If your B2B podcast is “performing well,” there’s a good chance you’re measuring the wrong thing.

Download numbers feel important.

They’re easy to report.

They look reassuring on a slide.

But they rarely tell you whether your podcast is actually influencing anything.

I’m Neal Veglio, and in this episode of B2B Podcasting Insights, I’m unpacking why download numbers are such a comforting distraction — and how they quietly pull B2B podcasts away from doing useful work.

I also share a simple reframe that helps teams stop obsessing over reach and start thinking about influence — including the early signs that your podcast is making sales conversations easier, even if the numbers look modest.

There’s a listener question from a managing director asking what a podcast is meant to do that a strong sales team doesn’t — and why the answer has nothing to do with audience size.

If your podcast gets downloads but still leaves prospects confused, unconvinced, or starting from zero on sales calls, this episode will help you see why — and what to pay attention to instead.

Useful links

Podknows Website

https://podknows.co.uk

B2B Podcast Growth Diagnostic

https://podknows.co.uk/diagnostic

Podcast Audits

https://podknows.co.uk/audits

Timestamped summary

00:00 Why download numbers feel important

01:10 What a podcast download actually tells you

02:30 Why downloads are such a comforting lie

03:50 How numbers push podcasts into bad behaviour

05:20 Why influence beats reach every time

06:30 The metrics most B2B podcasts ignore

07:40 Listener question: what’s the podcast’s job vs sales?

09:10 Using podcasts to shape thinking before the sales call

10:00 Why downloads are a starting point, not proof

Mentioned in this episode:

Learn More About Podknows Podcasting

We're at https://podknows.co.uk/

At the end of the previous episode of B2B podcasting insights, I said

I was going to ruin your perception of your download numbers.

So fair warning, if you're emotionally

attached to them, this episode might sting a bit.

Welcome to B2B Podcasting Insights with Neil Velio,

founder of PodKnows, a podcast agency helping you

get better results from podcasting. The truth is, downloads

are one of those metrics that feel important in the same way

weighing yourself five times a day feels important.

It's a number, it moves up and down

and it gives you something to talk about, certainly in meetings,

but it doesn't actually tell you what you think. It tells you

downloads feel meaningful. And that's the problem.

Lets start with why people cling to download numbers.

The truth is, they're visible, they're easy to explain,

and you can put them on a slide without anyone asking any follow

up questions. You can say, the podcast got

1200 downloads last month and everyone nods along.

Nobody asks, okay, and what happened because of that?

Which is quite convenient because once you ask that question,

things get quite awkward quite quickly. Here's

what a download actually means in podcasting, a download is a

surface metric. It tells you someone's podcast app

pulled a file from your feed. That's it. It

doesn't mean that they listened for any more than the obligatory 60 seconds,

that they paid attention, that they agreed with you, that they

trusted you, that they or that they're any closer to buying

from you. The truth is, a lot of people will listen once and never

come back. And yet we talk about downloads like they're votes of

confidence in your content. They're really not.

They're more like someone picking up a leaflet at an event and

immediately sticking it straight in the bin. Here's why download

numbers are such a comforting life for B2B brands.

Downloads are great for internal reassurance. You can

tell stakeholders, look, people are listening. Which

is technically true. In the same way saying people

walked past the shop is technically true. But if you're running

a B2B podcast, the real question shouldn't be

how many people downloaded this? It should be,

did this help influence a decision? Did this

reduce confusion in our brand? Did this make the

next sales call easier? Did this

shorten our sales cycle? Almost nobody

tracks those kind of metrics because it's harder. It

requires talking to sales teams. It requires listening to

prospects. It requires patience.

Downloads don't you hit F5 and they're there.

So let's talk about how downloads can actually push you into Bad

behavior. Here's where the whole vanity

metrics thing gets quite dangerous. The moment the downloads become

the goal, the podcast starts changing shape.

You start aiming for strangers, you smooth off your edges.

You stop being decisive and intentional with your content

because you don't want to alienate anyone. And before you

know it, suddenly your show is fine.

It's pleasant, it's inoffensive. It's completely

useless as a buying accelerator. Buying decisions aren't made

because someone vaguely enjoyed a podcast. They're made when someone

thinks, wow, this person or these

people understand our problem better than the

alternatives. Downloads don't ever measure that, and they often

reward the opposite. So what actually matters instead of

download numbers then? If your podcast is meant to support your

business, you need to look elsewhere, not at

download numbers. Things like retention.

Are people sticking around or are they bailing after two minutes

because if they leave early, your insight never really

lands. You need to be looking at repeat listeners.

Are the same people coming back, or are you constantly chasing

new ears? How do you find that out? Surveys?

Ask them. Sales evidence. Do prospects

ever mention the podcast on your calls? Do they reference specific

episodes or ideas? That one alone tells you more than any

download number ever will. Oh, and of course, inbound quality.

Do leads sound clearer, more informed, less

so? What do you actually do? Well, that's influence. Here's a

refresh frame that usually helps people with figuring this out.

I'd rather have 200 downloads a month from the right

ideal people that would buy from me than 5,000

downloads from people who just like podcasts. One of those

scenarios leads to revenue. The other leads to LinkedIn posts

celebrating numbers that don't mean anything. Harsh, maybe,

but also true. The bottom line is that you need to use platform

data properly. Or. Or don't bother. If you want an early signal

before real world results show up, look at your engagement data.

Go to Apple Podcast Connect, Spotify for creators,

whatever platform you're interested in finding out more from. The retention

curves matter far more than the totals. If people are sticking

around, you're probably doing something right. If they're dropping off

consistently, the podcast isn't doing its job yet.

No amount of downloads will fix that. I'm not saying ignore

your numbers. I'm saying stop

worshipping the wrong ones. Downloads are a

starting point at best. They are not proof of your success.

If your podcast is meant to influence buying decisions,

then influence is what you should measure. It's

time for questions from listeners. Email with your question.

Neilodnows.co.uk each

episode I'm going endeavor to answer some of the emails that I get from

people around the world. These are random people who have

sent an email after listening to an episode. They usually do

that via the contact form@podnows.co.uk, that's P

O D K N O W s.co.uk.

here's an email from Mark, who is a managing director at a

business in Reading. Apparently he says, we

already have a strong sales team. What's the podcast actually

meant to do that our sales team isn't? That's a

good question and quite a common one actually. Mark Sales

handles the live conversations. The idea of the

podcast is it handles the customer or the potential

customers thinking that happens before anyone even

agrees to a conversation. So it works in the messy middle of

the buying process. Mainly the bit where customers are

unsure, they're comparing options, they're looking at prices, and they're trying

to make sense of your offers compared with other people that

have similar offers. So a good B2B podcast

doesn't replace sales. It uses the podcast to

complement your sales talent. And the idea is that by the time

your salespeople get on the phone, they've pretty much done 95%

of the work. And now founder FAQs.

Each episode of this podcast, I'm going to be sharing some of the common questions

that are coming up from founders that I'm chatting with during my coaching

calls and my pick my brain calls. This episode

I wanted to share a clip of a conversation that I had with

Andrew Backhouse. He's a website designer in Harrogate

and he's planning a podcast to launch in Q2. So the

next question is, what makes a solo podcast feel credible rather

than opinion based? And I believe the answer you gave

to that was passion. And the affiliate

links, how they're not going to be something that I

haven't tested. Yeah, so I mean, the affiliate links that

that's destroyed from the start if the listener hasn't built a relationship

with you. And this is why I sort of actually, I'm glad that you're doing

solo because I always say to people, yet having a guest

is fine, it's fine. But the listener

builds a relationship with you, not with your guest. And so,

you know, for me it's a case of they want you to turn up each

time and talk to them and they want to sort of grow a relationship with

you. The only time you really need a guest. Need

is a strong word. The only time you ever really want to consider having a

guest is if it's something where you're not necessarily so

clued up on it, it's an aspect of what you do where, you know, we've

all got things that we're masters of and some things that we know how to

do it generally, but we're not experts in it. So if there's something like that,

then having a guest come in can be useful because, number one, you're

then learning something from it. But also your listener is

understanding. They. They don't look at it as, oh, this guest has come in and

they're an expert, and now my devotion should go to them. What

they tend to do psychologically is think, oh, Andrew's brought some more

expertise to me. That's brilliant. So you still get the credit. And I think

that's the step that a lot of podcast as miss. They think, oh, well, I

don't want someone else coming on my show, but if they know something

different from you, then that's fine. I think it's when you get

two web designers having a conversation about the same

thing, that's where it sort of muddies the waters, and that's where it's kind of

like, well, I'm not building a relationship with this person, I'm building a relationship with

Andrew. And in the next

episode, we're going to be talking about one of the biggest reasons

B2B podcasts struggle to do that.

Spoiler alert. It has something to do with interviews.

I hope you found this episode useful. If you did, please feel free

to share it with another B2B podcaster that you know.

Definitely share it with your CMO or whoever has influence in the

marketing department at your business. And if you haven't done

so yet, click Follow or subscribe in the podcast app you're

listening to this on, and I'm looking forward to speaking to you next

time on on B2B podcasting insights.