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.