Hi, Reader.

Welcome to Podcasting in Professional Services—the newsletter that delivers three things each week:

1. Perspective from other business podcasters
2. Research or news about podcasting
3. A small, actionable challenge to help grow your show

Today, we're going to explore that concept of joining an existing podcast as a co-host through the experience of Rion Willard.

Podcast Example: The Business of Architecture

The first job of an architect is to win the client. Without the client, there is no design.

Rion Willard recognized this challenge early on. Although his skills and education were in architecture, he was fascinated by the business side of the profession. How could firm owners transform their passion into sustainable, thriving practices?

To explore this question, Rion started interviewing successful practice owners at the direction of a business mentor. “One of my assignments was to go and talk to other architects about how they were running a business to benefit my own architectural practice,” said Rion. “I figured it was a good idea to record these conversations.”

Little did he know, recording those conversations would lead to a complete transformation of his career...

At first, Rion’s interest was to understand and apply insights from these interviews to his own practice, TTHS Architects, but he realized these conversations would also make for good podcast content. Next, he reached out to Enoch Sears to inquire if he could publish the interviews through his existing podcast, the Business of Architecture.

“I'd listened to a few of his episodes,” said Rion. “I contacted him on LinkedIn and said, ‘Hey, I'm an architect in the UK. I'm going to be interviewing all these architects about how they're running the business. Can I publish them on your platform?’”

Enoch welcomed the idea, and teased it when Rion appeared first as a guest in episode 128 in 2015. The show was gaining momentum. With the influx of Rion as a co-host, the Business of Architecture was able to generate content more consistently.

The Best Time to Launch a Podcast Was 2018. The Next Best Time is Now.

In 2019, there were about 150,000 active podcasts available to listeners across all genres. That number shot up to over 600,000 in 2020 and 2021 during the height of the covid pandemic.

Take out those two outlier years, and you'll notice a linear trend on this chart. Today, there are nearly 400,000 active podcasts (having released an episode within the most recent 90 days).

2018 may have been the best time to launch a podcast, but the next best time is today. While the total active number of podcasts may have declined since 2020, the number of people in the U.S. who listen to online audio has steadily increased year-over-year.

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Podcast Challenge: Be a Guest Host

Instead of being a guest on someone else's podcast, if you're a competent host, another good way to cross-promote your show is to be a guest host on another podcast.

1. Find a fellow podcast host with a target audience that overlaps with yours
2. Reach out to see if they're interested in doing a host swap
3. Time publication of each episode to align with your marketing calendars

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Podcasting in Professional Services. Thank you so much for reading. If you have any questions or feedback, please reply to this email.

Cheers,
- John

PS—Need support growing your show? Book some time with me to learn more about our podcast strategy, production, and marketing services.