Spin Sucks, Gini Dietrich's Book: https://spinsucks.com/spin-sucks-book/
Content Chemistry: The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing, Andy Crestodina's Book: https://www.orbitmedia.com/content-chemistry/
Overcommunicate: A Guide for Business Executives and Aspiring Leaders, Rob Johnson's Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GWQ9XJNP?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback
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Rob Johnson: Podcasts have become wildly popular. They are everywhere and being consumed like they never have before. But beyond entertainment and message delivery, they have become a powerful tool for demonstrating expertise and building brand awareness. In this episode of the Can You Hear Me podcast, co-hosts Rob Johnson and Eileen Rochford welcome Gini Dietrich, the founder and CEO of Spin Sucks and the architect of the PESO model, to discuss why podcasts are the ultimate owned asset for credibility. Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of the Can You Hear Me podcast. I'm Rob Johnson, president of Rob Johnson Communications.
Eileen Rochford: And I'm Eileen Rochford, CEO of the marketing and strategy firm, The Harbinger Group. It seems as though everybody has a podcast today, right Rob?
Rob Johnson: I think so.
Eileen Rochford: I mean, five years in. Like, come on. Late to the party, we think we're so cool.
Rob Johnson: We are not late to the party, but we have people that are OGs that came before us, and that's coming up here in a second.
Eileen Rochford: Yep. So today we're going to examine why podcasts are growing not only in popularity, but in importance when it comes to brand building. At a time when AI search summaries threaten to flatten your messaging and they're already crashing your website traffic, let's be real, podcasts are more than entertainment. They are the ultimate owned asset for exhibiting genuine human expertise and building credibility. In other words, right now is a really good time to reconsider podcasts.
Rob Johnson: Yeah, I mean it is amazing to see how many people have them, and I'll bet on your block and mine, you know, we could walk 30 seconds and there's probably six people with a podcast. Maybe not that many, maybe three. Well, we have, as I kind of teased a second ago, we have found the perfect expert for this discussion today, and we are deeply honored to have her with us. She is Gini Dietrich, the founder and CEO of Spin Sucks. She is the creator of the PESO model and the host of several top-ranked marketing podcasts. She's got more than one. Gini Dietrich, welcome to Can You Hear Me!
Gini Dietrich: Rob, listen, I could listen to you read the dictionary, so if you want to just keep talking, that'd be okay. Eileen and I will just hang out. We'll like send, hold up signs to one another while you talk.
Rob Johnson: To have a podcast expert say that to me just made my day, trust me. So thank you. So before we dive into our main topic, and this is so interesting what we're talking about today, why don't you share your origin story, explain the PESO model, and tell us about your own podcasts because you've been doing it a while and you have several.
Gini Dietrich: I do have several, and funny I'll tell you my origin story through the podcast lens. Gosh, probably 2012-ish, Joe Thornley from Thornley Fallis in Ottawa, Canada came to Martin Waxman and me, Martin is in Toronto, and said, hey listen, the original originators of creators of Inside PR, the podcast, are leaving. Are the two of you interested in doing this? So it's been that long. 14 years, that's insane. Insane. I am actually recording episode 408 of the Spin Sucks podcast, so that's what, many years. I think that the Agency Leadership podcast is like 300, so like, we're podcasting. But I will tell you, I was at Content Marketing World many years ago and I met a guy who worked for Libsyn and he said to me, I need you to hear something. Women don't start podcasts and we need more women podcasters. And I was like, huh, okay. And it still took me a couple of years to like do my own. I was doing the others, but I wasn't doing my own yet, but still took me a couple of years after that. But still to this day, I think the percentage of women-led podcasts is significantly lower than male-led.
Eileen Rochford: Even in this day and age, you feel that to be the case still?
Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah.
Rob Johnson: You know what's amazing, you said Spin Sucks has 400, the other one has 300, and Eileen and I are so proud, five plus years in because we have like 125. And that's a lot.
Gini Dietrich: That is a lot. Five years is a lot, yes.
Rob Johnson: It is, but then when you realize like, oh my gosh, we've got 125 under our belt, and then here's Gini just rolling in with 700 plus, and I'm like, okay. Maybe that's why you're our guest. Yeah, I mean, that's a lot of podcasts.
Gini Dietrich: It is.
Eileen Rochford: Yeah, but so you have almost a thousand I think, if you really combined.
Gini Dietrich: Well combined. Yeah, combined. And 14 years, which is tremendous.
Rob Johnson: That's insane. That's why you're on the show today Gini, just so you know.
Gini Dietrich: Absolutely.
Rob Johnson: And many other reasons. So tell everybody about the PESO model because this is important.
Gini Dietrich: Yeah, and it's funny because I wrote a book called Spin Sucks, I was writing the book in 2013 and it was published in 2014. And the manuscript was due like the week before Christmas. And so you can imagine, like, terrible time to write a book, to finish a book. Like you've got everything else going on, everything at school, like it's a disaster at that time of year, right? Everything's slowing down from a business perspective, but you've got all the holidays and everything. And it was about two weeks before everything was shutting down, and my publisher emailed me and was like, hi, so um, this thing that you talk about in here where you have, you know, social media ads and blogging and media relations and organic social media, does it have a name? And I was like, no. And she goes, it needs a name. And I was like, okay, but Christmas is in two weeks. And she's like, I don't care. So we went back and forth. We went back and forth between OESP, and OSEP, and SEOP, like we were trying to figure it out. And finally I said, can we call it PESO, like I don't know if that's possible since that's a currency. And she's like, let me do the trademark thing, and so she went down the path and because it's a currency versus a framework at the time, that it was okay. So we got that. And then it's like three days before Christmas and she calls me and she goes, hi, and I was like, oh. Hi. She goes, we need a graphic. And I was like, Catherine, it's three days before Christmas. And she's like, mhm. So what? So I went to Upwork and I found somebody who didn't mind working three days before Christmas, and he created the very first image, and it's still available online, of the PESO model. And it was paid, earned, shared, and owned media, and then underneath each were tactics. And I mean things that were on there were like Google Plus was on there, Vine was on there. Oh yeah, like yes, yeah, it's an artifact, that's for sure. So you know, it kind of did something that I never expected it to, and I think she had the foresight enough to push me to name it and create something visual with it, but I don't think even she realized what it would do. And so I had to back into like copyright and trademark and all of that. I've learned a lot over the years on that front. And then we looked at it and we said, okay, well it's completely outdated because Google Plus doesn't exist anymore and Vine doesn't exist anymore and we don't want this to be a list of tactics, we want people to use it strategically. So it's had several evolutions over the past, however long it's been, 12 years, to be evolved now more into an operating system that helps with AI visibility today.
Eileen Rochford: Yes, and there's the whole certification that you offer for that. How many people would you venture to guess have become certified thanks to your program?
Gini Dietrich: I just saw that number in our dashboard. I think it's close to 2,000. Wow. We're in 100 universities. Lots of big companies hire us to teach them how to do it, so yeah, it's a thing. It's a thing.
Eileen Rochford: And I want you to know that I have been pushing Marquette University to look hard at the PESO model as well. Because we have an intern right now who's phenomenal, and I brought this up, and he's in the business school where marketing lives at Marquette, and he was like, oh my god, this is amazing, if only this had been explained to me. So we're trying.
Gini Dietrich: We're trying. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eileen Rochford: Yeah, so all that is to say that it's a genius approach, and it's great for marketers, agency side in particular in my opinion, but also internally, for us to be able to use it with clients. Where the magic is, yeah, as you well know. Yes. Okay, so awesome, so we've just established your credibility. There you go. And here we bridge. Beautiful bridge, master messengers at work here. So okay, and I'm going to use this word, you may agree or disagree Gini, but in my opinion and I think in the opinion of many people, you are truly a trailblazer in marketing in just so many ways, and I know you don't like that but I think it's well worth noting to our listeners. In particular, you've just demonstrated using podcasts to build credibility since you started doing this in 2012 I think you said. So tell us in your view, why is it important to use podcasts particularly today, and why do you continue to do yours, because I know you said it, you kind of alluded to it, it took you a while to do your own, and you were, as we agreed in a prior conversation, maybe you were a reluctant podcaster.
Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I don't love doing it. Still to this day I don't love doing it. Every week I'm like, ugh.
Rob Johnson: The irony is so rich that here she is. Our podcast expert and she's like, I don't like doing 'em.
Eileen Rochford: Is it that you don't like it or it's just like, oh god?
Gini Dietrich: It works.
Rob Johnson: It does, there you go, okay. Tell us why. Why does it work?
Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I mean like, so a couple of things. One is that I prefer to write, that's my creative outlet, and I think much better through my fingertips. So the idea of like sticking a microphone in front of my face and just talking is not comfortable to me. So when my team finally convinced me to do a podcast, they were like, you don't have to create anything new. We're not gonna start out with guests, you can do it by yourself, it's gonna be really easy, you're gonna use content you've already created. And I was like, okay. Fine. But you know, when you think about the universe of how people learn, most people do not learn by reading. Most people learn by watching or listening. And when you think about that and how they prefer to, I hate this word, but consume their content, listening and watching are the two best ways to reach them. And that is why I do it over and over and over again. Like we added video, YouTube, which I fought kicking and screaming, I was like, I like recording my podcast in my pajamas at 7am on Sunday, and she's like, sorry. So now we have video too. But it works, so okay, we keep going.
Rob Johnson: Well I must say, for those who are watching this on YouTube, for whom this is not an audio-only experience, you are the best dressed here today. No offense Eileen at all, I'm looking at us, I'm like we're good, I look very appropriate, Eileen you do too. Gini, I'm like, no wonder she's got a thousand of these under her belt, good lord.
Eileen Rochford: I bet she's wearing pajama bottoms.
Gini Dietrich: I am wearing my new Spanx pants. You don't have to show us. They're nice.
Eileen Rochford: Okay, you said they work. Tell me, I understand your point about how people learn and that's awesome. How do podcasts work specifically for building credibility?
Gini Dietrich: I think it does a couple of things. I definitely think it builds credibility for sure, but it also drives business. And I think podcasting drives business better than any other medium. And so we have clients who, their leaders will invite prospective customers onto their podcast, especially from a B2B perspective, and then they build the relationship that way. And then there's always a, well hey, tell me more about what you do, or what your product is, or how your services are, things like that, that always comes out of it. And so it's a really easy way to do sales, especially if you're thinking about account-based management marketing where you're like, I really want to get in front of XYZ company and they are not returning our phone calls or don't respond to our emails, let's invite their CEO to the podcast. And all of a sudden, there is a great inroad there and the gatekeeper is not existent from that perspective. So I would say that is number one, but number two, it does create credibility because you do have to think on the fly, and you do have to have an actual thought for your thought leadership, and you do have to talk through things and explain them in a way that people listening will understand, otherwise your podcast isn't going to be successful. So I think it's twofold, you can use it for both credibility and for business development.
Eileen Rochford: And that's a really great point too about the charm offensive. Oh, can't get them to return our calls, want to be on our podcast?
Rob Johnson: And then we run into people a lot who come on our podcast who are like, hey I've got a podcast, so why don't you come on mine, and so it's very reciprocal, isn't it?
Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And the story Rob that you told when we did our pre-work on this about the client that was in your book that now has a whole podcast studio because of how effective it is. Like those kinds of stories I don't think are few and far between. I think that's pretty typical that you realize how effective it is and you invest in it.
Rob Johnson: I'm glad you brought that up because I was going to talk about it a little bit later, but Marty Ozinga, who's the CEO of Ozinga, the concrete company, he was chapter 13, the culture builder. Of course Eileen was chapter nine in the book, but they built a full-on studio. And they have three staff members that are doing the production work, it's right when you walk into their headquarters in Mokena, it is outstanding. And not only does Marty do it, but one of their safety directors has his own podcast, so they have two podcasts going on right now relative to the business. Marty's is more, he really just gets interesting people on, so it's not all about their industry. But the safety one is about the industry, and I gave him credit because he didn't have to do it, he's the CEO, he's really busy. And yet he found time, money, everything to make this investment because it's not cheap. When you see that podcast, it is outstanding. And they've really made that investment, and he has to find the time to be the CEO and to be all things to all people and to build his culture and still do it, and it's really good. So I'm glad you brought that up, because I was going to bring it up and I just think that I wish more people would do it, make that commitment, but not everybody wants to make that sort of financial and time commitment.
Rob Johnson: So Gini, let me ask you this question. What risk do you run if you don't utilize a podcast in your marketing mix? It's not the solution, but it's part of the solution. Do you have a story about someone who missed a golden opportunity because they said no to podcasting, they were stubbornly or for whatever reason saying I don't want to do it, and then they got left behind a little bit? Is there anything that rings a bell with you on that front?
Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily use the word risk, but it is tempting to say oh I just don't have time, I don't have time for this. And you both know, you have clients who will say, oh well I was golfing and so-and-so said that they were in the New York Times, or I was golfing and so-and-so said they were featured in how I built this or whatever happens to be, and you're like, mhm. You won't make time. You can also have that, but you have to make time. And I think that that's the risk from not just a podcast perspective, but from a marketing perspective. You have to have leaders, and it doesn't have to be the CEO, depending on how the organization is run, it might be the CEO, it could be a chief of staff, it could be a COO, it could be a safety director, right? But it's really about how do you present the company in a new and interesting way so that both human beings and robots understand who you are, what you do, how they can work with you, and all those things.
Rob Johnson: Excellent points, all of them. I hope our listeners are cluing into, it's about missed opportunity largely and you've got to make the time and prioritize it.
Eileen Rochford: Okay, so let's ask this question. The incentive you kind of established that there's a sales incentive, that's obvious for starting or continuing to host a podcast. But what other incentives can you identify from your own experience, and I'll ask this question, you really use your podcast very effectively in how you run your business and marketing strategy for Spin Sucks, maybe there's some learnings there that you could impart to our listeners perhaps?
Gini Dietrich: I saw on TikTok yesterday, I see these bro messages where it's like if you spend $50 you'll make 250 million gazillion dollars and you're like okay, alright. But I do pay attention to that kind of stuff because it's our industry right? And I saw one yesterday that was almost there, but what really was interesting about it is they were talking about how easy it is to take one big piece of content like a podcast or a YouTube video and then create hundreds of assets from it. And he showed like one podcast episode became 60 pieces of content, and I was like okay that's actually pretty good because it's true. So you can create blog posts from it, you can create all sorts of social assets from it, you can create more video, like you all, reels and TikTok videos and all of the things right? So it's a really easy way to do that, so you create something once, it takes you, I mean for me it probably takes all in it's probably three hours a week. You could probably do it in less time if you didn't need to write it yourself. But I'm a little controlling on my own messaging, so I do that. So but if you have a team that's willing to help you get there, you can probably do it in an hour a week, and then all of the assets that are created from that are significant because you can take one piece of audio or, and if you're recording it on video you can take that and create reels and create videos and YouTube shorts and all of the things right? So it's a really easy way to do that, you yourself don't have to do that, your team can do that, AI can do some of it, like there are opportunities here for you to use the tools at your disposal, but it will create a lot of assets for you.
Eileen Rochford: Yeah, just jam packed, absolutely. And your, the way that you started your answer Gini about how one larger piece of content can turn into hundreds just made me think about how what is it 15 plus years ago now that Andy Crestodina published Content Chemistry, and that was like the entire premise, remember? And it's still, whole, true today, and I think even more so in this current marketing environment. So podcasts really are, I wouldn't call it easy, I don't think any of us think it's easy to do them right, it's not easy, but it is highly highly effective for that very reason, no doubt about it. And honestly it's a little fun, and I think anybody who does finally jump in gets to experience that fun too, like wow I am an expert and I do want to talk about this and I want to have dialogues with other experts and stand out in my industry.
Gini Dietrich: And have a conversation and yeah.
Rob Johnson: I will also say that as somebody who used to create content all the time when I in my old career television, when I quit doing that and I was going in this consulting route, Eileen came to me and said we should do a podcast. And I've told this story several times and I'd had other people...