The Expert Effect: Podcasting for Authority | Marcia Riner

[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 simply taking a minute 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 a seasoned podcaster, this episode is for you.

Hello, welcome to a brand new episode of Podjunction with me, your host, Matt Edmundson, and my talented, just raw talented co host, Sadaf Beynon. Welcome to the show. It's great to have you where we talk about how to use podcasting to grow your business. By talking to people that actually do it. Yes, we do.

We talk to podcasters which you and I both do. We're both podcasters. Oh obviously, because we're on It seems [00:01:00] like a rather silly statement to make. It's like that watermelon. You're going to have to explain that now, because people are going, what are you talking about watermelon for? Shall I show you?

Computer hang? Yeah. I can't . There we go. Sorry ladies and gentlemen, if you're listening, I'm struggling to reach out's computer. I'm gonna hold it up to the screen. So actually what you can see on the screen is an apple mac where the apple has been covered with a sticker. And on the sticker is a hand drawn watermelon slice.

And if you look at the video. You would look at that and go, that's obviously a watermelon, right? It's hand drawn, but you know what it is. It's hard to not understand what that is. So there you go. I've set it up for you. Yeah. I was just stating the obvious. I was telling Matt about my kids playing what this was one of their April Fool's jokes on me.

Yeah. [00:02:00] That I actually don't have an apple. I've got a watermelon. So when Sadaf came in and there's a watermelon stuck on a computer, you felt the need to explain to me that it was in fact a drawing of a watermelon, just in case I thought it was, I thought it was what, I don't know, I thought it was really funny, I was like thanks blindingly obvious.

And it worked well for me. I appreciate you letting me know. So blinding a bit like us doing podcasts. We are podcasters. In fact, you might not know this about us. If you're new to the show welcome to you. But it's a fairly new show, so you might well be new to the show. But we actually do podcasts other than this one.

We have quite a few different podcasts. So I host the eCommerce podcast. We've got Push To Be More. You and I do this one. We've got What's The Story. We've got podcasts, man. So it's all going on. So welcome to the show. And we use [00:03:00] podcasting to grow our own businesses. As well as chat to people who do the same thing.

So yeah, that's who we've got on today. We've got Marcia Riner again. And she is talking about how her podcast is or has helped establish her as an expert slash authority in her field when she does her consultancy business. Yep. She's very good. So the expertise, the authority side of things.

Which is a beautiful thing. So we're going to get into all of that. We're going to get Marcia's clip on very soon. We're going to listen to what she has to say. And then Sadaf and I are going to chat about it and figure out what we can learn, what we can implement in our own podcasts or maybe some add in some extra thoughts along the way.

Hopefully it'll be entertaining. A bit like the watermelon on the laptop. Blindingly obvious, we hope it's entertaining. That should be a new code word. When something's blindingly obvious. We're just going to go watermelon. And so if you're regular to the show, we will probably forget this by the time we record the next episode, but maybe [00:04:00] we'll remember.

And if you just hear us randomly saying watermelon, because you heard this episode, you'll know what we're talking about. Oh, yes. Are we doing the clip or are we doing a question? I don't have a question. Let's do the clip.

This is the professionalism. There's a general rule that there's a general format to this show. I do the welcome, although every time we are ready to do the welcome, I said, Sadaf, would you like to do the welcome this week? She's yeah, no, not today. I'm just, my head's not in it. And what episode are we on?

18. 18. 18 times. I've said, do you want to do the, no. But I do the welcome and then Sadaf is like I'm going to start asking you a question between, with a welcome. And before we get into the clip . So this is the first time you've not had a question perhaps. Yeah. Sorry about that.

I'll have lots of questions after the clips. Let's do that. I'm just gonna say watermelon. That's what I'm gonna say. . And Marcia, what's kept you going, Marcia? Have there been times when you've gone, you know what, this has run its course. Enough. I'm gonna move on to I, whatever.

Or have you always gone? I just [00:05:00] love what I do. I'm just gonna keep going. Yes and no. Yeah, I don't wanna do anymore, but. In the reality of doing it, I've found that it has up leveled my expert status. I'm a business growth coach, consultant. I work with business owners to help them grow their revenue and so on.

And, a couple of things that you can do to make yourself more credible is to be visible. So I've got two books that I've written and published. I can't say they're great books but they're just some strategies and methods that I have on there. I put them on Amazon. I'm sure there are errors in there, but I pulled the trigger and let them go.

Which, not that they're gonna read them, but it shows I have authority because now I'm a published author. Yeah. I'm a podcast host and I you know, [00:06:00] with several episodes, audio as well as video. And so the whole circle to this is when someone wants to troll you and validate who you are, the first thing that pops up is LinkedIn on Google searches.

And then it starts to show all your other published things that you do. And because YouTube is owned by Google, and I publish weekly on YouTube, I rise to the top, so when my name comes in, they type in Marcia Riner all of a sudden pop, all these things pop up, and I look legit. And that's really, truly what it's been for me, and now my current marketing is Business owners, if I can interview them about my book, and they're like, who are you?

And then they're trolling me as I'm talking to them, [00:07:00] and pop up comes all this stuff I'm doing. And then I'm constantly posting on social topics and information, and I'm always talking about business growth, so that validates who I am. So have I made money from my podcast enough to say it's been worth a couple hours a week?

Probably not. But layering out, oh my gosh I'm a celebrity in my own mind. The best place to be a celebrity, I can't help but feel. Because I'm published everywhere and that's where I, that's why I continue. Going forward with a weekly podcast. Plus, oh my gosh, I meet really great people. I meet really great people.

Yeah, it's interesting you talk about how one of the benefits for you and your business is the growth or the the status of being the expert in the Business Growth Strategy. [00:08:00] A couple of things I've found that podcasting does is yes, you will get direct clients from it.

Do you get enough to cover the time and expense if you're doing a podcast? I think that's going to vary from person to person, from industry to industry, whatever. But there are, like you say, these other benefits that you get from podcasting. The podcast and so yes, you get direct customers from it, but I think a lot of times my existing clients will listen to the podcast and it helps cement that relationship because they feel like I'm listening to you all the time.

I know you and that, I think that really helps. So you you cement existing business relationships as well as find new ones, don't you? And you just don't know where somebody listening to the show is at on the journey. Maybe they heard of you through a referral, then they've gone to search you on Google, and then they've discovered, oh, you've got a podcast.

Oh, this is actually quite good. I like how she interacts with the guests and all that sort of stuff. And they're like, and then they call, right? And you just don't, You can't quantify that or monetize, put a figure on that, but is [00:09:00] that is that the reason then you carry on with the podcast is because of this sort of this wider effect that it has on your business?

A hundred percent. I would love to throw some money at advertising and I'd love to have it professionally produced. I don't think it needs to be, sure, it would be nice to have all of that kind of stuff. But in reality, what you just explained, Is that my clients or potential clients are trolling me or my referral partners I get bring them on and then they get access.

So then it becomes this quid pro quo thing there's I can, there's a dozen different reasons why I continue and not really one of them has to do with the monetization of the podcast. I don't run ads the sponsor of the podcast is my company, Trajectory Consulting, so that's the front end, back end, book end.

Then [00:10:00] my ad it, The first after the introduction of the podcast is my current offer, which is go download my book for free at trajectoryprofits. com forward slash book dash download. Go get it, blah, blah, blah. That's what I'm hoping to monetize, in my podcast setup, and then I bookend the two commercials of sort as I'm going.

And in the middle of the podcast is all about my guests, and their lane, their angle, and it's been fantastic. It really has been for so many reasons beyond money.

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 theplotjunction. com for more information about how to join. Welcome back. I was as Marcia was talking, and she, how she talks about [00:11:00] credibility and how, what was the phrase she used trolling, which I think is a great expression.

My clients are trolling me. I get what she means by that. I don't know if I'd use that language. But so do you know what happens if you troll you? I trolled. You did you ? Yeah. While she was chatting away. I googled your name and now you've quite an unusual name on. It's not like I know many people with that name.

So I'm guessing LinkedIn and Yeah, LinkedIn was the first thing. Yeah. But on page one of Google is now PodJunction, so she's actually quite right when you talk about podcasting as in be visible. And people, if people Google you, they're gonna see. Your LinkedIn profile but they also are going to see the fact that you host PodJunction and she's entirely right, which I thought was quite interesting.

That is cool. Yeah. She said credibility, that's what she said, like credibility is equals visibility or flip it the other way around, but yeah. Yeah. Credibility. You've got to be visible. And I like that. You've got to [00:12:00] be seen. You've got to be out there. Yeah. And so actually when you Google your name cause you, you have, you do have quite an unusual name you have your LinkedIn profile, you have, I think it's the company website.

And then you had you should try this as an exercise ladies and gentlemen, if you listen, just Google your name, see what comes up. And then there was like three or four episodes from the Podjunction podcast. Oh, nice. It obviously works well. Proof is in the pudding, as they say. Doesn't work as well when you Google my name.

Oh, no? What did you get? Matt Edmundson, for those of you who don't know, who live outside of the UK, is a quite well known TV personality. We spell our names slightly differently. So I'm still on page one of Google. My LinkedIn profile came first. My website came second, mattedmundson. com but most of it was the other Matt Edmundson's Twitter account.

And I, yeah, it's quite interesting how so there's a slight confusion between me and a celebrity, which I always find amusing on Twitter when I get requests from people saying, can you play this song on the [00:13:00] radio? And how do you respond to that? Yeah, sure. Keep listening.

Maybe I'll play that song on a podcast one day. I don't know. But he's a different radio a guy. So yeah, but it is interesting that actually credibility comes from visibility and I assume if I kept going and went to page two, you're going to start to see some of the podcasts, you're going to start to see all the different things that I'm involved with.

But I thought, bang on, Marcia is exactly right. That is what happens when you. When you start to do podcasts, they start to be seen in conjunction with your name. And when people start to find out about you, that visibility is there and every little helps, right? To quote Tesco's. I have to give them, I have to say it's a Tesco thing, otherwise they'll sue me for stealing their phrase.

Yeah. Yeah, I guess she also was talking about all the books she's written and everything. So you don't have to write the books. No. You can still be credible slash visible by just having a podcasting [00:14:00] platform. And I think I'm just looking at what I've written down, but like having those conversations, so you don't have to have the book, you don't have to have all that kind of stuff, but having meaningful conversations as we like to call them.

Showcase your expertise as well, depending on what you're doing. Platform you're on, which then builds rapport with the person, which then hopefully brings in business because that's what we're about, right? Yeah, exactly. Growing our businesses through the podcast. Yeah, it is. And I think for example the obvious one for me is if I do the eCommerce podcast, I'm seen as an expert in e-commerce.

Yeah. That builds my credibility in that industry. So then I get invited to go speak at events. Yeah. Which then gives me bigger and better exposure and I get to meet more people, get to network and the whole thing becomes almost like self fulfilling prophecy in a lot of ways. But because I have the podcast and because I've been doing it a while, it does give me that credibility.

And also actually when you try and get good quality guests [00:15:00] having the podcast. So for example, we had on, I don't know if I mentioned this on Podjunction. I don't know where I've told this story before or not, but on Podjunction recently, we had Neil Hoyne, right? Now Neil, yeah. On the eCommerce podcast Neil is an absolute legend, but it's not like he's not known in this industry.

He's one of the top dudes at Google. I was on LinkedIn the other day and he put a poster, a picture of him outside Google, 11 and a half thousand likes just on his post. You're like, he knows a fair few people, he's followed by a fair few people. But if I was going to I've not tried it and I'm not, I think Neil's a great guy and I'm sure if he could, if I called him up and said, Neil, can I ask you some questions for half an hour, he'd be like, I don't know, I just, I haven't got the time, but if I call him up or contact them and say, do you fancy coming on the podcast?

Neil's yeah, sure. Why not? Let's do this, and very gracious with his time and his information, but it's because of podcast brings you. That door then gets opened and I get to meet people like Neil Hoynes, right? Just [00:16:00] putting that out there. So yeah, I think it's definitely a win.

And I think that the credibility aspect of podcasting, I don't know. I think it cannot be underestimated. Now, I don't think you get credibility when you've done 10 episodes. I think credibility comes with longevity in a lot of ways. That said, and hear me when I say this, because it, I'm not trying to gamify the system.

Out of every guest that's ever come on our show, and you do a lot, I mean we talked about this in the last episode on the prequels, when I was doing the prequels and trying to get guests on the show, in the early days, not one person has ever really said to me how many people listen to it. In other words, how big is your show?

Not one person has really said, how long has your show been around? Now they may go to the podcast page, the web page and see, oh, they've got 160 episodes or whatever, which in itself I think lends massive credibility is the quantity. If I just had two, they may be [00:17:00] a bit like what, who is this chap?

But it's not so much about the size. I think it's because I, do we ever get asked that question? Do you ever get asked that question? I think we did in the early days. I remember actually Chloe Thomas asked that question. Did she? Yeah. Yeah. She was one of our very first ones, wasn't she?

Yeah. Yeah. But she's actually been, has she been on Podjunction yet? Yes. Yes, she has. I know she's definitely coming on and she'll come on quite a few times because Chloe's just an absolute legend. But yeah, I Chloe's a podcaster. Yeah. Yeah. Which is interesting. So Chloe's asked us about it.

Occasionally, like one in, one in 20 will ask. Yeah. Not many people will ask. Not many people will ask. So I don't need, I guess the point I'm saying here is you don't need a podcast with a hundred thousand downloads a week to have credibility. Yeah. Yeah. But the podcast still gives you credibility in the eyes of people, right?

It just does. And I think that credibility gets bigger and stronger, the more consistent you are with your podcast, if that makes sense. [00:18:00] Yeah, I don't know if there's anything to be said for the guests as well yeah, they suddenly have some kind of attachment now to this podcast because they've guessed it on it.

And so then their friends want to listen to it, the people they know will listen to it. And then I think it's a snowball effect in some sense. There really is. That's another aspect of podcasting, isn't it? When you have guests on and they share it out on their social feeds and their email lists, and that's when you really start to get some momentum going on.

And usually again, nine times out of 10 people love to share the content because they're proud of what they've done. Yeah, we get a lot of requests for that. Yeah. The recording so that they can slice it and dice it and send it out. Slice it and dice it. Is that the technical term? Yes. Create short form video content from the podcast.

Dum dum, dum. But yeah, I think it's an interesting one, isn't it? And I don't think you can, like I say, don't underestimate the power of the credibility aspect of podcasting. And the reason I say this is because. [00:19:00] Like any form of social media, like any form of content creation, whether you're writing books, writing blogs or whatever, it can be easy sometimes just to look at it and go, what's my return on investment, right?

How much money do I make from doing this? So we do this podcast once a week. How much money does that podcast bring in? You go it brings in X amount of pounds or X amount of dollars. If you can actually measure it, but it's the intangibles of podcasting that we can't forget.

Credibility and expertise being one of the most significant ones that people will perceive you. To be an expert in that field in which you're doing your podcast, it's just a natural extension. Yeah. That's my experience. Yeah. I think as a podcaster, you have to have the long term investment view, right?

Rather than the direct revenue stream. And she talked also about like her, she had, she doesn't have ads. She sponsors her own show with, she'll highlight her own offers And things like [00:20:00] that's where she monetizes her podcast. Yeah. Yeah. And I, again, full disclosure, I don't know.

Marcy didn't say, and I'm not going to try and predict, but I know a bunch of people that try and do this and I, I don't know how much work it actually in theory brings in. For some people it will be part of a sales process. And I think that's probably a good way to think about your podcast.

It's part of a sales process. You will get people that will just come and buy what you're selling because they've come to your podcast. They've heard it, they've listened to it and gone, yes, I'm happy to get involved in that. Especially if it's a small amount of money, if they like the sound of your voice and like the content you put out there, then they'll go do it.

But again, I think they won't do it on the first episode. They'll do it on probably the 12th or 15th. I don't know what the exact number is, but there's going to have to be some kind of constancy of relationship there. Yeah. And so again, it's hard to measure the effectiveness of that in a lot of ways, but you can absolutely look at your credibility ratings [00:21:00] and they can and should go up over the long term, in that industry.

But I like that, this is a whole separate episode in terms of should you sponsor your own podcast, we've talked about, and that's why I think that's what we talked with Chloe about coming back to the Chloe episode. We talked to her about sponsorship, but should you sponsor your own podcast?

Absolutely you should. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a good way to think about it because in the early days, you're not going to get sponsors. You're certainly not going to get sponsors that want to pay you any money. That's worthwhile you doing whatever it is you're doing. But you can and should think about your podcast from your own sponsorship point of view.

Even if it's for now, just to grow your email list. Go to our website, sign up to our newsletter. We'll send you the notes and the links every week. Just grow your email list because that in itself is a valuable asset until you can figure out a way to monetize and grow the business. Like we have monetization.

It's going to change its name to PodJunction Plus. I think I mentioned that last week. On EP, we have EP [00:22:00] Plus currently called eCommerce Cohort. You spot a theme here. We're going to change it to EP Plus. I'm going to, we're rebranding them and re rejigging in a few things. But it would be impossible.

Absolutely impossible for me to quantify. The effect of the increase in credibility and expertise from doing the eCommerce podcasts. If I just looked at it from a purely monetary point of view. I'd be like we'll go and get sponsors every week. It's a niche industry. We've got thousands of people downloading it.

I could probably charge four or 500 bucks, go get three sponsors, make 1500 bucks an episode. Okay. It's an income, isn't it? And if I'm doing an episode a week, that's six grand a week. I could probably do two episodes a week, double my sponsorship revenue, 000 pounds a month from a podcast, not bad, not bad.

And actually I can see why people do that. But I think first and foremost, when you're starting out, the question is, should you sponsor your own show? Absolutely. And if you've got something that you can promote to your audience over the long haul, don't get disheartened if you do something [00:23:00] like, Oh, I've got a course.

And no one, I've talked about it for the last 10 weeks of my podcast, but no one's bought on it, bought it. Maybe your course is rubbish or maybe your offer is rubbish, or maybe you just need to talk about it a hundred times as your audience is growing, that's worth saying, I think.

Little, still Rabbit Trail, what else have you got go, ladies and gentlemen, the power of podcasting to build your expertise, your perceived expertise I think is really interesting, and I started that conversation with Marcia, by asking her what keeps her going and it's interesting. That this is what she ended up on talking about was the whole expertise thing.

And it wasn't for her, just the money aspect of it, or obviously that's going to have an impact on a business, but it's the expertise thing. And I think that's really quite interesting. It's quite telling. I don't know if I, I would have said the same thing. What keeps you going? Is it an expertise thing?

I think it's a visibility thing. I think expertise is part of [00:24:00] it. Definitely, but I thought it was interesting. That's where she went to, what keeps you going. This one of these sort of side benefits of podcasting. So yeah, don't be afraid. And this is, I'm talking to all the British people now.

Don't be afraid to be seen as an expert in your industry because often we don't like to call ourselves experts. It's not very British thing to do. No, it's very American, but we don't do it in Britain. Yeah, not at all. But I think people will perceive you to be an expert. And there's going to come a point because she talked about being fat.

What was it she said about being a celebrity, which made me smile. I wrote that down. In her mind, she's a celebrity. It's only ever happened to me once. Oh yeah? Yeah. But on one occasion, someone came up to me and said, I'm sure I know you from YouTube. I was like yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. And don't get me wrong.

It's not like I walk into [00:25:00] the supermarket and everyone's queuing up for my autograph because they're not listening to the eCommerce pod. Let's just be real. But occasionally people do come up to me and go, where do I know you from? I've seen your face somewhere. And especially if I go to an event.

They'll come, they'll look at you like, are you familiar, when you go on stage, like at an event in the industry, people come to go, I know your voice so well, didn't know your face was like that, but I know your voice, didn't know you looked like that, but I know your voice so well.

And she's just oh, that's really interesting. But yeah, I've only ever had it happen to me once where a complete stranger walked up to me and recognized me. But I've had it happen several times when I've stood up and done like speaking events and people have gone, I knew I recognized your voice.

And so they put two and two together. It's funny how your voice becomes famous. So you and your Canadian accent are now famous. Page one of Google,[00:26:00]

which is a beautiful thing. Listen, thank you so much for joining us this week. Hopefully you've got something out of this. So building credibility in your podcast or building your credibility with your podcast. We need to come up with a really funky title to this podcast. I don't know what it will be because we've not figured it out yet, but it will be great.

You'll know what it is ahead of time. You'll be listening to me now going, yeah, Matt, you could have done better. I don't know. I don't know, but whatever it's called, we hope you've enjoyed this week's show. If you haven't done so already, make sure you like and subscribe to the podcast, wherever you get your podcast from, because we're just going to carry on these conversations about podcasting and business and how to grow your business through podcasting.

And obviously, if you've got credibility, you're going to grow your business. It's if you're seen as the expert, people are going to come to you. Do you know what it's done for me, actually? Matt, we can put up prices. Oh, nice. Yeah. This is one of the hidden benefits, actually. The more people see you as an expert, the more you can put up your prices and charge more.

Just, Just [00:27:00] saying so there's that side of things as well. It's all a beautiful thing. Yes, that's how we use Business to Grow podcasting. Is there anything else from you? You sure? Yeah, sure. Okay. Awesome. Listen, have a beautiful day, ladies and gentlemen, wherever you are in the world.

We'll see you next time. Thanks for joining us. Bye for now.

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 be Remember, every episode is a chance to gain insights and to transform your business with podcasting. So keep on tuning in, keep on learning, and until next time, happy [00:28:00] podcasting.