Welcome to Podcast Insider.

I hope everybody had a good holiday weekend here in The US.

It was fourth of July weekend.

And today, we got a special episode.

I'm gonna have Michelle Aronson from True Stories at Work.

She's our podcaster of the month here at Blueberry.

So without further ado, let's, get to the interview.

You're listening to Podcast Insider hosted by Mike Dell, Todd Cochran, and Mackenzie Bennett from the Blueberry team, bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow, and thrive through podcasting.

With all the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting, welcome.

Let's dive in.

Michelle, thanks for being on Podcast Insider.

How are you doing today?

Thanks for having me.

I'm awesome.

So, Michelle Aronson, she does true stories at work and, also a proud Blueberry customer.

For many years.

Yes.

I do remember talking to you, a few times, but that's that's not bad.

It's good to get to know people.

So the magic of Blueberry is that when I had a problem, I could actually talk to somebody.

So I I thanked you even before I ever, like, met you.

So thank you for all your support.

Very good.

And, Mackenzie and I, met Michelle at the, Chicago Podcast Movement Evolution Show, here a couple months ago, and Michelle's gonna be our podcaster of the month.

Yay.

Woo.

Yeah.

There we go.

So, I always ask these type of questions about, you know, how did you get started in podcasting?

What was your, motivation?

Well, I'll tell you a quick story that I was at a silent retreat and after being silent for a few days, podcasting literally popped into my mind.

I had not even listened to a podcast.

I had never considered it, but I had always wanted to collect really good stories from work and thought I would write a book, but podcasting felt more real.

You could hear them in the voice of the person instead of like reading on the written page.

I also started to notice that people don't like to read anymore, but they do listen to podcasts.

So it was really just being like, you know, pretty still.

And then also just being open to do it.

Cause I'll say it was a little scary to consider something like that and going live with the show and doing all the, like, getting through all the technical hurdles, but I love it and just love to collect people's great stories from work.

So How long have you been podcasting?

Two or three years.

I don't count.

But, I think I'm in my middle of my second year.

Wow.

Very good.

We've been at it a while.

And, and, like I said, when you first started, we we helped you out a bit.

And then, after that, we don't hear from you anymore.

And that's probably, I would imagine, a bit of a customer journey for all brand new podcasters.

Right?

They need a lot of support in the beginning, and once they get the hand of it, they can do it on their own.

That's beautiful.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's not as scary as people think.

You get a few of the basic technical stuff out of the way, and then it's just make your content, rinse and repeat, and, you know, promote, promote, promote.

Have you, ever run into anything that, because of your podcast, you're now doing this other thing or, anything cool happening because you podcast?

I have a coaching strategy business.

Helping small businesses really build in their culture, their values, be a place that people want to work.

So that is what I do.

Podcasting is for fun.

So I've always really considered them very separate.

Well, I had a gentleman reach out to me who wanted me to do some coaching for his, CEO.

And when he introduced me to his CEO, he wrote, Hey, Michelle is a podcaster and then put the other stuff second.

And my heart really went like big because I had never been introduced as a podcaster first.

So it was, it was really funny.

I guess he had listened to my show.

He must've liked what he heard and then ended up, just, you know, reaching out to me for the business.

So that was the one.

And I did tell him I was really flattered because I consider myself sort of a HR professional teacher first, podcaster on the side, but, he kinda flipped that script for me.

Okay.

Now the tone of your show, is it, the stories, are they sometimes comical or is that the focus?

What do you focus on as a good story?

Well, Mike, obviously you never worked in HR because anybody who has ever worked in HR knows exactly what they're about.

They're about sometimes they're funny.

Sometimes they're heartbreaking.

Sometimes they're disgusting.

Like it's how people behave in the workplace.

And, I interview HR people who have to investigate things like sex at work, people doing very strange, passive aggressive behaviors at work, like poop.

I'm just going to say the word poop.

You know, all sorts of things, affairs, you know, that comes up a lot.

People, just sort of doing things that they do when they're human, but they take it into work and then it has to be investigated.

And that's sort of the when people say, I don't know what HR does.

I do.

And, you know, Yeah.

I really don't know what you're interesting than you think.

Yeah.

I would imagine.

Mhmm.

Like I said, I I don't have to deal too much with that.

I I do hire people once in a while and that kind of thing, but, yeah, definitely not in the nitty gritty of HR and being that we're a pretty small company.

We don't have a lot of those issues, at least.

Mhmm.

I have to That you know about that you know about.

I'm just gonna say, I know small companies that have big problems.

I've worked with them.

So, it it For sure.

You know, where ever you have people, I, I did have an I have had a couple of employment attorneys on the show and they just get them over and over and over again.

And so their stories are, really funny, but it doesn't matter the size of your company.

Sometimes it can be three people and something very unusual happens, but, typically, there's no HR person at that size.

So Yeah.

We we have a a a guy that he's he's one of the owners, and he takes care of the HR stuff, and he's pretty good at it.

So shout out to Barry.

Bless you, Barry.

I'm sure I'm sure you wanna call me because nobody wants to take care of some of that stuff.

Right.

For sure.

For sure.

Yeah.

So, what's a a standout story that you care to share here on, by the way?

Oh my gosh.

I'm trying to think of my favorite.

There are so many it's honestly hard to choose, but there's some of them are just funny.

So my, one of my interviews, a person got terminated.

They acted badly.

They got into the elevator where they were being walked out by the HR person and they pulled out a harmonica and started playing while they went down the elevator.

And they're like, I'm getting fired by HR.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

No.

You know?

And they just, like, sang their way down their termination.

So it's a range of things.

There's a lot of really good stories.

So you should Yeah.

I think you should go back and listen to some of my episodes, Mike.

I definitely will.

Fascinating.

They definitely will.

That's one of the probably the harder jobs in HR is, is walking people out or and, you know, terminations and whatnot.

Luckily, we haven't had to do that around here, so, that's been good.

Yeah.

It's hard, and it's also nothing that you do with light hard.

You know?

I mean, it's always a horrible experience, I think, for everybody in the room.

Oh, yeah.

For sure.

Yes.

This this person apparently found their harmonica and, tried to memorialize it with music and, which makes for a good story.

It wasn't, you know, probably their best day, but, quite a good tune, apparently.

Well, yeah.

I guess sing sing the blues in the elevator on the way down.

Right?

You're feeling it.

You're really feeling the blues, and so just let it out.

So Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that, that that whole genre of of podcasting, you know, for, you know, stuff at work and, you know, HR.

I mean, I'm sure there's other shows out there, but, you know, that just doesn't cross my radar very often.

So, you know Yeah.

And I'm just gonna say most of the HR shows that I listen to are, like, information shows.

They're like like these experts, like talking to you.

And mine is really focused on having the expertise come through their stories because every experienced HR person has had to deal with these things.

And nobody can tell you how to deal with somebody who, you know, has sex at work when you're investigating it.

And so just listening to some of these stories can be a little bit, maybe entertaining, maybe educational, you know, but it makes you feel a little bit less alone and maybe a little more prepared for something that you never thought you would have to prepare for.

Yeah.

You know?

Sounds like, you know, why I listen to podcasts about podcasting because it's not that I need to learn about podcasting is I just wanna hear how other people are dealing with the issues that I deal with.

So in your case, that'd be the same same sort of motivation.

You know, we always say, you know, when you start a podcast, you have to start with a goal.

And and then what was your goal?

Just, as a recreational pursuit or learning?

Couple a couple of things.

I mean, first of all, I wanted to educate.

I'm a teacher.

I've been teaching for over fifteen years, graduate students when I would tell them content, right?

These students that I'm teaching master's level, it's night school basically.

Right.

I would tell them stories and people would come up to me years later and say, I still remember that story.

And I thought, oh, such a good way to teach.

You know?

And so they weren't bad stories.

They were just examples, like really bringing the concepts to life.

So I think for me, a part of it was to inform a little bit to amuse because that might, that is by far one of my favorite parts of HR is really, I would sit down with a group of HR executives and be like, tell me your best story, please.

You know, I just want to hear, because it's things I can't manufacture.

Right.

They're just too good and too real and all the things.

So, well, people are, interesting and HR is people.

So very cool.

Yeah.

One of the attorneys said, you know, beware humans at work, you know, it was kind of like, you know, yes, they're at work, but they're still humans.

And so the, the good things they do they do at work and some of the bad things that they do, they also bring to work.

Right.

Well, with Blueberry, you know, since about 2020, we've been all virtual.

Is there any differences in doing HR for a virtual company or for remote workers?

I know that's been a big thing last few years.

It's a hot topic, and people, even in the HR industry, are completely divided.

Everybody should return to work.

Nobody should return to work.

There are people in the middle from my perspective.

And most of the work that I really do is around culture.

I think it needs to be driven by the culture that you want, the business goals that you have and what the best way to achieve those are.

And if you can meet those criteria, you can figure it out and decide.

Some companies work really well virtually.

During the pandemic I was consulting at a three d printing startup, so much fun, but they, they were never going to go virtual because they're a wet lab, which means like they're working with like different types of chemicals and they're building this stuff and they needed their software team to talk to their technical team, to talk to their lab team.

And there was never going to be a chance of, of that kind of stuff happening.

So it really should be driven by, you know, business and your culture.

Right.

Yeah.

You know, with with us, we're a, you know, software company, basically.

You know, you get down to it, software as a service, and it works out pretty well for us.

Do a lot of Zoom meetings.

You know, like, sometimes some days, I say death by Zoom.

But, you know, we have a culture that that works for us.

You know?

We've got people scattered about the country, but managing people like that is probably a bit of a challenge.

When the whole pandemic happened, that's kind of how I started my business.

I had quit my job.

I had taken a year off.

This was before the pandemic.

I ended up south by Southwest was canceled.

That was going to be my last year from last trip from my year off.

I ended up locked in my house unemployed as the pandemic began.

And I called three people who I knew from HR and said, Hey, what does the world need?

I want to go back to work.

I, you know, I buried my father.

I traveled around, I'm ready to get busy.

And one of them, was telling me what the world needs.

And I said, I don't want to do any of that.

She She said, what do you want to do?

And I said, well, right now it feels like we had a lot of mediocre leaders, like before the pandemic.

And now everybody's at home and they're trying to lead people virtually.

Like I want to put together a program for like emotional intelligence and leadership and help them be better leading virtually.

And you know what?

She said, I'll buy that.

And I was like, grabbed a pen.

I was like, what do you want?

And so I, you know, I sort of began my business very organically by filling just that need that you're talking about, which is giving people the skills to really communicate in a meaningful way, even if you're not in the same space, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we we have periodic meetings, you know, where we have all hands meetings.

We go somewhere cool and, you know, meet for two or three days.

And, you know, we do that once a year, and then we have other little, meetups that usually at conferences or whatever and, you know, where we get to see, at least a few people.

And, yeah, it's it's harder to do it that way.

And and with your podcast, you you know, kinda I'm sure you've had episodes, dealing with that, topic of remote work and and that kind of thing.

Yeah.

People feel very strongly about it.

I had one person, KL on my show who, like, really thought, you know, people do not need to go back to the office.

I've had other people that are like, we're bringing people back and there is no right answer.

It's kind of like any right answer.

I would be very suspicious of anybody who gives me a right answer because it's very unique to the people that work there and the, you know, ability for the leader to be strong as a leader, leading a virtual team.

It's a whole different skill set, like you said.

Getting back to your podcast, how's the success been as far as, you know, are you, reaching the audience you want to reach?

You still having any challenges and getting the word out, anything like that?

Well, I'm not very good at the promoting stuff.

So I have like this.

I mean, I've grown, You know, in terms of numbers, but I'm not very promotional.

So I need to work on that.

I mean, for me, the podcast is an opportunity to create, to connect and then like learn.

And so I think my next big learning for this show is that whole promotional thing and recycling and not just literally, I will put out one post on LinkedIn.

Like my show is up.

That's it.

I do notice who subscribes because I kind of will put the show up and then see how many people listen and then I'll promote it maybe a day or two later just to see how many people are kind of listening before I put that thing on LinkedIn.

So what do you suggest?

Like, tell me your expert.

Like, what do you do for your show?

How do you promote that?

Yeah.

My my show my personal show is, how should I say it?

It's long lived, but, not very listened to.

It's because I don't promote it, really.

It's just a a creative thing for me, kinda like what you're doing.

But, but what we say, you know, for promoting, if you look at our podcast insider, this podcast, you know, we do we'll do short videos on YouTube and LinkedIn and where all the places.

And, you know, as promoting an episode, we'll take clips from from videos that we we do of the show, or we'll do AI generated clips and you know?

But that kind of thing.

And, plus, we have an unfair advantage.

If you're using PowerPress, we're in the welcome screen, our episodes, so that's our unfair advantage.

But since we're talking about podcasting, what a better place to promote it?

Promotion is one of those things.

You know, Mackenzie's more of an expert at that, and she's my cohost on on the show, usually.

Todd or Mackenzie or all three of us sometimes.

And, yeah, that that's a hard one, you know, just getting the word out to the right people, getting in front of the right people.

Another thing I'd like to do is get into a a Facebook group or forums of some sort or Reddit or whatever about your subject matter, your your genre.

Mhmm.

And go in there and be helpful.

Don't go in there and say, hey.

I got a podcast.

Check it out.

You know, be in there you know, be a a member that people start knowing, and then, you know, say a topic comes up that you covered in an episode.

You say, hey.

I covered this topic in my episode and send them a link to that episode, whether it's a two year old episode or one from the other day.

And, you know, that that kind of builds your expertise in that field.

I like that.

I like those ideas.

The thing that I I really need to promote, because this really slows my show's production down.

I have this segment at the end and it's really hard to get content for, but I don't want to give it up because it's kind of my favorite part of the show.

It's called workplace confessions.

So people can call in and confess something they've done at work that they didn't get caught for.

So maybe they ate their coworkers lunch.

Maybe they would do their back to school shopping in the little supply cabinet that they had in their office.

The good news is my best friend was kind of an office delinquent.

And so had a bunch of episodes for my first, like eight shows.

I really, she goes, oh, I have more, you know?

And, but, I've promoted it a little bit and that's really I do like to have them, so it slows me down in terms of recruiting.

So Well, how often do you podcast?

Like, once a week, once a month?

What what's your cadence?

Once a month, I would like to move to every two or three weeks.

So that would be my dream.

I always tell people on this show, and they've heard it a 100 times.

I'm the king of inconsistency.

Podcast insider goes out every week, my personal show, you know, whenever I feel like it.

And that's not a great way to grow a show.

You know?

Agreed.

Do as I say, not as I do is, you know, it's kinda what I say.

But, you know, usually, weekly is probably the sweet spot.

Every two weeks is good.

But be somewhat consistent, meaning you're gonna do a monthly show, put it out on the third of the month or the fifth of the month or whatever and do that, or the first Tuesday of the month or something like that.

Try to be consistent because and that's another way to get feedback.

Here's a dirty little secret.

If you're every Friday or every Monday on a weekly show and you, don't get it out that day, you're gonna hear from people.

And when you hear from people, that's a way to get feedback and getting to know them.

Kind of a tricky way to do it, so delay one once.

Provoke them.

Make them mad and get their feedback.

Then you know they care.

But I, you know, I listen to a couple daily shows, and if it's if they miss a day, I'm like, where to go?

You know?

People build you into their Mhmm.

Routine, especially with a monthly show, you know, that that's gonna be a little harder to build into a routine because they've got weekly routines.

That is good.

I need to get on my, I need to get on my workplace confession.

Cause I have a backlog of episodes, but I don't have a backlog of confessions, you know, and I do love that.

So maybe I'll put the commercial in.

Good.

Okay.

I'll, I'll, I'll send you the link in, it can be read in a robot voice.

Like I can do all sorts of things to keep it anonymous.

Nobody has to give me any names.

So that would be amazing.

You know, juvenile delinquents, Mike, is that what you're saying?

No, never.

Adult delinquents?

Never, never.

So where do people find you?

I see you're using a WordPress site with PowerPress.

The most amazing WordPress site ever.

I have a podcast website, truestoriesatwork.com.

And then also my episodes are listed on my regular site, my business site, cultureandstrategylab.com.

So options to be on the show or submit a workplace confession or just drop some really good, workplace wisdom on us.

So lots of opportunities for interaction.

We'll have a link to that in the show notes over at podcastinsider.com.

Well, anything else we didn't cover that you wanna cover?

Oh, if you have any workplace stories, what's the strangest thing that's happened to you in the workplace?

Oh, I, I would have to, I'll have to do that on a confessional.

Okay.

All right.

Perfect.

Perfect.

I was in the military.

There's all kinds of fun military stuff.

So, I bet you saw a lot.

I bet you did.

Alright.

Well, thank you for having me.

Really an honor and, great to have this opportunity to connect more deeply with Blueberry and your show.

We'll catch you on the next episode.

Thank you.

Thanks for joining us.

Come back next week.

And in the meantime, head to podcastinsider.com for more information, to subscribe, share, and read our show notes.

To check out our latest suite of services and learn how Blueberry can help you leverage your podcast, visit blueberry.com.

That's Blueberry without the e's.

We couldn't afford the e's.