In this episode of PodJunction Podcast, we sit down with Chase Clymer, co-founder of Electric Eye Agency and host of the Honest eCommerce Podcast. Chase shares his seven-year journey of turning a podcast from a reluctant content creation effort into a powerful business development tool for his Shopify agency.

We explore with Chase how his podcast evolved from having no strategy to becoming the marketing arm of his business. He reveals his targeted approach to guest selection, cold outreach techniques, and relationship-building strategies. Chase explains how featuring potential clients on his podcast has opened doors at conferences, built valuable partnerships, and generated leads—all while establishing authority in the ecommerce space.

We dive into practical insights about qualifying guests, building a podcast team, creating a mobile recording setup, and balancing podcasting commitments with running an agency. Whether you're considering starting a podcast for your business or looking to make your existing show more strategic, Chase's transparent approach offers valuable lessons for leveraging audio content to grow your brand.

Links Mentioned in the Episode

• Honest eCommerce Podcast: honestecommerce.co
• Electric Eye Agency: electriceye.io
• Chase Clymer on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chaseclymer

I'm Sadaf Beynon and this is Podjunction Podcast, where we explore how entrepreneurs, CEOs, and business leaders use podcasting to grow their brands, build authority, and connect with their audience. Chase, welcome to the show.

Chase Clymer: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Sadaf Beynon: Thank you. It's our pleasure. Chase, you've built a successful agency helping ecommerce brands grow your, and your podcast Honest ecommerce has become a go to resource for founders.

Chase Clymer: Great question. Uh, I started it because Andrew told me to. Andrew is our project manager. Um, so this was over seven years ago, um, and basically I was, I didn't like writing back then.

Uh, as I've matured, I've gotten a lot better at writing and now I kind of like, I like the challenge of it now, which is good. Um, but back then I just detested it. And so, um, some, when we went into this agency, we. knew that like there was some sort of like we had to make content. And so that like kind of defaulted to we had to make blogs, right?

So let's just try it for a while. See what happens. Uh, so we just started it and there was no real, uh, differentiation between our podcast and anything else. There was no real strategy behind what, who the guests would be or what the topics would be. Uh, Honestly, the first couple dozen episodes were just, you know, us winging it and figuring it out.

But, uh, we never stopped. Uh, we, I think we put out an episode almost every week since missed maybe one or two in the last seven years. Um, but it's, uh, yeah, I have to thank Andrew.

Sadaf Beynon: That's, that's great. I love how you've just kind of, um, decided that you need to create content. Here's a better way to do it then.

Chase Clymer: Uh, great question. All right. So like, um, Like I said the first couple dozen episodes, so let's just say the first year, uh, I didn't. have a clue, kind of the, the, the audience or the reach of the thing. Um, and so maybe around the about a year before the pandemic, I started like playing around the idea of like, Oh, like maybe we could get podcast sponsors for this.

Um, but so around the pandemic, I realized that. Well, if these sponsors are interested in the show, like, what else can we do with this show? And so before that, I had no rhyme or reason around who would be on the show. We had no outreach strategy about how to get guests on the show. It was still kind of just flying by the seat of our pants with no real strategy.

Sadaf Beynon: Okay, so that's about three years in, you said, right?

Chase Clymer: Mm hmm.

Sadaf Beynon: Okay, so up until that point then, how was it navigating? I was just

Chase Clymer: recording episodes and publishing them and ignoring it. Just doing nothing. Just putting in the work. Becoming a better interviewer, for sure. Learning how to read off a teleprompter, which is one of my favorite skills I've ever learned.

Um It just came in handy last week at a conference. Uh, so I, that, that was, but it was just, honestly, it was putting the work and just building kind of this backlog of episodes. And as I alluded to earlier, there's a lot of people in the space that had podcasts and in those three, four years, uh, a lot of those people stopped existing.

And so the first. I think the thing about this is podcast is almost akin to SEO. It is a long game and it is about consistency more than anything.

Chase Clymer: It's, well, reading intros for my guests and, uh, their bios and then also reading ads.

I remember ad reads used to take me, like, I would be frustrated, sit down and I'd be kind of goofing over the, the read and adding an ums and what's and not, and just not being good at it. But now I'm doing ad reads in like one take and then I'll just do another one just in case that Jared, my editor wants it.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. No, it's, it's so true what you just said about consistency, even in things like using the teleprompter, isn't it? Like the more you do it. The more natural it becomes, as it is with all parts of

Chase Clymer: Yeah, now it's just second nature and it's, it's super easy to do. Same with, same with honestly just hosting and doing podcasting in general.

Sadaf Beynon: That's pretty amazing. I love that. You were saying that it was, you know, you didn't have a strategy for the first little while, well, first three years, and then you started seeing the, the benefit of, or the, um, not the benefit, the necessity for it in order to start getting the sponsors in.

So what was that, um, that like, you know, going from no strategy to creating a strategy, what, what did that look like for you, that process?

Chase Clymer: Yeah. Um, all right. So first and foremost. You can probably get sponsors for your shows, but like, don't, it's not going to be a moneymaker unless like you're building a media company and like, this is your main thing.

Most notably, is we started to really refine and go after the audience like the brands that we are interviewing are basically our ideal client

Sadaf Beynon: on

Chase Clymer: the show. So before that, it was not, that was not the case. We were just happy to get anybody on the show. These days, we are going after brands that we could see working with our agency, Electric Eye.

And now it's not a hard sell. It's more about increasing your surface luck area and building genuine relationships with these brands. Uh, as it is like, you know, a hard and fast like lead gen strategy, but it does open doors a lot quicker than your typical cold outreach approach.

We pushed all of those. off the main feed and into bonus episodes. Uh, and we released those kind of every other week. Um, and usually have a backlog of those as well, but the main feed is specifically strategically brands that we could see ourselves working with. And then, so knowing who we want on the show, we had then adopted an outreach strategy.

So we are emailing about a hundred brands. And reaching out on LinkedIn weekly, uh, and I've got an assistant that helps me and that's his entire job is to do that for us weekly. Um, it's not his entire job. He's got other clients, but that, like for us, that's, that's what he's doing. So we have a, we have a specific outreach strategy around being a guest on the podcast.

Kind of outreach strategy, but it builds more genuine relationships and more genuine conversations And again, it's we're not we're not cheap by any means what we're doing Isn't like a widget or an app where it's a lot easier to get someone to sign off on it.

Sadaf Beynon: I love that I love your your strategy because you have so many touch points With a potential client and, um, having those conversations with them that are not necessarily where you're pushing sales.

You're just getting to know them and building that rapport and networking with them. That is, that's brilliant. Have you seen a lot of direct business growth come from that, whether it's with clients or partnerships or just networking, like authority building from the podcast?

Then they like us more. Um, also, as far as authority building goes, the podcast has gotten me to moderate panels. It's gotten me on stage. I was just at ETL last week, moderating a panel about CRO, um, gets me into conferences because, you know, we do have quite a bit of reach at those conferences. I use it to meet people.

If. You've got the, you know, you're appealing to their vanity because you want to tell their story. Uh, but then there's the scarcity angle of like, we're only going to be at this place for this finite amount of time. It works really well. Uh, you get an extremely high response rate and you set up a lot of conversations and you meet a lot of cool people.

Um, so that has been events going to events, you know, under the podcast, reaching out to folks that are there, hosting private dinners under the podcast name for these folks. That's been a really. Awesome. Like in, in person strategy with this thing as well.

Sadaf Beynon: That's excellent. Sounds like it's opened a whole lot of doors for you and continues to.

Chase Clymer: Yeah, it's fantastic. Got me on this show.

Chase Clymer: Oh, I wish. I mean, it's just so second nature to me now. We forget to ask sometimes if they, the podcast and stuff, but, uh, we are lucky in that the agency's been around just as long as the podcast.

And we've got amazing partners, like we're Shopify plus partners and things like that. So we are getting, we're not like beholden or reliant to the podcast to carry our business by any means. The podcast does. add more leads to our funnel and for service business. Um, not being tied to referral business as your life source is, uh, definitely a benefit.

So any commerce, it's like a lot of people reach out at the beginning of the year. And then a lot of people will reach out right for the holidays. And then it's kind of just slow everywhere else. Um, so, But to answer your question, nothing, nothing honestly comes to mind. Maybe I didn't have enough coffee this morning.

Sadaf Beynon: No, that's okay. That's no problem at all. So Chase, it's clear that honest ecommerce plays a huge role in your business growth. It is, it is

Make sure that your expectation of them as a guest matches what you have in your head. Um, I've had a few people where I didn't want to have them on the podcast afterwards. Right. But, uh, make sure you do that pre interview call. Um, but. Yeah, like on those calls or even after like the recording, they're like, so well, you know, do you make money off the podcast?

I was like, well tangentially. Yeah, I was like we have this agency and this is basically our marketing arm, you know We produce content under it XYZ and I think being Don't try to lie about it If you are gonna use it as like some sort of like network building tool and a sales tool people can definitely smell that bullshit like just be real and Honest about it.

And I mean, I, sometimes I joke about it, but like, yeah, we're going to pitch you something, but it's not going to be a hard and fast sale or anything like that. Like the whole point is to make content. Everything else after that is just awesome.

Do you carry on recording with them? Like, even though, you know, this is not going to be a good fit or what do you do? Do you,

Chase Clymer: well, that's why I do the pre interview call. If, if I don't like the pre interview call, I just, it's business. It's not personal, honestly. I don't think it's a right fit for XYZ reason.

Often the reason isn't that. I don't like them as a person. It's never that it's never, it's more like their business doesn't match. Like they're not a good fit for my agency. Right. So oftentimes when it's a smaller brand, uh, specifically revenue wise or whatnot, um, you know, I'm like, Hey, you're not there yet.

Focus on these things and reach back out. You know, when you hit these, hit these marks and I'll be more than happy to have you on the show because again, there's only certain amount of weeks in the year. If they can't work with my agency, they're taking a spot away with from someone else that possibly could.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, I think, I think that's, that's really wise because as you say, you only have so much time and, um, it's, it's so much better spent if, if it's actually going to move the needle for you.

Chase Clymer: So it's usually the reasons that I don't have people on our, our, our business size or they're like. eCommerce needs to be the foundational element of their business or of the like part of the business I'm talking to because I've talked about a bunch of legacy brands on that started retail first and then got into DC like direct to consumer and like that still be a good client, but some people just like it just their business model doesn't jive with what we can do.

And so it's like, doesn't make sense to have like, you know, if it's like a restaurant tour with like a cool merch store, like that's not a good fit for us.

But I know podcasting comes with its own set of challenges. So I'd love to know what kind of hurdles you've had to face in launching and growing your podcast. I know you've touched on some of them in the early years, but if so. If there's something else you'd want to highlight.

Chase Clymer: Well, I would just want to say that like, there's definitely like imposter syndrome for the first couple years.

I was like, I don't know what I'm doing. Um, and then just, I slowly stopped caring. Uh, it took seven years to get there. Um, but Yeah, so just get started. I think is the biggest hurdle. They're like, Oh, I'm going to suck and be like, here's, yeah, you're going to suck, but just get through it. Delete those first dozen episodes when, whenever you want.

So over the years we have built a team that helps me do all of it, and that was a, a massive unlock. It definitely cost us money every month, uh, so obviously depending on people's budgets. Also, we have an insane release schedule compared to some people. Like, we're doing six episodes a month. Compared to some people are doing like one, right?

Yeah. So that's why I need a team to help me. Yeah. Um, but that, that, that really helps. So I've got a team. I've got, uh, a VA helping with outreach. I've got one that helps with copy and email. And I've got one that helps specifically with editing. And so these days, all I'm doing is the pre interviews and then doing the actual interview and everything else happens magically for me.

Um, It can't be at like the, the detriment of me also fielding inbound leads and running them through our sales cycle. So making sure I have the availability, uh, to speak with those brands that are coming in organically outside of the podcast is, was why I needed to outsource a lot of the stuff.

Sadaf Beynon: So how do you balance that then running the agency and, um, that, that side of the agency side of things and the podcast,

Chase Clymer: I only do, I only have four available slots to record.

Sadaf Beynon: Okay. Yeah. As you were saying too, you kind of get to this point where you're, the imposter syndrome goes away and. It just becomes second nature. So you do get into this rhythm, don't you?

Chase Clymer: Oh yeah. Like I don't need to spend a lot of time, uh, beforehand doing any prep work. I've got their onboarding form and their pre interview stuff, and I already know.

What we're going to talk about before we get on there, especially with like our most of the time I'm interviewing brand founders and that story arc is in my head. It's burned into my head. I know exactly what the questions are going to be, what the route of the conversation is going to be. Uh, and so.

Those, I can honestly, I could, it's getting to the point where at conferences, I meet new people and be like, do you just want to go over here for 20 minutes and do a podcast real quick? Like, I don't need any prep work.

Chase Clymer: Oh, yeah. So we, we got a new camera. It's over here.

It's just out of frame. So we've, I've got the whole same setup that I have here that now I've got on mobile. So we've got a whole, uh, mobile audio setup and a whole mobile video setup. And I recorded six episodes on location at ETL last week. Um, and that's super fun because it allows me to get a couple of them in the bag so that I can go on vacation and ignore it for a while.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, no, that's excellent. I love the way you've strategized that. Um, so have you got any, have you, has there been any unexpected lessons from what you've learned from podcasting?

Heck, I mean, we had a publicly traded company at our dinner last week, just through a cold email. So it definitely works.

Sadaf Beynon: Wow. Fantastic. Well done. Chase. I know that, um, you, when you first started the podcast, it kind of, Just evolved into being, um, I'm interested to know if you've got, um, like as your, as your agency grows and evolves, do you have plans for the podcast to, to evolve alongside what's next for that?

The ultimate goal is to get the traffic up to a point where we can monetize it as a blog. And actually have it start to make some passive income for the business. Um, which I think is not possible for a startup. But for us with a backlog of 500 episodes with a bunch of backlinks and historical stuff like it is something that we can probably do within the year.

So that's something that we're looking forward to. Uh, and then obviously. Sponsors are still monetizing it. So that's super fun.

Sadaf Beynon: That's cool. So I'm interested to know what you think about the role podcasting will play in ecommerce and digital business strategies.

Chase Clymer: I think that it's the same as blogging it's content.

You've got hex clad, you've got Casper mattresses, et cetera. They're sponsoring other people's podcasts when you could just build that audience yourself and advertise to them all the time. And the content that you're producing only needs to be tangentially related to your product.

Sadaf Beynon: I think there's so many ecommerce businesses that struggle to differentiate and like listening to you speak and how, um, Honest ecommerce has helped electric eye differentiate and stand out.

Honest ecommerce is about and how they do things and what cadence they use for releasing episodes. But do you think that that could change because of what's happening in the podcasting industry? Or do you think that listeners just kind of get used to. The way things are and they're happy with it.

Chase Clymer: I think that it definitely could change and we are not against, you know, pivoting and figuring something else out with it.

Uh, but right now we've got an awesome kind of, uh, process that works for us. Uh, so if it's not broke, don't fix it. It's our motto.

Chase Clymer: I think that AI people give it way too much credit. Like it's. It's only as smart as the person operating it and it still doesn't have that creative element to it. And so if you're having like a real genuine conversation with somebody, the content that you make there is going to be infinitely better than whatever ChatGPT creates for you.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, I agree. I agree. Chase, I'm conscious of time, but this has been so much fun digging into how you use podcasting as a medium to grow your business.

Chase Clymer: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I recommend everyone starting one.

Sadaf Beynon: Yes, absolutely. Um, Chase, before we go, where can people connect with you, learn more about Electric Eye, and of course, tune into Honest eCommerce Podcast.

Sadaf Beynon: And for those tuning in, you'll find all the links and details in the description. Chase, thanks so much for joining me today and sharing your podcasting journey with us.

Chase Clymer: Absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Sadaf Beynon: And to everyone listening, if today's conversation has got you thinking about how podcasting could help you grow your business, I would love to talk.