On this week’s ESOP Mini-cast, Bret Keisling calls in from the road to update us on his plans for the summer. We have a lot of exciting things in the works that we are looking forward to sharing with our listeners in the upcoming weeks!
Brian also provides updates on The ESOP Association calendar for events that are taking place around the country this summer.
Listen to this episode on Soundcloud. Or subscribe on Google Play or iTunes/Apple Podcasts. Links to all the sites we mention in this podcast are included in the transcript below.
Mini-cast 42 Transcript
Brian Keisling: 00:04 Welcome to The ESOP Mini-cast brought to you by Capital Trustees. A great way to wrap up the week.
Brian Keisling: 00:21 Hi everybody, this is Brian Keisling. Welcome to The ESOP Mini-cast. We are excited today to be joined on the mini cast by Bret Keisling. Bret, how are you?
Bret Keisling: 00:31 I'm great Brian. How are you?
Brian Keisling: 00:33 I'm doing well, thanks. For our listeners, they can probably tell that you are not here in our studio with me. Do you mind telling us where you are?
Bret Keisling: 00:43 [Laughter.] Brian, I'm pulled over on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. For listeners who caught Tuesday's Episode 80, I've sold my interest in Cap Trustees to Rich Heeter. We've covered that last Tuesday's episode, but I'm a embarking on a three week long a working vacation and we'll figure out at the end of the three weeks, whether "working" or "vacation" should be in air quotes. But I'm heading West.
Brian Keisling: 01:10 And what do you plan on doing while you're doing that working part of the vacation?
Bret Keisling: 01:15 Well, Brian, as you know, I'm really motivated for the next phase of my career. I'm really interested in just simply becoming a passionate advocate for employee ownership. So for the next three weeks, we're going to take some of the ideas that you and I, build upon the last week when we were in New England, when we first realized that the podcast and I were going to depart Cap Trustees. And there are a lot of things that I want to do over the next three weeks. First of all, I'll be in, primarily Colorado and then Nevada, and then I'm going to drive my way back home to Pennsylvania. So I've already got a couple of weeks of phone calls set up and meetings where I'm going to be in person with folks. But, as you know, Brian, my passion, passion moving forward is to expand employee ownership. We are experts and have been experts at ESOPs, but there are so many other forms of employee ownership. There are so many other great organizations doing things that we just haven't touched upon in The ESOP Podcasts. And, frankly a lot of thought leaders in employee ownership that I'm looking forward to meet, connect with and when they hear my plans for the future, hopefully, we're going to build some excitement for, what's coming up in ESOP world.
Brian Keisling: 02:28 Absolutely. It is an exciting time and I've been with you for a lot of this development phase and there's a lot going on and I'm looking forward to seeing how it progresses over the summer. So what can our listeners on the Mini- cast expect? What are we going to be able to see while you're doing this work this summer?
Bret Keisling: 02:48 Well, I'm going to start a number of conversations on Twitter and on Linkedin and social media, Brian, where I'm going to start looking to connect the thought leaders, connect the major organizations. As you know, we both got very motivated, that ESOP World got very motivated, at the NCEO conference in Pittsburgh. They had record attendance. NCEO has now grown to where they probably won't do hotel conferences in the future. and then we, just six weeks later, we're down in Washington DC with the National [ESOP] Association. And you know, how motivated I got with Jim Bonham, and Dr. Blasi, and Frank Luntz's call for 40 million employee owners in 10 years. So for me that was really a lofty goal. And then you and I got back to the office and it was like, "Wait, how's that going to happen?" So I'm going to be very active in social media. I'm going to be very active. Frankly, I'll do the Mini-casts each for the next couple of months and feed where we're going. But if I can, Brian, if I can just take a minute more, can I give you just one of the examples that we're working on?
Brian Keisling: 03:54 Absolutely.
Bret Keisling: 03:56 We are really proud of The ESOP Podcast and The Mini-cast that has grown along with it, and we have done really well. We're at 22,000 listeners as of today, in the last two years. But it's also been, we've had interviews, they've been long form interviews and kind of catch-as-catch-can. If people are going to be available, if we can, connect, those are our guests and I'm very grateful to all of them and they brought us where we are. But as you and I have talked, what we need to do is start tailoring a podcast products, or content products, to specific audiences. So although I love the 50 minute long-form conversations with professional advisors the average employee owner isn't necessarily going to be as interested in 50 minutes with an advisor as other advisors would be. So right now I think it's fair to say that in the fall of 2019, what is now The ESOP Podcast will be four or five separate podcasts devoted to employee ownership. We want to, one of them is going to be devoted to um, supporting all of the organizations. We want to be a become a clearing house for calendar of events - and we're going to start on this Mini-cast - and there are a couple of really cool podcasts we're working on that I just don't want to talk about cause they're really exciting and we're not quite ready to announce it. But that's what I'm going to do this summer, Brian. What I call ESOP world. I'm going to start calling it employee ownership world. We need a bigger sandbox and I want to help start building it!
Brian Keisling: 05:34 Excellent. Well I know that we are looking forward to hearing more from that this summer as we develop with the ESOP Mini-cast, and really excited for what the fall brings and where we go from there.
Bret Keisling: 05:46 So, Brian, with the different podcast projects that I've talked about them, and expanding them. Some of them we're going to hold off to announce until they are ready to go. But there are other components that we're going to introduce as we go along. So for example, as I hang up the phone and get back to my drive to Colorado, you're going to introduce a very neat feature today. You are going to be sharing a calendar of events provided to us by the ESOP Association. Is that correct?
Brian Keisling: 06:13 That is correct.
Bret Keisling: 06:14 So with that, Brian, I'm going let you go. I'm going to return you to your Mini-cast duties, and we will talk next week on the Mini-cast.
Brian Keisling: 06:23 Thanks Bret. As mentioned, here are some events that are on The ESOP Association's calendar for our listeners to look out for. The New South Chapter of The ESOP Association, which includes Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi will be hosting a lunch and learn at Harrell's on July 19th. "Come learn about Harrell's, what they do, and their ESOP journey. Network with other ESOPs and service providers from the region. There will be a round table discussion and lunch provided as well. The meeting will begin at 10:30 AM and wrap up around 2:30 PM." The Northwest chapter has their ESOP Conference July 25th to 26th. There are two golf events coming up. July 10th, there's a golf event in Bloomingdale, Illinois and on July 18th, there is a golf event in Coon Rapids, Minnesota. And these golf events each benefit the great work of the Employee Ownership Foundation. The Employee Ownership Foundation is also hosting the employee owner retreat in early August, so register today for that. There will also be more than two dozen chapter meetings and round tables. This summer. The ESOP Association website has information on those events as well. Thank you very much for tuning into The ESOP Mini-cast. We will be back on Tuesday with our "ESOP Summer School" special and tune in next week on Friday for another ESOP Mini-cast. Thanks everybody. Have a great weekend.
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