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For Your Listening Pleasure

Written by Shaun Bernstein on .

I’ve always loved words, but truth be told one of my first loves was radio.

I didn’t always appreciate the magic of radio as a kid, but as I learned more about the journalism world, I learned just what power it had in store.

When I reached journalism school, I had some of the best times of my program working on our college radio news program. It may not have broadcast more than a few km off campus, but boy did we take it seriously, and we won awards for it too!

My favourite role was as a chase producer. That means that whenever you hear someone interviewed on the news, on TV or on radio, whether it’s the 6 o’clock news or a current affairs show, there was a producer in the background finding that guest. They needed to make sure they had someone who knew the subject matter, could explain things clearly, and was ready to go on air. I loved being that guy!

This is part of the reason I love podcasts. Podcasts are an amazing update to traditional radio, where you can carry on a full conversation without being restricted by hard time limits. It can be easy to get canned responses from a guest in 3-5 minutes, but in 30 or 45 minutes you can really stop and listen to what they have to say, and unpack their answers further.

I’ve been working on my new podcast Branding and the Beast along with my co-host Alicia Disantis (second episode en route shortly!) but I’ve also been lucky enough to guest on a few podcasts lately, and two just dropped this week!

The first was Sales Reinvented, which was an episode that I recorded several weeks ago with a half hour podcast about selling strategy. We talked about storytelling as a tool to build business and increase sales, and looked at some tips for great storytelling along the way.

The second was deeply personal, in many ways. My old friend Adrienne Shnier has been killing it with her grad school consulting business (along with running her own law firm!), and somehow has found time to also start the Advancement Spot podcast. The podcast looks at journeys and recommendations on the road through post-secondary education, and Adrienne asked me to come on and talk about my journey. We had a wonderful conversation, and you can listen to the episode here.

I’m excited to keep going with our own podcast, and if any of you out there are looking for guests, I’m only a short message away.

Cheers!