Two Voices, One Podcast: The Cohosting Advantage | James Gurd

Today’s Guest James Gurd

Welcome to this episode of Podjunction, where we dive deep into the world of podcasting, exploring the dynamic and enriching world of cohosting. Whether you're a budding podcaster or a seasoned pro, this episode is packed with insights, tips, and behind-the-scenes knowledge on how to leverage the cohosting model for your podcast. Join Matt Edmundson and Sadaf Beynon as they unravel the cohosting advantage, offering a unique blend of perspectives that can only come from a duo as dynamic as they are.

Episode Highlights:

  1. A Deep Dive into Cohosting: Matt and Sadaf share their experiences and the lessons they've learned from hosting Podjunction together, highlighting the unique benefits that come from their collaborative approach.
  2. The Importance of Perspective: This episode emphasizes the value of bringing multiple perspectives to the table, showcasing how it can transform the content and listener experience.
  3. Tech Talk: An insightful discussion on the importance of choosing the right technology to support your cohosted podcast, including why platforms like Zoom can be a fantastic, budget-friendly option.
  4. Practical Tips for Success: From planning to execution, get actionable advice on how to make your cohosted podcast a success, including how to divide responsibilities and keep the conversation engaging.

Cohosting offers a fantastic way to enhance your podcast, bringing diversity, depth, and dynamism to your episodes. By combining forces, cohosts can create content that resonates more deeply with their audience, offering varied perspectives and a richer listening experience. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to spice up your current podcast, considering a cohost might just be the step your show needs to stand out in the crowded podcast landscape.

Thank you for tuning in to Podjunction. Until next time, keep podcasting and exploring the endless possibilities that come from collaboration and shared voices in the podcasting world.

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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 bring you the best of all. promised 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, welcome to Podjunction. My name is Matt Edmundson. Beside me is the beautiful Sadaf Beynon and together we chat about podcasting, we chat about business, and we chat about how to use podcasting to grow said. Business in whatever form it is, really, and to do that, we go and interview a whole bunch of people, fantastic people that we know in the podcasting industry, talk to them about how they use podcasting to grow their own business, because everybody's got a different story.

And so it's definitely [00:01:00] not one size fits all. There's definitely not a formula that everyone can follow. And we, it's just great because we just go and pick the brains of well known podcasters and ask them what they think and then we chat about it. Yeah. In something we like to call Conversation Street.

Sadaf Beynon: Some of us like to call it Conversation

Matt Edmundson: Street. Yes, mainly me because I watch quite a well known TV show. And so yeah, although they don't do Conversation Street anymore. Do

Sadaf Beynon: they

Matt Edmundson: not? No. No. I don't know why. But you do. I do. Yeah, we've carried this theme on. Yeah, hopefully they've not trademarked it.

Yeah. I've got some kind of letter coming my way. Matthew, we need to have a conversation. You need to give us your house now.

So yeah, welcome to the show. Great that you're here. Great that you've joined us. And of course, if this is your first time with us do and subscribe to the show. It'd be great for you to do that because we're trying to put out content every week about these whole topics. And we just, before we went live then, we just realized we're on episode 16 already.

Matt's [00:02:00] flown by.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, it is.

Matt Edmundson: It's like we're, it's like we're established. I should probably go back and listen to Episode 1 and go, Oh my Lord. No, don't.

Sadaf Beynon: It's too soon, Matt. It's too soon.

Matt Edmundson: We were talking about this last week with James, weren't we, in terms of how the first few episodes, the first 10 are usually not great.

So do you think we've hit our stride now, Episode 16, or have we got a ways to go? I

Sadaf Beynon: think we're getting there.

Matt Edmundson: We're getting there. So yeah, you're still not introducing the show yet.

Sadaf Beynon: So we're not there yet.

Matt Edmundson: I was saying to Sadaf when the music was playing in the background, when we start the podcast.

I said, this is episode 16, surely you can introduce the show now because every week I introduce it and I don't mind. But I'm like we could take it in turns and she's yeah. No,

Sadaf Beynon: not yet.

Matt Edmundson: You just gotta work up to it.

Sadaf Beynon: Yes.

Matt Edmundson: Okay. What do we need to happen for you to work up to this?

Sadaf Beynon: It's one of, it's what we were talking about in so many of our episodes and it's one of those you have to practice it to get there. Practicing on camera is a bit scary! So how do [00:03:00] you

Matt Edmundson: do it? Oh dear, this is why it's fascinating. When you co host a podcast, it's really interesting, isn't it?

Because you can play on different skills and strengths of each other and I like that. In fact, James mentioned that last week, that he decided to co host rather than just host his own podcast, to keep the momentum going, because he thought it would probably be easier. Yeah. And I like co hosting because of the banter.

I like to laugh not obviously at your expense, but I do like to laugh. And so I think co hosting is great fun, but also quite a lot of podcasts I do host myself. And I think.

Sadaf Beynon: Is this your favourite one? Because you're co hosting with me?

Matt Edmundson: Sure, let's go, let's say yes. Let's go with yes. Yeah, good, that's the right answer.

And so what's interesting is, just listening to you talk, because you don't, because you co host the podcast that you don't actually have your own Sadaf podcast, do you? This is your podcast, for want of a better expression.

Sadaf Beynon: Yes. But. But.

Matt Edmundson: But

Sadaf Beynon: hopefully, there'll be more on the full length conversations.[00:04:00]

Matt Edmundson: Okay, of course, you'll have to pick, yeah, you'll have to see how

Sadaf Beynon: I do. Come check it out.

Matt Edmundson: Come check it out in Podjunction Cohort. Yeah, go have a look, see what they have more information at podjunction. com. So yeah, what we've got coming up today.

Sadaf Beynon: So you were talking about co hosting. That's what James Gurd is talking a bit more about, and he's going to be talking about Zoom.

That's

Matt Edmundson: spooky. He's talking about Zoom. If you listened to last week's episode, you'll know exactly what we're talking about. In Conversation Street last week, we said, you mentioned in your notes, oh, James said something about Zoom. And I'm like, no, he didn't. Not in that clip, anyway. It's like we were listening to two different things and Yeah, okay.

Sadaf Beynon: Just moved on.

Matt Edmundson: Notes were a bit moved on. You're boring me now, Matt, I'm moving on. And so your notes were a bit more a bit more advanced. Yes. Than maybe they needed to be.

Sadaf Beynon: Yes.

Matt Edmundson: Which is wonderful. So we've got James, the wonderful [00:05:00] James. So shall I roll VT?

Sadaf Beynon: Yes, roll VT. Okay.

Matt Edmundson: All right. Let me do that.

Here we go. So the podcast you and Paul set up, you've done your few dummy essays, you've settled on like a format. And I'm intrigued by the fact you do this with a co, how do you find it, interviewing? Do you do the interview as co hosts? Or is it just one or two, one of you out of the two doing the interviews?

James Gurd: No the only time we, it's just one of us, is when the other one is unavailable or maybe they've got a client workshop that can't be moved and the guest can only do that at the time that's the advantage of having a co host. His diary flexibility's a lot easier and there've been times where we've had a really important guest we wanted to get on and they have only got a narrow window before they're locked down and onto their next quarter and it's wow, anyone else available?

Great. We can carry on. In terms of how we do it. We will always make sure that both of us are on whenever we can. Me and Paul plan out with the guests the discussion guide, so we'll agree the topic focus, and we will map out for them a discussion guide. Some of the [00:06:00] episodes are so obvious what the discussion guide is going to be, like working with, for example Avalara on international tax management.

It's a very niche and specialist area, so it helps. Others are quite broad get to a new brand like KURU Footwear. Okay. What are we going to talk about? We'll then do an exploratory call with them. If there is just so much potential that we've got to narrow it down off the back of that, we create the discussion guide.

We review that with our guests. So they're happy with it. Help help them prepare and bear in mind, this never happened at the start. We've got to this process because we realized when the episode sounded pretty crap and were a bit empty. And if we were a listener on somebody else's podcast, would we have thought that was a good episode?

And we're thinking, no, it's not quality enough. So though, because we have that guide, we then select which questions each of us will ask. And we dovetail it because. We don't want somebody just listening to me for half an hour, or Paul, we want it to be like a bit more discussive, like in a pub or a coffee shop.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, so do you then [00:07:00] have a whole bunch of preset questions which you go through in order, or do you guys also riff a little bit? I'm curious, how rigid do you stick to that discussion guide?

James Gurd: It's not rigid. We have one simple guideline for guests is this is not a sales opportunity for you.

This is showcasing knowledge. So you're not allowed to come on here and just start going. We are the best. We are great. We are brilliant. We're not interested. We'll edit that out. So the only guideline to them, if they want to riff, because sometimes people go off cuff or on the spur of the moment, just focus it on what's going to help people better understand your technology and how it gets used.

That's the only thing. With us, we totally riff on it. And we have a live. Google Doc, as we go through, and me and Paul, the guest doesn't see it, it's just for us, and we are adding comments to each other, going, oh, can you probe them on that, or she just said something about X, it would be great to find more, or I'm going to ask a sub question next, so don't you, don't start on your next question.

So we're constantly, and [00:08:00] sometimes a guest will answer a question later in the discussion guide, earlier on, and we don't want duplication, just because we've got a discussion, so we delete that out. So yeah, some episodes just go straight down the line. Off the bat, easy. Others, they go all over the place and we are, document by the end, looks like somebody's destroyed it.

Matt Edmundson: But I like that, I like the fact, so are you guys, you're not in the same studio, you're, are you at your house and Paul's somewhere else in the world?

James Gurd: Yeah, I don't think we've ever met in real life, to be honest. He yeah, so because of our diaries, it's so hard for us at the same time. And also, I don't have an office, so I work from, my home office is my home.

I don't have the office space in London. Paul they've got office space for Vaughan, but they are in a WeWork, and the WeWork Wi-Fi is intermittent. And so we decided that. It's not reliable enough for us to commit to going in there, and the other option is to hire a studio, that then adds cost, and [00:09:00] we are trying to minimise cost so that Yeah, any investment we get from things like sponsorship are purely focused around delivering the content around growing the audience and about, about the investment in the pod, in that area of the podcast, rather than expensive studio space.

So yeah, we tend to just record remotely.

Matt Edmundson: Okay. You're both, Recording remotely. And then I like this, you have this sort of live Google Doc, where you're throwing notes in at both places. What do you then record your podcast on? Because there's now three people involved or three locations in a typical podcast.

So how do you record them?

James Gurd: Yeah, and we've done it before. I think we have five was the maximum. I use Zoom. And the only reason I use Zoom, and I know there will be, there are platforms out there specifically suited towards podcasting, not using, because I used Zoom all the way through the pandemic.

I've got my own Zoom account business account on there and I used it for all my remote ecommerce training and I've trained like global brands like Mars and Colgate, [00:10:00] etc. Samsung. And it worked on large groups of people. The quality was really good. The connectivity was really good. The recording quality was good as well and the audio was effective and it just I because I got used to that as a platform that was our default choice so I just said to Paul's let's use Zoom and unless there's a good reason not to, and we haven't found a good reason not to.

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: So welcome back. I was engrossed in actually what James was saying there.

Took my notes. Again.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: What did you think? See, this is what happens when you take the lead, I get to ask the questions. Yeah, I thought I was going to

Sadaf Beynon: get there before you, but no, I didn't.

Okay, so co hosting, he started with that and he talked about it [00:11:00] being, it adds more flexibility and if one of you can't show up, the other one can and there's, yeah, I like that. Yeah, that does make a lot of sense. And yeah. I like, and I think that you were alluding to this earlier about it adds perspective as well, different perspective.

And also he said this in a previous, in last week's where he talks about like maintaining that enthusiasm because sometimes that's hard to do on your own. I wouldn't know yet, but.

But yes, from what I hear.

Matt Edmundson: Enthusiastic the whole time of your life. Yeah. Bound into the office with your vase. Without

Sadaf Beynon: the flowers.

Matt Edmundson: Flowers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, I totally get that. It's been interesting, actually, cause this is a Podjunction, is the first co hosted podcast I've done, I think.

I've been, every other no, it's not true. Actually, the very first podcast we did was co hosted back in 2012. We did that with Jan, sorry, [00:12:00] Jan and Rach, if you're listening, I don't mean to totally forget what we did. So yeah we did it. Our very first podcast was a co hosted podcast. We stood around those three of us, just microphones.

It was a beauty podcast, a podcast for our beauty business and all we did was we just literally, Jan would go and buy the latest magazines and we'd just go through the articles in the magazine, the three of us and go, that's just total tosh. And we, or that was, that's a really good idea or, do you know what I mean, we were just commentary basically and it was a start, honestly I cried laughing a lot, it was so good.

And yeah, the thing that I remember from those days. It's what we have now. It's that banter. It's that alternate perspective. I think it's a lot easier when you do a co hosted show. And then interviewing, if you do an interview show like EP, eCommerce Podcast is me interviewing someone.

Like I was interviewing James, I thought it was interesting how he, there's two people interviewing. We'll come back to that. That in effect is not a co hosted podcast, but I am [00:13:00] talking to somebody else. And I think that they are easier shows to do than if it is just literally me trying to create content.

I think that is really. Yeah. It's not undoable. No, that doesn't make sense. It's not that it's not doable. That makes more sense. It's just that it's a hard road. So having somebody else In that podcast, I think is whether it's you and interviewing a guest or whether it's you and somebody chatting about something topical news, like we did with the beauty magazines, or whether it's you and me talking about, what a guest has said so much easier.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: So much easier. Yes, highly recommend getting other people involved. What was interesting, he mentioned which we've never done, and it'd be interesting to see whether or not this is something we would want to do, where two people interview. So he was talking about how James was talking about how him and his co host Paul would, if they could do it [00:14:00] together, they would interview people over Zoom and do the interview together and they'd split up the questions and they'd have a discussion guide.

And I think that's probably why I don't do it. If that makes sense, because it feels like it would be a bit more work. Yeah. So if you and I were going to interview somebody, we have to sit down and think about it. What questions do we want to ask? What questions are you going to ask? What questions am I going to ask?

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: And that works really well for James and obviously the live Google document thing, I think was, I thought that was a stroke of genius. You need that, the ability to communicate with each other while you're interviewing.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: But I, my style of Intune is very much to riff off of what someone's just said, do you know what I mean, and just ask questions around that and that becomes complicated.

Matt Edmundson: I'm saying this, we've never actually done it.

Sadaf Beynon: No, we haven't. And the fact that they've never actually met, but they must be so in tune with each other to be able to pull it. Oh, I think they have met, I

Matt Edmundson: think it was being a bit too much. Are you serious? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sadaf Beynon: I totally fell for it.

Matt Edmundson: I think I did initially and I was like, no, you definitely Matt,

Sadaf Beynon: [00:15:00] but

Matt Edmundson: yeah, I think that, I think it's an interesting one, co hosted interviews.

So we may have to look at that. Is that

Sadaf Beynon: like a panel interview?

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, let's, that interview with James, maybe, what would it have come out like, would it have been a better interview if you and I had interviewed him together and you got a chance to ask your questions and I got a chance to ask mine, maybe, it would, it becomes more group conversational then, doesn't it?

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah,

Matt Edmundson: and I think in some podcasts that can work, like in this kind of podcast, possibly, I think for something like Push, I don't know, cause you're trying to create something that's a bit more intimate.

Sadaf Beynon: And I

Matt Edmundson: think one on one is probably better for that, if that makes sense.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. I don't know. I think if there's more, if there's three of you, I would want to take out interview and just make it a conversation because I think otherwise if [00:16:00] there's, if you're getting questions from more than one person, it's harder to get into a conversation flow. It feels okay, now this person wants to ask me something and you're almost, maybe changing directions or like tangents or whatever you want to call it.

I think it would feel a lot more rigid.

Matt Edmundson: Potentially. Yeah, potentially. I think it depends on you. Like I was on a podcast recently called level up and is it called level up and live? Something like that with Sean and Ewan. And they both, their whole podcast was interviewing me for 50 minutes.

And they both took it in turns. Not like it wasn't like alternate questions. I've been in those kind of. Scenarios where they, where I've been interviewed by two people and they've alternated questions going back and forth, which is okay. And obviously they planned, you have to plan those questions and think about them.

With Sean and Ewan, it was I think Sean had some questions, Ewan had some questions, Sean took a little bit of time, he chatted for a bit and then Ewan got involved. And so that was, I think it [00:17:00] can work. I do think it can work, especially if. Like with Sean and Ewan they have, they complement each other.

And I imagine it's the same with Sean and with James and Paul, that actually they complement each other, but they approach things in different ways, and so probably asking slightly different questions, which maybe will make it appeal wider. Yeah.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. Actually, I remember you were on one with those two guys at the pub.

What's their names? Tom and,

Matt Edmundson: Tom and Alan. Yeah. Wednesday Night at Finnegans.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. That's it. That's it. Yeah. No, that was actually quite fun to watch.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that was great. I've not laughed so hard in a long time. I take it all back.

Sadaf Beynon: Not all of it. Maybe some of it. Maybe. We should maybe

Matt Edmundson: try it. Yeah, let's try it.

We should go, just try to do the group. I don't know if that would work for this particular show that we're doing, but we could definitely try it. That sort of co hosted interview thing cause at the moment, the way we do it is either I do the interview or you do the interview. With whoever I guessed is, and then we both talk about this which I quite like because it's less [00:18:00] resource intensive, if that makes sense and therefore is easier to do.

Would we get a better interview is my question if we both did it. And I don't know that I can argue it both ways in my head. So it would be interesting to try maybe. Don't know. Don't know.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: Interesting. Try it. Very good. What else did we get out of that? He used Zoom.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. Do you want to talk about Zoom, Matt?

I feel like I've talked about it a lot.

Matt Edmundson: Yes, you talked about it in advance. That's what you did. It's interesting that he, even after all this time, he still uses Zoom. Now I know a lot of people that started their podcast on Zoom, right? And you'd, my thinking is if I get invited onto somebody else's podcast and they send me a Zoom link, instantly in my head, and this can be quick, this is not necessarily correct, but instantly in my head, I'm thinking they're probably quite new to podcasting, right?

Because they're using Zoom. It's [00:19:00] not that I have an issue with it at all. I genuinely don't, but I I'm going, I think they're new to podcasting. That or they're not doing a video podcast. They're just literally doing audio only. So therefore it doesn't really matter about the video because Zoom's great, but the quality isn't great.

The thing I love about Zoom is. It's great if you're just starting out in podcasting and you want to do the interview style podcast or like James and Paul, the co hosted style, but remotely, like obviously we do this from our studio, so this is a lot easier, but if we wanted to do it remotely using Zoom is an interesting tool because everyone's got it.

Everyone knows it. Everyone understands it. And from an accessibility point of view, it's brilliant.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. It's

Matt Edmundson: much better than Microsoft Teams.

Sadaf Beynon: There, I said

Matt Edmundson: it. Microsoft Teams. Hate Microsoft Teams. Don't ever do anything on Microsoft Teams. There's just, there's Zoom, then there's Google Meets, and then there's Microsoft Teams.

There's somewhere way down the bottom. It's awful. Anyway, rant over. Sorry, Microsoft, [00:20:00] if you're listening, your software is rubbish.

Sadaf Beynon: But come and listen to our podcast anyway. Subscribe. Yeah, subscribe to

Matt Edmundson: the show. But yeah, I think Zoom, I don't have an issue with Zoom. I'm just, the thing that was surprised me is they're on it all this time later.

And obviously it's working for them. And I think once you've found a tool that's worked, you stick with it. Yeah. There are other tools out there which would give you higher quality video. For example, Riverside would be perhaps one of the most well known ones now, Riverside FM. We use Riverside ourselves for a few of our podcasts, not all of them, but for a few of them.

Especially ones where we have this podcast called What's the Story? We look after this podcast called What's the Story? and there are different people that do the Podcast. It's not like a co hosting thing. It's like a podcast with different hosts each week. Yeah. And that host will interview somebody about their story.

And it's called What's The Story. And that's done predominantly on Riverside because [00:21:00] The people doing the hosting the podcast, they've not got the studio. . They've not got the tech gear set up. And it's just easier just to have a good quality USB microphone. Yeah. A fairly okay webcam.

Connected to Riverside and Riverside seems to work okay. Yeah.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. We did used to use it just Riverside, didn't we before we moved on to Ecamm.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. We did. For the, we used it for all our podcasts for EP as well, didn't we? Yeah,

Sadaf Beynon: we did.

Matt Edmundson: But for now, yeah, now we don't use Zoom Riverside or Zoom.

We don't use Zoom either. It's we use we use a piece of software called eCAM, which is which is great. It's geared around live streaming, but it's great for podcasting as well. So we're recording on eCAM at the moment, although we're not live streaming and love, love eCAM and there's some great features coming and the downside for eCAM is it's Mac only.

And you need a really good internet connection. Don't one of the things actually James said, I put it in my notes and I circled it to make sure I saw it was, he said, in We work, the wifi was intermittent [00:22:00] rubbish.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: We've learned this the hard way, wherever possible, whenever you're podcasting, you do it over a wired connection.

Wi-Fi, even if like at my house, I have gigabit internet and it's like the Wi-Fi is blinking quick, right? And so all the kids can be playing Minecraft and streaming and all the stuff that kids do and it's fine and I've got no issue with it. But it's still wifi at the end of the day. If someone sneezes over in Cairo, it might in impact , my wifi intermittently.

And so all of our studios, so the studio we have here at the office, the studio I have at my house. . All wired, when you do it, is it wired to your computer?

Sadaf Beynon: I

Matt Edmundson: think we had this conversation. We have,

Sadaf Beynon: but no, so I try and avoid doing it at home, when I can.

Matt Edmundson: See, this is where Riverside might help you if you're using Wi-Fi, because it records locally the video and then uploads it.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, so in that instance, I would use Riverside at home, if [00:23:00] I'm recording from home. I don't know if I'd use

Matt Edmundson: eCam to record HD video content over Wi-Fi, unless I knew that Wi-Fi was like super, super reliable. I know sometimes, live streaming, you might want to do it over 4G stuff like that. If you're doing it live and it's not that it can't be done, it's just that my experiences is always better if you've got the wide connection.

Yeah. So top tip. Top tip. Top tip, as they say. So yeah, back to Zoom. If you are going to use Zoom for your podcasting, my advice is just Google Zoom settings for podcasting. You're going to want to change some of the audio settings so it doesn't compress it as much. Because like we've said with podcasting, whether it's a video podcast or an audio podcast or both, the most important thing is audio.

So if you can decompress that audio and actually deal with the original audio files more you'll be better off. And there are some settings in Dacron that are what they are. There are some settings in Zoom that you can change. So just Google Zoom settings [00:24:00] for podcast's video, it is what it is with Zoom.

It's great for video calls, but you're not going to get HD video out. So if you want HD video, certainly if you want to start blowing it up for like video, like the short form videos like we do, like with reels and things like that, I think you really need a minimum of HD, the 1920, 1080.

Pixel wide definition, HD definition as minimum. Try 4k if you can, but you're never going to get that on zoom. At least not at the moment. Maybe it's coming. Maybe then, maybe by the time this has come out, it's all changed. I don't know. But all of that said, I think if what you've, if you've, sometimes people go I've not got Riverside or I've not got eComm, I've not got this.

Therefore I can't. And actually we've all got Zoom. Therefore you can. Don't let that be the reason for you not to do a podcast because like with Paul and James, they've got a really great podcast, super successful and they are doing it and killing it on Zoom. So you can as well. So just pointing that out.

Sadaf Beynon: Nice.

Matt Edmundson: Is that right? Yeah, it's great. Cool. Anything else? Nope. No. Oh,

Sadaf Beynon: actually, just [00:25:00] real quick, something he said, and we do this as well, that we say to our guests that this is not, being on the podcast is

Matt Edmundson: not a sales call.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. It's not a sales platform. It's not a sales pitch. You're just here to talk about, showcase your expertise and your knowledge.

So yeah. I thought that was good. That is, trust me, that is

Matt Edmundson: super important. It's one of those things where whenever you're talking to your guests and you're laying out the expectations for your guests, if you're doing an interview style thing and you have experts coming on. So like for example, with eCommerce podcast is probably the most obvious one.

We get a lot of people who are experts applied to be on the show, but they're experts tied to a company. So an obvious example would be say email marketing. In the sense that email marketing is a big thing in ecommerce. So we get email marketing companies saying, can we come onto your show or email marketing agencies or email marketing experts?

And we're like, yes, you we don't always say yes, but we're like, one of the criteria [00:26:00] is when we're talking to those people before letting them on the show is. How much are you going to try and sell your product, your software, your solution, your consultancy in that podcast? And you're quite brutal with them, aren't you?

In the sense that if they're quite salesy, just yeah, you're not right for our show. I never actually talked to them. So I don't know you do all the prequels, but yeah. How do you weed them out?

Sadaf Beynon: That's one of the things I look for. And when I ask them to tell me about themselves, if it's all geared towards selling what they're, whatever company they're from, then.

Matt Edmundson: They're out. No more. Because the last thing you want is to record a podcast where. For the listener, it's just the guy pitching his business, telling you how good, unless it is specific. There is a podcast episode you can do, which says, I am going to talk to this person from this company and we are going to look at their story and understand what makes that company tick.

Yeah. I think that's a very different thing. But if the listener is wanting to come to the show and they're like, [00:27:00] this is a lesson on email marketing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And actually it's not, it's a pitch from email marketing company. That's a really bad experience. And so I think as a podcast host, that's one of the things you have to watch out for.

And don't be afraid. In the, if you need to, I, who was it that said this? I think it was Chloe. That said that actually there's been a few episodes where she's been recording, where she's just had to stop the recording and go, this is not going to work. I'm really sorry. You're the wrong person for this show.

Not being rude, but just like you, I don't want, be really clear on what you want on your show and salespeople are not what you need. Yeah. Unless it's the show for salespeople, in which case you're probably going to need them on your show. Yeah, pitch your top sales techniques on the sales podcast, but other than that, you don't really want it.

So yeah. No, very good point. Actually. Spotted. I did put that in my notes, but I didn't, I've not got my glasses on, so I don't know why I bother taking notes. I can't read them. [00:28:00] Put your glasses on. Anyway, what's next week? You don't know, do you? Because I, it's not on the list.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, I think it might be Marcia Reiner.

Matt Edmundson: Okay.

Sadaf Beynon: Maybe, don't quote me, but do show up next week anyway to find out who it is.

Matt Edmundson: Come find out who we're talking to, talking with next week would be great. And if it is Marcia, she's a legend. You're definitely going to want to listen to that one. I hope to be fair, whoever it is, they're going to be a legend.

You're going to want to listen to it. So make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts from. And on your favorite podcast app, it'd be great to have you join us here on the PodJunction community. Do check out podjunction. com for more information about how you can use podcasting to grow your business.

Maybe check out PodJunction Cohort, listen to the interviews in full, like we've had two weeks with James two clips and that's probably one fifth of actually all the stuff we talked about. Yeah. So there's another 80 percent of James Gurd's [00:29:00] goodness.

I think we should send this clip to James. There's another 80 percent of James Gurd goodness waiting for you in the cohort. Do go check it out for more information. Oh, I need to go listen to James Gurd's goodness. So awesome. Anything else from you? No. I've asked you that question already. Anyway, that's it from me.

That's it from Sadaf. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a fantastic week. Take care. Wherever you are in the world. We'll see you next time. Bye for now.

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 thepodjunction. 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. [00:30:00] 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.