35. Podcast Content That Sells While You Sleep with Laura Canham

This transcript was created using Descipt. It has been copied and pasted but not proofread or edited, so it may contain errors or inaccuracies.

Laura McRae: [00:00:00] Welcome to Podcasting for Business Owners. I’m your host, Laura McCray, a podcast consultant, educator, and self-confessed podcast nerd. If you are thinking of launching a podcast or want to grow the one you have, you’re in the right place. Hold onto your headphones and let’s go. Hello and welcome back to Podcasting for Business Owners, the podcast that helps you share your story.

Lead your industry and grow your network through podcasting. I’m your host, Laura McCray, and in today’s episode, I’m joined by the brilliant Laura Cannon. She’s an award-winning business coach, sales strategist, and the host of the CEO Show podcast. Laura’s on a mission to rewrite the narrative around sales and help more people create a sustainable income by mastering simple sales strategies that actually feel good.

She’s also a massive podcasting fan, and in this episode [00:01:00] we chat about how she uses her own show to drive sales, nurture her audience, and align her content with her business goals, or without feeling pushy and salesy. If you’ve ever wondered how to use your podcast to grow your business without overcomplicating things, then this one’s packed with practical advice.

Hello?

So much. So who do you work with and in what ways do you support your clients?

Laura Canham: I am a business consultant, and in particular, I specialize in sales. That is my jam. And I know you and I have spoken in the past about that being a bit of a hot topic for women in business and something that maybe they don’t do enough of, or they’re, they’re a little bit scared about.

I think we’ve all been burnt before by a crappy sales experience, or we think that sales is something that’s. Husty or pushy or sleazy. So it is my mission to get women to fall in love with sales [00:02:00] in particular, so that they can obviously create more income in their business, but most of all create sustainable income.

’cause I think ultimately, you know, that’s what a lot of women are wanting. So that is my mission, that’s what I do. And obviously I’ve got my own podcast as well, which is super exciting. And through that podcast, I basically try and do like some mini bingeable trainings. I like to think of all my episodes as like a bit of a mini masterclass and you can binge that and then there’ll be like one key thing that you can go and take away and implement into your business, which is kind of what I love.

Laura McRae: Yeah, they’re great episodes. They’re really short and get to the point and you can always take something away from ’em. Good. I love that. I love that you listen to, so what led you to start your podcast?

Laura Canham: The CEO show. So I think at the time I was listening to like quite a lot of the big names in business, you know, like Jenna Kutcher and all those kind of ones.

And I like, it’s great, but I was just like, oh, I just feel like a lot of this is maybe too big a [00:03:00] picture or it’s for people that have already got. A bucket load of money and they’re already millionaires or whatever. I was like, is there something that’s a little bit more real and raw and tangible for people who are in those first few years of business who are maybe like me and they’re in the messy middle of?

Trying to grow your family, but also you really wanna grow your business. And you’re like, I just want something that’s actually gonna be really practical and actionable for me. So I was just like, right, let’s make something that is short, punchy episodes, nothing fluffy that people can just easily listen to.

You know, if they’re dropping their kids off at school, they can listen to that episode on their drive home, and by the time they’ve got home, they’ve listened to it, they’ve learned something cool, and then they’ve got something that they can actually implement. I think that was my. Passion was that there was a lot of talk and a lot of like big ideas and a lot of things from the big names.

And I was like, okay, but where are the people that are at, you know, a similar stage of business to me and what are they struggling with and can mine be the podcast that they just like love to listen to? [00:04:00] And that’s kind of what I’ve created, which is exciting.

Laura McRae: And how does the podcast fit into your overall business strategy?

Laura Canham: You know what I love my podcast for being, obviously it’s kind of a top of funnel strategy in terms of visibility for my business because people either stumble across it or maybe like a fellow business friend will like recommend it to their friend, and then it gets me seen. So it’s great in terms of like visibility for my business, which was.

Originally the intention, but it’s also this like trust builder and this great like nurture tool for people just to get to know me and like you can just binge a few of my episodes and you either like me or you don’t. You either, you know, trust in what I say and think that it’s great content or it’s not for you and.

I love that. And I think what I found when I was trying to choose mentors, you know, and coaches or programs to invest in, one of the things that I did was like, see if they had a podcast and I would like go and I’d listen to like maybe like 10 of their episodes [00:05:00] and I’d binge it and I’d be like, I love her.

Like she sounds like she knows what she’s talking about. I love her content. I actually do wanna work with her. So what I’ve found for me is, yes, it really does help me get seen. I like brand new audiences, but then it also really helps me build deeper connections with people who have stumbled across me and maybe want to learn a bit more than just.

You know, content on social media’s, surface level, you can get some little nuggets, can’t you? But I love talking. I’m a qualified teacher, so that’s why I feel like I love the podcast. ’cause I’m like, this is my chance to teach. You know, in this episode I’m gonna teach you something. And that’s kind of my mission is that for people can listen and decide like, do they like me?

Don’t they like me? And is there a program or something then that they want to work with me. And it’s almost like then the podcast is what? Gets me over the line. ’cause they’re like, well if I’ve listened to her for that space of time, she sounds normal. She sounds like she’s got her stuff together, then they’re more likely to invest.

And I love having that like [00:06:00] deeper connection piece, you know?

Laura McRae: Yeah. Run the same. I’ve bing listened to the episodes of podcasts and then ended up buying from that person. ’cause you built that trust with them, haven’t they? Well, they’ve built that trust with me. Yeah.

Laura Canham: Yeah. And I thought, well, if that’s the way that I buy or that I make my.

Purchase decisions. I’m like, well then probably my dream client’s gonna be very much the same where she’s out there, you know, she knows she needs some help with X, Y, Z, and she’s really trying to suss out like who knows their stuff and who’s just putting stuff on social media. But. There’s no real heart behind it or knowledge or insight behind it or whatever.

So it’s great I think for any business model from like a high visibility place, but also from this like nurture side as well. ’cause it just takes things a layer deeper than social media like ever can.

Laura McRae: You got someone’s attention for so much longer. ’cause I think the average on social media is they say seven seconds.

Yeah. That’s the crazy

Laura Canham: thing today, right? Especially TikTok is literally like, if you don’t catch them straight away, it’s [00:07:00] like swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe. Like we’re so quick to just be like, you gotta hook me or I’m out. And it’s kind of the same with your podcast episodes, but I think if someone’s actively choosing to search for you on Spotify or they’ve stumbled across you.

Then it’s much easier to like keep them in because if they can actually see the title of your episode before they then in, you know, choose to press play or whatever. So I think that makes the difference sometimes.

Laura McRae: What kind of transformation do you hope your listeners will experience through your

Laura Canham: podcast?

I hope that when people listen to the episodes, they actually learn something and then they can implement something. I love to just overgive and like quite often I’ll like write some notes down about the podcast and I’m like, Lori, you can’t record this as an episode. This is like a two hour long training for goodness sake.

It’s a lesson for me to just be like, okay, make this short and punchy. Make it so there’s one key thing that people [00:08:00] learn and there’s one key thing that they can take away, and it kind of depends what I’m talking about and what the topic is, but predominantly I want them to. Either walk away with a piece of knowledge or if it’s more of a personal episode, so maybe every few episodes there may be something that I riff on that’s less of a training and more of a like inspirational episode or a bit of a pep talk or something that just allows people to connect and relate to my story.

So if I do that, I want ’em to walk away and feel really like seen, heard and understood, especially if it’s, you know, a lot of my dream clients are women in business, mom’s in business. So I really want ’em to listen to that episode and just be like, oh, she gets it. Like she really gets it and she’s been able to achieve X, Y, Z while facing.

A, B, C, and that’s where I’m at. So now I feel like if I just implement that one thing that’s possible for me too. So definitely like practical. I’m very practical strategy focused.

Laura McRae: It’s so good that you think [00:09:00] about who your ideal listener is beforehand. You know, it’s a busy mom and she’s only got a certain amount of time in a day, and that you just wanna give her this one piece of advice and she can take that away.

That’s great because a lot of people don’t think about this and they will talk for two hours, but their ideal listener’s not gonna listen because they’ve only got 20 minutes to actually listen to you, so that’s really good. How do you decide on topics for your podcast episodes?

Laura Canham: I’m actually pretty strategic when it comes to deciding what I’m gonna talk about.

So like typically I will look at probably like the next three months ahead and be like, cool, what’s coming up? What am I selling? Am I launching anything? Is there any new freebies? You know, kind of look at my launch calendar and then I pretty much determine what I’m gonna say and what I’m gonna speak about in every single episode based on that.

So I kind of see every episode. As an opportunity to be its own little lead magnet essentially. So [00:10:00] if I’m about to launch a course or a program or something and I want to get more people interested in that thing or encourage them to sign up or buy or whatever, I’ll be like, cool. Okay. What kind of stuff can I teach them through a podcast episode or share with them that gives them like a little taste of that, that’s like, Ooh, that’s intriguing, that was interesting.

That kind of thing. And then I work backwards from there. So I’ll typically look at, you know, like, this is the date my course is launching, and then I’ll work backwards from there. And pretty much like every episode in the lead up is almost like a warmup. Like here’s a little tease. And maybe in the lead up.

I’ve got like a, a new lead magnet or some freebie to download. Maybe I’ve got a. Like a webinar I’m hosting or something like that, pretty much like all roads will lead to that thing. And if I’m not in a launch again, like the episode may be related to one of my courses or programs somewhere, or it may just be I.

Inspired by [00:11:00] something that I wanna talk about that week. You know, maybe it’s, something’s happened in my personal life that’s impacted on business and I’m like, I need to get on the mic and talk about this thing. And otherwise, if I’m not in a launch, it’s usually inspired by conversations I’m having with my clients.

’cause I find that I. Someone will come to me with a particular issue and then so will the other 5, 6, 10, 20, and I’m like, oh, there must be something in the air. And if, if they’re all experiencing this thing, this must be a really hot topic that I can then take, repurpose it into a podcast episode and share with my listeners who are probably also experiencing the same thing.

So typically it’s focused around what I’m selling. I do actually see my podcast as a bit of a, like a sales machine almost. It’s nurturing people to get them to like know and trust me, but ideally, I want the episodes to be almost like priming people to then take them to my paid offers because I find that, I don’t know, it’s just a bit random.

If, for example, like if I’m launching [00:12:00] a sales course. And then you go to my Instagram and all my content was to do like with branding. But then, and then you went to my podcast and all of my content was to do with websites. As someone who just came into my world, like you’d find that really confusing, right?

So I try and make everything. Relate to one another and be really cohesive so that if I’m in like a launch phase, say for like eight to 10 weeks, no matter where someone found me in that period of time, if they downloaded freebie, if they stumbled across the podcast, if they came to my Instagram, everything that I’m talking about relates to what I’m selling.

And I think a lot of people who are. A business owner who is creating a podcast to sell their services or create connection with other business owners. I don’t think a lot of people are doing that particularly well. I think they’re just recording random podcast episodes. They’re sending random emails and they’re also creating content on anything.

They’re like, oh, I was inspired by this. I’m gonna [00:13:00] create this content. And I’m like, but where’s the like synergy across that messaging? Then we wonder why perhaps we’re not making the sales that we wanna make. It’s like, well, ’cause people aren’t really clear on what you do and what you sell ’cause you’re not actually talking about it and you’re not actually creating content across all those platforms that relates to that thing.

Laura McRae: Yeah. That’s so good that you plan that far ahead. I do the same with my clients. We’d get on a call and the first thing I always ask them, what new services are you launching? What events are coming up? And we base the episodes around them on the runup. So it’s so good that you plan that well ahead because you need.

Have you ever pivoted your podcast content to match a change in your business focus? If so, what did that look like?

Laura Canham: Yes, and like, I’ll be real honest, I do this all the time and I think, I don’t know, we’re all entrepreneurs with creative brains, right? So I kind of get excited and I work out, okay, this is my launch calendar, this is my plan, this is my offer, all that kind of stuff.

And then I’ll obviously, once I’ve mapped that out, I then figure out what podcast episodes I’m gonna do, [00:14:00] and then quite often I’ll batch record them. And I have had it in the past where I’ve decided that, say, a webinar or a masterclass I’m gonna do was on topic X. So I’ve pretty much recorded maybe like three episodes that the plan was to launch them in the lead up to the masterclass.

I’m like, cool, this will prime people, get them excited to enroll. All that kind of stuff, and I’ve done that, and then maybe a week later I have this brand new amazing idea for what I want the masterclass to be. And actually the topic is slightly different. I’m like, ah, damn it. Okay, now I’m gonna completely change my podcast content and nothing is ever lost.

Right? Those episodes are already there, and what happens is then, like I said, I’ll then use them and repurpose them either for when I. Move that masterclass to a later date in the year or whatever. Or I’ll use them as like in between content for when I’m not doing a launch. And maybe that’ll encourage people to download a freebie from me or something else.

But there’s no way I would ever leave those episodes misaligned [00:15:00] to what I’m selling. And even though then it takes time, ’cause I’m like, right, I’m now gonna re rerecord these three episodes. It actually makes all the difference because most people will hear about what I’m doing. Through the podcast. So if I’m not sharing content related to what’s coming up, they’re not gonna know.

And you know, we’ve got this amazing opportunity now to have all these different touch points with our clients, and not everyone is seeing your content everywhere. So not everyone who listens to my podcast necessarily is on my mailing list or. Watches me on social media, so it’s actually a great way for me to make sure that I’m covering all bases and talking to all the people that are in my world, wherever they might be.

Same. There’s some people who don’t listen to the podcast and I’m like, why don’t you listen to it? It’s amazing. They don’t listen to it, but they’ll watch me on social media. So I’m like, cool. I need to make sure that no matter where that person is, where they’re constantly connecting with me, I’m talking about that topic in some way.

[00:16:00] So yeah, I have definitely pivoted my content like many times. But like I said, I just repurposed those episodes on another day, so that’s actually helpful then. ’cause if I go away on a holiday and I’m like, cool, or it’s Christmas, I’m like, oh, amazing. I’ve batch recorded those three episodes, I’ll use them then.

And it’s never a waste.

Laura McRae: That’s it. You can always use ’em down the line, can’t you? Yeah. And with the repurposing, it’s great. Like you say, you’ve got. Potential clients who watch you on Instagram, listen to your podcast, get your newsletters with the podcast. It can be the start of everything, and then you just repurpose that content for everything you do.

Laura Canham: Yeah, and I think there’s a lot of people who aren’t being savvy with the opportunity to repurpose, and it’s because we think that everything needs to be new and everything needs to be fresh. I need to stand out and it needs to be a unique idea. It’s like, well, it’s still your idea and. Like I mentioned, not everyone is listening to that in its fullest form.

On the podcast, not everyone is reading my email. Not everyone is seeing my [00:17:00] content. And there’s some weeks where say I do like a 20 minute episode on a topic. The amount of content I get from that one episode, there’s actually not enough days in the week for me to post the carousels I’ve turned it into, and the emails I’ve turned it into, like there’s actually too much content.

If you’ve got a podcast, like you’re in a great position to make your content creation process like so bloody easy.

Laura McRae: And even if that someone does see a newsletter and it’s similar to your podcast episode, you are not gonna lose them over it. They’ll just be like, oh yeah, I know that.

Laura Canham: Yeah. And you know, we’ve all done it.

You actually get something different out of content. Every time you read it. So someone might read a carousel of mine and be like, oh, you know, this little part landed for them. Then they listen to the podcast episode and they’re like, oh, it was that part that really landed. Now I’m gonna go away and do that.

Then in a week they read the newsletter and they’re like, oh. Now they see a different perspective. So I find that quite often, like we take different pieces out of that every [00:18:00] time we see it. And as you know, people need to hear the same thing quite often to let it land, to let it sit, and for them, you know, to really understand the concept and then implement the thing.

Laura McRae: Yeah, let ’em sink in. So how can business owners turn podcast episodes into assets that support their sales and marketing efforts? I think quite often.

Laura Canham: When people think about podcasting, they’re like, oh, wouldn’t it be good to get like a sponsorship deal and wouldn’t it be good for someone to put ads on here and let’s monetize this and let’s make money.

And I think they think that like making money from their podcast is all about getting a sponsorship deal or getting some ads on there or whatever. But you just gotta be really honest, like that is so hard to do. Like you really need millions of downloads, all these followers and like typically. It tends to happen with like the pop culture podcast, right?

That’s not really something you see unless you’re a huge name and you’re the Jenna culture or whatever. It rarely happens with like business style podcasts. If you’re an entrepreneur and [00:19:00] you’re creating a podcast to share with the business world, that is very challenging to do so. If that’s the way you are gonna try and monetize your podcast, you will be pushing poop uphill for quite a long time to make that happen.

It’s super challenging, right? So the way that I see it with my podcast is that, okay, I am gonna sponsor my own podcast. Instead of waiting for someone else to sponsor me, my business is gonna sponsor my podcast and I’m gonna have adverts on my podcast for my own business. And like, how much better is that?

If you are gonna advertise or spook something on your podcast, why not make it your stuff? Why would you make it something random? And I don’t know, we’ve all heard the podcast, right? Like I listened to this one about investing. And they’ve got all these ads on, then it’s got actually nothing to do with investing and you just skip past.

’cause there’s like an advert for like Jim’s mowing and then there’s an advert for some drink and you’re like, this has got nothing to do with this episode or the theme of this podcast. [00:20:00] Whereas if you can actually strategically create your own ads for your own offers, your own services, and embed those like strategically, weave those into your episodes.

That’s gold, right? Because you’re probably gonna make more money by selling your own stuff than you would getting, you know, some sponsorship from a small company or something to just feature on your podcast. Plus, it’s much more relevant and less random. Quick note,

Laura McRae: if you’re listening to this and thinking, this is exactly how I want my podcast to work for my business, but you’re not sure how to get started or how to align your episodes with your strategy.

That’s where I come in. I help business owners plan, launch, and manage podcasts that actually support their business goals without all the texts. Head to the show notes to book a free chat or check out how we can work together.

Laura Canham: So for me, I would say 90 ish percent of my [00:21:00] episodes will have me advertising my services or offers in some capacity at a minimum.

It’s pretty close to like a hundred percent. And whether it’s a paid off or not, I’ll be talking about how people can work with me in some way. And if you are a business owner and you’ve got a podcast, well, there’s probably two ways that you can do this, right? So the first thing that I tend to do often is I will just speak about my stuff just casually in that episode.

So maybe I’m sharing, you know, like one cheeky tip of how you can follow up clients. So if clients have ghosted you, here’s how you can follow up. And I may just weave in there if I’ve got a resource on that, if I’ve got a program that’s getting my clients’ results on that thing, I’ll say, look, you know, this is the strategy that I used with my clients in X, Y, Z program.

That’s how I know it works. If you wanna take what you’ve learned today and take that a layer deeper and you wanna actually implement this process in your own business, download this freebie, jump in this program, you know, the link is in the [00:22:00] show notes or DM me and it’s just so casual and it’s kind of weaved in to the value you are already providing.

So I think people worry. It’s a sales mindset thing where we’re like, but I don’t wanna like, you know, be pushy with my stuff. I don’t wanna hassle people or keep talking about my stuff. But from my perspective, if I was a listener of a podcast and I loved it, and I was like, oh my God, I love what she shared there.

That’s so amazing. And that person had a course, a program, a resource or something to help me further with implementing that thing, and then didn’t tell me about it. I’d be like, pretty annoyed. I’d be like, oh my gosh, I got so much outta that. I would’ve loved to have known that you had $300 program to help me with that.

Like, why didn’t she just mention it? So from my perspective, I just think if you’ve got something that can help your listener, take that episode, what they’ve learned in that episode, a layer deeper, and you’re not telling them that’s actually weirder than telling them. Right. I [00:23:00] like, how weird is that? Why are you gate keeping that they need that?

Right? So if you can. Obviously if your content is related to what you sell and what you do, where possible, all the damn time, just casually talk about that. My clients in this program get this kind of result. You know, if you want something similar, do X, Y, Z, that kind of thing. So little calls to action and little ways that you can even story tell in your episodes and link that to something that you do or how they can work with you.

I just think is so relevant and a much better way of converting clients and actually making money in your business than waiting to get sponsored or getting some paid ads put on there and that type of thing.

Laura McRae: So true. It can take years to get paid sponsorship, so why not sell your own services? So like you say, even if you don’t put that advert in, just talk about your services and what I’ve done before as well with episodes if I’ve.

About something and I know that I’ve got a document I’ve created or I can quickly whip one up. I’ll just put a freebie in there and then people [00:24:00] will download that and then I’ve got them on the, on the mailing list too. It’s another way to get that conversation going with your listeners.

Laura Canham: Yeah, exactly.

And that’s the thing. It doesn’t always have to be a paid offer, just anything that you’ve got that you know will help that person. And whether it is a freebie, a resource, or you know, something like that, or it may be working with you in a paid capacity. Either way tell people. And so you can be super casual with it and just be like, you know, I will literally, as I’m talking.

It just comes out naturally. Now I’m like, okay, cool. If I’m talking about how to create an offer and I’ve got a program that helps people create their offers, I’m like, okay, and in this program you learn X, y, z, blah, blah, blah, blah. If you are in a launch, however, and you are actually trying to say, get people to sign up for a masterclass, or you want them to download a specific freebie, or there’s something you’re promoting for say, a three week period.

You can then be a bit more strategic with recording an advert, you know, for that thing. So sometimes it’s just weaving it [00:25:00] into the podcast episode as I’m talking. And then other times I will actually record, say a minute snippet spruiking, that thing, like, sign up for this thing, join this thing. I have this.

Did you know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I will insert that into the episode. The same. As if you know Jim’s Mowing has sponsored the podcast or some Pilates studio sponsored it. I would just take that same advert, but it’s me advertising me. And then, so yeah, I just record that separately and we’ll just embed that into the episode.

So you can do it either way, but I highly recommend always doing one of them. Either have that dynamic content or have yourself casually talking about it like in as many episodes as you can, or do both.

Laura McRae: Do a lot. Do you have any examples of how an episode has directly helped your business grow? Ooh, actually

Laura Canham: so many.

So I recently did like a masterclass. [00:26:00] Called Hot Offer. And in the lead up to that I did three episodes that were called Hot Audience and that was about how to connect with your audience, how to convert your audience, all of that kind of stuff. They were a series. I quite often do, if I’m gonna be selling something or if I’m in a launch period, I’ll quite often record almost like a series of episodes, so I will name them all, you know, whatever that’s called.

So it was like hot audience episode one, and it had like a subheading hot audience, episode two and so on. People love a series. Like it’s a really great way to encourage listeners to come back. ’cause they’re like, oh, now I get to listen to episode two. I get listened to episode three. So that’s something that works really, really well.

And that one, for example, people were like waiting for the next one ’cause they got so much value from the first episode and the second and the third. And after every episode, I was encouraging them to sign up to the masterclass where they could basically take what they’d learned from those three episodes and apply it to creating their offer.

Then I found that I had way [00:27:00] more like the amount of people who actually came to that masterclass live because of obviously the content from social media, but also there’s really detailed episodes. I had so much more engagement and then ultimately I then got people to buy in to my paid program, and that was the most that I’d ever converted from anything.

And obviously there’s a multitude of factors at play. Like I’m also nurturing via email. I’ve also got content on social media and that type of thing. But a lot of it comes down to people listening to those episodes. And I’d probably say out of the 60 episodes I’ve got on my podcast, the last time I checked those three had the most listens out of everything because the content was good because it was a series.

And also, you know, they were leaving each episode with something that they could like take away. And implement into their own business, so that worked so well. I highly recommend doing like a mini series, maybe like max five, maybe like three to five episodes where you like it’s a series on X topic and all roads then [00:28:00] lead to your paid offer or your free experience, or whatever it might be.

That’s a really good idea. And I do that a lot. I pretty much do that for every launch. Like I’ve had quite a few different series. And when I launched my mastermind a few months ago, I did that again, but I actually did that with guests and my guests were my past clients. And so again, that was like. A sales strategy indirectly because I was getting the opportunity to speak to current and past clients of mine, which people love listening to.

’cause we’ve all got the same problems, right? So it’s just really relatable content. But ultimately they were. Talking about their experience in my program. So it was kind of encouraging people to see like, okay, if they were here and now they’re here and this was their experience in that program. Hmm. Like maybe I’d like to find out more.

And that in itself, again, I don’t know if it was exactly that, but that was a big launch for my mastermind as well, because people were able to hear real stories from real [00:29:00] people. So there is an opportunity too. Use storytelling, testimonials and social proof in those kind of series as well.

Laura McRae: And what advice would you give to someone who wants to use their podcast to promote a product or service without feeling too salesy?

My biggest advice is

Laura Canham: just do it. Don’t be a weirdo about it. Just be casual. Just be yourself and constantly be thinking to yourself. If this was me listening to this and I love this episode and I write episodes and I record them and I’m like, this is fire. Like this is so good. Like people are gonna love this.

And so if that was you, if you were listening to that episode and you got so much out of it and that person had something to help you more, whether it’s a freebie or paid offer and they didn’t tell you about it, would you be annoyed? And like the chances are you would be, ’cause you’re like, I wish I knew that there was a resource.

I wish I knew. She had a $99 program or whatever. I wish I knew that I could learn that from her in a different way. [00:30:00] If that’s how you would think, then let that be your kick up the butt to start talking about your offers and how people can work with you. Because hand on heart, I do genuinely believe that it is weirder to not talk about your stuff than it is to talk about your stuff.

We don’t wanna gate. Like whenever I talk about my stuff, I never tell people to join my thing or enroll for my thing. ’cause I’m like, I want their money. I really want their money. Like that’s never my thought at all. My thought is, I know the person listening to this is gonna get so much out this episode.

I know she’s really struggling with this aspect of a business. And I know that if she jumped in the thing that I’m offering, like I can really, really help her. And let’s face it, like that’s why we all got into business, right? Is to do cool stuff and help amazing people and all that kind of stuff. So if we can reframe it to like, I really wanna help her and I have something to help her.

So I need to tell her, I need to get over my fear of it being about me [00:31:00] and being worried and just make it super casual. And I think maybe the best way to do it if you are worried that you’re gonna fumble on your words and get all weird about it, is to record the little advert, because then what you can do.

Record, it don’t even have to put your camera on, you just like record it into your mic, and then you insert that as your dynamic content into your episode. And then it’s cool because that’s just a minute. It’s recorded, it’s done, and then it gets inserted into all of your episodes. Then you don’t have to keep talking about it.

So I would say that’s the good place to start if you freak yourself out trying to, you know, talk about how people can work with you. And then as you get more comfortable, then you can start weaving it into your episodes and talking about it that way.

Laura McRae: Love it. So what’s one lesson you’ve learned about podcasting and business that you wish you knew when you started?

Oh, I think my,

Laura Canham: my biggest podcasting lesson is it actually is very time consuming to be a podcaster and to do it well. I. [00:32:00] And get the results that you want and create really like bingeable episodes and all that kind of stuff. Like you really do have to have a plan. Like I think I just saw all these people and there is people out there who just like I.

Wing it and make it up as they go along. But I always wonder how well is that converting? What results are they actually getting? Do you know what I mean? And you don’t know. You can only focus on what your intention is. But if your podcast is a tool to grow your audience and nurture your audience, then it does take some degree of planning to work out well, what episodes are gonna be of value to my audience?

Who am I speaking to? And how can I use each episode as an opportunity to then take people a layer deeper, whether that is getting them on my mailing list, whether that is speaking about an offer, just to like drop it in there just so they know that that exists. You know what I mean? And a lot of people aren’t doing that planning, like they’re just winging it.

And so that’s why I really like looking ahead and then sitting down and batch [00:33:00] recording a few episodes in one go because I don’t know, a lot of my clients are busy mums like me, and if I don’t batch record and if I don’t have a plan, chances are. One of the kids is gonna get sick. I’m gonna get sick, and then I’ll be like, oh my gosh, now I’ve lost my voice and I can’t record that podcast episode, and now that’s gonna impact on my launch outcomes and everything.

Then just spirals. So if you can plan in advance, if you can record as far in advance as you can, I then hand over my episode to my VA and we’re like, how can we repurpose this into multiple ways? So you are constantly ahead of the game with your content creation. You know what your sales strategy is for getting people from here to, you know, becoming paid customers and everything’s just so much easier.

You just do not, I’ve had it before where I’m like, I haven’t got an episode for this week. And that’s stressful. We want it to be fun. We want you to really enjoy creating your podcast episodes, you know, and I hate that feeling of being like, now I have to record something. I wanna be excited about what I record, [00:34:00] because people can hear that through the airwaves.

They can tell that the vibe is.

Laura McRae: Yeah, totally. And that’s the same with me and my clients. So we always record at least three weeks in advance. ’cause you never know what’s gonna happen. I’ve had a client that went into hospital and her podcast just carried on because we had weeks worth of content. And the same with me.

We’re recording this on the 18th of February, but it’s not going out to the 26th of March. I like to be well ahead because you never know. Like you say, we’re busy moms, you never know what’s gonna come up, do you?

Laura Canham: Exactly, and that has been a huge lesson for me. I think at the start I was just flying by the seat of my pants and just recording every week and like winging it almost.

And then I was like, wow, no, Laura, like you have to get much more strategic with what you’re talking about and make sure that you are planned ahead of time. And like I said before, you can then change that plan if you need to. But at least you know, like now I know I’ve got like a buffer of episodes sat there that I can use if I need to.

Laura McRae: [00:35:00] Yeah, it’s good to have a buffer. So what’s your top tip for business owners who want to use their podcast as a tool to grow their business, sell your stuff on

Laura Canham: your podcast. Basically, encourage people to connect with you further than just listening to you on the airwaves. And where possible find a way.

For your business to sponsor your podcast, and you know what’s amazing? In a year or two or three, your podcast may take off and you may actually get sponsorship externally from something else, but in the. Don’t leave money on the table and don’t miss out on potential opportunities to, number one, grow your email list.

And number two, grow your income by actually talking about how people can work with you and selling to them through your episodes. And like I mentioned, if you feel weird about it, prerecord that advert and upload it into your episodes. And as you get more comfortable just. Talk about it, [00:36:00] but just make sure that there is a call to action within every single episode.

And I think quite often if we don’t plan out what we’re talking about, it’s like a wishy-washy episode and there’s, you know, no intention and purpose behind it. So people listen and they’re like, that was kind of inspiring, but what did I get? If you can have a solid call to action at the end of it. This is what you need to go away and do as the listener.

And if you want to go deeper, you know, here’s a free resource, or here’s how you can work with me, and that type of thing. And always leverage from your show notes as well. I think sometimes people aren’t using that as an opportunity to get people on their mailing list or share their offers. So talking about it, but also using your show notes as well.

Laura McRae: Talking of show notes, tell us where people can connect with you and I’ll put all the links in my show notes.

Laura Canham: So the best place where I hang out the most is Instagram. So you can come and find me there at Laura Canam and you can also go and binge listen to my podcast, which is actually getting rebranded right [00:37:00] now.

So if you ever get to the point where you feel like I. You need to change up your podcast. Don’t be afraid to like rebrand and pivot slightly. So that’s what I’m doing currently. It’s currently called the CEO show. And we will just, I will keep you posted on what the new one is called, but if you follow me on Instagram, you will see that all unfold and all come to life.

Laura McRae: And once Laura’s launched a new podcast, I’ll put the link to that in the show notes too.

Laura Canham: Yes, that will be amazing. And anything that you wanna learn about sales, I’m your girl. I got a whole bunch of stuff for you, so you can just head over to my Instagram and come and grab that as well.

Laura McRae: Amazing. Thanks so much, Laura.

You’re so welcome. It was fun talking to you. You soon. I absolutely love that chat with Laura, especially her take on sponsoring your own podcast. I couldn’t agree more. Your podcast is a brilliant platform to build trust and sell your offers without the hard sell. And Laura shared so many gold nuggets on how to do that in a way that feels easy and aligned.

What stood out for me most [00:38:00] was her focus on planning episodes around what she’s selling, something I always encourage my clients to do too. A podcast doesn’t need to be an extra task. It can actually streamline your content creation and help you stay focused on your business goals. If this episode’s got you thinking about how to get more strategic with your podcast or how to use one to support your services, I’d love to help you.

You don’t have to figure it out all on your own. Podcasting can be simple, I promise. If you found value in this podcast, please leave a five star rating and a review will be even better. Your support shows that this is a good show. Which will attract high profile guests and in turn deliver greater value to you.

This podcast is produced and edited by me. Don’t waste your time on editing. Let me help you with your podcast. Check out the links in the show notes to get in touch.