How to Build a Podcast Strategy That Grows Your Business [Endless Customers Podcast Ep. 94]

This transcript has been generated by AI and not checked for accuracy.

00:00:00  

Lindsey Auten 

A bunch of my clients right now are either thinking about starting a podcast or have just started a podcast, and if they're listening to this episode or anyone listening to this episode is in the same spot that they are, there are a few things that you must know before you get started, and those things are. 

00:00:25  

Alex Winter 

Welcome back to endless customers. I'm your host, Alex Winter, and today we are joined by Lindsay Otten. She's a coach and trainer here at impact. Lindsey, welcome to. 

00:00:33  

Alex Winter 

The show. 

00:00:35  

Lindsey Auten 

Guys, it's been too long. 

00:00:36  

Alex Winter 

It has been way too long. We've missed you. We got a lot to talk about. We're usually talking about video with you because you are a video expert, among other things. But I think the focus for today is we're going to, we're going to flip the switch a little bit. I want to talk about podcasts. And I know you're on a podcast and we're talking about podcasts, which might be a little crazy for. 

00:00:55  

Alex Winter 

Out there, but we really have been seeing a huge shift from, you know, YouTube is a big play. We know how important creating videos are and how much it will help build trust and meet help you meet your customers where they are in the marketplace. But we haven't really talked about podcasts and how how much we've been seeing a shift in engagement and how much it's helping to build trust. 

00:01:15 Alex Winter 

On such a such a real level, so I'd love to pick your brain about podcasting. The does the don'ts, and I know you have some clients that are. 

00:01:22  

Alex Winter 

Going to actually kick off their own podcast, so I'm going to stop talking and I'm going to let you tell us what's going on in the land of podcasting. 

00:01:30  

Lindsey Auten 

Well, Alex, at some point we are going to flip the script and I want to ask you some questions about how the sausage is made behind the scenes on. 

00:01:36  

Lindsey Auten 

This podcast. 

00:01:37  

Lindsey Auten 

Because I think the the customers who I help produce podcasts would love to hear some insights from you all who are actually doing it and producing it, we'll get there. But let's let's sort of set the stage for like. 

00:01:47  

Alex Winter 

Sounds good. 

00:01:51  

Lindsey Auten 

Why podcasting? Why? Why does it make sense? 

00:01:55  

Lindsey Auten 

If you think about the like, the viewing consumption habits on a on a daily basis, how are you personally consuming media? 

00:02:05  

Alex Winter 

Yes. 

00:02:05  

Alex Winter 

Yeah. So that's a great question. I watch a lot of videos just because that's that's who I am. That's how I've always been. But I definitely listen to podcasts when I'm in the car. So when I'm driving to and from the office and when I have some down time or if I'm like on a, on a plane, going somewhere, I usually am listening to to podcast. That's the new thing. 

00:02:22 

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah. And as much as I, I also love watching videos during the day. If I'm doing administrative tasks that I, I put my head down and I'm I'm getting some work done, there's a good chance I'm. I'm putting on a. 

00:02:34  

Lindsey Auten 

Podcast. 

00:02:35  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah. And so if we think about specifically for a B2B audience and you're asking yourself the question, what does? 

00:02:42  

Lindsey Auten 

Business person who I'm trying to target due on a daily basis in terms of listening habits or viewing habits or media consumption habits. Well, there's a a good chance that they are looking at a podcast or or thinking of putting on a podcast when they're doing tasks like the tasks that I mentioned, the admin task. 

00:03:02  

Lindsey Auten 

So if we are really trying to get the most out of our endless customers journey, build the most trust, meet our viewers or listeners where they're at. If you are a business and you realize my audience listens to podcast, which you can do with some demographic. 

00:03:22  

Lindsey Auten 

Research. 

00:03:23  

Lindsey Auten 

Then why wouldn't you make a podcast? I think one of the misconceptions behind making the podcast is it's going to be a lot more work than like a regular video is, but you should ask yourself. The question is the podcast, is it better to do a podcast just straight up and focus on that? 

00:03:42  

Lindsey Auten 

That's the main factor of our video strategy, because, I mean, people forget that podcasts can be video as well. They're not just audio. In fact, the podcast, quote, UN quote podcasts that I listen to and watch. 

00:03:54  

Lindsey Auten 

And I say watch because I've watched most of it on YouTube. Is a sports podcast that I put on Monday, Wednesday, Friday mornings with my husband. We have it on YouTube as we're getting ready, we can listen, we watch and then finish it, cause it's like an hour and a half long show. Finish it in the car on the way to the gym in the afternoon. 

00:04:16  

Lindsey Auten 

It has become the only true appointment viewing that we have in our in our House and it's. 

00:04:21  

Lindsey Auten 

Podcast. 

00:04:22  

Alex Winter 

Wow, what a shift to cause. I feel like back in the day it used to be, you'd watch, you'd watch the news or you'd watch whatever sports channel on TV and now. 

00:04:23  

Lindsey Auten 

So. 

00:04:29  

Alex Winter 

You know, now it's a podcast and it's so true because I do that too. I I'm a Big Joe Rogan fan and I watched Joe Rogan, but I watch his video podcast. I I don't really listen to his podcast. I watch it on YouTube. That's sort of my fascination and the guests he has on. But I do the same thing. So it's definitely it's definitely the new normal. 

00:04:48  

Lindsey Auten 

Yes. So if you're thinking Ohh podcast like. 

00:04:53  

Lindsey Auten 

How does that work within the strategy? It can be your primary video strategy, the the customers who or the clients I'm currently working with. The goal is the we're going to do Big 5 and we're going to address these topics in podcast format because if you think about the original way we were teaching. 

00:04:56  

Alex Winter 

1.  

00:05:12  

Lindsey Auten 

Week 5 back when you know Marcus was writing articles, a lot of our our case studies were writing articles. The most important part or one of the most important parts of that article creation process was the content manager would interview. 

00:05:29  

Lindsey Auten 

Subject Matter experts on whatever the topic was big 5 topic was. 

00:05:35  

Lindsey Auten 

How is that different? 

00:05:37  

Lindsey Auten 

Than a podcast. 

00:05:39  

Alex Winter 

It's really not the the. The difference is you get to hear the Q&A back and forth in real time versus somebody being off camera and having some graphics or some segments that basically trim, trim those questions out and only have the answers. So it it's just a different format, but still the same principles it sounds like. 

00:05:52  

Lindsey Auten 

And. 

00:05:56  

Lindsey Auten 

And for you, like you listening to a lot of Rogan, he has a lot of experts on from different fields. 

00:06:01  

Alex Winter 

Yeah. 

00:06:02  

Lindsey Auten 

What is the value for you and hearing that long form conversation directly from the expert versus reading it on paper? 

00:06:12  

Alex Winter 

Well, I definitely have D so I think that helps a lot, but aside from aside from my attention issues, no, seriously, there's something about the way that it's conversational and Joe will ask a question or whoever that like that it's just so relaxed that you almost feel like you're in the room with the people and that makes it feel more real to me, I guess is the best way I can describe it just. 

00:06:33  

Alex Winter 

Feels like I'm part of the conversation instead of being spoken to or told what to think or do or say. 

00:06:40  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah. And if you have someone who is asking really good questions. 

00:06:46  

Lindsey Auten 

And you can tell the person is comfortable with them. Then it feels like a a more authentic conversation you would hear on the street and that combines the. 

00:06:56  

Lindsey Auten 

We like everything we talk about with endless customers, the authenticity, the honest answer to a question, the different layers of answering a question, because if you're answering a question, how much does X cost? Well at X cost, XY and Z. But there are factors. Imagine if that was a conversation. 

00:07:14  

Alex Winter 

Right. That'd be so cool. 

00:07:15  

Lindsey Auten 

Very a very different thing or the the podcast I was reviewing for a customer right before I I hopped on here. The episode is public, private, or hybrid cloud. Choosing the right one for you. 

00:07:29  

Alex Winter 

Wow, very cool. 

00:07:29  

Lindsey Auten 

Comparison right there, just discussing that comparison in real time with an expert. So it's it's taking one step from a content creation process that has existed for years and just changing it to a recorded conversation. Yes. 

00:07:49  

Lindsey Auten 

That can be published. 

00:07:51  

Alex Winter 

Makes total sense. 

00:07:51  

Lindsey Auten 

So we're thinking about answering the question of, well, how are we actually going to do this? It's like a whole new thing. It's like it's really not a new thing. You've been doing it. If you've been writing content, you have the process of someone interviewing you and then translating that to something else. You just take that interview, put A and it doesn't have to be a fancy setup. 

00:08:11  

Lindsey Auten 

Right away, I think that's one of the things that people get hung up on it. So they have to have a setup that looks just like endless customers or they have to have a setup that looks like, pardon my take set up and the Barstool Sports Office in. 

00:08:22  

Lindsey Auten 

Chicago or they? 

00:08:23  

Lindsey Auten 

Have to have a set up like Rogan. You don't need that. 

00:08:25  

Lindsey Auten 

Setup. 

00:08:26  

Lindsey Auten 

It can. 

00:08:27  

Lindsey Auten 

Simple, it can be just getting started on a zoom call like I'm on a zoom call right now. There's nothing fancy over here. It's just me on my laptop, in my Home Office, talking to you. 

00:08:37  

Lindsey Auten 

Guys. 

00:08:39  

Lindsey Auten 

There should be no barrier to entry for anyone trying to do a podcast. 

00:08:44  

Alex Winter 

And you can always build off of it. That's that's a big pieces. You can always build off of it and eventually work up towards getting the microphones or the studio set up or whatever. Those those features are that you want to have. So strategically speaking, I want to just ask this because I'm curious if like B2B or B2C, if I'm a company and I'm thinking. 

00:09:03  

Alex Winter 

Do I do video? Do I do a podcast? How do I decide? What do you tell people in those moments or in those conversations when they're trying to lay out the strategy and figure out what's going to be best for their, for their business or their organization? 

00:09:15  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah, it's. 

00:09:18  

Lindsey Auten 

It's a number of things, it's. 

00:09:20  

Lindsey Auten 

1. Where is your audience? How are they consuming media? That's the first big factor is, is that the other factor is is do we have someone who can own the creation of the podcast just like we need someone who can own video just like we need someone who can own written content. Someone needs to own the podcast.

00:09:41  

Lindsey Auten 

Next and then I think a third thing is going to be, do we have someone who can be the consistent hosts and voice who's going to be asking questions? 

00:09:50  

Alex Winter 

Yeah, that makes sense. 

00:09:51  

Lindsey Auten 

Once we can answer those three questions and there's a clear idea of how this is. 

00:09:55  

Lindsey Auten 

Going to function then. 

00:09:57  

Lindsey Auten 

Then we can go ahead and make a podcast. I think we also have to decide like if podcast is going to be the main source of content for us, which for some I think it makes total. 

00:10:08  

Lindsey Auten 

And how are we going to repurpose that? Because a podcast episode can be anywhere from 15 minutes to two hours long. 

00:10:18  

Lindsey Auten 

And if you have two hours of footage and you're only doing a single thing with it, then that's a missed opportunity. 

00:10:24  

Alex Winter 

Totally. Yeah, that's a that's a huge missed opportunity. And that's definitely not something we do here at impact with this podcast because it's so critical for us to leverage these awesome conversations that we have. 

00:10:36  

Alex Winter 

Across all different platforms and mediums so that we can meet people where they are. So if people are watching on Facebook or LinkedIn or wherever, they're consuming the content we we're repurposing a lot of this and that's something that we've been doing from from the start because we knew it was important to do that. So there's all sorts of really cool AI tools that are out there too that can help you do this a lot faster. 

00:10:56  

Alex Winter 

And allow you to have a great workflow that that you can make it repeatable and have a process that's like on a weekly basis, you could be creating a steady flow of content. 

00:11:05  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah. Take the transcript of the podcast, drop it into your favorite either ChatGPT, Claude, whatever you're using, ask you to create an article from it. Edit The article with the Human Touch, or ask it like, alright, now that you've written this one article, are there other articles that can be written from this that weren't directly discussed as the main topic of the podcast? 

00:11:26  

Lindsey Auten 

And what other big 5 ideas can come from this? So there's a lot that you can do with. 

00:11:26 

Totally. 

00:11:31  

Lindsey Auten 

The transcript. There's a lot that you can do with the with clips from the podcast like I know once this episode is finished, you guys will take this, clip it up and make some shorts that make sense and publish the shorts as part of promotion for the for the show. 

00:11:45  

Alex Winter 

Right. Yeah. And we we use Opus clip for that just because it's you upload the episode and it tells you timestamps and it gives you a like a grade or a rating for each clip. So you can kind of get a. 

00:11:57  

Alex Winter 

Of how it's going to how it's going to play with your audience and how your audience is gonna react to it. So it it just makes it a lot faster and then we can go in and pull these clips, edit them pretty quickly, make sure that it's human, make sure that we put our, you know, our our spin on it, but then it gives us more content and it's really interesting on our YouTube channel, this show does does a decent amount with numbers as far as the long form. 

00:12:18  

Alex Winter 

But our shorts get like 5X the amount of views compared to the long form video itself. 

00:12:23  

Alex Winter 

Which is fascinating. 

00:12:24  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah. Can we keep on the behind the scenes side of? 

00:12:26  

Lindsey Auten 

How this podcast functions? 

00:12:27  

Alex Winter 

Sure, sure. Yeah. Yeah. 

00:12:29  

Alex Winter 

Let's pull back the curtain. What? What? 

00:12:31 A 

lex Winter 

Do you wanna know? 

00:12:31  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah. So I think if I'm, if I'm putting myself in the shoes of the podcast creators I'm currently working with, they want to know like, what are the biggest obstacles or hurdles that you guys have? And you and Austin, both things, you know, Alex, like, you're the you are the face of the podcast. But Austin is behind the scenes. 

00:12:50 

Lindsey Auten 

Doing a great job. 

00:12:52  

Lindsey Auten 

And I would love to know what are some of the biggest challenges? Like if you could name 3 challenges that you face with this podcast and how you overcame those to to produce it, what what would those be? 

00:13:04  

Alex Winter 

Yeah. 

00:13:05  

Alex Winter 

Yeah, great question. First and foremost, often is a huge part of the show. He's like the unsung hero and. 

00:13:10  

Alex Winter 

It's definitely. 

00:13:10  

Lindsey Auten 

Love you Austin. 

00:13:12 Alex Winter 

We love you, Austin. It's definitely A-Team effort, so I am the the face. But there's a lot of people that help make this this happen. Carolyn does a lot of work as well. The whole marketing team has a hand on it and Nicole does a lot of the social media. So like there are, there are a lot of moving parts. 

00:13:26  

Alex Winter 

Behind the scenes. 

00:13:27  

Alex Winter 

I'd say one of the biggest struggles you said top three, I can at least do one of the biggest struggles we have is really trying to keep the topics and the content fresh. So it's really easy to just regurgitate info and to keep having like similar conversations. But we really challenge ourselves to come up with fresh topics that are going to meet people where they are that are going to resonate with our audiences that are going to build more trust. 

00:13:49  

Alex Winter 

But do it in a do it in like a not self promotional way. So that's that's really a big piece is finding the right topics and how we position them so that it makes sense and resonates with our audience. I think another hurdle that. 

00:14:01  

Alex Winter 

We we tend to encounter a lot is getting SME's on the show, so getting subject matter experts and getting pros on the show like yourself like it's scheduling is just not the easiest thing to do. People are busy, you have a full time job, we have stuff going on. So trying to lock down schedules and coordinate is definitely a big piece of the puzzle. I'm trying to think what else? What else is a struggle? 

00:14:23  

Alex Winter 

Attribution. Yeah, Austin saying attribution Austin, get on the mic over there. Let's let's have Austin. Yeah, let's have Austin hop. 

00:14:29  

Austin Mock 

Am I? Am I off and on? 

00:14:30  

Alex Winter 

In here, yeah, you are. 

00:14:31  

Austin Mock 

Yeah, I'd say probably really solid attribution of knowing like because we were posting on YouTube our show as well as you know, different audio platforms, some of those audio platforms, you're not going to know who listened to an episode. 

00:14:47  

Austin Mock 

And then came and got interested in your company. They may tell you in the sales. 

00:14:52  

Austin Mock 

Process, but you're not going to always have super solid concrete numbers from that attribution, but that's something you know we're always working on ways to kind of get not get around that, but figure that out and talking to you know potential customers and seeing how they heard about. 

00:15:12  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah, I have noticed because I pay attention to this stuff and I'm a little bit nosy. We have a peek behind the curtain here. A slack channel that notifies anyone who's part of that Channel when a new like sales qualified feed comes through. Both food comes through as yeah. 

00:15:28  

Lindsey Auten 

And I have noticed more and more over the last year, year or so that there have been more mentions about the podcast than I have ever seen in my five years here from a video strategy that we've tried. So just from like a visibility standpoint, it feels like the podcast hits harder than. 

00:15:49  

Lindsey Auten 

Anything that we've done before? 

00:15:51  

Alex Winter 

I agree from a content playing a content standpoint, I feel like more people are mentioning it as part of their journey towards. 

00:15:59  

Alex Winter 

Conversion or becoming a client or becoming a prospect which is exciting cause in the past it was really hard to. It was really. 

00:16:05  

Alex Winter 

Hard. 

00:16:05  

Alex Winter 

To like pin that down and I think to Austin's point, attribution is a big piece where we're we love data here like that's that's our running butter everything that we that we do is data centric. When you track each touch point in the customer journey it it just. 

00:16:19  

Alex Winter 

Allows you to optimize it and really see like if it's working or what isn't working so you can fix it so. 

00:16:24  

Alex Winter 

Those pieces are huge for us and I think that's something that we we definitely struggle with. We want to have more data sets and it's hard just on the podcast side of it. So like what we use to broadcast the podcast, the Analytics and data aren't quite as strong as like when you're in the back end of YouTube studio. YouTube Studio has way more when it comes to, you know, watch time and fall off and engagement. 

00:16:44  

Alex Winter 

And and like click through rate and all that stuff. So there's there's a little bit more data there, but I think to your point Lindsey too, like we we have these channels set up on purpose where we're looking to see what people are saying and how they're converting and what's helping them along their journey to get them excited, to want to talk to us. 

00:17:01  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah. When you're out in the wild and at like events like impact live, what feedback are you getting from the podcast or about the podcast? 

00:17:10  

Alex Winter 

So as we've been doing this a little over a year now, it's been about a year and a month and in the beginning there wasn't a lot and it's like anything else. When you first start off on these journeys, you know you have to build some grounds while I get some traction going. So it took a few months to get some traction and build the audience, but now it's really cool. We have people that come up to us and they're like, I listen to this episode and I learned so much. 

00:17:30  

Alex Winter 

Here you talked to Lindsey and she said all this really amazing stuff. And we've been doing it so. 

00:17:34  

Alex Winter 

We we get a lot of people that come up to us now and say how how much they love the show, how great, it's how great it's been for them. Just to like, listen and help them on their journey with endless customers and how it helps them in their day-to-day with their business. So it's it's definitely rewarding on on that level that we know we're creating content that's meaningful and it's actually helping people. I think that's definitely. 

00:17:55  

Alex Winter 

A huge win for. 

00:17:56 

Yes. 

00:17:56  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah, Alex, for you too. A bunch of, you know, people who are hosting the podcast. Yeah. That I at the companies I'm helping with this, they're not used to hosting. They're not used to interviewing necessarily. They are, you know, someone who is a a brand new videographer and then someone who knows a lot about the subject. But. 

00:18:16  

Lindsey Auten 

Is maybe not like this is her first time really doing something? 

00:18:20  

Lindsey Auten 

Like this? Yeah, so. 

00:18:21  

Lindsey Auten 

For people who are jumping into the host seat. 

00:18:24  

Lindsey Auten 

What's what are some tips that you would give to them to make sure that they're letting the conversation shine? 

00:18:31  

Alex Winter 

So I can relate because I didn't want to do this when when I was first asked or when it was first brought to my attention. Like, hey, maybe you can host the podcast. I I always had this running joke is like my dad joke. That's like I'm always behind the camera. I'm not in front of the camera, you know, like there's a reason for that. And I was very apprehensive. So if you're feeling that way, that's normal. It's totally OK. 

00:18:52  

Alex Winter 

It is nerve wracking. 

00:18:52  

Alex Winter 

Thing and I think the first, when I go back and look at the first couple of episodes that I did, even the first like month or so of episodes that I did, I it's almost laughable to me when I look at it like how bad, quote UN quote bad. I thought it was just because I was still figuring it out. And I think that's the lesson is the only way to really figure it out is you have to do it. And we say the same thing when you're filming. 

00:19:14  

Alex Winter 

You know, selling 7 videos you're trying to do the big 5 like you just have to go and market. 

00:19:18  

Alex Winter 

Talks about the don't stop rule, right? You gotta like, even if you mess up, you gotta just kind of push through and you learn you learn how to navigate it over time and it's like anything else. With practice, you get better with it. So I would say. 

00:19:30  

Alex Winter 

Even if you're afraid, you just gotta you just gotta go for it and give it a try. I also learned a valuable lesson in the beginning. That was, how do I say this? I I was trying to be so eloquent and like professional and use all these big words and sound so smart and. 

00:19:46  

Alex Winter 

Not it. Just it wasn't working. It just really wasn't working for me and I felt like I was trying. It was almost trying too hard. So I think part of it too was learning that like, I know what I'm talking about. I don't have to sound like I have a PhD. I can just talk and be myself. And I think once you find that comfortability and that like sweet spot of, like, what works for you, then you just you just lean into it more. 

00:20:06  

Alex Winter 

And it it's been, it's been working for me anyways. 

00:20:07  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah. 

00:20:08  

Alex Winter 

So. 

00:20:09  

Lindsey Auten 

There's a podcast that I've I've listened to in in the past called Talking Elite Fitness shocking that I would listen. 

00:20:16  

Lindsey Auten 

To fitness. 

00:20:18  

Lindsey Auten 

And the the person who is the expert on the show. His name is Ben Bergeron, and he has a host I, and I think his name is Patrick, but this just goes to show you I don't remember who the host name was because. 

00:20:30  

Lindsey Auten 

Ben does all the talking. It's his expertise that is important, like the conversation is controlled by one person. 

00:20:32  

Alex Winter 

Into stone. 

00:20:40  

Lindsey Auten 

But people are listening to that podcast because Ben is one of the greatest CrossFit coaches of all time and they want to hear his thoughts on training and programming on, on fitness and and everything else. And so the the host in that instance is almost the unsung hero. Like they remember the like people remember bent. 

00:21:00  

Lindsey Auten 

Notes, but. 

00:21:02  

Lindsey Auten 

I'm even struggling to remember this this poor hosts name. 

00:21:04  

Lindsey Auten 

I don't remember. I think your name is Patrick. I don't know. But he controls the the the conversation in making sure that Ben shines. And I think that's one of the things that our, you know, if you're a content manager or videographer being the host of the podcast. 

00:21:24  

Lindsey Auten 

It's almost OK if if people don't remember who you are as long as they remember that the guest and the conversation that that person had and that person's moment of like ohh yeah like. 

00:21:36  

Lindsey Auten 

So and so did a great job on this podcast, and I want to work with him because he spoke directly to something that I like. I've been struggling with and I need him. It's almost like if someone listens to talking elite fitness, they should walk away being like, wow, yeah, I wanna buy Bens programming. Like, I wanna be part of the comp trained community. Like I want all like I I I'm picking up what he's putting down. 

00:21:56  

Alex Winter 

I can totally relate with that too, just because I think when I started out, I was trying to be the expert I was trying to be the outspoken 1 and I realized very quickly that I have all these amazing people on the show. I have people like you, Lindsey, and all these subject matter experts and pros that really know this stuff inside out and my job is really to be more of the. 

00:22:14  

Alex Winter 

The facilitator and ask the questions and provoke these conversations and like almost step back and let it happen. And I once I think I learned that that shifted or like changed the game for me and it's really interesting because when I film I come out of the film and production world. 

00:22:29  

Alex Winter 

I used to do a lot of like documentary style or corporate videos where I'd I would be behind the camera doing the same thing. I'd ask the questions to pull the information out to get the the narrative that we needed for, you know, the the video or whatever the shoot was. So I was already doing it. I just didn't realize it. And it's like, yeah, I am on camera right now, but like. 

00:22:49  

Alex Winter 

This is basically what happens when we're shooting too. I just am not in those particular videos compared to being in these now. So once that happened, it clicked for me and I I think it really helps shape the format of the show and how we have these conversations now. 

00:23:01  

Lindsey Auten 

Well, and this is a little bit different in that those those types of conversations because I've been there too being the producer and prefer to being the producer. 

00:23:10  

Lindsey Auten 

It's two things. It's it's not live to tape, which if you're a video nerd, you know what that means? Yeah. 

00:23:17  

Lindsey Auten 

It just what essentially that means is we're filming this. You guys are the people listening. 

00:23:21  

Lindsey Auten 

To this this is. 

00:23:23  

Lindsey Auten 

Likely a lightly edited live to tape, meaning we we shot it with the intent of it seeming live, but it's not and there's little editing that goes on in the background of a live. 

00:23:34  

Lindsey Auten 

To tape production. 

00:23:35  

Alex Winter 

Right. 

00:23:35  

Lindsey Auten 

1. A documentary or something that's a little bit more scripted or like corporate video, you're more in control of what the conversation is.

00:23:44  

Lindsey Auten 

And that control if you've. 

00:23:49  

Lindsey Auten 

Got like if you've gotten into the let. 

00:23:50  

Lindsey Auten 

Them theory right? 

00:23:51  

Lindsey Auten 

Now it's one of the like, hot psychology books. You just have to let your expert talk. 

00:23:58  

Lindsey Auten 

And you might be cringing on the inside. Like, oh, don't do that. Like, let them like, try to control the conversation. But that control is like a a form of anxiety that we don't have control necessarily of what they're going to say. There's certain freedom and just letting the conversation unfold and and letting the expert just do their thing, and I think. 

00:24:18  

Lindsey Auten 

A lot of content you might struggle with that. 

00:24:21  

Alex Winter 

Yeah. Well, it's it's also, I'm going to pull in reference from the endless customers new book that's coming out. 

00:24:26  

Alex Winter 

It's part of the four pillars. It's part of being more human and I think I think with the way that social media has changed the game and the way that people consume content nowadays, people know how shoots are done and how things are done. So like, there's no the smoke and mirrors that used to be like, ooh, this is so cool. Like, people know what's up now. So I think the only way to be more human is to just. 

00:24:46  

Alex Winter 

It real and that's. 

00:24:47  

Alex Winter 

But that's what we're trying to do. 

00:24:48  

Lindsey Auten 

One last question before I take off the interviewer and give it back to you because I realized like I'm being a control freak and controlling this. 

00:24:55  

Lindsey Auten 

Interview a little bit. 

00:24:56  

Alex Winter 

Sounds good. I like it. Does this feel like your old TV days when you were when you were. 

00:24:59  

Lindsey Auten 

A little bit, a little bit, a little bit it is. It is definitely weird being the expert and not the person doing the interview, but you know tables tables are turned a little bit here if you you know one of the things that we we talk about a lot in in endless customers is the content publishing content. 

00:25:10  

Alex Winter 

Yeah. 

00:25:19  

Lindsey Auten 

Consistently and to do something consistently, you need an efficient and disciplined. 

00:25:24  

Lindsey Auten 

Process. So if you were giving advice on how do you streamline a podcast creation process to someone who's just getting started, what would that advice be? 

00:25:34  

Alex Winter 

I think it's it's very similar to how you shoot selling 7 and big 5 content where like you want to create a backlog of content to start out. So I wouldn't just shoot 1 episode and then put it out there and then be chasing your tail trying to shoot the next episode while one's going out and we really try to get ahead of it. So we'll batch record if we can and we'll shoot at least three or 4 episodes at a clip when. 

00:25:55  

Alex Winter 

You know, schedules allow, so we try to position it that way where we have 3 or. 

00:25:59  

Alex Winter 

Or episodes in the backlog that are that we're staging and editing and setting up so that we're ahead of the curve instead of behind it because we put out one episode a week. But it's not just one episode, because we also repurpose content. So the whole mix, if you want, if you want to know how we like, roll it out Mondays is the highlight, which we put on on YouTube. And that's like a shorter version. 

00:26:20  

Alex Winter 

Like a really specific clip from whatever episode. That's a teaser almost to get people excited Tuesday, we put out a short that goes on YouTube shorts and across all of our social platforms. Wednesday, The episode actually comes out the full full length on both YouTube. 

00:26:34  

Alex Winter 

And also on our podcasting platform. So we have an audio and a video version. And then Thursday, we also release another short and then if there's a third short, sometimes either Friday or Saturday depending on the week and what's going on, we'll add a another short into the mix as well. So that's every single week just with the podcast, which is, it sounds like a lot of content, but it's. 

00:26:55  

Alex Winter 

And also I think the big piece is is bringing AI into the equation. 

00:26:58  

Alex Winter 

So as we were starting to layout what the calendar of or like the schedule would look like for what we were releasing, we also started to go like what tools can we use and what tools can we leverage to help us do this faster and more efficiently. And it definitely took a little bit the first, the first month or so was almost the proving ground experimentation and it's important to do that to figure out what's going to work best for. 

00:27:20  

Alex Winter 

For you know your workflow and for your style, but once you get that dialed in it, it basically becomes like a rinse, wash, repeat, sort of sort of like experience. 

00:27:30  

Lindsey Auten 

Any AI tools that the podcast creators out there should run to go check out. 

00:27:36  

Lindsey Auten 

Right after they. 

00:27:37 

Lindsey Auten 

Listen to the episode. 

00:27:38  

Alex Winter 

Yeah, top ones would be autopod is huge. It's by a company called Lemon Squeezy, which is a silly name, but it's a great tool, so don't let it fool you. Autopod's huge from an editing standpoint, it's a premiere. 

00:27:50  

Alex Winter 

Plug in. I think it's like 20 bucks a month. It's fairly affordable and it basically you have to set up your timeline correctly, but once it's set up, you push a button and it basically edits based off of the audio waveforms as to who's speaking and it edits what? What would take me like 2 hours to edit for an episode A. 

00:28:07  

Alex Winter 

Dozen. 

00:28:08  

Alex Winter 

About two minutes, which is pretty amazing. 

00:28:11  

Alex Winter 

And it it's not perfect, you have to go through and you have to obviously watch it and you have to fix and tweak, but it it shaves off a substantial amount of time from. 

00:28:18  

Alex Winter 

Editing another big piece for repurposing. When we talked about social content and short form content, I said Opus clip earlier. But that's that's a big one that we use. And then we also use GPT for for the write ups and for transcriptions. And basically what I'll do is I'll pull the transcript directly out of premiere Pro. You can go to the the text box and premiere pro. 

00:28:38  

Alex Winter 

Export that that file and then we upload it directly to GPT and say read through this we we've created our own custom GPT specifically for the podcast, so I would recommend doing that too, but it knows the tone, the language, the voice, the style and what the podcast is about. So we upload the transcript and then it gives us the descriptions and. 

00:28:58  

Alex Winter 

All the descriptions we need for YouTube and for shorts and things like that, but it also pushes out our article that we post to our website as well for the for the blog. So it does all the things, it's pretty impressive. So I think the suite, just to recap is autopod is huge, Opus clip is a big one and then ChatGPT, we love ChatGPT here. 

00:29:17  

Lindsey Auten 

And for distribution. 

00:29:18  

Alex Winter 

Yeah. So for distribution we we actually upload everything manually. So we do everything on YouTube for the most part and then we are using pod Bean right now to distribute the the podcast itself, the audio and the reason we went with pod being there's a few different options out. 

00:29:33  

Alex Winter 

There, but it it just helps push it across all the platforms at once. So you upload the pod bean, you push you know schedule for when you want the episode to come out and it pushes it out to Spotify to Apple Podcast, to iheart, to all the different platforms that you want to that that you like. You can choose to to publish to. But we've also with this is this is like we're getting really into the. 

00:29:54  

Alex Winter 

Here we've been talking with Jess and HubSpot because HubSpot has some really great new tools and integrations that they're rolling out and we may be potentially switching to hotspots. So if that happens, we'll have to revisit this. But right now, we're on Pod being potentially switching to HubSpot in the near future. 

00:30:11  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah, and this isn't any different than a like, what are the current tools you're using to edit any kind of video? Like. 

00:30:17  

Lindsey Auten 

Discussion I always tell creators, especially in the video world, like the stuff that you use today may not be the stuff that you're using next year or the same time next year. You should always be evaluating tools, what's out there, what can make your life more efficient, what can help you do the tasks that you hate doing. And AI has just made that. 

00:30:38  

Lindsey Auten 

Even more of a of a thing that you should be checking in on at least every six months at this point. Oh. Yeah. 

00:30:44  

Lindsey Auten 

The way the tools are developing. 

00:30:46  

Alex Winter 

Yeah, I would definitely recommend every six months. At a minimum. It it's changing so fast and it it's exciting, but it's also something that you do need to dedicate some time to, and that's something that awesome and I both try to take at least an hour or so a week, if not every other week where we just go and scan, scavenger hunt the Internet. 

00:31:06  

Alex Winter 

To find whatever new tools are out and you have to experiment with them. That's the other piece. It's like you can watch a video and think it's really cool. 

00:31:12  

Alex Winter 

And maybe see something or hear something that's like, oh, wow, I have to try. This is going to be a game changer, and it doesn't always pan out. It doesn't. So we've tried. There's been a lot of tried and failed tools that we've used that they were working at one point and then they're not anymore. Or we tried them and we just didn't like him because it wasn't gonna work for our particular workflow. So I think to your point, yeah, the more you can experiment and the more that you can focus some time to. Yeah. 

00:31:35  

Alex Winter 

Keep up with these tools the better. It's just gonna help. 

00:31:37  

Alex Winter 

Do your job. 

00:31:38  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah, 100%. Well, I'll stop hijacking the interview now. Are there for me? 

00:31:39  

Alex Winter 

Yeah, yeah. 

00:31:44  

Alex Winter 

Yeah, I have some questions for you, definitely. So I want to hear about what's happening in the real world on the streets. I want to know what's going. You get to interface with a lot of clients and with a lot of amazing companies and and wonderful people. I want to know what they're up to and especially when we're talking about podcasts. 

00:32:00  

Alex Winter 

But I feel like this is becoming a more relevant conversation where people are curious. People want to know, people want to start their own podcast. What's do you have some like client examples you can share with us or people that are starting to do their own podcast and are getting getting into it? 

00:32:14  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah. So the everyone that I'm working with who's doing a podcast right now are still in the very early stages, but I would love to shout out the teams at the home health consultant who are doing podcasts right now. They're releasing them once a month, OK. And that's not a like. 

00:32:34  

Lindsey Auten 

A A dig at them. It's, you know, they have a wonderful content manager who not only publishes three articles a week, but she also makes selling 7 videos and manages this podcast. So one being able to do all those things like I'm happy with. I'm happy with once a month and I think she's doing a great job and they've. That's a lot. 

00:32:47  

Alex Winter 

Yeah, that's a lot. 

00:32:54  

Lindsey Auten 

Launched 3 episodes at this point, so still very new, but figuring it out and I think a podcast is a great a great medium for them because their industry is so complex. If you think about compliance in healthcare. 

00:33:11  

Lindsey Auten 

And what a loaded topic that could be. The dial certainly warrants a like a podcast type conversation. And then I got a shot of the team at your P suites. They have filmed a few podcast episodes. We're back logging them so that when we do launch a pod launch, the podcast, we're not scrambling to create. 

00:33:18  

Alex Winter 

Absolutely. 

00:33:32  

Lindsey Auten 

You know a podcast right after the the first one gets launched. So we're still in the like, let's. 

00:33:36  

Lindsey Auten 

Build the backlog phase. 

00:33:38  

Lindsey Auten 

But the I have to give Nate and Scott and the guests on the show so far shout out for leaning in and really embracing this and. 

00:33:48  

Lindsey Auten 

Rolling with it, even though you know at the beginning things can feel a little bit messy and it's new and it, there's a lot of apprehension around it, but I think they're doing a great job embracing the conversations and the episodes that I've watched so far are are really in depth so. 

00:34:04  

Alex Winter 

That's exciting. 

00:34:05  

Lindsey Auten 

Teams who are currently in the very early stages of pod. 

00:34:08  

Lindsey Auten 

Cats so follow their journeys, give their podcasts and subscribe to to boost those those viewership and those ratings. And yeah, I have no doubt that they'll be successful with these. 

00:34:22  

Alex Winter 

Yeah, that I think that's a good point too that you just. 

00:34:24  

Alex Winter 

You just reminded. 

00:34:24  

Alex Winter 

Me of a good tip or something for for people that are listening out there that are thinking about starting a podcast. It takes time. So it's one of those things where like, you're not going to get the like instant results to the first episode that comes out isn't just going to start converting people or whatever. You know, your your goal is it's going to take a little bit of time. 

00:34:42  

Alex Winter 

Like I said. 

00:34:43  

Alex Winter 

We're a year and a month into this podcast now. 

00:34:45  

Alex Winter 

And we're really just starting to get that serious ground. So while we just broke 10,000 downloads, we're starting to get more views per episode. It's starting to, I think part of it too, is like the algorithms that are out there, it almost takes a little bit for them to go, OK, they've been around for a while. They're established. This isn't this isn't just like a flash in the pan, they're actually a thought leader. They're a substantial share in the marketplace. 

00:35:06  

Alex Winter 

And it's worth, it's worth checking them out. 

00:35:08  

Alex Winter 

So I think some of the advice is just stick with it and know that it's going to take a couple months to get the really the traction you want. But it's it's definitely worth it if you can keep up with it? 

00:35:18  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah. And if anyone listening to this is familiar with the asking answer and endless customers, that's true across the board, you would never hear me on a coaching call. Say your strategy is going to work, right. 

00:35:30  

Lindsey Auten 

Say if I you're gonna get a million views on your first YouTube video. No, no. There's so much nuance to. 

00:35:31  

Alex Winter 

You're going to get a million views on your first YouTube video. 

00:35:38  

Lindsey Auten 

Through establishing a content strategy, building a habit, putting it into practice, publishing, distributing, building an audience, promoting it takes time and have to be patient. It's like a science experiment. You don't just, like, make a hypothesis and then do a quick experiment to see if it works. No experiments are. 

00:35:58  

Lindsey Auten 

Are thought out their? 

00:35:59  

Lindsey Auten 

Plans you gather data for a period of time and you decide like how you want to continue. 

00:36:05  

Alex Winter 

Yeah, that's so true. We talked about this a lot internally, but I think this is something to talk about here too, where it's also you have to think about it in the funnel, right? So like there's top middle and bottom and this play with the podcast is very much top, maybe a little bit of middle, but it's very much top of the funnel awareness play where you're really starting to build trust and answer people's questions. 

00:36:25  

Alex Winter 

Problems, concerns, which goes back to, you know, endless customers and everything we've been talking about. So it's really a great way to start building trust. But it's also important to after you have everything you said distribution, you have everything all mapped out. It's also important to think about if people are interested in the podcast, what other follow on pieces of content can you serve them? Can you give them? 

00:36:45  

Alex Winter 

To keep them engaged to answer more of their questions, to start pulling them down the funnel a little bit more. And those are things that we are constantly testing AB testing and working on here behind the scenes to just help people answer their most pointed questions. That's really what's. 

00:37:00  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah, absolutely. 

00:37:02  

Alex Winter 

So as a coach, what do you think about what do you think about the podcast that we've been doing? Do you have any advice for us like as an expert, is there anything that you're seeing that you're like, you know, you guys could be doing this better? I'm almost like asking for an audit of our own channel here. But I'm just curious as to as to what you'd say or what you think. 

00:37:19  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah, you that is a great question. And I think to to answer the question. 

00:37:28  

Lindsey Auten 

I would say I I would continue to challenge you guys to. 

00:37:33  

Lindsey Auten 

Really, really lean into the industry disrupting side of of content, right? Talk a lot about Big 5 and and it's so important and and it is. 

00:37:44  

Lindsey Auten 

But can we push the boundaries of our own discussions to be more more on the cutting edge of like, no like that this is something that's fundamentally wrong with the industry. Here's specifically why, here's how it can be fixed. Can we hit those topics harder? 

00:38:04  

Alex Winter 

I love it. 

00:38:04  

Lindsey Auten 

Would be one piece of advice that I would say to to go for. 

00:38:08  

Alex Winter 

I love that disruption, shock and awe. That's what we need. 

00:38:12  

Lindsey Auten 

Cool. But also build trust like not not do it in like a weird salesy way like yeah. 

00:38:12  

Alex Winter 

That. 

00:38:16 A 

lex Winter 

Not yeah, not clickbaity. Right. Right. We don't want to click bait or or pitch or do sales stuff. That's another question. So we've we've really, I feel like we've done well with that. And I think it's an important piece for everyone out there. Listening is like, where do you draw the line on like becoming too salesy and pushing me, me, me services, products us and making it way more. 

00:38:37  

Alex Winter 

About building trust and about meeting people where they are, so keeping it endless customers and not keeping it like self promotional basically. 

00:38:44  

Lindsey Auten 

Yeah, I think that the line is. 

00:38:46  

Lindsey Auten 

Is, you know, there is a we can make big 5 content but there is also a point where you should be making sales enablement content. And what I mean by that is you should talk about your process and how you how you do things and you don't have to. 

00:39:04  

Lindsey Auten 

Talk about it. 

00:39:04  

Lindsey Auten 

In a way. 

00:39:05  

Lindsey Auten 

Of like, we're the best. 

00:39:06  

Lindsey Auten 

Not doing XY and Z. It's no like we do it this way For these reasons, and here's what people have said about the process and then put like insert testimonial here. 

00:39:17  

Alex Winter 

That makes sense, yeah. 

00:39:19  

Lindsey Auten 

I think if if we're not talking about the sales process or not talking about how we how we execute our services. 

00:39:26  

Lindsey Auten 

What it feels like and looks like to be a current customer in our ecosystem, then we're missing out on a layer of fundamental content that can, you know, help build trust with someone. You know, I think about my my team over at at Roof smart and they have a a bunch of articles. 

00:39:46  

Lindsey Auten 

You're smart up in in the Seattle area. They have a bunch of articles that talk about the like what it's like to do an it like an inspection with roof smart. How do you know that your team at Roof smart is qualified to be working on you? 

00:40:00  

Lindsey Auten 

Proof. How do you have the like best installation? What's the process like for an installation so they have taken a lot of time to answer these questions. They also have the article is roof smart right for me? Or why is? Why would I choose roof smart? 

00:40:16  

Lindsey Auten 

Helpful. Unbiased, and, you know, as a customer in an industry that is wrought with distrust. 

00:40:26  

Lindsey Auten 

I would be. I've seen people in their HubSpot portal who have read these articles and can say with confidence like these are closed 1 deals. 

00:40:36  

Alex Winter 

Wow. 

00:40:38  

Alex Winter 

That's big. That's a big deal right there. That's very cool. 

00:40:41  

Alex Winter 

Alright, we've covered a lot of ground and I love that we flipped the switch a little bit. I I love that you were doing some of the. 

00:40:45  

Alex Winter 

Interview today I felt like this was a really great conversation. 

00:40:48  

Lindsey Auten 

Feel at home in my element. 

00:40:50  

Alex Winter 

Clearly, like clearly, we know for people out there that don't know. Lindsay used to used to be a TV host and used to do a lot of sports reporting and producing and all sorts of stuff. Back in the day. So. 

00:41:00  

Lindsey Auten 

1.  

00:41:01  

Alex Winter 

Last question, big question. This is my favorite part of the show. What's the one thing that people should be taking away from this conversation today? Especially thinking about starting their own podcast, whether there be to be B to C doesn't matter what. 

00:41:12  

Alex Winter 

What's the one thing? 

00:41:13  

Lindsey Auten 

But one thing they should be taking away, and if my customers are listening to this, so the people I work with are directly listening to this, they're going to I roll hard because I tell them this all the time. The one thing they should be taking away is that you shouldn't have a barrier to entry or perfection, paralysis of, like, starting a podcast. If you want to do it. 

00:41:34  

Lindsey Auten 

Make a plan, RIP the Band-Aid off. Do it. The first episode is going to be the worst episode you ever make. 

00:41:40  

Alex Winter 

And it's only gonna get better from there. 

00:41:41  

Lindsey Auten 

Only gonna get better. 

00:41:42  

Alex Winter 

That's right, that's right. Alright, well, Lindsey, thank you for your insights and thank you so much for being on the show. We love having you. 

00:41:47  

Lindsey Auten 

It's a pleasure, guys enjoy being here. 

00:41:49  

Alex Winter 

All right. And for everybody there watching and listening, good luck starting your podcasts. Thanks for checking out our show. This is endless customers. I'm your host, Alex Winter. We'll catch you on the next episode.