In this weeks episode of Podjunction - the first of a four-part series with Peter Murphy Lewis - Hosts Sadaf Beynon and Matt Edmundson leverage insights gained from Peter to discuss the growth potential provided by Podcasting. They explore how to use your status as a trusted podcaster effectively at industry networking events, how to engage with strategic guests and create evergreen content for ongoing value.

Key Takeaways:

1. Leveraging Industry Events: Using podcasts as a tool to gain access to industry events can significantly enhance networking opportunities. By positioning oneself as a media partner or interviewer, podcasters can connect with key stakeholders, conduct interviews, and distribute valuable content across various platforms.
2. Networking with Strategic Guests: Targeting individuals who are influential in their fields but not yet prominent in digital spaces can be a powerful strategy. By interviewing board members and stakeholders who hold offline influence, podcasters can build strong relationships and open doors to further opportunities.
3. Creating Evergreen Content: Repurposing content from interviews at conventions into various formats such as PDFs, webinars, and podcasts can extend the value of the material. This approach not only benefits the podcast host but also provides lasting value to the interviewees and their networks, fostering ongoing engagement and visibility.

Unlock the potential of your podcast today! Don’t miss out on transforming your podcast into a powerful business tool—visit Podjunction.com to discover resources, tips, and opportunities that can take your podcast to the next level. Subscribe now and elevate your podcasting journey!

Peter Murphy Lewis | Become a Skilled Networker

Sadaf Beynon: Welcome to Podjunction Podcast, a show for podcasters who want to use their podcast to grow their business. I'm Sadaf Beynon and with me is the most hilarious Matt Edmundson. Well, at least he thinks he

Matt Edmundson: is.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, there's that.

Matt Edmundson: I got a birthday card from one of our lodgers. this year. Um, and she said in the car, it was like one of these comedy cards and she wrote inside the card. I hope you find this card as funny as you think you are. That's a bit harsh. It's my birthday.

I like that one. It is true. I am. I am my own biggest fan. There's no

Sadaf Beynon: doubt. Awesome. So, um, today,

Matt Edmundson: today,

Yeah. So, um, and in this particular segment, you're going to be learning how to use your podcast as a way to get involved in industry events, how to network effectively for strategic guests. And how to create and distribute evergreen content.

Matt Edmundson: Very good. Did that really well. It didn't look like you're reading it off a whiteboard.

Excellent, because I was

Sadaf Beynon: hoping it wouldn't look like that at all. You're watching

Matt Edmundson: on video. You had no idea, did you? So yes, what's this here? If you're

Sadaf Beynon: That's your part.

Matt Edmundson: Okay, so state of the art technology here with this whiteboard. So am I the blue ink? You're the

Sadaf Beynon: blue.

Matt Edmundson: Okay, it's good we rehearsed this. So if you're new to this show,

Sadaf Beynon: I have to tell you what to say, otherwise you won't say it, that's true, or you'll say the wrong thing, or too much of something,

I wish I could tell you that it gets better than this, but frankly, no. Uh, so this is how it goes. We'll just chat about using podcasting to grow a podcast, uh, hopefully in an entertaining way. So if you are new here, a very warm welcome to you. It's great to have you with us. And of course, if you are one of the show's regulars, a warm welcome to you too, don't want to forget you, neglect you in any way, even though Sadaf didn't mention that in the blue ink on her.

I don't know why, in front of me, uh,

oh, I love it, love it, love it. And for those of you who don't know, uh, a little bit about us, I suppose, Podjunction is part of our company and we help businesses grow their businesses with podcasts. It's what we do. So we do this podcast, put out a load of free content. But we've also got some pretty cool services.

Sadaf Beynon: so we can make it available

Matt Edmundson: so we can make cause we've been using this software to run our podcast for a long time.

And we're going to talk more about this as it comes out, but it's what we, our website runs off it, all the scheduling, all the guests and everything runs off this one piece of software and it's pretty cool. And we've been using it for

Sadaf Beynon: two, three,

Matt Edmundson: two, three years. We've been developing over two, three years, it's been a while, but it is as ugly as, because the developers was like, whatever, we'll throw some stuff on and when we got to a place where we thought, actually, this could work, um, we're now trying to, you know, make it better.

Sadaf Beynon: Yes, we do. Very good stuff. The

Matt Edmundson: three things on your whiteboard. Yes. That you've gone through.

Without looking down. Yeah, so it's obvious to the camera. Is there anything else or should we just get to the clip? Let's get to the clip. All right, we'll be back. You

Sadaf Beynon: mentioned conventions. Do you want to tell us a bit about that?

Peter Murphy Lewis: Yeah, so in the United States specifically in the B2B Even more so in the healthcare, traditional industries still depend upon in person events, conventions, congresses, whatever you want to call them, summits.

My background as a TV host, my background as an entrepreneur, my background as a CNA, a Certified Nurses Assistant, and then being a podcaster in the industry that, uh, pitched that out and said, Hey, I want to go to your convention and I want to interview your board members, your keynote speakers, uh, your, Best Members, Your, You Know, Your Stakeholders, Your Cheerleaders.

And the very first convention I pitched it to, they accepted it. They're like, this is great. We have this guy who knows how to communicate and he's going to show up and he's going to do live interviews on stage, some in the lobby. Some in the boardroom and he's going to repurpose these across all of these channels, YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook.

Well the podcast, people sharing these tips with me and it becomes evergreen because we turn it into a PDF. We turn it into a webinar, it stays on the podcast format, we'll write up an SOP, and then we'll give it back to these leaders and they can share it with each other. That was the first thing. The second thing that I think that it, um, I didn't expect, which was me going to conventions then turned into me getting invited as a keynote speaker.

So I did, you know, more than, uh, 20 talks at these conventions over, over two, two years.

Peter Murphy Lewis: Yeah, we, I think there was probably If I were to give away the recipe for success that works for us, and we're now doing this same process with a couple other clients, is go for people who are not influencers in the digital space yet. So they're not, they, they, they haven't necessarily been on a podcast.

They probably haven't been on TV, but they're stakeholders in their community or in their association. So for me in the healthcare space, those are board members. Board members are often leaders of their community, of their state, regional, maybe even national level. You know, they might be 50 or 60 before the digital world.

And now they're going to open the door to someone even higher. And eventually you're going to start to share.

The two other people that I think I focus on is the event planners at the conventions. So they're often people doing the legwork. So if you focus on the executive director, you focus on the CEO, you focus on the president, well you're competing against five other people in the state who are trying to get their attention.

And then, so once you do those two things, eventually you're going to get a really big name. In my case, it was the CEO of the largest healthcare association in the United States, the president, and also, um, um, And then the second largest association, we also got her as a president. Once we got those two people, we, you know, we started to get well known authors.

We started to get huge influencers on YouTube and those three kind of elements just spiraled. It was a domino effect in terms of brand awareness for what we were doing.

Sadaf Beynon: If that got you curious and you want to catch the full episode, be sure to subscribe to the show. We've got plenty more great conversations coming up.

Matt Edmundson: Wow. There you go. Look, I was, I was getting so engrossed in that.

Sadaf Beynon: It's good. Wasn't it?

Sadaf Beynon: out.

Yeah, it was, it was a good one. It was a fun one to do. Um, can I just apologize for, uh, no, , um, my, uh, my tech skills on that particular recording.

Matt Edmundson: As in your blurry face? Yeah. Okay. Well, given that most people listen to the audio of this, then they're not going to

Sadaf Beynon: rush over to this and see your blurry face.

Matt Edmundson: Sadaf's pixelated face, like you're on Crimewatch. Wow. Okay. So, um, yes, you can apologize. Does that mean every clip you're blurred?

Sadaf Beynon: Um, yeah, I think so.

Matt Edmundson: Okay.

Sadaf Beynon: Sorry.

Matt Edmundson: That's all right. We're focusing on Peter anyway.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. It's not about me.

Matt Edmundson: Is it not? Since when? I didn't get that memo. When did that come out? Okay, that changes a few things.

And I thought that was super, super clever because I, it made me think of Sub Summit, which is a convention I've just come back from in the last couple of weeks in the States. And I've been there twice now, been to Sub Summit twice, I've been invited back, so it's always nice when people invite you back, especially for a third time.

And that I think is great fun. And they've got that set up super well. So podcasters, um, you'll get invited. They'll give you access to their equipment and their stage. You can record stuff on there and you get to network and meet some really great people. Um, that I think is fantastic. And I, I know these conventions and the shows, they are super excited to have podcasters get involved because it's such a great way for them to freely get their content known to a whole bunch of people, right?

And so every year I go to sub summit, they never asked me to do it, but I talk about it for weeks leading up to it. So everyone that listens to the eCommerce podcast knows I'm going, no idea how much that publicity is worth, but it's worth a fair few quid. Um, but obviously I get benefits out of it as well by going.

Um, it's not just a recording equipment cause we like to do video and stuff as well. If it was just audio, um, I think maybe I should just do audio recordings actually thinking about it as a summit, but anyway. Um, yeah, it's, it's a really interesting idea and thought, I thought it was really clever, really, really clever.

Yeah,

It's for everyone who's there, which is, I guess, why they keep inviting him back.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. It's a nice idea. It makes me think, actually, if you did something like a podcast season. I say you do 10 episodes a season, you could do a PDF summary of each season and send that to each of the guests. So they're in there, other guests are in there, um, and they might flick through that, especially if you, I mean, you could do it as a PDF, you could even get it printed off actually if you did it as a nice little coffee book type thing, um, that could be another interesting idea.

But I think. Anything that you can do to stay in the mind of your guests, I think is super good. So that kind of thing is great.

Sadaf Beynon: And also he talked about how it opened up the opportunity for him to become a keynote speaker as a result of attending these conventions.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. But again, that's, I would say that's true.

But, you know, we do get asked to speak at events because of the podcast. And that's quite nice. Especially for me, because I hate the spotlight.

Hate it, hate being in the limelight,

Sadaf Beynon: hate it, don't want to

Matt Edmundson: do it,

Sadaf Beynon: I've chained him to the chair,

Matt Edmundson: yes, you will do this podcast, I know you don't want to but you will,

Sadaf Beynon: yeah,

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. Yeah. What did you think to, um, what he said about, so he's interviewing board members and stakeholders, influential leaders in the industry, but then also the podcast or the event organizers, the event planners, kind of sandwiching both ends, isn't he? He is, it's

Matt Edmundson: an interesting, again, another interesting strategy.

So he said he wasn't going after the people who were digital influencers yet, because. That's where a lot of competition lies. Yeah. Uh, but he's more going after the key stakeholders and he's understood at the convention that the event planner is a key stakeholder because they're the, they're the gatekeeper to a lot of things.

And actually they, they usually have access to quite significant networks. Um, and so I know with Subsummit, for example, um, there's a lady there called Lauren. Lauren's lovely. And so Lauren will often, um, say to me, she'll just send me an email, So why don't you have this person on your podcast? You know, or you could, you could do a podcast recording with this person.

And, um, and actually this year she sent me an email saying, Why don't you do a podcast with Amelia Kumar? And I was like, I actually know Amelia, uh, I'd met her the previous year at SubSummit. So I'm like, sure, let's do that. Um, and we recorded the podcast and it was great. She bought me a bottle of wine and everything.

Uh, who meets this criteria? Um, yeah, they have access to big networks. And I think if you, if you talk to the event plan as well, it can open some really interesting doors.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: So yeah, I thought it was good. I thought it was a top, top tip. Um, so yeah. How do you use your podcast as a way to get involved in industry events?

I think there's a number of ways that you can do that. There's a strategy like Peter talked about, which is just basically let me come and interview everybody and I'm going to produce this at the end and everyone's going to be happy. And by the way, I'm already a podcaster. I've got this training, blah, blah, blah.

I'm reading the black text. It's not in blue. How to network effectively for strategic guests.

Sadaf Beynon: So that was, um, the part about, um, talking to event planners and, um, board members that are not in the, in the digital space.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. And also he, the thing that he did, which I think every podcaster should be doing if they're not already doing it, is asking every guest for a guest referral, right?

Do you know somebody else in this space and I could feature their work and have them as a guest on the podcast. Um, because I think referred guests always make the best guests. Unless you have a list of strategic clients that you're going after as a, you know, and you're, you're using your podcast that way.

There's usually a quality of that guest, but if the guest is on the show because they've been referred, I tend to find the quality of that guest is higher. And the value which our audience derives is usually higher, mainly because they're not there to try and sell something. They're there because, you know, um, a friend has told them to be on the show.

And so you can network effectively that way just by asking for the referrals. And if you ask for them, it'll be amazing. If you're not doing it already, just. Stop the car. If you're driving, you know, stop walking the dog. If you walk in the door, whatever you're doing, just stop, look at yourself in the mirror and slap yourself around the face because.

That is the perfect golden opportunity to ask them for a referral and they'll go, Oh, yeah, such and such will enjoy this. And so, um, I think it's such a powerful thing to do is, is the referral thing. And then the third thing you said was how to create and distribute evergreen content. Yeah. What was that about?

Sadaf Beynon: So that was from the, um, the content that he obtains from the interviews that he does at the conventions and the PDFs, the webinars,

And then we could create one big. Transcribed PDF just on email marketing, just from that content alone from those guest experts. Um, and that would be some more evergreen content that we could use from multiple guests, uh, without too much drama. Yeah. Um,

Sadaf Beynon: yeah,

Matt Edmundson: I say too much drama, you know, we're going to need to get a summer intern to come in.

Um, but that's, that's, that's definitely a possibility. We could create those kinds of guides based on that content. It's not wholly a bad idea.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: Okay. Yeah. Did you write that one down?

Sadaf Beynon: Nope.

Matt Edmundson: Maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all then. So we're not doing that. Okay. Not right away.

Sadaf Beynon: Maybe next summer.

Matt Edmundson: Maybe next summer. Brilliant. Okay. Well, we've gone through the three points. Is there anything else?

Sadaf Beynon: No, I think we've covered it.

Matt Edmundson: It was a short clip today.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, it was.

But yeah, if you know anybody that would make a great guest for our show, speaking of referrals, let this young lady know.

Sadaf Beynon: Let me know.

Matt Edmundson: Because thank you. Why would you not tell us, uh, they'd be a great guest. Um, and so, yeah, let's get them on the show. Let's talk to them. Um, love to pick their brains. And if you're listening, you're a podcaster and you think, actually, I'd like to be a guest as well.

You know, be brave. Just get in touch. What did you say?

Sadaf Beynon: Reach out. Oh, reach out. I thought you said, don't answer that. I heard be gentle.

Matt Edmundson: I'm like, Definitely reach out, be gentle

Sadaf Beynon: too,

Matt Edmundson: don't be mean to Sadaf, that never works well. Um, but yeah, we'd love, genuinely love to hear from you if you want to be a guest on the show.

Sadaf Beynon: Yes. Yes.

Matt Edmundson: There is. Yes, there is. So, um, yeah. Uh, come be a guest on the show. That would be absolutely awesome to hear from you. Uh, I genuinely would, but I think that's it from me. Is that it from you?

Sadaf Beynon: That is it from me. Thank you. Are you sure? Yep. Okay. Awesome.

Matt Edmundson: Well, thank you so much for joining us this week.

Uh, we've got Peter next week. Yeah, we do. What are we talking about next week?

Sadaf Beynon: Fun stuff. Lots of good fun stuff.

Matt Edmundson: That's Sadaf's code for, I haven't got a clue. I've not actually prepped next week. And it's a long while ago since I spoke to Peter, I've talked to two people since then. I've forgotten everything.

Is that right?

Sadaf Beynon: A few more than two, yes.

Matt Edmundson: So anyway, we've got Peter coming up. So you know, the guy's awesome in his marketing. So do come join us for that. Come learn more of his strategies. Uh, but that's it from me. That's it from you. Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a fantastic week. Bye for now.

Remember, every episode is a chance to gain insights and to transform your podcasting journey. So keep tuning in, keep learning, and until next time, happy podcasting.