Dave Cain: Welcome to unsuitable on Rea Radio, the award-winning financial services and business advisory podcast that challenges your old school business practices in the traditional business suit culture.
Our guests are industry professionals and experts who will challenge you to think beyond the suit and tie while offering you meaningful modern solutions to help enhance your company’s growth. I am your host, Dave Cain.
Since we started producing unsuitable on Rea Radio, we’ve had a lot of individuals, businesses, and even other CPA firms ask us how to get things off the ground. First, the people you have working behind the scenes are essential. Beyond that, we thought it would be pretty cool if we could dedicate an episode of unsuitable to help others who may be considering adding a podcast, blog, or other content marketing to their own marketing mix and strategy.
For this episode, I’ve brought in the big guns. I’ve expanded the budget. Our guests today are no strangers to the podcasting world. I have Brad Circone, former rock star, branding guru, and a producer of unsuitable joining us on this episode, along with the one, the only, and the former host of our podcast, Mark Van Benschoten.
Brad and Mark will walk us through a bit of the history of Unsuitable, while providing you with some insight, best practice tips, that will help you secure your own podcasting success. Welcome back to unsuitable Brad and Mark.
Mark Van Benschoten: Thanks Dave.
Brad Circone: Thanks for having us Dave.
Dave: First of all, I want to make sure that I’ve pronounced the names correctly. Were we okay.
Mark: You were close. I only knew you for eight, nine years, but you did okay.
Dave: I was a little concerned about pronouncing Brad and Mark, that’s where the trouble was.
Brad: Yeah, those monosyllabic words.
Dave: Let’s get started. You guys are both creative and musical talented, but let’s start off with something kind of fun. What’s your favorite go to rock tune of all time? Brad, let’s start with you first.
Brad: The Clash, London Calling.
Dave: Mark?
Mark: I would have to say Shooting Star by Bad Company.
Dave: I had you pegged for The Archies, Sugar Sugar or something like that. Would that be more appropriate?
Mark: I’m not as old as you, so probably not.
Dave: Good. Today we’re going talk about podcast and how Rea & Associates got started in the podcast world. I kind of remember the story. Maybe we can share the story with our listening audience. Mark, I’ll start with you. Do you remember where this idea was hatched?
Mark: I do. My memory might not 100% on, so I’m sure Brad will correct me. I think in a local adult establishment. Adult as they serve mixed drinks, not the other kind of adult. We were just sitting around talking about different ideas and opportunities and how to be creative, and Brad mentioned it there. I thought it was an interesting idea. I didn’t know how it would work, how you would try to make … How many tax updates can you do in a month and keep it interesting? Brad kind of coached me along as to that’s not really what we wold be going for.
Dave: I remember that day. We were on the west side of the bar. Brad began to coach us through this. Do you remember that Brad? Do you remember that discussion?
Brad: I do.
Dave: Thanks for that expanded answer, by the way.
Brad: I do. I was surprised that you guys were, first of all, open and excited about the idea. That was interesting to me because podcasting still is not established as a main marketing tool for most companies, especially not professional services.
Dave: You know I remember sharing with Mark in the early days of the conversation, when he brought it back to the marketing team. I think their first words were, “You got to be F**ing crazy.” Then he took it to the Operations Committee and they said, “You got to be F**ing crazy.” Do you remember those discussions?
Mark: I do. Then we took it to Becca and she said yes, so we did it.
Brad: That’s the power of Becca.
Dave: Speaking of F**ing, have you had Effen Vodka?
Brad: Yes, F**ing years ago.
Dave: It’s pretty good isn’t it?
Brad: Yes it F**ing is. It is good.
Dave: The first …
Mark: I have not.
Brad: Alphabet, buy alcohol.
Dave: The first challenge, if you will, to get this off the ground is you had to sell it. You had to sell it internally.
Mark: Yes. It was something unique to me. What kind of … do you have on marketing? How’s this going to play out? What are we trying to accomplish? I just tend to operate, “Well this is something that I would like to do. I think it would be fun. I like to hear myself speak.” I was all in. That’s where Brad was very helpful and had an audience with our marketing team, and Becca as to here’s what we could accomplish. It was a sales job. I agree.
Brad: In the beginning … But I think the thing’s that important to know is that, there are a lot of bad podcasts, in that all that they do is spew information. One thing that I said right away, when we were sitting on the western side of the bar that day, was with your guys personality and the kind of company you are, I think if we bright that towards the forefront and make it entertaining, not informational first, entertaining first, informational second, that it would fit perfectly with your personality.
Dave: Brad, I think you’ve put it in the framework of, it’s content marketing. Forget that it’s a podcast. It’s a piece of your marketing strategy. Would you concur with that Brad?
Brad: Yeah. I think anything … It is hard. It’s hard to market professional services in differentiated ways. It is. You do a newsletter. You underwrite a couple community events. Well there’s a lot of clutter in those spaces doing that. Hence, when we change the medium, and move it to a podcast, now we take the other 100 accounting firms that aren’t doing podcasts, and we’re not competing with anybody. That was the idea.
Mark: I come at it from a different, slightly different angle …
Dave: I didn’t ask you. It wasn’t your turn to talk.
Mark: Much like home, I’m talking whenever I want. I enjoyed when we did it. It showed us. I agree it is marketing, and it’s part of our marketing strategy. It showed us to be who we are, fun, knowledgeable, personable, breadth of knowledge, breadth of expertise. To me, that’s what I really enjoyed doing. It was us. Here’s just one way to show us being us in a different venue.
Dave: I think it maybe was Brad that came up with the title of unsuitable. Was that your mind?
Brad: No that was actually Becca’s team came up with the title unsuitable.
Dave: The clash, huh?
Brad: The approachability I think is what they were going after. The approachability, the friendliness of the firm. Though we’re knowledgeable and have wide breadth of services, we’re also very approachable and down to earth and humble. That’s what our roots are. That’s part of the Rea way.
Dave: You know Brad, one of the things I’ve heard you talk to us about is, get it right behind the scenes. I look at that as the production model. For our listeners, they’re probably thinking, how do you get started? What do you do? Can you talk about getting it right behind the scenes?
Brad: Yeah I think that what’s great, obviously, about working with the Business Development Team is that they actually are invested in strategy, not just thinking about, “Well, if we do 18 podcasts, what’s our ROI?” I just think that a big part of that behind the scenes was that philosophically we were all on the same level. We had a longterm strategy for podcasting. Not lets try it three or four times and see how it plays out.
Secondly, I think we all looked at podcasting as a voice or a reflection or a tone of the firm. I think that was what Mark was stating just a few minutes ago. When I’m thinking having a bigger picture of what podcasting can do behind the scenes, before you open your mouth on the mic, is a sound strategy.
I think thirdly, we all like the idea of kind of jumping off the ship and doing something a bit more adventuresome, because the firm does have a personality. It’s one way to talk about or write about the firms personality. But when you hear it in this medium, it’s more believable.
Dave: You mentioned this as well, the people behind the scenes. The marketing team at Rea & Associates, hats off to them. They do a lot of work behind the scenes that nobody sees and hears. That’s part of what makes it work, the content marketing. I think we have to congratulate them because they have received nominations and several awards within the accounting profession and outside the accounting profession. Hats off to the marketing team. You have to have somebody that’s very knowledgeable, and wants to step out of the norm.
Brad: And enjoys doing that.
Mark: Can I speak now?
Dave: Yes, like you’re at the house.
Brad: Mark Van Benschoten will be on the mic next.
Mark: If it wasn’t for the marketing team at Rea, it never would have got off the ground. We could have gone to Becca and her team, and she would have said “No it’s not going to happen”, or she had to carry the weight. I’m sure at some point, somebody pulled her aside and says, “Should we be doing this?” She could have gave it a thumbs up or a thumbs down. To take a chance, I think that’s one thing about Rea. It allows people to fail. Failing is not always terrible. If you’re not failing, then you’re probably not stretching yourself enough. The firm allowed Becca to go forward with the project. I think that’s just another sign of the firm and the quality of the firm.
Dave: Mark I want to stay with you on a couple things. As the first host of the podcast, it was pretty difficult.
Mark: It is.
Dave: Would you say?
Mark: It was the day of the month I really enjoyed the most, but I was nervous. To keep it interesting, to keep the dialogue going, it’s harder than you think. Yes.
Dave: You have to do your homework.
Mark: Yes. You had to be prepared. You never knew here the conversation was going to go. To be able to listen, to think at the same time, and that’s hard for me. It is. I enjoy listening to you. You do a fine job, but it’s not as easy as one would think.
Dave: Well you blazed the trail, so I owe it to you.
Mark: I set the bar low, in other words.
Dave: Sound quality’s also vital as you go through, and the quality of the equipment. Brad, this is probably in your question box here. How do you maintain the sound quality?
Brad: I just think a lot of it, whether it’s sound quality, whether it’s the other dimensions we’re entering with photography or video components, it’s all part of the brand. When Rea does something as a company whether it’s professionally or in a community, it’s done at a premier, first class level. Why not do the same thing when venturing out in this medium. I think the big point is, whether it’s behind the scenes or whether it’s how we’re promoting or moving the podcast forward, it’s all about curating content that is entertaining and unique, to share with people in a mobile world now.
Mark: But you’re comment about quality’s important. You don’t want to listen to something that’s all garbled or staticky. I don’t find it be expensive, and I don’t even know what it costs. I view it to be a low cost, quality production that other people can do.
Brad: Yup, agreed. Agreed. No, many businesses can. The problem is they don’t make a decision to do it one or another for two reasons. We talk about all these accounting terms of mitigating risk. Same is true with marketing. The risk is, do we have a personality that could actually sit behind the mic and host the show? That is the number one barrier. The second one is, how do we count sales conversions. These first two things, do we have someone behind the mic that can be entertaining, and how do we count sales conversions? Most companies won’t take that high risk. It’s a high risk. The third thing, and the most important thing is, ow do we editorialize this? This is a lot of work behind the scenes every week to say this month we’re doing this. This month, right? They don’t have any experience in editorializing that. I think that’s the third thing.
Dave: I think what you’re also saying in there is that you have to be consistent?
Brad: Yes.
Dave: A consistency is critical with a podcast program.
Mark: I agree. There are podcasts that I listen to and they come out on Thursday. I know, when I drive to work on Friday, that’s the podcast I’m going to listen to. It bothers me when I get up in the morning and they have not loaded their next episode. I like the consistency that you guys have, that we’ve continued. It’s there. People can anticipate that it’s going to be there. It’s there. Shoot me back to your thing about the personality. I think it’s also does the firm have the personality to do this.
Brad: The brand.
Mark: The brand … To take that risk, to say we’re going to go ahead. We’re going to do this. Everyday, every podcast can’t be you’re personal best. Are you okay with that? I think the organization needs to have that personality, that brand to do that.
Dave: What’s your recommendation, Brad, on how long an episode should be?
Brad: Well …
Mark: About 14 and a half minutes.
Dave: 14 and a half minutes.
Brad: You know, many episodes of many other podcasters are between … They can be 40 minutes to two hours. I just think in professional services, to keep it entertaining without swallowing too much information, I think what we’re doing, that idea between 20 and 25 minutes is perfect.
I want to go back to Mark’s point about the company being willing. The brand being willing to say, we think our culture … We have a culture, as we were talking about in the previous podcast. That we have a culture that will actually allow us a platform to do podcasting. I think that is a huge driver in deciding whether or not you should do it. It’s not that it’s that complicating, as does your culture fir the medium.
Dave: Again, I think you hit on it. It’s just not a podcast, but it’s part of marketing strategy, which is content marketing. F it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit. Give it a try. We had some failures early.
Mark: We did.
Brad: We did. We really did.
Mark: Episodes 1 – 50.
Brad: We’re going to have to find you another job.
Dave: Would you guys listen for your next questions.
Brad: Sorry.
Dave: I remember early on when this came out, and Brad you made the statement, “I can get you on iTunes.” Mark and I thought, “Wow, that is really cool.” Until we found out anybody can get on iTunes. We thought we were going to get royalties.
Brad: Right, right. No not yet.
Dave: Not yet. Again, talk to me about, Brad, as far as ongoing strategy with podcast.
Brad: I think, obviously, what the Business Development Group is already doing is perfect. That is this idea … You hear the word all the time now in content marketing, which is curate, curate, curate. We have the content. You can’t be everywhere Dave, with your personality. Mark couldn’t in his time. This gives us a way to promote, post and publish, and cut up these pieces of content and use them at the marketing teams will. When and how they need to use them. If you think about it, I was thinking about it before we were doing the podcast. I was thinking about what’s the difference between 20 years ago in advertising and marketing and today. It’s quite fascinating. We would have picked up the dispatch. We would have had a cassette tape going into a CD, in those times. We would have cut out things from magazines. Now we talk about this idea of video or audio curating of published work. All we’ve done is created mobility to the old advertising package. It’s just mobile now.
Dave: Mark I want to go back you. Maybe change direction a little bit. As the host, somebody out there is thinking about a podcast and they were going to be the host, what would your recommendations be? Do you have a couple real good ideas?
Mark: Take your time. Prepare. Mentally think through the first few minutes of the podcast. How’s it going to go? Make sure you understand what you’re intro’s going to be. Maybe have a couple of questions teed up. Just to think about that, and not be nervous. Hopefully it’s a conversation. That’s the way I tried to address it. Just to be inquisitive. Let somebody else speak. I’ve been told, again at home, that I talk over people. Try not to do that. To take your time would be my first suggestion.
Dave: Mark another one right for. Maybe this is a fast ball right down the middle. What you do when somebody’s cell phone goes off or you stutter, or you cough?
Mark: Breath heavy.
Dave: Or breath heavy.
Brad: Like a goat.
Dave: Yeah. Goat Van Benschoten.
Mark: You just go with it. One of the best things that I think the best, personally speaking, is we were recording and car alarm was going off in the parking lot. I just started on this little riff about how alarming the subject matter was. I thought I was so funny, but nobody else ever said anything to me about it. I thought it was just great.
Brad: No, that’s not true. We did think it was very funny.
Dave: You’re a legend in your own mind.
Mark: Yes I am.
Brad: That’s the story he tells at home, and why he can’t talk.
Mark: We’re all human. We all see humor. Just to go with it, to be comfortable with it. You can always stop and record. We had to do that once. It was because of me. That’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with to show that you’re human and you make a mistake. There’s nothing wrong with that at all.
Brad: And imperfect. And imperfect.
Dave: Going back to the equipment, and this is for Brad, are we aloud to drop the mic?
Brad: Yes, yes. But you have to hand it to Abbey first. She controls all mic dropping. You can do it, yes. Like the new Verizon spots, they’re pretty good.
Dave: You can do that.
Brad: You can do that.
Dave: Let’s go back to … We’re jumping around a little bit. Get it right behind the scenes. I want to go back to that, where we started. Obviously kind of go back through some of your key points. Your marketing team, they did a lot of the leg work and got the content right. That’s one thing you really need to do. What about a budget on this? If somebody’s starting one of these off, what would you recommend they do from a budget perspective?
Brad: I would say it depends on how they’re looking at their other media or marketing expenditures. I would get a list of all inventory and expenditures, with their perspective ROI. Some of which they can, some of which they can’t, such as golf outings, or other things that are line item budgets. Say, “So how much direct business do we get from that?” Then I would create a budget in podcasting based on what you think that ROI means.
I think there are two kinds of ROI. I think there’s ROI in a business sense for sales transactions, and how much does it do for the firm or the professional service. Then I think there’s even a more important ROI. That is the internal culture. What does having a podcast do to ignite and unify the brand voice internally, that this is out here every week?
Mark: I think that’s important. I can’t envision Rea not doing a podcast now. I think it’s part of your culture. It’s part of what you do. People are excited. I get texts from people saying, “Make sure you listen to my podcast Mark. I’m coming up.” I think it is part of the culture. That ROI is huge.
Brad: Agreed.
Dave: Brad, back to you. Can you measure how many touches or hits the podcast …
Brad: Not yet, but you will be able to. In the future, just like Nielsen and Arbitron, you will be able to. Presently you cannot.
Dave: You say that’s on the … That would be a …
Brad: It is. It is.
Dave: A metric.
Brad: It is. It is.
Dave: We get it right behind the scenes. We be consistent. We develop an ongoing marketing strategy, which is probably the starting point. It’s got to be your marketing strategy. Does it fit? Then you get the right people on the bus.
Brad: Yes, I agree with … That’s perfectly said. Then just add in this idea of, remember, you’re behind a mic. It’s a production. It’s not just spewing information. It has to be entertaining and compelling in some manner.
Dave: How do you get the right topics?
Brad: Just like in anything else you’re going to share. If it’s not a relevant topic that can inspire a listener, you don’t have the topic.
Mark: What do you want to hear about? I was always just like, “Oh that sounds interesting. I want to hear what that person has to say.” That’s going to be intriguing to me. The firm and getting right behind the scenes, the marketing team is bringing people, filtering it through as to who’s going to come on. That’s one thing I was worried about, is do you have enough … Do we have enough people that are willing to come and speak? I don’t think that’s been an issue.
Dave: No it hasn’t.
Brad: Right.
Dave: Great, great. Our guests today have been Brad Circone and Mark Van Benschoten. Thanks again for joining us on unsuitable guys. It’s been great. We just scratched the surface. There’s a lot more stuff that can happen. There’s a lot going on at creating a podcast. You guys started it. Thank you very much for getting that off the ground, along with the Rea Marketing Team who are sitting here with us. I think they just finished a bottle of wine, so they’re celebrating.
Brad: They did.
Dave: Soon as we get off air, we might have a cocktail or two. Again, there’s a lot going on in creating a podcast. We hope our listeners grab some of that information. As always, we’ve got some great tips and insight available at www.reacpa.com/podcast. If you still haven’t subscribed to unsuitable on iTunes, I’ve only one question. What the hell are you waiting for?
Until next time, I’m Dave Cain encouraging you to loosen up your tie and think outside the box.