Your listener does not need you. That is the part nobody says out loud.

They found your show, they gave you a few minutes, and then they left, because every fact in that episode was already sitting in a search bar. Five seconds. They did not even have to type it.

Want your show handled so it can actually feed the business? https://propodconcierge.com

Sara Lohse runs a podcast production company and wrote a book about storytelling, and her whole argument is that the only thing you own is the part that cannot be searched. In this conversation she proves it on a client who told her flat out that nobody needed her story, then changes that client's mind in about two minutes, on a call, with a story about her dad.

In this episode:

• The five doors a podcast can open, and how to pick the one your business actually needs
• Why a podcast is an employee, and what happens when you never give it a job
• The relationship play instead of the pitch slap when your ideal client is your guest
• Never answer a yes or no question with a yes or no, the fix you can use in your next recording
• How to add context to a fact in thirty seconds, without a dramatic story
• The client who said "we don't need my story," and the two minutes that changed her mind
• How one embarrassing story got Sara booked on a top finance podcast over a credentialed expert
• The one thing to do differently in your next episode

About the guest, Sara Lohse: Sara Lohse of Branded helps founders turn their own stories into podcasts that build the business behind them. She is the author of Open This Book: The Art of Storytelling for Aspiring Thought Leaders, and the host of First Stage. She learned to tell her own story live on air as a guest on Stacking Benjamins, and that host later wrote the foreword to her book.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saralohse/

Company, Branded: https://workwithbranded.com/about-us/

Podcast, First Stage: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDZtipQcht8r25g9jEit66mWAWtG9oIOV

Book, Open This Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D11KRP2X

Okay, quick one. Founder or business owner, the story is the part only you can tell. Nobody can do that for you. But the descriptions, the clips, chasing the guests, the editing, the posting, all of it after you stop talking, stop that now. That is not your job. You're supposed to be working on the business. The podcast is supposed to feed the business. You record, we handle the rest. Apply here to see if there's a slot open: https://propodconcierge.com

She was ready to shut the show down. Then Megan asked her two questions.

How many of your new clients last year mentioned the podcast as how they found you? Two or three. What is your average deal value? Ten thousand dollars.

Thirty thousand dollars. From a show she was about to kill. She had no idea.

Want your show handled so it can actually feed the business? https://propodconcierge.com

Megan Dougherty studies the top 100 business podcasts every year. She is the one who tells you not to copy them. In this conversation she makes the case that most founder shows are not broken, they are just being measured against the wrong job. Then she gives you the way to find the money your show is already making.

In this episode:

• The two questions that surfaced $30,000 in revenue nobody had counted
• The sales enablement podcast, and how sending two or three episodes before a call took one company from a three month sales cycle to six weeks
• Why treating your podcast as your main top of funnel is the biggest mistake founders make, and what it should do instead
• Why copying the top 100 shows will not work, and what actually separates them
• The honest timeline for deciding when to keep going, change course, or kill the show
• The one highest leverage move to make this week

About the guest, Megan Dougherty: Megan Dougherty of One Stone Creative helps businesses design podcasts that do a specific job inside the company. She is the author of Podcasting for Business and runs the annual State of Business Podcasting Report, which has studied the top 100 business shows every fall since 2020. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doughertymegan/ Book, Podcasting for Business (free): https://podcastingforbusiness.com/ Company and the annual report: https://onestonecreative.net/

Okay, quick one. Founder or business owner, if you are recording and then doing all of it yourself, the descriptions, the clips, chasing the guests, the editing, and you still cannot tell whether any of it fed the business, stop that now. That is not your job. You're supposed to be working on the business. The podcast is supposed to feed the business. You record, we handle the rest. Apply here to see if there's a slot open: https://propodconcierge.com

This has been the Founder Podcast Lab. See you in the next episode.

"Posting on social media only is a billboard to people who already know you're doing this."

That is Ande Lyons, 800 plus episodes and 14 years into this, answering the founder whose podcast is not bringing in any business. Her point is blunt. All that posting is reaching the people who already found you. Nobody new is discovering the show, and no amount of clips fixes that.

We get into what does fix it. She makes the case that a founder podcast is a lead magnet and a brand awareness asset, not a direct sales channel, and that expecting it to convert on its own is why so many founders quit around episode ten. She also gives the proof that the long game is real: she stopped publishing Startup Life in June 2023, and last week the archive still pulled 245 downloads.

In this episode:

• Why eight or ten episodes is not enough for anyone to find you yet
• Why download counts are the wrong number, and what to look at instead
• The biggest mistake founder podcasters make, and the three part structure that fixes it
• Why people need roughly eight touches before they act on anything
• The one word change that makes a listener feel spoken to instead of broadcast at
• How to keep the podcast from eating the time you should spend on the business
• Why guesting on other people's shows may be the highest return move available to you
• How to manage up so your three points land even when the host never asks
• The one thing to change going into your next episode

About the guest, Ande Lyons: Four time founder and host of Don't Be Caged By Your Age, a pro-aging podcast. She has produced more than 800 episodes since 2012, previously hosted Startup Life, and founded the New England Podcasters Group, a monthly in person and virtual meetup for indie podcasters. Podcast, Don't Be Caged By Your Age: https://www.dontbecagedbyyourage.com/ New England Podcasters Group: https://newenglandpodcasters.group/ LinkedIn: [ADD ANDE LINKEDIN URL]

If you're a founder or business owner running a remote podcast and you're the one writing the descriptions, doing the SEO, cutting the clips, chasing the guests, stop that now. That is not your job. You're supposed to be working on the business. The podcast is supposed to feed the business. At ProPod Concierge, you record, we handle the rest.

Right now we're taking on a handful of founders for a full, free month. Not a trial, the whole thing. This isn't for everyone. If your show is already handled and it isn't eating your bandwidth, skip this. A handful of seats for those that qualify, and once they're full you go on the waitlist.

Apply here to see if there's a slot open: https://propodconcierge.com

Tags (Buzzsprout tags field, comma-separated): Ande Lyons, Founder Podcast Lab, podcast SEO, founder podcast, podcast marketing, podcast lead magnet, podcast not getting clients, podcast guesting, brand awareness, done for you podcast production, ProPod Concierge, business podcast

This has been the Founder Podcast Lab. See you in the next episode.