Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Julie Basello

Curt Anderson  00:01

Damon Pistulka Good morning. How are you?

Damon Pistulka  00:05

I’m doing great. Curt. How are you today?

Curt Anderson  00:07

Dude, anything on the docket this afternoon this evening? What’s going on tonight?

Damon Pistulka  00:11

We got a little Monday Night Football going on Monday night.

Curt Anderson  00:15

Who’s on the menu?

Damon Pistulka  00:18

We have the Philadelphia Eagles. Well,

Curt Anderson  00:20

you know What perfect timing. Dude, what app I

Damon Pistulka  00:23

didn’t even think about that.

Curt Anderson  00:26

We you know what I planned this when the football season came out. I planned this little guest today. So let’s dive right in. We’ve got a ton to cover. So let’s dive right in. Damon. So Damon, good luck to your Seattle Seahawks. As you and your son go to the game tonight. Just want to share that But David, did you know that this is the last show of the year? This is this is it man. This is like we’re not even know Friday night like this is it? I don’t want to offend and hurt anybody’s feelings. But we saved the best for last. There we go. Here we go. So hey, I want to introduce my dear friend. Julie Basello. Hey, Julie, how are you? Happy Monday.

Julie Basello  01:08

Hey, great, Happy Monday to you too. And again, thanks for having me. Great to be here. Well, since the same time number three, so it’s

Curt Anderson  01:18

tough. You are a repeat offender for time number three. And so we just want to thank you, we appreciate you join us and share it we have a really fun topic. And so Damon is gonna be at the Seattle Seahawks game rooting against the Philadelphia Phillies. I know you’re right outside of Philly, but you’re in New York, girl through and through. So let’s start here. So I want to give a little I want to give a little background, we started getting to it, I did the whole like, you know, you’ve been on multiple times. So we won’t do a super deep dive but just share a little bit on your background, your your marketing expertise, what led you to really bring your passion, your your experience into manufacturing, let’s start there.

Julie Basello  01:57

I segwayed a career as an operations manager into my own business, working as a photographer and a small business owner. And then some life changes forced me into getting a day job. But I was fortunate that I came across a day job as a photographer as a marketing photographer. And that segwayed over a period of five years into a multimedia content manager role. So that’s how I kind of ended up being in marketing doing what I’m doing managing video photo blogs, podcasts and social media for a large manufacturing support company. Wow, I love it. That’s the short the short version. That’s

Curt Anderson  02:40

the short version. And that’s the short version. The company you’re with is Radwell International. And so you’ve been them. I think 10 years you’ve been with them already right? Something like just

Julie Basello  02:51

shy of 10 years. Yeah, just shake Wow. Well,

Curt Anderson  02:53

happy anniversary coming up here on the on the horizon. So just you’re doing amazing work. We’ve been fast friends. We’ve got our buddy Dan bigger announced Dan, happy Monday. It’s Hey, Giuliana podcast, no less. So we’re gonna dive in. So Julie, just share a little bit about like, your marketing, evolution, your walk of you know how you’ve kind of gravitated and gone towards podcasts and but just share a little bit about like your marketing journey early and how you graduated to get really dive into podcasting.

Julie Basello  03:24

I am a content creator. So I create content in various mediums, video photo blog, as I mentioned, and social media and all of those things kind of got me curious about podcasting about, I guess it was right at the beginning of COVID. I started researching and seeing what I could do with podcasting, and did some research taught myself how to work things, what mic to get all that and messed around with it before anybody heard what we were doing. So I kind of created a safe space to be able to test out what I wanted to test out. And that’s what segwayed into the podcast for Radwell. And as I was doing it for Radwell. I started doing it on my own as well. So my personal podcast that I run for my own business is very different than the Radwell podcast, but there are similarities. You know, there’s certain things with podcasts that should be there. And one of the first things is that authentic brand voice or personal voice, whatever it is, whatever your theme is, for your podcast, you want it to be authentic. You want it to be your your unique brand voice not trying to emulate someone else’s podcasts or someone else’s success or trying to be something you’re not. Both of those things are definitely dangerous when it comes to podcasting. So that’s kind of how I evolved. It was really just, hey, I want to try this. I haven’t done this before. Let me see what I can do with this. And of course at the same time I was starting to do voiceovers at work for our videos. So people kept commenting on my voice and I was like, Alright, let’s put this to work. Alright, good. Well,

Curt Anderson  04:58

I love it. And while you’re there, watch it share. A little bit, but when you said, what you’ve done for yourself personally either versus or compared to what you’re doing for the company, but so if somebody’s out there, like, Hey, I’m gonna start branding myself, I want to get a podcast going versus or compared to, hey, I want to get something going for a company manufacturer share a little bit about the difference between personal and on the company brand side,

Julie Basello  05:19

while doing it for a company brand, there’s certain standards you have to meet. And you do have to have rules, because you can’t just go on for a company just have a free for all podcast about whatever you want to do. You know, as you know, when you’re doing it for for that type of a brand, you have more restrictions most of the time for when you’re doing it personally. So my own podcast is called reinvention adventures. And it’s about reinvention stories, and reinvention tips, because we all know that we’ve all had reinvention journeys in our lives. And it’s very important to be able to productively reinvent yourself, whether you’re forced to or whether you have a dream, and you want to try something different. We all have those moments where we need to productively reinvent ourselves. And how do we do that, we get tips from people who’ve done it many times before, or we listen to stories about other people’s reinvention journey. So so that’s kind of a you see how specific it is. It’s a theme and I’ve evolved into that. I started off very general and it evolved into that very niche place. For a brand however, you have to figure out how you want to present things and how you want to present the brand in that unique voice. You don’t want to have a podcast of selling tips about a brand. That’s boring. But how can you segue what the brand does into interesting stories that educate and enlighten your listeners, your audience, if you will. So I think that’s the difference. I

Damon Pistulka  06:41

like to I like to use current noise uses this phrase or term edutainment edutainment, when you put that together, you can get a lot. Yeah, absolutely engaged people. And they’ll come back time after time, if you can. Very true,

Julie Basello  06:54

very true. And I think a lot of brands, you know, look at podcast content and think it has to be video. And that, you know, if you don’t do video, you’re missing the boat, and I am one of those weird people who disagrees. I think video is fine. And there’s a place for it and marketing for sure. And it definitely gives you more content I can read, you know, I can create more pieces of content from a podcast that has video with it. However, the medium is in its purest form audio. And the thing with audio is that you can multitask while you’re doing it. I can pop my air pods in and I can you know, go shopping and listen to a podcast. I’m not going to be watching YouTube. While I’m shopping. I’m not going to be vacuuming and listening to a podcast or watching a podcast but I might be listening to it. So I feel like the first focus has to be on quality of audio when you’re creating the podcast content. And then once you have that down if you want to build upon the video. Wonderful, but you have to sound good first.

Curt Anderson  07:56

Yeah, well, hey, you know what Dan bigger says about rules.

Julie Basello  08:01

Blah, blah bla bla it sounds like Dan bigger net.

Curt Anderson  08:05

Loved it today, Dan Bigger. So

Julie Basello  08:07

thanks for joining Dan. Yes.

Curt Anderson  08:09

So let’s dive in here. Julie. So let’s you know we are passionate our love is for manufacturers I think United connected originally back to our dear friend Dan Bigger Curt, like who isn’t connected through Dan Bigger, right? I know. Like the seven degrees of seven of Kevin Bacon, right? Like damn, yeah. Or Kevin Bacon. Right. That’s

Julie Basello  08:27

a superpower for sure.

Curt Anderson  08:30

Connection. So I think you and I connected originally through the manufacturing Twitter group on Thursdays, of course. And so your passion is helping manufacturers? Why should manufacturers strongly consider podcasting as a marketing tool?

Julie Basello  08:45

I feel like it’s, it’s something that’s very inexpensive to do. And very simple to learn. Now, like anything else, practice makes perfect. And the more practice you are, and you both can attest to this, when you first started out with your lives, I’m sure if we went back and watch that one, it’s very different than today’s lives are. But it’s still good. I’m sure. You have to you have to do it to learn it. But I think once you do it, you can create an environment for your brand audience that educates them, positions yourself as a as a leader in your industry, creates education about your industry, not just about your company, and also allows you to speak in your authentic brand voice which is something that voice is important and it’s yours alone. So why not utilize it? I think the the there’s nothing that’s that’s expensive about starting out a podcast, you can literally get the equipment to start out for under $100. You can you know the monthly fees for the for the software that you need to do what you do is just like miniscule, it’s like a cup of coffee. You know, like it’s really very, very, there’s no real resistance to getting into it in terms of finances. And then just practicing like what I did you know, do a podcast before you know what you’re doing, edit it see where you’re you know your ebbs and flows are what you need to work on. You have nothing to lose by trying. Nothing

Curt Anderson  10:11

to lose by trying I absolutely love it. And on the flip side, what if it works? Right? What happens really? Like instead of like any we have to lose like a what if it like what if it goes exceptionally well? Whatever, right? So Julie, let’s dive into Alright, so low cost. We’re gonna dig into like content. Let’s let’s dive right into the benefits. Okay. manufacturer out there like, okay, Julie, you’ve caught my attention, I hear you it’s low cost, I can do it for a cup of coffee. There’s a lot of juicy things going on here. Let’s take it to the next step. What are let’s dive into some of the benefits that a manufacturer can really gain by tipping their toe into a podcast.

Julie Basello  10:49

I think a lot of people and I’m not sure of the exact statistics, but a lot of people listen to podcasts. So it positions you to get in front of your audience in a different place. Everybody’s on social media stopping that scroll is getting harder and harder every day. How can you get in front of your audience from a different angle, and still talk to them? In that authentic voice? The other thing is just, you know, I’m trying to think of I lost track of your question. All the benefits. Yeah, the benefits, okay, so the low cost is obviously a benefit. There is some costs associated with it, if you don’t edit, you know, if you don’t have editing readily available to you, but it’s not, it’s not a cost prohibitive thing at all. It’s just a way another way to create content that’s unique from what you are normally creating videos very common today. Social media photography, all very common writing blogs have been around forever, you know, what other way? Can you create content and then repurpose that content? So quotes from a podcast can be used as, you know, image quotes, on social, you can grab a you know, create an audiogram and just have a little like moving blurbs that goes on your socials, there’s a lot of ways to to repurpose a podcast and in ways that will again, get in front of your audience and make them stop and say, Huh, what’s that brand doing? And a lot of manufacturing brands right now, they don’t have podcasts. A lot of them don’t still, I mean, when I did this for Radwell going on three years ago, there was nobody like, I couldn’t even find manufacturing podcasts when I started researching. Now there’s a lot more but still, it’s not as many as people think, Gosh,

Curt Anderson  12:33

I’d be stunned. I don’t know. If I say a number. I’m just completely pulling out of the hat. But I mean, it can’t be 1% of manufacturers have. Right? What do you think?

Damon Pistulka  12:43

Probably I bet not, you know, Greg Mish, Misha was on here, what a couple of weeks ago and he was talking about that had done their big report on you know, how much manufacturers involved in social media, blogging and all this kind of stuff. And that was super low. So you gotta believe that podcasts are even farther down the list. And, you know, the podcasting allows the manufacturer to reach out to just about anyone. I mean, this is the thing and I’ve learned over the years of doing doing this show with Curt and doing the other shows, is that it gives you an avenue to reach out to whoever you want to talk to. So if you have someone that’s, you know, like the best industry influencer, you have, there’s no reason not to talk to them. See, if they want to be on your podcast. That’s not something they think it’s important to their listeners. Very, very true. And by osmosis, you’re associated with those people then Right? Plus you get to learn from them right heck, like today listen to knew about podcasting.

Julie Basello  13:45

Influencer, let me tell you how

Damon Pistulka  13:47

to be an influencer. But you know what you’re doing with podcasting, and you’re gonna share tips today that will help anyone listening. This is this is a cool part about this. Well, this

Julie Basello  13:54

is cool. And I agree with you. And that’s the freedom you have with podcasting, there’s no, there’s structure with everything, doing a video shoot is not difficult. But there are certain things that have to be in place to do that. And there’s certain equipment and there’s certain, you know, things, you know, there’s certain parameters that you have to follow. It’s not like that, with podcasting. It’s much freer, anybody can get on the mic, and, you know, start talking. Now, not everybody is pleasant to listen to. We all know this. There’s some people who, you know, and that’s why I said, the audio matters, you know, you have to present the audio in a way, you wouldn’t put a terrible photo out there of yourself or your brand and say, Oh, look, here’s my brand. Why would you put, you know, terrible audio out there and say, Oh, look, listen, here’s my brand and this terrible audio. So that’s where I’m kind of a purist with the quality of the audio. But yeah, I mean, there’s tons of ways to really impact tons of ways to impact the business with just, you know, a simple microphone and connections to some people.

Curt Anderson  14:52

Well, hey, and Dan, our friend Dan Bigger has a couple of comments here but he has a question I do have an answer. And Julie, I’m eager to hear your answer. So here’s a question. What do you do if you have a face for radio and a voice for print? Well, you know what, Dan, your live stream? Because that’s what I do. Right? I have a radio and a voice for print. And so any any comments for our friend Dan figure there?

Julie Basello  15:14

Well, first off, I don’t think there’s such a thing as a face for radio and a voice for print Dan Bigger, and I think anybody, regardless of how they sound, or look can do this. I just think there’s certain things it’s kind of like, why did they invent these ring lights that everybody uses that light up light you up when you’re on a zoom call? So people look better? It’s the so you get a few little pieces of equipment that kind of make you judge up your appearance a little bit. And, and then you get on and you speak in your voice and you get over yourself? Sorry, Dan, I would only say that to you that get over yourself part.

Curt Anderson  15:48

Yeah, that’s right, you know, and he says, Hey, I use comedy. Who doesn’t love a brand? He’s a little laughter? Why educating me? He little FOMO? Here, Damon, low FOMO. Right. He missed out. Yeah. And so just wanted to share that. So alright, let’s, let’s keep let’s keep rolling on the benefits for manufacturers. Okay, Damon, we talked about, you know, content, enormous amount of content, open up doors and connections, say if you’re in manufacturing and see manufacturer of circuit boards, well, hey, reach out to the you know, reach out to a person who makes the components, you know, reach out to the person that makes the machinery for the components, you know, or, you know, putting, you know, there’s a whole streamline of folks that you can be interviewing on top of customers, what have you interview customers, and bring them on and showcase and get testimonials? Julie, anything that you want to say on that?

Julie Basello  16:38

We’ve done that actually. Well, it wasn’t necessarily customers, although I think that’s great. And I am wholeheartedly a fan of it, we had a meet the manufacturer, segment that we started to do before the podcast went on hold. And that was very successful. And the person came on, they were somebody that we worked with, they were also someone who we were a direct distributor for their products. So what was great about that is we weren’t directly promoting ourselves. But at the same point by promoting them, we were promoting what we do, too. And that’s always a positive. I think that’s a great thing to do. I really do think there’s there’s very few negatives to trying to do this very few negatives, you can put things out there in a way. That’s just very authentic and very different. And you know, here’s the thing, our audiences are getting younger in manufacturing, right? We’re all getting older, and the replacements are getting younger, younger generations, a love podcast, but also don’t want to be sold things. They will tell you point blank, do not sell me on anything. Don’t tell me show me. Show me what it is. Don’t tell me about how great you are showing me how great you are. Well, what better avenue to do that to do the soft sell, then through a podcast and you know, presenting material in a different unique way that isn’t Oh, look at me, look what I do. Look what I sell. Right? That’s not what people want today. They want that softer sell that, you know, what does this company do? And why should I listen to them? Oh, well, I like what these people are talking about. And they work for this company. That’s fantastic. What else can I get from this company, you know, without actually ever having to sell a thing?

Curt Anderson  18:14

Yeah, I absolutely love that. Dan’s gonna be with us, which is pulled down on stage. I think I can I think I can. I think I know I seriously we should. And then he also says, Hey, you cannot get better testimonies. And I agree. And we’ve done. Damon, we’ve you know, we work with a number of MEPs, the manufacturer ascension partnerships, and we’ve brought on literally dozens of MEPs onto the program and numerous numerous clients where they just come on, they give just a gushing, loving, wonderful testimonial for the work that they’ve done with that with the MEP. And it’s just you know, the MEP is thrilled the clients thrilled, it’s just, you know, it’s wonderful all the way around, to put on like, who does like if you go to a good restaurant, like who doesn’t like I went to an awesome restaurant the other day, you have a great vendor or a great experience with a supplier or manufacturer, why not express that and share that and put that out there. And it just makes you look better. It makes manufacturing every it’s a win win win all the way around. And doing this through audio through podcasts is just such a powerful way. And again, Julie, how much does it cost?

Julie Basello  19:16

Oh, my goodness, I think the whole thing overall, if you include editing, probably once you buy a microphone under $100 monthly software, 20 bucks. Maybe if you get an editor, you know, depending on how extensive you get 100 to $200 a month. Yeah, you know, an episode I should say it’s not it’s not cost prohibitive at all, really is compared to other marketing efforts were cost prohibitive. Right. Yeah. And you know, what you also described, it was interesting, Curt about things and what that’s all doing is building community. So by hearing an actual voice and interacting with your vendors and your customers and your direct lines and whatever, you’re building community so people are hearing that they’re not Not only hearing you, they’re hearing about your your audience, which, again creates a community, people can reach out to you. It’s now a face to the brand, because most brands need that they need that humanization. And we try to do that through marketing. But sometimes, you know, we fall flat in different areas. But it’s really easy to humanize a brand with a podcast. It’s a voice, and then it’s a person talking. Yes.

Damon Pistulka  20:22

And if you do it, right, it’s a tool. It’s it’s a a resource that your salespeople can utilize. It’s it’s it’s your voicemail, and you’re not around. There’s just so many things it’s been, it becomes such a powerful thing, like you said, building community and building relationships. Right. It’s incredible. It is incredibly boring.

Julie Basello  20:44

I know it was funny to me. Let me just interrupt you with one thing. That’s funny. When I first started doing podcasts, I didn’t think I didn’t think anybody was listening to me. I mean, with rad Well, I like figured there was 10 people out there that maybe heard me and I do new hire photos for people when they started the company. So I went into a new hire group, maybe about six months after we went live. And I started talking and I mentioned you know, taking photos and giving people instructions on how we were going to do this. And one of the people chimed in and said, Hey, you’re the podcast, lady. No. Oh, my voice that is. So you don’t realize how many people are out there that actually need to hear whatever it is in your unique brand voice. It’s it’s there. Believe me, it’s there. It’s waiting for your it’s untapped potential waiting for you. It could be

Curt Anderson  21:33

it could be even monitoring to interrupt. Oh, you didn’t at all months down the road. And we’ve got a comment here. I was in podcast all weekend. Julie Purcell and or Julia’s on point about all the benefits. You know what the benefits haven’t stopped, we’re going to keep the party rolling on all the amazing, wonderful benefits. I know you’ve done a tremendous amount of work with our mutual dear friend, Nicole Donnelly, and her misadventures, podcast aim, and you’ve been a guest, you know, and she’s had just wonderful guests on her program, digging everything, you know, different, different topics. And so let’s go here from a content standpoint, Damon, you taught me this? How about the SEO benefits?

Julie Basello  22:12

Right, major, major SEO benefits?

Curt Anderson  22:14

Well, let’s, let’s the three of us, let’s dive in, Julie, take it away.

Julie Basello  22:17

So there’s a couple of things. First off, it’s getting better. I mean, in the beginning with podcasts, I think it wasn’t as beneficial. But now there’s a lot of avenues where you can, you can create SEO benefit, one of them is in the show notes. So having your show notes, having a transcript created of your podcast, when it’s done, all of these things are available through different software options through AI. Because AI has made those things those task oriented things that used to be so you know, labor heavy, there’s so much easier to do now, because you just press a button and you wait for it to finish. I mean, it’s literally that simple. And the the benefits to having detailed show notes. Now people feel like they can connect you and they have an avenue to connect with you. But also you’re putting keywording out there, you’re putting different things that are relevant to your business out there. And people are connecting to it that way. So even if you don’t write your blog doesn’t rank maybe your podcast will. And that’s something and it’s a big something in this day and age.

Curt Anderson  23:15

Absolutely. Daymond. That’s I know, this is a big thing that you’re working on headlines, titles, wants to take it away from your perspective. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  23:23

well, you made a couple of great points there, Julie is is getting the transcript is huge, because now you have text based content that you can share on your website in under your podcast or a blog wherever you do. Plus, you can take the text and turn it into a blog if you really want to as well, which gives you even more, but I’ll tell you when you do the podcasting and you update your website with that podcast and your podcast is around your core keywords are as like Laurie high be or somebody that’s going to talk about the lotus flower we’re working on all the keywords around your main keywords and doing that. It is amazing what we’ll do to the to the SEO and really the find ability of your your website for the right things. It’s very much so very much so because Google wants to see that you’re putting new content on regularly and everybody goes yeah, dammit, I don’t want to write it. I don’t want to write write a blog. Why would I want to write a blog right or so you just don’t do it? Right. But they’re, like you said, talking to somebody for a while about a topic that’s good for your website,

24:31

Russia. Right now I’ve

Damon Pistulka  24:32

got I’ve got I’ve got the podcasts in the in the text from the conversation that can absolutely

Julie Basello  24:37

and even even not even, let’s even look at just taking the actual podcast file and embedding it on your website even helps. Like I did that with the the last two times. I was on your show, guys. That’s what I did. You’re embedded on my website. I have, you know, little blocks where you can you’re a resource you’re in my resources page, because this to me is resources for people. So that’s the category It’s in. And that’s what it’s on. So this is going to get added once it’s recorded. Why don’t you send me the link?

Curt Anderson  25:06

Now? I will. I’m going to I wasn’t going to go here. I’m going to go here, Julie. So be careful. Be cautious, whatever transcription tool that you use. Oh, yes. cautious. Now, Damon, I went to prepare for today. I went back to Julie’s previous to interview she’s she’s a repeat offender. Yeah. Program. This is her third time. So Julie. Thank you, man. Thank you, Julie. I have to say you need to be a better judge of character if you’re hanging out with Damon night. But I’m a good judge of character. That’s another that’s another story. But I go back to the transcription. And right at the top, I’m looking like, you know, just and there’s a big fat vulgarity that I dropped. I have never sworn on this program ever. The transcription took a vulgarity and I’m like, Oh, my goodness, like what happened there? So I hurry up. And I deleted it today. And that was from well, that’s David.

Damon Pistulka  25:53

That’s all Yeah.

Julie Basello  25:56

So you know how you guys are always you were talking about my accent, right? And I said that you should hear some of my friends. Well, when you when you have different accents, with transcriptions, I’ve noticed different people, some people transcribe, I transcribe perfectly, almost perfectly. And I’m shocked by how perfectly sometimes, and then I’ve interviewed people. And I’m like, Ooh, that’s a rough one, I have to go back and fix some words on that one. It’s just a matter of how it picks up on your voice and how your accented words aren’t how you pronounce things. Yeah, AI hasn’t quite, you know, gotten it perfectly down yet. They’re working on it. They’re

Curt Anderson  26:30

working on it. Well, I have a horrible accident. So that’s what the problem is there. So let’s, alright, so SEO benefits. Just to recap, guys, for our friends, family, taking notes at home. Think about those core keywords, when you can get those keywords into your title of your program of your whatever you’re interviewing, what a competitive advantage you have, by putting yourself in your core services, like Hey, guys, today, we’re gonna talk about, you know, circuit boards data. Next week, we’re going to talk about components that go on circuit boards. week later, we’re going to talk about, you know, best practices for circuit boards. And we’re gonna talk about how to make a circuit board. So you just keep talking about your topic, and you’re educating, you’re educating, as Julia said, to build that community to build trust. Julie, let’s go here. There’s all sorts of different platforms to share your podcast, and talk a little bit about what are some of the usual suspects, they’re the

Julie Basello  27:20

usual the well, the two big ones are Apple podcasts and Spotify. And I think you as if you’re going to podcast, you must be on those two. But as an added benefit, now, I’m a big Buzzsprout fan, for producing and hosting my podcast. And I know that the two of you are as well. And what Buzzsprout does is they allow you to be they allow you by getting onto certain podcast platforms, they will automatically put you on other ones. And they also give you a platform that makes it very easy to get your podcasts listed on all the platforms. I think most of the podcasts that I’ve done are listed on at least 15, if not 20 different platforms. But the one thing that they don’t list on yet is YouTube. YouTube is a separate platform. And there’s a lot of people who are you know, believers proponents that you need to be on YouTube. It is the second biggest search engine in the world. So they say, right, so I think that to get on YouTube, you don’t necessarily have to have a video podcast, all you need to do is have podcast artwork and an audiogram. If you want to get on there without diving into video, it’s still doable to get up there and still doable to post something. The other thing you can do is tick tock, believe it or not. Tick tock doesn’t have a podcast hosting platform per se the way YouTube has created. But being on Tik Tok, even with a blurb from your podcast, gets you in front of an audience that can now link to listen to the full episode. So these are things that are all avenues and ways to get that audience connected to what you’re saying and doing.

Curt Anderson  28:51

Okay, and just to recap for if anybody was like, Hey, what did she just mentioned? So Buzzsprout is the platform that you just mentioned. And that’s a great, it’s a hub that will distribute to multiple different platforms for you. So alright, we just past the top of the hour. We’re here with our dear friend Julie Barcelo, and we are deep diving deep into podcasting strategies for manufacturers. Before we went live, we were geeking out a little bit, man. We got super fired up, Damon, we’re talking about AI. Julie, let’s go there. How do you see AI impacting podcasts?

Julie Basello  29:26

I think AI has already impacted podcasting, I think, Well, right now, taking your podcast and repurposing content is something that’s available to people who use a host like Buzzsprout through AI. Okay, so getting that transcript written for you getting show notes that, you know, title recommendations based on keywords getting recommended keywords all happening through AI right now. But I think it’s going to go a step further. i The technology is working so quickly that I believe that voice replication is happening right now. I think at some point, you’ll probably be able to interview an AI person. I mean, maybe I’m stretching a little bit. It sounds funny right now, but we probably would have laughed two years ago, if someone talked about chat GPT telling us, you know, how to write a complete blog post through a computer? So, I don’t know, you know, I think they’re doing a lot of voice replications. And I wonder if that’s maybe the future of this in some way? I’m not I’d have to flush thought out a little bit more, but I don’t know. You know, you have to wonder.

Damon Pistulka  30:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Curt Anderson  30:29

Even you’re diving deep into AI. What are your thoughts? Well, I

Damon Pistulka  30:32

think, for me, I’m simple. So I’m just looking at this the simple automations that it might be able to help you with, you know, really, if you could, it was, like I said, before we got on, I’ve been doing a little bit of YouTube video watching, you know, just seeing what people are actually doing just like, stay abreast of the things. But there are people now that actually can that, you know, you figure out how to take like, when we’re done with this, just taking the video file itself, downloading the video file, automatically putting it into Google into Google Drive for you should kind of share it with people like that. And then based on the guest to automatically email in the link to the show. And like you said, download the show notes, do all that stuff. I mean, just that kind of AI enhanced automation is something that’s going to be really, really incredible for us to do. Yeah, it’s

Julie Basello  31:22

amazing. Oh, amazing for content repurposing. It really is amazing for content, repurposing. I agree with that. What about you, Curt What do you think? What’s AI going to do for podcasting? Look at me taking over this interview.

Curt Anderson  31:34

They go, yeah. Great, great question. And eight questions. Dan, bigger acid question here. Why would someone want to do that? What is the benefit? So I’m assuming Dan, he

Julie Basello  31:46

means the voice thing. Interviewing AI? Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know what the benefit? Well, I mean, if you couldn’t find somebody real to benefit, I don’t think there’s a benefit to that right now. That’s just me kind of be my creative self. But yeah, I think down the road, there’s going to be ways to utilize voices differently. Right? I do. Right? I just feel like it’s already happening. And we don’t even realize it’s happening. Yeah.

Damon Pistulka  32:05

Yeah. That’s the scary part about it.

Curt Anderson  32:07

So and let’s Damon, let’s take it another step further to what you were just describing. Right. So let’s say, you know, we said, Damon, we always kid around in our training, like, hey, let’s be lazy, right? How can we be as lazy as possible? Meaning, you know, I’m willing to play on words, but just like, how can we be as efficient as possible? Right, right. So let’s just say, Okay, I need to create content. So I can either sit at my computer and peck away all day, or, you know, like, do something like we’re doing right now. Well, how can I create just an immense amount of content based on like, what we’re doing on point? I don’t need to you know, Damon, we we never strive to be the smartest guys in the room, right? No, we bring on amazing experts like Julie, so she can be the smart person room make us look a little bit better. But with AI, we do this conversation on video, we you know, what if we could automatically get the transcription down, like you said, you know, what, if this automatically posted to the website, and then if I said AI, he AI, pull some of those questions that I asked the wonderful, amazing, Julie. And now could you create like a month’s worth of LinkedIn post? Based on what Julie just said, or, you know, could I tell the AI to like slice and dice video chunks? Or audio chunks? You know, like, how efficient will it let us go, you know, it’s already doing a ton now making our lives so much easier. I’m excited to see how much easier will it make because we’re really lazy. That’s why so

Julie Basello  33:23

I don’t think it’s lazy at all, I think it’s be it’s being efficient with your time. So remember, earlier I was talking about as a creator, there’s always going to be a need in creations for the heart and soul of a human in my opinion, I think that we’re never going to be able to replicate that. That’s again, I could be wrong, maybe you know, I’ll eat those words. 1020 years from now. But for right now, I feel like there’s still a need for that, that human heart and soul to create, right? And once you are checking, and I don’t mean writing and things, those are basic tasks, right? I’m talking about creating a video or creating something artistically. Right. So how that gets repurposed and slice and dice is going to rely on how advanced that AI can get to be able to feel the heart and soul and chop up accordingly. Because video, you know, there’s a nuance there that has to be in place to be able to get accurate information, you know, cut out, or, you know, excerpt exported, I should say, right, right.

Curt Anderson  34:26

And that’s and I think you kind of answered Dan’s question, here isn’t the goal to humanize brands? That’s the opposite of that. And I think, you know, if I’m a little bit of a history buff, if you go back 200 years ago, you know, the machinery was going to take away, you know, people and jobs and like, nobody’s going to have a job and like, you know, it’s been, you know, when the trains came into play, and then when cars came in, and then when airplanes came in to the computer, I mean, like, technology, as always, when the printing press came in, in the 1500s. It’s always been a threat of, you know, like, what is this? What’s what’s in it for me? What’s this going to do to me? What’s this going to do? My job, you know, right. And there’s a lot of the old sci fi movies of like, in when computers take over or like, you know, Terminator, right, that was a great game. You know, so I, you know, I mean, there’s always been that that fear, concern threat of like, you know the scariness of what technology is. But like, you know, I love this, like, can you imagine? Like, I’m old enough to remember, like, you know, Daymond you remember used to drive around? And they’re like, you’d have like the the big map? Yep. Yeah. Yeah, to stop at a gas station, right? I’d sakes and yet, you had to be like, the dumbest guy in the room. And guys, you know, as men are delicate, fragile egos. We hate to be the dumb guy in the room. And we have to walk in the gas station and say, can you tell me where I am? Can you tell me how to write? So

Julie Basello  35:49

what if you couldn’t read a map that was bad? Listening alone,

Curt Anderson  35:52

like just beat like, saved every guy on the planet? So we don’t have to go to the gas station anymore and ask for directions. But like, I always love to see, like, what’s the technology that’s on the horizon that we’re gonna say? Like, this is like the track player? Yeah, I see what technology is about that we make fun of this

Julie Basello  36:09

mean, either. But you know, back to Dan, what Sam was saying, there’s one of the unique things about podcasts because we’re not replicating voices right now, is that even when you’re using chat GPT to write a blog post or social media posts, or you’re, you know, getting photographs from somewhere or using video or whatever, you’re still unionizing your brand, when it’s a voice speaking to other voices, about something specific to your industry, or your products, still humanizing it. So that’s good, because this, you know, podcasting, we’re using AI on the back end to create content, but the front end is still humans. And it’s, it’s very much based on humans, I don’t think. I mean, I was the voice thing. Who knows, but I really don’t think it’s going to really make a change that much. You know what I mean? It’s a simple, medium. That’s, that’s just Yeah, video got added and some other things got added. But at its core, it’s very simple. And it’s very doable. Right. Right. Yeah. So that’s my thoughts.

Curt Anderson  37:06

No, I love it. And Damon and Dan has another comment here, Dan. Man, thanks for being here. Today. We should have had him on stage. How many people actually user’s phone user phone is a phone and that’s a great point, right? Our phone is really a phone like, I don’t know, like, my phone never rings. You know, like, like, if it rings I’m always like, alright, what like there’s bad news on the other end? Like no, because no calls me anymore. It’s either town email. Yeah, there’s always a loss in translation through texts and emails. So that’s, again, another benefit and a strength for these for podcasting. All right, Julie. Man, I know you’re super busy. We want to start taking home kind of let’s let’s go here. We’ve I feel like we’ve scratched on it. And we’ve talked about a little bit but like, Alright, there’s a manufacturer out there like Hi, Julie, I am sold. Can you help me with a little bit? We’ve talked about some of that content. And I know like the three of us we’ve thrown out like some different suggestions or topics. But let’s let’s let’s take a little dive deeper into like topics. What are some like, what have you felt been some of the homeruns for you at Radwell. Or Damon if you want to chime in, like some of your your interviews and stuff but Julissa kick us off? What are your thoughts? There’s?

Julie Basello  38:10

Well, some of the things that we did initially was we interviewed experts within the company because it was an easy it was like a softball to be able to grab someone from in the company and say, Hey, you’re an expert on the swisslog auto store, you know, automated material handling, come on and talk to us about that, or you’re an expert about, I don’t know, cybersecurity, we had the chief information officer was on our podcast as we interviewed him, these episodes don’t have to be long, either. Like I know, some people have long content, and they go for an hour or so. But you can do a 10 to 20 minute podcast and have it be just as effective as an hour long one. So so we did that initially, at first, then we started bringing guests and then as we got more in tune to things, me and my co host would take a topic and have a discussion about it. Then we segwayed that two guest guests wanted to come on. And they were reaching out to me saying how do we get on the podcast, I want to talk about video and in manufacture manufacturers and I want to talk about this. And I was like, okay, come on, you know, let’s do it. So it kind of it’s a snowball that kind of builds, as you start, you have to start somewhere, though. And then you just build from there. And we chose to start with interviews. And also topics that were relevant to plant managers is basically who we were talking to, right. So you figure out like any other marketing effort, who is your audience? And who do you want, what do you want them to get from your efforts? Do you want them to get a combination of education, a soft sell, you know, some interviews, some entertainment or entertainment? Is that what the word was right that you said? Right entertainment. So we did like a combination of everything just to try to you know, see what our audience grabbed it grabbed that and one of the most popular podcasts we did was welding tips for beginners and it was an expert welder that worked in our machine shop area and that was the most popular podcast after the rod, the Radwell story, right? Imagine that.

Curt Anderson  40:05

Wow. And that’s the thing you just never know. Like, Damon, we’ve talked to how many times like, you know, you want, you go to YouTube, and we’ve worked with different manufacturers, and there’s like a piece of machinery that’s like bending metal. And it’ll be hundreds of 1000s of years, nobody talking. It’s like a 72nd video, and it’s just this machine doing this function. And but you know, if you’re, if you’re an engineer at Boeing, and like, you need that machine, and you need that piece of metal bent like that, and people are just gonna watch it. So you just never know who’s out there. And who’s going to need it. And now, the right buyer at the right time, Damon, what do you what do you want to add?

Damon Pistulka  40:39

Well, I think for manufacturers, podcasting is a great way to stay abreast of developments in your industry, I think because you look at, and especially anything that’s relevant to your customers, right? If you’re, if you’re talking, say you’re a CNC machining place, and you your customers are designing some of the most wicked, whatever out of it, if you talk about that with with someone that’s pushing the envelope in what a machine can do. Now, maybe that’s what you want to do. Or you want to talk about how to design things more effectively, or just all these there’s so many things to really go. And in the people that are doing the podcast that the companies that are doing the podcast, they get up to speed on that technology, right. And you know, so it’s such a dual benefit there of if you really want to stay abreast of things in your industry, and you want to be when when people, your customers, your competitors, and it’ll happen, your competitors will too. They’ll come to your podcast to learn about the latest whatever, just because you’re doing it, but this, your your level of knowledge in your industry goes up so much because you’re talking to all these people associated with your industry. Right.

Julie Basello  41:59

Right. And you have to learn, you can’t not learn when you’re exposed to it all the time. Yes, sir. It’s

Damon Pistulka  42:04

free learning. It’s free learning.

Julie Basello  42:06

It’s free learning. Free is always a good word. It’s not a four letter. The other one’s

Curt Anderson  42:11

three is a great word. And it’s yeah, I it takes a village, right, it takes a village and the more that you elevate yourself, the more in What’s Google looking for, you know, they call it good eats, right for your Google search, you know, expertise, authority trust. And you know, the other one has the experience, right? And so the more that you put yourself out there, the more you’re elevating yourself, the more you’re putting, you know, Shopify, Amazon, Apple, you know, everything that you just mentioned, getting backlinks to your website, and we could go on and on and on. Julie, let’s go here. Go ahead, Damon, please.

Damon Pistulka  42:44

Well, I want to Curt’s been asking us all the questions. I think this is SEO question. Correct. So when you think about podcasting, or live streaming like we do, and on the Manufacturing eCommerce Success show, what are some of the things that come to mind for you that were benefits of this doing this? That would be relatable in a podcast that you go, man, I never thought about that. But

Curt Anderson  43:07

that guy right there. That guy right there and these amazing people like let’s see, I gotta get the point. You know, just the it’s the relationships, right? Yeah. John Buck Leno said it best Damon was that two years ago? relationships,

Damon Pistulka  43:24

relationships, they’ll remember that,

Curt Anderson  43:27

you know, the friendships that we’ve built on this program, the people that we’ve interviewed that I would never Yeah, I couldn’t even get a cup of coffee with Yeah, like, We’ve had times that we’ve been on this program or like, you know, Damon Knight vertuo. softies now, like, well, you know, I cry over times that we’ve been in tears on the program, we’ve had times where people are like really sharing intimate things about their business, in the struggle. It is not easy being an entrepreneur. So I mean, just that piece alone, the friendships that we’ve made the open the doors that this has opened, we’ve closed business because of this. We’ve had guests that have come on here, Nicole Donnelly has been on here and she’s closed clients by being on our show. We’ve had multiple people that have come on the show, and drop me a note. They’re like, hey, we landed a lead Hey, somebody knocked on my door Hey, we we got a relationship. And like that is just you know, that to me, is what it’s all about. It’s building the community. And then last thing, Damon, you said it earlier? How many times were on the show, and I almost feel like guilty for like, we’re getting like this high level coaching session, just like we are with Julie right now. Yeah. I get off like we hang up Mike. I came with I just got three.

Damon Pistulka  44:38

I got a whole page of notes every time. Like you get someone like Julian it’s just learning from it. You know, like, same thing, it’s

Curt Anderson  44:48

a gift. So anyway, I could go on and on. Julie, let’s go here. We’re coming into the end of the year. You are our last guest of this year and so honored. Ooh, what a great way to bookend the year. It’s been A wonderful and amazing year. What are you excited about for next year, whether if you want to start personally, or from a podcasting standpoint at Radwell, just anything that comes to mind? What are you excited about for next year,

Julie Basello  45:12

I’m excited to bring the podcast back at Radwell. I’m gonna work work hard on that for the first quarter of 2024. And I’m excited to get heavily back into my own podcast. Both of those things were on my agenda, things that I wanted to accomplish, I start I, you know, had major pod fade with my own podcast and ended up getting back into it this year. And I have like four episodes already written for, you know, reinvention adventure tips, and then I’ve got some interviews that I want to do, probably one of you guys are gonna get hit up. So just letting you know, start thinking about your reinvention stories. But anyway, I yeah, those are the two things I’m most excited about, because I know the impact that a podcast can have. So I’m excited to be able to kind of bring that in again with Radwell. And also, for myself, I just know how much I enjoy doing it, and how much fun I have. So what better way to kick off the new year? Well,

Damon Pistulka  46:09

right there,

Curt Anderson  46:11

drop the mic. Julie,

Julie Basello  46:13

might

Curt Anderson  46:15

I tell you, this was you are I just I cannot express my thanks, my gratitude to you. Love your support. And you know, talk about testimonial. I am a client. I’ve been a client this past year of Julie Damon for our program here. And so Julie is an absolute gift to work with top notch professional, fast you and Julie, you are just such a gift. And that’s, that’s the thing is like you want to work with the best you want to be around the best. And so I just you know, I want to thank you for your support, you know, putting up with my dumb questions. And

Julie Basello  46:46

you know, it’s there are no dumb questions. Well,

Curt Anderson  46:49

I seem to for whatever reason. I somehow find those dumb questions and pull them out. But yeah, you’re patient, you’re graceful, you’re kind. And I just I can’t express my thanks to you for all that you’ve done for myself and Damon here. So thank you for that. Thank you

Julie Basello  47:06

back at both of you as well. You, you too are amazing to work with. And just having me on your show three times is really an honor. I’m very honored. And I appreciate you both. So keep going hope 2024 is another rockin year for both of you.

Curt Anderson  47:21

Well, we really, we appreciate that very much. So we will close it down. Julie, any last words of wisdom any any new year’s resolutions?

Julie Basello  47:31

Anything? I think I’ve cleared my brain of all my thoughts.

Curt Anderson  47:35

Even any takeaways, Happy New Year. Another just another powerhouse conversation? Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  47:41

it really is.

Curt Anderson  47:42

What do you what are you excited about for 24? Damon?

Damon Pistulka  47:47

I just decided to see who all we get to talk to him what we get. I mean, I get because I that to me, I have no idea how much you can learn by talking to people every week, right? I just I just I It’s mind boggling. You do all this really you do it. It was just mind boggling what you get to learn it is and then you walk around with that sometimes useless knowledge until it’s useful. And when it’s useful. It’s like people go How the hell do you know that? Right?

Curt Anderson  48:17

You know, exactly. Here’s another handy. Here’s another benefit. What will will keep Julie frog another hour was like, yeah, there’s another benefit. I can, Julie, I I’m sure you will attest to this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ll be honest with a client, they’ll be like, Oh, well, we’re looking for such and such expertise. And I’m like, Guess what I’m like, I have a guy like I’m known, like, you know, I’m the guy. I’m the I know a guy guy. Because I’m like, alright, well let me share with you an episode that we did last year. Hey, let me show you an episode that we did in the spring. Oh, I’ve got this expertise. He’s a LinkedIn guy. You’re looking for a LinkedIn expert. Let me give you this person. That’s amazing. You need a podcasting expert I’ve got this person is perfect. You don’t have to watch the whole thing. But just watch like a couple of minutes of Julie and how she’s ranting, raving on how amazing podcasting is. So I mean, the thing is, like, we have an archive of literally hundreds of episodes of hundreds of experts on different topics. I never want to be the smartest guy in the room. But man, when you go to our library of our archives, I have a lot I have a couple of 100 people in the room here obviously then, you know, again, that just in I just love being a referral source where I can help guide you know, maybe generate business for other people because of these, these interviews. So, again, so many benefits, you guys strongly encourage you if you are considering getting into podcasts. I encourage you I invite you I welcome you to connect with Julie on LinkedIn. You want to just you know pick her brain. She’ll jump on a call with you correct, Julie? I want to be absolutely no, absolutely. jump on a call with Julie. She will walk you through the process I can speak for firsthand she did it for me. And I’m deeply appreciative for what she did. She’s done it for a number of our friends in our network, Nicole Donnelly and many others. And so Julie, thank you for how you’re supporting Our Community. Damon, let’s close it out for the year dude. So let’s you know happy holidays to everybody. Whatever you celebrate We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Yeah, happy New Year, and just next year is going to be just even better than this year.

Damon Pistulka  50:15

Yeah, I agree, man I’m so excited for for Well, I’m just blessed to be part of this year. And then looking forward to next year, we’re gonna have so much so much more fun and more great guests. And yep, maybe Julie Lee can come back and give us podcasts critique on our products.

Curt Anderson  50:31

That’s right. Absolutely. And here’s one last benefit. Damon, where did you and I traveled to this year to Alaska. Then I went to Alaska this year in workshops. And it really it hands down is because of this program. So we having a true trip of a lifetime had just, I mean, I was awesome. I’m better. And that trip was purely we did workshops in Alaska for an organization. And it was thanks to him because of this this program here. So if you think it’s not worth it, man, I beg to take another point of view. So let’s close it out. We wish you guys an amazing, wonderful, safe holiday. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas, Happy New Year. And guys just be someone’s inspiration. Just like this fine, young, lovely lady here. Julie Barcelo. Julie, thank you for being our inspiration today. Thank you hang out with us for one second. Thank you for Dan bigger and everybody in the chat box that dropped a note. We appreciate you guys and we will see you in the new year. So thank you very much.