In Depth with Jason Greenwood: the Evolution of the Ecommerce Edge Podcast | Jason Greenwood

Sadaf Beynon [0:00 - 0:31]: . Welcome to Podjunction Podcast, a show for podcasters who want to use their podcast to grow their business. I'm your host, Sadaf Beynon, and today I'm joined by Jason Greenwood. Jason is the host of the E Commerce Edge podcast, a show that is over 400 episodes strong and full of e commerce tips and expert chats. As you can probably tell, Jason loves helping brands thrive in the e commerce world. Jason, welcome to the show.

Jason Greenwood [0:31 - 0:42]: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I am super excited to be here and chat to you all about podcasting today. And yeah, I'm definitely a little bit of a podcast junkie, so absolutely love it.

Sadaf Beynon [0:42 - 1:07]: Oh, that's awesome, Jason. It's great to have you. Thank you. All right, so in this episode, we're going to explore how you've leveraged your show to drive business growth, build authority and create valuable networking opportunities, all of which I am very much looking forward to. But before we get into that, Jason, for the sake of context, tell us a bit about your business and the inspiration behind the E Commerce Edge.

Jason Greenwood [1:07 - 3:52]: Absolutely. So, interestingly enough, I didn't really. My goal behind establishing my podcast wasn't so much to drive business for my own personal business, because I've only. You know, I started my podcast way back in 2016 and this was before I ever had my own independent consultancy. And so I was running agencies, I was building brands, I was, you know, I didn't. I didn't have my own practise. And so when I first started my podcast, it was. It was primarily. There were two big reasons behind that that were not necessarily directly commercially related. One is if you want to have discussions with people in your industry and you want to just have a chat, you want to swap war stories, you want to learn from each other, you want to create an environment where you can have these deep and meaningful conversations, it's very difficult to do that outside of having a podcast, because let's say I have someone that I find really interesting or intriguing on LinkedIn and I reach out to them via DM and I say, hey, look, I'd love to have a. You know, I'd love to grab a virtual coffee with you for 15, 30 minutes and chat, talk shop. You know, nine times out of 10, they will say no, because they think you're trying to sell them something, they think you're trying to pitch them. Whereas when you have a podcast, 99% of the time, they will say yes. And especially once you get over 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 episodes, all of a Sudden now you have a level of credibility that is very difficult to get any other way. And so being able to have conversations with thought leaders and experts in my industry, very difficult to do outside of the podcast realm. Second thing is, when I looked out across the pantheon of e commerce podcasts in the world and there were many of them and there were some very, very good ones, even some that I regularly listened to, most of them focused on merchant stories and digital marketing. None of them that at the time, there's been a few that have come along now, but at the time there were none of them that talked about E commerce through a technical and operational lens. And that's my background. My back is, my background is tech and ops, senior solution architect, consultant. And and so I look at the world of e commerce very much through a technical and operational and data lens and I didn't really see any out there that spoke to me. And so I thought, well then if nobody's going to do it, why don't I do it and why don't I put out content that I would like to consume? So that was really the genesis of the podcast, to be honest. Now of course it's turned into so much more. It's kind of taken on a life of its own since and it's led to so many more good things in my life than that. But that was really the genesis of the podcast.

Sadaf Beynon [3:52 - 4:13]: That's very interesting actually that you say that because the amount of conversations I've had with people who say exactly that, that in order to be able to get your foot in the door to someone that you really want to talk to, inviting them onto a podcast is so much easier than just trying to have a conversation with them. How has it evolved?

Jason Greenwood [4:14 - 7:07]: Yeah, so we started out, there's been many evolutions, but we started out with a once a week. Well, actually it was, it's interesting. I started out with, with a monopodcast, meaning it was just me speaking to the camera, it was me telling my stories, it was me speaking from my knowledge, it was me speaking from my experiences and the hard fought lessons of being in the industry for over 20 years. And I found that that, that pretty rapidly became unsustainable. It was, it was too difficult to come up with constantly new angles on the same types of topics. And although I have a deep pool of knowledge and experience in E commerce, I don't have experience across every single facet of E commerce because it's a very broad topic. It's a very broad subject and there's many deep specialisations within E commerce that you can explore. And so I pretty rapidly, after the first, I think it was 30 episodes or so, I had to pretty rapidly pivot into an interview style podcast. So that was the first major change. Went from a solo podcast, me looking at the camera, me talking about my experiences, to me doing interviews and talking with experts in their fields and oftentimes in areas that I was not an expert in. Two, we made the pivot. So initially we had one podcast episode a week. What was very infrequent to start with. Then we standardised onto one episode a week talking about specific e commerce technology. But latterly, and this is within the last couple of years, we added two new episodes per week to the podcast. We now release three episodes a week. Monday is a mentorship episode, which is. I occasionally will have guest mentors on the podcast to talk about specific topics, but most of those episodes come from my one to one mentorship. I have a free mentorship programme, a free e commerce mentorship programme where I will record snippets of those mentorship sessions with my, with my guests and then I will collate all of those together around a specific topic and then put those out as a Monday episode. Then we added the Wednesday episode, which is a B2B commerce focused episode. And that was added after the mentorship episodes because I noticed a massive shift in the industry starting a couple of years ago, which is B2B.E commerce really started to come into its own. It started to become a thing specialists from that world really started to get religion around putting out content. And so it really became a focus of my consulting and therefore it became a focus of my content. So we still have the Friday episode, which is a tech focused episode, which is kind of the OG episode, but now we have those two additional episodes a week, Mentorship and B2B. So that's kind of how it's evolved over the years. And we're now at over 400 episodes and it's very, very exciting.

Sadaf Beynon [7:07 - 7:22]: It does sound really cool because I see, listening to you speak, I can see that you're responding to what's happening in the industry and where you see the gaps are and where the needs are. And so I can imagine that those conversations would be very valu valuable to.

Jason Greenwood [7:22 - 8:21]: Your listeners and valuable to me. I'm not gonna lie. You know, I get a chance to speak to people that are absolutely geniuses in their field. You know, people of every colour, shape, size, gender, like, you know, and coming from very different facets of the industry than I do. And so it's. It's an opportunity for me to do deep learning on specific facets of our industry that I don't know enough about. And so it absolutely is. It's not just a chance for my audience to learn, but it's absolutely equally a chance for me to learn in deeper ways. You know, despite the fact that I've been doing this 24 years, the reality is there's no way you can learn everything. Right. It's just. It's really difficult. And so being able to speak to experts and their specific field is something that is massively rewarding for me. Just to make sure that I am staying at the cutting edge of my industry as well.

Sadaf Beynon [8:21 - 8:31]: Yeah, absolutely. And going back to what we were saying before, tapping into some of these people that you wouldn't otherwise have had an opportunity to speak to, the podcast is great for that, isn't it?

Jason Greenwood [8:31 - 10:06]: Yeah, absolutely. And also what I like to do is I like to give my guests a platform to speak to the world that they might not otherwise have, because I have had the privilege of meeting a lot of these people at conferences, private events, dinners, activations, things like that. So I. I'm very fortunate in that I speak at a lot of conferences, I go to a lot of events, I lead a lot of events. We, you know, I help to judge e commerce competitions, and I try to be as involved in my community as I can possibly be. And by virtue of that, I get access to people that I may not otherwise get access to. But by the same token, those same amazing individuals don't often have a platform of their own. So unless they've got a podcast or unless they've got a newsletter, or unless they're speaking at conferences or whatever it might be, oftentimes their knowledge is kind of just stays trapped up here, except for maybe the individual clients they work with on a daily basis. And so what? Another goal of my podcast is to expand the hive mind of knowledge in our community by giving a platform to people that otherwise wouldn't have a platform to speak out about their knowledge and share their knowledge with the wider world. Because I believe that a rising tide floats all boats. And so the more that we share our knowledge, the better we collectively as an industry we get, the more trust, trustworthy we become and the more trusting the buying community becomes, and therefore it benefits us all. It actually grows the pie. So that's another main goal that I have with the podcast.

Sadaf Beynon [10:06 - 10:21]: Yeah, fantastic. Yeah, that's so true. Jason. When we first spoke in our pre call A couple weeks ago, you said that your podcast is a big driver of business. Poor you. So let me ask then, how do you leverage your podcast as a tool for business?

Jason Greenwood [10:21 - 15:02]: Yeah, it's interesting. Like I said, I never really set out, you know, because I didn't have my own consultancy. At the time I started my podcast, I was actually working inside of a brand. And so the genesis of the podcast, in fact, all of my content, I have to give credit where credit is due, and a lot of credit is due to Gary Vee. Now, no matter what you think about Gary Vee, the guy has been preaching the content game, the jab, jab, jab, right hook game for, you know, like now it feels like, you know, over a decade. And so the reality is I was. I was a great fan. Listened to a lot of his content back in the day, very early days of Gary Vee, before he became this global phenomenon. But one of the things he preached over and over and over again, and I got sick of hearing, frankly, was if you think you're a thought leader, like, how can you be a thought leader if you don't put your thoughts out into the world and open them up to critique? And so he just kept saying that over and over and over again. And I did fancy myself, to be fair, not arrogantly, but I did fancy myself as a little bit of a thought leader in industry because I'd been in it for so long. It wasn't so much that I thought, oh, I'm. I'm special or I'm a genius. It was more like, man, I've been doing this for a really long time, so I'd like to think I have a pretty deep understanding of how our industry operates, and maybe I have some unique lessons to share with the world. But I never really. I was. I was more of a consumer of content than a creator of content. And I didn't want to be that anymore. I. I wanted to contribute back to an industry that had given me an amazing lifestyle. So. So working in the e commerce space, it's. It's given me the opportunity to be a digital nomad. It's given me the opportunity to. To travel the world. It's given me the opportunity to do things that I wouldn't have been able to do. I don't think in almost any other industry. And therefore I have a level of gratitude to my industry. I think of my podcast almost like a love to my industry. Right. Because this industry has been so good to me and I've made so many close friends over the last 20 plus years that I wanted to give something back, right? And so Gary Vee just kept hammering that home. You think you're a thought leader? Shut up and start creating and then open up your ideas to critique by the wider world. So I started out, start out with a, which was more like a vlog, a mono vlog. Then I started putting out a lot more written content on LinkedIn. And then, and then a couple of years after that, I really started to get serious about this podcasting thing. And so I've been, I've been going pretty hard in the content game for about nine years now. And in fact, in that first five years, I posted almost every single day to LinkedIn. It was, I barely missed a day. I'm a little bit less frequent now. It's not every single day. It's probably three to four times a week now on LinkedIn. But what I found is that a podcast allows you to dig deeper into topics than you would otherwise be able to dig deep, deep into. Secondarily, it gives me a chance to show my capability, my knowledge, my experience just through the questions that I ask. So it basically allows me to demonstrate expertise by asking hopefully what is extremely smart questions of my guests and hopefully being able to have and facilitate a two way dialogue about what is often very complex subjects. And so I think that for me, it didn't start out as an intention to grow a business, but it has massively benefited my business. I have generated business off of, from guests who said, hey, I know you do a podcast, but what do you actually do? Like, what do you do as a consultant? What is your job like? How do you do what you do? And that has turned into business opportunities. It has opened up opportunities for me to speak at conferences, which has then expanded my audience. And after I've spoken at conferences, people have come up to me and said, hey, I think you can help us. Why don't we have a chat, right? I've had people, just listeners, who have reached out to me via DM on LinkedIn and said, hey, you know, love this episode with XYZ, love the topic you were talking about. This is a challenge we're facing right now. Do you think you can help? So it's, it's had direct and indirect benefits for me way beyond what I could have ever, you know, expected or suspected. And, you know, I just have to again go back and give kudos to Gary Vee because Gary Vee said, when you start putting out content, you have to trust the process because you don't know, you don't know where your content is necessarily going to land. You don't know who's going to consume it, you don't know how it's going to impact them. You just have to trust the process and you have to trust that if you do it long enough and with the best of intent, good things will happen. You may not know exactly what those good things are, but good things will come out of it. And that has absolutely been true in my case. And again, like I said when I first started out, had no idea all the good things that would come out of it.

Sadaf Beynon [15:02 - 15:11]: When did you start noticing or when did you think that you were actually going to benefit from doing this? Like, when did you see the value in it, maybe is a better way to put it.

Jason Greenwood [15:11 - 17:34]: Look, it was a, it was a slow burn, I'll be honest. And it is still a slow burn. You know, I'm not going to lie. You know, I produce a very niche podcast for a very niche audience. And I'm not trying to be all things to all people. I'm not trying to be a digital marketing podcast, which would probably cater to just about everyone in the, in the E commerce world. So I'm very niche and I, and I intend to stay that way. I have no desire to be all things to all people because I think, I think my personality is a little bit polarising. Some people absolutely love me, some people can't stand me, they can't stand my voice, they can't stand my vibe. And that's fine. People self select in or out. I think, you know, there's the saying in the creator community, your vibe attracts your tribe. Right? And I'd like to think that my vibe's pretty special, it's pretty unique, it's, it's very me, it's very Jason. And if you've ever met me in real life, I'm exactly in real life, exactly like I am online. And I, I just don't pull any punches. And I, and I just, I call BS where I think it exists in the world. And, you know, and so I think that it was probably, it took probably a hundred episodes for the world to start taking me more seriously as a podcaster and as a content creator, because up until that point, you know, pod fade is a thing and I think the statistics are something like 94% or something of podcasts never get past episode 20. So I think if you can get past episode 20, 30, 40, 50, you start to, you pretty rapidly start to build up an element of credibility. If People can count on you to release episodes with consistency, so you become part of their daily routine. So I've got five or six podcasts that I listen to, like with almost religious fervour. Every single day, or at least every single time they release an episode, it pops up on my Spotify homepage. And as soon as there's a new episode out, I just automatically hit play because. Because they're part of my routine. I walk my dog three times a day. I do over 10,000 steps a day, and what do I do every single time I walk my dog? I'm listening to podcasts. So it's part of my daily routine. And so I'd like to be part of other people's daily routine. I'd like to be so valuable that those three days a week, that Monday, Wednesday, Friday when I release my episodes, they can't wait to see that pop up on their homepage of Apple podcasts or Spotify or YouTube or wherever they. Wherever they watch or listen to me.

Sadaf Beynon [17:34 - 17:45]: I wanted to also ask you about LinkedIn. So you said that you posted every day to LinkedIn. What was your thinking behind that? What was the reason for that?

Jason Greenwood [17:45 - 21:28]: In our industry, there is. Well, there used to not be. There's. There's a little bit more spaces now. There are more spaces now for our community to gather. But, you know, five, six, seven, eight, 10 years ago, if you wanted to become known about a topic, if you wanted to put content out and become known as a specialist in a thing, there was hardly any other place that you could do that. Like, obviously, if you were into fashion or you were, you know, a creative brand or whatever, then maybe Instagram or, you know, latterly TikTok, etcetera, would be a great place for you to. To put out content and grow an audience. But if you were technical like me, and you worked in a technical field, there was really no place for us to put out content on a regular basis that would find an audience other than LinkedIn. And so I started putting out content just every day. I started put out content about news articles, other happenings, events, activities in our industry. Talked about things I was learning, talked about things I was doing, talked about projects I was working on. You know, I was trying to just put out, you know, talk about every aspect of our industry as often as I could. And I found an audience on LinkedIn that was really supportive of what I was doing. They were supportive of my content, they were appreciative of my content. You know, I felt like almost I had found a home, so to speak, for my content on LinkedIn that I hadn't found anywhere else. And you know, my following pretty rapidly grew. I've got over 33,000 followers now on LinkedIn and I just found that the sense of community, because I was one of the very early creators on LinkedIn and so I found that I was, I was one of a group of early creators that started to produce content on a super regular cadence for that platform. You know, I never really got into X Twitter, I never really found any traction on Twitter. I tend to write longer forum posts. And so Twitter wasn't really for me anyway because it was just, it was too short form, it was too punchy, it was, it was a little bit to the, too much to the point to where I couldn't, I couldn't communicate a cohesive idea or concept in that short of a space. And so a lot of people in my industry love Twitter X and they post their very regular, they have a massive multi million following there. I just never really figured it out. I never really figured out how to get cut through on Twitter, but I figured out how to get cut through on LinkedIn and that was that more medium form, not full blown articles, not tweets, but something in the middle. Something where two or three paragraphs worth of content, maybe an image, maybe a short video walk and talks, things like that, different formats and then laterally carousels and different, different formats of content. You know, now over the last two years they've really changed the algorithm quite considerably. It's much harder to get cut through on LinkedIn. But in those early days, the free organic reach on LinkedIn was phenomenal. Like I would get, you know, in some instances I get 20, 30, 50, 100,000 views on my, on my posts. It was just phenomenal. The free organic reach was crazy in those early days. It's a lot harder to get cut through now. You know, it's it, you know, if you get 10,000, 20,000 views on a post, you're doing very well on LinkedIn now. It's still a great opportunity, don't get me wrong. I mean, even if you get a thousand views on a post, you know, if I go to a conference and I speak at a conference, there's a thousand people in the audience, I'm pretty bloody happy, right? So the reality is it's still a great place to produce content. But those early days were just, it felt like a really special community of creators was being built there and I was super proud to be a small part of that Pretty early on, did.

Sadaf Beynon [21:28 - 21:35]: You do that in order to establish authority in the e commerce space or was that to build an audience also for the podcast?

Jason Greenwood [21:36 - 21:40]: It was both, but I was creating there long before I ever got serious about the podcast.

Sadaf Beynon [21:40 - 21:41]: Right.

Jason Greenwood [21:41 - 24:10]: And so, you know, another thing Gary Vee said that, that I took to heart was you should build an audience before you need it. Build an audience before you need to monetize it. Right? And the longer that you can create content of super high quality before you try or need to monetize them, the better off you will be. And so even today, you will find that I don't sell through my content. I never sell through my content. Like maybe occasionally 1 in 50 posts, I'll put a thing at the bottom. Hey, if you're, if you're experiencing challenges around this topic, then reach out, you know where to find me kind of thing. But I don't sell. I don't, I don't sell through my content. I try to. There's two goals behind my content. Educate and entertain. Those are my two goals. And hey, look, you know, I know by definition and by default, business comes from that and it becomes a magnet for your expertise. And I'd like to think that when somebody, for example, nowadays thinks of B2B E commerce, I'd like to think that I show up in their feed so often that if they ever need help with B2B E commerce, that I am literally the first guy that pops into their, into their head. That would be my goal. Right? And so therefore, by definition will automatically lead to some additional business for me without having to go out and pay for, you know, pay per click marketing, paid in performance marketing, pay for other influencers to bring me business, whatever. That's a great, that's a great byproduct. But my first and foremost goal of my content is to educate and entertain. And anything else beyond that is an absolute bonus. And I, and I'd like to think that that intent is really clear in my content, that it's not a thinly veiled attempt at selling more stuff. Right? Because I think, I think people can sniff that out. I think they can feel it. I think they can tell when you are putting out content with the intent of selling. I think it just hits different. I think the vibe of it hits different. And I'd like to think, and a lot of the feedback I get is you don't come across like you are selling in your content. And that's exactly because the intent is not to sell. Maybe a byproduct is selling. But that's not the goal. The goal is educate, entertain, and improve our industry and ultimately increase the size of the pie of our industry. Because I know that if I do good work and I treat my customers well, I'll always get my portion. I'll always get my slice of the pie. So if I increase the size of the pie, then I increase the opportunities for all of us, including myself.

Sadaf Beynon [24:11 - 24:22]: Yeah. Listening to you, I'm guessing that that approach really helps your networking and partnerships that would come out as a result of the podcast.

Jason Greenwood [24:22 - 27:47]: Yeah. And it also puts me in the position of being able to be a super connector. So I oftentimes find myself, oh, hey, you know, somebody will DM me and say, hey, oh, I saw you had such and such on your podcast recently. You know, I think there's an opportunity for us to work together. Can you connect us? Can you, like, do a joint DM or send you. Can you send a joint email or. I'll just identify. I'll be. I'll be like, oh, I think you really need to speak to this person because I think you guys have an opportunity to form a really good partnership. Maybe, maybe you've got the same icp, or maybe you have some complimentary technology, or maybe you are going to be speaking at the same event together. And so maybe we can get you into a panel or a roundtable together. There's. There's all sorts of opportunities, I think, that come naturally out of just knowing more people. The more people, you know in your community. And oftentimes creators think of their community as something outside themselves. I am in my community. I am part of my community. I am a key representative of the type of people that exist in my community. So the community is not something outside of me. I am in the community. I am part of that community. Community. And. And I'd like to think that I have the best interests at heart for all of the members of my community. Now, if you're a. If you're a shitbag, then you know, I don't want you to succeed. But if you're a decent human being and you have good intent and I know you, then I naturally want you to succeed as well. And if that means that I can introduce you to someone else who can help you mutually succeed, then I'll do everything in my power to make that happen. And oftentimes, you know, in. Even in my consulting work, like if I'm. Because I don't just consult to merchants, I also consult to agencies. I consult to software vendors. I consult to investors. And so oftentimes a big part of my consultancy work is connecting the right people with the right other people to help both get what they want out of the industry. Right. So it's about, you know, introducing, you know, if I'm consulting to a B2B agency, it's about, okay, which platforms should you guys becoming, become an expert in so that you can meet the market where it is, for example. And then I'll make the introductions and I'll help them get upskilled on that technology or whatever it might be. And so I think, I think the ability to be a super connector of people through your podcast is a really underrated and overlooked benefit of having a podcast because by definition you're meeting. On my case, I'm meeting at least three new people from my industry every single week. And so as a result of that, it, it pretty quickly builds up your portfolio or your virtual Rolodex of people that you can reach out to and help get connected when it makes sense to do so. You get the kudos for that. Like I don't, I don't get any commercial benefit out of that. But I, but I get the kudos from that and I get the accolades from that and I get the support from those people in the future. And oftentimes that creates a feeling of reciprocity where they go, well, I'm going to keep my eye open for a situation where Jason might be able to benefit or where Jason, I might be able to introduce Jason to this other person where they should be connected or they might be able to recommend another person for me to have on my podcast and make an introduction that way. So it's kind of like this. I like to think of it as a virtuous cycle.

Sadaf Beynon [27:47 - 27:49]: It's a pay it forward, isn't it?

Jason Greenwood [27:49 - 27:49]: Yeah, totally.

Sadaf Beynon [27:49 - 28:05]: I really liked what you said about understanding that you are part of the community. And I think that really gives you first hand experience, experience of what your audience is. If you can get that, if you can get your head around that, I think it can really help you understand your audience as well, can't it?

Jason Greenwood [28:05 - 30:20]: Yeah, and I've never really understood the concept of a community manager. For example, like, like I couldn't hire someone to manage my community. Right. I couldn't do that because they might, you know, they might not be interested in the same things I'm interested in. They might not be interested in E commerce, they might not be interested in the technical and operational aspects of E commerce. They might be, might even be interested in Going to events or taking part in events or speaking at events, or being part of roundtables or Q&As or panels or fireside chats or anything like that. They might just be like, well, this is a job. I get paid to do this, so I don't have a natural affinity for it, but I'll take your money to do it. And so I've never really understood that concept of a community manager role for people who are not interested in those topics or those subjects or having come from that community. I think if you're going to be a community manager, you should already be in those communities. You should already have those interests at heart. I think. I think it can only come across as authentic if you are from that space and if you have a natural affinity for it and a natural interest in it. And it doesn't necessarily have to be just business communities. It could be something that's just a hobby or a passion or a sideline or something that you're learning or studying. You know, it could be almost anything. It doesn't have to be something that you make money from. But I. But I think in order for you to succeed as a creator, you actually have to enjoy the content that you're creating to the point where you would actually consume it. If somebody else created it like that. That's the lens I always try to create through. I think, God, if I. If somebody else posted this LinkedIn post, would I stop in my feet and even read it, or would it bore me to tears? Would it be interesting to me if I was in that community? Would it be interesting to me? Would it. Would it freeze my scrolling thumb? Right? And I don't always, I'm not, I'm not gonna lie, I don't always hit the mark. And I'm sure that there's plenty of posts of mine that people scroll on by and go, well, that was a crap post. But. But I try. The goal in the intent always is, can I create something that is interesting enough that I would stop scrolling and watch or listen or read?

Sadaf Beynon [30:20 - 30:36]: That's a really good point. It's a really good perspective to keep in mind. I agree. You were talking about being a super connector and how you found that to be really beneficial as a podcaster. If any of our listeners are wanting to become better connectors, what's the way to do that?

Jason Greenwood [30:36 - 33:11]: Yeah, look, I think that you have to create opportunities to create content at scale, right? So I, you know, my podcast automatically, by definition, creates opportunities for me to reach out to people and have conversations and say, hey, would you like to come on the podcast, send them an invite, send them a link to the, to the form, send them a link to the booking, to the booking calendar where they can book in. You know, trying to make it, I think reducing friction to engaging with you and your content and helping you create content. Anything you can do to reduce that friction for you and for them is going to make life easier, right? A whole tonne of people, when I reach out to them and ask to be on the pod, they'll say, oh, you know, do you want to do a pre call, you know, beforehand to plan it? Now, I don't do pre calls. I'm probably, I don't know, maybe I'm one of the few in our industry. I'm better off the cuff, I am better conversationally, I am better when things aren't scripted. I am better when things aren't pre planned because I know for a fact that that comes off as more believable, more trustworthy, more authentic. It just works for me. Now that won't work for everybody. Some, some people need a very both guest and host. Sometimes they need a very clearly delineated outline of what's going to be discussed. Here's the question, so that they can prepare answers in advance and everything else. And those type of guests aren't for me. And so if they require that, I simply say we probably won't be a great fit. Wish you all the best. And I'm willing to walk away from opportunities where a guest requires a script. You know, I've probably walked away from 20 or 30 interviews where the guest, maybe they're a representative of a corporate or something like that and they need the script to be vetted and approved by legal before they can even appear on a podcast. That, that kind of interview never works for me. And so I think that you have to be really clear about your expectations of being authentic in your own content. Because if I, if I caved, right, like let's say it's. And there have been some what would have been badass guests with very big names that I've had to say no to because they require a very delineated script and it has to go to legal for sign off before we ever record. And in most cases they also say even if you stick to the script, we are going to need to see the recording, the raw recording, we're going to review it, we are going to have legal authorise it before you can even release the episode. And that just doesn't work for Me. And it doesn't work when you're trying to release three episodes a week.

Sadaf Beynon [33:11 - 33:11]: Yeah.

Jason Greenwood [33:11 - 34:29]: You need to have a very fast turnaround time from the time you record to the time you edit to the time you release. Right. And so I. And that this won't work for everybody, but it works for me. And so I think you have to remain true to yourself. And I think if you do that, your content, whatever that is, and if that means you need to have a very delineated script that you send to every guest in advance, great. Do that. Stick to that. If that makes you more comfortable and it is going to make you come off as more authentic, then do that. I just think whatever that is, whatever it is about your personality that stands out and is different and makes your content different than somebody else's, stay true to yourself and that will show. That will come through in your content. That will. Again, your vibe attracts your tribe. And then once you do that, and once the authenticity. Authenticity comes through, it'll be like moss to a flame. You'll attract the right people to you, and oftentimes those people will have interests that are aligned with yours and with each other. And that creates natural opportunities to introduce people. And I just can't say it any more clearly than that. Just be true to yourself and be true to your audience and don't pander. So that's another. I do not pander. I do not pander in my content. I don't pander. I don't do it. I just. I refuse to do that because the truth will eventually come out. It always does.

Sadaf Beynon [34:29 - 34:53]: No, I really like what you said. Being authentic to yourself, your content, and being consistent in whatever it is you're choosing to do, those are really valuable pieces of insight. Thank you. Jason, you've talked about your podcast format a couple times now. Actually, more than that, probably, but I wanted to dig into that a little bit. You've got Monday mentorship.

Jason Greenwood [34:53 - 34:53]: Yep.

Sadaf Beynon [34:53 - 35:00]: Wednesday B2B, and Friday Tech. Why do you use this format? Why have you chosen to do it this way?

Jason Greenwood [35:00 - 40:30]: Yeah, I think one of the reasons why I added the two additional episodes per week was, first of all, I knew that in order for you to generate an audience that is sticky. And I know this even from my own listening habits. Podcasts that have one episode a week, they are less sticky in my playlist because they don't turn up on my podcast homepage as often. And so it's easier for me to forget they exist. It's. It's easier for them to fall out of rotation then my favourite are podcasts that are five days a week. My favourite is, is when I can listen to a pod. If I like a podcaster, I want to hear an episode for them every single day of the week. Ideally seven, but, but at the very least, like weekdays. I'd love to hear from my favourite podcasters every day of the week, right? And get their hot takes, latest spicy news, whatever it might be, talking to amazing guests, all that sort of stuff. You know, I follow Dave Ramsey and I follow, you know, a few other amazing podcasters in the world, and the ones that I like the most tend to put out three to five episodes a week, right? So I knew that in order for me to become stickier with my audience, I needed to put out more episodes than one per week. But I also needed to create an environment where I could produce more than one episode per week. So I also wanted to help my community in a more one to one capacity via mentorship. And so I was like, cool, I can marry these two concepts together. I will run a free one to one mentorship programme with six monthly intakes and cohorts based on application. At any given point in time, I'll have between three and five mentees that I will meet with once every two weeks and we will have a session together and we will go through all the things that they want mentorship on. And I thought, well, that that's great one to one, but I can turn that into one to many. So I always give my mentees a chance at the beginning of our conversation to talk about anything that's private or commercially sensitive. I don't want them to think that I'm going to release stuff that they don't want released. But if they, if they are talking about things and asking questions about things that I think have broad application and will be broadly helpful to my audience, I will ask them, can we record this piece? Because I think this topic is not just helpful to you, I think it's helpful to everybody in my community. They'll say yes, then we'll record and we'll record that piece. And so just by creating an environment where I can create on a regular basis around mentorship, that now creates an opportunity to record mentorship topics that are really relevant in the moment to the community at that time, and that that created an environment where I could, could routinely put out content that I thought would be helpful at that in that moment. Second thing is, there were a lot of people that were coming to me and asking to be on my podcast that didn't fit in B2B or tech, but they had knowledge that they wanted to share with my audience more broadly around E commerce. But, but they didn't fit the mould of my other two episodes. So by bringing them as a guest mentor on their topic of expertise, that was another opportunity to expose new people to our industry. So all of a sudden I had two new opportunities to create opportunity sorry to create episodes that I could put out regularly. Then then from a B2B perspective, I knew that B2B was hot, but I knew that the B2B community of E commerce in itself, they're a much smaller, really tight sub niche of the broader world of E commerce. Because most of E Commerce, something like 80 plus percent of e commerce today is B2C and D2C. It's probably only 20% roughly of e commerce today is B2B. And so it's, it's a much smaller segment of the community. But that by definition means it's a very underserved segment of the community. And so by, and by opening it up to saying, well, it doesn't matter whether you're a consultant, an agency, a platform vendor, you know, a community organisation, it doesn't really matter what you do around the B2B E commerce space, you'll be a good fit because we're talking totally focused on B2B E commerce and then the tech side, I didn't really see many people, if at all focusing deeply on the. Both specifically on E commerce platforms, but E commerce enablement technology. So all of the ecosystem of technology that supports E commerce transactionality on the front end, there's a whole stack, there's a whole entire tech stack that sits underneath the world of E commerce to make commerce possible. And I wanted to be able to bring that to the table. And so that's. This felt like three massive buckets of easy opportunity to create content around at scale. And I think that's the key is I was thinking can I do this each and every week, can I get enough guests, can I get enough topics to create an episode around each of these buckets each and every week for the foreseeable future, for at least the next, say two to five years. And if I can't, then I probably shouldn't do that because it will not be sustainable. And so it's about how can I create sustainable topics that I can address a minimal minimum of 3 times per week? And I've found that cadence and it seems to be working pretty well so far.

Sadaf Beynon [40:30 - 40:47]: Yeah, so you've talked about making your podcast more sticky. So people are. They're aware that it's on their radar and they're always listening to it. And one, to produce at scale. So how important do you think it is to experiment with the different formats?

Jason Greenwood [40:48 - 43:25]: I think it's really important. Right, because audiences get bored. Right. And they need new things. So, for example, I'm just in the process of recording a series and it'll be my first series on the podcast and it's for the B2B episodes and it's specifically about PIM and MDM Product Information Management, Master data management for B2B merchants. And so I've actually partnered with ThoughtSpark, who are, who are PIM and MDM enablement specialists for agencies that deliver PEM MDM solutions to the industry. And so we're. We're going to put out three to four episodes as a series on this specific topic so that we can. Can dig really deep into this topic. And so I've never done a series before. They've always been standalone episodes. And so I think that the idea behind the series is A, to be able to go deeper, but two, to keep people coming back for more. So if they liked episode one, for example, then I want them sort of gagging for episode two, three and four. Right. Or if they come in to episode two and that's the first one they hear, I want them to go back and look for episode one and three and four. So I think for me, creating miniseries are something I'm exploring really hard this year and I'm probably going to do two or three more series this year because it's easier, instead of having one unique topic for each episode, to be able to really create an outline that can span two, three or four episodes. And the great thing about my partnership with Thoughtspark is they got like 100 people in their company. So I can have multiple people from within their organisation with deep specialisation within their capability set, come on as guests as part of the series. So I don't have to have just the same person in every episode of the series. And so it's a chance for them to show their expertise, but it's a chance for me to show mine at the same time. And we already have, like, I'm formally partnered with them, so they, they. So I'm a pure consultancy, I don't do implementations. So I don't do implementations of PIM MDM solutions. I scope them and I architect them into the stack, but I don't do the work, I don't do the Right. And so, but they do the doing. And so it's a great partnership because, you know, if somebody is interested in this topic and they go, wow, our business needs this stuff, then they automatically have someone that they know that they can trust that they say, okay, Jason could do the consulting. But then we also have somebody else that can do the implementation when the time comes that we know we can trust based on their knowledge. So it's, it's hopefully kind of a win, win, win for everybody.

Sadaf Beynon [43:25 - 43:43]: Yeah, no, I see what you're saying. You just said that it's good to experiment with different formats because the audience gets bored and you get bored and you need something fresh. I understand that. How do you hold that together, though, with the element of consistency?

Jason Greenwood [43:43 - 47:25]: I think as long as you're transparent, you're authentic, and you don't change everything about your podcast all at once, you're probably gonna be okay like this, this will be like a three or four episode series and then it's kind of going to be back to your regular, regularly scheduled programming, so to speak. So I don't, I don't think you necessarily need to change the entire format of your podcast once a year, say, for example, and that becomes your new format that you run with for another year. Because I think that that could be. Sometimes when people hear that, they're like, am I on the right podcast? Like, is it the same, Is it the same show? You know, but, you know, even some of my favourite podcasts have gone through phases that I didn't like. Right? So I. One of my favourite podcasts is this Week in Startups and Jason Calacanis is the founder of this Week in Startups. And he has gone through, he's got, I think he's got 2000 episodes or something crazy like that now. He's insane. Like, he's, he's insane. He's. Over time, he's got, he's, he's, he's had a co host, then he's not had a co host, then he's had different co hosts, then he's had different formats. He's gone from, from two days a week to three days a week to five days a week, and then now back down to. I think he's back down to three days a week. Sometimes he'll, he'll have live shows and live broadcasts that he records and then posts. So he's gone through different formats. And, and look, I'll admit that some of, some of those have not hit the mark for me. And so during that time, instead of listening to five days a week. He had a. He had a host about a year ago, I think it was about a year ago, named Molly Wood, and I just didn't. I just didn't like her. And it was. It wasn't because she was a woman or it wasn't because she wasn't knowledgeable. I just didn't like her vibe. I didn't like the way she communicated. I didn't think she was as knowledgeable as Jason was, and she was trying to speak to topics that she didn't really know that well. So it didn't come off as believable or trustworthy to me. And so I became less of a listener. It didn't mean I didn't listen at all. I just didn't listen as frequently and maybe with as much consistency. And as a result. But then he went back to doing it on his own, and I became more of a listener again. And then for about a year, almost every single episode was about AI. And he, like, 80% of his content became about AI. And I'm like, I like AI, but I don't really want to listen to 80% of your episodes be about AI. This is getting a little bit monotonous. Right. And so again, during that window, I became less of a listener. Didn't mean I didn't listen at all. It just meant I became less of a listener, and I would avoid those episodes and I'd focus on the 20% that were not about AI. And so I think that everybody has to experiment, and they also have to continue to get joy out of what they're talking about, otherwise they won't be consistent with it either. So I don't. I don't blame Jason for doing these. Going down these different rabbit trails and making sure that he continues to enjoy what he does and has more free time because he brings in a co host. All that sort of stuff. I have no issue with that. But you just have to be aware that if you do that, you will alienate a certain portion of your audience that have come to love whatever format came before. And so you just have to be aware of that. You have to be ready for it. You may grab a whole new audience using the new format or the new co host or whatever it might be, but you may alienate a portion of your old audience. And that isn't necessarily. It is not necessarily going to cause your podcast to tank, but you do have to expect it, because it will happen.

Sadaf Beynon [47:25 - 47:43]: Yeah, that's really valuable what you're saying. And actually something else you've just said about you have to get joy out of it. And towards the beginning of this episode, you said your podcast was like a love letter to the industry. So I can. I can see that really coming through both of those things as. As you've been talking.

Jason Greenwood [47:43 - 47:50]: Yeah, it's absolutely the truth, and I hope that my audience feels that. I hope that. I hope that it feels genuine to them.

Sadaf Beynon [47:50 - 48:01]: Absolutely. Jason, how do you go about producing all of these episodes? I know it's one thing to sit there and have these wonderful conversations, but what about all the work in the background?

Jason Greenwood [48:01 - 51:53]: Yeah, I'm a little bit unique in that I'm the only podcaster, at least in my niche, that I'm aware of, that does everything himself. So I don't have a team. So I do the recording myself. I go out and find the guests myself. Now, luckily, now that I'm at over episode 400, I have a lot of people coming to me and messaging me and saying, hey, can I be on your podcast? So it's easier to get guests now than it used to be in the beginning when it was all me DMing and messaging and trying to email people and say, hey, would you like to come on my podcast? So it's definitely easier now to get guests than it's ever been. But I go out and I find the guests, I schedule the guests, I interview the guests, I do the post production, and I do all of the distribution. So without software and without tooling, this would be impossible. And so I do use a lot of software. I use. I used to use Riverside, which we're recording on now, but I now use squadcast as my digital recording studio. It's got a native integration to descript, which is a. Which is a editing tool, a video and podcast editing tool. I do the first major edit in descript. So I'll remove all the filler words, I'll remove all the word gaps. They have a function called studio sound. So if the audio isn't quite perfect, it'll clean it up, it'll make it sound really good, and that'll be the first kind of cut that I take. Then I'll export that out of there, and then I'll do the final edit in a platform called Camtasia. So I'll add the intro, I'll create the clip art for the episode. I'll create that in Canva. I'll then import that into the final edit of the video at the beginning, put the intro, put the outro, put any. Any sponsorships or ads. That are in there. I don't, I don't do much, I don't accept much sponsorship on my podcast, but occasionally when I do, I might put one in there. I'll put the, hey, recommend, you know, can you please share this episode with your friends? I'll put any of that stuff in there and I'll do that final export of the video file directly out of Camtasia now. Luckily. So I used to be hosted with Podbean for my podcast for the audio portion, but I now am hosted with Spotify directly. And one of the reasons I made that switch was because unless you are hosted with Spotify, you will not be approved for video on Spotify. So when I made the shift to Spotify hosting, they also approved me for video on Spotify at the same time. So my podcast goes out. If you're watching the video on your, on your Spotify mobile app, for example, that you'll see the video if you're listening. And they also distribute all the audio version of the podcast automatically. And I don't have to, I don't have to upload one video version and one audio version. They take the audio from the video and automatically distribute it to other audio channels like you know, Apple Podcasts and, and all the other audio only channels. They do that distribution for me automatically. Which is, which is really nice. So I only, I used to produce one audio version, one video version and then have to upload them separately. But now I upload, I upload the video version to Spotify. They do all the audio and then I also upload to rumble and to YouTube. The, the same, the same audio file I upload to YouTube and rumble. And I have. So YouTube supports a video podcast series and you can assign it episodes when you upload them. You can assign them to your podcast series in YouTube. And so I do that as well. So I do all of that myself. And then I use Opus Clip to generate short teaser clips with transcriptions, with embedded transcriptions. I do that. And then I upload the shorts. I used to upload them to Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, but I didn't, I didn't find that I got much traction off my shorts on Instagram or TikTok. So I now just. And I find that shorts do very, very, very well on YouTube. So I just upload them to YouTube and it's been great.

Sadaf Beynon [51:53 - 51:55]: Do you put anything on LinkedIn?

Jason Greenwood [51:55 - 52:14]: Yeah, so I will, I will almost always. I'm a little bit behind. So I'm up to say episode 360 on posting about episodes to LinkedIn, but I also post about my episodes. When I post about them to LinkedIn, I also post about them to Reddit, and I also post about them to X at the same time. Okay.

Sadaf Beynon [52:14 - 52:21]: Okay, cool. It still sounds quite demanding of your time. Does it take a lot of time?

Jason Greenwood [52:21 - 54:21]: Yeah, it takes about. On average, I spend about eight hours a week. So basically one day a week dedicated to content. It doesn't all happen on the same day, but, like, if I was to aggregate all the time together that I spend on content weekly, it works out to be about a day. So it's, It's. I wouldn't say it's a light commitment. I take it very seriously, but I also consider it part of my job. So in a perfect world, I would love it if in five years from now, you know, 80% of my income came from my content. Like, that would be amazing. Like, if I had so many people just. Just begging to sponsor and work with me, then fantastic. That would be great. But I. Even if that was true, because I. Because I love putting out content and I would love to put out a lot more, but I'm running a consulting company, so I can't. I can't devote 100% of my time to content, even though I might like to. There's a lot more content, there's a lot more formats, There's a lot more. There's a lot more stuff I'd love to do in the creator space. But I just, I. I'm working hard to hold it all together as it is. But, yeah, you know, I will never stop consulting. And the reason for that is my consulting allows me to keep my finger on the pulse of the industry and stay relevant. Because I tell you, if I stopped consulting even for six months, I would very rapidly lose touch with my industry. I would very rapidly lose touch with my community. I would very rapidly lose touch with the challenges that people in my industry are facing every single day. But by being a consultant, I keep my sword sharp and I keep my finger on the pulse of what's happening in our industry. By going to conferences, I keep my finger on the pulse of what's happening our industry. So I will always focus consult. I may drop back to only having a couple of clients a year. If I'm focusing a lot more on content, let's say 80% or 90% of my time was going towards content, because I'm able to make a great living from that. Fantastic. That's great. But I will always consult because I think it's really, really important to have authenticity born out of experience. I think that's super critical.

Sadaf Beynon [54:21 - 54:26]: What advice would you give to someone who's starting a podcast to grow their business?

Jason Greenwood [54:26 - 59:37]: Be prepared. For a long, long, long, long period of not much traction. Be prepared. This is, this is a very, very easy industry to get into, and it is a very difficult industry to succeed in. Meaning that. And this is why pod fade is a thing. This is why most podcasts never get past episode 20, because most people, if they get to episode 20 and they don't see much traction, they're only getting two listens an episode. By episode 20, they give up and they say, well, this is, this is a waste of time. Why would I put all this effort and energy into a podcast that's not going to go anywhere, right? You have to trust the process. Like Gary Vee told me 10 years ago, and he was pounding in my ear every single day. Every single episode of his that I watched or listened to, he was just pounding into my ear. Trust the process. Good things will come. You may not know what those good things are when you start, but trust me, good things will come. But, you know, grit, persistency, consistency, these are all traits that in our short attention span world today, people don't like. They want to. They want to go viral from the first episode, they want to go viral from the second episode, the fifth episode. They want to have a million followers tomorrow. They don't want to do eight hours a week of content production for years before they find success. And this is more often than not, unless you just get lucky. Unless you just happen to have a guest that has a million followers and they put it a. Post it out to their million followers and you automatically, you know, draught off of their success. Or, you know, you may hit a home run on your first episode, but it's unlikely. And you may be very good from a production quality and from an interview quality or from a writing and, and copywriting perspective. You may be amazing from day one, but most likely you won't be. And that's okay, because the reality is your audience will grow alongside your skills and your capability. So people tell me, God, aren't you afraid? Weren't you afraid when you first started putting content out to LinkedIn every day? Were you afraid that people would make fun of it, or they would challenge you in the comments or, or they wouldn't agree with you or whatever it might be? And I'm like, no, I had like 500 followers. Why would I care? Like, nobody's gonna see it. So I practised and I practised and I practised and I practised when I had no audience. And then as I got better, as I became more consistent, as the quality of my content got better, so did my audience size grow. And so I think that people worry too much. You need more at bats, you need to practise more. It's like going to the gym. You are not going to be fit the first time you go to the gym, but the hundredth day in a row that you go to the gym, you're probably going to see some gains in the mirror and you are certainly going to feel better. Your biomarkers are going to be healthier. When you go to the doctor and you get your blood pressure taken, it's probably going to be better. But I tell you, it doesn't happen after the first day at the gym. Your first post, your first episode, your first whatever, just assume that you are going to suck because you will, right? It's like anything in life, we suck at anything. If we take on a new sport, we are going to suck and we have no expect. It's so weird. It is so weird. People have this expectation that their content is going to crush from day one. And I'm like, what do you do for a living? Do you play sports? Do you have hobbies? Were you amazing from the very first day? Did you go to university? Like I personally didn't go to university, but I know lots of people do. Were you amazing at that thing before you went to university? Probably not. Why do we have this expectation? And it's the same with E commerce. People think they can set up a Shopify store and be successful overnight. Why do people think that with content it's different than any other thing in their life. They will need to practise, they will need to refine, they will need to try things, taste things, try different formats, try different styles, try different tools, try different channels, try, you know, image posts, long form text posts, short form text posts, videos, carousels. They, they will need to try and taste lots of things before they figure out what even they like to produce. Because, because some people like to do an audio only podcast because they don't want to have to have this video interaction. And they go, well, look, I can sit in my PJs and there's no camera and nobody cares because I'm doing audio only. And they're more comfortable with audio only, right? And in the beginning my podcast was audio only, right? But I realised a couple of years ago, I realised the whole world has moved to video And I was like, if I'm going to create shorts for short video platforms, I need the raw video to start from. So I converted from an audio only podcast to a video and audio podcast. So, you know, you are going to need to experiment, you are going to need to play. But above all, just do shit you enjoy because if you don't enjoy it, you will never stick at it anyway. So why start? Just do shit you love.

Sadaf Beynon [59:37 - 59:47]: As you were saying, you'll get better at it. You just need to start. And I think that's some of that. Sometimes the hardest thing, starting because you want to be perfect at it from like straight out the gate.

Jason Greenwood [59:47 - 1:01:46]: Just know you won't just admit it to yourself, you will not be. It's going to take you probably, if you do a podcast, it's going to probably take you 50 episodes before you even remotely feel comfortable hosting a podcast. Like. Like. I was a little bit lucky. I've got an abnormally outgoing personality. I'm on personality tests, I'm 98% extroverted. That is, that is an abnormal amount of extroversion that I get from my mother. Right? So I was a little bit lucky in that I was never nervous, I was never shy and I never didn't like my own voice. I've always liked the sound of my own voice. So I was a little bit lucky in that regard. But that doesn't mean that somebody who isn't like me can't be absolutely awesome at putting out content that people love to consume. Because. Because my personality is very polarising. Some people love me and some people hate me. Some people can't stand me. And that's cool. That's totally cool. I want them to self select out of my content and they will self select out of yours too. If they can't stand you, let them bugger off. Let the people who are true fans be attracted to you like moth to a flame. That's the foundation of your community. And, and they're out there because there are people just like you out there. You are. You represent a certain strata of your community or your potential community and you will. I don't care. You could be a purple alien and you will find people out there to resonate with. Everybody has a. It's kind of like getting married. There's somebody out there for everyone. Right? It doesn't matter how weird and how off the wall you are and what you're. You know, you might be the world's biggest Star Trek fan. Well, you'll probably find someone out there that's the biggest Star Trek fan too, and it would be like a match made in heaven. So it's exactly like that. With content, you might be one of the weirdest freaky motherfuckers out there, but you will find an audience. If you stay at it long enough, you will find your tribe.

Sadaf Beynon [1:01:46 - 1:02:03]: Yes. Thank you, Jason. Appreciate you saying that. I'm really conscious of time, something that I like to ask all my guests. And so I'm just going to throw this out there for you as well. If within 60 seconds, could you tell me why you think podcasting is such a great tool for driving business growth?

Jason Greenwood [1:02:04 - 1:05:01]: I think it's a great tool because of its passive consumption ability. Right. So I, I know me, I, I very rarely will I sit down and watch or listen to a podcast and do nothing else 99.9 of the time. Unless I'm maybe in an airport lounge and I'm literally just sitting there just listening to a podcast. 99 of the time I'm doing other things. I'm cleaning the house, I'm. I'm loading up the car, I'm walking the dog, I'm mowing the lawn. I'm doing whatever it is that I'm doing. I'm, I'm, I'm 99% of time, I'm doing other things. And I think that based on the conversations I've had with other podcast producers and listeners, they're exactly the same. And so I think it's, it's one of the only passive content consumption mediums that exists in the market today. Because with video, you kind of got to watch, right? If you're, Nobody puts their earbuds in, puts TikTok on and just listens. Nobody does that. They, they're looking at TikTok. Nobody puts their earbuds in and pulls up Instagram and just listens to content on Instagram. Or for that matter, nobody puts their earbuds in and listens to LinkedIn or to Reddit or to X. Right? These are, these all require visual consumption, right? Or YouTube for that matter. Occasionally people will, you know, if you've got YouTube Premium and you can do it, you know, you can run YouTube in the background and maybe you'll, you'll listen to videos instead of watch them, right? But I think that there's, that's, that's the first benefit. The second benefit is long form. Right? Now your podcast doesn't have to be long form. It could be 15 minute episodes, it could be 5 minute episodes, it could be 30 minute episodes, hour long episodes. But I find that that, that 50, you know, that that 45 minutes to an hour is kind of the sweet spot. It's at least it's a sweet spot for me because I can go deep enough into a topic with a guest and let them go long enough to really understand the nuances of that topic without it getting boring. Right. I'm not a Joe Rogan. I ain't going to be doing three hour podcasts anytime soon. An hour is about the sweet spot for me. 45 minutes to an hour. And once I edit it down, even if it's an hour of recording, it cuts it down to maybe 45, 55 minutes. Right. And I find for me, both as the interviewer and for the guest, it takes the pressure off. We don't have to rush through things, but it is able to go deep enough, it is able to create enough interesting content for people to consume in hour long chunks. Or maybe they listen to the first half an hour on their first run of the day and they listen to the last 30 minutes on the on their last run of the day. So I think it's those two things, passive consumption and the ability to go deep on topics, that's hard to do any other way. And the there is no need to consume the visuals of the content. I think these are the things that make podcasting very unique as a medium and ultimately they establish credibility for you and your business.

Sadaf Beynon [1:05:02 - 1:05:04]: Absolutely, yes. Thank you very much.

Jason Greenwood [1:05:04 - 1:05:05]: My pleasure.

Sadaf Beynon [1:05:05 - 1:05:08]: Jason, where can our listeners find out more about you and your podcast?

Jason Greenwood [1:05:09 - 1:05:48]: Absolutely. So all you got to do is wherever you get your podcast, just search the ecommerce edge with Jason Greenwood. We're everywhere. We're on every single podcast platform. Also on YouTube, also on Rumble. So go and cheque us out there. You can also go to my website. I've got all the information about my podcast and an embedded player at greenwoodconsulting.net and just click on the podcast link. It'll give you all the information and all of the sub links from there. And I'd love to have you as a listener. And then of course, I post about almost all of my episodes to LinkedIn as well. So you can go and connect with me on LinkedIn. Jason Greenwood, no problem at all.

Sadaf Beynon [1:05:48 - 1:05:53]: Awesome. Thank you so much. Jason, any final thoughts or upcoming projects you'd like to share?

Jason Greenwood [1:05:53 - 1:06:22]: No, but I will be speaking at B2B Online Florida in November. I'm going to be the day one chairperson and then on day two, I'm going to be hosting a couple of panels on a couple of very interesting topics around B2B E commerce. So if anybody is in the B2B E commerce space and they're going to be in or around Florida in November, go to the B2B Online Florida website website and grab your tickets there. And I can't wait to meet you there and hopefully have a conversation and maybe even grab a beer together.

Sadaf Beynon [1:06:22 - 1:06:48]: Fantastic. Yep, we'll add all those links to the show notes and to our listeners. Thank you for tuning in to Podjunction Podcast. I hope today's episode inspires you to think creatively about how you too can leverage your podcast for your own business growth. So be sure to cheque out Jason's podcast and his web link. If you found this episode helpful, we'd love for you to share it with someone who could also benefit. I'm Sadaf Beynon and this has been Pod Junction Podcast. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.