INTRODUCTION

HOW A PODCAST CAN BE YOUR TROJAN HORSE OF SELLING

We learn by doing. So, if you desire to master the principles you are studying in this book, do something about them. Apply these rules at every opportunity. If you don’t you will forget them quickly. Only knowledge that is used sticks in your mind.

—DALE CARNEGIE, How to win Friends and Influence People

My name is Stephen Woessner. I am the CEO of Predictive ROI (a content marketing and lead agency) and the host of Onward Nation, a daily podcast for business owners. Our mission at Onward Nation is to be America’s number one podcast for learning how today’s top business owners think, act, and achieve. We immediately struck a powerful chord with listeners: Onward Nation became a top-ranked podcast within iTunes’ New and Noteworthy in multiple categories just three weeks after airing Episode 1 with author Scott McKain on June 15, 2015.

Onward Nation is now listened to in more than 200 countries, has received 100,000+ downloads of its episodes, and will generate $2 million in revenue for Predictive ROI over the next twelve months.

But how did we do all of that? We learned Onward Nation could become our Trojan horse.

Your Trojan Horse of Selling

The legend of the Trojan horse comes from the story of the Trojan War between the Greeks and Troy chronicled in the Odyssey, written by Homer near the end of the 8th century BC. The story—which could be fact or fiction—is a great illustration of strategy and subterfuge.

According to the legend, the Trojan War ended in a stalemate because Greece was unable to devise a strategy to circumvent the city walls of Troy. The ten-year battle ended and the Greek army made what looked to be a retreat to their homeland.

The Trojan army investigated and found the beach abandoned. The Greek armada was gone and a large wooden horse was all that remained on the desolate shore. The Trojans believed the Greeks had left the horse as a peace offering. They gleefully accepted the offering and pulled the horse from the beach, past their impenetrable city gates, into the city square, and began to celebrate their victory over the Greeks.

However, a little due diligence by the Trojans would have been prudent. Perhaps they would have found the Greek strike force tucked inside the horse. The Greeks seized their opportunity late that night when they sneaked quietly out of the horse and opened the city gates so the balance of their army could enter unencumbered.

The Greeks proceeded to sack the city. The story gave birth to the expression “Beware a Greek bearing gifts.”

The monetization strategy behind your podcast, if executed properly, will work in a similar way. For example, a typical salesperson may have access to a decision-maker within a dream prospect’s company blocked by a “gatekeeper.” Any sort of sales opportunity is thwarted, and the salesperson may be forced to move on to her next prospect.

However, what if you happen to be the host of a top-rated podcast and you are getting in touch with the decision-maker because you would like to interview him about his journey, his secrets to success, and the wisdom he could share with others in his industry or the broader business community? Well, now, you just changed the entire dynamic of the situation, didn’t you? Your podcast increased the probability of a one-on-one, private, sixty-minute conversation with your ideal prospect.

But how did your podcast give you this “all-access pass”? Your podcast changed the game because you are no longer perceived as a business owner looking for a new account. You are now perceived as a journalist and your show is a media channel—a conduit—to an audience the guests on your show want to reach and influence.

It’s as simple as letting the decision-maker at your dream prospect wheel the horse past the company’s gatekeeper—and park it right in the center of the C-suite. You now have an opportunity to dazzle your dream prospect with your brilliance and intimate industry and company knowledge during the interview.

Your podcast has done its job. It’s time for you to do yours. Sell!

Our Story and Why You Need This Book

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon in the middle of May 2015. I was sitting at my dining room table looking out the front window at my daughter and her friends having fun at our neighborhood playground. All was well outside—but not inside. I was under a great deal of stress.

We had just lost a client. And although every company experiences this from time to time, what made this particular loss so painful was that we were overstaffed. The loss in revenue made our reality even more excruciating.

I had purchased the domain name OnwardNation.com about twelve months earlier but had no idea why. No strategy; I just felt compelled to make the purchase. Funny how God whispers the seeds of inspiration into your ear sometimes and then just lets them sit until He is ready for them to germinate into something remarkable.

That Sunday must have been germination day. As I sat there at my dining room table, I remembered the OnwardNation.com purchase and made the decision that we would create and launch a daily podcast using that name. Next, I crafted an enthusiastic, optimistic email explaining that Onward Nation was the solution we’d been seeking to turn Predictive ROI lead generation and sales activity around (mind you, I had zero strategy, only unbridled optimism). In the email I set an aggressive launch date of June 15. I closed the lid to my MacBook, and somehow felt good about the decision (or chaos) that I had just initiated.

Why chaos, you ask? Well, I should probably share that the decision to create and launch a podcast in thirty days was made in complete and utter ignorance. I knew nothing about creating or launching a podcast.

Sure, I had been a guest on a couple of podcasts such as EOFire with John Lee Dumas and ReLaunch with Joel Boggess and Dr. Pei Kang. So I knew how to put on a headset and open Skype, which constituted my entire body of knowledge in the podcast world up to that point.

Let’s fast-forward to launch day, Monday, June 15. Remarkably, we launched on schedule and the first day of Onward Nation ran smoothly. We aired three episodes on launch day: Episode 1 with Scott McKain, Episode 2 with sports journalist and author Don Yaeger, and Episode 3 with leadership coach Stacey Alcorn. All three guests are rock stars, and Onward Nation was off and running.

Several weeks later, I attended my Agency Management Institute mastermind group. By then, Onward Nation had aired forty-seven episodes, daily downloads were steadily increasing, and we had scored top rankings in iTunes. I was feeling proud about our accomplishments. We had gone from zero to sixty in about 3.5 seconds. Not bad. But we were missing a vital outcome: revenue!

My mastermind group—all exceptional agency owners from across the country—asked me how I was going to make money from Onward Nation. Excellent question, but I had no idea of the answer. “I don’t know,” I said. “But we will figure it out.”

Then providence set in. Two of our Onward Nation guests got in touch with me and asked, “Hey, could you do that for me?”

“Do what for you?” I asked.

“Build me a podcast!” they said.

Like any enthusiastic entrepreneur in need of revenue, I said, “Yes, I think we can!”

So my team and I stripped out the branding and content from the Onward Nation system and replaced everything with our client’s branding, episodes, content—and voila! We launched two more podcasts and earned $26,000 for our effort. Rock-solid awesome!

Now, a smart businessperson would have said, “Hey, we might be onto something here. This could be worth pursuing.” But I didn’t say that. Instead, I returned to thinking about how we were overstaffed and needed to grow revenue. Ironic, isn’t it? I often say that if God wants me to get the message, He needs to take out a billboard or hit me over the head with a brick. Subtlety is lost on me.

In late October, one of those clients (Drew McLellan, host of the Build a Better Agency podcast) said to me, “The podcast you built for me is awesome. And Onward Nation is awesome. Why in the world are you not building more of these?” In my brilliance, I said, “For who?” Drew rolled his eyes and said, “There have to be more Onward Nation guests who would love to have a podcast of their own!”

He took the lesson he was teaching me deeper, adding, “Look, here’s what you do. You create a Silver, Gold, and Platinum Elite package . . . you charge this much, this much, and this much, and get out there and sell them to guests.”

Brilliant. My team and I immediately got to work creating the packages Drew had recommended.

And then providence struck a second time. On November 17, 2015, I interviewed Wendy Keller, literary agent extraordinaire, for Episode 106 of Onward Nation. The conversation started out lovely—just what I had envisioned. Then, suddenly, I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach and the air knocked right out of me. Wendy told her emotional and devastating story about the tragic car accident that she and her husband, along with their two children, were in while on vacation in Europe. Her children were killed, she was critically injured, and her life was changed in an instant. My legs felt weak. In shock, I didn’t know what to say. Wendy had to be the strongest person I’d ever met. After continuing for a few minutes, she paused and gave me a moment to catch my breath. Then we continued the interview. I was captivated by Wendy’s courage, her commitment, and her resolve. What could stop this woman?

When we finished the interview, she turned the tables on me, asking about Onward Nation. Why was I doing it? What was the endgame? I told her I was planning to write a book that distilled all the wisdom collected during the episodes of the podcast. I could practically feel her smile on the other end of our Skype connection. And then she asked me a life-altering question: “Hmm . . . Why don’t you write a book about how business owners can use podcasting to grow revenue and their business? That’s where the real opportunity is for a book.” Bam. Providence!

Following the interview with Wendy, my Predictive ROI team made it a vital priority to accelerate the sales of our newly minted Silver, Gold, and Platinum Elite packages. We were on a mission to create a bona fide monetization strategy. Our goal was to grow revenue, and at the same time, create a compelling proof of concept for the system that would eventually become this book.

We grew podcast-related revenue to $223,000 between November 17 and December 31, 2015, and built a sales pipeline of $380,000 during Q1 2016. We scaled our production and sales teams and created step-by-step documentation of our system. Currently, we predict $2 million in podcast-related revenue during the next twelve months.

We accomplished this thanks in part to several amazing mentors who stepped into our path. We listened to them, and we did exactly what they recommended. We are now building a network of B2B-focused podcasts—the “Onward Nation Network.” By the end of 2017, we expect Predictive ROI to be the company behind approximately a hundred top-ranked business podcasts with millions of listeners worldwide.

It has been an amazing adventure. But your story of growing your business, expanding your platform, and building a nation of true fans can be just as amazing. This book will serve as your comprehensive guide to making your dream a reality—and in the process you will learn how to avoid all of the mistakes we made along the way.

This comprehensive, research-based book will share our full blueprint or “recipe” for podcast success with you. Each and every step we took along the way is presented in complete transparency. Not a single step has been hidden from you. It’s all here, in plain sight.

Within these pages, you will walk behind the green curtains of Onward Nation and Predictive ROI so you can learn our proven system. You will also have access to in-depth insights from ten business owners just like you. Each of them decided to create a podcast to change the game—and then did it. Their impressive stories will be shared in full transparency, too.

But why write such a comprehensive book? Because you deserve a resource that eliminates the guesswork, demystifies the process, and gives you a clear and concise strategy for going from zero to launch in about thirty days.

Only limited resources were available when my Predictive ROI team and I decided to create Onward Nation. Sure, there were plenty of e-books and webinars that led me into the sales funnels of information marketers, but those resources lacked depth, and, candidly, they lacked business acumen. We quickly consumed the resources and were left with more questions than answers.

Plus, the resources lacked full transparency. They typically provided just enough to get you interested in learning more and then pitched a $997 online training or mastermind program.

All of which drove me crazy and didn’t solve our problem. Not awesome.

But there is another reason I decided to go as deep as possible with this book. In my opinion, podcasting—as a medium—deserves a long-form guide, an encyclopedia of how to do it right. When I interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk before the release of his social media book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, we discussed how it wasn’t just a social media book, but a business book that would elevate social media to a new level of legitimacy.¹

My hope is that this book will raise the bar for podcasting just as Gary did for social media marketing. On the surface, Profitable Podcasting looks like a podcasting book. But it’s actually a business book about how business owners are using podcasting to grow their companies, expand their platforms, and build nations of true fans. Each chapter includes step-by-step instructions so you can create, launch, market, and monetize your own podcast. The book includes checklists, production schedules, weekly goal tracking, social media strategies with visual examples, promotional emails, guest invitations, exclusive access to private online video tutorials, and other resources including time-saving third-party tools.

I am excited to share this resource because small business has been my focus for twenty-three years. This is my third book devoted to helping small-business owners succeed.

Helping small-business owners is deeply rewarding for several reasons. First, having owned five small businesses, I know that in today’s economy if one wants to have an impact (as I strive to do), then small business represents a tremendous opportunity. Small-business owners are the lifeblood of our economy.

Second, the 28 million small businesses operating in the United States today, according to the Small Business Administration, account for 55 percent of all jobs and 54 percent of total revenue generated.² I want to help as many business owners as possible grow so they can create more jobs and improve the lives of their families, employees, and communities.

Third, this book tackles the top challenge facing most business owners: According to a recent survey of 1,100 small business owners, 43 percent of respondents identified growing revenue as a top challenge facing U.S. businesses in 2016.³ That’s more than 12 million businesses expected to face the same challenge.⁴

Driving this number down is a worthy goal of this book.

Podcasting Is Still in Rapid-Growth Mode

Before we dive into the system, I want to take a moment to share some important data points to give you the confidence to move forward and launch your own podcast. I don’t want you to fall into the tempting mental trap of thinking that you “waited too long to get started” and, because of that time lost, you somehow “missed your window of opportunity.” Cast low-quality thoughts like this aside.

Rest assured, you have not missed the podcasting wave. The sun has not set on your opportunity. This is the perfect time for you to get started.

In fact, this may be the perfect time to get started because the trailblazers have gone before you. A path has been marked, and you can learn from their successes and failures. Your learning curve will be shorter so that growing your business, expanding your platform, and building your nation of true fans will be the most efficient it has been for any business owner up to this point.

Sounds awesome, doesn’t it?

Podcasting, despite all of its recent growth, is still in its infancy. Getting started now means you still have the opportunity to ride the momentum of what is now a proven medium—and you can use that momentum for your benefit.

Here are some highlights from independent, third-party research that reinforces the importance of getting started now. Thank you to Tom Webster and the team at Edison Research and Triton for generously providing the research.

Figure I-1 illustrates the steady increase in monthly podcast listening. Interestingly, for the five-year period from 2009 through 2013, around 12 percent of the total U.S. population age 12 and over listened to podcasts. In 2016, that number increased to 21 percent, which represents a 75 percent jump in just three years. Impressive.

Bottom line: Monthly podcast listening continues to grow and is trending higher as the ease of listening to podcasts on mobile devices continues to improve.

Edison and Triton also worked to quantify annual household income of podcast listeners as compared to the household income of the total U.S. population age 18 and over. In Figure I-2, we can see that median annual household income in the U.S. population is $53,000. However, the median annual household income of podcast consumers—within the same age range—is $63,000, which represents an increase of 18.86 percent. But even more striking, 41 percent of podcast listeners earn annual household incomes of $75,000 or more, with 15 percent of listeners earning $150,000 or more, versus 9 percent for non-podcast consumers.

Bottom line: Podcast consumers are affluent and likely have disposable income to spend on your products and services.

The percentage of the U.S. population listening to podcasts and the affluence of that audience are compelling points, but how much time do consumers actually spend listening to podcasts? In Figure I-3 we can see that 12 percent of podcast listeners spend ten hours or more per week, with the majority spending one to three hours per week. That is a lot of listening and likely speaks to the increasing popularity of on-demand content based on the specific topics we as consumers want to learn more about.

We will likely see more shows going even more niche to cater to smaller audiences who are extremely passionate about the content being delivered. This is your opportunity to create your nation of true fans.

Bottom line: If you aired one high-quality podcast episode per week, and your episode was thirty to forty-five minutes long, the majority of your listeners could easily fit that into their schedule.

You can review the full report from Edison Research at: http://www.edison-research.com/media-research/podcast-research/.

Why Write This Book?

I mentioned earlier that helping small-business owners succeed is deeply rewarding to me for several reasons. But it gets more personal than that. I was raised in my family’s restaurants, where I learned entrepreneurial lessons that I still rely on today. I had the privilege and honor to work alongside my mother, aunts, uncles, and cousins while growing up. My grandfather, Peter Maronitis, gave us that gift.

He grew up in Istanbul, Turkey, and was forced to drop out of the third grade to take care of his mother and two younger siblings when his father was tragically killed. That one devastating event changed the future of my entire family. He became the man of the house and had to earn an income so the family could survive. He succeeded, and through the adversity, sparked a dream to make his way to America.

He got his chance when he was 18 years old. With ten dollars in his pocket he arrived in New York City and then eventually settled in Canton, Ohio, where a large Greek community was already flourishing.

He found work in a restaurant where he would clean dishes and cut lettuce on the night shift. After just six years, he had managed to save enough money to open The Ideal Restaurant in downtown Canton.

The year was 1926—just three years before The Great Depression. Not a wise time to open a business. But his business plan was simple, “If you take care of your customers, they will take care of you. Everyone has to eat.” He met his future wife, Julia, they got married, ran the restaurant through the Depression, and had four amazing kids along the way. They built a life based on hard work, grit, persistence, tenacity, and a commitment to family.

My grandfather taught us how to be good people by sharing all we have with anyone who needs it. This book represents an opportunity for me to help the millions of small-business owners by sharing how to overcome the challenge of growing revenue. This book is—in some small way—part of his legacy.

I want to say thank you for picking up a copy of this book. It is an honor. I am delighted you chose this book to be what you study and implement into your business.

Onward with gusto!

—Stephen Woessner