Podcasting 101: Lessons Learned From Our Journey

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00:00:42.000 | Are you listening to Let's Talk Jobs,

00:00:45.880 | where we give you practical insights into jobs and careers?

00:00:48.680 | Today, we're talking about the journey

00:00:50.180 | of starting up your own podcast

00:00:51.900 | and why you want to do this content creator life.

00:00:54.820 | Joining us is Andrew Cappell.

00:00:56.080 | Andrew, how are you doing?

00:00:57.720 | - Thanks, Tim.

00:00:58.560 | It is great to be here and we're on this journey together.

00:01:02.380 | Tim and I got virtually connected

00:01:04.800 | through my sister, Jennifer Cappell.

00:01:06.920 | Must have been about almost six months ago now.

00:01:09.440 | And when Jen heard that I was starting a podcast,

00:01:12.840 | I think she saw some of the design and the creative

00:01:15.320 | and the logo that I designed in Canva in about 30 seconds,

00:01:19.180 | and she was horrified.

00:01:20.440 | So she said, "Go look at Tim's stuff.

00:01:24.320 | "Maybe connect with him, maybe he'll talk with you."

00:01:26.880 | And so we started virtually chatting

00:01:29.360 | and we've been able to keep in touch.

00:01:30.800 | And now we're still working on it almost a year later.

00:01:33.640 | And so it's really fun.

00:01:35.020 | Tim and I hadn't had a chance to speak

00:01:36.960 | because we're both doing the podcast

00:01:40.000 | as a nights and weekends and lunchtime thing.

00:01:42.640 | And so, yeah, we didn't really have,

00:01:44.760 | we weren't just sitting around

00:01:46.440 | just hanging out all the time.

00:01:47.760 | But now we're, six months later,

00:01:49.400 | we're talking and I'm really excited to be here.

00:01:51.280 | - Yeah, you know, we totally bootstrapped this thing.

00:01:53.520 | You know, it's funny for me.

00:01:55.120 | If I had not gotten laid off at the right time,

00:01:59.080 | I would never have afforded my time to do this.

00:02:00.900 | 'Cause I've always told myself, I was like,

00:02:02.200 | "You know what, like in the back half of my career,

00:02:05.680 | "maybe the last 10 or 15 years,

00:02:07.040 | "what do I want to be doing?"

00:02:08.120 | And ideally it's something that maybe

00:02:10.560 | is less dependent on income and more passion driven.

00:02:13.300 | I was like, doing something like a podcast

00:02:15.880 | would be something that fit that ilk,

00:02:18.240 | but always been too busy, didn't have time to do that.

00:02:20.600 | So at least for me personally,

00:02:21.980 | maybe I'm just bad at time management.

00:02:23.600 | Like there's no way it would have gotten us off the ground.

00:02:26.160 | Like, so what really propelled you

00:02:28.120 | to want to even do podcasts?

00:02:30.840 | - Yeah, it's a great question.

00:02:32.320 | So I've definitely been a consumer of podcasts

00:02:35.640 | for about a decade.

00:02:37.560 | I had a short stint at an early stage startup

00:02:40.640 | called Sprout Connections.

00:02:42.120 | This was back in 2016.

00:02:45.500 | And the mission of that company,

00:02:48.280 | it was started by an entrepreneur,

00:02:50.120 | was to connect podcasters with their audience.

00:02:54.200 | 'Cause it's still the same,

00:02:55.320 | but when you have a podcast,

00:02:57.040 | you don't really know who is listening.

00:02:58.320 | You get anecdotal feedback.

00:03:00.120 | Some people, it's a lot of friends and family at the start,

00:03:03.320 | but you don't know who your audience is.

00:03:04.840 | And you can see the metrics, but they're anonymized.

00:03:07.520 | And I attribute it to Apple,

00:03:10.640 | is a privacy centric organization.

00:03:13.120 | They just don't give any visibility to the podcasters.

00:03:15.680 | So this was a problem.

00:03:16.520 | And I was doing business development

00:03:20.160 | at this startup a long time ago.

00:03:22.000 | And I tried to actually start a podcast back then,

00:03:25.360 | and I just couldn't get it off the ground.

00:03:27.480 | And so it always been of interest,

00:03:30.120 | but I had a little bit of extra time last summer

00:03:33.200 | and just decided that I was gonna try to make it happen.

00:03:36.080 | And it was a lot of work.

00:03:38.020 | Now that it's running, it is a little bit less work.

00:03:40.600 | It still is a lot of work,

00:03:41.720 | but I'm really glad that I got it off the ground.

00:03:44.680 | So how did you choose your topic and your audience?

00:03:47.680 | And I'll use myself as an example.

00:03:49.320 | So for me, a personal passion of mine is just like mentorship

00:03:53.440 | and just helping people advance careers

00:03:55.840 | or just create more economic opportunity

00:03:58.160 | for themselves, right?

00:03:59.040 | And for me also, I have two young girls.

00:04:01.440 | So part of it is like,

00:04:02.280 | hey, anything I can do to help women advance,

00:04:04.640 | especially in high tech,

00:04:05.640 | 'cause there absolutely is a ceiling,

00:04:07.420 | even though we're making progress.

00:04:08.700 | It's like, how can I lead the world a little better

00:04:10.600 | than how I found it?

00:04:12.280 | And so I found that doing my one-on-ones

00:04:15.080 | wasn't necessarily scalable.

00:04:16.800 | And so that was my point of view.

00:04:18.000 | I was like, hey, maybe I can create this podcasting

00:04:20.520 | where at that time I was unemployed.

00:04:22.280 | And I was like, if I can create a resource for people

00:04:24.660 | who are either in the market

00:04:26.120 | or maybe they're in a role that's currently being minimized,

00:04:29.400 | like it was really rough for recruiters and HRs, 2000, 2002,

00:04:34.240 | maybe I can help them realize

00:04:36.000 | that the skillsets they have really apply to any industry.

00:04:40.180 | They just need to know what the industry is about.

00:04:41.760 | So that was kind of my point of view.

00:04:43.720 | What was your equivalent of arriving at what the topic was?

00:04:47.440 | - Sure, sure.

00:04:48.280 | So I have a story.

00:04:49.120 | So I have a background in sales.

00:04:52.180 | And after college,

00:04:53.760 | I worked in the sports industry for a brief stint.

00:04:57.080 | The sports industry is great entertainment sports.

00:05:00.540 | It's not the best place to be in sales, in my opinion.

00:05:04.120 | And so I went from the sports industry

00:05:06.640 | to the events industry, the B2B events industry,

00:05:09.280 | which was a great place to be,

00:05:10.520 | but not really on the tip of innovation.

00:05:13.400 | And so after three years in the event industry,

00:05:16.600 | I attended dozens of trade shows.

00:05:18.880 | I went to Las Vegas 10 times in about two and a half years.

00:05:22.720 | It was fun, but it wasn't where I wanted to be long-term.

00:05:25.240 | And so I joined that early, early stage startup,

00:05:28.640 | which was too early for me.

00:05:29.840 | And I exited that,

00:05:32.720 | but I realized that I wanted to attach my career

00:05:37.720 | to an emerging industry.

00:05:39.800 | And so I actually found,

00:05:41.700 | I was living in Stanford, Connecticut,

00:05:43.400 | outside of New York City.

00:05:44.480 | And I found a company that was a combination

00:05:47.440 | of cybersecurity and data analytics.

00:05:50.400 | And so cybersecurity, as you know, Tim,

00:05:52.960 | is a great industry to be in.

00:05:54.480 | And then data analytics is another good one.

00:05:56.420 | And so we did encryption and tokenization.

00:05:59.240 | So de-identified social security numbers

00:06:01.680 | and put those in an anonymized place in the database.

00:06:06.600 | So that way, if there was a breach,

00:06:07.680 | nothing bad would happen.

00:06:08.840 | And so I had a start at this company.

00:06:11.240 | I took a couple of steps back in my career, back in 2016.

00:06:15.280 | I had been a closer.

00:06:16.300 | I'd brought in a million dollars revenue,

00:06:17.720 | but I had to start as an entry-level BDR.

00:06:20.100 | And it was really hard.

00:06:22.080 | I spent way too much time with the CTO

00:06:25.400 | and our technology team, trying to learn the technology.

00:06:28.680 | And that did not make me a good cold caller

00:06:31.960 | or effective business development person.

00:06:34.120 | And it wasn't, so I was there for about six months,

00:06:36.880 | not producing, really questioning myself.

00:06:39.800 | And it was something called Ring the Bell,

00:06:43.320 | where when our leaders and our sales team

00:06:46.800 | would close a big deal,

00:06:48.960 | that it would close a deal with Aflac,

00:06:51.800 | Citibank, ADP, Blue Cross Blue Shield,

00:06:54.880 | some of the biggest, most well-known brands in the world,

00:06:57.760 | they would be an all-company email.

00:06:59.240 | This is before Slacker Teams,

00:07:01.040 | and it was called Ring the Bell.

00:07:02.780 | And so they would explain the narrative

00:07:04.840 | of how the deal happened,

00:07:06.760 | how it got started, what the challenges were,

00:07:09.400 | what went well, what didn't,

00:07:11.120 | what partners were involved, and then what's next,

00:07:13.480 | why the customer bought, and what they're looking to do,

00:07:16.800 | and how we're gonna help deliver that.

00:07:18.320 | And as a new salesperson,

00:07:19.880 | this was just so much more impactful,

00:07:21.800 | no offense to the marketing team,

00:07:23.060 | but more impactful than the marketing materials,

00:07:25.560 | than reading the website, than reading the white papers,

00:07:28.080 | or trying to memorize all that,

00:07:30.260 | because the customer, especially at the executive level,

00:07:32.480 | they just don't care.

00:07:33.440 | And so you need to have the narrative and the soundbites.

00:07:35.900 | And it was these emails that were so valuable to me

00:07:39.480 | that I, literally, I became a consultant

00:07:43.600 | a few years after Protegra Day.

00:07:45.200 | I was there for five years.

00:07:46.600 | And I couldn't believe that not everyone

00:07:48.200 | was doing this Ring the Bell thing.

00:07:49.600 | So it always stuck in my head,

00:07:51.200 | and I would actually implement it at some clients.

00:07:53.880 | And so they always liked it.

00:07:55.080 | It was always good for morale and learning.

00:07:58.000 | But it wasn't out there in the world,

00:07:59.680 | and so I had a little bit of time,

00:08:01.040 | and I said, "Hey, I'm gonna take this concept,"

00:08:03.600 | which was so impactful to me and my career and my learning,

00:08:07.340 | and try to democratize it

00:08:08.900 | and bring it to the world through a podcast.

00:08:11.260 | - Dude, I love that.

00:08:12.840 | And no offense taken, that sounds like a wonderful value,

00:08:17.580 | something that marketing can't bring to the table,

00:08:19.540 | sharing the wins and the goodness and insights

00:08:22.060 | around how you bring customers in, how you close it,

00:08:25.780 | how you lose deals, too, right?

00:08:27.300 | All that is valuable input.

00:08:29.100 | I really like that.

00:08:30.700 | So let's go day zero.

00:08:31.720 | So you've kind of, you come in with an idea

00:08:34.020 | of what you want, similar to me, I kind of had an idea.

00:08:37.660 | You talked about leveraging your friends

00:08:39.860 | and social network to kind of validate your ideas.

00:08:43.420 | What did that look like to you?

00:08:45.380 | 'Cause for me, it was like, I had an idea of what I wanted.

00:08:50.220 | I had a group of Facebook friends and family friends

00:08:53.140 | I just rapidly texted, and I was like,

00:08:54.880 | "Hey, here's some ideas," and I threw out some names.

00:08:56.740 | 'Cause I was struggling with, what am I trying to do?

00:08:59.300 | How can I conceptualize it in a name?

00:09:00.900 | But all these terrible names.

00:09:03.740 | And the one I really liked going into the exercise

00:09:06.220 | was called the Careers Reimagined.

00:09:08.140 | I was like, "Hey, maybe the idea is my persona

00:09:11.620 | "or my target audience is someone

00:09:12.780 | "who is at a pivot point in the career,

00:09:15.240 | "and so maybe it's about reimagining your careers."

00:09:17.540 | And I had all these other things,

00:09:19.140 | and I literally created a poll and I sent it,

00:09:22.500 | like a survey monkey, I sent it all to my friends,

00:09:25.260 | and it was quickly shot down.

00:09:27.020 | And it was like, that was my first negative response

00:09:30.540 | to ideas.

00:09:32.260 | What was your first reaction with your peer group

00:09:35.500 | who saw your ideas, or even your initial ideation ideas?

00:09:40.500 | Was that well-received?

00:09:41.540 | Did you get critical feedback?

00:09:42.820 | What did it look like to you?

00:09:44.460 | - Yeah, it took a long time to bring it to market.

00:09:48.140 | I couldn't find anything else out there like it,

00:09:51.820 | so it's either, "Hey, this is a great idea,"

00:09:53.660 | or, "This is a terrible idea,

00:09:54.760 | "and I'm not thinking about why it won't work."

00:09:57.460 | And what I did was I jotted it down.

00:10:00.240 | I'm a visual learner.

00:10:01.880 | I used Microsoft OneNote, and then Mylanote,

00:10:05.700 | and then Miro, and Lucidchart,

00:10:07.860 | and I sort of mapped out the concepts of how it worked.

00:10:11.140 | And I was fortunate that I had been at this company,

00:10:14.700 | Ring the Bell was a structured template,

00:10:17.220 | and it's already working,

00:10:18.460 | and so I mapped it out as to how it would be in a podcast,

00:10:22.380 | quick hitter, 10 or 15 minutes,

00:10:24.460 | and I shared it with a couple of folks.

00:10:26.620 | They gave me some feedback, mostly lukewarm feedback,

00:10:29.260 | but I shared it with one entrepreneur,

00:10:32.120 | the founder of a startup called OrgChart Hub,

00:10:35.560 | and Dan Curran is his name,

00:10:37.680 | and we had chatted a couple of times

00:10:40.320 | 'cause I thought his application was really cool.

00:10:42.400 | You imagine an org chart for the roles and responsibilities

00:10:47.200 | and the hierarchy of an organization,

00:10:49.840 | but when you're doing a complex deal, that is table stakes.

00:10:52.760 | It's really important for the sales team

00:10:54.220 | to understand the org chart,

00:10:55.160 | to understand the executive priorities,

00:10:57.240 | the departmental priorities,

00:10:58.960 | and to weave in those care abouts

00:11:01.980 | of the different parts of the organization

00:11:03.680 | into your solution

00:11:04.520 | and how you're gonna help solve those problems.

00:11:06.300 | So they created an app that's native to the HubSpot CRM,

00:11:11.300 | and it allows you to visualize the CRM,

00:11:13.620 | and so that's really important with big deals.

00:11:15.500 | We used versions of that.

00:11:16.780 | We actually called them mud maps,

00:11:18.500 | and so you take an org chart, you mark it up,

00:11:21.180 | you put a lot of comments, and we did it in PowerPoint,

00:11:23.620 | and I created some cool templates in PowerPoint,

00:11:25.540 | but it wasn't connected to anything.

00:11:27.620 | And so I actually pitched this idea to Dan,

00:11:31.040 | and he thought it was cool.

00:11:32.380 | He thought it was clever,

00:11:33.460 | but we didn't really go anywhere with it,

00:11:34.820 | and then he must've had a conversation with his co-founder,

00:11:37.620 | and they must've given it a thumbs up,

00:11:40.400 | and Dan came back and said,

00:11:41.500 | "Hey, we'd love to help with this podcast."

00:11:44.100 | And I said, "All right, not really sure what you mean,"

00:11:46.620 | but what that meant was he was the first guest,

00:11:49.700 | and so he agreed to be a guest of the podcast.

00:11:52.500 | It almost didn't get off the ground

00:11:53.740 | because we had recording issues.

00:11:55.660 | He's over in the UK,

00:11:57.260 | and the transatlantic underground internet fiber cable

00:12:01.300 | must've been a little bit looser or rickety,

00:12:03.980 | and so when we recorded our first podcast,

00:12:06.940 | there was, I'm not kidding,

00:12:08.040 | there was a three-second delay

00:12:10.100 | between when I would talk and when Dan would talk.

00:12:12.180 | So he just thought I was the worst podcaster ever.

00:12:15.140 | He's like, "You know, it's a conversation,

00:12:16.460 | "not just like a pause and dialogue."

00:12:18.500 | So the Wi-Fi challenges, which still happen to this day,

00:12:21.300 | it really gave me, it shook my confidence as a podcaster,

00:12:25.620 | and I was like, "This is hard.

00:12:27.360 | "I'm gonna go back to the listening."

00:12:29.180 | But fortunately, we re-recorded, and that went well.

00:12:33.240 | I actually was working with a recent graduate

00:12:35.500 | from University of Connecticut.

00:12:36.980 | His name is Brett Muni.

00:12:38.420 | He was in the UConn Student Consulting Group,

00:12:41.380 | and we had met at an alumni event,

00:12:44.780 | and he was very creative.

00:12:46.580 | He would edit and produce his own videos,

00:12:48.580 | and he showed me, he was interested in some of the work

00:12:51.740 | that I was doing at a video production company,

00:12:54.260 | and that didn't work out long-term,

00:12:56.880 | but Brett and I stayed in touch,

00:12:58.340 | and when I told him about this podcast concept and idea,

00:13:01.620 | he was pretty excited about the creative project,

00:13:03.640 | and he joined me to help edit the podcast,

00:13:06.780 | which is so helpful because that is also a lot of work.

00:13:11.580 | So I had a partner.

00:13:12.660 | We got the first couple episodes launched.

00:13:14.620 | I still didn't have a ton of confidence,

00:13:16.900 | and I had reached out to a really big name,

00:13:20.180 | really well-respected name in the B2B sales world.

00:13:23.420 | His name is Evan Kelsay.

00:13:25.420 | He had closed a single software deal for over $30 million,

00:13:30.300 | and just as a little bit of napkin math,

00:13:33.500 | I know that the public markets

00:13:34.900 | and the private valuation markets

00:13:36.220 | are different than they were in the past,

00:13:38.540 | but if you said that an individual deal is worth,

00:13:42.980 | the value of the company is 10x the revenue of the deal,

00:13:46.660 | so a $300 million deal, $30 million deal

00:13:49.220 | is actually worth $300 million

00:13:51.860 | for the valuation of the company.

00:13:53.240 | It's a really big deal,

00:13:55.140 | and he agreed to come on the podcast before it had launched.

00:13:58.380 | So that also told me that I needed to keep going,

00:14:01.140 | and that helped to give me a little bit of a milestone

00:14:03.900 | to not give up before it got off the ground.

00:14:06.740 | - So how was that final stretch for you

00:14:09.060 | like just before you launch a podcast?

00:14:11.740 | 'Cause you gotta figure out the name.

00:14:14.100 | You gotta figure out look and feel.

00:14:16.260 | You gotta get your run of show, equipment.

00:14:18.900 | What was that last,

00:14:20.740 | the last 5% almost killed me, by the way.

00:14:22.380 | So what was it like for you?

00:14:24.360 | - Yeah, you know what, hold on.

00:14:25.960 | So there was a lot of,

00:14:30.680 | so many articles and guides and best practices,

00:14:33.800 | and I don't wanna be dragging marketing,

00:14:36.280 | but I also realized after doing it

00:14:38.280 | and after getting to 10 episodes

00:14:39.460 | that most of those articles were actually SEO bait,

00:14:42.960 | and they were just trying to give

00:14:44.420 | published guides and resources.

00:14:46.560 | And yeah, I read them,

00:14:48.840 | but it didn't give me more confidence and simplicity

00:14:51.440 | to just get it out the door.

00:14:53.000 | So the first 20 episodes of the podcast,

00:14:55.740 | I actually used this headset

00:14:57.400 | that I used to use as a sales rep

00:14:59.160 | to make phone calls and phone calls.

00:15:01.800 | Finally, Brett, my editor and producer,

00:15:04.000 | he said, "A lot of your guests,

00:15:05.400 | "you're bringing on some big guests.

00:15:06.600 | "They have professional microphones.

00:15:07.880 | "You need to level up."

00:15:08.880 | So I got an Audios Technica and now I'm leveled up.

00:15:12.320 | But there's so many resources

00:15:13.800 | about all the stuff that you need,

00:15:15.480 | when in reality, it's really pretty basic.

00:15:17.880 | You have an outline,

00:15:18.720 | you have some guests that will work with you

00:15:21.000 | through the, you know, as you're getting started,

00:15:23.320 | and you just have to have the confidence

00:15:25.320 | or the conviction to ship it before it's perfect.

00:15:28.520 | - Yeah, my last 5% really, really almost

00:15:33.520 | made me quit this whole thing.

00:15:35.020 | Because like coming from a marketer,

00:15:37.960 | I'm thinking about persona, audience,

00:15:40.960 | what impression or sentiment

00:15:42.560 | do I wanna leave on people?

00:15:43.460 | So it went down to like, I settled on a name.

00:15:48.460 | And by the way, the naming piece

00:15:49.920 | was also kind of a gut-wrenching,

00:15:52.320 | eye-opening experience as well.

00:15:53.400 | 'Cause I'd fallen in love with recurring as imagined.

00:15:55.960 | And I kinda like you, I brought in a friend

00:15:57.920 | who I previously worked with.

00:15:58.800 | He still works with me now.

00:15:59.640 | He actually does my post-production work.

00:16:01.800 | But he kicked out all of these like icons and logos.

00:16:04.600 | I was like, "Hey, look, here's an idea of a icon,

00:16:07.960 | "a cartoonish style they wanted.

00:16:09.520 | "It's kind of fun and friendly."

00:16:10.600 | I was looking at like Joe Rogan

00:16:11.760 | and all of their kind of icon.

00:16:13.240 | I did all these icon studies.

00:16:15.280 | And then I sat down with my friend who,

00:16:17.200 | I solicited for feedback.

00:16:18.560 | He was like, "I'm not feeling this careers

00:16:20.880 | "and re-imagined thing."

00:16:21.880 | I was like, "Why?"

00:16:22.720 | He's like, "Well, who's your target audience?"

00:16:24.320 | I was like, "Well, I'm going for people

00:16:25.960 | "who are maybe laid off or unemployed and blah, blah, blah."

00:16:29.120 | And he's like, "Careers imagined to him felt too limited."

00:16:32.840 | So if you're gonna focus just on the audience

00:16:34.920 | who's unemployed, why not just focus everyone?

00:16:37.080 | 'Cause everyone is kind of job-seeking.

00:16:38.640 | I was like, "Oh, shoot, you're totally right."

00:16:40.280 | And that made me realize that name itself was then limiting

00:16:44.040 | 'cause not everyone is re-imagining a career, right?

00:16:46.000 | And so I had to start all over with my naming exercise.

00:16:49.680 | I had to start all over with the creative.

00:16:52.240 | And again, coming from marketing, colors matter.

00:16:55.600 | And so I come with all this experience

00:16:58.520 | on studies on color association.

00:17:00.960 | For example, blue is used by Meta, Cisco, AT&T,

00:17:05.960 | you name it, because blue from a B2B point of view

00:17:10.440 | conveys confidence.

00:17:11.880 | And so that's why everyone uses freaking blue, right?

00:17:14.680 | When you look at blue and you wanna have calls of action,

00:17:17.480 | like what's the color wheel?

00:17:20.120 | What's the opposite of blue?

00:17:21.200 | It's orange and yellow.

00:17:23.120 | You pair this together, it's really powerful.

00:17:25.160 | Similar to like purple and yellow.

00:17:27.360 | So you take like the Los Angeles Lakers,

00:17:29.440 | like their logo is iconic, it's distinguishable,

00:17:32.240 | and it makes a lot of sense.

00:17:33.240 | The typeface Lakers is readable over purple, right?

00:17:35.680 | So there's all these things that I look into.

00:17:38.800 | And so I was at the last stretch and I decided

00:17:43.840 | I was gonna either pull the plug and then I got saved.

00:17:47.480 | There's a company agency called John and Jane

00:17:51.040 | who had previously worked at a previous company.

00:17:52.840 | They're like, "Hey, we're seeing what you're trying to do."

00:17:55.920 | 'Cause I'd kind of narrated my progress.

00:17:58.400 | And they're like, "Hey, they allocate some pro bono time

00:18:02.080 | "to do some work."

00:18:02.920 | They're like, "Hey, we love your mission,

00:18:05.080 | "what you're trying to do."

00:18:06.720 | So they came in and they're a branding company.

00:18:09.480 | And so they came in, we did a whole rebrand study.

00:18:11.840 | And that turned into what you see now.

00:18:13.800 | It's the orange and the blue.

00:18:15.840 | We've done very intentionally.

00:18:17.400 | We had iterations on like color versus black or gray scale.

00:18:22.400 | So that turned into a nth hour redesign

00:18:27.440 | and rebrand of the whole thing.

00:18:29.720 | - Wow.

00:18:30.560 | - And I had to recreate all the assets.

00:18:31.920 | When you reached out to me and said,

00:18:32.760 | "Hey, you put those color panels out."

00:18:34.160 | I was like, "Oh my God, we literally just redid that."

00:18:37.760 | And the fact that it even like kind of registered

00:18:41.160 | on your radar has been interesting.

00:18:42.400 | I was like, "Oh, like this has gotta be real."

00:18:45.440 | But yeah, I remember that the last stretch,

00:18:47.680 | thinking about the details around like,

00:18:48.920 | "How am I gonna content syndicate this thing?

00:18:50.920 | "How am I gonna publish it?

00:18:52.120 | "What's the cadence?"

00:18:53.400 | And I had already locked down and recorded a few episodes.

00:18:56.680 | I felt pressure to get them out there.

00:18:58.640 | But man, it was just, it was rough.

00:19:00.640 | And again, just like launching a product,

00:19:03.120 | I was so critical about every single little thing.

00:19:05.640 | So I was like, "What can I let go and just be at peace

00:19:07.680 | "and just let it get into the wild and see what happens?"

00:19:10.840 | What's really interesting about both of our journeys

00:19:13.240 | is that I had different pain points

00:19:15.640 | and I know what I don't know about design

00:19:18.520 | and creative and Canva.

00:19:20.200 | Like with Canva, there's all these templates,

00:19:22.160 | but I didn't wanna just like throw something together.

00:19:24.880 | And I really have to give a shout out,

00:19:28.200 | maybe you can put this in the show notes,

00:19:29.680 | but it's a blog post article or a framework

00:19:33.520 | by a mentor of mine named Paul Millard,

00:19:36.160 | and it's called "Ship, Quit and Learn."

00:19:40.000 | And so it's saying like,

00:19:41.280 | "Hey, if you're gonna start something new,

00:19:42.480 | "don't worry about, don't look at Joe Rogan's stuff

00:19:45.120 | "and don't look at all these experts

00:19:46.720 | "and don't make it perfect, just get it out the door

00:19:49.400 | "and commit to a small milestone."

00:19:51.280 | For me, it was get to 10 episodes

00:19:53.200 | and just get to 10 episodes.

00:19:54.840 | And then you'll decide, do you like this

00:19:56.680 | or do you not like this?

00:19:57.520 | Do you wanna keep going or not?

00:19:59.320 | And so you're not thinking about the big picture,

00:20:01.240 | you're just worried about getting to 10

00:20:03.320 | and giving yourself permission to,

00:20:05.440 | "Hey, at 10, I'm either gonna quit

00:20:07.080 | "or I'm gonna keep going

00:20:07.920 | "and I've got what I wanted to done.

00:20:09.480 | "I'm not a failure, I just, I put it out there."

00:20:12.040 | And so his blog and that framework

00:20:14.400 | of how he did that was so helpful to me.

00:20:16.680 | He actually started the podcast about five years ago

00:20:18.560 | and he said, "Hey, his episode art

00:20:22.160 | "or his cover art for the podcast

00:20:24.120 | "took him two minutes and paint,"

00:20:26.080 | or one of those simple tools.

00:20:28.080 | So that gave me the conviction

00:20:30.840 | to just get a minimum viable thing done

00:20:33.640 | and to put it out there.

00:20:35.040 | - So now you've got your podcast,

00:20:39.360 | you've got guests on here.

00:20:41.800 | What's next for you?

00:20:42.880 | And what are you trying to get out of it?

00:20:44.760 | Is there some logic around which customers

00:20:49.120 | or which guests you're trying to bring on?

00:20:50.960 | Is there a point of view you're trying to convey

00:20:53.680 | besides obviously the intent of the podcast?

00:20:57.080 | - Yeah, selfishly, I just enjoy having these conversations

00:21:00.440 | and meeting interesting people from around the world,

00:21:03.360 | from different industries.

00:21:04.760 | I'm a sales, a B2B sales consultant.

00:21:07.960 | Now, the folks that I interview on the podcast

00:21:09.880 | are mostly sales reps, some sales leaders.

00:21:11.880 | So I'm not interviewing folks to get customers from it.

00:21:15.840 | It's not a demand gen or customer acquisition strategy.

00:21:19.200 | I've seen that with some podcasts

00:21:21.360 | and I'm not against that in any way.

00:21:23.760 | But the podcast is really just about talking to sales reps

00:21:26.880 | and sales leaders and hearing the story

00:21:28.640 | of their biggest or favorite deal.

00:21:30.280 | And I just enjoy pattern matching as a consultant.

00:21:33.320 | I've now talked to 25 really amazing sales folks

00:21:37.120 | and heard these stories and am able to kind of see

00:21:40.440 | how different industries work.

00:21:41.680 | I've only worked for a few different companies,

00:21:44.000 | but now as a consultant, I've delivered about 20 projects

00:21:46.520 | and then I've had these 25 conversations

00:21:48.760 | and I can kind of see how sales is different

00:21:52.120 | in different segments and different markets.

00:21:54.360 | I will say that the enterprise sales reps

00:21:56.800 | who are selling to the biggest companies in the world,

00:21:58.960 | there's a reason that they make the most money

00:22:00.880 | and they have the best storytelling capabilities

00:22:03.560 | and 'cause it is not easy.

00:22:05.960 | And that's, you can a little bit tell

00:22:10.400 | based on how big the deal was, how it all fits.

00:22:15.080 | - So actually we went this whole time

00:22:16.560 | without even naming your podcast.

00:22:18.360 | We probably, I'll probably edit it back in the beginning.

00:22:20.640 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:22:21.480 | - You want to just introduce your podcast, your name

00:22:23.560 | and I'm gonna find you.

00:22:25.560 | - I'm Andrew Cappell.

00:22:26.640 | I'm the host of "How The Deal Was Done,"

00:22:29.360 | Deal Stories podcast.

00:22:30.960 | We're at 25 episodes and we interview sales reps

00:22:35.240 | and sales leaders and learn about their biggest

00:22:38.320 | and favorite deals that they've closed in their career.

00:22:41.840 | - That's awesome.

00:22:43.240 | So now that you've done this,

00:22:44.400 | are you gonna take this knowledge

00:22:46.600 | and transfer it to other projects?

00:22:48.360 | Are you gonna double down on this?

00:22:49.640 | Like what's your plan?

00:22:51.120 | - So we're gonna look at the B2B buying journey.

00:22:55.640 | Tim, you know this well on the marketing side

00:22:57.600 | and the reality is that sales reps are not going anywhere,

00:23:02.160 | but most of the buying journey happens

00:23:05.320 | without the sales rep in the room,

00:23:06.600 | which is why the website is so important.

00:23:09.040 | Digital assets, creative content, podcasts, videos,

00:23:13.520 | webinars, all this stuff is incorporated

00:23:15.520 | 'cause it influences the buying committee

00:23:17.760 | and the decision makers.

00:23:19.360 | And so I'm having these interviews

00:23:22.240 | with these amazing sales reps and sales leaders.

00:23:24.280 | We're hearing how the deal was done

00:23:26.040 | and the podcast follows the same exact format

00:23:29.520 | for every episode.

00:23:30.840 | Hey, what's your background?

00:23:32.040 | Tell us a little bit about yourself.

00:23:33.440 | How did the deal get started?

00:23:34.600 | Why did you choose this deal?

00:23:36.280 | What were some of the challenges?

00:23:37.720 | And then what were the learnings and outcomes?

00:23:39.480 | So it's those same four sections every time.

00:23:42.600 | And you look at it and you're saying,

00:23:44.040 | well, 85% of the buying journey in B2B

00:23:47.760 | is spent without the sales rep in the room.

00:23:49.600 | So yeah, I'm getting the story,

00:23:51.480 | but I'm really only getting at most 15% of the story.

00:23:54.840 | So we've actually done a couple

00:23:56.800 | of special edition pilot episodes

00:23:59.040 | where we bring in the buyer and the seller

00:24:02.000 | and we have a joint episode.

00:24:04.280 | It's really easy for me as a podcaster

00:24:06.400 | because they know each other well,

00:24:08.680 | they have a relationship and they're just catching up

00:24:10.640 | and they're sharing details

00:24:11.920 | that they did not share with each other

00:24:13.760 | during the sales cycle.

00:24:15.160 | So we've done a couple of these

00:24:16.880 | with global buyers from IBM, from Uber Eats,

00:24:20.640 | and some large million dollar plus deals.

00:24:23.720 | And that is starting to take off.

00:24:25.360 | So I'm looking to double down on that

00:24:27.600 | and saying, hey, we could actually do something

00:24:29.240 | pretty cool here where we bring the buyers

00:24:31.320 | and the sellers together.

00:24:32.720 | And it could be educational for the listeners,

00:24:35.040 | for marketing, for a pretty wide audience.

00:24:37.240 | So that's where I'm looking.

00:24:38.360 | That's what I'm most excited about right now.

00:24:40.160 | - That's fascinating.

00:24:41.080 | I would totally, I mean, I would listen to your episodes,

00:24:43.320 | but I would absolutely listen to that

00:24:44.800 | 'cause there's like, even from a marketing point of view,

00:24:47.560 | I'm always trying to figure out like,

00:24:49.000 | do I understand the buyer

00:24:50.440 | and how can I present enough information to them

00:24:53.080 | to make your job easier

00:24:54.520 | 'cause they come in educated as a prospect, right?

00:24:57.040 | And so I would love to hear that.

00:24:59.480 | In these conversations,

00:25:00.800 | obviously there's sensitivity around

00:25:02.920 | divulging too many details, right,

00:25:05.480 | that you need to either your company or company name.

00:25:07.960 | Do you find that being like,

00:25:09.320 | do you have to provide guidance and structure

00:25:10.680 | on what they can and can't share?

00:25:11.960 | Do they self-censor and that kind of

00:25:14.920 | leads for weird pockets of conversation

00:25:16.520 | 'cause they can't talk about stuff?

00:25:17.360 | Like, how do you navigate that?

00:25:18.840 | - It's a spectrum and it was definitely one of the reasons

00:25:21.440 | that I thought the podcast might not work

00:25:23.680 | where I was second guessing myself as to,

00:25:26.520 | hey, like, is this even gonna be real?

00:25:28.120 | Is this gonna be useful?

00:25:29.320 | Are we gonna have to remove too much sensitive information

00:25:34.240 | from who the exact buyer was,

00:25:36.320 | what the company was,

00:25:37.400 | who they were buying and selling to?

00:25:39.720 | But what overcame it is that

00:25:42.240 | sales reps are really good storytellers.

00:25:44.960 | So they can tell good stories and the narrative

00:25:46.960 | and they like to talk and share these types of details.

00:25:49.960 | So most of the time, I'd say it's about 50/50

00:25:53.320 | of if they name the exact company and the exact,

00:25:56.600 | if they name names per se,

00:25:58.080 | or they can generalize it a bit, abstract it a bit.

00:26:01.240 | And we get, we're not trying to get anyone in trouble.

00:26:04.400 | We're just trying to have these type of a conversation.

00:26:06.680 | And if someone said something that they should not have said

00:26:09.160 | we can either not publish that podcast or edit it out.

00:26:13.200 | It really doesn't happen very often.

00:26:15.240 | And I've had folks from publicly traded companies,

00:26:18.200 | international companies, big corporations,

00:26:20.480 | and knock on wood, we haven't had any issues with it so far.

00:26:24.480 | - That's awesome.

00:26:25.320 | I've had to censor a few of mine and edit some things out

00:26:28.160 | 'cause there's certain folks in certain roles

00:26:31.360 | of the organization

00:26:32.280 | where they're closer to legal or PR, for example.

00:26:34.920 | And so they're a lot more like particular

00:26:37.600 | about what they can say.

00:26:38.440 | And then they'll, in those cases,

00:26:39.480 | I just send like a rough cut to them and say,

00:26:40.920 | hey, look, let me know if I should remove anything

00:26:43.320 | 'cause I don't wanna get you in trouble or whatnot.

00:26:46.000 | Yeah, I'm even thinking for myself, what's next?

00:26:47.800 | 'Cause I'm looking kinda like you when you said,

00:26:49.960 | when you jumped into this and not many people are doing it.

00:26:53.760 | And so either it's the right thing to do

00:26:54.840 | or maybe there's a reason why no one's doing that.

00:26:57.000 | Mine was like the opposite

00:26:58.120 | where like there's a lot of content like this,

00:27:00.640 | but it's usually either like a 10,000 foot view

00:27:03.480 | where it's like just big heads talking about big things,

00:27:06.840 | or it's like top five things you need to know

00:27:09.640 | about answer blank.

00:27:10.840 | And it's like, maybe it's on or it's off or whatnot.

00:27:13.080 | What there wasn't was just this genuine,

00:27:16.160 | transparent conversation, which I was refreshing.

00:27:18.320 | So that's why I did this,

00:27:20.240 | but I'm looking at other people who do something similar.

00:27:23.680 | And usually they call to action for this type of a content,

00:27:26.320 | which is like educational, right?

00:27:27.360 | It's like either speak engagement

00:27:30.640 | or I'm gonna release some templates

00:27:33.080 | that you can sign up for.

00:27:34.480 | And I like how Zoom just did a little movie there.

00:27:37.880 | Actually, I don't know if that was a value add feature.

00:27:41.400 | I digress.

00:27:43.640 | - It catches attention.

00:27:44.760 | It catches attention.

00:27:45.600 | - I mean, too bad for people listening to this

00:27:47.880 | on an audio format.

00:27:48.720 | They won't get that.

00:27:49.560 | But basically I just did a thumbs up.

00:27:51.080 | Zoom threw the little emoji up.

00:27:53.160 | Where it totally backfired was I was in this meeting,

00:27:56.120 | Andrew, where someone's relative had passed away.

00:27:59.960 | - Oh no.

00:28:00.800 | - And so I was just like, "Oh, that's terrible."

00:28:02.800 | You know?

00:28:03.640 | And like it threw celebration balloons.

00:28:05.800 | I was like.

00:28:08.120 | - I've never done that.

00:28:09.040 | - Oh man.

00:28:09.880 | I was like, it was so bad.

00:28:10.840 | I was so embarrassed.

00:28:12.080 | And I was like, so I turned it off immediately.

00:28:14.640 | - Sympathy balloons.

00:28:15.520 | Yeah.

00:28:16.360 | - Sympathy balloons.

00:28:17.200 | Yeah.

00:28:18.040 | And then they had thumbs up.

00:28:18.880 | And everyone was like, "Oh my gosh, it's terrible."

00:28:19.720 | See, where was I?

00:28:20.560 | Oh yes.

00:28:21.400 | So speaking engagements or trying to use it

00:28:24.520 | as a demand gen tool, like you mentioned earlier,

00:28:26.360 | where like you're selling templates and whatever.

00:28:29.400 | But like for me, I don't know if it's 'cause I'm lazy.

00:28:31.960 | That's probably a part of it.

00:28:33.040 | I just don't feel like doing any of that.

00:28:35.480 | Maybe if my decision was to make this as my primary thing,

00:28:39.000 | like content creation is life.

00:28:41.560 | Maybe my approach would be a little different to this.

00:28:43.400 | 'Cause even like I'm looking at you,

00:28:44.600 | like the pace that you're creating content, it's fantastic.

00:28:48.840 | And like, for me, I have a huge backlog of stuff

00:28:52.680 | and I'm my own critical path.

00:28:54.520 | - Yeah.

00:28:55.880 | - So I think velocity is one thing I'm trying to figure out.

00:28:59.240 | I'm trying to figure out

00:29:00.080 | how to tell different types of stories.

00:29:01.400 | And so I've always wanted to do on location.

00:29:04.200 | - Yeah.

00:29:05.040 | - And so like, I actually wrote the script

00:29:06.960 | using chat GPC to help do research on like firefighting.

00:29:11.040 | Like not everything has to be right.

00:29:12.600 | And learning the history of firefighting.

00:29:14.040 | And then with that, I wanna go on location.

00:29:15.960 | - Wow.

00:29:16.800 | - And my end goal there is to bring awareness.

00:29:19.160 | - Yeah.

00:29:20.000 | - So very different things.

00:29:20.840 | I think about doing that next,

00:29:21.920 | like a lot of on location things.

00:29:23.720 | - Yeah.

00:29:24.560 | - Part of this is the entertainment value as well.

00:29:26.920 | - Yeah.

00:29:27.840 | - 'Cause for a business audience,

00:29:29.680 | we can take this only so far.

00:29:31.360 | It's not gonna get like 5 million views.

00:29:34.560 | - Yeah, yeah.

00:29:35.400 | - But it's just a different beast.

00:29:36.960 | - Yeah, yeah, that's cool.

00:29:38.280 | Would you look for a grant or a sponsor

00:29:42.720 | or some group to help facilitate that of like the,

00:29:46.640 | there's a group that helps recruit firefighters

00:29:48.560 | or something like that,

00:29:49.400 | that could help to set that up.

00:29:50.720 | That could be cool.

00:29:51.640 | - Yeah, you know, that's actually a good idea.

00:29:54.840 | Actually, I admire you in how you approached pulling in help

00:29:59.240 | whether it's through sponsorships or whatnot.

00:30:01.560 | I kind of have a little,

00:30:03.320 | like still a very self bootstrap mentality,

00:30:05.920 | which is probably limiting my ability to scale.

00:30:08.480 | But like for the firefighter one,

00:30:11.120 | like the fire station's like four blocks down.

00:30:14.520 | So I was literally always my,

00:30:15.600 | dude, my game plan was I'm gonna go there

00:30:18.200 | with a wireless mic box of donuts

00:30:20.880 | and be like, who wants to talk?

00:30:22.720 | - Wow, yeah, that'll be great.

00:30:24.680 | That's the, yeah, just make it happen.

00:30:27.560 | The tenacity of just figuring it out.

00:30:29.640 | That's really cool.

00:30:30.480 | - Yeah, and I get,

00:30:32.040 | if I can find a way to turn this project of mine

00:30:35.120 | into something that gives back to the community

00:30:37.040 | in a real monetary way,

00:30:39.120 | whether it's contributing to funds or whatnot.

00:30:42.120 | Actually, part of the firefighter one

00:30:44.280 | was like there's so many people

00:30:46.360 | who've been displaced due to California fires

00:30:48.680 | and like giving viewers ability

00:30:52.400 | to donate to those organizations.

00:30:53.920 | It's like, that's kind of like a pipe dream of mine.

00:30:55.760 | Like, I just want to create awareness

00:30:57.360 | for that kind of thing.

00:30:58.200 | So I don't know, maybe that's a phase two of this thing

00:31:01.160 | where maybe it goes beyond, let's talk jobs.

00:31:03.360 | Maybe it's like Silicon Valley life or something else.

00:31:06.280 | - That is cool.

00:31:07.280 | You know, you said about the full-time creator.

00:31:09.600 | I think if you attach your whole identity

00:31:11.880 | and your whole career to it,

00:31:13.440 | then that opens up a whole nother level of stress

00:31:16.160 | and challenges.

00:31:17.960 | So the fact that you're doing this,

00:31:19.520 | I mean, I have a lot of respect for you

00:31:22.160 | figuring all this out

00:31:23.360 | 'cause I've actually built a pretty decent team that helps.

00:31:28.160 | Brett, who was the editor,

00:31:29.840 | now he's the producer of the podcast now that it's 2024.

00:31:32.560 | So he handles a lot of the logistics,

00:31:34.200 | the planning, the pre-production, post-production.

00:31:37.000 | And I do pretty well with delegating

00:31:41.880 | and collaborating with others.

00:31:43.560 | Now we're working with some different freelancers

00:31:46.360 | on the Fiverr application.

00:31:48.400 | We had a video editor, Bilal, who worked with us in Q4.

00:31:52.200 | And then the sponsor,

00:31:53.280 | they give us the creative inputs as well.

00:31:55.640 | So it's pretty big production.

00:31:57.320 | We manage it all in Notion and it's going pretty well.

00:32:00.440 | - Yeah, I use Notion as well.

00:32:02.200 | I went through like Monday, Asana, and landing in Notion

00:32:04.920 | 'cause it's the best free non-paid version

00:32:08.560 | of a fully capable tool.

00:32:10.480 | - Yeah.

00:32:11.560 | - Yeah, so shout out to Notion.

00:32:13.400 | Well, hey, Andrew.

00:32:14.240 | - Not a sponsor, but yeah, they're open.

00:32:16.640 | - Not yet.

00:32:18.040 | Notion, if you're listening, I'm a huge fan.

00:32:20.680 | - Nice.

00:32:21.520 | - Well, Andrew, hey, just wanna thank you again

00:32:23.680 | for being on the show.

00:32:24.840 | It was really insightful.

00:32:26.080 | It's really cool hearing how you work through some things.

00:32:29.000 | If you're open to coming back on the show

00:32:31.200 | to talk about other stuff that's on top of mine,

00:32:32.640 | I would love to have you back.

00:32:34.160 | - I'm happy to, yeah.

00:32:35.200 | I've done the recent transition from a sales rep

00:32:37.920 | to a consultant and trying to make that, to bridge that.

00:32:41.880 | So happy to talk about that in the future.

00:32:43.880 | - So how can people find you?

00:32:46.200 | - LinkedIn, that is the main channel that I use.

00:32:48.800 | I see, Tim, that you're on YouTube.

00:32:51.000 | I didn't put my content up on YouTube.

00:32:54.640 | I was a little bit worried

00:32:55.480 | that the view count would be so low,

00:32:58.240 | but we actually did just open up our YouTube channel.

00:33:01.080 | Brett Muni, who's our producer, is running that.

00:33:04.440 | How the deal was done, Deal Stories podcast.

00:33:07.240 | So you can find it on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, anywhere else.

00:33:11.440 | And then I'm pretty active on LinkedIn.

00:33:13.240 | So if anyone has any questions,

00:33:14.760 | I'd love to be a resource and help.

00:33:16.660 | - Awesome.

00:33:17.500 | And all that information would be down

00:33:18.800 | in the description of the video as well.

00:33:20.440 | Andrew, thanks for spending your time with us today.

00:33:23.160 | - Thanks, Tim.

00:33:24.000 | It's been great.

00:33:24.840 | (upbeat music)

00:33:27.420 | you

00:33:29.480 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Podcasting 101: Lessons Learned From Our Journey

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