Leveraging Conversations for Growth | Daniel Budai

Sadaf Beynon: [00:00:00] Welcome to Podjunction, where business meets podcasting. Whether you're on a morning jog, driving to work, whipping up a meal, or just taking a moment for yourself, our weekly bite sized episodes promise fresh insights from successful podcasters who have cracked the code of using podcasts to grow their business.

So whether you're a podcasting newbie or seasoned podcaster, grab your notebooks and get ready.

Matt Edmundson: Hello and welcome to Podjunction. My name is Matt Edmundson and beside me, as always in the hot chair is, why are you laughing? Hot chair. I was in the hot chair. Sadaf Beynon, my co host on Podjunction. Welcome to the show. We are a podcast that talks about podcasting and how to use podcasting to make your business bigger, brighter, [00:01:00] better, and just more lovely than it actually is.

Oh yes. We should use that, I should definitely get that. I like that, yeah. Look watch, you in this microphone. We took a break. Oh, we took a break here. And we are back, and Sadaf forgot how to use a microphone, it's an ongoing thing, so now if you are a regular to the show, you'll know this is an ongoing thing.

If you are not a regular to the show, welcome, warm welcome to you thanks for joining us. Make sure you like, subscribe and all of that sort of good stuff. Stay connected with us, help us get more content out there, support the show and all that sort of beautiful thing. Oh yes. And it's good to be with you.

So today we are talking about that's your cue, we are talking

Sadaf Beynon: about, we are talking about how to use podcasting. Or your podcast to build trust with your potential crients crients, clients,

Matt Edmundson: do your clients cry a lot? They call them cryants.

Sadaf Beynon: That's what they're like after they leave your show. [00:02:00]

Matt Edmundson: We turn our clients to cryants. Yes, we do. That's a USP. If you're listening to the show, I was going to say, if you're listening to the show, I'm wondering, is podcasting right for me? I don't know if I can. Create a very professional, polished show.

Neither can we.

Sadaf Beynon: All about being authentic,

Matt Edmundson: yeah? Something like that. I think we use the word authentic to justify just about everything we get wrong though. I think so. It feels that way. It's we got that wrong. Let's just quickly throw the word authentic in there and make it sound like it's intentional somehow.

I don't know.

Sadaf Beynon: But yeah, we're talking Matt is talking to Daniel Budai in a segment that we're going to watch. And he is the host of the e-Comm Show and the CEO of Badai Media

Matt Edmundson: Agency. Budai Media agent. Yeah. The, he's he's a legend Daniel. He's a really interesting character. He was he was partly instrumental in our thinking around the [00:03:00] podcast agency was Yeah.

That we have, wasn't he? And changing the direction a little bit based on some of the things that he said, some of the insights that he had. And using business to, or using podcasts to grow a business. And so his model is probably more the one that we subscribe to or his model similar. It's not identical.

We've taken, we've stolen the best bits, I think of his model and we're bringing them to, to our sort of our own work. So Dan is a really interesting character when it comes to podcasting and it's really worked for him as an agency, really worked to go and get those clients in and bring them in.

And I think it's a remarkable thing, really. Yeah, it is a remarkable thing. Should we play his video or should we do other plans? I have a question. Oh, okay.

Sadaf Beynon: I wondered, Matt, what's one trend in podcasting at the moment that you find intriguing or maybe even surprising?

Matt Edmundson: I think the trends that I find intriguing and surprising.

Okay. Is the [00:04:00] return of the long form podcast. So what I mean by that is for years podcasts take Podjunction, right? We try and aim for 25, 30 minutes in length, which for us is a really short podcast because we normally do at least an hour, right? All our other podcasts are at least an hour.

And I don't mind that at all. I quite enjoy that. But this one is a shorter one. We're aiming for the, this is something you could consume in the car or on the train, commuting to work or doing whatever it is that you do and just, enjoying life a little bit. And I think That's interesting because for the longest, we were playing with short form content, in a lot of ways, for the longest time, short form content has been the thing.

But when you look at the most popular podcasts, quite a few of them are several hours long. Yeah. So you take probably one that I listened to the most out of the long form podcasts are, is the Andrew Huberman, the Huberman Labs podcast. And Andrew Huberman, if you don't know, he's a neuroscientist from Stanford, I think.

A very [00:05:00] clever bloke, very fascinating chap, and he's built this following around his podcast where he just, like I listened to him talk about one recently about, how do I overcome colds? And he, I think it was a short one for him, it was like an hour and a half. But I was engaged for that whole hour and that, that whole hour and a half and it was just, it was him, he had no guests, it was just him chatting, a lot of repetition but a fascinating way of doing the podcast and actually it goes to show that if the content is engaging, the length is engaging, It doesn't really matter and I think we get sometimes caught up in what my podcast is not 18 minutes, like a TED talk or my podcast is not 30 minutes or what's the ideal length for a podcast?

I think. I think in some respects, the ideal length is as long as it's interesting. Yeah. So we should probably end this one.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. So moving

Matt Edmundson: on that bombshell, thanks for joining us. Make sure you no, but yeah, I think that's probably the answer to my question is that there are [00:06:00] people that will quite happily listen to Andrew Huberman talk for two to three hours every week. That's fascinating. It is just absolutely mind blowing.

Cool. So yeah. Awesome. Should we do the video? Yeah. Let's do it. Let's do it. But one of the things that you've mentioned that I always want to double back on is the fact that you are now thinking a lot more about your guests and doing strategic partnerships with your guests which came out of your conversation with Jeremy and the guys at Rise25.

So tell us a little bit more about how that works. You mentioned that you give each guest. An audit, like a free audit if they want it how has that worked and does that then lead on to more business, sure.

Daniel Budai: So when I started doing this more than a year ago, it was much more less, less planned ahead, I would say.

So I usually had a podcast warmup call with the guests, 10, 15 minutes, and then we shot the podcast half an hour, 40 minutes. And [00:07:00] then by that time we already talked more than an hour. They are very comfortable to talk with me. And then I, we just talked about business and okay, what's your plan for this year or what are you doing in the next few months?

And then I just came up with. The idea, it was there, if it was the right time to discuss it, if I could see that they are an eCommerce business, for example I just mentioned that, by the way, we focus on eCommerce retention, marketing, email, SMS, loyalty programs. And by the way, in the podcast, you talked about loyalty programs.

So this is something that we actually do and actually help you with this. Would you be interested in a short chat, like a short audit or something? And then most of them, they are open to it because they already trust me. Last week I talked to another eCommerce agency. We talked about outbound sales, code emails, especially, and we discussed that actually the [00:08:00] problem nowadays is not with your offer or your services.

At least not with our agency and their agency, we are really good with that, I think, and with client results, but the problem is the trust. Yeah, because companies, they get so many dms and emails that they don't trust you. It's very hard to get that trust. Yeah. But once they get into your podcast, you talk one hour with them, then it's much more easier.

So yeah, this is how we started and by the end of last year 22, we got so many guests, and that was the time when we doubled the number of episodes. We even tripled for a few weeks. So I told our our sales guy, Ben, that I think we should really limit the spots and have higher standards. So we should have someone only in the podcast if they can be a potential client later or partner.

And actually that's a good [00:09:00] filter because those are usually the good guests in the podcast anyway. Yeah. Yeah. They have the size, they have the right mindset, they have the right business model. So I think, yeah, in the last two or three months, we are very intent, we were very intentional on this.

So the podcast format is done by Ben nowadays. He asks the usual questions like, okay, what do you do? What's your business model? What's your traffic size, AOV, revenue, all of these. And if he can see that, okay, this company is solid, might be a potential client, good podcast guests, they can talk, then they come to the podcast.

And actually, before the podcast, already in the warm up call, he tells them that we will do a free audit for them, and he asks if they are interested. And by the time we have the podcast, we will have the audit, the software access, [00:10:00] and sometimes It happened twice, we even closed them as a client before recording the podcast, because they were so interested.

And it's funny because before we became so intentional on this. We were afraid to do it. So I think our sales guy told me that it's not the best because it's quite pushy on the first meeting. It would be about the podcast and we already asked for a free audit. We offered that to them, they don't even know us.

It's much more natural if we have a warmup call, the podcast, and just after I tell them. And yeah, maybe it's slower, it's a bit more natural, but in business, I think everyone has goals and if you can help them, then why not to tell them early? So we just started doing it and I think the results really validated our thinking that it was good to try this.

So [00:11:00] nowadays we are not afraid to do it. And again, as I said we already closed clients before shooting the podcast.

Sadaf Beynon: If you're intrigued and want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out Podjunction Cohort, where you can listen to the complete interview and much more. Simply visit thepodjunction. com for more information about how to join.

Matt Edmundson: Welcome back. Welcome back after, Daniel, a fascinating and insightful conversation.

Now, if I was to contrast PodJunction this week with PodJunction last week where we had Chloe. So Chloe made a money from sponsorship. , daniel is making money from. Getting his ideal client as a guest on the podcast and building trust with them and offering them a free audit and out of those that say yes, a chunk of those become clients, right?

So this is [00:12:00] his model. And this is where actually I think podcasting is absolutely fascinating as a tool because it, The way that I described it in the past, because I, I subscribe to the same thinking that Daniel does a lot of ways that podcasting opens doors like nothing else I've ever seen, it's just unbelievable.

And the example I always talk about in this is first discovered this probably, yeah, this was. 12 years ago now when we ran a podcast for our beauty company, we had this online beauty company and we decided, I dunno why we thought, we just thought we'd just do a podcast 'cause why not? And it was well complicated and in fact, in the background, I dunno if you can, you have to move out the way.

If you're watching the video , they get this push you out the way. There's a sound desk right there. That's the original Jersey sound desk that we used that I've kept all these years. And we did this podcast and there was one contract we were trying to land in terms of a supply contract where we would buy this, the beauty products from the guy and sell them [00:13:00] on the Jersey Beauty Company website.

And it was proving nigh impossible to get through to the right person to talk to their receptionist secretaries. They were all very hyper efficient ladies who would not let you anywhere near anybody or anything. And so what we realized was there was, at that moment we thought I wonder what would happen if we called up and invite the CEO as a guest on the podcast, rather than calling 'em up saying, can we buy your stuff?

. And so we called 'em up and said, Hey, we're calling from the podcast. We'd love it if the CEO came on the show. Just tell the story. Dunno if that would work. Perhaps you could let us know. And, sure enough, they came straight on. Where before we couldn't get through to them just by asking them, not if we could get involved from a business point of view, just asking them, would you like to come on the show?

Matt Edmundson: Instantly opens the doors because of course they want to come on the show. They want to tell their story. Most business leaders have egos. That's why we're in leadership. And it's, and this is not a bad [00:14:00] thing, by the way, I have an ego the size of a planet and I'm aware of this, but it's one of those where we got them on the show.

We just had a great conversation. And at the end of it, after we'd finished recording, we didn't talk about us supplying their products or anything throughout the whole interview. It's just a genuinely good conversation. At the end of it, we got the supply contract and that contract was worth over a hundred grand to us as a company.

And so that's when you think, holy moly, podcasting is an interesting tool, right? And so we always say, like Daniel, if you have what we call high value clients, which we, I would define as somebody that's over 4, 000 in value. So if they've got a lifetime value of over 4, 000. Then podcasting is a really interesting tool for you guys as a way to get business like Daniel does, where you go find your ideal clients, you get them on, you chat to them, you build trust.

And then during that conversation, you're like, we can do a free audit. We can, whatever it is, whatever the freebie is. As a way to kickstart that relationship is really quite a fascinating idea.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. [00:15:00] And he also said that it's a slower process in some ways, isn't it? Because you have to be more selective, but it is more natural.

And and Matt's just fixing my mic. It is more natural and it reaps. So far more benefits for them as a business, isn't it?

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it does. Yeah. And I it's a really interesting strategy and one that I think if you're into podcasting, you should definitely think about is if the guest is my ideal client, it's a great way to network with them, to have what we would say is a meaningful conversation to talk to them about podcasting and business and all that sort of stuff.

And I think it's a. It's a really unique thing to do. Now, if you want to know more about it, full disclosure all the big preamble, we actually have a course on this on the Podjunction site, which you can get, I think it's like a hundred bucks or 90 bucks. It's somewhere around there where I lead you through the process of doing this sort of step by step, how we do it.

And from how to reach out to [00:16:00] potential Guess how to write the emails, how to record the podcast real, and basic stuff, which will get you set up basically to figure out if this is a good strategy for you. Yeah. And so yeah, if you're interested, do check that out.

Yeah. You're more than welcome to come join us on

Sadaf Beynon: that. You might need to add a paragraph on how to use the My .

Matt Edmundson: Only if your name is, some of, might find that . My name is Sadaf and it means I can't use microphones. That's what it means.

Sadaf Beynon: But something else I liked about what he does, his approach, is that it cuts out that whole need for the cold outreach. Yes. Because that's a real pain in the butt.

Matt Edmundson: When it doesn't because in some sense, you've still got to do it, right? Because you have to do you've got to go get them as guests.

And but it's a much easier ask. Yes. So if there's 100 people in a room, and I'm going to ask him a question, like question number one, Would you buy my stuff versus question number two, would you come on my podcast? Yeah, coming on the podcast is a much easier [00:17:00] ask. And actually if you say to them first, come on my podcast, then would you like to buy my stuff?

My hypothesis would be you'll get more people saying yes. And if you just said, would you like to buy my stuff? Yeah. I think you'd have a higher closure rate is my experience with that. Yeah. Because people buy from people, and Zig Ziglar called it the know, and trust factor, didn't he, I've got to know, and trust you, but what happens during a podcast conversation, especially if that conversation is good authentic.

Like we like to use a lot, keeping it real and it's meaningful. What does that do? It builds a know and trust factor just straight off the bat. I had one guest came on the show. I might've told this story before. I'm not sure where I've told half my story. So if I've told it before on this show, do forgive me.

We had one guest come on the show. He said to me at the end of it, I won't tell you who it was, but he said to me at the end of it, he's Matt, how is it that. In the first 30 minutes of our conversation, I've told you more information than I tell my best friends. He said, more about me after 30 minutes than my best friends know about me.

And I'm just like [00:18:00] that's partly it's the podcast. Partly it's because I'm a nosy little git, but it's just really interesting, isn't it? And in terms of what I, again, if you think about podcasting, if I, if we're in the pub we're sat in the pub and I ask you. Sadaf, tell me about the biggest challenge you've faced in life, right?

And we've just met within five minutes, I'm going, tell me about a big challenge you've faced in life. You're going to look at me and go, who is this guy, right? What is wrong with you? But put the same person in front of a microphone and call it a podcast. And I say, what's the biggest challenge you've faced in life?

They just tell you straight off the bat. They tell you, they open up. It's just absolutely incredible. And so you get to have the most amazing conversations all building that know and trust factor. Going back to what

Sadaf Beynon: that person said to you, that's actually quite a compliment for a podcast host.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, it is. So well done. Yeah. Well done me. Pat on the back.

There was, and it was super flattering and it was lovely to hear and very kind of him to say, but. If I'm not being too boastful, [00:19:00] he's not the first person to say that, which is, well done me. Yeah,

Sadaf Beynon: he's talking about the big

Matt Edmundson: ego. Yeah, there it is right there, just manifesting.

What can I say? But yeah, I think it's one of those things, isn't it? Think about it, seriously think about it. If you have clients that are worth, have a lifetime value of over 4, 000, I think podcasting done a slightly different way can have a massive impact on your business. Just look using this, some of the strategies that Daniel talks about really smart.

At least that's the experience, we I've enjoyed doing that. I think one of the things that I took away from this one, we do the, what's my main takeaway? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my main takeaway is he researches his guests now, so he's much more stringent on who his guests were, because he was doing three shows a week, frequency, because he had so many guests.

Yeah. And we found, haven't we, like with Push To Be More, it's easy to get guests on that show. Yeah. [00:20:00] Genuinely easy. We, when we first opened that up, we got like 70. Or 80 people going, yes, we'd love to be on the show. It was so many, it was over a year's worth of clients, years worth of clients, years worth of guests.

If we did one a week on the show, and we were like, oh my goodness. And that took us a week to get those 70 guests. It wasn't like, it wasn't long, was not long at all. And so I think probably now going forward with that, because the podcast push, we definitely want to target our guests better.

Yeah that, that was my takeaway. It's like actually with push, I think. And we were talking earlier before we hit the record button that we need to go over our strategy for guest, getting guests on this guest acquisition, I like it, bridging the world's v com and podcasting.

We're going to get guest acquisition. And so I think, I do think we need to think about that again. And that actually would be my key takeaway, thinking that through. What was yours?

Sadaf Beynon: I think. [00:21:00] In essence, like what he was saying about building trust and relationship with the person that you're talking to, it's highly effective for what you might be able to do later down the road, whether it's right away or a few months down the road.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, very cool. He actually talked, didn't he, about, he called it the warm up call. Yeah, he did. We call it the pre call here. But you, Daniel called it the warm up call. And I. I'm just trying to think, for most of our shows, you do the prequels, don't you? Yeah, bar one. Bar one. So you do the prequels with the guests.

So Daniel has Ben and so you're the Ben's equivalent. You're the Ben in this scenario. How do you filter, because I'm aware, Sadaf, That when people come in onto the prequel, not everybody you talk to, I end up doing an interview with. Yeah. So when you're thinking let's think about Push, for example, the Push To Be More podcast, which is more akin to Dan, yours, podcast [00:22:00] style that particular mode.

How do you judge clients on that? How do you do the prequels? Do we do the freemiums? Do you actually do the Push prequels? Yeah. Yeah, you don't you? It's been, because we've had so many guests on there, it's just been relentless.

Sadaf Beynon: What do I do? I first of all the podcast itself is about business owners, business leaders entrepreneurs, trailblazers, you name it.

And so it's really the whole structure and story behind it is to understand how they make life. Yeah. So they've got this, they're running a business, but then they've also got a life outside of that business. How do you keep all those balls in the air really is what it is, right? So we want to be able to have people on the show that actually are doing those things.

Yeah. So to make sure that they actually, yeah, you have, you're a business owner, you're an entrepreneur and understanding how they do those three things, how we have it's three, three themes as we call [00:23:00] it. Make sure they fit those. Yeah. And then, yeah, that's basically what I'm looking for.

Yeah. For

Matt Edmundson: push. Yeah. And tr we'll be doing some more episodes in Pod Junction on the pre-calls and how to do them. 'cause I think that's such an important part. Yeah. This particular to this particular, in fact, all of our podcasts, we still insist, don't we, on the Precall? Yeah. I don't know if there's any podcast where we don't do a pre-call.

None with exception, maybe of PodJunction, but we're not doing, that's not the whole interview. Or do you do a pre-call for pod? We do a pre-call, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. Fair enough. Shows you what I know, doesn't it really? But pre calls are so cool. Or the warmup callers, Daniel calls them. But we, yeah, we will be covering that more in more detail in other shows, I've no doubt, but yeah, definitely worth doing at least from our point of view, we do them, it's worth the time and energy unless you're doing a show where there's three or four episodes going out a day, I've seen people use Daniel's strategy.

For them, it comes about the numbers. So they will do I'm trying to remember the chap's name. I was actually on his podcast. [00:24:00] The whole thing becomes a numbers game. So he'll do three or four podcasts a day. Each podcast will be like 20, 30 minutes. And so for him, it's about numbers.

I just want to connect with more and more people. It's a hell of podcasts every day. I'm not gonna lie, but he's doing three or four a day. Whereas, I'm a bit more dang you, I'd rather do one a week with a highly targeted guest rather than try and do three or four and try and find great guests amongst that and I'm sure, that both have got their place but I just, that's a lot of hard work, three or four, I suppose what you could do if you want to do three or four podcast days, just live stream, that's all you do, you just get, I think that's what he does actually, is you just get on, you just live stream.

And so then there's no editing. You just make sure it's all recorded in one place and then you're not bothered about the editing process per se. It just goes straight up onto the podcast platform. I would have thought possibly, especially now you've got YouTube podcasts. That's might be a possible thing if you're just interested in YouTube.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. I think though, [00:25:00] like having someone that you have gone out he's very highly selective now with his guests, isn't he? So finding that right person, you're probably higher chance of being a better fit for as a client. Yeah. So I think the returns are going to be much higher for you than to

Matt Edmundson: just bang.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think actually this also comes back down to the show. So if you are selective over who the guests are, then you're going to have a better show. If you have a better show. Then the more selective guests are happy to come on that show. So I think like with eCommerce Podcast, we get, but I think on the whole, like the quality of our guests, not to just obviously distract from any previous guests, but because the show is so much bigger, we can get access to better guests.

So we've had on there recently, Neil Hoynes, who's the chief strategist of Google which is probably the episode that I've had the most feedback on of all the episodes we've done. And, part of that is because I met him at the show and I was at the show because I was podcasting at the show.

Subsummit, which you [00:26:00] mentioned, yeah. Mentioned before Subsummit and just, I'm at Subsummit because I met the guy that runs it on a podcast. He came on one of my podcasts and anyway he came onto the show and we can get those guests because we've got, we've had really good guests in the past.

And I think there is a benefit to saying no to guests which are mediocre, which go beyond just. I might not do business with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To the point where I actually know this is really interesting. Like the other day I was chatting to, on the Push Podcast, a guy called Ur, who I don't know if we would ever, I don't know if he's like an ideal client in many ways.

Maybe he isn't. I don't know. But it was just a really fascinating conversation because this guy is involved in medical robotics. So he makes these products which help people who have lost limbs and you just, you talk about an amazing conversation with an amazing guy. So we know that [00:27:00] we know the quality of the content is good.

And so as a result, people will keep coming back. Does that more make sense? Yeah, we've done our takeaways. We've done this the wrong way around. We have. That's what happens when you let Matt lead. Just saying. Hashtag the same. Sadaf's podcast as well. Anyway what's, how do we close this?

Sadaf Beynon: Come join us next week.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, we close it with a good strong call to action. Just come join us next week. Make sure you like and subscribe the show wherever you get your podcast from. Be great to see you next week. In we've got Daniel too, haven't we? Daniel too. So he's coming back, more Daniel. So if you like what Daniel had to say this week, definitely tune in next week.

That's it for me. That's it from Sadaf. Remember to check us out on the website, podjunction. com. You're going to talk about this more in a second, but on a prerecorded video. Yeah, absolutely. So do come check us out. We're good to see you in there. But that's it for me. That's it from Sadaf. Have a fab week.

See you soon guys.[00:28:00]

Sadaf Beynon: And that brings us to the end of today's episode at PodJunction where business meets podcasting. If you enjoyed the insights from today and wish to hear the full conversation with today's special guest, don't forget to visit the pod junction.com where you'll find more information about how you can join today.

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 tuning in, keep learning, and until next time, happy podcasting.[00:29:00]