And welcome to the startup skills podcast brought to you by a Spyro ship. Today we have two of the best in the business, Evan Hughes and Steph granola from refine labs. If you don't know refine labs, you got to check them out. We are super pleased to have them on the podcast today to talk about podcasting as a growth strategy and the skills that you need to develop in your teams to do it.
So Evan and Steph, thanks for being here. Really appreciate it. Thanks for having us. Yeah, I look forward to this.
Thanks, Corey. All right. So let's just dive in. I want to start by talking about the why behind podcasting.
I think probably you all had a lot to do with this sort of spreading the message that podcasting is a great way to help people grow, help businesses grow. We've certainly been evangelizing it as well through our partnership and our courses and programs together that we're working on. But tell us why podcasting is such a great way to tell your brand story. Yeah, there's no better way than being able to say it and share it and show your values in something like a podcast.
If you're education focus or you're entertainment focused or you are expert focused, wherever you're coming from, for a point of view, you're so much easier to share that on a podcast than in really any other medium because it is so easy to repurpose that content and really own your narrative. I think it's also worth adding to you recognize like how the world moves so differently over the last 10 years, especially where we started to see podcasts really ramp up. Everyone's on the go everyone has access to Wi-Fi and mobile. People are able to consume content differently.
And it's just been that trajectory that's needed where we started to see like a much more rapid pace this idea to consume content in a different vehicle on the bus on the ride under walks during breaks like all the bad versus sitting down having to watch a video and or consume a blog. I think it's just been a natural chain natural progression to just technology allowing podcasts to be distributed more broadly. Got it. Thank you.
That's super helpful. I definitely want to talk about these the roles and the skills and all that stuff needed. But before we get there, I want to talk a little bit about some examples. So I think one of the challenges and I've gone through this myself because we are adopting Refined Labs Playbook here at Aspire Ship and we're actually launching multiple podcasts, this being one of them.
We're actually filming this before the official launch and said it'll be fun to see it back after. But one of the things that's tricky is if you're doing this not just for entertainment value and you're actually doing it to achieve a business objective, say I want more leads for my product or my offering or whatever, how do you figure out the right way to frame the theme of everything and make it so that it's not just this like total sales pitch, annoying, like you're just saying the things that you need to say to get people to buy your product, but it's stuff that people actually care about and actually want to talk about any thoughts on what that looks like. Yeah, I'll jump in and I'm sure it's a great point of view. I think one of the challenges we see, especially as we work with clients and me personally is setting up a podcast in motion that doesn't have an intention behind it or not establishing the intention.
So it's one thing to say, okay, I'm going to report a podcast, I'm going to get this movie. The topics are going to be generally, generally around this theme. But if you don't have for every episode of that intention, so both whether it's a guest, whether you're doing solo monologue, it always is something that guides that and we're starting to make sure you stay focused and tight on that content piece itself. No, that's absolutely it.
Yeah. Yeah. So you're saying have an intention. Can you expand more about what you mean by that?
Yeah, I think that we there's so many directions you can go in any business or organization, right? When it comes to conversation, whether you have some thought leadership, whether you're needing down on a specific topic or conversation, I think having the intention of what you want the listeners to walk away with keeps you really focused on the topic throughout the conversation. Of course, we'll go on tangents, we can go on rants here or there, which is fine. It keeps it authentic and real.
But you want to be sure to bring it back to that where the listener knows like at the top of the episode, this is what I expect when I close out the episode, this is what I anticipate I'll walk away with learning. And if you don't have that, then you're going to lose some viewership listeners just because it's a natural like distraction and they're not necessarily getting what they thought they signed up for and time is valuable. Awesome. Steph, what do you think?
Yeah, no, that's absolutely it. And I think to just pick you back off of that if your intention is just to get leads or to get sales, people are going to see through it immediately, you have to have an altruistic goal. Obviously, that's what we want when we're pushing our brand out there in any channel. But if you don't have something that you're really rooted in that you're trying to give to your audience, people are going to catch on pretty quickly.
Yeah, it's hard to keep the content going for sure when it's packaged up like that. Let's let's go to format types. We've covered some of this before and other channels, but I think it's important to look at how do you decide between the format types you mentioned, interview style, monologue, like focus areas, what does that look like? It really is like Evan said, you want to set your goals first, and then you're going to look at your team and you're going to find what fits both your goals and your team.
If you have an internal expert who is ready and excited to host and share, you might be looking at more of a solo hosted podcast. If you're someone who has a small team and you're hoping to get broader reach, and you want to diversify the experts that are coming on, you might want to focus on a guest style podcast. It really depends on who you're working with. So I know we'll get into those roles, but who you have who you're working with and what your goals are for reach and topics.
Yeah, I'm going to just add stuff, nailed it. It's really about what is the formula you're packaging out there? What's your ultimate goal in terms of are you looking for kind of a demand-gen strategy, looking for like a network content building strategy, looking for thought leadership strategy? All of that should be like the thesis and then you build from there on like how to apply the different interview styles or solo episodes.
So all of that kind of builds by getting up to that intention front. Awesome. Okay, so this is a perfect segue into the team and the skills. So this podcast is focused a lot on founders and leaders in like earlier stage companies.
So thinking the dozens to hundreds of employees, not thousands. And so founders can be great hosts, great thought leaders. But that may not necessarily be the way that people go with it. But let's go down the four roles.
I could share, but like, why don't want to be take that? What are the four roles that we need to fill to make the podcast successful? Yeah, one of the all passive over step two, if she has anything to add, but just to simplify it in most of the way, think about like how we pack a dark playbook and we communicate to the market from refined labs, point of view, we have four roles that are really important to get a podcast off the ground. And so we have the architect, the expert, the creative and the distributor.
And because we assign that each of those roles, that does not mean four people. So we'll get into more depth and talk about the smaller businesses and agencies, whoever is putting a podcast in motion. But I think if we drill into each one of those, we'll see the qualities that seek the kind of styles to look for in the individual. Anything bad stuff that I may be missed?
No, that's perfect. I think knowing that you don't have to have four niche skilled people is really important when you're getting started. Yeah, awesome. And I think we should go one by one, like start with the architect.
What does architect do? What skills do they need? And is there a way to develop these skills? I think this will be a theme throughout.
Can we develop this in our teams or you need to just find someone that naturally can do this with no development? Yeah, so the architect is the person who is driving the strategy. So like Evan was saying before, you need to set your intentions and your goals really clearly. That's in the architects area.
So this is someone who's going to build relationships with the audience to evangelize the podcast to help promote to be in tune with what the industry is doing, what's changing in the market, what people need, what people want to know who you're targeting this podcast to and what's going to be best for them, what's going to pull them in the most strong. Yeah, I think it could be double clicking without even a bit further and you look at like true tangible qualities to seek after, right? The architect in this role is how we define it really needs to have that strategic vision. So they're a program leader, they're able to gather those customer insights as customer narratives.
What is the community speaking about that aligns to the ICP or the target audience to make sure things are niche and relevant. Typically, you want somebody that's agile that can pivot quickly, they're able to use their analytical mindset, but also adapt. So data informs decision making, pivot new, pivot to new ideas or strategies quickly as the market evolves, we all know conversations change quickly, especially access to technology and communities. So those would be like the areas like where you'd want to align the architect with somebody that has a passion around those specific qualities.
Awesome. And so this might be like a founder, a product marketer, or anybody within the organization that just possesses those skills or can develop those skills. But those are probably a couple of the ones maybe that come to mind like natural roles that align, especially if you're thinking about kind of those hundred to two hundred smaller companies, right? The founders typically, or somebody that's customer facing that is having those conversations.
So I think however, you define the role is going to be up to the organization. But members, the most customer facing that's able to understand the narrative and market and has the ability to set strategy and motion, right? So you can overcomplicate this. And I think that's where you're a founder that's two in the weeds, then this can be a bit of a outside of your comfort zone.
And I would recommend finding another individual that's able to niche down and think long term strategy versus hyper focusing on potential outcomes that aren't necessarily warranted in this. Got it. And let's go to the host, which is self explanatory. So in this instance, I'm the host here.
What does the host need to have to be successful in this? And what are some ways that we can develop that in someone? Yeah, so I think it's important to note that the host and the subject matter expert don't have to be the same person. If you're doing a guest or an interview style, you can have someone who is a host who is knowledgeable in the field, but is bringing folks in.
And I think for that host role, establishing tone and personality, and really getting across the sense of your brand and your mission and your narrative is the most important scale to have to be able to be able to be able to relay that and help a guest if it is an interview style, get aligned with that narrative. Yeah, I think we'll keep the same theme like I'll add some layers of the qualities that we look for as well. But it's really like somebody that doesn't BS right like somebody that you can trust that feels authentic that you would like communicate to the market in the same point of view paint same narrative same tone right as we build trust over time and a lot of trust and be built listening to how people communicate in their styles and their liberty. So I think that's a piece of it.
But you want also people that's walk the walk for lack of a better phrase, right? So they're the expert in the niche because they want to be the kind of guy to conversation and have some sort of input on it. You can tell right away the minute you don't listen to it. Listen to a podcast and you recognize the host has no idea what the topic is about right there.
Just feeling questions that chat sheet, be gave them and they're hoping to God that they have something that they can walk away with that's tangible enough to put in a video and or distribute on social. Everyone can read through the BS. I would just say there's proven credibility, there's strong communication skills and their passion, whatever that passion is, there has to be a passion whether it's a host or the expert and without that, then I don't think there's a long job to podcast. That's awesome.
I think you touched on a lot of this. But one thing that I've found personally, and we did this with one of our podcasts is the teacher career coach and Elizabeth pseudo is the new host of the podcast. She has never been on camera before. She's certainly never hosted a podcast.
She is a former teacher. So she has that that connection to the audience. And she's a dynamic person, very smart and all that. But it wasn't an obvious thing, right?
It wasn't like I said, Elizabeth is going to be an amazing host. I need to go tap her for this. She raised her hand. And I was like, Oh, okay, you're been awesome at everything you've done.
So let's just give you a shot to do this. But do you have any thoughts either of you on I think this is going to be a blocker for some people of I've never been on camera. I've never done that. Maybe I am a subject matter expert or I'm articulate or I have some of those raw skills.
But I don't know if that's me. I don't know if I can do that. Any thoughts on like how to bring that out as companies are looking to start a podcast and are thinking about who could lead this outside of say like just a founder. Yeah, this is a conversation we have every day, right?
And I think it's important to remember that nobody started on camera. We started in these industries by building relationships and making connections. You go through an interview process and that's your whole goal is to communicate your point of view and your experience. And so to think of a podcast or a video series in the same kind of way as this is a chance for you to tell your story and welcome others into that story.
And it's so intimidating to see yourself on camera or to hear your voice for the first few times you're going to hate it. And then you'll get used to it. So practicing putting yourself on a zoom call and just talking to yourself for a while until you get comfortable doing whatever you need to do hiding the zoom screen with your camera on it or listening back writing out a script for yourself and practicing till it sounds natural. All of these performance things are already in us.
But I think when that camera turns on, we start to freeze on it. So just it's practicing and it's trusting the fact that you have you have the passion to do it. You have the skills you just might need to hold them a little bit. I absolutely can't stand my voice on any sort of video recording or anything.
So I can absolutely sympathize with that. Also, the first few podcasts that I ever recorded, I was so nervous, I was so shaky because I again, this imposter syndrome kicks you and they're like, wait a sec, I don't know what I'm talking about because you're mesmerized by the camera, the idea of recording. So just that's one of the one thing that really works for me was minimizing the screen for the recording. So whether you're on zoom or is reducing that and then recording yourself on a dialogue.
So just that four to five bullet points on a topic and see if you can like intro to outro and make sure that flows and then watch it back. It's uncomfortable. You're not going to like it. The more you can do that and you can see where your arms and your pauses are, the more you're going to recognize how to improve your communication style.
I think as like you think about the expert or the host, all of these things are coachable. You just need preparation. So when you fumble into a potential opportunity to host a podcast, you can tell when you're underprepared. It's okay to be shaky.
It's okay to need to edit out the arms and it does not to be need to be perfect. And no podcast should be. I feel like it feels too fake. So walk away with that just recognizing that you can make mistakes and memory short, people are going to forget as long as a content valuable.
Yeah, I also find too that if we let people know that it is being edited, that starts to make them a little bit more comfortable. Obviously, if you're doing a live event, it's a different story, but for podcast with post production, to know that if you mess up an answer and you want to take it again, that's totally fine. We'll fix it in post. That starts to help folks relax a little bit from feeling like they have to be perfect the entire time.
So it's a lot of mind. Yeah, I think that's really smart. I have personal story with this and it wasn't a podcast, but when we started a spy ship for anyone that knows much about what we do there, like online courses and it's like very heavy video based. And what we didn't have a host, we didn't have anybody that could do any of this stuff.
And so I had to do it in the five years ago. And I remember specifically, I went into a studio. We didn't have one at the time we do now, but I rented a studio like by the hour I went in there and I was not to freak people out, but I was in the studio for 30 days straight by myself. And in the beginning, I was so stiff.
I was so worried about, like Evan said, the umbs and whatever, because I still do that a lot. And at a certain point, I was just like, you know what? Screw it. I'm just going to talk to the camera.
I'm just going to be natural. And that's where it really changed everything because you could look back. Like I still have some that takes some way. Could look back at the updates where I'm just like piercing and stuff, because I'm so dry and just not myself at all.
And once I just got comfortable with the idea of, hey, I'm going to be in here for a million hours, like I might as well just do whatever. It's going to be fine. Then it suddenly got so much better. So that for me, the repetition was the thing of just doing the work, doing the repetition and not forcing myself into I have to get this done really quickly and get out the door.
Yeah, that's hope. Cool. All right. Let's move on to the creative.
So I think most people would think this is editing, post-production, maybe graphics or whatever for social. What does this person do and what do you need to know? Yeah. So it's exactly what you just said, the person who's going to take all of those ums and all of those questions and restarts and make it sound like a fluid podcast or fluid recording.
This is something that there are so many tools out there that you can use to help support this, but you need someone who can utilize those tools. AI is great to start, but it's nothing that should be set and forget. So someone who understands the vision of the show, so working closely with the architect to know the vibe and the feel and the pacing and the important pieces of information that you really want to make stand out. So it's identifying those clippable moments.
It's knowing where to highlight moments. It's knowing how to make the show fit the narrative that it was intended to. I think one of the aspects for the creative component, right? So a lot of maybe these startup companies don't necessarily have access to a creative resource or the overhead to bring in an in-house.
There are so many agencies out there that are able to help you do this to Stephanie's point that speed is value too. So you have to recognize you might not have like the ability to bring somebody in a house that has a technical proficiency that has the attention to detail, or you have time to the coach, right? So you really want to look like across cross disciplinary skills. Are they able to do and adapt quickly to changing audio, content, creative?
So don't let that discourage from a podcast. I think that's been a lot of blockers for some of the startups that I can solve with this. We don't have these skillsets in-house at a fraction of the cost are able to, whether you're sitting in a room for 30 days, recording 12 episodes and then you distribute those to the team and say, okay, this is what I want. Let them take that lift.
But if you are bringing it in-house, I think one thing to keep out of mind is like, challenge the individuals, ask them what creative challenges they run into, how did they pivot their strategy quickly? Like you want somebody that's able to recognize that there's an issue and correct it without needing a lot of guidance and mentorship. So that's there's a strategy and analytical mindset there. But I think like challenging somebody to bring a brief or an idea or overview of how they would take, let's say a 60 second wrong podcast, how you turn that into something, what are you looking for?
Those questions are the unlock and that would be, if you are in this role, that's how I presented conversation to you. If you're in an interview or outside of it, it's showcase and highlight your skills. So what strategies have you provided? What challenges have you overcome?
All of that is like that aha moment for somebody that you're interviewing or they interview, they understand the complexities and I don't have time for the stuff. Yeah, I'll also add that this isn't necessarily a recommendation, but if you are in a situation where you don't believe you have the budget to bring on somebody either full time or contract or whatever to do this, and this podcast is important enough to your growth strategy, that it's worth the time to invest from your internal team, this stuff is totally learnable. Right. So some of the newer tools, especially are incredible.
When it comes to editing, you may not knock it out of the park in terms of all the bells and whistles and all the amazing stuff that you could do, but you can make this look professional, you can get the clips out, you can get the full production out. That can happen with your internal team. And it's totally learnable. You need people that are comfortable tinkering with software and learning some of these things, but it's absolutely possible.
Okay. Find an awesome intern that wants to build their portfolio, right? On that plenty of times, like they are the experts that are hungry to learn the tools and they actually get something out of it because they are able to build that portfolio. That's a great ability to you to learn them to learn and you're up going everybody across the organization.
Love that. That's great. But tell us more about what the distributor does. And then I want to talk a bunch about this topic because it's a challenging one.
Yeah. So this is the person who gets everything over the finish line and you want someone who understands as many different platforms as your goals want you to push on. So that's in straight audio podcast. It's in the full audio YouTube video.
It's in YouTube shorts. It's in YouTube short videos. It's in LinkedIn posts and clips. It's in Instagram and TikTok.
And wherever you're putting these videos, every single platform has a different voice. And it's so every platform has a different algorithm. Everywhere has different use of hashtags and keywords and you need someone who is willing to take the time to learn and adapt and grow with all of these platforms, who can change their voice for each platform, who can take all the different formats of videos and get them to the places that they need to be, who's knowledgeable enough in the topic that they can engage with comments that are coming in and have a dialogue with people who are consuming the content. Easy.
No big deal. Now, this one, I think, is one of the this role. If we were to find these as like roles, like the skill set is one of the most valuable and impactful for the podcast to scale. So I think if you have the expert and they're able to dial in the distributor mindset, like you'll have a good tool in your tool belt to be able to get your podcast off the ground.
What will not work and test out point platforms all have different processes or tools or nuances to them. Audiences read content differently on each other. So as a distributor, you have to understand exactly what your audience is that you're trying to reach. You have to be an organizational guru.
Like you have to absolutely be able to maintain and chaos like what needs to go where, because when you push things to market, you don't know how they're going to take off, you don't know what's going to get a little traction or what maybe needs to be reevaluated. So I think that they also need to have a strong network. So as you really need to tap into your network and you need to communicate with peers with that similar ICP, right? Your distribution is not just paid ads or pushing to an organic channel.
It's communicating and creating a dialogue between your network and getting them to talk more about the subject. That proves you have a valuable content piece and a valuable topic to discuss. There's no real engagement on it. If you don't have network and peers engaging on it, then I think it's time to reevaluate as a distributor where you're putting your content in or you go back to the beginning, right?
And you talk about the expert and the architect and what is the intention that we're setting? Maybe we need to reevaluate that. Interesting. I heard a lot about all the different platforms where we can post our clips and all of that stuff.
If you don't have a ton of experience with specific platforms or even if you do, but you question, do I really know that that's what you do in approach this or do I just think I'm good at this? Do you have any tips on how to learn a new platform, how to think about best practices or anything like that for this role? Consuming. It's time and it's invisible work because it's a lot of watching YouTube videos and seeing what's performing well.
And it's so hard to say, I have two hours blocked on my calendar for watching YouTube. It feels fake, right? But there's so you can only learn if you are consuming that content. There's something to be said for the fact that the algorithm is always changing and you are never going to be on top of the algorithm every time it shifts.
So making sure that you're not losing that initial intention, like Evan was talking about earlier in favor of the algorithm. There's a balance to strike there that you're consuming and you're learning, but also you're never losing that through line vision. I'd recommend to start small. Don't overwhelm yourself with it.
So let's say you're in a niche, an industry, right? So I'm always speaking to that because that's where we niche down, but you recognize that maybe you have a manufacturing audience and you're looking for VPs or you're looking for senior executives that are on LinkedIn. Focus there. Like own that, learn that inside and out.
Don't think about YouTube, YouTube shorts, all the different like tactics within channel. Just truly understand the core fundamentals. Like, hey, what am I trying to reach and why? How do I reach them and why?
And then those are questions you can start searching, right? So if you understand like what your objective is, you can go and you can find content. I'll be the first to admit it. I got my job, my first marketing job ever off of Craigslist.
I had never run any paid search in my life. I saw an interesting job posting that's been about 13 years ago. Craigslist, I guess I made you myself that said I went to YouTube and I taught myself everything because I outlined the fundamentals of what I needed to know. And I think that's what I would just encourage in this role too.
It was my audience. How do they consume content on these platforms, right? If you're coming from bare minimum and then what are the tools to get this content out there? What is an organic social post me?
What's the frequency that I should post that? Is there any rules that I should look out for when I'm posting things? What are the nodes? Reddit communities are really great.
And then the last one, I think that any successful individual has a strong network around them. So it highly encouraged you as you're getting in there to break that imposter centerman has those silly questions to you, but they're valuable. So find somebody that's doing a slide into their inbox on LinkedIn and be like, I'm really trying to learn this. Do you have any tools or resources?
I don't think I think it's okay to ask and people are afraid to ask that question. Yeah, that's part of why we do these things, right? These episodes. What about, is this all organic?
What it sounds like to me is you get your post production, you have everything ready to go, you figure out what channels who you're speaking to, all that stuff. And it's about optimizing the content for that channel. Is there anything else to this? Is there a paid component?
Is there a like audience building stuff that we need to think about, especially if you don't have massive reach right out the gate? What other things does this person need to be thinking about in order to be truly successful at distributing this content? I think we need to go take a step back and think about your strategy, right? So again, if we go and we're talking about, we might get into this.
Maybe this is a different episode, but I just want to be clear on, we think about the formula to get a podcast and or distribute it, right? Is it a demand generation strategy? So are you trying to create awareness in the market broadly reach frequency? You're just trying to top a large audience.
Is it content based? Are you reaching down to an account list that you have a hundred accounts, maybe that the sales team's going after? Or are you thinking of the law leadership, right? You're just really keeping this pulse of the business.
You want your organization to be top of mind. All of those, I think, are the foundation for how you would go to market, whether organic or paid. So that directly into your question, yes, there are paid elements there, but that get very overwhelming if you don't know your intention from the podcast from the beginning. So let's do scenario based, right?
Demand generation strategy. You're really looking to leverage your internal SMEs or your internal network to create thought leadership that is about your subject matter expertise and you want to put that in market. You go through all the roles, you get the content at the end. Demand generation, we recognize that we want to have the broadest reach for the highly, the most targeted audience.
So let's say, let's we're using LinkedIn as an example. We want to niche down to the specific audience that we're trying to reach. And we know we can do organically, but organic people choose to follow and listen to you paid, you force that message to an audience. So I think it's like a push and call and you just got to think about it that way.
I was like, oh, we're doing extremely good. That's great. But is that truly your ICP? So then that's where the paid layer comes in.
And I think that's where you should distribute it on it. See what's met resonating with the audience. But if we were looking at reaching frequency for demand generation strategy, then it would be like, Oh, fish and can I get my message out there or the dollars that I have to invest? And you have to think about those and increment that.
Otherwise you're just going to overwhelm yourself. That was a bit of a rant. That was a very articulate rant about the topic. So thank you.
I think this was super interesting. I'm in the thick of this now, like myself, as we're doing this across a few different brands and products and all that stuff. So yeah, I love picking the brains of the experts. Yeah, I'm just going to close out with one like idea or thought, because this is right.
The companies maybe don't have the resources to create a podcast. I know that kind of goes against like how we're talking about this. But even if you're at the very beginning, try to get yourself on other podcasts, create that thought leadership by going and being a guest. So in order to do that, you need to have a strong point of view.
You need to be that architect of your own ideas and narrative, but you can start small and start learning how people are having conversations. How are they having the dialogues? What are the questions they're answering? You're building the arsenal and the tools so that when you were ready to go live, you're like, I've had solo conversations.
I've had controversial conversations. I've had informative discussions. Each one of those is a strategy and intent that I would just recommend that you walk away with. So try to get on as many as you can to learn from the experts and then you become more competent in the strategy.
Yeah, that's really good advice. And I think that one thing that I would add is when you are ready to start. Remember that it's not a competition that you can't compare metrics with other podcasts because they're just not available openly, but focus on yourself and focus on the narrative that you are trying, the story that you're trying to tell. And you're the information that you have to share, the passion that you have to share.
The market is always going to be crowded. There's always going to be another marketing podcast that doesn't mean you shouldn't also add your voice. If you believe in your voice, then believe it enough to put it out there. Awesome.
Steph, Evan, this was phenomenal. I think it's going to be a great episode and help a lot of people to thank you for investing the time and we'll see you on the next one. I'm pretty confident we'll have you back. Thanks.
That's great. Bye.