Don’t create another podcast: Lessons from 200 episodes

So we've crossed 200 episodes. And we felt like, as usual, doling out some advice - this time focused on the thing we spend a lot of time on... Podcasts. Specifcally this one.

If you've considered, or are constantly being suggested/told to do a podcast. This episode is for you. If not, maybe it'll just be fun to get a look under the hood. (and if nothing else? This episode also consist of non-work related conversation)

• (00:00) - Introduction
• (02:42) - Podcasting Journey and Milestones
• (03:28) - Why You Shouldn't Start a Podcast
• (04:07) - Challenges and Realities of Podcasting
• (08:23) - The Effort Behind Consistent Content
• (10:37) - Building Trust and Community
• (16:58) - Reflecting on Past Guests
• (17:33) - Becoming Part of the Creator Economy
• (18:29) - Leveraging Influencer Partnerships
• (19:59) - The Impact of Guest Episodes
• (23:17) - Strategies for Growing the Audience
• (24:29) - The Importance of Consistency
• (28:31) - Effective Content Repurposing

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Creators and Guests

Host

Mikkel Plaehn

Marketing leader & b2b saas nerd

Host

Toni Hohlbein

2x exited CRO | 1x Founder | Podcast Host

What is The Revenue Formula?

This podcast is about scaling tech startups.

Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Raul Porojan, together they look at the full funnel.

With a combined 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS and 3 exits, they discuss growing pains, challenges and opportunities they’ve faced. Whether you're working in RevOps, sales, operations, finance or marketing - if you care about revenue, you'll care about this podcast.

If there’s one thing they hate, it’s talk. We know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron. But execution and focus is the key - that’s why each episode is designed to give 1-2 very concrete takeaways.

[00:00:00] Toni: Hey everyone. This is Toni Hohlbein. You are listening to the revenue formula with Mikkel and Tony in today's episode, we are talking about why you should not start your own podcast and we are sharing our experiences from having run a podcast now for over 200 episodes.
[00:00:19] Enjoy
[00:00:20] Mikkel: So The
[00:00:21] other day those kids, they're so like the, the stuff they say and the reasons they have not to do things is just hilarious.
[00:00:29] So yesterday I've picked up the kids. We come home from daycare and school. And my daughter who was 4 sits down on the floor going like, Dad, I'm really tired I can only lift my iPad.
[00:00:44] Toni: Yes. It's, I mean, it's a totally valid
[00:00:52] Mikkel: No it's like, and that, think about it It's one kilo. And that sets very real limitations for what she can and cannot do. Like swipe.
[00:01:00] Toni: I just I just love it so much. I can so imagine like, this child voice in
[00:01:06] Danish saying this for some reason in Danish, it, it gets a little bit better
[00:01:11] even for some reason. I don't, I don't know
[00:01:12] Mikkel: No, exactly. It's just like butterfly in german. It gets better. It's like beautiful
[00:01:17] beautiful
[00:01:18] Toni: told my, I told my my oldest one, like, Hey, if you watch too much TV your, your eyes are going to turn rectangular.
[00:01:24] Um, Right. Because that was the thing that people
[00:01:27] used on me, like. I don't know, very long ago it seems like, and he's spending some time at his, grandpa today. And I was like, right, you and grandpa, you're going to watch a lot of TV, huh?
[00:01:39] And and he was like, yeah, I think grandpa's going to get rectangular eyes.
[00:01:48] It's like, yeah, you totally, you totally
[00:01:51] got
[00:01:51] Mikkel: by the way, I just want to point out to the listener we are good parents It's not like we park them in front of the tv or an ipad 24 7. I just want to point out I just want to put it out
[00:02:01] Toni: But also I thought this would be a great segue to say, and you know, to not have rectangular
[00:02:06] eyes,
[00:02:07] Mikkel: You listen instead.
[00:02:08] Toni: you should, you should listen to a podcast instead,
[00:02:11] Mikkel: Well, actually, yeah, it's good. Well, I mean, my son, he probably could, could understand because he, he's getting better with English. Like, honestly, it's a thing. So yeah, I think that's a, it's a perfect, it's a good segue. Let's go with that. That
[00:02:23] is
[00:02:23] Toni: and I think by now everyone is like, okay, come on guys, get
[00:02:26] over with it. Cause it's
[00:02:28] like,
[00:02:28] Mikkel: And you're going to do an episode about podcast right now.
[00:02:30] I'm so done with this show. It's over. Like it used to be cool when it was all these CAC payback analyses
[00:02:36] Toni: and then they talked about AI suddenly the whole time.
[00:02:41] Mikkel: oh man, no, so we have a bit of an anniversary, actually we've done about 200, yeah, we've done about 200 episodes of this show boy, did that go fast, boy, did that go fast, I remember you and I, yeah, I remember you and I sitting in a room at a round table that was clearly too small sharing a microphone saying, We're gonna give it a year and here we are, like almost three years later, still at
[00:03:06] Toni: Is it three years
[00:03:07] Mikkel: almost.
[00:03:07] No, No, no, but getting closer, getting closer. I think it must be two and a half. It must be two and a half. And we've at least got a chance to meet a ton of great people. We've covered so many subjects. Also met a lot of just honestly, wonderful people through them listening to the show us, You know, hitting it off on LinkedIn and stuff.
[00:03:25] So I think that's just been quite amazing.
[00:03:28] And so naturally we wanted to talk about why you shouldn't do a podcast today.
[00:03:31] Toni: Yeah. Don't do
[00:03:32] it. It's like, it's, it's, it's, it's not a good
[00:03:35] Mikkel: Thanks so much for listening. Make sure to like, subscribe. I hear that's free.
[00:03:39] Toni: the way, the, the, the subscribing part, I think we need to have this in the, and this is where we go into the first, you know, you know, tactics here, actually the, the call to action to subscribe should be much earlier in
[00:03:49] Mikkel: Yeah,
[00:03:50] Toni: So now that you're listening to this, as we haven't already hit the subscribe button, especially if you've been like, you know, five episodes deep. Dude, I mean, it's time,
[00:03:59] you
[00:04:00] Mikkel: it's also why the best, the top performing AEs, then they start by sending out the doku sign and then proceed to demo, depending on how that goes.
[00:04:07] So, why so why is it podcasts are so sexy and attractive? Maybe we just started off there before we going into why shouldn't you do it and all the misconceptions around it.
[00:04:17] But why, why do you think this is actually something that comes up in a conversation as some of the businesses around the world?
[00:04:24] Toni: So I think initially people think like, it's not kind of easy to do. I mean, you just have two people, you talk a little you, you sure you do a little bit of cutting here and there, and then you push this thing out and then it's done, it's much harder to, you know, write a. transcript and then you can tell I've never heard such a piece of content and, you know, kind of push that out in the whole
[00:04:43] into the world. So just people having conversations, that's pretty easy, you know, sometimes I even hear people and, you know, at some point my thought was the same thing was like, Oh geez, you and I, we had just such a great conversation, if we would have, if we would have had hit record on this, I'm sure a thousand people would
[00:04:58] want to
[00:04:59] Mikkel: yeah, exactly. But it's, yeah, it's so funny. It just made me think about, I saw Christopher Waltz, famous actor German, by the way he was in a morning talk show over in the States and the talk show looks at him and goes, boy, you're, you're just so good at playing the bad guy, how do you do it? And he just does that.
[00:05:23] Like, I will say that Christopher Waltz face only he can do it. He just says. I'm an actor, just like, well, true. And I think it's just to say, yes, you might be able to speak, but once you hit record and have a microphone, something just happens to people is it, I can't explain it, but something just happened.
[00:05:45] It happened to us. I think initially as well, you need to get used to it. And there's kind of that piece. So, so I think you're
[00:05:50] Toni: we, we saw, yeah, we saw big guys crumble in sweat
[00:05:54] Mikkel: yeah, yeah, yeah,
[00:05:57] Toni: including ourselves in the beginning. Where I thought you wanted to go with this actor thing is I think after 200 episodes, I think it's about time to reveal to the world that Mikkel and I actually hate
[00:06:08] each
[00:06:08] Mikkel: yeah,
[00:06:09] Toni: We have, we're working so
[00:06:13] hard you know, it's, it takes so much skill, so much effort
[00:06:18] to be like laughing and cracking jokes and be like all like agreeable on those shows, but it's actually kind of once the camera's off and
[00:06:26] the recording is done, we're at each other's throats or just kind of walk
[00:06:30] Mikkel: I can only recommend like what we're doing is recording async. So Tony records his part and then I'm just watching and doing my bit. So that always works. No, I think you're right, by the way, I think there's also people just assume that it's easy to figure out how you want to run this show. I think a lot of things are just being taken for granted because when you look at this product, it's fairly simple.
[00:06:50] It's a 25, 30 minute episode. How hard can it actually be to do? And I'm just telling you, it is quite difficult, let alone getting someone to listen to it, right? So, I, I think that's one, one side and I think the other is Somehow it feels like when I look at Harry Steppings, I'm like, boy, he's famous and you know what?
[00:07:12] Probably he is to a degree, but I think there's just that kind of natural appeal that, well, all I have to do is the same thing as he did for like 10 years and then I'm Harry, how hard can that be? And I
[00:07:23] Toni: Yeah, we're 20 percent
[00:07:24] Mikkel: yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true.
[00:07:26] Toni: we're basically 80 million out of the 400 million fund
[00:07:28] that you raised. We're basically at 80 million
[00:07:30] Mikkel: Yeah. So, I think, I think maybe you're right. That's, that's part of it.
[00:07:35] Also, like the ability to meet other. Experts in a field, like, Hey, do you want to hop on a podcast? It's just different than, Hey, do you want to hop on a zoom call? You know?
[00:07:43] Toni: by the way, I think that is like one of the major upsides of doing a podcast,
[00:07:47] especially with guests, we will get into guests, kind of the ups and downs on that
[00:07:51] in a second, but actually meeting those folks is
[00:07:54] pretty
[00:07:54] Mikkel: yeah. So let's say for now that's like probably why a lot of folks go into it. So, why shouldn't they actually do it?
[00:08:02] Toni: So, I mean, we just talked about some of the misconceptions here,
[00:08:06] right. And basically if you listen to it carefully, you just. Reverse the whole thing
[00:08:10] Mikkel: and
[00:08:10] then done.
[00:08:11] Toni: ah, ah. So it's not that you're telling me it's not that easy. So I think there's a bunch of work that needs to happen around obviously kind of the content and the setup and so forth.
[00:08:21] Kind of there, there's, there's work around this. Right.
[00:08:23] And I think it's a little bit also like going to the gym, which obviously clearly if you're on YouTube, neither of us does. But it's, it's like, you need to stay consistent. Right. So we had a
[00:08:32] couple of times you're like, Oh, let's just skip today.
[00:08:35] It's like, no. No skipping it's not allowed. Right. And I think keeping that up, I think that is really difficult. Right. Then, you know, thinking about new content all the time. I mean, 200 episodes.
[00:08:46] Mikkel: It's a lot of
[00:08:47] Toni: know, and and we're not, we're not pulling in Chris Walker. Sorry, Chris, you know, I'm sure you're not listening anyway, but it's like, it's, it's the same stuff, right?
[00:08:55] He
[00:08:56] talks about the same things all the time. So kind of coming up with 200 new pieces of content. I think that's exhausting and this is just on the effort side. And then the next thing is like, well, what, what. Does all of that get me,
[00:09:09] right? What am I, what am I buying with all of that work? And to be honest, folks, I'm not so sure.
[00:09:14] So I can, I can maybe, maybe it makes sense to go a little bit into what our reasoning was in the beginning, how it is morphed and so forth
[00:09:22] and whether that worked
[00:09:23] Mikkel: we just thought it was cool. So that's why,
[00:09:26] Toni: Yeah, I was really like, oh, this could be my way to stardom basically. You
[00:09:30] know, that, that's that's how I could become a celebrity finally. The, I think the main thing that we wanted to achieve yes, we kind of read the, the founder brand from Dave Gerhardt.
[00:09:42] Like that was kind of, that was a piece. But really it was about, well, let's go on LinkedIn, start doing some content there. And then the content that we see resonates, we can actually use that in other areas.
[00:09:54] For example, in the newsletter, which we also, you know, sign up the revenue formula on subsects, sign up if you haven't pushing stuff out there
[00:10:00] every other week or so right now and then using. Using similar content pieces for the podcast and kind of having these things reinforce each other a little bit, that felt like a smart idea to do right.
[00:10:11] In terms of creating, you know, multi having multi use for each of the different pieces of content we generate.
[00:10:18] The purpose that we wanted to achieve though, was for people to. Get to know us, trust us you know, maybe even become friends of, you know, some shape or form. And, and yes, ultimately kind of using that in order to boost revenues as a grow blocks,
[00:10:36] right?
[00:10:36] Kind of, that was the idea.
[00:10:37] And, and the reason why we ended up with this specific approach was in the beginning of grow blocks, we were basically being a consultancy professional services company, right? We didn't have a product for one and a half years. Maybe even a little bit more into the journey. So how do you generate business in a professional service company? It's like through trust and through people and they kind of hear something from, it's like, Oh, cool. You know, maybe you should talk to Tony or these grow box guys. And that was kind of the purpose, right? It's kind of get more people to get to know us. See that we kind of know what we're doing and then from there go into a, Oh, I should really check out these grow blocks guys. And maybe kind of go further than that. Right. I mean, am I, am I, am I, you know, is there some revisionist history here where I'm just taking some of the things that we learned and kind of smashing that in there or, or was that our starting point?
[00:11:28] Michael, I,
[00:11:29] I maybe I forget.
[00:11:30] Mikkel: I think it was, but we already, I think from the onset, we knew we had no product to market. So what can we advertise the founder? Like that was one of the reasons, right? So if you're, I will say at a post series, a startup. You have other things to prioritize quite frankly. So the question really becomes, is it worth the time time committed is because you already have stuff to market, right?
[00:11:51] So that's just one side of it. The other is we didn't look at the podcast in isolation. We didn't say, oh, we're going to start a podcast and nothing else. It was like, no. Because we, we can, we need to build a founder brand now and we need to advert, you know, educate the buyers on the problem and this direction we're going.
[00:12:09] We need more than just the show. So you were kind of already active on LinkedIn. We scaled that. We also created a newsletter around it. Right. So it was kind of a, a package. And the reason. Or at least in hindsight, I think one of the, the benefits of that actually is so we set the 200 episodes is really difficult.
[00:12:26] It's because coming up with these content ideas, it's like, it's a muscle once you have, I don't know if you've ever tried like fitness, like weightlifting, if you've ever done it and you just wreck yourself for the first time ever, you're going to have like a week of pain, basically going to have a week of torture where your arms and legs and everything just hurts.
[00:12:47] Toni: Are you just
[00:12:47] aging
[00:12:48] Mikkel: Oh, you're just aging is one of the, but, but that's going to be like, it is really difficult to start even again, once you've had a break like there's something that happens when you think about a podcast episode, think about a newsletter, think about a LinkedIn post, those things start meshing.
[00:13:01] You start observing things that other people ride whatever it is in the news of, you know, you start picking up on certain things that become stories you then want to tell, right. That become your, your point of view. So. I, I think the purpose for us was we had nothing to advertise, so it's, I, I don't feel it's, it's revisionist history, history though, so,
[00:13:20] yeah,
[00:13:21] Toni: no, I think that's true. So basically also what we're saying, the situation that need to be in for this to make sense needs to be very particular.
[00:13:28] Right. I think I think the next thing also is like, let's just say you're a marketer and you're like, Oh, maybe, maybe I should do a
[00:13:35] podcast here. I think it's also a great way to kill your career.
[00:13:38] Like, because you know, the, the way you're going to do it is you're going to try and, you know, boot this up and. Maybe you can't do it yourself. So you need to recruit people that actually are on the show. And it's, it's going to be lots of friction,
[00:13:49] lots of friction to kind of get this thing going. And then it's going to take you a lot of time to show anything for it.
[00:13:55] All
[00:13:55] right. So we are like again, 200 episodes in, I don't think so. We're not like a mass market product or something like this, right? Kind of, we're not we're, we're, we're, we're niche. I think we could be bigger in the niche so that that's kind of clear for us, but we're around like five, 6, 000 downloads a month or listens or whatever, whatever the, you know, or views,
[00:14:15] however you want to call that on the different, you know, platforms. So. I don't know, maybe but if it is the right five to 6, 000 people, then
[00:14:24] yeah,
[00:14:25] it starts to become pretty much a lot actually.
[00:14:27] Right. And but getting to this point, I think it's, it takes a
[00:14:32] while. It takes a, it takes a
[00:14:34] Mikkel: I think if, if you were to consider doing it now for a different purpose, that would make sense. It's for some of the differentiators, like the differentiating factor it can be. But it then warns that you actually have folks who probably are not going to leave, by the way, we'll start there.
[00:14:48] So you're probably looking at a founder to be honest. And also they need to have something. You know, on their heart, on their mind that they want to talk about, and they need to be able to then talk about it. And then they also need to commit the time, right? So there's actually a lot of things that needs to fall into place for that to happen.
[00:15:05] You can bring a horse to water, but it doesn't mean it's going to drink, right? So you can, you can jump through all the hoops. And it's just not necessarily going to work out. But I think if, if you're, if you're really playing the long game. And understand, Hey, this thing is going to take us two to three years for it to start paying dividends, then cool by all means go do that.
[00:15:25] Right. But you just, I think it's important to level set the expectation
[00:15:28] there.
[00:15:28] Toni: it's, it's a little bit like many people have this idea of like, Ooh, you know, we saw all of these people on LinkedIn
[00:15:34] posting and we're selling to like a B2B audience. And so. Wouldn't it be great if our founder started posting on LinkedIn, like the, the amount of resistance that you will encounter to, to get the person to do it is probably very
[00:15:49] little in comparison to the amount of resistance you will get to have this person be on the show,
[00:15:54] like every week for an hour.
[00:15:55] Right. And very quickly as you know, the results simply will not be coming in.
[00:16:00] It will take some time, very quickly. There will be this question hanging over your head. Of like, why are we doing this
[00:16:07] kind of, why am I wasting my time on this? Like, and I think once you're in this you know, questioning why to even do this cycle,
[00:16:15] it starts become really difficult to produce high quality shows
[00:16:19] coming out of this and really giving this a push.
[00:16:21] Right.
[00:16:22] So I think that's, that's probably one of the, the, the simple reasons. I think the, another reason, another reason to do it. That we actually found later on kind of the purpose and kind of how the purpose evolved
[00:16:34] was actually the I want to say the community that we were able to
[00:16:38] build, right.
[00:16:39] And community, community for many people means, Oh, you know, we have a Slack community and other people in there. It can be so many different things, right? So for example, you listening. You are to a degree part of the community. So this is thanks. Thanks for doing it by the way. But there's also another side of the community, which is the creator side to it, right.
[00:16:58] You know, having Jacko on the show, having Cal Poyer and Cal from Copy AI on the show, having you know, all, all of those, all of those people on the show. And sometimes once, twice, maybe even three times, you know, Chris Walker was on the show twice. Like, there's a couple of people that you know, when we started this out, we were like, Oh, wow, those are like,
[00:17:17] those are really cool people.
[00:17:19] And, and then getting the chance to chat with them and talk with them. And, you
[00:17:22] know, you have the, the whole leading up to the recording, you have the one, you know, recording uploads kind of, there's
[00:17:28] lots of other stuff that's still happening. You have the email address, you can ask them questions. You can, they're way more available.
[00:17:33] Suddenly you're kind of part of that creator economy in this B2B space,
[00:17:38] which you know, I'm not saying, you know, they wouldn't be doing influencer jobs or something, you know, that, that, that's not the right thing, but it's, it's extremely interesting on the one hand side, but also you yourself start to become a little part of the in crowd.
[00:17:52] You know, really, you know, first of all, they know you, they kind of talk to one another kind of, and, and maybe sometimes even talk about you, but the other thing is also you're on LinkedIn, you're following all of these guys and you, you starting to see what they're doing, you know, what they're referencing, what they're referring to and and you're kind of starting to become really part of that community as well,
[00:18:12] which, which I felt was. Really fun actually
[00:18:16] instead of just being there and lurking and like reading and liking maybe sometimes, but actually kind of going into it and being part of it. So I think that is that is not only a nice thing to have, but it
[00:18:26] can also be leveraged into business, you know, outcomes for
[00:18:29] you.
[00:18:29] Mikkel: No, I, and I was just going to say like, we when we worked at Falcons or the social media management vendor, we wanted to work with influencers and immediately we would get a, Oh yeah, but it's going to cost you 10, 000 pounds. And it was always like, it was always like that. Even though we brought a bunch of other things to the table, don't get me wrong.
[00:18:46] It's totally fair. If you want someone to advertise your selfish thing as a business, most likely will come at a cost. And I think to a degree that's, that can be okay. But. I think the difference for us was we could all of a sudden say, Hey we're going to do an ebook about X, Y, Z, you were on the show.
[00:19:01] Do you mind if we repurpose what we recorded and then promote it under your name? And like all kinds of doors to partnering opened up, which quite frankly, just helped us with immense reach at the end of the day. Right. I think that was like. A a superpower. There were other pieces where we could start talking about partner, partner opportunities at the very early stage we're at.
[00:19:24] Right. So I think that was immensely powerful as well. The, the kind of access it can give.
[00:19:30] Toni: I think the, the other thing I just actually forgot to mention is I got way more, you know, Invited to be speaker at a conference to be a guest on someone else's show. I mean,
[00:19:42] ultimately also how the creators discover new people on the show is by listening to other shows, being on LinkedIn, you
[00:19:48] know, finding people that have something interesting to say.
[00:19:51] So that's, that was kind of, that was kind of another upside actually. And, and kind of almost brings me to the next point, which was guests, right?
[00:19:59] We didn't start the show out with guests. We kind of was just you and I
[00:20:02] chatting. And we see that there's a difference, right? I think kind of having a guest show, you know, usually is has, you know, more downloads, more interest than, than just us.
[00:20:13] Am I, am I, am I correct?
[00:20:14] Actually,
[00:20:14] Mikkel: you know what? It's so funny if you've considered hopping into doing a show, everyone will say, ah, You know, you shouldn't do guests because all the shows are with guests and it's a but you don't want to just it kind Of also works like why not if it works like try it out see for yourself learn and then adapt I think I think it's really bad advice to say like no you shouldn't do it in in a certain way And I think it also depends on your purpose if you were If you want to build the founder's brand, bringing on guests will naturally bring more focus on the guests as it should, as it should honestly.
[00:20:48] Right. So you need to think a little bit about this setup there. So we,
[00:20:52] Toni: but to my question, like, do, do you actually know if guest episodes do better, generally speaking
[00:20:56] better
[00:20:57] Mikkel: for us, yes for us, yes, but also sometimes you have like, it's a self fulfilling prophecy, you and I are just more excited that we spoke with Manny Medina from Outreach and we had a great conversation, was a wonderful guy. And let's. You know, then we want to promote it. Right. So I think there's also some of that happening as well.
[00:21:13] So, so it's, you know, again, for us, yeah, it's definitely better for some, maybe not, like maybe if, if, if someone already has a founder brand that is bigger than the guests you bring on, you know, maybe you don't need to.
[00:21:26] Toni: no, exactly. And I think my point was actually kind of working with guests is always, it's good. It's, I think it also brings a different perspective into the
[00:21:35] show. Mikkel and I kind of, you know, we're still only just, you know, two people having additional people bring, bring their insights and their brains to this. makes it so much more interesting for us but also for the audience that listening. I think in the very early beginning, we're like, Oh, we're going to get all of those people on and then they're going to promote the show and
[00:21:55] post this and Do that.
[00:21:57] And and forget about it.
[00:21:59] Like that's just not happening.
[00:22:01] So, I mean, it's usually and I, and I hope, I hope I'm not kind of, stepping on anyone's toes. Like the people that have the biggest reach, they are very much not so likely to promote you folks that have the, the, the smallest reach that kind of, Hey, you know, I was on the show. We talked about this, right. That, that usually kind of tends to happen,
[00:22:20] but it's like. The, the, the, the bigger the guests are, the less likely they are to kind of, you know, try and promote. Right.
[00:22:27] But
[00:22:27] it's
[00:22:27] Mikkel: if you look at a, if you look at a movie actor, the thing they're going to promote the most, promote the most is the big movie they're a part of this year. Not the little series, series appearance they did or the talk show or the whatever. They're going to promote the big thing.
[00:22:42] That's where they're going to go deep. And I think you just have to acknowledge also that no matter what. Industry you're in, there's probably an established show that is the big thing to appear on, which they, you know what, if, if the same guest that joined our show now goes and join, I don't know, again, Harry stepping from 20, we see probably they're going to share that they're on that show just because of the.
[00:23:03] Street cred, it will almost give comparatively, right? So I think you also have to acknowledge just where you are in the stage relative to others and that's, that's part of it, but expecting the, the guests to kind of carry the show and I don't, don't do it. You're doing yourself a disservice then.
[00:23:17] Toni: But let's go to carrying the show. Meaning in this case, really helping to grow it,
[00:23:22] right. Helping to grow the audience. So what are the things that we did on to grow the audience?
[00:23:28] Mikkel: not much. We just posted and then done. No no, honestly
[00:23:31] we
[00:23:32] Toni: Like every other marketer, you know,
[00:23:33] Mikkel: I mean, we did a ton of things, but it's all different stages, right? There's the initial state of just getting. Into the rhythm. And for us, it meant like, producing a good episode and then also being able to promote it on LinkedIn and figuring out how do we get people from LinkedIn to then listen to the show difficult by the way, difficult, right?
[00:23:52] But that was, I think the the first step. So we produced video snippets. We did all kinds of crazy things to try and, to try and drive attention to the show. I think when we started doing the newsletter, that also helped out. Not that we were actively promoting the podcast, but it just became part of that little world.
[00:24:10] Like, Hey, you know, I've, I've bumped into Tony on LinkedIn. Now I'm on his newsletter and I just saw he has a podcast. Maybe we should check that out actually. So I think that was just something there that started to mesh really nicely. And then I think obviously A big thing was actually the the sticking with the habit of publishing.
[00:24:29] Like, I think as a listener, you get used to, so by the way, true story. I know there are certain shows that has the exact same publishing cadence as us. Right. So I'm building a habit on those shows because they publish every Tuesday. Right. And I think it's the same for our audience. Not that they necessarily will go and say like, Oh, on Tuesday, the new episode is coming, I can't wait.
[00:24:49] Like, I don't think that's what happens, but there's
[00:24:51] that
[00:24:52] Toni: I think that's what happens.
[00:24:53] Mikkel: probably lie awake at night the day before, but I, you know, I think there's, that matters a great deal. And I think if you're inconsistent and people don't know what to expect, that is really tricky than to build up a habit as a listener.
[00:25:06] I think that was like the initial, let's say now it's starting to work phase. Do you think there was anything else we did
[00:25:12] early
[00:25:13] Toni: Yeah. So one thing is we deliberately chose for the two of us to have like a window of 25, 30 minutes.
[00:25:20] Because we wanted to get into this commute. Basically we
[00:25:23] didn't want to, you know, I'm, I'm sometimes listen to the New York times podcast and it's like an hour and a half. It's like, I need to go for like three runs before I'm done with that episode.
[00:25:32] It's like, that's, it's, it's, by the way, it's nice, high quality. I love it and everything, but it wouldn't be great if just fit it into, you know, one task that I do, for
[00:25:40] example. So I think kind of, that was kind of a very much a decision. And I think then the other thing, and we started this a little bit later, which is just such a, such a rookie mistake. It's like asking, you know, asking people to
[00:25:53] Mikkel: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, you're right that
[00:25:55] that we kind of stung at. Yeah.
[00:25:57] Toni: really this like, Oh, you know, did you like this one? And you know, you watch YouTube
[00:26:02] like
[00:26:02] Mikkel: like asking for the
[00:26:03] sale. It's literally what it is. You
[00:26:05] gotta
[00:26:06] Toni: I know, but, but everyone is like, Oh, this is kind of advertisement.
[00:26:09] And, but the thing is it works.
[00:26:11] It actually
[00:26:12] works kind of, because the thing is really what you do is, and we kind of started to have this habit in general, kind of when, when you and I do marketing together, it's like. You have to ask what you want, you know, you have to ask for it. And it doesn't always need to be the LinkedIn posts are like, you know, book a demo now or something kind of that doesn't work. But if you want something, you have to ask for it, right? It does. It's not just going to happen to you. So, and and that apparently is true, not just have we figured this out, but also everyone else has figured this
[00:26:39] out, right? This is one thing. And then the other thing also on the, you know, you got to ask for it.
[00:26:44] It's like ask for reviews. I think two weeks ago. So we had our first negative review, right? I still need to, I say actually need to still kind of write this guy in, you know,
[00:26:53] Mikkel: I did I did. Yeah. I'm
[00:26:54] Toni: Yeah. And did you, did. you, did you reply? Did you
[00:26:56] not? did. he,
[00:26:57] Mikkel: No, he didn't reply. No, no, no, he did not
[00:27:00] Toni: It was like, Michael, you, you lose that one bad episode.
[00:27:03] I'm not going to talk to you.
[00:27:04] No, but you know, ask for the review and then the review, sorry, that's and the review, the review and the subscribe and all of that stuff that helps you on these different platforms to get more reach there, to get up in the search rankings, to maybe get into the. Oh, you know, top four business podcasts on Apple in your region.
[00:27:26] And there's a, there's a,
[00:27:27] there's a couple of those things actually where it helps you a lot with. So don't underestimate that.
[00:27:32] Don't underestimate that. And there's so many other places where it can be found. Right.
[00:27:36] And, and I got to say what we started very lat, you know, the last thing we started. Actually YouTube you know, put those things on YouTube. It takes a little bit more time cutting it and making it right. You know, I've, we have a full, you know, studio set up running here now.
[00:27:52] And requires a little bit of different camera. You know, there's a couple of things that kind of, you know, you need to do.
[00:27:57] But it's another network and and it's our fastest growing network right now as well.
[00:28:02] Right. I'm not sure, you know, if people want to see us or if they're just starting to transition to YouTube and it's like, it's
[00:28:08] just there, they have it in their pocket. I'm not sure exactly what happens there.
[00:28:11] But we get a lot of views actually from, from YouTube. Right. And and adding those networks. Take some time and some effort, right? We also went to the Spotify video version and stuff. So that it takes some effort. But it certainly helps you with your user acquisition or with you, with your viewership or audience acquisition, basically.
[00:28:30] Right.
[00:28:31] So again, you kind of create a piece of content. Maybe it starts with the LinkedIn post. You then realize, oh, you know, let's build a full episode out of this. And then once you have the full episode, you kind of need to use it. On as many different places in order to kind of push the message out.
[00:28:45] Right. So, and I think those were some of the tactics we, we, we chose to use in order to, to grow the show.
[00:28:52] Mikkel: and I mean, we've done a bunch of other things that didn't work out and that's part of it, you know, you try so many different
[00:28:57] things
[00:28:58] Toni: What did we try that didn't work out? Didn't everything work out
[00:29:01] Mikkel: probably, yeah, let's just assume that I've forgotten all the
[00:29:04] Toni: I think, well, the, the, the guest thing didn't work out, right? We were thinking like, they're going to cross post
[00:29:09] this
[00:29:09] Mikkel: oh, yeah, that's
[00:29:09] Toni: blue sky and X and everywhere. It was like, no,
[00:29:12] Mikkel: but it did help grow the show also, because I think it gives additional, some different perspectives, quite frankly and then I think people find the casual conversation, I hope they find the casual conversation fun. That's a big part of the show,
[00:29:23] right?
[00:29:24] Toni: What, what was the, and we kind of need to wrap up here in a second, but what was the, the, the biggest surprise for me. So when I talked to a couple of people that actually kind of listened to the show they were saying something along the lines of, and I'm not saying that that's fully true, but they were saying something like you and
[00:29:42] Mikkel: No! That can't be right! You must have misheard. This is your German dialect or something that screwed you. That can't be right. Can't be right.
[00:29:50] Don't
[00:29:51] Toni: and, and that being one of the reasons why they're kind of listening, because it's like,
[00:29:54] it's, I mean, it's okay, let's talk about cook payback. I mean, it's, it's, it is, it's really,
[00:30:00] it's actually boring. It's boring stuff actually. Right. So it's like, I think if you hit this balance of like infotainment or edutainment,
[00:30:08] I think then, then I think that can
[00:30:10] also
[00:30:10] Mikkel: But you know what, I also think like if we ever get invited to do an episode at a conference again, I'm just going to say, Hey sure, let's do it. We can't really guarantee that we get to any subject matter because we just get stuck in casual conversation. And number two, we kind of need to have some beers on the stage just to, you know, chill down the vibes of this conference stuff.
[00:30:31] You know, anyway, so I think just a last reflection for me at least it's. It's you know, we obviously bias towards a podcast because we're already at a point now where it's, it's kind of working, right. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. I've seen folks try and shortcut it. And instead basically hire someone outside of the company to build that show.
[00:30:54] Right. And I think if that's your consideration, you might as well just go and sponsor. Honestly. Because. You still get a lot of overhead in terms of managing the show, who is effectively promoting it. And quite frankly, what expert are you building up? Not someone who's part of your team. Then I would rather say what drifted back in the day was almost, I will say an employee perk.
[00:31:15] If someone raised their hand and wanted to start a show it felt like there was support to then. Help them produce it at the end of the day. And I think that is a different approach instead to to take.
[00:31:25] So should you start a podcast? Hmm. Maybe don't know. If you, if you at least think about sponsoring one and you have an audience that's go to market leaders in software, then hit me and Tony up.
[00:31:35] We obviously have sponsors lots.
[00:31:37] Toni: Wow. I
[00:31:38] mean, we didn't even prepare for that. That was
[00:31:40] actually not the idea of the show,
[00:31:41] but
[00:31:41] Mikkel: No,
[00:31:43] we can cut it out. We can
[00:31:44] cut
[00:31:45] Toni: Well done. Like, so yeah, I think we have like a sponsorship slot actually opening up. If someone is interested, just hit us up on LinkedIn. Happy, happy to help you out. Otherwise, thank you so much for listening everyone.
[00:31:56] Mikkel, thanks for having this conversation. I'm so happy. I'm going to be rid of you now
[00:32:00] after this episode is done. And sorry, did you want to say
[00:32:03] something?
[00:32:03] Honey,
[00:32:06] Mikkel: 200
[00:32:08] Toni: honey, thank you so much for the last 200 and, and here is to the next 1000, you know, thanks everyone else. Have a good one and bye bye.