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Everything You Need to Know Before Investing in an Audiobook [Podcast]

​Not sure if ​an audiobook is the right investment for you and your brand? Listen to my ​guest appearance on The Book Marketing Action Podcast with Becky Robinson and learn more!

Tina talks to Becky Robinson about the benefits and process of investing in an audiobook.

In this episode:

  • If Tina’s noticed a trend of people buying audiobooks vs. other formats
  • Reasons an author would consider investing in an audiobook
  • Why an author might choose to narrate their own book (author narrated vs. professionally narrated)
  • The best time for an author to release their audiobook
  • What the process looks like and the average length of an audiobook
  • The range of investment that an author should expect if they want to create an audiobook

Listen to the podcast here:

Welcome to Season 2 of The Book Marketing Action Podcast with Becky Robinson, where we give you information that you can immediately implement to increase your influence and market your books more successfully. In this episode, we are joined by Tina Dietz—CEO and co-founder of Twin Flames Studios, award-winning and internationally acclaimed speaker, audiobook publisher, podcast producer, and influence marketing expert.

ABOUT TINA

Becky: I am so thrilled today to be interviewing Tina Dietz. Tina is a friend I made, actually, as a result of this podcast. A previous guest, Jenn T. Grace, introduced us, and I’m so glad she did, because I’ve already learned so much from you, Tina. So before we dive in, I hope you’ll take a moment and tell our listeners about your work in the world.

Tina: Well, my company Twin Flames Studios focuses on getting more great voices out to the world. So really the mission behind the company is that audiobooks and podcasts are some of the lowest hanging fruit for people to start to change their lives. So particularly with audiobooks, and certainly with podcasts, they tend to be low cost or free. They’re available in multiple countries, a lot of them can be in multiple languages, and their stories are what keep us all connected as human beings. So the more that we can help leaders, subject matter experts, and people who have lived extraordinary lives in the nonfiction space, which is our specialty, tell their stories and get it out to the world, the more we can make a difference and leave our own legacy, as well as help with the legacies of all these authors that we work with. So what we’re talking about today is mostly our audiobook division, which is strictly nonfiction audiobooks. And we do full, done-for-you production, publishing, and distribution, both for professional narration as well as author narration, which is something we’re known for.

HAVE YOU NOTICED A TREND OF PEOPLE BUYING AUDIOBOOKS VS. OTHER FORMATS?

Becky: Tina, that’s really intriguing and I look forward to hearing more about that author voice narration. But let’s talk for a moment, first, about audiobooks as a genre. I’m curious to see what you’ve noticed about the trend of people buying audiobooks rather than other formats.

Tina: It’s been an interesting art because audiobooks are certainly not new. The first audiobook was produced during the Great Depression, and I believe it was a Christmas story. They’ve always been around. Those of us who are a little bit older will remember books on tape and getting them out at the library, things like that. But up until the shift in the market about six, eight years ago, where audiobooks became digital, the production of audiobooks was generally relegated to traditional publishing. It was very expensive to do and very expensive to distribute, because everything was in a hardcopy, and first on tape, well, first an album, then on tape, and God forbid, on 8-track, and then ultimately on CDs. So when everything went digital, and Amazon and Audible became the same company, when voice acting and narrators became available more online, we had the rise of the gig economy, all of these things kind of created a perfect storm for the rise and the renaissance of the audiobook. So audiobooks have risen in sales year upon year, in double digits for the last eight years. And some of those years, it’s been a 20% to even 25% rise in the sales of audiobooks. So it’s a billion dollar industry in the US alone, and the accessibility of it is largely what makes them so so so popular.

WHAT ARE SOME REASONS AN AUTHOR WOULD CONSIDER INVESTING IN AN AUDIOBOOK?

Becky: Well, as the wife of a man who only consumes books via audio, I know that there are many people who really are drawn in a big way to that ease of being able to listen while you drive, or listen while you get something else done. And I think in a way, you already answered this question, Tina, but I’m gonna ask it anyway. What are some reasons an author would consider investing in an audiobook?

Tina: Well, you definitely have to look at what your purpose is, and I’m really glad you asked this question. So on the nonfiction side of the equation—fiction is going to have a different answer, and I can touch on it if you’d like—but on the nonfiction side of things, an author wants to look at doing an audiobook to access a wider audience, first of all. A lot of executives, C-suite folks, people who are decision makers or at high levels in their career, often listen to audio, or listen to audio and buy a copy of the book so that they can switch formats because they can multitask, and also because audiobooks you can listen to at faster speeds. So I know lots of people, including myself, who might put an audiobook up to one and a half time speed, in order to be able to consume the information and get what they need, and then maybe have a hard copy of the book to reference back or make notes in as they go, using it as a learning tool. And they use it to keep your brain juicy as you go. So having an audiobook does open up those markets. An audiobook is also a marketing tool and it is an evergreen marketing tool, just like your book is. So using snippets of your book, in audiograms, in book trailers, in different parts of your material, or even potentially as material to create a course or modules in the backend membership site that you might have, you can use your audiobook in all of these different ways as an asset, not just distributed on Audible.

WHY MIGHT AN AUTHOR CHOOSE TO NARRATE THEIR OWN BOOK?

Becky: So Tina, this might be a good time to talk about this idea of an author narrated audiobook. Why might an author choose to narrate their own book?

Tina: Well, speaking as an entrepreneur myself, I would say that we all have egos, so that’s really the first truth. You have to know that it feels, if you’ve gone through all of the process of writing a book that is part of your soul on paper, and it is in your voice and of course, you want to have the experience. And I hear this all the time, “I’m the only person that could narrate this book.” Now, that’s not actually true, but an author may actually feel very strongly about that. We should probably also, if we have time, talk about why an author wouldn’t narrate their own book, because most of our authors come to us assuming that they are going to narrate their own book. But for those who do want to have that, if you are going after speaking gigs, if you want to have your voice known in a particular industry, or if your voice is already highly associated with your work, you have a popular podcast, you’re a TED speaker, so on and so forth, there may be some congruency to having your voice on the book. At least in part, not every author narrates their entire audio book, sometimes we do what I lovingly call a Tony Robbins sandwich, which is a hybrid version of the book where the author introduces the material, does the introduction or the first chapter, and then kind of hands it off to a professional narrator who shares similar vocal qualities as the author, and certainly has similar energy as the author, and then the author comes back at the end of the book to wrap things up. Sometimes there’s a happy middle ground between the two, given how busy most of our authors are.

WHAT ARE OTHER REASONS AN AUTHOR MAY NOT CHOOSE TO NARRATE THEIR OWN AUDIOBOOK?

Becky: Well, that’s an amazing idea. And so in addition to being maybe too busy to narrate your own audiobook, Tina, what are some other reasons an author may not choose to narrate their own audiobook?

Tina: Well, not every expert has, first of all, a great voice. Not every expert has the desire to do it. That has a lot to do with it, because it feels like a slog behind the microphone. Because narrating an audiobook is no joke. It takes time. It takes discipline. We fully produce and direct our authors through the process. We remote into their home offices, make sure that we get great sound quality, all kinds of great stuff to support them. But ultimately, if you aren’t feeling it, you’re not going to have a good audiobook. And so not everybody is a verbal communicator. They might be really strong in writing, but not really enjoy a lot of speaking, particularly in long form narration like an audiobook requires. So there’s a really important cocktail of desire, skill, experience, and time that go into whether we determine it’s a best path forward for an author to have their own voice on the book, versus a professional narrator on the book. And not for nothing, but some authors may actually have either physical or other issues happening, that it’s not a good fit for them, depending on what they have going on in their lives or their abilities.

WHEN IS THE BEST TIME FOR AN AUTHOR TO RELEASE THEIR AUDIOBOOK?

Becky: That’s really helpful. So when do you find is the best time for an author to release their audiobook?

Tina: We tend to have authors come to us in one of two areas, or one or two timeframes, I should say. One is that they’re getting ready to launch a new book. And if it’s an author narrated book and they’re planning on doing preorders for their book, there are some technical caveats to when you can actually get your audiobook launched, particularly on Audible. Audible is the 500 pound gorilla in the room when it comes to audiobook distribution. They do own about 60% of the market share in audiobook sales. So not being on Audible is going to be a problem for you if you’re not there. So they have some rules about when you can get your audiobook out. But generally we can get pretty close, with an author narrated audiobook, to your launch date. And that’s kind of one scenario, you’re launching a new book and you end up putting the audiobook out, either at the same time as the other versions of it, or it’s a staggered launch anytime generally, within the first six months of the launch, there’s a lot of advantages to doing it that way, because it extends the life of the launch and you can get the same audience excited about a new format, or reach people that you haven’t reached before. So it’s a nice marketing technique to stagger your audiobook launch after the hardcover or ebook versions of the book that might come out first. 

The other version of audiobook launches comes into play when we have a book that could use a second life. Many authors come to us and they say, “I wish I could relaunch my book, knowing what I know now.” They may have had a difficult relationship with their original publisher, or they didn’t have the chops that they have now in marketing. So an audiobook is a way to give your book a second chance, and basically have a second launch, and that’s really valuable as well. Some folks even want to do a second edition of their book or add new material to it, so that comes into play as well.

Becky: That’s all really great advice and aligns to what I’ve coached authors to do. So I’m glad that we’re on the same page. It’s encouraging to hear. 

WHAT DOES THE PROCESS LOOK LIKE?

Becky: Tina, I’d love for you to explain to our listeners about the steps that you take, as you coach authors through this process. Obviously, you mentioned that it’s done for you. So you’re creating the audiobook for and with them. Tell me about those steps and about the timelines, so that if our listeners are considering investing in an audiobook, they know what to expect.

Tina: Yeah, let me talk about timelines first. So generally, we’re looking at about 90 days in either case, whether it’s author narrated, or professionally narrated. Some of this highly depends on the availability of the author, certainly in the case of the author narrated, but also in the case of professionally narrated, because there are key times that the author is needed to make choices. So for example, in the professionally narrated case, we have an audition process that is very robust, and we get about 150 auditions, per book, on average. We curate all of those auditions, first for sound and goodness of fit, and also the energy. Can we actually believe that this narrator is delivering this material? All of that gets done on the first round.

The second round is professional vetting. Can they meet the timeline? Can they meet the budget? How are they to work with? So we do all of that, before we present our authors with a list. Generally, we have about eight to twelve choices of our top picks, with their auditions in our notes on why we think they’re great. But we need the author to have a little time to listen through those things, and make a choice. So depending on how busy the author is, we can throw timelines off based on how much time they take, or God forbid, if they decide to make decisions by committee, which could happen. But the author is one of the couple of key things that we do that are important, because the author has creative choices, we’re not taking over the process like a traditional publisher would. We also don’t take any rights or royalties. So we keep our authors involved in the creative process, one way or another. 

So in the case of professional narration, once we have a narrator selected, and we’ve produced kind of the first 15 minutes or so with the book, and everybody’s on board with the tone and the pacing, the characterization that the narrator is using, the process goes quite quickly. And we, of course, handle all of this, not just the narration and the direction, but the proofing, the editing, the mastering, and after the author has had a chance to sign off on everything and it’s all good to go, it goes into a quality control process. Quality control on Audible can take up to 30 business days, so that’s all part of that 90 day period that I’m talking about. 

Similarly, on the author narrated side of things, I mentioned before we do sound checks, we do all of that. And then it’s a matter of scheduling the recording times, and you cannot bang out an audio book in a day. Most professional narrators don’t record for longer than two to three hours a day. So a non professional—like even a professional speaker—very, very rarely do we run into authors who can narrate for longer than two hours at a time. More likely it’s 90 minutes without losing gas, without their energy dropping into their feet, and that’s okay. But you do have to account for that in the schedule.

WHAT IS THE AVERAGE LENGTH OF AN AUDIOBOOK?

Becky: What would be the average length of an audiobook, in this nonfiction kind of thought leadership experts space?

Tina: A lot of our books are right around the 30,000 to 50,000 word mark. When you get into really short books, 20,000 words or less, they don’t tend to do as well in sales for audiobooks. There are some exceptions, of course, simply because audiobooks are generally sold on a membership basis. So when you are an audiobook member of Audible, and you have a credit that you can use on an audiobook that is an hour and a half or two hours long, versus eight or 10 hours long, the perceived value is higher on the longer book. Now, that’s not to say that you shouldn’t do an audiobook version of a shorter book, but we might tweak the distribution strategy, and talk with you further about how that audio is going to be used to the best advantage.

Becky: Wow, I am learning so much today! I am sure our listeners are as well. 

WHAT’S THE RANGE OF INVESTMENT THAT AN AUTHOR SHOULD EXPECT IF THEY WANT TO CREATE AN AUDIOBOOK? 

Becky: So my final question as it relates to audiobooks, Tina, is what’s the range of investment that an author should expect if they want to create an audiobook with the type of support that your organization provides?

Tina: Sure, absolutely. I think that for most books, on average, we look at somewhere in the $3,000 to $5,000 range. Sometimes less for shorter books. Sometimes more if somebody wants multiple narrators and they want music added. We’ve had a few specialty books that we’ve done that have even incorporated the audio from video clips and things like that, that have happened from major events, and whatnot. The average kind of cost of an audiobook with everything included, including the distribution, is definitely going to be in that three to five range.

Becky: I appreciate that transparency, because I think it really sets people up to consider whether this is an investment that they’re prepared to make. 

ACTION STEPS

Becky: So, Tina, our listeners are used to us always giving them action steps at the end of every podcast, because this is the book marketing action podcast. I know you have a couple of action steps that you’d like people to take today. 

Tina: Oh, yeah, for sure.

  1. Read your book out loud. The first thing is, have you ever read your book out loud? Take a couple of chapters of your book and just try reading it out loud. See how it feels. See how you like the material. Most of our authors, when they read their book out loud, which we have them do before they step into any kind of recording situation, they have a series of reactions to their own work. We all do. You also have a series of reactions to the sound of your own voice, and that’s okay too. But try it on, try it out and see what that’s like for you. If you’re in the process of writing a book, definitely read the book out loud before you finalize your editing, you will find all kinds of things there to make the book more narrative, maybe to shorten up sentences a little bit. And you’ll even catch errors that you didn’t catch when you were just doing it visually. So that’s really the first thing go read your book out loud. 
  2. Download the step-by-step guide. The second thing is, is that a lot of the things that I talked about today, we’ve put into a guide. And we also have frequently asked questions and all kinds of good information, best practices, and a full kind of step-by-step guide on how to get your audiobook done. And you can find that at Launchyouraudiobook.com.

RESOURCES

  • Learn more about Tina Dietz’s company, Twin Flames Studios, here
  • If you want to learn more about how successful authors leverage their books, download Tina’s free guide here
  • Connect with Tina on TwitterLinkedIn, and Instagram
  • Connect with Twin Flames Studios on LinkedIn and YouTube

If you found value in today’s episode, we hope you’ll take a moment to share it with someone else who might benefit from it. If you have any questions or topics you’d like us to cover, please email Becky Robinson here.

Click here for our free resources. 

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review

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The Secret to Shameless Self-Promotion with Tina Dietz [Podcast]

If you struggle with shameless self-promotion, listen to my guest appearance on the new episode of the Feminist Visionaries Podcast, hosted by Meaghan Lamm.(Feminist Visionaries Podcast with Meaghan Lamm, January 2021)

Shameless Self-Promotion - Tina Dietz

Tina talks with Meaghan Lamm about how we can feel our feelings, get curious about our thoughts, and shamelessly self-promote.

In this episode:

  • The number one block preventing people from shamelessly promoting themselves
  • Tina’s top tips on how to use your fear to propel you instead of hold you back
  • Mindset techniques to shamelessly self-promote yourself and your business

Listen to the podcast here:

The Secret To Shameless Self-Promotion with Tina Dietz

I’m super excited to have you here. I’ve wanted to have you on the podcast for many months and I’m excited to talk about shameless self-promotion. I think this is the topic that a lot of women in particular struggle with or even self-promotion in general.

Before we dive into that, tell us who you are and what you do on the internet.

I own a company called Twin Flames Studios, and after many years of building businesses internationally in more than 20 different industries, I now specialize in the world of audio to help people get their messages out into the world. We produce and develop podcasts. We work with thought leaders and subject matter experts to get their audio books produced and out into the world, as well. On a personal level, I work with folks on vocal leadership, which is a whole other body of work.

Your team produced about the first two-dozen episodes of this podcast. I don’t think this podcast would exist without you. If I hadn’t hired you for the added accountability, I don’t know that this podcast would have happened.I remember in the very beginning, you sent me some really great exercises and articles to improve my vocal leadership. There were so many things I learned, like how the inflection in your voice can convey a certain emotion, whether you’re intending to do it that way or not, which I found fascinating.

Yes, we had that whole conversation about uptalk where we subconsciously raise the inflection of our voice at the end of our sentences like it’s a question when we mean to make it a statement. And then that makes us sound like we don’t know what the hell we’re talking about.

It also points out things within yourself that you didn’t realize were there because it’s a very subconscious thing. You’re not consciously ending all of your statements as a question because you lack confidence in that area. It’s very subconscious. Once I realized I was doing it, it was interesting to note which moments it popped up in my speech. Then I started to work on that with my mindset coach.

That’s perfect.

When you’re working with your vocal leadership clients and you get into the issue of shameless self-promotion, what would you say is the number one block that people have when it comes to promoting themselves shamelessly?

I would say the number one thing is that people don’t want to piss anyone off with what they’re saying. They don’t want to upset anyone. Not a single one of us enjoys looking stupid or being embarrassed. That’s the shame part and that’s why Brené Brown says shame is a master emotion. Shame is really what’s underneath. I don’t want people to be mad at me. I don’t want to upset anyone. I don’t want to rock the boat. I don’t want to look bad. I don’t want to be embarrassed. All of those and more. It really comes down to that being the core of what stops us from stepping out and speaking our truth.

Absolutely. To get to the point of starting this podcast, it was a big vulnerability moment for me. I had to put myself out there, knowing how feminists and women with strong opinions are often treated on the internet. Creating this podcast and putting it out into the world, with my opinions, was a big vulnerability moment for me.

I haven’t run into many haters yet, but there was a lot of mental work that went into gearing up for this shameless self-promotion, as we’re calling it, because I knew that even though as many supporters as I have, there is also a flip side to that. The people who troll you, especially in today’s political climate, where it gets nasty on the internet.

What are your top tips on sitting with that vulnerability and fear, the fear of looking stupid or like you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about? What are your tips on sitting with those emotions and letting them propel you rather than stop you?

Most of us have a tendency to delay the intensity of what we feel. We’re trained to control our emotions and put a clamp on them. What we’re not trained to do is to allow ourselves to have the capacity to be with strong emotions and let them move through us. That is a learned practice.

It is an emotional, psychological, energetic practice of allowing yourself to feel whatever it is that you’re feeling. When you’re first starting to do this, you’re going to notice all the thoughts attached to it. The questions, decisions, and things that you say about yourself and the world. And it’s not pretty. You have to learn to become an observer of your own thought and not dissociate yourself.

Start to gain some objectivity where you observe the feelings or thoughts that you’re having like a movie. If you can identify it, you can start to move things in different directions. If you feel like you’re at a point where you just can’t move past it or something that is unsayable or unendurable, start to identify the component parts of that feeling. Identify the physical sensation, the things that you say to yourself, the things that you say about the world, and so on. Break that down into its component parts and you start to be able to make choices. And choices give you power.

‘Choices’ was my word of the year for 2020. This year, I had to make a lot of choices and to feel my feelings rather than numb them out so that I could get to a place where I could do things while feeling fear. Fear is typically at the core of everything we’re avoiding doing. If you sit with it long enough, you’re going to realize there’s an underlying fear for not wanting to do whatever you’re avoiding.

So you have to sit with it. It doesn’t go away. It is a conditioned, biological response to keep you safe. Fear used to keep you safe from saber-toothed tigers, and now it keeps you safe from stress or bad chicken.

And trolls on the internet.

And trolls on the internet. The fear doesn’t go away. You just learn how to acknowledge the fear and do the scary thing anyway. I think that’s the place that you have to get to for authentic, shameless self-promotion. To authentically and shamelessly do what you have decided is your mission here on this earth in this lifetime, you have to get to a point where you’re not numbing out the emotions that are uncomfortable.

You’re feeling them and you’re acknowledging them. You’re not telling yourself you’re wrong for feeling them because you’re a human being and you experience the whole range of human emotions. Then, you go out and do the thing anyway.

When I first started my journey through mindset work in 2016, I had never heard the phrase before. No one asked me, how does that make you feel? How does this frustrating situation make you feel? My family did not talk about uncomfortable things. If we had uncomfortable things going on, we handled it very poorly on our own and when we came back together, we pretended like nothing happened.

As a result, I can’t say I grew up to be a super well-adjusted human being who is able to freely express her emotions. But working through that has most definitely been a journey for me, because I had to learn, often painfully, how to stop numbing my feelings by overworking. It’s really common in hustle culture to numb oneself by scrolling on social media or binging on Netflix.

Instead of asking you if you’re still watching, Netflix should have an emotional setting that asks if you are numbing your feelings or actually watching something.

Yes, exactly! I had such a difficult time recognizing when I was feeling anything, because I had numbed it for so long that I just had to name the physical sensations that were happening in my body.

That was how I found out that being mad makes my fingers tingle. It was so fascinating to me to learn how to do that. For a long time, I felt really dumb because I was 30 and I didn’t know what my feelings felt like. I think that happens to a lot of people and I’m hoping that this episode really normalizes that because a lot of us are not taught how to process our emotions. Human beings are designed not to be uncomfortable.

Absolutely. When I’m working with executives and we’re talking about vocal leadership and communication, we talk about how your internal landscape changes your external landscape. If your physical voice is the instrument that you’re playing, like an oboe or violin, then your internal conversation, beliefs, feelings and the things that you say are the music that you’re playing. You’ve written that music. In order to become a virtuoso and be able to play the music that you want to play with your voice and your message, you have to look at the music that you’re playing.

Where are you missing a verse or skipping over things? Where is the tempo off? The voice is such a great indicator of our internal music where we might have a stanza or two that are not in sync with the rest of the composition. One of the quick exercises we can do around embodiment is to bring up all of the physical sensations of what it feels like to be the best version of yourself. We can use this to train our bodies to actually feel better when we are experiencing things that we don’t love feeling. We can do it on the other side as well and train ourselves to feel the way we want to feel because neurologically, the brain doesn’t know the difference between fantasy and reality. It’s a programming issue.

Brains are fascinating. This is why people get sucked into cults.

Absolutely. Politics, as well. If you bring up a peak experience, where you felt like a great version of yourself and allow yourself to go into that memory, you can change your body chemistry. Bring up that experience in your body, as if it’s happening in the moment. Scan your body, scan your thoughts, scan your feelings, and you can change your body chemistry in under two minutes.

You can practice feeling better and like the best version of yourself. We spend a lot of time analyzing what we consider negative emotions. We spend time processing when you’re angry or sad or feeling hopeless, but it works on the opposite side of things, too. A lot of times, we leave the other emotions out of the equation, because happiness feels like something that happens to us and not something that comes from us. Confidence is another one. No one’s ever told us you can feel confident because you choose to feel confident.

It’s true. I have people tell me all the time that I’m so confident and that they are intimidated by me. I’m always looking over my shoulder wondering who they’re talking to because those aren’t the thoughts that are on a loop in my brain. When other people can mirror back what I’m actually projecting out into the world, which isn’t necessarily a facade, is really interesting. I’m not thinking of myself that way, but that’s certainly how I’m coming across because that’s how I’m acting. Which is a weird dichotomy when you think about it.

I think that has come from doing the work and feeling the feelings and identifying what’s going on and being able to work through it without making myself feel bad. When you try to numb the negative feelings, you also numb the positive feeling.

Yeah, the whole thing gets deadened.

It all comes from the same place so you can’t numb one without numbing the other. You have to allow yourself to experience the entire range of human emotion in order to experience authenticity and just as a human being in general.

Have you seen the movie Finding Nemo?

Yes, I’m pretty sure I just watched it a couple weeks ago.

That’s hysterical. I love that movie. One of my favorite parts is the sharks that are trying to not kill other fish. They have this whole kind of 12-step group and their motto is ‘fish are friends, not food’. I’ve changed that to ‘feelings are friends, not foes’. Think about how you can be friendly and have room for all of your emotions.

One of my favorite books is Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert. She talks about fear being ever present in a creative life. What is important is how you deal with that fear. It’s how you make space for it and that is a really powerful concept. It takes a tremendous amount of energy and will and that’s unnecessary to kind of squish that into a box. You can leave room for fear in the backseat of your car, like she talks about. Fear does not get to touch the radio, fear does not get to choose where you’re going. It doesn’t get to have an opinion on where you stop for snacks, but there’s room for it in the backseat.

I love that analogy. I imagine shoving my fear into the backseat and telling it to sit down and shut up. I call my fear Karen, who lives inside my brain and is very negative. I get to the point where I say Karen, thank you for your opinion, you can sit down now. I can picture her stomping away in her high heels with her Karen haircut and sitting down in the back of the room. 

This is very effective for me. I think this conversation is so relevant to feminism and feminism ideas of toppling the patriarchy. This is for men, women, and non-gender conforming people. Men are embroiled in toxic masculinity, where feeling any other emotion besides anger is seen as a weakness. Women are constantly told that they’re too emotional. Opposite ends of the spectrum: women have too many emotions and men don’t have enough. We can get to a place where every emotion is valid and it’s safe to experience and express every emotion. 

Not just safe within yourself, but safe to have emotions externally around other human beings. When we can get to a point where we don’t need toxic masculinity anymore, because it doesn’t matter if a man cries, he can feel more feelings than anger. He can express more feelings than anger without somebody calling his masculinity into question.

It is a tool to break out of this patriarchal society if we can get to a place where women aren’t trying to appear less emotional and men are not embroiled in anger as the only good emotion to have.

We’re all highly emotional beings. It’s a matter of expression and what we feel safe expressing in a situation. This ties into this idea of shameless self-promotion because we’re always in self-promotion. We’re always promoting something. It could be something that you have an opinion about. As a human being walking around, can you state your opinion, and be okay with that? Can you have a conflict at work and work through that in a way that feels both productive and stimulating?

It does bring up strong emotions, but you work through it together rather than shutting it down. One of the biggest access points for mustering that kind of mastery of emotions is curiosity. Curiosity is my favorite state of being because curiosity is neutral. It is neither good nor bad. If you’re upset, you might not be able to feel good but you might be able to access curiosity. I wonder how I can just feel a little bit better right now. It snowballs its way out of something. It’s not an all at once process and it is a never ending process.

You get through one plateau and you think that x is your problem. So you work your way through x and you grow from that work. Then you move along and find another problem that you have to work through. This is especially true in business where you think that your next goal is to make $5,000 a month and when you get there, there’s a whole new set of mindset work to be done. And so on and so forth.

You’re not fixing your issues. You don’t fix them one time and then never have them again. As you evolve and grow, whatever your goals are, whether it’s money or relationships or whatever, there’s always going to be something else that you’re running into. Your brain is constantly trying to keep you safe from what it perceives as dangerous threats and your brain thinks that anything that it doesn’t know the outcome of is a dangerous threat. If your brain can’t predict exactly what’s going to happen, it thinks you’re in danger. It’s going to try to get you not to do that and the most effective way to get you not to do that is to make you afraid.

No matter what you’re doing, no matter where you’re going, you have to remember, you’re always going to be afraid and you just have to remind your brain that it’s okay to be afraid, but you’re going to do it anyway. Putting yourself out there is probably not going to kill you.

No, absolutely not. You mentioned your inner Karen before. When we’re dealing with fear, one of the visuals that I like to use is a puppy or a kitten because our fear isn’t evolved. Our fear isn’t us. If you imagine that your fear is a puppy or a kitten that is scared and needs to be taken care of, if that appeals to you more, then you can bring up the self-compassion to take care of that.

Assert yourself as the adult taking care of that piece of yourself rather than it being an overwhelming, all-consuming thing or becoming enraged at yourself, which God knows I’ve done many times in the past. Asking myself why do I feel this way? Why do I suck? I love the idea of being able to just sit with those emotions.

As a side note on the business side of things, when we’re talking about self-promotion, it’s a big hurdle for a lot of people. Particularly artists and people who are more on the ‘woowoo’ side of things, which I would classify myself on that side of things. For an analogy, if you offer someone a homemade cookie and whether they accept your cookie or not, it has nothing to do with your cookies. A person may say no because they don’t want a cookie, or they don’t like chocolate, or maybe they’re diabetic. They have their own reasons for saying no and nothing is wrong with your cookie. The same is true for them saying yes. There’s nothing wrong with you when somebody says yes or no to what you’re putting out into the world.

That is a big hurdle for anybody to get over when they’re first starting a business or even as their business grows. Especially when you’re an entrepreneur and you’re in business for yourself. Many businesses are a personal brand using the owner’s name. You’re not selling a product, you are selling yourself.

I have a friend who owns a bookstore and when people don’t buy a book, she gets annoyed. She gets annoyed when they come in and wander around the shop, admire her store, but don’t buy anything. But she doesn’t take that personally, because she’s selling a product. She’s selling books.

When you’re selling your service, your knowledge, your expertise, your strategy, you’re selling yourself on a very personal level. It can be difficult to remember that you’re not really selling yourself, but that you’re selling them an outcome. Those two things do not have to be related. If someone says no, it’s because they weren’t interested in what you had to buy, just like they weren’t interested in your cookie, and that leaves more for the people who are interested.

I think that’s a fantastic way of looking at it. It’s never about us. It’s always about the other person and what they’re experiencing. If we make it about ourselves, we’re not going to sell anything. Coming from personal services, it all has to be about what the outcome is. We’re all self-centered. Human beings are wired to be self-centered. When you’re talking with other people or you are marketing on social media, being curious and interested in what other people are up to is always going to be the pathway to building your business. Particularly in personal services, because relationships are at the heart of every single thing.

Long story short, you can fix the entire world by feeling your feelings and changing your thoughts. Your ego just solved it all. This conversation didn’t go how I was anticipating it to go honestly, but I loved where we ended up because we kind of dived more into authenticity. 

In order for you to be the most authentic version of yourself, you have to acknowledge that you are a whole person with the entire range of human emotion inside of you. It is okay and normal and good for you to feel all of your feelings. To acknowledge them. Sometimes I am in a shitty mood for no reason and that is okay.

It’s okay to be pissed off for no reason and take the day to not do anything or not communicate with people because you keep snapping at them. That’s normal. I think that in order for you to get to a point of shameless self-promotion, you first have to explore shameless authenticity. Once you do that, you get to a place where you’re feeling your feelings, because you acknowledge that you’re a human being with human emotions and feeling your feelings can help you topple the patriarchy.

I think that sounds like a perfect place to close, don’t you?

I absolutely do. Feel your feelings, change your thoughts, topple the patriarchy.

Listen to this one over and over again. I’m sure I will be listening to it multiple times because these lessons are so important. These are tools to go in your toolbox that you can use over and over again. When you get curious, don’t be afraid of feeling your feelings. Don’t be afraid of your thoughts or changing your thoughts. Together we’ll all feel our way through toppling the patriarchy and everything will be great.

Thanks for listening to the Feminist Visionaries podcast!

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Executive & Corporate Podcasting Trends & Applications – Tina Dietz

Presentation for PodFest Global 2020 

Podcasting Trends & Applications - Tina Dietz

Chris KrimitsosI've known Tina for quite some time—she actually was very active in our local group and has helped quite a few of us. And she's gotten into the B2B niche. So, Tina, if you'd like if you want to just share your screen, and then we'll open it up to Q&A.

Tina DietzYeah! Sounds good.

So, the floor is yours.

Why thank you.

Hi, everybody! Thanks for joining us here today. I'm excited to talk with you. And I'm not much of a PowerPoint fan, but I'm gonna do my best here.

What I'm really excited about, though, is just having an opportunity to talk with you all, and have some Q&A afterwards, because this is an area—Executive and Corporate Podcasting—that I got into… Well, I started talking about it about five years ago now because I was in podcasting, and looking at podcasting trends, and where I saw it was going, I knew it was going to take a while for larger organizations to get into podcasting.

But, like with any trend, it was almost inevitable that it was going to happen.

So, let me back up and share a little bit more. It's really about how to give a nameless, faceless corporation human personality. And this is about half my more executive team. And what we do at Twin Flames Studios is we amplify the messages of trusted brands of leaders, sometimes really well-established entrepreneurs. And we do that in three ways:

  1. Through full-service podcasting, getting things going, very high touch, kind of white glove, concierge service, podcasting, and ongoing production
  2. I, one-on-one, work with executives and CEOs on vocal leadership—which I'll touch on a little bit later when we talk about podcast guesting
  3. And we also do nonfiction audiobooks. Full production, publishing and distribution.

So everything audio, to get your voice out to millions of people.

And I've been building businesses for more than 20 years. I started my career as a therapist, but I grew up as an entrepreneur. And I never met a microphone I didn't like, I say all the time. So, eventually what happened is, after building businesses in about 20 different industries in eight different countries over the course of years as a consultant and a coach, I felt this pull towards doing more with podcasting, doing more with audio, that was where my heart was.

And I had this epiphany that if I could work with enough leaders, who are doing enough amazing things in the world with low hanging fruit like podcasting, and audiobook—some of the lowest hanging fruit for people to start to change their lives—then there was a good chance, you know, what was important to me, I can make a bigger impact in the world, leave the world a better place than I found it.

So that's why we do what we do. We have a global team. We've got folks overseas, we get folks here in the US and Canada, Portugal, Scotland, and I adore my team. So, I love to show them off whenever I can.

So Corporate Podcasting trends—how and why are companies using podcasting.

And like I said, most companies are—well, they're familiar with what podcasting is. But getting it into their own systems is a little different. Because how corporations handle their marketing is quite different than how entrepreneurs handle their marketing. And this was actually a learning curve for me, being a very pure entrepreneur. With all the businesses I've owned, I actually don't come from a corporate background at all. It was my ability to be flexible, and for my company to be flexible, that has really made this work in the corporate and in the B2B space.

So, what we found is that companies are using podcasting for a number different reasons. We're going to break it down, but they're primarily using it in three different ways and wanting to use it in three different ways.

So External Podcasting, which is the type of podcasting, of course, we're all the most familiar with, out into the universe available to everybody. Internal Podcasting, which we'll go into a little bit more, that is when a podcast is only available to the people inside of a company. And Podcast Guesting.

Let's break down these three—and I'm going to move through these slides as quickly as possible so we can get to the juicy meat of the matter talking about what you're most interested in and how it can serve you best.

External Podcasting, of course, they're generating brand awareness. If you look at the research on sticky branding or sticky advertising—it means when it's not directly an ad necessarily, or maybe it's something more narrative of a mention or it's a brand that gets featured in a podcast—that really is the stickiness that sticks to people. And so, they find that with podcast advertising or podcast branding, people who listen to podcasts are about 70% more likely to do business with a brand mentioned on a podcast or a brand offering a podcast. So, very important.

Attracting new clients and customers is what most of us are trying to do in podcast and podcasting on the business side of things. So, in this case, we're not talking about narrative podcasting, we're not talking about NPR style, business podcasting. That is a trend and I think what some of the people who do it best are “Pacific Content” out in Vancouver—they run Charles Schwab's external podcast, they run Facebook's external podcast; I had the pleasure of interviewing one of their executives recently, and I have tremendous respect for what they do. But every one of those episodes is tens of thousands of dollars in production, because it is a full-time, massive deal.

So, most of the podcasting we're seeing externally, with corporate, with B2B, is not quite in that range. We can—we do see that sometimes in enterprise level companies, like Facebook, like Charles Schwab, some other large, large corporations. But companies that are in, say, the three to $35 million range—some of them maybe even considered, you know, small to mid-sized business, rather than super large corporations—they're really looking to expand their presence in a way that allows them to keep their humanity. You know, remember a lot of these are well established businesses, they're used to doing their marketing and their networking, face-to-face or as we say, belly-to-belly. And so podcasting is very appealing to these companies, particularly at this time as they're having to pivot and still wanting to keep the relationships, in their marketing, in their networking, and particularly creating relationships with industry influencers to widen their professional network.

Very rarely do we ever find that if you reach out to somebody and ask them to be on your show, or any of our companies, they reach out to an influencer in their industry—lots in finance, in particular that we work with—that somebody turns them down. It's basically “Hey, would you come and have a really friendly conversation with me for half an hour about things you're most interested in and passionate about?” Not a hard sell. So, our clients get really thrilled at having this media platform to share, that allows it to open doors for them.

And of course, that leads to creating collaboration. My favorite, favorite value out of B2B and Corporate Podcasting is what happens after the interview. Yes, there are audience members; yes, you have downloads; yes, we have, you know, growth. And we're generally not looking at podcasts that are necessarily in the thousands of downloads per episode, because we're looking at very niche podcasts. And we are also looking at the collaboration and the relationships that happen with the guests—between the guests and the host between, the guests and the company—as these podcasts come along. It does improve SEO to the websites. SEO is one of those things that seems like more magic than anything else these days. A lot of the things we all knew to do years ago with meta tags, and keywords, and all this other stuff… It's really kind of gone away and really gone the way of organic.

So, corporations are using the podcast to generate long form content that can then be repurposed into transcript-based articles on their website—which are fantastic for SEO, particularly paired with a few other important pieces. So that's External Podcasting—the main reasons and why—we're seeing for External Podcasting.

Internal Podcasting is another animal, and this is a rising area. It's just starting to come forward and flourish a little bit, particularly in enterprise-sized companies. So, this has more to do with development and reinforcement of company culture. Culture development is key to things, like you know, making sure that things actually get done. Efficiency, particularly now that everybody is working from home, or so many people are working from home; it's how we can create a little bit more glue, and have people not feel quite as alone or lonely.

And it also really helps to prevent things like screen fatigue: if you can listen with your earbuds while you're doing the dishes, or taking your dog for a walk, you don't have to be staring at a screen like you are all day for regular work. And screen fatigue is a real thing—it has shown to decrease productivity, it increases a certain number of health risks in a big population. And corporations are always looking at corporate wellness inside of their corporate company culture. So, this is actually more to it than meets the eye when we think about culture.

It's also great, of course, for dissemination of important information. We're moving fast. There's a lot of town hall meetings that happen inside of companies, or they're rolling out new products, or particularly with some of the companies we work with in the pharmaceutical/healthcare side of things, everything's changing right now with Coronavirus, and people need to be kept in the know. Podcasting internally is a way to disseminate that information in a more intimate way than a newsletter. And also in a more human way, than they’re used to, you know, providing this, you know, very kind of cold, documented information. We're still seeing people doing everything written, but adding on the voice, adding on the relationship, and the warmth.

Also, to educate and inform teams, particularly sales teams as they're rolling out new products, features of those products, how to sell them, who to sell them to—issues that might be coming up talking about your sales numbers. A lot more interesting to celebrate your wins, by meeting your sales goals over a podcast and to hear somebody announcing your name—it's like “Hey, a big shout out to John Smith! And, you know, Amelia, for you know, blowing away the sales numbers this month, you know, make sure when you see them in the hallway today, you know, give them a shout out, send them an email.” It's great to hear that. That celebration, acknowledgement of achievements is a really, really big one—who doesn't love to hear their name being mentioned by leadership, right, or being interviewed?

And the sharing of stories and inspiration, particularly Leadership Development. Leadership Development is the biggest area we're seeing for internal podcasting, and in internal employee resource groups. And I'll talk about a specific example in a minute about that.

So, I wanted to dive in and talk about a couple of specific instances where we can see how Corporate Podcasting is being used, you know, directly. And so, we have been working with the folks at Tri-Merit. They're a corporation outside of Chicago, and they have a very, very niche business. They had no marketing team up until about a year ago, and their marketing team actually contacted us to help with the podcast. They find R&D tax credits for technology companies. Can you hear the crickets, thinking about how you would create podcast content about this?

But what they do mostly, is they have relationships with CPA firms. That's where they generate most of their business. And they are passionate about the world of public accounting. Again, not something I would ever find myself naturally drawn to be passionate about, but these guys are thrilled, and finding the stories in the public accounting world that are unique, that are interesting—they're getting them out there. And they're using this as a beautiful networking tool. You have never seen a more excited group of folks talking about public accounting than these guys. And they do fantastic work in the world. So, this podcast for them has been the hub of their content marketing, allowing them to then create social media, allowing them to then follow up with their guests afterwards, and generate collaborative opportunities, generate other guest speaking opportunities. All kinds of networking happens when the host or their team follows up with these guests after the fact.

Now let's talk a little bit about Internal Podcasting. I have to talk about the Podcast Inc. conference, which is going to be online this fall. And I don't know if any of you know Jennifer Crawford. Jennifer Crawford is the founder of DC PodFest. And you know, Jennifer and I have known Chris for years, and know the folks from She Podcasts for years. And there's this wonderful collaboration and cross promotion that happens in the background with all of these podcasts’ conferences, which I love. And Jennifer saw a need in the industry to have a one-day conference specifically in this area, because it really wasn't being addressed a whole lot of places. It's very, very niche.

And so, what we did when we moved the conference from May to November, is—I went out and I said, “Jennifer, why don't we do a limited series podcast on Internal Corporate Podcasting and use this as a lead up?” So, this just came out about two weeks ago. And we're just ramping up the promotion of the conference. But if you want to look up PodcastInc.co/podcast, you can find this and listen to these episodes from different aspects of the Corporate Podcasting world specifically talking about Internal Podcasting, but also Corporate External Podcasting sneaks in there as well.

So then we talk about things like security and the use of a podcast intranet. One of the biggest issues for Corporate Podcasting is security. And so, platforms like PodBean, Blubrry, and Libsyn all have internal podcasting capability, and you have to find out what works for you. What we're finding is that these corporations want to use their already existing intranet to disseminate podcast information. And that's actually what we're doing with the folks at Novo Nordisk right now developing an internal podcast with them, for their women in leadership employee resource group. And what's cool about that is, as we're getting further into the process, the folks from the women in leadership resource group are reaching out to the other employee resource groups to see about developing a collaboration so that the podcast can live over time.

It's a very different development art—for those of you who work with podcast show development—then an external podcast. It's a much slower process, for the most part, and also there's a lot of little baby steps. So, what we've learned in this process, in the back end, is just to let things play out and have some patience. But people are really, really coachable, really, really interested in learning, and very excited about making their workplace better. So it's very, very cool.

One of the ways we're using podcasts a lot in corporate, both Internal and I'll also reference back to External, is Limited Series like this podcasting. Podcasting doesn't have to go on forever: For companies that feel like it's a high risk to commit to a full year or an ongoing podcast, we work with them on a limited series. A to 10 to 12 episodes to start, and we say “You know what? If this doesn't work out for you, if you don't feel like you want to keep going, then you've got a really great marketing asset and a series that you can use.” So, we always bring up seasons, we always bring up limited series podcast, and we find that most of the time when they get into the groove, they do want to keep going.

We also see in Internal Podcasting, the use of External Podcasts for internal purposes. So, you can repurpose the material you're sending out to folks, and make sure that your team, you know, is actually getting that information. And we're starting to develop databases of podcast information for say a group of financial advisors to then be able to keyword-in and then send out articles, and podcast episodes, specifically to their clients and really use the podcast as a resource.

Podcast Guesting—we're just going to check on this real quick. This is some of the companies that I've worked with, some of their executives, in one capacity or another around their vocal leadership and/or Podcast Guesting. And so, Podcast Guesting, we're finding a lot of usage for executives who are looking to set themselves apart, to have third party credibility, to develop their personal brand, and to do personal leadership PR, which is different than company PR. I work with a wonderful company out of Manhattan, and they help leaders get their leadership profile amplified. And we do a lot of work with their folks around getting them prepared to be on a podcast knowing that they can have this laid-back intimate, conversational relationship. They're not teaching, they're not reporting. They're in a relationship with the host. And we work with them heavily on their storytelling, so that they're not boring guests. And they come across as the people they really are, which is warm and professional, and really out to make a difference in the world. And that conversational interview style and format makes this possible. So, Podcast Guesting we're seeing a lot of rise in the director and above level of executives in corporations.

Okay! 20 minutes.

So all right, and I wanted to leave 10 minutes for Q&A, and seeing if there's any other examples we want to talk about if we want. You guys can go to TwinFlamesStudios.com/PodFest—I've got a bunch of materials for you there. I'm not a funnel girl. Don't sell things via email. But I do have our Vocal Leadership Workout, our package on How To Be a Guest and more podcasts, and some additional articles on Corporate Podcasting that we will just send you in an email if you go to that particular link.

That's it.

Awesome, Tina. So I’ll put it back to speaker view, if you could just unshare for a second there.

You’ve got it.

Alright, so we have a couple questions. When it comes to Internal Podcasting within a corporate culture, how do you know what to charge? Is it per minute, or? Because you're dealing with very big companies—like how do you figure out what to charge?

Yeah, so with these large companies, we're generally not dealing with the umbrella of the company; we're dealing with a small section of a company. So, these Employee Resource Groups have their own budget. So, the first thing is to find out what are their budgets to work with. They don't have tremendously large budgets, and if you can work with them—I usually work with them on a consulting basis and then go from there. Because many times they have internal resources even to do the editing and things like that. They need to know how to get things going.

So, an internal podcast, is that open on an Apple feed? Or is it, you know what I mean, so it's internally?

Yeah, so these are being—

How do you set them up? I'm just curious.

Well, it's actually, again, because these are larger companies, they want to handle the tech themselves. So, it's really a matter of teaching them, showing them how to create the content, how to manage the workflow. These are a lot of things we do, you know? Conceptually, how do you internally market a podcast? And then it requires interfacing with multiple departments to actually find, you know, work with them to get the show loaded up onto their intranet. Like I said, there are the—

That’s right, they all have Internet and MI Departments, computer guys, you know, people.

Yeah, yeah. So, it's a different animal, you're not going up on a hosting platform, unless they do want to use Blubrry or PodBean, or Libsyn—are the big three right now that have Internal Corporate Podcasting platforms. We're gonna see that happen more in mid-sized companies that don't quite have intranets, but still want to have control and security.

So then you're seeing that… I found it interesting you're seeing a lot of C-Level executives wanting to grow their brand by going out on other podcasts—you're seeing that?

Yeah, there's an interesting point in an executive’s career—you're rising up in these in these large industries, you know, they've distinguished themselves and they've kind of hit a certain level and to go from say, what we call a Director Level executive, into a C-Level executive really requires distinguishing oneself with Thought Leadership in some way.

And so, Podcast Guesting is a way to distinguish oneself on Thought Leadership, that is outside the company. You know, there's an old saying that says, you know, “it's hard to become a hero in your own hometown.” So, if people know you really well, they think they know you. Well, if you're out there, and all of a sudden, you're on a podcast or a bunch of podcasts as a guest, that gives you a third-party credibility in your leadership and your development of your Thought Leadership. This is usually paired with a whole package of executive PR, of articles, or press releases, or other types of materials, that kind of all go together to help develop somebody's leadership. Getting on Boards of Directors is another really big thing. And when boards go out and research potential candidates, one of the things they look for is have they done media, and most of these folks haven't done any media because most of the media that's taught at a corporate level is high pressure crisis media.

You’re right, “how to protect yourself when everything hits the fan.” That's true. There's no… This is a… I have to tell you… This is… The more you talk, it's like the beginning of a new era, because you're right, the C-Level executives are only trained, “Don't talk to media, unless you talk to your PR department before you go out there.” Now, they're being proactive, and they're interfacing with podcasts. And I guess they also have to build their personal brand, because who knows how long they'll be an executive with that company till the next one. And, you know, there's—

Yeah, there's a fair amount of mobility and talent even, in these times, you know, top talent is something that companies are always looking to retain. It's a big issue. And we find that podcasting is a way to really bring out their voice not so much in a technical way. Working with the executives on their storytelling is one of my absolute favorite things, to have them go from this kind of teaching reporting style, that they're used to doing in meetings and things like that, and kind of teasing out the humanity. And the really cool thing is that once they learn that, now they're bringing it back to their teams and having different conversations with their teams. And that's what we go deeper into Vocal Leadership training.

So, this is really a cutting edge field of consulting, if I hear you correctly, like a media training, which they always have, but on the podcasting side, and you're at the forefront of it.

Yeah, I'd like to think so.

No, you are I mean, it's only going to grow as we move forward. What trends are you seeing with corporations and B2B type stuff? So, there's Internal Podcasting going on, you're doing external facing… Any other trends that you see? Obviously, they're trying to build their PR cred by going on other podcasts shows—

Yeah, what we're seeing a lot is that the internal marketing teams in these companies really, really want to do podcasting. I spoke at a conference a little over a year ago in Scottsdale, big B2B conference, had a packed room of 100 people speaking at a panel, and two thirds of the people in the room raised their hand when they said, “Are you trying to start a podcast in your company?” And they were running into issues with time, they were running issues with knowledge, they were running issues with budget.So coming in and being able to stay the course—these are, of course, much longer relationship building sales cycles than, most entrepreneurs, generally care to go with. I have people ask me all the time, “So can you introduce me to your people at GE so I can be a corporate, you know, trainer there?” And I'm like, “That's not how this works.” It's not the warm introduction cycle that we're used to as entrepreneurs to build our network. So, there's a lot, there's a fair amount more to it than that. It's a fascinating world, but it's definitely growing.

Yeah, a few years ago, I had, I was approached by a big $800 million, like trust, and I just remember, for them to make a decision was like 10 different committee meetings, and they still hadn't decided and they said, “Oh, this is too cutting edge.” I'm like, “This is actually not”—this was just a couple years ago—and I’m like, “It's not cutting edge. And you guys have money by the time you implement it,” you know, but it's just amazing to see how they make decisions. And you’re right. It's not the entrepreneurial world.

No, they’re much more risk-averse.

So yeah, when you do get the contract, because there's a huge lead cycle in this kind of field. So, I'm excited for what you're doing.

Thank you.

Tina, your numbers—we started at like, 50, we ballooned to 70. We have 60-something people here is amazing. I just want to give a shout out to Ross Brand, Al Mega, Dr. Ellen, Rachel Hernandez, commenting, chatting.Anything that you see for artificial voice in corporate or is that going to take time? Like the [Alexa] skills, are you seeing anything there?

Any artificial voice—any truly artificial voice that it's not a human voice—we find a lot of resistance to and I also have a tremendous amount of resistance to it. Because to me, that is the polar opposite of what podcast gets used for. You know, when you and I worked together and I did a bunch of the interviews for The Messengers movie—if you haven't watched it, watch it—you know the thing that came up across all those interviews that we did was the word intimacy and podcast and creating intimacy. And so, an AI voice is the opposite of intimacy. And I don't think we're going to see mechanized or automated voices, takeover things anytime soon. Will we see things go into voice activation? Will we see more happening with Alexa? Yeah, I do think we'll see that. But there's a lot of privacy concerns, particularly in corporations. So that's the last place we're gonna see that; we're gonna see that in the consumer market way way sooner.

Oh, well, Tina, people can reach out to you through the app, connect with you. Thank you for taking the time out. Just tell us your website one last time.

Sure. You can go to TwinFlamesStudios.com and if you want to grab that package of stuff we put together for you. It's just TwinFlamesStudios.com/PodFest.

Awesome. Tina, thank you so much. You always knock it out of the park. You're a pro.

Thanks everyone for joining us.

I know you got a lot on your agenda. So, thank you for being part of this and supporting what we do. And also thank you for—I forgot but you did… Tina did the initial interviews, probably half of the movie. The Messengers came out with interviews Tina did while we were running the second ever Pod Fest. And if you haven't seen The Messengers: A Podcast Documentary—I'm gonna have Andrew upload it to the conference so people could see it. But thank you for mentioning that, Tina. Thank you for doing that for us.

It’s a great project. One of my favorite things.

It was awesome. Thank you.

Take care.

Goodbye now.

Interested in learning more about Internal Podcasting, External Podcasting, and Podcast Guesting?

Online Lead Generation for Non-Salesy People

Tina Dietz talks to Lisa and Eric Pezik about online lead generation strategies for non-salesy folks that actually generate leads.Facebook Live, 2020

Online Lead Generation - Tina Dietz

Tina Dietz talks to Lisa and Eric Pezik about strategies non-salesy folks can use to increase their visibility, draw in new audiences, and just overall generate more leads:

  • The important difference between lead generation and sales
  • How lead generation is often a long-term process
  • What looking for instant results can cost you in the long run
  • How “not-so-perfect” ads work better than professional ones
  • Why perseverance is key to lead generation success

Watch here:

Today, what we're talking about is this big old buzzword we've been hearing it in business constantly. It's gotten really intense this last year: Lead generation – online lead generation.

And particularly with a big surge in interest in LinkedIn. That's been where there’s been a lot of the lead generation conversation. But it ties in with conversations about Facebook ads, and Amazon ads, and Google AdWords and all of these places, so we're going to be talking about lead generation—what you really need to know, particularly if you're not a salesy person.

If you're somebody who has an established business, but the online world doesn't quite work for you, you're more of a relationship kind of person, you're more interested in “belly-to-belly” conversations, but you'd like to be developing more business online in a way that feels good—that feels like you, that doesn't feel like markety marketers  marketing to marketers, as I often say.

I have here Lisa and Eric, my beautiful colleagues, hailing from the southern Ontario area—someplace I miss very much, that I used to spend an awful lot of time in. They have an absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous marketing agency that we've been sharing with our clients and colleagues, because I'm just so impressed with the work that you guys do. So thank you for joining me.

Aww! Thank you for having us!

Yeah! You guys have a number of different links—a number of different websites—so we'll put those in the comments as we go along. Please note that I tagged both Lisa and Eric on their respective pages in the description of this video as well. So that's all I want to say about that; let's get into chatting about some good stuff here.

Actually I would love to have the audience get to know you guys during this conversation, rather than ask you what your background is and what you do. They can look you up—you’ve got an about page, all that good stuff.

Let's get to the meat of the matter, which is, let's talk about the difference between lead generation and sales, because I run into this in conversations with people all the time. They don't know the difference between lead generation and sales. So Eric, would you start us off with that?

Yeah, absolutely. It's such a common thing that people talk about, and I really connect with this. I don't think that sales is sales—when it's really not a sale. What I mean by that is, you say, “Eric, I'm going to be in your neck of the woods, and I'm looking for a really great sushi place.” I'm going to refer you to the sushi place that I love, and I'm gonna say, “You gotta check it out! this restaurant, it's amazing. You'll love it, they have killer sashimi, they have amazing rolls, here's my favorite roll.”

Am I being salesy? Not at all. That’s sales, right? The lead gen side of that is the complete opposite. Now it's, “Okay, well, how do I get someone as the restaurant owner into my sushi place?” Completely different. Right now, you need to build trust, you're gonna have to be in front of people when they're looking for sushi, and they're googling for sushi. And that’s totally different. That's the lead gen side.

I feel like what Tina was talking about, how people want to be belly-to-belly, and they feel like there's the either/or: They feel like you're either belly-to-belly, or you're salesy. You're either a relationship marketer, or you do lead generation. They feel like lead generation has no belly-to-belly “relationship personality.”And that's what we do! We're not just going to grab random people off the street and throw them in the sushi restaurant and say, “Hey, I hope you like this.” We do all the legwork to get those people who love sushi, who love Toronto, who love the culture, who love the type of sushi—there—and then as the business owner, is to do what you do best, which is serve the pants off people and build those relationships. Serve the sushi pants off people!

Sushi pants!?

Maybe that's a thing!

It probably is. #SushiPants. Let's do it.

But people don't get to serve the sushi pants off people. They're so busy trying to find those people that want sushi pants, who come few and far between. 

That's where this whole, “Lead generation didn't work for me, it's too much money, it's too much effort” idea comes from. No, lead generation works—with people that know what they're doing. What drives me crazy is the, “You’ll learn how to set up an ad and one hour and you'll be up and you'll be making money,” and everyone makes it sound so easy.

Yeah, so it's the salesy part. This is—I'll say it again, markety marketers marketing to marketers. It sounds like the fitness industry, you know—“Start a business in 30 days,” “Write a book in a weekend,” “Start a podcast overnight,” “Generate leads in your sleep”—all of these things can be done, but there is a quality conversation here.

It depends on what you are trying to create, both short-term and long-term. It also depends on what you already have in place. So I think it's important for us to take a look at what is necessary before you start lead generation. What do you already need to have in place?

For example, I work with a lot of authors, and I don't recommend lead generation, because all they have is a book. They don't have a product, they don't have a back-end yet. They're publishing a book for credibility, and there's a lot you can do with that in terms of book marketing, but there's a difference between book marketing and business marketing. So when you're working with people, what are some of the pitfalls that you run into? What should people have ready?

You don't know what you don't know. People come to us and they're like, “We want to run an ad to this, and we're like, “Okay, where's your landing page?” “Oh, I don't have one.” “Where's your social account?” “Oh, I don't have one.” “Where's your website?” “Oh, I don't have one.” “What are your products?” “I only have a book.” “Okay, then what if no one wants your book? Where are we going to take them?” Because lead generation is not a once and done, throw up some ads for 30 days, make you a million dollars. It is an ongoing process, that only gets better and better the longer you stick with it.

Everyone's comfort level is different. So for me, I'm okay to spend $500 one month and $500 the next month and have zero sales, knowing that in the third month, I'm going to make two, three, four thousand dollars in sales, or I'm going to make that thousand dollars. I'm okay to hang with it longer, knowing that I'm building relationships. Other people are like, “If I spend $500, I want $500 back that same day. I spent $5 today, I want a $5 sale that day.”

And most business doesn't work like that. Let's face it, it really doesn't work like that. You have to test, you have to find out what people want, what lands, what works, what doesn't work, and you can only do that by doing it.

Right! That's me—I don't want to waste your dollars testing. I want to take your ad spend dollars and go. So you've got to know clearly who you are, what you do, what you offer, and have somewhat already established a brand, a business, a tagline, a voice, a message, a product, that you’ve somewhat trialled and run through on. 

I like to say on Facebook, for example, people have got to see you. You’ve got to go live, you’ve got to be serving, and giving, and showing up, and being visible. You're like a ghost and then all of a sudden, you're like, “Buy my s***!”

Exactly! People are like, “Who are you? Why are you here? What are you doing?” Particularly if it's a personal brand. Do you think we have a little bit more leeway on a product than a personal brand? I see new products pop up in my Facebook feed all the time.

That comes more down to if it's a product, you really want to talk about the pain points and the benefits. Why are you different? It's very similar. It's just when you're a personal brand, it's about you. People buy on you, versus buying the product—”Why should I buy this product over that product? Here's why.”

And the product is the experience! Nobody cares that the drill can drill into the hole in three seconds flat. People care that if I'm going to do a DIY project, I'm not going to kill my child when the playground system comes falling down on them, because this drill works so good. Or my honey is gonna love me, because I get this nice thing done in a day, as opposed to a year because I can't figure my stuff out.

The product is the experience. The service is the experience, but it's more the experience with a person. So people see you, they feel you, they know you, they understand you.

Yeah, so in both cases, it is a storytelling experience. You guys talk about this on your website, I talk about it all the time in my work. What's the story that you're telling? What's the journey you're taking people on? But yet, even if you're telling a personal story, the story really isn't about the storyteller, it's about how it relates to the people that you're talking to, and what's important to them. It's creating that connection. All storytelling, the purpose is to create connection and to draw people in into you.

So I think that the preparation of that, what you're talking about—do you already have something proven? I think a lot of newer entrepreneurs get scared by this, because they have had all these messages that, “Oh, if you build authority by writing a book, or if you suddenly become a coach,” (We'll talk about that another time!)—but really, “What are you good at?”

There's a little bit of chicken or egg thing that happens when you don't have a proven track record yet of doing that kind of thing. And I think that's where building a network and building referrals—a lot of the relationship work—the podcast guesting we help people with. Certainly, the book side of things can help with all of that, but it has to be paired with all kinds of other things. And I know that you guys have a full service agency, so some of these things—the website building, the storytelling, the branding, all of that—if someone's not ready for lead generation, you’ve got to back it up and help them with all of those things first. But what it really comes down to is, can you deliver on what you say?

Yeah! And being realistic. If you don't have all that figured out, but you know this is gonna work, you know you're gonna follow through, then be realistic that the first two or three months that we're driving leads to you, we're doing that “figuring out process” for you, which is worth every penny. It might take us three months, but it might have taken you three years.

Oh, definitely.

So even though maybe you're not making sales, even though your ROI is sales, it's figuring out what's landing with your audience—and you're getting more clarity in the process. So it shouldn't keep you from doing it, because either way, it's a win-win. It's just you’ve got to be realistic with, “What is that win?” Everybody goes to money in their pocket. That's the only thing that they say makes it work or doesn't work. But you’ve got to change your mentality when it comes to that new generation.

And being realistic with what is the lifetime value of the client. We get that a lot. They don't realise that you might work with us for three months and say, “Oh my God, I haven't had a sale,” but then three months later, you might have fifty or a hundred sales that happen because that person followed you, and then when they decided to actually buy whatever you're offering, you were the one that was there from the beginning six months ago, when they had that thought, “I'm gonna play in my backyard, I'm gonna do a landscaping job.” Well, you don't just flick a switch and go, Oh, yeah, I'm gonna invest $30,000 in my backyard. It’s a six month, twelve month process.

Yeah! We had a lot of that with this current state of as we're filming this, we're still in the middle of the pandemic, and everyone's like, “Shut down my ads, I'm done. I can't run ads.” We're like, “Wait, what? Why?” “Well nobody's doing nothing. nobody's buying nothing. Shut ‘er all down.”

So not true.

Yeah. What's gonna happen if you all of a sudden disappear, and then you all of a sudden want to reappear again?

Then you’re messing with people’s heads.

A lot of people are spending time on their social media in front of their computer, researching. Planning. You don't want to run ads? Says who? So again, you gotta think about what's the end game? What's the end goal? That lifetime value. They might not be ready today to purchase your service or buy your product, but six months from now, they may be!

It's a whole thing about sticky branding, right? People do remember things. They're more likely to look things up that they've seen in the past, or they've heard in the past, or that have been endorsed by other people that they do trust.

If you've already got an ad campaign going, and it has been producing results, it's the people that I've seen in the last six months, as we've been dealing with this pandemic, who have really doubled down and pivoted appropriately, depending on their industry, and really made it even more about relationships, even more about serving people, even more about being helpful, that have done really, really well.

I know you guys have seen an expansion in your company, we've seen an expansion in our business. We're in a position, being fully online businesses, we're used to doing business online, that are in a position to help companies do things that aren't in-person. That is something that has been a little nerve wracking for some of the companies that we're working with, because they are highly professional and financial companies, private equity, very sensitive areas.

It may take a little while for them to make the leap, but once you get into a groove, once people start to trust who you are and what you're saying, there's a flow that happens with these lead generations. People can tell when you're being authentic, and when you're not. Even when it might be some type of automation or nurture campaign that may go out automatically. The storytelling that you guys do is so conversational, and so transparent, and I think that's what makes the biggest difference in making what would normally look like marketing or advertising, feel good. That's what we all want. We need to feel good when we see this.

Yes! And that is knowing your client. Like when you hear the word “agency,” we run a social media agency, we run a marketing agency, we run a done-for-you agency—at the beginning, I remember when you were saying that, “I don't want to be called an agency! I don't even want to be associated with that word.”

Because that's like a production factory. Get you in, get you out, charge you astronomical amounts, good luck trying to get ahold of somebody. There's no belly-to-belly personalization. That's the complete opposite of us! We're so individualized, we’re so deep-dive, and I think that's where the best ads come from. When you know your client, you deep dive, you take the time to learn their stories, their brand emotions.

The not-so-perfect-ads tend to do a lot better than the perfectly makeup scripted, in front of my computer… The messy hair, walking down the street ads—people tune into because they're real. And they're relatable. You don't have to be anyone you're not, you don't have to speak like you're not. You just have to be you. And the right people connect to that.

Yeah, it comes across. It's like connecting with people that you talk to for the first time. It's either you're gonna instantly feel that compassion, if they're genuine people, or you're just gonna be like, “No, forget it. I don't relate.” And that's totally fine. 

And that's why lead generation isn't a start and stop kind of initiative. You don't ever want to have that, “Oh, I'm gonna do that, I'm not gonna do that for two months, I'm gonna do another month, I'm not gonna do another one.” You’re not getting anywhere when you start and stop.

So I think when you're in that position, that lead generation is right for you, have the budget for it. How many times do we say, “Okay let's go,” and they're like, “I have no budget.”

Well, what's the budget that somebody might consider starting with? What would be, you know, a good range to start with? What should they set aside for, say, six months or a year? Just the ad spend is what I'm talking about. 

We would start at like $500, and then we would scale it based on success,

Based on success, right. And so yeah, so from a $5,000 [total] marketing budget, that makes sense to me, because there's a lot of done-for-you: The iterations, the testing, the research, the keywords, the audiences. There's a lot of friggin details in the back end of that. I took a couple of classes on Facebook ads, because who hasn't? And just the back end, the interface, was enough to make me want to go blind. That is not my world.

Yeah, like we tell people—we have a team of Facebook ads experts, and that is their job, to stay current, to stay around. If you are going to run ads on your own, $500 is a great ad spend to start with. You then have to be the one every single day going in there looking, testing, tweaking, staying on top of it, because you will burn through that if you don't know what you're doing. You'll burn through that $500 faster than you clicked the button to put the ad on.

Some of the most successful people I've seen advertise on Facebook, particularly who were on the service side of things—you guys have a really fantastic specialty working with online businesses, but also working with local companies: Everything from local colleges, to gyms, to medical practices and things like that.

I think that's really impressive, because that's a big gap in the market—those types of companies. Clearly you're able to do both, but I remember in a Q&A session with this person, because they very much had an “anyone can do it” conversation. And it was like, how much are you spending on ads on a daily basis?

They were spending $700 a day on ads, and they had a team doing it. It's the same thing with these major launches, when you see all these people’s success, really important, prominent people. Jeff Walker—classic, right? The big launch guy, fantastic work, amazing work. It will take you six months to a year and $60,000 to run a full Jeff Walker launch campaign. Period.

The guy that I was learning from said, if you don't have $5,000 a day to spend on ads, you're not even playing in Facebook Ad Land. And I was like, “Did he say five dollars a day? Did he—he said $5k a day!?” I'm like, this isn't my seat, because we started with $250 a month when we started running ads to my courses and programs. 

What I like is why you don't just want to guess and do it yourself, is our experts watch it. They're very quick to say, “The $500 is your budget. We've already spent like 300 bucks, it's not working. We need to try something different, we need to go somewhere else.” Like I said, you can burn through money. And that's why people say Facebook ads don't work. No—it's you didn't know what you're doing, and you burn through your money, and now you got a bad feeling about that.

Yeah, even with just building our pages on Facebook. We have a page we built organically, we've got about 200,000 followers, and it's a massive pain in the butt because Facebook is constantly changing things, so there's a lot to it.

You know, you've mentioned a couple times, the value of done-for-you services, and my company with audiobooks and podcasting—we provide done-for-you as well. One of the reasons I decided to go in that direction was a survey I ran on audiobooks when I first started experimenting with audiobook services, because like most people coming out of the consulting world and the coaching world, my first thought was, “Oh, I'll do a course, and people can do it themselves.”

I ran a survey with a bunch of my colleagues, about 50-60 people, ran them through it. There was a question that I put in there that said, “Which are you more likely to do? A. Take a course and do it yourself, B. Hire someone to do it for you, or C. Take a course, realize how much it is, then hire somebody to do it for you.” Almost everybody answered C, and put a note in about that question of, “Thank you for asking this because it actually brought to my attention that this is what I actually do.”

That's when I decided I’ve got to do done-for-you services instead. Best decision I ever made as a business owner, both because it's been great to develop the company and find out what's needed, but also because it got down to an actual need that people had.

That’s it! A necessity. The people that understand done-for-you realize the cost of an action, the cost of trying to muck through and figure it out on your own—you're not going to do it. It’s a necessity to move that mission bigger. That makes people go, “I gotta stay in my lane. I have no business tinkering around in the back end or Facebook ads thing. I have no business trying to do my own audio book thing and like, I gotta stay in my lane.” The people that make it a done-for-you service—they're good at what they do! They're not just random newbie developers; they are the best of the best of the best. It's like, “We get you where you want to go—you don't have the time. You can waste so much money so much time so much energy.”

I've done it myself, trying to do a lot of stuff myself. Let's face it, we're really smart people—we can figure a lot out. But doesn't mean you should.

And that's hard. When you're Type A, you're driven, you're good, and you're like, “I can do this—tell me I can't, I’ll show you I can,” and that's the curse of being really good. You can figure it out. You're smart, you're resourceful. You know how to ask for help. It's like that badge of, I'm gonna sit here for 27 hours. figure this out, and then for what? And it's like yeah is that battle you should be entering into—

—Or should you be spending that 27 hours having conversations with people that you could be helping, having them sign on to work with you, or bring them into your business or your company, and then having your clientele fund the done-for-you services, your marketing team, your PR your audio branding, whatever it is that you're doing, so that you don't have to.

I can't tell you how many people are like, “I have $10,000. I need your help. But oh, well, I can't work with you though, because I decided to put this into my book. Or I decided to put this into, I'm going to speak on stage—I paid to play and I'm going to speak on a stage, or I'm going on this TV interview.” The one shot wonder. There is no such thing as overnight success.

Media is so important. Having a book is important. All of these things are important. But they have to be in order. 

Correct!

They need to be in order. Unfortunately, I see it a lot, too. That being said, this morning, wrote a couple of emails, referring some of my close colleagues to you guys, because I'm like, “You know what, they could really work with you guys, because they're at a point in their company—they need to not be doing it themselves, but it doesn't make sense to hire like a single marketing person.”

A single person can't do everything on their own. Having the backing of a team is really important, and finding a good marketing agency is—that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on this live today—is that I only have a few companies that I will refer people to for marketing services. That's based on my 20 years in business and having been burned and being really very suspicious—very suspicious Type A over here—on things.

I even have a referral partner of mine—today, they sent me some information about information they wanted me to put out there. And I sent it back to them some feedback: I'm like, your terms and conditions aren't clear, and your disclaimer, it actually isn't legally responsible for you to say some of those things. So I can't promote this, because my people are going to have questions that I can't answer, and you're not giving me an opportunity to send them to anyone to answer questions. You just want them to click “Buy Now.” And I'm never gonna send somebody to a “Buy Now” button that's five to fifty thousand dollars, without the opportunity for somebody to have a conversation. I wouldn't do business like that.

Yes. People don't want to take the time. You have to take the time. You have to treat it like it's your business—like that business decision is a decision that you would make in your business. And if you don't like being rushed, why would you rush somebody else?

Exactly.

Give people all the information. It might not seem like a life or death, make it or break it conversation to you, but it may be for that person staring back at the screen. We never push our people into making decisions. We educate and we take as much time as we need till they feel comfortable one way or another.

I've seen you do it! For sure.

Well, I wanted to see if I could kind of wrap up some last words of wisdom here and circle back around to this whole idea of a checklist or a couple of pieces that people need to actually make online lead generation effective. What are a few things that we really want people to know—that they ought to have, or ought to work on, and obviously they can reach out to you guys too, or reach out to me for more.

A few things. Definitely have multiple offers. Think about how you can take one particular thing and make it three different things, but yet, it's still the same thing. That's critical, because we get that a lot, where you say this thing's 99 bucks, and you think that everyone's gonna buy it because you think it's the greatest thing. At the same time, maybe that 99 bucks, instead of saying it’s $99, you turn around and say, “You know what, I'll give you free shipping.” So there's two offers right there. So think of it that way. Crafted uniquely, so when you put it out there to the public, you’ve got places to go and different things to try.

Because a lot of people will say, “It didn't work.” “What did you try?” “I put it on for 99 bucks, nobody bought it. It's the price, but this thing's worth a million bucks.” So I'd say that's number one.

Number two is, make sure you have proper branding. Make sure you have something that someone's gonna trust. We always find that people think that people aren't paying attention because they didn't click like or because they didn’t comment. Biggest BS! People are always watching. People are always paying attention. You probably have the same friends like we do where all of a sudden, we won't see friends for six months. Next thing you know, they're like, “Hey, yeah, I saw that you had oysters yesterday! Where'd you get those oysters from?” You're like, “What?!”

So just remember a big takeaway from Eric. They're always watching. It's true, though. It's absolutely true, and I think that goes back to your analogy from the beginning of our conversation about the sushi restaurant as well. You not think about having sushi for three, four or five months at a time, but when you have a craving for it, you know exactly where to go because of that recommendation that you got from a friend, or because of the ad that you saw, or the coupon you got in the in the paper or the recommendations you saw on TripAdvisor. It sticks with you, and that goes by just what you said—that sticky branding. It's about that branding that stays with you over time. Anything else?

My last thing, no matter what you think is or isn't working, stay at it. Stay at it, and get out of your own way, because you're not the one that gets to decide that. It's your buyers, it's your audience—they're the ones who will decide for you. So just stay in your pay lane and keep doing what you're doing, whatever that is. It'll end up paying off dividends in the long run. We see people give up really quickly—they'll try for two weeks, three weeks, and then we’re like, “No, no, you gotta give it like, three years before you can really say something did or didn't work.”

I give it six months.

I agree.

I know if I'm gonna say yes to running an ad, any campaign, any process, I know I'm in this for six months. It's too early to bail on it—to say it worked or didn't work. You don't have enough data. 

And I was gonna say make sure everything matches. If you run it, and it doesn't look and feel—it looks and feels and sounds one way, and then they hit your landing page or your website, and it looks and feels and sounds a different way—that's going to cause an instant, people are gonna be like, “Whoa!”

Oh, no, that will cause an instant pivot to everything. I'm actually in the midst of a fitness program right now, and I know the fitness industry. I have a hard time joining programs with it because of the marketing that gets done with that. This company is no exception—I won't name them. Their products are good, and it's like, “Oh, I'm going to show you in 30 seconds how to do something,” and it takes you to a 15 minute sales webinar. Every day, an email that's like that, usually selling a supplement, selling a meal plan, it's like, “Oh, we're going to give you everything you need, we're going to give you the recipes, we're going to give you this, we're going to give you that.”

No. They're going to give you one list of recipes, and then they're gonna sell you a personalized meal plan every damn day. So this is why this personal connection and taking the time with people, and managing expectations is so important, particularly in this realm. I know we agree that transparency is so important.There's lots of places that you can go out there, my dear friends out in Facebook Land, where people are going to tell you where you want to hear. Your friends will tell you what you want to hear. Don't ask your friends for feedback on things. Ask people that you respect, that are successful, for feedback.

Go out and ask three marketing agencies to give you feedback and see what the commonality is between the three. You'll find the intersection of where you're falling down on the job. But when you're talking about doing business with a company, make sure they're willing to take the time with you. (I mean, be respectful of their time of course, we don't have all damn day!) But nonetheless, someone that's willing to work with you and is willing to shoot straight with you and say, “You're not ready for this yet. This is actually where you need to be.” It's not because they necessarily want to sell you something more, it's because they want your initiative to be successful.

Yeah, hundred percent. Lastly, I would say have a process in place for follow-up. Because even though everyone thinks lead generation equals automated sales—

—That's a story, tell the story!

Okay, so we have this lovely client who we love dearly, and she worked at a gym. She's a nutritionist, and people were just giving to her, as part of the package, amazing testimonials, a ton of success stories. A perfected process: Check, check, check. Now she's running ads to a webinar to an application to work one-to-one with her so she wants to do it on our own. Because helping all these people, getting paid X amount at the gym—that's how you know you're an entrepreneur when you're like, “Wait a second—”

“I’m pretty sure I can do this better on my own! Shouldn’t I get paid more for this?”

Right! But the legwork was done for those people—the trust was built, the qualified leads were already there, whether they liked it or not. There were people that were saying to her, “I don't even know why I'm in this office with you. I'm here because I have to be. I don't really want to do this.” They end up being her best testimonials.

But now you know, we have over 100 people that have watched that webinar and we're like, “You got a goal, but the sales—‘Oh well?’ You got to go back to those hundred people! You got to go back and say, Hey, the belly-to-belly! The personalization! What was the biggest thing that made you click into that webinar? Was there anything in there that resonated with you, anything that didn't resonate with you? What are you looking for? What are your worries and your fears about hiring someone like me? Like you? What do you need to know for us to be able to help you?”

Instead of the “Watch the webinar, do the application, click it, buy it.” You can't duplicate the same process—well you can, but there's more legwork and belly-to-belly work that has to be done. You have to follow up. So even though everyone leading to you was automated, when it's a service-based high ticket, sometimes there's a conversation that's required. When you've got 100 people that want to work with you, And you're the lag in your own way, because you don't want to have a conversation, come on.

That's a problem. You’re really shooting yourself in the foot.

Yes. You have to do this much. Don't let this be the month that makes it not work.

Yeah, you might be missing the office. Right? Like you think about the analogy behind that. The reason why her biggest success was at the gym was because she got people into her office. And that office they got a relationship, into intimacy. We all get nutrition, we all get health. We all get that we need to work out, eat better, and drink water. But you know, you need that next level—you need someone to tell you how to do it.

You need to trust someone enough to say “Yes, I'll do it with you.”

That's very true. There's a lot of choices out there. There's a tremendous amount of information.

How much money have we spent on health products? MLM. Training. And she makes the claim which is valid, and I believe her, that “I want to be the last nutritionist you ever work with.”

I love that.

“I teach you about how to do it for life. I teach you how to truly live in tune with your body.” I'm like, “And then there's 100 people that need you! Get your butt on the phone!”

Yeah, so maybe my next one of these Facebook Lives I’ll do something on closing! Because that's one of my favourites. Lead gen and sales—remember this—not the same thing. Also your website, your offers, your products—not the same thing as your marketing in your lead generation.

So all of these things are pieces of a puzzle—they're like Legos. You're building a house as colourful and as interesting and as weird as you want it to be, but that doesn't mean you don't need the architecture. So if you're looking for more architecture, for your business, and to help with the marketing, to help with the lead generation, and you really want someone who's going to tell you—”Do this, don't do that”—talk to Lisa and Eric. They'll tell you what you need to know. And I do trust wholeheartedly that you'll be fully taken care of.

I appreciate you guys being here today and joining me for this collaboration conversation here on Facebook Live. And we'll be also sharing this out with our other networks as well. So I'll see you all over “the Internets.”

Thank you so much for having us!

Oh, my pleasure. We'll talk to you soon, guys. Thanks!

Online Lead Generation - Tina Dietz - Lisa Pezik

Lisa Pezik

Online Lead Generation - Tina Dietz - Eric Pezik

Eric Pezik

Lisa, her husband Eric Pezik, and their team specialize in done for you services with branding, content creation, funnels, and websites, with their agency Infinite Design House. They also offer SEO, blogs, social media, and lead generation with their Sales Booster Program. They do all the things you don't know how to do or don't want to do in the online space!

5 Steps to Find Your Book Inside Your Blog

Here are five steps you, as a content generator, can take to find your book inside your blog (and inside your other content, too.)

Find Your Book - Tina Dietz - Alyssa Berthiaume

“We all have a book inside us,” as Dana Micheli, fellow ghostwriter points out. I agree with her, but I also believe that content generators, who are practically manifesting material in their sleep, already have a book outside of them. They just don’t know it…yet.

I consider a content generator a business owner or entrepreneur with an abundant blog, LinkedIn articles for days, keynote addresses and speeches filling up digital file folders, transcripts of every interview they’ve ever done (podcast or otherwise), and copies of any free eBook, presentation, or article they’ve ever written. Whether they’ve generated all this content themselves, or benefited from the support and talent from content writers, copywriters, and/or ghostwriters, the fact is this: They are sitting on a content gold mine, each piece a precious gem, and part of a book just waiting to be produced.

I’m fortunate to work with clients who believe in the power of content and who leverage me to help grow and nurture their mines. Most of them want to produce their first book (or next) but struggle with repurposing their content or searching for the parts and pieces to produce a book—a book that is focused, well-written, showcases their expertise, offers value to their audience, and boosts their business credibility and brand.

Here are five steps a content generator can take to find a book inside their blog (and any of their other content, too).

STEP 1: Identify Topical or Thematic Threads and Trends

List all the places where content exists and visit these locations. Review headings (and subheadings) and scan your content. Note keywords and other recurring ideas that you notice.

Rank your discovered themes/topics and choose the one that speaks to you the most, or aligns with your brand and vision for your business. By going through this process, you’ve found the focus of your book. (You’ll also likely find the most precious gems: the stuff you once wrote that really shined above the rest. Hopefully, those pieces make it into your final work.)

STEP 2: Define Your Reader and Relevance

Now that you’ve identified your topic, pull together copies of each piece of related content. Scan the content and ask yourself: who is my ideal audience? Why is this topic relevant to them? What will they get in reading this information? How is it different and new from what already exists? To take this one step further, envision all this content in its final version (a beautiful book with your name on it) and reflect on what your intended goals / hopes / outcomes are for this book. 

STEP 3: Outline Your Table of Contents

Determine where you believe you want your reader to begin and to end. Mark the beginning as A on a piece of paper, and write B on the other side. You’ll fill in the outline of A to B as you read your content again, and this will become your table of contents. Now, this time, you’re not going to just look at content online. Print everything relevant to your topic. Read each piece then set it aside (temporarily). Yes, this may take you some time. You’re mining for the gold here. What are the relevant pieces that really stand out? How do you see these pieces creating an arc of the work? Organize your content based on how to get the reader from point A to B. List the titles of each individual piece in your outline according to how you think they should be ordered.

STEP 4: Investigate Gaps and Goodness

Pinpoint what’s missing and what’s already kicking butt. Read your content from start to finish in the order you outlined. Record what is working (‘goodness’) about what isn’t (‘gaps’). Make a plan for addressing the gaps. This may mean reading it out loud to yourself, taking some time away from the draft, running it through spell check, asking a friend to proofread, etc. 

STEP 5: Polish Before Your Publish

Polish your work so it’s crystal clear and shines like a diamond. It’s time to fine-tune things before you publish—no matter what publication route you go. When you’ve finished addressing the gaps, read the full manuscript for clarity, cohesion, and flow. Mark the text where adjustments need to be made. Proofread with an eye for spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc., and review for formatting and styling consistency. Solicit the feedback of others you trust to give you a professional and critical eye, and assess if you achieved your goals.

You have now finished mining a book out of your voluminous mountain of content.

If you need some extra support with these five steps, you can snatch up my free gift, Finding Your Book Inside Your Blog: A Content Master’s Scavenger Hunt & Field Guide to Find the Pieces to Produce Your Book

Find Your Book - Tina Dietz - Alyssa Berthiaume

Alyssa Berthiaume is a native Vermonter, professional (and creative) writer, practicing feminist, recovering middle child, wannabe superhero, and a mom who’s pretty sure she’s “winging it” most of the time. She’s the leading Lady (Boss) and ghostwriter at The Write Place, Right Time – her virtual boutique of writing services for badass coaches, trainers, and speakers, and other badass entrepreneurs who don't “do words” but know they need them. To know more about how she can “do words” for you, visit her website.

Alyssa Berthiaume – Copywriting, Ghostwriting, Lady Boss and Owner of The Write Place, Right Time

How to Enchant Your Skeptical Audience and Bring Them Back for MORE

Tina Dietz talks to Andrea Enright about the importance of not just engaging, but enchanting, your audience.(Facebook Live, August 11, 2020)

How to enchant your skeptical audience - Tina Dietz

Tina Dietz talks to Andrea Enright about the importance of not just engaging, but enchanting, your audience. They discuss:

  • How “engagement” has become a social media buzzword
  • How it’s vital to make people understand what you provide, not just what you do
  • The importance of being authentic
  • Tips for improving your profile and presence on LinkedIn
  • The value of stories for creating enchantment—but avoiding the “Once upon a time” trope!

Listen below:

Hey everybody!

Since I'm posting this publicly, I'll introduce myself really quickly. And then of course, my beautiful friend and colleague here.

So those of you don't know me, I'm Tina Dietz, I'm the owner and CEO of Twin Flames Studios. I have been building businesses for many decades internationally, but what me and my company do best is unleash the voices of trusted brands and companies, executives, and leaders worldwide. We do that primarily through audiobooks, podcasting, and vocal leadership.

I've decided to go ahead and talk with some of my colleagues live—we have all these conversations that happen in the background, I know all these amazing human beings who are out doing incredible work in the world and I thought, “Well, you know what, why not share some of this awesome with the world?”

This is Andrea Enright from The Boot Factor—and I'll tell you more about her in just a second—but Andrea and I had gotten to talking about the proliferation, the outrageous number of people claiming to be LinkedIn experts that is happening lately. And all the mistakes that people make in their branding and their messaging, and how tired we are of certain conversations in the industries that we work in with consulting and coaching and service industry professionals.

We work a lot with the financial industries, and with high end consultants, with healthcare organizations—pharmaceutical—and training organizations. So you know, we have all these inside conversations; now we're bringing it back out to you and today what we're talking about primarily is the conversation around engagement: “Well you have to create an engagement on social media!”

Are you tired of that? I'm tired of this.

Buzzword, buzzword, buzzword!

It's such a buzzword right?

Let me tell you more about Andrea before we get into this. So Andrea, has been an entrepreneur since 2002. And much like myself, she has a checkered past…

Well, they's fun questions to come. That’s what we call a hook!

Love it!

But she's been working, beautifully, with coaches, with consultants, a lot of folks coming out of the corporate world becoming consultants, and helping them to clarify their message—”Please god, clarify your message”—and get your message out there, in these badass elevator pitches, making sure that your LinkedIn profile is, I'm gonna use a really horrible term, “on fleek.” 

But making sure that it is beautiful and pristine and represents exactly who you are. We'll talk a little bit more about how that gets done. Because that is an art and a science. And she's just a really cool person to hang out with. I love her because she's no BS. That's what we're mostly talking about here.

So, thank you for joining me here today. We were having some technical issues with Facebook Live, so thanks for hanging with me through that.

Thanks, Tina!

Yeah. Sorry, do you want me to—should I talk about—

No! Talk. Absolutely! Go ahead. I'd love to have you go and dive in. I'm curious, what did I miss?

I mean… I really work with coaches and executives, and really helping people get brave with their brand, basically. When you get brave, then you get to something called, what I'm starting to call, “Leads In,” which is getting Lead Gen without freaking out, you know?

Yes!

Without the panic! So, if you can get to your authentic self, and you can get brave, and you can show up and get vulnerable and show just a little bit of lack of perfection because nobody wants to see that—we're totally bored with it. We're not interested in a long list of achievements.

And I think… Here, how about this? This is really what it sums up—most LinkedIn profiles start out with, like, “I'm not sure how to tell you this, but I'm kind of a big deal.” Right?

Yeah, actually, mine does. I know mine’s up for an evaluation. That's one of the reasons you and I have been talking And I haven't updated it yet. Because I'm intending to have your badassery all over it! So, that was the way it got done.

And it's the same way with webinars and things like that, you know? Speaking from my own experience: I've had to talk to a number of clients in the vocal leadership side of things to please, please, please tell a human story. Don't spend twenty minutes talking about your long list of how perfect your life is before you actually teach anything or share anything or give people any value about why they're there.

Right! To give people credit—to not totally throw everyone under the bus—LinkedIn was set up originally as like this resume place, right? Like this job seeking place. So people are like, “Oh my gosh, I better put everything that's amazing about me in a long boring list, like a play-by-play timeline of your life.” And guess what? Nobody cares!

Yep.

Just please summarize for me, because I'm not getting past the third line.

Yeah, and that's it. Our attention spans are like that of a gnat, pretty much, online these days. And, well, here's what here's one of my other favorites: I'm sorry, guys. We're not trying to totally throw you on the bus here. If you have any of these things, it's okay. We're all human. It's a good time. But you know, how about how about this? This pose!

It's true! I think people get really self conscious about “How am I supposed to look?” It can be okay. If you're looking authentic, if your teeth are showing, if you're smiling, if your face is taking 60% of the frame.

Yes—please.

Then you're good. I don't care what you're doing. But yeah, there is a pose—a perfection about it. And people are just not interested in that. And now LinkedIn is going from like resume to resource, like, “How can you be of value?”

Yes! From resume to resource! Let's talk about that. We've been doing some different things on LinkedIn this year and really doubling down on using LinkedIn.

We've been using LinkedIn a lot in the background and now it's kind of having a resurgence. I think for a long time, LinkedIn was a bit of the redheaded stepchild of the social media world, and now it's having a resurgence because so many more companies—we're business to business companies, and us marketing high-end services on Facebook does not work. Same with Twitter. Forget it.

Yes!

It's noise. It's just noise. So we've been having a lot of a tremendous engagement—hopefully enchantment, we shall see—with folks. And getting tremendous reach on our post, sometimes up to 65, 70,000 people seeing our posts! But it takes a lot of time to craft these messages, and get things out there. Fortunately, I have a fabulous team and they're really helping to repurpose content, get things out there every day on a regular basis.

But you know, where do you think people should start? Do you start with the content? Do you start with your profile? Chicken/egg.

I want to talk about the posting because I think there's a big shift that needs to happen with the posting. But the profile is really where you start. That's where you should start with anything. If you are a high-end coach, executive turn consultant, speaker, author—people are googling you, they're finding you, please start with your profile, and turn that into a resource instead of a resume.

So, how can you give a soft sell and create Thought Leadership, and give them something that they can use in their meeting today at 3 o'clock—and this is amazing! This makes them think, “Oh, wow! She knows what she's talking about,” and “Oh, wow! I'm going to call her anyway.” They're not going to go implement your shit with this “three tips” that you give them. If they're serious, they're gonna call you. So this is really just—it's giving. It's giving stuff away and being okay with that. It's serving instead of selling.

Serving instead of selling. That really is the key, and I think that it's also important if that feels like a foreign concept for people. Because every so often, most of the people that we work with are heavily service-oriented, heavily relationship-oriented. They're used to doing a lot of business what we would call “belly-to-belly.” But I think a lot of folks have a difficulty translating that to online, particularly our podcasting clients.

We work with a lot of folks who are very high touch, very white glove, wealth managers and consultants, who really spend a lot of time cultivating relationships with their clients. So when you go into a social media situation, it feels sometimes to them—not only like the Wild West, but like a foreign entity, like a different language they have to speak.

We talk about being vulnerable. We talk about being authentic. But for somebody who's having these long conversations with people, how does that translate?

This has been a perfect segway because of Zoom, because of having to switch to Zoom. So, people are like “I meet my clients face to face, I can't give them this custom thing. How do I do this?” And really, I think it used to be building a LinkedIn profile to get people to know, like, and trust you—

Yes, classic.

—and that was, like Dale Carnegie. It's like, Okay, “How can I get get those people in,” right? But now it has to be these three things, I believe, these three pillars. Mine are: Translate, Educate, and Enchant.

So, we Translate that message; and the biggest way we do that is, because we're not face to face with them and we can't see, we can't go off their cues—we are not in real time—we have to Translate that message, and we have to think, “How can I think of it in terms of how they're thinking about it.” Not “how I'm thinking about selling it,” because nobody wants to be sold to. “How can I think about it in terms of them receiving it?

What is their pain? What's keeping them up at night? What is the wound that they have that they can that they cannot get past? What is hurting? And what will then make them think of that message in a translated way. So, Translate is really that first one. 

Yeah, Translate very, very important there.

And here's the other thing. You mentioned something we talk about a lot in marketing, on the marketing side of things, which is pain points. I, personally, am pretty uncomfortable with the terminology of that, and a lot of my clients are as well. So, I want to translate that piece as well. Because classically, we do talk about pain points and identifying their pain or their wounds, and things like that. I want to counteroffer something here and say, you know, it might not be something that keeps people up at night, but what's the itch they can't seem to scratch? Or what do they have questions about? What are they curious about?

It really is all about putting yourself in the other person's shoes. My clients are doing well. They're doing well for themselves. They're really out there helping other people. But if I were to talk with them and say, “You have to have a podcast or everything's going to hell,” that's never going to happen.

Okay, that is a great point, and I think pain points can matter. Two things come to mind. One is that I recently redefined for me the definition of… redefined “brave,” because “brave” used to be like, being scared and doing it anyway. Guess what? That's really not good advice for a teenager who's just about to enter—

Yeah, it's a little bit psychopathic on occasion.

Right! Like “Oh, you're afraid, but keep going!” So instead, I think it's this inner knowing or this inner voice, and I think a lot of my clients’ pain—it hurts not that bad, but they know that something's off. They know they haven't tended to something, they know there's a voice that's—that they're hearing these whispers. So, I think when you have that inner knowing, that also moves you into that brave position, and into that position where you're like, “Look, I've got a change, I've got to change something. I have to go that extra step.”

That makes total sense. I had a really important turning point in my life a couple of years ago, where I realized that I had this background mantra of “I'm fine; it'll be fine. I'm fine; it'll be fine.” That's a really good thing if you're just looking to evaluate something and truly let it go, but I realized that I had spent a lot of my life talking myself into things being fine when they weren't fine.

Right. Right.

And so, I think it's important, if you are listening to this right now, if you're watching this right now, and you hear yourself trying to talk yourself into something that “It'll be fine. It'll work out.” That is a red flag.

It's a great point, and I think that leads me to this “fear abundance.” When I'm talking to people, when I'm helping them establish their brand, and they're wanting to sell—I'm like “I'm not going to outlaw it, but let's try not to wrangle our clients, or potential clients, into a position of fear.” Like, “Oh, my God, if we don't do this, things are going to be over.”

Yes.

You don't want to instill that kind of fear. I really want to get them out of the trance of scarcity and toward a mindset of abundance, right? There is more; there can be more. You can find more. And so, I think that's important as well.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

So what are some of the other things that you tend to see—and we'll stick with LinkedIn for right now because it's a good focal point for us to look at—especially if we're considering that how you do one thing is how you do everything. It is a place where we're focusing on showcasing ourselves as well as our businesses: Who are you, as an individual, as a leader, as a CEO, as a consultant.

But truly, we're not looking at business pages, or company pages, the same way we tend to look at individual profiles. So what are you seeing that people are missing the mark on this?

A couple things. One is they're thinking of themselves very firmly attached to the job that they currently have. When you do that, and then that job ends, and then your life will shift. So what we have to do on LinkedIn—and with a personal brand—is really talk about yourself, and brand yourself, in a way that is connected but independent of your job, right? So then when you're moving on, when you're moving up, when you're moving over, those skills are much more easily translated.

I see people describing what they do in their job instead of what they do around their job, and for the company. So it's task oriented instead of outcome oriented. I think I’m definitely seeing that as a mistake.

That's a really important focal point, and I want to build onto what you're saying. On the podcasting side of things, we often work with folks who are emerging—in their thought leadership, in their vocal leadership, in their messaging—and we see the same thing: I have a client right now, actually, who is still so firmly ensconced in the corporate world, does a great job there, has been there for 15 years, but he has a whole other company that he's been developing on the side.

So, the dance he has to dance is in speaking broadly about who he is, what he stands for, what his values are, and—rather than a lot of how to, or any kind of pitching or things like that—and that's a that's a real mindset shift.

It really is. I've seen people do that though—you really can go from, “Well, what am I really bringing to the table on the board position I have, in my company, in my side business? Why am I valued?” Then going from there, we see that people are putting their positions. They're just treating it as a resume. Instead of a headline at the top, I see a position. It really, in my opinion, should be a headline. It should be who you help, what you actually give. Not advice; you give peace of mind. Not a massage; you give out relaxation.

Translate what you do into what people are really getting, and try to lead with that. Positions mean less than they ever have, because they hand out positions because they can't pay you more sometimes. Isn't that true? I mean, your executive title does matter, but that doesn't really tell me how you're any different from the other VP. So you can have your position, but then I want to know more. I want to really know the hard skill and the soft skill of what you're bringing to the table.

And I want to give a shout out. A lot of what I've learned is from my LinkedIn coach Ellen McLemore. She's amazing. She really has helped shift my mindset on LinkedIn, and that's been that's been huge. It is really a mindset shift.

You know, one of the things that just occurred to me is the concept of elevator pitches. Which is something you work a lot with as well?

Yeah!

How does that interact with something like LinkedIn, or does it at all?

I think it really does. You have to remember that it's all about context, so when I'm sitting next to someone on a plane (in my non-COVID life), I need to have an elevator pitch that is a hook, and it's just enough for someone to turn their head and say, “Tell me more.” Or if I’m on a networking event, or if I'm a Zoom call.

But on a LinkedIn page, it's much different. We've got the scroll, we've got someone clicking, we've got someone distracted by their other tabs, and so we have to go in these little bits—and they're going to scan them. I do think the elevator pitch absolutely should be woven into the LinkedIn profile, but I would try to squeeze in some of those words I usually use into your headline. That's where I put them first, because that once you get into your “About” section it's a much different formula.

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. So then coming back to our original topic of this idea of going from Engagement to Enchantment, what do you think are the differences between the two? We've seen a lot of engagement on things, but whether somebody leaves “enchanted” or not—

Yeah!

—Customers or clients certainly do, but what about interactions out in the world on a daily basis?

There's a few things we can do, to do this. Engagement is like, “Hey, I'm paying attention,” which is what we want everyone to do. To me it's like a bare minimum of having a conversation. “Is someone paying attention to me? Okay, I’ll keep talking,” which to be honest, I’m not super comfortable doing. If they're just gonna stand there, and keep talking just because, okay, I got their attention—I want more, and so it's just not enough.

To really create what I call “Enchantment,” we are going to take them by the hand and lead them on a journey. We are going to look them directly in the eye and create an intimate conversation. We are going to make them feel as though we are talking directly to them. We do that by getting human: by using human phrases, by really resonating with not just their head, but also their heart—

Yeah!

—and getting vulnerable. Most people are. Why this is hard, is, it’s scary to be vulnerable—people are a little afraid to put themselves out there, and they're also very afraid to be specific—to really talk to that one target audience person that you want to reach.

Right! That idea of “Well, if I niche down, I might miss someone or something.” That's another indication that your mindset may be a little less than abundant, perhaps, and that's okay. We all do this. Like we hit these walls, we hit these ceilings of everything that we do.I think this is also a really good place to remind people that you don't constantly have to be telling a deeply intimate personal story—you can just tell a story. This is the storytelling portion of things. It's not “Once upon a time…” necessarily, but this whole idea of creating intimacy, creating connection, and creating authentic, heart centered, alignment with another human being. That is, we connect with these little stories. We're all wired for stories.

I would say even that storytelling’s become such a buzzword. The problem is that not everybody's good at telling a story, and that's okay. Not everyone's a storyteller, and so one trick is to remember what you said—it doesn't have to be vulnerable.For example, in my profile, I used to say something like, “There's nothing I love more than mining you for your magic and building you a great brand.” And then I say, “Except maybe chips and salsa, but otherwise you’re number one!” It just gets a giggle, right? It's sharing something about me that's not vulnerable or secret or anything, I just like chips and salsa!

But it makes me like a human instead of a company, and people just they just respond to that!

Right, exactly. Yeah. as well. Another point in your bio, you say, you know, you speak to audiences—speak and sometimes swear, in front of audiences—I do the same thing. The little bit of human internal conversation with these little moments that create connection and create this sense of “Oh, I know you.”

Right! Like, “Oh, I know you! You're like my neighbor” or “I know you! You're like my daughter.” Like there's a resonance there. I think you really hit it too with this. There is that storytelling, but it doesn't have to be much—not “I've got to tell this long story.”

No, no. I was just working with this absolutely brilliant chiropractor. He's invented this incredible machine to help people with low back pain. He's an older gentleman, credentials out the yin-yang, and he's about to be on his first podcast.

But the question that always gets asked in the beginning of a podcast—notice I didn't ask it—is, “Tell me a little bit about yourself. Tell me what brought you to this place.” Or “Tell me about your journey?” I hate that question.

It's a lazy question on the part of the host. Sorry guys, it is, and it is boring to the audience because everyone answers it the same way. They always answer it, “Once upon a time… Well, I lived in a small town, and I grew up, and I got this degree, and I started in this job, and…” Once upon a time stories—we are programmed to go to sleep when we hear “Once upon a time!”

That's a good point!

So all we did was have him say the main thing that he spent his whole life doing: “What's the main thing that you spend your time doing? What's the main thing—the outcome they reach?” He said, “I spent my entire career reducing people's pain and suffering without drugs or surgery, and it was actually back when I was in high school as a 90-pound weakling on a football team.”

People are like, “What?” It's a 180 to tell this beautiful little story. Now he's just a dude, you're hanging out with coffee, who's telling you a story. By the end of that very short story I might add—of how he kind of discovered the possibility of chiropractic through high school injury—everyone's like, “I love you!”

It is true! The thing is you have to be aware enough. A great exercise to get you to this is just asking yourself five or ten questions that I include in my Boot Factor brain questionnaires, like, “What do you think about work? What do you believe about humans?” Just those two, right like, something's come up, right?

You can journal on that for a month.

Right! They're like writing prompts. You just have to answer those, rather than “Where was I born?”

“What do you do really well, what's most important to you?” And I like to ask little silly things like, “What's on your nightstand? What's your favorite food? What could you not live without—not your phone!” It gets into people's habits, so that's really about digging and trying to show up in just this little way on your profile.

Let's get some people hooked up here with connecting with us further. So the best place, Andrea, for everyone to reach you is at TheBootFactor.com; is that where we want people to go and check things out?

That's right! You can go there, sign up with my scheduler—it's right on the front page. If you go there and mention the Facebook Live, you'll get a 20-minute, free LinkedIn lowdown session with me. And I'm telling you, we're gonna have fun!

Oh, I've done it with you. It's very enlightening.

Yeah! I don't do anything without like having a little bit a little bit of moxie, a little bit of craziness. And you really will get some quick answers that you can check off.

Kickass! So go to The Boot Factor, literally: Go to TheBootFactor.com, schedule a 20-minute LinkedIn conversation—it really is enlightening. I've done this with Andrea and she really will kick your ass in the most beautiful and loving way. And you need that—I know you know you need that.And if you want to connect further with me and with Twin Flames Studios go to TwinFlamesStudios.com and check out what we do there. Check out our audio library of podcasts and audiobooks. Also feel free to reach out on our contact page anytime. You can find us all over the social media networks—”the internets,” as it were—under our name, because we have done the work and we show up on Google.So there it is. So hey, Andrea, thanks for joining me from… Denver today?

Yeah, Denver.

Thanks for joining me from the mountains. I am in the flat, flat land of Florida, as we have this cross continental conversation in the time of COVID. Thanks everyone for joining us!

Got questions? Leave a comment and we'll talk to y'all soon.

Yeah!

Bye!

Interested in learning more about audiobooks and howyou can be using audio inyour writing career ?

3 Ways B2B Enterprises Can Leverage Podcasting

Podcasts' popularity has the potential to open doors for every company, including B2B. Here are three ways B2B enterprises can leverage podcasting

The most popular podcasts are businesses unto themselves. From interview formats to history lessons to true-crime storytelling, long-form spoken content has captured the imagination of the public. A staggering 165 million Americans have listened to a podcast at some point. Top podcasts earn millions of viewers and attract top-paying advertisers.

If you operate a business-to-business enterprise, this may seem to have nothing to do with you. Your warm market is not millions strong—you may only be a few thousand appropriate prospects in the world. Even if all of them became avid listeners, it wouldn’t attract big advertising dollars.

Still, a successful podcast isn’t just about direct revenue. Podcasts are relatively easy, cheap, and even fun to produce, and their popularity has the potential to open doors for every company, including B2B.

Here are three ways B2B enterprises can leverage podcasting.

1. Establish Yourself as an Authority

Producing an authoritative podcast makes you an authority. Podcasting can up your cache in your industry, even if your content does not specifically target your B2B warm market. 

If your podcast resonates with the consumer base of your B2B vertical, B2B prospects will take notice. It could lead them to favor your brand over competitors as their B2B vendor. They might agree to be guests on your podcast, establishing their own authority and forming a bond of reciprocity that could blossom into a business relationship.A quality podcast could open the door to speaking engagements, exclusive invitations, and VIP industry insider status. No convention MC is mad about including “Host of the popular podcast XYZ…” when they list the credentials of the keynote speaker in their introduction.

2. Laser-Target Your Warm Prospects

The smaller size and specialization of your warm market is a good thing when it comes to podcast promotion. There may not be many of them, but all of them will be interested in what you have to say. There may only be a handful of podcasts targeted directly to their needs. You could target your prospects with paid search or email campaigns with your podcast as the content.

Consider—a prospect may spam-file a marketing email or scroll right past a social media ad … but a podcast with an attractive subject matter specific to their industry? That may go on the Bluetooth media player of your prospect’s car on the drive to work. Talk about making a warm prospect even warmer.

3. Hone a Brand Message

To cut through the noise in a crowded marketplace, you need a brand message that sets you apart. B2B companies probably already know this, but they may not know how to communicate that voice to the world.

One of the keys to the podcast boom is the unique ability of the format to humanize the podcaster. Like FDR’s fireside chats (arguably the original podcast), it’s a chance for listeners to dive deep into an aloof public persona and find the genuine person beneath.

Podcasts allow you to tell your story—articulate the journey that led you to your position of expertise. Even if a mass audience does not gravitate to your content, it’s an opportunity to forge a personal connection with the B2B prospects who will resonate with your message. 

It’s a chance to be edgy, honest, unflinching and authentically you, to put your brand purpose out into the world and see what comes back.

Ready to put into the world your voice and your brand's purpose?

7 Ways to Re-purpose Podcast Interviews Into Marketing Gold

Let’s explore the ways you can re-purpose podcast interviews and use this invaluable content to create content marketing assets for your business(Article on Pioneering Collective, March 6, 2020)

Re-purpose Podcast Interviews - Tina Dietz

So you got interviewed on a podcast as an expert. Now what?

Rather than simply letting the host of the podcast be 100% responsible for sharing and promoting that podcast episode, let’s explore the ways you can use this invaluable content to create content marketing assets for your brand and/or business.

Repurposing your content in different ways will also help more people find you, based on their preferences of consuming media. An ideal client may not have heard of the podcast you were on, but they may be avid readers of LinkedIn Pulse and find a repurposed article from you. Or, perhaps your Audiogram catches the eye of one of your contacts on LinkedIn, and they get excited to learn and hear more.

Tina Dietz, Vocal Leadership and Influence Marketing Expert at Twin Flames Studios, shares 7 ways they have repurposed content for themselves and their podcasting clients.

  1. Create blog posts on your website using the image and show notes from the original show, and also link to the original content. EXAMPLE
  2. Use services like MissingLettr to then create social media posts automatically from those show notes.
  3. Make your social media content evergreen for about 12 months using SmarterQueue, Social Jukebox, etc. You can copy/paste posts from MissingLettr into one of these other tools.
  4. Add the original link and description of your podcast interview to the Publications section of your LinkedIn profile.
  5. Take an excerpt of your audio and turn it into a quick audiogram for eye-catching sharing on social media.
  6. Create longer blog posts and articles for outlets like LinkedIn Pulse or industry publications based on your content, either by listening back to your interview and taking notes, or getting your interview transcribed by machine or live person.
  7. For each interview you do, take 1 juicy point you discussed and create a 2-minute video talking about that topic and sending people to the interview/podcast you were on for more information.
    1. Import your video to Headliner and it will transcribe and caption it for you for free.
    2. Share your video on social media and make sure to tag the host of the show!

The possibilities are amazing! Fortunately, these are also tasks that lend themselves well to outsourcing and delegation. If this list seems like a lot to add to your workflows, start with just one or two of the above to get started and then you can always add on more as you develop your podcasting and repurposing prowess.

Tina Dietz is an internationally acclaimed speaker, podcaster, audio publisher, and vocal leadership maven. Visit her at Twin Flames Studios

Pioneering Collective is a membership-based executive communications organization. We invite leaders to engage broadly, tell their authentic stories, and stretch beyond the status quo to connect and drive impact.

Interested in learning more about podcasting andhow we can help you share your voice with the world?

Ep 2493: Twelve Minute Convos w/ Tina Dietz [Podcast]

​I am back with Engel Jones for another amazing Twelve Minute Convos podcast. Such a great concept to spread so many voices(Podcast on Twelve Minute Convos, October, 2019)

twelve minutes convos - Tina Dietz

Tina Dietz is an award-winning and internationally acclaimed speaker, audiobook publisher, podcast producer, and influence marketing expert who 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.

In 2016, Tina was the recipient of the Evolutionary Business Council MORE award and in 2017 she received the award for Outstanding Audio Company from The Winner’s Circle. She is also a member of the EBC leadership body and a founding member of the Forbes Coaches Council. Tina was also the lead interviewer in the podcasting documentary “The Messengers” and featured in the film.

Tina splits her time between the US and Costa Rica where she’s part of the leadership team building a community of conscious leaders called Vista Mundo.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

  • How are you doing? [01:01]
  • What’s the latest with you? [01:52]
  • Is the StartSomething Show podcast in hiatus? [03:11]
  • Where is the best place to connect with you? [04:04]
  • On being a stem from an entrepreneurial family. [05:04]
  • Is David in the picture still? [07:13]
  • In closing, is there anything else you’d like to share with our amazing audience? [11:58]

How To Create a Lead Magnet To Attract Fans and Customers

Do you want more fans? Do you want more buyers? Do you want more listeners? Do you want leads for your business? Do you want to connect with your audience in a meaningful way?

Your Lead Magnet can do all of these.

  • It can turn a listener into a fan because it gives them something interesting and useful, from you.
  • It can get you more buyers for your products and services because it gives them something that solves their problem.
  • It can get you more listeners because it may be the first contact an online searcher has with you.
  • It will get you leads for your business. That is its purpose.
  • And finally, the lead magnet will help you to connect with members of your audience in a meaningful way because you get to communicate with your leads via email and share information that you don’t share as part of your show.

It's been said, “the better the lead magnet, the bigger the list”.

Actually, I said it many years ago and continue to say it because it’s true.

Yes, I am talking about the lead magnet. The enticing content that makes your reader, listener, audience member want to give you their email address so you can communicate with them on a regular basis ‘privately’ by email.

In all truth, the lead magnet can make or break a lead generation process. A good one will lead to success and a bigger email list. A bad one will lead to dismay because few people will want to get on your list.

Is a Lead Also A Potential Customer?

The short answer is “No”.

A lead is an unqualified contact. Any person that hasn’t been qualified as a prospect is a lead. In the sales process you do this:

Gather leads > Qualify them into prospects > Move them through your sales funnel to become a paying customer.

For example: Your customer is a sales manager in a Fortune 500 company. You may have 50 people download your lead magnet and give you their email address. Of those 50 people, 23 are solo business owners, 5 are business consultants, 11 are virtual assistants, and 12 are sales managers. All of these people are leads.

A prospect is an individual or organization that fits your criteria to be a potential customer. They don’t have to express interest in what you are selling to be considered a prospect, they just have to fit the right qualifications.

For example: Of the 50 people who gave you email addresses, all are leads and 12 are prospects, aka potential customers.

What Is A Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet is anything of value that you offer for free in exchange for someone’s email address.

You can do it through a creative landing page or a simple graphic on your website.

It’s referred to as a “magnet” because it is part of an attraction marketing effort. You want to attract people to your site and program so you offer an enticing freebie. The freebie acts like a magnet, attracting those who are interested in what you’re offering. Those who give you their email address in exchange for that freebie are Leads.

Leads can become prospects.

There are two ways they can qualify to be prospects:

  1. they click on links inside the lead magnet
  2. they click on links inside the emails you send to them (because they’re on your list)

What can you create and offer that is irresistible to your ideal customer?

What can you create and offer that delivers real value and piques their interest in your paid offers?

What steps are involved to create a lead magnet?

Create a Lead Magnet in 5 Steps

1. Know Your Ideal Customer 

Your program is focused on a target audience. This means your lead magnet should be of value to the buyer inside your target audience or the buyer that you want to be a part of your audience.

Everyone listening to your program isn't your ideal customer, but your ideal customer is listening to your program.

It is possible that you have multiple ideal customers. Don't try to create a lead magnet for all of them. Instead, create a separate one for each distinct Ideal Customer.

2. Know What Your Ideal Customer Wants 

You must give them a reason to download your lead magnet. The best lead magnet is the one that gives a quick solution to a common problem your ideal buyer is facing. The quicker they experience results from your lead magnet, the better.

3. Name Your Lead Magnet 

You now know what you're offering and to whom, so naming your lead magnet will be easy. Similar to creating an attention-getting headline for your episode or a blog post for maximum listening or viewing, the name will help you get maximum downloads. Keep it simple, base it on the one challenge and one solution you present in it.

4. Choose The Type Of Lead Magnet To Offer

The most common lead magnets are PDF guides and reports. However, there are other options and there is a list right after step 5. The important thing for you to keep in mind is this:

Keep It Simple. The easier it is to create, the better. The easier it is to download and digest the better.

You want to solve their problem and move them into your sales funnel quickly. Choose a format that allows for fast delivery and consumption.

5. Create Your Lead Magnet

You're done with the strategic work, now you have to actually create the lead magnet.

Let’s look at the types of lead magnets that work well for many podcasters and radio hosts.

Types of Lead Magnets You Can Create Today

Now you know what a lead magnet is, why you should have one, and the 5 steps to creating it.

The most important thing for you to keep in mind is this: you already have the knowledge and likely have the content on hand, so don’t complicate it!

  • If you have a blog you have an eBook.
  • If you have an online course you have a cheat sheet.
  • If you have show notes or transcripts you have a resource guide.

The following list is meant to get you thinking about how you can put your content into a format that will be attractive and useful for your ideal customer. That’s all. If it seems weird or like it’s too much work, then cross it off the list. If it seems doable or like something you may already have on hand, then circle it.

  1. A Short Guide or Report
    Focus on one specific solution for one challenge your ideal customer is experiencing. This could be something like: – show how to prepare their next presentation so their team understands what they need to do- walk through the steps of preparing a speech that inspires or motivates- teach them what to look for when hiring a team member
  2. A Cheat Sheet
    Cheat sheets are more than a checklist but not as in-depth as a guide or report. They’re only a few pages and they get straight to the point. They contain a bit more information than a simple checklist by explaining each point in a short paragraph.
  3. Toolkit/Resource List
    This is an excellent way to provide reference material for them that they can use many times. It’s a great time saver for the lead and a great traffic generator for your website. Because, of course, you’ll have a few tools or resources of your own that they can purchase from your site.
  4. Video Training/Webinar
    Consider creating a video of you showing your prospect how to use your product or walking them through one thing that your service does. Then, at the end of the training or webinar you do a short sell on how they can work with you.
  5. Software Free Trial
    If your product is software, consider the Free Trial option as a lead magnet. When someone can try the product themselves they’re more likely to purchase. How many apps and products have you received a 14-day or 30-day trial to and then purchased for yourself because you liked it?
  6. Offer a Discount
    People love discounts. If it makes sense for you to offer a discount in the form of a coupon or code then all you would need to do is create an image containing that information.
  7. Assessment
    Do you offer coaching? An assessment that includes a guide on how to understand the assessment results is an excellent lead magnet because it not only brings in a lead it also will show you who qualifies to work with you.

Now What?

As you can see, there are quite a few options for creating a lead magnet. There can be more added to this list, but I think there’s enough to get you thinking. Thinking about your audience. Thinking about your ideal customer. Thinking about the content you already have or can easily create that will be attractive to your ideal customer.

What do you do now? You can begin with your own content and quickly create a lead magnet or you can outsource the creation of your lead magnet. Either way, now is the best time to get it done.