Why Should Agencies Leverage Podcasts - Mark Colgan

In this GYDA talks, Robert talks to Mark Colgan. Mark is an entrepreneur and revenue leader responsible for increasing revenue across a small portfolio of companies where he leverages his 13 years experience of B2B Sales, Marketing and Recruitment.

Mark currently splits his time as Co-founder of Speak On Podcasts, mentoring B2B Startups via GrowthMentor and ScaleWise, The Product Onboarders and coaching 100’s of SDR’s through his Outbound Prospecting and Cold Email Bootcamp course via The Sales Impact Academy.

Please note that this video has a 'Bad Language Alert'!

 

Robert and Mark discuss:

• Why become a podcast guest?
• Who should do it? and with whom?
• How to get going?
• What gear?
• Video vs audio?
• Short or long form?
• How to get the gig?
• What results are possible?
• When do you do it?
• Where should you explore?
• What are agencies like at marketing themselves?

 

Mark Colgan

 

Transcription:

Robert Craven  00:07

Hello and welcome to GYDA talks. And today on the master class, we've got Mark Colgan. Now, Mark, I met in Slovenia. And not only did we have an awesome meal where we entirely put the world to rights while checking out and testing the Slovenian wine. But his presentation at the conference in orbit was the one that everyone talked about. So I had to have him as a guest. Welcome, Mark. It's really good to have you here.

 

Mark Colgan  00:34

Hey, Robert, great to be here. And yeah, really looking forward to this conversation and master class.

 

Robert Craven  00:39

Right. Okay. So, Mark, and I had to be absolutely honest. We had a conversation, do you slide and don't use slides? What should we do? What shouldn't do? We've decided we're going to go for a more conversational format. But that doesn't change the question. It doesn't change the fact that we're going to really look at and really answer this question, which is, you know, why agencies should be using podcasts, you know, and I mean, firstly, Mark, before we get into the Q&A. Tell me what your background is? Tell me how you ended up running the business. Tell me what you're doing at the moment?

 

Mark Colgan  01:16

Sure. So  I will try to answer briefly and clearly. So I worked in sales and marketing for about 13 years, I was previously running another business where I was managing the sales and marketing and I freed up a bit of my time. So I actually started to pitch myself as a podcast guest on some shows. And with some relatively quick success, I went on one podcast interview, which had less than 100 people tuning in and downloading that episode. And I created eight sales calls and closed 50% of those into customers. So I thought, Oh, there's something here, maybe let me get let me try this again. So I went, spoke to one of my friends, who's also a founder of his own agency, pitched him, he booked him on the interviews, he went on the interviews, he produced a tonne of content, created these amazing relationships with podcast hosts, and found it really, really valuable. So I thought, it's not just a one off, I was able to do it for somebody else, not just myself. And then I decided in June 2020, to build the agency called Speak On Podcasts alongside Jakob, my co-founder. And yeah, we're up to 22 people all over the world working remotely. And we have booked over 1500 podcasts interviews since then. So it's been quite the journey.

 

Robert Craven  02:27

So what does your agency do?

 

Mark Colgan  02:31

Yeah, so we offer almost like a concierge service where we research, reach out to and schedule interviews for our customers. So a typical customer will be an agency owner who's freed up their time, where they want to increase their brand awareness, get their message, get their methodology out there and attract talent. So we'll work with them to secure interviews on podcasts where their ideal audiences are listening to. And we handle all of the back and forth with the hosts and also support with post content interviews going live as well. So it really is that end to end service that we offer.

 

Robert Craven  03:04

Okay, right. So obviously, you're a fan, you're clearly biased. So if not just podcasts, I mean, I mean, another another bloody podcast. I mean, Mark, let's just have a think about it. You're running an agency, but I don't know 20-25 people, as you kind of say you're starting to free up your time as you go up the food chain a bit. Just explain to me why you believe that? Adding a podcast to your to do lists, can do anything more than help your vanity?

 

Mark Colgan  03:44

Sure, I could throw the question back and say everybody's got a blog, yet, we're still creating six blog posts a month and posting that on our blog. But why? The main reason is, it's the content that you can create off the back of the actual podcast interviews as well. So Robert, for example, we can chop this interview and that conversation up into several pieces of video content, we can repurpose it into images, we can repurpose it into long form blog posts or short term blog posts. And then you can distribute that content, you might put it on your website you might send out in the newsletter, it might form your social media content for the next few months as well. So not only is it a content play, agencies either host their own podcast or speak on other people's podcasts, to start building relationships with people who are influential within the audience that they also serve. So it could be non competing partners or non competing agencies that offer different services to the same audience. Or you could use your own podcast as an agency owner to start conversations with potentially ideal customers of yours. Again, build that relationship. So you know, I save so often to our customers. It's not about the interview. It's about so much more.

 

Robert Craven  04:58

Yeah. I'm just thinking about this thing about inverted commas, celebrities, and so on and so forth. So we've done Tom Peters, who is a good old school. He's 70 something, but he was the original management consultant. We've done Rand Fishkin, who's very controversial in the agency world, because he basically isn't a great fan of Google. I think that's a polite way of putting it. And what was really interesting was I could I went, I could go out to the community and say, Hey, I've got Rand Fishkin, or I've got Tom Peters. What do you think I should ask him? And it will be everything from, Why did you write the book and why did they change the business? And is it true that he still drives a Toyota bla bla bla bla bla, but then what it did was it gave us another way of talking to our audience, which quite surprised me. But the flip side of it is also, when you're then talking to your own clients, you can say, what's funny, you should say that I was interviewing, speaking with Rand Fishkin, and this is exactly what he said. So, I think I think that's a really interesting thing about how it does grow your brand, but I'm gonna push you a bit harder. I mean, 5000 quid on PPC versus 5000 quid. Let's put a marker next to it next to the CEOs time versus 5000 quid spent on podcasts. Do you honestly think that you can't get more traction from 5000 quid on PPC?

 

Mark Colgan  06:41

Okay, there's a lot of breakdown now. But I do appreciate the question. First of all, I think there is a space in place for PPC. But we all know that it's interrupting people when they're browsing the internet looking for flights or an engagement ring, holidays, you know, it's that retargeting as well is that interruption as well when people are on social media too. So first of all, PPC is interrupting people. And I think this was from 2018. But less than 4% of paid ads were viewed for more than two seconds. And I can't count. I can't even remember how many ads I've seen this morning, as I scrolled through Instagram, as I laid in bed contemplating when I should get out of bed. There were ads in my feed, but I'm not gonna be able to tell you which ads I saw. When you compare that to podcasting, let's say, Yeah, let's say it's 5000 pounds an hour you speak for a 45 minute conversation on a on a podcast where your audience is listening to, people are choosing to tune in and listen to that podcast, they're there to learn, they're in a different mindset than they are when they're just scrolling on social. And they're there to listen to how people are doing things better. So typically, as an agency owner, you might go on and talk anecdotally about the customer successes that you've had, or the challenges you've helped your customers overcome. So then you have an audience who's turning up to listen to that, with an open mind looking to learn, and you're talking through those case studies or those customer stories as well. The other thing as well, that I probably mentioned as well is you stopped paying for those paid ads, they stopped showing up. Whereas a podcast is evergreen, and people will find podcast episodes when they're looking to solve the challenge that you may have been speaking about. So I get people contacting me from podcast episodes that went two years ago when I was at that previous company saying, Can you still help with that? And I have to refer them to the person who replaced me.

 

Robert Craven  08:35

So have roughly half. So that's the case for podcasts? What about I mean, the ones I normally get when I want to interview someone is I got really bad hearing. I'm shy, can I get my operations manager to do it? Time differences? There's, these are all just excuses are they? I mean, would you argue that the whole point is to show vulnerability, the whole point is to show that whoever you are, Fred Bloggs at ABC agency is to actually expose your warts and all rather than rather than hide.

 

Mark Colgan  09:18

Yeah, I think you know, it's such an old school adage of people buy from people buy from those they know, like and trust. But the reason why we still say is it's still true. When do you think you've got the PPC agencies who are serving the same audiences? How are you going to determine between the two that you'd want to work with? They've both worked with large companies, let's say very similar in terms of size. But once you've got a bit of an understanding of who the people are, there's a customer to give a great example. He says whenever I go on and talk about culture, and what we do, I don't talk about our services. I just talk about culture and how we manage the team and how we nurture the talent. I get business from that. I'm not even given a call to action, say come and work with me. I'm just talking through how we developed our team and how we treat our team. And that's one of their differentiators. So when the services are dime a dozen, what are your differentiators? How do you position yourself differently? And it's very hard to do that in a blog post that's going to keep somebody engaged for as long as you can speak for three or four minutes about a particular differentiation or positioning statement that you have. And get that message across.

 

Robert Craven  10:26

I think actually, most of our activity is somebody who runs the business when we go down through email and through our WhatsApp and through all the other feeds that we actually look at is we're looking to delete stuff, we're not looking to open stuff, if that makes sense. So if there's any opportunity to say, I'll look at it later. Or maybe I'll do it another time. That's what we do. So I get that once, once someone's hooked in and they've said, Oh, it's half an hour, we'll keep doing Facebook. And it might be vaguely interesting. And hello to those people who are doing that right now. It gives you the opportunity. I mean, I find it extraordinary as a podcast host, or how many people talk, that walk up to me and talk to me as a person because they've seen me doing other stuff. And we're not using this, I can tell you what the numbers are, this will get somewhere between 1000 and 10000 eyeballs, depending on how sexy this is. And once we've got the title, right, then there's a whole load of stuff that maybe you can comment on. So if you get the title, right, if you launch it at the right time, if you do live versus not live, if evergreen, if it's in the blog, if it's if everyone's promoting it on their social media, but more people know me than I know. And I just find that really extraordinary. And you don't get that on stage. Because when you're on stage, you're almost repelled. It's a bizarre thing to say, when you talk on stage, you're almost repelling people, because there's so many of them. And you're being the experts. And even if you're trying to be intimate, you're still trying to be intimate with 500 people. So you're very difficult. And then, whereas here you have the opportunity, almost like a fireside chat. So I'm just talking my way, my way through this. One of the things I'd like to ask is whether there is any evidence to say that video is better than audio? Or have I already answered my own question, but it's going to be it depends. Is video better than audio? Is audio better than video? Is it better to have short form long form? What's the current sort of thinking about?

 

Mark Colgan  12:46

It is the jury's out, it does depend, it does depend on your audience what their what their preference might be, well, I would always suggest is start with the hardest part of content, which would be having video, which then you can work backwards from so from a video, you can take out the audio, publish the audio to the to the podcast platforms, and then publish the video to YouTube. If we look at the way that we're consuming media video is more popular overall. So if you can do video, I'd recommend it. If you can't then start with audio. I just want to jump back before I lose my train of thought. You mentioned that this podcast may get 1000 eyeballs, that would actually put it in the top 20% of podcasts. So I think a lot of people think things are relatively small because they're comparing 1000 to 1000 likes or impressions or 1000 views on a YouTube video. But if you get more than 1200 downloads within the first 30 days of an episode going live. So in the first 30 day window, you're in the top 20% for podcasts. And then I push back to people and say a bit similar to what you said about being on a stage to 500 people. Would you rather speak to 500 people who are contained your ideal audience that are there to learn versus going on the Joe Rogan podcast or Tim Ferriss, which a lot of people, they have this in their mind, they want to be on the top 000.1% of podcasts, but it's not really going to serve them that well, especially if they're the agency owner.

 

Robert Craven  14:19

So what's I'm still trying? I'm still struggling with this, okay, you're an agency owner, you sell PPC, sell SEO, you sell web design. How do you end up in front of a potential buyer? Let's say that you're selling primarily to marketing managers and marketing directors of medium sized businesses in the UK, that's your, your target and maybe less maybe let's narrow it down. It's primarily b2b. It's primarily professional services. And that's another conversation but I got set up to do a podcast. How do I get this podcast to end up in front of my target potential buyer?

 

Mark Colgan  15:22

Sure. Just a quick note on the cost. I've got a $90 mic and a $30 app on my iPhone, and it's a clamp. Other than a nice bit of IKEA visuals and some frame photos. That's all I've got for this quality of sound. So I don't think you need to hire a studio or build a studio yourself. $100 mic and $30 app gives you 4k video and pretty good sound. But back to how you do that. So if you were, if you're the agency owner selling marketing services to let's say, law firms, I would ask myself, Well, who else is speaking to law firms, there is a marketing automation platform called Future. I believe that's how you spell it out, go and see if they have a podcast. Because if they're producing content that their whole marketing team is trying to produce content for the same audience that you're trying to reach. So I would see if there's an opportunity to go and speak on their podcast, if they have that. If that doesn't work, if that one company doesn't work, think of 10 other companies who are also serving the same audience and go and do some research to see if they are producing podcasts. Because they're looking for guests to come on as speakers to help inform their audience to, that'd be a good start.

 

Robert Craven  16:36

So you're advocating being a guest rather than being a host?

 

Mark Colgan  16:42

Yeah. And do we do this day in day out for our customers, because there's a lot more effort and time and investment that goes into creating your own podcast. And you know, what we'll be, the person might not even enjoy it that much to be a host themselves. But if they can just turn up and have a conversation, just like we did over some very nice Slovenian wine, or the breakfast the next morning, it's far less of a lift for you to get the same amount of benefits as you would if you hosted your own podcast.

 

Robert Craven  17:12

And of course, the beauty of it is you're now talking to their audience.

 

Mark Colgan  17:20

And you, you're talking to their audience, and you're leveraging that third party validation, because you and I know how to update your website, I could write any testimonial I wanted about myself and put it on my website. 

 

Mark Colgan  17:39

But um, you know, it's true and we as consumers know that we're wiser to the sort of tactics and the ways that companies could be manipulating the information. And that's why third party websites like Jeetu, crowd trust radius Trustpilot are more important. Now, speaking on podcasts and other people's podcasts is exactly the same way of leveraging that third party validation.

 

Robert Craven  18:02

Okay, I'm going to talk about Marcus Sheridan. For Marcus, another podcast guest who I was delighted to talk to, he's a little if you haven't come across Marcus Sheridan, I'm making the assumption you have, you really need to check him out. He's written several books around the use of video, which I personally think are a repetition of what he does in his main book, which is called there, they asked you to answer. They asked you to answer. The ideology I put into some agencies, some really well known agencies, and it has fundamentally changed. I can say everything, but that's a tautology. It's fundamentally changed how those agencies do business. And what Marcus Sheridan says, is you can use video, so it's slightly different. It's a slightly different tangential conversation, but I think it's kind of the same conversation. You can use video to explain what you do. Because when people come to your website, they've got five or six questions that they want to ask which I can guarantee your website doesn't answer, which is how much does it cost? What might go wrong? Who else provides a service? And who are the alternatives? What is it that you're really good at? Who have you done this work for? Am I the right fit? Should I continue? And his argument is that seven, two minute videos because if you don't answer those questions, they're just gonna go to Google and see who else is in the competition. They're just gonna go elsewhere and find out the prices whereas every time you welcome them in, you're exposing how we do stuff. You're like osmosis. My point is the podcast is really an extension of what they asked you to answer.

 

Mark Colgan  20:01

It really isn't a couple of things. I'm a big fan of Mark is actually one of my very good friends who works for his agency as well. So I talked to him about the video a lot. And one of the things that I found in our sales process is that we spent a lot of time explaining our process or how we do what we do. So I recorded a two minute video, which the salesperson now sends to people before they come to the call. And they will say, Thank you, I get what it is you do? Could you just go into a bit more detail about this part? So it helps us speed up the sales cycle for ourselves, and also have a more valuable conversation with that person when they turn up? Rather than leaving that question right till the end, and rushing to try and cover it all. One of the advanced strategies that we share with our customers is to answer objections during an interview. And oftentimes you can have a pre interview call with the host. And the host will say, are there any questions in particular you'd like me to ask you? Or you could weave it into a conversation and say, Do you know what Rob, a lot of a lot of prospects do say that we are more expensive than the competition. But the reason we are is X, Y, Z, and I could then use that objection, the reason why I'm sharing that on someone else's podcast, is because when that podcast episode goes live, I'm going to take that snippet myself, and I'm going to use that as part of my sales process or in my sales process.

 

Robert Craven  21:29

Yeah, and what's quite interesting, it's as we talk about it, it's like, I feel like a total dick in a way. But, but I'm going back to other people that I've interviewed, you know, so you kind of realise this network, this network builds on this, whether you're a guest, you know, so we, or whether you're whether you're a host, once you're kind of on the circuit, because it's a small village, really, yeah, stuff starts, stuff starts growing. So I've found that I've been, you know, I've been not only if I had podcast opportunities, but speaking opportunities, especially post COVID, you know, spoke to 3000 people in San Diego, or it may have not been 3000 people, I don't know. But yeah, it elevates you. I guess I can just get into what you do. It elevates you as to being able to access other people, again, using other people's marketing platform. And that's, that's just awesome, isn't it?

 

Mark Colgan  22:33

Yeah, well, the other alternative is that you are not the only alternative. But you buy a list of emails, and you blast that list of emails with your message, whereas it's just not effective. Whereas you can reach the same list of people via a podcast. And, you know, I'm gonna say this out loud. And if you do, if you do have this many people that you say tuning in, someone's going to be listening to you and me talk when they're in the shower. Someone's going to be listening to us talk whilst they're driving, whilst they're walking their dog whilst whilst they're running. And going back to your point before about it being intimate. We're literally in the ears of people. And they're hearing us talk and have a conversation. And we're sharing stories and anecdotes. And isn't that the way that we've communicated for 1000s of years? And only makes sense to, if you have the opportunity to leverage this as a strategy? You should? And the answer also is if you're if you're, if if your competitors aren't doing it, then you should stop. If your competitors are doing it, you should definitely do it as well.

 

Robert Craven  23:34

Okay, so this has been slated as we'll put on the slate as an asset class, so what is it? What is it that people need to do if someone's getting this mark? Right? Sounds quite interesting. We've, I've been a guest once or twice I've thought about writing a book, you know, the stuff I mean, COVID was fantastic. So many so many new books by agency owners. What do they do? How do they do it? What are they? What do they need? So you've already said, you know, said a $90 mic, and a piece of software? What does that software do?

 

Mark Colgan  24:14

It's called camo. It goes on your iPhone, and it just allows you to use your iPhone camera connected to the MacBook. However, with MacBooks latest update, they're launching an own native, an own native app that you can just plug in your iPhone and use as a webcam. So download the app, buy a $90 USB microphone and just get going from there but you want me to go into how you think about topics. 

 

Mark Colgan  24:49

So topic wise I'm gonna do a very whizzed through this very quickly and perhaps we can share the slides from the presentation as well if you'd like. Top topics, think about the common questions that you often get answered that you often get asked, sorry. So what are your prospects asking you about what your customers are asking you? What are your opinions that go against the norm in the industry or your opinions in general of the future of your industry or the other strategies that you're implementing? And oftentimes, remember, what's obvious to you is amazing to other people, to give a real simple example, a coaching course, on outbound prospecting, two, or three years ago now, I was telling people don't put in a hard call to action, which is, Robert, are you free to meet at 2pm on Tuesday. What you should do instead, in your call to action email is ask for interest? Would you be interested in finding out more, would it be a terrible idea to explore this in more detail, because what you want to do is get a reply in your cold email, you're not trying to, you're not trying to get that marriage confirmed on that first date, that first email. That was a very obvious thing to me, because I'd seen so much data. However, it wasn't common knowledge in the industry. And it only was common knowledge a year, a year and a half later, when a huge publication shared the same findings. So that is just to say what's obvious to you, is going to often be amazing to other people. So try and come up with about three or four topics. These you want to keep in your back pocket, you don't want to use them just yet. But then you want to start your research, the quickest way to find podcasts that you could potentially speak on that will be valuable to you is to think about the go and ask your customers which podcasts they listen to step one, ask your customers, often bit of advice that marketers are quite scared of doing. But just ask your customers which podcast they're listening to, and which podcasts you might already be listening to as well. Because if you're keeping up with the trends, there might be some podcasts that you listen to as well.

 

Mark Colgan  26:47

Then go and think about who your competitors are, or the thought leaders and influencers in the same audio industry as you and then go and look to see which podcast they're speaking on. I love going on the podcast that my competitors have spoken on, because I'll listen to that interview and do a better job at talking about the problem that we solve or how we can help people overcome that. And also, I'm going on there after they've been there as well. And influencer wise as well, who are those people who are non competing, offering non competing services in your same industry and just reverse engineered the podcast they've been on. And Robert, there's a great website called Listennotes.com that is free to use. It's best if you just sign in for a free account, because then you don't, you can just search a little bit more, but it doesn't cost you anything. And you can literally put in my name, your name, Marcus Sheridan, for example, this would be a great example to follow on with that particular example, go look to see which podcast Marcus Sheridan has been on. Put in his name sorted by date, you'll see the most recent podcasts, then you'll want to go and double check that that podcast fits the audience that you're hoping to reach. I'm gonna pause there because we've covered topics and research. Are there any questions that you might have now?

 

Robert Craven  28:06

So let's just be clear. Answer the question. Mark, why should people do podcasts?

 

Mark Colgan  28:18

Why should people go and speak at podcasts? To help them get their message out there in a very, very fragmented and busy or busy market where they can leverage the audience that already exists.

 

Robert Craven  28:30

Okay, so you've done, I think you've done who? Who you should be the way you should be doing it. I think you've come now. Who should be doing it? Should it be the CEO, MD? Is it okay to have the head of DEV doing it? Is it okay to have an intern doing it? I mean, should everyone be doing it in the business? Who should be doing the podcast?

 

Mark Colgan  28:54

Yeah, I don't think it should be the intern. We see this a lot when it comes to blog content as well. And social media like, Oh, we need someone young to do social media, but they don't really understand really what this is all about building credibility and thought leadership. And it's unlikely that your intern is going to have as much experience to be able to do so in a very convincing way. So I believe it should be either the CEO or the senior leadership team itself. And it depends on the audience. If it's a particular development and very technical audience, then perhaps the CEO isn't the best person and the head of DEV or head of product could be the person that speaks but the more senior the better.

 

Robert Craven  29:38

How much in terms of time, I mean, should you be targeting one a week, one a month, 10 a year? I mean, how do you kind of project forward?

 

Mark Colgan  29:48

Yes. So the way that we work in our agency is two hours worth of work in the first month, which is all about onboarding. And then we tell people to budget an hour to an hour and a half per interview. So that's prep for the end. View during the interview itself, but here's the beauty Robert, you can book the interviews whenever you want. So if you want to do one a week, you can book one a week, if you want to do once a month, book once a month. So if you've got an hour and a half, or if you've got seven hours a week, it completely depends on what availability you have.

 

Robert Craven  30:17

And, there's a prep thing. So I've been a guest on a few. And some of them are like, I mean, there's one of them with a really high, I was really excited to be on this podcast with these people on it. So who they are. And we went into we went into Trello board city, you know, because there was such a large organisation, but the we had the graphics artist and photographer, we had the audio, we had the video, you had the interview, we had the managing director to find out ahead of time, and I was on this Trello board that I ended up with, which is just a basic, half an hour of me talking, doing my stuff I know inside out. And it was consuming 20 minutes a day easily for something because it was part of their great global marketing strategy to fit my little piece in blah, blah, blah, blah. And the whole thing was fast because, you know, when we actually came down to us to people across the world with a couple of mics and videos. And then I've had really, really great ones. I guess my point is about how much prep one needs to put in. And I've had really, really great ones where people have said, these are the standard questions we ask everyone, we always start with this, we always finish that. Is there anything you want to sell, yes or no? And they turn up and they're really good. And then you have others where you haven't really got a clue what you're going into. And you think you're going to be talking about, in my instance, strategy, you end up actually talking about mindset, or you actually end up talking about something. What advice can you give to potential podcast guests about how they can manage their time and manage their expectations? Do I have to wait to find out or do I email and so this is one on one talk about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?

 

Mark Colgan  32:14

Yeah, so you have to be a little bit wary of the fact that podcast hosts can be quite precious with their format, and quite sensitive to changes in the way that they do that podcast. So if they are sensitive, let's say they're going to share with you what the agenda will be and what the likely questions are going to be like, what we say to all of our customers is practice your topic. So like I said, you want three or four topics there, your fallback options that you can always talk about. With those topics, you want to have some customer stories or anecdotes that you can bring those examples and drive those points home, then you need to remember that you're just having a conversation with one other person, even if it's live and being broadcast it we're having a conversation with one other person. The other thing we say is, they don't know what you don't know. So it's okay, if you don't know the answer to something. And you know, Robert, if you ask me about TikTok versus Instagram, where should b2b agencies be focusing their time? Or bits of the first one to say, I don't know, I haven't I haven't spent any time looking at that probably not the best person to ask. Next question. You know, and it's, we get so caught up with you, especially when you're on stage and getting a Q & A at the end and just being like, Oh, God, I hope they don't ask me this question. I hope they don't ask me that question. But the majority of time people don't. And if you don't know the answer, just you don't know the answer.

 

Robert Craven  33:33

I'd actually argue I mean, let's go back to Tom Peters. I paid 400 quid to see Tom Peters a number of years ago. And the presentation was dull as dishwater because it's the same presentation you've done all over the place. It was a Q & A. That was fascinating, because suddenly you saw the guy thinking on his feet. So I would argue in terms of podcast, it's kind of the same thing. And if you've got a mildly aggressive host, they're gonna say, well, actually, what, whereas you haven't? Really, I mean, what do you really believe that, you know? So we've got the who we got the where you got the why. I got a sense, we got that that how, what are the I mean, I'll go back to the Marcus Sheridan questions. Okay, so how much so one is how much does it cost for someone to set themselves up as a podcast guest and get themselves out there? And presumably, there's everything from DIY to done for your services there.

 

Mark Colgan  34:46

Yeah. Yeah. Great question. I think Robert, what I'd like to cover is the outreach part and then I think this then goes into answering how much it would cost to do it if you do it yourself. If you've got the time. You could follow what I'm about to share next. So If you've unless you've got your topics, you've found a few podcasts that have had Marcus Sheridan on in the past, and you have a topic which could complement theirs could go against theirs. But it's for the same audience. So then you want to reach out to the podcast hosts to listen notes. Again, you can use that to find email addresses, you just click email, or you can find go on LinkedIn and search in other ways, making sure it's GDPR compliant, of course. So when it comes to reaching out to the podcast host, the biggest mistake that the majority of people make is they ask for marriage on the first date. Whereas really, what you're trying to ascertain is whether you have anything in common with that person and have some shared interest that you could talk about to develop that relationship. So our approach to reaching out to podcast hosts is we reference the fact that we've listened to a previous episode which had a guest which talked about a similar topic. And then we introduce the fact that we have a customer that we're working with that has a similar opinion, or they can add to that opinion, that we believe would be valuable to the audience of the podcast. Because at the end of the day, the podcast wants to create a podcast host who wants great content, and a great experience for the audience. Therefore, they're looking for people that can bring those conversations and bring that value to their audience as well. So all we're looking to do is connect the dots between our customer's topics, the audience, from the podcast host, and the interest from the podcast host based on the topics that I've spoken about previously. It sounds quite complicated when I say it all in one sentence, but if you break it down, it's not too bad. Find the common thread between yourself and a previous guest. Make that suggestion illuminate that point and ask if they're interested.

 

Robert Craven  36:50

Okay, so the next bit of the question was, because we're on the Marcus Sheridan list. How much? How much does it cost from doing it yourself? Done for You?

 

Mark Colgan  37:01

Yeah, so from doing it yourself, let's take the microphone, let's say $100, you've probably got a good camera, a good phone that you could plug into your computer for, let's say you do need that app, it's $50. So $150, there. A subscription to Listennotes, I think, is $99 per month. So we're at $250. And now it depends on how much time and what your time is worth. A lot goes into the research and into the outreach, we get around 40% replies from those initial outreach, but then we send follow up emails as well. So you want to make sure that you're following up and you're keeping track of all of the podcasts that you're reaching out to so you're double pitching yourself. So it could be from $250 and 10 to 15 hours of your time per week. You've got to factor in the scheduling back and forth as well, that is often the most time consuming part of it, always finding the time between the host and the speaker.

 

Robert Craven  37:57

Okay, okay, so who, what, where, why, when, how? So let's go back to the Marcus Sheridan one. So how much does it cost? Yeah, what can go wrong?

 

Mark Colgan  38:15

So there's a few options. So you've got to do it yourself. There's do it yourself, there's kind of done with you. So there's a number of courses that you can purchase. Again, the time investment that you put in their courses might be $200 to $400. We charge 9700 for a campaign of six months. And we guarantee 10 podcast interviews in those six months and a bunch of coaching and a lot of other value add stuff. But I don't I don't want to turn this into a sales pitch Robert.

 

Robert Craven  38:44

Do that if you do?

 

Mark Colgan  38:45

That's fine. So from $250, to maybe $500 to $10,000? Like it depends on picking your poison, depending on your time.

 

Robert Craven  38:57

What are alternative ways of getting the same result?

 

Mark Colgan  39:03

That's a really good question. I think alternative ways would be having people come to you inbound, but you only get that if you're speaking at conferences, or you're you already have a name and you've already built credibility. Also, if you do that, it's a bit unpredictable, you can't control when that's going to happen, at least when you're taking action. You can make things a little bit more predictable. Other ways, which could be very similar to partnership marketing as well. So you could reach out to these industry giants in your or in the industry that served the same way. I always go into software companies because they create a tonne of content. And then ask if there's any opportunities to collaborate on content that could lead to a podcast could lead to a webinar at the same time. But its still outreach is still you taking proactive steps to to make those things happen.

 

Robert Craven  39:53

Or you might mean from my experiences and tell me if it's mirrored by your clients. it's a bit of a bug as model really, that is, it's just, it's just really, really, really weird because the ones that you think are going to be really great and well organised, aren't always and the ones that you, you get, I can't see the point of that I can't see what the what the glue is. So it'll be out of the way by nine, sometimes really work. And there doesn't seem to be, it's quite tricky. Identifying what the pattern is, even if you even though I've done stuff with, you know, really big names, but then they decide to put you on something, some really obscure the department of the department of no one cares based in Alaska, you know, shown to 10 people, and then something else might, you know, so it's, it feels to me that it's, it's, it just feels a bit random, that you can't guarantee that no, you can't guarantee the success individually. But maybe what you can do is if you do 12 podcasts per year, on average, most of them will work for you.

 

Mark Colgan  41:08

Yeah, you know, I would love to sit here and guarantee but it is so random. And it's a bit like going to the gym to lose weight or to build muscle, it's not one workout that builds that muscle or loses the weight. It's several, several workouts, dozens of workouts consistently over time. One of our customers, for example, in their second interview got close to a 70k deal from the relationship with a podcast host. We can't get it, I wish I could guarantee that it would be the easiest service to sell if I could, but we can't. But it is about consistently turning up and delivering value. And also sometimes when it might, as I mentioned before, is not just a podcast interview, it's not just the interview itself. It's not that 45 minutes, it's the content you can repurpose from it. I've turned podcasts that didn't have a particular great audience into new content that I've not spoken about before. Because the host asked me a really interesting question or came at it from a different angle. And then I'm within I guess a bit of an abundant mindset going Okay, what can I do with this? How can I turn this to my favour? So I guess there's an element of yes, consistency, but also a mindset and approach to these things as well.

 

Robert Craven  42:14

Yeah. And both Dennis you and David Meerman. Scott, both talk quite a lot about using AI. We're basically just pouring the podcast into AI. And the AI just chops everything furiously into sort of into 10, 30, 60, 90 one minute, two minute format in slots and gives you I think the number is something like for every one hour, one hour piece of content, they'll be able to get literally 90 pieces of useful, usable bytes that can go Twitter ticked up LinkedIn, Facebook, which is like. Of course, we don't need to keep reinventing the wheel. I'm not saying I'm not saying that's necessarily clever. Carrie, what's the question I've not asked you, Mark.

 

Mark Colgan  43:03

We've covered a lot. And I'm glad I believe that more value has been shared that we've gone back and forth with this. And you've pushed me for some good answers as well. I think we've covered mostly everything. Some people often ask how many podcasts there are. So there's 2.4 million as of May 2022. In total, 2.4 million podcasts. But not all of those are active. So around 50% of those living in the podcast graveyard were there. They get four or five episodes and then people lose steam.

 

Robert Craven  43:41

Okay, there's one more I've got down here, which is so my podcast experience was it started, it started, it started with a phone, you know, and then it went and then it went to a studio and lights and the big microphone and the big camera. And that got really, really complicated. And I mean, what you did allude to the fact you think it's okay with a $90 mic, but should we be trying to be broadcast studio quality or is it good enough, good enough.

 

Mark Colgan  44:15

So my opinion when COVID happened, and everybody was forced to work from home and you know, not everybody had an office space in their house to work from, our expectations of video quality really dropped. And I think that's a good thing because it removes the barrier to entry of creating good and valuable content because sometimes it's not about the quality of the video. It's about the quality of the content that people are sharing. But I must say when it comes to audio, a good microphone is essential. You should have a microphone. I have the Blue Yeti, not an affiliate to them, but it's Blue Yeti. It's around $100. It came in Amazon within within about three or four days as a bare minimum a good or a good quality mic because there are some podcasts that I really love listening to Robert, but when they have a guest who's dialling in from the phone or he's got the wired headphones, from Starbucks, and I can hear the mic scratching on his shirt buttons. I don't listen to podcasts. I just can't for me, it's like until the next one. So yeah, good quality mic, and then some other kind of DIY tips. I've got a rug on the floor. If you've got curtains, they're good for soundproofing. I even bought these little sticky panels that go on the wall. I'm not sure how effective they are. But a plant rug is probably the cheapest way to give yourself a DIY studio quality.

 

Robert Craven  45:37

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. I guess let's just mean, our time is up, as I say. But I'd be really interested to know, just in the last two or three minutes, you've seen loads of agencies. I mean, we were surrounded by 500 agencies in Slovenia. Just between you and me. Mark, what's your opinion of agencies and their approach to marketing and how good they are marketing and selling their service?

 

Mark Colgan  46:10

Yeah, can I swear when this podcast, please go for it? Yeah, shit, they really do a terrible job marketing themselves, they might create great results for a customer. But oftentimes, their marketing is all about them. There's something I teach in the sales course, which is from the Donald Miller story brand. The majority of companies and people make the mistake of making them the hero, not the customer. And really, what you need to do is make the customer the hero and your guide. So your Yoda, not Luke Skywalker, your cue, not not James Bond. So I think a lot of agencies need to reposition themselves, like I don't care about the agency at all. I just want to know, the same as software. You're the number one, you're the first AI algorithm that software's I don't care, what do you do? And can you help me? And will it actually work for my particular use case? So yeah, stop positioning yourself, positioning the results that you can and the change or the transformation, you correct your customers. And then speak about it, you know, tell that story. What's normal, as you mentioned, talk about the fuck ups the mistakes, everything you've done wrong, because those lessons learn a much more powerful than the newer agency who hasn't made any mistakes yet, and could be your accountant or making mistake on. 

 

Robert Craven  47:26

We're gonna have to cut it there because our time is up. But it's been incredibly useful to have you as a guest. And thank you very much for being really I hate the phrase open and honest and transparent. But being really, really straightforward with us about how Podcasts can work and how agency folk can actually use a podcast to actually generate more business for themselves, put themselves out from the competition, et cetera, et cetera. We're back to the start of the interview. So finally, just thank you. Thank you very much. After the podcast, people will be able to see the links and the views and how to get ahold of Mark. And it's just a very big thank you from everyone here. Thank you very much Mark.