Finding the Passion Behind Your Podcast with Salesforce's Tina Rozul, Megan Collins and Conor Wiegmann

Lindsay Tjepkema: Welcome to the Casted Podcast. It's season five and all of our guests this time around our Casted customers. We're focusing on our users not only because we're more than a little biased about how great they are, but also because these brands and these teams using Casted are showing a real commitment. Not only to podcasting but also to using their shows as fuel for the rest of their sales and marketing strategies. As you'll hear, these are the most forward- thinking brands that are harnessing the perspectives of experts through their podcasts and they're amplifying those voices across other channels to elevate not just the show but the overall brand. They are practicing what we preach here at Casted and I want you to hear all about what they're doing, why they're doing it and how you can do it too. I'm Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO, and Co- founder of Casted. The first marketing solution built around brand podcasts. And this is our podcast. Salesforce. Did you know that they have more than two dozen podcasts around the world and they're adding more. So why would a huge company, that feels like an understatement, with an already behemoth brand that we're already buzzing about all the time why would they invest so heavily into podcasting? What could they possibly be getting out of it? And if they are seeing such results, maybe you should consider leaning in a little further too. But okay, you might be thinking this is Salesforce. I don't have the resources they do, how am I supposed to do what they're doing? The answer may surprise you. It's all about being resourceful and leveraging the things that you have access to and getting the highest possible return on your effort. But don't take my word for it, let's hear it from the voices and minds of Salesforce's flagship show. Here are Tina, Megan, and Conor from the Salesforce Marketing Cloudcast.

Megan Collins: My name is Megan Collins, I am a Product Marketing Manager at Salesforce. I focus in my day job on our retail and consumer goods industry for Marketing Cloud. And then in my side hustle, I'm lucky enough to host the Marketing Cloudcast. And we've been doing this since what? 2017 and I'll segue to Tina who's all the way out in Australia.

Tina Rozul: Yes, hello everyone. As Megan mentioned I've been co- hosting the show with Megan for almost three years now, a little over that. And I am based out of Sydney, Australia. I also am a Product Marketer. During the day my day job is leading product marketing for the Marketing Cloud here in the Asia- Pacific region. And have been with Salesforce for a little over eight years which has been an incredible journey and experience.

Lindsay Tjepkema: That's good. So there's our hosts. And how about you Conor?

Conor Wiegmann: Yeah. My name is Conor Wiegmann, I am a Data Strategy Analyst on the sales side. So not necessarily in our marketing org but the consultancy work that I do is in the marketing industry which is exciting. So I get to use everything that I learned from the Marketing Cloudcast into my day job which is cool. When I came onto the Cloudcast, I think the summer of 2018 while I was interning, and Meghan and Tina I reached out to them. They were more than excited to take me on, I was more than excited to help. So yeah, I was interning, came on full- time and I just continued that journey.

Lindsay Tjepkema: That's great.

Tina Rozul: But you also were a former radio host. You missed that Conor.

Conor Wiegmann: I was. I have been doing radio since freshman year of high school and that just has continued on. So I think for almost a decade now, in some form, I have been in front of or behind the mic so it's exciting.

Megan Collins: And we appreciate Conor that's for sure.

Tina Rozul: Oh yes, absolutely.

Lindsay Tjepkema: So that's actually a good place to get started is, let's briefly touch on the roles that each of you play in the Cloudcast. Which as we've covered is absolutely not your full- time job. This is in addition to. So [crosstalk 00:04: 17 ].

Megan Collins: All hands on deck.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Yeah.

Tina Rozul: Yeah, absolutely.

Megan Collins: Yeah. So it's been interesting. So in 2015, I bet it was a nice brisk warm day in September in Indianapolis, this podcast got started from Heike Young and Joel Book. And it was primarily used in the content marketing space for a thought leadership tool. And it was they both did an amazing job building listenership and similar to what we've talked about in the past. Lindsay is it's less of, let's just sell our product but more of, we want to help marketers be better marketers. So they cover any kind of marketing topic across a bunch of different areas. And then in 2017, Joel had retired, Heike moved on to a different role and it was just in...

Tina Rozul: Limbo for a while.

Megan Collins: Limbo land. Heike had reached out to Tina and myself who are on the product marketing side. And since there wasn't a home it was little in limbo, she goes like," I think the next best journey is through product marketing." So ever since then we've taken it on and it's shifted slightly like we align it more with our campaign side of the house. We weave in a little bit of the product flare through our customers stories or through our partners for instance. But it still keeps that same mentality of thought leadership let's help our marketers be better marketers.

Tina Rozul: And to add onto that too I think with it living under product marketing. And for those who are not familiar with product marketing, just imagine the group of people that sit between marketing sales and product. And so a lot of what we do is evangelism and so, now with it living with under this part of the organization we're much more intentional and thoughtful of how it impacts not just marketers but people who really interact with us on a day- to- day basis. And so we wear multiple hats of, well, what would a marketer take away from this? What would a salesperson take away with this? Or even someone who's building products. And I think that's the beauty with marketing is just the impact that it has both from a business but also sentimental standpoint.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Absolutely.

Megan Collins: And then I think just as far as roles, I just realized we didn't really answer your original question. But as far as how we started to bring it into the product marketing space and keep in mind, I'm in Indianapolis on Eastern Time. Tina we're recording this right now, is it like 7: 00 AM? 7: 30?

Tina Rozul: 9: 15 AM the next day.

Megan Collins: Okay 9:15.

Tina Rozul: But I'm ahead, I'm in the future. Yes.

Megan Collins: Bright and early.

Lindsay Tjepkema: You should make this podcasts about what tomorrow is looking because that'll [crosstalk 00:06:55].

Megan Collins: I know. What's tomorrow like?

Tina Rozul: Yeah.

Megan Collins: So, we're trying to work on a 24 hour basis, right? I cover my during the day and then she could cover some in her day. But it's essentially how we've learned to manage that is I take care of a lot of the housekeeping type of things of bringing in the guests, working with our content or our campaigns team to figure out what topic should our next series be. A lot of the tactical things of what will our CTA be at the end of the podcast and little things like that. A lot of the interviews if they're in the U. S. are in my time zone. But then Tina comes in and brings in her amazing global presence and it's like," Megan, it's not just the U. S, there's other people out there." And then of course you bring in all of your experience from wearing so many different hats in a pack because in a product marketer role there she covers a lot of different things. So we tag team it by coming in around this time actually to do our voiceover where we come in and talk about the episode, talk about our key things we want to take out of it.

Tina Rozul: One thing too to note is we've always been virtual, so we've never lived in the same city either. So I don't know if people know that but anything is possible. As hosts you don't have to be in the same location even Conor's in Chicago. So we're literally all in different places in the world and I think that what has drived and has kept this podcast alive is just the passion. This is all of our side gigs. It's one of the most listened to public podcasts that Salesforce has launched and we're so grateful for Heike and Joel and the organization for allowing this to be still in existence. So yeah-

Lindsay Tjepkema: Absolutely.

Tina Rozul: ...It's one of the unique things about the show.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Something that I hear a lot and that our team on this side of the table hears a lot is we don't have time to start a podcast, we're just a small company. We don't have all these resources somebody like Salesforce would have, but I think it's important to get a behind the scenes of what can happen if you just take a ball and run with it. And take a show and run with it and just pull it together and say," Hey look, we're passionate about this, we want to do this, we want to connect with our audience. It doesn't matter if we're in three different time zones around the world, and we have to really string it together. It's important to keep the energy going to keep the relationships going and this is a great way to do it." So give us a little bit more insights of what it takes for even Salesforce, and this is your flagship show, to keep this running literally around the world? And around the clock?

Megan Collins: Yeah. I mean, feel free to chime in guys, but we've learned a lot over the couple of years now. I think when we first started it was a weekly episode and we were just running on fumes and just throwing in as many amazing people as we could. Because we had to crank out at weekly and we had amazing content but I think we lacked some of the, quite frankly, the structure. So I think over the last couple of years in bringing on Conor, bringing on, we have a producer set, Jean who's a content marketing expert, and just bringing in humans that can help us to scale it and have some structure has really helped us. So for instance, we've moved to a series approach and that's helped us to really put a lot of love and thought behind it, which I think they've turned out pretty great. We've seen a lot of increase in new folks that are listening now too. And I think the reason for that is because we're coordinating it with our campaign side of the house. So, if you're just starting out I would be best friends with whoever's running your campaigns. Here at Salesforce we have themes each quarter and so it's now easy for us to say," Okay, if your themes this year are account- based marketing in the fall, let's do an account- based marketing podcast series." So in that sense, we're trying to scale and not try to recreate the wheel. Let's dive into the Salesforce ship here and take advantage of all of the other running with their head cut off people at the same time so that we can come together in a cohesive way.

Tina Rozul: I was going to say be there intentional with why you want to create a podcast. Megan and I have gotten this question a lot from different parts of Salesforce business or externally of we're thinking about starting a podcast. And the first question we ask is why? What is your intention? Because it's extra hours, it's extra energy and if you don't understand why you want to do it, there's no point in going through the work. I think a podcast show is very unique in that it's not a webinar, right? It's almost as if you're in the room with someone but you're not physically there, but you are having a conversation in someone's ear. And so I think for us, it was at the end of the day is we all want to be better marketers. So how can we share information and stories that help people be better? And that's really been the intention the entire time.

Lindsay Tjepkema: For sure. Well, what I'm hearing too is something that really is scalable. And often when we say scalable we think scaling up but you can also scale it down. You just shared with the audience how Salesforce does podcasting. And you start by thinking, okay one, why are we doing this? Where does it fit in? What's the point? What are we measuring? What does success look like? And it was so importantly which is such a simple thing, but it's so often overlooked, which is how does it fit into the bigger picture? And it's such a simple question but what's marketing doing? What's the business doing next quarter? Next month? Next year? Whenever you're looking at it and saying," Okay, great. If we're talking about apples, how can we do a podcast about apples? Because it's just going to make life easier because then it answers those questions of well then who should we have on the show? What should we talk about? You mentioned CTAs earlier, what are CTAs going to be? What related content can we point to? What have we already done that we can resurface? It just makes everything make a lot more sense. So tell me a little bit more about that, lessons learned, and maybe a little bit more about that approach and what you would share with listeners about how they can do that too.

Megan Collins: Tina I would say, and tell me if you agree, one of the biggest things that we suggested to from a very wise man was, hey, before you do anything let's do a V2MOM. And we do that all the time at Salesforce in our jobs which is just a way for us to, like you just mentioned, figure out what are the goals? How are we going to measure it?

Lindsay Tjepkema: What's a V2MOM?

Megan Collins: What are the obstacles? What thing-

Lindsay Tjepkema: Tell everybody what a V2MOM is?

Megan Collins: ...V is-

Lindsay Tjepkema: You don't even have to define it, it's okay.

Megan Collins: ...But it's-

Lindsay Tjepkema: But broadly speaking tell it to everybody what it is.

Megan Collins: It's what is your plan for the year? How are you going to be measured? What are the things you're going to get done? What are the obstacles that are in the way?

Lindsay Tjepkema: Sure.

Megan Collins: What are-

Lindsay Tjepkema: I'm sure a lot of people, large companies can... Some people it's OKRs and KPIs or defining your departmental goals or your plan. So it's you start there, you start with big picture strategy and objectives is what you're saying? You don't just go and hit record.

Megan Collins: ...So we started to just do a couple episodes and then we were like," Whoa! Why haven't we not done a V2MOM yet? But Tina, that was a lot from you too of like," We need to sit down and look at this each quarter too or look at this on a regular basis.

Tina Rozul: Yeah. So for the V2MOM it stands for vision, values, methods, and obstacles. And then-

Megan Collins: Vision. I was like," V, what is that?"

Tina Rozul: ...But it's just, again, being very intentional, right? So what is it that you want to achieve? What's the goal? Is it you want to increase ROI? Well that's, you jumped a couple of steps because you have to build your listenership, you need to build trust. And you have to really, at the end of the day, share some topic or conversation that is of value to your listeners. So, being very thoughtful is something that's really important. A lot of the legwork is done in the beginning and then as time goes on you start to evolve. And so this year, I think it was a massive transformation for the show because one, 2020 hit and the world experienced the first pandemic ever. And everyone was just like," What the is going on? What are we going to do?" And it actually benefited us because Megan had this brilliant idea,"You know what? Let's be a little bit more thoughtful and prescriptive and let's have a series." And we really leaned into, when the pandemic hit, we had a Leading Through Change series. It was all about how are you guys doing today? How are you actually feeling? Topics were all about that? And then as time went on and realized, this isn't ending this is here to stay for a while, we're not physically going to see each other for a while. Then we leaned into the business and we're like," Well, what's really topical right now? What do people want to know? How do marketers want to be better?" And that's when we started being more prescriptive and leaning in with our campaigns team of, let's say we wanted to do an ABM series because now people have to be more thoughtful and more focused. They are having less money to invest in scaling in more grand ways, so now we're more focused and topical. And so I think it's just being very intentional, but also paying attention to what's current. Like what's going on in the world? Because if you're talking about things are irrelevant, then you're missing the boat and you're speaking to deaf ears basically.

Lindsay Tjepkema: For sure. And it is a balance of both. I mean, you have to be strategic and think about how it fits into the company and fits into the business if it's in the brand. And the overall marketing strategy and sales strategy and product strategy, otherwise it's going to be irrelevant to the business and not used. And then we see that all the time about podcasts that fizzle out for those reasons. Like, we just didn't see the value. Well, you didn't ever really work to make it valuable to the business. But then on the other side if it's only valuable to the business that's when it's tone deaf and that's when it's not... Which is-

Megan Collins: Like a robot.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Exactly.

Megan Collins: It's not even like...

Lindsay Tjepkema: And unfortunately we've seen a lot of that this year, right? Just across the board. And even the best intentions it's like you're really tuned into what the business needs but what about the rest of the world? So, let's talk about what 2020 has looked like for you all from behind the scenes? And how the show is performing? You've talked about how you pivoted some of the topics and how you responded to what your audience really needed and wanted to hear. What have you seen as a result now that we're weirdly ending this crazy year? Maybe. It's been a long stretch. What does that look like on your side? How has that come to pass?

Megan Collins: Yeah. I mean, at the beginning we had planned, we had the idea of a series in about February, March. And this hidden around March timeframe. And at that point, as Tina alluded to, we shifted really quickly to the Leading Through Change series. And what that entailed on the back end, if you want a little sneak peek behind the scenes, we had been actually reached out to by a lot of our either customer marketing team or by friends. We don't always share our customers, they may just be marketers who are doing great work they might not have Salesforce. For instance, one of my friends, our colleagues in North Carolina had a local coffee shop that was very much affected, but they had a really cool marketing campaign that they just whipped up on a whim. And in fact, that they even went to the level of buying a drive- through window, it was a bank, it was formerly a bank. They invested in it when everyone else is closing their physical locations, right? They bought a bank that had a drive- through just so that they can continue to ensure that they're meeting their clients' needs in this uncertain time. So those types of stories we were just like scavenging for, scouring for, I don't know the right word, but we were looking for-

Lindsay Tjepkema: Looking for with lots of intention.

Megan Collins: ...We were intensively looking for these types of exciting stories. And we kept that going for a couple of weeks there. And then at a certain point it clicked, like Tina said, that this is going to happen for a while. And that's when we started to go back to a slightly revised version of those series that we originally intended to at the beginning of the year. But what I think is cool now, we're forced in this way but the structure is making me so happy. If you could see our Quip doc, and if you don't know what Quip is it's just a way for you to collaborate with your team. But we have listed out the storyline of our episodes and how we're going to have a beginning and a middle and an end, and who we need to have. We're being a whole lot more thoughtful about the ethnicity of people that we bring on. And making sure that we have a voice from each and everyone so that we have a great perspective. We've been really thoughtful and the reason for that is we're doing these series and we have more time. We're not just running and doing these just to do them, we have a purpose and it's all aligned to our larger business efforts.

Lindsay Tjepkema: And it's so important. I think 2020 has done wonders for helping us to slow down with a new forced perspective on like, slow down but the world is still moving, the world's still got to move. So don't stop, don't slow down to take a break, slow down to be more intentional. And I love that to be, make sure you're including more diverse voices and that you're not going to the same people that are heard all the time. Not that there's anything wrong with those people, but who else is out there that we can hear from? And how can we make this all tie together? And how can we make sure that the show, he said," It has a beginning, middle, and end." And that we're being really intentional about how do we put the shows together? And I also want to hear about, and then what else? What about after the show goes live? And what you're doing with every episode after it's published? Because I know that the show does not end there for you all at Salesforce. What else are you doing with the episodes once you've sent them out into the world?

Conor Wiegmann: We try to push this out internally as much as possible. So we have our own internal social network called Chatter. And every episode we go and launch that out. We have a guide with email templates for our internal audiences to use if they want to share it externally with their customers or their friends or family. And then we have an amazing social team as well that we collaborate with. And we're actually working on a new initiative, which is actually Casted is helping us with that too.

Megan Collins: We're so excited.

Conor Wiegmann: But they want to put more video content and animations onto our social feeds. So the audiogram teacher, that was me being I was most excited for once we got onto Casted. So, we're really trying to push this out. And I think a big thing is the key messaging of we're marketers helping marketers. I think that's a big essence that really came out through Leading Through Change as well, because there were so many things happening with the pandemic and a lot of different issues popping up. That there were a lot of marketers that I talked to, at least, that were struggling into what do we do? How do we talk to our audience? How do we empathize? And through Leading Through Change we had a lot of topics that went through how do we guide ourselves through this? So when we pushed that out onto our social channels or push it out internally, we got a huge response because we had salespeople who were just like," My customers have no idea what to do." And then when they hear the story of that coffee shop in North Carolina that put the drive- through window on, they started getting ideas of different ways that they can innovate and start to survive this pandemic, which I thought was really cool and exciting to see.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Oh I love that, marketers helping marketers. And that's what it's about it's when you put yourself in the position of like," How can we leverage this tool, this platform that we have to serve our audience? We have a voice, we have a soapbox, how can we use it to really help our audience?" And I think podcasting just amplifies that opportunity, that's where the gold happens. Because your audience sees it and they feel it like this is here to serve me and to help me do what I need to do better.

Megan Collins: And I think just along those lines too, way that this has evolved with the series and everything and you ask like," What happens next?" A lot of it comes down to how this weaves into all of the other things that are going on. So like I mentioned earlier, the podcast is just thought of as just another channel. So for instance, we're planning right now for our Q4 efforts, they want to close all the pipe that's out there and so we can do that through all hands on deck. So for instance, in all of our tool kits that are going out to our sales teams, it's packaged everything up that's focused on account- based marketing podcasts being one of them. It's packaging up everything from industries perspective. So anytime we brought in a specific guest that's in a particular industry, you're going to be baked into this. So, that's all being weaved in to have one voice which is groundbreaking from, if I look a couple of years ago, when it was a great podcast and we were doing great things. It felt great but the fact that now we're looking back, it could have been so much more weaved in to the point where it is now. And next year is going to be even better now that we have Casted. Yeah, I mean.

Megan actually, as you were talking one thing that it's made me realize is the Cloudcast has also been this invisible glue that has connected people. Not just from a business functionality standpoint but also from a listener standpoint, right? I think in some way the pandemic has almost broken down those barriers, right? Because we physically cannot be together, but through the power of sound and our authentic voices and intentional storytelling we're also connecting people. And 2020 I think has shown us that's what people crave the most is that connectivity. And so I think whether you're planning, trying to do an episode, or trying to get structure I think part of that ROI is connection. And you don't always see a dollar sign to that, but it's like it's real, it's human and it's really what gets people moving day in and day out.

Lindsay Tjepkema: So, okay. Based on everything that you've learned, everything we shared today which is incredible, what would you share with others that are listening that might be at a smaller company or another really large company. I mean, there's very different barriers, very large companies, there's lots of other people and teams and departments to work with, small companies, it's how can I do this all on my own? What information, what advice would you share to somebody listening right now who wants to get in on the game like you have?

Megan Collins: I would say, of course going back, have a purpose but even before that you have to have passion for whatever the topic is. If you don't have passion you're going to come off like a robot, you won't sound authentic I mean, you won't be authentic and it'll be very apparent for your listeners. So I think step one, understand what the show is about and ask yourself, am I passionate about this to the point where I'm going to dedicate time to it? Because it does take time. It's like a little baby you have to nurse and make sure that they're breathing all the time.

Lindsay Tjepkema: Yes. How about you Tina.

Tina Rozul: Yeah. I would just add, one piece of advice that a long time life mentor gave me is where do you see yourself three to five years from now? And so if you're thinking about creating an episode or a podcast, what is the vision for that? What is the future version of what you want the experience to be? And that can help you in your guiding principles and as we mentioned the V2MOM, because I think we can always react to things but if there's no intention or plan or purpose behind it it won't last. And as Megan mentioned, a lot of the reason that this podcast has lasted and it stood the test of time is there's so much passion and love and just genuine charisma behind what we want to share with people. And so I think thinking of that in the future and the intention behind it is something that will carry whoever's listening throughout creating an episode or creating a podcast if they wanted to.

Conor Wiegmann: Yeah. I would say the biggest thing, I've been on both sides of non- corporate podcasting and then corporate podcasting. So one thing that I would just suggest that I feel like Megan and Tina do a really good job of is understanding the value to the listener. There is the value to the company but you also have to provide value to the listener. The Marketing Cloudcast, one thing that I've noticed is we rarely mentioned Salesforce products. And even though it is a Salesforce sponsored podcast, the biggest point of value for our listener is that they're hearing practitioners or people in their role. Or maybe it's like a CMO come in and talk about things that they want to hear about and it's not necessarily guided around Marketing Cloud or Pardot or our other tools. So, I would definitely take a look at what's the value, yes, to your company? Because obviously that's how you're going to keep the podcast running. But what's the value to the listener as well? If you're editing and listening to this, what are you getting out of this? Take it from your listeners perspective and then that's really all you need for a successful podcast in my opinion.

Lindsay Tjepkema: I love it. And I love that the common thread, whether you realize it or not, at least from my perspective is love. You have to be willing to nurture the little baby, the little baby show because it's a labor of love which is usually used in terms of saying it's a lot of work, right? So therefore you have to love it. And then Tina you mentioned the passion and the love for the conversation and for the podcast and for the show and for what you're doing that comes through. I think that our listeners, I'd be willing to bet, that they can hear how passionate and how much all four of us are talking with our hands today because we're very... I mean, all four of us really care about this and this conversation that we're having and then counter to your point, your audience. Even care for the show and care for the content and the subject matter is not enough if you're not putting your audience first because they can tell. It's like talking to someone at a party who only wants to talk about themselves, right? So remember parties? Remember when we used to go to those and see people in real life?

Megan Collins: Oh, yeah.

Lindsay Tjepkema: It was so nice. So let's see, how do I put that in 2020 terms? It's like somebody who comes into the Zoom room and just takes over the whole thing. Isn't on Gallery View and is just watching themselves. But yeah, it's love. You can feel it and you can hear it in the show as a listener. And so I think that that's really good advice. And so it's a good place to start if you're a listener and you're hoping to make your show better or get one started. Start there, make sure it's something that you really can sink your teeth into and really love on for a while. Thank you all for being here. It was so great to talk podcasting on this podcast with you. And if you haven't checked it out already what in the world are you waiting for? Duh! Definitely go listen to the Salesforce Marketing Cloudcast or one of their other 20 something shows that they have. Thanks so much for being here, 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.