The Company Show

It is that time of year again, friends! We’re opening up submissions for speakers for this year’s Podcasting for Business Conference . The first PFBCon was in 2022, and came about while I, Tom Fox and some other friends were at the always fun and valuable Podfest and realized that as awesome as in-person podcasting events are, they aren’t always a possibility for business owners who podcast as onl...

You should start a podcast! These words have planted a lot of ideas in the heads of a lot of business owners—and your reaction to hearing that can tell you a lot. You might hear it and think: A podcast? Me? Not a chance. Or maybe: You know what, you’re right, I should have a podcast! Most of us fall somewhere in between the two, and think something like: You might be right… but what a lot of work,...

Have you ever thought about the health of your voice? The two concepts don’t go together intuitively to me, which is interesting when you think about it because the voice is something created with the body. We’ve all had times when we lost our voice, or noticed it behaving differently based on our environment, situation or other kinds of health. But your voice is something that has it’s own health...

I often say that there are two types of people in the world—those who have done frontline customer service, and those that haven’t. If you want to see the difference between the two, go out for brunch on Mother’s day. It will quickly become obvious to you which of your fellow diners have done their time in the customer service trenches. Aside from understanding in the very marrow of your bones how...

Let me tell you a little story. Back in the halcyon days of 2019, I had a strong belief—I believed that video was video and podcasts were podcasts, and ne'er between should meet. Podcasts certainly did not belong on YouTube. I would have died on that hill. Then, in 2020, I conducted the first State of Business Podcasting Report and learned that the vast majority of the top 100 podcasts had YouTube...

After “should we have a podcast?” one of the first decisions you’re going to have to make is how often you want to release and how long you’re going to podcast for. You’ve got options, and options within options—and it’s an important choice. Once you commit to a release cadence in your podcast, you should stick to it. Tom Fox , The Compliance Evangelist and creator of the Compliance Podcast Networ...

How to include the bio of your guest in a podcast episode is a topic of some debate in the industry, and it should really come down, as it always does, to the type of show you're creating and your goals for it, as well as your personal tastes and preferences. I've been known to say that it's best not to have your guests share their own origin story on your podcast so that you can get right to the...

A truly massive content archive will usually cause one of two feelings: Unspeakable delight about the opportunity A sucking dread at the thought of the work involved in repurposing it The difference between those feelings? Strategy and organization. This episode of The Company Show is all about strategy and organization and how you can use them to make sure your content archive fills you with more...

What’s the best way to grow your podcast audience? That is a topic that could be debated hotly by pretty much anyone who works in podcasting. But all would agree that if being a guest on other people’s podcasts isn’t the very best method, it’s high on the list. Pitching well, which is to say, effectively and in a manner that results in guest appearances and new professional relationships is one of...

Podcasts that look very similar from the outside can actually create completely different kinds of value for the businesses running them. Here’s what I mean: Imagine a standard podcast. The podcasty-est podcast you can dream up. You know what I'm talking about: about 40 minutes long, one host interviewing one guest, released every Tuesday. The Ur-Podcast—there are a lot of them. It’s tempting to t...

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Pareto principle, or the 80-20 rule where 80% of consequences or results come from 20% of causes—or efforts. On the one hand it’s great because you’re getting huge value out of some of the work you’re doing…. but which part? That’s the rub and trying to answer that question is the work of entire industries and an important activity for business owners and marketing man...

I have a weakness for walls of text. I really do. See, I love to teach and think and expound and explain, and I do it best in writing. This is, as I have been frequently reminded by my wonderful business partner, rather merciless on the end reader, on websites, in newsletters and emails, and sometimes even on social media. And it's a problem because while the content may be good and fondly like to...

Stop me if you've heard this one: I want to develop a passive income stream. You've heard it; you might have thought of it—I definitely have. But I've also been in the Internet marketing industry long enough to know that while evergreen, scalable monthly recurring revenue is possible and can over time be largely automated, passive is at best an exaggeration of the work involved in keeping that kin...

Unless you’re overburdened with free time and a desire to learn a variety of new, highly specific skills or have a team member with the time, interest, and aptitude, starting a podcast for your company usually means hiring a third-party service provider. You’ve got a lot of options for what that relationship can look like. There are solo providers like editors and promoters, podcast coaches and co...

There's a persistent myth in the podcasting world that you can use a little bit of someone else's content without facing any potential legal consequences whatsoever. Maybe 45 seconds of a really popular song or a clip from a TV show that perfectly demonstrates what you're talking about. It's not true. There are protections for other people's content in place, just like there are for yours. And of...

Aligning your podcast with your business goals is crucial for success, which means you need to set clear podcast goals, choose the right format to achieve those goals, and understand industry best practices. Today I have the pleasure of sharing with you a conversation that I had with Beate Chelette, the Growth Architect. She's a business strategist and podcast host who provides visionaries and lea...

Podcasts can come in a lot of different shapes and sizes, and one of the first decisions you need to make as a podcaster is what type of show you want to create. This is one of the biggest early stumbling blocks company podcasters can run into, and the consequences of making the wrong choice can be severe when it comes to actually getting any value out of the project. Often, when people think "pod...

On this episode of The Company Show, we’re taking a look at how Rayna Rokicki , the owner of Ladies First Digital Media and the host of the You Betcha She Did! podcast, uses a relationship-building guest strategy perfectly to grow her show and her business. Relationship-building is one of the most popular and effective podcast goals for companies. This helps them create and nurture the connections...

Consistent practice doesn’t guarantee that everything will go perfectly—but it does make sure that you’ll be prepared for whatever happens. In this episode, director, actor, and educator, Meridith Grundei shares tips and strategies that will help you become ready and confident as a host, presenter, or guest! Meridith is an expert in communication and has spoken to companies like Amazon, AWS, Panas...

When you podcast as a passion project, you need to have a why that keeps you going. When you podcast with the intent of turning it into a business, you need a plan to generate income to support the work. When you podcast in support of your existing business you need... well, it depends on your business. But whatever your business is, and however your show supports it, you need to know that what yo...

Paid social media is a tough nut to crack, but once you manage to make it work it can become a lucrative and dependable source of traffic and revenue for your podcast and business. I have never been able to get to the meat of that particular nut, but a recent guest expert on our Strategy and Networking calls AND speaker for next week’s Podcasting for Business Conference Stacy Reed of Stacy Zeal &a...

There is not much that the best mic in the world can do about recording in a really sound-unfriendly environment. And some of us live in sound-unfriendly environments. If you are currently looking at your location options for podcasting and only finding places that are loud, echoey, or filled with blank empty spaces, but having the best possible audio quality for your show is important to you, the...

One Stone Creative is a full-service agency that handles most of the non-recording work for the shows we produce, but the role of a podcast manager is such a new one, that we wanted to talk to someone who is specializing in it. The podcast manager is a somewhat more nebulous role, in part because it’s so new in the industry, and in part, because the services they offer can vary so much—often they...

One of the things I believe the most strongly about podcasting is that doing it to support and grow an existing business is different than hosting a podcast for the love of the game—or as a business in and of itself. Your podcast needs to work with the other marketing you’re doing, not to mention all of the other commitments you have to your team, clients, and community. It’s because of this that...

A couple of weeks ago, we ran an episode called How to Cheat a Podcast Episode in which I shared some of the strategies you can use to fill a gap in a podcast production calendar. One of those suggestions was doing Q&A episodes. As a little favor to my future self, right after I recorded that episode, I went ahead and recorded five answers to five questions that people ask us frequently when t...