Back in the 2000s few people could build and edit a website. You had to know HTML and often instruct a web design agency to build your site. Customers were charged per page built and change requests were also costly.

At the moment most people don’t create podcasts. Now I am not saying everyone who listens to podcasts want to create one but there a lot of excellent public speakers out there who don’t have the know how.

Whether it’s the recording equipment or the long winded editing process these are issues which put people off getting started. Just as people commission agencies to build web sites in the 2000s podcast production companies offer services for editing your podcast from adding jingles, hosting and distributing.

Nowadays, people use WordPress, Wix and Weebly to build websites with no technical skills. This has lead to a further explosion in the total number of websites on the internet.

At the time of writing there are 700,000 podcasts published. Podcasts are growing rapidly due to the rise of smart speakers, AirPods and voice search. Google is now indexing podcasts which means when a voice search is conducted podcasts will surface and will have greater importance than their text based equivalents.

If you want to get the attention of your customers and prospects now is the time to start a podcast as they become more discoverable. Advertising revenues are also now growing for the podcasting medium as people drop their screens for the convenience of voice. If your are in the car or at home quite often voice search is easier handsfree.

Start your first podcast on Sound Branch:

Create your free account here.

Sound Branch puts you in control of your podcast creation with no complicated editing skills needed. If you can create a playlist on a music app you can also create a podcast using Sound Branch it’s that simple.

The lifeblood of any organisation is the ability for it to sell and generate revenue. Of course retaining customers is as important as acquiring customers. Whether your sales staff are hunters or farmers you’re trying to drive average order values, lead generation, conversion rates and customer retention rates.

How can you turn your B players into A players? How can you recruit more effectively and efficiently? How can you turn sales calls into podcasts?

In this short guide, we are going to talk about three ways in which you can re-imagine sales training and enable better coaching of your teams.

Step 1 – Hire Sales Professionals Using Audio Profiles

Instead of back and forth email, use voice notes in one-to-one chat to attract and engage candidates in your talent funnel. Your hiring committee can play back audio profiles to accelerate decision making. There is no need for your hiring team to waste time scheduling telephone interviews. Voice makes your hiring process more personable for both you and your candidate.

Step 2 – Coach your Sales Team using Voice Notes

You can’t use Slack and email when you’re driving your car, it’s simply impossible and against the law. There is a lot of dead time spent in cars so how do we turn this dead time into productive time? Connected cars with Bluetooth allow you to voice message colleagues.

There is the sales forecast in the CRM but actually getting a sales rep to speak out their sales forecast is more believable and more credible. Again, voice messaging conversations can be done one to one or one to many with the whole organisation.

Management wants to avoid the Chinese whispers in business where he said she said they said. Voice messaging in your salesforce gets to the customer truth and make better decisions. Conversational analytics overlaid with CRM and financial data allows you to make better decisions.

Future leaders can be identified and bad news can be delivered early and authentically. Don’t get me wrong, the CRM is a useful tool for the modern salesforce and email is not going away. However, listening to the voice of a salesperson and how their day has gone well, management can support and encourage just in time.

Step 3 – Magnify your Sales Staff with Podcasting

People buy from people. We’ve heard this time and time again but what if you took your best sales staff and turn them into podcast presenters interviewing your customers and your prospects.

Cold calling is hard and requesting a meeting often leads to rejection. But when you turn the table and you ask a prospect to be invited to a podcast more conversations happen.

Getting your top sales people with their personalities hosting podcasts is a brilliant way to establish a personal connection with your client but also a wider audience. Furthermore, junior members of the sales team can listen to these podcasts. Perhaps one day once they’re trained up and have achieved the appropriate results they too can start their own podcast?

You can get your very own Sound Branch branded voice site for your organisation here:

http://soundbranch.com/sign-up-business

PS On your voice site you can hire using voice notes and audio profiles, send voice messages for internal communications and create podcasts with no editing needed.

PPS Artificial intelligence on the platform saves time with life transcription to reduce administration and sentiment analysis to understand the emotions in teams. Artificial intelligence such as live transcription reduces administration time. Sentiment analysis AI allows you to see your the emotions in your teams.

Author Bio

Sean Gilligan is a UK based entrepreneur and author of the book “Flexible”. Sean for the last 15 years has run Webanywhere in Chicago, Leeds and Katowice Poland. Sean is number 67 in the Worldwide Listing of Corporate Learning Movers & Shakers 2018. Sean is a bootstrapper and has not taken on outside capital to grow Webanywhere in 3 countries and has recently founded Ventures Anywhere his start up arm which includes Sound Branch.

How to start a podcast in 6 steps

1. Plan your podcast
2. Plan your episodes to get a feel for your topic and its longevity.
3. Choose a format.
4. Choose your equipment and record your podcast.
5. Publish your podcast.
6. Next steps.

Plan your podcast

To create a podcast you need to ask who and what is your podcast for? Finding an audience is key to a successful podcast.

Whether you are looking at podcasting from a hobby perspective or a business perspective as long as you provide your target audience with valuable and entertaining content you are on the right track.

So, why do you want to make a podcast? It’s important to know “why” so you can stay motivated even when you’re finding it difficult to grow your podcast.

Give them a reason to listen.

Whether you provide information or entertainment make sure you provide value for your listener. A reason to listen means they will come back for more.

Planning Your Episodes

It’s time to think about your podcasts episodes. So, how long should an episode be? Your podcast length depends solely on the content. Don’t cut down good content or pad out short content!

A long episode would probably be anything over an hour and a short episode would probably be anything under 20 minutes.

Whatever you choose just try to be consistent. If you have 40 minutes of valuable content don’t down to 20. Just because you want to do 20-minute episodes. Try to find a consistent length for an episode which is tailored for the content you make.

How often do you release an episode? Just like your episode length, your content will dictate this. There’s a good case for putting out a weekly episode if you can because consistency is key for longevity.

Longevity is still possible if you do a fortnightly or even monthly show because there’s no point just putting episodes out for the sake of hitting a self-made deadline. One excellent episode a month instead of 4 very average episodes has more chance of growing your podcast.

Your listeners will tell you if they think your episodes are too short or too long. Use your audience to make changes and adjust to the most popular format.

However, be wary of making big decisions based on one or two comments. Only change things if it’s something that will benefit the majority of your listeners.

Choose a podcast format

It’s your show. This means you can choose whichever format suits you, and you don’t have to stick with one.

So what are the common types of podcast formats?

A solo show is also known as a monologue.

You don’t need to rely on anyone else and the podcast is also exclusively yours. You make calls on sponsorship and monetization and you don’t need to split the profits.

However, it is the most intimidating style of show for a beginner. You need to make sure you remember that you’re not talking to yourself and that you’re talking to the listener.

A co-hosted show alongside a friend or colleague.

Make sure your co-hosted podcast has great chemistry between the presenters. This can create a great listening experience and you can bounce off each other.

When choosing your co-host make sure both you and your co-host can set aside time to record. Set out ownership early. Who’s podcast is it? Will you split any future income 50/50? Make sure everything is clear from the get-go.

An Interview podcast.

Doing an interview gives you the opportunity to have a chat with someone and have a fresh voice every episode. Your guests will have their own audiences who may listen to the interview and could end up subscribing which is a good way to grow your audience.

You will need to learn the skill of interviewing through practice, so don’t approach the celebrities in your field from the start. You also need to constantly find and approach potential guests because without them you have no show.

Some less common but interesting other formats you could try:

Documentary: As the narrator, you walk your audience through a range of interviews and conversations to paint a picture and tell a story.

Roundtable: You are the regular host and you get a number of guests/permanent co-hosts to talk through one specific topic.

Recording your podcast

Equipment.

The minimum you need to record a podcast is a computer or laptop with a built-in microphone and access to the internet.

However, the lower the cost for your setup and equipment, the more limited the sound quality of your show will be. However, a simple USB microphone setups can give great results if you choose the right mic. The benefit of keeping things simple in that it’s easy and a lot cheaper. So depending on your budget choose the equipment suited to you and go from there.

Recording and editing software.

You need some software to actually record and edit the audio. The good news is that this doesn’t have to cost you anything.

There’s a free programme called Audacity which is suitable for all your podcasting needs and can be used on both Windows and Mac. If you’re a Mac user you probably have Garageband installed by default which is also a popular audio software for podcasters.

If you want to pay for something more professional there’s Adobe Audition, which is available through a paid subscription.

Editing.

This is where you iron out mistakes, stitch together audio clips, add in music or FX and make sure it sounds great with EQ, levelling, compression and more.

If you’re prepared to spend a bit of money to save time, you can always outsource your editing and hire someone else to do it for you.

Music.

You don’t have to have music, but many choose to add it at the beginning and to the end to add an extra layer of professionalism.

What Music Can I Use? There are a lot of websites that have music you can legally use on your podcast. The music will be referred to as royalty-free, stock, or library music. You can choose to pay a one-off fee for a song which entitles you to use it on your show, or you can now get subscriptions that give you access to a library of music.

It’s possible to find free music for your podcast if you search for creative commons licensed music, but it’s often very commonly used. Always check the source site and make sure you have permission to use a particular piece of music.

So now you’ve done the groundwork and planned out your podcast, it’s time to get to work and start recording your first episode.

Publishing your podcast

You can publish your podcast in different ways. The most common is via a media host but you can also publish it by yourself if you self-host.

Media hosts are services that store your audio and allow your listeners to listen, download, and subscribe to your podcast. You can either have a website set up on their site to deliver them, or place them on your own existing website.

Once you’ve created your show inside your media host of choice, you can then submit it to be listed in various directories, where listeners can discover, subscribe to, and download it.

If you want to self host your podcast you need a personal server to generate the RSS feed to syndicate your podcast. This option offers complete control over your podcast, but is complicated and can be time-consuming unless you are an experienced web developer.

A new way you can publish a podcast is via Sound Branch. The platform makes creating a podcast really easy and requires no editing skills. It gives you total control over your podcast and is easy to use. It has basic features like push notifications and the ability to create a playlist of your episodes. Download the app or go to www.soundbranch.com and start today.

Next steps

Once you launch your podcast out in the world, that’s when you’ll move on to thinking about promotion and building your audience.

If you consistently deliver great content for a wanting audience, then you’ll eventually be in a position to start thinking about monetising your podcast.

There are several different podcast ad networks that can connect you with advertisers. They do all the work of finding advertisers, negotiating rates, give you a script, and more. You usually need a larger audience of at least 5K or 10K listeners per month. So grow your audience stay consistent and you can reap the rewards.