A lot of business start out as a podcast guest before they start hosting their own show. It’s a great strategy for a few reasons:
- You get a chance to practice your on-air presence
- You get exposure to new audiences
- You get to connect with the hosts of the shows you guest on, who can become amazing partners down the road.
- You can test out different offers and opt-ins on different audiences to see how they perform.
That’s really just scratching the surface, but as a “getting started in audio marketing” strategy, it can’t be beat.
If you do, and it starts to work, then you’re probably going to want your own podcast at some point… or your audience will start demanding it.
That’s what happened to my guest today.
Nikki Rausch is the CEO of Sales Maven, a three-time Author, host of the Sales Maven Podcast, and has over 25 years of selling experience, helping entrepreneurs and small business owners sell successfully and authentically.
Not only that, she is extremely generous with her time and her knowledge.
Nikki is podcasting to incredible effect, using multiple episode formats for specific different goals and in today’s episode, you’ll get to hear all of them. Here’s the conversation – you’re going to enjoy it.
Listen to the episode below or continue reading the blog post!
Tune in to the full episode to learn:
- Why Nikki started her podcast and how it has evolved
- The format she uses to drive new memberships
- Why podcasting is Nikki’s #1 lead generation activity for her business
- Metrics for different episode formats
- Downloads, podcast size, and your business
- Relationships and client success
- The power of success story episodes
- How to encourage clients to share their success
My book, Podcasting for Business is coming out this September — learn more about it here.
Nikki’s Transition From Guesting to Podcasting
Nikki: “In 2018, I started guesting on a lot of podcasts. That wasn’t a marketing effort on my part. I just started getting asked to be a guest on podcasts.
I was getting asked so much and I realized that the majority of my leads were coming from me guesting on podcasts. That’s how people were finding their way to me. And the majority of my clients heard me on a podcast.
So in 2018, I was like, pour some gasoline on a fire that’s going well, right? Let’s build it up a little bit. So I hired a company to start pitching me to podcasts.
So over the next two years, I did a ton of podcast guesting, even more than what I’d been doing before. And what started happening kind of at the end of 2019 or maybe mid 2019, people started saying to me, Oh, I binge you on podcasts. And I was like, how can you binge me? I don’t even have a podcast.
They would say, oh, I just go into Apple and I search your name and I just go like boom, boom, boom down the list of every podcast you’ve been on.
So that was an indicator to me that people wanted to hear more from me.
It just gave me the confidence to launch my own podcast so then I could control the message. I could focus on the things I wanted to focus on the episodes while still guesting. And I still guest, obviously here I am today with you, but so I still do tons of guesting on podcasts. That still is my main source of lead generation into the business.
My podcast was really just to give people a place that maybe they heard me on one or two podcasts and wanted more. Now they’ve got coming up on, well, just over four years of having my podcast. So there’s plenty of episodes for them to pinch if they choose.
Your Expert Guest, Julie Fry, is my pitching company and I’ve been working with Julie and her team for at least four years and that’s absolutely fantastic.
The thing that I will say that differentiates them from many other is that they write such specific pitch to each podcast host that I often get selected to be on people’s podcasts. And they’ll say to me, you’re the only person I’ve ever said yes to coming on my podcast. And I can attribute that 100% to Julie and her team’s efforts.”
Creating The Sales Maven Podcast
Nikki: “The first thing I decided is I needed to know what was my outcome in having a podcast besides just putting my message out there. What did I want the podcast to do? Because it costs money to have a podcast. So I wanted to see a return on my investment.
So I specifically decided that I was going to use my podcast to drive people to my group coaching program, which is the Sales Maven Society.
So everything in the initial part of the podcast when I launched, the goal was that it would give people a taste of what it was like to coach with me and see if my message resonated with them.
Then the next logical step would be to come join the society, and then once you’re in the society, there’s private coaching options and classes and things that people can take from there. So that was my initial, like the whole point was to drive it, the Sales Maven Society.
I started with two types of episodes. I did solo episodes of me just teaching a topic, a sales technique. Then I would do on-air coaching calls with people from my Sales Maven Society. So that was one of the benefits of being in the society is that you could get your feet wet of what it’s like to be on a podcast and you would get free coaching from me.”
Megan: “I love that. So that’s kind of in the podcasting for business context that we have here at The Company Show.
We call this a demonstrative podcast, where you’re really using the podcast as a vehicle to show exactly this is the way that we walk the talk. So this is how you can see exactly what you’d be in for.”
Evolutions in Episode Formats
Nikki: “Now, I still do on-air coaching calls. I still do solo episodes. But maybe a year in, I added success stories. So I would bring clients on and they would be able to share specifically about one technique or something that they used and the kind of success that they got.
So again, it was another way to get their feet wet if they wanted the exposure of being on a podcast. It was great for my business because it highlights the value of what people get when they coach with me. So that was about a year in.
Then a couple of years ago, because I like new and different, I like to change things up a little bit, I added one other type of podcast episode which comes from my background in neuro linguistic programming where we believe that there is a structure to excellence. And I learned through NLP how to interview people that are achieving a very high level in a particular area of their life or business and there’s a set list of questions.
So I wanted to bring a little bit more of my NLP background into the podcast and interview experts on a particular topic, one from the learning standpoint for me of getting to learn how these experts are achieving these exceptional results, but also to deliver huge value to my listeners because it’s a different format than what they would hear from a typical like guest interview.
The guest is not directing the interview. I’m selecting the topic and I have the questions and it allows the guests to show up and really just be themselves. They don’t have to prep for it. I’m asking them questions that are super easy for them to answer off the top of their head, but it actually gets a lot of structure from the kind of answers that they give of how they’re achieving these results.
So those have been really fun for me. Those four formats are the ones that I still use to this day.”
Nikki’s Metrics for Evaluating Episode Formats
Nikki: “Obviously I look at my downloads. What are the episodes that are getting the most downloads, which I will say can be a little bit all over the board.
The Mastering Excellence series have done really well as far as downloads, oftentimes because the expert themselves have an audience and their audience get to hear their expert that they love and adore answer questions they’ve never been asked before. It’s a new way to tap in to their people. So those episodes do really well.
My solo episodes [also] do really well—and I shortened them. I will say my solo episodes I’ve shortened because that’s very much me. Here’s the strategy, here’s how you use it, or here’s the language, this is what you say, this is how you do it, and boom, done. And people seem to like those episodes.
So those two, I get the most response. But I say that and my clients still really love to hear me coach and they still love to hear people’s success stories too.”
Megan: “Downloads are usually, I put the bottom of the list. It’s nice to know people are listening, but that doesn’t actually mean anything for the business because if you get 10,000 downloads, that in $5 will get you a Perrier.”
Tracking Client Conversions and Sales Cycle Influence
Nikki: One of the questions that I ask every single new client that comes in is how did we get connected?
The typical answer is, I heard you on a podcast, I started listening to your podcast, and then I signed up to work with you. I also use dynamic ads. There’s an offer. There’s an opportunity for somebody to take that next step.
What I haven’t been able to figure out yet is how many episodes do people need to listen to before they’re ready to like take that next step? Because I have people that’ll say, oh, I heard one episode and here I am. And then I have other people that say, *I listened to your whole back catalog before I signed up to work.—*that’s a lot of episodes to listen to.
So it’s all over the board but I definitely know for sure that people check out my podcast often before they hire me.”
Megan: “That means it’s almost certainly having an effect on your sales cycle length.
I wish there was a really good way to figure out like how many listens an individual get. Some of the technology is improving around that a little bit. Some of the companies now are making smart links where you can get better visibility on what’s happening, but it’s still really largely opaque.
Unless you’ve got like a massively intense landing page system with a bunch of different short links and nobody has time for that.”
Strategy for Repurposing Podcast Episodes
Nikki: “I’m a big believer in recycle, repurpose, reuse. So any piece of content that I put into the market is probably going to be used at least five other times. That’s my rule—I want to see five other pieces of content created from it.
So there’s usually two weekly posts that are put on social media about the podcast. The episode is also the full episode with the video piece of it is put into YouTube so that gets repurposed there. And then select episodes I put into some of my training content, especially ones that are solo episodes that are me teaching a concept so people can access those in my resource center.
So I have a resource center called the Sales Maven Studio, different than the Society—but the Studio, people get access to specific episodes that are curated. So that content is curated in specific categories of sales-related techniques so it makes it easy for them to go, oh, I need something around business development. What episodes does Nikki have about that? “
Podcasting Versus Other Marketing Activities
Nikki: “I would say about 90% of my business comes from podcasting. It’s a huge amount and I can track it consistently. I can track it back every year and go, how did this person initially get exposed to me?
They initially got exposed to me because they heard me on somebody else’s podcast. They might’ve then come and listened to my podcast then they take me up on something.
Obviously I do have referral business as well so my clients are great about shouting from the rooftops their results and encouraging other people to come and when they need some support around sales, that I’m the person they recommend.
I can track so much money I’ve spent on other avenues. I’ve spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on paid ads, and I can never see a return on investment for that.
I’ve hired marketing companies, social media management companies, and I just cannot get an ROI on those where I can consistently see that from my podcast guesting and my own podcast that the ROI is there.
One of the things that to me makes podcast guesting and podcasting so incredibly valuable is that the content is evergreen.
So I’m still getting leads into my business every single month from podcasts that I was on four and five years ago. To them it’s new content because they’re just finding it for the first time and going like, Oh, I just heard you on this podcast. And I think, I haven’t been on that podcast in four years.”
Nikki’s Approach to Podcast Downloads and Business Impact
Nikki: “My podcast gets about anywhere from 3,500 to 4,500 downloads per month. So that’s divided by four.
It’s not a huge number and actually, my numbers are a little bit down this year compared to where they were last year, but I think everybody is. So it’s not like I haven’t changed anything or I don’t think I’ve dropped the ball as far as the content that I’m putting out. It’s just things are different this year.
But with that said, I can still track business that comes in from the podcast.
I started out with maybe less than a hundred per episode. When I first started, I did have a built-in audience or somewhat of a built-in audience from all of my guesting. I had built an email list so every week we send out something to the list saying, here’s the latest episode. This is what you’ll learn in it. That still consistently goes out.
So I do have a way to touch some of my listeners that have become email subscribers. But no, my numbers are not huge by any stretch of the imagination. When you look at the big podcasts out there, I don’t consider myself a big podcast.
But there is something to be said in sales and also in podcasting that it’s about being consistent. And I’m consistent.
Every single week there’s a new episode and hopefully fresh content for people that are like, Oh, I haven’t heard Nikki talk about that before. Or maybe I’ve heard her talk about that before, but not in this way. And so that’s a new piece of content for me to implement it to my business.”
Do You Need a Big Podcast?
Megan: “I think it’s so often something that gets in people’s way or prevents them from starting a podcast is the worry that it would be so difficult to become one of the big podcasts.
But the most successful podcasts, when you’re actually looking at the impact it can have on a business, are very rarely those huge ones. Their business isn’t enough themselves. So they’re supporting broadcast media companies, their existing to be businesses.
But a podcast like yours that is so well structured and is leveraged so well, it doesn’t need those big numbers to be profitable and to be effective. So thank you so much for sharing all of the details about that.”
Nikki: “If I can just add one piece to that, we track when I guest on a podcast, we use pretty links through my website for tracking for downloads and I can look at some of the big podcasts that I have been on as a guest, and it’s brought me very few subscribers to my email list.
Then I can look at podcasts that’s relatively new or even by my stretch of imagination and where my podcast is, this would be considered a very small podcast—and yet the amount of subscribers that come onto my email list from me guesting on that show can be significantly more than some of these bigger podcasts.
Podcasts grow over time. Your numbers grow, and all of that stuff contributes. And so you start to move up in the rankings and all these things by having more content that helps move up in the ranking.
So I don’t say no to being on smaller podcasts. I certainly don’t say no to being on bigger podcasts either, but I’ve been on podcasts where they’re like, we get a hundred thousand downloads every episode, and I get three subscribers from it.
Then I go on to another podcast that are like, we don’t even have a hundred downloads every episode, and I get 50 subscribers.
Don’t not start your podcast because you feel like, well, nobody’s listening. Well, how many people are actually listening?
Because if you get to talk to a hundred people every single week, they listen to what you have to say, where else can you go and speak to a hundred people every single week?”
Authentic Relationships with Clients
Megan: “It’s so easy to forget when it’s you and your mic and your recording platform that there are going to be people listening and each one of those downloads, maybe it’s 75, maybe it’s 100, maybe it’s 150—each one of those is a human.
A couple might be bots, but they’re mostly humans. A real person who has given you freely of their time. It’s almost an intimate thing. I know the podcasts that I listen to, I feel like I know the hosts. It even happens with clients sometimes. It gets a little awkward because I’m listening to them every week.
I feel like I know them, like we’re best friends and then I get in an actual call and it’s like, oh wait, no, that’s not the kind of relationship that we have. It really is amazing.
And I think what you’re saying is when people do jump on a call with you eventually when they have heard enough, or they’re ready in their own journey to like, okay, I need this sales support. I’m going to talk to Nikki,—the conversation is so easy because they’re so ready and they know you so well.
It’s almost jarring when you talk to someone who has this para-social relationship with you. It’s really cool.”
**Nikki: “**It’s so cool. Two of the biggest compliments that I get when I work with somebody new and they’ll say, oh, you don’t know this Nikki, but we’re best friends. And I’m like, we are? Okay, good. I’m in, let’s go.
Or they’ll say, I know that this is the way, XYZ strategy because I heard you talk about it on these podcasts, and then they’ll say to me, Nikki, you’re no different when you get on a call with you than when I listen to you on your podcast, like you’re the same.
And I always think I hope they’re not disappointed because I don’t know how to be anything other than me. This is what you get, like what you see, what you hear, this is what you get in a coaching call too.
But I do think it creates safety for them because, you’re not going in blind like, oh, am I going to be on a call with a sales coach? She’s super pushy or aggressive or is asking me to do things that make my skin crawl.
They know when they get on a call with me, oh, Nikki, she’s all about making it easy. And if I don’t like something, I can tell her and it’s not awkward and weird.
So it’s super flattering for somebody to be like, you’re just like how you are on your podcast.
Yeah, that’s me.”
How Nikki’s Podcast Prepares and Enhances Client Success
Megan: “I love that people are sharing your own teachings back to you. That’s doing such a service to them. That’s such a high level of education. You’re creating the shared vocabulary and the shared understanding of the processes.
So you’re not only getting more clients from your podcast, you’re getting better clients from your podcast because they’ve got this baseline understanding. That’s not something that we talk about in podcasting enough as being a huge benefit for a business owner.
But if you spent all of this time educating someone before they sign a contract with you or take a program or join a service, they’re doing all of the prep work. They’re training themselves to be good clients. It’s awesome.”
Nikki: “It is awesome. You see results faster because you’re not having to a lot of times go through really basic stuff because they’re like, oh, I know the basics. I know that you teach about rapport first and relationship always. I know you’ve got this five-step process to a sales conversation. I’ve read the book on the selling staircase.
They come already like prepped. So when I say something about, Oh, that’s a buying signal. What are you doing when you get that? And they’re like, Oh, I know. I didn’t realize that was a buying signal, but I know what a buying signal is because I read the book around it.”
Megan: “So they get great results from you too because they’re ready to apply this knowledge. They’re ready to implement. It’s so good.
I’d love to talk again about the structure because you’ve got your different episode format that you’re using in different ways and the demonstrative ones. So when you’re doing the live coaching, especially, it’s so effective at engaging your audience, giving a gift back to your community, but it’s not perfect for every industry.
So I think one of the reasons, and let me know if I’m wrong about this, is that there is such a strong teaching component and that it’s a situation selling. Every business owner has to do it at some point, but everyone’s situation is going to be a little bit different.
So it’s that basic theory applied to many different humans that makes the strategy really effective.”
The Power of Success Story Episodes
Nikki: “Well, maybe the on-air coaching wouldn’t work for every type of business, but the type of episode that I would encourage people to consider is the success story with your clients and talking about their successes.
There is something about somebody else talking about the results that they got from the work that they did with you. They always have more credibility because I can sit here until I’m blue in the face, tell you, oh no, really, believe me, I’m super good at what I do.
But if somebody else going, Nikki’s a game changer, she transformed my business. I brought in another $100,000. When they’re seeing those types of things, it’s different than me saying, I teach people how to make more money. And they go, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who doesn’t say that?
But somebody saying, I brought in an extra $100,000 in business just from working with Nikki, then people are like, what now? Wow! Okay, she must be really good at what she does.
So it elevates your credibility when somebody else is saying it and they will also put a different spin on it than how you might say it and I’m always looking for the secret sauce that other people see about me and giving them an opportunity to talk about it on a podcast.
It oftentimes gives me an, Oh, I would have never framed it that way. Or a lot of times they’ll say, Oh, Nikki taught me this technique and they’ll describe it in a way that’s different than maybe how I would describe it.
If people are consistently describing it this way, I need to change the way I’m talking about it because that’s what’s resonating with the client. So it’s really great for feedback.”
How to Encourage Clients to Share Their Success
Nikki: “Sometimes people feel a little uncomfortable, so there might need to be a little bit of coaching through the benefit that you’re actually giving me a gift.
This is a gift for me and a gift for any potential person who’s thinking about working with me, to get to hear your successes—you could position it that way.
Because I think when people realize they’re kind of doing you a favor, they feel less weird about talking about themselves. So I would position it that way to a client.
I get this consistently in my business, where I have people who will shout from the rooftops about, me and the work that I do and they’ll leave me five-star reviews and they’ll do all these great things. Then there’s other people that are like, I don’t want anybody to know that I work with a sales coach.
That’s absolutely fair. I respect that.
People get asked, would you like to be a guest on the podcast? Would you share about this story or would you be willing to whatever? My on-air coaching calls, I let them dictate the questions. I’m looking for somebody to ask me this question. I just find I’m better off the cuff.
So I just want people to ask me the thing they want to ask me. I feel like if it resonates with somebody who’s listening, then that was the whole purpose of doing it and the person who is willing to go on the podcast and ask me the question and be vulnerable in that way walks away with something of value.
Yes, definitely people will say no to it and there are other people who love to come and talk about what they’ve achieved. Sometimes they’re not even relating it back to like, I learned this from Nikki and I learned that from Nikki and I learned, which is totally fine. Like, okay, that’s fine too.
But people still get the point—they’re on her podcast. They hired Nikki. So there’s some piece there that relates back to credibility on my part.”
Connect with Nikki Rausch
Nikki: “I always like to wrap the where can you find me around a gift. So I have an eBook that’s called Closing The Sale. You can grab it here.
The people that I work with are business owners, entrepreneurs, people who feel a little bit uneasy or uncomfortable with the selling process or have sales situations that often leave them feeling like, I don’t know what to say or do here. And I just need some help.
I’m a great resource for that.”
Nikki’s Suggested Episode
Nikki: “[I recommend] the very first one because I actually break down the selling staircase. It’s my signature framework, a sales conversation.
I think getting an idea of what is that framework and how would that serve me in my business. Oftentimes it’s a huge eye opener for people because step two in the process is creating curiosity, for instance.
A lot of times when you ask a business owner, do you know how to create curiosity when you’re talking about your product or service or business, they go, what now? What do you mean? Create curiosity. I didn’t know that was a thing.
So to be able to have some awareness around, oh, actually there’s a technique of how to create curiosity that allows for me to have more conversations with more ideal clients.
Now sales gets easier.”
Final Thoughts
I absolutely love how many different ways Nikki is using her podcast and her guesting.
Nurturing members of her community, creating paths for new leads to to take so they get to know her and her work, networking with experts and demonstrating her expertise. This is exactly how podcasts should work for businesses.
If you haven’t heard the Sales Maven podcast, check it out here and make sure to get her free eBook at the very cleverly custom-created landing page here.
That’s another strategy you should adopt when you’re a guest!
Attributing the results of your podcast guest appearances can be a challenge, but when you have a dedicated landing page and opt-in form for each podcast you guest on, you have a lot more visibility on how well your message resonated with different audiences, and that is data you can use to be more strategic about the kinds of appearances you make.
Podcasting for Business
Next week I’ve got a very special episode for you. You may already know that I’m publishing a book this year! It’s called Podcasting for Business, and by the time next week’s episode drops, it’s going to be available for pre-order.
And anyone who pre-orders is going to get a totally free ticket to the All Virtual and All Recorded Podcasting for Business Conference, happening this November 13th-15.
To celebrate, I’ll be doing a reading of one of my favorite chapters, which I won’t spoil now with a preview. I’ll also be sharing the details of how you can pre-order the book and get your free ticket to PFBCon.
Be A Guest on The Company Show
Do you have a podcast that’s making a major difference in your business or know one that is? Fill out this contact form and let us know about it.
We’d love to have you here for an episode like this one!
Need A Podcast?
As always, this is Megan Dougherty, and The Company Show was made possible by the team at One Stone Creative.
If you know a business owner that you think should have a podcast, do us a favor and send them to podcastingforbusiness.com!
Key Quotes
“When people realize they’re kind of doing you a favor, they feel less weird about talking about themselves.” – Nikki Rausch
“It would be so difficult to become one of the big podcasts, but the most successful podcasts, when you’re actually looking at the impact it can have on a business, are very rarely those huge ones.” – Megan Dougherty
Resources
One Stone Creative | LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
Make sure to check out our free Monthly Strategy Calls!
Podcasting for Business Conference 2023 Recordings
Learn about what other business podcasters are doing:
Nikki Rausch Website | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn
- A gift from Nikki: Closing The Sale Ebook