How Diverse Perspectives Can Elevate Your Podcast | John Roman

Sadaf Beynon: Welcome to Podjunction Podcast. This is a show for podcasters who are using their podcast to grow their business. I'm Sadaf Beynon and beside me is the most excellent Matt Edmundson.

Matt Edmundson: Most excellent. Love that. Keeping that. Bill and Ted. Most excellent. Showing my age now. Did you ever watch that show?

Sadaf Beynon: Uh, no.

Matt Edmundson: You've never seen the movie Bill and Ted?

Sadaf Beynon: No, I tried. I couldn't do it. Dude.

Matt Edmundson: Dude. Why not?

Sadaf Beynon: No.

Matt Edmundson: Okay.

Sadaf Beynon: I just couldn't.

Matt Edmundson: Sorry about that. Sorry, guys. You've just, half the listeners have just gone, yeah, I'm not listening to Saturday Night Live.

Sadaf Beynon: Oh no, come back, come back, come back. In this episode, you're going to learn.

In the next four episodes, we've got um, insights from John Roman, who is the co host of ASOM Pod. And this is the first of the four miniseries that we've, that we're doing.

[00:01:00] So in this particular episode, you're going to learn how you can use different perspectives to create engaging content. You're going to learn how, um, existing conversations can also be used as valuable content on your podcast. And finally, how the commitment to producing content consistently really sets you apart in the podcasting world.

Matt Edmundson: Very good. And it has to be said that John is an absolute legend. Yes. I saw John a few weeks ago.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, you did.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, Sub Summit 2024. Met John there. What a legend he is. We hooked up at the, what did I say, the Gas Monkey, which is a car place in Dallas, outside of Dallas, Texas. Apparently it's a TV show. Not that I know, because I've definitely not seen it.

Uh, but saw John there over some great food, so I'm looking forward to this because John is a legend. And I really, I watched them do a live recording of the awesome podcasters. Oh, did you? Yeah, it was great. Oh, cool. Four guys interacting really well. Um, it's like, it's [00:02:00] hard enough when there's just two of us.

It's a true story. Yeah, it's a very true story, but they've got four, so you kind of like, wow, guys, well done. So, um, yeah, really, really fascinating. So yeah, it's cool. So are we going to run VT now? Yes,

Sadaf Beynon: we are.

Matt Edmundson: Run VT. So here is John Roman. Sadaf and I will be back after this.

Sadaf Beynon: John, I know you've been a guest on so many podcasts and you very recently obviously launched your own ASOM Pod.

Tell us about the inspiration behind that.

John Roman: Sure. So, um, you know, a lot of, I have been on a lot of other people's podcasts, um, probably a few dozen at this point. And, you know, one of the reasons I do them, I enjoy. Um, talking through things that are working or not working for us in hopes that there's that aha moment for, you know, someone listening where they're like, Oh, I can try this or Oh, I was going to do that.

[00:03:00] But I know about this now. So I'm not going to and about a year ago. I had a weekly call with, um, uh, with our development agency that we use. And they were in, the call was, you know, at first going through, like, whatever projects we're working on, but then it turned into this, like, just talking about what's working, what's not working.

Um, and we realised there was probably a lot of, like, Takeaways for anybody listening to us. We're like, we're going to start recording this. We're meeting anyway. Let's just record it. See if there's anything good and just drop it on on social, um, and just short digestible, you know, one minute, two minute clips.

And we did that for, um, a few months. And we were like, man, something's missing. Like. We don't, we're trying to think through what's missing, and you know, he, he runs an agency, and, and I run, run a brand, and we're like, there's, you know, maybe there's other perspectives we're not thinking of. Um, so I reached [00:04:00] out to, um, a gentleman named Jimmy Kim, who runs an email platform called Sendlane, and he's, he could write a master class on, on, on social.

Like, his, They're not their entire model, but they built, they literally just build pipeline of potential prospects through through social where he's just offering value, education, best practices in the email arena, and that in turn becomes this funnel for the sending. Company. So reached out to him and said, Hey, I have this wild idea, you know, we have an agency guy, I am a, I'm running a brand.

You run software that's slightly different, so you probably have a slightly different lens on all this stuff in e-comm. And he was like, man, I have the same idea. And like showed me like notes, like we were both. Like having the same thought, he then found, right, we need one more, a marketer. [00:05:00] And he found, uh, a marketer that was the perfect fit and, and that was it.

So awesome ASOM agency, SAS operator marketer. So it's four unique perspectives and we were off to the races, a little different. We film it in person,

Sadaf Beynon: which,

John Roman: which is, uh, quite unusual in a post post COVID world. Um, and yeah, that's. That's it.

Sadaf Beynon: That's, that's very cool. So, um, I love how you, you've got all four of you there with the different perspectives speaking into, you know, one, um, one idea or, um, thought.

I think that's, that's a very cool, well rounded conversation I'd expect.

John Roman: That's, and that's the hope. That's the hope that it provides this full, full picture of, of topics in eComm.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. So how do you guys, um, how do you manage that? Because I mean, how often do you record? How do you like the [00:06:00] logistics around it?

John Roman: So we're not doing ourselves any favors. Um, so I live in Atlanta.

Sadaf Beynon: Um,

John Roman: Jimmy lives in Austin. Um, Amir lives in Chicago. And Brian lives, um, in the Northeast. He lives, he lives in Connecticut. Um, so we're geographically spread. So last month we filmed the first four episodes.

Sadaf Beynon: Okay. Um,

John Roman: I have a, I have a newborn, so I'm not able to travel or I wasn't able to travel.

So everybody flew in. to Atlanta. Um, we had dinner on a Thursday night and all day Friday, we just, we filmed the four episodes. Um, next month there's a conference sub summit

Sadaf Beynon: that,

John Roman: that all of us are actually going to.

Sadaf Beynon: Oh, cool.

John Roman: So we're just, um, two birds, one stone. We're all going to be in this place for three days.

So we grabbed a studio for a few hours on Monday and a couple hours on Tuesday. We'll, knock out, [00:07:00] um, four more episodes and then. We're doing a, at the conference, we're doing a live, um, a live episode. So we'll have, we'll have five after next week to add to the pipeline. And after that, it'll just be once a month.

You know, one day somewhere. Um, so they came to Atlanta. So I believe in July, we're going to go up to Connecticut and, uh, and Brian will host us. So it's, it's quite, quite a, quite a time commitment, you know, going, going out of town.

Sadaf Beynon: If that got you curious, and you want to catch the full episode, be sure to subscribe to the show. We've got plenty more great conversations coming up.

Matt Edmundson: Well, welcome back. Sadaf and I just having a little chat amongst ourselves as we're, Listening to that little interlude. Uh, so John Roman, awesome podcast. The [00:08:00] ASOM Podcast, um, is quite a new podcast. Uh, what those guys do. And like I said, at Subsummit, I got to watch them do the live recording and they've actually got some really interesting chemistry, those four guys, uh, between them.

Um, and it's interesting because I know if I did a podcast with four of my friends, It would be like a competition so you could talk the most, but that's not how they, the way they've structured it, I think, and the way they sort of handle that is, is quite clever, um, but the thing I love about what they're talking about here and what John's talking about is they started to do something and it didn't feel quite right, like they were missing something, and so they've ended up with four of them, four different specialties, four different guys, four different, uh, you know, sort of viewpoints, And I really like that because actually it takes a lot of the pressure off in terms of content production.

It gives you four people who are promoting the podcast all on their own social media channels, um, all to their own networks, [00:09:00] um, and, and, I just thought it was, it's such a smart idea. I'm surprised there aren't more people doing it in many ways. Do you know what I mean? Um, but I, I, I, I love what those guys are doing.

Love the whole idea of building out a team that you can host the podcast with. It does have its tribbles as they talked about. Um, but yeah, fascinating.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, I totally agree. I love how, um, sorry,

Matt Edmundson: get your microphone set up.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, I love how they've got the four different, the four different perspectives.

Yeah, on a given topic. And, you know, they, they bring in, it's, I think what's nice about it, not that there are I haven't watched all of their episodes, but, um, it's not that they're disagreeing. It's just that they're adding more to the conversation. Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: They're building it out. Yeah. So this is what this means for us in marketing.

This is what it means for us in SaaS and they're building out and having a conversation around it.

Sadaf Beynon: And for someone in the [00:10:00] eCommerce space, that would be such a valuable podcast,

Matt Edmundson: what they're doing. I'd be interested to see how long they keep it going because. They've, I mean, they've started off really strong, you know, in terms of the promotion, they promoted a lot of Sub Summit and getting the listeners onto the show, which I think is great.

Um, but I think they're going to have to monetize that pretty soon to cover the costs of travel. Or there has to be some benefits that justify the cost of travel to give up. In effect, it's going to be two days a month. By the time you've flown somewhere, done a day's recording and flown back, that's going to be at least two days.

And so to give up that time, I think that's going to be the big thing. So if you're, you know, if you're thinking about doing one of these podcasts, there are things to be aware of. One is going to be the time, especially if you're doing it in person, you could in theory say we're going to do a four person podcast, but do it over like [00:11:00] Riverside or something like that.

Right. And record. For remotely, so you then you've not got the travel issue. There is something, I mean, and that's easier to, to arrange and sort out in a lot less, a lot more cost effective and maybe a place where you need to start. But having done podcasts where say you and I have done it remotely, we've co hosted remotely, and then when we do it like this in a studio where we're next to each other, it's always much better when you're in person.

Yeah.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, for sure.

Matt Edmundson: Always much better. That's not to say it has to be done this way, because, you know, we interview guests remotely. We do. On a lot of our podcasts, like you were, that was a remote interview with John Roman then. Um, so it's not to say you can't do it remotely. But I think if you're going to have, especially if it relies on banter, uh, which I rely on a lot, I like banter.

I think banter and stuff like that tends to be much better in person. Um, and so there's a, there's a big decision to [00:12:00] make there, isn't there? But this whole idea of the four person podcast or the three person podcast, you know, the panel kind of conversation, I think is, is such a good idea. Part of me wishes that when we did eCommerce podcast all those years ago.

I should have gone and found three other people to do that with because you share the burden then. And so maybe that's what I should do with EP. Maybe just go and get three other people to say, come, you know, maybe, maybe not. But no, I think it's really cool. Have you heard the podcast, the awesome podcast?

Sadaf Beynon: I've heard the, I listened to the first one and I found it, I found it quite entertaining actually. Informative as well. But I haven't listened to any of the ones that came after that. And I think the ones they recorded in sub summit during sub summit would have been for the next month, because they recorded I think early June.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah,

Sadaf Beynon: for all of June. And then yeah,

Matt Edmundson: yeah. And it's the how did why did you find it informative? [00:13:00]

Sadaf Beynon: I think because like, I mean, I'm not, I don't have an eCommerce business, but I think what they were talking about was valuable for someone who would have a, have a business. So it wasn't just, you know, four guys just having fun and chatting away and you're just listening in.

It was also that if you were, if you had an eCommerce business, that would be helpful as well.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, totally. And I think because there's four people involved, there's the back and forth coming. You're not getting bored, are you? Yeah. So like I've noticed when we do interviews with people, sometimes you're doing interviews with people and it's, it's, if you do it with someone that's done podcasting quite a bit, it tends to be more conversational, a bit like this, we go back and forth, but there are sometimes like recently, I won't say who I've recorded a podcast.

And the person I was recording with likes talk. Oh, yes. And it was hard to get any bit like myself, really hard to get any words in. And so So with four people, that becomes much more difficult to do. And so therefore, as a [00:14:00] listener, it can be a lot more engaging because there's not one sole voice and because it's constantly switching from one to the next, it kind of keeps your attention longer.

Yeah. Does that make sense?

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, it does. It does.

Matt Edmundson: So the four person podcast, what, like I say, I saw it live, thought it was great. I think it's a great possibility. I really do. And I think if you're starting out in podcasting or you're struggling with it. Then thinking about who else you can get involved is a really interesting idea and do check out John's podcast because you'll pick up some really useful tips.

One of the things which they do, which I think actually you can do on any kind of podcast, which he talked about in that, was they batch record. Yeah. So they take a day and they record four episodes. Um, And I think that's probably about right, you may get five, um, but I, I think to try and do more than that is having, having done days where I've recorded, I recorded nine podcasts in a day once, and that was just [00:15:00] horrific.

Um, for, in some respects, it wasn't all the same podcast, it wasn't all eCommerce podcast. It wasn't the

Sadaf Beynon: same conversation, yeah. No,

Matt Edmundson: it was like three or four different podcasts. And so it was kind of helpful. But it was hard going, um, and so I can see why they would do four in a day to actually batch record once a month, say, right, I'm gonna get all this month's episodes done.

Um, actually I think is a, is a. It's a really good way of doing it, unless you're doing something that is like so super topical. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? That it has to be like, I've got to respond to the news today. Like, I need to talk about what's topical at the moment. Well, we've got a new British government.

Uh, you know, you had the debate between Trump and Biden. If we were doing something topical, I wouldn't batch those out now because you have no idea what's going on in the next four weeks. Will Biden still be the Democrat? I don't know. It's all very exciting, isn't it? Um. And so, but with eCommerce, things change a lot and they change quickly, but you could batch them out once a month and still be pretty relevant.

Sadaf Beynon: [00:16:00] Yes, even with AI topics.

Matt Edmundson: Even with AI topics. Um, but I was thinking about this yesterday. Uh, I was, I was doing my little wander around the park, which I like to do in the mornings, thinking about life, love and the universe. And I was thinking to myself, it'd be really interesting to do a podcast, um, and in my head, I called it, uh, different opinions or a different approach or something like that, where you had three or four people who had quite different viewpoints on the world, do you know what I mean, and in my head, I had a certain friend of mine, um, and she has quite a different viewpoint, uh, In, in life and how you approach life, you know, uh, and I think it'd just be really interesting to say, right, you get three or four different people around and you say, right, let's talk about politics.

You know, who are you going to vote for and why? And have a friendly conversation amongst yourself. So you get three or four very widely different opinions [00:17:00] and there'll be some coming together on some things, but I thought something like that would be quite good fun, you know, and I think why not, if you're going to do something topical like that, get some different voices, some, some unique, I think the way John's done it is great because I don't, it's not like he's got a Democrat and a Republican, maybe they are, I don't know, but it's not like, They're diametrically opposed.

It's like we've got four strands from this industry and experts in each part who can add to that conversation, complement each other in

Sadaf Beynon: some sense too, right?

Matt Edmundson: I think that works. But I also think the, the other end of the spectrum is true. So, um, you know, you, you could have a person of faith and a person not of faith talking about cultural issues and what does that look like?

And I think something like that would be really interesting.

Sadaf Beynon: It would be interesting.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. To get, to get the different sides of the, the conversation.

Sadaf Beynon: Mm. Yeah. I think personally I would like that for something that was a bit of a gray area, a little bit controversial, but if I Sure. Which one I like then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:18:00] Like which side? I. I was on them. Yeah. Not so much.

Matt Edmundson: Fair play. Fair play. But I can see this style of podcast working in pretty much most industries. Yeah. I think the one thing you've got to have, whether you're co hosting like we do, you know, whether there's two people, whether there's three, whether there's four, the one thing you've got to have, I think, is the ability to get on with that person.

Um, I don't think you have to necessarily have crazy amounts of banter. Um, but I think there has to be some kind of chemistry in that area. Natural. Yeah. Um, you've got to be able to finish each other's.

Sadaf Beynon: Thoughts, sentences.

Matt Edmundson: There you go.

Sadaf Beynon: We obviously still need

Matt Edmundson: to practice.

Sadaf Beynon: I got there.

Matt Edmundson: In the end, just like British Rail, we get there eventually. But no, I think. I think it's a good idea. I think, especially if you don't want to do the solo podcast or you need some help sort of share the, share what's [00:19:00] going on. I think it's a really great thing. So yeah, hats off to you, John, for doing that and definitely check out his podcast and have a think about how you could make it work for you, you know, um, and just run a few trials, run a few tests, see how it could work, see how it couldn't work.

What's he going to talk about in the next few episodes? Is he carrying on the conversation about this or is it different things? Yeah, it

Sadaf Beynon: is a little bit about this and then he goes on to some other stuff.

Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. So definitely stay tuned. If you want to find out more about the multi person podcast, or the panel podcast is probably a better way to put it.

Multi person?

Sadaf Beynon: Multi person? No, I'm going to go with panel.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, I'm going to go with panel as well. Go with the panel podcast. So, uh, yeah, if you're interested in that kind of idea, make sure you subscribe because we'll talk about it over the next few weeks. But, um, yeah, anything else on this?

Sadaf Beynon: No, that's good.

Matt Edmundson: That was short. Yeah. That was sweet. Sweet. Very much. John, you're a legend. Good to SubSummit, my friend, and thanks for the invite to Gasmonkey, by the way. It's great. But yeah, we will see you next week when we are talking to, well, I say we, you are talking to John [00:20:00] again.

Sadaf Beynon: Yes, another one with John.

Matt Edmundson: And do you know what you're talking about in that?

Yes. What are we talking about?

Sadaf Beynon: More of the same. More insights.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, more insights. We don't actually know what he does. But we'll find out in the next episode. So make sure you join us. In that, make sure you like and subscribe and do all of that good stuff with the podcast. Is there anything else we need to tell people to do?

Sadaf Beynon: No, that's good.

Matt Edmundson: Are you sure? Yeah. I think I've forgotten something. Yeah, you

Sadaf Beynon: have, but we'll get into it next time.

Matt Edmundson: I probably messed it up somehow. No, very good. Well, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, that's it from me. That's it from the wonderful Sadaf. Have a fantastic week wherever you are. We'll see you next time. Bye for now.

Sadaf Beynon: And that brings us to the end of today's episode at Podjunction. If you've enjoyed the insights from this episode and want to hear the full conversation with today's special guest, don't forget to visit podjunction. [00:21:00] com where you'll find more information about how you can join the podjunction cohort.

Whether you listen while on the go or in a Quiet Moment. Thank you for letting us be a part of your day. Remember, every episode is a chance to gain insights and to transform your business with podcasting. So keep on tuning in, keep on learning and until next time, happy podcasting.