Educating and Helping Your Audience Through Your Podcast with Rubino & Liang Wealth Partners' Adam Blye

Lindsay Tjepkema: Welcome to season five of the Casted podcast, where, in case you didn't know already, we're doing something pretty cool. We're focusing exclusively on our own customers. Why? Well, because by becoming a Casted customer, it's pretty clear how you feel about podcasts. They're pretty committed, not only to podcasting as a really important piece of the future of their marketing efforts, but also to the much bigger picture of how their shows fit into their integrated marketing strategy. These brands are the most forward- thinking companies and teams that I know of, and they're harnessing the perspectives of experts with their podcasts, but they're not stopping there. They are doing really cool things about how they're thinking about their shows and how they can be amplified across other channels. They're practicing what we preach here at Casted and I want you to have the pleasure of hearing all about what they're doing, and then you can do it, too. I'm Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO and co- founder of Casted, the first and the only marketing solution for brand podcasts, and this is our podcast. Today, I am talking with Adam Blye of Rubino& Liang Wealth Partners and I love this episode because Adam comes from a situation and a context that I think many of you can relate to: He's in an industry that isn't exactly known for being innovative and his target audience is not typically referred to as" hip and cool." You'll hear what I mean as we get into the interview, but as you'll hear in our conversation, no matter where we do the work we do or who we set out to reach, we all have choices to make. We can stick to the status quo and do what's expected, or we can be a little risky, take calculated risks and try new things, so listen in and hear what Adam recommends and how it has served his company in this crazy backwards year we call 2020.

Adam Blye: Hi, my name is Adam Blye. I am the marketing manager for Rubino& Liang Wealth Partners and I host a show called After The Paycheck that is dedicated to helping people to and through their retirement process.

Lindsay Tjepkema: I am very excited to have you here because I love the perspective that you have on your show and how it fits into your company and brand and the role that it plays for your audience, so let's get things started by just really big picture: Why are you and why is your company prioritizing podcasts?

Adam Blye: We are prioritizing podcasts mostly in a sense because in our industry, the wealth management and retirement planning industry, a lot of bigger- name financial advisors will have radio shows, and it's a great way to connect to a larger audience and build your brand out there. One of the reasons we're focusing on taking this concept of a show and bringing it more to the 21st century with a podcast is going from that paid media, which is cost on being on the radio on the air for every week for X amount of thousand dollars a week, and turning that into an owned media where we can broadcast the audience at any time, anywhere, any place. They don't have to tune in Sundays at 9: 00 AM in order to hear the value that we bring for retirement planning. We want it to be where they are. We want to meet people where they whenever they need our guidance on whatever the topic is that we're talking about that week, and we thought that bringing a show into a podcast format was a great way to do that.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Absolutely, it is. We talk a lot about how podcasting is the one form of content that can be consumed anywhere, anytime doing basically anything. It can be mowing a lawn or working out or driving to work or working and you're able to connect with your audience when they're doing those various things, not when it's convenient for you, but when it's convenient for them.

Adam Blye: Yeah, it's kind of a weird... I don't why it took so long for the industry that we're in to realize that is, hey, you can be on the air or on this radio station at, like I said, 9: 00 AM on Sunday mornings, and hopefully you catch people doing groceries or run into him from maybe church or religious services or what may have you, but if you can have the opportunity to meet with them when they're ready, that's way more effective, I feel, than hoping that they're happen to be listening during that period of time.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Yeah, and that's true of regardless of what industry you're in. I think it's, it's always so interesting for me to hear what different verticals and different sectors and little pockets of brands and businesses and business types are doing. I mean, radio shows, right? That's something that's very common in your world and a couple others, people that I've talked to," Oh, yeah, we have this radio show that we're doing," but that is not something that is even crossed the minds of a lot of other people, depending on the kind of business that you work for. Is that something that you had been exposed to before, was radio shows, or was that a new one for you?

Adam Blye: Yeah, radio shows has always been at the forefront of everything that I've done for our company. I've only been with our company for about two years now, but before that, I worked for a marketing organization that worked with financial advisors to help produce their radio show, so it was kind of an interesting transition. My job was to help promote the idea of being on the radio because they paint that picture of when you're working with people that are closer to retirement, I think there's this image of this elderly couple that just sit and listen to the radio and wait for these things to happen, not realizing that there's people in their 50s and 60s today that are very tech- savvy that understand the ins and outs of how a computer works. It's not like it was 10 or 15 years ago where the idea of helping your parents set up their home computer and then understanding that there it's just going to collect dust, it's not like that anymore. We're now at a point where people that are getting closer to retirement are more tech- savvy and they can adopt to this medium a lot easier than the idea of just having to, again, hope that they listen to a radio show at a specific time. The way that a radio show is formatted versus a podcast, I think, is a different mentality as well that has to get through to some advisers, which has been a bit of a hurdle for us as a company, or me as a host trying to explain to our partners at the company, saying," Hey, we're actually going to do a podcast episode like this, and we can't really sell ourselves like you would have to on the radio, we're going to go more in- depth, a mile deep and an inch wide on a topic instead of vice versa aspect."

Lindsay Tjepkema: Absolutely. I love how you're taking chances that are calculated risks because you know your audience, right? That's so important not to make assumptions, not to generalize, not to over- generalize about who your audience is, who they always have, then what they're always going to want. You have to continue to get to know them, to try new things. Everything is data, put something out there, try it, see where it goes, and seek out new ways to not only reach them, but really connect with them and build relationships with them, and so I love that. Tell me more about that, that realization or that thought process that went into putting something out there to reach your audience this way.

Adam Blye: Yeah, it was kind of a beta test, how we got started with the podcast and the idea of After The Paycheck. We went back and forth and said," Hey, we need to change up some things," and said," We have this large database of people from over the years." The company itself has been in business for over 20 years and we have all these emails from people and the only time they would email them was really to tell them about an upcoming event that was coming up or to just promote themselves and so I said," Let's just keep this internal, create this show, and just send it out to people in our database and see if it grows legs," and it did. We're on, I guess we would call it a second season now. We're a little over a year into making these episodes. In the first 15 or so, we're focused more on how to do something, like how to convert an IRA into a Roth 401( k), stuff that people ask questions about, or that I know that people were coming in with these questions to meet with our advisors, that we could just share on this medium and see if people responded and they did, and so then we said," Okay, we can take this and we can push this out to an audience that isn't so much as familiar with us, but still have that problem, are still asking those questions," so we slowly turn up the volume on the way that we produce and the way that we write and the way that we broadcast the show now, and I think that really going back and taking a look, like you said, not just generalizing or just assuming our audience is one thing or the other, but taking a look at the analytics from our own internal database and what people liked and didn't like about the show before we went out into the public with it was a real help for us to understand how this was going to succeed.

Lindsay Tjepkema: You're two seasons in. Where does the show fit into everything else you're doing? What role does it play? How are you prioritizing it among all the other tactics and efforts and channels and categories that you're in right now from a marketing perspective?

Adam Blye: Yeah, it went from this is going to be a cool little thing to do on the side and it was just a little bit of my daily responsibility to the pandemic hits in an industry that relies on having live events and having people at seminars to teach them about retirement planning and all of these things can't happen anymore. You can't have people that are in their 50s and 60s in a small area with everything going on right now, so virtual meetings, they had their run and I think people got burned on those really quick, the Zoom isn't trying to sell that way, so this has really come at the forefront into the way that we market our business. It's not the idea of, again, over- the- top selling:" Hey, you need retirement planning," blah, blah, blah, blah, but it's more of the teaching the how and the why so that way, people can get the idea of they could do it themselves, but we're also here for guidance if they have any questions, so it's really taken our entire concept of marketing a company from the, I don't want to say" outbound methodology," but that idea of," Hey, we just got to get 10 people in a room, three people will be interested, and one person will close," into the more of the nurturing aspect of the," Hey, we're here for you. We are the experts. We're just going to give you everything that we know, and hopefully, you can take this to really better situation, and then tell your friends about this if it's something that is valuable to you," and even if they don't become a client of ours, or they don't find that they're in the right scenario for us to work with them, they share that and then just build us from there so that we become a trustworthy source.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Yeah, it's that connection piece. What I love is that you have, fast- forwarded the brand and your marketing strategy by years. You take an industry that is, it's not really widely regarded for being super- duper ahead of the times, right? You don't really think cutting- edge marketing tactics, right? Then you were prepared. I mean, this wasn't all 100% in response to COVID, you were already saying," How can we reach people differently? How can we cut through and change the way we're thinking about this?" and then, because you were already in that mindset, you were ready. You were ready to reach people in ways that you didn't have to get everyone in the same room, so I want to learn more about how you visualize this all coming together and where you see it going thanks to the show that you're doing.

Adam Blye: Yeah, how it all comes together and where it's going to go, I try to make sure that I always think of myself when I'm asking the questions as somebody like my parents who are they are now 60 and they are thinking about their retirement situation and they know nothing about retirement planning, so when I hear one of the partners say this, that, or the other thing, I make sure I ask them to break that down, like," Oh, you said this, what does that mean?" Hopefully, that will either spin off a whole new episode or a whole new topic that we can go into and continue to build out this series to include not just how- tos, but the why's and the where's and the other things about retirement that aren't just about wealth management, but about health, about general Medicare questions, health insurance, and other types of things that people deal with in retirement, so we love to build it into a whole network of where After The Paycheck becomes the one- stop- shop for all of your retirement planning needs.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Again, it's creating connection, right? It's setting out to create a connection, and you are, which I think is something that a lot of hosts should listen in and learn from, it's great advice that you've shared is to really try to become your audience, right, or the next best thing: really, really know your audience well. You have your parents constantly at the forefront:" How could I say this in a way that makes sense to them? What have I heard them asking about? What am I hearing happening here at the office or among my team that they would be interested in?" That is what creates a really great show, because then that's engaging to listen to, it ends up being original content because it's asking a genuine question, and it's talking with an expert who deeply knows the answer and can speak really candidly and authentically about the information that your audience, like your parents would need to know, and that's the beginning, it's like the seedling of a really great show. It sounds like one thing that the podcast is doing for Rubino& Liang is humanizing the brand. Would you say that that's true, or was it always at that level of human level, but now it's in a different way? How do you look at that?

Adam Blye: I think from a marketing perspective, I would definitely agree with that. We're marketing more in a human way, rather than that compliance of" We have to use these words and these phrases to make sure that nobody thinks that we're saying or doing something in the wrong way."" Humanizing" is a great way to put the way that we're marketing ourselves now.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Got it. Okay, and so then you're creating something that it goes beyond the brand, that's bigger than, and perhaps wider- reaching than the brand. You were talking about creating a space that people can come to and be educated and learn and it's a safe place to be vulnerable about things that as you're heading into retirement, maybe you feel like you should know, but you don't. I mean, that's pretty big, especially when you think about a retirement- planning resource, that's a lot bigger, and then as a result, the company and the products and services that are sold there are seen as so much more trustworthy and more human and more approachable, more credible, so tell me more about that vision to create something that's so much bigger than the business or the brand.

Adam Blye: It just kind of happens, that's how I've always felt personally, as I guess I would call myself a marketer, right? I'm just a person who loves to learn and I think being able to take that and understand that there are other people that also want to continue to learn, I think there's a great avenue for that in this industry where people can, again, really take that to heart and go and come to this place as a resource, and if they don't find themselves to be a good fit for a client, or whatever it is, if they subscribe at the end of every episode, I tell them that they can fill out a form on our website, and those submissions go to me and I can either reply to them directly or take it even a step further and put them in touch with the right person, even if that's not somebody that's in our industry in and of itself. I think because I'm focusing on helping people or helping a person rather than understanding that this is a, "Hey, we need to generate leads for our company to survive," I think that helping those people will naturally result in the growth of our company, but the brand in and of itself I think doesn't have to be tied to a company name in order for it to succeed. Yes, After The Paycheck is presented by Rubino& Liang Wealth Partners, but I don't think Rubino& Liang Wealth Partners needs to be the anchor point of the show, because, again, the goal is to help educate and help these people to and through their retirement process. It's not to sell more products or services. It's not to do this or do that, it's to do something that I really hope is to help people navigate through this confusing time in their life where they're going from working possibly, not every day of the year, but working for 40- plus years and to all of a sudden not. That's a big transition that I think a lot of could be nervous about or scared, or just really unsure of what to do, because there's so many tips and tricks and laws that change every day that I think everyone should have access to the ability to learn more about it, not just if you have X amount of money or you have this or that, or whatever. I think focusing on educating and really growing people, no matter what your scenario is and what your background is is a personal goal for me to make sure that this brand succeeds.

Lindsay Tjepkema: How do you think about where the show fits into other things you might be doing, whether it's alongside a blog or other downloadable resources on your social media? Is it related to? Is it instead of? Is one fueling the other? How do they play with each other or how do you hope that they will at some point?

Adam Blye: Yeah, it's all synergistic to us. Every time we record, we also do video, so we record our show from a video camera, from a podcast perspective, and I will take the transcription and put up what I can, and then also link back to whatever I can for references on our blog, so it all goes back to one page where you can either watch, listen, or read about the topic that we're discussing and get more information from there, and then from there, we will promote that on our other channels. I'll take snippets of the podcast itself and push it out to our social media pages. I'll use paid ads to get digital ads out there to come back to the page in of itself, and then on the actual blog, if there is something that pertains to the topic that we're talking about that is some sort of a downloadable guide, we'll have a link to it, and if they're already in our database, they just get it. If they're not in our database, we just ask them," Hey, fill out a form, and you can subscribe to future episodes After The Paycheck and have access to our income gap calculator or retirement budget sheet," or whatever it may be. The goal, again, of After The Paycheck is to just get people educated.

Lindsay Tjepkema: What do you recommend for people who are listening who want to know where to start? How can they be thinking big like you without getting overwhelmed?

Adam Blye: I think if you wanted to get started today, a really good idea would be just to sit down with a few of your coworkers and try and ask each other," What are some questions that your audience are asking constantly today?" If you're a salesperson, or sit down with your sales team if you have one, and you say," Hey, what's a constant question that people are asking?" Then just answer that question, recording into something as simple as maybe an iPhone or something like that or... Don't get overwhelmed with the technology behind everything that's going on to get started, just answer your audience's questions, put them up somewhere, get buy- in from people that are already either familiar with your brand or feedback from people that are familiar with your brand, and then just tweak it from there. Get started with one episode, maybe do one episode a month or a quarter or something like that just to get your feet wet and see if you enjoy it. If it's something that's going to be forced, to be like a chore for you to do, it's probably not the best idea for you to do, but if it's something that you think is going to be, again, effective and valuable and you enjoy doing it, do those little steps right now: Take the time to answer a couple of questions that your ideal audience has, put them out to those people that are already familiar with your brand, get that feedback from there, and then decide, "Okay, we're going to invest a little bit more in..." whether it be the technology or the hardware or marketing the show and just slowly grow from there. I think if you're getting started today, I think that's probably the best advice I could give.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Yeah, no, that's great, and I think this year, if anything, has been proof that you can try new things and you can be bold and you can be different and seek out to collect data and it will likely work in some way, shape, or form if you set out to serve your audience, get to know them better, and truly, honestly, and authentically do what you think will be received well by them, right, and then it's all data from there as far as what you do next.

Adam Blye: Yeah, yeah. I feel like I'm rambling sometimes, but it's hard for me to articulate the joy I get from being able to create something that I know is doing" just good for other people," and I think that that's really what's behind all of this is if, as long as you know that at the end of the day, you're helping somebody else improve their situation, that's the goal for me, and I think that's what the goal should be. If you're going to take time to develop a show for your brand, make sure that whatever you're doing is helping your audience, not just selling, not just doing this or hoping that it's going to do whatever it is, there should be byproducts of what your ultimate goal is, which is helping people.

Lindsay Tjepkema: I love it. That's great. Well, thank you so much. That's a great place to leave it, with the air of helping other people. I think everybody should set out to go do that today, set out to help others. We all need it a little bit more always, but especially right now, so thank you so much for that, Adam. This is really great. Thanks for sharing your experiences. I really appreciate it. That's our show. Thanks for listening. For more from today's guest, visit casted. us to subscribe and to receive our show as it's published along with other exclusive content each and every week.