Do We Need More Podcasts?
I'm not sure. But Tom Hunt, who is building a business called Fame, thinks B2B podcasts are the next big thing in content marketing.
Good Morning!
Here are today’s highlights:
A survey finds that six in 10 employees are interested in launching a business. What could go wrong?
Here’s another business that has emerged from the pandemic era: the burnout coach.
There may never have been a better time to look for office space, but this law firm is betting big on working remotely.
A North Carolina coffee maker says it has invented coffee that gives you the perk without the caffeine.
MARKETING
Alan Pentz writes about Tom Hunt, who started a B2B podcast agency that’s changing content marketing: “Tom's path to building Fame is a masterclass in finding opportunity where you are. He created a podcast while at another company as a way to meet and better understand marketers who were his employer’s clients. The podcast was successful and helped his company land a major client (Intercom). Tom quickly realized that lots of other companies could benefit from the same service so he founded Fame in 2019 with his old employer as his first client. Less than 5 years later he’s grown the agency to an ARR of $3.8 million with over 100 clients as of June 2024.”
“He grew his LinkedIn following from 25,000 to 125,000 in 3-4 months and the results have been impressive. Not only has LinkedIn become a source for new client engagements but it has also greatly improved recruiting lifting applications for positions from an average of 50 to over 500.”
“What was his LinkedIn strategy? He engaged daily with others in his target audience; he posted content aligned with his passions and business goals AND he treated every post as an experiment and learned from the results.”
“Tom sees the modern B2B marketing funnel as: 1) Organic social content (top of funnel). 2) Email newsletter (middle, optional). 3) Podcast (bottom of funnel, deepest relationship).”
“As far as those podcasts go, Tom has four key pieces of advice for making a good one: 1) Define a clear niche and unique angle. 2) Aim for 30-minute episodes (balances depth and production effort). 3) Keep a regular cadence. If you post infrequently or randomly, you’ll never grow. 4) Use internal hosts and a mix of customers, influencers, and partners as guests.” READ MORE
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
For many, this will not end well: “Six in 10 employed adults are interested in launching their own business or becoming entrepreneurs, with men still more likely than women to consider starting their own business, according to the ‘Rising Entrepreneurs: Pathways to Small Business Formation’ report from Justworks and The Harris Poll. The report comes one year after Justworks and The Harris Poll surveyed employed adults in the U.S. to gauge how a ‘looming recession’ was impacting dynamics at work, particularly in regard to layoffs. In comparison to 2023 when more than two in five employees (42 percent) were worried about getting laid off due to the looming recession, only one-quarter (25 percent) are worried about being laid off in 2024. Additionally, in looking to see how attitudes might have changed from 2023, findings around starting and running a business show that the sparks of entrepreneurship are coming to fruition one year later.”
“That said, challenges still remain. Access to capital is still the top one for small-business owners, with nearly 41 percent also citing complicated tax codes and 36 percent pointing to managing payroll issues as significant hurdles worth addressing.”
“Another big barrier among small business owners was a fear of failing (59 percent), according to the report — even with 59 percent agreeing that, overall, it has been easier than they had anticipated to run a small business. Additionally, more than nine in 10 (93 percent) would recommend small business ownership to others.” READ MORE
HUMAN RESOURCES
Some entrepreneurs are attempting to build businesses by addressing burnout: “Enter the burnout coach. Operating in a gray area between psychotherapy and career coaching, and without formal credentialing and oversight, ‘burnout coach’ can be an easy buzzword to advertise. Basically anybody can hang out a shingle. As a result, more people are marketing themselves as burnout coaches in recent years, said Chris Bittinger, a clinical assistant professor of leadership and project management at Purdue University who studies burnout. ‘There’s no barrier to entry,’ he said.”
“Turning a profit is another matter. When Rhia Batchelder, a Denver resident, started a career as a burnout coach in 2021, she lived off her savings at first, supplementing her income with freelance legal work and dog-walking gigs as she honed her sales and marketing skills. ‘Coaching in general is a very unregulated industry,’ she said. ‘I spent probably hundreds of hours researching burnout.’”
“This lack of oversight makes it difficult to say how many burnout coaches there are, but researchers who study burnout such as Mr. Leiter say a pressure-cooker corporate culture, a shortage of mental health care resources, and the disruption of the pandemic have created a critical mass of burned-out workers searching for ways to cope.”
“Kim Hires, a burnout coach based in Atlanta, said few people knew what she did when she started her business a decade ago. ‘Now, I don’t have to explain it.’” READ MORE
OFFICE SPACE
This continues to be a good time to look for space: “Amid a struggling office market and vacancy rates that continue to climb, landlords in Raleigh and Durham are offering more concessions than ever to entice companies to sign leases for office space. The remote work trend and companies not needing as much space as before has led to a steady increase in vacancy for office space. The Class A office vacancy rate in the Triangle increased to 17 percent in the second quarter — compared to 15.6 percent the quarter prior, according to TBJ Space data. Factor in available sublease space across the region, and the vacancy rate surges to above 20 percent.”
“‘If you’re an office tenant, I can't think of a better time to be in the market right now and have a lease expiring, because there's just a lot of opportunities. You've got a major ability to upgrade your space right now and get all the goodies. And most landlords are offering a lot of concessions right now, especially to get a good tenant and sizable tenant,’ said Brian Farmer, managing director and vice president of Lee & Associates.”
“Landlords of office buildings are willing to negotiate to get tenants to sign a lease. They’re willing to offer months of free rent, reduced rent and upfits or improvement allowances. Farmer said that free rent is a typical offering and that tenants can get one month free for every year on the lease term. So a six-year lease translates to six months of rent for free.” READ MORE
Meanwhile, this Phoenix law firm is leaning definitively into remote work: “Fennemore, which was founded in Arizona in 1885, launched its new Fennemore Forward campaign July 9 with the goal of enticing remote workers from across the country to join the firm. The fast-growing law firm, which is up to about 700 employees after an expansion wave in 2024, has already been recruiting remote lawyers. Fennemore Forward has 18 lawyers and 35 staff members across 47 cities and 26 states.”
“While CEO James Goodnow suggested the firm doesn’t have ‘any sort of magical target number’ in mind for the amount of remote workers it’s hoping to hire, Fennemore anticipates adding dozens of remote-working lawyers in the coming years. ‘We view this as a permanent program,’ Goodnow said. "The experiment is over.”
“The company's revenue has grown along with its headcount. The firm did about $143 million in revenue in 2023, Goodnow said, and is estimating revenue of $175 million in 2024. That figure is expected to jump to $200 million in 2025, in addition to new revenue that might come in through the Forward program.”
“Remote workers hired through the Fennemore Forward program will have access to more than 30 administration assistants and paralegals that support the entire firm, a robust IT platform, business development support and more. The company also plans to bring its remote workforce to in-person retreats and events that will help bring them into the fold.” READ MORE
REGULATION
Pharmacy-benefit managers outsmarted regulators by steering patients who needed certain cancer drugs to their own pharmacies and away from unaffiliated ones—even when that meant patients would be charged up to 200 times what they could pay for the same drug at Costco: “Drug middlemen, known as pharmacy-benefit managers, have accomplished something rare in Washington: Their business practices have led to a bipartisan consensus of sorts around the need for more regulation. Yet successfully cracking down on the tactics that drive health costs higher won’t be easy. That is because PBMs operate in a highly complex and opaque world where key information is kept from the public.”
“The ‘optics are not good and must be addressed,’ an executive at a PBM parent organization was quoted as saying in a document obtained by the FTC. ‘You can get the drug…at a non-preferred pharmacy (Costco) for $97, at Walgreens (preferred) for $9,000, and at preferred home delivery for $19,200.’”
“The allegations made by the FTC are, of course, upsetting to independent pharmacies, patients, doctors, and policymakers. But they aren’t exactly new. The Wall Street Journal has reported that mail-order pharmacies that share an owner with a PBM have marked up the prices of drugs compared with other pharmacies.” READ MORE
INSURANCE
As you may have suspected, data suggest that the cost of title insurance doesn’t really reflect the risk it covers: “Millions of homeowners are forced to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars when they refinance their mortgages to protect against unexpected costs from a challenged property title. Yet claims on such insurance are exceedingly rare. Payouts may only amount to about 3 percent of overall premiums, according to loss data released by Doma, a financial-technology company that sells title-insurance policies. Doma’s data suggest the cost of title insurance is out of sync with the risk it covers, at least on mortgage refinancings.”
“The obscure insurance product is unavoidable for most homeowners, long required on home loans sold to government-controlled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But Fannie late last month formally requested bids from companies to join with it on a pilot program that will waive the need for title insurance on certain mortgage-refinancing transactions seen as low-risk.”
“The Biden administration has been seeking to lower the costs of such policies as part of a broad effort to slash fees. It will host a roundtable meeting at the Treasury Department Wednesday to discuss the issue with industry officials, consumer advocates and academics.”
“Fannie estimates that its pilot program will save thousands of borrowers $500 to $1,500 each.” READ MORE
STARTUPS
A North Carolina startup is reinventing coffee: “Move over, decaf. There’s a new way to enjoy coffee — and an energy boost — without the negative side effects of caffeine. Rarebird is the first patented, jitterless coffee. It replaces caffeine with paraxanthine (Px), the substance that’s created when the human body breaks down caffeine. ‘I love coffee, but I hate caffeine,’ said founder and CEO Jeffrey Dietrich. As a bioengineer with a doctorate from UC Berkeley, Dietrich found research that showed the benefits of Px compared to caffeine: it’s less harmful because it creates less anxiety while creating a strong wake effect. Px also gets cleared out of the body faster, making it OK to drink a cup of Rarebird coffee late in the afternoon.”
“Rarebird began with a soft launch in 2023, having received U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulatory allowance for Px as an ingredient in 2022. This year has been about scaling for the company, which employs five full-time. In April, Rarebird received a patent for its formulation of Px coffee.”
“That same month, the company – which currently infuses synthetic Px into a medium-roast Colombian coffee – began a new production process. Since then, its sales have doubled, Dietrich said, although he declined to disclose specific sales numbers.”
“About half the company’s revenue comes from its subscriptions, he added. A 12-oz. bag of Rarebird ground coffee retails for $27 online, while a subscription for the same bag — delivered at your choice of frequency — costs $22.95. Up to four bags can be ordered at a time, with the subscription model saving a customer up to 30 percent.” READ MORE
THE 21 HATS PODCAST
A Successful Owner Chooses an Innovative Exit: This week, special guests Laura Anderson, founder of Local Ocean, and Peter Koehler, her financial consultant, explain why Laura decided to sell her thriving seafood business in a transaction that created a business model that is neither widely known nor widely understood. It’s called an employee-ownership trust, and there are only about 50 of them in the United States. But their numbers are growing here and abroad, and for good reason. The trust model offers owners something of a choose-your-own-adventure option that can allow them to sell for a market rate in a relatively uncomplicated transaction that makes it far more likely the business will remain true to its established mission—especially when compared to selling to private equity or even to an employee stock ownership plan.
Of course, there are challenges, including getting a bank to consider financing one of these deals. But in this episode, Laura explains why, with Peter’s help, she decided to trust the trust.
You can subscribe to the 21 Hats Podcast wherever you get podcasts.
Thanks for reading, everyone. — Loren