Why Downloads Don't Matter in B2B Podcasting, with Dr. Jeremy Weisz

Before we do any of that, I'm gonna ask you a couple somewhat potentially controversial questions.

Uh, the first of which is how-- what doesn't matter when you're setting up a podcast or when you're running an existing podcast? What really doesn't, shouldn't matter to you as much? And the, the first thing I'm thinking about is metrics.

Um, we, we look at our downloads, we look at our subscribers, and we feel like that's important, but how important is it really?

Yeah, I'll give a disclaimer.

When I'm talking about this, I am talking about B2B podcasts, okay? So I am not an expert, nor do I talk about comedy podcasts or true crime podcasts or sports podcasts 'cause there's a different measurement there, um, obviously, because they're probably more media company and more advertising.

But what, and so when I talk B2B, it's like someone is profiting and monetizing their business through their business, through their pod- for their podcast through their business.

And so it's a bit different.

And so, like, this may sound crazy to you, maybe not, but, like, I don't n- I haven't checked my metrics in probably over a decade, okay? Um, download subscribers, I have no idea what that is.

If you asked me to, "I'll give you a million dollars if you tell me what your download..." I have no idea, okay? What I do care about is relationships, okay? I do care about people sharing the episode.

We wanna make it easy for them to share it on their LinkedIn, especially on the B2B platform.

Um, and, and so social, especially for, for me and probably for you too, LinkedIn is, is key, right? If someone, again, I just have focused on building a LinkedIn platform and presence, not Twitter or some of these other or X or whatever you call it.

Um, so really, you know, I see people quit not because they had the, uh, people have had the amazing content.

They've also had-- I've even seen people quit because their audio quality wasn't impeccable or their microphone.

But I see people quit because of they aren't getting ROI from their podcast.

And the ROI, like you said, like what does not matter.

I-- content does matter, but, like, granted, if you are, like, you have top agencies on your podcast, okay? So, like, they are gonna be experts in that content.

So people worry about kind of the narrative of the interview, but, like, that person's gonna come with certain expertise, right? And there is a framework that we go over with people on the content piece, which...

But when you have an expert on, you ask them questions, and they're gonna share their expertise, right? And so the focus tends to be more on maybe downloads and content, and for me it's what's the overall roadmap to make sure this makes sense for the business, right? And you mentioned, so when I look at metrics, okay, I can look at my podcast and all the guests I've had, and I look at how did those rela- relationships progress, right? Like, you're gonna come on my podcast, like, okay.

And we do business with our people that we're friends with and we have close relationships with, so I'm not worried about, I don't have someone on my...

This is gonna sound weird.

I don't have someone on my podcast to get a client or to get a referral partner.

Actually, I have someone on my podcast to get them a client or get them a referral partner.

And because we're, if, if you some, and this goes back to the Dream 200.

If you choose the right guest and you are, okay, this is a potential partnership, and then I give as much as humanly possible to that partnership, and they are a giving person also, naturally, and I don't have expectation on this, but naturally they're going to, they're in the same space, they're probably gonna refer too at some point, right? And so there's a book that I love, which is "Give and Take" by Adam Grant, and there's givers, takers, and matchers, and the most successful and the least successful are givers, okay? So, you know, I consider myself a giver.

I wanna connect people.