Why Most Branded Podcasts Fail: The JAR Framework That Fixes Everything

Most Branded Podcasts Are What Jen Moss Calls “Ramblecasts”

You know the type.

Hosts talking about interesting things without any clear value proposition.

No focus. No strategy. No measurable results.

Just expensive audio that nobody listens to past episode three.

Over my 10-year career in podcasting, I’ve seen this pattern repeat endlessly. Brands throw money at podcasting because everyone says they should. Then they wonder why it doesn’t work.

The problem isn’t the medium.

Podcasting creates unprecedented access to your audience’s attention. Literally positioning your brand between their ears during commutes, workouts, and daily routines.

The problem is that most brands fundamentally misunderstand what makes podcasting work.

They treat it like another broadcast channel for corporate messaging instead of recognizing it as an intimate conversation requiring genuine value exchange.

Meet Jen Moss: The Anti-Ramblecast Crusader

Jen Moss is Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of JAR Podcast Solutions.

She’s worked with Amazon, lululemon, Cirque du Soleil, Wharton, and Deloitte.

Before that, she spent decades mastering audio storytelling at CBC, learning from broadcasting legends like Dick Miller, Yvonne Gall, Anne Penman, and Sheila Rogers.

These are people who know how to hold audience attention over time.

Now Jen teaches creative writing for podcasting at the University of British Columbia. She thinks deeply about the relationship between story and form.

And she’s developed a framework that transforms branded podcasts from expensive experiments into strategic business assets.

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Why Agency Owners Are Burning Out (And How AI Automation Fixes It)

Agency burnout is killing the creative industry. Here’s what stinks: brilliant agency leaders are working 80-hour weeks, losing employees every 18 months, and sacrificing their personal lives for client service.

Over my 40-year career in business storytelling, I’ve watched talented agency owners grind themselves into the ground. They’re drowning in manual processes, hemorrhaging institutional knowledge, and convinced that working harder is the only path to excellence.

BUT there’s a breakthrough that changes everything: AI automation that actually works.

Meet Alane Boyd: The Agency Automation Expert Who Solved Employee Retention

Alane Boyd is a serial entrepreneur and workflow automation expert with almost two decades of tech experience. As Co-CEO of Biggest Goal, she focuses on AI and automation to streamline company processes and increase bottom-line results.

Her credentials speak volumes:

• Three-time published author
• Recognized as Top Leader under 40
• Finalist for Top Companies to Watch in 2021
• Tools voted Best for Remote Work in 2022
• Featured on SXSW, HuffPost, and Entrepreneur

But here’s what makes her approach revolutionary: when Alane built her 125-employee agency, her average employee tenure was seven years. Industry average? Eighteen months.

The AI Agent Revolution: Beyond Manual Automation

Most agencies are doing AI wrong. They’re using ChatGPT manually, creating AI fatigue, and getting inconsistent results.

Alane’s solution? AI agents that integrate seamlessly into existing workflows.

Here’s how it works: Move a deal to “proposal stage” in your CRM, and the AI agent automatically creates a customized proposal using your templates, call notes, and company voice. No manual prompting. No AI fatigue. No inconsistent results.

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The Story Engine Founder Reveals His 3-Story Framework for Magnetizing Ideal Clients

How Experts Who Are “Too Smart for Their Own Good” Transform Scattered Content Into Systematic Business Growth

You’ve probably spent countless hours creating valuable content, sharing your expertise, and teaching everything you know.

Maybe you’re even getting some engagement and positive feedback.

But if you’re honest, you’re also dealing with low conversion rates, audiences who don’t take action, and the frustrating feeling that your brilliant insights aren’t translating into the business results you deserve.

Here’s what Kyle Gray discovered that changes everything: Most expert content fails because it’s knowledge without connection. Expertise without emotional resonance. Brilliant insights without the story structure to make them stick.

Kyle calls this the expert’s blind spot: “We as entrepreneurs relate to ourselves wrong. What we think is our curse is actually something that sets us apart in the marketplace.”

Today’s episode demonstrates how the stories hiding in plain sight – especially the ones you might not want to tell – become your most powerful tools for magnetizing ideal clients and driving systematic business growth.

Your expertise combined with strategic storytelling is what generates the most important transformation of all: turning your knowledge into magnetic authority that attracts premium clients who are excited to work with you.

The Story Engine Expert Who Gets Results

Kyle Gray is a world-class presentation coach, story strategist and author who helps coaches, startups and executives use storytelling to better communicate their unique value and improve sales with their audience. He combines timeless storytelling with cutting-edge marketing to ensure you have the right story to tell while presenting, on a sales call or in conversation, both online and offline.

As host of “The Story Engine Podcast” and founder of Story Engine, Kyle works directly with experts who struggle to convert their knowledge into compelling presentations that drive business results.

What makes Kyle different?

He’s not teaching you generic storytelling techniques.

He’s showing you how to uncover the specific stories that are already hiding in your experience – the ones that will magnetize your exact ideal clients and transform your presentations from information dumps into conversion engines.

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The Chief Sales Energizer Reveals Her 3-Step Framework for Strategic AI Implementation

How EI + AI = Your Return on Intelligence to Accelerate Your Sales

The Brutal Truth About Your Sales AI Investment

You’ve probably invested thousands in AI sales tools, hoping they’d transform your results. Maybe you’re even seeing some improvement.

But if you’re honest, you’re also dealing with more complexity, frustrated team members, and the nagging feeling that you’re missing something fundamental.

Here’s what Alice Heiman discovered that changes everything: Most AI sales implementations fail because they’re “random acts of AI.” Technology without strategy, tools without foundation, artificial intelligence without the emotional intelligence to guide it effectively.

I introduced you to the concept of EI + AI = ROI: Your Return on Intelligence, a couple of weeks ago in my conversation with Dr. Robin Hills, on episode #529.

Today’s show demonstrates its effectiveness in sales through Alice’s three-step approach that starts with the CEO investing their business intuition coupled with real-world customer insights, amplified by technology.

But the human sales strategy must come before the AI activation.

Your sales acumen combined with artificial intelligence is what generates the most important ROI of all: Your Return on Intelligence. It’s that return that drives typical ROI, or return on investment.

Meet Alice Heiman: The Chief Sales Energizer Who Gets Results

Alice Heiman has spent her career elevating sales performance to increase company valuation for B2B organizations with exceptional growth potential.

As host of “Sales Talk for CEOs” with over 150 episodes and a teacher at the University of Nevada’s entrepreneurship program, Alice works directly with CEOs and sales leadership to build strategies that find new business and grow existing accounts.

What makes Alice different?

She’s not selling you another AI tool.

She’s showing you how to think strategically about the tools you already have, and the ones you’re considering.

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Laura Ries Reveals the Strategic Enemy Framework That’s Transforming How Brand Leaders Own Their Market Position

Discover how her revolutionary brand positioning approach combines classical competitive strategy with modern market precision to transform struggling brands into category leaders

As a business leader, you understand that strong positioning drives sustainable competitive advantage AND you’re committed to building market leadership that creates lasting differentiation because your business success depends on owning something meaningful in your customers’ minds. What drives you is proven strategic principles enhanced by modern market precision.

But here’s what’s frustrating: most companies get trapped in the mushy middle, trying to be everything to everyone because they lack the courage to define what they stand against.

This creates commodity positioning and prevents the focused differentiation that builds category leadership.

Most positioning approaches offer generic statements without the strategic enemy clarity that makes brands memorable.

Today’s conversation with Laura Ries reveals the Strategic Enemy Framework that transforms competitive struggles into category ownership.

Positioning Royalty and Strategic Enemy Pioneer

Laura Ries is Chairwoman of global consulting firm Ries and bestselling author of THE STRATEGIC ENEMY (Wiley, September 16, 2025).

She has led Riess for more than 30 years, traveling to over 60 countries to consult with clients and continuing the legacy of her late father Al Ries, the positioning pioneer and co-author of Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind.

What makes Laura extraordinary is her systematic approach to identifying strategic enemies that transforms generic positioning into powerful market differentiation.

Laura’s work demonstrates classical positioning principles enhanced by strategic enemy innovation, creating category ownership for business leaders worldwide. Her approach to competitive strategy exemplifies the marriage of timeless

positioning wisdom with contemporary market precision that defines true strategic mastery.

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The Story Strategy That Has Grown Brands by 600 Percent

Hey story lovers!

I’m thrilled to share this episode with you because it represents something pretty incredible—the power of human emotional intelligence collaborating with artificial intelligence to create compelling content that actually works.

Here’s what’s fascinating: This entire 35-minute episode script would’ve taken me around 20 hours to write the old-fashioned way. Working with our StoryCycle Genie™? Two hours. I revised about 10% of what the Genie created.

You must understand the magic to cast the spell, right?

What You’ll Discover in This Episode

After two decades helping brands grow by up to 600% with our Story Cycle System™, I’ve identified 10 essential elements that every legendary brand story shares. Think of this as your brand narrative strategy guide, built on your market knowledge, customer insights, instincts, and intuition.

Most brands do it backwards, spending tens of thousands on bloated processes that ignore what they already know.

Sound familiar?

Let’s flip that script.

The 10 Essential Story Elements

1. Brand Assessment – Know your starting point (like building our dream home on solid foundation)
2. Name Your Audience – Identify your heroes and their emotional triggers
3. ABT Foundation – Place customers at the center using the And-But-Therefore structure
4. Brand Position Statement – Claim your unique territory in the marketplace
5. Unique Value Proposition – Your knockout punch that creates instant curiosity
6. OOOh Exercise – Define your brand’s personality through Organization, Offering, Outcomes
7. Brand Promise & Gift – Your North Star emotional promise and measurable outcome
8. Brand Archetypes – Express your consistent personality (Magician, Creator, Rebel)
9. Brand Purpose – Your why beyond money that elevates everyone you touch
10. Overarching Brand Narrative – Weave everything into one compelling story

DOWNLOAD THE PDF: 10 Essential Story Elements.
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The Five Revolutionary Principles of Vibe Branding With Sean Schroeder & Park Howell

How AI Transforms Intuitive Brand Development in Minutes, Not Months

Entrepreneurs and business leaders know that authentic branding drives sustainable growth.

But most struggle with the overwhelming complexity and time investment that traditional branding requires. What if you could develop a comprehensive brand strategy in hours instead of months?

In this groundbreaking conversation, StoryCycle Genie™ co-creators Sean Schroeder and Park Howell explore the revolutionary concept of vibe branding.

Vibe Branding is combines human intuition with AI-powered cognitive amplification to transform how brands discover and articulate their authentic stories.

The Five Principles of Vibe Branding

Principle #1: Developed Intuition Over Discovery Sessions

Move beyond exhausting interrogation sessions to intuition-driven brand excavation. The StoryCycle Genie™ analyzes your existing content – websites, marketing materials, presentations – to reveal how you’re already showing up in the world.

Principle #2: Systematic Amplification Over Creative Translation

Replace disconnected exercises with systematic frameworks that tap into your developed business instincts, creating a coherent map of how you solve problems and deliver value.

Principle #3: Market Experience Over Theoretical Frameworks

Shift from abstract positioning exercises to absolute resonance with your authentic brand truth, eliminating the need to misappropriate someone else’s brand identity.

Principle #4: Integrated Execution Over Strategy Implementation Gaps

Destroy the “three-headed brand monster” of separate strategy, rollout, and content phases. Build one unified brand brain that generates everything from foundational narrative to campaign-ready content.

Principle #5: Intuition-Guided Systems Over Manual Creative Development

Systemize your intuition to access 50,000 stored patterns in seconds, enabling lightning-fast pattern recognition that keeps you in cognitive flow.

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