Whether you’re after practical marketing tips, how-to guides on established business strategies or a philosophical approach to maintaining your well being while running your business, there’s a podcast for you.  

And you don’t even have to do the hard work of trawling through hundreds of options. Here, local small business owners share their favourite podcasts, what they’ve learned from them and how they’ve put those lessons into action.

1. The Gary Vee Audio Experience

Best lessons learned: Enjoy the process and stop trying to blow up your business overnight. Giving away value for free will always pay dividends. 

How I’ve put that advice into practice: Gary reminds me that good things take time and to stop chasing instant gratification. It’s helped me slow down and rest if I need to connect back to the purpose behind my business, not just the income. 

His simple and consistent messaging is a good reminder that I can rinse and repeat my content – it serves to strengthen my brand and save me time.  

And I’ve learned that done is better than perfect. I stop overthinking the content I put out there and come back to how I can help and serve my customers. I can’t help people if I do nothing, so I try to take imperfect action instead. 

Best episode to start with: There are more than 2000 episodes so it’s hard to narrow it down! Two favourite recent episodes have been How patience is the #1 key to making your wild ambitions come true from December 2021 and 50 minutes of marketing strategy you can start to use today from September 2021. 

– Jessie Parker, jessieparker.co

2.  How I Built This with Guy Raz

Best advice I’ve taken from it: To chase ideas, give stuff away every now and then, be a problem-solver, and work with good people (and help make them better). 

How I’ve put this advice into action: It’s made me alert to exciting opportunities, fun and unique challenges which have seen me go from being a career cleaner into industry advocacy then to digital start ups. Alright for a guy who still pushes around a mop and vacuum on the regular.  

Best episode to start with: Kick off with reCAPTCHA and Duolingo: Luis von Ahn for a fascinating story of how he hit on his ideas, overcame constant challenges and improved his resilience.  

– Nathan Schokker, SafeTicket

3. Marketing School with Neil Patel

Best lesson learned: How to run inbound marketing to attract and win customers. 

How I put that lesson into action: It’s been incredibly helpful for building our website and creating SEO and content marketing strategies.  

Best episode to start with: Episode 1965 (seriously): Why SEO is an unfair advantage provides a good summary for new listeners, covering the differences between SEO and advertising before looking at the long-term strategic thinking SEO forces small businesses into and the gains that can come from SEO.   

– Aodhan MacCathmhaoil, Waster.com.au

4. Poda Bing! A Sopranos Retrospective

Best lesson learned: Poda Bing is a bit left of centre for a business podcast recommendation but this in-depth analysis of arguably the best television show in history – The Sopranos – constantly stretches and challenges my perspective and observational skills. It constantly reinforces the importance of people and relationships in business and life.  

How I’ve put this advice into action: Everyday this advice applies to my business, but I need constant reminding that I should be applying this however and wherever possible. Business always has been and always will be about people. 

Where to start: It’s best to start from the beginning with this one to get the most out of its deep-dive dissection of the show’s intentions and relationships. 

– Nathan Schokker, SafeTicket

5. Pricing College

Best lesson learned: How to price and charge for services. 

How I put that lesson into action: I learned to position myself with confidence not chase customers, and to never be afraid to actually ask for the money. 

Standout episode: Episode 38: Your tender team should try to avoid tenders is about trying to sell outside of tenders and really helped me.  

– Aodhan MacCathmhaoil, Waster.com.au

6. Small Business, Big Marketing with Timbo Reid

Best bit of advice: Understand how SEO works so you can avoid paying thousands of dollars without tangible results, or being taken for a ride. 

How I put that advice into practice: I’ve listened to the podcast twice and have followed up with my own research and learning on the internet to educate myself, which has then allowed me to pick the right person to help with SEO. 

Which episode to begin with: Episode 521: How to get your business on page 1 of Google. 

– Jason He, Kaleido Loans (By the way, Jason’s own advice on building word-of-mouth referrals and online reviews is pretty great too.)

7. Prospa pick: My Daily Business Coach

The low-down: Host Fiona Killackey worked in marketing for more than 20 years before she founded her marketing and business strategy consultancy – becoming the eponymous business coach. In each episode, she shares the lessons from running her own business and helping other small business owners.   

Why we love it: Each episode (there’s a couple each week) is downright practical. To be fair, there’s enough lessons in each that if you take notes, you’ll have enough coaching moments to last through the off-days. 

Why you will love it: It punches way above its weight. ‘Tips’ episodes are only around 10 minutes long, and ‘coaching’ episodes are about 20 minutes. But at the end of each you’ll have a solid to-do list to measurably improve your business. The ‘interview’ episodes – Fiona’s conversations with other small business leaders – are about an hour long each and provide the inspiration and insight into how others solve challenges and make progress.  

Start with: Episode 168 – Fiona shares the tools and software she uses in her own business and answers FAQs from her social media audience. This is one of her ‘coaching’ episodes.

8. Prospa pick: Article 23 Podcast

The low-down: With episodes hosted by CEO and co-founder of HR consultancy mwah (that’s Making Work Absolutely Human) Rhonda Brighton-Hall and by her team members, the Article 23 podcast takes its lead from ‘the right to work’ which is Article 23 of the Declaration of Human Rights.  

Why we love it: Each episode tackles really big themes – belonging, leadership, diversity, equality, privilege – with incredible leaders and thinkers in an accessible, helpful, workplace-relevant way.  

Why you will love it: The 15-minute episodes deliver valuable information in a way that’s practical for small businesses, with advice that’s achievable.  

Start with: A New Future for Disability with Fighting Chance CEO and co-founder and Hireup co-founder Laura O’Reilly for insights on how to get over anxiety and take positive action to employ people with disabilities.