Cory Ames

Breaking Down the Practices that Make a Business Sustainable

November 23, 2021 by Cory Ames Leave a Comment

⭐️ Bonus Material: Get the Sustainable Business 101 Email Series

Welcome back again to my Sustainable Business 101 series.

We’ve covered why sustainable business is important, what a sustainable business is, and what some examples of sustainable businesses operating in the world are.

Today we’re getting a bit more granular.

We’re going to talk about the practices that make a sustainable business, well, actually sustainable.

To do so, we’re going to lean on an excellent tool for “measuring” the impact of a business, the B Impact Assessment.

The B Impact Assessment is a tool, created by the nonprofit organization B Lab, that allows businesses to put a “number” (or an “Impact Score”, as they call it) behind their social and environmental impact.

Using the tool, businesses assess their current impact, see how they compare to other similar businesses, and ultimately, build a plan around improving the score they received.

If a business is so interested, once they’ve met the minimum required Impact Score (80), they can submit for certification to officially become a member of the Certified B Corporation community.

So, jumping back in here…What are the practices of a sustainable business?

There are two levels here. At a high-level, sustainable businesses:

Measure their “impact”
Assess where their greatest opportunity for improvement is
Improve
Repeat

B Corps and other businesses use that B Impact Assessment to continuously go through the above 4-part exercise.

At the next level, there are the specific policies and day-to-day practices that a sustainable business takes on.

Again, using the B Impact Assessment as a guide, they’ve identified four overarching Impact Areas: Governance, Community, Environment, and Customers.

Let’s define each and look at specific examples of practices and policies that fall underneath each.

Governance

The Governance Impact Area assesses a company’s mission, ethics, transparency, and internal/external accountability.

Assessment questions in this Impact Area include:

Does the company publicly share information about its social and/or environmental performance on an annual basis?”

recycled-content-dr-bronners — *Example from Dr. Bronner’s 2021 All-ONE*
*Report – 2020 Packaging Footprint*

Companies like Oliver Russell, Patagonia, All Good Products, and Dr. Bronner’s produce annual “Impact Reports,” sharing their improvements/shortcomings on various social and environmental business practices.

“Separate from a mission statement, what has your company done to legally ensure that its social or environmental performance is a part of its decision-making over time, regardless of company ownership?”

If available in their state, province, etc., companies will adopt a benefit corporation legal status. This ensures that a company’s social and environmental mission is preserved, regardless of the changes in ownership.

If not incorporated as a benefit corporation, a company is at risk of legal threat from investors if their pursuit of some public good comes at the expense of financial performance.

Read more on this with our post What is a B Corp, or my friend Russ Stoddard’s post How Do You Tell a B Corp from a Benefit Corporation?

“What information does the company make publicly available and transparent?”

This question again focuses on transparency as it relates to social and environmental performance, but as well, financial performance—or who/what entities possess ownership in a company.

Companies might choose to use an Open Book Management style where employees can all visibly see the financial performance of the company, incomes, and expenses, salaries, etc.

This level of transparency and accountability is what ensures businesses that strive to be sustainable (like Certified B Corporations) are in fact walking the walk.

Community

The Community Impact Area assesses a business’s social and economic impact on the community (or communities) in which it operates.

Assessment questions in this Impact Area include:

“How does your company take part in civic engagement?”

The possible answers are things like: financial (or in-kind) donations, community use of company facilities, advocacy for social or environmental progress, pro bono work, and more.

“What was the percentage of per capita worker time donated as volunteer, community service, or pro bono time in the reporting period?”

The question asked companies to report what percentage of total work time was allocated towards community service or pro bono time on a scale of 0% – 5%+.

“What characteristics apply to the financial institution that provides the majority of your company’s banking services?”

There are plenty of ways in which a company can make an impact with seemingly standard business operations. This question, on who a business banks with, is an example of that.

The B Impact Assessment awards points for companies using banks that are Certified CDFI (Community Development Financial Institutions), credit unions or cooperative banks, members of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values, or as well, Certified B Corporation banks.

Three examples of Certified B Corp banks

“What are your company’s policies regarding independent contractors that do not work for the company greater than 20 hours per week for longer than a 6 month period?”

Speaking to labor points, the Assessment questions how a company manages their relationships with part-time contractors. Are they paid a living wage? Can contractors submit feedback to the company?

These points ensure that contractors are treated fairly and respectfully.

Environment

The Environmental Impact Area assesses how a company manages their environmental impacts, as well as energy and resource uses.

Assessment questions in this area include:

“Are your company’s products/services or processes structured to restore or preserve the environment[?]…”

One of the first questions asked in this section is whether or not the core of what the business does or sells is something that was constructed to “restore or preserve the environment.”

Let’s take a specific example.

Pela manufactured the world’s first compostable phone case. Pela made these cases out of an innovative “Flaxstic material” that’s designed to compost in under 6 months from its end of life.

This, as an alternative to the conventional plastic phone cases that won’t degrade or compost, ever…

Pela manufactured their cases in this creative way as an alternative to the typical practices of the phone case market. This is what makes Pela’s model an “Environmental Business Model.”

“How does your company manage its greenhouse gas emissions for at least Scope 1 and 2?”

This question asks: what’s the company’s carbon footprint? And, what are they doing about it?

To achieve the highest score here, companies need to be monitoring and recording their emissions, setting targets to reduce those emissions, and ultimately, achieving “carbon neutrality,” where the company is offsetting as much carbon output as they are producing.

Companies will turn to organizations like Climate Neutral or We are Neutral to receive support with measuring, reducing, and offsetting their carbon emissions.

You might even begin to see the Climate Neutral label on products out in the world.

Similar questions are asked about a company’s water usage or energy usage. Are they recording it? Do they have plans and objectives to mitigate and reduce usage? Are their facilities/offices run off renewable, more sustainable energy sources?

Customers

Finally, the Customers Impact Area evaluates what sort of relationship that the company keeps with its direct customers.

Assessment questions in this area include:

“Do any of your company’s products/services address a social or economic problem for your customers and/or their beneficiaries?”

Similar to the Environmental Impact area, this section questions whether there’s a direct social impact at the core of what the business offers to the market.

These can be services that offer clean water and electricity to those who haven’t had access, or services that improve financial outcomes for low-income individuals, or even products/services that have an educational component, such as independent media (like Grow Ensemble!).

LifeStraw’s “Follow the Liters” program goes beyond traditional corporate social responsibility and social impact programs.

There are additional questions as to how a company manages and monitors the outcomes of their customers. Does the company measure customer satisfaction? Do they share that publicly? Do they monitor the impacts that their products have on customers?

Sustainable Business Practices – What’s it Matter?

Mind you, I’m just briefly summarizing all that’s included in the B Lab’s B Impact Assessment.

It’s quite extensive and can take companies extended periods of time to even gather the information necessary to adequately answer the questions.

Walking through a few of the examples of these sustainable business practices is in effort to show you the amount of rigor through which these types of businesses assess themselves, look to mitigate and remove any negative impacts, and of course, pursue a verifiably positive impact with their products and the operation of their business.

Of course, these businesses aren’t doing this because they have to. It’s because they’ve committed to (measurably) using their businesses as a force for good.

From the policies and business models to the overarching methodology and focus to the continual improvement, we can see major differentiators between those who are truly sustainable businesses, and those who are not.

The B Lab’s B Impact Assessment might not be the only means to measure and assess what makes for sustainable business practices, however, I do believe it’s the best one that is currently available.

If you’d like to read more about the B Corporation Certification and all that’s included, I recommend visiting the B Impact Assessment website directly, or picking up a copy of the B Corp Handbook.

With a clearer understanding of what practices and standards a “sustainable business” adheres to on a day-to-day basis, we’ll talk next about where the greatest opportunity is for businesses to be more sustainable as well as, how, from a consumer perspective, businesses can be pushed to make these changes much faster.

➡️ P.S. — 7 out of the 10 businesses featured in our Ensemble 10 Collection: Examples of Sustainable Business in Action are Certified B Corporations.

Find out more about who they are and why they set themselves apart in their commitments to use their businesses as a force for good. Check out the collection here.

Get the Series: Sustainable Business 101

Enter your email and get the entire Sustainable Business 101 series delivered to your inbox.

Cory Ames

I’m Cory Ames. I’m a writer, podcaster, social entrepreneur, and the Founder of Grow Ensemble.

➡ More about me

You Might also like…

Business

Breaking Down the Practices that Make a Business Sustainable

Cory AmesNovember 23, 202135 min read

⭐️ Bonus Material: Get the Sustainable Business 101 Email Series Welcome back again to my Sustainable Business 101 series. We’ve covered why sustainable business is important, what a sustainable business is, and what some examples of sustainable businesses…

Business

The 14 Most Socially & Environmentally Sustainable Companies

Cory AmesNovember 19, 202144 min read

⭐️ Bonus Material: Get the Sustainable Business 101 Email Series *If you buy a product through some of my links below, I may earn money from our affiliate partners to help support the site. If you’ve come to believe that…

The 14 Most Socially & Environmentally Sustainable Companies

November 19, 2021 by Cory Ames Leave a Comment

⭐️ Bonus Material: Get the Sustainable Business 101 Email Series

*If you buy a product through some of my links below, I may earn money from our affiliate partners to help support the site.

If you’ve come to believe that Amazon, Walmart, or Apple are “sustainable companies,” I’m sorry, but I think you’re wrong.

Or, you should check the “sponsored by” section for whatever media publication you read that on…

As part of hosting The Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast, I’ve interviewed nearly 200 business leaders in the space of social impact and sustainability.

I’ve learned that the most sustainable companies are doing much more than just going “green,” they’re doing much more than just offsetting or mitigating a negative impact.

They’re actively making positive social and environmental impacts core to the way they do business.

This post highlights 14 truly sustainable companies so that you too can learn what it looks like to use business as a force for good.

➡️ This post is part of my series on Sustainable Business. Check out my other essays on why sustainable business is important and what is a sustainable business to learn more.

The Top 14 Most Sustainable Companies

1. tentree

First, we have tentree.

As tentree’s CEO Derrick Emsley told me on our podcast, ”tentree is a tree-planting company that happens to sell apparel…”
Since their founding in 2012, tentree has planted over 50 million trees and they’ve set the ambitious goal of planting 1 billion by 2030!

tentree selectively partners with charitable organizations around the world to plant trees. They’re also regularly visiting the sites of their projects to ensure that their tree planting programs are benefiting local communities in a variety of ways—economically as well as environmentally.

As a result of tentree’s practices and commitment to transparency, millions of trees have been planted through their collaborations in Peru, Indonesia, Canada, Brazil, Senegal, Madagascar, and Kenya.

And of course, tentree is committed to sustainably producing their apparel line.

tentree is advancing the fashion industry by using sustainable materials like organic cotton, hemp, recycled polyester, and TENCEL™.

And yes—as you may have already put together with their name, tentree plants 10 trees for every purchase as they hope to make big changes accessible to everybody, everyday.

2. Tony’s Chocolonely

On a recording of our Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast, Chief Evangelist of Tony’s Chocolonely, Ynzo van Zanten, shared how Tony’s was founded by a Dutch Journalist named Teun van de Keuken after he was shocked to learn the extent of how much illegal child labor exists on cocoa farms.

In 2003, Teun attempted to “turn himself in” for consuming chocolate that he knew was produced using illegal child labor. The public prosecutor refused to prosecute Teun.

While he never achieved the legal recourse he was hoping for, Teun decided to lead by example. And in 2005 he produced Tony’s 100% Fair Trade, 100% Slave Free Chocolate Bars.

Tony’s was a smash success! They quickly sold out on their first 5,000 bars.

I think what most stands out about Tony’s is their willingness to tackle the problems of their industry head-on and to “learn in public” as they do so.

It turned out, 100% Fair Trade didn’t mean 100% Slave Free. Tony’s launched a research project in Africa to study the cocoa supply chain deeply and determine how to improve Fairtrade Certification.
In 2010, Tony’s was called out for the child labor that happens in hazlenut production in Turkey—Tony’s switched producers.
In 2014, Tony’s discovered that Fairtrade prices aren’t enough for Cocoa Farmers—they introduced a premium that pays farmers 25% more than Fairtrade to ensure they make a living income.

And, the best part of all this? I know this because Tony’s documents these short-term failures and their responses, and evolution of their operation very publicly on their website for anyone to see.

Why?

They are serious about their mission to make the entirety of the chocolate industry 100% slave-free.

That’s the reason for their tagline, crazy about chocolate, serious about people.

3. Greyston Bakery

The Greyston Bakery slogan is simple and straightforward:

“Eat Brownies, Change Lives.”

The Yonkers, New York-based bakery and social enterprise have gained some notoriety for their “Open Hiring” policy.

This means no background checks, no resumes, no interviews…

As the Greyston folks say, “when people say, yes, I want to work; we say yes right back.”

And this has been a policy in place with Greyston since their founding in 1982.

Best of all, they’ve since created The Greyston Center for Open Hiring, which offers training, implementation support, research, and more to ensure other interested businesses have all they need to implement this more inclusive hiring practice.

This is just the beginning, as Greyston also offers workforce development programs, transitional housing programs, and transitional employment programs, too.

📼 Video: Environmentally Friendly Companies

Catch the video (to the right) for a different way of digesting this list, here.

This video specifically focuses on the environmental angle of sustainable business—the brands that are truly in business to save our home planet.

Watch here or on our Grow Ensemble YouTube Channel

4. Patagonia

Ahhh…are we surprised?

Patagonia has spent its near 50 years in business being at the cutting edge of what it means to be a “sustainable & environmentally conscious” company.

As they proudly state, they “[a]re in business to save our home planet.”

For the last 35 years, Patagonia has pledged 1% of sales to the conservation of our natural environment.

This practice led to Patagonia’s Founder, Yvon Chouinard, co-founding 1% for the Planet so other companies could make the same contribution to environmental protection.

Now, Patagonia is approaching over $90 million in donations to national and international grassroots, environmental groups.

You might remember…they even sued a former president to preserve national monuments in 2017!

Patagonia has diligently reviewed, assessed, and improved the sustainability of their supply chains, and a lion share of their raw materials are either recycled or grown organically.

They’ve also set the goal to be completely carbon neutral by 2025.

➡️ Patagonia is the way that it is because of its founder Yvon Chouinard.

And if you haven’t yet, I’d recommend reading Let My People Go Surfing if you want a little more background on both the environmental & social principles behind Patagonia.

5. Allbirds

While Allbirds is a completely carbon neutral shoe & apparel company, they have the ambitious goal to become a completely zero-carbon company.

That’s right, when companies can claim “carbon neutrality” that typically means they are offsetting whatever emissions they can reduce with carbon credits.

Allbirds, however, hopes to emit no carbon in the first place. And, I think they are on track to get there.

Allbirds has committed to complete transparency when it comes to their carbon emissions.

Like a nutritional facts label you see at the grocery store, Allbirds has a label attached to their shoes that shows exactly the amount of emissions that’s been produced from the making of each style of shoe.

Allbirds has also recently invested in a plant-leather producer that can produce an alternative to traditionally manufactured leather and synthetically manufactured leather while also reducing the associated carbon footprint by 40 times!

Allbirds shoes are wildly comfortable and, as it turns out, wildly sustainable too.

6. Bombas

Bombas abides by the bumblebee way of life: a lot of small actions make up remarkable collective achievement.

Why?

Well, to date, Bombas has donated over 47 million pairs of socks. This is because of their “Buy one, Give one” model, where, for every sock purchased, Bombas donates another to someone in need.

They call these 47 million+ donated socks and counting the “Greatest Socks Never Sold.”

Because Bombas Founders, Randy Goldberg, and David Heath, discovered that socks are the #1 requested item at homeless shelters.

They designed the socks specifically to address the needs of people experiencing homelenesses:

reinforced seams
antimicrobial treatment
made with darker colors to show less visible wear

Following closely behind socks are new t-shirts and underwear as the 2nd & 3rd most requested items at homeless shelters; this explains Bombas’ recently expanded product line.

📼 Video: Socially Responsible Companies

Catch the video (to the left) for a different way of digesting this list, here.

This video focuses on the social side of sustainable business—the businesses that are truly committed to putting people above profits.

Watch here or on our Grow Ensemble YouTube Channel

7. Dean’s Beans

He first started in coffee through the nonprofit sector, but in 1993, Dean set out to forge his own direct relationship with coffee growers around the world.

Dean Cycon, the Founder of Dean’s Beans, was previously an indigenous rights and environmental lawyer before becoming a “social entrepreneur.”

Today, Dean’s is a USDA Organic, Fair Trade, Bird-Friendly, Certified B Corporation coffee company.

As Dean so impactfully shared with me during our podcast recording,

“I believe that if your business is based on the suffering of others, you have no right to be in business.”

Of course, I couldn’t agree more—and Dean’s business finds itself on the complete opposite end of the spectrum.

Dean’s Beans produces & sells “specialty coffee as a vehicle for positive change.”

They maintain long-standing relationships with their growers, pay a fair price for the coffee beans, and redistribute profits back to the growers themselves.

Dean’s also attempts to affect sustainable change in coffee-growing regions through their People-Centered Development Programs.

These are a variety of economic, environmental, or social developmental assistance projects that they only take on WHEN INVITED BY THE LOCAL COMMUNITIES (not governments or foreign aid agencies)!

If invited, they listen to & talk to local groups to learn about what might be holding them back from their self-identified development goals.

Dean_with_Farmers_and_Children — *Dean and a local coffee-growing community they support*

Then, they design the project with the local stakeholders, avoiding bringing in outside organizations/help at all costs if the local community can manage it themselves, and they fund the projects with the sales from Dean’s Beans or, Dean’s home equity loan (as he states himself).

Now, if you look at a 5 lb bag of Dean’s Beans you’ll understand why it reads, “Brew Great Coffee, Create Real Change”.

8. Aspiration

Did you know…The four biggest banks in America lend more than $240 billion of their customers’ money to fossil fuel projects every year?!?!

Yeah…

At the same time, every $1,000 you transfer to Aspiration has the planet-saving climate impact of 6,000 fewer miles driven by the average car.

Why?

Well, Aspiration is an online financial institution that provides spending, saving, and investing options that allow you to put your money where your values are.

If you open up an Aspiration account (opposed to one with a traditional ‘big bank’) you can…

Get back 5%-10% on socially conscious spending
Save over $300 in fees with a “pay what you feel is fair” model
Drive your car without hurting the planet, as Aspiration automatically offsets the carbon dioxide from every gallon of gas you purchase (if you have a “Plus” account)
Most importantly, feel confident that your money isn’t fueling the climate crisis, but rather trying to stop it, as Aspiration won’t just not invest in fossil fuel projects (what a crazy idea), but will actively use your money in ways that will help us avoid climate catastrophe!

9. Grove Collaborative

Grove was founded to make finding healthier & greener home essentials easier. Their membership certainly does just that.
Grove is the first plastic-neutral retailer in the world.

This means that for every ounce of plastic you receive from Grove, they divert the same amount of plastic from the ocean through their partners at Plastic Bank.

And, plastic neutrality isn’t the end of the road, as Grove has the goal to be completely plastic-free by 2025.

Yes! Over the next few years, Grove has plans to remove plastic from every product they make and sell.

Not to mention, while that might be Grove’s primary focus, that’s not all—they are also involved in plenty of reforestation work as well as work to reduce their own carbon footprint.

And, of course, their marketplace does make it very easy to find household products that are natural, cleaner, and more sustainable than traditional counterparts.

10. Leesa Mattress

Like Bombas, Leesa Mattress was founded with a similar “Buy, then Give” business model.

Their chosen area of impact: ending childhood bedlessness.

For every 10 mattresses sold, Leesa donates one mattress to a family in need. Leesa calls this their “1 Good Bed Promise.”

1 in 7 children in the U.S. are living in poverty. As a mattress can be one of the most expensive items of furniture to purchase for a home, children living in poverty are more likely to sleep:

on a couch every night
in an overcrowded bed with other family members
or…in some cases, on the floor

Research shows that children without access to quality sleep are far more likely to drop out of school, suffer from depression, or even commit suicide.

That’s why with the help of their network of giving partners, Leesa, a Certified B Corporation, has given over 38,000 mattresses and counting.

11. A Good Company

A Good Company’s mission is to transform mindless consumption into conscious decisions.

A sustainable e-commerce company, A Good Company was founded in 2019 and has since expanded their product line to cover all sorts of everyday “climate positive” goods.

A Good Company calls them “Climate Positive,” because they will:

Offset all carbon emissions from the production of each product using carbon capture programs such as tree planting
Go even further and make sure each “Climate Positive” product is capturing more carbon than it’s emitting

They want every product possible to be carbon negative.

For example, their waterproof stone notebook is the world’s first “climate-positive” notebook made from recycled stone.

No wasted trees, no wasted water, no harmful chemicals.

Their mobile cases are made in Sweden from the byproduct that comes from organic linseed farming. And after use, you can either send it back to A Good Company where they’ll turn the old case into a new one for someone else, or you can plant it in the garden where it will biodegrade.

A Good Company is also extremely transparent about where and how their products are made, and in what conditions.

You can even use their interactive map and directory on AGood.com to see for yourself! Get a world tour of A Good Company’s supply chain.

➡️ My company Grow Ensemble also had the pleasure of partnering up with A Good Company for a campaign on conscious consumption for the 2020 holiday shopping season.

12. Thrive Market

Thrive Market was founded on a very specific mission: they wanted to make natural groceries & organic foods more accessible to everyone.

For every Thrive membership purchased, Thrive gives a membership to a low-income family, teacher, first responder, or student.

Thrive wanted lower prices for high-quality, highly nutritious products, to make eating better easier. It’s one of the reasons they offer a “Low Price Promise,” where they price-match with any product you find on their marketplace.

Organic, natural foods and supplements have universally been expensive, and undoubtedly exclusive as a product of that.

While Thrive isn’t yet making the products they sell attainable by everyone, I do appreciate where they are pushing the market for organic & natural foods.

Also, everything on their marketplace is highly vetted, supporting sustainable sourcing, farming, & fair trade practices, and you can shop by almost every categorization imaginable:

By certification — Like Certified B Corporation, Biodynamic, FSC, and more
By diet — Vegan, Keto, Paleo, whatever
By health & ingredients — Hypoallergenic, nut-free, Paraben-Free and so many more
And EVEN by Environmental or Social Cause — BIPOC-owned Businesses, Regenerative Agriculture, Locally Sourced, Family-Owned Businesses, and more!

Thrive also has a program called “Mission Task Force”, where every six months Thrive selects new employees to spend 10% of their weekly work time on “impact-related work.”

Thrive Market themselves just recently became a Certified B Corporation in late 2020, which makes them the “largest grocer to earn this coveted qualification.”

13. Eileen Fisher

In 1997, harsh and exploitative working conditions in the fashion industry were in the headlines—at the same time, the EILEEN FISHER team took it upon themselves to establish a “Social Consciousness Department”.

They specifically wanted to raise awareness around three values:

Practicing business responsibly with absolute regard for human rights.
Guiding our product and practice toward sustaining our environment.
Supporting women to be full participants in society.

Love, Peru Giveback

20+ years later and cumulatively 30+ years in business, you could say that EILEEN FISHER, as a sustainable clothing brand, has lived those values:

➡️ In early 2020, it was reported that EILEEN FISHER employees own 40% of the company, through an employee stock ownership plan which was started in 2006. Employees can cash that stock out when retiring or leaving the company. The company is currently valued at $400 million.

This was largely a motivation for the company to remain privately owned by Eileen Fisher herself.

➡️ As well, the brand claims to be able to track their clothes “from field to factory”. With a visit to their website, it’s quite easy to find their list of suppliers, most having an exact address of the farm or factory, a note of the material that’s been supplied, and in some cases, an estimation of the amount of employees the supplier has.

➡️ To date, EILEEN FISHER has not found evidence of human trafficking or slavery in their supply chain. And that’s not because they aren’t looking for it. They invite rigorous and frequent third-party audits of their supply chains as well, they conduct their own “Social Life Cycle Assessments” on their garment and material supply chains to identify where issue spots might be present.

➡️ They’ve likewise taken environmental impact seriously for years as they’ve taken back over 1.5 million garments since 2009. These are then resold or remade into something new. They are also committed to using sustainable materials from the beginning—organic & traceable cotton, recycled polyester, nylon, and cashmere, and now regenerative wool.

Circular By Design: Where others see waste, we see possibility.

It seems fitting to quote Eileen Fisher herself, here:

“We don’t want sustainability to be our edge, we want it to be universal.”

14. Avocado Mattress

And last but not least on this list, Avocado Green Mattress.

Avocado has called out that they are on a mission to be one of the world’s most sustainable brands. They might very well be!

At Avocado Mattress, Sustainability Starts Here

Avocado’s mattresses might just be the most sustainable, or “eco friendly”, on the planet:

avocado-green-mattress-certified-natural

They don’t use toxic chemicals
Their factories are powered by renewable energy (and are approaching zero waste)
They’ve cared for and raised 200,000 of their own sheep
They offer vegan alternatives
They grow and produce their own natural latex
They’re carbon negative
They’re certified organic by the Global Organic Textile Standards (or GOTs)

Best part? They claim they’ve just begun on their sustainability and climate action.

Avocado is a Certified B Corporation, 1% for the Planet business member, and Certified Climate Neutral Company, and they’ve engineered their organic, natural mattresses to make for the best night of sleep you can possibly get!

Like all the other companies we’ve listed here, they’re setting the standard for what it means to be a “sustainable business”, and use their business as a force for good in the fight to save our home planet.

🌎 Better Business for a Better Planet

The definition of what’s good business is changing. It has to. The circumstances of the world demand it.

Thankfully, there are businesses (and business people) like those I shared above who are helping to set this standard and redefine the expectations for how business can and should be done.

Are there other businesses that you feel deserve a spot on this list? Who are they and why do you think they do?

Let me know in the comments below!

Get the Series: Sustainable Business 101

Enter your email and get the entire Sustainable Business 101 series delivered to your inbox.

Cory Ames

I’m Cory Ames. I’m a writer, podcaster, social entrepreneur, and the Founder of Grow Ensemble.

➡ More about me

What is a Sustainable Business?

November 5, 2021 by Cory Ames Leave a Comment

⭐️ Bonus Material: Get the Sustainable Business 101 Email Series

Welcome back to my Sustainable Business 101 series.

In my last post, we covered why sustainable business even matters.

And today, we’re talking definitions.

The Problem with Not Defining Sustainable Business

Sustainability and sustainable business have been left widely undefined.

This poses a potentially major issue. If these terms remain undefined, the standards on sustainability can be set by those with the largest budgets, infrastructure, and PR teams (remember the last email: brands can dictate culture).

For example, we have Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, positioned as a leader on NPR for stakeholder capitalism.

Benioff is quoted in a section titled “Defining stakeholder capitalism,” saying that, in addition to their shareholders, the planet and the local homeless community in San Francisco are Salesforce’s stakeholders as well.

Salesforce also didn’t pay a cent in federal income taxes in 2020, while earning $2.6 billion in profit. And Marc personally earned $26 million in total compensation that year.

Or we have Walmart, setting a stake in the ground by claiming that they will become a “regenerative company.”

This, after Walmart has had decades of labor disputes and scandals, from union-busting to employing sweatshop labor forces abroad.

So, who are we going to let define what a better, sustainable business is?

The Marc Benioffs of this world, who made $26 million in 2020 while his company evaded ANY federal tax liability?

And yes, companies like Salesforce have navigated the U.S. tax system legally, but:

1 – These companies have lobbied incessantly to make our tax rules as they are.

2 – The private sector argues to limit regulations and government intervention in markets, but at the same time they defer any accountability for our unequal tax system by claiming they are just playing by the given rules.

You cannot switch positions to whatever is most convenient for you at the time.

3 – It’s just absurd to take the position of defending companies making billions of dollars (in profits) at a time when the national (and in some cases global) discussion centers around how we pay for:

Addressing the climate crisis.
Providing parental leave for working families.
Offering universal Pre-K.
Increasing the number of Americans who have access to quality healthcare.

How can we allow those who have historically been the greatest exploiters of broken and convoluted systems to be in charge of reimagining those same systems for good?

I just don’t believe it’s a good idea. It’s like putting arsonists in charge of the fire department.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for getting the biggest offenders to make changes; but I’m less interested in handing them a megaphone and inviting them to be the spokespeople.

So, I believe the exercise of properly defining which businesses are sustainable is critically important.

Defining Sustainable Business for Objectivity’s Sake

We need to start here so that the terminology used in this conversation can be as objective as possible.

This is so that we can first bring this conversation into as objective terms as possible.

For example, a business might want to assess, say, its profit.

A business is either profitable or not, right?

Likewise, I believe a business should either be sustainable or not.

If a business isn’t profitable, it needs to work toward being so.

In the same way, if a business is determined unsustainable, it should work toward becoming sustainable as diligently and urgently as it would if it were not turning a profit.

So, let’s get to defining.

The Oxford dictionary defines “sustainable” as

“able to be maintained at a certain rate or level.”

So, what does that mean for sustainable business?

Well, we’ve hit a tipping point. For business “to be maintained at a certain rate or level,” a business must be leaving the world, the communities, the people and stakeholders it encounters as a result of its existence, better off.

Our world needs repair. Our planet, our ecosystems, and our economies need to be restored.

The models for economic growth that got us into this climate crisis and massive economic inequality won’t be the models that get us out of it.

For business to be done, for the economy to function, they must have a positive impact on people and the planet.

And so, to us at Grow Ensemble, for a business to be sustainable, it must:

Leave the world around it better off, as part of its operation (not as some sort of supplemental charity or corporate social responsibility program).
Have positive social and environmental impact at its core.
Continue to be an advocate for change and standard setting in its industry by persistently redefining and reinventing the level of sustainability and positive impact that any one industry or sector can have.
Be kept accountable (not by itself) by working with and pursuing third-party certifications, external evaluations and auditing, etc.
Be radically open and transparent by knowing what its footprint is, being able to trace where and how its products were made, and making a diligent and consistent effort to share this information publicly.

It’s no longer fair that for a business to succeed (to profit), the planet and the people must sustain it.

A sustainable business is sustainable only if the world is (truly) better off because of it.

In the next essay, we’re going to be sharing specific examples of exactly which businesses exemplify our definition of a sustainable business.

Until then, don’t hesitate with comments or questions.

What points of my definition do you agree with? What might you contest? Leave a comment below.

➡️ P.S. — If you want to jump ahead and discover the standard-setters in sustainable business that we’ve handpicked here at Grow Ensemble, be sure to check out our latest Ensemble 10 Collection: Examples of Sustainable Business in Action. and discover who are the businesses and business people setting a new standard for how business can and should be done?

Get the Series: Sustainable Business 101

Enter your email and get the entire Sustainable Business 101 series delivered to your inbox.

Cory Ames

I’m Cory Ames. I’m a writer, podcaster, social entrepreneur, and the Founder of Grow Ensemble.

➡ More about me

Why is Sustainable Business Important?

November 4, 2021 by Cory Ames Leave a Comment

Bonus Material: Get the Sustainable Business 101 Email Series

Welcome to my introductory series on Sustainable Business.

Before I explain what is a sustainable business in another email to come, or show you examples of sustainable business in practice, we need to start with why sustainable business matters.

My answers might not be the answers you’d expect.

The Race (isn’t) to Meet Consumer Demand

No, it doesn’t matter that businesses adopt “sustainable practices” so that they can meet consumer demand.

Even though trends show consumers are caring more and more about how businesses are impacting the environment.

That reason isn’t BIG enough.

Businesses must be sustainable because we need to change consumer demand faster.

We need to change culture faster.

Because of the resources at their disposal, brands have the power to dictate culture.

A savvy advertising campaign, a visionary CEO…they can dictate what’s cool, what’s admirable.

If businesses and business people can lead and say that it’s not okay to take home a profit unless the people and the planet are taken care of first…

What could that do for our culture?

What might be different about the state of our world if businesses said that THE PEOPLE and THE PLANET are more important than profit?

What if we all truly began to believe that it wasn’t money that made the world go round’ but it was the planet and the people on it that spun it?

A World with (Truly) Sustainable Business

Business is not the solution for everything.

But, business can be an incredible solution for many things.

As much harm as business is doing, it’s equally possible that business could do good. Serious good.

And if a business can’t stop doing so much harm…should it exist?

The truth of it is, we are in an “all hands on deck” situation.

We aren’t acting on the climate crisis fast enough.

Capitalism has amassed a great deal of resources for a few, but not for enough of us. There’s no reason that Elon Musk’s net worth should be near $300 Billion and Bezos’ per minute earnings well exceed what the average American earns in a year.

While at the same time, near 700 million people globally still live in “extreme poverty.”

And so, it’s not just about business. It can’t be “just business.”

Because the world…

just.

can’t.

take it.

Perhaps if a business can’t turn a healthy profit without exploiting people and extracting from the planet, then maybe they just can’t be in business.

And so who does that leave to “do business?”

That will be the subject of the next essay, where together we will define what is a sustainable business.

Have any questions or comments? Leave a comment below and let me know.

➡️ P.S. — Want to dive deeper and discover who are the businesses and business people setting a new standard for how business can and should be done?

Be sure to check out Grow Ensemble’s latest Ensemble 10 Collection: Examples of Sustainable Business in Action.

Get the Series: Sustainable Business 101

Enter your email and get the entire Sustainable Business 101 series delivered to your inbox.

Cory Ames

I’m Cory Ames. I’m a writer, podcaster, social entrepreneur, and the Founder of Grow Ensemble.

➡ More about me

What Is a “Conscious Business?” (as Defined by a Conscious CEO)

October 19, 2021 by Cory Ames

In this post, you’re going to learn exactly what is a “Conscious Business.” You’ll also learn what a conscious business is not.

And to do so, we’re going to hear from Meghan French Dunbar, a leader in the space of purpose-driven business.

Meghan is the former CEO of Conscious Company Media, which was the nation’s leading media company dedicated to purpose-driven businesses and social enterprises.

And now she’s the co-founder of a new impact-driven venture called Womxn Led, which is an international community bringing womxn business leaders together to grow and thrive.

Let’s dive in.

What Is the Meaning of “Conscious Business?”

Conscious Business: A Definition

Meghan French Dunbar
@MeghanFrenchDunbar

There are all sorts of people who talk about this stuff, but there’s no agreed-upon definition.

So this is my own personal definition: a conscious business is a business that:

Is led by a conscious leader
Takes all stakeholders into account
And has a higher purpose beyond profit

What is Conscious Leadership?

Meghan French Dunbar
@MeghanFrenchDunbar

There are a lot of companies out there that have a sustainability department and they’re doing great things.

But leaders at the top aren’t bought in, they aren’t aware of their actions, and they aren’t actually acting as conscious business leaders. There are plenty of examples out there that I’m sure people are aware of.

The conscious leader is someone who actually walks the talk, who has determined values and actually lives by them as someone who is conscious and aware of their actions on a daily basis, and who has the ability to respond thoughtfully rather than react.

These were the kinds of ways in which we defined “conscious leadership” at Conscious Company Media, and these are the capacities possessed by the best conscious leaders that I ever came across.

This would be people like Justin Rosenstein of Asana; Eileen Fisher of Eileen Fisher; Kevin Rutherford of Nuun: all people who exhibit fantastic leadership.

Justin Rosenstein, Asana

Eileen Fisher, EILEEN FISHER

Kevin Rutherford, Nuun

Cory Ames
@AmesCory

Cory’s Note:

As Meghan points out here, there are significant differences between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and authentically purpose-driven businesses and business leaders.

And while there isn’t any hard and fast defining line, it’s important to go through the exercise of sorting through what is what.

One way of doing so is to look at the leadership. Learn more about who they are, what their origin story was for getting into business, and how they see the relationship between their business’s operation and success and the welfare of people and the planet. Meghan provides some excellent examples here—other leaders that I’d comfortably add into the conversation: Giancarlo Marcaccini with Yogi Tea, Corey Kohn with Dojo4, or Madeleine Shaw.

Stakeholder Business Model

Meghan French Dunbar
@MeghanFrenchDunbar

This is a big, BIG issue.

Most businesses on the face of the earth have subscribed to the idea of shareholder supremacy.

This has even gotten to the point where people have said…

We have a fiduciary obligation, we have a legal obligation that we have to maximize profits for our shareholders.

And as a result of that, businesses have gotten away with murder. This is the reason why we have companies that pollute rivers and do terrible things to their workers.

It’s because they’re saying they actually have a legal obligation to maximize the profit for their shareholders (at the cost of everything else). This has been replaced in the last 30 or so years with the idea of a stakeholder. A stakeholder is anyone or anything that your company’s actions affect.

Cory Ames
@AmesCory

Cory’s Note:

Meghan here is referring to the concept of “Shareholder Primacy.”

In this style of capitalism, the core purpose of a business is to produce profits or returns for its shareholders or investors.

This is contrasted with a newer, more equitable approach to business called “Stakeholder Capitalism.”

Stakeholder Capitalism is a system of capitalism where businesses are expected to serve and consider all stakeholders, not just shareholders in their decision-making.

This could also be known as “triple bottom line” businesses, businesses that put their profits on par with their social and environmental impacts.

Stakeholders (as Meghan will say more about) include employees, customers, the environment, local communities, and more, along with the investors and shareholders.

Meghan’s mention of the “fiduciary obligation” and the “legal obligation…to maximize profits for our shareholders” has become popularized within the business world by a quote from economist Milton Friedman.

Meghan French Dunbar
@MeghanFrenchDunbar

A stakeholder would be:

Your employees (they’re number one)
Your customers
The community that you operate in
The environment

And yes, your shareholders—your investors—are also stakeholders.

To understand the stakeholders affected by your business or organization you can make stakeholder maps and ask, “Who/what are all of the people and entities that our company’s actions directly affect?”

A conscious leader takes all stakeholders into account. And a conscious business really needs to be looking at its effect on every single stakeholder that the company contacts and attempt to have a positive impact on those stakeholders. Period.

Cory Ames
@AmesCory

Cory’s Note:

There are useful tools and resources to help businesses better understand the stakeholders that they affect.

While not explicitly a Stakeholder Map as Meghan was describing it, the B Impact Assessment is an incredibly robust tool provided by B Lab, the nonprofit behind the B Corporation Certification.

When completed, the assessment offers a business a look at its impact on its community, customers, employees, and the environment.

Conscious Business = Purpose > Profit

Meghan French Dunbar
@MeghanFrenchDunbar

This is where we talk about the why behind the business.

Patagonia is the conscious business poster child. It says this explicitly in its purpose statement:

“Build the best product. Cause no unnecessary harm. Use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”

That’s in their stated purpose!

And yes, they do make money as a result of their purpose.

But your purpose as a company cannot just be to make money. It must be something much bigger than that, a higher purpose beyond profit.

Cory Ames
@AmesCory

Cory’s Note:

This final point is key from Meghan. Really, it’s what tops off the whole definition of a “conscious business.”

I think this is best explained with another example.

Let’s take Dean’s Beans, founded by Dean Cycon. The mission of Dean’s Beans is simple:

“…use specialty coffee as a vehicle for positive change.”

When founding Dean’s Beans in 1993, Dean had the idea that he’d create change in the coffee industry through showing that an ethical, fair, and just coffee business could be sustainable, incredibly impactful, and profitable.

He knew that a coffee business could be run fairly for all stakeholders involved while remaining profitable and highly successful by traditional business standards.

The businesses success was, and continues to be, a vehicle for achieving more.

Coffee farmers are paid fairly and are able to invest in their own businesses and communities. Dean’s Beans becomes a model, showing that profitable and ethical business practices can coexist. The “big players” can no longer say it can’t be done.

Meghan French Dunbar
@MeghanFrenchDunbar

Those are the three key components of what we look at when we’re talking about conscious business.

Again, a conscious business:

Is led by a conscious leader
Takes all stakeholders into account
Has a higher purpose beyond profit

That’s what I came up with after talking to over 1,000 business leaders in my time at Conscious Company.

Misconceptions or Misunderstandings about Conscious Business

Meghan French Dunbar
@MeghanFrenchDunbar

The number one thing that I see the most often is that, if a company has a sustainability department or a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) department, it is then, in fact, a conscious business.

I think of the way that we just described a conscious business as a holistic lens. Every facet of the company isn’t “conscious” when we’re only talking about sustainability or a CSR department.

That is more just like a business with sustainability tacked onto the side.

Yes, they can do wonderful things. I’m not poo-pooing sustainability departments. They’re fantastic. I know wonderful people who run incredible sustainability departments and CSR departments.

But it doesn’t mean that the company itself is a conscious business.

You can be doing incredible things for the environment and treating your employees like crap. You can have a wonderful kind of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and then maximize profit to the extent that you’re having negative externalities all over the place and doing terrible things to the environment.

I mean, there are all these kinds of trade-offs that you can make with sustainability departments. Monsanto has a sustainability department. Halliburton has a sustainability department. Those are not conscious businesses in my opinion.

Cory Ames
@AmesCory

Cory’s Note:

We caught this earlier, but it’s worth mentioning again.

CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and truly mission-driven businesses are not the same thing.

While businesses with CSR departments and positions can fall under Meghan’s “conscious business” definition, it certainly shouldn’t be assumed.

In the most critical form of this, author Anand Giridharadas calls this “doing well by doing good.”

I’m often asked about what’s the difference between CSR and truly impact-driven business… 👇 https://t.co/QMmq3IDtri
— Cory Ames (@AmesCory) September 9, 2021

Companies use their CSR and impact-related initiatives to create the appearance of being a responsible or positive community member while on the other end causing significant destruction through their business practices or influence.

For a deep dive on this, check out Giridharadas’ excellent book, Winners Take All.

Conscious Businesses Out in the World

What’s a company that you think models what it means to be a “conscious business?”

Let me know with a comment below.

— — —

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity, and originally hosted on the Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast from Grow Ensemble.

Cory Ames

I’m Cory Ames. I’m a writer, podcaster, social entrepreneur, and the Founder of Grow Ensemble.

➡ More about me

100 Podcast Tips for Starting, Sustaining, & Growing a Show

July 21, 2020 by Cory Ames

Want the audio version of this post? Listen here:

We launched The Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast in January 2019. Now, just a little over a year and a half later, we’ve hit the 100 episode milestone!

This podcast has become much of the ‘base’ from which we launched Grow Ensemble, our media and marketing company in the space of social impact and sustainable business.

Growth has been steady, with 2020 listenership up 290% over 2019, now spanning 116 countries around the world and counting!

I’ve learned a ton, made good friends (and & clients), and can’t imagine stopping the podcast now that we’ve started. 100 episodes in, I’ve learned a lot on podcasting, read a lot on podcasting, and now want to share more on our process in hopes to help you.

Approach this post like a guidebook—take it chapter by chapter. This is a monster! So, it’ll be best to tackle these 7,500+ words and 100 podcasting tips in pieces.

Hopefully, this can be a resource to help get you started. And while it’s not exactly a step-by-step guide, it’s (almost) all of the best I can share from my experience thus far.

Happy Podcasting! 🎤

Contents:

Tips for Starting & Launching a Podcast
Tips for Sustaining a Podcast
Tips for Recording Podcasts
Tips for Booking & Interviewing Guests
Tools & Tricks for a Successful Podcast
Tips for Editing & Publishing a Podcast
Tips for Promoting & Growing a Podcast

Getting Started & Launching a Podcast

Start a Podcast

Start a podcast? That’s your tip? Yes! That’s a “tip!” Starting the Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast has been one of most valuable practices and assets for Grow Ensemble. If you can afford to launch and sustain one of your own (see more on: budget), I think it’s worthwhile!

Here are a few ‘step-by-step’ guides that helped me:

How to Start a Podcast in 2019: 8 Steps from Idea to Launch

How to Start a Podcast: The 1,000,000 Download Formula

Set Goals & Objectives for Your Show

Before you get started, seriously consider what you are attempting to accomplish with your new podcast—business development, brand awareness, or maybe you hope to use it to develop relationships. Identifying your purpose will help manage your own expectations and serve as a check to see if a podcast will in fact be a fulfilling experience for you.

While a podcast can certainly drive financial return for your business, if that’s your only goal, you may be better suited doing something else. There are more efficient mechanisms to achieve that goal both in terms of time and finances. Podcasting is an involved activity. I am a firm believer that if you aren’t enjoying the process itself, and instead are looking only for results, it will be difficult to create a successful show that satisfies the itch that motivated you to start..

Listen to Other Shows!

To progressively make a better show, you need to be a student of podcasting. I know this is an area of growth for our show, but even still, I always appreciate the insight I gain when I’m paying attention to what I like about the shows that I subscribe to, as well as the shows that consistently rank among the most popular.

Review Others’ Experiences on Podcasting

Since starting the podcast, I’ve become an ‘addict’ for others’ reflections on their own experiences running and growing a show. Here are a few other posts on podcasting I found helpful from Sumo, and Smart Passive Income.

Take Notes on What Makes a Show Engaging

Do this when you are getting started with your show and as you continue on. Be considerate of your listeners and become a student of what makes podcasts enjoyable to listen to, informative, and addictive.

Listen to shows in your industry, listen closely to shows you subscribe to, and listen to podcasts ranked among the most popular. Take diligent notes on what seems to make them ‘good.’

Consider Your Podcast an Experiment

Remember: If you start a podcast, it doesn’t mean you have to do it forever. This was advice I took from Tim Ferriss when he started his podcast some years ago, he committed to do a finite number of initial episodes as an ‘experiment’ to determine if he liked it or not. More and more I think that is a great approach to getting started.

Start a podcast with the idea that you can stop! If it’s not going to be the content medium for you, there are plenty of others.

Batch Episodes for a Launch

When we launched the podcast, I knew we’d consistently publish one episode per week. However, for the launch specifically, I wanted to create some buzz around the show.

So, when launching, we put out 3 episodes in the first week (with 2 on day 1), 2 in the second, and then finally got to 1 per week. This was a good way to get some momentum of initial downloads and, luckily, guests were generous in sharing their episodes, which was also helpful with that momentum.

Record First Episodes with Friends (to get comfortable)

Please don’t record with guests you don’t know well for your first couple of episodes. First, test out the equipment solo or with a close friend or partner (thanks, Annie!).

Then, when you schedule recordings, find good friends to record your first podcast or two with to get the hang of things. I first recorded two episodes, one with my brother, and another with a long-time friend.

There will be some awkwardness and maybe some technical snafus, so you want to make sure and get those out with people who won’t mind and are with you on your mission to learn. When you start recording with guests you are less familiar with, you’ll want to be ‘game-ready’ to set a good impression and show that you are mindful and respectful of their time.

Ask Friends & Family for Reviews

Most people think that reviews affect your ranking or ‘New & Noteworthy’ position in Apple Podcasts (formerly iTunes) and Spotify. Everyone says this, but I’ve never seen this proven to be completely true.

However, getting reviews definitely helps with establishing the social proof for your show early on. If people are browsing for shows, seeing that others have reviewed it can certainly help tip someone over the edge to testing your show out.

Go Simple & Inexpensive with Gear

If you aren’t certain you’ll stick with podcasting forever, keep your gear simple and functional. Of course, don’t buy anything that is so low quality it’ll force you to invest in unnecessary replacements, but you don’t need to go top of the line for audio equipment.

Better yet, if you can borrow equipment from friends (which I was lucky enough to), do it!
It took me over a year to upgrade microphones, and now I use the Yeti Blue USB Microphone.

Build Your Checklists Early

From the get-go, I was building checklists for our podcast process as I went. When I was executing on much more of the process this was helpful because I didn’t miss any important steps, and when I started enlisting other people into active production roles, it made it much easier to hand off.

Take Criticism with a Grain of Salt

More likely than not, you’ll receive positive and negative feedback with the launch of your show. Be considerate of who gives that feedback to you. Are they your target audience? Do they listen to podcasts? Do you care what they say? Always remember, it’s harder to be the one making a podcast than criticizing those who are. 🙂

Don’t Rush into Naming Your Show

I ended up changing the title of our show to The Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast roughly 30-40 episodes in. Honestly, I wish that I named it this from the very beginning. I like the name of our business, Grow Ensemble, quite a bit. However, no one knew that name.

The name change has been useful because it’s closely related to keywords we want to rank for. Plus, if you search “Social Entrepreneurship Podcast” in Google, we’ll come up in a few different ways on that first page!

Create a Dedicated Landing Page for the Show

We have GrowEnsemble.com/podcast as a dedicated landing page for our podcast on our WordPress site. Here we aggregate our feed of most recent shows, link out to all the different places to listen or watch the show, as well as add in some of our strongest reviews.

This is a great way to easily share the show (not just specific episodes) with others.

This page has seen a reasonable amount of traffic since the launch of our show, and continues to every month.

Sustaining a Podcast

Systems

The #1 reason that podcasts seem to ‘fade’ or be inconsistent (in production and results) is that there aren’t proper systems setup to ensure the continual booking of guests or development of shows, recording of those shows, and publishing.

When you or your team are having to recreate the wheel for every episode, you are expending a lot of unnecessary time and energy that can often be a drag on momentum and motivation.

Use & Request Info from Guests Through Calendly

When guests or their team select a time slot that seems good for them, we simultaneously request key information that helps our process. That includes a brief bio, a photo, any important URLs we should promote, and a phone number just in case we need to get in touch with them.

This is essential so we don’t have to run in circles looking for information if someone is late for a recording, or scramble for a good headshot the day before we are publishing for promotional materials or show notes.

Connect Your PM Software

We use Asana for Project Management of our Podcast Editorial Calendar. Whenever a guest books a recording slot, we’ve connected Calendly to Asana so that a new task card is automatically created with all the guest’s intake information, and a deadline is set for the scheduled date for recording so I can be notified to prepare beforehand.

Zapier should have a connection from Calendly to almost any Project Management Software.

Have a Consistent Recording Space

This hasn’t always been possible for Annie and I depending on our home residence, or if we are traveling. But, if it’s possible, take advantage of having your podcast equipment near setup and at the ready! It makes podcast prep easier.

Set a Publishing Schedule

Having a consistent publishing schedule is both good for you and your team, as well as your audience. People want consistency! I don’t know about you with shows you really like, but I get in the habit of checking whether or not a new episode is published on their typical schedule. Similarly, we want to do this for our team, so we can reverse engineer how long each different stage of the production and publication stage should take.

Build a Team

To get to 100 episodes and beyond, you need a good team around you. We have audio editors, show notes writers, content support and designers to publish episodes, our Director of Partnerships to help book guests, social media support, and video editors. In total, we have 5 individual people involved in our podcast process (including myself), with a rotating staff of audio editors.
I cannot thank this team enough! Thanks, Rebecca, Kate, Sameer, Jess, Reuben, and Annie!

Automate Guest Follow-Up

Before we onboarded our wonderful Director of Partnerships & Communications to help with guest bookings, I was doing it solo! I would batch outreach to new guests for a once-a-month sprint. I’d send out maybe 5-10 personalized emails in a single day. However, most people don’t respond to a first email (if you’ve never contacted them before).

That’s why you need to follow up!

If you are manually tracking that follow-up, that outreach becomes burdensome quickly. Instead, use a tool like Mailshake, that will automate follow-up for you if your prospective guests don’t reply after a week or so.

Track Your Costs

Keep tabs on what it costs to produce a single episode. This will be a good litmus test for you from time to time as you measure the “worth” of your show. As well, if there are activities in your process that don’t seem to drive any worthwhile result (good guest experience, more downloads, etc.) then ditch it and save yourself the money.

Keep your process lean and focused on what’s enhancing the show overall.

Learn About Your Audience

This is critical for a number of reasons. (1) Many guests or PR teams will start to ask you about your target audience, download numbers, and subject matter areas. Come prepared with a response. (2) The better you know who your audience is, who is listening, etc., the better you’ll be able to connect with them via the show content. (3) It can make your show feel more real! Put some humans behind those download numbers, and recording and publishing your show will feel more ‘real.’
While I encourage all listeners to connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter, I also have this autoresponder set up in ConvertKit for whenever we add a new email list subscriber.

Hosting Guests & Recording a Podcast Interview

Be Aspirational in Your Guest Outreach

If there’s someone with a lot of ‘name id’ in your industry, still don’t be afraid to reach out to them! More often than not, people are very excited and willing to share their story and be featured. As long as your outreach isn’t annoying and it’s genuine, it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Look to Conference Speakers for Guests

If we are looking for guest ideas, we’ll sometimes look at Speakers for upcoming conferences or events in our space. These are great sources of people in our industry doing work we’ve yet to come across. Thanks, event organizers!

Don’t Say ‘Yes’ to Every Guest Pitch

We get pitched for guests to be on our show constantly! Most of the pitches are less than eye-catching and are easy to ignore. They don’t address us personally (or get our name wrong) and show clear signs of a ‘volume-based approach.’ Some pitches are better and more genuine, but still not a great fit. Be considerate to determine who your ideal guest is for what you want your show to be, and who your audience is. The people you say yes to may not hit the mark 100% of the time, but you get the hang of spotting compatibility as you go.

Create a Guest Guide

Your guests will always have questions about the recording process—what kind of questions do you ask, what’s the show about, who is the target audience, what happens after recording, what equipment should they use, etc., etc. You can save yourself time, and as well, be proactive with communication and creating a solid guest experience by creating a guest guide.

When a guest or their team books, the confirmation email has the guide linked within it. So does the calendar invite that comes with it.

Here’s a link to our podcast guest guide for reference.

Research Your Guests

Before every single interview episode, I consistently spend a few hours (or more) making myself familiar with my guest, their work, and where they’ve been featured previously. The time I apply varies from guest to guest (mostly based on how well-featured they have been and how well I already know them), but this time is incredibly important.

Your familiarity with your guests, their work, and their public thoughts obviously makes for a better conversation, but I also think it helps to build strong rapport as it shows you value them being on your show.

Setup ‘Recording Reminders’ for Guests

Everyone gets busy (duh). With that in mind, make sure whatever booking tool you are using (us: Calendly), make sure there are reminders 72 hours and 24 hours before a recording. I think that this sometimes prompts guests to cancel/reschedule if they’ve overbooked. Better early, before you are sitting around waiting for them to join the call.

Schedule in ‘Buffer Time’ for Your Recordings

Make sure that guests book a time slot that provides enough ‘buffer time’ outside recording the interview itself. Sometimes people are a few minutes late and, regardless, you’ll want to spend some time chit-chatting before and after. You also want to account for the times when conversations run longer than planned! Plan for that. 🙂 You don’t want you or your guest having to run off earlier than is ideal.

Follow Your Guests on Social Media

This is great for research, as well as keeping in touch with guests after the show. I can’t help but become fans of all the folks I chat with, so it’s always great to keep up with their work afterward, and I like to let them know I’m doing so with likes, shares, and comments. 🙂

If Your Guest Wrote a Book, Read It

My two favorite forms of guest research (1) listening to podcasts they’ve been on and (2) reading their book if they’ve written one. These are really great ways to get a better understanding of who they are and how they think before hopping on for a chat.

Plan to Make Friends with Your Guests

(Me clearly having “fun” with my friends from HOME Storytellers)

The best part of recording our podcast has been the relationships that I’ve made as a product. With 77 of our 100 episodes being guest interviews (as opposed to solo episodes), I feel like I’ve made 77 friends across the world!

From Uvita, Costa Rica to Boise, ID to Sweden and so many different places in between, I genuinely feel like I have people to take to lunch or grab a drink with whenever our paths cross.

But, I suppose, the friendly and welcoming community is just one of the many wonderful aspects of the purpose-driven business space! Either way, don’t overlook the wonderful opportunity a podcast provides for kicking off some really valuable and enriching relationships.

Follow-Up with Guests

Find good reasons to keep in touch with guests. Whether it’s about their episode, a personal update in their life, or something exciting happening with their company, make sure your podcast recording was the first encounter of many!

Let Guests Know When Their Show Is Launching

This is something people really care about, and, rightfully so! As excited as you might be to release your content, the guest (might) be 5-10x as excited to see their episode released and to share it with their network, family, and friends.

Think about any time you’ve been featured or interviewed anywhere! Isn’t it fun? Think about how your guest might feel, and keep them well in the loop.

Ask for Guest Referrals

When you finish an interview that you really loved, ask the guest for any potential recommendations for future guests. In most cases (of course, not all), people love to be connectors. And, good guests typically refer good guests!

This is a great way to deepen your relationship with existing guests and provide them an opportunity to offer an interesting experience to friends and close colleagues in their network. Plus, you’ll (now) have a friend in common with your next guest, which is great for comfortability.

Bring Guests on Twice!

We haven’t published a second episode with a guest yet, but we are getting close to doing so. Don’t be afraid to bring a guest on a second time for a different style of episode, to talk about something completely different, or to get an update on any projects they were getting started.

A second episode with a guest might be better than the first, especially if you’ve had the opportunity to continue nurturing the relationship since the first time you met/recorded.

Recording Podcasts

Be Consistent

More so than other mediums, if you want your podcast to gain traction, you have to be consistent. Seasonal or serialized podcasts work if you already have an established audience, but if you’re hoping to focus on starting or growing, consistency allows listeners to reliably work you into their normal routine.

Batch Recordings

recording-schedule — (This is what a typical 2-day recording stretch looks like)

I already mentioned that I recommend batching for your initial podcast rollout, but once you get going, this can be useful as well. I say this because, sometimes it can feel like you are on a ‘hamster wheel’ endlessly creating and recording shows whether you have you/your team recording every single week, or at random times.

Batching means you’re scheduling blocks of time (maybe even a full part of the day) to record multiple episodes, so you’re ahead. Then you can take some time off to focus elsewhere until the next batch is up.

Don’t Batch Recordings

So…uh…there’s definitely a sweet spot. When I first got on the practice of ‘batching recordings’ I may have overcorrected. At times, I would record 4 guest interviews in a day! I was too wiped out on those days to do anything else, and I found that I wasn’t able to bring myself fully to every episode.

I’ve since limited my schedule to have a max of 3 recordings per day with an adequate buffer between each. We’ll schedule 2 consecutive recording days (Tues/Wed or Wed/Thurs) every 3 weeks or so. With each 2-day batch, we’ll consistently get 3-6 recordings done, and that’s been a good balance for us.

Don’t Record on Mondays (or Fridays)

I don’t know about you, but I really prefer to preserve my Monday and Friday schedules to remain ‘open.’ On Mondays, I like to give myself time to recalibrate from the weekend and start the week on a good foot.

As well, I’m always doing prep the day before an episode, and you don’t want to put that pressure on yourself on a Sunday. I like to save Friday’s for writing and researching my Better World Weekly Newsletter, completing a weekly review, and reviewing the company scorecard. I have also anecdotally found that guests are more likely to reschedule on Mondays and Fridays. I think many of us think the same.

Check Your Wifi

If it’s within your control, check your wifi speeds with SpeedTest.net (preferably well ahead of recording time so you can do something about it before a show if need be). If your Zoom call is cutting out, that can distract you from connecting with your guest, and ultimately, it will affect listeners’ experience!

Don’t Store Audio Files Locally!

Use the cloud! For all our podcast recordings, we use a shared drive in Dropbox. I’m sure there are other suitable places to store your files, but the most important thing is to not store them on your local drive.

One time I spilled tea all over my laptop at a coffee shop and fried my hard drive. It was sad. I had to dish out an unexpected $1500 for a new MacBook that day, but I didn’t lose anything important because all my files were stored in Dropbox or other cloud-enabled services.

Don’t risk losing anything important…store it away in Dropbox.

Don’t Delete Any Show Files!

Speaking of…I think it’s worthwhile to keep every show file you’ve ever created (again, the case for a cloud storage service like Dropbox). You’ll never know when you may want to loop quotes from guests into future episodes or create a ‘best of’ show like we talk about below.

Eliminate All Distractions

Do the critical ‘pre-show’ check. Close out Slack, exit all browser tabs, silence your phone, and remove anything else in the room that might create any distraction for you/your guests.

Added to my ‘pre-show’ checklist—removing Milou’s collar.

Milou podcast — (A cutie, but her collar causes some ruckus)

Take Noise Cancelling Seriously

Audio quality is key. Quality audio can be the difference between someone sticking through your show or dropping off mid-episode. No matter how engaging your content might be, poor audio quality can be annoying and push listeners away. I researched quite a bit early on as to what would create high-quality audio for the show.

Be Present During Recording

Does this even be on the list? Yes. Do everything you can to be fully present while in conversation with guests. Interviews that the host or guest are just trying to ‘get through’ make for boring episodes and missed opportunities for creative, responsive questions.

Set Expectations in Pre-Recording

This is a routine I like to go through with guests when we first hop on the call. I want to make sure any questions about the show, the recording process, publication, etc. are answered. I’ll give my quick brief about how long we’ll record, what to expect with questions and the intro, and how long it will take roughly from recording to publication. I don’t want guests to feel unprepared, maybe excessively nervous, or in the dark about when their show will go live.

Ask ‘Rapid Fire’ Questions

It’s nice to have some consistent quick-hit questions you ask guests. A common one hosts ask (that I do too), is if the guest has any books to recommend. I love this for a few reasons. I love knowing what leaders in my space are reading and, we get to set ourselves up to create some great complimentary content (i.e. “The Most Recommended Books by 100 Social Entrepreneurs).

Record ‘Masters’

If there’s anything that you’ll repeat with almost every show, record a few different re-usable versions (masters) of your intro, midroll, and/or outros. This will save you time so you don’t have to re-record these things every time. To keep variety, record a few different variations and rotate them out each show.

Record Intros Immediately After Recording

Sometimes you’ll feel spent after a good interview. However, refuse the urge to ‘record your intro tomorrow.’ Any time that I’ve done this and put off recording an episode intro for another day, it takes me 2-3x as long because I need to re-remember what happened! It’s best to ride the connection of the interview right into the intro recording.

Keep Intros Brief

Along those lines, don’t overthink your intro! Keep it simple and concise to the overarching themes of the show, a brief intro and bio of your guest, and any pre-show CTAs you like to use to turn listeners into email list subscribers.

Record In-Person Interviews if You Can!

Ahhh, my in-person interviews have been really great experiences (duh). When the world allows for it once more, I’ll be seeing how many more of those I can fit in. It makes the recording a more ‘holistic experience,’ whether that means touring a guest’s office, grabbing coffee or a drink after, or just enjoying the value of chatting face-to-face.

Tools & Tricks for a Successful Podcast

Take Audio Quality Seriously

Ever listen to a podcast with poor audio quality? Did you finish listening to it? Or, did you hang on and suffer through it? Yup, that’s a bad experience to create for your listeners (and can have guests reflect poorly on the experience).

Yes, we’ve mentioned this once before…(see #46), but it’s well worth mentioning again.

Use a ‘Pop Filter’

A pop filter is a pretty essential recording tool to eliminate pops with “P’s” or loud “shhhes” when recording. Luckily, you can get them for pretty cheap!

Upgrade Your Webcam

The webcam on your laptop is most likely of pretty low quality. Don’t kill yourself over this, but definitely upgrade the camera you are using to record yourself on interviews. For the majority of my interviews, I’ve used the C930e Logitech Webcam, and it’s been pretty reliable.

I’ve been wanting to upgrade to the Logitech Brio, but with the COVID-19 pandemic and the work-from-home population booming, it’s been out of stock. Figuring out how to use my iPhone 11 Plus has been on my to-do list for some time.

Use a Discreet On Screen Timer While Recording

I use my time tracking app, Timeular, to track how long we’ve been recording. I like to track the time for the interview to keep episode lengths semi-consistent. I’m happy to allow conversations to follow a natural flow, I just also like to be mindful of time, especially if a guest has a hard stop.

Stand Up for Your Show!

Thankfully, this has only happened in extremely rare instances, but for one of my recordings, it sounded like the guest was clicking around on their mouse the whole episode. It threw me off and left me feeling really frustrated with the experience as a host. In retrospect, I wish I spoke up! At a minimum, we would’ve uncovered what was behind that clicking noise. It may have not been a mouse at all!

Take 10 Breaths & Move Before Logging in to the Call

It doesn’t matter the interview, it doesn’t matter the day. It doesn’t matter that we’ve done 100 episodes already! I always get a burst of anxiety when my interviews are about to hit. I want it to go well, I want the guest to enjoy themselves, I want it to be something people enjoy listening to. To help get me locked in, I’ll go through some deep breathing, squats, and push-ups. That helps turn a bit of the anxiety into focused energy.

Host Your Podcast with Libsyn

Now, I’m not 100% attached to Libsyn, but I did have us briefly switch from Libsyn to Anchor.fm and opted to return.

At the time, Anchor.fm was free (not sure if it still is). But, the most important thing was that I could schedule out episodes in advance with Libsyn and, at the time, I couldn’t with Anchor.fm.

I’ve been completely satisfied with Libsyn, no problems to ever report. I think the only thing I’d be interested in is more advanced analytics.

Take ‘Notes’ on Your Show

So, we’ve mentioned our show notes of course, but we also have our Episode Companions. These are really detailed, comprehensive notes that our team takes after every single guest episode.

This is an exceptional way for me/our team, to quickly review a show and remind ourselves of important takeaways and key concepts.

In addition to being valuable for listeners, this makes assembling ‘compilations’ much easier. Of course, this is an extra expense in the process, so…don’t worry about it if your budget is tight. But, as a bonus, you can use that to encourage people to subscribe.

Transcribing Shows

We don’t transcribe shows anymore, but it’s been useful in the past to review shows, grab important quotes, and publish our biggest compilation episode, “50 Social Entrepreneurs Changing the World Through Business.” We used Temi in the past, but they recently raised their rates. Other good options; Trint, Otter.ai, or Speechpad.

Use Interviews as Research

Of course, I’m always learning a ton from our guest conversations. However, sometimes the subject matter can seem all over the place as our publication schedule is often determined by who scheduled a slot when. This is something that’s a bit ‘aspirational’ for us, but I’ve always wanted to provide more focus and direction to the subject matter experts we bring on the show, to overlap with what sorts of topics we are writing about for our blog, or programs we are creating.

Have Friends Critique Your Podcast

Feedback on your show is (almost) always valuable. Friends have encouraged me to add breaks with music, add/remove sign points, and shorten my intros among other improvements. Encourage friends (who have an opinion on podcasting that will have some weight) to critically review your show.

Who to ask? Friends who might be in your target listenership, who listen to podcasts themselves, and/or have some experience in storytelling.

Post-Production

Don’t Edit Your Own Podcast

Even if you are the rare person who has had some background in audio engineering, I would recommend that you don’t edit your episodes. The most important reason? It will greatly increase the likelihood of your show not passing the test of time!

The role of the host is big enough! Take yourself out of everything but that. However, editing your first show or two might be a valuable exercise so that you can clearly make recommendations and prescriptions to the future editor(s) you work with.

I edited my first two episodes. I didn’t publish them. But, it was a good exercise just to see how much I’d value someone with the expertise to take this off my hands and to be able to have more intelligent and productive back and forth with editors.

Break Episodes Up with Music (Or Sound Effects)

A friend of mine worked with me for a brief moment on improving the quality of our show. With experience in editing and producing podcasts himself, he made the quick suggestion to break up episodes with musical transitions. It’s a small change that’s made a big difference in breaking up sometimes longer sections of solo episodes.

Thanks, Henry!

(Consider) Using Signposts

For a while, we added signposts to our episodes. I do think these added value to the show, but this sometimes required a good deal of time to our whole production and editing process. Signposts can help to break up episodes, encourage listeners to hang on, and prep/plan different sections of a recording.

Create Show Notes

Our show notes pages have been valuable for us, but not in the way most people think (see more below). A valuable, detailed set of show notes is an important reference point for your episode. This makes for having an easy link to share (you + guests). A reason to compel guests to share (if it’s something they’re proud to be featured on).

Get on Video

I do really wish we were doing this from Day One. Even if you aren’t ready to “publish” your video, start recording it as soon as you have the equipment. We’ve only recently launched our YouTube channel with full video interviews.

Get on Video (Pt. 2)

Having video allows you and your guests to better pick up on conversational queues. Being able to see each other will improve the human-to-human connection and as a product of that, improve the conversation.

Publishing a Podcast

Publish Twice Weekly

You don’t have to publish twice a week. Publishing once a week or twice a month consistently will do. But! Twice a week seems like something of a sweet spot for consistent growth of your show. Currently, we do one episode per week with a guest and one episode where I’m solo covering a topic that we’re covering on our blog. Sure, consistency is the most important thing, here. But, if you and your systems are equipped to take production to two shows a week, do it.

Optimize Your Episode Titles

This is a relatively new improvement we’ve made. Always something on the ‘to-do’ list that we finally got around to. It’s important to take your titles seriously, as that can oftentimes be the difference between someone scrolling your feed to dive into an episode or not knowing about you.

Optimize Your Episode Descriptions

We’ve yet to analyze the results from these more intentionally built descriptions, but we recently cleaned and organized what our episode descriptions look like. We want to make them clear and scannable, and most importantly, make the CTAs and options to subscribe to our newsletter easy.

(Consider) Not Numbering Your Episodes

We haven’t done this yet, but are strongly considering heading this way. Why? The last thing we want listeners to do when encountering ‘older’ episodes of ours is to think it’s just outdated and not relevant.

If our episodes are truly of an evergreen style (which we believe they are) then we don’t want potential listeners to assume they are outdated. Thanks, Noah Kagan for this tip.

Rethink Show Notes

When getting started podcasting, I read and heard countless recommendations for making sure you had a strong set of show notes for SEO purposes. However, I’m now learning, this recommendation is coming from many podcasters who don’t know Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that well.

Only a tiny percentage of our show notes get any long-term traffic from Google. Don’t follow what other podcasters are doing with show notes (the majority of them anyways). Instead…see #76.

Build Blog Posts Instead of Show Notes

While maybe more work, what’s most likely to collect long-term traffic is a set of show notes that’s built around the topic of your episode with the guest, not the guest or the company themselves. Any of our episodes that we’ve done that correspond with some of our high-traffic blogs, continue to get the most monthly downloads in the long term.

Promoting & Growing a Podcast

Be Patient with Growth

Growing a podcast audience has been hard! My primary skill is in growing blogs through SEO, and so building up our listenership has been new terrain for me.

We’ve seen a consistent trajectory of growth, every quarter driving a bigger listenership than the last, but, this hasn’t come with ebbs and flows. It’s required some patience as figuring out what drives downloads has taken some time.

We’ll consistently see 5-10% growth each month over the last. As long as it’s heading up and to the right, right?

Don’t Stress the ‘New & Noteworthy’ Placement

Does anyone really know how that works these days? Obviously being organically discovered on any platform (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Etc.) is great, but in my experience that’s hard to count on.

We’ve had more traction on building up audiences and traffic outside those apps (our blog, email list, etc.). But…if someone does know how increasing discoverability works on those platforms, let me know. 🙂

(Probably) Don’t Pay for Ads

We’ve done little experimentation with much more than Facebook Ads, but even from those, we didn’t see great results in video views on the platform turning into more listeners or subscribers. As well, our podcast provides a ‘return’ on our investment in it in such indirect ways, it’s hard to determine exactly how many listeners actually lead to some certain amount of sales. This might be an issue with our funnel, or as well the wide breadth of topics we cover, but…I like it that way.

Forget Sponsors (Mostly)

The traditional podcast advertising model doesn’t pay out all too well for the host. Everything I’ve read has told me it’s on average $20 per 1,000 downloads per episode. With those numbers, we’d make on average $20-$30 bucks in 2019. Not good. Most shows don’t accumulate the mass volume of downloads to make the advertising model something that’s actually sustainable.

Automate Promotion

Where possible, think about where you can set up systems to put some of your podcast promotion on ‘autopilot.’ For instance, we use a tool called MeetEdgar to promote our podcasts on our social media accounts perpetually. While it’s not going to ‘blow our show up,’ it’s great to have passive promotion going that we don’t have to touch.

Sponsor Yourself

If you really need to find more direct (or even indirect ways) to monetize your show, consider sponsoring yourself. Good advice I’ve heard from Charley Vahler over at Vahler Media. Use the end of your intro and a midroll to test out promoting your products/services.

Turn Listeners into Email List Subscribers

This is maybe the #1 thing is making the ‘most’ out of the audience you build around your show. Think about how you can take your listeners and deepen your relationship with them. The best way to do that? Encourage them to become email list subscribers. For us, we have our “Episode Companions” among other bonuses, to incentivize listeners to take another step with us in our relationship. Think about what that next step could be and insert those CTAs throughout your episode recordings.

Asks Guests to Link to Your Show Notes

This is a solid SEO strategy and a relatively easy ‘quick-win’ way to build up your website’s authority in the eyes of Google. A few weeks after each episode launches we follow up with the guest or their team to see if they might be willing to add our feature to a News, Press, or About page. Nearly 100% of the time, we get an enthusiastic “Yes!”

This helps boost the overall authority of our site and the guest’s page, which ultimately drives more traffic to each! You help your SEO and get more ‘ears’ on the guest and their work. Win-win!

Make it Easy for Guests to Promote

Having guests promoting your show is a great way to build buzz for a new episode and potentially capture new subscribers. Do whatever you can to make it easy for your guests to promote the episode. We set up a calendar event to remind guests when the episode will go live. We have a Google Doc swipe file with some templates and copy for promotion, and of course, we have our direct link to the episode show notes for easy shareability. With all these things in mind, it’s also important that you see #86.

Don’t PUSH on Guests to Promote

We all want guests to promote their episode. It helps grow our show! However, don’t expect guests to promote. The best thing about welcoming guests on your show is all the great friends you can make as a product of it (see next tip). Don’t mess with that.

Focus on creating a valuable connection and good experience for your guests and the majority of them will promote.

Promote Old Episodes

Although my interviewing skills have improved, I still think our early episodes are valuable for listeners (thanks to the guests, not the hosts). And so, while still a large area of opportunity for us, we do like to find reasons to keep promoting and re-promote old episodes.

Find Places to Republish Episodes

This is based on the principle of ‘making the most’ out of the quality content you took the time to create. For us, it was a great early privilege to start republishing all our podcast episodes on the B Corporation community’s blog, B the Change that has over 17,000 subscribers. This requires minimal work from us, but always gives us an additional spike in listenership.

Create Evergreen Episodes

If you want to set yourself up for the greatest chance of gathering a compounding listener base over time, you want to create a good majority of your episodes in such a way that if someone listens to it a year or two years after its publication, it still holds up. If you are publishing strictly timely/news-based content, then you can expect their relevance to fade and their download count over time to do the same.

Get on Other Podcasts with Audience/Topical Overlap

With the onboarding of a kick-ass Director of Partnerships & Communications, we just kicked off this strategy for podcast growth. Thinking through it, where might be the best place to access more podcast listeners? On other relevant podcasts…duh! However, crafting these pitches should be done with care and authenticity (see more below).

Make YOUR Pitches Genuine

If you are attempting to get booked on other podcasts, take the time to make your outreach genuine! Would you actually be a good guest for their show? How do you know? Have you listened to any episodes? We constantly get outreach saying “LOVE YOUR PODCAST! Can I be on it?” There’s no signs of personal touch or that they’ve even listened to an episode. Thumbs down.

Create ‘Best of’ Shows

When we crossed year one in running our show, we thought we’d do something special. That’s when we created Parts 1 and 2 of the “50 Social Entrepreneurs Changing the World through Business.” This episode was a great success. Many of the 50 guests featured shared it, linked to it, and for a while, that double part ‘best of’ show helped set a single-month download record that took us five months to beat!

Repurpose Episodes

If you are recording podcasts on video (or, even if you aren’t), there are a million ways you can reuse that content you already created. Get creative with it! Audio, text, & video can be reutilized for so many different platforms. Speaking of…#94…

Publish Quote Graphics on Instagram (and other platforms)

We’ve recorded 100 episodes…(did I mention that?). How many hours of content (and good quotes) do you think that is? Quote graphics are a great way to snip up an episode and have an unlimited stream of content for your different social platforms.

Create Audiograms

Again, same thing here. Add some life to quotes and create audiograms to go on Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.

podcast audiogram example — (Here’s a link to this audiogram example)

Publish Short Promo Videos

These are a ‘semi-recent’ phenomenon for us, that my friend Sameer Bhuchar has absolutely crushed for us. With every new episode, we drip out a short promo a few days beforehand to build some buzz. This gets the guest some traction early, as well gets them involved in promotion early as these little videos show them we are serious about getting listeners for their show. 🙂

Get Setup with All Podcasting Platforms

Easy thing to do here, especially with a tool like Libsyn. Make sure your show is on every one of the podcast directories known to civilization because why not? Once we made the initial connection on Libsyn, every time we publish a show it distributes to every podcast you can think of (except on Soundcloud!).

Embed a Podcast Player on Site

Again, a no-brainer. Of course, you’ll want to embed your podcast player on the show notes page on your website. However, we also have started embedding players on blog posts with relevant topics. This is a great way to get more exposure to the podcast and keep people on site for longer.

Build a Community for Your Guests &/or Listeners

This is something that’s aspirational for us as well. As we’ve mentioned, we’ve cultivated so many exceptional relationships through the podcast. I’ve been wondering about some way to bring all these excellent people together…but not just a traditional Facebook Group or something like that.

We recently launched the Better World Business Growth Community, and we hope that will serve us there, but still think there’s some value to be made here in more explicitly connecting all these people we’ve engaged with through the show.

Use Your Podcast to Write a Book

Another aspiration. I haven’t done it, but I think I could (as could any other podcast host who has covered their space in depth)!

Consider your interviews as opportunities to set the stage for a book you may publish later on. As our interviews are with some of the most accomplished entrepreneurs in our industry, there’s no question that I could use those as research and case studies for a book on social entrepreneurship and innovation…maybe that’s where I get working next. 🙂