How To Build Strong Client Relationships

Reading Time: 26 minutes

When you’re starting out, it can be hard to get clients. It’s even harder to keep them happy and coming back for more of your services. The most successful businesses work on fostering client relationships.

But how do you build these types of relationships? How can you make sure they grow over time? And what are the best ways to leverage them in order to grow your podcasting business?

Our next episode of Partnership Unpacked features Rob Walch, VP of Podcaster Relations at Libsyn. He’ll be sharing insights into how he works with and manages relationships with his successful podcast clients. You’ll learn about the different benefits that come from having a good working relationship with your clients, as well as some tips for ensuring this partnership remains beneficial over time, no matter what your business or industry.

A typical business hears from just 4% of its dissatisfied customers. We all know that learning from our mistakes and failures are how we grow and achieve long term success, but if most of our failed customer instances never see the light of day, how do we learn from them?

One more statistic for you to consider: 81% of companies with strong client relations outperform the competition. This may seem obvious, but when we consider what we covered in the first episode, this becomes more helpful. We talked with Dr. Mark Brigman about how true partnerships and relationships are not transactional in nature which means that just because a client has purchased from us, that doesn’t mean there’s a real relationship there. Therefore, when we say that a company is focused on client relations and making an effort to strengthen them, that means something more than just sales or customer service.

But how do you build these types of relationships? How can you make sure they grow over time? And what are the best ways to leverage them in order to grow your business?

Welcome to Partnership Unpacked, where I selfishly use this time to pick the brains of experts at strategic partnerships, channel programs, affiliates, influencer marketing, and relationship building… oh, and you get to learn too!

I’m Mike Allton, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Agorapulse, and in today’s episode, we’re digging into client relationships and how brands can successfully nurture partnerships with paying customers. The kind of partnerships that will result in not only long term retention, but also incredibly valuable and rewarding feedback. And I’ve got the perfect guest today to help us break this down.

I’m here today with the accomplished Rob Walch. Rob is the Vice President of Podcaster Relations for Libsyn and was inducted into the Podcasting Hall of Fame in 2016. Prior to joining Libsyn in 2007, he was President and founder of podCast411. Rob is Co-Author of the book “Tricks of the Podcasting Masters”, an editors pick as a Top 10 Reference book for 2006 by Amazon.

Rob has consulted on podcasting for eBay, Jack Welch, Tim Ferriss, Senator Edwards, Governor Bill Richardson, Dr. Mark Hyman, and the Sacramento Kings to name just a few. He is also on the editorial board and a columnist for the Podcast Business Journal.

Please welcome Rob Walch to Partnership Unpacked!

Rob is going to help us with:

1. What does client relationships really mean?
2. How can businesses and partnership managers get started with client relationships?
3. What tools or platforms are there, or that you’ve used, to help you manage client relationships?
4. How has Libsyn approached brand partnerships?
5. How are brand partnerships and client relationships alike or dissimilar?
6. How can brands approach client relationships with recognizable brands and celebrities?
7. What mistakes or tactics should brands try to avoid when it comes to client relationships and partnerships?

Learn more about Rob Walch

Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode

Full Transcript of this episode of Partnership Unpacked

[00:00:00] Mike Allton: A typical business hears from just 4% of its dissatisfied customers. We all know that learning from our mistakes and failures are how we grow and how we achieve long-term success. But if most of our failed customer instances never see the light of day, how do we learn from ’em? One more statistic for you to consider.

81% of companies with strong client relations outperform the competition. And this may seem obvious, but when we consider what we covered in the first episode, this becomes more helpful. We talked with Dr. Mark Brigman about how true partnerships and relationships are not transactional nature, which means that just because a client is purchased from us doesn’t mean there’s a real relationship there.

Therefore, when we say that a company is focused on client relations and making an effort to strengthen them, that means something more than just sales or customer service. But how do you build these kinds of relationships? How can you make sure that they grow over time? And what are the best ways to leverage them in order to grow your business?

Welcome to Partnership Unpacked, where I selfishly use this time to pick the brains of experts at strategic partnerships, channel programs, affiliates, influencer marketing, and relationship building. Oh, and you get to learn too. We’re live Tuesdays on LinkedIn, so make sure you follow me so you won’t miss any of these terrific interviews and over the coming weeks, I’ll be talking to folks from monday.com and Ecamm, and make sure you check out that first interview with Mark Brigman from Partnernomics.

I’m Mike Alton, head of Strategic Partnerships at Gore Pulse. And in today’s episode, we’re digging into client relationships and how brands can successfully nurture partnerships with paying customers. The kind of partnerships that’ll result in not only long-term retention, but also incredibly valuable and rewarding feedback, and I’ve got the perfect guest today.

To help us break this down, but first, let me give a quick shoutout to some terrific folks. I see tuning in live. There’s Wes Wyatt. Yes, definitely Wes. I had a Dyna Dynamite. Can’t even say that. Labor Day weekend. I hope you did too. And I am here today with the accomplished Rob Walch. Lemme get him on screen here.

There’s Rob. He is the Vice President of Podcast Relations for Libsyn, and it was introduced into the podcasting Hall of Fame in 2016 and prior to joining Libsyn in 2007, he was the president and founder of Podcast four 11. Rob is co-author of the book, tricks of the Podcasting Masters and Editors Pick as a Top 10 in reference book.

2006 by Amazon. Rob’s consulted on podcasting for eBay. Jack Welch, Tim Ferris, Senator Edwards Governor Bill Richardson, Dr. Mike Hyman and the Sacramento Kings, just to name a few. And he’s also on the editorial board and a columnist for the Podcast Business Journal. Please welcome Rob Welch to partnership unpacked.

How you doing, Rob?

[00:03:14] Rob Walch: Great, Mike, thanks for having me on the show. [00:03:16] Mike Allton: Absolutely. It’s so good to have you and I’d love it if you told the folks a little bit more about your background and specifically what you do at Libsyn. [00:03:23] Rob Walch: Well, as you covered quite a bit of my background, , but I’ve been podcasting almost 17 years now.

I started back in 2004 and I’ve launched many podcasts. But at Libsyn my my day job, one of my biggest. Parts of my day job is working with our pro customers, and that means I get to work with a lot of enterprise customers, and that includes Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Deloitte, pwc, union. There’s many, many Fortune 500, fortune 100 companies that I get to work with, and it’s.

Great talking with them, seeing what they’re doing with podcasting and, and how they’re using it, and not using it to be a sales platform, you know, where they’re pitching, but rather a way to connect and educate and stay connected with their potential customers.

[00:04:10] Mike Allton: Awesome. That’s gonna fit perfectly into everything we’re gonna cover today.

So let’s talk client relations. Rob, what does that really mean to you and how exactly do you work with Libsyn’s podcasters?

What does client relationships really mean?

[00:04:21] Rob Walch: Well, my title is great Cuz, VP of podcast Relations, that my job is to. Really just communicate, work with, talk with, help advise other podcasters, and believe it or not, I’m an old school guy.

People ask, what tools do I use? I use email and phone and go to meeting, but I like to have calls. I like to send out personal emails, not through email blasts, and I don’t. Use any email tools for mass emails. I do a lot of one-to-one podcast emails out to the Libsyn Pro customers. When I have to do it, maybe sometimes I’ll do some copy and paste into a bcc, but most of the time it’s one-to-one.

And in this day and age, I think that stands out. That helps because there’s so many times you’ve seen where you get an email and it’s hi. Right and, and how far do you read after that? Com? If there’s no space between the I and the comma, it turns you off. So I’ve looked at it, you know, the best way to. Be efficient at my job is sometimes to do things inefficiently.

[00:05:28] Mike Allton: That’s a really good point cuz you’re, you’re talking about personalization? Mm-hmm. and I know a lot of other brands and tools, they’ll talk about personalization at scale, but you’re not scaling it. You’re just continuing to drive forward at that personalization level. I’ve done a lot of the same thing when it comes to social media engagement.

People have often, To me that they’ve been surprised that they’ll always get a reply from me. You know, when they post or they tag me or they mention me or they ask a question, I’m always responding. Cause that’s something I think is very important. So it’s really cool to see you’re kind of on that same page, that same wavelength.

But now I’m wondering for businesses who maybe they haven’t considered developing these kinds of relationships with their clients before, how would you recommend that they actually get started?

How can businesses and partnership managers get started with client relationships?

[00:06:11] Rob Walch: With the next customer that comes along asking a question. I mean, it’s really just, just to start doing it an answering those emails, you know, try to clear out your emails if you can.

Each day go through, stay on them. It’s a tough thing to do, but the benefit to pay off for it is huge. When they feel and know they’re getting a personal touch, that’s what they’re paying for. A lot of times, customers, they’re not paying for your. Your service cuz they probably, the underwriting part of your service, they probably can find that elsewhere.

The reason they picked you over your client or your customer or your competitors, sorry, is that you’re doing something that they felt was a little bit different and, and if that difference is a human touch in this day and age, that’s a big deal. I know I personally. Respond that way. When I, when I have different vendors I work with the ones that do the personal touch, I’m willing to pay more for knowing that I’ve, I, something comes up, something, there’s an issue, there’s a go-to person that I, I can get to at the other end.

[00:07:09] Mike Allton: Yeah, that’s an, that’s another excellent point, and again, to just tie it back to my world of social media. We’ve seen the same thing when as a brand, we’re replying to a customer online in a tweet or something like that. You have to reply as the brand. We reply, you know, from at Agorapulse or something like that.

But we make it a practice to sign off at the end of the tweet. With the individual’s name, right? Like hyphen Mike, hyphen Deb, whoever’s responding to that person, they know that there is a human, a person. Mm-hmm. on the other end of that tweet and helps create that, that personal connection and help build that rapport.

Like you mentioned. I know you work with over 75,000 podcast producers Yes. On obviously the world’s largest podcasting network. And I know you, you kind of said you don’t really use a lot of. But I’m gonna push on that a little bit cuz there’s gotta be something that you use to help you manage all those people.

How do you know who you’re gonna reach out to next with any platforms you use?

What tools or platforms are there, or that you’ve used, to help you manage client relationships?

[00:08:04] Rob Walch: Yeah, and when we have 75,000, I’m not the only one working on this. You know, we do have, I don’t handle the social, so like lc Escobar handles our social and she’s out there communicating in social. I’ll chime in social. I, I’m more of a voyeur on our social and every now and then I’ll see something that’s really interesting and I’ll jump in.

But I know Elsie’s. For the most part, you know, she’ll email me if there’s a question that comes up that needs, you know, she’ll say, Hey, this one needs some more personalized touch. And I’ll go out and I’ll reach behind the scenes to people. I’ll say, oh, I saw that you are on Twitter. You had this question, and this is better answered in via email or a phone call.

Because sometimes, you know, it’s a hard to answer stuff in 280 characters, right? Sometimes you can’t even get started on the answer . We have to almost, that’s just your recap of your understanding of what their question was. So I don’t like those Twitter strings where it’s like one of 10, 1 2 of 10, three of 10, four of 10, because people only see the seven of 10 and take it outta context.

But you know, and then our marketing team, On the Libsyn.com side does use some more bulk tools to reach out and send out newsletters and people can opt in. But on on the Libsyn Pro side. I don’t do that. On the Libsyn Pro side, we have less customers where it’s not as many, you know, it’s multiple hundreds of customers versus multiple, you know, tens of thousands of customers.

So on the Libsyn Pro side where they’re getting a little bit different service, more of a white glove concierge service, we treat them with a white glove and more of a concierge feel. So you have to look, we do have two different offerings out there. So if you are someone. Needs phone support needs your handheld wants to be walked through.

We have the Lips and Pro for that. Libsyn.com is more your diy. Do it yourself. If you know what you’re doing, email support’s fine. But if you need that phone support, we have lips and pro man. If you have lawyers that wanna look at our terms of service, we have lips and pro . Yeah, so you know, it’s like joke with customers.

I go, if the word lawyer comes up anywhere, you’re probably suited for a lip.

[00:10:07] Mike Allton: Yeah, that’s a good rule to . Now, if you’re just tuning in, we’re talking about development of client relationships and strategic partnerships, and I’m talking to Rob Walch, VP of Podcaster relations for Libsyn. And shifting gears for a moment, I know you’ve also helped, you mentioned the strategic building, strategic and navigating strategic partnerships with other brands like Apple and Microsoft.

What were those partnerships like?

How has Libsyn approached brand partnerships?

[00:10:30] Rob Walch: They take time. Some of those, some of them back in the day involved going out to Redmond and meeting with the team and, and things like that. So there was in-person visits. Now those are being replaced obviously by Zoom and Skype or Go to meeting, or was it Microsoft Office or to me, yeah.

Meeting place. So there’s a lot of different tools that you can use on the video side to help that connection because we can’t get out there anymore to meet with folks. But some of. , it’s a lot of, you’re gonna have, when I launch with a big Fortune 500 company and they’re moving over their podcast, I may have four or five calls a week with one of those clients.

Just going over all the little details. Hey, your artwork’s not right Little, just every little minutiae detail they can think of that you’re gonna have to answer and educate them and bring them up to speed as they launch into the podcast space. And it’s always remembering that what I do for my day job all the time, They are most likely just doing once ever, you know, they’re launching a show, maybe they may launch two podcasts ever in their life.

Whereas I’m gonna help 10 people launch in a day or more than that in a, in a week for sure. So always keeping in mind. Where my customers are, what their level of understanding of, of your product is, and not assuming they know everything, you know, not being afraid sometimes to dummy it down is as basic as I can possibly make it.

[00:11:54] Mike Allton: Yeah, that’s a really good point. Trying to always keep your client’s worldview in place and, and realizing that they don’t know what they don’t know. In fact, you reminded me, Libsyn shared on LinkedIn. It’s been a few weeks now. Uh, statistic that they said, they mentioned your names. I don’t know if you ran the report or, or where it came from, but it was talking about the popularity of podcasts.

Mm-hmm. and talking about how podcasts with more than, I think, a hundred downloads per episode. We’re in like the upper echelon in terms of. Of popularity, which was kind of a mind-blowing statistic to me cuz I mentioned in the Green Room, I had launched a podcast of my own, it’s been almost a year and I did like 18 episodes and I felt like it was a lot of work.

Mm-hmm. and I felt like, I wasn’t really getting a lot of listenership and viewership, so I wasn’t really feeling like I was getting much out of it. So I kind of put on hiatus and worked on some other projects. And now looking back, you know, my last few episodes were getting 130, 150 downloads per episode.

[00:12:53] Rob Walch: That that puts you in the top 50%, one 30 is, [00:12:56] Mike Allton: and that put me in the top 50% , which I had no idea . [00:13:00] Rob Walch: Yeah. I. That’s one of the biggest things is setting expectations in the podcast world, cuz I’ll deal with people that are, are working in social media, and here’s a perfect example. We have a major golf manufacturer we do the podcast for.

They have over 6 million followers on Facebook and their podcast podcasts don’t get the same number of. No podcast has 6 million listeners, right? Joe Rogan’s the biggest and he was a two and a half, 3 million. But they don’t know this. People don’t know that. They just hear these crazy numbers and this golfer manufacturer was getting 50,000.

Views per episode. And they said, Hey, what are we doing wrong, , we’ve got, we’ve got, you know, 6 million followers on Facebook, we’re getting 50,000 listens. And I said, you’re not doing anything wrong. That’s in the top 1%. I go, well, into the top 1% and 33,000. Get you in the top 1%. I go, you are doing great. I mean, phenomenal.

And they. They didn’t have this measuring stick. They were so used to social media, and so you have to set that expectation up. We had another person who had 18.9 million subscribers on YouTube, 60 million social media followers on all the different platforms and 43,000 podcast listeners. And I have to give that as an example to folks and say, Hey, you know, keep this in mind.

And then I say, for business podcasts, I have to tell them. You’re gonna be lucky for B2B podcasts to ever get over a thousand. And if you get to a thousand, that’s in the top 20%. But think of it like this. If you had 500 people listening per episode, when was the last time you went out and spoke in a conference and you had five hundred people in the room?

Right? 200 people in a room. It’s a big room at most conferences. 500 usually is the keynote. So if you had 500 show up to a speech, how much money? If I said to you, Hey, you can go to the live at this conference and you’re gonna have 500 people show up, how much would your company be willing to pay for your airfare, your hotels, all this right?

Now? Think about this. You’re doing that every week, week after week after week. Now, podcasting 500 listeners seems like a really good deal. And when you explain it to them and they understand that, they’re like, well, It’s not about big number, it’s about the right number. And podcast listeners are the right number wherever they are cuz they’re interested in your content.

It’s very niche, specific, medium. And once they get that, the ones that get that, they stay podcasting with 200 and 300 happily thinking they’re doing great and they are. If you’re doing a podcast on fossil fuel, some sort of, uh, we’ve got like energy and resource from one of the major companies and they, and they have some strange ones.

Oh, what was one? Oh, hydro Pump was a podcast about pumps, literally about hydro pumps. You know, how niche can you get? Well, pretty darn niche.

[00:15:52] Mike Allton: Yeah, that is such good advice for any business, not just obviously those in, in the podcast world. Because again, like I said, I’m, I’m coming from that perspective as a podcast once in a while, producer and, and wondering if I’m, if I’m doing it right, if this is a good use of my time, you know?

But the point of, of this particular interview is to pull out the insight that you just shared with everybody, which is that as a business, Owner providing a service. It’s incumbent on us to help our customers set their own expectations and understand where they’re achieving success. And as Joey Porter, a keynote speaker, social media marketing World, once shared, identifying those moments of success and being there to celebrate with them is another key aspect.

So I love that you went that way. And I’m wonder. Because we were talking about brand partnerships and we’ve been talking about, you know, client relationships. What would you say are kind of the same in terms of dealing with other brands, dealing with clients, and what might be totally different in those two respects in a brand partnership?

How are brand partnerships and client relationships alike or dissimilar?

[00:16:51] Rob Walch: What I found is what that really means is they want you to provide the tools to promote their brand , right? So yes, it’s a partnership as long as their brand remains number one, and you stay behind the scenes and um, we’re fine with that. We’re okay and we design our tools for that. For client relationships.

I look at it a little different in that they just want you to help them, bring in customers for them and get them out everywhere. They want you to do whatever you can to help promote them and, and do that with the brands. They just want the tools to do it is the way I look at the two difference. And we work with some big brands.

I mean, we’ve worked. With John Deere, trader Joe’s and folks like that. So some of the biggest brands out there, obviously Google and Microsoft. So I think on the brand side, you know, they really just want us to provide the best tools, the advice, but then really to, to make sure we stay in the background.

But clients, I think that the way I look at it, especially when I’m helping some, I do some clients on the side, they just want to get it out there and they want you to help them do whatever it takes to, to promote it. And that can be co-promoting and, and things like that. You know, they’re fine with us.

Promoting them on our site, things like that, where the brands are like, no, no, no. Don’t even put us on your site. Don’t mention us there. We’ve got lawyers. You can’t do that. You know, I’ve had one of the big brands say, Hey, you need to take down the logo from your, your list of customers. I’m like, well, the host said he wanted it promoted.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. The host doesn’t have the right to say that, which is what I found. I’m like, okay, fine. You know, we’ll take that down. I’ve got five other people that want that slot on our website. I’ll give it to them. So the brand’s very lawyered up. .

[00:18:35] Mike Allton: Yeah. Yeah. Well you mentioned some name brands, but I know you’ve also worked with some clients, some specific individuals who’ve established, you know, what I would call mainstream success and notoriety like, like a Dave Ramsey.

And I’m curious how the approach there may have differed in terms of like recruiting them. Cuz I know we’ve had similar experiences at Gore Pulse where we’ll talk to a major social media influencer, like a guy Kawasaki about coming on the platform and he’s got, you know, millions of followers that we’ve gotta navigate.

How has that worked for client relationships.

How can brands approach client relationships with recognizable brands and celebrities?

[00:19:03] Rob Walch: Well, you know, Ramsey’s team, that relationship started, actually met one of the people from their team at a conference many years ago and the conference was about an hour and a half away from the airport. And I happened to be, have a rental car and I said, Hey, do you need a ride to the airport?

And gave him a ride and got a good conversation with him and built the relationship from that ride in helping him out, getting back to the airport. Cause he had a, he was in. Fit to meet there, but ultimately it’s come just for Dave’s team answering their questions, being willing to go down there. I moved to Nashville.

It’s like , you know, they’re, they’re, I literally moved 10, 15 minutes from their office, but I would come out here once a year and meet with their team, go over the podcasting space, give them a very personalized meeting. Walk in with uh, five daughters Donuts. If anyone’s from Nashville, they know what that means.

Not just the Krispy Kreme, you go to the best donut place, right , just to the little sales things you do, but meeting their team and then answering their emails, and that means in the middle of the night or the weekend, answering those emails and helping them out and and connecting them. And Dave’s team requires a more constant touch.

In handhold, which is great because we look at it, there’s only four podcasts that have ever gotten to a billion downloads and Dave’s was the fourth and Joe Rogan, I think it was the Daley was the third one. And then I forget, the second one was stuff you should know, I believe it was. And then fourth one was Dave Ramsey to get to that billion mark.

So we’re real happy that, you know, he was able to do that with us and, and get to that level and is amazing how loyal his listenership. And how important it is that those episodes go out when they’re supposed to go out, they’re late, something’s not working right? If it’s not working on a certain platform, we hear about it right away.

And if metrics aren’t right, I’ll tell you, Dave’s team I have never seen. I love numbers, I love stats. I have never met a team that loves numbers and stats as much as I do. They, they really look everything over.

[00:20:55] Mike Allton: That’s a terrific story and I love that you shared it because there’s something very similar from Amy Landino.

I dunno if you know Amy, longtime video producer podcaster, and she shared the story about, you know, kind of before she got started, she was on the cusp, right? Gary Vaynerchuk was flying into Columbus, Ohio and had to be someplace else outside of Columbus. And she did the same thing. She offered to pick him up at the airport and drive him to where she needed to be.

He needed to. So she could have 15 minutes in the car with Gary V and he gave her great advice and they had a great conversation. But you fast forward to today, she’s now part of Vayner Media. She’s, you know, being, you know, outsourced by his team for speaking gigs. They’ve had a long time working relationship that started with that pickup at the airport.

Just like with you and, and Dave Ramsey. So it all kinda speaks to having that, like you said at the beginning, white glove approach and that that customer minded approach taking care of people.

[00:21:50] Rob Walch: Yeah. It wasn’t Dave in the car, it was one of his team. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanna make sure. Yeah, no, an hour and a half of Dave in the car, that would be great.

I mean, I’ve seen Dave live. I, me just tell you what, I have never met a better, seen a better speaker. On stage than Dave Ramsey. I mean, his presence, how he moves. Well, you know, I wasn’t even listening to what he was saying. I was just so in captivated how he was saying it. You know, if you’re, if you’re a speaker, you understand that you’re looking at someone, you go, wow.

How he moves, how he moves around stage, how he connects with the audience. So some great. People out there that I’ve been able to get connected with over the years, and it’s fun. You know, Tim Ferris, I helped launch his podcast and that was a lot of fun. I fired myself as, as his producer, but, uh, he’s a long island.

I grew up on Long Island, but you know, Tim is a fun guy and a lot of energy, but he, he didn’t want to edit. And I’m like, oh, I can’t do this. I gotta edit. I gotta edit. You hit the mic. He’s like, no, leave that in. I’m like, oh. But he was all about the content. And that’s right. Kind. He’s right though. It’s all about the content.

[00:22:49] Mike Allton: Awesome. Well that kinda leads into the, the next question I have, which is to talk about what not to do. Cuz from a podcast production perspective, you have to edit, you can’t not edit cause you gotta remove some of the bloops and, and technical stuff that happens and, and create that seamless audio experience for your listeners.

But in your experience when it comes to client relations and, and partnerships, what mistakes have you made? What tactics have you seen brands make that they probably shouldn’t or should avoid?

What mistakes or tactics should brands try to avoid when it comes to client relationships and partnerships?

[00:23:17] Rob Walch: Well, the, the biggest mistake I made, I started out, I was in podcasting back in 2005. My first client was Senator John Edwards, and it’s this early 2005 pre the Apple supporting podcasting.

He was the first major politician to do a podcast, and I was the producer doing all the work for that podcast. And then I got contacted right after Apple Podcast launch or iTunes launched support for podcasting. I got contacted by another senator who wanted to do a podcast and I said, oh, well, I don’t think it’d be right.

I think it might be a conflict of interest. Here’s somebody else that’s in your city. Then I know that’s doing some podcast work. Why don’t you talk with them? They can help you get going. Couple weeks later, um, talking to Senator Edwards people, I said, oh yeah, I got contacted by another senator who wanted to do a podcast.

And you know, I said I thought it would be conflict of interest. And they said, oh, you know, who was it? And I said, oh, it was Senator Obama. And they go, oh no, you could have done his. And I’m like, oh. So I learned a valuable lesson, which was check before you reject so I could have had his, and then I did wind up getting Governor Bill Richardson.

So there was, it was fun in the 2000. Presidential debates. There was on stage at one point there was Governor Richardson, Edwards Obama and Clinton Hill, Clinton up there and I, I was like, I could have had three of the four up there. , as clients. But yeah, so that was one thing I definitely learned now was never assume that they, you can’t take a client on cuz it might be a conflict you.

And find out for sure. Yeah, I wish I had that one back. Yeah, I bet. . And the other thing is, yeah, you know, like I fired myself for Tim Ferris, cuz Tim brought me in to help him launch it, but he didn’t need to pay me what he was paying me to edit it. And he didn’t need that level that I was gonna bring to it.

So I ultimately, I walked away in there. But I, I did keep Jack Welch on. I had Jack Welch as a client and that was a great one until his passing. And he was fun and it was getting, being able to have a mic in a room with Jack when he thinks he’s off mic and hearing him talk. Boy, you wanna talk about someone who could curse like a sailor.

Oh, my . So there was some, some good fun recordings there, the stuff I had to edit out. But Jack was a really interesting, really nice guy and, you know, not a better business mind out there before his. I

[00:25:34] Mike Allton: bet. I bet. I’m gonna give a quick shout out to Becca who’s listening on LinkedIn and she said The numbers blow my mind.

I had no idea. I know, right. I shared the same thing with my team, cuz we’ve had a long time podcast at a Gore Pulse to Social Media Lab and it does very, very well and he does experiments on social media. That’s Scott Ays and does speaking tours, giving high presentations, and every week he’s interviewing.

Talking about, uh, experiments and it was still the same thing. I mean, we knew it was doing well, but we didn’t know how. Well, at least not in comparison, right. Compared to what? That’s always the question. So love that you shared that.

[00:26:08] Rob Walch: Yeah. People just need to understand the, the numbers aren’t very high and you can’t look at social media followers or YouTube subscribers and, and think that has any.

At all to podcasting. If you can get to a thousand, you’re better than 80% of the shows out there. And, and really that number at 80% is really, I should put that in perspective. That’s the number of shows. 80% on Libsyn and Libsyn, all our podcasts, pay to host. If you had actually pushed those numbers out to include the free hosting and all the other stuff, if you had 130, you’d probably be in the top 5% or three.

Of shows in reality, a podcasts are out there. Cause most people don’t realize. When you hear 2.4 million podcasts of those 2.4 million, the number that’s actually active as in release something in the last 90 days and has 10 or more episodes, that number is 220-260,000. I think is the number now, so it’s one 10th.

Basically 10% of the podcasts out there are technically active. 90% are dead or just haven’t gotten there, you know, so don’t think that you are moving into this space. Don’t get afraid of moving into the space cuz you hear the 2.4 million number of podcast. There really isn’t that many, and when you really bring it down to 260,000 or even 300,000 and maybe at the most, 400,000 active podcasts, put that in perspective to the 750 million active blogs out there.

And then you really see how podcasting stands really stands out from the other mediums. And there’s no better medium to connect with your audience because your audience is gonna listen with these a lot of times. And that means you’re literally in their head, literally in the middle of the head. It’s like being John Malkovich

You get in there and you can really connect and you can talk to your audience and the power of the voice in your clients or potential customers ears is so power. It’s so strong. I think John Jansch at Duct Tape Marketing had a great podcast philosophy, which was, he started the podcast as a way to interview potential.

and rather than cold call someone and say, Hey, I think you should use my marketing tools. Being able to go out to someone and say, Hey, I think you’re brilliant. Why don’t you come on my show? Which one gets you a reply? Right? Cold call or the stroking, the ego and, and podcasting really can help you grow your customer base If you do it right,

[00:28:36] Mike Allton: you’re not supposed to share the behind the scenes of why I’m doing this show.

for those of you listening, that is exactly why I have Partnership Unpacked, is to give me a channel on which to talk to and meet. Great potential new partners for down the road. I mean, last week we had Semrush. Next. Well, in two weeks we’re gonna have monday.com. These are all great potential partners for me.

People I wanna work with and get to know just like you Rob. So, and in fact we’ve got John Jansch on our Lunch & Learn webinar series later this month. So for those of you who aren’t familiar with John and Duct Tape Marketing, you gotta come cause he’s got a new book coming out later this month. I even have it.

Yeah, the ultimate marketing engine, those of you watching this is, this is John’s new book, so yeah. Great. John’s Becca. Great, great. Fantastic guy. Our, our CEO Emeric was on his podcast last month. Becca asked, this is a pure podcasting question for you, Rob. Becca wants to know, I am new to podcasting and basically not sure where to start.

Do you have the top starting tips, sort of a starter.

Where To Start With A New Podcast

[00:29:36] Rob Walch: Okay, so three things here. One, and I’ll give you the history on this. My son was five and a half years old when he started podcasting and he came to me and he said, dad, I wanna, I wanna start podcasting. And I turned to him and I asked him these two questions and these are the first two questions you have to answer if you wanna podcast.

I said, okay, Porter. I go, what do you wanna do a podcast? And he said, I want to answer people’s questions. So he knew he had a format, so you have to know what you wanna do it. So that’s the first thing. Second, I said, what do you wanna call it? He goes, I wanna call it Porter’s podcast. So he had a name and he had, so once you get past those two things, those are the real big hurdle.

The third one, email me, rob Libsyn.com. I will give you some other, uh, the technical behind the scenes stuff to what you need. But really, if you can’t answer those first two, you can’t podcast. You have to really be able to define it. And the name is so important. People don’t realize how important the name is in Apple Podcasts.

And most of these services search is like Alta Vista. . It’s really basic. It’s what’s in the title of your show. And matter of fact, apple only looks at what’s in the title of your show and what’s in the author tag. They don’t even look at the descriptions. Forget tags or keywords. It’s only what’s in the title of the show.

So your title of your show is really, really important. And then finally, get some good looking. Where is it? Artwork, where is it? There it is. Get some good looking artwork for your show. That’s the show that we do. The Feed on Libsyn. That’s the official Libsyn podcast. Get some artwork and, and then you get going.

But once you get past answering what it’s about, really the rest of it is just fill in the blanks. Connecting dots. It’s not that difficult. You have to, some artwork, it has to be in the right specs. You have to be able to record, you have to figure out how you’re gonna record. Do you want to have, uh, a more expensive microphone or do you, you want to go with a little bit of a cheaper microphone, or you not even wanna use a microphone and just go with an iPhone?

There’s all different ways that you can record. Those are things I can help answer. Just email me rob @ Libsyn.com. Happy to help you out.

[00:31:31] Mike Allton: That’s awesome. Yeah. And just to chime in, cuz you were very gracious, Libsyn’s, fantastic guys. I’ve been using Libsyn for three years now and we’ll be launching third and fourth podcasts later this month and it’s super easy to start.

You just say, okay, I’ve, I’ve got this much data, this many podcasts to upload. It tells you exactly what dimensions you need for the different artwork cuz there’s a bunch of different things that you can upload. Really easy and it’s affordable. And speaking of gear, this is an A T R U, SB and XLR mic, and I pipe it through a Beringer mixer, so it’s under 200 bucks.

And I’m no judge, but I’ve been told I have excellent audio quality. So who knows? I just know it’s not expensive to get started. So that’s great.

[00:32:14] Rob Walch: It, it really is not. . There was a television show, I don’t know if anyone’s seen it yet, on Hulu, called Only Murders in the Building and in one of the, yes. Steve Martin.

Yes. And Martin Short. And Selena Gomez. And in one of the episodes they were talking about buying a gear and he said, okay, it’s $4,500. And I went, oh.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So, yeah, no, you can get started. Well, well under that, as a matter of fact, you know, if you want to go with, this is a, a Zoom H six, and you get a couple of, of the ATR 2100 s or the Samsung q2, you can spend less than $500. To get a really decent setup. Now, you don’t have to put foam all on your walls like I did , and then make a studio or anything like that.

As a matter of fact, I’ve only had this studio completed like this for one month and I’ve been podcasting for 17 years. Before that, it was just some foam in the corners and in a quiet room and telling the kids dad’s recording, alright, and that was it. Now I got a little bit better of student, but you don’t need any of this.

Again, $500 at the most to get started on.

[00:33:20] Mike Allton: Awesome. That’s fantastic. Rob, you have been a terrific guest and I wanna thank you so much for letting us your time and your insight into partnerships and and podcasting and everything else, and I can’t wait to take all of your amazing suggestions and apply them to our efforts at a Agora Pulse.

Now, for everyone else that’s listening, what’s the best way to reach out to you if you have questions, is it your email or what would you prefer?

[00:33:40] Rob Walch: Yeah, absolutely. Email Rob Libsyn, r o b as in. Rob Libsyn.com. That’s the best way to get ahold of me. Um, as my wife will tell you, I’m constantly checking my email. [00:33:51] Mike Allton: Yeah, I get that too. . Well, that’s all we have for today, folks. Don’t forget to follow me on LinkedIn if we aren’t already connected, because coming up in two weeks will be Catherine Heisler from monday.com and then Katie Fox, the week after that from E Cam Network. And if you’re watching the replay or listening to the podcast, don’t hesitate to comment or reach out if you’ve got any questions at all.

Until next time, see.

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