Mark Colgan On The Power Of Podcasting To Tell Your Story (#107)

[00:00] Introduction Welcome to the Sell My Business Podcast. I'm your host Jeffrey Feldberg. 

This podcast is brought to you by Deep Wealth and the 90-day Deep Wealth Experience. 

Your liquidity event is the largest and most important financial transaction of your life. 

But unfortunately, up to 90% of liquidity events fail. Think about all that time, money and effort wasted. Of the "successful" liquidity events, most business owners leave anywhere from 50% to over 100% of their deal value in the buyer's pocket and don't even know it.

I should know. I said no to a seven-figure offer and yes, to mastering the art and science of a liquidity event. Two years later, I said yes to a different buyer with a nine-figure offer. 

Are you thinking about an exit or liquidity event? 

If you believe that you either don't have the time or you'll prepare closer to your liquidity event, think again. 

Don't become a statistic and make the fatal mistake of believing that the skills that built your business are the same ones for your liquidity event. 

After all, how can you master something you've never done before? 

Let the 90-day Deep Wealth Experience and our nine-step roadmap of preparation help you capture the maximum value for your liquidity event. 

At the end of this episode, take a moment to hear from business owners, just like you, who went through the Deep Wealth Experience. 

[00:01:44] Jeffrey Feldberg: Mark Colgan is an entrepreneur and revenue leader responsible for increasing revenue across a small portfolio of companies where he leverages his 13 years experience of B2B sales, marketing, and recruitment.

Mark currently splits his time as co-founder of Speak On Podcasts, mentoring B2B startups via GrowthMentor and ScaleWise, the Product Onboarders, and coaching 100’s of SDR’s through his Outbound Prospecting course via The Sales Impact Academy.

He's a Techstars 18' Alumni and a regular speaker within the B2B SaaS industry. His work has been published by SaaStock, Mailshake, Pipedrive, LeadSift, Lemlist, SugarCRM, and Baremetrics to name a few.

Mark currently lives and works from Lisbon is addicted to traveling and exploring new cultures in places. You'll often hear him saying "por que no?" why not to anything that sounds fun or gets the heart racing like wingwalking, skydiving, and paramotoring.

Welcome to The Sell My Business Podcast. And today we have a really interesting guest. I mean, you talk about business success and growing companies and marketing companies. This fellow is the poster child for that, but he's also involved in something that I think every business owner should really be taking a second look at, but let me not get ahead of myself.

Mark, Welcome to The Sell My Business Podcast. It's such a pleasure to have you with us. Mark, there's always a story behind the story. What's your story? How did you get to where you are today?

[00:03:21] Mark Colgan: Thank you, Jeffrey, and thank you so much for inviting me. I've actually been a long-time listener to you. So, it's been great to finally be on the show. My story, I went to university and I was an average student. I went off to university back in 2005. I believe it was when I started and I did this course, I did this to a degree, which you had a year in industry as part of your overall degree.

So, you take two years of study, one year in industry. And I actually studied marketing at the time. And when I was looking for this placement, so this, for those one-year placements, I couldn't see any marketing jobs that I liked. It all seemed like a glorified T-boy or an admin person.

So, I ended up working in recruitment and I took a year and worked in recruitment, which very much gave me the foundations of the career that I have today. It taught me a lot about sales, taught me a lot about people, managing expectations. And I worked in recruitment for about four or five years until the marketing bug bit me again, and I wanted to move into marketing, but fortunately, I knew how recruitment worked and I knew, I guess, the things that would need to be said at interviews when you haven't actually got any experience of doing this before.

So, I managed to talk my way into marketing. Where I worked for around six years in B2B technology companies. Usually as the first digital marketer and then later in the career as a head of marketing. I then got to the age of 30 or just before 30. And I realized I hadn't taken a break. I didn't do a gap year.

So, I took a sabbatical well I quit my job. So, it wasn't really a sabbatical. It was an early retirement Jeffrey but didn't have enough savings. So, I went to South America and Southeast Asia for one year. And whilst I was abroad, I did a very small HubSpot implementation for a friend's company.

And I realized I didn't need to go back to a nine to five. I didn't need to go back to an office. I could work from anywhere, offering a service that was highly in demand at that time. So, I got back from traveling for two years I was a consultant working on HubSpot implementations and various other marketing technology.

But I was riding that roller coaster of being a consultant, always busy paid well, but you don't nurture yourself because you're too busy doing the implementation. So, I started getting interested in productized services. That being a service that you can offer over and over again. But it's to different customers that you sell it to.

And I was by pure serendipity. I put out a message on Facebook I believe, it was about cold email and this person reached out and said, hey, can I pick your brains? I'd like to just find out more about your knowledge with cold email. And we got talking and he ran a lead research and data enrichment company, which had almost a hundred team members.

And he was looking actually for somebody to be the general manager. So, I met him in Paris and I decided to join his team and I ran that company for just over a year. And then that brings me to June 2020 when I left that business to start my own agency called Speak on Podcasts, which is where I am today and we help people secure interviews and podcasts that their audiences are listening to.

[00:06:16] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, what a journey. And it's amazing at the time as things are happening, maybe you're wondering what the heck is going on. This doesn't make sense, but when you look at where you are today and you take a look backward. Now it makes so much sense. I mean, It was locked, step one gig into another. Learning, all these new skillsets, and boom, here you are today.

 Congratulations, that's amazing. By the way, I'm sure for all the listeners on my side of the pond, your accent is absolutely charming. Although I probably have the accent to you, but a delight to listen to. So, Mark, for our audience, as business owners, we're always looking at how do we get the leg up?

And how can we get organic kinds of sales, word of mouth, and just grow the business in a way that makes sense time-wise and also capital and money-wise? So, Speak On Podcasts. Talk to us about why as a business owner, being a speaker on podcasts is something that shouldn't be a nice to have. Really, it should be a must-have.

[00:07:14] Mark Colgan: Thanks. So, when it comes to podcasting and you look at the audiences that you want to reach, It's usually a much more loyal and attentive audience that you can reach by speaking on somebody else's podcast because they've worked hard to nurture the audience by bringing on other people who can talk about similar topics.

So, when you compare that to say, paid ads, yes, you could do some targeting based on job title or demographics, but a paid ad interrupts somebody. Especially when you're selling high ticket services or B2B lodging engagements. You're not going to convert somebody just on an advert. You might make them aware of something, but that ad then disrupts them for what they're doing.

They have to click away. Then they look at your website. They have to be impressed, and then they either decide to take the next step. We're human at the end of the day. So, B2B is still human to human, and we've been telling stories to each other for thousands and thousands of years. And when it comes to focusing you have the ability to tell your story with another person and have that conversation and back and forth.

And you can tell the things that went well, the mistakes you made, and you can talk around the challenges that your product or service can help people overcome. And people are much more likely to be interested in you because they've had that intimate moment of 30 minutes conversation or 45 minutes of conversation.

So, I think at a high level, it's just a far better channel for you to be marketing to in 2021, 2022.

[00:08:37] Jeffrey Feldberg: That's terrific. And listen, you're preaching to the choir. I've drunk the Kool-Aid I'm fully with you at the same time though. I know when I'm speaking to people and the topic of a podcast comes up and let's take a position that I'm a business owner. And I'm thinking, okay, you know what? A podcast can be a terrific marketing tool for me, and a wonderful way to network and meet people.

But podcasts have been around for so long now, and I'm late to the party. I'm going to miss it out and I don't have the funds to spend to market and get this out there. Maybe I'm too late. Why would that not be the case, Mark?

[00:09:11] Mark Colgan: Yeah. So, I think people were saying the same thing about blogs a few years ago, everybody's got a blog. Why should I have a blog? And if you look at specifically B2B business, every B2B business typically has a blog. It's what you should do. When it comes to podcasts. I think you have three main options.

You can start your own podcast. You can advertise on podcasts, or you can speak on others. The one that required the least amount of time for you as the busy business owner is to speak on other people's podcasts. Because all essentially we need to do is turn up and speak. There is a little bit more prep work.

You might want to listen to a few of the episodes beforehand. But the other question is, can you afford to not be speaking on podcasts because when you look at the buyer's journey and how much that has changed over the recent years, so much of that discovery process that buyers go through happens in channels like podcasts in communities in peer-to-peer recommendations.

And if your competitors are speaking on podcasts and they're dominating that landscape, you really can't afford not to be showing up in the same conversations as your competitors do.

[00:10:14] Jeffrey Feldberg: Mark. I love it. And I'm hearing your marketing background and your sales background. You can't afford to not be on these podcasts, but you're absolutely right with that. And so as a business owner now, I'm hearing what you're saying and you're saying, okay, you know what? I never really wanted to put up my own podcast anyways.

It's a lot of time and effort, but sure, I can show up. I can talk. I'm a subject matter expert in my particular field. So, where would I start, Mark? What does that look like? That I can be successful and get a fast start.

[00:10:42] Mark Colgan: Yeah. So, the first thing to do is to understand that this is a brand awareness strategy And not strictly a lead generation strategy. Now yes, you can generate leads from speaking on podcast, but it's no way near guaranteed. So, I think you have to have the right mindset and understanding before you do start. Once you've overcome that or understand that bit of it. Then it really comes about thinking about who is the audience that I want to reach and where might they be spending time? So, I like to say to our customers, just imagine that you're at a conference where you're giving the keynote speech, who's in the audience that you really want to be listening to you.

And then we want to start finding what other influences or what other authorities in your industry talk to the same audience, and then maybe have a look to see where they've been speaking on podcasts, because they may have done some due diligence to see that was a relevant show for them to go and speak on.

Then when it comes to your topics you mentioned that people are a domain expert and most people are, but some people feel like it's so obvious to them that no one else would want to hear about it. And the one thing that we often say to our customers is what's obvious to you is often amazing to other people.

So, think of the common questions that you continuously ask. What coachable moments do you have with your clients or even your team members as well, that you find yourself going over and over again? What is that area of expertise that you have? So, you've got your audience, and then you've got your topics that you can talk about.

Maybe three to four topics is talking tracks is a good place to be. And then the next step of the process is to reach out to podcast hosts and see if they're interested in finding out more about you preparing on the interview and as you would have experienced Jeffery, we don't really pitch our customers.

We really just want to start the conversation to say, we think that our customer might be able to add value to your audience, but we're not a hundred percent sure because you're the host and you're the one that has the answer. So, what do you think that your audience would enjoy hearing from this person?

So, that's the approach I would take if you're reaching out to podcast hosts.

[00:12:35] Jeffrey Feldberg: And for our audience, I promise you what I'm about to share wasn't planned. Mark and I never spoke about it, but I'll just share my experience of working with Mark's company because Mark, you, and I met after the fact. So, you know, running a business, having a podcast. There are more things to do than time itself. And even though you have helped with the team time is always of the essence.

And because of a podcast, it's really all about content, who you're going to be bringing on, what the topic is. So, as a podcaster, you're always on the lookout for, okay, who can I bring on? That's an interesting guest. And Mark, to your team's credit, I had an email out of the blue, hey, jeffrey, I understand that you have The Sell My Business Podcast.

Here's someone that we think would be a terrific fit. And then the information was listed. The bio was there, some links were there and I went through that. And Mark, I have to say in 30 seconds it was, yeah, this is a no-brainer. Reach back out to your team member and boom things were set up and it was done.

So, I'm sharing that for the audience, because I want you to imagine now you're working with Mark and company and you're looking to get your name out there. Build your brand, build yourself as a subject matter expert or domain authority. For the target audience, which as a business owner, that's going to be other podcasters.

It couldn't be easier. So, you're just living your life, doing what you're doing and Mark's team on your behalf is making sure that your best foot is forward. And so Mark with your sales and marketing background, why don't you share with the audience? What we hear so much that oftentimes before someone will ever buy a product or service, it may take seven or more exposures to that message. How does being out there, being our guests on a podcast, how does that perhaps even accelerate that process or at the very least help it?

[00:14:17] Mark Colgan: Yeah, sure. And I think that stat Jeffrey has been around for a while now. And I'd probably argue that it's more touchpoint stat because we were just overwhelmed with so many different touchpoints and what more than seven. When we speak to our customers, we often educate them on the fact that it's not just about the interview that you're going to do.

You have an opportunity to build a relationship with the podcast host, which could lead to other business opportunities, joint ventures. And then also after the interview is, goes live and it's been scheduled and published, you've then got a 35-minute conversation which you can cut into smaller pieces of content and see that out to your audience as well.

So, using your own channels across social organically, maybe you're sending it in your newsletter to your list. You could also do some paid advertising and run ads to get a broader audience as well. And what you're doing there is you're showing up as the advisor, someone giving advice and value rather than saying, come and buy my stuff.

So, that would be ways that you can take one podcast and create several pieces of content out of it. I sat down recently with a potential customer. They didn't end up working with us. The reason being, they weren't too sure what they wanted to talk about. And we said, come back to us when you know what you want to talk about.

But when you can go on a podcast and speak about the topic, which you're quite knowledgeable about, you really don't need to spend a lot of time writing 5,000 word eBooks because 45-minute conversation is typically 6,000 words unedited, of course. So, it would be a lot less once you edit that. But if you speak on a podcast over a period of time, you then build this huge number of words and characters that you can repurpose into written content as well.

[00:15:53] Jeffrey Feldberg: All so true. And, you know, for our listeners with what Mark is saying, a lot of podcasts will also have the transcript. So, there's your name, there is a transcript when people are doing searches on a particular topic. Your name is coming up there. And if we take the world of podcasting and being a guest on a podcast, now let's talk about liquidity events because, at Deep Wealth, that's our wheelhouse.

So, think about this. You're preparing for your liquidity event. Maybe you're even going through the Deep Wealth Experience and our 9-step roadmap. If you're out there and you're a guest on a podcast and you start doing this on many podcasts, guess what, you're building a reputation and Mark, to your point a brand for your future acquirer will likely have heard of you. And in your future acquirer's mind, you've elevated your status from just any company to the company to purchase, to become an industry leader. And so there's so much that you can do with that, or even when you're putting together your advisory team.

Hey, here's a few podcasts Mr. or Ms. investment banker, that you can hear me speak about what I'm doing and form your own opinion on that. So, there's so much that you can do with that. Mark, what that in mind what does someone need to do to be successful as a speaker? So, they've come to you. They have a terrific business, a terrific story.

What should they be doing to hit it out of the park once you start getting them appointments?

[00:17:17] Mark Colgan: Yeah and I think like any voice and presentation coach will tell you practice, just practice, really know, and understand your topics, know the anecdotes and stories that you want to tell like the back of your hand and have a very clear call to action. So, oftentimes a lot of opportunities can be missed by not giving a clear call to action.

So, have a think about what action you would like people to take and rehearse it as well. It won't come across as rehearsed when you're on the interview, but you want to make sure that you're consistently saying the same thing over and over again.

And back to your point about the liquidity event. This is an evergreen piece of content that's out there now. And it gets indexed in so many different ways. And Google in particular is spending a lot more time indexing podcasts. So, it's great for keywords. It's great for that search visibility in the future as well.

But yeah, going back to the, delivering an exceptional podcast interview, practice your topics, know your stories and have a very effective call to action, and then follow up with a podcast host after as well.

[00:18:16] Jeffrey Feldberg: And Mark is not necessarily what you're doing directly, but it's certainly related. As people are thinking of becoming a speaker or to become a guest on a podcast, equipment-wise, what should they be thinking about that's just really going to take them over the top.

[00:18:30] Mark Colgan: Yes. So, we always recommend that you have a USB mic. If you're just getting started and you're not sure if this is going to be a long-term strategy for you, then if you can spend a hundred dollars on a microphone, you can get a pretty decent USB mic for a hundred dollars at Amazon. A lot more podcasts are now going to video as well.

And oftentimes you'll be on video with the podcast host, but the video won't be used, it's just much better to have eye contact with the person that you're speaking to. So, always be prepared that there's a high chance that you will be on video at some point as well. So, lighting is an important consideration there.

Especially when it says 7:00 PM in winter in Portugal goes a little bit dark. So, you need to make sure that you're well lit. And I always prefer having headphones on as well, just because it allows me to block out the sound a little bit from the people around me. But yeah, a USB microphone a hundred dollars is really the minimum of what you should be doing.

[00:19:23] Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific and some great advice. And when it comes to your equipment or your gear, that's not an area to be chinsing out on, and always purchase the best that you can because you'll have it for years to come. And it is really a representation of you.

[00:19:34] Mark Colgan: Yeah. Oh, sorry. Definitely. One more thing on the equipment is most laptop webcams or Mackovic webcams aren't that good, especially in low light, there's an app called camo, C A M O which you can put on your phone and then use your iPhone or your Androids camera as the webcam. So, the one that I'm on right now is my iPhone, which is just in a little clamp above my monitor.

And it gives you, 4k quality video for the cost of $30. I think the app cost me as well.

[00:20:06] Jeffrey Feldberg: Now speaking of technology and just the market, let's talk a little bit about the market trend with podcasts and Mark, coming out of this pandemic a lot has changed. From your viewpoint, where are we heading in this world of podcasts? Now, as the world continues to figure out what this new normal is, what should we do?

[00:20:25] Mark Colgan: Yeah. So, I think what did come out of COVID obviously when a lot of people were moving towards more field-based marketing or running events or hosting events or going to events relied a lot on face-to-face that was completely pulled away for them. And as we have a new variant internationally spreading at the moment. I can imagine a lot of restrictions are going to happen again. So, we need to go back into what was the new normal of having content, which is accessible online. That is pretty much on-demand as well because as you got a global audience sometimes these live events, aren't always that convenient for people as well.

So, podcasting will see to continue growing. When it comes to people deciding whether they should start one or not. I think more people understand that. Again, it's a brand-building strategy. It's a brand awareness play. And that it's not a sunk investment because you're building the brand and it is hard to attribute.

It is hard to tie every single dollar of revenue back to the podcast, but it's so vitally important, especially if you have a complex solution or service that you're trying to sell. And it's really easy to tell the story about it. And what you can do is reuse the content. Of course, I use podcasts interviews with my prospects.

If I need to educate them about something, I'll send a snippet of where we spoke about this on a podcast. So, the podcast is just a vehicle. You can do so much with it after.

[00:21:47] Jeffrey Feldberg: And Mark with your sales and marketing background, I'll just throw a few questions your way, perhaps that you can just share some of your thoughts with our audience. And again, for our audience, let's put our marketing and sales hat on, and we're now this guest Mark is helping us get onto the podcast. So, Mark from a marketing side, you just said something really interesting that when you're speaking to a prospective client, you may take a snippet of a podcast and share that with the client, perhaps for our audience that knows about podcasts, but they're so relatively new to this whole area.

It'd be great to hear you explain why being on someone else's podcast, having a third party interview you, what that does for you in terms of credibility.

[00:22:28] Mark Colgan: Great question Jeffrey. And I think the comparison I like to make with this one is as a business owner, you have a website. Usually, most people have a website. If it's your website, you can write anything you want about yourself on that website. And nobody's fact-checking it. And when you put testimonials on your website, you could make those testimonials up as well.

And that's why we've seen the rise of websites like G2, trust radius, trust pilot, clutch for the agencies out there because it's third-party endorsement it's neutral or supposed to be neutral for endorsements. So, when you speak on someone else's podcast, you've been one invited on as a guest, which increases the level of authority or perceived credibility.

And secondly, to the discretion of the podcast host to edit and publish that podcast. So, you pretty much know all the listeners know they're getting the vetted version of the podcast that comes out. Because the podcast host has sent it is good enough to go. And there have been instances where podcasts get recorded and maybe the audio wasn't working, or maybe the guests just wasn't as good as what the host wants to do.

And they never air them. But when they're good podcasts and they deliver the value for the audience, it's a third-party endorsement sharing it publicly.

[00:23:39] Jeffrey Feldberg: And all the more reason to have a terrific USB microphone so your audio is coming over the top.

[00:23:44] Mark Colgan: Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:23:45] Jeffrey Feldberg: And so Mark, and I know you're not directly involved in this, but really you're an enabler because working with you, working with your company, you're an enabler in terms of having people get onto podcasts.

You mentioned this before, but let's circle back. When you're on a podcast, that podcaster is likely both a networker and an influencer. Do you have any stories that you can share with our audience, how someone became a guest on the show, but that podcast, or then was instrumental in perhaps industry contacts or introductions.

[00:24:15] Mark Colgan: Yeah. Thanks for bringing that backup, because we do say it's not just about the interview. So, we've actually learned a lot from our customers over the last year. And we've put together an academy now that all of our customers get access to. And it says about exactly there. So, to give some specific examples, one of our customers had a great conversation with a podcast host, which turned into them having a second call and they signed up on a 70k retainer.

So, the interview hasn't even been aired yet. I'm sure it's still being edited as we speak today. But they we're able to build that rapport with a podcast host and then the conversation led on naturally. I found out today actually that one of our customers stayed on the call for two hours after the podcast had finished because they just got on so well.

And we found that three or four of our customers have been invited to speak at private mastermind or community events from that the podcast host also owns. So, it's often when you think about the podcast host it's not just the only thing that they do. They often have communities, they have their own business, they have their own lists and database as well. So, a lot can be done with that relationship you're building with a podcast host.

[00:25:22] Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, I love that such terrific success stories there from what started off as a very innocent and simple interview that turned into perhaps business transactions or business relationships that are taking place. And Mark, when I think about this business owners, you know, we have specialists in different areas.

So, if we have a business question, we'll go to a business lawyer. If we're doing some marketing, we'll have somebody on the growth side or on the marketing side that will help us. So, when it comes to podcasts, which really it's an extension of marketing, and I would say it's really more, one of the most organic types of marketing that you can do.

Can you share for our listeners what your company's doing behind the scenes, in terms of the research, making the introductions, finding the fits to make sure that it's a win-win-win for everybody?

[00:26:09] Mark Colgan: Yeah. And I like the fact that you've mentioned win-win because that's all we try and do. We're looking for the relevancy between our customers and their expectations, the podcast host, and the topics that they've spoken about before. So, behind the scenes, there's a lot that goes into the research to find these relevant podcasts.

Whilst we do sell services and we guarantee 20 interviews, if there are not enough podcasts to reach out to for our customers, we'll be the first to tell our customers that look, we can only actually get you on 16 shows because there are not enough podcasts out there. And here's a refund for that. We're not just going to throw them on for extra podcasts to get that.

So, when it comes to research, this is where the recruitment experience really comes in quite nicely, Jeffrey, because I used to spend days hunting down candidates for roles that I was trying to fill. So, we use a combination of other influencers that speak to the audience, which podcasts have they been on, which I've mentioned before, keyword matching.

There are a number of websites and databases, listennotes.com is a fantastic database where you can see over 2 million podcasts there and you can search for keywords and topics and other guest speakers. So, the research is one part of it. Also you want to make sure that the podcasts that you're reaching out to actually interview people, so you don't want to be pitching yourself to a podcast where they actually don't have guests on and we see it happen all the time. You might be wanting to look at things like how long they've been, the podcast has been going for how many episodes, how many ratings and reviews we have for us internally, we have a benchmark of the podcast that we would reach out to.

And then when it comes to the emailing and the sending the messages to the podcast, host, it's all about taking your time and listening to a few episodes to find out what is this host really interested in and what do they want to serve that audience with? And as you've described in the email that we sent you, it's very much doing the work for the podcast hosts to say here's one topic in particular.

From listening to some of your previous episodes. I think your audience might be interested in that takes a lot of time and that's the sales experience coming into it as well, Jeffrey from doing a lot of outbound prospecting as a salesperson.

[00:28:11] Jeffrey Feldberg: And for all of you business owners out there. And I put myself in this category with what I'm going to say. I mean, sometimes we're too smart for our own good. And that the analogy would be if you're selling a house, are you going to try and sell it on your own? Or are you going to do the legal paperwork on your own, or are you going to find a real estate agent?

And are you going to find a real estate lawyer? And so the same thing here, could a business owner go out and do the research and send the emails and find the podcast. Sure. I mean, Mark just gave you a database of 2 million podcasts, but come on, is that working hard or is that working smart? Into my books that's working hard, it's not working smart.

And so it sounds like Mark with a professional organization like yourself, you're taking me as a speaker, putting my best foot forward, and getting me into the places that maybe I could find on my own, but I probably wouldn't otherwise. And just saving me so much time and effort in the process.

[00:29:01] Mark Colgan: Yeah, but one thing I haven't mentioned is not the real secret. So, we get around 40% of the interviews that we book happen on that first message that we send. Then the remaining 60% of the interviews that we book happen in the follow-up. So, we follow up a number of times with the podcast host, but we're not sending them messages like, hey, did you see my last name?

Or just bumping this up, we're trying to demonstrate the value through showing examples of what our podcast, what our customers can talk about. So, it might be that we share a link to a previous interview that they've done on a similar show. It could be that we demonstrate another topic because it could have been the topic that we suggested just didn't land that well with the podcast host.

So, once you get the positive reply and then the rest of the work happens, which is coordination. So, not everybody has a calendar link or a meeting link. So, sometimes the emails come back to our team and they say, yeah, I'm interested in Jeffrey. Can he speak at four? And then we have to go back and say probably, but let's work out which time zone, what date are you referencing? So, there's a lot of back and forth. That, again you don't know that goes into it, but it is very time-consuming.

[00:30:08] Jeffrey Feldberg: And what's interesting with that Mark and for our listeners out there, I'm going to call it the network effect. So, as a speaker, you may be a one-time guest on a particular podcast, but Mark's company isn't. So, I'll speak from my own personal experience. Anytime now that Mark's team reaches out to me/

Well, I've worked with the team before I've had terrific success. I may not know that speaker, but I have a lot of confidence that, hey, if Mark's company is reaching out to me and recommending Susie. Susie is going to be a terrific guest on the podcast, so sure let's have Susie on the podcast. I don't have to think twice about that.

And so just like in business with your advisory team, when you're having a liquidity event, the advisors that you surround yourself with that becomes your calling card to the rest of the marketplace. And so really Mark, you become my calling card, my advisor, if you will, on the marketing side, when it comes to podcasts to really help make a warm introduction that I'm not coming in cold off the street that has a trusted brand.

[00:31:05] Mark Colgan: Yeah. And we have this conversation quite a lot because people assume that we have all these relationships with all of these podcasts hosts. And I say that yes, we do. And we've built up some goodwill. But I'm not going to reach out just because we know them if it's not going to be relevant for you or for them.

So, it doesn't mean that yes we just reach out to people that we've spoken to before, because we want to make sure it's all about the relevance and the way that we position it within our own company internally, I always tell the team, we have two types of customers. We have the customers who pay us for our service, those people who want to speak on podcasts.

And then we have the podcast hosts who don't pay us in monetary ways, but they pay us by replying to our emails and accepting our guests. So, we're always looking at ways, just like you would with your customers. How do you make your customers more successful? One way we do that is we provide a one-on-one coaching with a voice and presentation coach, Susie, who I mentioned earlier. We covered the cost of that.

For the podcast hosts, we're thinking about what can we do to help them? One, can we just be as efficient as possible for them? So, in the actual delivery of the service, but then secondly and I haven't sent it to you yet, Jeffrey but I want to, we've created a tool that you can use to create social media posts, emails, and messages from the podcast interviews when they go live.

So, you can send this to your guest that interview has just gone live. They just need to fill in the name of your podcast, their name, your name, three topics that they spoke about. And we automatically generate 30 pieces of content that they can share across their social media.

[00:32:31] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. Talk about full service. Mark, that's terrific.

[00:32:33] Mark Colgan: Yeah, and we're not making any money on it. We're not losing any money on it, but it's adding value to the podcast hosts. And as I said, and I always say to my team, internally we have two customers that let's not forget that. And that's actually why you find on our website on the testimonials page. There are actually more testimonials from podcast hosts than there are how many customers that we've actually serviced.

[00:32:53] Jeffrey Feldberg: Mark, what's interesting. And for our listeners to think about, and you said this because let's say again, we use The Sell My Business Podcast and Sell My Business Podcast has worked with Mark's team before. So, Mark's team isn't going to just throw anybody my way. So, you may be thinking well, yeah, sure Mark it's easy. You'll get 20 interviews because you know, a gazillion podcasters, but to your point Mark, when there's already an existing business relationship, the last thing you want to do is taint that relationship. Oh, you know Mark, the past five guests that you've sent they've been absolutely terrible.

I'm just making this up, I'm not gonna put any of your other guests are going forward. So, Mark, you're going out of your way to make sure that, that doesn't happen. And again, that's a nice benefit that you get when you have, I'm going to call you a podcast adviser. Why not? When you have a podcast adviser like Mark on your team, when he makes a connection, he and the team on your behalf, it's going to be a solid connection. It's going to be listened to and respect. That's a terrific strategy, Mark, that you're following as well.

[00:33:48] Mark Colgan: Thank you.

[00:33:49] Jeffrey Feldberg: So, Mark, as we look to the podcasting and we're going to just switch gears here in a moment, if there were maybe three tips that you can give to our audience that they say, okay, you know what, I'm going to go for this. I'm going to start becoming a guest on podcasts and Mark, what you're doing.

I love that. Sign me up. Let's get that going. So, all that's in place, they have the right equipment and they've gone through all the different hoops to get them there. What would be maybe two, three things that an up-and-coming podcast guest can be doing to make sure that they're just hitting it out of the park?

[00:34:19] Mark Colgan: Yeah. So, I think I would sit down if I was the potential person going to speak a podcast and have a really good think about, what is going to be interesting to the audience that you want to speak to. So, perhaps not the generic three strategies for 2022, because everybody's going to be doing and I believe personally, in being different in everything you do.

And adding your own spin to it as much as you can. I don't say controversial opinions, but what opposing opinions do I have? What data or experience do I have that I could tell the story of what customers have I worked with that super interesting.

I'm not going to say the customer name, but I'm going to talk about them anecdotally. So, I'd really sit down and think about how can I come up with some different types of topics before I start reaching out to the podcast host.

[00:35:06] Jeffrey Feldberg: So, be different, and then Mark, they can take advantage of your speech and presentation coach and off they go.

[00:35:12] Mark Colgan: Yeah. And then the other thing I'd say is do set something up for yourself too. If you're going to direct people to a specific landing page on your website or into a funnel make sure that you've got that set up as well. Or you do have a bit of time because by the time the podcast is recorded and edited, and then published there's usually a little bit of lead time.

But make sure you have got a clear way of engaging with people who want to reach out to you. If you just say to people, oh, just follow me on LinkedIn. They might follow on your LinkedIn, but what's in it for them. Whereas when you have a specific offer, you can drive people to a specific page and if they're ready to work with you, then they'll reach out and let you know.

[00:35:50] Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. Some excellent strategies. So, speaking of strategies and advice and Mark, as we begin to wrap up this episode, we always ask our favorite question. And the question is this, if you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have this magical DeLorean car that can go back to any point in time.

And so imagine Mark it's tomorrow morning, you look outside your window. The DeLorean car is there. The door is open and it's welcoming you to hop into the car and you can go back to any point in your life. Maybe it's Mark as a child or a teenager or young adult, whatever the case may be, what wisdom or life advice would you be telling your younger self?

[00:36:27] Mark Colgan: I think be confident in the decisions that you're making with the information that you have at the time. I think it's very easy for us to look back at our younger selves and think, why did you make that decision? Or it was a great decision. It was a bad decision but when you're making decisions at a younger age and throughout your life, you already making those decisions with the information you have in front of you right there and then.

And I think sometimes we can overthink the decisions that we've should've made or did make. But really you're just doing the best that you can. Something that I've learned more recently in life that I would love to learn and have that knowledge and wisdom when I was a bit younger.

[00:37:01] Jeffrey Feldberg: Such terrific advice and you're right, Mark. Oftentimes, we are our own worst enemy. I mean, we just parade ourselves, but Hey, at the time with the information that we had, we did the best that we could all that you can do. So, I love that. Well, Mark, as we begin to wrap this up, I'm going to put this in the show notes.

So, it will be really easy for the audience. It'll be point and click. Where can somebody find you either online or how can they contact you? What would be the best way?

[00:37:25] Mark Colgan: So, the best place to go is to speakonpodcasts.com/leader. And what people find on that page is it will actually do some research and find three podcasts that might be a good fit for you to speak on. And we'll send you the links to those three podcasts. So, you can reach out yourself if you want to, or have a conversation with us and see if there's something we can do to help.

So, that's speakonpodcasts.com/leader.

[00:37:49] Jeffrey Feldberg: Mark, you're walking the talk and talking the talk. And you just said a moment before I have some kind of offering what a terrific offering, hey, tell us what you want to talk about and boom, we'll find three potential podcasts. Who wouldn't want to do that? So, for our listeners, just go and do that.

You'll go to the show notes. You can click on the link and you'll get there. So, Mark, as we wrap up this episode, thank you so much for taking part of your day and spending it with us on The Sell My Business Podcast. And as always, please say healthy and safe.

[00:38:14] Mark Colgan: Thank you so much, Jeffrey. Really appreciate it. Take care.

[00:38:17] Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me.

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Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table?

Please visit www.deepwealth.com/success to learn more.

If you're not on my email list, you'll want to be. Sign up at www.deepwealth.com/podcast. And if you enjoyed this episode of the Sell My Business podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Reviews help me reach new listeners, grow the show and continue to create content that you'll enjoy.

As we close out this episode, a heartfelt thank you for your time. And as always, please stay healthy and safe. 

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Your liquidity event is the most important financial transaction of your life. You have one chance to get it right, and you better make it count. 

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