn, you know, I don’t care if you’re in a big business building you have to make sure it’s quiet. You have to make sure the office you’re doing this, there’s no outside noise.

Which also if you know the size office you’re in, you also knew the kind of microphone you need. So there’s a lot of things that go involved, but I would recommend you get started.

Hey, if you want to have a cup of Joe about it, just give me a call. I can steer you in the right direction. But here’s a couple giveaways if you will go to sales edged. If you will go type into your text box, in your cell phone, one word SalesEdge, send to 55678. Send that off. It’ll take you to a splash page. First a link to the splash page. There’s a lot of free content. There’s links to our membership site. There’s there’s a five free e-course video. There’s links to our podcast.

Hey this podcast is of value to you. Can you like it share? Can you make a comment? We’re kicking off something right now today. Should you post a review, like it, share it, post a positive review. On March 20th. We’re going to do a drawing to all the posted reviews and the winner. We’re going to pick two winners. They’re going to get, for one dollar, a $197 ecourse on either LinkedIn, or Virtual Selling. Your choice. And so that drawing will happen. But these are from people that are willing to like it, share, and post a positive comment on it.

So this has been a valued to you. Can you like it? Can you share it? Can you post a positive review? Thank you so much and we’ll see you at our next podcast.

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Thanks for listening. New episodes will air each Tuesday and Thursday. So make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and give us a five star review. The Sales Edge is sponsored by Pici and Pici Incorporated. A firm which provides training, consulting, and keynote presentations. Empowering corporations and individuals to attract and retain quality clients, for higher revenues and growth. Make more money in sales, speak with Joe in person by calling 407 947 2590 or visit www.piciandpici.com