Welcome to Podcast Suck, a podcast about starting a podcast, where we dive headfirst into the wild, wacky, and sometimes frustrating world of podcasting. If you've ever sat down with a microphone, hit record, and thought, what on earth am I doing? Or if you're just curious about the magic behind your favorite shows, then you're in the right place. Get ready for laughs, insights, and a whole lot of what not to do advice as we embark on this podcasting journey together. Let's dive in. Most founders hate selling. Not because they're bad at it, but because they're forced to. Enter scene podcasting. Think of it as a relief valve. Does it replace selling? Depends how you look at it. But when you share your expertise, or my favorite strategy, you interview people that you want to do business with and build a relationship with. The sales part often takes care of itself because you're offering to do something first for that prospect. Hey, let's get you on the podcast versus Would love to meet sometime, would love to schedule a call sometime, would love to have dinner sometime, would love to have coffee sometime, that automatically signals I want to sell you something. Podcasting provides an opportunity for you to say, hey, I'd love to get you on the podcast, learn more about your business, learn more about you, showcase your business. And then after the call, we can chop it up for a few minutes and see how we can support each other. You see how non-abrasive that is? Now let's break down why founders, hate selling. Some would say it feels pushy. And in 2026 time, I'm recording this podcast episode. Yeah, it kind of is. Nobody wants to be pushed around. First of all, nobody wants to be sold and definitely nobody wants to be pushed around to be sold. It also feels very transactional. A podcast interview provides that organic approach. It provides that, opportunity to connect with someone transparently through a conversation leading with value and then identifying opportunity as the conversation unfolds during the interview and after it or before it, whenever you choose to do that. Founders also hate selling because it feels convincing instead of helping. I don't think that anybody wants to convince anybody. At least you shouldn't want to convince anybody. You should want to help someone. And the bottom line is most entrepreneurs never wanted to be salespeople. We have to be because we run companies, we manage teams, we're responsible for sales on a larger scale, but nobody sets out to be a salesperson. A lot of us used to be. and still are, but it depends on what type of cap you want to put on to say, Hey, the business owner, I'm the CEO, I'm the founder, I'm the president, call yourself whatever you want, but you work for your team, not the other way around. And your clients are your responsibility and the ones you're accountable to. So when you talk about acquiring them, let's do that in the least abrasive way by not trying to convince them, not trying to sell them. And then there's the forced selling trap, marketing funnels, pushing urgency, creating fear of loss, cold outreach fatigue, my gosh, cold outreach. I'd rather wake up in the morning, punch myself in the face and eat my pillow than do cold outreach. No, no, no, Sebastian. It's a numbers game. I understand that, but it's excruciating. And you're also reaching out to strangers. So you have to build rapport. You have to edify yourself. You have to sell yourself. They want to know about you, your work, who you've done with making sure you're not the next scam artist in line. The first selling trap also creates a relationship deficit because right out of the gate, you're trying to sell something to someone. And when you're selling to strangers, it creates one thing resistance. And that is the worst possible thing to be met with when you're trying to provide value and earn someone's business resistance. Here's what podcasting changes about all this. Number one, if you're taking notes, builds familiarity at scale. Number two, it establishes your authority without bragging. You don't have to walk around, tell everybody how cool you are. They see that you've positioned yourself as a thought leader and an expert within your space That's all already a given. If your show's good, the quality's there, you speak well, you're knowledgeable, all of that's there. If you suck at those things, this is all null and void. It also creates trust before conversations ever happen. Because of that, because how people perceive you, as the go-to for what you do, an industry expert, an authority, whatever you want to call it. The trust, the initial trust gets created before the conversation even happens. And number four, it moves prospects from cold to warm to ready. And who doesn't want that? You start to understand the beauty of a podcast interview as a sales tool, leading with the ability to do something for someone before asking them for something. Trust converts better than persuasion any day of the week. If we think about alignment versus persuasion, do you want to be aligned with somebody you want to do business with that you know you have a solution for that you can help? Or do you want to persuade them to do business with you? I'm taking alignment all day long, every day. Buyers this day and age, including you, including me do our research before we reach out and inquire about doing something, transacting, whatever it may be business with an individual company D all the above. If you have a podcast that showcases what you do and why you do it and how you do it, where people can go do their due diligence, they can reach out, if you will reach out to a piece of your content, see one of your Instagram reels from your podcast, you're able to edify yourself and give the buyer exactly what they want. Anyway, they want to go, they want research on exactly what they're getting into. Podcast listeners feel like they already know you. You guys feel like you already know me. even though we've never met, maybe I met some of you, but being all up in your earbuds, providing value, helping you better understand what you don't know that you don't know about the power of podcasting for your business positions me as a friend or an, at least a bare minimum, an acquaintance. Why? Well, because we've spent time together, not physical time in person time. Maybe we have, maybe we've been to one of my talks, But through this podcast, I get calls all the time. People book sales calls all the time with us because they heard a podcast episode, because they read my book, they heard me speak. There's several different avenues for people to reach us based on content. But these are called inbound opportunities. So outbound value, outbound content, podcasts, clips, speaking, books, D all the above. That flywheel starts to create inbound opportunities. So I don't have to chase, I don't have to persuade. I'm aligned with these people. Why? Because they already know what I stand for, what I talk about, what I know, and what I, most importantly, what I've done for them. The invisible sales system that podcasting creates is undefeated. First of all, let's talk about your content shelf life. You record a podcast episode, you upload it, it's up there forever. Someone could call you two years from now and go, Hey, that episode you recorded in 2026 really helped me a lot. And it also helped you make a decision that you're the obvious choice to do business with. Relationship stacking. You're building relationships because of this invisible sales system that podcasting creates. Your guests become clients. Your audience becomes your referral network. Hey, I know a guy. You wanna start a podcast? You have to check out this guy's podcast, Podcast Suck. Go follow him on Instagram. Do that, by the way, if you're not following me, at Podcast Suck. How are you listening to the show and not following me on Instagram? I'm sure you got questions. shoot me a DM. I respond to everybody. No, it's not somebody on my team. It's me. I gladly do it. You know why? Because someone's done it for me and continues to do it for me. Your audience becomes your referral network. Think about that. As we close out this episode, I want to leave you with a couple of things. Selling doesn't have to feel heavy. Podcasting builds permission. And if you make the decision to start your podcast today, well, you can take everything we just got done talking about for the past 10 minutes and start putting it into play. Who's on your prospect list right now? Who have you been chasing and trying to get in front of that you can't, but if you called them and extended their opportunity to be on your podcast, they'd see things through a different light. The barrier to entry would be lowered a little bit. Think about that. Questions, thoughts, ideas, concerns about this episode or any episodes on the show, please find me on Instagram, at podcast suck, just like the show name, podcast plural. Shoot me a DM, hey, listener of the show, whatever feedback you have, questions you have, if you're looking to start a podcast, Go to my Instagram or the link in the description of this podcast episode and book a call with me. I'll spend 15 minutes with anybody chatting about what's possible to see if you're a fit for our 90 day done for you podcast launch solution. And then our 12 month incubator, you record, upload the raw content. We take care of the rest. It doesn't get much easier. You're in the driver's seat to get out there and leverage a podcast to grow your business and build relationships. Thanks for taking some time out of your day to hang out with me today. I really appreciate it. There's a lot of places you could be, and you decided to hang out with me for a few minutes, and it really means a lot. Until next time, friends. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. It's a way to get updates as new episodes become available. If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review and share the show with someone you know should start a podcast or may already have one. And remember, podcasts suck if