How to Sell More with a Podcast w/ Collin Mitchell

The Sales Lift Podcast
Episode #70
How to Sell More with a Podcast w/ Collin Mitchell
Hosted by: Tyler Lindley

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[00:00:00] Tyler: Hey Sales Lift Nation, it's your host, Tyler Lindley. Today, I have Collin Mitchell on the podcast. Hey Collin, how's it going?

[00:00:10] Collin: I'm doing good, man. I'm pumped, excited to be here. And I know we're going to have a ton of fun. We're going to have

[00:00:13] Tyler: a blast. Collin is the Co-Founder and CRO of Salescast, which is an awesome podcasting agency that can really help you get your podcast off the ground.

And today we're going to be talking about. The sales of the sales podcast. Colin has a lot of podcasting knowledge, and we want to talk about how can sales team sales rep sales leaders, how should you be using podcasts? Whether it's a company podcast, whether a sales rep has their own podcast, maybe it's just checking out some of your prospect's podcasts, but there's a variety of ways we can use podcasting throughout our sales process.

Collin,. I'd love to hear, how do you think sales teams should be

[00:00:47] Collin: using podcasts these days?. I love that question. There's a lot of different ways. And you mentioned some of them and we'll probably unpack some of those. The one thing that I really believe is that everybody in sales should have a podcast and a lot of people are like, what the heck are you talking about?

I'm going to STR I just started last week. What the heck do I have to say on a podcast? And you have a lot, there's a lot of things that I love about podcasting for sellers, because it solves a lot of things you need to do anyway. But the days of just pounding the phones and thinking that that's going to be good enough, not I'm a big.

Of the phone and using the phone, but only using the phone is only going to get you so far. And then you layer in email and you need to be creative and you need to have some marketing skills to be able to produce some interest on that channel. And then you layer in social and you're like, I don't know what to post a podcast can solve a lot of these things.

Number one, if you had a podcast where you're interviewing the types of people that you want to build relationships with, it's not this idea of, you'll never have to pick up the phone again and podcasts will solve all of your prospecting problems. Right? One more thing that you can do. And if you think about it this way is like, who's the top accounts that you're trying to break into, who is your dream clients?

And the interesting thing is even if you're good on the phone, or let's say you're good on email or you're good on social, maybe 10%. Okay. Raise my hand. I want to take a meeting. Let's talk, but it's the exact opposite. If you reached out. Same list of people and you're like, Hey Tyler, I found this particular thing interesting about you.

I think you'd be a great fit for my show. I'd love to have you come on and have a conversation. Nine out of 10 of those people are going to say yes, and you got to do it right, because it can't feel like, Hey Tyler, I only invited you on my show because now I want to book you on a demo with one of my AEs.

Right. But it's a great way to build high quality relationships. By adding value from day one. So that's one thing that it solves for sellers, but then it also solves a lot of sellers struggle with posting original content on social and a podcast can easily solve that. Even if you just did a one episode per week

[00:02:46] Tyler: podcast, L even once per month, you could repurpose it.

Oh yeah. Maybe not. I think a lot of sellers wouldn't even need that much. Cause

[00:02:53] Collin: you can take quotes and nuggets, not even just posting the contact, but it also inspires you to write more original content. If you refer back to it, you can easily transcribe the episodes and then pull some nuggets in there.

There's a lot of things you can do. And if you're really smart about it too specifically, if you're inviting people on that you want to do business with, or you want to partner with in some way they can drive revenue for you in your role, then you can create a lot of pieces that are lifting them up. And that's a great thing because people remember.

I can feel you invite them on the show, make them feel like they're heard. You're curious about them. Give them a good experience, give them some content that is lifting them up. It's a, win-win in many scenarios. That's my personal favorite way that sellers can use.

[00:03:34] Tyler: I totally agree. One thing I want to unpack that you said on the first half there was, you talked about this idea of most of your prospects out there would be willing to hop on a podcast interview.

If you ask them. Hop on a discovery call or hop on a demo, probably going to be a little reluctant, but if you ask them to hop on a podcast, let's jam about a topic that y'all are both passionate about. Most people will say yes. So I think regardless of whether that ends up turning into a sales opportunity, You're still having a conversation with your prospect.

And I think that, especially for new sellers, you need to be having as many conversations as possible. Sales starts with conversations. Even if it doesn't end up being an opportunity today or even a week from then, or a month from then, you're having conversations with prospects and getting in front of those folks.

And some of those will turn into opportunities, some won't, but those conversations are important. Talk to me a little bit more about that. How important do you think conversations are for new sellers as they're just getting into a new sales role and how can podcasts and create some of those

[00:04:31] Collin: conversations?

I love that question for a lot of reasons, Tyler, because it's a backwards way of thinking for a lot of sellers, because they're not taught that the goal is to have conversations. They're taught that the goal is to book the meeting and get something from their process. There's people out there that are teaching say a better way of selling where the goal is, have conversations with as many people as possible that could maybe possibly do business with you.

And the goal is more to find out, is it a good fit? Do you have a problem? Am I the right person to solve that? And does it make sense to go on this journey? And it's hard when sellers have their meeting and activity quota, and all of these things that they're worried about is like, how can I just have conversations enough to really stress.

But the more conversations you have, and especially the more high quality conversations now, every person that you have on a podcast is not going to become a prospect. They're not going to book a meeting, but that's a relationship that you now have. And if you do some simple, simple, simple things to stay top of mind with them engaging with them on social, maybe you send them a handwritten.

Thank you note. Maybe even it's just a simple, personalized video after the interview, whereas you're like, Hey, Tyler. Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day. Really appreciate you coming on the podcast, really enjoyed learning this particular thing about you showing them that you really care and that you really listened, and that you're really grateful.

Those relationships are going to go places that you don't expect. Maybe they become clients. Maybe they come referral sources, maybe. But here's one thing that most people don't realize about podcasting, especially for sellers. People always tell you, learn your prospects, understand their language, get to know how they talk, what makes them tick, what they care about, all these things, right?

And the options are read the books that they read, read the blogs that they read, hang out where they hang out, joined the groups, you name it, but it's way more effective to just have them on a podcast and ask them any question that you. Anything that you were genuinely curious to learn about, and it's also a skill transfer as well because being a podcast host means that you have to be an extremely good listener.

You have to be very curious and you have to ask great questions. All of those skills transfer over to every other conversation that you have with your prospects. In any other context. So you're constantly flexing those muscles that are going to make you a better seller in those conversations. And you're going to take the things that you learn from those conversations into all of your other sales conversations.

And you're going to be a much more skilled seller by practicing through podcasting. I

[00:06:53] Tyler: totally agree. I remember back when I first started podcasting, I was extremely interrupted. I didn't really know what to do to prepare for the podcast. We're just going to show up. And after you do it, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 times, you do start building some of those skills.

And like you said, those skills are transferrable, especially for sales. We're really having conversation for being. It's like you said, we're asking good open-ended questions. We're shutting up and listening. Those are hard things for new sellers who want to throw up and tell the prospect everything about their product and who want to interrupt them.

And half-ass prepare for calls. These are skills that you can take into your sales role. I think one thing people get nervous about is, oh, nobody's going to listen. Nobody's going to listen to the podcast. Does it even matter? They're so rise skills you can build. You're getting a masterclass in how to be a better seller.

You're talking to your. Who cares if people, listen, I think people fall into that trap of it. Doesn't get this many downloads or this much traction or this many views, then it's a failure, but is it a failure if you're getting all these other benefits we're talking about?

[00:07:53] Collin: Absolutely. Right. It's the same reason why a lot of sellers struggled to get started in posting original content on LinkedIn.

If you're in B2B space is because they're like, well, nobody's going to care. Nobody wants to hear what I have to say. Nobody's liking nobody's commenting. But the thing is, is most of the leads that I get from social and I'm pretty damn active on social. Or not the people, likening comedy, my stuff. They're the people that just randomly slide into the DMS, randomly fill out a form on our website because they saw something.

They've been seeing content. They've been watching lurking for 6, 8, 9 months. You name it and then they're ready to reach out because they literally know what we do so well by the time that we actually have a conference.

[00:08:33] Tyler: And those lurkers are everywhere. We don't see them. They don't show up. You don't have conversations with them until they're the middle or bottom of the funnel.

And next thing you know, they're reaching out of the blue and they know everything about you, but that's why you've got to be consistent. One thing that I've tried to do with the sales lift is be consistent once a week, I'm going to show up, I'm gonna put this content out. I'm gonna have an interesting conversation and I'm gonna be consistent.

I've done it now for over a year. And I've gotten better for it. Not only have I gotten better skills, but I'm better at podcasting. I feel like the episodes are now better. It's a tighter conversation overall, a better product, but you have to start calling. How do you get sellers or sales team sales leaders?

What is that first step someone can take to get going down

[00:09:11] Collin: this path? Good question. I actually have a post, which is like a featured piece of content on my LinkedIn profile. It's towards the end. It's not my top performing. But there's a lot of valuable information in there because the post breaks down basically how you could get started as a seller with a podcast, with a budget of $185, which is basically getting a hosting platform and you can use anchor.

Great does the job. I personally prefer simple cash just because of dynamic ad insertion and good analytics and all of these other things, 15 bucks a month, but anchor is free. If you're a new seller, just getting started in a new role, free might sound really well. Yeah, exactly. And what a host is, is a host as the platform where you post your episodes and then it pushes it out to all of the podcast platforms.

You need a. Don't get stuck on the name. You don't have to get the perfect name. The names should somewhat tell people what the show is about. Especially if you want to build listenership over time. If it's a sales show, it should have sales in the title or something like that. If it's a revenue shop, it's a marketing show.

That should be part of a title. If you're thinking about it in a different way. What type of topics can my prospects talk about? And then that's how you can formulate your title, because it would make sense for those people to come on that show and highlight their expertise in that particular topic or area.

So you need a title and then you need artwork, show artwork. If you're somewhat creative, you could probably do this on canvas or something like that. If you want it to be a little bit better, you could probably hire somebody on Fiverr or Upwork or something like that. And then as far as recording your episodes, you could use zoom, which is what we're using right now.

If you are. More of a creative type. You could use a platform like Riverside, where you could get higher quality, video and audio. If you want a really totally turnkey solution where you don't have to spend a lot of time editing, you could use a platform called stream yard. Stream yard is usually used for streaming live.

However, they have some features that I really like for somebody who is trying to minimize the time editing and wants it to just be good enough to get it out. And what I'm talking about is you can create a overlay banner so that you have. Full version, video, optimized, and designed, ready for YouTube. And then you can load a video intro and a video outro, and you can actually play that before you have the conversation, play that after you have the conversation, and then you're not having to mash those together after, and you can just download and upload it to your host and as good.

[00:11:33] Tyler: One thing I love that you said multiple times there is good enough. A lot of us struggle with perfectionism and just getting out the exact right thing. I know I did. When I started my podcast, I delayed and delayed and delayed because of the name and the artwork and all this stuff. The host, let me get everything perfect.

Let me get everything perfect. Whereas if I would have just gotten started, I could have started and gotten better and made these mistakes and then getting better over. Focused on being good enough, especially out of the gates and get those first 5, 10, 15 interviews under your belt. Because I think a lot of people will determine, do I even want to continue after that?

Is this something worthwhile? Do I enjoy this? Because honestly, if you don't enjoy it, you're not going to do it. Long-term right. Me and you both enjoy having these kinds of conversations, doing podcasts. That's something we enjoy or else we wouldn't be doing it anymore, but you may not enjoy it. Start as quickly as possible.

So you figure that out and then you can. Is this something I want to try to do?

[00:12:24] Collin: Absolutely. And I think another big hurdle for a lot of people in getting started. Other than that, the ones that you mentioned and them that I mentioned is they think, oh, nobody's going to say yes, nobody wants to at them on a show that doesn't even exist yet.

And the answer to that is you're absolutely wrong. There are so many people that are accustomed to being invited on shows that don't even exist yet because it's very common for a lot of people to start their show and want to record their first four or five before they actually launched that way. They don't feel the pressure to get.

Find a guest. So I like to say, start with maybe four or five friendlies people that you know, that be on the show, people that would actually give you feedback and tell you, Hey, suck as a host, you can learn. And those first few, you don't have to release them. And if they're horrible and if they're your friends, you can redo them.

So start with some friendlies. And then even when you start to just reach out to some people, this is something that I like to tell people to do before they're even actually get started is just put a list together. 20, 30 people. That are your ideal customers or partners that you would love to build relationships with?

It's, you'd love to have a conversation with reach out to them, tell them, Hey, I have a new podcast that I'm starting. I'd love for you to come on for these reasons and talk about this and see what happens. And then if you do this exercise what's going to happen is so many people are going to say. You're going to be forced to start the show and then you have to do it because you have these people that are of interest to you, that you want to have a conversation with, that are ready to come on your show, and then you got to get it together and get that puppy launched.

And

[00:13:50] Tyler: sometimes that's the best pressure though, is to put that kind of pressure on yourself. Wait, they're just people that you really want to talk to you that now are expecting it. And if you don't follow through, it's like, oh, Do I really want Colin, Colin doesn't even follow through. He said he was starting a podcast.

We never even did it. I don't think he even launched it. I tried to find it on apple and I couldn't even find it. I liked that kind of pressure that you can build for yourself. What else? One thing we haven't talked about is we've talked about like individuals having a podcast. However, sometimes you join an organization, join a company as a seller, and that company already has a podcast.

There's a company podcast, which is pretty popular now companies having podcasts about whatever topic that company might want. I have some thought leadership on. So if my company has a podcast and I'm joining that company as a sales rep, how can I leverage my company's podcast in my own self?

[00:14:37] Collin: There's a lot of things that you could do.

It is common for brands to have a podcast now. And a lot of times brands are thinking of it a little bit different than the way that we've been talking about it. They're thinking about it as more of a marketing activity, more brand awareness, more mid funnel content, more investing in the long-term strategy of building an audience.

That they own the attention of, because on every other platform, you name it, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, whatever it is, you either pay to play to get people's attention. And every time they change the algorithm, your reach gets shorter and shorter and shorter. And typically on social platform.

People don't really follow B2B brands that much, they want to follow people. So the strategy on social isn't as effective, but they can build an audience that they own the attention of. Then that is something worth investing for brands, because then you can promote anything you want to them at any time.

And podcast listeners are typically higher income earning people. They're typically your decision makers. They're 25 times more likely to actually take action on something that reading a blog or an ad or something like that. That's why brands are investing in products. If your company has a podcast, there's a lot of different things that you can do.

Number one, if they're having conversations with your prospects, the type of people that you want to do business with just totally binge listen to all of them. That's a lot of knowledge. If they have them on YouTube, you could even take them and then run them through D script and get transcriptions and really get in the weeds of learning things.

If there's stay, for example, maybe they have a revenue show and you're CRO talking to other CRS and you can use that. The way to get in. Well, maybe you're trying to get into the CMO or whatever the case is. I don't know what people sell, but you can use that as leverage. Hey, I heard your CEO having a conversation with my CRO.

I really loved this particular thing that you guys are doing over there. And then however your messaging is to then get a conversation. Remember goals, not to book a meeting. The conversation, but you can use that as a personalized way to tie in to get a conversation going. Another thing that I really like is there's a platform called listen notes and listen notes does look like it's from the eighties, but it is the most accurate data source for podcasting.

They're taking the apple data and you can search shows, episodes, titles, names of guests, and you'll find. Say for example, if Tyler was my ideal prospect, I could go search his name on listen notes. I could see all the podcasts that he's been on. I could go listen to those podcasts and then find a way to reach out to him in a much more personalized way,

[00:17:08] Tyler: a hundred percent.

And we were talking about that before, go out and listen to those episodes. One thing I love about podcasting is that you can't outside. Only you and I could be sitting here having this conversation. We couldn't just farm this out to someone else, or it will be in authentic. It wouldn't be us. It wouldn't be this podcast.

And the same thing holds true for your prospects. When they're on having a conversation on a podcast, that's probably the most honest, forthright information you're ever going to hear that your prospects say is when they're having a podcast interview of which they want to sound good. They want to sound intelligible.

They want to sound like they know what they're talking about. Having a great captivating conscience. Go and listen to that. If it's out there in the world, people say, oh, I can't find anything about the people in line, but have you really searched? Cause I think a lot of decision makes. Our on podcasts these days, if they care about their own personal brand and their company's brand, they're on podcasts, but you've got to go out there and take the initiative to find those episodes, listen to them and use that for your personalization.

Use that to get that email.

[00:18:04] Collin: It's interesting because you'd be surprised what you find. If you stock them on social media and read some press releases or them going on the news, talking about something, you're going to be reaching out like everybody else. There's the people that are not doing that work.

Completely get ignored. And then there's the people that do that work and are somewhat good at it. And there's some that are better, but not a lot of people are leveraging podcasting to find information about their buyers to reach out. And the interesting thing is, is a lot of times you're going to find stuff that you're not going to.

Anywhere else. For example, they may go on business podcasts. They may go on religious, spiritual podcasts. They may go on a podcast. It's more about their personal journey and you might learn things that you're like, wow, we have some things in common that I would have never learned anywhere else. And so in a lot of times on podcasts, for whatever reason, people can get a little more personal than they would on any other platform.

And you'll know that person better than if you're just constantly scouring their feet.

[00:19:03] Tyler: I totally agree. There's something about the medium that just forces you to be. Honest and authentic. And if you're not, I think that comes across. I think people can smell that in authenticity, in a podcast conversation.

So definitely go out and look at your prospects. See if they've been on any episodes, Colin, any other advice for sales rep sales leaders out there? Who might be interested in learning how to leverage podcasting, anything we haven't touched on yet that you want to bring up? The

[00:19:30] Collin: final thing that I'll say is true, like this is way too overwhelming.

Starting a podcast. Sounds totally nuts. I don't think I can do it. Guesting on shows might be a good, comfortable place to start. I didn't actually think about starting a podcast until I had actually guested on a podcast. And then once I guessed it on a podcast, I loved that experience so much. I then wanted to start a podcast and also let's say you're a sales.

And you're like, I don't have time to do a podcast at the very least. You should be guesting on podcasts on a regular basis as part of your strategy, because you're going to be investing in your personal brand. You're going to be elevating your thought leadership. You're going to be getting your message out there.

The key there is making sure that you get on the right shows with the type of people that you want to get your message in front of, and then making sure that. Good guests. You actually share the content for the host because who knows. They probably have other podcasts, friends that they could refer you to making sure that you have a good call to action, making sure that you're not showing up.

And it's just a big sales pitch, actually show up, provide some value, provide some education. For the listeners. That's why podcast hosts do this to provide education and value to their listeners. And so they expect you to show up and do that. And if it's just a big look at me and we do all these great things and it's just a self promotion, it's not going to be a good experience in a pipe beat one of the last podcasts go on.

[00:20:48] Tyler: Exactly. Let's give you an opportunity to do a little self promotion. Colin. If my listeners want to find out more about you and what you do online, how can they do it?

[00:20:56] Collin: Very very simple. Thanks so much for having me on Tyler. Really appreciate it. If you enjoyed this episode today, which if you made it this far, I'm assuming you did, you can check out sales transformation on whatever platform you're listening to this on.

You can go to sales transformation, where we drop the five episodes per week. That is the best way to find out what's new top of mind and exciting for us over at sales.

[00:21:15] Tyler: Awesome. Love it. We will link to that in the show notes. Colin really appreciate you coming on. I look forward to hopefully hopping on sales transformation sometime soon.

Have a great rest of your day. Appreciate you joining.

[00:21:24] Collin: Awesome. Thanks. Thank you.

[00:21:28] Tyler: Thank you so much for listening to today's show. You can find all the links discussed and the. At the sales lift.com. That's the T H G sales, S a L E S. Lift L I F t.com. Have questions for me, email me@tyleratthesaleslift.com.

We look forward to seeing you back here next week, and we hope today's show brings you the sales lift. Your business needs. Remember ideas. Plus action equals. You've got new ideas. Now it's time to take action and the results. We'll see

[00:22:07] Collin: you next time. .