Welcome! We’re So Excited to Have You on the Show!…

Thanks for taking the time to join me on The Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast.

I’ve attached some information about the podcast and audience as well as a handful of questions below that you can review to get a feel for the content. I’m always happy to talk about whatever is most exciting for you, as an off topic podcast with enthusiasm will be much better than something you or I are bored of.

Here’s everything you need to know for prepping for your interview.

The Show:

The Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast is a show about the who, what, why, and how of building a better world.

It’s about constructing a vision for how we build a better world, together.  

There are a lot of challenges we face. A lot of problems.

But at Grow Ensemble we believe that there should be no more exciting, purposeful, and inspiring task than to truly make the world better off for as many of us as possible, not just some. 

That’s what we like to communicate in our shows. We acknowledge the reality, but at the same time we want to build the vision for what the world can be, what we are working towards, what solutions exist, so listeners leave informed, empowered, and inspired.

With all the challenges and crises we face it’s easy to only imagine what world we are trying to avoid creating, but instead with our work here on the podcast and the help of wonderful guests like yourself, we want to craft an exciting and inspiring vision of what work we are working towards.

The Audience: 

Our listeners are changemakers. They are the leaders of today and tomorrow in building a better world. They are social entrepreneurs: founders and CEOs of purpose-driven businesses. They are nonprofit executive directors. They are academics and students. 

They are people who are driven to leave the world a better place than they found it, and it’s through the lens of impact (social, environmental, or both) that they see their life and work. 

Our listeners want the nitty gritty details of both your social entrepreneurial/social impact journey and whatever your area of impact is.

For example, if your business exists to make crickets a more widespread alternative source of protein, then what’s the case for crickets? What’s the benefit of substituting cricket protein for animal protein for the environment? How much should we substitute (as an individual and societal level)? Is there any nutritional compromise? What’s widespread adoption look like (grocery stores, restaurants, etc.)? What are our greatest hurdles to getting to that world?

We love details. Whether they are shared with story or data, great. Plan on sharing information in the way that’s most comfortable for you.

Tech:

First, we will be on a platform called Riverside.fm:

*Note!* The Riverside Studio link should be provided in the calendar invite you were provided with upon booking and in your confirmation email. 🙂 

Sound

• Next, do you have a good mic? This can be a mic that plugs into your computer via USB, or headphones.
• One of the biggest things that hurts recordings is echo. If you can be in a room with minimal echo (generally rooms with carpet or a rug) that would help out a lot.
• If audio/recording quality may in any way be an issue, let me know. We can do a test call in advance if you want to check audio quality.

Video

This is a Video Podcast! Come prepared. 🙂

If for whatever reason you’d prefer not to publish video, please let us know beforehand so we can determine how that fits with our content calendar. Video recordings are consistently edited and published on the Grow Ensemble YouTube channel.

We will first begin with publishing the audio, and publish video at a later date. Just saying, be prepared for video. It makes the conversations much more personal.

If you have concerns/preferences please let me know! Otherwise, by default, I’ll assume Riverside.fm can work for you, you have a mic of reasonable quality and you are OK if we record video.

Content:

Next, what will we talk about?

Well, this comes back to why The Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast exists, to craft a vision for how we are to build a better world, together.

To provide essential context, the early focus of the show revolves around two topics:

• Your Mission (the cause that your company supports, addresses, etc.)
• Your successes/challenges in growing and sustaining both your company and mission.
• Some exploration of your personal growth – how you came to seek out the impact-driven work that you did.

But as the show progresses, I (and our listeners) typically want to know…

1) What’s that “better world” look like from the angle of the work you do and the impact you seek?

2) What makes that “better world” a “better world?”

We’ll want to build up the “WHY.” What problem are we addressing? Why is it so bad?

Then, what’s the solution? What’s exciting about it? What are things that most people don’t know?

3) How do we get to that “better world?”

What’s the vision forward? What are the greatest hurdles to change, and what sort of solutions are we presenting? How can others get involved?

Example Questions

I’ll tailor questions based on your experience, but we’ll usually talk about things like:

• Small actions people can take to get involved with your business/cause.
• Things folks aren’t likely to know about the cause it is your business is focused on.
• The social/communal/environmental element of your business, what you’d like people to know about it, how people can take small (or big) actions to be apart of it.
• Interesting opportunities, programs, upcoming events to engage with your company and/or your cause.
• Things that have attributed to your successes (big or small) in your business
• Resources, tools, advice that has really helped you that these businesses can take with them.
• Mistakes that you’ve made in your business, that you hope others can benefit hearing
• Random, quick questions covering what books you’ve been reading, podcasts you’ve been listening to, etc.

 Rapid Fire Questions:

At the end of each conversation, we’ll typically wrap with some rapid fire questions. Here’s what you might expect:

• Favorite book or film that you always come back to? Or something that’s impacted you recently? 
• Organization/business or individual who is doing exceptional work that you think deserves a plug? 
• Morning routines or daily habits that you have to stick to (if any)?
• What’s a bit of advice that you’d share with other changemakers, social entrepreneurs driven to leave the world a better place than they found it?

If there is anything in particular you would like to talk about, please let me know beforehand to make sure I include it.

We’ll also be sure to mention where people can find you and your business online and any things in particular you want to promote at the end of the episode.

For format, it’ll be a casual, conversational interview. You’ll do more of the talking since the audience will hear me every episode, but I’ll jump in some as well, and you should feel free to throw any questions or other ideas back at me.

For examples of the show, here are a few of our most popular:

• How to Become a Social Entrepreneur, Madeleine Shaw
• Tips & Advice for the Impact-Driven CEO, Giancarlo Marcacinni
• How to End the Climate Crisis in One Generation, Paul Hawken

Post-Production

What happens after?

After the interview, let me know if there’s anything we talked about that you want me to cut out.

You get the final cut, so I don’t want you to be worried about talking about anything during the conversation.

Also, let me know if there’s anything specific (e.g. books, social media, certain pages) that you want me to link to. Otherwise I’ll go off of what you mentioned at the end and what we talked about.

Then our team will edit it and get it put together, get the show notes, publish it on our site, distribute and promote.

I’ll give you a heads up when it goes live and include some material if you want to promote it to your audience!

*Typical record to launch time will be 4-8 weeks*

If you have anything you want to time your podcast publish time around, let us know. Happy to accommodate as long as it’s not some crazy rush job!

Thank again, you are awesome, and keep on rockin’ in the free world.

Please send any questions to cory {at} growensemble.com.

CORY AMES

Founder, Grow Ensemble

Host, The Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast