I am well aware that no-one is crying out for another podcast. There are too many options out there, conversations are all the same and the clickbait clipification of the whole industry is frankly annoying.
But let's be honest, if you're trying to grow your business (of any kind), consistent content is the number one way to drive growth and podcasts are the easiest way of creating high(ish) quality, high volume content.
I want to cover 4 key points in this article:
1) Nothing beats a podcast
2) A podcast is no longer at a table
3) The big reveal
4) What is the desired outcome?
1) Nothing beats a podcast
Let's say your aim as a business is to push out one video a day of content that; get's views, engagement, doesn't piss people off, is relatively linked to your business and could drive customers to your business.
There are many options. Influencers, in house organic content, street interviews, UGC, thought leadership etc. But you need to invest a serious amount of time and money into all of these and the outcome will often be lacklustre.
Then think of a podcast. You sit down with a very impressive person and have a chat for 1-2 hours. From those two hours, you have a high quality long form piece of content but more importantly, dozens, if not more, of high quality short form content that can be diced up and sprayed on literally every single platform that exists. No real need to optimise per platform if the content is good enough. And what's more, the hard part is done by the guest!
For those that don't know, I co-founded a new marketing agency in March 2026 with the formidable Nat Poulter and Jamie Vaughan. We've had a great start and have just hit £100k MRR. But we have so much more to offer, we have genuinely redefined how an agency should be structured, ensuring every penny of our clients money goes to driving growth and performance and it's working.
But real growth needs proper distribution. AND I'M SORRY but interviewing people in one way or another is the most effective way of doing that.
2) A podcast is no longer at a table
See how I moved from podcasting to 'interviewing people'? Two people locking eyes in a podcast studio is so 2024. Saturation leads to evolution and when it comes to podcasts that means getting the fuck out of the studio.
Of course, this is nothing new. 'Hot Ones' recently celebrated its 11th birthday. Interviewing people while they chew on Carolina-Reaper dressed crispy chicken. 400 episodes of celebrities revealing a different side of themselves captured an international audience and built a brand that got valued at over $100 million.
Then, of course, there's 'Chicken Shop Dates'. Shit, maybe fried chicken is the common viral denominator here. Outside of poultry inspired shows, 'Between Two Ferns' and 'Carpool Karaoke' deserve honourable mentions.
The model is very clear. Take a celebrity and put them in a familiar and unseen situation and see how it unfolds, hoping to learn something new.
But the guests have always been celebrities. Viewers have a mountain of predetermined reasons to give their time to watching these silly formats unfold.
Can the same be done with business people? Cost of Sales forecasting and HR headaches: do they translate when you strip out the studio, or does everyone just sit there saying WTF?
In steps Lara Keeney. 'Look who I bumped into' is a podcast on foot with the tripod being Lara's right arm. Guards drop, the pressure eases and what you hope to see is a more genuine conversation that doesn't fall into media trained answers, from business leaders you admire.
Did Lara just pave the way for every business podcast out there to blend it with some other pretty unrelated, semi entertaining activity? Well, yes, sorry, I think so.
3) The big reveal
I can now formally announce the team and I at Restless have decided to do exactly that. You want more short form clips from interviews, YOU'VE GOT THEM!
Once it was decided I will be the interviewer in this new format, the questions were then; what format can I have fun doing (the absolute most important thing), how can we film a lot of content in one fell swoop (time is finite and building the business comes first) and will it be somewhat more entertaining than two of us on a sofa having a stare off?
Bowling.
The good old fashioned 10 pin type. Greasy lanes, greasy food and not susceptible to the English weather.
I've gone bowling semi regularly with my uni mates for the last ten years. Why go for dinner when you can bowl 3 strikes in 3 hours while munching down on some dominoes pizza?
The game acts at the easy escape when you're bored of talking but the bowling always becomes secondary when you're locked in a DMC. Conversations flow and most importantly it's a good vibe.
So could we take business founders, CEO's and marketers to a bowling alley, have a match while trying to uncover some unspoken truths about their journey. Would it create some useful nuggets, would it be interesting to watch, would founders actually come on and can we mute the horrendous background sound of pins clattering around constantly?
Well we're about to give it a go
Introducing, Spare/me.
4) What's the desired outcome?
Spare/me is going to be a 15-25 minute YouTube episode, cut down from roughly an hour of chatting with the guest. But the most important part is the clips.
We don’t expect many people to sit through a bowling match with intermittent conversations by the ball collector, even though the chat does flow surprisingly well.
The real outcome is eyeballs and we all know eyeballs are predominantly sourced through short form content. Reels, TikToks, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn posts.
As a marketing agency, we are trying to drive new business. We want our ideal customers watching the content, seeing the show and ideally doing a bit of research. Visiting Restless.co to see what we do, dropping us a DM on whichever platform they saw it on.
But it begs the macro question, why does anyone do a podcast?
Most of the time it’s to build personal brand. A person, the presenter, wants to get more famous so more people know about what they’re doing, have more conversations about said person and increase the likelihood of more opportunities coming that person’s way.
That’s a zoomed-out version. Zoom in and you have people like Harry Stebbings using it to raise a $400m fund without any experience in deploying capital. Granted I fast-forwarded 10 years there, but the reality is without his podcast, none of his success would’ve happened.
The question for us is, can we use Spare/me to casually promote Restless, the incredible technology we’ve built and the work we do for clients while creating content that drives value to the viewer?
Time will tell. It would mean the world to me if you could support our launch by Subscribing to the Spare/me YouTube channel here. And in your own time check out our first 3 episodes with 3 brilliant guests; Elfried Samba, Nick Cooke and Nat Poulter. That would be much appreciated.
Before you go,
Please check out our social channels.
Spare/me is available on Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube Shorts.
Beyond that, have a marketing problem? Reply to this email and let’s chat!