If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’ve been doing a series of conversations with “Women in Strong Leadership.” Those conversations will continue. But today I wanted to share a conversation about podcasting which I had with Sam...
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I’ve been doing a series of conversations with “Women in Strong Leadership.” Those conversations will continue.
But today I wanted to share a conversation about podcasting which I had with Sam De Santo, my creative director at my podcast creative agency Imagine Podcasting https://www.imaginepodcasting.com.
I bring this to your attention today because so many people have been asking me about podcasting, what it is, if they’re interested, how to get started.
We’d like to share with you “Why Podcast” and 8 points we feel worthwhile to know, and why I continue to produce podcasts for clients even after 16+ years.
You may even experience a few “Aha moments” along the way.
To contact us and/or leave us an audio message visit WhatHasMyAttention.com https://www.whathasmyattention.com/
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Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial (3.0) license
Unpacking Why Podcast w/Sam De Santo
John Biethan: [00:00:00] Welcome to what has my attention. And this is John beacon. If you've been following me for a while, you know, I've been doing a series of conversations with women in strong leadership, and those conversations will continue. But today I wanted to share a conversation about podcasting, which I had with Sam DeSanto, my creative director at my podcast, creative agency.
[00:00:20] Imagine podcast. I bring this to your attention today because so many people have been asking me about podcasting, like what it is, and if they're interested, how to get started. So we'd like to share with you why podcast and eight points we feel worthwhile to know and why I continue to produce podcasts for clients even after 16 years.
[00:00:42] You may even experience a few aha moments along the way.
[00:00:54] Sam. Welcome. Thanks.
[00:00:57] Sam De Santo: [00:00:57] It's great to be here. What fun? I just bought a ring light on Mike, so I finally get to use them. So that, you're my, you're my inaugural your, your, your, my, my champagne on the bottle. On the ship. Yeah. Yeah. Good.
[00:01:09] John Biethan: [00:01:09] I have that sound effects, but we won't use it right now. Yeah, that's good.
[00:01:13] So I'm going to let everybody know this is titled unpacking. Why podcasts with Sam DeSanto? Imagine podcasting.com is our website. So here's the thing, Sam and you'll, you'll probably remember Sam and I met at a, at a BNI meeting. I was like, Substituting for somebody and Sam, I think you did a presentation, right?
[00:01:33] You did. Do you remember what that was? I
[00:01:35] Sam De Santo: [00:01:35] do. I remember it was one that was about the, it was about writing and it was about connecting with an audience and it was about how to how to do that. And, and the gist of the talk was about pathos and how, when we emotionally connect with someone.
[00:01:52] There's gotta be some kind of pathos involved. And I did go off on a little bit of a tangent talking about. Philosophers and, you know, the ancient sort of ramifications of where pathos came from, but the idea of pathos is still it's about connecting with people and that was useful because we're also busy every minute of the business day, trying to make things happen in bla bla, bla.
[00:02:15] And we get really caught up in the minutiae, but if you can slow down and take a breath. And think about how you're connecting with your clients. That's kind of what this talk was about, you know, how to talk to somebody and how to be able to talk to somebody in a different way.
[00:02:36] So then anyway, it just worked out to be, it was about pathos. And I remember it had full of philosophers and other people in it, whatever I don't remember, but, and you were there. So that was.
[00:02:44] John Biethan: [00:02:44] You and I, I tried to like have lunch with you and stuff, and then all of a sudden the pandemic hit. Right. Bam. And then in 2020, I'll just say that I reconnected with you.
[00:02:56] We set up a call and had a call. I don't know if it was probably, it was probably zoom and it was August 14th, 20, 20. Oh, wow. And I had just, although I've been podcast producing for others since 2005, essentially 16 years I didn't really have a production company. And in July 2020, I started imagine podcasting.com.
[00:03:18] So you and I had a conversation on August 14th and I asked you, did you know anything about podcasting, then you kind of indicated no. Except for that, somebody, a buddy of yours had sent you a podcast called just call it
[00:03:31] Sam De Santo: [00:03:31] the art of the score.
[00:03:33] John Biethan: [00:03:33] Ah, the art of the score. And what was that about? Well, here's,
[00:03:36] Sam De Santo: [00:03:36] what's interesting.
[00:03:36] Cause my friend and I, we come from film and TV background and stuff and he and I had worked here. You know, when I was back in the day when I was cutting promos for TV stuff. So we're always, you know, thinking about music and what's good music for this. And obviously, we're movie geeks, you know, and a big part of movies, emotional connection is the score, right?
[00:03:54] So we're both movie Deeks and we're both music nuts. And so we're always talking. John Williams or Jerry Goldsmith or Han Zimmer Danny Elfman or whoever it is, right? Yeah. And he's always way ahead of me on all this stuff. I feel like the grandpa in the relationship because he's always like sending me stuff and I'm, oh, it's this, this work on the phone, you know, like, I'm always like, wait, so he's he sends me this thing, a podcast I'm like, great.
[00:04:19] What do I do with this? And can I play it on my computer, on the desktop? Or does it have to be on the phone? He's like, just play it. You'll love it. I don't care how you, how you play it. Right. So it was my first experience with a podcast. And so I played it and they've got like, I don't know how many episodes they're up to, but the first one they talked about was a John Williams score.
[00:04:38] And it was like, oh, well this is great. I could listen to this all day. And I did. And that was really fun. So that was my first introduction to podcasting was just listening to them. Art of the score and it's three guys in Australia and each of them is a practicing musician and they teach and they do all this stuff, but their passion is scores.
[00:04:57] John Biethan: [00:04:57] Very accomplished. They're conductors. Yeah. They're conductors. And yeah, they write film scores themselves.
[00:05:04] Sam De Santo: [00:05:04] Yeah. Yeah. So they're in the industry. They, they teach they're passionate about it. And when you get these three guys to talk about it, all of a sudden, you're just in this other world. Right. And they play clips from the score and they set up the clip and they play it and they, they play other pieces of music that reference that trend.
[00:05:22] If there is such a thing like, oh, Danny Elfman borrowed from Bernard Herman when he did blow up and you're listening. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, it becomes diminished. Right. All of a sudden it's like, oh, this is amazing. And, and so it was just this, it was a lot of fun and it's, and it's really still the only one that I have time to listen to.
[00:05:41] And I, but I, I, when I heard that I understood pretty quickly how immersive podcasting can be and how attractive it is and how much fun it is. And also, you know, how. How much how relational it is. Right. Cause I feel like I've listened to enough of these podcasts with these three Australian guys. I feel like I kind of know them.
[00:06:02] I have no idea who they are. I don't know what they look like. I have no idea, but, but there's a, there's a connection there because we all love film music. Right. So that was sort of, that was my, yeah know.
[00:06:12] John Biethan: [00:06:12] So was that around the same time that you and I started talking in exactly the same time? So here's, here's part of the story.
[00:06:19] So. August 26th. I received a document from Sam. I received a document you sent that was called podcast observations, and then it evolved, well, let me just say that. You absolutely nailed it. You absolutely nailed it. And it, from a listener perspective, a business perspective, and then you of course had a takeaway.
[00:06:46] So what I wanted to do today was unpack this a little bit. Okay. So for people out there, they can go to imagine podcasting.com and you'll see it actually in the menu. I think it says why we podcast. And yes, you'll end up signing up on our email list, but you'll get this document and I'd really recommend that people get it and just sit with it for a little bit and see what it does for your imagination in terms of imagining podcasting, whether you're already podcasting or you're considering podcasting.
[00:07:18] So for me, that was incredible. And then immediately I just went great. And Sam and I started working again. Yeah. And we've, we've been developing a brand discovery process led by Sam. That's a part of our mach 3 programs. And I would have to say it works extremely well.
[00:07:38] Sam De Santo: [00:07:38] What's interesting is, is that when clients are willing to do a little homework on their own, or if they're willing to go through a process, right.
[00:07:47] If they don't just sit back and say, oh, I want everything presented on a silver platter. If they're willing to participate. Right. And we do the brand discovery, we come up with a draft of the document, they review it, we go over it again together. We make it better. Everyone wins. Do you know what I mean? We learn more about who they are and what they want the podcast to be, how they see themselves with who their audience is, what they want to achieve.
[00:08:11] And so the same thing happened when, when back in August because when, when you had approached me about, Hey, I might need some help, you know on the website for, for imagine podcasting, maybe writing for it. I got very excited because most of the time, the writing that I do, and this is not. Yeah, this is just an observation of my own is podcasting.
[00:08:31] And you presented a creative opportunity, which was. Different than writing copy for the HVAC company or writing copy for the pest control company. Right. It's like, oh, this is really creative because it's storytelling. Right. And it's helping people tell their stories. So that's why I was like, well, I don't know anything about podcasting except for this one podcast that I had listened to.
[00:08:52] So I kind of went into. Not freak out mode, but I was just like, wow, I really got to, you know, I really want to work with John and I gotta make a good first impression. So let me listen to some of these podcasts, just take notes on what I felt, and whatever. And that's where that document came from. It was sort of my attempt to sort of show you that I was serious, right.
[00:09:10] That I was making an effort to understand podcasting, right. That process of, of me introducing a document to you and you kicking it back. And all of a sudden it was like, well, this idea works. This process works right. And that's what we've taken in. And now we've dropped that into, you know, imagine podcasting and how that process works for other people.
[00:09:30] So it is awesome. It's fun. And you can't expect to get it right? The first shot, right? No. Well, that's the thing.
[00:09:37] John Biethan: [00:09:37] Yeah. Like the discovery process, I mean, yeah, you kind of indicated we'll go over it once, twice, actually. We've spent I think five or six iterations with one of our clients, Elena you know, and now it's solid and now it's a foundation.
[00:09:51] Right. That basically informs every other part of the process from the graphic design of the album and the episode artwork to the format of the show, because you actually end up with a title, the subtitle, and a couple of versions of brief, brief descriptions, but let's get back to the why podcast doc for a minute.
[00:10:13] And I want to actually read the first-page graph, and then I want to break down a little bit of the other pieces of it. So. I'll just read it. You wrote, as you imagine the world of podcasting, we thought it would be useful to offer a brief overview of the landscape. As we see it very simply podcasting over time creates long-lasting and trusted relationships, which are worth their weight in gold.
[00:10:38] Here are eight reasons why. Go for it, Sam.
[00:10:44] Sam De Santo: [00:10:44] Okay, great. Well, I realized number one, it says pod people consume podcasts for longer periods of time versus video or reading. And I realized that because when I listened to the art of the score I think it was this, they were doing the soundtrack to empire strikes back or something.
[00:11:04] And it was like, well, I, can't just, I can only, they had it broken into three. It was three hours, three separate hours. Right. And the score itself is only whatever it is. 58 minutes, longer, an hour long. It doesn't matter. But. I couldn't listen to all three parts. Right. Once I got into it. So it was like, well, wait a minute now, what did I just do?
[00:11:22] You know, it's not like I'm watching Facebook videos. It's not like I'm watching ads or anything like that. It was like all of a sudden I realized that, okay, this is a longer-term commitment is what it seems to be, you know? Once you get into a podcast and you're into their rhythm. Right. Cause there's a rhythm to it too.
[00:11:39] Right. Because it's musical and it's, it's, it's, they're, they're talking and all this, but I think I just seemed like things slowed down, but it didn't feel like it slowed down. So I realized you just, you just consume it for longer periods. Right. If it's good, you're going to consume it and it's not going to feel like it was long.
[00:11:57] So that was sort of where that idea came from. And that I guess, ties into number two, listening to podcasts is an easy and pleasurable experience because you can become immersed without the distraction of what's going on in the millions of tabs on your browser or your phone constantly screaming at you visually.
[00:12:13] Right? So that's the other great thing I was like, cause I sat in my chair over here and I wasn't distracted by anything else. I was just enjoying it. Well, it's like trying to experience the movie for the first time again, remembering how it was when I was whatever I was 10 years old or something, you know, and, and we're a little older, but you know what I mean?
[00:12:30] The idea was it just, it really was a transportive thing. And as long as you. You know, listening intently and you're, you're giving it your focus. You shouldn't be looking at other stuff and multitasking. Yeah. If you're going to get all of it out of it, that you can, you know, so this one, I researched a little bit because these guys had an ad at the very beginning.
[00:12:50]I say number three, advertising on podcasts as far less intrusive and distracting as it is on video. And I realized they're at. We're spoken by them. So there's a rhythm to host
[00:13:04] John Biethan: [00:13:04] read. That's called host read ads, right? Oh,
[00:13:06] Sam De Santo: [00:13:06] perfect. Exactly. Right. So when the host reads the ad, you don't break the rhythm. It's not like all of a sudden.
[00:13:13]Yeah, like a crazy Eddie, you know, comes in and starts screaming at you. Right. You know, it doesn't break your flow. It doesn't break the rhythm. So that I noticed and here, this is the real key to it. And this is what I had experienced. Number four, listening to a podcast is an intimate experience, ears only.
[00:13:29] Okay. You can pick up nuances in tone, intonation emotion in their voice podcast. Information personal. And what's interesting is now this is a little bit of me and my sort of baggage. But when I went back in the TV promotion days, we worked a lot with voiceover guys and gals, right. So I did have an understanding of voice stuff and how to.
[00:13:53]Coach people right on how to get the best performance and how to set them up for the session, the right way, and how to get them to relax. And they knew all how to breathe. Cause they were actors and all this and all this kind of thing. But I think picking up nuances in tone like you can hear the truth and you can hear it.
[00:14:10]When someone's blowing smoke, right. I think that's kind of, and you can hear it in the inflection, in their voice. You can hear it. If they start to say, well, you know, you know, you know, and they start to stall or who knows what
[00:14:20] John Biethan: [00:14:20] right there is partial. Cause there's no other thing distracting. You.
[00:14:24] So your focus is on the idea your focus is on the voice or the audio.
[00:14:28] Sam De Santo: [00:14:28] Yeah. Yep. That's it. So that's where the nuance comes from. That's where just, it's just a natural part of it. So since it's, it's audio-only, right. So, and then, oh, I already kind of said this isn't this funny. I kind of like, all right, well, anyway, number five.
[00:14:44] Listening to a podcast is, is a transportive experience. As listeners listen to a storyteller, they are transported to a particular moment in time in place in their mind, as the story is being told, it's the same as reading, but without the eyestrain, which is very prevalent because when I read too long, I can't focus because I know where I'm near-sighted so I can read.
[00:15:06] But then when I try to look around the room, it's all blue, you know, makes my eyes a little longer, to adjust than they used to. But yeah. Transportive experience. And I kind of mentioned this when I was talking about the listening to the score for empire strikes back reminds me of 1980 when I was however old I was.
[00:15:24] And it's like, that's the power of radio, right? When you listen to the old tapes of the shadow or whatever like that, you know, it allows you to use your own imagination. So when the door creeks open or, you know, the shadow laughs or whatever it is, and, and you eat just, it forces you to. To pay attention and it becomes immersive.
[00:15:43] So, and, and it does transport you. So that's, that's really a lot of fun. And I think since we're so visually overstimulated all the time, which I think we are, you know, between was in
[00:15:54] John Biethan: [00:15:54] between, according to Donald Miller, 3000 marketing messages a day land in you.
[00:16:00] Sam De Santo: [00:16:00] Wow. Oh, it's horrible. It's just wrong. You know, we should be out.
[00:16:04] We should be outside doing something else. Do you know what I mean? It's like, we're just sitting here being, being bombarded all the time. Yeah.
[00:16:11] John Biethan: [00:16:11] Okay. So all of that was really about, as it relates to people in the next section is as it relates to businesses,
[00:16:19] Sam De Santo: [00:16:19] Well, let me read let's see. Number six for businesses.
[00:16:22] Once you have a podcast, it demonstrates to other businesses that you immediately have something to offer them a stage and an audience, an opportunity for them to speak about themselves and demonstrate their service or product to a new group of people. I'll read the other two as well. And then we'll talk about it as a unit.
[00:16:40] Number seven for businesses, podcasts offer the experience of speaking on a convention stage to a crowded auditorium of people, but without the travel hotel flights, the venue catering, et cetera, and number eight blast point podcasts will help you be a better communicator when talking about your business.
[00:16:59] It speaking in public without the public's eyeballs on you bunch less stress, much better results. So what's interesting is, is that now in the age of COVID or in the age of, almost out of COVID or what have you, the world's changed in so many ways that. The thought of standing in front of an auditorium of 500 or a thousand people.
[00:17:24] It's not realistic, right? Not yet. Right. But a podcast can meet, can, can find all of those people immediately and you can sustain an audience to come back. Whereas no one has to take a flight or do anything like that anymore.
[00:17:37] John Biethan: [00:17:37] Right. You know, so, right, right. Like at the, like at the chamber of commerce, you know, they do the first, Friday breakfast and you know, there's only cause they take one month off.
[00:17:46] There's only 11 in the year. Well, nobody that presented in that year gets to come back the same year. You got to, if they get, come back, you got to wait a year. Oh wow. But with the podcast, of course, you've got them every week, if you want them or every day if you want. Yeah.
[00:18:03] Sam De Santo: [00:18:03] Well, and what's interesting.
[00:18:05] Because obviously if you're in business doing something you're passionate about the business, right. So if you love, so let's say you're a solar entrepreneur who’s a solar company. That's a multi-faceted I know, you know, one or two solar guys. And when they talk about it, they're absolute.
[00:18:22] Crazy for it. Right. And, and they're in engineer types, right? So they love the, the technology of putting the panels up. They love figuring out which panels to get, how that's converted into saveable. Cause you can get the battery as well. Right. All this technical stuff. But then they're also like, but we're getting people off the grid.
[00:18:44] And so we're, and so there's that, you know, so there, there's sort of this rebel part of it, which is I want to be off the grid and forget, you know, forget the government or whatever they think. And then there's also this part of it, which is all science and all math and all engineering. Right. And then there's the physical part of it, where we need guys who are electricians, who won't get electrocuted, plugging this stuff together and climbing up on the roof.
[00:19:07] Right. You know, so, and each, and so whenever he would talk about this stuff yeah. He would talk about a different segment of the same business and it was always different, right? And I'm like, well, solar it's California. How hard can it be? But the, but the truth is it's like, no, wait a minute. You know, he has to heat today.
[00:19:24] He put on the engineer's hat and he talked about things technically. And it was very interesting the next day, next time I saw him, he talked about the saving money part of it, you know, and appealing to a different, so it's just very interesting. That's how a podcast for a business can, can portray different parts of what they do.
[00:19:41] Right. Which is very interesting for an audience, I think. But if your business is in helping people or in coaching people or in helping them find what. You know, find their path, then the, then it's limitless as to what can happen. Right? Because then your topics multiply by, you know, they multiply is basically the idea because every client, you have, every story you hear, everything you bump up against becomes a lesson and a lesson is what you want to share.
[00:20:11] Do you know what I mean? So that's why I think it was just, it's so appealing. For businesses because there is that much potential. Yeah.
[00:20:20] John Biethan: [00:20:20] You know what I, what I say, and I, I know this to be true is that audio podcasting is a phenomenal creative space. I mean, right now we hear a lot of podcasts with people that like start with music and they give an introduction and they have an interview, and then it's music out and go.
[00:20:36] It doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be that way. So it's the, you know, we pride ourselves on being a creative podcast production company and more than that, but yeah. Do you want to, you want to talk a little bit about the takeaways? No
[00:20:51] Sam De Santo: [00:20:51] way. Yeah. Well, that's actually a perfect segue because the bottom line is podcasting is more than fun.
[00:20:56] It's an extension of you, your voice, and your brand. It's an amazing way to reach new people. Podcasting is portable, personable, personal rather accessible, versatile, intimate, and adaptable. It's the way of the future. And then the last bit here is to conclude podcasts, have an undeserved reputation for being complicated and expensive.
[00:21:18] They are not to be effective. They simply require that you do. So many others don't have a story worth telling, create imaginative program segments and provide a quality listening experience. This is who we are and what we do. And we look forward to helping you do the same. So. Because when I, cause when I talked to my friend about the scoring thing, I said, where'd you find this in?
[00:21:43] What's the deal? He said, oh, I played this on my, on my iPod, on my phone rather, you know, and I, when I'm driving or when I'm working out is when he listens to it and I'm like, oh, okay. So you're not locked to your desktop in your office at home. He's like, no, it's portable. Right. That's where that comes in.
[00:22:00] Yeah.
[00:22:00] John Biethan: [00:22:00] I listened to podcasts in the morning with a cup of coffee. Sometimes I'll read, but sometimes I'll listen to a podcast. You know, something I listened to on a regular basis. I do it when I'm making breakfast sometimes at lunch while I'm eating, walking, driving you know, Steph and I take a walk every morning and I'm often walking early listening to a podcast and then we talk, the portability thing is a very, very big deal.
[00:22:23] Yeah. You know,
[00:22:24] Sam De Santo: [00:22:24] it's just. It's one of those, I didn't mean to interrupt you. I'm sorry. It's one of those barriers that break that barrier and it makes it just much more accessible, right? Yeah. Yeah. And if, if you, and when you say you're you do it, when you take a walk, well, that's your private time, right?
[00:22:40] That's your thinking time, that's time out of the office. It's time out of the home office, wherever you are. And so all of a sudden it's like, oh, well that time back to intimate. Right? All of a sudden you're back in the intimate time. I mean, it's an intimate experience in your private time and then it's also, yeah.
[00:22:56] Instead of listening to a yeah. Wheel of fortune or, or whatever it is, the family feud in the background. Well, while cooking, why not have, you know, a podcast on or something, you know? So, yeah, that's funny.
[00:23:08] John Biethan: [00:23:08] So kind of in wrapping up, I have two things I want to do. Number one is I just want to let you know, it's like, everybody needs to know that we're here to help, like unravel that confusion because most people are hired by us because it seems confusing and expensive and they just don't know what it is or where to go or whatever.
[00:23:27] Mm, but we're here to help with that for sure. But the last thing I wanted to talk about and leave with. Is http://www.SandGStudios.com. So Sam, talk to me a little bit about what you and Gunilla have going on and have been, have done for years. And I want to also let everybody know that Sam is my creative director.
[00:23:46] Hands-off but you can go. He's my Sam, he's my Sam, but that's right. That's
[00:23:54] Sam De Santo: [00:23:54] right. Well, thank you for mentioning us. My wife and I, I'm the S my wife Gunilla is the G so S and G studios. We're a boutique creative agency and we help companies tell the world who they are. What makes them special and why they should be hired.
[00:24:08] And our history is we're both New Yorkers. And we had met when we both worked in cable TV at the SciFi channel back in the day I was she was head of production. I was one of the writer-producers. And after I left, she stayed for a little bit longer. We, we got married and I. And to start our company S and G studios.
[00:24:28] And I was able to work in promotions for a lot of different channels on a lot of different sorts of shows, long and short of it is some of it was documentary. Some of it was comedy. Some of it was like reality TV, all different sorts. And of course, SciFi stuff. And I worked on Monk, the comedy detective show for a number of years, all in promotions.
[00:24:47] Right. And it was all terrific. It was all great. And what we learned was is to wear different hats for different shows, right? So when you're doing something for animal planet and its mere cat manner, well, the mere cats don't talk. So you have to learn how to write a script that, you know, tells their story.
[00:25:04] But when you do something for food network and it's guy Fieri and triple D diners drive-ins and dives, all right, you got to let him sort of do a lot of the talking cause he's a larger personality, right? So, and first documentaries, you know, all the rest of it. So you just, I learned how to wear different hats.
[00:25:20] Shows and those same hats and that skill now applies to different clients. Right? So it's a solar guy. Okay. I understand how to write for that. And I'm learning how to write for, for instance, you know, a financial services company or a, what's another one here on my list. Oh, voice coach. Right. You know, so there's always somebody different and there's always something new to learn every time we head out.
[00:25:43] So as far as vanilla and I, in our, in our company, we offer. Branding services. We offer website design. We offer writing, we can handle photography too. So it's a, it's a mix of, of creative stuff. Really a case-by-case basis, whatever you need, but it's, it is all really custom stuff. It's we don't use templates when we build the sites.
[00:26:03] Everything I write, I write from scratch and it's agonizing. Do you know what I mean? There's not everyone assumes, there's just a way to do this. Don't you can't you just plug me into something I'm like, no, because you're different. And if you're a solar guy and I wrote for a solar guy before, then I have to figure out what makes you different than that other guy.
[00:26:18] Do you know what I mean? So, yeah. It's always, it's always from the ground up. So we feel like we're building custom cars all the time, you know, but when they get the car, they're happy with the car. And so that's kind of where we're at. So yeah.
[00:26:30] John Biethan: [00:26:30] So you can be found@sandgstudios.com. That's correct. And just go visit because I'm actually going to the website.
[00:26:39] It's just a lot of fun. Oh, that's a lot of
[00:26:41] Sam De Santo: [00:26:41] fun. It's fun. Well, you know, we have case studies from, from our TV days, so there's stuff to watch, you know, and we have writing samples up. We have some samples of websites that we've done. There's a lot of, kind of fun creative stuff on there, so yeah.
[00:26:55] John Biethan: [00:26:55] Check it out.
[00:26:55] Yeah. That's really great. Anything else you want to say regarding unpacking? Why podcast? You know,
[00:27:01] Sam De Santo: [00:27:01] I think it's, it's interesting, you know, this started as a, as, as a way to. Educate me about something I didn't know anything about at first, do you know what I mean? And dinners, you were like, wow, this is terrific.
[00:27:15] And then we were like, well, you know what? Why don't, you know, it's a good process. And by educating ourselves about who the client is and helping them to articulate who they are, they learn about themselves as well. Do you know what I mean? So this whole process of, of discovery, this discovery process, I don't care if you've been in business for 30 years, there's still something new to discover.
[00:27:39] Do you know what I mean? And who you are as a business owner now versus who you were when you started in 1985. Well, things have changed, you know, and if you can figure out, or if you have a working idea of how to. Apply podcasting to your world and to your business now and what a great tool it is.
[00:27:57] Hey, you know, it's never too late to learn a new thing and to try something fun. Yeah.
[00:28:01] John Biethan: [00:28:01] Yeah. I love it, Sam. Thanks for being here. Oh,
[00:28:05] Sam De Santo: [00:28:05] it's my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me. I'm glad I got to use my time. Yes. You have a ring light as I do. Doesn't really, I don't know. I'm not thrilled with it right now.
[00:28:14] I'm looking at them. It looks
[00:28:15] John Biethan: [00:28:15] good. I mean, the contrast, you know, they say, you know, a little bit darker on one side than light. You got that going on. So
[00:28:22] Sam De Santo: [00:28:22] yeah, I got to find the button here that makes me lose weight. That's the button that they give me with this unit somehow there's the 15-pound button. I got gypped.
[00:28:30] Yeah.
[00:28:31] John Biethan: [00:28:31] Well, I actually have somebody for you, but we'll do that on a separate conversation. That's funny. Cool. All right. See you soon.
[00:28:37] Sam De Santo: [00:28:37] Okay. Thanks.
[00:28:51] John Biethan: [00:28:51] Produced by imagined podcasting. We help businesses eliminate competition by elevating their brand and message to be heard. Visit http://www.ImaginePodcasting.com for more information.
Co-founder, Creative Director, Master Storyteller
S&G Studios™ is a boutique creative agency that helps businesses define their brand identity and message by telling their unique story and demonstrate to the world who they are, what makes them special and why they should be hired.
Whether it’s with pencil or pen, pixel or paper, Sam is a jack-of-all-trades multidisciplinary creative thinker. With a Master's degree in film production from NYU's Tisch School of Arts, Sam is an accomplished director and writer. His thesis film was nominated for the prestigious Mobil Award and was screened at the Director's Guild in Los Angeles. It was also featured on Sci Fi Channel's short film show Exposure.
Additionally, he has enjoyed an illustrious career in the TV industry as a creative director and writer/producer of promotional spots and marketing campaigns for Emmy Award-winning shows like MONK, Battlestar Galactica and Steven Spielberg Presents TAKEN among others. Sam is a gifted illustrator, cartoonist and photographer, and served as the lead storyboard artist on several independent feature films and music videos.
Sam recently published his first children’s book, an historical action adventure novel, Bumble Humblestone and The Secret Cargo, which he both wrote and illustrated.