Does Your Business Need a Podcast?

Most businesses in this industry are fighting for attention in the same crowded spaces. Product posts on LinkedIn. Blogs. Email newsletters. Everyone's doing it, and everyone is showing up in the same places.

But there's a channel where your competitors are almost completely absent, and it's one that's been sitting right in front of you for years.

Podcasting.

Your Competitors Aren't There. That's the Whole Point.

Go open Spotify or Apple Podcasts right now. Search for your competitors by name. Search "office furniture Dallas" or "workplace design Chicago." See what comes up.

Almost nothing.

That's not a limitation. That's an opportunity.

In a recent conversation with Simona Costantini, the founder of Volt Productions and one of the sharpest voices in the podcasting space, she put it simply: "If you're not visible today, you either keep up or you get left out."

The businesses driving the conversation in any industry are almost always the ones with a platform. And right now, in the contract interiors world, that platform is wide open.

The Search Game Has Changed — And Your Podcast Is the Answer

Here's something that might surprise you. I did a test. I went into Claude, the AI tool, and asked it to give me a list of podcasts about office furniture. The Trend Report came up at number three. Then I asked it for thought leaders in the workplace design space, and I came up again. Every single link it gave me as a source?

Apple Podcasts.

That's not a coincidence. AI tools are pulling podcast content as authoritative answers to search queries. If someone types "biophilic design resources" or "neurodiversity in the workplace" into ChatGPT or Perplexity, the businesses with optimized podcast episodes are the ones showing up.

Your customers are using these tools. Your specifiers are using these tools. Remember, the average interior designer in our industry is 27 years old. They are not flipping through a catalog.

If you want to be discovered, you need to be discoverable, and podcasting is one of the fastest ways to get there.

It's Not a Marketing Tactic. It's a Sales Tool.

Think about how a salesperson in your business currently opens a new relationship. A cold email. A product brochure. A LinkedIn connection request. Now imagine something different.

You meet a potential prospect at NeoCon. You don't have time to tell your whole story. You follow up with a three-sentence email and a link to the podcast episode where you tell the history of your company, the whole arc, from where it started to where it is today. They listen on their drive home.

That's not noise. That's value.

Simona shared her own version of this. A prospect booked a discovery call with her because they had watched a YouTube video she posted two years ago. Another person joined her membership because of a video she recorded and forgot about. The content kept working long after she made it.

That's what evergreen means. A blog post has a short life. A podcast episode keeps getting found. Keeps getting shared. Keeps building trust with people you haven't met yet.

You Don't Have to Be Perfect to Start

One of the most common objections is the setup. The gear. The studio. The production value. Simona's response? She records with her iPhone as the webcam and a travel microphone. Her first podcast season — going back to 2018 — was, in her words, "hot mess express."

People still listen to every episode.

The thing that matters is that you started. Because here is what Simona said that I keep coming back to: "You can't put a price on the value of having a podcast. You can't put a price on the relationships you build. You can't put a price on the opportunities that you're presented with."

The businesses in this industry that will be leading the conversation in five years are the ones building platforms right now. Not waiting until everything is perfect. Not waiting until the timing is right.

Starting.

The uncrowded space is podcasting. The floor is basically empty. The only question is whether you're going to step onto it.

Listen in to this conversation with Simona Costantini of Volt Productions wherever you get your podcasts or by using this link:  The Trend Report: Episode 190.