Podcasting’s Unexpected Business Opportunities | John Roman

Podcastings Unexpected Business Opportunities

[00:00:00]

Sadaf Beynon: Welcome to Pod Junction podcast, A podcast for podcasters who are wanting to use their podcast to grow their business. A bit of a mouthful. ,

Matt Edmundson: hang on. A podcast for podcasters who are looking to grow their business with

Sadaf Beynon: podcast, using their podcast.

Matt Edmundson: Sorry, say that again? A podcast for podcasters using their podcast to grow their business with a podcast.

Sadaf Beynon: No, no. You added that bit. Oh, okay. That's

Matt Edmundson: a lot of podcasters.

Sadaf Beynon: Yes. A lot of podcasters.

All right. So this is the third of our four part series of insights from John Roman, who is the co host of ASOM Pod. And in this particular episode, we are going to learn about, um, how podcasting can serve multiple business goals.

Matt Edmundson: I like how you had a little thing, I just go, I'm just going to pause, hang on, what's this one about?

Yeah, what was

Sadaf Beynon: that one about? Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: This is about [00:01:00] podcasters who use podcasting to grow their podcast.

Sadaf Beynon: And their business. Through their podcast. Through their podcast. Yes. And, um. I'm tagline, by the way. You like it? Yeah, yeah. It keeps growing. It keeps, just.

Matt Edmundson: Podcast is podcasting podcasts.

Sadaf Beynon: Yes. With podcasters.

Okay, I'm going to stop. It's the point two that you're going to learn is the power of sharing industry wisdom. And thirdly, how podcasters, sorry, how podcasts can be leveraged for unexpected opportunities for the business.

Matt Edmundson: Oh, it's all a bit secretive. I like that. I like that. I'm looking forward to this one then.

And you're doing this with John Roman?

Sadaf Beynon: Yes. Part three. I mean, yeah, three.

Matt Edmundson: John is such a legend. He is absolutely a legend. So, I'm looking forward to this. So, are we getting straight into it? Yeah. Okay. Alright, here's the clip.

Sadaf Beynon: So you've touched a little [00:02:00] bit about on this, but John, would you go into a bit more detail about what your primary goals are for ASOM Pod, both in terms of content and, um, audience engagement?

John Roman: Sure. Um, so I would say there's, there's, there's multiple goals, right? Um, so I don't think anybody's just going to disagree, you know, content is king and, and voting, voting audience is key. Um, you know, it's a little bit, um. The, the, the path to, you know, new customers is a lot easier with B2B in this, in this, in this play.

Right. Um, if we're able to grow this, the, the amount of, of, of deal flow and, and funnel growth that, that Amir with Prella and Jimmy with Sendling might see is, is probably a little bit greater than, than Brian with, with Own His Pride and, and myself with BattleBox. Mm

hmm.

John Roman: Um, so, you know, that's. That's something to take in mind that it works a little bit less [00:03:00] for the direct consumer brands.

Um, but there's, there's other goals, right? So my, my biggest thing that, that I, I enjoy is being able to, you know, give wisdom and give best practices and concepts and things that they can save other people time, right? I spent, you know, TikTok, for example, when we launched it, we failed for six months. Um, And there were so many learnings and, you know, knowing what we know now, we could have probably figured it out in, in two months, but we didn't know that.

So, you know, talking about it, maybe I can, if it's just one person that, that understands and is like, I'm going to do this and, and we're able to save four months of their time, like to me that I, I get major satisfaction from that. Um, so that's one element. Um, the reality is, you know, I would love, I would love for someone to listen and be like, Oh, what is BattleBox?

Oh, this is cool. Um, you know, hearing about John talk about [00:04:00] the company, it's very, very clear that the customer experience is one of the most important things, and this could be something that I want to join. So absolutely hope for that. Um, I think it also. It also positions us as what we are, which is, um, thought leaders in the space and there's, there's value there, uh, as, as a merchant, um, you know, with, with the two, the, the two brands, Brian and, and myself.

On there, there's, you know, they'll become opportunity maybe for new tech that we can use. Maybe we'll get a discount,

um,

John Roman: or maybe they'll want to sponsor and we can, you know, try, try it out. Um, I think there's going to be little synergies like that, um, that, that could absolutely be, um, Be cool. Um, so yeah, so it's not a, it's, it's not one, it's such a clear path if you're, if you're a, if, if it's B to, if you're a B to B, um, [00:05:00] on, on growing the funnel, it's, it's a little bit less of a clear path and there's multiple angers, angles when, when you're actually a merchant.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. So in your case, then what kind of, um, benefits do you think you'll get out of like for BattleBox in particular? I mean, get out of hosting ASOM Pod.

John Roman: Yeah. So, so BattleBox in particular, um, so, you know, there's with, with, with the growth of audience. There's going to, it's the, you know, Rising Tide, what is, I don't even, what is it, Rising Tide Raises All Ships, Raising Tide, Rising Tide Lifts All Boats.

Sadaf Beynon: Okay, close.

John Roman: Okay. Um, so, you know, purely just getting BattleBox out there and it's going in a, in a means that we traditionally don't do, right? This isn't, this isn't meta advertising. This isn't TikTok advertising.

Yeah.

John Roman: Um. Okay. There's, you're, you're, you're gonna get more eyeballs [00:06:00] and in, in, in general, you know, more people to the website and

Mm-Hmm.

John Roman: more people to the website, more people convert. So, you know, absolutely. We'll grow that. Um, you know, there's another, there's, there's, there's battle, uh, there's battle box. There's also battle brands, which owns battle box. Mm-Hmm. . And there's a, there's an arm of battle brands, which is battle, uh, battle ventures.

Mm-Hmm. . So we've, we've made, um. So this year alone, we've, we've made two, two investments in, in, in SaaS companies. Um, it's a very interesting investment criteria where we have to use the product.

You

John Roman: have to like the product. We have to think that there's an edge with this product. And, and more importantly, we, we have to be able to, um, be active and bring value.

Um, so it's not just dumb money. It's, it's, we think we can help. Um, In, in, in some aspect, whether it's, whether it's finding them new [00:07:00] customers or advisory,

um,

John Roman: there's, there's gotta be a value we can bring and it's gotta be a great product that we're, that's actually in our tech stack. Um, so we've made two investments so far this year.

And, um, you know, that those opportunities came from pure network, right? It, it just literally crossed, crossed the desk because of the relationships and network we've built. And I think this. This will allow that to grow further too. I think we'll see additional deal flow, additional opportunities. Um, you know, uh, is, is Battlebox in acquisition mode at the moment?

Not necessarily, but I would, I wouldn't say we ever are, but when opportunities arise, we, we typically act on them. So Battlebox, um, has acquired a few brands through the years. Um, some have panned out, some have not, but again, all of those came Um, came through current network and current relationships. Um, never like a, a deal [00:08:00] site or a, a, you know, a, a business for sales site or anything like that.

So I think, you know, the deal flow of potential opportunities and partnerships, I think that increases as well.

Mm-Hmm, . So, I,

John Roman: I really think that it just, this. Putting yourself out there, garnering, you know, further audience. It really is just going to rise the, the, the tide rises all boats, right? So, um, it's not one boat, new deal, new customers.

It's, it's a bunch of boats. And I think it's just, it's just getting the brand out there and getting myself out there will, will rise everything.

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

Matt Edmundson: Welcome back. What a legend John is. It was really interesting listening to him talk about, [00:09:00] um, how, how he's using the podcast for Battlebox possibly, although that's not his main thing. Now Battlebox, for those of you who don't know, this is John's company, it's a B2C company. So he, um, he sells direct to consumer, it's a subscription box, which is, I don't know if it's international actually, I think it's just in the States.

Um, but they, there's a monthly subscription box called Battlebox which you can subscribe to. Um, and that's what he's talking about when he talks about BattleBox. And it's a great, you know, and this is how I know John through the fact he does subscription commerce. Uh, we hung out at SubSummit recently, which is a big subscription show.

Um, come check out SubSummit 2025 if you're around, uh, Dallas, Texas. I think it's

Sadaf Beynon: in June.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, same place, June. I don't know. SubSummit. com, shout out to SubSummit. Anyway, um, so that's what he's talking about, right? He's talking about, um, his. His brand battle box and [00:10:00] how some of the other podcasters on the show have, um, B2B businesses.

So they sell marketing services, direct, uh, you know, whatever. So it was interesting how he, how he started off by saying that he thinks using podcasting or a podcast strategy like they're using with Awesome is going to be much better for those businesses, the B2B businesses. Um, rather than his direct to consumer business.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. Yeah. I think because he, he was saying that for B2B, it's just a natural funnel, isn't it? Yeah. Uh, whereas with the B2C, it's less direct, but still plenty of opportunity for brand awareness.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a slower burn. Um, and he made a direct comparison with actually meta ads. So, the standard thing in eCommerce, I suppose in any industry, I mean, I know eCommerce very well, but the standard thing is, you know, you'll put in, [00:11:00] say, a thousand bucks on Facebook, or Matter, or Instagram, or whatever language you want to use, but you'll put a thousand bucks on that, and then you'll be able to see a return on investment.

You can go, right, well, that thousand dollars, um, returned 20, 000 website visitors, which in effect result in a hundred new customers, which result in whatever sales. So I've got a return on, they call it return on ad spend, ROAS. Um, so I've got a return on ad spend of say two. So for every dollar I invest, I get 2 back.

Yeah. That's a beautiful thing. You can't do that with podcasting. It is a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing when it works. And, uh, but you can't really do that with podcasting it seems. And it's, it's quite interesting how. Um, yeah, how that works for John. So it's not easy to go and say, well, I've done this podcast.

Therefore I have bought in this many sales. You might see a sales uplift, but that could be a million and one reasons, right? So it's not a direct, unless you [00:12:00] publish, I don't know, some kind of code, uh, on your podcast or you use specific URLs in your podcast show notes that people click. You can maybe measure it that way.

Yeah. Um, But yeah, it's a sort of general brand awareness that he talks about, which I think is really interesting for eCommerce businesses, actually, that want to do podcasting or thinking about doing podcasting. Because I think he's right, the strategy for direct to consumer is different than B2B. So B2B podcasting for me is a no brainer.

We've talked about this, we've built a whole business around it. Podjunction is our company. It's a B2B company. We do B2B services. We help people set up, run their own podcasts. We teach them our methodology. We get them up and running over 20 episodes. Bam. Away we go. Right? Is that

Sadaf Beynon: fair play? That is fair play.

I'm not

Matt Edmundson: cheaping that in any way? No. Not at all. Just as [00:13:00] long as I'm clear. So it's really straightforward. So from a podcasting point of view, it's Um, we use podcasting to grow that agency, to grow that business, and Podjunctures is one of two podcasts we use to grow that business. That's right. Right? Yeah.

Um, and we can see that, we can track that, we can understand that and understand how that works. We have another company, um, several eCom companies, but we're, this week, actually, Jen and I, Who's the marketing director of that, well that's a bit posh, she's, well let's call her the marketing director, she is in charge of marketing for that eCommerce business, um, and so she and I are going to do some test podcasts, similar to Podjunction format, she's interviewed an expert, we're going to get together and chat about it, we're going to get together and chat about it.

Um, and that'll be much more brand awareness type stuff for her e com business. And that's the strategy that we're going to use. So slightly different strategy, uh, for the e com business and the direct to [00:14:00] consumer. Um, but I think it's a really great thing to use for brand awareness.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, for sure.

Matt Edmundson: I'd be really curious to, I don't know if he'd ever be able to find out how many people actually came to Battlebox because he's doing the awesome podcast.

There will definitely be some. I think if John wanted to do the straightforward brand then he would do a podcast more tied in with the theme of battle, battle box as opposed to marketing, if that makes sense. But there will definitely be some crossover. Yeah, there's no doubt about it.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. He talked about, um, thought leadership in that space, didn't he?

So all four of them who are on ASOM Pod are, um, kind of creating their, their space for expertise. So people are coming to them and then going back out to the different parts of the, of eCommerce that they represent.

Yeah.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. Talking about thought leadership, what is your, how would you define that?

Matt Edmundson: Thought leadership. Well, here's an interesting thing about those four guys doing the awesome podcast, right? They're in a WhatsApp [00:15:00] group. Okay. Um, somehow I'm in that same WhatsApp group. John just said to me, you know, just come join the group, you'll enjoy it. I was like, okay, man. And it's a WhatsApp group where he's put together a bunch of people And what they do is they do similar stuff to what we do.

So they put out the podcast where they talk about stuff which is relevant to that industry. Yeah, people are interested in that. So just by talking about it, you're perceived as a thought leader, right? And they publish that content, YouTube, the podcast, but they are prolific. And when I say prolific, I mean prolific at creating content.

On LinkedIn. Okay. Um, taking stuff from the podcast and putting it out there. I know, because in fact, if I pick up my phone now, I can tell you in the, basically what happens is in this WhatsApp group, um, they, whenever you put a piece of content up, you put the link in the WhatsApp group. The people in the WhatsApp group will then go to [00:16:00] whatever LinkedIn and like it, for example, 35 in read messages.

Wow,

Matt Edmundson: 35. And so, and that's from yesterday. So Matt Holman, he's put a link to his Twitter, well no, Xfeed. Um, oh, just picked up my phone and now someone's calling me. That's very rude. Let's just switch that off. Brian Max put a link on there to his LinkedIn. Um, And there's some comments going back and forth, just always very funny.

But there's just link after link after link. So to be perceived as a thought leader, I think obviously you've got to have something useful to say. And these guys are actually very good. They are very good. They know their topic, but they are prolific at telling the world about that topic. Um, I take my hat off to them.

I think the consistency with which they're putting stuff out there is in, is insane. And so, um, I think a thought leader. knows their stuff, but then in a polite way. You have to

Sadaf Beynon: establish yourself as a thought [00:17:00] leader, don't you? You can know your stuff, but not. Yeah, I mean, you can know your

Matt Edmundson: stuff and post, post a blog every now and again, but the world doesn't know about it.

So to be a, which obviously you have thoughts about something, but to be a thought leader, I think people have to follow. Hence the word leader, right? Um, and, and leader in term, it sort of implies there is a following, a group of people connected with what's going on. And I think. You need both. You need to be able to have a say in that industry, but also promote and get that content out there.

So I'd say we have thought leaderships, uh, or thought leadership in eCommerce. Because we've been doing that for, you know, a while. We've been putting content out there. I think we probably are getting to a place where we could be classed as thought leaders in podcasting. Certainly in the niche that we operate in, um, in terms of using podcasts to grow your business.

But we've got to build that following, right, to be perceived as a leader, and I think those guys do that super

Sadaf Beynon: well.

Matt Edmundson: So what you can do, just copy what John and the [00:18:00] team do, set up WhatsApp groups, post your content, get a group of you together, post your content in there, and all go and comment and like on each other's content.

That starts to connect with the algorithm and it gets seen by more eyes and it's actually quite a nice way to do it and I think they've stumbled, I didn't say stumbled, I just think it's a nice thing that they do, I mean a couple of groups do

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, yeah, it's clever. Yeah,

Matt Edmundson: very, very clever. I should definitely start posting more content on LinkedIn and letting the guys know about it.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, yeah, you should.

Matt Edmundson: I should. I should. But I'm just about to take August off, so it'll be in September. So, in September. Yeah, yeah. Guys, if you're listening, guys, you're free until September. When September hits, man, you're not going to know what's hitting you. Messages every day from

Sadaf Beynon: Matt, here's my new piece of content.

Matt Edmundson: So yeah, does that answer your question? It does, Very good. What

Sadaf Beynon: else? What else? Um, reading my notes. Yeah. From afar,[00:19:00]

uh, what about his, um, what he said about helping other people save time by learning from your mistakes or from how you've done things? Because didn't he say his TikTok,

Matt Edmundson: the

Sadaf Beynon: launch didn't go well.

Matt Edmundson: It's an interesting thing, uh, John was talking about that because he said that, He thinks B2B is, well the B2B, the B2B guys will benefit more from Awesome Podcasts than he will.

Yeah. But he will get some benefit from it. But he is doing it because he enjoys sharing his learnings. Mm hmm. In other words, he enjoys sharing his teaching. I think this is another thing about thought leadership is you've You've got to enjoy teaching other people and helping other people. Yeah. Um, and that usually means learning from your mistakes, right?

Yeah. Um, and so, and that, I think that's one of the things that drives John. He's been on quite a few of our podcasts and the guy just adds insane value because he's [00:20:00] just, this is what I learned. This is what I learned. Don't do what I did because I messed up there. But if you do what I did over here, that's where I had success.

And I think he's very generous with his knowledge. And it used to be years ago that your knowledge was your

IP,

Matt Edmundson: right? That's my IP. So I'm not sharing it with the world. I'm going to share a little bit and then try and persuade you on the basis of that to buy my course. Yeah. To buy, you know, access to my mastermind or whatever it is.

And I think, and that worked for a little while. We did it for a little while. But I think actually the world has changed. I think people like John and the awesome guys and what we try and do is you just put out your best content.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: It's not my IP anyway, really. I mean, you know, it's not like I'm the only person in the world that knows this.

Maybe the package which I put together is my IP. And my experience is the more you tell people what to do, The more people come to you and go, [00:21:00] great, can you do that for me?

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, since you know what you're talking about, you know what

Matt Edmundson: you're talking about, because I don't want to do it. I just don't want to do it.

But you're, you're not hiding anything from them. And I think, um, this is probably the big changing thought leadership in content production. And people like John, and the awesome guys, they put stuff out there. And it doesn't appear to be any firewall, there doesn't appear to be any limit to what they're willing to share.

And I think that's probably become our philosophy over the recent months, right?

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. And I think people have changed in that way too. Like they're not, they're more reliant on, on recommendations by their peers. And as you're saying, like they'll happily let someone who knows what they're talking about do it because they're happy to go along with the research that's been done and just kind of, um, submit to that.

So I think it's both ways.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Absolutely. That's really interesting. Yeah, but I you [00:22:00] know, I think you've if you're going to do this, you're going to do the podcast game. You've got to have a love for teaching. Yeah, and a love for sharing knowledge. And because I think that's what you know, that's what you want to come across in your podcast.

You want people to get value out of it. Yeah. Now, whether that comes from you or an expert guest, or whatever, you want people to get value out of it. And I think that that love and that passion for that the desire to help people through the Channels and mechanisms that you have, I think people will see that if it's authentic, if it's genuine, you're definitely going to get clients as a result of it, you know.

Yeah. Um, I mean, there's been times when I've sat down, not necessarily on the podcast, but I remember the first time I realized actually that I'd got it slightly wrong with content. In other words, I was trying to hide stuff back behind a firewall. Um, was I remember sat down with one client. In the office in our old, you remember our old Yeah.

Old warehouse. Mm-Hmm. . Big old whiteboard on the wall. And I just [00:23:00] decided to map out everything and it took like three or four hours. And I'm like, so there's your strategy. That's what I think you should go to. Yeah. And this is, um, this is our, you know, in effect how we would do it. Um, so I'm telling you now you can write all this down.

You can walk out of here and you can go and do that. And that's when he turned around to me and he said, great, when do we start? And I was like, wow, because I was very nervous about telling them everything that I knew because I thought they were just going to take my knowledge and walk off. Yeah. Um, but he didn't.

He was just like, yeah, I know this is what I want you to do. And so it's a really fascinating, uh, way how that works. And I think, yes, there are people that rip up, will rip off what you know, but to be honest with you. Let them because it's like What are you gonna? There's enough fish out there. I'm not too concerned about it.

I think Yeah, so I think for us, well, I mean lessons learned here, but the things for me After, after August.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah [00:24:00] Watch out world. Yeah, watch out world.

Matt Edmundson: I think we'll be putting more content out there We'll be putting more stuff on LinkedIn, more stuff on Instagram All the courses that we used to charge for are going to be made available for free on the site.

We'll probably ask for an email just to grow our email list through it. But there's a company, I've not mentioned this to you, but there's a company called, maybe I have, uh, Shaper. Now, Shaper make woodwork tools. They make this really clever router, handheld CNC machine, which if you're not into woodwork, you're not going to have a clue what I'm talking about.

But trust me, it's really clever. It's a really clever machine. And the way they do content is really, really sweet. And I look at them and I think, actually, you've now become very apt doing this. And they live stream once every couple of weeks, showing you how to do something with that tool. A lot of stuff on Reels, a lot of stuff on Instagram.

They give you access, you know, they've got a community where if I design something, I can put those design files. Onto the [00:25:00] community Herb people can download them, which is great. So I share a lot of stuff that way that I've designed. I borrow with the people's designs and use them on, on my furniture that I make.

Um, and then they have these mastermind classes. Yeah. Which are just, they're great. You have to put in your email to get them and the way they film 'em and shoot them and do them. It's just so nice. And so, yeah, I think really clever way of doing content and being a, a thought leader in that space. Yeah. So you can learn a lot from woodwork.

Woodworkers rock, man.

Oh,

Sadaf Beynon: boy. You

Matt Edmundson: don't know what to say to that, do you? No, I

Sadaf Beynon: don't, I don't. Ooh,

Matt Edmundson: just totally gone off on one there, Matt. You've totally thrown me.

Sadaf Beynon: But yeah, it was good. I enjoyed that one.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. So I guess challenge. How do you do your content? What can you learn from this? How do you help people grow?

Um, and think about, [00:26:00] you know, what John said in relation if you're B2B or if you're direct to consumer, how that's going to work for you. Um, but yeah, I loved it. Love. I just love listening. I can listen to John all day. Such a legend. He'll be happy to hear that. Yeah, I'm not going to John, but I could.

Because that might be a little bit weird, actually. Thinking that through. Yeah, I think that's gonna be, yeah, I'm a subscriber to the podcast and I listen to it and I go, I'm on the WhatsApp group. Once a week,

Sadaf Beynon: once a week.

Matt Edmundson: Awesome. So is there anything else we want to talk about on this one? No. What's coming up next week then?

Sadaf Beynon: So next week is part four,

Matt Edmundson: fourth and

Sadaf Beynon: final, one from John Roman. So yeah, that'll be good.

Matt Edmundson: Great. So we're going to hear from John again next week. Make sure you like and subscribe to the show. Wherever you get your podcasts from, obviously, because you're not going to want to miss part four, and if you've not listened to parts one or two yet, is that because you're new to the show?[00:27:00]

A very warm welcome to you. Or is it because you're an existing subscriber and you're just going to ask somebody to listen to the first two? I would strongly recommend going back and listening to those two. Uh, but then that's just me, you know, so, um, but yeah, make sure you like and subscribe because we'll be back next week for part four with John Roman, uh, but unless there's anything else from you, that's it from me, that's it from the fabulous one sat next to me right here.

Uh, we'll see you next week. Bye for now.

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

Whether you listen while on the go or in a quiet moment, thank you for letting us help Remember, every episode is a chance to gain insights and to transform your business with [00:28:00] podcasting. So keep on tuning in, keep on learning, and until next time, happy podcasting.