Building Authority with Podcasting with Megan Dougherty

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
podcast, people, content, business, episodes, create, authority, guest, book, listening, putting, talk, audio, interview, audience, research, questions, youtube, building, feels

SPEAKERS
Alastair McDermott, Megan Dougherty

 

Megan Dougherty  00:00

But you know, for a thought leadership or an authority building type of show, you want to make sure that when you are having a conversation, and you can have conversations with experts, but it’s a conversation between experts, as much as it’s an interview of an expert by a fan.

 

Voiceover  00:15

Welcome to The Recognized Authority, a podcast that helps specialized consultants and domain experts on your journey to become known as an authority in your field. So you can increase your reach, have more impact, and work with great clients. Here’s your host, Alastair McDermott.

 

Alastair McDermott  00:31

Before I introduce today’s guest, I just want to let you know about Authority Labs. It’s a coaching group, and tight knit community for independent consultants and experts who are looking for coaching, accountability and peer support on your journey to authority. The next Authority Labs cohort will be starting in September. And so if you’re a consultant or expert, you’d like to build your authority, grow your income, have accountability and support around you, then this might be the right group for you. You can sign up for the interest list at TheRecognizedAuthority.com/group.  So I’m very happy to say that say my guest is Megan Dougherty. I hope I pronounced that right because it’s a version of an Irish name. And I think it’s it’s, it’s being translated in different parts of the world. So Megan, I know Megan, for years now it feels feels like so long. I first met her through Danny Iny’s company FirePro Marketing. Now Mercy back in the day. And I’m delighted to get her on to talk about podcasting. So Megan is the co founder of One Stone Creative, which is a podcast production agency. And she specializes in b2b, and company shows, which is something we’re going to talk a lot about here. And she is the host of The Business Podcast Blueprint show. So Megan, welcome to the show.

 

Megan Dougherty  01:51

Thank you so much for having me. It’s good to be here. I’m feeling very much like a joyful reunion.

 

Alastair McDermott  01:57

Excellent, excellent. So first off, I don’t ask you about your backstory.

 

Megan Dougherty  02:02

And I love that you don’t ask me about my backstory, I think it is such a good strategic move. For a podcaster, especially one, you know, who really has a point who has a purpose for the show, and has a lot of respect for the audience. You know, you can put whatever you want in the show notes or record a separate intro. But many of us like to talk about ourselves a lot. So if you let someone get into their own backstory that can end up eating a lot of time before you get to really good, juicy, actionable content. So I think it’s a great choice. I’m happy to remain a mystery.

 

Alastair McDermott  02:34

Yeah, it came from me listening to podcasts for a long, long time. And I’ve been listening to podcasts for oh, I think they’re like 15, 16 years now at this point. And it drove me nuts when I heard people going with these really long backstories that go, you know, 15 minute minutes into a 30 minute episode. And it’s like, yeah, but I heard your backstory the last time I heard your interview, I want to hear you. You know, I want to hear you talking about the thing you talk about it. So, ahm…

 

Megan Dougherty  03:02

One of those parts of a podcast or parts of someone’s patter if they guessed a lot. You know, you get into the habit. It’s really polished. It’s really glossy, but it’s not kind of that real, more interesting, meaty stuff, even though you know, backstories, and histories and how we got to where we are is, of course, interesting, not appropriate for every show.

 

Alastair McDermott  03:18

Yeah, I also think that on podcasts, I think that the audience is more bought into a guest after they’ve listened to them talk about their topic for a little bit. And then maybe they’re more interested in the backstory. And I wonder maybe if I do a longer format show, you know, where I go, like 90 minutes, maybe I do do some backstory, but that’d be I don’t know if that’s something that I could do right now. But I could see it, you know, being interesting there. But, but for now, it’s it’s one of those strategic decisions, like you said, and so I want to talk about, you know, podcasting, because it’s something you know a lot about, you do a lot of research and podcasting, you talk to a lot of podcasters. And I think that people who are listening to this should strongly consider starting a podcast because I think it’s a great way to create content and demonstrate credibility, build trust, build an audience. But also, some people are, it’s not for them. When some people think, you know, I’d never do that. I don’t wanna get into all the technical details. So can we talk about that a little bit? Who should podcast or should people consider podcasting?

 

Megan Dougherty  04:27

It’s a great question to be asking and one that I wish more people asked as they got into podcasting. I mean, I ended up in the course of business talking to a lot of people who had a podcast dumped on their desk for lack of a better term you know, the the higher ups said, you firm down the street has a podcast so should we don’t make it happen? You know, but that’s, that’s not the really the best way to get into it. And especially for podcasts that support a business rather than you know, podcast that is done for the passion, the love of the game or true crime, or podcast it’s a business, in and of itself the whole job, it’s professional podcast.  If it’s meant to support a business that exists, and has its activities, and it’s going on, the first thing you need to determine to decide whether or not you should podcast is will a podcast support the business? Will a podcast help us meet measurable, important meaningful goals? Very often the answer is going to be yes. But sometimes it’s no or sometimes you have more important goals, or important goals that will be best served by other things and other activities, maybe other forms of content. And so making that decision at the beginning, what is a podcast going to do for the business? And is that one of my highest priorities for the business right now, that’s really how the decision should be made. Because as you know, podcasting is not a small job, that can easily be done in a short amount of time. You know, even even when you get great help a great service provider to help you, it’s a lot of work to create and promote a really good show. So making sure that there’s going to be a business case for it. It’s probably the first thing you’d want to do when you’re deciding, you know, should I create a podcast? Or maybe have a live stream or just be a guest, you know, always starts with the business goals?

 

Alastair McDermott  06:03

Yeah, and let’s talk a little bit about those business goals because there’s, there’s several, I think, and for me, building authority and credibility is one of those goals. What are their business goals do you see people have with with their podcast?

 

Megan Dougherty  06:18

Just a lot of them. And I get really excited talking about this is my favorite thing. So we look at generally, four types of high level goals for podcast. And within each of them, there’s tons of little subsidiary goals. So the first and most popular is exactly what you’re going for. It’s a thought leadership or authority building show, where you’re trying to kind of make a name for yourself in your industry be cited be seen as an expert, you know, really great and popular type of show.  Other kinds that are really valuable our relationship building, or sometimes called Business Development shows. And that’s where the real goal of the podcast the the use case it has in your business, is building relationships with other humans, usually as guests or promotional partners or other kinds of human to human relationships. And then there’s any kind of audience building goals, if you’ve got an audience, and they’re like, we need more content from you. And you’re just like, but I’m so busy, and I’m in between books, a podcast can be a really efficient way to provide really intimate, great content at scale.  And then finally, it’s content. Content can be its own goal. Although if you’re podcasting, you’re going to get content, it’s it’s just a side effect unless you’re doing something astoundingly incorrectly. So kind of those, those are the big ones. It’s the thought leadership and authority, the relationships you can build, the content that you’re generating, and the engagement you have with your audience, and kind of within that, I mean, we can get super, super granular, but those are the big ones.

 

Alastair McDermott  07:35

Yeah, I’m really interested in those. And so one, one thing that I think about in terms of podcasts is the ability to use it for research, which is something that I’ve only started really noticing lately, that something that that I could have done was I could have used the podcast interviews, also to do some, some research, kind of like research interviews, because I did some of those for a book that I’m writing. And I did those as the standalone 20 minute calls with various different people. And I realized that actually, I could have made those podcast interviews, I kind of feel like, like, I’ve missed a trick. So… once. Yeah. And so it’s actually something I’m talking to some of my coaching clients about right now about doing it that way, because you can dual purpose. And and you know, so you’re kind of killing two birds with one stone or killing four birds with one stone, in effect, if you can do it the right way.

 

Megan Dougherty  08:38

And now you understand that name of our company.

 

Alastair McDermott  08:42

Yeah, absolutely. So so so let’s talk a little bit about let’s go a little bit granular on some of those, which you pick which one of those you want to go big round around, because because we’ve got so many options to talk about there.

 

Megan Dougherty  08:55

But well, let’s do it. Well, this is the The Recognized Authority podcast, let’s talk about thought leadership and authority shows. Let’s that should be the one. So some of the things that you know, an authority building or thought leadership style podcast can really be useful for, you know, of course, it’s the content that you’re generating, you’re getting your name out there. And the networking if you are having a style of podcast where you talk to guests, but the impacts of that can be a lot bigger over time.  So as you’re creating content, and as you’re becoming this more recognized authority, things you’ll see increasing or improving could be you know, the invitations that you get maybe two to keynotes or to conferences or to contribute to different publications could be the times that you’re cited in different articles or online you get different more backlinks to your website can be really great mentions and DMS on social really, really powerful for that. And super super fun one this is a little bit less commonly known but with you’ve got a really good thought leadership show and you’re getting your opinions out there your philosophies out there, When you when it comes time for you to expand your team or to hire a You’re going to have a pool of people who have self selected as picking up what you’re putting down and liking you already. So that kind of as a first initial pool, you can cut your hiring time down from months to weeks, if you’ve got people who already know you and like you, is a really great kind of business benefit for that. And it works similarly with your sales cycle.  So if you’ve got great content, people are listening to it. They’re so excited for every episode. And they’re like, Hey, I’ve got this new product, and then you get on a call with them. And they’re just like, I am ready to pay you. Where do I sign? And that’s how the call starts. So those are some of the key benefits, or the most interesting, I think, benefits of this type of podcast. And I’d love to hear yours as well, because you’ve been you’ve been doing this for some time, and I’m sure I’ve noticed many others.

 

Alastair McDermott  10:42

Yeah, so there’s, there’s a few different aspects to it. So I’m going to kind of throw a few different things out there. And we can get get into the details on them. So first off, I think that with a with an interview style podcast, it can sometimes be difficult as the host to kind of showcase your own thought leadership, your own expertise and credibility. And so that’s one thing that I think about, about maybe like adding solo segments, or complete solo episodes alongside the interview episodes. So that’s one thing. Another thing is I know that some people use podcasts, and interview podcasts, in particular for business development. But I also know that some people do that in in an almost mercenary style, where they don’t really think about the audience. And so they’re not trying to create value for the audience with the podcast. So they don’t really care if anybody listens to it. It’s just about inviting Person X on the show to talk to them. And so I think that if you do that, I think that it’s better to kind of combine those and try and make sure that you’re providing value. So that’s that those are some of the things that I think about with regard to this show and the formats and, and I think that maybe mixing up the format a little bit, is a good idea. Because of that.

 

Megan Dougherty  12:05

I think you make a really good point about the interviewing, because interview shows, of course, are among the most common of all podcast types. You know, there’s a nice dynamism when you’re talking to someone else. But the difficulty exactly as you say, is if you’ve got a guest on the podcast, the instinct as a gracious host, is to shine the spotlight on them, and make them look really good. And that is totally appropriate for a business development style podcast, unless you want to be one of those mercenary people, which also strategy. Yeah, that’s if that’s your thing.  But you know, for a thought leadership and authority building type of show, you want to make sure that when you are having a conversation, and you can have conversations with experts, but it’s a conversation between experts, as much as it’s an interview of an expert by a fan. And you know, to really make sure you having that balance of you know, the amount of time each of you are talking and you know, making sure that you’re talking to people who are kind of at your professional levels, that you’re able to have that sort of sophisticated, rich and deep conversation that makes you both look like really smart experts.

 

Alastair McDermott  13:04

Yeah, I think that’s, that’s really, really important. And it can sometimes be hard, particularly if the guest is somebody who’s very high profile, who doesn’t know who you are. They’re, it’s very easy for them to go into kind of presentation mode. And, and it really does depend on the guest, I think, and I’m not going to link to any back back episodes in that comment.

 

Megan Dougherty  13:28

Well, and cutting cutting through that, that gloss and that kind of performative thing because it’s, it’s, if you present a lot on podcasts or elsewhere, you develop that that glossy presentation, and as a post who’s interviewing something like that, it feels super rude to try and break through to it feels profoundly impolite. Even though it results in much better audio, if you can do it.

 

Alastair McDermott  13:51

Yeah, I think what you’re looking for and and I think part of it is, you know, you want to give you want to give like, it’s great to have nice sound bites, if somebody can make a really cogent point, a really interesting point in 30 to 60 seconds. Like that’s a clip for social media, you know, that’s all of these great things that you can use to promote the show to promote the episode. But I think that it’s when you get people to pause, and sometimes you’ll have somebody say, Geez, that’s a great question. I have to think about that. And those are rare. And but when that happens, I think that’s when you get something that’s maybe that’s new and more valuable. So I think those are kind of, I like to get those as well. It doesn’t happen very often. But when I do get those, like I like that reaction, because it means that it’s something they probably don’t think about a lot and it’s something that’s that’s going to be interesting for the listener.

 

Megan Dougherty  14:47

Yeah, it’s like a little a little coup for you as an interviewer to write is like you were able to break through and you know, come up with something that they haven’t talked about a half a dozen times before. It’s a really nice moment. And that is kind of the vulnerability that comes through from not having something be really well prepared. It’s great listening as well. So it’s great for the listener to be able to hear that kind of rawness. Still beautifully edited in post production.

 

Alastair McDermott  15:14

Yeah. And so and by the way, speaking of which my internet connection this evening is terrible, which means I don’t have your video anymore. And through the magic of, of local side recordings, we’ll end up with good quality audio. But if it is a bit clipped in terms of reactions, that’s probably why it is. And that’s why I like to use services like this, because it just means that at least I know that we’re going to get good quality audio and video on the end.  Yeah, so one thing that I was thinking about in terms of in terms of audience building, is that a lot of people think, oh, people I’ve talked to think that, you know, I’ll just start a podcast and you know, people will start listening to it, no hard work to build an audience. It’s it’s crazy hard. And so I just wanted to talk to you about that a little bit. Because I think that it’s, I think that it’s one of those things where you know, it like it’s going to take months or years. So I just want to talk to you a bit about that. Can you can you tell me what you think and how you approach audience building?

 

Megan Dougherty  16:22

Well, I mean, the first of all, I agree with you completely. And also, I’m going to, to, I guess, tell on myself a little bit, because I’ve been, you know, my background is in audience building and online courses, and all sorts of digital online work. So I spent a lot of my time and a lot of my career telling people exactly how to do it. And then we started our own podcast. And I realized everything I’ve been telling people for years was completely correct. And I had no idea or empathy for how much it sucked. So much work, tireless work, it actually is to do. So it really is it as you say, it’s the work of yours. And it’s little by little, and it for a long time can feel very much like shouting into a void.  But the best ways to do it, you know, I mean, you’ve got your email list building as a whole thing, getting new listeners a whole thing, as you’re getting going. One of the best ways is one to one, it is by going out there and you know, connecting with people being social having conversations like this. And hoping people can take one next little action to get a little bit closer to you, whether that’s listening to an episode, or if they liked the episode, maybe listening to the next one, or finding the podcast of the person you were talking to. And making enough of a personal connection at that one to one level, especially when you’re starting out, to get them to take the next step and hopefully tell a friend, if you consistent in crossing my fingers that hopefully they will tell a friend.  And then of course, the other really big one, especially for podcasting is sharing audience with other podcasters. So most of us find new shows to listen to you by listening to the shows that we already do. And then you hear like an episode swap where they switch episodes and kind of take over the feed for a day, or interviews like this, where you’re talking about different shows that exist. I wish there was an easy way to do it. But you either earn it or you buy it, and both are gonna cost you.

 

Alastair McDermott  18:11

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I just started to get more into pitching myself to other podcasts as a guest. And it’s something that I’m going to be working much harder on to get onto other people’s podcasts, because so first off, I think there’s just a benefit in having to tell your story and having to articulate your ideas over and over again to different people, it starts to hone your thinking as well. I know we were just rude just giving out about people who are kind of kind of holding their spiel. But at the same time, I think it’s important to be able to do that for yourself, it helps to kind of, to clarify your thinking. But the huge benefit of it really is in accessing that other audience and getting in front of another audience and having them come to you. I’ve had some coaching clients come to me after hearing me or another podcast and, and so I know that that works as well. But having finding a way to guest on on other podcasts. I also think that that’s where you probably should start if you’re thinking about having your own podcast.

 

Megan Dougherty  19:19

Oh yeah.

 

Alastair McDermott  19:19

Just go guest on a couple of other podcasts just to get used to it. And just just to kind of learn learn the ropes, you know, so if you’ve any thoughts about that?

 

Megan Dougherty  19:29

Yeah, I agree on the first one, you know, well, let’s talk about you know, as a way of testing the waters of podcasting, guesting is a really good way to do it. You can see if you like the format, you can see you can learn a lot about how to run a show how to, like the whole workflow of booking a guest and then having them show up at the right time prepared to talk. And then, you know, see how what kind of assets are created in the backend, what kind of editing was done to your voice in the conversation you had? Those are really good things to learn before you, you start into your, you start your own podcast project.  And there’s there’s one thing you can sort of get a sense of as a guest. But you won’t really know until you start is do you hate it? Because there is a nonzero chance that even if you like audio and you love listening to it, creating it’s a different ballgame, maybe you won’t like it. So something I recommend to people really often is they’re getting going commit to a season first, you know, 10-12 episodes, closed season has got to beginning it’s got an end. And at the end of it, if it was working for you, if you enjoyed it, if you got some professional benefits out of it fantastic, either do another season or move to ongoing. But if you didn’t like it, you can stop without having failed or pod faded, because all you plan to do is a season. So it’s a really low risk way to test out the format, see if it’s going to benefit you. And also test out any third party service providers you want to be using. It’s a great way to kind of test out that sort of relationship as well before committing to what is essentially a professional marriage podcast editors and their clients get very close together. So date first.

 

Alastair McDermott  21:04

Yeah, yeah. Well, they certainly get to hear you at your worst and then you say it’s like the the the old Simpsons episode where the guy says to homebrew let it all hang out and says the other guy hide it all, to the tailor. So yeah, yeah, it’s a bit like that. Yeah. Yeah. So I think I think guesting is. So it like, if I was talking to coaching client about this, I would certainly say, look, let’s see about targeting a couple of podcasts that might be a good fit for you. And see, can we get you on there as a guest first. And then let’s, let’s plan your podcast after that with an eye on having some sort of credibility, authority building thought leadership aspect. And also usually, there’s, there’s some sort of audience building built into that as well. And that’s the other reason why I like interview shows, because it comes with a built in network effect. And that’s what you don’t get if you do a solo show. And I can’t even imagine if I if I had done this podcast as a solo show. First off, like I wouldn’t have probably a 10th of the listenership because it’s, you know, it’s very hard to promote it when there’s only you promoting it. And then the other thing is, it’s also really hard to do a solo show. So that’s why I think the interview show works really well.

 

Megan Dougherty  22:28

It’s a great form, I’ve been finding something similar with the business podcast blueprint show. So we alternate, or I alternate interviews with guests and solo episodes, because it kind of my two big goals for the podcasts are the content, getting the content out there and having that as the flywheel that’s kind of feeding a lot of other areas of the business. And then the relationship building, just the network effect is huge. I’ve been able to so far have conversations with lots of people that I’ve been meaning to connect with, or that I’ve wanted to connect with for ages. I’ve been following them on social, I’ve read their book. But you know, hey, will you be on my podcast is this really natural opener to a relationship and you get so many touch points in the process to make a good impression. And then so many reasons in the future to follow up again. So I think the networking and that relationship cultivation element of podcasting can’t be overstated. Especially if you’re going about it with a little intentionality. You know, and really making sure that it’s a good experience like your guests booking process, beautiful, really, really pleasant. As a guest lots of information very clear. Never had to wonder what was happening. So a plus 10 points on that. Let’s say that…

 

Alastair McDermott  23:37

Thank you.

 

Megan Dougherty  23:37

Fantastically well done.

 

Alastair McDermott  23:39

Yeah, it was something I put a lot of effort. I kind of over planned. I did the opposite of what I would suggest to people to do is I spent a lot of time in the planning. But yeah, yeah, I wanted to make it so that I set it up that at the start, and I didn’t really have to go back and do a lot of work with it after that. So so so I wrote all of the FAQ is everything right back before even launched. So I guess they weren’t really FAQ, they weren’t really frequently asked, but I don’t think there’s an FAQ page out there that actually has frequently asked questions that they’re all it’s all a misnomer.

 

Megan Dougherty  24:17

But I think I think it speaks really well to your your priority of getting to know people and treat them and having them think well of you and want to be associated with you because it’s considerate. More than anything else is making that process easy and pleasant and free of irritating questions. It’s a wonderful impression to be making.

 

Alastair McDermott  24:35

Yeah, well, I guess I was thinking I wanted to make it easy for me. I wanted to have as few questions as possible. I wanted to make it so that we would spend time if we’re if we’re talking in the pre show that you know, it’s it’s kind of getting to know each other better rather than answering lots and lots of questions about you know, how it works and all the technical stuff. So I guess that’s part of it, one wanting to prioritize that part. And yeah, just wanted to make it make it, you know, I really believe in having good systems and processes, I think they’re really important. And doubly so what when you have a podcast because if you’re trying to do this without I can’t even imagine what it will be like without a good workflow. It would be a nightmare. There’s just there’s so many moving parts. And so the whole, you know, the whole system was very important. Yeah.

 

Megan Dougherty  25:21

I saw next when we’re production agency, we we produce over 20 shows plus seasons. So I did a little back of the napkin math once and every week, it’s something like 1200, individual moving parts that all have to work, right.

 

Alastair McDermott  25:38

Yeah, that’s insane, really.

 

Megan Dougherty  25:41

So your process is important. I’m a big process.

 

Alastair McDermott  25:45

Yeah, but that also leads us into one of the business goals or outcomes, which is that you can generate a lot of content, I’m actually I’m not really capitalizing on this as much as they could be. Because the amount of content that I could create from each of these episodes is is just massive at the moment, so I’m putting it out in audio format, obviously, people are listening to that right now. And I could also put it out, as you know, as a single YouTube video, I could also take out clips of it, I could also rewrite the show notes into, you know, article format, there’s audio grams through we do create quotes. So we will clip out some quotes from you and create those square images that you can share on Instagram and things like that. So there is some of that that we do. But when it comes to video editing, or just the sheer expanse of video editing, it’s just that it’s very time consuming. And, and so clipping out a lot of those videos, it’s not something that we’ve done so far. But I think that you could create, you know, mountains of content from this.

 

Megan Dougherty  26:50

Oh, absolutely. And that’s just from the episodes, you know, as standalone episodes, and when you start thinking about bigger content projects over time, you know, the interviews that you have, you know, quotations, concepts, ideas from them, they can all be put together into your next book, you know, and then you’ve got built in promotional partners as well, don’t you because you, you have all these guests that providing insight, you’re using these insights, putting them together in a new way, say, Hey, I mentioned you prominently and attributed your great comments to source would you like a copy of my book, Good to get permission from that, from that at the outset. But you know, it can be books, it can be courses, it can be pillar content for your your website, you can go beyond audiogram, and quotations for social and create content. I’m excited about this episode, because I’m hoping to learn this. I want to get these questions answered. What questions would you like to have answered by this guest?  You know, with some planning and foresight, you can just get tons of mileage out of every episode. And then parts of episodes as well, I know, you ask the same questions at the end of every episodes have compiled over time, those can be really cool opt ins, or they can be you know, end of year gifts. There’s just so much you can do with your podcast content, when you kind of get into the habit and devote the resources to doing so because it’s not fast or cheap. Like everything else we do.

 

Alastair McDermott  28:12

Yeah. By the way, I have to give you credit. I heard Jacqueline Schiff on your your show. And she was talking to you about asking the same question and actually putting it in the intake form. And so I took that, and, and I have an interview with Jacqueline coming up. And so I’m gonna be talking to her about this stuff as well, obviously. Sorry. Yeah. So I got that idea from from her on your show. And so I do now ask that same question. Because again, that’s, that’s creating, like a research question like a database or a survey. And so I’ll be able to turn that hopefully, at some point that I’ll be able to say, look, here’s 100 experts, and authorities recognized authorities in their field, talking about what their number one tip is to build authority, and then say, hey, you know, 16 of them said it was this was their number 142 of them said this was their number one and kind of breaking it down that way. And like that could that could be an ebook. That could be a report. There’s a lot of things that that could be.

 

Megan Dougherty  29:15

Oh, yeah.

 

Alastair McDermott  29:16

So so yeah. So I think that would be I think that’s really, I think that’s a really great idea. What what excites me about this is the ability to create a lot of content for social media, when creating content for social media is hard work for a lot of people. And I think that it’s it’s something that we need to do because we need to, I hate this phrase, but we need to get it put ourselves out there or get out there. And when you have to put yourself out there what does that mean? Well, usually it means creating content and putting it up on social media. There’s no point in putting up cat videos. Like you can have a really cute

 

Megan Dougherty  29:53

…implication

 

Alastair McDermott  29:53

I I have the best cat photos videos. Well, I don’t put them up on my Instagram.

 

Megan Dougherty  30:05

No, no, you’re right, professionally, I just said, that’s very fun.

 

Alastair McDermott  30:07

Yeah. Because the thing about it is like, we’re trying to build our credibility or authority demonstrated expertise in our social media, because we want people to hire us for that expertise. And so how do we do that? Well, we have to have content for that. And we have to feed that content machine. And I think this is such a super, super way to create it, because it’s so much easier to speak and talk to people. Because we’re chatting here, we’re gonna be chatting for the best part of an hour. And it’s so much easier to get on this and talk to you for an hour than it would be for me to write, you know, a 2000 word article, but we’ll end up with the same amount of content.

 

Megan Dougherty  30:48

It’s true. And then of course, there’s, there’s, you’re completely right, and you know, devoting the time to actually doing it is so important. And then, you know, actually getting out there and posting it and getting out there. Another whole thing. What I find, personally, the most challenging about social media is going out and being social. So I wouldn’t call myself a shy person. But it’s always felt weird to me to just kind of go in and start having a conversation with a stranger in this public forum. It feels odd and unnatural, but if you can post on Twitter all day, but if you’re not engaging, and if you don’t have actual relationships with people there, no one’s gonna care. So you do have to put in that that legwork and the groundwork to kind of build the social relationships on social media. And that’s kind of it’s a whole other task on the pile.

 

Alastair McDermott  31:34

Yeah, I find that hard. Like, I’m naturally a very private person, which is kind of weird for somebody who’s, you know, people are listening to me, you know, maybe seeing my videos and see me posting lots of stuff on social media, but like, I’m naturally introverted, I’d prefer to be in my room, reading a book than then going to a party or whatever. But, you know, you just have to do it. If this if you want an expert authority business model, you kind of have to do this. So, you know, so I just tell myself, you know, I gotta suck it up and just do it, you know? So…

 

Megan Dougherty  32:09

We did we talk about the podcast social club before?

 

Alastair McDermott  32:13

I don’t think so.

 

Megan Dougherty  32:14

Okay, this was, this was something that we created at one stone creative just a couple of months ago. And specifically to solve the problem of why does it suck so much to go on to social media? Because it really is, it’s a problem. And I knew I knew I couldn’t be the only person who’d had this problem. I know that there are a lot of people out there who do it, but not because we like creating content more than we like talking about content, or talking about other, talking to other people about our content. So we just had, okay, we know the theory, we know the best practice, let’s just all do it together and try to make it fun. So we set up the podcast Social Club, which is a weekly content, Sprint, or we actually write the content exactly as you’re talking about, you know, about based on the shows where our businesses are all the other stuff going on. And then every day, we send an email saying, Okay, go on Twitter, and do this and this, then go on LinkedIn, and do this. And this and just we also the slack groups, just trying to kind of take the edge off the abject misery that is operating your Facebook page. Yeah, I love that. That’s really cool.  A lot of fun.

 

Alastair McDermott  33:17

Yeah, and having that prompt, say, hey, you know, like, I do have, I’ve got prompt set up in my, in my own internal slack for business. And it says, Hey, if you sent an email this week to the list, and hey, have you done a LinkedIn Post this week, you know, to remind me to do at least one every week.

 

Megan Dougherty  33:36

Once you’re in there, you may as well like a couple things there or send out a note to somebody, it’s, it’s helpful just to be urged a little.

 

Alastair McDermott  33:43

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I’m terrible at that. And so those prompts really help. So that sounds that sounds brilliant.

 

Megan Dougherty  33:51

I’ll send I’ll send you a,

 

Alastair McDermott  33:53

I want to shift gears for a second, I want to ask you about something, something else, you do a state of business podcasting report or kind of research. Can you tell me why you do that and what value that’s been for you?

 

Megan Dougherty  34:06

I’m so glad you asked. We produce business and company podcasts. We’ve been doing it since 2017. And that means a lot of times we’ll be talking to our clients or potential clients, and they say, oh, what’s the best way to do this? Or, you know, what’s, what’s industry practice for this? Or what are the other business shows doing for ABC XYZ. And I usually have like a pretty good guess just from being a part of the industry and paying attention to what is going on. But I didn’t actually have any hard data on best practices or what people were doing. And then the other side is that I made giant nerd. So when the opportunity kind of came, hey, we can actually create this data, we can actually get answers to give people when they’re asking us these questions, like based on real information and what’s going on in the industry. That seems like a really good opportunity and a really smart thing to do.  So we just pulled a list of the top 100 shows categorized as business, which is not the most perfect way in the world to find business or company podcasts but good enough for for science, as they say. And then we just started figuring out what are the kinds of questions people ask us about, let’s find what these top 100 shows are doing about them. So then we just basically counted, made our notes and created the state of business podcasting report out of it, and we did have done it twice now.  It’s been really, really interesting. Just having answers for questions based on something real and measurable has been so valuable. It is definitely increased, you know, how confident I feel giving people information, because I’ve got data to back it up. And I think it’s increased, improved our stature as well, because you know, we are conducting this original research, putting it out there for people to read. And it’s kind of setting benchmarks for the industry, which are really hard to come by. For business podcasts in particular, there’s lots of general podcast stats, but you know, usable, actionable information about hey, you know, what colors are the most popular? What days of the week are the most popular? How long should my episode be? We can now say, Okay, well, industry kind of standard is this. Now let’s talk about how that might work for your business. It’s been super useful.

 

Alastair McDermott  36:12

Yeah, and that’s something that Hinge Marketing talk a lot about, about using the value research. And I hope to get somebody from Hinge on the show at some point, Lee Frederickson or somebody like that, they talk a lot about, you know, the value of using research to position yourself as, as an authority and as a thought leader. And I think that they, they recommend, and I hope I’m, I hope I’m getting this right, but that they recommend serving your clients on an annual basis, as a way of doing that, and and the research that the research is also business development there as well. So again, this is this dual purpose idea, I think, is really great. But one thing I noticed from doing research is the amount of data that I gathered it, like I have a spreadsheet from the surveys that I did, I surveyed over 1000 consultants, and the data that I have from that, like it’s just a mountain of data, and I could turn that into 1000 blog posts, or, you know, probably four books at this point. You just get so much information and so many insights. And it’s really useful. And that’s apart from, you know, actually publishing it like report and using as a lead generation tool like you’re doing, which I think is great as well. So I think it’s really great. And I loved it. I love that you’re a data nerd. And that you’re that you’re collecting this kind of data and that you’re analyzing, I think I think it’s really smart. That’s good.

 

Megan Dougherty  37:45

Well, we’re definitely going to keep doing it. But I mean, I’m not a data scientist by trade. So there’s I mean, so far, at least every year, I’ve cried during the process once because it sounds it sounds easy on the tin, right to just go out and count these 75 variables for these 100 different podcasts. It’s that easy.

 

Alastair McDermott  38:02

Yeah, sounds really easy.

 

Megan Dougherty  38:04

No, it sounds simple, I guess. But it is worth it. And I’ve been finding it really hard to outsource or get help with it. Because a lot of it is qualitative a judgment call needs to be made. And it’s really hard to get help doing that.

 

Alastair McDermott  38:19

Yeah, and I 100% agree with that. And I was lucky, I was working with a business coach Philip Morgan. And he helped me with the research that I was doing and given me some guidance. And that really helped having having that guidance from somebody who don’t before. So yeah, it’s it’s not something that you kind of like, you know, you watch for YouTube videos, or you buy a book and you read that and you know how to do it, you kind of have to adapt as you go with it, I think.

 

Megan Dougherty  38:47

I think that I expect it to get easier every time like the first year was really, really challenging a second year, challenging for different reasons, we made a great choice to expand it by almost 50%. And look at that many more data points just based on what people were interested in asking us. I expect this year’s to be easier now. You know, we’ve got much better workflows for it, we’ve got a much better process for data collection. And then we are now fully kind of resigned to the fact that we’re gonna have to listen to a lot of crypto talk.

 

Alastair McDermott  39:15

Oh, geez. Yeah, that’s something. I’m not really into that.

 

Megan Dougherty  39:21

It’s interesting. I find it fascinating. But there’s a whole kind of personality that goes around with a lot of the crypto podcasts that are tagged business, and I’m not a huge fan of that.

 

Alastair McDermott  39:31

Yeah, well, you know, if you check in any of the live audio spaces, like Twitter spaces or clubhouse or any of those, it’s very hard to kind of sift through all the NFT channels and get to anything that’s actually not about crypto and NFT. So, yeah, that’s not that I have enough time for live audio because it’s it’s a synchronous channel, which makes it more difficult. But anyway, that’s a whole different that’s a whole different story. I want to ask you one last thing on the kind of the podcasting stuff. I know that one of the questions that you ask in your research is, should you be putting your episodes on YouTube? And so we want to I want to just talk to you about that like, like, should I be taking my, my entire episode that we like the conversation we’ve just had? And should I just upload on Youtube straight? And like is, is there an audience for that either on YouTube or just YouTube just hate that, because it’s kind of this long form content with just talking heads?

 

Megan Dougherty  40:28

No, this is you brought up. This is one of the most interesting pieces of data from the first year that we did the report, this was the piece that that surprised me of all of them the most. And it made me so angry, it made me so angry to learn this. You should absolutely be putting your episodes on YouTube 100% They should be there. Whether or not you want to do the you know, the live action video, I’d actually say unless you’re really going to invest in good polished editing, make an mp4 of just, you know, your podcasts, art, or some great clips, maybe some B roll and the wave like two Talking Heads talking at each other. Not the most interesting viewing of all time.  But you know, in some format, by the data, yes, your podcast should be on YouTube. A shocking number of people listen to podcasts on YouTube. They just put the videos on plays in the background. They listen to it while they’re going about their day. And my business partner had been telling me that for years, that’s how people are using it, but I did not want to believe it. Because kind of like just the nature of video and the nature of audio, as consumable products are so different. I thought there’s no way that it makes sense for YouTube to be used in this way as a podcast delivery format. But then we did the math, and the math said I was wrong. Yes, you should absolutely be putting your episodes on YouTube, according to data.

 

Alastair McDermott  41:49

According to data, okay, right. Like I can I can take that. Yeah. And I guess, you know, given that I need to look at what’s the best way to do that. Because the, the original live video is going to be different from the final edited work. And then you’ve got to, you’ve got to say, well, then, you know, I know what some people do is they they edit the video, and the audio at the same time. But then you’ve got to have a video editor rather than an audio editor. And the whole thing gets a lot more complex and more expensive.

 

Megan Dougherty  42:20

So take take your finished audio, and turn that into the best, most interesting video that you can maybe interspersed with real video clips, I think one of the biggest benefits of getting your stuff onto YouTube, even if it’s not a platform that you’re really cultivating right now is just building up your library of content. Just being there, having the channel history is really valuable. So you can experiment with different ways to you know, create the video as painlessly as possible. Whether you do decide to take kind of the the raw, unedited version, and make that on YouTube or you know, your your polished finished product. But maybe without kind of the dynamic live action videos, it is going to be on a still image, or an audio chrome style website. There’s there’s options. But I think it is it is best practice to be putting them up on YouTube.

 

Alastair McDermott  43:07

Okay, that’s, that’s a change I’m going to implement. It’s certainly not going to happen overnight. But I think at some point in the next few months, I’m gonna start doing that.

 

Megan Dougherty  43:16

Yeah.

 

Alastair McDermott  43:16

So thank you for that.

 

Megan Dougherty  43:18

I’m sorry. And you’re welcome.

 

Alastair McDermott  43:22

Yeah, okay. Okay. So I need to start wrap up, because we’re going to run out of time. So, you know, I was going to ask you this, what is the number one tip that you would give somebody who wants to build her authority?

 

Megan Dougherty  43:37

Number one tip is probably to, you know, within the work that you do, within your area of expertise, come up with a framework or a model that you can use and repeat. So for us, it’s it’s the business podcast blueprints, those four archetypes that we talked about that is repeatable, we can share it, we can create all sorts of content on it, we can use it really deeply within the business. And it is something that, you know, hopefully over time, people will associate with us and refer back to it. So I think that kind of model other examples, like the PESO model by spin sucks, and Gini Dietrich really great example of that. But anything that you can become known for have having created that is then going to be really useful for others. I think it’s one of the best things you can do.

 

Alastair McDermott  44:12

Yeah, and I wholeheartedly agree with this. And it’s something I’m working on myself. I have a model called the authority maturity model. And it has come from the research that I did, and, and so that’s got a small scale research. So this isn’t like there are different ways to approach this. I think a really smart way is to not do what I did, which was to serve 1000 people because that’s really hard to do. But it’s much easier to do stuff like interview 40 people for 20 minutes each. And hey, you know, you can also turn that into a podcast

 

Megan Dougherty  44:49

Efficiencies.

 

Alastair McDermott  44:51

Yeah. Which is probably what I should have done, but hey, it’s, there’s there’s my mistake, as learning for you now.

 

Megan Dougherty  45:00

No, it was great. It was similar with the The Business Podcast Blueprint because they developed really organically over five years of producing this kind of podcast. And then we were able to apply them to the original research that we did. So now when we do the research, we figure out the top 100. How many are thought leadership? How many are audience engagement? It’s been super useful.

 

Alastair McDermott  45:18

Yeah, yeah, that’s brilliant. Yeah, so I agree with you having your framework your model, really, really, like, for me, what that gives me is that, excuse me the outline of a book. And it gives me something to it gives me the outline for a coaching program. And, you know, there’s so many different ways that you can use that then as well.

 

Megan Dougherty  45:40

And you know, how you think you know, how you can populate that coaching program and that book, all the solo episodes you were just talking about doing?

 

Alastair McDermott  45:47

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So I do have an accompanying podcast to this, by the way, called The Specialization Podcast, which is a it’s an evergreen audio course, which is eight solo episodes, and a couple of case studies now that I’m adding to it. But that’s a standalone evergreen podcast series that I put out there.

 

Megan Dougherty  46:13

Such a good idea.

 

Alastair McDermott  46:13

Which is, it’s kind of in the same vein, and maybe I should use those episodes over here as well on this podcast, but I didn’t, at the time I created I wanted to, I wanted to have a show called The Specialization Podcast, I just wanted to take that name. And, and have that idea, because I didn’t have time to write a book about specialization, but I knew that I could create a podcast pretty quickly. And so that’s why I created that, to have something there too, that I could send people to as a resource. And also to have the credibility of that, you know, saying, if I’m being introduced, say it and saying that I’m the host of The Specialisation Podcast. And, you know, I think that all of those things, you know, when you’re being introduced as a speaker or on a podcast, things like that, all of those things can go into your credibility, you know, and, and people. So I think that, that, that, that kind of contributes to that make up that that body of work, you know,

 

Megan Dougherty  47:07

For sure.

 

Alastair McDermott  47:07

So I think that’s important. Okay, a business mistake or failure that you’ve experienced? Can you… Is there anything you can tell us about what you learned from it?

 

Megan Dougherty  47:15

Oh, there is. So I think you’ll you’ll, you’ll particularly get a get a bit of a kick out of this one. I think it’s a mistake I made last year, around the time when we were about to release the The State of Business, podcasting 2021. So we had to set it up, we were already there, we had gotten all the research ready, we were gonna do a big contest, live lined up prizes invested in that, tried as much as possible to promote it as widely as possible. And basically, we kind of kind of got some crickets out of it nowhere near the impact we were hoping to have in terms of list growth. And just like the people who were into it really into it, it was it was valuable. But we were I was kind of baffled, like, why is like, this is so good. We’re so smart. Why is no one paying attention to us?  Because I was really over the years have been used to being treated as an authority, you know, as someone who’s hired to help produce podcasts before that someone who is coaching on how to build audiences or online courses. And so I was really used to people assuming that I would know what I was talking about and have the authority and the credibility and the knowledge to fulfill on that. And with this new project with our with One Stone Creative, all the work we’ve been doing has been internal. Our clients think we’re pretty smart, but no one else has any reason to do so.  So we were acting and making all of these plans and doing all of these projects, as if we had the public authority that we had privately. And I wish I could say it come to this realization myself. But I didn’t, it took a very kind and loving friend to tell me that I was being a complete moron. You know, you’re acting like you’ve put in all of this audience building and content creating work for years when you haven’t slept? Well. That’s true, isn’t it? So that was when we started making more plans to Okay, no, let’s let’s proactively make more content and get out there more. So that that was the big mistake. And the kind of the moment of realization was oh, no, we’re, we’re acting like other people have a reason to think we’re as smart as we think we are.

 

Alastair McDermott  49:13

Yeah, I love that. And so what did proactively putting content that content out there look like? You know, was it just getting more active on social media? creating more content and putting it out there? Or what else? What what do you do a

 

Megan Dougherty  49:25

little bit of a little bit about me? So the first little while was just kind of licking our wounds. Over over that it was it felt a little embarrassing to have made that kind of mistake. I didn’t feel super great about it. But then as soon as the new year started, because it’s all happened in October the last quarter. We’re like, okay, no, it’s we actually need to have a podcast. We’ve got to do it. And I’ve got to apply to speak at the industry conferences now that travels back on the table, and we’ve got to make a plan to actually get out there and be on social media more. So it has it’s been, you know, a slow roll over the course of the year but it’s actually been kind of fun, sort of in doing it now that we’re doing it again, I’ve, I’m a behind the scenes person by nature. But getting out there more it’s been stretchy goals wise, but But it’s been it’s been good too. So hopefully in a few more years, other people will have reason to think that we are as smart as we think we are.

 

Alastair McDermott  50:17

All right. That’s it. That’s it. Thank you. And thanks for sharing.

 

Megan Dougherty  50:21

My pleasure.

 

Alastair McDermott  50:22

Okay, is there a business book or resource that’s been very important for you or that you recommend people to check out?

 

Megan Dougherty  50:28

Yes. I have been super, super enjoying the book “Free Time” by Jenny Blake. And full disclosure, we do produce her podcast, but I would recommend it anyway. Because the book is really really good for especially small teams. solopreneurs smaller businesses. Just great advice on how to systematize automate, make process for things like extremely actionable information. I love free time.

 

Alastair McDermott  50:53

Oh, yeah, me too. Okay, yeah, that’s a good I gotta check that out.

 

Megan Dougherty  50:57

Oh, yeah. I can’t recommend it strongly enough.

 

Alastair McDermott  51:00

Do you read fiction, then? You go from recommend fiction.

 

Megan Dougherty  51:03

I love reading fiction. And I think I like reading all sorts of fiction, lots of different kinds. But especially when when life is busy, when there’s a lot going on when things are stressful as you know, some of the last years have been I like I like stuff that’s a little easier on the brain. And not maybe the the more cerebral fiction. I’ve been super loving Ken Follett over the last couple of years. And he does sweeping historical epics and great war stories and spy novels. But what I really have been appreciating most about that is kind of the brain soothing pattern of bad things happen to good people, because of bad people. And then bad things happen to the bad people and the good people are happy. It’s just this really satisfying, lovely narrative arc, often in really interesting historical or sweepingly epic backdrops. So I recommend Ken Follett, if you would like to see the just rewarded and the evil punished. In literature.

 

Alastair McDermott  51:57

Excellent. Excellent. I love it. Thanks. Thanks for sharing those. Okay, so where can people check you out? If they want to go and learn more people can

 

Megan Dougherty  52:08

find most information they will need about us on our main hub, onestonecreative.net That’s o-n-e stone, creative dot net. They can find The Business Podcast Blueprint pretty much anywhere that you like to listen to podcasts. And we are on social media on some variation of OSC and podcasting.

 

Alastair McDermott  52:26

Very cool. Okay. And I will link to everything in the show notes.

 

Megan Dougherty  52:29

Marvelous.

 

Alastair McDermott  52:30

So, Megan, thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure to chat. And I think people will will know that. We go back a long way. And I think they can probably tell by by listening to us, but it’s been a real pleasure. I hope to get you back on the show again, at some point as well.

 

Megan Dougherty  52:43

I would like that as well. Thank you so much. And I look forward to doing this again as well and who knows what else we can get to maybe collaborative research projects sometime in the future.

 

Alastair McDermott  52:52

Thank you. Thanks for listening. Make sure you hit subscribe if you haven’t already. And if you’re a regular listener, I’d love to connect with you on LinkedIn. Please send me a connection request. My LinkedIn profile is linked in the show notes and it is simply my name.

 

Voiceover  53:10

Thanks for listening to The Recognized Authority with Alastair McDermott. Subscribe today, and don’t miss an episode. Find out more at TheRecognizedAuthority.com