Send Me Your Deck!
Podfly once enjoyed a relatively open field with few competitors. We were one of a handful of production companies specializing in making audio content for brands and one of even fewer specializing in narrative podcasting for companies. That meant we spent more time showcasing our capabilities and value proposition than communicating how we differed from other providers. This is the second time in our company history that everything has changed.
We’d Rather Talk to You Than Talk About Ourselves
In 2013, there were few companies providing podcast production services. I can count on one hand how many serious organizations were out there. I knew many founders personally as we attended, spoke, and vended at the same podcast conferences. Within 5 years, there were hundreds of similar companies, and the conversation with clients pivoted from what we do to how we might do it quicker and cheaper. Worse, before clients wanted to discuss making quality content, they asked about our marketing capabilities.
Fast-forward to 2025, and a similarly crowded marketplace exists. Not surprisingly, the first time was the arrival of marketing professionals pouncing on the opportunity to start offering client podcast production support. Again, the market is flooded with marketing and PR professionals offering “branded podcasting” services—marketing first, podcasting second.
Just as in the advertising business of old, the 'real money' for podcasting is in marketing, media buying, and promotion. The creative work is a throw-in, funded by the marketing budget. We believe this is backwards.
Send me your deck!
Let’s Stop Pretending the Deck Matters
There's another carryover from the ad world: slide presentations—pitches made to rooms of executives about our flashy creative, masking the actual sale. Mix in the past 15 years of venture capital tech investments, and you end up with that phrase: Send me your deck!
My inbox is crammed with these. Some links go out to external sites to measure if a) the presentation was opened, b) how many minutes the presentation was viewed, c) which page was looked at the longest and most often. We've used such services, and they were informative. Do you want to guess which page was the most popular? Yep, the budget.
We might spend an hour in meetings, another hour generating, and another hour revising a presentation to a client that was “read” for less than 2 minutes. The recipient advanced to and stayed on the budget section long enough to enter the numbers on her internal spreadsheet and close the document. She then moved on to the next one, flipped through the marketing fluff, and performed the same task.
Why are we making this?
I ask not out of my bruised ego that you didn't compliment the generic stock photos or clever verbiage. I ask out of our very nature to question anything that feels unquestioned. Performative and old-fashioned time wasters can suck the life out of a project, and add to the overall cost. Yes, to spin up those hours making slide decks, we need to pay staff. In turn, we need to make that back in how much we bill you. It may not be a line item reflected in the budget, but believe me, it's in there.
As a company, we constantly ask, “ How can we charge less?” This tired practice stands out. We would much rather spend those hours learning about you than endlessly reading about how research shows podcast listeners in the US are growing. You know that. That's not why you contacted us.
We propose to skip the proposal.
Let's start with the page you care most about, and we will send you an estimate. That estimate is derived from a conversation not around our prices, but your budget. What investment is your team looking to make in underwriting a show, and what can Podfly make for that amount?
If you need one, we'll make it together. Occasionally, we're approached with a request to prepare a presentation for the leadership level of a company to greenlight a project. We get that some bosses have their ways, and that conference room needs to occasionally be filled with laptops, pastries, and slide shows. We also appreciate that you may need to make that presentation. We offer two solutions here:
1) We collaborate on the slide deck, and Podfly can fill in the info gaps required to meet the corporate criteria.
2) We can participate in the presentation. I have often flown on location with team members to be a guest presenter in your meeting.
In both scenarios, the format, content, and language align with your organization and increase your chances of success. In the latter, we can directly address questions in real time and demonstrate our commitment to supporting you and your team.
We can now focus on vibe.
