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Let's talk about our favorite topic here, and that is growing
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your podcast. But we're gonna look at it from a very different angle than
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we have before on the show. To do that, we are chatting with Lej. He
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is the cofounder and revenue lead at Listen Network.
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You can find out more about them at listennetwork.co.
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Ledge, thank you for being here today. Matthew, it's good to be here.
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I enjoy your content, so I I am absolutely thrilled to be
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in the club. I appreciate that, and your check is in the
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mail for that comment. So you are you have a
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very interesting background. You've you've actually had a ton of success already in
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podcasting even before, you know, this Listen Network venture. Tell me a
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little bit about how you, you know, fell into
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podcasting and how you got from starting there to
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where you are today. Yeah. I am a sales guy,
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entrepreneur, sort of polyglot. And, you know, I
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the interesting thing is that when you start companies, and this is, you know,
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twenty years ago, I started getting into it. And everybody wants to be a, you
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know, practitioner, but nobody wanted to do anything and sell. So
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I, said, well, I guess I should learn how to sell things. And I started
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doing that, and I became good at the sales side and actually enjoyed it. So,
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at one particular adventure, I was trying to sell something that was
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essentially 10 times as much as people were buying it for, you
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know, at that point, and it was a premium product or service.
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And I said, no one's gonna take my outbound.
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They're not going to want to in any way engage with me. But
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what if I just say, hey. You wanna be on my podcast?
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I I talk to experts like you. And so, you know, other people
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were were doing that at the time. I didn't know what that was. I thought
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I was unique and and special. It was about 02/2017. So
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I cannot say in any way that I pioneered ABM podcasting, but I can
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say that I, came to that realization at the same time maybe
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as others. And I I ended up it worked, and we ended up
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doing millions of dollars of revenue with just the guests and kept
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running that playbook, you know, ever ever since. And then I got into selling
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actual podcast agency services for particularly in b
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two b. And from that adventure,
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I became fascinated with this problem where, you know, shows would
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start and people would wanna test them, or let's see if this works.
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Or how do you know if a podcast works? And this is like a very
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nuanced thing. And they would come back ultimately after,
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you know, their q one or q two budget meeting, and they would say, yeah.
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My boss canceled it because they don't see the ROI. I'm like, well, that's
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interesting and weird, and I wanna solve that problem
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because, turns out, you know, we
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as a agency, you know, industry,
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I guess, we're we tell clients a lot, like, oh, hey. You
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know, downloads don't matter, and let's
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go and you know, it's all about the audience and making sure you're
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telling the story, and let's do, you know, episode
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retention, and let's do, you know, consumption rate. And then,
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like, I agree with all those things, except
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I know this in sales, and I I hope that other people can learn this,
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that if you go into a budget meeting and try to train people in, like,
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the five minutes that you get to speak your
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special, nichey language and then give you money, it's
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never gonna work. So maybe downloads don't matter, you
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know, in the grand picture, but you damn well better be able to tell the
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story of how that number went up and exactly who those people
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are. That's what gets you funding and runway so that
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your show doesn't get canceled, you don't get fired, and your agency doesn't lose a
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client. It's always nice for an agency to retain
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their clients. I wanna go back real quickly to this idea of,
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account based marketing or the idea where, you know, instead of
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trying to cold call people, you were inviting them on your podcast to build
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leads. This was something that I've I've talked about famously on the show, and many
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times I've had plenty of clients who started podcast with that exact
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intention, that that audience of one, the, you know, opening
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up warm relationships with people through podcast interactions.
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And I still it it is for businesses, especially,
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probably one of the most successful returns on investment for a
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podcast even more so than advertising because, you
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know, when you grow your network, you grow your your opportunity set.
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Is Is that still something that you would advocate for for podcast today? Oh,
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yeah. Absolutely. Particularly, so certain times types of businesses. Right? You
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know, I think for service providers, that's fantastic. Like, if it if this
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is about I need to be liked and trusted, then
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that that format is great. Now you could argue that that's true for any,
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you know, large brand or anything like that. But, my typical cutoff
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point was when, like, if people would say, oh, it's all about brand awareness or
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it would be you know, it's like we wanna develop thought leadership content and blah
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blah blah. You know, the usual things that that people would say. Like, if you're
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not doing over a billion dollars in revenue, I suggest you go with this other
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strategy where it's just like, look, I agree we should do all those things,
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but thought leadership accrues from the people who are willing to talk to you and
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sit down. So why don't we start there and make a list of
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the top hundred companies that your sales team wants to do business
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with and take it like an ABM strategy? And
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let's get you talking to those people and then promote
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them. So, I mean, for the rest of time, I could post on LinkedIn
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about how smart Matthew is and post clips of
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you. And, eventually, you wanna do
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business and you know, in the area, and you remember that I
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exist, and this would happen years later. If you had a long sales cycle,
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it was the greatest way to get out of not having to send those quarterly.
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Hey, man. You know, what's going on? Just checking in. Wondered if
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you wanted to talk about this thing we do. Like, it's so
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but what if I could just go and, you know, just sort of regularly give
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you a touch point and it was all about you? So there was
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a a value reciprocity, you know, to that, and and it
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worked, you know, over and over and over again. I would absolutely recommend that people
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do this. You just need to be in this channel. It's
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like, do a podcast, like, period. Like, just like you have a blog. Like, you
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must do this. Well and truth is it doesn't
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always have to be just a podcast. Right? It's just content. Right? It could
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just be on YouTube. It could just be, you know, a live
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x, you know, stream or something like that. But, right, the idea is
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get out there, make relationships, connect with people, chat with people,
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repurpose all that material. Right? Keep talking about keep getting your
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name on their radar so that they are gonna
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remember you and think about you. And when, you know, they're ready for that business,
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they're gonna think, oh, let me go check out my buddy ledge and see what
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I remember that guy and he, oh, he says smart things about me and, you
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know, we share stuff and yeah. And then you gotta, you know, work the work
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the DMs, like, actually chat with people. Like, I just it's gotten to the
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point now on on LinkedIn in particular where you have to reach out and go,
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I promise I'm not gonna pitch you. I actually just wanna be
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interested and talk to you. So Hart,
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I I wish I was getting more of those DMs on LinkedIn than the ones
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I am currently getting, which are usually, hey. I see you're a business owner. Time
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to look at your four zero one k. Right. Right. Yeah. Or, I mean, you
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know, if you're in podcast growth, I mean, forget about it. Like, how many times
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does somebody slide into your DMs? Like, I am a podcast growth specialist.
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I'll run you up the chart. And I'm just like, I'm not that
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guy, you know. But, potentially, I could help you, but I also just
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think you're interesting and I wanna chat. So Yeah. By the way, when that person
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slides into your DMs, red flag right away. Block, ignore, and and
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move. Right. I know. And that happens to me where I'm like, no. No. No.
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No. Really. Like, I actually know about this, and and and I'm not gonna sell
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that thing to you. You know? So So let's let's talk about that. So
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now you're, you know, founding partner here at Listen Network.
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And so you guys are doing, like, targeting, and
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extreme audience intelligence. How does Listen Network help
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podcasters? What is sort of, like, you know, call it the
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the, you know, cheesy elevator pitch, you know, story
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here? Absolutely. So the thesis
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the thesis statement that I am using is like, look,
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you need runway. Someone needs to pay for this show. This is either a very
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expensive hobby out of your pocket, there's an underwriter or a
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sponsor, or there's a company that's paying for it. And
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when you want somebody's money, you speak the language of that
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person to get that money. So if you're pitching this
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thing and someone needs to give you money, I guarantee you, whether we
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like it or not in the industry, they are gonna say, how many downloads do
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you have? And then they're gonna say,
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well, okay, who are those downloads? Because even if you have a large number, you
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could just buy a bunch of downloads, just like you used to buy Twitter followers.
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I did this years ago and it was like, I still have 6,000 Twitter followers.
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I haven't logged into the thing in like two years. So whoever these
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people are, they're not real. And you could do that with
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downloads too. You can fake it. But what if you didn't fake it? And
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you were able to use the power of paid media to get in front of
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exactly the target audience that you want to be aware of your show,
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and we can link that directly to downloads. Like that's
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that's what Listen Network does. So super niche y stuff. I
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don't know. It's like we had one client who's like, we
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do digital twinning software for manufacturing
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entities that are in the engineering space of aerospace
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companies. So I only want downloads and I only wanna pay to get
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downloads from mid level engineering job titles at aerospace companies.
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You can't do that in a normal context, but we built the
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thing where you can do that. So now we can say, I only want HR
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professionals who work in hiring and talent
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management at SaaS companies that are in
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the retail space. Like, we can do stuff like that, and we can say,
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you got 500 downloads on that episode from exactly that audience.
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We know it. Oh, and by the way, you got
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20,000 impressions right in front of your target audience to get there,
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And here's a report that shows it. Yeah. I mean, beyond just the downloads, that
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brand recognition. Right? Just having that podcast artwork or, you know,
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the host face in front of people, is also super powerful,
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for many, many reasons. I I love the way you were describing that that, you
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know, niche. It almost sounds like that line in Spaceballs. Right? Like,
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you know, four I'm surrounded by asshole. Cousins, roommate. Right.
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Right. Whatever the line is, which makes us what? Absolutely
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nothing. So part of your
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your thinking and part of your strategy is that you really
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think of podcast more like a startup than as
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a content venture. Where did that thought process
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come from, and how do other podcasters
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approach things that way? Like, what what do they have to do differently from what
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you commonly see from your past clients and from people coming over to
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Listen Network? Yeah. I think that, I like to
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say, you know, I think a startup is or rather,
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a podcast is a media startup dressed up as content.
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And it has a product side,
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and it has a promotion side. And if we were to start a
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business at any point, if you ever been an entrepreneur, you know, sought
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funding, done a thing, whatever, like it would be ludicrous
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to go out and say, let's spend all our money and all our time and
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energy building a product, and then let's not tell anyone about it.
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Right? Or let's just post on social and magic
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things will happen. Like, that doesn't happen. Yet
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we do this in podcasting all the time. We're all like, oh, it's a places
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too. Yeah. Right. Right. And it's wrong for any business. But,
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you know, we do owned media. Yay. We have a we have a podcast.
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That's the same thing as going, yay. We have a business. Okay. We didn't tell
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anybody about it. Oh, let's post on social. That's shared. Fine. Awesome. Well,
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it's cool. Maybe we'll get PR. That's earned. Well, okay. You
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mispaid, and we should drive traffic
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from day one to that thing who's exactly your target
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market ICP. If you don't do that, you're
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just relying on the long tail organic that you probably don't have the
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infrastructure to build because you're gonna post on LinkedIn. It's like, yay.
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I got seven impressions. Like like, this isn't a thing.
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And why do we teach people that that's okay?
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That that's a hobby that you're gonna make nothing on, and you
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will never show ROI except, like, two years later?
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When are you gonna go into a meeting with somebody and go, like, yeah. I
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need you to pay for this thing that's gonna get, like, near zero
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impact on my pipeline or in any way benefit my business.
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But I'd like your money because in two years, it'll work. I mean, it's just
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like, that's not gonna work in a place where people can spend their money on
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other things that work faster. Yeah. And that are that are
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easier to track and and have Yeah. Right. Like this is a performance
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marketing world. Like budgets get spent on like
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results. Now whether we can quibble all day long, like
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downloads, same as impressions. Fine. I get it. Like, that doesn't
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actually mean anything, but people who spend money think it does.
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So So if I'm a podcaster,
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right, again, this isn't for every podcast out there. Right? You're not
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you know, if you're the like, I think I said in an episode recently. Right?
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If you and your buddy are in your garage talking about Star Wars and
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sports and and whatever, probably not gonna help you find your
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audience. But, you know, let's say you are a business. You are a
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00:13:47
brand. You are a thought leader. Right? You are someone who's trying
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to engage a b to b,
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model. You know? What is that like then to come and work with Listen
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Network? Sure. What I would say, you can target any
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00:14:02
audience. The question is, is that cost effective? Like, if you want a bunch of
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Star Wars nerds, fine. I don't know how they're ever gonna spend money for you,
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but you do get that vanity metric. Like, I can target anything you
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want. Right? So our objective was to say, well, the
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weird thing is that, know, sort of downloads happen, you don't know who they are.
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Why? Because podcasts are RSS and there's no data payload
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and Spotify and Apple just wanna hold all your data hostage because they
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don't want you to get out of the wall of garden. So you're screwed. You
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00:14:30
can't show anything. I mean, there's a little bit, but, you know, it's like rough
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00:14:34
demographics from part of your audience, whatever it is. But what if
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00:14:38
who does have all the information? Podcast or rather
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ad networks have all the information. They know everything about everybody. What was
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missing was a piece to say that download came from that ad. And
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so we built the connective tissue on that, that middleware
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that we can track both sides of that. So now we can say that download
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came from that ad, and here's the person who clicked on that
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00:15:00
ad and all their demographics. Not one to one attribution. That's
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00:15:04
creepy. Nobody does that. But you can say
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00:15:08
very detailed things about them in a b two b
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00:15:12
context. Obviously, that's really valuable because you can say it's exactly my target market and
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I know who they are. In a regular market or b
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two c, you might say, well, I want women, you know, age 45 to
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60, and they're interested in wellness products or, you know, things you can do stuff
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00:15:27
like that too, intent based, content based. But, anyway, when
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someone comes to us, they would just say,
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essentially, like, here's my podcast, and here are the
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00:15:37
episodes that I would like to grow and promote in front of someone. It could
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be all. It could be one. And then we help them build an ad plan
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around exactly the target market, and then we report to it
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00:15:48
after. And we say, you know, here's a report branded as you. You
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can show it to sponsors. You can use it in your pitch kit. You could
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use it in your budget meeting, whatever it is. But this is exactly what happened,
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and you're gonna see a massive spike on that episode.
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00:16:03
So it really is about individual episodes, right, pushing that in
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front of the correct audience. We've
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talked to a couple of different folks who offer similar services.
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And when you really get down to the the fine details of it,
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you know, one of the things that comes up is that I see a
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00:16:23
spike when I run the promotion, but then this doesn't become
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00:16:27
a sustainable audience. Is that something that you see, or is
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00:16:30
that not something necessarily that you're thinking about? Or or how did you guys
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differentiate yourselves from some of these more fly by night
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00:16:38
promotion sites that, you know, seem to be able to say, yeah. We'll
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00:16:42
grow a show, but it doesn't really do anything. It doesn't actually convert
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00:16:45
or become ROI. Right. Right. And that is
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the definition of ROI sort of I made a sale. And
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and I, you know, I completely agree with that. And that's that's the
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argument of, like, well, what about retention? And the reality of
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00:17:00
paid media in any context is when I run a paid
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00:17:04
media campaign, I get some action. When
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I stop doing it, I stop getting some action.
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00:17:11
Some of those will retain because they're interested. Is your content good? Do people
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00:17:15
actually want to consume this thing again? Where we
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00:17:19
can work on retention is if you run multiple episodes, we can
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00:17:22
retarget those people. Hey. They downloaded episode one. Let's retarget
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00:17:26
episode two to them. That's a retention mechanism. We
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00:17:30
also try to drive as many clicks as we can
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00:17:33
through a pop up mechanism after the download to Apple,
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00:17:37
Spotify. Like, maybe those people follow. Unfortunately, those
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00:17:41
platforms won't let attribution tracking happen. Right? So all I can
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00:17:44
tell you is a click went to that thing because of us. I don't know
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00:17:48
what they did, you know, after that. And I think a lot of providers,
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00:17:51
you know, kind of in our space or maybe not just transparent, they're
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00:17:55
like, that's not how it works and no one can do that. They're gonna try
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00:17:59
to argue to you. Like we're trying to be the most white hat sort of
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00:18:02
provider. Like, these are the limitations of the world that we
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00:18:06
live in. And, yeah, we're gonna try to
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00:18:10
do whatever we can to drive retention. I would argue that
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00:18:14
retention on a show is based on the quality of content, is
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00:18:17
based on being in front of people over and over and over again. Like, you
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00:18:21
you have to at least try to do that thing. What's the
Speaker:
00:18:24
retention on posting a bunch of stuff on social? Like,
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00:18:28
nobody knows nobody knows the answer to this. They just wanna
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00:18:32
argue against why you shouldn't do paid. So,
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00:18:36
like, you know, it's like, cool. Like, don't do it. Fine. From the
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00:18:39
agency perspective, agencies can make more money
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00:18:43
doing promotion than production. The cost of production is
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00:18:47
going to zero. Like, there is no margin there. It will die. If
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00:18:51
your entire business is based on just selling marked up production,
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00:18:55
you are in a race to the bottom. If you add in this,
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00:18:58
you are now offering a full service thing and you make more
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00:19:02
money and you retain clients. We ran this internally at our own
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00:19:06
agency until we spun it out. 40% better retention.
Speaker:
00:19:10
Wow. So so you are not only engaged with
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00:19:14
individual podcasts, but you are engaged with production houses,
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00:19:17
agencies, right, folks who manage many podcasts to help
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00:19:21
them. So so with that in mind then, right,
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00:19:25
listen, we are not necessarily attracting the big boys of
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00:19:28
podcasting. Right? I doubt that, you know, someone from a
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00:19:32
huge network is sitting here listening and thinking, oh, maybe I should do that. So
Speaker:
00:19:36
is your platform approachable for smaller podcasts, or is there, like, a
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00:19:40
minimum investment that they have to have in order for this to
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00:19:43
work? For a smaller podcast, you you could do it.
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00:19:47
The minimum for us is, like, 250 downloads an episode. Like, they
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00:19:51
just won't run. You can't run a campaign that runs so
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00:19:55
small that it it won't, you know, to do that. So that's
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00:19:58
that's still gonna put you in like another grand a month, let's say.
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00:20:02
Right? Like it's not a minimum because we wanna take more of
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00:20:06
your money. It's just a minimum because it it just doesn't work. Like they won't
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00:20:09
fire, you know? So you can't you can't run an ad campaign
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00:20:13
small enough to make that happen. And I would also argue like in
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00:20:17
most cases, why are you trying to buy downloads
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00:20:21
in that context unless you have a monetizing entity on the other
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00:20:24
side? Where I do see this work is say, I'm a
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00:20:28
niche podcaster. I've got
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00:20:32
500,000, 10 thousand downloads a month. Under
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00:20:35
that network threshold, but I'd like to pitch something to
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00:20:39
a sponsor because I have a dedicated audience niche.
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00:20:44
Well, now I can say to the sponsor, hey. Part of your sponsor packages, I
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00:20:47
guarantee you at least a thousand downloads per episode are going
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00:20:51
to come exactly from your target market, and I'll give you this
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00:20:55
report after the fact. That works. But
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00:20:59
don't go buying downloads thinking eventually I'm gonna be in a network
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00:21:03
because that's silly. You'd have to keep spending money. The arbitrage doesn't
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00:21:06
work. You can't buy your way into CPM
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00:21:10
advertising. You're gonna get crushed. Well, and and not only that, the
Speaker:
00:21:14
platforms are getting smarter and Sure. You know, they can recognize
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00:21:18
fake data from And and then they should. It's not in in essence, it's
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00:21:21
not fake, but it came from this channel. I mean, you
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00:21:25
can do fake. I could show you how to do fake. We have all the
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00:21:28
same vendors as everybody else. But what we're trying to
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00:21:32
do is be transparent of like, you could do that thing and it won't get
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00:21:35
you to the business result that you want. So if you wanna
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00:21:39
run up the chart, we could sell you that and it's worth
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00:21:42
nothing. So if you maybe get value out of taking
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00:21:46
a screenshot of being up the chart for three days and then crash, like
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00:21:50
I, like, I don't know what business that suits, but, you know, vanity is a
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00:21:54
thing. I'll I'll sell you things to make you feel better.
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00:21:58
I wanna sell you things that make your business actually grow. Well, and
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00:22:02
you also wanna sell things that get you to tell other businesses that this is
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00:22:05
a product that worked, that was effective, that, you know, accomplished what they said they
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00:22:08
were gonna set out to accomplish, and and I saw the return. So as somebody
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00:22:12
who is offering the service and as somebody who's ran agency and sold, you know,
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00:22:16
and helped lots and lots of podcasters, What is the biggest thing
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00:22:20
that, you know, somebody comes to you wanting to do this, you take a
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00:22:23
look at your their show and you go, I I wanna help
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00:22:27
you, but this is off and, you know, let's fix this and then
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00:22:31
we'll run the campaign. Like, what's that thing that you find most people are messing
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00:22:35
up? It's brand polish in that case. You know, if it's too small,
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00:22:38
like, it's just like and then a lot of times that'd be creators to say,
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00:22:41
oh, I wanna grow my show because I want to, you know,
Speaker:
00:22:45
appeal to sponsors. And and again, it goes to, like, treat it like a
Speaker:
00:22:48
business. Right? Like, what like, I get it. You might actually have really great things
Speaker:
00:22:52
to say, but no one gets to your show. And when they go to your
Speaker:
00:22:56
site, it's like a really bad video and, like, a brand that looks like
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00:23:00
it was on Myspace in, like, 1995. And I'm
Speaker:
00:23:04
just like, clean that up. Right? Like,
Speaker:
00:23:08
it's put your Zoom shirt on and, you know, look
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00:23:11
decent. Right? So, you know,
Speaker:
00:23:15
who's the audience. Right? Like, again, if you're like, hey, we're the
Speaker:
00:23:19
top like fanzine podcast for like Star
Speaker:
00:23:22
Trek nerds or whatever. Like, that's amazing. Like, be all be
Speaker:
00:23:26
that. Like but if you're saying I want sponsors, I want brands to
Speaker:
00:23:30
pay money to be repped by you, well, then
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00:23:34
think about that presentation. Right? So, like, there's not
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00:23:38
we can't help you grow a show that in essence, like, doesn't look
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00:23:42
like it wants to be grown or doesn't care. Like, why
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00:23:46
are you doing this? It always comes back to the why. Like, why do you
Speaker:
00:23:49
have this thing? Do you have it because it's fun and you like talking to
Speaker:
00:23:51
people? Hell, yeah. No one's ever gonna pay you and it's gonna come out of
Speaker:
00:23:54
your pocket, but go have fun. Skiing's expensive. People like to do that
Speaker:
00:23:58
for fun. But this like, is it a business or is it
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00:24:02
not? And that's the first question that I would ask. I don't
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00:24:05
wanna sell people things that are just like a pipe dream. Like, that's
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00:24:09
insane. You know? So I'll be the first one to get on the call and
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00:24:12
be like, this is not for you. And, you know, if you're serious
Speaker:
00:24:16
about being in the other club, there are a million coaches and consultants. I'll
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00:24:20
introduce you to one. That's not my jam. Once you're ready to make
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00:24:24
some revenue and you wanna think about how to actually have a business motion behind
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00:24:27
this, cool. We might be able to help you.
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00:24:31
Love it. And and, really, I love the
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00:24:35
you know, the thing you said earlier on was
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00:24:39
why. And, right, that's something that we just stress all the time. If you don't
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00:24:42
know why you're doing this, and more importantly, you don't
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00:24:46
know why your audience should care, You've
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00:24:50
probably lost the battle before it even started. Yeah. Like, that's
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00:24:53
that's absolutely right. Like, there should be a reason that you spend hours
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00:24:57
and hours and hours in front of a microphone and trying to get people to
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00:25:01
talk to you and editing and posting on social or whatever
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00:25:05
things you're doing. Like, why are you doing that?
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00:25:08
And what do you expect to happen at the end? And you
Speaker:
00:25:12
see this a lot in, like, entrepreneurship. Right? Like, people start businesses with, like, no
Speaker:
00:25:16
point except I think it's a cool idea. Like, alright.
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00:25:20
Like, again, that's hobby. But do it because you think it's fun.
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00:25:24
I don't care. Build your little thing and build a an app.
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00:25:27
Build a website. Just, like, do what you like and have an audience of
Speaker:
00:25:31
one and and be stoked with that. But when you're asking people
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00:25:35
for money, like, have a reason. Love
Speaker:
00:25:39
that. Once again, we are chatting with Ledge. If you're looking for him on
Speaker:
00:25:42
LinkedIn, David Ledgerwood is the full name, but he is the,
Speaker:
00:25:47
cofounder and revenue lead at Listen Network. Again, you can learn more about
Speaker:
00:25:51
them at listennetwork.co. Ledge, of course,
Speaker:
00:25:54
as someone who listens, you know, we're not gonna let you go without asking you
Speaker:
00:25:57
our great three questions about podcasting. So, I'm sure we
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00:26:01
could do a full episode on this first one, but, you know, give me one
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00:26:05
or two. Where are some places you'd love to see some real improvement in podcasting?
Speaker:
00:26:09
Again, from the production, distribution, even the listening side. Right? Like,
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00:26:13
where is something that you're god. Wish we could fix this today.
Speaker:
00:26:17
Yeah. Definitely the conversion path. Like, why why is I mean, I get
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00:26:21
why it's so hard. It's RSS. Like, it's just designed to be open. But, I
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00:26:24
mean, I wanna connect with my audience. Like, why is this
Speaker:
00:26:28
so freaking cool? Like, if people
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00:26:32
wanna if people wanna sign up and be, you know, like, get on my email
Speaker:
00:26:35
list, I gotta drive them through all kinds of crap. Like, why can't there
Speaker:
00:26:39
be some kind of, like, automated conversion path where it's like, write
Speaker:
00:26:43
an app. Hey. Put your email in. I'll send you my wrap up. I'll send
Speaker:
00:26:46
you my extra stuff. Like, it's always about conversion. Like, people people
Speaker:
00:26:50
are doing this for a reason. And I wish that
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00:26:54
there was a more tightly integrated path to develop an
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00:26:58
audience on different channels. I'm gonna ask you a follow-up there that I don't
Speaker:
00:27:02
ask a lot of people, but do you think that RSS
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00:27:05
is here to stay for the long term, or do you think that
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00:27:09
we are coming up on maybe a transition and a
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00:27:13
change for this type this type of content?
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00:27:18
I understand that there's a thing called podcast two point o, and
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00:27:21
they're trying to add a lot more functionality to, you know,
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00:27:25
RSS, start treating. I I love the open feed thing. I think it
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00:27:29
should stay open. That's that's really cool. Like like it's like email.
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00:27:32
Right? Like, choose your client. It doesn't matter. Let
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00:27:36
people do that. There's a lot of movement for open
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00:27:39
social media, and maybe that'll take off. Like, closed gardens are bad for everybody.
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00:27:45
That said, you know, it's impossible to
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00:27:48
ignore the video and, you know, the YouTube approach and the Spotify
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00:27:52
video approach. Like, they're all going different directions. So what you're seeing
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00:27:56
is, like, the big dogs try to prove that I'm the better way to
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00:28:00
do that thing. Therefore, stop doing the thing that
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00:28:03
actually made this medium cool in the first place. So
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00:28:07
will it go that direction? I mean, maybe. Did the
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00:28:11
world maybe learn some lessons from allowing all
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00:28:15
content and social media to be behind a walled garden?
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00:28:18
Hopefully. Like, podcasting, podcasters and the
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00:28:21
podcast industry in general is it seems to be dedicated to openness.
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00:28:26
But I'll also tell you that if you go talk to anybody in a younger
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00:28:29
generation, what's a podcast? They go, oh, it's that thing on on YouTube
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00:28:33
where people sit and talk. Right? So
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00:28:37
could we evangelize differently? I I don't know. I mean, I would I would
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00:28:41
lament that. I think a lot of, like, purists and, you know, old school people
Speaker:
00:28:44
in podcasting would cry, but it's also pretty
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00:28:48
cool. And who knows what's gonna happen? I just I would hate to
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00:28:52
see it devolve to, you know, the battle of the walled gardens
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00:28:55
because distribution's a freaking nightmare then. Now it just takes,
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00:28:59
like, an hour to push all your thing, like, individually
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00:29:03
to every different protocol, and it just becomes a mess. But, of course,
Speaker:
00:29:06
that's what those major corporate entities want you to do. Like
Speaker:
00:29:10
Right. So you want the biggest garden. Yeah. Alright. What about is
Speaker:
00:29:14
there any tech on your wish list? Whether it's something that is out there that
Speaker:
00:29:18
you just haven't purchased or something that you're waiting for someone to come up
Speaker:
00:29:22
with to make podcasting easier for you or or your clients.
Speaker:
00:29:27
So I've had I've had a Stream Deck in my drawer,
Speaker:
00:29:31
like, waiting to be plugged in for, like, two years and never even played with
Speaker:
00:29:35
the thing. It's like that looks really interesting. And I think there's a lot of
Speaker:
00:29:38
cool opportunities to introduce better better,
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00:29:42
visual, you know, representations and, you know, other stuff
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00:29:45
into the video side. So I have that
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00:29:49
tech. I it's in the drawer, and I should try to use it. I
Speaker:
00:29:53
also am very interested in I forget who makes this thing,
Speaker:
00:29:57
but the, because solo episodes are becoming so big and I'm trying to to
Speaker:
00:30:01
do more of that. I love those
Speaker:
00:30:04
teleprompters with, like, the camera in bed type of deal on it. Like, that that
Speaker:
00:30:08
looks super cool. Like, you can give eye contact and still read and not look
Speaker:
00:30:12
weird. But, again, that's that's a a
Speaker:
00:30:15
video driven entity. So, potentially,
Speaker:
00:30:19
evolution where more integrated audio
Speaker:
00:30:23
content would be, you know, really cool. And, again, that goes back to the first
Speaker:
00:30:26
question. It was like, well, I wanna do, like, a full cycle relationship
Speaker:
00:30:30
management through audio. Somebody should invent
Speaker:
00:30:34
things that make that work where interactive audio is actually a thing,
Speaker:
00:30:38
and it doesn't depend on, you know, one universe or the other.
Speaker:
00:30:42
The, Elgato teleprompter is, one of the ones that
Speaker:
00:30:46
just came out recently that does a a nice job with it. However, I will
Speaker:
00:30:50
tell you it works best with either their camera
Speaker:
00:30:53
or, you know, a mirrorless camera with, like, a full lens on
Speaker:
00:30:57
it. I tried running it on I have a Logitech BRIO, and,
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00:31:00
actually, I haven't tried it on my iPhone using continuity cam, and it
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00:31:04
just it wasn't flush enough so that it gave off, like, a weird brightness to
Speaker:
00:31:07
it. But, yeah, that ability to have the teleprompter and better yet, the
Speaker:
00:31:11
ability to make eye contact was very nice. It's also just
Speaker:
00:31:15
huge, and it was taking up, like, half of my screens. I couldn't see around,
Speaker:
00:31:18
and it was a pain in the butt to, like, take that. That's actually so
Speaker:
00:31:21
I have a I have a 55 inch TV as my
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00:31:25
my monitor, and there's always, well, there's always a
Speaker:
00:31:28
camera in my face blocking whatever thing I'm trying to do.
Speaker:
00:31:32
So I guess my real wish list would be, like, a massive ass
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00:31:35
television that would have a a hidden camera, like, you know,
Speaker:
00:31:39
sort of view through, like, right in the middle with, like, no cutout.
Speaker:
00:31:43
So I was just talking into this screen that had a camera
Speaker:
00:31:46
inside it. That would be that would be my favorite. Like, I love working
Speaker:
00:31:50
with an absolutely giant screen. So I love that
Speaker:
00:31:54
idea. I'm gonna look into that. Alright. I guess we'll we'll have
Speaker:
00:31:58
to, you know, create another startup together and go on that entrepreneurial
Speaker:
00:32:01
journey. And, also, what's your favorite podcast that you're listening to?
Speaker:
00:32:05
Any any of that, like, you're not gonna let them go by without getting the
Speaker:
00:32:08
latest episode or you'll drop what you're doing to to check them out? There
Speaker:
00:32:12
is. I'm a big personal finance nerd, and I love, Ramit
Speaker:
00:32:16
Sethi money for couples. So he coaches he
Speaker:
00:32:19
coaches couples on the show about their, you know,
Speaker:
00:32:23
personal finance, and he's, of course, he's got a whole model. And and I as
Speaker:
00:32:26
a business guy, just like, I love this dude's funnel because, I mean, he hits
Speaker:
00:32:30
you at every place. Like, you you are on the emails. You're on the like,
Speaker:
00:32:34
he just is a monster of content. But it's really actually really good
Speaker:
00:32:38
advice, psychology of money essentially and and how, you know, you
Speaker:
00:32:41
can you can manage that stuff. I'm a former financial planner, and
Speaker:
00:32:45
that's always been, like, really valuable to me to have money systems. So,
Speaker:
00:32:49
yep, check it out. I I I think I could talk to you for,
Speaker:
00:32:53
like, three more hours and just go on random tangents all over the place,
Speaker:
00:32:56
but, we'll spare the audience and everybody else and let you get back to your
Speaker:
00:33:00
day. We've been chatting with Lej, also David Ledgerwood.
Speaker:
00:33:04
He's the cofounder revenue lead at Listen Network. That's
Speaker:
00:33:07
listennetwork.co. You can find a link obviously in the show notes. We'll also
Speaker:
00:33:11
put a link to David's LinkedIn so you can see some of the great stuff
Speaker:
00:33:13
that he is posting online. It has been a pleasure, sir, and I hope we
Speaker:
00:33:17
get to do this again. Thanks for coming on. Absolutely. Thanks, Matthew.
00:00:00
Let's talk about our favorite topic here, and that is growing
Speaker:
00:00:04
your podcast. But we're gonna look at it from a very different angle than
Speaker:
00:00:07
we have before on the show. To do that, we are chatting with Lej. He
Speaker:
00:00:11
is the cofounder and revenue lead at Listen Network.
Speaker:
00:00:15
You can find out more about them at listennetwork.co.
Speaker:
00:00:19
Ledge, thank you for being here today. Matthew, it's good to be here.
Speaker:
00:00:22
I enjoy your content, so I I am absolutely thrilled to be
Speaker:
00:00:26
in the club. I appreciate that, and your check is in the
Speaker:
00:00:30
mail for that comment. So you are you have a
Speaker:
00:00:34
very interesting background. You've you've actually had a ton of success already in
Speaker:
00:00:37
podcasting even before, you know, this Listen Network venture. Tell me a
Speaker:
00:00:41
little bit about how you, you know, fell into
Speaker:
00:00:44
podcasting and how you got from starting there to
Speaker:
00:00:48
where you are today. Yeah. I am a sales guy,
Speaker:
00:00:51
entrepreneur, sort of polyglot. And, you know, I
Speaker:
00:00:56
the interesting thing is that when you start companies, and this is, you know,
Speaker:
00:01:00
twenty years ago, I started getting into it. And everybody wants to be a, you
Speaker:
00:01:03
know, practitioner, but nobody wanted to do anything and sell. So
Speaker:
00:01:07
I, said, well, I guess I should learn how to sell things. And I started
Speaker:
00:01:10
doing that, and I became good at the sales side and actually enjoyed it. So,
Speaker:
00:01:14
at one particular adventure, I was trying to sell something that was
Speaker:
00:01:18
essentially 10 times as much as people were buying it for, you
Speaker:
00:01:22
know, at that point, and it was a premium product or service.
Speaker:
00:01:25
And I said, no one's gonna take my outbound.
Speaker:
00:01:29
They're not going to want to in any way engage with me. But
Speaker:
00:01:33
what if I just say, hey. You wanna be on my podcast?
Speaker:
00:01:36
I I talk to experts like you. And so, you know, other people
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00:01:40
were were doing that at the time. I didn't know what that was. I thought
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00:01:44
I was unique and and special. It was about 02/2017. So
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00:01:48
I cannot say in any way that I pioneered ABM podcasting, but I can
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00:01:51
say that I, came to that realization at the same time maybe
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00:01:56
as others. And I I ended up it worked, and we ended up
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00:01:59
doing millions of dollars of revenue with just the guests and kept
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00:02:03
running that playbook, you know, ever ever since. And then I got into selling
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00:02:06
actual podcast agency services for particularly in b
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00:02:10
two b. And from that adventure,
Speaker:
00:02:15
I became fascinated with this problem where, you know, shows would
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00:02:18
start and people would wanna test them, or let's see if this works.
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00:02:22
Or how do you know if a podcast works? And this is like a very
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00:02:25
nuanced thing. And they would come back ultimately after,
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00:02:29
you know, their q one or q two budget meeting, and they would say, yeah.
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00:02:32
My boss canceled it because they don't see the ROI. I'm like, well, that's
Speaker:
00:02:36
interesting and weird, and I wanna solve that problem
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00:02:40
because, turns out, you know, we
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00:02:44
as a agency, you know, industry,
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00:02:48
I guess, we're we tell clients a lot, like, oh, hey. You
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00:02:52
know, downloads don't matter, and let's
Speaker:
00:02:55
go and you know, it's all about the audience and making sure you're
Speaker:
00:02:59
telling the story, and let's do, you know, episode
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00:03:02
retention, and let's do, you know, consumption rate. And then,
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00:03:06
like, I agree with all those things, except
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00:03:10
I know this in sales, and I I hope that other people can learn this,
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00:03:14
that if you go into a budget meeting and try to train people in, like,
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00:03:17
the five minutes that you get to speak your
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00:03:21
special, nichey language and then give you money, it's
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00:03:25
never gonna work. So maybe downloads don't matter, you
Speaker:
00:03:28
know, in the grand picture, but you damn well better be able to tell the
Speaker:
00:03:32
story of how that number went up and exactly who those people
Speaker:
00:03:36
are. That's what gets you funding and runway so that
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00:03:40
your show doesn't get canceled, you don't get fired, and your agency doesn't lose a
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00:03:43
client. It's always nice for an agency to retain
Speaker:
00:03:47
their clients. I wanna go back real quickly to this idea of,
Speaker:
00:03:51
account based marketing or the idea where, you know, instead of
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00:03:54
trying to cold call people, you were inviting them on your podcast to build
Speaker:
00:03:58
leads. This was something that I've I've talked about famously on the show, and many
Speaker:
00:04:01
times I've had plenty of clients who started podcast with that exact
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00:04:05
intention, that that audience of one, the, you know, opening
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00:04:09
up warm relationships with people through podcast interactions.
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00:04:14
And I still it it is for businesses, especially,
Speaker:
00:04:18
probably one of the most successful returns on investment for a
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00:04:21
podcast even more so than advertising because, you
Speaker:
00:04:25
know, when you grow your network, you grow your your opportunity set.
Speaker:
00:04:29
Is Is that still something that you would advocate for for podcast today? Oh,
Speaker:
00:04:33
yeah. Absolutely. Particularly, so certain times types of businesses. Right? You
Speaker:
00:04:37
know, I think for service providers, that's fantastic. Like, if it if this
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00:04:41
is about I need to be liked and trusted, then
Speaker:
00:04:44
that that format is great. Now you could argue that that's true for any,
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00:04:48
you know, large brand or anything like that. But, my typical cutoff
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00:04:52
point was when, like, if people would say, oh, it's all about brand awareness or
Speaker:
00:04:55
it would be you know, it's like we wanna develop thought leadership content and blah
Speaker:
00:04:58
blah blah. You know, the usual things that that people would say. Like, if you're
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00:05:02
not doing over a billion dollars in revenue, I suggest you go with this other
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00:05:05
strategy where it's just like, look, I agree we should do all those things,
Speaker:
00:05:09
but thought leadership accrues from the people who are willing to talk to you and
Speaker:
00:05:13
sit down. So why don't we start there and make a list of
Speaker:
00:05:17
the top hundred companies that your sales team wants to do business
Speaker:
00:05:20
with and take it like an ABM strategy? And
Speaker:
00:05:24
let's get you talking to those people and then promote
Speaker:
00:05:27
them. So, I mean, for the rest of time, I could post on LinkedIn
Speaker:
00:05:31
about how smart Matthew is and post clips of
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00:05:34
you. And, eventually, you wanna do
Speaker:
00:05:38
business and you know, in the area, and you remember that I
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00:05:41
exist, and this would happen years later. If you had a long sales cycle,
Speaker:
00:05:45
it was the greatest way to get out of not having to send those quarterly.
Speaker:
00:05:49
Hey, man. You know, what's going on? Just checking in. Wondered if
Speaker:
00:05:53
you wanted to talk about this thing we do. Like, it's so
Speaker:
00:05:57
but what if I could just go and, you know, just sort of regularly give
Speaker:
00:06:00
you a touch point and it was all about you? So there was
Speaker:
00:06:04
a a value reciprocity, you know, to that, and and it
Speaker:
00:06:07
worked, you know, over and over and over again. I would absolutely recommend that people
Speaker:
00:06:11
do this. You just need to be in this channel. It's
Speaker:
00:06:15
like, do a podcast, like, period. Like, just like you have a blog. Like, you
Speaker:
00:06:19
must do this. Well and truth is it doesn't
Speaker:
00:06:22
always have to be just a podcast. Right? It's just content. Right? It could
Speaker:
00:06:26
just be on YouTube. It could just be, you know, a live
Speaker:
00:06:30
x, you know, stream or something like that. But, right, the idea is
Speaker:
00:06:33
get out there, make relationships, connect with people, chat with people,
Speaker:
00:06:38
repurpose all that material. Right? Keep talking about keep getting your
Speaker:
00:06:41
name on their radar so that they are gonna
Speaker:
00:06:45
remember you and think about you. And when, you know, they're ready for that business,
Speaker:
00:06:48
they're gonna think, oh, let me go check out my buddy ledge and see what
Speaker:
00:06:51
I remember that guy and he, oh, he says smart things about me and, you
Speaker:
00:06:54
know, we share stuff and yeah. And then you gotta, you know, work the work
Speaker:
00:06:58
the DMs, like, actually chat with people. Like, I just it's gotten to the
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00:07:02
point now on on LinkedIn in particular where you have to reach out and go,
Speaker:
00:07:06
I promise I'm not gonna pitch you. I actually just wanna be
Speaker:
00:07:09
interested and talk to you. So Hart,
Speaker:
00:07:13
I I wish I was getting more of those DMs on LinkedIn than the ones
Speaker:
00:07:16
I am currently getting, which are usually, hey. I see you're a business owner. Time
Speaker:
00:07:20
to look at your four zero one k. Right. Right. Yeah. Or, I mean, you
Speaker:
00:07:23
know, if you're in podcast growth, I mean, forget about it. Like, how many times
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00:07:27
does somebody slide into your DMs? Like, I am a podcast growth specialist.
Speaker:
00:07:30
I'll run you up the chart. And I'm just like, I'm not that
Speaker:
00:07:34
guy, you know. But, potentially, I could help you, but I also just
Speaker:
00:07:38
think you're interesting and I wanna chat. So Yeah. By the way, when that person
Speaker:
00:07:42
slides into your DMs, red flag right away. Block, ignore, and and
Speaker:
00:07:45
move. Right. I know. And that happens to me where I'm like, no. No. No.
Speaker:
00:07:48
No. Really. Like, I actually know about this, and and and I'm not gonna sell
Speaker:
00:07:51
that thing to you. You know? So So let's let's talk about that. So
Speaker:
00:07:55
now you're, you know, founding partner here at Listen Network.
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00:07:59
And so you guys are doing, like, targeting, and
Speaker:
00:08:03
extreme audience intelligence. How does Listen Network help
Speaker:
00:08:06
podcasters? What is sort of, like, you know, call it the
Speaker:
00:08:10
the, you know, cheesy elevator pitch, you know, story
Speaker:
00:08:14
here? Absolutely. So the thesis
Speaker:
00:08:18
the thesis statement that I am using is like, look,
Speaker:
00:08:22
you need runway. Someone needs to pay for this show. This is either a very
Speaker:
00:08:25
expensive hobby out of your pocket, there's an underwriter or a
Speaker:
00:08:29
sponsor, or there's a company that's paying for it. And
Speaker:
00:08:32
when you want somebody's money, you speak the language of that
Speaker:
00:08:36
person to get that money. So if you're pitching this
Speaker:
00:08:40
thing and someone needs to give you money, I guarantee you, whether we
Speaker:
00:08:43
like it or not in the industry, they are gonna say, how many downloads do
Speaker:
00:08:47
you have? And then they're gonna say,
Speaker:
00:08:51
well, okay, who are those downloads? Because even if you have a large number, you
Speaker:
00:08:54
could just buy a bunch of downloads, just like you used to buy Twitter followers.
Speaker:
00:08:58
I did this years ago and it was like, I still have 6,000 Twitter followers.
Speaker:
00:09:01
I haven't logged into the thing in like two years. So whoever these
Speaker:
00:09:05
people are, they're not real. And you could do that with
Speaker:
00:09:09
downloads too. You can fake it. But what if you didn't fake it? And
Speaker:
00:09:12
you were able to use the power of paid media to get in front of
Speaker:
00:09:16
exactly the target audience that you want to be aware of your show,
Speaker:
00:09:20
and we can link that directly to downloads. Like that's
Speaker:
00:09:23
that's what Listen Network does. So super niche y stuff. I
Speaker:
00:09:27
don't know. It's like we had one client who's like, we
Speaker:
00:09:31
do digital twinning software for manufacturing
Speaker:
00:09:34
entities that are in the engineering space of aerospace
Speaker:
00:09:38
companies. So I only want downloads and I only wanna pay to get
Speaker:
00:09:42
downloads from mid level engineering job titles at aerospace companies.
Speaker:
00:09:47
You can't do that in a normal context, but we built the
Speaker:
00:09:50
thing where you can do that. So now we can say, I only want HR
Speaker:
00:09:54
professionals who work in hiring and talent
Speaker:
00:09:58
management at SaaS companies that are in
Speaker:
00:10:01
the retail space. Like, we can do stuff like that, and we can say,
Speaker:
00:10:05
you got 500 downloads on that episode from exactly that audience.
Speaker:
00:10:09
We know it. Oh, and by the way, you got
Speaker:
00:10:12
20,000 impressions right in front of your target audience to get there,
Speaker:
00:10:16
And here's a report that shows it. Yeah. I mean, beyond just the downloads, that
Speaker:
00:10:19
brand recognition. Right? Just having that podcast artwork or, you know,
Speaker:
00:10:23
the host face in front of people, is also super powerful,
Speaker:
00:10:27
for many, many reasons. I I love the way you were describing that that, you
Speaker:
00:10:30
know, niche. It almost sounds like that line in Spaceballs. Right? Like,
Speaker:
00:10:34
you know, four I'm surrounded by asshole. Cousins, roommate. Right.
Speaker:
00:10:38
Right. Whatever the line is, which makes us what? Absolutely
Speaker:
00:10:42
nothing. So part of your
Speaker:
00:10:45
your thinking and part of your strategy is that you really
Speaker:
00:10:49
think of podcast more like a startup than as
Speaker:
00:10:52
a content venture. Where did that thought process
Speaker:
00:10:56
come from, and how do other podcasters
Speaker:
00:11:00
approach things that way? Like, what what do they have to do differently from what
Speaker:
00:11:03
you commonly see from your past clients and from people coming over to
Speaker:
00:11:07
Listen Network? Yeah. I think that, I like to
Speaker:
00:11:11
say, you know, I think a startup is or rather,
Speaker:
00:11:15
a podcast is a media startup dressed up as content.
Speaker:
00:11:19
And it has a product side,
Speaker:
00:11:23
and it has a promotion side. And if we were to start a
Speaker:
00:11:26
business at any point, if you ever been an entrepreneur, you know, sought
Speaker:
00:11:30
funding, done a thing, whatever, like it would be ludicrous
Speaker:
00:11:33
to go out and say, let's spend all our money and all our time and
Speaker:
00:11:37
energy building a product, and then let's not tell anyone about it.
Speaker:
00:11:42
Right? Or let's just post on social and magic
Speaker:
00:11:45
things will happen. Like, that doesn't happen. Yet
Speaker:
00:11:49
we do this in podcasting all the time. We're all like, oh, it's a places
Speaker:
00:11:52
too. Yeah. Right. Right. And it's wrong for any business. But,
Speaker:
00:11:57
you know, we do owned media. Yay. We have a we have a podcast.
Speaker:
00:12:01
That's the same thing as going, yay. We have a business. Okay. We didn't tell
Speaker:
00:12:04
anybody about it. Oh, let's post on social. That's shared. Fine. Awesome. Well,
Speaker:
00:12:08
it's cool. Maybe we'll get PR. That's earned. Well, okay. You
Speaker:
00:12:11
mispaid, and we should drive traffic
Speaker:
00:12:15
from day one to that thing who's exactly your target
Speaker:
00:12:19
market ICP. If you don't do that, you're
Speaker:
00:12:22
just relying on the long tail organic that you probably don't have the
Speaker:
00:12:26
infrastructure to build because you're gonna post on LinkedIn. It's like, yay.
Speaker:
00:12:30
I got seven impressions. Like like, this isn't a thing.
Speaker:
00:12:33
And why do we teach people that that's okay?
Speaker:
00:12:37
That that's a hobby that you're gonna make nothing on, and you
Speaker:
00:12:41
will never show ROI except, like, two years later?
Speaker:
00:12:45
When are you gonna go into a meeting with somebody and go, like, yeah. I
Speaker:
00:12:47
need you to pay for this thing that's gonna get, like, near zero
Speaker:
00:12:51
impact on my pipeline or in any way benefit my business.
Speaker:
00:12:56
But I'd like your money because in two years, it'll work. I mean, it's just
Speaker:
00:12:59
like, that's not gonna work in a place where people can spend their money on
Speaker:
00:13:03
other things that work faster. Yeah. And that are that are
Speaker:
00:13:06
easier to track and and have Yeah. Right. Like this is a performance
Speaker:
00:13:10
marketing world. Like budgets get spent on like
Speaker:
00:13:13
results. Now whether we can quibble all day long, like
Speaker:
00:13:17
downloads, same as impressions. Fine. I get it. Like, that doesn't
Speaker:
00:13:21
actually mean anything, but people who spend money think it does.
Speaker:
00:13:25
So So if I'm a podcaster,
Speaker:
00:13:29
right, again, this isn't for every podcast out there. Right? You're not
Speaker:
00:13:33
you know, if you're the like, I think I said in an episode recently. Right?
Speaker:
00:13:36
If you and your buddy are in your garage talking about Star Wars and
Speaker:
00:13:40
sports and and whatever, probably not gonna help you find your
Speaker:
00:13:43
audience. But, you know, let's say you are a business. You are a
Speaker:
00:13:47
brand. You are a thought leader. Right? You are someone who's trying
Speaker:
00:13:51
to engage a b to b,
Speaker:
00:13:55
model. You know? What is that like then to come and work with Listen
Speaker:
00:13:58
Network? Sure. What I would say, you can target any
Speaker:
00:14:02
audience. The question is, is that cost effective? Like, if you want a bunch of
Speaker:
00:14:05
Star Wars nerds, fine. I don't know how they're ever gonna spend money for you,
Speaker:
00:14:09
but you do get that vanity metric. Like, I can target anything you
Speaker:
00:14:12
want. Right? So our objective was to say, well, the
Speaker:
00:14:16
weird thing is that, know, sort of downloads happen, you don't know who they are.
Speaker:
00:14:20
Why? Because podcasts are RSS and there's no data payload
Speaker:
00:14:23
and Spotify and Apple just wanna hold all your data hostage because they
Speaker:
00:14:27
don't want you to get out of the wall of garden. So you're screwed. You
Speaker:
00:14:30
can't show anything. I mean, there's a little bit, but, you know, it's like rough
Speaker:
00:14:34
demographics from part of your audience, whatever it is. But what if
Speaker:
00:14:38
who does have all the information? Podcast or rather
Speaker:
00:14:42
ad networks have all the information. They know everything about everybody. What was
Speaker:
00:14:46
missing was a piece to say that download came from that ad. And
Speaker:
00:14:50
so we built the connective tissue on that, that middleware
Speaker:
00:14:54
that we can track both sides of that. So now we can say that download
Speaker:
00:14:57
came from that ad, and here's the person who clicked on that
Speaker:
00:15:00
ad and all their demographics. Not one to one attribution. That's
Speaker:
00:15:04
creepy. Nobody does that. But you can say
Speaker:
00:15:08
very detailed things about them in a b two b
Speaker:
00:15:12
context. Obviously, that's really valuable because you can say it's exactly my target market and
Speaker:
00:15:15
I know who they are. In a regular market or b
Speaker:
00:15:19
two c, you might say, well, I want women, you know, age 45 to
Speaker:
00:15:23
60, and they're interested in wellness products or, you know, things you can do stuff
Speaker:
00:15:27
like that too, intent based, content based. But, anyway, when
Speaker:
00:15:30
someone comes to us, they would just say,
Speaker:
00:15:34
essentially, like, here's my podcast, and here are the
Speaker:
00:15:37
episodes that I would like to grow and promote in front of someone. It could
Speaker:
00:15:41
be all. It could be one. And then we help them build an ad plan
Speaker:
00:15:44
around exactly the target market, and then we report to it
Speaker:
00:15:48
after. And we say, you know, here's a report branded as you. You
Speaker:
00:15:52
can show it to sponsors. You can use it in your pitch kit. You could
Speaker:
00:15:54
use it in your budget meeting, whatever it is. But this is exactly what happened,
Speaker:
00:15:58
and you're gonna see a massive spike on that episode.
Speaker:
00:16:03
So it really is about individual episodes, right, pushing that in
Speaker:
00:16:07
front of the correct audience. We've
Speaker:
00:16:11
talked to a couple of different folks who offer similar services.
Speaker:
00:16:16
And when you really get down to the the fine details of it,
Speaker:
00:16:19
you know, one of the things that comes up is that I see a
Speaker:
00:16:23
spike when I run the promotion, but then this doesn't become
Speaker:
00:16:27
a sustainable audience. Is that something that you see, or is
Speaker:
00:16:30
that not something necessarily that you're thinking about? Or or how did you guys
Speaker:
00:16:34
differentiate yourselves from some of these more fly by night
Speaker:
00:16:38
promotion sites that, you know, seem to be able to say, yeah. We'll
Speaker:
00:16:42
grow a show, but it doesn't really do anything. It doesn't actually convert
Speaker:
00:16:45
or become ROI. Right. Right. And that is
Speaker:
00:16:49
the definition of ROI sort of I made a sale. And
Speaker:
00:16:53
and I, you know, I completely agree with that. And that's that's the
Speaker:
00:16:56
argument of, like, well, what about retention? And the reality of
Speaker:
00:17:00
paid media in any context is when I run a paid
Speaker:
00:17:04
media campaign, I get some action. When
Speaker:
00:17:08
I stop doing it, I stop getting some action.
Speaker:
00:17:11
Some of those will retain because they're interested. Is your content good? Do people
Speaker:
00:17:15
actually want to consume this thing again? Where we
Speaker:
00:17:19
can work on retention is if you run multiple episodes, we can
Speaker:
00:17:22
retarget those people. Hey. They downloaded episode one. Let's retarget
Speaker:
00:17:26
episode two to them. That's a retention mechanism. We
Speaker:
00:17:30
also try to drive as many clicks as we can
Speaker:
00:17:33
through a pop up mechanism after the download to Apple,
Speaker:
00:17:37
Spotify. Like, maybe those people follow. Unfortunately, those
Speaker:
00:17:41
platforms won't let attribution tracking happen. Right? So all I can
Speaker:
00:17:44
tell you is a click went to that thing because of us. I don't know
Speaker:
00:17:48
what they did, you know, after that. And I think a lot of providers,
Speaker:
00:17:51
you know, kind of in our space or maybe not just transparent, they're
Speaker:
00:17:55
like, that's not how it works and no one can do that. They're gonna try
Speaker:
00:17:59
to argue to you. Like we're trying to be the most white hat sort of
Speaker:
00:18:02
provider. Like, these are the limitations of the world that we
Speaker:
00:18:06
live in. And, yeah, we're gonna try to
Speaker:
00:18:10
do whatever we can to drive retention. I would argue that
Speaker:
00:18:14
retention on a show is based on the quality of content, is
Speaker:
00:18:17
based on being in front of people over and over and over again. Like, you
Speaker:
00:18:21
you have to at least try to do that thing. What's the
Speaker:
00:18:24
retention on posting a bunch of stuff on social? Like,
Speaker:
00:18:28
nobody knows nobody knows the answer to this. They just wanna
Speaker:
00:18:32
argue against why you shouldn't do paid. So,
Speaker:
00:18:36
like, you know, it's like, cool. Like, don't do it. Fine. From the
Speaker:
00:18:39
agency perspective, agencies can make more money
Speaker:
00:18:43
doing promotion than production. The cost of production is
Speaker:
00:18:47
going to zero. Like, there is no margin there. It will die. If
Speaker:
00:18:51
your entire business is based on just selling marked up production,
Speaker:
00:18:55
you are in a race to the bottom. If you add in this,
Speaker:
00:18:58
you are now offering a full service thing and you make more
Speaker:
00:19:02
money and you retain clients. We ran this internally at our own
Speaker:
00:19:06
agency until we spun it out. 40% better retention.
Speaker:
00:19:10
Wow. So so you are not only engaged with
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00:19:14
individual podcasts, but you are engaged with production houses,
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00:19:17
agencies, right, folks who manage many podcasts to help
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00:19:21
them. So so with that in mind then, right,
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00:19:25
listen, we are not necessarily attracting the big boys of
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00:19:28
podcasting. Right? I doubt that, you know, someone from a
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00:19:32
huge network is sitting here listening and thinking, oh, maybe I should do that. So
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00:19:36
is your platform approachable for smaller podcasts, or is there, like, a
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00:19:40
minimum investment that they have to have in order for this to
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00:19:43
work? For a smaller podcast, you you could do it.
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00:19:47
The minimum for us is, like, 250 downloads an episode. Like, they
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00:19:51
just won't run. You can't run a campaign that runs so
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00:19:55
small that it it won't, you know, to do that. So that's
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00:19:58
that's still gonna put you in like another grand a month, let's say.
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00:20:02
Right? Like it's not a minimum because we wanna take more of
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00:20:06
your money. It's just a minimum because it it just doesn't work. Like they won't
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00:20:09
fire, you know? So you can't you can't run an ad campaign
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00:20:13
small enough to make that happen. And I would also argue like in
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00:20:17
most cases, why are you trying to buy downloads
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00:20:21
in that context unless you have a monetizing entity on the other
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00:20:24
side? Where I do see this work is say, I'm a
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00:20:28
niche podcaster. I've got
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00:20:32
500,000, 10 thousand downloads a month. Under
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00:20:35
that network threshold, but I'd like to pitch something to
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00:20:39
a sponsor because I have a dedicated audience niche.
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00:20:44
Well, now I can say to the sponsor, hey. Part of your sponsor packages, I
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00:20:47
guarantee you at least a thousand downloads per episode are going
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00:20:51
to come exactly from your target market, and I'll give you this
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00:20:55
report after the fact. That works. But
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00:20:59
don't go buying downloads thinking eventually I'm gonna be in a network
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00:21:03
because that's silly. You'd have to keep spending money. The arbitrage doesn't
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00:21:06
work. You can't buy your way into CPM
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00:21:10
advertising. You're gonna get crushed. Well, and and not only that, the
Speaker:
00:21:14
platforms are getting smarter and Sure. You know, they can recognize
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00:21:18
fake data from And and then they should. It's not in in essence, it's
Speaker:
00:21:21
not fake, but it came from this channel. I mean, you
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00:21:25
can do fake. I could show you how to do fake. We have all the
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00:21:28
same vendors as everybody else. But what we're trying to
Speaker:
00:21:32
do is be transparent of like, you could do that thing and it won't get
Speaker:
00:21:35
you to the business result that you want. So if you wanna
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00:21:39
run up the chart, we could sell you that and it's worth
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00:21:42
nothing. So if you maybe get value out of taking
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00:21:46
a screenshot of being up the chart for three days and then crash, like
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00:21:50
I, like, I don't know what business that suits, but, you know, vanity is a
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00:21:54
thing. I'll I'll sell you things to make you feel better.
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00:21:58
I wanna sell you things that make your business actually grow. Well, and
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00:22:02
you also wanna sell things that get you to tell other businesses that this is
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00:22:05
a product that worked, that was effective, that, you know, accomplished what they said they
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00:22:08
were gonna set out to accomplish, and and I saw the return. So as somebody
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00:22:12
who is offering the service and as somebody who's ran agency and sold, you know,
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00:22:16
and helped lots and lots of podcasters, What is the biggest thing
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00:22:20
that, you know, somebody comes to you wanting to do this, you take a
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00:22:23
look at your their show and you go, I I wanna help
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00:22:27
you, but this is off and, you know, let's fix this and then
Speaker:
00:22:31
we'll run the campaign. Like, what's that thing that you find most people are messing
Speaker:
00:22:35
up? It's brand polish in that case. You know, if it's too small,
Speaker:
00:22:38
like, it's just like and then a lot of times that'd be creators to say,
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00:22:41
oh, I wanna grow my show because I want to, you know,
Speaker:
00:22:45
appeal to sponsors. And and again, it goes to, like, treat it like a
Speaker:
00:22:48
business. Right? Like, what like, I get it. You might actually have really great things
Speaker:
00:22:52
to say, but no one gets to your show. And when they go to your
Speaker:
00:22:56
site, it's like a really bad video and, like, a brand that looks like
Speaker:
00:23:00
it was on Myspace in, like, 1995. And I'm
Speaker:
00:23:04
just like, clean that up. Right? Like,
Speaker:
00:23:08
it's put your Zoom shirt on and, you know, look
Speaker:
00:23:11
decent. Right? So, you know,
Speaker:
00:23:15
who's the audience. Right? Like, again, if you're like, hey, we're the
Speaker:
00:23:19
top like fanzine podcast for like Star
Speaker:
00:23:22
Trek nerds or whatever. Like, that's amazing. Like, be all be
Speaker:
00:23:26
that. Like but if you're saying I want sponsors, I want brands to
Speaker:
00:23:30
pay money to be repped by you, well, then
Speaker:
00:23:34
think about that presentation. Right? So, like, there's not
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00:23:38
we can't help you grow a show that in essence, like, doesn't look
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00:23:42
like it wants to be grown or doesn't care. Like, why
Speaker:
00:23:46
are you doing this? It always comes back to the why. Like, why do you
Speaker:
00:23:49
have this thing? Do you have it because it's fun and you like talking to
Speaker:
00:23:51
people? Hell, yeah. No one's ever gonna pay you and it's gonna come out of
Speaker:
00:23:54
your pocket, but go have fun. Skiing's expensive. People like to do that
Speaker:
00:23:58
for fun. But this like, is it a business or is it
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00:24:02
not? And that's the first question that I would ask. I don't
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00:24:05
wanna sell people things that are just like a pipe dream. Like, that's
Speaker:
00:24:09
insane. You know? So I'll be the first one to get on the call and
Speaker:
00:24:12
be like, this is not for you. And, you know, if you're serious
Speaker:
00:24:16
about being in the other club, there are a million coaches and consultants. I'll
Speaker:
00:24:20
introduce you to one. That's not my jam. Once you're ready to make
Speaker:
00:24:24
some revenue and you wanna think about how to actually have a business motion behind
Speaker:
00:24:27
this, cool. We might be able to help you.
Speaker:
00:24:31
Love it. And and, really, I love the
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00:24:35
you know, the thing you said earlier on was
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00:24:39
why. And, right, that's something that we just stress all the time. If you don't
Speaker:
00:24:42
know why you're doing this, and more importantly, you don't
Speaker:
00:24:46
know why your audience should care, You've
Speaker:
00:24:50
probably lost the battle before it even started. Yeah. Like, that's
Speaker:
00:24:53
that's absolutely right. Like, there should be a reason that you spend hours
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00:24:57
and hours and hours in front of a microphone and trying to get people to
Speaker:
00:25:01
talk to you and editing and posting on social or whatever
Speaker:
00:25:05
things you're doing. Like, why are you doing that?
Speaker:
00:25:08
And what do you expect to happen at the end? And you
Speaker:
00:25:12
see this a lot in, like, entrepreneurship. Right? Like, people start businesses with, like, no
Speaker:
00:25:16
point except I think it's a cool idea. Like, alright.
Speaker:
00:25:20
Like, again, that's hobby. But do it because you think it's fun.
Speaker:
00:25:24
I don't care. Build your little thing and build a an app.
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00:25:27
Build a website. Just, like, do what you like and have an audience of
Speaker:
00:25:31
one and and be stoked with that. But when you're asking people
Speaker:
00:25:35
for money, like, have a reason. Love
Speaker:
00:25:39
that. Once again, we are chatting with Ledge. If you're looking for him on
Speaker:
00:25:42
LinkedIn, David Ledgerwood is the full name, but he is the,
Speaker:
00:25:47
cofounder and revenue lead at Listen Network. Again, you can learn more about
Speaker:
00:25:51
them at listennetwork.co. Ledge, of course,
Speaker:
00:25:54
as someone who listens, you know, we're not gonna let you go without asking you
Speaker:
00:25:57
our great three questions about podcasting. So, I'm sure we
Speaker:
00:26:01
could do a full episode on this first one, but, you know, give me one
Speaker:
00:26:05
or two. Where are some places you'd love to see some real improvement in podcasting?
Speaker:
00:26:09
Again, from the production, distribution, even the listening side. Right? Like,
Speaker:
00:26:13
where is something that you're god. Wish we could fix this today.
Speaker:
00:26:17
Yeah. Definitely the conversion path. Like, why why is I mean, I get
Speaker:
00:26:21
why it's so hard. It's RSS. Like, it's just designed to be open. But, I
Speaker:
00:26:24
mean, I wanna connect with my audience. Like, why is this
Speaker:
00:26:28
so freaking cool? Like, if people
Speaker:
00:26:32
wanna if people wanna sign up and be, you know, like, get on my email
Speaker:
00:26:35
list, I gotta drive them through all kinds of crap. Like, why can't there
Speaker:
00:26:39
be some kind of, like, automated conversion path where it's like, write
Speaker:
00:26:43
an app. Hey. Put your email in. I'll send you my wrap up. I'll send
Speaker:
00:26:46
you my extra stuff. Like, it's always about conversion. Like, people people
Speaker:
00:26:50
are doing this for a reason. And I wish that
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00:26:54
there was a more tightly integrated path to develop an
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00:26:58
audience on different channels. I'm gonna ask you a follow-up there that I don't
Speaker:
00:27:02
ask a lot of people, but do you think that RSS
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00:27:05
is here to stay for the long term, or do you think that
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00:27:09
we are coming up on maybe a transition and a
Speaker:
00:27:13
change for this type this type of content?
Speaker:
00:27:18
I understand that there's a thing called podcast two point o, and
Speaker:
00:27:21
they're trying to add a lot more functionality to, you know,
Speaker:
00:27:25
RSS, start treating. I I love the open feed thing. I think it
Speaker:
00:27:29
should stay open. That's that's really cool. Like like it's like email.
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00:27:32
Right? Like, choose your client. It doesn't matter. Let
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00:27:36
people do that. There's a lot of movement for open
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00:27:39
social media, and maybe that'll take off. Like, closed gardens are bad for everybody.
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00:27:45
That said, you know, it's impossible to
Speaker:
00:27:48
ignore the video and, you know, the YouTube approach and the Spotify
Speaker:
00:27:52
video approach. Like, they're all going different directions. So what you're seeing
Speaker:
00:27:56
is, like, the big dogs try to prove that I'm the better way to
Speaker:
00:28:00
do that thing. Therefore, stop doing the thing that
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00:28:03
actually made this medium cool in the first place. So
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00:28:07
will it go that direction? I mean, maybe. Did the
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00:28:11
world maybe learn some lessons from allowing all
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00:28:15
content and social media to be behind a walled garden?
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00:28:18
Hopefully. Like, podcasting, podcasters and the
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00:28:21
podcast industry in general is it seems to be dedicated to openness.
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00:28:26
But I'll also tell you that if you go talk to anybody in a younger
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00:28:29
generation, what's a podcast? They go, oh, it's that thing on on YouTube
Speaker:
00:28:33
where people sit and talk. Right? So
Speaker:
00:28:37
could we evangelize differently? I I don't know. I mean, I would I would
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00:28:41
lament that. I think a lot of, like, purists and, you know, old school people
Speaker:
00:28:44
in podcasting would cry, but it's also pretty
Speaker:
00:28:48
cool. And who knows what's gonna happen? I just I would hate to
Speaker:
00:28:52
see it devolve to, you know, the battle of the walled gardens
Speaker:
00:28:55
because distribution's a freaking nightmare then. Now it just takes,
Speaker:
00:28:59
like, an hour to push all your thing, like, individually
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00:29:03
to every different protocol, and it just becomes a mess. But, of course,
Speaker:
00:29:06
that's what those major corporate entities want you to do. Like
Speaker:
00:29:10
Right. So you want the biggest garden. Yeah. Alright. What about is
Speaker:
00:29:14
there any tech on your wish list? Whether it's something that is out there that
Speaker:
00:29:18
you just haven't purchased or something that you're waiting for someone to come up
Speaker:
00:29:22
with to make podcasting easier for you or or your clients.
Speaker:
00:29:27
So I've had I've had a Stream Deck in my drawer,
Speaker:
00:29:31
like, waiting to be plugged in for, like, two years and never even played with
Speaker:
00:29:35
the thing. It's like that looks really interesting. And I think there's a lot of
Speaker:
00:29:38
cool opportunities to introduce better better,
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00:29:42
visual, you know, representations and, you know, other stuff
Speaker:
00:29:45
into the video side. So I have that
Speaker:
00:29:49
tech. I it's in the drawer, and I should try to use it. I
Speaker:
00:29:53
also am very interested in I forget who makes this thing,
Speaker:
00:29:57
but the, because solo episodes are becoming so big and I'm trying to to
Speaker:
00:30:01
do more of that. I love those
Speaker:
00:30:04
teleprompters with, like, the camera in bed type of deal on it. Like, that that
Speaker:
00:30:08
looks super cool. Like, you can give eye contact and still read and not look
Speaker:
00:30:12
weird. But, again, that's that's a a
Speaker:
00:30:15
video driven entity. So, potentially,
Speaker:
00:30:19
evolution where more integrated audio
Speaker:
00:30:23
content would be, you know, really cool. And, again, that goes back to the first
Speaker:
00:30:26
question. It was like, well, I wanna do, like, a full cycle relationship
Speaker:
00:30:30
management through audio. Somebody should invent
Speaker:
00:30:34
things that make that work where interactive audio is actually a thing,
Speaker:
00:30:38
and it doesn't depend on, you know, one universe or the other.
Speaker:
00:30:42
The, Elgato teleprompter is, one of the ones that
Speaker:
00:30:46
just came out recently that does a a nice job with it. However, I will
Speaker:
00:30:50
tell you it works best with either their camera
Speaker:
00:30:53
or, you know, a mirrorless camera with, like, a full lens on
Speaker:
00:30:57
it. I tried running it on I have a Logitech BRIO, and,
Speaker:
00:31:00
actually, I haven't tried it on my iPhone using continuity cam, and it
Speaker:
00:31:04
just it wasn't flush enough so that it gave off, like, a weird brightness to
Speaker:
00:31:07
it. But, yeah, that ability to have the teleprompter and better yet, the
Speaker:
00:31:11
ability to make eye contact was very nice. It's also just
Speaker:
00:31:15
huge, and it was taking up, like, half of my screens. I couldn't see around,
Speaker:
00:31:18
and it was a pain in the butt to, like, take that. That's actually so
Speaker:
00:31:21
I have a I have a 55 inch TV as my
Speaker:
00:31:25
my monitor, and there's always, well, there's always a
Speaker:
00:31:28
camera in my face blocking whatever thing I'm trying to do.
Speaker:
00:31:32
So I guess my real wish list would be, like, a massive ass
Speaker:
00:31:35
television that would have a a hidden camera, like, you know,
Speaker:
00:31:39
sort of view through, like, right in the middle with, like, no cutout.
Speaker:
00:31:43
So I was just talking into this screen that had a camera
Speaker:
00:31:46
inside it. That would be that would be my favorite. Like, I love working
Speaker:
00:31:50
with an absolutely giant screen. So I love that
Speaker:
00:31:54
idea. I'm gonna look into that. Alright. I guess we'll we'll have
Speaker:
00:31:58
to, you know, create another startup together and go on that entrepreneurial
Speaker:
00:32:01
journey. And, also, what's your favorite podcast that you're listening to?
Speaker:
00:32:05
Any any of that, like, you're not gonna let them go by without getting the
Speaker:
00:32:08
latest episode or you'll drop what you're doing to to check them out? There
Speaker:
00:32:12
is. I'm a big personal finance nerd, and I love, Ramit
Speaker:
00:32:16
Sethi money for couples. So he coaches he
Speaker:
00:32:19
coaches couples on the show about their, you know,
Speaker:
00:32:23
personal finance, and he's, of course, he's got a whole model. And and I as
Speaker:
00:32:26
a business guy, just like, I love this dude's funnel because, I mean, he hits
Speaker:
00:32:30
you at every place. Like, you you are on the emails. You're on the like,
Speaker:
00:32:34
he just is a monster of content. But it's really actually really good
Speaker:
00:32:38
advice, psychology of money essentially and and how, you know, you
Speaker:
00:32:41
can you can manage that stuff. I'm a former financial planner, and
Speaker:
00:32:45
that's always been, like, really valuable to me to have money systems. So,
Speaker:
00:32:49
yep, check it out. I I I think I could talk to you for,
Speaker:
00:32:53
like, three more hours and just go on random tangents all over the place,
Speaker:
00:32:56
but, we'll spare the audience and everybody else and let you get back to your
Speaker:
00:33:00
day. We've been chatting with Lej, also David Ledgerwood.
Speaker:
00:33:04
He's the cofounder revenue lead at Listen Network. That's
Speaker:
00:33:07
listennetwork.co. You can find a link obviously in the show notes. We'll also
Speaker:
00:33:11
put a link to David's LinkedIn so you can see some of the great stuff
Speaker:
00:33:13
that he is posting online. It has been a pleasure, sir, and I hope we
Speaker:
00:33:17
get to do this again. Thanks for coming on. Absolutely. Thanks, Matthew.
