As we wrap up our 2024 at Twin Flames Studios, our team reflected on their personal favorite nonfiction audiobooks we produced this year.
We’re incredibly lucky to work on so many inspiring audiobook projects and we’re proud of everything we’ve produced. With more than 100 audiobooks produced this year, it’s so hard to choose a favorite. All of the authors and voices we’ve shared are amazing!
But we wanted to share a bit more about the work and stories behind the scenes to give you a sneak peek of what stood out to our team.
This year, we asked our team to share their personal highlights: the audiobooks that made them think, laugh, or even cry—and a little something extra that brightened their 2024.
Along with each personal favorite, we also asked each team member to share a valuable tool that made a difference for them this year. Many of these will have value for you as well!
Favorite of: Caroline Schaeffer, Audiobook Production Specialist
Why it stood out: “Time travel, allegories, and engaging characters made this fictional journey not only entertaining but also a thought-provoking look at our modern society.”
This audiobook captured Caroline’s imagination with its layered storytelling and poignant commentary.
Caroline’s Favorite Gadget:Cold Brew Maker “I love my at-home cold brew maker! You can use it to make cold brew, iced tea, or fruit infusions, and there’s nothing quite as satisfying as having easy-access fresh cold brew in the fridge.”
Caroline’s pick is a nod to life’s little joys—and the fuel that keeps our production engine running.
Why it resonated: “This audiobook kept me fully engaged. The authors did an amazing job showing how we can get too wrapped up in our own emotions, wants, and needs—often ignoring those of the person we’re having a conversation with. The habits she discusses aren’t just for the workplace; they’re just as important in our personal lives.”
Christopher’s pick is a masterclass in empathy and connection—lessons we can all carry with us, whether we’re at work or around the dinner table.
Christopher’s Favorite Tool:Ozone 11 “I use Ozone to fine-tune audio. Sometimes it’s just a subtle frequency adjustment to change the tone, and other times it’s a much more drastic change. Ozone gives me the confidence to make those adjustments and get the exact sound I’m looking for.”
Christopher’s choice highlights the precision and artistry of audio production—a reminder that the details matter.
Why they made the list: “I completed two books with Chris Jennings this year—Conversations Made Easy and Client Retention Matrix—in less than 12 months. Both audiobooks included interviews as additional content, which made them even more engaging and informative.”
Stephen loved these projects for their innovative structure and added depth, showing just how much value a well-produced audiobook can bring!
Stephen’s Favorite Find:Fly Kitt “This is a vitamin supplement kit for when you travel. If you're going into a different time zone it will help reduce or eliminate jet lag. I used it when I went to Italy on an overnight flight and had no issues with being tired, so I could hit the ground running and enjoy my entire trip.”
Stephen’s practical pick is great for avid travelers!
Why it stood out: “We had such a great time recording this book. The author’s energy in every session made me enjoy both the job and the content that much more. We’d chat about what was happening in our lives, and I felt we built a genuine connection.”
Michael’s pick is a game-changing guide for entrepreneurs—and a reminder of the collaborative magic that happens behind the scenes.
Michael’s Favorite Tool:TASCAM Mixcast 4 Podcast Workstation “This equipment has been a game changer! It allowed me to remote-direct recordings for none other than Twin Flames Studios. What a great year it’s been!”
Michael’s pick proves that the right tools make all the difference—whether you’re recording a podcast or producing a bestseller.
Why it resonated: “It’s just a straightforward guide on how to be yourself in the workplace and how that can actually help, rather than hurt, your bottom line. It doesn’t hurt that, as a narrator, Mike sounded like Sir John Gielgud right out of the gate!”
Paul’s pick combines practical workplace advice with unforgettable narration—a perfect listen for professionals looking to thrive authentically.
Paul’s Favorite Tool:Ballpark DJ App “I found this app that allows you to record introductions for a youth or recreational team. I use it for my son’s 13-year-old baseball team, but you could also use it for an adult bowling league, a youth soccer team, or even to introduce your staff at a team meeting!”
Paul’s pick is as versatile as it is fun, bringing a personal touch to teamwork—whether on the field or in the office.
“I've been using Human Design to help me become a more effective leader and also to build my team more effectively. It's like if you took the best personality test and strengths assessment and put them on steroids. My very dear friend and colleague, Candy Barone, has a suite of free Human Design tools that she gives away, starting with a 20-page personal human design report for free, no strings attached. Her generosity in providing people with the tools to align with their best selves and their purpose is what I love about Candy, so much.”
“What will life be like when you have as many as 30 more podcasts and radio shows already booked right at the beginning of the year? Would that be a giant boost for you, your book or your current program? Here’s the great news… Our friend Jackie Lapin has a surefire way for you to get those 30 shows! She’s been doing it for 15 years for select clients. Some of her most recent Podcast/Radio Tours have actually generated 45, 50 and even 65 podcast invitations. This is my very favorite podcast guesting opportunity for authors!”
Looking Back, Moving Forward
From audiobooks that inspired deep reflection to tools that refined our craft, 2024 was a year filled with creativity, connection, and growth. Each staff pick is a small window into what makes our team tick—and a testament to the power of storytelling and innovation.
What inspired you this year?
What most surprised you, or what do you still want to know? Let us know your thoughts below!
About Tina Dietz:
Tina Dietz is an award-winning and internationally acclaimed speaker, audiobook publisher, podcast producer, and vocal leadership expert whose work and shows have been featured on media outlets including ABC, NBC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune, Inc.com, and Forbes. She’s been named one of the top podcasters for entrepreneurs by INC.com, and Tina’s company, Twin Flames Studios, re-imagines thought leadership through podcasting and audiobooks for experts, executives, and founders.
As we head into the next presidential election you'll notice that the pitch, the pause, the rise and fall of a leader’s voice captures hearts and minds just as effectively—if not more so—than the words themselves.
As I’ve noted before, “The way you sound has a profound impact on how your message is received, often more so than the content of the message itself.”Do You Sound Like a Leader? explores this in greater detail.
As we look at the vocal delivery styles of 2024 presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, we find that the way a leader speaks can profoundly shape public perception. For leaders, experts, and entrepreneurs, understanding this dynamic can be the key to leading effectively and making your voice heard.
The Science of Persuasion: Why Vocal Qualities Matter
Sure, content is king. But the crown jewels? They’re all in the delivery. Robert Cialdini, the godfather of influence psychology, points out that authority and likability are key factors in persuasion—and these often hinge on how a message is delivered. As Cialdini explains, “We are more likely to be influenced by people who are authoritative, who appear credible and knowledgeable, regardless of the content of their message.” A deep, resonant voice doesn’t just sound good; it signals authority, commanding respect and attention before a leader even gets to the meat of their message.
Lee Hartley Carter, a renowned strategist and author of Persuasion: Convincing Others When Facts Don’t Seem to Matter, has spent years advising Fortune 500 companies and political campaigns on the art of effective communication. Her work highlights the critical role that emotional resonance and authenticity play in leadership. According to Carter, a voice that truly connects with listeners can make all the difference in persuasion. And let’s be honest, we’ve all been in meetings where the speaker’s monotone droning put us on a one-way trip to Snoozeville. But with the right vocal techniques, you can keep your audience engaged and attentive.
When a leader modulates their voice—using strategic pauses, varying their pitch, and adjusting their pacing—they’re not just holding attention; they’re shaping perceptions. A well-timed pause can create anticipation and emphasize a point, while variations in tone can keep the audience emotionally connected. Sometimes, how you say something lands more impactfully than what you say.
With these foundational ideas in mind, let’s explore how current leaders like Donald Trump and Kamala Harris use their vocal delivery to influence public perception.
Trump vs. Harris: A Vocal Showdown
The 2024 presidential race isn’t just a clash of ideologies—it’s a vocal duel. Donald Trump continues to wield his voice like a weapon, with his recent speech at the 2024 CPAC showcasing his signature assertive tone. As he declared, “We will take back the White House,” his booming voice was designed to project strength and determination to his base. It’s no wonder Trump’s rallies and speeches still feel like rock concerts—he’s mastered the art of keeping the audience on their feet, even if it’s with the same chorus repeated a dozen times. But as The Washington Post pointed out in 2019, while Trump’s “booming and relentless” tone solidifies his image as a strong leader, it’s also divisive. To some, his aggressive style comes off as bullying, deepening the divide between his supporters and detractors.
On the other side of the vocal spectrum is Kamala Harris. Her speech on gun violence prevention in June 2023 is a prime example of her calm, deliberate, and empathetic tone. Harris’s voice flowed with measured cadence, her empathetic tone wrapping around each word like a warm embrace—inviting listeners in rather than overwhelming them. During this speech, her deliberate pauses and slower pace were used to emphasize the gravity of the topic, resonating deeply with her audience. However, Harris faces a different set of challenges—particularly gender biases. As The New York Times explored in 2023, Harris’s vocal delivery is often judged against traditional gender expectations. Some praise her composed demeanor, while others criticize her for lacking the forcefulness they expect from a leader—especially when compared to male counterparts like Trump. This bias reflects broader societal expectations, where women leaders are often caught in a double bind: be too soft, and you’re weak; too strong, and you’re shrill.
Critical Thinking: Separating Content from Delivery
So, how can you navigate the nuances of vocal delivery without getting swayed by style over substance? Here are some tips:
Focus on the Content: Pay close attention to the actual message. Is the candidate backing up their claims with facts? Are they providing clear, logical arguments, or are they relying on emotional appeals and repetition to fill the gaps?
Beware of Emotional Manipulation: Notice when a speaker uses tone and inflection to play on your emotions. While emotions are a powerful communication tool, they shouldn’t replace rational analysis. As Lee Hartley Carter notes, “The leaders who resonate most emotionally with their audience are those who can authentically project the emotions that match their message. It’s not just what they say, but how they make people feel.” Ask yourself if the emotional tone aligns with the facts presented. How to Free Yourself from Emotional Velcro and Create Psychological Safety in the Workplace offers insights on managing emotional responses effectively.
Consider the Whole Picture: Vocal qualities can enhance or distort a candidate’s perceived credibility. Look beyond the delivery to assess their track record, policies, and actions.
Check Your Biases: Be mindful of unconscious biases that might affect how you perceive a candidate’s voice. Gender, race, and other factors can shape our perceptions of leadership qualities in ways we might not even realize.
Diversify Your Sources: Engage with a range of news outlets and analyses to get a balanced view. Different perspectives can help you see beyond any single source’s bias and get a fuller picture of the candidate’s platform and delivery.
Next time you hear a political speech, ask yourself: Are you being swayed by the logic of the argument, or is the speaker’s tone doing most of the work? How does the delivery shape your perception? By sharpening these critical thinking skills, you can better discern the substance behind a candidate’s words, making informed choices that go beyond surface-level impressions.
Summary and Takeaways
In leadership, how you say something can be as important—if not more so—than what you say. As we’ve seen with Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, vocal qualities significantly influence public perception, with societal biases adding another layer of complexity, particularly regarding gender. But by honing critical thinking skills and staying mindful of the difference between content and delivery, we can navigate these complexities and make more informed decisions. As the 2024 election approaches, let’s listen not just to the words our leaders speak, but to how they speak them. After all, it’s not just about sounding persuasive—it’s about leading with integrity. For more on this, see Strengthening Your Voice of Leadership in Uncertain Times.
And as we continue to explore the power of voice, whether in leadership or in technology like AI audiobooks, it’s clear that how we communicate can make all the difference.
What most surprised you, or what do you still want to know? Let us know your thoughts below!
About Tina Dietz:
Tina Dietz is an award-winning and internationally acclaimed speaker, audiobook publisher, podcast producer, and vocal leadership expert whose work and shows have been featured on media outlets including ABC, NBC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune, Inc.com, and Forbes. She’s been named one of the top podcasters for entrepreneurs by INC.com, and Tina’s company, Twin Flames Studios, re-imagines thought leadership through podcasting and audiobooks for experts, executives, and founders.
Connecting With People Through the Power of Audiobooks
How are you getting your audience’s attention?
As you know, content is everywhere and the demands for attention are higher every day.
It’s easy for even the most compelling messages to get lost in the noise.
It’s critical to cut through the clutter and truly connect with your audience on a deeper, more personal level.
This is where the benefits of audiobooks now truly shine…
Audiobooks aren’t just a “format;” they’re an intimate experience that brings your words to life. When your voice tells your story, it’s not just heard—it’s felt. The cadence, the emotion, the subtle inflections—they all add layers of meaning that deepen the connection between you and your listener.
It’s an opportunity for deeper connection through content than nearly any other type of content that you will invest your time in creating.
Your message is more than just words on a page; it’s a reflection of your passion, your expertise, and your vision. When you translate that into an audiobook, you’re not just sharing information—you’re forging a connection.
So why aren’t more people producing audiobooks?
There are a few common issues and misconceptions we hear when talking with authors, publishers, editors and book coaches.
Misconception 1: Audiobooks Won’t Reach My Audience
Many authors underestimate the reach and influence of audiobooks. They think that their audience prefers physical books or eBooks and that producing an audiobook won’t add much value. But the truth is, audiobooks have steadily grown in popularity over the years.
52% of all U.S. adults have listened to an audiobook in their lifetime, and in 2023, revenue increased by 9% to $2 billion, according to the Audio Publishers Association.
Moreover, audiobooks can expand your reach to people with disabilities or those who prefer auditory learning. For many, reading can be a challenge due to visual impairments or dyslexia. Audiobooks offer an inclusive way for these individuals to enjoy your work without barriers.
By not offering an audiobook, you could be missing out on connecting with a whole segment of your audience who prefers consuming content in this format.
Misconception 2: Audiobooks Now Aren’t a Good Investment
Another common misconception is that producing audiobooks now requires a costly investment with little return. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Audiobooks can dramatically increase your audience, influence, and income. An audiobook has the potential to generate revenue indefinitely. Plus, with platforms like Audible, Google Play, Apple Books, and even Spotify, it’s easier than ever to distribute your audiobook to a global audience.
Authors are often surprised to learn that they don’t have to give away their royalties or go through a complicated process to see a return on their investment. The key is to work with an experienced team that understands how to navigate the audiobook market effectively.
Misconception 3: Audiobook Production is Complicated and Time-Consuming
Perhaps the most common reason authors hesitate to create an audiobook is the belief that it’s a complicated, time-consuming process. Many authors don’t know where to start or feel overwhelmed by the technical aspects of audiobook production. This is where working with a partner like Twin Flames Studios can make all the difference. We handle everything—from recording and editing to distribution—so you can focus on what you do best: telling your story. Our streamlined process ensures that your audiobook is produced to the highest quality standards while allowing you to maintain full creative control.
Let’s Create Audio Magic Together
The world of audiobooks is rich with opportunity, and there’s never been a better time to explore it.
Ready to take the next step?
I’m hosting an in-depth webinar on September 19th, 2024 at 12 PM Eastern that will show you how to boost your bottom line, expand your audience, and create an audiobook that will give you content for years to come. This is where you start.
What most surprised you, or what do you still want to know? Let us know your thoughts below!
About Tina Dietz:
Tina Dietz is an award-winning and internationally acclaimed speaker, audiobook publisher, podcast producer, and vocal leadership expert whose work and shows have been featured on media outlets including ABC, NBC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune, Inc.com, and Forbes. She’s been named one of the top podcasters for entrepreneurs by INC.com, and Tina’s company, Twin Flames Studios, re-imagines thought leadership through podcasting and audiobooks for experts, executives, and founders.
We interrupt this Hot Girl Summer for an Emotional Velcro Vacation!
Thus far, 2024 has been characterized with the typical uncertainty we all experience during a presidential election year, regardless of politics. But add the extra seasoning of social and economic unrest, and that is one spicy meatball!
As a leader, do you feel like you’re carrying the weight of their world on your shoulders?
Need some quick ways to reduce stress without sacrificing productivity?
What is Emotional Velcro?
Simply, it’s the stress, anxiety, and emotional baggage you accumulate over time when interacting with other people.
It’s the “waxy buildup” of emotional residue that you often unconsciously adopt when leading teams, parent kids, partners, friends, and so on.
Taking Your Emotional Velcro Vacation
It’s time for some much-deserved relief and rejuvenation.
When you are stressed, ask yourself, “Why am I feeling this way?”
Are you carrying the emotions of someone else, even by accident? Figuring out the source of the emotional velcro can help bring about immediate relief or at least help you get to the next step.
First, talk with someone else like a coach, counselor or other trusted source. Or simply spend some time in reflection and analysis to discover the truth inside yourself or about the situation.
For some quick relief or practice, here are two vocal techniques you can use right now: sigh and rant. It’s like the “bend and snap” of 2024.
A deep sigh triggers your parasympathetic nervous system and your body’s relaxation response. It’s easy to do, and you can do this anywhere – which is why it’s one of my favorite techniques.
And the “rant” in question here is actually much less long-winded than it sounds. When I say “rant” I’m talking about unleashing a single word, done in a specific way that also has fantastic benefits for your nervous system.
Remember, taking care of your emotional well-being is not a luxury; it’s a necessity. So, take that first step today and start shedding the Emotional Velcro that’s holding you back. Your future self will thank you.
What most surprised you, or what do you still want to know? Let us know your thoughts below!
About Tina Dietz:
Tina Dietz is an award-winning and internationally acclaimed speaker, audiobook publisher, podcast producer, and vocal leadership expert whose work and shows have been featured on media outlets including ABC, NBC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune, Inc.com, and Forbes. She’s been named one of the top podcasters for entrepreneurs by INC.com, and Tina’s company, Twin Flames Studios, re-imagines thought leadership through podcasting and audiobooks for experts, executives, and founders.
You’ve probably heard the term “Psychological Safety” thrown around. But what does this mean for leaders, who are responsible for themselves and others? Is this a revolutionary belief, or simply a passing trend? With help from psychological safety experts Lisa Wimberger and Candy Barone, Tina explores how leaders can regulate their mental and physical wellbeing.
Don't miss our Leaders' Discussion Guide for this episode below – perfect for your next team Lunch & Learn!
Psychological Safety – Episode Highlights
Learn the scientific definition of psychological safety (4:40)
See the “warning signs” of a psychologically unsafe environment in yourself (15:58)
Discover the parts of your brain that determine your fight, flight, freeze response (16:55)
Learn tips and tricks from experts on how to regulate yourself back to a state of calm, and lead your team to success! (26:45)
Most common challenges in creating psychological safety in the workplace, and some “Sacred Cows” that need to be eliminated. (20:11)
Full Transcript
Tina Dietz
Hello everyone and welcome. I'm Tina Dietz, and this is Drink From The Well. Today's topic: the paradox of leadership and psychological safety. For the first time in decades, we're seeing the pendulum swing in the world of business and industry from a focus on developing hard skills, like technical training, to soft skills, which I've always hated that term – let's call them something more accurate. People skills, human skills, what we actually need to communicate and thrive together. But one of the big reasons in this shift is the demand by workers and the absolute pile of mounting research and data related to something called psychological safety.
Voice Over (Audio Montage)
“The importance of psychological safety”
“It’s amazing how much attention is now being spent on psychological safety”
“Google built its culture on this idea of psychological safety”
“I call these special workplaces ones that have psychological safety”
“Building psychological safety on a team”
Tina Dietz
One of the basic tenets of psychology is mired in Eric Erickson's work from the mid-1900s, where he theorized that all humans go through a series of eight psychosocial stages. In the first stage a child goes through, and that's about birth to 18 months old or so, is determining whether the world that they live in is one that they can trust, and if they can indeed feel safe in that world. Another basic premise common to psychology is Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And you may have seen Maslow's famous pyramid in a psych 101 class. This construct shows safety as a basic human need only secondary to food, air, water and shelter. So, today, we're exploring what happens when leaders are being asked to provide psychological safety for their teams, when they might not even feel psychologically safe themselves. We'll also be looking at the impacts of what happens when people don't feel safe in the workplace, and, of course, what we can do about it to move forward, to innovate and to help each other out. Today, we are joined by two fantastic experts. Lisa Wimberger is the founder of the Neurosculpting Institute and the co-founder of the NeuroPraxis app. She has a credible background educationally in neuroscience, visual perception, neurobiology and education, and is the author of seven books on neuroplasticity and stress management. She owns multiple companies, has over 60 international franchises and teaches in audiences ranging from corporate leaders to the FBI and the Secret Service. Candy Barone is also joining us today, and she is the CEO and founder of You Empowered Strong, a leadership development expert, a trainer and executive coach, and she is also a bestselling author and an international speaker. Candy’s also a Vistage executive chair and CEO peer advisory group facilitator and a member of the Forbes Coaching Council. She has received incredible numbers of awards in leadership. Candy has also been showcased on CNN, the US News and World Report, South by Southwest, Fast Company and many, many other publications. So, I am honored to have both of you on the show today. Lisa, thank you for joining us.
Lisa Wimberger
It's great to be here.
Tina Dietz
And Candy, thank you as well.
Candy Barone
It's my honor. Thank you for having me.
Tina Dietz
Yeah, so, we really wanted to cover 360 everything having to do with psychological safety from giving leaders a basis to work from, because this keeps coming up in the news. It's coming up all over business. There's studies being run by Google and Gallup, Workhuman. The research really is mounting like crazy. But I think we really need to first, take a look at what is our working definition of psychological safety for our conversation today. And Lisa, I really love the one that you use. And I was wondering if you would share that with us.
Lisa Wimberger
Yeah. For me, the way I like to look at it is psychological safety being our ability to regulate, in the moment, based on appropriate environmental, contextual requirements outside of our old reactive patterns, and really orienting towards listening, understanding and responding. It doesn't mean I always feel safe. It means I know how to guide myself back to some level of homeostasis so I can function in present time appropriately.
Tina Dietz
So this idea that we can have the capacity to move ourselves towards regulation, no matter what's going on around us.
Lisa Wimberger
Absolutely. We're not supposed to be stuck in regulation. We're supposed to always be able to orient towards it. That's what a mammalian nervous system is best at.
Tina Dietz
And we do have to keep in mind that we are mammals, and we are dealing with this mammalian nervous system. We do lose that in our day-to-day work. You probably see a lot of that, right?
Lisa Wimberger
Yeah, we forget we're mammals. And so for all of you listening, I want to just sort of couch everything I'm going to say. When you feel yourself respond in this dialogue we're having with the, “Oh my God, that's me, and I'm broken.” And, “Oh, no, I've been doing it all wrong,” I don't want you to think that that's a bad thing. I want you to think, “Yay! I just saw my growth opportunity,” to be able to identify that. As mammals, we're all imperfect creatures whose best capacity is to grow from our awareness of dysregulation. So if you're one of those, “Oh, no, I'm screwed up because this is me,” you're ahead of the game.
Tina Dietz
Yeah, 100% cheer for self-awareness for sure, right? Now, Candy, you’re really known in your – in the leadership circles for someone who shows people how to have uncomfortable conversations. So, what do you think is kind of the first rule for us entering into a conversation like this that might have leaders feel a little bit uncomfortable with approaching even the idea of, “How the hell am I going to create psychological safety for my team when I don't feel comfortable myself?”
Candy Barone
Yeah, and I love what Lisa said, both in terms of the definition around what psychological safety is and talking about what happens when we feel that dysregulation, because one of the things that I talk to leaders about is the fact that in order to have the, what I call, the courageous connected conversations, we need the ability to create safe containers where people can be free to feel seen, heard, valued, loved and respected without fear of repercussion or judgment. And that is easy to say and very difficult when leaders have not been given the opportunity to get the- and I'm going to use the- human skills required to have the level of emotional intelligence and capacity to hold that space, especially when they haven't been able to create it for themselves. And so, there is an aspect of a couple things that I think is really important. One is the ability to listen for understanding and vulnerability. Vulnerability still is such a dirty word in many business environments and seen as a weakness rather than, truly, the most critical aspect of an organization.
Tina Dietz
That's absolutely perfect. And I heard you both talk about one of my favorite topics, which is engaging the superpower of curiosity. And because curiosity does live in a different part of the brain than other emotions, a lot of folks don't realize that it's a great way to interrupt your patterning of going down a stress rabbit hole or a situation where you might be feeling incredibly vulnerable. I wear a lot of emotions on my sleeve. It's part of what makes me me. And in leading my team, sometimes in having those difficult conversations, I have to create all of this space for me to have those large feelings inside of me both simultaneously without vomiting all over my team, but also give myself the own space and grace that I could very easily get angry with myself about being emotional, which makes me more emotional, which makes me angrier. But leaving room for all of that space allows us to move through these challenges so much more quickly. So, we just jumped right into the thick of what it's like to experience all of these feelings and all of these emotions. And on that note, I just want to back up for just a moment, create a little context. I'm so excited about this particular topic, but I wanted to share a little bit about some of the things about the two of you, why I asked you to be here today and what makes you such incredible experts around this topic. Lisa, something that I know about you that really intrigues me was that when you were 15, apparently you were struck by lightning.
Lisa Wimberger
Yes.
Tina Dietz
And that had a real impact on you going down this path and studying the mammalian nervous system and the psychology around it.
Lisa Wimberger
Yeah, it screwed me up big time. I'll tell you, there's nothing glorious about being hit by lightning. I was hit in the base of the spine on my birthday and developed a seizure disorder, which was undiagnosed for many years, but it was getting progressively worse. So, I thought I was fainting. I was actually having grand mal seizures, I was flatlining, I was being resuscitated, I was ending up in the ER. And this got worse and worse. And I finally got a handle on it 15 years ago, and I was a single mom at the time. And I was like, “Nope, can't do this, can't leave my kid as an orphan.” So, I was studying neuroscience because I needed help and Western medicine couldn't give it to me. I wasn't epileptic, there were no meds. They said, “You just have to deal with this.” That was my very self-serving reason for studying neuroscience. Found the keys to the system to regulate, and that set me on the path of, “How can I teach other people how to regulate?” Because the core of my seizure disorder was psychological threat. It was a stress response.
Tina Dietz
Yes.
Lisa Wimberger
Right. So, the fact that I didn't have psychological safety with all of my education background and my 30 plus years of meditation – yes, I've been meditating regularly since I was 12 – did not provide me psychological safety. I had to work for that. I had to identify, learn, apply, integrate, digest, metabolize and continue. And that was provided to me by neuro-scientifically understanding what a mammalian system needs.
Tina Dietz
What's so beautiful here is that, I know that, Candy, your path towards working with leaders and regulating yourself also started fairly early in life with a desire to create more psychological safety for yourself. And can you speak to that?
Candy Barone
Yeah, I would say that early on, there was a lot of fight, flight, freeze response due to just the abuse that I was surrounded with when it came to my dad, and a lot more psychological and emotional abuse, which then transcended into 20 years of a corporate career, which at the age of 35, put me in the hospital. And what happened was, I was in a space of where, I call the over syndrome, which is I was over-functioning, over-performing to the point where I was so over exhausted, over frustrated, over burned out, over beyond, my entire identity was attached to my over as a form of way to create safety for myself that it literally created a mass, a pain in my chest that doubled me over. So, I remember going to see – because I didn’t even have time to go see my doctor, even though I was having debilitating pain and space where I wasn't able to catch my breath. So, as I was sitting in the waiting room when I probably should have gone to the ER, I remember having a conversation in my brain that went something like, “Candy, when was the last time you slept?” And this other piece of my brain went, “I'm not talking about when you passed out at your computer, when you had six martinis to take the edge off. When was the last time you had a real quality night's sleep?” I couldn't recall one in the last three weeks. And the moment I acknowledged that for myself, the wheels came off. Because then a barrage of questions, “Oh my God, my doctor is going to ask why I think I'm having a heart attack. Is it because of the binge eating or the alcohol, or this? Oh my God, I think I went shopping last week. And what did I buy at Ann Taylor? There's still a bag sitting in my hall.” And like my brain just took over, and absolutely, I was almost in the fetal position by the time the doctor came out to call me into his office. After a battery of CTs, MRIs, tests, colonoscopy, endoscopy, you name it, it finally came back that I had created – and I say that very deliberately – I created and manifested a mass in my chest that tripped a sliding hiatal hernia I didn't even know I had. And I manifested it because I had spent 20 years, well, actually, at that point, about 35, doing what I call the shallow, above the neck breathing, which was the holding my breath because of the stress that was constantly activated around me or the hyperventilating, which eventually caused all of that energy to trap in my body.
Tina Dietz
And this is such a great example of – one of my questions has been, “How do you know you're not in a space of psychological safety?” That is a clear example. And there's all gradations of this. And my own journey with becoming a therapist, and then working with people in their businesses, working with teenagers, also came out of the sense of, I was never safe as a child, I was always at risk, one way or another, no matter where I turned, didn't have this like safe base that I could count on. And so, I had to create that for myself as an adult later on. So, this is a really common story. So, then we're all going into workplaces, carrying a lot of this with us. And no matter how much work we do, we're still dealing with being around other humans dealing with this mammalian nervous system. And this is something that out of Lisa's work, I'm familiar with, the idea of we go into a state of midbrain dominance when we're not in a space of psychological safety. So Lisa, could you tell us about midbrain dominance?
Lisa Wimberger
Yeah, and Candy, what an amazing, hit the wall moment for you where it all got clear. And I just want to say, who better to teach people about creating psychological safety than those of us who had to find it and work for it and can give the ins and outs of how to do that. I want the people who've been in the trenches. You may not know you don't feel safe. But here's some things you can know. You can know if you have constipation or diarrhea. You can know if you're gaining weight inappropriately, or excessively, rapidly losing weight. You can know if you're breathing by inquiring. You can know if you're profusely sweating at all the wrong times. You can know if you have terrible circulation. You can know if you have inability to concentrate. You can know if you have dry throat, dry eyes, dry orifices. You can know these things. These are key indicators of dysregulation, that dysregulation may come from top-down, your perception of psychological safety. They may come from bottom-up environmental, experiential things you're feeling that then get translated as a psychological threat. Either way, you can know you're dysregulated far sooner than hitting the wall like I did and like Candy did, right? So, that's the first thing. But what happens in a situation like mine or Candy’s is that you are in fight, flee, freeze in order to function or in order to avoid the pain, right? That's a mammalian spectrum of responses. And we all have that. And every one of us here listening has had those experiences. But any of those will put you either in your midbrain dominantly as your neural functioning, or even more primitive, into your brainstem. And in that arousal and adrenaline and cortisol, you actually have anesthetized your body in a way so you can produce. So that's midbrain. Then you get to critical mass, and you go into shutdown. And that's the holding the breath part. And that means midbrain no longer can take it, it is now your brainstem running the show. And that's going to cause the holding the breath, the freeze, the immobility and the complete and utter shutdown. Some of us don't progress in that fashion. Some of us skip fight, flee, go right to freeze. I was freeze. So, now midbrain and brainstem are very efficiently taught and very amazing students, that they learn that they govern the show because it protects you. And the part of your brain that's supposed to be creating psychological safety for yourself, and then for others, the part of the brain that makes us all great leaders on paper, right, the ability to get our teams functioning, the ability to create safety, the ability to be innovative and compassionate and empathic and thinking and listening, and all of that requires prefrontal cortex resilience and activity, which is inhibited neurologically when we are in midbrain and brainstem dominance, a part of the brain we have starved, a part of the brain we have weakened.
Tina Dietz
And so, when we're in this part of our brain, in the center of the brain and the brain stem, that's where we start to see these reports from, say, the Gallup study, that over 60% of employees are reporting that they're experiencing some form of burnout. And that means not just stress, but where they're actually starting to shut down and can’t access things. So, we're all still creating and doing and managing in spite of all this, which really says a lot about how resilient human beings really, really are. It is quite incredible what is possible, even in the face of all of this stress. I know for myself, one of my key indicators that I've slipped into the center of my brain instead of my prefrontal cortex is those accelerated thought processes. I get hyper vigilant or I start running scenarios. And I'm like, “Well, what if I did this? Or what if I did that? Or what if I do that?” and it just starts to feel way too fast. So, that is a key indicator that I've seen in clients and myself for years. I think we see that a lot in teams and companies. So, turning our attention to helping leaders identify what's happening in their culture that might be blocking psychological safety, Candy, you talk sometimes about something called sacred cows as one of the three most common challenges in company cultures that block psychological safety. What do you mean by sacred cows?
Candy Barone
Yeah, I mean two things. And I need to preface this because it connects to what you and Lisa just said around resiliency. And this goes into sacred cows. We think about resiliency, oftentimes, in corporations and organizations as being the ability to bounce back. And one of the ways I try to simplify this for people is I talk about resiliency being this space in between reaction and response. And I say that because, when we look at the sacred cows, and we talk about some of that resiliency and how it plays in, oftentimes, I see sacred cows showing up in one of two spaces. One is that person that is a trigger for that psychological unsafety, because they are someone who has been a legacy team member, they have been there 30 some years, and people say, “That's just Bob,” and because Bob doesn't have the same expectations to show up and regulate, that there are excuses made over and over again around why Bob gets to create these unsafe spaces and that everybody should suck it up and just move on. So, there's one side of the sacred cow that says, “Just bounce back, just get over it. Just trust that’s Bob.” And we put that resiliency on people instead of the ownership where it belongs. The other side of the sacred cow is for those leaders that are deeply empathetic, sometimes sympathetic, and they are two different things, but they love their people. And so, they oftentimes will see potential in people that either don't see it in themselves or have capacity to be the person they want. I see Lisa pointing to herself. And so, we create a sacred cow because we try to save somebody who's not our responsibility or our job to save. And what happens is that in and of itself creates more of that unsafe psychological space. And they don't even realize the energy they're putting into that. So those two sacred cows are dangerous in an organization in my perspective.
Tina Dietz
That's definitely dangerous. Do you run into situations where leaders even question that psychological safety is even, quote unquote, a thing?
Candy Barone
Yeah. That is one of the biggest push backs, where leaders are like, “Oh, that woo woo crap is a bunch of nonsense and that's just a bunch of BS, the new flavor.” And so then it is asking them very direct questions because, I know even yesterday, I posted something that says, “Do you even know if you're creating a toxic work environment?” Most leaders don't know. But here's the other side of that. The leaders that do get it, that can feel what's been happening, especially in light of the last couple years, one of the things, and it breaks my heart to hear them say this, I get leaders on the phone that will say, “Candy, do you want to know what my biggest fear is right now, and the thing that keeps me up at night, is that whenever we come through whatever this is, that I'm going to realize I did more damage than good to the people I care most about, my team and my family, because I didn't know, I didn't know.” And then they actually start to, and this is where we say leaders don't feel safe, where they literally, and I get very emotional saying this, because they will break down. I get men who are sixty years old, who will fetal position, completely shut down and finally release a weight they have been carrying on their heart because they are taking responsibility for something that's not theirs, because they don't know how to impact psychological safety and they feel the impact of what's happening because they don't.
Lisa Wimberger
And Candy, for me, that is the power of vulnerability. So first, is the acknowledgement. Then, they move into the shame and guilt of having been an imperfect human, as though they shouldn't ever have been, which is ridiculous. And then, that's where the growth and learning happens. That is the pause that you said, that, I love that, the resiliency is the pause between the reaction and then the response, which moves towards solution and innovation. Neurologically, that is the space of learning. And learning only ever can happen from error recognition. If you're in a state of, “I'm doing it right,” there is no capacity for the brain to evaluate a gap and adapt and move on to something adaptable and learned. There are leaders who dismiss psychological safety as “woo woo.” That is as ridiculous as saying, “Yes, I concur. We are all mammals, but I'm the one mammal that does not function like all other mammals.” That makes no neurobiological sense to me.
Tina Dietz
No, it definitely does not.
Candy Barone
And yet, they say it.
Tina Dietz
Yeah, it comes up, and there is the human response of being afraid of being wrong, right? So, as much as we can create compassion for each other and leave a space for an opening and understanding where is somebody in midbrain dominance? If we can listen to each other a little bit more like, “You know what? They're in a fear response right now, let's let that subside or let's move into something that allows that fear to move through,” because once that fear response is on, it doesn't just shut off. So, let's talk about getting some regulation available for leaders to bolster them so that they can be more present for their teams, and I would love to do another episode with the two of you specifically around what leaders can do for their teams, but, let's look at leaders specifically, and starting to, from the biological side and the behavioral side, Lisa, first, I'd love to hear from you. You say that leaders need to understand the non-negotiable dynamics of the mammalian nervous system and value it. So what, very precisely, are some non-negotiable dynamics they need to know? And what do they need to be doing to regulate their nervous system?
Lisa Wimberger
Yeah. So I'm going to step out of behavior completely and go to you’re a mammal. Here's what needs to happen if you want to access your prefrontal cortex, your leadership skills. You have to have a regulated nervous system, and the fastest way into that, there are two fast tracks in, somatically. One is to condition your vagus nerve daily. And I'm going to give you those practices. They take thirty seconds, and they're free. The second thing is to release the muscle contractions that we all have when we're stressed to micro and macro degrees. And those perpetual contractions send perpetual signals to the brain that say “You're not safe, you're not safe, you're not safe.” And that's white noise. So, those are the two fast tracks in. So, number one, how do you dissipate the contractions in your body, so you stop sending signals back up to the brain? You have to do neurogenic tremoring, which is the phrase “shake it off.” So a 10 to 30 second super vigorous, full body shake. Not a controlled shake. The kind where you feel that, “Uhh,” that chill run up your spine, and you induce that. And you do that with a lot of energy for 10 to 30 seconds. You're going to use up the energy in the muscles. They're going to start to soften through their own neurogenic tremoring. They're going to twitch, and then they're going to send feedback signals back up to the brain that say we're softening. Cats in the wild, when they're not hunting and in threat mode, they are soft and laying down and yawning. So, our nervous systems need the same thing, soft muscles. The other piece of that is the vagal toning, your vagus nerve. That's the thing Candy was saying was holding her breath, was creating that pressure in the heart. The vagus nerve innervates all the organs and it is a brain stem governor of our stress response. And so if you get that thing resilient, well, then you have the orchestra leader leading the band, right, with a beautiful song. So, how you do that is you create vibrations in the lower face and neck. And that is lip exercises like the blowing raspberry effect. That silly thing? Not so silly. Your lower facial muscles innervate the vagus nerve, you send vibration to that vagus nerve, and you are creating mild benign resilience stimulation. You can massage your inner left ear because the auricular path of the vagus nerve will innervate very quickly. So, the inner lower part of the left ear can create a lot of vagal toning, and then humming, singing or even more powerful, gargling. The more you condition your vagus nerve, the more you build literal long-term resilience in your stress response. These are the exercises I do every day, 30 seconds apiece.
Tina Dietz
Perfect. Just to make sure everybody knows, we will be having, not only bullet-pointed timestamped show notes of all of this, resources backed to everything that Lisa and Candy are talking about today and the transcript. So if you find yourself just you know pulling over in your car or sitting down because you're like, “Wow, that's fascinating and a lot of words, and I really want to understand this,” please know we've got all of that for you at DrinkFromTheWellPodcast.com. Candy, you also have some tips for leaders on the behavioral and educational side of things that you really want them to know to get started in how they're feeling vulnerable, creating their own psychological safety for themselves.
Candy Barone
Yeah, and I love what Lisa just said, because it adds into one of the pieces. I talk to people about the three ways they can create more balance. And oftentimes, that's that regulation. And it's how you start your day, how you end your day, and how you manage the middle. And what I mean by that is there is the more intention you have about creating space for yourself at the start of the day, whether it through movement, through activating your body, mind, and spirit, through being able to connect back to who you are, why that matters and just a sense of self, will put you in a position to be able to navigate and notice some of these unregulated areas faster, so that you can create those moments that Lisa’s talking about, which I will call the managing the middle. And then there's the ending the day. Are you giving yourself a clear way to clear the deck, so to speak, to unplug, to disconnect from all of the things that also add stress, the blue lights, the technology, the things that if you're already amped up in your nervous system, is very sensitive. Those things are just adding extra juice that giving yourself real clear ways to shut that down, to be able to journal, reflect on what you learn through the day, and setting your environment for sacred sleep. And the managing the middle is what Lisa's talking about. I talk to people about creating what I call CMTs: Conscious Mindful Transitions. And we have, probably, four major areas where we have transitions in our life: from sleep to activate. So from rest to actually moving our body, and there is a transition space, perfect time to do what Lisa just said. There is a transition space between leaving our home or space and moving into our workspace. So there's personal to work. There is solo work to teamwork. And then there's that space of closing out the day and shutting things down. And so when we look at, we have transition spaces that, if we can start to discipline ourselves and create habits, that we then use them as prompted triggers to practice more mindfulness, to practice the harmonic tools that Lisa's talking about, to practice our breathing. And we've capped off our day with those bookends, it's amazing. These are the skills that I had to learn. I can regulate and move in and out of stress much easier and quickly, because stress always happens, because I have the tools that are my daily practice no matter what.
Tina Dietz
This is a masterclass in a half hour podcast session is really what this is. A couple more points I wanted to touch on, because we're really dealing, again, with the physical body, the emotional body, the psychological body, the environment. Lisa, and Candy, I know that you have had your own experiences, as have I, with, if you're not sleeping, pretty much anything else we say and do here is going to be 10 times harder to regulate. We can't regulate the hormones and metabolism, the digestion. Also, hydration and nutrition. Now, we run the risk, of course, we talk about all these things of, “Holy crap, I've got to do all of this. I've got to do it all at once. I've got to figure it out, or everything is going to go wrong.” And from my own experience as a therapist and my own journey, I can say that it's so important for us to understand as leaders to have more compassion for ourselves than anybody else. We have to start with that example for ourselves. So, maybe you're not sleeping well but you can do the tremoring and you can drink some more water. And you can take two minutes in between meetings to just take five deep breaths and to yawn a couple of times as I would do as a stress relief with some of my vocal leadership clients, right? Two minutes is all you need to start this process, to start regulating yourself from a biological perspective, and then from a behavioral, emotional perspective, having some room so that when you're feeling vulnerable, you can make it okay to be that way. And then fortunately, something else I've learned from Lisa, is that because human beings have this wonderful little thing called limbic resonance, we actually impact the people around us when we start to make changes. I see you nodding. I'm like, “Oh, I know there's so many more stories in this.” So we're going to have to continue this conversation, for sure. But for today, Lisa and Candy, I'd love for you to maybe share a parting tip, some words of wisdom for our leaders listening to just get them kind of started on the next phase of their journey. Candy, let's start with you.
Candy Barone
I would say, I guess my takeaway from this conversation is that resiliency, real resiliency is born in the space between reaction and response, and the choices you make one by one, to your point, Lisa, that 1%, that starts to make a compounded effect that can change your life.
Tina Dietz
Lisa?
Lisa Wimberger
I would say that between what we three just talked about is the equivalent of having set up gas stations all along the highway. And you as a leader, wanting to drive your team to the successful end goal, have been running out of gas. You're not going to get to your end goal by driving faster with no gas. You're going to get to the end goal by pulling off the highway and filling up. And so Candy's techniques, what Tina was identifying and the things that I gave you, these are your gas stations. And if you don't take that time to regulate, to fill your tank, you're not going to get, not only you aren't going to get there, you're going to inhibit your team getting there. You will be in your own way and theirs, and you have all the skills and tools now to not do that.
Tina Dietz
And there it is. I thank you both so much for joining me around the well today to refresh and rejuvenate the leaders listening and to have such a refreshing and rejuvenating conversation among us as colleagues today. I'm definitely feeling the limbic resonance happening in the conversation. So, thank you both so much.
Lisa Wimberger
Thank you. What a pleasure.
Candy Barone
Absolutely. Thank you.
Tina Dietz
Thanks for gathering around the well with us today, and I invite you back for another drink of our executive elixir as we bring the worlds of leadership innovation, creativity and communication together. Follow us on your favorite podcast app and journey over to DrinkFromTheWellPodcast.com for transcripts, show notes and links for all the wisdom in today's episode. We're always here to refresh and to entertain you anytime you need a drink from the well.
Drink From The Well is an original production of Twin Flames Studios.
She runs multiple companies, and has over 60 international franchises. Lisa still runs a private meditation coaching practice teaching clients who suffer from emotional blocks, stress disorders, and self-imposed limitations. She is a keynote speaker and a faculty member of Kripalu Yoga and Meditation Center, the Law Enforcement Survival Institute, Omega Institute, and 1440 Multiversity.
Candy Barone, CEO & Founder of You Empowered Strong, is a leadership development expert, trainer and executive coach, as well as an international speaker and Amazon best-selling author.
With nearly 20 years in corporate, combined with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, certification as a Six Sigma Black Belt, and MBA, she is a master at building exceptional, high-performing teams, maximizing and leveraging ROI, growing emerging leaders, creating metrics for greater accountability, and catapulting individuals to achieve explosive growth.
Episode Featured Resources for Psychological Safety
How to prepare to lead this discussion session with your team:
Observe your ‘internal landscape' and notice where your nervous system is regulated and where you may have some dysregulation.
Use the techniques in the episode (skip to minute 26) to help bring yourself into the present moment and find a deeper state of regulation/psychological safety in yourself.
We are all born with two voices: the one we speak with and the one that speaks to us inside. Our inner voice provides navigation through life, while our outer voice is the tool we use to guide, teach, influence, and help others. When our inner voice is aligned with our outer voice, true, authentic thought leadership comes forth.
While we can certainly argue the notion that we have many voices inside of us, (I’m the first person to admit that I have inner ‘board meetings’ sometimes with myself) the central premise here is that our communication becomes clear once we become more congruent and aligned with ourselves. We become more grounded and centered, and when we speak or write, that alignment comes through in all forms of our communication – vocal, physical, energetic, and in the words we choose.
You might have heard of Carl Jung’s 12 Archetypes, and how brands utilize them in marketing. According to Jung, the human psyche is predisposed to these archetypes and they are patterned into us inherently. Versions of these archetypes are found in storytelling across world cultures and through millenia.
We are always evolving our identity as thought leaders. By identifying our current primary and influencing archetypes, we give ourselves a space to check in with our inner and outer voices and ask ourselves:
Is my voice and message consistent?
Do my words and thoughts reflect what is authentic for me at this time?
Does my message feel forced or awkward, or fluid and easy?
Am I enjoying and excited about my own thought leadership, and the messages I’m putting out into the world?
Utilizing archetypes as a guide enriches our content development by giving a natural and psychologically congruent place to develop and express one’s communication style. In essence, when you communicate using your thought leadership archetypes as a guide, you are perceived as credible, trustworthy, and authentic.
Read on with a curious mind and discover the magic of thought leadership archetypes.
The Seekers: Innocent, Explorer, Sage
While there are 12 archetypes, each fall into a quadrant of similarity. The Seekers are a quadrant defined by a need for knowledge, freedom, and safety.
The Innocent is well known for their optimism. They have the ability to comfort others through their “glass half full” mentality. Innocents can simplify complex topics easily, recognize opportunities others may not see, and bring forth an inspirational perspective that carries a team through tough times. While they may be perceived as naive or in denial, the Innocent’s deep faith and trust in life keep them going.
The Explorer is the Indiana Jones of the workplace. Always looking to embark on the next adventure, the Explorer centers their thought leadership around the potential of unexplored avenues of inquiry, divergent thinking, and asking great questions that can lead to innovation. Explorers value autonomy and freedom over all else, which may lead them to feel trapped and easily bored.
The Sage is your quintessential thought leader. Sages are perceived as experts in a wide range of topics due to their love for learning, and therefore make excellent mentors, educators, and coaches. While they may not be the most charismatic, their ability to think critically and analyze data allows Sages to enjoy a high level of credibility amongst their colleagues and followers.
The Disruptors: Hero, Rebel, Magician
The Disruptors are those who leave a mark. They are courageous, provocative, and dynamic people who value liberation, power, and mastery.
The Hero inspires others with their stories of overcoming the odds and rising to challenges. They thrive in a competitive environment with a clear set of goals, and take pride in their dedication to their cause. However, this need to succeed may cause Heroes to disregard their personal wellbeing, as their strength comes not from themselves but who they are in the world.
The Rebel has the courage to challenge the status quo. A positive advocate for change, Rebels are admired for their ability to speak out against inefficient systems and comfortably live in the uncomfortable. Their high tolerance for risk allows them to throw out the old in favor of the new, even if their recklessness comes at a high price.
The Magician is a charismatic miracle-worker. They use their charm and creative intuition to bring the seemingly impossible into fruition, because Magicians love to make dreams come true. Their spot-on hunches and ability to influence their adversaries may cause others to doubt the credibility of Magicians. In the face of disbelief, Magicians return to themselves and spiritual guidance to carry on.
The Builders: Creator, Ruler, Caregiver
The Builders provide structure in an increasingly noisy world. They are creative, compassionate, and confident.
The Creator is powered by imagination. Their ability to see the final product in the raw material is what allows them to foster innovation and self-expression. Creators take an artful and individual approach to creative thinking and problem solving that motivates others to stretch themselves and see the creative solution. Like most artists and entrepreneurs, Creators have a flair for the dramatics and are prone to perfectionism in everything they do.
The Ruler is a natural-born leader who knows how to use power. They prefer to lead from within, utilizing their social organization prowess and networking skills to improve the world. They may be seen as domineering and tyrannical, but Rulers know when they should intervene with structure, rules, and decisions.
The Caregivers’ superpower is their empathy. Caregivers notice when others need help and support. They naturally foster peaceful and harmonious environments where all feel welcome and safe. While they tend to have poor boundaries, the Caregivers use their keen social intelligence to be the “glue” holding everything together.
The Connectors: Everyperson, Lover, Jester
The last quadrant of archetypes is the Connector. These are people who excel at connecting meaningfully with others in a fair, passionate, and funny way.
The Everyperson is a leader that’s hard to spot. They prefer to fit in with the crowd and be relatable, yet still inspire, advocate, and foster others like any other archetype does. This unique take on leadership comes from their steadfast belief in the equality of every person. They are loyal to humanity to a fault, and their realist approach to life may be mistaken as pessimism.
The Lover seeks real connection in their life. With their charismatic, engaging, and beautiful personalities, Lovers excel at creating lasting relationships that are meaningful and abundant. They know how to incorporate the romantic, the cherished, and the intimate into their personal branding from wearing their heart on their sleeves their whole lives.
And finally, The Jester is proof that life is but a stage. Jesters know how to effectively use humor and performance to promote change. They encourage others to laugh rather than cry and foster high morale amongst their team, effortlessly creating an environment where people want to work. Jesters put the fun back into boring presentations, meetings or brainstorming sessions, as long as they stay away from mean-spirited or self-indulgent jokes.
We are each a blend of archetypes to varying degrees. Sometimes connecting to a different archetype than our primary is just what you need to spice up your thought leadership. Which archetype, or blend of archetypes, do you resonate with the most?
At Twin Flames Studios, we’re developing a more powerful assessment (releasing later this year) to support you, your voice, and messaging of your thought leadership archetypes.
If you don’t want to wait to discover more about using your Thought Leadership Archetypes, meet with us to discuss how we can deepen your presence and grow your business and message with your voice.
Inspired to turn your Voice into influence and become a Thought Leader worth listening to?
Did you know one of the most powerful ways you can connect with your clients is through podcasting? You can learn more about the benefits of podcasting, what questions you need to answer before you begin your podcast, and how Twin Flames Studios helps get your voice into more ears on my guest interview with Bruce Eckfeldt on the Scaling Up Services podcast.(Scaling Up Services Podcast with Bruce Eckfeldt, October 2021)
Tina spoke with Bruce Eckfeldt on the Scaling Up Services podcast to discuss how podcasts hone your brand, provide evergreen marketing content, and create deeper relationships.
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why audio is one of the most intimate mediums for storytelling
The top questions to ask before you start your podcast
How podcasts can revitalize your marketing and expand your reach
Bruce Eckfeldt Are you a CEO looking to scale your company faster and easier? Check out Thrive Roundtable. Thrive combines a moderated peer group mastermind expert one on one coaching access to proven growth tools and a 24/7 support community. Created by Inc. award-winning CEO and certified Scaling Up Business coach, Bruce Eckfeldt, Thrive will help you grow your business more quickly and with less drama. For details on the program, visit eckfeldt.com/thrive.
Welcome, everyone. This is Scaling Up Services. I'm Bruce Eckfeldt. I'm your host. Our guest today isTina Dietz. She is the founder at Twin Flames Studios. We're going to talk to her about the work that she does with companies helping them with creating content, with promotion. This is a really kind of interesting topic. I think so many service companies based their marketing, based their sales and lead development, based on thought leadership and getting content out in the world. And there's so many different types of content and so many different ways you can do it. I really think they–obviously I love podcasting–but you know, podcasts, audiobooks, you know, spoken word kind of content, there's so many things you can do with it. There's so many things you can use to generate awareness, generate thought leadership, generate leads. I'm excited for this and excited to hear Tina’s story and how she got into this this world of audio content production and what she's been doing with service companies. So, with that, Tina, welcome to the program.
Tina DietzHey, Bruce, thanks for having me.
It's a pleasure having you on. So before we dive into what you're doing with Twin Flames right now and stuff, why don't we talk a little bit about you and get a sense of your background? Give us the story. What was your professional journey? And how did you get into what you're doing today?
Well, like most entrepreneurs, it's fairly stupid. It's just like, “Well, how the hell did this happen?” Yeah, yeah. And that's, and that's what we hear more than everything. If you had asked me, you know, when I was growing up, if, you know, in 25 years or whatever, you're going to own a company that produces audio content in the land of thought leadership for service-based companies. I'm sorry, what? What, what? It didn't even exist, right? You know, at the time?
So my upbringing was I had a younger sibling–that was a business. My parents owned a business that they started when I was three years old. It was my younger sibling, and I hated it. It was a wood burning stove and fireplace business. So real sexy, awesome. And basically, that was my constant companion growing up. So I was steeped like a tea bag in entrepreneurship. From a very young age, I started answering phones when I was four and going to trade shows when I was six, I do a whole talk will have to do another time maybe on how I found my purpose in life through the Ginsu knife demonstration at a local fair. So that’s a whole thing, that's the whole thing. And, you know, I never really thought I'd own a business, but I became a therapist–for a number of reasons. Childhood was not a great place. But you know, lessons learned. It's one of those things. And I've spent a lot of time in the world of personal development, in leadership and all of that. So cultivating myself, of course, created in me a desire to see what else could be done for other people.
That led me to coaching and consulting, which then ended up leading me to podcasting and ultimately to audio production. Basically, through a paid hobby I had as a voice actor. You know, I'm an entrepreneur, we can't have regular hobbies, we have to have hobbies that pay us. That's the way it works. We can't have normal hobbies. So I was a voice actor on the side and taking some classes and masterclasses in audiobook narration. And I had this chocolate and peanut butter moment, this light bulb, aha, that, “Oh, my God, why aren't all my clients and colleagues who are doing best selling campaigns and producing books, why aren't they doing audiobooks?” And that was, as Michael Gerber from The E Myth says, you know, my “entrepreneurial seizure” that led me to investigate the world of audio and led me to a big gap in the market and dove into that.
I took over my business within a year of starting to offer services in this big market gap of done-for-you audiobooks, and also the corporate side of podcasting. And that is kind of was the best decision that I ever made. And so I went from basically being a solopreneur, consultant who'd worked with more than 20 industries in eight countries to being the CEO of a company that now produces content in the land of audio that changes lives and hearts and minds for service-based companies and making sure that they're having this beautiful, human, authentic voice of their company that comes through this medium of audio.
Yeah, I'm curious. You've had a couple of different kind of pivots in your commercial world and career what are some of the things that you had to learn or had to kind of change about your thinking, your leadership, your approach during those pivots?
Bruce, I thought you said this was only a half hour podcast.
The top two. Just the top two.
The top two. One: choose who gets in your ear very carefully, very carefully. I'm very much of a happy puppy kind of person. I'm just like, “Yeah, let's do it. Let's change the world. Let's make it happen.” I have a lot of enthusiasm and energy and kind of that visionary habit–you see something and you want to make it happen. And it took me a long time to really learn how to vet the people that I was working with, or who I was throwing in with, because I assumed for a long time, in a very naive way, that everyone had the same values that I did around integrity and communication, and, you know, working together and making sure everybody wins. And it doesn't always work that day. Most people, most people, 99% of people on the planet are doing their best. But you know, problems and challenges that come up, don't always bring out the best in people. Sometimes it brings out the worst in people. And so learning how to create relationships over time and cultivate those relationships carefully has been a huge game changer in my world to keep things consistent and growing in the right direction.
And the other piece of the puzzle has been, you know, doing my own inner work. I'd say all the time that we were born with two voices: the voice you speak with and the voice that speaks to you. And working on the voice that speaks to me has made the biggest difference in anything that I've done as a leader, as a business owner, as a partner, a wife, a mom, you know, on any of that, to cultivate that inner world–and I could do many, many, many hours, and all the things that have happened there. But suffice to say it's been a journey.
That's a really great, that's a great realization. And yeah, I think it's, you know, time is your most precious commodity and where you spend it, you know, how you spend it, who you spend it with, are all kinds of things that are really going to influence your success and what you end up doing. Tell me a little bit about kind of why audio content? I mean, what's your kind of take on the world? You know, that we're in today? Why is audio content so powerful, so important? Why have you chosen to focus on it?
Well, going back to what I said a moment ago about our internet, our voices, it's something every human being on the planet is born with. And it's something that cannot be taken away. And speaking, as someone who has felt in the past that my voice was taken away and was suppressed, having that voice and having a place at the table to have that voice heard, is incredibly valuable. And so, everything that I have done, and what we do as a company with Twin Flames, is designed to give people a place at the table so that their voices are heard. And then it creates this incredible ripple effect that you know, podcasts and audiobooks are some of the lowest hanging fruit on the planet for people to start changing their lives.
If we can be a part of more leadership voices and more positive voices and more great information, reaching people all over the world, so that they can start to change their lives. That is a really powerful place to be. It is really about making the world a better place one kind of drip of audio at a time. And audio is very, very, very intimate compared to most other forms of media. It's single focus. Most people listen to audio right into their ear. So there is a neurological connection that's very powerful between, you know, the earbud I have in my ear, and the center of my brain, the amygdala, the hippocampus, all of those things. It's not just higher brain functions being impacted by the voice. And so there's an intimacy created in an impact that's really important. And storytelling, of course, is incredibly powerful worldwide. It's something that connects all of humanity. So when we bring all these factors together, neurological, you know, storytelling, how we're wired, the universal power of the human voice to create relationship–it's a very, very powerful medium. And it can be used in so many different ways and sliced and diced, and at the pace we're living at, you know, audio is the most portable form of media. You can listen when you can't read you can listen when you can't watch. So you know, it's never gone away. It's never going to go away. And all of those things together make it what I consider the perfect storm for perfect content.
Yeah, I was like that idea that audio content literally gets you in your prospect’s head.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, you got it.
So what are all the kinds of formats these days? I mean, we kind of went from you know, I date myself accidentally when I say I'm listening to a book on tape or something.
I know, right? Me too.
It's morphed so many times, like what is your kind of how do you kind of lay out the scope or the types of audio content that that you have at your disposal these days?
Well, we usually start with a primary form of content, which is generally a podcast. Podcasting, of course, is something that is hot right now. I’m on one as we speak, and it provides a nice bulk of content to start with, and a framework to start with. So unlike a video, the average video watcher will watch two minutes, but the average podcast listener will listen for 40 minutes.
And it's actually much harder to create short form content than it is slightly longer form content. We have thoughts, you know, curating what we say, you know, the brevity or like cutting things down to its core is much more challenging than this kind of a conversational format. And so, it allows people to be very natural, and very expansive in what they're talking about to dig into nitty gritty and to know that the listener is still going to be interested more than two minutes in, so you're not trying to pack things in. So we start with a longer form 20-30 minute podcast, usually sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, but that's on average what it is. And that gives us a lovely bulk of content to work with.
From there, there's all different ways to slice and dice that type of content, repurpose it, reuse it. And the authenticity that comes through when you're using audio and using this type of format is really important to reach people on a deeper basis, rather than just an informational basis.
Yeah. And when you look at companies, what are I guess, what are some of the companies or situations that are best served with audio content? Like who can really benefit from this form of content?
Well, we love working with relationship-focused, service-based companies. People who, when they're working with their clients, they have long-term relationships with their clients. For example, companies, which seem very dry, but there's a lot of content available in the financial world, in insurance, for example, education of varying kinds, and even things like retail, retail conglomerates, and things like that, that are creating more experiences. Travel can be served in this way, as well, although it does, definitely does need to be paired with the visual aspect as well. But it can be really, really, really beautiful. You will see a lot of influencer podcasting, that's generally not our super cup of tea.
We do a lot of work in the leadership space, though, helping to humanize brands that are large, and give the brand an avatar because we don't really do business with faceless, nameless corporations. We want to do business with people. So being able to communicate brand values and culture and leadership and innovation through the avatar of a podcast host is extremely powerful. Another industry that benefits a lot from podcasting is healthcare. And all of these have constraints with compliance and communication and legal and all of that. But we're able to navigate all of those waters, as well.
Yeah, yeah. So what are some of the other challenges? If you are interested in developing audio content? Like what do you need to kind of consider or think about setup?
The lift is largely at the beginning when you're–well with any type of content, right, so you have to decide that has enough value that you're going to spend the brain capacity and the bandwidth and the time to work with a company like ours, so that we can help you shape that voice and shape the type of content that's really going to benefit you. So choosing that it's going to be a priority.
And then having deep, intimate communication and regular awesome content are things that you really want to do, you also need to decide in terms of you know–and we work with our companies on this–like who's going to be hosting, who's your avatar, who's your people or person that you're going to be featuring. And there's a lot of creative ways to work with that scenario, as well. Everything from solo hosts to two hosts to a panel discussion and everything in between. There's, there's a lot of different ways to manage those kinds of questions, particularly if there's multiple people inside of a company who want to be at the forefront being that avatar for the company, that's all completely manageable.
Another thing the company really needs to decide is if their marketing department, and their team, how we're going to dovetail this with their other strategic initiatives. Podcasting should be one piece and audio should be a piece of a larger strategic picture for a company. It should never be a band-aid or just an outlier. It needs to be integrated because it is something that has high strategic value, and can augment or replace creating content in other areas like blog posts, social media post images, articles for industry publications, and even events and getting used in events in different ways. So, there's a lot of applications and being willing to dive into the strategy is super important.
And what goes into that strategy? What questions are you asking or what do companies need to think about, you know, in terms of understanding kind of the bigger picture strategy before they really get into, you know, executing a particular kind of audio content strategy?
Yeah, we like to get into working with their marketing team. and finding out what are their core values that they're looking to communicate. What is that mission? What is their vision for their company, and then building out kind of an avatar of their host, not of their audience, but of their host. You know, if you had to personify your company, who is kind of that person and that spokesperson to do that? That's certainly an area that we start with, we also need to look at, as I mentioned, their current strategic initiatives. What's already working for them in terms of their marketing? How can podcasting build upon that and make it even more robust? And what are their pain points that we can address that are challenging?
So one of the pain points we run into a lot with companies is just the generation of content to begin with, particularly from a very busy team. A larger company, you know, when you ask somebody to go and say, “Hey, would you write a blog post on this?” somebody who's a technician or a salesperson or whatever, they may not be a writer to do that. Using interview techniques, we can extract and pull really wonderful, real conversational information from team members that can be pulled into podcasting content, or then even turned into articles or ebooks or, you know, other types of content, as well. And the creation process becomes 100 times easier. And this is, of course, scalable for any size company to do that, whether we're working with a sales team, or we're working with, you know, a CPA firm.
Yeah. You mentioned a couple times the idea of leveraging the content, what are some ways that you can kind of use the, the initial content, leverage it in different ways? You know, repurpose it. What are some things that companies should be thinking about when they develop a kind of a content strategy, starting with audio content?
Sure, I'll kind of walk you through a whole process, potential process flow on that. So let's say your podcast gets made, and the audio content is going out to 20-30 different audio distribution platforms, everything from Spotify to Apple podcasts and whatnot. So it lives all out in the world of public podcasting. Well, then the full edited transcript of that podcast, along with an embedded player, which has a number of features on it that are really helpful for the listener, click to tweets, and custom captioned images are all embedded on the website, usually in the form of a blog post. So we have, first, fresh content that goes into your blog.
And secondly, this is all gorgeous for your search engine optimization. Google loves fresh, long form conversational content, because Google is moving towards AI for their search engine optimization. This longer form conversational podcast content is so helpful for SEO, particularly with all the bells and whistles to kind of go along with it. So, from there, you can take the we have always have a little summary at the top and we have our quotes that are pulled out. Those are repurposed into social media posts, usually either on say a company page on LinkedIn that are then shared with the employees, shared with the team so that then they all can share those posts as well.
We also pull out short clips, little highlights from the podcast and turn them into what are called audiograms, which are little shareable, closed-caption dynamic videos. Those are also shared on social media. And one of my other favorite places to use audiograms is to embed them in related blog posts on the site that aren't necessarily the podcast episode, but maybe related content. So then you are cross-pollinating your website content and also creating a more dynamic experience for somebody visiting your website, because now you've got this lovely little 30-second to one minute long video that's breaking up the content on a related post and maybe getting people interested in staying on your website longer. Yeah, so those are just a few of the things that you can do.
We even recommend that whoever is the guest on the podcast, or even the host, depending on the situation, repurpose the link to their podcast on the publication section of their LinkedIn profile. A lot of people only use articles or blog posts, but you can use your podcast interviews as part of your publications list. And that helps build out, of course, your LinkedIn presence. For those folks of us who are in the B2B world or in the, you know, the business world. It's really nice to have that additional fresh content on your LinkedIn profile to kind of keep you top of mind for people.
So those are just a couple. Those are just a couple elements. And the other big one we see a lot of is turning podcast content into industry publication articles. So basically having writers–either folks we've introduced you to, or folks on their team. One of our companies that we work with primary tax solutions, they're a specialty tax company, and they've now had six articles based on their podcasts–content produced and published in publications like Accounting Today.
Yeah, I love that idea is like you create one piece and then you can find lots of different ways. Oh, my goodness repurposing it makes it so much easier or just create so much more leverage in terms of the work you do. What are some of the challenges? Certainly, when I started podcasting, you know, it wasn't, there was some hesitation and trepidation about kind of really getting into this and putting myself out there like that. What do you do to help folks who, you know, are considering this, but they're not quite sure they have maybe some, you know, maybe a little bit of fear around some of this stuff. You know, creating this content, really putting it out there–what are ways in which you help them kind of evaluate and create an opportunity for them to really get into this space?
It really just, it lives in the world of conversation. So, Bruce, would it be accurate to say that, you know, one of your big considerations was time?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah. And that's really the biggest thing we have to talk about is, where are your priorities, and where is your time going to be, because even if we're handling 90% of what has to go into the podcast production, we're still going to need, you know, some time for the marketing team and of course, the host and things like that to spend some time in that arena. So it just really has to be a priority, and they need to be well suited. So there's a lot of evaluation that goes on at the beginning, everything from talking about, like I said, the creation of kind of this avatar. We even use thought leadership archetypes that we have developed based on the 12 Jungian archetypes to help kind of shape the brand of the podcast in conjunction with the company's brand to make sure that there's this consistent voice.
So everything that we do really lives in relationship and inquiry and curiosity. And and then from there, the strategy, but we come at it–I would say that, you know, a lot of times I'm practicing my “Business Buddha” and that means I come from a place of non-attachment. It really has to be all about the clients and not about us and seeing what's going to be best. And sometimes it's not the best solution for that company, or it's not the right time. Sometimes it's the absolute perfect time, and the company is absolutely 100% ready to go. Sometimes there's a little bit of a delay until a few ducks get in a row and we say, “Hey, you know, you really should have X, Y, and Z handled before we start this process.” So it always has to be in the best interest of the company, so that we can get the best product, because, as you know, Bruce, podcasting isn't a one and done deal. It's a long tail game. Yeah, you know, so we got to have time.
Yeah, no, let's dig into that just a little bit. ‘Cause I find I see a lot of podcasts out there that get to like episode eight.
Yeah.
You know, big plans, big ideas, and then, you know, just, you know, a big initial push, but, they just kind of fade quickly. What are some things that can help you to prevent that or will help you, you know, kind of be in it for the long game?
Well, most of our companies, we recommend starting with a bi-weekly schedule, instead of a weekly schedule. You can always add episodes. You can always add frequency as you go. But bi-weekly gives enough frequency for folks to really get content out on a regular basis without it necessarily being an overwhelming time commitment. We also work to develop out the content calendar, and make sure that we've actually got, you know, 12 or 24 potential episodes kind of planned out. And then many times we're helping with, you know, getting the guests on. You know, let's look at your networking list. Who do you want to have on and how can we help you facilitate that communication, the guest preparation and making the actual recording process as easy as possible for folks? You know, you and I both use an interface that's very easy to get on. You're using was it Tricast here. Is that what we're both on?
Yeah.
So Tricast, Squadcast, Riverside FM–there's a bunch of them that really helped make the recording process very high quality and very easy, no matter who you are, where you are, as long as you've got a relatively decent internet connection. Yeah, and we help facilitate those with live direction, sometimes, helping people actually kind of feel comfortable, relax them. We do episode preparation sometimes and actually create the outlines for episodes for companies and working with their marketing team to make it easier for them to just have a nice flow of every episode. And of course, any kind of host or guest training when it comes down to the actual vocal or interview side of things. It's really a matter of finding out what are the needs, what are the desires, and creating the right solutions to fill it. There's no cookie cutter solution.
Yeah. And are most of your clients looking to develop leads for like a lead funnel or what are the outcomes that sort of the tangible business outcomes that you're typically focused on with clients?
The tangible outcomes that clients are usually looking to focus on are multifold. Podcasting of this particular kind is a beautiful combination of relationship marketing, influence marketing, and content marketing. So we're looking to have guests chosen strategically that are not necessarily leads for their company–there's a whole philosophy of podcasting that you interview people you want to have as clients. That's not really where we live. The companies that we work with are well-established. They're doing very, very well in their fields. And this is really a move from having a brand to becoming thought leaders in an industry. So it has more to do with influence and high quality content than it does with directly getting leads.
But that being said, it usually–well, actually, it always–it always ends up in developing leads, because collaborations come out of the guests that you have on the show, out of the visibility that you have, out of the elevation in the industry of now becoming a media presence, all of those things happen, and it is largely because podcasting opens doors when it comes to relationships. You know, our clients are always looking to have high quality guests on their show, and then following up with those guests afterwards to help deepen that relationship and develop collaboration inevitably adds leads to additional opportunities and more leads 100% of the time.
Yeah. And what recommendations do you have for folks in terms of kind of picking subjects, things that you're going to weave into your conversations, finding guests? I mean, how do you go from, “Hey, I want to start a podcast, I want to, you know, have these sort of business outcomes,” to actually getting things scheduled and figuring out what you're going to talk about?
Oh, okay, that's a big world. So let's break it down just into a couple of first steps. One is to look at your values. What do you want to be known for? You know, who are you in in the world? What does your company want to be known for? And what are your brand values, the pillars that you operate by that you want to make sure it get communicated out to an audience?
Then there's a little bit of a Venn diagram. You've got your brand values and your culture, and then you have what you're really good at, you know, what's your areas of focus, and you're going to overlap those two areas on each other. And then the third area that you're going to your trifecta, a little three circle Venn diagram is going to be how do you want to communicate it?
So when you're talking about podcasting, you have to have somebody on your team who's got a proclivity towards a microphone. In some way, shape or form, they have to have a desire for it. Because otherwise you're going to end up you know, like, like Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. “Bueller, Bueller? Bueller?” It's got to be dynamic, right? You somebody who is inclined. So that you know, so then you got your format of your show. So you've got those three pieces that you want overlap to find kind of your sweet spot in podcasting. And I will say, that's where you start. Podcasting is one of those things, just like I hate to say it, a website. That is, you're always evolving over time, and you're going to have seasons. You're going to have segments, you're going to evolve it over time. So you got to start with where you're most comfortable and most seasoned in your expertise, and then you're going to evolve and grow it from there.
Tina, this has been a pleasure if people want to find out more about you about the work that you do, what's the best way to get that information?
You can just hop over to twinflamesstudios.com and we are there. There's samples of our work. You can reach us there and we're happy to connect with you and explore, no matter where you're at in the process.
That's great. I will make sure that all the links are in the show notes here. Tina, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time today.
Thank you, Bruce.
Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. Be sure to subscribe using your favorite podcast app, so you don't miss our future episodes. See you next time.
About Scaling Up ServicesScaling Up Services is a podcast devoted to helping founders, partners, CEOs, key executives, and managers of service-based businesses scale their companies faster and with less drama. For more information and a list of recent episodes, please visit www.scalingupservices.com.
About Eckfeldt & AssociatesEckfeldt & Associates is a strategic coaching and advisory firm based in New York City and servicing growth companies around the world. Founded and led by Inc. 500 CEO Bruce Eckfeldt, E&A helps founders, CEOs, and leadership teams develop highly differentiated business strategies and create high-performance leadership teams who can execute with focus and rigor. Leveraging the Scaling Up, 3HAG, and Predictive Index toolsets, the firm has worked with a wide range of dynamic industries including technology, professional services, real estate, healthcare, pharmaceutical, and cannabis/hemp. For more information, please visit www.eckfeldt.com or email at info@eckfeldt.com.
Did you know one of the most powerful ways you can connect with your clients is through podcasting? You can learn more about the benefits of podcasting, what questions you need to answer before you begin your podcast, and how Twin Flames Studios helps get your voice into more ears on my guest interview with Bruce Eckfeldt on the Scaling Up Services podcast.(Scaling Up Services Podcast with Bruce Eckfeldt, October 2021)
Tina spoke with Bruce Eckfeldt on the Scaling Up Services podcast to discuss how podcasts hone your brand, provide evergreen marketing content, and create deeper relationships.
In this episode, you'll learn:
Why audio is one of the most intimate mediums for storytelling
The top questions to ask before you start your podcast
How podcasts can revitalize your marketing and expand your reach
Bruce Eckfeldt Are you a CEO looking to scale your company faster and easier? Check out Thrive Roundtable. Thrive combines a moderated peer group mastermind expert one on one coaching access to proven growth tools and a 24/7 support community. Created by Inc. award-winning CEO and certified Scaling Up Business coach, Bruce Eckfeldt, Thrive will help you grow your business more quickly and with less drama. For details on the program, visit eckfeldt.com/thrive.
Welcome, everyone. This is Scaling Up Services. I'm Bruce Eckfeldt. I'm your host. Our guest today isTina Dietz. She is the founder at Twin Flames Studios. We're going to talk to her about the work that she does with companies helping them with creating content, with promotion. This is a really kind of interesting topic. I think so many service companies based their marketing, based their sales and lead development, based on thought leadership and getting content out in the world. And there's so many different types of content and so many different ways you can do it. I really think they–obviously I love podcasting–but you know, podcasts, audiobooks, you know, spoken word kind of content, there's so many things you can do with it. There's so many things you can use to generate awareness, generate thought leadership, generate leads. I'm excited for this and excited to hear Tina’s story and how she got into this this world of audio content production and what she's been doing with service companies. So, with that, Tina, welcome to the program.
Tina DietzHey, Bruce, thanks for having me.
It's a pleasure having you on. So before we dive into what you're doing with Twin Flames right now and stuff, why don't we talk a little bit about you and get a sense of your background? Give us the story. What was your professional journey? And how did you get into what you're doing today?
Well, like most entrepreneurs, it's fairly stupid. It's just like, “Well, how the hell did this happen?” Yeah, yeah. And that's, and that's what we hear more than everything. If you had asked me, you know, when I was growing up, if, you know, in 25 years or whatever, you're going to own a company that produces audio content in the land of thought leadership for service-based companies. I'm sorry, what? What, what? It didn't even exist, right? You know, at the time?
So my upbringing was I had a younger sibling–that was a business. My parents owned a business that they started when I was three years old. It was my younger sibling, and I hated it. It was a wood burning stove and fireplace business. So real sexy, awesome. And basically, that was my constant companion growing up. So I was steeped like a tea bag in entrepreneurship. From a very young age, I started answering phones when I was four and going to trade shows when I was six, I do a whole talk will have to do another time maybe on how I found my purpose in life through the Ginsu knife demonstration at a local fair. So that’s a whole thing, that's the whole thing. And, you know, I never really thought I'd own a business, but I became a therapist–for a number of reasons. Childhood was not a great place. But you know, lessons learned. It's one of those things. And I've spent a lot of time in the world of personal development, in leadership and all of that. So cultivating myself, of course, created in me a desire to see what else could be done for other people.
That led me to coaching and consulting, which then ended up leading me to podcasting and ultimately to audio production. Basically, through a paid hobby I had as a voice actor. You know, I'm an entrepreneur, we can't have regular hobbies, we have to have hobbies that pay us. That's the way it works. We can't have normal hobbies. So I was a voice actor on the side and taking some classes and masterclasses in audiobook narration. And I had this chocolate and peanut butter moment, this light bulb, aha, that, “Oh, my God, why aren't all my clients and colleagues who are doing best selling campaigns and producing books, why aren't they doing audiobooks?” And that was, as Michael Gerber from The E Myth says, you know, my “entrepreneurial seizure” that led me to investigate the world of audio and led me to a big gap in the market and dove into that.
I took over my business within a year of starting to offer services in this big market gap of done-for-you audiobooks, and also the corporate side of podcasting. And that is kind of was the best decision that I ever made. And so I went from basically being a solopreneur, consultant who'd worked with more than 20 industries in eight countries to being the CEO of a company that now produces content in the land of audio that changes lives and hearts and minds for service-based companies and making sure that they're having this beautiful, human, authentic voice of their company that comes through this medium of audio.
Yeah, I'm curious. You've had a couple of different kind of pivots in your commercial world and career what are some of the things that you had to learn or had to kind of change about your thinking, your leadership, your approach during those pivots?
Bruce, I thought you said this was only a half hour podcast.
The top two. Just the top two.
The top two. One: choose who gets in your ear very carefully, very carefully. I'm very much of a happy puppy kind of person. I'm just like, “Yeah, let's do it. Let's change the world. Let's make it happen.” I have a lot of enthusiasm and energy and kind of that visionary habit–you see something and you want to make it happen. And it took me a long time to really learn how to vet the people that I was working with, or who I was throwing in with, because I assumed for a long time, in a very naive way, that everyone had the same values that I did around integrity and communication, and, you know, working together and making sure everybody wins. And it doesn't always work that day. Most people, most people, 99% of people on the planet are doing their best. But you know, problems and challenges that come up, don't always bring out the best in people. Sometimes it brings out the worst in people. And so learning how to create relationships over time and cultivate those relationships carefully has been a huge game changer in my world to keep things consistent and growing in the right direction.
And the other piece of the puzzle has been, you know, doing my own inner work. I'd say all the time that we were born with two voices: the voice you speak with and the voice that speaks to you. And working on the voice that speaks to me has made the biggest difference in anything that I've done as a leader, as a business owner, as a partner, a wife, a mom, you know, on any of that, to cultivate that inner world–and I could do many, many, many hours, and all the things that have happened there. But suffice to say it's been a journey.
That's a really great, that's a great realization. And yeah, I think it's, you know, time is your most precious commodity and where you spend it, you know, how you spend it, who you spend it with, are all kinds of things that are really going to influence your success and what you end up doing. Tell me a little bit about kind of why audio content? I mean, what's your kind of take on the world? You know, that we're in today? Why is audio content so powerful, so important? Why have you chosen to focus on it?
Well, going back to what I said a moment ago about our internet, our voices, it's something every human being on the planet is born with. And it's something that cannot be taken away. And speaking, as someone who has felt in the past that my voice was taken away and was suppressed, having that voice and having a place at the table to have that voice heard, is incredibly valuable. And so, everything that I have done, and what we do as a company with Twin Flames, is designed to give people a place at the table so that their voices are heard. And then it creates this incredible ripple effect that you know, podcasts and audiobooks are some of the lowest hanging fruit on the planet for people to start changing their lives.
If we can be a part of more leadership voices and more positive voices and more great information, reaching people all over the world, so that they can start to change their lives. That is a really powerful place to be. It is really about making the world a better place one kind of drip of audio at a time. And audio is very, very, very intimate compared to most other forms of media. It's single focus. Most people listen to audio right into their ear. So there is a neurological connection that's very powerful between, you know, the earbud I have in my ear, and the center of my brain, the amygdala, the hippocampus, all of those things. It's not just higher brain functions being impacted by the voice. And so there's an intimacy created in an impact that's really important. And storytelling, of course, is incredibly powerful worldwide. It's something that connects all of humanity. So when we bring all these factors together, neurological, you know, storytelling, how we're wired, the universal power of the human voice to create relationship–it's a very, very powerful medium. And it can be used in so many different ways and sliced and diced, and at the pace we're living at, you know, audio is the most portable form of media. You can listen when you can't read you can listen when you can't watch. So you know, it's never gone away. It's never going to go away. And all of those things together make it what I consider the perfect storm for perfect content.
Yeah, I was like that idea that audio content literally gets you in your prospect’s head.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, you got it.
So what are all the kinds of formats these days? I mean, we kind of went from you know, I date myself accidentally when I say I'm listening to a book on tape or something.
I know, right? Me too.
It's morphed so many times, like what is your kind of how do you kind of lay out the scope or the types of audio content that that you have at your disposal these days?
Well, we usually start with a primary form of content, which is generally a podcast. Podcasting, of course, is something that is hot right now. I’m on one as we speak, and it provides a nice bulk of content to start with, and a framework to start with. So unlike a video, the average video watcher will watch two minutes, but the average podcast listener will listen for 40 minutes.
And it's actually much harder to create short form content than it is slightly longer form content. We have thoughts, you know, curating what we say, you know, the brevity or like cutting things down to its core is much more challenging than this kind of a conversational format. And so, it allows people to be very natural, and very expansive in what they're talking about to dig into nitty gritty and to know that the listener is still going to be interested more than two minutes in, so you're not trying to pack things in. So we start with a longer form 20-30 minute podcast, usually sometimes longer, sometimes shorter, but that's on average what it is. And that gives us a lovely bulk of content to work with.
From there, there's all different ways to slice and dice that type of content, repurpose it, reuse it. And the authenticity that comes through when you're using audio and using this type of format is really important to reach people on a deeper basis, rather than just an informational basis.
Yeah. And when you look at companies, what are I guess, what are some of the companies or situations that are best served with audio content? Like who can really benefit from this form of content?
Well, we love working with relationship-focused, service-based companies. People who, when they're working with their clients, they have long-term relationships with their clients. For example, companies, which seem very dry, but there's a lot of content available in the financial world, in insurance, for example, education of varying kinds, and even things like retail, retail conglomerates, and things like that, that are creating more experiences. Travel can be served in this way, as well, although it does, definitely does need to be paired with the visual aspect as well. But it can be really, really, really beautiful. You will see a lot of influencer podcasting, that's generally not our super cup of tea.
We do a lot of work in the leadership space, though, helping to humanize brands that are large, and give the brand an avatar because we don't really do business with faceless, nameless corporations. We want to do business with people. So being able to communicate brand values and culture and leadership and innovation through the avatar of a podcast host is extremely powerful. Another industry that benefits a lot from podcasting is healthcare. And all of these have constraints with compliance and communication and legal and all of that. But we're able to navigate all of those waters, as well.
Yeah, yeah. So what are some of the other challenges? If you are interested in developing audio content? Like what do you need to kind of consider or think about setup?
The lift is largely at the beginning when you're–well with any type of content, right, so you have to decide that has enough value that you're going to spend the brain capacity and the bandwidth and the time to work with a company like ours, so that we can help you shape that voice and shape the type of content that's really going to benefit you. So choosing that it's going to be a priority.
And then having deep, intimate communication and regular awesome content are things that you really want to do, you also need to decide in terms of you know–and we work with our companies on this–like who's going to be hosting, who's your avatar, who's your people or person that you're going to be featuring. And there's a lot of creative ways to work with that scenario, as well. Everything from solo hosts to two hosts to a panel discussion and everything in between. There's, there's a lot of different ways to manage those kinds of questions, particularly if there's multiple people inside of a company who want to be at the forefront being that avatar for the company, that's all completely manageable.
Another thing the company really needs to decide is if their marketing department, and their team, how we're going to dovetail this with their other strategic initiatives. Podcasting should be one piece and audio should be a piece of a larger strategic picture for a company. It should never be a band-aid or just an outlier. It needs to be integrated because it is something that has high strategic value, and can augment or replace creating content in other areas like blog posts, social media post images, articles for industry publications, and even events and getting used in events in different ways. So, there's a lot of applications and being willing to dive into the strategy is super important.
And what goes into that strategy? What questions are you asking or what do companies need to think about, you know, in terms of understanding kind of the bigger picture strategy before they really get into, you know, executing a particular kind of audio content strategy?
Yeah, we like to get into working with their marketing team. and finding out what are their core values that they're looking to communicate. What is that mission? What is their vision for their company, and then building out kind of an avatar of their host, not of their audience, but of their host. You know, if you had to personify your company, who is kind of that person and that spokesperson to do that? That's certainly an area that we start with, we also need to look at, as I mentioned, their current strategic initiatives. What's already working for them in terms of their marketing? How can podcasting build upon that and make it even more robust? And what are their pain points that we can address that are challenging?
So one of the pain points we run into a lot with companies is just the generation of content to begin with, particularly from a very busy team. A larger company, you know, when you ask somebody to go and say, “Hey, would you write a blog post on this?” somebody who's a technician or a salesperson or whatever, they may not be a writer to do that. Using interview techniques, we can extract and pull really wonderful, real conversational information from team members that can be pulled into podcasting content, or then even turned into articles or ebooks or, you know, other types of content, as well. And the creation process becomes 100 times easier. And this is, of course, scalable for any size company to do that, whether we're working with a sales team, or we're working with, you know, a CPA firm.
Yeah. You mentioned a couple times the idea of leveraging the content, what are some ways that you can kind of use the, the initial content, leverage it in different ways? You know, repurpose it. What are some things that companies should be thinking about when they develop a kind of a content strategy, starting with audio content?
Sure, I'll kind of walk you through a whole process, potential process flow on that. So let's say your podcast gets made, and the audio content is going out to 20-30 different audio distribution platforms, everything from Spotify to Apple podcasts and whatnot. So it lives all out in the world of public podcasting. Well, then the full edited transcript of that podcast, along with an embedded player, which has a number of features on it that are really helpful for the listener, click to tweets, and custom captioned images are all embedded on the website, usually in the form of a blog post. So we have, first, fresh content that goes into your blog.
And secondly, this is all gorgeous for your search engine optimization. Google loves fresh, long form conversational content, because Google is moving towards AI for their search engine optimization. This longer form conversational podcast content is so helpful for SEO, particularly with all the bells and whistles to kind of go along with it. So, from there, you can take the we have always have a little summary at the top and we have our quotes that are pulled out. Those are repurposed into social media posts, usually either on say a company page on LinkedIn that are then shared with the employees, shared with the team so that then they all can share those posts as well.
We also pull out short clips, little highlights from the podcast and turn them into what are called audiograms, which are little shareable, closed-caption dynamic videos. Those are also shared on social media. And one of my other favorite places to use audiograms is to embed them in related blog posts on the site that aren't necessarily the podcast episode, but maybe related content. So then you are cross-pollinating your website content and also creating a more dynamic experience for somebody visiting your website, because now you've got this lovely little 30-second to one minute long video that's breaking up the content on a related post and maybe getting people interested in staying on your website longer. Yeah, so those are just a few of the things that you can do.
We even recommend that whoever is the guest on the podcast, or even the host, depending on the situation, repurpose the link to their podcast on the publication section of their LinkedIn profile. A lot of people only use articles or blog posts, but you can use your podcast interviews as part of your publications list. And that helps build out, of course, your LinkedIn presence. For those folks of us who are in the B2B world or in the, you know, the business world. It's really nice to have that additional fresh content on your LinkedIn profile to kind of keep you top of mind for people.
So those are just a couple. Those are just a couple elements. And the other big one we see a lot of is turning podcast content into industry publication articles. So basically having writers–either folks we've introduced you to, or folks on their team. One of our companies that we work with primary tax solutions, they're a specialty tax company, and they've now had six articles based on their podcasts–content produced and published in publications like Accounting Today.
Yeah, I love that idea is like you create one piece and then you can find lots of different ways. Oh, my goodness repurposing it makes it so much easier or just create so much more leverage in terms of the work you do. What are some of the challenges? Certainly, when I started podcasting, you know, it wasn't, there was some hesitation and trepidation about kind of really getting into this and putting myself out there like that. What do you do to help folks who, you know, are considering this, but they're not quite sure they have maybe some, you know, maybe a little bit of fear around some of this stuff. You know, creating this content, really putting it out there–what are ways in which you help them kind of evaluate and create an opportunity for them to really get into this space?
It really just, it lives in the world of conversation. So, Bruce, would it be accurate to say that, you know, one of your big considerations was time?
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah. And that's really the biggest thing we have to talk about is, where are your priorities, and where is your time going to be, because even if we're handling 90% of what has to go into the podcast production, we're still going to need, you know, some time for the marketing team and of course, the host and things like that to spend some time in that arena. So it just really has to be a priority, and they need to be well suited. So there's a lot of evaluation that goes on at the beginning, everything from talking about, like I said, the creation of kind of this avatar. We even use thought leadership archetypes that we have developed based on the 12 Jungian archetypes to help kind of shape the brand of the podcast in conjunction with the company's brand to make sure that there's this consistent voice.
So everything that we do really lives in relationship and inquiry and curiosity. And and then from there, the strategy, but we come at it–I would say that, you know, a lot of times I'm practicing my “Business Buddha” and that means I come from a place of non-attachment. It really has to be all about the clients and not about us and seeing what's going to be best. And sometimes it's not the best solution for that company, or it's not the right time. Sometimes it's the absolute perfect time, and the company is absolutely 100% ready to go. Sometimes there's a little bit of a delay until a few ducks get in a row and we say, “Hey, you know, you really should have X, Y, and Z handled before we start this process.” So it always has to be in the best interest of the company, so that we can get the best product, because, as you know, Bruce, podcasting isn't a one and done deal. It's a long tail game. Yeah, you know, so we got to have time.
Yeah, no, let's dig into that just a little bit. ‘Cause I find I see a lot of podcasts out there that get to like episode eight.
Yeah.
You know, big plans, big ideas, and then, you know, just, you know, a big initial push, but, they just kind of fade quickly. What are some things that can help you to prevent that or will help you, you know, kind of be in it for the long game?
Well, most of our companies, we recommend starting with a bi-weekly schedule, instead of a weekly schedule. You can always add episodes. You can always add frequency as you go. But bi-weekly gives enough frequency for folks to really get content out on a regular basis without it necessarily being an overwhelming time commitment. We also work to develop out the content calendar, and make sure that we've actually got, you know, 12 or 24 potential episodes kind of planned out. And then many times we're helping with, you know, getting the guests on. You know, let's look at your networking list. Who do you want to have on and how can we help you facilitate that communication, the guest preparation and making the actual recording process as easy as possible for folks? You know, you and I both use an interface that's very easy to get on. You're using was it Tricast here. Is that what we're both on?
Yeah.
So Tricast, Squadcast, Riverside FM–there's a bunch of them that really helped make the recording process very high quality and very easy, no matter who you are, where you are, as long as you've got a relatively decent internet connection. Yeah, and we help facilitate those with live direction, sometimes, helping people actually kind of feel comfortable, relax them. We do episode preparation sometimes and actually create the outlines for episodes for companies and working with their marketing team to make it easier for them to just have a nice flow of every episode. And of course, any kind of host or guest training when it comes down to the actual vocal or interview side of things. It's really a matter of finding out what are the needs, what are the desires, and creating the right solutions to fill it. There's no cookie cutter solution.
Yeah. And are most of your clients looking to develop leads for like a lead funnel or what are the outcomes that sort of the tangible business outcomes that you're typically focused on with clients?
The tangible outcomes that clients are usually looking to focus on are multifold. Podcasting of this particular kind is a beautiful combination of relationship marketing, influence marketing, and content marketing. So we're looking to have guests chosen strategically that are not necessarily leads for their company–there's a whole philosophy of podcasting that you interview people you want to have as clients. That's not really where we live. The companies that we work with are well-established. They're doing very, very well in their fields. And this is really a move from having a brand to becoming thought leaders in an industry. So it has more to do with influence and high quality content than it does with directly getting leads.
But that being said, it usually–well, actually, it always–it always ends up in developing leads, because collaborations come out of the guests that you have on the show, out of the visibility that you have, out of the elevation in the industry of now becoming a media presence, all of those things happen, and it is largely because podcasting opens doors when it comes to relationships. You know, our clients are always looking to have high quality guests on their show, and then following up with those guests afterwards to help deepen that relationship and develop collaboration inevitably adds leads to additional opportunities and more leads 100% of the time.
Yeah. And what recommendations do you have for folks in terms of kind of picking subjects, things that you're going to weave into your conversations, finding guests? I mean, how do you go from, “Hey, I want to start a podcast, I want to, you know, have these sort of business outcomes,” to actually getting things scheduled and figuring out what you're going to talk about?
Oh, okay, that's a big world. So let's break it down just into a couple of first steps. One is to look at your values. What do you want to be known for? You know, who are you in in the world? What does your company want to be known for? And what are your brand values, the pillars that you operate by that you want to make sure it get communicated out to an audience?
Then there's a little bit of a Venn diagram. You've got your brand values and your culture, and then you have what you're really good at, you know, what's your areas of focus, and you're going to overlap those two areas on each other. And then the third area that you're going to your trifecta, a little three circle Venn diagram is going to be how do you want to communicate it?
So when you're talking about podcasting, you have to have somebody on your team who's got a proclivity towards a microphone. In some way, shape or form, they have to have a desire for it. Because otherwise you're going to end up you know, like, like Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. “Bueller, Bueller? Bueller?” It's got to be dynamic, right? You somebody who is inclined. So that you know, so then you got your format of your show. So you've got those three pieces that you want overlap to find kind of your sweet spot in podcasting. And I will say, that's where you start. Podcasting is one of those things, just like I hate to say it, a website. That is, you're always evolving over time, and you're going to have seasons. You're going to have segments, you're going to evolve it over time. So you got to start with where you're most comfortable and most seasoned in your expertise, and then you're going to evolve and grow it from there.
Tina, this has been a pleasure if people want to find out more about you about the work that you do, what's the best way to get that information?
You can just hop over to twinflamesstudios.com and we are there. There's samples of our work. You can reach us there and we're happy to connect with you and explore, no matter where you're at in the process.
That's great. I will make sure that all the links are in the show notes here. Tina, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for taking the time today.
Thank you, Bruce.
Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. Be sure to subscribe using your favorite podcast app, so you don't miss our future episodes. See you next time.
About Scaling Up ServicesScaling Up Services is a podcast devoted to helping founders, partners, CEOs, key executives, and managers of service-based businesses scale their companies faster and with less drama. For more information and a list of recent episodes, please visit www.scalingupservices.com.
About Eckfeldt & AssociatesEckfeldt & Associates is a strategic coaching and advisory firm based in New York City and servicing growth companies around the world. Founded and led by Inc. 500 CEO Bruce Eckfeldt, E&A helps founders, CEOs, and leadership teams develop highly differentiated business strategies and create high-performance leadership teams who can execute with focus and rigor. Leveraging the Scaling Up, 3HAG, and Predictive Index toolsets, the firm has worked with a wide range of dynamic industries including technology, professional services, real estate, healthcare, pharmaceutical, and cannabis/hemp. For more information, please visit www.eckfeldt.com or email at info@eckfeldt.com.
Have you ever considered that your voice is an instrument and your thoughts and beliefs are the music you’re playing? If you want to learn how to “tune” your voice, take a listen to my guest appearance on the new episode of the More than a Few Words podcast, hosted by Lorraine Ball.(More Than a Few Words Podcast with Lorraine Ball, September 2021)
Recently, Tina joined Lorraine Ball on the More than a Few Words podcast to talk about how to use your voice to deepen your connection with others, enhance your credibility, and strengthen your leadership.
In this episode:
You'll discover the 5-7 different vocal qualities that are highly associated with credibility, trustworthiness, and perceptions of leadership
How these elements impact your career and income
Techniques to sound more professional, confident, and knowledgable
Lorraine BallHave you ever thought about what an amazing instrument your voice is? How the tone, the pitch and the tempo of your speaking voice can change how people view you? Well, that's what we're going to talk about today. Okay, here's the show. Welcome to More Than a Few Words – a marketing conversation for business owners. MTFW is part of your digital toolbox and this is your host, Lorraine Ball. I grew up in New York. I have a slightly nasal New York accent. That's part of my voice. But over the years, I've certainly worked to try to moderate that. And it is important that you do, because you can create an impression with your voice. That's what we're going to talk about today. And I couldn't think of a better person to have this conversation with than Tina Dietz. Tina's an award-winning and internationally-acclaimed speaker, audiobook publisher, corporate podcast producer, and vocal leadership expert. She has been featured on media outlets, including ABC, INC.com, Huffington Post, and Forbes.Tina's first podcast, The StartSomething Show, was named by INC Magazine as one of the top 35 podcasts for entrepreneurs. Her company, Twin Flames Studios, amplifies the influence of brands and leaders through high ROI audiobook and podcasting solutions. Tina, welcome to the show!
Tina DietzThanks, Lorraine. I really appreciate you having me on.
I am so excited to have you here, because this is something I've worked on a lot over the years and I think it's really important. But why don't we start with the question: What are the important qualities of someone's voice that makes them an effective leadership voice?
There’s about seven different qualities that are highly associated with someone's credibility, trustworthiness, and perception of leadership when it comes to vocal qualities. And the research around this is a little bit astounding. For example, Duke University did a study of almost 1000 CEOs, and found that on the topic of pitch alone, CEOs who had a lower pitch to their voice, had more tenure, commanded larger companies, had more perception of credibility and leadership, and made more money to the tune on average of an additional $180,000 per year.
And, you know, I know a lot of women like myself are like, “Crap!” You know, that's not necessarily a good statistic for us. But it's not that alone. The most highly, highly, highly associated vocal characteristic with credibility, leadership, trustworthiness is tempo. And this isn’t a particular tempo, it's your natural tempo. And this has to do with how we perceive somebody's breathing and their natural rhythm—the rhythm of their voice. So if you're, if you're talking a little bit too fast, and you're kind of gasping a little bit and all of that, that shows that you're maybe a little more anxious or nervous or not present. If you're talking slow, and a lot of pauses, then that may show that, again, you're not present and not confident or not sure of what you're saying. So those are two aspects of vocal qualities that really have been shown in research to make a difference. Other ones are sonority, which is the pleasantness of one's voice, articulation, as well as flow. And flow and tempo and articulation all kind of go together, as well.
And, you know, I know a lot of women like myself are like, “Crap!” You know, that's not necessarily a good statistic for us. But it's not that alone. The most highly, highly, highly associated vocal characteristic with credibility, leadership, trustworthiness is tempo. And this isn’t a particular tempo, it's your natural tempo. And this has to do with how we perceive somebody's breathing and their natural rhythm—the rhythm of their voice. So if you're, if you're talking a little bit too fast, and you're kind of gasping a little bit and all of that, that shows that you're maybe a little more anxious or nervous or not present. If you're talking slow, and a lot of pauses, then that may show that, again, you're not present and not confident or not sure of what you're saying. So those are two aspects of vocal qualities that really have been shown in research to make a difference. Other ones are sonority, which is the pleasantness of one's voice, articulation, as well as flow. And flow and tempo and articulation all kind of go together, as well.
So that's really reassuring to someone like me, because as soon as you started talking about it, I heard the deeper bass tone, having come out of a corporate environment, lots of men, I'm like, “Of course that sounds better to their ears.” And that's something that's really hard for me to change. But I can work on the flow, the pacing, some of those other qualities that make me sound more confident.
Exactly. But you know, and the good news is, is that everybody's voice is like a fingerprint. It's unique to us. So if you have an unusual voice, it doesn't mean that you have to fit into a cookie-cutter situation to be unique. You just need to be more of yourself. And the more that you work your voice out like a muscle, like you would take care of your body—it's a very complex musculature in there and your lungs and your throat and your neck and your shoulders, your face, everything combined—you know this, this beautiful orchestra happening inside of your body to get your voice out into the world. If you pay attention to it and work it out, it'll do wonderful things for you.
As a business owner, I'm thinking, “Okay, I'm not going to be doing big presentations, I'm not going to be standing in front of a room of 100 people. Does my voice really matter?”
Yes, yes, it does. It absolutely does. Because business is all about relationships. And every relationship you form, whether it's with a prospective client, it's with colleagues, it's at a networking group, it's on a phone call, it doesn't matter, you bring your voice with you everywhere you go. And you owe it to yourself, and you owe it to the growth of your business, your company, to bring your voice with you and to have it be a representation of who you are as a leader, and who you are as a brand.
Do you think that you have a different voice when you're at home or at work? Is it one voice? Or does it change based on the situation? And those are obviously the two extremes, but does your voice change in different situations?
Yeah, yeah, I think it does. Because we have a range, right? Just like you have a vocal range low to high, we also have a range of expression. And sometimes the expression that you use in business is not necessarily going to be the same expression you use with your kids.
That being said, I think most people draw two strong boundaries between what's in business, and what's really in your heart. And the more integrated we become from the inside and the outside, the more effective we become as leaders. So vocal leadership isn't really all about the external voice, it's about the dance between your internal voice and your external voice. It's analogous to a virtuoso musician. So, if you imagine your external voice is the instrument you're playing, and your internal voice—your thoughts, your beliefs, your message, all the things that make you who you are—that's the music that you're playing. So if you can learn how to create the arrangement of the music that you're playing, and pay attention to the external instrument, that's when you become a virtuoso.
Wow, I love the comparison between your voice and an instrument, because it really, to me, it makes a lot of sense. I can see that whole tuning and being pleasant to the ear. And even jazz sometimes is appealing to a certain audience. So I like that analogy, because it can be… your voice needs to fit the situation, it also needs to be kind of true to who you are. Are there things that we do with our voice that really work against us? That send the wrong message?
We could do it pretty easily. There's two in particular that in a business setting, and we're talking specifically about leadership and credibility, that are credibility killers. One is vocal fry. Now, if you don't know what vocal fry is, you can think about the Kardashians. So it basically makes you sound uninterested. And you actually will hear a lot of this in advertising when they're advertising to millennials and younger. Generally, when they're advertising to Gen X and older, you won't hear near as much vocal fry as you would, because it's more typical to hear in the younger generations, and they don't react to it as much as older generations do. So I do think we'll see this changing, but it's at the end of the sentences and it gets dropped down really low. And in the research that's been done—Gonzaga University did a huge study on this—regardless of who was evaluating the interviewees, anyone who was being interviewed that used vocal fry in their voice across the board categorically—age, race, gender didn't matter—they were rated as less credible and less desirable, less trustworthy to take a job. So it's a huge thing in career development: don't have vocal fry in your voice. That's a really big one.
And the other one that is similar—same thing, but different—is up talking the end of your sentences. And up talking the end of your sentences kind of makes you sound not credible, and then people think you don't know what you're doing, because your sentences sound like a question. A lot of times you can't hear it when you're doing it yourself, so you have to have other people listen to you. This happens a lot in networking situations when somebody is introducing themselves and they feel uncertain on the inside and that gets reflected to the outside. So a good thing to take note of.
Awesome. So as we're wrapping this up, I really want to encourage people to check out Twin Flames Studios—lots of S's in there for me to practice. But I really want to encourage people to check out all the wonderful information you've got to learn more about this subject, because I think being able to communicate and communicate with confidence is such an important first step for everyone and especially for business owners.
It sure is. We actually have a vocal leadership workout. If anyone is interested. And we don't have a landing page for it, but if you connect with me on LinkedIn, or through our website. We're happy to send you a copy.
Awesome. Well, we will make sure that we include all those links. Thank you so much for being a part of the show.
Thank you, Lorraine. This is wonderful. I appreciate you.
If you've enjoyed today's conversation and you'd like to find more resources for your business, be sure to check out the Digital Toolbox at DigitalToolbox.Club. Look for MTFW wherever you listen to podcasts. This is another episode of More Than a Few Words. Thanks for listening.
Did you know that the first audiobook was created in 1929? Today, audiobooks are a billion dollar per year industry in the US alone! If you want to discover more about the power of audiobooks, check out my guest appearance on the new episode of the VIP Access Podcast, hosted by Michelle Herschorn.(VIP Access Podcast with Michelle Herschorn, November 2021)
Melanie HerschornHi again. I'm Melanie Herschorn, the digital content creator and marketing strategist and coach for women business owners, and welcome back to another episode of VIP Access. VIP stands for Visibility, Impact, Profit, and this podcast will get you inspired and fired up about content creation and marketing yourself and your brand. Each week you'll get marketing and mindset strategies, actionable tips, and the motivation you need to land more clients, nurture your leads, and position yourself as an expert in your industry. We also go behind the scenes with powerful women in business to discuss strategies, messaging and more. My mission is to empower you to stop spinning your wheels and to make your mark with your marketing. Ready to wow your ideal client and create a community of raving fans? Let's dive into today's episode!
Hi, and welcome back to VIP Access. I'm Melanie Herschorn. Today, my guest is an award-winning and internationally-acclaimed speaker and audiobook publisher and corporate podcast producer and vocal leadership expert. Her name is Tina Dietz, and she has been featured on media outlets from ABC to Huffington Post to Forbes and more. Her first podcast The StartSomething Show was named by Inc. Magazine as one of the top 35 podcasts for entrepreneurs and Tina's company, Twin Flames Studios, amplifies the influence of brands and leaders through high ROI audiobook and podcasting solutions. And you will hear from her mic how great she is with sound. So welcome, Tina. Thanks so much for being here.
Tina DietzThanks, Melody, I appreciate that.
I just, I have a background in radio, so when I hear a good mic, I get really excited. Totally geeking out on that.
We end up being like radio voice nerds and all of that. It's like, “Oh, listen to the sound quality.”
Love it. So okay, I don't even know where to start, because I'm just so excited to have you on today. Because not only are you a podcasting expert, but really audiobooks are so important. And I think that that's something that people who have written a book don't even necessarily think about, you know, in terms of a way to get more ears or eyes on their book, and to amplify their mission and their influence in the world. And so, I would love to know some statistics about audiobooks.
Oh, statistics about audiobooks? Well, it's a funny world. When I first started working with audiobooks, they'd been around since about 1930. This is not a new format.
You mean like book on tape, okay.
Book on tape. Before that, it was book on album, you know. Or I'll date myself and talk about, you know, when I was a little kid, we had those book and album combinations where it was, “When Tinker Bell rings her little bell, it's time to turn the page.” Or we used to get books on tape out of the library, which you can still do. Mostly they're CDs sometimes have these all in one little players, which are really interesting and cool.
A lot of people don't know that the military uses a lot of those books. A lot of audiobooks are consumed by our servicemen and women overseas. It's one of the ways that they stay in touch and they don't have to use the internet. So audiobooks reach into some really remote places in the world.
But what really happened, oh, let's go back about 10 years ago, audiobooks became truly digital. Audible, which is the largest audiobook distributor in the world–they handle about 60% of the market share worldwide–combined themselves with Amazon. For whatever you think about Amazon or your opinions about Amazon as a global company, one way or another, what they have done is made things more accessible for everyday people. And when everything went digital, audiobooks went digital, the cost of production for audiobooks dropped about 50%. That has continued to be the case.
So when, back in 2009 or so and earlier, to get an audiobook produced you were talking about at least $10,000 minimum. Now an audiobook can still cost that much, if you get a lot of bells and whistles: you've got a full cast, you're recording in a New York studio, you got Tinkerbell in there full costume makeup, ringing bells. But that is generally not the case. Now you can get your audiobook fully produced by a company like ours, or another high quality studio, generally for $3,000-$5,000. And that's full production, author-narration, professional-narration, really high quality work.
It can be done remotely without our having to go into a studio. And audiobooks, you mentioned statistics, audiobooks outsell eBooks about three to one. And they're a $1 billion plus industry just in the US alone. And there are new markets opening up overseas every single day with audiobooks, so it is a growing market. It's been double digit growth year on year for the last eight years. So it is crazy pants what is happening with audiobooks and it's just a really reliable, familiar way too to get books into more ears and reach more hearts with your message. And that's what we're out to do.
I love all of that. So I want to just break it down a little bit more. Let's say somebody wrote a book a couple years ago, they launched it, it didn't do great, because they didn't have the marketing in place. And now they're starting to work on the marketing, because I always say you wrote the book, it's still published, so let's keep going and try to get some excitement about it.
Totally with you on that.
Can you also couple that with an audiobook and make that an exciting launch?
Why yes, Melanie, you can. I'll go into my commercial voice there. Yeah, no, it's a great application for an audiobook. We call it a “Second Chance Launch,” and it is something that happens frequently. As you know, in the book world, particularly with first books and authors, you get very excited. It's almost like having a child. You do all this stuff to get the book ready and to get it out there, and then by the time you get it out, you're exhausted.
Right when you need to be at your best is when you want to be taking a break. The marketing falls down or the budget isn't there, or just the persistence and the will isn't there to keep going with that particular book, because it's taken everything you've got as an author just to get the book out on the market. Launching an audiobook six months, a year longer, two years, three years down the road, is a way to revitalize that title and get it back out there again. Some folks also do a second edition with their audiobook, but more than likely, if the material really is evergreen, like many of our authors it is, then just getting the audiobook out there is enough to revitalize and get things going again.
What if you hate the sound of your own voice?
Ah, yeah, I hear that a lot. Even in a room full of speakers, if I'm on a stage and I survey a room, and I say, “Who here doesn't like the sound of their own voice?” about half the room, even in a room full of speakers and podcasters will still raise their hand. And if it's a roomful of executives or entrepreneurs, more in the general space, about 80% of people will raise their hand to say they don't like their voice. A very common thing. It's a very human thing. You have to get used to it.
There's two pathways through that. One is to basically suck it up and get used to it. Seriously, that, that's kind of the way it works. And to rely on professionals like myself, like my team, who are going to be honest with you and say, “Really, your voice is going to be fine for this book. And this is how we're going to work with you on it.” Or we'll be honest with you and say, “You know what, your voice is great for a podcast. It's great for a keynote. But it's going to be challenging to listen to you for four or five, six hours straight. And here's why.” That really just depends on the voice. But a lot of times, it's for reasons you don't expect. People have unique voices. I have this wonderful colleague who is totally Jersey–totally New Jersey–she has the most amazing, gorgeous New Jersey accent. I've been trying to talk her into doing her audiobook. She's got a great podcast, and she's like, “No, no, no, I have to have a professional do it.” I said, “Don't you dare,” because her voice is part of her brand.
Exactly what I was gonna say. It's part of her brand. And so she's taking people away from her brand, if she doesn't own that. That's part of who she is.
That's part of her voice. And her articulation is great. She's fun to listen to. Her voice is musical. All the things that are engaging about a voice. She has her accent, which she worries about, is not going to be a problem. She's very engaging to listen to.
Now, this is something even though I've worked in radio, I've been trained how to have a radio voice so to speak. I worked in classical music, which is like, “And now we are going to play Bach” and like, you really have to be like “The Sonata in B Minor played by…
The Philharmonic Orchestra. We hope you enjoy it.
Yes, exactly! Exactly. And then the people are dozing off while listening, which is fine. And news, which is also a different way to talk. But when people are gonna stand there and talk for four hours, five hours, how do they keep up momentum?
Well, you don't talk for four or five hours. That's really the key. Even professional narrators don't tend to record for longer than two hours at a shot. It is vocal fatigue across the board. Even for our really, really experienced speakers, our speakers always come in and say, “Oh, no, I do 20, you know, gigs a week.” And you know, we work with great people who do amazing things out in the world, and then they get into the audiobook process, and afterwards are like, “Oh, that was different.” Not that it was bad, it gave them a whole new skill set, because we record our authors remotely from wherever they are in the world and we fully direct them through the entire process.
Just as if you were to go into a New York studio and you were to have a director right there live in your ear, we are live in the ears of our authors, usually from their home office. So we're catching their mistakes, we're making sure that their energy is good, making sure that they're getting across the message and the intention that they want to get.
When you're reading and delivering material at the same time, it's different than a rehearsed keynote, or even in the format where we are now, which is really casual. I'm not as worried about my articulation. I'm not delivering a particular set script. You know, when you're going through an audiobook, it's a certain type of breathing. It's much slower than most people are used to speaking at and it's usually a little bit more articulated. There's a couple of things that come into play and that's what we help with. But we work with authors, you know, if their energy level can't support speaking for two hours and getting a great performance, then we do it for one hour. We have another author, we're working on her second audiobook, Jennifer Brown, she's an amazing DEI consultant. She has opera training, and tons of vocal training, and she has vocal stamina like crazy, so she can go for three or four hours. But she is an outlier, so it works across the board.
I mean, I can only imagine how exhausting that would be. You're not just talking, you're “on.” I'm one of those people that after a full day of work, I need to just shut down and have complete silence. Because when you're “on,” it just takes so much out of you. Do you find that people falter in the middle? And you're just like, “Okay, we'll come back to this tomorrow.”
It depends on the day that they're having. We do a lot of prep work with folks. We have a whole document we deliver to help people understand the mindset, to prepare to do their audiobook, and that can move into the rest of their lives as well. You know, when any of us who have been in business for a while, as you're developing your leadership, you know, you have to maintain your energy management and your energy hygiene, I'll even call it. And that has to do with you know, introversion/extroversion. Do you need to be around people? Do you need to shut down, as you mentioned? I need to go out tonight and go to an open mic comedy night to recharge myself. I'm an extrovert. That's going to charge me up. That would be a nightmare for you, probably at the end of a long workday, if you needed to recharge your energy after so many things coming at you.
Not necessarily. I'm one of those people, I could just have like five minutes, put on more makeup, and go out and feel totally returned.
We'll have to keep that in mind when we meet in person.
Oh, I can't wait for that!
But the point is that, you know, you have to manage your energy. And that's a big part of what our directors and what we listen for, watch for, and talk with our authors about because it's a very personal journey.
For me, I, even though I've worked in radio, as I said, I am a visual learner. I think it's two-thirds of the population are visual learners. But audiobooks, they don't really go against that, I find. Like I can listen to a book on a long drive and take it in, take all of it in. And so do you find that there's ever any pushback about people who are like, “Well, I'm a visual learner, so I don't need an audiobook?”
It's an interesting world, because we're so wired for storytelling. It comes into a different part of the brain entirely, so the best thing about an audiobook is the intimacy that it creates between the narrator and the listener. And there's a neurological connection, even when you're in the car. Actually, 80% of audiobooks are listened to through earbuds. That's what the research says.
You know, we're not in our cars quite as much as we used to be on long commutes, especially in the last two years. But at the same time, even if you are listening through, you know, your car speakers, or your earbuds, which are going to be the two most common areas, there's a relationship that forms you know? You almost find yourself or maybe you do find yourself, responding in the case of fiction, a character, just like you're watching TV, and you want to say, “Don't open the door!” Or if you're listening to a book on personal development or leadership development, you may find yourself pausing just to have a conversation with yourself about, “Do I really believe that? I think they are full of crap. I don't know about that.” Or, “Oh, I never thought of that!” And you kind of have to process through it. Because it is, to one extent or another, a conversation, just based on the way that we're wired neurologically. So it is an intimate experience. And that's why the quality of narration is so very important. That is what sells audiobooks. It's the quality of narration.
Okay, I love that we got to that point because it is true. It's like, if you have grainy video or pretty terrible photos that's not going to excite your audience and grow your audience, but you need to have quality sound. And what people might not realize is you can hear lights. You can hear a dog barking in the distance, and that ambient sound can throw off so much other than just the sound of your own voice reading your book. So how do you account for that in somebody's house, if they don't have their own studio?
Well, I’ll tell you a little secret: about 85% of our authors record from a walk-in closet. And this is a very common thing, even in the professional narration world. It's very cozy. The atmosphere of a walk-in closet with the clothing around you very specifically buffers the sound. And usually there's a spot where you can set up a little portable desk, or a table and a chair and your microphone and record your audiobook with a director in your ear taking care of the recording for you. And that's where a lot of voice acting happens is in those small spaces. You absolutely can create things on your desk, as well. The other thing we recommend a lot that's a really easy setup for people is to take a plastic storage box, the kind that you would put a bunch of, you know, Christmas decorations and things like that. The Rubbermaid, Sterilite kind of containers, you'd get.
A giant Tupperware
A giant Tupperware container and then you take a piece of foam that you would put on top of a bed. Bed topper. Get it at Walmart or Target for $20, put it on the inside, stand it on end, and toss your microphone in it, and then you've basically got a little portable sound booth. I actually had one of those when I was living in Costa Rica that I did some professional voice acting from and the sound quality–it was great.
That's amazing. Yeah, and you got to live in Costa Rica, which is even more amazing.
It's a whole other story.
That's great. Okay, so I love how you're bringing this to more people. You know, where I sit as somebody who's currently working on writing a book and I work with authors, sometimes we feel like audiobooks are a little bit out of reach. You figure out whether you're going to be self-publishing, working with a hybrid publisher, or going the traditional publishing route, and then you're so focused on the launch, and “Am I going to be an Amazon bestseller? I don't know” and all that stuff. And then you're like, “Okay, well, now nobody knows about it. So I need to do the marketing. But wouldn't it be great if people could listen in their AirPods to me?” It almost feels like it's, it's just high up on this pedestal that we can't reach. So I love that you're bringing it to more people. So what you're saying is, pretty much everybody should do this.
I think if it's something that you can carve out, the budget for and the time for in the great scheme of things and also survey your audience. Do they listen to audiobooks? A lot of our authors come to us because they launched their book and the number one question they got was, “When are you doing the audiobook?” I hear this over and over again. We have lots of conversations with authors every single week, and it's either, “My publisher said I needed one,” “I have to have one because I love audiobooks,” or “I've launched my book and everyone's asking me for the audiobook. How quickly can we get it done?” So those are the things that we hear on a daily basis from authors, which is good news for everybody.
That's great. So how long does it take from start to finish? Because I've heard there are delays and it can be like a really long time before Audible says, “Okay, here you go.”
Audible, particularly on the self-publishing side of Audible, there can be glitches. There can be some issues. We produce a very pristine level. We do not get rejected by Audible. We [have] t's crossed, i's dotted. But there's very, very specific technical specs that your audio files have to meet for Audible. It is not like podcasting. It is not like doing any other kind of audio. The audio that I'm recording right now for this podcast would definitely not meet Audible standards. There would be background noise, there would be a noise floor issue, all kinds of stuff. And even the, the amount of space at the beginning and the end of the file and what's included–so many technical details. But we do this every day. We meet all those technical standards, so our books go through in generally about 10-15 business days through their system, which is average. It can take up to 30 business days to make it through Audible's system, if there's no mistakes in your files. So what happens is if there are mistakes in your files it gets bounced back to you. They'll tell you what the issues are, you have to fix it, and then you got to start back at the beginning of the queue again. And that's usually where the problems come into play because somebody has worked with someone that tried to do it themselves, or they worked with someone who isn't highly experienced. The author can't tell. They can't test it. They don't have the, the technical skills to do that, and then it becomes a problem. That's where people run into the most issues. And they come to us and say, “Can you fix these files?”
“Help us!” I get that. Now, is there ever a book that doesn't make sense to become an audiobook?
There's some that do better than others. Books that tend to be at least 35,000 words tend to do better in audio. Most audio platforms like Audible, our audiobooks are sold on a membership basis. So longer books have a higher perceived value, because you get a credit every month and you can buy any audiobook. Are you going to look for an audio book that's eight hours long, or two hours long? So there becomes a perceived value issue.
Okay.
Also, audiobook pricing is different than other book pricing. Audiobooks are priced on length, which irritates a lot of authors, and I completely understand that it is an issue in the industry. Having a book that's a little bit longer–30-35,000 words, at least–gets your pricing up into a range that you're going to be much happier with. That's one issue. Another one is books that are highly technical, highly visual. They're going to need an audio edit to make an audio version of and when we evaluate books, we go over that if there tends to be more of a technical guide.
Cookbooks and poetry–it really just depends on the market that you're in. We don't work with fiction. We are a nonfiction house, but we do often get people asking us for poetry. And we don't tend to work with those because you're better off working and getting that done kind of on your own in terms of price points, and things like that, because those poetry books are shorter books. And I almost think that you're better off releasing those as an album, like almost as music, so that you can control the pricing more, rather than as an audiobook. And that's not something a lot of people think of. Go get it audio designed and really make that book juicy and worth your while to do if you're working with poetry. But technical guides, cookbooks are another one that require some changes if you're going to do an audio version. And that's more from an accessibility standpoint. Most cookbooks are not going to be listened to as a traditional audiobook, but if you're looking to reach an audience of say, folks who have visual impairment, then that's another animal. So accessibility is a whole other part of the audio industry.
There is so much that we have unpacked today. And I feel like we just scratched the surface, truly.
It’s true.
But I love that when I asked you about statistics, you rattled off a number of them. So I really appreciate that. Because so often we hear about things and it's like, “Oh, is this the next shiny object that I need to go after?” And, you know, as entrepreneurs, as authors, it's often like, “Well, what if I don't get it? If I don't do this, as I going to miss out?” And so this really sounds like something that is worth investing in because of just the sheer number of people that you can reach in a way that is going to help them better because maybe they really want to read your book, but they just don't have time to sit and read their Kindle app, or they just don't have time to sit and leaf through the pages.
Now well, and the one beautiful thing I'll tell you is that a lot of times what happens with audiobooks, particularly in nonfiction, people get a nice case of “mightas-well-itis.” They'll get the audiobook to listen to so they can make it through the material and then they'll buy the paperback, so that they can go back and make notes and the salient points. We've had it happen all the time. So, many times if you are selling your audiobook and then giving away a Kindle version that can be annotated for free, it's nice to bundle those together. Or you'll see an uptick in your paperback or hardcover sales when you release your audiobook because people are buying both versions. There's all kinds of things on the marketing side of things we don't have time to get into today. But maybe another time. There's there's lots of cool stuff.
I love it. Alright, so how can people find out more about you and Twin Flames Studios?
But a worthwhile one. Well, Tina, thank you so much for being here today.
No, thank you, Melanie. This is great. I really appreciate it!
You've written a book. Now what? If you're ready to implement a simple content marketing strategy to create buzz around your book and your brand, schedule your free Sparkles and Strategy Call with me, Melanie Herschorn. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of VIP Access. We can't let the fun end here. To find out how engaging your content is, take the content quiz at MyContentQuiz.com. Plus, you're invited to join our private Facebook group at VIPDigital.live/community where you'll get live trainings and other great tips all about digital marketing. And if you've enjoyed listening to this podcast, head over to iTunes and leave me a rating and review. This tells iTunes that you found the show helpful and they'll share it with more women business owners just like you. Thank you so much for listening.
