[müzik]
Kurt: And now on with the podcast.
Kurt: Yeah, I think we're at 354, 55, somewhere in there right now.
Kurt: So it's a lot.
Kurt: It's been, you know, for a while, when we thought COVID was going to be that two, three week thing,
Kurt: we started doing like five a week because we were talking to people every week about what was going on.
Kurt: And then after about a month of that, we realized, oh, this isn't going to be a three week thing.
Kurt: And we went back to the weekly schedule.
Kurt: So that was a little bit, but there was a big, a big push back in early 2020, then
Kurt: that we ended up having a whole lot more episodes.
Kurt: So that was part of it.
Kurt: Yeah.
Kurt: At this point you're doing week weekly.
Kurt: We're doing weekly.
Kurt: Yep.
Kurt: Yeah.
Kurt: Gotcha.
Kurt: Thrown in an extra one every now and then, but mostly just weekly.
Kurt: Yeah.
Craig: Neat.
Craig: Cool.
Craig: I mean, I think we'll get started in just a minute.
Craig: I just want to share like in this show, like, um, so, so first of all, like
Craig: I'm the founder of Cast Us, we're a podcast hosting platform like a
Craig: Libsyn or a blueberry that you might use.
Craig: And, and the goal of this show really is to, well, one, like it's, it's
Kurt: awesome for me to talk to podcasters.
Kurt: So I've been doing this a while, like we have 280 episodes of my podcast.
Craig: So not, not quite as many, but it's been doing it a long time.
Craig: And then like, it's really healthy for me to stay like chatting with
Kurt: podcasters about what they're doing.
Kurt: Uh, and, and to keep learning, cause like you, you, you do something for a
Kurt: while and you think, you know, and you don't.
Kurt: So, so first of all, it's like, just love talking to folks and see like what, what
Kurt: they're doing and what's working and what's not.
Kurt: And then like we record this and it's helpful for everyone else, but, but really
Kurt: it's just like an educational experience.
Kurt: It's one of the things that Tim, Tim, my cohost and me talk about, right.
Kurt: It's like, ah, we, we just being able to, to do this and to talk to the
Kurt: people that we get to talk to.
Kurt: It's like a Nobel laureates wouldn't just pick up the phone and say, Hey, sure.
Kurt: I'll spend an hour with you just talking unless we had a podcast, you know,
Kurt: which they do.
Kurt: And that's just, it's an, it's an amazing opportunity to just talk and learn.
Kurt: And I just love that part.
Kurt: So.
Kurt: Yeah, neat.
Kurt: Let's dive into that.
Kurt: Like, how do you approach guests?
Kurt: Right.
Kurt: Because it's you and a cohost plus the guests, like that's a lot of logistics.
Kurt: A lot of folks have one or the other.
Kurt: Do you find it?
Kurt: And you've done so many episodes.
Kurt: Like, do you find all of the logistics difficult,
Kurt: or do you all have a system down for it now?
Kurt: - The logistics are always never easy, for the most part.
Kurt: There's always scheduling difficulties.
Kurt: We try to do, you know, our recording on Friday mornings.
Kurt: We try to get into a routine and have that going,
Kurt: and so we schedule those in advance,
Kurt: but there are always the outliers.
Kurt: There's always the changing in schedules.
Kurt: There's always the confusion.
Kurt: So there's always something that goes on that you just
Kurt: have to remain flexible and you have to be able to accommodate
Kurt: difference.
Kurt: Again, interviewing people around the globe,
Kurt: we're talking to somebody next week from Brisbane, Australia.
Kurt: So we're, all right, so how are we
Kurt: going to do the time schedules?
Kurt: All right, so--
Kurt: He's getting up early.
Kurt: He's a day ahead.
Kurt: So all of those factors are coming to play.
Kurt: And I don't think that we have a great, wonderful process for it.
Kurt: I think it's probably the process that most people do.
Kurt: It's kind of a back and forth.
Kurt: And we have a scheduling email system that we send people to.
Kurt: But sometimes we got to work outside of that, too.
Kurt: Yeah.
Kurt: How about-- you mentioned Nobel laureates and high profile people.
Kurt: I mean, I knew some of the people on your site,
Kurt: and I'm not in that space.
Kurt: How does the pitch go?
Kurt: Like, hey, do you want to come on our podcast
Kurt: and talk about this thing?
Kurt: Like, do you have a couple of topics
Kurt: that you pitch to them?
Kurt: Or like, what-- because I think that's something
Kurt: that folks struggle with, is like, hey,
Kurt: I want to have this person on.
Kurt: What does that look like?
Kurt: Yeah, we have a different approach depending on people.
Kurt: So we're approached a lot ourselves.
Kurt: But obviously, there's people that we want to go after,
Kurt: and to try to get on the show that we think
Kurt: are going to be really good guests.
Kurt: Most of the time, again, we're talking
Kurt: with behavioral scientists, researchers, Nobel laureates,
Kurt: as you said.
Kurt: We've gotten a couple of those.
Kurt: High profile people that have best-selling books
Kurt: and various different things in the topic areas that we want.
Kurt: So when we do this, we try to bring
Kurt: some of the behavioral science that we talk about on the show
Kurt: into that.
Kurt: So when we craft an email, different pieces,
Kurt: obviously, like everybody, if we have a warm introduction,
Kurt: that's much better than a cold kind of calling.
Kurt: So if there's anybody that knows, we often ask our guests,
Kurt: hey, who do you think would be a good guest?
Kurt: And oftentimes, they'll lead us down a really nice path.
Kurt: And that's always a much easier sell to get people back on,
Kurt: particularly if they do the introduction
Kurt: and talk about how much fun they had with us
Kurt: in various different pieces.
Kurt: But two, one of the things is, as you mentioned,
Kurt: we don't necessarily pitch a topic
Kurt: unless we know they have a book or something coming out.
Kurt: Most of the time, the really top tier ones
Kurt: aren't necessarily that.
Kurt: But we will talk about their research.
Kurt: So we'll talk about how we have been fans of their research
Kurt: and maybe bring in some very specific elements around that
Kurt: to say, hey, this paper from 2006
Kurt: really inspired us to think about things
Kurt: in a different way.
Kurt: We'd love to talk to you about that or anything else.
Kurt: And then the other part that we do is we do social proof.
Kurt: And we talk about the--
Kurt: we mention, all right, we've won awards.
Kurt: We mentioned that it's a casual, fun thing,
Kurt: but we also get into, and we've had
Kurt: these other guests on the show.
Kurt: And as you said, you hopefully recognize some people,
Kurt: and you're not in the space.
Kurt: People who are in the space will definitely
Kurt: recognize those names.
Kurt: And so, oh, that will be a good piece on this.
Kurt: So that's the process that we use.
Kurt: And again, we alter that based upon personalities.
Kurt: And if we know something about them, so those, that's what we do.
Kurt: Yeah.
Kurt: I mean, I'm sure it's changed a lot in the kind of years since you've been doing it.
Kurt: Right.
Kurt: Do you find it easier to get people on now that you have like a good
Kurt: following and kind of name in the space?
Kurt: Yeah.
Kurt: An anecdote, like I've been podcasting for seven years, but this is a brand new show.
Kurt: What this is the ninth episode we've recorded.
Kurt: Uh, and it's really hard to get someone on a podcast that hasn't even launched yet.
Kurt: Like we just launched it last week.
Kurt: Um, as we're recording this, it's super hard, even though we have like a decent
Kurt: name in the space and everything.
Kurt: Um, so like, yeah, I'll say it gets easier for me.
Kurt: It is, it's a lot easier.
Kurt: People are searching you out.
Kurt: You're getting requests, your name is known.
Kurt: So even if you do, hopefully you, there's some brand recognition within that.
Kurt: The thing that has amazed me though, and that we learned relatively early on, and
Kurt: I don't think this is unique to this, the space that we're in, I think this is just
Kurt: a general human thing is that just ask.
Kurt: Ask politely, ask nicely.
Kurt: But it is amazing how people respond to that.
Kurt: We got people that there was no reason they would have ever
Kurt: come on-- they should have ever come on our podcast when
Kurt: we had 20 episodes and a following of a couple hundred.
Kurt: And they're like, sure, that sounds great.
Kurt: We'll come on.
Kurt: And it's just-- you go, what?
Kurt: Wait, I wasn't expecting that.
Kurt: I was thinking you were going to say no.
Kurt: All right, now we actually have to do some work.
Kurt: But yeah, those are fun.
Kurt: Yeah, yeah.
Kurt: You mentioned the subject matter that you all--
Kurt: that you podcast on.
Kurt: It's a lot about behavioral psychology.
Kurt: Do you find the subject matter difficult to speak on
Kurt: in a podcast audio-only format where people can't see you
Kurt: and they might not know you?
Kurt: I mean, after 350 episodes, you've
Kurt: probably gotten good at it.
Kurt: Like, what's that dynamic like?
Kurt: No, so it's a long format style.
Kurt: And so one of the things that I think plays out really well
Kurt: is that both Tim, my co-host, and myself really just--
Kurt: we are constantly just wanting to learn.
Kurt: And so like you talked earlier, like the ability
Kurt: to talk to these people to learn from them.
Kurt: And so we're just having conversations.
Kurt: And those conversations sometimes
Kurt: are directed by, hey, this is a specific topic or book
Kurt: that we want to talk about.
Kurt: But even then, it's just this idea of, tell me more about
Kurt: that, help me understand why you did this, or what this implies,
Kurt: or what this means.
Kurt: And I think that energy of having that curiosity, I think,
Kurt: is a really big piece of this.
Kurt: And I think that translates.
Kurt: And so from a scientific perspective,
Kurt: we're talking about human biases and heuristics
Kurt: and some of the neurobiology sometimes.
Kurt: And yeah, would it be great to have some diagrams
Kurt: and different pieces when you get some of the technical
Kurt: aspects?
Kurt: That's fantastic.
Kurt: But I don't think it's necessary.
Kurt: And I think one of the other things that we did--
Kurt: and we started this actually right away,
Kurt: kind of by happenstance--
Kurt: is we do our long format interview, usually
Kurt: 45 minutes to an hour, sometimes a little bit more,
Kurt: sometimes a little bit less.
Kurt: But then we, in post-production, Tim and I
Kurt: do what we call a grooving session, where we then
Kurt: take what we heard.
Kurt: So we publish the long format in its entirety.
Kurt: And then we go and we groove on it, basically.
Kurt: It's behavioral groove.
Kurt: So we're grooving on what we learned.
Kurt: And so if it gets really technical in the conversation,
Kurt: in the grooving session, we'll try
Kurt: to break that down into more common language
Kurt: and implications.
Kurt: And we often talk to people who are maybe
Kurt: less on the research side and on application side,
Kurt: or as we call accidental behavioral scientists
Kurt: sometimes.
Kurt: And so then we'll bring in the science part on the back end.
Kurt: And so it's kind of a nice way to measure that out,
Kurt: So that if it is highly technical in some
Kurt: of the nature of what people are talking about,
Kurt: we can break that down at the back end or vice versa.
Kurt: Yeah, yeah.
Kurt: Do you release those as two separate episodes
Kurt: or the same episode, just different segments?
Kurt: Same episode.
Kurt: So there was-- so I will take a caveat on that 354 episodes,
Kurt: because there was a period--
Kurt: You jeered a little.
Kurt: There was a period in there where we thought,
Kurt: oh, maybe we should just break these up,
Kurt: because that would be--
Kurt: And so we did that for probably, I think, 10 episodes, 10,
Kurt: 15 episodes.
Kurt: So subtract that off of the top of there,
Kurt: because those are really part one and part
Kurt: two of the same episode in my mind.
Kurt: But yeah, we realized that it actually
Kurt: decreased people listening to the second part of it,
Kurt: and it wasn't necessarily tied in.
Kurt: So we just rolled it back in.
Kurt: Yeah, yeah, interesting.
Kurt: I think from a, like from a workload, workflow perspective, what you do with
Kurt: the grooves is, is sometimes really challenging for customers.
Kurt: You know, we have like a professional services arm to, to our business.
Kurt: And we have customers that come in and say that they want to do this thing, right?
Kurt: They're going to go interview someone for 45 minutes, then take and
Kurt: do a 10 minute monologue on it.
Kurt: And we always warn them like, okay, if you're going to do that, do not leave
Kurt: that chair until you've recorded it right after the interview is over, because
Craig: What's going to happen is you got another thing at two 30 and you're going to leave
Craig: and you're going to come back six days later when you have to send the episode
Craig: to us and you're not going to remember what you just talked about.
Craig: Like, have you all you're smiling?
Kurt: Like, have you all run into that?
Kurt: Or have you just have like a process to where you, your cohost keeps you honest
Kurt: and y'all just do that while you're at the sitting, we do a process.
Kurt: So we actually don't record right after we don't do the post-production
Kurt: immediately afterwards.
Kurt: And so we will get the recording.
Kurt: We will get a transcript of that.
Kurt: We take notes.
Kurt: We have our producer research associate who typically listens
Kurt: in and is taking notes as well.
Kurt: And so then what we do is we will actually
Kurt: sit down after the fact, go through the transcript,
Kurt: kind of highlight areas that we want to pull out,
Kurt: set up an outline.
Kurt: So we actually-- we're not scripting the grooving session,
Kurt: but we're outlining it.
Kurt: And then we're bringing in-- so again, as I talked about,
Kurt: part of it is if there isn't--
Kurt: don't get deep into some of the science,
Kurt: or even if we get into the science,
Kurt: we might bring in tangential science.
Kurt: So we will-- and again, I'm sounding very technical on here,
Kurt: and it's not, but we will often bring in like,
Kurt: oh, this references this paper from 2018,
Kurt: and that was by these authors, or we'll
Kurt: bring in some of those pieces.
Kurt: So we'll actually do that research
Kurt: prior to doing the grooving session so that we have that
Kurt: and we can talk intelligently about that.
Kurt: So bringing that piece in.
Kurt: So I'm smiling because the amount of--
Kurt: it would be so easy.
Kurt: It'd be so nice to be able to just do an interview and stop,
Kurt: and all you got to do is your intro.
Kurt: And wow, that would be--
Kurt: oh my gosh, that would be so simple.
Kurt: But we are spending hours in the research part of following up
Kurt: on doing the grooving session and then the recording of that.
Kurt: And again, those are 10 to 20 minutes typically,
Kurt: so they're not super long.
Kurt: But that's 10 to 20 minutes that can be, um, you know, that a few
Kurt: hours every time going into that.
Craig: So, yeah.
Craig: Yeah.
Craig: I think like, that's just good.
Craig: I'll say advice slash warning to folks who say like, Hey, I want to do this kind
Craig: of special extra segment after an, after an interview, it's like, we say it's just
Craig: as much work as doing a full interview.
Kurt: So like, uh, it's great.
Kurt: It's, it's a huge value to the listeners, I think, but, but, but
Kurt: it's, it's just a ton of work.
Kurt: So kudos to y'all for pulling it off.
Kurt: - Yeah, to that point, I would echo that.
Kurt: I think there's a huge value in that,
Kurt: but I also that the amount of effort going into that part
Kurt: might not be on par,
Kurt: but pretty close to the interview itself.
Kurt: So you're doubling your workload.
Kurt: - Yeah, yeah, interesting.
Craig: I'd like to ask about how the podcast
Craig: kind of serves you and Tim professionally,
Kurt: Like, what's the dynamic there with your kind
Kurt: of professional life?
Kurt: Like, how does the podcast interact or kind of serve that?
Kurt: Yeah, so Tim and I started it-- actually, it was just on a--
Kurt: we didn't even plan to start it.
Kurt: We were doing a meetup locally here in Minnesota, which was--
Kurt: we wanted to-- Tim had left his job and started a consultancy.
Kurt: I had been having a consultancy.
Kurt: We both were working in behavioral science.
Kurt: So ours is a behavioral design and communication agency.
Kurt: And so we bring in behavioral science all the time
Kurt: and use that as kind of the lens that we approach work from.
Kurt: And we just wanted to build a community within Minneapolis.
Kurt: And so we did one of those meetups.
Kurt: Second meetup, we had a guest that was going to come speak.
Kurt: And we're going, oh, we're going to get 25 people to this.
Kurt: And he's a pretty well-known speaker in the field.
Kurt: And I had just done a radio interview.
Kurt: Tim is a musician, so he has all this musical recording
Kurt: equipment.
Kurt: And so we came up with this great idea of saying,
Kurt: hey, let's just record--
Kurt: we'll have our guests come in, because there's
Kurt: a monthly meetup.
Kurt: Have them come in an hour early.
Kurt: We'll record them before talking about what
Kurt: they're going to talk about.
Kurt: And then we'll just publish that.
Kurt: And it'll be once a month.
Kurt: It'll be great, easy to do.
Kurt: Easy.
Kurt: Yeah, easy.
Kurt: Here you are.
Kurt: And here we are.
Kurt: And the meetup, we don't even do anymore.
Kurt: But the concept was building that community.
Kurt: And so the community for us is still really kind of key
Kurt: on this.
Kurt: And so again, the fact that I have a podcast,
Kurt: Tim has left his consultancy and is now
Kurt: the head behavioral scientist at a large bank.
Kurt: But still, by having that community,
Kurt: we've expanded our reach into who we can tap into,
Kurt: the insights, as you said, just kind of learning from this.
Kurt: I'm constantly amazed at the insights
Kurt: that we're getting from the interviews,
Kurt: that it directly applies to the work
Kurt: that we're doing with our clients.
Kurt: And so I can take what we heard on Friday,
Kurt: and Monday we're applying some of those insights
Kurt: into some of the work that we do.
Kurt: And the context and the other pieces,
Kurt: we've gotten connections.
Kurt: And some of that has led to work.
Kurt: We'd like more of that.
Kurt: It isn't a sure thing, but it definitely has led to work.
Kurt: But it's led to increased kind of exposure,
Kurt: increased kind of feelings of expertise that we have
Kurt: and that we can bring to the table.
Kurt: Yeah, yeah, interesting.
Craig: What advice would you give folks?
Craig: Because I think a lot of people are in a similar boat to you,
Craig: right?
Craig: They have an agency or consultancy.
Craig: They're professionals.
Craig: They have a podcast or wanted to get a podcast.
Craig: But I think a lot of folks are still
Craig: kind of scared about, hey, how will I
Craig: be perceived in my space if I start a podcast
Kurt: I'm talking outside of work about, you know, professional things.
Kurt: Like what advice would you give someone in a, in a similar position to where you
Kurt: were like, Hey, I want to start this thing.
Kurt: I want it to have an impact on my business, but I don't want to sell out.
Kurt: I don't want to seem like I'm selling something and like just offer value and
Kurt: hopefully like things, things come back to us.
Kurt: Yeah.
Kurt: And I think to, to the, the latter part is really important because I think for
Kurt: Most listeners, if they feel like you're trying to sell them,
Kurt: it kind of isn't going to be as impactful.
Kurt: Your podcast is going to not be as successful.
Kurt: So with that, for the people who are doing it,
Kurt: is one, just make sure that you have some passion around it.
Kurt: If this is a project management, if it's around law,
Kurt: if it's around whatever it is, just
Kurt: make sure you have passion around it
Kurt: And you're not trying to do it because, oh, if I do this,
Kurt: I will get more sales or I'll be perceived as an expert.
Kurt: You need to really have that curiosity and that idea,
Kurt: particularly if it's going to be an interview style one where
Kurt: you're talking with people.
Kurt: And then just give it time.
Kurt: Again, I think the biggest-- and you probably
Kurt: have better stats on this-- but the amount of people who start
Kurt: and then don't continue.
Kurt: Part of it is you realize, oh, this
Kurt: isn't as easy as just recording an hour-long thing,
Kurt: And then it's gone.
Kurt: No, it's a lot more goes into it than that.
Kurt: But it's that long term.
Kurt: And you start to build up and keep those--
Kurt: open up the channels to your listeners
Kurt: and have those conversations.
Kurt: Because some of those conversations,
Kurt: we have had people over the years
Kurt: where we're continuing different conversations.
Kurt: And eventually, sometimes that leads into, hey,
Kurt: I have this--
Kurt: I was talking to a friend and they have this, this issue and all of a sudden you can get
Kurt: some business from it.
Kurt: If that is indeed what you're trying to do, that would be my, my recommendations.
Kurt: Yeah, I think that's great advice.
Craig: Cool place to wrap it up for me, Kurt Nelson of behavioral grooves.
Kurt: Where can folks check out kind of more about you and the podcast behavioral grooves.com
Kurt: behavioral grooves.com.
Kurt: We are on Twitter at behavioral groove without the E or the S they had to truncate that.
Kurt: So we're out there as well.
Kurt: Yeah.
Kurt: And any of the traditional podcasts, places where you listen, it just, you know, we're
Kurt: up there.
Kurt: So awesome.
Kurt: Thanks so much.
Kurt: I appreciate it.
Kurt: Thank you, Greg.
Kurt: Appreciate it.
Kurt: Thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of the limelight.
Craig: If you're enjoying this show, check out our other podcasts we have in the Castos Originals
Craig: Network at castos.com/podcasts.
Craig: We'll see you next week.