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.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll hear:
- What do seasons and series in podcasts mean?
- Why Dr. Jeremy Weisz recommends doing a series versus starting an additional podcast
- John and Jeremy’s strategies for creating a podcast series
- How a podcaster’s goals affect their podcast content
- Does the name of your podcast matter?
- How to niche without niching
- Where to learn more about Rise25
In this episode…
In this episode of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast, John Corcoran is joined by Dr. Jeremy Weisz, his Co-founder at Rise25, to talk about podcast series and seasons. Dr. Weisz explains why he advises clients to do series over seasons, shares his strategies for creating a valuable series, and explains how to niche without niching in a podcast. Stay tuned.
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
- Rise25
- Rise25 contact email: support@rise25media.com
- John Corcoran on LinkedIn
- Dr. Jeremy Weisz on LinkedIn
- Inspired Insider Podcast
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 to build strong relationships with referral partners, clients and audience without having to do 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 of the heavy lifting of production and distribution off of 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 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 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?
Contact us now at support@rise25media.com or book a call at rise25.com/bookcall.
Rise25 was co-founded by Dr. Jeremy Weisz and John Corcoran who have been podcasting and advising about podcasting since 2008.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:14
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 0:41
All right. Welcome everyone. John Corcoran here excited for this live episode with
Jeremy Weisz 0:48
Dr. Jeremy Weisz here with inspiredinsider.com. I guess this will be on your podcast and my podcast.
John Corcoran 0:53
That’s right on Smart Business Revolution Podcast and on Inspired Insider and I’m excited because every week I get to talk to smart CEOs. I’ve talked to recently the co-founder and original CEO of Netflix, you know people from Activision Blizzard, Lendingtree, Open Table, you name it, but no smarter than my business partner, Dr. Jeremy Weisz, who I get to talk to today on a very discreet, very distinct, but very important concept when it comes to content marketing. And especially in the podcast world, which is season versus series. Very trendy in the podcasting world these days to do podcast seasons, is that the right approach? We’re going to talk about that here. But first, before we get into that, this episode is brought to you by Rise25 Media, where we help b2b businesses to get clients, referrals and strategic partnerships with podcasts and content marketing. I’ve been doing a podcast personally for about 10-11 years now, Jeremy for at least that long or longer. And you’ve been advising, Jeremy, you’ve been advising podcasters and companies on starting podcasts since 2008 or 2009, or something like that. I think back before the iPod was invented. He’s been doing it before there even was a podcast where he was advising people on it. So he is as seasoned to hand as there is in this field. And if you have any questions about starting a podcast and using it as a tool for business development, referral marketing, strategic partnerships, content and all the 100 different ways that you can use it, email us at support@rise25media.com or connect with us at rise25media.com. Alright, so Dr. Weisz, I’m excited to talk to you about this season’s vs series. Okay, we hear it all the time. People say I’m doing a season of a podcast. First of all, what does that mean?
Jeremy Weisz 2:42
I was gonna ask you what do you think? I mean, I have an idea of what I think it means. What do you think when someone says, Why would someone do a season?
John Corcoran 2:53
Honestly, the reason people do a season is it’s a holdover from a former way of communicating in the media. We think of friends like Seinfeld, they all came in seasons. Right. And so people just used to do it that way. And they think that that is the professional way of doing it. I think that’s why people continue to do it.
Jeremy Weisz 3:15
I also think it depends on the type of show like if it’s a, you know, I listen to mostly nonfiction or business related podcasts. And so I think if you are a popular non business related like entertainment one?
John Corcoran 3:36
Yeah, there’s, there’s, I mean, there’s, you know, true crime is a very popular true crime, you know, and there’s their seasons where they follow a particular crime, and they go through and those are great. You know, that’s mostly not what we’re talking about here. Yes, a season makes sense. But when you’re talking about the context, that the field we play in, which is primarily b2b businesses that are creating podcasts for variety purposes, including business development, including content, including professional networking, all those different reasons, it starts to make less sense.
Jeremy Weisz 4:11
Yeah, that’s, I want to differentiate that because I think it’s like a true crime, like a season makes perfect sense. Right? And, what would be the difference between the season and the series? You know, we have our own definition of that, I guess you could say, but if you I feel like also people do a season in their podcast, because they want to take a break. And so they’re like, cool, I’m gonna do season one, and then just wait for season two. But in our opinion, you know, if you are a business, we think all businesses should have a podcast. Yeah, you know, it’s like it will become table stakes. Just like every business has a website. You know, every business should have a podcast and it’s an amazing way to give to your network of people and to also share your expertise but We’re always looking at ways to give to our network of people. And when you think of a business, I think so moving from a season, you know, we obviously prefer to do recommendations for us and our clients to do a series. And a series is an ongoing, ongoing session. And let’s say we’re talking to someone, and they’re like, you know what, I, because we, it’s funny, we have people come to us, John, people say, you know, I want to start a second podcast, Mike. Okay, convince me why you should start a second podcast. And, by the way, if we, for this individual, if we do a second podcast, that means we are running their second podcast, which means more revenue, but I often try and talk them out of doing a second podcast, most of the time. And here’s why. And there’s a couple outlier instances where I, why do you know, I do agree with them, like, Great start a second podcast, but, but the point is like, Well, you know, I’m really focused on the, you know, top, you know, maybe CFOs, and the contents around CFOs. And we love featuring the top CFOs. But, you know, and maybe we’ve been more specific, like CFOs, and SaaS companies. And really, I want to shift to getting more content in the leaders in CMO world, in e-commerce, like I want to, I should start a separate podcast, or I should do a season of this, stop it, and then do a season of that. And I would say, my advice is No, don’t do a second podcast in that situation, do it on the same podcast, and you can basically just do it as a series. That goes, it runs concurrently. So you could do both of them at the same time, you don’t have to stop doing 10 episodes on this, and then do 10 episodes on that, that kind of stops the momentum. And you can have both of them going at the same time. And you can win the, you know, when the CFOs release, you release those episodes. And when the CMOS comes out, you release those episodes. And it allows you to, you know, not necessarily have to pigeonhole yourself or only restrict your efforts in one direction, if you want to do too, and just release them when they come out, you can do that. And, you know, you could very easily segment them on your website, basically saying this is part of my CMO series. And this is part of my CFO e-commerce series.
John Corcoran 7:44
You know, another point I make people is that when you confine yourself to this limit of like, 10 episodes in a season, and you announce it at the beginning, there’s gonna be 10 episodes, right? And then on your 10th episode, you ask, as we encourage people, do you ask the guests you had on? Hey, you know, is there anyone else that you know, in your network that you think would be a good person to that I should interview and they tell you the names of five people, if you’ve been doing 10 all along, and that’s the end of the season, then you have to say, like, oh, sorry, I’m done with this. And you completely missed out on that whole purpose, or one of the big purposes, and one of the big reasons, one of the big advantages of doing a podcast, which is networking, and getting introductions to other great people. So having this artificial limitation of 10 episodes, or 20 episodes, or whatever it ends up really harming you. And then you also mentioned the beginning you said, part of the reason that people do a season is they want to take a break, they want to take a break. And I think I want to dig a little deeper into that, because they think the problem is the season isn’t the answer. The problem is that the way that they’re doing the podcast is too much work on them. They probably have too much on their shoulders, too much on their plate, they haven’t offloaded pieces. And I know this pain, very cutely. Because you helped me with it five or six years ago, when I was ready to give up my podcast, and I had too much on my plate, I was not delegating enough of it. Now, I wasn’t focusing my energies on the right thing. So I think if the reason that they’re doing a season is because they want to be able to take a break, but they need to do is improve their process so that the elements that they focus on with the podcast, they love they enjoy, they can delegate all the rest or hire a team like ourselves where we can handle all those pieces for them. So they can focus on the highest and best use of their time, connect with great people, deepen relationships with existing champions and clients, get more clients and then they’ll be motivated, keep going. The other thing I’ll say is that you know, just dovetailing on what you said was when you do two shows, it’s additional complexity. You know, if you add another show it’s additional complexity. Rather than keeping it as one show. doing different series that are combined in one show you achieve the same objectives that you wanted to achieve. Without the additional complexity of doing two shows, and just I’m sure you’ve seen this, Jeremy, I’ve seen this over 10, 11, 12 years of doing a podcast, we’ve seen a lot of people that come into the space, they add one, two shows, they do it for six months, or 12 months, and then maybe they do each half way, and they get frustrated. And then they end up quitting both. whereas others who come into the space, do one show, have enough content and energy and, and, and time to devote to doing that one show well, and then they end up doing it more successfully. So just ends up being more successful. And you get the long term benefit of doing it without giving up, which is really what we’re about, we’re really about getting people to the long term benefit, which is why you and I’ve continued to do it over all these years because of the long term benefit to it.
Jeremy Weisz 10:52
Yeah, I think like what you said, with, you know, the two most important pieces that we find that people are most successful is they delegate all the pieces. So they’re worried about just building the relationship and running their business. And the second is having the right strategy in place to make sure it makes sense and serving the goals of the business. And so they could be doing all this activity. But is it leading to the goals that they have set. So the right strategy is paramount. And we want, we want to make sure that people have the right strategy for their business. The second thing I’ll mention is, you know, when someone does a season, you know, they may have different goals, and their goals may change, or their goals or strategy may shift. I remember when I first started my podcast, a long time ago, I thought I was going to be the foremost of the number one podcast for productivity. I wanted to love productivity, I was gonna have every single, you know, productivity founder, my questions would be about productivity out of the top CEOs, founders. And after about four episodes, I was like, this is like, What am I thinking? You know, they keep saying the same thing. I don’t want to ask these questions anymore. And so if I would have said, like, I’m gonna do a season of 12, I’m gonna do this car product T, I didn’t name my show the productivity show or anything. I didn’t pitch them. I’ll say Luckily, but I could have. So what do you think you start with? Or even right now, it may shift? So you just have to be careful about that.
John Corcoran 12:34
Yeah, that’s, that’s a great point. Yeah, his thing I will point out is that, I also want to say to people that the way we do things, the name of the show doesn’t matter so much. Because a series in some ways, can substitute for the, the same purpose of a name does, which is, ultimately when you’re doing a podcast, it’s about getting great people to have great conversations with you. And so that a piece of that is communicating in text, LinkedIn email message, or you know in person and communicating to people about the wisdom and the virtue of them spending 30 minutes talking so that you can create a podcast episode together. And especially when you’re getting started, this is important, because you don’t have a large track record. But this series, if you do it right, you reach out, you use the right language, you communicate, say, I’m doing a series on my podcast, featuring top CEOs in the tri-state area or something like that, you communicate it the right way. One, it doesn’t matter what the name of the podcast is. and it serves a similar purpose to what a season does without the confinement without the handcuffs that you get of a limited season. And it allows you to come back to it, as you mentioned earlier comes back to it from time again. So you’ve done a lot on your podcast where you do a series, well, you might do a couple of episodes, then you go and do other episodes on another topic, and then you come back again. But it gives you the benefit. And then eventually you get a couple of great people in that series. And then all you have to do is name drop a couple of other people as part of that series, and people’s competitive juices start flowing. And they’re thinking like, I’m the top CFO in the tri-state area, I want to be part of this, you include that I know that person, I want to be part of that. You know, and so it shows that result as well. Any final thoughts? Jeremy on this on this?
Jeremy Weisz 14:29
I think you hit on something important, which is it’s basically a way to niche without niching if that makes any sense, right? Because you don’t have to call your show the, you know, CMO e-commerce show or something.
John Corcoran 14:46
And you can once you decide that you’re not going to focus on CMOS or you’re not gonna focus on e-commerce or whatever.
Jeremy Weisz 14:52
It is interesting how it spirals and leads in like even so I have interviewed over 100 of the top directors. Farmers Market is a cooperation of the planet. I’ve gone down the route on having some of the top e-commerce people, whether they’re running their own company or maybe their software in the space. I went in, you know, had done top VCs venture capitalists. So I’ve gone across these different niches, and it just accumulates over time someone reached out the other day, and like, Oh, I think I have some VCs to introduce you to. And who else have you? Have you interviewed? And I basically, as I looked through my episodes, I started listing them and I’m like, Oh, my God, I’ve actually interviewed a ton of VCs. And when I listed it out, and now if I would have just done a season that I did started six months ago, I would be like, I’m sorry, I’m not doing that right now.
John Corcoran 15:48
Yeah. So yeah, yeah. So that’s a great advantage. All right, Jeremy, where can people go learn more about you and learn more about the work that we do?
Jeremy Weisz 15:57
You can go to I think a better title for this is a Caesar series versus season should be how do you niche without niching? You can go to rise25.com. You can go to our about page if you go to the homepage. John and I are bantering a bit. And I think he included some outtakes on our thoughts and how do you get ROI with a podcast you could check out rise25.com or about page or more episodes of Smart Business Revolution, more episodes of Inspired Insider because we have tons and tons and tons of free content of some of the I consider some of the most amazing founders, entrepreneurs executives on the planet
John Corcoran 16:37
and go connect with us on LinkedIn. We do these LinkedIn lives live every Wednesday at 11am Pacific 1pm Central Time. 2pm Eastern time. It’s a pleasure. Thanks, everyone.
Outro 16:50
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.