Are you tired of vague podcast “growth hacks” and ready to get down to brass tacks on ROI, client retention, and results you can actually measure? “If you’re a business podcaster, thought leader, or agency, this episode just might change the way you think about podcast growth forever!”

In episode 49 of the PodcastingTech Show, host Mathew Passy sits down with David (Ledge) Ledgerwood, cofounder and revenue lead at Listen Network, for a deep dive into growing your Podcast audience through hyper-targeted marketing. David breaks down how treating your podcast like a business startup can be the secret to unlocking consistent growth and ROI—even if you’re working in a super-niche B2B space.

David and Mathew also discuss the future of podcasting tech—from fixing conversion paths to rethinking open RSS and integrating video, and the real reason most branded podcasts get canceled, and why “downloads don’t matter”—except when they do). David reveals how Listen Network’s audience intelligence technology helps podcasts grow with precise targeting and transparent reporting, especially for B2B shows.

David Ledgerwood brings over two decades of entrepreneurial and podcasting experience, specializing in revenue generation, business development, and audience targeting. As the founder of Listen Network, he’s on a mission to help podcasters and agencies leverage data-driven strategies to grow audiences, retain clients, and show real results from their podcasting efforts.

IN THIS EPISODE, WE COVER:

• Why account-based marketing (ABM) podcasting is still the #1 strategy for B2B shows—and how to make it work even with a long sales cycle. (00:04:33) 
• How Listen Network uses paid media and targeting to drive downloads from your exact ICP (ideal customer profile) (00:08:15) 
• Why most podcasters fail to treat their show like a business—and what to do instead if you want results and funding. (00:11:09) 
• The realities of paid podcast promotion: how to think about spikes, retention, and what really matters for ROI. (00:16:03) 
• The #1 thing holding most podcasts back when they come to Listen Network—and how to fix it before you spend a dollar on growth. (00:22:35) 
• What tech and workflow improvements could change podcasting—and why conversion and audience engagement are at the heart of future innovation. (00:26:17) 

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

• Listen Network: https://listennetwork.co
• Connect with David Ledgerwood (“Ledge”) on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidledgerwood/
• Recommended podcast: Ramit Sethi’s “Money for Couples” – learn more at https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/podcast/
• Previous episodes of Podcasting Tech: [ podcstingtech.com/48 ]
• Mentioned tech: Elgato Stream Deck, - https://amzn.to/3U3J3rk 

                          Elgato teleprompter - https://amzn.to/3Tz0Qoh 

                          Logitech BRIO - https://amzn.to/49iJ7qQ 

                          Apple Continuity Cam

• Podcast 2.0: https://podcastindex.org/
• Useful software: Riverside.fm - http://www.riverside.fm/?via=mathew

Ready to take your podcast from “nice hobby” to “real business asset”? This episode is your playbook. Listen, share, and let us know what you’re building!

**As an Amazon Associate, we may earn commissions from qualifying purchases of podcasting gear from Amazon.com. We also participate in affiliate programs with many of the software services mentioned on our website. If you purchase something through the links we provide, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The team at Podcasting Tech only recommends products and services that we would use ourselves and that we believe will provide value to our viewers and readers.**

For additional resources and insights visit podcastingtech.com or follow us on social media:

• Instagram: @mathewpassy
• LinkedIn - /mathewpassy
• Threads: @mathewpassy
• Twitter/X: @mathewpassy
• Facebook - /podcastingtech, /mathewpassy

PODCASTING TECH IS POWERED BY:

• Captivate - Easy, professional podcast hosting to create, grow and make money from your podcasts
• Podpage - Build a beautiful podcast website in 5 minutes
• Riverside.fm - Record Podcasts And Videos From Anywhere
• Castmagic - 10x Audio Content With AI
• Podmatch - Matching Hosts and Guest for Podcast Interviews
• Hostinger for Website
• Podgagement - Engage your audience and grow your podcast!

EQUIPMENT IN USE:

• Rodecaster Pro 1st Gen (No longer available). Consider the Rodecaster Duo or Rodecaster Pro II
• EV RE20 with 309a Shockmount 
• Rode PSA1+
• iPhone continuity camera but previously the Logitech Brio 4k
• DCMEKA In-Ear Monitors
• BusyBox Smart Sign  

Let's talk about our favorite topic here, and that is growing

your podcast. But we're gonna look at it from a very different angle than

we have before on the show. To do that, we are chatting with Lej. He

is the cofounder and revenue lead at Listen Network.

You can find out more about them at listennetwork.co.

Ledge, thank you for being here today. Matthew, it's good to be here.

I enjoy your content, so I I am absolutely thrilled to be

in the club. I appreciate that, and your check is in the

mail for that comment. So you are you have a

very interesting background. You've you've actually had a ton of success already in

podcasting even before, you know, this Listen Network venture. Tell me a

little bit about how you, you know, fell into

podcasting and how you got from starting there to

where you are today. Yeah. I am a sales guy,

entrepreneur, sort of polyglot. And, you know, I

the interesting thing is that when you start companies, and this is, you know,

twenty years ago, I started getting into it. And everybody wants to be a, you

know, practitioner, but nobody wanted to do anything and sell. So

I, said, well, I guess I should learn how to sell things. And I started

doing that, and I became good at the sales side and actually enjoyed it. So,

at one particular adventure, I was trying to sell something that was

essentially 10 times as much as people were buying it for, you

know, at that point, and it was a premium product or service.

And I said, no one's gonna take my outbound.

They're not going to want to in any way engage with me. But

what if I just say, hey. You wanna be on my podcast?

I I talk to experts like you. And so, you know, other people

were were doing that at the time. I didn't know what that was. I thought

I was unique and and special. It was about 02/2017. So

I cannot say in any way that I pioneered ABM podcasting, but I can

say that I, came to that realization at the same time maybe

as others. And I I ended up it worked, and we ended up

doing millions of dollars of revenue with just the guests and kept

running that playbook, you know, ever ever since. And then I got into selling

actual podcast agency services for particularly in b

two b. And from that adventure,

I became fascinated with this problem where, you know, shows would

start and people would wanna test them, or let's see if this works.

Or how do you know if a podcast works? And this is like a very

nuanced thing. And they would come back ultimately after,

you know, their q one or q two budget meeting, and they would say, yeah.

My boss canceled it because they don't see the ROI. I'm like, well, that's

interesting and weird, and I wanna solve that problem

because, turns out, you know, we

as a agency, you know, industry,

I guess, we're we tell clients a lot, like, oh, hey. You

know, downloads don't matter, and let's

go and you know, it's all about the audience and making sure you're

telling the story, and let's do, you know, episode

retention, and let's do, you know, consumption rate. And then,

like, I agree with all those things, except

I know this in sales, and I I hope that other people can learn this,

that if you go into a budget meeting and try to train people in, like,

the five minutes that you get to speak your

special, nichey language and then give you money, it's

never gonna work. So maybe downloads don't matter, you

know, in the grand picture, but you damn well better be able to tell the

story of how that number went up and exactly who those people

are. That's what gets you funding and runway so that

your show doesn't get canceled, you don't get fired, and your agency doesn't lose a

client. It's always nice for an agency to retain

their clients. I wanna go back real quickly to this idea of,

account based marketing or the idea where, you know, instead of

trying to cold call people, you were inviting them on your podcast to build

leads. This was something that I've I've talked about famously on the show, and many

times I've had plenty of clients who started podcast with that exact

intention, that that audience of one, the, you know, opening

up warm relationships with people through podcast interactions.

And I still it it is for businesses, especially,

probably one of the most successful returns on investment for a

podcast even more so than advertising because, you

know, when you grow your network, you grow your your opportunity set.

Is Is that still something that you would advocate for for podcast today? Oh,

yeah. Absolutely. Particularly, so certain times types of businesses. Right? You

know, I think for service providers, that's fantastic. Like, if it if this

is about I need to be liked and trusted, then

that that format is great. Now you could argue that that's true for any,

you know, large brand or anything like that. But, my typical cutoff

point was when, like, if people would say, oh, it's all about brand awareness or

it would be you know, it's like we wanna develop thought leadership content and blah

blah blah. You know, the usual things that that people would say. Like, if you're

not doing over a billion dollars in revenue, I suggest you go with this other

strategy where it's just like, look, I agree we should do all those things,

but thought leadership accrues from the people who are willing to talk to you and

sit down. So why don't we start there and make a list of

the top hundred companies that your sales team wants to do business

with and take it like an ABM strategy? And

let's get you talking to those people and then promote

them. So, I mean, for the rest of time, I could post on LinkedIn

about how smart Matthew is and post clips of

you. And, eventually, you wanna do

business and you know, in the area, and you remember that I

exist, and this would happen years later. If you had a long sales cycle,

it was the greatest way to get out of not having to send those quarterly.

Hey, man. You know, what's going on? Just checking in. Wondered if

you wanted to talk about this thing we do. Like, it's so

but what if I could just go and, you know, just sort of regularly give

you a touch point and it was all about you? So there was

a a value reciprocity, you know, to that, and and it

worked, you know, over and over and over again. I would absolutely recommend that people

do this. You just need to be in this channel. It's

like, do a podcast, like, period. Like, just like you have a blog. Like, you

must do this. Well and truth is it doesn't

always have to be just a podcast. Right? It's just content. Right? It could

just be on YouTube. It could just be, you know, a live

x, you know, stream or something like that. But, right, the idea is

get out there, make relationships, connect with people, chat with people,

repurpose all that material. Right? Keep talking about keep getting your

name on their radar so that they are gonna

remember you and think about you. And when, you know, they're ready for that business,

they're gonna think, oh, let me go check out my buddy ledge and see what

I remember that guy and he, oh, he says smart things about me and, you

know, we share stuff and yeah. And then you gotta, you know, work the work

the DMs, like, actually chat with people. Like, I just it's gotten to the

point now on on LinkedIn in particular where you have to reach out and go,

I promise I'm not gonna pitch you. I actually just wanna be

interested and talk to you. So Hart,

I I wish I was getting more of those DMs on LinkedIn than the ones

I am currently getting, which are usually, hey. I see you're a business owner. Time

to look at your four zero one k. Right. Right. Yeah. Or, I mean, you

know, if you're in podcast growth, I mean, forget about it. Like, how many times

does somebody slide into your DMs? Like, I am a podcast growth specialist.

I'll run you up the chart. And I'm just like, I'm not that

guy, you know. But, potentially, I could help you, but I also just

think you're interesting and I wanna chat. So Yeah. By the way, when that person

slides into your DMs, red flag right away. Block, ignore, and and

move. Right. I know. And that happens to me where I'm like, no. No. No.

No. Really. Like, I actually know about this, and and and I'm not gonna sell

that thing to you. You know? So So let's let's talk about that. So

now you're, you know, founding partner here at Listen Network.

And so you guys are doing, like, targeting, and

extreme audience intelligence. How does Listen Network help

podcasters? What is sort of, like, you know, call it the

the, you know, cheesy elevator pitch, you know, story

here? Absolutely. So the thesis

the thesis statement that I am using is like, look,

you need runway. Someone needs to pay for this show. This is either a very

expensive hobby out of your pocket, there's an underwriter or a

sponsor, or there's a company that's paying for it. And

when you want somebody's money, you speak the language of that

person to get that money. So if you're pitching this

thing and someone needs to give you money, I guarantee you, whether we

like it or not in the industry, they are gonna say, how many downloads do

you have? And then they're gonna say,

well, okay, who are those downloads? Because even if you have a large number, you

could just buy a bunch of downloads, just like you used to buy Twitter followers.

I did this years ago and it was like, I still have 6,000 Twitter followers.

I haven't logged into the thing in like two years. So whoever these

people are, they're not real. And you could do that with

downloads too. You can fake it. But what if you didn't fake it? And

you were able to use the power of paid media to get in front of

exactly the target audience that you want to be aware of your show,

and we can link that directly to downloads. Like that's

that's what Listen Network does. So super niche y stuff. I

don't know. It's like we had one client who's like, we

do digital twinning software for manufacturing

entities that are in the engineering space of aerospace

companies. So I only want downloads and I only wanna pay to get

downloads from mid level engineering job titles at aerospace companies.

You can't do that in a normal context, but we built the

thing where you can do that. So now we can say, I only want HR

professionals who work in hiring and talent

management at SaaS companies that are in

the retail space. Like, we can do stuff like that, and we can say,

you got 500 downloads on that episode from exactly that audience.

We know it. Oh, and by the way, you got

20,000 impressions right in front of your target audience to get there,

And here's a report that shows it. Yeah. I mean, beyond just the downloads, that

brand recognition. Right? Just having that podcast artwork or, you know,

the host face in front of people, is also super powerful,

for many, many reasons. I I love the way you were describing that that, you

know, niche. It almost sounds like that line in Spaceballs. Right? Like,

you know, four I'm surrounded by asshole. Cousins, roommate. Right.

Right. Whatever the line is, which makes us what? Absolutely

nothing. So part of your

your thinking and part of your strategy is that you really

think of podcast more like a startup than as

a content venture. Where did that thought process

come from, and how do other podcasters

approach things that way? Like, what what do they have to do differently from what

you commonly see from your past clients and from people coming over to

Listen Network? Yeah. I think that, I like to

say, you know, I think a startup is or rather,

a podcast is a media startup dressed up as content.

And it has a product side,

and it has a promotion side. And if we were to start a

business at any point, if you ever been an entrepreneur, you know, sought

funding, done a thing, whatever, like it would be ludicrous

to go out and say, let's spend all our money and all our time and

energy building a product, and then let's not tell anyone about it.

Right? Or let's just post on social and magic

things will happen. Like, that doesn't happen. Yet

we do this in podcasting all the time. We're all like, oh, it's a places

too. Yeah. Right. Right. And it's wrong for any business. But,

you know, we do owned media. Yay. We have a we have a podcast.

That's the same thing as going, yay. We have a business. Okay. We didn't tell

anybody about it. Oh, let's post on social. That's shared. Fine. Awesome. Well,

it's cool. Maybe we'll get PR. That's earned. Well, okay. You

mispaid, and we should drive traffic

from day one to that thing who's exactly your target

market ICP. If you don't do that, you're

just relying on the long tail organic that you probably don't have the

infrastructure to build because you're gonna post on LinkedIn. It's like, yay.

I got seven impressions. Like like, this isn't a thing.

And why do we teach people that that's okay?

That that's a hobby that you're gonna make nothing on, and you

will never show ROI except, like, two years later?

When are you gonna go into a meeting with somebody and go, like, yeah. I

need you to pay for this thing that's gonna get, like, near zero

impact on my pipeline or in any way benefit my business.

But I'd like your money because in two years, it'll work. I mean, it's just

like, that's not gonna work in a place where people can spend their money on

other things that work faster. Yeah. And that are that are

easier to track and and have Yeah. Right. Like this is a performance

marketing world. Like budgets get spent on like

results. Now whether we can quibble all day long, like

downloads, same as impressions. Fine. I get it. Like, that doesn't

actually mean anything, but people who spend money think it does.

So So if I'm a podcaster,

right, again, this isn't for every podcast out there. Right? You're not

you know, if you're the like, I think I said in an episode recently. Right?

If you and your buddy are in your garage talking about Star Wars and

sports and and whatever, probably not gonna help you find your

audience. But, you know, let's say you are a business. You are a

brand. You are a thought leader. Right? You are someone who's trying

to engage a b to b,

model. You know? What is that like then to come and work with Listen

Network? Sure. What I would say, you can target any

audience. The question is, is that cost effective? Like, if you want a bunch of

Star Wars nerds, fine. I don't know how they're ever gonna spend money for you,

but you do get that vanity metric. Like, I can target anything you

want. Right? So our objective was to say, well, the

weird thing is that, know, sort of downloads happen, you don't know who they are.

Why? Because podcasts are RSS and there's no data payload

and Spotify and Apple just wanna hold all your data hostage because they

don't want you to get out of the wall of garden. So you're screwed. You

can't show anything. I mean, there's a little bit, but, you know, it's like rough

demographics from part of your audience, whatever it is. But what if

who does have all the information? Podcast or rather

ad networks have all the information. They know everything about everybody. What was

missing was a piece to say that download came from that ad. And

so we built the connective tissue on that, that middleware

that we can track both sides of that. So now we can say that download

came from that ad, and here's the person who clicked on that

ad and all their demographics. Not one to one attribution. That's

creepy. Nobody does that. But you can say

very detailed things about them in a b two b

context. Obviously, that's really valuable because you can say it's exactly my target market and

I know who they are. In a regular market or b

two c, you might say, well, I want women, you know, age 45 to

60, and they're interested in wellness products or, you know, things you can do stuff

like that too, intent based, content based. But, anyway, when

someone comes to us, they would just say,

essentially, like, here's my podcast, and here are the

episodes that I would like to grow and promote in front of someone. It could

be all. It could be one. And then we help them build an ad plan

around exactly the target market, and then we report to it

after. And we say, you know, here's a report branded as you. You

can show it to sponsors. You can use it in your pitch kit. You could

use it in your budget meeting, whatever it is. But this is exactly what happened,

and you're gonna see a massive spike on that episode.

So it really is about individual episodes, right, pushing that in

front of the correct audience. We've

talked to a couple of different folks who offer similar services.

And when you really get down to the the fine details of it,

you know, one of the things that comes up is that I see a

spike when I run the promotion, but then this doesn't become

a sustainable audience. Is that something that you see, or is

that not something necessarily that you're thinking about? Or or how did you guys

differentiate yourselves from some of these more fly by night

promotion sites that, you know, seem to be able to say, yeah. We'll

grow a show, but it doesn't really do anything. It doesn't actually convert

or become ROI. Right. Right. And that is

the definition of ROI sort of I made a sale. And

and I, you know, I completely agree with that. And that's that's the

argument of, like, well, what about retention? And the reality of

paid media in any context is when I run a paid

media campaign, I get some action. When

I stop doing it, I stop getting some action.

Some of those will retain because they're interested. Is your content good? Do people

actually want to consume this thing again? Where we

can work on retention is if you run multiple episodes, we can

retarget those people. Hey. They downloaded episode one. Let's retarget

episode two to them. That's a retention mechanism. We

also try to drive as many clicks as we can

through a pop up mechanism after the download to Apple,

Spotify. Like, maybe those people follow. Unfortunately, those

platforms won't let attribution tracking happen. Right? So all I can

tell you is a click went to that thing because of us. I don't know

what they did, you know, after that. And I think a lot of providers,

you know, kind of in our space or maybe not just transparent, they're

like, that's not how it works and no one can do that. They're gonna try

to argue to you. Like we're trying to be the most white hat sort of

provider. Like, these are the limitations of the world that we

live in. And, yeah, we're gonna try to

do whatever we can to drive retention. I would argue that

retention on a show is based on the quality of content, is

based on being in front of people over and over and over again. Like, you

you have to at least try to do that thing. What's the

retention on posting a bunch of stuff on social? Like,

nobody knows nobody knows the answer to this. They just wanna

argue against why you shouldn't do paid. So,

like, you know, it's like, cool. Like, don't do it. Fine. From the

agency perspective, agencies can make more money

doing promotion than production. The cost of production is

going to zero. Like, there is no margin there. It will die. If

your entire business is based on just selling marked up production,

you are in a race to the bottom. If you add in this,

you are now offering a full service thing and you make more

money and you retain clients. We ran this internally at our own

agency until we spun it out. 40% better retention.

Wow. So so you are not only engaged with

individual podcasts, but you are engaged with production houses,

agencies, right, folks who manage many podcasts to help

them. So so with that in mind then, right,

listen, we are not necessarily attracting the big boys of

podcasting. Right? I doubt that, you know, someone from a

huge network is sitting here listening and thinking, oh, maybe I should do that. So

is your platform approachable for smaller podcasts, or is there, like, a

minimum investment that they have to have in order for this to

work? For a smaller podcast, you you could do it.

The minimum for us is, like, 250 downloads an episode. Like, they

just won't run. You can't run a campaign that runs so

small that it it won't, you know, to do that. So that's

that's still gonna put you in like another grand a month, let's say.

Right? Like it's not a minimum because we wanna take more of

your money. It's just a minimum because it it just doesn't work. Like they won't

fire, you know? So you can't you can't run an ad campaign

small enough to make that happen. And I would also argue like in

most cases, why are you trying to buy downloads

in that context unless you have a monetizing entity on the other

side? Where I do see this work is say, I'm a

niche podcaster. I've got

500,000, 10 thousand downloads a month. Under

that network threshold, but I'd like to pitch something to

a sponsor because I have a dedicated audience niche.

Well, now I can say to the sponsor, hey. Part of your sponsor packages, I

guarantee you at least a thousand downloads per episode are going

to come exactly from your target market, and I'll give you this

report after the fact. That works. But

don't go buying downloads thinking eventually I'm gonna be in a network

because that's silly. You'd have to keep spending money. The arbitrage doesn't

work. You can't buy your way into CPM

advertising. You're gonna get crushed. Well, and and not only that, the

platforms are getting smarter and Sure. You know, they can recognize

fake data from And and then they should. It's not in in essence, it's

not fake, but it came from this channel. I mean, you

can do fake. I could show you how to do fake. We have all the

same vendors as everybody else. But what we're trying to

do is be transparent of like, you could do that thing and it won't get

you to the business result that you want. So if you wanna

run up the chart, we could sell you that and it's worth

nothing. So if you maybe get value out of taking

a screenshot of being up the chart for three days and then crash, like

I, like, I don't know what business that suits, but, you know, vanity is a

thing. I'll I'll sell you things to make you feel better.

I wanna sell you things that make your business actually grow. Well, and

you also wanna sell things that get you to tell other businesses that this is

a product that worked, that was effective, that, you know, accomplished what they said they

were gonna set out to accomplish, and and I saw the return. So as somebody

who is offering the service and as somebody who's ran agency and sold, you know,

and helped lots and lots of podcasters, What is the biggest thing

that, you know, somebody comes to you wanting to do this, you take a

look at your their show and you go, I I wanna help

you, but this is off and, you know, let's fix this and then

we'll run the campaign. Like, what's that thing that you find most people are messing

up? It's brand polish in that case. You know, if it's too small,

like, it's just like and then a lot of times that'd be creators to say,

oh, I wanna grow my show because I want to, you know,

appeal to sponsors. And and again, it goes to, like, treat it like a

business. Right? Like, what like, I get it. You might actually have really great things

to say, but no one gets to your show. And when they go to your

site, it's like a really bad video and, like, a brand that looks like

it was on Myspace in, like, 1995. And I'm

just like, clean that up. Right? Like,

it's put your Zoom shirt on and, you know, look

decent. Right? So, you know,

who's the audience. Right? Like, again, if you're like, hey, we're the

top like fanzine podcast for like Star

Trek nerds or whatever. Like, that's amazing. Like, be all be

that. Like but if you're saying I want sponsors, I want brands to

pay money to be repped by you, well, then

think about that presentation. Right? So, like, there's not

we can't help you grow a show that in essence, like, doesn't look

like it wants to be grown or doesn't care. Like, why

are you doing this? It always comes back to the why. Like, why do you

have this thing? Do you have it because it's fun and you like talking to

people? Hell, yeah. No one's ever gonna pay you and it's gonna come out of

your pocket, but go have fun. Skiing's expensive. People like to do that

for fun. But this like, is it a business or is it

not? And that's the first question that I would ask. I don't

wanna sell people things that are just like a pipe dream. Like, that's

insane. You know? So I'll be the first one to get on the call and

be like, this is not for you. And, you know, if you're serious

about being in the other club, there are a million coaches and consultants. I'll

introduce you to one. That's not my jam. Once you're ready to make

some revenue and you wanna think about how to actually have a business motion behind

this, cool. We might be able to help you.

Love it. And and, really, I love the

you know, the thing you said earlier on was

why. And, right, that's something that we just stress all the time. If you don't

know why you're doing this, and more importantly, you don't

know why your audience should care, You've

probably lost the battle before it even started. Yeah. Like, that's

that's absolutely right. Like, there should be a reason that you spend hours

and hours and hours in front of a microphone and trying to get people to

talk to you and editing and posting on social or whatever

things you're doing. Like, why are you doing that?

And what do you expect to happen at the end? And you

see this a lot in, like, entrepreneurship. Right? Like, people start businesses with, like, no

point except I think it's a cool idea. Like, alright.

Like, again, that's hobby. But do it because you think it's fun.

I don't care. Build your little thing and build a an app.

Build a website. Just, like, do what you like and have an audience of

one and and be stoked with that. But when you're asking people

for money, like, have a reason. Love

that. Once again, we are chatting with Ledge. If you're looking for him on

LinkedIn, David Ledgerwood is the full name, but he is the,

cofounder and revenue lead at Listen Network. Again, you can learn more about

them at listennetwork.co. Ledge, of course,

as someone who listens, you know, we're not gonna let you go without asking you

our great three questions about podcasting. So, I'm sure we

could do a full episode on this first one, but, you know, give me one

or two. Where are some places you'd love to see some real improvement in podcasting?

Again, from the production, distribution, even the listening side. Right? Like,

where is something that you're god. Wish we could fix this today.

Yeah. Definitely the conversion path. Like, why why is I mean, I get

why it's so hard. It's RSS. Like, it's just designed to be open. But, I

mean, I wanna connect with my audience. Like, why is this

so freaking cool? Like, if people

wanna if people wanna sign up and be, you know, like, get on my email

list, I gotta drive them through all kinds of crap. Like, why can't there

be some kind of, like, automated conversion path where it's like, write

an app. Hey. Put your email in. I'll send you my wrap up. I'll send

you my extra stuff. Like, it's always about conversion. Like, people people

are doing this for a reason. And I wish that

there was a more tightly integrated path to develop an

audience on different channels. I'm gonna ask you a follow-up there that I don't

ask a lot of people, but do you think that RSS

is here to stay for the long term, or do you think that

we are coming up on maybe a transition and a

change for this type this type of content?

I understand that there's a thing called podcast two point o, and

they're trying to add a lot more functionality to, you know,

RSS, start treating. I I love the open feed thing. I think it

should stay open. That's that's really cool. Like like it's like email.

Right? Like, choose your client. It doesn't matter. Let

people do that. There's a lot of movement for open

social media, and maybe that'll take off. Like, closed gardens are bad for everybody.

That said, you know, it's impossible to

ignore the video and, you know, the YouTube approach and the Spotify

video approach. Like, they're all going different directions. So what you're seeing

is, like, the big dogs try to prove that I'm the better way to

do that thing. Therefore, stop doing the thing that

actually made this medium cool in the first place. So

will it go that direction? I mean, maybe. Did the

world maybe learn some lessons from allowing all

content and social media to be behind a walled garden?

Hopefully. Like, podcasting, podcasters and the

podcast industry in general is it seems to be dedicated to openness.

But I'll also tell you that if you go talk to anybody in a younger

generation, what's a podcast? They go, oh, it's that thing on on YouTube

where people sit and talk. Right? So

could we evangelize differently? I I don't know. I mean, I would I would

lament that. I think a lot of, like, purists and, you know, old school people

in podcasting would cry, but it's also pretty

cool. And who knows what's gonna happen? I just I would hate to

see it devolve to, you know, the battle of the walled gardens

because distribution's a freaking nightmare then. Now it just takes,

like, an hour to push all your thing, like, individually

to every different protocol, and it just becomes a mess. But, of course,

that's what those major corporate entities want you to do. Like

Right. So you want the biggest garden. Yeah. Alright. What about is

there any tech on your wish list? Whether it's something that is out there that

you just haven't purchased or something that you're waiting for someone to come up

with to make podcasting easier for you or or your clients.

So I've had I've had a Stream Deck in my drawer,

like, waiting to be plugged in for, like, two years and never even played with

the thing. It's like that looks really interesting. And I think there's a lot of

cool opportunities to introduce better better,

visual, you know, representations and, you know, other stuff

into the video side. So I have that

tech. I it's in the drawer, and I should try to use it. I

also am very interested in I forget who makes this thing,

but the, because solo episodes are becoming so big and I'm trying to to

do more of that. I love those

teleprompters with, like, the camera in bed type of deal on it. Like, that that

looks super cool. Like, you can give eye contact and still read and not look

weird. But, again, that's that's a a

video driven entity. So, potentially,

evolution where more integrated audio

content would be, you know, really cool. And, again, that goes back to the first

question. It was like, well, I wanna do, like, a full cycle relationship

management through audio. Somebody should invent

things that make that work where interactive audio is actually a thing,

and it doesn't depend on, you know, one universe or the other.

The, Elgato teleprompter is, one of the ones that

just came out recently that does a a nice job with it. However, I will

tell you it works best with either their camera

or, you know, a mirrorless camera with, like, a full lens on

it. I tried running it on I have a Logitech BRIO, and,

actually, I haven't tried it on my iPhone using continuity cam, and it

just it wasn't flush enough so that it gave off, like, a weird brightness to

it. But, yeah, that ability to have the teleprompter and better yet, the

ability to make eye contact was very nice. It's also just

huge, and it was taking up, like, half of my screens. I couldn't see around,

and it was a pain in the butt to, like, take that. That's actually so

I have a I have a 55 inch TV as my

my monitor, and there's always, well, there's always a

camera in my face blocking whatever thing I'm trying to do.

So I guess my real wish list would be, like, a massive ass

television that would have a a hidden camera, like, you know,

sort of view through, like, right in the middle with, like, no cutout.

So I was just talking into this screen that had a camera

inside it. That would be that would be my favorite. Like, I love working

with an absolutely giant screen. So I love that

idea. I'm gonna look into that. Alright. I guess we'll we'll have

to, you know, create another startup together and go on that entrepreneurial

journey. And, also, what's your favorite podcast that you're listening to?

Any any of that, like, you're not gonna let them go by without getting the

latest episode or you'll drop what you're doing to to check them out? There

is. I'm a big personal finance nerd, and I love, Ramit

Sethi money for couples. So he coaches he

coaches couples on the show about their, you know,

personal finance, and he's, of course, he's got a whole model. And and I as

a business guy, just like, I love this dude's funnel because, I mean, he hits

you at every place. Like, you you are on the emails. You're on the like,

he just is a monster of content. But it's really actually really good

advice, psychology of money essentially and and how, you know, you

can you can manage that stuff. I'm a former financial planner, and

that's always been, like, really valuable to me to have money systems. So,

yep, check it out. I I I think I could talk to you for,

like, three more hours and just go on random tangents all over the place,

but, we'll spare the audience and everybody else and let you get back to your

day. We've been chatting with Lej, also David Ledgerwood.

He's the cofounder revenue lead at Listen Network. That's

listennetwork.co. You can find a link obviously in the show notes. We'll also

put a link to David's LinkedIn so you can see some of the great stuff

that he is posting online. It has been a pleasure, sir, and I hope we

get to do this again. Thanks for coming on. Absolutely. Thanks, Matthew.