Grow Your Agency Through Podcast Networking: My Playbook, Revised

Most firms that consider a podcast start with the audience. Who will listen? How long will it take to build a following? Is there room for another show in the market? Those are fair questions, and they stop a lot of good ideas before they start.

I came at it from the other side. When I first wrote this playbook in January 2017, I was nearing episode 100 of my show, Working Without Pants, and the listeners mattered less to my business than the people I had interviewed. For an agency or a consulting firm, a podcast is first a reason to have a useful conversation every week with someone you want to know.

This playbook will help you decide whether a podcast belongs in your firm's business development plan, choose guests and set up a show around those relationships.

DisclosureJake Jorgovan founded Content Allies, which this essay links to.

What I found when I traced my clients back to the show

Shortly before I wrote the first version, I went through every client I had closed over the previous 12 months. I could trace over 60% of them back to my podcast in some form (opens in a new tab). Some guests became clients. Others referred clients to me. Interviews also led to webinars, speaking slots and guest posts.

Listeners sent some leads and projects as well. The relationships from the interviews were worth far more.

That was my own look back over a year of consulting work, counting any client I could trace to the show "in some form or fashion." Read it as a reason to take guest relationships seriously, not as a conversion rate to put in a forecast.

The pattern held. By February 2019 I was running Lead Cookie, a LinkedIn prospecting company I later sold, and every one of its referral partners had been a guest on my podcast at some point. I had interviewed almost all of them before the company existed.

Listeners took longer. Looking back in March 2021, I said it had been about a year and a half before I noticed business arriving from listeners. The relationships started with the first interview.

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Jake’s historical account, summarized from this article. These results describe his experience and are not a performance forecast.

Why a show makes networking systematic

Most networking is random. You meet someone at an event, or a colleague makes an introduction, and it happens when it happens. A podcast gives you a standing reason to meet someone new every week, and you choose who. At one interview a week, that is 52 conversations a year with people you picked.

In 2017 I sorted guests into three groups, and the split still works. One guest can belong to two or all three.

The prospect interview is the one I'd weigh most. In 2017 I wrote that there is almost no better way to learn your target market's problems than to interview the people in it. By November 2023 I was calling the same idea ABM podcasting and recommending it to many B2B companies as a first marketing strategy, because it lets you network with your ideal customers. As I put it then, it is "like free consulting and customer development interviews while creating amazing content at the same time."

Why an interview invitation gets a different answer

Picture two emails arriving back to back. One asks, "Can I pick your brain?" The other asks whether you would like to be interviewed for a show about your industry. In 2017 I guessed that almost anyone would answer the second, because it offers them something. In 2021 I listed what a guest gets: exposure to your listeners, credibility from appearing beside other guests, links back to their business and the chance of leads. That is how a podcast reaches people who, as I said in the same episode, otherwise would not get on a call with you.

The invitation also changes how the guest sees you. A cold request makes you look like someone trying to sell. An interview puts you across the table as a peer. In the 2017 version I quoted a client who had just finished his first interview with a leader in his industry: "The conversation felt like one of peers as opposed to one where I was just trying to sell her something." He felt he could email her about working together at any time.

That footing is worth protecting. The guest agreed to an interview, so keep the recording about their expertise and leave any business conversation for later, when it is welcome.

Build the show around your clients, not your peers

This is where my advice changed most after 2017. The first version listed prospects among the guests but framed the show as a weekly interview with someone in your own industry. By 2021 I was telling firms to build the show around their clients' world instead, and my own first show was the warning. It started as The Creative Freelancer Show: interviews with other freelancers, which is what I was then. I enjoyed it, and it brought some referrals, but it did not lead to much business because I was mostly talking to my peers. I rebranded it after episode 30, well before I first wrote this playbook, and the new name, Working Without Pants, let me invite whoever I wanted.

In March 2021 I called a show built for peers instead of prospects the biggest mistake most people make when launching a podcast, and I counted myself as a culprit. An agency that makes a podcast about running an agency ends up interviewing other agencies. My rule is to take the work you do and go up a level to your client's world. An agency that serves ecommerce brands builds a show about ecommerce and direct-to-consumer marketing. Your ideal client should not want to be a guest on a show about your own specialty, because, as I put it then, if they were an expert on it, they wouldn't hire you.

The exception is a firm whose buyers are other agencies. Then a show about agencies is a show about your clients.

Leaders of B2B, the podcast I co-host, follows the same rule. In 2021 I described it as focused on our target customer: executives at B2B companies.

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Jake’s historical account, summarized from this article. These results describe his experience and are not a performance forecast.

How I'd launch the show today

My 2017 steps still work in outline. Here they are with what I learned running shows since.

1. 1

   Choose the theme, then the name

   Take the theme from your clients' world. A direct name built on your topic's keywords helps people find the show in podcast search; a creative name can carry those keywords in a tagline. Don't agonize over it. You can change the name later, as I did.

2. 2

   Record the first episodes with people you already know

   Before you approach strangers, have a few episodes recorded. My 2017 advice was three, either solo or with people you already know, so the show looks real to the guests you invite next. By 2021 I also recommended a short trailer episode that tells a new listener what the show is about, who you are and what to expect. If your network includes recognizable names, start with them. One client I described in 2021 drew his first guests from his contacts and past clients; those names then helped book executives from Fortune 500 companies before the show had launched.

3. 3

   Publish where your guests and clients will find it

   Apple Podcasts takes a show through an RSS feed that meets its technical requirements (opens in a new tab), including at least one episode, so the three-episode start is a choice and not a platform rule.

   Where it is available, YouTube can take the same RSS feed (opens in a new tab) and turn each episode into a video with the show's artwork (the service covers select countries). Podcast episodes delivered to YouTube this way cannot contain advertisements, and host-read promotions or sponsorships must be declared as branded content (both pages read in October 2026).

   My 2021 advice added a simple website for the show, separate from your firm's site. It isn't essential, but an invitation from a show with its own site reads more like one from a media outlet than from your company's marketing.

4. 4

   Invite guests from all three groups

   Thought leaders are typically the easiest to book, because they are used to interviews and want the exposure, so start there. Then add partners and prospects from the list of people you most want to know.

5. 5

   Keep a weekly rhythm

   The first episodes will feel rough, and your interviewing will improve with practice. In 2017 I put the point where a rhythm arrives, and the networking benefits with it, at around episode 10 to 15.

6. 6

   Follow up after every recording

   The interview is the start of the relationship. Give guests short clips and quote graphics from their episode; when they share them with their own networks, the show reaches new listeners. Then follow up as you would after any good first meeting. My guide to turning podcast guests into clients and partners covers that part.

What still holds, and what has changed

The core holds. In 2021 I said it three times in a row on my own show: "Podcasting equals networking." The guest mix and the value of an invitation have not changed either. Nor has the argument I made in 2017: you would spend an hour on the phone with these prospects anyway, and an interview turns that hour into content for both of you. Hosting also built my own standing; in 2019 I wrote that the podcast had established me as a thought leader, and partners I had interviewed invited me to speak to their audiences.

The revised playbook changes the theme, the production plan and the way you measure results.

Who the show is for

As described above, the theme moved from your own industry to your clients' world. It is the biggest change to this playbook.

The work behind it

In 2017 I wrote that podcasts are easy to create and that an assistant could handle the technical side. The host's part can still be simple: show up, hold a good interview and look after the relationship. A weekly business show is a production operation around that host, from guest research, outreach and scheduling to recording, editing, publishing and promotion. That is the work Content Allies (opens in a new tab), the company I founded, does for its clients.

How you judge it

My 2017 audit was a look back. If you are making the business case for a show now, decide before launch what you will record: which people and accounts the show reached, which relationships continued and where an opportunity followed. My guide to account-based podcasting sets out a review for a pilot.

Which five people would you most like to talk to this quarter, and would they say yes to an interview?