Most B2B podcasts fail for one simple reason. They’re built around topics nobody is looking for, instead of the real moment a buyer realises something in their business is breaking.

In this episode, I break down why your “marketing”, “leadership”, or “productivity” episodes are getting skipped, and what to do instead.

We’ll get into:

• How to spot actual content you should be publishing, using your sales calls

• Why “topics” make your show sound like a 2014 panel discussion

• The shift from brand awareness to belief-building

• Simple ways to turn your podcast into a pipeline machine, not a weekly chore

If you want episodes your ideal clients recognise themselves in, this is the one to listen to.

Want me to help you with all this? https://podknows.co.uk/audit

Just want free insights sent directly to your inbox each week? https://podknows.co.uk/email/

So let me tell you about something that most business podcasts

get completely wrong. They build episodes

around Topics. Welcome to B2B Podcasting

Insights with Neil Velio, founder of Podnos, a

podcast agency helping you get better results from podcasting.

Marketing, leadership, culture,

productivity. No one's out there googling

productivity, hoping that they're gonna find your take on it. If

you want your show to drive business and not just tick off boxes

on your content calendar, well, you gotta build around buying

triggers, not topics. Let's talk about that.

So, first of all, what is a buying trigger then? Well, it's that exact moment

your potential client, and in this particular case,

listener, realizes something is off,

their old system is not working, and they've come to you

to listen to your podcast to figure out why

that is. Their own audience has completely stopped

engaging. Maybe their sales team is ghosting their own

pipeline. That's where your show should live.

Think about it like this. Your ideal client doesn't wake up thinking, do you

know what? I'd love to learn more about marketing funnels today.

No, they don't. Contrary to what thousands of

podcasts would have you believe, they wake up thinking,

why did our last campaign tank even though the product is

good? That frustration we've identified there,

tanking marketing funnels despite good product,

that is a buying trigger. It's the start of their buying

journey, and it's exactly what your B2B podcast

needs to speak to. Let me give you a short example that might be

relevant to your own situation. If you help

founders fix their sales messaging, don't do an

episode called how to Write Better Copy. Everyone is

doing that. What you need to do is. An episode that speaks to a

buying trigger may be called what to do. When prospects

keep saying, thanks for the. Information, we'll think about it carefully and

get back to you very soon. Okay, we appreciate your time and

effort. Same topic, different angle, but one

gets skipped and one gets a play click.

Potentially gets you followed. Even

more potentially gets them on your email newsletter list,

and ideally gets them on the end of a zoom call or

teams meeting.

This is why most podcasts miss this. Most

B2B podcasts sound like panel discussions

from 2014, because people build them around

what they want to talk about, not what their ideal

buyer is feeling in the moment. Right

before they decide they need you, they're thinking

top of funnel brand awareness. But the thing

is, podcasts aren't there really for

building brand awareness. They're there for building

belief. They're there to be you

in the room with them before you can physically

get in the room with them. Look, if you want brand

awareness, go make some TikToks, go pop some

reels on Instagram, just shove some

slop on LinkedIn. If you want trust,

go make a podcast. So just how do you find your

buying triggers then? Well, I'm glad you asked.

Here's an exercise for you to carry out which will absolutely help

you with this. First of all, listen back to your sales

calls, read the transcripts, put them in

ChatGPT and have a conversation with your GPT

about your sales calls. Try and figure out the

exact moment that a prospect says, yeah,

that's our issue. That's the moment you know you

have a successful buying trigger. So ask

your best clients what was going wrong right

before they decided to pull the trigger and work with you.

Maybe scroll through your DMs and your inboxes. Look at those

questions people ask you repeatedly. They're absolute gold.

Great ideas for podcast episodes. In fact,

use the exact questions as your episode titles.

At this point, when you've got this working correctly,

you're not creating content anymore. You are answering

buying stage pain points out loud.

You're addressing buying triggers.

Let's have another crack at what this might sound like in practice.

Say you're a B2B SaaS company. Instead of

the future of Martech, try

what happens when your CRM stops closing deals.

Instead of AI and creativity, do

the moment you realized automation just made your

brand sound robotic. Each of those triggers

a specific business pain that somebody is already in,

and that's what gets your episode shared internally

within teams, helping you close the

sale. Get to the decision maker. Activate

complete buy in. Forget the topics list.

Stop trying so hard to sound smart. Yes,

we know you know the thing that you talk about. You should.

It's your thing. Stop trying to outsmart

everybody else in your industry and instead

try to sound relevant. Answer the questions

they're not answering because they're too busy focusing on building their

personal brands. They want to be seen as the go

to thought leader on the topic in the industry.

Every episode you put out, you're aiming to have

the listener say in their own brain, yeah, they're

talking about me right now. And that's the moment a podcast

stops being content and starts becoming

a buying accelerant. If you want to know whether your

show is built around buying triggers or is just putting content

out, or maybe just sticking around comfortable

topics that are easy for you to get out there,

let's let you what I do and the link to my training

is in the episode description. I hope you found this

particularly useful, and maybe it's activated one of your buying

triggers, in which case, make sure you click that link in the

description. If you did find it useful, feel free to share it with a

colleague or peer in the industry, or any industry that you think

might get something from the episode. Make sure you're following the podcast in your

favorite podcasting app, and I will speak to you on the next episode of

B2B podcasting insights. Until then, best of luck

continuing your podcasting journey.