Creating Voice and Authenticity in your Company's Private Podcast
Episode Show Notes
TJ and Julian are back... well almost. This is a BONUS episode that we are dropping a week before our highly anticipated re-launch of the PodOn Podcast. On this episode, we had the honor of being guest on the Podcast on Private Podcasts, presented by Storyboard and their Founder and Host, JP Gooderham.
On this episode, we share our "best secrets" (we got secrets for days) including:
How to emphasize your voice and authenticity in your company's internal podcast
Unique strategies that companies can use to connect with their audiences
Opportunities to cross-promote episodes in your feed with other key messages
We also discuss our new project GiftPod, which allows families and friends to share audio moments that will last a lifetime. You can learn more at GiveAGiftPod.com.
PodOn is hosted by TJ Bonaventura and Julian Lewis, founders of the full-service podcast company based in San Francisco, StudioPod. If you want more details on how to record and produce your podcast with our services fully, you can reach us at http://studiopodsf.com, send us an email at info@studiopodsf.com or contact us through our social media channels as @studiopodmedia. Music by GaryOAKland.
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POPP (The Podcast on Private Podcasts) is presented by Storyboard (http://www.trystoryboard.com) and will provide an overview for anyone who wants to launch a private, internal podcast for their organization or company. In this series, we'll interview innovators and leaders who have adopted podcasting to transform their internal communications.
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Learn More about Storyboard
Episode Transcript (via Rev.com)
TJ Bonaventura:
This is the Pod On podcast. We're your host, TJ Bonaventura, that's me and Julian Lewis.
Julian Lewis:
That's me. As founders of a podcast media company, we had to start a podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
So, join us each episode as we and our guest drop knowledge on podcasting for you, the curious and scrappy podcaster.
Julian Lewis:
Ooh, it gives me chills. Every time I hear that Gary Oakland beat. The Pod On Podcast is back. TJ and I are currently recording and not only do we have some great nuggets to help you launch and maintain your podcast, but we have some great guests on the horizon. For this week, we want to share an episode from one of our partners, Storyboard, and their podcast on private podcasting. On this episode, we chat about how to emphasize your voice and authenticity in your company's internal podcast, unique strategies that companies can use to connect with their audiences, and opportunities to cross-promote episodes in your feed with other key messages. Oh, and we might be talking about a little project called GiftPod. We hope you enjoy and get ready for some more fire Pod On podcast episodes. Peace.
JP Gooderham:
Welcome back everyone to Pop the Podcast on Private Podcast presented by Storyboard. We're extremely excited about all of the new and cool opportunities we've been seeing from our customers to leverage podcasting and audio in the workplace. This show is going to dive into how to really optimize and make that podcast as effective and successful as possible. We're glad to have you back. This is JP Gooderham and I'm the founder of Storyboard. Learn more about what we do and what we can offer and make sure to head over to storyboard.fm where you can get started on our free tier today with no credit card down. Or you can reach out to us to get a full demo about what we can do for companies of all sizes. But today we're going to be talking to two phenomenal guests. They really are two great minds in the world of podcasting. I'm lucky to have known them for a little while at this point. We have TJ Bonaventura and Julian Lewis. They're the co-founders of StudioPod. How are you doing guys?
TJ Bonaventura:
Doing great.
Julian Lewis:
Phenomenal.
JP Gooderham:
So I want to start off because we've worked closely on a few projects at this point, and I think that your team really has tackled podcasting and audio from a number of different angles, which is really cool. Can you share with folks what StudioPod does and just a little bit about where your areas of specialty are? Because it's really interesting.
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah, definitely. So our mission here at StudioPod is to empower through audio. And so that could be anything from helping an individual, create their podcast from the ground up, helping a organization, continue their podcasting efforts, both internally, externally, or helping people create really personalized messages for their family members through multiple different things like anniversaries, weddings.
Julian Lewis:
Any occasion that you want to celebrate, yeah.
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah. Ultimately it's just creating it as much as we can through audio as possible.
JP Gooderham:
That's awesome. And as kind of listeners of pop, most of our listeners are probably thinking, or have already tried to launch audio as a way to engage people at their workplace. And so I was really interested. I've always wanted to have you guys on the show because you've developed a few projects working with corporate customers. So just high-level perspective. Why do you think it's important for large and small companies to be thinking about audio? So many of them, whether for their internal efforts or external efforts, they've certainly done work before on video, they've worked on social to kind of get their message out. What is it about audio that's become so important for companies to really invest time in and think about at this stage?
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. I'm happy to take that one, really having the opportunity to have the voice of your brand out there in the wild, especially if it is an external podcast, people can hear from the leaders of your company and hear your perspectives on different initiatives that you're moving forward with. And then internally, oftentimes the bigger a company grows the further away that you get from their leaders. And if you have the opportunity to, on a consistent basis, hear from your leaders and hear them not in a setting where they're on onstage or they're in front of a camera where they might tense up a little bit, but hear them when they're most likely just in a room in front of a mic where they can kind of open up a little bit more, it really brings more of the human element to a business.
JP Gooderham:
I think that last point is really something that a lot of people are thinking about and they've seen in their own businesses, especially because so many companies are now fully distributed with people working from home for teams that are starting to come back or will be coming back in the future. There are many companies that will be working from home multiple days per week. And sometimes people are coming into the office. I think that idea of voice and authenticity is so incredibly important. So one question for you guys is like in terms of helping, especially people who are new to podcasting, one question that we hear a lot is, how hard is it to make something and make it quality to have that voice and to have that authenticity? Do you have any advice or recommendations for who might be recording themselves for the first time to be as effective as possible?
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah, a hundred percent. I think the biggest thing is don't box yourself in, right. Be as creative as possible. The podcasting industry is still so new and there're so many different ways that have not been utilized [to 00:05:38] today. And I think a good way to think about it is if you're going to listen to a podcast just for your own personal benefit, why are you listening to that podcast? Right. And now put yourself in the shoes of your employers or your colleagues who would be listening to your own internal podcast or your own podcast that your company is putting out. Would they listen to what is it you're talking about? So what that means in my mind is like, don't just record a zoom meeting and put it on an internal podcast. No, one's going to listen to that, plain and simple.
TJ Bonaventura:
Me and Julian both come from the tech industry. I would never listen to that. I know he wouldn't listen to that. Don't take a newsletter and just repeat it word for word and turn that into a podcast. Do something creative, take the people that are the most excitable within your organization, and have them develop different content for your company. I think that's a good way to think about it.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah, most definitely. And it's not hard to convert what you already have to audio, but that quality piece is exactly what TJ's talking about. You want to make it entertaining. You want to make it something different than they're you used to seeing. You want to make it so it's not that email that you're scrolling multiple times through. And you're just like, I have to get through this to get to the point of what this is. Make it entertaining and really capture the ears of your employees. So they'll take some sort of action that you want them to take.
JP Gooderham:
I think that's one of the most important things whether you are a new podcaster in the corporate space and you're launching your first internal podcast, or you've been doing this for six months or nine months or whatever it might be. I love the idea of trying to think about what are communications that we do today, or what are goals that we have as a company, as a team, whatever it might be, and what are ways that audio can kind of creatively solve those problems. One of the examples recently, we were talking to a customer and I love this idea. And I thought this was phenomenal. If you've ever been on a sales team, there are so many different assets that you have to learn about how to be a good salesperson.
JP Gooderham:
There's trainings that you can work on in terms of your sales skills. There are product trainings you can learn about so that when you go into the room with a customer or you're on a call with a customer, you're ready to go. And what this company did instead though was they started profiling people who have just closed big sales, right. That have made really interesting deals. And it gives them an opportunity to do two things. I think really strategically, one of them is that it's so personal. So instead of just saying kind of this ambiguous or this kind of distant or theoretical, here's how you close a deal. It's somebody you know or you know of talking about their experience. And I think that personalization is extremely cool. And then I think the second part of that is that it's that hard one knowledge.
JP Gooderham:
So much of working somewhere is learning from people who are around you. And we know that some companies are going to be working from home for quite a while. Some companies are saying they're going to be working from home potentially forever. And I think one of the things for us, as people thinking about content is those water-cooler moments where you talk to somebody and they become a mentor, or you talk to somebody and they become sort of a coach for you. That maybe it's going to be harder to access now. I've really thought about audio as such an instrumental way that we can keep these teams connected and but it has to rely on that creativity that you were thinking about. Would you agree with that? Or how has that kind of played with your experience?
TJ Bonaventura:
A thousand percent and this is something that Julian talks about a lot with internal podcasting and the biggest benefit is how asynchronous it is.
JP Gooderham:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
TJ Bonaventura:
Right. Today, when people have families at home and there's everything going on inside under one roof, they need to be able to get the content and be able to do multiple things at once. And internal podcasting is a great way to do that.
JP Gooderham:
Yeah. And you talk about those water-cooler moments. You have somebody who is your top seller and you hear about wins, but you don't know how the win actually happened, right. And so, yeah, they can send out the deck, they can send out the email communication with the client, but if they can actually hear the story about like start to finish how the deal actually came to be, and I would at challenge organizations, don't just take the wins, take the moments where you can actually learn as well, where a deal may have fallen through, right.
JP Gooderham:
That way somebody could hear it and understand, okay, what should we not do the next time around, and JP, you haven't had an opportunity to listen to our podcast. That's actually coming out this week, but we actually talked a lot about Storyboard. Cause we talked with Anna, Anna McClain. And we were talking about the fact that, in a private podcast that you're listening to, if there is a moment where like, you're learning from somebody who closed the deal in the show notes, you can link the resources that you used to close the deal and almost have a talk track through it. And then somebody can be like, okay, like I want to steal this and I want to add it to like my conversations with my client. So it's such a valuable resource. And also that top seller, they don't have time to have one-on-one conversations with every new seller that comes on board.
JP Gooderham:
But if they hear those stories, then they could start to learn from that individual versus having to like wait in line to have a conversation with them.
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah. JP, I want to add one quick story or anecdote that I have that really put internal podcasting over the edge and why, I think, a lot of companies should invest time into it. My previous employer worked for a large tech company here in San Francisco and we were on a team meeting that lasted the entire day where you're going to recap the year and everyone was going to talk about different deals and who won, who lost awards, all these different things. The attention span was out the window for us that weren't directly involved within the first 45 minutes, we had execs talking. We had individuals talking that didn't necessarily tie to what we were doing [inaudible 00:11:14] doing a lot of what you were talking about.
TJ Bonaventura:
Sharing deals, sharing exercises, things like that. I did the math and ended up wasting altogether like 22 weeks worth of people's time if you combine all the hours together.
JP Gooderham:
Wow.
TJ Bonaventura:
And right then in there, I was like, why are we here? Why are we here? Why are we not doing a podcast where we can listen to this on our way into work? And this is when everyone's still going in. Why aren't we doing this while we're cleaning the kitchen, while going for a run, doing anything? I think employers do not have a grasp quite yet that their employees or colleagues or workforce will listen to an internal podcast outside of work hours. People will invest their time because if it's interesting and will make them be better at their job.
JP Gooderham:
I totally agree. And I think this is the idea. And we'll talk about this in a moment, but one of the things that's been exciting is that we've watched customers who launched on Storyboard six months ago, who are figuring out what are their second or third podcast series that they should be building.
JP Gooderham:
And I think that's the idea is that, I think to go back to Julian's point before of, think about things that you would listen to, you look at some of the top podcasts around right now, or if you're into business podcast, there are so many that are profiling people who are founders of companies or who have done something in their careers. That is really interesting. And I think the idea talking about not just the wins, but the failures as well is really meaningful. Because if you think about it, no one is sending out a newsletter or at least to my knowledge of just, Hey, here's what fell through with a deal as something that they're publicizing. But it's really interesting to hear about those moments and the trials and tribulations that everyone goes through in their career.
JP Gooderham:
And that can make for some really compelling audio. I think not just for maybe sharing something about a deal, but you could look at career development in all these different areas. So one question I have for you both, you think a lot about content, you've worked on the, what I'd call the consumer side of producing really cool content that anyone can listen to. When you think about internal podcasts, have you thought about any strategies that you would recommend companies think about, especially I'll put it this way. A lot of customers are going to start with something like a town hall or where leadership has a chance to speak and that's often their hook, right. Because a lot of listeners want to know what leadership is saying and what the direction of the company is. Do you have any other strategies that you would advise someone when they're ready to launch that second or third show that maybe they could consider?
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah. I have an idea that I think should be utilized by a lot of different companies and it kind of comes directly from that consumer side is one thing that we've all been conditioned to when it comes to podcasting our ads, right. We know there's going to be a sponsor ad at the beginning, middle, or end, right. It's just something that we come to understand when we listen. You can still do that with an internal podcast, but you're not going to be doing it from somebody else, but maybe it's a group that's happening or a group that's putting on an event within the company or something that you want to give awareness about of what's happening from an HR perspective or community giving back. Use that time or those precious ad moments to benefit or give love to something that's going on within your company.
TJ Bonaventura:
Use that, make it fun, use transition music. It doesn't need to be a static interview. With a little bit of just love and post-production effort it can go so far.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. And I absolutely love that. There are so many organizations that have employee communities within the company and letting those folks have a platform to be able to speak to like what they're doing, what's the latest and greatest that's going on. For me, I'm a part of an organization called Blackboard, right. And in this moment it's really important for us to help to spread the word about what black employees are going through. And it either can be a standalone piece of content or it can be like an ad read of some sort of like join Blackboard for this moment. So I absolutely love that idea.
TJ Bonaventura:
I mean, with so many different companies, I had a previous employer that we were doing [content 00:15:19] around charity water, like throw that in there. That's a great way to do that. And it's evergreen. So when somebody comes new to the company and wants to listen to old podcasts, it doesn't get stale. It's something that you're constantly doing. Or if you want to just re-up the audio with a new "ad read," go ahead and do that. It takes no time and effort [inaudible 00:15:37] whatsoever.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. The benefits that sometime fall by the wayside that you have, like whether you have a discount to something or to your point, like you donate to a particular charity, like remind people of that constantly as a part of those ad reads that's great.
Julian Lewis:
And then it becomes, again, more interesting than just the content itself. It's truly a podcast that people want to listen to.
TJ Bonaventura:
And the other thing too is don't be afraid to try a little bit of narrative, like tell a story. I think too often we see companies that just want to go, all right, we're going to have our CEO interview other CEOs. That's awesome. That's great. Super important to do that and have your CEO share his conversations, but why not share conversations with those who are on the board? Where did his ideas come from or her ideas come from. Get them directly involved. Tell the story of how the company came about. Tell the story of a deal from the very beginning to the end. Again, make it a little bit more fun and creative. The retention span and the amount of detail that is retained overall is going to go through the roof.
Julian Lewis:
So I don't want to give all the ideas away, but absolutely love that you said talking to the board, like why, or like even investors, like why did you invest in this company, right? And so if I'm onboarding and I'm hearing a podcast [before 00:16:53] day one when I start, and I can hear not only from maybe users but also from investors like why they invested, why they continue to invest. I think that would be huge in terms of really building the brand for the company.
JP Gooderham:
There is a lot to unpack with what you both just said. Awesome though. I love the ad, the ad-read idea is phenomenal by the way. The only thing that I've kind of looked at before, and I actually tell a lot of our customers to do is to use teaser trailers. That's another thing that you can take from the consumer space where, for people familiar some, a company like Gimlet media, when they'll launch a new podcast, they'll put a teaser trailer in the feed of one of their big shows.
JP Gooderham:
So people become aware of it. I think the ad idea really ups the [inaudible 00:17:37] and makes it something that, especially if you're doing some internal promotion for something new that could be on Storyboard or could be part of your internal podcast channel, that's such a great way to do it. And the other thing, Julian, that you brought up that I think is so important is that the idea that there are all these different working groups, whether you're looking at things that are purely professional, like different teams within your organization or different working groups that have really important relationships within the company, especially by being so separated right now, we lose some of that conversation. Audio is such a clear opportunity to feature those voices. And I think the other part of that with Storyboard is that because you can create storyboard groups. If you have a group in your workplace and you want to create your own channel and then a great way to publicize that is through an ad read, that can be an awesome way to make that happen.
JP Gooderham:
And I think for a lot of the customers who are listening right now, if you have your first series together and it's getting traction, that is awesome. But one thing that I feel incredibly confident in, is that by launching additional internal shows that can only strengthen your first show or your first series, right. When you go from maybe you're publishing once or twice a week, where now there might be three or four new pieces of content, you're basically building your own company ecosystem where people know that there's something fresh and there's an interesting conversation that's happening. So I think that's great feedback guys. So let's take an example of, when you guys look at these opportunities for where people are really distributed or they can't come into the office together and they want to use podcasting and audio to develop team knowledge, like we've talked a lot about, especially in telling a story.
JP Gooderham:
So the executive communication idea was great. Again, I'm just going to steal all the ideas today. This has been awesome so far, but the executive communication was great. The board interviews were great. If you were talking to somebody who is running a small team, and let's say it's 20 to 100 people and they really want to focus on training and developing knowledge. Is there an opportunity there where you also can approach that from a storytelling perspective? Or how would you advise somebody who's looking to use audio as a way to train and inform people?
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah, so I think the first thing to think about is, and to remember that I would never think that podcasting will completely or use podcasting as modality, right. You use it in tandem of what you're doing with training and onboarding, right. You don't want it to necessarily be the end all be all, but it is critically important to remove some of the early steps of what we've all probably experienced with training and onboarding.
TJ Bonaventura:
All right, the first day we come in, this is what you have to do. This is the HR stuff. This is who you need to reach out to. Here's a story of how we got started. Here's a recording or a video of the co-founder and how they thought about the company and how it ultimately became to be. A lot of that can be done via a podcast. And you can tell a story around that and make it interesting and have that be the prerequisite before somebody was to come in into their first onboarding session. If they're all coming together into a physical location or just before they get started on their first day, you know what, here's a podcast we've given you access, read or excuse me, listen to podcasts 1, 2, 3, and 4, before you get started. It's going to give you a lot of background on who we are as a company and what we are as a culture.
TJ Bonaventura:
And the second part of that, why it's really important is now you've laid the groundwork of the importance of podcasts within your company. If you've laid it down, or if you've laid the groundwork down for the beginning of someone's journey with a company when they first get started. Now they know that podcasting is an integral part of what they're doing, and they're going to go back and listen to it and know that's the resources they always have.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. I love that. Build that muscle early and often. And I think when you have that small of a company, or actually when you're starting at any company, it really doesn't matter that size. That's the most excited your employees probably ever going to be, right. When they're in that, when they're first getting the job, and they're about to start on day one.
Julian Lewis:
So get them excited by sharing that content. And you mentioned companies that are in that 20 to a 100 size. You have to be nimble when you're that small, right. And so, if you have a recorded video of your CEO and something changes about the company, like you then have to get the CEO in front of the camera again, potentially wearing the same thing. I think I actually learned this from you JP. It's just like, you don't have to do that. Just like rerecord that little snippet and then edit it back in. You could always go back and edit it later. And it allows for you to be more nimble and quickly turn that content back around when there is an evolution of a company because you are so small and you're starting to grow.
TJ Bonaventura:
And make it fun, right. I think that's the biggest thing. Just don't have a normal recording like, Hey, I'm the co-founder of StudioPod, and welcome to your first day. In your first day, you can expect this, that, or whatever, like mix in some really cool stories. Some people what they experience on their first day. Maybe there's a mentorship program that you can talk about and where people can go to learn about happy hours or clubs or whatever it may be. Just make it more interesting and fun. I think that's easier said than done, but it's important.
JP Gooderham:
Julian, I was on the edge of my seat when you were telling the story about having to wear the same. I tell that story constantly. And I was so ex, I'm like, wow, is this happening to other people too? But I will say, obviously I am a huge believer in the power of audio, but it's absolutely true that one of the most important things with audio, in my opinion, is the ability to go back and edit it and make it better over time. And I think that is a tremendous point. But the other thing I just wanted to say that I think is really backed up by the data that we've seen because when you sign up for Storyboard, we ask you why.
JP Gooderham:
And then we talk to so many of our customers when they're onboarding and giving them advice. They typically tell us about new things that they're working on. I think onboarding is probably the next biggest trend that we're either seeing or about to see. And we have a few really exciting launches that we're planning for August right now. And two or three of them have major onboarding components where that's actually the first thing that they're trying to do. Cause if you think about the onboarding experience at most companies, even in a pre COVID environment, you go into this environment where you get all this information at the beginning, you're trying to learn a new team.
JP Gooderham:
You have a new manager. You've just made a life change. You may have just moved. And it is extraordinarily challenging context in a lot of ways to retain all that information. And three months down the road, you remember, I was in sales training and Julian, who's my instructor, said something that was really important, and I have no idea what it was and it's that opportunity. And this is what our customers are doing. They're building companion content. That's part of onboarding.
JP Gooderham:
Now I think the wrinkle that you guys are thinking about, which I think is awesome is in addition to that kind of heavy lifting of knowledge, where you're going back and you can reaccess those trainings and other materials. You're also talking about culture, which is so important. When you're talking about talking to people on the board or talking about the leadership, it's like that introduction to the company where even if the CEO can't be there and I'm thinking like if you were in a live training and somebody rolled out, I'm thinking about like school where somebody would roll out a TV and there'd be like a VCR and they played something probably no one would really connect with that very much, but something about doing a 5 to 10 minute, here's the journey or company's on and somebody can listen to it on their own time.
JP Gooderham:
I think it's really exciting. So the kind of, I want to talk in a second about some of the other work that your team does, but before we do that, we talk with a lot of our customers about producers and especially as they start to up-level their podcast experience. So in your own words, how do you describe how StudioPod works with customers? How do you work with your clients?
TJ Bonaventura:
So we work with our clients in a couple different ways, and it's really up to their maturity level with podcasting. We've had clients where they want to hand everything off to us, including the in-person or the live producing, like what we're doing right now. There's been situations where they just give us the audio and we'll edit it and add music and make it just really fun and make it more like a traditional consumer-based podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
There are situations where we'll be consultants, right. So we'll teach someone how to fish. Well, they'll use us to just learn about the best practices, tools, equipment, so on and so forth. And then from there, they can always just use us as resources down on the line. We think we want to be there and lower the barrier of entry as much as possible. I mean, it's [one of the 00:26:14] mission of StudioPod.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. And I think to add to that with the consultant piece, it's like, we can help you to launch your podcast, get you the right equipment, set you up with the right formats that will work, and help you to iterate in the beginning. But I think ultimately, I imagine that organizations are going to face the exact same thing that the consumers are in the sense that there's going to be [pod fade 00:26:35], right.
Julian Lewis:
And so like, as that consultancy piece, we want to stay engaged and check in every month or whatever the cadence is that makes sense to see how things are progressing and see how it's impacting their overall organization. And if there's a need to pivot, like step in and help them to pivot. And then also in the beginning, in terms of talent, I think one of the things that really brings podcast to life is really having somebody who can capture the audience's ear, right. And so, one of the things that we haven't had an opportunity to do that we're more than happy to do is hold auditions because that could be fun. Say like, "Hey, who's interested in podcasting," right. And like maybe you have a couple select people that you're interested in and have them audition for it.
Julian Lewis:
Because then that creates more buzz, especially when you're getting started and really coaching that individual through like how to continue to keep this content engaging.
TJ Bonaventura:
And I like that exercise also because what you were talking about earlier, JP when you start your first podcast and then you want to do your second, third, and fourth series or different episodes out there. Maybe you want to use some other people that you interviewed. Like, no, you're not going to be great for this project, but for this other project, we're going to keep you in mind or we're going to have you lead the way on this. And so from there, everyone has different techniques and styles. And when they get in front of a mic and understanding that number one, it's not live and that you can edit it and teaching people how to edit.
TJ Bonaventura:
You're going to find a lot of intrigued individuals who will want to take on more than what you originally thought because it's fun. It's something outside of their job description, but also helps build their brand internally. And so it's a long way of saying that, like we see producers at StudioPod as producers, sound engineers, coaches, mentors, consultants, like it's all [wrapped into one 00:28:17] the one and you can kind of flex that muscle with us any way you want.
JP Gooderham:
I think that's the biggest thing about working with a great producer that people should be aware of is that you can serve so many different functions based on what the customer needs, right. And I think even the idea of auditions and helping to source what we might call talent or who the on-the-mic persona is going to be driving the process is a really cool idea and how having a professional help guide you through that process is really important.
JP Gooderham:
And it's something worth thinking a lot about too. And I'll just tell you that something we're experimenting within our product likely over the next couple of weeks is making it easier in the app for someone to suggest an idea for a podcast. So for instance, if somebody is listening and they're hearing the [CEO town hall 00:29:06] and they're like, this is awesome. I'm a director of sales. And I would love to do the same thing for the sales team. We want to help that person raise their hand and suggest building that content. And I think that's one of the things with your team is so successful at is thinking about all these different opportunities where they can leverage audio. So I think for anyone listening, I think a hugely compelling reason to help upgrade what you're doing and have some professional guidance on that level.
JP Gooderham:
So thank you guys for the candor in kind of explaining what your shop does. I wanted to make sure we talk about this though because while the corporate space has been really exciting, you have another really awesome project that we've been involved with and really like, which is called GiftPod. Can you tell the folks at home what you're doing with GiftPod and why families also could be using private podcasting as a way to share stories?
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. So I'm happy to take that. A GiftPod is truly an audio memory in the form of a private podcast. So TJ earlier, when referencing what we do at StudioPod, he was talking about capturing different memories for different occasions. And that's exactly what GiftPod is. It allows for you to record something for a special occasion, either as a one to one gift or a one to many or in some cases, a many to one.
Julian Lewis:
And I'll kind of break down what all that means in a moment, but you have the ability to record that memory and then hand it to us, again, as producers to really edit, add music and really tell a story with that. And then, it's just a very, very meaningful message that you can give to somebody for an occasion. And so for me, in particular, as we're testing this thing out, I have four of my closest friends that all happened to become fathers in the last year. So I reached out to their significant others and I was just like, let's capture some of the moments about why you thought this individual would make a great dad. Let's capture like sounds of your child playing. And so they sent me even videos of those things. And we took audio from videos. We took what the wives said, and we compiled it into the story.
Julian Lewis:
And I got photos of some of my closest friends with like their faces were completely red because they were like laughing in one moment and like crying in another moment. And it was just like really, really cool to be able to pull at those heartstrings. And with podcasting, especially at a private level, that's something that you can listen to. Again, asynchronously, whenever you want to have a memory and to remind you of something. And the basis of how we came up with the idea was, and I'll let TJ talk about this part, but TJ lost his father at a young age and to be able to have his dad's voice with him, I'll let you kind of take it from here.
TJ Bonaventura:
No, I think it's, I mean, you were explaining it perfectly. I think there's a lot of situations where, for me personally, where I get a lot of stories from my family about who my dad was and he passed away when I was a kid. So my memories are quite limited. And so it would be great to have maybe a message or like continuous messages that he left me that I could always go back and listen to, or give to my kids, or they can give to their kids, or maybe my mom or my sister could always have as well. And I think it just kind of stemmed from that, that there are so many different occasions that a GiftPod could be good for, for example, now with everything in COVID and so many weddings, I mean, for me, I had almost nine weddings get pushed to next year.
TJ Bonaventura:
And I'm like, this would be such a great occasion if the people collectively who are going to the weddings could give the couple a message, just giving them, letting them feel the love through audio and having that they can hold onto until their wedding happens next year or if it happens at all. There's a great situation where we had a bunch of colleagues at a company here in San Francisco, send a message. They all did about a minute to two minutes of a quick message to a coworker who unfortunately was going to the hospice. And there was about 25 employees who left a message and gave it to this woman. And she was overwhelmed with tears and loved everything about it. And then, she replied with her own audio message.
TJ Bonaventura:
That was about five minutes long that the rest of the company was able to hear. And she then passed two days after the fact that she recorded it. And so there's just so many interesting ways that we've seen gift pods being used. And again, if it's a one-to-one, so we've had a couple record a story in chapter format. And at the final chapter, he was explaining how happy he was to be a father because they had just found out a day earlier that they were pregnant and that's something that they released her, or he released to her as a gift. And so there's, I don't know, it's heartwarming. And it's just something that I think people don't think about, but like goes a long way.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. And I'm one of those weddings that TJ's not going to be able to go to this year because our wedding list was 150. Now it's 9, right. It's my immediate family and my fiance's immediate family. And so, we asked everybody, please just record a message, a piece of advice, something you love about us as a couple, a favorite story. And that's something we're always going to have with us, even though we're not going to have the memory of them actually being [inaudible 00:34:26] on our day. But in all reality, it's probably going to last a lot longer, right, for us to listen to that whenever.
TJ Bonaventura:
And so with the help of Storyboard, we were able to create an app that you can have both on Android and iOS so that you can always go back and easily listen to it. So it's not just an audio file that's in Google Drive or Dropbox. It's actually a living file that if you have access to multiple gift pods, you can have them. And they're only going to be specific to you and if you have access to it so that's the part I love about it the most is how easy it is to just go back and listen to 5, 10, 20 years from now. Yep.
JP Gooderham:
It is such an awesome project. And congratulations, both of you for developing this from a vision to getting the product out. It is really exciting. And one thing just to emphasize, because ever since first talking to Julian and TJ, I think what they bring to the table among many things is that, they have the technology part, which is the ability to actually record this and keep it private and share it, just among your family or whoever the group who should have access. But they're also such talented producers who can help make something that really [endures 00:35:32] and not to show my disrespect to the gift card industry.
JP Gooderham:
But there have been so many, I've seen the same thing of canceled weddings and birthdays and things like that. And you'll be on these text message threads and they say, okay, everybody send a birthday card or whatever it is to this person. And it's something that's fleeting, you know what I mean? It's not something that you can keep and retain. And I think what's extraordinarily cool and about what you and your team are building is that this is an opportunity to capture something that's really lasting. And I think that that's really special. So for anyone listening, I think most of the folks listening now have created content for their company. They're also interested in creating something for their family or another occasion, or letting someone know how can people find out more about GiftPod and how can they find out more about both of you as producers for your corporate work too?
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. So for gift pod, our website is giveagiftpod.com and you have the ability to either one, like sit down with a producer and have a conversation and have an interview where you're really helping you to tell that story. And, or if you are somebody who's already recording audio, you could send us that audio, and we can craft it into a story for you.
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah. I think that's the important part too. We have so many different, I had a friend who said that her grandma used to sing and they recorded it. That's something that could easily converted into a podcast or use that as music inside of a GiftPod. So I think that's interesting there. And then from a StudioPod perspective, you can reach out to us. Our website, there is studiopodsf.com and on social, it's the same handle @studiopodsf, feel free to reach out to us with any questions, ideas. We really started the company to lower the [berry 00:37:20] of entry to podcasting, no matter your maturity level. So we're always willing to help out anyone in the space.
JP Gooderham:
One last question for anyone wondering, do they need to be in the same city as you, in order to work with you? Or how do you handle relationships and partnerships with teams outside of San Francisco?
TJ Bonaventura:
If you all are located in San Francisco, we do have a studio, which we are limiting due to the situation with COVID 19, but a majority of our clients do come from all over the country and even the world. So we're happy to speak with anyone at any time of the day. Between our team we are able to work with you and in your schedule. So, yeah, it's not limited to location whatsoever.
JP Gooderham:
I want to say a big thanks from both myself and the listeners of the podcast on Private Podcast for your time, really enjoyed getting your insight and giving us so many strategies today that I think anyone listening should consider and how you can really be narrative-driven and connect with your audience.
JP Gooderham:
For anyone listening, thanks again for coming back to pop the podcast on Private Podcast, make sure to be subscribed on your podcast player for your regular podcast. It is not available on Storyboard, but it's available everywhere else. To learn more about getting started on Storyboard, go to storyboard.fm today. You can get started with a free trial, which requires no credit card. We want anyone who thinks it would be a great idea to launch a podcast for your workplace to get started. You can also reach out to our team to set up a demo. Thank you, everyone.
This is the Pod On podcast. We're your host, TJ Bonaventura, that's me and Julian Lewis.
Julian Lewis:
That's me. As founders of a podcast media company, we had to start a podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
So, join us each episode as we and our guest drop knowledge on podcasting for you, the curious and scrappy podcaster.
Julian Lewis:
Ooh, it gives me chills. Every time I hear that Gary Oakland beat. The Pod On Podcast is back. TJ and I are currently recording and not only do we have some great nuggets to help you launch and maintain your podcast, but we have some great guests on the horizon. For this week, we want to share an episode from one of our partners, Storyboard, and their podcast on private podcasting. On this episode, we chat about how to emphasize your voice and authenticity in your company's internal podcast, unique strategies that companies can use to connect with their audiences, and opportunities to cross-promote episodes in your feed with other key messages. Oh, and we might be talking about a little project called GiftPod. We hope you enjoy and get ready for some more fire Pod On podcast episodes. Peace.
JP Gooderham:
Welcome back everyone to Pop the Podcast on Private Podcast presented by Storyboard. We're extremely excited about all of the new and cool opportunities we've been seeing from our customers to leverage podcasting and audio in the workplace. This show is going to dive into how to really optimize and make that podcast as effective and successful as possible. We're glad to have you back. This is JP Gooderham and I'm the founder of Storyboard. Learn more about what we do and what we can offer and make sure to head over to storyboard.fm where you can get started on our free tier today with no credit card down. Or you can reach out to us to get a full demo about what we can do for companies of all sizes. But today we're going to be talking to two phenomenal guests. They really are two great minds in the world of podcasting. I'm lucky to have known them for a little while at this point. We have TJ Bonaventura and Julian Lewis. They're the co-founders of StudioPod. How are you doing guys?
TJ Bonaventura:
Doing great.
Julian Lewis:
Phenomenal.
JP Gooderham:
So I want to start off because we've worked closely on a few projects at this point, and I think that your team really has tackled podcasting and audio from a number of different angles, which is really cool. Can you share with folks what StudioPod does and just a little bit about where your areas of specialty are? Because it's really interesting.
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah, definitely. So our mission here at StudioPod is to empower through audio. And so that could be anything from helping an individual, create their podcast from the ground up, helping a organization, continue their podcasting efforts, both internally, externally, or helping people create really personalized messages for their family members through multiple different things like anniversaries, weddings.
Julian Lewis:
Any occasion that you want to celebrate, yeah.
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah. Ultimately it's just creating it as much as we can through audio as possible.
JP Gooderham:
That's awesome. And as kind of listeners of pop, most of our listeners are probably thinking, or have already tried to launch audio as a way to engage people at their workplace. And so I was really interested. I've always wanted to have you guys on the show because you've developed a few projects working with corporate customers. So just high-level perspective. Why do you think it's important for large and small companies to be thinking about audio? So many of them, whether for their internal efforts or external efforts, they've certainly done work before on video, they've worked on social to kind of get their message out. What is it about audio that's become so important for companies to really invest time in and think about at this stage?
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. I'm happy to take that one, really having the opportunity to have the voice of your brand out there in the wild, especially if it is an external podcast, people can hear from the leaders of your company and hear your perspectives on different initiatives that you're moving forward with. And then internally, oftentimes the bigger a company grows the further away that you get from their leaders. And if you have the opportunity to, on a consistent basis, hear from your leaders and hear them not in a setting where they're on onstage or they're in front of a camera where they might tense up a little bit, but hear them when they're most likely just in a room in front of a mic where they can kind of open up a little bit more, it really brings more of the human element to a business.
JP Gooderham:
I think that last point is really something that a lot of people are thinking about and they've seen in their own businesses, especially because so many companies are now fully distributed with people working from home for teams that are starting to come back or will be coming back in the future. There are many companies that will be working from home multiple days per week. And sometimes people are coming into the office. I think that idea of voice and authenticity is so incredibly important. So one question for you guys is like in terms of helping, especially people who are new to podcasting, one question that we hear a lot is, how hard is it to make something and make it quality to have that voice and to have that authenticity? Do you have any advice or recommendations for who might be recording themselves for the first time to be as effective as possible?
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah, a hundred percent. I think the biggest thing is don't box yourself in, right. Be as creative as possible. The podcasting industry is still so new and there're so many different ways that have not been utilized [to 00:05:38] today. And I think a good way to think about it is if you're going to listen to a podcast just for your own personal benefit, why are you listening to that podcast? Right. And now put yourself in the shoes of your employers or your colleagues who would be listening to your own internal podcast or your own podcast that your company is putting out. Would they listen to what is it you're talking about? So what that means in my mind is like, don't just record a zoom meeting and put it on an internal podcast. No, one's going to listen to that, plain and simple.
TJ Bonaventura:
Me and Julian both come from the tech industry. I would never listen to that. I know he wouldn't listen to that. Don't take a newsletter and just repeat it word for word and turn that into a podcast. Do something creative, take the people that are the most excitable within your organization, and have them develop different content for your company. I think that's a good way to think about it.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah, most definitely. And it's not hard to convert what you already have to audio, but that quality piece is exactly what TJ's talking about. You want to make it entertaining. You want to make it something different than they're you used to seeing. You want to make it so it's not that email that you're scrolling multiple times through. And you're just like, I have to get through this to get to the point of what this is. Make it entertaining and really capture the ears of your employees. So they'll take some sort of action that you want them to take.
JP Gooderham:
I think that's one of the most important things whether you are a new podcaster in the corporate space and you're launching your first internal podcast, or you've been doing this for six months or nine months or whatever it might be. I love the idea of trying to think about what are communications that we do today, or what are goals that we have as a company, as a team, whatever it might be, and what are ways that audio can kind of creatively solve those problems. One of the examples recently, we were talking to a customer and I love this idea. And I thought this was phenomenal. If you've ever been on a sales team, there are so many different assets that you have to learn about how to be a good salesperson.
JP Gooderham:
There's trainings that you can work on in terms of your sales skills. There are product trainings you can learn about so that when you go into the room with a customer or you're on a call with a customer, you're ready to go. And what this company did instead though was they started profiling people who have just closed big sales, right. That have made really interesting deals. And it gives them an opportunity to do two things. I think really strategically, one of them is that it's so personal. So instead of just saying kind of this ambiguous or this kind of distant or theoretical, here's how you close a deal. It's somebody you know or you know of talking about their experience. And I think that personalization is extremely cool. And then I think the second part of that is that it's that hard one knowledge.
JP Gooderham:
So much of working somewhere is learning from people who are around you. And we know that some companies are going to be working from home for quite a while. Some companies are saying they're going to be working from home potentially forever. And I think one of the things for us, as people thinking about content is those water-cooler moments where you talk to somebody and they become a mentor, or you talk to somebody and they become sort of a coach for you. That maybe it's going to be harder to access now. I've really thought about audio as such an instrumental way that we can keep these teams connected and but it has to rely on that creativity that you were thinking about. Would you agree with that? Or how has that kind of played with your experience?
TJ Bonaventura:
A thousand percent and this is something that Julian talks about a lot with internal podcasting and the biggest benefit is how asynchronous it is.
JP Gooderham:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
TJ Bonaventura:
Right. Today, when people have families at home and there's everything going on inside under one roof, they need to be able to get the content and be able to do multiple things at once. And internal podcasting is a great way to do that.
JP Gooderham:
Yeah. And you talk about those water-cooler moments. You have somebody who is your top seller and you hear about wins, but you don't know how the win actually happened, right. And so, yeah, they can send out the deck, they can send out the email communication with the client, but if they can actually hear the story about like start to finish how the deal actually came to be, and I would at challenge organizations, don't just take the wins, take the moments where you can actually learn as well, where a deal may have fallen through, right.
JP Gooderham:
That way somebody could hear it and understand, okay, what should we not do the next time around, and JP, you haven't had an opportunity to listen to our podcast. That's actually coming out this week, but we actually talked a lot about Storyboard. Cause we talked with Anna, Anna McClain. And we were talking about the fact that, in a private podcast that you're listening to, if there is a moment where like, you're learning from somebody who closed the deal in the show notes, you can link the resources that you used to close the deal and almost have a talk track through it. And then somebody can be like, okay, like I want to steal this and I want to add it to like my conversations with my client. So it's such a valuable resource. And also that top seller, they don't have time to have one-on-one conversations with every new seller that comes on board.
JP Gooderham:
But if they hear those stories, then they could start to learn from that individual versus having to like wait in line to have a conversation with them.
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah. JP, I want to add one quick story or anecdote that I have that really put internal podcasting over the edge and why, I think, a lot of companies should invest time into it. My previous employer worked for a large tech company here in San Francisco and we were on a team meeting that lasted the entire day where you're going to recap the year and everyone was going to talk about different deals and who won, who lost awards, all these different things. The attention span was out the window for us that weren't directly involved within the first 45 minutes, we had execs talking. We had individuals talking that didn't necessarily tie to what we were doing [inaudible 00:11:14] doing a lot of what you were talking about.
TJ Bonaventura:
Sharing deals, sharing exercises, things like that. I did the math and ended up wasting altogether like 22 weeks worth of people's time if you combine all the hours together.
JP Gooderham:
Wow.
TJ Bonaventura:
And right then in there, I was like, why are we here? Why are we here? Why are we not doing a podcast where we can listen to this on our way into work? And this is when everyone's still going in. Why aren't we doing this while we're cleaning the kitchen, while going for a run, doing anything? I think employers do not have a grasp quite yet that their employees or colleagues or workforce will listen to an internal podcast outside of work hours. People will invest their time because if it's interesting and will make them be better at their job.
JP Gooderham:
I totally agree. And I think this is the idea. And we'll talk about this in a moment, but one of the things that's been exciting is that we've watched customers who launched on Storyboard six months ago, who are figuring out what are their second or third podcast series that they should be building.
JP Gooderham:
And I think that's the idea is that, I think to go back to Julian's point before of, think about things that you would listen to, you look at some of the top podcasts around right now, or if you're into business podcast, there are so many that are profiling people who are founders of companies or who have done something in their careers. That is really interesting. And I think the idea talking about not just the wins, but the failures as well is really meaningful. Because if you think about it, no one is sending out a newsletter or at least to my knowledge of just, Hey, here's what fell through with a deal as something that they're publicizing. But it's really interesting to hear about those moments and the trials and tribulations that everyone goes through in their career.
JP Gooderham:
And that can make for some really compelling audio. I think not just for maybe sharing something about a deal, but you could look at career development in all these different areas. So one question I have for you both, you think a lot about content, you've worked on the, what I'd call the consumer side of producing really cool content that anyone can listen to. When you think about internal podcasts, have you thought about any strategies that you would recommend companies think about, especially I'll put it this way. A lot of customers are going to start with something like a town hall or where leadership has a chance to speak and that's often their hook, right. Because a lot of listeners want to know what leadership is saying and what the direction of the company is. Do you have any other strategies that you would advise someone when they're ready to launch that second or third show that maybe they could consider?
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah. I have an idea that I think should be utilized by a lot of different companies and it kind of comes directly from that consumer side is one thing that we've all been conditioned to when it comes to podcasting our ads, right. We know there's going to be a sponsor ad at the beginning, middle, or end, right. It's just something that we come to understand when we listen. You can still do that with an internal podcast, but you're not going to be doing it from somebody else, but maybe it's a group that's happening or a group that's putting on an event within the company or something that you want to give awareness about of what's happening from an HR perspective or community giving back. Use that time or those precious ad moments to benefit or give love to something that's going on within your company.
TJ Bonaventura:
Use that, make it fun, use transition music. It doesn't need to be a static interview. With a little bit of just love and post-production effort it can go so far.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. And I absolutely love that. There are so many organizations that have employee communities within the company and letting those folks have a platform to be able to speak to like what they're doing, what's the latest and greatest that's going on. For me, I'm a part of an organization called Blackboard, right. And in this moment it's really important for us to help to spread the word about what black employees are going through. And it either can be a standalone piece of content or it can be like an ad read of some sort of like join Blackboard for this moment. So I absolutely love that idea.
TJ Bonaventura:
I mean, with so many different companies, I had a previous employer that we were doing [content 00:15:19] around charity water, like throw that in there. That's a great way to do that. And it's evergreen. So when somebody comes new to the company and wants to listen to old podcasts, it doesn't get stale. It's something that you're constantly doing. Or if you want to just re-up the audio with a new "ad read," go ahead and do that. It takes no time and effort [inaudible 00:15:37] whatsoever.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. The benefits that sometime fall by the wayside that you have, like whether you have a discount to something or to your point, like you donate to a particular charity, like remind people of that constantly as a part of those ad reads that's great.
Julian Lewis:
And then it becomes, again, more interesting than just the content itself. It's truly a podcast that people want to listen to.
TJ Bonaventura:
And the other thing too is don't be afraid to try a little bit of narrative, like tell a story. I think too often we see companies that just want to go, all right, we're going to have our CEO interview other CEOs. That's awesome. That's great. Super important to do that and have your CEO share his conversations, but why not share conversations with those who are on the board? Where did his ideas come from or her ideas come from. Get them directly involved. Tell the story of how the company came about. Tell the story of a deal from the very beginning to the end. Again, make it a little bit more fun and creative. The retention span and the amount of detail that is retained overall is going to go through the roof.
Julian Lewis:
So I don't want to give all the ideas away, but absolutely love that you said talking to the board, like why, or like even investors, like why did you invest in this company, right? And so if I'm onboarding and I'm hearing a podcast [before 00:16:53] day one when I start, and I can hear not only from maybe users but also from investors like why they invested, why they continue to invest. I think that would be huge in terms of really building the brand for the company.
JP Gooderham:
There is a lot to unpack with what you both just said. Awesome though. I love the ad, the ad-read idea is phenomenal by the way. The only thing that I've kind of looked at before, and I actually tell a lot of our customers to do is to use teaser trailers. That's another thing that you can take from the consumer space where, for people familiar some, a company like Gimlet media, when they'll launch a new podcast, they'll put a teaser trailer in the feed of one of their big shows.
JP Gooderham:
So people become aware of it. I think the ad idea really ups the [inaudible 00:17:37] and makes it something that, especially if you're doing some internal promotion for something new that could be on Storyboard or could be part of your internal podcast channel, that's such a great way to do it. And the other thing, Julian, that you brought up that I think is so important is that the idea that there are all these different working groups, whether you're looking at things that are purely professional, like different teams within your organization or different working groups that have really important relationships within the company, especially by being so separated right now, we lose some of that conversation. Audio is such a clear opportunity to feature those voices. And I think the other part of that with Storyboard is that because you can create storyboard groups. If you have a group in your workplace and you want to create your own channel and then a great way to publicize that is through an ad read, that can be an awesome way to make that happen.
JP Gooderham:
And I think for a lot of the customers who are listening right now, if you have your first series together and it's getting traction, that is awesome. But one thing that I feel incredibly confident in, is that by launching additional internal shows that can only strengthen your first show or your first series, right. When you go from maybe you're publishing once or twice a week, where now there might be three or four new pieces of content, you're basically building your own company ecosystem where people know that there's something fresh and there's an interesting conversation that's happening. So I think that's great feedback guys. So let's take an example of, when you guys look at these opportunities for where people are really distributed or they can't come into the office together and they want to use podcasting and audio to develop team knowledge, like we've talked a lot about, especially in telling a story.
JP Gooderham:
So the executive communication idea was great. Again, I'm just going to steal all the ideas today. This has been awesome so far, but the executive communication was great. The board interviews were great. If you were talking to somebody who is running a small team, and let's say it's 20 to 100 people and they really want to focus on training and developing knowledge. Is there an opportunity there where you also can approach that from a storytelling perspective? Or how would you advise somebody who's looking to use audio as a way to train and inform people?
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah, so I think the first thing to think about is, and to remember that I would never think that podcasting will completely or use podcasting as modality, right. You use it in tandem of what you're doing with training and onboarding, right. You don't want it to necessarily be the end all be all, but it is critically important to remove some of the early steps of what we've all probably experienced with training and onboarding.
TJ Bonaventura:
All right, the first day we come in, this is what you have to do. This is the HR stuff. This is who you need to reach out to. Here's a story of how we got started. Here's a recording or a video of the co-founder and how they thought about the company and how it ultimately became to be. A lot of that can be done via a podcast. And you can tell a story around that and make it interesting and have that be the prerequisite before somebody was to come in into their first onboarding session. If they're all coming together into a physical location or just before they get started on their first day, you know what, here's a podcast we've given you access, read or excuse me, listen to podcasts 1, 2, 3, and 4, before you get started. It's going to give you a lot of background on who we are as a company and what we are as a culture.
TJ Bonaventura:
And the second part of that, why it's really important is now you've laid the groundwork of the importance of podcasts within your company. If you've laid it down, or if you've laid the groundwork down for the beginning of someone's journey with a company when they first get started. Now they know that podcasting is an integral part of what they're doing, and they're going to go back and listen to it and know that's the resources they always have.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. I love that. Build that muscle early and often. And I think when you have that small of a company, or actually when you're starting at any company, it really doesn't matter that size. That's the most excited your employees probably ever going to be, right. When they're in that, when they're first getting the job, and they're about to start on day one.
Julian Lewis:
So get them excited by sharing that content. And you mentioned companies that are in that 20 to a 100 size. You have to be nimble when you're that small, right. And so, if you have a recorded video of your CEO and something changes about the company, like you then have to get the CEO in front of the camera again, potentially wearing the same thing. I think I actually learned this from you JP. It's just like, you don't have to do that. Just like rerecord that little snippet and then edit it back in. You could always go back and edit it later. And it allows for you to be more nimble and quickly turn that content back around when there is an evolution of a company because you are so small and you're starting to grow.
TJ Bonaventura:
And make it fun, right. I think that's the biggest thing. Just don't have a normal recording like, Hey, I'm the co-founder of StudioPod, and welcome to your first day. In your first day, you can expect this, that, or whatever, like mix in some really cool stories. Some people what they experience on their first day. Maybe there's a mentorship program that you can talk about and where people can go to learn about happy hours or clubs or whatever it may be. Just make it more interesting and fun. I think that's easier said than done, but it's important.
JP Gooderham:
Julian, I was on the edge of my seat when you were telling the story about having to wear the same. I tell that story constantly. And I was so ex, I'm like, wow, is this happening to other people too? But I will say, obviously I am a huge believer in the power of audio, but it's absolutely true that one of the most important things with audio, in my opinion, is the ability to go back and edit it and make it better over time. And I think that is a tremendous point. But the other thing I just wanted to say that I think is really backed up by the data that we've seen because when you sign up for Storyboard, we ask you why.
JP Gooderham:
And then we talk to so many of our customers when they're onboarding and giving them advice. They typically tell us about new things that they're working on. I think onboarding is probably the next biggest trend that we're either seeing or about to see. And we have a few really exciting launches that we're planning for August right now. And two or three of them have major onboarding components where that's actually the first thing that they're trying to do. Cause if you think about the onboarding experience at most companies, even in a pre COVID environment, you go into this environment where you get all this information at the beginning, you're trying to learn a new team.
JP Gooderham:
You have a new manager. You've just made a life change. You may have just moved. And it is extraordinarily challenging context in a lot of ways to retain all that information. And three months down the road, you remember, I was in sales training and Julian, who's my instructor, said something that was really important, and I have no idea what it was and it's that opportunity. And this is what our customers are doing. They're building companion content. That's part of onboarding.
JP Gooderham:
Now I think the wrinkle that you guys are thinking about, which I think is awesome is in addition to that kind of heavy lifting of knowledge, where you're going back and you can reaccess those trainings and other materials. You're also talking about culture, which is so important. When you're talking about talking to people on the board or talking about the leadership, it's like that introduction to the company where even if the CEO can't be there and I'm thinking like if you were in a live training and somebody rolled out, I'm thinking about like school where somebody would roll out a TV and there'd be like a VCR and they played something probably no one would really connect with that very much, but something about doing a 5 to 10 minute, here's the journey or company's on and somebody can listen to it on their own time.
JP Gooderham:
I think it's really exciting. So the kind of, I want to talk in a second about some of the other work that your team does, but before we do that, we talk with a lot of our customers about producers and especially as they start to up-level their podcast experience. So in your own words, how do you describe how StudioPod works with customers? How do you work with your clients?
TJ Bonaventura:
So we work with our clients in a couple different ways, and it's really up to their maturity level with podcasting. We've had clients where they want to hand everything off to us, including the in-person or the live producing, like what we're doing right now. There's been situations where they just give us the audio and we'll edit it and add music and make it just really fun and make it more like a traditional consumer-based podcast.
TJ Bonaventura:
There are situations where we'll be consultants, right. So we'll teach someone how to fish. Well, they'll use us to just learn about the best practices, tools, equipment, so on and so forth. And then from there, they can always just use us as resources down on the line. We think we want to be there and lower the barrier of entry as much as possible. I mean, it's [one of the 00:26:14] mission of StudioPod.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. And I think to add to that with the consultant piece, it's like, we can help you to launch your podcast, get you the right equipment, set you up with the right formats that will work, and help you to iterate in the beginning. But I think ultimately, I imagine that organizations are going to face the exact same thing that the consumers are in the sense that there's going to be [pod fade 00:26:35], right.
Julian Lewis:
And so like, as that consultancy piece, we want to stay engaged and check in every month or whatever the cadence is that makes sense to see how things are progressing and see how it's impacting their overall organization. And if there's a need to pivot, like step in and help them to pivot. And then also in the beginning, in terms of talent, I think one of the things that really brings podcast to life is really having somebody who can capture the audience's ear, right. And so, one of the things that we haven't had an opportunity to do that we're more than happy to do is hold auditions because that could be fun. Say like, "Hey, who's interested in podcasting," right. And like maybe you have a couple select people that you're interested in and have them audition for it.
Julian Lewis:
Because then that creates more buzz, especially when you're getting started and really coaching that individual through like how to continue to keep this content engaging.
TJ Bonaventura:
And I like that exercise also because what you were talking about earlier, JP when you start your first podcast and then you want to do your second, third, and fourth series or different episodes out there. Maybe you want to use some other people that you interviewed. Like, no, you're not going to be great for this project, but for this other project, we're going to keep you in mind or we're going to have you lead the way on this. And so from there, everyone has different techniques and styles. And when they get in front of a mic and understanding that number one, it's not live and that you can edit it and teaching people how to edit.
TJ Bonaventura:
You're going to find a lot of intrigued individuals who will want to take on more than what you originally thought because it's fun. It's something outside of their job description, but also helps build their brand internally. And so it's a long way of saying that, like we see producers at StudioPod as producers, sound engineers, coaches, mentors, consultants, like it's all [wrapped into one 00:28:17] the one and you can kind of flex that muscle with us any way you want.
JP Gooderham:
I think that's the biggest thing about working with a great producer that people should be aware of is that you can serve so many different functions based on what the customer needs, right. And I think even the idea of auditions and helping to source what we might call talent or who the on-the-mic persona is going to be driving the process is a really cool idea and how having a professional help guide you through that process is really important.
JP Gooderham:
And it's something worth thinking a lot about too. And I'll just tell you that something we're experimenting within our product likely over the next couple of weeks is making it easier in the app for someone to suggest an idea for a podcast. So for instance, if somebody is listening and they're hearing the [CEO town hall 00:29:06] and they're like, this is awesome. I'm a director of sales. And I would love to do the same thing for the sales team. We want to help that person raise their hand and suggest building that content. And I think that's one of the things with your team is so successful at is thinking about all these different opportunities where they can leverage audio. So I think for anyone listening, I think a hugely compelling reason to help upgrade what you're doing and have some professional guidance on that level.
JP Gooderham:
So thank you guys for the candor in kind of explaining what your shop does. I wanted to make sure we talk about this though because while the corporate space has been really exciting, you have another really awesome project that we've been involved with and really like, which is called GiftPod. Can you tell the folks at home what you're doing with GiftPod and why families also could be using private podcasting as a way to share stories?
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. So I'm happy to take that. A GiftPod is truly an audio memory in the form of a private podcast. So TJ earlier, when referencing what we do at StudioPod, he was talking about capturing different memories for different occasions. And that's exactly what GiftPod is. It allows for you to record something for a special occasion, either as a one to one gift or a one to many or in some cases, a many to one.
Julian Lewis:
And I'll kind of break down what all that means in a moment, but you have the ability to record that memory and then hand it to us, again, as producers to really edit, add music and really tell a story with that. And then, it's just a very, very meaningful message that you can give to somebody for an occasion. And so for me, in particular, as we're testing this thing out, I have four of my closest friends that all happened to become fathers in the last year. So I reached out to their significant others and I was just like, let's capture some of the moments about why you thought this individual would make a great dad. Let's capture like sounds of your child playing. And so they sent me even videos of those things. And we took audio from videos. We took what the wives said, and we compiled it into the story.
Julian Lewis:
And I got photos of some of my closest friends with like their faces were completely red because they were like laughing in one moment and like crying in another moment. And it was just like really, really cool to be able to pull at those heartstrings. And with podcasting, especially at a private level, that's something that you can listen to. Again, asynchronously, whenever you want to have a memory and to remind you of something. And the basis of how we came up with the idea was, and I'll let TJ talk about this part, but TJ lost his father at a young age and to be able to have his dad's voice with him, I'll let you kind of take it from here.
TJ Bonaventura:
No, I think it's, I mean, you were explaining it perfectly. I think there's a lot of situations where, for me personally, where I get a lot of stories from my family about who my dad was and he passed away when I was a kid. So my memories are quite limited. And so it would be great to have maybe a message or like continuous messages that he left me that I could always go back and listen to, or give to my kids, or they can give to their kids, or maybe my mom or my sister could always have as well. And I think it just kind of stemmed from that, that there are so many different occasions that a GiftPod could be good for, for example, now with everything in COVID and so many weddings, I mean, for me, I had almost nine weddings get pushed to next year.
TJ Bonaventura:
And I'm like, this would be such a great occasion if the people collectively who are going to the weddings could give the couple a message, just giving them, letting them feel the love through audio and having that they can hold onto until their wedding happens next year or if it happens at all. There's a great situation where we had a bunch of colleagues at a company here in San Francisco, send a message. They all did about a minute to two minutes of a quick message to a coworker who unfortunately was going to the hospice. And there was about 25 employees who left a message and gave it to this woman. And she was overwhelmed with tears and loved everything about it. And then, she replied with her own audio message.
TJ Bonaventura:
That was about five minutes long that the rest of the company was able to hear. And she then passed two days after the fact that she recorded it. And so there's just so many interesting ways that we've seen gift pods being used. And again, if it's a one-to-one, so we've had a couple record a story in chapter format. And at the final chapter, he was explaining how happy he was to be a father because they had just found out a day earlier that they were pregnant and that's something that they released her, or he released to her as a gift. And so there's, I don't know, it's heartwarming. And it's just something that I think people don't think about, but like goes a long way.
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. And I'm one of those weddings that TJ's not going to be able to go to this year because our wedding list was 150. Now it's 9, right. It's my immediate family and my fiance's immediate family. And so, we asked everybody, please just record a message, a piece of advice, something you love about us as a couple, a favorite story. And that's something we're always going to have with us, even though we're not going to have the memory of them actually being [inaudible 00:34:26] on our day. But in all reality, it's probably going to last a lot longer, right, for us to listen to that whenever.
TJ Bonaventura:
And so with the help of Storyboard, we were able to create an app that you can have both on Android and iOS so that you can always go back and easily listen to it. So it's not just an audio file that's in Google Drive or Dropbox. It's actually a living file that if you have access to multiple gift pods, you can have them. And they're only going to be specific to you and if you have access to it so that's the part I love about it the most is how easy it is to just go back and listen to 5, 10, 20 years from now. Yep.
JP Gooderham:
It is such an awesome project. And congratulations, both of you for developing this from a vision to getting the product out. It is really exciting. And one thing just to emphasize, because ever since first talking to Julian and TJ, I think what they bring to the table among many things is that, they have the technology part, which is the ability to actually record this and keep it private and share it, just among your family or whoever the group who should have access. But they're also such talented producers who can help make something that really [endures 00:35:32] and not to show my disrespect to the gift card industry.
JP Gooderham:
But there have been so many, I've seen the same thing of canceled weddings and birthdays and things like that. And you'll be on these text message threads and they say, okay, everybody send a birthday card or whatever it is to this person. And it's something that's fleeting, you know what I mean? It's not something that you can keep and retain. And I think what's extraordinarily cool and about what you and your team are building is that this is an opportunity to capture something that's really lasting. And I think that that's really special. So for anyone listening, I think most of the folks listening now have created content for their company. They're also interested in creating something for their family or another occasion, or letting someone know how can people find out more about GiftPod and how can they find out more about both of you as producers for your corporate work too?
Julian Lewis:
Yeah. So for gift pod, our website is giveagiftpod.com and you have the ability to either one, like sit down with a producer and have a conversation and have an interview where you're really helping you to tell that story. And, or if you are somebody who's already recording audio, you could send us that audio, and we can craft it into a story for you.
TJ Bonaventura:
Yeah. I think that's the important part too. We have so many different, I had a friend who said that her grandma used to sing and they recorded it. That's something that could easily converted into a podcast or use that as music inside of a GiftPod. So I think that's interesting there. And then from a StudioPod perspective, you can reach out to us. Our website, there is studiopodsf.com and on social, it's the same handle @studiopodsf, feel free to reach out to us with any questions, ideas. We really started the company to lower the [berry 00:37:20] of entry to podcasting, no matter your maturity level. So we're always willing to help out anyone in the space.
JP Gooderham:
One last question for anyone wondering, do they need to be in the same city as you, in order to work with you? Or how do you handle relationships and partnerships with teams outside of San Francisco?
TJ Bonaventura:
If you all are located in San Francisco, we do have a studio, which we are limiting due to the situation with COVID 19, but a majority of our clients do come from all over the country and even the world. So we're happy to speak with anyone at any time of the day. Between our team we are able to work with you and in your schedule. So, yeah, it's not limited to location whatsoever.
JP Gooderham:
I want to say a big thanks from both myself and the listeners of the podcast on Private Podcast for your time, really enjoyed getting your insight and giving us so many strategies today that I think anyone listening should consider and how you can really be narrative-driven and connect with your audience.
JP Gooderham:
For anyone listening, thanks again for coming back to pop the podcast on Private Podcast, make sure to be subscribed on your podcast player for your regular podcast. It is not available on Storyboard, but it's available everywhere else. To learn more about getting started on Storyboard, go to storyboard.fm today. You can get started with a free trial, which requires no credit card. We want anyone who thinks it would be a great idea to launch a podcast for your workplace to get started. You can also reach out to our team to set up a demo. Thank you, everyone.