Pete Joseph With Skutch Media

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, CSU’s executive MBA program. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Atlanta Business Radio, we have Pete Joseph with Scutch Media. Welcome.

Pete Joseph: Hi, Lee. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your firm.

Pete Joseph: So scooch is a small boutique, full service media agency with a specialty in podcast creation and production.

Lee Kantor: What’s the backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Pete Joseph: It’s odd. So we come from. There’s two partners. It’s my wife and I. Both of us have over 50 years of marketing experience myself. I come from the land of kind of entertainment background, partnerships, sponsorships, artist relations, some activation agency in my background as well. My wife comes from kind of the exact opposite in the sense of a media background strategy. She’s worked for some, you know, of the, you know, the big holding companies out there, publicists. She was a publicist for many years. So we have a lot of media. And kind of that sponsorship background is where we started the company with. But the idea of where scooch kind of came from. We just didn’t want to be like any other agency, you know, just kind of have your media. We can place it for you. Nothing wrong with that. I just wanted to look at something a little different. So we came up with this idea of creating content engines is kind of what I like to call them. A lot of people might say podcasts or pod shows and different types of things because they don’t really know what to call things anymore, or they kind of labels things a podcast in a sense. But I think where scooch kind of took the change was we had this kind of personal love of doing kind of shows, kind of a podcast esque shows. So we decided to turn those kind of client facing to where we said, hey, what if we were able to give clients the ability to shoot their own podcasts, but then again, utilize those podcasts to cultivate them into now your short form content to feed your social content platforms. So that’s really where scooch kind of got its start. It was looking at it from not just being that agency that can take care of your media for you, but also being that agency that can create that media for you too. So it became a mom and pop one stop shop.

Lee Kantor: And then who? What’s the profile of an ideal client for you?

Pete Joseph: For us, it’s it’s honestly anything. We’re pretty open. We do very, very well in the medical field just because we’ve. It was kind of one of our first forays into what we do. But we’ve been doing a lot. We’ve seen a lot of we just kind of had our first work on some pre-production with a couple of professional athletes for some, um, some ideas that they’re working on. So we’re that’s a whole new foray into this, which I was very, very excited about. I didn’t really quite see that going. So we’re seeing everything from the business owner that’s coming in with, you know, so much as it kind of I have my business, whatever that business might be, I need to figure out a way to market it also from the creator as well, the independent creator that’s coming to us and saying, I have an idea. So our marketing or our client could be basically, if you have an idea or you have a market, a business, you need to market.

Lee Kantor: So if like, what’s an example of a medical professional is like somebody in plastic surgery or is it just a general practitioner doctor?

Pete Joseph: Funny you say that because plastic surgery would be perfect for what we do. But our one of our our first actually our foray into this was we did a thing with um, our first client is, is well, chiropractic and it’s a chain of chiropractic kind of in our area that was just looking for a way to spice up their content and their, their social, their social was getting kind of, you know, stuck in trends, stuck in some different stuff. And what we came up with was, let’s create a pod show for you video podcast that we can bring in specialists so we can become a medical, um, resource. And so what we did was we started that over a year ago. He’s been going strong with that. They just finished their first season. They’ve had on everything from hormone expert experts to other chiropractors to personal injury attorneys to physical therapists. So it’s become this awesome hub. What we’re seeing from his clients and all the people that come in that now follow him on his socials are wow, this is so different. I’ve never had somebody kind of offer this with their service as well.

Lee Kantor: Now I have a question about kind of the nuts and bolts of this. So this they’re a chiropractor. That’s their day job. They’re also now stars of a show. Yeah. That’s their side hustle I guess. Or is their or their investment in marketing? Yeah, yeah. How do you help them kind of take the content and then, um, leverage it so it helps them achieve the outcome they desire, which I would imagine it’s either there there’s a couple choices. They either want to be famous or they want more clients or both.

Pete Joseph: Well, it’s kind of comical. You say that because that’s what we had the biggest problem with in the beginning when I brought this, because when we first started working with iswell, um, doctor Mayor Kara, that is the, uh, the owner of iswell, I brought this idea to him and I said, hey, listen, mayor, like, I think this would work. He’s like, man, I am not. I’m not a movie star. I’ve never done it. I’ve never been on camera before. And I’m like, please trust me. Like, I think I can coach you through this and get you into it. Just if you believe in me and you believe in the process and believe in, you know, the power of some good editing and some great film work, we can make a really good series for you. And in the beginning it was a little harder. But we knew going into that it would be. So what we saw with him was he kind of came in. It was very at the beginning, a lot of question and answer type stuff, things that were easier for him before we just dropped him into, um, having to interview people. And what we noticed was by, you know, episode 3 or 4. He kind of just fell. He just like, hey, man, it’s just like having a conversation. You forget everything’s there. I’m like, exactly. There it is. And what has become with him was he’s noticed, man, that the client retention is wonderful because it gives them more something more than when they just leave my office. Like they got their adjustment. They, you know, they got their massage in. They they may be a little stem, uh, therapy and then they leave, but now it gives them a reason to kind of for us to touch them after they leave a little bit more therapy for them to think about it.

Pete Joseph: Yeah. It’s wonderful. So it was helping them to retain clients, but also what he’s starting to see now. It’s the calls coming in from people saying, hey, how do I potentially sponsor your podcast? Or how do I get involved in your podcast? And it’s like, now he’s coming to us with questions like, do you think we could do a line of things like, could we promote it through this? Like it’s really opened up him in the sense of, I think how he looks at what he can be like, I don’t think he ever saw himself in the way of like as being a, you know, in the sense promoting his own show and having his own show. And what makes this easy for you is that all you have to do is show up and film, show up and film and listen to us. If you have a marketing budget and it’s something that you can do, we can handle every bit of it for you. All you have to do, we can coach you through it, we can film it, we can edit it, we can batch it. We can put it to your social media. We can do the SEO for it. Everything that that needs to be done, that’s where it becomes side hustle is a little bit of an understatement, because you really just have to show up and put it all in our hands.

Lee Kantor: Now, being in the industry for as long as you have, are you seeing maybe a transition? There was a time where, um, you know, being a technology company was kind of an outlier. Only a few people were technology people, and now every business is a technology company and is leveraging technology. Do you think the same thing is happening with content that everybody now is a media company, whether they want to or not, because they have to put out content that’s authentic, that’s, you know, professional that is consistent. So in essence, you’re you’re having to also wear a hat of a, of a media company as well.

Pete Joseph: Absolutely, absolutely. Like, I mean, just off of social media’s alone, how do you not have to market in a sense? Right. That’s the overall arching term. Correct. Like, how do you not have to market if you own any type of business and use those platforms? So everybody has to and that’s kind of why we have we built such two in our initial thoughts was it’s kind of your marketing agency. Like you don’t have to carry a marketing staff. You don’t have to worry about, you know, how, man, I have to bring 3 or 4 people on and now do this and handle this stuff and blah, blah, blah, bla bla bla. If we open up tomorrow, who’s going to do our buying? Who’s going to do this? Scooch kind of at the beginning was a lot of that like, hey, we can just kind of come in, you can plug us in, which is what a lot of agencies are. And then that’s when we noticed they need content, too, like they can’t you what are you going to place? What are you going to do for them. Like you can’t just or it’s farming it out to six other places and that’s where yeah, we made it easy for them to say, you don’t have to worry about anything like you can capture it for you. We can create it for you, we can ideate it for you, and we’ll do all the other stuff that full service marketing agency do. So it yes to your question, yes. You have to wear many hats are my goal is to be the hat rack for one of those hats. So you could just kind of, you know, basically pay us to take that hat off your hands.

Lee Kantor: Now walk me through what an engagement looks like. Because like you said, these people aren’t professional media people. Typically, unless maybe you’re evolving into some of your clients being that and they just want to get better at it. But if you’re a lay person and you’re like, you know, like your friend, the chiropractor, you know, he’s a chiropractor, that’s what I do. And now you’re saying, okay, I’m part of my value that I’m going to provide is I’m going to upskill you into being a professional content creator and will ease you in over time. Um, so can you talk about what it looks like to onboard? Because I would imagine you’re answering a lot of questions and allaying a lot of fears in those first conversations.

Pete Joseph: Yeah, I’d say it’s it’s more it’s more fear and apprehensive and apprehensive. Yeah. Being apprehensive. Um. They come it’s really a trust thing. Usually that first what we like to do is the first episode we try to do with anybody. One there’s usually pre-production built into it, like, what’s your idea? What do you what do you want to do? How do you have a vision. So they know who we are before any of this happens. We’ve worked for a couple of weeks together on their their idea. Their concept. Uh, we also have to build their graphics and stuff for the show. So they’re they’re intimately known. So they’ve already got like they’re excited. Right. But it’s more always about what am I going to look like? How am I going to how do I sound? Big ones always sound. Everybody’s always worried about, oh, I don’t want to hear myself. The oddest thing. It’s so funny getting headphones on people is the most bizarre. Like they just. No, don’t need those. No. Well, it’s not for you. Trust me. And then the minute they put them on, they hear themselves. It’s the transformation is completely different. So I think it’s easing them in to just being in front of the lights, being in front of the cameras, letting them know that it’s okay to mess up.

Pete Joseph: Like you can mess up like we can edit this, like we can work with this. It’s a show, right? It’s okay. This isn’t live, you know? And it’s small. It’s very, very intimate. It’s myself, my wife. That the person, the guest. Um. It’s calming. It’s a very calm, relaxing environment. There’s nothing. Uh, like I said, there’s no time. We don’t put time constraints on stuff like. And a lot of it, they’re going into it. They know if we’re helping them do the show and we work through their questions with them early, and then it’s a lot of coaching. I was I was a child actor. I was a SAG actor when I was a kid, so I did a lot of acting myself. So it’s just like I said, it’s a lot of it’s getting them to, you know, get out of it’s an interview. Try to get out of them, the interview, like what they’re trying to get out of that person. You know, it’s don’t make it just about like their Wikipedia page. Try to make it go a little bit in depth. And it’s a lot of training. But number one, first and foremost, it’s just the way I think we’re able to make people feel super comfortable because they’re not walking into an intimidating situation.

Lee Kantor: So what is the pain that ideal client is having before they contact you? Are they frustrated with their social media or their marketing? Are they is their growth kind of stalled? Like, what is it they’re going through? Where Scotch is the is the answer to their prayers.

Pete Joseph: What we’re seeing is a lot of people coming, and they don’t. They’ve either. It’s two people. I’ve had this idea for a podcast and I don’t know where to start or some type of like content show, or I have one and I want to level up. Like I need multiple angle camera shots. I need better sound. My sound doesn’t sound right because I’m going through my computer sound over Riverside. Um, I it’s a business that they just kind of really want. Um, the, the social media. So that’s kind of what we’re that’s really the people that we’re seeing a lot of. Um, uh, but yeah, that’s kind of where that’s, that’s what we’re seeing kind of really kind of see, that’s the our ideal for that.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Pete Joseph: Uh, what do we need more of? Well, you know, it’s the it’s always more and more, more and more clients. You know, we can always do more. And I think it’s just it’s for us. We we like to be, um, small, to make sure we can put as much hands on that we can with our clients. You know, we don’t want to be overburdened to the sense where we lose that personal touch. We pride ourselves on incredible content. We always say that when we shoot, what we shoot is just the first part. The real magic is what we do with after your content is done is shot. So it’s our batching, it’s our social, it’s our SEO work. Um, it really is. That’s where we can make you shine. So for us, it’s, you know, hey, if you have a unique idea out there and you want, you have you just don’t know how to really take it to that next level. And you want to work with people that kind of understand and are understanding of how this works and that you are new to it, or you’re a business leader like, you know, let us know.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team. What’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Pete Joseph: You can just reach out to us at media.com. Just go in there, fill out the, um, kind of the, uh, there’s little question and answer form. Fill that out, go from there, and we’ll just get back to you and we’ll kind of come in, have a little kind of a quick meeting, kind of see what your thoughts are and, uh, put together something on paper for you. But it’s a real, real simple process. Um, we’re super open to talk to anybody.

Lee Kantor: And that’s SKU t c h m e d I a.com.

Pete Joseph: That’s it.

Lee Kantor: Well, Pete, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Pete Joseph: Thank you so much, Lee. Let us know every time you want us on.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.