Spiraling Up — Marketing For Professional Services

The ROI of a Business Podcast: Was Spiraling Up Worth It?

• Hinge • Season 1 • Episode 22

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Was launching Spiraling Up actually worth it?

In this special year-end episode, the team looks back on 2025 and asks the honest question every firm-led podcast eventually faces: did this experiment deliver real value?

We revisit standout clips from across the year, reflect on what worked (and what didn’t), and unpack the lessons we learned about podcasting as a strategic business tool—not just a marketing channel. From audience engagement and format experiments to internal alignment and long-term ROI, this episode pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to run a successful professional services podcast.

Whether you’re considering launching a podcast, already producing one, or questioning if the effort is paying off, this episode offers a candid, behind-the-scenes look at the realities of podcasting inside a growing firm.

In this episode:

  • Was the Spiraling Up podcast experiment worth the time and effort?
  • What surprised us most after a full year behind the mic
  • Clips and moments that shaped the direction of the show
  • Lessons on consistency, formats, and audience expectations
  • What we’d double down on—and what we’d do differently
  • How podcasting actually supports business development and brand growth


Who this episode is for:

  • Professional services marketers and leaders
  • Firm owners considering a podcast
  • Podcast hosts questioning ROI or momentum
  • Anyone curious about podcasting beyond “downloads and likes”

If you’re looking for a realistic, experience-based perspective on podcasting—not hype—this episode is a must-watch. Past episodes referenced:

One year ago we finally decided what we were gonna call our new podcast, spiraling Up But getting to that decision and all the work that we've put in since then has been a lot planning episodes, finding guests, finding out creative games a lot of you may be wondering. Was it worth it? Well, in today's episode of Spiraling Up, we're gonna take a look back at everything that we did this year, and we're gonna talk about our favorite moments, our favorite guests, but ultimately we're gonna discuss was it worth it and what? What does it mean to start a business podcast in 2026 and beyond? Welcome everyone. This is Spiraling Up with Hinge.

Austin McNair:

everyone to spiraling Up the podcast for professional services, marketers and leaders. My name is Austin, and as always, I am joined by my colleagues and co-hosts, Mary. Ah Joe. We have no Mary Blanche today. Where's Mary

Joe Pope:

have no blanc. No, we do not have Mary Blanche, but we do have someone, we have producer John

Austin McNair:

producer John. Hey John. Welcome to the podcast.

John Tyreman:

What's up guys? This is gonna be fun.

Austin McNair:

This will be fun. Uh, Joe, uh, welcome to the podcast. John. Welcome to the podcast. This is our, uh, kind of end of the year, uh, episode here. As we we close back, close out, and look back at what was a great first year, John. We're really excited. As you know, you've been super involved in what we're doing. Uh, you're the perfect candidate to kind of help us look back at, uh, a great year of. Uh, what has been, you know, a new initiative for us on the hinge front. So I'm excited to get into our episode. I want to thank all of our listeners who are watching on YouTube. Please help us out by liking and subscribing to the episode and to the channel and to those who are listening on audio format. Thank you so much for, for downloading the episode. We're happy you're here as well. Leave us a review on whatever platform you're listening to and everybody can always send us a message. At podcast, at hinge marketing.com, send us your feedback, comments, questions. If you've got, uh, an idea for a great guest or a great topic, we would love to hear you. Joe, I want, I want to start with you and just where were we a year ago in terms of this idea and, and what we're doing?

Joe Pope:

were a couple beers and baskets of queso and, and chips deep in terms of this being a vision, what we had noticed looking at things like high growth research, something that anybody who's listened to the show is well aware of that. We've spent a lot of time looking at it, uh, as well as seeing across the marketplace. There was a space for professional services, focused content in the audio and video realm, and we. As a group that spends all of this time and effort creating information, wanted to be able to capture that space. We wanted to be able to put information out into that, into that arena. So John and I, like I joked at, we, we, we'd met up and had a few conversations about this and, and Austin as, as our defacto host in chief, I know you and I had also looked at potential ways where we could expand upon what is our webinars, for example, like we, we do. Hinge those webinars, right? So what's other avenues we can capture interest in entertainment? Um, so yeah, a year ago we're, we're sitting around and, and it's time to put some rubber to the road, right? We're starting to think through exactly how this format would work and so forth. And, and, uh, John, uh, linked up with us and we went through, boy, we went through months in a sense of prep to get this. Off the ground. We went through targeting of audiences, titles, creative, um, all the different types of elements you would consider as part of a larger marketing campaign, because that's what this is. It's a larger marketing campaign. We're not just putting content out in audio form or video form. We're creating shorts and social posts and things along those lines. So, uh, this became a, uh, an initiative from, from the hinge perspective. So a year ago though, we were, we were in our infancy. Better way of thinking about it.

Austin McNair:

Well, I, what, what I hear you saying, Joe, is, you know, a year ago we were in the plan of. Weaving this into our strategy. Right. I, I think one of the, one of the things that will come out during this, uh, episode is just a look back at a lot of the creativity that we brought to the table. And, um, that wasn't by accident. That was actually very intentional. I remember a year ago when Joe and John kind of presented this idea to me and kind of a pitch to me to be a part of, you know, Hey, let's, let's, let's get a Hinge podcast going again. My first thought was. There are a lot of boring marketing podcasts out there, and, um, if we're gonna do it. I at least want to take a stab at doing something with a little bit more of a creative flare, if not just for, you know, for engaging the audience and, and showing our personality a little bit, but for our guests as well. I mean, we talk to a lot of really intelligent, smart people who have been on a lot of podcasts before. And as we engage with them directly, we, you know, we want to be memorable. We want to be interesting, we want them to have fun and kind of, you know, maybe let their guard down a little bit and share a little bit, you know. Of, of a deeper insight into what they bring to the table and their personality. And, and I think when we look back, we're gonna see that. John, what do you, um, what do you remember from those early stages and, you know, when you're, you know, you, you host and, and help, uh, start, you know, dozens of podcasts at this point. Like what is the, what is the key part of that strategy phase there at the beginning?

John Tyreman:

Well, if I'm looking back about a year ago, and we were going through kind of answering questions like, what are some of the marketing goals? Why this podcast, why now? How does this connect to the strategy for Hinge? And, um, I believe even spiraling up wasn't even our first name choice. I think we went through a process and I'm, I'm actually really, really glad we landed on spiraling Up. I think it's perfect, but, um, you know, it, it is a process to get a show launched, but I think what really made it real was when we produced a, a pilot episode and then everyone kind of watched it for the first time and then that kind of got all the creative juices flowing. And then it be, it suddenly became real to everyone. And I think that was just kind of like a, a really cool moment, um, going through that. And then over the course of the last year, it's been fantastic being kind of like behind the scenes, watching every single episode, going through, helping create it with you guys. Um, and it, and it's been a, it's a fantastic to see the growth of all three of you as hosts. And it's really cool to see that growth, and I'm sure that you'll, you'll see it in some of the clips that we'll share on this episode of like, oh man, was that really me? You know? And oh, how far we've come, so this is gonna be fun.

Joe Pope:

Do you guys wanna, you guys wanna hear a few of the names that didn't make the cut? I, I just pulled up our, our, uh, our working document.

Austin McNair:

I don't know if I do, but yeah, let's hear it.

Joe Pope:

Well, the other one that almost got there was, uh, pivotal Pursuit. I don't know if y'all remember that, the play on the game, trivial Pursuit, that one, that one was pretty close there in the, in the short list. But a few of the other review ones were the Marketing Tap, because of course. Marketing untapped. yeah, spiraling out, which of course I still am dreaming as our alternative podcast where we may or may not enjoy a beverage or two. Uh, and then a few others. The Pivotal Plays Marketing, recess and not another marketing podcast.

Austin McNair:

Which I think actually exists already. I think there's already someone that name. I always I think my first name idea was literally the Professional Services Marketing podcast, but everybody thought I was boring and, uh, not fun enough. Uh, but

John Tyreman:

are the one who said you wanted it to not be boring, right.

Austin McNair:

I know, but I wanted to have a boring name. Um.

John Tyreman:

The irony in

Austin McNair:

No, I wanted to have specific name. Good for discoverability in, in

Joe Pope:

Um.

Austin McNair:

But anyway, I digress. Actually, John, you're the one that kind of curated this for, for us, and Joe and I are going to, uh, kind of react. Um, let you lead the conversation in, in terms of kind of what we learned and kind of how we felt along the way. Again, shout out to Mary Blanche, uh, who couldn't be on this episode, but she's been such a big part of this podcast, and so, uh, Joe and I will be doing everything we can to channel kind of her wisdom insight along the way. So, John, why don't you, uh, kick us off? What, what, what you, you've got the, uh, you've got the reigns now, my friend.

John Tyreman:

in preparation for this episode, Austin, I was going back and digging through the archives and the back catalog of episodes to try to find the best moments. And I thought, you know, what better way than to start in one of the early episodes, I think it was episode three, um, where we used the 2025 high growth study data. To inform a marketing tactics draft. So we're gonna go and we're gonna watch this video. I would love to get your reactions to it. And then knowing what you know today, and maybe based on some early indicators that you're getting from the 2026 high growth study, how would you have reordered your first round picks? Or maybe there is a different one that you would've picked in the

Joe Pope:

Oh.

John Tyreman:

place. So let's dive in and get your reactions.

Austin McNair:

Great. And, and while, while you pull that up, uh, John, I'll, I'll say that I, I'm already very excited for our 2026 marketing tactics draft, and, uh, maybe we'll be able to loop in some more guests and team members, uh, into that more teams this year. I don't know. We'll see.

Joe Pope:

Can we just remark how sharp that fade was By me, I mean, I, I like the barber went nuts on that, but, all right. Go ahead.

John Tyreman:

Here we go. Here's our first clip. Look back at the best of 2025 from the Spiraling Up Podcast.

Austin McNair:

All right, guys, here is our draft board as

Joe Pope:

you put this together?

Austin McNair:

Yeah. Shout out to maker. Um, great,

Mary Blanche:

brand. I love it.

Austin McNair:

Great. Well, look, in a randomly selected draft order, uh, M. B. You get the first pick of today's marketing draft. So the first overall pick, always lots of pressure. Who are you going to, what are you going to choose?

Mary Blanche:

Okay. Let me see. All right. From my first round pick, I am going to go with networking at targeted events and conferences.

Austin McNair:

All right, networking and targeted conferences is off the board.

Joe Pope:

I'm bummed. It was absolutely what I was looking for. I mean, might've been, uh, might've been lucky to see it fall to, I'm guessing you're meeting me three in this rain and mortar. Am I right?

Austin McNair:

Uh, yeah, actually, yes, you're all right.

Joe Pope:

I can see it. I can see it already on the screen.

Austin McNair:

So with the second overall pick in this 2025 marketing draft, I'm going to select conducting and publishing primary research. All right, Joe. It's on to you now.

Joe Pope:

Well, thanks for giving me this opportunity, Austin. Third doesn't necessarily mean that I'm out of the running. For my first round pick and the third overall pick, I will be selecting keyword research and search engine optimization,

Austin McNair:

All

Joe Pope:

which so SEO is not dead. And it is my first pick. SEO is still not dead. It's try. They are really trying to kill it though.

John Tyreman:

Some might say it's dead, but we know it's not. gentlemen, so. First of all, um, Joe, do you still think that draft order was rigged?

Joe Pope:

Yes, it was absolutely rigged.

Austin McNair:

have any evidence to the fact that it was rigged or just a feeling?

Joe Pope:

I, I knew it was rigged because we have the ability for me to look back at the show notes and see that it was rigged.

John Tyreman:

There's no hiding anything from you, Joe. Alright, knowing what you guys know today, looking back, you've lived through 2025, would you have picked something new? How would you have reordered these first three picks? What would you have picked today if this was you, if you could go back in time.

Austin McNair:

Yeah, I mean, I think, I knew I was gonna pick the conducting and publishing research. That's what we do at Hinge. That was, that's what drives our success and reputation and our marketing program at Hinge. I was never gonna not pick that, uh, unless that's what MB had picked. However, she, she took networking at targeted conferences and events and having lived through 2025. I would say she made the best possible first pick. Um, she, you know, not only have we had a lot of success meeting people this year at a number of different conferences and events, but our data is actually suggesting that, um, 2026, the upcoming year, it's gonna be the year of event success. Um, all of the new high growth study data that I'm seeing is showing that marketing impact. For professional services is heavily driven, um, by, uh, success at events. And that up to 10, maybe even more percent of just like overall leads that come to a firm, come through the way that they handle their event strategy. So, um, not only that, I just think that. Everyone is so saturated with online content these days that we really have to be as, regardless of what industry you're in, we have to be thinking about how are we out there building relationships. That was a big theme that I learned a lot from some of our guests on the, the podcast this year. How are we building relationships? How are we being physically present? Uh, getting to know people, not just in a business context, but actually getting to know them more as, as human beings. Um, so I think first of all, MB made the best possible first selection there. Um, but then I back up my pick too.

Joe Pope:

would you throw something at number three? Austin, would you change what I put in there?

Austin McNair:

Yeah. You know, I think search, uh, if a company that has not invested traditionally in search, um, this is, it's really hard to get started now. It's not that you shouldn't start, you should always start right, if your website is not optimized for search. Get it optimized, work with the specialist who knows what they're doing, um, and, and start building, you know, a content program that gets there. Clearly this is a space that's changing a lot, so we're, we're needing to supplement a little bit more with like a paid ad strategy more today than, than we used to. Um, but yeah. Joe, if, if I had to pick like a number, like three. Um, I probably would've gone more down the lines of, um, something like, uh, speaking at events. I know that's kind of a cop out, but, um, there's just something to, to being present and kind of in that place of authority. I know we talked about that in that episode. Um. The other thing that I think is just like kind of missing from a lot of marketing programs that I see today is like a really intelligent way of using their call to action strategy, like providing assessments and consultations and, and those kinds of things. Um, cold outreach is not what I'm suggesting from that, but it's like, how do all of your marketing materials and even like your event strategy. What is like the actual call to action that you're arriving to an event with? Um, and when I, when I talk with a lot of clients or I conduct a lot of marketing audits, I see companies are spending huge parts of their marketing budget. Like in some cases, like 90% of their marketing budget is going to an event strategy. And when I ask like, okay, so what is the goal? Like, what is the call to action? Like, how are you collecting? Information or business cards or whatever. Um, a lot of times people still have a hard time answering that questions concretely. So I think some sort of like assessment or consultation strategy, like a really, like call to action strategy is what I would put high on list.

Joe Pope:

Okay. Yeah, I, I, I agree with a lot of the sentiments that you just shared there, Austin, that the, the event thing is so key. I mean, we, we did break up in these tactic options, the idea of both speaking versus networking and things along those lines. So in general. The first overall pick based off what the data, the data has said and, and certainly with the research that we've now seen in a few years running in the high growth study is that having a solid targeted event strategy is imperative in professional services. We had the episode a little bit a few weeks ago, a month or two ago with uh, Telan team when we, uh, myself and Mary Blanche visited them in Texas and we talked about the Hilton Trends report. Which, which really did emphasize this shift in mindset of people and how folks are not only like looking at events as a personal, or sorry, a professional. Experience, but also a personal experience. Like folks are looking for opportunities to blend work more than ever in terms of what their actual day-to-day is. And so they're, they're turning conferences and things into, uh, vacations and trips. And so the idea here is I, we were all locked away for years. And that sucked, is the best way of saying it. And now we actually actually have an opportunity to go out and interact with the types of folks that we do business with or that we learn from and things along those lines. And it has come roaring back as a key piece for organizations that are marketing and branding themselves appropriately. So, yeah, I, I'm, I'm all in on that being number one. I'm not surprised that you haven't changed yours, Austin, in terms of, uh, conducting and publishing primary research that is hinge, it's brand. So we are firm believers in the idea that if you put insight and information out that's data backed, you're gonna be more successful. Um, I would say I still like. Keyword keyworded and targeted SEO strategy, but having seen really, truly what Google is doing using their AI tools as well as all the other major search platforms and things along those lines, it is something that, like you said, is it's just extremely difficult to try to spin up and get rolling in all of those types of things. So, um, yeah, I, I could see email and we've had significant success with H'S newsletter. Um, pivot and being able to bring in visibility through that as a tool. I could see email climbing a little bit further up this list. And then some of those, um, those conversion tactics, things like providing assessments and consultations, things along those lines absolutely could squeeze its way into this, uh, top three list.

Austin McNair:

All right, John, what's the, uh, so what's next on the list for us to react to here as we do our look back at 2025?

John Tyreman:

Yeah. So, uh, by the way, my first round pick would've been podcasting, but that's neither here nor there.

Austin McNair:

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

John Tyreman:

Alright. So one of my absolute favorite episodes that we did this year was the intern Jeopardy episode with

Joe Pope:

Aw, miss Sabrina.

John Tyreman:

And, um, she, she was fantastic.

Joe Pope:

She's so good.

John Tyreman:

And so I, I wanted to bring this back for, for a few different reasons. Number one, I just wanna show that we, um, we have lots of fun on this podcast. And, uh, number two, we can still make, uh, marketing fun through these games. So those, that was one of the reasons why I wanted to share this. But, um, probably the biggest is. You've all really embraced this idea of entertainment value

Joe Pope:

Mm-hmm.

John Tyreman:

the podcast, and so I'd love for us to watch this video, react to it. And then I would love to hear from both of you why you think that entertainment value is so important in marketing.

Sabrina Alpern:

Today's categories are everything, Sabrina, data due diligence, marketing, mayhem. Contents New Frontier Hinge story and lastly, marketing jargon. Austin, how about we kick it over to you to start us off?

Austin McNair-3:

All right. I'll take marketing jargon for 300, Sabrina.

Joe Pope:

You would go to the middle of the board.

Sabrina Alpern:

This critical component of a brand is not the entire brand itself nor a portrait of the business yet it plays a key role in identification, differentiation in aiding. Austin.

Austin McNair-3:

What is a logo?

Sabrina Alpern:

That is correct. What is a logo? It's still yours.

Austin McNair-3:

I'll go for, uh Marketing Mayhem for 400.

Sabrina Alpern:

This practice refers to maximizing the reach and pact and efficiency of their content investment. Oh, it looks like we have a tie, but Austin took the lead. Austin, this one's yours.

Austin McNair-3:

What is ROI

Sabrina Alpern:

I'm sorry, but that was incorrect,

Austin McNair-3:

Damn.

Mary Blanche:

sound.

Sabrina Alpern:

Joe.

Joe Pope:

What a brutal buzzer. Well, that, I mean, that was what I was gonna guess, so I'm, I'm just gonna go ahead and pass at this point. It's, oh, I still get it wrong. That's not fair.

Sabrina Alpern:

Okay, time's up. The answer for this is, what is repurposing?

Austin McNair-3:

Oh, okay.

Joe Pope:

makes sense.

Sabrina Alpern:

Austin, it's technically still yours.

Austin McNair-3:

Okay, we'll go to Marketing Mayhem for 500.

Sabrina Alpern:

Top marketing priority for high growth firms in 2025 focuses on distancing themselves from competitors in the minds of target buyers. Austin.

Austin McNair-3:

What is differentiation?

Sabrina Alpern:

That is correct. What is brand differentiation

Joe Pope:

How is your internet better than mine?

Austin McNair-3:

We're all the way from Brazil. The Internet's better.

Sabrina Alpern:

back to you

Austin McNair-3:

let's go to Hinge Story for 100.

Sabrina Alpern:

Beyond the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and the debut of Toby McGuire's Spider-Man. This pivotal moment also happened in 2002. Joe,

Joe Pope:

What is the founding of Hinge or the creation of Hinge

Sabrina Alpern:

that is correct. One was Hinge, founded

Joe Pope:

on the board? Baby?

Mary Blanche:

Man.

Sabrina Alpern:

Joe, it's yours

Joe Pope:

I will do 200. Same category?

Sabrina Alpern:

daily double.

Joe Pope:

And I can't, I can't just bet up to a thousand.

Mary Blanche:

Oh,

Sabrina Alpern:

classic toy figurine was the unofficial mascot of Hinge early on in the agency's development.

Joe Pope:

Is scuba Steve?

Sabrina Alpern:

That is correct. Oops.

Austin McNair-3:

Okay, so we're not doing

Joe Pope:

mb mb you knew that one,

Mary Blanche:

No, I did, but I thought that that's, I thought the daily was where you, um, you

Joe Pope:

if you get to

Austin McNair-3:

No, that's final

Joe Pope:

No, that's final

Mary Blanche:

Oh gosh. See you guys. I don't even.

Sabrina Alpern:

Who is scuba? Steve is correct.

Joe Pope:

oh yeah. What is it? Who is whatever.

Austin McNair-3:

RIP Scuba, Steve.

Joe Pope:

Yeah.

Sabrina Alpern:

Joe, this one's yours.

Joe Pope:

let's do Hinge story for 500.

Austin McNair-3:

Wow. Skipping ahead.

Sabrina Alpern:

This lightly sweetened whipped French treat is also the namesake of the town in which hinge originated Austin.

Austin McNair-3:

I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have buzzed in. Uh, what is Chantilly?

Sabrina Alpern:

That is correct.

Austin McNair-3:

Oh, yeah, let's go,

Mary Blanche:

What.

Joe Pope:

Chantilly, Virginia.

Austin McNair-3:

dude.

Joe Pope:

is, that's a thing, ice cream or French like, what is that?

Sabrina Alpern:

It's like sweetened whipped cream

Joe Pope:

Sabrina. Also gave us the added advantage of the fact that, uh, you know, she, she went back to school shortly after that in Nashville at Vanderbilt. And, uh, she did a significant amount of promotion of that episode and ended up being one of our better ones because of, frankly, it captured interest from a variety of different channels that we don't typically speak to.

John Tyreman:

It was entertaining and you know, just watching that clip, I mean, it's, it's captivating, right? It's like you're watching a game show, but we're learning about marketing at the same time. That's what I want to have a quick conversation around is like, why is that? Why was that? Such an important piece of the puzzle. Um, Austin, you mentioned before you didn't want it to be like, like every other boring marketing podcast, but why Overindex on entertainment value?

Austin McNair:

it's a good question. I mean, but my, I mean, my, my answer is not that complicated. I mean, I, I, I am a podcast listener myself and I know that. People's attention spans are really short. And if one of the things that we have going into this project is, Hey, we would like to use some of these clips for social media, for LinkedIn. Um, you know, I want it to be stuff that's engaging and that's, you know, feels fun, that represents kind of who we are and our personality. Um, but then I guess a, a big part of it would just be like differentiation. I think I said already that there's a lot of boring business podcasts out

Joe Pope:

Tons of

Austin McNair:

And I mean, I say that with all respect because I think that, you know, there's some great hosts out there doing really excellent work. And I don't wanna like belittle any, any of the work that other people are doing, but it's like if someone has a really big audience and they're talking about marketing all the time, It's hard to go in and just kind of compete with that, right? If there's an existing product and a really strong, solid interview based podcast out there. My idea was how do we just do something that has a little bit of a different flare and also something that kind of fits our personality as, as an agency. I think we're, as an agency, very approachable, professional and research based. And so when we thought about the podcast, it's like, let's design something that's approachable and, professional and research based, you know, and that's where we landed with, the game, the game, idea as like a really solid landing point for that.

Joe Pope:

I will disrespect the bad podcast. you're no disrespect, but I'm completely happy to be the bad, the bad guy. Yeah. There's a lot of people who just blab and have nothing original or interesting to listen to, and I think original is one of those big words. Right. I heard. The phrase sofa. A few years ago, uh, political commentator and sports commentator, clay Travis, uh, he had, he had said, and I thought that really resonated the idea of if you are writing something that is, smart. Original, funny, authentic, that writing, uh, filming, talking things along those lines. Those are like types of rules to live by in content creation, especially in an avenue where you're trying to create visibility to people for the first time. And that's the big thing. It if you're trying to capture some interest and you're putting something out on social or. You know, somebody's stumbling across your content for the first time. They may not be in the middle of search for a new marketing agency, or, uh, oh, I need a new rebrand, or things along those lines. What's an avenue that we can continue to draw interest from audiences that we wanna speak to? And, and this is that, this is what that podcast fills a need for from hinges perspective, and I know I'm guessing John will get to at some point today, like metrics and reasons why we can track success and things along those lines. But just from the high level, it's, it's like. Let's create something that's different and the biggest thing different to an audience that we know we wanna speak to.

John Tyreman:

I know that podcast listeners love their frameworks, so the SOFA framework for everybody that's listening out there. So let's, let's move on to our next clip that we have. And this one is from episode eight, which was a live podcast, our first live podcast that we did. And this was at the Association for Accounting Marketing's. Summit Conference, which was in Phoenix, I believe,

Joe Pope:

were there, John.

John Tyreman:

was there. Yep. I'm just trying to keep it all straight in my head. Um, and as part of that conference we did a pop-up podcast studio and we did some man on the streets style interviews and I pulled this clip from Melissa Taylor, Austin. This was your quick interview with Melissa and, um, one of the. I wanna show this just to, to kind of showcase that podcasting is a viable thing to do at these conferences, but the, the, the subject matter that Melissa talks about, I think is one of the most important topics in professional services marketing today.

Melissa Taylor:

Alright, so who am I here with? Hey, Melissa Taylor with Melton and Melton down in Houston. Alright, so what is your main pivotal story from the conference this year? Uh, trust is your North Star with everything that we're doing in, in marketing, business development, communications, anything under that role. If we don't have trust within the firm, then there's nothing that we do that matters. We can have all the knowledge with the tech stack, we can have all the skill sets in the world, but if we don't have our partner's trust. There's no reason for us to have any of that skills. So what's one thing you learned about building that trust? I know there's been a lot of like great presentations that have touched on that topic. Have you taken away anything a little practical and building trust across your, your company? Oh, man. Consistency. Integrity is just key. Do what you say, say what you do. Um, and then the, the old phrase matters. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. So. Uh, just think, um, you know, your core values, just letting those shine through is, is really what's just gonna, uh, it's gonna let yourself shine who you are and then just, we'll, we'll perpetuate that trust even further.

Joe Pope:

Wise words.

John Tyreman:

So let's have a conversation, quick conversation around trust quick. Why Austin? I guess let's start with you. Since you're the, the man on the street here, why do you think Melissa immediately jumped to trust and what, what are you hearing about trust in relation to professional services marketing today?

Austin McNair:

Yeah, I mean, I think, uh, having been there at the conference and having, uh, listened to a lot of the same keynotes that Melissa listened to, uh, it makes sense why she said that, and I think it resonated with everybody. I think right now every marketer is facing a monumental challenge. Which is that we can't do what we do successfully as marketers by ourselves, right? Really good professional services. Marketing requires bringing in those experts inside of your company and getting them to express and document and share their expertise. Uh, as subject matter experts, but the bridge to get to that is so difficult. Um, and I think what it, it, it actually, this became my pitch to speak at aim, uh, which got accepted, um, year to talk about how do we effectively, uh, engage with the subject matter experts at our company. I think she's all over it with, in terms of building trust, um, as like a very foundational point. I think there's other things there, you know, that are also important, which I'll touch, touch on in my, in my speech, which will be, you know, around systems and processes and some of the things she was mentioning about consistency. But at the end of the day, you know. Marketers, we need the support of our subject matter experts. And if they don't trust you, if they don't feel like you're gonna be doing a good job or taking their, you know, in sometimes, uh, in some circumstances, very technical or very, um, you know, sensitive information about what you can share and what you can't share. If, if you mishandle that. It can break trust, right? And so as, as marketers, we have to be very cautious about that. We have to be very careful and we have to let the experts know that we have their best intentions in mind. We're not just using them to, you know, do marketing stuff for the company. We truly invested in them as people as well. And so I loved the theme that Melissa brought out in that, um, little moment there in that little street interview. And honestly, it was kind of a spark that has stuck with me since, um, since the conference.

Joe Pope:

Know you, like you, trust you. I know John, you say that quite often, uh, in some of your content as well. But it's so on point here, whether you're talking about internal key stakeholders or frankly just professional services buyers. We're not selling Coke or Pepsi here. Right? And I am making fun also here. The fact that Koch just pumped out a AI slot video that has resonated in terms of, uh. Jokes around the podcast and video circuits, but trust is so key. If we are misleading internally or externally, what our goals are, our meshes are, our values are things along those lines. You can torpedo trust in a moment, in a second. And I, I really loved this one. This was probably my favorite of the interviews that we did. Melissa absolutely knocked it outta the park. Shout out Melissa. Taylor. Uh, and I, I think in general though, it's a theme that needs to be carried forward in 2026 more than ever. And. If we as marketers, put a good amount of effort into thinking, Hey, is this content that I'm putting together, or is this request putting'em together? Is it maintaining that trust barrier or that trust element? Or are we helping to build trust? That's a great self question to think about when you're looking forward and building your campaigns and executing on your tactics.

Austin McNair:

I agree.

John Tyreman:

Yeah, I, uh, recall just recently I did a, an actually a full podcast episode on Breaking Biz Dev around building trust at scale. And, um, the trusted advisor associates, they have this trust equation and they broke it down into their component parts. So it was like. Um, credibility, reliability and intimacy, professional intimacy over your self orientation. So how, how, how narcissistic are you, essentially, right? Like, and then the higher that is, the, the more it kills your trustworthiness. so it was interesting we kind of went through that. but then we also brought in a clip from Molina Palmer, who is the host of the Brainy Business podcast, and she introduced something that I thought was really interesting, the concept of a vulnerability loop. Where you share something vulnerable about yourself, and then that creates an environment where your counterpart in whatever situation you're in, feels like they wanna share something vulnerable back you. And that sharing of vulnerabilities is one of those key building blocks of trust. So these were some awesome clips that I think our listeners, and if you've found value in any of these clips are, were hooked by that jeopardy, or that marketing tactics draft, go back and check out those episodes on YouTube. But I'd love guys to shift our conversation today to the next segment, and this is the importance of personality in marketing. Over the course of this last year, personality has grown in terms of its importance in marketing. And so the big question that I think we can kind of jump off with, um, is, you know, why is personality so important in today? But first I wanna share another, a few short clips showcasing some of the personality that we've seen on the Spiraling Up Podcast.

Austin McNair:

Oh boy. Here we go.

John Tyreman:

Oh

riverside_joe_pope_raw-synced-video-cfr_spiraling_up studio_0408:

no.

Screenshare:

episode of Spiraling Up, Google's VO three is here, and I'm convinced we're doomed. It's over. Our team is gonna discuss, and then we're gonna be joined by Megan Battaglia, VP of marketing at one of the fastest growing B two G firms in the country

Austin McNair:

That's me.

Screenshare:

Power plays. Welcome everyone.

riverside_joe_pope_raw-synced-video-cfr_spiraling_up studio_0408:

B two G,

Screenshare:

up with

Austin McNair:

I did not approve

riverside_austin_mcnair_raw-synced-video-cfr_spiraling_up studio_0410:

this.

Screenshare:

I'm not really Austin or am I? Ha ha. You can be the judge.

Joe Pope:

AI Austin, AI Austin was ahead of his time.

John Tyreman:

Oh gosh, I, I don't know. We, we included that as an Easter egg in that episode. I don't know how many people actually

riverside_john_tyreman_raw-synced-video-cfr_spiraling_up studio_0409:

saw

Austin McNair:

a few people.

John Tyreman:

we had roll it

Joe Pope:

of like a 60 minute episode, so yeah, that's, that's tough.

John Tyreman:

Okay, so maybe there is not so much personality in that video, and that's kind of the point. So, So this next video that we have, I think is a little bit better of an example of personality in marketing.

Austin McNair:

In today's episode of Spiraling Up, Google's VO three is here, and I'm convinced we're doomed. It's over. Our team is gonna discuss and then we're gonna be joined by Megan Bataglia, VP of marketing at one of the fastest growing B two G firms in the country for a game of B two G Power plays. Welcome everyone. This is spiraling up with Hinge.

John Tyreman:

If we AB tested those two leads, which one do you think would win?

Austin McNair:

Yeah. I mean, who says the robots are gonna replace us? Come on. I still got the edge over a robot any day.

John Tyreman:

So Joe, uh, you, you're not getting out of this personality, hazing. So we're going to, uh,

Joe Pope:

Can you say that?

John Tyreman:

So we're gonna, we're gonna take a look at one other. Video did that showcase his personality. And then we'll have conversation around this. This is gonna be, this is really fun. so this is Slam Poet Joe.

Joe Pope:

these are the 10 things we hate about your website. I hate the way you start no clear idea in sight. Your homepage headlines dimming all the light. I hate your art direction. So bland and so plain and navigation menus causing endless pain. I hate no filters there. On content fast and wide and meager case studies where impact loves to hide. I hate the expert bios, so brief. So revealing no names on thought leadership, no human feeling. I hate your lack of video. A missed and silent plea and career pages blank for all the world to see, but mostly I hate the way. I don't hate you. SEO though they claim you're dead. It doesn't show. Not even close. Not even a little bit, not even at all.

Austin McNair:

Wow. Unbelievable. Unbelievable stuff.

Joe Pope:

Thank you. Thank you. applaud myself.

John Tyreman:

Bravo, Joe Bravo.

Joe Pope:

you. Thank you. It was great running back the, uh, the old thespian days of Joe

John Tyreman:

In one of the earlier episodes of Spiraling Up, we took a bash at LinkedIn. Right. So I wanted to pull up this, uh, reaction. This'll be a reaction to a reaction clip. We're living in a meta world these

Joe Pope:

This is inception.

John Tyreman:

Exactly. So let's, let's take a look at some of the cringes aspects

riverside_john_tyreman_raw-synced-video-cfr_spiraling_up studio_0409:

of

Screenshare:

do a trip

Mary-Blanche Kraemer:

Austin, you sent around a, a funny video earlier in the week, before I say more Austin, let's. How about you pull up the video that, that you sent around to, to kind of kick us off here?

Austin McNair:

All right, let's, take a watch at this.

N/A:

Moved on within a week with my. Best friend's mom, and at first I was totally crushed, but the more that I thought about it, I realized that. I had failed to conduct a proper competitive analysis. Here's how that heartbreak taught me everything that I need to know about B2B sales. One. I assumed I was the only vendor in the pipeline. Nope, Barbara was there. Two, I neglected to assess the competitive landscape. Sometimes your CU customer is wanting to go with a more mature option. Somebody that's been around for longer, like your best friend's mom. Great salespeople know that deals don't go cold without reason, and if they suddenly walk away, chances are they found a better alternative and sometimes it's Barbara hashtag B2B sales. Hashtag Know your Market. Hashtag Love where you work.

Mary-Blanche Kraemer:

I had to get in that third hashtag.

Joe Pope:

Hey, newsflash. LinkedIn's still cringey. If anything, I think it's getting worse. I, we talked about in that episode. The idea of, uh, how LinkedIn was already pushing AI generated prompts, like in terms of what your content was. It's like, you know, type something out and let LinkedIn help refine what your message is. Uh, but I will say there are a few folks across the board on LinkedIn that are just great follows. I mean, the people that put out original, I mean the sofa content right, that we were talking about earlier in this episode, and that stuff still resonates. But boy, the AI slot just continues to take it over.

John Tyreman:

I think there was one point where LinkedIn was asking people to contribute to AI articles, and they were just stealing everyone's ip. Gentlemen, let's turn to our next segment of the episode where we dig into the data a little bit. And I don't think we need to spend too much time on this, but I think that it's important for us to kinda show that, you know, at Hinge. There is an emphasis on research and data, in driving decision making, and the podcast is no exception. So, you know, over the course of this past year, I think the podcast has generated thousands of audio downloads and tens of thousands of video views. For Hinge. We don't need to get in into any specifics, but I think that what might be worthwhile for our podcast listeners to tune into is what were some the experiments that we did over the course of the last year, and how did the data drive our decision making? Joe, what do you think, what was one of the big experiments that stood out to you over the course of this year?

Joe Pope:

Show format. Absolutely. We, we, we talked about in the earlier part of this episode, how did we want to structure. This Unor podcast. Like what? How could we take advantage of things like the algorithms, YouTube's algorithm, audio listeners, be behavioral habits, things like that. And we knew that we wanted to be able to provide a variety of different type of content that could, in a sense, be chopped up and repurposed. Shout out to the jeopardy question. I figure that's why you included that one, John. Uh, but the big factor here though is like, well, how do we take advantage of all these things? And so our original idea was to lead with an intro use typical podcast type intro. Austin comes in and drops a big in today's episode, and in that circumstance. W that was an experiment. We also learned that YouTube really wants people to be hooked from the jump. And if you're wasting 10 seconds saying in while we liked the bit, it was not helping us on the, uh, on the YouTube algorithm. So we've changed some of that piece of our episode, the location of our pivotal story, for example, which was going for that whole 10 to 15 minute clip length that, uh, YouTube or, you know, a social platform could potentially. Be a great taking off point. We had that in front of our interviews, but what we were finding was people were just skipping past that to get to the interviews. So while we having canned pivotal story, in fact, it's still a big key piece of how we're gonna create content for this podcast. It has been typically moved to the end of the episode, and we learned that just through looking at metrics and testing and things along those lines.

Austin McNair:

Yeah, and that goes back to kind of, so the original, I mean, I think the original, original idea for the podcast that I had was. Something along the lines of professional services marketing today, and it's, we were gonna just basically do pivotal stories and it was gonna be a much shorter podcast that was just like, Hey, here's kind of the main story in professional services today. And we can, it could be research based, it could be stuff that we've published, it could be stuff that other people had published. But, but generally the idea was like, we're gonna like, kind of make it like a news thing. Like our blog is, um. And I think that was like the maj major switch.'cause I was really attached to that idea of like, I want it to be relevant. I want it to be kind of talking about topics that are like in the news. Um, but what we found is that what our listeners liked most and why they came and stuck around. Uh, was for the guests and the games figure, uh, sort of the main thing that we had kind of like pivoted towards, into the, into our podcast strategy. So, yeah, I mean, I'm not even sure if Pivotal Stories will really stay as a part of the podcast going forward. Maybe it will. I think we're gonna keep testing things as we get better and better at this and keep gauging what our listeners like to, to, to hear and what kind of content they find most interesting.

John Tyreman:

Well, um, I think from my perspective, one of the big learnings f was honestly the YouTube shorts and. The learning that the audience on YouTube for those shorts was predominantly male. The, I think it's 25 to 35

Austin McNair:

Yeah, with young men. Yeah.

John Tyreman:

young

Joe Pope:

men who are not gonna be the typical folks we're selling to.

John Tyreman:

Right. And so I thought that that was such a key finding and that influenced a shift away from YouTube shorts and focusing a little bit more on LinkedIn, where hinges target audience likes to hang out. So that, that stood out to me as kind of one of the biggest data-driven, um, decisions that we've made. So far, um, but Joe, you mentioned, know, talking about the episodes that people like and people wanna listen to and watch, and so I pulled the top three episodes based on the engaged views on

Joe Pope:

Oh, interesting.

John Tyreman:

so that that was the metric that we used. And the top one, Joe, if you wanna give it a guess, what do you think the top episode was?

Joe Pope:

Engaged views. Um, marketing tactic.

John Tyreman:

Ooh, that was number three. Very close. And so that was the third highest. The second highest was the marketing lessons from the Super Bowl,

Joe Pope:

uh, course.

John Tyreman:

And then coming in at number one, the most engaging episode of the year for the Spiraling Up Podcast. Drum roll please. 10 Things we Hate about websites.

Austin McNair:

I knew it.

John Tyreman:

And I think, at least from my perspective, I would love to hear it from, from y'all. But, uh, I think that that episode worked really well because it showcased examples from the Hinge portfolio and it was very visually focused.

Austin McNair:

Yeah, I,

Joe Pope:

show. The show and tell for sure.

Austin McNair:

It's something that every, everyone in our audience can relate to. Like, everybody has a website, you know what I mean? We could make some episodes about, you know, CRM, we could make some episodes about. Business development or maybe like specific marketing tactics. Not every marketer's gonna relate to each and every one of those things, but they will all, almost always all resonate to. My company has a website and it's gotta be better. I think everybody can resonate with that and I was really proud of that episode. We, that, that was one where we didn't have a guest. We, put our heads together and kind of went through, some of, the latest thinking that our experts had published on our website. I did a couple of interviews kind of around the hinge office like. Talking about the things that, really were important today. And, that 10, top 10 list really had a lot of love put into it ahead of time. And we were really proud to show a lot of the examples in that episode. Oftentimes, they were not websites that Hinge, uh, had designed, but many of them were. And I think that more and more, At least me. I mean, I'm really proud of the work that we do at Hinge, especially on the website front. And so, um, I was really glad that people found that episode really helpful and that, people have gotten a lot of value out of it.

John Tyreman:

All right. Well, as we bring this section of our episode to a close, what can listeners expect heading into the new year from the Spiraling Up Podcast?

Austin McNair:

Good question. Joe, why don't you get us started?

Joe Pope:

I thought Austin was just gonna come in and say, Joe, what kind of budget are you giving me?

Austin McNair:

Yeah, exactly.

Joe Pope:

Well, I mean, I think budget's actually a fun thing to kind of point to. And, and we were just talking about things like metrics, like engaged views and visibility. One big thing that we've really focused in on this podcast is tracking the success of it through a variety of metrics. Uh, we've got attribution tied to it and the form of our CRM on Salesforce. It's a campaign of which we're running underneath our larger digital marketing efforts, and we're able to measure some success. Interestingly enough, this podcast is generated well, more than what we've spent on it in terms of opportunities and value tied to that. And I'm sure that's the, that's the clippable moment of this episode. And how do you do that? Well, there's a variety of things. It's the emails that we're sending lands on pa, uh, landing pages, anecdotal references that we give attribution to. So there's a lot of ways that. Marketers can and absolutely should track the successes of their various tactics in order to measure ROI. Um, but yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, like when somebody says one of my fellow partners or Mary Blanc and i's fellow partners is the best way of saying that, comes up to'em and says, what's the value of this? I've got metrics to prove it. So when you can prove things. Then you can probably increase the budget. Uh, the, I, I would say that I think that the Spiraling Up Podcast is going to continue to push the envelope in terms of in-person. In fact, we have gone through a process recently where we are applying to conferences with the concept of actually running a podcast on stage. And while I can't. Announce the conference yet the Spiraling Up Podcast will have an onstage presence at a regional industry conference next year in front of close to five or 600 people. So we're doing things, we're getting bigger, uh, we're getting bolder, and it's gonna be a blast in 2026.

Austin McNair:

Yeah, that's exciting. I can say where my head is out is really, the kind of guests that we're trying to, uh, invite onto the podcast. We had an excellent roster of guests this year. Um, many of whom. Have published books this year, doctor, PhD level, uh, people that have put a lot of research into their work. And I love that. I think one way I I plan to balance things in terms of our guests in the upcoming years is I really want to, I don't wanna lose sight of talking to practitioners, and getting more, CMOs. Directors of marketing, even marketing managers on the podcast, because they are the ones at the end of the day who we hope are watching this podcast and finding value in it. And I, I know we can all benefit from talking to our peers and getting more of like an inside, behind the scenes look at the, the day-to-day challenges that they're facing. They're thinking about. Uh,'cause I think every, everybody will re resonate that. Even, us, you know, we are a professional services firm ourself, trying to grow our business and trying to, get out there and, and build new relationships. And so, I want to talk to, to more marketers who are in that seat, and just get to know what they're doing and kind of, especially those that, we can perceive to be more on the innovative side. I'm, I'm really looking forward to the conversations with them in the coming year.

Joe Pope:

plug. Are you A CMO? Would you like to talk about what you do on a day-to-day basis? Well, we've got the podcast for you.

Austin McNair:

Yeah.

John Tyreman:

Come have fun with us and play a marketing game on the Spiraling Up podcast.

Austin McNair:

All right, everybody. Bonus segment here for today's episode. As you know, hinge and the Spiraling Up podcast benefits greatly. From our work with John Tieman at Red Cedar Marketing and his work in helping us, uh, not just launch this podcast, plan the podcast, but, uh, on an ongoing basis. He helps us kind of make everything happen, make sure we're staying organized and thinking forward and, and getting better and better. Uh, and John is. Actually in the middle of a research project right now, and it's all about how people who are running business podcasts themselves, how much value they're getting out of it, and what kind of, uh, trends are happening out there in the marketplace. So John, I thought for today's pivotal story, we could just get some insights into your research and sort of un understand what you've learned so far.

John Tyreman:

Thanks, Austin. Yeah. you know, The audience that I serve, business podcasters. If you go out there and if you look up stats about business podcast hosts or business podcast listeners, there's not a whole lot of research out there. So I really needed to do this kind of research for my own company and my own market research, but I know that business podcasters out there are gonna find this valuable too. So right now we're looking at. Business podcast hosts. What are some of the benefits of podcasting? What are the challenges? What are the opportunities for podcasters? But then on the listener side as well, like people who listen to business podcasts, not just podcast listeners in general, but people who listen to business podcasts. How do they find new shows? Why do they listen? How many shows are on their roster at any given time? So those are some of the questions that we wanted to answer with this research. So when we asked business podcasters to really identify all the different ways that their podcast makes an impact on their business. 70% said their show helps build familiarity and trust with buyers. And I know that we just, we just talked about that earlier on this episode. But I thought that that was one of the like big leading benefits that a lot of business podcasters come out with. 60% said that their show helps establish new relationships with prospective buyers. There's a lot of lead generation that's going on. And then another 60% said that they can directly attribute sales opportunities to the podcast. So those are some of the big, be like, leading benefits of a podcast. I'm curious like Austin, Joe. From where you sit, do you think the Spiraling Up Podcast, has contributed to increased trust with buyers, new relationships, new opportunities in the sales pipeline?

Joe Pope:

Yeah, 100%. We talked about it a little bit early in this episode. We've been able to attribute direct opportunity generation, proposal value and so forth to this spiraling a podcast. So at the end of the day, quote question, whatever it might be, was this worth it? Sure, absolutely. If you're, if you care about sending proposals out, I guess, in professional services and business to business,

John Tyreman:

And if you don't, what are you doing?

Joe Pope:

What's, what sending proposals taught me about B2B sales. Uh, yeah, I mean, it's, it definitely John, I, I think it is a great tool across the funnel in terms of seeing the benefits of our visibility increase the trusting in what Hinge is and, and even myself and Austin and Mary Blanche, I mean our, all three of us have been accepted to speak at conferences and other elements within the last few weeks. And we used the Spiraling Up podcast as, as reasons why we should be considered, and that's, that's, that's huge without those types of validation pieces. And this is a huge valid val, a huge validation tool. So I, yeah, I, I, your metrics definitely didn't surprise me that you were just rattling off there in terms of what sort of benefits, uh, podcast hosts are seeing.

Austin McNair:

I, I'll say too, this is less outside, this is outside of the metrics, but just in client relationships. Shout out to all my clients and hinges clients that listen to the hinges, H hinges, uh, you know that, listen to the Spiraling Up podcast. I've had a number of. Client engagements where they've mentioned, oh yeah, I heard about you, heard you say that on an episode. And I'm like, it just warms my heart. Because as much as we might be thinking about, growth and, and new clients, that trust and relationship building with our existing clients, I think, you know, the podcast plays a huge role in that. And the things that I learn in the work that, that I do every day with our clients and that I learn from our team members, that's, you know, that fuels kind of some of the. The direction and the content that we produce here, and then, We've had some incredibly smart guests come on that I've, like, I have just grown as a, as a professional, by sitting in a room, being able to interview them, and get some, like, new ideas and creative juices flowing. Um, it's been remarkably helpful in, in terms of how I present myself as an advisor. How I, how, how we work with our team and, and, and sort of client

Joe Pope:

absolutely.

Austin McNair:

Um, it makes a big deal.

John Tyreman:

That's amazing. So the, yeah, obviously podcasting, there's a lot of different benefits. I asked the business podcast hosts, to identify their top challenges. Like what's, what are the, what's the hardest part about hosting a business podcast? The number one response was expanding audience, their audience beyond their existing network. So, you know, growing the podcast, growing the listener base. But beyond that, what I found really interesting was between 40 and 45% talked about either measuring ROI or monetizing the podcast. At least in my experience, talking with business owners, consultants who want to launch their own podcast, I think that there is a misconception that. That you launch a podcast, get a bunch of downloads, and get a sponsorship very quickly, and that's the path to revenue. However, lead generation is the fastest path I mean, 60% identified that new, business comes from the podcast. So there are those that are finding ways to make it work.

Austin McNair:

Yeah, I mean it's not a surprise to me that people listed the the ROI thing as a challenge. Think. Any professional services marketer out there, regardless of the channel. Right. Podcasts aside, people are struggling with ROI and we've talked about that. We've covered that extensively. On the podcast, it has been validated again in the upcoming high growth study that, marketers even with, you know, sophisticated technology, at their fingertips, really have a hard time of drawing those lines between like, this is the level of effort invested in a particular marketing campaign or the expenses, and then attributing that to, Actual leads and revenue. That is a hard skill to develop. And, you know, the, you have to have a good mastery of your technology and systems. You have to have a lot of commitment. You have to have buy-in from your whole team. It's really tough. I'm actually surprised that more people didn't say just like that. One of their challenges was the effort. Going into planning, uh, and kind of the time it takes to get guests. And I would advise anyone thinking about starting a podcast who's like on, you know, thinking about it, is. How are you gonna build that system for sustainability? Um, because before you start thinking about ROI and leads and monetization, you need to think about how are you gonna make it past year one? How are you gonna make it past year two? How are you gonna make it to episode 100?

Joe Pope:

Uh, we were just looking at time tracking towards this podcast. At the end of the day, it's like, what's that time worth? Could we be doing something else with that time, for example? No, by the way. We wouldn't be doing anything else, but in, in this circumstance, we're also planning for what it's gonna look like as a load on us in the new year. And you know, we were able to kind of break down numbers where Mary Blanche and myself were spending two to three hours a week on average, and we didn't record every week. But Austin as our marketing head at Hinge was spending a bit more. He was in the three to four, sometimes a bit more in terms of what that looks like. So you've got three hosts on this episode though. So for example, you, you reduced some of that burden might be a little bit more if there was two hosts, or certainly more if there was just one host in terms of level of effort. And certainly John, you've helped us as well, right? There's time that clearly goes into the production side of this, so we're mostly talking about it from your. Subject matter experts who have to get together and plan out what we're gonna talk about so it doesn't suck. In this setup, it is one of these circumstances where you have to look at each picture, and that's where that whole structure is key. And if you can create that structure going into this. Episode 100 will absolutely look better in episode one. You're gonna learn along the way, but you're gonna be able to get to episode 100 because a lot of times these podcasts, if you're not thinking about how we're gonna track our success metrics, if we're not thinking about how we're gonna be successful and doing it on an ongoing basis, they won't make it to episode a hundred. They might not even make it to episode 10. So it's, those are all really great insights and, and John, I, I, I appreciate you. Thoroughly for helping us on the production side, but also for bringing some of these research and data points to this discussion today.

Austin McNair:

Well, John, thank you so much for sharing kind of that data with us. Excited to see where the report lands and we'll be sure to send it out to everybody when, uh, when you've got it all packaged up. Thanks for giving us that early preview.

John Tyreman:

This has been awesome guys. Thanks for having me on.

Joe Pope:

We appreciate you, John. Thanks for doing some of the legwork to pull all this together for us.

Austin McNair:

I'm excited for the next year. I'm excited to keep the podcast growing.

John Tyreman:

And so if you made it this far, give the show a, like a follow that little plus sign at the top of your Apple Podcast app, that little plus sign on Spotify. If you're watching this on YouTube, drop a comment below with your favorite moment from the Spiraling Up podcast in 2025 happy holidays and we'll see you next year.