Riding the Wave on the Future of Podcasting with Kelly James & Andy James #84

After all, all art is experience. Hello and welcome to The Company Doctor. We're going a bit Inception this week and have invited onto the show the geniuses behind Podcast Labs, the magnificent agency who edit, produce, and market The Company Doctor and countless other quality podcasts. Kelly and Andy are inspiring entrepreneurs with marketing and tech backgrounds respectively, and they give Gary and I some fascinating insights into the future of the podcasting landscape and tips into not only running a successful agency, but also the benefits of staying agile and innovative as an aspiring or established entrepreneur.

Please don't think me presumptuous if I give you— Hello and welcome, Kelly and Andy. This is going to be such a great episode because I've got the king and queen of podcasting on a podcast about podcasting. Welcome to The Company Doctor.

Thank you for having us.

Thank you, Gary. What an intro.

Oh man, this is gonna be great. So the title is Riding the Wave and the Future of Podcasting. But I've been digging into your lives a little bit, so we'll have a chance to share your past with the audience, of course. But I thought maybe to get started, because a lot of people may not know who you are, although most people in the world do, a quick intro to yourselves and what you do.

So my name is Kelly James and I am one of the co-founders of Podcast Labs. We are a podcast production and marketing agency. Initially, we started kind of in the studio space, helping people with production and how to pull their shows together, and then we developed further into actually helping people with their marketing strategies, how they actually curate podcasts to go part their brands and their marketing objectives. And we are based down on the South Coast, and our team are down there and have built with us ever since.

Fantastic. It's interesting because I've got a question for you. How did you get into doing podcasting? Because didn't you used to have a business that sold flower walls that you built and sold?

Yeah, we did. We had a flower wall hire business that we started. We had another little business doing kind of property reports and things that we were running at the time. And we started the flower wall hire business purely sat on the sofa, completely random, saw something about, I think probably one of the Kardashians posting a picture in front of a flower wall, thought it might be a good trend that's worth having a look at. And we I think the same night that we started talking about it, found someone that was selling a very sort of questionable homemade version about 100 miles away from us. And we went and bought it the next day. I think it was about £150. It was leftover from their wedding. And then within a week, we'd ordered another one from a company in London that were bringing them in from China. We'd taken photos and we were kind of taking bookings. And we knew when we started it that it was probably had a timeframe where we were new and the only ones doing it, and within 18 months, 2 years, everyone would be doing it. It wouldn't be competitive anymore. And we kind of just went into it as a bit of a project, really, of going, is this worth trying for 18 months? And we got to, I think, month 16, 17, someone asked us to buy it. And yeah, we had an office that we had signed up for about a week before, and we had no business. And that's where the podcasting side came from, was we kind of sat around, nothing to do, brand new office, trying to think of something to make money now that both of our incomes had disappeared. And, you know, we had a relatively small bit of money in the bank and we were kind of like, we could probably survive for about 6 months before we need to start making money again. We better start thinking of something now.

But the thing is that you're clearly entrepreneurs, maybe you didn't realize you were. And I was reading that you sold 90% of that product through Facebook and Instagram. So you were cool entrepreneurs as well. Looking back in your past, your background, Andy, you're a super clever guy, technically, engineering, artificial intelligence, and I have to ask you what cybernetics is, but we'll come back to that. And Kelly, you're from a marketing background. In fact, weren't you Marketing Person of the Year in 2015?

It felt like such a long time ago now, but yeah, that was my first role out of uni as a grad, trying to figure out what on earth the world of marketing was., and it was in the accounting space at the time, which was good fun.

That's brilliant. So yeah, so a match made in heaven. You've got someone technically able and someone with marketing. What else do you need in life to build a podcasting business? And then you had COVID. Did you start before COVID or after COVID?

Just before. And again, we were quite, I say fortunate and lucky, I don't know which, but that we sold a wedding events hire business that was our only source of household income. About 3 or 4 months before COVID hit and all weddings stopped and all events stopped, anything in person. So yeah, I feel like it was a lucky escape there.

And also people were at home thinking, maybe I should start a podcast, right? That's what I did. George and I did that.

COVID definitely accelerated podcasting. I think it changed where it would have gone if COVID hadn't happened. I think podcasting would be very different now and people would have stuck to the kind of in-person stuff more than they would have done remote. Maybe it wouldn't have had the growth because people wouldn't have reached out to people in different parts of the countries or different parts of the world. And I think that's what's given it so much momentum over the last 5 years.

At the time, we were kind of watching the US when we started, and that was where podcasting was really taking off and everyone was engaging, and it was still so new in the UK. And then COVID was the first time that so many people actually started listening. And that's all we heard for the next few years was, the first time I ever listened was sat at my desk at home,, you know, with nobody around, trying to kind of kill time. And it's the first time they actually started pressing play in the UK, and it really did take us to another level. Good timing.

Yeah. And that's what happened to us. We got— George and I got started during COVID We thought we were going to give back and help people with work and jobs, and that's how we got started. But I'm interested to know, either Andy or Kelly, what's happened since between now and then? Has it changed?

Uh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, like I said, that was the first time that anyone had in the UK really started tuning in. I mean, there was lots of people that say to me, I was listening to them back in the '90s and I was involved then. And, and of course, but this was the first time that that medium and platform started being a day-to-day for people. And that a lot of that came with the rise of things like smartphones, the accessibility in your pocket, and also people wanting to listen whilst they were doing other things. You know, we're all so busy nowadays, we've got so many layers of what's going on, and people still wanted to learn or be entertained whilst they were at the gym or on a dog walk, or, you know, it was It was another form of digesting content without having to sit and watch a movie, for example, and give up that time and attention. So that's at the start where we saw it. And I think at the beginning it was still very consumer-focused. People liked to be entertained or enjoy it. And I think the big change we've seen in the last few years has been the shift for brands and B2B to really understand how they use the space and how they can use audio, or now more so video actually, which is probably another way that it's really changed. But how they can utilize that to get to their audience and their people and achieve their own marketing objectives and goals, building communities and being in a very niche space as well. Podcasting does very well if you can really focus on a niche and go after a small audience of people that are just like you as well.

Yeah, no, I agree. And we wanted to sort of tap into your experience because, you know, part of this is Riding the Wave, but also the future of podcasting. And one of the questions I had for both of you was And from your experience, what are the key things people need to consider to have a successful podcast, whether they're about to start doing it or they're already doing it?

I mean, the one for me from a technical point of view, and I'm going to probably have slightly different views to Kelly from a marketing point of view, is the quality. For me, if it's not enjoyable to listen to from a sound quality point of view, then it's going to struggle or you're going to find it quite difficult to follow. So I think, yeah, quality for me has always been kind of one of the things we push is, you know, you don't want to listen to something that's muffled or echoey or has loads of background noise. Same with video, you don't want to watch something that's kind of strenuous to watch. And I think one of the hard things with that is the better the quality is, both in sound and video, the less you'll notice it at all. So if something's good, you're not going to notice the sound's good, you're just going to listen to it. You will notice if it's bad.

You're setting yourself up now, and you know that we were pretty nervous about coming on with you guys because we wanted to make sure it was of that quality. So, uh, it makes complete sense. What's your thoughts, Kelly?

For me, I think the biggest thing I always say to people when they're starting is just to really figure out who you're after and what sort of people you want to be engaging. And it, it's not always about getting the hundreds of thousands of people involved. You can have a community of 100 people that really enjoy your content, want to speak with you, engage, comment, purchase from you, and really drill down on who they are. We have so many people that come to us and say, you know, I just want it for everybody. And it's like, well, it's not. Who are these people? What do they do on a day-to-day basis? What are their lives like? And I think sometimes people just try and be everything to anyone. And with the podcasting space getting more competitive and more and more people coming to the market, yes, sound and the quality is is right so that you don't lose listeners to tricky edits and things like that. But also, are you actually delivering content that they want to hear and engage with? And who do you want to connect with on that basis?

And do you find people are obsessed with getting followers?

Yes. Yes.

And it's such a strange metric to track as well, because it's depending on the type of podcast. And I think, like Kelly said, that kind of chasing, I want everyone, because You know, some of the big podcasters do it and they're selling the fact that they're a celebrity and people are listening to them as much as the guests. If you haven't got 10 million, 20 million Instagram followers and a household name and that's why you're doing it, what is the purpose? And then yeah, we've had some of our most successful podcasts have got tiny, tiny numbers. They could be kind of 30, 40, 50, 100 listeners a month, but every single one of them is really interested in what they're talking about. The market's very, very small. There is zero competition from other podcasters, which is becoming more and more prominent now that more people get into it. There's more and more competition. So yeah, I think being really specific and finding— yeah, figuring out who it is and what the value is and not just chasing the numbers.

That's sage advice for us, George. I think he's giving us a bit of a tip.

And I think where the numbers are as well is important. What numbers you're measuring. So if you're doing it to make money, then don't focus on Apple listens, don't focus on Spotify listens, because it's not going to pay you any revenue unless you've got a sponsor. If you are looking at revenue, it might be that posting things on YouTube and TikTok where you can earn ad revenue over Instagram. And so I think tracking views versus listens versus social engagements from the content that comes out of the podcast are I think people often pick the wrong metric to track.

I think you're wise. Someone once told me that worrying about followers is like opening the front door every 10 minutes and seeing if anyone's coming. You're like, "No one followed me yet." I like that. You can get obsessed with it.

I like that. Another good example on that is, you know, we had a client that was just after heads of internal comms, and, you know, that title, that job title, there are hundreds of thousands of people with that title that they actually want to engage with. But they were getting kind of 50 to 100 downloads per episode. But for them, they were like, we usually struggle to get 20 of them in a room with us. So the fact that 50 to 100 are listening and engaging is, you know, a great achievement for us on that, that kind of metric.

No, I think it's a fair comment. And just kind of a related question, outside of celebrities, because I get your point, Andy, they come with the followers already. Who's got the recipe for podcasting and doing it well?

Oh, it's a tough one, isn't it?

That's what I'm here for.

Or you let us use our own clients.

Yeah, you can do whatever you want. You're the podcast king and queen.

I think it's one of our shows that we work with, but Sarah Raven Kitchen and Garden, they're a huge gardening company across the UK, but they've been running for 4 years and Sarah has released a podcast episode every single week. She has never, ever missed an episode. And now they're kind of really leveling up the amount of content they roll out. They're constantly showing up and it's all about value. It's all about tips and guidance, and it's just such an enjoyable, relaxing show. And it's just about, you know, it's really showing up and adding value to your audience. I think that's where the magic starts.

That's great. That's a great example, actually. Good advice too.

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This switch tracks just a little bit because part of the topic is about the future of podcasting. And with that in mind, where is it going? Because I started my little career doing audiobooks. So where's it going? What's the future of podcasting in the next 3 years?

It's got a few different routes it could go down. I think it's going to continue to grow. And I think we kind of maybe question that sometimes because we are so immersed in it. To us, it's everything all the time and everyone's doing it. But then as soon as you kind of take an outside view, view, everyone's like, "Oh, that's really cool. Yeah, I've just started listening to them." And you realize actually it is still fairly early on for most people. And I think if you look historically, you can kind of— I think the easiest way to kind of predict where it might go is what could it replace next? And what in the market is going to change that might cause that to happen? And cost is always a big driver of that. And I think that's what happened with COVID was it grew into what it is and the types of people and the types of content because of what it was able to replace. So the people that you would normally hear from, you might hear on a podcast now, 5 years ago, you probably would have heard them at an event. So marketing shifted to go, well, if we can't get them to an event in person, we'll get them to the podcast. And then as that's become established and people are very accepting of that new form of content, well, actually now it's 100 times cheaper to have someone on a podcast than it is to bring them to an event and invite people along and cover the food and drink. And so I think if it— again, there's so many things that it could replace, but I think it's what next, especially when maybe the economy is a little bit wobbly at the moment. What's podcasting going to replace, probably on a cost basis?

Any guidance what you think it might be if you were a gambling man?

I think internal comms is going to be huge growth. I think it's a really easy way of people getting their thoughts out and updates in a very kind of personal-friendly way across to teams in larger businesses. And we're already starting to see people use that, kind of they're trying to drive recruitment or businesses with, you know, thousands and thousands of staff, the CEO can effectively talk to all of them where they can't do that physically, especially as people work remotely. So I think that's having a lot of growth at the moment. And I think that's going to continue to grow. But Kelly, what about you?

I think that podcasting is going to essentially become like a social media platform of, you know, you have to have one. You know, like companies that go, well, we've got an Instagram page, we've got a Facebook, we've got a Twitter, we have to be everywhere. And I think podcasting is developing into that. Of course we have a podcast. If you haven't already got 3 on your books, it's becoming a platform for content. And obviously the way that they all cross over the top of each other as well, down to, you know, video has become such a big thing in podcasting podcasting because you can utilize the clips on the short-form platforms that then drive them through to the podcast, and they're all coming together. But I think, you know, like, I know someone that ran a social media agency 10 years ago, and she had to convince people that it was the right thing to do for their business, whereas now, you know, we had the same with podcasting at the start, but now it's more of, of course we've got one, you know, of course we're on those channels, we want to be on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, we have to be there to be shown alongside our competitors. And if you're not there, it's unusual now. And I think that's how it will develop.

Really interesting thought.

I think we'll see that shift on the platforms as well. So I think the social platforms will start to shift, and they already have in a lot of the content they prioritize. They'll start to shift towards almost becoming a platform of podcast-related clip content. And I think we'll see the opposite with things like Spotify and Apple Podcasts, where they will start to become more like social channels going, well, now we're just audio and everyone's posting all of their podcast stuff on Instagram and TikTok. Because of the revenue or the likes. How do we replicate that within our platform? So I think the two will almost converge in the middle somewhere.

Disrupting the disruptor, I like it. And actually, I guess I could extend stories to the podcast. It's interesting. And how important is AI? Is it friend or foe? Both. Go on, say more.

If it can be used well, it's a huge benefit. If you try and replace the work with AI, it's becoming, I think, more and more obvious the more that people understand how it works and start to use it. I think you can start to spot it, but at the same time, it's getting better and better all the time. So, I think it's down to the user.

Kelly?

I'm not sure on that one. I mean, like Andy said, I can spot it a mile off at the moment, and I have this thing that anyone that writes anything on LinkedIn with the term magic or wizardry or something related to magic is always AI, because they've said the word speak creatively and Creatively to AI seems to mean magic. So you'll see hundreds of podcast show notes that are always using their magic and their wizardry, and it really bothers me. So I think, like Andy said, you can see through it. But there's also really good ways of being able to filter through your content and find better snippets and use AI for more of the administration side to allow you to create more content, not allow it to replace what you're making.

Are you cool with polishing or not really? Polishing your words with AI?

Yeah. I mean, we've started to use different parts in different ways, haven't we? So, you know, I think it's really good if you want to overcome a bit of a mental block or a creative block and you're like, "I don't know where to start." You can use it to give you a bit of a starting point or take something you've written that's boring and technical and make it a bit more fun. I think it can reduce some of the workload. So one of the things we use quite heavily is AI transcription, because it's just wildly impractical to try and handwrite it, and it's 98% accurate now, and it's really, really useful. It's searchable, which really helps, and it speeds up that workflow, but it's not a generative AI, and I think that's where it gets interesting, is the generative AI. And I think again, if everyone's using ChatGPT 3.5, which I think is the current free one, you're all going to get pretty similar results. I think where it gets more interesting is when you can start teaching your own AI things specific to you or your business or your processes or your podcast, and then it understands what you want. It becomes a bit more unique and a bit more intelligent.

Just as an out of interest, we've downloaded he's put all of our episodes into something called Delphi.ai. And now you can ask the doctor questions and it answers in our tone of voice. There are elements, it's really interesting.

It's quite scary.

That is interesting.

Language conversion's a good one as well. There's a lot of language conversion tools that are popping up where it will overlay your voice in another language, but with the same tone of voice. And again, I can't speak to their accuracy because I'm terrible at speaking other languages, but as a novelty to kind of see it work. It's very cool.

I think what concerns me is obviously a few weeks ago, I can't remember what the tool was, but we had that, a podcast being made by two AIs talking to each other. And you go, at what point do you have any idea what human input, what is someone's opinion? And the bots are just creating their own podcasts to each other and we're all listening and deciding that what they're saying is an opinion or accurate.

Yeah, Notebook LM.

That was it.

Yeah, Google.

I like the sound of that one.

Hello, welcome to the second, I think, George Clooney Grill or whatever we're calling it. You know, yet to be fully decided. Probably not the George Roast. That just doesn't sound quite right. But anyway, here we are. I'm going to send some rapid-fire questions your way. We have talked about sort of saturation saturation in the market and that potentially being a good thing. Do you think there's a danger of the market becoming oversaturated and people sort of becoming paralyzed by choice and becoming a bit apathetic and listens sort of dropping off?

I don't think it will necessarily affect listens dropping off per listener, but I do think there's a danger of there being loads of people doing the same thing and then 90% of the content just being repetitive junk for the purposes of creating content. So it will be harder to find the good stuff. Same with social.

Nice. Good answer. You obviously landed the prize bull of podcasts with The Company Doctor, but there are— and we talked about ones which, you know, you guys think are getting it right, and especially from your roster, of which, you know, so many are getting right. Are there any that you haven't signed who you sort of wish that you might have secured in the early days?

Uh, Red Bull Racing. That I would have loved to have worked on that one. And we were, we were very close, and we lost out to Sony Music, so it was fair to have lost it. But it would have been on during the F1, going, arriving, you know, seeing the cars, meeting the drivers, and all the team were really excited about that one.

Yeah, tough, but losing out to Sony Music, you know, it's fair enough. Next question. So from a commercial perspective, I've heard so much about how branded content and ads, uh, you know, it's such an attractive prospect for brands to get in on on sort of on podcasts, you know, beyond just reaching big audiences, why do you think the podcast medium is so such a powerful sort of sponsored and branded medium for brands and companies?

I think it's quite subtle. So it's not from the audio side anyway, it's not really in your face when people are putting ads and things in there. It can be, but those kind of host-mentioned reviews of products or referrals are kind quite subtle. So again, it depends how well it's done and in what way, but I think that's why people jump on it.

I think it's down to the digestible nature and the fact that you're able to, like we said earlier, watch and enjoy the content whilst you're doing other things, rather than it becoming an alternative this or that. And I think that's why it's such a good opportunity.

It's subliminal messaging almost, isn't it? In that it's mentioned while you're doing other stuff, so you kind of don't notice it. You know, once you've been exposed to something 5 or 6 times, you start to go, "Oh yeah, actually I was thinking about that," and you don't know where you've heard it from.

Yeah, it's powerful stuff. And you guys, you know, throughout this episode, and I'm sure our audience will agree, you've talked so knowledgeably about podcasting, you know, all this sort of nitty-gritty details that go on from the sort of tech side of things to sort of performance metrics and all of that stuff. You know, you've been going for 5 years, so you've obviously, you've got a lot of experience, but you know, how did you learn all this stuff and how long did it take and are you still learning it? And yeah, I guess it's sort of like, how have you become such experts in what is comparatively a quite short amount of time?

From my side of it, from the audio video editing technical side of it, just trying to figure it out. And it's, uh, I think everyone, or I think a lot of people, have a tendency to jump towards doing a training course or some kind of more structured learning of how to do something, and I'm the complete opposite. I won't learn anything like that. If you give me something that needs to happen and whatever it is to do it, or a budget or whatever, I'll find a way of doing it. I'll figure it out. And I think, again, with editing podcasts, I've had zero formal training. The day we started the business, I had no idea what I was doing. I'd never done it before. I probably watched 2 or 3 hours of YouTube videos of someone using a piece of software that I saw that I thought was good, and had downloaded, and then I'll just figure things out as they come along. You come across an issue, you spend a silly amount of time trying to fix it, and then the next time you've got to do it, it doesn't take you 4 hours, it takes you 4 minutes. I think learning by doing is definitely my way of figuring stuff out, and I think that's what we've done all the way through. It's, "Right, we want to introduce video. Great, I'll buy 3 cameras, I'll figure it out tomorrow.

I'll sit in a room for 8 hours, and at the end of the day, I know how to do it." I think as well, we've been very pulled by our clients being willing to be innovative and jump on things, and then our team coming up with ideas and going, well, why don't we try this? How do we play with this? And so at the beginning, it was Andy and I kind of using the skills that we already had, adjusting them to a new market and coming up with something different. But then as we've evolved, it's been everyone else pushing us and being reactive and then evolving with the industry as it goes and trying to stay that one step ahead.

Excellent stuff. I've got one more question for you and then you will have officially survived your first and our second George Cloak Grill. You know, we established that you guys are entrepreneurial in spirit and you've pioneered what sounds like a few businesses. You know, you mentioned the Flower Wall. You also mentioned there might have been a couple of others before. You're not supposed to have favorite children, but if you did, which would it be?

I mean, probably the current business. I think it's It's the one we stuck with for the longest, and I think it has the most growth in it for things to change. And again, we've always been super reactive and changed things to match what's going on in the world and the market. And yeah, I think, and we were talking about this yesterday, where we've gone from the first business we did was about creating tens of pounds, and it was 50, 40, 50, 60, 70 quid for whatever it was we were offering. And then the next one was, how do we come up with something that's going to be in the hundreds of pounds? And then with podcasting, Our first client was paying £100 a month and it was always, how do we push this into over £1,000? And then, but I think that's been where we've stuck with this business and we've gone, how do we grow it? What's the opportunity? And this year we've gone from £100 from our first client 5 years ago to our first 6-figure project. So it's always been like, how do we move on? And I think that's why we've stuck with the podcasting because it's enjoyable, but it's also got so much growth.

Yeah, Addie's right. I mean, you know, when we were in the wedding sector, we knew there was a limit, and I really enjoyed that one because I liked working in the B2C space. Uh, you could play around with content a lot, and it was also very happy occasions, things like that. But then I get to apply that in a slightly different way. You know, we have B2C podcasts that come through. We've got ones— you know, every new client that comes through is a completely different target audience, a different way of getting into people, in a different way of curating content and branding. So We get to have fun. I think the reason we've stuck with it is almost because each client feels like a new business that you get to play with and experiment with each time.

And we're very happy to be your lab rats, so thank you very much. Well done for making it through the George Cloak grill, it's never easy, and I will hand back to Gary, or potentially both of you in the studio.

Listen, you've reached an anniversary point. You're 5 years into this business, built a successful business in 5 years. I hope you don't mind me saying on air, you guys got married, so now your company is entwined. Looking back on your business over the last 5 years, and not the flower business, but this business, knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently?

It's a really good question. I think I've learned so much. I think especially Running an agency, I think, is a different beast to running other businesses. You've always got to be really reactive, you've always got to be quite innovative, and we've learned so much about recruitment and how to, you know, communications and expectations and all sorts of things. An agency is very much a people-led business, and I think there's always going to be things that you think Oh, you know, I've learned so much more now, and I wouldn't react the same way to how I would have done, say, 2, 3 years ago. But also, I think for us, like, when we first started, it was always about survival. It was always about, you know, bootstrapping month after month and just trying to be business owners and not have to have a job with other companies. Whereas now we can look back in different places and go, well, you know, you're actually growing, you're taking on staff, and you're— you can look at a business a completely different way and react in different ways when you're not when you're, you're growing and not just, you know, trying to survive at the beginning and going from that startup scale-up mindset.

Yeah, that's the hard part, isn't it? I mean, it's a big responsibility and not, not for everyone to do it, right? But it's a big step.

Yeah, I think we had a quote recently, didn't we, on a different podcast of ours actually, where someone said an agency is a great first business to do because it— you learn so much and you're always two clients away from either completely closing or completely flying. And that really resonated with me and I thought, yeah, it's true, you do, I think it's a really good starting point.

And associated with that, look, there's lots of competition out there. I'm sure it's growing because everyone's getting on the bandwagon, but how do you differentiate?

I think just the experience that we've got. We're really efficient in what we do, we're very well-practiced, and it kind of ties back into what you've just said about would you do things differently, and I go, well, there's lots of things I'd do differently if we did it again, but the way we did it taught us how to do it right the next time. And I think that's kind of the same answer with this, in that we've done so many things in so many different ways that it might not have worked before, and we've gone, "We'll change it to this," and now we know what we're doing. So we're kind of 5 years ahead of a lot of the new competition, and they're trying stuff, and silly things that we figure out, the people with cameras overheating mid-recording, and I'm like, "Well, it's an easy fix, plug a battery pack in." "Oh, it says it doesn't do that." "Well, use this cable." £3.50 off of Amazon, and suddenly I've made a £1,000 camera do the same as a £10,000 camera by buying a cable. So there's lots of things like, for me, usually the technical stuff, for Kelly, normally the marketing stuff. But yeah, I think just 5 years of things going well and not so well and practice has made us very efficient. We know it's a lot more predictable, and I think that really helps, especially with bigger projects when bigger budgets and things start to come into it. Someone wants someone that can go, yeah, this is how it's going to work. That won't work because of this. That will work because of this. And we've done it before.

We can prove it. Andy, is that what you learned when you did artificial intelligence and cybernetics at university?

I didn't learn a lot doing that. I learned a lot of maths, which is why I didn't stick with it.

This is really great. So look, we're going to get to your music taste in a minute because time's running by. It happens really quick. But for people listening and thinking about I want to launch a podcast, it sounds great. 3 tips for launching and maintaining an effective podcast and kind of tips to stay ahead of the crowd as they do it.

I mean, mine would always be, you know, before you get started on anything, figure out who your audience is, know exactly who you're after, who you're targeting, and do as much research as you can about who they are, what sort of content they engage with, and make sure that you're, you're thinking about that and you're then standing out against others that are doing the same thing.

Andy, give us 3.

Well, obviously I'm going to come up with the techie one. So, you know, make sure it sounds good, figure that out from the start. It will be a lot easier to get guests as well if you've got something to show them that looks or sounds good. So if you're starting from zero, get a good microphone, get a good webcam, or use your iPhone as a webcam if you can make it work. You know, then make example stuff and show people and go, look, it sounds good, it looks good, this is what we want. And it will help it grow in a very, what's becoming an increasingly saturated market. It will help it stand out.

And then number 3, I would say be consistent. Like, if you're going to go for it, you really have to show up. And there is a bit of a contract between you and your listener. If you keep showing up, they will keep tuning in, they will keep sharing your content. But just like your favorite Netflix show, if they give up after 6 episodes and you're gutted and you think, I put all that time into it. If you're going to start up, make sure that you're in it for the long term. And you're going to keep showing up consistently. We see so many that show up for 6 to 8 episodes, disappear for a year, and you know, you've got to really be in it and say that you're going to show up for your audience that are then promoting you at the same time.

That's great advice. And actually, you gave us great advice when we started. We were a monthly, and you recommended that we— hey, we did that, but also we did it every 2 weeks, and, and that's really helped us grow. So great advice. Cool. Okay, I've got one more question, then we're going to musical tastes. And it's really, again, to help the listener who's trying to get into the podcast world. What are the common missteps that podcasters might face as the industry grows, and how can they stay focused and grounded?

Well, I would go back to what we said earlier about chasing the wrong numbers. You know, again, it's a kind of almost a point 4 from the last question again, is what's the point of it? Think if you know what you're doing it for and make sure you're chasing the right numbers. Don't go, I'm not getting very good listens, and, or go chasing listens on Spotify if that's not what you really want out out of the podcast. So I think that's a huge mistake a lot of people make.

I would say people sometimes spend too long worrying about it being perfect and then they never get it out there. They will pick and pick and pick about whether this word sounded right or whether this title sounds like this, that they will delay releasing it for sometimes over a year. And you've got to look at the bigger picture and go, people aren't going to notice those little details. They're going to notice if you're never there and if you never show up. Sometimes 80% has got to be enough, and you've got to roll it out there and, and show up rather than worrying about it being absolutely perfect.

Lovely advice. What a great way to finish. Listen, before we go to your musical taste, thanks so much for coming on. It's been a real honor to have the, the king and queen of podcasting talking about podcasting on our podcast. So thank you so much for coming on.

Yes, well, thank you again. Echoing Gary's sentiments, that was really, really interesting and and personally useful. As you probably have gathered, I tend to just sort of drop into these if I think that it's going to be of personal use to me. So, and it has been, so thanks. I've learned a hell of a lot. And hopefully we show up. There's a lot of talk of showing up, and I'm hoping, you know, that we do that. And if we don't, we have learned to do that better. So anyway, moving on to our playlist, it's the Company Doctor playlist. We ask all of our guests to track 2 or 3, or however many you like, into the playlist. And that can be something that has helped you through tough times, or motivated you, or sort of something which just, you know, keep turning to, whether that's sort of in your personal time or at work. So Kelly and Andy, what have you decided to put into the Company Doctor playlist?

So for me, I think it's probably got to be Rush and 2112, just because I want to take up as much space as possible in the playlist.

I like that. It's a good tactic.

Yeah, get a full 20-minute track in there.

Dominate the entire thing. I've got the short version of Fair enough. Yeah, great choice.

It's in. Mine's a little unusual because when it was mentioned, I thought, does it need to relate to career or life, or is it just your favourite song? So mine's a little bit odd, but it's called I Drink Wine by Adele, which is also a very unusual title, but it's hidden in her latest album. And the reason I love it is the lyrics are really clever. It's really smart, and it just kind of is my— if I've had a bad day, I go to it and it reminds me of all the ups and downs of running a business and being in your 30s and trying to figure it out. And actually, it kind of just grounds me a little bit and makes me laugh. So I've gone for that.

Do you drink wine at the same time?

It's sometimes— that, that really helps.

Yeah, love it. Thank you so much. I think that's our first secret track, I think. And I didn't even know that they still did those, so I'm very, very pleased to hear about it. So that's in as well. Thank you.

Thank you. So listen, guys, thank you so much for coming on. It's been really inspirational. We've learned lots, but most of all, we're honored to have you on as the awesomeness that you are in podcasting. And anyone who is thinking of going podcasting, you guys need to get in touch. So thank you very much, and we'll hopefully see you again soon.

Very welcome. Thank you for having us.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening, and thanks to Kelly and Andy, firstly for being such interesting guests and secondly, for all the fantastic work they do across The Company Doctor and their wider roster of shows. You can find show notes, video clips, and other extras from this episode over at thecompanydoctor.com. And if you're a budding podcaster looking to step onto or progress up the podcasting ladder, why not visit podcastlabs.co.uk and find out how Kelly and Andy and the whole wonderful team there can help you out. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.