David Abel is the founder of Digital Lightbulb, a branding and e-commerce consultancy. But despite his expertise, his podcast wasn’t driving the business results he wanted.

In this candid conversation, I help David understand why more listeners isn't the best goal, how to create clear and compelling offers, and how to leverage value-based fees effectively. We dive deep into practical ways David can position himself clearly, improve his online presence, and turn podcast conversations into meaningful business opportunities.

Game Plan Talking Points:

• Why Listener Numbers Aren’t the Goal

• Leveraging Your Website for Credibility

• Transitioning from Employee to Entrepreneur Mindset

• The Risk of Virtue Signaling in Early Business

• Clarifying and Strengthening Your Brand Messaging

• Moving Beyond Selling Your Time

• Structuring Offers Around Value-Based Fees

12 Reasons to Listen…

• Why “More Downloads” Isn’t the Right Goal.

It’s at 02:00

• Building Real Business Credibility

It’s at 04:00

• Avoiding “Cart Before Horse” Mistakes

It’s at 04:30

• The Reality of Scaling Beyond Your Time

It’s at 05:30

• How to Clearly Define Your Offer

It’s at 06:30

• Why Your Website Matters (A Lot!)

It’s at 09:00

• From Employee to Entrepreneur Mindset

It’s at 13:00

• The Risk of Virtue Signaling in Business

It’s at 14:00

• Clarifying Your Brand Messaging

It’s at 17:00

• Creating Effective Sales Conversations

It’s at 23:00

• Using Your Podcast Strategically

It’s at 26:00

• Implementing Value-Based Fees

It’s at 33:00

Time-stamps:

00:00 The Problem with Podcast Goals

04:00 Building Real Credibility

05:30 Scaling Beyond Selling Your Time

09:00 Website Credibility and Visibility

13:00 Employee to Entrepreneur Mindset Shift

14:00 Risks of Virtue Signaling

17:00 Clarifying Your Brand Message

23:00 Creating Effective Sales Conversations

26:00 Strategic Use of Podcasting

33:00 Implementing Value-Based Fees

Guest Deets:

Find David HERE

David Abel on LinkedIn

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Here are three ways I can help you with your business:

👀 Watch ‘Get Clients with Your Podcast’ when you join my email list

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🚀 Connect with me on LinkedIn

Toby Goodman: That is value-based fees, my friend. Do you want to spend £5.99 and carry a tube of thrush cream around with you for a few days, or do you wanna just take this pill once at three times the price?

David Abel: efficiency

Toby Goodman: that is value-based fees, how it makes you feel. All of it, right? No, you can't work with me for 12 weeks for a day a week.

Toby Goodman: What happens if you are so into using your podcast as a networking tool, but you don't know how to effectively discuss your business with your guests? Well, nothing. Nothing happens. I've been watching David Abel walk into that trap for the last few months and he asked me for some help. Welcome to 'Not Another Business Podcast' with me, Toby Goodman.

Toby Goodman: What you're about to hear are excerpts from a fairly direct conversation from my standpoint, and I give massive respect to David for being cool with letting me put this out. When it comes to using your podcast to grow your business, hope is not a strategy. Buckle up.

Toby Goodman: If you are in business and identify as pod curious, or your podcast isn't working out the way you'd hoped, I've got more for you, including episodes, my bestselling book, Narrow Podcasting and Profitable Pod Method Skill Sessions. For all that and more about how I can support your business, head over to narrowpodcasting.com.

Toby Goodman: Correct me if I'm wrong, you are a man in his mid-forties like me, who's trying to grow a business. Yeah. And you have a podcast. Great. So ~that is the lens that I'm looking through it all. ~That is the lens I'm looking through when I'm thinking about you.

Toby Goodman: To say, how can I help Dave? How can I actually help this guy? And you've asked me how do I get more followers? How do I get more listeners and how do I get more downloads? And I'm gonna say to you, with the greatest love in the world, that's a shit question. Forget it. Okay. Unless you've got an absolute plan to make the podcast a direct revenue source.

Toby Goodman: Right? And he's got more than one ad slot per episode. That's someone who's winning podcasting as a business. ~I know that you've. Contributed to a book. ~I've written a book and that it's a bestseller and I don't consider myself an author, right? That's my business card. The problem you have today is the foundation of what you're saying. I can't really find anywhere at the moment beyond a LinkedIn profile for you and a LinkedIn profile page for digital light bulb, which is your business, right?

Toby Goodman: So if you are saying, I build brands. And you have a podcast and you have the book. So you have all of these assets, right? You don't have nothing. And you do have experience and you've worked with some incredible people as an employee in your former life.

Toby Goodman: But also if I dig and I want to look at your brand, and I'm not seeing a website with . Here are the three ways we can help. You are putting the cart ~be ~before the horse. Big style. And like I say, if you want a big famous podcast and you want someone else to do all of that, and you wanna be a star, this is not the conversation you should be having.

Toby Goodman: Yeah. Yeah. So ~you want, ~you don't mind selling some of your time for money and I don't either.

Toby Goodman: But there's also elements of a business, like for me, I have a small team that can produce podcasts and I don't do that. ~I. ~So I have a scalable element to my business. I have the book. You have the book. Great. Doesn't make that much money, whatever. 'cause book sales don't make much money, but it's, that's there and it doesn't make nothing.

Toby Goodman: Yeah. And I have a course that is two grand and I can also sell in slightly different ways. So they're things that are out there that bring in money while I'm sleeping. Your thing is I'll build teams so you can go in, ~you can assemble you, ~you can assemble the Avengers and you can put 'em into someone else's business and they can solve any problem.

David Abel: ~Yeah. ~Yeah. This is quite funny actually.

David Abel: They're gonna need us. And actually, that's been very common ~Okay. ~Messaging, through the brand in six years that we have everything you need here.

Toby Goodman: Okay. But I also have a massive problem with that.

David Abel: Yeah.

Toby Goodman: Because as soon as I say, I've got everything you need. I don't believe that's true.

David Abel: Not so it's more the context of for that problem. Right.

David Abel: ~Not for everything. So ~

Toby Goodman: ~at the moment, so ~at the moment, what is observable on your website is nothing. 'cause your website's not live and you talk about yourself more than you talk about the result and the problem. Now, there are a lot of problems that I solve for people, ~I would say, ~because I've got more than one string to my bow, right?

Toby Goodman: Or you can press the business and podcasting button and you'll end up on narrow podcasting. And within that, what I'm saying with narrow podcasting and my position is: I believe podcasting is one of the best ways to help you create better communication and better relationships, both for prospects and clients and also inside your team ~if but that's it.~

Toby Goodman: But ~the thing, the ~the bright flashing object isn't a light bulb It's a podcast,

Toby Goodman: ~ is ~

Toby Goodman: But then there's a journey I'm showing people, right? ~If you are interested in this, ~if you're interested in being a better communicator, if you want to grow your business and use a podcast at the same time, you are making training materials at the same time as you're making marketing assets. I'm gonna show you how I do that on the backend, and it's gonna be specific to where you are in your business today.

Toby Goodman: So I'm guiding people, right? I'm showing them a few things at the buffet. There's two buffets where I live. There's one cheap one and it's got 30 different stations. It's all kind of low quality. It's cheap though, and it's overwhelming and you never get round it.

Toby Goodman: So isn't that interesting? They both offer you all you can eat for a fixed price, but funnily enough, the one with less options is the one that we go to when we're feeling more flush. ~Yeah. ~So the problem that you have is a, you don't have a website where I can see what I can buy, and you are mentioning things like ops and merch and all of these things that you know about, but at the top of the way you're communicating is we'll, come into your business if you're doing six or seven figures and we'll solve all your problems, and all you have to do is hire us from one day a week.

Toby Goodman: I also think that's a mistake, and the reason why I think that's a mistake is because value based fees, which is to say, I can give you 10 minutes on the phone and solve some shit that someone who said you can have me for a day, like the day is nothing don't waste my time.

Toby Goodman: Harsh, but is that helpful?

David Abel: No, it's not harsh and that's why I'm here because~ and ~if anyone's watching and hopefully in my position as the business owner who doesn't see the wood for their own trees, the builder expression of his own house is actually a real ~a ~mess. 'cause he's fixing other people's.

Toby Goodman: So there's a bit of a rebrand opportunity.

Toby Goodman: And I, look, I've been the same when the administration changed in the US my business changed overnight and I could not change that.

Toby Goodman: Nothing I can do about that. Other than Get on. Yeah.

David Abel: No. The vehicle changes.

Toby Goodman: Yeah. That, and ~it feels like, ~it feels business wise, like Covid felt just everything stopped in a really weird way. ~Yeah. ~But guess what? I've been through Covid and I'm that much older, so I know what to do a bit more.

Toby Goodman: I have a bit more confidence. I can act a little bit faster. I can be decisive. I can not be hung up on making a mistake and I can just move on and I can view everything

Toby Goodman: I do as an experiment on my own business so that I'm not like, oh, it didn't work.

Toby Goodman: Let's move on. So for you, your website's in staging, which doesn't mean anything by the way, it just means it's not fucking live. And no one knows what it is when you ~Yeah. ~Harsh.

David Abel: Harsh, yeah. ~Host,~

Toby Goodman: right?

David Abel: But it's true no, listen

David Abel: I'll relay those points. Get your website up and running.

David Abel: Correct. I'm working the 7 11 4 business. I know you need your channels and that's a key one to connect,

Toby Goodman: ~tell. ~And what's funny is ~you are, ~you've done 50 episodes of a podcast and I can't, ~I can ~but wonder how much more effective that podcast would be. Somebody went that David seems like a nice character.

Toby Goodman: You want to help, you wanna be part of a community. You've come to being an entrepreneur after having a career in corporate where lots of people shit on each other to get to the top. And now that you own your own ship, you're trying to also help other people. I saw this. In around 20 10, 20 11, when I was building my first business with my friend James, and he was like, wouldn't it be great if we had a charitable element to what we did?

Toby Goodman: I was like, yeah, that'd be great. And our business coach John at the time said, but guys, you aren't making any money so you can be distracted by virtue and it's really dangerous. And he was right. He was absolutely right to say that.

Toby Goodman: When I used to work on cruise ships as a musician in my twenties, casual meant suit and tie, formal meant tuxedo. They were the options. ~Yeah. ~So the environment, that was what's expected. So because you own your own brand,

Toby Goodman: Or because you know how other people's brands work. You can go in and do it, but they're still checking you out. You've got a lovely logo. Great. What does the website Oh!

Toby Goodman: That concerns me like massively. ~Yeah. ~You are investing a lot of time talking to great people.

Toby Goodman: Trying to so I think because the internet has afforded us an ability to connect with those like insanely

Toby Goodman: successful people

Toby Goodman: we do wanna meet them where they are, and ~we don't, ~we do want them to feel like we have this peer to peer relationship.

Toby Goodman: But Joe Foster's not your peer, and he's not my peer, he's a friend to a certain degree. ~He's a, ~he's an ally of yours for sure. He's given us his time, but ~he's, ~his business was constrained by not having the internet and not having podcasts. So he just had to do the work. And I think there's a danger for some of us sometimes to just say, oh, I'm just gonna do ~just ~more content and just lift people up and it will come.

Toby Goodman: So you're trying to create the serendipitous moments by having a podcast. I think that's a great strategy, but there still comes a stage, let's say the ~sere ~serendipitous moment at the conference has got nothing to do with business and everything to do with a different time when you're a single guy and you're at that conference and you're at the bar.

Toby Goodman: And you're getting along great and there was a moment where, you move from being in a bar to swapping phone numbers with a view to having a date somewhere else. With a view to pretending you've left the bar separately and meeting upstairs later or whatever it is, right?

Toby Goodman: mutual consent needs to happen, right?

Toby Goodman: So that's why I'm worried about your podcast. I'm worried about your podcast because you have a bright, shiny object. And I dunno what the hell to do next.

Toby Goodman: ~All the stuff I wrote about in my book. ~You haven't created a stage and a platform where it sits and it reflects your ability to do all the things you say you can do for other people. My podcast, in fact, I will share the screen, and I appreciate certain people will be listening to this in audio.

Toby Goodman: Now here's a free thing you can watch. Get clients with your podcasts. Show me how. So there's a way for people to come in and if they want to, they can give me their email address and then I'll give them something that's valuable and short very quickly. They might not want that, so they might start to scroll, what do I really want?

Toby Goodman: I want sales conversations. So if they can't be bothered watching a free thing or signing up to a thing, they can just get in touch. They can just work with Toby. They could also hire my podcast production service. How do I know if I can trust you? Oh, look, there's my book. There's a podcast, there's some testimonials, et cetera, et cetera.

Toby Goodman: So the player's there, you can do all the things. That's all fine. The show notes are there.

Toby Goodman: But the best buyers, the ones with the most money and the biggest problems that you can solve, do not want to go through your content.

Toby Goodman: They just wanna hire you. So ~give them a quick, give them the button. ~Give them the button that moves them up to first class ~so they don't have to the queue right. ~With the bigger baggage allowance. So yeah, that's really like the crux of the problem. I think you are really used to working with big brands , and that is very different from starting out on your own.

Toby Goodman: And it's also ~nothing to be. It's ~nothing to be ashamed of. Like I think it's brilliant, but you can't afford to talk about yourself as a, we as a big thing until people start ~talking about we ~talking about you.

Toby Goodman: So the work you did at Ted Baker, loads of people know who Ted Baker is. So these were the kinds of problems I've solved and now I'm solving them for your seven, eight figure business. ~6, 7, 8, figure, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. ~You can come across as exclusive and small.

Toby Goodman: But you don't necessarily have to build a huge brand to service ~to ~huge brands. I think that's really important. You can be a specialist gun for hire. A very powerful ability to diagnose and people can pay you a fee to prescribe them a plan that you can do in half a day, and they could potentially be paying more than your day rate, right?

David Abel: No, I think that comes as you get to know people and you see how the business really is once you get in the nuts and bolts of it.

Toby Goodman: Yeah. And also you don't wanna work with someone who's a nightmare client, so no. ~Can you,~

David Abel: you get handed the mop and bucket a lot,

Toby Goodman: right? So what can you do that secures you from a nightmare client that brings money in and that kind of tests a relationship.

David Abel: ~Yeah, I think, ~yeah, I think our opening offer, we do a 12 week package where we get to meet the team and just have this daily running.

David Abel: ~That's time though. ~That's still 12 weeks. Yeah, it is actually, to be honest. And then they say, do you wanna work two days a week? It's 'cause you've done so well and got through so much momentum.

Toby Goodman: I think you're buying yourself a job if you're selling 12 days.

Toby Goodman: ~I think I do a very, I do what sounds like a very similar thing, but is not, I.~

Toby Goodman: So I wouldn't be framing it as a day. I would strongly recommend framing it as a three month thing. But there is potentially something you can do before that doesn't waste you time, that brings you in a little bit of revenue, and that makes the three month thing ~easy, ~an easier sell. Okay. What would that be for you?

Toby Goodman: Say it again? Smaller than three months. Yeah. Not a per day, so not time in any way. Yeah. That would make it easier for you to sell your three month package?

Toby Goodman: Give it a sexy name. Yeah.

David Abel: yeah.

Toby Goodman: But you

David Abel: ~did say how to do it. Say again?~

David Abel: You did say how to do it. Get a big PR

Toby Goodman: agency. Hire someone that knows how to get loads of things, but I don't think that's what you want. No, we moved on from that. We've moved on. I don't think that's what you want.

Toby Goodman: So let's go back. Let's think about when you get in front of someone because you are doing the podcast, because your website's gonna be live. You wanna be in a situation where you have a waiting list of people battering down your door.

Toby Goodman: There we go. That's really the dream is that you have a wait list. Cool. We've only got space for one more client. This month. You are at the front of the queue. Here are my bank details. Yes, of course I'll review everything, but my team will be delivering it while I'm chilling out with my kids because I'm a business owner.

Toby Goodman: ~No, you could do that on a Monday. ~The point that I'm making is you came and told me you had a certain challenge. 'cause I said, what are your questions for me? And I basically said, mate, these are terrible questions. Here's why. And I

Toby Goodman: would confidently anticipate that your ideal client will come to you and say, David, these are all the problems we've got. And because you are an expert at ops and at merch, you're gonna say, Hey, I understand why you think you've got that problem, but here's what I see. And I can tell you that because I've spent this many years at Ted Baker, I've spent this many years doing this that many years doing that.

Toby Goodman: And as someone with two kids who lives in and around the London area, it's probably the latter, right?

David Abel: Yeah. You got that. But ~we're, it's ~it's such a great thing having a podcast, like I say, to get that wisdom and soak it up, right? And what you are saying is, look, in terms of a bigger part of your brand, you're sitting on great stuff.

David Abel: You've got a tie it all together, right? You've gotta use the right language. You can have ~a Chinese buffet do I say Chinese, ~A cheap buffet or a five star buffet, right? And actually you've given me ~who gives a lot of other people ~that positioning. Here how I'm framing what I'm saying, how I'm communicating it.

David Abel: ~Yeah. ~And more importantly, and yeah. Superb.

Toby Goodman: Dude I'm, I feel I can give you a bit of a roasting, but I also,

Toby Goodman: Your business is ultimately the funder, the sponsor of your podcast, but you don't talk about it on your podcast. So many people do this. Listen to the episode with Ciara Chinniar Actually,

Toby Goodman: ~she has. ~She has this incredible business and then she has a podcast. And because she's British, she feels cringe about talking about her business

Toby Goodman: on her podcast, she's got two kids as well. Like, how much time have you got? Let the stuff that you are creating work for your business that you are trying to grow.

Toby Goodman: It's pretty simple. And yet people go that's the podcast. That's a different thing that lives over there. The amount of businesses, big businesses, I've seen, oh yeah, we've got a podcast. I think it's somewhere on, is it not on the website?

Toby Goodman: Yeah. No, I think with the podcast though, it's really

David Abel: so you become the voice of your thing. And I see everyone else doing the same things coming up the same ways. And actually the narrow podcasting is still works, but I haven't really had any digital

Toby Goodman: people in. Because you haven't talked about digital, so it's your asset.

Toby Goodman: You can do what you like with it. Also, narrow podcasting can be misconstrued. If you've only read the title of the book and you haven't read the book and you haven't actually spoken to me, ~which is ~you can do a narrow podcasting, which is ecomm for six figure businesses, right? Yeah. That's narrow as it comes.

Toby Goodman: Doesn't matter what it's called, but is narrow at the bottom and at the bottom is unseen. But what you are doing with each of those episodes. And why you are investing an hour of your time talking to someone and why you are spending time editing it beautifully and putting it ~on a website that lives on your, sorry.~

Toby Goodman: ~Yeah. Putting ~on a website that lives on a domain you own is because you have an asset there that you can do things with that are frankly no one else's business, not your listeners. By that, the generic listener, listeners don't have money. They're bored. They wanna be entertained. I have no idea who's listening to my podcast.

Toby Goodman: Don't care. I actually don't care. I care as soon as they raise their hand and say, thank you, this is helpful. And I say, thanks for listening. And then even less of those will say, thinking about buying your course. And I'll go~ . If ~if you're ready, then great. ~If it, ~if everything on the page about this course ~I.~

Toby Goodman: So people enter at different parts of the cycle. Your job. Let's talk about Joe Foster, 'cause we both know Joe Foster a little bit.

Toby Goodman: How does Joe Foster talk about Dave?

David Abel: You'd have to ask him. He is his own man, but having met him and shared my life story with him, he'd say I was very candid, very driven

David Abel: and very calm with the crowd.

Toby Goodman: Well done. Sign of credibility. But I would like to know how many people Joe has met

Toby Goodman: since your book came out? Who have said things and he's been able to go, you need my friend David for that. And I don't think you've done that yet. And the reason why I don't think you've done that yet is because I don't know who needs my friend Dave.

Toby Goodman: But I do know other people you work for at Ted Baker personally. And ~I do know, ~I do know that you've accomplished things as a dude in business. I just don't know how to say to my network, if you've got this problem right now, Dave is your absolute number one guy. And the reason why I dunno how to say that, is because when you talk about yourself and we in your business it's like, we'll just send a team in to fix everything.

David Abel: this is a Trojan horse.

David Abel: This is a stick up.

Toby Goodman: Isn't that absolutely no way that, that you and I can deliver the same results for clients? So I think you've got a target market commitment issue, and I think you are married to, I think because of where you are from, and I've seen this before with other people who have come from very well recognized brands, is

Toby Goodman: you can be at london Fashion Week, and you can say Ted Baker, and everyone's oh, cool. ~Dave from Ted's Baker in here ~Ted Baker's here. Let him into the secret VIP suite. 'cause someone from Ted you cannot do that

Toby Goodman: now.

Toby Goodman: So

Toby Goodman: what's been most helpful to you?

David Abel: And thank you as well. It's ~been, it is ~been brill and every time I talk to you, you do pull me to one side and say, Hey, do this, and give great feedback. And every time I love it and every time I act on it.

David Abel: The first time was how do I do a podcast? And then I had one. I learned change, grow in that spirit. The website ~I knew you'd pick up on, ~I knew you'd pick up on other channels and how the whole thing links together. The thing I was probably more surprised on was about how you are communicating, which is where you are

David Abel: Someone phones you up and says, will you work with me? And yeah the channels, but the language within the channels because the website is gonna reflect the tone of the podcast with a bit of that glitz and glamor, more than the seriousness of, you need this sign up.

David Abel: Getting down to having phone calls with other great business owners and finding them.

Toby Goodman: Your podcast is getting in the way of you having sales conversations.

Toby Goodman: And that's the metric right now. How many sales conversations have you had ~that, ~this week, this month. ~. 5 99, ~right? Value-based fees. ~Okay. ~I am on the Boots website.

Toby Goodman: ~I can buy 1% clot CRI clot, ~I can buy 1% clotrimazole effective soothing relief for vaginal and penile thrush for £5.99 A cream, okay? Men and women, that, and I can apply it, right? Or she can apply it. Okay? ~Doesn't matter. ~Doesn't matter. Or I can buy thrush, oral capsule for £13.39 once and swallow it.

Toby Goodman: That is value-based fees, my friend. Do you want to spend £5.99 and carry a tube of thrush cream around with you for a few days, or do you wanna just take this pill once at three times the price?

David Abel: Efficiency

Toby Goodman: that is value-based fees, how it makes you feel, all of it, right? No, you can't work with me for 12 weeks for a day a week.

Toby Goodman: It's your thrush capsule. Yeah. Okay. ~Swallow one time. ~Swallow one time. Get a result. The point is you get the result at the end of a very short amount of time and it's worth your money. And it's focused. Yeah. And then we move to a better diet!

Toby Goodman: What's the whole version of that? And it's super uncomfortable. 'cause you're gonna have to choose more specific messaging than you've got but by doing that, you're gonna attract more people and

Toby Goodman: ~you're gonna re, ~you're gonna repel the wrong kind of people. And some people from outside a different organization will say, ah, that sounds great. ~If only did it for, ~if only did it for food and beverage. Looks like you're only doing it for fashion brands. Is there any chance we, you go yeah, maybe let's do a clarity audit first and see if I can help you.

Toby Goodman: That's all right. ~So going back to the very, very top Yeah. ~What's the one thing you're gonna do after this call that you wouldn't have done before it?

David Abel: I think it's to get back to that website. I always say if there's a problem here, it's probably the same problem everywhere.

David Abel: So it's a baker if that shirt. I had a problem in that shop, it was likely the same issue as going around every shop. And sure enough it was, and you could catch one small thing becomes a lot. So I think the language thing is, and the positioning is really the biggest one for me.

David Abel: The website is down to me in discipline of getting it live. So I'll get on with it as they say. And I think there'll be, I think there'll be more around guest selection at some point. But again, just what we were talking around value-based fees and product psychology and positioning. It all comes back again to this one point.

David Abel: I love it. Sorry, that's a bit harsh now. Honestly. ~Honestly, ~it was a bit uncomfortable, but not to the point of well, you'd rather know. Not know, and I appreciate you saying it for some reason. You've got a magic way with me you have!

Toby Goodman: Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please give it a five star review and share it with someone you think it would help. If you are a business owner considering podcasting, or you are not getting the results you wanted from the podcast you have, I've got more episodes, a bestselling book, narrow Podcasting and Profitable Pod Method Skill Sessions, all designed to help you where you are right now.

Toby Goodman: For all of that and how I can support your business, head over to narrowpodcasting.com.