► Tell us about you and your podcast
The Sales Chat Show is run by Graham Jones, Simon Hazeldine and Phil Jesson, who are all business consultants, authors and professional speakers based in the UK. The Sales Chat Show is about sales and selling and is listened to by salespeople, sales managers and sales directors. The podcast is for companies with sales teams and is aimed at helping them make the most of those teams, gaining more sales as a result.
► Why & how did you start this podcast?
We started the podcast because we all work with companies that want to generate more sales, either from face-to-face sales meetings, presentations, or online. We felt that our combined expertise would help our listeners more than doing separate podcasts.
The podcast began on 1st January 2016 with a programme on "handling sales objections". We met, recorded the programme, and two weeks later it had been edited, approved and uploaded!
► How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?
We have released episodes every 10 days, but now in 2018 we are increasing that to every 7 days. The three of us meet once each month where we spend an entire day together in our studio (actually a hotel meeting room!). We record four episodes each day and we then get them edited, music added and approved before uploading them and adding them to our website (saleschatshow.com). We have the dates in our diary for two years ahead, so we are committed to this podcast for the future. We pay for the studio usage, editing and so on ourselves.
► What do you gain from podcasting?
The podcast helps promote us individually as experts and speakers. However, it also leads to consultancy and companies wanting the three of us to help them motivate their sales teams or to discuss the current thinking on selling with their staff. It also helps the three of us - because we meet each month and have to come up with new ideas for the programme it ensures that we all keep up-to-date with current thinking about selling.
► How does your podcasting process look like?
We record the podcast on a Zoom H4N Pro (amzn.to/2IrMdhg) and edit using Audacity. We also record on a second Zoom to provide a backup.
We find guests from our own extensive network of speakers and authors. We interview them using Zencastr (zencastr.com)
Each interview is prepared by having a list of ideas we constantly update using Airtable (airtable.com). Then, on our recording day, we spend some time debating exactly what we will talk about, who will say what, the order of speaking and so on. We produce a rough outline which is put on a flip chart in front of us. Then we record the programme using that to guide us. It takes most of the day we spend together producing these outline scripts and then we record in "one take".
► How do you market your show?
Our show is on iTunes, SoundCloud and TuneIn Radio. We also host it on our own website. Most of our listeners come from SoundCloud. We market using email mostly and social media.
► What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?
Planning, outlining, scripting are the most important things. Before we started we produced a few pilot shows for our contacts to hear. The ones that were "ad-hoc" were rated less well than the ones we loosely scripted. The programmes that we plan in the most detail are the ones that get the most listens. So we have learned that planning and scripting is vital.
The most useful book we found was "Secrets of Podcasting" (http://amzn.to/2Gq1Dlq).