Zoe:
Okay. Well, hi everyone. It's Zoe and Alex from East Studio, and I'd like to welcome you guys to this week's Let's Get Potting webinar, how to increase engagement with leadership, presented by the vice president of change management and communication at SouthernGlazers Wine and Spirits, Jordan Franklin. This webinar will be recorded and we will be sending a follow up email to all attendees with the recording link.Q & A is encouraged and will take place at the end of the webinar. So, if you have any questions, please feel free to type them into Q & A box in Zoom. The control for this is located at the bottom of your screen. Please use the Q & A and not the chat box. We also encourage you to not ask your questions anonymously so that if we do not get to your question, we can answer via email after the webinar is complete. So I'd like to go ahead and give our speaker the floor. Jordan, are you ready?

Jordan:
No. Yes, I'm ready. Thank you for that introduction. And thanks everyone for signing up and listening. I love uStudio. I love the team over there. We have a great partnership and was happy to share my story. And the amount of time that is dedicated to this, I'm planning on giving you a piece of all of it or in each category, whether it's the metrics, whether it's how it podcasting formed here, where we're at today, why we think it's successful. But it all started with a vision on creating a more omnichannel focused ecosystem where our platforms integrated with one another and mirrored more so the consumer experience outside of our business. So, when I say evolving communication with uStudio, we're definitely evolving it inside our business, but really, we're just now matching the experience that so many consumers engage with on a day a to day basis.

With that being said, before we jump into podcasting, my recommendation as a change leader, communication leader, and really my role is focused heavily on the commercial organization at Southern, the bulk of the company, bulk of the business, three quarters of it were 22,000 employees, $20 billion plus in revenue, private business where alcohol distribution space playing in that middle tier, regardless, I would say, lay out your tenants. In terms of communication and change, what is the foundational elements that will manifest into the podcast or the internet, whatever it is that you're looking to achieve. And so the tenants on my end are to have consistent communication, all fronts, leverage, push, pull interactive methods, right? So you want people to pull to your communication. You want to push things out with newsletters. You want audio, visual, written formats, and you want it to be cohesive.

For example, Ryan Reynolds, when he has a message to communicate in regards to Aviation Gin, he has Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, you name it, at his disposal, his website, and he changes the message slightly for each medium, but it is a consistent feel, consistent branding. So that was important to us, and especially when deciding to start this podcast, because not only you're going to have to start the podcast, you're going to have to build it. You're going to have to create the artwork. You're going to have to design the layout, the cadence, the marketing of it, because you have to get people to the podcast itself, and so on, and grab feedback. List goes on. So that was important. Imperfection equals connection. You'll find that I'm big on moving away from synthetic communication, that corporate style, and this podcast that I'm about to share with you really was the catalyst to start shifting the culture toward a more authentic look and feel in how we communicate.

Start at the top and reinforce. It's top down, get our leadership on board. And you'll see more of that in the next couple slides. Measuring our success, we all want data. We all want metrics. We all want to make smarter decisions. A platform like uStudio allowed us to do that. The other platforms that I'm focused on and bringing in to help us communicate do offer the same features. What's in it for me? We all know this. I'm not saying anything new, but I always keep it in mind. What is the audience going to get out of this communication? And always tell a story. And it's funny, because I'm looking at this live. And I've used this slide and internal presentations, and really, all six of these are brought to life in the podcast. It's almost as if this was used to build straight up, which is the podcast at SouthernGlazers.

This was how it started. I built the end state and said, "What do I want this to look like?" I imagine there's some type of marketing brochure and I'm pitching it to somebody; a friend investor, whoever it is, a partner. And I said, "Okay, I want the format to look like this." I want it to be casual, minimal editing. Most importantly, I want to connect employees with leadership. And I don't want to connect them necessarily with the work, but the people that they are. What makes them tick? Who are their mentors? What's their leadership style? What advice do they have for folks? And through that, you pull out the projects and programs that they're working on. Who do I want the audience to be? In my head, everybody, from bottom to top, top to bottom, sideways, anybody that's a SouthernGlaze employee will have access to this to keep them connected.

And I had listed out some topics covered. So this is the first step I did. I think this is even before uStudio. And I was asking myself, how do I do this? How do I best do this? How do I create an authentic engaging environment? If I allow the podcast to be distributed on external platforms, such as iTunes or Spotify and so on, I want our leaders to feel comfortable and safe, a secure environment. So I worked with uStudio, and I was fortunate to have a great, great partnership with them early on. They allowed me to create a proof of concept in MVP environment with the SouthernGlazer's logo. I actually bought my own equipment with my personal card. And by the way, during this time a podcast, yeah, how big of an impact can it be? I'm hearing a lot of feedback, long form authentic. Sure. Is it going to make that big of a difference? When you're building something new, you'll always get some no's, just like `any entrepreneur to tell you. So that's really what we're doing inside the business, each time we run a project. I said, "Okay, I'm going to build it."

So back to the story. I have this app: MVP environment, I think uStudio uploaded some other basic podcasts that are on their site just to give it some content. But I bought my own equipment, personal card, expecting a yes. That's a bit what I had. And I recorded myself saying, Hey, this is the transformation team podcast. I'm on the transformation team on the commercial end. And we're here to connect you to our leaders. And we're going to talk about X, Y, and Z. And I uploaded it. I learned the software that week, brought it to a dinner with one of our executives, my boss. I press play. And that's where he said, "Let's go, let's roll. Let's fund it." So I would say, if you're looking at doing something like this, start testing the waters in any way you can. Be confident, have those tenants put together, and have that vision in place, and go after it.

So this is the Straight Up podcast. This is actually the logo I have on my wall. For those, I don't always sit in my office with a mic like this and headphones. I've kind of built this makeshift studio where it has these phone panels on the wall to help with audio, reflecting off the glass makes editing easier. I have mics and equipment. This is the standard mic we use. I'll get into that in a second. And I have this logo up on the screen, so when people come in, they feel like they're entering a true studio. I'm going to play this trailer. And Zoe or Alex, let me know if the audio's working. This is a piece, or some clips of recent episodes. [Video playing 00:09:08].

So this was a trailer. I know it's playing again.

Alex:
Oh yeah, it sure has.

Jordan:
First. So that was a trailer taking in clips to help market the podcast itself. But we've done 9, 10 episodes now with a variety of guests from all over the country, from general managers of Alaska to retired C-suite, to legends in our industry that have strong history and impact on the alcohol business, touch on different aspects of leaders, and putting that together. Because what you'll find with the podcast is, like with anything, if most of you are in any type of leadership roles, the difficulty with engagement. We're at a war for attention, so we have to make everything modern and look hip in my opinion, to try to capture that employee's attention away from other distractions that they naturally have with their smartphones.

Jump ahead. I put this slide up because it shows our growth rate, but I wanted you to focus on the metrics that we look at, which is the user base. How many users are signed up for uStudio with a single sign on access; the consumption consumed, so the amount of minutes, which the use studio dashboard gives you, and the amount of plug. So these are three top line metrics that we focus on. And I'm doing so on a quarterly basis. Well, I mean, some of this is mind blowing, at least to our organization who hasn't necessarily looked at communication in this way. The numbers, if you have a newsletter tool, you're obviously looking at opens. If you have a video going out, you're looking at plays, of course. But this gives that next layer. And these are just the top line metrics. uStudio dashboard could break it down by day, month, time, user. Not sure if we could do geography yet, but you could you could link it up to your own BI system and run deeper analytics.

So I wanted to give you a comparison of, and I'm looking at my screen up here, a video series, traditional video series at Southern versus a podcast. So I looked at a video series that launched at a similar time as uStudio with the Straight Up show. And by the way, Straight Up show is the only show that we have on the uStudio app. You're able to load up more shows just like any other podcast. So this is just one show. We have plans to expand. But looking at uStudio and the Straight Up show, you'd think, okay, podcast. A new app, that's going to have a higher barrier to entry. So folks have to download the app. First, they have to know about the app, so you have to communicate that the app is out there. Then, they have to have a reason to download it. Then, they have to download the app, get their credentials in there, learn how to use the interface, which is thankfully with U studio, an easy one if you've ever listened to podcasts before. And then, engage with the episode. So there's quite a few steps compared to a video series or a video that we're launching where we just shared on our internet or push it out as a newsletter.

So I was curious. Over, I believe at eight months span, this was what do these look like side by side? 30 episodes in this video series, each episode is about three minutes long. So easy to digest, right? 30 minutes, has an executive on there, has winning formula. uStudio, seven episodes, new platform, new styles of communicating, higher barrier entry, right? The odds are against it. But what we found is that the metrics tell a different story. So when you look at the amount of plays of this video series with 30 episodes, with the total amount of plays over 30 episodes, accumulate to just around 3,300 plays.

If you look at the seven episodes with the podcast, we had four X amount of plays in the same time period. So now, the hypothesis start to pop up. You know, why? Why is that the case? And I'll share some of those insights in a minute. But the other metric that, when I talked about the mind blow, mind being blown, was the consumption. Because at the end of the day, you want users to engage with the content, not just hit the play button. And the Straight Up show is long, long form. So Joe Rogan style, where we sit down and have a conversation and it's natural. There's no necessary arbitrary cutoff time. If I have a leader coming in from across the country, I'm not going to say,"Hey, you have 45 minutes." Especially when not everybody at our company, and we're across 44 markets, has heard from this leader. So I'm going to give them the floor to tell a story and have a conversation and have some fun.

So back to the numbers: 70 X amount of consumption compared to a traditional video series. I mean, that's incredible. That's your company's content being consumed at an exponential rate because you're not only learning about the leader, but you're learning, like I said, the projects, the programs. What's going on in the company? What is their opinion on it? Leadership skills, mentorship; it's just a whole array of teachings within these episodes. And that could be one of the reasons why you see the higher engagement. The other [inaudible 00:15:09] cycle I wanted to showcase between a video series and podcast was through a graph. And where I want you to focus is the first spike on the traditional video series. So you get a spike when you launch a video.

Makes sense, right? You launch the video, you marketed it, you push it out through meetings, say, "Hey, check out this video." But then what happens is, one and done; the video plays start to die down quickly. I saw the video or I never even heard about the video, but the marketing somewhat stops. However, with the podcasts, I find this fascinating, you get the jump, you can see with the light gray, dark gray line, but then when new episodes release, which are the other colors, the engagement waterfalls, the amount plays waterfalls. Because when we get a new user and he is enticed by this new guest, they get on the app and they're like, "Oh wait a second. Oh, Brad was on here. Mel was on here?" And they start to listen to the other episodes.

So the way I like to describe it is, we're lengthening the shelf life of the content we're producing, which ultimately means you're gaining a stronger ROI of all that content. And we know that videos cost some money to put together, and there's upfront cost with podcasts, but it isn't this high production environment. We got some mics, we're sitting down, we're having a drink, we're talking. So there's multiple ways you could address the return on investment.

Wanted to jump to a different area real quick and talk about the hardware and software being used, because I think another reason why the engagement is so strong at Southern is because the production value is high. We purchased nice equipment. This is the equipment that I bought initially, and from the mic to the Rodecaster Pro, which takes in everything, and that's where you do the recording and it records onto an SD card to the arms, to the studio that we have here. It all plays a part. And I did want to mention the software as well. We use Adobe Premier Pro, but there's tons out there. Audacity is another one that comes up. And by the way, these are new skills of mine. A lot of this was new in a sense, where if we wanted it done, we had to build it and had to learn it.

So in addition to the equipment, the software we're using, why else is it working? We talked a lot about authentic communication. You're probably hearing that all the time in your personal lives and in business lives. How do we, especially over the last year, everything that's gone on, how do we foster an environment that's authentic and communicate in a way that's honest and sincere? And that's absolutely a part of podcasting here. We have commitment to the vision, talked about that on the first slide, production, all in house. That's what I was getting at in the previous slide.

The same thing with hiring a consultant. We all do it, but there's something to producing, designing, administering something that's in house, because it lines up with your culture, lines up with the messaging, the style that you run your business. So I think doing it all in house makes a difference. It makes a big difference, and also gives people, our guests, a safety net. So I can say, "Hey, if there's anything that we say that you feel might have been crossing the line, my team does the editing. So don't worry, you have that safety net."

I had to say pick the right co-host. I knew starting, that for this show to be successful, we would need a charismatic people leader. And I knew who that was. And I think when you're looking at how you are running your podcast, listen you could democratize the podcast, you could, whatever strategy you want, where you say, okay, each department has a show, or anybody could start a podcast, just fill out this form to communicate with your team, right? There's unlimited opportunities for expansion, but when you're first starting, you want to create the right impression. You want to set the mood, set the stage. So I'd put that as a reason why it's working. And the end-to-end cohesiveness, which ties into the production all being in house.

And then finally, I think we're... no, we're on good time. This is what I think a lot of us care about, is return on investment. uStudio has a calculator online, on their site, that allows you to input hours versus salary. And then, basically, how much content are they consuming on a monthly basis? And there's a formula there to say, okay, based on that, this is the amount of productivity you gain. And this is an interesting conversation because it depends on how your financing or how your leadership, Alex and I have talked about this, how they view productivity. When I'm thinking about an employee taking the time to listen to a leader about their projects, programs, and initiatives, culture, whatever it might be, I think that's a production gain. You say, okay, okay. Maybe it's not because they could be doing something else at their job, or that's what they should be doing anyways throughout the eight to five typical working hour.

But let's take it a step deeper. And you look at the amount of content consumed outside of working hours, almost half, almost half. None of this is required. It's not required. It's voluntary. So half of our user base is engaging with company branded content voluntarily and willingly, outside of working hours. That's pure productivity. And then, you'd say, okay, that's not even including the Saturday and Sunday eight to five, right? I'm just looking at it seven days a week, eight to five. Almost 15% of content is played on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. It's incredible. And that's just the numbers, but the amount of feedback that we've gotten to from all over the company saying, thank you for taking the time. I'd never met X person. I never met this person. I didn't know this was going on. It's really inspiring and motivating. And it reaffirms the hard work that we put into this and the partnership that we invested in. And that's it. That's what I have. I wanted to give time for questions, because like the podcast, I like it conversational. So let me know what questions you have and I'll do my best to address them honestly.

Zoe:
Yeah. Thanks, Jordan. Looks like we're starting to get some questions, so I'll go ahead and spit them out to you. Andrew is asking, is your podcast only audio or both audio and video?

Jordan:
For now, it's audio. And part of that was because of bandwidth. When working with the IT department, I said, how do we best push this through the organization quickly into our budget? And video is definitely in the future. What I will do is use video to market it. So I'll take a video clip of us in the room or us together saying, Hey, check out our podcast that's launching next week. But other than that, today it's audio only. And I do want to say, we've done some other fun things with the audio where we have people call in, and we've done live podcasting as well. We tried that once for a town hall environment. And if you are audio only, your audience will feel the energy even more because it's all in the vocals. So it goes back to when you are launching the podcast, really commit to the style, the vision, the theme, the cadence, et cetera.

Zoe:
Awesome. Thanks. Rachel is asking, so how long would you say your average long form show is, and what are some of the topics you cover over the course of an episode?

Jordan:
Average length, I looked at this recently; an hour, hour 10, something around there. It depends on the guest. There's some guests, let's say who today, funny enough, right after this and why I have a hard stop is, we have one of our founders coming in to do the podcast. He's flying in from Texas. So that's real exciting. And we have the whole room set up, and I'm not going to cut him off at any time. And he has a ton of stories, ton of history. And I would imagine a large portion of our business has not heard from this leader in such a way.

So our longest episode has been around two hours, and our shortest one is just under an hour. But I don't put the cap in. What was the second part of that question? Oh, the topics.

Rachel:
Yes.

Jordan:
Topics include: A lot of these are in functional leaders, so it would be projects and programs that they're working on. Like I said, mentorship, who are their mentors? What advice do you have for generations in our company and leaders? Diversity inclusion is another topic. We had our strategy, vision, and a lot about the individual. So what makes them tick? And we do fun segments to learn more about them and whatnot. Because there's so many other mediums that update on projects too, where you have to find what makes your medium different and stand out.

Rachel:
Thank you.

Zoe:
Thank you. She's also asking, do you prepare questions ahead of time for your guests? Or do you do them kind of off the cuff during your interview?

Jordan:
That's the secret recipe. I can't give that away. That's not a secret. It's very light, very light preparation. We focus on topics and let the conversation fill the void. [crosstalk 00:26:15] The question would be like, oh, talk about your story or your career and how you got started. And that will be maybe a topic question, but it's very few and far between. When you start the podcast, I don't know where it's going to end up, which is a risk, it's risky in a business, but it can be done.

Zoe:
Can you also give some tips on things you've done to promote your podcast and increase listenership, in addition to the trailer you created?

Jordan:
Listen, my door is open. If you have ideas, message me on how you increase engagement. I did one thing that, I mean, I try it all. We do trailer, you do newsletters. I post on the internet, I'm close with the corporate communications team who's excellent, who runs all of corporate coms. Like I said, I focus more on commercial, and we'll have a date at the end of the month to post an article about the podcast. But I really want to drive people to the app, the mobile experience, that's where it really comes to life.

So the first push is, here are the steps to download the app, but I'll also secondarily have a link to the desktop version. So you have newsletters, we use teams chatter, other social platforms, messaging platforms. We have our internet. But like I said, if we go back to one of my slides where I say consistent on all fronts, a to Z production house, those type of themes, those tenants. If your podcast is trying to stand out, then the communication should line up with that as well. So we did, hold on, I'll show you, give me a second.

I probably could have showed you a picture on the screen, but if you can look at this.

Zoe:
Yes.

Jordan:
That was caricature of us in the studio, right? You're trying to say, Hey, we're loosening up here. The tie is off. So we use that in communication messages as well.

Zoe:
So this is similar, but what are some of the strategies you would recommend to keep your programs fresh and to keep engagement ongoing? So with time and not to reduce any sort of audience drop off.

Jordan:
Yeah. Yeah. You kind of said it. There's no right answer. You have to experiment. That's one of the tenants, you have to take risks. So one of the ways we did it was doing the live show, where it's fully live, there's no post-edit, people could hop on in the room like a zoom meeting, like we're doing right now, but it's in a different format. And I had the live music, I don't do this, but streamers, Twitch streamers and all that. We have the music going, and then, they say, okay, live podcast about to kick off in three minutes, taking in calls, trying to engage with people on chatter with questions, or through other mediums. Say, do you have a question for us that we could address? Recognition is a great way to do so on the podcast. And I think being consistent. And then eventually, the way I'm thinking about it is we'll need new shows. We'll need to roll out new shows that focus on different functions or topics such as leadership development, maybe only our sales tidbits. So that's another way.

Zoe:
Awesome. And what's the feedback that you're getting from both your podcasts guests and the listeners?

Jordan:
Let's see. What's the time? I think we're all right. If you give me a minute, I'll show some of that feedback.

Zoe:
Attendee is also asking for your contact info. And something I'll say is, in the webinar recording, that's going to be available in the uStudio app. I'll post a link to your LinkedIn, if you're okay with that. So anyone can connect with you.

Jordan:
Yep.

Zoe:
There. So-

Jordan:
That's fair enough.

Zoe:
...Attendees, be on the lookout for the recording.

Jordan:
All right. Let me show you this. Yeah, send me a message on LinkedIn. Okay. All right. I'm not going to go through all this. This is internal feedback, but you get the idea. I've captured all of them because it really is heartwarming. I mean, I'm very passionate, and I've put a lot of myself into the podcast. And you have to be able to listen to all kinds of feedback to steer you in the right direction. But these are some of the ones that really got my attention, and we've gotten hundreds from all over the company. But I love when I hear, I generally feel like I have better insight into the company. I had long car ride with the first episodes. So we know people are listening to it on their commutes and in their car. Look at this: morning jog. I had someone send in a picture of them listening to it on the beach with the app. And here's another one: morning jog. So many roles exploring those conversations with laughter helps make the company feel a bit smaller. And just people from all over the company. So this is just some of the things that we've heard.

Zoe:
That's awesome. Thank you for sharing. I know you have a podcast to record, so-

Jordan:
Yeah.

Zoe:
...We'll go ahead and wrap this up. But thank you again for a great presentation. Again, to all attendees, this webinar was recorded, and we will send a follow up email with the recording link. So the recording will be available in uStudio's trial app and our Let's Get Podding webinar series podcast show. So if you do not have a trial with uStudio and would like to view the replay, you can download our app for free in either the Apple store or Google Play. Once prompted after opening the app, enter TRIAL, all capitalized, as your company code. And if there's any confusion, these steps will be listed in our follow up email.

Jordan:
Perfect example.

Zoe:
If you'd like to learn more.

Jordan:
Perfect example of how to draw people in.

Zoe:
Yes.

Jordan:
We do the same thing, right? You can only find this content here on this app. So just another way for their listeners.

Zoe:
Great. Yeah.

Jordan:
I recommend it.

Zoe:
It's a good way to [crosstalk 00:33:29] No, you're good.

Alex :
Thank you, Jordan.

Zoe:
Good tip. So yeah. Thanks, everyone. We hope you have a good day.

Jordan:
Thank you.

Alex:
Thank you, everybody for attending. And thank you, Jordan.

Jordan:
No problem.

Zoe:
Bye, guys.