Becoming a Known Expert in Account Growth through a B2B Podcast - with Jenny Plant

Do you know how to empower your account managers to grow their accounts? flexed biceps 
 
Too many companies unintentionally limit the potential of their account managers, which can cause a domino effect of negative outcomes in the company.  
 
It’s time companies position their account managers to bring value, think outside the box and push the envelope of what’s offered to clients. 
 
studio microphone B2B Podcasting had the honor of hosting Jenny Plant, founder of Account Management Skills Limited, Creator of Account Accelerator Program and host of The Creative Agency Account Manager Podcast. 
 
Her years of expertise in account management will help business leaders and account managers once again find value in the services offered to clients and the way those relationships are nurtured. handshake 
 
right arrow This episode is sure to help your business grow. Check it out! 
 
 
Main Takeaways:
gem stone Learn the main issues account managers face today
gem stone Discover the best solutions to facilitate the account manager’s job
gem stone Companies can empower their account managers to be forward-thinking
gem stone Start a podcast to strengthen your niche expertise to your audience
gem stone Determine the way you invite guests onto your podcast
 
 
Timecodes:
alarm clock 00:00-03:48 | Main challenges for account managers
alarm clock 03:48-07:48 | How account managers can easily solve their biggest challenges
alarm clock 07:48-14:04 | Nurturing clients and their needs throughout the year
alarm clock 14:04-23:06 | Account managers need to be empowered to do their job
alarm clock 23:06-25:19 | A podcast can become a tool to strengthen your expertise
alarm clock 25:19-30:25 | Inviting guests needs to be strategic to your value proposition
alarm clock 30:25-34:23 | There is clear ROI to starting a B2B podcast
 
 
 
Quotes:
speech balloon β€œIt costs way less to keep a good customer than to go find a new customer.” - Kap Chatfield
speech balloon β€œYou have to keep adding value, surprising them and bringing them new thoughts and ideas to keep that momentum.” - Jenny Plant
speech balloon β€œStart to think about those other periphery services you offer that support the core project that you're working on.” - Jenny Plant
speech balloon β€œGive permission to an account manager to feel empowered.” - Jenny Plant
speech balloon β€œThere's so much more potential for account managers to be the commercial voice, to understand the client's business, and to see the future value opportunities.” - Jenny Plant
speech balloon β€œ80% of clients say that they want their agency to leverage the learnings they have with other clients and share it with them.” - Jenny Plant
speech balloon β€œI wanted my show to be the mentorship that I didn't have.” - Jenny Plant
speech balloon β€œPodcasts accelerate that conversion of people into a client because they feel like you've got a relationship.” - Jenny Plant
speech balloon β€œYou find your voice, as a thought leader, by committing to the content creation process.” - Kap Chatfield
speech balloon β€œIn order to be consistent with podcasting, you've got to enjoy it.” - Jenny Plant
 
 
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Reach out to Rveal Media:
 
Reach out to Jenny Plant:
 
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Full Transcription: 

Kap Chatfield  00:20

Hey gang! Welcome back to B2B Podcasting, the show to help B2B brand leaders, CEOs, sales leaders and marketing leaders skip ads, and be the show. I'm your host Kap Chapfield, the CEO of Rveal Media. Today, we have Jenny Plant from across the pond, she's helping us out with today's episode. She's such a brilliant mind. If you don't know her, she's the founder of Account Management Skills Limited. She's also the creator of The Account Accelerator Program, which we'll talk a little bit more about her thought leadership regarding those things in a moment, which it'll make sense though, with the show that she hosts. She's the host of The Creative Agency Account Manager Podcast. Jenny, it's truly a privilege to have you on the show today. Thanks for joining us.

 

Jenny Plant  01:00

Thank you so much for having me Kap. 

 

Kap Chatfield  01:03

Let's go right into your thought leadership regarding account management. I know that there's gonna be some people who are listening, they might be leading advertising agencies, marketing agencies, creative agencies, particularly in the B2B space, and you help them out. Let, why don't you tell us a little about who exactly you're serving with your expertise? 

 

Jenny Plant  01:23

Sure. Um, so basically, my my kind of niche offer is that I help account managers grow the existing business. And obviously, the benefit to the agency owner is that this can like shores up the forecast. Because every year you put a forecast together for your existing business, and also what you anticipate getting from a new business perspective. And it's, it's about looking for the opportunities to expand the relationships and the account that you've already got through adding more value to the client. And those best suited to that role are account managers. So we know how expensive it is to go out and get new business and this is really a more cost effective way to make sure that you're looking internally to the client you already have to see what opportunities there are, and I help their account managers do that.

 

Kap Chatfield  02:10

That's something that I've discovered in business personally, is it's cost way less to keep a good customer than to go find a new customer. I think a lot of people can attest to that. Now, the question that I want to follow up with is this is, you know, you're serving these creative firms, helping them really kind of maximize, bringing value to the clients that they that they currently have. What's the number one problem that you see these firms and account managers facing?

 

Jenny Plant  02:38

Okay, so I mean, like, typically, we tend to win a client bit piece of business, and we throw all our strategic muscle at it. And we're very much seen as experts and strategic thinkers, because we're going coming out the gates really strong. And a lot of the senior clients are involved at pitch stage or big, you know, big proposal stage. And then what happens is six months down the line, once you've been working on the client's business, not only does it become more tactical, and from a kind of, sort of transactional point of view, but there's less of the strategic thinking and less of the senior clients being involved in that piece of business. So what you've effectively got is probably an executive, you know, account executive level person in your agency dealing with like a marketing assistant level person on their side. And you've kind of lost that momentum, to keep adding new thinking, new thoughts, and bringing ideas and you end up trying to have to climb back up to deal with those more senior clients, and for them to see you more as a valued partner rather than an order taker. So that's one of the I think that's one of the biggest problems,

 

Kap Chatfield  03:48

How do you help them solve that problem typically?

 

Jenny Plant  03:51

So there's, there's all different ways you can do this. I always say to people, there's not one size fits all to client growth, because every client is different. Every relationship you have is different. But there's a number of things you can do. So for example, during your onboarding process, you can say, "Look, this is this is the way we work and this is the way that most of our clients find the most value from working with us is that we have a quarterly strategy session". And this is all part of our service where we have more of a holistic approach. You share with us typically your you know, your biggest business challenge or your marketing objective or you share your marketing plan. And we come proactively to those meetings with some thoughts about your customers or the changing market or the competitors. And that's the way that we're able to continually add value to you. So part of the meeting is reflecting on performance and metrics to date, but a lot of it is about that future value creation for you, Mr. Client. So you present it as this is the way we work. And what that does, it keeps you kind of upstream, rather than being pushed downstream. And don't get me wrong, I mean, those, they could be called anything they could be called quarterly strategy sessions, quarterly business reviews, whatever you want to call them. But that's your forum, your platform to have more senior clients involved. And for those agencies that have like enterprise level clients, you can also include procurement in those meetings, because those meetings become not only about sharing, insights, thoughts, you know, information about competitors, but also about business information exchange. So if you've just acquired another smaller agency, or you have additional capabilities, you can say a lot. And by the way, I wanted to let you know that we also offer SEO Services, or we also offer x. So that's just one way that you can make sure that from the outset, they are consistently seeing you. And it puts the pressure on you because you want to make those meetings so compelling that the clients looking forward to coming back. So yeah, that's that's just one way.

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Kap Chatfield  06:00

I'm curious, tactically, if you're okay, sharing a little bit of your secret sauce, how do you is there like a typical framework for how you recommend generally structuring those quarterly meetings? Is there a certain length that they need to be, a certain format or a flow?

 

Jenny Plant  06:15

Yeah, in my program, I provide everyone with kind of three versions of an agenda template. And just kind of a top line view, I do believe that it should be kind of a 60/40 split. 40% is performance to date, you know, how we're how we're tracking what we were originally, you know, tasked with doing and how we're how we're tracking on that. But 60% is more of this additional value. And, you know, look, most clients are in their role, and they're going deep on their brand. They are they value being surprised with external insight. So you can't really go wrong by sharing with them something in the external environment, that's going to be absolutely helpful for them in terms of their business and marketing strategy. So competitor activity, or, you know, there's some legal changes actually coming up that we're not sure you're aware of. But we've noticed that this is what's happening in the marketplace. And we want to share with you some thoughts and ideas. Because we've got to remember that our clients are being tapped up on LinkedIn by our competitors all the time, you know? Other agencies are contacting them saying, "Look, we're doing this, we've noticed this, we're seeing this." You don't want to be the one that's, you want to be the one doing that. So it's like any relationship Kap, a client relationship, you know it. It's you have to work at your own personal relationships and there's no different with a client relationship. You have to keep adding value and surprising them and bringing them new thoughts and ideas to keep to keep that momentum.

 

Kap Chatfield  07:48

So I'm curious too then, because I think you're so right, you got to, you have to continue to build that relationship, because you need to show them, it sounds like what you're what you're ultimately saying is: use this quarterly meeting as an opportunity to show them, "hey, we're not here just to show you the results of what we've been working on for you. But we've also been thinking outside of the box, we're still you know, we are the experts in this area, so that you don't have to be. You got to run your business, we're here to go and look out ahead, tell you what trends are coming up, show you some things that you can be thinking about". And by the way, as you mentioned, a procurement opportunity. Here's some ways that we could actually help you solve that. So there's this genuine exchange of we, we have your organization's best interests in mind, which obviously, as a firm leader, as you mentioned, can be a very delightful experience for them, because they're every time they come in, it's not just that they're looking behind, they're looking forward with you. And you're kind of giving them the looking glass to look ahead. But I do want to know, too, because quarterly, especially as you mentioned, their competitors are always trying to try to sneak in, have an account move over from your business to their business. A quarterly stretch feels like a long time. So I'm sure that you there, there'd be some sort of touch points that you would recommend. What kind of touch points would you recommend so that you still can nurture that relationship up until those quarterly meetings without it being a huge burden on your team?

 

Jenny Plant  09:15

Yeah, I mean, great question. It depends. It depends on the nature of what you're delivering for your client as to how frequent those meetings are. But I think what I'm trying to say is there's got to be a diligent delineation between your weekly status meetings where you're just talking about the active project, and making sure that you deliver flawless execution on time, on budget, and your advanced thinking. And that advanced thinking could be monthly, but whatever it is, it has to be conducive to helping the client with their business. And I think this is one of the other challenges, going back to your previous question about some of the challenges I think many agency account managers are so stretched in multiple different directions, that they don't have the headspace and the time to really get under the skin of the clients business, you know? What, what's our client actually selling? How many, what's their distribution channels? What are they trying to achieve? And there's, you know, for enterprise level clients, where they are publicly listed, you can download the transcripts of the investor relation meetings on a quarterly basis that the C-suite have, where they talk about their future plans, you know? Next quarter, we've got the launch of a new brand, or next year, we're going to be focusing all of our efforts on this part of the business or opening an office in, in Asia, Asia PAC. So we need to have, we need to give the account manager the capacity to also look at and understand the client's business, so that we're able to help. That's, that's what we're doing here, we are, how can we support the client's business and make them more successful?

 

Kap Chatfield  10:59

I love that. That's truly leading with empathy. And that what's, that's what makes you almost like a partner in their own organization rather than just an outsourced executer or order taker. And, you know, that's, I think that's what makes you super sticky as a firm is if you can, if you're really looking out for the best interests of the organization. Now, but I love that I love that problem that you brought up. Because we've experienced that in our own company, especially as you're growing, you bring on new clients, you might not have the staff to to be able to serve all of those new clients at the same level of with the same level of intentionality. Do you have an idea of you know, typically, a firm or an account manager should be focusing on X to Y number of accounts? Or is it kind of arbitrary?

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Jenny Plant  11:52

Yeah, it really varies by client and also profitability level. But one of the things you've just said, I think is really key as well is categorizing your clients. You know, we have to do that, because most businesses do it. But we just don't talk about it. Obviously, you don't talk to your clients about it. But who are your platinum clients? You know, the ones that were totally culturally aligned, we we understand that they're they they have a growing business, there's lots of ways we can add value to them, because it's absolutely in our, in our wheelhouse and we know that we can help them. Those are your platinum clients, they've got, they've got big budgets, they've got big growth potential. And then you've also got your bronze clients on the other end of the spectrum that, you know, do we really want to invest this, this amount of effort, same amount of effort into a strategic quarterly review meeting, where we're really pulling on our internal resources to come up with those really interesting insights? So I think initial categorization of clients is a good first step in this. Because some agencies, you know, they're very stretched, I mean, you might find that the account manager doesn't have the capacity to do it alone but if you get together as a team, have an hour meeting where you think, "right, let's just focus on this one client". What do we know about their business? What have we gleaned from the relationship so far? What are the projects we've been running? How can we, how can we help them further? So for example, if you're doing a website, okay? So typically, the buying pattern is that a client comes to you for a website, but you can, a halfway through that project, you can say, look, typically at this stage in the project, clients start asking us about the most successful ways to launch it externally and internally, or they want to know the latest traffic driving strategies that are really gonna work. Or, you know, what do we do beyond this? What does the maintenance look like? What does the updating look like? So you've got these natural buying patterns, typically in an agency. So start to think about those other periphery services you offer that support, the core project that you're working on. And that could be a starting point as well, in terms of suggesting new ideas, to help maximize the benefit of what they're doing with you.

 

Kap Chatfield  14:04

I love it. I, I love, definitely don't want to openly say "hey, by the way, you're a bronze client." You want to keep that internat, so that's a good note to say, because obviously, I think most firms would have the wherewithal to not do that. But I think that's what I hear you saying is you're really, you're really measuring the value of each client and you appreciate all clients, but whether it's how much profitability a client has, or a point that I think is really great that you said is do your values align? Because if you feel, like you know what? They might not be the most valuable client on paper, but we believe in what they're doing and we want to yoke ourselves to their story. So we want to give them a little extra of our attention. And then creating a framework around that so that you can kind of hold yourselves accountable to giving them that that level of service that you feel like they deserve. I think that's brilliant. I'm also kind of curious, I'm curious about, maybe there's a, you know, I can see what you do is you help account managers, who perhaps aren't really thinking, how do I say this? Proactively about the organization, their organization, and where they're going. What are some things that you would recommend, as far as like questions to ask or even a mindset shift that will help these account managers kind of see themselves less as an order taker and just saying, "Hey, you come tell me what you need me to do, and I'll do it." How do you help them, how would you advise for them to make that shift so that they can kind of be more of a leader in the success of their clients organization? 

 

Jenny Plant  15:41

Yeah, again, great question. I mean, what I've seen the transformation when it's almost sometimes giving, giving the tools, giving the permission for an account manager to feel empowered, because sometimes account management in an in an agency, and this historically has been true as well, you get sandwiched between maybe the strategic contingent in your agency, like maybe you've got a planner, or a strategic advisor, or strategic planner, and the creative team, and you know, the design team and everything. And sometimes people kind of treat the account manager as this, you know, someone who sets up the meetings and doesn't really have a voice. But you, I believe that account managers, there's so much more potential for them to be the commercial voice, and to understand the client's business, and to see the future value opportunities. Now, where that falls down is where, as I said before, the account managers role tends to be more of a hybrid role of a project manager and an account manager. So the project management side of your role always takes priority if you are, you know, having to deliver projects and do resourcing, and scheduling and timelines of data that's keeping you in the day to day. But the account management side, the pure account management side of the business should have your role should be about adding value, looking at future opportunities, facilitating QBRs, relationship mapping, asking for testimonials and referrals, and really nurturing the client and keeping close to the client business. Now, some agencies very cleverly split that role. So they've got pure account managers, and pure project managers, which I think is super smart. But sometimes I think the frustration is when I'm training someone who's got the hybrid role. They want to take the time out to learn all these strategies to to grow the account and be more commercial, but they're frustrated because they're pulled back into the weeds.

 

Kap Chatfield  17:38

Hmm. Yeah, I can imagine that. Do you also see any frustration with account managers that you're helping where, you know, I'm sure that they're, they're serving clients in industries that they themselves are not experts in. For example, if I'm, if I'm running a brand design firm, and I'm working with, you know, I might have a little bit of knowledge about an industry based off of like, previous work with other clients in that industry. But let's say I'm working for an organization in the healthcare industry, and I'm not in the healthcare industry. Do you see a challenge with these account managers feeling like, "I don't really know anything about that industry? I don't know what it takes to really succeed and for this organization?" And if you do, what are some things that they can do to, to not be overwhelmed by that, to not feel like they have to be the expert in an industry that isn't there isn't theirs, but still be helpful?

 

Jenny Plant  18:31

Yeah, that that's a really good question. I don't believe that you have to be an expert in every single industry, particularly if you've got multiple clients in multiple industries. You are the expert in your communication channel. So you know, if the client looks at you, I mean, the first thing Kap really is I work with a consultancy called Relationship Audits and Management, their job is to go in and audit relationships. They came in to audit a relationship for a client that I had, when I was a publicist. The Insight was so golden, that we were able to turn that relationship around, and keep that relationship for two more years. So that was adding a huge amount of money to our bottom line. I was so impressed. I actually when I left publicist, went to work for them for nine months. So I was being sent out to interview clients. And they run a survey, sorry it's a bit of a long story. They run a survey every year and they they consolidate all their learnings from having these multiple conversations with clients. The clients say 80% of clients say that they want their agency to leverage the learnings they have with other clients and share them with them, share them with them. But only I think 25% of client of agencies actually do that. So that's a really easy fix. You don't have to necessarily be an industry expert. But hey, you know, many of our other clients are finding that this really works. Should we put aside 20 minutes so I can just talk you through how I think this could apply to your business? It's that kind of level of productivity that if you can times that and keep doing that, that's, that's what clients want. They want you to be thinking about their business and how you can be helping them further.

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Kap Chatfield  20:17

Oh, that's so good. That you'll see that on a quote, graphic for sure. You said, 80% of clients want their agents to leverage expertise that they're gathering from the other clients in their repertoire, or their portfolio. But only about 25% of them are actually doing that, or at least verbalizing that in a clear way. So, man that's extremely powerful. Let's, let's talk about just another success story real quick. As far as you know, you're you're clearly brilliant at what you do. I'm asking you questions that I'm thinking could help some of our some of the people that we know, I'm also thinking for my own organization. So this has been extremely helpful. Thank you for sharing all that. Do you have any success stories that you could share as far as a client that came in, account manager that was really struggling to really nurture these, nurturing account always having to look for new business? And where you're able to take them?

 

Jenny Plant  21:12

Okay, I got I've got multiple examples. And I've just pulled out one that I think is kind of, it's something that not a lot of people talk about, which is this idea that I had an account manager, and I said," Listen, when you're with your client, you can start by saying, Look, many of our other clients benefit from this, or many of our most of our other clients find it useful if we do this, or some of our other clients are doing this, which is really successful". As she said, "You know what Jenny?" She's been really honest, she said, "I thought you should never talk about other clients when you're with your client, because your client wants them to feel like you're only working for them. And you are, you know, they're the center of the universe. And so I've never done it." But she decided to actually put it into practice. So she went, she had a pharmaceutical client, they had huge, huge budgets. And she was talking to this client. And she said, she said, "well, many of our other clients we're doing this type of work for and, and some of our other clients we're doing this." Instead of the client thinking, "Well, you're not talking about me." He actually started really leaning in and say, "Well, hang on a minute, tell me what else are you doing for your other clients? What, what else are they doing?" So it's that appealing to the, to the human instinct of FOMO, of not wanting to miss out, to think "well hang on a minute, I don't want to miss out on what everybody else is doing". Anyway, she came away from that meeting, because she'd listed all these other projects she'd been working on with a proposal, she had to go away, and come back with a proposal for those projects, which was to the value of 150,000 pounds, I think. And that was just one action that she did, changing the way she had a conversation with the client. And again, I've seen this so many times, sometimes it's not what you say, it's how you say it.

 

Kap Chatfield  23:06

Hmm. I love that, it's beautiful. Let's talk about your show. You're using a show in a really brilliant way. I've seen some of the guests that you've had, I saw that you had David C. Baker on your show, that's oh my gosh, talk about uh, you know, getting starry, starry eyed for a featured guest. That's amazing that you're able to get him on your show. And I know that you've had so plenty of other amazing people as well. And your show, the focus of your show is super laser focused. It's, you could kind of gather what it's about by saying the name of the show, The Creative, The Creative Agency Account Manager Podcast. Now let's talk about how you started this. What problem were you trying to solve by starting this podcast?

 

Jenny Plant  23:52

I want the podcast to be something that I wish I'd had when I was in account management. So I've spent 30 years in the industry, started off as an ad ad agency account manager, also worked client side for an airline and also pharmaceutical company in Spain, actually. So I, through my career, I didn't get a lot of training. And it's slightly changing now where account managers are getting more training, but I didn't really get any training, I had presentation skills. So I wanted this show to be the mentorship that I didn't have. And I I truly want people to come away and say, this has enriched my career. You know, as a result of listening to this, it's really helped me understand a bit more about the industry, a bit more about my role, a bit more about you know, ideas and tips and tactics and strategies to help me perform better in my role and help my career. So that I suppose I yeah, that's that's why I started it and then what I realized was I'm not a particularly good talker, but I'm very good listener, and I love asking questions. So you're right, ive had the pleasure of talking to and learning from some fantastic people. So I'm learning. Yeah. And that's that's kind of the problem that I think I was fixing is that mentorship that I feel I never had.

 

Kap Chatfield  25:19

Well, I would not put it past you to say that you are a great speaker. And if you ever write a book, please do an audio version. And you need to be the one that narrates it, because you have an amazing voice for yes for for podcasting. And so I've been loving some of the content you've been putting out. Again, yes, totally agreed to the people that you've been bringing on, you have a very, you have a remarkable skill in mining the gold out of those featured guests. Let's talk about some of the featured guests. We've mentioned David C. Baker, as an example. But you've had a handful of others. What what do you what goes into the criteria of inviting a featured guest onto your show? And what would you say is like the number one goal that you have, in each interview with those people?

 

Jenny Plant  26:01

I choose people that I think are going to add value and knowledge that I believe that the account managers need. And I, I like what I want, I'm still learning, I'm 50 episodes in, but I still feel like I'm trying to get better at it. I want them to give golden nuggets, things that people can go away and actually, action. So that's what I aim to do is try to extrapolate some golden nuggets so that people feel that they've got actionable tips that they can take away and try. So keeping it really practical. And I suppose that comes down to my taste of listening to podcasts. And I don't always get it right, by the way. And I know that god, sometimes I cringe at some, I can't listen back to my episodes. But I do know that I've got it wrong so many times. And sometimes I come across as too enthusiastic, which has also been pointing out to me, but I genuinely get excited when I'm talking to my guests. And I I don't want to be sort of overly overly but I do get a little bit carried away sometimes. But yet, when I listen to a podcast, I can't bear it if a the interviewer keeps talking over the guest, because it's like gets irritated. And also if you just think it's a rambling in joke kind of thing. Sometimes you think well, I've spent 10 minutes, and I haven't really learned anything. So I try to make my podcast something that I would want to listen to. So as I say, it's still working progress. I still don't think I've got it exactly right. But that's what I'm aiming for.

 

Kap Chatfield  27:30

I love that. I want to talk about some results from your show now, that we talked about. There's a lot of different ways that you can see success from doing the show. Seems like you're using it in regards to kind of like a thought leadership angle in helping build the brand around account management, account growth. You're also using it for networking opportunities, building relationship with some of the featured guests that you have. I don't want to speak for you but I'm curious, you're obviously not doing this as a side hobby. You're not doing this just for fun, even though I'm sure you can say podcasting is very fun. It's a very fun medium, a very fun way to market and to create content. But what have been some of the results that you've seen, positive results that you've done that you've seen for your business, because you started and committed to the show up to and through 50 episodes? That's amazing.

 

Jenny Plant  28:19

I mean, often I finish off the show by reminding people that I have a program The Account Accelerator. And I give a cut, you know, a one minute talk on the account accelerator, and if they want to sign up to contact me. So I've had quite a few people contact me as a result of actually saying that. I think the other element to this is if someone has been listening to, to me for a while, they have a sense that they know me. And so the actual conversion of them becoming a client is is easier, because you're not trying to say, "well, this is who I am, this is what I do", they kind of get a feel for you. So I do think that that accelerates that conversion of people into a client because they you feel like you've got a relationship, because I love listening to podcasts. And, you know, I remember when I met Blair Ends, kind of like dived at him, and you know, hello, you feel like you know someone. And that's actually, when I've been going to a couple of events, they say "I listen to your podcast." And you know, I know I get that feeling, I get that. So yes, for all the reasons you've said that becoming clients quicker. I think speaking opportunities have come out of it. What else? And I also I'm almost always surprised I mean, because I don't look at the stats. I don't want to know numbers. I just want to do good, good work and because I think that might demoralize me. I mean, my assistant says they're looking good but I am not doing it for that. I'm I want to be consistent. I want to do another 50 more, because I'm 50 and I think I was interviewed on the Agency Deal Masters Podcast, you should totally speak to Nathan Annie Barber. But he he said that he's like, he hadn't found his stride until he'd done 150 podcasts. So I think there's definitely a learning curve to this. And and yeah, you do have relationships. I mean, and that leads to other things like referral opportunities as well. So that's happened as well. Yeah, I think that's,

 

Kap Chatfield  30:25

I mean, talk about ROI. You have like so many different angles for how the show has provided value for you and your business. Not surprised at all. And I'm really I love that point, you said, I'm going to put that podcast, what was it called? The Agency Dealmakers, podcast? 

 

Jenny Plant  30:41

Deal Masters. Yep. 

 

Kap Chatfield  30:43

Deal Masters. Okay. Deal Masters. So well you said that they said that I, they didn't find their stride until they did about 150 episodes. And I'm

 

Jenny Plant  30:52

I think he said that, it was either 100 or 150.

 

Kap Chatfield  30:56

Somewhere super north of where most people, they kind of burn out, I think the statistic is around the seventh episode is where people kind of fall off. And so to commit to be consistent, I love that you said you're not really looking at some of these more vanity metrics. Because, I mean, what does it matter how many downloads you have, if you know that people are reaching out to you, because the right people are finding it and the right people are finding it to be valuable for them. But I also love, and I want you to speak into this with your own words. But what I'm gathering from the agency dealmakers show is when they make a comment like that, whether it's 100, or 150 episodes where they found they found their stride, you find your voice, as a thought leader, by committing to the content creation process. I'd love for you to share just about you, yourself and your brand and what you're serving your clients with. How have you seen yourself grow by using this podcast model to develop your own thought leadership?

 

Jenny Plant  31:58

Yeah, I, I actually, I'm not very good at writing big blog posts. So it also is a way for me to create content that is in a in an easy way for me. Like I like chatting to people, I like interacting and asking questions and learning. And it's done, hit like this. And that all get that gets transcribed and turned into different social media posts and stuff. So that's also a way for me to generate content, that doesn't feel like hard work. And I think that's the other thing is for each individual, it's slightly different. And I didn't know that statistic that some people get to a lot of people get to seven, and then just stop it. I think consistency is so key. But in order to be consistent, you've got to kind of enjoy it. So maybe I don't know, if businesses are listening, maybe if it's not the individual person that's leading the business, maybe a representative from the company does it that really enjoys it, because I think that's, that's naturally when you're going to be more consistent. I also have an assistant that works with me, and she does all of the production and the you know, the the transcribing and the blog posts and all that. And that's really helpful as well. So I can just focus on making sure I get the good guests and ask the right questions and get better at my interviewing technique. So yeah,

 

Kap Chatfield  33:25

Beautiful. Well, Jenny, this has been such a pleasure having you on the show today. Love, I really, first of all, personally, as a business owner, I'm very intrigued by your expertise in what you're offering. I'm going to poke around a little bit on your website and learn more about your product, I can see our team getting a lot of value out of it. Personally, I know that a lot of our guests, people in professional services, creative agencies, ad ad agencies, they'll find value in it as well. So for everybody listening, if you want to follow Jenny, highly recommend that you do. You will see clips from her show on her LinkedIn page, you can follow her on LinkedIn. We'll have the link for you in the show notes there. We're also going to have a link for her show. So you can go check it out, subscribe, listen to some episodes. We're also going to have the link for the Account Accelerator Program, which is her program, her course to help you learn how to grow your accounts, and ultimately grow your business. So Jenny, thank you so much again for joining us on B2B Podcasting today.

 

Jenny Plant  34:23

Thank you so much Kap. This has been really fun. Thank you.

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