Tina Dietz (00:01):

What can you learn about someone just from the sound of their own voice? What does vocal performance and your internal state of emotions have to do with each other? How do they interact? And for that matter, what the heck is vocal leadership anyway? Today we're exploring the art and science of vocal leadership as it pertains to podcasting, here on Podcast Inc.

Tina Dietz (00:37):

Welcome back, everyone, to the Podcast Inc, Podcast. I'm Tina Dietz, your host, the CEO of Twin Flames Studios. Today on the show we are wrapping up this limited series, as we gear up to the Podcasting Inc Conference this fall in Washington DC or online. You can find out more at PodcastInc.co. Thank you so much to our collaborators here, Blubrry, Heartcast Media, and of course the Pioneering Collective. Everything truly is better with teamwork. I had the pleasure today of actually being our featured guest. Jennifer Crawford is back, the organizer of the Podcast Inc Conference, and she is going to be turning the tables to interview me about one of my specialties, which is vocal leadership. Without further ado, here we go.

Jennifer Crawford (01:26):

Well, Tina, it is my pleasure to turn the tables on this interview today, because I think it's only right that as the host of the Podcast Inc. Podcast, that we get to know you a little bit better. For those who don't know, I am happy to tell them that you are an award-winning and internationally acclaimed speaker, audiobook publisher, podcast producer, influencer, and vocal leadership expert, who has been featured on media outlets, including ABC, inc.com, the Huffington Post, and Forbes. Your podcast, The Start Something Show, was named by Inc. Magazine as one of the top 35 podcasts for entrepreneurs. Your company, Twin Flame Studios, amplifies the influence of leaders, experts, and companies around the globe.

Tina Dietz (02:22):

[crosstalk 00:02:22] pretty good.

Jennifer Crawford (02:24):

Yeah. You are impressive. Not only are you a great choice as the host of this podcast, but you're also an incredible choice to be one of our speakers at the Podcast Inc Conference. That is because of your expertise in the vocal leadership space. Now, we've talked on this series a lot about why internal podcasting has become so important for companies, but I think what needs to be talked about is how companies can use the leaders within their organization to come onto these podcasts and express that leadership in a way that resonates to that internal audience. You have some really great tips on how they can maximize their leadership. With that in mind, I wanted to dig into it a little bit deeper.

Tina Dietz (03:21):

Of course.

Jennifer Crawford (03:23):

Is that cool?

Tina Dietz (03:24):

Yeah.

Jennifer Crawford (03:24):

All right. In your opinion, what are the important qualities of an effective leader's voice?

Tina Dietz (03:30):

Well, we can take a look at some of the research around that. Leadership is a really ... it's a dual conversation. Creating a little context about vocal leadership, it's not just about the qualities of your voice, like pitch, or tempo, flow, sonority, which is the pleasantness of the sound of your voice, or articulation, how clearly you speak. All of those things are important. All of those have research behind them about why they're important. We can go as deep on that as you want to go. But it also has to do with the internal conversation of leadership.

Tina Dietz (04:11):

In vocal leadership, we have two types of voice. We have our little V voice, which is actually your physical voice. It is the voice that you hear me speaking with right now, but that's the small V. The big V voice is the voice that lives inside of you. It is your internal message. That is connected to your ways of being, how you move in the world, the message that you have for people, what you stand for, your values, and how you are consciously choosing to be a leader. It is dance between the big V voice and the small V voice that really encompasses what I call vocal leadership overall. That is where we have to start in thinking about what makes an effective leader's voice, because it's not just about being inspiring. It's about being credible. It's about being trustworthy. It's about being who you say you are as you move through the world. Podcasting as a medium has given us an unprecedented way to be the voice of leadership. Companies, people around the world are just crying out for more real leaders, and that's why it's so important.

Jennifer Crawford (05:27):

I love that. I love the talk about the dance between the big V and the little V, but when you dance, sometimes you step on toes. What do you think or what do you see are the biggest blunders in capturing your big V voice and having it interpreted in a way that you want it interpreted as, as something that does earn that trust from your audience?

Tina Dietz (05:56):

Yeah. This really comes from the inside out. I have had so many times in my life ... One of the reasons I'm in this world is because I had a consistent issue when I was growing up, a young adults moving through my career, with being misunderstood. It wasn't the sound of my voice that was the issue, although sometimes it was. I got misinterpreted many times, because I am a pretty intense and pretty passionate person. I would get misinterpreted as angry when I was excited, or I would get misinterpreted as aggressive when I was just really super into something and not really thinking about how that was landing with other people. That had to do with my naivete or kind of a lack of a really robust emotional intelligence about, quote unquote, reading the room at the time. Even though I've always been highly intuitive, I didn't always get the connection between the two.

Tina Dietz (06:59):

Sometimes that requires additional training. So many people run into this. So many aspiring leaders who have big personalities, or even those who are highly internalized, have a tendency to be misunderstood in the message of their leadership. That's why it's so important to align that internal conversation with the external skills of a delivery as we go along. There's a lot of examples in my own life that I could give of being misunderstood, but that might end up with me feeling like I have pie on my face for the next half hour.

Jennifer Crawford (07:36):

Well, I am curious. What steps did you take to modify your voice and to change the misperception of people?

Tina Dietz (07:48):

A lot of it has to do with developing myself as a leader. I've spent my early career ... I grew up as an entrepreneur but actually didn't want to stay an entrepreneur, because my parents spent so many hours in their business and their company growing it, and I was an only child, so I always felt like I was in competition. But when I got out into the world, I became a therapist. I found that because I had such an entrepreneurial mindset, I'd been steeped like a teabag in the world of entrepreneurship growing up, I didn't do well functioning in bureaucracies. I was heavily in the world of education. I did work in corporate just briefly and found a real interesting foothold in corporate, actually in the banking industry, where I found that my way of thinking and all of that, my talents, were actually much more embraced than they were in the world of education, which tends to be very slow to embrace change and innovation, but I felt compelled to stick with education. I really wanted to make a difference with young people, and I did over the course of many years.

Tina Dietz (08:56):

But what I didn't understand at the time was that I was a little bit of fish out of water. There actually is a lot of place for innovation in corporate that is difficult to find in the world of education, but the journey that I went on ultimately led me to develop a different way of communicating that was really all about the listener and the listening that I was bringing to the conversation. Finding those places in myself, using many techniques, many different types of training. I've had been blessed to have many mentors over the years that allowed me to be able to, in a moment and in the moment, stay very present, to have a presence in front of other people, and then also to train my voice, just like somebody would train for anything else.

Tina Dietz (09:56):

If you're training for a marathon, you don't start with running 20 miles. You start with going for a walk. You start with different kinds of things. If you want to learn karate, you don't start with a flying kick. You start with learning how to stand. There is a humility that goes along with any kind of new skill, that being willing to work with the fundamentals and work with the basics. We always come back to that. We always come back to breathing. We always come back to self-awareness. We always come back to some very fundamental points that allow us then to kind of reconnect with the core of who we are and who we're talking with so that our communication can continually become clearer and more effective.

Jennifer Crawford (10:42):

It's so important. And I come from a strong entrepreneurial background as well, so I can completely relate to all of that. We've all seen the situation where we have a leader who does really well with decision making and, growing a team, and that sort of thing, but when they get on stage, or when they get behind a mic, or even in front of their staff, their employees, their workforce, they freeze up, and those leadership skills get muted, because their voice is not strong. It's not resonating. They don't have the confidence to project their leadership vocally. So, for people like that, they get a little stage fright, aren't great public speakers, what are those baby steps? You mentioned that we don't jump kick, so what is the baby ...? Is it the breathing? Obviously it starts with the breathing, opening the diaphragm, but what else? How else do you help leaders expand their leadership skills through their voice?

Tina Dietz (11:43):

Well, one of the places that I do like to start is with the whole idea that we learn so many things in our lives. I mentioned karate. I mentioned a marathon. But let's take something more common, learning how to read, learning how to throw a ball, learning how to create a PowerPoint. Right? Those are things that most people have some idea, and at least I'm assuming this audience, has an idea of how to do those things, but we're not ever taught when we're growing up that you can consciously choose your way of being, that you can consciously choose, like trying on a coat, the emotional state that you are going to choose in a moment.

Tina Dietz (12:24):

There's an incredible amount of power in that as a skill, as a honed ability. We'll start with something as simple as an embodiment exercise, where I'll be working with an executive or a CEO and have them think of a time where they had a peak experience and have them capture how that felt in their body. The best version of themselves is usually what I say. Tell me about a time where you felt like the best version of yourself. Identify, what are the ways of being? Is it confidence? I'll hear calm excitement is actually something that comes up a lot. They often have physical sensations, like they don't feel like they're moving forward, ready to move forward, almost being pulled forward, or they feel very grounded down into the earth. Sometimes you'll feel very open in your chest or open in your palms, things like that.

Tina Dietz (13:22):

If you can identify those ways of being that you are when you are the best version of yourself, you can consciously start to practice those ways of being before, say, going onto a podcast as a guest, going into a meeting, going into a speaking engagement. We can create either visualizations and meditations around those things. This is what in the world of personal development, or psychology, or even ontology, that we would call a sematic practice. It has to do both the body and with the mind. That integration allows us to move forward much more quickly than having it just be a cerebral exercise. It's a very simple practice, but it is incredibly powerful.

Jennifer Crawford (14:11):

Yeah. I can see that. That's incredible. That's great advice. All right. In terms of quick fixes, are there any vocal qualities that are immediate trust and credibility killers?

Tina Dietz (14:26):

Yes. There's two that are ones that we run into all the time. Before I tell you these two though, I do want to say that if you have these two, it's okay. You have to work with the voice that you have and probably no one's ever hung up the phone with you because of the quality of your voice. You're okay. You're okay.

Jennifer Crawford (14:45):

Thanks, Tina.

Tina Dietz (14:46):

Yeah. But two things that do tend to kill credibility are uptalk and vocal fry. Uptalk is when the ends of your sentences all sound like a question. It calls into question your certainty of things, and then it sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. This is a super common vocal quality. It shows up in situations where in the back of your mind, subconsciously, you're looking for a response from somebody and you're not quite sure what the response is going to be. It also shows a lot if you're a coach or you have a coaching style as a leader and you're looking for feedback from somebody. It shows up a lot, because you're used to kind of being like, "Do you understand? Does that land for you? Do we get that? How does that sound to you?" Those kinds of questions are frequently asked by leaders and coaches, so that kind of style can seep into our regular vocal patterns, and it can throw off the amount of credibility that people perceive you as, because you don't sound certain. So, that's one.

Tina Dietz (15:54):

Vocal fry is the other. The best way to think of vocal fry is either Ira Glass from This American Life on NPR, it's a national public radio show, uses a lot of vocal fry in his speaking, or Kim Kardashians is another icon culturally who uses this a lot. Now, I have a hard time doing vocal fry, but it's basically when the ends of your sentences drop into a growly state. It's kind of like, "Oh my God," and, "Uh," and there's that kind of sound. Now, why this isn't a problem with people like Ira Glass, who is a highly touted, he's an amazing storyteller, amazing narrator, or someone like Kim Kardashians, who is followed by hundreds of thousands of people, is because we're not looking to them to be leaders. We're looking for them to be entertainers. It's a different animal. So, vocal fry doesn't matter when you're in entertainment. It's another tool. It's another way of doing things.

Tina Dietz (16:57):

But in the example, say, of a job interview, across the board, regardless of age, gender, race, or other demographic factors, they find in research that if somebody speaks in an interview with vocal fry when they're answering interview questions, people who are giving the interview, again across the board age, race, gender, doesn't matter, will consistently rate those people and those answers as less trustworthy, less credible, and less hireable. That comes across as a bit of a credibility killer in situations where leadership is required, trustworthiness is required, credibility is required.

Jennifer Crawford (17:36):

Wow. Yeah. I tend to get a little vocal fry when I've had a lot of speaking in one day. My voice gets a little tired and I realize it's sort of creeping in naturally. What I'm wondering about, what about the leaders that are out there putting themselves on stage, they have speaking gigs, they're confident, but maybe their vocal leadership is not as effective as it could be? How do you know or how can you gauge if your vocal leadership needs to be polished or improved in some way? Is there some sort of feedback mechanism, something that you see that's a commonality in speakers or leaders who aren't as effective as they could be?

Tina Dietz (18:21):

Well, usually what we find in speakers or leaders who are big on stage or are big in their company and they have reached a level that they are managing not just dozens, but hundreds of people, or they have a responsibility, is sometimes we end up with a bit of a distance between who they are in terms of their big persona and their humanity. This is where how do you create intimacy with 10,000 people from the stage? How do you create intimacy when you have to create a distance? You know, there's a professional distance, or there is, for better or for worse, some kind of hierarchy between the CEO and an entry level employee, so there's a distance there, but then how do you create that connection and that respect, that inspiration that we crave in our leaders?

Tina Dietz (19:21):

Those are the things that become a much more refined process. It becomes a much more internal process at that level of leadership for seeing how in our communication, in attention, our presence, the give and take on almost an energetic level, that who we are as leaders. What are we broadcasting, whether that is through audio, or it is in person, whether we're with one person or with 10,000 people? That kind of consistency in our presence as leaders becomes far more important.

Jennifer Crawford (19:58):

Yeah. I was trying to think of examples when you mentioned how can you speak to 10,000 people, but also have an intimate experience or conversation with them? This is not in an effort to have any sort of political conversation, but I do think of Obama is who came to mind. In his leadership role, he had this way of speaking to the people in a way that I think came across as genuine and intimate, yet he maintained that leadership role, as the leader of our country. I thought of him as an example. You may have some better ones.

Tina Dietz (20:38):

Yeah. There's an interesting ones that I like to think about. Actually, Mahatma Gandhi was very, very good at this, because if you think about the way he spoke. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr are often held up as kind of equal icons of change in the world, but they had very, very different vocal patterns and how they inspired people. Gandhi was much ... he was passionate, but he was very internalized. He always felt like he was speaking to one person, whereas Martin Luther King Jr was very much almost a preaching type and incredibly inspiring, but you never felt like he was sitting across the table from you, right? You always felt his talks were more from the stage, so to speak.

Tina Dietz (21:27):

FDR, if we go further back, if we go back in history, his fireside chats were an example of a leader bringing intimacy into the conversation. It was different having him behind a podium than it was sitting beside the fire. That made a big difference for our country that was going through a really difficult time, to have more vulnerable access to the leader of their nation. Someone else who's actually a somebody that I really respect and talk about a feminine voice would be Brené Brown.

Jennifer Crawford (22:00):

I was just thinking of her.

Tina Dietz (22:02):

Yeah. Brené Brown is one of my favorite examples of somebody who is absolutely masterful at creating incredible intimacy in a large room full of people. I recently also had the pleasure of seeing Simon Sinek speak at New York City Town Hall, prior to COVID. He was also incredibly good at bringing a lot of intimacy to the room. It has a lot to do not just with their ... It has very little to do with the content actually. It has everything to do with that emotional state and how they're being and how they're giving themselves to the audience without that sense of veneer or needing to kind of hide something behind a professional visage. They're fully there. They're fully present, and they are fully human.

Jennifer Crawford (22:54):

I think this is a great segue to talk about how those same qualities can be transferred to the podcast medium, which is by nature intimate, because you're in people's ears, directly into their ears. It's known as an intimate medium, and you could be speaking to just as many people. For companies who are making the decision to produce a corporate podcast, whether it be internal or external, if you were giving them advice, Tina, what are the things they should look for in somebody that they place behind the mic, whether that's somebody in the C level of their organization, or somebody that's a department head, or a manager? What do those people need to bring to make their podcast the most effective?

Tina Dietz (23:46):

I think that whoever helms a podcast for a corporate situation, we find this with our corporate clients, is if you remember how the nightly news used to be structured, where there was an anchor or a couple of anchors, and then there are multiple contributors. Having a strong anchor who is kind of the center of the voice of the podcast is really important. It doesn't need to be the CEO. No, it does not. Can it be? Absolutely. But the quality of that person is they need to be highly relational. Podcasts are never, should never be in my opinion, presentational. They are always relational. They are always in conversation, whether you're telling stories or you're giving the sales numbers from the second quarter. You know? It's still a story. It's still a human conversation. That is the primary quality that needs to be looked for in that person.

Tina Dietz (24:44):

Are they willing and able to allow themselves to be truly interested in that listener and what they're delivering? Can they be excited and passionate about it? Can they be interested in feedback? Can they kind of hold a space for whatever feedback might kind of come into play? I mean, there may be multiple players, multiple people, on let's say a marketing team or whatever involved, but nonetheless, the podcast becomes about the personalities involved. Then you can have multiple contributors, highlight different stories, different people. Very inclusive podcasting is as a format.

Tina Dietz (25:29):

I encourage companies to think about who may be the best person on their team that can embody those kinds of qualities. If you run multiple series over time, then you may be able to rotate hosts. Let's say you have several really good people. There's different ways to combine the talents of the people that you have on your teams to be that anchor or to be a contributor onto those particular podcasts. But it's the ability to create relationship.

Jennifer Crawford (26:04):

I could not agree more. I couldn't let you go today, Tina, without telling the audience how all of the skills that you shared with us and your expertise, how Twin Flames Studios applies that expertise with your corporate podcasting clients and the services that you provide. I would love to hear more about that.

Tina Dietz (26:27):

Well, it's our pleasure and our privilege to work with companies that are these trusted brands that have very much relationship-based businesses. A lot of the financial advisory that we work with, we have a number of shows in the financial space, they have longterm deep relationships with their clients, and they want another medium to be able to express that. They also have super strong relationships with other people in the industries that they're in. Podcasting allows them to bring those relationships to the table, to educate their clients or even educate their teams more effectively. They don't have to do it all on their own. They have many, many resources that you can bring and have conversations with.

Tina Dietz (27:18):

We work from concept all the way through episode production and the development of shows, whether those are short series or they're an ongoing podcast over time for these companies that are out there now making a difference with people in one way or another. I've also worked with a number of shows that were led by doctors, physicians, and things like that and different topics. If you have a trusted brand that is ready to grow and influence and really likes to deliver content in a way that is not best served in one to two minutes, that would be very well suited for video. We often have video partners that we can combine video and audio and all of that. But the average podcast listener will listen to 40 minutes of content before kind of shutting it off, whereas the average video listener will only listen to about or watch about two minutes. This is where podcasting really shines is in developing relationships and having conversations, particularly for those industries that have fantastic stories and have a lot of partners that have tremendous experience to share.

Jennifer Crawford (28:38):

Yeah. Absolutely. An internal podcast is really ... can the act as the connecting tissue, if you will, of communication, particularly now, when our teams are separated by distance. We have a growing work from home workforce that I don't think is completely going to go away even after coronavirus.

Tina Dietz (29:03):

No. Not at all.

Jennifer Crawford (29:04):

How can we connect with them? How can we connect with them in a way that translates our culture, gets the information out there in an intimate and efficient way? I mean, it really is a game-changer. Doing that effectively is just going to solidify that culture and keep your best talent in place, because they're going to feel a part of something through that [crosstalk 00:29:28].

Tina Dietz (29:28):

Oh, yeah. Particularly with any kind of mobile workforce. We were finding research on this prior to Coronavirus, that the disconnect between folks who are out in the field or working remotely and folks who were kind of at HQ, and there was a sense of disconnect, or isolation, or even kind of cliquishness that would happen between the folks who are not working in their cubicles or offices and those who are. Podcasting has been shown to be kind of an equalizing factor or a helpful factor between the two.

Jennifer Crawford (30:05):

Wow. I love how you phrased that. Thank you so much, Tina, for not only hosting this podcast, but being so generous with your expertise on this episode. Any company would be lucky to work with you and your team.

Tina Dietz (30:19):

Well, any company would be lucky to work with you, Jennifer. What you've created here with the conference and getting the information out, it's just an exciting time to be in this field. It's been an absolute pleasure collaborating with you on it.

Jennifer Crawford (30:33):

All right. Thanks, Tina.

Tina Dietz (30:35):

Thank you, Jennifer. And that wraps up our Podcast Inc. Podcast series here. Again, I have to thank Jennifer Crawford for all of her leadership, putting the conference together. Make sure you go to PodcastInc.co to make sure you can get all of the information that we have for you there. Sign up for updates, and make sure you come to the conference this fall, whether it is in Washington DC live or online. Either way, it is going to be an absolutely fantastic event. Thank you, again, to all of our contributors, Heartcast Media, Blubrry, the Pioneering Collective, everyone who made this podcast possible. We are here for the duration. Make sure you contact us for more information, and we'll talk to you soon.

Tina Dietz (00:00):

How does thought leadership relate to internal podcasting or podcasting in general? And what should leaders be thinking about as they're developing their messages to get out to the world in a larger way? We're taking a slightly different angle today talking about personal public relations, podcasting, and thought leadership, here on Podcast Inc.

Tina Dietz (00:36):

Welcome back to Podcast Inc. I am Tina Dietz, joining you here on this limited edition series as we lead up to the Podcast Inc conference in the fall of 2020. How are you guys out there? How are you fairing in these tumultuous times of uncertainty, and also great discovery? I hope you're all doing well out there. We're taking a slightly different look today at podcasting, and through the lens of thought leadership and personal public relations. And that's why we brought on the show today, Tina Chang, the CEO and founder of The Pioneering Collective. I'll tell you a little bit more about Tina in just a moment. But before I do, I'd like to mention that Pioneering Collective is one of our collaborators making this show possible. Along, of course, with Podcast Inc. Who this show is all about. And Hardcast Media, along with my company, Twin Flames Studios.

8. Tina Dietz (01:29):

So really, I am just tickled pink and grateful for all of the collaboration and sponsors that we've had around this. Including our folks at Blubrry, who are also a major sponsor of the podcasting conference. Remember you can go to podcastinc.co and find out more information about that upcoming conference here in the fall of 2020. And in the meantime, enjoy all of these episodes that we've put together for you in this limited series, talking about this whole world. So we're taking this a little different today as we bring Tina on the show. And wanted to approach it from the angle of, what are leaders thinking about? And their thought leadership. And, how are they developing their own message in the industry that they're in? And, how does that relate to podcasting?

8. Tina Dietz (02:15):

So Tina Chang is the founder and CEO of The Pioneering Collective, which is a personal public relations firm with a mission to amplify the impact of senior leaders who are shaping the future. Tina, herself, is driven to elevate human-centric stories, to build engagement, and strengthen trust for industry pioneers. And she has worked with all kinds of executives, top speakers, C-level folks, and world leaders at over 100 prestigious organizations, such as Johnson & Johnson, TD Bank, Google, Novo Nordisk. The list goes on and on. To amplify the voices and messages of these leaders through media coverage and speaking engagements, enhanced visibility for board appointments. And of course, as we'll discuss today, podcasting. Very different take on things today. I hope you'll enjoy this conversation with Tina Chang.

8. Tina Dietz (03:09):

Tina, I'm really excited to have you bring your unique perspective to the series, so thank you for being here.

7. Tina Chang (03:15):

It's wonderful to be here.

8. Tina Dietz (03:16):

Yeah. Yeah. And you and I were having a conversation and you said something that really stuck out in my mind that I wanted to use right up front, because I was excited to talk about it. And you coming from this world of public relations, among other things in the corporate world, you said that public relations is evolving to personal relations. And now we have all this technology that allows for individuals to have more personal agency. And it's important to tap into that. Can you expand on that just as a starting point for us to talk about your perspective on that?

7. Tina Chang (03:55):

So I work with a lot of corporate leaders, and I lead a personal PR and personal communication organization. So we support them in connecting to their employees, but also external stakeholders and customers. And one thing I hear a lot from leaders is that they're very comfortable talking about the corporate story. Right? The sales performance, the business, the products. But traditionally they're not trained to talk about their own personal story. It's hard, it's tough to share much more about yourself. And yet employees and future talent, they all want to hear much more around, who is the leader? What are his or her principles? What do they stand for? How do they make their decisions? These are really important perspectives for the employees and others to hear. And so right now we spend a lot of time helping leaders think through the stories and the messages that they want to share, and tie-in those personal elements. And to tap into different types of media to share that, such as podcasting.

7. Tina Chang (05:16):

And I think it's a great forum, it's a great format to be a bit more conversational, be a little bit more long-form. And it brings out their personal characteristics and perspectives. And so we spend a lot of time doing that.

8. Tina Dietz (05:33):

Yeah. And so as I mentioned at the top of the episode, sharing who you were and who you are, and what you do. That you've had all these incredible relationships with leaders from more than 100 different influential companies. Why don't you paint a picture for us of how this agency that you now run, The Pioneering Collective, came to be, and what was the culmination here? Because I think everybody should know a little bit more of a meta picture of having you here on the show and the perspective you're bringing.

7. Tina Chang (06:10):

I'll tell you a little bit about my journey. And which has pulled me towards starting this organization. I never thought I'd start a company and be an entrepreneur. I'll take you all the way back. And growing up, I loved art, and have gotten always best artists and so on. But ended up loving biology and the human body. And then ended up in science, and I have a doctorate in pharmacy. And the reason why I share that story is people may say, art and pharmacy, that's not really connected yet. I see a lot of overlap between art and science. And as a thread throughout my career, I see connections between things, whether it's things or people. And I started my career in scientific communication, so then very early on worked with scientists and thought leaders and speakers bureaus. And helping leaders share much more around their scientific data and information, and amplifying their voice on really important topics.

7. Tina Chang (07:26):

And I loved it. And moved over to marketing, spent most of my career in larger corporate healthcare corporations. So Stryker, Novo Nordisk, Genentech, and these are Fortune 100 best companies to work for. I loved it. It's a great experience there. And in leading the various different products and brands, I also realized that I oftentimes want to encourage consumers and customers to engage with products. Right? Yet people don't engage with things and products-

8. Tina Dietz (08:05):

No, they don't.

7. Tina Chang (08:06):

... and buildings or logos the same way they engage with people. And so back to the connection of heart, I realized very early in the product, or marketing career, that it's really important to work with leaders, thought leaders, influencers, to help them express that message and bring people along. And oftentimes in various different formats, storytelling, and other ways where people can connect with the message. And so I've spent most of my career in thinking through how to encourage leaders to share their perspectives, and also their stories.

7. Tina Chang (08:56):

I was also with an organization leading a CEO mentorship program, and even top leaders within their organizations, their C-suite leaders, still struggle quite a bit about how to bring an authentic self. Right? To the forefront.

8. Tina Dietz (09:13):

Sure.

7. Tina Chang (09:13):

How to engage truly as themselves, not just sharing a corporate message. And oftentimes they'll say, I would have conversations with them, they'll say, also, I don't understand all the new media, all the new digital platforms that you mentioned before. They may have a social media account, but don't have a photo on it, on their LinkedIn. Or have never participated in a podcast. And, what is that? And they may be very well trained for large media, or traditional TV, yet haven't tapped into a lot of the other media formats. And media is much more fragmented now with technology.

7. Tina Chang (09:58):

And it's really important for our leaders to really understand the diverse media channels. And consumers consume information in different ways. And not everybody reads, some people are more audio first, and the others like visual, infographics and other formats.

8. Tina Dietz (10:17):

It ties into the idea of thought leadership, which I know you work an awful lot with. And this idea that leaders need to start telling their own stories on a more personal level. Which is interesting, because it really requires them to take off their superhero cape, so to speak. But that's part of what makes an effective thought leader. But thought leadership is different from leadership fame, or being an expert. Can you explain some of the difference between those?

7. Tina Chang (10:50):

Yeah. I would love to. Being a thought leader has two sides to it. There's visibility, of course, and there's credibility. It needs to be, a thought leader is a trusted source. And people look towards a thought leader for quality information. In today's environment with COVID-19, and a lot of information, people are really looking for trusted and quality information. And you mentioned fame as an example, I think fame is heavily visibility. It doesn't have as much of the credibility arm to it. It could. A thought leader really needs that reputation of credibility. For an expert, they're fantastic in their specific area, but not all experts share.

8. Tina Dietz (11:46):

True.

7. Tina Chang (11:47):

Not all experts are out there talking about the information that they're aware of. Or could say it in a simple way, in an educational way, or bring others along with them. So a thought leader needs to be someone who, by definition, is actually an expert of an expert, and can synthesize the information, and are very willing to share in a credible manner. Now, leaders and thought leaders are slightly different also. Leaders, they tend to stay... And the traditional definition of leaders, maybe much more of a corporate leader leading within their organization. But somewhere along the way, as leaders continue to progress in their career and getting to a higher executive level, it's important for them to start thinking about the industry. And no company is an island, or solo player. They're part of an ecosystem. And for leaders to transition into an industry leader, that's a very important pivot.

7. Tina Chang (12:54):

And as they transition into an industry leader, and impacting and driving the industry, they're building. Thought leadership is a process. Personal PR is a process to get to that thought leadership destination. I tend to categorize fame, experts, leadership, slightly differently than being a thought leader, or potentially a change agent.

8. Tina Dietz (13:23):

Right. That makes sense. That makes sense. So then, let's say that the folks that you work with who are senior leaders in organizations, there's an old saying that goes, it's hard to be a hero in your own hometown. So if somebody is looking to become more of a leader inside their company, does it actually makes sense for somebody to start with their external PR, rather than focusing on the internal? How does that work from somebody who's developing that personally?

7. Tina Chang (13:58):

When we sit down with a leader to really understand what success looks like, what they're trying to drive at, and at different stages of their career and at different times. I think it's really important to start thinking about, who is your audience? And be a bit more targeted in their approach. Their audience could be internal, could be external. It could be a mix of both. And it's possible to start designing based on really having a clear idea of who their audience space is and what they need. And then from there, think about, what is their purpose for communicating?

7. Tina Chang (14:37):

So once the audience is defined, then it's, what's your reason for doing this? And then ultimately, the thought leadership, what is that unique thought and big idea that they want to convey? And so I tend to have a simple acronym in my head of ART, back to my passion for art. So it's audience, reason, and thought. And so I do believe that in the space of communication, everything's interrelated. There isn't as clear of a definition as completely internal or completely external. Oftentimes the message that a leader shares internally, and I've often heard that, a memo they've shared internally just gets re-posted on social by their employees. And you always got to have that lens on. That what you write internally, oftentimes, can be shared more broadly. And hopefully it's a wonderful message, and it's an important message, and it could be quite motivating for the industry also. I don't think that it's as clearly defined as it used to be.

8. Tina Dietz (15:59):

Yeah. There's definitely a lot of fuzzy edges around all of that. And even the whole internal/external conversation, which has been a theme throughout this entire series around internal podcasting, external podcasting. There's a lot of overlap between the two. And so, as you've been working with leaders, where are you seeing opportunity for podcasting to play a role in helping these leaders help more people?

7. Tina Chang (16:29):

I see opportunities for podcasting internally, and also externally. And there are, within an organization, especially driving change. And then I have to mention COVID-19 again, it feels like we've just fast-forwarded 10 years in terms of technology and how we are adapting to work. Also, the environment of just reopening and rebooting the organization. There's a lot of change that's happening. And people need to hear from that leader. And during times of change, one is a stabilizing factor, the voice of a leader. And having the podcast in the ear, and it feels as if the leader is talking to you, right? Directly. And it's at a time when the organization want more access to leadership, want to hear directly from the leader. And so I think podcasting is a wonderful way to reach them. And also to drive for change, to say we got to do things differently.

7. Tina Chang (17:39):

It's not just through an article or a piece. It doesn't have the same emotional connection to engage the employee base and motivate them to say, you know what, I think this is important to change my behavior and do things differently. So I do see some, I should say huge opportunities there. There are also different communities within an organization. There may be employee resource groups. There may be different departments and teams. And it's a great way to engage a group within the organization a little differently. And not everybody wants to look at a screen all the time anymore.

8. Tina Dietz (18:27):

We have found that in the research, for sure. For sure.

7. Tina Chang (18:30):

And so there's a bit of concern around just, how much time are we spending on the screen? And so podcasting is a way where people can have it in the background. And I'm a busy entrepreneur, a mother. And I can imagine employees are in similar situations where you could have the podcast going and still do a little bit of light work somewhere else. They are paying attention, but people are preferring a model that isn't always just staring at a screen. So just offering that format could be helpful.

7. Tina Chang (19:08):

And I think externally, there's some create opportunities to differentiate yourself in a very nuanced way, being able to share more details around maybe some unique thought or big idea that others may not have explored. And it's a great way to connect with a broad audience also. I do see huge opportunities for organizations and leaders to utilize podcasting as a format to engage their external ecosystem.

8. Tina Dietz (19:49):

Yeah, some very targeted audiences available there as well. From your experience in coaching these folks, what do you think they need to know in order to offer an engaging experience across these different digital platforms?

7. Tina Chang (20:10):

It's a lot to navigate. Right? Individually, there's digital PR. There are event PR, event models, and there are also social platforms. And then there's diverse ways to connect and influence, whether it's on committees or write, or be on editorial boards. And so it's a lot in the marketplace for an individual to say, huh, how do I approach this if I wanted a great experience for others who are looking me, right?

8. Tina Dietz (20:48):

Mm-hmm (affirmative). True.

7. Tina Chang (20:50):

And so I do believe that it is important, and it's also hard to design your own story.

8. Tina Dietz (20:55):

That's true.

7. Tina Chang (20:58):

And so even the best storytellers and some of the best PR leaders I've known would like to work with someone else just for that on bias opinion. You're not too married to yourself there. And so it's really understanding and going back to, what is the purpose, who's the audience, and what's that thought? And then going from there, what's that experience, digital experience that you want people to have of you? And then designing all the different formats from there. In person, in public, presentations, what's that experience? And then, designing some of the approaches from there. Being that everyone's purpose is a little different, we tailor a lot of our conversations around, what is their goal? What are they trying to achieve? And we don't need to do everything. Right?

7. Tina Chang (21:57):

Let's pick a few platforms where the leader is most comfortable with, or want to learn much more, or could be most impactful. And double-down on that.

8. Tina Dietz (22:10):

So you're talking about developing a narrative, and developing those pieces. We've mentioned storytelling. When you're working with folks to develop their own story, what are some of the things they need to keep in mind on the storytelling side of things, or their personal narrative?

7. Tina Chang (22:31):

Yeah. Yeah.

8. Tina Dietz (22:32):

That big idea.

7. Tina Chang (22:34):

Yeah. So the first thing I say is, don't think too hard about it. I know it sounds counterintuitive. Yeah. It could prevent someone from even getting started, because there's so many different aspects that they want to focus on. The other thing is, we sometimes break down the stories, right? There may be an overarching theme, and this is what they want to be known for. And let's lock in on that. Let's break down their stories into mini stories, and/or collection of different stories that they can share at different times, for different purposes. When we get into the story design, for a conversation with an employee base, they may not need to tell the full movie version of a story, the longterm.

8. Tina Dietz (23:29):

That's true.

7. Tina Chang (23:29):

Right? Quick examples could be much more effective with that audience. Sometimes when they really do want to share a longer form, podcasting, or some of the other formats, might be a better method. So we'll break things down for them. And certainly, there's different types of storytelling. And different purposes for the storytelling, so we'll define it a little differently. Sometimes there needs to be a conflict, and there needs to be a villain, or there needs to be... And other times the purpose is to be a little bit more vulnerable. Just to share a bit more about who they are, and have the courage to say that.

8. Tina Dietz (24:23):

Well, there are so many variables on that. It could be a piece of somebody's personal story that relates to their leadership development. It could be the story of... I remember hearing one of your members talking, creating a story around having people understand the impact of what they had changed about how they were delivering a certain type of medication. And that what they did to find out how that impacted people in their daily lives who were taking this medication in the pharmaceutical industry.

8. Tina Dietz (24:58):

And the story brought me to tears, and it was a small change that they made about the delivery. And I admit to being one of those people who looked at big pharma as the monster of big pharma. And the more you actually talk with people who are these leaders inside, with the hearts and the minds who are actually looking to make a difference in the world. And it really humanizes everything. You realize it's a far more complicated picture, and a far more nuanced picture than anyone would know from, quote unquote, big media.

8. Tina Dietz (25:41):

And so you delivering messages in these different ways, the podcast guesting, which I'm most familiar with for your work. But certainly articles, interviews, all the other things that are going on. It's quite enlightening to see the range of messaging that happens. And it becomes not just about that leader's story, but also about the bigger world, or how it impacts an entire industry, or humanity as a whole, even. Particularly in this time of COVID-19. It's kind of fascinating. I'm wondering, when would somebody know that they're ready to take a step like this, to develop themselves in this way as a leader?

7. Tina Chang (26:29):

Yeah. Tina, thanks for that question. And I would love to encourage leaders to start sharing at any time. There isn't really a right time to share. I've been incredibly motivated by the healthcare leaders that I work with, a majority of our clients, say over 50% are healthcare leaders. And they have lifelong missions, and oftentimes a quest to cure a particular disease, and have dedicated their entire life to it. And I think anywhere along their journey they could be sharing their stories and perspectives. What I'll comment on is, oftentimes when I find people who are ready to share, they are usually three motivators, or a combination of these three. And I call it the heart, the brain, and that ego. And really, the heart is... Leaders oftentimes want to communicate more when they care about an issue, they want to drive change in the world.

7. Tina Chang (27:44):

They want to give back. They want to help serve or educate. And that's a fantastic reason for getting out there and sharing much more, and being a thought leader on particular topics to help contribute. The brain is thought of wanting to inform. So there are a lot of researchers who have great data, or an entrepreneur with a big idea, a new idea. And it's much more logical, yet also an important reason to get out there and communicate more. And lastly, the ego. And oftentimes people will say, that's the worst reason for personal PR or thought leadership. It's all about self-aggrandizement. And I don't necessarily think so. I do think it's important. All of us have a need, a human need to feel special. And-

8. Tina Dietz (28:47):

I'm in that category.

7. Tina Chang (28:50):

And to define ourselves for others. And we talked about personal agency before. It's really important that we're driving our own stories instead of allowing others to define us. And that ability to control the story, control the narrative. And also back to another time you and I were talking about, it's important for someone to share their own story so others can talk about them. If you've never shared your own stories before, you leave others with nothing to even help you spread the message, or to communicate more. So the ego isn't necessarily a bad reason either. And oftentimes it's the combination of three. That when a leader have important and impactful messages to share, those tend to be the three reasons why people get out there.

8. Tina Dietz (29:52):

That's interesting. And I'm glad you included the ego, because I think it's important as a leader to have a strong sense of self. And that's really the type of ego I think we're talking about here. It's not the arrogance that you can't back up. It's that you know who you are, or you have the sense of who you are as a leader, and this desire to share in such a way that you do need to be able to, as a leader, take the feedback. And to be able to stand out there, which can be a vulnerable place. Putting a message out there and not knowing necessarily what kind of feedback you're going to get on that.

8. Tina Dietz (30:32):

I think that ego is necessary in the sense of sense of self, and having what we'd call in psychology, as an ego base. To have a good place to start from so that you don't end up snapping back and feeling like, oh, I'm never getting out there again, because I don't know if I can deal with the feedback from it. I'm really glad that you included it, because it's important.

8. Tina Dietz (30:59):

So going back around to a couple of points here, are there any particular elements of somebody's personal public relations plan that you think need to be included across the board, regardless of leader?

7. Tina Chang (31:12):

And I'm going to bring us around back to purpose, or back to audience. The reason and also the thought. I think it's the framework that needs to be there upfront. Sometimes I have seen leaders just very quickly want to get content out there. And in this eagerness for speed, maybe not have thought through precisely the right audience that they want to reach. If someone wants to connect much more with board of directors, because they're interested in elevating their profile for boards, it's not the general public. They could be much more deliberate in their distribution, and the channel that they use. So knowing the audience is very important.

7. Tina Chang (32:14):

And so I would say it's the framework upfront. It's just really understanding who's the audience, what's my reason for doing it, what's my purpose? And what unique story or thought they want to share. And once leaders take the time to do that, the rest really flows from there. Sometimes, back to, I do some see some people rushing out a bit more, before they've thought through all that. And it takes a lot of effort. And it's being everywhere on social, or being on all sorts of platforms. You don't need to. I think that just selecting one or two particular platforms that are highly effective for your purpose will be important. So we do say slow down a little bit in the beginning to be thoughtful, and you can speed up a lot more throughout the personal PR process.

8. Tina Dietz (33:16):

So bringing it back then around to podcasting, when would be a good time to bring in podcasting to a leader's PR plan?

7. Tina Chang (33:25):

So, it's interesting, most leaders are very intrigued by podcasting. And just interested to participate. In podcasting, one, they've never tried it before. So it's out of learning, and most leaders are learners, and they would love to learn a new platform and a new media outlet. And so oftentimes we receive requests to say, can you secure a podcast for me? I'd like to try one or two of those out. And because I do think that most corporate executives are listening to one or two podcasts themselves, previously when we were all driving to work, that used to be, they were listening to podcasts then. But now also when they're going for walks, when they're exercising, right before bed sometimes. And so they have a personal experience themselves with podcasting and would love to participate in one and try one out. So there isn't precisely a particular time, yet I think they ask for it pretty early in the personal PR journey.

8. Tina Dietz (34:44):

Well, it is in great scheme of things, I would call it from my own personal experience a little less risky, so to speak, than certain other types of media. For example, television, or something that would be nationally syndicated on a large stage. I think podcasting for leaders is a really nice place to actually refine your message and work on that relationship with an audience as they're doing that. As they're in that process, would you agree?

7. Tina Chang (35:19):

Yeah. I fully agree. It's a very friendly media outlet.

8. Tina Dietz (35:25):

True.

7. Tina Chang (35:25):

And also back to the interest, and I probably should just comment on that a little bit more. Most leaders think podcasting is still seen as a bit of edutainment. There's some fun element to it. And it's not all seriousness, and it brings the human storytelling to the front. And they want to try that. And so the leaders who are part of our community tend to really want to share their personal stories. So podcasting very naturally comes up very early in the conversation.

8. Tina Dietz (36:07):

No, that is excellent. I really appreciate you coming on, taking the time to share a different angle on how podcasting fits into the framework of leadership and thought leadership, personal PR. And this segment of the business world that is really just discovering podcasting now as a medium. And we're seeing more and more, of course, interest in that. As you are as well. Thank you so much for your thoughts on how this fits together. We appreciate it.

7. Tina Chang (36:41):

Wonderful. Thank you, Tina. It's great to be on your session here.

8. Tina Dietz (36:45):

Okay. It's great to have you. And thank you all out there in cyberland for listening to the podcasting podcast, as we lead up to the podcasting conference this fall in 2020. And you'll be able to hear more episodes here. If you haven't listened to the rest of the series, please make sure you listen to all the episodes where we're tackling internal corporate podcasting, and tying that into corporate podcasting in general in this limited edition series from different aspects and different angles. You can subscribe to this show and make sure you don't miss an episode. And make sure if somebody who might be interested in this topic, sharing is caring, as we say to our friends. And we'll see you next time on Podcast Inc.

Tina Dietz (00:00):

What if you're using an internal podcasting platform and you have an employee who leaves, is your information secure? What if you're not a large business, but a small enterprise that wants to get information out to your field team? Can you use internal podcasting for that? And how? And what are the options for accessibility? Is it web-based only, or can you use a mobile device? Moreover, should you? These are the questions we get answered today on Podcast Inc.

Tina Dietz (00:40):

Welcome back to the Podcast Inc podcast. I'm your host, Tina Dietz, the CEO and founder of Twin Flames Studios, where we're amplifying the voices of leaders, companies, and entrepreneurs around the world with audiobooks, podcasting, and vocal leadership. I'm here in conjunction today with our collaborators for the Podcast Inc podcast as we lead up to the conference in fall of 2020. This podcast would not be possible without the concerted efforts and collaboration of the Pioneering Collective and Heartcast Media.

Tina Dietz (01:11):

Today, we welcome onto the show, Todd Cochrane, and Jeff Levine, who both join us from Blubrry, who are also great supporters of the Podcast Inc conference. Todd Cochrane is the CEO of Blubrry, a podcast media company that represents 75,000 audio and video podcasters. Blubrry provides advertising opportunities, media distribution, and hosting podcast media statistics, and other services, including their brand new services for private internal podcasting. Todd is also the founder of the Tech Podcast Network, The People's Choice Podcast Awards, and the author of Podcasting: The Do-It-Yourself Guide as well as the host of Geek News Central, which has been produced twice weekly for 16 years and counting.

Tina Dietz (01:57):

Jeff Levine is the marketing manager at Blubrry and he brings his many years of experience with large organizations and corporations such as State Farm, Breath Assure, and Rembrandt to the podcasting world to ensure the right solutions are available for companies worldwide. Today, we take a bit more of a technical dive into the world of private internal podcasting and some of the concerns around security as well as use cases for internal podcasting that we haven't discussed necessarily previously. So enjoy this interview with Todd Cochrane and Jeff Levine. Todd and Jeff, thank you for joining me here today.

Todd Cochrane (02:32):

Hey, we're excited to be on.

Tina Dietz (02:34):

Yeah, absolutely. Now I have to say, Blubrry has been around for quite some time. And Todd, I don't want to age you here by any means, but you have been around since podcasting... We weren't even sure, or as you said, you weren't even sure it was going to be a word. Why don't you give us a sense of the origin story of how Blubrry came about because you've got over 75,000 audio and video podcasters on your platform and you're one of the most established names in the business.

Todd Cochrane (03:07):

When I started my own show in 2004, it was really designed from the very get-go to be monetized. I was given marching orders from my wife that I had to figure out how to pay for this thing in the first couple of years. I was very fortunate when I started my show on October 2004, and really kind of being on the ground and getting up and running and building an audience. In November of 2004, I was approached by a lightly publishing, a relatively small book publishing company to publish the first book on podcasting, which came out in May of 05. From that, really what happened was is my show could continue to grow. In June of 2005, I was approached by GoDaddy to sponsor my podcast. I do a tech show called central. It's a new show. We still do it today.

Todd Cochrane (03:59):

From that sponsorship, really led to a conversation that was really the Genesis of RawVoice and Blubrry podcasting in that we... I was getting off the phone with a gal named Kris Redlener, who is my rep. And she says, by the way, do you know other podcasters who'd like to earn money from advertising on GoDaddy? And I'd already formed a small tech network at the time and back in January, and I said, "I do," but then I got to thinking about it after I got off the call and said, "I need some partners." And I did a call out on my own podcast and said, "I need a lawyer, biz dev, graphics guy, and a programmer," and really from my own audience was born the board of directors that largely make up the company today, and we launched a company over a phone call and from there it's been an interesting ride since about July of 05. Very early days, we were involved strictly in advertising and moved into providing a plugin, which everyone knows is PowerPress, which is used by most folks that are using a WordPress site out there with podcasting.

Todd Cochrane (05:05):

Then into the service business and our stats and our hosting, it's pretty well known in the space, so we've continued to expand the product offering and grow the team. Today we run about 19 employees plus or minus two or three, depending on how many interns we have on, and Jeff was on the call today. Joined our marketing team, or joined our team as the marketing manager in January.

Tina Dietz (05:30):

The history of all of this is kind of fascinating. Being this from kind of the beginning on the origins of podcasting, what then made you decide that you wanted to develop a platform for private internal podcasting?

Todd Cochrane (05:45):

Well, we continue to get inquiries about it and I'm tracking the number of tickets that are coming in from customers that are asking if we have that service and the volume got to a point where I said, "Hey, this a thing. There's a market for it." We looked out at the actual marketplace of existing companies that were doing things like this in this space and we said, "We don't want to appear to be tech heavy, but we have a tech heavy team," and I said, "We can do this better and more secure and make it a great product offering," so we approached this new product offering. It's going to be called Blubrry, a private, internal podcasting, as a way to provide really multiple layers of private podcasting for companies from really the smallest individual podcast or to a small company to midsize companies all the way up to enterprise.

Todd Cochrane (06:39):

From what we talked about, we formed a product here that is a... It's very exciting.

Tina Dietz (06:46):

Well, let's break this down a little further then because I'm very curious... I know that Blubrry is known for being very tech heavy on their team and always the challenge with podcasting along with any technical services that are offered to a nontechnical so to speak audience, there's always that translation issue. I'd love to get some more into how this platform can be used. We've talked a lot on this series about corporate. We've talked a lot about internal communications and that's certainly an area, but I know there's some other use cases. And Jeff, I was wondering if you might jump in here and talk about some of the different levels or ways that you're seeing this platform and it's flexibility for use.

Jeff (07:30):

Well, really the use cases are almost endless. If you think about all of the different topics that companies want to communicate internally to their employees about, it goes all the way from a new product announcements to updates on progress for a new product launch, to earnings reports and announcements. If you think of any executive update or any executive announcement that might be made within a corporation. If you think about any communication that HR may send out about new benefits, that is definitely a use case. And then if you think about all of the training opportunities are almost endless, so if you have ever worked for a big company, you've probably used an intranet website that was dedicated to all of the employees that worked for the company and contractors that worked for the company and the intranet is the source for all company information, so if I wanted to take training of some sort from the learning and development department, I would go into my intranet and look at the different offerings and on demand, pull down some sort of training video about the topic that I needed to be up-skilled on and those training videos on demand were not podcasts, technically, technologically at my company or at most big companies, but they could be.

Tina Dietz (09:33):

Yeah, definitely could be.

Jeff (09:34):

And if they were, they'd have better security.

Todd Cochrane (09:39):

One thing that we have really realized in the world we're living in now is people are working from home and they still need access to some of the stuff that's on the intranet maybe that is not available for a small business. Maybe they don't have a VPN system. Maybe people are just working off their laptops. So I think what we've really found here and what some of our recent calls have been is companies saying, "Hey, I need to be able to train. I need to put out updates. I need to put out sales training to my people in the field or contractors or brokers or any... In some cases, even teachers. So this gives them the ability to access the same exact content that may or may not be available on the intranet on a company, on a mobile device, via a app that they can still securely log into and access, or in some cases be able to authenticate and be able to listen in to watch the content on the web in the same way as if they were at the office and still remain secure.

Todd Cochrane (10:48):

I do want to go back to one point you made earlier is that one thing we've been doing at Blubrry is doing a... Jeff has been a big part of this. Is we want to make sure that as someone is coming in to use our products or services, whether it be the business owner and user, and then for the listener that it's easy to use for everyone, so we spent a lot of time on UIX work to make sure that this doesn't really cause someone's brain to explode when they come in. It's simple to set up. We've worked really, really a lot on that throughout our entire platform. We're seeing it pay off dividends and people coming in saying, "Yes, this is... Because the barrier to entry to podcasting is so low now, we want to make sure that it's accessible and usable to all users.

Tina Dietz (11:35):

Well, and that goes back to some of the fundamental reputation that Blubrry has. I mean, the PowerPress plugin, which I've been a user of in the past is very intuitive and that UIX, or user interface that you're known for making things simpler, so I'm not surprised, but also happy to hear that this is now, of course, in this as well. Going back to a couple of the points that Jeff had made about and you had made about utility. This is a platform that's available for access through mobile devices, but still having security, but also web based at the same time, so obviously everything here is lighter, so to speak, then a lot of intranet systems, which I think is, is important to know, particularly as we have more and more data that we're putting out, more and more content that we're putting out and things can get really heavy and sluggish on the back end, if we're not careful. Using podcasting and the way that podcasting works technically, I think, has some real benefits over some traditional methods of uploading video or uploading audio files directly, and then having to download them back again, or even stream them with the amount of caching that that particular takes. Am I right on that? Or am I just making that up?

Todd Cochrane (12:53):

No, I think you're right, and if you think about it too, from a company standpoint, the needs of a bank or a medical facility as compared to a business owner that is just trying to communicate with 50 employees, the needs are often very different. And what we've tried to do with this is make the use case for the customer to be able to give them, obviously, the security that they need for that content to be able to be consumed in as many places as possible to maintain the security that they require. Whereas some instances, the security may be much higher and there's actually limitations. Maybe they can't have the content available via the web. Maybe it's only available via the web app.

Todd Cochrane (13:48):

But the beauty about it is we've made this so simple that it can be either managed through a list that the customer provides and with the permission set, or it's authenticated through SSO, in which they're basically going to log into our system as if they were logging into their network at work to authenticate them to get access to the content. So we've tried to make it the barrier to entry, again... I shouldn't say barrier. The availability of the content as many places as possible dependent upon the security level requirements of the company, and I think we've got a really, really good insight on that.

Todd Cochrane (14:33):

Very strictly saying, "This is what we will deliver." There is no implied security. We basically say, "This is what we're going to do and what we can't do." So we're very, very clear on that in our product offering.

Tina Dietz (14:47):

That's really interesting. And I do want to dig in deeper to the security issues. Before we get to that, though, I've been having some thoughts as we've been going on in this series about internal podcasting and some of the use cases for it. One of the things we really haven't explored is the utility for this type of private internal podcasting platforms for companies that are maybe not medium to large size, not enterprise, though we certainly could see all of endless applications there, but smaller entrepreneurial networks. Being in that category myself, I couldn't help, but think about how some of these could be used in a way to get content out to say, an audience internal to a community, but not necessarily internal to a company. Do you see utility for that?

Todd Cochrane (15:40):

Yeah, and I think this is... We've made the base system of this offering so that if someone has a... Let's say they built up a mailing list of customers that you want to share a special message or a deal or whatever it may be, information on a product or something new that you're doing, but you don't really want that to go outside. Maybe it's a part of a consulting package that you're doing. That's perfectly suited for this. We'll be able to take really as simple as an email list and be able to set up the authentication so that only those folks that you want to have access to a specific show... You can have multiple shows and then subdivide them by, "Right. I want them to listen to the consulting package," or "I want them to listen to the advanced series." You can really subdivide that list as well, so that's fully part of this functional offering.

Tina Dietz (16:41):

Yeah. Because it's audio and video, this feasibly could be used as a course platform. For example, just like an intranet, so someone who's a consultant or a coach or something of that nature, or they have a team out in the field they're training, they're a real estate agent and they have a whole series that they want to get out to the rest of the people on their team, this could feasibly be on people's mobile phones or on their mobile devices and accessible from anywhere because they don't have quite as much security as say an enterprise level intranet secure information. Let's go back to the security levels and kind of what's appropriate for what use case scenario.

Todd Cochrane (17:22):

Yeah, and we can dig into that, but I think the thing we also have to think about those people that are there providing these online training courses, I often hear people say someone has stole my content and they repurposed it and they're using it somewhere else. We basically have got this set up so that if a person has created a training platform and they do not want this content to get out, we can even set it up so that it's never stored on the device. It's accessible via device, but it's not even stored.

Tina Dietz (17:56):

That's interesting.

Todd Cochrane (17:58):

Yeah. It's basically an on demand type of thing through an authentication, but then we've got... You go one level, I guess, lower in security, and we can encrypt that content on the device so that it's actually encrypted at rest. That's a big deal in internal podcasting all the way back up again to where they just have to authenticate through a web browser and get access to the content through a web browser, so if you're not so worried about those security levels, maybe Jeff can talk a little bit more about maybe some of those use cases.

Jeff (18:37):

Yes. I'd like to, and my mind really begins to spin when I think about all of the use cases, and we can use a lot of examples of live events that are happening today, everywhere. It might not be attended by everyone who needs the information, and yet, the information may not be intended for everyone. Let me give you an example.

Jeff (19:10):

All public companies usually have quarterly and annual earnings calls, earnings announcements, and they have prepared remarks, and then they do some Q and As, so the analysts have called in and are listening live to the earnings announcement, and at the end, the analysts can pose questions to some of the executives on the panel. That was a live event and can be recorded and of course, a lot of those public companies do record those earnings calls and make them available publicly. Well, what happens if you're a private company? You still have announcements. You still have earnings announcements, quarterly annually. However, they're not available to anyone who wants to hear them. They're intended for a limited audience that is employees, shareholders, et cetera, but not anyone from the community at large, so that live event is available to all the appropriate people after the live event because they weren't able to call in for the live event. That same use case that I just described, not necessarily for an earnings call or an earnings announcement, but for information that's periodically shared via a live event, but it might not be intended for the public rather for a limited audience, that's an internal podcast. That's an opportunity for an internal podcast.

Tina Dietz (20:56):

It really does seem endless the number of use cases we can come up with for this scenario. Now let's take a look at the security levels, and which security levels really ought to match up with which use case scenarios because I know there's multiple options here.

Todd Cochrane (21:12):

Sure. Let's say that you've created an HR document for onboarding. Maybe a HR video or audio program for onboarding with basically a welcome to the company. That's not something that's going to require a significant amount of security. It's not like that information gets out that a company's going to have a financial impact.

Todd Cochrane (21:35):

In that case, we would recommend the web browser access would be enabled. They would be able to subscribe and have that available via any podcast app. All they would have to do as authentication the feed on a per user basis. Then there's another level. There's a private feed with a private... So there's private feed. Give them a link per user or private feed with user authentication, and those are two very different things. In other words, with a private link that links really... If they share that somewhere, that will definitely be a lower security because someone would be able to access that. But if they had a private feed with user authentication, that's really where we get to the point where that person authenticates. "Yes, I am who I say I am and I have authority to get access to the feed and get access to that content." Then really you step in another level.

Todd Cochrane (22:35):

And then you go to not only the feed, but let's look at user access to media authenticated. We actually take it a step further where we say this media is actually authorized for this particular user class. And it can be authenticated then, even to the point where media, as I said, is not saveable. It can't be saved on a device. Really there's this whole different layer. Then there is a little bit dependent upon the type of device you use, so we have to look at the device that is being... If you're on an Android or a Apple, the security's handled a little bit differently between device. We're going to have both an iOS and an Apple podcast app available. It's going to be pretty cool where they'll be able to authenticate, login, they'll have some branding to show their company or their business...

Todd Cochrane (23:31):

Then the contents kind of display just like a standard podcatcher would. In other instances, you don't need our private app or not actually, it's going to be a public app that you can privately log into, but you'll... Some of these security levels, you'll just be able to use Apple Podcast or Overcast or whatever you may be using, but again, it depends on those layers and it gets kind of complicated because we've even got a matrix of different levels and what is... But you can turn on and turn off. Oftentimes we're definitely going to want to talk to each client and say, "Okay, what's your use case? What are... It's a bank maybe, or a hospital. Maybe it's going to be in the high end. If it's just a business owner trying to share HR material, something that's not going to be financially impactful, you're not going to need all that extra security.

Tina Dietz (24:23):

Right. And that of course is why it's so important to have that communication and where can folks find out more about the different levels of security and check out what's some of this interface kind of looks like because those of us who are visual learners, of course, the first thing we want to do is if go, "Can I see it?"

Todd Cochrane (24:41):

Right.

Tina Dietz (24:42):

Right, so where can we do that?

Todd Cochrane (24:45):

Private Internal Podcasting will be linked off Blubrry.com and it will be there. We'll have a product page set up for it along with screenshots of some of the interfaces. We'll actually have a demo account so that if someone wants to actually see how this works on the app, all they have to do is really reach out and contact us and say, "Hey, I'd like to get the access to the demo account." You'll actually be able to go in and we've created some content there. It's a little fun, but it'll look just like something that would be mocked up or something that a company would potentially have, so they get a look and feel to, "Wow, this is how this is really going to work." When instead of the... We call the new company that we've created, this fictitious company, Low Hanging Fruit enterprises, and you'll be on the Low Hanging Fruit enterprises private podcast page. And I think you'll be able to see the different levels and I will be able to demonstrate that.

Tina Dietz (25:46):

Well, that's really great, and we'll make sure that all of those links, that information is on the PodcastInc.co website in the show notes for this particular episode. So if you want to go ahead and see the live demo and check out all this information that Blubrry is offering, make sure you go to PodcastInc.co and get those links for you. That way you don't have to stop listening right now and take that information down. We've got that handled for you. Is there anything else that the two of you would love for our listeners to know about internal private, internal podcasting, or about this new offering, that Blubrry has?

Todd Cochrane (26:25):

Yeah. We're excited that we're going to be the first company that is offering this really kind of turnkey in that you can come in and buy the basic or the simple package right on the website. You may want to call us and talk to us, but if you know what you want, we've got that available where you just literally click and buy and get set up. Our enterprise offering obviously will... Which oftentimes will happen with someone will have questions or have a deeper need for different... A deeper consult or different levels of service will want to talk to them one on one, and I have a dedicated couple of salespeople that will be handling just this product whatsoever, and they're very familiar through and throughout of the product service, so I guess if you have any questions, you can always contact us but again, we're trying to make this as simple as possible for someone looking for a solution. Pricing will be right on the website. You can click and buy and set up the number of users you're going to have and all those things that factor in.

Tina Dietz (27:31):

Well, that's really exciting news and we are very excited to have you join us at the podcast in conference this fall whether it ends up being live or virtual and hearing more about how this platform is evolving and helping so many businesses get their information out in a more effective way to their people. Thank you both for joining me today.

Todd Cochrane (27:51):

Yeah. Thank you so much and I guess, if they have any questions, they can contact me, Todd, at Blubrry.com. Jeff, did you have anything else before we go?

Jeff (27:59):

I don't think so, but thank you, Tina, for having us on today and letting us share the news about our new product.

Tina Dietz (28:04):

Oh, absolutely. And we're so thrilled that you guys are sponsoring the Podcast Inc conference as well. It's been a delightful partnership and collaboration and yes, everyone, if you do want to reach out to Todd and with questions directly and you want to bypass our show notes, do reach out to Todd at Blubrry and Blubrry is spelled B-L-U-B-R-R-Y.com. That's B-L-U-B-R-R-Y.com so you have that information in your back pocket and you can reach out right away. Thank you listeners for joining us on this episode of the Podcast Inc. podcast as we lead up to the conference in this fall of 2020 in Washington DC, or online. We are on pins and needles as we try to make that decision in this changing climate that we're in right now. Join us next time as we continue to explore the world of private internal podcasting, it's applications across the board for businesses, and how you can make use of this evolving world of podcasting to reach more people, create more engagement and grow your business. We'll see you next time.

Tina Dietz (00:00):

We are wired for stories. Human beings have been telling stories around campfires and on journeys and over the water cooler for centuries. How does that translate into selling more products, amplifying your brand, or changing your company culture? Besides that, how do you solve business problems with podcasting? This is what we're diving in deep around today on Podcast Inc.

Tina Dietz (00:36):

Hello, again. It's your host Tina Dietz, CEO of Twin Flames Studios. Before we get started, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this wonderful podcast, if I do say so myself, is brought to you as a collaboration between the Podcast Inc conference, Heartcast Media, Twin Flame Studios and the Pioneering Collective.

Tina Dietz (00:57):

Welcome back to another episode of Podcast Inc where we're leading up to the podcasting conference in fall of 2020 all about internal corporate podcasting but, as you've probably noticed, we can't talk about internal corporate podcasting without talking about external corporate podcasting and all of the issues around that as well.

Tina Dietz (01:16):

It's an exciting world and it is an evolving world. Today on the show, I have Jonas Woost. Jonas is a digital media and entertainment executive with a passion for innovating in the digital content ecosystem. He is the director of strategy at Pacific Content, which is an award-winning podcast agency working at the intersection of brand strategy and high-quality audio storytelling.

Tina Dietz (01:39):

Pacific Content was named one of Entrepreneur's 100 Brilliant Companies and its clients include Dell Technologies, Facebook, Charles Schwab, Red Hat, and Mozilla.

Tina Dietz (01:50):

We had a great conversation about the place of storytelling in podcasting, both internal and external as well as using podcasting to solve business problems. All that and more. Let's get right to the interview.

Tina Dietz (02:05):

Jonas, thank you so much for joining us today.

Jonas Woost (02:08):

Thank you for having me.

Tina Dietz (02:09):

Yeah. You know, where I'd love to start this conversation is in your own passion you've spent so much time in broadcasting and the work that you do with Pacific Content Services some of the largest brands in the world but what's your personal take, your personal passion of what you love about podcasting, and about what you do out in the world with all these companies?

Jonas Woost (02:36):

I think myself and, obviously, many other people in the industry and in the community are passionate about storytelling. It's just fun to be part of a storytelling culture and a storytelling industry. The thing that in my specific role that sort of keeps it interesting every single day is the fact that when we work with organizations and we help them make some sort of podcast or tell some sort of story over audio, it's not so much make a podcast for them or tell a story or create audio or reach audiences.

Jonas Woost (03:12):

It's all about solving a problem. When organizations come to us, they have a specific business challenge or business problem that they want to solve. Obviously, they use lots of different tools and lots of different ways to solve that problem but when they think about using audio to solve a problem often they come to us.

Jonas Woost (03:31):

Working on how can audio solve a business problem? Say it's a brand perception problem or it's an awareness problem or they want to convert customers to do something, they want to inform people. Lots of different problems they might want to solve.

Jonas Woost (03:45):

For us to put almost like a puzzle together of how can audio solve the thing that they want to do and we talked to many organizations all the time so it's always a different problem, it keeps it interesting. That's what I find really, really interesting myself and then the storytelling goes on top of that and that becomes the vehicle to solve that problem.

Jonas Woost (04:07):

It's just kind of almost every day like a different challenge that I get to work on and then that's just hugely rewarding.

Tina Dietz (04:15):

What are some of the stories that you think that these companies, these organizations need to be telling, should be telling, or in some cases, are already telling?

Jonas Woost (04:26):

What we've seen is there are some stories that work really well that organizations should tell, can tell, and you know what? There are others that they maybe shouldn't tell. I think especially sort of day to day news and day to day journalism. Just from a partly practical point of view. Maybe that's not the place for organizations to be part of in terms of their own storytelling but anything that is inspirational, that changes a point of view, that gives background, I think organizations are a wonderful vehicle to tell those stories.

Jonas Woost (05:05):

The thing that we always talk to all of our clients about is that in podcasting the thing you can do in podcasting is you can go deep. There are so many other types of medium that just don't allow that for many other reasons. Let's all be honest, how many times did we open that New York Times article and we read the headline and we read the first two paragraphs, did we make it to the end? Maybe.

Tina Dietz (05:28):

Highly unlikely.

Jonas Woost (05:29):

Exactly. What we see with our podcasts and I'm sure there's many podcasts like that out there that we see completion rates 80%, 90%, 95%, ie, people listen to the whole story. They really spend half an hour with that story and that allows us to go deep and to show nuance. Nuance is something that is sort of maybe rare to find right now in the media landscape.

Tina Dietz (05:50):

Good point.

Jonas Woost (05:52):

We tell our clients that that's a great opportunity for the company not just to say, "Hey, we believe in X" or, "We think you should do Y", to actually say, "Let's really go into this topic deep and show different points of view" and the company can show they're not just about a thing and they're trying to tell people that they believe in something. It's kind of like show, don't tell if that makes sense?

Tina Dietz (06:17):

Yes. [crosstalk 00:06:17]. That's just what came to mind for storytelling principles, show, don't tell. Exactly.

Jonas Woost (06:22):

Then you can look at an issue from all the different angles. Still, there's a bit of a unique opportunity for a company, for an organization to tell stories in that nuanced way. Podcasts are really perfect for that.

Tina Dietz (06:37):

Do you find that there's a difference in storytelling between internal podcasting and external podcasting? The types of stories that get told or the problems that get solved? You know, what would be some of the differences and what might actually be the same?

Jonas Woost (06:55):

Maybe start with the same. Everyone that we've been talking to and everyone we work with, they really want to use whether that's internal or public-facing or external, they want to use great storytelling. They don't just want to have what might be a company newsletter and convert that into audio and read out the newsletter. Everyone has the intention of really using storytelling.

Jonas Woost (07:22):

However, I think often what we end up with is that organizations want to use the internal podcast to relay a little bit more of information as opposed to doing something that's inspirational and storytelling-based. They end up wanting to just have a bit more information-based.

Jonas Woost (07:41):

It's something that we're working through. We're always reminding companies the reason they want to have an internal podcast is, again, not to replace the company newsletter. It's to give more context, give more depth, give more nuance or show different emotions that you might not be able to tell or convey different emotions that you might not be able to convey in an email. There's a lot of work that we're doing on that to stick with the storytelling.

Jonas Woost (08:10):

If I could be frank, budget is always a concern. Like the types of stories that we would want to tell, rich, narrative, in-depth, human-based stories for an internal podcast it's not cheap to make and often there has to be some sort of justification on why we're spending all this money if we're "only" reaching our internal audience? I think that's going to be changing but that's a landscape that I think continues to evolve.

Tina Dietz (08:41):

I would have to agree with you because the issues that companies, particularly, large companies have ... You're maybe talking about a workforce of 5000, 10,000 people or more. That's more downloads than most podcasts could expect in a per-episode base. I mean, the average podcast is about 150 downloads. If you have a podcast internally to your larger company that gets thousands of listens and downloads you're making a larger impact than any average podcast out there.

Tina Dietz (09:12):

I think you're right. I think we will see some changes in the type of narrative storytelling that we love to do but you're right, from a production standpoint, takes a lot more time and a lot more energy and investment.

Tina Dietz (09:27):

Getting a little bit deeper into that, how do you find some best practices perhaps in working with companies as they deal with this storytelling or the hosting side of the podcasting? Because your company specializes in some beautiful rich, narrative storytelling style podcasts. How do you draw these stories out? How do you help the company find the right host?

Jonas Woost (09:58):

Drawing the stories out, yeah, that's ... It's kind of the fun part of our job, especially the early conversations with the organizations and especially when you have new clients because, if we're honest, that's a big learning curve. For everyone involved. Of course, for us, at Pacific Content because we'll have to learn about the company but then also often the individuals that we work with within the companies that they might not be experts on podcasting and they might not quite know what kind of stories they want to tell.

Jonas Woost (10:24):

What we rely on heavily is prototyping. We like to use the term rapid prototyping. What we often do is we would go after kick-off or strategy sessions, strategy meetings, we'll actually go back and record audio right away. These are not real stories. This is just scripted stuff that we record with colleagues just to get ... It's not so much the what do we want to talk about on the podcast but it's the how we're going to talk about it? What's the feeling? How is it hosted? Is it multiple hosts? Is it one host? Is it no hosts? What's the emotional arc? Is it funny? Is it light? Is it really in-depth? Is it really heavy?

Jonas Woost (11:00):

It's that kind of stuff that you can talk about and when it's people that maybe are professional audio storytellers then there is a shared lexicon and we can have references and you and I talk about the podcasts we want to make, we could probably talk about it enough and all have a shared understanding of what that podcast is going to sound like.

Jonas Woost (11:18):

When someone who has never done this before, they have no frame of reference, right? We might explain to them, "Well, it's going to sound like radio lab and it's also going to have a bit of this" but they actually will not understand what we're talking about.

Tina Dietz (11:29):

They wouldn't understand that. Sure.

Jonas Woost (11:30):

Even though they might say they will. We learned as soon as we send them audio just bang. Everyone has ears, right? Everyone gets it when they listen to it and they feel something or they don't feel something, that they'll know it. For us, that's a key tool to really use audio examples.

Jonas Woost (11:47):

Then when it comes to hosting, it's the same sort of thing. We might have some hosting ... As an example, we're not sure if we want to have one or two hosts, maybe that is sort of a problem that we're trying to solve. Instead of just talking about what it might feel like, we're just going to try it out and we'll just use ... The producer is just going to record themselves and show, well, this is a completely different dynamic if it's two people having a conversation about something, like a reply all maybe, than having something that is more scripted and a single host. This is the kind of stuff where we go back and forth and use audio a lot.

Tina Dietz (12:23):

I really love that idea of rapid prototyping because you're absolutely right. Conceptually, it's hard for people to mentally hear what that's going to sound like but if you can give someone several examples then they immediately get it and they'll probably have a very visceral reaction to, "Yes, that's it. That's what it was" but they didn't have the language or the background to articulate it necessarily. That's brilliant.

Jonas Woost (12:51):

I think I'm about to butcher up a quote but I think it was David Bowie who said dancing about music is like ... Sorry. Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. You know, to convert what you're saying into something you can actually hear is just sort of impossible until you can hear it.

Tina Dietz (13:10):

That's a brilliant point. You know, when we were working with internal and external podcasting, obviously, you're maybe solving some different problems what are some of the results that your clients tend to get from their efforts around both internal and external podcasting? What kind of problems get solved?

Jonas Woost (13:36):

I mean, it always depends, of course, it's really different but some of the currently ... I think it's changing, okay? I'm giving you lots of different vague answers. Most of the external podcasts that we're working on currently are kind of maybe top of funnel marketing exercises, brand awareness, brand positioning, brand perception. That is a lot of the work that we do. There might be an organization that might already have a good level of awareness in the market but they want to maybe change the perception a little bit. They don't want to be seen as X as much anymore. They'd rather be seen as Y.

Jonas Woost (14:13):

Again, this then goes to show, don't tell. Instead of a company saying like, "Well, we're not really about this anymore. We're not about that." Sure, you can say that but that is difficult for the market to believe that so instead you can show it by telling the kind of stories that exemplify the kind of thing that you're standing for, what your values are or what your products are really about. That is the sort of most popular request that we get right now is still very much on the brand level.

Jonas Woost (14:45):

I think over the last really six months even this is starting to change and now we're looking at more of a mid-funnel, a lot of mid-funnel requests where there might be specific products that are launching or something that's changing so it becomes a little bit more product-based. That is an interesting challenge for us. We love that challenge. It's not quite as easy.

Jonas Woost (15:06):

When you talk top of funnel you can tell great inspirational stories about how we can make the world a better place. Once you start specifically about products you've got to be smart. Storytelling is still an important part of that. The challenge is how can we make sure that it's not just a reading out the brochure or ... It's just like the specs of the product are being read out. [crosstalk 00:15:32].

Tina Dietz (15:31):

Or an infomercial of some kind. Yeah.

Jonas Woost (15:36):

Exactly. Exactly right. It takes additional work and I think it's also different individuals that we're working with where when we're making these brand-based top of funnel exercises, we're talking to people that are in the brand department and they have that big picture thinking about where they want to stand.

Jonas Woost (15:54):

When you're more working the mid-funnel space, they're marketing people. They're looking to convert, right? They're looking at the end of the day to see like how much did we sell of this? There's a different language that's being spoken to us if that makes sense?

Tina Dietz (16:05):

Absolutely.

Jonas Woost (16:07):

I mean, they come to us because they know they want storytelling as part of whatever they're launching and then we have to work with them together to figure out, "Okay, what are really the stories that are important and interesting around your product?"

Jonas Woost (16:24):

Typically, it ends up being like what does your product actually impact? Yeah, your product is like this or looks like that or makes this, that's all great but who is impacted? How is it solving someone's problem? What's happening to person X that might consider your problem? How is it going to change their life?

Jonas Woost (16:42):

That's where we then start looking at those human stories about like, oh, wow, the thing that you make really can change someone's life because it makes it better or it solves something or it's cheaper or whatever it might be. We need to find out the human part.

Tina Dietz (16:56):

Yeah. I think that's incredibly important. I was working with some executives at a large pharmaceutical company and they were looking at not so much having their own podcast but being podcast guests. A lot of the knowledge that kept coming out of their mouths was very clinical and very linear and I finally stopped them and said, "Let's just have a conversation about the people. Who do you know that has been impacted by this particular medicine?"

Tina Dietz (17:29):

They started talking and within about five minutes all of us were in tears. That kind of visceral moment, kind of like the rapid prototyping, you know it when you hear it, shifted the whole conversation. They're like, "Oh, okay. That makes sense. Tell the story. Don't worry about the stats and the results and the bullet points and the soundbites and all of that." It's who is this making a difference for?

Tina Dietz (17:55):

Then you can back up into some of the more technical parts of a conversation if it's the right kind of podcast, these guys are guests, but I would imagine that in the podcasting production side of things too with the storytelling that there is an arc in education going from this is kind of our ... Particularly with marketing folks, right? We all have a language. I've been in marketing for many years. This marketing language, the jargon that comes out and then moving them into these laymen terms that is a much more kind of emotional intuitive storytelling conversation.

Tina Dietz (18:38):

I was actually listening to a couple of your shows, the one from Charles Schwab and the one from Facebook. You know, both of them I was delighted to hear the depth of storytelling that was coming across on connection and your brain and making decisions and even the use of A Christmas Carol as an illustration for this very large financial company to talk about what does it take to change somebody's mind? What an interesting and fascinating conversation?

Tina Dietz (19:13):

You know, the depth of creativity here I think opens up the conversation for organizations to consider what podcasting makes available in terms of having an impact. Do you find that you have to overcome objections in terms of the measurements and the metrics? I know when I'm speaking on podcasting [inaudible 00:19:34] and I get a lot of questions about what's the ROI?

Jonas Woost (19:39):

No, we don't get objections. We get questions and those are fair and those are good questions. I should say, especially with the two examples that you mentioned in Facebook and Charles Schwab and actually most of our clients, they come in and they want to tell stories. It's not really an uphill battle. You talk about the language and there's a marketing language. I mean, they come to us because they're looking for storytelling expertise or hopefully that's why they come to us. I don't think they come to us because they just want us to record a podcast. Lots of people can just record a podcast, they can do it themselves, but having that sort of storytelling capacity and they come in with intention so they're listening.

Jonas Woost (20:16):

In terms of the measurement, absolutely, that is a tricky one, especially when you work at top of funnel podcasts, like what is the exact conversion? How many people at the end open an account with Charles Schwab? That's not easy to measure.

Jonas Woost (20:35):

Luckily, we can measure it, even like things that anyone who works in marketing is quite familiar with, we can measure, we can start with the listens or the downloads and that kind of stuff.

Jonas Woost (20:47):

The conversation we have about measurement very quickly moves towards time spent listening and that's really the number one thing we like to look at and the way we see is that podcast is really just an engagement medium and that's what we want to measure. If you get two million downloads or listens that doesn't actually reflect whether people liked it or they engaged with it or that were actually impacted by it, but what we tell people is like if someone listens to your podcast all the way through and subscribes and listens to another episode that's a pretty good indication that they are really engaging with your podcast and, therefore, with your brand.

Jonas Woost (21:23):

I mean, you have the choice to turn the podcast off at any time, right? If people listen to it all the way through and when we see our completion rates 80%, 90% we know like, okay, this is an average completion rate of 80%, 90%. We're very at peace with that. Clearly, the people that decided to listen to it really engaged with it and really enjoyed it, and hopefully they subscribed and listen to more podcasts.

Jonas Woost (21:44):

Time spent listening is the number one metric that we look at. Obviously, if there's lots of people that listen a lot, that's also great. Then we do branded stories. That's sort of quite easy and that's been around for a very long time, again, all marketers would understand that that we can expose people to an episode or two episodes and we can ask afterwards, "What do you think? Has it changed your perception?"

Jonas Woost (22:08):

One of the questions, of course, as part of this sort of [inaudible 00:22:12] we do is like do you remember the brand? Who was the sponsor of this thing? People remembered. Like even though with Charles Schwab I think I'm pretty sure the brand is mentioned twice at the start and at the end. Maybe one more time in the middle.

Tina Dietz (22:26):

That's about it. Yeah.

Jonas Woost (22:28):

Right? People remembered, people know.

Tina Dietz (22:29):

They just say the name, "Brought to you by Charles Schwab." That's it.

Jonas Woost (22:32):

That's exactly right. Consumers are ... They're savvy, right? They know what's going on. They know like, "Okay, well, this is a thing that is brought to you" or sponsored by ... They might not understand the exact sort of mechanics on like how it was produced but they get it. Okay, here's a podcast and then Charles Schwab sort of underwrote it and they know that. You don't have to keep telling them that.

Jonas Woost (22:53):

Then to measure afterward, "So now that you've listened to this how does that change your perception of Charles Schwab" or what you think before, what you thought afterward, and then we measure this and we've been very happy and, hopefully, our clients also have been very happy with results. Again, they went in deep, telling stories that represent the values of the companies that it works.

Tina Dietz (23:15):

Do you find that there is a difference in what you're measuring on for an internal podcast versus an external podcast? Or even I know internal podcasts tend to be very private for most companies so can you even have metrics for those kind of podcasts?

Jonas Woost (23:34):

I think maybe internal podcasts they ask ... It's kind of like work where public podcasts were a number of years ago where it's still very much focused on how many people actually listen to this thing. We've got 20,000 people working here. How many people listen to this?

Jonas Woost (23:52):

I think there's a wish that everyone is going to listen to it. I think that's just unrealistic. It's just not what people do. Very much the focus is still on like has this actually been consumed by a lot of people internally?

Jonas Woost (24:11):

I think then what action did people take afterwards? Which can be measured as well. I think that's also being measured but I think we're still pretty early on measuring impact. I think we have to all calibrate and figure out what's realistic here? If you have 100,000 people working for a company, we're all busy, are we going to have 80% listening to the podcast? Are we not? 5%? That just seems kind of low but it's somewhere in the middle, right? [crosstalk 00:24:40] everyone and it's certainly more than just a little handful.

Jonas Woost (24:45):

Actually I don't think we have a number where we would say, "This is a great success." We kind of have those numbers for public podcasts. We've done this enough. We understand with this kind of story, with this kind of marketing budget, we have a very broad understanding of what we would be happy with in terms of total hours listened. I don't think for internal I don't think we have that yet.

Tina Dietz (25:07):

I would agree that the data is not there. Part of that is because companies do want to keep their information private. I was wondering if you would speak to the difference of the production standpoint about what we're able to see because I think that a lot of companies would be surprised that we actually can't see a lot of what they're doing.

Jonas Woost (25:32):

That is correct. I can't name the clients but with one of the projects that we're working on, it is extremely secretive. For example, I have not heard the podcast and I'm not allowed to listen to the podcast that we're making for one of our clients. There's only a very small handful of people within our organizations that even listen to it and we're not allowed to store the audio files or the transcriptions. We're not allowed to use a human-powered transcription service because that means someone external would listen to the thing that we're making.

Jonas Woost (26:08):

Yeah, secretive. I mean, this is just making the podcast. Then getting the numbers of how was it performing? I don't know. They power it all, they manage it all. We actually don't know. I mean, we hear the feedback. Are you happy? Not happy? That's the sort of stuff that we can gauge, of course, based on what we hear but the exact numbers we don't know.

Jonas Woost (26:27):

Part of it is also ... I'm sure you've covered this or you will cover this on other episodes is just the sort of distribution mechanism. This is hard, right? How can you make sure that a podcast is only available to the people that work within the organization? Okay, that's possible. What if someone quits? Then we have to destroy ... You have a whole DRM system, which is hugely unpopular, of course, in podcasting in general. It's sort of the idea was always to do the opposite, to make the files available as easily as possible and then we go backwards in terms of internal podcasts.

Jonas Woost (27:00):

That doesn't help your consumption habits either. If I have to use yet another app for me to listen to the podcast that my company is publishing because it's not showing up in my sort of regular podcast feed that is just its own little challenge. You have to think about new ways of distribution, of reminding people, other intranets or other websites where people could listen to it?

Jonas Woost (27:23):

Every company kind of has their own solutions or is asking us to figure out a solution. But all that adds to the challenge of figuring out how do we measure it and what success actually mean?

Tina Dietz (27:35):

Yeah. That's a double-sided coin because figuring out those challenges and solving those problems is innovation and excitement and coming up with something new and new solutions are coming to the forefront. We'll be talking with Todd Cochran from Blueberry here, who they've just launched an internal podcasting platform. Of course, we've talked about Podbean and [inaudible 00:27:57] also having some different solutions.

Tina Dietz (27:58):

I think we'll continue to see more solutions come to the forefront as internal podcasting evolves and I think you're absolutely right. That internal podcasting is where external podcasting was maybe six, eight years ago? Maybe even 10 years ago? Down the pike. I think we're going to see a rapid increase in the consumption of it just because there's been so much interest in it, a huge influx of interest in it, and it doesn't have to be for an entire company. It can be for a division, it can be for an affinity group, it can be for a piece of the company and it doesn't have to be ongoing forever. It can be a limited series, for example, or experiments. Are you seeing the same kind of trends?

Jonas Woost (28:41):

I've had a conversation just this week with an organization ... Yeah, I would call them a large organization with dozens of thousands of employees and they're looking to use podcasts as a learning tool. They already have audio courses, video courses as well and audio courses and you can consume them to get further education within the company.

Jonas Woost (29:04):

They're looking to add a podcast level as well, which is a little more topical, a little more timely. It still has a learning element to it but you might interview other people that work in your organization. I haven't seen that before quite like that.

Jonas Woost (29:18):

The reason I'm telling you this is that it sort of keeps evolving, which is fantastic. There's like, "I never thought of this" and it comes to us as an idea and I'm telling you about it and I'm probably going to mention this to someone else as well. Good thing it's a ... I think it's such a great way of doing it.

Jonas Woost (29:34):

The one thing that holds it all together, which it is the thing that we are really passionate about is how can we use ... Maybe it's two things for me. First of all, how can we use storytelling to better have internal conversations within the company? Let's not just do the email that says like, "Well, no, we are doing X and the quarter results are Y and we've got a new CFO" and all that kind of stuff.

Jonas Woost (29:55):

How can we bring storytelling into all of this? Make it more compelling but also to really convey not just about what's the company doing but also where are we heading? What's the thing that we're doing? What's the vision of the company? It's easy to talk about a vision but to maybe illustrate the vision using audio I think is super powerful.

Jonas Woost (30:13):

The other thing is on a much more practical level when you work for a big organization, and I've worked for some, you don't want to read another email. You don't want to read another thing from the CEO that talks about another thing. It becomes like a time suck. It's like, "Oh, here we go. Here's another eight minutes of my life when I have to go through this and click on the thing and maybe watch the video."

Jonas Woost (30:33):

Just being able on a very practical level to being able to listen to something while I used to go to work and drive to work or use public transit. That is not happening right now [crosstalk 00:30:46].

Tina Dietz (30:47):

Going for walks.

Jonas Woost (30:48):

Going for walks. Thank you. Yeah.

Tina Dietz (30:48):

Going for walks.

Jonas Woost (30:49):

We're recording this in April 2020 so going for a walk or doing the dishes, being able to consume something while you do something else, or maybe even do other work. Maybe it's something like an internal podcast you can listen to while you do your actual work. It's just on a practical level that just is very handy. It doesn't eat into your other work activities. It's on top of everything else. I mean, even if you add up all the hours, if you have 100,000 people working somewhere for all of them to read an email for 10 minutes versus listen to the podcast while they're still working there is actually an economic sort of incentive to say, "Well, maybe we want people to listen to a podcast as opposed to read another thing."

Tina Dietz (31:29):

Exactly. Well, there's so much research around screen fatigue and around email fatigue and actual health impacts that are being reported far and wide about all of those factors. Audio being, by far, the most portable form of media. It really helps people and you don't have to engage that visual cortex, you don't have to consume information or read another thing, like you said.

Tina Dietz (31:55):

It definitely is a different experience both from a practical standpoint and even a neurological standpoint, particularly when you add the storytelling on top of it and then it doesn't feel like you're having to learn something or take in a lot of hard information. We are naturally wired to learn from stories. That makes it a lot easier as well.

Tina Dietz (32:20):

From a more practical standpoint, if a company was looking at potentially having a podcast, either internally or externally, what are some of the things they would want to think about or have in place even before, say, coming to Pacific Content?

Jonas Woost (32:40):

A lot of the times ... We're very lucky. A lot of people approach us. Often, they come to us with, "We want to make this podcast" or, "We're thinking of making the following podcast" or, "These are the ideas" and there's always one question I ask right away and I try and say it in a polite way, hopefully, it doesn't come across strange but I ask them why? Why do you want a podcast? That is often the step that people forget or sometimes they know why and I just want to find out myself. What is the real business reason to make a podcast? What's the problem that we're trying to solve here?

Jonas Woost (33:14):

What happens a lot on a regular basis is that people come to us and they want to make a podcast and, yes, they want to make a podcast but they actually don't have the, in our opinion, maybe the right reasons so then we're going back to saying, "Well, is that really the reason? Aren't you trying to solve this?"

Jonas Woost (33:31):

As we talk to them, pivoting why they want to make a podcast? This happens quite a lot. That is really sort of the groundwork is like what is the problem that we're trying to solve? Then, obviously, this is an obvious one for us who work in the industry but [inaudible 00:33:47] who do we want to reach? A narrow audience is great and that's something that we keep saying. It's fine to keep it narrow. You don't have to reach everyone. It's totally fine. If you think, "We want to reach ..." We work with a lot of tech companies. If you want to reach IT decision-makers in North America you think that's a small group of people, right? There can't be that many people [crosstalk 00:34:12].

Tina Dietz (34:12):

Comparatively, yes.

Jonas Woost (34:14):

But it's actually there's still so many people, it turns out thousands of people in that group so it's actually kind of a big group. Then we always say, okay, say that's our target group, that's fine and if we reach some other people, that's great. That's great collateral damage, doesn't cost us anything. It would be like it's wasted, right? We're reaching a bunch of people that are not going to buy your product so it's not actually meeting your business goals, which typically in a marketing context would be quite expensive, right? If you buy a bunch of ads somewhere and they don't reach the right people that's really expensive and a waste. Well, a podcast, yeah, sure, it's a waste. It's a great waste.

Tina Dietz (34:49):

It's a fantastic waste because you never know who those other people might know who might refer the podcast to may have another contact. You just don't know but it doesn't cost you any more.

Jonas Woost (34:58):

You got it. You got it. For marketers, it's not super obvious, right? It's obvious for us but some people don't even necessarily know how much does it cost to publish a podcast? That knowledge is not around. When that clicks with people and they realize, "Oh, right. This doesn't cost ..." That's a big moment for a lot of people because then it also changes the storytelling a little bit. Then we can say, "Okay, we want to reach the IT decision-makers." Well, we can still stories that are actually interesting for people, including IT decision-makers but also a bunch of other people.

Jonas Woost (35:32):

Actually this is exactly what we're doing with our Trailblazers project with Dell Technologies where it is a show that is really available and interesting for anyone who is interested in disruption and technological innovation, including IT decision-makers, which are the kind of people that Dell would want to reach but also a bunch of other people.

Jonas Woost (36:00):

Sorry. Going back to your question. Really trying to figure out what's the business goal? Who are we trying to reach? I think that's a great start. Then based on that, we with our clients have the kind of conversations, if this is what we want to do what's the kind of stories? What's the kind of tone? What's the kind of audio experience that we want to create that might help you solve that problem?

Jonas Woost (36:24):

That always is a complete collaboration. At no point, will we come in and say, "Well, you got to do X and that's going to be the solution." We actually don't [crosstalk 00:36:33].

Tina Dietz (36:33):

That doesn't work very well.

Jonas Woost (36:35):

It doesn't work very well. Actually, we always say that, I don't have any solutions, I have no solutions. We can develop the solutions together with our clients. The clients understand the problem and their business, of course, we understand audio storytelling and podcasting in general, and there's sort of that Venn diagram of us together then moving forward and make something that has a great impact. I think I might have moved on a little bit from your question here but that's sort of the way we like to work in collaboration.

Tina Dietz (37:01):

We're in the middle of storytelling here, Jonas. It's all good.

Jonas Woost (37:03):

Yes, clearly. Clearly.

Tina Dietz (37:04):

Exactly. Exactly. Obviously being inside the industry, I am intrigued by everything and to be totally and complete transparency, even as a podcast production house owner myself, I have a little bit of a professional crush on Pacific Content because of the level of content production that you do, that beautiful narrative, editing, and content storytelling development requires an enormous amount of talent, an enormous amount of planning, an enormous amount of labor when you get right down to it but the results are just fantastic and wonderful to listen to.

Tina Dietz (37:45):

I really appreciate you taking the time to join us here today and whether it's virtual or live, I look forward to hearing more from you and seeing you one way or another at the Podcast Inc Conference this fall of 2020.

Tina Dietz (37:58):

Thank you, everyone, for joining us here today on Podcast Inc. remember, you can go to Podcast Inc dot co and find out more about this upcoming and developing conference that is happening in fall of 2020.

Tina Dietz (38:11):

As podcasting develops, internal podcasting is constantly emerging and constantly coming up with new innovation and ways to solve problems. If you have questions, you can reach out to Jennifer at Podcast Inc dot co or, like I said, go to Podcast Inc dot co for signing up for information and all the details about the show that's coming up.

Tina Dietz (38:35):

I'm Tina Dietz from Twin Flames Studios and we'll see you next time here on Podcast Inc.

Tina Dietz (00:01):

What exactly is needed for an internal podcast to support the culture of a company? How do you create a podcast that helps create raving fans inside your company, not just outside? Can you create a podcast that serves both the external fans you want to reach, plus build the internal culture of your company at the same time? We're finding out today on Podcast Inc.

Tina Dietz (00:35):

Welcome back, podcast fans. It's Tina Dietz, the CEO of Twin Flame Studios, and your host for this journey through internal podcasting. We're leading up to the Podcast Inc Conference in the fall of 2020. In the meantime, we're giving you all kinds of information and experts who are all over the podcasting world, internal, external, talking about communications, talking about leadership. How does this emerging world of podcasting serve the greater good, serve your business, serve your culture? All of those questions we're exploring in this particular series.

Tina Dietz (01:10):

I'm very happy to be producing this show in connection with the Podcast Inc Conference, as well as our partners, the Pioneering Collective and Heartcast Media, as well as my own company, Twin Flame Studios.

Tina Dietz (01:23):

Jay Wong, the founder of  Podcast Your Brand, joins us today. Jay, I have actually known for a number of years. We came up in the podcasting world together, and always seem to have parallel paths when we haven't seen each other in years. Do you have anyone like that in your life, that every time you meet up, you find incredible synergy? Well, that's what Jay and I have.

Tina Dietz (01:43):

Jay's company helps emerging thought leaders, business owners and companies launch top 100 shows on iTunes, so that you can put a voice to your marketing, and amplify your reach and impact to new customers. His agency has been working with franchise companies listed on the Inc 5000 to increase the retention rates of new operators by 15%, as well as increasing annual sales by an average of 21% in 2019.

Tina Dietz (02:08):

Jay and I talk about marketing your podcast internally, as well as externally, and we get into some fascinating points about the synergy between the two. Let's go right to the interview.

Tina Dietz (02:22):

Jay, thanks for being here.

4. Jay Wong (02:23):

Always a pleasure. Super excited to do this.

Tina Dietz (02:26):

Yeah, you and I go way back. You and I met in Toronto at an event called momondays many, many years ago, before you and I had even started with podcasting. Podcasting wasn't even in the common vernacular. We have found ourselves, very different places in the world, different journeys, but we have these intersection points that are always really ironic to me.

Tina Dietz (02:47):

Before we get into some of the case studies, your thoughts, and information that you have about your experience with building podcasts for brands, which is just fantastic stuff, I benevolently stalk you all the time, I really want to hear your take on what you feel the current climate is for podcasting specifically for larger organizations, both internal and external, because I know you have a lot of expertise in this arena.

4. Jay Wong (03:19):

Yeah. Tina, it's a fascinating topic, because I think it's something that we both can agree that we are watching the marketplace shift. It's almost like we could ... I know when I say this, that I know that you can sense it as well, because of your business and the work that you're doing.

Tina Dietz (03:38):

Absolutely.

4. Jay Wong (03:39):

We see it all the time, because we started our agency working with different thought leaders, different experts. That's been going really great. It's still the majority of our clients, but in the last couple years, we've seen the shift where companies now are looking at podcasting, but not for the same reasons, as in they don't necessarily care too much about the external maybe ranking. They don't necessarily care too much about the downloads, though of course it does matter in terms of consumption. But they want to leverage the medium to be able to drive an insane culture for what they're building, because it's almost like even though it's external, they're using it for internal reasons. So any type of organization with a crazy sales team, or a sales-driven culture, which we can imagine that's most companies out there ...

Tina Dietz (04:26):

That's certainly a lot of them, if not most of them.

4. Jay Wong (04:29):

Right. That are looking to grow, that are looking to expand. I think the questions that they're thinking is, "Hey, if we're going to do any type of content marketing strategy, can we get some of the external benefits of relevance? Could we be where people are looking? Can we get some of that going? But at the same time, how can we go deeper internally with all of our people, from a culture standpoint, from a retention standpoint. Also, how can we go deeper with our best clients?"

4. Jay Wong (04:56):

A lot of the companies we get a chance to work with, they almost treat it, even though it's an external show, that they use the content there almost like a broadcast to their best clients. Because we all know once a customer is a customer, it's so much easier to get them to spend more with us, rather than always going for the new.

4. Jay Wong (05:18):

Now, there's a whole argument about external and opt-ins, and running paid ads behind that. But I do see this marketplace shifting a lot more to leveraging the medium of podcasts to, I think, the true power really of how audio could be leveraged.

Tina Dietz (05:35):

Yeah. There's so much conversation about content marketing. Most companies have established content marketing, internal, external teams that are working on this. What's been your experience, and what advice would you have for any companies considering podcasting to make it work with your internal marketing teams to begin with?

Tina Dietz (06:00):

Because I know that sometimes when we're working with companies, the marketing team has some concerns about it being a lot more work for them. That's not always the case. Podcasting, obviously we're biased here, but the thought of dovetailing it together ... What's your recommendations when you sit down with a marketing team and say, "Okay, here's some of the benefits. Here's how this can work together"?

4. Jay Wong (06:25):

Sure. Yeah. This is a brilliant question, because I think it's a lot of ... CEOs ask us, all the VP marketing people ask this. So we came up with this analogy or this way of thinking about it. We called it the Podcast Your Brand Triangle Effect, Podcast Your Brand being the name of our company.

4. Jay Wong (06:44):

It's essentially teaching all of our clients that podcasting is one piece of the puzzle, as we all know, and as we can all make that grasp, but what are the other components to this? Just from broad strokes, because I know every company's divvied up differently, we have a podcast or a content engine on one side. The second point is an email list. It could be email list of buyers, email list of your newsletter list, that type of email list. The third form is a sense of community, whether that's a private group that you have, or maybe a members group that you have.

4. Jay Wong (07:22):

What you're really looking to do with any content really is to start cycling people through these three different areas, meaning that the call to action on the podcast, you don't have to overthink it, you're driving people to the two other to other places. You're driving people, "Hey, hop onto our email list, and be able to get behind the scenes training," or fill in the blank over there. Or join our membership over there. It could be free. It could be paid.

4. Jay Wong (07:46):

A really good example of this is, literally at the time of recording this, we are working with the Procter & Gamble alumni network. When we started chatting with them, we presented this kind of similar strategy. We said, "Hey, what's important for you at the end of this? Why would you invest any time, any dollars, any energy in thinking of putting together any show? Is it about retention? Is it about sales?" "Jay, really it's about increasing the members of our Procter & Gamble alumni network. That is it. If you help us do this, we are in" so yeah, there's a bit of an email list play there. There's a bit of a podcast play there, but their ultimate is to drive people into the community.

4. Jay Wong (08:24):

So I think every company has to ask, "Hey, what's in it for us?" Some of the people we work with, they say, "Hey, we want to massively grow our email list." So the call to actions on the email list is to the other two places, but vice versa for the other two places, I hope this is making sense ...

Tina Dietz (08:40):

Yes, it is.

4. Jay Wong (08:41):

... is calling back to the email list.

4. Jay Wong (08:44):

This is where you're creating for, whether it's an existing client, whether it's a new person, whether it's somebody that just came into your world, whether they saw the CEO speak, or they read this press release, wherever people come in. Now, once they're in your world, it seems like you are everywhere a little bit. You're in the email. Where is email? In the inbox, on your phone. If you have a podcast, you're in the car or on the planes, hopefully, when we resume traveling at a later point. Then a sense of community, I think that's what everybody ultimately is always seeking for.

Tina Dietz (09:19):

What's so interesting about everything that you just said is that we could take that conversation about community, about calls to action and having people take specific actions, all of those things, generating a sense of excitement and all that, we can take that and say, "Okay, well this is going to be an internal conversation, or it's going to be an external conversation."

Tina Dietz (09:43):

That points back to what you said before, that a lot of external podcasts for companies are also used internally. Of course, this is one of the things we talk about in the world of corporate podcasting all the time is that it's a medium that can simultaneously serve the clients you have, the clients you want to have, and your internal culture at the same time. It's kind of that, going back to my deep love of commercials and infomercials from when I was a kid, it's that three things, three things, three things in one, to harken back to something like that.

Tina Dietz (10:16):

But everything you just talked about also points to a deeper conversation that is very active in the corporate community, which is engagement and the desperate need, the deep, deep desire to make sure that your team, your workforce, your culture is highly engaged. So this cycle that you're talking about, these three points, all I could see would spiral into creating a deeper engagement, whether we're looking at internal or external communications.

4. Jay Wong (10:49):

Tina, on top of that, it creates that the brand is top of mind. We all know branding is more of a longer term play.

Tina Dietz (10:57):

Yes.

4. Jay Wong (10:57):

But especially when people come into your world, when they're inquiring about your services or products, a lot of times they're not actually ready to buy. A lot of times they might be doing research. They might be six months out. Tons of research says that typically people make a buying decision, anytime they inquire about anything, within about half the time, that it would take them about 18 to 24 months to really make a buying decision.

4. Jay Wong (11:23):

Now, does that mean you have to podcast for 24 months? Does that mean you have to have all these components rolling? Well, ideally you do have them, but you want to make sure that it's top of mind, and it's converting for people that are ready right now. Also, at the same time, for people that are not ready, they're still getting tons of value, and they're still seeing it, so that when they are ready, the company, whether it's a corporate company or a thought leader, they become the only selection, if that makes any sense.

Tina Dietz (11:50):

Absolutely, it does. Well then let's take this back a couple of steps. What do you find is needed for, let's call it an internal podcast, to support the culture of a company, or even an external podcast to support the culture of a company so that it does grow, so that it does expand in the way that the company would like it to?

4. Jay Wong (12:12):

Yeah. There's so many different ways of tackling a podcast. Do we make a Q&A show? Do we interview other legendary bright minds in the industry? You know what I mean? Do we do internal type of interviews? Do we interview our best clients, and have them on as case studies indirectly, and promote their business, and promote the work that we've been able to do?

4. Jay Wong (12:39):

But I think everything that I could probably say boils down to, call it, thoughts or frameworks. One is, I would say, stories, the idea of storytelling, the idea that we learn best from stories. I think that, in a lot of ways, the fact that we're talking about podcasting, first of all, there's a certain intimacy with voice.

Tina Dietz (13:03):

Absolutely. Hear that all the time.

4. Jay Wong (13:05):

Yeah. I think we could all just genuinely agree. If you're listening to this, or if you're into the idea of internal podcasting or external podcasting or anything around that, I think subconsciously we're all drawn to the idea that, "Wow, there is that level of intimacy that really doesn't exist anywhere else, that doesn't really exist on other platforms."

4. Jay Wong (13:24):

We're not talking about a 10 second or 15 second type of video that's meant to be funny and entertaining. Sometimes podcasts are, not to say that they're not. But there's a certain level of intimacy that comes with audio, comes with the voice. I know you're a big proponent of that, but when you pair that with storytelling, good storytelling ...

4. Jay Wong (13:44):

You don't have to necessarily overthink it, and have to always create these type of like true crime shows and things like that. But just even storytelling from the vantage point of, "Hey, the other day, this happened. Has that ever happened to you? Has this scenario ever presented itself to you?" and being able to leverage that story as content in the moment. "Hey, there's a whole global situation going on. What are your thoughts around that? What's your perspective on that?" I think it all circles around the power of storytelling and merging that really with the intimacy of voice. I think that's one.

4. Jay Wong (14:23):

I think for companies, the other one, and I think this for, it's not just companies, whether big, small, I think the best companies, and we can all think of them, when we think of the best companies, we all know that they stand for a mission. Chances are, they have some type of ... They exude their values onto social media and onto their websites. We all have seen it. We go to a company website. "Here's our mission. Here's our values." Well, I think the best podcasts, the best type of show, especially for customers or new people or old people, however you want to think about it, it's an extension of your values.

Tina Dietz (15:01):

That's exactly it. Actually, I had made some notes before we talked today, because I wanted to tease this out a little bit further. Can you give some examples or a little case study on how values actually might get infused into a podcast? Because we do, we tell stories all the time. We tell stories unconsciously all the time. This is really a process of taking the storytelling that we naturally do as human beings, and making it conscious instead of unconscious. How does that all fit in, or what are some other ways that companies can use podcasting to make it an extension of their values?

4. Jay Wong (15:41):

We work with a company called Student Works Management Program. Essentially, what they do is they work with 18, 19, 20 year olds. They pick them up from business school, and they essentially get them to run painting businesses, essentially under the Student Works brand name. So they'll take these young kids, really, and they'll teach them the insides and outsides of running a painting business, hiring people, the whole nine yards. These individuals get a chance to run this business under the brand name. They get certain postal codes and district codes.

4. Jay Wong (16:18):

The reason I'm setting up this context here is because when we started working with Student Works, they really haven't done a lot of online marketing at that time. At the time, I don't think they've ever really generated any leads online, really, that they could trace back.

4. Jay Wong (16:32):

So they were looking for, one, a way to be relevant, but, two, they wanted the people to buy in further, as most companies do. We're creating a culture within what they're doing. One of their ... They have these amazing values. We attract people with big engines, and always say please and thank you, kind of like breaking down the four referrability habits, for example.

4. Jay Wong (16:58):

But they took each one of their values, let's say they have four or five of them, and those became these types of solo type of episodes, where the CEO was the host of the show. They would just say, "Hey, one of our values of our company is we always finish what we start," and he'll start telling stories right around that.

4. Jay Wong (17:20):

Once again, it's just drilling in the fact for all his listeners, "Hey, look. This is the type of company we are. These are the types of people we work with. These are our ways of thinking and solving problems."

4. Jay Wong (17:31):

What it really creates is it creates a choice in the listener. Because now me, as a listener, I can go, "You know what?" Our client's name is Chris. "Chris is right." You know what I mean? "I am this person. If I'm in this company, this is how we act. This is how we solve issues."

4. Jay Wong (17:51):

What he's really doing, he's creating these raving fans for people that work for his company, for people that sell for his company. The impact of this, if you're wondering, he sent me a nice little text message a little while ago, just at the beginning, or sorry, at the beginning of their recruiting season, which was in the fall, so just a few months ago. He said, "Jay, most years, we have about 35% retention rate. That's that would be good, solid, standard. This year, not only did we exceed 40, but we hit 52%."

Tina Dietz (18:25):

No kidding. That's a 15% jump. That's a large jump for retention.

4. Jay Wong (18:31):

It's a massive jump, because not only now they're saving significantly less money on recruiting, because literally over 50% of people from year one just renewed to year two, but now ...

Tina Dietz (18:41):

Yeah, spending a lot less on recruitment. Now you don't have to train them. They're already trained.

4. Jay Wong (18:45):

On top of that, the buzz. Think about it. If you're coming back, it's kind of like the momentum of doing great things. You know what I mean? It's one thing to wake up at 5:00 AM once. "Hey, that's cool. Maybe it's an Instagram share. Maybe it's a social media thing." But if you wake up at 5:00 AM every day, and you're focusing on whatever it is that you're looking to create, or the business, or you're focusing on a hobby, it's going to be night and day. It's that momentum that they're feeling internally. That lends itself for them to break records. It lends themselves to them creating the type of culture that they speak about.

Tina Dietz (19:22):

Those statistics are really fantastic. That's a significant impact on how that company does business. I also think that's really interesting. It's another demonstration of an external podcast with internal benefits, and how that all comes together.

Tina Dietz (19:42):

Just illustrating the thinking of this, as we're leading up to the podcasting conference, this fall of 2020, and some of the things that we want to get everybody thinking about how to use podcasting in these settings. It's not limited to only internal communications, only external communications. There is this fantastic juicy crossover that happens when brands are really aligned, really showcasing and clear on their values, and clear on their why. I'm a big Simon Sinek fan, so this whole thing about beginning with why I think it goes for podcasting just like anything else.

Tina Dietz (20:20):

Jay, you launch a lot of top 100 podcasts. [crosstalk 00:20:25] Marketing is a big, big strength for your agency. So I was wondering if you'd be willing to share a few things with the listeners here about some of the best practices around marketing, and this can be internal as well, you got to get people to buy in, but marketing of podcasts. What are some of the things that you have to have, and maybe one or two things that people tend to miss?

4. Jay Wong (20:50):

Yeah. It's really interesting. Because it's an interesting question from the standpoint of, I think a lot of times people ... We onboard individuals and companies all the time, and I say, "Hey, when would you ideally want to have this podcast out?" A question like that, timeline question, just so we have a certain timeline that we can guarantee a certain type of result.

4. Jay Wong (21:13):

A lot of times, they'll say, "Jay, we're hiring you because we wanted the podcast last month. Okay? We wanted the podcast six months ago. We wanted the podcast a year ago."

Tina Dietz (21:22):

I hear that.

4. Jay Wong (21:24):

It's been this idea that we went from Q3 of last year, to Q1 now, to maybe we'll do it later on the year. For whatever reason, they believe, "Hey, we're going to start creating this podcast. We're going to start ranking, and we're going to build off of there." I think that's a really great simplistic way of thinking about it.

4. Jay Wong (21:45):

I also think, to point out, is that not only are you, it's a little bit of a training in your mind that you got to think about it, meaning that we're building our clients into the habit of creating content, meaning that every so often, we're going to batch content, we're going to do interviews, we're going to talk about our values. So there's that side of it.

4. Jay Wong (22:08):

But the other side that I think a lot of people miss, which is you need to actually train your audience to actually receive content from you. It's not like we're going to create the biggest and baddest show today, and all of a sudden ... I haven't done any training on this side. I haven't actually ever promoted to them. I've never shared content consistently with them.

4. Jay Wong (22:29):

So I think there's something to be said around the consistency and longevity of any show, or at least making it very clear in the beginning, "Hey, this is going to be a 10 part series." "Hey, this is going to be a five season type of show. We're going to only do it from these months to these months." Or it's going to be a daily show. Whatever the commitment is that we all agree upon, I think there needs to be this battle of not only are we training ourselves to find our voice, to become the voice for our industry, and to put a voice behind all of our marketing and products, that's one side of it, but we need to be training our audience. We need to be training, just like you said, the buy in for everybody that's listening.

4. Jay Wong (23:15):

That really fundamentally makes a massive difference where a show starts and where a show ends up in about three months, six months, a year down the line.

Tina Dietz (23:24):

That's very true. It does take some persistence. It's the same thing with any type of material that we create in the world of thought leadership, or you want to get your message out there in any way, shape or form. Many times we get tired of saying the same thing over and over again way before our audience gets tired of it. So it's having that persistent willingness to get out there and go, "Have you listened? Hey, check this out." "Hey, what about this? Hey," all of that in these lovely little touches, from the sense of being of service and letting people know what's going on.

4. Jay Wong (24:05):

Even your biggest fans will miss the greatest hits. If they watch and they love the greatest hits, I guarantee you they'll love listening to it again. [crosstalk 00:24:16] And they'll love listening to an updated version of it.

4. Jay Wong (24:20):

So it's thinking beyond of these, hey, this is a one trick pony type of thing. Hey, we interviewed Tina. We can't possibly have Tina again on the show for a 2.0 version or a different perspective now. Do you know what I mean?

4. Jay Wong (24:36):

It's thinking about not just how we can hit the top 100, and not just how we can have a great launch, which is within the first, let's say, couple weeks, or even couple months of launching a show, it's the literally zoom out and say, "How can we have a great show? How can we build these great characters in the people that come on?"

4. Jay Wong (24:54):

It's almost like building our own version of the Avengers or the superhero of a certain company. How can we follow these individuals? Because a great premise of a podcast is, "Hey, I'm interviewing you." We want it to be a great discussion, but I also, in the promotion of it, I want to celebrate you. So it's almost like the podcast is not about the host as much as it is about the person.

Tina Dietz (25:19):

It's all about the listener, yeah.

4. Jay Wong (25:22):

[crosstalk 00:25:22] Let's take it even further. Let's make it a massive win for the listener, and let's be able to celebrate the individual constantly. You know what I mean? Because if we were able to have them on once, maybe it's a great debate. There's just so many great ways of thinking about it.

4. Jay Wong (25:39):

I think, tactically speaking, when you're launching a show, just like when you're launching anything, and I know Tina, you have tons of experience around audio books and digital products and obviously podcast launches as well. I think a lot of times people actually, you were pretty spot on with it, which is, they're almost scared of promoting said thing over, that it's like, "Oh, I already-"

Tina Dietz (26:01):

"Oh, I'm going to bug them. I'm going to bug them."

4. Jay Wong (26:02):

Right, exactly. Or, "Jay, I already made a post around the podcast," or, "We're already doing this. We already shared this thing about the episode." It's like, "Look. Our job is not to quote unquote game the algorithm, or to just be able to hit results once. If we're truly building something in integrity that we stand by, that we believe in, that it's an amazing piece of culture, then there shouldn't be as much resistance to sharing great pieces ..."

4. Jay Wong (26:35):

Because you know if it makes an impact for just one person, whether it's someone on your team, whether it's a customer, whether it's a new person, it could really make it all worth your while while you're doing the show.

Tina Dietz (26:49):

Absolutely. When we go out and we have a great meal at a restaurant, I'm looking forward to that again, and when we read a great book, or we watch a great movie, we don't hesitate to share with a lot of people. We don't hesitate to share more than once, or even to follow up and say, "Hey, did you end up going to that place?" "Hey, did you end up reading that book?" "Oh, if you didn't, there's this other part you're going to love." We have no issue doing that.

Tina Dietz (27:13):

But when it comes to something that we feel is a part of us, that we have ownership in, then it becomes an issue of ... It gives a little enmeshed with our identities. Having a little bit of critical distance between that ownership and the good of the culture, the good of making a difference for the teams that are out there, and getting the word out, is super important.

Tina Dietz (27:40):

It does take some practice if you're not used to being in that kind of a position, but we do people a big disservice that we don't. I wholeheartedly agree, that it's all about creating something people really will get value from and really enjoy more than anything.

Tina Dietz (27:58):

I love the superhero thing. I love cliffhangers and things like that, because you can make anything interesting with that, "Stay tuned in our next episode, when we'll find out if our intrepid heroes hit their sales numbers for Q3." It could be anything as you're going along with that.

4. Jay Wong (28:15):

Absolutely.

Tina Dietz (28:15):

As we're wrapping up here, is there anything else that you would really want to make sure that a company knows before they go into this world of podcasting? Any questions that you want to leave with them that they need to ask before they pull the trigger or take another step?

4. Jay Wong (28:36):

There's obviously different thoughts and different ideas around podcasting, how to execute it, how to integrate it. But I think fundamentally it comes down to what is your ongoing conversation?

4. Jay Wong (28:51):

What I mean by that is that we all have friends in our lives that they're like the fit friend, that they sign up to hike Kilimanjaro, and will run a half marathon or a full marathon. They're always biohacking. They're doing all sorts of different diets and stuff. So every time you see them, regardless of your fitness level, you think about how to relate to this person. You go, "Hey, you know what? I signed up for the yoga class the other day." "I started this new type of diet," or, "I started taking these new type of biohacking pills," or what have you.

4. Jay Wong (29:26):

There's an ongoing conversation there, versus your friend that you guys go on trips together, or you guys watch movies together. Different type of, not to say one relationship is better than the other, but just a different type of conversation, different type of ongoing conversation.

Tina Dietz (29:44):

Distinct.

4. Jay Wong (29:44):

When I see them ... Every time I see Tina, I just know the conversation is going to be good, because it's around business, podcasting, life, speaking. There's all these little great components about it.

4. Jay Wong (29:55):

So I think as a company, as a thought leader, as anybody who's even thinking about this, it's more like what's the ongoing conversation for us as a company? What's the conversation that we can own? What's the conversation that we can dominate, we could be that friend to people? Whether it's real estate investing, could we be that real estate investing friend to all of our listeners? Let's say your company's in health and fitness. Could we be that health and fitness friend for all of our listeners?

4. Jay Wong (30:24):

So I think it's just, no matter how complex the topic is, no matter how simple it could be, it's ... What it boils down to me, it boils down to, "Hey, what's that ongoing conversation, and where can we make a stand with where we stand with it?"

Tina Dietz (30:41):

Making a stand. That's what we all need to do in terms of how we want our businesses and our companies and our teams to grow, and everybody that we interact with.

Tina Dietz (30:51):

I think that's the perfect note for us to close on. Jay, thank you so much. You always add so much energy and expertise to every conversation. We are making sure, of course, that everybody knows where you are and how to find you at doneforyoupodcast.co. We'll be providing links in the show notes for more information about all the great work you do in the world. Thank you so much for joining us here today.

4. Jay Wong (31:16):

Thank you, Tina.

Tina Dietz (31:17):

Thank you, my dear listeners, for joining us here on the Podcast Inc Conference podcast, very meta, as we lead up to the very first Podcast Inc Conference in Washington, DC, or online, it is a cliff hanger, stay tuned, this particular fall of 2020. You can find all of the updates at podcastinc.co. You can also email your questions to [email protected].

Tina Dietz (31:45):

I'm Tina Dietz, from Twin Flames Studio, signing off for today. We'll see you in our next episode as we continue explore this world of podcasting, communication and building culture with this fantastic audio medium. Take care.

Tina Dietz (00:00):

What happens when a privately held utility engineering and construction company decides to launch an internal podcast and launch it right before COVID-19 hits? Today, we have a real live case study. Stay tuned, here on Podcast Inc.

Tina Dietz (00:24):

Welcome to the Podcast Inc podcast. I'm Tina Dietz, your host CEO of Twin Flames Studios. I'm thrilled to be part of a cooperation to produce this podcast between myself here at Twin Flame Studios, the Podcast Inc conference, Heartcast Media, Blubrry, and the Pioneering Collective. Today on the show, we're talking with Jon Thurmond, who is the Mid-Atlantic regional human resources manager for Team Fishel, a privately held utility engineering and construction company that launched their internal podcast earlier this year.

Tina Dietz (01:01):

Jon has worked in a variety of industries in roles encompassing recruitment, employee labor relations, HR leadership, and training. He oversees the company's social media recruiting program and produces the company's internal podcast, that we just mentioned, [HR Pro Podcast 00:01:17]. Jon is also the creator, host, and producer of the very successful human resources show, HR Social Hour Half Hour Podcast, very popular in the industry. We're diving in today to talk with Jon about how the internal podcast came about, what he had to do to prepare, what objections he had overcome, and what happened when just weeks after the podcast launched, COVID-19 happened. I know you're curious about what happened next, so let's get right to the interview.

Tina Dietz (01:48):

Hey, John, how's life treating you?

Jon Thurmond (01:51):

All things considered, Tina, doing well. I hope you are too.

Tina Dietz (01:54):

Oh yeah, absolutely. We're finding our way in these very interesting times, as we find. It's an interesting time to be alive, we're all learning a lot. I think you'd agree.

Jon Thurmond (02:08):

As I tell people all the time, none of us have ever dealt with anything like this before. Every day is something new, every day is something new.

Tina Dietz (02:19):

Hopefully we're saying that in a voice like, "Every day is something new!" Not, "Every day is something new."

Jon Thurmond (02:27):

I try to do the former.

Tina Dietz (02:29):

It's all context. It's all a context.

Jon Thurmond (02:31):

For my 17 year old, who is going to be a rising senior in high school, I think he's probably at the latter right now, unfortunately. He's [crosstalk 00:02:39] and he has decided he is trying to grow a virus beard, which, when you're 17 and young man, it's comical, but dad's okay with it. Dad's had a beard forever and that's his form of protest for the coronavirus, I'm okay.

Tina Dietz (02:56):

I think you're getting off easy with ta .

Jon Thurmond (02:59):

I think so, too.

Tina Dietz (02:59):

I think you are.

Jon Thurmond (03:00):

I think so, too.

Tina Dietz (03:00):

I really do. Jon, you have a very successful external podcast, the HR Social Hour Half Hour Podcast, and you also produce an internal podcast, the HR Pro Podcast, for your company that you work with, Team Fishel. this is in the utility engineering and construction industry. Not usually an industry we associate at the top of our minds with podcasting. Could you give me a little bit of an origin story? How did the conversation start? First of all, which podcast came first, the external or the internal?

Jon Thurmond (03:40):

The HR Social Hour actually, I started a little over two years ago. We launched in February of 2018. I've been podcasting for fun with friends since September of, gosh, 2013, I guess?

Tina Dietz (03:52):

Oh, you were an early adopter.

Jon Thurmond (03:55):

I've been a fan of the medium since 2009, 2010. I love the intimacy. I love the idea of putting on my headphones or being in my car by myself. I love the communities that I'm part of, particularly some of the podcasts I've been listening to for multiple years. You develop relationships with other listeners, they have communities. Be it on social, or wherever it may be. I've been to live recordings. I love the medium, personally. Been doing the fun stuff for a while and I started hosting a Twitter chat for HR professionals in June of 2017, got to be fairly successful. I loved what I was doing with the fun stuff. I wanted to do something with HR. My cohost, Wendy Dailey, who's a HR practitioner out in South Dakota, we decided to launch HR Social Hour. Like I said, February of 2018, we launched our first show. Now we've put out over 160 episodes in the last two years, sponsors, live productions. We've attended conventions as social media crew and recorded content. It's gone a lot of places we didn't necessarily expect. I was-

Tina Dietz (05:10):

Congratulations. Before you and I were talking here before the show that you've just gotten your eighth sponsor. Congratulations.

Jon Thurmond (05:14):

Thank you. We've been incredibly fortunate. We have sponsors that helped us get better equipment. We've traveled. We literally last year, New York, LA, Orlando. Grand Forks, North Dakota, that's probably the outlier, but a lot of the big cities and going to major conferences to take part in and share what we know, not only about podcasting, but about HR. I've been incredibly fortunate though, Tina, that my boss at Team Fishel started listening to HR Social Hour early on and was a fan, was a supporter. Actually wrote one of my first iTunes reviews and has always given me feedback along the way. Feedback on guests and what he learned. Last year we were in the midst of some conversations about communications and how do we get better at communications, looking at different ways to communicate. A lot of people within the company know that I do Social Hour and that I had that as a very prominent side thing going on.

Jon Thurmond (06:17):

I said to my boss, I said, "Well, would you be interested in maybe I could put together some podcast content for us internally?" focusing on HR to start, but knowing that I've got a lot of newer leaders, less experienced leaders that are huge fans of the medium as well. They've actually been asking me questions about how I do it. Equipment and process had been getting those questions long before we really started talking about HR Pro, but my boss was extremely receptive and said, "Yeah, let's talk about it. How would it work? What would it look like?" so I was going to launch in, I guess, January originally. We pushed back just a little bit, but when we started, we had produced four episodes and we put them all out at once. We did some messaging around it and then COVID-19 hit.

Tina Dietz (07:06):

That was unexpected. Unexpected, for sure. Before we get into how COVID-19 impacted the launch and what happened right after that, I'd love to ask, because I get tons of questions about this, when I'm speaking on podcasting at different events where there's a corporate presence or a medium to large, or enterprise sized business, I get this constant question of how do we get buy in from launching an internal podcast? Now you already had a boss who was a fan, but certainly you had to go through some steps to make sure that your T's were crossed and I's were dotted. How did you deal with that? What advice would you have for folks who need to create that buy in?

Jon Thurmond (07:50):

Again, I was incredibly fortunate, Tina, that working for a VP that oversees human resources and safety, the initial idea with the podcast was to address those topics. It was a fairly easy line in terms of, hey, can we do this? They ultimately said, "Okay, Jon, we want you to start looking at topics and develop a calendar, develop content, knowing we have certain targets." so for example, open enrollment, when it comes to insurance time, we wanted to make sure we had a show ready right at the beginning of open enrollment that would go out that people could listen to when we talk about changes and what have you. For me, the buy-in, I was really fortunate, again, having a fan that he's heard other people talking about non HR podcasts, leadership podcast, different management, and business podcasts that are out there that we have leadership telling their employees to listen to.

Jon Thurmond (08:47):

That helped. It's not a foreign concept to begin with. Often when I'm speaking, particularly to HR practitioners, and I say, "Hey, check out my podcast." I still unfortunately get every so often, "What is that? I don't know what that is." and it's not necessarily those that you would think demographically on the higher end, to put it politely, across the board. My 80 year old mother, I call it my internet radio show. She knows what that is. She understands that. She never listened,

Tina Dietz (09:17):

I hear that too.

Jon Thurmond (09:20):

But that's how I explained it to them, but in all seriousness, I think when it comes to buy in, I think you've got to have your plan together. For me, they knew I had the equipment, they knew I had the ability and the interest and everything was set up. I didn't have to look for a production group. I didn't have to look for a host. again, I didn't have to look for equipment when I travel. If I'm going to be at our corporate office, I'll take my equipment, we'll sit down, we'll record two or three shows at once. I come home and edit, and put on the music, and what have you. Being a business-

Tina Dietz (09:58):

A bit of a one man band in this situation.

Jon Thurmond (10:00):

Yes, exactly. Having those things really helped to sell the idea, but I think you have to have that plan in place. I think it's, if anything, and one thing that I've certainly tried to impress upon the folks that I work with, is that podcasting is great and I absolutely love it. It is one form of communication. We got to continue to think of other ways. Also constantly reminding people that the format is there. Hey, make sure that you're listening or have you listened to this? You've got to take those opportunities.

Jon Thurmond (10:31):

It's not a one-off, here's an email, hey, yay podcast. Good luck. If you were marketing your own shows or when you're doing like I do with Social Hour, I'm on social a lot talking about what we're doing and who's on and, "Hey, this podcast came out three weeks ago, check it out if you haven't listened yet." it's that same idea, that constant messaging and making sure that you've got the interest and engagement there as well to know that yes, I can put together the content. I have someplace to put it and then I got a place to share it and continue to communicate it out.

Tina Dietz (11:08):

What did you find was the initial reaction from the workforce and from all the folks in the company? Would I be correct in saying that you've got a largely mobile disperse got to work first, because we're talking about utility engineering and construction? People are out in the field.

Jon Thurmond (11:26):

We do. We have roughly 2,600 teammates working in 30 odd offices, across 15 States, about 85% of those folks are in the field. Literally doing work in the field [inaudible 00:11:39] some type of construction. I think the initial response was, "Hey, cool, this is different." and I got that a lot, particularly, like I said, I've got listeners of the Social Hour within not just HR people that listen to the show. I think when the initial messaging went out that, "Hey, we've got this new thing." I got a lot of questions about, "Hey, how'd you have time to do this?" or, "How does this work?" but I think the fact that it's out there and then once the pandemic came to pass, we decided to start looking at shorter content, different content that I could piece together and then post not only to our LMS, our learning management system, where we host the show, but also our employee portal where they're going in to learn about benefits, information, what have you. Now we have a podcast page there, where people can either download or listen directly from the portal as well.

Tina Dietz (12:31):

What I'm hearing is there is a lot of integration inside of the existing structure. Your employee portal, your email, other kinds of internal communications you're piggybacking on all of those systems, is that correct?

Jon Thurmond (12:47):

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Not only the electronic messaging but also we have a quarterly newsletter that's been going out for many, many years. We're a family-owned business that's been around for 85 years at this point that that paper newsletter still goes out. I'm going to assume there's a story probably in this next quarter about the show and I love it. Again, any time we can put that out in front of people in a different way. We know in marketing, have to hear somebody's name eight times to remember it. I think if I can get that eight times that pro HR Pro is out there and here's how to get to it, I think it helps to make sure that we get more people listening and paying attention to what's going on there.

Tina Dietz (13:34):

Have you had any particular feedback so far on the podcast as all of this has been happening? First, the initial launch, and then of course having to do a bit of the P-word that's out there right now, pivot, to different kinds of content. You mentioned shorter content. What's been the response so far.

Jon Thurmond (13:52):

I will say that the shorter, the pandemic content, I've gotten more immediate feedback with that. We are in construction. Safety is tantamount to us. It's the first thing you hear, any meeting you go to, we talk about safety. We are an essential business and so we have continued to work throughout all the situations that are going on and we've had to make some rather drastic changes to certain things, because of the pandemic and putting out a messaging that would typically go out, maybe in a print, on a newsletter somewhere or on a poster board somewhere. Now, all of a sudden, not only is it necessarily going to be there, I'm repackaging it as a brief podcast, basically a reminder, here's what's going on.

Jon Thurmond (14:44):

People again, with 85% of the people that are in the field, the majority of my office is working from home. They're very apt to go to that portal. The first day that we posted things to the portal and we announced it that initial day, I was shocked at the number of downloads that I had across the board of all the different episodes that were there, which was great. Again, I was very pleased and I'm glad we made the decision to add it there. Again, I think it was that initial surprise or, hey, this is cool, but now with some of the COVID content, it's been much more, "Hey, really appreciate you putting this out. This is really helpful. I'm sharing it with this person, that person and the other person."

Tina Dietz (15:27):

It's kind of amazing that the timing of it, you basically had a ready-made resource when things hit the fan, so to speak, to be able to communicate more effectively right out of the gate, so that's a huge benefit.

Jon Thurmond (15:40):

Timing can often be everything. Tina, I think you and I both know that. We had just launched our employee portal, gosh, I think in February. A month, six weeks at a time, refreshed it, relaunched it, cleaned it up, made it really nice. Again, timing is everything and it was great to be able to hang that out there as quickly as we can. I can now put together a show and post it within minutes. Once show's done, clean it up, put the music on, and I can have it on on the portal in a matter of no time. I think that's been a great thing too, the immediacy. I think so often, you package things and it takes a while to get the message out. Talked about the Quarterly Mailer, that's going to take time. This is just as immediate as an email, to some extent. I can do it fairly quickly.

Tina Dietz (16:31):

That's a very good point. if it's that immediate and that consumable. I also really like that, in some sense, it seems like you had the opportunity to almost internally cross-market the launch of the new and improved employee portal within the content from the podcast. It's that here's a resource and now here's, keep them keeping, coming back, keep it fresh, keep it novel. Did that seem to be the case as well?

Jon Thurmond (16:59):

Definitely. We've definitely had several episodes where the portal comes up. You say, "Hey, if you're listening to this, make sure you check out the portal for this, that information." it definitely yes, any cross promotion I can do like that. Again, continuing the messaging as well when it comes to the emails or even on our LMS having a note about, "Hey, you can listen to it here. You can also always go to the portal and what have you." so definitely try to make sure that we get that name out in front as often as we can and as in many different ways as we can.

Tina Dietz (17:34):

I'm really curious to hear your take on external podcasting and internal podcasting. What do you think that internal podcasting can learn from the lessons of external podcasting, because your show is over 50,000 downloads, which, if folks out there don't have a context for that, for a niche show like HR, that's a lot of downloads in a two year period. This is a business-focused, industry-focused podcasts. Those are some really nice numbers. For somebody who wants to start an internal podcast, what do you need to know about external podcasting that would inform you for your internal podcast to be successful?

Jon Thurmond (18:20):

I will say, Tina, I'm very cognizant of I want it to sound good. I say that thinking of it from an external perspective. I'll give a podcast a couple listens. If I like the content, but it's kind of rough, I'll give it one more, but if it's not listenable, I go onto the next thing. I think I wanted it to be as professional from the outset as I could. Of course, I had roughly two years of experience doing this before I ever tried to put the HR Pro together. I think if you're looking from the outside, obviously we want the messaging to be very specific to Team Fishel, but I want it to be as, from a production perspective, again, sound content.

Jon Thurmond (19:07):

I want it to sound and be as good as anything I put out to the public, because if you put a gun to my head and said, "Jon, you got to put this out, would you be embarrassed by it?" no, I'd be happy to put the things out that I've done. To me, that's what's really been important, I think is to how can I translate what I have done there that. I appreciate the kind words about the downloads and yes, we've been extremely fortunate to resonate with the community that we have. How do I translate that and have an effective platform that people, when they see a new shows out, "Hey, I want to go listen to it. What is HR Pro talking about?"

Jon Thurmond (19:51):

I'm not on every show which I like too. I'm going to produce it, I'm going to edit it, and what have you, but I'm not the main voice. That's something I've really enjoyed watching some of my coworkers get more comfortable on the mic and really develop some of their speaking skills and presentation skills, because it's such a different format.

Tina Dietz (20:10):

That's very satisfying.

Jon Thurmond (20:11):

It's not like getting up in front of a hundred people and speaking, let's face it. We're spitting in the wind here, to some extent! It was really funny the first time I got up to our corporate office and had all my mics, and my Zoom recorder, and everything laid out, and they walked in and were like, "Oh, you're serious." yes. This is a serious proposition.

Tina Dietz (20:33):

This is not a drill.

Jon Thurmond (20:35):

We're going to do it as well as we can.

Tina Dietz (20:37):

That's perfect. If a company wants to start, or someone inside of a company wants to start an internal podcast and they don't necessarily have the two years of experience, of external podcasting that you have, do you have any recommendations on how they might broach that conversation? What about external resources?

Jon Thurmond (20:59):

There are a lot of great people that offer a lot of free, I don't know if I can mention my name, Dave Jackson's School of Podcasting.

Tina Dietz (21:09):

Dave is awesome.

Jon Thurmond (21:10):

That's a tremendous show. I've heard Dave speak at DC PodFest. I listen to that show all the time. I'm always learning something new. I would say if you're a novice, if you've just never done this at all, you got to do your homework. People, ask me a lot. A lot of other HR professionals come to me and say, "Jon, I would love to start a podcast. What do I need to do? How do I do it?" and I always tell them, "Look, it's really easy to start, but it's hard to start well and it's hard to maintain." and so if you're going to try to put together something internally and that's got to be one of the questions is, if you're doing it yourself, I can tell you that I've had other people ask me with other organizations.

Jon Thurmond (21:49):

They're concerned that maybe that person leaves, then what? What do we do? That's a fair question. You've got to determine.

Tina Dietz (21:54):

It is a fair question.

Jon Thurmond (21:56):

How would you handle it? I know some companies that use outside resources to put together their content and they're great, but I think you've got to have your plan. Wat is the reason, what's your why, what's driving it. Again, for me, it was, hey, I've been doing this. I really enjoy it. I feel like this is another way for us to communicate with our teammates in a different way. Like you said, at the outset, most people are not thinking about construction companies having podcasts. I know that, because I have a lot of people ask me like, "How in the world?" it just happened to be that it was something I'm passionate about and was able to translate that passion into my day job even more. I fully recognize I'm very fortunate to be able to do that.

Tina Dietz (22:40):

Well, we're very fortunate to have you here.

Jon Thurmond (22:42):

Thank you.

Tina Dietz (22:42):

And sharing your expertise and your experience of both sides of the coin, the internal podcast, the external podcasting and the journey forth. In addition to launching an internal podcast, seemingly moments before the pandemic. We really appreciate you sharing your experience with us. I know I, for one, am looking forward to hearing more from you at the Podcast Inc conference this coming fall, as we're going to be diving into some of these topics even more deeply. Whether it's going to be virtual or it's going to be live, I know that I'm looking forward to hearing more about your experience and, by then, seeing how this internal podcast has developed over, say, the next six months.

Jon Thurmond (23:26):

I'm very excited about that too. Tina, I had told Jennifer, when we first started talking about the move in dates, I said, "For me it, selfishly, it was great." because I felt like it gave me many more months, not necessarily know what was going to happen, creating different content to address some of the pandemic issues, but definitely gave us time to continue to develop and more and more about what's working and what doesn't.

Tina Dietz (23:50):

Well, there's nothing more interesting than a cliffhanger. What will happen next to our intrepid heroes? Find out in our next episode, so we will definitely be finding out this fall at the conference. Thank you, Jon, again for joining me here today. Thank you all for joining us here today and Podcast Inc, as we lead up to the Podcast Inc conference this fall of 2020 live in Washington, DC or virtual, we'll be finding out. It's another cliffhanger, but we'll be letting you know by July either way, make sure you go to podcastinc.co to find out all of the information and sign up for updates. You can also email us questions directly to the organizer, Jennifer Crawford at [email protected]. Stay tuned for more information, for more case studies, and all kinds of experience from our experts here at Podcast Inc. I'm Tina Dietz from Twin Flame Studios. Signing off for today. We'll see you next time.

Tina Dietz (00:00):

Is your company ready for its own podcast? What does producing a podcast look like and can your organization handle the strain? Today we're talking with Molly Ruland from Heartcast Media about just that here on Podcast Inc. Welcome to the Podcast Inc podcast I'm Tina Dietz, your host for this limited edition series. As we lead up to the Podcast Inc first ever conference this fall of 2020, hopefully in Washington, DC live or virtual. But you'll know soon when you go to podcastinc.co and sign up for updates. Find out more about the conference and of course about this particular show and all that there is to offer.

Tina Dietz (00:54):

The Podcast Inc podcast is a collaboration of podcast professionals from around the US including Twin Flames Studios. You can find out more about how Twin Flames amplifies your voice, your message and your brand around the globe and right at home. Go to twinflamesstudios.com to find out more. Today on the show we're discussing feasibility. What does producing a podcast look like? Can your organization handle the strain? And we're bringing on Molly Ruland from heartcastmedia.com, who is also our sponsor for editing this particular series today. So we're super excited to have Molly here.

Tina Dietz (01:34):

Disruption and determination fuel Molly's perspective on life, and you will definitely hear that in her interview today. She is a super innovative problem solver with an instinct for fostering creativity, storytellers and makers to grow and share their voice. As a founder and CEO of Heartcast Media, she continues to be a leader of communal experiences for as many people as possible in Washington, DC, where she's based and beyond. Heartcast Media was created when Molly recognized the need to support organizations and their efforts to develop and share inspiring and heartfelt content, as well as their brand legacy. Without further ado, here's our interview with Molly. Molly, thanks for joining me.

Molly Ruland (02:19):

Thank you for having me.

Tina Dietz (02:20):

Yeah. I've been very interested in hearing what you have to say in particular, because unlike most of the guests that we have who focus on podcasting or communications in corporate America, so to speak, you have a much wider, broader perspective on things. Because your company Heartcast Media is a company that handles all different kinds of media production. So we can get the straight scoop from you on podcasting as it intersects with other types of productions like social media, like video and all of those kinds things. And I'm excited to get into all of that with you. But before we get there, I just wondered if you would share with us, just to touch on, what kind of brought you to your interest in working with businesses and corporations specifically around podcasting?

Molly Ruland (03:16):

Well, I've spent the last 20 years owning a multimedia company, primarily focused on music locally here in Washington, DC. So for me, content creation isn't a new thing by any stretch, but I figured out a way to mix and master audio and video real time almost eliminating the need for post production on the back end. And in this process, I realized that I could solve a lot of problems for businesses, brands, nonprofits, government agencies, people that need to get information out in a digestible format at a rate that is actually sustainable. Because there's a huge gap in pricing between the creative world and the business world and neither one of them are sustainable. So Heartcast Media was formed to bridge that gap and to offer an opportunity to create content that's sustainable and affordable.

Tina Dietz (04:08):

Well, and that's very interesting. So you say that there's a gap between the creative world and the business world, can you speak to that a little bit further?

Molly Ruland (04:17):

For sure. Well, I mean, if you go into any community in DC where there's music and art and culture, you've got young kids of color and young artists making videos, following people around, documenting events and creating these absolute masterpieces of cinematography and audio. I mean, it's really impressive, they're self-taught, they're just creating beautiful things, but there's no money. There's absolutely no money. They have no money, the people that are filming have no money, there's no money coming from the production of the video.

Molly Ruland (04:46):

Then you get on the business side and you've got people paying $10,000 for a brand video that's not that good. Or they're paying Joe from IT, who knows a little bit of video editing, a grand to make a video and it's not very good, you know what I mean? But meanwhile, you've got these kids in the city. Who could live for six months off of that money and so could their friends. And they're doing much, much better work and it's creative and it's original and it's beautiful and then on the other side, people are getting overpaid for work that is subpar.

Molly Ruland (05:22):

I can't tell you how many brand videos that I've seen, that I was appalled at how much money people spent because the audio wasn't mastered, the video cutting was subpar. There's no real gauge as to where this pricing model actually comes from. And so my idea was to bring some of these people from the community into that world so they can live and they can sustain themselves, especially in the city where it's more expensive than anywhere else. And bring some of that creative it's creativity to the business world and provide just some better solutions, because as a small business owner, I don't have $10,000 for a video, that's insane.

Tina Dietz (05:59):

Yeah. So you're really bridging that, meeting it in the middle so that you can have all that creativity and you can also have the price point makes sense, and that's really brilliant. So does that kind of tie into your company's tagline, which I love, I'm completely aligned with, which is listening is the revolution.

Molly Ruland (06:19):

Absolutely. I feel that, if we listen to each other, it makes it really hard to hate one another, right? You can feel sorry for somebody, you can understand them, you can disagree, but if you really listen to them, you can't hate them anymore. And I think that right now in our country, in particular, we have a huge divide that's been created by people not listening. And so for me, just taking that moment, especially with podcasts, you can't really respond.

Molly Ruland (06:44):

Sure you can comment, you can tweet at them, you can slide into their DMS, right? But you can't actually comment at the time. You're just going to listen to the content and then you can formulate your response. And I think that's a lost art. I don't think most people actually know how to listen, right? I was listening to a Brene Brown podcast last week and she said, "Listen with the same passion in which you want to be heard."

Tina Dietz (07:09):

That's brilliant.

Molly Ruland (07:10):

And isn't that it? Right? Isn't that it? Right? And so for me to be able to create opportunities for businesses to represent themselves, for government agencies to get public health messaging out, to help solve some of these problems by listening to each other. So I'm very, very passionate about that, for sure.

Tina Dietz (07:29):

Well, building on that, if listening is the revolution and we do need to listen to each other, what's possible in terms of the internal podcasting and its applications for making listening, making hearing each other more feasible, more possible in that business world?

Molly Ruland (07:52):

Well, I think having a connection with your employees and your employer is really, really important, right? Right now we're really seeing a lot of Zoom calls, a lot of different ways to check in with your staff and I think we're all checking in with our staff a little bit differently, right? It's not just like, "Hey Matt, where's that file?" It's like, "Hey Matt, how are you today? Do you have enough to eat? Are you good?" That's the first question that we have now. And it wasn't always that way. Not that I didn't care about my employees before, but it's a little bit different now.

Molly Ruland (08:26):

And I'm very transparent with my staff. I tell them everything that's going on, I tell them the clients that's coming in. I tell them the struggles that we're having and I bring them in on that conversation. And it makes them feel more connected in the company, it makes them feel more a part of what we're doing, part of that listening revolution, if you will. And so I think it's really, really important to communicate with your staff and that's really difficult to do.

Molly Ruland (08:48):

So a lot of corporations and bigger organizations, they have their company memos or their newsletter, whatever. And it's this format, and there's do's and don'ts and all of that. But I think being able to see your boss, I want to hear my boss, I'm going to see my boss, I want to hear his voice, her voice, I want to hear what he or she is saying.

Molly Ruland (09:09):

And so I think internal, private podcasting number one, it respects your employee's time a little bit more. Because they're not having to sit and read, which means they can't do anything else. So they can listen to your content in the car or at home or while they're on the treadmill, they can multitask and they can actually listen and they can hear your voice. And there's nothing that can replace hearing someone's voice and hearing their intention and their inflections and their tones and their pause, right? Especially if it's a difficult message.

Molly Ruland (09:39):

And if you have a typical message to tell your employees, you should say it to them. And not be perfect in a memo, not be perfect in that newsletter, but actually express some of that struggle, some of that concern. And it'll make your employees root for you more and feel like they're a part of that mission as well. And so I think, especially now more than ever, internal or private communications within organizations is so important. Because if you don't get your messaging right with your employees, they're not getting it right with the outside world.

Tina Dietz (10:12):

Right. As companies or businesses are looking at podcasting as a feasibility to create this connection, to have more communication, more listening among them, how do you think that internal podcasting works with kind of pros, cons, how does that dovetail with video content? Because you have a tremendous amount of experience with both.

Molly Ruland (10:38):

Well, video is really digestible. It's just easy to grab your attention, you're going to look at it, it's going to kind of bring you in. With internal podcasting, it might not be quite as relevant because people are going to listen to that content no matter what. It's not like, I'm really big on video when you're sharing that content on social media. When you're scrolling, what do you stop on? You stop on the videos of puppies, you stop on things with subtitles on them because it's easy and it's digestible, right?

Molly Ruland (11:09):

So the idea is you take a little snippet of that, you bring them in from social media, you bring them to the main content. So in this particular circumstance, a video isn't as important because they're going to be served that content no matter what, and there's an expectation that they're going to listen to it. However, I do think there's value in seeing people. I think one of the interesting things about the time that we're in right now is seeing people's homes, right? It's humanizing all of us when you can see your bosses living room. You realize, wait, they're a real person.

Tina Dietz (11:43):

Yeah. That's very true.

Molly Ruland (11:44):

And I think that's really important. If you really want your staff and your employees to root for you, you got to be accessible. You got to be a real person for them to really want to stand behind you and cross the finish line. And I think there's some value in that. There's also some downside. If you're not doing a great job with that, it might make you look unprofessional. So it's a double edged sword and I think it really depends on the company culture to be quite honest with you.

Tina Dietz (12:11):

All right. Then let's go into the idea of, well, let's say that a company does want to or they're interested in having an internal podcast, what does an organization need to have in place in order to be prepared to have a podcast? What do they need to ask even before they get to the point of planning their content or all of that good stuff, what do they need to think about?

Molly Ruland (12:37):

Well, I talk about this a lot and it's like the five Ws of podcasting, especially internal. It's like, the why. What's your why? Are you just doing this because you think you need to, because you think it's cool or is there a real need? What are you going to talk about? When? How often are you going to do this podcast? And who? Who is really important, who's going to do this? Is it going to be the CEO, the founder? Is it going to be the HR person? Is it going to be the company communications person? Who's actually going to be the face of this thing or the voice of this thing?

Molly Ruland (13:10):

And then even though it's not a W there's a W in it, but how? Right? How are you actually going to do this? Are you going to build a studio inside of your commercial space? Are you going to have a commercial space six months from now? Do you want to hire a studio? Do you want to buy equipment? How are you actually going to get this done? And who? Who is going to do this? Because a lot of companies, not just the host, but who's going to do the editing?

Molly Ruland (13:39):

I see a lot of times, working with this really large organizations and they have a podcast and I'm like, "Okay. Well, who's doing it?" And they're like, "The marketing director." And I'm like, "So you're paying them $90,000 a year to spend 20 hours a week on Adobe Audition when you could just hire a sound editor to do that same work in two hours?" There's this real misconception that anyone can podcast and anyone can edit and anyone can be a host and anyone can... Even just engineering the session, right?

Molly Ruland (14:12):

And there's a lot of unnecessary pressure, an unrealistic pressure in the podcasting industry in general. You're supposed to be the engineer, you got to record. First of all, you got to have the idea. You got to execute it. You got to find people to interview. Then you've got to engineer the interview. Then you got to edit the interview. And then you got to market the interview. It's not real, right? These are all separate careers. Audio editing is a career. People would go to school for this. And it's really hard to do a good interview when you're also the engineer.

Molly Ruland (14:43):

So being very realistic about the lift that it takes to get it done and just designating the people for it. It doesn't mean it's impossible, but that's kind of like saying, "Hey, you work for the company. Would you mind playing the violin tonight at our reception?" You can't just pick that skill up. And so you really have to measure, is the juice worth the squeeze? Right? Does it make sense for me to pay my marketing director 90 grand a year and have them learning a new skill? Or should I just pay an audio editor to do that work? And so just determining what that looks like.

Molly Ruland (15:18):

Some companies have internal employees that can do that kind of stuff. Some of them have webmasters. Some of them have video editors, some of them don't. And so really just kind of figuring out, number one, what's your game plan? What do you hope to accomplish with this? How you're going to get it done? Who's going to do it? Where is it going to be? And just figuring that out before you get started and then working with people who can really advise you properly. Because especially in the corporate world, there are companies that you can go to to build a podcast studio that will happily spend $50,000 of your money.

Tina Dietz (15:54):

Oh, easily. Easily.

Molly Ruland (15:55):

Easily. Which is complete overkill because we're not recording Grammy award winning albums that are going to be played at Radio City Music Hall.

Tina Dietz (16:02):

That's very true.

Molly Ruland (16:02):

It's a podcast, let's keep things in perspective, okay?

Tina Dietz (16:06):

Exactly.

Molly Ruland (16:08):

So who are you going to work with? If you want to build a studio internally, that's fine. You could build one for $2,500. You could also build one for 50 grand. So just making sure that you're working with the right people and have the right expectations set up to get the result that you actually want.

Tina Dietz (16:26):

Yeah. That's so true. Allocating the right resources and being realistic about what the workflows are going to be as well. We find that we have to get the right decision makers to the table in the planning phase of any kind of podcast, because there may be considerations from compliance, legal, marketing and so on and so forth. And then there does become a question of, who is really at the helm as the host, because the CEO may not be the best choice to be the host depending on the situation, right?

Molly Ruland (16:55):

A hundred percent.

Tina Dietz (16:55):

But the CEO may be featured in a segment every, a podcast, but they may be led by another host who is really the better choice for that job, whether they're a president or vice president or whatever the case may be. And you do end up with a little bit of, I hate to say it, a little bit of middle school mentality of things being fair and whatnot. But if a podcast is planned correctly, it becomes a beautiful showcase and a beautiful platform for sharing.

Tina Dietz (17:24):

It's a little bit like advanced show and tell or tell and show in this case, right? And it becomes really interesting. But going back to the studio question, we've had companies that want to build a studio, but then when we get into how they actually operate, people are on the road too much to use a studio. So you have to create those kinds of mobile solutions in order for the content to get done. And so it ends up [inaudible 00:17:50] people tens of thousands of dollars potentially in building a state of the art studio unnecessarily, or like you said.

Tina Dietz (18:00):

Again, like you said, it's podcasting. We're not after a Grammy here, we're after communication and high quality communication, that's a different game, a different game to play. You've produced a lot of podcasts, a lot of different types of podcasts, narrative podcast, business podcasts, government podcasts, all that kind of stuff. In terms of splitting podcasting up between what we think of kind of is common culture podcast, true crime, narrative, I'll throw Joe Rogan in there, because everybody always throws Joe in every conversation about podcasting. How would you quantify some of the differences between all of those types of podcasts and podcasting for a corporate situation or business, not even business, but specifically a corporate situation?

Molly Ruland (18:51):

Well, I think a lot of podcasters start, which is always one of my biggest gripes, when people say, "Molly, I want to start a podcast, but I'm not sure what I want to talk about."

Tina Dietz (19:04):

Right. [crosstalk 00:19:06].

Molly Ruland (19:07):

And I always say, "Well, please don't." And people don't like that response but it's like, look man, if you're not passionate about this, it's not going to work. You have to know what you want to talk about. And a lot of times people will come to me, and this is part of the planning situation, I'll have entrepreneurs and people with brands who want to have a podcast and I say, "Okay." And they're like, "Yeah. I want to do entrepreneur interviews." And I'm like, "Cool. But what does that have to do with your business?" I get that it's interesting right now to do success stories from entrepreneurs, but you're a photographer, right? What does that have to do with your actual business?

Molly Ruland (19:43):

So I think in these culture podcasts, it's more about creating content that they think people want to hear versus with businesses, it's a very specific message. So I talk a lot about the content force multiplier and being very intentional and working in a linear scale to make sure that you're accomplishing the goals you want. So if you are a business or a brand and you want to have a podcast, or if you're an entrepreneur and you want to have a podcast and a course and a book and you have this game plan, well, why not treat your podcast as if it was a book and record it like chapters in a book. Because then you can transcribe it and you can copy and paste that into your book one day and you can use the audio from that and you could splice that into an audio book one day. So if you're going to do that even two years down the line, why not think about what that looks like now?

Molly Ruland (20:32):

Or do you have a book? Let's create your podcast around topics that are in the book. Are you launching a course? Let's create a podcast, right? So it's being very, very intentional in making sure that everything that you're doing is heading towards a specific goal. And so with organizations, it's very similar to make sure that they are driving a specific message to their internal staff. And what does that look like and then making sure you don't go off track.

Molly Ruland (20:57):

If you really want to get compliance information out to your department, then don't do table banter, don't do any of that fun stuff in the beginning. They don't care about that, they just want the information, right? Knowing your audience and knowing how to craft that to accomplish the goal that you want to. It's going to be specific for every organization, but it's really important to consider that before they even start recording.

Tina Dietz (21:18):

Yeah. That's exactly it. Is there any kind of questions that you would recommend that companies to ask themselves as they're considering this, as they're going in? You mentioned your different Ws. And when they get to the point of the content though in looking at their audience, is there any kind of outreach that they should be doing or any kind of internal market study that you'd recommend?

Molly Ruland (21:47):

Absolutely. Ask your employees, right? It's just like right now in this time that we're living in, the best thing you can do is talk to your clients and find out what they need. So same thing with your employees. Like, what's going on? What would be helpful? What would you like digitized in this manner? How can we make this a more enriching, fulfilling experience to work for this company? What are you missing? What would be helpful for your job? Would you listen to a podcast? Would you prefer this? Would you prefer that? How long should it be? And asking those questions, because they'll appreciate it. They'll feel heard and they'll feel validated and they'll be more likely to listen to that content when you put it out.

Tina Dietz (22:28):

Awesome. That's makes a hundred percent of sense. And I think every single show, every single podcast should start with that kind of question. Whether you have an external market or you have an internal market that you're developing your show for. I think too many people just kind of, you and I talk about this, like you said, interview. I want to interview people. Well, why? First of all.

Molly Ruland (22:54):

Why?

Tina Dietz (22:54):

Second of all, how in the great field of all the interview shows that are out there, are you going to make this interesting?

Molly Ruland (23:00):

Right.

Tina Dietz (23:00):

Are you going to niche it down like we're doing here on this particular limited series? Are you going to have some interesting features or segments or things like that? What are you going to do to keep people's attention? Because more than anything, even if you're just delivering content less so in an internal podcast, maybe, but you still have to be at some point entertaining in some way, shape or form or capturing people's attention. Don't you think?

Molly Ruland (23:27):

For sure. Well, and it boils down to gratitude and respect, right? So even though they're your employees and even though they should be listening, you're still infringing upon their time and probably outside of work hours, right? You're not expecting your employees are going to take an hour when they show up in the morning to listen to your podcast. It's almost assumed that it will be a little bit outside of work hours. So don't drag it on. Don't have content that they're not interested in. Don't take advantage of the personal time that you're taking from your employees.

Molly Ruland (23:58):

And so finding out what they want to hear and being really functional about it will go along way. Because nobody wants to sit and have to fast forward through the first, "Oh, they do this every time. There's three minutes of this company news that everybody already knows because they sent it out Monday. And they put it in the beginning of every podcast and I'm just going to skip through it." That's a terrible way to start. And I think a lot of people do that because they look at it as a newsletter or some sort of a program when really it's a delivery of information. And so just being respectful of people's time I think is the most important.

Tina Dietz (24:35):

Yeah. We talk a lot in companies, businesses about bringing the brand story to the forefront or bringing the stories of the company to the forefront. And I think there's a lot of opportunity to have people inside of the company, even have an opportunity to tell what's happening for them on the front line, so to speak, or it becomes much more of a storytelling, much more engaging. And if the person who is running it and leading it doesn't have an interest in that or they're going on and they're just kind of flat line and they're delivering information, all that, you're going to lose everybody. You are going to lose everybody.

Molly Ruland (25:12):

A hundred percent. And they're going to be like, "Why did I sign up for this? It's bad enough at work and I got to do this on my own time."

Tina Dietz (25:17):

Yeah. It's a very good point that there is kind of an expectation that it would be outside of regular work hours. So being respectful of people's time, being highly engaging and making sure that you're actually addressing the type of content that people are looking for really, really, really fantastic, great point. Is there anything else before we wrap up that you would like to leave with our listeners here today?

Molly Ruland (25:41):

I think something that you just brought up is really great, I think engaging your employees with good news, right? Because a lot of times as employees, we're like here employers, here's the numbers or here's what we're not really hitting the mark at. Or here's where we need to improve and what's going on with this report and [inaudible 00:25:58]. And we forget to talk about the wins. We forget to talk about the personal stuff. We forget to say congratulations to so-and-so for having a baby or thank you to so-and-so for doing such a great job and just to really acknowledge and tell some of those stories. I know one of my good friends, Adam Levin, he owns Chuck Levin's. He's the grandson of Chuck Levin. A 60 year old music store in the DMV.

Molly Ruland (26:23):

And they have stories of people stealing a saxophone and then 40 years later, mailing it back with a handwritten letter of apology. It's these little stories of like, "Oh wow, that's so cool." Right? And now I've told that story to so many people, right? So look at it as an internal podcast, as an opportunity to turn your staff members into cheerleaders. And not for numbers, but for stories of people and families and the things that actually make your company successful. Cheer them on and help them and acknowledge them and tell those stories and get them excited about working for their company.

Molly Ruland (27:01):

And tell them about all those little wins and be a little bit more forthcoming with some of this information. Especially right now, when everything is really confusing and up in the air and everything is really uncertain. It's a great time to give your staff solid stories and some wins and some positivity to share with other people and to talk in their own hat. I think that really matters.

Tina Dietz (27:23):

Well, Molly, I don't think Brene Brown could have said it any better than you just did on her podcast.

Molly Ruland (27:29):

Thank you.

Tina Dietz (27:30):

And it's, the belonging is so important. The acknowledgement and the enthusiasm is so important and the connection, that deep connection that every human being on the planet really desires at the core of who we are. We are pack animals after all, is so great. Thank you so much for joining us here on the show today and appreciate you taking the time with us.

Molly Ruland (27:49):

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Tina Dietz (27:51):

Yeah. And you can find out all about Molly and her fantastic work at heartcastmedia.com. And I should also mention that Molly and her company are the editing sponsors for this podcast and sponsors of the Podcast Inc Conference coming up this fall of 2020. So I remind you all to stay tuned, go to podcastinc.com and check out the speakers, the schedule, the information. They're all about internal corporate podcasting and make sure of course that you join us for the next episode of this limited series. Matter of fact, you might want to just binge on right onto the next one. Now that you're all excited about, you know you have what it takes to move on and explore what's possible for your company, for your team and for your future with internal corporate podcasting. Thank you all for joining us here at Podcast Inc.

Tina Dietz (00:00):

What exactly is corporate internal podcasting, and why should you be paying attention to this rising trend in communications? Hi, I am Tina Dietz, I'm the owner of Twin Flames Studios, partner for the podcasting podcast and your host for this limited edition series. Today, I'll be talking with Jennifer Crawford about the ins and outs of internal podcasting and why it's relevant to corporations, particularly now with an expanding work from home employee base and the need for efficient communication to disperse teams.

Tina Dietz (00:39):

Jennifer is the founder of the podcasting conference, which is coming up this fall of 2020, and also the founder of the DC PodFest conference, which is now in its sixth year. Get ready for a big dose of enthusiasm, mixed with a tremendous amount of information, so that you can find out more about this exciting and rising new medium. Let's get started. Jennifer welcome, and thanks for joining me here today.

Jennifer Crawford (01:04):

Thanks Tina, it's a pleasure to be here.

Tina Dietz (01:07):

I know it's like, you're the one who started this whole conference and this push towards having more information out into the marketplace about internal corporate podcasting, and here I am interviewing you, so haha, the tables have turned.

Jennifer Crawford (01:21):

The tables have turned. Well, I'm so glad you are interviewing me, and you were so generous to volunteer, to spearhead the Podcast Inc Conferences podcast, also called Podcast Inc.

Tina Dietz (01:35):

It's very meta, very meta.

Jennifer Crawford (01:38):

It's very convenient, we don't want people to have to remember too much. But I'm so glad to take advantage of your expertise as both a podcast producer and a vocal leader in our podcasts, so thank you.

Tina Dietz (01:51):

Well, thank you. Well, I'm happy to jump in as I've said many times before, anything with a microphone makes me very happy. So-

Jennifer Crawford (01:59):

I think it's fair to say we're both podcast fans and addicts, so it really makes a lot of sense that we're here together.

Tina Dietz (02:05):

It definitely does. And you and I met through mutual contacts in the She Podcasts community and it was one of those situations where I kept hearing, you need to meet Jennifer Crawford, you need to meet Jennifer Crawford. And it wasn't until I had a networking opportunity with the pioneering collective, and we'll be talking with Tina Chang, the owner of the pioneering collective, about internal communications using podcasting and the importance of communications later in this series. But you came up from DC to New York city and I flew up from Florida to Manhattan and we met basically at a dinner networking event with a combination of all kinds of corporate leaders who were interested in finding out more about podcasting and that was a full room, and a really interesting event. So I'm really glad we got to meet there and then the conversation just continued about this fantastic event that you have putting together.

Tina Dietz (03:00):

And I was also curious to talk, before we get into talking specifically about Podcast Inc. You have a deep background in creating other events and working in the podcast industry, so give us a little bit of your kind of superhero origin story of what led you to create Podcast Inc?

Jennifer Crawford (03:19):

Yeah, sure. So with the event history, it goes back to 2015, I had been a podcaster and like a lot of independent podcasters, I was doing it out of my home, I was feeling a little isolated and lonely and at that time podcasting was far from mainstream. So here I was doing this thing, I had been podcasting for several years and I realized that I was really craving the connection of a community, I wanted to talk to other people doing this weird quirky thing called podcasting.

Jennifer Crawford (03:57):

So that led me to looking for events in the DC area where I live, and I discovered that there weren't any meetups, there were no conferences, and being of an entrepreneurial nature, of course, it was just natural to say, well, I will create a conference. And honestly, it wasn't a very bright move because creating a conference is really difficult as I found out, but that's where DC PodFest was born, and now we're approaching our sixth year, the year of the pandemic. So we are typically in November, we're scheduled for the weekend of November sixth through the eighth. We may be pivoting to a virtual event, we're going to just kind of see what happens there.

Jennifer Crawford (04:40):

Podcast Inc came about because I had the opportunity to take a detour and work very closely with Podbean, a podcast hosting company. They were really the first ones to the field to answer the needs of corporations, looking to provide podcasts for their workforce as a way to improve their internal communications, but they had this unique need of, needing that content to be privatized. Privatized and efficiently delivered, so the user experience mimicked that of listening to any other podcast out in the public stratosphere. So Podbean developed a really great platform to answer those needs, and I was able to work directly with their corporate customers in setting up their internal podcasting platforms.

Jennifer Crawford (05:35):

Through that experience, I got really enamored with the application of internal podcasting because it really accomplishes so much within the corporate environment in terms of not only making internal communications more efficient, but because podcasting is so intimate, there are so many ways that they can be used to improve or maintain a corporate culture, improve sales, training, onboarding, all sorts of internal communication applications in terms of leadership training, company news, it can replace the company newsletter that we all know nobody is reading anymore.

Tina Dietz (06:17):

Completely.

Jennifer Crawford (06:18):

So I got so excited about it, but what was frustrating me is that nobody was really talking about internal podcasting because it really was kind of new. Podbean launched their platform, I think late in 2017 if I'm not mistaken. And because the content is privatized by nature, it's not searchable or discoverable, nobody really knew that these large fortune 500 companies, fortune 100 companies were utilizing this medium within their organization, so it frustrated me that nobody knew about it and that so many companies could benefit from it. So that's where much like DC PodFest, Podcast Inc was born out of my frustration of finding people to tell about this amazing communications paradigm.

Tina Dietz (07:11):

Well, it's funny how many entrepreneurial ventures are born out of a sense of frustration and being a lifelong entrepreneur myself and worked with many dozens if not hundreds of entrepreneurs over the years, I think that's a key point for everything we do. The other thing that I think is fascinating about the way that you run conferences, is you referred to them as micro conferences and they're all one day long, is this one or two days long, is that it?

Jennifer Crawford (07:38):

It really depends. DC PodFest is a Friday through Sunday event this year, if it ends up being in person. I define micro conferences personally as 200 attendees or less, there are other definitions, there's no Webster definition, I don't think, but I prefer personally attending smaller conferences. And as a solo producer with a small team, to put on these conferences, for me they're just a little easier to put on and a little less risky. To keep them small I'm able to produce something that I think is a little more creative because I don't have to be in a hotel, typical conference environment, I can be in sort of these interesting venues that I think make things a little bit more fun. So yeah, I specialize I suppose in the micro conferences, so yeah.

Tina Dietz (08:36):

I can relate to that. It can be very overstimulating to be an extremely large conference. And truly the benefit, I know you and I both agree on this, of conferences is, yes, the content and is important, but it is the interaction and it is the relationships that come out of those conferences and the networking that happens in an inside them. The way that you strategically put your conferences together with things I really love is that, the relationships that come out of that are wonderful and that's one of the reasons. Besides the fact that I'm involved with it, I would have attended the conference anyway, even if I weren't speaking at it, that I'm looking to Podcast Inc, regardless if it is a life event in DC in December, just before the DC PodFest, or if it ends up continuing to be alive event, which I'm still kind of gone in for, because I think by that time in the year, we're all going to be ready to really be able to shake hands again, I know I'm looking forward to that very much myself, for sure.

Jennifer Crawford (09:39):

Yeah. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but we will ultimately make the decision based on safety. If everyone can come and be in the same room together and I don't have to stay up all night wondering if somebody is getting sick, then we can do an in-person conference, but there're some benefits to a virtual conference too, so I'm okay either way, we'll probably make the call, I'm thinking by the end of July, we'll decide.

Tina Dietz (10:04):

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I know that the plans that we have in place or you have in place for, the networking aspect being virtual or live either way, it's going to be extraordinarily valuable. And perhaps even the virtual event will allow us to, side of things, a virtual component anyway, we can definitely reach as many people as possible who are living in kind of very, very busy circumstances with being corporate executives and things like that. And I know with the corporate executives and companies that I work with time is always a premium, but there has been such a deep interest in podcasting, both external, internal, as well as podcast guesting particularly for senior executives, the interest in it has been growing and growing and growing. So this is a really good time, particularly with all the pivoting and shifting that folks are doing to more online work, more online communications, we're really seeing a lot of opportunity for diving into some innovative ways of communication, and this is where internal podcasting completely shines.

Tina Dietz (11:16):

It is I believe, probably the most cost-effective way and efficient way to reach a workforce, to reach an entire company's worth of teams, in a way that can serve the internal culture, the communications, the talent retention and management, the innovation and all of these things, it goes so far beyond the company newsletter, in so many ways. And that's what really excites me the most because what gets me up and going in the morning is human connection and human communication, and particularly specializing in vocal leadership like I do, we have an opportunity here to reach people in a way that is unprecedented, in the realm of large corporate communications.

Jennifer Crawford (12:04):

That's absolutely true. And I'm equally enthusiastic, particularly because as you mentioned, we're in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, but there are things that are going to last beyond the period of this pandemic, well long afterwards. So, and I think one of those is this expanded remote workforce, right? So we have people now that are working from home full time that haven't previously done that, and I think they're probably getting pretty accustomed to it. It used to be for a lot of companies working from home was a benefit, maybe you got to work from home a couple of days a week as part of your benefits package, but now it's going to be the norm for a lot of people.

Jennifer Crawford (12:51):

And I think there are a lot of benefits for companies moving to a remote workforce personally, but I also think there are some challenges. And I think one of those challenges is maintaining a cohesive culture, communicating efficiently, making sure that your remote workforce still feels part of something bigger than themselves, and they're still engaged with your purpose within the company. And podcasting, particularly internal podcasting really can be that adhesive, that holds that culture together, through really intimate, efficient, almost real time communication. So yeah, you make a great point, Tina. I don't know how anybody can not be excited about internal podcasting, honestly. Because like you said, it is fairly cost-effective and not that difficult to implement.

Tina Dietz (13:51):

No, certainly much simpler and lighter to implement than video. And I do have so many colleagues who get a little nervous, who we're in the video space and say, well, but video, but video. And I'd like to actually talk about this for a few minutes, if we could, as we create this context for what internal podcasting is, what it is and how it gets used, because this is one of the first things that I have been running into and in conversations with folks is this conversation about video. And I just want to be clear upfront, that just because we're talking about internal podcasting as a highly effective medium, it doesn't mean you don't use video. There is a space and a place for all of these things, it's like all God's creatures, great and small, all marketing mediums, great and small, are really wonderful, but it's a matter of what you use and where you use it.

Tina Dietz (14:47):

So for example, we're finding that and the research that, video people they tune out after about two minutes. We are on our screens so many hours in a day, and even with the influx of additional video calls... You and I have been running our businesses remotely since the inception, we've been working online and remotely, I know for myself, it's well over a dozen years now. So with all of the shifting to working from home, it wasn't that big of a shift for us, but it is a big shift for a lot of people. And it's funny because I'm seeing so many more video calls now than I even did a month or two ago. I've been joking on some of these calls, that I've been so many Zoom calls, I'm beginning to question the existence of the lower half of my body.

Jennifer Crawford (15:38):

And I know exactly what you mean. I definitely got Zoom fatigue or I get Zoom fatigue I should say, weekly. So I really had to intentionally block off my calendar and have no Zoom days, so I can kind of recharge.

Tina Dietz (15:53):

Yeah, me too.

Jennifer Crawford (15:54):

It's a problem.

Tina Dietz (15:56):

But you would never use video for long-form delivery of content, people will not watch it, they will not watch it, it's one of those things. But the average length of people watching, excuse me, of listening to a podcast is 20 minutes or longer. And you can deliver a tremendous amount of value and a tremendous amount of information in 20 minutes. This is largely because you don't have to stare at a screen in order to listen to a podcast, it is inherently mobile. You can listen to it from anywhere and that's one of the lovely things about some of these platforms, Podbean, Libsyn, Blubrry, that are now offering internal podcasting is that, it can be up based as well as extremely private for these companies that need that extreme privacy.

Jennifer Crawford (16:44):

Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, it doesn't have to be an either or situation, it can be an AND, you can have audio content and video content very easily, even internally actually. Podbean does offer internal video, I'm not sure about Blubrry because their platform is about to launch pretty soon. I don't know if they'll do a launch by the time this-

Tina Dietz (17:07):

Will find out, yeah.

Jennifer Crawford (17:07):

... podcast comes out, but we'll find out. But by the way, they are a Podcast Inc sponsor, we're very glad to have them. Thank you Blubrry! But I agree completely when you said there's sort of a time and place for both, right? So the nice thing that I was hearing from companies when I was working with them about setting up their internal media platforms is that, they were very concerned with safety, right? So the audio format of podcasts, they didn't have to worry about people in the field traveling, people that worked in the field, they didn't have to worry about the safety issue of them being distracted, listening to internal content while they were in the car traveling, right? Where with a video, they were concerned that if it was in a video format, they might be tempted to look away from the road and there would be some safety issues.

Jennifer Crawford (18:02):

But then we had some other clients, who had products where they needed to demo them and talk about their features and that sort of thing, and so the video was really important to them because they could record the actual product demo to their sales teams before they went out on any sort of... Or on got on any sort of sales calls. So it really depends, but I think we saw definitely a predominance of interest in internal audio content because of its flexibility, portability, the ability to listen to the content while their workforce were doing other things. So taking advantage of that windshield time or any other time that would normally be unproductive or less productive, even if it's just walking the dog, you could also be listening to your company updates for the week. So yeah, there's a lot of application there and a lot of reasons that people are being drawn to the audio format.

Tina Dietz (19:11):

Yeah. In this series, we're going to be diving deeper into a lot of what you were just saying, Jennifer, how do you actually set up the... What is the technical side of things and what do you need to know to be able to produce an internal podcast, in terms of personnel, and time, and all of those things before you even get started. We'll be talking about the type of content that you develop for internal podcasting. There are far more options for developing internal content than you may realize, it's not just bullets and reports and a message from the CEO, and that's very exciting that we'll be talking about in far more depth.

Tina Dietz (19:53):

We'll be talking about some of the metrics of internal podcasting and the safety issues, the compliance, all of that good stuff. And the different ways that podcasts are a benefit to a workforce, whether it is mobile or in place, whether it is global or centered in one location, some really fascinating pieces of information and case studies and our different speakers who come from all the different backgrounds, we'll be discussing as we go through this entire series. So I'm very excited for us to be getting this out into the world and very excited also to get some feedback from folks.

Tina Dietz (20:32):

So if anybody has questions about the content that we are getting out there and also about the Podcast Inc conference, I encourage you to go to podcastinc.co, that's not .com, it's .co, podcastinc.co, to find out more information about the conference. And also, if somebody wanted to reach out to us with questions or more inquiries, Jennifer, what's the best way for folks to reach you?

Jennifer Crawford (21:01):

They can reach me, it's [email protected] CO.

Tina Dietz (21:07):

All right. Perfect. That makes it easy for everyone. So if you've got questions or even if you have a question that wasn't covered on one of the episodes that we've got here and you want it answered, reach out to us and we'll make sure that either Jennifer or myself or one of our speakers, gets back to you with the answer that you're looking for, for all of that. And this is a collaborative effort podcast, Jennifer and her team at Podcast Inc, with Heartcast Media, who was our production sponsor for the show, my company Twin Flames Studios, another sponsor there. And anyone else that I missed Jennifer?

Jennifer Crawford (21:48):

I think you covered everything quite well, Tina. Thank you.

Tina Dietz (21:50):

Okay. Excellent, that's what we do. Make sure everything gets handled for everyone. So let's... Okay, I'm just going to pause here. What else do we want to cover? I'm going to pause the recording.

Tina Dietz (22:07):

So I know that some of you out there, have on your mind a really big question because Jennifer and I get asked this all the time, and this is going back to talking about the metrics and the data of internal podcasting. And this is one of the things that makes internal podcasting so exciting. So Jennifer, with your experience with platforms like Podbean, what was the user experience or the company's experience being able to find out more about the data that was being provided to them and that kind of reporting?

Jennifer Crawford (22:41):

Yeah. I'm glad you brought it up because that is something that was really attractive to internal podcasting customers. So because the content with an internal podcast lives on a closed ecosystem typically, so that would be a hosting platform like Blubrry or Podbean. We are able or the platform is able to deliver user-level stats, so they can tell you how each employee has engaged with each piece of content. So you get really valuable insights such as how long they've listened, if they've repeated a portion of content, if they have skipped over any portion of the content. And so that's great because you can take that data and correlate it to the success of sales initiatives, onboarding, training programs, you can also just use it to gauge the quality of the actual content.

Jennifer Crawford (23:39):

I think you touched on this earlier, Tina, even though it's a corporate podcast, it really can't be boring. The same rules apply to internal podcasts as external podcasts, that you still need to make it interesting in order to encourage people to want to consume the content and you also have to market it. So you're marketing it to a very specific customer base that you know very well and intimately, so they're easy to find, but you still have to encourage them to listen and tease them, have teaser content and maybe solicit feedback on how they like the content, or allow maybe a discussion, or a listening party, there are a lot of things you can do. And I think that's one of the topics of a speaker is covering during Podcast Inc.

Jennifer Crawford (24:29):

But yeah, the analytics are so important. You can't get this type of data from a typical marketing effort or internal communication efforts. So even with a newsletter, you may be able to get an open rate, but you don't necessarily know how much of that content they've consumed. So-

Tina Dietz (24:51):

That is very true.

Jennifer Crawford (24:52):

... this is, I mean data rules, because once you have that sort of intelligence, well then you can act on it, you can improve that content, you can improve your training or sales programs, you can reward people that have completed their training or move them onto the next step of their onboarding process based on their consumption, so there's a lot you can do with that data, I guess is the point. So yeah, it is.

Tina Dietz (25:21):

And we've seen from so many of the recent studies, the state of the global workforce studies that were done by Gallup, many other smaller studies that have been done domestically and internationally that the two biggest issues that workplaces are dealing with right now, are engagement of employees and management actually acting as managers. And this is where podcasting can really make a difference in training, in engagement. There's some data we'll be sharing with you throughout the podcast about certain case studies and different companies that have experienced higher levels of engagement, and I'm much more... Their talent retention is even pointing to their ability to deliver information through podcasting because of the relationship that it develops and that it offers between high-level management, the vision of the company and people who were kind of on the front lines, in all different departments, because it allows people from all different facets of a company to contribute to content and to innovation through the podcast and content. So we're very excited to share with you a lot more as we go through this series. And Jennifer, any closing thoughts as we wrap up here?

Jennifer Crawford (26:43):

No. I just think that... I'm hoping this series will encourage companies to consider an internal podcast, as you mentioned. Retaining your top talent has nothing to do with what they're getting paid anymore. People are looking to work for companies that they can stand behind, that they believe in, they're looking for meaningful work, and it's the unengaged employee that you lose, that's the employee that walks out the door. An employee that is engaged with the inner workings of the company that feels part of something, they feel their voice is heard, and understands the mission of the company that they're working for, is going to be an employee that stays with you. So I think that talent retention is so important to companies because that costs them in the billions of dollars each year, trying to keep top talent retained. So yeah, if you're not considering internal podcasting, I think you're really missing the boat and your company can choose to be innovative now or behind the times very quickly.

Tina Dietz (27:51):

Very, very quickly. And the good news is that internal podcasting isn't one of those things that is going to take a tremendous amount of technology, it's not going to take a tremendous amount of financial investment, and it dovetails beautifully with a number of the other communication structures the companies already have in place, so yay, all the way around.

Tina Dietz (28:12):

And as I said, stay tuned for all of the content that we have for you. I would hope that you would even kind of binge out this content for yourself, maybe take notes, and get back to us with any questions you have. You can reach Jennifer directly, at [email protected] and you can find out more about the podcast and conference at podcastinc.co. I'm Tina Dietz from Twin Flame Studios, your host here for the series, and will see you virtually, in our next episode as we get into all of the data, the storytelling and the intricacies of internal podcasting for business and corporations on the podcasting podcast. Thanks for joining us.