Because if your answer is, “Um, to be a podcast,” we need to talk.

And listen, I understand how we got here. Everybody has a podcast.*

You keep hearing: “Hey, you’re so funny/well-spoken/smart, you really should have a podcast.”

So you start dumping all of your ideas in a Notes app…so much that you can’t even find the grocery list buried within your many podcast musings.

Finally you decide ok, fine, it’s time to make the podcast. Immediately you’re researching microphones, spending weeks polling your friends on which title they like best, and hovering over the “Add to Cart” button on that custom neon sign that would be the perfect addition to your recording setup!

But you’ve skipped a very important step:

You haven’t actually figured out what the new hire on your team is supposed to do. And by “new hire” of course I mean “your podcast.”

Because your podcast can and should work for you like the dutiful employee you dream of hiring as soon as cash flow picks up...
The best, most strategically architected podcasts work very hard. At the very least, your podcast should work harder than you do.

The good news is, as absurd as that is to visualize: your cover art rushing around with its business casual slacks on, posting your wit and wisdom to Instagram…this is a pretty accurate visual of what your podcast can do for you.

But it's true: a well-thought-out podcast is qualified to do a kind of alarming number of jobs.

When I’m working alongside my cohorts and clients doing the calculus of starting and sustaining a podcast, I pretty much insist we determine at least three jobs their podcast can do. (In addition to the job of “plopping episodes into a feed on a podcast playing device.”)

Once you’ve defined your podcast’s roles and written their job descriptions, an amazing thing happens:

A whole bunch of those decisions we have to make every day–both for our podcasts, but also our business–suddenly become ever so slightly simpler. Because we can weigh each decision against the responsibilities we assigned to it before we launched it:

• Guests on every episode?
  • What job would that do for you?
• Video episodes?
  • What might that do for you and your business?
• Release episodes every week?
  • To what end?
• Solo episodes?
  • Do you have some expertise to share in the Costco-sized sample of an episode? (The answer to this one is almost always yes.)

Having your podcast’s responsibilities outlined at the outset is PARTICULARLY helpful when it seems like we're all hearing this persistent drumbeat:

To paraphrase Bo Burnham’s evidently ageless takedown of the algorithm: we absolutely must be doing a little bit of everything all of the time.

Don’t get it twisted: all of the above actually do serve a pretty important purpose, and I recommend most of them to some of my clients some of the time.

Before you launch your podcast and commit to doing All. Of. The. Things. I want you to promise me you can answer this question in the affirmative for the things you do decide to do:

Does this help my podcast do the job I hired it to do?

Because if the answer is no, congratulations!

You have just eliminated some work from your life.

In case most of the preceding felt like an overdressed word salad, let me offer you two examples of job titles your podcast can hold:

PODCAST JOB #1: THE TRUST BUILDER

You may have heard that familiarity is the fastest path to trust. (If not, you now have Polish social psychologist Robert Zajonc’s Mere Exposure Effect and my rabbit hole on this topic to thank.)

You probably already know from your own experience, or that of your experience in business, that trust is necessary before a person can open up their proverbial checkbook to you.

If someone vibes with you and how you show up on your show, they’ve already spent a substantial amount of time getting to know you.

By the time they’ve listened to or watched a few episodes (one you were going to produce anyway, mind you, because podcasting is fun!), and then decide to schedule a “discovery call,” there’s not as much to discover.

You’re not starting from absolute zero. Those episodes have done the job of taking multiple meetings with that prospect… you just didn't have to be on Zoom for any of them.

So one potential job description for your podcast is:

Build enough trust and familiarity with the right people so that our first actual meeting doesn’t feel like a first meeting, and brings us much closer to closing a sale or partnership.

PODCAST JOB #2: THE THOUGHT LEADERSHIP INCUBATOR

This one is very near and dear to me because I’m doing it right now: this newsletter was literally made possible by the transcript of the episode I recorded yesterday.

But even without the benefit of transcripts, your podcast can help you figure out what you think. Or how to articulate what you already know you think.

It’s like talk therapy for getting your thought leadership shrunk into a more manageable statement.

We tend to imagine thought leadership as something that emerges from the mountaintop, fully formed:

Behold my framework!

Some of the best parts of what is now my business has come from “talking the talk” on my podcast.

Then when the time comes to articulate your offering (i.e., in the copy on your website or sales page, or even saying out loud to a prospective client) you are confident in what you bring to the table.

Here’s how I’ve seen it work for me and for the podcasters I work with:

You say something in an interview or conversation and you’re kind of impressed with how perfectly those words captured what you believe.

Then you say some version of it in your next conversation.

And you notice the person on the other end nodding and lifting their eyebrows as if to make more room for your insight. Maybe they even write it down.

Eventually you notice: Huh. I keep saying this, and people seem really leaned in and interested in it.

And you realize: Hey, I think this is A THING.

That, my friends, is how your podcast becomes a laboratory for your valuable ideas.

You have my permission to steal this question as you think about your podcast:

What job am I hiring my podcast to do?

Because “be a podcast” is not enough of a job description. There’s so much more.

And I hope you find it.

Always be recording,

P.S. The Strategic Podcast Launch Studio opens Monday and I’m pretty full up! 🎉 But if you ask nicely we can probably make room at our table for you. (I’m not a mean girl!) Hit reply and we can discuss your podcastibilities...