Your Guide to Being a Guest on The Kula Ring

Welcome to our podcast, made for manufacturing marketers. Here’s everything you need to know about being our guest.

The Kula Ring was launched in 2018 as a way to connect manufacturing professionals having important conversations about the present and future of marketing, sales, and technology. We’ve hosted manufacturing marketing and sales experts from across North America, and we’d love for you to be our next guest.

On this page we’ve addressed some frequently asked questions about being a guest on The Kula Ring.

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Looking for the TL;DR version? Here’s what to do in three easy steps:

Step 1: Schedule the 20-minute pre-recording call. During this time we will get acquainted and nail down the specific topic for the podcast episode.
Step 2: Schedule a time to record your podcast.
Step 3: Join your podcast recording session at the scheduled time.

The Kula Ring FAQ

The Kula Ring FAQ

Who can participate?

We want to have conversations with people who have something interesting to say about manufacturing marketing, sales, or B2B insights that relate to manufacturing-adjacent businesses. In the past, we’ve welcomed authors, professional speakers, CEOs, CMOs, marketing directors, managers, and planners, and even other podcast hosts to The Kula Ring. You don’t need to be a public speaking pro to participate. For many of our guests, it’s their first time recording a podcast.

You also don’t need to make any travel plans. We record all our episodes remotely, so all you need is some basic equipment (more on that shortly) and an internet connection.

What will we talk about?

What do you want to talk about? We’re interested in fresh perspectives, success stories, failure-turned-success stories, your challenges, or anything else that would interest a B2B audience hungry for manufacturing marketing, technology, and sales information. We want to know how your organization is changing along with the landscape—how you’ve embraced digital transformation, learned to better serve your customers, and outmaneuvered your competition.

If you think you have a great story to tell, you can book a discovery call for The Kula Ring here. During the call, you can connect with The Kula Ring hosts Carman Pirie and Jeff W. White to chat about your ideas.

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What’s in it for me?

Other than being treated to the dulcet tones of Jeff and Carman directly into your headphones (we may be overstating this benefit slightly), you’ll get a platform to talk about what’s important to you professionally and share your insights and experiences with industry peers. It’s great for your personal brand development. We’ll be sure to feature your company logo, your headshot, and links to your chosen social profiles. 

You can use your podcast episode in your own marketing. We recommend sharing:

  • By email—you can send your episode to your contact list and circulate it internally. This is a great way to highlight and promote what sets your company apart in a highly competitive manufacturing environment. You can use your episode to demonstrate your thought leadership in future emails by adding a link as a postscript. 
  • Via social media—we’ll help by crafting some social media messaging and custom images for you to use.
  • On your website—add your episode along with a summary and/or transcript as a blog post or news release. 

What equipment do I need to participate?

Nothing fancy. You’ll need:

  • A set of wired headphones. Bluetooth headphones—including AirPods—won’t work.
  • A microphone plugged into your computer. A built-in mic on your headphones (think standard wired Apple earbuds) will work just fine, and is what most of our guests use. Your laptop’s built-in mic won’t work, unfortunately, as the audio quality is really poor. You can also pick up a decent quality plug-in mic for around $20-$30 if you prefer, but this is by all means optional.
  • A laptop or desktop computer (not a phone or a tablet) to access Squadcast.fm, which is what we use to record. We’ll send you a link to your recording session in advance.
  • Chrome or Firefox as your browser.

If you happen to have a better setup, that’s cool, too. Ultimately, what you say is more important than the equipment you use. As long as there isn’t a lot of background noise and your connection is good, we should be fine.

About Kula

Kula Partners is an agency committed to helping leading B2B manufacturers craft digital experiences that transform how they engage buyers, serve customers, and outpace their competition online. We are headquartered in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and work primarily with North American-based manufacturing clients marketing within complex B2B selling environments.

When will my episode be recorded and how long will it take?

Our goal is to find a time that works with your schedule. The Kula Ring is hosted by Kula Partners co-founders Jeff White and Carman Pirie, and you can choose a time that works for you in their calendar. Don’t see a time that works? Let us know, and we’ll find one that does.

Our interviews are approximately 30 minutes long, but we’ll book up to 60 minutes just in case.

How should I prepare for recording?

Once we’ve nailed down a time for your interview, we’ll send a link to a recording session you can join directly in your browser. 

Some of our guests prefer to also book time for a conversation with Jeff and Carman ahead of their recording session, so they can get to know each other better, get comfortable chatting, and nail down the topic of their episode. You can do that here. At the time of your interview, you’ll chat with Jeff and Carman for a few minutes before they start recording so you can resolve any last minute questions. 

Many guests do find it useful to write out some talking points ahead of time to help keep the conversation flowing in the right direction. This can help you avoid forgetting the main points you wanted to make or getting too off-topic. 

Ensure you’re in a quiet area with minimal background noise. Keep a glass of water on hand for your recording session—with as much talking as you’ll likely do, you’ll need it!

What if I mess up during recording?

No problem—we do it all the time! The Kula Ring is not a live podcast. Each episode is edited for length and clarity. Slight stumbles over your words, correcting yourself or changing course mid-sentence—these are part of normal human conversation, which is exactly what we want to be having on the podcast. They don’t sound out of place.

If you really mess up, just take a slight pause and then start your sentence again from the top. This makes it easier to edit out, and no one will be the wiser.

Is there a fee to participate?

Nope. We really appreciate the time industry pros take to talk to us, and our mission is to connect with manufacturing marketers and executives to have important conversations about where the industry is now and where it’s heading. The only thing we ask from you is about an hour of your time.

Can I request certain topics be off-limits?

Yes. Confidentiality is a priority for us. If there’s an aspect of your business you don’t want to discuss, just let us know ahead of time and we’ll steer clear. If you’re concerned about confidentiality issues after your episode has been recorded, just let us know and we’ll send you the transcript for review as soon as it’s available (and before the episode is published). 

As we said before, The Kula Ring is not a live podcast. If you realize after the fact that you shared sensitive information, let us know and we’ll ensure it doesn’t make it to the final edited episode.

When will my episode air?

We release episodes weekly, and record them several weeks ahead of time so that we can keep on top of the publishing schedule. We may not be able to tell you exactly when your episode will be released, but it will most often be within two to three months. 

When your episode goes live, we’ll be in touch with the link so you can listen and share it with your network.

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