I just published Episode 300 of the BACON podcast. It all started November 1, 2014, so in less than 30 days from now, it's going to be three years old. It's been a long and crazy trip, but it's been fantastic. I've loved every single minute of it and I'm looking forward to what's going to happen next.

THANK YOU!

First and foremost, I want to thank you. When I first started this podcast, I had 100 listens. Now it's in the thousands and getting close to tens of thousands every single month. So I really appreciate your attention, I appreciate your feedback, and your commitment to constantly listen. If you have any ideas of topics that you'd like, simply send me an email at askbrian@b2b-im.com. I would love to cover it. And if you have a great guest that you'd like to recommend who would offer some great insight to people, that's really it's all about.

When I started my podcast, I actually came back from a conference and I saw this incredible presentation by a guy named Scott Smith who was on the podcast a long time ago. He was a podcaster, and I was like, “Wow. This is going to be amazing.” Because my life's blood is all about audio production and video production; I've been in that since I was a little kid, so it's my favorite way of creating great content and communicating with a larger audience.

Today, I want to talk about five things that I've learned over the course of 300 podcast episodes. These are five things that have literally changed me and my business, and hopefully, they will make a difference in your life and your business as well.

Relationships are the Currency of Business

So the first thing I want to talk about is relationships. And yes, I appreciate your relationship, your willingness to listen to this. But I've also learned that relationships are the currency of business. And that means that we're not really selling things or services to people. What we're selling to people is the achievement, goals, outcomes. And what you have to do is really get to know people and figure out specifically what their needs are and how you can solve their problems.

The other part of the relationship side of this story is every Wednesday, I have a guest expert interview. When I first started the podcast, I had a limited amount of guest experts. These were people who I'd met at conferences by going out and actually flying out of state and helping out, or speaking, or whatever. And when I called them up, because they met me in person, or I helped them with their presentation or whatever at those conferences, they said, “Yeah, I'd love to be on your podcast.” And that's how I get the great guests that I know.

Now, I get tons and tons of people saying, “I have a great guest for you.” These people are podcast brokers. They've never listened to the podcast. I had one person actually go on and give a review, “It's a great podcast,” and then try to pitch me somebody who had absolutely nothing to do with online marketing or small business. It was just a business coach who had a great book… Okay, that's not a topic. If I interviewed everybody with a book, this would be one of the most boring podcasts out there.

I want to know and like and trust people who actually do what they're teaching and not just people that are blabbing out something that they've learned from a book or a webinar or something like that. I want to know that these people talk the talk and walk the walk. And that's why the guests on this show are so good. They are people that I've been able to work with or see them in action and know that they're going to provide great content.

Create Great, Customer-Focused Content

The second piece of the puzzle is almost exactly that: Provide great content. So when I'm putting this thing together, I'm thinking, “Okay, what's happening in my business? And what would my audience like to learn? What could possibly help them grow from where they're at now to where they want to be?” And that content has to be something that offers some kind of actionable item or a solution or maybe just a change in mindset.

And trust me, I've had to come up with over 150 topics. And then I find guests with additional topics, maybe they are complementary or different subjects that I think people would want to hear about. So having that content every single week isn't easy. It's hard to come up with that many different topics.

Most people are lucky if they do it for a year. As a matter of fact, I'm working on my new website and I put together a list of a whole bunch of podcasts that I'd been on. A lot of these podcasts just don't exist anymore; they ended in 2015, 2016… It's not easy, but creating great content consistently is incredibly important.

It's Consistency That Counts

The next thing is consistency, alright? If you constantly do it on the same day, at roughly the same time every single week, then people will tend to pay attention more. If this randomly came out Monday or Wednesday or Friday or once every two weeks or once a month, and then three in one week and stuff like that, people would not know what to expect. So consistency in messaging is incredibly important. Make sure that you've got a great schedule set up so when you're creating content, you can deliver it on a regular basis.

Now I know people that will write 10 blogs and line them up like planes coming into an airport. But the bottom line is, they release them on the same day at roughly the same time, so that people know when it's coming. People look for those kind of things. It's very similar to what I do on my Facebook personal page with my quote of the day and my caption contest. As a matter of fact, when I don't put up a caption contest, people say, “Hey dude, are you alright? What's going on? Where's the caption contest?” And occasionally I'll be at a conference or away from a computer where I just can't do it. So that consistency is incredibly important.

You Learn By Teaching

The other thing that I've learned is you learn by teaching. So when I'm sitting here coming up with these concepts and writing the content for each one of these podcasts, which eventually turn into blogs, which eventually turn into courses and maybe even books. Every time I teach something, I learn something. Because I'm organizing my thoughts, I'm organizing content in a way that's going help people understand it better. And by executing this podcast, it's helping me to visualize and verbalize the concepts that I'm trying to bring across to you. How to do more with Facebook. How to build a better website. How to create great content marketing. Why check Google Analytics? All of those things. It's learning as you go.

And I know these things and I do it for myself, but verbalizing it in a way that's going to be beneficial and understandable by a large audience is a whole other thing. Some people have never touched Google Analytics while other people are experts. I have to make sure that I cover the bases so that everybody gets something out of it.

It's All About You… The Audience

The final piece of this puzzle is, every time you create content, it is always about your audience, not about you. And that's why I entitled my book, It's Not About You. It's About BACON. BACON stands for Building Authentic Connections Online Networking. So it's really about understanding who your audience is, where they're at, what are their problems, what's keeping them up at night? And then providing them with great information and maybe a simple solution or maybe a complex solution. Obviously, in 10 minutes, you can't do an extensive training, but you can give away enough that people will learn something.

Final Thoughts

So one last time, I want to thank you for your consistency in listening to this, for the support of the podcast, and I hope that you get a lot out of it. I would love to hear your comments and feedback and provide you with another 300 great episodes. Comment below and share your thoughts and ideas on how you use your marketing to grow your business! Do you have any ideas or advice you could share? Ask questions at askbrian@b2b-im.com

To learn more about this and other topics on Internet Marketing, visit our podcast website at http://www.baconpodcast.com/podcasts/