Coming up on XL podcast, all the advice you need to sound like a pro on your next podcast or webinar. Many of us take it for granted, but sounding great actually requires a bit of work. Everything from changing the audio settings on zoom, I'm not talking about selecting your microphone, but for example, those advanced settings, you might not be aware of like suppressing background noise. Should it be low, medium, high or auto? 

We'll also talk about microphones choice of microphones, where you should record in your office or your house to sound good. And by the way, clue that don't record it in a stairwell or a bathroom. And also don't record a podcast off a laptop microphone, all of these tips to make you sound like a pro coming up in the next 30 minutes, because my guest is K Bharath aka Magic Mic, who's recorded well over a thousand podcasts and is an audio engineer. We will download all of his experience, lessons learned and mistakes so you can benefit from them.

Increasingly Brand's are looking at podcasts as a way to communicate in authentic and human ways. How do you communicate your brand through a podcast? It may be easy if you are a cool funky tech brand, but what if, for example, you are Government or a management consultancy or an IT services company. It doesn't come naturally.

But the good news is there are great stories within all brands and my next guest on the XL podcast Prarthana Sibal  who heads up client services for Pikkal & Co, who works on podcasts, such as UBS. Deloitte, UTI investment India  and so on. She'll share her experience on the podcast in the next 30 minutes to help you understand how you can turn all that wealth of conversations, people and content inside your brand and your organization into an engaging podcast.

Stick around for podcasting, for brands with me, Graham brown and my guests Prarthana Sibal

My next guest on the XL podcast is Prantik Mazumdar an award winning entrepreneur, marketer, and investor. He joined the digital consultancy, Happy  Marketer in 2011 before growing the business to well over 10 million in revenues and engineering, a trade sell to Japanese advertising, conglomerate Dentsu. Growing a business from scratch to a multi-million dollar trade sale raises many questions. I’m sure in your minds.  How did Prantik And his co-founder Rachit do it, especially when the business was an agency model? And what do you do once you’ve scored that big success in your life? Do you like many entrepreneurs not knowing any other pathway in life, choose to start all over again? Or do you choose to use that new found knowledge and access to benefit others? For Prantik success meant not the end, but the beginning. That is the beginning of a new era, a new era of entrepreneurship meeting the world of bigger challenges ie solving the problem of access in public policy healthcare. Education and employment in India and Southeast Asia. That’s a challenge that impacts between 1.5 and 2 billion people.  But with so many options, where do you start? To find out the answers to all of these questions and to meet my next guest Prantik. Mazumdar. Stay tuned to this episode of XL podcast with me Graham Brown

We start this conversation describing the thrill of riding off piste as a ski instructor, when the fear and exhilaration that comes with riding the risk transcends into magic. So much of life happens in “the gaps”. Some of us prefer a quiet, predictable life while others seek challenge and constant evolution. My next guest, Paul Ruppert, is definitely in the second group. What Paul brings to the table is range is a rare quality to bring to a business - range is the ability see patterns, identify predictable characteristics and make sense of fast moving, fragmented markets. While specialists may build out the building blocks of technology industries, it’s those with Range that have their eye on where that technology is taking us. From his early experiences selling hi-fi on the east coast to building out billion dollar messaging startups that spanned the US and Asia, Paul’s career has been one of constant evolution… and surprises. Every time I talk with Paul and dig into his story, I discover a new rabbit hole... he met 4 US presidents, graduated from Harvard, holds 2 interoperability patents in messaging… and a few more that you’ll also enjoy in this podcast.

3 Netflix Execs recently took to Slack to air their grievances about the company’s culture and leadership. This was, after all, the same Netflix that advocated “Radical Transparency” in a 127 slide public presentation. The Execs were fired, not because of what they said but how they said it. According to Netflix, everyone is allowed to complain as long as they do it to the leader’s face. That’s not how company cultures work, argues my next guest Paul Glover, a No-BS performance coach. He argues Radical Transparency is a myth. Most employees are not engaged with their leadership and companies, a fact exacerbated by the pandemic and gradual shift towards the “Great Resignation”. The problem companies face today in disengagement and attrition are fundamentally communication problems. Leaders overestimate their ability to communication, influence and engage. Paul should know, he used to be a court room trial lawyer who learned his craft challenging facts and influencing juries. “People will make decisions on emotion and later justify with fact”, he said in our podcast. This applies as much to juries as it does to employees. Great communicators know how to use story, not powerpoint presentations, to communicate engagement and meaning. And often, this starts with being open to truths and allowing their people to speak that truth to power. Open, transparent cultures can be places of joy, but they require a lot of work and vulnerability. In this podcast conversation, we discuss just how leaders can create that culture.

With 600 million people and over 30,000 islands, the region of Southeast Asia presents both vast opportunities and challenges. How does a Durian fruit farmer in Thailand ship orders to buyers in Jakarta Indonesia? Regional logistics are evolving fast to cope with managing the supply side infrastructure challenges and growing middle class consumer expectations about delivery times.Bernard Hor of Hatio is well positioned to address these challenges. A 5 hour flights from their Kuala Lumpur headquarters in Malaysia, can reach half the world’s population or 3.5 billion people (a similar flight from SFO will reach only 700 million). From this vantage point, Bernard is working to deploy digital warehousing solutions to take the region’s small businesses (Mom and Pop stores) through the digital transformation process and ready them for the demands of regional ecommerce. This is not a goal you can achieve successfully through powerpoint presentations and live demos of logistics software like many tech companies, but by starting with a more human approach - start with the problem. In this podcast, Bernard discusses how they tailor the sales process of their logistics software to the language of those Mom and Pop stores. We also discuss the evolution of logistics in Southeast Asia, the development of “Dark Stores” and “MFCs” (Micro Fulfilment Centres), how Asia will evolve in this decade and what innovations are driving logistics in the region.

Produced by  Pikkal & Co - Award-Winning Podcast Agency. Graham Brown talks Rod Drury, the billionaire founder of SAAS Platform Xero. Rod describes himself as "Funemployed” - not actively involved in the day to day running of the business, but serving on the board and spending his days exploring new adventures - from mountain biking to surfing. We all know Xero, but who is the man that turned the Xero idea into a $10 bn SAAS success? How did Xero build a cloud accounting platform that people love?

Produced by  Pikkal & Co - Award-Winning Podcast Agency. Automate to Elevate. Greater process automation can elevate employees from mundane tasks to accomplish more enriching & value-generating work. Jody is an Independent consultant for Product design as well as an international faculty & Graduate studies program mentor/advisor at the Singularity University in California, USA.

Produced by  Pikkal & Co - Award-Winning Podcast Agency. Welcome to the podcast, Nell Watson, Founder of QuantaCorp, a pioneer in Machine Vision. Graham and Nell explore the fascinating world of AI, philosophy and ethics. Graham was a graduate of Artificial Intelligence back in 1995, but a lot has changed in the last 25 years! Nell explains how AI has evolved and how it will continue to evolve from here. Nell serves as Senior Scientific Advisor to The Future Society at Harvard, and holds Fellowships from the British Computing Society, and Royal Statistical Society. She also chairs EthicsNet.org, a community teaching pro-social behaviours to machines

Produced by  Pikkal & Co - Award-Winning Podcast Agency. In this episode, Graham talks with Sahar Hashemi, founder of Coffee Republic and confectionery brand Skinny Candy. Sahar opted out of her career as a lawyer to grow Coffee Republic which she later helped float on the stock market. Sahar Hashemi was named in Management Today in "Top 35 Women in British business under 35” and Independent on Sunday in "The 20 most powerful women in Britain”.