What changes could you make to grow your podcast?

In our rapidly changing, heavily digitized world, we need to level up our skills and improve or we run the risk of being left behind. This very fact led Christian Klepp, the co-founder of EINBLICK Consulting, to launch his podcast, B2B Marketers on a Mission, to help fellow marketers improve and succeed.

In his role as a podcast host, Christian continuously applies the growth mindset he teaches. Whether you’re just planning your foray into podcasting or you’re well-established and looking to level up your abilities, his experiences are sure to resonate with you and inform your own podcasting journey!

You’ll want to take notes on Christian’s podcasting insights:

  • The importance of getting clear on your podcast’s raison d’être
  • An unorthodox method of getting inspiration from other podcasts
  • Actionable tips for improving your hosting and interviewing skills
  • How to approach getting your podcast in front of your ideal audience

Links worth mentioning from the episode:

Engage with Christian Klepp:

Connect with Mary!

Podcast cover art by Emily Johnston of Artio Design Co.

Transcript with audio description:

[MUSIC IN]

CLIP – CHRISTIAN: You, it comes across in the show because, you know, it’s, it’s very obvious that they’re just winging it. I can count them on one hand how many people I’ve interviewed that are so experienced and so trained. I wouldn’t say rehearsed. They’re just well trained and they’re experienced enough. So you can throw these questions at them impromptu. But for the vast majority of us who are not trained like that, you cannot just wing it because it will come across in the show and it will sound so amateur.

[MUSIC OUT // PAUSE A BEAT // INTRO]

<< Ghosthood Featuring Sara Azriel “Let’s Go” BEGINS >>

MARY: Welcome to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice.

<< WOMAN SINGS: Let’s go >>

MARY: Reveal and define your voice to speak your truth through the power of podcasting. And I’m your host, Mary Chan.

<< WOMAN SINGS: So so so so let’s go >>

MARY: Hello, welcome to episode number 66, continuous improvement as a podcaster with Christian Klepp.

[INTRO MUSIC OUT/ MUSIC IN]

Why should this show exist? That is the question that my guest today asks at the beginning of the episode. And it’s the same question that I ask my clients at the same time. What’s the point? Why are you starting this podcast? So when this question was asked during the conversation, oh, I knew that we were lining up our values, and this one was going to be a fun interview, because as a marketer himself, he knows this is the foundational question to ask. And since a podcast is a great extension of your brand and you’re using the podcast as a way to market yourself, market your business, market your brand. You need to answer this very crucial question first. So take a listen here to my conversation with Christian Klepp as he walks you through the beginning stages of launching his podcast and what it took for him to grow it and consistently publish over 120 episodes by the time we had this conversation. 

Christian is the co-founder and director of Client Engagement at Einblick Consulting and host of the podcast B2B Marketers on a Mission. With more than 13 years of B2B branding, marketing and communications experience across different markets across the globe, he develops the right brand strategy and marketing campaigns for other businesses. Having spent much of his time abroad and have lived as well as worked in places such as Singapore, the Philippines, Austria, Germany and China before relocating to Canada, which is where we finally met each other earlier this year at an online networking group and found an instant connection over, okay, how we were the only two Asian faces we saw in the group, and that we were both in Canada because most of the networking groups that we go to are based in the states. So, it was just a fun little connection. He’s in Toronto and I, of course, all the way on the West Coast, on the other side of the country from him. So as a B2B or business to business marketer, Christian shares his case studies and stories on what he’s tried on his podcasting journey that worked. And of course, that didn’t work so well. And also what he’s learned about his impostor syndrome and confidence behind the mic on his constant learning of this craft of podcasting. So listen in and enjoy the show.

[MUSIC ENDS]

MARY: Christian, thank you so much for coming on the show. I cannot wait to, uh, learn so much more about your whole podcasting journey.

CHRISTIAN: Mary, it’s a pleasure to be here. And, uh, thanks for having me on your show.

MARY: So, one of the main foundations that I work on when supporting a podcast launch with someone is figuring out the why of starting a podcast. And I know you love this question as well, because you are a marketer. It’s all about not wanting to be famous, but the whole, you know, reason of starting a podcast. So at the time when you had this idea, what big opportunity did you foresee yourself having based on creating your podcast?

CHRISTIAN: I would say there was a two pronged approach, or it was on two levels, if you will. I moved to Toronto in 2018 from Shanghai, China, where I was based out for the better half of 13 years. And, well, coming to Canada, being in Toronto and beyond the friends and relatives in my wife’s circle, I didn’t actually know anyone. So I had to really start at ground zero, if you will, in terms of building up my personal and professional network. And, um, I don’t know what your take is on this, but many of the in person events I went to, they were really, like, hit and miss in that regard, because for the most part, people I chatted with, they were basically there, you know, for business development purposes, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It just always depends on the approach and the way you package it right?

MARY: Totally. And it just doesn’t really line up with your values. And I think that’s why we clicked when we met at a networking event. Aside from the fact that we were the only two Asians in the room.

CHRISTIAN: Yes, yes, that tiny minute detail. Well, I would end up going to these networking events, and I’d chat with people and I connect with people, but for some reason, not many people were readily willing to share their contact details. And then, you know, of course, you know why. Right? They don’t want to be prospected. They don’t want people to follow up with them and hit them with those all time favourite pitch slaps and whatnot, right?

MARY: Yeah. Get stuck in their funnel.

CHRISTIAN: Correct. So I said to myself, after attending a few of these events, I had to find a better way to build up my professional network in a way that was effective, uh, sustainable, and meaningful. So I researched several options so I’ll come clean, podcasting wasn’t the first thing that came to mind, right? I looked at other options or other alternatives. Right. So, um, I even started blogging for a bit. Not that there’s anything wrong with blogging. It’s just that it didn’t quite work out the way I had hoped. And, you know, I was going through I think it was my first or second article, I was doing the editing, and I took a step back and said, I’m not entirely sure that somebody would read this. I shelved that for a bit. And then I continued researching, but instead of just, like, googling stuff, I also went on LinkedIn and narrowed it down to, like, okay, what are B2B Marketers talking about? What are the topics that are near and dear to them? What’s keeping them up at night? What are the challenges they’re facing in their daily, uh, work? And, uh, what is it that they keep talking about? And, um, they constantly look for solutions and et cetera, right? So I was like, okay, that’s interesting. And then I think this was probably around the 2020 time frame that people kept talking about podcasting. So I’m like, okay, let me go check and see what all this fuss is about, right, so.

MARY: Would this be like, early 2020, like, pre-COVID era, or like, we’re in the COVID era?

CHRISTIAN: No, we’re in the COVID era. Yes.

MARY: Okay, yes.

CHRISTIAN: We’re in the COVID era, right. So I listen to a couple of shows, and, uh, I try to get the hang of it, listen to the way that people conduct interviews and just to provide the listeners with a little bit of background. I also used to do voiceover work back in Shanghai. Now, I mean, having a good voice, I suppose, helps, right? But the podcast that I wanted to launch would be more informative than entertaining. But the one thing it did was it provided me with that chance to be in front of a microphone again. Probably something you can relate to.

MARY: Yes, for sure. I was like, I can do this, microphones, I love it.

CHRISTIAN: Yes. I asked myself, and I love throwing this question out there, what is the [IN A PUT ON FRENCH ACCENT] raison d’être? [END FRENCH ACCENT] What is the reason for being? Why should this show exist?

MARY: Exactly!

CHRISTIAN: Why? Who is it for? Why does it exist? What do you hope people are going to take away from listening to this show? And how do you hope to influence and appeal to people’s hearts and minds as such?

MARY: So what are your answers? You go through these questions, I’m sure, to yourself.

CHRISTIAN: Yeah, absolutely!

MARY: And what did you come up with?

CHRISTIAN: Well, okay, so what I came up with was this. They’re genuine pain points that I’ve identified throughout my professional career as a B2B marketer. And it’s also something that my clients, who have also become my friends, have experienced in their own careers. So what’s the answer, Christian? Just tell me already. The suspense is killing me. Right? In the world of B2B, more often than not, marketing has always been treated as a support function, something that’s not strategic or important until it is. And I’ll tell you a bit more about that later. Or if we don’t know about it, then it’s probably not worth our time. And I have heard somebody sitting on the board of directors say that, because they don’t know what marketing is, they’re not entirely sure what the marketing team does. So out of sight, out of mind. And we will thank you for your detailed plan, which you guys must have spent months putting together, but we are going to allocate that budget for sales and product development and R&D, and we will probably look into investing in marketing in the next fiscal year. And Mary, nine times out of ten, when somebody says that it almost never happens.

MARY: Yeah, it’s just, uh, a nice way to let you down.

CHRISTIAN: Correct. So here’s the thing. So things are changing in the B2B world, right? In this ecosystem, as I like to call it, right. Partly thanks to COVID-19 through the pandemic, but it’s also through changing market dynamics. And what do I mean by that? Well, everything has rapidly been digitized and migrated online. So many companies or industries that were previously, like, fighting this change have now find themselves jumping on that bandwagon of everything has to be digital. Right? So, things are changing, but the change needs to come at a faster pace. And what do I mean by that? B2B? Companies are starting to see the importance, the strategic importance of marketing. They’re trying to see it as something more than just, okay, make the presentation look nice, or write a speech for the CEO. But many marketers are out there, they’re still struggling, right? They’ve been tasked with delivering on so many things, you almost can’t call them a marketing team anymore. They’re like a media production company, right?

MARY: Yes.

CHRISTIAN: Because they have to produce content, they have to launch podcasts, they have to, you know, be responsible for everything at a trade show. They have to come up with corporate videos, et cetera. I could go on forever. So they’ve been tasked with delivering so many things, and they need to initiate these different conversations internally. And a lot of these things that they are probably mandated to deliver upon might be outside their immediate skill set. 

So what does that mean? That means that they have to go out with the limited resources and time and budget that they have, and soak up as much knowledge as they can, as possible, to get things moving. However, to initiate these changes and conversations internally, and to get things moving, marketers themselves need to change. We need to be in a constant state of evolution. And I think this is applicable to any industry, right. If you want to become a better version of yourself, you have to be open to change, there has to be continuous improvement. So with that pretext, and I apologize, that was a bit of a long story to get to the point, but that’s how the idea for the podcast was born. And that’s why it’s called B2B. Marketers on a mission. Because it’s on a mission to initiate change. It’s on a mission to help B2B marketers to improve continuously and become better versions of themselves.

MARY: I love that. That is exactly why I always start with that foundation. It is the why I’m starting a podcast, figuring out who is your ideal listener and creating a show for them. Not just because, oh, I think talking behind a microphone would be fun. Oh, it’s all about me.

CHRISTIAN: Because I got so much to say. [LAUGHTER]

MARY: Yes, exactly. However, okay, you did mention you do have that mic voiceover background. So a lot of people might think, oh, then it must be easy for you to have a podcast because you’re comfortable with that. But what was a moment where you actually thought, oh, maybe I can’t do this. You know, what held you back from starting a podcast?

CHRISTIAN: I used to do, big surprise, I used to be actively involved in theatre back in high school. In the professional world, I sort of had a little bit of this craving to be on stage because I like to perform. Right? I did find that somehow in the B2B marketing world, except that you can’t get up there and be like Jim Carrey. Right. Uh, it’s got to be serious, at least to a certain degree. And you can keep it light. Right. But what I mean by that is, in the B2B world, I did it by, um, giving presentations or being invited to speak at conferences, um, in Germany and Austria, for example. And I had to give these presentations in German. I’ve done it many times. But I still get nervous. I still have those butterflies in my stomach every time, like, just 30 minutes prior to my presentation.

MARY: Oh, my gosh, I do too. Yeah, it’s a thing.

CHRISTIAN: And please, this is not to brag. This is just to give you an idea about, like, um, who I had to present to. But these were people from very specialized B2B industries within the European market. And many of these people were, in fact, CEOs. So very senior level people. So, long story short, you can’t mess that one up. Um, or at least try not to. What I used to do to calm myself down, because if you get too nervous, then you might forget what you were going to say and deliver your lines as such, as it were. Well, I didn’t memorize my lines, but I had talking points, right? As we all do for keynote presentations. But what I used to do is apparently something that Christopher Plummer used to do in his early days of theatre. He used to pace back and forth furiously backstage, and then he’d do it in a circle. And apparently by doing that, it would calm him down. And then he would like, scene one, act one, and then he would just walk onto that stage with all that confidence. And I kind of tried to replicate that, except on a different scale, because I didn’t have that much space to walk, and there was no backstage, right? [LAUGHTER] But where I would be hesitant or where I started having doubts is when I started getting, uh, guests on the show who were actually like, oh, wow, this person is actually, like, global marketing head of Cisco. And so it’s people of that kind of calibre. And I felt like, uh, first of all, I’m flattered that this person agreed to have an interview with little old me here in Toronto. But secondly, what if I mess up? Because there’s this whole, I guess you could call it imposter syndrome that started kicking in, like, okay, what if I fumble? What if this isn’t going to be a good interview? What if, what if, what if? And then I would think whenever I found myself in those situations, I would think back to like, the early days. I guess it was I can’t remember which cartoon it was. It might have been Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry, where they slap each other in the face to snap out of it.

MARY: They both do it. Both cartoons, all cartoons.

CHRISTIAN: Yes. So I imagine that there was somebody on the other side, some imaginary cartoon character doing that to my face, where they were like, Christian, just snap out of it. You’ll be fine. So I’ll have my moment where I’m like, you know, there’s a bit of this anxiety and trepidation, and then, um, as a British colleague of mine used to say, you just carry on. You just crack on.

MARY: And I was just thinking back to you about your Christopher Plummer. Almost every time before I do a presentation, I have that nervous energy, too. But I think that’s a good thing that we have that, because we want to do good.

CHRISTIAN: Absolutely.

MARY: Right? We want to make sure that this is going to be of service to someone, that we are making good use of the guest’s time and our own time, too, and that we’re creating something that’s useful out there. And so we hold back sometimes, and we’re like, oh, I don’t know. And then I also think a layer on top of that is the Asian upbringing, because we were always told to, you know, exceed these expectations, um, that our parents have always set forth on us, and that, oh, even if we think we’ve met that expectation, they’re like, oh, you could do better than that, right? So they’re always challenging us to do more and to do it, quote, unquote, right.

CHRISTIAN: Correct.

MARY: So what did you think you had to do, right, with your podcast? What was that ideal that you had in your head?

CHRISTIAN: This may not be the best approach? It was an approach that worked for me. And I’m not saying, I’m saying to all the listeners out there, there are many ways to do this, right? There’s different ways to climb up the mountain or whatever that analogy is, right? Or cross the river. I started with looking and listening to other shows and listening to their interviewing style and the way they had conversations with the guests. I tried to take note of what they did that I thought wasn’t good.

MARY: Wasn’t good, okay.

CHRISTIAN: Yeah. So, uh, what do I mean by that? Right? I guess you can call them mistakes, or it’s just perhaps like an interview style or something that they did where I told myself, well, I’m going to try to be better on my show and not do that. So, I’ll give you a couple of examples because, uh, otherwise, uh, this will be too abstract. I noticed certain shows where the host had this terrible habit of continuously interrupting their guests. I listened to this one show, like, two days ago where the host it’s almost like they can’t help themselves, right? Like, the guest hasn’t even finished talking yet, and they’ll just cut in and just talk over them. And then you hear all this cross talk and you hear the frustration of the guest’s voice. It’s like, okay, did you not want to listen to what I wanted to say? Or you just want to move on to the next topic, like you just don’t care, or what is it? It’s almost like that host is not honouring or respecting that guest and their time. So I told myself as much as possible, and this is also part of the reason why I mute my mic during the shows, because I’ll wait for the guest to finish answering and then I’ll chime in, and then we can have our little conversations. And, you know, there’s a bit of back and forth. But for that duration, when the guests are giving the answer, I try not to interrupt them. I should try to be better. Number one. Number two. One thing that I always stress this, uh, when I have these conversations with people about podcasting, and I know a lot of people out there that don’t do this, but for goodness sakes, people, if you’re inviting somebody on your show, do your homework.

MARY: Oh, my gosh, yes. I call it show prep because that’s what we used to call it in the radio days. You got to do your show prep.

CHRISTIAN: Show prep. Right? Do your homework. Look up this person’s LinkedIn profile at the very, that’s like the least common denominator, right? Look them up, understand a little bit about their background and what they do if they’ve been featured somewhere. If they were interviewed by Forbes, did they release a book? You know, were they on TV or whatever, right? And sometimes I would even go the extra mile, like, try to find out what it is they’re passionate about. So who is this person beyond being a B2B marketer. So one guest that I had on, I knew the LinkedIn profile, kind of gave it away but, like, passionate about brand storytelling. Well, there’s a couple of things that come to mind there, right? Like bring up topics like, for example, oh, Joseph Campbell and his research on mythology and the storytelling pattern that he discovered, um, throughout different across different cultures of the world, or Building a Story Brand by Donald Miller, et cetera, et cetera. So I brought up these topics during our interview, and Mary, uh, I mean, I know this is audio, but we had this video interview, and the guy’s eyes sparkled.

MARY: Love it!

CHRISTIAN: Right? So and that, for me, tells me, like, yes, I might have just hit a home run with that one. And the other one is also it doesn’t necessarily have to be the personal background. It can also be something, you know, you can dig in a little bit more with the questions related or linked to their area of expertise. I had a guy on that was talking about writing good case studies, which is, again, another important aspect of not just B2B marketing, but sales, but then asking him questions, like, for example, well, what if you don’t, you know, you’re trying to enter this vertical and you don’t have the relevant case study for it? What do you do? And he loved that I was challenging him, but not in a negative way.

MARY: You’re just, like, workshopping and trying to figure out correct in the moment, correct.

CHRISTIAN: One of the questions. I love asking guys like that because it’s all about content. I’m, like, you know, ponder me this, because I know that the listeners out there are struggling with this, but please, how do you save the world from boring B2B case studies? Because it can get pretty dry. People get too tempted to talk, like, as if everybody out there is an engineer. So basically, doing your homework, doing your show prep. Uh, the other thing that I do religiously for each show is I take notes.

MARY: Yeah, I’ve got my pen and paper right here. It’s audio only, but it’s yeah.

CHRISTIAN: I can hear the paper. I can hear the paper. Well done. Well done. That’s also part of the reason why I mute my mic, right? Because I am taking notes, and I made that mistake once, and I think you’re allowed to make that mistake once where I forgot to mute the mic, and then the microphone picked up the, [SFX PAPER RUSTLING] Right?

MARY: Well, that’s why I love separated tracks. I just cut out all of my stuff when you’re talking ah, during the edit stage.

CHRISTIAN: Right, exactly. So while the guests are giving their answers, I mute my mic because I’m taking these notes based on whatever they’re talking about or the answers they give. And then I start jotting down all these notes. And as I’m taking down these notes, these light bulbs keep coming on in my head, something that that person said. I’ll be like, aha, wait a minute. I got to go back and ask him about that. Or I got to ask her to elaborate on that a little bit further. Or, aha, I’ve got another fall off question here. Or I can throw in this. I call them the wild card questions, right? So for instance, and this happens more often than not, where I’ll say to them, like, hey, Mary, that was a great answer, I totally agree with what you said, but I’m going to play the devil’s advocate now and say, how would you address that in a boardroom full of people that do not understand what branding is? And they say, we’re not doing it, it’s a waste of time. How would you address that? And the guests actually appreciate that I asked that question because they know that there are listeners out there that are struggling, you know, the same question they are probably faced with this dilemma. I also spoke to somebody on LinkedIn that had to go in, in fact, and present this to her board of directors and explain to them why this is important.

MARY: It’s a real life situation, and your ideal listener has probably gone through that or they’re so afraid that that question is going to be asked of them.

CHRISTIAN: Correct, correct. I know everybody has these moments where you don’t really know what to say or you don’t know enough about the topic to actually, um, be articulate about it or have a comment that sounds somewhat intelligible. So what I found a few hosts doing, which I thought was mildly annoying, was they’ll be like, uh, that’s interesting. Okay, next question. And that for me is like, you know, uh, it’s as clear as day that they have no idea what you just said or they just don’t care. Yeah, I actually feel the second one’s worse.

MARY: It is worse. And I think it’s also because they haven’t gone through what we were talking about right at the beginning. Your why. They just think, okay, I either A, need to talk a lot because it’s my show with my name on it, so they’re going to keep talking, or B, they don’t know how to properly show prep. So they’re just like, well, I have these standard questions, so I just go from question to question to question to question. They don’t know how to actually do that interview portion. So I think that’s what I hear in other shows. But, yeah.

CHRISTIAN: And then it comes across in the show because it’s very obvious that they’re just winging it. And I don’t know about you, I have met probably I can count them on one hand how many people I’ve interviewed that are so experienced and so trained. I wouldn’t say rehearsed. They’re just well trained and they’re experienced enough. They’re very good at answering journalists questions and whatnot. So you can throw these questions at them impromptu. But for the vast majority of us who are not trained like that, you cannot just wing it because it will come across in the show and it will sound so amateur.

MARY: There was a point earlier you were talking about doing that show prep, like figuring out what are, you know, what do they do, beyond the job title and stuff. And I do have a question like that here. As a marketer yourself, what are you doing today to get your podcast in front of your ideal listener? Because when people think of marketing, especially like the solopreneur, they think marketing, they’re like, oh, social media marketing is beyond that. So what are you doing to market your podcast?

CHRISTIAN: I would say that LinkedIn is, um, my primary go to platform to promote the podcast. Because most of the people that I interact with and I actively engage with and connect with, et cetera, they are for the most part, active on LinkedIn. I post about the podcast, um, episode. So I write what I call a long tail post on LinkedIn about the show. So what I do is I write these posts about the episode, but I don’t write posts like, oh, I interviewed, so on and so forth. And here’s what we talked about and here’s the link. Yawn, right?

MARY: Why would I care as the person reading it? Skim, skim, scan.

CHRISTIAN: So what I do is I’m thinking about who the audience is and who would benefit the most from A, reading this post and B, actually clicking on that link to listen to the interview. So, again, going back to the B2B marketer who’s looking for the solutions to their problems or answers to their questions. So I’d always start out with what the problem was or the specific topic and what the do’s and don’ts are, and what the best practices are, or, uh, what would be recommended, uh, that, you know, what people should be doing. So, for instance, I had somebody on about case studies. So this is the reason why it’s important to develop case studies, because it helps to build trust and bridge that trust gap that is very prevalent across the B2B buyer ecosystem. B2B doesn’t work that way. That you pitch slap somebody on LinkedIn and they’ll be like, okay, well, let me just get out my credit card and just buy your solution for five or six figures, right? Doesn’t work that way. What does work is you lead with credibility and expertise and you lead with helping by providing people in that world or that ecosystem with something that is valuable to them. And that’s what I hope to achieve with those posts. And then I say, okay, so this is what I talked about with the person’s name, and then here’s the link to the episode if you are so inclined to listen to it. And that’s how I promote the podcast.

MARY: Has the promotion changed over time? Like saying you’ve got at this point, 120 episodes, right? I always call this a podcasting journey. It’s something that every time you put an episode together, you learn something new. So, what have you improved on with the marketing of your podcast in the last year that you’re doing differently now.

CHRISTIAN: Like everything else I do it’s in a constant state of evolution. Um, I’m a strong believer of continuous improvement. And you can blame that on my school days in Singapore, where it was all about, you know, striving to be better. I would say the style of writing in terms of the way I write the posts now is different. I started out, um, like you know, it’s funny, that example I brought up earlier where I’ve interviewed this person and here’s the link. That’s how I used to promote them. And there was very low engagement. Very few people outside of my personal network actually like the interviews. And then I started changing my style. I think what’s also changed about the way I draft these posts is they become a little bit longer because there are people out there that say that, oh, people have such a short attention span and they’re not going to read these long posts. And I’m going to say, well, yeah, I have a different perspective. They’ll read it regardless of the length, if it’s, A, relevant to them, two interesting, three insightful, and four, they actually get something out of it.

MARY: Yeah, that is exactly what I say too, about the length of a podcast, because that’s one of the common questions. They’re always like, oh, how long should my podcast episode be? I’m like, it should be as long as the content needs to be. Because if you’re engaged, you’re just going to keep listening. You’ll hit pause because maybe you’re commuting and you’ve gotten to your destination, but then they can hit play again and go back to where they left off. Right? Like, they are engaged and they want to hear the whole conversation.

CHRISTIAN: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the other thing that I’ve done differently is, um, I would say in the first year of running the podcast, I’d interview the person, I’d thank them for coming on the show and I’d push it live and then I’d promote it on LinkedIn. And that was pretty much the end of it. And I think what I’ve done differently now is I’ve seen this as not with all of them, of course, because it’s hard to keep in touch with 120 people. Um, um, but it is an ongoing, continuous relationship with many of them. And what I mean by that is that long after the episode has been published, I promote it and they promote it. We still keep in touch. We try to find ways to promote it or give the content that longevity. So that means they either promote it through their channels or both sides. And I think it’s a quite fun exercise, actually, how both sides that means my guests and I find ways to repurpose that content and break it up into snippets. So sometimes I’ll do it, sometimes they’ll do it, and then they’ll keep pushing it through their channels, and then we’ll do podcast swaps, right? Because, um, some of the people I interview happen to have, uh, a podcast as well. Shocker! Yes. So I’ll come on their show. So there’s a nice little exchange that goes on there.

MARY: I love that in podcasting, we get to create a whole new network and meet so many interesting people. So I, I love that. Christian, we’re just wrapping up here. We got to come to a close. I know. We can talk for hours. I know, I know.

CHRISTIAN: Another 10 hours, I’d say easily.

MARY: So, like I said, you’ve been podcasting for quite a while now, you know, since 2020. So, like, three years of being a podcaster, things are always changing, improving. Like you said, you love continuous improvement. You are on that path. But right now, very specifically, what are you excited about in podcasting?

CHRISTIAN: I know that there’s different statistics and there’s different sources tell you different things, but we are, they’re talking about this podcasting wave that’s happening. And many, um, authorities in the space actually say that we are still at the beginning of that wave. Like, we haven’t passed the podcasting trend or the podcasting fad hasn’t died yet. In fact, I refuse to call it that because it’s not a trend. I think this will be, the podcasting will be around for years to come.

MARY: And it’s already been around for over a decade. It’s been here for a while. It’s just that the pandemic has pushed it into the trendy space.

CHRISTIAN: Right. So in terms of the content assembly line, and I don’t really want to call it that, but if you’re producing that much content on a regular basis, I mean, you have to come up with some kind of system or process, right? Because otherwise you get lost. But what excites me is, I don’t know about you, Mary, I’m sure you’re the same way, because otherwise you wouldn’t be in this space anymore. But every new interview with another guest excites me. I look forward to having these conversations and learning something new. Not necessarily just about this particular section or facet of the B2B marketing discipline, but also getting to know the individuals as, you know, as people and to see what motivated them to go down this path. Because, let’s face it, we weren’t sitting in daycare or in kindergarten saying, when I want to grow up, I want to be a B2B marketer. That did not what it did not happen that way. 

MARY: What? That’s not a thing? [LAUGHTER]

CHRISTIAN: So it’s always interesting to hear people’s background story about what set them on this path. What motivated you to do what you’re doing today?

MARY: Because, like you said, we are humans. We are here to make a connection. We’re not just here to churn out the next piece of content. What’s the point in that?

CHRISTIAN: Absolutely.

MARY: Christian, such a pleasure to chat with you and have you on the show. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise.

CHRISTIAN: Thank you so much for, um, inviting me, Mary. And I really hope that your listeners get a lot of value out of our conversation.

MARY: Yeah, I just love the fact that we always bring it back to that first question of the why. Like you just kept talking about that continuous improvement.

CHRISTIAN: Absolutely.

MARY: So here’s to learning more.

CHRISTIAN: Thank you so much.

[MUSIC IN]

MARY: Christian sure knows his stuff when it comes to marketing and that’s why he’s done the foundations for his podcast when he launched. Knowing his why and knowing where his listeners are so he can market directly to them. Like you said, LinkedIn was his place. Is that your place as well for your podcast? Those are the foundational things that we talk about, not just, oh, try this tactic, oh, you need to be on LinkedIn, do you? Is that where your listeners are hanging out? I also like Christian’s approach to listening to other shows for what he doesn’t like. I do hear when I work with people wanting to launch their own show. When they start out, it’s always about comparison, mostly because they don’t know what they don’t know, so they go down the rabbit hole of listening to a whole bunch of other podcasts that may or may not line up with what they want for their own show, or they already have shows that they like, so they want to emulate those same elements. But what about that other end of the spectrum? We also need to analyze what we don’t want in order to be fully aware and to create your own podcast with intention and to make it unique to your own voice so you’re just not like a copycat. So what was your big aha moment in this episode if you’re like? All right, what do I need to do now to up level my podcast? How am I going to make it to 120 episodes like Christian? Or maybe you’re just starting out your own show and you want to dive deeper into those foundations. Hit me up. I would love to walk you through the process together to either launch with success or grow your existing show. And you can start by building those foundations right now, no matter where you are on that podcasting journey. So drop me an email visiblevoicepodcast@gmail.com or as always, you can leave me a voice note on my website at visiblevoicepodcast.com. All right, until next time. Chat with you then.

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MARY: Thank you so much for listening to the Podcaster’s Guide to a Visible Voice. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d love it if you shared it with a podcasting friend. And to reveal more voicing and podcasting tips, click on over to visiblevoicepodcast.com.

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