Coaches often require a lot of trust and personal connection before their prospects are willing to buy their services and courses. 

I’ve been producing podcasts for over 10 years and I can tell you that podcasts work well for industries and professionals like coaching who have something to teach and want to build trust over time. 

In this article, I’m going to explore seven ways a podcast can actually help your coaching business. 

What a podcast won’t do for your coaching business. 

First, let’s all get on the same page. 

After a few simple searches around the topic of coaching and starting a podcast, I noticed some misleading and inaccurate pieces of advice. 

The following pieces of advice were listed in the top search results as things a podcast will do for your coaching business… and they are straight up bad advice. 

Please understand a podcast will not do the following: 

• Be an easy way to create content. One article said podcasting is easy— it’s not (at least if you want a show that is worth listening to). 
• Attract new clients. Podcasts can attract new clients but not as fast as other mediums and outreach methods. If you need new clients quickly, don’t rely on a podcast.
• Add a new revenue stream. Again, you can monetize a podcast but I don’t recommend making that the goal for a new solo or interview-based show. 
• Be a short-term investment. One article I saw said, “even one episode can make a difference.” I laughed out loud at this one. If you only plan on making one episode, I recommend doing a webinar or guesting on someone else’s podcast instead. 

With that out of the way, let’s discuss what a podcast will do for your coaching business. 

7 reasons to start a podcast for your coaching business. 

Podcasts help coaches build new relationships and nurture existing ones

Coaching is often about building relationships. One of the easiest ways to build and maintain relationships is with a podcast. 

Think of a professional you admire who doesn’t know you. If you emailed them right now and asked to talk for an hour, what would they say? 

The answer is probably no. 

However, if you contact them and offer them a means of sharing their expertise with a relevant audience, your chance at a conversation with them goes up. 

Another way to look at this is through the lens of parasocial relationships. 

A parasocial relationship is a one-sided relationship formed when one party extends energy, interest, and time, and the other person doesn’t know they exist. 

Before podcasting, you might see this type of relationship between celebrities and their fans.

According to Why people listen: Motivations and outcomes of podcast listening, many listeners develop a parasocial relationship with the hosts and guests of the podcasts they listen to. 

I’ve experienced this first hand. 

The first podcast I ever ran was on the business of board games. Fans of the show would approach me at board game conventions and reference all kinds of personal stuff I mentioned in past shows. I didn’t know it at the time but I was experiencing parasocial relationships!

And to take this a step further, parasocial relationships can turn into real relationships via the help of interacting on social media and online. 

Again, one of the listeners of the board game podcast I just mentioned reached out to me via social media. That turned into email. And that turned into some Zoom calls. 

Fast forward ten years later, we’re still friends and connect regularly despite living in different countries.

A large part of coaching is your network and relationships. Podcasting can help with that. 

Podcasts help coaches establish goodwill and trust with their audience

How can you build trust and rapport with people? By spending time with them. 

One way people spend time with you is through your content. Podcasts are unique compared to other mediums because they are often more intimate, honest, and personal. They are also unique because people will regularly listen for 30 to 60 minutes over and over again. 

For example, a past client of ours worked in the non-profit space. They coached non-profit organizational leaders on how to do high-ticket fundraising. 

Their podcast was a mixture of founders openly discussing their principles and inviting past clients on their show. This built trust with their listeners and it led to a few seats of every seminar they ran being sold to a podcast listener. 

Podcasting is one of the few mediums where people (the listener) are making an effort to consistently spend extended time with you (the creator)—establishing trust between listener and creator. A good foundation of trust with your audience leads to many good things.

Podcasts help coaches with market research and understanding their target market

Customer research is beneficial whether you’re selling coaching products or services. Marketers like Katelyn Bourgoin frequently talk about how “whoever gets closer to the customer wins.”

As Katelyn says, “Hosting a B2B podcast is a brilliant way to get your ideal customers on the phone without being overtly salesy. You can use the conversation to learn about their business. It’s one of the little talked about secrets of the podcasting world.”

Most people think of surveys and short calls with prospects when it comes to customer research. However, a podcast where you interview your ideal customers might be a better bet.

Another client of ours ran a show for several years before selling their company. It was an eCommerce SaaS platform and they interviewed their own clients on eCommerce. I co-hosted the show with a member of their team’s customer success team.

My co-host had this to say about what she learned: 

“This podcast taught me more about our customers than any hard data could have. It’s a completely different experience when you get to hear your customers’ stories as they tell them. You learn about their beginnings, their fears, their hopes. You share their little joys and victories, and you connect with them on a level that you simply couldn’t achieve with a survey. Highly recommended.”

When you need to market research, consider starting a podcast.

Podcasts teach others about you and your business

There is no shortage of coaches so how are you going to stand out?

A quick internet search will show you coaches exist for everything from personal development to agency growth to how to become a better video game player. 

We do business with people we like, know, and trust. A podcast may give you the edge your coaching business needs. 

Imagine you decide to be a professional woodworker and you are going to hire someone to help you build your first mahogany coffee table. 

After a little research, you find two people: Sarah Planer and Barry Sanders. Their sites are both good. Their articles are useful, but Sarah has a podcast all about her craft and how she works. You start to listen and realize you really like what she’s about. 

Who are you more likely to hire? 

Sarah. It feels like you know her (i.e. the parasocial thing we were just talking about) and you understand how she thinks. 

Articles and videos only go so far. They often give little peeks at who a person is, but it’s not the same as hearing them speak or react in real-time conversations. 

Hosting a podcast is a fantastic way for your listeners to get to know you.

Podcasts can fuel a coach’s content engine

As a coach, you are probably busy. And I would guess a big chunk of your time is devoted to promoting your business through articles, videos, newsletters, and social media. 

You might also be thinking “I don’t have time to host a podcast.”

But when approached strategically, a podcast might actually save you time. 

A podcast can help you focus, better leverage your time, and inform the rest of your marketing strategy. 

It’s like the domino analogy: What one thing can I do first that will make everything else easier? 

Let’s pretend you currently spend one hour a day on promotional activities. Monday and Tuesday you engage on social media. Wednesday and Thursday you write and publish an article. Friday you send a newsletter. Maybe you even have a team helping you. 

However, what if instead of dividing your time between tasks, you blocked off the same amount of time to record 4 to 6 podcast episodes each week. Then, whatever you discussed in those episodes gets repurposed into written and visual content for your other platforms. 

You show up, record what you’re going to record, and then your team or whoever you hire uses that content (directly from you) to create what they need everywhere else. 

To be fair, this might work in reverse too. If you prefer writing, maybe your articles inform what you talk about on your podcast. If you prefer video, maybe you can record them in a way that can be repurposed into an audio-only format. 

It is possible. Even when you’re busy. The majority of our clients are founders and lead marketers (i.e. people with no time). And all of them will tell you how helpful a podcast has been for their business. 

“Jeff and his team have been instrumental in taking our podcast to the next level. We were trying to do it all ourselves in-house, and bringing Jeff on was the best decision. He and his team have transformed our entire production process including the equipment, recording, editing, marketing, and strategic direction. We are so happy to be working with Jeff and the whole Come Alive Creative team and I would certainly recommend them to others.”

—John Sweeny | Partner, Chief Operating Officer at Park Madison Partners

Podcasts fill gaps in a coach’s systems and funnels

No system is perfect. 

Think about the marketing, sales, and operation systems in your business. Where do you feel stress or notice dropoff with prospects? Where are your clients feeling friction? 

A podcast might be a good solution to fix some of those issues. 

Another podcast we produced was in a highly-technical area of healthcare. The client had software that used voice-tech to assist with clinical documentation. Because of these factors, we decided to take a different approach than normal. 

We did short interviews with members of our client’s team and with their clients who were using the software. We explored the different aspects of the process, life before and after choosing the software, and similar. 

The show didn’t have much “success” in terms of total downloads. However, the client was thrilled because the show became a tremendous asset for onboarding new sales team members and for helping give additional information for prospects in the sales process. 

Instead of teaching either group from slides or packets of information, they were able to listen to people just like them, seeing the benefits of the product at ground level. 

Something we’ve noticed a podcast can do well is fill in gaps in your systems and processes. 

Podcasts help coaches scale themselves in a meaningful way

This last point is similar to some of the other benefits I’ve already mentioned but it’s worth mentioning. 

Having a podcast allows you to scale yourself in meaningful ways. 

For example, I frequently get asked questions about what I consider to be podcast basics.

• What podcast equipment should I use? 
• How do I make those cool social posts with the audio/video clips? 
• When would someone use audio only?
• Should I also do video and post on YouTube? 
• What length should a podcast season be? 

Anytime I find myself answering questions multiple times, I try to find ways to scale myself. As a result, I’ve created newsletter series, articles, and—you guessed it—podcasts that answer these questions. 

Podcasts are especially nice because it’s my voice. The listener gets to hear me actually answer the question the same way they would if we were having a one-to-one conversation. 

The same is applicable to other situations. Maybe you’re a leader of a large team and it’s hard to connect with everyone individually. You could create an internal company podcast that shares your beliefs and values around specific topics you want your team to hear. 

In the case of coaches, maybe you need a way to prepare your clients for a specific part of your program. Instead of having the same conversation with everyone of your clients, have them listen to the 5-episode series and spend your time together on the unique pieces that apply specifically to them. 

Or maybe you want a way to continue strengthening your relationship with them in-between your sessions together. Go back and reread the part of the article on parasocial relationships! 

The point is, a podcast can help you scale yourself in a personal way so you can focus on the jobs that require your unique impact and attention.

Wrapping up.

Podcasting has many perks for professionals focused on relational marketing. 

If you have a career where a large amount of your sales and services depend on the client trusting you, consider starting a podcast. 

If you are a coach and enjoyed this article, I encourage you to check out Coach Factory. It’s your ‘backstage pass’ to some of the best coaches in the industry. Wherever you are in your coaching career, there is something that will help you improve your practice. 

The show has been a blast to put together and the Coach Factory team is amazing. Check it out. 

And finally, if you are thinking about starting a podcast for your business, we can help! Head over to our services page to see how.