Kushal: Hi there. Welcome to “On the Flip Side”, a podcast for anyone who wants to live their best sales life. We're going to be talking to buyers, sales managers, SDRs and AEs about things like, what does it take to be a great sales manager? Or how can you go home happy month after month? So let's dive right in. 

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of “On the Flip Side” with Wingman. I'm Kushal. And today we're stepping into the world of selling podcasting and hustling with Collin Mitchell. Collin is the founder and CEO of Salescast and host of the Sales Hustle Transformation podcast. So if anyone knows anything about sales podcasts, it's got to be Collin. Collin, welcome to the show. So happy to have you here, I'm just going to shut up for the rest of the evening now that you're here.

Collin Mitchell: I hope not, that'd be a little bit boring for me. But I probably would get tired of hearing myself talk at some point. So thank you so much for having me, Kushal, on the show, really appreciate it. Excited to talk about these topics that I'm extremely passionate about. And I'm just gonna let you drive and we'll see where it goes.

Kushal: Sounds good. So first up, I know you're in the business of podcast, right. But do you think every company should host their own podcast?

Collin Mitchell: It's even deeper than that. I think that every single person in sales, whether they're an SDR, BDR, AE, enterprise rep doesn't matter, should have a show, I think there's a lot of misconception that like I need to be at this certain level, or status or level of achievement, or C-suite, or be a founder to have a show and I totally disagree with that. Yes, I think every company should have a show. But I also think that anybody who's focused on investing in their personal brand, anybody who is focused on creating content for social, anybody who is focused on having a vehicle to build high quality relationships, should have a podcast.

Kushal: So given that you think that podcasts, you know, should not be dependent on you know, whether you're founder or not a founder on what role you're really playing? How do you know if a podcast is the right fit for a person? I mean, does it have… do you have to be an expert? Do you have to like talking to people? How does that work?

Collin Mitchell: Yeah. I mean, none of those things matter as much as you would think, right. And a lot of times people are reluctant to start a show because some of the common reasons that we hear across people that have maybe been kicking around the idea of starting a podcast and thinking about it, but just haven't taken any action really, is oh, they think I'm gonna suck at it. And or nobody's gonna listen to it, or I don't like hearing myself speak or things like that. And a lot of those are valid, but that's how everybody feels, you know? And, yes, you're probably going to suck at it at first, probably not very many people are going to listen to it at first, but that's okay. If you stay with it, and you stick with it, and you're consistent, you will get better just like anything. You know, I have, I've interviewed now, geez, I don't know, I'm approaching probably 300 people that I've interviewed across two different shows. And I was horrible at it at first, I was horrible. And I thought I was good. And it was it took my wife, you know, I interviewed somebody that I was really proud about interviewing and you know, he'd been in your input into podcasting and interviewing people and creating content. And it was, you know, kind of a big deal on LinkedIn. And I shared the episode with my wife, and she listened to it. And she's like, you're a horrible host. I don't know if she was that brutal about it. But that's what I heard. And I was like, what do you mean? And she's like, he just gave you a piece of information that you asked, that was like, big, and you didn't ask any follow up questions on it. I was like, wow, okay. You know, so it's just like when you're in sales and you’re cold calling, right. You've got to review your calls in order to get better at cold calling. Right. So you've got to see, you know, could I have asked a better question there? Did I miss an important detail? Can I use a little bit of a different tone there to get a better result? The same sort of mindset that you go into with reviewing that or even reviewing your demos or your discovery calls or your cold calls. It's the same thing with podcasting, look back at the content, and see how you can get better when you get started? Start with a few friendly people that will give you some honest feedback. You know, start with, we like to say start with five you know friendlies as your first potential guests, and give them to give you some honest feedback. Hey, how was that? You know, how was that experience? Is there anything I could have done, you know, different or better? And that's a great place to start.

Kushal: So your wife obviously sounds like a gem. 

Collin Mitchell: Yes. 

Kushal: And to go back to the question, really, how do you know when it's a good place to go off script? Because we all come in with these little questions or, you know, these little checklists? What's a good way to spot those?

Collin Mitchell: Yeah. You mean, so like, you want to have a bit of a theme or a bit of a structure a bit of a, you know, niche with your show, I actually like less structure, myself when I first got started. And I was very nervous, I was like, I don't know, if I'm gonna run out of things to say, and we're gonna run out of questions to ask, and I kind of over prepared. And then I felt a little bit too restraint. And so with that question, there's really no right answer, like, whatever is comfortable for you, if you're the type of person that just does, like a ton of research before a call and wants to over prepare nothing wrong with that, that might be the same way you want to go into, you know, a podcast interview and that might work. So for you for a while, and then that might evolve into, like, you know, I just kind of need a couple of pieces of information. And then I just want to have an interesting, you know, more off the cuff conversation with the people that come on. And so that's kind of the format that my show has taken, where, you know, we have a bit of a questionnaire that people fill out, it gives me some basic information as far as like their bio and some kind of backstory, and then we just hop on and see where it goes. And I find that for me, that works better for me, that's more enjoyable for me. I like the type of conversations that come out of that, of that maybe underpreparing, but you know, you got to find what works for you.

Kushal: Go back a little bit too when you were talking about how everyone should really experiment, at least with trying their own podcasts, what's maybe, you know, a basic checklist for people to keep in mind before actually starting with it?

Collin Mitchell: Yeah. So I mean, number one, if you don't want to get burnt out with a show, you want to be you want to have a show that something you're you know, genuinely people you want to bring people on that you're genuinely curious about, that you are very interested in building relationships with. Because if nobody listens to your show, and let's say you do a weekly show, and you're very specific about the types of people that you ask on your show, well, then you have 52, high quality relationships that you didn't have if you did a weekly show. So I believe that the relationships with the people that come on the show is the most valuable asset of the whole activity. And there's a lot of benefits of having a show, and we can go into some of those. So you know, to not get burned out because the problem is, is a lot of people get started and they don't stick with it. Because they don't have a strategy. They don't have a plan. And they just jump on because everybody else is doing it, or it seems like this is something I need to do. So it really helps if you have a strategy, like what is what is the goal here? Where am I trying to go? What's the plan? And really kind of, you know, what type of relationships do I need in my role, whether those are, you know, potential, high, you know, high value high target clients, or potential partners, or a little bit more of a long-tail strategy, if those you know, sort of influencers that your clients follow? Who are those people? And those would be kind of three high level strategies of a type of show and the types of people that you could have on your show, that are going to make it a sustainable activity, because you're going to always be wanting to meet more of those types of people, and you're going to genuinely just naturally be curious about getting to know them, and it's gonna make for a very fulfilling activity.

Kushal: So you must have listened to obviously, many, many podcasts, what are maybe some of the things that you wish companies or hosts would stop doing, and also start doing?

Collin Mitchell: Yeah, I think that there's a lot of companies that have started a podcast, and they've really viewed the podcast as a marketing activity, you know, we need to create content, we need to answer the questions that our prospects have, sort of the equivalent of writing blogs, right. And I wish more people would actually just view a podcast as a sales act, right. Because a lot of times when we talk to people, you know, they're like, I don't know if I have time to do this. And it's because they're really viewing it from the wrong lens. Oh, it's another thing that I need to do that's going to take time. And, you know, hopefully, maybe some customers come, you know, you know, sort of like investing in SEO or writing content or doing blogs is kind of the comparison there. But if you actually view it in a different way, I like to ask them, well, how many high quality sales conversations could you have. Well, I've got time for tons of those. Well, then you have time to have a podcast if you can view it from that lens because a lot of sales is building relationships. And the podcast platform is an amazing way to build relationships. And the reason why is because people remember how you make them feel. They remember a little bit of it. Remember a little bit of who you are, what you do and what you say, but not a ton, but they do remember how you make them feel and that is typically what drives them to either work with you or not work with you based on what that experience was like. And so if you reach out to people, and you're intentional about it, and you invite them on your show, you highlight them, you lift them up, you know, invite them in your audience, you collaborate, you create content, you're a great host, you ask good questions, all of those things are contributing to delivering a great experience. And you know, if things are aligned, and you're specific about the types of people that you ask on, there's a good chance that you're going to end up doing business with those people.

Kushal: You think of a podcast as a sales activity, then how do you evaluate the success of a podcast I guess? And how will you do it otherwise?

Collin Mitchell: Yeah. I mean, it's a tough question, right. Because it's not like for sales organizations that are very activity quota driven. Yeah, it's a little bit hard to track, right. It's not an email or a sequence or cold call or discovery call. And so people that really can adopt this are people that are our sales organizations that are a little bit more forward thinking and that are a little bit more innovative, that are, you know, allowing their sales organizations to do whatever is necessary to get to the end result, you know, they're allowing them to network and build relationships on LinkedIn, and invest in creating content. And all of those lead to the same end result if they're done properly, and consistently, but they can't all properly be tracked in the CRM, you can't quantify, like, Hey, you know, have a three day a week show and I'm building, you know, 156, high quality relationships through that activity, and not all of them are going to be a good fit to work together. But if you nurture the relationships properly, there's a good percentage of them that are, there's a good percentage of them that will refer people to you. And there's also a good percentage of them that will do business with you and refer people to you.

Kushal: Sort of maybe sit now in the whole seat, literally, right, how can a host really get the best out of their guests, some tips on that? 

Collin Mitchell: Yeah, it's got to be with adding value as much as possible, right. So these are relationships that you want to nurture, right? These are people that I think most people in sales, and not all understand the value of a network, if I'm in a high quality network, and I don't mean 10,000, LinkedIn connections or 15,000 LinkedIn connections, you know, that's, it's a network, but like, how many of those do you really know on a personal level that you know, want to be a part of what you do that you support them, they support you that they want to work with you, they want to refer business to you like your, you can be very successful in any sales role, if you really understand that your network equals your net worth and a high quality network. 

So if you're, you know, interviewing one person a week, two people a week, three people a week, whatever time you can put in, that's how many high quality relationships that you're gonna build. And each of them have a network, right. And so if you do right by them, you collaborate with them, you lift them up, you support what they're doing, you have them on your show, you create, collaborate, you know, you, you add value in a lot of different ways. And there's all kinds of different things you can do. You know, if your actual buyers, well, what can you do for them, that's a value that you don't have to charge for whatever that might be, you know, for me, it might be introducing them to some additional shows, you know, they come on my show, they might be really interested in going on more shows. So I might make some introductions for them, or I now have a good sense of what they do. And you know, if I come across people that need that, then I'm going to make those connections, that's a way to add value. You know, even simple things like really simple things, like literally just putting them all into a community or a LinkedIn group and staying top of mind writing them a handwritten note and thanking them for coming on the get on the show. That note may be saying, hey, PS as a way of saying thank you to all of our guests, we offer them ‘X’, you know, maybe that's a free version of your product, maybe it's an extended trial, maybe it's you know, something of value that you know, brings them a little bit more into your world, but it's got to be done, you know, genuinely like this is not just a trick to get you in my sales funnel. This is like genuinely like, hey, take this use it. If it makes sense for us to work together, great. The whole idea here is to sell more without really selling.

Kushal: I think those are some really interesting points that I'm just thinking though about, you know, selling without selling, it's difficult to implement. Because when you go into something with such a focused approach on actually to give it as a sales activity, it's difficult to maybe step back and say, okay, maybe the number one goal is not to sell but build relationships?

Collin Mitchell: Yeah. Now, just too clear one thing up, right. I'm not saying put all your eggs in this basket. Like I'm not saying stop using the phones, stop sending emails stop. Like I'm not that sort of mentality at all or nothing, right. Like, you're still going to need to cold call, you're still gonna need to, you know, do your email and cold emailing, LinkedIn prospecting and whatever, you know channels that you're using to generate leads. But this activity can be reserved for your high quality targets, right. Like, I like to tell people, take a list of 100, 200, like dream clients, like if we landed these people, it would be a game changer for us for company revenue for my commission for whatever, like these are really high. Everybody's got their target accounts or their dream clients, right, this works well for those people. Because those sales processes are longer, you know, it's a longer nurture. It's building a real, it's a highly relationship driven sales process. And this is where that really fits nice.

Kushal: So just switching gears a little bit here. How did your podcasting journey begin?

Collin Mitchell: Yeah, that's a great question. So I went on a podcast for the very first time. And it was my now co-founder, Christopher Decker, it was his show. And it was actually, you know, in studio, pre-pandemic where people actually get to see each other in person. And I had a great experience, you know, and at the end of it, I said, I think I think I want to start my own show. And he made it pretty simple. And I said, how do I start my own show? He said, pretty simple. You can interview whoever you want about whatever you want, and I'll take care of the rest for you. And I was like, that works. Because I'm super busy. I got three kids, multiple businesses. And I was like, you know, I don't know how many episodes I can commit to maybe one, maybe two a month, I didn't know what I was doing. And he was like, sure, whatever is comfortable, I don't recommend that I would say a weekly frequency really is the minimum because podcast listeners are creatures of habit. And you know, they look forward to you dropping a new episode every Monday or every Tuesday, or whatever your release date is. And as soon as you stop releasing, yeah, they're on to the next show. And then a very successful podcaster came along and said, oh, no, you've got to record 20 episodes, and then release them daily on Apple. And I said, 20, that's a lot. That's gonna take me a long time. He's like, Well, if you want to get listed in the new noteworthy shows of Apple, that's what you got to do. Like, that. Sounds pretty cool. I want to get listed there. 

Okay, fine. Let's just get after it. You know, I said, I got five to 10 people on the top of my head, I know, I can interview and we'll see if we can hit 20. And so we did. And I don't know that we didn't get listed in the new noteworthy. And I don't know if we picked up any extra followers. 

But it created a process for that high frequency, it created the habit, it created the process that we followed, it created this structure, it created all of these things. And along that journey, I was like, this is great. And I don't even care if anybody listens, because I'm getting to talk to awesome people, learning from them, building high quality relationships, and just really fell in love with the activity because, you know, the single activity accomplishes so many things and we haven't even gotten into all of them that relationship building is one making, you know, creating impactful content building community around your listenership, you know, never running out of content to, to share on social media, investing in your personal brand. Like it just goes on and on through the single activity. And then that show, I was interviewing entrepreneurs and founders and I interviewed about 130 people, and they said, I got kind of bored. This is It's been fun. But this is I don't love this, this topic. And so that's when we started Sales hustle. And we just, I think released about 100. We just released our 130^th episode of that we do three episodes a week, and we just kind of rolled right into that show. 

But in between that time we started Salescast. And because what we found is a lot of people that came on our shows, were asking us about starting the show, and we're like, okay, we have a team, we have a process that works. And you know, we can coach them on what to do and what not to do. So we started Salescast where we fully manage, you know, B2B podcast, right. So, same concept, they can interview whoever they want, we create the strategy, the structure, all of the creative, launch the show, manage all the post production, audio, video, micro content, everything and so we started, you know, just getting more and more clients and our clients would refer us more clients. And today we manage almost 40 shows, we're on track to probably hit about 100 shows by the end of the year, maybe more, I don't know. We'll see. And then recently, I've had a ton of fun on sales hustle and met a lot of amazing people, many of them have become our clients and I just for the first time. So when we launch a show, a lot of the typical way of launching the show is it's like a two to four week process, like picking the name and the car of cover and artwork and this and that and we're like we don't want to do that. That's kind of like every marketing agency. You know, that's kind of the way they do it and like we're Just gonna, you know, make all of the decisions in what we like to call our podcast boot camp. So it's a three hour deep dive, we make all the creative decisions, lay out the strategy, the structure, the format, get the first interview done, and podcast is live at the end of three hour period. 

Kushal: Oh, wow 3 hour’s to go live, that sounds impressive and a new podcast.

Collin Mitchell: Yeah, it's sort of the MVP mindset, right? Let's get it, you know, as good as it's going to be for now and just get started and roll into the activity. And then it can evolve over time, you know, and so…

Kushal: So there is a question here. Isn't likely at odds with the mindset of saying, you know, what, I can't change some parts of my branding will kind of become set, you know, the cover art, stuff like that. So do you really want to be changing around that later, or do you want to spend more time on that upfront?

Collin Mitchell: It's really not a big deal. If you change your cover art, I mean, a little bit of a more. And also, the one thing I love about podcasting, too, is like, let's just say you have a sales show, and maybe the format of your show is a particular way. And then you want to change it up a little bit, you can just launch a new season, right? So season one was about this, now we're rolling into season two, and it's the same show, but maybe the format or the theme has changed a little bit. So that's one thing, you know, have a reason for the season. So you can kind of like roll with different seasons, changing your cover or your headshot, or anything a little bit more of a drastic change would be changing your name of your show, which I'm doing right now. So I wouldn't say that’s recommended. However, for me, it was sort of necessary, because you know, sales hustle, there's people who maybe have a little bit of a negative association with word hustle, because, you know, we're not really about the hustle culture. And but it was kind of fun. It was kind of, what that is?

Kushal: So much is becoming canceled culture.

Collin Mitchell: And so anyway, for the first time, literally, yesterday, my co-founder, Chris took me through our podcast bootcamp, right, because we just sort of rolled into my show, you know, thinking, it's kind of like, you know, marketing agencies, a lot of times are great at marketing for other people, and then horrible at marketing for themselves. 

Kushal: Yeah.

Collin Mitchell: So with my show, which is kind of like, yeah, let's pick a name, and let's go. And then you know, it's gonna be about sales, and let's do it. And in the show has become pretty successful. You know, we're pretty much like right there at the top 100 on Apple, we've been listed on different lists and all kinds of stuff. And we've had awesome people on. So anyway, with through the podcast bootcamp, we're changing the name of my show, something that shows a little bit more close to home for my own personal journey, something that's more aligned with the sales community that we're building, something that's more aligned with also just our mission, and our vision at sales cast is wet as well. So Sales hustle is now becoming Sales transformation.

Kushal: Big announcement. 

Collin Mitchell: Yeah, there you go. You heard it first, right here. 

Kushal: Awesome. I love it. So to go back a little bit to what you just said, around the relationship building aspect of podcasts. And I can really relate so much for that, after almost every podcast recording a message to Shruti, our co-founder. And they're like, hey, you know what, I had so much fun on this podcast. I really love my job, you know, and it's become like, you know, I do it almost after every episode pretty much, because I think that's one of the most important parts for me, and what are some of those parts for you that kind of really make you happy doing a podcast?

Collin Mitchell: Yeah. So I mean, selfishly, one of the awesome things about it, is you get a bunch of free education. I love learning from people that have been in sales longer than me, not as long as me, you know, it makes it really easy. And you get to ask whatever questions you want. So if you have a follow up question about something, you know, rather than listening to a podcast, or reading a book, or, you know, following somebody on social media, you kind of get what you get, right. So if somebody gives you something on the show, some little tidbits, some little nuggets, some little tip, you can ask any follow up question you want. And so selfishly, like, it's a really great way to learn from the people that you and if there's someone you'd like, genuinely curious about learning from, you can ask them on your show and ask them any question that you want. I would say that's probably one of the most enjoyable things. 

Also, something that most people really will understand until they actually experience it. And maybe you'll agree with me is there's actually a lot of personal growth that comes out of being a host. And what I mean is, you know, you start to have your opinions about things, you start to kind of find your voice, you kind of, you know, start to get to build a community or followers or listeners that are tuning in because of you not because of your guests, and you now have a platform and out to share anything that you want and that you believe and that you're comfortable sharing or you know, different parts of you or whatever. So that's very fulfilling as well. And that's just a sort of an added benefit that most people don't even know they're signing up for that, but experienced that if they stick with it.

Kushal: I think, I love that last part so much. I really have these images of me as a superhero flying around, you know, in my own head now. Great part. 

Collin Mitchell: Yeah, and you know, as a successful podcaster told me, and I wish I would have learned this earlier on, and I think I somewhat knew it. But when he said it to me, and it was Andy Paul, of the sales enablement show with Andy Paul, you know, he said, and he's got a very successful sales podcast and has for a very long time, he said, Hey, your show is your show, you know, and so make sure you bring as much as yourself into the conversation and into your episodes. Because it is possible, you know, for your voice, for your platform for you know, things you want to talk about and share, because your guests are your guests, and they come on, you know, for an episode, and then they're gone. Maybe you have them back another time, but your listeners are there to hear what you have to say, you know, in bringing guests on, and hear what they have to say as a bonus, but they're really there for you. 

Kushal: I think that's a super powerful way of looking at it, which sort of brings me to pretty much my last question, which is, what's the number one impact that you want to drive on the world?

Collin Mitchell: Yeah. You know, with the new show, and the new theme, I think that everybody sort of goes through a transformation in sales, right. Whether they're you know, they do this particular thing wrong and fall on their face and learn from their mistakes and get better through experience, or, you know, whether they're taught a lot of the old fashion, you know, bad, you know, sort of boiler room, commission, breath, sales tactics, and have to unlearn those, which is part of my story. And so I really just want to highlight those transformations that, you know, successful sales professionals have gone through and pull as many, you know, teachable moments out of those to kind of give back to the sales community. And we're building a sales community as well. And we really want to just transform the way that B2B sales is done, so that people can you know, choose people over profit, or stop treating people so transactionally and invest more in the people in the relationships. And, yeah, the sales will come. But when you focus on that, first, it's much more enjoyable, it's actually a lot easier and it's much more fulfilling.

Kushal: I guess, to wrap this up, what can people reach out to you for? And what's the best way to do that?

Collin Mitchell: Yes, very simple. Thanks for asking. I'm not sure when this will air, but we're moving pretty quickly. Sales Hustle is going to become Sales Transformation. And we're on every single podcast platform that exists. So wherever you're listening to this today, you can search Collin Mitchell, that's me, or you could search Sales Transformation, I would guess we're going to make that change in less than a week. So by the time this is out there, I think we will have made our own transformation from Sales Hustle to Sales Transformation.

Kushal: Sounds great. Thanks so much, Collin. I think that's up to the show and honestly just had so much fun talking with you. 

Collin Mitchell: Yeah. Likewise, thanks so much for having me on.

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