The Man Behind the Curtain (Bonus Episode)

Honestly, you don't even need the bells and whistles. You just have to have a good idea and something that you wanna say. And you can record a podcast on your phone. Really, what you need to have is a story and something to say. And then from there, if you like doing the podcast, if it's something you want to build into your ecosystem, then you can start getting more fancy equipment and and building up from there.

Flywheel Social Enterprise Hub offers accelerator programs for early stage startups built on business models using online modules and resources tailored for social enterprises plus in person collaborative sessions with subject matter experts. The topics range from finance and accounting to branding and marketing. Today, we are gonna talk with one of our subject matter experts. We are going to focus on podcasts as a tool of marketing. I'm Joan Kaup, host of On the Fly!, the podcast that showcases founders of social impact enterprises and the coaches and investors that support them.

It is my pleasure to talk with a man who is usually on the other side of the table. On The Fly producer, Joey Scarillo. Thank you, Joey, for coming to the microphone to share your knowledge and experience with podcasts.

Joan, thank you for having me. I will say it is very strange to be on this side of the table for the show.

It is very weird for me too. Yes. But we'll have some fun with it nonetheless.

Yes. I'm at the controls and in the guest chair.

I know. Multitasking at the highest level. You are also a coach for Flywheel. Give our listeners a little taste of how you got to Flywheel, what you like to coach, and the best parts of that.

Well, I mean, I got to Flywheel through you. I mean, we met through Rick.

Yeah, that was the whole reason for the question. It was all about me.

Of course! I got to Flywheel through you, and I'm so thankful that you connected me with this organization. They've been wonderful, and it's been wonderful getting to become part of the social impact and entrepreneur community here in Cincinnati. My wife and I moved here in 2023, and, you know, when you come to a new place, you're looking for community, and I really felt like I have found that in Flywheel. And, yeah, I I got my first opportunity to coach during one of the accelerator programs, and I got to work with a young entrepreneur. Our time together wasn't very long, because she got put with another group, but we still got to have a couple of one on one conversations and coachings.

You know, I look forward to doing more coachings in the future, but when this opportunity for the podcast came up, it was impossible for me to pass up.

Well, there isn't anyone else that we would have do our podcast. I mean, you have the experience. You brought that experience with you from New York. How long have you been doing podcasts, and are you self taught, or where did that begin?

Well, self taught, yes, but also, you know, I had a lot of good mentors and picking up things from different people along the way. The way I got into podcasting is interesting. I actually started out, of course, as a podcast listener first. And in the podcasting world, there was this big bang moment that happened when Serial launched. And I like to say that I've been listening to podcasts before Serial in 2014, so sort of an OG.

But my background before I even got into podcasting or marketing or advertising or anything like that was actually in theater. And so I studied stage management, and one of my first professional jobs in New York was stage managing a traveling children's theater show. And so, as you can imagine, long hours in a van with five actors traveling the country. And so when I was driving or when I was sitting shotgun, I would put on these podcasts and usually would try to curate the the listening for everybody in the van to enjoy. I would listen to interviews with other actors, or Fresh Air, or This American Life, or these shows that I thought would cast a wide net and would be interesting to the folks around me.

And that was my first experience of taking podcasting as not just something I listened to myself, but being able to share them with other people. Podcasting was always something I really enjoyed and and really loved. And after, you know, after a couple of years in New York, I was looking for a creative project. And so I thought, okay, well, I'm a theater person at heart who's working in advertising, and I've got all these friends who are writers and all these friends who are actors. Why don't I put them all together?

And so I started developing a fiction podcast, and the idea there was that we would do a complete story over four episodes of a podcast, only in audio. Maybe these these were scripts that, for whatever reason, couldn't get produced on TV or couldn't get produced in a movie, and just having that opportunity. And through that development is where I really learned a lot about the industry. And so I would go to conferences. I would go to workshops, and anything I could to learn this industry.

Fiction podcasting is a long process. It can be a slow process, and doesn't have an immediate financial gain or anything like that. So I was thinking, like, oh, I still wanna launch a podcast soon, and I was at the On Air Festival in Brooklyn. And it was the first time I heard about the term "branded podcasting" and podcasting within a company. And I think it was a speaker on behalf of Mastercard.

So I'm sitting there listening to the speaker talk about branded podcasting, and the it just clicked that the company that I worked at, Grey, the ad agency in New York, we needed a podcast. And so I came back from from On Air Fest and would just shout to anybody who would listen to me at the agency, we need to have a podcast here at Grey. And, you know, one of the the head of the social department said to me, well, you know, you might be a little too late. I think somebody else is already developing one here. I was like, well, that's great.

Put me in a room with that person. His name was Graham Nolan, and he was running CorpCom at Grey at the time, and we realized that everything he was good at complemented all the things that I was good at. I was gonna handle production, all of the internal coordination, and he was gonna handle the PR and the guests. We got our host, who was our chief creative officer at the time, and we put this pitch together, and we started recording episodes. Our first episode was with Cecily Strong from SNL, and that felt like a huge get for us.

That was great. We interviewed her over the phone, and, you know, from there, it was just, you know, getting more guests, and that show was called Grey Matter: A Podcast About Ideas, and and it was not too dissimilar from what we're doing here on On The Fly!, in that we were talking to people about their ideas. And that really got me interested in this entrepreneurship space. It that started with that podcast. And so then a few months later, the head of social, who I had that first conversation with, said, we need a podcast for our department.

And so we had this newsletter that Grey put out called The #5Things, and that was a weekly newsletter about the five biggest things happening in social, digital, and advertising ecosystem around social media. And so we turned the #5Things into a podcast that fall. And so now, Grey, the ad agency, went in less than a year from zero podcast to two, and I was at the helm of both of them as the executive producer, cohosting on Grey Matter every once in a while, and an occasional guest on the #5Things, and coordinating, and as a project manager, I was able to manage all those things together while still maintaining my day job as a project manager at Grey. And it was great, and we did that for a number of years. I'm happy to say that both shows were nominated and won Webby Awards.

Both shows won Adweek Podcast Awards, and it was a wonderful beginning of this podcasting career.

Well, it's it's been wonderful for Flywheel as well. In fact, you and I were having a conversation about marketing. We both coach in the world of marketing. And what prompted you to I mean, I bought into it immediately. Flywheel needs a podcast. And I'm thinking, have no idea how to do that. Is that something you do with your phone? Do you need a lot of expensive equipment? How do we do it? I knew who did it.

I was looking right at you. But thank goodness you had answers. I could do the backgrounds and the guests, but I couldn't turn the dials and connect the wires. So what all does a founder need in order to get started with a podcast?

Honestly, you don't even need the bells and whistles. I think you just have to have a good idea and something that you wanna say. And you can record a podcast on your phone. You can record it on a little mini recorder right on your laptop. If you wanna if you have a USB microphone that you can plug in, you don't even need all that.

Really, what you need to have is a story and something to say. And then from there, if you like doing the podcast, if if it's something you wanna build into your ecosystem, then you can start getting more fancy equipment and and building up from there. Also, you know, in the last twenty years of podcasting, the the idea of what a podcast is has changed, especially in the less than last three years. Where a podcast now can be a video, where, you know, historically was only an audio platform. Now, many podcasts have a video component.

And so that video can be in the form of social media. It can be posted on podcast platforms, like Apple and Spotify and all the places that you would normally find a podcast, like what we're doing. But you could just, like I said, you could just record social media clips and that could also be your podcast.

So you have won awards for the quality of your podcast and you are coaching startups on how to get off the ground. What are the elements for a podcast that makes it award winning? When do we go from here's a novice working on a phone in the closet to here's an award winning podcast?

Well, I mean, you know, like so many things, would say that awards shouldn't be the goal, right? And every podcast should have a different purpose. One thing that winning an award for podcasting can prove is the viability of the show, and can also accelerate the kind of guests that you can have on the show, if that's your goal. But I think one thing that I would say for podcasting in general is that it is not a one size fits all. There are so many different uses for podcasting, from entrepreneurs to fiction stories.

There are so many uses and so many different ways to start a podcast, monetize a podcast, do a podcast, and it really is about what your goals are. So if you are somebody who has a newsletter, and you want a companion piece of content to go with that, maybe a maybe a podcast is right. But maybe a podcast isn't right for every entrepreneur. A lot of the entrepreneurs that we've had on this show are so in the weeds on what they do, and are still just building the thing, that I would say it might be premature to start a podcast if there isn't a story to tell yet. However, being a guest on a podcast is a great way to also get your name out there.

And there are plenty of avenues out there for finding ways to be a guest on a podcast, and that is a great way for entrepreneurs also to tell their story. And that was one of the things that we did on Grey Matter that I really loved, is that we were able to give founders a way to tell their story. And so one my favorite example is that one of the founders that we had on told us after the fact that our podcast episode is what he used for onboarding for new employees. So instead of saying, oh, here's like our corporate video of our history, it was, here's the podcast episode I did where I told the whole story of the founding so I don't have to retell the story every time.

Oh, that was smart. He really knew how to use that as a resource.

Absolutely.

So you have heard a lot of our founders tell their stories doing the On the Fly podcast. Was there one that really spoke to you?

Or was there one that you thought, yeah, he's ready, she's ready, they could go with their own podcast? Anything that I'm triggering here?

Yeah. I mean, I really liked talking to Brandon and Johnny. Those guys came in with so much energy and excitement. Brandon, his enthusiasm was really infectious, and I don't know anything about beekeeping, but hearing him talk about it and how passionate he is is, you know, probably the way I'm passionate about talking about podcasts and content and things like that. Those guys were were great.

And also, some of the funny stories of the behind the scenes with Josie and Samuel was really great because I'm also a behind the scenes person. I like to know how things work. So hearing some of those funny stories was also really rewarding.

That's fun. As you coach founders, and we both coach in the sphere of marketing, how quick are you to say, Gee, consider a podcast? Or more likely, what I'm hearing you say is you will say, "You should position yourself to be a guest on a podcast." Because we're working with the very early emerging startups.

Yeah. I think to sort of answer that question, when somebody says to me, I want to start a podcast, my first question is why? What is the reason why you want to start a podcast? It is pretty easy to suss out or figure out pretty quickly where some of these founders are and when they should start a podcast.

When we were talking about starting On The Fly! for Flywheel Social Enterprise Hub, some of the ground rules that we identified were launch with three episodes so that your listeners knew you were serious about this and they had some inventory and they could get an idea what the content would be about. That was ground rule number one. Number two was to have at least 12 episodes recorded and in inventory, if you will, so that you can start dropping them every other week. So if we get into a dry spell, we still have a few more, you know, in the in the can, if you will. What other What are the ground rules?

What would you tell somebody starting a podcast?

I don't even know that I would say those have to be the ground rules for everybody.

Okay.

Right? So it really depends on the type of show. We established this show as evergreen. We try not to be too specific to a certain time. But when we were doing the #5Things at Grey, that was week to week.

Eventually, I became the host of that show, and so I was really, really serious about what content we talked about. Basically, Monday and Tuesday, we would look for stories. Wednesday, we would decide what stories we're gonna do. Thursday, we would record. Friday, we would edit.

That show came out Monday.

Oh, that was fast.

So we had to move, and we had to get into a pattern and a workflow that fit for everybody. If you were on the show that week, your task was Monday, Tuesday, find your stories. Wednesday, I'll edit it down. Thursday, we record. And then Friday, I had somebody who just did the mixing.

And so that was our workflow, and it wasn't too much for any one person except for, you know, me who was coordinating all of it. So it really depends on what kind of show you want, and for us on this show, On The Fly!, we knew that we wanted to record everything up front so that we could roll things out throughout the year. There was also some logistics behind getting the space here at 1819, and trying to be really smart about the way we used our time. I think that's one of the big things. What do you have to say and then how do you want to get it done?

And those are the foundations of starting a podcast.

Yes. And with some of our founders, they are juggling so many things that they have to think about what are their resources. And I would imagine you don't launch a podcast unless you've made a commitment to maintain it.

Absolutely. Podfade is the phrase that is used when podcasts die out. You know, it's sad to see, especially if you have a show that has been out for a while or has a couple of seasons, and then the fall comes around when that new season would launch or whatever, and there are no new episodes. And that happens. And and that's real, and that's fine, you know.

Content doesn't have to last forever. But I think also setting yourself up for a that expectation of, okay, we're gonna do a season, or we're gonna do an always on show. These are all the things you sort of wanna figure out and understand before you get into a venture like starting a podcast.

I like the strategy that we embraced, that we are starting this. We wanna tell the stories of the founders. We wanna showcase those people who support the founders either because of their subject matter expertise or their attitude toward investment, embracing the startup ecosystem. And then we're kinda building up to the grand reveal at the end of this season, there's been so much reference to Bill. Bill started Flywheel.

And so many people tell their stories, they give a shout out to Bill who helped him with this or helped him with that. But the audience doesn't get to meet Bill until the end of our season. Yes, I-

so keep listening.

Yes. I like the way that builds up. Thank you for this. What else do you wanna tell our listeners that I didn't think to mention?

I mean, can always reach out to me. My website is joeyscarillo.com. I have, you know, a little bit of the work I've done out there, and there's a Contact Me link. Spell that. Sure.

Joeyscarillo.com. I got the domain. That's how you can contact me, and podcasting is one piece of what I do. Like you said, Joan, I work in advertising, and I'm a big theater supporter, and there's still a theater kid inside me somewhere. So podcasting brings all that creativity together.

My whole career has been around creativity and supporting creativity, and so, like I said, podcasting is just one of those outlets and something I just really love to do.

And you do it with such fun. So I so enjoy your creativity and your approach to this. And it is a solution. Yeah. I mean, when you are in the room, it is truly a solution and not not a burden, not a problem.

So for that, I thank you so very much for all you bring to the table, whether you're on this side of the table or that side of the table.

Yes. And thank you, Joan, for giving me this opportunity to create this podcast. I hope helping tell the story of Flywheel and the entrepreneurs and the coaches and the investors who are part of this organization. I hope they all feel the energy from the show and really enjoy listening to the full history and the full story.

Great. So do I. Thank Thank you. On the Fly! is produced by Joey Scarillo with music composed by Ben Hammer. Recorded at 1819 Innovation Hub in Cincinnati, Ohio, courtesy of the University of Cincinnati.