Talking The Talk: A Podcast About Podcasting with Courtney Reimer

Courtney Reimer
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How do you start a podcast that actually grows your business? Talking the Talk is a podcast about podcast strategy, launching a podcast, growing a podcast, and building a business podcast that lasts. Host Courtney Reimer shares practical advice, expert interviews, and honest lessons for founders, entrepreneurs, and aspiring podcasters.

  1. Oct 22 ·  Video

    Do You Really Need a Video Podcast? (with Susan Boles)

    Show Notes Video podcasting is everywhere right now. YouTube is becoming a bigger and bigger part of the podcasting conversation, and the line between a podcast and a video podcast is getting harder to see. Spend enough time in podcasting circles right now and you could easily come away thinking the future is video. But does that mean you need video to have a successful podcast? This is where podcasting advice can get a little dangerous. One thing works, so suddenly everyone needs to do it. Video is having a moment, so video becomes the thing you're supposed to be doing. But before you start adding cameras just because that's where podcasting seems to be headed, it's worth stepping back and asking a more basic question: what job does your podcast need to do for your business? Susan Boles has a pretty compelling case study in why that question matters. Her first podcast, Calm is the New KPI, was audio-only for years. It helped her close clients. It helped her land a COO job. It built the kind of relationship with listeners that made an hour of podcast episodes function a lot like a very long sales call. She didn't need millions of downloads. She needed the right people to trust her. Now she's building a completely different business, Unpublic, where audience growth and discoverability matter much more. So she's doing video. Same Susan. Same love of podcasting. Very different business. Very different job. Very different strategy. In this episode, Susan and Courtney get into the audio-versus-video debate, including what each format does well, why video can be both a discovery engine and a massive production headache, the privacy considerations creators often overlook, and why seasonal podcasting might be a better fit than being "always on." We discuss: The difference between a podcast built to grow an audience and one built to deepen relationships The privacy and personal-safety questions podcasters should consider before adding video The value of building in time to evaluate what's working before launching another season Why learning to host in audio first can make video easier later Why podcasting might not be the answer to every visibility problem   ABOUT THE GUEST Susan Boles is the founder of Unpublic, a company focused on helping online creators protect their privacy and personal safety as they build an audience. Before Unpublic, Susan spent years working in finance and operations, including as a CFO and COO, and founded Beyond Margins to help entrepreneurs build calmer businesses. She's also the host of The Parasocial Paradox. Learn more at:  LinkedIn: Susan Boles Instagram: thesusanboles Website: Unpublic Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gounpublic ABOUT THE SHOW Talking the Talk: A Podcast About Podcasting helps entrepreneurs, founders, creators, and business owners build podcasts that work harder than they do. Host Courtney Reimer explore how to build a show that creates trust, builds your business, remains sustainable, and delivers a meaningful return on what you invest into it. ABOUT THE HOST Courtney Reimer is the founder of Sounds Great Strategy and a former executive at Spotify, Audible, Yahoo!, Discovery, and MTV. She helps entrepreneurs and organizations create podcasts that become their hardest-working business assets. HOW TO CONNECT WITH COURTNEY Follow on Instagram: @soundsgreatcourtney Connect on LinkedIn: Courtney Reimer Subscribe to her weekly-ish newsletter on burnout-proof podcasting: Sounds Great on Paper To book your free Podcast Clarity Call with Courtney, visit SoundsGreatStrategy.com.

  2. Oct 11 ·  Video

    Slow Podcasting and the Power of Pausing

    It's time for me to walk the walk on my own advice to lean into podcasting's easy mode, and eschew the cult of podcast constancy masquerading as consistency. Eight months into Talking the Talk, I've been releasing episodes virtually nonstop, preaching the virtues of sustainable podcasting, intentional release cadences, and making your podcast work harder than you do. Meanwhile, I've been running on the very content treadmill I tell everyone else to get off. And with a sudden tsunami of new business, client work, and cohort responsibilities, my capacity has officially exceeded…my capacity. Enter: Slow Podcasting. In this solo episode, I'm making the case for pressing pause, giving your episodes room to breathe, and questioning the sacred weekly release schedule that apparently all podcasters must obey until the end of time. ABOUT THE SHOW Talking the Talk: A Podcast About Podcasting helps entrepreneurs, founders, creators, and business owners build podcasts that work harder than they do. Host Courtney Reimer explores how to build a show that creates trust, builds your business, remains sustainable, and delivers a meaningful return on what you invest into it. ABOUT THE HOST Courtney Reimer is the founder of Sounds Great Strategy and a former executive at Spotify, Audible, Yahoo!, Discovery, and MTV. She helps entrepreneurs and organizations create podcasts that become their hardest-working business assets. HOW TO CONNECT WITH COURTNEY Follow on Instagram: @soundsgreatcourtney Connect on LinkedIn: Courtney Reimer Subscribe to her weekly-ish newsletter on burnout-proof podcasting: Sounds Great on Paper To book your free Podcast Clarity Call with Courtney, visit SoundsGreatStrategy.com.

  3. Sep 30 ·  Video

    Email Continues the Conversation Your Podcast Starts (with Emily Claire Hughes)

    Podcasts are great at making your prospects feel like they know you. They hear your voice, your laugh, your tangents, your opinions. They spend an hour with you while walking the dog or driving to work, and over time, you start to feel familiar. That familiarity builds trust. But there's a catch: you're still talking to them, not with them. Email changes that. A newsletter gives your podcast listeners a way to hit reply and actually talk back. The podcast builds trust and familiarity; email opens a channel for direct conversation. And when the two work together, they can deepen the relationship your content is building with the people you ultimately hope to serve—and maybe even sell something to. That's the content flywheel Courtney explores with Emily Claire Hughes, email marketing strategist and founder of the 10K Email Club. Together, they make the case for thinking about podcasting and email as two parts of the same relationship-building system instead of two more content obligations competing for space on your to-do list. We discuss: Why podcasting and email do different jobs in the relationship-building process How to turn your newsletter into a deeper conversation around your podcast Why replies might be a more meaningful email metric than opens Why repeating your core message across channels is smart business Building a content ecosystem instead of five separate content obligations Using private podcasts as a more engaging alternative to the traditional lead magnet Emily also shares her three-email welcome flow for new subscribers...and the templates she uses to build it. You can grab them here -> https://www.emilyclaireand.co/email-challenge  ABOUT THE GUEST Emily Claire Hughes is the founder of the 10K Email Club, where she helps female founders turn their email lists into relationships...and revenue. Before becoming an email marketing strategist, Emily was a professional singer, actor, and dancer who spent nearly two years performing on cruise ships around the world. That career eventually led her into travel writing, copywriting, and communications, where she discovered that communication was her real superpower. Learn more about Emily: https://www.emilyclaireand.co ABOUT THE SHOW Talking the Talk: A Podcast About Podcasting helps entrepreneurs, founders, creators, and business owners build podcasts that work harder than they do. Host Courtney Reimer explores how to build a show that creates trust, builds your business, remains sustainable, and delivers a meaningful return on what you invest into it. ABOUT THE HOST Courtney Reimer is the founder of Sounds Great Strategy and a former executive at Spotify, Audible, Yahoo!, Discovery, and MTV. She helps entrepreneurs and organizations create podcasts that become their hardest-working business assets. HOW TO CONNECT WITH COURTNEY Follow on Instagram: @soundsgreatcourtney Connect on LinkedIn: Courtney Reimer Subscribe to her weekly-ish newsletter on burnout-proof podcasting: Sounds Great on Paper To book your free Podcast Clarity Call with Courtney, visit SoundsGreatStrategy.com.

  4. Sep 25 ·  Video

    What Job Are You Hiring Your Podcast to Do for You?

    If your answer is simply "be a podcast," we need to talk. If you treat your podcast as just a feed to be fed with episodes, lather, rinse, repeat, you're missing out all that a podcast can do for you and your mission or business. Your podcast is like a wildly overqualified employee...one that deserves to have an actual job description (or, ideally, several). Because once you know what you're hiring your podcast to do, it can help lighten the load of the decisions and actions the world asks you to make and take you every day.  And if you know what your podcast is supposed to do, it can help you also figure out what it doesn't have to do (cough cough full-on slick video production).  ABOUT THE SHOW Talking the Talk: A Podcast About Podcasting helps entrepreneurs, founders, creators, and business owners create podcasts that work harder than they do to earn their keep. Host Courtney Reimer explores how to build a show that creates trust, builds your business, remains sustainable, and delivers a meaningful return on what you invest into it. ABOUT THE HOST Courtney Reimer is the creator of THE STRATEGIC PODCAST LAUNCH STUDIO, the founder and principal strategist of Sounds Great Strategy,and a former executive at Spotify, Audible, Yahoo!, Discovery, and MTV. She helps entrepreneurs and organizations create podcasts that become their hardest-working business assets. HOW TO CONNECT WITH COURTNEY Follow on Instagram: @soundsgreatcourtney Connect on LinkedIn: Courtney Reimer Subscribe to her weekly-ish newsletter on burnout-proof podcasting: Sounds Great on Paper Email Courtney: courtney@soundsgreatstrategy.com THE STRATEGIC PODCAST LAUNCH STUDIO  opens Monday, September 28, and there is one spot left. This six-week, done-with-you experience is for people who are ready to stop talking about their podcast idea and actually build it...with a thoughtful strategy underneath so it has a fighting chance of earning its keep. If you want to figure out what jobs your podcast should be doing for you and build a show ridiculously well-qualified to do them, visit SoundsGreatStrategy.com/Studio to learn more about it and grab that last spot!

  5. Sep 17 ·  Video

    How Your Podcast Can Sell You Before You Sell Anything (With Samantha Hoey Nelson)

    There are a thousand things on your plate as an entrepreneur (and human in the year 2026): Clients to serve, new ideas to chase, business to support them, and the all-elusive "visibilty" that fuels all of it. Somewhere in there, you're supposed to find time for life outside of all of the above.  The last thing you need is another hungry content mouth to keep feeding. Rather than being a bottomless pit that does little more than populate a feed like this, your podcast needs a job. Ideally several. In short: your podcast needs to earn its keep. No one knows this better than Sam Hoey Nelson. She's a creative strategist, writer, entrepreneur, mom, autism advocate, founder of Storytime LA, creator of the Kitchen Table Method, and host of Powermomma. With so many different pieces of her life and work competing for her attention, she's figured out how to make the podcast not just work for her, but harder than her.  In this episode, Courtney and Sam talk about turning a podcast into a discovery call you don't have to schedule. They dig into how the show can build trust with potential clients, spark new ideas and offers, and help the right people find you before you ever get on a call. We discuss: What a podcast can do before you ever get on a sales call Why giving people a sense of your personality can be more valuable than giving them more information  How personal stories can create professional trust Why AI can create more room for the creative work only you can do How to build a sustainable show through seasons, breaks, and better boundaries Why letting yourself screw up is part of learning how to podcast ABOUT THE GUEST Samantha Hoey Nelson is the founder of Storytime LA, a creative strategy agency helping women, founders, creators, and purpose-led teams turn lived experience into clear messaging, offers, content, and brands. She's also the creator of the Kitchen Table Method, a story-to-strategy framework, and host of The PowerMomma Podcast, where she explores motherhood, identity, ambition, and becoming. Connect On LinkedIn: Samantha Hoey Nelson Website: Storytime LA ABOUT THE SHOW Talking the Talk: A Podcast About Podcasting helps entrepreneurs, founders, creators, and business owners build podcasts that work harder than they do. Host Courtney Reimer explore how to build a show that creates trust, builds your business, remains sustainable, and delivers a meaningful return on what you invest into it. ABOUT THE HOST Courtney Reimer is the founder of Sounds Great Strategy and a former executive at Spotify, Audible, Yahoo!, Discovery, and MTV. She helps entrepreneurs and organizations create podcasts that become their hardest-working business assets. HOW TO CONNECT WITH COURTNEY Follow on Instagram: @soundsgreatcourtney Connect on LinkedIn: Courtney Reimer Subscribe to her weekly-ish newsletter on burnout-proof podcasting: Sounds Great on Paper To book your free Podcast Clarity Call with Courtney, visit SoundsGreatStrategy.com.

  6. Sep 10 ·  Video

    Your Podcast Could Be the Start of Your Next Big Idea (With Bill Groner)

    We all know podcasts are a great way to build a brand. But what if we flipped that idea around? What if your podcast wasn't just a way to promote what you're building, but a way to help figure out what you're building in the first place? That's what happened for Bill Groner when he launched the Positive Connection Initiative. Initially, the podcast was a way to establish credibility and create a body of work while the organization itself was still taking shape. But then the podcast ended up doing something Bill didn't anticipate– it started shaping the organization itself. In this episode, Courtney and Bill discuss what happens when you stop thinking of your podcast as simply a content channel and start treating it as a sandbox for your ideas. They talk about using conversations to test and refine new ideas, building a body of work that can become something bigger, and the unexpected ways a podcast can influence what you create next. Topics include: Why the podcast comes before the book How a podcast can help you establish credibility when you're launching something new What happens when you use your podcast as a proving ground for ideas you haven't fully figured out yet How podcasts can "show" expertise, better than simply "telling" people you're an expert What is "Return on Thinking" and how can your podcast inform the direction of your business   ABOUT THE GUEST Bill Groner spent 35 years in the courtroom before becoming fascinated by a different kind of practice: understanding what helps people connect, communicate, and thrive. That interest led him to co-found the Positive Connection Initiative, a nonprofit focused on human connection and wellbeing. He now explores these questions on his podcast, The Connection Effect: With Bill Groner,  through conversations with scientists, philosophers, and other thought leaders. Learn more at: https://connection.net/ ABOUT THE SHOW Talking the Talk: A Podcast About Podcasting helps entrepreneurs, founders, creators, and business owners build podcasts that work harder than they do. Host Courtney Reimer explore how to build a show that creates trust, builds your business, remains sustainable, and delivers a meaningful return on what you invest into it. ABOUT THE HOST Courtney Reimer is the founder of Sounds Great Strategy and a former executive at Spotify, Audible, Yahoo!, Discovery, and MTV. She helps entrepreneurs and organizations create podcasts that become their hardest-working business assets. HOW TO CONNECT WITH COURTNEY Follow on Instagram: @soundsgreatcourtney Connect on LinkedIn: Courtney Reimer Subscribe to her weekly-ish newsletter on burnout-proof podcasting: Sounds Great on Paper To book your free Podcast Clarity Call with Courtney, visit SoundsGreatStrategy.com.

  7. Sep 5

    Crucial Podcast ROI Can Be Easy to Miss (Especially if You're Fixated on Downloads)

    The most important return on your podcast investment shows up long before anyone writes you a check. In this voice note episode, Courtney shares why her obsession with podcast ROI may have something to do with her experience overseeing content development for the Meghan Markle and Prince Harry at Spotify and what a multimillion-dollar podcast deal taught her about the danger of expecting financial returns too soon. Because podcasting is a long game, and sometimes the early ROI is simply a signal from another human that tells you: keep going. Seemingly negligible returns (an idea resonating with a stranger, a relationship beginning, a potential client tuning in, someone validating the thing you're building) can be what keeps you in the game long enough for the financial ROI to follow.  ABOUT THE SHOW Talking the Talk: A Podcast About Podcasting helps entrepreneurs, founders, creators, and business owners create podcasts that work harder than they do to earn their keep. Host Courtney Reimer explores how to build a show that creates trust, builds your business, remains sustainable, and delivers a meaningful return on what you invest into it. ABOUT THE HOST Courtney Reimer is the founder and principal strategist of Sounds Great Strategy and a former executive at Spotify, Audible, Yahoo!, Discovery, and MTV. She helps entrepreneurs and organizations create podcasts that become their hardest-working business assets. HOW TO CONNECT WITH COURTNEY Follow on Instagram: @soundsgreatcourtney Connect on LinkedIn: Courtney Reimer Subscribe to her weekly-ish newsletter on burnout-proof podcasting: Sounds Great on Paper Email Courtney: courtney@soundsgreatstrategy.com The Strategic Podcast Launch Studio begins the week of September 14th, and it's the final cohort planned for 2026. If you're thinking about starting a podcast and want to co-create it with Courtney and a small, intentionally curated group, visit SoundsGreatStrategy.com/Studio to learn more and apply.

  8. Aug 27 ·  Video

    Your Podcast Doesn't Need to Be a Whole Production (with Jess Milanes)

    If you're a busy person exhausted by the demands of work and life, this news should come as a relief: your podcast doesn't have to be a whole production. We've collectively convinced ourselves that a "real" podcast requires a beautiful set, multiple cameras, expensive equipment, and enough branded merch to clothe and house a small village. While we're distracted with the branding and presentation of it all, we can end up spending so much energy (and money) on the production that we forget the actual thing that makes a podcast valuable: the conversations that happen inside it.  In this episode, Jess Milanes and Courtney make the case for a simpler kind of podcast—one that serves the goals of the person behind the mic, not some irrelevant downloads number. Both on her own show and via her company, KNWN, Jess has produced and created countless podcast episodes. She's seen firsthand how much value a podcast can create that has nothing to do with its audience size. It can put you in conversation with potential clients, establish your expertise within a niche, and create the kind of relationships that keep paying dividends long after an episode is published. Topics include Why audio is still a perfectly good place to start (and why you can always add video later) How podcasting can build relationships and generate clients long before you have a big audience Why a broader audience isn't necessarily a better audience Why showing up as yourself is part of the strategy How podcasts can help you build authority Why being "useful" to your audience of potential clients matters more than working hard If you've been putting off your podcast because the whole thing feels bigger and more expensive than it needs to be, this episode offers a useful reframe. Your podcast doesn't have to reach everyone or look like a Netflix production. Sometimes the magic is much simpler: giving the right people a chance to get to know you well enough that they want to keep the conversation going. ABOUT THE GUEST Jess Milanes is a podcast strategist and producer who helps founders and business owners use podcasting to build authority, relationships, and their businesses. She's passionate about creating podcasts that are strategic, sustainable, and actually fit the lives and goals of the people making them. Learn more at: KNWN.com Connect on LinkedIn: Jess Milanes  ABOUT THE SHOW Talking the Talk: A Podcast About Podcasting helps entrepreneurs, founders, creators, and business owners create podcasts that work harder than they do to earn their keep.  Host Courtney Reimer explore how to build a show that creates trust, builds your business, remains sustainable, and delivers a meaningful return on what you invest into it. ABOUT THE HOST Courtney Reimer is the founder and principal strategist of Sounds Great Strategy and a former executive at Spotify, Audible, Yahoo!, Discovery, and MTV. She helps entrepreneurs and organizations create podcasts that become their hardest-working business assets. HOW TO CONNECT WITH COURTNEY Follow on Instagram: @soundsgreatcourtney Connect on LinkedIn: Courtney Reimer Subscribe to her weekly-ish newsletter on burnout-proof podcasting: Sounds Great on Paper To book your free Podcast Clarity Call with Courtney, visit SoundsGreatStrategy.com

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How do you start a podcast that actually grows your business? Talking the Talk is a podcast about podcast strategy, launching a podcast, growing a podcast, and building a business podcast that lasts. Host Courtney Reimer shares practical advice, expert interviews, and honest lessons for founders, entrepreneurs, and aspiring podcasters.

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