The Goal Of Podcasting Isn’t Downloads, It's Influence with Roger Nairn

Roger Naren (0:00): If your audience if there's data that shows your audience is on that channel and is spending a lot of time there, then you should invest in in in YouTube. So I think it's just there's gonna be a lot more focus on video podcast, but I think it's gonna be or I hope it's gonna be more strategically minded versus, just sort something that's automatic or, you know, a a box that needs to be filled.

Tom Schwab (0:27): Welcome to the podcast interview marketing show where we explore big ideas with leading experts on how to grow your brand and business with targeted podcast interviews.

Tom Schwab (0:40): Hey, it's Tom Schwab, and welcome back to the podcast interview marketing show. One of the biggest mistakes I see businesses make with podcasts, it's treating it like a hobby instead of the marketing channel that it is. They focus on producing episodes instead of producing results, but the truth is that companies get the biggest results from podcasting when they aren't just recording conversations, they're building entire marketing engines with it. And in this conversation, I sit down with Roger Naren. Roger is the founder of Jar podcast solutions, a legend in the space.

Tom Schwab (1:20): We dig into how podcasting has evolved over the last decade. Rogers helped major brands create, market, and measure podcasts that actually move their business metrics and what he shares is a powerful reminder. The goal is not downloads, it's influence. You'll hear why the smartest brands today start by asking what job does this podcast need to do. Now is it building authority, influencing pipeline, attracting talent, or deepening relationships with a niche audience.

Tom Schwab (1:57): Because when you start with the right strategic question, every interview, every episode, and every piece of content becomes something bigger, a part of something bigger. So as you listen today, think about this. How could your podcast interviews, either as a guest or a host, become the spine of your content marketing system and help you build trust with the exact audience you want to serve. Let's get into it. Roger, you and I have both been around the industry for over a decade now, and I'm so excited to talk with you about, you know, we've come from, where we're going and, what it means for business.

Tom Schwab (2:42): So can you just sort of give a background on where, you know, your history behind this, Bring people up to speed on who you are and why they should listen to your voice.

Roger Naren (2:55): Oh, wow. Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me on the show. So I'm I'm Roger Naren. I started JAR Podcast Solutions along with my partner, Jen, coming up ten years ago. At the time, I was working in the advertising industry.

Roger Naren (3:09): I worked for big agencies and I was always on the client service side. I love the advertising world. However, at the time, I started to fall out of love with, you know, the advert the actual advertising. This was around the time when programmatic started to really take off and things were just not as exciting as as as I as I originally like them to be. My partner, Jen, on the other hand, came from the creative world.

Roger Naren (3:36): She's very much a a writer, journalist. She worked with the CBC for for many years. And so when we joined forces together, we started to see something interesting going on in the podcast world, which is that brands were getting involved. However, I saw that they weren't really performing. They weren't doing what they needed to be doing from a business perspective.

Roger Naren (3:57): Jen saw them not really taking advantage to, you know, of of podcasts, what they can be from a creative perspective. When we when we created JAR, that's really what we meant to be doing. Fast forward now, ten years later, we're a team of 16. Often, there's about 25 of us with contractors, and we make market and measure a video and audio podcast for some of the world's biggest brands.

Tom Schwab (4:23): And it's interesting. We both started out a decade ago and you'd give your elevator pitch and people. The first question to be what's a podcast? Exactly. And now it's gone full stream where it's almost part of a marketing suite has So to include can you explain how people are using that today, not just for the ego thing of I've got a podcast, but actually using it as a central part of their marketing.

Roger Naren (4:52): Yeah, absolutely. So so you're right. You know, originally I would jump on a sales call and really need to teach people about, you know, what a podcast can do for their brand. Now brands are using them for authority building, building trust, engagement with a specific audience, could be, you know, thought leadership. It could be building, you know, pipeline influence, really audience, like audience depth, talent attraction, you know, a lot of a lot of big brands are using it to hire some of the best people and and really showcasing their their culture or building community.

Roger Naren (5:32): I mean, there's really a massive amount that can be done with podcasts these days.

Tom Schwab (5:37): It is amazing that it's a tool and you can use it for various things. Right? And we've I'd always say, you know, guesting or hosting, I don't think it's an either or. I think there's different goals for that, but yeah, it's the same way on guesting, right? With a fortune, probably a fortune 100 military defense company and they're like, we've got all the clients we need, but what we need is talent.

Tom Schwab (6:04): We want to make sure that the best and brightest engineers want to come to us and not go just to Google and Microsoft. It's really starting with that idea of what do you want from it, not just necessarily I want a podcast, it's the results that come from it.

Roger Naren (6:22): And if you're that defense contractor, know, I'm sure they've got a lovely website and I'm sure it has, you know, video on it and all sorts of flashing things. But, you know, there's something really special about audio and, you know, and now, you know, video. Mostly though with audio is is just the intimate nature of it. I mean, as we're talking right now, I'm literally whispering in your ears and you're whispering in my ears and I I'm I'm taking a moment to really absorb what it is that you're saying and it's not something that's broadcast across the world necessarily. It's it's something that I've chosen to sit down and and enjoy, you know, on my personal time.

Roger Naren (6:59): And so, if you can do a good job of making that connection with your audience member, whether it's through that great host or whether it's obviously through great content, there's a lot of trust that can be built there. And, you know, the the the agency Edelman just came up with the Edelman Edelman Trust Barometer, and pretty much every major institution in the world is decreasing when it comes to people's perception of of them and specifically trust, except for business. And specifically, you know, employees are now seeing their employer business as being one of the more trusted institutions.

Tom Schwab (7:39): It's interesting because it's for so long people were talking about attention, right? How do I get heard? How do I break through the noise? And now with, you know, AI content is free and plentiful. It's not so much.

Unknown Speaker (7:52): How do I make noise? But how do I build that trust? How do I get that authority?

Unknown Speaker (7:56): Absolutely.

Tom Schwab (7:57): So, and as you said, everybody that listens to you, you know, opted in, you get a 100% opt in rate for every podcast.

Unknown Speaker (8:06): Exactly.

Tom Schwab (8:07): So how is the agency world changing for that? I mean what you were doing ten years ago, was was breaking, and now you know ten years later you're still at the forefront with that. So what does that look like now and where do you think that's going?

Roger Naren (8:25): Well it's really interesting. We I think are needing to shift to what the more traditional creative agency models have started to to do. And and and, you know, when you think about the old agency models, it was hourly billing, you know, really bloated teams, a lot of, like, kind of what I would call, like, creative theater, you know, presenting in really flashy ways. And and the reality is, you know, clients don't don't want that. They want traction.

Roger Naren (8:55): They want their business to grow. I mean, you're a c CMO, you have one mandate. We get you got multiple mandates, but the largest one is grow the business. And so agencies, I think, that are winning now, and and we're one of them and and are very much all in on this sort of model, are moving from, you know, we produce episodes, which is very much kind of a vendor mindset to we move brand and business metrics for you, and we are now your partner. And that's a really important shift.

Roger Naren (9:31): That's, you know, it's very much more about influence over downloads. It's it's more about, you know, creating marketing engines instead of episodes, you know, performance over production. And so when we talk about our agency and the and the role that we play, we we we very much have a a job that needs to be done for each individual one of our clients, and and and it's always different. Know, it could be authority building, it could be pipeline influence, it could be audience depth like I like I said, but we never want to be in that position of just a vendor.

Tom Schwab (10:09): And I love how you know nobody wants, well I shouldn't say nobody, if you just want a podcast, if you just want a podcast interview that that's an activity, right, and so many people are spending a lot of money on hobbies and calling them marketing and then getting upset when they don't work. I love how you say you know the CEO's role is to grow the business and I heard somebody refer to that as growing the value of the business.

Unknown Speaker (10:37): Absolutely. Right?

Tom Schwab (10:38): And it's not just one metric, it's the overall value of the business and really setting that apart. So it sounds to me like ten years ago it was the production. Today it's more the strategy. Am I getting that right?

Roger Naren (10:55): Yeah. It's it's I mean, you you have to have both because it I mean, it's the it's the it's the it's the common challenge that marketers have always faced. It's, you know, you you need to focus on the business side of of this because if it's not driving sales or if it's not increasing brand authority or if it's not, you know, increasing per know, brand perception, then there's no point in doing it. However, you're never gonna get there unless it's a great creative product. So you have to find that balance between the two, and that's constantly our challenge.

Roger Naren (11:32): And I would argue that that's the same challenge no matter what sort of deliverable you have, you know. In your case, you're you're you're getting people on podcasts and and you're, you know, helping build that authority, but you also and you and you do that in a very strategic minded, you know, way, but you also have to perform. It has to it has to succeed.

Tom Schwab (11:56): Yeah. And it's at the end of the day, it's all about the performance and unless you know that goal that you're going for, it's hard to hit that. Yeah. So, how it how do you deal with this idea that well there's got to be metrics for everything. I believe that, Google, Facebook, whatever has taught the market that everything can be measured and quantified and what's your sense on that?

Roger Naren (12:25): That's a great question. My sense is that in 90% of the times that is important because you do need to understand sort of where you are in your, you know, in in in in where you are in meeting your objectives. However, it can't be at the expense of forgetting the creative product and and making it just a numbers game. And that's the beautiful thing about, you know, creative products in marketing is that it's, you know, it's it's always been kind of the rock and roll of the business world, and that's for a very good reason because it needs to, again, balance the, you know, balance the two, the business side and the creative side. And so it's important to apply those, you know, it's important to track those metrics and and establish what the KPIs are.

Roger Naren (13:16): But you're never gonna get there and you're never gonna hit them unless you have a great creative product. And so for us, that involves hiring the right people, giving ourselves enough time to develop the the, you know, the creative idea for the show itself, giving ourselves enough time for proper editing and and and, you know, giving you know, we we always talk about sort of adding as much sort of breath into the process as possible and not bogging ourselves down with too much, you know, too much process. But also, the beautiful thing about podcasts, or one of many beautiful things about podcasts is the amount of data that every single one of these episodes sheds. And and from a business perspective, it's so important to know like who are we reaching? How long are they listening for?

Roger Naren (14:06): How long are they watching for? What part of the world are they from? You know, age, sex, location, household income, education level. We're like, we can all we can track this all these days. And then also on the creative side, you know, where are they skipping?

Roger Naren (14:22): Where are they dropping off on the episodes? That's all really, really important information, which we can then feed into our creative team to evolve the show and and and and help it grow. It's the equivalent of creating, you know, TikTok videos and but not really looking at the the numbers and metrics behind them. And, you know, if you just start posting the next one and the next one without really learning from how the previous one has done, you're really doing yourself a disservice. We look at it the same way with podcasts.

Tom Schwab (14:54): I think of, we used to have a phrase from the Navy called doubling down on stupid. Right? So if it's not working, just doing more of it won't do that. So, you know, I always think of that, you know, we've all got opinions, right? I've, I've got an opinion about my business.

Tom Schwab (15:11): I could hire an account, an account, accountant or a consultant that has an opinion on my business. And it's the customers that have the the real knowledge, right? They're voting with their time and their money, they'll tell you what they love and what they loathe. And this idea of let's double down on what they love and stop doing what they loathe.

Unknown Speaker (15:32): Of course.

Tom Schwab (15:32): And now now the data exists because, you know, we started out ten years ago. I I think it was more podcast guessing. It's still not it's not explicit. I always love Rand Fishkin, lives up near you and I admire Rand and he always gives that example that you know he's out speaking someplace and somebody hears them, they go to the website, they spell his name wrong, but Google gets him there and Google says, we brought you this traffic. Then they get confused, they get distracted, they leave, but the retargeting from Facebook brings them back and then they buy and Facebook's gonna say, we brought you that.

Tom Schwab (16:14): Now was it Google? Was it Facebook? Well if you believe it's all got to be a 100% attributed then you shouldn't do podcasts, you should do podcast interviews, you shouldn't do public speaking because there is some serendipity to that also.

Roger Naren (16:30): For sure, yeah, it's a constant yeah, there is a lot of serendipity in that, for sure. You know, was just thinking also about the sort of question around data and and looking and how much, you know, emphasis do you put on on the numbers? I think the one piece when I think about how agencies are needing to evolve over time, the one piece that we've really had to invest a lot of time and energy into is, you know, if we're going to be seen as a like a performance partner, then we really need to understand our clients business more. And I think a lot of creative agencies, you know, a lot of podcast agencies and got themselves into that vendor position because they're just cracking, you know, they're just cracking along and and pounding out episodes without really understanding like their business and what exactly this is doing for the business. So we talk internally a lot about sort of business literacy and that and that comes from that includes everything from, you know, what do we need to do to get the projects through legal, you know.

Roger Naren (17:35): We work with a lot of, you know, pharmaceutical brands, like we need to understand compliance. Procurement always gets involved, you know, we need to understand what are the reporting expectations of these sort, you know, of this organization. We're not just gonna take a a performing a performance package off the shelf and report, you know, kind of the way we always wanna do it. We wanna be able to slot ourselves into the decks that are are being presented on a weekly basis, with our clients. And so if we if we can walk the walk and talk the talk with these big brands, we are seen as more of a a partner.

Tom Schwab (18:15): And that's the thing, it's just there's a difference between a hobby podcast, right, where you just get together and you talk and you have conversations, right? You edit it yourself and whatever, whatever happens happens and there's a difference between that and doing this as a business asset. I think when people start to merge those two together that's when that business asset all of a sudden that they were so excited about for a quarter that next quarter becomes an embarrassment with that. Can you talk a little bit about you know, there's a fact in podcasting that the average podcast, well 80% of podcasts die within the first 10 episodes, So, so often I tell people, you know, if they're starting a podcast, you know, if it's for your brand, wow, think through it. And I think that's where, an agency partner, somebody with experience can help them think through it of what's the first year going to look like.

Tom Schwab (19:14): Do you about that when you talk with clients early on?

Roger Naren (19:18): Oftentimes we'll talk about the first year as being the learning year. We are gathering over the course of ten, twelve episodes as much information as possible. That can be data or that can be just project expectations and understanding of how best to develop and how best to produce the show because you have to think about the actual day to day production, you know, how much how much lead time do we need to have our guests, you know, prepared and if we're gonna ship them equipment, you know, what does that look like? And so, we treat the first year as a as a learning year, You know, not to say that the show isn't still gonna perform and do, you know, great things for the brand, but a podcast is a longer term investment, and you need to treat it like a channel versus versus just a one off kind of campaign. Because if you do it that way, you know, two things are gonna happen.

Roger Naren (20:17): One is the show is gonna perform better, and you're gonna have a stronger relationship with your audience and they're gonna reward you with, you know, more love for the brand. But the second thing that is gonna happen is and we haven't talked about this is is like that podcast is or can be the spine of your entire content marketing system. And and you need to learn what's gonna work best for you over the course of that season on how best to utilize the show because every episode is gonna, you know, you're gonna get a transcript and you can turn those that transcript into blog posts or newsletter articles or white papers. You're gonna get clips and you can turn those clips into obviously social content. Or maybe some of our clients use their materials in their annual reports with QR codes and they'll create little landing pages.

Roger Naren (21:08): There's really no first of all, there's no rules as to how you can use the content, but also that, you know, it's it's whatever your mind can can come up with as far as how best to utilize it. And so usually it takes about a a year to establish a really good system. And then everything on top of that is just is just is just building upon success and constant, you know, a podcast is a living, breathing thing. So you can be looking over the course of that year on what's working and what isn't and making, you know, revisions and improvements as you go.

Tom Schwab (21:45): Do you think that's sort of a litmus test there? If you won't commit to it for a year, it's probably not worth starting with.

Roger Naren (21:53): I want to say yes with a with an asterisk attached to it. Okay. Because I do think that there can be uses for a sort of shorter term, in some cases, even like campaign type material. And I'll give you a perfect example that we're seeing a lot of is companion podcasts with different shows or movies that we see coming out of Netflix or, you know, Disney. And I think in those cases, it you know, there can be a long term shelf life for those shows.

Roger Naren (22:26): However, as you know, in the entertainment world, some of those movies or or series are only really in the public's eye for a certain period of time. And if we, you know, and if they wanna create a camp a companion podcast where you have this documentary subject, and if you want people to learn more, they can go to this six parts or series. Well, now now we now we can talk forever about like, is that considered a podcast or not? I I think that's, you know, we can argue about that forever. And I don't even necessarily have an answer for that.

Unknown Speaker (22:56): However, I do think that there is sort of that short term viability of it. But for the most part it is a long term game.

Tom Schwab (23:03): Okay, and I can see that because I've seen companion ones that go with books, right? Where they'll launch the book and if there's 12 chapters they might have a podcast for each chapter. I love that idea. Sort of the same way for podcast guesting, right? Are you just doing it for what we call a guest storm to launch a book or is it a long term brand builder there?

Roger Naren (23:25): Now I would argue that, you know, in that case of of the books, I think that the authors that are treating that like the authors that are looking in the at that strategically, like, yes, we're gonna treat that first season as just talking about the book because we're in sort of launch mode. However, you know, if you're Malcolm Gladwell, you've got, what is it? A year, year and a half, two years in between books, three years in some cases. It's really great to continue that podcast. Maybe you're, you know, maybe you're hitting on different topics, or maybe you're using the podcast to explore your future writing.

Roger Naren (24:01): But it's a way to kinda keep the keep the engagement relationship going in between books or in between seasons or in between, you know, fill in the blank. I I love it when when when, you know, podcaster you see Mel Robbins is just killing it right now. She does a great job of that. But then, obviously, when, you know, let let them is the big focus, you know, she puts a big focus of that on, you know, in the show as well.

Tom Schwab (24:30): But the entire podcast is is her structure. Right? Every lesson is sort of put that in the mel robin structure and you remind minded of that. That's a great example of how a podcast supports a book and a book supports a podcast. So as people are looking for help with this agency partners, what are the type of questions they should be asking?

Tom Schwab (24:56): Because we often get asked, Hey, can you help me do your pod, my podcast? And I always think of there's a lot of things in life you can do, but doesn't mean you should do them or that you're doing them well. And I always say that is not our zone of genius. Let me introduce you to people. So what should people be looking for in that?

Roger Naren (25:13): Yeah. I think the biggest the biggest question you need to ask is what is the job that this podcast needs to be doing? And what I mean by that is, you know, does it need to be building category authority or does it need to be supporting demand gen? Do you need to be attracting, you know, new talent? I I really want a cautious brands that want to just get into podcasts because it seems like the the cool thing to do.

Roger Naren (25:41): And instead look at it as a, you know, a proper piece of marketing content that's gonna serve a purpose. And so what is the purpose behind the brand? What is the job that the podcast needs to do? The second thing you need to be very clear on is who is the audience for the show? And unfortunately, you can't use the the, you know, the audience as everyone answer anymore because there's just so many podcasts out there.

Roger Naren (26:06): So you really wanna dig you really wanna slice and dice and get to the bottom of who exactly is this show for? And then sort of the third thing is the results that you're looking for. How does what is success gonna look like? I think we're well past the point where in fact, I once had a client say to me and, you know, at a very, very, very large company in the CEO's boardroom, in fact, I asked the question, what does success look like for this prop this podcast? And they paused and said, honestly, just doing it is gonna be success for us.

Roger Naren (26:38): Just getting it out there is like, I was shocked if that if that goes, you know, if that actually happens. And I was first of I kinda like, we wanna work with you if if you're shocked that this thing actually happens? Like, it's gonna happen. Like, that's what you're hiring us for. But, you know, as far as like KPIs, it was just it was just that simple.

Roger Naren (26:57): Right? Now, you need to, you know, what is what is success look like at the end of this first season, at the end of the second season? How can you walk up to your, you know, your CMO's desk and say, boom, I need I need budget for this for next season because look at the performance of it. Look at what it's done for the brand. And then finally, so the fourth thing is like, what do you look for in a partner?

Roger Naren (27:21): Like, what do you look for in a in a in a relationship with, you know, with a with an expert, whether that's in podcast production or or audience growth? Like, what do you want to get out of this relationship, and how do you want to feel working together?

Tom Schwab (27:40): I heard somebody refer to it as rap. Random acts of podcasting. Crap, just throwing stuff at the wall. That's not how businesses do it, I think there's that life cycle stage where everybody just wanted to get on, you name the new platform. There's that initial thing of coming in and this is fun, but you know with every marketing channel, every marketing expense, you're going to have to come back and say, Did it get an ROI?

Tom Schwab (28:12): What did we learn? How do we justify doing this more? Right? And so from that standpoint, don't do rap.

Roger Naren (28:20): Yeah, exactly. And I mean, let's be honest, there's gonna be, you know, the next the next big thing is is right around the corner and we we all wanna, you know, play with it and test it and see if it works, but we don't necessarily wanna you know, we don't necessarily need to be always all in on every new thing. Otherwise, we'll I mean, I think there's a reason why CMOs only last an average of four years in their role because they just they get so burnt out with with the organization switching gears and all that sort of stuff. We, we need to stop switching gears.

Tom Schwab (28:52): Well, you, you put it out there, right? With the next new thing that's coming in. Where do you see podcasting going here? Right here as we're talking, what was that a couple of weeks ago, apple just came out and said, oh yeah, we're supporting, video now on podcasts. So where do you see this going?

Roger Naren (29:10): Yeah. I mean, we're all in on, on video, on on YouTube specific. In fact, we've just rolled out very clear, you know, YouTube expertise. We've we've actually built up a team specifically focused on YouTube because I think and and I think sort of to answer your question, I do think it is more video. However, I think it's more strategic video.

Roger Naren (29:37): Video podcast podcasting on YouTube shouldn't be an automatic thing. I think we've watched the last year and a half, two years where where everyone has just thought that it's, you know, an automatic thing. And and if I look at our industry, just, you know, podcast agencies, I think often, you know, these audio producers, bless their hearts, are now, you know, wearing a dozen different hats because they're now video editors, and they're video producers, and like it's and that's not what they love or were hired for or have expertise in. We've all now just assumed that we have to, you know, slap a a video on our podcast recordings and and throw it on YouTube, and they're just not performing. Like, they're just not performing at all.

Roger Naren (30:24): So what you know, we're looking at it from the standpoint of if it makes sense to invest in that channel, if your audience if there's data that shows your audience is on that channel and is spending a lot of time there, then you should invest in in in YouTube. So I think it's just there's gonna be a lot more focus on video podcast, but I think it's gonna be or I hope it's going to be more strategically minded versus just sort something that's automatic or, you know, a box that needs to be filled. I think we're going to see a lot more niche podcasts, you know, really, really, you know, smaller audiences and and and and content that's custom created for them. You know, we we once did a podcast for the Port Of Vancouver, which was all about logistics. And it and, you know, that sounds boring, but actually when you think about every single little moving thing that has to happen in order for, you know, that that container ship to, you know, dock and then that that container to end up on a train and then on a truck and then on a like, it's actually quite fascinating.

Roger Naren (31:38): How sorry. However, their audience was only I think the actual end number was like 250 people. And and they're all executives with that operate within the port. I think examples like that we're gonna see more of where it's just it's just, you know, tailored content for that specific audience versus kind of thinking about it more broadly. And then finally, think, you know, from a analytics standpoint, we're gonna see just hopefully a lot more data.

Roger Naren (32:08): I think the question that, you know, we don't have all the plumbing connected to one another when it comes to YouTube, for example, and some of the different measurement tools that we the third party measurement tools, I think we need to do a better job of kind of connecting into YouTube in that respect. And I'm very, very excited about the future. And I think part part of that is also just the quality bars getting higher and higher. And I think we'll start to see some of the, you know, what did you what did you call rap? Random action Random action podcasting.

Roger Naren (32:49): I think we'll start to see some of that fade away because people realize that it's a lot of work. And if they're not seeing any results, then they'll, you know, kind of move on to the next thing. So I I think the quality bar is gonna continue to go up.

Tom Schwab (33:03): So because podcasting is a channel, right? And it's we've seen it grow so much in the last ten years and refine itself. And I I honestly believe that today it's more powerful than it ever has been both from the people that are listening to it. You know, there's that proof of life. So many things I get through marketing now it's like is this AI generated?

Tom Schwab (33:28): Somebody listens to us they're like no that's actually Roger and Tom talking and not talking about things that are the sum of the average of everything that's gone before, but where things are going, how to think about things.

Roger Naren (33:42): Hair is AI generated though. I usually have a huge ponytail and it's but for this conversation we've switched on the sort of, you know, cul de sac look.

Unknown Speaker (33:54): Well, I added the gray hair to mine, so touch all of that up.

Unknown Speaker (33:59): Exactly.

Tom Schwab (34:01): As we wrap up here, somebody's thinking about either taking their podcasts to the next level, right? Or starting a podcast for their brand. What words of advice would you give for them?

Roger Naren (34:13): I go back to the question of, you know, what is the job of the podcast? What is it, what is it meant to be doing? And use that as your North Star for everything that you create moving forward. You know, if you have a question around sort of, you know, how much time and energy should I focus on the background of my YouTube studio, and how much energy should I put into the format of, you know, my my interviews, you know, answer the question of like, what is the job of the podcast? What is this meant to be doing?

Roger Naren (34:44): And then and then ask yourself, who is it meant to be doing it for? Who is your audience? And and and talk to your audience. Like, think a lot of times marketers assume they know everything about their audience, but refuse to actually ask them any questions. Like, we have more ways than ever to talk to people online these days that consist of your audience, then reach out and ask them like, hey, what would you like to see in a podcast?

Roger Naren (35:09): If we did a podcast, what would you like to learn about, watch, listen to, and and, you know, create it for them, not for you.

Tom Schwab (35:19): Yeah. Well, Roger, what's ordinary to you is amazing to others. How can people get in touch with you to keep this conversation going?

Roger Naren (35:28): Yeah. Check us out at jarpodcast.com. So that's jarpodcast.com. Also, we'd love to connect with people on LinkedIn. I'd love to hang out there.

Roger Naren (35:39): Let's let's keep the conversation going and reach out if you have any questions.

Tom Schwab (35:43): Excellent. We'll come together again five years to see how the predictions are doing.

Unknown Speaker (35:48): Absolutely. Thanks, Roger. Thanks, Tom.

Tom Schwab (35:52): What I love about the conversation with Roger Roger. Is how clearly it reinforces something we talk about all the time. That podcast interview marketing isn't about the activity, it's about the outcome. Too many people start a podcast or go on interviews because it feels like the thing that they're supposed to do. But Roger reminds us that the real starting point is asking that simple but powerful question.

Tom Schwab (36:20): What job is this podcast supposed to do for our business? Is it building authority, influencing buying decisions, strengthening trust with a specific audience? You see, when you know the job, everything else becomes clearer. The topics you discuss, the shows you appear on, even the stories you tell. And that's especially important today.

Tom Schwab (36:45): In a world where AI can generate unlimited content, trust is the real currency. Podcast interviews work so well because someone has already chosen to spend time listening to you. That's attention that you can't buy. So here's your next step. Before that next podcast interview, write down the single job that that interview needs to do for your business.

Tom Schwab (37:12): Not vanity metrics, but real business impact. You see, when you show up with clarity, every interview becomes more valuable for the host, for the audience, and ultimately for you and your brand.