Dr. Jeremy Weisz | How to Launch A Podcast Successfully

Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the Co-founder of Rise25, a company that helps B2B business owners connect with their ideal prospects, referral partners, and strategic partners through a done-for-you podcast service. Dr. Weisz has been involved in podcasting for 11 years and was a senior producer for one of the early business podcasts; he assisted in putting all of their systems in place and helped them add volume, feature, and edify various business leaders.

Dr. Weisz has also been running his own podcast, Inspired Insider, since 2011. He has featured top entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs of companies such as P90X, Atari, Einstein Bagels, Mattel, the Orlando Magic, and many more through video interviews. Dr. Weisz also founded a nutritional supplement business and continues to run his own chiropractic and massage facility, Chiropractical Solutions & Massage.

In this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, Dr. Jeremy Weisz, Co-founder at Rise25, joins John Corcoran to share tips and strategies for successfully launching a podcast. They talk about the right people to build relationships with, share tips for the actual launch process, and explain how to create your dream 100. Stay tuned.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll hear:

Dr. Jeremy Weisz explains what it means to create a dream 100 for a podcast
How to execute outreach before launching a podcast
John Corcoran and Dr. Weisz talk about creating content for a podcast and the actual launch process
The value of planning long-term for a podcast
How to get in touch with Rise25

Resources Mentioned In This Episode

Sponsor: Rise25

At Rise25, we’re committed to helping you connect with your Dream 100 referral partners, clients, and strategic partners through our done-for-you podcast solution.

We’re a professional podcast production agency that makes creating a podcast effortless. Since 2009, our proven system has helped thousands of B2B businesses build strong relationships with referral partners, clients, and audiences without doing the hard work.

What do you need to start a podcast?

When you use our proven system, all you need is an idea and a voice. We handle the strategy, production, and distribution – you just need to show up and talk.

The Rise25 podcasting solution is designed to help you build a profitable podcast. This requires a specific strategy, and we’ve got that down pat. We focus on making sure you have a direct path to ROI, which is the most important component. Plus, our podcast production company takes any heavy lifting of production and distribution off your plate.

We make distribution easy.

We’ll distribute each episode across more than 11 unique channels, including iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. We’ll also create copy for each episode and promote your show across social media.

Cofounders Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran credit podcasting as being the best thing they have ever done for their businesses. Podcasting connected them with the founders/CEOs of P90x, Atari, Einstein Bagels, Mattel, Rx Bars, YPO, EO, Lending Tree, Freshdesk, and many more.
The relationships you form through podcasting run deep. Jeremy and John became business partners through podcasting. They have even gone on family vacations and attended weddings of guests who have been on the podcast.

Podcast production has a lot of moving parts and is a big commitment on our end; we only want to work with people who are committed to their business and to cultivating amazing relationships.

Are you considering launching a podcast to acquire partnerships, clients, and referrals? Would you like to work with a podcast agency that wants you to win?

Rise25 Cofounders, Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran, have been podcasting and advising about podcasting since 2008.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:01

Welcome to the revolution, the Smart Business Revolution Podcast where we ask today’s most successful entrepreneurs to share the tools and strategies they use to build relationships and connections to grow their revenue. Now, your host for the revolution, John Corcoran.

John Corcoran 0:40

Hey there everyone welcome John Corcoran here. I am the host of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. This is a live episode which will be going out on both Smart Business Revolution and on Inspired Insider as well. And I’m here with Dr. Jeremy Weisz. Dr. Weiss, how are you?

Jeremy Weisz 0:56

Alright, thanks for having me.

John Corcoran 0:58

Alright, so we’re gonna be talking about how to launch a podcast. So this is a very specific topic, but how to launch a podcast the things that you should actually do, in order how to have a successful launch of your podcast course, we both been doing podcast for 12-13 years, between the two of us 24 years between the two of us total. And so we know that the benefit comes from the long term. And a lot of times people put a lot of emphasis on just the actual launch of it. But we do want to spend some time to talk about that and how to do it successfully. Some things you should do leading up to it, things you should do when you actually launch and things you should do afterwards. And, of course, go check out some of my past episodes, some of Jeremy’s past episodes in his podcast, we’ve got all kinds of great content there with CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs. So go check those out.

And I also am the Co-founder with Jeremy of Rise25. So if I were to help connect b2b business owners to their ideal prospects. And this episode is brought to you by Rise25, where we teach b2b businesses how to get clients, referrals, and strategic partnerships with done for you podcasts and content marketing. And you can go to Rise25media.com to learn all about how we do that. Alright, so Jeremy, let’s start with a foundational question. So for those who are about to launch a podcast, one of the first things they want to be doing is thinking about any, you know, people love to talk about what microphone they using, what software, they’re using, stuff like that, but we were a little bit of a, we kind of zig zagging, we kind of go against the grain, but what we encourage our clients focus on is did you create what we call your dream 100. Elaborate on that thought?

Jeremy Weisz 2:36

Yeah, I think a very common question we get is, How do I get downloads and subscribers? Right? Yeah. And we kind of just turn that question around to what is the main goal? Like, for instance, I was talking to a company there, you know, serve e-commerce companies. I said, let’s say you got a million downloads on your podcast. They’re like, Yeah, I guess it doesn’t really matter. Because if they’re only really serving certain types of e-commerce companies, does it really matter that they get mass market appeal? So we’re talking about something that is has, there’s a actual business behind it? So the first thing we tell people to do is actually thinking about and creating a dream 100. And dream 100 doesn’t mean somebody will think of dream 100 as clients, when we think of it in a broader scope, which is clients, referral partners, strategic partners, people in the universe, of your clients as well. So organization, mission critical

John Corcoran 3:39

nations conferences, right. All the centers of influence around your industry. Yeah.

Jeremy Weisz 3:45

So when we think of that, that’s in the broader scope of thinking of in this includes people who are champions have, you may not even be in that industry, but they just are champions of you and your company, what you do, and, you know, everyone has connections in their universe and connections can vary, so you just never know.

John Corcoran 4:08

Yeah, and you know, if you go back even further, before you even thought about, you know, creating a podcast. These are the people that should be on your radar screen, because there are people in your industry in many cases, you know, we work with clients, they already know who these people are. But, you know, there’s always extra work you can do to think about additional conferences, additional associations, different organizations have different strategic partners, additional referral partners. But, but those are the people that you want to ultimately build a relationship with, through the podcast, in your career, through your business, whether it’s for the launch of the podcast, or whether it’s for for years to come years ahead. So So first is actually thinking through that foundational piece which which will help with the launch of the podcast and will also help with your larger business objectives.

Jeremy Weisz 4:58

You know, is the strategy because, you know, John, we know like anyone could talk into a mic and put it on YouTube or somewhere. But the key is to have that foundation strategy in place and starts with with that,

John Corcoran 5:13

right. And we know so many people that have, you know, maybe a built, you know, a big audience, but it’s the wrong audience, like they’ll say, like, the people that listen to my podcast are not appropriate for my business. And, you know, sometimes they end up giving up on the initiative, because they haven’t thought through that foundational piece, you know, or they’ve created 50 100 videos on YouTube, but they haven’t actually thought through how am I going to make this benefit the business that I have. So that’s number one. Next,

Jeremy Weisz 5:42

I want to just what you just said, there, I want to recommend, we did another episode on the five different types of episodes everyone should be creating. So check that episode out, because that goes into more detail on the nitty gritty of that, right, what you just mentioned.

John Corcoran 5:58

So after you’ve identified your dream, 100, then the next step is doing outreach. So leading up to a launch of a podcast, you want to be emailing people, but even before you’re emailing them to tell them, hey, I’m launching this, please share it, we’d love it, if you shared it. You can involve people in the entire creation process. So we encourage people, you know, email your network, and invite people to tell them, you know, first of all, tell them that you’re launching this initiative, and ask them, hey, what do you think of this title idea? What do you think of this type of guests? Who would you recommend that I feature? I’m looking for this type of guest, could you recommend a feature? Vote on your cover art, create two pieces of cover art? Say here, this one and this one? What do you think between these two, these two, people love to get involved. And it gives them a sense of ownership. And it gets them more invested in the success of the initiative and more likely to recommend other guests and more likely to share it and more likely to help you be successful.

Jeremy Weisz 7:00

I mean, people do this, John, with their books all the time, you’ll say, Hey, do you like this cover this cover? Do you like this title or this title, and you can see these creatives, and that involves you in the book, and then you’re watching, you know, watching when they’re launching the book and supporting the book. So you feel like you had a hand in helping create it.

John Corcoran 7:18

So you’ve identified your dream, 100, you start to outreach, you involve people in the process. Next step is actually creating the content for the podcasts or doing actual interviews of people. And this is this is where it gets to the five different types of content, which is we’ve already done a separate episode. But interviews, a lot of people predominantly do interview style episodes. So you need to actually do the interviews.

Jeremy Weisz 7:44

Yeah, there’s there’s five different types of episodes we recommend people creating. And one of those types is a thought leadership, which is the thought leadership of that person or the team. And we went into a whole separate episode in detail on the 12, I think it was the 12 different types of thought leadership episodes you could be creating. So those are two you could check out. But we could talk in general about, you know, creating amazing content, and there’s an art and a science to it. And this is, you know, sometimes people focus on on just that or talking on like, what do I do? What do I say in there is really, research goes into it. Asking questions that elicit great stories, as you know, Made to Stick is one one of a great book out there. So that is kind of the center around creating amazing content. If you think about, you know, movies, why are movies so compelling, and TV so compelling is because it was a great story.

John Corcoran 8:41

Yeah, and contact us if you have questions around this, because we’d be happy to talk it through. Alright, and then actual launch. So you want to have a couple of episodes to go live with. Again, we’re talking about b2b style episodes, we’re not talking about, you know, some season of a true crime podcast or anything like that that’s a different animal entirely, but have at least two to three episodes you go live on with that you go live with when you go live. And I want to add a caveat here. At any point in this process, you shouldn’t get bogged down. You know, obviously, we, you know, help clients all the time to launch podcasts, we built a team that does that. But I say from the bottom of my heart, if you have a b2b business that’s profitable, you shouldn’t be getting bogged down in the process. I see it happen all the time where people want to start a podcast and they get bogged down. They’re spending 15 hours researching how, as you mentioned a second ago how to do interviews, or they’re spending 15 hours researching how do we get on all the different platforms, you know, that’s where your time is much better spent not doing those things and your time is much better spent? Actually, doing the highest best use of your time was having great conversations with great referral partners and strategic partners and and clients and that sort of thing. But Any other thoughts on the launching of the episode?

Jeremy Weisz 10:03

No, I think kind of what you had said, going back to the outreach with the cover, you know, when you’re launching, you also involve people, right. And so especially if you have interview based content, giving, make it very easy for those people to share it to like it to comment on it in their email and social media. So don’t don’t do it alone, you know, have your network and the people who are either on or are helping you grow your reach as well.

John Corcoran 10:36

Yeah. And then, so you’ll want to share it on social channels when it goes live. So put it across all your different social channels, you want to email people to, you know, let them know that it’s going live, of course, if you don’t have an email list, you should put one together that you can use, you know, eventually you build a subscriber base across the different platforms, respective platforms. So that’s magnifying your impact. What are the thoughts as far as the the actual launch goes, Jerry?

Jeremy Weisz 11:07

I think, you know, that’s, that’s is just me creating a product that you’re proud of, that the person you’ve had on is proud of, because then people are more likely to share it. You know, and then after that, you know, we could talk about after that in a second, but it’s really a long term relationship, not like, okay, it’s out. That’s done. What’s next?

John Corcoran 11:29

Yeah, right, yeah, and have a system and a process so that you can continue to focus your energy on the highest best use your time. And here’s where I got bogged down for years, until you stepped in and helped me to revamp all my systems. But, you know, I just didn’t have very good system in place. And, you know, I had, I had other multiple different people that I brought on to help with different pieces, but I was the bottleneck in it. And it prevented me from really having the initiative be successful. And I went from putting out seven episodes one year before you helped me to 50 to one per week, the very next year, and it probably took me less time, because I had a system in place. So that’s the other thing is, once you launch, you really need to have a system in place, or else you will end up putting out seven episodes a year instead of 52. Or even more than that. And then I think the last piece we want to say is just the value really is in the longevity, you know, it’s Don’t worry too much about the actual launch itself, it’s important, but worry about keep on going keep you doing it for the long term, because that’s where you really reap the benefits. And that’s why we say have a system and a process in place. So that doesn’t bog you down and you can focus your time having great conversations.

Jeremy Weisz 12:39

Yeah, I mean, you know, as a business owner, or whatever job you have, in a specific business, we always tell people, you should be doing two things like doing what you need to do for the business, running the business, and building relationships. Right. And everything else should be off of your plate so you can focus on those pieces.

John Corcoran 13:00

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, if anyone has any questions about this, where can they contact you or I, Jeremy?

Jeremy Weisz 13:08

Yeah, you can go to rise25.com to learn more, if you have questions. There’s a contact page and email us directly through that. And we really focus on you know, what’s longevity? So, you know, how do you then turn your podcast so that you have these long term relationships with your guests and other people that are involved in listening to the show to make it go a lot further?

John Corcoran 13:33

Absolutely. All right. Thanks, everyone. Have a good one.

Outro 13:36

Thank you for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast with John Corcoran. Find out more at smartbusinessrevolution.com. And while you’re there, sign up for our email list and join the revolution. And be listening for the next episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast.

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