Why all businesses should start a podcast.
Never in my life did I expect to be hosting a podcast. It’s just not in my nature. I’m the anti-podcast host. The thinker, not the talker. The introvert.
However, here I sit. In my kitchen at home, reflecting on the last six months, in which, believe it or not, I seem to have become…a podcast host. It’s early days of course and whilst I may share the same first name as Steven Bartlett, host of the smash podcast, Diary of a CEO, that’s largely where the similarities end. Our views/listens are currently in the hundreds, some way to go to catch Steven Bartlett who’s regularly attracting 500K views plus.
However, from small acorns, do large oak trees grow. At least we’ve planted our acorn and dare I say it, I think I can see the first shoots of an oak peeking through the ground.
So why am I hosting a podcast?
One of the main reasons is I genuinely love it. When I was a young 25-year-old my focus was on doing whatever I needed to do to climb the corporate ladder. Now 10+ years on, I’m at the stage of my career where, whilst I’m still ambitious, I also need to enjoy what I do. I may be the thinker, not the talker, but one of the things I love is meeting and speaking to people who are experts in their field.
Over the last few months, I’ve met a finance expert who explained how Non-Fungible Token’s (NFT’s) will disrupt the way many industries operate over the next 10 years. I’ve spoken to one of the great leaders I’ve had the pleasure of working with and learnt about the four-minute rule. I’ve had a sustainability expert explain to me how Justin Bieber’s, Despacito song, released more carbon into the environment than four African countries in a year. What’s not to love?
But there’s got to be a commercial reason for this and of course there is. I work for a small business hidden away in East Yorkshire. Our biggest challenge is making people aware of who we are and what we do. Ultimately that’s what the podcast is about. We’re sharing content that hopefully provides valuable insight to people and potential clients. It’s not a sales pitch. We recognize that no one wants to listen to us drone on about business process automation for hours on end. Trust me we’ve tried! We just hope that when our listeners do identify that they need help, they think of us.
Where next for the podcast?
The truth is who knows? We’ll keep on recording it. We’ll keep on inviting interesting and insightful guests to join us and hopefully, the number of views/listens will continue to grow. One of the team stumbled across a great stat the other day. 90% of podcasts fail to make it past episode 3 and of the 10% that do, 90% of them fail to make it past Episode 20. We’ve just released our 21st podcast episode. That means we’re in the top 1%.
It’s not easy but we enjoy it. We’re also determined and passionate about it. In my experience when you combine those traits in life, things tend to work out well.
To those reading, that have considered starting their own podcast or even those that haven’t, my advice based on the last 6 months would be to do it. If you’re anything like me, you’ll stretch your comfort zone and shake your head in disbelief at times, but you’ll become a more rounded and knowledgeable individual with a few more social media followers to go with it.
Finally, from me a thank you. Thanks to all the watchers, listeners, and subscribers. We appreciate all your support and hopefully you’ve learnt something along the way. Thank you also to our guests, without whom we would very quickly run out of things to talk about! We are so incredibly grateful for your time and wisdom over recent months.
