Before the pandemic, many of the world’s “thought leaders” traveled the globe, leading seminars, giving keynote addresses and sharing their experiences.
But, when the pandemic hit, many of them had to find new ways to connect with audiences.
Enter Jeff Tetz, the CEO of Edmonton- based Results, a company that offers consulting and leadership advice. Using his connections — and a self-admitted whole lot of luck — Tetz decided to go into podcasting.
But podcasting is a crowded, confusing place. It is a place where it’s easy to get lost, and hosting companies such as Apple are hesitant to share metrics, so it can be hard to calculate how you measure up. With eyes open, Tetz launched the Unleashed podcast.
“It started with us trying to figure out how we could help leaders make sense of the world during the pandemic,” says Tetz. “As we started to create a list of ideas, this was one of them. And, the more we vetted it as a concept, we started to wonder how we could make it different. What we wanted to do was avoid putting things out that other people were doing.”
What has set Tetz’s podcast apart is the quality of guests he’s bringing to air — and how he’s going about it. The fifth season of episodes has just wrapped, and they follow a simple formula: While they are all archived on all the usual places — Google, Apple, Spotify and YouTube — they are initially broadcast live. So, the guests aren’t heavily edited. There’s a
“live TV” feel to what Tetz is doing.
And the guests aren’t run of the mill. Tetz has talked decision making and risk taking with poker champ Annie Duke; he’s talked about making key winning decisions with Michael Lombardi, a Super Bowl-winning NFL executive. And Unleashed has featured Tom Peters, who has written a number of bestsellers on the art of management and is a globally renowned speaker.
“One thing the pandemic has done is made the world smaller,” says Tetz. “So, people who would normally be jumping on flights five times a week, they’re at home like we are. And they’re looking for things to do, to see how they can help, how they can stay active. So, we’ve been able to tap into this whole world of thought leadership who have been more receptive to strangers reaching out to connect than they ever were before.”
Peters is a prime example. He had simply made a friendly comment on a photo that Tetz had posted on Twitter, about Results staff delivering meals to families. So, Tetz direct-messaged Peters and asked him, point blank, to come on his show. Basically, it was a case of one thing leading to another.
“Everyone is fortunate enough to have some of those lucky moments over the courses of their careers,” says Tetz. “But, not everyone leverages their luck. So, we were able to leverage really lucky things that had happened to us before the pandemic.”
Tetz says that viewership/listenership for the live broadcasts can range from 150-600, but he said there have been dips of late, which he believes is the result of online “fatigue.” From Zoom calls to watching online events, through the pandemic we have been in front of our screens so much that we’re not nearly as excited about virtual meets as we used to be. But, the numbers watching the archived podcasts is increasing; Tetz says it’s around 10,000.
And Tetz says that Unleashed will continue as long as it can “deliver something unique, without trying too hard to be special.”
He says: “Being a leader is very lonely. We try to create an inclusive and welcoming environment, where every time we have an episode, it’s something leaders should pay attention to.”
This article appears in the May 2022 issue of Edify
