Amplifying your Message Through Audio Media with Twin Flames Studios' Tina Dietz

0:00
Welcome to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. I'm Josh Elledge, Founder and CEO of UpMyInfluence.com. We turn entrepreneurs into media celebrities, grow their authority, and help them build partnerships with top influencers. We believe that every person has a unique message that can positively impact the world. Stick around to the end of the show; we'll reveal how you can be our next guest on one of the fastest growing daily inspiration podcasts on the planet in 15 to 20 minutes. Let's go.

And from Gainesville, Florida. It's Tina Dietz. And Tina, you are the CEO and founder of Twin Flames Studios. I like the name. Thank you so much for joining us.

0:47
Thanks for having me.

0:48
I hear Twin Flames and I envisioned kind of like the Batmobile with the Hey, I'm not bad. Yeah, for me. Yeah. Where did you come up with the name?

0:59
Well, it was actually a brand pivot when my fiance now husband, decided to come into the company full time. So there's a whole concept and kind of spirituality as twin flames, people who kind of share a soul. And that's how we are. So that's where we got the name from?

1:17
Yeah. Excellent. I like it. I like it very symbolic. All right. So what from a high level what is twin flames do

1:25
Twin Flames works with companies, with leaders with executives, to get your message out into the world and amplify your voice and your message specifically through audio. So we work with podcasts and podcasting. We work with audio books, and we also work with vocal leadership,

1:44
which vocal leadership.

1:46
Vocal leadership is basically the art and science of making your external voice and your internal voice congruent and deep so that you become a more highly effective leader.

1:57
Mm hmm. And what happens if you don't have a deep voice?

2:00
Well, you don't have to have a deep voice. It's deep,

2:03
deep, deep,

2:05
deep, metaphorically. No, no, no, although it's funny, you mentioned that because one of the research factors in vocal qualities that is heavily heavily correlated to credibility and leadership, the perception of it is the pitch of your voice. But fortunately, if you don't have a deep voice, there's about 10. Other things that factor into it as well.

2:24
So I'm gonna be incredibly self conscious of this now. So anyway, this broadcast for any length of time is like, it's like I'm in the Avengers, right? Where Star Lord is like, you're changing your voice. I'm not I always talk about changing my voice. Yeah. Alright, so how did you get into this world?

2:45
Oh, well, I've been a lifelong entrepreneur. My background is as a therapist, but I grew up as an entrepreneur and had a business coaching practice for quite some time. And I was a voice actor on the side as a paid hobby, and had what I call a chocolate and peanut butter moment and epiphany, one day when I was taking some master classes in audiobooks, and that, why aren't all of my colleagues, all of my clients who are producing books, why aren't they doing audiobooks, and that led me down kind of a market research rabbit hole, where I saw a huge gap in the market. And this is a very similar with podcasts and the world of corporations and companies rather than kind of solopreneurs. And that's what both times gonna lead me to offering those types of services. And in the case of the audiobooks, which was our first done for you offering, I took over the company in less than a year 75% of the company. And we've now on track to double our fourth year in a row.

3:44
Wow, congratulations. So what is it about audio that you think is really important for leaders today?

3:50
Well, audio is incredibly durable format. It's, it's, it's not new, it's not a fad, it's not going away. And so that makes it very reliable. It's also very easy for people to access, it is the most accessible form of any kind of media, you can listen, when you can't read, you can listen when you can't watch. And it also tends to be in terms of production, have fewer moving parts than video in particular. And it also is so flexible, because you know, I don't love I'm a good writer, but I don't love to write. And a lot of people would prefer just to sit down and have a chat. So for example, if you were to go out and ask CEOs, would you write an article for me for my blog, that's going to be a way harder thing to get people to do than say, Hey, would you like to come on my podcast? Hmm. Right. Yeah. I don't say podcast, getting someone to come in your guest as a podcast. That's the easiest thing you'll ever quote unquote, sell in your whole life.

4:49
Mm hmm. I completely agree. I completely agree. Yeah. And so where do you see the future of of audio going?

4:58
I see you continuing to expand You know, audiobooks have been the fastest growing segment of the publishing industry for going on six, seven years now. Every year, it's been double digit growth, sometimes into the 20. And even 30%. year on year sales growth. I mean, it's it's over a billion dollar industry just in the US alone. And the same with podcasts, podcasts have had, you know, growth year on year, there, there's been this expectation of kind of a hockey stick moment in podcasting that we haven't seen. I think that's unrealistic, I think we're going to continue to see really steady growth and in conjunction with the growth of podcasts, I know Seth Godin is calling podcasting, the new blogging, I don't think he's wrong. I think we're going to also see things around podcasting growing as well, of course, we're on the more corporate side of thing and business to business, we're seeing a tremendous influx of interest in that area, is particularly in the last six months as people are pivoting to fewer online or fewer live events more online. And we're going to continue to see that grow, partially because we're also seeing a lot of marketing and advertising dollars go into that area as well.

6:12
Yeah, we have not yet reached peak podcasts, you know, when you think of it, you know, just again, we know how consumers are consuming content, and what content that we are consuming. And it just, you know, we want portable, we want it with us. We want it instantly accessible, we want it dialed into exactly what we want to learn about what we want to hear. So it's incredibly personalized. And podcasting allows you to do that you get to go a mile deep into an inch wide topic, if you want to

6:49
share absolutely it's it's one of those things, you know, and I love that podcasting is relational, rather than presentational, you know, we get tired of being talked out, we get screen fatigue we get, we don't want to take in more information in a way that is like having to look at a slides for God forbid I hate PowerPoint slides is the bane of my existence. And so this allows us to have that and you know, the average podcast listener listens for about 40 minutes at a time to a show the average video watcher only watches for two minutes. So if you've got long form conversation or things to deliver, you don't want to do it on video, you want to do it on audio.

7:32
So between twin flames and your own business development and consulting, you've been in this game now for over 10 years. And obviously, you know, a lot of the platforms have changed. But, you know, when you started and you move from the world of therapy into development, like where did your first clients come from? And how did you get them?

7:58
My first clients came from local businesses. One of my first long term coaching clients, you know, Back Bay way back when was a wonderful cupcake company called fairy kicks, they're still around and still follow their exploits, so to speak. And they had, you know, just opened a storefront. And we had this wonderful experience of bringing their business kind of to life and developing multiple income streams. And that was duplicated over time with other either local businesses. And then it expanded. I already had a network from other companies that I had worked to build. Like I said, I come from a very entrepreneurial background. So I had a network and basically was pivoting from building other people's companies to building my own and still helping other people build their companies but in a different way. So I I basically relied on that network and was educating people through either webinars or teleclasses are email. And that's how this clients got generated.

9:00
I'm been looking at your team have been looking at your social media, and you tend to take social pretty seriously. Of note, you have a couple hundred thousand followers on Facebook. Yeah, but what's been your Facebook strategy? And and I hope you'll give us the real don't. Yeah, no, I totally, I'm happy to be platitudes. I'm hoping, like, you know, maybe something a little bit more tactical if you if you wouldn't mind. No, I'm happy to do that. Yeah, yeah. Just Yeah. How does one build a couple hundred? You know, again, you know, and I, this, here's, you know, my impression is that Facebook used to be much easier to gain traction organically. It's not anymore. It's mostly a pay to play platform. But you get great engagement on your posts, um, you know, so I'm really curious, you know, kind of maybe what was your strategy during your super hyper growth bursts and what you do today,

9:57
you know, it really hasn't changed that much. We built that first paid, which is now almost 200,000 on its own, to 100,000 in a little under a year. And that was about three years ago, maybe a little longer. I lose track. But here's the thing about social media. I'm, I do a lot of networking on social media. We don't generate our business from social media, our clients and customers don't do business from social media. They may make contacts and network from social media. Yeah, but they're not what I would call funnel people, right? Have a business, it's very conducive to a funnel. Absolutely. Social media is your best friend in terms of sales. For us. It's much more about branding, and much more about following. So the tactical answer to that question is we share really positive content. We also have, we trade and share content with other like minded pages to help increase our organic reach. And we don't really talk about the business very much we really focus on the emotional side of things. And it's social media is very different when you're looking to build kind of numbers and a following that is looking to develop leads and conversions. We're not in it to develop leads and conversions. We're really developing more community and reputation and brand. So there's a very important distinction there. I think

11:21
the social media platforms themselves. Clearly, if they're, and I think just the, you know, the followers and consumers themselves are just like, if you're trying to be salesy, it's just the platform's are not designed to promote that. Right, you know, people already that's gonna be people's biggest complaint with social media is it just, you know, it's like being barked at by Carnival Barkers all day long. And so that's what makes Facebook a big, you know, a drag for a lot of people is, is that kind of environment. So Facebook's very sensitive to that

11:53
very sensitive, and Facebook's a much better kind of b2c platform than it is a b2b platform. So like I said, we focus on community there, I do far more networking and business content on LinkedIn. And we spend a lot of time with our content on LinkedIn and making it really rich, really actionable, really juicy and, and kind of giving it all away. Because, you know, people want to know you and they they don't want to be pitched to. So

12:21
yeah. You so you do a lot of content in and around leadership on Tina. And in the world of leadership, how would you Nish yourself, like, you know, what's kind of your thing that you get on the soapbox about that you that either you want to be known for, or you want to have a bigger impact in the world with?

12:43
Yeah, this goes along with the work on vocal leadership, which is a body of work that I've been developing in the background and will continue to develop and focus on you know, I like to think of the company having kind of three divisions at this point the audiobooks of podcasting, and then the vocal leadership really is its own animal, in and of itself, because I think that we underplay or don't really pay attention to always what we are broadcasting, either vocally or more importantly, from a the ways that we are being an embodying. So, you know, we are taught to practice, you know, we're taught how to ride a bike, we're taught how to throw a ball, we're taught how to read a book, human beings are not taught how to consciously practice our emotional states, and how to consciously shift ourselves, we're not taught the deeper ways of how to deal with our own inner conversations and being. And these are the things that really impact not only other people, but ourselves and our development over time, more than anything else, that the crucial things that impact our growth, particularly for those of us who would identify ourselves as leaders. So where I'm looking to make a lifelong impact is to help people really take a look at their, you know, their outer voice, which is kind of their instrument, and their inner voice, which was the music that they're playing, and learn how to develop those so that you become a virtuoso of your own leadership, however, you want to make an impact in the world.

14:13
Yeah. So Tina, in terms of like, a twin flames, like who is kind of your ideal client? How do you engage with them? What does that look like?

14:25
Oh, so I, you know, I'm very relationship focused. So my favorite thing to do is to connect with business owners, or a lot of times we're talking with the heads of marketing departments inside of companies, sometimes or whoever's handling kind of the voice of the brand, whether it's the head of marketing, or sometimes it's the CEO of the company, depending on the size of the company, but everybody we work with is very relationship focused, very service oriented, and is looking to get a wider reach out into their particular marketplace. With their expertise, so we work a lot with the financial industry, private equity, Wealth Management financials. We also work a lot with subject matter experts who know their stuff cold, love to share tremendously love to bring in experts and and develop those those relationships. So people who are looking to develop influence not from an Instagram way, I would say, but true influence and leadership, you know, which takes time and energy and, and a lot of character to develop. So those are a lot of the folks that that we work with. And most of the time we're we're meeting each other through mutual clients, they're coming to me off of LinkedIn, or if podcasts like this or other platforms, where I may be speaking on a specific topic like pod fest global, I know you and I both spoken on the pod fest stages, multiple times. And that's it. It's a word of mouth or something like this, that gets people to us.

16:04
Yeah. So for business, why should a business owner start a podcast.

16:10
So a business owner or company should look at starting a podcast, when you've got an established brand, and an established, you know, lines of business, but you want to layer on top of it? Your influence and what I mean by that is that you've got a certain reputation already established. And now you want to expand that out further than what you can with your current circle, you want to be moving into new circles. So what a podcast will allow you to do is to serve your current clients, it will allow you to loud potential clients to get to know you, and will also develop your reputation in your industry. And that's usually through strategic guest selection. And also, you know, allowing you to use your current network to deepen relationships over time, because when you have a podcast, you end up with a media platform. It's it's not like having a blog, you're, you know, now you're out on two independent networks that people can access and search for, you know, through their phone. And that makes things you know, it changes it changes the game. It also is a tremendous source of content marketing. So for companies that have a marketing department, it gives them a rich source of content to draw from, and everything can be consistent. From from platform to platform.

17:39
Excellent. So Tina is someone who's been listening to our conversation. They're like, okay, I liked what Tina saying, I want more. Where do they go? What do they do?

17:47
You go to Twin Flames Studios, lots of SS there, TwinFlamesStudios.com. And you browse what we've got going on and just caught, reach out and contact us through the Contact Us page and we'll hop on a call and see what's going to be working for you.

18:03
Yeah, excellent. All right, Tina Dietz, again, founder, CEO of TwinFlamesStudios.com. Tina, thank you so much for joining us.

18:12
Thanks, Josh. This is great.

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