Purpose-Driven Business Principles for Podcasters w/Scott Beebe

Business Coach, Scott Beebe, shares his expertise and insights to challenge us to write our vision down. He breaks down why chaos creeps in when purpose is absent and how you can build a powerful, profitable show by getting radically clear on your mission, process, and people. 

If your podcast feels like a hobby, but you want it to be more, this episode is for you.

Key Takeaways

1. Purpose is foundational — chaos in business and podcasting often stems from a lack of clearly articulated vision, mission, and values.
2. Write it down — whether you’re a business owner or podcaster, if your vision isn’t written, it doesn’t exist.
3. Podcasting is business — hobby podcasts are valid, but if you want results, treat your show like a business with systems for people, process, and profit.
4. Clarity reduces chaos — distractions, misalignment, and burnout are symptoms of not knowing why you're doing what you're doing.
5. Your audience follows your clarity — when your purpose is clear, the right people will find and follow your podcast.

“And the LORD answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay” (Habakuk 2:2-3)

Connect with Scott: https://www.businessonpurpose.com/ask 

Podcast: My Business on Purpose

X: https://twitter.com/scottbeebe

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mybusinessonpurpose/

Bio: Scott Beebe works with business owners and their key leaders, building systems, processes, and purpose using the Business On Purpose Roadmap to liberate businesses from the chaos of working IN their business and help them regain their lives. Scott, Ashley, and their three children live in Bluffton, SC (outside of Hilton Head) and spend most of their time on the water.

Starting a podcast can be chaotic. Get clarity! Grab a free copy of Start Your Podcast Now and begin your podcasting journey today.

Transcript

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:01)

My guest today is Scott Beebe. Thanks for coming and speaking to us on Tools of the Podcast Trade. Scott, welcome. Okay, of course. Before we get into what you do and our conversation, could you tell us who's Scott?

Scott Beebe (BOP) (00:08) Yeah, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Yeah, it can be a relatively long story so I'll try to keep it to just a few seconds but Scott is married to Ashley has been at this time of this recording about 27 years and We've got three kids that we love spending time with Along with a fourth that's come in. So we've got a married daughter and then we've got two sons both at university one's about to graduate and We're down in South Carolina is where we hub out of travel quite a bit both to see all of our kids and also to get on the road and be able to go speak to variety of different people about our mission to liberate owners from chaos to make time for what matters most.

J. Rosemarie Francis (00:55) Okay. All right. Thank you. I appreciate you, you know, sharing a little bit about your family with us. All right. So being this weird, we're talking about podcasters and you are an entrepreneur with, you know, many years of experience. Tell us about business on purpose. What does that look like? for entrepreneurs and yourself.

Scott Beebe (BOP) (01:27) Yeah. Well, one of the things, and it's probably why I was invited to this podcast is because we have our own podcast called the Business On Purpose Podcast. It's been around now since the beginning of our business, so a little over 10 years. And it's primarily monologue in its podcast and what it does, but it serves to support our business and our mission, as I mentioned, to liberate owners from chaos and make time for what matters most. So we're a business coaching and advisory firm. We've got 11 full-time people at the time of this recording, we serve 113 clients around the country. About 86 % of those clients are in the contractor, general construction phase and support real estate, that sort of thing that we get to privilege to work with. And then 14 % are over a smattering of other industries that we have the opportunity to work with. So we work with owners between three and 100 employees to build their purpose, their people, their process.

and their profit systems, leveraging what we call our business installation roadmap so that they can be liberated from chaos, that chaos that they feel almost every day, and really try to make time for the things that matter most.

J. Rosemarie Francis (02:34) And why is it important? mean, entrepreneurship is chaotic by nature, you know, so why is it important for one chaos to be minimized if not eliminated?

Scott Beebe (BOP) (02:49) Yeah. You know, it's funny. We, we kind of talk about chaos in the same way that we talk about, a variety of other vices in the world that we laugh about them. But the next morning after taking part of the vice, makes us feel like garbage. And so in essence, we're doing it to ourselves. Well, chaos is the same way we would like to define, that each one of us has an enemy and the enemy, if defined in its broadest term is chaos and disorder. And so we're in a constant state of working against this perennial problem.

meaning it just keeps coming back. It's never gonna go away as long as we're here on this earth. And so in that, what we can either do is bemoan the fact that that's always the case or we can set things up in such a way that allow us to be able to perennially deal with that chaotic problem head on and in some cases develop sort of a fence, a structure against that. So chaos is less effective in our life because what chaos ends up doing is disrupting and disordering some of these things are the things that really do matter most. And so that's why we have marriage breakdowns and family breakdowns and business breakdowns and all of that is because chaos disrupts, it disorients and it puts things in place. And so I know it doesn't sound a whole lot like business as to what we do. It sounds more like counseling, but it's not. We really dive deep into the business structure because finding those process and creating boundaries of process actually creates freedom within the business.

J. Rosemarie Francis (04:11) Hmm good actually I do get it because chaos can come in distractions right and the distraction cause chaos and chaos cause distraction and so Yeah, I get that. Thank you very much for explaining it for us alright, so you are in ministry or you you've participated in ministry and Can you tell us how much power?

Scott Beebe (BOP) (04:18) Hmm. or killer.

J. Rosemarie Francis (04:41) having a purpose in business, like, you know, cause we just start a business, we're doing our thing, we're making money, but what part does purpose play in our work as individuals?

Scott Beebe (BOP) (04:56) Hmm. We just had a couple in here about 37 minutes ago that I was meeting with, in a one-on-one coaching time. And I've had the privilege of working with this couple for years and years and years. And so we've seen the evolution of this and before they even ever hit a million dollars in revenue, we started working on their vision, which if you look at purpose, people, process, and profit, those are the four key cornerstones of every business. But if not dealt with properly, they can also become the four major problems in every business.

And that first foundational problem is a purpose problem. And so it's articulated in three or four ways. Vision, mission, values, and culture would be that fourth that we talk about in understanding this idea of vision. And here's the reality. This isn't something we have to really make up in our minds. We understand this inherently that vision is, has been an inherent foundational issue for the majority of humanity. So if you go back about 3000 years, there was a quote,

that was documented and it said this, write the vision down so that those who read it may run. And then at the end it said, wait for its appointed time for it surely will come. And so this isn't some modern Peter Drucker idea that we need to have vision that's articulated, not just vision in our heads, but actually vision that's out. Michael Gerber said, if it's not written down, then you don't own it.

J. Rosemarie Francis (05:57) Mm-hmm. Right.

Scott Beebe (BOP) (06:14) And we like to say, if it's not written down, it doesn't exist. So you could tell us you have vision. You could tell us you have these things, but here's where I was headed with this couple that was in here. So we wrote their vision, their mission, values years ago, and they would go back every couple of months and review that vision with their team. Mission and values they talk about every day. and they, they intentionally bring it up by the way, they don't just haphazardly talk about it. They intentionally bring it up and in talking and meeting with them today,

J. Rosemarie Francis (06:30) Mm-hmm.

Scott Beebe (BOP) (06:39) They said, as we've grown, we're starting to kind of lose our aim as to why we're growing. Well, that was the trigger to go, Hey, we need to go back and re-articulate the vision. And so we spent our hour and a half in here, just going back and getting the foundations of that vision together. Now we'll meet a couple more times around this one particular issue, but you could see it on the owner's face to go, if I don't know where I'm going or why I'm going there.

J. Rosemarie Francis (06:47) Mm-hmm.

Scott Beebe (BOP) (07:03) then, and their revenue has increased six times since we first met. So they've got plenty of money and yet if they don't know where they're going or why they're going there, then inherently there's really no joy in the work that they're doing. And so that's why it's so important. A lot of us roll our eyes at vision mission values and yet we'll go back into the privacy, our own homes, getting our cars, whatever, drive around and go, yeah, but I really need that. I don't know where I'm going, but too few of us actually make the time to do it.

J. Rosemarie Francis (07:26) Right. Yeah, yeah, that's true. One of the things I teach in podcasting is that we have a mission statement and it might sound counterproductive, but yes, you're right. It's something that we need to do ongoing. All right. And speaking of podcasters, how can podcasters apply your P's, your four P's, I think it's four, to their podcasting journey?

Scott Beebe (BOP) (08:00) Yeah. So podcast, if you treat it like a hobby, then it's just a hobby and you just need to call it that. Great. That's awesome. Podcasts that are hobbies are awesome. But if you're wanting your podcast to actually be a sort of a living, growing enterprise organism, that

generates growth or revenue, a variety of different things, fruit of some sort, then you're going to have to create it just like you would vegetation. It's a system that works in place. It's got roots that pull up nutrients and it needs all of those things. Well, a podcast entity is the same exact thing. So a podcast needs the articulation of purpose, vision, mission, values, culture. A podcast needs the articulation of people, an organizational chart. Well, it's just me. No, it's not.

You have people that are outsourced to you that you send stuff off to that you tools that you leverage people's platforms that you leverage and all that. And so you've got to articulate who are those people? What roles do they play? And then what are the articulation of that roles and what are the scorecards to make sure that they're actually doing those things? So you don't have to babysit every single day. The third is the process. Every podcast has a process, a process of outreach to find new guests, a process of in-reach or onboarding to take those guests and get them to a point.

process of marketing for the podcast and outreach so that people actually listen and all of those things. So if you break it down into marketing, sales, operations, and administration, podcasts have all four of those major disciplines that have to be devoted time to and articulated. And the fourth one is administration or accounting and this, uh, in, getting and making sure that the money comes in and out a P a R, uh, your taxes are paid and those sorts of things. And the final P is the profit. And that brings in that accounting.

And it really talks about the subdivision of cash. So that when the money comes in from advertisers or whatever you're generating revenue with, that you've got a system for actually retaining that revenue rather than that revenue coming in through a small front door and screaming out the large back door because we don't have those disciplines in place.

J. Rosemarie Francis (10:00) Right, awesome. Thank you. I love that. And I know you've explained in different, in response to my questions, you more or less told us what you do. But now I want you to zero on that. Tell us what you do for your clients, how we can get in touch with you. Do you have any offers or anything like that?

Scott Beebe (BOP) (10:20) Yeah, be happy to know we work one-on-one with our clients, again, between, with employee counts between three and 100 employees. That's our sweet spot. Let's be able to work with that. And usually generating revenues of a million dollars or more, because we need to make sure that you've got the cashflow to be in a coaching relationship with us. And then what we deliver is that full scale system, what we call the second mountain opportunity. So base camp, first mountain, second mountain. And it's not, we're not counselors just sort of waiting on you to tell us what hurts.

We generally know what hurts already when somebody seeks us out and we have guided business Owners down this path hundreds of times over the last ten years and so we know what works We know how this operates we've built a system that the owner can follow and then periodically we'll take some detours But outside of that we're gonna walk through what we call our business installation roadmap will build out all the tools There's about 29 30 tools total of your purpose your people your process in your profit in a one-on-one dedicated relationship

Coach knows you, they know your kids, you have their cell phone, you've got a dedicated sequence of meetings. You also have some peer group opportunities to be able to get in and leverage some of that as well. And so, as I mentioned, we've been doing that over 10 years. So yeah, some cool resources you can go check out. If anybody fits that qualification, interested in hopping on with us, they can just go to businessonpurpose.com forward slash ask. That's businessonpurpose.com forward slash ask.

and hop on about a 20-25 minute call with one of our coaches and they'll take you behind the curtain and just show you. And if you want to know what it's like to work with us, just ask and they'll tell you.

J. Rosemarie Francis (11:56) That's pretty cool. Okay. All right. That works. And you also have a podcast called

Scott Beebe (BOP) (12:02) That's right. Yeah. If you just search my business on purpose podcast or the business on purpose podcast, you should see it there.

J. Rosemarie Francis (12:09) Love it, love it. All right. Now usually when I get to this point, I ask for three tips for a podcaster or an inspiring podcaster. You've given quite a bit through your four P's. So I'll wait to ask you that, but right now I'd like to know what are you grateful for today?

Scott Beebe (BOP) (12:33) One of the biggest things I'm grateful for today is I got to wake up next to my wife again and she chose to remain married to me today. So we're, as I mentioned, we're almost 27 years in marriage is a daily choice and I'm really, really, really grateful that she chose today to continue. 

J. Rosemarie Francis (12:52) Pretty awesome, I appreciate that. Okay, so before I let you go, I really appreciate you coming and talking to us. Before I let you go, can you break down steps that a podcaster could take before they even start their podcast? They have an idea, they know what they want to do, they think. Can you just walk a podcaster through, give me your framework?

Scott Beebe (BOP) (13:22) Yeah. Yeah. No, I would go back and say, Hey, before you start anything, write the vision down. As I mentioned, and in doing that, you can follow a few different chunks. Number one is the term of how long, how far out you see that vision. is it a year out, five years out, three years out, whatever you can write. Hey, three years from now, I want to see blank. And then you can fill in these gaps. So behind it is your family and freedom. What do you want that to look like? Because if you just go build a podcast, make some money,

tell some people some interesting facts, but it doesn't enhance what you're doing in your own family and freedom. Then it's kind of taking away ultimately. So you need to articulate what you want for that. The third part is your finances. Dan Miller used to always talk about the three legs of the stool. got to have capability, you got to have desire, and then the market's going to have to pay you for it. And so if you've got those first two things, the market's not going to pay you for it. That is a hobby. You just need to call it what it is.

But if the market's going to pay you for it, then you've got to start to articulate what do you want this financials to look like? What do you want the revenue to look like? What do want the expenses to look like? What do you want your take home to look like after that? Then we articulate what the product is. So what does that podcast look like? Who's the audience? Who's the, what's the content of this thing look like? Why, why are we trying to deliver this to the world? And then you'll talk about your team. What team is needed to put that product into place to generate that revenue, to give you that family.

freedom. So this is all building on each other. And then the sixth category you'll talk about is your ideal audience member or your ideal target. And that might even be your advertisers, but you've got to write down who do you want to work with and who do you not want to work with? Because you'll find out over time that there are plenty of people that they might pay you, but they're going to make your life miserable if you take their money.

And so you got to be very careful about that. then finally, the seventh category is the culture. What kind of culture do you want to have in this? What do you want to be known for? Is it whimsical? Is it fun? Is it serious? Is it depressing? Is it whatever? And so you begin to write those things down. So if people can start to write their vision down and guess what? Those who either read it or listen to it will start to come around.

J. Rosemarie Francis (15:28) okay, thank you. That's awesome. And those tips, I believe, would lead you to minimize or avoid chaos, right? Awesome, I love it. Any parting shots?

Scott Beebe (BOP) (15:36) That's exactly right. Yeah, I think the biggest thing is what somebody told me about 10 years ago. It's just, Hey, just upload it. You've already recorded it. Just upload it. And so anybody getting started, just upload it, just get started. Nobody's going to freak out. The world's not going to alter. but it does give you a sense of satisfaction knowing that you produced something and it will be a value to somebody. And so yeah, just hit upload.

J. Rosemarie Francis (16:03) Yeah, awesome. Thank you, Scott, for coming and talking to us today. And I'm not going to let you go until you tell us, have you said all that you wanted to say on tools of the podcast?

Scott Beebe (BOP) (16:14) I think so. think writing that vision down is the one thing that over and over and over again, people kind of roll their eyes and go, yeah, but what else? No, there is nothing else. Go do that. And once you do that, then you can go to the next step. J. Rosemarie Francis (16:26)

Got it. You know that's actually a scripture that was brought up at church on Sunday. Yeah. Thank you.