In this engaging episode of Podjunction, hosts Matt Edmundson and Sadaf Beynon have a lively conversation about the unexpected benefits of podcasting with special guest Eagan Heath. Eagan, a seasoned podcaster and marketing expert, shares his insights and experiences on how podcasting goes beyond business growth, offering personal fulfilment and joy.

Episode Highlights:

1. Unexpected Joys of Podcasting: Eagan reveals the personal satisfaction and enjoyment he derives from podcasting and emphasises the joy of connecting with new people and engaging in meaningful conversations.
2. Importance of Iteration and Improvement: Eagan discusses the significance of constantly refining the podcast format and how he uses the strategy of starting episodes with compelling teasers to captivate listeners, especially on YouTube.
3. Value of Specialised Podcasts: Find out why Eagan believes specialty and limited-series podcasts are an important tool for lead generation and demonstrating expertise

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Eagan Heath - Podjunction

So whether you're a podcasting newbie or a seasoned podcaster, this episode is for you.

Matt Edmundson: Wow, very warm. Welcome to you on a brand new episode of Pod Junction, the podcast that talks about podcasting, uh, as Dan, but I said very meta. Uh, so we are a meta podcast, uh, pod Junction, talking about how to use podcasting to grow your business. Uh, so yeah, very warm. Welcome to you. My name is Madson.

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, the fly. Uh, yeah, you can point it out. I can see

Sadaf Beynon: it. Quick, get it. Yeah, quick,

Matt Edmundson: get it. I wish I didn't have a, um, I didn't work. I need chopsticks. Did you ever watch the movie Karate Kid, the original eighties version of it? No. With Mr. Miyagi catching flies with chopsticks. Oh, you've missed out.

You have missed out one of the. One of the most amazing parts of film history ever was when, excuse me, when Daniel Sand walked in and just caught a fly within five minutes with his chopsticks.

Sadaf Beynon: With his chopsticks, I'll have to watch it.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah.

And then they'd grab a fly and tie it around the fly and then they would, um, What

Matt Edmundson: kind of school did you go to?

Sadaf Beynon: I don't know. I don't know what went through their heads, but it hurt.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, we didn't do that at my school.

Sadaf Beynon: All right, let's move on.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, let's move on. Let's move on. It's a quick poll. Did anybody else go to a school where you pulled out the girl's hair and tied flies up with it?

Just Sadaf, I don't know.

Sadaf Beynon: And let them fly around.

Matt Edmundson: And let them fly. You can

Sadaf Beynon: control it.

Matt Edmundson: Oh, wow. Okay. So, uh, on that bombshell, I feel like my childhood is missing something right now.

Oh, dear Lord. Okay. So today, what we got coming up?

Sadaf Beynon: We have another segment from Egan Heath. We'll

Sadaf Beynon: Yes. All right. So he's talking about the unexpected benefits of podcasting and also touching on how his podcast has evolved.

Matt Edmundson: Very good. The unexpected benefits of podcasting, the unexpected benefits of hosting a podcast with you as I find out all the stuff.

Yes. Yes. Well, it just brings my Mr. Miyagi story into nothing really. Um, so are we going into that or are we doing a question?

Sadaf Beynon: I have a question.

Matt Edmundson: Okay.

Sadaf Beynon: So if you could do a podcast, yet another podcast,

Matt Edmundson: because I'm missing a few in my life. Yes, you

Sadaf Beynon: are. You've got a few more to do. The quota. Um, and you had to do one that was super, super, super niche.

Niche.

Matt Edmundson: Niche. Niche. Niche. Yeah. Niche is how you say it in America. Niche. Uh, niche is how we say it here in, you know, yes. Real England. And I have no idea how it's real England, how it's pronounced in, um, in Canada.

Matt Edmundson: A podcast called the likes I do? Oh wow. Super niche, or niche, what would it be? I would love to do a podcast on Maybe just on something, I'm not, I've not got the ability to do it, but if I could just doing something like on the Back To The Future Trilogy,

Sadaf Beynon: that

Matt Edmundson: would be like super niche and just do a podcast, which does nothing but talk about Back To The Future and the implications of it and what would actually happen, you know, and the science behind it or something like that.

Or maybe if I wanted to get really geeky. Um, I would do a podcast with my son who has just got his master's in theoretical physics, uh, for some reason, I don't know why, um, and just do a podcast on the science of the movie Interstellar.

Sadaf Beynon: Oh, wow,

So maybe you

Sadaf Beynon: could do a podcast on movies and do series.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, but that's not niche then, is it?

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, okay, well.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, you're violating the laws of your own

Sadaf Beynon: question. Okay, okay, but your first idea, it reminded me of a podcast. That is based on the TV show, the American TV show, The Office.

Matt Edmundson: Oh, okay. I wish I know you haven't seen.

Yeah. No, Zoe, my daughter's a big fan.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. I know she is. Um, so yeah, that's, that's fun to listen to.

Matt Edmundson: Okay. So it's, what was your podcast be? Super Niche Podcast. Oh, Life

Sadaf Beynon: Cycle of a Fly, because I want to kill this thing.

Matt Edmundson: Your podcast, 406 ways on how to effectively get rid of flies out of your podcast studio.

Yeah. All four listeners will be really. I'm enthralled by that podcast.

Sadaf Beynon: Maybe it should be called Dumb Ways To Die.

Matt Edmundson: Did you ever come across the Darwin Awards? Have you ever come across this?

Sadaf Beynon: No.

And so, um, I mean, we shouldn't joke about people's deaths, but some of the ways that people have died, like, um, I, I remember a couple of them, one guy who was enraged about, you know, he put his money into a, uh, you know, one of these dispensers, you put your dollar in or whatever, and it gives you your cookie or whatever, quarters

Sadaf Beynon: or something.

Matt Edmundson: I think I, I dunno if he'd actually put money in, but I think he was trying to shake it to, to get it out. Yeah. He shook it so violently it fell on him. And Christian Smith .

Sadaf Beynon: Oh my gosh. .

Matt Edmundson: So he got the Darwin Award. There's another guy who, um, how true these stories are. I don't know. Yeah. But this is, you know, you just Google the Darwin Awards.

Um, only to realize that his brakes were not capable of stopping a car. That was jet powered, just didn't upgrade his brakes. Anyway, apparently him and a cliff became friends, became intimately entwined. I really shouldn't

Sadaf Beynon: laugh, but

Matt Edmundson: Oh yeah, it's, I mean, they're just hysterical and it's bad to laugh at people's desperate the way Who knows how I'm gonna, you know, depart this earth, maybe I'll get a Darwin Award at some point.

No, my stupid You know, way of approaching life, but there it goes. Anyway.

Sadaf Beynon: Anyway, on to less morbid things.

Matt Edmundson: You could do a niche podcast on the Darwin Awards. That would be quite, quite funny.

Sadaf Beynon: Okay.

Matt Edmundson: Just sit and laugh all day. Uh, anyway, if you like any of these ideas, please do steal them. Cause we're not actually going to do them.

Sadaf Beynon: Would you be able to share with us any unexpected benefits from when you first started and where you're at now?

Eagan Heath: Yeah, that's a great question. For me, it's, I really do enjoy it. Is the plan simple of it? Or it's like, we can talk the monetization, you know, we can talk about, does this get us referrals? Does this get us leads? Does it maybe even get us, you know, people who could buy our courses? In some cases, we're developing courses out of, uh, you know, out of some of the content or the topics that are hot topics like Google Shopping and things like that.

But, um, for me, it's just like. We, many of us in this field work all day on our computers, maybe by ourselves, maybe we're on zoom. Um, my, my business partner and I now have an office that we share, so we see each other in person there sometimes, but it's like, it can be so isolated, all the work we do. And so to get together with other people we've never met before and like get to know them and talk, it's just, it's, it, to me, it, it feels, it fills me up.

Many of them are often in the top ones on Apple Business Podcasts or on iTunes. Um, so he's really found it where this is his sweet spot. He can kind of show up. He's got other people doing the production and editing and publication. He, he can kind of show up and riff and be, be spontaneous. And so for me, it's just like, it's a way to meet new people.

It's a way to learn new things. It's a way to like Get out of the weeds on any client work we're doing or anything I'm doing for our marketing or our business development. So for that, for that, I've kind of said as we went, like, okay, this is going so so or like, okay, we've, we've put quite a few episodes out and invested a lot in this, frankly, what's the ROI?

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. So that's what keeps you going.

Eagan Heath: I think so. Yeah. And it's, and I'm always, you know, I'm not even necessarily tied to the show. What's Working eCommerce will continue because we serve eCommerce clients at Asymmetric Marketing. And now I've got with Mark and my business partner, you know, it's like, now we do Amazon.

So we've had all these people that were Amazon experts. We always kind of stayed out of Amazon. We did, you know, direct to consumer, helping market through the website directly. And now it's like, okay, we've got this other service. I can be having my business partner, Mark, come on and do more with that. But it's also like, we do have clients where there's local service businesses.

I think we're going to see more and more podcasts there as well.

Sadaf Beynon: That's cool.

Eagan Heath: Yeah.

Sadaf Beynon: How would you say your podcast has evolved?

Eagan Heath: Yeah, I think, I think it's a constant iteration of just how do we do this a little better, right? Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things is, and there's a term for this in podcasting, but I don't know what it is, even just skip right to the point of like, have a little teaser at the front, so the first thing people hear, or the first, First thing that people see is somebody like just giving a gold nugget and then like drawing them in.

And I think it's particularly important on YouTube, you know, it's, it's depressing when you watch your YouTube analytics or anything, you can actually see the drop off rate. And one is just, people are, you know, they're kind of clicking around, they see a video. If you go right to your intro and blah, blah, blah, you know, here's your music and here's your.

If we were to really professionalize this and do it better is we kind of have our standard intro, standard outro, etc. But I think the best podcast I listen to, I really enjoy like Tropical MBA podcast, for example. I think they go back and say here's what we talked about and you're gonna enjoy this and that or you're just teasing it.

It's it's like good copywriting. It's like the headline matters, you know, the name, the name of the episode matters, but also Whatever you're saying in those first few ones, it's like this whole thing in

copywriting. The

Eagan Heath: headline matters as much as the rest of your article, your ad or whatever it is. So it's like really nail that first piece and get better and better at trying to retain people like that.

So I think that would be the next step for us too.

Eagan Heath: it? And, uh, and that's just kind of maybe part of my laziness of there's, there's so many ways to make it better. I'm sure people would watch it and see it right away.

Hey, fix this, fix that, or an experienced podcaster like Matt would know exactly what to change. Um, I think some of it is just that diminishing returns thing of, okay, how much time do we put into this? But at some point, Hey Miriam, let's make this standard or have your assistant just say, Hey, let's make this standard.

We do it this way every time. Let's make sure we're, we're sitting down and spending the time on that. So you had asked about the pre meeting call. I think a pre meeting call is a great idea for me. I'm so, I'm just like, let's do that kind of before we record. And so we do that. I try to do the intro at the time.

I often just totally butcher people's names and have to do that multiple times. So that's a major source of me having to redo the intros. Um, and so I'm, I'm mostly recording them all in one go, but I think there's value. And like I said, it's like, it's spontaneous. We don't know what people are going to say.

So I

Eagan Heath: think there's value in going back and redoing the intro and I'm selling myself on this as I think

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: Welcome back.

He's whispering. What was it you were whispering?

Sadaf Beynon: That's something we should do. Yes, I was agreeing.

Matt Edmundson: We just realized that in the mid roll, what we call the mid roll, where Sadaf goes, if you like that and you want to check out the full episode, it should say full interview. And so we've just realized on our own stuff, we've made an error.

But yeah, I've just, to be fair, I've only just noticed it myself anyway. So if you want to listen to the full interview with Egan Heath, we will put that on the Podjunction podcast. We're going to start doing this where we put the full interview with our guests after we've had a few episodes with them.

Is that right?

Sadaf Beynon: That's right. Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: Um, so, and you don't need to do anything extra to get hold of that. That's just going to be on the pod. Podcast Platform, um, and so yeah, you obviously will just label it like full interview or something like that. So, uh, check that out. We're going to start doing that more and more.

I don't know. We'll find out. We'll find out. So anyway, that actually, for me, I loved what Egan was saying there. The two things which stood out to me, one, he does it because he enjoys it. The unexpected benefits. So yes, you get all of the benefits. Yeah. The positive aspects of podcasting in terms of growing your business, but fundamentally he does it and keeps doing it because he enjoys it.

And that's something that we don't talk about enough. I think it's a really enjoyable medium.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. Actually, when he was talking, I was thinking of you because you've said that as well. Oh yeah. Off camera, obviously, but yeah.

Matt Edmundson: Go me.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah. The fact that you can just show up. And have these great conversations, meet great people.

Um, and you're building your network either way, but they're just fascinating stories. And. Under, I would be the same as Egan, underneath all of this, I do it because I enjoy it. If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't do it. I'd go find another way to do lead generation and build networks for my company, um, is what I would do.

But as things currently stand, I, I just really enjoy it. I enjoy podcasting. I enjoy live streaming, two things that I really enjoy. And the thing that I've noticed more and more is I enjoy doing them with other people. Like I enjoyed this podcast format with you because we laugh a lot more than if it was just, I enjoy the interviews with Egan because I find out stuff about him and I get to pick his brains and I get to ask the questions, which was a beautiful thing.

Sadaf Beynon: It is fun.

Matt Edmundson: So yes, what else did you get out of that?

Sadaf Beynon: Um,

He was talking about, um, his business partner, his new business partner and how they're moving into the Amazon space, which they weren't in before. And then they've got, um, like a lead generation part of their business and you know, so on and so forth. And he was talking about having a podcast for each one of those part of the business.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. He called it a special podcast, didn't he? Even limited edition, limited episode podcasts.

Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: Um, which I, I actually quite like as a concept, it's like, we're actually just going to do this as a limited run of podcasts and we're going to talk about, and I've subscribed to quite a few of those.

Sadaf Beynon: For content. And like he's spoken in a previous episode where he had a client listening to his stuff and then, you know, ready to sign on the bottom, on the, on the dotted line without even having had that conversation.

So if you're producing that kind of content, people will buy into you, won't they?

Matt Edmundson: They will. And I think it's interesting because. One of the things that I've noticed more and more, I mean, he, Egan talked about actually creating courses, didn't he? One of the things that I think has been a big seismic shift over recent months has been, You know, years ago we would do the courses and people would subscribe to the courses and they would buy them.

Now, the. I appreciate this is going to be very dependent on industry and so on and so forth. But one of the things that we've been thinking around with eCommerce podcasts, for example, is the courses that we used to sell, putting them out there for free and probably doing that as a limited run podcast.

Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: Do you see what I mean? Um, and putting that out there and going, right, this is a podcast, which is specifically related to a course. So it's going to have, you know, like 12 key. Lessons or however many it is, right? Um, and they're split out over say 24 episodes, but it's limited. So the reason why I think that works is because you have, um, you have a beginning and an end, right?

And, and the relationship between the BBC and Stonewall. And it was a limited edition. Mm-Hmm. Run. And it was absolutely fascinating. Yeah. And enthralling. But when it ended. It was right that it ended. Yeah. They didn't try and keep streaming it out and go, well, let's talk about the BBC's relationship with the crown or the BBC's.

It was just like, no, it was this one particular topic set. And I thought that was really good. Another one that I've listened to that I subscribed to that was a limited edition. It's a limited, I don't know, there's probably a name for it, but just like a specific run of shows. And then that was it. Um, was the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.

Sadaf Beynon: Oh, yeah,

Yeah, I think it's a limited series.

Sadaf Beynon: I think. Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: So I like that. I like that as an idea. And I think. As Egan was talking, I was like, yeah, actually the stuff that we've been thinking about redoing the courses we could release as these kind of mini podcasts and bring the course into that content and see what actually happens as a result.

Now people might say, well, aren't you afraid you're going to lose out with the course income? And on one hand I could say yes, because obviously we're not charging for it. But on the other hand, it will bring in more leads for the podcast. The acquisition side of the company that have, where we take over the people, where the service side, where we help people with services.

Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: Now again, we will start doing something like with Podjunction, we're going to be starting a mastermind group. Is that right? Yeah, we've not got a name for it yet. Probably Podjunction Cohort. But we're gonna be doing the same with EP where, you know, podcasters who If you're a podcaster and you're out there, come join the group, come join the community, um, and network with other podcasters, pick each other's brains.

We can talk about stuff, you know, and, and do events and things like that. And I think that's a bit more interesting, really going back to old school community, uh, maybe bring some accountability groups in there that who knows, we've not totally decided yet how it's going to work, but I think that would be fascinating.

And we were like, no, and it felt like it was a lot of energy and effort at the time. I say a lot of energy and effort. You have to find the clip and put it on the start of the video is what you have to do. It's not, I mean, it's half an hour's worth of work, I suppose, for somebody, but we, we found that by doing that, it didn't really move the needle on engagement, but I, what I have noticed is, um, people CEO, Steve Bartlett, they have.

Okay.

Matt Edmundson: Um, if you ever listened to his leadership podcast, he does this where he goes, we talked about. I talk with Egan Heath, and in this, we're going to talk about this, this, this and this. And so you know what's coming up. And whilst I don't think just showing a little clip at the start worked well for us, because it didn't really move the needle, which is why we stopped doing it.

There is a conversation, I think, to be had now about do we, Jazz up the intro a little bit more. Of course, the caveat to that is what's the, what's the cost. Um, and so at the moment it's just really, the way we do podcasts is really easy. We turn up, we record the whole thing. We, we talk, whenever I do the eCommerce podcast, there's always the introduction.

And in today's eCommerce Podcast, Matt's going to talk to Egan about dot, dot, dot. So grab your notebooks and listen up. Yeah. You're not going to want to go anywhere. I don't know. It's an interesting idea. What do you think? You're the producer. Would you do it? Would you not?

Sadaf Beynon: I think, um, I think his argument for it is really strong because, um, You know, when you're, as he said, when you're, when you've got a marketing piece and you're trying to figure out what it is that you're looking at, having something right up front, that's just to the point, you know exactly what it is and you decide, do I want to stick it through?

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that's a fair point. And I think. I mean, I have, I subscribe, as you would imagine, to a lot of podcasts. So if I open up my podcast app, which is Snipped, by the way, people always want to know what podcast app I use, it's Snipped. Uh, the reason I use Snipped, S N I, what is it, S N I P D, I think. Um, the reason I use that is because when you're listening to the podcast, you can tap the player key point and it will, it will highlight that, that part.

So I've got the red, the, the times one, um, the politics one, the red, the red, what's it called? The red, I don't know, something, uh, the red box. Politics thing or something. Anyway, I really liked that because it's just a really interesting conversation about. So his title is The Exit Interviews, Robert Halfon.

I don't care. So I would just go, right, archive that. I'm not interested in listening to that. Right. Um, I've got, uh, Kerry Newhoff, Matt Chandler opens up about hitting the wall. Yeah, I get it. I'm not interested. So I can archive that. So for me, the most important thing is the title. The title decides whether or not I'm going to listen to it.

So I'm into the show notes and actually this is where I think, um, show notes play an important part because show notes obviously summarize what you're saying and I wonder whether actually It's thinking about this intro just to sort of add a bit extra to what Egan is saying that yes, I think redoing the intros would be ideal, it's not always possible, but one of the key things to work on for me is the title and the first four or five lines of your show notes, because that's what people see on a player, they see the first four or five lines of the show notes, it's what people see on YouTube, YouTube description, it's the first like, I don't know how many characters it is, we could figure it out.

And if I'm, if I, what I do notice, if I then will listen to that podcast, I'll listen to it all the way through. Yeah. I'm not likely to clear off all the way through. So it gets me more engaged.

Sadaf Beynon: That makes sense. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: So I think it's a really interesting idea.

Sadaf Beynon: I like it.

Matt Edmundson: Okay, we'll keep watch what happens.

That said, I would not change how we introduce the podjunction.

Sadaf Beynon: You would not?

Matt Edmundson: No, it's not like we'd record it and then go back and go, in this episode Sadaf and I talk about I wouldn't do any highlights either. And maybe would just because I think people have got used to the format. Okay, he's going to play a jingle.

Yeah. Um, there's going to be usually a bit of banter. Normally Matt draws attention to something that you've done, which is funny.

Yes.

Matt Edmundson: That's what happens when Matt introduces the show. Uh, then we have a clip, then we have the talk bits. The format's quite simple. I don't know how I'd redo the intro for this.

Sadaf Beynon: No, I like it. I think for the interview, it makes sense.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Whereas it's certainly long episodes. Yeah. Over and out. I'm looking at the time now we've overrun.

Sadaf Beynon: Yeah, we better we better wrap it up.

Sorry,

Matt Edmundson: I was rabbiting on there. Ladies and gentlemen, that's what happens when you get people like Egan on board. He makes you think. And so what you've basically heard is me just verbally processing some ideas. Welcome to Sadaf's life. She has to sit and listen to me verbally process all of the time.

What do you do? Do you just normally zone out and think about all the things you've got to do at home?

Sadaf Beynon: No, I don't, I stay engaged and then I tell you all the parts where you're wrong and all the parts where you could do, where you could have thought about it a different way. Yeah,

Matt Edmundson: yeah, welcome to my life.

And hopefully you find it interesting and helpful. If you do, we'd love for you to leave a review. I know it's not always straightforward because you might be driving, you might be walking the dog, you might go, I don't want to leave you a review. But if you're a podcaster, you know the importance of reviews.

So do leave us a review of the show. We would greatly appreciate it. And anybody got any tips on how to get rid of flies, just let us know because we've got a problem with

Sadaf Beynon: that. It'll probably still be here next week.

Matt Edmundson: Awesome. Great. Anything else from you? No. Awesome. Have a great week. See you later.

Whether you listen while on the go or in a quiet moment, thank you for letting us be a part of your day. Remember, every episode is a chance to gain insights and to transform your business with podcasting, so keep on tuning in, keep on learning, and until next time, happy podcasting.