Using Podcasts as a Relationship Builder

Foreign.

Hey. Hey. Welcome to another episode of the Marketing for Accounting Firms podcast. My name is Matt Banker. I'm the owner, founder of Benchmark Growth, and we do marketing for accounting firms. So it's all part of the theme here today. I have Adrian McIntyre on here, and we are going to talk about podcasts. I'm hosting a podcast right now. Podcasts in the business world seem to be a bigger and bigger thing, and we're going to talk about how you should or shouldn't use it for your business. But let me start, Adrian. Why should we care about what you have to say about podcasts? What's your. What are your credentials? Experience? Where. Where are you coming from?

Oh, boy.

Well, most people probably shouldn't care what I have to say. Great show, podcast. I mean, my kids don't care what I have to say, so why should anybody else? I have been in the media literally my entire life. I grew up in a radio station. I've been on the radio since I was 5 years old. My dad owned the station and he got this bright idea that our family should be the stars of a weekly show. It was a radio show, not a podcast. But back in 1978, we started recording weekly episodes of the Happy Day Express, which became the longest running show, children's radio show in California history.

Wow.

But that's because it was on our own station. Nobody could make us take it off. And I've spent my entire career in the media or in academia or in business consulting, but always and only focused on the stories we tell and the way we communicate and the way we connect. That's been my passion since I was a kid as I watched my dad grow the radio station and, you know, unwittingly and sometimes unwillingly dragged along in this family enterprise. I mean, we were a personal brand before anybody called it that, and fortunately avoided a lot of the indignities of other Southern California childhood media stars, but not all of them, probably. And I've ended up now after, you know, spending my 20s and 30s in the middle east and Africa, mostly working in communication related roles or doing research in cultural anthropology, which, again, is all about language and the way we form relationships and situate ourselves in the world and how we connect with each other, how we understand who we are, what this all is.

Right.

Very lofty stuff. But I also ended up in a lot of conflict areas, war zones, and fundamentally, my core belief is that humans, all of us, have this incredible power to understand ourselves and humanity. And for the most part, we use our words to create separation between us to create divisions that lead to absolutely horrific situations. So having essentially burned out, like, what's the word, sort of psychologically, emotionally, my soul was just sort of tired of our collective inability to stop the kind of conflicts that continue to rage and be in the headlines right now. I turned to business. And I'm not really an entrepreneur, I'm a communicator. But I've found that those skills can really help people who are trying to make a difference. And I like that because we didn't save Darfur, we didn't end the invasion of Iraq that led to the loss of so many civilian lives. I have worked in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, and we certainly haven't stopped that conflict. But in the business world, I can help people make a difference and we can see that difference in their results. Maybe not today, but maybe next month or next quarter. And somehow this is a long winded answer to your question, but somehow I've found for myself a kind of, I don't know, likely home in, in this world because we can see the difference. And when my clients are people who help people, then I get to feel good about what I do.

Yeah, I hear in your story this, I. This idea of thinking about communications and I guess this is going to kind of lead into the podcast as, um, you know, even though media and comms, that's. You're thinking like one to many and podcasts are often this one to many thing. You know, language is, is so. And communication is actually like person to person at the end of the day. And that's at least, that's even when we're going one to many. We're trying to communicate to individuals in that, in that process. But I, I hear a lot of heart behind the work. Not necessarily. You didn't get into it, it sounds like because you wanted to make a ton of money or had this like, business strategy, entrepreneurial, like perspective on it. You're. You sound like you're interested in kind of the idea and the, the concept of, you know, how do we use communication effectively to make an impact? So I don't know, framing it in, in that context, what, what do you think? What's wrong with the way that businesses are using podcasting as of today?

Yeah, well, I mean, just to piggyback off what you said, although I'm not driven by the profit motive per se, I like to eat and live indoors. So do I. I like for my clients to also do well in the world, especially when that allows them to do good for other People I have, I set a pretty high bar for the kind of, you know, ethical commitments that people must have to work with me. It doesn't mean you have to be a save the world type person, but if you're up to some nefarious stuff, I'm not your guy. So that being said, we live in a world where money creates opportunity to create impact. And so the biggest thing that people get wrong with podcasts is they're doing it the wrong way for the wrong reason. Let me be very, very explicit about that. The vast majority of advice about podcasting comes from a media framework, which I'm very familiar with. That's, as I said, what I grew up with. And in the media framework, you need to maximize the number of consumers, listeners, viewers, whatever, readers, if you're writing books or the written word, so that you can monetize the audience. Most media makes its money essentially by selling access to the people that consume the media. That's how advertising works in a fundamental way. In a world where mass media and the broadcast mode was all that we had, and in a world where a small number of producers had relationships with an even smaller number of gatekeepers to actually get the media out into the world, we had some sort of stability.

Right.

It wasn't equitable. The stories that got selected for coverage on the three main news channels were not always the stories that most urgently needed to be told. But the advertisers who were buying media and the agencies that were supporting them in buying the media had a pretty standard set of equations for how to make money with media. We are now in a fundamentally different world. Podcasting is independent media even. Let's set aside for a second big podcast. You know, the stuff that you read about in the headlines, you know, Spotify's hundred million dollar contracts with this, that or the other person. Podcasting is something now. Media is something now that people can make on their own. Well, that's super exciting and interesting. We've democratized production. Everybody's got this incredible ability in their own, you know, pocket, or with a few hundred bucks, you can get some really high quality gear. I mean, I own some really expensive gear. I use mostly on client shoots. What I've got going on here, between camera, microphone and lights, I mean, you're not looking at more than $300 in terms of my home set of my thousands of dollars of stuff is in the pelican cases ready to go to the next client thing. So anybody can do it, but should we do it for the same reasons that we Used to do it in the past. That's the thing. So I'm a little bit wordy sometimes. You'll have to forgive me. But fundamentally, the mistake that people make with podcasts is they think that the audience is the answer to a business problem. When audiences are an answer to some business problems.

Right.

But not all. And why this doesn't work is if you think you need to grow a big audience in order to monetize that audience in order to achieve your business results, you have a really, you know, as I've heard you say, that that requires a major investment. That investment can be paid in time or money, but it's going to take a lot of both.

Yeah.

To get there. And the reality is, and most people don't realize this is you don't need a big audience. If you're a professional services firm, you don't need a big audience to achieve your goals. Unless your goals are ego driven, which is fine. If you want to be a big shot and, and have a, you know, and be recognized in airports, no problem. And you just need to get about doing that in the right way. Most people don't care about that.

Yeah.

So the problem is audiences are. There's a lot of noise.

Right.

There's a lot of podcasts. I mean, let's. I, I've listened to a lot of podcasts in my life. I love podcasts. I don't listen to a ton of business ones. The ones I do listen to tend to be. They're not podcasts by businesses because, you know, Adobe, for example, had a podcast out for a while. I listened to a couple episodes, but at the end of the day, I felt like, oh, this is Adobe trying to sell me as a marketing agency owner. Stuff like that was even, even when the stories were pretty interesting underneath it, I just felt like, oh, this is, this is kind of a transactional relationship where you're just trying to get something in. You've, you've created a podcast in order to generate interest in, in your product. And once I, I don't know, it maybe, maybe they had the best intentions, but once whatever, deep inside of me recognized that, I just started losing interest. So I think there's a lot of challenges for businesses just inherently when it comes to entertainment. I guess it's the reason why, okay, this is me thinking out loud, but it's the reason why. You run advertisement next to entertainment, but the people creating it are separate people. You don't, you don't want to keep them. Like, you don't have these the companies making the same product because the people thinking entertainingly are often thinking about it differently. So the.

Well, with one exception, let's just say this just for fun, but the model whereby you invent the media itself to sell the product, which was pioneered in the toy industry. And you know, I mean, like Heman, that is, and she ran. Right now I'm showing my age, I turned 50 this year. But you know, were toys that were designed. Sorry, were shows that were designed to sell toys, not the other way around. And you can see that now with Paw Patrol, for example. Yeah, literally Paw Patrol is a vehicle for selling the toys. And you know, not that there's anything.

We should, we should set up a workshop to help accounting firms figure out how they can create. Yeah, accounting. I actually with, with AI, this is off track, but I, I saw someone posting the other day, people using AI to create fake Lego sets. Like this is a pretty easy way to use these image generators. And they were creating like pizza party instead of year end bonus Lego set for the office or something like that. It was, I don't know, it was a little dark.

It's like the fruitcake in Christmas vacation. I, I wouldn't go there. So.

All right, so we'll, we'll get back on track here. Audience building or thinking that monetizing a large audience as a way to success, you're saying that that is a wrong way to think about it. So what is, what's the flip side of that? Is it, is there a better way?

It's not the wrong way. It's just maybe not right for your specific goals. So in presentations, and you and I met when you attended one of them. So you've seen the graphic that I have, I put up a triangle and I call it the podcast value pyramid. And I show how this, this pyramid has three layers. The base layer is the widest one and then the middle one and then the top one. I show how most people think you need to start with the bottom of the pyramid and build a very large fan base. Right. So fans are the bottom layer. Of course, you monetize a fan base typically on a CPM model. So one to a thousand. Right. In fact, people talk about podcasting will measure their downloads in thousands.

Right.

Well, we finally got our first thousand 18 months later.

Right.

The middle layer is your funnel. So if the podcast listeners are able to go to your website, download your ebook, sign up for your webinar, get into your content marketing machine somehow, well, they're worth more to you because they've not only consumed your podcast, but they've also opted in to get more information from you. And ultimately that's what you want. And it leads to the top, the pinnacle of the pyramid, which is the one to one relationship. Like they become a client, you now have a direct one to one relationship with that individual human being. And that's obviously worth a lot more to most accounting firms or any other professional firm than a listener. You know, just ask your own accounting team or your CFO if you have one. Which would she rather deposit every month? Downloads or dollars?

Right.

Obviously we're looking for revenue. Well, the thing that people get wrong is thinking you have to start at the bottom and work your way to the top. So we invert the podcast value pyramid and we start with the thing that matters most, the one to one relationship. How do we do that? We stop focusing on the listeners for our podcast. Not like we don't care about them. We want to make something good and relevant and interesting, but we don't need them in the same way. We are going to focus instead on the guest. Now, what most people don't realize about media, because we tend to, unless you're weird like me and grew up in a radio station, like literally sleeping on the floor in the studio, we don't tend to realize that media has two scenes, right? The scene of consumption and the scene of production. And the scene of production can be really cool and really fun and really emotionally thrilling. So we started, we, meaning my agency, started viewing podcasts as an opportunity to get people together in the room for something exciting. It's the same thing. It's a podcast. We're going to record it, we're going to publish it. There will be downloads, there will be listeners, etc. But we focus on. It's almost like a micro event strategy, right? If you're planning an event, you want to have the right people on the guest list and you want them to have a fantastic time, right? If you're planning a dinner party or. In the old days of professional services marketing here in Arizona, lawyers couldn't even advertise until, you know, just a couple decades ago with this landmark case. Like lawyers, law firms could not run ads, so they relied on old school methods of meeting and greeting people. So it's your wine and cheese event, it's your kind of business breakfast meeting, right? Things of that nature. Well, what if you use the podcast production as a reason to get people together? This changes everything because now you're focused on who could we invite and what could we talk about that they would want to show up for.

Right, yeah.

What's going to have people who wouldn't ordinarily take a meeting with you drive across town to spend 90 minutes being a guest on your show? Well, first of all, you got to have one. And it doesn't have to be this permanent ongoing thing whereby you've now got this weekly podcast and I've, I've somewhat sarcastically, but I think accurately refer to this as the hamster wheel from hell. Like, if you start a podcast in the traditional approach, you're now in this content grind and it never stops.

Yep. Until you burn out.

Yes. We have a word for it. Pod fade, which is a polite way of saying you looked at the amount of effort you were putting in versus the results you were getting and you made the smart choice to bail.

Yeah.

Well, what if you didn't start out trying to do that? What if you just went straight for the thing that you want? That's where we, and I didn't make this concept up, but this is where we've really innovated and refined and developed something that helps people use a podcast to get folks together and build meaningful one on one human relationships with their hard to reach prospects.

Yeah, when I heard you talk about this, it was one of those things that I feel like really put words to something that I already knew because I was, I was experiencing it. So, you know, I, I launched a niche agency, marketing for accounting firms, and I started a podcast. And so I started inviting people on the show. And what I realized was our listenership was slow to grow. Like, we didn't, we didn't have a huge audience. But the fact that I had a podcast gave me an opportunity to have these long form conversations with people that were interesting and who were embedd to networks. You know, some of them were influencer types, some of them were firm owners. And over time we realized actually we're not really generating any revenue from the listener base, but we are getting great introductions from our guests. And, you know, we might even work with some of our guests in different ways. And that was something that really started to impact our business and was a pretty significant thing. And when you were, let me just.

Jump in really quick and say, the same thing happened to me. Yeah, I wish I could say I, I, you know, I'm smart, I got two master's degrees, a PhD, but I. Sometimes I'm the last person to figure out the obvious thing.

Right.

So I started a podcast serving business owners in our area. And after 127 episodes with over 400 guests. I looked at what we were actually doing and what revenue we had generated, and that was for our consulting services, for speaking and training on communication and storytelling, other things that I also do in addition to this. And then some people were like, hey, could you make us a podcast? So I looked at it and we had made zero dollars from anybody who had listened to the podcast and all the dollars from people who had been in the room as our guests. And it was just sort of like, whoa, duh. Why didn't I think of this before? The people, you know, we always like to say, well, they got to know, like, and trust you, by the way. I'm not sure that that's true. There's a lot of people that I know and don't like, but I would trust and there's people that I don't know. And so, you know, who I might also trust. And then there's people that I know and don't trust, but I like them.

Yeah.

Like my high school friends.

You're not going to go into business with that person, but you might hang out, right? Yeah.

And if I was, you know, drowning and they were at the edge of the river, I might keep looking for somebody else. Is there anybody else who can help me?

No. Yeah.

Sorry, guys. But getting together to have a meaningful conversation about something that is interesting to both of you, which by the way, should mean we should talk about the concept for a show like that because it can't be self serving.

Right.

That really helps people accelerate the time it takes to get to a real meaningful connection.

Yeah, we, we like to talk about how, when you're thinking about your clients, and I think in this, in this case you're, if you're, if your guests are part of the people that you, you might either sell to or might be part of that network, you know, you want to make them the hero instead of yourself.

Right.

I think that most people start off, they think, hey, I should start a podcast because I'm pretty funny and I have interesting things to say. And I think that that's, that's usually, you know, how, how, you know, the inception of this podcast idea comes about.

But if you, four guys with beer and Star wars jokes, you know, but.

If you, if you think about it the other way around and you start with, who do I want to talk to? Who want, who do I want to have these conversations with? Who do I want to build relationships with? And then you build a theme, a format, an idea around what is going to be interesting to Them, you make them the hero. You make them the focus of, of your podcast idea. Well, a, it's going to be a lot easier to invite people on to the podcast that they're interested in rather than the one that is, is all about yourself or your own, your own kind of whatever your own benefits are.

And then you're getting the positive transactional. You mentioned that, you know, and I think it's important to remind folks because sometimes, even though it's so obvious, we all forget. I forget. I look at people doing things and I think, oh man, that's cool, I should do something like that. And then I remember we're different.

Right.

Adobe's a software company. They want to sell more seats to software.

Right.

The entire revenue model is different than an accounting firm, which is relationship based, which is sometimes geographically narrow. Although, you know, certainly you can theoretically serve people anywhere, because the Internet.

Yeah.

But you've often got an entirely different market and way that you're trying to engage with that market. So this also means, by the way, that you have freedom to experiment. You don't have to be stuck doing it the way you've seen other people do it. You don't have to start something thinking. In fact, I recommend you don't start something thinking, well, I'm going to do this for, you know, a hundred episodes and we'll see how it goes. No, come up with a concept and create a miniseries or a season. If you have an umbrella concept, you can make sub groupings underneath limited runs.

Right.

It can all be in the same feed. You know, most of the advice out there about podcasting is aimed at indie creators. People with an idea, something cool, they think they're funny, they've got a story, they've got a concept they want to get other people together to talk about. And for the most part, they are centering themselves and their thing. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's amazing. It's a large subset of the broader independent creator movement, which I'm all for. But you know, your typical CPA or lawyer or architect does not want to become an influencer. And the ones that do, great, listen, there's ton of advice and support for that. They want meaningful relationships with the high value clients who can create a long term sustainable business and reputation and referrals and things of that nature. So start from there, don't start from somewhere you don't want to end up.

Yeah.

Now I think one thing we gotta dig into is there are two things that are true at the same time. About this. I think that this idea one is you can create a podcast which gives you opportunity to have great conversations with people that you would like to work with. And well, it's really three things. And it's likely that some of those people will become your customers clients that you will do business with them and you can't try to sell them as part of this process. This is so it can't be, it's not a sales pitch that they are now on your podcast listening to you talk about your, your service or your product. How do you, how do you balance that tension out where it's both a strategy that is leading towards accomplishing business goals and at the same time you have to protect the authenticity and the what that relationship. Like, it has to, it has to be real.

Right.

I mean it's, it's easy for me because again, I, I'm fascinated by people.

I'm.

And I think it's not just me. There's a lot of folks out there that really care. They're curious, they want to get to know people. And so just recognize you have multiple hats that you can wear. You already do. But this one, you're putting on your media hat, your storyteller hat, your documentary filmmaker hat, whatever you want to call it, and you're firewalling your transactional business goals from the intent and purpose and execution of this thing. I mean, think about what it'd be like if you had a dinner party, but then you went around to everyone in the room and tried to sell them life insurance.

Right.

Have you been to one of those?

No, but I'm always afraid, is this going to be the one? No, but you would never do that.

Right.

It's gross. And you just naturally know you wouldn't so treat this the same way. You're throwing a party. Not literally. It doesn't have the vibe of a party. It has the vibe of a media production. That's part of what's cool about it. There's microphones and cameras and lights and you know, an on air sign and, you know, all the, all the trappings of a studio. Even if we do this as a pop up podcast studio in a hotel suite or in a conference room at a co working space or what. You know, we create the experience, the feeling because we're getting together to have fun, share stories, talk about things that matter to us and that's what matters.

Yeah.

By the way, that starts from that mindset of these people are my guests. I think if you just remember that you're in Good shape. These people are my guests, so I'm going to treat them well and give them, you know, high quality experience. And that has to start from before you reach out to them. Although there's some very strategic targeting that happens to build your guest list because you do have the overarching desire that this leads to meaningful relationships that lead to business. But then you take that hat off and you reach out to these people and you communicate with them from the place of. And it has to be true if you're doing this, if you're, if you're not interested.

Right?

Yeah. If you got this hidden agenda, it's, it's, it's obvious, you know, everybody can tell. So you don't do that. You, you just stick with what you promised. We're gonna, we're producing a mini series on this topic. You would be a great one to share your experience. And oftentimes these topics, by the way, are a little bit more general because that allows us to connect other people. So instead of making them show up to be a talking head, like an expert on something, we'll often put together a show about leadership or about culture or about some other kind of overarching theme. We did a really successful one focused on women in the mining industry and all the guests were women in mining. And of course, if you're invited to come speak on a podcast about women in mining and that's who you are, it's like, of course, like, why didn't anybody ask me till now?

Right.

I've got a lot I want to say. So finding those, they have to be specific, but also general enough to include people. And then the conversation is about their experience, their insights, their leadership journey, their personal stories, what they think about the future of the field, etc. And then you thank them for being there and you'll have an elegant, I. E. Non salesy follow up conversation. Just like you would if you were at a major black tie event and you met your perfect prospect and you had a nice chat with them about something like the canapes or whatever, right. And then, you know, you're going to follow up with them, but you're going to keep it cool.

Right?

Just be cool.

Just be cool now. Okay, Adrian, you mentioned, well, you and I, we're talking over the Internet right now. We're in a, you know, a recording room for a podcast, you know, online podcast recording software. But you're a big fan of the in person experience. Make, make the case. Why it's so much harder these days. Why would I, why Would I go through all the work of setting up a pop up studio somewhere on site rather than just, you know, sending them a zoom link?

Well, first of all, you shouldn't. Unless this is a meaningful initiative and these people are important to your business because you'll be making an investment. You're going to invest your time and you're asking them to invest theirs more than just show up on a thing. And so they have to be high value prospects to you to even want to make that investment. But I find a lot of folks are already there. They're like, listen, anything we can do that's going to give us a shot at building relations with these people and building goodwill, even with the ones that don't end up doing business with us is worth investing in. I mean, what else are we going to do? Put more money into our Facebook ad spend. So I guess it would have been a funnier joke if it was about X or Twitter.

I don't know, Facebook ads from X.

What else are we going to, what else are we going to do with it?

Podcasts. Okay.

Right.

So you have to be willing to make that investment. But then when it matters, you already know in person is best. You know, you already know that you can really connect with people. I can't explain it, but being in the room, sharing an emotional experience together in real time is where the best relationships have always come from. So it's not that you can't. We certainly do include some remote recordings because some of the people that our clients want can't get there.

Yeah.

And so we include that. But we recommend, to the extent possible, get in the room together, whether it's local or it's at an event, or you create an event that you're inviting people to just get in the room.

Yeah. So just as I'm thinking through some use cases for accounting firms specifically, if, if you have, you know, industry targets or specialties and you're going to trade shows or conferences, that's a great opportunity to set up, you know, record six, seven episodes with key people that you want who are going to be at the conference. Or if you're a local based company, you know, maybe your goal is to connect with some of the, the more significant, you know, business owners or CEOs or whoever who are in your area. And again, I think there's two pieces. There's two ways to win. You can, you might get clients, you might get goodwill. Either way, it's raising your profile and your kind of reputation within that whatever space it is that you're playing in. That's been a big thing for us is that not everybody, definitely not everyone that comes on our show becomes a customer. But we've seen so many referrals come through those because we've built goodwill and we've, you know, had good, authentic conversations as a part of this show. Yeah.

I would say on the trade show front, you've got to, I think, separate your booth strategy or your, you know, floor your field marketing strategy from this because you can't do two things at once. You can't be two places at once. And depending on the nature of the event, there's going to be different tiers of people attending. And so the folks working the, you know, the convention floor are often the junior field team of your clients.

Yep.

Companies. And what you really want to get is a higher level relationship. So while I think it's cool to put podcast booths in your trade show booth, if you have a large enough space and you're willing to invest in the. Oh, I forget what it's called. What do you call the hard. The. Anyway, the build.

Yeah, the build.

Not a super trade show guy, but get a suite upstairs and do it there. Make it more exclusive, make it more red carpet. Have it be. Don't just. I'm going to go there and try to find people and drag them onto the podcast.

Stick a mic.

Strategic face.

Yeah.

Think ahead of time and, you know, invite them. Have a time scheduled. Okay. So 3:30 on Tuesday, you know, for 40 minutes. You're our guest in suite number whatever.

Yeah.

Treat it like the executive outreach that it is.

Yeah.

Cool. Well, as we, as we kind of move, like kind of land this plane and wrap things up, what is it that you do for businesses when it comes to podcasts and how could people find you?

Well, our firm, Speed of Story, is a communication strategy firm first and foremost. So we believe in the power of conversation. We believe that all human relationships start as conversations. And so podcasting is just one of the vehicles that we use for that. And then there's others that are also relevant, depending on the case of a particular thing. But specifically with regard to podcasts, we will do a kind of end to end strategy and execution. We will help you plan how to use this kind of specialized micro event. We will help you strategically identify the folks you want to be in on your show. We will produce it for you, edit it for you. And by the way, this is not something that is done on a typical, as I mentioned, week in, week out, weekend, week out thing. We like to Time box, everything, because you're busy, too. So we'll often plan for something a quarter from now, and that gives us time to create the strategy to do the invitations to execute it, and then we will publish the whole thing all at once. Your primary KPIs in this situation are the relationships that you get out of the endeavor, and then all of the socialization and publicity and sharing and circulation is just a secondary benefit. And it can be very meaningful. But the. What I like about this approach is we've given our clients their primary goal before the thing's even published. After the recording session is over, they're leaving with the beginning of a real relationship. So we help with all things related to that. And when it's not the right fit, we're the first to tell you, and sometimes recommend other strategies, even that should be executed by. We're not in the business of talking people into this stuff, but if this sounds remotely interesting to you, then we can take a look at it and see if it makes sense, given your specific market and your specific goals.

Well, where and where can we find it? What? Speed of Story is the name of the agency.

Speed of Story is our agency. But I would, folks, just to reach out to me personally, the easiest way to do that is to go to the Podcast Advisor. That's a booking link. You can schedule a call with me to just discuss your situation. As I said, we don't twist anybody's arm. We know that our particular approach to this isn't always the right fit for folks.

Yeah.

And there may be something better for you. And in fact, there may be other sources you have either in house or in your hometown that would be the ones to help you with that. But we're happy to talk to you about it. You can schedule a call with me and we could just chat and get some clarity about what it is you want. And the easiest way to do that is the Podcast Advisor. Com.

Yeah.

Well, thanks so much for being on this show. You know, we've. I'm all in on podcasts as far as a. As a strategy, but really, like I said earlier, I think thinking about podcast first as the. The main benefit that you get out of it is good conversations and connections with. With other people. Uh, and so if that is. If there's an opportunity for that to have, you know, positive business outcomes for your. For your business.

It's.

I think it's so. It's. It's so much easier to invite someone to a podcast than it is to say, hey, can I have 15 minutes to pick your brain. No one wants to say yes to that sort of conversation, but if you've got a podcast and you really make it guest centric, it's. I think it's great. I think it's a great thing. So I, let me, let me end.

With a, with an affirmation of that exact point. So I mentioned the show that started me down this path. With 400 guests invited to the show, our response rate, our yes. Rate for people appearing as guests was 100%.

Yeah.

Now, your mileage may vary, but people, when you frame the thing properly and it's about them and their interests and their industry and their expertise and their personal experience, they want to be on your show.

Yes.

When you do that, they will come.

Well, maybe I'll, I'll throw this out there then. If you are an accounting firm owner, maybe you should come on my show. Feel free to connect with me and, and talk. I'd love to, I'd love to hear about, you know, what you're doing for your own marketing and things like that. And I'm not going to sell you on at the end of the show. So, yeah, people are getting a little bit of a peek behind the curtain. I hope I didn't undercut my, the effectiveness of, of my own show here inviting people on, but, you know, I, I always love having these conversations. Adrian, thanks for being on. This is another episode of Marketing for Accounting Firms and you should definitely connect with Adrian. Find us at marketingforaccountingfirms.com if you have questions about your marketing. And with that, we will leave it there for today. Thanks. This podcast, Marketing for Accounting Firms, is brought to you by Benchmark Growth Marketing, our marketing agency. It helps accounting firms get more, more calls booked through their website. You can find us@benchmarkgrowthmarketing.com Connect with me.

Matt Benker on LinkedIn.